Chapter Text
The roar of the crowd was a physical thing, a wall of sound that vibrated through Oscar’s chest and rattled in his teeth. It was the sound of victory, of a chaotic, brilliant, and utterly exhausting race finally being won. He’d done it. His first podium of the season, and it was a messy, beautiful triumph.
For a moment, he just sat in his cockpit, the world a blur of noise and heat and the acrid smell of burning rubber and fuel. The cool-down lap was a distant memory, a series of instinctual, perfect movements. Now, the engine was off, and the silence within his helmet was a stark contrast to the screaming crowd outside.
He pulled off his helmet, the air hitting his sweat-slicked face like a blessing. He ran a hand through his flattened hair and let himself breathe. The physical relief was immense. The mental relief was… complicated.
And then he saw Lando.
His teammate was already out of his car, a few places down the pit lane. He was being guided by a mechanic, his race having ended with a frustrating contact with the wall that had robbed him of a podium. Oscar saw the disappointment in the slump of his shoulders, the tight line of his jaw. He knew Lando would be gutted.
Oscar’s own joy, which should have been pure and untainted, was immediately laced with a sharp pang of empathy. He had wanted this win. He had worked for it. But he hadn't wanted Lando to have a bad day, too.
He climbed out of his car, the mechanics swarming him, slapping his back and shaking his shoulders. He offered them a smile, tight with adrenaline and the lingering ghost of disappointment on his teammate’s behalf. He had to find Lando. He had to say something. He didn't know what, but something.
He walked through the post-race chaos, a dazed astronaut on a foreign planet. The noise was deafening, the flashes of cameras blinding. His PR was gesturing at him, pointing toward the media pen.
"Piastri, the media are waiting," she said, her voice clipped and efficient.
"Just a minute," he said, his eyes scanning the crowd. He saw Lando. He was leaning against a barrier, his fireproofs swinging at his waist, talking to a race engineer. He looked... off.
Lando’s face was pale, his eyes were red-rimmed. It wasn't the look of a man who was just disappointed. It was the look of a man who was trying very hard not to cry. Oscar felt his stomach drop. Lando was never this affected. He was always the first to crack a joke, to deflect with a laugh. This was different. This was raw.
Oscar’s feet were moving before his brain could catch up. He pushed through the throng of people, a determined, singular path leading him directly toward Lando. He saw the engineer look up and then quickly, tactfully, excuse himself, leaving Lando looking small and vulnerable against the barrier.
"Lando," Oscar said, his voice a little rough from the exertion and the carbon monoxide.
Lando looked up, and his face crumpled. It was just for a second, a tiny crack in the armor, but Oscar saw it. The sadness. The frustration. The sheer unfairness of it all. Then Lando forced a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Hey, mate. Congrats," Lando said, his voice flat. "That was… a hell of a drive."
Oscar didn't know what to say. All the carefully constructed lines he had in his head for situations like this—the pat on the back, the cliché about it being a long season, the offer to get a drink later—seemed completely useless. They felt like placating a child with a piece of candy when they’d just lost their dog.
He didn't think. He just reacted.
He stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Lando. He pulled him into a firm, solid hug.
It was a hug meant to offer comfort, a brief squeeze of reassurance that said, 'I'm here. It's okay.' A standard bro-hug. One, two seconds tops, and then a quick release, a pat on the back, and a return to the relative safety of a professional distance.
But Lando didn't let go.
Instead, he sagged against Oscar, his face burying into the crook of Oscar's neck. His arms came up and wrapped around his back, his hands clutching at the fireproofs on his shoulder blades. A small, shuddering breath puffed against Oscar’s neck, and he felt a dampness that wasn't sweat. He was crying. Lando Norris was actually crying, and he was crying on him.
Oscar froze.
His own arms, still wrapped around his teammate, were locked in place. The initial, altruistic intent of the hug was gone, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming flood of alarm. This wasn't a comfort hug. This was something else. Something more. Something that felt alarmingly intimate.
He could feel the steady thrum of Lando’s heartbeat against his own chest. He could smell the familiar scent of his shampoo mingled with the harsh chemicals of the racetrack. The feel of Lando’s body, solid and surprisingly warm, was a point of sensory overload. Every nerve ending in Oscar's body was suddenly, acutely aware of every point of contact.
