"it's All In Your Head" Correct! Unfortunately I Am Also In There

MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE TURNED FORMULA ONE 🙏🙏

A Christmas Prince (2017)- c.leclerc

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summary: When a young aspiring journalist is sent abroad to cover a a coronation, she hears rumours about the 'Prince of F1' and goes undercover to investigate them.

pairing: prince! charles leclerc x fem! reader

9.8k words

disclaimer: i do not own anything in these films, the only original character is the character y/n.

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You jumped up from your desk as soon as you saw him, and trailed him through the office. “Excuse me, sorry- Ron?!” 

He turned to you. “Not now.”

“This will just take a second, I just have some questions about your article? The fashion week piece that I’m editing?”

He groaned, clearly uninterested in giving you the time of day. “Go for it.”

Nevertheless, you continued on. How could someone who makes so many noticeable mistakes have a higher job than you? How could someone so self-centred and rude be in that position of power? “The main problem is that Max wanted 300 words, and you’ve written 600, and also the models and designers you quoted weren’t even at the event so…”

“Y/n,” he sighed, putting a hand on your shoulder. “I don’t have time for you right now, just go off and fix it? Yeah?” he smiled, that punchable, asshole smile, and walked off. You rolled your eyes. 

Working as a journalist bitch was not your plan when you moved to New York, but alas, your rent does not magically pay itself. Categorically, you enjoyed your job. Decent pay, good co-workers (minus asshole Ron), and it was pretty cool to be in one of the high-rise offices of New York, especially around Christmas. But… the whole getting to write articles part wasn’t something you got to do. You were an editor now, not a journalist. It was… slightly infuriating to know that someone less qualified got paid more money to write shit that you always ended up rewriting for him, but as we mentioned before, bills don’t pay themselves. 

“Let me guess, you’re going to completely rewrite the article and save his ass?” Damon, your best friend, asked. 

You faked a smile. “It’s almost like that’s my job!”

He rolled his eyes. “Tell him to shove it,” he scoffed. “Any of us could write that better- with our eyes closed!”

You groaned as you sat down.

“How the fuck are you ever going to be taken seriously as a real journalist if you are such a good editor?” he added. “He’ll never promote you if you’re always going to stay as his bitch.”

The ding of your laptop ended the conversation 

Max wants you in her office- NOW! 

“Oh fuck,” you said under your breath. 

“What?” Damon asked, looking over your shoulder. “Oh… good luck.”

You walked into her glass office, praying to something to make this as painless as possible. “If this is because of Ron’s article-”

“It’s not, sit down. I have something else for you,” she smiled. You followed her instructions and stared at her, unused to the kindness. “What do you know about the Royal Family of Monaco?”

“Monaco?” you wracked your brain. “The King died a few years ago, the new King just got married, and the other two are racecar drivers, right?”

“Exactly, anything about the second eldest Prince?” she mused. 

You grimaced. “He’s more loyal to Ferrari than his girlfriends and he’s a royal disgrace?”

She grinned. “Yes! Exactly that! Obviously, Charles moved off from the royal duties a long time ago, but Lorenzo has decided to abdicate since his fiance has fallen ill, in Monaco there’s a rule that the throne can be uncrowned for one year and it turns out Lorenzo abdicated in December last year.”

“So Charles has to take the throne?” you asked. “But he’s a driver there’s no way he’d… what happens then?”

She smirked. “That’s exactly what you’re going to find out! His Royal Highness is due back at the Castle this weekend, but in case he also abdicates, I need someone to write on it! There’s a press conference on the 18th, and I want your boots on the ground!”

“I don’t mean to sound rude, but why me?” you smiled, genuinely curious. 

“You’re intelligent, talented, hungry for a story- also none of my regular writers are willing to give up their Christmas,” she admitted. You nodded, knowing you were a last resort. 

“Thank you for this opportunity, I won’t let you down.” 

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“He’s gorgeous!” Damon fawned over the pictures of him. 

You shrugged. “He’s such a douche, I cannot believe people still find him attractive after all the stuff he’s done.”

“Who wouldn't forgive a face and body like that?” 

You looked at the photos. Yes, he was conventionally attractive, but his track record of scorned girlfriends, and the semi-awful fashion sense (who , over the age of 12, still wears tie dye jeans?) put you off. “He’s not my type.” 

He stared at you. “He’s everyone’s type. Everyone is a Ferrari fan, and everyone is a Charles LeClerc fan.”

“I still don’t see it,” you shrugged. 

“You should try to seduce him! Make him your husband and just excuse all the cheating so you can be royal and rich,” he suggested. 

“I do not want that,” you scoffed. “Plus, I’m not on the market right now.”  

He groaned. “You two broke up a whole year ago. Don’t let him yuck your yum 12 months on!”

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You walked into Rudy’s, your dad’s diner, you couldn’t but feel the weight of the conversation you were just about to have. You had spent Christmas as just the two of you every year since your mom had passed, you didn’t want to just leave him alone. The regulars raved about the pies as you stepped in from the cold, snowy air. 

“The usual?” your dad asked, you nodded and smiled, waving to some of the regulars you knew. “How are you doing sweetie?” 

“Good, great!” You smiled, plastering on your best ‘i’m fine!’ face. 

“What happened?” he asked, concerned. You deflated.

“I have good news and bad news,” you explained.

“Bad news first,” he decided. 

“I won’t be here on Christmas- but, It’s because I got my first story.”

He grinned, pulling you into a hug. “That’s amazing! Your first real story! This is your big break!”

“You don’t mind that I’ll miss Christmas?”

He shook his head. “This is your big break, take it. Don’t worry about me. You go over to wherever, and you make me proud.”

You smiled, pulling him into another hug, and thanked him. 

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The flight was long and uncomfortable, thus the joys of economy, and the dickhead that stole your cab wasn’t much nicer either. 

You and the rest of the press were all then bundled into cars and brought to the palace. 

“First time?” The reporter beside you questioned. You nodded your head, slightly embarrassed about the fact that they could tell, but he just chuckled. “Word to the wise, pick a new career.”

The rest of the car was an eruption of laughter, small agreements, or a scoff. You chuckled along, but you couldn’t help but feel small. You were the only woman in your car, the only new reporter, and-

Woah. Holy shit. 

The Monaco Palace. 

Any and all other thoughts were pushed to the back of your mind as you stared in awe at the beautiful structure. The wide windows and beautiful pillars, all decorated perfectly for Christmas. Though it wasn’t snowing (like back home), you did appreciate the gesture of making it feel like Christmas. You were enchanted by the palace, it stood tall on the edge of the bay, fitting in perfectly with the rest of the gorgeous scenery. 

You walked in behind the rest of the press, a nervous energy buzzing in the air. Prince Charles was an F1 favourite, a master of the sport, and now he had to give it all up for the crown. Everyone was more than excited to see if he’d actually show up, which seemed increasingly unlikely as the moments ticked away. He did every single piece of press Ferrari or the FIA asked him to do, and he seemed to enjoy the majority of them, but the second the palace asked him to do something, he was ‘too busy’. It left a bad taste in your mouth. You were exactly a patriot, but you thought that one should at least appreciate the fact that they were a part of their country, and the people deserved to hear from their Prince, not only through sports interviews. He’d been photoshopped into the palace's Christmas cards for the past 4 years, for god’s sake. 

You pushed your opinion of him to the side and turned your attention to the palace. The tall white walls and arched ceilings, the beautiful and historic artwork hanging off the walls, god, you’d give anything to be allowed free reign in here with your camera. Your attention was then grabbed by the PR liaison, Penelope, standing at the panel desk looking increasingly nervous.

After another 30 minutes of waiting, the repress started getting restless. Lorenzo was never late. Hervé had never been late. Pascale was never late. Arthur was never late. Charles was the outlier. He slept with too many women, drank too much, and ‘disgraced the crown’, according to the Monegasque reporters beside you. You didn’t care much for all of the gossip pages he frequented, and only watched F1 on the occasion that your father wanted to watch it. But, it was clear that he thought that following his dreams of being a racecar driver were more important than his duties, and while you understood the push and pull of having a dream, there were also expectations to meet, and he didn’t meet them. 

“We regret to inform you that this press conference has been cancelled-” 

She was cut off by about 200 reporters shouting and groaning. 

You politely raised your hand, and all eyes turned to you. “When can we expect the press conference to be rescheduled?” You asked and the room was alive again, this time, in agreement. 

“As of right now, we won’t be rescheduling,” she offered a polite smile as everyone collectively groaned again. 

“Well can we at least expect a date at which he’ll be crowned?”

“He will be crowned on Christmas Eve, at the annual Christmas Ball,” she smiled. 

“Which is a private event, so what are we to tell your people? They can’t see him getting crowned as their next king? No media are allowed in, no cameras, phones are barely allowed. What will your people think?” you questioned, your voice dripping with condescension. The rest of the reporters cheered you on, no one had stood up against his behaviour before. No one. 

She faltered, and then the room started being cleared by security, much to the chagrin of the rest of you. You were kicked out, a collection of grumbles and groans, knowing Christmas was ruined because of some stupid Prince and his childish antics. 

You couldn’t go home empty handed. You’d never get a chance like this again, so breaking and entering into the Monaco Palace wasn’t that bad of a crime, right? 

You came into a long hallway, the marble walls and floors taking your full attention, until you came across a picture. It was the royal family, a picture of the five of them, taken before Hervé passed. Charles was only 20, Arthur was only 16. Lorenzo was 29. And they lost their father. In the photo, they’re sitting at a dinner table, looking happy. It didn’t look posed, or professionally taken. It looked like it had been taken on an iphone. Charles was smiling bright, his arm around his little brother and his father. Lorenzo’s arm around Pascale as she held Arthur’s hand. Charles was truly the thing that dragged you in. His bright smile, eyes crinkled at the edges, laughing so hard he must’ve felt sick. The way everyone else’s eyes were on him. He was like a magnet. Not because of his good looks or lovably dorky personality, but because of something else. He was just… interesting. 

“Can I help you?” a security guard asked, his voice booming and strong. You jumped. 

“Gosh! Sorry, umm-yes-no-um-”

“American?” he asked, and you were sure you were busted. But then he smiled. “Follow me.”

You followed him through the halls until you were in front of a tall woman with brunette hair. You knew who she was, her name was Georgia, the palace coordinator. She was terrifying to stand in front of. You’d never felt so judged in your life. 

“You’re the new tutor?” she questioned. You just nodded. “I thought you couldn’t come until January?”

“My last job finished up early,” you lied. A sinking pit in your stomach started growing, but you just swallowed it. You’d deal with it later. 

“Oh,” she smiled. “Perfect, I’ll bring you to meet him,” she smiled. 

What were you getting yourself into?

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Turns out Arthur LeClerc needed a tutor to help with his engineering course. Thank god you’d dated that engineer who wanted to mansplain every single part of a car to you, and you could get by the maths with a calculator. Arthur wasn’t exactly a fan of having someone younger than him tutor him, he felt stupid, you could tell. You did everything you could to reassure him that it truly was alright to need help, and he was starting to come around, but every time you two really started talking, Charles would appear. And yes, Charles had been that asshole who’d taken your cab at the airport. Even more of a reason to hate him.

“Arthur!” Charles called up as you finished explaining a sum, which he was finally getting, but of course, Charles had to distract him. “Sim work?” he offered, popping his head in the door. You frowned. He was clean-shaven, unlike the small goatee and mustache he’d been sporting before. Objectively, he was attractive either way, but you personally preferred the facial hair. 

He frowned back at you. “What?”

Arthur attempted to get up to join his brother, but you held him down to his seat with a hand on his shoulder. He sighed. 

“What?” you repeated. “Arthur is busy with lessons, your Royal Highness, you can come back in 2 hours, when he’s finished,” you smile politely, though your tone was less than warm. 

“2 hours?” Arthur sighed, looking at you with pleading eyes. 

“I’m not the one who failed their midterm,” you said, matter-of-factly. He nodded, agreeing. 

“Why did you look at me like that?” Charles smirked, walking into the study. 

“Like what?” you asked, engrossed in the work, trying to decipher Arthur’s handwriting. 

“Like you didn’t like what you saw,” he mused. 

You scoffed. “I was just surprised by the baby face, that’s all.” 

He frowned, making Arthur laugh. “Baby face?”

“You look like a 12 year old boy without facial hair, it freaks me out,” you pointed out. 

Charles left the room with whatever dignity he still had intact, and you and Arthur rather enjoyed the teasing. 

“Will you be my guest tonight?” he turned to you, discarding his work. 

“What’s tonight?” you asked. 

“Some boring drinks and dinner thing with the whole of Charles’s team, and other nobility. It’s going to be such a chore to go without you, please come?” 

You smiled. “I’d be honoured.”

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You kind of hated the whole ‘double agent’ thing. You were getting on really well with Arthur, Charles was enough to stomach (in small intervals), and Lorenzo had been too busy to really meet. Georgia had been on you about different things, but you always had to remember that a) your name was in fact not Y/n, but Martha. And b) You still had to be a reporter. You still had to break into these people’s privacy, and make it a story. You were pretty sure what you were doing was illegal in America, so you were just hoping it wasn’t a crime here. As the night went on you snapped pictures of Pascale, Lorenzo, some of the other nobility and some of the important F1 drivers (a friend was doing an expose on one of them for cheating so… yeah). You didn’t catch a glimpse of his Royal (pain-in-the-ass) Highness all night, that was, until he made an(uncharacteristically (not)) late arrival. You also left Arthur to go hang out with his girlfriend, who had surprised him this weekend by arriving a whole week early. 

“How are you enjoying the party?” Arthur smiled, walking up behind you as you tried to take photos of the nobility as secretly as possible. You quickly hid your phone. 

“Very much so, thank you for inviting me,” you smiled. 

“Staring at Charles?” he questioned, noticing how you’d been following him around the room. 

“Trying to find something to eat,” you lied. Again, that pit in your stomach grew every single day that you were at the palace. “Not a fan of the meat-jelly.”

He grimaced. “Me neither, follow me.”

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Possibly the best gingerbread cookies entered your mouth soon after. “Wow,” you nodded, and he smiled back. You stared at him. “Where’s Jade?”

“She’s off with her friends,” he answered, but you knew it was a guess. 

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden? You hated me three days ago,” you chuckled. 

“You’re not like everyone here,” he shrugged. “You’re normal.”

You smiled. “I know I’m, normal, btu so are you-”

“A ‘normal’ 24 year old who has a palace and a crown, as well as an affinity for racing cars. I’m so normal.”

You laughed. “No one’s perfect.”

Then a tall man, who looked a little bit like Arthur, joined you. 

“Cousin Arthur,” he smiled. 

“Cousin Simon,” he sighed, less than impressed with having to see him. 

Simon looked at you, slightly confused. “Was your mother feeling charitable, inviting the chambermaids again?” he joked, but it wasn’t funny. Arthur didn't laugh, he groaned. 

“She’s my tutor, actually. And I invited her. Mrs. Martha Whelan, meet my cousin, Simon.” 

You stood up and held your hand out to be shook, but he shied away. “Nice to meet you Simon.” 

“You can address me as Lord Dukesburg,” he explained, taking great offence. Ah, this was Simon Dukesburg, the man who has been after the throne since Arhtur’s father died. He said some of the most out-of-touch shit about Lorenzo, saying he couldn’t be the King because he wasn’t Herve’s blood-related son. 

“I find that nobility who require someone to use their title might be compensating for something,” Charles interjected, making you stifle a laugh, whereas Arthur laughed out loud. 

“And what might I be compensating for?” he scoffed. 

“I wonder,” Charles smirked. Then someone else interjected the conversation and pulled the both of them away from you and Arthur. 

“Simon hates Charles,” Arthur explained. “He’s ahead of him in the succession, since it goes by age, not actual blood relation, he’s ahead of me.”

“So if Charles abdicates, Simon has the throne?” you questioned. 

Arthur nodded. You looked up at the two men again, and found Charles already looking back at you. You offered a small smile, which was returned, then you turned back to Arthur. 

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“I'm really not sure there’s any dirt here,” you sighed, explaining it for the millionth time to your boss. 

She wasn’t having it. You ended the call feeling even worse than before. Honestly, you were one day away from just leaving the palace all together and admitting your crimes. It was eating you up inside, you could barely sleep, barely eat. It was all a little bit too much for you. You understood that reporters had to be cut-throat, but god, it was hard work pretending to be someone you weren't, especially to people as kind as the LeClerc’s. As you walked through the halls of the palace, unable to sleep, you heard some piano music. You followed the sound and found Prince Charles at his piano, incredibly talented. Sadly, it ended the second he noticed you, about 30 seconds of you being there. 

