Chapter Text
Oscar thinks about it all the time. Lando. All the moments he’s shared with him, all the moments he hasn’t. He tries not to, but. It’s stronger than him. Not to reach out when he can see Lando trying.
Lando’s been finding his pace again. Slowly, but surely. A millisecond in a corner where he crashed barely a week ago, a mere flat spot on a tyre he would’ve exploded.
Oscar keeps him behind, still. But T1 has always been Lando’s.
Lando passes Oscar in turn one of the fourth lap, even when he started sixth out of 14 guys. He finds a second somewhere Oscar never thought he would and doesn't end up in the barrier which is a thing he’d become accustomed to. Oscar can’t help a small smile from forming on his lips. A slight curl, tight, here. Almost like a betrayal, his body betraying him.
He wins. Lando does. By a small margin, barely half in front of Oscar’s second place. But still. Lando wins, and Oscar laughs, and they shake hands, all proper and weird. Oscar can’t help but notice the gap between Lando’s two front teeth, and his stomach swoops.
An old memory resurfacing, something he doesn’t want to linger on most of the time. Except right now, Lando in front of him, hand in hand, Oscar doesn’t stop it from embalming his heart. He smiles, and Lando smiles back.
They get handed sparkling water because the third is a seventeen year old girl with blonde curly hair and a smile almost as bright as Lando’s. Almost.
And Lando sprays Oscar, and Oscar smiles even harder. Like he hasn’t in weeks. Maybe months. Maybe ever. It feels like they’re suspended in time, the sparkling water popping bubbles over their cheeks, in their eyes, making their hair disgusting and clingy.
On the way to the locker room, Lando shoulder checks Oscar, the same glint in his eyes he used to get whenever he was about to blow Oscar.
Oscar nods, and Lando chuckles. Easy. Boyish.
Lando changes by himself in the bathroom like always. He comes out of the stall when Oscar comes in to rearrange his hair. He’s radiating, Oscar thinks. Glowing. Skin tan even in the winter grey, lips pink even under the overly white neons.
Oscar makes a point not to cross Lando’s eyes in the mirror. He’s weak after a podium, he has to remind himself.
He’s weak in the proximity of Lando.
— — —
Oscar receives a text a few hours after that, toothbrush in his mouth as he tries to comb out cristallized shoulder from his hair.
It’s Lando. Texting, can i come over?
Oscar’s in the process of answering, do you even have a bus at this time? when another notification pops up, Lando again, i’m already on the bus tbh
So. Oscar thumbs up the message. Combs his hair, spits toothpaste in the sink, rinses his mouth with water. He doesn’t think about why Lando’s asking, when he’s never asked for anything. Just barged in, like he always does. He doesn’t think about Lando’s mouth forming the three words Oscar’s been wanting to hear for too long, now. I am sorry. Please forgive me.
Three minutes later, there’s another and last text,
wanna talk to u abt something
— — —
Lando arrives without ceremony.
Barely a knock to signify his presence behind the door, a soft knock that mostly sounds like hesitant knuckles over too old wood, like he’s prepared for Oscar not to answer. Oscar does anyway. And Lando stands there, hood half up his head, curls dripping with rain water. He smells like cold air and bus seats and something faintly clean underneath it all.
The first thing he asks, not even looking at Oscar, is, “Are Alex and George here?” voice tight like answering the wrong thing will make him leave.
Oscar guesses it would have, if he hadn’t answered, “Nah. At Alex’s for the weekend,” because Lando nods, almost limps like his body was held by strings a minute ago.
Lando nods again, a quick jerk like he’s trying to analyze whether he really wants to do this, but he sits down on the bed, still, fidgets with his hands until Oscar can see blood. Lando switches from his fingertips to Oscar, hides them under the sleeves of his hoodie.
It’s quiet. Lando taps the space next to him, tilts his head, silently asking for Oscar to sit there. So Oscar sits there. The bed dips under their combined weight, and the air feels heavier than it’s ever felt. Like the atmospheric pressure is pushing down on them both.
Outside, the rain softens. Just a small pitter patter on the window. White noise, Lando would have called it when Oscar still knew him. Something to fall asleep to.
Oscar’s fingers twitch like they want to reach over, but he stops them. Lando’s staring at his knees like they’re going to whisper to him what to say. It doesn’t seem to work. He’s quiet. They both are.
His hair’s still damp from the rain. His leg bounces. He’s trying to still it with his own palm, pressing down hard enough to hurt.
“I went back,” Lando says, eventually.
Oscar glances over. “Where?”
“Place with the free shrink,” Lando snorts. “In Bristol. Well, not free. Donation based. Gave them two quid and a chewing gum.”
Oscar huffs a laugh. He doesn’t remember Lando ever mentioning a psychiatrist cabinet in any conversation. He thinks back to the conversation Oscar had overheard the first time he saw Max in his room, and it puts pieces of the puzzle back together, a bit. But Lando’s finally talking, and he doesn’t want to cut him. “Bet they were thrilled,” Oscar answers, and it makes Lando smile for a second, like he appreciates the softness in Oscar’s voice.
