this is my f1-side blog. here i reblog my recs, record my reactions, and occasionally write some fics. i don't really take requests per say, but you're welcome to drop an idea in my asks and maybe i'll write it if i'm inspired!
i shall call him squishy â oscar piastri x reader
fic concept: hitman!logan sargeant x reader
navigation . âą â . ° .⹠°:. *â ° . â
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âdonât go where i canât followâ is literally the most romantic thing anyone has ever said. itâs like. iâll let you bring me anywhereâfar from home, far from the places and people i love, so long as you stay with me. iâll let you walk into danger and through hell, but i will not let you go where i canât go with you. that is where i draw the line.Â
âsometimes i just want her to realize that even though he wasnât a good man, heâd started to become a better one for her.â
hi âșïžâșïž do you know that you could put all of us out of our pain and misery and make her realize because⊠youâre the one writing second chances đ
jk jk I love you and the plot even if it kills me
lowkey i be forgetting about that sometimes... oops?
summary: The morning after is all aching ribs and tension she doesn't understand. She keeps trying to leave, to not be a burden, and Oscar keeps gently insisting she stays. When he finally confronts her with her words back to her.
warnings: descriptions of a car accident's aftermath (whiplash, shock, pain medication, etc.), mentions of needing to use the rest. needing help (very brief and vague i promise)
word count: 3.3k
part one | part two | part three
You woke up to sunlight and pain.
The sunlight was streaming through what looked to be familiar windows. The pain was instantly everywhereâyour neck, your ribs, your head, places you didn't even know you'd hurt yesterday. Everything that had been muffled by adrenaline and shock had come back with startling clarity.
You tried to sit up and your ribs screamed at you. You froze halfway, breathing through it as slowly as you could without causing the pain to flare again.
"Hey, hey, don't move."
You turned your headâslowly, because that hurt tooâand Oscar was there. He was in the armchair next to the couch, still wearing yesterday's clothes. His hair was sticking up on one side and there were shadows under his eyes.
You were on Oscar's couch.
Right.
The hospital. The accident. Oscar bringing you here.
"Did you sleep?" you asked, trying not to sound as guilty as you felt. The words came out raspy, croaky and low after heavy sleep.
He shrugged rather politely before sugarcoating the truth.
"Fâcourse. Slept some."
Of course, now you definitely felt guilty. Before you could find a way to apologize that wouldnât end up with Oscar scolding you about not needing to apologize, he stood up and crossed over to the couch.
"How do you feel, hm?"
Still blinking slowly, you answered,"I feel fine. Not too bad, actually."
He raised an eyebrow, his expression deadpan as he waited for you to tell him the truth. Of all the people in the world, Oscar Piastri was likely one of the very few who could see through you like that. "Mhm, try again."
"I'm fine," you repeated, insisting and this time you even committed to sitting up. Your body protested every inch of the way but you managed to get yourself upright, even if you had to pause at the end to breathe through the spike of pain in your ribs that felt not unlike what being stabbed with the literal sun might feel like.
By the time the room felt less fuzzy again, Oscar's hands were hovering near your shoulders like he wanted to help but didn't know if you'd let him.
"See?" you gritted out, teeth clenched as you attempted to give him a reassuring smile. "Better than fine."
"Right,â Oscar sighed, rolling his eyes. Still, he didnât move from your side. Instead, he resorted to asking a different question. "D'you need to use the bathroom?"
You did, desperately, but the bathroom felt very far away, and your legs may or may not have felt like jello. "I can manage."
"I- Okay."
Instead of arguing any further, he stepped back and you stood up.
Or, well⊠you tried to.
Your legs were shaky and when you put weight on them, suddenly everything tilted sideways. Before you could even process that you were falling, Oscar caught you in an instant, hands firm on your waist.
"Ah, there we go, I've got you," he spoke quietly, as if this was some secret he'd keep safe so you wouldnât have to feel embarrassed by needing him to save you. Had it not been for his quick reflexes, youâd likely well made a fool of yourself by crumbling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Yet you could still fill the warmth of familiar hands holding you up, holding you near.
Was he always standing this close?
"I'm fine, I justâ" You tried to pull away but your legs weren't cooperating and his hold only tightened, insistent.
"Stop saying you're fine."
"I am fine."
"You can't even stand."
"I'm standing right now."
"Because I'm holding you up!"
There was something sharp in his voice. Not anger, exactly â frustration, maybe.
"Just let me help."
"I don't needâ"
"Yes, you do." His eyes were so tired. "Please. Just let me help."
Your throat went tight. Eventually, reluctantly, you nodded.
Once he was certain you werenât going to yell at him for it, he helped you to the bathroom, patient and careful as only he could be, and waited a respectful distance away from the door. When you were done, he was right there again, helping you back to the couch even though you insisted you could walk on your own.
You couldn't, really. But you didn't want to admit it.
After you were comfortable in your spot on his couch again, he disappeared into the kitchen and came back with water and your medication and toast that looked just as sad as last night's.
"You need to eat before you take these," he instructed you.
"Mânot hungry."
You really didnât make things easy. Still, he only sighed good naturedly.Â
"Don't care."
With a dramatic roll of your eyes, you ended up taking the toast. Careful eyes watched you eat it. All the aching everywhere had every bite feeling like you were trying to swallow sandpaper, but you got it down because he was looking at you like if you didn't eat he might actually lose it.
"Happy?" you drawled sarcastically when you were done. If it didn't hurt to breathe too hard, maybe youâd even curtsey.Â
"Thrilled," he replied, equally sarcastic if only to hide the small smile that threatened to appear on his face instead. Making sure he had the correct dosage, Oscar handed you the pills with a glass of water.
Once youâd finally forced yourself to swallow them down, he took the glass back and you sank into the couch cushions. As much as youâd hoped that would magically dissipate all your aches and pains, everything did still hurt. It wasn't even just the injuries â your neck was stiff from sleeping wrong, your ribs ached with every breath, your head was pounding. It took genuineÂ
Oscar sat on the coffee table in front of you, close enough that his knees almost touched yours.
"What hurts?" he coaxed softly.
"Nothinâ."
Oscar tried his very best not to sigh audibly. Heâd learned quite some time ago that the slightest sign of frustration only motivated you to apologize more, which was kind of the opposite of what he wanted.
"Iâ Stop lying to me."
"I'm notâ"
"You are."
His voice was quiet, but there was steel underneath it.
"You're sitting like your ribs are broken and even I can tell you haven't turned your head properly once since you woke up. So tell me what hurts."
You looked away from him. "Everything! Everything hurts. Happy now?"
"No."
He stood up and disappeared down the hall.
You closed your eyes and tried to breathe.Â
This was stupid.Â
You shouldn't be here. You should be at home where you could suffer in private and not make Oscar watch you fall apart. Something quite like guilt curled tighter in your chest.
He came back with a heating pad and extra pillows. The sight was so soft, so full of thought and care and all the other stuff that might make your heart all mushy in your chest.
"Whatâ What are you doing?" you managed to ask.
"Er, helping?"
He plugged in the heating pad.
"Lean forward."
"Oscâ"
"Please lean forward?"
Eye still wide in awe of just how much one person could care, you adjusted your body as heâd requested you too, and he arranged the pillows behind you so when you leaned back your neck was actually supported. Then, he had the audacity to drape the heating pad over your shoulders.
The warmth helped immediately.
You hated that it helped.
"Better?" he hummed.
"You, uh, don't have to do all this."
"I know thatâŠ? I was asking ifâ"
"No, Osc. Mâserious. You'veâ Youâve done enough. I can justâI'll call someone to pick me up. You need to sleep or eat something thatâs not toastâ."
He sat back down on the coffee table and looked at you like you'd said something incomprehensible. If you didnât know any better, youâd say he looked genuinely hurt, like youâd somehow brought that sad puppy look onto his face. He looked⊠sad.
"You⊠think I'm gonna let you leave?"
"I can't stay here forever."
"....You've been here for eight hours."
"Still."
"Still what, exactly?"
There was that sharpness again.
"You have a concussion. You can barely walk. Where exactly do you think you're goinâ?"
"Home?"
"By yourself?"
"I'll figure it out!"
"No."
It was flat, final.
"You're staying."
"Oscarâ"
"I'm not arguing about this."
He ran a hand through his hair and it stuck up worse than before.
"Why're you fighting me on this?"
"Because I'm not your responsibility!"
The words came out louder than you meant them to, and Oscar went very, very still.
"Is⊠Is that what you think?" he asked quietly.
"Iâ"
Suddenly, the sound of your heartbeat was loud and the air in the room was much thinner, causing a strange tightness in your chest.
"Itâs just⊠You have your own life, you know? Like, your own things to deal with. You don't need to be stuck taking care of me."
"I'm notâ Iâm not stuck."
"But you are. You woke up every three hours last night.There are actual, literal bags under your eyes because of how tired you are. Youâ"
"I wanted to." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "D'you understand that? I wanted to be here. I want to help. Why's that so hard for you to accept?"
You didn't have an answer for that.
Oscar was watching you, waiting, and you couldn't find the words. Your head was pounding and everything hurt and you were so tired of hurting.
"I just don't get it," you confessed finally. Your voice sounded small even to you, tentative. "I donât get why you'd, uh, want to."
Something shifted in his expression, confusion tinged with hurt. "What?"
The look on his face⊠You couldnât bring yourself to meet his eyes. It was almost like your words were hurting him somehow, and you couldnât possibly understand how. Nothing you were saying was meant to hurt him. You were only trying to tell the truth.
It took a deep breath for you to find your words again.
"This. All of this."
You gestured vaguely at the pillows, the heating pad, him.
"Putting up with me. I don'tâI don't understand, I can figure out why you'd go through all this trouble."
"It's not trouble."
"It is though! Like, objectively it is. You could be sleeping right now. Orâ Or you could be doing literally anything else. But instead, you're here watching me like I'm gonna break and I justâ"
You had to stop because your voice was cracking.
"I don't. get. why."
Oscar was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful, precariously balanced on a single, invisible point.
"...You really don't know?"
"Know what? Donât know what, Osc?"
He looked at you like he was trying to solve an equation. Then he sat back and there was something almost helpless in the way he said his next words
"You told me I'd make a good boyfriend."
Your brain stalled out, short circuiting in real time. "What?"
"Last night. You said I'd make a good boyfriend. That whoever dates me would be lucky."
Oh god.
You'd said that. You'd actually said that out loud.
"I wasâthat was the pain meds talking. I didn't meanâ"
You could feel your face getting hot.
"That wasâ It was just a compliment. Like, I was just saying you're a good person, that youâ"
"Right."
Amber brown eyes were still watching you with that same careful expression.
"...Just a compliment."
"Yeah. I mean, you know, itâsâ"
You were stumbling over the words.
"Youâre, like, weirdly good at taking care of people. Like me for example â you bring me toast and add the exact right amount of butter. You remember when I'm supposed to take my meds before I even remember that I need to take them, because you wonât let me be in the slightest pain for even a second. You watch Finding Nemo with me like itâs the first time every time. That's just facts. It wasn'tâI wasn't trying toâ"
"You said I'm always like this," he continued quietly. "With you."
You remembered that part too, now. The shape of it. How his hand had felt around yours.
"Well. You are."Â
It came out defensive.
"You're always doing stuff like this. Helping with things. Being there. I was justâit was an observation."
"An⊠observation," he repeated.
"Yeah."
"Okay."
He nodded slowly, and there was something in his face you couldn't read.
"Can I make an observation?"
You nodded, wary.
"You're scared," he spoke carefully.
"I'm notâ"
"Not of the accident. Of this," he gestured between you. "Of letting someone take care of you. Of needing help. Ofâ"
He paused.
"Of what it might mean if I want to be here."
Your heart was doing something complicated in your chest. "Oscar, IâŠâ
"I'm not a good boyfriend to just anyone," he whispered, and his voice was so gentle it made your throat ache. "I'm good at taking care of you because it's you. I wake up every three hours because it's you. I can'tâ"
He stopped, dragged a hand over his face.
"I can't watch you hurt and not do everything I can to fix it because it's you."
Oh.
Oh.
The heating pad was warm on your shoulders. The apartment was quiet. You could hear your own heartbeat.
"Oh," you finally whispered, a breath more than anything else.
"Yeah."
His smile was small and a little bit broken.
"Oh."
You were staring at him and he was staring back and the whole world had just tilted on its axis.
"I didn't know," you mumbled stupidly.
"I know you didn't."
The smile Oscar wore was some tragic cross between heartbroken and smitten. It made you want to cry.
 He leaned forward again, careful, like he was approaching something that might bolt.
"But now you do."
"Now I do," you echoed softly.
His hand moved like he was going to reach for yours, then stopped. "Is that okay?"
Is it okay.
Is it okay that Oscar â Oscar who'd come to the hospital the second they'd called, who'd stayed all night, who looked at you like you were something precious â was sitting here telling you that it was you, it had always been you.
"I told you you'd make a good boyfriend," you blurted out. Your voice sounded strange. "I meant it. Even with the pain meds. With theâ I meant it."
His breath caught, hitching audibly. "...Yeah?"
"Yeah."
And then, because your brain was still foggy and everything hurt and you couldn't seem to stop talking, even more words tumbled out of your mouth.
"I think I meantâ I think maybe I was talking about me. Like, whoever you date? I think I wantedâ"
You couldn't finish, but you didn't have to. Oscar's face did something that made your chest feel too full, like all the feeling, all theâ the this could somehow overflow and pour out of you and into space between the two of you.
"Come here," he said quietly.
"I am here."
"Closer."
You shifted forward and immediately regretted it when your ribs protested, but then Oscar's hands were on your arms, steadying you, and he was so close you could see the exact shade of worry in his eyes.
"For the record," he started, "I don't wanna date just anyone."
"No?"
"No."
His thumb brushed against your forearm, soft and deliberate.
"Just you. If that'sâ if you wantâ"
"I do want," you blurted out before you could even think about it, because Oscar looked terrified and you couldnât stand him feeling like that and you needed him to know. "Oscar, I want."
The smile that broke across his face was like sunrise â soft and tinged pink, radiant and full of promise.
"Okay," he breathed.
"Okay," you echoed, your face splitting into a matching grin. When it came to Oscar, you couldnât help it, and you didnât want to. The scrunch of his smile and those adorable buckteeth and that floof of his hair made the butterflies in your stomach flutter all the way into your chest. It made your mind short-circuit, made your heart skip, made you do all the tooth-rotting, sickeningly sweet things only Oscar could bring out in you.Â
The sound of his voice interrupted your daydreaming.
"But you're still staying on this couch until the doctor clears you."
You couldnât help the giggle that slipped out, even when it hurt your ribs. Right now, you really didnât care. "Okay."
His smile only god wider.
"And you're gonna let me take care of you."
"Mhmm."
"And you're gonna stop trying to convince me you're fine when you're clearly not."
You almost nodded, before you stopped yourself. "Hmm, that one might take some work."
Oscarâs expression was so horribly lovesick you couldnât fathom how you never noticed it before.Â
"I've got time,â he hummed, his hands still on your arms, warm and steady. "I've got all the time in the world."
Your eyes were burning again, but for a completely different reason than last night.
"Can Iâ"
You gestured awkwardly between you.
"Can weâ I was wondering ifâ"
"Kiss?" he supplied smugly, and there was something almost teasing in his voice now. "You wanna kiss me?"
