you love me (but you don't know it yet)

When they get to the McLaren motorhome, his PR rep is already waiting for him in the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “We would’ve preferred if you’d told us about your boyfriend beforehand, Lando,” she says, as they make their way inside, glancing at Oscar following behind them. “We could’ve had some contingency plans in place.”
“Well, I would have told you,” Lando says, “I just didn’t know he existed until like 20 minutes ago.”

Notes:

AAAAAAAAAAAH SHE IS FINALLY HERE!!!!! the fake dating wag au of my dreams. i had the idea of this fic all the way back in february after i'd watched marry me by jennifer lopez on a plane which is objectively a Bad Movie but it did inspire me to write this fic so. points for that. anyway i wasn't really going to do anything with the idea until the WAG AU Fest came along and i was like. this is too perfect not to. AND NOW HERE WE ARE.
big big big thank you to the tsgc peoples as always, i love you guys so so so much, thank you for always dragging me through it <3 special thanks to caro, for digging me out of a plot hole rougly 12k words in (i think i would have genuinely abbandoned this project had she not been there), jenna for giving it one final big read through and being a general sunshine of a person, and e, for literally handholding me through this fic from beginning to end and just generally being one of the best people in my life, i could literally not have done it without you

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

There’s a few ways Oscar imagined his first ever Grand Prix to go. The tamest fantasies were about general admissions tickets and a pretty decent view of one of the better corners. His wilder dreams had Paddock passes, an up close and personal experience with an F1 car, maybe even a hot lap.

None of them, however, included waiting for two hours at some random barrier in the front of a stage in the corner of the fan zone with an overexcitable Logan who looks about ready to burst into tears at the first appearance of an F1 driver.

“This is what it’s all about,” Logan says, in what has to be his fiftieth attempt to convince Oscar this is the best way to spend their very first Grand Prix weekend, one they spend months saving up for. “Meeting the drivers! Seeing them up close and personal!”

“Okay, but we could’ve done that from a few meters back and then we could’ve gone to take another look at the cars,” Oscar grumbles, squinting up into the sun. He wishes he’d brought a pair of sunglasses.

“We’ve already seen the cars, we will see so much more of the cars,” Logan says, waving him off.

“Technically the same could be said about the drivers,” Oscar counters, taking a step aside so a few excitedly chattering teenage girls in Red Bull gear can pass by them. “Just admit we’re only here because you’re hoping Alex Albon will spot you in the crowd and fall deeply madly in love with you.”

Logan sticks his tongue out at him. “A boy can dream, Oscar.”

“A boy can hallucinate,” Oscar grumbles, when suddenly things start happening on stage. Oscar squints at the drivers who come out to loud applause, waving to the crowd as they walk over to the interviewer and sit down on the little bar stools they’ve set up for them.

“Logan,” Oscar says, frowning at the stage. “Those men are orange.”

“Papaya, technically,” Logan counters cheerfully.

“I thought we were here for Williams.”

Logan waves his hand around. “Oh yeah, they’re on after this. I just wanted to make sure we got the best spots.”

“Oh, for fucks sake-“ Oscar pinches the bridge of his nose. Next year, he’s going alone. If he can afford it, that is.

Oscar glances at the stage. He knows who they are, obviously. He’s always been more into the car aspect of Formula 1, but he doesn’t live under a rock. He knows who Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo are. Knows they’re decently attractive. Knows they would be Oscar’s type even, if they weren’t you know. Millionaire celebrities driving super-fast cars and he wasn’t a programmer living in a shitty London flat with his roommate slash best friend. But still. They’re not cars.

And on top of that all of the questions are kind of boring, run off the mill stuff. How are you feeling, what are your predictions, do you think you can win? Oscar tunes it out, doesn’t really pick the conversation back up until he sees a noticeable shift in Lando Norris, who’s been looking distracted and a little gloomy all conversation long.

“So, Lando, we have to talk about the elephant in the room,” the interviewer says cheerily, completely ignoring the way Norris’s shoulders immediately droop. “Brad Pickett.”

“Who the fuck is Brad Pickett,” Oscar finds himself voicing out loud, momentarily forgetting he’s brought his chronically online drama obsessed best friend, who lights up at Oscar’s question. Never a good sign.

“So Brad and Lando dated last year,” Logan stage whispers at him. “Like, it was a big deal. Lando was the first openly gay driver so like all eyes were on them. And Brad is like. Hot. He’s a model. Anyway, doesn’t matter. They seemed really in love, Lando kept talking about wanting to like settle down, buy a house, stuff like that. But then a few months ago they suddenly broke up and Lando was spotted looking all sad and shit and now Brad has a new boyfriend. And suddenly he’s talking about all the shit Lando was talking about last year, like buying a house and all, which he never did when he and Lando were still dating.”

“So Brad’s a dick,” Oscar says, nodding. “Got it.”

On stage, Lando Norris is putting on his best attempt at a fake smile. “Yeah, I’m really happy for him, you know. He seems in a good place and that’s all I can wish for him. Plus I have my own thing going, so. Trying to focus on that.”

“Ah,” The interviewer says, knowing tone in her voice, and her eyes gleam in a dangerously excited way. “Your own thing, huh? Care to elaborate on that? What’s his name?”

“Oh,” Norris says, and from where they’re standing so close near the stage, Oscar can see the way his eyes widen, the way he shuffles in his seat. “Oh, I don’t-“

“Come on, Lando, don’t be shy! We’re happy for you! It’s great that you found someone, too.” The interviewer nudges, all smiles. “Tell us!”

“Well, uh,” Norris says, still shuffling uncomfortably, glancing out over the crowd, who are all looking at him with huge expectant eyes, holding their breath. There’s a second, and then another, and then something in Norris seems to snap. He straightens out, squares his shoulders, and then changes the entire trajectory of Oscar’s life forever by saying, “He’s here today, actually. At the Grand Prix. Cheering me on and all.”

Norris’s smile is tight, clearly fake, and Oscar wonders if everyone else can also see he’s so clearly lying. He feels kind of bad for Norris. He’s clearly acting on desperation, on not wanting to be humiliated even more in front of all these people. He wonders what that would be like, having to admit you don’t have someone new when all of these people saw you go through such terrible heartbreak before. When they all clearly pity you. He doesn’t know if he could do it. Kind of gets where Norris is coming from.

But the rest of the crowd seems to eat it up, cheering and cooing as Norris smiles weakly and waves.

“You mean he is here right now? He’s actually in the crowd?” The interviewer asks excitedly, frantically looking around. “Where is he?”

And Norris. Norris is a desperate man in desperate times. Back against the wall, all eyes on him. And so, he does the thing he must think is his only option, the thing Oscar least expects him too. He scans over the crowd, eyes flitting over McLaren hats and t-shirts and posters and the hundreds of faces staring up at him.

And then he points straight at Oscar.

sophie⁴ @thespeedygentlemen ∙ 10m

LANDO HAS A BOYFRIEND???????

25 replies 10 reposts 15 likes

jane🏎️ @nyoomnorris ∙ 8m

replying to @thespeedygentlemen

[Image: Jennifer Lawrence ‘What do you mean?’ meme]

2 replies 0 reposts 8 likes

sophie⁴ @thespeedygentlemen ∙ 1m

replying to @nyoomnorris

MY FRIENDS AT SILVERSTONE AND SHE TEXTED ME SOMETHING ABOUT A FAN STAGE AND LANDO’S BOYRFIEND AND I AM???? LOSING MY MIND

0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

[Video of Lando pointing at someone in the crowd who then gets pulled on stage. Both Lando and the guy look kind of awkward as the interviewer gushes over them before the interview inevitably ends and Lando and the guy get ushered off stage]

Liked by nyoomnorris and 1.567 others

norris4updates Video from the Silverstone fan stage earlier today where Lando introduces his boyfriend!

View 435 comments

pookiepodium SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP THEY ARE SO CUTE

lando4ever why do they look so awkward 😭

vroomvroomboys i mean they did kind of get massively put on the spot don’t u think

racing_updates can you guys please be normal for once like jesus leave them alone

leclercwins my guy this was a public stage

“I am so sorry,” Lando says, for what feels like the millionth time. They are making their way through the paddock, winding and ducking through backways and small corridors to run into as little media as possible. Next to him Oscar – because apparently the guy he recently bombarded as his brand spanking new boyfriend is named Oscar – smiles a little weakly.

“It’s okay,” he says, with a small shrug.

It is really not. It’s so immensely spectacularly not okay. You can’t just point at a random guy in a crowd and yell ‘haha yup that’s my boyfriend!’. It’s objectively one of Lando’s bigger fuck ups. And he’s had some astonishing fuck ups. Starting, of course, with fucking Brad.

He doesn’t know why the guy gets so much under his fucking skin still. Who cares that Brad has a perfectly cute new boyfriend that he does perfectly cute boyfriend-y things with and who cares they want to move into a perfectly cute new home together with a perfectly cute white picket fence and who cares that Lando really only just got to a point where he could look at the side of the bed Brad used to sleep on without feeling the need to set the apartment on fire. Who cares.

It wasn’t even. Brad wasn’t even a good boyfriend, in retrospect. He’d really only dated Lando for the media exposure, Lando is sure of it. He never even really seemed to care much for Lando except when they were in public. Not like the way he seems to care now.

But he’d been Lando’s first boyfriend. The first time that being in a relationship felt right. And so it gets to him, still. Even though Brad deserves none of his time and attention and energy.

Ugh. Fucking Brad.

“I just, I panicked, and I didn’t want to-“ Embarrass myself, he thinks. The eyes, the eyes had been the worst. Everyone had looked so hopeful, so kind. They had been rooting for him. And it had been a while, since he’d felt like people were genuinely truly rooting for him. So having to tell them that he wasn’t, that he didn’t have- He could already imagine the pitying looks, the consoling pats on the back, the soft spoken apologies. For a moment there, it felt completely impossible to handle. And then he pointed at Oscar. And now he has a situation that’s possibly even more impossible to handle.

“Anyway,” Lando says, smiling weakly at Oscar. “We’ll find my PR people and we’ll get it all sorted out.”

Oscar nods. He’s kind of cute, in a bit of a boyish way. Soft, floppy brown hair, strong shoulders. Moles, dotted across his skin like little constellations. He’s not Lando’s usual type, far from it, but it’s not bad. He could’ve picked worse fake boyfriends.

And in all honesty, he’s kind of nice to have around. He seems decidedly less freaked out about the whole thing than Lando is, taking everything in a sort of calm, collected stride. Some of his nervousness, his awkwardness has fallen away now that they’re no longer on stage being watched by hundreds of fans and now he just kind of seems. Relaxed. Like he and Lando are just going on a little stroll.

It's weirdly comforting. Keeps him from spiraling a bit too hard.

There’s a few fans milling around the paddock but Lando keeps up a steady pace along with the rest of the team and Oscar, passes them with a quick wave and a smile, trying to get to the McLaren motorhome as fast as possible.

When they do get there, his PR rep, Caroline, is already waiting for him in the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “We would’ve preferred if you’d told us about your boyfriend beforehand, Lando,” she says, as they make their way into the motorhome, glancing at Oscar following behind them. “We could’ve had some contingency plans in place.”

“Well, I would have told you,” Lando says, “I just didn’t know he existed until like 20 minutes ago.”

Caroline’s face pinches. “Lando. Tell me you didn’t.”

“I panicked!” Lando says, as they make their way into one of the boardrooms. “Everyone was looking at me and I don’t know! He was the only person on the front row not wearing any McLaren merch, so I figured he’d be like. The safest bet.”

“Romantic,” Oscar deadpans, and then seems a little flustered when everyone turns to look at him.

“Alright, so, what happened? Give me the details,” Caroline says, sitting down at the table and producing a laptop seemingly out of thin air.

Lando explains what happened, occasionally looks at Oscar for confirmation, but Oscar doesn’t do much more than nod and say ‘Yeah’ every now and then. Caroline nods along too, types some things out on her laptop, and then when Lando is done, snaps it shut and says, “Alright, give me a few minutes.” Before promptly disappearing from the room along with the rest of Lando’s PR team.

There’s a really long silence where Lando and Oscar both actively pretend they aren’t the only two people left in the room before Oscar eventually breaks it by saying, “Good job on tire management in Austria, last week.”

Lando looks up. Blinks. “Are you seriously talking to me about tire management right now?”

Oscar shrugs. “I could compliment you on staying within the lines, which, in Austria is like, actually quite the achievement, but it sounded a bit patronizing in my head. Plus you really did do a good job on tire management.”

“I’m not- I mean-” Lando sends him an incredulous look. “Why are you talking about Formula 1 right now?”

“We could talk about other things,” Oscar says, completely nonplussed. “What did you have for breakfast today?”

“I don’t know, like a coffee? No, I mean, why are you being so chill about this?” Lando flaps his hands around in the hopes it encompasses everything that’s happened in the past 20 minutes.

Oscar shrugs again. “Would you rather I stress out about it? I could do that, you know. If it helps you.”

“See now you’re being patronizing,” Lando says, squinting at him. “Are you really not freaked out right now?”

“I don’t see the point,” Oscar says. “Your team is working on it, aren’t they? There’s not really much we can do except wait. It’s already happened, now we just have to deal with the consequences.”

“Right,” Lando says. “Well. Okay, Mr. Robot.”

Oscar smiles at that, a quiet little thing that tugs at the corners of his mouth. His face gets cute when he smiles, which. That’s annoying. “If it helps, it is all a little overwhelming. Not really how I expected to be spending my day and all.”

“No, I imagine,” Lando says, burrowing his head into his arms, groaning. “I am really sorry, you know.”

“You’ve said,” Oscar says. “Don’t worry. I’d rather have a little overwhelming than stand around for another two hours waiting for Alex Albon to show up. So if anything you’ve done me a bit of a favor.”

“You’re an Albon fan, huh? I feel like as the guy who just declared himself your boyfriend I should feel a little insulted,” Lando says, peeking over the edge of his arms.

That gets him a genuine laugh, and oh. If they were other people in another situation he might get addicted to that sound. Do anything to hear it again etc. “I am not. But my best friend Logan is. I really just like Formula 1 for the cars.”

“Ah,” Lando says. “Hence the tire comment.”

“Hence the tire comment,” Oscar says.

It’s not. They’re still in a weird situation, sure, but it feels a little less pressing, now he’s had an actual conversation with Oscar. Oscar is nice. Level headed. Funny. A person. It’s comforting.

Caroline and the rest of the PR team come back, settle down around the table as Caroline keeps standing, claps her hands. “Okay, we really only have three options.”

“Hit me,” Lando says. He hopes one of the options is moving to a little abandoned cabin in the Pocono’s and never showing his face in public ever again. He’d really like that option right about now.

“Seeing as saying you lied and Oscar isn’t your boyfriend after all really isn’t an option, you could say Oscar really wasn’t pleased with being outed like that and broke up with you,” Caroline starts.

Lando winces. “That’s not going to look good for me, is it?”

Caroline pulls a face. “It’s really not. Your second option is you and Oscar go your separate ways, but you tell everyone you’re still together, but trying to keep it private.”

“Wait, so Oscar would just go back to, uh…”

“London,” Oscar supplies.

“Right, Oscar would go back to London and I would keep racing and we would just never see each other again? But say we are dating? I feel like those Instagram sleuths are going to figure us out in like no time.”

Caroline pulls a face. “Listen, I never said they were good options. Anyway, the third one would be a fake relationship. You and Oscar pretend to be boyfriends for a few months, until everyone sort of starts forgetting about the whole thing and then you quietly break up. Making it seem like just a normal failed relationship instead of a desperate attempt to get back at your ex.”

And okay, that kind of stings. She’s not wrong but, ouch. “So actually what you’re saying is that I have no options,” he says miserablely. Because he can’t just drag Oscar into this. The man never asked for any of this. All he did was wear a plain maroon t-shirt to a fan stage. That’s hardly a prerequisite to be forced into a PR relationship.

Across from him, Oscar hasn’t said a word since Caroline’s come back. He’s just been observing Lando this whole time, brown eyes quietly following his every move.

“I mean, option 1 is our best bet, I guess,” Lando says, resigned. Fuck. He’s going to look like such a pathetic wet little tea towel. His ex, flourishing in his new relationship, and him, torpedoing the one with his supposed new boyfriend. Yeah, he’s going to come out of this a real star.

“I’ll do it,” Oscar says, suddenly, and everyone turns to look at him.

“Do what,” Lando says, slouching down into his seat a little further. “Break up with me? Yeah, no thanks. I’ll rather not have it be like this whole public thing. Can’t I just make an Instagram statement?” He turns to Caroline.

“Yeah, I think that would be-“ Caroline starts, but Oscar interrupts her.

“I mean I’ll do it. I’ll be your, uh. Fake boyfriend.” He says.

Lando blinks at him. Oscar stares rather steadfastly back at him. “Uh,” Lando says. “What.”

“Oh, excellent!” Caroline says. “That really is our best option. WAG content always does really well, it’ll really boost your image, Lando.”

“Right,” Lando says. “What.”

“We’ll have to set up a contract, make some agreements about appearances, you know, what races you’ll be at, you will definitely have to sign an NDA-“ Caroline cuts herself off, opens her laptop, mutters some things as she starts typing.

“And do I like, get a say in this?” Lando asks.

“Oh!” Caroline says, as everyone turns to look at him. “Of course! So, what do you want? Stage a break up or pretend to be in a relationship?”

Lando looks at her. Looks at Oscar, smiling gently at him. Looks at the ceiling, which refuses to give him any answers either. Sighs deeply. “Right. Yeah. Okay. So, contract?”

It could be worse. At least his fake boyfriend is cute, so there’s that. And he won’t look like a pathetic wet little tea towel in front of his fans, so. Small victories.

Caroline beams at him. “I’m thinking six months? That would put us in January. By then, if this has done what it needs to do, you’ll break up, and if not, we’ll extend. We’ll have to agree on some scheduled appearances I’d say. Mr. Piastri, how do you feel about Spa?”

“Oh,” Oscar, says, considering it. “I mean Eau Rouge is legendary, but I’m more of a Suzuka man myself.”

Caroline blinks. “The Grand Prix, Mr. Piastri. To attend. As Lando’s PR boyfriend.”

“Ah,” Oscar says. “Yeah. No problem.”

“We’ll have to iron out the details later, me and my team will work on it, we’ll get back to you both later. Meanwhile, you,” Caroline points to Lando. “Have a qualifying to get toand you,” she points to Oscar. “How do you feel about watching the race from the McLaren garage?”

[Picture taken during the race of Oscar standing in the McLaren garage, looking a little lost and a little nervous]

f1wagupdates The paddock’s newest wag Oscar Piastri in the McLaren garage during Silverstone!

liked by paddockprincess and 1.689 others

superbopbop oh he’s precious. lando picked a good one

norriswdc he looks so nervous please 😭 what a cutie

kristin_wilson it’s been like three seconds how do you guys already have his full name what

pookienorris reblogged vroomvroomboys

norriswdc

[Screenshot of Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine Nine holding a puppy. The subtitles have been changed to say ‘I’ve only had Oscar Piastri for a day and a half but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.’]

#relationship ended with brad now oscar is my best friend #anyway please take good care of our boy he deserves it <3

239 notes

maddie @maddiemclaren ∙ 10m

the devil works hard but rpf writers work harder

[screenshot of the ao3 website that says ‘5 works in Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri’]

3 replies 2 reposts 5 likes

“So,” Lando says, sounding braver than he feels. “Oscar Piastri.”

It’s roughly a week after the British Grand Prix, a week after Lando spectacularly put his foot in his mouth and declared to the world he had a boyfriend, a week after all the contracts got finalized, making Oscar officially Lando’s fake PR boyfriend for the upcoming six months.

“So,” Oscar says, raising a singular eyebrow. “Lando Norris.”

“You are probably wondering why I’ve gathered you here today,” Lando says, gesturing around the small little coffee shop tucked away in one of London’s back streets.

“I mean, not really?” Oscar says, shrugs. “I signed a contract saying I’d date you and this feels an awful lot like a date, so.”

“Oscar, can you-“ Lando waves his hands around, a little annoyed. “I had like a whole thing prepared.”

Oscar sends him an amused look. “Right. Sorry. Go on.”

“You’re probably wondering why I’ve brought you here today-“

“Endlessly. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. Kept me up at night.”

“Oscar,” Lando says, draws it out a little, watches the corner of Oscar’s mouth tick up as he makes an apologetic little gesture. “I just thought it would be nice to get to know each other a little before our scheduled appearance at Spa? You know, so I don’t have to lean over and whisper, ‘So what is it you do exactly?’ right before you kiss me because I won.”

“Love the confidence,” Oscar says, nodding. “And programmer.”

“What?”

“Programmer,” Oscar says. “You know, makes websites and stuff?”

“I know what a programmer does,” Lando says, pouting at him. “You just surprised me. So you make websites?”

Oscar nods. “Freelance, mostly. Which is good, flexible schedule and all that. With all the races I will now have to attend,” he says. His face is passive, unreadable. Lando noticed he does that a lot. Just. Looks. Impossible to know what he’s thinking.

It’s a little unnerving, all things considered. Lando fiddles with his hands. “I am really fucking sorry for all this, you know. Dragging you into this and shit,”

Oscar shakes his head. “Will you stop apologizing? I offered, didn’t I? Plus, a few weeks ago I could barely scrape the money together to stand in the grandstands of one Grand Prix and now I’m essentially getting paddock passes and garage access for many of them. I got a great deal, if anything.”

“Yeah, but still. This can’t be fun for you, right? Pretending to date. Me,” Lando says, plucking at a loose thread on his hoodie.

