Chapter Text
When Lando set out not even ten minutes ago, with two very real and very pressing issues (those being one, a headache; and two, a shortage of the biscuits he liked) his plan was relatively simple. It involved running to the nearest supermarket, scanning a bottle of painkillers and a packet of digestives at self-checkout, and then booking it back to his hotel room to stuff his face and sleep off his jetlag—preferably before anyone recognised him through his shoddy disguise of a hoodie and sunglasses.
What his plan didn’t involve was becoming the victim of vehicular assault.
It’s actually probably the sunglasses which did it in for him, in the end; for as much as they helped with anonymity, they did make it a tad difficult to see—a useful ability to have if one was, say, crossing a road at night that certain university students were also hoping to make use of. By driving down it. With their car.
Needless to say, instead of being back in his soft, Hilton-sponsored bed, popping pills and stuffing his face, Lando is here—barrelled over on the asphalt, groaning pathetically, waiting to be delivered up and into the great big racetrack in the sky.
It’s karma, he thinks. For the biscuits. Jon’s probably laughing at him from somewhere—trying to cheat on his meal plan? Here’s a giant, metal fist of judgement delivered right into your abdomen, that’ll teach him not to give in to his sugar cravings.
The thing is, Lando Norris is no stranger to car crashes. He drives 800-kilo turbo-speed death rockets for a living, knowing how to react in a totalled vehicle is essential in his line of work.
It’s just that the automotive incidents he’s accustomed to usually involve him being in the car, rather than the poor sod being slammed into. Maybe that difference is the reason he’s seeing the light right now, ribs bruised and head reeling, as what could only be an angel leans over to get a look at him.
“Holy shit,” Oscar swears. “I just hit fucking Lando Norris with my car.”
In Oscar’s defence—when he set out not even ten minutes ago, to purchase some wet wipes because of course his roommate had made a mess of their kitchen, his plan certainly didn’t involve mowing down a Formula One driver with his second-hand car. He was studying all day in the library, working on an essay for thermodynamics, eyes twitching and sleep schedule fucked. The street was dark, Lando’s hoodie was darker (so it was definitely that, and not the sunglasses), and besides—who the hell can’t hear an engine careening towards them?
(The answer is someone with their AirPods in, blasting music at full volume, crossing the road without checking both ways. There’s no evidence that Lando was doing this, though—not since he got hit by a car and his AirPods fell down somewhere on the ground, shortly followed by his sunglasses, then his groceries, then himself.)
Oscar crouches down next to Lando, who’s becoming more and more certain that he has, in fact, carked it. The angel’s a dead (hah!) giveaway, and it is an angel—people that pretty didn’t exist on earth, and if they did, they certainly wouldn’t give Lando the time of day. There’s also the blinding light, which is just so very cliche for a near-death (or full-death?) experience. Plus, there’s the fact he got hit by a car, a thing known to kill people when they do that—
Except death probably isn’t this painful, is it? Lando’s entire midsection is royally screwed, the wind punched out of his lungs and his ribs aching in a way that suggest they might be broken. Might. And his eyes are starting to prick from staring at the radiant, eternal glory of God’s kingdom—which, on further inspection, is actually coming from a pair of headlights, one of them with a dented covering. As Lando blinks and weakly lifts a hand to block them out, he wonders if he’s the one who caused the dent. And oof, even thinking hurts right now, too. His headache’s still there, incredibly, seemingly the only thing that hasn’t been knocked out of or off of him by the collision.
Oscar, meanwhile, is freaking the fuck out.
“Shit, shit,” he says, as he falls to Lando’s eye level. “Are you alright?”
“Painkillers,” Lando says.
Oscar stops fretting for a second. “…what?”
“Can you get my painkillers, please?” Lando begs, pointing somewhere off to the side of the road.
Oh fuck, Oscar thinks. He’s not only hit an F1 driver with his car—he’s hit him hard enough to become delusional. That cannot be a good thing.
“Okay,” Oscar tries. “Can you— Are you good to stand?”
“Uh… probably?” Lando wobblingly finds his footing, but is clutching his (maybe broken?) ribs the whole time. Oscar’s wincing, hands held out as if ready to catch him at any moment.
“Okay, that’s… that’s good.” He wracks his brain for the first aid course he was supposed to renew last summer. All he remembers is the CPR training, which Lando doesn’t look like he needs currently, not that Oscar trusts himself to perform it on anything other than a dummy.
(If he’d said that part aloud, Lando would’ve helpfully informed him that it was still A-Okay to perform on him, then.)
“No, uh… tingles? In your hands, or feet, or… yeah?” Oscar’s pretty sure that’s something he needs to check for.
