Archive of Our Own

“They’re saying he’s more beautiful than even me, and that is simply not possible.”

“So you want me to get rid of him.”

“I want you to make him marry a hideous monster… and then get rid of him.”

“Sure.”

Lando shouldn’t be ungrateful.

He has everything he could ever want in the world—one of the twenty coveted seats in Formula 1, more money than he knows what to do with, and millions of fans that cheer his name during every race weekend.

He has so much, but at the same time, it feels like he has nothing at all.

His teammates leave him for better, more competitive teams. His friends are also his competitors. His fans are quick to turn on a dime the moment he says anything, to the point where he feels like he’ll suffocate from choking back his own words.

And his own girlfriend left him, telling him that he no longer wants to be under such an intense spotlight and the scrutiny of his millions of fans.

Lando understood.

They don’t talk anymore.

He spends his nights in the company of others, but not a single one stays long enough to get to know him past what he looks like, naked and spread out against pristine sheets. They call him beautiful, and they leave anyway because they’re jealous.

He goes on social media and closes it the moment he sees a single comment about how unattainable he is, like he’s meant to be some treasure or jewel to be kept and stared at. Men hate him for taking away the attention of women, and women hate him for taking away the attention of men.

They compare him to fair Aphrodite, and he wants to scream.

The last thing he wants is to incur the goddess’s wrath.

But, heavens above, he’s lonely.

Oscar dons a familiar disguise.

It’s a British accent—horrible, by the way—and a leather jacket and sunglasses. Perfectly inconspicuous. Okay, maybe not the sunglasses.

His wings are heavily concealed, invisible to the mortal eye, and his gold- and lead-tipped arrows disappear from view. He’s not planning to play with anyone’s emotions today, so he won’t need them for his little recon mission.

It’s not hard to figure out what Lando Norris looks like. Every wall in Silverstone is plastered with his face, and Oscar has to admit that not everybody would look that good in orange. Papaya, rather.

Charles certainly wouldn’t.

He sighs, wondering if that’s why Charles is so keen on vengeance.

The notion is ridiculous, but so are the Olympians.

Looking at the picture of Lando’s face for just a while longer won’t hurt.

“Are you a fan?”

Oscar startles, before he remembers he doesn’t actually look like the god Eros right now. He turns around to reply to the person addressing him and promptly forgets how to speak.

The posters really do him no justice.

“Um.”

Lando Norris falters, and his cheeks grow rosy when he stammers, “I totally understand if you aren’t. It seems like not many people are, these days, so. Yeah. Sorry to disturb you. I’ll just-”

“I’m a huge fan, actually,” Oscar interjects. He swiftly conjures up a piece of paper and a pen in the pocket of his leather jacket. “I should apologize instead. Um, yeah. Didn’t think I’d run into a Formula 1 driver so soon after the race, so you caught me by surprise.”

The moment Lando’s face brightens, so does everything else. The gloomy skies clear, birds start chirping, someone on the other side of the world falls in love.

“Oh, yeah. I didn't feel like partying, and taking a walk around the circuit was the next best idea.”

Before Oscar can get another word in, a group of screaming fans notice Lando and immediately rush over. Lando’s smile takes on a slightly stiff edge, but he maintains it as he greets his fans, patiently signing every item shoved in his direction.

Oscar hangs back, observing.

There’s nothing about this man that screams ‘worthy of being cursed to fall in love with a monster’ to him. Lando seems polite enough, and he was presumptuous, yes, but Oscar was staring at a poster of him first.

The crowd eventually thins.

“You’re still here!”

Oscar straightens. “I had nowhere to go.”

“Still,” Lando says with a pout. “That must’ve been annoying.”

“Nah, it was interesting to watch. Do you have it in you to sign one more for me?”

Lando’s eyes sparkle as he makes grabby hands for the slip of paper. His handwriting is neat, though Oscar can’t make out what he writes before signing it with a quick flourish.

“I have a question,” Oscar begins, trying not to feel the electricity that sparks between their fingertips as Lando passes the paper and pen back to him.

“Mhm?”

A gust of wind blows past, just as the skies open up. Lando shivers in his hoodie.

Without thinking twice, Oscar removes his jacket and drapes it around Lando’s shoulders, refusing to let him shrug it off and push it back into his hands.

“I don’t catch colds as easily as you mor- as you do.”

Lando huffs, but he snuggles a little deeper into Oscar’s jacket as rain soaks their collars. Despite being a Formula 1 driver, despite having everything he could ask for, he doesn’t move to leave, like he’s waiting for Oscar’s question.

“What’s your deepest desire?”

“Are you going to take my answer to the tabloids?” Lando jokes, but it falls flat as he notices the serious look in Oscar’s eyes.

“Okay, maybe not your deepest desire. It’s a bit weird of me to ask that, so tell me what you want the most instead? You have money, and you have fame, but surely, there’s something eluding you.”