“Sorry for interrupting, your Royal Highness,, I’ll head back-”

“Call me Charles,” he smiled. 

Slightly blind-sided, you weren’t sure what to say. “That was beautiful,” you smiled. 

“Thank you,” he smiled, getting up. “My father made me take lessons. It’s a great passion of mine.”

“I’ve heard your father was a great man,” you smiled. 

“He was,” Charles agreed.. 

“Won’t be easy to replace him,” you mused, hoping he would give you something, anything worth writing the story over. 

“I’m not trying to replace him,” he explained. “No one could.”

“Oh god! No, I didn’t mean it like that- just… there must be a lot of pressure on you, I didn’t mean it…” you trailed off and he smiled. 

“Well, you’re under more pressure than you bargained for, right?” he smirked. 

Shit. He knew. Somehow. He knew. You were bout to get arrested by the fucking Prince of Monaco. How embarrassing. 

“My brother can really be a handful,” he chuckled. 

You took a deep breath. He didn’t know. You were safe, for now at least. You chuckled. “He’s actually pretty great.”

“After our father died, he took it very hard,” he explained. 

“I lost my mom, same age and everything,” you explained, a flat smile on your face. 

He nodded. “So you know what it’s like then.”

You nodded. “Holidays are the worst.”

“I’m glad he has someone to talk to.”

“So, now that you’re back… is it for good? Arthur talks about you all the time. He misses you when you’re gone. Is all that talk about abdication just… rumors?” you questioned, feeling like the worst human being in the world for manipulating this family the way you were. They were good people. Maybe yes, they’re rich and commit tax fraud, but good people. 

He sighed. “It’s very hard to know what to do.”

FUCK! 

Great. So there is a story. Ideal. It’s not like if he’d just said, ‘yes, they’re all just rumors’, you could’ve gone home and never had to think about the awful things you’ve done here, but now you have to stay, to listen to him. Great.

“I heard you didn’t want to give your… lifestyle,” you asked. “Is that true?”

“What lifestyle is that?” he scoffed, slightly amused.

“I don’t know. The women, wine, and cars?” 

“Is that what you think I am?” he chuckled. 

“I don’t know who you are, Charles, but if your brother is any indication, I wouldn’t exactly believe everything I read. Good night.” 

And with that you left the room, feeling like a terrible person, and he was more than intrigued by you. 

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Christmas Eve rolled closer and closer, and every night seemed to be one of celebration. You decorated the tree with the family (aka you sat in the corner not eating or drinking because of the guilt, and watched over Arthur, making sure he was alright). 

“To family and friends,” Pascale smiled. 

“And new friends!” Arthur called, lifting your hand. You smiled at him, thankful that you had a friend there. 

“What are your traditions Martha?” Charles asked, turning attention to you. 

“Well, my father and I light a candle and we bake my mothers favourite cookies,” you explained, a smile on your face. “I know how it feels to… have someone missing during traditions,” you assured Arthur, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

Just then, Lady Sophia appeared in the doorway. Lady Sophia, Charles’s childhood best friend and the leading lady of the greatest will-they-won’t-they story of all time. She wore a beautiful long flowing gown with a present in hand for Pascale. She elegantly dodged cousin Simon’s advances (you applauded her for that), and went straight to Pascale and Charles. 

“Sophia, it’s lovely to see you,” she smiled, pulling her in for a hug. 

“It’s lovely to see you too,” she smiled, then moved on to Charles. “Charles, good to see you.”

Charles greeted her with his best flirty smirk, and Arthur turned to you, fake gagging, which made you both laugh. All eyes turned to the two of you for a moment, before you quickly shut up, and the greetings continued. Lady Sophia was staying for Christmas, how wonderful. Maybe you could get an early access to their engagement story- god you felt sick with yourself. 

You turned to Arthur engrossed in the small toy car he had in his hands, a gift from his father, he spoke about it as you listened, barely noticing Charles over both of your shoulders. 

“I remember when you first got that,” he chuckled, ruffling Arthur’s hair. “You were so happy with it, you wanted to be just like dad.”

“Now you are,” you smiled, squeezing Arthur;’s hand. He’d be moving up to F1 next year, in a Haas seat (Esetban Ocon shit the bed, oops), and Arthur was the next best Ferrari junior driver. Arthur beamed back at you, and Charles gave himself a moment to study you. 

You were so gentle, so smart, so kind, so… you. He was entranced by you. You were some sort of enigma. He didn’t want to sound full of himself, but women did throw themselves at him, it was a simple fact, and you didn’t. You weren’t interested in him at all, in fact. It was refreshing. 

“Charles!” Lady Sophie called. “Will you put my ornament on the tree?” 

He (begrudgingly) took his eyes off of you and joined her at the side of the tree. Funnily enough, her ornament was a heart. 

“Be gentle with it,” she told him, and he sighed, knowing it wasn’t just the ornament she was talking about.He placed it on the ree and when he looked back at you, you were already engrossed in conversation with Arthur about something else and he thought it best not to pry. You barely liked him as is, he shouldn’t push his luck. 

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The day you get bossed around by Arthur LeCerc may actually be the biggest joke of your life. He found out that you were a journalist, and he didn’t even care. He just… wanted a friend, and for you to write the truth about his brother. Which you were happy to oblige. 

So, instead of going over aerodynamics, you baked Christmas cookies. 

“What’s with Charles and Lady Sophia?” you questioned, shovelling some of the batter into your mouth. Arthur shrugged. 

“She’s had a crush on him for ages, but he’s never liked her back,” he shrugged, eating some of the icing. “She’s always trying to get with him though.” 

“Simon seems to like her,” you pointed out, shooing him away from the icing (he’d eaten half of it). 

Arthur groaned. “Simon has wanted everything Charles has had since they were 3. He even tried go-karting. He was shit though,” he chuckled. “But y’know, everyone wants what we have.”

You cracked a smile. “You are the royal family of one of the most beautiful countries in Europe.”

Arthur sighed. “It was different though, before my dad died, it was-” he cut himself off, trying to to cry. You pulled him into a hug. 

“He’s not gone Arthur, you’ll always remember him,” you smiled, he nodded against your neck. “Come on, we need to get these in the oven before I eat all of the batter.”

He laughed, joining you beside the oven. 

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The next morning was the children’s fundraiser, where everyone was expected to be a guest. You, again, were Arthur’s, Jade having left a few days earlier to spend time with her family. One of those asshole reporters came up to you, but he got them away, and you knew that by tomorrow, people would already assume you were his new girlfriend, or something along those lines, so you made sure to tell him to talk about Jade in interviews. After the wonderful carol service, Pascale came out to the stage and addressed the public, announcing Charles’s speech. 

When she called his name, he didn’t show. 

Arthur sighed, grabbing your hand and running you to the Orphanage. There he was, playing with the children. He looked so… happy. He was telling them about every corner in the Monaco Grand Prix, and telling them what it felt like to win it. They all sat around him, listening intently, desperate to hear from him. You took out your phone and took a photo, seeing a tiny glimpse of that same 20 year old boy from the picture.  

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“Charles, help me understand why you were unable to carry out your duty today?” Pascale asked, exasperated with her son. 

“I thought my duty was to those children,” his words bit through the tension in the air. 

“There is much more to being kind than simply compassion,” she sighed. “You need to be strong, a leader. You need to be someone that those people can look up to and say, ‘that’s my king, and he can make the hard decisions’. Not someone who tiptoes around his duties like a schoolboy. Arthur had to give your speech instead. Now every outlet thinks your abdicating and giving the throne to him right when he’s on the cusp of his dreams-”

“I have dreams!” he shouted. “I have a life, I have a dream-”

“And we gave you 8 years to make it happen. You have to grow up now Charles,” she commanded. 

“Mother I-”

“Do you seriously think you’re the only one who wants to run away?” she questioned. “The only one who has dreams, and feelings, and a weariness about everything?”

“I’m-”

“This has been the hardest year of my life,” she choked up. “Lorenzo abdicating, you off in god-knows-where racing a car that can’t win, and Arthur trying his damndest to make his dreams come true, while I deal with it all. While I ‘hold down the fort’. You have a duty to your country, but you also have a duty to your family, Charles. I have complete faith in you, and then some. You will be a brave, and compassionate King. But you need to realise that sacrifice is a part of life. One we may have shielded you from, and I am sorry for that. But you need to make a sacrifice here. Royal life isn’t the prison you make it out to be. You can be happy, and you will be. But you need to learn to be happy with what you’ve got, because you have so much Charles. You have your family, you’ll meet someone nice and then you’ll have your own. You don’t need to race cars to feel strong. You need to be yourself. The people of Monaco are looking for someone they know after a year of confusion and shock. You need to be the comforting voice. I know you can be.” 

“I’m trying,” he whispered. 

“I have faith in you. You need to have faith in yourself. Don’t try to be your father, be Charles. He’s just as wonderful.”

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

Arthur wasn’t going to focus, it was 3 days till Christmas, and he was kind of like an over-excited child. You suggested an adventure, and that is how you ended up racing speed boats with Arthur and a few of his friends. You two won, of course, and he may or may not have accidentally shoved you overboard and made you hit your head. But you were probably fine. Probably. You two relaxed on the water for a while, enjoying the Monaco sun asn the sun began to set and all of his friends went home. 

Then you felt something hit into the edge of your boat. Another speedboat. Driven by none other than Prince Charles. 

“Race you?” he smirked at his brother, his eyes then landing on you. He stopped, almost doing a double take when he saw you in your swimsuit, his mouth opening slightly. You didn’t seem to notice. Arthur did and he rolled his eyes, hoping against hope that Charles and his master-manipulating ways would pass you by and go onto the next person.

“You’re on!” Arthur shouted back, reeving up the engine, and thus the great race of speedboats began. Sadly, once again, Arthur LeClerc is very much not coordinated, so he shoved you off the boat, again. Charles immediately slowed down, turning back to grab you, but he found you laughing. He reached a hand in, and pulled you up onto his boat, grabbing your waist when you almost slipped and fell. You were close, much too close. You could feel his breath on your face, his eyes staring into yours, the look of shock, but neither one of you was asking to stop. It was different, a good difference. He was right there, right in front of you, and you didn’t look at him with annoyance, or anger, or distance. One of those fleeting moments of the both of you truly just being yourselves. Well, you were Marha and he was the Prince of Monaco, soon to be King. He saw every freckle on your face, every small wrinkle line, every flutter of your eyelashes. He loved it. He loved being this close to you. He loved the way you were smiling at him, and once he’d started looking at your lips, he couldn’t stop. 

Arthur threw a snorkel at the two of you, making you jump apart, you almost falling off the boat again (actually your fault that time), but you just fell into Arthur’s boat. “No fraternising with the enemy!”

And the race was back on.

Unbeknownst to you, Lady Sophia and Duke Arsehole (aka Cousin Simoin), were riding by on a perfectly sublime boat ride, and saw the three of you enjoying yourselves. You had joined Charles' side, winning against Arthur every time, and then you’d be swapped back, or Arthur would swap. 

Lady Sophia didn’t like it one bit. 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

When you got back to the palace, Lorenzo was standing at the top step of the stairs, his mother beside him. 

“Where have you three been?” he demanded. 

“Lorenzo, we were-” Charles began.

“Speedboat racing in the bay?” he finished.  

The three of you stood there, silent and still, unsure of what to do next. 

“I suggest next time that you ask permission, Ms. Whelan,” he addressed you, and you nodded quickly offering multiple apologies. “And next time, maybe include the other members of the family. It’s not like we've never raced in our lives,” he smiled, before walking off. You had a feeling they hadn’t seen Arthur this happy in a long time. You couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in you, that you had been the one to help him get himself back. 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

Arthur was busy with his duties, so you were given the day off, the day before Christmas Eve. You needed to get to know Charles better, so you could right all the wrongs online about him. He was going for a bike ride, so you followed suit, clearly forgetting about the fact that you knew nothing about Monaco, and the limited cell-service was really helpful. Oh, and when you fell off your bike and cut the shit out of your knee, you really wondered whether it was you or Arthur who was clumsy. 

“Are you alright?”a voice called out, a voice you couldn't quite place, until Charles was in front of you and taking a look at your knee. “This looks bad, come with me.”

He helped you up, and while Mont Agel was beautiful, you were in the middle of fucking nowhere, what was he going to do? 

Bring you to his secret cabin, of course. 

Literally, was this dude James Bond? 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

You sat outside on his patio as the sun set. He handed you a glass of water. You thanked him. 

“So, now that you’re alright,” he smiled (he’d bandaged up your leg despite the thousands of times you assured him you were fine). “Why were you following me?”

You sighed. “I was curious about Monaco, and I didn’t want to bother you,” lie after lie after lie. You were continuously sick. Maybe that other reporter was right, maybe you did need a new career. 

“You couldn’t bother me,” he assured you, an easy smile on his lips. 

“So what is… this?” you asked, gesturing to the house. “James Bond hideout or?

He laughed. “No, nothing interesting like that. This is just my house,” he smiled. 

“So you’ve lived in Monaco the entire time?” you asked. 

“The Palace is a bit too much for me at times,” he explained. “So I come here.”

“That’s nice,” you smiled. “Why do you find the Palace too much?”

He sighed. “Everyone is always looking at me.”

“Everyone is away looking at you in F1 too, you have like, millions of fan-girls,” you giggled. 

“That’s different,” he argued. “I’m a driver there, that’s talent and hard work, I was just… handed the throne.”

“You were born into it,” you corrected him. “And just because you came across something easily doesn’t mean you haven’t struggled. I mean yes, it’s a lot of responsibility, but why wouldn’t you want to be King of Monaco?” 

“Do we have to talk about this?” he sighed, getting up and pacing the patio. 

“It might be good for you to talk it through,” you told him. 

“I can’t even go for dinner with my friends without it being an international scandal!” he groaned. 

“Like, when you went out with Sophia?” you mused. 

“That was different, she sold a story to a tabloid, and the media had a field day,” he sighed, slumping back into his chair. 

“The media is what’s holding you back?” you questioned, feeling your stomach twist. 

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Explain it then,” you smiled gently. 

He looked at you for a moment, and for a fraction of a second, you could see that boy from the picture again. The magnetic, messy, smiley boy his parents had adored. The boy who worked so hard to prove himself. Then those walls went right back up and what replaced him was the man; older, wiser, and hurt. “Why bother? You probably think I’m just a spoiled rich kid anyway.”

You scoffed. “I never said that!” you argued, getting up and turning to him. “You know what you need to do, stop worrying so much about what everyone thinks of you, or how they’re going to perceive you. You’re a good person, with good instincts, and despite being actual nobility, you have morals, good ones, the kind that makes you miss a speech because you’re helping children. The kind that makes you worry about your little brother so much that you come home when he asks you to. The kind that makes you kind. Stop trying to be your father Charles, just be, Charles.” 

He sighed, standing beside you. “You make that sound so simple,” he scoffed. 

“Why isn't it? You’re a smart, talented, caring person-”

“Except when I steal your taxi,” he smirked, making you roll your eyes. He paused for a moment, his eyes shining in the low light of the sun. “I want to show you something.”

You stared at him, grimacing slightly. “What is it?”

“Follow me,” he said, taking your hand. He led you through his house, up to a room filled with books. 

“You read?”

“After my father died,” he explained. “We kept some of the overflow of his habit here. He also kept his journals here. I found a poem, it was dated just before he died, I think he was going to give it to my mother.”

Frost a sparkle in the fields, 

Twixt the frozen minarets, 

Winter’s harvest, wager yields, 

Heavy burden’s, the years debts, 

P[out from a seed, an acorn’s gift, 

Henceforth the truth will flood, 

Darkness such a secret bears, 

A love far greater than blood.

“It’s beautiful,” you smiled, reading the poem. Charles’s eyes were on you. You were so close, just like on the bat, just like he wished for every single day since you’d come into his life. He leaned in and you didn’t back away. You didn’t run, or lean in either, you were still, your eyes trained on his lips.

Then your phone rang, and off you went to find it. Part of him wanted to grab you back and kiss you, but even he, in his delirious love-filled haze, knew the moment had passed, and he would just have to wait until the next one. 

