Pairing: Lando Norris x Female reader
Word count: 7.8k
Summary: After a night that leaves you more hurt than Lando realizes, you begin to think the two of you cannot possibly work. Lando, meanwhile, is forced to face just how ignorant he’s been and whether he can become someone better for you.
Tags: angst, fluff, autistic reader, offensive comments about autism, shitty friends...
A/N: Hey there! Quick context: I'm a person with autism and something similar happened to me the other day with people who I thought were my 'friends'. Idk, I just needed to vent in some way. I'm still kinda sad about it, tbh. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this <3
(Also, autism is a spectrum, and every autistic person experiences it differently. So please remember this is just one perspective, not a universal representation.)
It had only been a few weeks. That was what made it so dangerous. If it had been longer, maybe you would have told him already. Maybe you would have known where the edges of him were, known which opinions were really his and which were just carelessness and noise and wanting to fit the room he was in.
But it had only been a few weeks, and everything still felt bright and new and a little unreal in the way new relationships did. Lando texting you as soon as he woke up. Lando pulling you into his side in public like it was already instinct. Lando looking at you across a room and smiling like he’d remembered something private.
It had made you hopeful. Hopeful enough, stupidly enough, that you had started thinking maybe when you did tell him, it would be okay. Maybe he’d be different.
So you’d waited. Not because you meant to hide it forever. Not because you were ashamed in some simple way, but because saying ‘autistic’ out loud always changed things. People heard the word and suddenly stopped seeing you and started sorting you into all the lazy little boxes they already had ready.
Too much.
Too sensitive.
Too difficult.
Too “everyone’s got a bit of ‘tism.”
Too not what they imagined.
Too high-functioning to count.
Too inconvenient to be easy.
You were tired just thinking about it. So you’d waited. Told yourself it was timing. That you wanted him to know you first, before the word got there and tried to reorganize your whole personhood around itself.
Tonight had started so well, too. Just drinks with friends. Low lights, loud laughter, too many glasses on the table already. The kind of night where everyone kept leaning over each other to tell stories and nobody minded being interrupted because the whole point was the noise of being together.
You were tucked beside Lando in the booth, your leg against his, his hand occasionally landing on your knee in those small, absent touches that always made your stomach flutter a little. He’d already leaned in twice to say things in your ear that could absolutely have waited, just because he liked being close.
You had been okay. A little tired from the noise. A little stretched around the edges. But okay.
Then the conversation drifted. Someone mentioned an old classmate. Someone else rolled their eyes and said, “Oh my God, she’s one of those people who blames literally every single thing on being autistic.”
A few people laughed. Your body went still. Not outwardly. You had years of practice for that. But inside, everything tightened.
One of the girls across from you took a sip of her drink and snorted. “No, seriously. I get it if someone’s autistic, but do they need to make such a massive deal out of everything?”
Someone else laughed harder. “That’s what I’m saying. Like babe, the lights aren’t attacking you.”
A guy at the end of the booth leaned in. “I knew one who’d be like, ‘I’m overstimulated,’ every time the music was too loud. Sorry, but that’s just called being annoying in a bar.”
That got a bigger laugh. You looked down at your glass. Under the table, your fingers had already started moving against your thigh, tapping tiny patterns into the fabric of your jeans.
One of the girls shook her head. “And the hyperfixation thing? That’s just having an unhealthy obsession.”
“Literally,” another said. “No one wants to hear a forty-minute explanation about one train line or one anime or one weird historical figure.”
Lando laughed softly at that. Not because he meant harm. That was almost the worst part. Just that easy social laugh. The kind people gave when the whole table was already going and it felt easier to slide along with it than think.
Then he said, “Yeah, but at least they really commit, to be fair.”
A few people laughed again. You felt the words hit your chest like a flicked pebble. Small. Still enough to hurt.
Someone else warmed to it. “No, because once they’re on a topic, you’re done for. It’s like getting cornered by a TED Talk you didn’t ask for.”
Lando grinned at that. “Like when someone traps you and you can physically see they lack the the ability to read the room.”
“Honestly,” one of the men added, “I think half the time they just use it as an excuse to be rude.”
That got immediate agreement.
“Or weird about everything.”
“Oh my God, the routines.”
That one made the whole table laugh.
One girl lifted her brows and said, “If someone tells me they can’t cope because we moved dinner thirty minutes later, I’m leaving them there.”
Someone else said, “No, literally. Imagine being held hostage by a schedule.”
“Or by food,” another chimed in. “I can’t with adults who act like they’re going to die because peas touched their potatoes.”
