Chapter Text
In the motorhome’s lounge area, Oscar stayed longer than necessary staring at a spot on the wall to the left of the TV.
He was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the front of the couch—he had finished stretching his hip flexors with his resistance band a while ago, and had allowed himself to be wrapped in the silence, with little desire to get up. Oscar let his thoughts settle in the quiet he found inside; it was so different from the chaos of the day—cameras, press, photos, fans, marketing. Obligations that sometimes drained his energy, even if they were part of his job.
Oscar just let go and enjoyed this stillness at the end of the day.
Around him, the soft colors of the sunset were filtering through the motorhome’s various large windows, staining the room with the sun’s final, melancholy gleams in the paddock. Oscar appreciated catching side-glances of the changing lights and shadows that seemed to move in slow motion, stripped of the natural familiarity he had with speed.
It kept him grounded, but also distant.
He knew he should start packing up his things because it was getting late, but the tiredness of the whole day had anchored him to the floor.
Oscar didn’t even realize he had begun spacing out due to fatigue—not until the hiss of an opening door and the sound of shuffling feet brought him back to reality like a sudden snap. Only in that instant did he realize that his fist was clenched tightly around the forgotten resistance band. Oscar slowly relaxed his fingers, letting the blood return to the skin of his white knuckles.
He couldn’t remember what he had been thinking about.
Oscar turned his head slightly and saw Lando walking into the room; he looked far more exhausted than Oscar, his shoulders slouched slightly after a long, late-afternoon photoshoot with sponsors (as Oscar recalled from his schedule). Lando was wearing his most comfortable clothes now: baggy sweatpants and a hoodie that seemed to swallow his frame, contrasting with Oscar’s black short-sleeved t-shirt and athletic pants that still held the warmth of his workout.
Without a word, Lando crossed the room and dropped onto the couch with a long sigh, right next to where Oscar was sitting on the floor. He settled his legs just inches from Oscar’s left shoulder.
“Here.” Lando broke the stillness, handing Oscar an unopened bottle of water accompanied by a tired but entirely genuine smile. When Oscar took it, the contrast of the cold plastic against his warm fingers made him blink. Their eyes met for a second and he noticed that Lando didn’t look away from him once he took the bottle. He was watching Oscar with an unusual calmness. “Thought you needed it. You’re so still I thought you were going to blend in with the furniture.”
The corner of Oscar’s lips twitched upward just a fraction, grateful for the familiarity of the joke before turning his gaze back forward.
“Thanks,” he said quietly. Oscar twisted the cap of the bottle with a clean flick of his wrist and took several long gulps, feeling the cool relief travel down his throat.
“If I fall asleep right here, tell Andrea I’ve moved to Australia.” Lando murmured, his final words lost in the beginning of a stifled yawn.
Of all countries, Lando had to choose Australia.
Oscar let out a small laugh, setting the bottle aside. His head was so close to Lando’s knee that he could feel the heat radiating from his body through the cotton pants. It was a proximity he had grown used to over the last few years, and yet his mind always ended up registering it with stark clarity.
“I’ll tell him a kangaroo ate you.” Oscar grinned, even if the grin wasn’t completely full. “It’ll be more believable.”
Lando chuckled softly—the sway of his body caused his calf to casually brush against Oscar’s shoulder and part of his arm. It was a minimal touch, but it tingled him for a couple of seconds. He felt a primitive impulse to pull away as his pulse quickened by several beats, but Oscar suppressed it. Neither of them moved to adjust their posture, so the contact remained there, subtle and strangely natural, as if it were the most normal thing in the world and not the very thing making Oscar feel like leaning into it just a little more.
That simple internal thought triggered an overwhelming feeling of wanting to crawl out of his own skin.
Out of the corner of his eye, Oscar noticed Lando let his hand dangle over the edge of the couch; his fingers hung suspended near Oscar’s face, moving them aimlessly in the air in a lazy, swaying motion.
“Thanks for handling the press conference today, by the way.” Lando spoke, and although the tiredness was still there, his tone took on a calmer, less distracted edge. “I was struggling to keep my eyes open with so many questions so early in the morning and you… I don’t know, you always know what to say to ease the mood.”
