Downforce

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at [Link]

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Categories: Gen, M/M
Fandom: Formula 1 RPF
Relationships: Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris & Oscar Piastri
Characters: Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, Max Fewtrell, Minor Characters
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Lando and Oscar meet as kids,
Lando Norris Being a Little Shit, Sweet Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri is
Bad at Feelings, 2023 Formula 1 Season, Fluff, Light Angst, Slow Burn,
Lando Norris Loves Oscar Piastri, Oscar Piastri Loves Lando Norris,
They're figuring it out, Fanboy Oscar Piastri
Language: English
Series: Part 3 of Boys of Summer
Stats: Published: 2025-11-18 Words: 8,484 Chapters: 1/1
 Downforce
by blue_eyes_incognito

Summary

“Almost everything else I want can’t exactly be given as a gift.”

“Such as?”

“The WDC?”

Lando let out a small chuckle. Not mocking in any way, but nonetheless amused. “Yeah,
probably not with this year’s car. Sorry, mate. Might get a podium this year, but that’s about
as far as I’d try to hope.”

“It’s not about hoping, mate,” Oscar said, “But even I’m not barmy enough to think I could
pull that off and make that kind of history, even if we had a rocketship this year. I was
thinking longer term. You can surprise me with it.” He gave Lando a wink and teasing grin.

“Heh,” Lando puffed half a laugh, “I’ll keep that in mind. Though at the moment, it’s hard to
imagine either of us fighting for it. No offense.”

“None taken, ‘Lando No-wins,’” Oscar joked.

“Wow, low blow, Piastri. You’re lucky it’s still your birthday for another…” Lando checked
his watch, “Wow, three minutes. Just under the wire for your free pass to be a dick.”

“Oh, I still have three whole minutes?”

Lando grabbed a pillow and swung it at Oscar. “Oh, shut up and start the movie.”

--OR--

Things on track begin to improve while Lando and Oscar continue to figure out how they fit
together.

Notes

This is part three of a continuous series. It can be read as a standalone, but it's better if you
read the preceding parts first.

This is the one where the characters really started exerting their free will. It started out as
mainly self-indulgent nonsense, but about 5k words in, I became an observer like the rest of
 you.

Bumped the rating up to teen & up for this one mostly for language, a few lightly suggestive
moments, and depictions of alcohol use and mild intoxication. Not really a huge deal since
half of you have probably also been reading smut today, but I wanted to address it in any
case.

This will also (probably) be the last installment for awhile. With the triple header and the
holidays coming up, I don't expect to have a whole lot of time or energy to write. (The
writing gods may have different ideas, but I've got a lot of other things to do between now
and January, so be warned it might be that long.)

I'm still obsessed with these two idiots (affectionate), and I still have some ideas, they're just
less fully formed that what this three-part ride has been so far, so they might have to bake for
awhile. That said, this part comes to (I think) a satisfying enough ending to feel like a bit of a
"season finale" for now.

See the end of the work for more notes

 Melbourne, April 2023

Oscar rarely remembered his dreams. He’d wake up aware that he’d been dreaming, but more
often than not, he was left only with impressions and emotions without much other context.
Occasionally, however, a dream would be intense enough or feel real enough that it would
live in his memory well beyond waking. And in one particular case, he remembered it
because he’d had the dream so many times.

It wasn’t exactly the same each time; it was almost like the dream shifted and grew as he did.
The first time he remembered having the dream, he was 11. At least he was pretty sure it was
the first time. He awoke with his heart hammering in his chest like he’d just run a sprint, and
a deep, exhilarating longing sprawled within him. He didn’t remember what the dream was
about that time, but a few weeks later, he awoke with the same feelings and the impression of
a warm, grounding presence next to him in the dark. He reached to his left to find it with his
hand and, of course, found nothing. It had only been a dream, after all.

Over the next several months, he’d wake up like this often, remembering a little more each
time until it eventually settled into his memory like something that could have nearly
happened for real.

Maybe it was something about being able to remember it that allowed his subconscious to let
it go. Because being able to remember it eventually began to make Oscar hope to find himself
in that dream. And that seemed to make it come less and less.

It had been more than two years since Oscar had last woken up with a pounding heart, sweaty
palms, and tingling lips like this. And now it had happened twice in the span of a week.

The timing made sense, but also, it couldn’t be worse.

Oscar thought he’d moved past it. Grown out of it. Whatever. But there he was. All bright
hazel eyes and gapped-tooth smile. Curled up next to him warm and real as life, grown now
just as he was. Oscar reached out in the golden morning light, daring to brush against a
shoulder.
“Can I kiss you?”

The response came soft and sleepy, “Yeah.”

Oscar drew his fingertips to the face beside him, barely touching. He leaned in, hesitant, as if
he thought the boy next to him would change his mind and choose to laugh at him instead.

Lips touched. Slowly, then all at once. Warmth and electricity radiated from the contact.
Oscar’s thoughts swam.

And suddenly his eyes blinked against the darkness. The space beside him was empty, as it
always was.

Earlier this week, however, something had been different.

First of all, he was turned the wrong way round on his bed, lying crosswise. The duvet had
been pulled back and folded around him as if he’d fallen asleep this way and someone had
taken care to ensure he was warm without wanting to disturb.

Second of all, while the space next to him was empty, it wasn’t cold. Warmth remained inside
of a barely perceptible indentation across the mattress, parallel to where Oscar laid, tucked in.

Oscar didn’t want to think about the implications of that.

This time was, at least, more like all the other times. Oscar was sleeping the right way round,
a pillow beneath his head, his feet pointing at the foot of the bed. The mattress beside him
was empty and cool. He found himself shifting into the space, first wishing it was warm like
before, then wishing it wasn’t empty at all.
He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to slow his heart rate and re-center his
thoughts.

