Work Text:
«I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.»
“I didn’t think you’d show up.”
Oscar is pleased when he notices the slightest surprise on Lando’s face, a faint twitch in his lower lip that turns almost instantly into a small grin, and he almost has fun at acting up like the toughest guy in town as he nudges the opposite chair with his foot, inviting him to take a seat. The ice cream parlor is busy at this hour of the day, the afternoon hot and stuffy and the sun beating down on the billowing parasols, creating the most idyllic mediterranean dreamscape – he can’t help but think how on point the whole scene is. Romantic, even. Fitting.
“That’s rich, officer. It took you a lot to show up,” Lando says as he drags his chair, his skin glowing golden - and even darker - in the bright sunlight. He looks better than the last time Oscar has seen him, when Lando had broken into his house just to say his last goodbyes and then go M.I.A for months, leading Oscar to think he had been-
killed.
He takes a casual lick to his gelato, hoping to create enough diversion for Lando not to see through his stupid act. His heart leaps in his throat nonetheless; Lando looks so otherworldly beautiful, so fucking handsome in his sleeveless t-shirt and rugged shorts, his muscular legs obscenely naked, splayed in front of him under the table.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been…busy, during your last killing spree.”
It’s not entirely an excuse. A lot can happen in eight months, especially when you’re a law enforcer trying not to get killed by a mysterious syndicate specialized in high profile murders. A lot can change. Lando looks changed. He looks more mature, though Oscar could never actually believe it. It’s merely a matter of physical features. He has a little beard now, a short goatee that compliments his face so well, and Oscar might suffer from an early onset of PTSD fueling a renowned determination, but that’s not the reason why they’re here. Not the only one, at least.
“You’re not planning to order me an ice cream? You owe me one, at least. I called for you, no, I screamed for you in Amsterdam and you didn’t come.”
Oscar sighs, politely calling for a waiter and placing Lando’s order, a tremendously decadent cup with maraschino cherries, chocolate, whipped cream and salted caramel chips topped with white chocolate sauce. It’s sickly sweet but this, too, is extremely fitting.
“That's where you're wrong,” he says, trying his best not to sound too invested. “I got to Amsterdam. Just a little too late. They forwarded your message a week later, you know? Not everyone is privy to…well, whatever this is, Lando. ”
Amsterdam has been a management fiasco, to be quite honest, something that still sets Oscar’s teeth on edge with utter frustration. The killing had been a clean one, of course, Lando is never sloppy on the job, but the tiny origami crane tucked inside the Armani jacket of the victim had reached Oscar's crammed desk only four days later, unfolded, the baby blue paper scribbled with letters so small he had needed a magnifying lens to decipher the message.
A poison tree, by Blake, handwritten in smooth black ink, still carrying the faintest trace of vanilla and coffee – Oscar's heart had raced for days afterwards.
The same waiter that's waltzing between rows of elegant wrought iron tables puts an obscenely big cup in front of Lando and an ashtray at the center of the table that makes Oscar want to light a cigarette right away, albeit being more than just aware that he should quit. He has picked up the habit recently. If anything, it’s a sign that his mental health is spiraling, as if insomnia and a slight, creeping paranoia weren’t enough.
Lando flashes him a toothy grin before diving into his gelato, immediately smearing his upper lip with chocolate sauce that he licks clean with his devilish tongue. Oscar feels some sort of secondhand embarrassment towards his own reaction, only partly concealed by the sunglasses covering his face.
“You look good, officer…”
Lando’s lips are indecently plush, indecently pink against his sunkissed skin. Oscar’s cock twitches in his shorts, and he tries to tell himself that it’s fine, it’s just a physical response, it’s just how his body is supposed to react in front of something so lewd as seeing Lando make a mess out of his face while eating some ice cream in a sunny parlor, while tourists stroll around placidly in their inappropriate clothes and ostentatious raffia hats – it shouldn’t feel as nice as it feels, but Oscar can’t escape the fact that it’s the most peaceful he has felt in months, and somehow he can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that he is where he should be, sitting across Lando, with no threats in sight apart from the obvious.
Mutually assured destruction, that’s what they promised each other. Now more than ever, Oscar is determined to honor his end of the bargain.
“You too, for a dead man.”
Lando scoffs gently, sticking his tongue out to catch a small caramel chip stuck at the corner of his lips. Oscar sucks at the swirl of pistachio ice cream rising from his cone, savoring the small shiver he elicits by being just a little over the edge, a little too unhinged – Lando Norris’ perfect creation.