That one earned louder laughter.
Lando, already a little tipsy and very much in the flow of the table now, shook his head and said, “Yeah, that one’s a bit mad.”
There it was. Not cruel. Not sharp. Not meant to wound. Just careless. Thoughtless. A soft little agreement tossed out because everyone else was doing the same. And somehow that hurt more. Because if he had been openly awful, maybe you could have hated him cleanly. Maybe you could have gotten angry and known exactly where you stood.
But this was just ignorance. Just him following the room. Just him being one more person who had never had to think carefully about any of it, because none of it belonged to him.
You could feel your pulse in your throat now.
Someone across from you was still talking. “The stimming thing, too. Sorry, but if you’re a grown adult and you’re full-on flapping or rocking in public, what am I supposed to do with that?”
A guy near the end laughed. “Pretend it’s not happening, apparently.”
“Or everyone has to act like it’s cute and not deeply uncomfortable.”
One of the girls mimed a little rocking motion and did a babyish voice: “Sorry, I’m overwhelmed.”
The table broke into fresh laughter.
Lando let out another laugh and muttered, “That’s awful,” but he was still smiling when he said it, and there was no actual correction in it. No stop. No maybe don’t.
Someone else said, “And the scripting thing creeps me out. Like, what do you mean you practiced this conversation?”
“Right?” another said. “Just talk.”
Lando shook his head, amused. “That one is pretty wild.”
You stopped hearing the exact words after that. Not because they weren’t loud, but because your body had started to go strange and floaty in that familiar, horrible way. Everything too sharp and too far away at once. Glasses clinking too bright. Music pressing into your skin. The air too warm.
Under the table, your fingers were moving faster now, tapping, pressing, rubbing the side seam of your jeans so hard it almost hurt. You tucked one hand under your thigh to hide it.
“Some of them act like eye contact is oppression.”
“I knew one who’d tell people not to touch her unexpectedly. Like, babe, relax.”
“That would make me want to do it more.”
More laughter. You swallowed and stared at the condensation on your drink.
One of the girls was saying, “And they always want everyone else to rearrange the world around them. Like no, sorry, fluorescent lights are not a hate crime.”
Another voice cut in. “It’s the oversensitivity for me. Like every little thing is the end of the world.”
And then Lando, still in that same thoughtless, tipsy rhythm, said, “Yeah, I mean… at some point it does stop being a diagnosis and start being a personality trait.”
The table laughed. Someone clinked their glass against his.
Your stomach dropped so hard it made you feel briefly sick. Because there it was now. Not just laughter. Not just not stopping it. An actual opinion. Lightly said. Carelessly said. The kind of thing he might not even remember tomorrow.
You felt something in you go cold.
The room seemed to narrow. Not dramatically. Just enough that you knew you were getting close to the point where if you stayed, you would cry. And you could not, absolutely could not, cry here. Not in front of all of them. Not in front of him. Not while they were still half-laughing over traits you had spent your whole life trying to file down into something easier to live beside.
So you waited for the first pause that looked survivable, then touched Lando’s arm. He turned immediately, warm and easy and completely unaware of what he had just done to you.
You nodded too fast. “Yeah. I just… I think I’m feeling a bit sick.”
Concern crossed his face at once. Real concern.
You forced yourself to sound level. “Bit dizzy. I don’t know.”
His hand moved to your knee. “Do you want me to take you home?”
And there it was again, the sweetness. The care. The reason this hurt so badly. Because he wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t mean. He just had no idea. And right now, that ignorance was cutting you to pieces anyway.
His brows drew together. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” You gave him a small smile that felt awful on your face. “I’ll just get a taxi.”
“No, really.” You shook your head and reached for your bag. “It’s fine.”
He was looking at you more carefully now. You could tell. Not enough to understand, but enough to notice that something had gone strange.
“You’re being weird,” he said softly.
The words landed harder than they should have.
You made yourself laugh a little. “I’m sick. I’m allowed.”
But the laugh sounded wrong. You heard it. He heard it too.
Lando sat up straighter. “No, I mean—” He lowered his voice. “Did I do something?”
And because you were hurt, and overwhelmed, and trying very hard not to let your face crack open in front of a whole table of people who had just turned your life into a joke, the answer came out colder than you meant it to.
Just that. Too flat. Too quick. Lando went still for a second.
You saw the shift in his face immediately, the small hurt of someone realizing they’d somehow ended up on the wrong side of your mood and not understanding how.
You stood too fast, adjusting your bag on your shoulder. “I’m just going to go.”