It was fine when he thought he’d never see him again. It was fine when he was sure he’d
been forgotten. But now he was his teammate. His friend again. He’d never been forgotten.

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not ever again.

Oscar wasn’t sure when he’d fallen back asleep. He only became aware that he had when he
awoke to someone pounding on his bedroom door.

“Wake the fuck up, birthday boy, we’re gonna be late!”

“Fuuuuuck,” Oscar groaned, pulling his pillow over his head to block out the light and the
insistence coming from the other side of the door.

“Taking that as a sign of life, mate. I’m coming in.”

It was as if Lando had intentionally chosen the loudest way to walk through a door that Oscar
could imagine. “Please fuck off,” he grumbled from beneath the pillow.

“Nope,” Lando said, flopping down onto the bed alongside where Oscar was twisted up in
the duvet and sheets, “You said 11 was plenty late to come pick you up and it’s now…”
Lando squinted at his watch to decipher the time, “11:23 because I got stuck in traffic.”

Oscar made a noise that may have been another rude remark but was made indecipherable by
the pillow. Lando reached over to tug the pillow out of Oscar’s grasp and away from his
head.

“C’mon, Osc, your friends are supposed to meet us.”

In the absence of the pillow Lando had just pried away from him, Oscar yanked the duvet
over his head.

“Tell them I decided to sleep instead. They’ll understand.”

“He’d rather sleep all day than go karting. Some racing driver you are,” Lando teased,
grabbing for what he was pretty sure was Oscar’s waist through the rumpled duvet, giving a
squeeze.

Oscar yelped and jerked away from the contact, not realizing how close to the edge of the bed
he was. He tumbled halfway onto the floor, swearing as he landed.

Lando laughed, but by sheer instinct, he’d launched himself toward Oscar to haul him back
up onto the mattress and found himself apologizing and asking if Oscar was ok.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I just…can you not? I’m like, really ticklish there.”

Lando raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Ticklish?” He reached his hand out again and wiggled his
fingers.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Oscar warned.

Lando set a pleasant, neutral expression that still belied the chaos he intended to unleash. “So
get out of bed then,” he said.

Oscar groaned again before shifting to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and sit up.
“Unbelievable,” he grumbled.
Lando stretched out onto his side, propping himself up onto one elbow and resting his head
on his hand. He looked up at Oscar as he stood, taking in the height of him, the expanse of
his shoulders, his bedhead, the creases on his face from the sheets…

He swallowed and cleared his throat. “About time,” he said, looking up at Oscar with a
smirk.

“Yeah, sure. I’m up. Can I get some privacy here, or do you want to watch me get changed,
too?”

Lando again raised an eyebrow at him, smirking even harder, if such a thing were even
possible.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Oscar said, picking up a pillow and flinging it at Lando, “Get the fuck
out.”

Lando laughed and rolled off the bed, contorting himself upward in a single fluid motion that
did something weird to Oscar’s brain.

“Ten minutes and I’m coming back for you, Piastri,” Lando said, “Gonna take your mum up
on that offer for pancakes while I wait.”

A smile tugged at one corner of Oscar’s mouth. It had been years since he’d actually been
home for his birthday. But his mum always made pancakes for him when he was.

“Ok, ok…but don’t rush me out of here before I get my hands on some too,” Oscar said,
practically shoving Lando out the door.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Lando said, the door already closed again between them.
Oscar emerged a little more than five minutes later in his favorite burgundy t-shirt and black
jeans. His hair still stood up at odd angles as he settled at the kitchen table across from Lando
with his pancakes topped in a mountain of fruit.

“Cheers, mate,” Lando said, raising a forkful of his own pancakes, dripping with syrup,
before bringing it to his mouth.

Oscar mumbled some kind of unintelligible response before tucking into his own breakfast.

The two ate in silence for several minutes. At one point, Nicole reflexively tried to smooth
down Oscar’s bedhead, only to earn a response more befitting an embarrassed teenager than
someone who was turning 22.

“Do you, like, need some coffee or something?” Lando eventually asked, becoming a bit
unsettled by Oscar’s surliness.

“Nah, never touch it,” Oscar replies, “Just always takes a bit to come to terms with being
conscious again. I’m getting there.”

Lando nodded. Though he had no reference point for this himself, he was resolute to not take
it personally. He added “Hates being woken up,” to his mental list of ‘Things I Know About
Oscar.’

By the time they arrived at Oakleigh, all of Oscar’s friends were already there. Most of the
people he knew in Australia were people he had karted with at some point. Some, like his
friend Chris, had gone on to race in European series like Oscar had. Most hadn’t. Some still
raced. Most didn’t. This was just how things went.

Lando seemed to win them over easily. Oscar had to admit, he had a way with people. For as
easy as people seemed to find hating him from afar, he made it nearly impossible to do close
up. It wasn’t mere charm but a deep and abiding kindness that seemed to seep from every
pore, sparkle in his eyes, and shine from his smile.
Not that Oscar was thinking about that. Much.

The day flowed from karting to dinner and finally to a group of eight settling around several
small tables shoved together inside of a divey and comfortably worn-in pub. Oscar shuffled
with the scoresheet and answer slips he’d picked up from the trivia host; Lando headed to the
bar to order their first round, allegedly with everyone’s drink orders committed to memory.
Oscar had his doubts.

