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Lando can feel Oscar’s annoyance at his constant fidgeting on the sofa in Andrea’s office growing the more he does it, but he can’t help but grow antsy the longer both of them have to sit listening to Zak drone on about whatever it is the American man is talking about this early in the morning. The couch is comfortable, but he and Oscar are sitting with what couldn’t be more than an inch of space between them. Lando doesn’t think much of it though. He would never; in his third year of being teammates with the Australian, personal space is the last thing he needs to be squeamish about.
Oscar had wanted to take the first flight back to Monaco as soon as the race ended but is being held back here for seemingly no good reason. He’s annoyed after getting the penalty that essentially cost him the win in Silverstone, and instead of being able to drown in his sorrows for a week at home, he’s called into the factory for an unscheduled meeting. It means he can’t take the private flight he usually shares with the other drivers and has to extend his stay in the hotel instead.
Lando, however, had gone out to a club with his friends to celebrate his victory. His growing headache was more about the lack of sleep and semi-hangover he was nursing rather than beating himself up over race results. God knows he’s done enough of that. His race was good though—stable, clean, professional—at least, as far as his own driving could be concerned. The debrief with the pit crew yesterday had him wincing throughout. Half the shots he took last night were on their behalf, honestly.
Zak’s voice cuts through Lando’s trance. “We’re telling you boys this now, a month in advance, so that you can adjust your plans accordingly. The team thinks that it would be…beneficial, for you two to spend a week of your summer break together,” he finishes, and Lando hears Oscar immediately release a heavy sigh of irritation from next to him.
They want us to…what?
“What?” Lando asks, incredulous. “Why would we—huh? ”
“For team building,” Andrea pipes up from Zak’s side, one of the few sentences of the morning that he’s spoken.
“Team building,” Oscars mutters, distaste clearly laced in his voice. Lando has always known that the taller boy wasn’t the Iceman they tried to paint him as, but after Silverstone, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Oscar show as much annoyance in public as he has during these past two days.
Being in a title fight does that to a person, he supposes. Lando has already learned from last year with Max.
“We’ve been in the same team, with the same people, for three years now. Don’t think we need to do any more building on that,” Oscar says, and Lando can’t help but agree.
“Is this like, for PR, or something?” Lando asks.
“No, but it’s more of a…preventive measure, shall we say,” Zak muses with a slight squint, deep in thought. “For things to not go sour between you guys.”
It’s not like him and Oscar were on bad terms, per se. The way the relationship changes between teammates each year they stay together is inevitable, though. Lando had taken his role as the veteran very seriously throughout Oscar’s maiden year, helping him grow familiar and confident even when the car was struggling to move. After being with Carlos and Daniel, Lando was used to having teammates with strong personalities and spending days loudly with jokes and laughter. They were both older than him and had been the ones to take him under their wings with years more of experience and bundles of reassurance that things will get better; they would promise Lando that his time would come to win a race and be championship. Lando still considered them to be some of his closest friends even to this day.
Oscar was different in so many ways. He was a rookie under a lot of scrutiny due to his contract dispute with Alpine, his consecutive junior series titles, and from being a Mark Webber protégé. He was quiet and shy, yet sure of himself in a way where he didn’t feel the need to announce it to the entire world. Lando had never thought that was even possible.
The next year, however, McLaren suddenly found themselves with a truly competitive car. Lando had been with the team since 2017, and he almost couldn’t believe that all of the feedback and input he had poured in for years could play even a small part in reaching this point. However, having the fastest car led to challenges that Lando couldn’t warn Oscar about, because he had never gone through it before either.
Lando never had to deal with pressure of this sort before. After Spain, it was him who became Max’s challenger for the title, the official second place in the Drivers’ Championship. While he and Oscar had managed to come back and win the Constructors’ Championship over Ferrari and Red Bull, he couldn’t do the same individually, although he had the chances to come close. It was brutal.
There was the individual pressure, to beat Max, but also his teammate. Oscar was pushing him in other ways that led to uncomfortable all-night discussions with the team, and truthfully, bitterness. Oscar wasn’t content with being a second driver, to play into a team game that only pushes Lando further away from him while he has to sit back and halt his own achievements. Lando had to work to accept that he was going to be more of an equal to the younger man. That four more seasons as the official driver, and an additional two as McLaren’s reserve, wasn’t enough to be number one.
After all, he’s had four more seasons in Formula One, but only the same amount of time having a car capable of doing all this.
Lando had felt that they had worked through it, though, especially after particularly rough races like Hungary or Monza. He accepted what the team would want from him. He was going to put the team first.
Winning the Constructors’ Championship helped mend some of the pain of the season. It prepared him and Oscar for what their relationship was going to be like going forward. They were always going to be free to race each other, they were going to fight each other for championships, but they had to do it in a way that wouldn’t jeopardize the team. It made them stronger, better drivers. Both had extended contracts, and they had to make sure they could protect their chances at winning, not only for one year, but for all the years to come.
Papaya Rules.
McLaren had already prepped them enough coming into the season, with hours of PR and media training dedicated towards answering questions related to their fights in the races and comparisons to past teammate fights. Hell if Lando wasn’t going to take the opportunity to joke about Brocedes or Multi 21 after that.
Now, however, Oscar is the one winning. This is Lando’s new challenge.
He had felt it, tasted what it was like to be a World Drivers’ Championship leader. He was desperate to get it back, to not lose it to his teammate.
(Lando kicks himself, thinking about it. If he didn’t crash out of Canada, he could’ve been the leader again, after Silverstone. By two points.)
Still, Lando and Oscar weren’t on bad terms. They could do this—race fairly, sometimes a bit desperately, a bit hysterical—week in and week out. All the while, still being friendly with each other. Both knew that they wanted to win and end the season off as champion, and they could still be friends off the track while doing so.
“We—I see Oscar every day, like, we get on,” Lando explains, disbelief at the single eyebrow Zak raises at him and the blankness of Andrea’s face. “In the factory, we travel together, he lives in bloody Monaco now, we play padel with our other friends. I see him more than my best mates. Come on.”
“Half of those things don’t count. Those are obligations, and playing padel in Monaco is the least genuine thing this sport has brought us,” Zak says, and this time, Lando can Oscar huff out a laugh at that.
Figures he would find that funny, since he sucks at padel, Lando thinks to himself.
“I just. Don’t think this is necessary? I mean, nothing’s sour between us, Zak,” Lando attempts to explain to the two men in front of him. Instead of granting him a response, Andrea glances over to Oscar, who looks to be in quite possibly the worst mood he’s seen him in since Australia, and Lando falters.
Well, Lando had thought that Oscar wasn’t upset with him for what happened during the race. It wasn’t his fault, and Oscar had congratulated him and immediately backtracked his statement about asking to swap positions both publicly in the press conference and privately during the team meeting after the race. They had done a shoey together. He even let Oscar throw his sneaker into the crowd.
He could just be a good actor, Lando thinks. Maybe he just said that to make the team happy. Maybe he does actually hate my guts for winning but doesn’t want to say it.
“Nobody is saying that. I think you both have quite a good relationship, and it gets better the more you guys experience together,” Andrea admits. “But like Zak said, it is precaution. It will be good for you guys to experience this.”
“Experience…going on vacation together?” Oscar asks, skeptical.
“Yes. And so, it is final,” Andrea declares, and both boys stay silent. Lando feels a twist in his gut and thinks he might be getting sick, either from the thought of Oscar hating him, from the hangover wringing his body dry, or from the realization that he’s going to have to move around his schedule to spend time with his teammate. “One week during summer break. And you are not allowed to stay in Monaco. Go somewhere else.”
“What’s wrong with Monaco?” Lando asks with a frown.
Andrea sends a pointed look his way. “You both live there. I do not want you both to say you are spending time together but you just stay in your apartments and play padel and video games from time to time.”
“That’s team building,” Oscar mutters under his breath.
Zak sighs heavily, as if the early morning is finally catching up to him. “Boys. It’s final. Go somewhere else. Plan your week. I don’t care.”
“We are absolutely not going to Ibiza,” Oscar says, and Lando pouts in response. Oscar holds open the door that leads into the McLaren Technology Centre parking lot and Lando passes through, shivering at the slight chill in the air that settles onto his bare arms, only half-sleeved with protection from the first team polo he found in his suitcase when he woke up from the early calls telling him to come in. They walk towards where they’ve both parked their cars, the dedicated spots next to each other.
“No, well. I wasn’t going to make us party every day. You know I’m not like that,” Lando defends himself. Ibiza was a popular summer destination, however, so it was on his list. “Mallorca then?”
“Maybe not Spanish islands full of nosy tourists and millionaires partying at clubs?”
Lando grimaces. “Wherever we go, that will be us, I fear.”
Oscar pauses before responding. “Fair point. What about somewhere quieter, inexpensive?”
“Mate, at least the team is gonna pay for the accommodation. We can go all out.” While the plan wasn’t primarily for PR—meaning, they weren’t going to be forced to stay with Hilton—the team decided that they were going to make sure that both Lando and Oscar were complying and take advantage of their time together by requiring them to take as many videos and pictures together to post on their social media. It keeps the fans happy and the team gets to keep tabs on them. A win-win situation. Part of that comes from McLaren paying for the hotel or lodge of wherever they choose to stay, since they can keep track of if they checked in or not. Sneaky bastards.
It’s now Oscar’s turn to shoot Lando a look. “Think we can afford to go all out regardless of if the team is paying or not.”
“…So no Canary Islands?”
“That’s not the worst suggestion you’ve said so far, to be honest.”
“Portugal?”
“I swear, you are always in Portugal,” Oscar mentions, swinging his keys in his hand as they near his vehicle. Lando doesn’t mention how he is probably going again sometime before Belgium, after his debrief and media duties.
“Perhaps. But it’s, like, proper mint there. I don’t want to go to, like, Lisbon or Porto. Maybe we can go down south? Algarve? Or the islands, Madeira?” Lando suggests, and Oscar thinks about it briefly before agreeing. Less busy than Spain, and still a beautiful landscape. He wouldn’t complain about a free trip there.
“Sure. You tell the team,” Oscar states, now standing in between their cars.
“Alright,” Lando agrees, easy. He thought Oscar would be more difficult going into this, but it seems like that his irritation was just towards the team. Or maybe he accepted that it’s just another thing he has to do to keep the team happy and wants to get it done as quickly as possible. Get away from Lando as quickly as possible. Fuck.
He watches Oscar drive away, and Lando can’t help the uncertainty that begins to plague his mind. It’s new, but it feels too real. Now, he doesn’t know where he stands with Oscar anymore.
Belgium isn't quite as nice for Lando. His mum is there with her family, and he wishes desperately for a win that could make her proud of him for winning her home race. The weather and questionable decisions by the team means he ends up starting and finishing third in the sprint, even after briefly losing the place to Charles. Oscar's mood was pretty damp, losing the win from pole, but they had to focus on Grand Prix qualifying and couldn't afford to fret too much about it.
Lando thinks he manages to make his mum happy by starting from pole. He loses it in the actual race eventually—the same combination of slipstream, problems with the car battery and team decisions, and his own mistakes forcing him to settle for second place. It feels kind of inevitable with the way Oscar was driving and what he had learned from battling with Max the previous day, but he still beats himself up over it regardless.
He pouts at his mum when she holds his hand softly outside the garage, always telling him that she loves him and that she’s proud.
It’s not that Lando doesn’t believe her, he just—wishes things would be easier. The season is long, but the chase is so tiring, and it’s so easy to feel hopeless.
The next week, in Hungary, neither of them start the race on pole after all. They embarrassingly lose tenths from their struggle with adjusting to the cooler track temperatures and wind, and even their best laps are miles slower than earlier.
When the race starts, Lando drops down two places after struggling to slot into a good position going into turn one. His race ends up being with George, a frustrating battle of trying to stay within one second of the fellow British driver and the track only having one good overtaking point.
Will, his race engineer, asks Lando if he thinks he can manage doing a one-stop, and he says yes, despite the low confidence. The two-stop strategy is generally regarded to be quicker, here. To combat Charles and George, he would have to do it. However, it’s looking like his only choice—banking on a safety car, or trying to save his tires as much as he can. The rubber is degrading too quickly for it to be sustainable for him to chase George down, meanwhile Charles and Oscar are staying ahead. The longer he can be in clean air, the better.
Managing the same set of hard tires for nearly forty laps proves to be the toughest challenge. He stays up front while Charles, Oscar, and George pit again. Oscar, however, manages to get past the Ferrari driver eventually, and with his fresher tires, catches up to Lando quickly.
It makes Lando sweat , and he honestly screams into his helmet a little when he sees Oscar right behind him in his mirrors.
The only place Oscar has a chance to overtake him is in turn one, and Lando tries his best to block his teammate from doing so every time they get around. He sees Oscar lock-up at one attempt and thinks his heart absolutely drops when he does so, but in the end, both of them finish the race safely.
Lando is only able to breathe when he crosses the line first. He gets to kick off summer break riding the high of his victory. Instead of twenty-three points, the gap is back to nine.
He grins a little, when he takes off his helmet.
Lando rides on the high of winning McLaren their two-hundredth ever victory for the rest of the day. Zak gets incredibly excited at the prospect; it’s kind of embarrassing, like Zak is an overzealous father, but that’s just how he is. He focuses on Lando being the one to secure it, even though the achievement seems kind of inevitable, and they were definitely going to get more wins in the future. He and Oscar had a combined seventeen wins over the past two years and were pretty even on making the milestone happen, with Oscar’s eight wins to Lando’s nine.
Zak also goes around boasting about Lando and Oscar’s racing in the last couple of laps, and the latter seems a little miffed as Lando would expect him to be after finishing second due to his teammate’s unexpected strategy benefits.
Oscar congratulates Lando and says the difference in their strategies is something his team will have to discuss for the future. It doesn’t mean Lando misses the way the younger boy looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than next to him, face heavy with annoyance and fatigue.
Before going off on vacation, they first do more testing in Hungary, and then McLaren has a summer barbecue with the team that everyone needs to attend.