As you two were getting ready to go back to the palace, he left to go grab something from his room. His father’s desk took your attention, and you obliged yourself. Hidden in plain sight was a secret drawer with a stack of documents in it. As much as you hated yourself for it, you took the documents back to the palace with you. 

Within those documents you found out a truth, a truth so great, you had no idea what to say. Charles and Arthur were adopted as children. 

What the fuck were you going to do now?

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

As you were walking through the halls with Arthur the next day, you saw Lady Sophia and Charles… kissing. Great, barf. Anyways. You had to finish your story, get something on the page, make this torment of a trip worth something. If you broke the story today, you could be out of there before Christmas, and their lives would be a lot easier. You thought about coming clean, but the thought of it actually made you vomit in your mouth. You were lost. You had no idea what to do. 

So, you called your dad. What else were you supposed to do?

“Y/n!” he smiled, it was only a phone call but you could tell. “How are you?”

“Hey dad, remember how you said I have to take chances to win?” you asked.

“They are my words to live by,” he chuckled, understanding that something was going on. “Is everything alright?”

“What if that chance is going to really hurt people who don’t deserve it?” you questioned.

“I’m going to need more than that sweetheart,” he sighed. 

“My story, if I release it, it might hurt someone who’s already been through a lot. I’m just…” you trailed off

“Sweetheart, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know anything about the world of publishing and reporting, but I do know that you have to trust your gut.”

You smiled. “Thanks dad.”

“I’m better than a fortune cookie, right?” he joked and you both chuckled. “I’ll see you soon sweetheart.”

“Bye dad-” as you hung up the phone, there was a knock on your door. You tentatively got up and opened the door, only to find Charles on the other side, dressed in a Ferrari branded suit, a small smile on his face. 

“Hi, is there something I can do for you?” you asked, slightly awkward and unsure. You didn’t really want him to look in your room too much, considering the documents of his adoption were literally on your desk, but alas, what would be, would be. 

“I thought we could go for a walk?” he offered. “I can actually show you around Monaco, now that I know you want a tour guide.”

Your smile faltered. “I don’t know,” you sighed. The media had been stirring everything up ever since the boat, you were the ‘mystery girl’ being passed around by the LeClerc’s, and it didn’t feel great. 

He looked at you with pleading eyes. “Please, just give me a few minutes of your time. I would like some company.”

“Sure, let me grab my coat,” you smiled, but it didn’t reach your eyes.

As you two walked through the streets of Monaco, he spoke freely about the beautiful buildings and people he knew so well, while you listened. You liked it, but it broke your heart slightly, to know that you had lied to the entire family for weeks now. But another part of you was grateful that you got to meet them, because you knew you had been changed for the better. It was also nice to see Charles be less… upset than when you first came. He smiled more, laughed more, and spent more time with Arthur, it was lovely to see. 

He stared at you for a moment, his eyes darting around your face as you looked at the pavement. “Are you alright?”

“Do you often take the help for a walk?” you questioned, your tone soft but the words bit at him anyway. 

“What?” he questioned.

“Nothing, it’s stupid. Go back to your story Charles,” you sighed, walking on. 

He grabbed your hand, turning you back to him. “Please talk to me. I feel like you know everything about me, and I know nothing about you.”

“What would Lady Sophia say if she saw us walking together?” you scoffed. 

“Why would that matter?” 

“I saw you two,” you said.

“Whatever you saw, trust me, there is nothing there,” he pleaded. 

“It didn’t look like that to me,” you scoffed. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“She was just… taking her chance again, even after I explicitly told her not to.”

“Sure,” you nodded. “It doesn’t matter anyways. Charles.”

You were both silent for a moment. He took the opportunity to study your face. The way your eyebrows creased, the tightness of your lips, the determined stare forward. He smiled. You were so smart, and headstrong, and right all the time (which kind of drove him crazy), but he loved it all. He loved you. 

“I hope you’ll come tomorrow night,” he admitted. You looked at him confused. “The Ball. My coronation.” 

You couldn’t do it anymore. You had to tell him. He couldn’t keep living this lie, and neither could you. “Charles, I need to tell you something-”

But he kissed you. Of course, he fucking kissed you, because he’d been wanting to do it since the day you arrived at the palace. He was in love with you, if he hadn't made that obvious enough, and yes, he kissed you, because the fact that he hadn’t yet was driving him mad. He didn’t want Sophia, he didn’t want anyone else, he wanted you. 

And it was everything he could’ve dreamed of. His arms circled your waist, pulling you close to him, while his lips explored your soft ones, the taste of cherry on them. You must use some sort of cherry lip balm, and it quickly became one of his favourite tastes. Your arms slowly crept up to wrap around his neck, and when he pulled back you just pulled him back in. 

This was the real Charles. The one who loved people unabashedly and didn’t care what people thought. This was that 20 year old boy in the photo. This was the boy you had slowly fallen in love with, without even realising it. 

And it was wonderful. 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

Much to your chagrin, while you were off tonguing the next King of Monaco, Lady Sophia and Cousin Arsehole were busy looking through your things. Unluckily for you, they found something.

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

Charles sat in the driver’s seat of his Ferrari, half willing himself to man-up, and the other half begging himself to turn around. He couldn't though, not when he was this close to finally visiting his father’s resting place for the first time in months. 

He got up and out of the car, your voice in his head telling him to get over himself, with that soft, perfect, smile on your lips. 

He walked up to the grave, determined to speak to his father once again. 

“I’ll take the crown,” he whispered, his eyes flooding with tears. “I’ll never measure up to you, but I will take it. For you and for mom.”

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

You stood in your room, wondering what the fuck one wears to a coronation. 

Arthur stood in the doorway, smiling brightly. He frowned when he saw your dress. 

“It’s this or pyjamas,” you dead-panned. He walked in, taking the dress out of your hands and sitting on your bed. 

“How’s the story coming along?” he asked. “Nearly done?”

“Almost,” you huffed, laying beside him. 

He sighed. “I’ll miss you when you go,” he admitted, more vulnerable than you’d ever seen him. You almost forgot how much he’d been through, his sunny demeanour always seemed to make you forget his troubles.  “It was nice to have a friend.”

You turned to him. “I’ll always be your friend,” you smiled. “And I’ll be cheering you on in Haas, and in everything else you do. I think you’re brilliant Arthur, seriously.”

He chuckled. “Thank you. I hope everything goes well for you back in New York.”

 “I hope so too,” you teased, wiping a tear off his cheek. 

“I got you something,” he smiled cheekily, handing over a small box. 

“Arthur!” you scolded. “We said no gifts!”

“There was no way I was following that,” he chuckled. “Open it!”

You slowly opened the box, inside there was a beautiful necklace with a beautiful blue topaz on the end. “Oh my god Arthur, this is beautiful,” you whispered. 

“To remind you of the boat day” he grinned. “So you will never forget me.”

You smiled, your eyes cloudy with unshed tears. “I could never forget you, Arthur.” 

Then in walked Jade, his girlfriend, with an array of gowns on a rack. 

“Oh no,” you whispered. 

“Oh yes!” Arthur cheered. 

It was going to be a long afternoon. 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

You stood at the top of the steps, terrified of what anyone would say. Arthur had styled you (aka, Jade let him pick the dress) and while you thought you looked beautiful, you were slightly worried about what the nobility in the room would think. It had been fun though, an afternoon of being pampered and becoming friends with Jade was a lot more enjoyable than it was nerve-wracking. You slowly descended the steps, looking for Arthur, when Charles caught your eye. He looked beautiful, his hair perfectly styled, his suit perfect, his face perfect. He smiled up at you, excusing himself from his mother and brother to take your hand as you left the bottom step. 

“You look beautiful,” he smiled, taking in your dress. IN all honesty, there wasn’t a word for how he thought you looked. Regularly, a look from you made his heart stop. This? A different level. He was enamoured. He couldn’t take his eyes off you, even if he wanted to. 

You felt your cheeks heat. “Thank you,” you smiled. “You look pretty handsome yourself.” 

He pressed a soft kiss to your cheek. “I will see you in there, alright? I have to-”

“Do what you need to Charles,” you chuckled. “I’m not running away at midnight.”

He smiled. “I’m glad.”

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

Despite the fact that it was a royal ball, it was quite entertaining. Different Duke’s and Duchess’s were dancing, letting loose, and getting pretty drunk, but you just sat with Arthur and Jade and laughed at them. The ballroom was magnificent, the tall ceilings and Christmas lights all around, and in the centre of the hall there was a 36 foot (yes, about the height of a telephone pole) Christmas tree, decorated perfectly. Even though you were miles and miles away from home, it was still nice to be celebrating with people you love. 

As you were speaking to Jade, someone started speaking. 

“Might I have the first dance, mon amour?” Charles asked, barely above a whisper as he wrapped an arm around your waist. 

You turned to him, your face dropping. “Seriously?”

“Well, as long as you promise not to tread on my feet, we should be alright,” he chuckled, leading you to the dance floor. You joined on, doing a simple waltz (you thanked your father mentally for making you take ballroom classes as a child), and it was very sweet. It was nice to be so open about being close to each other, no longer shying away from each other's affections. You liked having Charles so close. He liked having you in his arms. 

Win-win. 

“I wanted to thank you,” he said as you waltzed around the hall. “I wouldn’t be accepting the crown if it wasn’t for you, so thank you for telling me to grow up.”

You chuckled. “I think you’re giving me too much credit there.”

He shrugged. “I do not think so,” he smiled. “You make me feel comfortable, you’re the most genuine person I have met since… well probably since birth.”

Again, that nauseating feeling in your stomach urged you to run away and hide from him, even though your heart (as mad as it sounds) longed to never let him go. “I have to tell you something.”

He nodded. “You can talk to me about anything.”

As he spoke, the music stopped, and it was time. He would be crowned King. 

“Tell me after,” he whispered, as all eyes went to him. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need luck.”

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

“I dispute this claim!” Lady Sophia’s voice shocked the room and you. Charles was so close, so close to taking his rightful seat as the King, and of course, someone had to make it difficult. 

“On what grounds?” the Archbishop asked.

“The grounds that he is in fact, not the rightful heir,” she smirked, smug as ever. “Prince Charles, and his brother Arthur, were in fact adopted by the late King Hervé and our Queen Pascale, therefore are not of the blood of the Royal family, as per this document.”

The certificate was taken from her, and shown to the Archbishop. “Where did you obtain this document?”

“I obtained it by uncovering a scheme by an American journalist, Ms. Martha Whelan, or should we call you Y/n Y/l/n?” 

All eyes went to you as the room was full of gasps. 

You knew you should've turned tail and ran, you knew you shouldn’t have stayed on when Arthur found out, and you knew you shouldn’t have fallen in love with the Prince of fucking Monaco. You were the dumbest person you’d ever met. 

You didn’t dare look at Charles, knowing what his expression would be. You just looked down. 

“Is that true, you are a journalist?” the Archbishop questioned. 

You spoke confidently, though the regret was evident in your voice. “I am.”

The room was in upheaval. Everyone was angry, everyone was confused, and everyone needed an answer. 

“And your Majesty, this certificate?”

The room went silent as Pascale began to speak. “It is legitimate.” 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

You were running out as quickly as humanly possible, trailing just after Charles. 

“Charles, please, just let me explain-!”

“Explain what?” he spat, turning to you. 

“I’m sorry. I never meant for anything like this to happen, and I understand that you never want to see me again. I just had to tell you I’m sorry, and the only reason I kept it up was for you and Arthur.”

“And you couldn’t have told me?!”

“Arthur made me promise I wouldn’t tell you,” you sniffled. 

His face dropped. “He knew?”

You nodded, wiping away your tears. This wasn’t for you to be upset about. This was your mistake, and you couldn't fix it. 

“Why wouldn’t he let you tell me? Did he know he was adopted?”

You shook your head. “He doesn’t know. And I don’t know why he wouldn’t let me tell you. I just… he asked me not to.”

He stared at you for a moment, and it wasn’t those same, shining eyes that made your heart leap. It was the cold, dead, reserved eyes that made you want to run away and never come back, that stared back at you. “I’m glad you have your story. I suggest you stay out of our lives from now on.” 

And with that he walked on.

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

New York was colder than you remembered. You had decided to just go straight to your apartment, turn off your phone, and binge watch shitty reality tv shows until you could show your face in public again without wanting to sob every time you saw something that remotely reminded you of Charles and Monaco. 

But something nagged at you. The acorn, the poem, ‘a love far greater than blood’. You didn’t understand it. So you spent about 12 hours working on deconstructing it, and you thought of something. Maybe it was your delusions after not sleeping for a day (or two), but maybe the acorn ornament could prove something, so you sent your findings over to Arthur, hoping they would make sense, and turned your phone back off, blocking all of their numbers and falling into a very needed sleep. 

౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊౨ৎ˚₊

The next few weeks were full of clearing out your office (you quit), looking for a new job, and starting off as an actual journalist, not just cleaning up some sleaze work. It was nice, peaceful. Writing articles about things that mattered to you, things that would help people, things that weren’t a certain King of Monaco.

Life was good. Getting over your heartbreak was hard, but you were starting to believe that you might actually be alright. 

You sat in your dad’s diner, ready to ring in the New Year, when there was a snowball thrown on the glass, and when you looked outside, there he was.  

Quickly, you ran outside. “What are you doing here?” you questioned. 

He shrugged, “I never got to say goodbye, or thank you.”

“Please don’t thank me, I honestly should be apologising again and again for what I did, I am so sor-”

“You opened a door that should’ve been opened years ago. Arthur showed me what you’d done. Half because I couldn’t believe he could do it on his own, and half because… I thought it was going to be a message from you. You blocked me…”

“I didn’t want to risk bothering you anymore,” you sighed. 

“You’d never bother me,” he smiled, pausing for a moment. “Arthur misses you. So do I.”

“I miss you both too,” you smiled. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Y’know, a palace is a lonely place for a king, when he has no queen,” he admitted. 

“It’s a good thing you’re an eligible bachelor then,” you chuckled. “Good night Charles, thank you for coming to see me-”

“I love you,” he confessed. “You made me a better man- you make me a better man. I don’t even want to spend time without you, do you understand that?” he asked, getting down on one knee and revealing an engagement ring. 

You frowned, your eyes tearing up. “Charles, I am not nobility-”

“I don’t care,” he smiled.

“My entire life is in New York-”

“We can come back as much as you want.”

“What will the people think?” you sniffled, and he stood up, wrapping his arms around you. 

“They’ll think you're a kind, caring, beautiful woman with a very intelligent mind, and brilliant ideas, who is loved very much by their King,” he whispered, then pressed a soft kiss to your cheek. 

“We barely know each other Charles-”

“And yet I’ve never been more certain in my life. And I’m known to be indecisive-” 

He stopped talking because you’d started kissing him. 

Jesus Christ, you were going to be the Queen of Monaco, what a story that was.

‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡

a very f1 christmas! masterlist (2024)

navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

i’m crying it’s so good

WHITE XMAS | mattheo riddle

summary; mattheo comes to spend christmas with you and your family.

word count; 15,245

notes; I have never played chess in my life, chess girlies don’t come for me. pic was made by @finalgirllx!

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TRUE LOVE OF MINE

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ᝰ PAIRING: lando norris x reader | ᝰ WC: 5.5K ᝰ GENRE: best friends to lovers (we cheered!), reader = ex karting driver + med student, you have loved lando since the day you met etc etc etc ᝰ INCOMING RADIO: fun fact - the colors used in the title/headings on this post are actually the colors of lando's eyes from this post // this was a behemoth of a fic to write and i'm still nto entirely pleased, but the people yearn for lando norris ꨄ requested by anon!

send me an ask for my line by line event.ᐟ

The first time you see Lando Norris, he’s face-down in the mud, crying because someone called him a posh baby in the paddock, and you think he’s the most beautiful boy you’ve ever seen.

There’s mud crusted on his cheek like it belongs there, curls pressed damp to his forehead, and his whole face is crumpled like paper in a storm. He’s got one sock half off and a fresh scab on his shin, and still, somehow, he looks like he belongs in a painting. The messy kind. Watercolor, probably. Something soft and bleeding at the edges, impossible to frame.

He’s eight and you’re eight and a half, which means you get to say things like “it’s okay, babies cry,” even though you don’t really mean it. He wipes his face on his sleeve and looks up at you with blotchy cheeks and kaleidoscope eyes, like someone spilled a little too much green into blue, and says, “I’m not a baby.” You believe him.

