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Lando didn’t realise how loud a restaurant could be until he was trying not to stare at his boyfriend across a table full of drivers.
The Thursday night dinner had sounded harmless when it was proposed - everyone together, end-of-season, one last ‘family meal’ before they tried to race the shit out of each other on Sunday.
In reality it was three long tables pushed together, too much cutlery, a wall of chatter and laughter, and far too much raw fish.
He and Oscar were late.
That part was their fault.
The team BBQ had run long back at the paddock - Zak talking, Andrea talking, everyone talking about “whatever happens this weekend, we’re proud of you both.” The sky had gone lavender over the circuit, fire licking quietly at the grills, and Lando had been just drunk enough on adrenaline and affection to lean over and kiss Oscar behind one of the catering trucks.
It wasn’t supposed to be more than that. A quick, stupid, “we’re okay” kiss.
It turned into Oscar pressing him back against the side of the truck, fingers at his waist, mouths slow and hungry, Lando’s hands in his hair, heat rocketing through him so fast he forgot what they were late for.
Oscar pulled back eventually, forehead to his. “We need to go,” he said, breathless and laughing.
“Yeah, I know,” Lando said, not moving. His dick did not get the memo about leaving. “Just… give me a minute or I’m rocking up to dinner hard.”
Oscar snorted. “You can’t celebrate pole you don’t have yet.”
“Oh shut it,” Lando said weakly. “‘M manifesting.”
”What, the win or not being hard?”
Lando turned red. “Osc…”
Oscar grinned, leaning forward to peck his boyfriend’s lips. “I’m only teasing, love.”
They took a five-minute detour to their room, splashing water on their faces, pointedly not touching each other more than necessary until things settled.
By the time they walked into the restaurant - hair damp, shirts slightly skewed - they’d missed starters.
“Late,” Max called from halfway down the table. “Penalty.”
“Was busy being a McLaren corporate shill,” Lando lied easily, dropping into his chair. “Team BBQ. Very serious. Very important, obviously.”
Across from him, Oscar just gave that tiny nod, full of nonchalance that screamed ‘I know exactly why we’re late and I’m not saying a word’.
Somewhere around the third wave of sushi, Charles flicked a grain of rice at George, who flicked it back. Yuki escalated with an entire slice of avocado. Alonso, of all people, got caught in the crossfire and retaliated with a neat, deadly flick of salmon.
Within five minutes there was a full, low-key food fight happening down one end of the table - drivers ducking, laughing, napkins as shields.
“I hate sushi,” Lando hissed under his breath, nudging his plate half full of sushi that had landed there from the fight with a chopstick as though it might lunge at him.
Oscar snorted. “You hate anything that looks back at you.”
“It had an eye, Oscar.”
“It was a cucumber roll.”
Lando spluttered, “it still counts!” before lobbing it at Carlos who retaliated and threw a roll at him but hit Pierre instead.
Someone yelled about wasting food; someone else ate something straight off the table. They were all children for a moment, and it was good.
Through it all, Oscar was… Oscar. Calm, dry. Watching everything, dark eyes flicking from one chaos node to another. He dodged a rogue edamame pod with an economical tilt of his head, then flicked a single grain of rice at Lando, hitting him dead between the brows.
“Rude,” Lando called.
Oscar’s mouth twitched. “You love it,” he mouthed back with a wink.
Later, walking back to the hotel under too-bright streetlights, the buzz of it all humming under his skin, Lando bumped shoulders with Oscar.
“So,” Lando said. “Tomorrow we go back to trying to beat each other.”
“Yeah,” Oscar said easily. “Obviously.”
Lando glanced sideways. “We’re good with that?”
Oscar hummed. “What happens on track…”
“…stays on track,” Lando finished. They’d said it before, after Austria, after a sprint that had gone sideways. Tonight it felt heavier. “We’re allowed to be pissed off for, like, ten minutes and then we kill it.”
“Five,” Oscar said.
Lando huffed. “You’re very demanding, you know that?”
“You like that,” Oscar said, deadpan.
He did. God help him, he did.
They paused under a circle of softer light by the hotel entrance. For a second, the whole thing - title fight, media, pressure - felt like something happening to other people.
It was just them.
“Whatever happens,” Lando said quietly, throat tight, “I don’t want us to… break.”
Oscar looked at him properly, the neutral mask slipping enough to show the steel underneath. “We won’t,” he said. “We’re not that easy to break.”