As it turns out, Lando is not the only one seeing through his soul. Oscar has got there gradually, day by day, obsessed with finding any meaning, anything that could unravel the mystery of lando Norris while, at the same time, maintaining a profile low enough not to have his badge and standard gun confiscated. And the mystery, at some point during a very tedious, rainy spring, had unraveled right when Oscar was jamming a key into a guy’s jugular vein: he wants me to be like him. He wants me to be his equal. When the guy had stopped squirming and gurgling, Oscar had felt strangely calm. He had vomited then, nausea overcoming him in painful fits, but the realization of being the only creature who could matter to Lando had been far more shocking than killing a highly trained assassin in an alley after a twelve hour shift.
“What, were you worried about me? I can take care of myself splendidly, as you can see, officer.”
Oscar shakes his head. He’d lie if he said that he didn’t miss Lando’s slightly mocking tone, but he’s sure he’ll have the last laugh, provided that he doesn’t throw his shot away.
“As much as you were worried about me. So, tell me: how did you survive? Last time I saw you, you had a target on your back. You don’t clear it off easily…”
“Curious much?”
“A little, yes.”
Lando takes a big scoop of thick, creamy chocolate ice cream, outstretching his hand to feed it to Oscar, directly into his mouth. “Open wide,” he winks, and despite shaking his head in disbelief, Oscar obliges, the ice cream melting over his tongue like the filthiest kiss, Lando’s smug look making something break loose into his stomach.
“I did exactly what you did,” he chirps, jabbing his knife into Oscar’s wound oh so delightfully. “With a little more panache, of course, but I got my hands dirty and showed the right people that I could still be valuable, despite being a little rogue. I also reminded them that I was shaped to be exactly like this, so…bygones.”
Shaped. Is this what Lando is doing to him? Shaping and polishing? Building anew?
Sharpening, perhaps.
Oscar is now a blade, a polished dagger, the thin edge of a razor, even though the hand brandishing him isn’t exactly the steadiest. Lando would see it in his eyes, if he wasn’t wearing any sunnies. He would be proud of himself, of course, the smug creature he is. Always thinking of himself as the smartest person in the room, never questioning whether he should watch out for someone who could parallel him in determination. He takes a deep, calming breath. Under the table, Lando kicks his shoes off, his right foot nudging into Oscar’s calf.
“Back in the business full time?”
“So it seems. Well, you found my message. Was it any good? You liked it?”
A weird, misplaced giddiness washes over Oscar when he notices how barely contained Lando’s excitement is. He wants Oscar to compliment him. He wants his praise, his devotion, maybe even his love, and Oscar has finally found out how to use it against him, though he would never defy him openly. He is perhaps doing something a little too bold already, but he’s not stupid enough to challenge an assassin to his own game, he likes being alive despite everything that has happened since he has first met Lando, he likes breathing, talking, walking, existing. He won’t lose this due to some stupid miscalculation spawned by the fact that he still thinks about Lando while he’s going about his business in the shower, unable to get the smell of vanilla and coffee out of the deepest recesses of his mind. It’s been a constant companion in the past months. It’s like Lando has latched onto his skin and he has never been able to scrub it away, no matter how many scalding hot showers he took, nor how diligently he rubbed at his already raw skin.
Every story needs a good closure, though, and Oscar is ready to give his own a proper grand finale. He offers his naked skin to Lando’s foot, sinking into the chair as he fishes for his cigarettes, the battered pack buried in his front pocket, alongside a lighter he has brought in a tabaccheria facing the sea.
“It was…enlightening. Thank you for that. Would you like a smoke?”
Lando flashes him a chocolatey smile.
“We should both quit,” he remarks, taking the cigarette he’s offered and placing it right between his front teeth, gently biting on the filter.
“I thought about you quite a lot,” Oscar says, Lando’s pupils going wide and dark as his words resonate deep within him. He knows he has scratched his itch, finding the perfect spot after the first try, because something in his face softens impossibly, and nobody could ever feign that kind of profound compassion, not if the person in question is Lando. He chronically lacks it but, as Oscar assumes, it’s part of his charm.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Who’s your informant?”
Lando’s left eyebrow shoots upwards, and he clicks his tongue loudly, shaking his head.
“You disappoint me, officer. You should ever give your informants away, right? It’s in your textbook, I think. A golden rule.”
“I should be surprised you give a fuck about my textbook. But you do, when it suits your agenda, right?”
Lando smiles, slow and pleased, certain of being the one with an effective leverage. They light their cigarettes together, Oscar’s gaze looking past the crowded, sunny piazza, the smell of salt and sunscreen hanging heavy in the air.