You sit next to him on the curb, knees knocking together, watching his kart like it’s some sacred thing. The sky is gray, threatening rain, and he’s all flushed skin and scraped palms and frustration. 

“They’re just jealous,” you mutter. He doesn’t look at you. “Of what? That I cry like a baby?” “No,” you say. “That your eyelashes are stupid long and you drive like the kart owes you money.”

That gets a huff out of him. Half-sob, half-laugh.

You offer him your juice box. He doesn’t smile, but he bares his teeth when he takes it, all crooked and endearing and real. That’s the thing about Lando. He’s always been real.

He holds out a sticky, dirt-streaked hand.

“I’m Lando.” “I know,” you say. “Everyone knows.”

You shake his hand anyway.

A month later, you beg your parents to sign you up for the junior karting class — not because you like cars (you don’t, really), but because you like him. Or maybe just the way he lights up when he talks about apexes and engine sounds like they’re things that breathe.

You come home smelling like oil. Your knuckles blister from gripping the wheel too hard. You cry once when you spin out and hit the barriers; but he’s there, pulling your helmet off like you’re made of glass, telling you, “You looked cool, though. Like, action movie cool.”

He makes you want to win. So you start trying.

When you’re eleven, he wins a race with his hair slicked back by sweat and wind, curls flattened into chaos. He leaps from the kart like he’s weightless, helmet swinging from one hand like a trophy of its own, and the grin he throws at you — all teeth, no restraint — nearly knocks you over.

“Did you see that?” he shouts, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Did you see?”

You did. Every lap. Every line. You saw the way his hands tightened before the last corner, the way his shoulders settled like he’d already decided to win.

You hand him his water bottle.

“You were okay.”

He gasps. “Just okay?”

“You’ll be cooler when you stop smiling like you’re showing your teeth to the dentist.”

He grins wider. Shoves you lightly with the back of his hand.

“Admit it. I looked sick.”

He did. He always does. Even like this, eyes stormy and pale all at once, flushed with the kind of joy that doesn’t need to be explained. He’s not handsome yet, not in the way the magazines will call him later. But there’s something about the way he holds a moment. The way you can’t look away when he’s in it.

Later that summer, you win.

It’s not a big race. Junior category, barely a crowd —but he’s there. Leans so far over the barrier during your final lap the marshal tells him to get down before he falls in.

You don’t hear the cheering. You don’t even feel the medal when they hang it around your neck. All you feel is Lando barreling toward you at the speed of light, helmet in one hand, arms wide, like you’re the one who gave him wings.

“You were flying,” he breathes, practically vibrating. “You were magic.”

You pretend to scoff. “Guess I’m not just here to hand you water bottles.”

He pulls you into a hug anyway. No hesitation. Just heat and sweat and the faint scent of petrol and whatever soap he uses. His heart’s pounding against your shoulder like he’s the one who just won.

Later, when you look at the photos, you don’t care about the trophy in your hands. You care about the boy behind you — curls wild, smiling so hard it looks like it hurts.

At fifteen, you start noticing the way other girls notice him.

It starts in Italy, or maybe Spain. Somewhere with sunburnt afternoons and the scent of burnt rubber curling off the asphalt like smoke. The girls linger after his heats now. They lean too close and laugh too loudly. Twisting their hair, asking if he’s going to the after-party, the lake, the whatever.

You stand beside him in the hoodie he gave you two summers ago: faded navy, sleeves chewed at the cuffs. It smells like sunscreen and old fabric and something unnameable that has always just been him. You pick at the hem while they talk, eyes on his profile.

The same boy you’ve known since he was sobbing on a curb with gravel in his socks has started to shimmer, like something just out of reach. Something made of light and speed.

His hair’s longer now, curling wild at the edges of his helmet. His smile’s the same, though. All teeth, all instinct. It still takes up half his face like he hasn’t learned how to hide anything yet.

But he doesn’t smile at them. He never does.

He looks at you. “You’re quiet,” he says, tugging at the drawstring of your hoodie. You shrug. “I’m always quiet.” “Not with me.”

He says it like a secret. Like he likes that about you — that there’s a version of yourself reserved just for him. You don’t say anything back, because you're not sure your voice would work even if you tried.

That night, you find yourselves walking the hotel parking lot, drinking vending machine soda that tastes faintly like metal and sugar. The sky's a navy bruise, and everything hums: the street lamps, the asphalt, your pulse.

“You’re kind of becoming a big deal,” you say, finally.

He laughs, low and a little shy, like you’ve caught him off-guard. “Don’t say that,” he says. “I’ll get cocky.”

“You already are.” You bump his arm with yours. It’s too dark to see his face clearly, but you know he’s smiling wide, teeth and all, like he’s baring it just for you.

And maybe he is.

Because even now, even with sponsors circling and flights booked across Europe, even with interviews and mechanics and the way his name sounds over loudspeakers, he still comes to your races.

He’ll show up between practice sessions with a baseball cap pulled low and sunglasses that don’t do much to hide him. You’ll spot him first, sitting on the pit wall like he’s always belonged there, one leg swinging like a kid with too much energy.

“Why do you still come?” you ask him once, after you’d placed second and felt like it wasn’t enough.

He shrugged. “Because I like watching you win.”

You think about that now, under the flicker of a buzzing lamp, watching the way his lashes cast soft shadows on his cheeks when he looks at you. His eyes are still that strange in-between — not quite blue, not quite grey, always shifting like skies about to storm.

Like watercolor left out in the rain.

You look away first.

You always do.

At sixteen, you run until your lungs burn. You don’t stop until your fists hit his front door, nails bitten down to nothing and eyes already stinging. He opens it in a hoodie three sizes too big, and the second he sees your face, he doesn’t ask.

He just pulls you in.

You’re crying too hard to speak at first, shoulders shaking, throat raw. He closes the door behind you and guides you to the stairs like it’s muscle memory, like this has happened before, and maybe it has, in smaller ways. Skinned knees. Lost heats. Bad days.

But this is different.

“They’re making me quit,” you finally get out. “They said— they said I have to focus on school. On real life.”

You say it like a curse. Like “real life” is something you never asked for.

Lando’s quiet for a moment. His hand curls around your wrist, thumb brushing a soothing rhythm over your pulse. His eyes — moss green in the dark — watch you without blinking. Always watching. Always knowing.

“Come on,” he says.

You frown. “Where?”

“Just— trust me.”

He doesn’t wait for you to agree. He just grabs his keys and your hand and pulls you out into the night. The wind has teeth. The sky hangs low, indigo and velvet. When you realize where you’re going, your heart breaks all over again.

The track sits behind the hill, silent and sleeping.

Lando hops the gate first, then turns and offers you his hand. You take it, fingers cold in his. He pulls you over like it’s nothing.

The lights are off, but the moon’s enough. It glints off the asphalt, pale and silver, the same way the sun used to gleam on your helmet when you’d throw it off at the end of a race, breathless and laughing. Back when your name had a number next to it and your dreams had engines.

Lando walks the edge of the track, then steps aside, gestures toward the start line like he’s offering you a crown.

“One more,” he says. “For old time’s sake.”

You laugh, watery and shaking. “There’s no kart, idiot.”

He shrugs. “Run it.”

So you do.

You take off, sneakers slapping the track, heart thudding like it’s trying to break through your ribs. Your hair whips behind you, tangled and wild, and you run like you used to race: reckless, full tilt, like the only thing that’s ever made sense is forward.

The wind hits your face and the tears dry on your cheeks and the world blurs around the edges. You run with everything you are; for every lap you’ll never finish, every podium you won’t stand on, every flame they’re trying to snuff out of you.

When you make it back to him, gasping and breathless, Lando is watching like he always does, with something quiet and fierce behind his eyes. Like he sees not just you, but the version of you the world won’t let exist anymore.

You collapse next to him, panting. He says nothing for a long time. Just sits beside you on the track, knees pulled to his chest, hoodie sleeves swallowed over his hands.

“You’ll come back to it,” he says eventually, soft like the curve of a turn. “I know you will.”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

He glances over, and for a moment, he looks like a boy again: the same boy with curls damp from rain, whose smile could split the sky. A boy who’s watched you win, lose, burn, rebuild. A boy who’s carried your dreams in the quiet way he carries everything.

“Besides,” he says, nudging your knee, “I’m still gonna win stuff. Someone’s gotta keep me humble.”

You laugh, finally — a real one. It cracks through the ache like sunlight through smoke.

“Always with the fast mouth,” you murmur. “And an ego the size of an engine.”

He grins. All teeth. Unashamed. Something ancient flutters in your chest, something that’s always been there but has never had the nerve to speak.

You don’t say you are the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen, but you think it. You don’t say I’ve loved you since I was eight and a half, but maybe he knows.

Maybe he always has.

By eighteen, Lando’s face is in magazines. He’s a headline now, a profile shot under stadium lights, a name that doesn’t need explaining anymore. He smiles with his whole face — wide and unguarded — and sometimes you see a photo that feels so much like him you have to close the tab and sit with your hands in your lap, breathing slowly.

You still see the boy who once spilled chocolate milk all down his overalls at Silverstone and sobbed so hard he hiccupped for twenty minutes. The one who used to braid daisy chains into the laces of your boots between heats. But now there are articles that say things like rising star and British darling, and he fits in their glossy pages better than he should.

He FaceTimes you after qualifying P1 for the first time. It’s late, past midnight, and you’re still in the library, alone but for the hum of the vending machine and the ache behind your eyes. You almost don’t pick up.

But then you see his name flash on the screen — 🚦LAN-DON’T CRASH🚦 — and your stomach flips like it used to before lights out.

He’s still in his race suit, curls a mess of damp ringlets, cheeks flushed like he’s been running. There’s something in his eyes, too: watercolor green, vivid and blurred around the edges, like adrenaline and disbelief have soaked into his skin.

His smile breaks the second you answer. Wide and wild and so familiar it stings.

“Did you watch?” he says, already breathless.

“Obviously,” you say, tipping your phone back so he can see the chemistry notes scattered across the desk. “Had it up on mute during organic synthesis. You’re lucky I didn’t scream when you took the final sector.”

“You think I was okay?”

“You were sick.”

He pumps a fist and flops back onto some impossibly white hotel bed, still grinning like a kid who’s snuck past curfew. The camera wobbles, then steadies on his face again: flushed and freckled, sweat still clinging to his jaw. He looks happy.

You used to know that feeling. That kind of high. The kind that only came with rubber and gasoline and the blur of corners taken clean.

Your helmet lives in the back of your closet now, tucked behind winter coats and forgotten notebooks. You’ve traded it for lab goggles and timed exams, for ink-stained hands and the quiet sort of excellence no one applauds. Your medals sit in a shoebox beneath your bed, and you haven’t opened it in over a year. You tell people you’re pre-med now. That it’s what you’ve always wanted.

Two years have dulled the ache. Sandpapered it down from a blade to something you can live with. Sometimes you still dream of the track, of the smell of rubber and the scream of engines, but you wake up and make coffee and keep studying until the want quiets again.

Lando watches you for a second. He sees things other people don’t — always has.

“You good?” he asks, voice soft now, like it used to be when he’d sneak out to meet you by the tire stacks after dark.

You nod, a little too fast. “Yeah. Just tired.”

He raises an eyebrow, not buying it. “What are you working on?”

You sigh and flip your notebook toward the screen. “Chemical compounds. I’ve got a practical on Monday. Enantiomers, ketones, the whole gang.”

He makes a face. “Nerd.”

“National treasure,” you correct, dryly. “And future doctor, maybe.”

He lights up at that. “Sick. You can be my medic when I crash.”

You roll your eyes. “So I’ll see you, what, every weekend?”

“Exactly,” he says, smug. “We’re soulmates, remember?”

You want to say, you with the stupid grin, you with the disaster curls, you with the heartbeat I could always find in the noise.But instead, you shake your head and say, “God help your insurance.”

He laughs, throws his head back, bares every tooth like he always does. There’s a soft curve in the center of his front two that never straightened out, even after braces. You used to tell him he looked like a Labrador when he smiled like that. You still think it now, but it feels like something tender and sacred, like a memory you keep pressed between pages.

“I miss you,” he says, quieter now.

You don’t say I miss the version of me that only exists around you.You just whisper, “Yeah. I know.”

The call ends eventually. It always does. But you sit there for a while after, your notebook untouched, watching the ghost of his smile in your screen’s reflection.

You’re twenty-one and a half when Lando sneaks into your college graduation. You don’t see him at first. You’re too busy sweating in your robe, clutching your diploma like it might disappear, wondering if your cap looks stupid in photos. Your parents wave from the stands, your friends cheer, and you try to hold still long enough to soak it in — but it never lands quite right. Everything feels too big, too loud, too fast.

Until he finds you.

Until he hugs you from behind and says, low in your ear, “Told you you’d look cool in a cape.”

You twist around, and there he is, in a hoodie pulled low over those unmistakable curls, sunglasses at night like the world’s worst disguise. His smile is crooked, tired. Familiar.

“What the fuck,” you whisper. “Aren’t you supposed to be—”

He grins wider. “I skipped media day.”

Your jaw drops.

“Shhh,” he adds, holding a finger to your lips. “I’ll get yelled at later. Worth it.”

You don’t know whether to laugh or hit him. So you do both —thump his arm, then drag him into a hug, still warm from the sun and whatever it means to grow up.

He stays through the party, tucked into the background, stealing finger food and smiling like he’s always belonged. He doesn’t pull attention the way he does on track. Here, he just… exists beside you. Quietly. Constantly. Every time you turn around, he’s already looking.

Later, long after the music dies and your parents have gone to bed, the two of you end up on the grass in your front yard, barefoot, robes ditched, diplomas crumpled somewhere behind you. The stars are blurry, a little from distance, a little from everything else.

He lies flat on his back, arms spread like a kid making snow angels, and says, “I’ve got a flight in two hours.”

You hum. “FP1?”

He nods.

You both fall quiet. The silence between you has never been uncomfortable. It stretches like elastic, worn in with years of knowing — from tire stacks and afterschool karting, from night tracks and vending machines, from every version of growing up that had the other curled into its corner.

“I’m scared,” you admit, finally. “For med school.”

Lando turns his head to look at you. You’re lying close, your hair fanned out against the grass, fingers plucking gently at the blades. You don’t meet his eyes, but you feel them on you. The color of seafoam, soft in the dark. The kind that still knocks the breath out of you when you're not bracing for it.

“You’ll be great.”

You scoff. “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

There’s a rustle of denim and hoodie fabric, and then he’s sitting up, pulling something from his pocket. A worn-out square of photo paper, crumpled and soft at the edges. He presses it into your hand.

You blink. It’s a picture of the two of you, age nine, arms thrown around each other in the pit lane. His curls are messy and stuck to his forehead, flushed cheeks stretched in a grin so big you can count every tooth. You’re buried in his side, beaming up at him like he hung the sky. Lando’s holding a trophy, but even then, he’s not looking at it. He’s looking at you.

“You gave me your gummy worms right after that,” he says. “Said I earned it.”

You run your thumb over the crease down the middle. The image is faded now, but you remember the moment like it’s stitched into you.

He says it like it’s obvious. Like gravity. “Because we’re soulmates. And I feel it in my bones.”

You don’t answer right away. You can’t.

The stars above you scatter like sugar across navy velvet. Your eyes sting.

“You know,” you say after a while, voice low, “If you crash, I’ll be the one stitching you back together.”

He grins. Not his media-trained one — not the sharp, rehearsed smile he wears under paddock lights — but the real one. The one that splits across his face without warning. That bares all his teeth like he’s never learned to hold anything back. That’s lived on every page of your memory since you were old enough to chase him across a track.

“That’s hot,” he teases.

You roll your eyes. “You’re a nightmare.”

“But I’m your nightmare.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it?

It’s always been him. Him with eyes that shift with the light, that catch everything, that still find you first.

You with your goggles and your notebooks. Him with his fireproof gloves and nowhere to land.

You, who traded circuits for classrooms.

Him, who never stopped circling back to you.

He looks at you like he always has, like you’re the only thing that’s ever made sense. You think maybe you believe him.

That you’ll be okay.

Because he said so. Because he always shows up. Because he’s flying across the world in an hour, but somehow, you’ve never felt more grounded.

At twenty-three, he invites you to Monaco.

You’re dead on your feet when he calls. It’s nearly midnight and you’re cramming for your pathology exam, cross-eyed from the fluorescent lighting in your apartment. You don’t even remember what you said exactly; something like “med school is killing me and I swear to God I haven’t seen the sun in four days.” Laughed it off with the tired grin he knows too well.

