Chapter Text
The 2024 Formula One season ended in a flash of champagne, loud engines, and bright camera lights. Max won the championship, which was both tiring and incredibly exciting. But while everyone in the paddock was packing up and teams were heading home, four drivers managed to quietly get away from all the media craziness.
These guys were really good at keeping things private. Everyone thought they were just rivals...the media, their team bosses Zak and Christian, and even managers like Mark Webber. Maybe friends outside of racing, but that was it. Nobody knew the real story. Nobody knew that Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen had secretly been together for six years, building a life away from their public image. And nobody knew that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had been deeply in love for three years, keeping their relationship a safe haven from their busy careers.
They were going somewhere secret, far from Abu Dhabi's desert heat and all the Netflix cameras watching them. It was a stunning, modern villa in Norway, made of dark wood and huge glass walls. It sat right on a rocky coast, where an old, thick forest met the wild, freezing ocean.
Their rented SUV, feeling solid and safe, drove along the winding, frosty roads. Outside, the afternoon sun was setting, making long, spooky shadows from the tall pine trees.
Max was driving, his hands calm but firm, handling the tricky turns just like he would on a race track. The heater was on, a nice warmth against the bitter cold outside. Charles was in the passenger seat, leaning his head against the cool window, looking out at the wide Norwegian Sea on their left.
The water was a scary, deep blue purple color, with rough strong waves crashing against the rocky shore. Charles shivered, even though it was warm in the car. He pulled his thick wool sweater tighter around himself.
Max noticed Charles's movement out of the corner of his eye. Keeping his eyes on the road, he reached over, his big, warm hand finding Charles’s knee and giving it a comforting squeeze. "Cold, schat?" Max asked, his voice a low, reassuring sound over the tires on the snow.
"Just... looking at the water," Charles mumbled quietly, his green eyes showing the dark waves. "It looks so heavy here. So rough."
"We don't have to get close to it," Max said softly, his thumb making slow, gentle circles on Charles's thigh. "We're just going to watch it from inside, through warm glass, with some wine."
Charles gave a small, thankful smile and leaned over the console to kiss Max’s shoulder. Max knew all about it, of course. He knew Charles’s family was really, strangely careful about water. Ever since Charles was a little boy, after an accident he barely remembered, a scary freak accident where he'd been taken by the sea and somehow washed back up, found shaking and blue by his mom, he wasn't allowed to swim without someone watching him closely. Oceans and lakes were totally out.
Charles didn't remember exactly how he almost drowned and the full incident. He just remembered being so cold. He remembered feeling like he was sinking, like something was dragging him down into the dark deep, and then...his mom’s warm, desperate hands pulling him out, waking him up by the beach. Everyone said it was a miracle. But sometimes, when Charles looked at the ocean, he felt a weird, scary tug in his chest. Like the tide was calling to him. Like the water had just lent him to the land, and was patiently waiting for the right moment to take him back. Max, bless him, just thought it was really bad childhood trauma. He didn't push Charles. He just made sure Charles felt warm and safe, his calm presence a steadying force against Charles's worrying thoughts.
In the backseat, the mood was totally different, filled with a growing, quiet worry.
Lando was pushed against the other window, not looking at the ocean, but at the dark, heavy line of trees on the right side of the road. This forest didn't look like the nice woods back in England. These trees were old, twisted, their branches reaching out like bent, grabbing fingers toward the car. The further he looked into the woods, the darker it got, a blackness so deep it felt like it hummed with a weird, hidden energy.
Lando’s heart was beating fast and unevenly against his ribs. He felt a cold sweat on his hands. He didn't know why, but forests always made him feel like this.
Actually, he did know why. It was his mom. Cisca’s voice kept playing in his head, sharp and worried, a warning she'd said over and over his whole childhood. "Never go into the woods, Lando. Don't wander off. You have to promise me. Promise me you won't go near the trees".
It wasn't just his mom being overly protective. It was a strict, unbreakable rule in his life. No climbing mountains, no hiking, no adventures in the woods. Lando couldn't remember why she was so scared. He had no memories from his early childhood before a certain age...everything before six years old was a blurry, confusing blank. All he had were the rules, and a constant, strong feeling that he didn't quite belong in his own family.
He didn't look like his brothers and sisters. He didn't think like them either. Words on a page always seemed to move around and confuse him, turning into impossible shapes because of his bad dyslexia. His mom used to gently stroke his hair, her eyes full of a secret, sad look, and whisper, "You're just special, Lando. You're our special boy." But deep inside, Lando often looked at himself in the mirror and wondered where his face came from. He felt... like he does not fit in. Like a plant growing in the wrong kind of dirt. He kept these thoughts to himself, hiding his questions behind a happy, joking attitude.
But here, with the old Norwegian woods closing in on him, his cheerful front was starting to crack. The shadows between the pine trees seemed to move and twist. He was sure he saw a tiny, glowing ball of light darting between the tree trunks. A ghost light.
Lando gasped quietly, pulling back from the window, his breath stuck in his throat.
Right away, an arm went around his waist, pulling him firmly from the cold window and against a warm, strong chest. Oscar had been quietly watching him for the past twenty miles.
"Hey," Oscar whispered, his voice a calm, comforting sound in the quiet backseat, making sure they didn't bother Max and Charles in front. "You're shaking, Lan."
Lando hid his face in Oscar's neck, breathing in the familiar, comforting smell of Oscar's cologne, a mix of sandalwood and something distinctly, cleanly Oscar. "I don't like it," Lando mumbled into Oscar's sweater, his voice shaking a bit. "The trees... they're too close. It’s so dark in there."
Oscar held him tighter, his hand gently running through Lando's curls, massaging his head the way he knew Lando liked. "It's just a forest, baby," Oscar whispered, pressing a soft kiss to Lando's temple. "Just pine trees and snow."
"My mum..." Lando swallowed hard, his throat feeling tight. "She always told me not to go into the woods. She used to get really scared if I even went near the edge of the park. She made me promise. I feel like... I feel like if I go in there, I'll never come back out and disappear"
Oscar's heart hurt hearing the real fear in his boyfriend's voice. He didn't know why Lando was so scared of forests...he just figured it was part of Lando's anxious personality, really stuck in him by a very careful mother. For Oscar, Lando was a bright, wonderful, energetic person who needed protection from a world that could be too tough.
"You don't have to go anywhere near the trees," Oscar promised, moving so Lando could completely curl up in his lap, tucking Lando's legs against his side. "The villa is safe. I won't let anything happen to you. You're safe with me, okay? I'll protect you."
Lando looked up, his big, expressive eyes searching Oscar's calm, steady face. The real devotion he saw there helped loosen the cold knot in his chest. "You promise?"
"I promise," Oscar said softly, leaning down to give Lando a slow, sweet kiss. It brought Lando back to reality, pulling him away from the shadows of the forest and grounding him in the car, in the warmth, in the man he loved. "I won't let you out of my sight. It's just the four of us, a fireplace, and plenty of doing nothing."
Lando sighed, closing his eyes as he rested his head on Oscar's chest, listening to the steady, comforting beat of Oscar's heart. "Okay," he whispered.
In the front, the GPS made a soft sound.
"We're here," Max said, slowing the car as they reached the top of a small hill.
Right in front of them, sitting perfectly in that strange, beautiful spot between the dark, old woods and the loud, icy sea, was the villa. Its warm yellow lights glowed like a signal in the dim light, a lone safe place against the wild weather. But even as the car stopped in the driveway, the ocean kept crashing against the rocks loudly, and the wind howled through the pine trees, making a hollow, old sound that seemed to call out and creep in, observing...