They also have to stay with the team to do their proper debrief for the double header. It had been great for the team—two one-two finishes in the races, Oscar and Lando trading wins. There was still a lot to discuss and reflect on, however, especially with qualification, race strategies, and pit stops. They analyze their competition too—Charles’ performance in the Ferrari both weekends, Max’s victory in Belgium’s sprint, and Aston Martin’s newly found qualifying pace.
The team jokes about how they never expected Lando to win in Hungary and it sort of feels like a jab. They explain to Oscar that his strategy was the one that they truly believed in winning, and Lando gets it, because at some point he had taken himself out as a possibility to win as well. He knows the one-stop was a risky strategy that not even he had full confidence in, but the team talks about the decision as if it was some sort of last second resolution for Lando to figure out on his own. It doesn’t really help when they praise him for making it possible when it sounds like they never intended to for it to work.
Winning in spite of that, however, feels quite nice.
Oscar gets told off again for his lock-up, too, and Lando feels bad. It was dangerous, but he wouldn’t fault Oscar for at least trying. If he hadn’t, it would’ve weighed on his mind for the rest of the season. It made Lando feel better too, knowing he was tested, and still came out on top.
When Lando tries to talk to Oscar about it, he feels the words die in his mouth before anything can come out. He promises the team that he doesn’t mind it that much, almost feeling desperate to see Oscar smile at him in thanks.
It never comes, however, and it makes Lando feel more nervous, although he expects it.
Expecting—what? That Oscar would be grateful? Lando can’t save him from being scolded by the team. It doesn’t change the fact that Lando had won the race, and not him. Oscar probably wasn’t interested in Lando’s desperate attempts to keep their relationship friendly. There were ten more races to go, and the gap between the two of them remained small, insignificant.
Maybe Lando hadn’t gotten back the lead of the championship—would’ve had it after Silverstone and Hungary if he didn’t crash in Canada—but he was too close to comfort, to Oscar.
They talk as they usually do, describing their races and gossiping about the other teams and drivers, but it feels fickle to Lando.
It doesn’t help when Oscar only sighs as he’s reminded that instead of going back to Monaco, they were both going to be on vacation together. He can barely stand to look at Lando, and now they have to go spend a week of their precious time off on an island, awkwardly standing around and finding things to do.
Both of them agree to take McLaren’s chartered plane to Portugal after their team duties. Zak and Andrea promise them that they wouldn’t have to pay for their flights to and from the island, much to their relief. The team had already set up the accommodation as well, so both boys pack their things, and leave from Heathrow.
They spend most of the time sleeping, desperately needing rest after the tiring schedule. Of course, the drivers were given breaks in between races, but this was the first official month off after fourteen races. Lando couldn’t be more thankful for the time off, anyway. Their bodies critically awaited the holiday.
After he and Oscar get through this week, they will still have more time to do whatever they pleased before they’re called back into the factory to discuss the next double header.
When they land in Madeira, Lando immediately feels himself gaining energy from being in the sun. As much as he loves England and dreams of retiring in a quiet village in the North where there’s no people, and it gets cold and snows, he equally craves the feeling of sweltering under the heat and seeing bright blue skies constantly. It’s a lot less easy to be depressed and tormenting himself with sad thoughts about his racing when he’s being kissed by sunshine.
Oscar seems slightly better, too. While he doesn’t look completely happy to be there, he seems more refreshed and a little less grumpy.
Lando takes pictures of the greenery and lush trees surrounding the airport, passing by the bustling main city of Funchal before they land which he considers checking out one day, if Oscar wants to go. He films a video through the window to share with the team and possibly post on his Instagram if they want him to.
He and Oscar gather their belongings from the plane in silence, making their way out into the heat, but fresh air. The porter and flight attendants are already waiting as they step out, their luggages laid out with a rental vehicle parked for them to use.
“Thank you,” Lando says in Portuguese to the workers, offering them a kind smile. His Portuguese is limited, but he can get by with more than what people expect.
“Mr. Norris, Mr. Piastri. Here are the keys to the vehicle,” says the porter, and he presses them into Oscar’s unassuming hands. “There is a navigator in the car for you both to use. Do you need assistance in finding your accommodation?”
“Uh,” Lando looks at Oscar for an answer, until he realizes that they were asked in Portuguese, so the Australian boy wouldn’t have understood the question. “No, we’ll be okay. Thank you,” he answers back.
When they finish putting their belongings in the car, Lando pushes the trunk down, turning and finding Oscar standing quietly to the side, watching him. Without asking, Oscar holds out the keys to Lando, who takes them gratefully.
“Know you hate being in the passenger seat,” Oscar clarifies when they’re settled in and Lando starts the car, which makes sense . Oscar has driven him around before, and Lando’s not that annoying about it, but he does get anxious at the lack of control when he isn’t the one at the wheel.
It’s already bad enough when you’re sharing the road with a bunch of strangers who got their licenses God knows how, and in a foreign place, but when he can’t make sure that they get from Point A to Point B safely and in one piece? Admittedly, he would probably chew off the skin around all of his nails if Oscar had to drive, even though he knows Oscar and trusts him. The only saving grace is that this isn’t one of the cars from his collection, which he would never let anybody else drive. He could never let anything happen to one of those.
Lando pulls out onto the road with the navigation hooked up, leading them to their lodge on the east end of the island, humming in response. “‘M sure you get it. A lot of us drivers hate it, I reckon.”
Oscar shrugs, pulling out his phone, pointing it quickly towards Lando, who notices and looks straight at the camera after a few clicks. He’s surprised at the fact that Oscar is playing into taking evidence of their time together, but it leaves a pleasant feeling in his stomach.
“A natural,” Oscar muses, looking intently at the pictures while scrolling through them, and Lando feels his cheeks start to burn at the thought of Oscar looking through all of the candids of him stored in his camera roll from over the years. If he even keeps them. For all he knows, Oscar could be sending them to PR and deleting them off his phone right away.
Willing himself to focus on the road and not stare at the boy beside him, he fumbles around for a second while busying himself with the car radio, fiddling with the stations until the static disappears and music filters through the vehicle with the connection. Soft music in the local language plays, and Lando relaxes again as he takes in his surroundings.
They pass by a golf course at some point and Lando finds himself filled with excitement. With the scenery around them, golfing here sounds like an absolute dream. Lando doubts that Oscar would enjoy spending a day doing that though, probably finding it incredibly boring, so he can’t bring himself to ask if it’s something they should do together.
Lando takes his job as a photographer very seriously. He takes pictures of the lodge when they get there, stepping out of the car after parking, and records a video of their surroundings. Part of it can go to the communications team’s obligations, but he likes to keep it for his own memories, too.
He takes out his digital camera as well, the one he uses diligently, although he doesn’t post his pictures and short videos to Instagram anymore. It will always be a passion of his, however, even if he can’t indulge in it as much.
Life was just too busy, especially this year, to dedicate time to it. It was why Lando mostly has his team taking his photos instead. That, paired with his growing distaste for social media. He’s beginning to really believe that it isn’t worth putting the energy into it anymore.
Lando doesn’t realize Oscar was still waiting around until he hears the younger boy speak. “Hey, if you need me to be, like, a cameraman or anything, let me know.”
They walk up the stairs together, Lando pushing the keys into the door of their lodge as he hums noncommittally. He was feeling sort of reluctant to ask Oscar to do anything, really.
The interior of their house for the next week is quite stunning. The space is small, but it’s still more than enough for the two of them to settle into. It’s wooden, a contrast from the buildings closer to Funchal that are made of concrete. The villa they’re in is more northeast, slightly hidden from the coast, almost tucked into the dense forests. It sort of seems like the kind of area that Lando tells everyone he wishes to move to, if he could. Away from people, quiet, yet so beautiful.
When they walk further in, Lando spots a comfortable couch with television to the right, and the kitchen and table directly to the room’s left. The entire back wall, however, is adorned with large windows and a sliding glass door that brings them out to the balcony. It would be impossible to escape the view of the ravines and forests behind them, the sounds of water flowing in nearby streams. Lando is in complete awe of the place.
Moving back to the front of the lodge, Lando goes through a hallway to the right that leads him to two closed doors. He opens one to see a clean bathroom, which he’s very pleased with, but that means the other door has to lead to the bedrooms.
Huh. Lando doesn’t mind sharing a bedroom with Oscar. He’s not picky at having to share the space. He knows Oscar can be very messy, which may be slightly inconvenient, but it’s nothing he can’t handle.
It’s weird, though. Oscar blocks his way into the room, just kind of…staring blankly, and hovering by the door.
“Why’re you just standing there,” Lando mumbles, slotting between Oscar and the door. He turns to look into the room and freezes.
There’s only one bed.
Granted, it seems to be one king-sized bed. Quite spacious. Lando doesn’t see any other door attached to another bedroom; there’s only one already open, revealing closet space. Meaning…him and Oscar would have to share, for the next six days, if he was right.
Fuck.
Lando takes a deep breath in. “Okay, well. Maybe there's another bedroom in a, uh, door that we missed somewhere—”
Oscar, deadpan, cuts in. “There’s, like, four rooms max in this place.”
…Fuck.
If Oscar wasn’t already in such an odd mood coming here, Lando is sure that this is his final straw. The poor guy already seems to be regretting his entire life, having to spend a week alone with Lando, and now this? Torture.
Lando is pretty sure at this point that Oscar would probably rather die than share a bed with him. Also, not to mention, Lando snores. It’s something Oscar knows—he has taken naps when his teammate was around, probably snores all the time—but still. It could bother Oscar, and he wouldn’t be able to sleep properly. If sharing a bed with another grown man already didn’t hinder his sleep enough.
The older boy wills himself to suggest it anyway. “Uh…we could share…?”
Oscar takes moments to reply, his face blank. “I’ll take the sofa,” he says, finality in his tone.
Oh, Lando is so fucked.
“Mate. We can share the bed, but if you, uh, don’t want to, we should just rotate taking turns on the sofa? But like…it’s not a big deal,” he responds with a frown.
Oscar’s quiet when he says, “Don’t worry. I’ll take the sofa. But I’ll leave my things here, I guess.”
“Oh. Okay.”
What choice does Lando have but to accept that? He doesn’t want to be pushy; it would be weird if he practically demanded Oscar to sleep with him. Not even wanting to rotate, though? Lando is quite baffled, really.
He has half a mind to call Zak and Andrea and ask them if they made a mistake. Surely, the team knew the details of the accommodation and they would’ve seen that this place had only one bed. Couldn’t they request for them to put two beds? Lando wonders if he should be the one to call someone and ask them to replace it. It seems like way too much effort, though, to make the villa employees do.
If forcing Oscar to sleep in the same bed as him seems silly, having to call people to give them another bed just because they can’t share a space together seems even worse. What if rumours start to spread about this?
Lando guesses it’s not like they had races after this that they needed to be in peak physicality for. Sleeping on the sofa would probably give Oscar insane neck, back, and shoulder pain, which they already experience as drivers, but well, he would have time to recover.
Since he really didn’t want to share, Lando thinks to himself, almost bitter.
The atmosphere turns almost awkward as they settle in, but it doesn’t stop Lando from asking Oscar, “What should we do today?”
Turns out, things can indeed get worse.
“Look, I’m tired and a little—like, I think I kinda just wanna be by myself for a bit? If that's okay? You can go out and explore, but I’m gonna stay.”
Oh.
At least Oscar looks slightly apologetic as he says it. Which, really, he didn’t have to be. It isn’t such a big deal that Oscar didn't want to spend time with Lando. He thinks he gets it, anyway. What guy would actually want to hang out with his main rival, after all?
It’s not like they would’ve done this if they weren’t forced. Hang out. Oscar was totally in his right to want to do things by himself—things he would’ve actually enjoyed, with people he enjoyed being around.
Lando feels like he has to get out of Oscar's hair before he becomes the biggest bother ever. “No—yeah! For sure, that’s okay,” Lando hates that he has to swallow a stupid lump in his throat as he says it. “I’m gone! I’m going, you won’t even notice me. I’ll be invisible.”
How bleak this vacation will be if this is what it’ll be like the next couple days they're here too. Oscar has the gall to at least fully look sorry, as if he wants to take back what he said, and he opens his mouth to say something, but Lando’s already turned on his heels, leaving the room.
The team was so ridiculous to suggest this. They should’ve just let them be, in their weird bubble of understanding that they both want to win but they can at least still be respectful to each other off the track. It was silly to force them to be or feel anything more.
It makes sense, really. Oscar was forced to be on this trip and Lando should just make it easy on him and leave him alone. They didn’t have to spend every second together. It was foolish of him to think that. It’s not even like Zak and Andrea were actually here, anyway. The team wouldn’t truly know if they spent every second together. They could probably get by with a few pictures here and there to keep everybody happy.
Lando doesn’t even really feel like being in the lodge anymore, so he decides to take a walk along the streets to the other buildings in the villa.
He ends up making his way to a restaurant and bar located not too far away, lights dangling around the exterior. Reading the sign, it seems to be the official diner for all of the homes in the area, likely owned by the same company.
Might as well get something in his stomach, if there’s nothing else to do.
There are a few families there, children running around the establishment, and a few couples sitting together in conversation. Lando joins the other lone stragglers at the bar area in an empty spot, and orders chips and a greasy burger from one of the waiters. The bartender comes around and Lando tells him that he’ll wait before ordering a drink.
“You fight with your girlfriend, or what?” A voice comes from beside him, in English. It’s an American accent, slightly grating on his ears the same way Zak’s is.
Lando snaps his head towards the new person joining him, and sees an older man sliding into the seat to his right.
“Uh,” Lando starts, uneasy. He doesn’t make conversation like this with strangers. If he was being approached and spoken to in English, there’s a good chance they might recognize him. He doesn’t want anything he says to be floating around the Internet, later. “No?”
“You sure? ‘Cause you’re sitting here all mopey and depressed,” the stranger says before flagging over the bartender, ordering two bottles of beer, sliding one over to Lando.
“Nah, mate. Just enjoying my solo time.”
“...Away from your girlfriend, who you fought with.”
Lando raises an eyebrow. “There is no girlfriend.”
“Boyfriend, then.”
Who is this guy and why is he so pushy?
“Just friend.”
“Ah, so there was a fight.” Jesus.