Oscar shrugs. “I have to admit I’m not a big PDA guy, but. You’re nice, Lando. And from what I’ve heard, you didn’t deserve any of the shit Brad’s caused you. So if I can help, I’d love to help.”

“Right,” Lando says. “Would like to apologize once more, though, just in case.”

Oscar puts a hand down on the table. “Alright, that’s it. We’re making a swear jar. But for apologizing. Every time you apologize you have to put a pound in the jar.”

“I’m a millionaire,” Lando blurts out.

“Okay,” Oscar says, not even remotely taken aback, considering instead. “Two pounds. And then at the end of our arrangement you’ll buy me something nice with all the money you’ve accumulated in the jar. Honestly, if you keep it up at the rate you’ve been going, you’re going to owe me a McLaren.”

Lando laughs, sits upright again. “Alright, Piastri. Apology jar it is.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “So, programmer. Anything else I should know? Hobbies?”

“Sleep,” Oscar says, instantly. “Uh. I like reading. Sci-Fi stuff, mostly, some fantasy sometimes. Netflix. The basics, you know. What about you?”

“Oh,” Lando says. He’s not very used to it anymore, people asking what he likes to do. They either already know because they’re a fan or they just assume it’s cars. “I like gaming? And uh. I have my own brand, along with my best friend, Max. Not Verstappen, uh, Fewtrell. He used to race too but he quit, so now. Now we do this. We have a YouTube channel too, so it’s always fun to film stuff for that when I’m not racing.”

“What kind of stuff do you do? For YouTube I mean?” Oscar asks, seeming genuinely curious.

“Challenges and stuff, mostly?” Lando says. “Whatever crazy idea we can come up with, really. Oh, one time-“ He launches into the time they tried to emulate Mario Kart, tells Oscar about other stuff they’ve come up with, things they’ve already done and are still planning on doing. Oscar is very sweet about it, nodding along, asking questions at the right time.

Most people get bored of Lando after a while, frustrated by the way he seems to ping pong around a story, hopping from the beginning to the end to the middle to the beginning again. But Oscar never seems annoyed, never seems irritated. Just gently steers Lando back to what he was saying, and then lets him go on a ten minute tangent about Instagram marketing strategies completely uninterrupted.

“Are you?” Lando asks, in the middle of said tangent. “On Instagram, I mean. We should probably follow each other. On twitter, too. Would be a bit weird, if we were boyfriends and we didn’t even follow each other.”

“I mean, I have an Instagram but I really only use it to keep track of my sisters,” Oscar says.

“Sisters?” Lando asks.

Oscar nods. “Three of them. All younger. They’re back in Australia, with my parents.”

And logically, Lando knew Oscar was Australian. He has the same accent as Daniel. But he’s never really considered where the rest of his family would be. He guesses he figured they’d also be here, can’t imagine being away from his own parents for long.

“Oh,” Lando says, but he doesn’t really know what to say. Maybe Oscar likes the distance from his family. Just because he wouldn’t doesn’t mean Oscar is the same. And he doesn’t know how to ask, so instead he says, “I have two sister too. Younger. And an older brother.”

“Middle child,” Oscar says, nods, like this makes sense to him somehow. “I have a twitter,” he adds. “But I really only use it for work. Keep up with updates in the tech world and all that.”

Lando can’t help but laugh at that, shakes his head. “Well, I’ll follow you anyway. And would it. I mean would you be okay with me posting pictures of you?”

Oscar shrugs. “I am your boyfriend. I think that’s part of it, yeah.”

“I know, but,” Lando fiddles with his now empty coffee cup. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“It’s fine, Lando, really. I don’t mind you posting pictures of me,” Oscar reaches out his hand, like he’s going to grab one of Lando’s, but seems to decide against it, lays it flat on the table instead.

“Oh, okay. Would it be okay to take one now?” Lando asks. He tries to be casual about it, but he’s kind of been itching for it. The sun’s fallen down in the sky a little and now it’s throwing a soft warm glow over the coffee shop, over Oscar. He’s still in nothing but a plain t-shirt and his hair is still stylishly un-styled, but there’s something… something about it.

“Oh, uh, sure,” Oscar says, smiles a little hesitantly. “Where do you want me?”

“Just,” Lando says, pulling out his phone, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he angles the camera. “Can you like, laugh?”

Oscar smiles. It is horrifically fake.

“Mate,” Lando says, trying not to laugh. “You look like that smiling cat meme. Do like a real one.”

Oscar looks affronted. “I can’t just do a real one. That’s not how laughing works.”

Lando laughs again, can’t help himself when he sees the look on Oscar’s face. Oscar’s mouth ticks up at that as well, watches as Lando tries to hide his laugh behind his left hand, tries to take a picture with his right. “Fine. I’ll just work with what I’ve got,” he says, looking down at his phone, at the picture he just took, and yeah. Yeah. That’s decent. “We’ll work on your camera angles. You’re a real WAG now, Oscar Piastri. You gotta know your angles.”

And that’s. He’s doing this. For the upcoming few months, Oscar is going to be Lando’s fake boyfriend. His WAG. It hasn’t fully sunk in until now, now that he’s staring down at a picture of Oscar on his phone, one he’s about to post to his millions of Instagram followers. He’s doing this.

“Right,” Oscar says, looking a little weary. “Wait, what’s a WAG?”

Lando looks up at him, smiles. Well. At least he’s not doing it alone.

licklerc

RAWE CEEK

#spa babyyyyyyy

5 notes

sam 🧡@pookienorris ∙ 10m

it’s been 17 days since he’s last attended a race when will my husband (oscar piastri) return from the war

3 replies 2 reposts 5 likes

holly🏎️ @babylando ∙ 8m

replying to @pookienorris

there’s rumors he’s going to be at spa 👀

2 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

lovenorris

i feel that we collectively as a fandom moved on way too quickly from this picture

[Picture of Oscar in a coffee shop, posted on Lando’s Instagram with the caption ‘cheeky little coffee date☕’]

like?????? oscar’s soft quiet little smile???? the hand extended across the table like he was holding lando’s hand earlier? the soft golden light making him look like a disney prince?????

#i’m so happy for lando #oscar genuinely looks so in love with him its PRECIOUS #i hope he’ll be at the race this weekend we need more oscar content

34 notes

Lando bounces on his feet a little, glances around the hotel lobby. There’s not many people there, just the lady at the front desk, an elderly couple and their suitcases waiting for their taxi, a teenager slumped on one of the big couches scrolling through their phone. But still, he feels watched, observed.

He glances at his phone again, at the text from Oscar that said he was on his way, sent 5 minutes ago. Shoves it back into the front pocket of his hoodie along with his hands, bounces on his feet a little again. This shouldn’t be weird, it shouldn’t. The last time they saw each other, in the coffee shop, Lando would dare to say they had a good time. They’re not friends or whatever. But they’ve established they can be amicable. Normal.

But this, this is different. This is the Belgian Grand Prix. This is their first official outing as a couple after the disastrous shit show that was Silverstone. It’s an all eyes on them kind of thing. And he’s just.

Blah.

Right as Lando feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin, the revolving doors start moving and Oscar appears in the lobby, dressed in a simple pair of skinny jeans and a light summer jacket, a small rolling suitcase at his side.

“Oscar,” Lando says, making his way over, “hi.”

“Hi,” Oscar says. Lando goes in for a hug right as Oscar extends his hand for a handshake, tries to course correct by sticking out his hand right as Oscar pivots to a hug, and in the end they end up in a kind of awkward half hug half handshake that’s brief and absolutely mortifying.

Lando, wishing the ground would swallow him whole, takes Oscar’s suitcase from his hand. “How was the flight?” He asks, fully ignoring the embarrassing hug and hoping Oscar will do the same.

“Good, short,” Oscar says, as he follows Lando to the lifts. “Never flown Business before, that was kind of cool.”

“Least we can do,” Lando says. “Which, sorry for dragging you out here this weekend. Promise I’ll make it worth it and all that.” He pushes the button for the elevator and then glances at Oscar, who’s looking at him with one singular raised eyebrow. It’s kind of impressive. “What?”

“Jar, Lando,” is all he says.

Lando frowns. “What do you- oh, fuck, you were serious about that?”

“Very,” Oscar says, nodding sagely, passing Lando to step into the elevator. “I’m two pounds closer to my very own McLaren.”

Lando laughs, follows after him, presses the button for the fifteenth floor. “I think you’re underestimating how expensive a McLaren is. I might be able to get you like, the Lego one.”

“I think you’re underestimating how much you apologize,” Oscar says with a shrug, leaning against the wall and watching the numbers climb as the elevator goes up. “I’m partial to the GT.”

“Noted,” Lando says, stepping out as the doors open, dragging Oscar’s suitcase with him. Oscar follows after as they make their way down the hallway. “So, about the sleeping arrangements,” he says, waving the key card around with the hand not holding the suitcase . “The uh, PR team didn’t want to raise suspicions by giving us separate rooms, so we have to share one.”

“Okay,” Oscar says, as they come to a stop in front of one of the hotel rooms. “I mean, that makes sense.”

“Right, well, on top of that, to really sell it, they gave us a room with a double bed. One double bed,” Lando says, as he makes his way inside, holding the door open for Oscar to follow.

“Oh,” Oscar says, glancing around the rather spacious hotel room. There is indeed only one bed on the left side of the room, and a little seating area with a couch on the right. “That’s okay, I’ll take the couch.”

Lando shakes his head. “Oscar, no, you came all the way over here, you are not sleeping on the couch. If you don’t want to share, I'll sleep on the couch.”

Oscar throws his backpack on the couch, sits down and bounces up and down a few times to test the softness. “Really, Lando, it’s fine. You have to race and all that, I don’t want to disturb your rhythm any more than I already am.”

Lando chews on his bottom lip. Oscar’s kind of right. But he also feels pretty shitty about the whole fake relationship thing, and making Oscar sleep on the couch isn’t helping. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Oscar says, rummaging around in his backpack for something. “So, what’s the schedule?” He asks, as he pulls out his phone charger and starts hunting for the nearest plug.

“FP3 is in two hours so we should leave in an hour or so, so we have enough time to get settled. I have a meeting, but you can hang out in the Motorhome in the meantime. They have a pretty good breakfast selection,” Lando says, pulling out his phone and scrolling through. “Uh, after FP3 there’s some time for lunch and all that, I will probably have to look at some data. Then Qualifying. I’m sorry, I just don’t think there will be much for you to do, really, aside from look around and maybe get a tour through the garage, maybe.”

“Jar,” Oscar says. “And don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I anticipated something like this. I brought a book and everything,” he says, rummaging through his bag again and pulling out an absolute brick of a book.

“Jesus Christ, who’re you trying to murder with that,” Lando says, staring at the giant tome.

Oscar pulls a face. “Yeah, she’s a bit chunky. I should probably consider investing in some lighter books if I’m going to be traveling more.”

“This does explain your whole shoulder situation,” Lando says gesturing at Oscar’s general chest area. When all he gets is a confused look, he adds. “You know, lugging those books around.” Oscar still looks a little confused, so Lando claps his hands a little awkwardly, moves on. “Right, well, after Quali we’ll go get something to eat, I’m on a pretty strict meal plan though so I’m afraid that won’t be very spectacular either. And then tomorrow the race.”

Oscar nods, puts the book back in his backpack. “Alright, and anything specifically expected of me? As your uh, WAG?”

‘Be cute’, Lando wants to say, but he’s not sure they’re there yet. Plus, he’s pretty sure you can’t tell someone to be something they already are, or whatever. “Not really? You’ll probably be photographed as we walk into the paddock, so be ready for that. You’ll have to watch the race from the garage, which I’m starting to think might not be a real punishment for you.”

Oscar shakes his head, small smile on his face. “No, Silverstone was awesome. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that, seeing the cars so close.”

“They are pretty spectacular,” Lando says. “Anyway, wanna go get ready so we can leave?”

“Oh,” Oscar says, glances down at his outfit. “I am ready?”

He’s wearing plain blue jeans and a black t-shirt. “Right,” Lando says. “Of course, my bad. Well, I have to go get changed into my team gear, give me a few moments, yeah?”

“Wait,” Oscar says, and Lando turns back from where he was making his way towards the bathroom. “Should I? Change?”

Lando looks at him. Really looks at him. Yeah, his t-shirt is plain and black, but it stretches across those stupidly delicious shoulders in a way that makes Lando want to bite something. And the hair is un-styled for sure but it’s cute. Swoopy. He might not be dressed the part, but he looks. He looks like the boyfriend Lando would like to have. Cute. Sweet. Normal. “No,” he says, earnestly. “No, you look great.”

And then he disappears into the bathroom to get changed.

“You brought your car?” Oscar asks, as they make their way into the underground parking garage.

“Hm, no,” Lando says, “Mine are still safely tucked away in my garage in Monaco. But McLaren usually provides one for me for the race weekends. If I had known you were such a fan of the GT I would’ve requested that one, but unfortunately I’m afraid we have a boring old 720S.” They round the corner and Lando points at the very obvious papaya colored car parked just a few feet away from them.

Oscar whistles through his teeth. “Oh, she’s beautiful.”

“She gets the job done,” Lando jokes, and throws Oscar the keys. “Alright, pretty boy. Show me what you got.” The pretty boy slips out, and Lando mentally wants to punch himself for it, but Oscar doesn’t seem to notice, too busy staring at the keys he only just managed to catch with a bit of a fumble.

“You’re joking,” he says. “You want me to drive?”

“You have a driver’s license right? Also trying to avoid sounding like a broken record here, but I reckon I owe you one.” Plus, Lando hates driving road cars. Sure, he hates being a passenger too, but he trusts Oscar. And it’s worth it, seeing the look of unfiltered wonder and excitement on Oscar’s face.

“Cool,” he says. “That’s cool. That’s. Thank you Lando.”

“No, thank you,” Lando says, and then pulls the passenger seat door open. “Alright, get in, we have places to see, people to meet.”

“Right, yeah, right,” Oscar says, scrambling a little to get into the car, face splitting grin on his face as he sinks into the soft leather. “This might be the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Lando merely hums, lets Oscar rev the car a few times before he pulls out of the garage and into the road. He’s a careful driver, controlled. But there’s a look on his face, a look of pure unadulterated glee and exhilaration that Lando already knows he’s going to keep chasing for the rest of their arrangement. Sue him, it’s not his fault happiness looks good on Oscar.

He wonders how Oscar would feel about getting to sit in an actual F1 car. He might have to talk about that to Zak, when they get to the track.

They get through the security checkpoints at the track fairly easily, Lando flashing his laminated track ID at each one. The few fans they come across raise their eyebrows at Lando being in the passenger seat, but no one mentions anything about it, which is nice.

“God, that was fun,” Oscar says, pulling into Lando’s reserved parking spot, right next to Charles’s Ferrari. “What a car.”

“Right?” Lando asks, fumbling to grab his stuff, which over the course of the 40 minute ride have scattered all over the car. As he goes to open the door it suddenly opens for him, and Oscar’s face appears. “Opening doors for me, Oscar? How gentlemanly of you.”

“Hm, I have to be like, the perfect boyfriend, don’t I?” He asks, and then demonstrates that again by taking Lando’s backpack from his hands, slinging it over his shoulder along with his own.

Lando could get used to this whole boyfriend thing, like this. Although Brad never did any of this for him. Which. That might just be a Brad thing, actually.

“So, are you ready?” Lando asks, grabbing the cap he’d put on the dashboard and putting it on backwards. He glances back at the car one last time, checks he has everything, before he starts heading for the paddock entry, Oscar in tow.

Oscar shrugs. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. You?”

And yeah. That’s a good question. “Is it stupid to say I’m kind of nervous?” Lando asks, bringing his hand to his mouth and biting at a cuticle.

“No,” Oscar says. “No, I get that.”

Lando sighs, bites at his nail again. “It’s stupid isn’t it? But this feels like. It feels like this is the one you know. Like we’re doing this now, officially. Silverstone doesn’t really count because that was all just one big accident, but this. It’s deliberate now, you know. Like we actually have to sell it. I don’t know, what if we like, fuck it up?”

“Hm,” Oscar says, glances at him. “Give me your hand.”

“What?”

Oscar extends his own hand, opens and closes it a few times. “C’mon, give me your hand.”

Lando frowns, but extends his own hand, interlacing his fingers with Oscar’s. His hands are smaller than Lando’s. More delicate. But they feel rough, warm. It’s nice. Grounding.

“We won’t fuck it up,” Oscar says, letting their hands swing together as they walk. “We got this, yeah?”

“What if they don’t buy it?” Lando asks, voice quiet because they’re getting closer to the paddock entrance and there’s actually people milling around now.

Oscar shrugs. “They’ve been buying it so far, haven’t they? And we weren’t even trying then.”

“Right,” Lando says. “Right, we got this.”

“That’s the spirit,” Oscar says, and then squeezes Lando’s hand, once, twice. Deliberate. Comforting. Safe.

Lando smiles at him, soft and grateful, before pressing his paddock ID against the scanner and making his way into the paddock, never letting go of Oscar’s hand as he goes.

It’s show time.

ferrawri reblogged

thespeedygentlemen

It’s only Q1 why am I already so stressed

ferrawri

RIGHT?????

#charles bby girl can we PLEASE put that banger of a lap in earlier #for my mental health #i think i actively chewed through three couch pillows for that one

15 notes

amelia @lanlan ∙ 10m

OSCAR ALERT OSCAR ALERT OSCAR ALERT

[Screenshot of Oscar in the McLaren garage, watching qualifying]

5 replies 9 reposts 24 likes

holly🏎️ @babylando ∙ 8m

replying to @lanlan

yeah they arrived together this morning 🥺

[Picture of Oscar and Lando entering the paddock, hands intertwined. Lando is waving at the crowd. Oscar is looking at Lando with a soft smile on his face.]

2 replies 4 reposts 7 likes

amelia @lanlan ∙ 2m

replying to @babylando

and what if i cry. what then. what if i CRY

0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

McLaren @mclarenf1 ∙ 8m

Let’s go, @landonorris!👊 That’s P3 in quali!

#BelgianGP

78 replies 124 reposts 349 likes

amelia @lanlan ∙ 2m

replying to @mclarenf1

LETS GO LANDO LETS GO

0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

“God, that was exhausting,” Oscar says, falling down on the couch when they finally enter their hotel room later that night.

“Yeah, I know, I’m-“ Lando starts, and then stops when Oscar squints his eyes at him. “Not sorry?” He finishes.

Oscar laughs, a short and sweet thing, and lets his head fall back against the back of the couch. “That’s a start, I guess. And it’s fine. I had a good time. It was cool to be able to see Quali up close like that. One of your engineers, I think his name was Mark? He actually talked me through a bunch of stuff while you were getting ready. Really fascinating. Oh, and I got a waffle,” He perks up at that, and Lando can’t help but be a little endeared and a lot jealous.

“Oh man,” he says, throwing his stuff in the direction of the bed and falling down on the couch next to Oscar. “From that waffle stall near Merc? I walked past that like four times today, it was fucking torture.”

“I mean, you could’ve gotten one? I distinctly remember you mentioning you were a millionaire. Also seeing as you’re Lando Norris they probably would’ve given you one for free.” He raises an eyebrow at Lando.

“Bleh, yeah, but like. Meal plan,” Lando stares forlornly at the little fridge in the corner of his room where his breakfast overnight oats already sit in wait for him for tomorrow morning. “No waffles until after the race. Which is when the waffle stall will inevitably be closed.” He pouts at Oscar. “At least tell me they weren’t like, the thick, fluffy waffles with the sugar clumps but those weirdly thin cardboard-y ones.”

Oscar looks at him, says nothing.

“Nooo,” Lando says, letting himself slump down on the couch. His toes tap against Oscar’s thigh very briefly, before both of them move away again. “Why does the universe hate me.”

“You’re third on the grid tomorrow, Lando,” Oscar says, smiling at him. It looks surprisingly soft, even in the harsh overhead lighting of their hotel room. “The universe is at worst partial about you.”

“No see, if the universe liked me I would be first on the grid. But no, the universe has to have this weird little crush on Max Verstappen for some reason. Fucking universe.” Lando pouts again. Oscar laughs, loud and bright and with shaking shoulders. It wasn’t that funny, but. Lando will take it.

“Well maybe try being nicer to the universe. Maybe then the universe will give you something nice back. Karma, and all that.”

“Yeah,” Lando says, stares over Oscar’s shoulder out the windows, over the big open city below. “Maybe. Alright, I’m going to sleep. Big day tomorrow and all that.” He gets up off the couch, pats Oscar on the shoulder a little awkwardly, moves towards the bed area. “Are you-“ He starts, turns around. “We can still swap?” He asks.

Oscar shakes his head, grabs the spare blanket he took out of the closet earlier today. “I’m good, Lando, seriously. Don’t worry. You just try to catch some sleep.”

“You too,” Lando says. “Night.”

(There’s no door to close between them, and so when Lando finally crawls in bed, he can hear the sounds of Oscar rustling around on the sofa. It’s those sounds, along with the sounds of his breathing, that eventually lull him into a deep sleep.

In the morning, when he checks on Oscar, he’s still dead asleep on the couch, arm dangling over the edge, face smushed into his pillow. There’s a bit of drool clinging to the corner of his mouth and his hair is all over the place. Lando stares at it for a second too long, and then goes to retrieve his oats.)

Formula 1 @f1 ∙ 10m

⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️

LIGHTS OUT!! The Belgian Grand Prix is GO!

124 replies 278 reposts 302 likes

norizz

lando :(((((((

#god when he nearly went off i screamed #can’t believe he’s fallen back to ninth :((((((

3 notes

margeret @scorpionorris ∙ 15m

lando’s a man on a mission look at those overtakes thats MY driver of the day 😤

3 replies 5 reposts 8 likes

rene @landosboy ∙ 8m

replying to @scorpionorris

lando not about to be embarrassed in front of his man he is DRIVING driving

1 replies 2 reposts 4 likes

McLaren @mclarenf1 ∙12m

Great recovery drive from @landonorris after the unfortunate run off on the first lap, that’s P4!

