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The garage was almost empty by the time Lando found him.
The noise of the race weekend had been gone for nearly an hour, stripping the paddock down to its bare, unglamorous bones. There were no V6 engines screaming down the pit straight, no mechanics shouting over the pneumatic whine of wheel guns, no PR handlers hovering at his elbow with a camera and a microphone to ask the exact same three questions in slightly different permutations.
Just the harsh, flickering hum of fluorescent strip lights overhead, the smell of burnt rubber and heated carbon fibre, and the occasional metallic clink echoing from deep within the McLaren bay.
Oscar was sitting on the cold concrete floor, backed right into the corner where the partition wall met the tool chests.
He was still in his race suit, unzipped to the waist with the sleeves tied loosely around his hips, revealing a sweat-stained Nomex undershirt. His helmet sat beside him, visor half-open, his driving gloves folded with meticulous, almost eerie precision on top of the carbon shell. His head rested back against the partition wall, eyes closed, his breathing slow and shallow.
Lando stopped at the entrance of the garage, his boots catching on the rubberized flooring.
He had spent the last forty-five minutes pretending to everyone and mostly to himself, that he wasn't looking for Oscar. He had wandered through the motorhome, grabbed a plate of food he didn't eat, checked the engineering trailer, paced the car park, and even retreated to his hotel room for ten suffocating minutes before the stillness there drove him back out into the night air.
And now, here Oscar was. Hiding in plain sight, completely drained.
Lando leaned his shoulder against the metal doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest to hide the slight tremor in his fingers. "You know, most people usually leave the circuit after a race like that."
Oscar didn't open his eyes. His voice came out flat, stripped of all velocity. "Most people had a better race."
Lando's easy smile dissolved instantly. The air between them suddenly felt heavy, thick with the ghost of a bad strategy call, a ruined stint on the hard compound, and a radio transmission that had sounded far too quiet to be okay.
Lando walked inside, his footsteps echoing softly off the bare floorboards. "That's not fair, Osc."
Oscar shrugged, a tiny, dismissive shift of his shoulders against the wall. "Didn't say it was."
Lando lowered himself down beside him, his knees cracking slightly in the quiet. He didn't ask permission; he just sank onto the concrete until his shoulder was resting barely an inch away from Oscar's.
For a long time, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, they had spent enough hours in telemetry rooms to be used to shared quiet, but tonight it felt fragile, like thin glass on the verge of cracking under the weight of everything they weren't saying.
"Have you eaten anything?" Lando asked softly.
"No."
"Of course you haven't."
"I wasn't hungry."
"You're always hungry after a stint. You burn like three thousand calories a race."
Oscar opened one dark eye, looking sideways at him through the dim light. "Are you keeping statistics on my appetite now?"
"Obviously," Lando said, forcing a faint smirk. "It's part of my driver analysis."
"That's creepy, Norris."
"I'm a very attentive teammate."
"You're annoying."
"Also true."
Oscar closed his eye again, leaning his head back against the wall with a quiet sigh.
Lando turned his head to study him properly. He wanted to make him laugh. Normally, that was Lando's default setting, a stupid impression, a ridiculous face, a line crossed just enough to break through Oscar's ironclad Australian composure. But looking at him now, Lando saw a deep, dark exhaustion etched into the lines around Oscar's eyes. It wasn't physical fatigue. It was the crushing, suffocating weight of being Oscar Piastri, the prodigy, the unflappable rookie-turned-winner, the ice-man who wasn't supposed to bleed when things went wrong.
Lando nudged Oscar's shoulder gently with his own. "You know... you can stop being Oscar Piastri for a bit. Just for tonight."
Oscar's eyes opened fully this time, turning his head to frown at Lando. "What?"
"You heard me."
A sharp crease formed between Oscar's eyebrows. "What does that even mean?"
"It means you don't have to sit here in the dark replaying Lap 34 over and over in your head. You don't have to analyze the telemetry before the engineers even print it out."
"I wasn't doing that."
"You were. You've been staring at that exact patch of greasy floor for twenty minutes."