Oscar watches Lando go a bit starry-eyed as he dreamily responds, “Hm, maybe a small place of my own. Nothing like Monaco, where you can’t walk a step without running into someone who recognizes you. It would be nice to be away from all the people actively plotting my downfall. And it doesn’t even have to be forever, y’know? I’d be happy with just a few seconds of peace and quiet.”

He sounds so earnest and genuine while talking to a complete stranger, who just happened to stay long enough to listen.

A pang of longing strikes Oscar’s heart, like one of his own golden arrows.

No, he can’t make Lando Norris fall in love with a monster.

It’s not his fault he’s beautiful.

“Attention, passengers. Weather reports predict incoming thunderstorms and heavy winds.”

Lando sighs into his blanket. At this point, he shouldn’t even be surprised that his rotten luck has extended to the fucking weather.

It’s like Zephyrus and the other wind gods are actively plotting against him, turning the private jet he rented away from his summer vacation destination.

He just wishes they’d crash a little faster.

Oscar emerges from his cover of darkness.

He shouldn’t have asked the winds to carry Lando to his sanctuary. He shouldn’t be here at all, lifting Lando’s unconscious body into his arms and cradling him tightly to his chest as he proceeds to the small cottage nestled deep in the woods.

Once Love brings someone into his heart, their souls are bound for eternity.

Nymphs poke their heads out from their trees, from their streams, to watch winged Eros fly by with a mortal prettier than Aphrodite himself in his embrace.

Charles is going to hate him for defying orders and playing with Lando’s fate if he ever finds out what he did.

Oscar settles Lando down in a bed softer than clouds, letting his fingertips linger against his cheek for just a moment as he brushes a stray curl of hair away from his forehead. Lando’s eyelashes flutter with a soft breath, and Oscar pulls his hand away, like he’s been burned.

He shrouds himself in darkness again, watching keenly as his guest stirs and blinks once, eyes bleary.

“I must be dreaming,” Lando mutters to himself, pulling his blanket up until only the top of his head is visible. Invisible to the naked eye, a cloud spirit ruffles his hair, winking at the god hidden in the shadows before floating off. “Eep!”

Oscar nearly gives himself away, laughing, because he has frankly never seen something quite so cute before.

“Okay, this is not a dream. Fuck, where am I?”

My home, Oscar wants to answer. I, against my better judgement, brought you to my home, but you’ll be kept safe from Aphrodite’s watchful eye here.

Lando sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, shivering when he makes contact with the stone floor. He takes a curious peek around and rubs his eyes for good measure. “I guess the gods do listen, after all.”

Oscar wishes that he could reveal himself to tell Lando everything, including the fact that they’re as good as married now, but a small part of him doesn’t trust Lando not to immediately freak out and somehow incur Charles’s wrath in the process.

The gods do listen, he thinks. You just have to get the attention of the right one.

A beat. Oscar’s sigh isn’t audible over the rustling of the woods outside.

And you did.

Lando looks a bit lost until he notices the small pile of clothes that Oscar laid out for him sitting inconspicuously next to the drawn bath. There aren’t modern technologies in Oscar’s home, but he has magic, and that’s infinitely more useful.

Even if it means bathing in a small basin instead of a nice tub.

Oscar’s eyes widen when Lando begins removing the clothes he wore on the plane. And then he remembers that Lando can’t see him, so there’s very little chance that he’ll be kicked out with a scream. Still, he averts his eyes out of respect for his guest as soon as he sees a flash of thigh, slim and tanned.

He hurriedly flees the room, cheeks red, and does his best to open and close the door as quietly as he can. There’s no way he’s going to survive if he stays and listens to every soft, breathy sigh that Lando lets out as he slips further into the bath.

So that’s how Oscar finds himself stuck outside his own home with only the company of every woodland spirit laughing at his current predicament. His invisibility melts away as he plops himself down by the pond in the back.

“I could make you fall in love with the ugliest satyr if you don’t stop laughing,” Oscar grumbles, but there isn’t much threat.

Guanyu pokes his head out of his shrub and lifts an eyebrow. “Bet. At least I’ll be in love with someone who loves me back.”

“Mate, that’s depressing.”

“Meh. Not everyone can get a mortal prettier than Aphrodite to fall for them.”

He’s lucky that Charles turns a blind eye from this place.

Meanwhile, Oscar flushes to the roots of his hair. “Ah.”

“Buuuut he’s not in love with you,” his friend guesses. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Y-yeah.”

“And winged Eros has never had to win the heart of someone else before.”

“… yeah.”

Guanyu claps his hands, delighted at Oscar’s misery. “Oh, this is the most interesting predicament you could ever find yourself in! I believe in you.”

Another figure emerges from the pond.