Then he shrugs again. "Didn't say much,” Lando starts explaining, eyes still fixed somewhere on the ground. He piles up his feet, starts rubbing them together like some kind of soothing motion, "Mostly sat there, y’know? She had this, like, plant on the desk that I couldn't not stare at. Couldn’t stop, it was so weird.”
Oscar doesn’t ask why he couldn’t stop. Just waits.
“Clock was a nightmare, and anyway. I don’t know,” Lando says, exhaling. “She asked me what I wanted to work on and I. I just, like. I just said I didn’t wanna be a fuck up.”
Oscar’s chest aches a bit. He thinks of all the times he’s heard people around the track talk about how Lando fucked up. In a corner, in a race, in life. It feels familiar in a way he can’t put in words yet. The only thing he can say is, “You’re not,” and he knows it’s not enough.
It’s never enough.
Lando doesn’t react to that. Like it entered one ear and left the other. He shakes his head slightly, maybe, but keep his eyes on his bumpy knees. “Max stopped replying for a while. After our fight. Still answers now, but it’s like. Measured. Like I’m not allowed full access anymore or something. Bit shit.”
Oscar knows what it’s like. He doesn’t say it.
“He’s more of a talker than you, Max. We’d like, talk about anything and everything. I told him about everything. Except one thing? The thing I’ve told you. How I, y’know, like. Yeah.” Lando looks down at his chest, pops his knuckles, bites his lip. Oscar knows. “And we didn’t even fight about that, it was just, like. Stupid fight. Children’s fight. But when we fought I kept thinking of you. How I already fucked up with you. And he told me I’d fucked up, and I know, like. I wanted to change that? Wanted to change me.” Lando sighs, pausing.
A drop of water drips on Lando’s jog pants, and Oscar doesn’t want to know whether it’s from his hair or his eyes. His chest aches, but he doesn’t want to make it about him. It’s about Lando.
Lando continues then, voice lower. “And the shrink, she, like, asked me who makes me feel safe.” he laughs, almost nervously, torturing his cuticles until they’re nothing but dead skin again, “Isn’t that, like, the most fucked up question?”
Lando looks at Oscar then, and Oscar feels like a deer in headlights. He says, looking at his socks, “Hard one, maybe,” because he knows even he can’t answer it. Not to anyone, or even himself. Still. It hurts.
“Yeah,” Lando swallows. “I thought about. Like. I thought about saying Max. Cause he does make me feel safe, but it’s. I thought maybe, it’d be hypocritical to half lie to the shrink. And I thought that I was here already and. But still. I, like. I couldn’t say your name. Felt weird. Felt like if I said it, I’d fuck it up again.”
Oscar finally looks over. He wants to take Lando’s face in his palms and kiss him better. Feel the wet of his hair between his fingers and the cold of his ears. But he doesn’t. Because Lando hasn’t said it yet.
So instead, he whispers, small, tentative, like Lando might run away again, “You can say it now.”
And Lando lets the words sit in the air for a bit. He presses his lips together. Soft. Turns to look at Oscar, then averts his gaze again, like he’s still scared even after admitting to so much already.
“You.” Lando mutters while rubbing at his eyes like it itches. But Oscar knows better. “You make me feel safe.”
Oscar nods. It’s all he can offer. Quiet understanding.
Warmth fills Oscar's body, still. He feels high, drunk, floating. He thinks of everything that’s happened for them to end up here and it feels surreal, to have Lando sitting on his bed, looking up at him, eyes filled with water. It feels surreal to be here next to Lando, when all he’d ever done until six months ago was daydream about this.
Oscar stretches out his hand, and he wants to swipe a thumb under Lando’s eyes, wants to trace the shape of his lips, and wants to feel soft stubble under his fingertip. But he doesn’t. He grabs Lando’s pinky, not to hold him, but to make him feel that he’s here.
Then Lando says, a sob breaking a couple words in two, like this is what makes all the tension release from his body, “I’m trying, Osc. I just. Like. I don’t know how to do it when people are watching.”
“They’re not watching here,” Oscar whispers back.
Lando looks at their joint hands, and smiles, finally. Small. But there. “That’s why I came.”
They don’t hug. They don’t touch, not really. But Oscar kicky his foot gently against Lando’s tangled ones. The quiet kind of thank you. The I heard you kind. When Lando kicks back, Oscar almost hears him say I’m sorry.
They sit like that a while longer, until the cold seeps into their bones. Nothing more said. But it doesn’t feel unfinished. Just feels like the end of February, spring finally approaching.
— — —
They sleep in the same bed like they’re seven. And for once, Lando doesn’t sweat through the t-shirt Oscar gives him. Oscar doesn’t want to think too much about what this could mean.
The radiator buzzes lightly in the quiet of the room, and Oscar feels Lando wake up first. A stir, a too long sight, a rub at tingling eyes. He rearranges himself to hold Oscar’s waist soft, like Oscar’s about to turn into a teddy bear. A little spoon.