So Oscar counted himself as surprised when Lando returned several minutes later, drinks
balanced on a tray he’d talked a server out of for a minute, each correct down to the detail,
including Mikka’s preference for a lemon on her gin and tonic instead of a lime. He’d taken a
risk and told Lando to surprise him, so he couldn’t exactly complain when Lando did just that
by sliding something orange and pink and fruity in front of him. Definitely not something
he’d ever order for himself, but apparently something Lando would, as he was settling into
his own seat next to Oscar with an identical drink after returning the tray to a passing server
with a quick thanks. It was good, whatever it was. Not as sweet as its appearance or smell
suggested with something unique about it that he couldn’t put his finger on.

While Oscar took his trivia seriously, he wasn’t so much expecting his friends to. And that
was ok. He could hold his own pretty well as a team of one, and that’s why he wasn’t
bothered that none of them were contributing much. But Lando…well, it seemed he was just
full of surprises that evening. When they were planning the outing, and Lando warned him
that he probably wouldn’t be much help, Oscar took that to mean what most people mean
when they said that—that they didn’t really have plans to engage much with the game, but
they were happy to be good company. But Lando was engaged. At least more than any of his
other friends were. Sure, they chipped in thoughts and answers when Oscar asked for input or
confirmation on answers he was unsure of, but most often it was Lando supplying answers
when Oscar didn’t know.

And it wasn’t that Oscar thought Lando was stupid—far from it. But Oscar knew the kinds of
gaps in knowledge most racing drivers got left with from focusing too much on the track and
leaving school far too early. He was one of the rare exceptions; he’d finished his secondary
schooling, but he’d be the first to admit that he had plenty of gaps of his own from dividing
his attention and effort in the way that racing demanded once he’d reached the lower
formulae.

The first time Lando knew an answer Oscar didn’t was in the second round. The host asked,
“Name the concept in physics that describes the relationship between speed and pressure that
makes airplanes fly and is the reason cricket bowlers shine one side of the ball.”
Oscar knew that he should know the answer to this, if only because of the cricket angle.
Shining the ball made it swing more. But he couldn't for the life of him remember why. The
part about airplanes scratched at a memory from his lessons at school, but the drink Lando
had ordered him was far stronger than it tasted and was already making it a bit harder than
usual to reach for the information. He started to look to his friends for any acknowledgement
that they might know when he noticed that Lando was already scribbling furiously on an
answer slip, screwing up his face, crossing something out, and writing again.

“Lando, do you know?”

He held up a finger whilst still concentrating on what he was writing. After a few seconds, he
seemed to give up and slid the paper over to Oscar.

“I can’t spell it.”

Oscar looked down at the slip of paper with Lando’s several attempts to write the answer
scribbled out, each a bit more heavily than the last. “Tell it to me,” Oscar said, “I’m a pretty
good speller.”

Lando leaned in so he could lower his voice to ensure that the team at the next table couldn’t
hear. “Bernoulli’s Principle,” he said. He spoke barely above a whisper, and Oscar could feel
the warmth of Lando’s breath against his ear.

Oscar’s thoughts stuttered for a moment before he inclined his head slightly more toward
Lando. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. It’s the thing that makes the car suck,” Lando said matter-of-factly.

“Dunno what our shit car has to do with it, but sure,” Oscar said with a shade of sarcasm.
“No, no…not like the car is shit, I mean it’s the thing that makes downforce all…” Lando
made a complicated gesture as he searched for a word he couldn’t find but that his hands
were trying to describe, “...downforcey.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow and giggled. “Downforcey?”

“Look, mate, you know I didn’t finish school. Sometimes I know the right words, sometimes
I don’t. But I know the thing. Air flows under the car and over the car at different speeds.
Sucks the car onto the track. Makes it suck. Write it down, we’re running out of time.”

“Yeah, yeah…sorry. Wasn’t trying to take the piss,” Oscar rambled while scribbling the
answer onto the slip. He got the answer turned in just in time, the host announcing the correct
answer—Bernoulli’s Principle—just as Oscar sat back down.

“See? Told you,” Lando said as he leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, and a
self-satisfied grin on his face.

“Alright, but now I have to ask. How did you just…know that?”

“How did you not? It’s kind of important to the job.”

“Like you said, I always just figured it was more important to understand the ‘how’ than to
always know the right name for it,” Oscar said, “I mean, I remember learning it, but all of
those principles and theories named after people don't always stick.”

“And you were giving me shit over ‘downforcey’,” Lando snarked.

“I wasn’t. It’s more descriptive than whatever the real word is for it, I’m sure, and that’s my
whole point. But it does sound funny. Might break it out at engineering day next week.”
A slight smile ticked at the corners of Lando’s mouth at that. “Knowing the right names helps
sometimes, though, especially when you’re talking to the engineers about upgrades and aero
adjustments and stuff. That’s mostly why I kept studying math and physics with a tutor even
after I left school. Figured if the driving thing didn’t work out, maybe I could be a mechanic
or even an engineer.

“Huh,” Oscar said, “You’re just full of surprises.”

“Gotta keep you on your toes, Pastry,” Lando grinned and elbowed Oscar lightly before
lowering his voice and leaning close to Oscar like he had before. “But ah, I’d take it as a
personal favor if you’d keep this to yourself. I can’t have people thinking I’m too smart.
Ruins my whole…” Lando made another complicated gesture, once again in search of an
adjective he couldn’t land on.

Oscar laughed, a fond sound, ducking his head slightly, “Sure, whatever you say.”

“So you think you’d still want to do that if something happened and you couldn’t race
anymore?”

Lando looked up at Chris, Oscar’s closest friend in the group, who’d raced with him from
karting all the way to Formula Renault, with an expression like he was startled that other
people were still there and, apparently, still part of their conversation.

Oscar, on the other hand, looked at Chris like he’d just suggested something horrific.

“I don’t know,” Lando said after thinking for a moment, “Maybe, but these days I think I’d
try to go pro in golf instead. And if that doesn’t stick, there’s always OnlyFans, yeah?”