One second. Two seconds. Five. Ten.
It stretched on. The crowd, the cameras, the noise. It all faded into a muffled, insignificant hum. The world had shrunk to the circle of their arms, to the pressure of Lando’s cheek against his shoulder, to the quiet, ragged breaths he could hear so close to his ear.
Oscar’s mind went into overdrive. His sanity kicked in, screaming about optics and the media and the wrongness of this moment. His rational brain started a frantic list, desperately trying to categorize the event.
This is just a hug, he told himself, the words a frantic mantra in his head. It’s a hug between teammates. He’s upset. I’m just being a good teammate.
He needs a friend.
I’m his friend
We’re friends.
Just friends.
He repeated it again and again, but the feeling of Lando’s fingers digging into his back, the wetness on his neck, the sheer length of it all, was making a mockery of his internal monologue. Teammates hugged. Yes. But this was a hug that lasted a lifetime. A hug that was crossing lines he hadn't even known existed. A hug that was being held for so long that it was beginning to feel like a claim.
He felt a hand, warm and heavy, reach up and gently touch the back of his head, just for a moment, before resting on his shoulder. The gesture was so casual, so possessive, that it sent a jolt of pure panic straight through his chest. It was the kind of gesture that was meant to soothe, to comfort, but it had the opposite effect on Oscar. It made him feel like a trapped animal.
He was acutely aware of the heat radiating from Lando’s body, the way his breathing was starting to even out, the way his grip on Oscar's fireproofs was loosening just a fraction. It was as if Lando was drawing strength from him, and Oscar felt his own strength draining away, replaced by a bewildered, panicked confusion.
It was too late to pull away now. That would be a betrayal. It would be cruel. It would look like he was rejecting him. So he just stood there, rigid as a board, his mind screaming while his body remained frozen.
Friends, he thought, the word feeling flimsy and useless. Just friends. This is what friends do when they're really upset. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.
Finally. Mercifully. Lando pulled back.
His eyes were red, but he was no longer crying. He sniffled once, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and gave Oscar a shaky, embarrassed laugh. "Sorry," he muttered, looking anywhere but at Oscar's face. "I don't know what… that was a bit much, wasn't it?"
Oscar’s throat was tight. He managed to shake his head, his own voice a husky, unconvincing croak. "No. No, it's fine. You're fine."
He cleared his throat, the sound loud in the sudden awkward silence. He took a deliberate half-step back, creating a much-needed buffer of personal space. The air between them, which had been thick with something unspoken, now felt cold and empty.
His PR was calling him over again, more insistent this time. He looked over, grateful for the excuse. "I've got to…"
"Yeah, yeah, go on," Lando said, waving him away. His smile was back in place, the professional, easy grin that he wore for the cameras, but it didn't quite hide the lingering vulnerability in his eyes. "I'll… I'll see you later."
Oscar nodded, not trusting his voice.
He turned and walked toward the waiting journalists, his legs feeling strangely disconnected from the rest of his body. He put on his professional look, his media trained smile. But his mind was miles away, replaying the hug on a loop, analyzing every second, every sensation, every terrifying implication.
It was a hug. He was sad. He needed a friend.
We're friends.
He thought it so loudly, so insistently, that he almost believed it. The hug was just a friend being a friend. A normal, platonic, teammate moment. That was the only explanation. Lando was just an affectionate, tactile person. It was simply who he was.
It was just a hug.
It had to be.
Because the alternative—the tiny, maddening whisper in the back of his mind that suggested Lando’s hug wasn’t just friendly—was a thought he wasn't ready to face. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
-
The first journalist thrust a microphone in his face. The cameras flashed. The questions came.
"Oscar, incredible drive today. How does it feel to get your first win of the season?"
Oscar's mouth opened, and the words came out on autopilot. The PR-trained allows him to answer all the questions fluently without using a single brain cell.
"Yeah, it feels fantastic. The car was great all weekend, the team did an amazing job with the strategy, and we really executed everything perfectly today. Obviously, it's a bit bittersweet for the constructors with Lando's incident, but it's a long season and we'll both be fighting for more points."