“I missed you. I should have reached out for you sooner.”
Now, Oscar would be very eager to ask him why he hasn’t, in fact, but he knows he’d only get half truths out of him, if not blatant lies. Lando could look at him dead in the eyes and tell him the most absurd story ever concocted without hesitating once, keeping his act as sharp as an arrow and sounding the most convincing while trying to sell him that he’s been abducted by unicorns, or some equally ludicrous bullshit. So he shrugs, taking a quiet, deliberately graceful drag from his cigarette, and munching on the soggy wafer of his cone, sucking at the pistachio ice cream trapped inside the intricate design of the dough. The foot playing with his calf gets even more insistent, climbing up to his knee and pushing forward, past the hem of his shorts, to rub against the soft, hairless skin of his inner thigh.
“You must have had your reasons not to. Besides, as I told you, I had my hands quite full.”
Lando’s lips quiver but instead of saying something, he just scrunches his nose in a pleased, catlike expression, his gelato melting fast in the humid heat.
“So? Your place or mine, officer? ”
For once, Oscar has an answer ready.
“Mine. The room has a nice sea view.”
He doesn’t miss the wolfish grin on Lando’s face, but he’s not going to waste his only chance at freedom. They leave together, shoulder to shoulder, taking the seaside promenade, Lando’s scent mixed with that of the salt, their fingers brushing casually as they walk. Oscar, to his peace of mind. Lando, to a trap he doesn’t know anything about. But it is, in the end, his own doing. He made Oscar into something different, something akin to himself – and God created Adam in his image.
Something inside Oscar’s lower belly stirs pleasantly.
Sweetheart, know your monster.
***
“It’s hard to start rebuilding.”
Oscar tips his head backwards, his eyes closed. Sunlight pools across the polished floors, the big window open to let the salty, warm breeze in. He knows he should close it, with the A/C running on full blast to make the temperatures more bearable, but he has recently rediscovered his ancient habit of basking in the sun, his naked feet propped up the footboard of the bed, Lando’s warmth radiating off him as if he’s clad in the sun itself.
He doesn’t believe in any God whatsoever, but he silently asks for forgiveness nonetheless. He knows Lando would never go as far as forgiving him, after what he has planned so carefully to do, but he feels like needing a little bit of absolution.
“What do you mean?”
He cracks one eye open. Lando is watching him intently, his gaze a mossy, bright gray. It reminds him of the leaden clouds back in the UK, of the polished steel of a blade, silver, silver, silver.
“You destroyed my life,” he calmly answers, taking his sweet time not out of cowardice but out of something deeper, something he can’t actually wrap his head around, because it’s not love, it’s not hate, it’s something in between, something infinitely more complicated to navigate – not that he wants to navigate shit right now, but he had to acknowledge it, sooner or later, if only for his own sake.
Lando lets out an uncharacteristic humorless laugh.
“That’s bullshit, officer. I gave you purpose.”
You gave me a long lasting headache, he would like to rebuff, but he doesn’t, waving his hand noncommittally, letting Lando snatch it to examine his fingers one by one.
“I hope you’re satisfied, now that you have my undivided attention.”
“Undivided attention, officer? Careful, someone could mistake that for a love confession.”
Oscar’s heart trips in his chest.
“Would you?” His lips quiver slightly over whispered words. He doesn’t know how to name the sense of sudden breathlessness gripping at his throat, but for once he’s not venturing out to search for useless meaning. Lando was right on something, at least: his obsession with finding meaning is obnoxious, at times. It took him to almost get killed - and kill as an extreme measure - to realize it. Naturally, Lando doesn’t grace him with a clear answer. He chuckles, bringing out his childish dimples in full force, and drapes a leg across his thighs, visibly inhaling his scent.
To Lando, he must smell of something, even though he’s not a fan of perfumes and cologne, the only exception being his deodorant, which he hasn’t changed since his early teens. He wonders what smells Lando picks up on his skin; sunscreen, maybe. Shower gel. Burnt tobacco. Lando, on the contrary, is always carrying his signature scent with him. Coffee and vanilla – as girlish as it might sound, it compliments his golden caramel skin so perfectly that Oscar has long stopped wondering if it’s a kids fragrance of some sorts, the ones that you can find paired with Barbie shampoos or something like that.
“Would you run away with me if I asked you politely?”
Now it’s Oscar’s turn to evade the question. He kisses Lando instead, hard, his grip around the other man’s chin strong enough to bruise.