#BelgianGP

78 replies 124 reposts 349 likes

Oscar’s in his driver’s room, when Lando finally makes it back there. He's sitting on the little couch in the corner, reading a book, when Lando barrels into the room, Nomex already half over his head before he even realizes Oscar’s presence.

He goes to apologize but, well. The jar. And like, it’s whatever. Oscar was bound to see him shirtless at some point. They share a hotel room, for god’s sake. Better rip off the band aid now. Or, well, the Nomex. Band aid. Whatever.

“Hey,” Oscar says, looking up from his book. His cheeks are tinged a little pink, and Lando figures he must be tired. Lando for sure is. Long ass fucking day. “Sorry about your race.”

Lando’s head shoots up from where he was rummaging through his available t-shirts. “Oh,” he says. That’s. Most people had congratulated him, on the way he’d regained himself. Which. He did, but like. In the end he still went from third to fourth, so. “Yeah. It’s fine. I’m fine. I mean, fucking starving, but that’s par for the course, so. Jon will get me a chicken burger later.”

“Yeah, figured,” Oscar says, closes his book and reaches for his backpack, probably to put it back.

Lando, meanwhile, starts sifting through the piles and piles of clothes on the floor in search of a clean shirt. When he finally retrieves one he holds it up with a triumphant, “ha!” and finds himself face to face with Oscar, who’s holding out a slightly smushed package at him.

“What’s that?” Lando asks, pulling on the shirt.

Oscar shrugs. “Your waffle,” he says, like that makes any more sense. “You don’t have to conform to your meal plan right now, right? So I uh. Got you one. Earlier. It’s a little smushed because I accidentally put my book on top of it but-“

“You got me a waffle?” Lando asks, staring at the package in Oscar’s hand.

“Uh, yeah? From the stall, near Merc. You said, yesterday, how they usually closed down after a race, so-“

“You got me a waffle,” Lando repeats, finishing for him. “That’s. Oh. Thank you.”

It’s weirdly sweet, is what it is. Thoughtful. Something a real boyfriend would do. Something his own ex-boyfriend never even did for him. But Oscar just shrugs, and grabs his backpack, and helps Lando retrieve all his stuff, and doesn’t mention it, and doesn’t demand anything in return.

The waffle is cold, and a little stale, and a little smushed, but it’s still the best waffle Lando’s ever eaten.

When they leave the track, later that night, Lando laces his fingers with Oscar’s again in front of the cameras and thinks that maybe. Maybe this whole thing isn’t all that bad. Maybe this could be good.

Formula 1 @f1 ∙ 10m

Chill mode ON. Wishing everyone a good and restful summer break!

124 replies 278 reposts 302 likes

“Hm,” Lando says, staring down at his phone. “You’re squinting too much, in this one.” He holds the phone up to Oscar then, who frowns at the picture.

“It’s the sun,” Oscar says. “Maybe if we turned the other way?”

“Yeah, but then we’ll be backlit, that’s not good either,” Lando says, pursing his lips as he glances around. They’re in the Monaco harbor, only a few minutes’ walk away from Lando’s apartment. The sea stretches out behind them, dotted with boats, the perfect background for a ‘look at us having a cute little date during the summer break’ picture.

Though that picture is proving to be much more effort than it’s worth. Or maybe Lando’s just overthinking it, trying too hard to have it be the best picture ever. But it’s like. Oscar came all this way just for him, just so he can pretend he has a boyfriend he spent time with during the break, so like. The photographic evidence of that better be fucking perfect.

And he’s only here for the day, his visit wedged into all of Lando’s other summer break plans, and it would be rude not to make it worth it.

If only they could get this stupid picture right.

He’s scrolling through their other attempts, trying to see if one turns out not to be too bad with his now firmly lowered standards. But no. He has his eyes closed in this one, Oscar’s looking away in the other one. They’re way too far apart in the first few attempts, and even now, in the more recent pictures, it’s like there’s an invisible wall between them. And it’s so stupid, because like, they’ve held hands before. But somehow neither of them can get themselves to cross that bridge between them, to wrap an arm around the other and pull them close.

Lando sighs, looks back up at Oscar. “Maybe we should just give up, for now. We’ll have other opportunities, right? We have that dinner tonight, so. Maybe then.”

Oscar opens his mouth, probably to agree, when Lando feels a tap on his shoulder. “Sorry, I’m so sorry, but uh-“ A girl says, Lando facing her as he turns around. “Are you. Oh my god, you’re Lando.”

“Ha, yeah, that’s me,” Lando says, doing a slightly embarrassing little jazz hands. He glances over the girls shoulder at Oscar, who has to tuck his amused smile away in his shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Could I- I’m sorry, I really don’t want to interrupt you and Oscar on your uh, date? But could I get a picture with you, maybe?” She holds out her phone, bites her lip, smiles a little shyly. The phone in her hand is shaking like a leaf.

Lando looks at Oscar again because like, this was supposed to be their time. Their time to wander around and take a stupid selfie for Lando’s practically obligatory ‘summer break wrap up’ insta post, but still. They were hanging out together, and now this girl is here, and Lando can see a few other girls a few feet away, whispering and pointing. This might take a while.

But Oscar shrugs, takes the phone from the girl before Lando can do or say anything. “Here, let me take the picture, yeah?” He says, aims the camera.

“Oh, thank you! I am really sorry for interrupting your date, but I just. I’m here on vacation and it’s just once in a lifetime, you know? I’m a big fan, so. This is like. A dream come true, really. I mean, how often can you say you ran into Lando Norris of all people?” She rambles excitedly, taking her spot next to Lando for the photo.

“Regularly,” Oscar deadpans. “This morning in the kitchen, for example.”

The girl laughs, and Lando can’t help but grin too. It’s a lie, of course. Oscar only flew in this morning, but still. It’s funny. “I make sure to get the coffee going before he wakes,” Lando jokes along. “Helps keep the peace.”

That one’s only half a lie. From what he’s seen in Belgium, Oscar really is not a morning person. It was kind of cute, all things considered, his messy hair, his grumpy face, his inability to form a full sentence until he’d finally gotten the hotel’s coffee maker to work.

“Oh I feel you,” the girl says earnestly to Oscar. When she takes the phone from him again to check the picture he took, she’s no longer shaking. “I am not a morning person at all.” She stares down at her phone. “Oh this is perfect, thank you so much! Seriously, thank you guys, I’m so sorry for interrupting, have a great rest of your day.”

“She was nice,” Oscar says.

Lando smiles. “Most of them are,” he says. “They just have terrible timing sometimes.”

As if summoned, the group of girls that had been eyeing them for a while now saunters up, giggling excitedly to each other. Lando sends an apologetic smile Oscar’s way, who just shrugs and accepts the first phone that gets handed to him for a picture.

Lando takes a deep breath, smiles for the camera, and tries not to feel too guilty about flying his fake boyfriend halfway across the country just to utilize him as his own personal photographer.

“I’m really sorry,” Lando says, later that evening, tugging at the collar of the shirt he’s changed into. “I was going to show you all these awesome things. We could’ve walked the track, that would’ve been cool.”

“Jar,” Oscar says. He’s changed too, switched out the shorts and t-shirt for a nice pair of jeans and a button up. It looks nice on him. “And it’s fine. Your fans were nice, if anything.”

“Yeah,” Lando says, frowning a little. “Still. I feel guilty.”

“Seriously Lando, it’s fine. I’m not here on vacation,” Oscar says, toying with one of his forks.

The restaurant they’re in is nice. Fancy. Not something Lando would usually pick, but Caroline had arranged it for him. Said it would look good on the socials, or something. There’s a set menu, which Lando always gets a little nervous about, and they’ve been poured a glass of wine Lando doesn’t really feel like drinking.

“Are you?” Lando asks, to change the topic, before he spends his life savings on apologizing to Oscar.

“Am I what?”

“Going on vacation,” Lando clarifies. “It is the summer break after all.”

Oscar laughs. “For F1 drivers it is, yeah. I don’t really have one. Used a few of my vacation days for Silverstone, and I’m saving the rest. Just in case there’s more Grand Prix that I have to go to that won’t fit in my schedule like Spa did.”

Oh great. More guilt. “Oscar, no,” Lando says, a little frantic. “Shit, you don’t have to rearrange your whole life around my schedule, Jesus.”

“I don’t mind, Lando, seriously,” Oscar reassures. “I’m not much of a vacation guy anyway. Most of the time I just end up carrying them over into the next year. And I usually use some days to visit my family for Christmas, but I still have plenty left to do that. Don’t worry about it.”

“Hm,” Lando says, still a little unsatisfied. But before he can push the topic further, the waiter arrives with their first dish. It looks pretty simple, a perfect round of something that their waiter introduces as a tomato tartare, but he still eyes it a little suspiciously.

“You okay?” Oscar asks, fork with his first bite already halfway his mouth.

Lando bites his lip. Glances at the tartare again. Looks at Oscar, who’s looking at him with no judgment, just mild concern. He sighs. “I uh. I don’t really like fish?” He says, a little hesitantly. “And I don’t know- I mean it doesn’t look like it has fish in it, but-“

Oscar makes an understanding little humming noise, takes his bite, seems to consider it. Lando eyes his tomato thingy again, gently pokes at it with his fork, weighs the pros and cons of just risking it and taking a bite.

“No fish,” Oscar suddenly says, and Lando’s head shoots up. “It’s just tomato. Some kind of pickle mixed in, I think? I don’t know how you feel about those. You can taste the acidity. Oh and goats cheese, if that’s a deal breaker.”

Lando blinks at him. Looks at his plate again. “Oh,” he says. “Right. Thanks. I’m okay with those.” He takes a tentative bite then, and Oscar’s right. It’s just tomato, a little acidity. It’s nice. Not something Lando would usually go for, but. In this case, it’ll do. He has hope now, that this dinner will go over semi okay.

Which is why it is so utterly devastating when the next course gets served and it’s fish. He’s trying so hard not to pull a face when the waiter puts the plate of grilled calamari in front of them, but he’s pretty sure he fails spectacularly. Oscar across from him, thanks the waiter politely, and god. Lando couldn’t even do that. He’s like ruining this whole date and it’s not even a real one.

“Quick,” Oscar says, when the waiter’s walked away from the table, and Lando’s trying to figure out if he can hide all of the pieces of calamari in the little vase of flowers on their table without anyone noticing. “Give me your plate.”

“What?” Lando says. They’re round pieces, he could loop them around the flowers and it would probably take forever for someone to spot they’re there. He would have to touch them for that and Oscar would probably fake break up with him for being so weird but like. He wouldn’t have to eat them so that’s a win at least.

“Your plate,” Oscar says, holding out his hand. “Come on, before he comes back to ask us how everything is.”

Still a little confused, Lando hands over his plate, and Oscar promptly dumps the contents onto his own, handing the empty plate back to Lando, who stares at it, a little stunned.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I thought you said you didn’t like fish?” Oscar asks, around a bite of his own calamari.

“I don’t,” Lando says. It’s just that usually people aren’t so considerate about it. Usually they hedge him on to at least try, see if maybe he’s changed his mind (he hasn’t), tell him to not be so picky. This is… A nice change of pace.

“Cool,” Oscar says, smiles happily. “That’s great news for me. I love fish.” And he’s not even mad. Here Lando is, being all difficult and choosy, and Oscar’s acting like it’s some sort of win for him.

It only gets worse when they get a piece of porkchop later, one that Lando licks his fingers absolutely clean on, that’s how good it is, and Oscar wordlessly hands his over. When Lando protests, he shakes his head, tells him it’s only fair, that it’s payment for the fish, that Lando can’t be left hungry and Jesus fuck.

It’s so nice and so thoughtful and so sweet and Lando can’t help but feel like shit when they leave the restaurant. Oscar flew all the way out here so they could spend some time together, take some pictures, pretend to be dating, and yet all he’s done is deal with Lando’s fans and listen to Lando complain about fish.

Plus, Lando had been kind of looking forward to getting to know him better, now they had some privacy away from the track. But all he’s learned so far is that Oscar apparently really likes fish – something Lando’s willing to forgive him on only if he eats all of Lando’s fish dishes from now on – and that he doesn’t take many vacation days.

And it’s that frustration about how the weekend’s been going, and that inability to quite let him go yet that Lando blurts out, as they’re standing outside the restaurant waiting for their cab, “Stay.”

“Hm?” Oscar asks. He’d been looking out over the glittering sky line of Monte Carlo, over the endless sea stretching out in front of them, but turns to Lando now, soft smile on his face. He’s a fucking sight, with the sleeves of his button down rolled up, his cheeks a little pink from the wine, bathed in the soft light coming from the restaurant and the moon above.

Lando swallows, hard. “I mean, uh. Me and my friends? We’re uh. Going wakeboarding. Tomorrow. If you wanted to stay. And come with us. I mean, you came all this way? And tomorrow’s a Saturday, so you could still fly home in time for work on Monday so you won’t have to take any more vacation days, but I just thought it might be nice?”

“Oh,” Oscar says, and he looks genuinely surprised. “I mean. Do you need more pictures for your Instagram?”

Lando can’t help but laugh a little at that. “No, I. I just thought it might be nice. To spend some time together doing something that’s not so-“ He waves his hands around. “PR planned. Get to know each other a bit better outside of all that. We will be spending a lot of time together the next few months, so. You know.”

“Yeah,” Oscar says, smiles a little hesitantly, a little nervously. “Yeah, I. Okay. I can stay another day, that would be… You don’t mind? I mean I am staying in your apartment. I could get a hotel, if that’s easier, or fly out after wakeboarding tomorrow.”

“I don’t mind,” Lando rushes. “Seriously, I don’t- I think it’ll be fun. I mean. Have you ever wake boarded before?”

“I mean, I’m Australian, so I’ve surfed a bit,” Oscar says, shrugs, and suddenly Lando’s picturing him with shoulder length hair, those leaf patterned swim shorts, a seashell necklace, and laughs.

“Hey, fuck you, I know I don’t look it, but I’m quite good,” Oscar says, bumps their shoulders together.

Lando shakes his head. “I don’t doubt it. Probably much better than me. I fucking suck. But it’s fun, and it’s with friends, so. It’ll be nice.”

“Yeah,” Oscar says, smiles at him. “Thanks for inviting me.”

Their taxi arrives then, and Oscar does the whole chivalrous holding the door open for him thing, which Lando complains loudly about but secretly enjoys. They’re quiet on the ride back, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence, Oscar staring out the window as Lando types away on his phone, checks everything he’s missed during dinner. He pulls up the chat with his friends as well, lets them know Oscar’s coming, and then realizes one horrifying fact.

None of them know his and Oscar’s relationship is fake.

isabelle 🌸 @forumulawon ∙ 39m

I JUST MET LANDO IN MONACO OH MY GOD IM SHAKING SO HARD RN WHAT THE FUCK

7 replies 2 reposts 15 likes

isabelle 🌸 @forumulawon ∙ 37m

replying to @formulawon

HE WAS ON A DATE WITH OSCAR BUT HE TOOK THE TIME TO TALK TO ME AND TAKE A PICTURE HE WAS SO SWEET THEY BOTH WERE IM CRYING 😭 😭 😭

5 replies 1 reposts 10 likes

isabelle 🌸 @forumulawon ∙ 34m

replying to @formulawon

POSTING THE PICTURES THE SECOND I STOP FEELING LIKE IM ACTIVELY GOING TO VIBRATE OUT OF MY SKIN BUT OH MY GOD. THEY WERE SO CUTE TOGETHER SERIOUSLY OSCAR IS SUCH A SWEETHEART IM SO HAPPY FOR LANDO 😭 😭 😭

4 replies 0 reposts 6 likes

“Seriously Lando, we’ll be fine,” Oscar says, as they make their way over to the dock where the rest of Lando’s friends are waiting for them. “Stop worrying about it.”

“Yeah, but I’m just saying. We need to get our stories straight. These aren’t my fans, these are my friends. If we say the wrong thing they’re going to be so suspicious and I’m going to look like an idiot and then my reputation is ruined forever and they’re going to bring it up every time we meet up like ‘Hey remember that time Lando was so pathetic he’d rather fake a boyfriend then admit he couldn’t get any’ like. I don’t want to be that guy.” Lando worries at the skin of his thumb as he speaks, glances around to see if he can catch a glimpse of anyone yet.

Oscar frowns at him. “You could get any,” he says, and then when Lando turns to look at him, he clears his throat and says. “I mean. You could, like. Get a boyfriend. Girlfriend. Anything you want. Anyone you want. Anyway, that’s not-“ He shakes his head. “We’ve talked it through five times now. We’ll be fine.”

“Hm,” Lando says. He’s been trying not to look at Oscar too much ever since he came out of Lando’s spare bedroom this morning in an absolutely sinful pair of swim shorts. Or, well. The swim shorts are fine. Normal length, probably. But the thighs are not fine. Too fine. Stupid and muscular and distracting. He glances out over the dock again, tears his eyes away from where Oscar’s shorts keep hiking up a little as he walks.

“I just don’t want them to think I’m like. A loser,” Lando mumbles.

“Well then I’ve got bad news for you, mate,” A voice from his left yells, and then suddenly he’s pulled into a tight side hug by a widely smiling Max. “We already think that. But glad to see you made it.”

“Max,” Lando says, leans into the hug. “Also fuck you.”

“Back at you, bud,” Max says cheerfully. “You must be Oscar,” Max says, sticking his hand out for Oscar to shake. “I’m Max Fewtrell. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Oscar says, shaking his hand. “Heard loads about you.”

“Wish I could say the same, mate, but alas,” Max says, shaking his head. “Had to find out about you along with the rest of the world.” He pointedly looks at Lando as he says it.

Lando pulls a face. Of all the things they’d talked through, got their stories straight on, this wasn’t one of them. He feels bad, all of a sudden, realizing how his friends must’ve felt, finding out about his new boyfriend along with everyone else. Being blindsided by it.

“Ah, I’m afraid that was mostly my fault,” Oscar says, rubbing his neck a little sheepishly. “I wanted to make sure it was the real thing, you know. Before we announced it to the world. We’d really only just decided the night before that we were ready to start telling people. Didn’t realize that meant Lando would do, well, what he did. But, you know.”

“He’s Lando,” Max finishes for him, smiling fondly, clapping Oscar on the shoulder as Oscar shrugs in a ‘what do you do’ kind of way.

Lando squints at them. “Why do I feel like you’re making fun of me,” he says.

“Because we are,” Max cheerfully tells him, loops an arm around Lando’s shoulders, pulling him forward. “Now, come on, the others are waiting for us.”

“So, Oscar, let me get this straight,” Jack says, leaning back in his lounger, beer in hand. They’re on the back deck of the yacht, the motorboat they’ll use to go wakeboarding later docked behind them. Right now they’re having a beer, relaxing, catching up.

And grilling Oscar, apparently.

“You’re a programmer from Australia,” Jack continues, counting down his fingers. “You live in London, you work freelance mostly on smaller projects, your hobbies include reading and sleeping, and before Silverstone you’ve never been to a race before.”

Oscar nods. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

“Great,” Jack says. “How the fuck did you meet Lando, then?”

Max sits up straighter in his own lounger points excessively with the hand holding his own beer. “That’s exactly what I was wondering.”

“Oh,” Oscar says, laughing a little. He’s sitting next to Lando on the lounge sofa, their bare knees knocking together occasionally. “I, uh, in a supermarket, believe it or not.”

“The one near Martin’s apartment,” Lando says, trying really hard to seem totally chill about the whole thing. Cool, calm, collected. They’ve told a vague version of this story to the press, fans, but never in full detail like this, and he’s terrified he’s going to fuck it up. “Turns out it’s also near Oscar’s.”

Oscar nods, pressing his knee against Lando’s, like he knows Lando’s nervous, like he can tell. “I was working on this project, the deadline was the next day and it was really kicking my ass. Anyway at around one in the morning I figured I needed a break, so I went to the nearest Tesco to pick up a can of Monster.”

Lando nods, presses his knee back against Oscar’s in a little thank you gesture. “Martin had invited me for a gig, but I’d had a ridiculously busy day so I was practically dead on my feet.”

Oscar smiles at Lando, a small little private one, and it’s insane how good of an actor he is, when he seems so incredibly deadpan most of the time. “We both reached for the last can of Monster-“

“Ultra Sunrise, baby,” Lando says, doing a little finger gun motion at Max, who rolls his eyes.

“And then you fell in love,” Jack says, nodding sagely.

Oscar snorts. “No, not really. He started swearing at me, actually.”

Lando’s friends all turn to look at him with a mix of horrified and unsurprised expressions. Lando shrugs. “I was sleepy.”

“See I now know how much danger I was in,” Oscar says, gently bumping his shoulder against Lando’s teasing grin on his face. “But at the time I had no idea how dangerous Sleepy Lando could be, so-“

“He argued back. Said he was sure that he needed it more than me and that I could just get another flavor,” Lando says.

“Blasphemy,” Garret supplies from where he’s sprawled out on the deck.

“And then you fell in love,” Jack says again, making finger guns at Lando.

Lando laughs, tilts his head towards Oscar, smiles softly at him. “Yeah, actually. I mean, he clearly knew who I was. Literally said ‘just because you’re Lando Norris-‘ and yet he wasn’t afraid to argue with me. So I just had this moment, you know. Where I looked at him, and thought. Oh. There you are.”

