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In Oscar’s defense, Lando acted childish like, literally one hundred percent of the time. Arms flung around his neck in giddy abandon and rolled eyes when things didn’t go his way and silly, wide-eyed questions asked in full earnestness were all just a normal day of being teammates with Lando Norris.
In hindsight, sure, there might have been some moments in the day that should have sent of red flags in Oscar’s mind, like the way Lando’s voice had pitched up a little bit towards the end of the meeting they were in as he answered necessary questions with a little annoyed pout. And yeah, sure, maybe he knew that Lando regressed sometimes as like, a coping thing, or something like that, even though he could never be sure if it had happened in front of him before, thanks to defense point number 1.
So – yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have been caught a little bit off guard by the way that Lando was swinging his legs loudly under his chair in the meeting room, or doodling little spiky monsters on his notepad and writing MEETINGS R CRAP!!!! WHAT THE HECK R THEY TALKING ABOUT!!!! in scribbly letters. But he was, so, whatever.
By the time the meeting finally ended and everyone shuffled out the door, Oscar had no idea what points they’d ended on and he was pretty dead certain that Lando didn’t either, judging by the way he seemed fully engrossed in stacking up little paper stars until they topped over.
When his latest tower collapsed, he draped himself dramatically over the table and whined, “Oscarrrrrrrr. I feel little.”
Oscar shook his head fondly. “Yeah, I noticed.”
He wanted to reach over and ruffle Lando’s hair or poke his nose or something, which was weird, obviously, so instead he cleared his throat awkwardly and patted the table twice. “So,” he started, hoping to get Lando’s attention. There was no visible indicator that he had it even in the slightest, but he continued, “Are you, uh, going back to your apartment then?”
Was Lando supposed to drive like this? He literally had no idea what the rules were for this sort of thing. He felt horribly out of his depth, which was pissing him off. Whatever was going on with Lando – that was fine, genuinely. He didn’t mind hanging out with him while he was like this, or taking care of him, or anything. But if there was one thing he hated, it was feeling completely clueless, and that was pretty much just about where he was.
“Yeah,” Lando pouted, followed by a sigh so dramatic Oscar was pretty sure he was just doing it to make him feel bad. “And I’ll be alllll alone. In my big, big apartment. With nooobody to talk to or hug or play games with or eat snacks with or have fun with or-”
He was getting out of breath, so Oscar cut him off. “Okay, okay, fine, you can come over.”
“Yay!” Lando yelled, jumping out of his chair so fast he nearly fell out of it. “Can we have a sleepover then? Please, please, please, please, please!”
Fuck you and your stupid giant puppy eyes, Oscar wanted to say. But he didn’t, because he didn’t know if he could say fuck when Lando was like, seven years old in front of him. “Sure,” he agreed. “I reckon we could have a sleepover.”
Which was how he found himself feeling the slightest bit like he was being held hostage in his own apartment while Lando sat at the kitchen counter drawing diligently on a notepad Oscar had (mercifully) found in a closet somewhere with the three different sharpie colours that hadn’t dried up since he bought them four years ago.
It had been quite the struggle to get him to settle on any one activity at all – Oscar, can we watch Star Wars? Oscar, can I play Mario Kart? Oscar, can we play tag? I won’t knock anything over, I promise. Oscar, can I have some juice? Oscar, what are you doing? Oscar, can I see? Oscar, I’m bored. Oscar, I wanna play with you.
He’d finally gotten him to decide on colouring, and once he was pretty sure that Lando was focused on his little drawings of blob monsters that looked suspiciously like the colour schemes of other teams, he said, “Hey, Lan, I’m just gonna go to the restroom real quick, okay?”
Lando slammed his sharpie into the paper, which definitely went through and stained the counter. “No!” he shouted, like Oscar had proposed something unthinkable. “No, stay with me? Please?”