You forgot it by morning.

He didn’t.

Now, a week later, you’re barefoot on his balcony, letting the gold-tinged air sink into your skin as the sun sets over the Riviera. The track lies sprawled beneath you like a secret. The sea beyond it glints like something ancient, something wild.

Your breath hitches without meaning to.

“I used to dream about racing this track,” you say, barely above a whisper. “When I was fifteen, I’d watch the onboard cams on my laptop and try to memorize every corner. I knew the lines like poetry.”

Beside you, Lando is quiet. But when you glance over, there’s a glint in his eye, the one that always spelled trouble. Or magic. Or both. His curls are pushed back haphazardly, like he ran a hand through them too many times on the flight, but there’s still that boyishness, untamed and familiar.

“What?” you ask warily.

He doesn’t answer. Just grabs your wrist. “C’mon.” “Lando—” “No time. Let’s go.”

You barely have time to yank on your sneakers before he’s dragging you out the door, past the sleepy concierge and down the quiet streets like he’s done it a thousand times. He takes sharp turns with muscle memory, his fingers tight around yours.

Only when the city’s noise has thinned and the streetlights spill onto the famous asphalt do you realize where you are.

“Lando,” you whisper. “We can’t—” “We’re not driving,” he grins. “Just running it. Like when we were kids, remember?" “FIA—” “Would fine me until my hair turns gray.” He pauses. “Still worth it.”

Your heart kicks against your ribs, but your legs are already moving.

You run.

Past Sainte Devote, hair flying behind you. Past the casino, your laughter ricocheting off elegant facades. You’re breathless by the tunnel, aching by the chicane, but he’s still pulling you like he did when you were kids and he insisted you could make it to the top of that hill if you just didn’t stop.

The air smells like salt and speed.

By the time you reach the harbor, your lungs are burning and your face is flushed and he’s glowing, cheeks pink, smile wide, teeth bared like he’s daring the night to find a brighter joy than this. He looks every bit like the boy you fell in love with fifteen years ago.

The one with grass stains on his overalls. The one whose curls never obeyed a comb. The one who grinned like mischief itself. The one whose eyes — not blue, not quite green — shimmered like someone had taken watercolors and washed them into something soft and stupidly beautiful.

You stop, breathless. He does too.

And for a second, it feels like everything’s still. Like the world just pressed pause.

Later, you sit at the edge of the marina, legs swinging over the water. Your shoes are abandoned on the dock. The air is heavy with the scent of engine oil and sea spray. The waves slap gently against the boats, like applause winding down after a show.

Beside you, Lando says nothing. But you feel him watching. And when you turn, he’s looking at you like he’s never seen you before.

But of course he has. He’s seen you in worse light: that post-rain haze in your old garage, your hair frizzed to hell and braces catching on your lower lip, oil on your jeans and mud on your ankles. He’s seen you bleary-eyed on FaceTime at 3AM. He’s seen you panicking over exams, crying in the paddock, snorting over bad pizza and better jokes.

Still, he looks at you now like he forgot the color of your laugh until this exact moment brought it back. His hair hangs loose over his forehead, still damp from the run, and the way his mouth twitches — almost a grin, almost not — makes your stomach turn over.

He bumps your knee with his.

“You okay?” he asks.

You nod. “Better than okay.” “You looked happy back there.” “I was happy back there.” “Good.” He’s quiet for a beat. Then: “I miss that.”

You glance at him, surprised.

“Miss what?”

“You. Like that.” He exhales, eyes trained on the moon's reflection on the water. “Laughing. Running. Being ridiculous with me.”

You don’t say anything.

He does.

“I miss you all the time,” he says, voice low. “Even when I’m with you.”

Your breath catches.

“You’re always somewhere else now. In your books. In your head. In hospitals I can’t pronounce.”

Your heart tugs at the edges. He doesn’t sound bitter. Just tired. Honest.

“I get it,” he adds. “It’s important. It matters. But sometimes I think about that summer when we were fifteen, and you stole my hoodie, and we made fake pit passes just to sneak into the garage.”

You laugh, quiet. “We were so stupid.”

“We were so happy.”

The silence after that isn’t awkward. It’s full. Like the city’s holding its breath.

You look over at him. Really look.

His lashes are darker now. His jaw’s sharper. A lock of hair curls against his temple, untamed. But he’s still him. Still the boy in the mud, the boy who taught you how to drift on your cousin’s farm, who shared his Capri-Sun at the track because you forgot yours, again. Still the one who taped your wrist when you wiped out in the rain and told you you’d make it to Monaco someday.

And here you are.

“Lando,” you murmur. “Yeah?” “I missed you too.”

He doesn’t wait this time.

He kisses you like he’s been waiting years to remember how.

And maybe he has. Maybe you both have.

The world blurs for a moment: the moon climbing higher, the boats bobbing gently below, the buzz of the city dissolving behind you, and all that’s left is him.

All sun-warmed skin and trembling fingers and eyes the color of every good memory — soft-washed, warm, like light bleeding through a window at golden hour.

He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, breath mingling with yours.

“I didn’t think you’d let me do that,” he whispers.

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

You both laugh. Just a little. Just enough.

You’re twenty-five when you catch him watching you from across a hotel room in Japan. There’s a storm outside, low thunder rolling through the glass, and Lando’s shirt is damp from the run to the lobby. His curls are still wet, clinging to his forehead in loose, chaotic swirls. He should be tired — hell, you’re tired — but he’s watching you like you’re something new.

It’s not the first time he’s looked at you like this. Not by a long shot.

He’s never been subtle about it, not when he warms your hands in his pockets on cold walks back from the paddock, not when he lights up the second your name shows up on his phone. He’s the kind of boy who leaves his heart in plain sight, who grins with his whole body, who never learned how to want quietly.

You feel his gaze before you meet it. The kind that makes your chest go a little soft, like the edges of a photograph curling with time.

“You’re staring,” you say, without looking up from your textbook.

“I’m allowed to,” he replies. “I’m in love with you.”

You blink. Not because you didn’t know — he’s never been subtle — but because of how easily he says it. No drama. No orchestra. Just him. Lando, who once stuck gum in your hair during a twelve-hour drive to Wales. Lando, who whispered you’ve got me into your hair the night your grandmother died. Lando, who still trips over his own shoes in hotel corridors and grins like a child when room service arrives.

You toss a pillow at him. “Say it prettier.”

He catches it one-handed, kaleidoscope eyes glinting in the dim light. Smirks. “You make me want to write poetry, but all I know how to do is drive.”

That shuts you up.

His eyes crinkle at the corners, a blue-green haze in the lightning glow, and he grins wider, like he knows he’s just won something. Like he’d lose a thousand races and still call this the prize.

“Told you,” he murmurs.

There are races, years, chapters.

Seasons where you barely see each other, where you wake up to hotel ceilings and unfamiliar time zones and forget what city you’re in until he kisses your shoulder and mumbles something in a sleep-heavy voice like, It’s Thursday. We’re in Austin. His curls are flattened from sleep, his voice rough at the edges, and his arms still warm from whatever dream he was having.

Sometimes he wins. Sometimes he doesn’t. You never love him any more or less.

He still gets grumpy when he’s hungry, still laughs at memes from 2014, still buys you the weird flavored gum at petrol stations because you used to love this stuff, remember? Still leans into your space like gravity’s something personal. Still has a grin that cracks through your worst moods like sunlight.

There are cameras. Headlines. Speculations. But you’ve always known who he was.

You know the versions of him that never make it to the press: the quiet frustration of a red flag, the way he presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek when he’s nervous, the silence he sinks into after a loss. The way his curls flop over his forehead when he finally takes off his helmet. The way he says your name when he’s scared. The way he finds you in every crowd like it’s instinct. How his eyes — storm-colored, sometimes soft, sometimes sharp — flick to you the second anything starts to feel too loud.

And you’ve always let him. You always will.

He’s thirty-one when you find an old photo in a drawer: the two of you, muddy and grinning, barely ten years old. His curls are a mess, more fluff than form. You’re wearing his jacket, sleeves bunched up to your elbows. Neither of you have front teeth. You’re both sun-drenched and ridiculous.

“God,” you mutter, holding it up to the light. “We were a disaster.”

From the kitchen, he says, “Still are.”

You hear the clink of a spoon against ceramic. The rustle of his socks on the tile.

“You still love me?” you call, teasing, but not really.

He appears in the doorway, hoodie half-on, spoon in his mouth. He’s older now — jaw more carved, eyes a little softer around the edges — but the grin he gives you is the same one from every memory that matters. That lopsided, toothy thing like he’s always one second from bursting into laughter. A single curl falls against his temple, and for a moment, it’s hard to tell what year it is.

He swallows and says, “I’ll love you even when we’re bones.”

You believe him.

You always have.

i hope this finds you well ⛐ 𝐎𝐏𝟖𝟏

“you’ll be bored of him in two years,” oscar says flatly, “and we will be interesting forever.” (or: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘫𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘦 𝘢𝘶, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘰.)

ꔮ starring: oscar piastri x reader. ꔮ word count: 10.2k (!!!) ꔮ includes: friendship, romance, angst. cussing, mentions of food & alcohol. references to greta gerwig's little women (2019), mostly set in melbourne, oscar's sisters are recurring characters. ꔮ commentary box: i've written way too much oscar as of late, so before i go on a self-imposed ban, i had to get this monster out. fully, wholly dedicated to @binisainz, whose amylaurie lando fic does this feeling go both ways? started all this. birdy, i love you like all fire. 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

♫ let you break my heart again, laufey. we can't be friends (wait for your love), ariana grande. cool enough for you, skyline. do i ever cross your mind, sombr. bags, clairo. true blue, boygenius. laurie and jo on the hill, alexandre desplat.

Oscar Piastri is not the kind of boy who usually finds himself at house parties.

Especially not the kind with balloons tied to banisters, tables laden with sausage rolls and buttercream cupcakes, and a Bluetooth speaker hiccupping out the tail-end of some pop anthem. But here he is, cornered into attendance by his sisters—Hattie, Edie, and Mae—who’d all dressed up for the occasion and declared, in unison, that he had to come.

So he had. Because he was a good brother and an unwilling chaperone. 

And now he’s bored.

Oscar stands near the drinks table, nursing a cup of lukewarm lemonade and trying to look vaguely interested in the streamers above the kitchen doorway. Hattie had already been whisked off to dance by someone in a navy jumper. Edie had found the girl who always brought homemade brownies to school. Mae was giggling wildly with a trio of kids Oscar vaguely recognized from the street down. 

No one notices him lingering by himself. That suits him just fine.

Still, he can’t quite shake the restlessness crawling up his spine. The noise is too loud, the lights too warm. With a quick scan of the room and a glance over his shoulder, Oscar slips behind a long, velvet curtain that cordons off what seemed to be the study.

Except there’s already someone there.

He realizes it a moment too late, nearly landing on top of you.

“Oh my God—sorry!” he blurts out, practically leaping backward. His foot catches on the edge of the curtain and he stumbles a bit, arms flailing before catching the side of a bookshelf. His cheeks burn. “Didn’t see you. I didn’t think anyone else—sorry. Again.”

You blink up at him, wide-eyed, legs curled beneath you on the armchair he had almost sat on. There’s a half-eaten biscuit on a napkin beside you, and your fingers are wrapped around a glass of ginger ale. Contrary to everyone else at this godforsaken event, you’re not a familiar face. 

“It’s okay,” you said, voice quiet. Accented. Affirming Oscar’s theory that you’re not a Melbourne native. After a pause, you tentatively joke: “You didn’t sit on me, so that’s a win.”

Oscar huffs out a laugh, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah. Close call.”

The silence after is not awkward, exactly. Just shy. The two of you are tucked away behind a curtain, neither fully sure what to do next. Oscar takes the plunge first, figuring it’s the least he could do after intruding on your escape.

“I’m Oscar. Piastri,” he adds unnecessarily. He gestures vaguely toward the chaos outside. “Dragged here by my sisters.”

“I figured you were with the girls,” you reply amusedly. “I’m new. Just moved here a few weeks ago.”

Oscar’s brows lift. “So this is your introduction to the madness?”

“Pretty much.” You offer a sheepish shrug. “I don’t really know anyone, and pretending to be cool isn’t really my thing.”

“Mine neither,” he says quickly, maybe a bit too quickly. “Hence the hiding.”

That earns him a soft smile. It’s a pretty smile, Oscar privately notes. 

He gestures to the empty bit of couch beside you. “Mind if I sit? Promise to check for limbs first.”

You shift slightly to make room. “Be my guest.”

He sits, careful this time, knees bumping slightly against yours as he settles. The party noise feels far away behind the curtain—muted like a dream. Oscar glances at you from the corner of his eye, curiosity bright beneath his awkwardness.

“Got a name, new kid?” he asks, because even though he had agreed that he doesn’t like feigning coolness, he’s still just a teenage boy with a god complex. 

You tell him your name. He repeats it back to you, careful with the syllables like he’s folding them into memory.

A few more minutes pass, filled with idle chatter. You talk about your move, the weird smell of paint still lingering in your new house, and the fact that none of the cupcakes at this party have chocolate frosting, which is a tragedy. Oscar, in turn, tells you about his sisters. How Mae once tried to dye her hair green with a highlighter and how Hattie got banned from school discos after she snuck in a smoke machine.

The laughter between you is easy. Unforced.

Then you say it, maybe without thinking too hard. “We should dance,” you muse, finishing off the last of your biscuit. 

Oscar freezes. His eyebrows shoot up, alarmed. “Dance? With me?”

“Unless you’d rather go back to pretending the streamers are fascinating.”

“I don’t dance with strangers,” he says, half-laughing, half-panicked.

“We know each other’s names now,” you point out. “That makes us not-strangers.”

With a beleaguered sigh and a scrunch of his nose, Oscar comes clean. “I’m bad at it,” he grumbles. 

“Who cares?”

“My sisters. They’ll see. And I’ll never live it down.”

You purse your lips, tapping your glass lightly against your knee. Then, a spark lights in your eyes. It’s the kind that spells trouble; Oscar has seen it in his siblings’ faces, right before they do something so invariably stupid and reckless. “Come with me. I have an idea,” you urge. 

He hesitates, a part of his brain screeching something like stranger danger! in flashing, neon lights. In the end, he follows.

You slip out through the back door, motioning for him to stay quiet as you lead him down the wooden steps and out onto the wrap-around porch. The party sounds are muffled here, only the faint thump of bass slipping through the walls.

“Out here,” you say, turning to him with an expectant grin. “Nobody to laugh. Just us.”

Oscar stares at you. “This is crazy.” 

“Shut up and dance.”

And so he does.

Awkwardly, at first, because you start them off with wild moves and dance skills that are much more abysmal than his. It gives him the confidence to start swaying a bit, his laughter poorly stifled as he watches you flail like an octopus. 

You take his hands, and he lets you spin him gently, sneakers squeaking against the porch boards. There’s no rhythm to it, not really. Just swaying and clumsy steps and the faint thrum of music in the background.

The porch light flickers above you, casting long shadows. Somewhere inside, someone cheers. But out here, it's just you and Oscar.

Two kids dancing badly and not caring.

“You’re a weird one,” he says with a smile that splits his face open.

“Takes one to know one,” you shoot back, fingers squeezing his as you twirl yourself through his arm. It’s a gross miscalculation and you end up stumbling, the two of you cackling as you attempt to detangle from the mess of limbs you’ve entangled each other in. 

For the first time that night, Oscar thinks he might actually like this party after all.

Christmas morning in the Piastri household always comes with a sort of chaos—the kind born of slippers skidding across hardwood, sleepy giggles, and the rustle of wrapping paper long before the sun climbs properly into the sky.

This year, however, there’s something new. A wicker basket sits on the porch, ribbon-wrapped and dusted in the faintest layer of frost. 

It’s heavy with gifts, each one handmade and meticulously labeled in curling script. Hattie, first to spot it, gives a shriek loud enough to wake the neighborhood. Within minutes, the whole family is gathered in the living room, the basket placed like treasure at the center.

“It’s from the new neighbors,” their mum announces, plucking a card from the basket. Her voice is touched with surprise and delight. “The old man and his granddaughter. Isn’t that sweet?”

Hattie unwraps a pair of knitted socks, blue and gold. Edie lifts out a jar of spiced jam. Mae discovers a hand-bound notebook. Each gift is simple but exquisite, the sort of thing you only receive from people who notice details.