Lando doesn’t respond this time, choosing to stare at the man in disbelief, before his burger and chips arrive. The waiter places it in front of him, and before he can take a bite of his food, the stranger reaches over and plucks one chip from his plate. Lando gawks at him, shocked.
“I’m sorry—who are you?”
“I’m a relationship coach,” the stranger says with a smile. “You look like you need it.”
“There is no relationship that needs coaching,” Lando says, teeth grating together in a fake smile.
The coach seems to either be oblivious to Lando’s attitude or really doesn’t care. “So, tell me. Why are you here without your friend?”
“Is it illegal to sit by yourself nowadays?”
“Clearly, you’re upset about something.”
“I’m upset that you’re next to me and nicking food off my bloody plate,” Lando snaps. God. Americans. “Might as well fuckin’ go back to the guy who hates me rather than deal with this.”
There’s a moment of silence before he realizes what he says. The man looks at him, smug. “Your friend hates you? Why do you think so?”
Lando buries his head into his hands, and takes a deep breath in. He might even drink half the glass of beer in one gulp.
“Is that your tactic? Annoying people until they spill their problems onto you?”
The stranger shrugs, taking another chip. Lando has no fight left in him anymore. He just sighs, and reaches for one himself. “Seems to work just fine,” the coach says.
They sit in silence for a bit before Lando responds. Might as fucking well, at this point. “‘Cause we just got here and he told me he wanted to be by himself,” Lando says, quietly.
The coach hums, thoughtfully. “How often do you see this friend?”
“Pretty often. We’re coworkers. Like, in the same team.”
“Maybe it’s not you,” the stranger shrugs. “Could just be that he needs to work out something by himself. Kinda has no time to, if he’s always with you.”
Lando thinks about that, and frowns. They weren’t always together. Regardless, he and Oscar were supposed to work through things together. If Oscar has problems with Lando because they’re rivals, then Lando hopes that they can talk it out, like they always promised to do.
“We’ve had some…tension. At work. We’re here because people are concerned.”
“Concerned? What signs do you think these people could have gotten from you two?”
“Like…we’ve been clashing? Almost? Not exactly—it hasn’t even been that bad, but…there have been weeks where he does shit when I do great, or I do even more shit when he does great. And it’s been flip flopping between that. So people are worried that we’re going to start to get mad at each other if the other does well when we don’t.”
“Will you?” The man asks him. “Get mad at him?”
Lando would never get mad at Oscar if he does better than him. He already knows that Oscar is a great racer. If Lando does bad, that’s on him, and Oscar would never deserve to have any of Lando’s self-hatred taken out on him.
To Lando, it doesn’t matter if people think he needs to be tougher, make Oscar mad or hate him, just to be a worthy opponent. It wouldn’t be fair, even if that’s what’s expected of them.
When he shakes his head, the stranger tuts. “So what makes you think he won’t be the same?”
He’s just scared, really. Lando isn’t exactly confident that he’s the most likeable person on the grid. In fact, he feels like he’s quite easy to hate, so if Oscar did find him tiring or irritating…it would make sense. Everybody does, anyway.
Lando can’t exactly voice this to the stranger, though. He’s not sure if he would understand.
“I think you should probably just talk to him about it,” says the man, kindly. “You clearly don’t hate him, and I doubt he hates you. Workplace relationships are hard, but people sent you guys here for a reason. Don't be discouraged. There can be more to it than you think. I don’t know how long you’re staying, but there’s no use in spending the rest of your time here depressed. Madeira is a beautiful island, after all.”
The stranger smiles at him, and puts his glass down. Lando only now realizes that the man already finished his beer and half of his chips. The man slides off his chair, and wordlessly walks out of the bar. Lando stares at his retreating back, deep in thought.
It’s nighttime when Lando comes back to a quiet house after his trip to the restaurant.
He’s carrying a bag of takeout, which is hearty seasoned rice with tomatoes and sausage, in case Oscar hasn't eaten yet. The weight of the food in his hands makes him feel idiotic, but he wills himself to keep carrying it. He already bought it, after all, and it would be a waste to just throw it away. Lando takes out the styrofoam containers from the plastic bag and leaves them on the counter. He doesn’t see any other signs of food or used dishes, so he hopes Oscar will come out and eat, wherever he is.
Lando quietly stumbles into the bedroom, where he still hasn’t spotted his teammate. He decides to take a shower and changes into an oversized shirt and sweatpants before getting ready for bed.
When he comes out back into the kitchen for a glass of water, he sees Oscar there, staring at the food.
“Oh,” Lando starts to speak, before he can stop himself. Oscar’s head snaps towards him, and Lando watches him take a deep breath in after seeing that he was back. “I, uh. I brought food. Not sure if you’re hungry, but you can do what you want with it.”
The awkwardness might kill Lando, honestly. It’s like Oscar regrets everything, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
“Okay, thanks,” the younger boy says. Lando sees him school his expression into something more impassive, and okay—that’s enough.
He has to ask. Lando needs to get it out, because he doesn’t think he can spend another six days like this. A part of him hates agreeing with the weird American man from the bar, but he was right. Lando came all the way here, and he wants to enjoy it, for God’s sake.
Lando stands on the balls of his feet, clad in thin socks, peeking from underneath his long sweatpants. He rocks from one leg to the other, looking unsure, before blurting out, “Do you…hate me, or like...“ he trails off.
Oscar is stunned at the question, shock adorning his previously blank face. Lando guesses he probably isn’t prepared for confrontation tonight. “ What? Lando, why would I—no, I don’t hate you, christ—“
“No, no! ‘M not, uh, accusing you of anything bad,” Lando rushes to cut in, to fix his words in case they came across wrong, sounding like something he didn’t intend. “Like it would be fine? If you didn’t like me? But—“
“What do you mean, it’d be fine? No, it really wouldn’t be,“ Oscar raises an eyebrow, beginning to look slightly distressed at the conversation.
Lando shrugs, not meeting Oscar’s eye. “Just, it’s natural, no? I guess? Between teammates? And I know I’m like…you know? So...“
“No, I don’t know. Fucking hell.“
“I would just wanna know if I did anything, cause, then I’ll try to fix things, y’know, and be better, so—“
“Lando,” Oscar stresses, firm and final, and the British man quiets at last. “You are good. I definitely, definitely do not hate you.”
“Oh.”
“I hate myself, a little. Maybe.”
“Oh, okay. I…get that.”
Oscar huffs out a laugh. “I know you do.”
“I spent like…the past month, thinking you hated me, after Silverstone. After…Canada.”
Oscar pauses. “Canada—That was so long ago, mate. We talked about it. Everything. There’s nothing we go through together as teammates that we don’t ever discuss.”
That’s what Lando had thought, too, before Oscar went off moping by himself.
“So, like...just, why are you ignoring me, or—I don’t know, not to be clingy or anything, you don’t have to answer, but it just sometimes feels like you would rather be anywhere else than with me?” Lando cringes at himself. “And, like, it sounds stupid, ‘cause why should I care, we are literally rivals and I should probably be more fucking, I don’t know, a man about it, cause they always say that back in the days you hated all your competitors since that’s what made you look strong and I don’t mean to look weak, but—“
The younger boy has to cut his teammate off before he spirals even more. “Lando, it’s okay. I know what you mean. I just. I’ll admit, it’s a little hard when you’ve found yourself in a championship fight with your teammate who happens to be the guy you’ve looked up to since you moved to England and started karting and have always admired,” and oh, Lando has never thought about that before.
Oscar continues, “But I wanna win, so it’s a little annoying when I haven’t won many races in the past couple months. When everybody thinks that I’m some…machine who doesn’t feel emotions. And now that I’ve shown them, people hate me. I’m just—it’s a lot. To process. The way being in a title fight makes you feel. And I feel it, all the time, when I’m with you.”
Lando didn’t know Oscar was struggling to separate him as a rival and as a friend. It kind of fills him with dread—the thought of one day, Oscar waking up and not being able to differentiate the two anymore. He didn’t know Oscar was looking at him, even off the track, and seeing Lando as the guy he’s been losing to.
He sort of feels panic crawling up his spine at that, desperation building in him, almost. Lando doesn’t want Oscar to see him that way, ever.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel that way,” says Oscar, with a frown. And—what? “Because regardless of what you’re thinking…I don’t want to be that teammate that’s…self-conceited. Or evil, I guess. I just…I don’t want you to think I hate you, because that’s not me, either.”
It is so easy to fall into a hole of insecurity that you never really stop to think about what that makes anybody else, or what the other person may be feeling. Oscar is a good person. He wouldn’t be cruel to Lando or hate him for no reason. Oscar seems to hate the thought of ever looking at Lando in that way, too.
It kind of sucks that it took Lando so long to realize that. He didn’t realize his teammate was holding this all in either.
“I think we all feel this as drivers, but when the weekends come around…nobody is a friend anymore,” Oscar says truthfully. “You only think about yourself. It gets hard to think about the team too. We’re selfish. But that’s like—we all are. It’s fine.”
Lando knows that feeling well, feels guilty admitting it to himself, hates having to say it to the press, who tear him to pieces for saying things that everybody else goes through. “Sometimes I feel like I hate everybody when it’s time to race.”
“Yeah,” Oscar nods in agreement. “And it’s hard to separate those…feelings, after, but outside of racing I don’t have any hard feelings towards you at all. Even now that we’re both fighting for the championship. I wanna win. You wanna win. And that’s okay. Doesn’t have to mean we hate each other, ‘cause that’s not us. We aren’t…We aren’t like what this sport has seen in the past. And that’s okay.”
It was true—Oscar and him being friends, being cordial, and enjoying each other’s presence. They would share laughs at team meetings that got each other in trouble by Andrea, who still couldn’t hide his smug and pleased smile at them being close after. They would text each other memes, send TikToks, and hang out for no good reason other than to just be together. They had known each other for years, even before becoming teammates. At this point, Lando didn’t have to act like a skittish cat just because he and Oscar were racing each other harder than usual, and they both had feelings about that racing. They could separate what happens on the track from what they do off it.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Lando takes a deep breath in, mind finally relaxing. “Sorry, I just let everything get to my head again. I just wish we talked about this earlier.”
Oscar nods, brows furrowed together. “Yeah. I should’ve—I don’t know, we should’ve talked after Silverstone. Didn’t know you were thinking all that.”
Lando didn’t know, either. Both of them had things they were keeping in, clearly.
“It’s okay. We’re okay. And you definitely do not hate me. At least, not when we’re wheel-to-wheel on track.”
Oscar chuckles and hesitates before reaching out and grabbing one of Lando’s hands into his own, giving it a brief squeeze. “Exactly. And now we’re here. In Portugal. For…six more days.”
“Vacation with Oscinha,” Lando says, a new, teasing glint in his eyes.
“ So , let’s make the most of our vacation while we’re here, like what summer break is supposed to be about.”
Lando has to hold back a yawn before he can respond, covering his mouth with a big hand. “But first…sleep.”
Oscar watches him carefully. “Could I—uh, nevermind,” he starts, cutting himself off early, and Lando looks at him curiously with big eyes until he caves in. “Like—the bed? I’ll…share with you.”
“Oh,” Lando says, warmth climbing up his body. “Yeah, that’s—of course! That’s what I said at first, mate, nothing weird about it.” Lando shrugs, willing himself to be nonchalant.
“Okay, cool. I already showered but I’ll eat what you brought hom—uh, here, first and then come to sleep, if you wanna go first…” Oscar trails off, a blush settling under his eyes. Lando wonders if it’s because he’s realizing how incredibly domestic the entire situation is. Surely this isn’t what McLaren were intending when sending them here.
Lando decides to spare Oscar and doesn’t mention it. “Sure. See ‘ya,” he says, muffling another yawn and turning to get his water. He gives Oscar space as he eats, and goes back into the bedroom where he jumps into the left side of the bed, his chargers plugged in and electronics out to be ready for the next day.
They don’t talk about their plans for the rest of the week, but Lando supposes they can deal with that later. Now, he knows that Oscar doesn’t hate him, but he still feels conscious of pushing too hard, so he thinks he should probably take the backseat on making decisions.
Later, when he’s half asleep and ready to doze off, he vaguely feels Oscar's body heat settle under the covers next to him, which was the final thing he needed before he could fully put the day behind him.
Oscar doesn’t end up asking what Lando was up to while they were separated yesterday, and Lando gives him the same treatment. Lando wakes up in the morning facing away from Oscar, but he also registers the feeling of something heavy on his leg, like Oscar’s calf laying on top of his own.
Huh.
Is that, like, normal? Is it weird that Oscar’s leg was on his? Is Oscar going to wake up and kick him off the bed when he realizes?
Lando rolls onto his back and pulls his leg away, but it wakes Oscar up immediately, who turns on his face to huff angrily at him. His face is sleepy, smushed on the pillow—his eyebrows scrunched together, pink lips pouty, messy brown hair looking lighter under the sun—and Lando just finds him so cute he could really care less about Oscar being upset with him for waking up early if he looks like this.
“Morning,” Lando says, quiet, voice still scruffy with sleep as well.
Oscar grumbles under his breath, pulls himself up using his arms, and Lando watches the way his muscles move as he does so, his arms looking bigger from under his shirt. From this angle, Lando flat on his back with Oscar looking down—
No, Lando stops himself, mortified. Not going there.
The Aussie boy shakes himself awake and taps his phone on the bedside table to look at the time. It really does feel so domestic, watching Oscar yawn, rub his eyes, and flop back onto the bed after he reads the numbers on his screen.
“’S nine in the mornin’,” is what Lando makes out from Oscar’s complaining.
“We slept for a long time,” he responds, placating.
Oscar groans, but he seems to accept that Lando wasn’t going to go back to sleep. Although he could just tell Lando to fuck off and do his own thing again, he instead chooses to stretch his back, and sit up onto the bottom of his feet. His thighs are splayed out, looking wider from the position, but still muscle-clad, all for Lando to see under his shorts. He feels greedy, letting his eyes wander, and his mouth dries at the sight. Lando feels a little crazy at the sudden thirsting over his teammate.
Get it fucking together, Lando thinks to himself. First you think he hates you, and now you keep ogling the poor guy.