“Gross, gross, oh my god why did I even ask, why did I ask,” Jack laments, falling backwards in his lounge chair, while Garret’s pretending to barf over the railing of the boat in the background. Max is smiling softly at him from behind his beer bottle.

“Yeah, so he offered it to me, and then I felt bad because you know. I had just yelled at this guy. Over a can of Monster. So I told him he could have it,” Oscar continues.

“Then that went back and forth for a while,” Lando says, laughing again.

“Until eventually Lando said to me. ‘You know what? You can have it, as long as I can have your phone number’.”

“Bullshit,” Max immediately says, and Lando feels his blood run cold. Fuck. They fucked up. Their ruse is over, they can pack up and go home, they’re caught, they’re- “I call bullshit. No way Lando’s that smooth.”

Lando’s still internally panicking, but Oscar merely shrugs. “Well, he was. And it worked, so.”

“Fucking hell man, when you need to pull through you fucking pull through, huh?” Jack says, looking at them in awe. “’You can have it if I can have your number’. That’s fucking smooth.”

Lando pouts at him. “Fuck you guys, I’m smooth.”

“In the sense that you have no fucking body hair, yeah,” Garrett ribs him. “But this? Fucking hell man. I’m impressed.”

“I was too,” Oscar says. “So I gave him my phone number. Didn’t think he’d actually call, but he did. And now here we are.” He turns to Lando, smiles softly at him, and Lando can’t help but smile back. It’s a sweet story, if it was true. He’d loved for it to have been true. To have one of those once in a lifetime first meetings with someone who actually likes you and who you actually like back.

He wishes, secretly, that he’d had something like that with Oscar, maybe. Instead of what they have now. He thinks it could’ve worked, between them, in that other universe where they actually met like this. Maybe Lando isn’t even famous in that one. Maybe he’s just a regular guy, meeting regular Oscar, and they can just have a regular, normal relationship.

It sounds nice. It’s not real, though.

“Alright, while this is all very sweet and stuff,” Garrett says, picking himself up off the floor. “Who’s ready to do some actual wakeboarding?”

“I think that went well,” Oscar says, a little while later, as Lando is trying to clip him into his life jacket, the rest of the boys dicking around on the speedboat a little further away from them. “I think they bought it.”

Lando hums, adjusts the upper strap. He’s trying very hard to focus on the task at hand, and not at the ridiculous planes of naked shoulder he was forced to come face to face with when Oscar pulled off his t-shirt earlier. Seriously. This guy is a programmer. Why does he look like that. The swim shorts alone had already been serious psychological torture, the way they were long enough to not really show anything but would ride up to show a tantalizing strip of thigh whenever he sat down.

And seriously, since when is Lando into thighs? Since when is he into Oscar’s thighs?

Like, he’s acknowledged before, that Oscar’s like. Objectively attractive. This isn’t news to him. He’s noticed the shoulders, he’s not blind. But the shirt was doing at least something to hide the like, everything of it all.

Lando pulls the strap of the life vest a little harder. Oscar barely flinches, just smiles at Lando all cutely. His nose and cheeks are turning a little pink, probably from the sun, and it’s so stupid. This man is not allowed to be hot and also weirdly adorably charming at the same time. It’s like he was put on this earth specifically to taunt Lando, to show him what he can’t have.

Oscar’s still staring at him, and Lando realizes then he’s never even answered his question, so he fastens the last strap, pats his shoulder, and gets up. “Well, I mean, you are a wonderful actor.”

Oscar shrugs. “So are you. The whole ‘Oh, there you are’ bit was a nice touch.”

“Thanks,” Lando says, desperately tries not to think back on when he was standing out on that stage in Silverstone, frantically looking out over the crowd, trying to find someone to get him out of this mess and thinking-

“Alright Piastri!” Jack hollers from near the speedboat. “You’re up, mate!”

“Coming!” Oscar yells, and turns to look at Lando one last time, doing a little ‘well here I am’ motion with his arms. “How do I look?”

“Like a dork,” Lando tells him, because he’s pretty sure that ‘edible’ would put him in some serious trouble.

“Fantastic, that’s exactly what I was going for,” Oscar says dryly, but his eyes are smiling. “Wish me luck?”

Lando smiles, tilts his head. “Like you need it.”

“From you?” Oscar says, eyes crinkling. “Always.”

“Gross,” Max says, appearing out of nowhere to sling an arm around Lando’s shoulders. “Stop fucking flirting you two and get a move on, yeah?”

“We weren’t-“ Lando splutters, but he completely gets ignored as Oscar does a little salute motion and wanders off towards the boat. “Good luck!” Lando yells after him, a little belated.

“You know, I had my doubts,” Max says, staring after Oscar attempts to get the board on his feet. “I mean, with Brad and all that. And then you just pull this guy out of nowhere? I don’t know. It seemed suspicious.”

“Right,” Lando says, voice a little tight. He wishes Oscar was still here. He would know what to say.

“But Oscar’s a good guy. Sweet. Nothing like Brad, which, believe me, is a compliment. I know you were in love with the guy, but Lan, he was a fucking dick to you most of the time. But Oscar,” Max shrugs. “I hope it works out, for you two. You seem to have found something special.”

“Thanks,” Lando says, and for a moment he doesn’t really know what to do with all the emotions swirling around his head. On one hand, he’s glad Max likes Oscar. He values his opinion, probably should’ve listened to it sooner on the whole Brad thing. So it’s nice, that Max thinks that him and Oscar. That they could work.

But it’s. They won’t work, is the thing. Because it’s fake. He hasn’t found anything special, and he will never have anything special. Not with Oscar, at least. It’s all fake. A ruse. A very successful one so far, but still.

By now Oscar’s successfully gotten onto the board, and is zooming past, somehow managing to wave at them as he goes, making Lando laugh and wave back.

“Fucking bastard’s good, too,” Max grumbles, claps Lando on the shoulder again. “Alright, let me go get ready. And remind me to go before Oscar, next time. Going to look like a right tit now that he’s all shown us how it’s done.”

Lando doesn’t react, merely stares at Oscar as he jumps from wave to wave, doing a few tricks Lando is sure is just him showing off. Next time, Max had said. And that’s the thing. Standing on the back of this enormous yacht, watching his fake boyfriend in the water, he can’t help but wish there would be a next time.

But that’s wistful thinking. So Lando shrugs it off, and goes to retrieve his own life jacket.

“Alright, I think we’ve been humiliated enough,” Jack says, as he gets back on the yacht. “Seriously, Piastri, where’d you learn to wakeboard like that?”

Oscar shrugs. “Never done it before, really. But it’s similar, to surfing. Same balance.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Garrett says cheerfully. “Competent and humble. Where’d you say this supermarket was, Lando? Might have to start hanging out there.”

“You wouldn’t be able to charm the pants off a bag of chips,” Max fondly informs Garrett, consolingly patting him on the shoulder. “Come on, group pic before we go.”

“Oh, do we have to,” Jack says, while Garrett starts chanting ‘Group pic! Group pic! Group pic!’ behind him.

Max ignores both of them and hands the camera to one of the employees that’s been helping them all day. Oscar appears right beside Lando, hesitant smile on his face. He’s still in the life vest, which Lando has long taken off, and his hair is wet, curling down over his forehead. His nose has gotten possibly even redder, and Lando’s trying really hard not to be terribly endeared by his entire appearance.

“Hey,” Lando says, quietly, so the other can’t hear. Not that they’re paying attention, too busy squabbling over who’s going to stand where. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” Oscar says, ducking his head down to smile. “Yeah, I, uh. It was nice. Thanks for inviting me. Sorry your boys gave you so much shit about me.”

“Agh,” Lando says, waves his hand around. “I didn’t mind. They would’ve found other shit, if you hadn’t been there.” Plus it was kind of. Nice. Back with Brad, his mates hadn’t been like this at all. It had been clear, even if Lando hadn’t really wanted to see it back then, that they didn’t like Brad. That they distrusted him. But Oscar. They like Oscar. Joke around with him, include him. It’s nice, to get a glimpse at a possible future where he picks the right guy, maybe. One that fits in with his friends. One that they like.

“Love birds, come on!” Garrett hollers, waving them over. Oscar shrugs at him and leads them to where the rest of the boys are. They stand next to each other, right at the edge of the group, and Lando tries not to think too hard about what to do with his hands. Normally, he would sling an arm around his mates, but him and Oscar aren’t mates, but at the same time they are, but they haven’t done much more than holding hands ever since this arrangement started and he doesn’t want to make Oscar uncomfortable, remembers him saying he doesn’t care much for PDA.

He’s shaken from his thoughts by a tentative hand ghosting across his back, his side. When he looks up, a little surprised, Oscar smiles hesitantly at him, almost in question. When Lando smiles back, nods ever so slightly, the hand fully circles around his waist, Oscar’s fingers splayed over his side, brushing against the soft skin of his stomach.

Lando tries to remember to breathe, to smile, to look normal, and not hyper fixate on the feeling of Oscar’s hands on his bare skin, about the way Oscar pulls him into his side so easily.

The picture moment lasts both forever and not nearly long enough and then suddenly Oscar is letting go of him again, taking a step backward, and for an insanity filled second Lando wants to step after him, slot himself back into Oscar’s arms, burrow his face in the spot where Oscar’s neck meets his ridiculously wide shoulders, and stay there for all of time.

But then he remembers where he is, with whom and what they’re doing here, and he shakes his head, a little horrified.

How terribly inconvenient, Lando can’t help but think. My fake boyfriend’s actually hot.

It doesn’t get much better, because the boys decide that obviously they have to go clubbing now, and for some ridiculously insane reason both Lando and Oscar say yes. In Lando’s defense, at the time it had seemed like a good idea. Go out, let off some steam, have fun. Relax.

He doesn’t realize his mistake until he’s already in the club, diet coke in hand, wedged between a sweaty, clearly buzzed Max, and a slightly flushed, bashful Oscar.

Oscar clearly isn’t the going out type. Lando’s pretty sure Oscar’s told him he isn’t the going out type. And yet, there’s something about Oscar, in the strobing lights of the club, with a healthy red flush from the alcohol, hair sticking to his forehead a bit from salt water and sweat, that makes Lando feel. So many things.

Oscar turns to him then, a small private smile on his face, leans forward to yell in Lando’s ear about the music selection, and Lando laughs, can’t help but think about those stupid alternate versions of them again. The non famous ones, who actually did have a dumb little meet cute in a supermarket. They probably do stuff like this all the time, go to clubs together, party together. Maybe they don’t, maybe they stay home and have friends over or just watch TV-shows together.

Maybe they fall asleep in front of the TV every Saturday, Alternate Lando’s head tucked onto Alternate Oscar’s shoulder, Oscar drooling in his sleep a little, until eventually one of them wakes up and urges them to go to bed, all half awake and drowsy. They curl around each other in bed, fall back asleep in minutes.

Or if they do go to the club, maybe they both get a little drunk, lean on each other as they make their way back home, giggling as Oscar fails time and time again to stick the key into the lock of the door, sloppily and drunkenly make out against that same door when they finally make it inside.

And that’s. It would be so easy, right now, to lean over and kiss Oscar. Make a part of that fantasy reality. And he could. Everyone thinks they’re dating anyway. It would make sense. But it feels wrong, somehow. He doesn’t want it, if it’s not the real thing.

And so he turns away from Oscar’s smiling face, takes another sip of his coke, starts jumping along to the music with Max, and tries to forget about all the what if’s that keep haunting him in the back of his head.

anonymous asked:

KATE DID YOU SEE LANDOS INSTA POST IM SOBBING THERES SO MUCH OSCAR

lando-norris4 answered:

I honestly don’t even know where to start. The selfie of them where Oscar’s all squinty eyed and Lando’s beaming all happily into the camera? The picture of Lando at some kind of fancy dinner that’s tagged with Oscar which means they went for a cute fancy little dinner? And Oscar probably took the picture? And Lando’s smiling so softly?

Do not even get me STARTED on the group pic. I think they went wakeboarding? Who cares all I’m thinking about is Oscar pulling Lando close and Lando smiling at Oscar with this surprised lovestruck look on his face. Absolutely bonkers picture. Hang it in the MET.

Like generally they’re very private (aside from launching their relationship in what’s essentially the wildest WAG reveal to date) which I understand because that whole shit with Brad was a lot. But whenever we do get these little glimpses I get so !!! because they clearly have a very healthy loving relationship and I’m so happy for Lando. He truly deserves it after all the shit Brad put him through.

#theres so much more things I can touch on #like how Lando mentioned in that interview with Will that this was one of his best summer breaks ever #and that he feels relaxed and happy and ready to get back into it #and those fans that met lando and oscar who said oscar was soooo sweet #but alas I will keep it to this

34 notes

“See, but I think, if we can get the balance right on the rear wing, and then somehow find the grip, we should be fine, actually. Daniel said his car had much better grip already, compared to the last race, so clearly we just need to do what they did to his car but then more,” Lando says, waving his hands around as he speaks. “I mean, I don’t know if we can fix it between now and Quali tomorrow, but like, it’s a start, right?”

Oscar, who’s sitting across from him in a tiny little restaurant tucked away in a small Italian village near Monza, smiles softly at him. “Right, yeah. Or, you can just do whatever they did to Max’s car, and then you can start winning championships.”

“Oh haha,” Lando says, rolls his eyes, throws a bit of bread from the bread basket in front of them at him. Oscar laughs and catches it effortlessly. “You know what I mean. Like I don’t know what they did to Daniel’s car exactly, but the engineers do. I think. I hope.” Oscar’s clearly trying to hold back a laugh. Lando pouts at him. “Whatever. Hey, do you want to share a plate of spaghetti? We can like, Lady and the Tramp it.”

“I’m not Lady and the Tramp-ing a plate of spaghetti with you,” Oscar says, opening his own menu. “Besides, I was kind of feeling pizza?”

“Okay, so you hate me,” Lando says, nodding. “Cool. Wish you would’ve just told me. This is just cruel.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “Jon’s not letting you have pizza, huh.”

Lando nods despairingly and lets his head flop down on the table. “Jon hates me, too.”

“Tell you what,” Oscar says. “If you promise me I won’t have to Lady and the Tramp your spaghetti with you, I’ll let you have a bite of pizza.”

Lando perks up. “Two bites.”

“One,” Oscar says. “Or Jon will hate me, too.”

“Hm, okay, so you care more about what Jon thinks of you than me, your loving and caring boyfriend.”

“Yes,” Oscar says, without hesitation. “Now, yes or no.”

“Fine,” Lando says, sighing dramatically. “One bite.”

[Blurry picture of Oscar in an Italian restaurant. He has a piece of spaghetti in his mouth that leads somewhere off camera, and the look on his face is a mix between exasperated and fond]

landonorris the lady to my tramp (plus he let me have THREE bites of pizza. a real keeper. don’t tell jon)

liked by mclaren and 1.578 others

danielricciardo telling jon as we speak

landonorris 🥺

norriswdc me and who

fastboys oh please they’re so cute 😭

“Well, anyway, after that Max was like, ‘you fucking idiot’ but like, it worked, so,” Lando shrugs, as they make their way through the paddock towards the McLaren motorhome. “Who’s the idiot now?”

“Still you, I think,” Oscar says, next to him, his hand intertwined with Lando, by now a warm and familiar presence.

“But I was right,” Lando argues back. “It worked. So that automatically makes me-“ he pauses, stops walking. “What’s wrong?”

“Hm?” Oscar says. He looks back to Lando, a distracted look on his face. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

“No, it’s,” Lando holds up their clasped hands. “You like. Squeezed my hand. Real quick. Like something startled you.”

“Ah,” Oscar says. “Oh, well it’s. It’s nothing, really. Just. Uh. That’s Alec Baker.” He gestures at a guy standing a little further away from them, chatting to some Mercedes personnel.

Lando blinks. “Who?”

Oscar looks at him, clearly confused. “Alec Baker? The cricket player?”

“Right, cricket,” Lando says. “That’s the game where you hit a ball through these little hoops, right? Didn’t know you could go pro in that.”

“What? No, that’s croquet,” Oscar says, staring at Lando a little bewildered. “I’m talking about cricket? With the bats?” When Lando keeps looking at him a little blanky, Oscar’s bewildered look turns a little desperate. “Lando, come on, you’re British. The Ashes?”

“The ashes of who,” Lando says, and Oscar lets out a strangled little sound.

“God, I just. The second we’re back in the hotel room, I’m teaching you about cricket. I can’t believe you don’t even know what it is.”

Lando shrugs a little bashfully. “Sorry, mate. Now, come on, let’s go talk to him.”

Oscar’s weak ‘No, wait, we can’t just go talk to him’ gets swallowed up by the sounds of the paddock, as Lando strides over to Alex Baker and extends his hand. “Hi, Lando Norris, nice to meet you.”

“Alec Baker,” Alec Baker says. “Awesome to meet you. Huge fan.”

“Thank you, means a lot,” Lando says. “Actually I wanted to introduce you to my boyfriend?” He says, giving Oscar, who’s appeared back next to him, a careful little push forward. “He’s a huge fan of yours, actually.”

“Hi,” Oscar says, smiling a little awkwardly. “I, uh, hi. Oscar. Piastri. Big fan. Of your work. And all.”

Alec Baker happily shakes Oscar’s hand, and then Oscar mentions something about ‘last week’s match’ and then Alec starts explaining something and Lando loses the conversation entirely. He’s happy to lean back though, watch Oscar light up as he talks to Alec, clearly excited to get to talk about this sport with someone who plays it. It’s nice to be able to give back a little to Oscar when Oscar’s already done so much for him.

Eventually Alec has to leave, and Caroline has been bouncing nervously in Lando’s peripheral vision for a good while now, so they say goodbye and continue their track to the Mclaren motorhome.

“Thanks,” Oscar says, right before they head in, squeezing Lando’s hand one last time before letting go. “That was. Yeah. Thank you.”

“Any time,” Lando says, and means it.

[Carousel of pictures showing multiple celebrities at the Singapore GP. The last picture is a shot of Oscar talking to Alec Baker, an awestruck look on his face.]

f1 Celebrities enjoying the Singapore GP!

liked by landonorris and 1.268 others

chloe_smith howling over the love struck look on oscar’s face that boy is SMITTEN

letsgolando apparently lando said in an interview oscar’s a really big cricket fan and so it was really cool for him to meet alec which is SO SWEET but objectively. this is hilarious. lando watch out alec’s coming for your man

suziewinters lando about to get really into cricket mark my words

“Lando, seriously, it’ll be fine, stop stressing,” Oscar says, from where he’s sprawled on the couch in their hotel room. He’s typing away on his laptop, something for work, and every once in a while he frowns down at his screen in a way Lando tries really hard not to find adorable. The blankets and pillow he uses at night have been pushed to the side, because he still refuses to share the bed because ‘Lando you need the sleep’ which Lando has stopped feeling guilty about.

Mostly. Partly. Not at all.

“Bleugh,” Lando says, into his pillow, from where he’s face down on the bed.

“This is good right? I mean the upgrades are working, the car looks like it’s fast. You might even get pole position,” Oscar says, bites his lip as he glances at his screen.

“I’m not going to get pole position,” Lando tells the pillow miserably.

“Not with that attitude,” Oscar says dryly. “Tell you what. Incentive. You get pole position, I wear that stupid McLaren branded bowtie you showed me the other week to that sponsor event we’ve got coming up.”

At this, Lando’s head pops up. “The orange one?” He asks, tentatively glancing at Oscar.

“With the little logos on it, yes,” Oscar says, as he looks at Lando over the edge of his laptop screen. He has just showered, and his hair is still a little wet, hair curling over his forehead in a way that reminds Lando of the summer break, of their wakeboard outing and the broad broad broad shoulders Lando now knows Oscar hides under those plain t-shirts.

“Ah,” Lando says, considers this. “Well, I mean. When you put it like that. Guess I’m getting pole tomorrow.”

“Atta boy,” Oscar says, and goes back to coding.

Oscar fidgets with his bowtie as they make their way out of the car and onto the pavement. “C’mere,” Lando says. “Stop with the,” he wiggles his fingers and Oscar dutifully steps into his space and lets Lando fix his bowtie. “Looks good on you,” Lando says, brushing his fingers over the bowtie, down Oscar’s fitted suit jacket. “Orange’s your color.”

“Thanks,” Oscar says dryly. “Dark gray is yours,” he adds, bumps his shoulder against Lando’s as they start making their way inside.

Lando glances down at his own dark gray suit. It’s fine, really. Not his best one. He hates that he has to button the shirt all the way to the top, making him feel like it’s hard to breathe. He’s never been able to effortlessly wear a suit, not the way Oscar apparently can. Seriously, just when Lando thought Oscar couldn’t get more stupidly attractive, the guy had to go and put on a suit.

Lando’s not even a suit person, usually. Sure, it looks nice, but he’s not attracted to it or anything. But there’s something about the way Oscar wears one, the way it makes him look more put together, calmer, more serious, that’s somehow really doing it for Lando.

Also the orange McLaren bowtie should really put Lando off. And yet.

“Alright, game plan,” Lando says. “We make the rounds, talk to as many as possible, but we keep it moving always. If we’re lucky we can be out of here in an hour and go get something to eat. These things always leave me fucking starving.”

“Don’t they serve food?” Oscar asks, as they beeline for the bar.

“They do, but it’s always. Complicated,” Lando pulls a face, gestures at the bartender for two gin and tonics.

“Complicated,” Oscar deadpans.

“Yeah, like, frilly little things. Never quite know what’s in them. Don’t want to take the plunge, really,” Lando says, glances around. There’s a few marks they have to hit, a few sponsors that he has to talk to to satisfy Zak and Caroline. But he’s done this before, knows the pitfalls, and so he starts mentally mapping a route through the room.

