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Oscar Piastri got his first soulmark when he was twelve years old. This was not unusual: a person’s soulmark would start appearing as soon as their soulmate turned thirteen. Oscar was so excited that he ran straight downstairs, not caring that it was late; too late for him to be awake.
His feet clattered loudly against the stairs, tapping out a frantic rhythm as he sprinted down. He was sure he’d woken Mae, was sure that Nicole would have to tell him off for the noise. But none of it mattered. None of it mattered, because Oscar Piastri - soulless, heartless, thoughtless - had a soulmate.
He hadn’t looked at what the soulmark said before he showed his mother. He had only felt the tingling sensation crawling its way across his arm and caught a glimpse of the messy black scrawl. He hadn’t looked at the words.
Nicole did.
I’m okay.
That’s what Nicole read out to twelve year old Oscar Piastri on the thirteenth of November, 2012.
Oscar deciphered it quickly: I’m not okay.
That was the moment that Oscar knew his soulmate might not be like the rest of the world.
From that day onwards, Oscar vowed not to lie, not to give his soulmate another burden to carry. He tried as hard as possible throughout all of his school years to turn in every assignment early and never lie to the other kids at school. People in Britain thought his accent was cool, and they asked him if he was from Australia. If Oscar hadn’t promised himself that he would never lie, he would clap back, a quick chirp about being from France, or the USA, just to make them laugh.
But eventually, Oscar had to start lying. He had to grow up and start pretending as every adult does. He had to cover up the soulmarks from a year ago - which, by all soulmate and soulmark laws, should’ve faded by now. The bigger the lie, the longer it stayed, but no one else's marks ever stayed past six months. Oscar, at 15 years old, still had the very first mark he had ever gotten.
I’m okay.
Which meant his soulmate wasn’t. His soulmate wasn’t okay. Which could have meant that she was fighting an injury and lying about whether she was ready to do whatever sport she had chosen. It could’ve just been that. That was what Oscar had hoped.
But then the marks started increasing in frequency and layers and layers of those two words built up over Oscar’s skin, tattooing his arms and chest with faded ink, travelling all over his body to make room for the next one.
There were other lies scattered throughout the sea of ‘I’m okay’s. More typical lies; lies like ‘I didn’t break it’. These ones were a moment of relief. Every time Oscar could feel the slight tingling sensation that signalled a soulmark, he braced himself for a confirmation that his soulmate was not okay. It was like he could breathe out slightly, whenever he looked to find a mark declaring that she had done something stupid, or had not done her chemistry homework.
So when Oscar felt the pins and needles during his English class, he tensed up, body going stiff with worry over his soulmate. He waited until his arm felt normal again, breaths coming slightly shorter and slightly faster as he pulled up the sleeve of his jumper to reveal the words. He was expecting the normal two words, the most common lie of I’m okay. The familiar scratchy script of capital letters was bold and black against the fair skin, spelling out the words ‘I’m not gay.’
Oh. His soulmate was gay. If she was gay, how could she be his-
Oh.
Oscar felt the realisation crashing down on him like a ton of bricks. The bricks clattered against his head, beating it in as he sat in stunned silence.
His soulmate was a man.
Which meant that Oscar also had to be… not straight. But- no. That couldn’t be right, because Oscar had only ever wanted to date girls. He remembered his crush-bordering-on-obession with a girl called Lily from last year, and he remembered watching films and only looking at the girls because Oscar - if Oscar Piastri was anything - was a heterosexual man.
Fuck. If his soulmate was gay, Oscar had to have an interest in men. Maybe it was that simple.
Or maybe the universe had completely fucked up and given Oscar - who was straight, definitely straight, the straightest person ever - a man for his soulmate.
Or maybe Oscar was just gay. He thought about that guy who was always one step ahead of him in karting - Lando Norris. The guy he looked up to, who was older than him and a better driver than him and was competing in Formula Renault while Oscar was stuck in karting. And then he realised that nothing he had ever thought about Lando Norris had been the thoughts of a straight man.
Oscar gripped the edge of his desk, bouncing his knee nervously and tried to listen to his teacher droning on about their English coursework, but his thoughts kept circling back to his soulmate. His gay, male soulmate.
Well, fuck.
Oscar realised he was bisexual the day before his first race in Formula 3. The marks on his arms never went away, so now he had the declaration in bold that his soulmate was, in fact, gay printed on his arm. It was a constant reminder to Oscar that he was different, that he didn’t fit in with the racing world. No driver in Formula 1 had ever been out. Not one, even after their racing career was over and done with. Oscar had been taught to believe that there wasn't a place for it in Formula 1, that the world of motorsport was simply not accepting, and he needed to accept that.
