NOTE: 2023. Oscar arrives in Lando's life, and it's impossible for him not to notice. Max is present, trying to return the favor. Enjoy the read. Kisses, Akane.

4. LANDO AND OSCAR - Pt 1

From the first moment Lando met Oscar in person, at the McLaren headquarters with the entire team for the first meeting for the new 2023 season, Lando immediately thought he might be a new anti-Charles. Because right now, he was only looking for those with a certain obsession. 
As soon as he entered, the two smiled looking at each other immediately as if they were polar opposite magnets. 
Oscar's posture was stiff, but his gaze toward Lando was strangely soft—something he hadn't shown toward the others, who had all received only polite expressions and distant cordiality. Lando, on the other hand, sat crooked and low in his chair, where he remained glued and paralyzed, shivering like a fool, even biting the finger stuck in his mouth in embarrassment. Yes, because that was what it had been. 
Embarrassment. 
In that moment it was immediate and obvious. 
Oscar was perfect. 
He didn't know how to explain it or why; he didn't understand it at the time.
Sure, he was nice, but not like Carlos, for example. And certainly not as nice as Charles. 
He had sharp, feline features. Or a princely one. 
As soon as he thought about it more carefully, later and observing him alone at home after the meeting, Lando had figured it out quite early by his usual standards. Perhaps too early. 
“He has Charles' kind of beauty. They don't look alike, but they have an elegant face. Moreover, Charles in the early days was also very stiff and lacked expression. Then, over time, he let himself go; now he seems like a different person, but after five years of F1 it would be strange if he didn't. Wow, I couldn't help but like him at first sight! Good, that's good. I just need to see if there's fertile ground with him, but he's just arrived. There's no point in rushing too much like I always do. We'll see how it goes, taking it easy.” 

It didn't take him long to realize how unique Oscar was. 
Unique, however, was the only word he could think to describe him. 
The truth was that after the first few days spent together at the factory, working on the new car and the various promotional activities, Lando still hadn't been able to get a read on him: he'd just realized he was strange and different from everyone else. 
By now he had experience, he'd become good at immediately identifying guys, dividing them into "absolutely straight," "definitely gay," and "this and that." 
Many were actually "this and that," few were "definitely" or "absolutely." But with Oscar, Lando couldn't understand him. 
He seemed genderless or asexual, since he didn't have any sexual vibes, nor was it clear which gender he tended towards. 
He almost seemed to dislike anyone, but clearly he couldn't say. 
He wasn't antisocial, just close and shy, but he didn't believe that was what determined his "asexuality," or genderlessness, as you might call it. Lando knew they were different things, but he couldn't figure out what his problem was, whether it came from one way of being or another.  
But maybe it all had to do with his general rigidity. If properly provoked, Oscar would loosen up and laugh, even interact and go along with his idiotic jokes. Not in an exaggerated way like Carlos and Daniel who triggered him, but if Lando made some, Oscar always contributed for good. 
He wasn't boringly serious, but he didn't turn on by himself. He always needed someone to flip the switch. 
Within the first month of working together, Lando figured out how to deal with him, and by the time they went public with the actual start of the new season, he was able to make him laugh and joke with him. 
Considering the guy, especially at the beginning—very quiet and reserved—he considered it a huge achievement. Especially because he wasn't like that with everyone else. 
At that moment Oscar only loosened up with him, proving that beneath the robotic exterior he presented to the world, he was also human and quite normal. 
People could see him in that light thanks to him; it wasn't him who thought so, but the paddock regulars—including fellow drivers—who claimed Oscar was 'normal' only with him, or thanks to him. Lando was pleased that they thought so, of course, but he didn't particularly care to be his trigger.
After the initial moment in which he'd immediately realized that Oscar could be the new anti-Charles, he'd quickly calmed down realizing how peculiar he really was. Perhaps too much so. 
To forget Charles and distract himself, he needed an easygoing guy to fuck every now and then. Or even often, but someone who could pull him out of his Charles-centric vortex. 
Oscar was too complicated; it was definitely better to just stay friends and help him however he could open up to the world and loosen up. 
He enjoyed being a sort of point of reference for him, it was flattering, but he didn't see anything special in it, seeing that was Oscar's first year and he was younger than him. 
For him the first year hadn't been traumatic, but for some it was. Charles, for example, had taken a long time to loosen up. 
"Oh God, stop constantly comparing him to him. You just want him to be the new Charles, not the anti-Charles. But whatever he is, he won't become it overnight. 
"There's Carlos anyway. We still fuck really well, not always like before, but what we have is fine. Sure, if I'd had someone else, I would have liked it. Mostly for a change, because I like a dynamic and imaginative life, but I can still find a lot of occasional partners by one-night stands. They'll be fine either way."
Lando tried to make peace with himself, trying to avoid replacing Charles with obsession at all costs. Although it wouldn't have been a bad idea to lose his head for someone else, since his handsome, sad prince wasn't one anymore thanks to Max, to whom he was now happily engaged. 
After that drunken time at Max's party, during the 2022 season they'd still been hanging around a bit, having fun flirting openly, until they even gave up that new game and got together around the middle of the year. 
Now, in 2023, they were a steady couple and even called each other 'Charlie' and 'My Max' or 'Maxie'. 
They were amazing, and perhaps seeing them together more in love than ever, had awakened in Lando the need for someone else, someone 'better' to move on and lick the wounds that occasionally opened up. 
He hadn't forgotten him yet, but seeing him practically all the time and even being his friend wasn't helping. 
Life was still unfair and he needed someone else more and more to hang out from his tunnels into which he occasionally fell, and Carlos was almost no longer enough. 

