#arboreticsfic

When the Christmas Eve pictures roll into Oscar’s WhatsApp thread, it’s already Christmas morning in Australia, and Oscar was sat in the ugliest sweater his sisters had ever bestowed upon him, sweating. It was dead heat now in Melbourne, no white Christmas in sight, and a little bit of Oscar longed for London—he was out of sync with his own home now, maybe upsettingly, maybe just realistically.

His neck was itching. Staring into Carlos’s pixelated face, a little goofy in the angle, the wild spray of his hair, Oscar scratched at himself deftly. Distantly. There was noise in the kitchen, boisterous and happy, and Oscar found himself thousands of miles away, imagining himself in a suit, stumbling through feliz navidads. It was a silly fantasy, unwieldy, not very imaginative, and raw in Oscar’s mind. Too soon to be thinking of such alternatives, the relationship too undefined.

Oscar hearted the picture, sent a partial selfie of the sweater, the bottom of his chin, DACHSHUND THROUGH THE SNOW sprawled across his chest. Carlos would like that, would send laugh-crying emojis, a picture of one of the many dogs clattering around in the Sainz mansion. Oscar, if he tried, could hear their little claws skittering along the hard floors, disappearing across the thick rugs. He had only seen Carlos’s home in images, obviously, but. As with everything related to Carlos, Oscar had spent plenty of time imagining. That old undercurrent of spite thrived in those daydreams—cold feet, Pomeranians with no personality—until it spun to Carlos himself. His grey vest, suit jacket long shed. Piñon, tall and wiry, sitting patiently by his side, the two of them escaping for long walks across the countryside.

That was where Oscar liked to imagine himself, following Carlos down his familiar paths, frosted fields, too cold to sweat even when Carlos insisted on a jog. “Got to stay ready for the season,” he would say, wiggling his brows. Carlos could probably lay off training for the whole break and it wouldn’t make a difference in the Williams, Oscar figured, but still. There was pride in his strength, his grace, his blunt hands and big eyes. Carlos had won Oscar’s home race with a bandage around his stomach, just weeks out from surgery, after all—what a slap. That scar taunted Oscar sometimes, a white gash through Carlos’s impeccable tan. Remember what you’ve both lost?

Oscar tried to look out the window for a few minutes while Lando struggled with his jeans, jumping around on one foot. It had been an hour at least of sitting next to Lando down to his briefs, while Oscar and Sam were basically still fully clothed. Oscar had removed his shoes, his socks, the flannel he’d been wearing over his sweatshirt to block out that airplane chill. Lando, who ran chronically hot, had been wearing a t-shirt and shorts, had taken his sneakers off earlier so he could lounge across two seats. There hadn’t been much to lose.

But the vents had been blowing on them, making Lando goosebumped and perky, making Oscar’s spine ripple with something akin to nerves, set off by the soft but relentless artificial breeze, like fingers down the sensitive skin of his back. And Lando was there, slouched down and groaning about the game, his abs relaxed and his arms held out along the U of the chair. Like a prince, cocky even in his feigned shame and distress. “Oh my god, Sam,” he kept saying. “How are you so good?”

Oscar was probably blushing, which no one asked him about, but he thought constantly about how he would respond if they did. Worried I’m next, he’d say, calm, uncaring. Laughing at how dumb this is, he’d reinforce. He’d already said it was dumb. He’d already stopped trying to protest. Lando’s thigh was bouncing, nearly brushing his own, the muscles there pronounced along the line of his femur. Soft on the inside, though, Oscar noticed—almost against his will.

Now, alone, the two of them, Oscar rested his chin on his hand. Lando had slipped into his shirt, was standing barefoot on the rough carpet of this private jet he’d commissioned, had invited Oscar to via a WhatsApp voice note where he'd sounded distracted but intentional. Because Lando, for all his boyishness, his peevishness, his particularities, was confident. Older than Oscar. In control of himself, usually, even when it seemed like he wasn’t. Because he liked to be silly, liked how people thought of him like that—underestimating him, really. Maybe he’d even lost on purpose. Oscar remembered that Lando had gone with Martin to some casinos in Amsterdam, once, and again with some of his friends in Vegas this year. It wasn’t impossible that this was some elaborate attempt to destabilize Oscar, to put him on the wrong foot going into the break and subsequently the season. How was he supposed to race Lando, beat him, most importantly, when he was thinking about his lean back, his firm obliques, holding his chest high? His delicate calves and ankles bumping into Oscar under the table? The moles and freckles which went down his neck, his arms, into the waistband of his Calvin’s, everywhere? Years of dieting, exercising, sleeping on a schedule—he was hard, hardwired, highstrung and pent up under his papaya hoodies. Oscar wanted to touch him. Put his hand flat on his stomach and feel him breathe, open-mouthed, almost smiling, watching Oscar from beneath heavy lids.