He looked up at you, frowning now. “I’ll come outside with you.”
“No.” You forced another smile. “No, it’s okay. Stay. You’ve had drinks.”
“You’ve had drinks,” you repeated, a little more sharply than you meant to.
He stared at you. Then, quieter: “Okay. But text me when you get home.”
“Lando.” Your voice softened for one second out of sheer habit. “I will.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else. Ask another question. Push harder. But he was still missing the shape of it, and maybe some part of him could tell now that if he pushed too hard in front of everyone, whatever was wrong would only get worse.
So he just nodded once. And when you turned to leave, you could feel his eyes on your back the whole way out. Cold. Sharp. Too aware now that something was off and he didn’t know what.
The air outside hit you like a slap. You made it halfway down the pavement before the tears started. Not dramatic sobbing. Just that awful hot burn spilling over because you had held on one minute too long in there and your body had stopped agreeing to the performance.
You kept walking anyway. Bag clutched to your side. Phone in your hand. The sound of the bar door behind you already swallowed by traffic and wind.
And the most painful part, somehow, was still this: that when he looked at you just now, confused and worried, he had no idea he was one of the reasons you were leaving.
The days after that night were awful in the quietest way.
Not dramatic. Not explosive. Worse. Because Lando texted you exactly the same.
Good morning.
How’s your day going?
Saw this and thought of you.
Miss you.
You free later?
Did you eat?
Night, pretty girl.
And you answered. Of course you did. You weren’t cruel enough not to. Maybe that was the problem.
Because on his side, it probably looked normal enough. A little off, maybe. A little slower. You took longer to reply, turned down seeing him twice, blamed work once, said you were tired the second time, and then when he suggested just coming over and bringing food, you said you had an early morning.
All technically plausible. All lies.
The truth was simpler and worse: you were trying to gather the nerve to end it before you got in any deeper. Because that was the thing, wasn’t it? You could not unknow what you’d heard. Could not unknow the way he had laughed, the way he had gone along with it, the things he’d said himself. And maybe he hadn’t meant anything by it. Maybe it had been ignorance, social momentum, too many drinks, all of that.
But what did that change? You were still you. Still autistic. Still all the things that became too much for people once they had to live beside them instead of make general statements about them in a bar. And if that was how he talked before he knew, what happened when he did?
You already knew the answer, didn’t you? Maybe not because of him specifically. Because of history. Because of the world. Because of the thousand little humiliations that had taught you what people found charming in theory and unbearable in practice.
So yes, you kept texting him. And yes, every time his name lit up your phone, your chest still did that stupid, traitorous little thing. And yes, every night after answering him, you would sit there with your phone in your hand and think: I need to end this now.
Then he invited you over on Sunday afternoon.
No bar. No friends. No excuses. Just: Come over? I miss you. I made your favourite.
And because some weak, aching part of you wanted one more normal afternoon before you destroyed this on purpose, you said yes.
You regretted it before you even reached his building. You regretted it in the lift. You regretted it standing outside his door. And then he opened it, and the regret got teeth.
Because Lando looked so happy to see you. Not politely pleased. Not relieved. Happy.
His whole face opened the second he saw you there, and before you could brace, he was already pulling you into a hug that was warm and familiar and automatic, like the last few days of distance had only existed to him as inconvenience, not warning.
“There yu are,” he murmured into your hair.
You almost broke right there. Instead you hugged him back because your body hated you and because you were weak and because it felt so terribly good to be held by him that for one humiliating second you wanted to pretend none of this had to happen at all.
When he pulled back, one hand was still on your waist.
“I made your favorite,” he said, stepping aside so you could come in. “The real one, not the fake healthy version.”
The apartment smelled like garlic and tomatoes and warm bread. There was music playing low somewhere. The table was set. Of course it was. Of course he had cooked. Of course he’d been excited to see you. Of course he’d made this harder without even trying.
You stepped inside and shrugged off your coat while he took it from you automatically, hanging it up like this was ordinary and safe and headed somewhere good.
Too casually. Too gently.
Lando shut the door, turned back toward you, and frowned.
“No, come on. That sounded fake.”
You laughed a little, because if you didn’t laugh you were going to start crying before you even got past the kitchen. “You sound very confident.”
“I am very confident.” He tilted his head, studying your face. “You look weird.”
You moved farther into the apartment because standing in the doorway while he looked at you like that felt like a bad idea. Lando followed a second later, still talking.
“I wasn’t sure how hungry you were,” he said, lifting the lid off the pot on the stove like the food itself might help, “so I maybe made too much, but I feel like that’s better than not enough.”