Oscar dropped his face into his hands and groaned.

Lando grinned and tugged lightly at Oscar’s hand until he looked back up. “Might as well
give the people what they want, yeah?”
Lando reached down to his shirt and quickly popped a couple extra buttons before pulling the
shirt to the side slightly and leaning his exposed pec into Oscar. “Nipple?” he said in a quiet,
high-pitched voice meant only for Oscar and audible to him alone.

Oscar flushed deep red.

“Cut it out, mate,” he said over an involuntary anxious giggle, attempting to shrug off the
contact. He was suddenly keenly aware that his friends were still there, still witnessing Lando
being, well…Lando. And if the heat on his face were any indication, they were witnessing
every little reaction he couldn’t control about it, too. Though he guessed blushing would
probably be a pretty normal reaction for most people if Lando Norris had just pressed his
bare chest against them without warning.

Which brought him back to the current situation. Lando was still there. He wasn’t exactly
pressing himself against Oscar’s arm and side anymore, but the contact was still present,
something that could have perhaps otherwise been played off as a casual lean if Lando’s shirt
wasn’t unbuttoned nearly to his navel. Oscar properly looked over at Lando, whose
previously mischievous grin had settled into something more…Oscar wasn’t quite sure what.

“Mate,” he finally said with a deliberate edge of caution.

Lando immediately straightened up, redoing the buttons on his shirt at the same time. He
cleared his throat. “Sorry. Got carried away.”

“Clearly,” Oscar said in what he meant to be a low, even voice, but the word got caught on
something on its way out.

“Oscar, mind helping me grab the next round?” Chris demonstrated his empty glass and
gestured to the bar.

“Um, yeah, sure,” Oscar said before addressing the table as he stood, “Everyone getting the
same thing?”
“Just a Sprite this time for me, yeah?” Lando said, “Still gotta get you home safe and sound.”
He nudged Oscar’s thigh with his elbow.

“Yeah, alright,” Oscar acknowledged.

“Anyone else changing their order? Last chance,” Chris said.

Everyone else at the table indicated in one way or another that they were sticking with what
they’d started with.

“Think I’ll switch to a pint, myself,” Oscar said to Chris as they walked toward the bar, “The
drink Lando got me was good, but not really my thing.”

“So what’s with him, anyway?” Chris asked as they stood at the back of the small crowd
waiting for service.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a bit weird, yeah? Seems to make you uncomfortable a lot. You doin’ alright?”

“What?” Oscar was taken aback by Chris’s line of questioning, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure? The guy feels like an HR violation waiting to happen.”

Oscar couldn’t help but chuckle, but he also suddenly started to feel like he needed to defend
Lando. It wasn’t that he made him uncomfortable, at least not exactly. It was more that Lando
often tended to act far outside of what Oscar could easily predict, and without that
predictability, Oscar was also left without reliable ways of knowing how to react. So if he’d
learned anything about himself in the past few months, his body and brain seemed to default
to freezing up, blushing and nervous laughter when he had no other response to Lando’s…
Landoness.

But he wasn’t entirely sure how to explain that to Chris without needing to provide an absurd
amount of context. “Nah, he’s harmless,” Oscar finally said, glancing back over at Lando,
who had slid into Oscar’s seat and taken over as the table’s trivia captain in his absence.

Oscar’s expression must have held something he didn’t intend to show.

“Oscar, no,” Chris said with a warning tone.

“What? What did I do?”

“Nothing yet, I hope.”

Oscar was now very confused. “Mate, what are you on about?”

Chris scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Oh for fuck’s sake…are you in love with him?”

Oscar sputtered. “Am I what?!”

It was their turn to order before the conversation could continue further. Oscar hoped that
Chris wouldn’t insist on resuming it while they waited on the drinks, because that was a hell
of a question to ask out of the blue, but his thoughts nonetheless started to swirl and coil
around the answer. It had already been living in his mind, tucked away safely, for more than
ten years.

“Look mate,” Chris ended up continuing as the bartender stepped away to pull their pints, “If
you say you’re fine, I believe you. I’m not trying to pry, I’m not judging. Just…be careful,
yeah? You’ve worked so hard to get where you are. Keep your head on, and don’t feel like
you have to put up with things just because you’re a rookie again. ‘S all I’m saying.”
“Coulda led with that instead of calling my teammate weird,” Oscar huffed, gathering up the
ready drinks on the bar, “I’m gonna take these over. You got the rest, or do I need to come
back?”

“Nah, I got it. Go get your man.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Oscar said with a laugh as he headed back to the table.

The evening wound through a few more rounds of trivia, and Lando never fully relinquished
control over the answer slips and score sheet after Oscar had returned. Oscar still supplied
most of the answers, but Lando was doing a much better job than he had at keeping the rest
of the table engaged with the game and contributing when neither of them could even venture
a guess at an answer. Lando also seemed to have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of music
that was almost single-handedly keeping them in contention through the host’s “name the
artist” bonus points for the music that played between questions. Ultimately, they finished
second overall, which everyone agreed was a perfectly respectable outcome. The festivities
drew to a natural conclusion shortly after, and Oscar’s friends began to depart.

Lando drove the both of them back to Oscar’s family’s home, where he was once again
staying in the guest room a final night before his flight home the next day. It had been a busy
day, though it still wasn’t terribly late. The pair again found themselves stretched out across
Oscar’s bed, flicking through Oscar’s Netflix recommendations and looking for something to
watch. Finally settling on something that looked appropriately low-budget with a synopsis
that read like a Mad Lib, Oscar lamented that they didn’t stop on the way back to pick up
some snacks.