Oscar looked at the floor, then back at Lando, his mouth tightening. "Maybe it's an interesting patch of floor."
"Fascinating, apparently."
A faint, fleeting ghost of a smile touched Oscar's lips, but it vanished almost before it started. He looked down at his lap, his long fingers picking at a loose thread on his Nomex suit.
"I just..." Oscar's voice trailed off, dropping so low Lando had to lean in to catch it. "I don't really want to be Oscar Piastri tonight, Lando. I'm tired of him."
The confession landed like a physical blow in Lando's chest. It was so rare for Oscar to admit to weakness, to let the armor crack even a fraction, that it left Lando feeling entirely exposed.
Lando shifted his weight, pressing his arm firmly against Oscar's side. "Then don't be."
Oscar looked at him, confused. "What?"
"For tonight," Lando said, his voice dropping into a quiet, steady register. "You can just be Oscar. No capital letters. No racing driver. Just you."
"That's still me, Lando."
"Yeah," Lando smiled, soft and genuinely warm. "But without the helmet. Without the stopwatch hanging over your head. Without twenty journalists asking you why you couldn't make the rear tyres last three more laps."
Oscar stared at him, his dark eyes wide in the shadows of the garage. He looked away slowly, his chest rising and falling in a deep, unsteady breath. "You make it sound so easy."
"It's not," Lando admitted. "It's bloody terrifying."
"Yeah."
"But we can pretend."
Oscar let out a soft, breathy laugh that sounded dangerously close to a sigh of relief. "That is terrible advice."
"I am literally full of terrible advice. It's my main contribution to this team."
"I've noticed."
Lando smiled, watching as the tension slowly drained out of Oscar's jawline. A real smile appeared on Oscar's face, small, bruised, and tired, but undeniably real.
Lando reached deep into the pocket of his team jacket and pulled out a slightly squished protein bar, holding it out like a peace offering.
Oscar looked down at it. "Do you just carry food around in your jacket now?"
"Emergency rations."
"For yourself?"
"For you," Lando corrected softly. "Because you forget to function when you're pissed off."
Oscar raised an eyebrow, a flicker of his usual dry humor returning. "You're becoming weirdly prepared."
"Someone has to keep you alive. You'd starve on a diet of telemetry data and spite."
"I survived twenty-five years without you, Norris."
"Barely," Lando shot back. "You were practically feral."
Oscar took the bar. As he did, his warm fingers brushed against Lando's palm, sending a sharp, electric pulse straight up Lando's arm. Neither of them acknowledged it, but neither of them pulled away quickly either.
Oscar unwrapped it and took a bite, chewing slowly while staring out toward the empty pit lane.
"Better?" Lando asked.
"No. It tastes like cardboard."
"Worth asking."
They fell quiet again. Outside, a transport trolley rolled past the garage entrance, its wheels clattering against the asphalt before fading into the distance.
Oscar leaned his head back against the wall. Then, slowly, as if his neck had simply lost the strength to hold itself up, his head tipped sideways.
His temple came to rest lightly against Lando's shoulder.
Lando froze completely. His breath caught in his throat. He looked down out of the corner of his eye, watching the dark lashes resting against Oscar's pale skin.
"You comfortable there, mate?" Lando whispered, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Mm," Oscar hummed, his eyes closed.
"You're literally using me as a pillow."
"You're soft. It works."
"You could ask permission."
"You'd say yes anyway."
Lando's mouth twitched into a smile. "True."
Oscar shifted slightly, nestling a fraction closer, his shoulder pressing against Lando's ribs. His breathing began to slow, turning rhythmic and deep against Lando's side.
Lando looked out into the vast, quiet expanse of the empty garage.
For the first time all evening, the suffocating cloud surrounding Oscar had cleared. He didn't look fixed, a bad race was still a bad race, and the debrief tomorrow would still hurt, but he looked peaceful. Safe.
And in that quiet moment, a terrifying realization settled over Lando, heavy and undeniable.
