-> Coming Soon: Love Bites
Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri
oneshot, magical realism, vampire!oscar, rated M
Oscar's human flatmate is… odd. Partly because he doesn't give a damn that Oscar is a vampire, but that's honestly just one of Lando's many miscellaneous quirks.
tags and snippet below ↓
Tags: Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri, Minor or Background Relationship(s), George Russell/Max Verstappen, Alternate Universe - Roomates, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Romance, Pining, Tenderness, Sexual Tension, Humor, Light Angst, Blood and Injury, Blood Drinking, Vampire Oscar Piastri, ??? Lando Norris, Idiots In Love, Oscar Piastri Loves Lando Norris
Snippet (~1.5k words):
Oscar's human flatmate is… odd.
Partly because he doesn't give a damn that Oscar is a vampire.
While vampires are generally considered accepted members of society, they're still largely viewed with distrust and apprehension. Employers hesitate to hire them, healthcare workers watch them warily, and, overall, most people simply do not feel comfortable in the presence of vampires.
It's how Oscar ended up kicked out from his last residence. His revealing of his nature had resulted in his previous flatmate of nearly two years giving him a single week to find a new place.
Oscar had thought it would be safe to tell the man, given that he also wasn't human. In retrospect, being born a gnome and being a turned vampire are wildly different circumstances, regardless of their technically-shared community of supernatural creatures.
Lesson effectively learnt, Oscar had resolved to keep his vampirism a more tightly-kept secret.
When George—an acquaintance only by virtue of their shared affliction—had introduced him to a friend who was also in need of a new flatmate, he'd leapt at the opportunity. Only to find himself wholly unprepared for Lando Norris.
Lando is… He's everything that Oscar isn't.
Personable and bright and so very alive in a way that Oscar couldn't have claimed to be even when he'd still had a beating heart. He's energetic and magnetic, possessing that inexplicable ability to pull people in, like Earth itself decided to spare some of its gravity to gift to him, just so that Lando would always be surrounded by people who are enamoured with him.
Oscar had fallen prey to it just like everyone else, effortlessly swept up in Lando's orbit and helpless to stop it from happening.
Embarrassingly fast, Lando became one of the most important people in Oscar's (un)life. Which is why, after only a couple of months living together, it had been utterly terrifying when Oscar had come home one day to find that Lando had stumbled upon his stash of blood pouches.
Well, less 'stumbled upon' and more 'opened their fridge to find plastic packets of animal blood directly in his line of sight'.
A rookie mistake, leaving them where anyone in the household could find them. In Oscar's defense, he'd shoved the blood pouches into the refrigerator in his rush to return to his job on time. The butcher's shop he regularly frequented for his blood supply had been busier than usual, and his time spent waiting in line had cut severely into his lunch break. He'd thought he would be able to transfer the blood to the mini fridge in his bedroom before Lando came home, so he hadn't thought much more of it.
How could he have possibly known that his flatmate would pick that day, of all days, to leave work early?
So, yeah. Just like that, secret revealed.
Faced with Oscar's apprehensive, guilty expression, Lando had just raised a brow, huffed out a soft laugh, and drawled, "You do realize that I know George is also a vampire, right?" Which, no, Oscar had not realized that. Why hadn't George told him? Why hadn't Oscar thought to ask?! "I'm perfectly fine with having one more fangy friend, so stop looking at me like I'm about to run away screaming."
Feeling weirdly chastised and hesitantly relieved, Oscar had scrunched his nose at the use of 'fangy friend' and, because he'd had to be sure, pressed, "But are you okay living with one?"
Lando had simply nodded firmly, a cheeky grin gracing his lips as he tossed one of the blood pouches in Oscar's direction. Even with supernatural reflexes, Oscar nearly fumbled the catch.
"Yep," Lando had chirped, his heart-shaped smile as blinding as the sun. "Just… maybe don't put your food right by mine, yeah? I don't mind blood, but I don't really wanna see bags of it next to my egg rolls, mate."
And that had been that.
A year has passed, and Lando never started treating him differently, barring the new (and, quite frankly, uninspired) vampire jokes he enjoyed telling at Oscar's expense. He knows not to take it personally. George is victim to the exact same treatment, and Max deals with every possible dog joke in existence. And in similar predicaments, Oscar could also name Alex, Carlos, Charles, etcetera…
For a human, Lando is friends with an alarming number of non-humans.
But Lando's seeming affinity for collecting supernatural friends is hardly his most puzzling quirk. In fact, there are five things in particular that Oscar argues are much more notable, and he can name them off without thinking twice.