It makes him feel safe in a way he doesn’t think he’s ever felt with Lando.
Oscar pretends he’s sleeping, and soon enough, the pretending stops. Light yellows turn into gentle white, diffusing behind Oscar’s eyelids, waiting to be appreciated once he wakes up.
— — —
They’re alone, still. Quiet. Mondays mean a day off, and day off means lazy morning. Oscar brushes his teeth in the bucket they keep for when they come back drunk to the dorms, because he’s too tired to walk all the way to the bathroom sink. Lando’s sitting two meters away on the bed, wiggling his legs like a kid impatient for a fair ride.
Lando blurts, too fast, “You still want me?” from the bed, his eyes wide and biting his lips like he’s pleading. Like he wants Oscar to want him.
Oscar stops. Toothpaste sticks to his teeth, his tongue, his trachea. He wants to answer that yes, he still wants Lando because he’s always wanted him. Always will too, probably. But it’s less easy now. It’s harder to be okay with that fact.
So Oscar spits in the bassin, places it on the ground near his feet where it gets abandoned when he goes to sit on the bed opposite to the one Lando’s sitting on. He takes a second to just breathe. To accept everything that’s happened, everything that’s still happening.
It makes him want to cry, to realize that he’s always loved Lando. From the moment he first saw him on that karting site, under those blankets, from the moment he saw him near the rental place, when Lando went up to him in the tent. Those memories have never been blurry like old memories usually are, and it’s shit that Oscar doesn’t want them to become blurry even in ten years. That he’s never wanted to, even when his dreams felt like reality, even when he still can’t let a single tear escape his eyes from how bottled up everything is.
From how much he’s hidden all his life, how much he’s still hiding, even when Lando showed himself bare last night. Vulnerable.
And Oscar smiles. A pitiful, self deprecating smile that feels both right and wrong, just like the bravery that’s welling up inside his guts feels both freeing and utterly constricting.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Oscar ends up saying, because it feels much more truthful than just saying yes. Because it’s easier to hide behind a question than saying outright that there’s nothing Lando could ever do that would make Oscar stop wanting him.
“Dunno,” Lando answers, shrugging. His face is puffy with sleep, his limbs heavy. He shifts and lies down on the bed, a sigh falling from his lips. “I was a cunt. And I’m, like, not not a cunt anymore. ‘M not all better, I guess.” he presses a forearm over his eyes, like the light from the morning sun is suddenly too much. Like it was easier admitting these things in the dark than in the daylight. “I don’t need you to, like. I don’t. I don’t want you to fix me or anything. But I guess what I’m trying to say is, you’re kind. I’m not.”
Oscar smiles, on the edge of being sarcastic. Nervous. He fiddles with his earlobe again. “I’m not that kind,” he says, even though the only thing he could picture for days after Lando and him stopped talking was the turquoise of his eyes.
Lando props himself on his elbows, exhales a chuckle. “Guess I hoped you were.”
Lando lets himself fall back again, forearm back over his eyes, like if he doesn’t look he won’t see whatever Oscar decides. If Oscar decides he really isn’t that nice, that gentle, and leaves. Lando’s knee keeps bouncing despite that, heel thudding softly against the mattress. He doesn’t stop it. Doesn’t really try.
Oscar watches him for a moment too long. Watches the rise and fall of his chest, the way his mouth keeps opening like he’s about to say something and then thinking better of it. It’s unfamiliar, seeing Lando like this in daylight. Muted, almost careful. Sober.
Oscar hates how much he wants to close the distance anyway. Hates how instinctive it is.
He shifts on the bed, putting more space between them instead of less. It feels deliberate, like a line he’s drawing with his own body. His fingers curl into the fabric of his sweatpants to keep from reaching out. He tells himself it’s because he’s being smart. Because last night was last night, and mornings have consequences.
Lando peeks out from under his arm, one eye first, then the other. He notices the space immediately. Doesn’t comment on it. Just swallows and nods once, like he’s registering a boundary he half-expected.
“Can I, er?” Lando starts, then stops. A cut sentence that ends up meaning nothing. He exhales, lets out a quiet, “I’m,” before stopping again, dead in his tracks. His voice is silent around unformed words.
Oscar doesn’t say anything. He waits for Lando to talk again, but he doesn’t. Just exhale. Sits back up, rubs his palms raw.
They sit there like that, both of them looking everywhere except at each other. The room feels smaller now, crowded with things unsaid. Oscar can hear someone laughing outside, footsteps on gravel, the distant clatter of someone dropping a helmet. Normal sounds. Life going on, stupidly indifferent.
Oscar rubs his palms together once, like he’s cold. He isn’t. He’s too aware of Lando’s presence for that. The warmth of him, the familiar gravity. He wonders if this is what restraint is supposed to feel like. Less noble than everyone makes it out to be. More like loss.