Lando looks up at his angel and feels a little tingle right in his stomach, seeing his divinely carved jaw and little hair swoop and eyes too brown for this good earth. He’s got enough sense left in him to know, however, that his stomach is not his hands, or feet, or… yeah. So he shakes his head.
Oscar nods, expecting his brain to come up with something else useful. It doesn’t, his thought process slightly distracted by the fact he’s currently clogging up a single-lane, one-way road. There’s a line of cars behind his, and he should call 000—or whatever the hell it is in the UK, but… he knows the directions to the nearest hospital. It’s not far.
So he makes a bit of a rushed decision. He goes over to help Lando walk, assisting him as he lopes forward.
“Here— There’s a hospital nearby, I’ll drive us there.”
Lando’s still gathering his awareness, mental fog not fully cleared. He thinks the crash might’ve knocked his brain about a little, and again, thinking hurts—but, the angel with the pretty face (and prettier accent, dear God) is pulling him somewhere. And while he’s now ninety-percent sure it isn’t heaven, he did hear the word ‘hospital’ somewhere at some point, and he would like to go there. So he follows along as he’s helped into the back of the same car which hit him, settling into the seat as the door slams shut.
It doesn’t occur to him until he’s clicked in his buckle that maybe, just maybe, he’s being kidnapped.
“You kidnapped Lando Norris?!”
“Jesus, Logan, I didn’t kidnap him!” Oscar looks warily in the rear-view mirror, where a slightly delirious Formula One driver is rubbing at his skull in the backseat.
“Of course not,” Logan breathes, and Oscar can hear him roll his eyes. “You didn’t just kidnap him. First you ran him over, then you kidnapped him—”
“I couldn’t see him! He was wearing a dark hoodie!”
“That’s your best excuse?” Logan cries. “You’re going to be hung by the British people, Oscar, and that’s what you’re going to tell them?”
Oscar grimaces. “I know, I know. Surely they won’t be that upset if I’ve put him out of commission, right?”
“It’s his home race, Oscar!”
“They have other British drivers to root for!”
“Well, those drivers don’t have a garish looking grandstand dedicated to them, do they?”
Oscar looks back in the rear-view. “A what?”
“The Landostand, Oscar, do you keep up with anything?” Logan sighs over the speakers. “Just get him to the hospital in one piece, okay? And if anyone in papaya throws a brick through our window, you’re paying for it.”
“Fine,” Oscar grunts. “We’re almost there.”
“Good. Because that stain in the kitchen is still blocking the fridge, and I need those wet wipes—”
“That’s what you’re concerned about right now?”
“I didn’t hit an F1 driver with my car, did I?”
“You don’t have a car, Logs,” Oscar points out. “That’s why I have to do all the shopping.”
“I’m hanging up now,” Logan informs him. “Text me when you get home. Or get sued. Whatever comes first.”
“Shit. Fuck.” Oscar didn’t even consider that. “See you.”
“See you!”
With a beep, Lando hears as the call ends and watches Oscar—he’s learnt his angel/captor’s name now, thanks to the annoyingly American voice on the other end of the phone—slump down in the driver’s seat, thrumming his fingers against the steering wheel as they roll up to a red light.
“We’re not gonna sue you,” Lando blurts, before he realises he’s saying anything.
Oscar just about jumps out of his skin. He cranes his neck in the car seat, looking around at where Lando has just gathered enough consciousness to form words. And raise his hands up, which he also does.
“Not gonna sue,” Lando repeats, trying for a grin. “If you get me to the hospital in time. If you let me die, we’ll take everything you own.”
Oscar tries very sternly to listen to the warning—he does—but is slightly distracted by Lando’s attempt at a smile. And hell, if that’s the guy’s attempt at a smile, Oscar doesn’t want to be around when he actually gets hit with the real thing. Just the small curl of the guy’s lips is enough to dazzle him, more than can be easily explained away by him being starstruck.
By, you know, the star he struck.
With his car.
It takes someone behind him honking to get Oscar turning back to the now green light, swearing as he pushes on the gas. Lando giggles, and Oscar has to fight not to be distracted again (because the guy has a nice laugh. And despite what all his friends say, Oscar is not made of stone, and he can appreciate a pleasant sound. Sue him. Actually, poor choice of words—)
“You’d make a shit race car driver,” Lando teases. He can’t tell if it’s delirium or his unflappable sense of humour that makes him say it, not that there’s much distinction between the two. “You wouldn’t start the race on time. Lights out and away you don’t go.”
Oscar, now focussing on the road, swallows his surprise enough to jab back, “Make a better driver than you, mate.”