Thighs get heated pretty fast, and it doesn’t take him long to straddle Lando on the plush mattress, taking in every moan and purr Lando lets out directly into his mouth, so unhinged and feral and beautiful that Oscar wishes he could tear him apart – and let Lando do the same to him, again and again, as if it hasn’t happened countless times before.
Allowing Lando to fuck him is like having his skin peeled from his face, inch by inch. It’s like pouring salt over a wound that keeps bleeding, like rubbing sand on an open sore – it will fester, sooner or later, if Oscar doesn’t sort his shit out on time, just like he has planned. He’s on a schedule, though Lando isn’t privy to any of that.
Naked, Lando is a vision. His muscles lean, toned and defined without being comically beefy, his build graceful, proportionate, the skin glistening under direct sunlight – Oscar licks at a rivulet of sweat running down his chest, on the soft line of his left pectoral, and sucks at his dark nipple until Lando is grinding against his ass beneath him, begging for some friction.
Power.
Sex is power and sweat and flesh. It’s the cutting, violent worship of his tongue exploring Lando’s body, dotted with translucent scars he hasn’t noticed before but that stand out now that he’s got a summer tan. Small cuts across his upper abdomen, where his muscles twitch right under the skin. The scar Oscar himself has given him, which looks sensibly better than how it looked right after Montmartre, even if the skin is still pink and thin, smooth as he traces it with the tip of his tongue, watching Lando fist the sheets while erupting in a lewd throaty sound, blood surging where he nipped at his plush lower lip with his sharp teeth.
No guns and knives involved, this time. Just two bodies entangled and sweaty, fingers gripping at each other, drawing purple marks in the hollow of Oscar’s hips, his bitten nails digging half-moon indents into Lando’s muscular shoulders.
“Run away with me.”
“Where to?”
“The Canaries. Greece. I don’t fucking care. Some stupid island in the Atlantic. Patagonia.”
Oscar kneels down on Lando’s dick and he forgets about the Canaries entirely. Or Greece, for what it’s worth. He’s not fully prepared, Lando was a little too impatient to open him up properly, and the pain shooting through him is surprisingly stinging, searing hot, it almost knocks all the wind out of him, making his eyes tear up at the corners. He’s grateful for the long moment of stillness that follows, trying to breathe through each abrupt spasm in his quivering muscles, closing around Lando rhythmically and making the both of them see stars while his body adjusts to the sudden intrusion.
When he feels bold enough to start bouncing tentatively, Oscar closes his eyes, tears now spilling over his face in salty, prickly rivulets, and he submits himself to the flow, tipping his head towards the ceiling and moaning until his throat runs uncomfortably dry, chanting Lando’s name again and again, holding his hands down on him with such force he could shatter his own bones – that’s exactly how it feels. Shattering. One last time worth remembering, if anything, a parting gift made out of violence and broken promises and empty threats. He gets caught in a tangle of pain, pleasure, grief and ecstasy. The room spins around him, and spins, and spins as he comes with an agonizing jerk of his hips, spilling cum all over Lando’s chest, his orgasm hitting him in a crescendo of powerful waves.
For a while, neither of them has the strength to move. He collapses onto Lando like a crumbling tower, trying to regain a modicum of control on his overworked lungs, his breath coming out in shallow gasps. Lando wraps his arms around him, and Oscar is pleased to see that he, too, has come out of their scrimmage a tousled mess, sweaty and shaky, his muscles turned into jelly and his heartbeat a frantic thing thumping away under Oscar’s cheek.
He doesn’t really feel weirded out by such sort of intimacy. At this point, he and Lando share far more than the cuddly aftermath of a glorious fuck, which wouldn’t affect their relationship whatsoever. Oscar thinks about the Last Supper. He doesn’t know whether to place his sympathy on Jesus or on Judas, given the role he’s about to play in shaping Lando’s future.
Sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do. He has lost count of how many times he has heard that but, ultimately, there were no other options on the scale; it was either Lando’s capture or his death, and thinking about the latter leaves a sour taste in the back of his mouth – he finds it rather unacceptable to envision Lando dead by the hands of anyone else but him, even if it would mean that Lando has accomplished his mission of turning Oscar into his specular twin.
“Your thinking is loud, officer…”
Lando sounds positively breathless. His big hand comes to rest over Oscar’s nape and his fingers tug just so, edging on the brink of uncomfortable before turning into a mindless stroking. Oscar tries to do his math and calculate how much time he has left, but he reckons that five minutes of peace won’t affect the end result. His eyelids flutter close and he allows himself the luxury of sighing contentedly into Lando’s chest, savoring his personal Last Supper like a martyr ready for the Cross.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he retorts softly, without real bite. “I’m not thinking. I’m just…enjoying the moment while it lasts.”
