Work Text:
Oscar wakes to the sound of his phone vibrating against the nightstand. It’s relentless, the kind of buzzing that means group chats, notifications, mentions, something spreading fast. He groans, pulling the blanket up over his head. The light from the blinds slices through the room, too bright, too sharp.
He reaches blindly for the phone.
08:41
Dozens of notifications. Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp. His chest tightens.
He taps Twitter first, mistake number one, really.
The app opens.
His name is trending #3.
No. No, no, no. This is never good.
A storytime thread.
“Okay so here’s the wild story about how I hooked up with an F1 driver this weekend 👀✨”
His pulse spikes so violently he feels dizzy.
He clicks.
The account is mid sized, bigger than he wants. Small enough that this could stay contained, but still big enough to hurt.
He skims the first tweet.
“it started at this bar near the marina on saturday, cute guy w aussie accent, super polite, super nervous, kinda endearing”
He feels the floor tilt.
He scrolls because he can’t not.
The thread continues, each tweet a knife.
“we’re talking, vibing, and then he gets this little smile like he can’t believe I’m flirting with him, adorable.”
“aussie guy kept glancing around like someone might recognise him, but no one did.”
“said he was in town for work but didn’t specify but i knew him of course”
Oscar’s mouth goes dry.
It keeps going.
The thread is relentless.
It turns his private vulnerability into bullet points.
Labels. Interpretations.
Assumptions about experience, or lack of it. Claims about what he “seemed to like,” phrased with humiliating certainty.
Oscar feels the blood drain from his face.
He clutches the phone tighter, knuckles whitening.
It gets worse. The guy describes Oscar’s eagerness for bottoming in a way that makes Oscar’s ears burn and the world tilt.
He says Oscar “looked overwhelmed, but in a good way.”
It’s detailed. Painfully intimate in tone.
Someone taking soft moments, private moments, and turning them into a performance.
His face burns. His chest constricts.
The author isn’t vague, he isn’t general.
He isn’t protecting anything. He is describing the night like he recorded it. Like he kept notes. Like Oscar’s private self was some experiment he documented meticulously.
There are sentences Oscar has to read twice to understand that yes, the guy really typed that out for thousands of strangers.
Descriptions of Oscar’s nervousness.
His hesitations. The way he froze for a moment when touched in a certain way.
The way his breath caught. The way he reacted, physically, involuntarily, when guided or encouraged.
Oscar’s vision blurs.
No, no, no.
This isn’t real.
This isn’t happening.
He scrolls, horrified, even though he knows he shouldn’t.
The thread continues with more unwanted detail, describing Oscar’s reactions, the small noises he made, the way he seemed “unsure at first but relaxed when guided.”
Oscar wants to throw the phone across the room.
His ears ring.
His vision swims.
He tries to swallow, but his throat won't cooperate. He scrolls to the part he dreads without knowing he dreads it.
“and before people accuse me of lying i do have photo proof lol.”
Oscar freezes.
His stomach drops straight through the floor.
Photo proof?
He stares, rereads it, hoping he misunderstood. He didn’t.
The next tweet.
“not posting them bc i’m not gonna ruin the guy’s career but like… if I wanted i could absolutely prove it 😂”
Photos.
Photos.
Oscar stares at the sentence until the screen burns.
What photos? What angle? When?
He wracks his memory so hard he feels dizzy. He remembers the bar with dark lighting, noise, people close together. Someone could have taken a blurry shot. But the thread wasn’t describing the bar.
It was describing the night. The private part.
And suddenly Oscar’s mind spirals into horrifying possibility.
Did he miss a flash? A reflection in a mirror? A phone angled just right when he wasn’t looking?
A moment when he wasn’t fully aware of the room, of his posture, of what someone else’s hands were doing?
He doesn’t want to remember, but memory forces itself forward anyway.
A moment where he was off balance. A moment where he shifted into a vulnerable position. A moment where he was trusting someone he barely knew.
His stomach folds in on itself.
If there were photos, if they caught him like that, if they showed even the suggestion of what the thread implies…
He squeezes his eyes shut.
He feels like he’s going to be sick. He sees headlines flashing behind his eyelids. He sees speculation turning feral. He sees fans dissecting his most vulnerable moment like forensic analysts.
He sees the trust he placed in a stranger turned into entertainment.
His breath stutters.
He scrolls again, hand shaking uncontrollably.
“anyway, he asked me to keep it private so im not naming him but yall can guess if you want 😂”
And they do. Thousands of replies. There is only one f1 driver from Australia since Daniel left.
Oscar locks his phone like it’s a weapon.
His heart is thundering, painful, fast.
