OR flipside of that free use anon where lando goes to see oscar expecting them to be fine and oscar's a bit closed off so lando starts offering all sorts of sexual favours. and oscar's like well not gonna say no to that.
so it ends up loser takes it all
and all i need is a great big congratulations
he’s fucked up, yeah. but not like everyone else around him is fucked up. they’re fucked up on vodka and adrenaline and awe, cheering like they’ve just seen a god walk into the room. and he IS a god right now, isn’t he? world fucking champion. everything he ever wanted. the montage played in his head during those last two laps—little lando on the kart, dad on the playstation, monaco, silverstone, all of it building to THIS—and it was perfect, it was everything, he was crying in the car and he didn’t care who saw.
but now his head is full of static.
he keeps thinking about that comment. just one word.
Congratulations
oscar didn’t come to the afterparty. dipped after the team photos, after the champagne, after standing on that podium in second place watching lando get third and take the whole fucking world anyway. didn’t reply to the texts. didn’t answer when lando asked, “you coming?” like he usually does, that dry, low-voiced thing he always pulls when he knows oscar’s somewhere nearby.
oscar’s not nearby now. he’s not anywhere. not really. not even in the race replay in lando’s head.
and yeah, that hurts. hurts worse than it should when he just won everything. when he should only be feeling the high, the disbelief, the MY DAD WAS RIGHT THERE and I DID IT and THIS IS OURS. except it doesn’t feel like ours when oscar won’t even look at him.
maybe that’s why he’s standing outside oscar’s hotel door at fuck-all o’clock, not really drunk anymore but still stupid with it, still floating on whatever high’s left after becoming world fucking champion. the painting he wants made is in his head—that final corner, papayas everywhere, chequered flag, his gloves up because he was crying—but right now all he can see is oscar’s face. closed off. distant. wrong.
there’s no music here. just hallway carpet and an ache behind his eyes and the lump in his throat he’s too proud to name.
he knocks.
when oscar opens the door, lando blurts, “i’ll do anything. just—can we be okay again?”
he doesn’t mean it like that. not at first. not until he sees oscar’s expression shift, unreadable and quiet and maybe a little hungry. and if that’s what it takes—if offering himself up like this, tongue and teeth and throat and thighs, could undo the weird wrongness between them, then fuck it.
he’s already stripping off his jacket.
and oscar just steps aside. lets him in. closes the door.
“you don’t have to do this,” oscar says, but he’s not moving away. not stopping him.
“i know,” lando replies. “i want to.”
he does. he wants to make it right. with his mouth. with his knees on the floor. with anything oscar wants.
he won the world. he’ll give oscar everything else.