He didn't just want to be Oscar's teammate. He didn't just want to celebrate on the podium together when things went right. He wanted this. He wanted to be the person Oscar came to when everything else became too loud to bear. He wanted to be the safe harbor.
Lando carefully tilted his head, resting his cheek lightly against the top of Oscar's soft brown hair.
"Stay here as long as you want," Lando whispered into the dark.
Oscar didn't open his eyes, but his fingers curled loosely around the crumpled foil of the protein bar wrapper.
"Okay," Oscar breathed.
And for that night, in an empty garage under the hum of flickering lights, that was enough.
---
The next morning, Oscar woke up to a heavy hotel pillow colliding violently with his face.
He caught it purely on driver reflexes, blinking awake in the bright morning light filling his room. "What the hell?"
Lando was standing in the doorway connecting their suite rooms, already fully dressed in jeans and a hoodie, holding a second pillow tucked casually under his arm like a football.
"You're late," Lando announced grandly.
Oscar rubbed his eyes, his voice thick with sleep. "For what?"
"For life. For existence."
Oscar stared at him, squinting at the clock on the nightstand. "Lando, it's eight in the morning on a Monday."
"Exactly. Basically lunchtime."
"You are an absolute idiot."
"Get dressed. We have a flight in two hours."
Oscar dropped the pillow onto the duvet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "I am dressed."
Lando looked him up and down. "You're wearing yesterday's team polo."
Oscar looked down. The crumpled McLaren shirt was indeed still clinging to him. "Oh."
"Very high fashion. Really screams 'I slept in my clothes'."
"Thanks."
"Didn't mean it as a compliment."
Oscar dragged both hands over his face, sitting on the edge of the mattress as the memories of the previous night came rushing back in a warm, overwhelming wave.
The cold garage floor. The taste of a terrible protein bar. Lando's shoulder beneath his head. The quiet, absolute safety of being allowed to just exist without performing.
A strange, glowing warmth bloomed beneath Oscar's ribs.
"You hungry?" Lando asked, breaking into his thoughts.
Oscar looked up. "Yeah. Starving, actually."
"Good." Lando tossed a fresh protein bar from his pocket straight at Oscar's chest.
Oscar caught it effortlessly. "Is this your entire personality now? Tactical snack distribution?"
"It's a very solid personality trait, thank you very much."
Oscar couldn't stop the small, genuine smile that tugged at his lips. "Did you eat breakfast?"
"Obviously. I had a full spread."
"Did you bring me any?"
"No."
Lando stared at him deadpan. "You literally just asked me if I was hungry!"
"I was hoping you'd say no so I wouldn't have to share my toast."
"That makes no logical sense!"
"Come on, move your arse," Lando laughed, turning on his heel. "Room service is downstairs."
---
Breakfast was a disaster of Lando's making.
He couldn't sit still for more than thirty seconds. He bounced his knee beneath the table, stole two pieces of bacon straight off Oscar's plate, complained dramatically about the quality of the hotel espresso, and spent ten minutes attempting to construct a rigorous logical argument for why cereal qualified as a soup.
"It doesn't," Oscar said, calmly spreading butter over a piece of toast.
"It's a solid suspended in a liquid medium!" Lando insisted, waving his spoon around. "That is the literal definition of soup!"
"Soup requires broth or stock, Lando. Milk is a dairy beverage."
"Gazpacho is cold! Chowder has dairy!"
"You're insane."
"You love when I'm right."
Oscar looked up from his toast, his dark eyes locking onto Lando's. "I love when you're quiet."
"Liar," Lando grinned. "You'd miss me in three seconds."
Oscar tried to keep his face completely flat. He fought it with every ounce of his legendary self-control, but the corner of his mouth twitched, and then a small, quiet smile broke through.
Lando pointed a finger at him instantly. "There! Right there!"
"What?" Oscar asked innocently, taking a sip of his orange juice.
"You smiled! I caught you!"
"I didn't."
"You did! A full-on, genuine smile!"
"You're hallucinating from lack of sleep, Norris."
"I have photographic proof in my brain!"
