Chapter Text
Outqualifying Charles usually felt good, but Lando couldn’t be happy about it when he had to look at the rear wing of Pierre’s Alpha Tauri coming in, six thousandths of a second behind.
“Chin up, mate,” Will said into his earpiece. “You did great out there. Daniel was bumped out in Q2, he’s P11 on the starting grid. You did well.”
Lando swore under his breath. He’d been wondering why he didn’t see another orange livery out on track, but he’d asked Will not to inform him of Daniel’s position unless he was a threat.
Thinking about Daniel distracted him, and he needed to perform.
Someone had to.
“Thanks everyone,” Lando finally said over radio. “We’ll get ‘em tomorrow. Great work, sorry I couldn’t do better for you today.”
He rolled into the pits and extracted himself from the car, absolutely soaked in sweat. Part of his training involved ignoring the elements as much as possible while in the car, but the second he stepped out of it, everything hit him full force.
He freed himself from his helmet and balaclava as quickly as possible, and someone handed him a towel to wipe the sweat from his face so it would stop pouring into his eyes.
“Everyone’s good, right?” Lando asked Will as he patted his back. “Carlos is okay?”
“He’s okay,” Will replied.
Lando lowered the towel from his face and sucked in a breath of relief. He’d seen Carlos’s Ferrari bunched against the barriers during Q2, but he’d seen spinning tires too, which meant Carlos hadn’t been injured. No one said anything during the red flag while Lando kept the music pumping in his ears, refusing to look at the screens.
Qualifying carried on, so he assumed that Carlos wasn’t in a hospital somewhere.
All in all, he thought he did pretty damn well at keeping focus.
Lando swiped his water bottle from a nearby cart and squeezed a stream of water into his mouth.
And promptly spit it back out, coughing and sputtering at the rancid taste.
“Lando?” Will asked, crouching as Lando doubled over, spitting globs of white dehydration saliva on the floor.
Vodka. Not a lot, but enough.
Lando glanced at the water bottle and Daniel’s driver number stared back.
“I’m good,” Lando said, coughing. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and shook his head. “I’m good, mate.”
He stumbled away, grabbing his real water bottle and taking Daniel’s with him. He sucked down as much water as he could, trying to wash the disgusting taste from his mouth.
He knew alcoholism was a serious thing. In the back of his mind, he knew that. But they were princes. They drove fast cars and trained hard and honestly, how hard could it be to just not drink for a goddamn day?
The midday sun beat down on him as Lando marched down the grid toward the media pen. George stood at the end of the line, one hand on his hip, discussing his qualifying run.
Lando brought Daniel’s water bottle to his lips and took a small sip, enough to wet his tongue. He licked his lips. He flinched at the burn of alcohol, but didn’t stop as he walked right up to Daniel mid-interview.
“Look who it is,” Daniel greeted with a smile. “Sup, babe.”
“Got a little worried about you,” Lando said, smiling back. He was getting better at faking. “Don’t miss out on Q3 again, love. I need you with me.”
Daniel’s eyes flashed, but his smile didn’t change, even as Lando tugged him into a kiss he knew Daniel couldn’t refuse on camera.
He felt the moment Daniel tasted the vodka, the way his whole body went rigid. Lando didn’t let up, turning anger into fake passion as he grazed his tongue against Daniel’s. Taste it, you piece of shit.
“Boys,” Sophia warned. “Boys.”
Lando pulled back with a wet sound that almost made him gag. He shoved his water bottle into Daniel’s chest and kept his smile pasted on as he stepped back.
“See you soon, babe,” Lando said in what he hoped sounded like a loving voice. But when he smacked Daniel on the back, he smacked him hard.
He blew past the reporters and back toward the garage, his duty done for the day. Until he had to make the decision about whether or not to report his husband to the FIA for fucking drinking on the grid.
He didn’t even make it past the Alfa Romeo garage when George stepped in front of him.
