five times lando saw oscar's face and one time the world did

m-eye-ami

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It was a month into the season that Lando discovered that he couldn’t have been more wrong. Behind that cute accent and innocent voice, there lay coiled a sarcastic and witty little shit. He’d known P had to have a competitive streak of some kind, but it was so well hidden behind the mild-mannered mask he wore most of the time. 

So of course, one night, he called up Carlos and the two spent the night together, drinking far more than they should and complaining about things that Lando had no memory of the next morning. It was more than likely that it was about P and his snarky little attitude, but if he had no memory of it, it couldn’t have been that important. 

As the season progressed and P became more comfortable on camera and settled more into his role, he ended up filming more and more videos. Fans ate up the individual videos that P did, like his first day at McLaren and Google’s most searched questions, so the only natural next step was for Charlotte to suggest that P and Lando film a few videos together, and they were the perfect opportunity for P to demonstrate just how annoying he could be. 

The first one was nothing big or flashy, just the two drivers sitting in a secluded room hidden in the back of the paddock. As the cameras were set up and Lando was fawned over by makeup artists, they were told that the video would be them taking the British Driving Theory test. 

Lando felt a small swoop in his stomach at the announcement. It wasn’t like it was scary or anything. Hell, he drove at 250 kilometers an hour on the weekly. However, the first time he’d taken his theory test, he’d failed, so he didn’t exactly have the fondest memories of the test. 

He’d never been good at tests. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the answers, he just got into his own head and ended up convincing himself that the right answer was wrong. Because technically the other answer he’d ended up choosing was right, it just wasn’t most right. Stupid driving test. 

Plus, he hadn’t looked at the stupid handbook in literal years, so god knows how much he actually remembered. But, he told himself confidently, he had to at least know a bit more than his teammate. Lando was the Brit, after all. 

Yet as they started filming, Lando got the sinking feeling that he couldn’t have been more wrong. The first question had Lando pausing and looking at P for the answer. Lando glanced back at the screen. He curled a hand over his mouth, a slightly embarrassed smile crinkling his eyes as P reasoned through the question. 

“Mmm, well it’s obviously not putting on the parking brake… so B?” P asked, his sunglasses fixed intently at the tablet in Lando’s hand. “Like… D doesn’t make any sense because it’s their job to make room behind you and to ‘the left side of the road’... well you just drive in the middle. So. B.” He glanced up at the man with the questions, and was rewarded with a “Yes, correct.” P pumped his fist in celebration as Lando let out a strained laugh. 

“Number two!” Lando announced, wanting to move on as quickly as possible. 

Both drivers got more into it with each query, graduating from answering the question to slapping the table, Lando with his hand, P with a rather redundant McLaren hat that had been handed to him at the beginning of the video, despite his balaclava covering every inch of his hair. 

“How did you get that one!” Lando demanded. “Weird, mate.” 

“It’s cause I know how to drive! That’s literally our job!” P laughed back, whacking the table with his hat again for emphasis. 

And— god, P had to stop laughing at every single thing that Lando said because it was driving him insane. He could feel P’s heavy gaze on him every time he opened his mouth and was two seconds away from losing it at the full-body giggle that overtook the younger man whenever Lando said anything remotely funny. Whether he adored it or hated it was not something that Lando wanted to analyze at the moment.