He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, trying to breathe. His hands shake. His vision blurs.
He feels exposed. Humiliated. Violated.
Like someone ripped the top layer of his skin off and passed it around for strangers to examine.
☆
He wanders into the kitchen on autopilot. Boils water. Forgets to put tea in the mug. Stares at nothing as the kettle clicks off.
Thoughts crash and overlap.
There shouldn’t be photos. But how can he know?
He was careful. Was he?
He didn’t even use his real name. But his face is still his face.
People will think the worst. They already are.
He leans on the counter, gripping the edge until his knuckles whiten.
Four days ago had been… fine. Nice, even. A night where he’d let himself be human, not a brand, not a driver, not the careful, quiet boy everyone assumed him to be. He’d allowed someone to see him. Not fully, not deeply, but more than he usually showed.
He had chosen that. That was his decision.
This? This betrayal? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not ever.
His phone dings from the bedroom.
He ignores it. Another ding. Another.
His skin prickles.
He closes the bedroom door like it can keep the world out.
☆
Hours pass. He tries his sim and his concentration shatters within minutes.
He tries lunch and nausea stops him.
He tries not thinking about the phrase I have photo proof and it is impossible.
He keeps picturing imaginary photos, each worse than the last.
A hotel elevator reflection showing them together. He had been stupid enough to kiss this guy in semi public, drunk on horniness and flirtation.
He did go to his knees for this guy, allowed him to fuck him from behind.
If he really wanted, he easily could've snapped a pic.
☆
Sometime in the afternoon, his phone lights up with a new message. Oscar is carefully ignoring every text he gets whilst simultaneously checking the thread, watching heart and retweets and replies climb up.
Lando. You good?
Just that.
Short. Unassuming. But somehow punching straight through all the noise.
Oscar stares at it, throat tight.
He isn’t close with Lando in the way some teammates are. They get along, joke sometimes, and there is the occasional dinner. But Lando isn’t his confidant. Not even close.
Still… Lando is the first to politely ignore the elephant in the room and doesn't assume that it is real or fake or something in between.
Oscar types nothing. Deletes nothing. Puts the phone face down again.
He can’t do this.
☆
By late afternoon, the panic has exhausted him into a numb sort of fog.
The thread has reached a plateau. Still being discussed, but not exploding. Yet. Mid level accounts quotetweet it, fans dissect every detail in replies. Some insist it’s fake. Others analyse it, put labels on him that feel wrong.
No official source mentions it. No journalists. No tabloids.
Not yet.
But it’s enough.
Enough to shake him to the core. Enough to feel like the ground beneath him has shifted and cracked. Enough to make him afraid of his own reflection, like it might give something away.
He packs for England on autopilot.
His phone vibrates again. He doesn’t move.
Then it vibrates continuously, a call. He reaches for it with reluctant fingers.
Lando, calling.
His chest tightens. He lets it ring out. He’s unraveling. He doesn’t respond.
Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he genuinely doesn't know how to form the words I’m terrified and I don’t know how to make it stop.
☆
He makes his flight to Woking and falls asleep on the couch around midnight, still in his hoodie and jeans. The TV flickers with a screensaver. The shitty Woking apartment McLaren sponsors him stinks of shame and dust.
He dreams of nothing. He wakes feeling worse.
The weight hasn’t moved. The threat hasn’t faded. And the knowledge that someone out there claims to have photographic power over him gnaws at his ribs like a living thing.
He sits up, dizzy, and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes.
☆
Oscar wakes to silence.
Not the peaceful kind, the heavy kind, the kind that feels like a held breath. The curtains are still shut. His body aches from sleeping poorly on the couch. For a few seconds, he can pretend nothing is wrong.
Then memory hits like cold water.
The thread. The details. The photos, or whatever the guy claims he has. The speculation. The replies.
His stomach clenches before he even reaches for his phone.
He doesn’t check Twitter. He can’t.
Knowing the world is talking about him, dissecting him, makes his skin prickle.
Instead, he scrolls through notifications. Emails from McLaren asking if it is true, some silly group chat where someone sent a GIF at 3 a.m., two missed calls from his trainer, one from Mark, his family trying to reach him, and another unread message from Lando.
Lando: Just making sure you’re alive. Call if you need.
He stares at it until the letters blur.
He won’t call. He doesn’t even know what he’d say.
He pockets the phone and forces himself into motion. Shower. Clothes. Shoes. Keys. Muscle memory carries him out the door.
☆
Usually he likes MTC, all glass and quiet. Today the reflections feel accusing. Today he feels like he’s walking around with a neon sign above his head announcing something like Speculate About Me.