Oscar can’t see it, but Lando’s expression dips. “God, don’t tell me you’re a RedBull fan— You hit me on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Of course not!” Oscar answers, quickly. “I mean, I was a RedBull fan, but I, uh… don’t go for a team anymore, really? More interested in the car side of things, to be honest.” He fixes his mirror anxiously. “And I did not hit you on purpose.”
“Sure, whatever you say— Wait, but you do watch Formula One, then?” Lando muses, playing with his seatbelt buckle. It feels a little tight on his maybe-broken ribs—seriously, how is Oscar driving with these things on?
“I mean— Yeah? I study engineering, I like the cars.”
Lando snorts. “The cars.”
“What?” Oscar says. “Is there something else I should be watching it for?”
“For the drivers,” Lando explains, like it’s simple. Which it is. Weren’t engineers supposed to be smart? “For the drivers, and their admirable and inspiring characters.”
Oscar, a bit helplessly, is actually laughing. He’s finding Lando oddly agreeable, which is something he can’t say for everyone he’s sent rolling over his windshield. Not that there are that many in that particular group—but if there were, Lando’d be the standout.
“Any ones I should be looking out for in particular?”
“Yep. Unlucky for you, he got hit by some idiot on the road and needs to go to hospital.”
“Well. Lucky for him, we’re here.” Oscar pulls into a park and steps quickly out of his door, moving over to open Lando’s. Such a gentleman, his angel/captor/Oscar is, especially when he begins to help Lando out of his seat and towards the entrance.
Lando can actually walk a little better now, but he still lets himself slump onto Oscar’s arm anyway. It’s warm and comfortable and takes some of the weight off of his aching legs—and the bloke is responsible for most of that aching, so it’s the least he can do to help Lando walk.
Oscar, for his part, doesn’t mind it when Lando leans in a little closer. Or at least he wouldn’t mind, if his brain had any function left in it after he swears he just felt Lando fucking Norris rest his forehead on his shoulder.
“Come on,” he manages, and pats himself on the back that he doesn’t bite his own tongue in two. “Let’s get you inside.”
Oscar’s never taken someone into the hospital before. He kind of assumed it’d be easier than this, like some nurse would immediately run up to him and carry Lando off to some nearby surgery room. Apparently not, since he’s left to help Lando limp over to the front desk all by himself.
“Uh… hello?” Oscar says to the exhausted-looking man at the desk. “We need a doctor.”
“Don’t we all,” the man mutters, clicking his mouse. “What’s your emergency?”
“Oscar hit me with his car!” Lando supplies, chipperly.
The man—Dorian, a little name plaque proudly displays—stops his slow computer navigation and stares up at the pair.
“Uh, it’s true,” Oscar adds. “I did… do… that. So, about that doctor?”
The man gives Lando a curious once-over. “Do you feel any tingling sensation in your extremities?”
“In my what? Do you mean my—”
“He doesn’t,” Oscar cuts in, before Lando can finish. “I already checked them earlier.”
Lando squawks. “You checked my extremities, Oscar? Without buying me dinner first?”
“You were there—”
A loud tapping of keys interrupts them, punctuated with a surprisingly passive aggressive mouse click. “Shouldn’t be too long. Please find a seat while you wait.” Dorian waves his hands towards the rows of plastic chairs, dismissively.
“Mate,” Oscar says. “He got hit by a car, surely that’s like… worthy of a bit of rushing, right?”
He gets met with a dead-ish glare. “He’s not bleeding out, is able to stand, and has no symptoms of spinal injuries—as far as we’re concerned, he’s relatively low priority.”
“Ouch,” Lando winces, and not from the pain this time. “Come on Oscar, let’s grab a seat.”
Oscar’s reluctant to go, and maybe a little curious as to what counts as high or even medium priority if a car accident doesn’t make the list, but Lando’s all too happy to plop himself down into a plastic chair—he can only plop himself so far before his midsection hurts, but it’s just nice not to be standing. Or in a moving vehicle. Or on the receiving end of a moving vehicle.
Oscar slides into the plastic chair beside—and doesn’t flinch when Lando moves over, back to being attached to his side. He just looks down, puzzled (and not flustered) at Lando’s content-ish looking face.
“Are you really not concerned about this?” he asks.
Lando hums, thinking. Once again, the fresh head trauma isn’t helping him in that regard, so he just babbles instead. “I mean… some painkillers would be nice. And to know if my ribs are broken or not.” He scooches even further into Oscar’s side, and Oscar wonders if severe cardiac arrest is high priority or not. If so, he needs a word with Dorian. “But eh, I’ve been in worse before. Ever crashed an F1 car before?”