“So you just, what, starve?” Oscar asks, incredulous, accepts the two gin and tonics from the bartender and hands one to Lando.

“What? No, I just told you,” Lando says, starts making its way towards one of the sponsors. “I try to get through these things as fast as possible and then I treat myself to a McChicken. Ultimate game plan.”

“Right,” Oscar says. “I see flaws.”

“Tsk,” Lando says, waves his hands around. “Hardly any. Except that time with the five hour fundraiser where I nearly fainted but like. That was once.”

“Lando,” Oscar scolds, but before he can say anything else, they come to a standstill in front of… Lando’s pretty sure the guy owns a bank. Several banks. Maybe a company in.. something. He’s suddenly very grateful for having to introduce Oscar, because then people have to introduce himself to him and now suddenly he doesn’t have to remember all of these names.

Huh. Maybe he should consider getting fake boyfriends more often.

They schmooze their way around the room, something Oscar turns out to be annoyingly good at. “I have to do a lot of networking,” he explains, between one executive and the next. “Freelance, you know. You have to really work for it, sometimes.”

“Hey, I don’t mind,” Lando says. “I’m horrible at coming up with conversation topics for these things. I once asked the CEO of some tech company if he had an iPhone. Turns out he manufactured phones. And they were not iPhones.”

Oscar laughs at that, and steers Lando away from an oncoming group of people with a hand on his back. Actually Oscar’s been touching him a lot all night, fleeing little things that are slowly driving Lando a little nuts. A hand on his elbow, Oscar’s fingers splayed along his back, one time an arm looped around his waist. It’s very comforting, this constant reminder that Oscar’s right there that he’s not alone.

He’s just glancing around the room, mentally checking off how many people they still have to go, ignoring the slight rumbling off his stomach, when Oscar says, “Okay, do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Lando says, without thinking about it, and then. “I mean, uh, yeah, why?”

Oscar’s holding up some kind of food tidbit, a little dough like shell with some kind of chopped thingy in it and looking at Lando expectantly.

“Oscar…” Lando says, frowns.

“I tasted it, beforehand,” Oscar says, and then, again, “Do you trust me?”

And he does. Oscar’s never steered him wrong before. Has never mocked him or ridiculed him. Has been nothing but kind and patient and caring. And so before he overthinks it he opens his mouth, and then has a small moment of panic when he sees the surprised look on Oscar’s face and realizes Oscar meant take it from my hand not literally hand feed it you.

But before Lando can close his mouth again Oscar moves, and the little bit of food is sliding into his mouth, his lips brushing against the pads of Oscar’s fingers, and Oscar is still so close and they’re making eye contact and god Lando had never realized how beautifully brown Oscar’s eyes were before but now he is and he doesn’t know what to do with that information.

He closes his mouth around the bite, almost around Oscar’s fingers, tries not to overthink that too much and then chews a few times.

“Yeah,” he says, voice a little rough, because Oscar is still staring at him, his eyes wide and pupils blown, and fuck. Were they like. Having a moment? “It’s, yeah, it’s good.” He finishes.

And then suddenly, as quickly as it had appeared, the look on Oscar’s face is gone, replaced with a stoic, neutral look. “Told you,” he says, in the same dry way he usually uses when he teases Lando, and Lando laughs, shakes his head.

“Yeah, yeah. I trust you, or whatever. Now, let’s see if we can find more of these… thingies. I’m fucking starving.”

They end up staying longer than planned, Lando feeling much more agreeable to chatting up rich CEOs and entrepreneurs now he actually gets to eat some snacks, and by the time they stumble out of the venue again, it’s already dark out.

“I do still want that McChicken, though,” Lando says. “I’ve been looking forward to it all week.”

“Of course,” Oscar says, which is how they end up sitting in a small booth in the back corner of a McDonalds, roughly half an hour later.

“I mean, it’s not like they’re boring,” Lando says, munching on a french fry. “They’re just…”

“Boring,” Oscar says, around a bite of his own McWrap. He has ditched his suit jacket and bowtie, has undone the first few buttons of his shirt, rolled up the sleeves. It’s a ridiculous attractive look, despite the horrible fluorescent lighting and the fact that he has a bit of honey mustard stuck in the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” Lando concedes with a sigh. “I think it’s because they’re mandatory, you know? Like I don’t think I would mind talking to most of these people on a regular basis. CEO’s, entrepreneurs, they could have cool stories to tell you know? It’s just that I have to. And in that case I would rather be at home, or hang out with my friends, or you know,” he holds up his burger.

“No, I get it,” Oscar says. “Plus the attire. I always feel so out of place whenever I have to wear a suit.”

“Don’t,” Lando says, before he can stop himself. “You look fucking hot.”

“Oh,” Oscar says, cheeks pinkening, ducking behind his wrap. “That’s. Uh. Thank you? I mean, you kind of have to say that, as my pretend boyfriend and all.”

“Part of the contract,” Lando says, nodding sagely. It aches, again, the pretend bit. He wouldn’t mind, if this was real. Sponsorship events really are much easier when you’ve got someone next to you who will whisper dumb jokes in your ear and keep a steadying hand on your back and feed you all the right snacks.

He aches for something like this. A nice boy who he can take to these events, who he can go for burgers with afterwards, who will sit with him in the corner booth, who will share his portion of french fries with him because he insisted he didn’t want any but then changed his mind the second they were served. Who will smile at him the way Oscar is now, soft and gentle and a little sleepy, who will laugh at his jokes even though they are ridiculously not funny.

He aches for Oscar. Or well, not Oscar. Obviously he can’t have Oscar. But he aches for someone like Oscar. He never really realized how great it could be to have a partner in crime like this. Mostly because it was never this good with Brad. Everything was always a fight. Whenever Lando wanted to go somewhere, whatever he wanted to eat, whoever he talked to. Everything was a fight. With Oscar, it’s easy. It’s giving Lando a glimpse of how it can be. And sure, Oscar is essentially hired by McLaren to be a good boyfriend, but Lando can tell this is just who he is.

He hopes to find that someday. With someone.

For now, he steals another of Oscar’s fries, and tries not to stare too long at the way the rolled up sleeves of Oscar’s shirt stretch across his bicep.

“Alright, that’s it,” Lando says, throwing his phone on the sheets beside him and sitting up in bed. They’re in the hotel, he’s just finished all his media obligations for the upcoming United States GP. Tomorrow’s free practice, but before that there’s relaxing, and dinner, and a whole evening they can spend however they want. Lando’s hoping to finally beat Oscar in Mario Kart.

Except Oscar’s been angrily muttering at his laptop, trying to get some last minute work done before the race weekend really kicks off. “What?” Oscar says, looks up. His semi-permanent frown completely disappears when his eyes fall on Lando.

“You’re-“ Lando waves his hand in the direction of Oscar’s laptop. “You sound like you’re three seconds away from throwing the thing out of the window.”

“Oh,” Oscar says, glares at his laptop again. “Yeah. Well. Kind of?” When Lando raises an eyebrow in question Oscar sighs, continuing, “It’s a very old model. Very slow, too. I just have this one little thing I need to get done but it’s taking me forever because the whole thing keeps fucking crashing.”

“Ah,” Lando says. “I mean. Sounds like it’s time to buy a new laptop, maybe?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Oscar says, squints at his screen, taps at something. “I have a few jobs lined up that should give me enough cash to set aside for a laptop. I think.”

Lando frowns at him. “What about the money McLaren’s paying you,” he says, and then ads, horrified, “They are paying you, right?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Oscar says, not looking up from his screen, fiddling with something, clearly distracted. “Donated that money to charity that supports girls getting into software engineering. Oh for fuck’s sake.” He mutters darkly at his laptop some more, but all Lando can do is stare at him with wide eyes.

“You. You donated it?”

Finally, Oscar looks up, shrugs. “I don’t need it, do I? I make enough with my job. Rather put it towards the future of my profession.”

“Right,” Lando says, nods, tries to digest that information. “But you do need it,” he adds, gesturing towards the laptop in Oscar’s lap.

“Meh,” Oscar says, shrugs. “I’ll be fine. Like I said, I have a bunch of jobs lined up and such.”

Lando stares at the laptop a little longer. Thinks about everything Oscar’s done for him. Thinks about Oscar receiving that money and immediately donating it to a charity that’s clearly close to his heart. “Alright,” he says, getting up from the bed, retrieving his phone and wallet from somewhere in the sheets. “Get up, let’s go.”

“What?” Oscar asks, frowns at Lando. “Where are we going?”

“We,” Lando says, grinning widely and extending his arms. “Are buying you a new laptop.”

“I, Lando, you don’t-“ Oscar starts.

“I know I don’t,” Lando says, cutting him off. “Now come on, get your ass off the couch, up, up, let’s find the nearest Electronic store and hope it’s still open. What brand did you have in mind?”

“None, because I don’t need a new laptop at all,” Oscar says, but gets up anyway, tosses his old laptop aside.

“We’ll just see when we get there,” Lando says, herding Oscar out the door. “Vamos!”

The nearest Electronics’ store is only a ten minute drive away and open until ten, which, score. “Alright,” Lando says, when they step inside and head for the laptop section. “I have no idea what’s good, so. Should we ask someone?”

“It’s fine, I can just get an Acer Aspire or a Lenovo IdeaPad,” Oscar says, scanning the shelves.

Lando squints at him. “Why do I feel like those are the cheap options.”

Oscar shrugs. “I mean, I don’t need much, so it’s-“

“What do you mean, you don’t need much, this is literally your entire job,” Lando says, shaking his head. “No, either you start taking this seriously or I just buy you the most expensive laptop I can find. Now, come on. What’s like, your dream laptop.”

Oscar bites his lip, stares out over the sea of laptops. “I mean, I guess I’ve kind of always wanted a MacBook? Those are good for coding, so.”

“Alright, MacBook it is,” Lando says, heading for the very obvious Apple section. “We should get you a case as well. And a mouse. And a keyboard. Do you have a second screen at home?”

Oscar frowns at him. Lando pouts. Oscar frowns harder. Lando pouts harder. “Fine,” Oscar relents. “But I already have a second screen.”

“Egh, it’s fine,” Lando says. “We can just get you a new one.”

Oscar grumbles some more, but when they reach the MacBooks, there’s an excited little glint in his eyes, and he starts pointing out the differences between all the types and what he prefers. Lando lets him ramble on, tries not to smile too fondly when Oscar talks himself through a ten minute monologue about 14 inch vs. 16 inch screens, and wanders around a bit while Oscar considers his options, collecting a bunch of random accessories he might also need.

When he returns, Oscar is holding one laptop, but wistfully eyeing another. A quick glance tells Lando there’s roughly a 1.500 euro difference between the two. “Alright,” he says, breezing past Oscar and grabbing the laptop Oscar had been eyeing, totally ignoring the one in Oscar’s hands. “This one?” He asks, and then starts browsing the shelf. “Looks like we can do either… Black, grey or white. Wow, okay, that’s boring, but whatever. We can spruce it up, it’ll be fine. So, what will it be?”

He turns to Oscar, who opens his mouth, clearly ready to protest, but shuts it, sighs, puts the laptop he’d been holding back on the shelf. “I like the classic gray.”

“’Course you do,” Lando says, fondly. “Alright, let’s get this to the check out. I also got you a pair of air pods. Didn’t know which you preferred so I got the earbuds and the headphones.”

“Lando-“

“I swear to god Oscar if you start protesting I’ll throw in an iPad too.”

At that, Oscar wisely closes his mouth, and lets himself be directed towards check out.

Lando doesn’t regret his decision one bit when they’re back in the hotel room later and he watches Oscar reverently unwrap his laptop. They’re on the bed, because they needed the space to set everything out, and Lando bites his lip as he watches Oscar carefully take the laptop out of its packaging.

“Happy?” Lando asks, fidgeting nervously. I mean. Sure, Oscar seems happy with it, but now that they’re back in their quiet, dark hotel room, it feels all a little too much all of a sudden. The way Lando had just dragged him to the store, forced a laptop on him. Oscar had already denied the money McLaren had offered, and now instead Lando had gone and bought him a ridiculously expensive laptop.

Which he wanted to do. Oscar’s been such a good sport about the whole thing, has been guiding him through it all. Caroline had said how much of a positive effect Oscar’s presence had had on Lando’s image. So he just. He wants to thank Oscar for all he’s done, and this just made sense. Oscar needed something Lando could provide him with.

But still. What if it’s too much? Lando tends to do that. Be too much. Brad certainly thought he was. What if he can’t even do this right? A thing that isn’t even real?

“I love it,” Oscar breathes out, quietly, holding the laptop in his hands like it’s his everything. “Lando, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Ah, don’t worry,” Lando says, waves it away, swallowing the fear that has been building in his throat. “Least I could do.” He gets up, rummages around. “It’s missing something, though,” he says, from where he’s face first in his suitcase.

“Oh?” Oscar says, inspects his laptop, holds it upside down.

“Ha!” Lando says, reemerging from his suitcase with something in hand, crawling back onto the bed, close to where Oscar is sitting. “Told you I’d spruce it up,” he says, leans over the laptop still in Oscar’s hand and very carefully puts one of his merch stickers in the corner. It’s a mock-up, not yet in production, and Lando wasn’t sure about actually selling it until now, when he sees the big bold neon green ‘LN4’ on the light gray of Oscar’s MacBook. It looks good. Like it belongs there.

When Lando looks up, Oscar’s right there, his face so much closer than it was before, and there’s a soft, almost bashful smile on his face. From this close up Lando can count each individual mole on Oscar’s face, trace them with his eyes like they’re constellations in the sky. The thing with Oscar is that he’s so quietly beautiful, in a way that grabs you and makes you scared to look away. Like you’ll miss something, somehow, if you blink.

Oscar’s mouth is close to his. Right there. If Lando leaned forward, just a little, he could close the space between them, let their mouths brush together in a soft, tender kiss. And for a moment, for a wild, insanity fueled moment, he thinks he might. Kiss Oscar. But then Oscar smiles, soft and fond, and leans back and says, “You’re right. Totally spruced it up.”

Lando leans back too, puts some distance between himself and Oscar and his scrambled thoughts. Now, with space between them and the bubble broken, he realizes what a spectacularly bad idea that would’ve been.

But he wants. And for the first time he realizes he maybe doesn’t want something like Oscar.

He wants Oscar.

‘Fuck,’ he thinks, eloquently. ‘Fucking shitting fuckity fuck’. “Of course I’m right,” he says out loud. “I’m always right.”

Oscar laughs, one of those full body things, throws his head back so it bangs against the headboard, exposing the long column of his throat. Lando wants to put his face there, press kisses against the soft skin of his neck, suck bruises there until everyone knows who Oscar belongs to.

Instead, he gets off the bed, heads towards the bathroom. “Alright, I will leave you and your new lover alone, then.”

“Lando, wait,” Oscar says, and Lando turns around so fast he thinks he might give himself whiplash, looks at Oscar hopefully because what if what if what if.

But Oscar just smiles, says, “Seriously. Thank you.” One more time, and then goes back to unwrapping his laptop.

Once he’s in the bathroom, Lando lets his head fall back against the door, sighs deeply. Fucking shitting fuckity fuck, indeed.

LN⁴ @LN4 ∙ 47m

New stickers incoming!!! Also exciting things happening over on @Quadrant soon. Stay tuned!

http://landonorris.store/products/ln4-sticker-chrome?varient=4234892

54 replies 234 reposts 459 likes

Lando’s just in the middle of shoving a giant wooden cube through the space, when Oscar suddenly appears beside him. “Hey.”

“Oh, hey,” Lando says, straightening up. He runs a hand through his hair, which is probably all over the fucking place, and tries to act all cool, calm, casual. “You made it! I didn’t expect you to come.”

Oscar frowns at him. “You invited me,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” he gestures around the space. They’re in a large warehouse, preparing for a merch shoot for his newest Quadrant drop. “I mean, it’s not a mandatory thing, or anything. Or well, I mean, none of the things are mandatory, you can tap out whenever you want, but like. It’s not a race or anything, this is not a publicity thing. I just thought you might like to see what I was doing here. Which, you did know that, right? That you didn’t have to come? I didn’t like, force you here?”

All and all, Lando thinks he’s doing a great job at not letting this whole ‘hey I might like you’ thing get to his head, or whatever.

Oscar raises an eyebrow. “I know. But you always talk about Quadrant so fondly, so,” he shrugs. “I wanted to come.”

“Great, cool, awesome, fantastic,” Lando says, nodding a little too excitedly. “Awesome.”

“You’ve said,” Oscar says, smiling.

“Yeah, well, yeah,” Lando busies himself with the giant wooden block again. “I’m just uh, finishing setting up, there’s coffee on the table over at the wall there, I think Max is there somewhere too? The models should be here in like an hour or so, so I have time to give you a little tour before we have to get started.”

Oscar nods, and heads towards the coffee table, leaving Lando to flop a little uselessly against the wooden block before taking a deep breath and pushing it along again.

Roughly twenty minutes later him and the photographer are happy enough with the setup that Lando allows himself a break, and he wanders over to where Max and Oscar are sitting on a couch together, bent over Max’s laptop, talking quietly.

“Whatcha gossiping about,” Lando says, falling down on the couch next to Oscar and trying not to think about how the slightly cramped space pushes their thighs together.

“Oh, just picking Oscar’s brain about the website. Remember the hoodie customization thing we’ve been thinking about? Just wanted to see what was possible,” Max says, closing the laptop and tossing it to the side.

“I mean whoever you’ve got doing your website now is doing a great job,” Oscar says. “Looked at it a few weeks ago, curiosity, you know. But it looks great. There’s some improvement points but like, aren’t there always?”

“Hm,” Lando says, tries not to read too much into Oscar checking out the Quadrant website because he was curious. It’s ridiculous, how effortlessly Oscar seems to care. And that for someone he isn’t even interested in, someone who isn’t even his real boyfriend. He briefly wonders what Oscar The Real Boyfriend would be like, realizes that way madness lies, and immediately shuts down that train of thought. “Did Max give you a tour yet?”

“Sort of,” Max says, shrugs, sweeps his arm through the space. “Tada. There, did the tour.”

Lando rolls his eyes. “You’re such a dick sometimes. Come on,” he adds to Oscar. “Let me show you the merch we’re shooting.”

Max wanders after them as they make their way over to the rack of clothing, Lando pulling out pieces as they go. “I wanted to do a bit of a darker color scheme this time? Usually we do like, pastels, or bright colors, or just simple black, but this time I wanted to go with a darker green?”

He doesn’t add that he’d kind of been inspired by the hoodie Oscar had been wearing a while back. It had been dark green, and in the soft morning light of the paddock, both still sleepy from having just woken up, all Lando had wanted to do was crawl into the front pocket and take a nap. And it was that feeling of soft cozy comfort that he’d wanted to translate into the collection.

Max sends him a knowing look over Oscar’s head. Lando sticks his tongue out at him.

“They’re very soft,” Oscar says, running his hand over the fabric of one of the dark green hoodies.

“I love soft,” Lando says, right as Max says, “You want to try one on?”

Lando glares at him. Max wiggles his eyebrows. “Oh, no, I’m okay,” Oscar says, dropping the hoodie sleeve. “Really, it’s fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Here. You are an M right?” Max says, taking a hoodie from the rack and shoving it in Oscar’s hands.

Oscar stares at it for a second and then shrugs, pulling it over his head. “Well?” He asks, spreading his arms wide a little bashfully once he’s got it on. “How do I look?”

Like someone who Lando would love to snuggle up next to on the couch. Like someone whose hoodies he’d love to steal, burrowing his nose in the collar to smell the vague hints of shower gel and laundry detergent he gets whiffs of from Oscar sometimes. Like someone who’s arms he’d love to wrap himself into, relishing in the comfort.

Like home.

“Like a real model,” he says instead.

Oscar laughs, shakes his head. “Sure,” he says, and goes to take the hoodie off again.

“No, don’t,” Lando says, a little too sharply. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, but he likes seeing Oscar in his clothes. Even though it’s not his own merch, he designed this hoodie. He decided the color, the fit, the placing of the logo. And seeing it on Oscar, it stirs something inside him. Something possessive. “It’s fine,” he adds, a little more mildly, when Max raises an eyebrow at him. “You can keep it, we have plenty.”

“Oh,” Oscar says, glancing down at the hoodie. “Well. It is very cozy.”

Right then the models start arriving, and Lando gets swept up in the delusions of the day, directing models around and doing some modeling of his own as well. Every once in a while he glances at Oscar, who’s always close but never in the way, still wrapped up in Lando’s dark green hoodie, and he can’t help but smile.

Oscar stays, the entire day, never complains, not even when Lando falls asleep on him somewhere near the end. Just patiently waits until he wakes up, tells him it’s time to go, herds him towards the car. Makes sure he remembers to eat, to drink, actively engages in conversations with the crew about what they’re doing.

It reminds Lando once again, how good of a boyfriend Oscar would be.

You know, if it were real.

f1racing

hello?????? max f’s insta story????????

#i am going to CRY what the hell that’s so cute

25 notes

maddie @maddiemclaren ∙ 9m

wait that green hoodie oscar’s wearing in max f’s insta story is that new quadrant merch???

5 replies 3 reposts 6 likes

sam 🧡@pookienorris ∙ 4m

replying to @maddiemclaren

BITCH WHO CARES ABOUT THE NEW MERCH LANDO ASLEEP ON OSCAR’S SHOULDER THAT’S THE REAL STORY HERE

2 replies 0 reposts 4 likes

formulabitchin

every week i’m like this is the week i’m going to be normal about lando and his boyfriend. and every week they do something else that makes me bouncing off the walls insane

#yeah yeah lando’s head on oscar’s shoulder as he snoozes is very cute #but can we talk about the absolutely LOVESTRUCK FOND SOFT look on oscar’s face??? #where did lando find this man and how do i get one

37 notes

The thing is, maybe he should’ve seen this coming. Everything was going great. Him and Oscar had fallen into a comfortable routine with the whole PR relationship thing, the car had been a rocket ship, he’d gotten pole only a few races ago, and even though he hadn’t managed to turn it into a race win, it had been a promise of better things to come.