He was nodding along to his own words, a tight smile fixed on his face. But his brain was somewhere else entirely.
It's a bit bittersweet with Lando.
Bittersweet. What a ridiculous word for what he was feeling. Bitter was the hot, urgent press of Lando's body against his. Sweet was the wet heat of his tears soaking into the collar of his race suit. Bittersweet was the impossible, terrifying memory of Lando's fingers digging into his shoulder blades like he was the only solid thing in a world that had just fallen apart.
The team did an amazing job.
The team. The team. His brain was chanting it like a lifeline. The team is what matters. The car. The strategy. The race. Not the way Lando's breath hitched against my neck. Not the way his hands felt on my back.
"Oscar, you and Lando have been really close this season. How do you feel about the incident that happened to him?"
Oscar blinked. The journalist was smiling, clearly fishing for a wholesome teammate moment. The cameras zoomed in.
"Yeah, Lando's an incredible teammate, and obviously I feel sorry for him" the words flowed out, smooth and practiced. "We push each other every weekend and we have a great relationship. He was obviously disappointed with the incident, but we're a team and we celebrate together regardless. I'm sure he'll be back on the podium next week."
We have a great relationship.
Great. A great relationship. The words felt hollow, meaningless. How could a relationship be great when one half of it had just spent ten seconds being held like a security blanket while the other half cried into his neck like a child? How could it be great when he had felt Lando's heartbeat against his own chest and felt something shift inside him that he didn't have a name for?
We celebrate together regardless.
Celebrate. Was that what this was? A celebration? Because he didn't feel celebratory. He felt unmoored. Adrift. Like the hug had pulled a thread somewhere deep inside him and now his entire existence was unraveling.
"You were really aggressive on the overtakes today. Was that a deliberate strategy change?"
"Yeah, we knew we had good pace, especially around the middle of the race, and I felt confident in the car. The overtakes were clean and it all came together."
Clean. The overtakes were clean. Everything was clean. Except the feeling of Lando's damp cheek against his, the shuddering exhale that had ghosted over his skin, the way his hands had trembled just slightly as they clutched at his back.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
The voice in his head was sharp, commanding. This was ridiculous. He was Oscar Piastri. He didn't do this. He didn't spiral. He didn't obsess over a goddamn hug. He was composed. Professional. Ice cold. That was his thing. That was who he was.
And yet.
And yet he could still feel it. The ghost of Lando's arms around him. The memory of his weight, solid and trusting, leaning into him like Oscar was the only thing keeping him upright. The phantom warmth of his breath on his neck.
It was driving him insane.
"Oscar, one more question—"
Thank God. The last one. Just get through it. Nod, smile, say something safe, and then you can escape.
"Looking ahead to the rest of the season, what are your goals?"
"Just to keep this momentum going," he said, the answer as automatic as breathing. "We've got a fast car, a great team, and I'm confident we can fight at the front more consistently. Obviously, you never know who’s the champion until the last race, but we're in a good position."
Good position.
He was in a good position. He was standing here, a race winner, a successful Formula 1 driver, and all he could think about was the press of another man's body against his. All he could focus on was the way his skin still prickled with the memory of being held. All he could hear was the wet, broken sound of Lando trying not to cry.
You're a mess, he told himself. You're a complete and utter mess.
The journalist nodded, satisfied, and moved on. Oscar's smile held. He thanked them. He walked away from the media, his steps automatic, his face a mask of professional composure.
Inside his head, it was chaos.
Lando had cried on him. Had held him. Had buried his face in his neck and clung to him like a drowning man to a life raft.
And Oscar had stood there. Hadn't pulled away. Hadn't said anything. Had just let it happen.
Worse, he had felt something. Something he couldn't explain. Something that made his stomach flip and his chest ache and his mind scream in confusion.
Friends. We're friends. This is what friends do.
The words were desperate now. Pleading. If he said it enough times, maybe it would become true.
But as he walked through the paddock, the taste of champagne still in his mouth and the phantom pressure of Lando's arms still wrapped around him, Oscar knew with a sinking certainty that something had changed.
He just didn't know what.
And that terrified him more than any race ever had.