For a split second, Lando’s gentle hold around him stiffens possessively and it’s only when he realizes he is squeezing Oscar’s ribs a little bit too tight that he yields and forces his muscles into relaxation. He grinds his teeth, though. Oscar can hear the sickening crunch resonating deep within his chest.
“Is this your polite way of saying that you’re not coming to Gran Canary with me?”
Oscar doesn’t really feel cornered, he feels more like an improv actor, confident in his skills and set for conquering the stage no matter the cost. So he goes for a laugh that sounds perfectly natural, not too soft and not too amused, propping himself up on his elbows to look Lando in the eyes. As he does so, he realizes how deeply twisted and ultimately erotic it is to lie to someone while staring directly into their eyes, and something in his lower belly stirs once more, though his body feels pretty exhausted after the stunt he has pulled. Lando tilts his head in a silent question, to which Oscar replies with a slight shake of his head.
“Does it really need to be Gran Canary?”
“I think it might be a nice place. I saw some brochures when I was in southern Spain for a job and I thought you could appreciate the views and the wilderness.”
How thoughtful of you, Oscar finds himself thinking, not without a hint of malice. Still, he meticulously sticks to his act, pushing himself further close until he can leave a small, chaste kiss right over the purple indent he has left on Lando’s chin.
“The views and the wilderness are a smokescreen. What you really see in places like Gran Canary are the wrinkly ballsacks and the sagging tits of retired english couples who want to get ripe in the sun. I can’t imagine anything more terrible, honestly.”
Lando playfully bites at his cheek, eliciting a soft whimper.
“Some island in Greece, then,” he suggests, his palm gliding towards the curve of his ass, testing how firm and muscular it is. Oscar stirs peacefully, offering himself up for inspection, and accommodating Lando’s touch, falling into an easy sync that puts a satisfied smile on Lando’s pink, swollen lips.
“Not a famous one, though. I’m not exactly a party animal.”
There’s a fondness, some sort of impossible softness in the depths of Lando’s soulful gaze that Oscar has never seen before. Hope, he realizes at once. Lando is giving into hope perhaps for the first time in his wretched life. Oscar, however, adamantly refuses to let his more sympathetic side get in the way of his carefully mastered plan, so he locks the thought into a do-not-open box and buries it away, keeping his façade put.
“Who could have guessed that,” Lando teases, and that’s Oscar’s cue to wriggle himself out of his grip, ignoring his childish whines, with the excuse of getting himself cleaned up. The suite is spacious and the bathroom lavish, but in a very cozy, coastal way. He thinks about retreating to a villa on the sea with Lando but that, too, is a thought for his do-not-open box. After having given himself a perfunctory wash and sprayed a generous amount of deodorant to cover up for the musky smell of sex coating his skin like a thin, translucent film, Oscar gets back to the bedroom, a wet washcloth in hand. Lando groans, but he tidies himself up anyway.
“It’s nice to have you spread all over me. We should do it more often.”
Oscar’s heart skips a beat, and he chooses to reply with a nudge and a knowing look before spinning on his heels and making his way to the small living space, where two chilled flûtes and a bottle of expensive Champagne have been strategically positioned out of sight, so that Oscar can get on with his plan minimizing the risks – he knows Lando is kinda lazy after a fuck. He shouldn’t know that, but he knows, and now the whole squad knows too, even though nobody has had the gall to call him out for his wayward escapades yet.
They could try. They fucking could, he thinks, spiking Lando’s drink with high-dosage lorazepam.
He has gone over the scenario so many times already, coming up with every possible ending, every last-minute save, every single detail – nothing has been left to chance, and yet Oscar feels all of his nerves on edge as he hands Lando the drink, smiling over the brink of his flûte.
“Wishful thinking,” Lando compliments, impressed. “Are we celebrating?”
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t.”
Lando nods.
“To Gran Canary?” He chuckles, raising his glass in a toast and waiting for Oscar to tip it before downing it in one single sitting.
Oscar waits, barely breathing through his gritted teeth. His jaw feels so locked he might need a fucking chiropractor after this. He does his best to curl his lips in a smile, though, and to sip at his drink without choking on the bubbles. Nothing seems to happen at first and, for a scary while, Oscar is convinced Lando has got some immunity to powerful sleeping drugs, so he just sucks in a difficult breath after another while keeping an eye on Lando – he’s talking, but Oscar isn’t actually listening to him, hardly registering the slow, slurring movement of his lips, which Lando occasionally licks.
