idk if that's a thing, but it is now heh
Lando was asleep when he got the call.
He was out like a light, one had stuffed under his cheek like a pillow, the other thrown across the bed, a tiny line of drool dripping down his chin. The week had been exhausting, physical training and practicing on the sim until his head was fuzzy and his eyes were watering because he needed to win the title again this year. When he finally crashed at home, he’d been so tired that he collapsed into bed with his trainers still on. That was until he was abruptly awoken by the blaring of his ringtone.
Lando fumbled at the table beside his bed, slapping at the surface and trying to hit whatever was going off. After a few seconds of aimless slapping not really doing the trick, he rolled over to look at the table and saw it empty. He let out a groan, the ringing still going off and keeping him dreadfully awake. He rolled again, flopping onto his back.
There was a bulge in one of his pockets, a vibrating bulge. Lando reached for it, fumbling and shaky, realizing it was his phone. The caller ID read “Mark Webber" which was odd, because Mark was Oscar’s manager. He almost never spoke to Lando, because there was never a need to.
His movements sluggish and delayed from drowsiness, Lando swiped on the call, picking up and putting it on speaker so that he could lay back down.
“Norris? Lando? C’n you hear me?” Mark’s voice came through broken and filtered through static.
“What d’you want?” Lando mumbled with a groan. “‘S so early, mate, sun’s not even out-”
“Norris,” Mark cut him off, his tone growing more and more edged by the second. “The sun is out. Now, have you seen the headlines?”
Lando’s head poked up at that, peeking at his window, only to realize that the reason he wasn’t receiving light is because his curtains were closed. “Mate, I was sleeping! I haven’t seen an’thing but my own eyelids since yesterday.”
Mark let out a grunt and said in a short, clipped tone, “Just sent you a link. Read it. As a matter of , read all of them.” Then the call ended.
Lando groaned. Being given reading material was something he thought he was done with once he finished school. Apparently not. He pushed himself up to sitting and thumbed in the password, clicking the link Mark sent him, which was lit up in blue.
The headline read, in bold letters, “LILY ZNEIMER HAS LEFT OSCAR PIASTRI AFTER SIX YEARS TOGETHER?”
Lando stared at the screen for a second, dumbfounded and confused, before scrolling through the short article. The publishing date read sometime in the wee hours of the morning. The whole thing was only a few paragraphs long and quite cryptic. Apparently, around midnight, Lily had taken to Twitter and tagged Oscar in a short post saying something along the lines of “We had a good try, and I’m sorry.”
Lando couldn’t believe it. As much as it pained him to admit it, every time he saw Oscar and Lily together, they looked like they were made for each other. They fit together perfectly, looking as natural as the trees looked in the sky. The idea of Lily leaving Oscar made Lando sick to his stomach. Lando knew how much Oscar loved and relied on Lily. She was his joy, his humor, his stylist, his groomer, and everything in between. Lando has seen the way Oscar looked at her, like he was a drowning man and she was the last breath of oxygen he took before slipping under.
He swiped back to the messages with Mark, hitting the call button. This was much too serious to talk about over a text.
The call rang out, no response or indication of how Lando was meant to interpret the article. It could very well have just been some well-written clickbait, for all he knew.
The screen of his phone lit up again, Mark’s name flashing across the screen once more. Lando answered immediately, needing answers to his questions. They were multiplying by the minute.
“I take it you read the article?” Mark said, his voice low.
“Mate, what the fuck is going on?” The words fell from Lando’s lips sharper than he’d meant them to. Hopefully Mark understood the “heat of the moment” excuse that Lnado was planning to use later.
“From what Lily told Nicole—you’ve met Nicole, Oscar’s mother? Apparently, she ended her relationship with Oscar last night.”
“Fuck.” Lando thought. If the week had been hard for Lando, it had been even worse to Oscar. He put in longer hours on the sim, and spent much more time physical training than Lando did. By the time Lily would have tried to have that conversation with him, Oscar would have been dead tired and mentally drained. He’d still been on the sim when Lando had left for the day.
Lando knew the way this would affect Oscar, on and off track. What he didn’t know is why Mark called him of all people. There were probably much closer people to Oscar that should have known about this far before Lando did. When Lando asked, Mark said “That’s why I called. Nicole thought that with you two being teammates, you might have his location.”
Lando failed to understand why that mattered in the slightest.
“Because,” Mark continued slowly. “He’s turned it off, and he's not answering anyone’s calls.”
If there was any ounce of drowsiness left in Lando’s body, it evaporated when he heard that.
this one is more implied yearning. not really yaoi, and a bit one-sided. but i needed to get the breakup emotions out somehow.