You looked at the table. At the glasses. At the stupid bread basket. At the ordinary tenderness of it all. And something in your chest twisted so hard it actually hurt.
He turned. You opened your mouth. Nothing came out.
He waited. Still warm. Still open. Still expecting the kind of conversation normal couples had in normal kitchens before dinner.
You couldn’t do dinner. You couldn’t sit across from him and let him feed you and let him smile at you and act like this was still a thing you were allowed to have. So the words came out too fast and too blunt, like ripping a bandage and skin together.
“I think we should break up.”
The room stopped. Completely.
Lando didn’t move for a second. Actually didn’t move. His face just… emptied. Not of feeling. Of comprehension. Like he had heard the sentence and his brain had refused to accept it as part of the language.
Your throat was already closing. You forced yourself to keep going.
“I think we should stop this now.”
The silence after that was worse. Lando put the spoon down on the counter very carefully, like one wrong movement might change what he’d just heard.
“What are you talking about?”
His voice had changed. Not loud. Not angry. Just thin around the edges.
You wrapped your arms around yourself. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
Lando stared at you like you’d started speaking another language. Then he laughed once. Not because anything was funny. Because the alternative was something worse.
“No.” He shook his head. “No, what?”
You looked at the floor. “I’m serious.”
“About what?” he asked. “About… this?” His hand moved helplessly between the two of you, the room, the whole shape of the afternoon. “What are you saying?”
You swallowed. “That we should end it before it gets worse.”
That got him moving. Not much. One step closer. Enough that you could feel how thrown he was now.
“Before it gets worse,” he repeated. “What does that even mean?”
Lando dragged a hand through his hair. “No, sorry. Hang on. Is this because I’ve been busy this week?”
“I know I’ve been crap at texting back during the day and then when we did see each other last week I was distracted and—” He cut himself off. “If that’s what this is, just say that.”
“Okay.” He nodded too quickly. “Then is it because I did something? Is there something I’ve missed? Did I say something weird? Are you upset about something and I’m just not getting it?”
“Is it too much too soon?” he pressed. “Because if you want to slow down, that’s fine. We can slow down.”
Lando looked at you for a long second.
Then, quieter, “Is there someone else?”
Your head snapped up. “No.”
His voice cracked slightly on the last word. That almost undid you. Because he looked confused, yes, but under that now was hurt, not dramatic, not loud, just real, sitting openly on his face while he tried to make sense of why his girlfriend had come over, let him kiss her hello, and then casually shattered the room.
“I don’t think we’re compatible,” you said.
Lando went completely still.
Then he said, flatly, “That’s complete bullshit.”
“No, seriously,” he said. “That’s actual nonsense, and you know it.”
“No.” He shook his head once, sharper now, fear making him angry by accident. “Do not give me that. Don’t stand there and say some vague shit like ‘we’re not compatible’ like this is mutual and random and nobody’s fault.”
Your eyes burned instantly. He saw it. Kept going anyway, because he was panicking now, because this was not making sense and the more it didn’t make sense, the more he needed to force clarity out of it.
“What happened?” he asked. “Did somebody say something? Did I do something? Did I miss some huge thing and now I’m getting broken up with in my own kitchen and you won’t even tell me why?”
The second it came out, you saw him regret the sharpness. But it was too late. And because you were barely holding yourself together already, the cruelty of that, even accidental, pushed you right up to the edge.
“You want the truth?” you said.
You let out one broken breath. “I’m autistic.”
Silence. Not just surprise this time. Shock.
Lando stared at you. And then, because he was blindsided, because the sentence had dropped into the room from a height he hadn’t been prepared for, because he was still trying to catch up to what that meant in relation to everything else, the bar, your distance, the breakup, all of it, he said the worst possible thing.
The word cracked out of you so fast and so sharp it actually made him stop.
“Don’t even finish that fucking sentence,” you said, tears already falling now because of course, of course, of course that was what came out first. “God, don’t you dare.”
Lando looked like he’d slapped you by accident and only realized it after the sound.
“Yes, you did.” Your laugh came out ugly and shaking. “You absolutely did. You were about to say I don’t look autistic. Right? That I don’t seem autistic. That I’m not like—what? Whatever stupid version of it people are willing to accept?”
His mouth opened. Closed. You could barely breathe now.