"Yes,â you blushed, suddenly shy when everything you didnât know you wanted was just within reach. âBut I don't think I can move without something breaking."
Oscar laughed, soft and fond, and leaned in to close the distance himself. His hand came up to cup the side of your face, careful of the bruise on your cheekbone, and when his lips touched yours it was gentle, tender.
Like you were something that might shatter.
You wouldn't shatter. Not with him holding you like this.
The kiss was everything you could have imagined and more. It wasnât fireworks so much as it was an all encompassing pleasant thrum that began from your lips met his and spread until it consumed you whole. The warm weight of his lips on yours, the gentle brush of his hand steading your waist, the scent of him â just everything â had you uncertain whether the kiss was breathing life into you or stealing your breath away.
Whatever it was, you hoped itâd keep happening forever.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours and you were both breathing like you'd run a marathon.
"That okay?" he asked, equal parts smug and tentative. Only Oscar could manage to be both at the same time, you thought.
"Better than okay."
"Good."
He pressed a kiss to your forehead then, before carefully guiding you back against the pillows.
"Mhm, now rest. Doctor's orders."
"You're not a doctor," you yawned, before settling in just so you could look at him some more. As pain meds began to kick in the edges started to grow hazy, your mind fought against sleep because you were almost afraid that this would all turn out to be some dream.
Oscarâs fingertips barely grazed against your skin as he brushed a lock of your hair out of your, tucking it behind your ear.
"Boyfriend's orders, then."
Your heart tripped over itself.Â
"Boyfriend?"
His ears went pink, but he didn't back down. "Yeah. If you want."
"I do want," you assured him, and you'd never meant anything more.
He settled back onto the coffee table, close enough to touch, and picked up his phone. Probably setting an alarm for your next round of medication.
Heâd only just thought youâd fallen asleep whenâÂ
"...Oscar?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you. For⊠all oâ this. For beinâ here."
He looked at you and there was so much in his expression â affection and exasperation and something softer than both.
"Always," he replied simply, like it was the easiest promise in the world to make.
You believed him.
a/n: sorry for being mia. brain was being a bitch, but i wrote this and it made me feel a little better. hopefully this can make you feel a little better too <3
a feel like the new generation of fanfic readers NEED to understand that clicking on a fic (interaction) does nothing. ao3 has no algorithm. your private discord discussions of fic do not reach the authors. if you do not actively engage with writers they will stop posting. this isnât social media this is community.
summary: A car accident leaves you disoriented and hurt in the hospital. When the paramedics call your emergency contact, Oscar drops everything to be there.
warnings: descriptions of injuries and shock
word count: 5.2k
part one | part two | part three
Everything was too quiet. That was the first thing that felt wrong.
Your ears rang, high-pitched and insistent, and underneath that there was nothing. No music. The radio had cut out. You'd been listening to something, but you couldn't remember what.
The airbag smelled like chemicals and something burnt. You couldn't quite remember why your face was pressed against it, or why your hands shook so badly when you tried to push yourself back.
Your door was open, though you hadn't opened it. Someone was talking to you, their face swimming in your peripheral vision, but the words didn't land right. They slid past you like water.
"âkay? Miss? Can you hear me?"
You turned your head. It hurt.
Everything hurt in this distant, muffled way, like your body hadn't quite caught up to what happened. There was a woman crouched by your door, and you were fairly certain that her mouth was moving. You should probably answer.
"M'fine," you managed to get out. Your voice sounded wrong, thin. "I'm okay."
In reality, you weren't sure if that was true. When you looked down at your hands, still braced against the deflating airbag, they were shaking so hard you couldn't make them stop. There was blood on your right hand â not a lot, just some smeared across your knuckles like you'd scraped them against something.
The woman was still talking, it seemed. By now, she appeared to have her phone out too.Â
You should focus. You should listen.
"ânâ ambulance is coming, okay? Just stay still. Don't try to move yet."
Ambulance?
That word stuck. You didn't need an ambulance. You were fine. You tried to say so, but when you opened your mouth, nothing came out right. Your tongue suddenly felt thick. The ringing in your ears got louder.
You closed your eyes.Â
Just for a second. Just to make the spinning stop.
When you opened them again, there were more people.Â
Paramedics?Â
One of them was shining a light in your eyes and you flinched back, but there was nowhere to go. Your seatbelt was still on. You hadn't even realized.
"Can you tell me your name?"
You told them. You thought you told them. Everything felt like it was happening underwater.
"Do you know where you are?"
You looked through the windshield. The glass was cracked, spiderwebbing out from a point you didn't remember hitting.Â
There was another car. That was why you'd stopped. That was whyâ
"There was⊠a car," you slurred, but the words sounded muffled to even your own ears. Your voice cracked when you spoke up again.
"I didn'â I tried to stop. Is everyoneâ?"
"Everyone's okay," the paramedic replied, cutting her off before you could continue to worry about that. He had kind eyes. You focused on that.Â
"You were in a minor collision, miss. You took most of the impact. We're gonna get you out now, alright?"
You nodded. That hurt too.
They eased you out of the car slowly, and the world tilted sideways. Your legs didn't quite hold you. Someone caught your elbow, guided you to the back of an ambulance. You sat. The doors were open and you could see your car from here, crumpled on the passenger side where the other car had hit you.
It didn't look real.
None of this felt real.
The paramedic was asking you questions. Your address, your birthday, if anything hurt. Everything hurt, but you couldn't pinpoint where. It was all just⊠noise.
"Is there someone we can call?" he tried to ask..
You blinked at him for a moment. Your phone. You should have your phone. You patted your pockets automatically, but one of the paramedics was already holding it out to you. The screen was cracked because of course it was.
"We need an emergency contact," he attempted again, even more gently this time. "Someone who can meet you at the hospital?"
Hospital?Â
You were going to the hospital.
No, no, no. That felt like too much. You opened your mouth to argue, but instead you let your head fall back against the inside of the ambulance and closed your eyes â just for a second, just until the world stopped tilting.
Somewhere far away, you thought you mightâve heard someone say your name before it all faded to black.
The hospital lights were way too bright.
You were in a bed now, though somehow, you didn't really remember getting into it. Someone had apparently taken your shoes off for you. Beside you, there was a blood pressure cuff on your arm that kept tightening and releasing, tightening and releasing. It was annoying. You wanted to take it off, but when you tried, your hands simply wouldn't cooperate.
A nurse came in, wearing purple scrubs with little dogs on them. You stared at the dogs while she asked you questions. Most of them were the same ones from before â your name, your birthday, what day it was.
You answered.
Probably.
She seemed satisfied enough.
"Alright, hun, we're gonna do a CT scan, just to be safe, okay?" she told her sweetly. "Looks like you hit your head pretty hard. Any nausea? Vision problems?"
"Sâ blurry, a bit," you admitted. "Everything's kind of blurry."
The nurse wrote something down on her clipboard before looking up at her with a kind smile. "That's normal. You're doing fine, sweetheart. Just try to stay awake for me, okay?"
You nodded. Staying awake felt harder than it should.
She left.
You closed your eyes anyway.
Spoon enough, someone else came in â a doctor, maybe. He pressed on your ribs and you sucked in a breath because that actually hurt, sharp and specific. He muttered something about possible bruising, told you to try to breathe normally.
You tried.
That was, of course, followed up by more tests. They wheeled you somewhere for the CT scan and the machine was loud and you had to hold still and you just wanted to go home. You wanted your bed. You wanted to stop feeling like your brain was three steps behind your body.
When they brought you back to the room, there was a different nurse checking something on the monitor by your bed.
"Your contact is on his way," she stated without really looking up. "Should be here soon."
You blinked at her. "Who?" you asked.
She glanced at the chart, flipping a couple pages up before she found what she was looking for. "You file says the person we were successfully able to contact was Oscar Piastri? That's what we have listed."
Oh.
Of course it was Oscar. You'd forgotten he was listed as one of your emergency contacts. You'd meant to update that months ago, add your parents or something, but you'd never gotten around to it. And now he was coming here. He was probably in the middle of something. Training or a meeting or really anything that had to do with having a life of his own.
You should text him, tell him not to come. You fumbled for your phone but it wasn't on the bed, and when you tried to sit up, the room spun.
"Easy," the nurse said. She put a hand on your shoulder and gently guided you back down. "Just rest. He'll be here soon."
You let your head fall back against the pillow. There was a tightness in your chest, you noted. However, you weren't entirely sure if it was a side effect from the accident or the thought of Oscar seeing you like thisâbanged up and foggy and basically useless.
It didnât take a genius to know he was going to worry. That was Oscar â you could get a splinter and he would always be worried.
The thought sat heavy in your chest. You closed your eyes and tried to breathe through it, but everything still felt wrong, tilted, like you weren't quite connected to your body. Time did something weird then, making you unsure how long youâd really been laying there. It could have been minutes, couldâve been longer.
It was easy to drift off with the help of the pain medication flowing through your IV until there was a commotion outside your room â not loud, just voices, someone talking fastâand then the door swung open.
Oscar.
He was still in his pajamas, some comfortable looking joggers and a well-loved sweatshirt you could vaguely recall having seen somewhere before. His hair was even more of a mess than usual, like he'd been running his fingers through it in an unsuccessful attempt to tame his bedhead. Your eyes followed the shape of him as he stopped just inside the doorway, and his eyes went wide when he saw you.
When his eyes met yours, you tried to smile, but you had a feeling it wasnât half as convincing and youâd thought it was.
"Hey," you greeted tentatively, trying to hide the way your voice cracked. Rather than responding, Oscar quickly crossed the room in approximately three strides.
"Hey," you tried again, a bit louder this time because he wasn't saying anything â just staring at you. Perhaps he hadnât heard you.
He dropped into the chair beside the bed and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His mouth was moving but you realized then that the ringing in your ears hadn't fully stopped and you caught maybe half of it.
"â okay? They saidâ"
You shook your head and tried harder to focus. "Can't, um, canât hear you that well."
Oscar stilled stopping before he started and tried again â slower, louder this time. "Are you okay?"
"Oh. Mâfine." The words came out automatically, unfiltered and unscripted. From where Oscar was standing, you seemed totally at ease, giving his face a lazy once-over before a thought occurred to her. "Wait, what're you doing here?"
His eyebrows pulled together. "What? What d'you mean what am I doing here? The hospital called me."
"Theyâ" You blinked at him. Right now, thinking felt a lot like your brain was moving through mud. "Why would they call you?"
Oscar sighed, though there was no frustration in his expression. In fact, despite the clear tiredness written across his face, he still smiled at you with what looked like an unending well of patience. "...Because I'm your emergency contact?" he tried, still speaking slower so itâd be easier for you to understand.
Emergency contact.
Right. You'd forgotten about that.
"You're supposed to be sleeping," you blurted out, and you weren't sure why that was the thing you landed on, but it was. "Don't you have, uhâ wasn't it race week or something?"
"Singapore's done," he answered. "And do you think I'm just gonna sleep whenâ"
He cut himself off, dragging a hand over his face. When he looked back at you his jaw was tight, but it was the furrow of his brows that gave away his worry.
"What happened?"
"Car accident." Your tongue still felt thick. "Someone ran a light⊠I think? Sorry, sâkind of blurry."
"Jesus." He ran a hand through his hair once again, exhaling deeply. You briefly wondered how soft his hair was â it certainly looked quite floofy, especially when heâd run his hand through it a couple of times, like now.
"Are you hurt? What'd they say?"
"I dunno yet. CT scan." You tried to gesture vaguely at your head but your arm weighed about a thousand pounds. "A nurse said maybe I hit my head, âcuz everything's really loud and really quiet at the same time."
He didn't say anything for a second. Instead, Oscar simply looked at you, and despite all the years youâd known him, there was something in his face you couldn't quite read. Worry, maybe? Or perhaps anger, though it didnât exactly seem to be directed at you.
"Osc, you didn't have to come. I'm okay."
"Stop saying that."
It came out harder than you expected, and you flinched. He noticed. His expression shifted, softening.
"Sorry. I justâ you're obviously not okay. Like, just look at you."
Something about the way he said it made you look down at yourself instead of at him. For the first time, you noticed that there was blood on your shirt. It wasnât enough to ruin the shirt forever, but there was still enough to make you consider sending it to the cleaners. When you opened your palms and stretched out your fingers, you squinted at the scrapes there too. There was also a bandage on your forearm that you didn't remember getting.
"It's not that bad," you tried.
Oscar made a breathy, smiling sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You're in a hospital, Y/N."
You blinked.Â
"Itâs precautionary."
"Right. Precautionary."
Oscar slipped into one of the weird plastic chairs that hospitals always had. He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, silent. When his eyes met yours again, he spoke again, his voice quieter.
"You scared the shit out of me."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
He reached out like he was going to touch your hand, then hesitated. His fingers hovered just over yours for a second before he pulled back.
"Did they, uh, say when you could leave?"
"No. Waiting on the scan results." You were so tired. Your eyes kept trying to close. "You don't have to stay."
"I'm staying."
"Oscarâ"
"I'm staying," he repeated, firmer this time, and there was no room for argument in it.
Now that you thought about it, you didn't have the energy to argue anyway.
You must've drifted off at some point because when you opened your eyes, Oscar was scrolling through his phone, and the fluorescent lights were giving him a halo you didn't remember being there before.
"You look stupid."
He glanced up, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "What?"
"The lighting. Makes your head look⊠weird. Thought you should know."
His mouth twitched, almost smiling, almost fond. "Ah, of course. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Already tired of your current position, you tried to shift only for your ribs to protest immediately.
"Ow."
"Don'tâ Donât move. Here"
He was out of his chair before you could blink, one hand hovering near your shoulder like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch you. It was funny, really, considering the time Oscar literally threw you over his shoulder that one time heâd finally convinced you to join him on his run only for you to complain until he carried you the rest of the way back.
"Hey, hey. Can you tell me what hurts?"
"Everything? Nothing? I dunno."
Even though you really were trying to answer his question, your head was still doing that thing where thoughts took too long to form. It felt more like pulling cotton from a thornbush rather than just answering a simple question.
"Osc?â
âYeah?âÂ
âWhy're you still here?"
"Uh, because you're still here."
"That's⊠Thatâs circular logic."
He couldnât help but shake his head at that, laughing. "Okay."
Once he was content that you werenât actively having a heart attack or bleeding to your death or in any form of excruciating pain, Oscar finally sat back down in the seat beside you. Each blink still felt slow, languid, but when you looked up at him you noticed that he was watching you like you might disappear. Before you could really think about it, however, he was already interrupting your thoughts with another gentle question.
"How's your head?"
For a moment, you mulled over the words, conducting a thorough analysis before delivering your eloquent answer. "Fuzzy. Like static."
You paused then, and Oscar opened his mouth to say something, but you beat him to it.
"D'you ever think about how static isn't, like, really a thing anymore? Like, TVs don't do that now. It's just⊠black."
Oscar blinked at you. Maybe it was the big brown eyes, but in that moment, he looked a lot like an owl when he did.
"I think that you have a concussion."
"Hmm, probably."
"You should go home."
Oscar only rolled his eyes, going back to read whatever nerdy cricket article heâd probably been reading. "Already said I'm not doing that."
You made a face. "You're annoying."
"Mhmm," he acknowledged, leaning back in the chair as he crossed his arms. "You've mentioned that once or twice."