“If anyone can do it, it’s you, Oscar,” Logan adds, giving him a wet thumbs-up before ducking below the surface again.

“I should have this place deforested,” Oscar complains, falling onto his back with a thump. His massive wings cushion him and tickle his cheek, causing him to wrinkle his nose in annoyance. He plucks the irritating feather away, letting it be carried off by a cloud spirit.

“You would never do that,” Guanyu says.

“No, I wouldn’t. I can’t do that to you guys.”

“Now go! Make your presence known to the beautiful human before he decides that staying with you is not worth it!”

Oscar’s heart hurts at the very notion.

For all intents and purposes, Lando is alone.

However, he just knows he isn’t, not when he can hear the birds chirping outside or the rustling of the brush in the woods that he doesn’t dare venture into. The small cottage is not quite empty either, if the bath that is constantly replenished with sparkling spring water and the clothes that are lighter than air are any indication.

Magic is the only explanation, and Lando has to admit that he has never thought he’d have the opportunity to witness it, despite how often he thinks about the gods.

It’s all so luxurious, in ways that not even he, a millionaire, can imagine.

There is not a single bar of signal to be found, which means there’s no social media and the scathing comments that come with it to distract him from this wonderful place. It also means he can’t figure out where the fuck he is.

When he finally thinks about going outside, his stomach decides to growl loudly, reminding him that it’s been at least a day since he’s eaten anything.

Lando blushes, embarrassed, because he knows there are others around to hear it.

He may not be alone, but he is as good as alone while he’s here.

Oscar kicks himself for forgetting that mortals require sustenance in the form of food.

As a god, eating is more of a pleasure for him than a necessity. Lando, on the other hand, looks cute as he shuffles about, wide-eyed, in his search through the empty cabinets.

Oscar wonders when he should make his presence known to Lando as he slips out the open door after him and witnesses him trip over his own feet, landing in the soft grass with a small groan.

“Where am I?” Lando repeats, staring up at the canopy of trees and the cloudless sky in awe. “Am I? Rapunzel? After she escapes the tower?”

What the fuck is a Rapunzel? Oscar silently asks, scratching his head in confusion.

Lando’s eyes sparkle in the sun as he continues gazing at the sky, and Oscar almost laughs. It takes so little to satisfy him.

And then his stomach rumbles again.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Lando mutters, getting to his feet and swanning back into the cottage. He graciously leaves the door open and stands at the stove with his hands on his hips. “Um, I don’t know who’s listening, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I can’t cook because Jon always prepares my meals because I’m a high performance athlete or whatever. I would definitely try if I had ingredients, though…”

“Just ask the cloud spirits what you wish to eat,” Oscar murmurs, hoping he doesn’t startle his guest too much.

Unfortunately, Lando behaves like a skittish cat, jumping as soon as he hears him with a shriek.

“Who- who are you?!”

It’s a miracle that he doesn’t recognize Oscar’s voice, even after having a lengthy conversation with him. Fake British accents do wonders, apparently. Lando hurriedly glances around, desperate to seek the source of it.

“That doesn’t matter,” Oscar replies. “And you don’t have to try to look for me. I'm invisible to mortals.”

“Oh no, did I break into your home?” Lando asks, twisting his hands together. “I’m so sorry, um-”

“Oscar.”

“Oscar.”

His name has never sounded so lovely, coming out of someone else’s mouth. Even lovelier is how Lando seems satisfied with just that much.

“No, you didn’t break in,” Oscar says. “It’d be kind of ridiculous to accuse you of that when I’m the one who brought you here, so don’t apologize, Lando.”

“You know my name.”

“Few people don’t.”

Lando laughs, a breathy little thing. “Touché.”

Oscar’s prepared to answer anything else he’s asked, save for questions about his identity, so he’s surprised when the next thing that comes out of Lando’s mouth is:

“Can I have spring rolls, please?”

Incredulous, Oscar can only nod at the cloud spirit hovering nearby to conjure up a plate of spring rolls, seventeen of them, and settle it on top of the counter behind Lando.

“Oh, that’s mint!” Lando cries out, and he still looks beautiful as he shoves one into his mouth, cheeks puffing up as he chews on it.

Or maybe Oscar can’t not find him endearing.

Lando moans, “Oh, Oscar, it’s delicious.”

Okay, maybe that’s a bit much, not that it doesn’t immediately go to Oscar’s cock.

It should concern Lando that he’s in the house of a stranger, who he can’t even see, but it doesn’t.

It should concern him more that he’s completely disconnected from the rest of the world, but it feels more like a breath of fresh air. A relief, if anything. Oscar seems nice enough too, endlessly kind to Lando and always making his presence known by accidentally knocking over a chair or a book and following it with a string of muttered curses.

Lando pretends not to care, but he snickers inwardly every time.

