#oopslandiia

It's quiet after, in the way it always is.

Lando is busy curling into Max's side, kissing at the damp skin of Max's jaw. Oscar has to pull his eyes away when Max turns to whisper sweet-nothings into Lando's hair.

He can hear a soft, "good. You were so good. Proud of you", and it makes him ache.

If you asked Oscar how this whole… thing started, he doesn't think he'd be able to tell you. There had always been some sort of tension. Between the rushed handjobs behind motorhomes during Max and Oscar's F3 days, and the way Lando was constantly trying to eye-fuck Oscar, something was always bound to happen. He just… doesn't remember when it became this.

Oscar slides himself out of their bed. Their. Max and Lando's. Just big enough for two. There was no room for three. The thought makes him want to vomit.

On shaky legs, Oscar starts to rummage around, searching for his discarded clothes. The air of the bedroom is hot and sticky. Oscar wishes they'd opened a window or something, but Lando hates when his skin prickles and he's shivering in the middle of sex.

Oscar hates that he knows that about him. He hates that he knows that Lando's back usually aches after they get done and that Max likes to be spooned. He hates that he knows where they keep the chocolate stash for particularly intense scenes and he hates the way his stomach pits and swoops and the way it feels like he's seconds from throwing up. He hates—

"Osc?"

Oscar's head snaps up from where he's bent over, underwear in hand. He finds Lando's eyes, fluffy brows pinched tight as he watches Oscar. "What are you doing?"

He sounds small, if a bit vulnerable. He got like that sometimes, when the session put him in a place he wasn't prepared to go to. He knew what that felt like. Sometimes, Max and Lando both would gang up on him, make him come until he was sobbing and degrade him. Humiliate him until he was gasping on each breath. Then, they'd put him back together and he'd carry himself home, shower until his skin was raw, and crawl into bed.

He hated feeling like that. He hated the thought of Lando feeling like that.

Oscar hated a lot of things about this arrangement.

Most of all, he hated how looking at Max and Lando, together, without him, made his chest ache something awful.

"I—" he starts, unsure. Oscar stands up straight, but his shoulders hunch in when Max turns to look at him, too. He feels too scrutinized. Too seen. "I was just grabbing my things… Was gonna head out…"

Lando looks like Oscar had slapped him, curling soft and small into Max's chest. Oscar curls his hand into a fist, digging his nails into his palm.

"Oh," Lando whispers. Oh. Oscar feels like the biggest piece of shit ever. "Okay."

Max looks between them, able to sense that something isn't quite being said.

"Oscar, pal," he starts, adjusting the way he's got his arm around Lando. They fall into one another so easily, it makes him feel sick with want. Oscar has to look away from them again. He slips his briefs up his legs, skin tacky with dried sweat and a bit of lube between his cheeks. He doesn't care, he just wants to stop feeling so… exposed.

"Oscar, look at me."

Oscar's always been a weak man.

He finds Max's eyes, shining with something he wants to say but isn't sure how to ask for it.

"You know you can stay, right?" Max asks the question as if Oscar were a cornered animal, cautious and unassuming. For a brief moment, Oscar supposes he is like that. He feels ready to bolt. He was going to bolt up until Lando had called his name.

His eyes find the place where Max's free hand is rubbing up and down Lando's bare arm. The movement is almost mesmerizing and he's almost one-hundred-percent sure it would knock him out.

You know you can stay, right? And, oh. Isn't that just Oscar's problem? He doesn't know that he can stay. Hasn't known since this whole thing began.

At first, when they were done, Lando and Max would look at him, thank him with a smile, and ask, "you can let yourself out, right?" It had stung then, just as it does now.

Except, now, Oscar isn't being politely kicked out. He can feel it every time he lingers in their bed for just a bit too long. Lando has octopus arms, wanting to be plastered to someone's side—says he needs it—and has no problem clinging to Oscar when Max has gone to the bathroom to grab a wet rag. He'd be an absolute liar if he said he didn't relish in it.