Oscar remained quiet for a short moment.
No, not really. Sometimes he didn’t quite know what to say. Sometimes he didn’t even know what he said in front of the cameras, or what he hid from them.
Oscar turned his head a little and raised his eyes. From his spot on the floor, the sight of Lando was very different from what he usually saw on a daily basis—he looked unusually vulnerable, without the shield of confidence he typically wore in front of everyone and the cameras; a blend of relaxation and fatigue. It was a sight that struck deep in the core of Oscar’s chest. Then, Lando’s gaze dropped to meet his, halfway through a silence that suddenly stretched a second too long, becoming charged with a different kind of warmth. Oscar felt that warm flutter beneath his ribs once more, a subtle pulse he didn’t know how to label but that made him feel deeply comfortable by Lando’s side.
Always, always next to Lando.
It was overwhelming and uncontrollable, so Oscar decided not to give it the importance it might deserve.
That look had left him nearly speechless for a moment, but it didn’t take him long to recover.
“I think today’s interviews drained half of my energy too.” Oscar admitted, surrendering to the exhaustion and resting the back of his head against the edge of the couch, forcing himself to hold Lando’s gaze from below. “I hate that they always ask the same things.”
That seemed to spark something in Lando. He turned slightly on the couch to see Oscar better, leaning his body toward him. The closeness in such a small space made every movement feel amplified, but Oscar didn’t move a single inch.
“Really?” Lando asked him, tilting his head curiously. “What did they ask you before I got there?”
“The usual.” Oscar sighed, allowing himself to close his eyes for a brief second. “What the relationship with you is like, if we consider each other direct rivals, if there’s tension in the garage and on the track…”
Oscar’s voice trailed off, remembering that this was precisely what had made him space out minutes ago. He frowned slightly before relaxing his features.
“The usual, huh.” Lando repeated in a murmur, and something in his voice made Oscar notice that he sounded a bit more deflated.
Without opening his eyes yet, Oscar clung to the shelter of the darkness so Lando wouldn’t read his expression before continuing,
“I gave them the usual boring answer. That we’re professionals… that we work for the team… and that we respect each other. All that. You know how it is.”
He expected Lando to add a sarcastic remark or an agreeable scoff, but the silence stretched out even further. In some irrational corner of his mind, Oscar felt a sudden, sharp wish that Lando would prove him wrong somehow. He felt a sudden knot form in his throat.
“Oh, yeah?” Lando’s voice sounded different. The light, upbeat tone had vanished entirely, leaving a soft, restrained and almost fragile whisper. “And that’s all we are, Osc? A boring answer for the press?”
Oscar finally opened his eyes slowly.
The way Lando had asked it…
Lando was staring down at him with such concentrated intensity that it made the hairs on Oscar’s forearms stand up. There was no trace of irony in Lando’s eyes, only genuine curiosity and a caution floating in the air between them, like a warning. Oscar felt his logical defenses faltering. He knew he should toss out some comment to lighten the mood they had created, but his voice wouldn’t obey him. Not the way he wanted it to.
In fact, he didn’t know exactly what he and Lando were—whether they meant everything or were nothing at all—and at that moment, he lacked the strength to even try to define it.
Oscar didn’t know how Lando felt about everything, after all.
“You know that’s not what I mean.” Oscar said, holding Lando’s gaze, unable to break eye contact. His voice sounded low in the empty room, trying to explain himself the best way he knew how: behind the mask of professionalism. “It’s just… the safe way to answer. To avoid problems with the press and rumors.”
Oscar was sure that Lando already knew full well that, but he needed to remind him again somehow—even for himself. Saying it out loud again, in the space between the distance separating them and the closeness of Lando’s leg against his arm, was like reaffirming certain boundaries that had always been there, and yet hadn’t.
Lando smiled at his response. A tiny, melancholic twist of his lips, in that small, contained way Oscar only ever saw when they were alone.
“Sometimes you play it too safe, Mr. Piastri.” Lando whispered, seeming to mask an indefinable emotion beneath his words.