He checks in at the front desk with a nod, hoping no one mentions the trending topic. They don’t. But he imagines they know. Imagines whispers starting after he passes. Imagines someone sending the thread in a private chat.
Anxiety twists through him.
He goes straight to the simulator bay. The familiar seat, monitors, pedals. This is safe. This is controllable.
Except today, it isn’t.
Twenty minutes into the session, he messes up a sequence he could normally do blindfolded. He brakes too early. He understeers. He overcorrects. His engineer pauses the feed.
“Everything alright?” comes the voice through the headset.
Oscar clears his throat. “Yeah. Just… off morning.”
They resume. He stays off his usual pace by fractions that feel enormous.
When he removes the headset, his engineer gives him a searching look. Not sharp, not judgmental, but perceptive.
“You sure you’re good? You seem distracted.”
Oscar forces a shrug. “Didn’t sleep well.”
The engineer nods, accepting it. Or pretending to.
☆
During lunch break, he hides.
Not intentionally. But when he sees two from marketing staff sitting in the cafeteria, phones out, whispering over their screen, he pivots so fast he nearly trips.
He makes a run for the top floor, sits on a bench, and pulls his knees close. The building hums, distant, clinical.
He remembers fragments from the thread.
His shoulders curl inward.
What pictures?
He keeps returning to that.
Like a splinter in his brain.
It shouldn’t matter. Anonymous accounts claim to have proof all the time. But he knows it is true, everything they've said. He presses both hands over his face.
☆
“Mate.”
Oscar startles so hard his whole body jerks.
Lando is standing at the end of the bench, holding a smoothie in one hand, eyebrows raised.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Lando says, tone light but eyes sharply attentive. He gestures vaguely at Oscar’s posture. “You look like a haunted Victorian child.”
Oscar groans into his hands. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Lando sits beside him without waiting for permission. “You’re, like, aggressively not fine.”
Oscar wants to deny it, to mutter something and escape, but his throat closes. He stares straight ahead.
Lando sips his smoothie loudly. “Figured you might be… I dunno. Off.”
Oscar stiffens.
Of course Lando saw. Everyone with a phone saw.
“You don’t have to explain,” Lando adds quickly, too quickly. "Just checking."
Oscar nods, grateful and terrified at once.
They sit in silence for a minute.
Lando eventually says, softer, “People talk shit every day. It’s usually nonsense.”
Usually. But this wasn’t nonsense.
Oscar swallows. “Yeah.”
Another long pause.
“If anything gets too annoying, tell me,” Lando offers. “I can, I don’t know. Make dumb jokes. Hit you with a pillow. Throw you in a lake. Something therapeutic.”
A laugh escapes Oscar. Weak, but real. “I don’t think assault is therapeutic.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Oscar shakes his head, tension easing for half a second. It's the first moment all day the tightness in his chest loosens.
But then the thought returns. The thread, the photos, the threat of exposure.
The heaviness crashes back.
Lando’s eyes narrow slightly, reading the shift. “Hey, seriously. If you need anything…”
Oscar stands abruptly. “I’m gonna get back to work.”
“Right.” Lando nods, not pushing. “See you later.”
Oscar leaves before the air gets too thick with concern.
☆
He doesn’t go back to work.
He hides in a single stall bathroom near the conference rooms and leans against the locked door, head tipped back, breath short.
He feels like he’s drowning in shallow water. Nothing fatal, nothing dramatic, but constant, suffocating.
He opens Twitter.
He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t.
But he does.
The thread has grown.
More people are speculating. Top replies are full of theories, jokes, amateur detectives piecing together timelines. Someone confidently states they know which hotel it was. Someone else posts blurry bar photos from Saturday. Silhouettes, lighting, nothing identifiable… except the shape of someone who could be him.
He scrolls further.
His fingers tremble so badly he nearly drops the phone.
He exits the app and locks it so hard the screen cracks slightly under his thumb.
He feels sick.
☆
He goes home early. He tells the team he feels unwell. It’s not a lie.
Back in the apartment, he doesn’t turn on the lights. He sits on the floor by the couch, back against the fabric, legs pulled up. He tries to breathe normally. He can’t.
Thoughts pile up, one over another.
What if it leaks?
What if someone hacks the guy’s phone?
What if this spirals into something bigger?
What if Lando looks at him differently?
What if the team does? His family? Oh god, his family...
He presses a hand to his chest, feeling the frantic beat.
He can’t tell anyone. He’s not ready. About any of it.
He knows his silence is proof in itself, but he can't bring himself to call Mark and tell him it is all fake.