Slowly, Lando began to be happy to be able to make him laugh and have fun. As if it were an achievement. 
He also began to be the only one in the world who immediately understood him, despite his difficulty showing his feelings. 
He could see clearly that beneath the seemingly cold and composed exterior, was a shy boy with problems socializing and generally loosening up; but he also saw that despite this, he was happy with him and capable of showing his feelings. He saw that he made himself understood with him. 
Lando saw it. He saw how happy Oscar was to be with him, to joke with him, to talk to him, to discover the world with him. 
"Wow, Lando, how long will it take you to admit that Oscar is madly in love with you and that you can easily take advantage of him?"
That day, Oscar, from a distance and among all the drivers, during a pre-race parade, smiled at him, lighting up with an unfiltered sweetness, only to returned to being serious and normal, almost unreadable as always, while talking to the drivers nearby. 
It was then that Lando had to admit it, but it wasn't his voice that said it. 
It was Max's, who next to him had witnessed the exact same obvious scene. 
- When are you going to decide with him? 
If anyone knew everything about him—or almost—it was obviously Max. Lando wasn't surprised that he'd understood; he'd talked to him enough about Oscar, but never in such terms. 
It was probably obvious even from the outside. 
Lando shrugged pretending to be interested in the crowd around them. Then, with a smile that faded to almost bitterness, carefully avoiding looking at Charles who was talking to Pierre a little further away, he said: - I’m afraid he's in love with me. Maybe I'm presumptuous?
Max didn't burst out laughing mocking him. 
- And what if it were? What's the problem?
Lando sighed focusing on his face, pleasant and charming as always, but never as wonderful as Charles'. 
“That as long as I love Charles, it would be really bad to take advantage of someone who's so into me.” Of course he couldn't tell him. 
- If I didn't have the same feelings, I'd feel like a worm taking advantage of him. 
- But would you like to fuck him? - Max got straight to the point, as always. 
Lando shrugged and replied impulsively and obviously. 
- Of course! - Max raised his eyebrows as if to ask, ‘So what?’ - So I told you. I'd feel like a worm, I don't know... 
- You don't have all this trouble with Carlos. You said you wanted someone other than him to have fun with, for a change. Oscar is obviously up for it… - 
Lando sighed impatiently. 
- But would you really do it with someone who's maybe completely infatuated with you just for fun and without reciprocating? Do you really not see anything wrong with it? 
Max's lips curled downward, still not understanding the problem. 
- You don't have to hurt him. You just have to fuck him. You make it clear right away, and if he's okay with it anyway... 
- I’d knowingly hurt him. 
- The important thing is that he knows and agrees.  
Max insisted, and he didn't understand why; it almost seemed like he wanted to throw him into someone else's arms to keep him away from his Charles, but since he didn't know about his feelings, he didn't understand why he was so insistent. 
Lando sighed impatiently and shook his head looking away, returning his gaze to Oscar who was stiff, along with others giving him forced glances and fake smiles, all the opposite of what he always gave him. 
- Look, not all relationships start with love. Most of them start with sex and then become love. 