Of course, youâd probably said that a lot more than once or twice, but you couldnât remember all the details all that clearly at the moment and the truth was that thatâs just how Oscar was â nice, funny, easy in a way that made you not think twice about whatever came out of your mouth around him. Maybe heâd always been like that, you thought to yourself. You couldnât imagine a moment where being around Oscar wasnât as easy as breathing.
The room went quiet except for the machines beeping. At some point, you found yourself trying to count the beeps, but it was difficult to keep up. You ended up losing track around fourteen.
"I crashed the car," you announced suddenly.
Oscar looked at you, his face the picture of calm. "I know."
"No, Iâ"Â
You tried to get the right words out, but your throat went tight.
"I crashed it, Oscar. It'sâthe whole side is smashed. I saw it. I don't think it's drivable."
"That's what insurance is for," he soothed, the ghost of a hand coming to rest on the plastic bedframe right beside where your hand was. But all you could focus on was those few seconds, playing over in your mind like flashes, stills in your memory.
"But Iâ"
You could feel your breath going weird, shallow. It didnât feel good.
"I wasn't paying attention. Or I was? But, like, not enough, and now the car's wrecked and I have toâ Shit, I dunno how I'm getting to work tomorrow. Orâ Or how much it's gonna cost. And I just got it serviced last month, andâ"
"Hey. Hey."
He leaned forward again, and this time he did touch you, fingers careful around your wrist.
"Breathe."
"Iâ I am breathing," you replied, a bit dumbly.
He only smiled, ever gentle. "Slower, hm?"
You tried. It didn't really work.
"The carâ"
"Is just a car, I promise."
His voice was steady, calm.
"It kept you alive. That's all it needed to do. That car is replaceable, but you are not."
"Butâ"
"But nothing. You're here. You're okay."
He squeezed your wrist gently. Oddly enough, it helped â like it was somehow a signal to your body to pause, to match the pulse, to give up the panic and just let the thrum of his pulse against yours dictate your heartrate instead.
"The rest is just.. stuff. We'll figure it out."
"We?"
"Yeah. We."
He said it like it was obvious, like there was never another option. His eyes shone with you could only describe as an ocean of sincerity, refracting the lights of the room in a way that reminded you of the open sea â steady and still.
Your eyes were burning. You blinked hard. Even your voice felt more raw, more exposed.
"I don't wanna figure it out. I wanna go home."
"I know."
"Mâ tired."
"I know," he said again, softer.
A beat later, you closed your eyes. His hand was still on your wrist, warm and solid, and you focused on that instead of the beeping or the lights or the way your head felt like it was full of cotton.
"Osc?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for coming."
There was a pause, a sound almost like a faint hitch in his breathing. When he answered, his voice sounded strange, tight.
"Fâcourse. Always."
You believed him.
The waiting was worse than the tests.
As both of you learned over this vast stretch of time, you could not sit still. Every position you tried felt wrong, no matter how creative â lying flat made your head pound, sitting up made you dizzy. You shifted again and Oscar glanced over from where he'd been pretending to read an infographic on flu shots, which would have been convincing had the entire thing not been written in French.
The moment the bed squeaked from you shifting for the umpteenth time, his attention was on you. "Hey, you alright?"
"I just wanna leave," you huffed, but it came out sharper than you meant it to. "How long does a CT scan take to read?"
"I dunno,â he mused, actually thinking about it. âA while, I guess?"
"It's already been a while."
"It's been, like, forty minutes, actually."
You slumped back against the pillow in defeat, and maybe also exhaustion from being so exhausted. Everything ached.
"Thatâs stupid. Feels longer."
He didn't argue with that.
You closed your eyes then and tried to sleep. You couldn't. So you opened them again. The ceiling tiles had little dots all over them. You started counting those instead, lost track, and even started over.
It was clear you were unhappy about having to wait so long â Oscar couldnât imagine a mattress made of that much plastic could be too comfortable, especially for someone who wanted nothing more than to just be able to go home and rest in their own bed. If it were up to him, the two of you would have likely been out of here ages ago, but unfortunately, he actually cared about making sure you were well enough to go home. What he could do, however, was make sure you were as comfortable as you could be in the meantime.Â
"D'you need anything?" Oscar tried.
"A time machine."
Oscar shook his head, clicking his tongue in mock disappointment.Â
"Fresh out, mâafraid."
You turned your head to look at him. He was still in the same position, elbows precariously balanced on the thin bars of metal acting as the arms of the sad hospital chair, his phone set down on his lap. He looked⊠tired.
You'd done that.
"Sorry," you mumbled, looking genuinely remorseful. You hated inconveniencing him for something minor like this, especially in the middle of the night.Â
"Sorry? What? For what?"
"Yâknow. Making you sit here."
"You didn't make me do anything," he chuckled, like the mere idea was laughable. He tilted his head at you, the curve of his mouth terribly fond, soft.
"Seriously. What d'you need?"
You opened your mouth to say nothing, but what came out was, "I'm bored. And my head hurts. And I can't stop thinking about the car, andâ"
Finally, your brain caught up with your mouth and you cut yourself off.
"Never mind."
"No, no. Câmon, what?"
"It's stupid."
"Thatâs never stopped you,â he smirked, before his gaze shifted to something gentler. âTell me anyway."
You hesitated. "D'they have anything to watch? Like on the TV or something?"
Oscar looked around the room. There was no TV. He checked his phone, scrolled for a second.
"Hospital wifi's quite terrible actually, but I've, uh, got some stuff downloaded?â He thought for a moment, before grimacing. âProbably shouldn't though, right? Screen time with a concussion?"
In return, he received a deadpan glare. "I don't care."
You sounded petulant. You were petulant.
"I just needâ I can't just sit here."
He studied you for a moment, then seemed to make a decision.
"Fine, alright. But if a nurse yells at us, you're taking the blame."
You grinned, wide and truly happy. "Deal."
He pulled his chair closer to the bed and angled his phone so you could both see it.
"What d'you want?"
"That depends. What've you got?"
He scrolled through his downloads. There were a couple of race replays from well before his time, some documentary thing that was either about tennis or classical European architecture, a few episodes of a show you didn't recognize. And then a familiar title screen whizzed by.
"Wait, wait, wait. Go back, go back up."
Obediently, he scrolled up.
"There!" You pointed, and your chest did something complicated at the same time. "You have Finding Nemo downloaded?"
Oscarâs ears went slightly pink. "Yeah, well... You kept watching it when you had the flu a couple months ago, and then on the plane to Singapore you fell asleep to it, so I just..."
He shrugged, not quite looking at you.
"Figured it was, like, a good background thing to have. Just in case, or whatever."
Something warm unfurled behind your ribs, despite everything.
"Can we watch that?"
"You sure? We donât have to, we can always watch something else if youâ"
"Nope. I want that one."
Oscar sighed, pretending to be annoyed, but still didn't argue. He just hit play and adjusted the angle so you could see without having to strain your neck.
He really did think of everything.
Once the Pixar logo filled the screen, the music started. Every note was familiar, nostalgic, like the comfort of a favorite blanket.Â
Oscar too settled back in his chair, his phone propped carefully on the tray table attached to the side your bed, perfectly between the two of you. You let your head sink into the pillow and watched Marlin and Coral on the reef, and for the first time since the accident, something in your chest loosened.
"Can you hear it okay?" Oscar asked quietly, whispering like anything louder would ruin the sanctity of a movie as important as this one. The thought made you giggle.
"Yeah," you murmured, your eyelids already starting to get heavier. ââS perfect."
He didn't say anything else after that, content to just let the movie play.
You made it through the barracuda attack before your eyes started closing on their own. The last thing you registered was Marlin promising to never let anything happen to his son, and metered rhythm of Oscar's quiet breathing beside you.
You jolted awake just as Nemo was starting his first day of school.
"â I miss anything?"
Your voice was scratchy.
"Nemo just met his classmates," Oscar said without looking away from the screen. "You were out for like three minutes."
"Oh."
You blinked hard, trying to focus.
"Okay. Good."
Oscarâs eyes flicked to hers, noticing the haziness in them.
"Go back to sleep if you need to," he whispered. âI can wake you up in a bit.â
"No. This is important."
He glanced at you, amused. "It's a kids' movie."
"It's not justâ"
You struggled to sit up a little. He immediately moved to help, his hand instinctively hovering near your back.
"It's about the ocean. You're Australian. You should be taking this seriously."
"I am taking it seriously!"
"You're smiling!"
"'Cause you're being ridiculous."
"I'm being culturally responsible."
You squinted at the screen, watching as Nemo began to swim toward the boat. As carefully as you could manage, you brought your arm up to nudge his shoulder, but it ended up being more of a weak graze. "Pay attention, Osc. This part's important."
"I am, I am, I'm paying attention."
For a moment, you watched him, just to make sure he really was paying attention before you turned back to the movie. As soon as you were content, your eyes felt heavier again, until you fought to keep them open. You had to, of course â Marlin was freaking out and Nemo wouldnât listen, too stubborn to know what was coming. Even with your eyes beginning to close, you couldnât help but mouth along to some of the dialogue from muscle memory.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Oscar noticed it too. He didn't say anything, but his smile got softer. You drifted off again somewhere around Dory's introduction, and woke up to Marlin and Dory in the dark water, the anglerfish looming.
Your hand clenched in the blanket without thinking.
"You good?" Oscar asked quietly.
"Yeah."
But you didn't unclench your hand. On screen, the anglerfish lunged. You flinched. It was stupid, considering you'd seen this movie a hundred times, but everything felt too close right now, too loud. Oscar shifted in his chair.
"Hey. It's alright." His voice dropped lower, gentler. "Dory's got this. She speaks whale, remember?"
"She doesn't speak whale yet," you mumbled.
"Right. That's later."Â
He was still using that soft voice, like you were actually scared of a cartoon fish. It should've been embarrassing. It wasn't.
"But they make it outta this part. Promise."
"I know they make it out."
"I know you know. Iâm just reminding you."
You let out a breath. On screen, Dory and Marlin escaped and even though Marlin was in the middle of trying to tell Dory that he wanted to continue the rest of his search for Nemo without her, the music shifted to something lighter and your hand relaxed.
"Thanks," you said quietly.
"For what?"
"I dunno. Being weird with me."
He huffed a laugh. "You make it easy."
You tried to stay awake for the moonfishâs game of charades to cheer Dory up â but you faded out somewhere around Dory swimming away to cry and woke up to Dory getting distracted by the small baby jellyfish instead of Marlinâs directions.
"Where are we?" you asked, brows furrowed, still groggy with sleep.
"Jellyfish scene," Oscar answered easily.
"Oh, good. This is the best part."
He smiled, a teasing grin. "Oh yeah? I thought the last part was the best part."
"Every part's the best part," you told him, blinking at him seriously. "Are you even Australian? The ocean's, like, your whole thing."
"Uhh, pretty sure we have other things."
"Name one."
"Vegemite."
Naturally, you made a face. "That does not count."
"Why not?"
"'Cause it's gross, Osc!"
"Oh, câmon! You've never even tried it."
"I don't have to, genius. I can smell it from here."
You weren't making sense. Hell, you knew you weren't making sense. But Oscar was watching you like you were saying something profound, and on screen, Dory greeted the adorable little  jellyfish with a soft, âHey, little guy.â
Marlin, of course, was so focused on how excited he was to be on his way to finally be reunited with Nemo that he completely failed to pay attention to what was going on right behind him. Meanwhile, Dory came closer to the baby jellyfish, cooing at it.
âI shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come here, Squishy. Come here, little Squishy.â
You laughed at that, and in the dark of the room, Oscar turned to look at you, smiling. Heâd figured out quite some time ago that even the smallest sliver of your joy had the power to make his heart do funny things in his chest, but he tried not to think about that. Now, however, in the dark of the hospital room and with all your attention directed at the screen, he allowed himself to look at you for just a moment longer than perhaps friends should.
Soon, Marlin had finally managed to resume Dory from where she'd fallen unconscious stuck in the throng of jellyfish, your cheek was squished against the starchy material of your pillow and your eyes were drifting closed again.
"Iâm awake," you stated out loud, though it might've been an affirmation for your sake more than Oscarâs, if you were being honest.
"You don't have to," Oscar told you gently, one hand carefully pushing your hair out of your face so you could see better.
You replied, but most of your words were mushed together, a stream of mumbles more than anything truly coherent. But Oscar didnât seem to mind it. In fact, he understood you anyway.
"But you need to seeâ the EAC's coming up. That's the turtles. Hm, you'll like the turtlesâŠ"
"I'll wake you up for the turtles," Oscar assured you.
"...Promise?"
"Promise."
It was then, and only then, that you finally let your eyes close.
Just for a minute.
a/n: i know i'm supposed to be working on other stuff, but i had a minor car accident and this is what i was inspired to write instead. i apologize for not getting the promised chapters out this week. please accept this consolation prize instead. hope you like it!
summary: Oscar takes you home to his apartment for observation, and you keeps insisting you're fine even though everything hurts. He can't stop hovering, you can't stop deflecting, and somewhere between the pain meds and Finding Nemo playing on repeat, you tell him what you really think.
warnings: descriptions of a car accident and it's aftermath (whiplash, shock, pain medication, etc.)
word count: 5.5k
part one | part two | part three
You woke up to someone touching your shoulder.
"Hey," someone whispered. You didnât even need to open your eyes to know that it was Oscar's voice, as soft as it was quiet. "Doctor's here."
Considering you were still groggy, it took a few attempts for you to be able to blink away the bleariness enough to be able to see the screen still playing in front of you. The jellyfish you last remembered seeing were gone. Instead, it was already the turtle scene nowâCrush and Squirt riding along on the EAC.
"You didn't wake me up," you frowned, looking up at where Oscar was still sat loyally by your side. You almost felt a little bad considering there was no way that could have been comfortable, but you felt a lot less bad when you remembered that he broke his promise to wake you up in time to see the turtles. âHow come?â
"What?"
"For the turtles, Osc. You said you'd wake me up for the turtles."
His mouth twitched, almost looking genuinely remorseful. "Sorry. The doctor took priority."
You wanted to argue, but it was then that you noticed that there was, in fact, a woman in a white coat standing at the foot of your bed. She appeared to be holding a tablet and looking at you with that particular expression doctors got when they were about to tell you things you were supposed to remember. Not that you planned to, but still.
Rolling his eyes at you, Oscar reached his arm across and paused the movie. You mourned the loss with a visible pout.
"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked, turning your attention toward her.
"Tired," you answered honestly. The word still felt like an understatement considering the way your skull throbbed, but it was the best you could manage for now.
"That's normal," the doctor commented as she glanced down at her tablet. "Your CT came back clean. No bleeding, no fractures. That's the good news."
You grimaced, waiting for the bad news. At least according to the TV shows, there was always bad news.
"However, you do have a concussionâ though it is moderate, based on your symptoms. You are also experiencing some whiplash. Our scans also revealed internal bruising to your ribs on your right side. And while there are, of course, some lacerations and contusions, itâs nothing that will need stitches." She looked up from the tablet, smiling in what you assumed was supposed to be kindness. "You're lucky. It could have been much worse."
Lucky.Â
You didn't feel lucky. You felt like you'd gotten hit by a car â which, well, you had.
"So⊠I can leave?" you tried hopefully.