He isn’t ready for people to know he isn’t straight. He isn’t ready for people to know he’s inexperienced, awkward, private. He isn’t ready for people to know he is soft in the ways the thread mocked.
His phone buzzes.
He ignores it.
A minute later, it buzzes again.
He forces himself to look.
Lando: in woking?
Lando: you left pretty fast.
Lando: …Oscar?
Lando: Don’t make me knock on your door like a sitcom neighbour.
Despite everything, a tiny smile flickers.
It dies quickly under the weight of fear.
He types nothing.
The phone buzzes once more.
Lando: If you don’t answer, I’m coming over.
Oscar stares at the message long enough for panic and relief to twist together painfully in his chest.
He curls into himself and stays silent.
The apartment is too quiet. His breath is too loud. His pulse feels like it’s trying to break free of his body.
He draws his knees tighter. He rests his forehead against them. He stays like that until the shadows in the room shift and the panic in his chest thrums.
His phone vibrates. Then vibrates again. Then again.
He stares at the screen without touching it.
Another alert. Then another.
It doesn't stop.
Oscar presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.
He can’t do this.
He can’t talk. He can’t answer questions. He can’t tell anyone what’s going on because he doesn’t know what’s going on.
He’s terrified of the thread.
Terrified of the possibility of photos.
Terrified of being forced into answers he doesn’t have.
He just…
can’t.
Oscar shoves the phone further away, as if distance can stop the buzzing.
He hates this. He hates worrying them.
He hates imagining their faces as they read strangers discussing their son, their brother, like some kind of fandom puzzle.
His chest aches.
☆
He tries.
He really does.
Thirty minutes later, he drags himself to the bathroom, splashes cold water on his face, and forces his reflection to meet his gaze.
“You have to call someone,” he whispers. His voice shakes. “You have to respond. Just say you’re fine. Just say something.”
He picks up the phone.
He opens the messages.
His thumb hovers over “Call.”
And then the thread flashes through his mind again. The details, the comments, the implications, the threat of photos.
His stomach swoops sickeningly.
He puts the phone back down.
He sinks to the floor again.
He imagines screenshots being passed around group chats. He imagines strangers laughing at details of his private behavior. He imagines fans searching for possible photos.
He imagines that moment, that one unbearable moment he keeps remembering, broadcast to a million strangers who will never understand the context, the fear, the trust he had placed in someone he barely knew.
Oscar wraps his arms tightly around himself.
He feels like he might shake apart.
Everyone is waiting for him to respond.
And he can’t.
And the longer he waits, the more it feels like he’s confirming everything.
For a terrifying second, Oscar genuinely believes he might not recover from this.
That this moment, this thread, this silence, this fear, might change the course of his life forever.
He presses his palms into his eyes, trying to hold himself together.
He can’t breathe.
He can’t think.
He can’t move.
He can’t speak.
☆
One moment he’s curled on the floor in the bathroom, breath shaky, head buried in his arms as the thought of photos gnaws at him like a living creature. The next, there’s a knock at the door.
A firm one. Then a second. Then a third.
He lifts his head, disoriented.
His phone is blinking with unread messages.
“Oscar. I don’t want to break in, but I will. I’m insane enough to try.”
Lando.
Oscar freezes.
He’s not ready to talk. Not ready to be seen. He’s probably a mess, still wearing rumpled clothes, hair a disaster, eyes half swollen from sleepless panic and a snotty nose from ugly crying.
He doesn’t move.
Another knock. Softer.
“Oscar, mate. Please open the door.”
Something in Lando’s voice is wrong. Not worried exactly, gentler.
Oscar forces himself up, legs stiff. He crosses the living room in a fog, unlocks the door, and pulls it open a few inches.
Lando stands there with a paper bag in one hand and a bottle of some fancy vitamin drink in the other. His hair is messy, hoodie thrown on without care, expression open and cautiously hopeful.
“Oh,” Lando says. “You’re alive. Good.”
Oscar huffs a sound that might be a laugh. Might be a sob. Hard to tell.
Lando doesn’t wait for permission; he squeezes through the door gap like a determined cat.
“Brought food,” he announces, lifting the bag. “Or, well, edible objects. I guessed.”
Oscar stands awkwardly near the door, arms around himself. “You… didn’t have to.”
“No, but you weren’t answering, and ignoring me is illegal, so.”
He toes off his shoes, walking further in as though they do this all the time. He doesn’t look around the apartment with curiosity or judgment, he simply enters Oscar’s space like he belongs in it for a moment.
Lando has an apartment two floors above. The same ugly shoe box, same furniture and layout.