Lando shifts again, sitting up this time. He pulls at the hem of his shirt, then stops himself, like he’s caught in the act of something private. His eyes flick to Oscar’s hands. Linger. Move away.
“I don’t really know how to do this,” Lando admits, voice uneven but honest. “Like, whatever this is now.” He lets out a small breath, almost a laugh. “Feels like if I move wrong, it’ll disappear.”
Oscar almost wants to remind Lando that it's disappeared once already, what they have. Had. That it didn’t stop them from going back to square zero, where they’re at now. But he stops himself.
He just nods slowly, because he understands, too. He feels it, he’s scared of that too. Scared that one wrong touch will turn into a misunderstanding, or worse. Something unspoken that keeps festering.
“That’s why,” Oscar starts, then stops. He presses his lips together, recalibrates. He forces himself to meet Lando’s eyes this time, even though it makes his chest ache. “That’s why I, or uh, we, need to slow it down.”
Lando holds his gaze. There’s disappointment there, but there’s relief too. Subtle. Real.
“Okay,” he says. After a beat, he adds, softer, “Yeah. Okay.”
Silence again. Thicker now. Charged in a way that makes Oscar’s skin buzz. He hates that slowing down somehow makes everything feel more intense, not less. That wanting doesn’t go away just because you’re careful with it.
Oscar’s breath stutters when Lando speaks again.
“I,” Lando stops himself, jaw tightening like he’s physically pulling the word back in. He’s always done that. Redirected. Deflected. Turned everything into a joke or a shrug or silence. Oscar’s learned not to expect certain things from him. Learned it the hard way.
Lando swallows. Tries again.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
It lands wrong. Not loud or dramatic, but heavy. Real. It doesn’t sound practiced, and it hurts Oscar to realize that. It sounds like something he’s been carrying around in his mouth for weeks, scared of choking on it.
Oscar freezes.
For a second, he genuinely doesn’t understand what he’s heard. His brain stutters over it, like a skipped gear. Lando doesn’t say that. Not like this. Not without a qualifier. Not without turning it sideways into something else.
“Sorry?” Oscar repeats quietly, like if he says it out loud it might evaporate.
Lando nods once. Small. Earnest. His eyes don’t leave Oscar’s face. “Yeah. I am. For, like,” He exhales sharply, frustrated. “For a lot of things. For being shit at saying it. For not saying it sooner.”
Oscar feels it then. All at once. The months of swallowing things down. The nights he stayed awake rehearsing conversations that never happened. The apology he told himself he didn’t need anymore because wanting it hurt too much.
His chest aches. His eyes burn. He hates that this is what does it, one careful sentence, offered without theatrics.
He laughs softly, breathless, shaking his head. “You don’t get to just,” He trails off. His voice wobbles. He presses his lips together, hard, like he can physically keep himself in place if he tries hard enough.
Lando shifts closer without fully realizing he’s doing it. Stops when he notices. Waits.
Oscar doesn’t.
He closes the distance before he can talk himself out of it, before his brain can remind him of pacing or consequences or how this is supposed to go now. His feet move on their own, crosses the distance from one bed to the other, his hand comes up almost involuntarily, fingers curling into Lando’s sleeve like he needs something solid to anchor himself.
The kiss is clumsy. Not planned. Not cinematic. Oscar bumps his nose against Lando’s cheek first, breath hitching, then adjusts and presses his mouth to Lando’s properly. It’s brief, more impulse than decision, but it’s full of everything he didn’t know how to say back.
Lando goes very still.
Then he exhales, soft and shaky, like he’s been holding that breath for a long time. His hand lifts, hesitates, and settles carefully at Oscar’s side, not pulling him closer, just there. Present. Wanting, but contained.
When Oscar pulls back, their foreheads stay almost touching. The space between them hums.
“I’m sor-” Lando says again but Oscar swallows it down. It’s months of keeping everything as still as he can, months of keeping himself as still as he can breaking open. He moves, cups Lando’s jaw and straddles Lando’s body.
He can’t not. He can’t think of anything else than how much his heart is swelling, how much his head feels light, fuzzy, buzzy. Everything is swirling again but it’s good now, it’s nice. He breathes from Lando’s mouth and can’t escape the thought that Lando’s finally giving away something.
Lando breaks away a bit, just enough to chuckle, panting, just enough to say, “What happened to taking things slow?”
And Oscar chuckles back.
His fingers stroke Lando’s cheeks on their own, and his mouth moves on its own, too when asks, too quiet for everything his brain is screaming at him, “Do you want this?”
Lando shrugs. Looking up to Oscar from behind his eyelashes, face glowing in the yellow morning light, face flushed and lips red. “If you want it, then, yeah.”
“But do you?” Oscar presses, panting a bit.
Lando frowns. A small hesitant smile starts appearing on his face, makes his eyes weird and wrinkly. Oscar makes a point of staring right into them to avoid ceding to his own want.
Lando takes Oscar’s hand and places it under his t-shirt, and it’s not like last time. Lando’s skin is still soft, warm, his hair a peach fuzz that makes Oscar’s brain go a bit crazy. But Lando doesn’t escape this time. He melts into it, pushing his belly up into Oscar’s palm, allowing him to touch.