“That is exactly the kind of thing people always say,” you said, voice trembling harder with every word. “Every single time. ‘You don’t look autistic.’ ‘You don’t seem autistic.’ ‘Really? Are you sure?’ Like there’s some correct face for it. Some approved little image.” You wiped angrily at your cheeks. “And then when you do act autistic enough for them, suddenly you’re too much and difficult and embarrassing and—”
Lando had gone pale. You saw the moment it clicked. Not just the word, but the pattern. The shape of every comment at the bar suddenly reassembling itself around you.
“The bar,” he said quietly.
You laughed once, helplessly. “Yeah. The bar.”
His face changed. Really changed.
And that was the thing that hurt most: the sincerity in it. The realization. The horror.
Because you had sat there while everyone laughed about people like you, while they mocked stimming and sensitivities and routines and hyperfixations and social scripts and food textures and needing things explained differently and melting down in bad environments, and Lando, your Lando, had gone right along with it like it was just one more funny conversation in a crowded booth.
He shut his eyes briefly.
His eyes opened. “I know.”
“You said maybe at some point it stops being a diagnosis and starts being a personality trait.” Your voice broke. “You said that.”
The shame that crossed his face then was immediate and vicious. Like he wanted to physically drag the sentence back out of the air and couldn’t.
“I know,” he said again, but it sounded wrecked now.
“And you don’t get it,” you said, crying harder because now it was all there, all the fear and all the humiliation and all the old shame the bar had ripped open again. “You don’t get what that felt like. Sitting there while everyone around me laughed about traits I have. Things I do. Things I have spent my whole life trying to hide or apologize for or make look smaller so people won’t get annoyed.”
Lando stood completely still. You took a shaky breath that did nothing.
“I cannot fucking help it,” you said.
The room went quiet around your voice.
“I cannot help it when I get anxious in crowded rooms and everybody is talking too loud and my brain starts misfiring and I can feel every noise in my skin. I cannot help it when I’m wearing a wool sweater and suddenly the texture feels so wrong I feel like I want to die. I cannot help it when I start tapping or picking at my fingers or rubbing seams or rocking because if I don’t do something I feel like I’ll come out of my body.”
Lando looked shattered already. You kept going.
“I cannot help it when I get fixated on things. I cannot help it when I read some fucking Greek mythology novel and then my whole brain gets stuck on it for two weeks or maybe even months and I all I want to do is talk about it because it feels like my skin isn’t big enough to hold it quietly. I cannot help the routines or the scripts or the fact that eye contact can feel impossible or that sometimes I need things explained differently when I’m overwhelmed or I go quiet and shut down and look weird.”
Your breathing was breaking now. Your whole chest hurt.
“And after that night,” you whispered, “all I could think was that of course. Of course this is how it would go.”
Lando looked at you like the words were physically hurting him. You laughed through the tears. It sounded awful.
“Because why would I stay?” you said. “Why would I let you get attached enough to see all of that up close when I already know what people think? I already know what happens. At first they think it’s quirky or whatever, and then eventually it’s too much.”
“Stop,” Lando said, but his voice was breaking too.
“Yes,” he said, but there was no force in it, only pain.
“No.” You shook your head hard. “You don’t get to tell me to stop when you’re not hearing the point. I really like you. That’s what makes this so fucking humiliating. I really like you. And then I sat there and listened to you all laugh and I just thought… there it is. There it fucking is. He should be with some neurotypical girl who doesn’t need so much. Someone who doesn’t get overwhelmed by bars or need to leave early or cry because a sweater feels wrong or get stuck on stupid things for weeks or need room and patience and—” Your voice broke completely. “Someone easier,” you finished, barely above a whisper. “You should be with someone easier.”
That was the point where Lando cried. Not big, dramatic sobbing. Just one sharp fracture in his face, one moment where he stopped trying to hold himself together and lost.
It was devastating for one simple reason: Lando did not cry easily.
You’d never seen him do it like that. Not from embarrassment. Not from frustration. Only when something had gone very deep. And the tears on his face now were not because he felt accused. Not because you had called him out. Because he had heard you. Fully. And understood, all at once, how badly he had hurt you without ever meaning to.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, voice shaking.
You looked away because the sight of him crying somehow made everything worse. Not better. Worse.
You let out a broken laugh. “Yeah.”
“No, don’t—” He dragged a hand over his face, tears still there, no composure left in him now. “Don’t do that. Don’t—fuck.” He looked down, then back at you, and his face had gone so open it was hard to look at. “I was such a fucking asshole.”
You wiped at your eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
The force of it made you look at him.