Sometimes, when things went too far and Oscar had been thrown so off-kilter he couldn't find his feet, he liked to bury his face in Lando's chest and let Max slide in behind him. He liked feeling cared for in a way he was too afraid to let himself.

Oscar kept those feelings locked in a box, though. Pushed it far, far into the back of his mind and piled it with other things. Important things. Things he was allowed to want.

Max shifts again, making Lando whine. It brings Oscar back to reality, just a bit.

"Uh, yeah…" He scratches his neck, cringing at the way his hair is sweaty and sticking to his skin. He needs a haircut. Oscar needs a lot of things. "Yeah, I know…"

"So, why're you not staying?"

Lando says it like Oscar had personally offended him. Oscar tries to keep his face neutral.

"I really should go…"

It earns him a strangled noise, Lando wriggling out of Max's arms to crawl down the bed. He's still naked, but Max had wiped him down with a warm washcloth. It doesn't keep his skin from glowing, pearly and pretty under the warm lamplight. Oscar tries not to stare when he finds his t-shirt.

He needs to leave. He has to go. He has no place here. Their bed has no more room for him. He has no place—.

Lando's hand wraps around Oscar's wrist, warm and wide and heavy. Oscar sucks in a sharp breath, shoulders hunched as he stares at their hands. "Osc," Lando mutters, trying to find the taller boy's eyes. "We're asking you to stay."

"Why?"

He doesn't mean for it to come out that way—harsh. Cold. Lando looks pained once more and Oscar really needs to leave before he does something else to ruin this.

"What d'you mean why? We're asking you to stay, isn't that enough?" Lando's voice trembles, just the slightest, as he answers. Max starts to move, sitting behind Lando. He wraps an arm around his chest, keeping him from falling face first onto the floor.

Oscar doesn't understand. They aren't getting it. They aren't seeing it from his point of view.

Max frowns, hand splayed across Lando's chest. "We want you to stay, mate." There's a soft furrow between his eyebrows and Oscar wants nothing more than to smooth it out, kiss him there, whisper for him not to worry.

Now, Oscar really doesn't understand. He swallows, jaw twinging with the ache of it. He'd had Lando shoved in his throat for nearly thirty minutes while Max teased him. Oscar closes his eyes, trying to scrub the thought from his brain.

He rubs his hands over his face, pushing the heels of his palms against his eyes. He misses the rough callouses of Lando's fingers almost immediately.

"I don't—" he starts, then stops, taking in a sharp breath. He tries to gather his thoughts, searching for the right things to say. He doesn't think there are any right things to say. "We aren't… We don't do that."

The words hang for a second, heavy and thick. Oscar feels like he's trying to swallow down chalk.

Then, "we don't. But, we could."

Max looks so earnest when he says, glancing between Oscar and Lando. Oscar watches the way the hand on Lando's chest tightens, the skin under his fingers turns a bit pink.

Oscar feels like throwing up. It feels like too much. Everything feels too big for his body.

"Oscar, we want to. We want to do this. With you."

The chalky feeling starts to lessen when Lando shuffles forward again, enough to rest one foot on the ground. Enough to grab both of Oscar's hands this time. Oscar takes a deep breath, letting his eyes trail over both of them.

"But, there's no room…" It's his turn to speak softly, chin tucked to his chest. He fiddles with the t-shirt in his hand, unsure, but wanting. He wants them both so badly. "On the bed…"

"So we'll get a new one."

"Yeah, a bigger one. To fit all of us."

Max slips off the bed to stand in front of Oscar, trying to find his eyes as he looks at the floor.

"Look at me, baby. Look at us."

Oscar feels the warmth in his belly at the sweet name. It makes it easy to look at them again. He wants to melt with the way Lando is looking at him, like he could say a thousand things with his eyes that his mouth can't.

It clicks for Oscar, then.

"Are you sure?"

Lando coos, sliding one of his hands up into Oscar's hair. He cups his neck, bringing him closer.

"Why d'you think we've been taking so long with the aftercare lately, ya muppet?"

Oscar's cheeks pinken, suddenly shy. He whines, something pathetic. Max laughs, something sweet and so, so fond. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Max lets his knuckles across those pink cheeks, tender. "Didn't want to scare you… You might think you're hard to read, but we can see when you're trying to run. We noticed every time."