So yeah, everything was going great. Too great.

The weekend starts off fine. The free practices pass without any shenanigans, and he manages to secure P2 in qualifying. It’s no pole, but still. Front row. There’s a chance there. So he goes into the race with hopes. Dreams. Expectations. Oscar’s there, wishes him good luck before scurrying to his corner of the garage, grabs the giant orange headphones McLaren provided for him.

Lando stares at the tiny printed LN on the side of the headphones for a bit before he takes a deep breath, gets in the car.

He has a race to win.

The first few laps are great. He doesn’t manage to jump ahead at the start like he’d hoped, but he’s keeping up with Max’s Red Bull, manages to keep Carlos’s Ferrari behind. P1, the win, is still very much in his sights. The Red Bull hasn’t been as fast as it had been at the start of the season, and with the way it’s going, it’s only a matter of time until Lando gets past.

The first pitstop goes great, he keeps the position, gains on Max with every lap, who despite having had a pitstop himself seems to struggle with his tires. Carlos is still close behind him, but not in a way that’s threatening.

But then everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

The frustrating thing, Lando thinks, is that it isn’t really anyone’s fault. Racing accident, they’ll later say. Just two cars racing hard. One trying to gain a position, another defending. But in the moment, it feels like the end of the world. He wants to scream, as he hobbles back to the pits with a broken front wing.

If he’d just taken the corner a little wider, steered in a little earlier, reacted a little quicker. He knows it’s no use to get stuck on the ‘what if’s’, but he can’t help himself, can’t stop feeling like he threw away the race, the possible win, for something that could have been avoided.

He apologizes to the team, who all clap him on the back in consolation, but whose smiles are tight and small. He knows they’re disappointed, that they would’ve loved the celebration of a win. He feels like he’s let them down, feels the weight of all the expectations on his shoulders as he makes his way out of the car, towards his race engineers.

The debrief is short, to the point. There isn’t much to say other than he fucked it up, though his race engineers are nice enough not to say it like that. Still, when they analyze the lines he should have taken instead, just so he knows better next time, he still feels like a kid receiving a scolding.

The worst part is that when they do let him go he knows it’s not the end of it, knows he has to face a grueling round of press first before he can go back to the hotel room and wallow in self-pity for a bit. So he takes a deep breath, makes his way out of the garage.

And there, waiting for him among a sea of photographers and fans all clamoring to get a look at him, is Oscar.

He’s standing a respectful distance away, just sort of waiting, not demanding any of Lando’s time or attention. And yet, Lando finds himself beelining straight for him. Oscar must read something on his face, because in a move that is entirely un-Oscar like, he opens his arms and lets Lando fall straight into his embrace.

And Lando can’t do anything but lean into it, wraps his arms around Oscar, buries his nose in Oscar’s t-shirt to take in the familiar smell of shower gel and laundry detergent that sort of always lingers in his hotel room these days. Oscar, for his part, wraps his arms around Lando, runs a comforting hand over his back. He doesn’t say anything, which Lando is grateful for. There isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said.

Slowly, the world rights itself again, and the weight on Lando’s shoulders becomes a little lighter. It helps, knowing he isn’t the only one lifting it. When he pulls away, Oscar smiles softly at him, and god. Lando really truly does not deserve him.

“Alright,” Oscar says. “Off you go. The press is waiting for you. I’ll be here when you get back, yeah?”

Promise, Lando wants to say. Promise me you’ll be here. But he doesn’t have to. Because Oscar will be. And with that thought stuck in his brain, Lando nods, squares his shoulders, and makes his way over to the press area.

mctwink reblogged

startstrucknorris

have u been playing the lando/oscar post brazil hug on repeat for the past three hours or r u normal

#are any of us normal at this point #its the way lando FOLDS into oscar #thats his boy thats his HOME #makes me SICK

164 notes

The second Lando’s done with all his post-race obligations, they go back to the hotel room. Usually he would go to a party, even if he DNF’d, even if he had a shit race, but this one. This one hurts just a little bit more than the others do. Maybe it’s because it had been going so well. Maybe because this was the first time since Miami that he had a real, true chance to win.

Oscar leaves him alone for most of the car ride, happy to drive while Lando stares wistfully out of the window. It isn’t until they’re back in the hotel room that he finally speaks up. “Do you want to be alone for a bit?” Oscar asks, hovering in the doorway as Lando flops down onto the bed. “I can leave, if you want. Wander around the city for a while.”

Whereas before Lando would’ve relished in the chance to be alone after a bad race so he can wallow in self-pity in peace, he finds he really doesn’t want to be alone this time. So he shakes his head, pats the sheets next to him. “Stay? We can like, watch a movie or something.”

“Sure,” Oscar says, and then tentatively climbs his way onto the bed. He hasn’t been there since the time they unpacked his MacBook, still insists on sleeping on the couch. But he settles down to Lando easily, still an entire human’s space between them as Lando turns on the TV and flips through the available movies. He settles on one of the Fast and the Furious movies, and leans back into his own pillow, sighing deeply.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Oscar asks, and when Lando looks up his expression is soft, neutral. If Lando said no, he’d accept it.

But Lando does want to talk about it. And Oscar seems to understand him, in a way. So he breathes out slowly, fiddles with one of his bracelets. “I’m just scared my win’s going to be a one off,” he says, mostly to his bracelets. “Like, for so long I felt like I had to prove people I could win a race, and now that I have I feel like I need to prove that I can do it again. That it wasn’t just a fluke.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Oscar says, nodding. “You will, though.”

Lando scoffs. “Will I, though? I mean look at today. Had the perfect shot and then I fucking blew it.”

“It was a racing incident,” Oscar says. He’s closer, somehow. No longer an entire person of space between them. If Lando reached out his hand, he could grab Oscar’s. He doesn’t.

“Was it?” Lando asks his bracelet, a little forlornly. “Because if I’d just taken the corner a little wider, steered in a little earlier-“

Oscar shakes his head. “What did Verstappen say the other day? If my mother had balls she’d be my dad?” He says it so deadpan, so serious, Lando can’t help but laugh, his hand falling away from his bracelet. “Seriously, Lando. You know better than anyone it’s no use getting hung up on what if’s.”

“I know,” Lando says, sighing. Their shoulders are touching now, somehow. “But still. What if I really never win again?”

“You will,” Oscar says, without a second’s hesitation. “Want me to incentivize you with the McLaren bowtie again? Because I will.”

Lando laughs, bumps his shoulder against Oscar’s. “No, I’m okay. Thanks, though.”

“Anytime,” Oscar says, and he’s looking at Lando so intently Lando has to look away before he does something truly insane.

There’s a loud noise and the TV and their attention gets pulled away back to the screen. When Lando does finally dare to glance back at Oscar, Oscar’s hand is on his own thigh, palm facing up, like an invitation. Lando hesitates for only a second before he takes it. They don’t talk about it, but Oscar squeezes his hand once, twice. Like he had back in Spa, when they first walked into the paddock together. Lando smiles to himself and notices how his heart feels a little lighter already.

(Eventually they fall asleep like that, and when Lando wakes somewhere in the middle of the night, they’ve both slid down the headboard to actually lie on the bed. They aren’t holding hands anymore, but their pinkies are still touching, like a little promise, and Lando smiles to himself, falls back asleep. It’s the best night's sleep he’s had in years.)

norriswdc reblogged

vroomvroomboys

[Screenshot from Tumblr that’s been edited to say ‘ppl who celebrate f1 drivers birthdays are annoying pass it on’ ‘FUCK this post and happy birthday lando norris’]

356 notes

LN⁴ @LN4 ∙ 35m

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @LANDONORRIS 🥳

36 replies 167 reposts 356 likes

Lando is drunk. Like not ridiculously drunk, but he’s surely somewhere on his way to seriously buzzed. It doesn’t help that everyone keeps trying to do birthday shots with him, and there’s only so many times you can deny them before people inevitably start chanting. And sure, Lando’s not that sensitive to peer pressure but like. He’s not immune and also it’s his birthday, so. Shots.

“This might be my best birthday ever,” he shouts over the music, draping himself over Max’s back as he makes his way back to his own little group of friends, who have gathered in a corner of the club, safe distance away from the dance floor but close enough to the bar.

“You say that every year,” Max says fondly, ruffles his hair.

Lando ignores him. “Where’s Oscar?”

“Getting drinks,” Max says, craning his neck to look at the bar. Right then, Oscar appears back beside them, handing one of the glasses he’s holding to Lando.

“There you go,” he says. When Lando takes a sip, it’s coke. Just plain, no booze. He sends Oscar a grateful little smile and takes another sip.

“You having fun?” Lando asks.

Oscar shrugs. He’s mentioned before, how he’s not much of a club goer. Lando had noticed, last time they’d gone out back in Monaco. But it’s nice to have him here regardless, if only because he’s the only person who makes sure he drinks anything aside from alcohol every once in a while.

“That, my friend,” Jack says, appearing from seemingly nowhere and draping himself over Lando and Oscar respectively. “Is because you aren’t dancing.”

“We’re not dancing,” Max immediately says, crossing his arms.

“Hell yeah, we are,” Jacks says, and immediately starts dragging Lando and Oscar towards the dance floor. Lando only just manages to put the remains of his coke on a nearby table while Oscar mutters some weak protests. Max waves after them melodramatically.

“You don’t have to,” Lando says, when they’ve reached the dancefloor and found Garrett and some of the girl’s the guys had been talking to earlier.

“It’s okay,” Oscar says, bobbing his head along to the awful 90’s hits remix the DJ is playing. “I’m just not very good at it.”

“Meh, that’s fine, me neither,” Lando says. Somewhere in the chaos of the dancing bodies around them his hand has ended up on Oscar’s bicep, trying to keep them steady as they’re being jostled left and right. “We’ll look weird together.”

“I never said I look weird,” Oscar says, smiling. “That’s all you.”

“Oh, boo,” Lando quips back. Someone bumps into him from behind and Oscar uses a hand on his waist to steady him. “Well then I will look weird and you can look…” Lando squints his eyes at him. Their faces have moved closer so they can actually hear each other over the music. “Boring,” he settles on, speaking almost directly into Oscar’s ear.

Oscar laughs, one of those head thrown back things, and it really wasn’t that funny, but still. It’s better than the way Brad used to just. Raise an eyebrow whenever Lando tried to make a joke. When he straightens himself again, he’s even closer than before, his other hand now also on Lando’s waist. “Scathing, that one. How will I ever recover.”

“It’s okay,” Lando says, nodding sagely. “I like ‘em boring,” and it’s a joke, really. They’re bantering. He’s just… bantered the next bant. Or whatever. But it hits a little differently, pressed together in the middle of the dancefloor, Oscar’s hands on his waist, his own hands on Oscar’s biceps, their faces only inches apart so Lando can see the noticeable flush on Oscar’s cheek, can see the way his pupils widen, the way his mouth slightly parts.

And it would be so easy, so ridiculously deceptively easy to lean forward right now, to press his lips to Oscar’s in a messy, drunken kiss. And in any other case, if they had been any other people, he would have. Would have pressed their mouths together, would’ve buried his hands in their hair. Would’ve pulled them closer, impossibly closer, their bodies flush together. They would’ve eventually taken it elsewhere, maybe. For more.

But this is Oscar. And Oscar is getting paid to be here, whether he’s accepting the money or not. And if Lando kisses him, right now, with everyone watching, Oscar will think he’ll have to kiss back. Because of the act they’re performing.

So he can’t, right now. No matter how badly he wants to. And he thinks, maybe, Oscar will want it too. It’s in the way he’s looking at Lando right now, with his pupils blown and his mouth parted. Like Lando is something to eat.

But he’ll have to wait. Wait until they’re somewhere else, somewhere more private, so Oscar knows he means it. So they can see where this leads without the confusing shackles of their fake dating arrangement. So they can really try.

There’s a moment, an impasse, where Lando thinks for a moment Oscar might be leaning in, and he savors it, that anticipation, that tension between them. And then he pulls away, takes a step back.

“I can’t,” he says. Not here, not right now. Not when they’re in the situation they’re in.

“Oh,” Oscar says, blinks. “Right, I’m sorry, I’m. I guess I’m a little drunk,” he says, laughs a little tightly, none of the head-throwing-back stuff from earlier. “That’s not. Yeah. No,” he says, and Lando feels all of the anticipation and tension fizzle out as he looks at the tight look on Oscar’s face.

Right. Drunk. Because that’s the only reason he would- Yeah. That makes. Sense. Sort of. Maybe. Whatever. Lando knows he’s not like, a catch, or whatever. Loads of people always claim they’d love to date an F1 driver until they find out what it actually takes, and realize that drivers are still people with their own set of flaws, their own baggage, so like. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but still. This is Oscar. And he really likes Oscar. So hearing him say no, it just. It hurts.

“Right, no, yeah, so drunk,” Lando says, shaking his head. “Super drunk. That’s the only reason why-“ He doesn’t really get to say much else, because Jack and Garrett suddenly reappear with a champagne bucket with fireworks in it, loudly singing happy birthday, even though it gets horribly drowned out by the music.

Lando tries to laugh, but he knows it doesn’t reach his eyes. When he searches for Oscar, he finds him gone.

McLaren @mclarenf1 ∙ 8m

WELCOME TO VEGAS! Read for the Vegas GP this weekend. Bring on the points 💪

78 replies 124 reposts 349 likes

wendy @racegirlie ∙ 2m

replying to @mclarenf1

lando/oscar vegas wedding when

1 replies 2 reposts 6 likes

They don’t talk about it, after. Things kind of just. Go back to normal. And that’s so much worse, all things considered, because Oscar just goes back to being the sweet, gentle, caring pretend boyfriend he’s been this whole time. Like nothing’s changed for him. And maybe nothing has. He’s never wanted to kiss Lando and he doesn’t now and that’s. Fine.

There’s a distinct tension to his shoulders, though, when they get to Vegas for the Grand Prix. It makes sense, in some way. Lando’s clocked pretty early that Oscar’s not a big fan of fuss and the Las Vegas Grand Prix is nothing if not the king of fuss. Lando’s always kind of appreciated it, but the longer the weekend goes on the quieter Oscar gets.

It doesn’t really help that people keep asking them when they’re getting Vegas married, so.

Lando keeps intending to ask Oscar what’s going on, but it’s hard when they have so many PR events to attend. Turns out the second year of the Vegas Grand Prix is just as insanity packed as the first.

He doesn’t like thinking back on last year’s Grand Prix much. It’s always better, in F1, not to get stuck on your crashes. Especially the bad ones. He just hopes this year is better.

He’s still a little nervous, though, getting into the car. The free practices have been fine, qualifying went fine. P3 is not front row, but it’s close enough that he can fight, so. There’s hope and all. He’s been managing to keep the car on the road all weekend so he should be able to do it now.

He lines up on the grid, right behind Max’s Red Bull, and lets out a low and slow breath as he watches the red lights go on, on, on, on, on.

And off.

Formula 1 @f1 ∙ 9m

⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️

Light out and away we go for Vegas! Who do you think will win? Let us know below!

124 replies 278 reposts 302 likes

landonorr1s

Can they NOT with the ‘super close to the wall’ graphic every time I’m already so stressed

#3cm they said #3cm’s closer to my GRAVE you mean jesus christ

8 notes

spookynorris

that cut to oscar in the garage looking so so so stressed right as lando is going through turn 12 😭

13 notes

liv 🌺 @pookieracing ∙ 4m

ollie bearman’s dad 🤝 lando norris’s boyfriend

being so stressed about their loved ones racing I’m pretty sure they’re seriously considering wrapping their entire car in bubble wrap

5 replies 3 reposts 6 likes

suzie @letsgolando ∙ 1m

LANDO NOOOOOOOO

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

norizz

AAAH

#jesus christ lando what the hell #god I know it was just a wall tap but holy hell the way my heart lept into my throat #he’s still going though!!!! he’s still going

3 notes

So. The race goes. Fine. After his brief kiss with the wall he sustains some damage that means he slowly watches the podium slip from his grasp as first Charles passes him and then Daniel but whatever. P5 is still good, all things considered. Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been. Last year.

All and all he’s not feeling the worst when he finally leaves the garage, goes in hunt of Oscar. Aside from that one time in Brazil Oscar usually hides out in his driver’s room during the race and so he isn’t really expecting it when he steps out and Oscar is right there.

He looks tense, worried, but when he spots Lando, all that tension and worry seems to bleed right out of him, like a deflating balloon. Lando opens his mouth to ask him if he’s okay, but then suddenly Oscar steps forward, extends his arms, and pulls Lando straight into a hug.

And like. This is very un-Oscar. Normally Lando would make a joke, say something along the lines of “Missed me, huh?” But he feels the way Oscar breathes out against his cheek, the way his arms briefly tighten around him before they loosen again, the way he holds on like he’s afraid something will happen if he lets go.

So instead, Lando says nothing, simply wraps his arms around Oscar, presses a comforting hand between Oscar’s shoulder blades, buries his nose in Oscar’s shoulder, lets himself be held. He stays there, right up until the moment Oscar seems ready to let him go again, and it’s only then that he steps back. “You okay?” He asks, because clearly Oscar isn’t.

“Yeah,” Oscar says, and while most of the tension has drained from his posture there’s still a tightness to his eyes that makes Lando think that isn’t altogether true.

“Hm,” he says. “I have to-“ He gestures towards the press pen. “But I will see you later, yeah? I’ll make it as quick as possible.”

“You don’t-“ Oscar starts, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I will make it as quick as possible,” Lando repeats, like a promise, and then follows Caroline towards the press area, still feeling the ghost of Oscar’s arms around his waist.

“You ready to tell me what was up, earlier?” Lando asks, when they’re back in the hotel room. They’re sitting on Lando’s bed, because after the whole Brazil thing Oscar basically lost all credible arguments not to share it.

“Oh,” Oscar says, looking up from where he was scrolling through his phone, back to the headboard. Lando is sprawled out over the foot of the bed, but rolls onto his stomach to get a better look at Oscar. “It’s. It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Nothing’s still something,” Lando says. “Come on, share. Was it something I did? You just seemed upset.”

Oscar sighs, tosses his phone aside, probably realizing Lando’s not going to give up on this. “It really is stupid. It’s just, they kept replaying your crash from last year on the screen pre race, plus during the race there was that stupid close to the wall graphic, and then you had that touch with the wall,” he bites at his lip. “I worry, you know? Which I know is stupid, but. Yeah.”

“Oh,” Lando says, blinking at him a little surprised. “You were. Worried? About me?”

Oscar smiles a little ruefully. “I know it’s the nature of the sport and what not, but yeah. I worry about you.” And he looks so soft, even in the harsh fluorescent hotel room lights, and he’s smiling at Lando in a way that can only be described as fond, and Lando thinks about the wide eyed open mouthed look Oscar had given him in the club on his birthday and he thinks maybe maybe maybe.

“You’re my friend, maybe even my best one after all the stuff we’ve gone through this year,” Oscar continues, firmly slamming the door shut that had been slowly creaking open in Lando’s mind. “So yeah, I worry about you.”

“Right,” Lando says. “Friends. Best friends.”

Oscar smiles at him. Soft, fond, friend-like. “Best friends,” he confirms, and promptly shatters the last remains of Lando’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” Lando says, instead of crying, which he thinks is very brave of himself. “For worrying you.”

Oscar shrugs. “Comes with the job, I think. Also, jar.”

“Damnit,” Lando says, smiles a smile that never quite reaches his eyes.

They’re quiet for a bit, as Lando plucks at a thread on the duvet. When he finally chances a look up again, Oscar’s grabbed his MacBook, the LN4 sticker still proudly displayed on the back. He’s typing away on it, his face bunched up in a cute little frown of concentration, occasionally pausing to bite at a cuticle as he thinks.

And maybe, maybe this is okay. Maybe they can just be friends, for as long as this arrangement lasts. Lando will take all the love he holds for Oscar and tuck it away, keep it somewhere safe, and just appreciate him as a good friend instead. And then maybe, one day, he will find his Someone-Like-Oscar and he will finally finally get his happy ending.

Like yeah, he doesn’t get to have Oscar. But he still gets have Oscar. Still gets to be his friend. And that’s worth something, too.

Oscar chooses that moment to look up from his laptop, smiles softly at Lando.

Friends, Lando thinks. Friends will have to do.

Formula 1 @f1 ∙ 10m

And that’s a wrap on the 2024 season! 🏎️ 🏆 ✨ Happy winter break everyone!

134 replies 245 reposts 312 likes

lovenorris reblogged

charles-leclerc-16

alright. now what.

#this was my first f1 season guys this is a genuine question #what do you all DO with all this free time???? # <- lie down face first on the floor till the season starts back up again in feb mostly #occasionally come out of hibernation to cry over one of the driver’s insta posts #that’s about it #oh right and if you’re lucky hamilton will suddenly decide to move to ferrari on a random thursday #or something similar

24 notes

anonymous asked:

kate did you see the fia awards pics???? 😭 😭 😭

lando-norris4 answered:

oh you mean the one of lando and oscar posing on the red carpet in their little suits and oscar is wearing a mclaren branded bowtie??? or the one of them in the crowd of them whispering to each other??? or even that one clip of oscar clapping and smiling all proudly as lando accepts his action of the year award???