Oscar looked up at him, caught in confusion.
Lando’s fingers, still dangling over the edge of the couch, moved with extreme delicacy—barely brushing a stray lock of hair at the crown of Oscar’s head before slowly pulling back. The simple, ghost-like touch made Oscar freeze for a split second as he watched Lando shift his posture; he leaned all the way back against the couch, throwing his arms over the top and staring at the ceiling for a while, adopting an unexpected seriousness Lando rarely showed in front of him.
That drastic shift left Oscar with a new tightness in his chest.
“Do you ever think about how much of this we have left, Osc?” Lando asked after the pause. His voice sounded exhausted again, growing slower, deeper. “I mean… the future. The next seasons. The contracts… We spend so much time racing that we forget how fast it all goes by.”
The question stirred something inside him.
“We have long-term contracts, Lando.” Oscar answered, giving a slight shrug. He tried to understand him. It was rare for Lando to bring up deep topics just like that. “We have years left with this team. We’re barely starting to build our future here.”
Lando offered him a smile that barely reached his eyes, sliding his gaze back to Oscar. That was when Oscar saw it—he clearly saw the raw emotion shining unprotected in the clear irises surrounding Lando’s pupils; something similar to pain, acceptance, and almost even sadness.
It was overwhelmingly crushing to look at.
Oscar shouldn’t keep watching him, but he couldn’t help it. It was Lando, after all. He wouldn’t stop looking at him, even if it meant feeling the weight of that gaze as if it were a physical impact.
“I know,” Lando said with a softness that hurt. He closed his eyes for a moment before staring back at Oscar. “But the future on the track is a blink, Osc. No one drives forever. You have to savor the good moments now. I just… I just hope that when all of this is over… I can still find my way back to you.”
Oscar’s heart stuttered in his chest. He tried not to let anything slip into his expression, though he didn’t know if he fully succeeded. Lando wasn’t looking away—something flickered in his expression.
Back to you.
The words echoed in his head like a deafening sound, hard for Oscar’s tired mind to process.
But there was something there. Of course there was.
Oscar couldn’t. He couldn’t ask Lando what he meant. He couldn’t allow himself to think about what that meant for him, for them, said in such a deeply sincere and exposed way. It was going to be too much, and he knew it.
He just couldn’t.
Knowing was sometimes nothing more than another form of suffering, and Oscar already had enough on his hands with everything his teammate was making him feel.
Oscar remained silent for a while, studying every fraction of Lando’s face as if he hadn’t already memorized it years ago. Seeing him like this, unguarded and reflecting on the fragility of time, ignited an undeniably impulsive protective instinct in Oscar. He tilted his neck back slightly and let his temple rest very close to Lando’s knee, unconsciously defying the distance Lando had just reestablished when he pulled his hand back from the edge.
But, even if he had almost let himself be carried away by that visceral need to protect him, Oscar couldn’t afford to think about it.
They were either everything or they were nothing. And Oscar already knew how his own feelings wrapped in logic, rules, and boundaries worked.
“Sometimes you think too much, Mr. Norris.” Oscar returned the playful title in a low voice, mirroring Lando’s words with his own.
Lando huffed a faint, tired laugh, tearing his gaze away.
The echo of that laugh caused Oscar’s lungs to squeeze in the silence that followed and filled the room—a silence in which he sat analyzing, with a strange feeling in his stomach, what that moment had left behind; the faint prickle he still felt in his left arm from the proximity of Lando’s leg, the words that weighed heavy between them without daring to clearly define their meaning, the accepted sadness that had decided to linger on his teammate’s face—the desperate urge Oscar felt to start over so that none of this would end like this before Sunday’s race.
But the fatigue of the day kept him grounded and distant all at once, already covered in the shadows of the night.
Oscar didn’t understand exactly what had just happened, nor why he felt that sudden, heavy emptiness in his chest, but the strange residual tension made it clear to him that his obsession with playing it safe—with blocking out any thought that drifted away from racing—was beginning to cost him something he didn’t even realize he wanted to protect.