"Yes, but you'll need someone with you for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Standard concussion protocol. Someone needs to monitor you, make sure your symptoms don't get worse." She rapidly started listing things, even more information you were expected to absorb â warning signs to watch for, instructions about rest and screen time and not driving. You tried to focus, but your head was still fuzzy and the words kept slipping away from you.
Oscar, ever the level-headed one (ha!), seemed to actually be paying attention and leaned forward. "And, uh, what counts as symptoms getting worse?"
The doctor looked at him, then back at you. Ultimately, she appeared to resign herself to directing the rest of the instructions at Oscar, considering he was the one paying enough attention to ask follow up questions.Â
"Symptoms getting worse cold look a variety of different way,â she explained, counting them off on her fingers. âCould be severe headache that doesn't respond to medication, repeated vomiting, confusion, slurred speech, weakness in the limbs, seizures. Any of those, you come back immediately."
"Okay, yeah," Oscar agreed, nodding.
What a nerd, you thought distantly. It was kinda cute in a good best friend sort of way. You could tell he was actually retaining this.Â
"What about sleep? Should Iâ Like, how often should I check on her?"
Judging by the way the doctor was now nodding along, Oscar seemed to be asking all the right questions.Â
How dare he be so thoughtful and considerate.
"Every few hours tonight. You want to make sure she's responsive."
"Got it."
The doctor finally turned back to you. "Here, I'm prescribing some pain medication and an anti-inflammatory. Take it easy for the next week. No work, no strenuous activity. Your brain needs time to heal."
No work. No work also meant no money, which meant no rent. You should probably worry about that, but you were too tired.
"Any questions?" she asked. You shook your head in answer, but you ended up regretting it immediately when the room tilted before your eyes.
Donât throw up. Do not throw up on Oscar. Donât throw up in front of Oscar.
Giving you a look of concern at the sudden pallor of your face, she decided to put you out of your misery and let you go.Â
âAlright. A nurse will be in with your discharge papers and prescriptions. Take care of yourself, alright?" She gave Oscar a meaningful look, and you a kind smile. And with that, she was gone.
Oscar sat back in his chair, scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked exhausted.
"You don't have to do the twenty-four hour thing," you turned to tell him. "I can callâ"
"What? No. I'm doing it."
"Oscarâ"
"We are not having this argument again." He stood up, pocketing his phone. "Mâ gonna find out how long the prescriptionsâll take, yeah? Don't move."
"Where would I even go?" you laughed, but it even that still made your head hurt a little, so you just gave him a mock salute instead. An expression crossed his face, but before you could pinpoint what it meant, he gave you a look and left.Â
Once his familiar head of hair was out of your line of sight, you sank back into the pillow and stared at the frozen frame of Finding Nemo on his phone. Crush was mid-sentence, mouth open, eyes half-closed.Â
You wished you were a turtle. Turtles didn't drive cars. Turtles didn't crash.
Your chest went tight again.
After glancing to the now-empty spot beside you, you closed your eyes and breathed.
The nurse finally came in twenty minutes later with a wheelchair.
"Hospital policy," she said before you could protest. While that was probably true, you wanted to argue that you were perfectly capable of walking. However, when you swung your legs over the side of the bed, the room tilted once again and your ribs screamed and you had to sit there for a minute just shakily breathing through it until the overwhelm passed.
As if summoned, it was exactly then that Oscar appeared in the doorway. "Good news! Prescriptions are ready. We can pick them up on the way out."
"Great," you muttered, rolling your eyes out of what was clearly pure joy.Â
Smiling at that little exchange, the very nice nurse began patiently helping you into the wheelchair. Still, it was humiliating. You weren't an old lady, you were just a bit banged up. But your legs were shaky and everything hurt and what you didnât want to admit was that you didn't actually trust yourself to walk right now.
As the nurse double-checked that you were secure in the wheelchair, Oscar grabbed the bag bag of your salvaged belongings and followed just behind as the nurse wheeled you out. The fluorescent lights out in the hallway were even worse than the ones in the room. Each light glowed and streaked and shimmered until it felt like it was pressing itself into your retinas. You closed your eyes.
"Doing okay?" Oscar asked quietly, his words only audible to the two of you.
"Fantastic." The smile you gave him was certainly not your brightest, but it seemed to be enough to get him not to pry more.Â
He mustâve still had a way of knowing, because a moment later, a warm, careful hand landed on your shoulder, just for a second, squeezing it reassuringly. "Almost out. Promise."
The neverending hallways stopped looping before your eyes as, at last, the nurse wheeled you through the lobby and out the front doors. The night air hit you and it was cool and smelled like rain, and you took the first real breath you'd had in hours.
"Wait here," the nurse told you. "Your ride will pull around, that way itâs easier."
By the time you turned to look for him beside you, Oscar was already jogging toward the parking lot. Meanwhile, the nurse (Ellen? Or perhaps Ella her name was) stayed with you, which felt unnecessary, but you were too tired to say so. You watched Oscar's figure disappear between the rows of cars and then reappear a minute later behind the wheel of his car. He pulled up to the curb and was out of the driver's seat before you could even process it, coming around to help you up.
"I've got her," he told the nurse, nodding at her to assure her that he had you know. While you didnât feel too enthused about being passed from one person to the next like some small toddler, you could at least appreciate the fact that just knowing Oscar was the one guiding your wheelchair helped you feel a bit more at ease. Maybe it was some kind of psychological thing. Or maybe he was just the better driver.
The thought made your inner monologue laugh.
Your wheelchair pulled up right beside his car and yet your legs still wobbled a bit when you stood. Instantly, Oscar's hand was solid on your elbow, and he didn't let go as he guided you to the passenger side. Carefully so as not to nudge you with it by accident, he opened the door and you eased yourself in, moving like you were made of glass.
As much as you hated to admit it, everything hurt.
He reached across you to buckle your seatbeltâyou could've done it yourself, probably, but you let himâand then closed the door gently. Finally settled in, you leaned your head back against the seat and closed your eyes while he talked to the nurse for another minute. The sound of their conversation melded and overlapped with all the other sounds â the hum of the carâs engine, the distant traffic, the faint whoosh of the emergency room doors as they slid open for someone else. In fact, you only registered that he had returned when you felt the way the car dipped slightly when he got in.
The car started moving. In your head, you counted the turns: left out of the hospital, right at the first light, straight for a while. Then another right. The pharmacy must've been close by because the ignition switched off and he was parking within five minutes.
"Be right back," he told you. With your eyes still closed, you let your silence be your answer.
You listened to him get out, the door closing after, the sound of his footsteps fading. The car was quiet. Maybe you should check your phone, you thought, see if anyone had called.Â
Huh. You couldn't remember where your phone was.Â
Oscar probably knew.
You were drifting when the door opened again. Oscar slid back in, and there was the rustle of a paper bag.Â
"Got them," he announced, more to himself than to you. The car started moving again and you let yourself drift off with it.Â
Left turn.
Straight.
Another left.
You knew this route. He was heading toward your apartment.
Except, the straight continued. He passed your exit.
You opened your eyes. "Oscar."
"Hm?"
"Missedâ The turnâ?"
"No I didn't."
You squinted, watching as the sign for your exit disappeared in the blur of lights in the side mirror. "Where are we going?"
"My place."
"What? No. Take me home."
"Doctor said twenty-four hour observation." Though he spoke, he didn't look at you, just kept his eyes on the road. "You're staying with me."
"No, Oscâ Câmon, I'll be fine at my place. Iâve got ice cream, andâ andâ"
"Not by yourself," he chided gently.
"I can just call someoneâ"
"Who?" He glanced at you now. "Who're you gonna call at midnight who's gonna stay with you and wake up every few hours to make sure you're not dying?"
You opened your mouth, then closed it. He had a point, but you didn't want to admit it.
"Oscar, you don't have toâ"
"I know I don't have to." His voice was steady. Final. "I want to. Let me."
Your throat went tight. You looked out the window instead of at him.
"Okay," you whispered.
When you turned to look at him, he was already looking at you, smiling at you with something softer than care. You couldnât quite put your finger on it.Â
He didn't say anything else, and just drove.
His apartment was on the third floor and to your luck, tonight was the night his building had decided to take the elevator offline for maintenance.
Well fuck me, I guess.
You stared at the stairs like they'd personally wronged you. Oscar, on the other hand, was physically fighting himself not to laugh, yet failing miserably to convincingly look concerned.
"I can make it," you insisted, indignant. The bead of sweat at your temple mustâve just been a figment of your imagination â you werenât that out of shape.
Oscar was already out of the car, still doing a horrible job of not snickering as he came around to your side. âFâ course, yeah, I know you can."
He opened your door and helped you out, and his hand was warm where it wrapped around your elbow. You noticed that, the warmth, the way his thumb pressed gently against the inside of your arm.
Probably the concussion.
"Slow," he reminded you, yet again, staying close as you tackled the first step.
Just in case you needed him.
It took forever.Â
Your ribs protested every movement by burning like hot coals and your head was pounding like the inside of a drum. By the time you reached the landing, you were gasping hard for any sliver of oxygen into your lungs as gracefully as you could. You were surprisingly grateful for the way Oscar's hand hadn't left your elbow the entire time.
"One more flight," he encouraged.
You shot him a glare. "I hate you."
"Sure you do." There was something in his voiceâexasperation, maybe, but it didn't sound annoyed. It sounded⊠softer than that. Warmer.
You were definitely concussed.
The second flight was somehow even worse. Halfway up you had to stop, and Oscar stopped with you, still annoyingly patient. His other hand came up to your shoulder, steadying you.
"Take your time."
You breathed. His hand was so warm through your shirt.Â
Since when had you become so aware of his hands?
"Okay," you panted after a minute. "Okay, I'm good."
Eventually, you pulled through long enough to make it to the top, catching your breath and clutching your side as you watched Oscar unlock his door, guiding you inside. You'd been here before plenty of timesâbut everything felt different now, quieter. The lights were dim and the space smelled like him, clean and a little like whatever laundry detergent he used.
"Couch or bed?" he asked.
Now that was easy.
"Couch."
Taking small, slow steps, he led you to it, and his hand slid from your elbow to the small of your back as you lowered yourself down. The touch was careful, deliberate. Maybe you were imagining it, but you swore you felt it even after he pulled away.
Itâs because of that concussion. Has to be.
"Stay put," he told you, endearingly seriously as he pointed to where it was you were supposed to stay before he disappeared down the hall. You couldnât exactly make a run for it at the moment anyway.
Not that you wanted to.
Deciding to make yourself at home instead, you sank into the cushions and closed your eyes. The couch was infinitely better than the hospital bed, softer. It smelled like Oscar too, faintly, and that wasâthat was nice. Comforting.
A couple minutes later, Oscar returned his arms firmly holding onto as many blankets and pillows as he possibly could, definitely more than you could possibly need. He dutifully got to work and started arranging them around you like he was building a nest.
"Osc, This is excessive!" you couldnât help but laugh. He was acting like you were some baby bird with a broken wing, rather than a grown woman with a little whiplash. It was kinda sweet, but only just a little, of course.
"You're injured."
"I'm not dying, Piastri. I am not on my deathbed. Which is funny, see, because with this manyâ"
"You could barely make it up the stairs," he interrupted, but his voice didn't have any bite to it. If anything he sounded almost... fond. There it was, that weird softness again â like he wasn't actually annoyed with you at all.
Huh. Your hearing must still be off.
With all the care in the world, you watched as Oscar tucked a blanket over your legs and his knuckles brushed against your thigh. You felt that too â the brief contact, warm even through the fabric.
Weird.
Satisfied enough with his creation and entirely oblivious to your staring, he leaned back with a grin, clearly proud of his work.
"Need anything else?" he asked, crouching down so he was eye-level with you. This close you could see how tired he looked, the worry lines around his eyes. You never liked it when Oscar worried. He was too nice to ever have to worry, in your humble opinion.
"I'm fine, Osc. Really," you assured him, the words practically automatic at this point.
His mouth did something complicated. His frown only deepened. "You keep saying that, butâ"
"Because it's true!!"
"Right." He reached out, his fingers so gentle when they brushed your hair back from your face, tucking it behind your ear. Your breath caught. "You are totally fine. That's why you can't walk up stairs without stopping."
Some days Oscar made you roll your eyes so hard you were beginning to be afraid theyâd get stuck that way. "Oscarâ"
"Just⊠let me take care of you." His hand lingered near your temple, thumb ghosting over the angle of your cheekbone. ...ââŠPlease??"
The way he said itâsoft and a little bit desperateâmade your chest ache. You always did have a hard time saying no to him. He was your best friend, after all.Â
"Okay," you whispered. You were aiming for a more resigned expression, but you somehow ended up smiling instead.Â
Genuinely relieved, Oscar exhaled, and some of the tension left his shoulders. "Good." His hand dropped but you could still feel the warmth of it on your skin. "Letâs, uhâ Actually, mâgonna make you eat something, and then you're sleeping."
"Not hungry."
"Don't care." He stood up, and yeah, that was definitely fondness in his voice. "You're eating anyway."
You watched him head to the kitchen and touched your cheek where his thumb had been, just for a second.
Definitely the concussion.
He came back with toast and water and your medication.
"This is sad," you said, looking at the plain toast. âWhy am I being subjected to prison food? What have I ever done to you? I thought we were friends, I thought you lovedâ
"It's bland because you might be nauseous."Â
He set everything on the coffee table and sat on the edge of the couch by your feet. "Doctor's orders."
"The doctor did not say toast. Even she didnât hate me that much."
Oscar shot you his signature deadpan looks. It made you smile.
"I'm using context clues."
Sighing dramatically, you picked up a piece of toast. It tasted like nothing, but your stomach didn't immediately revolt, so that was something. Oscar watched you eat like he was monitoring a science experiment.Â
"Stop staring at me."
"I'm making sure you eat."
"Of course I'm eating. See?" You took another bite to prove it.
"Good." He handed you the water and the pill bottle. "Now take these."
You did, because arguing took energy you didn't have. The pills were huge and hard to swallow and you made a bleghy face.
Oscar's mouth twitched. "Dramatic."
"They're horse pills!"
"They're normal pills."
"For horses."
He shook his head, but he was almost smiling, and there was that tone againâlike he wanted to be annoyed with you but couldn't quite manage it. It did something strange to your chest.
You finished the toast because he was still watching, and when you were done he took the plate without comment. A minute later, he was back and doing something with his phone.
"What're you doing?" you asked.
"Setting alarms."
"For what?"
"To check on you." He didn't look up. "Every three hours, remember?"
"Oscar, no. You need to sleep!"
"I will sleep."
"Not if you're waking up every three hours!"
"I'll be fine." He finished whatever he was doing and set his phone down, finally looking at you. "Look, you're not arguing your way out of this."
You were too tired to argue anyway. Your head was pounding despite the medication and everything hurt and the couch was so soft.
"Come here," Oscar said quietly.
You blinked at him. "What?"
"You're sitting all wrong. You're gonna hurtâ hereâ your neck." He shifted, adjusting the pillows behind you. "Now you can lie down properly."
You started to move and then he was already there, hands careful on your shoulders, helping you ease down until your head was on the pillow. His fingers brushed the side of your neck and you shivered.
"Cold?" he asked.
"No." Your voice came out quieter than you meant.
He pulled the blanket up higher anyway, tucking it around your shoulders. His hand lingered there for a second, thumb brushing against your collarbone through the fabric.