“Not in the mood,” Lando snapped.
How the fuck was he supposed to do this? Daniel swore he would never drink before getting in the car, and Lando believed him. But Daniel was also a fucking alcoholic.
“I don’t care if you’re in the mood or not, we have a serious fucking problem,” George growled.
Lando looked up at him, jaw set. George’s eyes were dark, his posture somehow threatening, though Lando had never felt threatened by that lanky-ass frame once in his life.
“Fine,” Lando hissed, finally unfastening his race suit at the collar and unzipping it. He shimmied out of the sleeves to escape the heat as he followed George down the paddock. FIA officials watched them as they walked, but Lando was more focused on the residual vodka taste in his mouth.
He unscrewed the cap on Daniel’s water bottle and dumped the contents into a drain at their feet, ignoring the looks he got when he did so.
Fucking Daniel. The right thing to do would be to report Daniel to the FIA, but he would lose his crown immediately, probably without trial. He didn’t deserve that, even if he was putting them all at risk. Lando saw the real Daniel too often to believe he’d been totally lost.
George headed straight for the Mercedes garage. Lando cleared his throat in an attempt to get his attention, but George pressed on. Mercedes personnel looked up at them as they approached, and Lando felt Lewis’s presence like a shadow over the place.
“George—”
“Shut up,” George snapped.
Lando pulled up sharply. He was not about to go into Mercedes.
“Mate, we’re not—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence before George grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him past the Mercedes and into the breezeway to the hospitality lane. Lando kept his lips set in a tight line. He wanted his phone. He wanted to see if Carlos texted him, if he was really okay or just faking it.
They texted almost every night now, since they didn’t always have the chance to talk. Charles still hated the idea of burner phones, and Lando elected not to tell Daniel about it in case he got drunk and blabbed.
He kind of liked having a secret. It made Carlos feel more like his.
Lando hopped along on his toes to keep up with George’s longer stride, avoiding the stares from FIA personnel. He wished he had his cap to hide his face.
George slipped into the space between the Alpine and Aston Martin hospitality motorhomes. Lando waited several seconds before following him. He didn’t like being wedged between two rival empires, but Red Bull and Mercedes probably had listening ears around rival camps.
“This had better be good,” Lando muttered once George finally turned to face him. His eyes were glassy, his nostrils flared.
They stared at each other for a moment. Lando’s annoyance slipped away, replaced with a feeling similar to seeing Carlos’s car in a dented barrier.
“I had a conversation with Charles before FP1,” George began. “He said he owed me an apology for something, but didn’t want to say it out loud, so he asked for my phone to write me a note to read later.” He shook his head in disbelief. “He fucking—At the hospital, he—”
Lando frowned, stepping closer to put a hand on George’s arm. He didn’t speak—George didn’t like it when people tried to coax bad news out of him.
“Max told Charles he exiled Alex on purpose,” George grit out. “Charles and Pierre made me feel crazy. Everyone made me feel fucking crazy—but I was right, Lando. I was fucking right.”
Lando’s stomach dropped.
He loved Alex. He didn’t make much of a show of it. Friendship was harder to maintain in exile than a romance. Seeing Alex affected him too, of course, but they didn’t have anything left unsaid between them, and he knew that if Alex walked up to them right now, they’d still be friends.
Max used to look to Alex as an example. Lando remembered the way Max used to watch him and George with envy in his eyes. Lando did too. Alex and George were the couple everyone wanted to be, even if the rest of them pretended they only wanted to fool around with strangers.
Lando spent enough time third wheeling with both couples to see the things Max copied on Charles. A scratch to the back of Charles's head when he approached from behind, massaging oil into Charles's palms after a long day at the track. Takeout from the one good Japanese place in Monaco after a bad day, adding on green tea ice cream as a dessert. Lando only remembered seeing similarities in the beginning, back when Max had no idea what he was doing, fearful that boys as pretty as Charles Leclerc wouldn’t wait for him to learn.