Lando believed him. Or wanted to enough that it felt the same.
~~~
Qualifying was the kind of sharp that made his teeth hum.
Max was inevitable; pole by a massive margin, Red Bull doing Red Bull things. Lando still put his lap together well enough that when his engineer read out, “P2, buddy. P2. Oscar P3.” his chest tightened in the right way.
One-nineteen point four-nine-five. Oscar had done a one-nineteen three. Max had been out of reach. Still, front row. McLarens second and third.
The whole season funnelled into a grid of thirty-odd metres.
He found Oscar in the pen afterwards, hands on hips, helmet hair flatter than usual.
“Nice lap,” Lando said, bumping his shoulder.
“Yours was better,” Oscar said. “Mine was just… earlier.” A tiny smile. “Nice job keeping up.”
“What, you thought I’d be miles off?” Lando asked, mock-offended.
Oscar shrugged. “You do like a challenge.”
He meant it kindly. Lando stored the tone away anyway, a reference point for later.
Back in the debrief, the word “points” kept orbiting everything they said.
“Max is still the benchmark,” Andrea said, leaning on the table. “But between you two - it’s about who executes. Lando, if you finish second or third, you give yourself breathing room. Oscar, you need to win to keep it really alive.”
Lando pretended his heart didn’t pound at that.
P2 or P3. How hard could that be?
He knew the answer. He drove with it anyway.
~~~
Lights out on Sunday felt like someone pressed the entire season into his sternum.
Mediums on his car, mediums on Max, hards on Oscar. Red lights and heat, the sting of sweat in his eyes. He caught Oscar’s car in his peripheral - papaya, but not his - and forced himself not to think about it.
Clutch, bite, rev. Lights out.
Max covered him immediately - no surprise there - angling hard for Turn One, doing that calculation in half a second: what can I get away with, how close can I run him without losing track position?
Lando matched as long as he could on the less-grippy side, felt the rear stepping out a fraction. Wheelspin, tiny. Enough to let it slip away.
By Turn Nine, Oscar was in front of him. On the outside, on hards, digging in on the brakes like the tyres weren’t still waking up.
He left space. Of course he did. It was Oscar.
“Nice move,” Lando muttered into the helmet, more fond than bitter, even as the delta flickered. Lap one: Max, Oscar, Lando. Exactly the worst and best ordering.
Behind him, Charles loomed large in the mirrors. The Ferrari had grip and it wanted his place.
“Charles behind, point seven,” Will said in his ears. “You’re doing good. Manage tyres, but no mistakes. No invites.”
No invites, right. He drove narrower, smoother, shoulders creeping higher as Leclerc kept sniffing at the back of him.
One small lockup, one stray twitch, and Charles would be ahead before he could apologise for it.
At one point he and Yuki went side by side in a way that made his engineer swear in his ear. Post-race, he’d find out there’d been an investigation. Yuki got five seconds. Lando got no further action.
In the moment, all he knew was he’d had all four wheels off and his stomach in his mouth.
Lando drove like every micro-movement could yank the title out of his hands or into them. Tyres fraying, arms aching.
Somewhere, in the part of his brain that wasn’t watching the dash and the mirrors and the next corner, a maths problem kept running: if I finish here, and he finishes there, and Oscar…
When the chequered flag fell and he crossed the line third, the radio crackled to life before he’d fully exhaled.
“Is this the World champion hotline?” Zak’s voice came through, too bright, cracking. “World. Champion. Lando Norris, you are-”
Lando made a sound that might have been a laugh and might have been a sob. He couldn’t tell. The tears came up faster than he could blink them away, hot and shocking. “Thank you,” he managed, voice wrecked. “Thank you, guys. Oh my god.”
His hands shook on the cooldown lap. “You’ve done it,” Will said, quieter now. “You’ve really done it. World champion, mate.”
He did donuts on the main straight because it was expected and because part of him had waited his whole life to burn rubber in front of grandstands like that, smoke and crowd noise and the taste of tyre compound in his teeth.
The world had finally stopped.
~~~
Parc Fermé felt like everything and nothing at once.
Helmet still on, straps undone, hands waiting to grab him as he stepped out of the car. Someone patted his back so hard his visor bounced in his grip. “Champion!” someone yelled in his ear. “You did it!”
Max was there first, of course - already out of the car, helmet off, grin easy. He pulled Lando into a hug that was all force and no restraint, thumping his back. “Finally, huh?” he said, loud enough for the cameras. “Took you long enough.”