He's at least glad it looks like Oscar slept well sharing a bed with him—never complaining about him hogging the bed, the comforter, or if he woke up from Lando snoring too loud.
“Should we spend today at the beach?” Oscar asks. It takes Lando a few seconds to realize what he’s asking, but when it settles in, he’s relieved that Oscar does actually want to spend time with him on their trip, even though he practically said it yesterday. It's only now that it feels real and fixed, that whatever Oscar was going through seems to have left his mind for them to go on with this normally after Lando talked to him.
Lando voices his agreement, saying, “Yeah. Rock or sand? Which one’s private?”
“Think there’s a private sand one,” Oscar says, grabbing his phone to check.
“Great. I should tan.” After Lando says this, Oscar watches him silently, studying the little bits of skin he can see peaking out from under Lando's shirt collar. The younger boy doesn’t make a comment on it, but Lando sees the way his throat moves as he swallows dryly, which is…something.
Later, Lando walks out onto the beach in nothing but little blue swim shorts, but throws on an opened white button up to cover him on the way there. His silver necklace is still on his chest and he has shades perched up into his curls with a pair of jeans to put on after. He would make a comment about Oscar staying in a t-shirt the whole time and how he would have weird tan lines from that, but he takes off his shirt before Lando gets the chance, and all the words die in his mouth before he could consider it.
Oscar's pale, even with his already present slight tan from Monaco’s summer, but his frame is wide. It feels like an endless expanse of skin when Lando traces it with his eyes. He’s muscly and soft, and Lando's not even sure how it’s possible to do a combination of both. God, it’s not even his first time seeing his teammate shirtless, but Oscar is broad.
He’s quite fit, Lando thinks. Nothing wrong with admitting that about a friend.
“Your shorts are longer than the ones you usually wear,” Lando chooses to comment, and Oscar snaps his head towards him right as he slides off his button up. Oscar pauses, eyes dancing over Lando's collarbones, down to his shorts, and then back at his own. “The, uh, tan line will look funny when you wear the… errr …shorter shorts.”
“I can pull them up,” Oscar suggests.
Lando's quite hairless, but Oscar isn’t, and he can see it all over when Oscar lifts the hem of the shorts up to show him. It's on his arm too, a bit on his chest, but regardless, the hair is soft and dark, light under the sun. Lando doesn’t mind the look, honestly.
“Yeah that’s—that’s good,” he stutters out.
Suddenly, it feels like the air has shifted to something much more dangerous than if he and Oscar were fighting.
Quickly, Lando busies himself with rummaging into his bag to stuff in his shirt and take out his sunscreen bottle. He makes hast work of putting it on himself and twists to reach his back as best as he can.
Oscar clears his throat, is suddenly so close, and Lando can only blink as Oscar asks, “Do you need help?” He looks kind of shy as he asks, not really making eye contact with Lando as he says it.
Lando stutters out, “Uh. Yeah sure,” and hands Oscar the bottle.
He watches Oscar pour out a bit into his hand, and looks back at him, waiting for Lando to turn around.
The Brit feels a little silly tripping over himself in the sand, but he does manage to turn around without falling flat onto his face. Lando shivers at the feeling of the cold liquid hitting his back even though he didn't earlier when he put the liquid on himself.
Oscar gets to all the spots Lando misses in the middle, the ones he can never reach himself, and massages the sunscreen into his shoulder blades. Lando has to keep himself still when his hands go dangerously low, but Oscar is done before he realizes it.
“Could you do me?” Oscar asks, and Lando isn’t quite sure why his heart is beating this fast. “Just the back.”
Of course, Lando says yes, so he squeezes out more sunscreen onto his hands. He notices that even though Oscar is broad and big, his own hands are huge and already so much more tan, and cover so much of the younger boy’s pale back.
Lando works the sunscreen in like what Oscar did to him, and wordlessly hands the container over to let Oscar do the rest before his mind fills with even more insane thoughts. He settles nicely onto a chair while Oscar finishes up, his gaze decidedly turned away while he does it.
He honestly isn’t a fan of sand—the texture and the way he gets all stuck on his skin, attaching to his sunscreen—but Lando won’t complain about being at a beach. It's nice here, quiet and peaceful. The weather couldn’t be more beautiful either.
When he gets bored, he takes pictures of the sand, and walks closer to the water. Lando dips his toes into the ocean when the waves reach him, and he feels that it’s a perfect temperature. He's pleased and definitely going in for a swim later.
Oscar has his own chair set up too and is scrolling through his phone, relaxed. Lando can’t resist reaching for his camera and takes pics of Oscar, who is startled when he notices what the older boy is doing.
“You need to make sure I look good in the candids,” he says.
Lando scoffs a little. “Oh, please. Are you doubting my skills as a photographer?”
Oscar gives him a sidelong glance as Lando moves to lay in his chair. “No, I’m doubting your skills to make me look less like an idiot.”
Lando pouts at that. “You would never look like an idiot, Osc.” He asks Oscar to get up and take pictures of him too, but, like, proper good ones. “I’ll flex and all,” Lando says.
Oscar grumbles under his breath at the demands, but complies, and Lando finds it very endearing how seriously Oscar takes his job as a photographer. Oscar watches him intensely as he gets in position, and Lando prays he doesn't turn red under his scrutiny—something he’d have to edit out because how embarrassing it would be to be caught slipping like that. In the end, however, Oscar had agreed to be his cameraman, they promised to take lots of pictures and videos of each other, so it’s simply that they were following up on their duties.
Later, Lando feels very relaxed when they’re settled in, the sun beaming down harshly on them. He’s at peace, close to falling asleep. Oscar lets him put on a playlist which he had promised was curated for ‘perfect beach vibes’, and they pass time in each other's company.
After they both get tired of sitting still, Oscar suggests that they go into the water to swim, and Lando agrees excitedly.
The water is still in perfect condition—not at all cold, but still refreshing enough that it feels good to be in it. It's the temperature that reminds someone that they are on vacation, it is summer, and they’re free.
Oscar sighs from beside him, content. “The water is so perfect,” he comments, already going deep enough that the waves crash into his neck. Lando agrees and swims around with ease, enjoying the feeling of being in the water.
It isn't until after a while of leisurely swimming that Lando feels Oscar tap onto his shoulder, with a mischievous grin on his face. Lando is suspicious and instinctively backs away, an eyebrow raised skeptically.
Immediately, Oscar tries to use his strength to push Lando further into the water, and he yelps, kicking Oscar away.
“What are you doing!” Lando yells.
“C’mon!” Oscar says, feigning innocence. “Nothing!”
“You’re trying to drown me,” Lando accuses as he floats away, inching closer to shore, as much as he can.
“I’m not! I swear!” Oscar makes a sign of truce, but paddles and kicks his feet so that water splashes up at Lando who splutters at the liquid suddenly going up into his nose.
“Oscar! You muppet! ”
Oscar laughs, and Lando angrily splashes water back into his face with the other boy doing the same back to him.
They float around in the water like little kids, throwing heaps of water at each other, giggling and groaning when they get hit.
When Lando's guard is finally down, distracted by the flicks being thrown his way, Oscar lunges towards him, full of power.
“Oscar, no!” Lando shouts, feeling Oscar's arms wrap around him quickly, lifting him up with strength and ease, dunking him into the water. Lando scrambles up to the surface, taking in a large breath, and flails around to find the other boy, who’s laughing brightly. “You are so dead, Piastri.”
Oscar gasps, feigning fear in his voice. “Piastri? Oh, it’s serious.” He kicks off to swim away, but Lando scrambles after him, both of them unknowingly with huge smiles on their faces.
They play around childishly, manage to swim peacefully, and take pictures of each other in the water by the sand. Eventually, they get exhausted, and Lando climbs out of the ocean to flop onto his chair and shut his eyes. He doesn't realize Oscar has set up a big towel on the sand in front of them until the smell of food causes him to open his eyes and he sees it in front of him.
The towel is a striped blue and white pattern and big enough for both to sit down with cans of beer ready to crack open, placed down along with two sandwiches.
Lando finds out now that Oscar's the kind of guy to pack beach meals for both of them to eat while they’re here, though he’s not even sure where or how Oscar got any of the ingredients, or how he knew to think ahead and pack something for their trip here. God knows Lando has never been that prepared for anything in his life.
“One’s ciabatta bread, white cheddar, basil and spinach, sun dried tomatoes…pickles and deli meats…something prosciutto? The other has mayo, mozz, lettuce, fresh tomatoes, teriyaki chicken,” he explains. “Which one do you want?”
Lando can’t help but look at him with stars in his eyes. He made two freaking sandwiches. One for Lando. He’s letting Lando pick first. None of them have some kind of weird crawly sea creature in it. Oscar put that much thought and dedication into this without him even knowing.
He wonders if it makes him crazy to think that he might even be in love with Oscar, at this moment.
Picking the chicken sandwich, Lando opens the wrapping while Oscar explains more, his mouth already salivating. The meal truly looks and smells delicious.
“So. The key to a good beach sandwich is making sure that it doesn’t get soggy, which is why the tomatoes are the middlemost item, and…”
Lando isn’t really listening, at this point. He’s already taking a bite, moaning in pleasure at the taste of the food—the classic Italian bread paired with the fresh cheese and poultry. It might just about be one of the best meals Lando’s had in a while, if he’s honest.
He doesn’t notice the way Oscar's sentence trails off to watch him. His eyes follow Lando's movement and settle around his full mouth, the grip of his fingers holding the sandwich together and his lips while he chews.
“Osc, this is fuckin’ mint,” he says, immediately going in for another bite. Looking up at Oscar, he sees that the other boy’s face is turning a bright red. “Mate, you should apply more sunscreen again. D’ya want me to get it from my bag?” Lando places his sandwich down and makes a move to get up, sitting on his knees, and Oscar immediately ushers him down.
“No, no—that’s alright. I, uh, no,” Oscar shakes his head. He seems shy now, almost bashful. “Glad you like it.” He gestures vaguely to the sandwich, not meeting his eyes.
Huh, odd.
They make easy conversation over their meal and towards the later hours of the afternoon, decide to rummage through the open bin full of sports equipment to burn off their food and use the last of their energy for the night. Until the sunset, they clumsily play beach volleyball, use their feet to kick the ball over the net, and even find shuttlecocks to play badminton. Lando has his phone set up to record their games to keep for himself, or who knows if it’ll make it into a vlog someday.
Both of them are competitive and hate losing even impromptu beach games while their heads swing from the alcohol and their bodies are too heavy with food to move swiftly in the sand. It's fun, though. Playing games with Oscar but also playing against him. They're able to laugh and enjoy the matches, falling to their knees dramatically when they lose a set or shouting in happiness when they get a point.
Lando finds that, even though they were technically forced to be here together, off the coast of a random island in Portugal, he wouldn’t want to spend his vacation in any other way.
They watch the last of the sunset together, laying on the sand that sticks to their now sweaty and wet skin, groaning at the feeling and anticipating their showers later.
“Can’t believe we were really sent here by Zak and Andrea,” Lando finds himself thinking out loud. It feels surreal, having a semi-all-expenses paid trip to Portugal with his teammate. It’s the last situation he could’ve expected himself to be in when he thought about how the year would pan out.
“Yeah,” Oscar hums out. “Wonder why they thought we needed this trip so badly.”
“But we are friends,” Lando declares.
“I mean, I like you,” Oscar states, after a moment of hesitation.
Lando freezes. Did Oscar… have to say it like that?
He responds, quickly, to not make it weird. Lando doesn’t want Oscar retreating back into a shell after all the talking they did yesterday. “I like you too.”
Oscar is deep in his head. “I know I might not be, like, your first choice to call to hang out, or be the most fun guy to go out to party or go clubbing and shit, but I do always enjoy your company.”
Lando shrugs at him. “Well, I mean. I know I have, like, some reputation, but I'm not really that guy either. Most nights, at least. Don’t need you to be that person anyway. Think you’re a fine bloke just the way you are.”
It is true. On the rare day he does want to go out, he has other friends he’ll call. He never wants to force Oscar into being something that’s not and truthfully would never be interested in that. He likes Oscar the way he is, introverted, shy, but polite.
“A fine bloke,” Oscar muses. “You know, you were never really what I expected when I first met you.”
Lando finds himself being the one to hesitate before asking, “In a good way or a bad way?”
“Good way,” Oscar declares. “I mean, I watched your videos and your streams and followed your social media, so I knew you were gonna be a fun teammate. That is still true. But now I know you. How you get in your own head. How you get yourself in trouble. How you’re quiet and like being at peace. Watched you start to hate people, even.”
It’s a very thoughtful description of him, Lando thinks. It is true, however. Oscar really does know him, probably better than most other people in his life. It's kind of inevitable. Oscar watched him grow in ways other people haven’t or could never understand.
Being genuine friends in this sport feels impossible. People talk about it as if it makes them weak, confiding in others, and letting others see them break down. It doesn’t only make outsiders question their mentality, but they start to question themselves too.
Oscar, however. He’s never said it makes Lando weak.
It makes him a friend, and that’s okay to have.
“You’re a good friend,” Lando settles on. “Wouldn’t really ask for anybody else to do this with.”
“Be in a title fight with, you mean,” Oscar deadpans.
Lando rolls his eyes. “But it's true! If it was anybody else I went through this with, it would be a disaster…okay, erm, maybe not George or Alex, but most other people. It'd probably be shit.”
It was sort of shit with Max, and they were pretty good friends. The fact that he can be doing this with Oscar, his teammate, who he’s known for much less time, is probably a testament to how well they fit together.
“Yeah,” Oscar agrees, a smile on his face. “Reckon it isn’t so bad doing this with you either.”
They decide to go into Funchal the next day; it’s a big risk, since it’ll be full of tourists in the bustling August summer, but Lando insists that it’s something that they have to dedicate at least one full day to while they’re here. If they get spotted, the team probably wouldn’t care anyway. It helps with the publicity—if people see them together privately before either of them could even post about it in such a random location, it would seem as if they came here by choice. Lando and Oscar together, choosing to go on vacation, right after two hard weeks of racing each other and seeing each other constantly at team meetings.