He shivers a bit through it, tries to mask it in another kiss, but Oscar feels it. Under his finger tips, he feels the goosebumps, the tentativeness, the fear.
Lando takes off his shorts in between two breaths, chucks them halfway through the room. He doesn’t stop. Kisses, breathes, chuckles when Oscar reaches for the gap of his waist, tickling with the softest touch he can manage.
It’s the first time he sees Lando half-naked. It makes Oscar feel weird. Happy. His heart flutters and he wants to kiss all the soft spots on his thighs, the bruise on his left shin. Oscar’s always been a touchy guy but he doesn’t like to touch if the person’s not into it. He needs to be handed the control.
So he stills his hand before they can go further up, and he stops kissing, lets his forehead fall gently on Lando’s chest. Feels the up and down he could only see a minute ago.
“Y’kay?” Lando asks after a second, and Oscar just nods back, quiet.
A moment of peace for him to realize that this is happening, that this is real. That the covers are slowly being pulled away from his small awkward body, that the light of the sun is allowed to touch his pale skin now. That Oscar doesn’t have to hide.
That maybe, Lando doesn’t have to either, when they’re like that. That Oscar can take just a little more, even when it feels like he’s been offered wealth for the rest of his life last night.
He breathes, mutters a small, “Can we just, stay like that for a while?”
Lando chuckles. Awkward. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, just above Oscar’s head, in a manner Oscar can only describe as defensive. “I don’t understand, mate? I thought we were, like, having a moment. Like in movies? You take me home and we have the greatest sex of all eternity and I get to sleep in someone else’s bed without feeling like shit.”
Oscar giggles. He’s shy all of a sudden. “Kinda hoped we were heading in this direction, yeah.”
“Then why are we not?”
“Cause, like.” Oscar swallows. Bites his thumb. Fiddles with the wet spot after. “I’m weird about this. I think you’ve understood that,” Oscar says, tugging at his earlobe. “I need you to say it.”
Lando laughs. Defensive, again, but less. More endeared than anything else, now. “Kinky, mate.”
“You’re so stupid, Lan.”
“Then make me shut up?”
“Oh my fucking God.” Oscar laughs and takes his face between his palms. He’s going crazy, maybe. Overheating. Has never wanted something as bad as he wants this. “I need you to say it, Lan. That you want it. That it’s not just, me.”
Oscar risks a peek above his hands, to find a very disturbed and flushed Lando. “I, er.” Lando takes Oscar’s hand and starts fidgeting with it, too. “You can, Osc. Like,” he swallows, heavy, “you can.”
“Yeah?” Oscar asks, his head starting to lean forward where it was a second ago.
“Yeah.” Lando tips forward, too, mumbles, right before Oscar kisses him, “Want you to.”
It’s less mind wrecking than it was just a minute ago, but Oscar lets himself melt into the kiss again, because he can feel Lando’s lips on his and nothing can ever be as good. He can feel Lando’s hands settle into his hair, his nape, his shoulders.
The room feels smaller like this, with just the two of them. It’s like it’s only made of the small space between the top and bottom bunk now, only of the space Oscar and Lando share. Where they kiss, touch.
Lando’s breathing is heavy when Oscar’s hands wander up, higher than they ever have before, and he squabbles for the hem of his shirt before Oscar has the time to register it. It’s a bit messy. Clumsy. Lando takes his top off and doesn’t wait a second to take Oscar’s off as well.
But he smiles after. Kisses Oscar soft, just lips.
Oscar lets his hand roam Lando’s chest and it sends ripples of warmth through his spine, pooling in his guts. Lando’s breath hitches as Oscar accidentally brushes his nipple and Oscar chuckles.
“Like that?” he asks, a little breathless.
Lando murmurs, “Yeah,” swallowing. Oscar watches the motion, trachea contracting, lets his eyes fall on Lando’s chest, the faded scars where his hands are hovering. “Exactly like that.”
Oscar smiles against his lips. He kisses down Lando’s neck, feeling the little shivers that run through him, the quiet sounds that escape his throat when the contact hits just right. Lando’s fingers dig lightly into his arms, steadying him, connecting, claiming.
Lando takes Oscar with him when he lies back down on the bed, Oscar’s forearms caging Lando’s head on both sides. The kiss turns a bit sloppy, turns into full on making out when Lando hooks a leg behind Oscar’s knee.
Oscar’s trying his best not to move too much, not to let Lando see just how much this is affecting him, like Lando’s ever been scared of Oscar’s dick being hard. But it’s different now, Oscar thinks. And he’s so close to Lando. So, so close.
So close he could brush his dick with Lando’s stomach, his thigh. He could rut there until there’s nothing left to give but small pleas of more.
“Please,” Lando breathes out in between kisses, and Oscar holds himself together.
He chuckles, just to give himself something to do that is not going crazy, “Please?” he repeats, “Am I hearing that right?”