You were very aware of him. The warmth of his hand. How close he was. The way he was looking at you like he was cataloging every bruise, every scrape.
"Stop it," you mumbled.
"Stop what?"
"Looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
Like you're worried. Like you care. Like this matters.
"Like I'm about to die or somethinâ," you grumbled instead.
His expression did something complicated. "Well you almost did."
Your throat went tight. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you could hear the ghostly echo of the screech of your tires against the asphalt. Your voice was softer when you answered. Maybe it was the meds beginning to fake affect.Â
"But I didn't."
"No,â he hummed in agreement, his hand moving from your shoulder to your hair, fingers threading through it gently. "You didn't."
You should tell him to stop. That he didn't need to do this. But his fingers in your hair felt so nice and you were so tired, and you let your eyes close instead.
When you looked over at him just before you did, just to make sure he was still there, you found that he was already looking at you.
"I'm putting on the movie," he said softly.
"You don't have to."
"I know." There was rustling as he reached for his phone. "But you didn't get to finish it, right?â
The dialogue started playing once again, tinny through his phone speaker. You heard him adjust his own position, settling into the other end of the couch, and then something warm settled over your feet.
You opened your eyes just enough to see. His hand was resting on your ankle over the blanket, casual, grounding.
"Sleep," he smiled, not looking away from the screen. "I've got you."
You believed him.
Your eyes drifted closed again and the last thing you registered was Marlin's voice worrying about Nemo, and Oscar's thumb moving in small circles against your ankle, and the feeling that maybe, for once, you didn't have to hold everything together by yourself.
The movie played on.
Oscar wasn't really watching at firstâhe was too busy monitoring you. The rise and fall of your chest. The way your face had finally relaxed, tension draining out of you for the first time since he'd gotten to the hospital.
But then Dory was on screen asking what would Nemo do, and Marlin was having his realization, and Oscar found himself actually paying attention.
He got it now, why you loved this. It wasn't just the ocean or the colors or the stupid turtle that you looked forward to so much that he was supposed to wake you up for it. It was the whole thing â the way it was about being scared and doing it anyway, about not giving up even when everything felt impossible.
Oscar was beginning to feel a little attached to those stupid clownfish himself.
He wasnât sure exactly how much time had passed as he continued to watch, actively paying attention as the fish were all swimming down to break the net and he remembered this partâyou always held your breath during this part, like you could help them somehow. Out of habit, he glanced over to see your reaction.
Your eyes were closed.
His stomach dropped.
"Hey." He sat up straighter, his hand tightening where it had been resting on your ankle. "Hey."
You didn't move.
The movie kept playing but he wasn't hearing it anymore. He leaned forward, heart suddenly loud in his ears.
"Can you hear me?" His hand moved from your ankle to your shoulder, gentle at first. You didn't respond. He shook you a little harder then. "Come on, câmon. Open your eyes."
Nothing.
His brain was already cataloging the list of symptomsâconfusion, loss of consciousness, the doctor's voice saying if symptoms get worse come back immediately.
"No, no, no." He was moving without thinking, phone abandoned, both hands on you now. One on your shoulder, one coming up to your face. "Wake up. Please wake up."
Your head lolled slightly when he shook you and that was wrong, that was so wrong.
"Fuck." His hand was shaking when he pressed his fingers to your neck, feeling around for your pulse. It was there, steady, and he should have been relived by that but you weren't waking up and you should be waking up andâ
The medication.
Had he given you too much? Had the doctor said something about dosage that he'd missed? He couldn't remember. He couldn't think fucking think.
"Please." His voice cracked. He cupped your face with both hands now, thumbs on your cheekbones. "Please wake up. Come on."
He was about to grab his phone âcall 999, call the hospital, call someoneâ when your face scrunched in discomfort.
"Stop," you mumbled, eyes still closed. "M'sleepinâ."
He froze. "What?"
"You're beinâ⊠loud." You tried to turn your face away from his hands, only to smush it further into the pillow. "Go away."
Relief hit him so hard he couldn't breathe for a second. "YouâJesus Christ."
"Huh?" You cracked one eye open, squinting at him. "Why're you yelling?"
"I'm notâ" He sat back, dragged both hands through his hair. His heart was still racing. "You weren't waking up."
"Because I was sleeping,â you mumbled in the same tone people say duh. Both of your eyes were halfway open now, confused and a little annoyed. "What's wrong with you?"
"You weren't responding. I thoughtâ" He couldn't finish the sentence. His hands were still shaking.
Understanding dawned slowly on your face. "Oh. Oscarâ"
"Don't." He closed his eyes, trying to get his breathing under control. "Justâdon't."
"I'm okay, Os. Hey, I was just sleeping, yeah? The pain meds jusâ made meâ"
"I know." He did know â now. But for at least one whole minute there he'd thoughtâ
Even in the dark, your hand found his. Your fingers were warm when they wrapped around his wrist, right beside where his pulse was still hammering away.
"Hey," you called softly. "I'm okay."
He dared to open his eyes, instantly meeting yours. You were looking at him with that expressionâconcerned, guilty, like you were the one who needed to comfort him when you were the one who was injured.
"You scared me," he was all he managed to croak out.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Don'tâ Donât be sorry. Justâ" He turned his hand over so he was holding yours properly. "Stay awake for a bit. Please."
"Yeah, okay." You squeezed his hand. "Okay, I'm awake."
He didn't let go.
The movie kept playing.
You were trying to stay awake like you'd promised, but it was hard. The pain meds had made everything soft around the edges, and Oscar was still holding your hand, thumb moving in these slow circles over your knuckles that might've been deliberate or might've been unconscious. Either way, it was making your chest feel warm.
On screen, Marlin and Nemo were reunited. Dory was telling them about how she remembered them, and your eyes were burning.
"You're crying," Oscar noted quietly, not whispering but speaking lowly so as not to disturb the bubble of the moment.
"No, mânot." Your voice was thick.
You were absolutely crying.
His thumb stilled on your hand. "But it's a happy ending."
"I know it's a happy ending. That's why I'm crying." You wiped at your eyes with your free hand. "He gets his son back. And Dory finds her family. Andâ" Your throat closed up.
Oscar squeezed your hand. "And?"
"And everyone's okay," you finished quietly. "They're all okay."
He didn't say anything for a minute. On screen, Nemo was going back to school. Marlin was letting him go. The music swelled.
"You're okay too," Oscar spoke finally.
You turned to look over at him. He was already watching you, and there was something in his face that made your chest ache. In the dark of the room, the light of screen made his eyes glimmer as if there were stars in his eyes.
"Yeah," you whispered back.
The movie ended, and the credits rolled. Oscar didn't move to turn it off, just let it play, and you lay there holding his hand and feeling too much.
"Thank you," you told him. "For⊠all of this. Forâ For coming to the hospital and staying andâ" You gestured vaguely with your other hand at the blankets, the pillows, everything. "You didn't have to."
"I wanted to."
"Still." You were so drowsy. Despite your best efforts, your words were starting to blur together again. "You're really good at this stuff."
"At what?"
"Yâknow⊠taking care of people. Being there. The whole sharing blankets and making toast nâ⊠yeah.â
âWhy thank you.â
A beat of comfortable silence passed.Â
âYou'd make such a good boyfriend."
The words were out before you could stop them, and you felt Oscar go very still beside you.
"What?" His voice sounded strange.
"Like, objectively." You were too tired to be embarrassed. The thought floated through your head all soft and hazy. "Whoever dates you is gonna be really lucky. You do all this and you don't evenâ" You yawned. "You're just good."
He was quiet for so long you thought maybe you'd fallen asleep and missed his response. But then:
"Do you mean that?"
You blinked at him, confused. "Mean what?"
"That I'dâ" He stopped, then started again. "You think someone would be lucky to date me?"
"Obviously." It seemed so obvious right now. "You're the best person I know."
His hand tightened around yours, searching for the strength there as he planned his next words. "I'm notâ this isn't, like, special. I'm not doing anything I wouldn't normally do."
"That's what I mean." You were fading again, eyes drifting closed. "You're always like this. With me."
"Yeah," he breathed. "I am."
There was something in his voice you couldn't quite parse through the fog in your head. Something important, maybe. You tried to hold onto it, but it slipped away.
"Oscar?"
"I'm here."
"Don't leave."
"I'm not going anywhere." His free hand came up to brush your hair back from your face, and you leaned into the touch without thinking. He was warm and his hands were softer than you thought and the touch was so tender that you just couldnât help but melt into it. "Get some sleep."
"You'll wake me up in three hours?"
"Yeah," He nodded, and his thumb traced along your hairline. "I'll wake you up."
"Even though I yelled at you last time?" The words were nothing more than one long string of jumbled sounds, but of course, Oscar still understood you somehow.
"Even though." There was that fond tone again, soft and warm. "You can yell at me every three hours if you want."
You hummed, already drifting, but still managing a smile â the smallest uptick of the corner of your mouth. "Might take you up on that."
"Yeah. I'm counting on it."
His hand stayed in your hair, gentle, and you fell asleep to the feeling of him there â solid and warm and safe â and the quiet sound of his breathing in the dark.
a/n: was surprised to see how many people apparently like part one?? hope you guys liked this part two, bc i have one more part planned for these guys!
don't forget to lmk what you think - comments, asks, and reblogs power me to write more fics like this one :)
summary: A car accident leaves you disoriented and hurt in the hospital. When the paramedics call your emergency contact, Oscar drops everything to be there.
warnings: descriptions of injuries and shock
word count: 5.2k
Everything was too quiet. That was the first thing that felt wrong.
Your ears rang, high-pitched and insistent, and underneath that there was nothing. No music. The radio had cut out. You'd been listening to something, but you couldn't remember what.
The airbag smelled like chemicals and something burnt. You couldn't quite remember why your face was pressed against it, or why your hands shook so badly when you tried to push yourself back.
Your door was open, though you hadn't opened it. Someone was talking to you, their face swimming in your peripheral vision, but the words didn't land right. They slid past you like water.
"âkay? Miss? Can you hear me?"
You turned your head. It hurt.
Everything hurt in this distant, muffled way, like your body hadn't quite caught up to what happened. There was a woman crouched by your door, and you were fairly certain that her mouth was moving. You should probably answer.
"M'fine," you managed to get out. Your voice sounded wrong, thin. "I'm okay."
In reality, you weren't sure if that was true. When you looked down at your hands, still braced against the deflating airbag, they were shaking so hard you couldn't make them stop. There was blood on your right hand â not a lot, just some smeared across your knuckles like you'd scraped them against something.
The woman was still talking, it seemed. By now, she appeared to have her phone out too.Â
You should focus. You should listen.
"ânâ ambulance is coming, okay? Just stay still. Don't try to move yet."
Ambulance?
That word stuck. You didn't need an ambulance. You were fine. You tried to say so, but when you opened your mouth, nothing came out right. Your tongue suddenly felt thick. The ringing in your ears got louder.
You closed your eyes.Â
Just for a second. Just to make the spinning stop.
When you opened them again, there were more people.Â
Paramedics?Â
One of them was shining a light in your eyes and you flinched back, but there was nowhere to go. Your seatbelt was still on. You hadn't even realized.
"Can you tell me your name?"
You told them. You thought you told them. Everything felt like it was happening underwater.
"Do you know where you are?"
You looked through the windshield. The glass was cracked, spiderwebbing out from a point you didn't remember hitting.Â
There was another car. That was why you'd stopped. That was whyâ
"There was⊠a car," you slurred, but the words sounded muffled to even your own ears. Your voice cracked when you spoke up again.
"I didn'â I tried to stop. Is everyoneâ?"
"Everyone's okay," the paramedic replied, cutting her off before you could continue to worry about that. He had kind eyes. You focused on that.Â
"You were in a minor collision, miss. You took most of the impact. We're gonna get you out now, alright?"
You nodded. That hurt too.
They eased you out of the car slowly, and the world tilted sideways. Your legs didn't quite hold you. Someone caught your elbow, guided you to the back of an ambulance. You sat. The doors were open and you could see your car from here, crumpled on the passenger side where the other car had hit you.
It didn't look real.
None of this felt real.
The paramedic was asking you questions. Your address, your birthday, if anything hurt. Everything hurt, but you couldn't pinpoint where. It was all just⊠noise.
"Is there someone we can call?" he tried to ask..
You blinked at him for a moment. Your phone. You should have your phone. You patted your pockets automatically, but one of the paramedics was already holding it out to you. The screen was cracked because of course it was.
"We need an emergency contact," he attempted again, even more gently this time. "Someone who can meet you at the hospital?"
Hospital?Â
You were going to the hospital.
No, no, no. That felt like too much. You opened your mouth to argue, but instead you let your head fall back against the inside of the ambulance and closed your eyes â just for a second, just until the world stopped tilting.
Somewhere far away, you thought you mightâve heard someone say your name before it all faded to black.
The hospital lights were way too bright.
You were in a bed now, though somehow, you didn't really remember getting into it. Someone had apparently taken your shoes off for you. Beside you, there was a blood pressure cuff on your arm that kept tightening and releasing, tightening and releasing. It was annoying. You wanted to take it off, but when you tried, your hands simply wouldn't cooperate.
A nurse came in, wearing purple scrubs with little dogs on them. You stared at the dogs while she asked you questions. Most of them were the same ones from before â your name, your birthday, what day it was.
You answered.
Probably.
She seemed satisfied enough.
"Alright, hun, we're gonna do a CT scan, just to be safe, okay?" she told her sweetly. "Looks like you hit your head pretty hard. Any nausea? Vision problems?"
"Sâ blurry, a bit," you admitted. "Everything's kind of blurry."
The nurse wrote something down on her clipboard before looking up at her with a kind smile. "That's normal. You're doing fine, sweetheart. Just try to stay awake for me, okay?"
You nodded. Staying awake felt harder than it should.
She left.
You closed your eyes anyway.
Spoon enough, someone else came in â a doctor, maybe. He pressed on your ribs and you sucked in a breath because that actually hurt, sharp and specific. He muttered something about possible bruising, told you to try to breathe normally.
You tried.
That was, of course, followed up by more tests. They wheeled you somewhere for the CT scan and the machine was loud and you had to hold still and you just wanted to go home. You wanted your bed. You wanted to stop feeling like your brain was three steps behind your body.
When they brought you back to the room, there was a different nurse checking something on the monitor by your bed.
"Your contact is on his way," she stated without really looking up. "Should be here soon."
You blinked at her. "Who?" you asked.
She glanced at the chart, flipping a couple pages up before she found what she was looking for. "You file says the person we were successfully able to contact was Oscar Piastri? That's what we have listed."
Oh.
Of course it was Oscar. You'd forgotten he was listed as one of your emergency contacts. You'd meant to update that months ago, add your parents or something, but you'd never gotten around to it. And now he was coming here. He was probably in the middle of something. Training or a meeting or really anything that had to do with having a life of his own.
You should text him, tell him not to come. You fumbled for your phone but it wasn't on the bed, and when you tried to sit up, the room spun.
"Easy," the nurse said. She put a hand on your shoulder and gently guided you back down. "Just rest. He'll be here soon."
You let your head fall back against the pillow. There was a tightness in your chest, you noted. However, you weren't entirely sure if it was a side effect from the accident or the thought of Oscar seeing you like thisâbanged up and foggy and basically useless.
It didnât take a genius to know he was going to worry. That was Oscar â you could get a splinter and he would always be worried.