“Can’t say I have,” Oscar deadpans, which elicits a little chuckle from Lando.
“You’ve seen it, though, haven’t you?” Lando asks. “I reckon you see someone hit the wall and get sad about the car being busted up.”
“Obviously not,” Oscar puffs out. He makes the mistake of looking down at Lando’s face, bright and peering up at him, and stutters out, “I mean, yeah, that part’s bad too, for, like, the engineering… and shit.”
“And shit,” Lando repeats, amusedly. “So it’s just mostly the cars with you.”
“God forbid a man have interests.”
“Oscarrrrrrrr,” Lando actually goddamn purrs, “you can’t tell me you don’t enjoy the racing, even just a little bit.”
“You sound like my roommate,” Oscar mutters. He sees that Lando’s pouting. He folds immediately. “Ok, fine— I guess it gets exciting. Occasionally?”
“Can’t imagine you excited,” Lando huffs, but he’s smiling. He feels all smiley for some reason, cozied up with this rando. Aching pain is really good for a bit of delirium, he decides. “Like a robot, you are.”
Oscar scoffs. “You barely know me.”
“You hit me with your car,” Lando points out. “That counts for something.”
“Hmm, don’t think it does.”
Lando rolls his eyes. “Pfft, whatever. What about the drivers?”
“You asked me this before.”
“You didn’t answer it that time!” Lando cocks his head, curls brushing up against Oscar’s sleeve, and he’d go absolutely insane about that if he wasn’t currently going insane over Lando’s adorably indignant expression. “Fine, don’t even tell me who you go for. But do you even know everyone on the grid?”
Oscar, face flushing, shakes his head. “Uh… I mean, I know you. Well. I know of you.”
Lando grins against the fabric of Oscar’s hoodie, which he’s currently nursing his headache on. And he delights to see his suspicions confirmed; the Aussie—and it is an Aussie, Lando can recognise his own teammate’s accent—has to be an angel, there’s no other possible explanation. How else would he be healing Lando’s migraine with nothing but touch?
“Everybody and their mum knows Lewis Hamilton, that one’s a freebie,” Oscar continues. “Logan won’t shut up about Alex Albon, so there’s him. Max, obviously, and Charles, and George.” He’s counting on his fingers, ignoring the way Lando’s eyes follow them. He’s not doing a very good job of it, and loses track of what number he was up to. “And I know the teams, of course, except I always forget what that stupid-coloured French one is—”
“Do you go for a team, at least?” Lando mumbles.
“I said before I used to be a RedBull fan, didn’t I? I guess I’d say that, if asked.”
“Wow. So enthusiastic.” Lando’s eyelids flutter shut. His body’s apparently just remembered how exhausted he is, and between that soothing Aussie accent and that same soothing Aussie’s shoulder, Lando might just take a nap.
Oscar doesn’t know what to do, afraid that if he moves Lando might stop doing whatever the hell he’s doing. Which would be an issue, because he’s very much enjoying whatever the hell Lando’s doing. Lando’s also enjoying whatever the hell he’s doing. They’re all in agreement, at least.
Except for Lando’s ribs, apparently.
Lando leans a little too close to the sun, and is rudely jolted back awake as his core complains—loudly and jabbingly, making him jump. Which makes Oscar jump too, and Lando’s sure that they both looked stupid, but he’s too busy rucking up his shirt to inspect the damage.
“Oh, neat,” he exclaims. “I’ve got a purple middle sector.”
Oscar stares at Lando’s stomach—gets stuck on the little treasure trail leading into the waistband because, again, he’s not made of stone—but once he manages to focus, he takes in the ugly looking blotches covering it. He hisses in air through his teeth.
“Bloody hell, maybe they are broken,” Lando curses. He pivots his head over to where Dorian is still disinterestedly clicking away. “Taking their time, aren’t they?”
“You know, you’re the one who was so eager to sit down and wait.”
“Oscar,” Lando pleads. “Stop being the voice of reason. Please?”
Oscar sighs. “Fine,” he relents. “Do you wanna go abuse your questionable celebrity status—”
“Questionable?” Lando squawks. “I’ll have you know I was on Chicken Shop Date—”
“Fine, your very prolific and renowned celebrity status. That one.” Oscar points his thumb over to the desk. “Wanna go abuse it to get medical treatment faster?”
Lando smiles again, and Oscar has to try very hard not to be utterly taken in by it.
(He fails. It’s really embarrassing.)
“Mint,” Lando agrees. “Let’s go abuse the heck out of me!”