“Piss off,” Lando laughed, shaky, and hugged him back.
Oscar was next.
There were cameras, yes. There were always cameras.
But when Oscar stepped in, hands going automatically to Lando’s sides, fingers digging into his race suit, it felt like the world shrank around them a little.
Lando hugged him longer than Max, tighter. His helmet pressed briefly into Oscar’s neck, where his balaclava had already been peeled away, skin hot and damp.
“You were insane,” Oscar murmured, voice just for him. “Third or not.”
“You were better,” Lando said, and meant it, and didn’t care, because everything in his body was screaming I did it, we did it.
When he let go, Oscar’s hands squeezed his sides once more, a little grounding tap that said, later.
Mum and Dad were next, the inevitable tidal wave.
His mum had already been crying. His dad looked like he’d tried very hard not to and lost. Lando folded into them like he was seventeen again. “I did it,” he choked. “Mum, I did it.”
“You did,” she said, voice thick. “My boy.”
When his mum eventually let go, she turned and, to Lando’s faint shock, pulled Oscar into a hug too, arms wrapping round him like he’d always been there. His dad did the same, clapping Oscar on the back in a careful, paternal way.
Somewhere behind them, he heard Magui crying and laughing at the same time. She hugged him hard enough to make his ribs complain. His sisters piled in.
Zak and Andrea appeared for the obligatory photos - Zak’s arm around his shoulders, Andrea looking like a proud, slightly exhausted father.
Carlos found him in the chaos, eyes bright, grin huge. “Muppet friend,” he said, sweeping him into another hug. “World Champion, huh?”
“You’re never dropping that nickname, are you?” Lando sniffed, laughing anyway.
“Never,” Carlos said, kissing the side of his helmet.
Max Fewtrell, when he finally shouldered his way through, was already losing his mind, eyes wet, voice cracking on every other word as he grabbed Lando’s head and yelled something incoherent about “since karting!” and “knew it!”
It wasn’t until someone ushered them toward the little glass box of the cooldown room that Lando’s nerves started to prickle again.
He hated that room.
He could feel people’s eyes on them through the glass. Like a zoo. Like being the new exhibit.
Someone - he didn’t even register who - reached over and scrubbed their fingers through his hair, really got in there, rough and affectionate.
It was exactly the thing Oscar did when they were alone, when Lando’s head was on his lap and the world had gone quiet.
Here, it made Lando’s whole spine go tight.
He didn’t like his hair being touched at the best of times, and he certainly didn’t like strangers doing it while hundreds of people stared.
He forced a smile, forced a laugh, forced himself not to duck away. Later, he knew, Oscar would clock the tiny stiffness in his shoulders on the replay and know exactly how much he hated it.
He lasted until they were called to the podium.
~~~
The podium was… unreal.
The anthem with the flag up there, his name under the number one. Champagne spraying. Max grinning, Oscar smiling, all three of them soaked and laughing and half-deaf.
Lando did his iconic celebration at the front of the stage - fist in the air, body turned to the crowd, letting the noise roar through him.
Somewhere in the sea of hands and faces, he picked out flashes of papaya, Australian flags, Dutch flags, little kids on parents’ shoulders.
He and Oscar drenched each other in champagne, play-fighting with the bottles. Max doused him as well, laughing.
Lando downed a good amount of the stuff because why the hell not; it burned his throat and bubbled up his nose and tasted like every dream he’d had at twelve.
When Jenson Button pulled him over for the podium interview, Lando’s overalls were dripping. His cheeks hurt from smiling. His eyes still stung.
“I feel like a bit of a loser,” Lando laughed. “All that crying.”
Jenson smiled, patting his shoulder. “You probably do,” he said. “But you should feel far more like a winner!”
He talked about the race; about Max and Oscar “certainly not making things easy.”
He mentioned, on the podium, that he was happy he had his girlfriend there, had his family there. It came out rehearsed, a line that fit the picture.
He did not say boyfriend. He did not say Oscar.
He said he loved his mum and dad. He did not say it to Magui.
He wondered, fleetingly, watching Oscar from the corner of his eye, if anyone who mattered could hear the gap.
He stayed out there for ages, milking it. One last fist to the crowd, just him on the stage, letting them scream for him.
It was everything he’d wanted, and somehow still not the bit he was waiting for most.
~~~
Interviews blurred.