They went quiet for a moment, the warm morning sun filtering through the restaurant windows. Then, under the table, Oscar shifted his leg and gently nudged Lando's shoe with his own.
Lando kicked him back instantly, a bright, dangerous sparkle in his eyes.
It was childish. It was completely trivial. But as Oscar sat there, watching Lando argue with the waiter about additional syrup, he felt lighter than he had in weeks. The suffocating weight of the race weekend had lifted, replaced by a strange, humming clarity.
Lando had done that. Lando had somehow taken the crushing pressure and simply absorbed it, leaving space for Oscar to breathe.
And that was where the danger started.
---
Over the next three weeks, the dynamic between them shifted, mutating into something softer, deeper, and infinitely more terrifying.
The shift didn't happen with a dramatic explosion. It happened in the quiet, mundane margins of their lives as teammates.
Oscar started showing up at Lando's hotel rooms without knocking properly, just two sharp taps on the wood before turning the handle and walking straight in. Lando began keeping a specific brand of Australian chocolate in his travel bag that he pretended he bought for himself, even though he hated dark chocolate.
Oscar started leaving a trail of his existence behind in Lando's space. A phone charger left plugged into the wall. A grey hoodie tossed over the back of a desk chair. A paperback book with a folded corner on the nightstand.
Once, entirely inexplicably, a single black ankle sock was left sitting on Lando's coffee table.
Lando picked it up between two fingers, holding it out when Oscar walked into the room the next evening. "You know you have your own suite three doors down, right?"
Oscar looked at the sock, entirely unbothered. "Do I?"
"Apparently not, considering your wardrobe is migrating into my living room."
"Keep it," Oscar said, sliding onto the sofa and grabbing the TV remote.
"Why on earth would I keep a single sock, Oscar?"
"Maybe I'll need it."
"For what? What possible scenario requires a single sock emergency?"
Oscar turned his head, a slow, wicked smirk spreading across his face. "Sock emergencies, Lando. They happen."
Lando stared at him, flabbergasted, before throwing the sock directly at Oscar's head. "You are an absolute nightmare."
Oscar laughed, a rich, unguarded sound that filled the hotel room.
Lando stood there, watching Oscar stretch out on his sofa, and felt a strange, aching pull in his chest. He was collecting these moments. He was hoarding every smile, every laugh, every quiet evening like a dragon guarding gold.
It was becoming an addiction.
---
The breaking point arrived in Spa.
It had been an agonizing media day. The rain was pouring down over the Belgian circuit, delaying sessions, and a prominent journalist had spent fifteen minutes grilling Oscar in a press conference, asking the same invasive question about his future, his pressure, and his relationship with Lando in six slightly different, passive-aggressive ways.
By the time they got back to the hotel, Oscar was completely silent. His jaw was set in a hard, rigid line, his eyes dark and stormy.
Lando noticed the second they stepped out of the team shuttle.
He waited until Oscar walked into his room, then followed him right inside, shutting the door firmly behind them.
"You okay?" Lando asked gently.
"Fine."
"You're doing the voice."
Oscar stopped near the end of the bed, his back to Lando. "What voice?"
"The voice where you say 'fine', but you're actually planning how to hide a body in the paddock motorhome."
Oscar turned around slowly, looking exhausted. "I'm not planning a murder, Lando."
"Good. Because the logistics would be a nightmare."
"I might push a couple of journalists down the pit lane stairs, though."
"Honestly? I'd help you," Lando offered brightly.
Oscar let out a tiny, choked sound that was half-laugh, half-sigh. He sank onto the edge of the mattress, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet.
Lando walked over and sat down beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. "You want to vent about it?"
"No."
"Okay."
They sat in silence. The rain lashed against the hotel windowpanes, a steady, dreary roar. Oscar leaned his weight sideways, burying his face into the fabric of Lando's hoodie, his breath warm against Lando's neck.
Lando didn't hesitate. He reached up, resting his hand against the back of Oscar's neck, his fingers gently threading through the soft hair at his nape.
They stayed like that for a long time. No questions, no demands, no expectations.