Astonishingly, telling Dorian that the bloke Oscar hit with his car—and who was currently draped over him like a koala—was both a world-famous F1 Driver and a Chicken Shop Date plus-one does… practically, fuck-all. Dorian just looks at them with that dead-ish glare Oscar has come to know and hate, and mutters about how that’s not even the first time someone’s tried pulling the I’m actually Lando Norris stunt tonight.
At least they’re already up and standing when a woman walks out of the door next to the front desk, scrubs on and hair tied back. She gives Lando and Oscar one look, turns to Dorian, and asks, “Is this the guy who hit his boyfriend with his car?”
Oscar, of course, answers no. He is, however, swiftly and decidedly outvoted as both Dorian—and a gleeful, giggly Lando—immediately answer yes.
“Alright, come with me,” she says, spinning on her heel and turning back through the hallway. Oscar has to speedwalk to catch up, half-dragging Lando along with him.
They reach a room and out comes that nurse that Oscar was imagining earlier, helping Lando inside as the doctor (Liz, her nametag supplies) tells him that sadly he will have to wait outside while they check on Lando. And though Oscar may never get over having Lando (Lando goddamn Norris, by the way) koala all over him, he… he gets it. There’s procedure. He understands and so, however reluctantly, lets Lando go.
It’s Lando who’s the issue, refusing stubbornly to let go of Oscar in any amount, and refusing even stubbornly-er to enter the room without him.
“That’s my emotional support angel!” He pouts, gritting his teeth as the slight tussle hurts his ribs.
Liz raises her eyebrow. “Didn’t he hit you with his car?”
“And then he kidnapped me!” Lando adds, spritefully. “He’s also my emotional support captor.”
“Lando, please,” Oscar begs. “Just let them check on you. I’ll be outside.”
Lando pouts again, but eventually relents. “Alright,” he says. Before he goes, though, he quickly whips out his phone from his pocket and unlocks it—handing it off to Oscar. “You gotta call Zak, though. He’s in my contacts. Bye!”
Lando disappears through the door, and Liz shoots Oscar a sympathetic look. “We’ll get him checked for brain injuries, on top of everything else. He might’ve gotten a concussion from the collision. Or he might be in shock.”
Oscar thinks that Lando might just be like that. He doesn’t say that, though, instead nodding. “Alright.”
“Just wait here,” Liz instructs. “And call that number, or an emergency contact if you can. This shouldn’t take long.”
Oscar swallows. “Alright,” he says again. Then Liz disappears into the room, and Oscar is left in the hallway, back in another shitty chair, with Lando Norris’ unlocked phone in his hand.
Maybe he has a concussion.
He navigates through Lando’s contacts, trying not to flinch when he casually sees names like Max Verstappen pop up—seriously, did the team principal have to have a name beginning with ‘Z’? Scrolling through the list wasn’t only intimidating, it also took forever.
Finally, Oscar reaches the bottom, and it sinks in.
He has to tell the team principal of McLaren.
That he flattened their golden boy driver on some tarmac.
And that he’s in hospital.
Right before Silverstone.
Oscar takes a deep breath in, thinks fuck it, and hits call—preparing for either the most awkward phone call in history, or the most costly (after all, he’s still not convinced he’s making it out of this debacle 100% unsued).
The phone picks up after a few rings.
“Hey Lando, what’s going on?” one very American accent says.
“Uh, yeah,” Oscar sputters out. “Um… not Lando, Mr. Brown— Zak— Sir…? I’m Oscar.”
Fuck. Why did he say his name? He could’ve just hung up and moved countries. Now they have a lead.
“Excuse me? Sorry? Who are you, and why do you have Lando’s phone?”
“Ok, so,” Oscar begins. “Funny story.”
It’s not a particularly funny story, Oscar’s little nervous laughs aside. But it goes well, and he’s pretty sure that a lawsuit is not in his near future, not right now, at least, with Lando’s exact condition still up in the air. Zak Brown is apparently too busy to go see Lando in the hospital, but says that he will send Lando’s trainer over to take care of him. He also says for Oscar to sit tight for the time being, which—well, he certainly hopes Logan didn’t want access to the fridge too urgently.
Looks like he’s in it for a long stint (see? Oscar knows some things).
In the meantime, he scrolls through Lando’s phone again, this time finding his mum’s phone number. Thinking about what Liz said about emergency contacts, he taps ring before he can chicken out, and is greeted with the voice of a friendly British woman.
“Lando?”
“Not Lando,” Oscar says again. He’s practiced now, and knows exactly what to say. “Hi, I’m Oscar… I hit your son with my car.”
