#or a pinch attempt like in the Monaco podium

[artemispt]

It’s Imola 2021 (thanks @sainzjrwdc 🥰)!

First a kick, then holding hands and a tickle attempt (I think 😅)

Hello?! I think I never saw this 😭 It’s from what race?

Source

[mcl4r3n]

dando + 2? 👀

“Why are you mad?” “I’m not mad, I just think you can choose better people to kiss.”

This got way longer than I intended so I'm putting this under the cut!

List of prompts here :3

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Daniel doesn't get Lando sometimes. Given, it's tough to adjust to new teammates. But it's been six months of being partnered up with Lando and Daniel still keeps feeling like all he does is take missteps around him.

He thought that they were getting somewhere, honestly. He's done his best. Is it jarring to not be instant friends with Lando? Yeah, fuck, he can admit that to himself.

But he thought that doing things like trying to invite him out for dinner, just—fucking, finding common ground considering that Daniel doesn't give a flying rat's ass about golf or gaming, would maybe help some.

It's bad enough that he can't get to grips with the car, and that his race engineer can barely remember his fucking name most days. he needs someone in his corner, and for some reason, his brain has decided to latch on to the one person who seems most adamant about not wanting to be his friend.

The thing is that this dinner, where he's taken Lando to one of his favorite little spots in Monaco to celebrate Lando's podium, was going along pretty nicely up until just a minute ago.

He decided early on that maybe coming out to Lando would help put him in his good graces—to show that he trusts him, to show something there was more to Daniel than just joking around and racing, maybe.

So he tells Lando a few little anecdotes about his attempts at dating since Lando asked, and he's in the middle of talking about this one guy who, well, hasn't been that great, really, but he's nice enough, even if he sometimes gives Daniel shit for his very busy schedule.

(The NDA Blake had to draw up for him had to be airtight. It was a whole thing.)

But now Lando's got this pinched expression on his face, and Daniel kind of breaks.

"Okay, Norris Lando, what gives?" Daniel finally asks.

It feels like he's about to fall apart, like every little hurt he's squirreled away inside the box in his head marked "do not open" is about to explode.

"Are you—like, is all of this making you uncomfortable? Why are you mad?” Daniel asks. He feels a little helpless, which is never a feeling he enjoys.

Lando's expression shifts, his eyebrows shooting up.

"What?"

Daniel puts his beer down, sighs, rests his forehead on his hand. he's so tired, all of a sudden. It's been a shit season, a shit year, and all he wanted to do was be Lando's fucking friend.

"You're—you're looking at me like—mate, I don't even know. You asked me about my dating life and so I decided to share it with you and now you're looking at me like I pissed in your drink, so what fucking gives? Why are you mad at me?"

Lando's face colours, and then he looks away. Daniel watches him, watches the way his breathing changes, the way the blush creeps high onto his cheeks.

“I’m not mad," Lando says quietly. He fiddles with the straw in his iced tea, already so diluted all the ice has gone. "I just think you can choose better people to kiss.”

"Oh yeah, why, are you offering?" Daniels asks before he can stop himself. He's kind of had it with Lando. Had it with the attitude and the cold shoulders and the fucking—whatever this is.

Lando looks at him sharply, then, before he frowns, and then looks away again.

"I—" he starts. He swallows. He takes a shuddering breath.

Daniel's heart hammers an entire drumbeat against his ribcage. He's not quite sure what's happening here, but his body's decided that it's high time to panic.

"Just forget about it," Lando says. "Please, can we just forget about it—"

"No, what—mate, I don't know what the fuck is going on right now, and I don't understand what you have against me, just fucking talk to me, it's all I've wanted you to do all year," Daniel finally says.

He exhales. He can't believe that this is all boiling over now.

They were supposed to be celebrating Lando's P3. Daniel swallowed his pride to take him out, instead of staying at home to mope around over his P12 finish.

And finally, Lando looks at him again and his eyes are pleading.

"I'm—I'm sorry, DR," he says quietly. "I'm sorry I've been a cunt."

Daniel lets out a little tch between his teeth. He's not exactly sure what else there is to say, after that.

"It's—you don't know how hard it is to be in your shadow, and to like you so much," Lando says. Which. What?

What the fuck?

"Like me? Coulda fooled me there, mate."

Lando's picked up the paper that his straw was sheathed in earlier and now he's twisting it over and over in his fingers like a nervous tick.

"I like you more than you can even imagine, Danny," Lando replies, his eyes downcast. "I've been trying to—fix it. Stop it. So I've just. . . sort of swung in the opposite direction to try to—" he shrugs, and Daniel's entire body feels like it's about to dissolve into ash. "To get over you. But hearing you just fucking—settling like that when—when there are so many other people who could treat you well. It just."

Lando swallows audibly, and finally looks up.

"I'd never give you shit for your busy schedule," he continues. "But then again, we'd have the same one so, it wouldn't be an issue. Y'know. In a hypothetical situation where you did actually see me as more than just—" Lando waves his hand around aimlessly in the air. "Whatever. A kid. Your teammate."

Daniel feels completely unmoored, but also like fucking laughing at the ridiculousness of this entire conversation.

"You—you're telling me you like me? Like, like that? You've spent most of this year being prickly and mean and now you're telling me you like me, and you also want me to stop seeing you like a kid?"

Lando looks so caught out at that, so shocked by it, that Daniel knows he needs to fix this before he screws up even worse.

He reaches out and takes Lando's wrist in his hands, feels the hummingbird pulse there, ten kilometers a minute. Warm, of course, just like how Daniel feels right now.

"Hey, hey," Daniel says. "Can we maybe start with friends first, and see where that takes us?"

His heart feels like a hummingbird too, now.

Lando gives him a small, hesitant smile. "You don't hate me?"

Daniel feels every tense muscle leave him.

"Of course not," Daniel replies, relief and hope blooming inside his chest now. "Couldn't even if I tried, and boy, did I try. Actually I think you were better at that than I was, by the looks of it."

Lando kicks him under the table, but Daniel barely feels it. He just grins instead, and true enough, Lando smiles back.