"But, at the beginning… You didn't—"

Lando interrupts him with a sigh, rolling his eyes. "Oscah, mate, there's currently cum dripping out of my arse and you wanna talk semantics? Just get in the fricken' bed…" Oscar feels sheepish, but he feels softened. All of his prickly edges felt like they'd been snicked off.

"Didn't know you knew that word, Lando," Oscar teases, letting his hand slip a bit to tangle his fingers with Lando's. It gets a chuckle out of Max and makes Lando tug on his hair. Oscar can't stop his face from splitting wide and warm, smile too big to contain.

"You fricken' muppet… Give me about an hour… Puttin' that mouth back to good use."

Oscar giggles when Lando pulls his hands away and turns around, muttering under his breath about Oscar "being an ungrateful, little brat", and how he's "gonna show him."

Max cups Oscar's cheek now, and the smile shrinks, but it doesn't lose any of its brightness. Max's hands aren't nearly as big as Lando's, but they're just as comforting. Just as loved.

"Want me to crack the window?" he asks, quiet. Oscar's eyes shine with something he thinks might look like love when Max asks. His own fingers wrap delicately around Max's wrist, head turning to kiss his palm.

Then his wrist.

His shoulder.

Then, eventually, Oscar holds Max's cheek in his hand and kisses him.

The dance floor is crowded, a crush of hot, perspiring bodies blending into one another, making it impossible to determine where one person ends and another begins. The music is so loud the floor beneath them is vibrating with the bass; a not unpleasant scent of sweat, deodorant and strong spirits mixing in the air with overpriced perfumes that Max probably couldn’t pronounce the names of.

It’s a lot, every single one of his senses sparked, the messiest club night he’s been to in a while.

But Lando is World Champion, so of course it is. 

The entire place is filled with people all here to celebrate him, and he’s been basking in the glow of the attention all night; being passed around on the shoulders of others, sticky shot glasses shoved into his hands and poured directly from the bottle into his mouth.

Max has been content to sit back, let Lando have his moment. Never too far away, though; always there in the peripheral, ready to step in when someone got too handsy or Lando inevitably sought him out with a whine of his name. 

Now, though, Max has a direct view of Lando across the room, pressed up against the wall with his mouth locked on Magui’s in an eager kiss. 

It feels like the crowd of people on the dance floor have parted automatically, like the Red Sea, intent on giving Max the best view in the house. 

His hand spasms around the glass in his hand, fingertips collecting the condensation dripping down the sides. 

It’s stupid.

He feels stupid.

Nothing about the image should be surprising or abnormal to him. Hell, he’s watched this very scene play out a hundred times before, and it’s never — it’s never made his gut roll like it is tonight. It’s never had this throat closing down like he might suffocate himself from the sheer pressure of it. 

There’s always been a twinge of something. Jealousy, maybe, but he doesn’t let himself put a name to it really, because that would be — bad. Blurring lines they’d drawn in the sand years ago. 

But this feels more. Worse. Impossible. 

Lando’s World Champion and of course he wants to celebrate with his girlfriend, but Max wishes he wanted to celebrate with him more. 

Again, it’s stupid. And selfish. And entirely codependent in a way that they definitely are but would never acknowledge.

He has a brief, mad thought about going over there, getting in between them. Causing a scene. Kissing Lando straight on the mouth in front of everyone, better than Magui ever could.

It’s definitely a fucking mental thought. At least he knows that. The initial idea sends a hot rush up his spine but it’s immediately doused with the cold shock of the reality of it.

He’s never wanted to, like — claim Lando in public or anything like that, not before. It’s — it’s not what they do. This casual, mess of a situation they’ve gotten themselves into that neither of them can seem to escape. And he couldn’t, anyway, would never put Lando at risk like that. He’s a public figure in an unkind sport.

It’s not worth thinking about.

