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The garage was empty except for the hum of cooling engines and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights.
Lando Norris sat on the floor with his back against the wall, helmet still at his side, hands shaking just slightly. The race had ended an hour ago, but the crash replayed in his head over and over—the snap of oversteer, the flash of barriers, the awful second of silence before the radio crackled back to life.
Oscar Piastri stood a few steps away, watching him.
“You should be with the engineers,” Oscar said quietly.
Lando didn’t look up. “Could say the same to you.”
Oscar hesitated, then slowly sat down beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Almost.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
The season hadn’t been kind. Pressure from the team. Media turning every radio message into a headline. Whispers about contracts, favoritism, replacements. And now the crash—Lando’s fault, according to the numbers. According to everyone.
“I thought I’d lost you,” Oscar said suddenly.
Lando’s head snapped up. “What?”
"When you hit the wall,” Oscar clarified, voice low. “For a second, I thought—”
He stopped himself, jaw tightening.
Lando swallowed. “I’m still here.”
“Yeah,” Oscar said, staring straight ahead. “I know.”
But the way he said it sounded like he was convincing himself.
Later that night, they found themselves on the hotel roof. No cameras. No team radios. Just the city below and the weight of everything unsaid between them.
The wind was cold. Lando hugged his hoodie tighter around himself.
“They’re not saying it out loud,” he muttered, “but I know what they’re thinking. One more mistake and I’m—”
He made a vague gesture, like something falling.
Oscar leaned against the railing. “You don’t get to talk like that.”
Lando let out a short laugh. “Why not? It’s true.”
Oscar turned to face him fully now, expression darker than usual. “Because I watch the data. Because I know how hard you push. Because you’re not disposable.”
The word hit harder than Lando expected.
“I don’t want to be the reason things fall apart,” Lando said quietly. “For the team. For you.”
Oscar stepped closer, close enough now that there was no space left to pretend distance. “You’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when things go wrong,” Oscar said, voice steady but intense, “you don’t run. You stay. You take it. And you think you’re alone while you’re doing it.”
Lando looked at him then—really looked at him.
Oscar’s calm wasn’t indifference. It was control. And underneath it, something sharp and worried and fiercely loyal.
“You don’t have to carry it by yourself,” Oscar added. “Not with me here.”
The city lights flickered below them. The moment stretched—heavy, fragile.
Lando exhaled. “You scare me sometimes.”
Oscar blinked. “Good or bad?”
“Good,” Lando said softly. “Because you see too much.”
Oscar’s lips twitched, just barely. “You let me.”
A siren echoed in the distance. Somewhere, a door slammed. Reality trying to creep back in.
Oscar stepped back first.
“We should get some sleep,” he said.
“Yeah,” Lando replied, though neither of them moved right away.
For a second—just one—Lando’s hand brushed Oscar’s sleeve. It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t dramatic.
But Oscar noticed.
He looked down at the contact, then back up at Lando, eyes unreadable. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “we reset.”
Lando nodded. “Together?”
Oscar didn’t answer right away. Then: “Always.”
They walked back inside side by side, not touching, not looking at each other—but closer than they’d ever been.
And in the quiet between them, something dangerous and fragile took root.
Not a secret.
Not a mistake.
Just a feeling waiting for the wrong—or right—moment to surface.