And Lando pouts back, rolling his eyes but smiling. “Gotta use my words yeah? Thought you wanted me to, mister kinky guy.”
“You’re insane,” is the only thing Oscar can answer, because he’s already busy kissing Lando’s neck, down his clavicle, his collarbone.
“That’s, ah, fair.” Lando giggles, tethering his hands in Oscar’s hair.
Oscar can feel Lando solidifying back each time his hands move closer to his boxers, and that’s no good. Oscar tries to ease him into it, kisses by kisses, soft Landos escaping his mouth like he’s trying to call a god who won’t respond.
But when Oscar sits up again, just a bit, Lando’s frowning, even through moans and panting. He’s sweaty, glistening, little pools of it in the crooks of his neck, his sternum. He says, “Fuck,” like he knows Oscar noticed him.
Oscar stares. Lets his hand brush the soft skin right below his belly button, not going lower. He stares and waits for Lando to settle down a bit.
“Sorry,” Lando mumbles, eyes closed like he’s trying his best not to be feeling the things he’s feeling right now. “‘T’s just, er, y’know. The thing.” He chuckles half heartedly and bites his lip, breathing hard. “Never really thought anyone would, like, want to touch me there, so. I’ve never. Er. Yeah, fuck, sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Oscar says, slow and low. He rubs his palm up and down Lando’s chest, feeling the bumps of his ribs, the warmth of his skin. It seems to soothe Lando a bit.
“I don’t wanna be, like, weird about this? ‘Cause there’s no reason to be. I’m just weird about you wanting me at the moment.”
Oscar chuckles. Fuck. He loves Lando so fucking much. “In case you hadn’t noticed I’m so not normal about wanting you either, so.”
“Yeah?” Lando whispers, almost like he doesn’t believe it.
“Yeah.” Oscar kisses Lando’s shoulder, his collarbone. It’s like someone ignited a fire in his brain, he can’t stop himself from anything now. It's free for all. Free for Oscar. “And if you’re weird about wanting me too, then we’re even. Kinda.”
Lando reaches a hand to Oscar’s face, rubs a thumb over his cheek. “Kinda,” he whispers back, almost like a prayer of his own.
Oscar kisses him soft like Lando had done, just lips against lips. Lando smells like the rain from yesterday still, and like himself, but a bit like Oscar, too, now. It makes him feral, to notice that. It makes Oscar’s stomach swoop and the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
He licks Lando’s bottom lip, just because he can, and says, trying to imitate Lando’s voice, “‘T’s mint, innit?”
And Lando laughs, a muffled shut up being swallowed down by the both of them.
Lando’s laugh dies down into something quieter, breathier, like it drains straight into the space between them. Oscar stays hovering over him for a second longer than necessary, hands still braced on either side of Lando’s shoulders, like he’s holding himself in place by force of will alone.
The air feels heavy. Warm. Charged.
Oscar swallows and finally shifts, easing his weight back just enough to give them both room to breathe. He doesn’t get off Lando, not really. There’s just enough space that they’re no longer pressed together chest to chest. Enough space for choice.
Lando’s eyes track Oscar’s movement, dark and curious, flicking down and back up again. He licks his lips, then stills, like he’s waiting to see what Oscar does next. Like he’s finally letting Oscar take the lead for once, and Oscar almost sees Lando giving it up. The control.
Oscar’s heart is beating so loudly he’s half convinced Lando can hear it.
“Okay,” Oscar murmurs, more to himself than anything.
Lando hums. “You keep saying that.” He whispers, still smiling so bright Oscar convinces himself he’d be able to see it with his eyes closed
Oscar huffs a quiet laugh and drops his gaze. His hands feel restless, useless, buzzing with energy. He flexes his fingers once, then lets one of them drift, slow, deliberate, toward Lando’s thigh.
He pauses there. Hovers.
Lando doesn’t move. Doesn’t rush him. Just watches, chest rising and falling a little faster now, eyes blown wide with anticipation. “You can,” Lando repeats softly, nodding, like he’s reading Oscar’s mind.
That’s all it takes.
Oscar lets his hand settle, warm and steady, over Lando’s boxers. Feeling the heat of it, the wet. He’s not really doing anything yet. It’s just. Presence. Contact.
Lando inhales sharply at the first touch, exhales shakily, head tipping back against the pillow like the sensation surprised him despite everything.
Oscar’s breath stutters in response, watching his hand brush the fabric slowly, almost teasing. He stretches the elastic band and feels the skin underneath stumble awake. He moves carefully, studying Lando’s face during each second it takes his fingers to go from one hip bone to the other, learning the shape of Lando’s reactions as he learns those of his body.
The curves, the hitches in his breaths. Watches how Lando’s jaw tightens, how his shoulders tense and relax. How his breathing changes rhythm, shallow at first, then deeper as he sinks into it.
“Fuck,” Lando mutters, eyes fluttering shut for a second before opening again to fix on Oscar’s face. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
Oscar smiles, small and shy and absolutely undone. “Maybe.”
