this one is different because it's us

It’s never a particularly graceful process, getting in and out of the car; not for Oscar, at least. He climbs out, feet settling on steady ground, bent over at the waist and hips back before he straightens up; stretching an arm over his head and catching Lando’s eye as he does.

Lando’s staring at him. It isn’t abnormal — or, well, it is pretty abnormal, but it’s not unusual. There’s something sharp and dark in his eyes that Oscar can’t decipher, and he quirks a brow.

“What are you looking at?”

It comes out far less accusatory than it perhaps should, the breath of a sigh around the edges that sounds resigned more than anything else.

He’s expecting the ‘nothing’ that Lando would typically toss him; maybe a half-hearted insult in an attempt at jest, something about Oscar’s ungainly descent from the cockpit that he won’t even be able to deny.

He’s not expecting Lando to open his mouth and say:

“Your arse.”

From where Oscar’s standing, it doesn’t look like Lando was expecting it either. His mouth drops open when the words leave him, the skin of his face immediately dropping two shades paler.

“Very funny,” Oscar manages shakily, feeling — irritated, he thinks. What’s Lando playing at? Is he trying to, like, get him off his game for the session or something? He’d thought they were behind that, honestly.

He notices the bemused expressions of a few engineers from both sides of the garage, catching eyes and shaking heads like they’re saying ‘these two, eh?’ and Oscar wants to interrupt them. Tell them it’s only Lando, it’s only ever Lando.

“I didn’t —,” Lando looks like he might be sick, throat constricting two, three times as he swallows in quick, consecutive motions. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

Oscar scoffs. “Sure, whatever.”

“No, Osc, I really didn’t mean to say that.”

Oscar looks at him, hard. And he can’t exactly tell himself that Lando’s having him on, not when he looks the way he does — Oscar hasn’t seen Lando looks so miserable since early last year, and that — well.

It’s best if he doesn’t dwell on that.

Despite his reservations, he finds himself stepping closer, close enough that he can get a hand under Lando’s elbow, brow furrowing as he tugs him into the background of the garage. Lando goes willingly, no fight to it.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t want to say that,” Lando hisses, frustration clear. “It just came out!”

“So, what?” Oscar’s frown deepens. “You didn’t mean it?”

“I meant it,” Lando says, and then immediately claps a hand over his mouth, eyes comically wide.

Oscar’s beginning to feel like something is very, very wrong.

“I don’t understand. Were you or were you not looking at my arse?”

There’s a curious expression on Lando’s face as he drops his hand from his mouth.

“I was,” he confesses. “I always am.”

“Um,” Oscar says intelligibly.

“Oh my god,” Lando wails. “I can’t stop.”

Whether that means he can’t stop looking at Oscar’s arse or telling him about it, Oscar doesn’t find out. Tom’s at his side suddenly, eyes flickering between the two of them briefly before he’s gesturing for Oscar to make his way back to the car and there’s Will, too, all but pulling Lando away from him and —