He sets the bag on the counter, pulls out two sandwiches, a packet of crisps, and something that looks suspiciously like candy he probably bought last second just in case.
Oscar’s eyes burn unexpectedly.
Lando glances over, pauses. “You eaten today?”
Oscar swallows. His throat is too tight for a lie.
“No.”
“Right. Sit.”
It’s not bossy, just steady. A safe tone to grab onto.
Oscar sits at the kitchen island because moving anywhere else feels too big. Lando places a sandwich in front of him, unwraps it, and pushes a water glass across the counter.
“What kind of sandwich is this?” Oscar asks faintly, because words are safer than silence.
“No clue,” Lando admits. “I panicked and picked the ones with the neatest corners.”
Oscar almost smiles.
Almost.
☆
They eat, or at least Lando eats.
Oscar just stares at his food.
Lando notices but doesn’t comment. He talks instead. Rambling, about traffic and a meme someone sent him and something stupid Norris level that happened at the MTC that morning.
It’s awkward, but comforting awkward.
Like Lando is trying to build a bridge out of nonsense.
Eventually he slows down, eyes softening.
“You look wrecked,” he says gently. “Like, properly wrecked.”
Oscar stiffens. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Lando says, matter-of-fact. “Which is okay.”
Oscar looks at the counter instead of him. The thread flashes behind his eyes. Words like nervous and touch starved and I have photos stab through him again.
His breath shudders. He grips the edge of the counter.
Lando doesn’t pry.
He leans against the counter beside Oscar, close but not touching. Present.
“Do you want to talk about why?” Lando asks softly. “Or… should I just pretend I’m here because you owe me twenty quid?”
Oscar lets out a weak laugh. His eyes sting.
Silence stretches, tight and fragile.
Then Oscar speaks, barely above a whisper:
“There’s a… a thread.”
He doesn’t look up.
“Yeah,” Lando says. Steady. “Saw it.”
Oscar’s breath catches.
He braces for the question:
Is it true?
It never comes.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” Lando says, voice quiet but firm. “And I’m not going to ask.”
Oscar feels something inside him crack. Disbelief, relief, grief tangled together.
He swallows hard. “People are… guessing. And there’s… details. Things I didn’t think anyone would say.”
He’s rambling. Words tumbling out jagged and incomplete.
“I thought I was careful,” Oscar continues. “I didn’t - I didn’t give anything away. I didn’t think - I thought I’d have more time to figure stuff out before -”
His breath breaks. He clamps his mouth shut.
Lando doesn’t move. Doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t look shocked. Just listens.
Oscar keeps going, unable to stop now that the dam has cracks.
“And he said he has photos,” Oscar whispers. “I don’t - I don’t know what that means. I don’t think he has anything real, but what if I’m wrong? What if he does? What if people -”
He cuts himself off with a sharp inhale.
He’s shaking.
Lando places something on the counter between them. Not a hand on Oscar, not a big gesture, just the bottle of vitamin drink, nudged gently toward him like grounding.
“Hey,” Lando says softly. “Breathe.”
Oscar tries. Fails. Tries again.
Lando waits. Patient. Not staring, not hovering. Just… there.
When Oscar’s breath steadies to something less frantic, Lando speaks again.
“I’m sorry someone did that to you,” he says simply.
Oscar’s eyes close. A small, wounded noise escapes him.
Lando adds, awkward but sincere, “It’s really crappy. And unfair. And invasive. And whatever happened, or didn’t happen, or kind of happened - ”
Oscar winces. Lando corrects himself quickly.
“- nevermind.”
Oscar opens his eyes, startled.
Lando looks back, steady and unflinching.
“And it doesn’t change anything about you as a person,” Lando continues. “Or as my teammate. Or -”
He hesitates, searching.
“…or as someone I actually like hanging out with, even if you’re quiet and a bit of a gremlin.”
A shaky breath slips out of Oscar, something almost like a laugh.
He scrubs at his face. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess. I don’t know how to… talk right now.”
“You don’t have to,” Lando says.
He says it like a promise.
☆
When Oscar’s breathing finally evens out, Lando nudges the sandwich toward him again.
“You should eat a little,” he says. “Not for me. For you.”
Oscar nods and takes a small bite. His stomach doesn’t rebel this time.
Lando grins like he’s won a race. “Huge progress.”
Oscar rolls his eyes weakly. “Shut up.”
“Nah,” Lando says. “I’m on a supportive roll. Can’t stop now.”
☆
They move to the couch eventually.
Oscar sits curled against the armrest, shoulders tucked in. Lando sits beside him, leaving enough space that Oscar doesn’t feel crowded, but close enough that the quiet feels shared.