THE SKY SPORTS F1 BROADCAST
With David Croft (Lead Commentator) and Martin Brundle (Co-commentator)
“…we are heading into lap 42 of 56! And the battle for P2 is red-hot! Lando Norris is absolutely glued to the gearbox of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. He’s been shredding his hard tires in the dirty air for the last five laps, and he’s looking down the inside on the straight!” David exclaimed, thrilled by the battle. “Oscar Piastri watches it all from P3, a front-row seat for the Australian, who looks very comfortable securing a double podium for McLaren. Norris opens the DRS, moves to the right, gets the slipstream, and dives aggressively down the inside of the corner!”
“That’s a very late move from Lando, Crofty.” Martin commented, watching intently. “Leclerc has the right to the racing line and he’s rightfully closing the door. Lando has no space, he’s going to have to abort or ride the kerb… Oh, he’s taken too much of it! He’s hit the sausage kerb!”
“AND NORRIS LOSES CONTROL! THE CAR HAS TAKEN OFF! MY GOODNESS, THE MCLAREN IS AIRBORNE! It’s somersaulting at over two hundred kilometers per hour!” David screamed, his voice turning stunned and alarmed. “The front wing is disintegrating, the suspension is shearing off! It’s struck the ground upside down and is sliding at terrifying speed into the run-off! A brutal impact against the TecPro barriers! Car number 4 is completely destroyed and on its roof in the gravel! YELLOW FLAGS IN SECTOR 2, THIS IS GOING TO BE AN IMMEDIATE RED FLAG!”
“That was a massive impact, David. Absolutely massive!” Martin said, his voice noticeably tense. “The airflow got under the carbon floor the moment the nose popped up after hitting the kerb. It turned into an inverted wing. Completely helpless. The deceleration hitting the TecPro upside down… Good grief, let’s hope the survival cell did its job. That was horrific to watch.”
“Wait—we’ve got a car stopping on the track! It’s the other McLaren! Oscar Piastri has slammed on the brakes in the middle of the track right before the run-off area! He’s come to a complete halt! Race Control is deploying the Safety Car, but Piastri isn’t waiting… He’s pulling the steering wheel off and jumping out of the cockpit! Oscar Piastri has left his car and is running desperately across the gravel toward Lando Norris’s wrecked car!”
“You never… you never see a driver do this in modern Formula One, David. The instinct is usually to keep the car on track or bring it back to the pit lane under a red flag. But Oscar was right behind—he saw it all firsthand. He knows how bad that crash was. Look at him run… he can barely make progress through the loose gravel in his fireproof suit and helmet, he’s stumbling, but he’s not stopping. The marshals are barely getting there with the extinguishers and Piastri is almost there already…”
“OH, NO, NO, LOOK OUT!! AN EXPLOSION IN THE MCLAREN!” David yelled, throwing his hands to his head. “The fuel or the ERS has erupted into a ball of orange fire! Piastri was just meters from the car! The blast has thrown him violently backward, knocking him down into the gravel! The marshals are backing off, there’s fire surrounding Lando Norris’s overturned cockpit! This is a living nightmare. Red flag, RED FLAG!”
“My God… Oscar is trying to get to his feet, it looks like he’s okay, but… he’s stayed on his knees in the gravel, completely frozen, staring at the fire. The sheer helplessness in his posture… there’s nothing he can do.” Martin and David exchanged a heartbroken look. “The medical car is arriving on the scene right now, the fire extinguishers are deployed, but that fire… that explosion right as Piastri was trying to reach him… David, I’m speechless. This is terrifying. It’s never good when there’s fire involved.”
“The images we are seeing on our screens are… truly difficult to process.” David reported, his voice much lower, muted, and visibly shaken. “The red flag is out, and all surviving cars are slowly returning to the pit lane. The medical car is already at the crash site, marshals have managed to extinguish the main fire, but a thick curtain of white smoke still covers Lando Norris’s McLaren. And there stays Oscar Piastri, Martin. He refuses to move from the run-off area. He’s taken off his helmet, his face is covered in soot, and he’s just staring… staring intently at where the medics are working.”