The phone call with Lando’s mum also goes well, despite that. Cisca is as lovely as she always looks when the camera cuts to her in the McLaren garage, and takes the news that her son was recently hospitalised by the guy she’s on call with like a champ. Speaking of hospital, she does demand to know which one Lando’s in, and Oscar relays the information promptly before apologising again. Lando’s mum tells him not to worry, he sounds like a nice boy, and to notify her son she’ll be over there as soon as she can.
“Thank you for calling me, I know it couldn’t be easy,” she says. “And for the record, Oscar— If anyone was going to hit my son with his car, I’m glad it was you.”
Oscar, as is par-for-the-course for him dealing with Norrises (Norrisi?), almost swallows his tongue and then stutters out something like a thank you, and then something like a goodbye. Then he hangs up, hangs his head, and rests back against the shitty plastic rest of his shitty plastic chair. Because how else is he supposed to respond to that?
Liz puts him out of his awkward and confused misery a few moments later, poking her head out of the door to call him in, saying that all the tests are done. That, and Lando won’t stop asking for him, which makes Oscar’s heartrate pick up again—it’s as if Lando’s imprinted on him like a duckling, which… Oscar doesn’t have the self-control required to deal with that in a mature and controlled manner.
Especially not when Lando’s face lights up when Oscar does head in, flashing that full smile Oscar had been dreading earlier, and it truly is the stuff of myth—but can Lando really be blamed for that? Santa Claus (Liz) has finally gotten him the present (painkillers) that he’s been asking for since his very first Christmas (when his headache started), and on top of all that, his favourite angel/captor/Oscar is coming in. And smiling back at him.
That might just be the slight possibility of a concussion talking though, or even the slight possibility of some bruised ribs. It’s definitely not the slight possibility of broken ribs, because there isn’t one, a fact despite which Lando is still required to stay overnight.
He fills Oscar in on this, and Oscar fills him in on the fact that his trainer and mum are going to be arriving imminently. Lando would feel worse about it if the evidence of his (attempted) diet-cheating wasn’t dead and buried in a ditch somewhere outside the supermarket. But it is, so he hums contentedly.
“Sorry about the whole… y’know, collision. By the way.”
“Ah,” Lando lifts a hand, waves it about a bit. “It’s in the past now.”
“It was… not even an hour ago.”
“Otherwise known as the past, Oscar,” Lando says, and Oscar does this thing where he folds himself in half laughing. It’s, again, really embarrassing. “So, you called Zak, John’s coming over, my mum’s coming— You invite anyone else?”
“Oh, was I not supposed to? Shit, man, I got everybody on your contacts. It’s gonna be a party.”
“Okay. Now I know you’re lying. You didn’t have time to call all of them.”
God, Oscar barely had time to scroll through all of them. He’s about to point this out, and potentially get another of those nose-scrunches he’s noticed Lando does, to which he’d subsequently and internally pump his fist, when his own phone buzzes. He opens it to see a message from Logan, a picture of the spill attached as he wants for those damned wet wipes like a wife wants for her husband at war.
Lando spots Oscar frowning down at his roommate’s lamentation. “You can go, if you need.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“Hell no.” Lando snuggles a little bit closer to the side of the bed Oscar’s sitting next to, not doing much to close the gap but hey, little by little. “You’re a good luck charm. Need you here to keep me safe.”
“I cannot stress this enough.” Oscar mimes a little guy walking with one his hands. “You.” He balls his other hand into a fist, and hits his previously happy walking gesture. “Me in my car. If I was a good luck charm, I did a pretty shit job.”
“In the past, Oscar— But hey, if you do need to go, you can. I’m just saying. If the situation’s dire.”
“Oh, it is.” He flips around his phone, showing off Logan’s dramatics. “But it can wait. My roommate can deal without his string cheese for a little while.”
“So… I could persuade you to stay until Jon or my mum show up?”
Lando could persuade Oscar that the sky was purple with polka-dots. He probably shouldn’t say that, though, and in lieu of that replies, “sure.” He settles further into his chair.
“So… cars?”
Oscar doesn’t giggle as he agrees, “cars.”
They talk about cars.
And Formula 1.
And Oscar’s engineering degree.
And Lando’s season.
And Oscar’s roommate.
And Lando’s Quadrant. (Oscar still has no fucking clue what it is, who’s involved, or what it does. But Lando is bright-eyed and excited to talk about it, so he goes along with it.)
They talk until a man who must be Lando’s trainer shows up, scrutinising Oscar. Lando reckons it’s only a matter of minutes before Jon starts suggesting workout routines to Oscar, and Oscar clearly realises this too, because he’s standing and saying goodbye before long. And maybe some of Lando’s brain damage is still acting up, but he can’t have that.
So he calls Oscar back before he reaches the door, extending out his phone once again, unlocked.