This was one of the reasons that Oscar didn’t like discussing soulmates. Another was - obviously - that his soulmate needed help, and he didn’t want to tell anyone that. Other people talked about the last crazy, silly lie their soulmate had said, but Oscar’s lips were sealed shut because the last lie that appeared on his body was ‘it’s just a cat scratch’ and the one before was ‘yeah, I’ve eaten today’, which appeared at eleven o’clock at night.
So when, in some stupid Prema video, Logan asked him about it, he brushed it off.
“They don’t lie all that often, really. I’m more scared they’ll think I’m crazy after the dentist incident.”
“Oh my God, Oscar, the dentist incident is crazy. You have to tell the story,” Logan smiled.
Successfully diverted.
“I do have to warn you,” Oscar looked at Angelina behind the camera. “This makes me look like not a normal human being.” Logan stifled a laugh as a look of concern passed across Angelina’s face. “Right. So, it was like 3:00PM on a weekend, and we didn’t have a race. So I was sitting in my dorm room in my pajamas because I didn’t need to go out, so why would I be dressed? And then I get a call on my phone; a random number; so I just think it's a scammer. I was bored so I was like ‘yeah, I wanna mess around with a scammer’ so I picked up the call and the man on the end says ‘Is this Oscar Piastri?’ and I go ‘Yeah? And?’ like, really aggressively.”
Angelina looked at him, disappointed. Oscar sighed and continued.
“So the man goes ‘you have a dentist appointment that started five minutes ago’. So what do I do? I don’t apologise and ask to rebook it, I say ‘I know. And I will be there in five minutes.’
“I would say the dentist is a good ten minute walk away, so as I’m getting ready, I’m stressing about how to get there. So I just book an Uber for a drive that is like 30 seconds long. And then I’m ready and I’m getting into the Uber and I am very uncomfortable with the idea of the Uber driver, who I’m going to know for 28 seconds and then never see again, judging me. So I say ‘You may have noticed how short this drive is. See, I… sprained my ankle’. And then I’m like. Good. Sorted. I’m not being judged.
“So when I get out of the Uber, I stand there next to it for a second, waiting for him to drive away, but he just doesn’t. Like, great, now I have to fake a limp on my supposedly sprained ankle to get into the dentist's office but I’m fine because once I get there, I won’t have to carry on with this lie anymore.
“But there is a glass front to the dentist office. So I’m walking in and I’m ready to stop the limp and then the receptionist is asking me if I’m okay because I look like I’ve literally been to war and he is a normal person. So I just have to go with it and tell him I sprained my ankle and - again, like a normal person - he asks me how. So, of course, I told him I fell off my bike. So when he asks me, like any normal human being, how I fell off my bike, I do not say I just slipped and messed up the grip, no. I say ‘I got hit by a car.’ And then I have to add on ‘but not, like, badly’. And obviously he is freaking out, like should we call an ambulance, he thinks I’m in shock but I’m there like ‘No. I will have my dentist appointment, thank you.’ And then I have to retell the whole lie to my dentist as well.
“So yeah, that is my dentist story. I realise that it does make me look weird.”
“The weirdest, I think,” Fred said from beside Oscar. Oscar gave him a playful shove.
At least now everyone was talking about how weird he was, instead of his soulmate.
“On the plus side,” Logan started, before Fred snorted and interrupted him.
“How is there a plus side to that inane collection of lies?”
“Well, it’ll make it easier for Oscar to find his soulmate. Just look for girls with that story written on them,”
Just look for girls. If only Oscar was so lucky.
The pins and needles started again in his arm, stabbing across the flesh, uncomfortable. They were somehow hot and cold at the same time, and with each passing second it grew more painful, more intense. Then it disappeared entirely. Oscar waited until he was alone to see what it had been.
I’m fine. I can race, I’ll be fine. Let me drive.
Oscar’s soulmate did motorsport.
In 2023, Oscar Piastri achieved his dream of becoming a Formula 1 driver. He watched the ink of his signature dry on the dotted line of the contract and couldn’t help but smile as he passed the sheet of paper over to Zak.
“Do you want to come meet the team?” Zak offered, voice full of mirth and fun, American accent staining the edges of it. Oscar nodded and followed him out of the room, a smile still playing on his lips.