“What’s happening?” He hears him stutter, right before his eyelids start to drop, his eyes getting hazy, hooded, in the bright golden sunlight.
It doesn’t really take long for the drugs to send Lando into a dreamless slumber, but to Oscar it feels like an eternity – the world stops revolving around its axis as, for the briefest moment, he allows himself to consider the consequences of his action. It shatters his heart to the point of scattering all the pieces around, something just goes missing in the deflagration. He might look calm from the outside, but inside it’s just another story entirely.
How does it feel to betray him?
Oscar doesn’t want to feel like he has betrayed Lando. Or like he owed Lando something, for what it’s worth. It’s just that somewhere deep inside his soul he has felt it. The love, the longing, the yearning. Lando striving to find some kinship. The violent pull between two fucked up souls gravitating towards each other, going out in a blast, a fucking quasar.
A cosmic explosion.
Guilt makes his chest contract so painfully he’s sure he’s about to pass out too, so he deals Zak’s number right before taking into consideration the idea of having any second thoughts about the whole operation, and briskly, as professionally as he can, informs him that he can send the squad in, only to ask, in return, to be granted a safe way out before the others burst in.
He doesn’t care if it makes him sound like a coward or, as some of his colleagues would say, “a pussy”, he just wants to be out long before Lando is dragged out in handcuffs, probably beaten up if he’s capable of putting up any resistance – less than an hour ago, he was sure he would have gloated seeing Lando brought to justice for good; now that everything has gone according to the plan, he thinks he would get sick in the stomach witnessing something so utterly wicked.
Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, his grandpa used to say. Oscar wishes he could stop living by that.
***
Oscar’s nights haven’t been peaceful in a long time. He wakes up, drenched in sweat and with a scream locked tight in the back of his throat, some minutes past four in the morning, frantically looking around to scan his surroundings for any potential threats. Once he’s sure there’s none and his heartbeat has returned to a somewhat decent rhythm, he falls back into the pillows stacked against the bedpost. This hotel room is slightly uglier than the riviera suite, but this hotel too faces the shore, and he can see the silver glint of the sea from his window, the sky just starting to transition from the deep blue of the night to the much softer hue of the incoming dawn. The sun won’t be rising any soon, though, but he already knows he won’t be able to go back to sleep, not with his conscience gnawing at his heels like a beast hungry for his blood.
Half naked and disheveled, he goes straight for the narrow balcony, where he lights up a cigarette and gazes at the milky horizon, his eyes trained on the distant silhouette of a ferry slowly disappearing behind the cliffs.
Zak has put him on leave, for now. He said he needs some rest. Oscar has tried to plead his cause, but to no avail; he had no strength left for arguing and, ultimately, he has reluctantly agreed, taking little joy in the fact that Zak had apparently paid for another week of stay – just for him, of course, in a four stars hotel with a double room. No suite, naturally, but a good room with a private bathroom and a balcony with a view. “Just don’t smoke too much, kid, eh?” he has said and, again, Oscar has tried not to sound too resentful while agreeing with a subdued yessir.
Lando must be on a flight back to the UK, by now. Oscar sighs, unable to make the malicious voice whispering that he is a fucking coward sellout shut the fuck up, and he swings on his feet, trying to come up with a song with which drowning out the constant humming inside his aching skull. By the time he’s putting on his tattered pair of sneakers for an early morning run, he’s blasting some classic rock hits at full volume inside his head, having sadly forgotten his headphones somewhere in his apartment back home.
He follows a meticulous routine: he changes into something appropriate first, then he sets his pulse monitor and, lastly, he straps his phone to his upper arm right before leaving the room, the door closing behind him with a muffled thud.
Outside, the air is crisp, but the day ahead is going to be stuffy, because that’s how summer in Italy usually is, overbearing and long and hot, but Oscar loves it anyway despite his fair, sunburn-prone complexion. He loves the desert beach at this ungodly hour of the day, the closed parasols, the waves gently lapping at the soles of his Nike shoes. He could run for miles without getting tired like this, just partaking in the silent beauty of the Universe while the rest of the city sleeps, blissfully unaware of the earthquake that has shaken Oscar’s world forever.
He only stops when his knees beg him to stop. He has no idea yet of how far he has strayed from his hotel, or for how long he has run, all he knows is that he’s positively floored with exhaustion and that’s exactly what he needed to power through the day. He stops by a 24-hours kiosk for a bottle of water and he gurgles it down, his sore muscles pulling hard under the skin. It’s still too early for anyone to be at the beach anyway, and he finds a nice spot where to cool down and rest before making his way back on sore legs – it would be his perfect summer in Italy idyll, if it wasn’t for his phone buzzing like mad against his arm.