“Fuck,” Lando whispered.
The worst part was that he could understand Max’s line of thinking. Him and Max were both quiet, observational people—contrary to what PR and their empires liked for everyone to thing. Max had a knack for saying stupid, inflammatory shit to the media, and Lando made wisecracks that usually did more harm than good to his public image.
Alex had charisma, charm and a rock-solid love with George that superseded everything else. He couldn’t drive as well as Max, but he would have beaten him in the media pen, and sometimes that mattered more. Daniel didn’t win anymore and he still commanded the popularity charts.
Alex would never be completely loyal to Red Bull, not when George wore a Mercedes crown.
“And now Max is going to frame me,” George said, fussing with the sleeve of his nomex. “He used Charles to fucking set me up.”
Lando cocked a brow. “Gonna have to explain that one to me.”
George glared at him. Lando winced—there he went, saying things without thinking about how they would come across.
“I had a video on my phone,” George explained. “I can’t tell you what it was, but it was the best piece of leverage I had to make sure no one tries to take Charles’s crown.”
Lando frowned. “I think I need—”
“Charles didn’t just write a note. He accessed an app I used to hide the video and fucking airdropped it to himself. He did it right in front of me and I didn’t even notice.”
“Okay mate, this is getting a little out of hand,” Lando said, trying to maintain calm. “First off, why do you have an app to hide stuff in? Second, how the hell does Charles know how to access it?”
George chewed his bottom lip as he shook his head. “Max.”
“Max?”
“I used to keep photos for him—not those kind of fucking photos, Lando,” George said, leveling a glare at him when he scrunched up his nose.
Lando threw up his hands. “Sorry, what the hell else am I supposed to think?”
“Photos in case he ever decided to press charges against Jos,” George explained.
Jesus fuck. Lando grimaced, his gut twisting up at the thought of what those pictures might show. Max hid his injuries well, and Lando had been late to the party in the karting division behind them, so he didn’t see Max very often on track, where all of the abuse supposedly happened.
But he did remember seeing huge swaths of red and purple on Max’s ribs when he stretched his arms over his head and his shirt lifted too high. He remembered Charles moving closer, tucking his face into Max’s neck a moment later.
He never understood how Max and Charles got along, let alone fell in love.
“So Max told him how to find the video,” Lando murmured, fitting the pieces together. “But, I mean, couldn’t it be Charles trying to use the video for something?”
George shook his head. “Charles never should have known about the video. Max shouldn’t either. Only three people on this planet knew I took that video, and one of them was me. So someone else told Max I had it.”
Lando sighed. “This would be a lot easier to help you with if I knew what the hell was going on.”
“I caught someone in a secret relationship,” George said stiffly. “I took a video so I’d have leverage.”
Lando made a face. “Doesn’t that seem a little fucked up?”
“Of course it’s fucked up,” George hissed, crossing his arms with a huff. “I never intended to use that video, but I needed it to protect Charles. Now Charles has it, and I bet he’s sent it to Max by now.”
Lando found it difficult to be stressed about something when he didn’t know the stakes. Unless George found Sebastian Vettel murdering puppies in a team garage, he didn't think a video of a secret relationship would make news at this point. Unless...
“Carlos isn’t involved, is he?” Lando asked.
He felt silly asking, because Carlos was always truthful with him. But Lando knew that when people dug themselves a hole, sometimes they kept digging instead of crawling out.
George sighed. “No. But this video can’t get out. I made a promise.”
Lando leaned against the side of the Aston Martin suite. He needed to get Daniel under control, he needed to talk to Carlos, and now he needed to talk to Max.
“I need you to talk Max out of—”
“I know,” Lando said, tipping his head to the sky. “I have to talk to him anyway.”
He never thought being a prince would include all of this bullshit. Taking secret videos of secret relationships. Keeping burner phones to have secret conversations with the man he loved. Navigating old friendships to salvage others. Carlos changing his mind and going to Ferrari. Max exiling Alex on purpose.