"I hate it sometimes," Oscar whispered into Lando's shoulder, his voice muffled and raw.
"Hate what?"
"All of it. The noise. The intrusion. Everyone constantly picking at my head, trying to figure out what makes me tick, trying to force a story out of me."
Lando's fingers stroked softly against Oscar's hair. "Yeah. It's brutal."
"I don't know how you deal with it," Oscar breathed. "You make it look so effortless."
Oscar lifted his head, looking at Lando with dark, vulnerable eyes.
"I don't deal with it," Lando confessed softly, holding his gaze. "I play a character, Osc. I joke around so they don't look any deeper."
Oscar searched his face, a faint, melancholic smile touching his lips. "You do joke a lot."
"It's my defense mechanism. Highly effective."
"I should try it."
"I don't think the press would survive you doing sarcastic impressions of them."
"I'd be great at it," Oscar murmured.
The tension in the room dissipated, replaced by that familiar, dangerous sweetness. Lando looked at Oscar's mouth, then back up to his eyes, his heart beating a wild, irregular rhythm.
"I like it here," Oscar whispered suddenly.
Lando's hand froze against Oscar's neck. "Here? In Spa?"
"Here," Oscar corrected softly, his eyes dead serious. "With you."
There was no joke. No dry Australian sarcasm. Just raw, unfiltered honesty laying between them on the hotel bed.
Lando swallowed hard, his throat dry. "Yeah?"
Oscar nodded once. "You make the world quieter, Lando. When I'm with you, I don't have to be anything else."
Lando looked down at their hands resting on the duvet. Oscar's long fingers were inches away from his own. Slowly, deliberately, Lando shifted his hand until his pinky finger brushed against Oscar's.
Oscar didn't pull back. Instead, he turned his hand over and curled his fingers tightly around Lando's, locking them together.
It was a tiny, quiet gesture. But to Lando, it felt like an earthquake.
---
And that was the exact moment the fear set in for Oscar.
Two days later, Oscar scored a brilliant podium finish in the wet at Spa. It was a masterclass drive, composed, flawless, and fierce. The team was ecstatic. Zak was shouting, the mechanics were spraying prosecco, and the garage was a chaos of celebration.
Oscar should have been floating on cloud nine. He was happy, truly happy.
But when he finally got back to his hotel room that night, drenched in sweat and champagne, he didn't call his family first. He didn't look at the trophy sitting on his desk.
His feet walked him straight down the corridor to Room 412.
He stood outside Lando's door, his hand raised to tap out his usual two-knock cadence.
His hand hovered in the air, an inch from the wood.
Oscar stared at his own reflection in the brass room number.
A sudden, terrifying wave of panic crashed over him, cold and suffocating.
*Why was he here?*
He had just driven the race of his life. He had proven his worth to the world. And yet, the very first thing he wanted, the only thing he craved, was to stand in Lando's room, to see Lando's bright, ridiculous smile, to feel Lando's shoulder against his.
It hit him with the force of a freight train:
When he had a terrible race, he ran to Lando to hide.
When he had a brilliant race, he ran to Lando to share it.
When he couldn't sleep, he wanted Lando's quiet.
When the press tore him apart, he needed Lando's hand.
Lando wasn't just a teammate anymore. Lando wasn't even just a friend. Lando had become his baseline, his anchor, his absolute necessity.
Oscar was using him. He was leaning so hard on Lando that if Lando ever stepped away, Oscar was terrified he would completely collapse. He was suffocating his own independence, hiding behind Lando's warmth because he was too afraid to stand alone in the cold.
Oscar slowly lowered his hand.
He backed away from the door, step by step, feeling an unbearable ache in his chest.
He walked back to his own room, closed the heavy door behind him, and turned the lock.
For the first time in weeks, he stayed alone in the dark.
---
The next morning, the wall was back up.
Lando noticed instantly at breakfast.
Oscar sat across from him, perfectly posture-aligned, wearing his crisp team gear. But he didn't steal Lando's food. He didn't comment on the coffee. When Lando tried to start a debate about the flight schedule, Oscar offered short, polite, professional answers.