One evening, he enters the cottage in his grass-stained tunic with flowers that the dryads must’ve woven into his hair without his knowledge earlier in the afternoon, and he’s immediately greeted by the sound of a glass crashing to the floor.

“You, um, you stay over there,” Oscar stammers. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

Lando does as he’s told, though he can’t help but joke, “You’re not a vampire, are you? If I accidentally slice my foot open, you’re not going to start licking it, right?”

Oscar audibly pauses. “Uh, no, mate. Vampires don’t exist.”

“Right. Of course. Cloud spirits and dryads and the guy in the pond with an American accent all exist, but vampires don’t.”

Resuming his task of cleaning the floor, Oscar snorts. “That’s Logan. He has a fish tail.”

“Eugh.” Lando wrinkles his nose. “I don’t like fish.”

Oscar laughs, even though it’s a very serious matter. A carpet unfurls under Lando, rolling all the way to the bed.

“My knight in invisible armor,” he coos, blowing a kiss in the direction where he thinks his… companion… might be.

And his guess is clearly wrong when a hand fits itself to his waist, gently guiding him forward.

Lando shivers.

It’s the first time that Oscar touches him.

It’s also proof that he’s real and very much corporeal.

“I should put a bell on you,” Lando whispers, a bit breathless. “You’ll be like a vampire cat.”

“Not a vampire,” Oscar replies. His voice is so close to Lando’s ear, stirring the curls falling over it.

His breath is minty and definitely not unpleasant, and he smells nice, and he sounds attractive enough. A sexy vampire cat, then.

“Oscar?”

Oscar hums. “Yes?”

“Why’d you bring me here?”

A pregnant pause fills the air, like he’s carefully considering his words. Lando waits patiently, if only because he has nothing to lose.

“I can’t tell you that,” Oscar admits at last. “I’ll be punished if I do, and even worse, you’ll be punished. That’s all I can say.”

Lando bites his tongue in frustration. That’s the vaguest non-answer he’s received from him thus far, and that’s saying a lot because Oscar never answers any of his questions.

But he’s not trying to be rude to his host, so he merely sighs and nods, even though he’s burning with curiosity.

“You can’t tell me you didn’t have some ulterior motive,” he tries after a moment of decidedly awkward silence. The only thing grounding him is the hand that has yet to leave his waist and the waft of Oscar’s pleasant cologne tickling his nose. “You didn’t look at me and think, ‘Oh, I must fuck him until all he can remember is my name!’ or ‘I need to ruin his life by whisking him off to some forest paradise, and he’ll never want to return to Formula 1!’ did you?”

When he’s met with silence, Lando babbles on, “I mean, obviously I’m not saying I don’t like it here, or that my life is ruined, and I’m definitely not saying that you want to fuck me or anything, hah! That would be ridic-”

The hand on his waist tightens.

“Don’t be stupid,” Oscar murmurs. “You are… maddening.”

It’s the first instance that he’s said something remotely negative in connotation to Lando, and even so, he’s phrasing it in a way that suggests otherwise.

“Yeah?”

“I reckon if you want a friend or someone to listen when you have something to say, then I can be that person. But I’m not here to force myself upon you. Only, you have no idea what I look like, and-”

This time, Lando’s the one to impulsively interrupt him, feeling for where he thinks Oscar’s face is and blushing when he has to reach up to yank him into a kiss.

Immediately, Oscar responds, reflexes faster than even Lando’s, and holds him tight as he deepens it. The kiss remains sweet, without a hint of tongue, but Lando’s lips tingle afterwards, and he subconsciously lifts a hand up to his mouth to touch it in a mixture of awe and disbelief.

“Lando,” Oscar mumbles. It’s satisfying to hear him so breathless, even though Lando has no idea what he looks like right now.

He can only imagine red-tinted cheeks and bruised lips and eyes pretty enough to drown in.

Oscar looks handsome in Lando’s imagination.

It’s a pity that it’s only in his imagination.

“Have me,” Lando begs, offering himself up. “I’ll be yours tonight and every night after.”

He waits with bated breath, and then he’s being lifted by strong arms, carried the remainder of the way to the bed like a princess or a blushing bride, causing him to kick his legs and cover his face in embarrassment.

“You liked that,” Oscar comments as he lowers him onto the mattress. A smile is audible in his voice, tinted with smugness.

Lando only blushes harder.

“I would do that every night for you, if that’s what you want.”

Not that Lando doesn’t want that, but right now, he wants to be fucked into the next dimension, taken apart and put back together until he feels whole again.

And he expresses that much, quite clearly catching Oscar unawares by how direct and borderline crude he is.

“I- I can do all that,” Oscar promises. The curtains swing shut, and the candles go out, plunging the little cottage into total darkness. “Though I just want one thing.”

Lando is quick to answer, “Anything.”