“She’s the one who doesn’t talk to anyone,” Hattie says knowingly, curling her legs beneath her on the couch. You were in the same level as her, it seemed—a year below Oscar. 

“That house is huge.” Edie glances out the window, towards your home. “Do you think her parents are loaded?” 

“I heard they aren’t even around,” Mae whispers. “Just her and the grandfather. He looks ancient, though. Like, fossil ancient.”

“Girls,” their mum cuts in sharply. “That’s enough. They were kind enough to send gifts. We will be kind in return.”

Oscar, perched on the armrest of the couch, stays quiet through the speculation. His hands toy with the tag on his gift—a simple wooden bookmark, engraved with an amateur sketch of a stick figure dancing. He doesn’t say anything about the study, or the curtain, or the ginger ale.

But the memory floats to the front of his mind: the soft hush of the party behind a curtain, the brush of knees, your laugh when he had called you weird. 

“We should make friends with them,” Oscar says finally, looking up. “It’s Christmas, after all.”

The girls pause. Hattie raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you care about new neighbors?”

He shrugs, trying not to look too interested. “Just saying. It wouldn’t kill us to be nice.”

Their mum smiles, pleased. “That’s the spirit.”

Oscar glances back down at the bookmark, running a thumb over the edge.

He finds your family acquainting with his soon enough.

On a sunny afternoon, right as Edie is pouring cereal into a bowl and Oscar is elbow-deep in the dishwasher, the home phone rings. Hattie picks up, listens for a moment, then calls out, “Mae’s at the neighbor’s. She fell off her bike.”

There’s a rush of clattering cutlery and footsteps, and in no time, Oscar finds himself trailing behind his sisters down the sidewalk, toward the big house next door—the one with the sprawling lawn and mismatched wind chimes on the porch.

When they arrive, Mae is perched on your front steps, a bandage already wrapped around her knee and a juice box in hand. She waves lazily as Hattie and Edie fall upon her with a dozen questions. Your grandfather, white-haired and kind-eyed, stands nearby, looking amused by the commotion. He introduces himself and ushers them all inside despite their protests.

Oscar hangs back for a moment until he spots you just behind the door, barefoot and half-hidden by the frame. You glance up, catch his eye, and grin.

“You again,” you say, stepping out onto the porch. “Is she alright?”

“Yeah, just scraped her knee,” Oscar replies, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “Thanks for patching her up.”

“We had a pretty solid first aid game back at my old school. I’m well-versed in playground accidents.”

He chuckles, leaning against the porch railing. “That so? Must be a pretty rough school.”

“Brutal,” you agree solemnly. “There were snack thieves and dodgeball champions. It was a jungle.”

“Sounds terrifying.”

“It built character,” you say with mock seriousness, then flash him a grin. “Want to come in? I made too much lemonade.”

Oscar nods and follows you inside. The kitchen smells like lemon zest and fresh biscuits. Hattie and Edie are now harrowing your grandfather with questions about the old piano in the corner and whether the house is haunted. He answers everything with a twinkle in his eye, clearly enjoying the attention.

You hand Oscar a glass and settle across from him at the kitchen table. He takes a sip. “You weren’t lying,” he says through another swig. “This is good.”

“Of course not. I take my beverages very seriously.”

“You’re weird,” he says, but there’s no heat behind it.

“You keep saying that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I’m starting to think it might be a compliment.”

You clink your glass against his in cheers. He smiles, and something warm unfurls in his chest. A startling kind of certainty. Like something’s taking root—a real friendship, honest and surprising and entirely unplanned.

Oscar is surprised to find that he doesn’t mind. 

It happens gradually, like most real things do.

You begin spending Saturday afternoons with the Piastri bunch, lounging on their back deck with Hattie and Edie, gossiping about the neighbors or watching Mae attempt increasingly dangerous trampoline flips. You get good at knowing who takes how many sugars in their tea, when to duck because Edie’s chucking a tennis ball, or when Oscar is about to try and quietly leave the room.

You’re there for board games on rainy days and movie nights on Fridays. You help Hattie with her French homework, braid Mae’s hair when her fingers get too clumsy with excitement, and lend Edie your favorite books. Their mum always saves you an extra slice of cake, and their dad asks how your grandfather’s garden is faring this season.

It starts to feel like you’ve always belonged there, wedged into the rhythm of their household like a missing puzzle piece finally found.

Oscar is often quieter than the others, but he’s still a constant. You and he become fixtures in each other’s orbit. Trading messages about school, tagging each other in silly videos, or sending one-word replies that only make sense to the two of you. 

Despite being one year his junior, the two of you are close in a way that you aren’t with the girls. He swears it’s because he met you first, because the two of you have emergency dance parties and cricket watch parties that nobody else knows about.   

He leaves for boarding school, and the absence sits awkwardly on both your chests at first. But he never really disappears. He always texts when he’s back. Always walks you home at least once before he has to leave again. Always makes you laugh, even when you don’t want to.

And then—one summer—he comes home and something’s different.

It isn’t dramatic. You don’t swoon. He doesn’t speak in slow motion. It’s just... subtle.

Oscar stands taller. His shoulders are broader. His voice has deepened slightly. There’s a small scar at the corner of his lip you don’t remember, and when he grins, it strikes you—how he’s grown into himself, soft and sharp all at once.

You catch him staring at you too, once or twice. Like he’s trying to recalibrate what he thought he knew. Your hair is a little longer, and your skin is tanned from all the days in the sun. He remembers the freckles; he doesn’t remember when they became so prominent.

But it never becomes a thing. You don’t talk about it. You fall back into your usual rhythm.

Because even if your faces are a little older, your banter is still quick and familiar. You still chase each other down the street. You still squabble over the last biscuit. He still rolls his eyes at you, and you still prod him for his terrible taste in music.

Whatever has changed, whatever is beginning to, you both keep it tucked away. For now, it’s enough just to have each other nearby.

It’s a fact Oscar remembers as digs his toes into the hot sand. His jaw is tight; he watches the waves break in even swells. The sun’s beating down hard, but he barely feels it. Not with the way his chest still burns from the shouting match earlier.

Hattie had stormed out of the house with her towel clutched like a shield, and Oscar had followed, only because everyone else was pretending like nothing had happened. His sisters always expected him to be the reasonable one, and today—he hadn’t been.

He’d snapped. Something petty. A dig at her choice of music in the car. Then something sharper about her always having to be right. And before he knew it, she’d looked at him like he was someone else. 

He hadn’t apologized.

Now, he sits beneath the shade of a crooked umbrella, arms wrapped around his knees. He watches the group scatter across the sand and into the waves. Hattie’s already out with her board, paddling strong into the break like she’s trying to prove something. Edie is further down the shore, half-buried in a sandcastle war. Mae’s running between them, laughing.

You drop into the sand beside him, skin glinting from seawater, hair tied back and still damp. “You two going for the title of Most Dramatic Siblings today?” you ask, unsurprisingly up to date. Hattie probably told you all about it while the two of you were getting changed. 

Oscar sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was a bit of a tosser this morning,” he says dryly. 

You nod, not offering him an out. Just letting the honesty settle.

“She’ll forgive you. Eventually,” you add. “You Piastris always find your way back.”

He tilts his head, watching you. The sunlight makes your nose wrinkle when you squint toward the water. Your shoulders have lost some of their shyness from when he first met you. You’ve become more sure of yourself, laughing louder, teasing easily. Comfortable. Confident. Certain. 

He likes that. 

The two of you sit in silence until Oscar stands, grabbing his board. “I’m going out.”

“Be nice,” you call after him, and he flashes a grin over his shoulder—tight but genuine.

In the surf, Oscar feels the tension bleed out with every push through the waves. The water’s cold and biting, salt sharp in his mouth. He catches sight of Hattie up ahead and paddles after her, trying not to let the guilt slow him down. Hattie notices him, grimaces, and rushes on. 

Trying to prove something. 

The waves pick up. Hattie catches one, standing briefly before wiping out. She resurfaces quickly, almost laughing, but Oscar watches her expression shift just moments later. There’s a sudden pull in the water, subtle but unmistakable. A riptide.

She paddles against it. Wrong move.

Oscar feels the fright hit like a tsunami. 

He’s been scared before. Of course he has. He’s terrible when it comes to horror movies. He’s seen his karting peers fissure into pretty nasty accidents. But this, the fear of this, of his younger sister— 

He starts shouting, but the wind carries his voice sideways. Instinctively, he glances to shore—and sees that you’re already running. Board abandoned, feet flying across wet sand. You make it to him in record time, that crazed look in your eyes mirroring his.

Together, you plunge into the surf. Oscar’s strokes are strong, slicing through the current. He reaches Hattie just as she starts to panic.

“Float! Don’t fight it!” you yell, coming up on her other side.

Oscar grabs her wrist, firm but steady. You’re on the other, speaking calm, clear instructions, guiding her body as the three of you angle sideways out of the current. 

You’re the voice of reason; Oscar is the force that perseveres. 

It’s slow. Exhausting. But eventually, the pull lessens.

You reach the shore heaving, salt-stung, and shaking. Hattie collapses onto her knees, coughing up seawater, and Oscar sinks beside her, heart hammering. His hands rest at her back, as if he’s scared she’ll go down under the moment he lets go. 

Hattie says nothing at first. She just looks at him with wet, furious eyes.

It’s a look Oscar is used to seeing on Hattie’s face. They’re siblings. Of course they squabble, and they fight, and they know where to hit for it to hurt. Such was the curse and blessing of being a brother. 

Underneath all that, though, Oscar goes back to two cardinal truths: Being the eldest, he made his mum and dad parents—but when Hattie came around, they made him a sibling. 

And a sibling he would always be, come hell or high water. 

“You didn’t even say sorry,” Hattie sputters, like that’s still the worst thing that has happened this afternoon. 

Oscar can’t decide if he wants to cry or laugh. You hover nearby, giving them space. But not too much.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s I’m sorry for picking a fight, and I’m sorry for being a bad brother sometimes, and I’m sorry I never taught you about riptides. 

Hattie sniffles, then swats at him. “You better be.”

And that’s how they make up.

Later, as the sun begins to dip, casting everything in amber, Oscar finds you rinsing your arms at an outdoor shower.

“Hey,” he says, stepping close with your towel in his hands.

You look over your shoulder. “Hey.”

He shuffles awkwardly. With salt in his hair and gratitude tangled in his ribs, Oscar thinks there’s no one else he’d rather have next to him when the tide pulls under. 

But there’s something deeper, something closer to guilt gnawing at him. 

You sense it, in the same way you know when Oscar’s about to have a bad race weekend or when he’s overwhelmed with schoolwork. Stepping out of the shower, you take your towel, wrap it over your shoulders, and gesture at Oscar to follow you. 

The two of you walk along the shore, away from where Edie is snapping photos of her sandcastle and Mae is reading some trashy romance novel. Hattie is passed out on a beach blanket, the excitement of the near-drowning taking the fight out of her. 

“If she had died,” Oscar tells you, his tongue heavy as lead, “it would’ve been my fault.” 

It’s the kind of thought he figures only you will understand. Not because you have any siblings of your own, not because you had been there, but because you’ve always read Oscar like he was a dog-eared book you could keep under your pillow. 

“She’s fine, though,” you say delicately, but he’s started and he can’t stop. 

“What is wrong with me?” A laugh escapes Oscar—the self-deprecating kind, one that grates more than the sand beneath your feet. “I’ve made so many resolutions and written sad notes and confessed my sins, but it doesn’t seem to help. When I get in a passion—” 

A passion. A fit. With his siblings, with his mates, with you. He can’t count the amount of times his sarcasm has offended you. The instances where he’s made you cry, intentionally or not. 

And when he’s racing. God, when he’s racing. 

In a couple of months, he’s slated to join Formula 4. He has a stellar karting career behind him, one he can barely even remember—because he had seen red throughout it all. Oscar was clinical and cutthroat and cruel the moment he got behind a wheel, and a part of him worries that’s who he’ll always be. 

A man who would stop at nothing to be at the top step of any podium. A boy who would insist on being right like his life depended on it. 

“When I get in a passion,” he tries again, “I get so savage. I could hurt anyone and enjoy it.” 

It’s a damning confession. The kind that could absolutely ruin and unravel Oscar. But he knows, he trusts that it’s safe in your hands. You hum a low sound like he hadn’t just bared his heart out for you to sink your claws into.

“I know what that’s like,” you say, and he has to do a double take. 

“You?” He studies the side of your face, as if checking for insincerity. “You’re never angry.” 

You’re annoyed with him often and you’ve got a hint of fire in everything you say. But there’s never been rage, never been the sort of flame that could incinerate. And so it shocks him all the more when you confess, “I’m angry nearly every day of my life.” 

“You are?” 

“I’m not patient by nature. I just try to not let it get the better of me,” you offer, glancing up at Oscar. 

The two of you have come to a stop at the edge of the shoreline. Soon, you’ll have to get back to his waiting sisters. For now, though, he surveys your expression and finds nothing but the truth. 

He files the facts away in that mental cabinet he has containing what he knows about you. Angry, nearly every day. And then he takes to heart the rest of your words, the roundabout advice of not letting it consume him.

The blaze in him stops roaring for a minute. With you, it’s like a campfire. Inviting and warm. 

Better. You make him better.

“Look at us,” he says, tone almost awed. “After all these years, looks like I can still learn a thing or two from you.” 

There’s something in your eyes that Oscar can’t quite place. You’ve always looked at him a certain way, but he could never really put a word to it. It’s tender and pained all at once; subtle, ultimately, buried underneath whatever he needs you to be at the moment. 

“It’s what friends are for,” you respond, your voice catching on the word in the middle. He pretends not to notice. 

Friends.  

Oscar’s Formula 4 debut is everything he thought it would be.

The pressure, the lights, the nerves so sharp they buzz under his skin—it’s all there, and then some. He tries to soak in every second, from the chorus of engines roaring around him to the feel of the wheel under his gloved hands. But even with everything happening so quickly, even in the blur of adrenaline and pit stops, there’s still time for his thoughts to drift back home.

More specifically: To you.

It starts small. Just a notification that you’ve made a new post. A photo.

You with your boyfriend.

A guy Oscar’s met once, maybe twice. The sort of guy who plays guitar at parties and wears cologne that smells like department store samples. He isn’t bad—just doesn’t fit. Doesn’t match the version of you Oscar has always known. The one who once danced on a porch, hair a mess, daring him to keep up.

He doesn’t know what to do with the bitter feeling that curdles in his chest. You’re not his, per se. You’ve never been. But surely you could do better than this Abercrombie-wearing, Oasis-playing asswipe. 

Summer arrives like it always does—hot and sprawling, with cicadas humming in the trees and long days that stretch lazily into nights. Oscar is home for a few weeks between races. 

You’re still around, too. A little less, though, because your boyfriend is a demanding thing who insists he “doesn’t like Oscar’s vibe.” You fight for the friendship, citing it as a non-negotiable, and when Oscar finds out, he doesn’t even try to hide his smugness. 

The two of you steal away one evening, climbing onto the roof of the Piastri house with cans of lemonade and a bag of sour candy. It’s tradition by now. The tin roof is warm beneath you, and the stars blink faintly above, a faded scattering against the navy sky.

You sit close, your shoulder brushing his every so often.

“You’ve changed,” you say, head tilted toward him.

“Have not.”

“You look taller.”

“I’ve always been taller.”

You laugh, a soft sound. “Okay. You’ve changed in a good way.”

Oscar bumps your knee with his. “So have you.”

The two of you are older, now, more accepting of the facts of life. Time is not your enemy. It’s just time. You’re still in school, and Oscar is still racing. Your paths have diverged, but the road home is one you both know like the back of your hand. 

You go quiet, fiddling with the tab on your lemonade. He watches you closely, trying to read what you’re not saying. You’re nervous. He figures that much out from the fiddling. Nervous about what, though, he can’t— 

“I want to run away with him,” you say suddenly.

Oscar stiffens. He wants to call you out for making such a stupid joke, for not having all your screws on straight. You go on, eyes fixed on the dark street below. “Doesn’t sound too bad. Eloping,” you muse. “I’ve never been one for big weddings, anyway.” 

“Why?”

“Why don’t I like big weddings?” 

“No, stupid. Why the sudden plan of eloping?” 

“Because I love him.”

He looks at you, really looks at you, the slope of your cheek in the half-light, the determination behind your words. It doesn’t sit right. This isn’t you. You make rash decisions, but none so life-altering. Not anything that would give your grandfather grief, and most especially not anything that would disclude Oscar. 