“It’s shock, Crofty. Absolute shock. Oscar watched his teammate’s car fly into the air, ran straight into danger without a second thought, and the explosion almost caught him too.” His tone was grave and measured. “The adrenaline is wearing off, and right now, all that’s left is the raw reality of what he just witnessed. In moments like this, motor racing takes a complete backseat. The points don’t matter, the championship doesn’t matter, the double podium McLaren was set for doesn’t matter. All that matters is the life of the young man inside that survival cell.”
“Indeed, Martin. We will not be showing replays of the impact or the explosion out of respect for Lando’s family, his team, and the viewers at home. We are going to take a break in our coverage while the emergency medical teams carry out their work at the corner. We will be back with you as soon as we have official and confirmed information from the FIA and the McLaren team. From the circuit, our thoughts are with Lando Norris.”
“Back in a few minutes.”
The screen cut to the official FOM graphic flashing in the top-left corner: RED FLAG / SESSION SUSPENDED.
The heat inside the cockpit was suffocating, but Oscar’s focus on the track remained intact and analytical, as always.
“Good pace, Oscar.” The voice of his race engineer, Tom, crackled over the radio, sounding quite pleased. “P3 for you at the moment, and Lando is hovering in P2. Keep up the pace.”
It was lap forty-two, and both were currently in podium positions, securing a massive haul of points for their team. And even though Oscar knew Lando was just another rival on the track and vice versa, seeing the rear wing of Lando’s MCL39 a few meters ahead gave him a strange, comforting satisfaction. A double podium seemed like the perfect plan for today’s race—there was no need to take risks if they both kept the same pace until the checkered flag.
However, as the landscape blurred and stretched along the sides of his vision, Oscar noticed a sudden shift ahead of him—Lando didn’t seem to share his patience, and he never expected him to, but continuing to shred his hard tires in the dirty air of Charles’s Ferrari with that slight weave, as if contemplating a move, was a rather imperious tactic that Oscar couldn’t quite wrap his head around—the instructions from Lando’s engineer should have been almost identical to Oscar’s in a situation like this: keep the pace, no risks, and Papaya Rules untouchable. He watched as Lando’s car latched onto the gearbox of Charles’s on the main straight, opening the DRS.
The slipstream had been working perfectly for their McLarens so far, but Lando abruptly dived down the inside on the approach to the fast right-hander, making an aggressive overtaking attempt that was sure to push the absolute limits. Oscar lifted slightly off the throttle, preparing to switch back and get better traction if they both ran wide.
No risks. Papaya Rules untouchable.
The rhythm, though…
The rhythm shifted; the space narrowed at that familiar, high speed between Lando’s car and Charles’s. The Ferrari closed the door, forcing Lando, in an effort to avoid direct contact, to ride too far onto the raised kerb—
Oscar held his breath, gripping the steering wheel tight.
—the carbon floor of Lando’s car struck the kerb with a sharp, dry crack that Oscar could hear over the roar of his own engine.
And then, everything happened too fast. Far, far too fast.
Lando’s car lost all downforce instantly—the nose popped up, the wind speed lifted it from underneath, and it didn’t take long before it began flipping violently through the air, losing its front wing and shedding chunks of suspension that flew skyward, like the first creeping signs of sleep paralysis where Oscar could do nothing but watch as the seconds trickled away to nothing.
His blood ran cold all of a sudden.
Lando’s car slammed brutally onto the ground, once, twice, three times or more, before sliding upside down through the run-off area, throwing up a dense cloud of gravel and dust until it crashed violently into the TecPro barriers.
Oscar stopped breathing. Stopped feeling his own heart.
It had happened in the blink of an eye, but his eyes registered it with agonizing slowness.
The outside world lost all sound—the roar of the engines and the biting wind turned into a dull, distant hum, completely forgotten.
No.
No, no, no.
Oscar felt nothing but a terrifying wave of dread crawling across his skin before he could even react. There were no tears, no desperate scream over the radio—just something much, much worse that reflected as a hollow, freezing void in the pit of his stomach, aching like nothing he had ever felt before.
His heart reacted first. Then his body, and finally his mind.
