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If Oscar had to describe the race in one word, it would likely be the same word as literally everyone else.
Boring
Now, boredom wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. When he was in the front, fighting for wins, being bored was a god send. Not having to look over his shoulder as he coasted to victory was a seldom given luxury. But this race wasn’t that. It was just—nothing.
Maybe it was the build up of energy needing a release after the race, maybe it was just an excuse to blow off steam and enjoy Japan, but somehow, some way, Oscar finds himself in a club that evening.
Lando is beaming to his side, shirt slightly undone as they push their way through the crowd. Its his fault entirely that Oscar is even out in the first place. Lando had insisted that they were going to celebrate his birthday regardless of the race results, and after much pleading and a few threats, Oscar had agreed.
Oscar was well prepared to make him face the consequences of that by getting absolutely smashed. It was his birthday after all.
He knows Lando is talking to him as they push through the waves of bodies in this club, but Oscar isn’t listening, only partially tracking the gleam of his rings as his hands move and surveying the crowd.
He actually only has one thing on his mind.
“Are Max and Charles here?” He interrupts whatever Lando is saying and almost crashes into him as he suddenly stops to stare at him.
There is an odd look on his brow that Oscar is far too blasted to even attempt to decipher. Luckily, he doesn’t need to as in that exact moment he catches sight of Charles’s curls above the crowd sliding into a booth and he makes a break for it like a dog at the races.
Lando yelps as he gets dragged along, hand gripped around Oscar’s wrist as he glides through the crowd.
At some point at the edge of the crowd, Lando has the good sense to release him, watching as his teammate stumbles forward, momentum dragging his body forward to crash into Max who barley has time to look away from his conversation with Charles before he has an arm full of a very blushed, very obviously drunk Australian.
And look, Oscar isn’t light. He’s a race car driver built of lean muscle and weighed down by near total loss of control of his limbs. It is only years and years of reflex training and Max’s own sobriety at the moment that allows him to stay upright as Oscar leans into him, arms coming to drape around Max as the taller man adjusts to hold him up by looping his arms under his armpits.
Oscar giggles at the sensation, hair flopping into his face as Max holds him up like a cat caught doing something it isn’t supposed too.
Lando is about to apologize for his teammate’s behavior, eyes flashing over to Charles expecting to find some jealousy in his eyes, expecting to find some awkward fumbling from Max.
He doesn’t see that.
Charles is hiding a giggle behind his palm, eyes looking fond at the two men in front of him. Max doesn’t look uncomfortable in the slightest, rather a bit surprised and a similar lingering look of fondness. Strange.
“Oscar! How much have you had to drink?” Max exclaims, shuffling Oscar to hold some of his own weight but not releasing him completely. Oscar smiles, looking up for a second as he thinks before answering.
“Only four!” Max squints at him, Oscar only smiles back, hair falling further into his face.
“Three doubles and a single he means” Lando adds exasperated. Oscar turns and glares at him like Lando had just ratted them out to Zak and Andrea.
Lando rolls his eyes, settling into the booth. Max moves to follow him, but not before guiding Oscar to sit next to Charles. It’s a fraction of a moment, but Lando catches how Max reaches up to fix Oscar’s hair as he sits, a motion looking so natural Lando can hardly believe he saw it.
Something is going on here, and Lando isn’t sure if he likes it.
Its not a secret that Max and Charles were together. Lando remembers the pining between the two, remembers how happy Max was when they finally got together. They were a cute couple, Lando could admit to that.
Lando watches silently as Oscar leans heavily into Charles’s side. Charles smiles as Oscar does so, sharing a knowing look with Max.
Lando hasn’t known Oscar as long as he’s known the others, but he couldn’t help but admit that he has become very fond of the younger. He knew Oscar was an adult and could handle himself, but still, in the crucible of the midfield a brotherhood had been formed.
He would never admit to it, not in a thousand years, but he had become rather protective of the younger.
And watching the way Oscar looked at Max and Charles, looking at the way they were so soft to him… Lando knew what was happening here.
They were leading him on. They were going to break his heart.
The stress of the season was already taking a toll on Oscar, and lando would not let these two add any more pain to his life. He grips his drink hard as he stares into the wood of the table as the conversation rolls on, he has to talk to them about this. Talk with them without Oscar there.
“Landoooooo,” a hand waving in front of his face pulls him from his planning. Oscar is leaning across the table, smiling bright as he waves to get Lando’s attention. Its not hard, Lando smiles back.
“what’s up osc?”