He keeps going, unhurried, letting the moment stretch. It feels like discovering something holy, an answer he’s been waiting for his whole life in each of Lando’s pants.
When Oscar’s fingers brush over Lando’s clit, more accidental than anything actually planned, Lando’s hands curl into the sheets, fingers gripping like he needs something to hold on to. But the longer Oscar keeps adding pressure, the harder it gets for him to stay still.
His hips shift, just a little. Then again.
Oscar notices. Adjusts instinctively, following the movement instead of stopping it.
Lando groans softly, frustration and pleasure tangled together. “Osc,” he breathes, voice strained, “You're, ah, fuck, you’re gonna kill me.” he whines.
Oscar laughs under his breath, but there’s something reverent in the way he looks at Lando now. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Lando says immediately. Too immediately. Then he exhales, slower, blinking. “More than okay.”
Encouraged, Oscar lets himself be a little bolder. Not faster. Just. More sure. The effect is immediate. Lando’s head tips back fully now, throat exposed, breath coming in uneven pulls.
And then, Lando’s attention snaps back to Oscar.
His eyes drop, tracking Oscar’s movements, his breath hitching when he realizes exactly what Oscar’s been ignoring up until now.
“Oh,” Lando murmurs, lips quirking despite himself. “Right. You.”
Oscar flushes, heat crawling up his neck. “Shut up.”
Being able to touch Lando felt so overwhelming that he almost forgot about his own situation. Straining at his joggers, burning in his insides.
Lando doesn’t. He grins, crooked and soft, and shifts again, this time deliberately. One of his hands lifts, hesitates in the space between them, then settles against Oscar in a way that mirrors what Oscar’s been doing to him.
Oscar gasps.
The sound punches straight out of him, uncontrolled, raw. His head drops forward instinctively, forehead resting against Lando’s shoulder as he lets out a shaky breath.
“Fuck,” Oscar mutters, laughing weakly. “Lan.” Oscar draws out, almost like he’s trying to convince both himself and Lando that there’s no need for Lando to touch him now, that Oscar making Lando feel good was enough for him to feel good of his own.
But Lando replies, “Yeah?” voice low, a little smug, a little breathless. “That okay?”
And Oscar nods immediately, too far gone for words. “Yeah. God, yeah.” because how Lando’s going at it now doesn’t feel like the countless times he’s touched Oscar before. For once, it feels like he’s doing it for him too.
Lando’s touch is less careful, more intuitive. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing and isn’t afraid to show it. He watches Oscar’s face closely now, cataloging every reaction the same way Oscar did earlier.
“You always make the best noises,” Lando says quietly.
Oscar groans, half embarrassed, half wrecked. “You’re the worst.”
“And yet,” Lando murmurs, adjusting just enough to make Oscar’s breath catch again, “you’re not stopping me.”
Oscar laughs, breathless and helpless. “I physically cannot, mate.”
Lando takes Oscar’s dick in the palm of his hand like he cares, and Oscar could die. With his own hand rubbing over Lando’s boxers, eliciting small sounds, breaths, giggles, with Lando’s fingers toying with the head of his dick over his fabric the exact way he knows makes Oscar insane.
They fall into it together then, not synchronized but aware, responding to each other without needing to speak. When Oscar’s movements falter, Lando slows too. When Lando’s breath stutters, Oscar adjusts instinctively, matching him.
It feels less like doing something and more like sharing it.
Oscar braces one hand behind him on the mattress, needing the support as pleasure coils tighter and tighter inside him. His other hand stays where it is, still doing that thing to Lando, grounding himself in the feedback of Lando’s reactions.
Lando notices the shift immediately.
He lets out a low sound, eyes squeezing shut as he leans into Oscar’s touch harder now, less restrained. “Osc,” he whispers, like a warning and a plea all at once.
Oscar swallows, chest heaving. “I know. I know.”
Oscar feels Lando hard under his fingers, feels wetness pooling in his own briefs. He sees, hears, feels, Lando come first, and it’s like something inside him bursts open.
They ride the edge together, neither of them rushing, neither pulling away. Just staying. Breathing. Letting the moment stretch until it’s almost unbearable.
When it finally breaks, it’s quiet and overwhelming all at once. Oscar slumps forward with a soft laugh, forehead dropping to Lando’s chest as everything goes loose and warm and fuzzy around the edges.
Lando exhales shakily, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Oscar’s neck, thumb rubbing slow, absent circles.
“Still alive?” Lando murmurs, his fingers twisting a strand of Oscar’s hair.
Oscar nods weakly. He can feel Lando’s heartbeat. “Barely.”
Lando laughs softly, the sound vibrating through Oscar where he’s pressed against him. “Good.”
They stay like that for a while, breathing evening out, the intensity melting into something calmer, heavier, more affectionate. The room feels different now, like it’s settled, like something important just clicked into place.
Oscar lifts his head eventually, meeting Lando’s eyes. There’s no tension there now. Just warmth. Fondness. Something unspoken but solid.