Before Race Control could deploy the Safety Car or the red flag, Oscar slammed his foot onto the brakes in the middle of the track. He brought the car to a halt with a savage urgency that made the rear tires squeal violently against the asphalt, creating a thick, chaotic veil of dense smoke and burning rubber.
He knew it was serious. He knew all too well the sheer magnitude of Lando’s impact.
God. God. God.
Please.
He couldn’t bring himself to blink or tear his gaze away from the remains of Lando’s car, slowly branding every shard of carbon fiber into his retinas as his heart hammered in his throat. Oscar couldn’t think of anything—nothing except the person who was causing his world to collapse, crushing him under its suffocating weight in a matter of seconds. His body acted before his mind could even register what was happening.
Oscar didn’t wait for anything.
He couldn’t breathe properly.
Oscar’s hands trembled involuntarily as he tore off the steering wheel and unbuckled his safety harness, precise with adrenaline and fast before the panic began to numb him like poison. He didn’t wait for the marshals or look in his rearview mirrors—he just—he just—
“Oscar, don’t get out!” Tom’s voice thundered against his thoughts, crashing aggressively in his ears. “Do you copy? Stay under red flag conditions.”
Oscar just fucking couldn’t.
Christ.
He couldn’t. He didn’t want to.
He wouldn’t.
Defying team orders, Oscar leaped out of the cockpit until his boots hit the scorching asphalt with an impact that echoed in his bones. Nothing else mattered, absolutely nothing else. He surged forward in sheer desperation.
Sprinting across the gravel run-off in his race suit and helmet felt like trying to wade through boiling water—every step demanded superhuman effort, his legs felt like lead and the air he managed to breathe inside his helmet was scarce and hot, searing his lungs with every inhalation. He couldn’t breathe properly. But Oscar ran.
For God’s sake.
Oscar ran for the life that was surely slipping away from Lando right in front of his fucking eyes. He ran for Lando’s loud, infectious laugh that used to fill the coldest garages, for that warm and ridiculously sweet way he always sought Oscar out with his eyes, for the brightness of his determined grin before getting into the car. He ran trying to outrun time itself, desperately chasing the warmth of that distinct personality of his that effortlessly disarmed Oscar. For every second he had wasted, for all the words he had swallowed out of caution, for the promises breaking before they could even be born.
He ran against the most ruthless clock of his life.
And Oscar couldn’t handle it.
He flipped up his helmet visor. The agony was suffocating him from the inside, his jaw aching from how hard he was clenching his teeth just to keep a heart-shredding scream from breaking free, and an unbearable pressure in his chest made him feel like his heart was going to burst against his ribs, leaving him with no air left. Oscar didn’t know if he left any room for tears—raw panic had frozen his emotions, turning them into a blind desperation to reach Lando’s wrecked car. His intense gaze was locked onto the overturned McLaren, frantically searching for the smallest glint of Lando’s high-vis helmet as he kept running.
The dust still swirling around him in the breeze made it difficult.
He had to get there, he had to keep running.
His pulse thundered in his ears, a rushing noise that drowned out everything else. Oscar wanted to scream Lando’s name over and over and over, but all that escaped his lips were erratic, ragged breaths that harbored the terrifying fear of losing absolutely everything—because Lando could mean everything to him, and not be reduced into a bottomless, undefined nothingness.
He has to be okay.
He has to be okay.
“Please.” Oscar breathed, his throat raw from the agonizing plea. He couldn’t breathe.
He has to be okay.
I can’t.
I can’t.
The thought of an ending—that everything they had held onto until now could vanish in a single blink—made his heart disintegrate into ashes.
Oscar ran as fast as he could. As fast as he could—
Move, Lando. For the love of God, move your hands.
Please. Give me a sign. Please, please!
Power down the car.
Oscar’s mind became consumed by wild, panic-stricken pleas that were eating him alive as he stumbled over loose stones in his hurry to reach him. He barely remembered the FIA safety protocol for on-track incidents like this: if the driver was okay, he had to shut down the electrical system and climb out of the cockpit. But Lando’s car remained motionless, upside down like a dead animal in the gravel, showing no signs of life inside.