It was endearing, certainly, but it wasn’t exactly up to him at this point. “Sorry, mate, I really have to go. I’ll be back in like, two minutes, yeah?”
Humming sadly, Lando asked, “Can I come and sit outside the door?”
“No, bud, you can’t.”
Lando hummed again, chewing on the bottom end of his sharpie, but he didn’t press the matter any further so Oscar slipped out of the chair and tried to be as fast as he could.
And, for the record, he was fast – he was pretty sure it hadn’t even been two minutes that he was gone. Somehow, in that time, Lando had slid out of his chair and made his way to the fridge, which he was searching through.
“Uh, Lando?” Oscar asked, paused in the doorway to the kitchen. “Whatcha looking for?”
“Snacks,” he replied, without turning around to face him. “You don’t have anything yummy.”
That was probably true – Oscar wasn’t exactly known for keeping the most well established, adult-like refrigerator. He had enough to get by, and that was good enough. That wasn’t really his problem, anyways. His trainers were supposed to help him take care of that.
“Ya just got…” Lando trailed off, holding out his hand and counting on his fingers slowly. “Cel’ry, ketch-ip, ‘omatoes, milk, and…” He flung open the freezer drawer, like it had just crossed his mind to check. “Ice cream?! You got ice cream?! Can I have some?!”
Maybe in a world where Oscar was a little bit better at this, or a little bit less overwhelmed by the entire situation, or a little bit less terrified of what the little whirlwind he’d suddenly found on his hands would do if he refused him, he would have said no. After all, if this was Lando normally, he didn’t think he wanted to see Lando on a sugar high.
But he wasn’t in any of those worlds, and he could only fight so many battles before he gave in.
So he sat Lando on the kitchen counter, watching him kick at the cabinets and hoping they wouldn’t scuff while he pulled the tub of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer and vowed to create the best sundae Lando had ever seen in his life. Because that was how it always went, with them – Lando would always ask for more than he should get and Oscar would always offer than he could give, like their lives depended on it.
“Hey, Osky?” Lando began, interrupting Oscar’s meticulous method of spooning perfect scoops of ice cream into the little glass bowl. “I really want light up sneakers.”
“Yeah?” Oscar hummed back absently. Osky was a new one. Well, an old one, really – no one had called him that since he was like, eight or nine, and certainly not Lando. He didn’t hate it.
“Yeah. D’ya think I can get some?”
“I don’t know, mate. I don’t know if the make them for-” He leaned over to tousle Lando’s hair, and he didn’t really know why. “I don’t know if they make them in your size, little man.”
“Awww,” Lando sighed, crossing his arms across his chest and looking so dejected that Oscar was worried he might genuinely start crying. “But I’d be so cool!”
“You’re already cool,” he tried, unsure if that was something he was in a position to decide or if it came from the light up sneaker hierarchy alone. Lando lit up immediately, which seemed promising for his attempt at avoiding disaster there.
“Think so?”
“I know so,” Oscar promised, feeling weird. It wasn’t that he minded this, not at all. It wasn’t that it bothered him, the way that Lando was staring at him with his eyes huge in complete and utter trust. It wasn’t a bad thing, at all, that Lando looked like he was soaking up every word he said desperately, frantic to make sure Oscar was having fun with him.
He just didn’t think he deserved it, really. All that trust and admiration was for someone else, and he was just stepping in because that someone else was abstract and imaginary, but he was stealing these emotions from them anyways and he didn’t know how to feel.
“Your ice cream’s ready,” he said, instead of addressing any of that at all. “But you either gotta eat at the table, or you have to let me go to the pantry to get paper towels because I do not want my whole kitchen all sticky.”
“Table,” Lando decided, far too hastily, launching himself off the counter and sitting at the table with a decisive drop onto the wooden chair. “And you sit with me.”