“I'm sure he’s gone already,” Lando said, lolling his head to face George. “I’ll have to catch him tomorrow.”
George extended his phone. “I think you should read the note first.”
Lando thought about doing the upstanding thing and saying no. Charles wrote the note for George, not him. But jealousy always had a way of reminding him that choosing not to engage meant he would fall behind. Lewis Hamilton kept his rule because he’d perfected the craft of knowing everything.
Lando took the phone.
Max and I spoke at the hospital. He told me that he chose to exile Alex. I could only think of how I defended him with you. Words can’t express how sorry I am. I didn’t think he would do that. Apparently there are a lot of things I didn’t know.
Max wants to fix the things that are wrong with this system. I’m going to help how I can, because I want that too. That means taking advantage of your trust right now, but I’m going to get Alex back as part of this mission.
I lost Max once, I won’t lose him again. I won’t lose Carlos either. We all have a journey, and I’m choosing to take mine with them.
I’m sorry. I hope you can understand.
Lando shoved phone back at George.
“He doesn’t have Carlos,” Lando spat. Hurt welled up in his throat. “He has Pierre--who he didn't even mention. Carlos is coming back to McLaren.”
He’d never said it out loud before, and it wasn’t like Carlos even confirmed he would, but Lando had to have something to hope for.
George frowned. He looked haunted. “Make sure Max doesn’t release this video. Then we can work on making sure Carlos comes back.”
Lando nodded once. He didn’t say anything as he rushed out of the hiding space, too afraid that he would say something he couldn’t take back. Like that maybe Max wasn’t the problem, Charles was.
Because Charles had always been the fucking problem.
Sophia found him before he even made it to the McLaren motorhome.
“Thank god,” she said. “I was about to start looking for you at Ferrari.”
Lando pasted on a smirk. “Why would I be there?”
She shot him a look, then handed over his phone. Four texts from Daniel, six missed calls.
We need to talk.
Lando, I’m fucking serious.
Don’t say anything to anyone, listen to me first.
I’m going to the hotel. Don’t fucking say anything. Please.
He flicked through the texts without responding.
“Can I get back to the hotel?” Lando asked. “I’m not feeling up for press.”
“Well that’s good, because media is already packing up for the day,” Sophia said sarcastically. She nodded toward the motorhome. “Go get properly dressed and we’ll take you back. But you’re doing double duty tomorrow, Your Highness.”
Lando flashed a smile, but he could only think about Charles whispering sweet nothings in Carlos’s ear, pulling him back into Ferrari for another appointment, convincing Carlos to love him only, the way Lando thought he had.
George was right about Charles being used, though. Lando had no doubt Max only wanted Charles for his agenda. A Ferrari ally with a connection to the last Red Bull champion--a connection strong enough to make Lance Stroll go on an Instagram bender posting pictures of his relationship--made for a powerful addition to Max’s team.
Lando locked the door to the drivers room once he made it inside and beelined for his bag.
All of the hurt and guilt and stress melted away the moment he saw unread texts from Carlos waiting for him on the burner. Lando snuggled into a pile of McLaren clothing and opened the thread.
Nothing is wrong with me, the first text read. The car, not so lucky. I could have kept driving, but my wing got caught underneath.
I want to see you. Do you have five minutes now?
You must not be near your phone. Or I am being greedy. Both?
We’re going back to the hotel. Charles and I are going to dinner. Won’t be able to call tonight, but I hope I can see you tomorrow? Please, I don’t want to wait until London.
London. Lando took a deep breath, reminding himself that in two weeks, he would have Carlos all to himself for five whole days.
Sorry I missed you, Lando wrote. Had to handle some things. I’ll tell you tomorrow when I see you. heart eyes 4 u.
Carlos responded immediately.