Zak introduced him to Andrea Stella, the mechanics and the engineers and the PR people, and after an hour of shaking people’s hands and smiling and asking for their names that he was definitely never going to remember, Oscar was led away and told to go home for the night, but to come back tomorrow for a meeting seven in the morning.
Oscar was nervous all morning, awake too early and nothing to do with himself. When it was finally an acceptable time to drive to the MTC, he practically ran to his car and sped across the roads to get there.
As soon as Oscar walked into the meeting room, he could feel the nervous energy from everyone in the room. He scanned the room, noting a couple of heads of department that he had met earlier, seeing Stella sitting at the head of the table. But his eyes weren’t drawn to any of them. Oscar seemed to be magnetically connected to one person only: Lando Norris.
He was smiling nervously at Oscar, looking up at him through his eyelashes. His hands were brought near his mouth, as if he had been biting his fingernails in anticipation of Oscar’s arrival. Oscar smiled softly back at him.
Oscar barely made it through his first meeting without staring at Lando the entire time. He felt like a teenager who was experiencing his first crush. He kept sneaking glances at Lando as Stella was speaking, pretending he couldn’t feel his stomach flipping and twisting every time he caught sight of Lando’s face.
Over the next week, Lando would seek Oscar out and explain various parts of the factory, or the culture at McLaren, or just talk. Lando would talk about golf, or gaming, or the car, and Oscar would quietly listen and enjoy the monologues until he had something that was worth saying. Oscar loved Lando. He thought Lando was funny and silly and real and kind. He thought Lando was perfect.
He wished Lando could be his soulmate. He wanted that so badly, but it couldn’t be. Lando was known for being cheerful and happy all the time. He was the driver who represented joyfulness and laughter, the funny guy who could and would make jokes out of everything. If Lando was telling people he was okay, it wouldn’t be a lie. It wouldn’t appear on his soulmate’s flesh. Lando wasn’t Oscar’s, and he never would be. Lando was someone else’s, someone else who deserved him, because Oscar didn’t deserve a soulmate like Lando.
Oscar first noticed when Jon and Kim wanted them to train together. Lando’s car pulled up outside of Oscar’s apartment in Woking, waiting for Oscar to jump in so they could arrive together. They chatted idly on the way there, their conversation about literally nothing and ranging between several different topics all at once.
When they actually started working out, trainers pushing them separately on the same workout, Oscar saw the arm of Lando’s long-sleeved shirt slip upward. It revealed a small patch of skin, the same caramel colour that Oscar had learned to associate with Lando Norris, but this patch was littered with pale lines. They reached across his forearm, some red and irritated, some pale and faded. They were straight, clean and simple, just strokes of scars against his skin.
And Oscar didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.
When they got back in the car, Lando gave Oscar a tight smile.
“You saw them, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Oscar said quietly. “Lando, are you okay?”
Lando only nodded, and Oscar decided not to push. Jon probably knew. Cisca and Adam probably knew. Lando was probably getting help.
Probably.
Breaking News: Alexander Albon and George Russell Announce their Romantic Relationship:
At 9:23AM on Monday, 13th of October, Alex Albon and George Russell posted a series of photos revealing that they have been together romantically since 2018. There are some arguments about the place of LGBT drivers and the controversy of queer people in the sport [… Read More]
Oscar slammed his phone onto the wooden coffee table of the cafe he was at, Lando looking over at him, concerned.
“Did you know they were together?” Oscar asked, his voice quick and urgent.
“I mean… yeah. They were my best friends in 2019, and they’re still some of my best friends now. I didn’t know they were gonna come out.”
Oscar hummed.
“Are you upset about it?” Lando said, quiet and slightly… afraid? As if he was scared of Oscar’s answer.
“I was always taught that there’s no place in this sport for LGBTQ+ people,” Oscar said, matter of factly. Lando’s face dropped instantly. “But I never believed it,” Oscar quickly continued. “I mean, I’m bi. If I thought there was no place for me, then I wouldn’t be here.”
Lando smiled as he brought his coffee to his lips. He took a long drink, and then a deep breath.
“I’m gay,”
Oscar smiled. “Excellent. We now as McLaren represent the entire community,” he continued dryly. Lando snorted, and started stirring his drink with one of the wooden sticks you get in all coffee shops.
“I was scared you were homophobic for a second there,” Lando said. “And that would’ve been a shame, because I really like you, Oscar.”
“I really like you too.” Oscar smiled slowly. “Now, you need to give me the entire timeline of their relationship or I will be forever left in the dark about what is apparently common knowledge across the whole grid.”