After placing the bowl down onto the table ceremoniously, Oscar sat down in the chair next to him, pretending his chest didn’t feel warm with an unidentifiable protective affection when Lando nodded happily. “Slow down, mate,” he chucked, “You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
“’m not,” Lando assured, sounding a bit sticky as ice cream coated his whole mouth and dotted the tip of his nose. “’m a pruh-fesh-oh-noll ice cream eater.” The moment he was finished, he pushed the bowl away from him and wiped his mouth on his hoodie sleeve, smearing vanilla ice cream across it. “Gonna go play tag, okay? With myself. Kay?”
He didn’t wait for a response, and Oscar rinsed out the ice cream bowl while Lando giggled and squealed and ran around the small apartment on the clearest sugar high Oscar had ever seen. Occasionally, he’d pass the kitchen door and shout into it, “You’re the best, Oscar!” or “I love ice cream!” or “I think the colour yellow might be sad that it’s not on any cars.”
Which was fun until, predictably, Oscar was right. As he usually was.
“Oskyyy,” Lando whined, coming up to the sofa that Oscar had settled himself onto and looking horribly betrayed. “My tummy hurts.”
Oscar sighed. “I know, buddy.”
“What?!” Lando had reached up to cover his forehead with both hands, and Oscar literally had no idea why. “How’d you know?” He squinted suspiciously. “Are you a evil mind reader?”
Fighting the urge to sigh again, Oscar shook his head affectionately. “Course not, mate. I know because I warned you this would happen.”
Lando deflated, hands dropping to his sides. “Oh, yeah. Well.” He dropped down onto the sofa next to Oscar, mirroring the way that Oscar had had his legs crossed underneath him. “I feel yucky.”
“I’m sure you do, buddy,” Oscar said, hoping his voice came off at least a little bit fonder than exasperated. “I’m gonna go get you a glass of water, yeah?” He patted Lando’s stomach lightly. “See if it calms things down in there?”
Lando nodded in agreement, but when Oscar stood to make his way back into the kitchen, he followed behind dutifully despite the obvious discomfort scrunched up in his face. “Lan,” Oscar paused, turning around. “Don’t you wanna sit on the sofa ‘til I get back? It’ll just be a minute, bear.”
He had no idea where that nickname had come from, but he didn’t have time to reflect on it before Lando was shaking his head so fast he was almost worried he’d make himself sick right there.
“No, no, no,” he argued, just as panicked as he’d been when Oscar had left for the bathroom. “’S okay. It doesn’ hurt that bad.” It clearly did, but Oscar wasn’t going to push it. Instead, he let Lando hover behind him while he filled a glass of water from the sink and walked it carefully back to the couch.
“You drink that,” he directed, sitting down. “Wanna watch a movie and cuddle ‘til you feel better, big man?” Oscar wasn’t distant, exactly – he wouldn’t say so anyways. But he didn’t initiate affection nearly as much as Lando would have liked, small or not, and he knew it. He wasn’t blind to the way that Lando’s face lit up before his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Really?” he asked, scowling defensively, hope huge in his eyes. “An’ you’ll stay the whole time? Even if you don’ like the movie or somethin’?”
“Course I will,” Oscar assured, sitting with his legs wide apart so that Lando could sit with his back against Oscar’s chest. The request hurt a little bit – the idea that he might just get up and leave if he didn’t like Lando’s seven-year-old movie choice. He kissed the back of Lando’s head before he could stop to think about it.
The movie started – Super Mario, Lando had chosen – and they were both fairly settled until Oscar realized his jacket was folded uncomfortably behind him and he shifted to fix it as though he was about to stand up. Instantly, Lando grabbed his arms on either side, turning halfway to face him.
Neither of them said anything, Oscar confused and Lando looking irrationally panicked, until Lando eventually turned back around, albeit a bit shakily. “Um,” he started, the first words he’d said, shockingly, since the movie had started. “C’you put your arms aroun’ me pease?”