“It matters because I sat there and I joined in,” he said. “Maybe not as badly as the others, but I still did it. I laughed. I repeated shit. I wanted to keep the mood easy, wanted to be funny, wanted to go with everyone else instead of thinking like an actual human being, and you were right there.” His voice cracked again. “And you were hearing all of that from me.”
The tears kept coming down your face. Quiet now. Steady.
Lando shook his head hard like he hated himself for every second of it. “I can’t even tell you I’m not that person without sounding ridiculous, because I was that person. That night, I was. Ignorant and careless and cowardly enough to go with the room instead of being decent. And I’m probably still too ignorant.”
He took a breath that trembled on the way in.
“And those people?” He laughed once, bitterly. “If that’s genuinely what they think, if that’s who they are when nobody stops them, then I don’t want people like that around me. They’re not my friends.”
You stared at him. Lando looked wrecked and utterly sincere.
“I’m not doing that,” he said. “I’m not standing by that conversation. I’m not standing by those opinions. And I’m definitely not standing by the version of me who sat there and made you feel like being yourself would make you unlovable.”
That one hit. Your face crumpled all over again.
Lando took one small step toward you. Then stopped, careful now.
“I want to do better,” he said.
You closed your eyes for one second.
“Not just say it. Actually do it. I want to learn. Properly. I want you to tell me when I’ve said something stupid and I want to listen instead of getting defensive. I want to read, I want to ask questions, I want to understand what helps and what hurts and what being autistic is for you, not for whatever bullshit stereotype I clearly have in my head.”
You opened your eyes. Lando’s face was still wet. So was yours.
The sentence landed like something warm and clean in the middle of all that wreckage.
“Not some hypothetical easier girl. Not some quieter girl. Not some version of you cut down into something more comfortable for everyone else.” His voice lowered. “You.”
“I want the girl who gets anxious in bars and obsessed with mythology and weird about sweaters. I want the girl who maybe needs things from me because I happen to really fucking like giving them if it means she feels safe.”
A laugh-sob escaped you before you could stop it.
Lando smiled through tears, tiny and devastated. “There you are.”
You shook your head. “You don’t know what you’re signing up for.”
“I’m saying it now,” he said, “and I’ll say it tomorrow too.”
The room had gone so quiet you could hear the stove ticking behind you. He took another step.
“Can I hug you?” he asked.
The question nearly broke you again. Not because it was big. Because it wasn’t. Because after all of this, after you had come here prepared to blow everything up, after you had just bled all over his kitchen floor in the shape of your worst fear, he was still asking. Still making room. Still letting your body belong to you first.
Lando moved like he was afraid of startling you, and then his arms were around you, warm and careful and tight enough to feel real. The second he held you, the rest of your composure gave up completely and you folded into him with a sound somewhere between a sob and a breath.
He buried his face in your hair and held on.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
You cried against his shirt and let him hold you.
For a while, that was all there was. His hand moving slowly over your back. Your breathing trying to settle. The warm smell of food and him and the soft music still playing stupidly in the next room like the world had not just split open and remade itself.
When you finally pulled back, he kept one hand on your face as if he needed to reassure himself you were still there.
You looked at him. He looked ruined. Open. So, so sorry.
And because at that point honesty was the only thing left in the room that hadn’t already been broken and rebuilt, you whispered, “I really thought you were going to hate me once you knew.”
Lando’s expression cracked all over again.
“No,” he said softly, fiercely. “No, baby. I hate myself a bit right now, sure. But never you.”
You let out a watery laugh.
“That’s not funny,” he said, still looking at you like he wanted to protect every part of you from the last week, from the bar, from himself.
You smiled anyway, weak and exhausted and still raw.
Lando’s thumb brushed under your eye. “We’re not breaking up.”
It wasn’t really a question. Just him staking out the future before your fear could try to steal it again.
You gave a tiny, helpless laugh. “That your main takeaway?”
“It’s a very important takeaway.”
You shook your head. Then, because his face was right there and your body still knew him before your fear did, you kissed him. Just once. Soft. Tentative. A little salt still on both your mouths from tears.
Lando froze for half a second in pure surprise. Then kissed you back like he’d been handed something precious and dangerous and wasn’t going to waste the chance to hold it right.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.
“I’m going to do better,” he whispered.
You believed him. Not because people didn’t say things like that all the time. Because he looked like a man who had already started changing.
“Okay,” you whispered back.
And in his kitchen, with dinner going cold on the stove and the two of you still a mess and the afternoon in ruins around your feet, it somehow still felt like the beginning of something better than before.
After that afternoon in his kitchen, Lando did not become perfect. That would have been impossible. Also, suspicious.