Honestly, as long as they don’t get followed back to their lodge, Lando doesn’t really care what people see or post. He’s used to it at this point, being spotted and photographed for people to ogle at and make assumptions of his life.
It’s impossible to walk to the city from their lodge and neither of them are crazy enough to spend hours cycling there, so they have to take the car and find a parking lot, but they manage without much difficulty. The drive was short, along the island coast, through the other small towns. It’s beautiful and peaceful looking at the green trees, blue sky, and reflective ocean water; Lando wishes he let Oscar drive so he could take pictures and stare out the window to admire the view. A shame, because it probably wouldn’t be the same later, but if they leave early enough, he could catch the evening sunset, he supposes.
Lando steps out to pay the metre after parking, in his sneakers, white linen button-up, and loose black slacks, sunglasses perked in the same curls that Oscar had watched him fret over all morning. He doesn’t feel overdressed because he is on vacation on an island, and he still doesn’t, even after looking at Oscar’s plain maroon coloured t-shirt and cream shorts. Lando knows Oscar’s style at this point, but doesn't say anything because he’s almost sure it was all the other boy had packed. It suits him, oddly, the way his shirt stretches around his broad chest, his thighs unhidden, a simple watch on his wrist.
And if that isn’t a dangerous path for his mind to wander to, once again. He’s done enough thinking about Oscar’s body over the years, the way he’s grown and gotten thicker with years of training. He notices it every time they stand next to each other, even.
(Earlier, while they were getting dressed, Lando looked through mirror selfies he had just taken and also scrolled through their beach pictures from yesterday.
"Should we post something to, like, hint that we're here together? Lando mused, perched on the bed while Oscar finished up. He was running a hand through his swoopy hair, looking into the mirror above their dresser.
Oscar cringed. “It’s like we're doing some… fake dating PR stunt.”
Lando’s cheeks burned at that. “I mean, doesn’t have to be seen that way but—”
Oscar seemed to catch himself and scrambled to fix the weirdness in the air. “Oh, no, yeah. I mean. If you want to, like, we can post some scenery, I guess—”
“You don’t wanna include, like…a picture…of me, or,” Lando felt himself cringe at having to ask that. He sounded so desperate.
“I mean—I don’t—we don't really do that, too often,” Oscar said in defense, but Lando swore that they have many times. “But I could—”
“Well, I guess…Yeah, we can save that.” Lando didn’t really feel up for playing the role of a jealous girlfriend today.
“‘N I guess, I just wanna…keep them to myself,” Oscar mumbled to himself.
Oh.
Lando's traitorous heart kept beating at that for the rest of the morning.)
Clearing his throat, they walk to pay together, and Oscar rushes to insert his change, enough for a full day of parking, and Lando squawks at his hurriedness.
“Had to do it before you got the chance to argue,” Oscar says, cheekily.
“Wha—we could’ve split that! Where did you even get that many coins,” Lando mumbles, petulant.
“Don’t worry about it,” Oscar says simply, grabbing the freshly printed ticket, already walking to put the paper in the windshield.
Before coming, he had searched up all of the things to do in Funchal and had a list, and on the drive over, he found out that Oscar had done the same. They were probably going to get brunch and dinner here, so Oscar took the liberty of booking a reservation so they actually had a seat at a good spot. Lando is grateful he thought ahead, trusts that the younger boy chose a restaurant that he could survive in. Sue him for having a weak stomach.
As they walk down the streets surrounded by white concrete buildings with colourful roofs and tall palm trees, they discuss some of the things they saw online.
“Osc,” Lando whines. “What do you mean we can’t see the Ronaldo museum?
The younger boy grumbles under his breath, looking exasperated. “The statue doesn’t even look like him, mate.”
“Doesn’t matter!”
“There are so many beautiful museums, and that’s the one you want to see? Seriously?”
Lando loses that battle pretty fast. He hopes they can do another walk along the sea, though. He feels addicted to the ocean when he’s here.
They make it to a lunch spot, which ends up being a small, rustic café that they decide looks promising. Oscar went on a whole spiel about restaurants that are tourist traps, as if he was very passionate about the matter. He looks pleased at their choice as they walk inside to an empty table, sitting across from each other. It’s wooden and casual, and gives off a Northern European vibe, rather than Mediterranean.
Secretly, Lando is relieved, because it means that they would probably have more than just seafood options on their menu, but he’s sure it wasn’t the reason Oscar chose this place. He wasn’t going to stop Oscar from indulging in fresh fish while they’re here—he gets it, will probably whine and be unashamedly grossed out the whole time—but the Australian is free to do whatever he wishes.
There’s only a handful of people inside, and Lando barely has time to wonder if this is a good or bad sign before a waiter comes over to greet them.
“Hello, welcome,” a handsome man smiles at them, speaking in Portuguese again. Lando smiles back, saying his greetings as well. He misses how Oscar’s head moves from their waiter to him, looking at Lando throughout the entire interaction. “My name is Vicente, I’ll be with you guys today. Is it your first time here?” He looks at Oscar and Lando, but only the latter can answer the question.
His Portuguese is nowhere near perfect, it’s rather rudimentary, and Lando fumbles through grammar and vocabulary, but he tries to get his brain to catch up fast enough to be able to converse with the waiter.
“Uh, yes, it’s our first time,” Lando smiles, bashedly and a little self conscious.
“Oh! where are you guys from?” Vicente asks, his interest peaked.
Lando thinks about saying England, but decides against it. A bit unsurely, he says, “Monaco…?”
Vicente looks them over, impressed. Lando hopes it doesn’t make them seem, well, rich and exploitable—although, they really are.
“Well, I am very happy you chose to come here,” the waiter smiles brightly at Lando, his eyes twinkling in a near wink, and he feels his cheeks redden. Lando wonders if he was being flirted with or if he was just imagining things. Vicente is clearly attractive in a way Lando typically likes—dark hair, a clean shave, and a sturdy build, but he wasn’t here alone.
Lando’s eyes dart across to look at Oscar, who’s still staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face, and he finds it so unsettling that he can’t tell what Oscar is thinking at all.
What if—what if Oscar also thinks he’s being flirted with by this man, and has a problem with it? Even though Oscar doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to be against it, he honestly could never tell nowadays.
An even worse part of Lando's brain wonders if Oscar is jealous, instead. Which would be ridiculous.
“It’s currently happy hour, so you can order a flight of four cocktails for half price if you’d like.”
Lando probably understood about half of those words, but quickly stutters out, “Uh, yeah,” turning his attention back to their waiter. “We’ll have that to start.”
“Perfect! Well, I’ll get started with those, so feel free to look at the menu in the meantime.”
“Sure," Lando says with a bright smile, watching Vicente walk across the café.
He still feels the heat of Oscar's eyes on him, scrutinizing, and it makes Lando's insides itch. He avoids the other boy’s eyes as he clears his throat, and opens the menu, deciding on an egg, potato, and meat dish that seems good enough for lunch.
When he looks up to ask what Oscar is getting, he’s still staring, and Lando gawks at him. “I—what, mate?” he says, questioning.
“You didn’t say you were fluent in Portuguese,” is what Oscar comes up with.
Lando looks at him, unimpressed. After all of the blatant staring, that’s what he comes up with? “Like, barely. I can hardly speak British—or English, whatever, let alone another language.”
“You spoke with him quite easily, though,” Oscar says, and he finally takes his eyes off Lando. Instead, he chooses to lean back in his chair, lifting a hand to open his menu while picking at the corners, slightly grumpy.
Lando gazes at him, lost. “What, are you, like, uncomfortable that you can’t understand? Do you want me to speak in English from now on or something?”
He had only spoken briefly in Portuguese in front of the other boy when they arrived and had to communicate with the flight attendants. It was only a few sentences, and Lando thought Oscar was ignoring his existence then, so he never paid attention to his reaction to him speaking another language.
Oscar mumbles in response, and Lando huffs, annoyed. “Mate, what’s your deal?”
“Just with him,” Oscar says, much to Lando's confusion. He doesn’t want Lando to speak in Portuguese but…just with Vicente?
“Wha—why are you—“
“He was smiling at you, like, all flirty, and shit,” Oscar bites out, and Lando freezes.
He takes a moment before responding. “Is that…weird to you, or—“
Oscar looks up at Lando again, seeing the way he wrings his hands anxiously, and backtracks. “Oh—no! No, it’s not, mate. That’s—I mean, you? Are you weird with it?”
“Clearly not,” Lando mutters.
“Okay, then. I’m just—ignore me,” Oscar sighs, shaking his head. “I don't know what that was. It's cool that you speak Portuguese and that he’s like, good looking or whatever. And uh, you are too, so it…makes sense…?”
Lando looks over at Oscar, unsure. “Okay.”
He still nudges his foot against Oscar's under the table and Oscar gives him a slight smile until he finally relaxes.
When the waiter returns with their cocktails and comes to take their order, Lando still speaks in the local language and smiles politely—he didn’t want to be rude, after all—but he keeps his foot pressed against Oscar's, and looks at him throughout while answering, even if he couldn’t understand. Vicente seems to notice the shift, remains amiable, clearly great at his job, but he smiles the same way at Oscar, seemingly backing off with the advances.
Oscar gets chatty again over their meal, returning to how it was earlier. When Lando brings up suggestions of what they should do after lunch, Oscar disagrees with many of his plans, he finds out.
“I am absolutely not doing that,” Oscar declares, firmly.
“But the Monte Sledge is so us,” Lando says with a pout.
Oscar shoots him a look. “The Monte Sledge seems more terrifying than going three hundred kilometres per hour in our car.” Their Formula One car, he means.
Lando sighs, but relents. “Okay, then. What do you suggest? And no museum!”
“You wanted to go to the Ronaldo museum,” Oscar grumbles, ignoring the older man’s kick to his leg at the snarky comment. “There's a local market today starting pretty soon. Food trucks, stalls, art, whatever. wanna go check it out?”
Lando agrees, and he actually finds himself pretty excited to go to the market. He thinks about buying some gifts—maybe something for his mum, his sisters, or even for Max Fewtrell as an apology for stealing his Swarovski bracelet, even if he wasn’t really that sorry about it.
They walk through the streets to get to the actual location of the market side by side, when they’re stopped by two fans who ask them for pictures. Lando looks at Oscar, who shrugs in agreement, and Lando figures it’ll be okay if they do indulge people who stumble across them, as long as they’re respectful.
Later on, another girl gasps as she sees them on the streets, stopped at a light. She's clearly reluctant to come up to them, instead looking rather close to bolting in the other direction, and she jumps out of her skin when Oscar offers her a smile. Lando snorts and gives her a wave, watching her reciprocate with a shaky hand. She never takes out her phone and only walks in the other direction in disbelief, a bright smile of excitement adorning her face. Lando finds himself filled with happiness after the interaction.
His favourite part of the walk to the market is when they’re in a small alley, and they cross paths with an older couple walking their dogs. Lando perks up in excitement, a bright grin at the sight of the puppies, and coos sweetly at them when he’s near.
“Oh my goodness, Osc. They’re so cute!” Lando exclaims.
He itches to pet them, especially when they jump excitedly at the sight of him. Lando looks up at the couple to get permission and when they smile at him, nodding in agreement, he lets out a happy squeal before he crouches down to pet the dogs.
The puppies stumble against each other, fighting to be the one to put their paws on his knees, and Lando giggles as he scratches behind their ears, hearing them bark happily. He barely registers Oscar kneeling beside him until one of the dogs leaves his side to go to the boy next to him, a matching fond smile on his face.
“Dogs are so precious,” Lando mumbles, eyes sparkling as he looks at the puppies who are content to play with them. He takes out his phone, snapping a few pictures of the two animals, his hands tickling their fur. He even gets one of the puppy in Oscar's lap.
Oscar hums in agreement. “They are.”
Lando looks up and startles when he realizes that Oscar was smiling at him, and not the dogs. Oh.
The younger boy seems to catch himself too and blushes deeply. With red cheeks, both of them stand up hastily, thanking the owners, who continue on their walk. Lando watches the dogs waddle away wistfully and Oscar notices Lando's reluctance to let the puppies go.
“You should get a gift for Rio,” Oscar says, reminding him of Max Fewtrell’s new puppy. He places a gentle hand on Lando’s arm, steering him back in the direction they needed to go, and Lando sighs, nodding his head in agreement. Truthfully, he probably won’t even see Rio that often with how much he travels, but he’s already met the little guy, and Lando is smitten . Honestly, he always thought that he needed to go back to see Max more, but now that he has Rio, it’s even more incentive for him to be there. Max is like a brother to him, so Rio feels like his dog too.
Lando sighs. "I would love a dog of my own some day."
"You would be a great owner," Oscar says, sincerely.
"It'll be a while, but when I feel like I can have the time or space...maybe it'll be possible. But I don't really know," Lando shrugs. "Maybe when I retire. But for now, I have to be happy with seeing all my family's pets."
Oscar nods in understanding. "I get that. Still think the best part about going home was always seeing Basil and Rosie."
The mention of Oscar's family pets makes Lando's heart ache, especially as he remembers Rosie's passing. He's comforted by Oscar's understanding—the fact that they love dogs and would want to raise some of their own, when they can—but it was going to be hard with their profession.
When they reach the market, it is already bustling with life.
There's colourful decoration everywhere—strings of flags, streamers and banners hanging off of every tall post, and lights decorated with flowers all around.
There are volunteers directing people to specific shops, pointing them to the live music band that Lando can hear playing in the background, or showing them where the food trucks are. The city dedicated a few streets for pop up stands set up for seasonal vendors, umbrellas providing shade over the sellers and their items.
It's overwhelming, how many things there are, but Lando loves the vibrancy. He takes out his camera to snap pictures of all the beautiful scenery as he and Oscar walk slowly, taking in everything that the market has to offer.
Lando's eyes light up when he sees a frame of flowers surrounding a sign for Funchal in the middle of the street.
"Oscar!" he tugs on his shirt, excitedly. "Go stand in front of the sign. I'll take a picture of you!"
The younger boy looks at him, surprised. "I, uh, me? I mean, you don't have to—"
“Nuh-uh,” Lando interrupts. “Go stand there, and smile nicely.”