“Piastri,” he answers, faintly recognizing one of Zak’s numbers on the bright display. Somehow, a part of him already knows what’s about to come, as if it was inevitable, already written in their unlucky stars. Somehow, a part of him really wanted to hear it from Zak, even though it means that he is, now more than ever, in grave danger.
“Your pet assassin is on the run. I’m sending someone to collect you. You’re unarmed, you need protection.”
Oscar squints in the pastel peach light, the sun a bright red ball right over the surface of the sea. He likes how down on earth Zak is on such matters. Pragmatic, concise. It is a matter of fact that he needs protection, now. It’s also a matter of fact that Lando will find him, if he’s not actively looking for him at this very moment.
Well, it backfired spectacularly.
He can’t, however, summon enough energy to fake disappointment, because he can’t say he hadn’t already seen it coming. How hard is it for a highly trained assassin to wriggle his way out of such a dire situation, after all? Plus, Lando is a loose cannon in his own right. No, he thinks, it’s probably not that hard.
He tells Zak that he’ll be waiting in the hall of his hotel and Zak asks him to be careful. Naturally, Oscar has no intention of going back, nor to seek any protection. Yes, he loves being alive, Jesus Christ, but he’ll have his closure, one way or another, even if it’d mean facing Lando and breaking his heart for good.
When the call disconnects, Oscar feels – okay.
Not as peaceful as a martyr or as determined as a hero, just okay about how the whole situation has turned out. Perhaps it means that he’s been absolved. Perhaps it means that he’s too far gone, lost, turned into the very thing Lando wanted him to be.
Here, looking at the waves kissing the shore as the dawn breaks in full force, Oscar can have a clearer insight on Lando’s vision.
He closes his eyes, letting the sun warm up his eyelids.
It’s going to be a fucking long day.
***
“Why are you so determined to make me play hide and seek?”
Lando gracefully leaps from the base of a marble column, the ancient roman baths faintly illuminated by the ground lamps placed along the cobblestone path. Oscar can’t help but notice how shamelessly animalistic he looks when he’s in a bad mood, slow and suave just like a predator ready to pounce on its prey at the most convenient time. He stands his ground anyway, squaring his shoulders and pursing his lips in a thin, bloodless line, his back firmly pressed into the pedestal of a statue.
“Hide and seek? Please. You can stop pretending you haven’t been stalking me all day long.”
“Me? Stalking you? Are we getting a little paranoid, officer? ”
Oh, he wishes he was. What he’s being now is…reckless, for a lack of any better terms. Suicidal, even, if he wasn’t almost sure that Lando wouldn’t pull such a move on him, now that everything has been said and done.
He’s just a man who needs closure, that’s all. Nobody could shame him for wanting what’s best for himself – put his past behind and then go on. Pretty straightforward. Understandable.
Oscar shakes his head.
“Whatever. You wouldn’t listen to me anyway, would you?”
“Nah,” Lando lets out a nasty laugh. “You fooled me once. But I should give you credit for the spirit. Now, do we have a moment to discuss like civilized human beings or should I expect to be swarmed by fucking SWAT agents as soon as I light up a ciggie?”
“No, we’re alone. I would ask you to trust me, but I guess I lost that privilege, right?”
Oscar catches the pack of cigarettes aimed at him in mid-air, just as Lando is shooting him a weirdly unfathomable look. It’s kind of mocking, but also impressed. Sure as hell it’s hurt, and Oscar can’t really run from how real it feels.
“Afraid you did, yes. But I am a very generous guy, so I won’t call you out for that. I don’t believe in the power of passive-aggressiveness,” he explains, drawing arabesques in the humid air with his left hand. Oscar lights up for two, of course. Lando follows his every move with an unexpected hunger in his silver, sorrowful gaze.
“Then what’s the point of looking for me? I don’t think you want to,” he makes a little dramatic pause. Lando’s left eyebrow shoots upwards. “Kill me,” he finishes, after he’s taken the first drag from Lando’s Marlboro.
“It crossed my mind, gotta say. But I still believe you would look rather amazing in the greek sun,” Lando shrugs noncommittally, insufferably confident, cocky. He takes the intact cigarette from his fingers and gives it a slow drag.
Oscar sighs heavily, knowing full well he’s going to break Lando’s heart – and his own too, provided they both have one. Yes, Lando’s carefully constructed fantasy is indeed tempting, but what would he offer, on a more practical side? What would it cost Oscar to just give in?