When Lando reached under the table to nudge his shoe, Oscar subtly shifted his legs out of reach.
Lando felt as if he had been slapped across the face.
The cold distance stretched across three agonizing days.
In engineering meetings, Oscar was brilliant, precise, and completely emotionally detached. In media sessions, he delivered his dry, perfect answers with polite smiles. To anyone else, he was just Oscar Piastri being focused.
To Lando, it felt like dying by an inch every single hour.
Oscar stopped coming to his room. The stupid texts stopped. The shared meals vanished. Lando found the single black sock Oscar had left behind weeks ago, staring at it on his nightstand until his eyes burned with frustrated, angry tears.
By the third night, Lando couldn't take it anymore. The quiet anger that had been festering beneath his ribs exploded into a desperate, aching need for answers.
He marched down the hotel corridor and stood outside Oscar's room.
He didn't do the friendly two-knock cadence. He slammed his fist against the wood once, hard.
Silence.
He slammed it again. "Oscar. Open the fucking door."
A few seconds passed, heavy with dread. Then, the lock clicked, and the door swung open.
Oscar stood in the doorway, wearing a plain grey t-shirt and shorts. His hair was damp from the shower, his dark eyes shadowed with profound exhaustion.
"Lando," Oscar said softly, his voice devoid of emotion. "What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?" Lando demanded, his chest heaving.
Oscar hesitated, a terrible, agonizing beat of indecision that sliced straight through Lando's heart. "Lando, it's late—"
"I don't give a shit what time it is, Oscar. Move."
Lando pushed past him into the room.
The suite was dark, lit only by a single bedside lamp. It was pristine, immaculate, and completely devoid of any personal touches. It looked like a room where nobody lived.
Oscar closed the door softly, standing near the entryway with his arms folded over his chest. "Lando, please. I'm tired."
Lando turned around, his hands shoved deep into his hoodie pockets, his jaw tight. "You've been avoiding me for three days."
Oscar's face tightened, his eyes flickering away. "I haven't."
"Don't lie to me!" Lando snapped, his voice ringing slightly in the quiet room. "Don't you dare lie to me! You don't look at me in meetings, you don't speak to me unless a camera is pointed at us, you moved your feet away from me at breakfast!"
Oscar swallowed hard, staring at the floor. "I've been busy. Focusing on the next race."
"Bullshit!" Lando took a furious step closer. "We've been doing this for months, Oscar! You don't just get to turn it off like a light switch! What did I do? Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it!"
"You didn't do anything wrong, Lando!" Oscar shouted back, his voice cracking, breaking through his icy composure for the first time.
The raw sound echoed in the room, leaving them both breathless.
Oscar dragged a hand over his face, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "You didn't do anything. It's not you. It's me."
"That is the absolute worst cliché in human history," Lando said, though his anger was rapidly melting into a terrifying, hollow dread. "Talk to me, Osc. Please."
Oscar walked toward the window, looking out at the city lights. "I realized something after Spa."
Lando stayed completely still, his heart hammering in his throat. "What?"
Oscar turned around slowly. His eyes were dark, filled with a profound, suffocating sorrow that made Lando's knees feel weak.
"I realized that every single time something happens to me, good or bad, I look for you," Oscar confessed, his voice barely a whisper. "When I have a terrible session, I run to your room to hide. When I win a podium, I want to show you first. When I can't sleep, I want your noise to drown out my brain."
Lando's throat felt impossibly tight. "And... and why is that a bad thing?"
"Because I'm disappearing into you, Lando!" Oscar yelled softly, tears suddenly glistening in his dark eyes. "I'm using you! I'm leaning on you so hard that I'm forgetting how to stand on my own two feet! I'm a Formula 1 driver, and I'm terrified that if you weren't there, I'd fall apart!"