“Mate, did my mum set you up to this or what?”
Lando brightens at the mention of Nicole. “Oh yes! You need to go now, she would love these pictures.”
Oscar pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh, but begrudgingly stands in front of the flower sign, a shy smile on his face. Lando makes sure Oscar promises to send them to his mum after, too.
There's a group of dancers performing in the middle of the street circle, an old man painting five minute caricature portraits, and a lady doing face painting for a group of excited young kids next to him. The market feels almost like a summer fair, without the games and the amusement park rides.
The two boys had just gotten lunch, but the walk over here paired with the summer heat means that when they spot a truck serving ice cream and gelato, they quickly agree to get some. They, of course, aren’t serving Lando's favourite intricate flavours that he stocks up in his fridge back home. Regardless, Oscar and him both get something chocolatey and rich that makes Lando whine out about needing to drink water right after they finish.
Oscar, ever the angel, agrees to get some for them at a vendor selling ice cold drinks. There's a long line—understandably so, given the heat—but Oscar is willing to stand in the line for them. In the meantime, Lando looks around the market, a stand of beautiful jewelry catching his attention. There are no customers at the stall, only an old lady sitting carefully at the edge, watching over her items.
Lando wanders over, leaving Oscar, and hums in appreciation at the collection. The trinkets look homemade, full of colour and unique designs that he loves. It reminds him so much of his mum.
He greets the lady working at the stand and she smiles at him, sweetly.
“Is that your boyfriend looking at you from over there, sweetie?” she asks him, and Lando freezes. He follows her gaze to where she’s looking and he finds Oscar looking at him still, a little smile on his face.
“My—oh, no. It’s not like that," Lando mumbles, his cheeks turning pink.
“Hm,” the older lady frowns. “He looks at you so…dearly,” she muses.
Lando sees it, sometimes, the way Oscar looks at him sweetly, too fond. It makes no sense, and Lando doesn’t get why, but he sees Oscar do it to other people, so he never thought it meant much. Heart-eyes-Piastri wasn’t reserved just for him, after all. That would be ridiculous, again.
“We’re just friends,” Lando replies, offering the lady a slight smile.
She shakes her head at him, but says nothing. “What are you looking for?”
Lando relaxes at the change in conversation. “A necklace? Bracelet? For my mom.”
“Any kind of design?”
He stumbles over his words, not knowing how to describe it in Portuguese. “Like…big? Beads? Colourful?" he mumbles out, embarrassed, but the shop owner seems to understand him anyway.
She shows him a thick gold bracelet, embellished with colorful gems, and Lando knows his mum would love it. He hums appreciatively, smiling in thanks as he holds onto it. Lando looks over the other items, spotting a gorgeous necklace with a four leaf clover on it. He pauses, picking it up, admiring the handicraft.
It’s…perfect, but he feels almost reluctant to get it for himself. Maybe it would make him look too corny or self-entitled, he worries.
Lando puts it down when he feels himself being tapped, and he turns to see Oscar holding out his cold bottle of water for him to take.
“Did you see anything?” Oscar asks, after Lando thanks him. Lando goes to twist the cap open but finds that Oscar already did it for him.
“Found this for mum,” Lando replies, showing Oscar the bracelet. The Aussie boy shares his appreciation for it, claiming that his mum would love it, and skims his eyes over the necklaces Lando was just looking at.
When Lando goes to pay for his gift, the old lady huffs at Oscar next to him.
“This stupid boy. Shouldn't he pay for this?”
Lando laughs, startled. “But this is for my mom! Not his.”
“Still,” she shakes her head, glaring at Oscar, who now looks like a deer in headlights. “He should buy you something too. Some boyfriend.”
The older boy snorts at the look on his face. “I told you, he’s not!”
“What—what’s she saying?” Oscar whispers to him, worried. Lando shakes head, and watches Oscar look at the lady, almost apologetically, without even knowing why. It's quite cute, really, the way Oscar seems to want to please her.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lando promises him.
With the bracelet placed into a small bag, Lando grabs onto Oscar's wrist to steer him away when he still stands there, unsure and almost pouty.
They spend the rest of the evening like that, shopping and browsing stores, posing for pictures when the location is nice enough. The market comes to an end eventually, and Lando has to sit by himself for a moment when Oscar leaves to use the restroom.
When he comes back, the sun is already setting, and they make their way back to the other side of the city where the restaurant Oscar had made a reservation for is located.
Oscar says that he’s thankful he booked a late time for dinner, in the end. People tend to eat late here, anyway, so the best spots were still open. After lunch and the snacking that they did in the market, he started to get worried that they wouldn't have the stomach for even more food. However, they walked so much throughout the day, so they were more than happy to reach the restaurant Oscar booked.
The inside was dark, chic and black, almost modern with contrasting pops of colourful lights and green plants.
They don’t sit inside, but they get a nice outdoor seat on the patio, one side looking at the sea, while the others are surrounded by the lively city bustling with people moving up and down the streets, surrounded by pretty colourful buildings and ample greenery. The sound of chatter and laughter mixes with music playing from the various restaurants and establishments, but it’s not annoying.
The atmosphere is so perfect, and it reminds Lando of what Monaco was to him at first, when he was younger and starry eyed and too easily influenced by others. There is the excitement of living in such an extravagant place, with beautiful buildings and the brightest blue water. Funchal is different, though. It feels homey, even to Lando, who is beginning to hate big cities with too many people in it.
It feels less like a place where he just has a bed to sleep at night and more like a place where he could be free, even if people recognize him and secretly record him behind his back.
Lando snaps out of his thoughts when he hears Oscar hum, pleased. He's looking at a small card placed on top of his menu, for drinks, and hands it to the British boy when he’s done.
“Here, I know what I'm gonna get.”
Eyes scanning the card, Lando snorts at what he spots. “It’s the Estrella beer, isn’t it?”
Oscar smiles at him, cheekily. “Yup.”
“Well, might as well be a good brand ambassador and get one too.”
They sip their beers, and even order more, while they eat their meals. Oscar orders seafood rice, in which Lando promptly makes a barrier with the towels to separate their sides of the table. Oscar rolls his eyes at his teammate’s antics, a soft smile on his face as he jokingly threatens to put an oyster in Lando's hearty beef stew with carrots and tomatoes, only putting his hands up in defense so Lando ceases his glares and continues to eat.
They order two custard tarts to try for dessert, and by the time they finish, the sun has already set.
Lando remembers that he wanted to take pictures on the drive back, which they’ve missed now, but as they sit peacefully, taking in the lively island city, he actually doesn’t mind. This was much better anyway.
Oscar taps his feet across from him, bobbing his head to the beat of the song playing, humming under his breath with his fingers tapping against the table.
Lando may not be partying in an obscure bar with too loud music and too many people, hands reaching out to touch him or girls eager to get his number, but he was here with Oscar, peaceful in his presence, a full stomach and all thoughts about racing and rivalries finally put behind them.
It’s better, truthfully.
People here genuinely have a good time, not just making fickle relationships. It feels…good. It feels real.
Lando looks at Oscar and thinks, yeah, it is.
Whatever friendship they have, even if it's not perfect—even if it's not conventional—it’s at least true.
Oscar turns to him too, a smile dancing on his face as he shimmies his shoulders, the happiness from everyone around him reflecting onto himself. Lando can see it, cherishes it, and thinks that this is when Oscar looks the prettiest.
The younger boy tilts his head at Lando when he notices him staring, a silent question on his face.
Lando smiles and shakes his head at Oscar, nudging his teammate’s foot against his own from under the table, again.
It’s real.
The morning after their day in the city, Lando blearily opens his eyes to see that they’re facing each other; they aren’t cuddling, but Oscar has an arm placed on Lando’s waist with his leg still perched on top. Oscar breathes into his face, not snoring, but the little huffs he releases are still discernible.
Lando is able to stare directly at his teammate’s sleeping face. Oscar looks at peace while sleeping—younger, cheeks puffy, lips pink and soft, and his hair messy as if he was rolling around all night. Lando’s heart starts to beat faster and it scares him, so he shimmies off the bed first again, Oscar somehow not immediately waking up this time, thankfully.
He still wishes that Oscar was asleep for longer when he does eventually climb out of bed, looking tired, as if his idea of vacation was to sleep all day. Lando guesses it probably is. Oscar waddles into the kitchen for a hot drink while Lando sits at the table sipping his own, reaching under his shirt to sleepily scratch at his skin.
Over breakfast, Oscar suggests that they go hiking in one of the trails nearby, promising that he did his research and the views are downright stunning, and claims that it would be the biggest regret if they couldn’t experience it at least once while they were here.
Lando pouts, complaints ready on tongue to whine about how vacation is supposed to be relaxing and leisurely.
Oscar gives him a pointed look in response. “Just ‘cause we’re on break doesn’t mean we can slack on our cardio.” Of course, Oscar would be the kind of person to say that, too.
“We went swimming. And walking. For the past two days.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Jon, Lando’s trainer, has never complained once about Oscar, he thinks. He’s actually incredibly fond of him, as well. This is probably why.
“At least we’re not going on a run,” Lando relents, and Oscar grimaces.
“That’s because I wouldn’t wanna do that either,” he responds, and Lando’s glad they can at least agree on that.
Lando didn’t really pack attire for this, but if he was going to be hot, sweaty, and climbing things, he figures that one of his tanks and shorts should do fine. He’s nothing but unsurprised at seeing Oscar's plain shirt and shorts, but pauses again at the length of the latter—the way the fabric barely reaches his mid thigh. Oscar actually has compression shorts underneath too, Lando notices. Gray and visible. His shirt is long sleeved but tight, showing the curves of his muscles on his arm and the slight swell of his chest, along with the tightness of his abs. Lando makes sure to pack more water after that, his throat feeling uncharacteristically dry.
He asks Oscar, “Is my tank, like, not appropriate?”
Oscar hums, saying, “No, tanks are fine.”
When he actually looks over at Lando, his mouth falls open, and Lando fights the urge to squirm at being under his scrutiny again. His arms are definitely not as big, but they're more tan, and the tank is slightly loose so he’s kind of worried one of his nipples will pop out if he moves wrong. He just really doesn’t want to feel gross under the heat while they walk the trail.
“It's uh, good,” Oscar settles for saying, turning away, and Lando has to drink another half a cup of water after that interaction.
They drive out to the entrance of the most scenic hiking route because it's more private and it has free, first-come-first-serve parking. Oscar claims that it shouldn’t be busy, and the whole time as they begin their journey, they don’t spot a single soul, so Lando figures it must truly be an underrated route.
The view is gorgeous, trees and luscious greenery surrounding them, rocky with various types of flowers sprouting in between, and water flowing down in corners that they twist and turn through. They cross wooden bridges, step on planks and stones in the middle of streams, and Lando is grateful he brought his digital camera with him, clicking pictures of the landscape around them. He takes some of Oscar without him looking, as well. Oscar hums at the scenery, appreciatively, leading the way as they trek through the forest.
Oscar wants to get all the way to the top, where he says the cliff overlooks the island with large mountains in the distance and the bluest, cleanest, water beneath them.
The more they continue, however, the more tired and petulant Lando gets, and he huffs and groans with every step they take.
“Oscar,” Lando whines, accent strong. “How long are we gonna do this for? I’m tired.”
The aforementioned man barely spares him a glance. “We’re almost there.”
Lando whines again, longer. “You’ve been saying that for so long now.”
“That’s because you've been complaining for so long now,” Oscar bites back, and, okay, Lando is not out of shape or unathletic; he’s competitive and never backs down from whatever it is that he’s doing. However, his legs do hurt after all the walking they’ve been doing, and the constant view of Oscar's backside is probably making him lose his mind a little the longer he has to look at it. Probably.
“Ugh,” Lando groans. He needs to hold himself back from kicking rocks and acting like a little kid, although it’s kind of fun annoying Oscar, so he continues to complain. “Shouldn’t have said yes to this. Should’ve turned back ten bloody kilometres ago, should’ve—”
He doesn’t notice Oscar stopping in his tracks when he’s looking at his shoes kicking against the ground, but eventually his teammate comes into his vision in front of him, and as soon as Lando looks up, he realizes Oscar has turned to face him, looking annoyed.
He mumbles more, but Oscar just grabs his face with both hands, and presses a kiss into his mouth.
Lando stills and quietens immediately.
What. Was. That.
Oscar stares at him, face carefully blank, just as silent, and after a second, he wordlessly turns back to continue the hike.
Lando’s brain catches up to him as he watches Oscar away and scrambles to run after him. Oscar just kissed him!
“What—what was that?”
The younger boy is walking stupidly fast now, and Lando is huffing and panting as he climbs rocks, and says, “Oscar, you can’t just—you can’t just kis—do that! And then run away!”
He’s back to protesting at every step and Oscar groans, turns around again, and says, “I’ll kiss you again if it makes you be quiet.”
Lando is silent again, but he notices how Oscar's face has gone completely red and no, nuh-uh. Lando has done enough overthinking in his head over the past month about what Oscar thinks about him to let this slip away without talking about it. He refuses to let Oscar turn his back and walk away.
Except, Lando can’t talk about it.
Instead, he finds himself roughly grabbing Oscar's shoulder, and when he yelps, Lando is the one to be quick to shut him up with a kiss.
This time, it lasts longer. Oscar actually kisses him back, tilting his head to find the right angle, their noses brushing together briefly. Lando can feel the softness of Oscar’s plush lips on his own, the way it moves the longer it keeps going, and finds himself quickly getting addicted.
“Why’d you do that,” Oscar asks when they break apart.
Lando looks into his eyes, uncertain as to if he should be honest. “The same reason you did it first.”
He feels stupid; this whole thing feels risky and wrong, like every moment they shared together so far. It’s as if they’re fighting against the team, the publicity, and everything people expect from them while they’re here. All this time, Lando had thought Oscar didn’t like him and didn't want to think about anything but the championship. Then, when they get here, Oscar’s breathing next to his ear every morning, they spend every second together, blushing with heavy, longing, looks as they swim together in the ocean or eat meals with their knees brushing from across the table, and nothing feels the same as how it was before. Lando questions everything that he’s ever felt.