What were you doing?? I thought maybe I had lost you to the Hungarians.
Handling things, like I said. You’re able to read, right?
Are you OK?
Yes. Wish I could have seen you, though. Are YOU okay?
Are YOU able to read? Yes. Not even a bruise.
Have to go to hotel. I’ll think about you when I shower. 😍
Carlos responded with an overheated emoji that made Lando laugh. He couldn’t imagine Carlos sifting through emojis to send him, but he thought it was sweet anyway.
Texting off a burner still felt a little off—he was too afraid to write things, like how much he loved Carlos. Sometimes he thought about sexting, but definitely didn’t trust himself to take a half decent photo of himself. (Of what, even? His dick? No thanks.)
So they settled for stilted conversation, and Lando soaked in every word before he turned off the phone and picked himself up off the floor. He hadn’t sat down since leaving the car, and he wanted to go back to the room and sleep, but he knew he would have Daniel waiting for him, probably drunk.
He changed into a McLaren polo and sweats and headed back out to meet up with Sophia.
Fuck my life.
Lando took his time heading up to the hotel room. He lingered in the lobby to talk with Public Affairs about the kiss with Daniel in the paddock, which seemed to be going over well. Enough that it made up for his lack of a press showing.
He ate dinner at the hotel restaurant and FaceTimed Fewtrell, catching up on all the nothing happening at home. Few’s one job was setting up the flat for Carlos’s visit, and finding himself a place to stay for a week during. Few called it the king of all sexiles, Lando reminded him who was paying rent. Few then reminded him that technically he paid rent because Lando only made money off his tax dollars. To which, of course, Lando asked what paycheck he was getting taxes taken out of.
Pretty normal conversation when it came to them. Between that and a nice dinner, Lando found it in himself to approach Daniel with an open mind, with calm. Relative calm, anyway.
The strength of that feeling was tested the moment he stepped into the hotel suite and found Daniel sitting on the kitchen counter, kicking his heels against the cabinet doors in the most annoying rhythm Lando could possibly imagine. He had his hood up and headphones on, head bopping to a beat Lando couldn’t hear.
“Daniel,” Lando said loudly.
Daniel continued bopping.
“Daniel!”
Daniel stopped hitting the cabinet doors and leaned forward.
“Lando?”
“I hope so, who else would it be?”
He took a deep breath. He had to stop being an asshole. Especially now that he knew Charles intended to run off into the sunset with Max and Carlos.
Daniel tugged his headphones down to hang around his neck, but kept his hood up and his cap on. Probably to hide his drunkenness.
“I tried calling you like fifty times,” Daniel said. He used the same tone he used with the engineers. “You never texted me back, either.”
“I know. I didn’t have my phone for awhile after qualy. By then you were already back here, and I figured I’d let you sweat for a bit. Figured you might need it.”
So much for being gentle.
“You wasted a lot of time then, because I’m not drunk,” Daniel growled, leaning back against the counter.
“So I could call the FIA and test you right now?” Lando asked, crossing his arms.
Daniel pulled down his hood and tossed his cap on the floor.
“Look at me,” Daniel said. “I’m serious, look at me. Do I look like I drank today?”
“You drink every day, so it’s hard to tell,” Lando muttered reflexively, but he regretted it the moment it left his mouth.
Daniel’s eyes were hooded, his eyelids slightly purple to match the bags under his eyes that were big enough to carry groceries in. His skin had a sallow undertone, and his eyes were so red and irritated Lando didn’t know how he could keep them open.
Worse, Lando could almost see the weight of his heart in his chest, how it slumped him forward at the sternum and pushed at his ribs.
A drunk Daniel was a happy Daniel, and this Daniel didn’t have an ounce of joy in him.
“Okay, I believe you,” Lando said, swallowing hard. He didn’t want to look at Daniel’s face anymore.
Daniel laughed softly. “I used to be a stud,” he joked. “Promise.”