Lando picks up the remote. “Pick something.”
“I don’t care.”
“Great, we’ll watch something terrible then,” Lando declares, putting on a mindless show with loud colors and zero plot.
Oscar watches without absorbing any of it.
Lando doesn’t comment on his blank stare or his shaking hands when Oscar reaches for the drink. He just occasionally says something stupid enough to draw a small huff from Oscar, like baiting tiny breaths back into him.
Partway through the episode, Oscar murmurs “Thank you.”
Lando shrugs, pretending it’s nothing. “I mean, yeah. You looked like you were being haunted by twelve ghosts.”
Oscar gives him a flat look.
Lando softens. “You don’t owe anyone clarity, you know. Not me. Not fans. Not strangers online.”
Oscar swallows. “But what if -”
“Hey.” Lando nudges him with his shoulder, the smallest touch.
“If something comes out, we’ll deal with it. Not just you.”
Oscar stares at him. “Why would you help me with this?”
Lando blinks, honestly confused. “Because we’re teammates? And also because I’m not a psychopath?”
Oscar lets out a small, fragile breath.
Lando grins. “Also, I like feeling useful. So really, you’re doing me a favour by being sad.”
Oscar snorts.
And for the first time the crushing weight pressing down on his lungs eases.
Just a little.
Just enough.
Lando doesn’t ask for truth.
Doesn’t pretend to know it.
Doesn’t demand Oscar sort himself out on a schedule.
He just sits beside him, warm and solid and real.
☆
Monaco should feel like home.
It’s where his quiet routines are based. His early morning coffee stop, his running routes, the harbour view that usually gives him peace, the apartment he keeps obsessively neat because it’s one of the few things he can control.
But today, none of it feels comforting.
He shuts the door behind him and lets his suitcase sit untouched in the entryway. The silence in the apartment isn’t calm. It is taut. Like everything is holding its breath.
He drops onto the couch and closes his eyes, but the panic that’s been simmering since the airport follows him like a shadow. The thread. The details. The imagined photos.
Now the whole world is guessing, and he’s no closer to answers than before.
☆
Oscar logs into the call, camera on, posture perfect. Lando waves lazily from his own frame, hair rumpled, hoodie soft looking, eyes warm in a way that tugs at something inside Oscar.
He breathes. He can do this. He can be normal.
Midway through, someone from marketing laughs loudly.
“Oh! Oscar, saw some interesting fan theories about you this weekend.”
His blood runs cold.
A few people chuckle. Someone else adds, “Fans are wild, mate. Don’t take it seriously.”
Oscar forces the smallest smile he can manage.
He feels his heart slamming against his ribs.
His mouth is dry. His palms sweat. The comment was harmless. Light. Not malicious.
But for Oscar, it drags the whole buried thing straight to the surface.
As soon as the call ends, he shuts his laptop with shaking hands and steps backward as if the computer might burn him. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. The room tilts.
He sinks to the floor before he realises it’s happening.
☆
“Oscar?”
Lando’s voice.
Oscar blinks up, dazed, vision swimming. Lando stands in the doorway, frame tense, expression filled with alarm he tries (and fails) to cover quickly.
“Oh man,” Lando mutters, dropping his bag instantly. He crosses the room with quick, sure strides and kneels beside him. “You’re not okay.”
Oscar tries to sit up, his body is trembling too hard. His breath shatters.
“I - I can’t -”
“Hey, don’t talk. Just breathe. I’ve got you.”
Lando’s voice is low, warm, steady, nothing like the sharp panic Oscar deserves to hear.
Oscar lifts his head, vision blurred, chest tight enough to hurt. Lando is framed by the soft light from the hallway, wide-eyed and startled. He looks like someone punched all the air out of him.
“Oh - Oh, mate…”
He kneels beside Oscar, leaving a respectful distance but close enough that Oscar feels the warmth of him.
“Hey,” Lando says softly. “I’m here. I’m right here.”
Oscar’s breath breaks.
“I - I can’t -”
“You’re okay,” Lando murmurs, his voice steady in a way Oscar clings to like a lifeline. “You’re just overwhelmed. Look at me.”
Oscar tries.
His gaze snaps to Lando’s face, because it’s something to hold onto, something that isn’t the screaming spiral in his head.
Lando’s expression is open. Soft. Concerned. Focused entirely on Oscar.
Oscar’s lungs stutter.
He sits on the floor beside him, not crowding, just anchoring.
“Look at me,” Lando urges gently again.
Oscar tries. His field of vision wavers.
“It’s okay,” Lando murmurs. “You’re safe. We’re just sitting here. Nothing’s happening right now.”