The thought sat heavy in your chest. You closed your eyes and tried to breathe through it, but everything still felt wrong, tilted, like you weren't quite connected to your body. Time did something weird then, making you unsure how long youâd really been laying there. It could have been minutes, couldâve been longer.
It was easy to drift off with the help of the pain medication flowing through your IV until there was a commotion outside your room â not loud, just voices, someone talking fastâand then the door swung open.
Oscar.
He was still in his pajamas, some comfortable looking joggers and a well-loved sweatshirt you could vaguely recall having seen somewhere before. His hair was even more of a mess than usual, like he'd been running his fingers through it in an unsuccessful attempt to tame his bedhead. Your eyes followed the shape of him as he stopped just inside the doorway, and his eyes went wide when he saw you.
When his eyes met yours, you tried to smile, but you had a feeling it wasnât half as convincing and youâd thought it was.
"Hey," you greeted tentatively, trying to hide the way your voice cracked. Rather than responding, Oscar quickly crossed the room in approximately three strides.
"Hey," you tried again, a bit louder this time because he wasn't saying anything â just staring at you. Perhaps he hadnât heard you.
He dropped into the chair beside the bed and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His mouth was moving but you realized then that the ringing in your ears hadn't fully stopped and you caught maybe half of it.
"â okay? They saidâ"
You shook your head and tried harder to focus. "Can't, um, canât hear you that well."
Oscar stilled stopping before he started and tried again â slower, louder this time. "Are you okay?"
"Oh. Mâfine." The words came out automatically, unfiltered and unscripted. From where Oscar was standing, you seemed totally at ease, giving his face a lazy once-over before a thought occurred to her. "Wait, what're you doing here?"
His eyebrows pulled together. "What? What d'you mean what am I doing here? The hospital called me."
"Theyâ" You blinked at him. Right now, thinking felt a lot like your brain was moving through mud. "Why would they call you?"
Oscar sighed, though there was no frustration in his expression. In fact, despite the clear tiredness written across his face, he still smiled at you with what looked like an unending well of patience. "...Because I'm your emergency contact?" he tried, still speaking slower so itâd be easier for you to understand.
Emergency contact.
Right. You'd forgotten about that.
"You're supposed to be sleeping," you blurted out, and you weren't sure why that was the thing you landed on, but it was. "Don't you have, uhâ wasn't it race week or something?"
"Singapore's done," he answered. "And do you think I'm just gonna sleep whenâ"
He cut himself off, dragging a hand over his face. When he looked back at you his jaw was tight, but it was the furrow of his brows that gave away his worry.
"What happened?"
"Car accident." Your tongue still felt thick. "Someone ran a light⊠I think? Sorry, sâkind of blurry."
"Jesus." He ran a hand through his hair once again, exhaling deeply. You briefly wondered how soft his hair was â it certainly looked quite floofy, especially when heâd run his hand through it a couple of times, like now.
"Are you hurt? What'd they say?"
"I dunno yet. CT scan." You tried to gesture vaguely at your head but your arm weighed about a thousand pounds. "A nurse said maybe I hit my head, âcuz everything's really loud and really quiet at the same time."
He didn't say anything for a second. Instead, Oscar simply looked at you, and despite all the years youâd known him, there was something in his face you couldn't quite read. Worry, maybe? Or perhaps anger, though it didnât exactly seem to be directed at you.
"Osc, you didn't have to come. I'm okay."
"Stop saying that."
It came out harder than you expected, and you flinched. He noticed. His expression shifted, softening.
"Sorry. I justâ you're obviously not okay. Like, just look at you."
Something about the way he said it made you look down at yourself instead of at him. For the first time, you noticed that there was blood on your shirt. It wasnât enough to ruin the shirt forever, but there was still enough to make you consider sending it to the cleaners. When you opened your palms and stretched out your fingers, you squinted at the scrapes there too. There was also a bandage on your forearm that you didn't remember getting.
"It's not that bad," you tried.
Oscar made a breathy, smiling sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You're in a hospital, Y/N."
You blinked.Â
"Itâs precautionary."
"Right. Precautionary."
Oscar slipped into one of the weird plastic chairs that hospitals always had. He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, silent. When his eyes met yours again, he spoke again, his voice quieter.
"You scared the shit out of me."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
He reached out like he was going to touch your hand, then hesitated. His fingers hovered just over yours for a second before he pulled back.
"Did they, uh, say when you could leave?"
"No. Waiting on the scan results." You were so tired. Your eyes kept trying to close. "You don't have to stay."
"I'm staying."
"Oscarâ"
"I'm staying," he repeated, firmer this time, and there was no room for argument in it.
Now that you thought about it, you didn't have the energy to argue anyway.
You must've drifted off at some point because when you opened your eyes, Oscar was scrolling through his phone, and the fluorescent lights were giving him a halo you didn't remember being there before.
"You look stupid."
He glanced up, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "What?"
"The lighting. Makes your head look⊠weird. Thought you should know."
His mouth twitched, almost smiling, almost fond. "Ah, of course. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Already tired of your current position, you tried to shift only for your ribs to protest immediately.
"Ow."
"Don'tâ Donât move. Here"
He was out of his chair before you could blink, one hand hovering near your shoulder like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch you. It was funny, really, considering the time Oscar literally threw you over his shoulder that one time heâd finally convinced you to join him on his run only for you to complain until he carried you the rest of the way back.
"Hey, hey. Can you tell me what hurts?"
"Everything? Nothing? I dunno."
Even though you really were trying to answer his question, your head was still doing that thing where thoughts took too long to form. It felt more like pulling cotton from a thornbush rather than just answering a simple question.
"Osc?â
âYeah?âÂ
âWhy're you still here?"
"Uh, because you're still here."
"That's⊠Thatâs circular logic."
He couldnât help but shake his head at that, laughing. "Okay."
Once he was content that you werenât actively having a heart attack or bleeding to your death or in any form of excruciating pain, Oscar finally sat back down in the seat beside you. Each blink still felt slow, languid, but when you looked up at him you noticed that he was watching you like you might disappear. Before you could really think about it, however, he was already interrupting your thoughts with another gentle question.
"How's your head?"
For a moment, you mulled over the words, conducting a thorough analysis before delivering your eloquent answer. "Fuzzy. Like static."
You paused then, and Oscar opened his mouth to say something, but you beat him to it.
"D'you ever think about how static isn't, like, really a thing anymore? Like, TVs don't do that now. It's just⊠black."
Oscar blinked at you. Maybe it was the big brown eyes, but in that moment, he looked a lot like an owl when he did.
"I think that you have a concussion."
"Hmm, probably."
"You should go home."
Oscar only rolled his eyes, going back to read whatever nerdy cricket article heâd probably been reading. "Already said I'm not doing that."
You made a face. "You're annoying."
"Mhmm," he acknowledged, leaning back in the chair as he crossed his arms. "You've mentioned that once or twice."
Of course, youâd probably said that a lot more than once or twice, but you couldnât remember all the details all that clearly at the moment and the truth was that thatâs just how Oscar was â nice, funny, easy in a way that made you not think twice about whatever came out of your mouth around him. Maybe heâd always been like that, you thought to yourself. You couldnât imagine a moment where being around Oscar wasnât as easy as breathing.
The room went quiet except for the machines beeping. At some point, you found yourself trying to count the beeps, but it was difficult to keep up. You ended up losing track around fourteen.
"I crashed the car," you announced suddenly.
Oscar looked at you, his face the picture of calm. "I know."
"No, Iâ"Â
You tried to get the right words out, but your throat went tight.
"I crashed it, Oscar. It'sâthe whole side is smashed. I saw it. I don't think it's drivable."
"That's what insurance is for," he soothed, the ghost of a hand coming to rest on the plastic bedframe right beside where your hand was. But all you could focus on was those few seconds, playing over in your mind like flashes, stills in your memory.
"But Iâ"
You could feel your breath going weird, shallow. It didnât feel good.
"I wasn't paying attention. Or I was? But, like, not enough, and now the car's wrecked and I have toâ Shit, I dunno how I'm getting to work tomorrow. Orâ Or how much it's gonna cost. And I just got it serviced last month, andâ"
"Hey. Hey."
He leaned forward again, and this time he did touch you, fingers careful around your wrist.
"Breathe."
"Iâ I am breathing," you replied, a bit dumbly.
He only smiled, ever gentle. "Slower, hm?"
You tried. It didn't really work.
"The carâ"
"Is just a car, I promise."
His voice was steady, calm.
"It kept you alive. That's all it needed to do. That car is replaceable, but you are not."
"Butâ"
"But nothing. You're here. You're okay."
He squeezed your wrist gently. Oddly enough, it helped â like it was somehow a signal to your body to pause, to match the pulse, to give up the panic and just let the thrum of his pulse against yours dictate your heartrate instead.
"The rest is just.. stuff. We'll figure it out."
"We?"
"Yeah. We."
He said it like it was obvious, like there was never another option. His eyes shone with you could only describe as an ocean of sincerity, refracting the lights of the room in a way that reminded you of the open sea â steady and still.
Your eyes were burning. You blinked hard. Even your voice felt more raw, more exposed.
"I don't wanna figure it out. I wanna go home."
"I know."
"Mâ tired."
"I know," he said again, softer.
A beat later, you closed your eyes. His hand was still on your wrist, warm and solid, and you focused on that instead of the beeping or the lights or the way your head felt like it was full of cotton.
"Osc?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for coming."
There was a pause, a sound almost like a faint hitch in his breathing. When he answered, his voice sounded strange, tight.
"Fâcourse. Always."
You believed him.
The waiting was worse than the tests.
As both of you learned over this vast stretch of time, you could not sit still. Every position you tried felt wrong, no matter how creative â lying flat made your head pound, sitting up made you dizzy. You shifted again and Oscar glanced over from where he'd been pretending to read an infographic on flu shots, which would have been convincing had the entire thing not been written in French.
The moment the bed squeaked from you shifting for the umpteenth time, his attention was on you. "Hey, you alright?"
"I just wanna leave," you huffed, but it came out sharper than you meant it to. "How long does a CT scan take to read?"
"I dunno,â he mused, actually thinking about it. âA while, I guess?"
"It's already been a while."
"It's been, like, forty minutes, actually."
You slumped back against the pillow in defeat, and maybe also exhaustion from being so exhausted. Everything ached.
"Thatâs stupid. Feels longer."
He didn't argue with that.
You closed your eyes then and tried to sleep. You couldn't. So you opened them again. The ceiling tiles had little dots all over them. You started counting those instead, lost track, and even started over.
It was clear you were unhappy about having to wait so long â Oscar couldnât imagine a mattress made of that much plastic could be too comfortable, especially for someone who wanted nothing more than to just be able to go home and rest in their own bed. If it were up to him, the two of you would have likely been out of here ages ago, but unfortunately, he actually cared about making sure you were well enough to go home. What he could do, however, was make sure you were as comfortable as you could be in the meantime.Â
"D'you need anything?" Oscar tried.
"A time machine."
Oscar shook his head, clicking his tongue in mock disappointment.Â
"Fresh out, mâafraid."
You turned your head to look at him. He was still in the same position, elbows precariously balanced on the thin bars of metal acting as the arms of the sad hospital chair, his phone set down on his lap. He looked⊠tired.
You'd done that.
"Sorry," you mumbled, looking genuinely remorseful. You hated inconveniencing him for something minor like this, especially in the middle of the night.Â
"Sorry? What? For what?"
"Yâknow. Making you sit here."
"You didn't make me do anything," he chuckled, like the mere idea was laughable. He tilted his head at you, the curve of his mouth terribly fond, soft.
"Seriously. What d'you need?"
You opened your mouth to say nothing, but what came out was, "I'm bored. And my head hurts. And I can't stop thinking about the car, andâ"
Finally, your brain caught up with your mouth and you cut yourself off.
"Never mind."
"No, no. Câmon, what?"
"It's stupid."
"Thatâs never stopped you,â he smirked, before his gaze shifted to something gentler. âTell me anyway."
You hesitated. "D'they have anything to watch? Like on the TV or something?"
Oscar looked around the room. There was no TV. He checked his phone, scrolled for a second.
"Hospital wifi's quite terrible actually, but I've, uh, got some stuff downloaded?â He thought for a moment, before grimacing. âProbably shouldn't though, right? Screen time with a concussion?"
In return, he received a deadpan glare. "I don't care."
You sounded petulant. You were petulant.
"I just needâ I can't just sit here."
He studied you for a moment, then seemed to make a decision.
"Fine, alright. But if a nurse yells at us, you're taking the blame."
You grinned, wide and truly happy. "Deal."
He pulled his chair closer to the bed and angled his phone so you could both see it.
"What d'you want?"
"That depends. What've you got?"
He scrolled through his downloads. There were a couple of race replays from well before his time, some documentary thing that was either about tennis or classical European architecture, a few episodes of a show you didn't recognize. And then a familiar title screen whizzed by.
"Wait, wait, wait. Go back, go back up."
Obediently, he scrolled up.
"There!" You pointed, and your chest did something complicated at the same time. "You have Finding Nemo downloaded?"
Oscarâs ears went slightly pink. "Yeah, well... You kept watching it when you had the flu a couple months ago, and then on the plane to Singapore you fell asleep to it, so I just..."
He shrugged, not quite looking at you.
"Figured it was, like, a good background thing to have. Just in case, or whatever."
Something warm unfurled behind your ribs, despite everything.
"Can we watch that?"
"You sure? We donât have to, we can always watch something else if youâ"
"Nope. I want that one."
Oscar sighed, pretending to be annoyed, but still didn't argue. He just hit play and adjusted the angle so you could see without having to strain your neck.
He really did think of everything.
Once the Pixar logo filled the screen, the music started. Every note was familiar, nostalgic, like the comfort of a favorite blanket.Â
Oscar too settled back in his chair, his phone propped carefully on the tray table attached to the side your bed, perfectly between the two of you. You let your head sink into the pillow and watched Marlin and Coral on the reef, and for the first time since the accident, something in your chest loosened.
"Can you hear it okay?" Oscar asked quietly, whispering like anything louder would ruin the sanctity of a movie as important as this one. The thought made you giggle.
"Yeah," you murmured, your eyelids already starting to get heavier. ââS perfect."
He didn't say anything else after that, content to just let the movie play.
You made it through the barracuda attack before your eyes started closing on their own. The last thing you registered was Marlin promising to never let anything happen to his son, and metered rhythm of Oscar's quiet breathing beside you.
You jolted awake just as Nemo was starting his first day of school.
"â I miss anything?"
Your voice was scratchy.
"Nemo just met his classmates," Oscar said without looking away from the screen. "You were out for like three minutes."
"Oh."
You blinked hard, trying to focus.
"Okay. Good."
Oscarâs eyes flicked to hers, noticing the haziness in them.
"Go back to sleep if you need to," he whispered. âI can wake you up in a bit.â
"No. This is important."
He glanced at you, amused. "It's a kids' movie."
"It's not justâ"
You struggled to sit up a little. He immediately moved to help, his hand instinctively hovering near your back.
"It's about the ocean. You're Australian. You should be taking this seriously."
"I am taking it seriously!"
"You're smiling!"
"'Cause you're being ridiculous."
"I'm being culturally responsible."