Immediately, Oscar complied, wrapping his arms tightly around Lando and feeling his heartbeat slowly settle under him. Every so often, Lando would reach up to touch Oscar’s hand, as if he was just making sure they were still there, securely keeping him tucked against Oscar’s chest.
It had been sort of funny at first – cute, even – the way that Lando had been hopelessly attached him in his tiny mindset, the way that he didn’t want Oscar out of his sight even for a moment. But it had happened one time too many, and it was starting to form a pattern in his mind that he didn’t think he liked.
Reaching forward, making sure to keep one of his arms pressed firmly against Lando so he’d know he wasn’t really getting up, Oscar grabbed the remote and paused the film. “Lando, buddy, I think we gotta talk about something.”
Considering the way that he felt Lando’s chest hitch and heard each little shake in his voice when he responded, Oscar figured that perhaps that had been a terrible way to open the conversation. He wasn’t good at this – he’d never claimed to be. Once again, he felt horribly out of his depth.
“Oh…kay?” Lando agreed, his voice so small it was almost inaudible. It was so uncharacteristic for him, to sound tiny, or quiet, and for a moment Oscar worried that maybe he’d broken him forever. “’m I in trouble or somethin’?”
“No, no, no, no,” Oscar assured, and he didn’t really know where to go next. “No, course not, mate.” He took a deep breath. “Why does it scare you so bad when I have to leave for a minute?”
Lando frowned, dramatically, his hands clenching into little fists. “I’m not scared. I’m a really big boy.”
That was a fair point. Of course, he was a big boy. Of course, he “wasn’t scared.” God, it had been years since he’d talked to like, an actual kid.
“No, no, course not. You’re so brave, huh?” Lando preened a little under the praise, adorably, and nodded enthusiastically. “How come you don’t want me to leave so bad though?”
As if it was the most obvious thing in the world, Lando shrugged. “Cuz I love you?”
Oh. That was new. It wasn’t that he didn’t know that they loved each other, or that the whole world didn’t know they were best friends just as much as they did. It wasn’t that it hadn’t come out in other ways, like video games played well into the night or somber hair ruffles after hard races or a pack of Gatorades left on the doorstop during an illness. He knew Lando loved him, but he hadn’t actually ever said it, not with his whole chest like that.
So, it was certainly something to think about later, but not necessarily what he was trying to get at. “Lan, sweetheart,” he corrected gently. “I’m serious, bear. Why’s it upset you bad when I have to leave, if you know I’m coming back?”
Lando squished his face against Oscar’s shoulder and mumbled something that Oscar couldn’t make out whatsoever. “A little louder, bud?”
“I don’t know that.”
Carefully, Oscar breathed in and out. “Don’t know what, Lando?”
In his arms, Lando had hidden his face completely, his voice shaking and small. “I don’t know if you’re coming back?”
“Why wouldn’t I come back, darling?” he asked, feeling fragile, feeling like he was maybe hanging over the edge of a cliff knowing deep down that he was about to be thrown off. He didn’t know where inside of him all of these little nicknames were coming from, or why he kissed the back of Lando’s head in between sentences the way his mum had done when he was tiny himself.
Lando shrugged, but instead of letting his shoulders back down, he stayed hunched up and defensive. “m a lot. People’a told me. Lotsa times, so I know ‘s true.” His words were getting simpler and more slurred together as he spoke, and he was twisting his fingers clumsily around the fabric of his shirt. “’n if I getta be too noisy or ‘f I’m bad or somefin, you might’na wanna stay wif me.”
Oscar would never, ever have described himself as violent in any capacity, but he wasn’t quite sure he could stop himself if he ever came face to face with whoever had planted these ideas in Lando’s mind. “Woah,” he said softly, acknowledging the words before he’d really thought of what to say next. “Those are some pretty big, scary thoughts for such a little guy, huh?”
Shyly, Lando nodded. He scrubbed one of his eyes roughly with a hand clenched in a childish fist.