“I’ll do whatever you want, but you can’t know what I look like. That’s all I ask. You deserve to be taken care of, so I’ll be that person for you. And you… you’ll be mine.”

A thrill runs up Lando’s spine at the possessiveness coloring Oscar’s voice. Yes! he wants to cry. I need that.

He loops his legs around Oscar’s waist and tugs him forward into the space between them instead, sealing their deal with another kiss.

Lando closes his eyes, surrendering to his other senses, and lets Oscar flood them with his presence. He falls back against the pillows, unflinching as hands deftly undo his belt with practiced ease and a pair of soft lips continue mapping every corner of his mouth.

In seconds, he’s laid bare, and he resists the urge to pull a sheet over himself. He wishes he could see Oscar, the expression on his face as he takes him in. Would he stare at Lando hungrily? Would he look at him in awe?

Lando still has flowers in his hair—does Oscar find them pretty when they’re the only thing he’s wearing?

But Oscar is a man of few words, as Lando has discovered over the past few days.

Firm, callused fingertips touch the curve of his waist, making him shiver in anticipation. He moans high in his throat at the first sensation of a warm mouth against his skin and a tongue slipping out to taste the dip of his collarbone.

“This is where sunshine pools,” Oscar says absentmindedly, kissing it. It’s far from the sexiest thing that Lando has ever heard, but in the moment, it makes him melt.

He gently coaxes Lando onto his front, smoothing a hand between his shoulder blades.

“Like angel wings.”

Lando whimpers when Oscar fits his fingers to the dimples in his lower back and forces his hips up off the bed.

His touch burns in the most pleasant way, as does his mouth as he trails kisses down Lando’s spine and over the globes of his arsecheeks. Lando shivers at the sensation of Oscar’s tongue darting out to lick at the crease where his butt meets his thighs and again when hands spread him wide open.

He muffles his moans in the pillow he’s clutching as a slicked finger rubs at his rim and briefly dips into him. Clenching around the intrusion, he feels like a virgin, and the whine he lets out when Oscar fully breaches him is nothing short of embarrassing.

“Relax for me,” Oscar says with a soothing voice, and- and there must be magic at play because Lando immediately goes pliant under him, melting into the plush mattress as his body reacts to Oscar’s words like it is commanded by him. “Lovely.”

Lando feels lovely, letting out breathy little noises while Oscar continues fingering him, playing his body like a lyre and coaxing lewd sounds from him. He can feel himself leak steadily into the sheets, and a part of him feels shame at getting the bed all wet and messy underneath him, but when Oscar crooks his fingers up, nudging his prostate, he can’t bring himself to care at all, too busy trying not to shake apart like a maiden, like he’s never had his arse played with before.

“Oscar.”

“Lando.”

His name has never sounded so reverent before, and Lando nearly comes just from hearing it spoken in Oscar’s accented voice, low and a bit hoarse like he’s just as affected.

He lifts his head and stares, unseeing, over his shoulder, approximately where Oscar should be, and begs, “Fuck me already. Please.”

“Gods, you’re still so tight,” Oscar murmurs. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

And that’s really sweet of him, but Lando is all keyed up—has been, for however long he’s been lying naked under him—and he’s going to cry if he doesn’t get a cock in him soon.

He makes sure to tell Oscar as much.

“You’d look pretty if you cried,” is all Oscar says in response before he makes Lando do exactly that, albeit in a drastically different way.

Tears stream down Lando’s cheeks as he’s fucked into the mattress, and he’s glad that Oscar can’t see him like this. It’s pathetic of him to be crying because it’s been so long since someone’s done him this well, since someone touched him like they couldn’t bear to let go of him.

“Lando,” Oscar whispers, and that’s all the warning that he gets before he’s shaking apart under him while his insides are painted white with cum.

Under the kind cover of night, it’s impossible to see Oscar when he kisses Lando, but, oh, his lips are gentle and his hands even gentler as he brushes tears from his face.

Lando feels lovestruck.

Come morning, Oscar gently extracts himself from Lando’s hold, turning himself invisible once more.

He let his guard down as he spent the night next to him, unable to maintain his invisibility while asleep, and he’s lucky that Lando did not once stir. It’s difficult to leave him in his bed when all Oscar wants to do is watch how his chest rises and falls and his eyelashes flutter against soft cheeks.

“You’re so gone for him,” Guanyu remarks, popping his head out of his bush. There’s a cat perched on his head. “How many times did you make him come?”

Oscar blushes, wishing he wasn’t so hasty in letting his cover melt away. “I’m not sharing that.”

“Fine with me. Does he know who you are, then?”

The silence from Oscar continues.

“So that’s a no.”

“I can’t just tell him,” he protests. “That would be putting him and me and I reckon everybody here in danger.”