“You’ll be bored of him in two years,” Oscar says flatly, “and we will be interesting forever.”

You don’t respond right away. Instead, you let the words hang between you. Those two things could co-exist. Your love for this loser (Oscar’s word; not yours), and the fact that there was nothing in the world that could electrify quite like your friendship with Oscar Piastri. 

He doesn’t know where this is coming from. He hadn’t realized this would be so serious, that he’d been away long enough for you to start considering marriage with what’s-his-face. 

“I don’t expect you to know what it’s like, Oscar,” you say eventually. “To want to be shackled.”

And there it is. 

You’ve always supported Oscar’s career. You have years worth of team merchandise for all his loyalties; you’ve been there for every race that mattered, each one that you could make. 

But you were also selfish in ways that his family wasn’t. You got moody whenever he had to go away after breaks. You made snide comments about him always being the one who leaves. He’s grown to tolerate that petulance, to take in stride your fears of him failing to come back in one piece. 

For the first time ever, Oscar feels what you do. And, God, it doesn’t feel good. 

“I just hate that you’re thinking of leaving me.” The words are past his lips before he can reel them in. 

It sounds desperate, so unlike him, that he understands the shock that flits across your face. There’s a split-second where he sees a hint of anger, too, like you’re mad at Oscar for being honest, for saying all this after his redeye flights and janky timezones. 

He goes on, because what’s the point of backing down now? “Don’t leave,” he presses. 

“O…”

You’re the only one who calls him that. O. OJ, when you’re feeling playful—Oscar Jack. He’s teased you time and time again about not falling back on Osc, as if you were desperate to carve out a nickname that belonged to you and you alone. 

“God,” he interrupts, eyes turning skyward, as if the stars might hold answers. “We’re really not kids anymore, huh?”

You were kids together. Now, you’re teenagers—young adults. Complicated, messy. Entangled in more than limbs and waves.

“Our childhood was bound to end,” you say, and then you reach out to put a hand on his knee. He considers joking something like Careful, your boyfriend might try to pick a fight and you know I have a mean left hook, but then you might come to your senses and pull your touch away. 

He doesn’t say anything more, and neither do you. You just sit there on the roof, side by side, listening to the quiet hum of summer and the distant echoes of who you used to be.

You break up with your boyfriend sometime in early spring, citing incompatibility in a text that Oscar reads while lying flat on the floor of his hotel room in Baku. 

He blinks at the message, reads it twice, and then tosses his phone across the bed. The relief that floods through him is disproportionate, almost unsettling. He chalks it up to instinct. Or something like that.

He tells himself it’s just the same feeling he gets when Edie starts seeing some guy from her literature elective, a summer not too long after you joked about eloping. Maybe it’s the older brother in him, wanting to be protective of the women in his life. 

That’s what he’s muttering to himself when you catch him scowling at Edie’s date from across the local food park. He was chaperoning once again, though this time Edie had banished him to hang out with you while she was making heart eyes at this lanky transfer student. 

“I thought you’d be pleased,” you tease Oscar, popping a chip into your mouth.

Oscar doesn’t look away from where Edie is laughing at something the guy just said. “At the idea of anybody coming to take Edie away? No, thank you.”

You smirk. “You’ll feel better about it when somebody comes to take you away.”

He finally glances at you, one brow raised. “I’d like to see anyone try.”

“So would I!” you shoot back, grinning as you sip your soda. Oscar’s withstanding singleness was something the two of you joked about often, even though he always reasoned that he was busy. Busy with racing, busy with family, busy with you. “That poor soul wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Oscar opens his mouth to reply, but then you pull a cigarette from your coat pocket. It’s a thing you picked up since you got to uni, and Oscar’s frown deepens at the sight of it. At your audacity. Before you can light it, he snatches it from your fingers.

“Oi!” you protest.

He waves it out of your reach. “None of that.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

You lunge for it, but he’s already up and jogging backward, the cigarette held aloft in triumph. You chase after him with a string of cusses, half-laughing, half-serious, and Edie and her date pause to watch you and Oscar bolt down the street like kids again—legs flailing, shouts echoing against the sidewalk.

“Are they—?” Edie’s date asks, and the Piastri girl only heaves out a sigh.

Oscar doesn’t stop until he hits the corner, chest heaving from laughter. You skid to a halt beside him, hair wild in the wind, eyes bright. The cigarette’s long gone, tossed in a bin somewhere behind them. 

“That was expensive,” you whine. 

“More incentive for you to quit it, then,” he responds. 

You glare up at him. He rubs a knuckle into your hair, his free hand snaking to your pocket to grab the rest of the pack. You screech profanities as he bins it, but he makes it up to you with a meal of your choosing. It takes a sizable chunk out of the racing salary he sets aside for leisure, but you’re unrepentant and he’s wrapped around your finger. 

You’re both older now. But sometimes, it still feels like nothing’s changed at all.

Albert Park is golden in the late afternoon. 

The sun spills through the treetops, casting shadows across the path as Oscar kicks absently at a stray pebble, hands buried in his jacket pockets. You’re walking beside him, careful to match his pace even as his strides grow longer with whatever is bubbling up inside him. 

A new year. A new contract. A new team, new plan, new person he has to be. 

“It’s all happening so fast,” he mutters. “The Renault thing. Tests. Travel. They said it’s everything I ever wanted—and it is, it is—but I can’t stop feeling like I’m coming apart.”

You glance at him, brows furrowed. “Coming apart how?” 

Oscar raises one shoulder in a shrug. He doesn’t know how to explain himself, but you’ve always had this philosophy that helped him be more honest around you. Say it first, you’d say. Backtrack later.

“I’m just not good like my sisters,” he blurts out, reaching and settling for a familiar comparison that might make him more comprehensible. “They’re—Hattie’s top of her class, Edie’s already talking uni offers, Mae’s got that whole ‘brightest light in the room’ thing. And me? I’m angry, and I’m restless, and I drive fast cars because I don’t know how to sit still.”

“You don’t have to be, O.” 

He lets out a dry laugh. "Why? Are you about to tell me that I’m patient and kind, that I do not envy and I do not boast?"

You stop walking. He does too, when he notices.

You’re just a step or two behind him, the afternoon sun bathing you in a light that practically rivals the warmth you radiate. But there’s something so utterly stricken on your expression, something so undeniably raw that Oscar feels everything click into place.

The look on your face is one his parents sometimes give each other. He’s seen it in movies, seen it in the photos of his mates with long-term relationships. It’s the expression you’ve given him for years, and years, and years, and he feels like the world’s biggest fool for missing all the signs. 

“No,” you say softly, denying him of his cruelty, of his failures. You think of him like that—patient, kind, humble. 

The makings of a person who deserves—

Oscar begins to shake his head, saying, “No. No.” 

“It’s no use, Oscar,” you say, your fingers curling into fists at your sides, and that’s his first sign that this is really about to happen. Not O, not Piastri, not any of the dozen annoying nicknames you’ve assigned him over the years. 

“Please, no—” 

“We gotta have it out—” 

“No, no—” 

Your conversation overlaps. It’s a twisted kind of waltz, as if the two of you are out of tune and out of step for the first time in your lives. Oscar starts pacing. Like he might somehow be able to run from what’s about to come. 

You barrel on. “I’ve loved you ever since I’ve known you, Oscar,” you breathe, following his panicked steps. “I couldn’t help it, and I’ve tried to show it but you wouldn’t let me, which is fine—”

“It’s not—” 

“I’m going to make you hear it now, and you’re going to give me an answer, because I can’t go on like this.” 

He flinches, takes a half-step back. Tries to say your name with more of those despairing please, don’ts, which fall on deaf ears. 

You step toward him like the whole park is tilting and he’s the only thing keeping you upright. The words pour out too quickly now, too long held back. Years worth of yearning, bearing down on an unassuming Saturday. 

“I gave up smoking. I gave up everything you didn’t like,” you say. “And I’m happy I did, it’s fine. And I waited, and I never complained because I—”

You stutter, swaying on your feet like the weight of your next words was too heavy for you to shoulder. You soldier through like a champion; that’s why Oscar listens, hears them out, even though they rip through him as if he’s crashed right into a wall. 

“You know, I figured you’d love me, Oscar.” 

A damning confession. The kind that should be safe in Oscar’s hands, but his fingers are shaky and his eyes are wide and he thinks he’s going to die, then and there, over how absolutely heartbroken you look that he’s not agreeing with you immediately. That his love was something vouchsafed, a promise for a later time. 

“And I realize I’m not half good enough,” you whimper, “and I’m not this great girl—” 

“You are.” Helplessness wrenches the words out of Oscar’s chest. It’s the same emotion that has him surging forward, his hands darting out to hold your shoulders and keep you upright, keep you looking at him. “You’re a great deal too good for me, and I’m so grateful to you and I’m so proud of you. I just—”

He falters. You gave him your honesty, so he fights to give you his. 

“I don’t see why I can’t love you as you want me to,” he confesses. “I don’t know why.” 

Your voice gets impossibly smaller. “You can’t?”

His eyes close, just for a moment, before he answers. “No,” he says slowly, each word measured against your frantic ones. “I can’t change how I feel, and it would be a lie to say I do when I don’t. I’m so sorry. I’m so desperately sorry, but I just can’t help it.” 

You step back; his hands fall to his sides. The distance opens like a wound.

“I can’t love anyone else, Oscar,” you say dazedly. “I’ll only love you.” 

“It would be a disaster if we dated,” Oscar insists. “We’d be miserable. We both have such quick tempers—” 

“If you loved me, Oscar, I would be a perfect saint!”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I’ve tried it and failed.”

And he has. He’s had sleepovers with you, wondering what it might feel like to wrap his arm around your waist. He had once contemplated holding your hand during a movie. He figured it would be a given; no one would bat an eye. You and Oscar. 

Except his heart had never fully gotten the memo, and now he pays the price for only ever being able to love the thrill of a race. 

Your voice catches on your next words. “Everyone expects it,” you say in a ditch attempt to change his mind. “Grandpa. Your parents, your sisters. I've never begged you for anything, but—say yes, and let’s be happy together, Oscar.” 

“I can't," he repeats, each syllable heavy. “I can’t say yes truly, so I’m not going to say it at all.”

The evening light keeps on glowing. The world doesn’t end. But you feel like it might've anyway, and he’s right there in that boat with you. You’re willing to settle for scraps, while Oscar refuses to give you half-measures. The silence between you stretches taut, pulling thinner and thinner until it threatens to snap.

“You’ll see that I’m right, eventually,” he says. Like he believes it will make the truth hurt less. “And you’ll thank me for it.”

You laugh bitterly. "I'd rather die."

He looks like you slapped him. “Don’t say that.” 

You’re walking, now, your pace quick as you hurtle down the park pathway with the vengeance of a woman scorned. He calls your name and follows, keeping a sizable distance between you should you not want him to close. 

“Listen, you'll find some guy who will adore you, and treat you right, and love you like you deserve,” he pleads, skidding in front of you and forcing you to do a full stop. “But— I wouldn’t. Look at me. I’m homely, and I’m awkward, and I’m mean—”

“I love you, Oscar,” you say, as if you’re savoring the first and last times you will get to say the words.  

He goes on. He can’t answer that, can’t say anything to those words. “And you’d be ashamed of me—” 

“I love you, Oscar.”

“And we would always fight. We can’t help it even now!" He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’ll never give up racing, and you’ll have to hide all your vices, and we would be unhappy. And we’d wish we hadn’t done it, and everything will be terrible."

He gasps for air. You blink back the sting in your eyes. “Is there anything more?” you ask. 

He meets your gaze, and finds nothing there but rightful heartbreak. “No,” he murmurs. “Nothing more.”

You shoulder past him. He tilts his head back and eyes the sky for a moment, praying to be struck down by any higher power that exists. “Except that—” he starts, and you turn around so fast. 

You turn, retracing your steps, and the guilt wells up in him like a faucet that had burst. He realizes—you think he’s going to take it back. You think it’s going to be a … but I love you instead of an I love you, but… 

“I don’t think I'll ever fall in love,” he manages. “I’m happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up.”

Your expression crumples. “I think you’re wrong about that,” you sigh.  

“No.”

You shake your head, slowly. “I think you will care for somebody, Oscar. You’ll find someone, and you’ll love them, and you’ll live and die for them because that’s your way and your will.”

Oscar’s way. Oscar’s will. Two things he’s believed in wholeheartedly, until they’ve both failed him. Failed you. 

You take a step back. The anger you once claimed to always have is somewhere, there, beneath all the hurt and the love. Oscar sees it, now. All of it; all of you.

“And I’ll watch,” you add. 

Oscar will love someone— and you’ll watch. 

The wind rustles the leaves above. A bird sings somewhere in the distance. But all you hear is the sound of something breaking open, and bleeding between you. 

The deep and dying breath of the love you’d been working on. 

Oscar doesn’t see you much after that night in Albert Park. 

You’re still around, still next door. He hears you laughing with Hattie, helping Mae with a school project, or chatting idly with his mum over the fence. But it’s not the same. Something fundamental had shifted.

He tries. God knows he tries. He greets you when he sees you on the street. Makes light jokes. Keeps it easy, breezy, friendly. But every conversation feels like a performance, a pale imitation of what it used to be.

He’d broken both your hearts. He knows that too well. 

Oscar doesn’t tell anyone, not even Hattie, who always had a sixth sense for these things. He lets you control that narrative; he’s sure you’ll tell his sisters, and they’ll all have something to say. Surprisingly, none of them bring it up. He wonders if that’d been your condition with them, and he is grateful, and he is angry, and he is so, so sorry.

He channels everything into racing. He throws himself into his training, enough that it gets him trophies and podiums and a contract with a frontrunning team. 

His dream—the one he’d chased his whole life—is here. 

And it’s everything he ever wanted. Almost.

A few days before he’s due to fly out for testing with McLaren, he finds himself in the backyard, watering the garden with Mae. She’s picking mint leaves with the same dramatic flair she does everything. He doesn’t notice when she says your name until the silence that follows makes him realize he’s been staring blankly at the hose.

You have a part-time job now, Mae had said. Oscar knows. Not from you. Rarely does he know anything about you from you nowadays. He watches your life in fifteen Instagram stories, in the Facebook posts of your grandfather. He hears about you from his parents and whichever of his sisters is feeling particularly brave that day. 

It’s so sudden, his urge to be honest. And so, for the first time since what happened in the park—he lets himself speak his mind. 

“Maybe I was too quick in turning her down,” he says, voice low. Contemplative. 

Mae looks up from the mint. She looks a bit surprised, like she hadn’t expected to be the one to get Oscar to finally crack after over a year of dancing around the topic. 

“Do you love her?” she asks outright. 

He fucking hesitates. 

His throat feels dry. 

“If she asked me again, I think I would say yes,” he says instead, his gaze fixed on the poor tomato plant now drowning in water. “Do you think she’ll ask me again?” 

From the corner of his eye, he sees Mae straighten. She brushes her hands against her jeans and stares straight at him, willing him to look at her. “But do you love her?” she repeats, and he knows it’s not a question he’s going to escape. 

“I want to be loved,” Oscar admits. The words taste like copper.

Mae doesn't flinch. “That's not the same as loving. If you wanted to be loved, then get a fucking fan club,” she spits. 

Her voice is firm, but not cruel. It lands with the weight of care disguised as exasperation. And Oscar feels so much, then, but above all he feels gratitude that his sisters love you like one of their own. Their fierce protectiveness of your welfare—in the face of Oscar’s indecision—knocks some much-needed sense into him. 

“You’re right,” he says quietly.

“She deserves more than piecemeal affection, Oscar,” Mae adds, softening. “You can’t go halfsies with someone like her.”

Oscar knows his sister is right. 

Something aches in his chest, then. He can’t tell if it’s loneliness or the shape of losing you, still carved somewhere in his chest. Beneath the ache of what he turned away is the terrible fear that he never really understood what he was saying no to.

“I won’t do anything stupid,” he promises Mae. 

Later that afternoon, Oscar is pouring himself a glass of water in the kitchen when movement catches his eye through the window. He turns and sees you biking past with Hattie. Your carefree laughter carries across the breeze, light and familiar. Your hair catches the sun.

You glance up and see him. There’s a pause. Beyond the cursory small talk, the two of you haven’t really talked much this break. He understands why you need your space., and so he never presses, never pushes. 