One: Lando's clumsiness. Despite his near-perfect posture and runway-worthy gait, Lando is surprisingly, endearingly clumsy.
In most recent memory, he'd dropped a skillet full of dessert that Oscar had spent over an hour making for them (because despite lacking the need for any other sustenance than blood, Oscar still craves sweets almost as often as he did when he was human; and he'll be damned if he doesn't take advantage of the fact that vampires remain able to digest human foods and drinks).
Oscar hadn't even been able to feel mad at the time. Lando had felt so bad that he'd been on the verge of tears, hands balled tight into trembling fists where they'd been kept tucked against himself. In the end, Oscar had dutifully helped him clean up the mess, and they'd went out to get ice cream instead. All in all, once disaster was averted, it had been a good night. One that Oscar could only look back on fondly, even if the edge of the skillet his mom had gifted him is now slightly chipped.
Two: Lando is mischievous. Aside from his dry wit and teasing nature, he's also prone to pulling pranks. Always lighthearted and never mean-spirited, but pranks nonetheless.
Like when Lando hard-boiled the last of their eggs and put them back into the carton. The following day, an exasperated Oscar had sent a still-giggling Lando to the store to buy more. Or that time he hid about a hundred tiny horse figurines around George's apartment. Months later, Oscar heard that George is still finding more of them.
Three: Lando never lies.
It had taken Oscar quite a long time to notice this one, but he's discovered that Lando is always truthful, no matter what he's asked.
However, Lando is also polite (in the presence of most company, at least), so sometimes the truth is twisted, worded so carefully and inconspicuously that it makes Oscar wonder if he's hiding a law degree somewhere. Seriously, Oscar's seen him successfully navigate his way through the dreaded 'do these pants make me look fat?' question like it was child's play.
Four: Lando refuses Oscar's 'thank you's. His strangest quirk, for sure. Whether it's for the most innocuous gestures of kindness to truly compassionate acts of service, Lando rejects Oscar's words of gratitude every single time.
"Oh, you bought TimTams? Thanks, mate." Shot down.
"Hey, thanks for doing the dishes." Told to shut up.
"I really appreciate that you stayed up all night, kept me company, and made me hot chocolate while I stressed over a work project that I definitely should have started weeks ago." Punched in the arm. Gently, as if Lando isn't perfectly aware that he's literally incapable of hurting Oscar. Not without fire, silver, or a hawthorn stake to the heart, anyhow. Fortunately, Lando's apparently never been offended by Oscar’s appreciation enough to pull out any of the three.
As far as he's noticed, Lando only ever does this with Oscar. Every time someone else thanks him, he waits for Lando to say something, but he never does.
The few times Oscar had asked him about it, Lando had merely shrugged and given him those elusive, dizzying non-answers that he's so fond of employing. Eventually, Oscar chalked the behaviour up to a weird mix of Lando's surprising amount of humility and what must be flatmate privileges. He's since stopped asking.
But, still. By far, it's Lando's weirdest habit.
And, finally, five: Lando is attractive. Which is something that shouldn't even be considered a quirk, but he's so exceedingly attractive that Oscar counts it as one anyway.
Seriously, like, so far beyond someone's average, boy-next-door cuteness. It's the people-stop-and-stare type of good-looking. That-one-person-you-see-on-the-street-and-never-forget kind of gorgeous.
Anywhere and everywhere they go, people gawk, phone numbers are offered, and compliments from strangers aren't just an expectation, they're a guarantee.
And Oscar is certainly not immune to Lando’s charm either, not by a long shot.
He had, at one point, thought he was just being a bisexual disaster, but no. Or, well, yes, but he swears there's more to it than that.
Yet, for all of Lando's perplexing contradictions and behaviours, as well as Oscar's own adamance that his natural charisma is positively otherworldly, there's nothing to suggest he's anything other than human.
While it's considered rude to ask for someone's species and even more taboo to talk about it with other people, there's been enough conversation around the topic that Oscar's confident he would have been clued in if his flatmate was indeed supernatural. In the company of their closest mutual friends, there's been several moments wherein Lando's been called out as the sole human of the group; and no one, including the man himself, has ever refuted the claim.
For all that he is brilliant and enchanting and beautiful, for all of his wonderfully strange oddities, there is decidedly nothing inherently special about Lando Norris.
Except for the undeniable fact that Oscar is absolutely, unequivocally, hopelessly in love with him.