Lando balanced his fingers on Daniel’s knee. “You’re just going through a hard time right now. But you’re doing it, and that’s what counts.”
Daniel tipped his head back and looked down his nose at him, his version of rolling his eyes. Carlos did the same thing.
“Nice way of telling me I’m ugly as fuck,” Daniel slurred—from exhaustion, not drunkenness.
Lando lifted his chin, looking over his husband with something like curiosity. Attraction wasn’t the right word. The attractive parts of Daniel were the parts that reminded him of Carlos—his dark eyes, his tan skin. He wanted to think it was just loneliness, but it wasn’t that either.
“I still think you’re handsome,” Lando said cooly. He sounded like his mum. “Not that that means much.”
Daniel smiled at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Nah, can’t have two insecure people in this royal family.”
Lando let out a snort. “My boyfriend’s married to the paddock heartthrob and my husband faked a relationship with me for like the first four months of our relationship. So, like, how the fuck am I supposed to feel good about myself when nobody wants me?”
The truth came out of his unexpectedly, and it pulled from a part of him that fucking hurt.
Daniel leaned forward, his smile softening to one much more real than the grin he showed off in the paddock.
“Pretty sure Carlos still wants you pretty damn bad,” Daniel said.
More color crept to Lando’s cheeks, but he didn’t look away. “He wanted to put his dick in me, yeah.”
Daniel clucked softly. “Don’t start thinking that way. Eats you up. Turns real ugly real fast.”
“It’s already ugly,” Lando muttered. “Carlos is in love with Charles.”
Daniel let out a snort. “Try being in love with a guy whose first love was Charles.”
A darkness churned in the pit of Lando’s stomach. He looked away.
Daniel nudged his hip. “Right, you were around for that. Man, I would pay to see what Max was like back then.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Lando said. “Trust me.”
Prince Max bleached his past clean of the memories he didn’t want. Lando didn’t know all that much about Daniel and Max’s relationship history, but when Daniel talked about the past like this, Lando got the sense that he had no idea what Max’s dad used to do to him.
Lando liked to forget about the bad parts of his past too. If people thought he was weird now, he couldn’t imagine what they would have thought of him as a kid. Carlos probably never would have even looked at him.
“Oh, touched a nerve,” Daniel murmured.
“Shut up, mate,” Lando said, but it came out in a whisper.
Daniel hooked a finger under his jaw, lifting his head.
“I was faking at first ,” Daniel said with a nod. “I thought we’d make a good show. Kinda thought that was what you were doing too. When I realized that you, uh, thought it was real, I wanted to stop it. I was gonna tell you before the wedding. I was all ready to do it, to let you down easy and shit.”
Daniel cocked his head slightly, eyes trailing down to Lando’s lips.
“Then I didn’t. You showed up with sparkling grape juice and—I dunno—I didn’t want it to end. It felt good. I love Max—I’ll always love that motherfucker—but I wasn’t totally faking it with you.”
Lando narrowed his eyes. “Easy to say that now.”
Daniel wrinkled his nose affectionately. “Deffo. Everyone wants an alcoholic has-been on their—”
“Stop talking bad about yourself,” Lando cut. “Instill look up to you, you know. Everything you’ve done on track, the way you interact with everyone on the team. It’s cool. Like—you get what I mean. Nice.”
Daniel smiled. “Keep trying to explain it.”
Lando’s cheeks burned. “You get what I mean. And you can stop touching my face now.”
Daniel’s finger fell away, but his gaze lingered. “You look up to me, huh.”
The air thickened with the innuendo. Lando tried his best to ignore it.
He didn’t want to like Daniel. He really fucking didn’t. But Daniel had a personality that made him feel like maybe he didn’t need to be a perfect person. Daniel had all kinds of flaws—all kinds—and everyone loved him. He spread his likeability around, like the heat of a fire.
“Don’t make me say something mean just to balance things out,” Lando said.
