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They've stashed him in the penthouse, like it’s any consolation.
From here, Vegas is strikingly fictional — just a blur of tiny, transient, technicolor things. It's late, just gone one thirty, but whatever. The balcony rail is nice and cool against his skin. He's not moving.
Half the team is going too hard on champagne, if he has to hazard a guess. As they should. They've earned it.
None for him tonight, though. Doctor's orders. He picks at the hospital bracelet around his wrist, sitting above the clutch of beads he'd amassed at a fan zone. Jon was going to cut it off before he'd been distracted by a call. Probably his mum or one of the girls, worried. Wanting to know if he was okay.
Lando groans, liquid-tired. It's that weird, pendent feeling that usually creeps up on him around the end of the season. Damp and cloying. Mean.
Another year gone, and what's he got to show for it?
His phone buzzes in his palm. He doesn't need to check to know who it is.
hey
can I come in?
Lando gives him access on the app. Convenient, this whole Honors thing.
“Pretty swish,” Oscar whistles, pushing open the sliding balcony door. He’s got a half-empty bottle of beer in his hand. “Look at you. While the rest of us are slumming it on sixth.”
“Shut it, rookie.”
Between the bags under his eyes and his permanent blush, Oscar is every shade of red and pink when he joins Lando against the railing. He shivers, tugging his hoodie—black, with his dad's company logo on the chest—tight around himself.
"Mate, it's fucking freezing. Aren’t you cold?"
Truthfully, Lando didn't notice. "M'fine. Layering, aren't I?"
Oscar cocks his head, gaze dragging over him, slow, like he's trying to analyse how many shirts he's got on from the bulk of his outline. God.
"Gunna come cuddle me if I say yeah?"
Oof, cringe. He blames the weekend's appalling schedule for grinding his filter down to a fine dust. Not the kind Ria and Aarav are probably neck deep in downstairs, either.
"I will, yes," Oscar says, without missing a beat.
Lando stiffens — but then he gets a trickle of mirth across the bond and forces himself to chill out. Prick.
He'd been pretty surprised when Mark said his contract included a bond clause for 2023. Like, kind of outdated, innit? Not exactly an embodiment of the fresh, feisty spirit Zak was selling their sponsors.
Merc’s the only other team on the grid that still implements the tech, but at least they had history and good reason for it. The fuck were he and the bloody rookie gonna gain, concealing data when they were developmentally ninth—if not dead last—in the constructors? Made no sense.
That was before things turned around, of course. But he's not worried. Yet.
Oscar's, like. Oscar. He's not gonna be a dick. Probably.
"How's the match going?" Lando asks. It's a blatantly transparent swerve, but Oscar's furrowed forehead clears anyway.
"They're batting first. Two wickets down already." He grins, eyes crinkling. "Too early to say, but. It's looking good."
Lando hums. "Staying up all night to watch?"
"Nah," Oscar sighs. "Just for a bit, maybe. I'm knackered. And besides—"
"Kim said no."
He tips his beer at Lando. "Kim said no."
"What are you doing here, then?"
He half-expects Oscar to get red—well, redder—but he doesn’t. Just stares at him until Lando breaks first and snatches his eyes away. It's insane how comfortable Oscar is with staring. Self-assured, like no one's ever told him it's weird.
Lando can't do that.
It almost hurts to look at him, sometimes. Like he's out without his sunnies and Oscar's ultra violent, or whatever.
"Wanted to—" Oscar shifts his gaze to the strip. "Hang out, I s'pose. Is that. Cool?"
At least he didn't say check on you.
When he glances at Oscar again, he's running a thumb along the rim of his bottle. "How're you feeling?"
Lando snorts. Like Oscar needs to ask.
"Banged up. Pissed off." He rests his head on his folded arms and mumbles: "Least I didn't shunt it on my actual birthday this year."
The bond crackles. It does that sometimes, an itchy feeling that pricks at the edges of Lando's mind and makes his hair stand on end. He's figured out by now that it's Oscar’s doing — but not why, or what sets it off.
"It wasn't your fault," Oscar says, yellow-orange light smoothing over the soft lines of his profile. Golf and OnlyFans aside, Lando really ought to give art a go. "There was like, a. Bump? On the track."
And then, quieter: "I was there too, y'know. When."
Lando knows.
The bond doesn't allow for sharing thoughts, exactly, but emotions are different. Stickier. He's gotten used to waking up to a vague sense of annoyance that isn't his. Contempt when a journalist says the wrong thing halfway across the paddock. Cool satisfaction when Oscar takes a sip of his iced coffee—like a blast of aircon after being in the sun all day.
The strong ones are especially potent. Joy, rage, sadness. Fear.
That split second after he'd locked the rear, blood going colder than his tyres when fuck—fuck, the car stopped listening to him and went screaming into the Tecpro in a shower of sparks. It—his fingers still shake, remembering.
Oscar would've seen it happen in his mirrors, yeah, but he'd have felt it too. The complete and utter helplessness.
Even secondhand, that shit is terrifying.
He stretches his arms over his head until something pops and sighs theatrically, for Oscar's benefit.
"I frickin' know it wasn't my fault."
Lando pokes him in the side. "It was yours."
Oscar’s bottle stops halfway to his lips. "Hello?"
"My fronts were hotter than my rears before DRS opened 'cos I was getting dirty air from your dirty car—"
"We have the same car."
"Reckon that's right, do you?" Lando raises his eyebrows. "Suspicious how only one of us has a win when clearly—"
"Sprint win," Oscar corrects, mouth moving like he's fighting off a smile. He's got a face for smiling, Oscar. "And it’s not suspicious, mate. It’s a skill issue."
He squirms away to avoid the kick Lando aims at his shin.
Oscar's laughing now, head bent, and Lando feels it before he hears it. Along his skin and in his chest, loosening the knots there one gasping breath at a time.
This is fine, just about. But he doesn't know what to do with the rest.
All the other shit Oscar feels because, around, and for him.
Lando shoves his hands in his pockets.
It's. Flattering, of course. Which is a nice way of saying it makes him feel insane, but he's. He's not ready to hold that up to the light just yet. They've still got one race to go and a mostly-competitive car. If Max and Red Bull—ha—slip up, he's gotta, like, be there. Head and all.
The ribbed bit of his right sleeve is slightly damp, and a biting chill worms through, numbing his fingers. Jesus, Oscar was right, it's freezing. He should've fucking layered.
Tomorrow the whole circus routine starts again. He's got an early flight; physio before and after. A meeting on arrival. Sure, he'll weather it like he always does. But right now he needs another minute to wallow.
Fuck. Fucking fuck, man. He wanted a good one so bad.
A shoulder bumps into his, solid.
"Oi," he says, alarmed, when Oscar straight-up sticks one of his hands in the kangaroo pocket of Lando's hoodie. "Mate?"
"Maybe you chose the coldest day of the calendar to turn off your—your temperature receptors, or whatever, but I'm cold." Oscar shrugs, every shade of red and pink. "So."
Oscar's palm is rough against his knuckles. At least he doesn't do anything crazy, like try to hold Lando's hand. Just sort of. Leaves it there. Resting.
The bond crackles again, almost electric. Oh. Oh right. Huh.
"Score," Lando reminds him, brain like melted butter. It comes out a bit hoarse.
Oscar unlocks his phone and squints at the screen. "153 for 3." He brightens, breath ghosting in front of his face in little puffs. "Bwoah, Kohli out by skipper. What a beauty."
"Neat," Lando says, like that means anything, and clenches his fist inside the pocket Oscar's not in. They’re not cuddling. They’re not.
But this is nice, kinda. He feels warmer already.