Probably everything. His sanity, his self-control, his residual soul. He would spiral and spiral and, one day, he would simply be unable to recognize the face looking back at him in the mirror altogether, and this isn’t a risk he’s willing to take.
“What makes you think that I want to come with you?”
In a matter of seconds, Lando’s cocky look turns into that of a kicked puppy. It only lasts a beat, though, and Oscar might as well have imagined it - though unlikely as it seems - but his face shifts again, finally betraying his scalding, white-hot fury. This, too, doesn’t last long, because Lando is a man of many faces and volatile moods, and he likes to wear whatever look suits him best – this is another little thing Oscar has learned while Lando wasn’t there.
“What makes me…ha. This is ridiculous. You’re…you’re being ridiculous, Oscar. ”
He flicks his cigarette carelessly, making his way to Oscar in long, artificially slow steps, his hands outstretched to grip at his hips in a chokehold. Oscar spins on his heels, dodging his possessive embrace for a hair’s breadth, and he shakes his head again, unable to discern which one of them is hurting more at the moment – to him, it’s like having all of his nerve endings exposed. Like a broken bone protruding from a gaping wound. Lando is a few inches shorter than him, but his proximity is heavy enough to make Oscar’s shoulders sag.
Vanilla and coffee and the smell of the park surrounding the roman ruins. Grass slowly cooking under the unrelenting italian sun. A forgotten plastic cup full of sticky syrup and hungry mosquitoes that gets off a whiff of stale cherry. Coffee and vanilla and the tang of salt in the air. Oscar feels dizzy, his heart pounding in his ears.
"Ridiculous? What’s ridiculous about being realistic?”
“You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lando pinches at his ribs, the skin almost breaking under his fingertips. Oscar doesn’t grant him the satisfaction of seeing him hiss in pain, so he keeps his face straight and blank, letting all of his feelings simmer where they can cause as little damage as possible.
“Tell me, then. If I leave my life behind, what will you give me in return?”
The question takes Lando aback, and he recoils visibly. A shadow of disconcert veils his silver stare as he shakes his head in disbelief.
“You love me,” he states, matter-of-factly.
Oscar feels something ripping inside his ribcage.
If he does really love Lando, his love is sick. Wrong. Unacceptable on so many levels but oh, so dramatically fitting. Love like a blade cutting through soft skin and pliable muscles. Love like the deflagration of a bomb in the middle of a crowded street. A love that can only destroy, leaving behind nothing more than misery and ruin.
So, yes. He might love Lando, but it doesn’t matter in the end. One way or another, Lando has to go; like ripping a band-aid, he needs to be quick and effective, so that it can only hurt a moment and then-
and then-
“I never said that.”
Again, he manages to render Lando speechless for a second, but as always he bounces back with a vengeance, delivering so hard Oscar almost trips over his own feet.
“Oh, but you did. Many times. Actions speak louder than words, Oscar,” he says, his voice a pleasant bass, as he rolls the hem of his t-shirt up, showing Oscar the scar on his lower abdomen. Oscar holds his breath.
“What about you?” He barely manages, his knees quivering under his weight.
“I love you, of course. I think I’ve abundantly proven that to you, right?”
“You don’t fucking know what love is.”
Oscar doesn’t know why he chooses such hurtful words, or the place from which such vitriol comes from. He didn’t know he had it in him but, again, he didn’t know many things about himself before meeting Lando. His life is a shitshow. He has actively defied his direct superior for – this.
Spitting all of his rage into Lando’s face while fighting against the urge to kiss him hard enough to chip his front teeth.
He’s shaking when Lando’s grip loosens and he can finally break free, looking for the closest exit. He doesn’t even waste his time telling Lando not to look for him anymore, ever, he just-
bolts.
He doesn’t know what he’s running from, either. All he knows is that he cannot bear it, and what he cannot bear could crush him – he doesn’t want to be crushed.
In hindsight, he should have asked Lando to empty his pockets first. He should have asked him if he was carrying anything. He should have been smarter.
He hears the gunshot, of course, and he immediately knows the bullet is for him. He’s sure he has heard Lando whisper “a pity. I thought you were special, Oscar” right before pulling the trigger.
And yet.
He collapses to the ground like a house built on toothpicks, a sharp, lancing pain in his left shoulder, the warm trickle of blood soaking through his running gear. The last thing he’s aware of is Lando crouching down next to him, his lips placing a gentle kiss on his forehead, warm and soft as they tremble against his clammy skin.
«And in the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.»