Even though he can’t help but think of how a pre-confession you might have reacted. How you would’ve ditched your bike and slammed into the house, demanding he pour you a drink, too. Or how you would’ve goaded him into a race until the two of you were spilling onto the pavement, all breathless laughter and skinned knees.

As it is, all Oscar gets is a polite smile and a half-wave. He doesn’t know if it’s a hello or a goodbye. 

He raises his hand, waves back. He watches until you disappear around the corner.

And then he keeps watching, long after you’re gone.

To: yourusername@gmail.com From: oscar.piastri81@mclaren.com Subject: Stupid stupid stupid 

I hope this email finds you well. 

Actually, I hope it never finds you. This is a bit stupid. A lot stupid. But I’ve just had my first proper testing and I wanted to text you about it, except I wasn’t sure how you might feel to hear from me. I reached for my phone, opened our text thread, and then decided to fake an email to you instead. 

You’re right. It’s definitely more orange than papaya. 

And Lando Norris is not so bad. I think you’d like him. But not like like him. I’m not sure, actually. We could find out. Or not.

This is stupid. Bye. 

— O. (McLaren Technology Centre)

*** 

To: yourusername@gmail.com From: oscar.piastri81@mclaren.com Subject: I don’t know what to call this one

Hey,

Doha's airport smells like cleaning chemicals and tired people. I watched a family fall asleep upright on a bench. The dad had his hand curled around the kid's backpack like he was scared someone would run off with it. I don't know why I'm telling you this. 

Maybe because it's 2AM and I'm tired and I can't sleep on planes unless you're next to me. Which is stupid, because you were never on that many flights with me. But the ones you were? I slept like a rock.

I hope you're well. I hope you're sleeping.

—O. (Doha International Airport) 

*** 

To: yourusername@gmail.com From: oscar.piastri81@mclaren.com Subject: New Year 

Happy New Year.

I watched the fireworks from the hotel rooftop. I wish I was back in Melbourne, but stuff made it not-possible. 

It was cold. Everyone had someone to kiss. I had a glass of champagne and a view. 

You came to mind. You always do when things start or end. I'm starting to think that's what you are to me. The start and the end.

Love, O. (Hotel de Paris Monte-Carlo) 

Edited to add: It was midnight when I wrote all that stuff. I’m rereading it now, hungover at the breakfast buffet. Guess I can be a bit of a romantic too, huh? Although I think it’s only ever with you. 

***

To: yourusername@gmail.com From: oscar.piastri81@mclaren.comSubject: You're in my dreams 

I dreamed about you again. You were wearing that ridiculous jacket you got on sale for $5, the one you claimed made you look mega. You did not look mega. You looked like someone lost a bet.

You hugged me and told me everything would be okay. Then I woke up and it wasn’t.

I know I don’t get to tell you this anymore, but I miss you.

—O. (Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington Hotel) 

***

To: yourusername@gmail.com From: oscar.piastri81@mclaren.comSubject: Hahaha

I heard someone with your exact laugh. Turned my head so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.

It wasn’t you.

You’d tease me for how dramatic that sounds. You always said I was a little too sentimental for a boy who liked going fast.

Still thinking of you.

—O. (Silverstone Circuit) 

***

To: yourusername@gmail.com From: oscar.piastri81@mclaren.comSubject: If I had said yes…

Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I’d said yes that day in Albert Park.

I don’t know if we would’ve worked. Maybe we would have burned bright and fast and hurt each other in the end. Or maybe we would’ve grown into each other like roots. I don’t know. I just know I still think about it.

And that’s not fair. And I would never tell a soul. I just 

wonder.

Sometimes. 

Always your O. (Yas Marina Circuit)

The glitch hits sometime between 2 and 3 a.m. local time.

Oscar doesn’t notice at first. He’s still jet-lagged from the flight from Abu Dhabi, half-awake on his phone in bed, replying to a team manager's message. It's not until he opens his inbox to forward a document and sees the string of outbox confirmations—all with your name in the recipient line—that he realizes something is very, very wrong.

His breath catches.

He stares at the screen for a long, stunned moment before scrambling up from bed, heart in his throat. He checks the Sent folder. It’s all there. Every last one. The emails he never meant to send.

They'd been his safekeepings. His way of getting through the ache without adding more weight to yours. Some were barely a few sentences; others pages long. And all of them, every last word, are now sitting in your inbox like little bombs waiting to go off.

He Googles it with trembling fingers. Gmail glitch sends drafts. 

He sees the headlines flooding in. Tech sites confirm that a rare global sync error had triggered thousands of unsent drafts to be sent automatically. They call it “an unprecedented failure.” Users are up in arms. Memes are already spreading.

Oscar wants to fucking hurl.

He’s home for the winter holidays. Back in Melbourne, back in his childhood room with the familiar creak in the floorboard by the desk. And you—you’re just next door.

You. With those emails.

He covers his face with both hands, dragging his palms down slowly.

“Holy shit,” he mutters to himself. 

There’s no escape to this. Just the silent, inescapable weight of every unsaid thing now said. Every truth, every maybe, every I thought of you today signed off with hotel names and airport codes and times when he was still trying to figure out how to stop missing you.

And now you know. Every word of it. Every selfish, unfair thought that he didn’t deserve to have about you, not after he’d ripped your heart right out of your chest. 

He peeks out the window before he can stop himself. Your lights are on. 

For some reason, Oscar is reminded of the book you had been so obsessed with as a child. The classic Great Gatsby; the millionaire with his green light at the edge of the dock. Oscar never really cared much for the metaphor of it until now, until he stares at the filtered, warm light streaking through your curtains like it’s something he will forever be in relentless pursuit of. 

But then your light flickers off, and Oscar stumbles back down to his bed. 

You’re going to sleep, he realizes with a breath of relief. He sinks into the mattress with a thousand curses against modern technology. 

Oscar tells himself he’ll talk to you tomorrow. Explain everything. Try to salvage what’s left of the peace you’ve both learned to live in, however shaky and distant it is. He’ll explain that he didn’t send them on purpose. That he’s sorry. That he didn’t mean to—

A soft knock at the window makes him bolt upright.

He hasn’t heard that sound in years. Not since you were kids and the ladder in his backyard was your shared secret. 

His breath catches. He doesn’t move right away. 

He has to be dreaming, he thinks dazedly, but then he hears it again. Three quick taps. A familiar rhythm.

Oscar throws the covers off and crosses the room in two strides. He pulls the curtain aside.

You’re standing on the top rung of the ladder, and he briefly contemplates making a run for it again. 

Instead, he throws the window open. You climb in without a word, landing on the floor of his bedroom with the same ease you always had. You’re in cotton pajamas with a hastily thrown-on hoodie, which—whether you remember or not—had been one of Oscar’s from years and years ago. 

“It’s the middle of the night,” he breathes. 

“And you’re in love with me,” you say without preamble. 

Accusation. Question. 

Fact? 

Oscar is frozen like a deer caught in headlights. You’re staring up at him, searching, with that same matchstick flame of anger that has carried you through life so far. 

When he doesn’t immediately counter you, you go on. “Do you love me because I love you?” you ask, and the question knocks the wind out of Oscar. 

“No,” he says quickly. “It’s not like that.”

He— he would never forgive himself, if his affection for you was nothing more than an attempt at reciprocation. 

You stare at him through the darkness. “Why, then?” you press, because of course you deserve to know why. 

His throat works around the answer. It’s a confession that’s been in the making for more than a year. In some ways, it’s been there since he almost sat on you at that damn house party. The words tumble out of him, overdue but not any less sincere. 

“I love you because you’re a terrible dancer,” he says, “and you know how to swim against riptides, and you’re the person I think of when I’ve had a bad free practice and when I'm on the top step of a podium. I love you. It just took me a little while to get here, but I do.” 

“O,” you start. He’s not ready to hear it. 

He steps back, as if to give you space he should’ve offered long ago. “I don’t expect you to have waited,” he says hastily. “I would never—I would never ask you to reconsider, not when I know the type of person I am and how much time it took for me to get here.”

“Oscar.” 

“But I love you. I don't know how not to.”

The room is silent, but it feels like it holds the weight of a thousand words left unsaid. The ones he wrote. 

You remind Oscar, gently, of what you said in Albert Park those many years ago. “I can’t love anybody else either,” you say, your eyes never leaving his face even as he begins to panic, starts to retreat. 

He swallows hard, his throat moving with the effort. “I should have realized sooner,” he babbles. “I should’ve known. I—” 

You reach out, your hand slipping into his. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

It feels so good—your fingers in between the spaces of his. He wishes he could appreciate it more, but his race-brain has kicked in, and he’s suddenly not the calm, cool, and collected Oscar that everybody in the world think they know. 

No, he’s your Oscar. The one who’s a little bit of a wreck. The one who is always racing away from something. 

“I wasn’t kind,” he says, voice tight. “I let you go. I thought I was doing the right thing. and maybe I did, but it still hurt you. It ruined everything.”

“We’re here now,” you say simply. “That means something, doesn’t it?”

“What if we ruin what’s left? What if it doesn't work?”

You smile at him, soft and sure. “Then it doesn’t. But I don’t think we’ll fail.” 

“I’m still homely, and awkward, and—” 

Mean, he meant to say, but then you’re pressing your lips against his. 

It silences all his fretting, all his guilt. For a second, he doesn’t move, stunned into stillness, and then he kisses you back like he’s falling into something he’s wanted his whole life but never believed he could have. Like he can’t breathe unless he's doing this, unless he’s kissing you.

When he’s more sane, when he’s less panicked, this is something the two of you will talk about. He knows that. 

In this very moment, though, he can only watch his sharp edges dull; the fury of his rage, extinguish. The softness of your understanding, the kindness of your patience, the gentleness of your kiss. It’s all he wanted, all he needs.

His hands frame your face, hesitant, reverent, like he can't believe you’re really here with him. That you waited. That you still want him. 

In his head, he makes a promise: If he must hit the ground running, he will make sure it’s towards you.

When the two of you pull back for air, you murmur teasingly against his lips, “Your emails found me well.” 

He giggles, a short, incredulous sound, before kissing the laughter right out of your mouth. ⛐

my songs that would protect me from vecna would be cherry wine by hozier because that shit pulls my heart strings over and over again- crying listening to it rn

YES YES YESSSSS ITS SO GOOD

The One Where Everyone Finds Out

Master List

Spencer Reid is in love with Y/N, and she’s in love with him…only they don’t know it yet…and they might be are definitely going to be the very last to know. And since Spencer and Y/N happen to be surrounded by the best profilers in the country, the rest of the team is, of course, the first to piece together the romance. Little by little, bit by bit, the team solves the case of Spencer and Y/N. 

A 1K Celebration miniseries!

TIMELINE OF EVENTS MENTIONED IN THE SERIES

The One Where Hotch Finds Out

The One Where Penelope Finds Out

The One Where Derek Finds Out

The One Where Alex Finds Out

The One Where JJ Finds Out

The One Where Rossi Finds Out

The One Where Spencer Finds Out

The One Where Everyone Finds Out

Full Fic in Chronological Order

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Link to Main Master List

i don’t even need to say anything. just READ ITTTT

Love Letters in the Margins

MASTERLIST

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Summary: Spencer has a habit of leaving handwritten notes in the books you borrow from his personal collection. One day, you finally write back.

Pairing: Reader/Spencer Reid

Spencer Reid’s personal library was nothing short of magnificent. Towering shelves filled with well-loved books lined the walls of his apartment, their spines worn from years of eager reading. When you had first started borrowing from his collection, you had done so carefully, treating each volume like a fragile artifact. But what you hadn't expected to find—hidden between passages and prose—were his words.

The first time it happened, you had borrowed Pride and Prejudice. Nestled in the margins, in neat, slightly slanted handwriting, was a comment next to Elizabeth Bennet’s sharp-witted retort to Mr. Darcy.

“You remind me of Elizabeth—sharp, observant, and far too intelligent for the company you keep.”

You had stared at the note for minutes, heart pounding. Spencer had written this long before you borrowed the book, hadn’t he? It wasn’t meant for you, was it? The thought of confronting him about it seemed daunting. Instead, you traced his words with your fingertips, feeling a warmth bloom in your chest.

That discovery led to another. And another.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray:

“You would never be swayed by vanity. Your soul is too kind.”

In Jane Eyre:

“If I were Rochester, I wouldn’t have kept secrets from you.”

Each annotation, each carefully placed comment, felt personal. They weren’t just general observations; they were thoughtful, tailored to you.

Days passed before you gathered the courage to respond. You chose one of the books Spencer often reread—The Great Gatsby. As you turned the familiar pages, you found a passage underlined in Spencer’s careful hand:

“He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.”

And next to it, in his delicate handwriting:

“Longing is a difficult thing to master.”

You exhaled deeply, running your fingers over the ink. If Spencer had been leaving these notes for you, maybe he had been waiting for a response, just as you had been waiting for a sign. With a rush of courage, you picked up a pen and, in the same margin, wrote:

“I wouldn’t need a green light. You’ve always been within reach.”

When you returned the book, carefully placing it back on his desk at the BAU, you felt the weight of your silent confession settle in your chest. What if he never noticed? What if he saw it and said nothing? The uncertainty gnawed at you, but it was too late to take it back now.

The next day, Spencer found you in the bullpen, book in hand, his expression unreadable. Your heart leapt into your throat.

“You…” he started, voice soft, reverent almost, as he flipped open The Great Gatsby to the exact page where your response was written. His fingers traced your words like they were delicate, precious.

“I—” you faltered. “Was that okay?”

His eyes locked onto yours, something unspoken passing between you. Then, he smiled. Not just any smile—one of those rare, genuine smiles that lit up his entire face, the kind of smile that made your stomach flip.

“You wrote back.” His voice was breathless, in awe.

You swallowed hard. “I was wondering when you’d notice.”

For a long moment, Spencer simply stared at you, the book clutched to his chest. It was as if he was processing every possibility at once, and you could almost see the thoughts racing in his brilliant mind. Then, before you could panic, he took a step closer.

“I—” He hesitated, clearing his throat. “I’ve been leaving those notes for you.”

Your breath caught. “You have?”

Spencer gave a short, nervous laugh. “For a while now. I didn’t know if you’d ever see them or if you’d—”

“I saw them,” you interrupted, a smile tugging at your lips. “And I loved them.”

His shoulders relaxed, relief washing over his face. “Really?”

You nodded, warmth spreading through you. “Really.”

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Then, Spencer exhaled, flipping the book open once more. “So… does this mean I can keep writing to you?”

You tilted your head playfully. “Only if I can write back.”

His smile widened, his fingers brushing against yours over the worn edges of the book. “I’d like that.”

From that day forward, every book exchanged between you contained more than just stories. Between the lines of famous literature, nestled in the margins of classic texts, you found something even more precious:

Love letters in ink, waiting to be read.

The notes continued, hidden within the pages of literature both of you adored. A stolen thought in Wuthering Heights, a whispered confession in Les Misérables. Each time Spencer handed you a book, your fingers would brush, lingering longer than necessary, and his eyes would search yours for recognition.

Then, one evening, as you flipped through Anna Karenina, you found a note in the final pages, underlining a passage about fate.

“Sometimes, love is written long before we even know it exists.”

And below it, in a nervous, yet determined script, Spencer had added:

“I think I’ve been in love with you longer than I realized.”

Your breath caught, your heart hammering against your ribs. This wasn’t just a passing thought, an intellectual observation. It was real.

Without hesitation, you reached for a pen and, with steady fingers, wrote beneath his words:

“Then it’s about time we stop reading between the lines.”

That night, when Spencer saw your response, he didn’t just smile.

He kissed you.

And for the first time, there were no more words left unwritten.

The notes continued, but they became something different now—love notes, secret confessions, playful teases. You wrote to him in the margins of history books, and he replied with riddles in the pages of mystery novels. The space between you had once been filled with unspoken words, but now it was a novel of its own, each sentence a promise, each underline a touch.

One day, Spencer handed you a book without a title on its cover. Puzzled, you flipped it open to the first page, where a single line was scrawled in his familiar handwriting:

“Every great love story deserves to be written.”

And beneath it, in smaller letters:

“Will you write ours with me?”

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hey… don’t watch those sad dog videos. y’know you’re gonna cry. i just finished watching them and crying, so just… don’t.

on contrast, you need something to cry about? search up Laika the space dog on tiktok or just google.

"Untitled" by Fiona, posted to Tumblr on May 21. 2014