Lewis found him first in the mixed zone, grin wide, eyes crinkled. “Come here, champ,” he said, pulling Lando into a hug that smelled of aftershave and champagne. “So proud of you, man. Seriously.”
“Thank you,” Lando said into his shoulder, half sixteen again, half twenty-something and finally holding his own.
Carlos did a post later calling him his “muppet friend” and Lando laughed so hard he had to sit down when someone showed him.
Press conference after that, lined up with Max and Oscar.
He took a sip from his Monster can and nearly choked. Not just energy drink. Someone had snuck something into it. His eyes widened; the burn was unmistakable. He pulled a face, coughed, covered the mic, then grinned guiltily.
“Is there… alcohol in that?” the moderator asked, half-teasing.
“Maybe,” Lando said, mouth quirking. “Yeah. A little bit.”
The room laughed.
He said, in answer to a question he’d half-expected, “I’m glad I’ve had Oscar the last three years. I’ve learnt a lot from him. I wouldn’t be the driver I am without him.” He didn’t look at Oscar directly while he said it. He didn’t need to. He felt the way the words hung between them.
Oscar just gave that small, private smile, eyes soft. It hit Lando harder than any cheer.
~~~
The after-party was exactly as insane as he’d always imagined.
Lando arrived at around one in the morning due to an extension in post race interviews.
It was forty five minutes in when the party was cut short by staff. Panic seized, but the team sorted it; eventually taking the party back to the hotel.
Music too loud, lights too bright, champagne on top of whatever had been in his Monster. He got smashed fast - laughing, singing, grabbed and lifted onto shoulders at one point, the room spinning in neon.
Band playing, people chanting his name. Max somewhere nearby, cackling with GP in a corner, definitely gossiping, hands over their mouths. George and Oscar dancing in that awkward, slightly British way. Zak attempting something that might have been a dad-dance.
Lando was… free.
Drunk meant honest, apparently.
He kept finding himself stroking people’s faces when he talked to them - men, mostly. Strong jawlines, stubble under his fingertips. He’d cup someone’s cheek to make a point and only realise five seconds later that he was doing it.
At one point he caught himself running his thumb over a guy’s cheekbone, studying the angle, liking the way the guy smiled at him.
He compared every single one of them to Oscar.
Magui was somewhere in the swarm, but his body wasn’t looking for her.
His body, if he was honest, was looking for a very specific Australian.
He spotted Oscar across the room, talking to Lily, posture relaxed in that way that meant he was probably a bit tipsy but not drowning. He saw Lily pull him into a hug; saw Oscar pat her back gently, like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands and was doing his best anyway.
He could have gone over then. Could have kissed him in front of everyone, let the world see what it wanted.
Instead he caught Oscar’s eye across the throng and they had one of those tiny conversations made entirely of looks.
You okay?
Yeah. You?
Yeah.
Later?
Later.
He lasted another few hours - singing, yelling into mics, being jostled and celebrated and photographed. He did shots he couldn’t name and laughed until his throat hurt. He let himself be twenty-something and ridiculous and made of champagne bubbles.
Eventually, though, the noise stopped being thrilling and started being too much. The edges of everything blurred. His head felt too full.
He extricated himself - leaning in to tell Zak he was tapping out, clapping Max on the shoulder, hugging whoever his arms found. The room spun a little on his way out.
He wanted one thing now. It wasn’t another drink.
Oscar was already awake in his room at the hotel by the time Lando knocked on his door, hair damp from a quick shower, T-shirt soft with age.
He opened the door, took one look at Lando - champagne-stained shirt, cheeks flushed, eyes bright and wobbling - and stepped aside without a word.
Lando toed his shoes off on autopilot. The hotel room felt blessedly quiet and the city noise outside was muted through thick curtains; the only light came from the bedside lamp.
He glanced at the time, six in the morning. Fuck.
Oscar stood there for a second, taking him in. “You look wrecked,” he said gently.
“I feel wrecked,” Lando said, voice hoarse. “Like… good wrecked. But also completely gone.”
Oscar’s mouth curved. “Understandable. Being World Champion will do that, apparently.”
Lando laughed once, then the laugh caught on something in his chest and turned into a half-sob. He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t even know where to start,” he said. “It’s… everything.”
“Then don’t start,” Oscar said. “Just… come here.”
They met in the middle of the room, arms going around each other like magnets finally allowed to snap together. It was a different hug than the one in Parc Fermé. No cameras, no one to perform for.