“Is Charles really that terrifying, though?” Guanyu wonders, narrowing his eyes. He mimes firing an arrow from a longbow. “You, Eros, are the primordial deity, after all. Not him. If I remember correctly, the Olympians are not immune to your arrows.”

The cat on his head meows in agreement.

And love, in Oscar’s many millennia of experience, is far more dangerous than war.

With great power comes great responsibility, every action bears consequences, et cetera. He may be a primordial god, but he limits himself, uncaring in his depictions as Aphrodite’s son or sometimes even… a baby.

Okay, he doesn’t love being depicted as a cherub, especially after he just had the most mind-blowing sex with a mortal, the loveliest mortal, but he’s not going to do anything about it when it helps him maintain anonymity as he fulfills his errands.

“And when your lover figures out who you are on his own?” Guanyu asks quietly, breaking the tranquil atmosphere. “Humans are naturally curious, you know.”

“I’d rather not find out.”

A coward’s answer, for sure.

Oscar lets his wings carry him to the place of his next mission, but he doesn’t stop turning their conversation over and over in his mind until he goes insane.

Lando wonders where Oscar goes during the day.

At night, he presses Lando into the mattress and pleasures him with his fingers, or his mouth, or his cock, sometimes all three, and he’s gone by sunrise. Not once has Lando caught a glimpse of him, but he can tell when his… Oscar is no longer there, pressed up against him under the covers.

He wants to ask so badly, yet he refrains, not wanting to ruin this delicate, precious thing between them.

So Lando keeps to himself, for the most part, enjoying the peace and quiet of the woods and dipping his feet in the babbling brook. If he wasn’t a Formula 1 driver, he would remain here permanently.

He lies back onto a small patch of grass, uncaring that his tunic loosens and slides from his shoulders.

Lando inhales deeply, and the sun dapples his skin as he lifts a hand to shade his face.

He closes his eyes and feels Oscar’s presence. It’s like his senses are finely attuned to Oscar now.

“You know I can hear your breathing, right?”

“I’m sorry. You wanted to be left alone, which is why I brough you to my sanctuary, but I’m here.”

Lando scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, Osc. I like it when I can feel you here with me. I’d go insane if you left me alone with just my thoughts for company.”

The grass rustles as Oscar sits beside him. “You haven’t gotten sick of me yet, I see.”

“Difficult, that, when you’re hardly ever here.”

“Fair enough.”

They lapse into silence. The only cue that lets Lando know that Oscar hasn’t departed is his pleasant scent. It’s something associated with comfort now.

“Do you know you look ravishing today?” Oscar suddenly asks, and he sounds so awkward it instantly pulls an incredulous giggle from Lando.

“‘Ravishing,’” Lando echoes on an exhale. “Just because I said you might be a vampire doesn’t mean you have to try to be one, mate.”

“I was just trying to compliment you, mate,” Oscar grumbles. He’s adorable.

Lando reaches in his direction, making a frustrated noise when his fingers close around nothing. “I’m flattered, really, but you’ve already had your mouth on my arse, so.”

Oscar shuffles until Lando successfully yanks him into a hug. He’s warm and solid, and Lando can’t help but rub his cheek against his chest like a cat.

He curses his heart for pounding faster when Oscar lowers him back down onto the grass to take him right then and there. 

His eyes burn with curiosity.

“I can’t show you my true form,” Oscar says softly, reaching out to touch the stray curl falling over Lando’s forehead. Lovely. “You’ll be blinded.”

Lando’s fingers go still on the orange he’s peeling. His eyes go round, and it feels like he’s staring right into Oscar’s soul. “Just who are you?”

Being fucked into the mattress by Oscar is quickly becoming one of Lando’s favorite things ever.

He surrenders himself to Oscar’s hands every time he spreads his legs.

“I want-”

“Yeah?” Lando breathes, feeling faint from his nipples, his hole being played with. “What do you want?”

He’s greeted with silence, save for the obscene sound of Oscar’s fingers sliding out of him.

“It’ll be better if I just show you what I want,” Oscar murmurs, right before his hands wrap around Lando’s hips, maneuvering him onto his knees. “Sit down for me, baby.”

Lando feels crazy, but it sounds like Oscar’s voice comes from below him. He chalks it up to his arousal making him hallucinate things, so he does as he’s told and sits.

His bum makes contact with something that is distinctly more solid than a mattress.

Screaming, Lando hops up immediately, shocked when Oscar licks at him. He wasn’t hallucinating, after all, and Oscar is laughing.

At him.

“Come on, sit on my face, Lando.”

“You could’ve told me that! Instead of just telling me to sit!” Lando screeches, clutching the sheets as he gently lowers himself back down to perch on Oscar’s face.

Familiar hands immediately find his thighs, spreading them.

“But where’s the fun in that?” Oscar teases, punching a gasp from Lando when he pulls him fully onto his face and begins eating him out.