“Okay, ‘cause I—” Oscar stumbles on his words, and Lando has never seen him this conflicted with his emotions before. “‘Cause, I wanna kiss you,” Oscar mumbles.
“Right, that’s—” Lando's head swings but he feels heat rushing through his body. He wants it too. “You can do that.”
This time, Oscar leans in, and kisses him deeply, both of them perched on a single step in the middle of the path through the hills of Madeira. Lando does what he wishes he could’ve done for months now, maybe years—which is a scary thought to have—and reaches to wrap his arms around Oscar's shoulders, his hands finally free to feel the broadness of his teammate’s chest and back. He doesn’t miss how Oscar's body shudders at the touch. Oscar tugs him closer through a hand placed on the small of his back, and when Lando gasps, he moves swiftly to push his tongue inside. Lando can’t hold back the whimper that leaves him, and he quickly has to pull apart from Oscar again before he loses his mind completely.
“Do you—do you like me, or what is this?”
Lando wonders if there’s a secret supernatural entity in Madeira that hit Oscar with some sort of lust potion, if the magic of a summer vacation abroad has made Oscar desperate for the only person around him, or if he was just bored and Lando was easy and convenient. Although, he isn't sure that kissing your teammate, let alone your biggest rival, would be convenient in any way, so why—
“Lando, I wouldn’t be kissing you right now if I hadn’t been thinking about this moment for so fucking long now,” Oscar whispers to him, tender.
Oh my god .
He’s not sure he’s alive after hearing Oscar confess this. What the fuck do you mean Oscar has been thinking about me in this way for a long time, what—
“You—long? How long?” He questions, dumbly.
“Doesn’t matter.” Oscar blushes, and oh , Lando has to pick that information from him later.
“Oscar,” he whines, rubbing his face against the younger boy’s, and feels Oscar's hands grip his hips tighter. Lando notices the light stubble growing on Oscar's face after he hasn’t shaved in a while, and the last bit of Lando's mind wonders if Oscar likes his own—the feeling of his moustache dusting against his lips when they kiss or his beard growing out again after he had shaved it weeks prior.
Lando feels loose, unlike himself, and only registers that he’s been picked up when he’s settled down again, back semi-pressed against a tree. He can sort of feel the bumpy wood around him, but he’s mostly shielded from Oscar's arm that takes the brunt of the rough texture, and Lando’s mind reels again. Of course Oscar would be the kind of guy to pick someone up, back them up against a surface, and also make sure that they weren’t uncomfortable while he did it.
And, oh, we’re kissing again, great, Lando's mind supplies, happily. With tongue!
Oscar towers over him and uses whatever he has available to trace over Lando’s skin. His bare arms are hot from being under the sun but still feel like they're being scorched when Oscar puts his hands on him. He entangles his fingers into Lando's hair, subconsciously twisting and looping the curls on his head.
“What are we—we cannot be kissing in the woods, like—okay, we might be the only people here but still. Let’s not risk anything,” Oscar mumbles into his lips after a while, and Lando sighs, glum.
Lando wants to whine again, and complain that he doesn’t care and it doesn’t matter, because his body feels relieved, like all the tension he’s built up is finally gone. He knows the thought is dangerous, however, and agrees. He wonders how Oscar had the sense to pull away, feeling as if his own brain has already left to another dimension.
“Yeah let’s go back and, uh—”
“Nope,” Oscar cuts him off, and Lando looks at him confused. “We’re still finishing the hike.”
Lando groans, shoulders dropping in fatigue. This time, Oscar laughs, bright, laces their hands together while tugging the older boy back onto the path.
Lando's grateful, because his legs feel like jelly, and he knew it wasn’t from all the walking they did.
“Was all the kissing not motivation to keep on going?” Oscar teases him, and Lando pouts, green eyes sparkling under the sun shining above them in between the tall forest lumber.
“Maybe one kiss every five steps.”
“Five?” Oscar says, shocked, but playful. “That's just greedy, now.”
He teases Lando, but Oscar does continue to press kisses into him as they walk along the path, side by side. It wasn’t only his lips, too. Oscar kisses him everywhere—his cheeks, his nose, his jaw, even bringing his connected hand up to his mouth, and places kisses there too. Lando doesn’t feel like doing anything else but reciprocating, and every time he does, he swears he sees Oscar's brown eyes get even more golden, even more light and happy, but even deeper. It almost feels as if the only reason they have to look away from each other is so that they don’t trip and tumble down the path.
The view is decidedly nothing short of stunning when they reach the top, and Lando’s breath is taken away as they sit on rocks, thighs pressed together, and feet planted safely on the ground. His complaining was only partially for show, some of the tiredness and consequent regret was real, but he’s grateful Oscar took him here, in the end.
The spectacle of the mountains makes him feel small, unmighty. Lando finds that he doesn’t mind the feeling and rather enjoys it. He thinks he could forget about his life and about reality waiting for him, for them , while they’re up here. It's all insignificant in the grand scheme of things—what people think of him and expect from him, when he races.
It wouldn’t even matter if he likes boys and has one next to him that he wants to keep kissing. Nobody would care.
“So. You like me.”
Oscar nods, slow, but calm. “Yeah. I do.”
Lando finds the thought hard to grasp, but wonders if he’s just been repressing the signs all this time. It's likely, since he always gets in his head about the wrong things. If he really thinks hard about the way Oscar looks at him, treats him, and talks about him, he can believe it, maybe.
“That's—so you do like boys, or? ‘Cause I guess I’m like, bi, or something, I dunno,” Lando says after he’s worked up the courage to ask.
“Same,” Oscar says quietly. “Or something. I've probably, like, had crushes on boys growing up, but I've never—yeah.”
He cuts himself off, but Lando understands, although he has kissed boys, fooled around and messed around with them in private, even after reaching Formula One. He always tried to shove it away, felt stupid and ridiculous for doing it even when he reached the top stage, but it was never possible.
When Lando looks at Oscar, he doesn’t see how it could even be possible to ignore that part of himself, anyway. Feels rather inevitable for it to come out eventually.
They kiss more, at the very top of the cliff, overlooking the island of Madeira, in Portugal.
Their bodies are intertwined as they lay down together, and kiss for what feels like hours, until they have to make their way back down because they had eaten their packed meals a while ago and knew they were going to get hungry again soon.
Later, they settle into bed easily, smelling like the citrus from body wash and shampoo, clad in t-shirts and their briefs, stomachs full with food..
Even though they had talked about it on the cliff earlier, Lando’s expecting things to be awkward or weird; he has half a mind that Oscar will shove him off the bed and say that he doesn’t like men, was just under pressure, doesn’t actually want Lando.
That never happens, though. Lando climbs in on the left side, and as soon as he slides under the soft comforter, he feels Oscar reach for his waist, strong hands tugging him closer. Lando startles at the abrupt move and places a hand on Oscar’s chest to steady himself, staring up at Oscar with wide eyes.
“Oh,” he breathes out. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Oscar responds with a smile, teeth showing cutely. Lando’s heart is beating way too fast and he’s sure Oscar can feel it as well, but even if he does, he makes no comment. “Can we start kissing again?”
It was really that easy. Lando says yes, of course.
Oscar had spent the whole day staring at Lando while they hiked, but when Lando breaks away from kissing him to catch his breath, Oscar rests their foreheads together and continues to stare into Lando’s eyes as if they were the most enticing sight the universe had to offer. It makes him blush, feeling shy and naked even while clothed, but also vulnerable.
Being seen by anyone is scary enough, but he finds it even more terrifying to be truly seen by the one person in the world who is his biggest rival. If Lando thinks about it hard enough, he’ll start to shrivel away, close up, get all in his head and end up being the one to push Oscar away.
“Do I need to keep kissing you to stop your pretty head from thinking too hard?” Oscar asks, breaking Lando out of his spell. “Hm?”
Oscar doesn’t have worry in his eyes, but it looks something dangerously close to care , and he takes a hand to brush his fingers against Lando’s face, his lips wet and shiny.
“What will—what are we—the championship,” Lando stutters, unhelpfully. Oscar stills, waiting carefully and patiently for him to finish his thoughts. “Only one of us can win it. What’s gonna happen then? To us?”
“Well, we both win the constructors together,” Oscar starts. “We put the team first, that’s the first goal. We do that together. That’s not something…to undermine.”
Lando nods, wanting to hide his face in Oscar’s chest. He knows he’s right, but it doesn’t do enough to rid him of his fears. “But, Osc—the driver’s. It’s…I know the goal, for the team, to keep on doing this for years, but racing is so…uncertain, and you never know if this is your only chance, and the thought of losing this chance is just,” he pauses, closing his eyes to take a deep breath in. “It’s going to be hard on either of us. Both of us.”
“I won’t…I won’t be okay if I lose it,” Oscar says carefully, after a while. Lando knows this, understands him, and feels the same. It still doesn’t change the way it makes his heart beat with anxiety. “People think I won’t care and it won’t change anything if I lose, or I won’t be disappointed, but I will be. And honestly, I don’t know how that’ll affect…us.”
The weight of Oscar’s arms around him is grounding, and it stays with him even when he turns on his back to look up at the ceiling. He has to bat away the fear of anticipation to think rationally, but it helps to be talking this out with him.
“Think that’s normal,” Lando accepts.
For all of Lando’s struggles on track this year, adapting to the new car and the new pressure of contending for the championship right from the start of the season, and how hard he’s working to grow and make positive changes in his life, it would probably be insulting if his biggest rival didn’t care that he had lost.
Maybe this is the real ego of a Formula One driver that everybody hates him for having. He wants his competitors to feel crushed at his wins. He wants to be the best, respected for it, seen as a tough racer and a real competitor that is worthy of being in title fights. Lando had struggled with that the most last year against Max, constantly chasing and playing catch up, just to never come close enough in the end.
“That’s how I expect you to be. Reckon I’d be a little upset if you just didn’t care about the whole thing, to be honest,” Lando continues.
Oscar nods. “Think people just don’t get it. How…all encompassing the feeling of want can be.”
When Lando looks at Oscar, he finds him still staring, brown eyes immediately meeting his own again. Lando finds it remarkable how Oscar has not once shied away from looking at him. He wonders if it doesn’t make the younger boy feel vulnerable, or if he was that sure of himself, of his feelings towards Lando. He wants to take a peek into Oscar’s brain, to know exactly what he’s thinking. Now, though, Lando finds that he no longer feels exposed and unguarded.
Lando feels understood, which is more than he could ask for.
“Yeah, I get it,” he whispers back. “Well, people think that I would turn into a hysterical bitch who hates you forever if I lose, which is also pretty shit.” Lando has a wide grin on his face, and Oscar snorts.
“Well, I also wouldn't expect you to be okay after that,” he says, and although Lando knew it already, hearing Oscar say it already makes him feel supported. “I mean, last year with Max was one thing, but this one is…close. It’s special.”
Lando hums in agreement, still feeling light and cheeky. “Also, I didn’t have romantic feelings towards Max, which made that one pretty different,” he teases, and to his absolute delight, Oscar blushes, pink blooming under his eyes and nose.
“Romantic feelings, huh,” Oscar says, shy. Lando realizes he never said that he liked Oscar back, earlier, but the younger boy had never asked him or pressured him to say anything back. He isn’t sure what to do with that thought—the thought of Oscar letting Lando work on things at his own pace, or worse, letting Lando see him like this, all splayed out and bare, while thinking that Lando couldn’t possibly like him back.
“Oh please,” Lando rolls his eyes, instead. “Like we’ve been kissing the whole day for no reason.”
“I know,” Oscar groans, face scrunching up playfully. “It’s nice. Wanting. You, and the championship.”
He pulls Lando into his chest again, feeling his curls on his neck, breathing in his scent, and senses Lando relax beside him. Oscar’s arms wrap around his waist, and Lando leaves a little kiss where his lips meet Oscar’s skin from above the collar of his shirt.
Lando’s eyes are shut, heartbeat finally steady as he listens to Oscar’s own, hearing it for the first time that night.
“Could get used to it. Wanting both. For the rest of my life, I think.”
By the time the next morning arrives, sun shining through the curtains wakes Lando up far too early than his body was happy with. He finds himself practically laid on top of Oscar, head leaning on his chest but faced towards the window, their legs entangled. Oscar mumbles from underneath him, accidentally woken up by Lando’s squirming to avoid the light.
“Fuck,” Lando groans, rolling across Oscar to reposition his head on his chest to look away from the sunshine. “Too fuckin’ early. My body hurts.”
The race, debrief, and travel from Hungary to England and now to Portugal had happened consecutively; they then spent the next three days doing activities, and the tiredness finally caught up with them.
“Go back to sleep, Lan,” Oscar mumbles, already dozing off again. He tightens his arms around Lando’s waist, who hums in content.
“Let’s just…stay home today,” Lando suggests.
Oscar whispers an agreement, “M’kay,” before they fall asleep again.
They eventually wake up again sometime after noon and spend the whole day at home. It's much needed rest for both of them who groan and complain about sore bodies the whole day.
It doesn't stop Lando from spending hours on his laptop, yelling through headphones as he plays Tarkov with Max Fewtrell, Oscar content to watch from beside him, curled up like a cat, laughing at their banter from the side. Lando gets sucked into the game, but he runs a hand through Oscar's hair whenever they’re not in a raid, pleased at the sighs of happiness he hears from Oscar when he does it.
They watch a series together on the television until the day ends, cuddled together on the couch the whole time. It's domestic, but unlike when they first arrived, it’s intentional and exactly what they both wanted. A good day is indeed a day where he can spend the whole time pressed against Oscar, kissing and touching and doing whatever it is they want to do to relax.
At some point, they order in from a local chain restaurant that delivers, Lando with his chips and burger and Oscar wanting to try a seafood roll. Lando is displeased when Oscar takes it out of the takeout bag next to his own food, but is placated when Oscar points out that everything is in its own individual box anyway, so nothing would have touched.
However, he’s still upset when they go into the bedroom that night before brushing their teeth and Oscar still tries to kiss him.
“You are not kissing me if you ate a lobster roll,” Lando shrieks, squirming away with pursed lips, twisting his body away from Oscar. However, the taller boy has a strong grip on his hips, and no matter how hard Lando pushes, Oscar pushes back harder, and he can't move. “Oscar!”