“Hey, can you—”
“I’m not calling Zak again.”
“No, you idiot. Put your number on it.”
And Oscar’s a little taken aback, quite a bit touched, and a lot terrified to be added to Lando’s staggeringly long list of names on his phone. So he stares, dumbly.
“Just so we can sue you if we like,” Lando adds, winking at Oscar, which really doesn’t do his brain malfunction any favours.
“Wait,” he replies. “If you’re gonna sue me with it, why would I give you my number?”
Lando makes a wounded noise, which is very easy for him in his current state. “You… don’t want to…?”
Oscar snatches Lando’s phone out of his hand, punches in his digits, and is dropping it back into Lando’s palm before he can even get a single tremble of his bottom lip complete. He’s a little smug about his speed, right up until he sees the smirk on Lando’s face and decides he needs to flee the scene immediately.
He exits, muttering about how if he gets sued, he gets sued. Jon stares at him oddly as he does, and as soon as Oscar’s out of sightline, he turns that stare to Lando. It’s different directed at Lando, though—he watched Oscar like he was a stroopwafel Lando really wanted, so very, very terribly, and Jon was trying his best to convince him he really, really shouldn’t. Now, he’s staring at Lando like—well, he’s staring at him like there’s a stroopwafel Lando really wants, so very, very terribly—
“No,” Jon says.
“You didn’t even know what I was about to say—”
“No stroopwafel, not while you have brain damage. You sleep this off and then you decide whether you want to eat it or not.”
“Eat him, you mean,” Lando corrects, grinning and waggling his eyebrows and getting some clothes Jon had in his duffel bag thrown at him.
“See? Brain damage. You make those big decisions when your skull is intact. Until then, no stroopwafel.”
Lando peels the fabric off of his suggestive expression. “Fine. I’ll sleep on it.” Jon nods, and Lando inspects the article of clothing he’s been thrown. It’s a hoodie, which he unwraps to find… “Oh, sweet, you found them!” He dumps his AirPods, sunglasses, and bottle of painkillers into his lap. He thinks he remembers something missing, and it hits him like a car. “Oh. Shit. You found them…”
“Mm-hmm.” Jon holds up the packet of digestives like it’s a baggy of weed, and he’s not mad, he’s just disappointed.
Lando sighs and sinks down in the bed.
Meanwhile, Oscar has completed the round trip from the hospital back to his apartment, arriving through the door at a healthy and reasonable 2am. Because Logan is also a university student, and he’s also a massive stubborn bitch, he’s still awake and languishing away in the kitchen.
“My love, it’s been so long, finally reunited—”
Oscar throws the wet wipes at him, and Logan squawks. Not because he gets hit by them (he catches them perfectly), but just from the gall.
“Thought you weren’t gonna come back, y’know,” he soliloquies. “Too busy with that fancy F1 driver of yours. I thought you might’ve forgotten all about us little people and our needs.”
Oscar rolls his eyes. “Little is right,” he mutters.
“What was that?”
“I said clean up your stain, Logs, or I’m making you pay half the lawsuit.”
Logan laughs, bending over to do that first part, when the second part of Oscar’s sentence registers. He stands bolt back upright. “Wait, there’s a lawsuit? You’re actually getting sued? You’re joking.”
Oscar’s already making his way to his bedroom, but he throws a vague glance over his shoulder, trying to hide his smile. Logan gasps.
“You’re joking. No. Wait— Are you smiling?”
“Night, Logs.”
“No, wait Osc, you have to tell me what happened—”
Oscar closes the door. Logan shakes his head, turning back to his arch nemesis splattered across the floorboards. He readies his weapon, peeling back the plastic on the wet wipes packet, swiping down at the stain.
It’s fully dried, and the wet wipe does fuck-all.
Logan groans.
When Oscar wakes up the next day, exhausted and gross and up at an hour much too early for how late he went to bed, his plan is relatively simple. Silence his phone (because who in the early-bird-gets-the-worm kind of hellscape would be calling him now?), roll back over on his lumpy mattress, and return to his dream—the one filled with dazzling smiles, soft giggles, and that damn fucking treasure trail. He doesn’t recognise the number, after all, so it couldn’t possibly be important.
It does not involve him being extended an invitation to the McLaren garage, a paddock pass, and a free tour around the place headed by none other than Lando Norris himself.
Thank God he did recognise the number, and stopped his hand halfway—the thought of returning to the British lilt in his dream quickly souring, especially when that same British lilt (except real, and therefore better) was now only a single button press away. He dove for his phone, not even pretending not to be desperate. And nervous. And excited. And every other flavour of emotion under the sun.