He still said the wrong thing sometimes. Still got confused. Still had moments where he realized halfway through a sentence that he was making some terrible assumption and stopped with a look of such immediate self-disgust that you usually ended up laughing before he could spiral.
But he got better. And maybe more importantly, he got better on purpose.
That was what undid you. Because there was no dramatic speech after that day. No one grand promise that fixed everything at once. Just Lando, looking at you with red-rimmed eyes and shame in his face, saying he wanted to do better. And then actually doing it.
At first, it showed up quietly. In links. Articles. Essays. Videos. Actual autistic creators talking about sensory issues and masking and shutdowns and routines and special interests and burnout and all the things people who weren’t autistic kept describing so badly.
He didn’t send them to you in some patronizing “look, I’m learning!” way either. He just… read them.
You knew because sometimes, while you were lying on his chest or making tea in his kitchen or sitting beside him half-watching something at night, he would ask questions. Real ones. Thoughtful ones. Not the sort designed to reassure himself that he was doing well. The sort that meant he had been thinking.
“Can I ask you something?”
You had looked up from his sofa one evening, halfway through untangling the string from a hoodie you’d accidentally knotted. “That depends. Are you about to say something awful?”
He’d laughed softly. “Hopefully not.”
He had shifted on the sofa, angling more toward you. “What does it actually feel like when you get overstimulated?”
The question had caught you off guard. Not because it was rude. Because it wasn’t. Because he had asked it like the answer mattered. Like he wasn’t after a neat little definition he could tuck away and feel accomplished about. Like he genuinely wanted a map so he could recognize the terrain when you were in it.
You had taken a second. “It depends.”
He had nodded immediately. “Okay.”
“Sometimes it feels like everything’s too loud and too bright and too close to my skin.” You looked down at the drawstring in your hands. “And sometimes it’s less dramatic than that. Just… like my brain starts tripping over itself. Like I can feel myself getting meaner or quieter or more tired really fast, and I can’t always stop it.”
Lando had listened without interrupting. Really listened.
Then, after a second: “And if that’s happening, what helps?”
“Like what should I do?” he had asked, softer now. “Or not do?”
That was the thing. He never made your autism a spectacle after that. Never made it some tragic revelation he needed to tiptoe around or overcompensate for in huge, performative ways. He just started paying attention.
He learned the look your face got when a room was too much before you had the language for it. Learned that if your replies got shorter and your shoulders crept up toward your ears, it usually meant you were hitting your limit. Learned that “I’m fine” was sometimes true and sometimes absolutely not, and that the difference lived mostly in your eyes.
And when he got it wrong, he let himself be corrected. That mattered too.
One night at dinner with friends, he’d leaned over and asked, “You okay?” in that low, automatic way of his. You had nodded.
He’d looked at you for a second longer. “Do you want to go?”
You had blinked. “That obvious?”
“Only if you know your face.”
You’d smiled into your drink. “Give me ten minutes.”
He had nodded once. “Okay.”
No guilt. No but everyone’s just getting started. No making you explain yourself to the room.
Ten minutes later, he’d stood up, announced to the table that you both had an early morning, and gotten you out of there before the noise had a chance to turn poisonous in your bones.
Afterward, in the car, you’d been quiet. Lando had driven with one hand on the wheel and the other resting open on your thigh, just there if you wanted it.
“You didn’t have to leave too,” you’d murmured.
He had glanced at you like the idea was absurd. “Why would I stay if you were done?”
You looked out the window so he wouldn’t see what that did to your face.
He got attentive to textures in a way that was almost funny. Not expert. Just vigilant.
He started asking, “Is that one bad?” if you touched a jumper in a shop and immediately made a face.
You were in his room once, getting ready to go out, when he came in wearing some new sweater he clearly liked.
You looked up. Paused. Then visibly winced.
He stopped dead. “That bad?”
You tried not to laugh. “It looks fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
You reached out and rubbed the sleeve between your fingers, then shuddered dramatically. “I think if this touched my neck I would become a danger to society.”
Lando looked down at the fabric. “Right.”
Then he pulled it off over his head with zero hesitation and tossed it onto the chair.
You stared. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged into a T-shirt instead. “I know. But if you’re next to me all night and one accidental brush of my arm is going to make you want to peel your skin off, feels counterproductive.”
The look on your face made him grin.
“And yet,” he said, stepping back into your space, “helpful.”
He listened to your hyperfixations like they were love letters. That might have been the most dangerous thing of all.