“Come on, you won’t even taste anything,” Oscar pleads. “I promise.”
“No! It’s gross,” Lando whines out, but Oscar picks him up, ignoring the way Lando kicks his legs at him, wincing at the pain but not letting go.
Lando only stops complaining when he gets dropped onto the bed with the air punched out of him, suddenly staring up at the ceiling, dazed. Oscar soon fills his vision, climbing on top of him, his thick thighs bracketing Lando’s own, floppy brown hair cascading down his face.
Someone could tell Lando that he had just died and went to heaven and he would believe them in a heartbeat.
“Oh,” Lando whispers, staring at the boy above him. “That’s nice.”
Oscar giggles, shy, and Lando has a strong fear that he might combust on the spot. “Are you gonna let me kiss you now?”
Lando thinks that Oscar could ask him to do anything at this moment and he would say yes, probably.
He nods, but Oscar pouts, bringing a hand to his face, pushing his thumb between Lando’s lips. Lando is speechless, really. “Words, sweetheart.”
“Uh,” is all Lando can get out, but Oscar raises an eyebrow, and he remembers himself. Sort of. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
Lando thinks he’ll die if Oscar continues to tease him like this. He’s sure his face must be beet red right now, flushed all the way down to his chest under his hoodie. Oscar must notice it too, based on the ways his eyes wander further down from his face. “Yes, you can kiss me.”
Oscar smiles, pleased, before leaning down and slotting their lips together, and yup, this must've been the highest point of Lando's life. Nothing left from here. He doesn’t even taste the lobster. He really is blessed by the deities.
“Zak sent us off to make sure we weren’t going to kill each other, I’m sure he’s gonna be so pleased when we come back kissing in the drivers rooms,” Lando jokes, later when they break apart for air, bodies entangled and pressed flat against one another.
“So pleased,” Oscar says brightly, his face lighting up fully as he giggles, and Lando’s heart swells at being able to make the younger like that. He had always loved making others laugh, subconsciously looked to Oscar to make him smile specifically with his silly jokes. Lando craves the feeling of hearing Oscar’s laugh, knowing that he’s lighting up because of something that he said. He wants to make Oscar laugh for the rest of his life—would make himself a total fool constantly if it meant that he could keep it going forever.
“Hey, if they didn’t want us making out, they should’ve known better to give us one bed.”
“You didn’t want to go golfing while we were here?” is what Oscar asks Lando as they sit at the table the next morning, eating a piece of toast with jam while the latter munches on slices of apple.
(They ended up visiting the rock beach briefly during the previous night, walking off their meals. Lando had enjoyed it more than the sandy beach, to be honest. They were both bundled up in hoodies, the ocean breeze making the darkness feel even colder; it was quiet and empty, but peaceful. At some point, Oscar had laced their fingers together, burying their joint hand in the pocket of his hoodie. Lando looked at him as he did it, but Oscar kept his face looking forward. He didn’t miss the blush on the younger’s face at all this time, however.)
“Didn’t think you’d be up for it,” Lando shrugs, unbothered.
Truthfully, he wasn’t as upset at not being able to golf here as he thought he would be. He was perfectly okay with sitting at home doing nothing or wandering through the entire island, straying away from the courses, as long as he was just with Oscar. It was a weird feeling—they had never been codependent before, and Lando is sure now that Oscar doesn’t hate him—but he felt clingy. Maybe it was from how happy was beginning to feel in… whatever kind of relationship they’ve started, but Lando feels content just from Oscar’s presence, from knowing that he had the other’s affection. He really means it, too.
Oscar still frowns at him, eyebrows creasing together. “No, I’d go with you,” he says, certain. “I mean I’m like, not like Carlos, I’m probably shit, but I want to go—I want you to go, and I want to go with you.”
Lando chews, deep in thought. “Are you sure? ‘Cause I genuinely don’t care if you wanna do something else.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t feel good if we just left without doing the thing you wanted to do the most on vacation,” Oscar replies truthfully, and Lando understands, sending a bright smile his way. He sees Oscar’s cheeks redden at the sight, and it leaves him feeling weird and gooey on the insides.
“Aw, Osc,” Lando teases, nudging his bare foot into Oscar’s from under the table. “Such a romantic.” The younger boy groans and buries his face into his hands, shy, and Lando laughs at how easily he blushes and hides into himself when given attention. He loves it so much.
“Why do I like you again?” Oscar mutters, shaking his head, but Lando can see the edges of his smile that can’t be hidden from behind his smaller hands.
“Because, I’m hot and cool and a really good racer and super funny—“
“Enough, you narcissist. We’re done here. Go get changed and we’ll go to that course we passed by all week.”
Lando feels so light with happiness. He could bicker and spend his mornings like this every day of his life if he was allowed. “Okay, you too.”
Lando realizes he dresses up quite…seriously, for golf.
He makes sure to wear his glove on his left hand, has a dark gray polo and black shorts with a nice belt, and even puts on one of his most expensive watches, too. He drapes a long sleeve sweater over his shoulders and walks with a cap, just in case.
Lando notices that he’s gotten quite tan when he can clearly see the contrast as he rolls on his white socks.
Oscar, on the other hand, although they had almost been out for the same amount of time, has gotten nowhere near as much colour on his skin. He does have a visible tan, Lando notes to himself, watching Oscar move around the bedroom shirtless as he searches around for his clothes. Which is quite…a lovely sight.
The Australian boy might have been rotating through the same three shorts the whole trip, but he wears one again with a polo. Lando's glad he had one, because Oscar probably wouldn’t fit into any of his shirts. The thought leads to mental images of Oscar squeezing into his too tight clothes, which Lando can now freely thirst over, even though it had been haunting him the whole trip. Maybe even longer, really.
He constantly needs to remind himself that it’s okay to ogle Oscar now, because he is his…something. Oscar certainly has no hesitation doing so with the way he crowds Lando against the wall before they leave, licking into his mouth and whispering into his ears about how good he looks dressed like this.
Oscar obsessing over his slightly posh golf outfits. Who would’ve thought.
Lando’s grateful he thought ahead to bring his own golf bag with all of his usual items. Even though he’s sure the resort would’ve provided them with things, he’s quite attached to his own. He also wants to ensure that he’s gifting Oscar with the highest quality equipment while they do this together, too.
The course is long, with twenty-seven holes. It's beautiful, however, arriving and seeing the mountains in the distance. At some point, they’ll reach a bayside cliff, overlooking the bright blue water beneath them.
“What happens if I lose my ball in the water?” Oscar inquires.
Lando responds, “You get a penalty stroke.”
“…What’s that?”
“Osc,” the older boy sighs. You get an extra stroke added to your score.”
“A stroke, like, when I hit the ball?”
“When you swing, yeah. Even if you swing and miss, it’s a stroke. Called a whiff.”
Oscar asks, “What happens if we go searching for the ball I hit and we can’t find it?”
“You can hit a province—err…”
“Provisional?” Oscar supplies.
“Yeah, that. A provisional ball. If you think it really got lost.”
“Wouldn’t that take so long?”
“Osc, it’s okay. I'm not strict, we can skip a couple of holes.”
Oscar nods, accepting. “Honestly, as long as I don’t finish…embarrassingly over par, I think I'll be happy.”
Lando recognizes that Oscar is probably trying his very best to not completely suck. Oscar has his own pride, his own ego—heck, they are Formula One drivers, and they all hate to lose. It doesn't really help Oscar's case, however, when he walks up to the start of the first hole looking like an extraterrestrial being that just landed on Earth for the first time. Lando watches him from the side, chin resting on his hands holding up his own club.
“Why…why are you swinging it like it's a cricket bat, Osc,” Lando sighs, fondly.
“I don’t know how to hold this thing,” Oscar admits, a small pout on his face. Lando places his own club down, and goes up to the younger boy to help.
“Haven’t you had your fair share of golf networking trips? Didn’t you at least get this far?”
Oscar shakes his head with a sigh. “Tried to avoid them as much as possible, clearly.”
“Okay…uh, put the clubhead down. Use your index finger, yes, like that, now…wrap, and uh, your thumb should be like this," Lando grabs onto Oscar's hands, maneuvering them to the right position. “And this hand, grip it over, like this…viola!” He looks up at Oscar who’s staring at his hands with a frown, looking unsure. When Lando takes a few steps back, he sees that his teammate’s posture is completely stiff, and now, that won’t do, would it.
“Oh, that’s bleak. Your posture is horrid! Bend your knees, you got that right, shoulder width apart. And when you swing, make sure your arms are straight.” Lando commands, and Oscar begins to look more confident as he gets instructions. He watches Lando closely as he orders him around, and the British boy feels his face heat up slightly under his gaze. “Shoulders…oh, wow, your shoulders are uh, really big, but uh…bring your arms all the way back so the club is up there, and…yeah…after you swing, your body turns, and your right leg goes back like—yes, uh-huh...”
Lando steps back, and sees Oscar watching him, amusedly. “Any last bit of advice, professor?” he says, cheekily.
Yup, Lando must be bright red, at this point. Leave it to Oscar to turn him like this even when he’s feeling completely out of his element. “Try to…hit the ball first…before the ground…” the older boy gets out, blushing.
He hears Oscar laugh as he picks back up his club, and Lando thinks that any teasing will be worth withstanding if it makes Oscar laugh, if it makes him coming out here to do what Lando loves worth it.
When Lando turns back to watch Oscar take his first, proper stroke, he watches as he misses the ball completely, the force of his swing causing him to lose his balance, trip over his own feet, and topple over.
Whoever says golf is boring clearly has never played with Oscar Piastri, Lando thinks delightfully.
They spend most of the day playing golf—both of them end up over par, truthfully, but Oscar is way worse than Lando—and watch the sunset together again on a cliff above the water. Lando lays peacefully on Oscar's lap, the younger boy running constant fingers through Lando's hair, scratching his scalp. Usually, Lando dislikes people touching his hair since it takes so much effort styling his curls, and even the slightest breeze makes them weird and frizzy. He finds himself not minding Oscar doing it, however. He lets him rake his fingers through his hair, tugging slightly when a strand with a knot ends up being separated.
The last day of their vacation ends up coming too soon, almost feeling bittersweet. Even if it wasn’t their choice to do this in the first place, the bond that they built while being here will stay with them for the rest of the season—for the rest of their lives.
It's funny when Lando thinks back on it. At first, he had thought there was no reason for them to come on this trip and that Oscar and him were fine. Now that they spent all this time together, shared so much about each other, and talked through all their worries about themselves and their relationship, he’s realizing how necessary it ended up being. It’s not only because it led to this , them kissing and being together, but because it made them better friends too.
They wake up buried comfortably under the covers, as if the single bed in a random lodge out in the middle of this Portuguese island was always their own. They’re shirtless, on this last morning holding each other close, as if being skin to skin was still more distance than they wanted.
"What are you gonna post?” Oscar asks him later as he packs his things into his bag. They have to check out at ten, so need to hurry to get everything together.
“I don’t know, actually,” Lando says. “I took a lot of things, but. Might wanna keep things to myself, too, y’know. Lay off on social media. Don’t think it's too worth it to give people more than what they deserve.”
“They're gonna force us to post something together probably,” Oscar muses.
“And everyone will know that we went on our PR company mandated summer trip to prove to the whole world that we don't hate each other,” Lando says, teasingly.
Truthfully, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks anymore. They were always going to do things in their own way, whether or not people understood it.
Lando stuffs the last item into one of his bags, the zipper struggling to close, but he’s done.
He places all of his things together, going to ask Oscar if he was ready to go, but he looks up to see the younger boy already watching him.
Oscar clears his throat, and something shakes in his hands. When Lando looks down, he sees Oscar holding a white cardboard box, the sound of something dangling in it. He walks closer to Lando, which is when the older boy finally sees it—the four leaf clover necklace, from the lady’s stand at the market.
Lando’s mouth opens in shock.
“Is that—oh my god, Oscar, how—”
“I went back,” Oscar says, shyly. He’s rubbing a hand at the back of his nape, playing with the hair there, shy. “When I said I was going to the restroom? Yeah, I actually, uh. Went back to the stand, and bought it. Wasn't sure when I would give it to you, or really, if I ever would, but now…I think…
The older boy can’t resist it when he cuts Oscar off and jumps in his arms, forcing Oscar to quickly grip onto him to keep him from falling.
Lando wraps his legs around Oscar's hips, and feels Oscar's free hand on his back. Lando places both hands on his teammate’s cheeks, and looks down at him, eyes shining brightly with delight. “I cannot believe you got this. How did you even know?”
Oscar is still shy when he replies. “Well, I saw you put something down, and when I looked, it just seemed…perfect.”
Lando laughs with mirth. “I just—wow .”
“And the woman at the stand just smiled all smug when she saw me. I still couldn’t understand her, but it was like she knew already.”
She really did tell Lando, even when he couldn’t believe her. Lando shakes his head at the memory.
“Here, put it on me?” Lando asks, softly. Oscar nods and Lando’s feet touch the ground again as he’s put down. Lando turns around, looking into the mirror above the dresser in the room as Oscar takes the necklace out of its box, and watches him carefully wrap the necklace around his throat, tongue poking out of his lips in concentration as he clasps it.
Lando touches the charm of the clover, the weight of the necklace grounding, and it fills him with happiness. Now, he’ll always think of Oscar when he has this on, and in fact, he never wants to take it off. He never wants to stop thinking of Oscar, this trip, and the relationship they have with each other and how racing only makes it that much better .
He turns around to look at Oscar, who suddenly blurts out, “Lando, I—I can’t leave without knowing. Are we...dating, or like, officially boyfriends or—”
Their relationship will always be unconventional as long as they're rivals, but they know that.
It's not necessarily something that they can separate and there will be days where one of them is angry and upset, maybe at each other, and they will fight. At the end of the day, there can only be one winner.
“Oscar,” Lando cuts him off. He grabs one of his hands and holds it up to his chest. “I’d love that. If you want it too. To be my boyfriend.”
Lando knows if anyone can make it work, it’ll be them. Oscar smiles, relieved.
“I want it.”