Oscar wiped a hand furiously across his eyes, letting out a shaky, broken breath. "I noticed how much I needed you. And it scared the hell out of me."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Lando stood in the center of the dark room, processing the words. He saw the sheer, raw terror in Oscar's eyes, the fear of vulnerability, the fear of losing himself, the fear of needing someone too much in a world that demanded ultimate self-reliance.
Slowly, carefully, Lando closed the distance between them, stopping just inches away from where Oscar stood by the window.
"You absolute idiot," Lando whispered, his own eyes filling with tears.
Oscar blinked, stunned. "What?"
"You think you're hiding in me?" Lando asked softly.
Oscar looked away, a tear finally escaping and tracking down his cheek. "Maybe."
"Oscar, look at me."
Oscar slowly raised his eyes.
"I don't want you to disappear into me," Lando said, every word dripping with absolute, unwavering truth. "I don't want to be your shield, and I don't want you to be dependent on me. But you aren't using me, you stubborn bastard."
Lando reached out, his hand hovering near Oscar's arm. "Can I?"
Oscar nodded, a tiny, desperate gesture.
Lando placed his hand gently on Oscar's shoulder, feeling the rigid tension under his palm. "You don't have to come to my room because you're falling apart, Osc. You can come because you had a great day. Or because you're bored. Or because you want to steal my awful snacks. You don't have to need me to survive, I just want you to want me there."
Oscar let out a shaky, ragged breath, his chest heaving as he stared at Lando. "What's the difference?"
Lando offered a small, sad, incredibly gentle smile. "The difference is that you don't lose yourself when you let someone in, Oscar. You just don't have to carry the whole bloody world by yourself anymore."
A sob choked in Oscar's throat. The rigid wall he had built around his heart crumbled entirely, leaving him completely exposed.
Lando didn't wait. He stepped forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Oscar's torso, pulling him in close.
Oscar folded into the embrace instantly. He buried his face into the side of Lando's neck, his arms wrapping around Lando's waist with a desperate, bruising grip, holding on as if Lando were the only solid thing in a spinning universe.
Lando held him fiercely, resting his cheek against Oscar's damp hair, feeling the heavy, ragged rise and fall of Oscar's breathing against his chest.
"I missed you so much," Oscar choked out into Lando's shoulder, his voice completely raw. "These three days... it was hell."
Lando swallowed back his own tears, clutching the back of Oscar's t-shirt. "I was right here, you idiot. I'm not going anywhere."
"I know," Oscar whispered. "I know."
They stood together in the dark room for a long time, held tight in the quiet space they had fought so hard to protect. There were no promises that the pressure of racing would disappear, no magic fixes for the noise of the world. But as Oscar's breathing slowly evened out, the terror that had consumed him for days finally melted away, replaced by a deep, undeniable peace.
---
The next morning was blissfully, beautifully normal.
The sun shone brightly through the hotel restaurant windows. Lando complained loudly about the lack of decent bacon, and Oscar calmly reached across the table and snatched the last piece of toast right off Lando's plate.
"You are genuinely unbelievable," Lando gasped, glaring at him.
"You bought the breakfast buffet, Norris. It's communal property."
"I bought it for my own sustenance!"
"You were staring at your phone. Tactical error."
Lando stared at him, but the corners of his mouth twitched, completely unable to maintain the fake annoyance. "See? This is why I keep you around."
Oscar paused, holding the toast halfway to his mouth, looking at Lando with dark, warm eyes. "You keep me around?"
"Unfortunately," Lando smirked. "It's a charitable effort."
Oscar let out a quiet, genuine laugh, his shoe shifting under the table to press firmly against Lando's ankle. Lando kicked him back instantly, a bright, triumphant smile spreading across his face.
They weren't pretending the last three days hadn't happened. They were just moving forward, lighter and surer than before.
---
That evening, Oscar walked down the corridor to Room 310.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't panic. He raised his hand and gave three clear, deliberate taps on the wood.
The door opened instantly. Lando stood there, looking mildly surprised. "Look at you, knocking like a civilized human being."
Oscar shrugged, a small smile touching his lips. "Thought I'd mix it up."
"Don't get used to it," Lando said, stepping aside. "Come in."