Lando moans, helpless, unable to do much but circle his hips in tiny, aborted motions as he rides Oscar’s face. There are few things he loves more than having Oscar’s tongue in him and his mouth against his hole, sucking on his rim in a dirty kiss.

“Wait,” he gasps, when he feels the telltale sensation of reaching his orgasm. One more pass of Oscar’s tongue over his entrance would instantly have him making a mess of himself. “I want to come on your cock.”

Oscar lifts him off of his face right away, and Lando hovers over his legs, feeling blindly for him. His fingers find the folds of Oscar’s tunic, parting them around his prominent erection. He gives it a languid stroke, reveling in the low groan Oscar lets out beneath him.

Lining it up with his spit-slick hole, Lando slowly sinks down on him, exhaling in order to accommodate the stretch.

“Lando,” Oscar moans, reaching for him. He grasps Lando’s arse, spreading the cheeks to fuck up into him. “Gods, you’re incredible.”

“Tell me- hah… tell me something I don’t know.”

A high-pitched keen is torn from Lando when Oscar shifts, angling himself to press right against his prostate, and his greedy hole sucks him in as his own cock leaks steadily. He wants more from Oscar, as much as he can take, as much as he can give.

Lando feels something soft under his knees, like feathers, but he’s too lost in the throes of pleasure to think much about it, tossing his head back as he comes with a choked cry.

He’s maneuvered onto his back as Oscar thrusts into him once, twice, and then he’s coming into him, pumping him full of his cum.

It’s more comforting than it should be.

Oscar is more comforting than he should be.

“What if we got married?” Lando wonders aloud, dizzy from being in such close proximity to Oscar under the cover of night. He’s being nonsensical, but Oscar catches his hand and gives his palm a kiss, so- so maybe, he isn’t being too irrational.

Oscar holds him tightly. “You’d want to marry me?”

“Mm… it’d be stupid of me not to want. That.” Lando sighs wistfully, rubbing his lower belly. The cock buried inside him twitches. “You’re so sweet, and you fuck me so well, and I- I can’t see you, but I feel like I love you.”

“You don’t know what I look like,” Oscar replies. “What if I’m a monster?”

“You know, even if you were a monster,” Lando begins idly, “I wouldn’t mind.”

Logically, he knows Oscar isn’t a monster in the most literal sense. He’s slept with him enough times by now to have felt that, so, as far as he’s aware, the only thing monstrous about Oscar is the size of his cock.

“Oscar, I could fall in love with a monster if he held me the way you do.”

The god of love gives his lover a ring.

It’s only been weeks, but it feels like it’s been forever since they met. Oscar has never fallen so hard and so fast for someone before.

Time passes differently in Love’s realm.

They have a ceremony, of sorts.

Lando sits on the bed inside the cottage as the cloud spirits fluff his hair and make him pretty for his lover. It’s been so long since he’s had someone to fuss over him like this, since he’s had to care about his appearance.

He has no idea why he needs the soot lengthening his lashes or the powder blushing his cheeks when Oscar won’t even be seen.

Still, the spirits populating the woods fawn over him when he approaches, delivering him right in the arms of his future husband.

“Won’t this look strange?” Lando mumbles into the fabric covering Oscar’s shoulder. “You’re invisible.”

Oscar lifts a hand to touch his cheek. “Everyone else already knows what I look like, so they don’t need to see me. Not when they should be admiring you instead.”

Lando is unable to stop his face from heating up.

A phantom kiss is pressed to the back of his hand once the ring, a simple silver band engraved with leaves, is gently slid onto his finger.

Oscar thinks his new groom looks beautiful when he’s clutching the sheets, eyelids fluttering shut.

Never as beautiful as when he smiles to himself, thinking nobody’s watching, or searching for woodland creatures by the brook, or ducking his head bashfully at something Oscar says, even if it’s fumbling and awkward and nowhere near as smooth as he should be, as the god of love.

“I love you,” Oscar breathes into the crook of Lando’s neck. Arms wrap around him, clinging to his shoulders, and Lando bears down around him, gasping his name as he comes.

At the first rays of dawn, Lando stirs, breathing in the familiar smell of his husband.

He blushes, tucking his face in his pillow. Not once in his fast-paced life did he ever think he could have this. Slow mornings with someone who loves him. And now that he has everything he has ever desired, he has no idea how he’s meant to return to that life.

The arm around Lando’s waist tightens, and he glances down to adjust it.

He blinks.

There’s an arm.

“Oh,” he gasps under his breath.

Excitement shoots up Lando’s spine, eclipsed right away by trepidation. There’s a reason why Oscar hid himself all this time. He doesn’t exactly know the reason, but it must be important. Squeezing his eyes shut, he debates whether or not he should turn around in Oscar’s arms, to finally have a glimpse of the man he’s fallen so hard for.