“Oh! Hold on!” Lando said, leaping off the bed and bounding across the hall. Oscar heard
some thumping and rustling, and then the heavy sounds of Lando’s footfalls as he made the
ten-stride sprint back before launching himself back onto the bed, landing with a bounce and
his legs folded oddly beneath him.

Oscar looked at him quizzically.

“I almost forgot!” Lando said, holding out a package of chocolate Tim Tams, “I wanted to get
you a proper birthday present, but I thought and thought and couldn’t come up with anything.
But I know you like these, and yeah, I know you can buy them for yourself anytime, but I
didn’t want you to think I, y’know, forgot-forgot. Because, like, I think I already made you
think that too much and…”

Oscar smiled slightly as Lando continued nervously rambling about the package of Tim Tams
that he was still holding out toward him. A familiar fondness tugged somewhere behind his
ribs. After about a minute of Lando continuing to word vomit, Oscar reached out and placed
his hand on the hand holding the Tim Tams.

“Hey,” he interrupted, “It’s great. Now we have snacks for the movie, and I don’t have to
think about how to get a present back to England.”

“Yeah?” Lando said, finally relinquishing the package.

“Yeah,” Oscar reassured him.

“Well, uh…yeah…that’s good then. Because, y’know, it’s kind of hard finding a present for
someone who basically just got everything he ever wanted.”

“Well…not quite everything.”

“Oh?” The question came out a bit more punched and high-pitched than Lando had intended,
“Like what?”

“I mean, these for starters,” Oscar held up the package of Tim Tams, “I’m not really allowed
these much anymore.”

Lando laughed, “Yeah, guess you’ll have to destroy the evidence.”

Oscar smiled and let out a small giggle.

“You’re thinking of something else,” Lando said, tilting his head slightly and looking at
Oscar thoughtfully, “What’s going on in there?”

The joke about the Tim Tams had been meant to buy Oscar some time and maybe deflect.
The real answer, or at least the first one that jumped into his mind, wasn’t something he could
just put out in the open. But there were still plenty of other things he wanted and hadn’t yet
gotten. Not material things, Lando had been right about that part, but things he was
nonetheless still reaching for that remained just beyond his grasp. Sharing the one that blared
loudest was out of the question. He couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. And the rest weren’t
Lando’s to give.

“Almost everything else I want can’t exactly be given as a gift.”

“Such as?”

“The WDC?”

Lando let out a small chuckle. Not mocking in any way, but nonetheless amused. “Yeah,
probably not with this year’s car. Sorry, mate. Might get a podium this year, but that’s about
as far as I’d try to hope.”

“It’s not about hoping, mate,” Oscar said, “But even I’m not barmy enough to think I could
pull that off and make that kind of history, even if we had a rocketship this year. I was
thinking longer term. You can surprise me with it.” He gave Lando a wink and teasing grin.

“Heh,” Lando puffed half a laugh, “I’ll keep that in mind. Though at the moment, it’s hard to
imagine either of us fighting for it. No offense.”

“None taken, ‘Lando No-wins,’” Oscar joked.

“Wow, low blow, Piastri. You’re lucky it’s still your birthday for another…” Lando checked
his watch, “Wow, three minutes. Just under the wire for your free pass to be a dick.”

“Oh, I still have three whole minutes?”

Lando grabbed a pillow and swung it at Oscar. “Oh, shut up and start the movie.”

Oscar almost looked like he was in pain when he dropped Lando off at the airport. Lando
knew why. He felt the stabbing in his chest, too.

“Hey,” Lando said as he shrugged his backpack onto his shoulder, “It’s only going to be like,
a week, yeah? After everything, that’s practically nothing. I bet I won’t even cry on the plane
this time!”

This earned the slightest upward tick of the corners of Oscar’s mouth. Lando’d take it. He
was trying to convince himself as much as Oscar.

“You’re due back at the MTC a few days before me, right?” Lando asked.

“Um, Tuesday, I think? My flight’s tomorrow. Got loads of sim work to do before the
engineering days, some sponsor stuff with Comms...”

“Yeah, I’m not scheduled in ‘til it starts on Thursday. Won’t be all lazy days for me until
then, either, and the jetlag is going to hurt like a bitch the whole time.”

Oscar let a puff of air out through his nose, “Yeah, finally feel like a normal person for once,
and now it’s time to fuck it up again.”
“It’s what we live for,” Lando deadpanned.

This somehow earned a full body laugh from Oscar. Lando didn’t think it was that funny, but
he was also learning that what did and didn’t make Oscar laugh was a bit unpredictable. So
Lando had, of course, made it a game with himself to make Oscar laugh as much as he could,
and eventually, maybe he'd decipher a pattern. It also didn’t hurt that Oscar’s laugh had
always made him feel a bit warm inside.

The thing about spending a lot of time in close proximity to a person is that when you finally
end up spending time apart, the absence settles in almost like a physical weight. Lando and
Oscar’s old rhythm of texting and the occasional Facetime call felt ill-fitting after seeing each
other every day for two weeks and inhabiting the same living space for almost half that time.

Though each had returned to his own home—homes their teammate had never set foot in—
each kept expecting to find the other in their space at random points throughout the day.
Oscar padded into his kitchen one morning expecting to see Lando perched on a barstool,
drinking a protein smoothie, and scrolling on his phone and felt oddly off-kilter when he
wasn’t. Lando returned from a jog along the waterfront, and his brain anticipated that Oscar
had fallen asleep on the couch while reviewing onboards on his tablet. Except, of course,
Oscar was in Woking, not in Lando’s Monte Carlo apartment. It was an unsettling experience
for them both.