Please, Lando. I know you’re a stubborn idiot. Prove it to me now!
Get up! Get out!
Please, please.
PLEASE!
“—you copy? Oscar! Get out of there, it could be dangerous! Marshals are on the way!” Tom’s voice distorted ominously, heavy with worry. “Oscar, answer!”
Oscar was only fifteen meters from Lando’s car.
Just fifteen meters away when everything got worse.
An invisible spark carried by the breeze ignited the spilled fuel, and a brutal fireball erupted instantly, giving no time to react at all—it exploded with a roar that echoed over the terrified screams from the grandstands. The blast wave struck Oscar full in the chest, throwing him backward with immense force. He barely managed to shield his head with his arms before landing on his back in the gravel—the impact against the stones knocked the remaining air out of his lungs, and the sudden blast of heat made him grunt in pain—but the physical pain was nothing compared to the horror that awaited him when he opened his eyes afterward.
Oscar’s heart sank.
No…
He couldn’t breathe.
No.
The sight was hellish.
Lando’s car was being completely consumed by flames that grew menacingly, relentlessly; the smoke turned thick and pitch-black, stretching terrifyingly across the vast blue sky. It was completely and utterly engulfed in fire.
God.
God, no.
NO!
NO!
Oscar forced himself to try to stand, but it was in vain—the force of the explosion had left a high-pitched ringing in his ears, and his legs gave out, lacking the strength to support him. The adrenaline drained away just as fast as the flames grew, leaving only the ache in his muscles, the raw vulnerability of helplessness, and the horrible reality he was living through.
No.
Not Lando…
A silent scream caught in Oscar’s throat—it might have been a piercing sob.
Not him.
Fuck.
No, no, no.
PLEASE!
The fire roamed just meters away, seeming to mock the soul it had just ripped from him, but Oscar couldn’t pull back. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to. He wouldn’t. He stayed there, on his knees in the middle of the gravel, as helplessness and guilt shattered him from within like the worst form of torture.
He just couldn’t breathe.
Oscar had been so close; he had been just a few steps from reaching Lando and pulling him out of there. Just a few fucking steps. If he had acted as fast as his on-track reflexes, if he had sprinted with the last reserve of his strength, if he hadn’t stumbled out of panic…
He was steps away from saving Lando.
Oscar didn’t notice the marshals arriving until he felt their persistent hands on his arms, urgently trying to drag him away toward safety. But Oscar didn’t move; he wouldn’t let them. He tried to push them off.
“Please, step away from the scene!” They shouted at him. “It’s dangerous!”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t find his voice. Oscar’s eyes were locked onto the center of the fireball, desperately searching for any sign of movement, any miracle that might show Lando’s helmet through the incandescent hell engulfing him. It tore him apart knowing there was nothing—only the crunch of metal warping under the heat and the roar of the flames.
There was nothing.
Oscar’s mind disconnected from reality, sinking into his worst fear.
He couldn’t breathe.
Something was slipping away. Something vital was disappearing along with the boy who had become his entire world.
And amidst that suffocating roar, Oscar’s mind flashed back to the past, crashing into the memory of just a day ago in the motorhome.
Sometimes you play it too safe.
The echo of Lando’s voice resounded in his head like the snap of a whip. Oscar saw himself sitting on the floor of the lounge, feeling the warmth of Lando’s leg against his arm, remembering the way Lando’s fingers had brushed softly against his hair before pulling away. He remembered his gaze, filled with melancholy, those eyes heavy with a resigned sadness when he said those words Oscar hadn’t wanted to define or weigh:
I just hope that when all of this is over… I can still find my way back to you.
A choked sob tore violently through Oscar’s throat, making him shudder with pain.
He hadn’t acknowledged it until now, he hadn’t wanted to—not until it was too late—but Oscar had shielded himself behind the press, behind contracts, behind easy answers and behind the team just to avoid facing what he truly felt. And now the universe was collecting the debt of that cowardice disguised as caution in the cruelest way imaginable. He wanted to start over. He wanted to go back to that afternoon in the motorhome, erase the distance, grab Lando by his hoodie, and tell him what actually mattered—just to undo from his mind the unguarded expression Lando had worn at his empty answer.