Because there was one particularly humiliating afternoon where you’d ended up on the floor of his living room, surrounded by open tabs and one half-read book and three badly organized notes on your phone, talking far too fast about a myth you had gotten stuck on that week.
One evening, weeks after the kitchen argument, you were curled into his side on the sofa, one of your books open but unread in your lap while he scrolled idly on his phone.
You had been talking for a while. Something about a new fixation. Ancient sea routes, maybe, or sacrificial rites, or the political symbolism of monster myths, at this point he had become alarmingly hard to surprise.
You stopped mid-sentence, suddenly aware of yourself.
Lando looked over. “Why’d you stop?”
You shrugged, already embarrassed. “Nothing.”
“I’ve been talking for ages.”
“So…” You looked down. “I don’t know. It’s a lot.”
Lando set his phone aside and turned toward you properly.
You looked at him. He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, expression soft and utterly serious.
“I am listening,” he said. “On purpose.”
Then he smiled, just a little. “Also, if you stop now, I’ll never find out whether the bronze-age sailors were incompetent or cursed, and that feels unfair.”
You laughed. Actually laughed.
He smiled. “And you look hot when you’re ranting, actually. Unexpected bonus.”
You shoved at his shoulder. He laughed and kissed your forehead.
By the time your first race weekend together came around, he was already impossible about you. Not clingy in public, well, not excessively. But attentive in a way that made it clear he had been thinking far ahead of the actual moment.
The paddock was already intense on its own. Louder, brighter, more chaotic than it looked from TV. Crowds, cameras, radios, engines, clattering equipment, endless people wanting something from somebody.
You had been trying not to overthink it all week. Because you wanted to be there. Wanted to support him. Wanted to see his world properly. You just also knew your nervous system was about to have opinions.
You were at his flat the night before flying out, perched on the edge of his bed while he packed with his usual complete inability to fold anything like a civilized person, when he suddenly said, “Oh, hang on.”
You looked up. Lando crossed to the wardrobe, reached into the back of a drawer, and came back holding a box. He handed it to you.
You frowned. “What’s this?”
Inside were a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Really good ones. The expensive kind. The kind you had looked at online before and then immediately closed the tab on because spending that much money on your own comfort always still felt faintly self-indulgent.
You looked up at him. Lando had gone a little pink around the ears, which always meant he cared more than he was pretending to.
“I just thought…” He shrugged one shoulder. “It might help. For the paddock. If it gets too much.”
You stared at him. He looked suddenly defensive in the most Lando way possible, which is to say defensive because he was shy, not because he was angry.
“You don’t have to use them,” he said quickly. “I’m not saying it’s definitely going to be awful, I just thought it’d be better if you had them and didn’t need them than needed them and didn’t have them.”
Your eyes burned instantly.
Lando saw it and immediately looked alarmed. “Why are you crying? This was supposed to be a practical gift.”
You laughed through it, clutching the box to your chest.
“It is a practical gift.”
“You’re making it emotional.”
“That’s because you made it emotional.”
He stared at you for one second. “I bought headphones.”
“You bought me headphones.”
“That was implied by the purchase.”
You smiled, wiping quickly under your eyes. “Thank you.”
And because he couldn’t handle gratitude for too long without ruining the mood on purpose, he shrugged and said, “Well. I’m invested in your survival. Bit selfish, really.”
Then he kissed the top of your head and added, softer, “I want you comfortable.”
That was what he kept doing.Wanting you comfortable. Wanting you safe. Wanting you understood, even in the places where he was still learning how.
He started checking little things before you had to.
“How bad is the noise in here, scale of one to awful?”
“Do you want to sit somewhere else?”
“Do you need five minutes?”
“Do you want me to answer for you?”
“Too much?”
“You sure?”
“Okay. We can go.”
And maybe the most important part was that he never made it feel like a burden. Never sighed. Never made a joke at your expense. Never acted as though your needs were interrupting the real version of life.
He just folded them in. Made room. As if loving you had simply expanded the blueprint of what he considered normal.
He still said sorry sometimes. Not all the time. Not in a guilty, performative loop.
Just when the memory of that night came back across his face and he’d look at you a second too long and say, quietly, “I really was such a prick.”
And you would roll your eyes and tell him he’d made the point several times already.
But secretly, privately, part of you never stopped being moved by the fact that he had not decided his one apology was enough and moved on.
He remembered. He cared. He let it change him. And maybe that was the whole thing, really.
Not that he had never hurt you. Not that he had gotten it right instantly. That when he understood he’d hurt you, he loved you enough to learn better. And then he kept loving you in ways that proved it.
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