You’d be forgiven, then, for finding their reunion on Thursday morning to be completely
underwhelming. First thing, they were scheduled for a few quick hits for social media before
diving headfirst into two straight days of heavy technical work. Lando leaned against the
railing of the walkway overlooking the Boulevard, waiting for Oscar and someone from
Comms to turn up.

“Ayup,” Oscar said as he approached.

“Ayup,” Lando responded.

Oscar leaned against the railing next to Lando, maybe a foot between where they each
propped up an elbow, their postures mirrored.
“Good flight in?” Oscar asked after a minute.

“Could have been worse,” Lando replied.

There was no awkwardness in the small talk nor in the silences that padded it while they
waited. The proximity was the point; conversation was unnecessary. Just a quiet moment to
recalibrate before launching into two days at fever pitch, taking the lessons learned from the
first three races and trying to figure out how to put them into the car the right way to make
the next stint of races better. Rinse and repeat every couple of races until they find something
that sticks, then iterate, iterate, iterate.

Austria was an experiment. Despite his underwhelming results since scoring a point in
Monaco, Oscar felt like he was getting more comfortable in the car and was reluctant to make
the adjustments to his car that Lando had worked on with the engineers for his own car
coming out of Canada. He’d tested them out in the sim and decided that both his control of
the car and the improvements in results that came out of it were both too inconsistent to risk
the change just yet. Oscar appreciated the agency he was allowed in saying no, though he
agreed that if the ground truth results in Austria told a different story, he’d make any
recommended changes heading into Silverstone.

Austria became an object lesson and a turning point in the way Oscar came to trust Lando’s
engineering instincts. Oscar finished 13th while Lando finished 4th. Ahead of Silverstone,
Oscar practiced with Lando’s adjustments in the sim, trying to get comfortable, and finding a
few adjustments of his own that better suited his style. The full suite of adjustments were
rolled out to each car.

The British Grand Prix was the proving ground. They qualified 2nd and 3rd. Lando finished
on the podium for the first time in over a year in P2. Oscar finished just off the podium in P4,
by far his best result yet. It wasn’t a win, it wasn’t a double podium, but for the first time,
both felt close enough to taste. The car felt good, better than it had all season.

Oscar had already finished his media duties and was back in the garage congratulating his
crew when Lando strode in, his second-place trophy in hand, surrounded by his friends and
chatting animatedly. Nearly immediately, his eyes found Oscar.
“Hey Osc! C’mere!” he called across the excited chatter and noise of the garage as he waved
Oscar over.

Oscar excused himself from the conversation he’d been having with a couple of his
mechanics and joined Lando and his friends on the other side of the garage. Lando made
introductions and let Oscar fold into the group seamlessly.

“So Max said he’d time us at Clay Pigeon tomorrow,” Lando said, referring to their plans for
the second race in their private home race karting series.

“How is having your best friend time our race at your home karting circuit even close to
fair?” Oscar said.

“Because I’m not encouraging any kind of ego in this man after what he did in on stream last
week,” Max replied, a hint of teasing in his tone directed at Lando.

Oscar knew exactly what stream Max was referring to. He’d watched it, the same as he
always had. It felt weird to admit that he’d been watching his now-teammate’s streams
almost religiously for years in an attempt to feel just a little closer to the friend he’d lost but
could never properly reach out to. It felt even weirder to admit that he still watched them. So
he merely raised an eyebrow and smirked as if to express disbelief and prompt Max to
elaborate.

“Seriously, I might even sabotage his kart. Sneak ballast onto it or something.”

“Yeah, he says he’s my best friend, but he actually hates me,” Lando said with a laugh.

Max nodded. “It’s a whole love-hate thing.”

Oscar found it surreal to be witnessing this banter in person instead of through a screen.
Lando and Max bickered like an old married couple, and more often than not, Oscar found
himself on Max’s side of whatever pointless argument they were having simply because
Lando was exhausting. In some ways, Oscar thought, this had inoculated him somewhat
against Lando. It helped him to hold his own in Lando’s orbit and not let the chaos of it all
disrupt the careful compartmentalization he’d constructed between their past, the present, and
his feelings.

After some more back-and-forth with Max, Lando noticed that Oscar had gone quiet and had
gotten that distant, glassy look he got when he was lost in his own thoughts. And this wasn’t
the time for deep thinking. “Osc,” he said, waving a hand at him before reaching over to rest
it on his shoulder, “Less thinking, more celebrating, yeah? We’re headed to a party tonight
after we get done with debrief. You should come.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Oscar said hesitantly, “Not sure it’d be my thing.”

“Nonsense. Martin’ll be there, and I’ve been working on a set, too. I’m not about to let you
go to bed early like a grandpa after our best finish of the season.”

“You’re DJ’ing,” Oscar said, his eyebrow once again quirking upward with a measure of
incredulity. He knew Lando dabbled, but he didn’t think it was serious.

“I’ve been practicing! Been working on it for months hoping this race would go well. You
have to come, Osc. I need the moral support!” Lando’s voice pitched up as he pleaded. It
sounded almost whiny.

For as much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, Oscar really couldn’t say no to Lando.
At least not when he looked at him like he was now, with his eyes big and shining, cast
upward just slightly to look through his long, dark eyelashes, and his lips set in a pout that
beckoned in a way Oscar had to fight against physically.

Oscar sighed. “Fine,” he finally agreed.

“YES!” Lando shouted, flinging his arm fully around Oscar’s shoulders and squeezing. Oscar
flinched slightly at the volume.
“It’s gonna be mint, you’ll see,” Lando continued, “Private party, invite only…only the
coolest people, of course, which is why I made sure your name was on the guest list ages
ago…”

Oscar smiled and felt something like ease settle around him as Lando continued to ramble
and remained glued to his side.