Which has brought him here—gaping at his phone, rubbing at his eyes, trying to figure out if this is all just some elaborate extension of his pleasant dream before.
“I’m sorry, wh— What?”
“I said I got my next few days cleared,” Lando says, so nonchalantly, like he hasn’t just broken Oscar. “No FP1, or FP2, or media, thank God. And I’d… I’d like someone to keep me company.”
In Lando’s defence—when he woke up, feeling a lot less like his body had been sucker-punched by two tons of steel on wheels, his plan didn’t involve—
Well, actually, his plan for the morning is going off without a hitch. He was officially discharged from the hospital after a long conversation with Liz and Jon, his mum having left last night after seeing he was alive. He had some last minute tests, the results of which Lando discussed with Zak over the phone as Jon drove them back to the hotel. Jon even got him breakfast which, yes, was fifty shades greener than Lando would’ve liked, but he was allowed half the digestives from last night. And Jon even cleared him for stroopwafel, suggesting he have some as soon as he got up to his room.
Which is all Lando needed to hear to hit that call button, and tell Oscar the good news.
“Lando,” Oscar says, voice still rough with sleep. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but… do you still have brain damage?”
At that, Lando laughs. “No more than I usually do,” he replies, and he’s right. Liz informed him that morning that the only thing wrong with his head was a migraine, likely due to dehydration caused by one too many Monster Energy drinks and one too few actual drinks. Of water. Or anything else that wasn’t Monster Energy.
Of course, Lando and Jon and her then had a discussion on if it was only a migraine, why was he acting so funny? To which the conclusion they all came to, mortifyingly for Lando and entertainedly for Jon, was thus: turns out, being exhausted and near a cute Aussie was simply not the best combo if Lando wanted to function properly. Terrific.
“So you’re okay?”
“A little banged up, but otherwise fine,” Lando lies, but it’s only a partial lie, and his ribs don’t even hurt that much. “Come on Oscar, I know you want to see our cars. And engineering. And shit.”
“I mean, I do,” Oscar agrees. He primarily wants to see Lando again, but he has some dignity, so he doesn’t say that. “But you’re sure that everyone’s okay with that? I can’t imagine they’re very happy with me, after… y’know.”
“Actually, Zak seems to like you— My mum does as well. Once Jon was convinced you didn’t hit me hard enough to hinder my judgement, he was on board too.”
“Wow,” Oscar breathes. “They treat every guy who runs you down like this?”
“Not every guy,” Lando answers. “Just the nice ones.”
Oscar gets up from his bed and starts pacing around, because if he stays on his bed there’s a very serious chance he’s going to start kicking his legs like a schoolgirl with a crush. Which he isn’t—he’s a male university student with a crush, which is entirely different.
“Well,” he croaks. “If it’s alright then, I’d love to come see your cars. And engineering. And shit.”
Lando laughs again. And even tinny and over the phone, it does wonders for Oscar’s everything. “And the race, too? I know you only watch it for the cars, but I hear the view’s pretty good from the garage.”
“I could watch it—” Oscar’s voice cracks. “I could watch it for the drivers. Maybe. This one time.”
Lando’s heart is beating against his— Ow, his very much still injured chest. “Yeah?” he asks. “Any one in particular?”
“There is this one,” Oscar admits, trying not to grin, and God he’s not been very good at that kind of stuff lately, has he? “He’s funny and cool and was recently in an accident. Might just have to root for him.”
“Mint. Mint. I’ll— I’ll send you the stuff, yeah?”
“Oh thank goodness,” Oscar says. “The stuff. Terrific. Just what I need—”
“Fuck you,” Lando replies. “I’ll see you later.”
Oscar’s face hurts from smiling. “See you later.”
Lando hangs up, very thankful his phone doesn’t have a wire, because if it did he’d be winding it around his finger like an idiot. The bruises on his midsection are still complaining, but they may as well not exist—because Lando’s going to see his angel, his captor, his Oscar again, and he’s going to have all the allegorical stroopwafel he can eat. He goes to text the aforementioned stuff because again, combination of exhaustion and cute Aussie, his bloody mind doesn’t work.
And Oscar, of course, has fully gotten up because fucking hell if he’s going to be able to go back to sleep after that. Messages are already coming through from Lando, and he’s already wincing at the assignment deadlines he’s pushing back, but his essay for thermodynamics just looks so procrastinatable right now. He’s even happy as he goes out to the kitchen to see Logan collapsed on the tiled floor, having lost his battle with the stain and given up right there.
Oscar’s phone buzzes again and he knows it, just knows it.
Hitting Lando Norris with his car is the best thing that he’s ever done.