Oscar’s throat tightens painfully. “I’m so - I’m so stupid.”
“Wrong,” Lando says immediately. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Oscar shakes his head, breath hitching. “I thought - I thought I’d have time. I thought I’d figure things out on my own. But everyone’s talking, and I don’t know what he has, and I don’t know what’s real, and if they - if people -”
Words dissolve into a broken inhale.
Lando places a hand on the floor beside Oscar, grounding them both. “Stop. You’re spiralling. Breathe with me.”
Oscar tries. His breath stutters and catches.
Lando’s voice stays a low murmur:
“In. And out. There you go. Again.”
Slowly, oxygen returns.
Barely.
Oscar’s voice is raw when he whispers, “It’s not… fake.”
And this, right here, is where the moment shifts.
Lando’s breath pauses. The smallest intake, a flicker in his eyes.
For a single heartbeat, Oscar sees the truth.
Lando had already pieced it together from Oscar’s panic, his vague explanations, the shards of things left unsaid.
There is a flash, almost microscopic, of recognition, of something clicking into place.
Then Lando schools his expression with visible, deliberate gentleness.
Not shock.
Not pity.
Not triumph at being right.
But a carefully neutral, open softness.
A you’re safe expression.
He does it so Oscar won’t feel watched or exposed or judged. He does it because he’s trying, trying so hard to be the right kind of person in this moment.
And somehow, somehow, that makes something warm and achingly grateful twist inside Oscar’s chest, and the tears come, like a floodgate breaking.
Lando clears his throat softly, voice steady again.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Then it’s real. That’s fine.”
Not a question. Not a demand for details. Not an assumption. Just acceptance.
Oscar’s breath stumbles. Relief and fear collide painfully.
“Thank you for telling me. And you don’t have to say anything else. Not a single thing. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
Oscar stares at him, shaking, overwhelmed. Oscar thinks he's never cried so much in his life.
Lando holds his gaze with deliberate calm.
“You’re alright,” he murmurs. “Nothing about you is wrong. Nothing is ruined. And I don’t think anything about you is, messed up, or weird, or whatever your brain is shouting at you right now.”
Oscar lets out a broken sound, half breath and half sob.
He drops his forehead into his palm.
Oscar closes his eyes against the sting.
Lando shifts slightly closer, slowly, like approaching a frightened animal, and opens one arm.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
Oscar fights it for half a second.
Then he collapses sideways into him, forehead against Lando’s shoulder, breath shivering out in a half sob.
Lando’s hand settles gently between his shoulder blades, steady and warm.
No demands. No questions. No labels.
Just presence.
“I’m scared,” Oscar whispers, barely audible. “I don’t know what people will think if - if something comes out. I don’t want them to look at me differently.”
Lando hums softly. “They won’t.”
“It’s easy for you to say.”
Lando lets out a quiet, wry snort. “Oscar, you’re not the only one with… complicated stuff. Trust me.”
Oscar stiffens slightly and looks. Lando gives him a small, crooked smile, the kind that hides more than it reveals.
“Another conversation,” Lando says. “For later.”
He nudges Oscar’s shoulder gently, grounding him again.
Oscar swallows hard. Tears won't stop, but his breath hitches and then steadies.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
Lando bumps his head lightly against Oscar’s, affectionate in a quiet, brotherly way. “You don’t have to thank me. I like helping you. Plus if I left you alone, you’d implode like a dying star.”
Oscar lets out something that might be a laugh or a broken hiccup.
“Shut up.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lando says softly. “Breathe first. Insult me later.”
☆
The panic hasn’t vanished, it still lurks in corners, still curls in his chest when he opens social media, still whispers what if someone finds those photos?
But it no longer consumes him whole.
Lando leaves his apartment only after making sure Oscar can stand properly, breathe without shaking, and drink enough water that he won’t shrivel up like a raisin.
He sends cheer up texts that somehow work.
Lando: If u die tonight I’ll be very annoyed so don’t
Lando: also tomorrow I’m coming over with takeaway
Oscar: why
Lando: bonding
Lando: deal with it
It’s ridiculous.
It’s stupid.
It’s the kindest thing Oscar has ever been bullied into.
☆
The next morning, Oscar wakes up… lighter.
Not healed. Not fixed. But breathing.
He turns on his phone with hesitation, expecting more chaos, and instead finds things quieter.
The thread is still out there, yes.
People are still speculating, still stitching details together, still tossing his name around.
But the frenzy has died down.
It’s now just… background noise.
Noise he can almost tune out.
☆
Lando arrives with food. Again.
He doesn’t announce himself. He texts “here” and then just walks in when Oscar opens the door, juggling a bag of groceries like he’s been living here for years.