Lando came alive while he was DJ’ing in a way entirely different to anything else. If racing
was his soul, music was his heart. He’d tried learning various musical instruments without
much success, and he wasn’t much of a singer (much to the chagrin of anyone subjected to
his love of karaoke). But DJ’ing had really clicked. He loved the way he could hear the
different parts of different songs and reassemble them in new ways, first in his head, then on
the computer or a mixing board, letting one flow into another and another and another.
Depending on the music and the people around him, sometimes it felt like a meditation, other
times like painting a masterpiece, and when everything aligned perfectly, like tonight, it felt
like making love.

Lando had reached out to his friend Martin about putting this party together a couple days
after he got home from Australia. After their double points finish, he believed the car was
finally on the upswing, and he was still riding high on feelings that the pieces of his life were
finally settling where they should. It wasn’t about hoping that they’d do well enough at
Silverstone to make the party worthwhile; it was about coming home for the first time with a
part of himself that he thought he’d lost.

He started by combing through Oscar’s Spotify. There were only a couple of playlists, but it
was enough to start with. He selected several tracks he found meaningful and interesting and
built the rest of the set around it. He gave himself a branching set of options for transitions
and alternative interludes depending on the mood at any given moment. He tried out different
sequences. He practiced the same tricky transition for days until it flowed from his hands like
a habit. He obsessed over the set in every spare moment until it was perfect.

From the DJ booth, Lando could just make out the silhouette of Oscar leaned against a
column at the edge of the dance floor. He could tell his arms were crossed loosely across his
chest, and though Lando couldn’t see his face, he imagined he had that classic ‘Oscar smirk’
that he’d come to adore. It was too much to hope that Oscar would ever properly dance, but
eventually the Oscar-shaped outline started to sway rhythmically, and Lando considered it a
win.
Oscar listened to music sometimes, but it wasn’t something he considered an interest, and
though he had preferences for the kinds of music he liked, he didn’t really consider his tastes
to be any kind of core part of his identity. He knew Lando had worked hard on this set. He’d
talked his ear off about it earlier and kept repeating how much he hoped Oscar would like it,
almost if it was the entire point. And it was for that reason alone that Oscar paid enough
attention to notice that the music Lando chose was centered far more around his tastes than
around Lando’s or around what a crowd like this might be more inclined to. The full weight
and meaning of this fact settled at the periphery of Oscar’s consciousness, waiting, not yet
perceived or understood.

Oscar went to the bar to get a drink and settled on a stool for the rest of the set. From here, he
had a much better overview of the dance floor and how there seemed to be a push-pull
between the crowd and the music, almost like a conversation. It was interesting to watch, and
Oscar found himself appreciating Lando’s skill, even if he didn’t entirely understand its finer
points.

The set came to an end, and Lando took a moment to step out from the booth to receive the
appreciation and adoration that the crowd on the floor wanted to offer. He glanced around,
looking for Oscar, but he was no longer standing by the column where Lando had last seen
him, and the glare from the lights made it hard to find him elsewhere in the crowded venue.

Between the alcohol he’d consumed and the joy that was radiating from Lando as he soaked
in the moment, Oscar felt himself warming from the inside out, and his skin had begun to
slightly buzz. He needed some air and a bit of relative quiet before Lando managed to track
him down. He stepped out onto the patio and took a deep breath, feeling the fresh air work on
his overstimulated brain instantly. In his peripheral vision, he noticed Max sitting alone at
one of the small tables under the awning, trying to get his attention.

“Bit crazy in there, yeah?” he said to Oscar as he approached.

“Yeah,” Oscar agreed, “Lando just finished up, but I needed a second. I don’t know how he
does this all the time. I’m gonna need like a week of silence and solitude to recover from
this.”

Max chuckled, “Pretty much just like that. Party, hole up for days playing video games,
repeat. Part of me thinks he only does it because he thinks he has to, not because he actually
wants to.”
“He seemed to really be enjoying himself tonight,” Oscar said, not exactly arguing, more just
trying to reconcile his observations with Max’s.

“Oh, yeah. He loves DJ’ing. If he gets to just stand in the booth and vibe most of the night?
That’s basically the only way you know you’re going to see him any time in the next three
days. I think it’s because it keeps people from getting too close.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. He’d never known Lando to have any concept of personal space.

“I know, right?” Max continued, reading Oscar’s expression. “Bro has never heard of
personal space when it comes to his friends, but it freaks him out when people he doesn’t
know touch him or get too close without warning.”

“Huh,” Oscar said, processing this new information. He was just beginning to let it
recontectualize a few memories when Lando’s very loud voice pierced his thoughts (and his
eardrums).

“THERE YOU ARE!” Lando shouted. Oscar couldn’t tell if this was due to temporary
hearing loss, excitement, or both.

Oscar was about to complain when Max beat him to it. “Jesus, you muppet, not so fucking
loud.”

Lando borrowed a chair from an empty adjacent table and dragged it over to the one where
Oscar and Max were sitting. He straddled it, folded his forearms over the back of the chair,
and rested his chin on top, looking at Max and Oscar expectantly. Or maybe mostly at Oscar.
He bounced a little on the seat.

“Well?” he asked, a huge grin plastered on his face, “What did you think?”
“It was good,” Oscar said, his voice cracking a bit at the end.

“It was good,” Lando mimicked, doing a bad impression of Oscar’s accent, “Really? That’s
it? After everything I told you about pouring my heart and soul into this for months?”

“Um…it was really good?” Oscar offered. He was being genuine; he’d really enjoyed it, and
even if he wasn’t so vain as to think Lando had done it for him, he liked that the set included
a number of songs he knew. But Lando somehow had him feeling so off-balance that his
brain couldn’t hold onto the words long enough to pass them along to his mouth. So instead,
he sounded like an idiot.