#i’m being very normal about all of this obviously #gah they’re just so cute #i love when they get these little glimpses of their relationship they look so HAPPY together #also I have to cherish these moments because we probably won’t see them again #until testing next year lmao #with how private they usually are

31 notes

LN⁴ @LN4 ∙ 56m

Merry Christmas Everyone! 🎄🎅 🎁

54 replies 234 reposts 459 likes

“How’s the barbie?” Lando asks, flopping down onto his childhood bed, adjusting his phone so he has a perfect view of Oscar’s tiny pixelated face.

“The what,” Oscar says, voice flat through the tinny speaker. He’s walking as he talks, probably trying to get somewhere more private in the same way Lando had.

“The barbie!” Lando repeats. “The barbeque, mate,” he adds in a horrible impression of an Australian accent. “Isn’t that what you Australian’s do with Christmas?”

Oscar stares at him through the phone, entirely unimpressed. He’s found a seat near a window somewhere, and the sun is throwing beautiful rays of golden light across his face. Outside Lando’s window, the wind howls as rain continues to clatter down. “That’s such a stereotype,” Oscar says, and then, after a beat. “But yes, the barbeque is nice. My dad’s grilling steaks.”

“Oh, love a steak,” Lando muses. “My mum’s more of a Beef Wellie person.”

“I’ve never had Beef Wellington, I think,” Oscar musses.

Lando squawks at him. “That’s unacceptable. Next year at Christmas you’re coming over here and I’m feeding you Wellie. My mum makes the best one, in my own personal humble opinion.”

“One that’s obviously not biased at all,” Oscar says, with a smile. “Anyway, she’s going to have to fight my mum, who’s been dropping very subtle questions about your absence.”

“Oh, dear,” Lando says. They knew they were taking a bit of a guess, with celebrating their respective Christmases separately. But Lando had barely gotten to spend any time with his own family this year, and Oscar clearly missed his, so. It made sense. But maybe, next year, if they’ve still got this arrangement going. It would probably raise some questions, if they didn’t. Especially if they didn’t two years in a row.

But that’s getting ahead of things.

“Hm, yeah,” Oscar says. “Opened the door and the first thing she said was ‘Where’s that charming little boyfriend of yours’. Which, you know. Nice to see she missed me.”

Lando laughs, rolls over so he’s on his stomach instead, elbows propped up so he can still see the screen. “What can I say. I’m great with mums.”

Oscar smiles a little fondly. “Sure you are,” he says, and then shifts around a little. “So, did you get my present?”

He did. It had arrived only a day ago, a small envelope with his name, address, and giant block letters that spelled out ‘DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS’. He holds it up to the camera now.

“I felt a bit bad, when yours came,” Oscar says, panning to the giant box on the table next to him. Mine’s quite small, in comparison.”

Lando laughs. “Well, we both know it’s not about size, it’s about what you do with it. Now, come on, you first.”

Oscar snorts, and then gently peels the paper off the giant box, when he’s done, he’s quiet for a second. Lando bites his lip in anticipation. He can only see half of Oscar’s face, the corner of his mouth, a bit of eye, and a strand of hair. “Is this…” Oscar starts, trails off.

“A custom Lego set for a McLaren GT, yes,” Lando says, gnawing on his lip a little harder. “I know I promised you a real one but, well. Turns out you were right, the jar fund was a little lacking, so. Got you this one made instead.”

“Jesus Christ,” Oscar breathes out. “You’re insane, you know that?”

“Thank you,” Lando says. “So, you like it?”

Oscar finally comes back into view, and his smile is soft and fond. “I love it,” he says. “Feel increasingly bad about my gift, though.”

“Don’t,” Lando says, ripping open the envelope. When he shakes out the contents, there’s a card wishing him and his family happy holidays from the Piastri’s, and a single beaded bracelet.

“I know it’s not much,” Oscar says, and it’s his turn to look nervous. “But I wanted to get you something personal? And I know you like bracelets. Anyway, I wanted to buy one but my sisters recently went to the Taylor Swift tour and they had all this stuff to make bracelets and they convinced me it was much more ro- better if I made you your own.” He laughs a little self-consciously. “I mean. I doubt that, but yeah.”

“You made this?” Lando asks, studying the bracelet closer. It’s the same colors as the hideous McLaren bowtie Oscar wore to that one sponsor event they went to. There’s letters too, that spell out ‘You got this’.

“I wanted to leave it blank, but according to my sisters that’s a crime punishable by death, and I know you fiddle with your bracelets when you’re nervous, so I just wanted it to say something motivating,” Oscar explains.

“Thank you,” Lando says, sincerely, slips it on his wrist with all his other bracelets. “I love it.”

“I’m glad,” Oscar says, smiles. “It was fun to make, if anything. I mean, I don’t think I’ll pick it up as a hobby, but it was nice to hang out with my sisters like that, especially if I don’t get to see them often. They got really into it.” He pauses, looks at something off camera. “Shit, speaking of, I should get back. Have a good Christmas day, yeah?”

“Thanks,” Lando says, doesn’t know how to say ‘Please don’t go yet’ and ‘I miss you’ without coming across weird. “You too. With the barbeque and all. Tell your family I said hi.”

“I will,” Oscar says, smiles. “Bye!”

And then his face disappears from Lando’s screen. He stares at it a little longer, and then at his bracelet, and sighs deeply. Downstairs, his family is waking up, puttering around the house. Outside the window, rain putters on.

And somewhere, on the other side of the world, Oscar Piastri is enjoying the sun, eating a steak, and carrying Lando’s heart with him.

Formula 1 @f1 ∙ 12m

Happy New Year! Bring on the 2025 season 🏎️

145 replies 268 reposts 321 likes

[Blurry video of Lando and Oscar in a club somewhere. Lando’s leaning close to whisper in Oscar’s ear. Oscar’s wearing a headband that says ‘Happy New Year’ in sparkly gold letters]

f1wagupdates Lando and Oscar celebrating New Year’s at a club in London!

liked by f1racingupdates and 1.689 others

paddockprincess the headband i’m crying 😭

norris4 apparently lando was wearing it earlier that night 😭

bella_love aawww they seem so happy together ❤️

sofielovesracing MOM AND DAD

“Hey,” Oscar says, as he steps out of his car – a dingy looking Volkswagen Polo that Lando squints at. He should have a chat with the McLaren people about doing something about that. Can’t have his boyfriend driving around in a Volkswagen Polo that looks about three turns away from falling apart. Maybe he can cajole them into loaning Oscar a McLaren GT.

“Hey,” Lando says, pushing away from where he’d been leaning against his own car, waiting for Oscar to arrive. They’ve been summoned to the MTC, which Lando assumes is to talk over the game plan for the upcoming season, pretend boyfriend wise, and so he figured it only kind to wait for Oscar. He remembers his own first time in the MTC. The place is a fucking maze on the best days. “How are you?”

“Could be better,” Oscar says, grimacing. From up close Lando can see how his eyes are a little small, how his nose seems red and a little sniffly.

“Hangover hit you that hard, huh,” Lando says, teasingly. The New Year’s party was over a week ago, so probably not, but still. Funny.

“Oh, shut up,” Oscar grouses, as they start making their way to the front doors. “Although arguably I should not have had that last shot of tequila. Hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. But no, I think I caught some kind of bug at the party. ‘S been bothering me all week.”

“You never said,” Lando says. They’ve been texting all week. Lando went to Monaco for the weekend to hang out with friends after the New Year’s party but they talked every day, mostly mundane shit about the weather and what they were doing that day. Oscar never mentioned feeling sick.

Oscar shrugs. “It’s not that bad,” he says, and then promptly coughs into his elbow. “Just, I don’t know. Feeling bad.”

“Well, I’m sorry, if anything. I know I kind of dragged you to that party,” Lando says. They’re inside the MTC now, making their way through winding hallways as he waves at some of the employees.

“Jar,” Oscar says, though Lando’s pretty sure it’s mostly on autopilot. “Plus I wanted to go. Was nice to see you, after Christmas and all.” He adds, ducking his head and smiling softly.

If Lando was a fool, he might say Oscar missed him. The way Lando had missed Oscar, those few weeks apart. But Lando is no fool. And he made a New Year’s resolution, about Oscar. About not letting his feelings get in the way of their friendship. So Lando doesn’t make assumptions, and doesn’t cling on to the possibilities, and instead smiles and says, “It was nice to see you too.” And keeps it at that.

“Boys!” Caroline says, popping out of a random door in the middle of the hallway they’re walking through. “Glad you could both make it. In here, please.”

It's a meeting room like any other, and Oscar and Lando sit down at the far end of the large table, right where Caroline has her laptop set up. “Great, good you’re here, I wanted to get started right away,” Caroline says, ruffling through her papers. “So we’ve been looking at our Social Media engagement, and overall it’s been really good. People really seem to buy you and Oscar, no one’s really talking about Brad anymore, unless it’s to say how much they prefer Oscar which is perfect, exactly what we wanted,” Caroline says, smiling encouragingly at them. “People love you two together, think you’re really sweet, and especially in the beginning it was a good boost for Lando’s overall image.”

“Anyway, after accessing everything,” she continues, typing at something on her laptop, “We’ve noticed kind of a stagnation over the past weeks months and we think this arrangement has done all we need it to do. As you might remember the original contract was for six months, which means it expires in a few days. We personally see no reason to inconvenience either of you any further. If anything, we might get an additional boost of goodwill about the break up if we play our cards right.” Caroline looks up at them.

Lando merely stares at her. His brain’s still trying to catch up with what she’s saying. Next to him Oscar hasn’t moved a muscle.

The thing is, everything she’s saying makes sense. The arrangement has indeed done what they wanted it to do. There’s no reason for them to inconvenience Oscar any further. He’s been giving up his free time, his vacation days, his privacy. They can’t ask more of him. Plus it’s perfect, the break up. Right in time for the new season, during a period that will allow both him and Oscar some privacy from the initial fall out. It all makes perfect sense.

Then why does it hurt so much?

It’s naïve, he realizes now. To think this was something that was going to last forever. But still. He hadn’t expected it to end, not yet. Everything was going so great, so he’d just assumed they would keep going. Which is on him, he supposes.

He’s not ready to let go of Oscar yet. The past year has been one of the best years of his life. Just having someone there, having Oscar there, who cared about him and who cared for him and who made everything so much more enjoyable. It’s giving him a glimpse of a future he so badly wants, and he’s so not ready to let go yet.

But he has to think of Oscar. And the strain this has been putting on him. And everything he’s sacrificed. And so he smiles, a little brittle, and says. “Yeah, no. you’re absolutely right. Makes perfect sense.”

Next to him, Oscar breathes out. “Right,” he says, but his voice sounds tight. “Yeah. We should. It’s time to end it.”

And it hurts, a little bit, to hear Oscar say it like that. Like it was always going to be inevitable, their end.

Caroline keeps talking, logistics and documents they need to sign and mock ups for a break up post on Instagram and Lando isn’t registering any of it, keep staring at the table in front of him, trying not to cry. All of this is his own stupid fault, for getting so incredibly attached to his fake boyfriend.

He’s done years of F1 without Oscar. Why does it feel so impossible now?

Eventually Caroline wraps it up, hurries out the room saying she has another meeting lined up, and Oscar gets up too, gathers his things, says something to Lando about going home.

“Wait,” Lando says, when Oscar’s at the door. He turns around, looks at Lando with a soft, questioning look, made all the more vulnerable by his small watery eyes and his red sniffly nose, and he looks so hopeful, so kind, and Lando can’t do it, can’t do any of this.

He wants to say stay. He wants to say let’s do this for real. He wants to say I love you. He wants, he wants, he wants.

But he can’t have.

And so he smiles a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, swallows all the things he so desperately wants to say, and says instead, “Thank you. For everything.”

Oscar smiles too, quiet and small. “Any time,” he says.

“We can uh. I mean. You have my number,” Lando says. “We can, like, stay in touch?”

“Of course,” Oscar says, earnestly. “Yeah, no. We’re friends, right?”

“Best friends,” Lando says, smile tight, and watches as Oscar nods, taps the doorway, and then disappears out of Lando’s life altogether.

[Screenshot of Lando Norris’s Instagram Story that reads ‘Hello everyone. Oscar and I have decided to end our relationship but remain good friends. We have shared some wonderful times together and I will always cherish those. Oscar is a great guy who deserves the best, and I wish him nothing but happiness. Please respect our decision and his privacy at this time. Thank you for all your love and support ❤️’]

f1wagupdates Lando’s post about his and Oscar’s break up.

liked by norriswdc and 814 others

norris4 SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

kayleypeterson i’m so confused they seemed so happy together??????

racebabe Love is fake and I’m a child of divorce

anonymous asked:

kate 😔 they broke up 😔

lando-norris4 answered:

I’m fucking shattered man. I really thought Oscar was The One. Anyway, hope they’re okay. Meanwhile I will go back to what I was doing (crying on the kitchen floor eating an entire tub of ice cream)

#i don’t know what happened #and I don’t want to speculate on what happened #all I will say is it looked like true love and I’m devastated it didn’t work out for them

14 notes

Lando’s fine, really. After. It helps that nothing really changes much. Him and Oscar have had periods before where they didn’t see each other for days or even weeks on end. And they still text, so it’s not like Lando doesn’t know what’s going on with him. Plus the season’s slowly starting back up, which means he’s spending a lot of time at the MTC, looking at the new car, the new race suits, the new everything.

So yeah, he’s fine, really. Until Bahrain. Until testing starts back up, and then the actual race weekend, and he’s. Alone. In his hotel room. When entering the paddock. When leaving the paddock. He gets dinner with some of his team members and the seat next to him stays achingly empty.

He lasts all the way up to the Friday of the Bahrain GP before he caves and picks up his phone, calls Oscar.

He’s alone, in his hotel room, sprawled out on the bed staring at the couch no one uses anymore, right after FP2. Usually he and Oscar would get dinner, go out somewhere small and local where the chances of Lando being recognized are lower, chat about their day and Lando’s chances for qualifying.

It takes five rings, before Oscar picks up. Which is. Unusual. So is the distinctly raspy, sleepy tone to Oscar’s voice when he says, “Yeah?”

“Oscar, hey!” Lando says. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” He squints at the alarm clock on his bedside table. It’s 9 pm. Which means it’s 7pm in London. Now he knows Oscar’s a napper, but that’s late for a nap, even for him. And way too early for bedtime.

“Lando?” Oscar says, still sleepy. “Fuck, mate, it’s 4am.”

“No it isn’t,” Lando says, squinting at the clock again. Even if it’s lying to him, there’s no way it’s lying to him that bad. He’s just left the track and his responsibilities ended at around 8, so.

“I can assure you it is,” Oscar says. His voice sounds a little more awake now, if also a little more annoyed. Which is fair. Oscar’s always been a bit grumpy after just waking up, no matter the time of day.

“Wait, where are you?” Lando asks, because if it really is 4am like Oscar is claiming that means…

“Melbourne,” Oscar says, and there’s rustling on his side of the line, like he’s moving around in bed. Maybe making himself more comfortable. Resigning himself to this 4am conversation.

“You, what?” Lando asks, confused. He doesn’t remember Oscar telling him about taking a trip down under. Plus he’d just been there over the winter break, and Oscar himself had told him he usually only visits once a year. “Why? Shit, is everything okay? Is your family okay?”

“My family is fine, Lando,” Oscar says. “I’m uh. Thinking of moving back, actually.”

“Why?” Lando parrots, because like. Australia is really far away. In a really inconvenient time zone. And Oscar likes London, right? So why… why?

“I’ve just realized, with stuff going on lately, I moved to London to get a fresh start, you know? And I got that and it was good, but there’s just nothing there for me, anymore,” he says, voice soft. “It’s better for me, I think. To get some distance. From London.”

“Oh,” Lando says, tries not to read too much into it. Lando had been in London, on occasion. Was this Oscar subtly trying to tell him he was trying to get distance away from him? That’s. Well. Okay. That hurts, a little. “Right, yeah, I’m sorry. For like. Waking you up.”

“It’s okay,” Oscar says, and all the annoyance has bled from his voice, even though he still sounds tired. “Are you okay? Why did you call?”

I miss you, he wants to say. But after Oscar basically admitting he’s trying to get out of London because of Lando that feels. Too much, maybe. “Just uh, wanted to hear your opinion. On the new car. If you think it’s good and all.”

“Right,” Oscar says, sounding a little skeptical. “Well, it’s very orange.”

“Papaya,” Lando corrects, almost on autopilot. “And we got some black in there! You know. To spruce it up.”

“Right, sorry, forgot about the black. Very spruce-y,” Oscar says. “Well I mean I haven’t caught FP2 because I was, well. Asleep, but from what I’ve seen from training and FP1 it looks fast?”

“It feels fast,” Lando says, trying not to sound too excited. “Like, I don’t want to jinx it, but it feels phenomenal.”

“Well, good,” Oscar says, and then yawns down the line. “You deserve phenomenal.”

Lando wants to snort at that. If he really truly deserved phenomenal, he would have Oscar. “Alright, sorry to bore you,” he says instead, when Oscar yawns again. “Go sleep. Sorry for bothering you.”

“’S okay,” Oscar says, but his voice sounds sleepier, like he might be nodding off already. “Have to get up in two hours anyway. Apartment hunting and all that.”

“Right, yeah. Good luck with that,” Lando says, and tries to mean it.

“Thanks, Lando. Have a good qualifying tomorrow. I’ll cheer for you in my dreams,” Oscar jokes, and Lando laughs, albeit a little hollow. It’s fine, it’s whatever. His own family doesn’t even watch all of his qualifying, all of his racing live. Let alone his friends.

But it’s just emphasizing the distance between them. How different this year is from the last. What he’s lost. “Thanks. I’m sure it’ll help. Night, Oscar.”

“Night, Lando,” Oscar mumbles down the phone, barely legible, and then the connection cuts off.

Lando sits there, staring at the spot near the couch Oscar would usually put his backpack for way too long before finally shaking it off and getting up to grab the room service menu.

McLaren @mclarenf1 ∙14m

After a nail biter of a qualifying Lando will start P2 for the #BahrainGP tomorrow, with Daniel right behind him in P3 💪🧡

78 replies 124 reposts 349 likes

“Hey, now you’re Australian and all that,” Lando says, roughly two weeks later, through the phone that’s wedged between his shoulder and his face. They’d been texting all morning, which had resulted in Lando sending a bunch of voice memos because it got annoying to type everything out, which had resulted in Oscar calling him ‘because it’s basically the same thing’.

“Always been Australian,” Oscar interjects.

“Yes, okay, sure, but now you’re like in Australia,” Lando corrects. He’s standing in the apartment he uses whenever his presence is expected at the MTC, peering into his woefully empty fridge. “We should totally meet up for the Grand Prix next week. We could go for dinner, you could show me around your hometown, around your new definitely haunted apartment.”

“My apartment’s not haunted,” Oscar says, almost as a reflex.

“Alright so all that creepy stuff you’ve been telling me about things disappearing and weird noises in the night is just what? Normal?”

“It’s an old building,” Oscar says, in a tone that clearly suggests it’s a well-worn argument. “It creaks.”

“It’s haunted,” Lando reiterates. “So, what do you say? You and me? Tour of Melbourne?” He tries not to sound too excited about it. It’s just. He has missed Oscar. And this might be the only chance to hang out with him for a while. There’s only a few races on Oscar’s side of the world before they spend a long while in Europe and it won’t be as easy to just hop on over.

“I don’t know…” Oscar says. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Lando. I mean. We supposedly broke up only two months ago. And all eyes will be on you for the Grand Prix, so. What will people say when they inevitably spot us together?”

“Right,” Lando says. “Right, yeah, no, you’re totally right, that’s. Uh. Hadn’t thought. Of that.”

Oscar isn’t even wrong, is the thing. People would see them. They would speculate. And they ended this thing for a reason. So Oscar could get his life back, his privacy back. This might blow all of that wide open again. So it makes sense for Oscar to decline his offer.

But still, it stings. He misses Oscar. He wants to see him. Wants to wrap him in his arms, bury his nose in Oscar’s shoulder, take in the scent of shower gel and laundry detergent. Wants to hear his laugh, his real laugh, not the tinny phone version he’s been getting these past few weeks. Wants to see that soft little smile he gets sometimes when he looks at Lando.

“I’m sorry,” Oscar says. “Maybe next year?”

And that’s a comforting thought, at least. That despite everything, they might still be friends next year. That Oscar expects them to still be friends, next year.

“Yeah, of course,” Lando says. “Rain check, no problem. Hey listen, I have to go. I have to do uh, groceries.” He says, trying really hard not to let the disappointment bleed through in his voice.

“Fun,” Oscar deadpans. “Buy a vegetable.”

“You’re a vegetable,” Lando tells him, a little primly, and then ignores the way his heart clenches when Oscar’s laugh filters through the phone.

“Talk to you later, Lando,” he says, and then hangs up.

“Yeah,” Lando says, to his mostly empty apartment. “Later.”

It’s stupid, so stupid, how much the Australia thing is getting to him. He’s still thinking about it when he’s standing in a Tesco, only thirty minutes later, in front of the Monster Energy display. They’re actually selling Ultra Sunrise, even though there’s only one can left. Lando picks it and stares at it a little miserably. It feels like forever ago that they were on that boat in the Monaco harbor, telling their friends the fake story of how they met.

They’d still been so hesitant with each other then. So tentative. Not really knowing how they should act around each other. But looking back on it, Lando’s pretty sure that’s the moment they started trusting each other more, the moment they started falling into a comfortable routine.

The moment, maybe, that Lando started falling in love.

And it’s so stupid, to want the one person he can’t have. The one person he can’t even go visit in his home town just in case the media catches on. It’s going to be months before he’s going to get another chance to hang out with Oscar, and compared to last year, where they were hanging out nearly every weekend, it feels so cruel.