“But,” Oscar continued. “You wanna know a secret about scary thoughts?” Lando nodded again. “Most of the time? They’re just big, evil liars. Trying to get up in your head and scare you even though they’re not real.” He tickled Lando gently as he said the words, mimicking some sort of crawly monster, and he giggled softly.
“So ‘s not true?”
“Nope! Not even close to true. I think you’re perfect, just as you. Which means you’re never gonna make me want to leave you all by yourself.”
Lando seemed to ponder this for a moment, his lips pursed in thought dramatically. “Gonna come back?” he asked, seemingly his final question.
“Always.” Oscar poked his nose with the word. “Always going to come back, bear.”
There was definitely more to be said about it, more to address about why he was so terrified of such a simple thing and who had convinced him of something like that and whether he was thinking that he was too much all the time and just hadn’t said anything.
But he was pretty certain that was going to be a conversation for another day. He wasn’t really sure how any of this worked, but he was pretty sure Lando had gotten smaller somehow, almost a baby in his lap. If he’d seemed maybe six or seven years old to begin with, he couldn’t have been older than two or three now.
Oscar had noticed it happening gradually; his words getting younger and less intelligible, his logic getting simpler and more vulnerable, his eyes opening wider and his expressions sillier. But now it was impossible to miss - apparently contented with the answers Oscar had provided, he settled back down against him and began sucking on the fabric of his sleeve, making gentle little noises with it every so often.
He was almost diagonal in his arms, his head nearly in Oscar’s elbow and his legs on the sofa on the other side of him as if he was being held laying down.
“Getting smaller, huh, baby?” He asked, fondly, tucking one of Lando’s curls back. It hadn’t really been in the way of anything, but it had felt like the right thing to do.
“Nuh-uh,” Lando protested, pressing his face against Oscar’s sleeve. “’m not.”
“Of course,” Oscar allowed good-naturedly. He made a comically exaggerated face, as though he was planning something incredibly complicated. “So if I were to, like, maybe, I don’t know, put some milk in a nice big sippy cup, you wouldn’t want it then, would you?”
Instead of responding in any sort of words, Lando let out a tiny, embarrassed squeak, and Oscar kissed his head before moving to lay him down on the sofa so he could stand up. “I thought so,” he said, nothing but warmth and affection in his voice. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart, promise.”
Lando must have been tiny, or else extremely sleepy – or perhaps both – because he hardly even reacted, just curling up tighter and putting his sleeve back in is mouth while he waited for Oscar to come back.
When he returned a few moments later with his closest approximation to a sippy cup that any grown man would have in his apartment – one of those Gatorade-branded squeeze water bottles that he’d found underneath his counter and rinsed out with hot water and hoped that would be enough – Lando was still curled up with his eyes half-closed.
“Alright,” Oscar greeted softly, so he wouldn’t startle him. “Sit up for me, bear, so we can get cozy again, yeah?”
Sleepily, Lando let himself be guided back into Oscar’s arms, after he’d situated himself in his seat and unpaused the movie. Oscar tried to offer him the bottle of milk, but Lando made no move to lift his head off Oscar’s shoulder or to move his arms from where they were clenched gently around his shirt.
“Lando, baby, you don’t want it?” Oscar asked, holding up and shaking it to get his attention.
Lando nodded, just barely. “You,” he explained, as if Oscar would understand anything he said. Which was fair, because Oscar always would, and he felt warmth explode within his chest at the simple request full of trust and vulnerability and love.
“Of course, sweetheart,” he agreed easily, tilting it up at the right angle and letting Lando drink at it slowly as his eyes closed. He leaned down to kiss Lando’s forehead, and he hummed contentedly around the bottle at it. “You’re sleepy, huh,” Oscar commented, smiling when Lando hummed again. “Go to sleep then, yeah? I’ll still be here when you wake up. I promise. I’m never going anywhere.”
And Lando was asleep immediately, safe and protected in Oscar’s arms.