Lando grinned and started to explain how stupid George and Alex were throughout most of F2. Oscar sat back in his seat and watched Lando laugh and gesticulate his way through the story, listening to the words but lost in the smooth voice and stupid gestures at the same time.
It was safe to say that Oscar’s ‘little crush’ was far more than that now.
Oscar gasped as he lowered himself into the cold water of the ice bath. The ice clacked around his legs, floating to the top and bobbing at the surface, hitting the bright yellow ducks scattered throughout the bath. Oscar didn’t know why he had the ducks, he just enjoyed a bit of whimsy in his day. He tipped his head back against the edge of the container and sighed, closing his eyes, grateful for the cold after a whole day in the heat of Qatar.
He heard Lando walking behind him, and heard the clattering of the ice and water filling Lando’s container. He opened his eyes to see Lando hissing as the cold water touched his legs. Oscar chuckled and Lando turned to face him, sticking his tongue out at Oscar. It only made Oscar laugh more.
Lando settled down into the ice bath, hanging his arm closest to Oscar over the side of the container. Oscar found himself staring at the bare skin. He already knew about the scars littering the inside of his arm and streaking across Lando’s forearm. Oscar focussed on Lando’s bicep, admiring the way it looked in the dim light. But then he saw the soulmark there. The writing.
The soulmark etched its way down Lando’s arm in Oscar’s own neat script.
I know, and I will be there in five minutes.
I sprained my ankle.
I sprained my ankle.
I fell off my bike.
I got hit by a car, but not, like, badly.
Oscar froze. All the muscles in his body tensed up and he felt as if he couldn’t move. He found his soulmate - his soulmate who needed help, who was seriously mentally ill, who needed so much that Oscar couldn’t give - and it was Lando. Lando fucking Norris.
Lando looked over at Oscar, brows creasing together.
“You okay, Osc?”
“Yeah, I’m just feeling a bit ill. I’m gonna go get some painkillers.” Oscar lied.
Fuck. He lied. Lando would see and figure it out too.
Lando looked down at his arm, opened his mouth to speak, but Oscar was already gone.
Oscar almost ran through the hospitality to his driver's room, dripping with ice cold water. He locked himself in the room and ran through what he could do. He needed to get Lando help. He needed Lando to get better, he wanted Lando to be okay, not just as a soulmate, but as his friend.
Oscar sat in the room for a long time - or it could’ve just been a minute - before he heard a knock at the door and a soft voice through the crack.
“Oscar… can I come in?” Lando asked. His voice shook. Oscar unlocked the door. “Oscar. I’m sorry. I know that we're soulmates and I know that you know and I wanted to say I’m sorry.” Lando looked down at his hands, fidgeting in his lap. He was pulling his fingers together and apart, twisting them around each other in a way that looked painful. “I know you don’t want me. I know you don’t want me to be your soulmate, and I get it. I wouldn’t either. You deserve a better soulmate. I’m sorry,”
Oscar stared at Lando, slack mouthed. He walked up to Lando and slowly wrapped his arms around him, letting Lando rest his face in the crook of Oscar’s neck. He ran a hand through Lando’s hair and tried to form words to respond to whatever bullshit Lando had just said. Lando let out a slow breath onto his neck.
“Lando. Of course I want you as my soulmate. But I’m worried about you. I don’t think you’re getting the help you need, Lan. You need to stop avoiding people when they try to support you.”
“I don’t know how.” Lando whispered.
“That’s okay. We can do this together. But you need to start working towards getting better.”
“I want to try, Osc, but I don’t know how,”
Oscar pulled away from Lando, putting one hand under Lando’s chin to steady him. “That’s okay. You can learn.”
Lando nodded, tears running down his face. Oscar moved his hand to use the pad of his thumb to brush them off Lando’s cheeks. “We’ll be okay,” Oscar reassured him. “You’ll be okay,”
And with that, he leaned forward and pulled Lando forward, letting them meet in the middle, the smallest distance between their lips. Lando pushed forward, connecting their mouths and capturing Oscar in the way that only felt possible to happen in movies. Oscar smiled against Lando’s mouth and pressed deeper into the kiss. It was possessing, powerful and beautiful because it wasn’t a kiss full of lust.
It was a kiss of hope, and a kiss to end the beginning of Lando’s story. To make sure all the lies lying on Oscar’s forearms didn’t say that Lando was broken.
Because he wasn’t. He never was.