“What is all this?” Oscar asks, staring.
“Cooking,” Lando says brightly. “I Googled it. Very helpful. Very adult of me.”
Oscar blinks. “…We’re not doing that.”
“We’re doing it.” Lando pushes past him into the kitchen. “You need routine. Stability. And a vegetable that isn’t sad.”
Oscar snorts. “You’re terrible at this.”
Lando pauses mid step, turning with a blank, innocent look.
“Yeah,” he says. “But I’m trying.”
The words hit Oscar harder than they should.
Trying. That’s what makes all the difference.
☆
They chop vegetables badly. They burn one pan and rescue another. Lando nearly slices his own thumb off three times.
Oscar laughs, really laughs, for the first time in days.
And Lando looks so pleased with himself for achieving that sound that Oscar’s chest feels warm in a strange, unfamiliar way.
Not romantic. Not dramatic. Just… grateful.
☆
At some point, lunch becomes a conversation.
One of those quiet ones that slip into place without planning.
They’re sitting on the balcony, eating their food while the sun paints everything gold.
Oscar doesn’t look at Lando when he says, “I’m sorry. For dumping all that on you. That you have to worry about me.”
Lando shrugs like he expected this line. “You didn’t dump anything. You were going through something. I happened to be there.”
“Still.” Oscar picks at the edge of his plate. “It’s a lot. I know I’m not great at… talking.”
“You don’t have to be,” Lando replies. “Talking is overrated. You could grunt at me and I’d get it eventually.”
Oscar huffs. “That’s not reassuring.”
“It should be.”
Silence settles, but it’s easy this time. A shared quiet.
Then Lando nudges Oscar’s foot with his own.
Casual.
Careless.
But intentional enough that Oscar looks over.
Lando’s face is thoughtful. Not heavy, but not joking either.
“You said something,” he says.
Oscar’s breath tightens instinctively. “Oh.”
“No, not that,” Lando adds quickly, sensing the panic. “Nothing specific. Just… the part where you said you thought you’d have more time to figure stuff out.”
Oscar looks down at his hands. “Yeah.”
“That… made sense to me,” Lando says quietly.
Oscar glances up.
Lando is staring out at the water, jaw tight in a way that signals he’s thinking hard before speaking.
Finally he says, “I haven’t figured myself out either.”
The words fall into the space between them with a small, soft weight.
Oscar’s heart gives a startled jump.
Lando continues, but carefully, vaguely, as if his own truth is a fragile thing he’s still learning how to hold.
“I’m not... straight,” he says. Not looking at Oscar, but somewhere over his shoulder. “Or… not just straight. Or… something like that. I don’t know. I’m still working it out.”
Oscar stares, stunned.
Not because he’s shocked, but because Lando has chosen to tell him this.
Chosen to show him a piece of himself he clearly hasn’t shared widely.
“I know you’re dealing with your own stuff,” he says gently. “And I’m not saying this to make it about me. I just…” He swallows hard. “I didn’t want you thinking you’re the only one in this sport who’s confused. Or scared. Or… not straight.”
Oscar’s breath falters.
“And,” Lando adds quickly, voice dipping quiet, “I trust you. That’s why I’m telling you. Not because I expect anything from you. Just… because I wanted you to know you’re not alone.”
Oscar closes his eyes for a moment. His throat tightens.
He opens his eyes again and nods once, slow.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “For telling me.”
Lando nods back. He looks relieved. And afraid. And proud of himself. “See? You do understand talking.”
Oscar looks down at his hands again, feeling warmth creep into his chest. Slow, steady, overwhelming in its gentleness.
He isn’t the only one. Not the only driver. Not the only person in the paddock. Not the only athlete silently wrestling with something he doesn’t yet have the words for.
The relief is subtle but immense.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Just breathes.
Lando’s shoulder nudges his again. Soft, companionable.
☆
The friendship grows quietly from there.
Not dramatic. Not all consuming. Just steady.
They still act like teammates most of the time, the same banter, the same competitive push, the same separate lives.
But something in the edges softens.
Lando texts more often now. Oscar responds more often now.
They hang out without needing a reason. Sometimes FIFA nights, a coffee run here and there, one aimless drive through the French countryside... streets where neither says much at all.
Oscar stops waking in the middle of the night expecting the “photos” to leak.
By some miracle, he doesn't get asked a single question about it by media. Life goes on, people have new scandals and stories to focus on.
By the end of the month, Oscar realises something simple but profound.
He feels better.
Not perfect. Not fixed. But better.
A little steadier. A little braver. A little more himself.