Especially given that it’s clearly nowhere near what Lando wants. He looks more than happy right now, body pressed so close to Magui’s that there’s not an inch of air between them, still licking into each other's mouths. He has an arm slung low behind her waist; both of hers crossed at the back of his neck. 

They look — right. Perfect. Magui is the epitome of a wag, really, a model with girl next door looks, a golden tan that accentuates Lando’s, sun-lightened hair and straight teeth. Perhaps most importantly, she’s a woman.

It’s a pretty necessary prerequisite after all.

Next to Lando, she fits into place like the last piece in a puzzle. Just so.

Max swallows the last of his drink and blames his grimace on that. Ed’s at his side in an instant, replacing his empty glass with a full one, and Max is thankful for the distraction. Tears his gaze away from where they’ve been pinned for an embarrassingly long time and lets their friends drag him into the swell, losing himself in the music and the people for as long as he can manage. 

Later, when the night is crawling into the early hours of the morning and the masses have thinned out, Lando finds him, just like he always does. They’re down to the last dregs of people, just them and their closest friends; even Magui is long gone now, back to the hotel with a round of sweeping cheek kisses for all of them.

It stings a bit, that Max knows Lando’s only here now because he hasn’t got a better option. 

He’s clingy, like he always is when he’s had too much to drink. Plastered to Max’s side like a limpet, body radiating heat all the way through Max’s bones. There’s one arm across his shoulders, another sliding across the slight swell of his belly, and it’s all a bit much, really. 

No one bats an eyelid because it’s them, and they’re used to it. Max isn’t sure how he feels about that. 

“Max,” Lando whines his name, breath warm where it tickles the side of Max’s throat. He’s got his head pressed into the crook of Max’s neck, resting on his shoulder. 

It’s impossible, really, for Max not to lean into it, inadvertently flooding his nose with the scent of whatever ridiculously expensive and fancy hair products Lando is using these days. The curls brush against his nose briefly, until Lando squirms, pushing closer until he’s halfway onto Max’s lap.

“Bob,” Max sighs, grits his teeth against the wave of want. “Chill out, would you?”

Lando pouts at him. The plush cushion of his lower lip is terribly inviting. “Don’t be mean, it’s my night.”

“Not being mean,” Max replies, patient as ever. He kind of wants to be mean, to be honest. “Just don’t need you hanging all over me like this, do I?”

“You don’t usually complain.” It should be funny, how sullen Lando’s tone is. Like a child, really. 

Max rolls his eyes. “I do, actually. You just never listen.”

It’s true. Max is hyper aware of their surroundings at all times because Lando rarely is — especially when he’s loose and inebriated like this. Max is the one who worries about the cameras, the reporters, the fans willing to sell a story for some quick cash. He protects Lando. Always has, always will. 

Lando makes a nose of complaint, but then he’s leaning back down and in, brushing his nose across the line of Max’s jaw.

Max’s breath catches. “Bob.” 

A warning. His eyes flicker around the room, but nobody is paying them any attention. If anything, he’d say their friends are purposely giving them space, pretending that whatever is going on isn’t.

It makes him want to laugh, something more hollow than real. God, they’re so fucking obvious, aren’t they?

“Let me come back with you,” Lando says suddenly, pulling back to blink at Max through half lidded eyes. He sounds breathless already, and Max feels a pang of fond desire. “To your hotel.”

Max hums, like he’s considering it. They both know he’s not, that he’s already made up his mind like always, that he’d never deny Lando. But it’s a game they play — or that Max plays and Lando goes along with, kind enough to make believe that Max would ever say anything other than yes.

“I don’t know,” he says, even as he’s already chubbing up in his jeans. “What about —“

He doesn’t say her name; doesn’t have to.

Lando has the decency to look guilty for only a second, before it’s replaced with something else. He waves his hand around. “It’s fine, she’s — she’s got an early flight out anyway.” 

Like that makes it all okay. Like they’d be doing her a favor.

Again, Max wants to laugh at the absurdity of it. But Lando’s back to squirming where he’s sat on one of his thighs, fingers massaging Max’s stomach just under the hem of his shirt, and he’s weak really, is Max.

He just wants. He wants so badly.