Oscar opens his mouth, then closes it again. Tries once more. “Well,” he says, eloquent as ever.
Lando snorts, rubbing at his face like he’s trying to reboot his brain. “Yeah. That about sums it up.”
Oscar huffs a laugh. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
“Rare occasion,” Lando says, grinning sideways at him.
Oscar bumps his shoulder with his own, gentle.
After a couple minutes of just breathing, Oscar feels like he’s regained his body. He feels different. Like he can finally feel. Like he can finally be.
He says, before he can stop himself from not saying it, “Stay.”
And Lando kisses his forehead, soft, shifting so he can look into Oscar’s eyes. “Wasn’t planning on leaving, Osc.” and something inside Oscar settles. For good, he thinks.
— — —
They’re watching a race on Oscar’s computer later that night, both of them cleaned up, wrapped in hoodies that smell faintly like detergent and each other. The volume’s low. The screen throws soft light across the room, across Lando’s face where his jaw keeps tightening every time the kid on screen dives into a corner too fast.
The driver can’t be older than twelve. Skinny limbs, helmet too big, confidence spilling out of him like he hasn’t learned yet how expensive confidence can be.
“Twelve-year-old probably thinks he’s nowhere near his prime,” Lando mutters.
Oscar hums, distracted, fingers idly combing through Lando’s hair where he’s leaning against him. He pauses when Lando doesn’t laugh after it.
“That what you think?” Oscar asks gently.
Lando shrugs, but it’s stiff. Like he’s learning not to get affected by it, still. “Dunno.” He shifts, elbow pressing awkwardly into Oscar’s side. “Just.” He stops. Swallows. “It feels like. It’s like. It’s like someone had already decided I'd be the best by then, and he looks the same. Like he doesn’t have a choice.”
The kid on screen pulls off a risky overtake. The commentators lose their minds. The crowd roars like this is the best thing they’ve ever seen.
Lando flinches.
Oscar stills his hand.
There it is, Oscar thinks. Not jealousy. Not bitterness. Fear.
Lando watches the replay with too much focus, like he’s trying to memorize something before it disappears.
“Bet he’s gonna be better than me,” Lando says quietly. Not fishing. Just, stating it.
Oscar doesn’t rush to answer. He lets the moment sit, lets Lando hear his own words without anyone correcting them. He thinks about all the times Lando drove like he had nothing to lose. All the times he burned himself just to stay ahead of the silence.
“Yeah,” Oscar says finally. Honest. “Maybe.”
Lando stiffens, barely perceptible.
Oscar shifts then, turning enough that Lando has to look at him. Not confrontational. Just present. “But that’s not what scares you.” he risks, because he feels like Lando can hear that, now.
Lando exhales through his nose. A sharp breath. “Oh yeah?”
Oscar nods. “You’re scared that if you stop being that,” he gestures vaguely toward the screen, the reckless overtake, the applause, “then there’s nothing left.”
Lando doesn’t answer right away. His throat works. He looks back at the screen, at the kid grinning like the world hasn’t taken anything from him yet.
“People like him,” Lando says softly. “They don’t like, whatever comes after.”
Oscar’s chest tightens. He finally understands it? Not just Lando’s anger or avoidance or need to be louder, faster, sharper. But the terror underneath. The idea that slowing down means disappearing.
Oscar’s fingers slide back into Lando’s hair, grounding, steady. “I liked you before any of that,” he says.
Lando scoffs weakly. “You didn’t even know me.” He readjust himself so his cheek is to Oscar’s chest, and Oscar hopes Lando can hear the sincerity of Oscar’s words in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
Oscar smiles, small. “Yeah. But I saw you.”
Lando glances at him, uncertain. Vulnerable in a way he still doesn’t quite know how to hold. “And now?”
Oscar looks at him fully then. No jokes. No softening the truth. “Now I see you trying not to hurt yourself just to be worth something.”
Lando swallows. His voice comes out rough. “I don’t know who I am without it.”
Oscar nods. “You don’t have to know yet.”
They sit there as the race winds down, the kid on screen lifting his arms like he’s just conquered the world. The future, loud and inevitable.
Lando leans into Oscar’s side without thinking. Lets himself stay there.
After a long moment, he says quietly, fiddling with Oscar’s fingers, “You ever regret, like, sticking around me?”
Oscar huffs a soft laugh, presses his chin briefly to Lando’s hair. “All the time,” he says, then adds, gentler, “And never.”
Lando smiles at that. Small. Real.
Oscar watches the screen fade to ads, then looks back at Lando. He thinks of that conversation he had with Lando at the beginning of the year, when all Oscar could answer to Lando saying his name was a fumble and an awkward giggle. Look how far you've come, his mom had said. He's only seeing it now. All the things he's had to go through just to be here. All the changes. “Yeah, maybe that kid’ll be better than you,” he says, echoing it back. Letting it land differently this time.
Lando waits.
Oscar smiles. “But you were always my favorite.”