Lando buried his face in Oscar’s neck, breathing him in. Sweat and hotel soap and that underlying scent that was just… Oscar. Familiar.
Home.
“Thank you,” Lando mumbled into his skin. “For… all of it. For the year. For not letting me lose my mind more than, like, three times.”
“Only three?” Oscar said softly. “I must be slipping.”
Lando huffed, a wet laugh. “You tried,” he said. “You were… you were so fucking good, Osc. Today. All year. I know I won, but-”
“I wasn’t quite good enough,” Oscar finished calmly. There was no bitterness in it, just acceptance. “That’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Lando said, pulling back enough to see his face. “You could have easily been here instead of me. If a couple of races went differently-”
“That’s racing,” Oscar said quietly. “You did what you needed to do. Max did what he needed to do when it was his turn. I did what I could. That’s the job, lessons learned. And I’m still proud of me.” He paused, eyes softening. “And I’m proud of you.”
That last bit snapped something in Lando he hadn’t realised was still tight. He made a helpless noise and leaned in, pressing their mouths together.
The kiss wasn’t about heat at first. It was about relief, gratitude. Every unsaid thing in the cooldown room, every look across press conferences, every touch they’d had to ration in public.
Oscar kissed him back like he’d been waiting all season to be allowed to really, properly kiss the world champion without anyone else’s eyes on them. Slow, deep, sure.
His hands slid up the back of Lando’s neck, fingers threading into his hair the way that stranger’s had earlier, but this time it felt right. This was the only person in the world he trusted to do that.
A soft sound shuddered out of Lando’s chest. The adrenaline, the alcohol, the exhaustion, the sheer relief - they all melted together into want.
“Bed?” Oscar murmured against his mouth.
“Yeah,” Lando breathed. “Please. Can we order maccies?”
“In a bit.”
They didn’t rush it. Clothes came off in stages, tossed aside without ceremony. There were more kisses than anything else - mouths, throats, shoulders. Hands mapping familiar territory, relearning old routes.
Lando laughed into Oscar’s skin when they fumbled a bit; Oscar huffed when Lando tickled him on accident.
It wasn’t about being impressive. It was about being together, finally, without pretending.
“You’re gonna be so hungover when you wake up, Lan.”
“Mhm- shut up and kiss me, Osc.”
They made love with the clumsiness of two people who were bone-tired and a bit drunk and very much in love. There were whispers; “you have no idea how proud I am of you,”, and “I’d still pick you even if you’d binned it turn one,” stupid things that meant the world.
There was heat, yes, but it stayed soft at the edges, the way it always did when they were more interested in connection than anything else.
After, when food had arrived and been devoured, they lay tangled in the sheets, chest to chest, breath syncing without trying. Lando’s head was on Oscar’s shoulder, fingers drawing idle patterns on his ribs. Oscar’s hand rested on the back of Lando’s neck, thumb moving in slow circles.
“Remember what we said?” Lando murmured. “About track and… not track?”
“What happens on track stays on track,” Oscar said.
“Yeah,” Lando said sleepily. “I like that.”
“Me too,” Oscar said. “Especially when off-track looks like this.”
Lando smiled against his skin. “You know they’re probably going to show that hair thing in the cooldown room a hundred times,” he said, words slurring at the edges. “People touching me. Me… not liking it. You’re gonna hate it.”
“I already hate it,” Oscar said dryly. “You looked like you wanted to scrub yourself with sandpaper.”
“Didn’t need to,” Lando said, eyes finally sliding shut. “Got you.”
Oscar’s hand tightened infinitesimally. “Yeah,” he said softly. “You do.”
Outside, somewhere, the paddock was still buzzing. People were still dissecting strategies, celebrating, complaining long into the morning. Interviews were being replayed, social media was on fire around the world.
Yet in the quiet of the hotel room, it was just them.
Lando drifted, that warm, weightless place between awake and asleep. Before he fully went under, one last thought surfaced.
“We did it,” he murmured. “Both of us. Even if… my name’s on the trophy.”
Oscar bent his head and pressed a kiss into his hair. “Yeah,” he whispered. “We did.”
Later, much later, someone would make a joke online about “the real cooldown room being the hotel bed,” complete with a picture of Lando’s champagne-soaked grin.
They’d scroll past it, shoulder to shoulder on the sofa at home, and Lando would flush and Oscar would smirk and neither of them would argue.
Because it was true.
The title was his. The season was theirs.