No, he thinks, it shouldn’t matter this much to me.

The curiosity, though. Lando thinks he might die if he doesn’t look at his husband at least once in his life. 

Oscar makes a low noise against the back of his neck, only stirring the urge to look. He feels so solid, so tangible. And it’s maddening, the way he laces his fingers with Lando’s, the light dusting of hair along his muscled forearm, the contrast in their skin and their hands.

I shouldn’t.

But Lando’s only human, and curiosity is the most human trait.

One peek won’t hurt, right?

Slowly, so he doesn’t disturb his slumbering husband, Lando turns around in his arms, trying not to vibrate out of his skin in anticipation. His breath catches in his throat.

Oscar- youthful is the first word that comes to mind. Handsome is the second.

Familiar is the third.

It feels like so long, but Lando distinctly remembers those features under the rain in Silverstone.

And he hasn’t forgotten those eyes looking right back at him.

“I knew it,” Oscar says, sitting up. Lando immediately misses his warmth, and he’s distracted by the hard planes of his husband’s chest right up until the arousal simmering deep in his abdomen is replaced by panic.

“Where are you going?” he asks, wide-eyed and clutching the sheet to his chest. He chokes back a cry when massive wings, the color of snow, spread behind Oscar. “You-”

Oscar’s eyes grow sad. “I asked for one thing, Lando,” he whispers, “and you couldn’t even give me that.”

Muscle memory takes him to Charles’s palace.

A well-manicured hand grabs his shoulder before he can take off again.

A feather, white as a dove’s, floats down and lands in his outstretched palm.

Lando sobs.

“Winds, take me back home, please.”

“You disobeyed me, Oscar.”

Oscar doesn’t reply, merely folding his arms over his chest. While he isn’t Aphrodite’s son, he feels all the petulance of a child. But it’s his fault.

He brought Lando to his woods, he took him to bed, he married him, and he fell in love.

Worst of all, he set Lando up for failure.

“Let me go, Charles.”

“So, where’d you go during the summer break?” George asks, nudging Lando’s side.

“Here and there.”

He was willingly taken by a god, he slept with him, he married him, and he fell in love.

Worst of all, he failed Oscar.

Lando zips his suit, hoping it’ll protect him from more than just fire.

Was Oscar too harsh with Lando?

He feels inexperienced, despite his millennia spent making people fall in love. And he would ask Charles, but he refuses to talk to him until he figures out what he wants and gets what he wants.

Get what he wants.

What is he, a child?

“I’ve decided to be gracious,” Charles says, from the other side of the door. “I won’t kill your lover.”

The emphasis on the last word sounds disingenuous at best. Oscar rolls his eyes.

“Come on, Oscar, your moping is bringing the mood down.”

Lando throws himself into everything, just to distract himself from Oscar.

He drives the car, but it begins feeling repetitive. Daniel, his own teammate, is giving him concerned looks across the table at debriefs, and Lando just feels tired.

“Social media,” he mumbles, when he’s asked, and leaves it at that.

In Singapore, he has a momentary high of ending just short of the podium after a series of sevenths. The high quickly fades away when he remembers just how lonely he feels. He isn’t physically alone, frankly, but even when he couldn’t see Oscar, he could always sense his presence nearby.

Now, Lando feels empty.

He locks up and crashes.

Oscar wants to see Lando.

This is stupid. What’s the point of being Eros if he can’t even forgive his husband and hold him again?

What’s the point of being a god if he can’t renounce his immortality to be with Lando for the rest of his life?

Lando lies, spread-eagled in the living room of his flat in Monaco, and stares at the ceiling.

“I hope you’re happy,” he says, listless. “Aphrodite Pandemos. Of the people. How ironic.”

He sighs.

“I’d blame all my misfortune on you, but let’s be fucking real. I already knew my life was rubbish long before you decided you hated me, and everything I did only made it worse. So. You must be satisfied with my misery and the consequences of my own actions.”

His next thought brings tears to his eyes.

“And you, Lord Eros- fuck.” He rubs his tears away. “Oscar, I can’t even bring myself to call you by that name. You’ve always just been Oscar to me because that’s who I promised myself to. I don’t need the god of love or anything. I just- I just need my husband to hold me again.”

He laughs mirthlessly.

“I hope you’re happy, truly, but I feel like my heart’s been torn out of my chest. How dare you make me fall in love with you only to flee the moment I let my humanity show itself? I hate you, and I hate that it’ll always be a lie when I try to convince myself that I really do. Just- just shoot me with one of your lead arrows, so everything will stop hurting.”

Lando lets out a deep breath, feeling like every bit of life in him has left his body. He finally lets himself cry.

“I love him.”

“You love wholeheartedly, and people take advantage of that.”

Oscar shakes his head and rests his chin on his hands.

“No, