Chapter Text
The cold air of Lando’s hotel room bites against his shoulder as he tugs the duvet up higher.
Today was a shit day for a number of reasons. He finished P4 and didn’t even podium, at Silverstone.
Life felt fucking awful in those hours afterwards, where the cameras lingered on him like he was saying some kind of final goodbye to the championship, where the eyes that caught his gaze were all sad, as if this was the end.
It wasn't the end. Lando’s in a fucking good spot for the championship, and he knows that. He tells himself that over and over again, especially tonight. He’s still in contest.
But that mantra—good spot, I’m in a good spot—doesn’t help the sick, staticky feeling of losing a podium.
So, naturally, he’s reading fan fiction in bed, the clock close to midnight.
He’s not really sure how this all started.
He remembers Fewtrell being the first to mention it, on a late night stream.
“You know people write about that shit, right?”
“What shit?”
“You and Oscar, mate. Like, together.”
Lando remembers it took him exactly three days before he caved, fresh off an Oscar Interaction that made him blush and wring his hands out by his sides like a teenager.
He hadn’t gone to Ao3 first, though the site quickly became his favourite. The first thing he did was open Twitter, switch to his burner account, and start searching Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri fan fiction.
Three things became clear pretty quickly.
The first was that people were surprisingly creative. There were stories about cat cafés in Lando's hometown, and fan fictions entirely dedicated to groupchat texts, and even ones where Lando was magic—usually a fairy.
Lando snorted as he browsed over that last genre, noting to himself that such writers were surprisingly on the money with pegging him as the latter term of all creatures (fairy).
The second thing Lando noticed was that people were, to his great surprise, fucking horny. Every kink Lando could imagine—and yes, he did search some of his favourites—immediately yielded at least fifty results. Twitter was stupidly abundant with recommendations of ‘fics’—as they called them—about everything.
The third thing that Lando realised, as he scrolled through link after link to something called Ao3, was that he might’ve just dug his own grave.
Because he’d been—and currently is—in love with Oscar Piastri since about six months after their first meeting.
Oscar doesn't know, of course. Lando had gotten pretty good at hiding his crush in the roughly three years he’d had it for the guy.
But reading fan fiction was probably the easiest way to make Lando stupidly, incredibly obvious about his crush. It’s one thing to imagine someone kissing or fucking you, and another to read 50,000 words detailing a love story between the pair of you in excruciating detail.
Lando clicked the link to Ao3 warily, aware he was digging his grave a little deeper with every step further, and was greeted by a page of text giving a warning about explicit content.
He tapped yes to the ToS agreement, and then briefly paused to remember that yes, he wasn’t in the United States, before clicking a jurisdiction agreement.
Lando’s eyes ran slowly over the text on-screen.
Praise Kink, Competence Kink, Voyeurism.
Lando blinked, baffled.
“Who’s got the praise kink?” he asked loudly, a little offended, and then slapped a hand over his mouth as he remembered Fewtrell was crashing on his couch.
Whatever, Lando thought. He sleeps like a log.
The next tag that came up was Exhibitionism.
Lando’s bottom lip jutted out a little, and he nodded.
“Not bad,” he said, quieter this time.
Sexting, Anal Sex, Frottage.
“Frottage?” Lando asked.
That day, he learnt the definition in more detail than he thought physically possible.
By week one, he was reading fanfic once or twice a week, usually after a rough time on track or the sim, or even after bumping into Oscar and feeling his brain flood with yearning hormones.
A month in, it became a routine; when he couldn’t sleep, when he couldn’t get Oscar’s eyes out of his head, or when the hum of the engine seemed to stick with him long after he’d gotten out of the car.
It was all just there, and there were nearly ten-thousand ‘works’—Lando picked the terminology up quick—about him and Oscar alone.
Of course, not every experience was fantastic. There were weird fics, ones that didn’t meet Lando’s taste—usually because they weren’t safe, sane, or consensual—and Lando often skipped past them.
Some experiences were fantastic.
And tonight, as Silverstone slips from the forefront of his mind, and the words Oscar spoke in the work take over instead, Lando decides to finally leave a comment.
He types his burner email into a guest commenter profile, and then lets his fingers hover over the keyboard.
He hasn’t really experimented with…
Well, to put it frankly, texting gay before.
He often acts fruitier around his best friend, Max Fewtrell, but that’s because Fewtrell already knows he’s gay.
For most intents and purposes, Lando finds his brain censoring himself whenever he has to text, like, the media team or whatever.
But Ao3 is my little gay oasis, Lando thinks fondly. It's there for him to (rather egotistically) read any of the over nine-thousand fanfics written about him and his crush, and act gay.
So, he starts typing, letting femininity seep into his words without worrying about a camera, or a quote reply, or a confused response, or a headline.
oscarluva814:
hiiiii
this is a little scary because ive never commented on a fic before
He pauses, suddenly feeling a little empty-headed.
His mind, in its emptiness, starts filling his memory with lines Oscar said that stuck out, and as a result, Lando finally remembers what he wanted to say.
i just wanted to say that i loved the way you wrote oscar. it feels really realistic, and the way they fell in love was so natural and adorable and im losing my mind over it.
Lando hums in thought, rolls over onto his other side, and adds,
i read in the A/Ns that you were working at uni. best of luck with finals!! youll do great.
xx
Lando reads the message over once, proud that he remembered the terminology for author’s notes, and hits send with his burner email linked.
He falls asleep with Oscar’s eyes, crinkled in laughter, in his mind, and dreams of a smaller hand in his own.
Lando checks his email the next morning, curious for a response, and hopeful for any kind of interaction that will, in some way he can’t quite understand, place him as part of this ecosystem despite never fully being part of it.
He perks up when he notices an email from ‘The Archive’, and clicks on the link without reading the comment, already pasted verbatim in the email itself.
lando2xwdc:
Hi Oscar-Luva,
The comment begins.
Lando raises an eyebrow, because that definitely isn’t the author’s username.
Just wanted to let you know that this fic totally isn’t realistic.
First, Oscar would never say half the things he says in this, because he’s not Prince Charming.
Second, the scene in Chapter 4 (“L’Amour de Ma Vie”) is incredibly unrealistic. How would Oscar notice Lando’s upset before anyone else? He’s not a mindreader.
Third, they do anal without any lube. That seems unrealistic too.
Lando snorts despite himself. Is this person really critiquing fanfic logic? Lando’s been around the block enough to know that most people writing don’t have regular gay sex, and so he reads everything with a compassionate grain of salt.
Unlike this person.
Fourth and finally, the author appears to think that Oscar enjoys discussing his feelings. There is very little evidence to support this claim.
Overall, though, I enjoyed the story. Author, thanks for writing it. Oscar-Luva, your comment is wrong—it’s not realistic.
(lando2xwdc, he/him)
Lando stares, dumbfounded, at his screen.
“Bitch!” he says out loud, to no one in particular. “Who the hell does this person…” he pauses, reading the pronouns left at the bottom, “think he is?”
Lando doesn’t question why the person signed off at the bottom of their comment. He assumes that must be a normal part of comment etiquette that he didn’t know about.
Lando immediately makes another account under the same burner and starts typing out a reply, thumbs flying across his keyboard in a way so precise that, despite his dyslexia, indicates just how irritated he is.
oscarluva814:
hello, dickhead
the point of ao3 stories isn’t to be realistic
there’s probably no chance in hell oscar would fall in love with lando, but that’s not the point
the point is that somewhere, in another universe that resembles this story, he did
and we can read it and fall in love too, just for a second
so, fuck you. i like unrealistic.
Lando stares at what he’s written, the words blurring together a little in the way they always do, and then hits send.
He’s at MTC when the reply comes through. Lando only notices the email buried amongst the million notifications on his phone because he’s looking for it.
Archive of Our Own
[AO3] Comment on Chapter 12 of End of August
Lando clicks the link, eyebrows already narrowing.
lando2xwdc:
Oscar would fall in love with Lando, but Lando wouldn’t fall in love with Oscar.
Lando scrolls down, looking for more.
That’s it.
Lando stares, stopped dead in his tracks in MTC.