Daniel leaned closer, and Lando reflexively brought his hands up to cradle his face—the same way he might hold an injured animal.
“You’re not in any state to be flirting.”
Daniel let out a hum. “Is it working?”
The want in Daniel’s eyes startled him, but not in a way that scared him. Carlos’s lust always surprised him, made him feel like a fraud, like he’d tricked the most beautiful man in the world to love him.
Daniel saw him on even ground. Lando saw Daniel the same way.
They weren’t in love. They could have been, maybe. You know, if Carlos didn’t exist.
“You brought a water bottle spiked with vodka to the garage, Daniel,” Lando reminded him. “You could have lost your crown for that. Anyone could have—”
“I know,” Daniel interrupted. “I know. I didn’t drink any though, I swear. That’s why I put it on your side of the garage. I’m fucking balls deep in stress, but I’m trying.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Lando said, gently easing Daniel back upright, sliding his palms from his face to press at his chest. “But don’t you think Max needs to know you’re trying too? What if something happens, you know? He needs to know.”
Daniel clutched at his polo, leaning back just enough to look him in the eye.
“If he finds out, I become a big risk. I know I’m gonna fuck up—I know I will. And if he knows and then I fuck up?” Daniel’s breaths started to go shallow, picking up speed against Lando’s palms. “You’re married to me and you still wanted to drop me today. If he finds out how much I’ve been drinking he’ll—I mean, fuck, anyone would—”
Daniel just himself off to gulp down more air.
Lando saw his own face reflected back at him. The same face he made when he saw sex bruises on his body and prickled with shame, in the way he avoided eye contact with Carlos so he wouldn’t have to see the comparison in his eyes.
“I wasn’t going to drop you,” Lando said, sliding his hands up to Daniel’s shoulders to massage there. Or something. He didn’t know how to give massages, but it always worked on him when Carlos did it.
“I was really pissed, yeah,” Lando continued. “And if you were drunk, I wasn’t gonna let that slide. But I wouldn’t drop you. You can be a fucking pain in the ass sometimes, but I—”
He swallowed hard, his fingers curling in the fabric of Daniel’s hoodie.
“I thought I’d never be happy again after Carlos left. But when you aren’t being a dick or getting drunk in the living room, you—fuck, mate. You make things, like, bearable. Or whatever.”
He cleared his throat. “Max loves you. That means he likes you more than me. Like, by a lot. So if that’s really how he feels, he’d never drop you over something like this either. And if he did, then fuck him, because that means he never really loved you.”
His mum would probably be crying if she heard all of that sappy shit flooding out of his mouth. George would probably slap him upside the head or something. Carlos would have laughed before—
Daniel’s lips pressed to his. They tasted like cherry, and nothing like alcohol. Lando’s breath stuttered in his chest, heart pounding in his ears. Kissing Daniel didn’t feel like a performance, he had nothing he needed to maintain. They were open and honest because they loved other princes they couldn’t see every day.
Daniel’s lips brushed against his, and his knees pressed against either side of Lando’s hips.
No nerves festered in Lando’s gut. No tension ratcheted up his spine, and he had no desire to slip from Daniel’s hold to grab a drink from the fridge or to offer a snack or to reset and enter into foreplay the right way.
Lando kissed him next, probably too hard, because Daniel chuckled against it, softening him with a little tease of fingers up his shirt.
Lando told himself it was practice as his fingers nested into Daniel’s hair. He told himself he would be better for London if he let himself relax against Daniel’s mouth, his fingers, between his thighs.
He pulled off his polo and laughed when Daniel panted like a dog at the reveal.
He was still laughing when Daniel kissed him again, and this time he wrapped his arms around him and slipped from the counter, guiding Lando back toward the bedroom.
Practice and stress relief, Lando decided as discarded clothing made a trail to their bedroom.
And a reward. For both of them, because sex with a sober Daniel turned out to be way better than sex with a tipsy one.