But there was no going back. Only the hell before his eyes.
Because Oscar had arrived too late.
Seconds turned into hours inside Oscar’s head as the marshals set off the fire extinguishers, kicking up a dense storm of white chemical powder.
Please, I haven’t told you yet.
Please…
Oscar couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t handle it. Lando couldn’t just disappear from his life like this. Not like this. Not on the track. Not when they still had so far to go in life as teammates, as everything or nothing. Not when he still had to ask Lando what kind of future he saw for them, what new answer Oscar would give him after hearing it.
Because now he knew, and it had taken him far too long to allow himself to think about it.
That hit Oscar harder than the explosion itself.
He couldn’t breathe properly.
Oscar slowly pulled off his biometric gloves, feeling stinging burns where there hadn’t been any before, but he didn’t care about his own injuries. With his hands shaking uncontrollably, he brought his fingers to his helmet latches, ripped it off his head, and tossed it onto the gravel. He ran his hands through his messy hair, pulling at the sweaty strands until this new pain dulls the one already tearing through his heart.
Don’t you dare leave me here alone in this hell.
You can’t do this to me.
You have to be okay.
Christ. You have to be okay.
Oscar had realized with agonizing clarity that his obsession with avoiding risk off the track had been the stupidest mistake of his life, because the universe didn’t care about caution, only causalities—if Lando didn’t make it out of that cockpit alive, if they didn’t pull him out safe and sound, Oscar would spend the rest of his life trapped in the worst what if in history.
And that was what he would regret the most.
They would take away the person who mattered to him most. They would take away his everything, and Oscar would be the most miserable person on earth.
He counted the seconds until the fire was finally doused, leaving behind a heavy stench of ash and molten metal hanging over that section of the circuit.
Through the haze, Oscar saw two rescuers bend down into the cockpit with frantic urgency, cutting something inside the car before carefully pulling Lando’s body toward them. The striking helmet emerged from the lingering smoke, and Oscar watched as Lando’s head rolled to the side onto the arm of a marshal, completely unconscious.
No.
No, no, no.
It was the moment the medics turned Lando’s body to place him on the stretcher that reality hit Oscar, leaving him once again with his blood frozen, breathless, unable to feel his own heartbeat.
The afternoon light illuminated the right leg of Lando’s race suit. The fireproof orange-and-black fabric was shredded at the thigh, completely torn open and soaked in a thick, dark, glistening fluid—the sickly color of blood. The liquid seemed to keep oozing slowly, staining the suit and dripping directly onto the gravel stones.
Oscar choked back a wet gasp, feeling the ground disappear beneath his feet.
Lando wasn’t moving. Showing no signs of life.
“No…” Oscar breathed, raspy and broken, trembling. “Please.”
He let his hands fall weakly to the ground, pressing his palms against the sharp stones of the run-off.
No, please.
Don’t do this to me.
Please, please.
Please, Lando.
Not you.
Never you.
The helplessness turned into a pain too deep to control. Oscar watched as they loaded the stretcher into the ambulance at top speed, as the rear doors slammed shut with a heavy thud, and as the vehicle sped away with sirens blaring, disappearing down the service road.
Oscar was left alone there with the remaining marshals and medics around him, his face covered in tears he could no longer hold back, his heart shattered, ripped right out of his chest.
He leaned his body forward.
It couldn’t end like this.
Oscar wished with all his heart that he had taken that damn risk in the motorhome. He wished he had told Lando how he really felt about their relationship when he had looked at Oscar in that entirely different way. He wished he had told Lando everything that mattered.
That they weren’t just boring answers for the press. That he didn’t always want to play it safe. That Oscar wanted to find his way back to him, too.
Because he wasn’t going anywhere. He would stay with Lando.
But now it was too late. All Oscar had left was the trail of Lando’s blood mixed into the gravel and the suffocating weight of a love he had taken far too long to acknowledge.
One day you’re celebrating on the podium, and the next second, the track takes everything away from you.