Lando sighed again and shook his head, shrugging. Maybe he was right, but he still felt like a worm because he would have done it anyway to get Charles out of his head, at least at first. Maybe he would have fallen in love with Oscar, who knew, but maybe it wouldn't have happened. And anyway, doing it for that reason, with someone who was clearly in love, was really awful. Even he, who didn't have much morals, realized that. 
- With Carlos it's different. We want the same thing, just sex. There are no feelings. 
- So why do you want someone else? - Max insisted, as the parade truck was now stopping, arriving at the end of its lap to greet the crowd. 
Lando, annoyed, turned to his friend. 
- And why do you insist so much on us two? - he asked, referring to him and Oscar. Max's lips curled down. 
- I’m trying to help you. You helped me with Charles. If you hadn't told me that time about your absurd theory about us, I never would have started looking at him that way. And even when you pushed Charles to tell me there was nothing between him and Carlos, it helped me because I was about to break up with him before we even started; I was jealous as hell. 
Lando knew it, he didn't know that Charles had also told him who the assist was from, but it didn't matter. 
He smiled as they headed down the truck together, toward the safety gate where his teammates were slowly descending. 
- I’m sure you'd make a great couple; you balance each other. You're very different. - Lando said nothing, and he continued. - He seems like a robot, and you're hyperactive. You're so perfect, I'm sure you'd be happy together. 
Max playing Cupid was strange, but not so strange in terms of their friendship, since he'd somehow done it between him and Charles, even though he hadn't meant to. 
"Well, I only stepped aside out of Max's friendship. If this isn't playing Cupid..." he corrected himself, rejoining the others to continue with the rest of the post-parade program. The two stopped talking about it, but Max's words stuck with him. 
He actually hoped he was right. Falling in love with someone else would finally be beautiful, but he was terrified of knowing what would happen instead if he gave in and started fucking Oscar. 
“I'd do it to forget Charles, not to be with him. I can't be that mean. I could with someone who feels nothing; with Carlos I did it without a second thought. But with Oscar... I know it would be different. I could hurt anyone, but not him. He's so sweet with me and me alone. He's brusque and harsh with everyone, frank, direct and rigid with such disconcerting candor. He's capable of saying the most horrible thing to someone without the slightest tact just because it's simply the truth, and the truth can't hurt if it's true. But instead, he comes to me and compliments me or says nice things with the same simplicity. When do you ever pay someone a compliment to their face? Children do it, but he's not; and yet... ”
Lando sighed, not by chance bumping into the very teammate he'd been thinking intensely about. He smiled at him and he smiled back spontaneously. It was a genuine smile, unlike the obligatory ones he gave everyone. 
“With me he's very sweet and relaxed. With me and me alone he really lets down his guard, which is usually high with everyone. How can I take advantage of this and make him suffer? But sooner or later, I'll get over this thing with Charles, won't I?”
But that sounded more like a prayer. 

NOTE: We'll stay with these two in the next chapter, where Lando's indecision is swept away by some events. Until next time, Akane.