Oscar walked into the room. There was no crisis, no bad media session, no terrible stint on track. He was simply there because he wanted to be.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Lando closed the door and came over, sitting down beside him, close enough that their thighs brushed.
For a while, they talked about random things, golf swings, terrible reality TV shows, and a hilarious video of Zak Brown trying to ride a scooter in the paddock.
Then, Oscar went quiet, looking down at his long fingers. "I was thinking today."
Lando groaned playfully. "Oh no. That's always dangerous."
"Shut up," Oscar smiled, but his expression slowly turned serious. He looked up, catching Lando's gaze. "I think I got it wrong. About us."
Lando waited softly, his posture attentive.
"I thought that because you were where I ran when things got too loud, it meant I was using you as a crutch," Oscar explained, his voice steady and calm. "But I realized today... that's not what it is at all."
"What is it, then?" Lando asked softly.
Oscar reached out, his hand sliding across the duvet until his fingers intertwined with Lando's. "You're just the person I want around, Lando. Good days, bad days, boring days. I don't need you to fix my world, I just like my world a lot better when you're in it."
Lando's breath caught in his throat. A deep, radiant warmth spread through his chest, making his eyes sting slightly.
"That..." Lando swallowed hard, squeezing Oscar's hand tightly. "That might be the sweetest thing you've ever said to me, Piastri."
"Don't get used to it. I have a reputation to maintain."
"Too late," Lando grinned, his voice thick with emotion.
Lando shifted closer, leaning in until their foreheads rested softly together. The air between them was quiet, warm, and entirely safe.
"I don't want to be your escape either," Lando whispered, his thumb gently tracing Oscar's knuckle. "I just want to be your person."
Oscar went very still. The words hung in the space between them, simple, terrifying, and completely true.
Oscar let out a soft, breathless laugh. "Your person, huh? Sounds very official."
"I'm capable of official statements."
"Highly debatable."
Lando laughed, and then he leaned forward and kissed him.
It wasn't a panicked kiss, or a breathless, desperate thing. It was slow, warm, and filled with an absolute, undeniable certainty. Oscar's hand came up, his fingers tangling gently in Lando's curls, holding him there as their lips moved together in a sweet, deliberate rhythm.
When they finally pulled back, resting their cheeks together, Oscar let out a long, contented sigh.
"So," Oscar murmured softly. "That's what we've been avoiding for six months."
"Apparently," Lando smiled, kissing Oscar's temple.
"We are absolute idiots, aren't we?"
"Massive ones. The biggest on the grid."
Oscar laughed, a rich, lovely sound. He tilted his head down, burying his face into the crook of Lando's neck, his arm wrapping around Lando's waist as they tumbled back onto the bed together.
Outside, the world went on being loud. Cars roared on the streets, rain tapped against the glass, and the pressure of the championship waited for them in the morning.
But inside the room, tucked under the warm hotel lights, the noise didn't matter anymore.
Oscar closed his eyes, his heart beating a steady, peaceful rhythm against Lando's side. "You know what, Norris?"
"What?"
"I think I could get really used to this."
Lando smiled into Oscar's soft hair, holding him close. "Good."
A pause.
"You're still not getting your grey hoodie back, though," Lando added casually.
Oscar opened one dark eye, looking up at him. "You stole it. It was in my suitcase."
"You left it in my room three weeks ago. Possession is nine-tenths of the law."
Oscar smiled, a slow, fond curve of his lips as he rested his head back against Lando's chest. "Keep it."
Lando looked down at him, his heart full to bursting. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Oscar whispered, closing his eyes again. "And I'm keeping the sock."
Lando burst out laughing, the bright sound filling the quiet room. "You still have that ridiculous single sock? Why?!"
Oscar's smile widened, pressing his face into Lando's chest. "Emergency, Lando. You never know when you'll need a sock."
Lando shook his head, laughing softly as he wrapped both arms securely around Oscar, pulling him close into the quiet warmth of the night.
For the first time in a very long time, neither of them needed to hide. They were right where they belonged.