Lando buried his face in his arms. “You hated it,” he said in a voice that sounded like a sob.

Oscar sputtered, a panic rising on his face and in his chest. His hand flew out to rest on
Lando’s shoulder without a thought, like a reflex. “No!” his voice punched out from his
throat, a little too loud.

Max shoved Lando, taking Oscar by surprise, “Cut it out, you numpty, he said he liked it.”
He then turned his head to address Oscar, “He’s fucking with you.”

Oscar drew his hand back, mild embarrassment falling over his face, “Oh.”

Lando peeked up over his arms at Oscar and grinned when he saw the blush across the bridge
of his nose. Oscar could only see his eyes through the curls that had fallen over them, but he
could tell from them alone that Lando was smiling like an asshole behind his forearms.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Oscar deadpanned, “I hated it.”

Lando giggled, burying his face back into his arms for a moment before sitting up and
gesturing to Oscar to come closer. “C’m’ere.” He giggled again.
“Oh, and he’s drunk, too,” Max retorted with faux annoyance.

Lando’s head snapped over to look at Max, “‘M not.”

Max raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms across his chest.

“Ok, maybe a little,” Lando admitted, though this was still probably an understatement.
People liked buying drinks for the DJ, and Lando liked drinking them. He looked back over
at Oscar, who hadn’t moved. “You’re still too far away.”

Oscar scooted his chair closer to Lando’s. “Closer,” Lando said, “I gotta tell you a secret.”

“Alright…” Oscar flicked a glance over to Max as he leaned toward Lando. Max gave a
shrug.

“Gotta whisper it.” Lando tugged Oscar toward him close enough to put his mouth to the
shell of Oscar’s ear. He spoke in the kind of whisper that people who've had one or two more
drinks than they probably should use, and his tone was tender. “I made it just for you.
Because I’m home, and you’re here with me.”

Oscar opened and closed his mouth a few times, expecting words to come out. When they
didn’t, he leaned back enough to be able to see Lando’s eyes. They were slightly crescent-
shaped from his smile, and they caught the lamplight from the patio in such a way that they
appeared to almost sparkle. “Y-you…you what?” Oscar finally managed to choke out. He
could feel months of careful compartmentalization crashing down around him. This couldn’t
be happening. He had to be dreaming. Soon he’d be waking up in his bed at home, blinking
against the dark and trying and failing to hold the afterimage in his mind.

In his peripheral vision, he noticed Max slipping out of his seat and heading back inside.

Lando kept his voice low, just above a whisper, so that Oscar had to strain to hear. “After
Australia. I realized that I couldn’t have even thought to wish for this. To…to find you again.
To have you as a teammate. To see you all the time. Not just through a screen, but…right
here.”

Lando kept half his face buried behind his arms as he spoke. Oscar could see from the rise of
his cheeks that he was still smiling, but his eyes had become glassy.

“I wanted to celebrate it,” he continued, “I wanted to create something. Something that would
let me wrap myself in it. In…in…”

He swallowed thickly, a last-ditch effort to fight back the tears that were gathering in his
eyes. He took a shaky breath. “In you.”

Lando tried not to process the expression on Oscar’s face that looked too close to something
like shock or alarm. He tried to give it time to settle instead of panicking and immediately
taking it all back. He hadn’t planned this part. Not exactly. He figured he’d tell Oscar that
he’d created the set for him eventually, but something about his pride in it, the perfectness of
it after their excellent results, the fact that he’d nearly gotten Oscar to actually dance…it
bubbled under his skin, and the alcohol made him brave. Or maybe it made him stupid. He
guessed he was about to find out which.

Oscar sat stunned. The world around him wasn’t dissolving. If he was dreaming, he’d be
awake already. His mind raced to catch up with the understanding that this was real. He
watched the panic slowly creep into Lando’s eyes as he remained frozen, unable to react.
Oscar willed his voice, his body to do something, anything to react. Lando’s eyes counted
down the seconds until his panic would reach the critical point where he’d take it all back.
Oscar couldn’t let him do it. He couldn’t let Lando bare his soul to him like that and then let
him think Oscar had rejected the gesture. He was genuinely touched. But like with many
things Lando did, he’d been left with feelings he didn’t know how to process and at a loss for
how to react.

This is why, when he finally willed his arm to move, it felt like it was fighting through the G-
forces of Maggots and Becketts. He placed a hand on Lando’s forearm.

“Lando…”

“I—”
They spoke at the same time. Lando sat up and blinked, his eyes wide and worried.

“Lando,” Oscar repeated softly. He squeezed Lando’s arm gently, a grounding gesture, but for
whom, it was hard to say. He took another breath.

“Thank you.”

It wasn’t much, but it was what he could manage for now.

downforce / ˈdaʊnˌfɔːs / (noun):

1. a force, produced by a combination of air resistance and gravity, that acts on a moving
vehicle, having the effect of pressing it down towards the ground and giving it
increased stability.
End Notes

Yeah, that didn't go where I was expecting, either. I literally cried twice writing this and
argued with Oscar for at least 20 minutes about whether he was going to kiss Lando. (He said
no. He had Reasons. Nothing I could do.)

Also! If you've been reading these as they come out, I've added the definitions for the titles at
the bottom of the other parts like I have above. They're not just chosen at random. Take a flip
back and have a look!

As always, questions and comments may unlock bonus content. Compliments and kudos
make the writing gods smile on me and cause all-night writing binges.

You can do that on Tumblr, too, where you can see exactly how and when this part got away
from me.

Also, does Oscar's helmet for the Vegas GP have anyone else kinda fucked up? Just me? K.

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