You squinted at the screen, watching as Nemo began to swim toward the boat. As carefully as you could manage, you brought your arm up to nudge his shoulder, but it ended up being more of a weak graze. "Pay attention, Osc. This part's important."
"I am, I am, I'm paying attention."
For a moment, you watched him, just to make sure he really was paying attention before you turned back to the movie. As soon as you were content, your eyes felt heavier again, until you fought to keep them open. You had to, of course â Marlin was freaking out and Nemo wouldnât listen, too stubborn to know what was coming. Even with your eyes beginning to close, you couldnât help but mouth along to some of the dialogue from muscle memory.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Oscar noticed it too. He didn't say anything, but his smile got softer. You drifted off again somewhere around Dory's introduction, and woke up to Marlin and Dory in the dark water, the anglerfish looming.
Your hand clenched in the blanket without thinking.
"You good?" Oscar asked quietly.
"Yeah."
But you didn't unclench your hand. On screen, the anglerfish lunged. You flinched. It was stupid, considering you'd seen this movie a hundred times, but everything felt too close right now, too loud. Oscar shifted in his chair.
"Hey. It's alright." His voice dropped lower, gentler. "Dory's got this. She speaks whale, remember?"
"She doesn't speak whale yet," you mumbled.
"Right. That's later."Â
He was still using that soft voice, like you were actually scared of a cartoon fish. It should've been embarrassing. It wasn't.
"But they make it outta this part. Promise."
"I know they make it out."
"I know you know. Iâm just reminding you."
You let out a breath. On screen, Dory and Marlin escaped and even though Marlin was in the middle of trying to tell Dory that he wanted to continue the rest of his search for Nemo without her, the music shifted to something lighter and your hand relaxed.
"Thanks," you said quietly.
"For what?"
"I dunno. Being weird with me."
He huffed a laugh. "You make it easy."
You tried to stay awake for the moonfishâs game of charades to cheer Dory up â but you faded out somewhere around Dory swimming away to cry and woke up to Dory getting distracted by the small baby jellyfish instead of Marlinâs directions.
"Where are we?" you asked, brows furrowed, still groggy with sleep.
"Jellyfish scene," Oscar answered easily.
"Oh, good. This is the best part."
He smiled, a teasing grin. "Oh yeah? I thought the last part was the best part."
"Every part's the best part," you told him, blinking at him seriously. "Are you even Australian? The ocean's, like, your whole thing."
"Uhh, pretty sure we have other things."
"Name one."
"Vegemite."
Naturally, you made a face. "That does not count."
"Why not?"
"'Cause it's gross, Osc!"
"Oh, câmon! You've never even tried it."
"I don't have to, genius. I can smell it from here."
You weren't making sense. Hell, you knew you weren't making sense. But Oscar was watching you like you were saying something profound, and on screen, Dory greeted the adorable little  jellyfish with a soft, âHey, little guy.â
Marlin, of course, was so focused on how excited he was to be on his way to finally be reunited with Nemo that he completely failed to pay attention to what was going on right behind him. Meanwhile, Dory came closer to the baby jellyfish, cooing at it.
âI shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come here, Squishy. Come here, little Squishy.â
You laughed at that, and in the dark of the room, Oscar turned to look at you, smiling. Heâd figured out quite some time ago that even the smallest sliver of your joy had the power to make his heart do funny things in his chest, but he tried not to think about that. Now, however, in the dark of the hospital room and with all your attention directed at the screen, he allowed himself to look at you for just a moment longer than perhaps friends should.
Soon, Marlin had finally managed to resume Dory from where she'd fallen unconscious stuck in the throng of jellyfish, your cheek was squished against the starchy material of your pillow and your eyes were drifting closed again.
"Iâm awake," you stated out loud, though it might've been an affirmation for your sake more than Oscarâs, if you were being honest.
"You don't have to," Oscar told you gently, one hand carefully pushing your hair out of your face so you could see better.
You replied, but most of your words were mushed together, a stream of mumbles more than anything truly coherent. But Oscar didnât seem to mind it. In fact, he understood you anyway.
"But you need to seeâ the EAC's coming up. That's the turtles. Hm, you'll like the turtlesâŠ"
"I'll wake you up for the turtles," Oscar assured you.
"...Promise?"
"Promise."
It was then, and only then, that you finally let your eyes close.
Just for a minute.
a/n: i know i'm supposed to be working on other stuff, but i had a minor car accident and this is what i was inspired to write instead. i apologize for not getting the promised chapters out this week. please accept this consolation prize instead. hope you like it!
hi guys! just wanted to take a quick sec to say that if last chapter (or any chapter) was not your cup of tea, thatâs okay! i do my best try come up with something that feels true to my vision of the story and the characters, so if you think itâs not good, please donât come in my asks and be mean about it.
im always open to constructive criticism, but telling me âmid climax tbhâ or âi waited x chapters for that??â does not in any way make me write better.
lol it honestly just makes me want to write less tbh
i'll be turning off the anon feature for a bit, i think. i apologize to my anons, but this blog that started as an escape and an outlet is slowly starting to be this.
summary: A car accident leaves you disoriented and hurt in the hospital. When the paramedics call your emergency contact, Oscar drops everything to be there.
warnings: descriptions of injuries and shock
word count: 5.2k
part one | part two | part three
Everything was too quiet. That was the first thing that felt wrong.
Your ears rang, high-pitched and insistent, and underneath that there was nothing. No music. The radio had cut out. You'd been listening to something, but you couldn't remember what.
The airbag smelled like chemicals and something burnt. You couldn't quite remember why your face was pressed against it, or why your hands shook so badly when you tried to push yourself back.
Your door was open, though you hadn't opened it. Someone was talking to you, their face swimming in your peripheral vision, but the words didn't land right. They slid past you like water.
"âkay? Miss? Can you hear me?"
You turned your head. It hurt.
Everything hurt in this distant, muffled way, like your body hadn't quite caught up to what happened. There was a woman crouched by your door, and you were fairly certain that her mouth was moving. You should probably answer.
"M'fine," you managed to get out. Your voice sounded wrong, thin. "I'm okay."
In reality, you weren't sure if that was true. When you looked down at your hands, still braced against the deflating airbag, they were shaking so hard you couldn't make them stop. There was blood on your right hand â not a lot, just some smeared across your knuckles like you'd scraped them against something.
The woman was still talking, it seemed. By now, she appeared to have her phone out too.Â
You should focus. You should listen.
"ânâ ambulance is coming, okay? Just stay still. Don't try to move yet."
Ambulance?
That word stuck. You didn't need an ambulance. You were fine. You tried to say so, but when you opened your mouth, nothing came out right. Your tongue suddenly felt thick. The ringing in your ears got louder.
You closed your eyes.Â
Just for a second. Just to make the spinning stop.
When you opened them again, there were more people.Â
Paramedics?Â
One of them was shining a light in your eyes and you flinched back, but there was nowhere to go. Your seatbelt was still on. You hadn't even realized.
"Can you tell me your name?"
You told them. You thought you told them. Everything felt like it was happening underwater.
"Do you know where you are?"
You looked through the windshield. The glass was cracked, spiderwebbing out from a point you didn't remember hitting.Â
There was another car. That was why you'd stopped. That was whyâ
"There was⊠a car," you slurred, but the words sounded muffled to even your own ears. Your voice cracked when you spoke up again.
"I didn'â I tried to stop. Is everyoneâ?"
"Everyone's okay," the paramedic replied, cutting her off before you could continue to worry about that. He had kind eyes. You focused on that.Â
"You were in a minor collision, miss. You took most of the impact. We're gonna get you out now, alright?"
You nodded. That hurt too.
They eased you out of the car slowly, and the world tilted sideways. Your legs didn't quite hold you. Someone caught your elbow, guided you to the back of an ambulance. You sat. The doors were open and you could see your car from here, crumpled on the passenger side where the other car had hit you.
It didn't look real.
None of this felt real.
The paramedic was asking you questions. Your address, your birthday, if anything hurt. Everything hurt, but you couldn't pinpoint where. It was all just⊠noise.
"Is there someone we can call?" he tried to ask..
You blinked at him for a moment. Your phone. You should have your phone. You patted your pockets automatically, but one of the paramedics was already holding it out to you. The screen was cracked because of course it was.
"We need an emergency contact," he attempted again, even more gently this time. "Someone who can meet you at the hospital?"
Hospital?Â
You were going to the hospital.
No, no, no. That felt like too much. You opened your mouth to argue, but instead you let your head fall back against the inside of the ambulance and closed your eyes â just for a second, just until the world stopped tilting.
Somewhere far away, you thought you mightâve heard someone say your name before it all faded to black.
The hospital lights were way too bright.
You were in a bed now, though somehow, you didn't really remember getting into it. Someone had apparently taken your shoes off for you. Beside you, there was a blood pressure cuff on your arm that kept tightening and releasing, tightening and releasing. It was annoying. You wanted to take it off, but when you tried, your hands simply wouldn't cooperate.
A nurse came in, wearing purple scrubs with little dogs on them. You stared at the dogs while she asked you questions. Most of them were the same ones from before â your name, your birthday, what day it was.
You answered.
Probably.
She seemed satisfied enough.
"Alright, hun, we're gonna do a CT scan, just to be safe, okay?" she told her sweetly. "Looks like you hit your head pretty hard. Any nausea? Vision problems?"
"Sâ blurry, a bit," you admitted. "Everything's kind of blurry."
The nurse wrote something down on her clipboard before looking up at her with a kind smile. "That's normal. You're doing fine, sweetheart. Just try to stay awake for me, okay?"
You nodded. Staying awake felt harder than it should.
She left.
You closed your eyes anyway.
Spoon enough, someone else came in â a doctor, maybe. He pressed on your ribs and you sucked in a breath because that actually hurt, sharp and specific. He muttered something about possible bruising, told you to try to breathe normally.
You tried.
That was, of course, followed up by more tests. They wheeled you somewhere for the CT scan and the machine was loud and you had to hold still and you just wanted to go home. You wanted your bed. You wanted to stop feeling like your brain was three steps behind your body.
When they brought you back to the room, there was a different nurse checking something on the monitor by your bed.
"Your contact is on his way," she stated without really looking up. "Should be here soon."
You blinked at her. "Who?" you asked.
She glanced at the chart, flipping a couple pages up before she found what she was looking for. "You file says the person we were successfully able to contact was Oscar Piastri? That's what we have listed."
Oh.
Of course it was Oscar. You'd forgotten he was listed as one of your emergency contacts. You'd meant to update that months ago, add your parents or something, but you'd never gotten around to it. And now he was coming here. He was probably in the middle of something. Training or a meeting or really anything that had to do with having a life of his own.
You should text him, tell him not to come. You fumbled for your phone but it wasn't on the bed, and when you tried to sit up, the room spun.
"Easy," the nurse said. She put a hand on your shoulder and gently guided you back down. "Just rest. He'll be here soon."
You let your head fall back against the pillow. There was a tightness in your chest, you noted. However, you weren't entirely sure if it was a side effect from the accident or the thought of Oscar seeing you like thisâbanged up and foggy and basically useless.
It didnât take a genius to know he was going to worry. That was Oscar â you could get a splinter and he would always be worried.
The thought sat heavy in your chest. You closed your eyes and tried to breathe through it, but everything still felt wrong, tilted, like you weren't quite connected to your body. Time did something weird then, making you unsure how long youâd really been laying there. It could have been minutes, couldâve been longer.
It was easy to drift off with the help of the pain medication flowing through your IV until there was a commotion outside your room â not loud, just voices, someone talking fastâand then the door swung open.
Oscar.
He was still in his pajamas, some comfortable looking joggers and a well-loved sweatshirt you could vaguely recall having seen somewhere before. His hair was even more of a mess than usual, like he'd been running his fingers through it in an unsuccessful attempt to tame his bedhead. Your eyes followed the shape of him as he stopped just inside the doorway, and his eyes went wide when he saw you.
When his eyes met yours, you tried to smile, but you had a feeling it wasnât half as convincing and youâd thought it was.
"Hey," you greeted tentatively, trying to hide the way your voice cracked. Rather than responding, Oscar quickly crossed the room in approximately three strides.
"Hey," you tried again, a bit louder this time because he wasn't saying anything â just staring at you. Perhaps he hadnât heard you.
He dropped into the chair beside the bed and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His mouth was moving but you realized then that the ringing in your ears hadn't fully stopped and you caught maybe half of it.
"â okay? They saidâ"
You shook your head and tried harder to focus. "Can't, um, canât hear you that well."
Oscar stilled stopping before he started and tried again â slower, louder this time. "Are you okay?"
"Oh. Mâfine." The words came out automatically, unfiltered and unscripted. From where Oscar was standing, you seemed totally at ease, giving his face a lazy once-over before a thought occurred to her. "Wait, what're you doing here?"
His eyebrows pulled together. "What? What d'you mean what am I doing here? The hospital called me."
"Theyâ" You blinked at him. Right now, thinking felt a lot like your brain was moving through mud. "Why would they call you?"
Oscar sighed, though there was no frustration in his expression. In fact, despite the clear tiredness written across his face, he still smiled at you with what looked like an unending well of patience. "...Because I'm your emergency contact?" he tried, still speaking slower so itâd be easier for you to understand.
Emergency contact.
Right. You'd forgotten about that.
"You're supposed to be sleeping," you blurted out, and you weren't sure why that was the thing you landed on, but it was. "Don't you have, uhâ wasn't it race week or something?"
"Singapore's done," he answered. "And do you think I'm just gonna sleep whenâ"
He cut himself off, dragging a hand over his face. When he looked back at you his jaw was tight, but it was the furrow of his brows that gave away his worry.
"What happened?"
"Car accident." Your tongue still felt thick. "Someone ran a light⊠I think? Sorry, sâkind of blurry."
"Jesus." He ran a hand through his hair once again, exhaling deeply. You briefly wondered how soft his hair was â it certainly looked quite floofy, especially when heâd run his hand through it a couple of times, like now.
"Are you hurt? What'd they say?"
"I dunno yet. CT scan." You tried to gesture vaguely at your head but your arm weighed about a thousand pounds. "A nurse said maybe I hit my head, âcuz everything's really loud and really quiet at the same time."
He didn't say anything for a second. Instead, Oscar simply looked at you, and despite all the years youâd known him, there was something in his face you couldn't quite read. Worry, maybe? Or perhaps anger, though it didnât exactly seem to be directed at you.
"Osc, you didn't have to come. I'm okay."
"Stop saying that."
It came out harder than you expected, and you flinched. He noticed. His expression shifted, softening.
"Sorry. I justâ you're obviously not okay. Like, just look at you."
Something about the way he said it made you look down at yourself instead of at him. For the first time, you noticed that there was blood on your shirt. It wasnât enough to ruin the shirt forever, but there was still enough to make you consider sending it to the cleaners. When you opened your palms and stretched out your fingers, you squinted at the scrapes there too. There was also a bandage on your forearm that you didn't remember getting.
"It's not that bad," you tried.
Oscar made a breathy, smiling sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You're in a hospital, Y/N."
You blinked.Â
"Itâs precautionary."
"Right. Precautionary."
Oscar slipped into one of the weird plastic chairs that hospitals always had. He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, silent. When his eyes met yours again, he spoke again, his voice quieter.
"You scared the shit out of me."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
He reached out like he was going to touch your hand, then hesitated. His fingers hovered just over yours for a second before he pulled back.
"Did they, uh, say when you could leave?"