“Hi, I’m so sorry,” a voice next to him suddenly says, shaking him out of his thoughts. “But are you buying that?”

When Lando looks up there’s a guy standing next to him. A cute guy. Swoopy brown hair, a sweet smile, kind eyes. “Oh, uh,” Lando says, glances back down at the can. It’s stupid, holding on to these stupid little things. And it’s not like he’s going to drink it. Ultra Sunrise has kind of been ruined for him forever, probably. “No, it’s fine, you can have it.”

“Thanks,” the guy says, taking the can from Lando with a smile. “Wait, shit, I’m so sorry, but aren’t you that F1 guy? Lando…”

“Norris,” Lando says, smiles a bit tightly. “Yeah, I am.”

“Huh,” the guy says. “I’m Nate. Really cool to meet you. My sister watches F1,” he explains. “She’s been trying to get me into it for ages. Never cared for it much, but I’m starting to think I might have to give it a shot.” He gives Lando an appreciative once over.

“Yeah,” Lando says, shrugs. “It’s, uh. Fun. The cars are like, really fast.” He glances at the shelf of Monster. Maybe he’s been ruined for all Monster now. And he can’t really switch to Red Bull either. Fucking hell, why does he keep doing this to himself.

“Not why I was considering watching,” Nate says, with another once over and a wink. “Tell you what,” he continues, pulling a crumpled up receipt and a pen out of his jacket pocket. “Here’s my number. Maybe we can go for coffee sometimes, and I can repay you for gracefully giving me the last can of Ultra Sunrise.”

“Oh,” Lando says, accepting the crumpled up piece of paper Nate hands him. “Yeah, sure. Might take you up on that offer.”

“Sincerely hope you do,” Nate says, with another cute little smile. “Either way, bye Lando. Was nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Lando says, and watches Nate wander out of the aisle towards the cash register. He glances at the Monster display one last time, then at Nate’s number, and takes a deep breath. Right. Time to see if Tesco brand energy drinks are just as good.

He tucks Nate’s number in his back pocket, just in case. After all, this is the meet cute he’s kind of always wanted. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to start thinking about moving on.

mia @superstarseb ∙ 15m

of course the one time I successfully bully my brother into doing my groceries for me he runs into lando fucking norris at the store OF COURSE

3 replies 0 reposts 7 likes

All things considered, Australia is fine. Lando’s not thinking about Oscar and the whole so close but yet so far thing. He’s fine. He’s thriving even, doing great in free practice, qualifying, the race. A podium is always nice, no matter how much your eyes keep searching the crowd for a person who isn’t going to be there.

So it’s fine. It’s fun. It’s nice.

Until it isn’t.

The afterparty is kind of a mandatory thing, really. He’s P2, after all. There’s sponsors who wanna see him, congratulate him, be pictured with him. He’s used to it, really. Tries to have as much fun as possible. Which is going pretty great.

And then he runs into Brad.

“Lando,” Brad says, when Lando turns around and somehow comes face to face with the fucking guy. And Jesus. He hasn’t seen him for over a year, but he hasn’t changed much. He’s still objectively pretty attractive. There’s a reason Lando fell for him in the first place, and it’s somewhere between the chiseled jawline and the seductive eyes.

And he’s looking good. Relaxed smile on his face, a short sleeved button up that totally highlights his biceps, perfectly styled hair.

Fucking annoying, if anything.

“It’s been a while,” Brad says. “How are you? Heard you broke up with that boyfriend of yours. Figures. He was a bit of a bore, wasn’t he?”

And God. Fucking Brad. He forgot how truly fucking infuriating the guy could be. How he would always try to undercut Lando’s success. Every other person who’s spoken to him all night has congratulated him on his P2. Figures Brad would mention the fucking break up first.

“He wasn’t,” Lando bites. He wants to curse Brad out, wants to tell him he’s a fucking asshole douchebag who can suck it, but he’s acutely aware of the people still milling around them, sending them curious glances. “A bore. He was a great guy. Is a great guy. He is sweet, and attentive, and he took care of me,” Lando says. Unlike you, he doesn’t add.

“Ah,” Brad says. “So he broke up with you,” is the conclusion he makes. “Got too much for him? Not the first time, huh.”

And Jesus fucking Christ. Lando wants to drown him in the water feature in the middle of the dance room. He wants to drown himself in the water feature. He wants to scream and yell and tell Brad he is wrong, that Lando was never too much for Oscar, that Oscar loved him.

But he didn’t, not really. And it hurts, a little. That idea.

And besides. Looking at Brad now, in the light of everything that’s happened over the past few months, he realizes something, suddenly.

Brad really just isn’t fucking worth it.

“I’m needed elsewhere,” Lando says, frostily. “Have a nice night, Brad.”

And with that he turns around, and he doesn’t look back.

Good fucking riddance.

Nothing really changes, much. Oscar and him still text, call. Sometimes, when Lando really wants to stab himself in the heart, they facetime, and he gets to look at the tiny pixelated version of Oscar’s soft little smile and has to pretend that’s enough.

He still has Nate’s phone number, tucked away in his wallet, but he can’t find it in himself to actually call. It feels final. Like closing a door he’s not ready to close yet.

Max joins him in Japan, which is both nice and horrible because Max is usually great at distracting him but he only knows the version the public knows and so he keeps sending Lando pitying looks and telling him he’ll find the one, some day.

So he muddles on, through the race weekend, feeling a little lost and a little sad and then.

And then.

Oscar had told him, all the way back in their hotel room in Brazil. You will win again.

And so when he steps up on the top step of the podium, when he holds the P1 trophy up to the crowds, that’s what he thinks about. How Oscar had believed in him. How he fucking wishes Oscar were here so he could smile softly at Lando and say ‘I told you so’. So Lando could wrap his arms around him and hold him and finally feel whole again.

And then he thinks, Fuck it. What has he got to lose? He already lost Oscar, at the end of the day. Yeah, they’re still friends, but he couldn’t even go see him when he was in Australia. So what’s the point then? And Nate, Nate is cute, and Nate is sweet, but he is not Oscar. Lando’s never going to call him, no matter how much he keeps trying to fool himself he will. And Brad. Fucking Brad.

The only good thing that man’s ever done for him is give him Oscar.

So. Fuck it. Fuck it all to hell.

“I have to go,” he says, rushing past Max after the podium, on his way to his driver’s room. He needs his phone. And his wallet. And his passport. God where did he even leave those things? Why is he always so messy.

“What, where?” Max asks, trying to rush after him, slightly baffled. “The after party? Don’t you have media duties first.”

Lando turns around, grins a little maniacally. “Fuck media, Max. I’m going to Melbourne.”

lottie @landoooo ∙ 11m

LANDO TWOWINS

0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

vroomvroomboys

lando on the top step of the podium where he belongs 😭

#look at him!!!!!!!!!! my boy!!!!!!!!!
5 notes

jane 🏎️ @nyoomnorris ∙ 7m

does anybody know where the press conference for the top 3 is?? are they just not doing that this time???

2 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

sophie⁴ @thespeedygentlemen ∙ 5m

replying to @nyoomnorris

yeah i’m so confused too shouldn’t it be out by now?? i wanna see my boy talk about his second win

2 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

holly🏎️ @babylando ∙ 3m

replying to @thespeedygentlemen

apparently they are having trouble locating lando???? i saw some reporters currently at the press conference tweeting about it

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

norizz reblogged

littelandonorris

HELLO WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY LOST LANDO??????? HOW DO YOU LOSE A WHOLE ASS F1 DRIVER

#you forget to cherish him #but seriously what the fuck is going on

23 notes

amelia @lanlan ∙ 10m

Not McLaren tweeting not to worry like what do you mean don’t worry if there was nothing to worry about you wouldn’t tell me not to worry you would just. You know. Make your driver show up for his press conference 😭

5 replies 4 reposts 18 likes

8 ∙ Formula 1 ∙ Trending

#WhereIsLando

8.893 posts

When he thinks about it, really thinks about it, this is a spectacularly bad idea. Oscar had specifically told him he didn’t want to hang out during the Australian Grand Prix, and now Lando was coming over anyway. And like, the whole ‘putting yourself out there, laying your heart on the line’ thing was nice and all but he didn’t even know if Oscar liked him back. Maybe Oscar was glad to be rid of him. Maybe Oscar is just too fucking nice and trying to let him down gently. Maybe Oscar will see him and laugh in his face. Maybe Oscar did like him but Lando’s missed his shot and now he’s already found someone else.

Unfortunately, he does not think about it until his plane is already truly and well in the air, and there’s no way back. He’s in economy, because it was the only last minute seat available, wedged between a businessman who fell asleep the second they took off and a dad who’s mostly leaning over the aisle to talk to his family in the other row of seats.

So he’s weirdly alone in his slight panic spiral, as he watches the little airplane on the TV screen in front of him inch closer and closer to Australia. To Melbourne.

God, this was a horrible idea. His worst idea to date. Or, well. All things considered it’s probably this one and claiming he had a boyfriend last year at Silverstone. At least that one got him Oscar. This one might get him endless shame and a broken heart.

There’s a tiny little voice in his head that keeps telling him that maybe it’s worth it. That maybe Oscar likes him just as much. That this will all turn out alright. That he will land in Melbourne, and call Oscar and Oscar will answer and pick him up from the airport and they will have a dramatic kiss in the arrivals hall.

But as the tiny plane slowly moves across the map, closer and closer to its destination, that voice gets quieter and quieter and quieter until, when they finally fly above Australia, Lando’s made up his mind.

His first action of business when lands in Melbourne will be to get the soonest flight back to Japan.

Oscar Piastri
@OscarIT
30 following | 15 followers
Joined May 9^th 2017

Hi Oscar! Sorry to bother you on your private twitter account
but I didn’t have any other way to reach you

This is Max

Fewtrell
Today, 6:12PM

Hi Max! No worries! What’s up?
Today, 6:15PM

Are you by any chance in Melbourne?
Today, 6:16PM

Uh, yeah? Why?
Today, 6:16PM

Fucking Figures. Anyway, Lando just yelled ‘I AM FLYING TO
MELBOURNE’ and then promptly disappeared off the face
of the earth. So if you could check if maybe he’s at the
airport that would be really great because we seem to
have no way to reach him.
Today, 6:20PM

Uh, what?
Today, 6:21PM

Listen, mate. I don’t know what happened between you
two and all, but I do know Lando was the happiest I’ve
ever seen him when he was with you, and that he’s
been absolutely miserable since you two broke up.

Anyway. All I’m trying to say is if you hurt him I’m
cutting off your balls and using them as Christmas
ornaments. So are you checking or not?
Today, 6:25PM

Noted. I’ll go look. I’ll let you know when I’ve
found him.
Today, 6:27PM

Attaboy.
Today, 6:28PM

👍
Today, 6:28PM

The upside is that he left in such a hurry that he didn’t really have a chance to pack, and so all he’s carrying with him is his backpack, meaning he can skip baggage claim. The downside is that he left in such a hurry that he didn’t really have a chance to pack, and so he’s forgotten his phone charger and after ten hours of playing candy crush to kill the time, the battery has died.

Which means Lando now has to go and buy a ticket from a real person behind a desk instead of just buying one through his phone. Which is fine, it’s fine. It just feels like yet another step in what’s already been a long and slightly humiliating day.

He hoists his backpack higher upon his shoulder as he makes his way through Melbourne Airport. Despite it being pretty early in the morning it’s still rather busy, and he has to duck and weave his way through the crowd to make his way to the arrivals gate. He’ll probably have to loop all the way back to departures, which, knowing most airports, is going to be an annoyingly long walk. Maybe he should get a coffee first. And a snack. They gave him a meal on the plane, but he didn’t trust half of it and the other half was a disappointingly small portion. Also he did just recently finish a grueling two hour long race, so yeah. Starving.

Lando’s just glancing around to see what his options are, when he suddenly stops dead in his tracks, nearly making a family of four bump into him from behind. They move around him, tutting loudly, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t even listen, because oh my god.

He’s hallucinating. He has to be hallucinating. He’s exhausted from the race, delirious from hunger, losing his mind due to lack of sleep. It’s either that, or.

Or Oscar is really here. Standing right outside the arrival’s gate, a nervous, hopeful look on his face as he glances around, obviously looking for someone.

Holy shit.

He hasn’t spotted Lando yet, and that’s a good thing, because now Lando has time to process that somehow Oscar is here, is right in front of him, looking soft and a little sleepy and so ridiculously stupidly pretty that it genuinely takes Lando’s breath away for a minute.

God, he’s missed him so much. He’s missed him so so so much.

As if in slow motion, Oscar’s head turns towards Lando, and Lando can tell the exact moment Oscar spots him, the way his eyebrows tick up and his mouth goes a little oh shaped and then suddenly it’s like someone’s cut a pair of strings and all the tension and nerves seem to bleed out of Oscar’s body all at once.

“Lando,” he says, and god, the real, in person version of his voice is a million times better than the stupid tinny phone one. “Holy shit, thank god you’re okay.” He stepping forward then, one two three four and then suddenly he’s right in front of Lando and pulling him into a hug. “Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me. Out of all of us, really.”

“What?” Lando says, confused and still not 100% convinced he isn’t hallucinating and slightly distracted by the warm feel of Oscar’s arms and the smell of laundry detergent and shower gel and the fact that he probably has to let go again and he really does not want to let go again.

“You disappeared,” Oscar says, mostly into Lando’s hair, squeezing him one last time before stepping back. “No one knew where you were for a good while there.”

“Oh,” Lando says, because. Whoops. He hadn’t really considered that. At any point, really. “I uh, told Max?”

Oscar looks entirely unimpressed. “You said, and I quote ‘I am flying to Melbourne’ and then, according to Max, disappeared off the face of the earth. No one really knew where you were for hours.”

Lando pulls a face. “Right, yeah. I’m. Sorry. I was going through some stuff.”

“Hm,” Oscar says. “Wanna tell me about it?”

Lando looks at him. He doesn’t look mad, or annoyed. Which he has every right to be, since he apparently scared the shit out of like. Everyone. Which, god. He owes Max a huge apology and maybe like. A trip to Ibiza. But Oscar’s just looking at him a little worried, a lot gentle. Patient.

And Lando is so tired. Of everything. Of the flight, of pretending, of never getting what he wants. And so he shrugs a little ruefully and says, “I’m in love with you.”

There’s a really long silence in which Oscar just stares at him. Behind Oscar, a group of teenagers is eyeing them curiously. “That’s why I flew to Melbourne. To tell you that,” Lando rambles on, when it’s clear Oscar’s not going to say anything. “And then I realized what a stupid fucking idea that was so instead I was just going to like, fly back. Again. But now. Here you are. So I might as well tell you what I was going to tell you, which is that the past year has been like one of the best years of my life. Having you with me, getting to spend time with you. Those are some of like, my favorite memories. You’re such a wonderfully sweet guy, and you make me laugh, and you take care of me, and these past few weeks without you have been the fucking worst.”

Lando shrugs again. “So yeah, it’s whatever. I love you. Like, a ridiculous amount. So. That’s all I came here to say, really, so if you want me to le-“

Suddenly there’s hands on his face, and he’s being pulled closer closer closer and then Oscar does something entirely un-Oscar like and kisses him full on the mouth.

Maybe he needs to revise what counts and doesn’t count as ‘Oscar like’, he thinks, vaguely, as he leans into the kiss, wraps his hands around Oscar’s waist.

And then he stops thinking all together.

Oscar holds him like he’s something precious, his kisses gentle, soft, hesitant almost. Like he can’t believe this is happening. Like he can’t believe this is real.

That’s a sentiment Lando can share, at least, as he pulls Oscar closer, deepens the kiss a little, tries to say me too and this is real and I love you.

He’s pretty sure he gets at least some of that message across, because when they finally pull away Oscar’s smiling softly at him, looking so incredibly in love Lando’s starting to wonder how he never noticed it before. “I love you, too,” Oscar says. “In case that wasn’t, like. Clear.”

“Hm,” Lando says. “I think I need a little more confirmation. Can you maybe do that kissing thing again?”

At that, Oscar laughs, a full body one that has him folding in half with the force of it. Lando watches him, can’t help the fond smile on his face. When he glances around, however, he notices they’ve gathered quite the crowd.

“Actually,” he says, readjusting the backpack that’s fallen down his shoulder. “Let’s take this somewhere more private, yeah? I think we should talk.”

As he goes to take Oscar’s hand, the bracelet Oscar made him for Christmas slips down his wrists, falling into view just past his hoodie sleeve.

‘You got this!’ it says cheerfully.

Lando smiles to himself, glances sideways at Oscar, who’s ducking his head a little as he’s smiling too. Yeah, he thinks, as he squeezes Oscar’s hand once, twice. Yeah, I fucking got this.

Oscar Piastri
@OscarIT
30 following | 15 followers
Joined May 9^th 2017

Found him. He’s okay. Will make sure he calls you
the second his phone is recharged.
Today, 8:03AM

Thank god. Tell him he owes me multiple vacations
to Ibiza and maybe a new car. Also thank you.

Guess you can keep your balls for another year.
Today, 8:09AM

👍
Today, 8:10AM

[Selfie of Lando and Oscar smiling into the camera, both looking tired but extremely happy]

landonorris Sorry to worry everyone! I’m okay. Oscar says hi.

liked by danielricciardo and 1.674 others

maxfewtrell You fucking muppet. Happy for you but Jesus Christ.

norris4 SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

racebabe NO LONGER A CHILD OF DIVORCE I’M THE HAPPIEST PERSON ON EARTH LOVE IS REAL

lando-norris4

lando norris the man that you are

#wins a race #promptly disappears of the face of the earth sending everyone into a panic spiral #only to reappear in an entirely different country hours later #with the love of his life #your fave could NEVER

54 notes

“You are such a hypocrite,” Logan tells him, as Oscar pushes his way through a group of Ferrari engineers. When Oscar doesn’t respond, just continues to move his way through the crowd to the front of the barrier, he continues, “Seriously. Last year you were making fun of me for wanting to get front row to see Alex Albon and now look at you.”

“That was different,” Oscar says, tapping a McLaren employee on the back and smiling at her so she lets him past, finally finally making his way to the front of the barrier. “For one, Alex Albon isn’t your boyfriend-“

“But he could be.”

“And for two, he didn’t just win his home race,” Oscar continues, and god. Holy shit. He still can’t quite believe Lando actually did it, even though he’s watched the whole thing start to finish from the garage, saw every turn, every overtake, every strategy call that lead to this exact moment.

Lando Norris, winner of the British Grand Prix.

“You are so unnecessarily mean to me sometimes,” Logan pouts, popping up right behind Oscar. On track, the cars are doing their cool down lap, and Oscar’s heart jumps every time he sees a flash of orange.

“How,” he says, only half paying attention, eyes drifting towards the #1 sign Lando will park his car behind in just a few minutes. “I brought you to Silverstone, you got to watch the race from the garage and I introduced you to Albon.”

Logan is finally, blissfully silent. For a full three seconds. Then he switches gears by saying, “Do you think Alex liked me?”

Oscar squeezes his eyes shut, reminds himself Logan had to listen to a near full year of him waxing poetically about Lando and complaining about being so sure Lando wasn’t into him like that, and sighs. “I don’t know man. You talked for maybe five minutes. I’d say yes?”

“Cool,” Logan says, nodding. “Cool, cool, cool, cool. Do you think he’ll be at the after party?”

Before Oscar can respond, there’s a McLaren pulling into the P1 spot, and Lando gets out of the car, stands on top of it, raises his arms in the sky as Silverstone roars. Oscar can’t help the little jump his heart makes, as he watches Lando take in the cheers from the crowd. He can see the relief in his body language, the euphoria. He’d been so nervous, yesterday, this morning, about turning his pole into a win. And he fucking did it.

Oscar never doubted him for a second. But then again, Oscar doesn’t really doubt Lando on anything.

Lando clambers off the car, falls into Daniel’s arms and then Max’s, gets hugged and patted on the back by a few other driver’s passing through, before making his way over to his team, just to the right of Oscar, running over and practically jumping into their arms.

Oscar watches him, unable to wipe the delighted, fond smile off his face.

When Lando’s finally been set down by his team again, when he’s received all the hugs and pats they can give him, he finally, finally turns around and looks at Oscar.

He’s still wearing his helmet, but his visor has been pushed up and the little bit Oscar can see of his cheeks is definitely wet. He doesn’t mention it, just reaches out his arms, letting Lando fall into his embrace. “You did it,” he says, not even sure if Lando can even hear him over the roar of the crowd. Lando’s warm in his arms, sweaty, a little bit gross from the race, maybe. Oscar never wants to let him go.

“I did it,” Lando says, and his voice sounds a little choked up. “P1, baby.”

“Home race winner,” Oscar says, pulling away from the hug and putting his hands on either side of Lando’s helmet, pressing his forehead against the cold plastic in the closest thing they can get to a kiss right now. “Knew you could do it.”

Through the visor gap, Oscar can see Lando’s eyes, bright and sparkly and so, so fucking happy. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could live in this moment forever.

But then Lando gets tapped on the shoulder by Caroline, who whispers something at him and points at Jenson Button, who’s doing the post-race interview. “Shit, sorry, have to go,” Lando says, bonking his helmet against Oscar’s forehead one last time before letting go. “See you later.”

“Jar,” Oscar says, almost in reflex, and watches how Lando’s eyes crinkle with his smile. “But yeah. See you later. Go, collect your trophy, let yourself be cheered on by your adoring fans. I will be there when you come back.”

I will be there, he thinks, watching Lando bounce over to Button, bright and happy and the center of Oscar’s universe, I will always be there.

Notes:

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