“Osc,” Lando called, softly, sort of taunting, and kicked at him. Not quite making contact, but catching his attention. Oscar swiveled in the seat. Sam was taking a long time in the bathroom.

“Yeah.” Oscar didn’t have the energy to sound polite. It seemed Lando didn’t really have anything to say, just smiling at Oscar, sort of dopily. Oscar swallowed, figuring he should say something else, just to break the lingering uncertainty of the situation. Lando, in the piercing light of the winter sun, high above the clouds, looked soft and open. Oscar remembered the shape of his thigh muscles, just inches from him, now tucked away beneath his jeans. “You’re pretty terrible at this,” he managed eventually, gesturing vaguely towards the remains of the game on the table, chips strewn across it and Oscar’s socks balled up in the corner.

“I thought you’d be worse at it than me,” Lando teased. “I’ve practiced.”

“I just have a better poker face, I guess,” Oscar said, putting on a self-satisfied air. He leaned back in his seat, put his arms up behind his head. Lando stepped just closer to him, above him, backlit and washed out. Like an apparition, a figure in a dream.

“You do,” Lando admitted. “I never know what you’re really thinking.”

“Me neither,” Oscar joked, a bit awkward. Lando tipped his head, first one way and then the other. Stepped closer again.

“What are you thinking right now?”

Oscar’s mouth was dry and tacky. He cupped his elbows, still folded in a recline, felt the sweat beading there. “That I can’t wait to be back on the ground.”

“Are we so boring?”

Oscar shook his head.

“Liar,” Lando accused, teasing. “You hate us.”

“No,” Oscar protested. “I don’t hate you at all. You just won us the championship, mate.”

Lando scoffed. Kicked out again, caught Oscar’s left ankle, which dislodged his knee, his thigh, his everything. Lando was basically in between his legs now, looming, soft and terrifying, small and huge.

“I didn’t win it for us,” Lando chided. “We won it. And everything I won was for myself.”

“Right,” Oscar breathed. “You’re a one-track guy.”

“You are too.”

“Am I?”

Lando considered. “Maybe not. I think I’m derailing you. Right now.”

Something surged in him. Confidence. Arousal. Delusion. “Where am I going, then?” Oscar prodded.

“Hmm, I don’t know. Somewhere warm for the winter. Somewhere back on earth, probably.”

Oscar tongued at the back of his teeth, trying to figure out where to take this. Unthinking, he blurted: “Or we could stay here. Away from everything else.”

Lando’s eyes lit up, like he’d hit a jackpot, like someone had dropped a million bucks right into his lap. “Yeah? You want to stay up here with me, Osc? Maybe I’ll take my clothes off again; seemed like you liked it.”

Oscar flushed, the shame of having been caught out mingling with the undeniable energy pulsing through him. Lando was grinning, almost predatory, mostly satisfied. He was on a run, like Lando often was when he thought he’d caught someone’s string, found what made them tick, what made them unravel. He liked to set about that destruction, bugging and tugging, taking things too far. Like this, which was veering off of banter and into open flirtation. Something they’d done before, sure, but never when Lando’d just been mostly naked, in front of some other guy, their colleague, functionally. And Oscar was remembering Lando in a suit the night before, Lando the week before that, drenched in champagne, leaning into Oscar as they drank together, got passed around the garage by the mechanics together.

But it was break now, their world on pause. Sam was still in the bathroom for some reason. No one was there to see, to care. Oscar, ablaze with desire, bit his lip just slightly, looked Lando up and down. “You looked better like that,” he said at last. “I’d like to see it again.”

And Lando, smiling almost wildly now, nodded slowly. “Okay. Alright.”

eeeek thank you again, worldbuilding is one of the most stressful things for me bc continuity is as challenging as it is important. at the end of the day it's fic BUT i want everything to feel consistent.

definitely one of the struggles was deciding who to feature and who not to. funnily enough, i think there are some serious parallels between thg and f1, not in the political sense (considering these guys are all multimillionaires) but in the battle royale/spectated life/20 guys in a pen together sense. a lot of the f1 vets have a jaded energy that felt applicable when writing them as victors, and the younger drivers grapple with becoming public figures in a rapid and intense way, so they all also fit into that new victor/tribute category in the AU.

when it came to deciding who would be who/what, i think i was mostly interested in relationships. like, fernando and mark both being longterm mentors with a difficult relationship, sort of like IRL, and max going out in an early blaze of glory while carlos slogs on. lando and oscar are the core of the story, and they were definitely the most challenging to write, and the whole lando plotline felt janky to the end 😭😭 but i wanted to really mimic their teammate relationship there. lando is the leader and oscar is the follower in some capacities, but they ultimately orbit each other, and oscar pulls more strings than he probably realizes.