"No. Waiting on the scan results." You were so tired. Your eyes kept trying to close. "You don't have to stay."
"I'm staying."
"Oscarâ"
"I'm staying," he repeated, firmer this time, and there was no room for argument in it.
Now that you thought about it, you didn't have the energy to argue anyway.
You must've drifted off at some point because when you opened your eyes, Oscar was scrolling through his phone, and the fluorescent lights were giving him a halo you didn't remember being there before.
"You look stupid."
He glanced up, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "What?"
"The lighting. Makes your head look⊠weird. Thought you should know."
His mouth twitched, almost smiling, almost fond. "Ah, of course. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Already tired of your current position, you tried to shift only for your ribs to protest immediately.
"Ow."
"Don'tâ Donât move. Here"
He was out of his chair before you could blink, one hand hovering near your shoulder like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch you. It was funny, really, considering the time Oscar literally threw you over his shoulder that one time heâd finally convinced you to join him on his run only for you to complain until he carried you the rest of the way back.
"Hey, hey. Can you tell me what hurts?"
"Everything? Nothing? I dunno."
Even though you really were trying to answer his question, your head was still doing that thing where thoughts took too long to form. It felt more like pulling cotton from a thornbush rather than just answering a simple question.
"Osc?â
âYeah?âÂ
âWhy're you still here?"
"Uh, because you're still here."
"That's⊠Thatâs circular logic."
He couldnât help but shake his head at that, laughing. "Okay."
Once he was content that you werenât actively having a heart attack or bleeding to your death or in any form of excruciating pain, Oscar finally sat back down in the seat beside you. Each blink still felt slow, languid, but when you looked up at him you noticed that he was watching you like you might disappear. Before you could really think about it, however, he was already interrupting your thoughts with another gentle question.
"How's your head?"
For a moment, you mulled over the words, conducting a thorough analysis before delivering your eloquent answer. "Fuzzy. Like static."
You paused then, and Oscar opened his mouth to say something, but you beat him to it.
"D'you ever think about how static isn't, like, really a thing anymore? Like, TVs don't do that now. It's just⊠black."
Oscar blinked at you. Maybe it was the big brown eyes, but in that moment, he looked a lot like an owl when he did.
"I think that you have a concussion."
"Hmm, probably."
"You should go home."
Oscar only rolled his eyes, going back to read whatever nerdy cricket article heâd probably been reading. "Already said I'm not doing that."
You made a face. "You're annoying."
"Mhmm," he acknowledged, leaning back in the chair as he crossed his arms. "You've mentioned that once or twice."
Of course, youâd probably said that a lot more than once or twice, but you couldnât remember all the details all that clearly at the moment and the truth was that thatâs just how Oscar was â nice, funny, easy in a way that made you not think twice about whatever came out of your mouth around him. Maybe heâd always been like that, you thought to yourself. You couldnât imagine a moment where being around Oscar wasnât as easy as breathing.
The room went quiet except for the machines beeping. At some point, you found yourself trying to count the beeps, but it was difficult to keep up. You ended up losing track around fourteen.
"I crashed the car," you announced suddenly.
Oscar looked at you, his face the picture of calm. "I know."
"No, Iâ"Â
You tried to get the right words out, but your throat went tight.
"I crashed it, Oscar. It'sâthe whole side is smashed. I saw it. I don't think it's drivable."
"That's what insurance is for," he soothed, the ghost of a hand coming to rest on the plastic bedframe right beside where your hand was. But all you could focus on was those few seconds, playing over in your mind like flashes, stills in your memory.
"But Iâ"
You could feel your breath going weird, shallow. It didnât feel good.
"I wasn't paying attention. Or I was? But, like, not enough, and now the car's wrecked and I have toâ Shit, I dunno how I'm getting to work tomorrow. Orâ Or how much it's gonna cost. And I just got it serviced last month, andâ"
"Hey. Hey."
He leaned forward again, and this time he did touch you, fingers careful around your wrist.
"Breathe."
"Iâ I am breathing," you replied, a bit dumbly.
He only smiled, ever gentle. "Slower, hm?"
You tried. It didn't really work.
"The carâ"
"Is just a car, I promise."
His voice was steady, calm.
"It kept you alive. That's all it needed to do. That car is replaceable, but you are not."
"Butâ"
"But nothing. You're here. You're okay."
He squeezed your wrist gently. Oddly enough, it helped â like it was somehow a signal to your body to pause, to match the pulse, to give up the panic and just let the thrum of his pulse against yours dictate your heartrate instead.
"The rest is just.. stuff. We'll figure it out."
"We?"
"Yeah. We."
He said it like it was obvious, like there was never another option. His eyes shone with you could only describe as an ocean of sincerity, refracting the lights of the room in a way that reminded you of the open sea â steady and still.
Your eyes were burning. You blinked hard. Even your voice felt more raw, more exposed.
"I don't wanna figure it out. I wanna go home."
"I know."
"Mâ tired."
"I know," he said again, softer.
A beat later, you closed your eyes. His hand was still on your wrist, warm and solid, and you focused on that instead of the beeping or the lights or the way your head felt like it was full of cotton.
"Osc?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for coming."
There was a pause, a sound almost like a faint hitch in his breathing. When he answered, his voice sounded strange, tight.
"Fâcourse. Always."
You believed him.
The waiting was worse than the tests.
As both of you learned over this vast stretch of time, you could not sit still. Every position you tried felt wrong, no matter how creative â lying flat made your head pound, sitting up made you dizzy. You shifted again and Oscar glanced over from where he'd been pretending to read an infographic on flu shots, which would have been convincing had the entire thing not been written in French.
The moment the bed squeaked from you shifting for the umpteenth time, his attention was on you. "Hey, you alright?"
"I just wanna leave," you huffed, but it came out sharper than you meant it to. "How long does a CT scan take to read?"
"I dunno,â he mused, actually thinking about it. âA while, I guess?"
"It's already been a while."
"It's been, like, forty minutes, actually."
You slumped back against the pillow in defeat, and maybe also exhaustion from being so exhausted. Everything ached.
"Thatâs stupid. Feels longer."
He didn't argue with that.
You closed your eyes then and tried to sleep. You couldn't. So you opened them again. The ceiling tiles had little dots all over them. You started counting those instead, lost track, and even started over.
It was clear you were unhappy about having to wait so long â Oscar couldnât imagine a mattress made of that much plastic could be too comfortable, especially for someone who wanted nothing more than to just be able to go home and rest in their own bed. If it were up to him, the two of you would have likely been out of here ages ago, but unfortunately, he actually cared about making sure you were well enough to go home. What he could do, however, was make sure you were as comfortable as you could be in the meantime.Â
"D'you need anything?" Oscar tried.
"A time machine."
Oscar shook his head, clicking his tongue in mock disappointment.Â
"Fresh out, mâafraid."
You turned your head to look at him. He was still in the same position, elbows precariously balanced on the thin bars of metal acting as the arms of the sad hospital chair, his phone set down on his lap. He looked⊠tired.
You'd done that.
"Sorry," you mumbled, looking genuinely remorseful. You hated inconveniencing him for something minor like this, especially in the middle of the night.Â
"Sorry? What? For what?"
"Yâknow. Making you sit here."
"You didn't make me do anything," he chuckled, like the mere idea was laughable. He tilted his head at you, the curve of his mouth terribly fond, soft.
"Seriously. What d'you need?"
You opened your mouth to say nothing, but what came out was, "I'm bored. And my head hurts. And I can't stop thinking about the car, andâ"
Finally, your brain caught up with your mouth and you cut yourself off.
"Never mind."
"No, no. Câmon, what?"
"It's stupid."
"Thatâs never stopped you,â he smirked, before his gaze shifted to something gentler. âTell me anyway."
You hesitated. "D'they have anything to watch? Like on the TV or something?"
Oscar looked around the room. There was no TV. He checked his phone, scrolled for a second.
"Hospital wifi's quite terrible actually, but I've, uh, got some stuff downloaded?â He thought for a moment, before grimacing. âProbably shouldn't though, right? Screen time with a concussion?"
In return, he received a deadpan glare. "I don't care."
You sounded petulant. You were petulant.
"I just needâ I can't just sit here."
He studied you for a moment, then seemed to make a decision.
"Fine, alright. But if a nurse yells at us, you're taking the blame."
You grinned, wide and truly happy. "Deal."
He pulled his chair closer to the bed and angled his phone so you could both see it.
"What d'you want?"
"That depends. What've you got?"
He scrolled through his downloads. There were a couple of race replays from well before his time, some documentary thing that was either about tennis or classical European architecture, a few episodes of a show you didn't recognize. And then a familiar title screen whizzed by.
"Wait, wait, wait. Go back, go back up."
Obediently, he scrolled up.
"There!" You pointed, and your chest did something complicated at the same time. "You have Finding Nemo downloaded?"
Oscarâs ears went slightly pink. "Yeah, well... You kept watching it when you had the flu a couple months ago, and then on the plane to Singapore you fell asleep to it, so I just..."
He shrugged, not quite looking at you.
"Figured it was, like, a good background thing to have. Just in case, or whatever."
Something warm unfurled behind your ribs, despite everything.
"Can we watch that?"
"You sure? We donât have to, we can always watch something else if youâ"
"Nope. I want that one."
Oscar sighed, pretending to be annoyed, but still didn't argue. He just hit play and adjusted the angle so you could see without having to strain your neck.
He really did think of everything.
Once the Pixar logo filled the screen, the music started. Every note was familiar, nostalgic, like the comfort of a favorite blanket.Â
Oscar too settled back in his chair, his phone propped carefully on the tray table attached to the side your bed, perfectly between the two of you. You let your head sink into the pillow and watched Marlin and Coral on the reef, and for the first time since the accident, something in your chest loosened.
"Can you hear it okay?" Oscar asked quietly, whispering like anything louder would ruin the sanctity of a movie as important as this one. The thought made you giggle.
"Yeah," you murmured, your eyelids already starting to get heavier. ââS perfect."
He didn't say anything else after that, content to just let the movie play.
You made it through the barracuda attack before your eyes started closing on their own. The last thing you registered was Marlin promising to never let anything happen to his son, and metered rhythm of Oscar's quiet breathing beside you.
You jolted awake just as Nemo was starting his first day of school.
"â I miss anything?"
Your voice was scratchy.
"Nemo just met his classmates," Oscar said without looking away from the screen. "You were out for like three minutes."
"Oh."
You blinked hard, trying to focus.
"Okay. Good."
Oscarâs eyes flicked to hers, noticing the haziness in them.
"Go back to sleep if you need to," he whispered. âI can wake you up in a bit.â
"No. This is important."
He glanced at you, amused. "It's a kids' movie."
"It's not justâ"
You struggled to sit up a little. He immediately moved to help, his hand instinctively hovering near your back.
"It's about the ocean. You're Australian. You should be taking this seriously."
"I am taking it seriously!"
"You're smiling!"
"'Cause you're being ridiculous."
"I'm being culturally responsible."
You squinted at the screen, watching as Nemo began to swim toward the boat. As carefully as you could manage, you brought your arm up to nudge his shoulder, but it ended up being more of a weak graze. "Pay attention, Osc. This part's important."
"I am, I am, I'm paying attention."
For a moment, you watched him, just to make sure he really was paying attention before you turned back to the movie. As soon as you were content, your eyes felt heavier again, until you fought to keep them open. You had to, of course â Marlin was freaking out and Nemo wouldnât listen, too stubborn to know what was coming. Even with your eyes beginning to close, you couldnât help but mouth along to some of the dialogue from muscle memory.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Oscar noticed it too. He didn't say anything, but his smile got softer. You drifted off again somewhere around Dory's introduction, and woke up to Marlin and Dory in the dark water, the anglerfish looming.
Your hand clenched in the blanket without thinking.
"You good?" Oscar asked quietly.
"Yeah."
But you didn't unclench your hand. On screen, the anglerfish lunged. You flinched. It was stupid, considering you'd seen this movie a hundred times, but everything felt too close right now, too loud. Oscar shifted in his chair.
"Hey. It's alright." His voice dropped lower, gentler. "Dory's got this. She speaks whale, remember?"
"She doesn't speak whale yet," you mumbled.
"Right. That's later."Â
He was still using that soft voice, like you were actually scared of a cartoon fish. It should've been embarrassing. It wasn't.
"But they make it outta this part. Promise."
"I know they make it out."
"I know you know. Iâm just reminding you."
You let out a breath. On screen, Dory and Marlin escaped and even though Marlin was in the middle of trying to tell Dory that he wanted to continue the rest of his search for Nemo without her, the music shifted to something lighter and your hand relaxed.
"Thanks," you said quietly.
"For what?"
"I dunno. Being weird with me."
He huffed a laugh. "You make it easy."
You tried to stay awake for the moonfishâs game of charades to cheer Dory up â but you faded out somewhere around Dory swimming away to cry and woke up to Dory getting distracted by the small baby jellyfish instead of Marlinâs directions.
"Where are we?" you asked, brows furrowed, still groggy with sleep.
"Jellyfish scene," Oscar answered easily.
"Oh, good. This is the best part."
He smiled, a teasing grin. "Oh yeah? I thought the last part was the best part."
"Every part's the best part," you told him, blinking at him seriously. "Are you even Australian? The ocean's, like, your whole thing."
"Uhh, pretty sure we have other things."
"Name one."
"Vegemite."
Naturally, you made a face. "That does not count."
"Why not?"
"'Cause it's gross, Osc!"
"Oh, câmon! You've never even tried it."
"I don't have to, genius. I can smell it from here."
You weren't making sense. Hell, you knew you weren't making sense. But Oscar was watching you like you were saying something profound, and on screen, Dory greeted the adorable little  jellyfish with a soft, âHey, little guy.â
Marlin, of course, was so focused on how excited he was to be on his way to finally be reunited with Nemo that he completely failed to pay attention to what was going on right behind him. Meanwhile, Dory came closer to the baby jellyfish, cooing at it.
âI shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come here, Squishy. Come here, little Squishy.â
You laughed at that, and in the dark of the room, Oscar turned to look at you, smiling. Heâd figured out quite some time ago that even the smallest sliver of your joy had the power to make his heart do funny things in his chest, but he tried not to think about that. Now, however, in the dark of the hospital room and with all your attention directed at the screen, he allowed himself to look at you for just a moment longer than perhaps friends should.
Soon, Marlin had finally managed to resume Dory from where she'd fallen unconscious stuck in the throng of jellyfish, your cheek was squished against the starchy material of your pillow and your eyes were drifting closed again.
"Iâm awake," you stated out loud, though it might've been an affirmation for your sake more than Oscarâs, if you were being honest.
"You don't have to," Oscar told you gently, one hand carefully pushing your hair out of your face so you could see better.
You replied, but most of your words were mushed together, a stream of mumbles more than anything truly coherent. But Oscar didnât seem to mind it. In fact, he understood you anyway.
"But you need to seeâ the EAC's coming up. That's the turtles. Hm, you'll like the turtlesâŠ"
"I'll wake you up for the turtles," Oscar assured you.
"...Promise?"
"Promise."
It was then, and only then, that you finally let your eyes close.
Just for a minute.
a/n: i know i'm supposed to be working on other stuff, but i had a minor car accident and this is what i was inspired to write instead. i apologize for not getting the promised chapters out this week. please accept this consolation prize instead. hope you like it!