“I’m going to get ‘nother drink.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea osc?” Oscar’s eyes narrow at him in defiance and Charles takes the opportunity to pull him back by the shoulder, letting it rest gently there.
“Cheri, what if I go with you? I could use a drink as well.” Charles says. Oscar smiles wide, sliding out of the booth and grabbing Charles to pull along with him. Charles rolls his eyes and turns back just enough to say “I’ll get him some water do not worry.”
Then he is getting pulled through the crowd, leaving Lando and Max behind.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Lando downs his drink and looks hard at Max. “what exactly are you and Charles playing at here?”
Max, who had been idly watching Charles and Oscar disappear into the crowd turns back, confusion on his brow.
“What do you mean?”
“don’t play dumb! You and Charles are leading him on!” Max opens his mouth to argue but Lando doesn’t let him.
“He is having such a rough season getting into his first title battle and I will not let you guys just string him along like this. Like, does he even know that you two are in a relationship already?”
“yes but-“ Lando sighs dramatically, interrupting whatever Max is about to say.
“Look man, I don’t care what you to do in your bedroom, so if you are only flirting with him to spice up your sex life, that’s really not on mate. Oscar clearly likes you, I won’t let you break his heart.”
Max just stares at Lando, confusion sparking briefly into anger before something else flashes across his face. Something like understanding.
“Lando.” Max starts, taking a deep breath before he looks around, almost as if he is about to spill a secret.
“The three of us have been in a relationship for almost four months at this point.”
The wind is taken out of Lando’s sails immediately at that, eyes blinking as he tries to digest the information. Oscar was dating the both of them? All three of them together? For almost four months?
“what?”
Max blushes suddenly looking uncharacteristically shy. “Yeah, I don’t know how it happened either but—” his eyes look out to the crowd, catching Charles and Oscar as they sway through the throngs of bodies. Oscar is doubled over in a laugh and Charles is smiling brightly.
“It just works. I’m lucky to have them.”
“Oh.”
And Lando can see it now. See how Oscar has opened up over the last few months. How he smiles more, how he looks at home when he’s hanging out with them, suddenly more confident. He can see it in how Max is relaxed, smiling, joking despite the issues in his team. he even notices it in Charles, how he doesn’t carry himself with the weight of his poor season, how he has seemed to cling to them as a lifeline. Max is right, it doesn’t make sense, but it works.
The two men in question stumbling back to the table cuts off their conversation. Oscar looking as if the drinks are hitting him heavier now.
“Hey osc? How you doing?” Lando asks, standing up to stand next to Oscar who immediately leans into his side. He gives a lazy thumbs up in response before speaking.
“I think, -m ready to go back to the ‘otel” Oscar mumbles. Eyes blinking lazily as the energy of the evening seems to drain from him. Lando wastes no time pulling his arm up to rest over his shoulders.
“Alright, we’ll head back.” He says before leaning back to the table, angling away from Oscar’s ear shot.
“Max I’m sorry for going crazy on you there.” Max waves it off, apology accepted as Lando continues. “Now know, that if either of you fuck this up I will shunt you so hard into the first corner you will regret ever existing.”
He then pivots, fully focused on the task of getting Oscar back to the McLaren hotel in one piece.
“What did you say to them?” Oscar asks as they make it out of the club.
“Oh nothing don’t worry about it.” Oscar hums in response going quiet as Lando starts walking them back to the hotel. Its only a couple of blocks away from the club they were at, but the trek is slow going as Oscar stumbles over his feet, bumping into Lando occasionally as they go.
“You know,” Oscar says suddenly, eyes to the sky as he walks, fond expression on his face. “Max and Charles and I—"
“I know.” Oscar turns to him, baffled, but then shrugs it off, continuing his walk forward. There is something odd resting on his face. Something unbelievably soft. Something so raw, unfiltered in a way Lando has seldom seen.
They walk father in silence, just letting the cool air cress their hot skin. Oscar sobering in it.
When Oscar speaks next, its so soft Lando barely catches it.
“I think I might love them.”
Lando smiles, pulling Oscar into a loose headlock and ruffling his hair like an older sibling would.
“I know.”
The sound of their giggling echoes down the streets, two twenty something boys stumbling home drunk and talking about relationships. A rare flash of normality in the whirlwind of their lives.
Lando pulls out his phone to take a picture of it, freezing the moment in time as they both grin into the shot. And later, when he is preparing for his Instagram photo dump, he finds the picture again, smiling at it.
He doesn’t post it. Some things are meant to just be his.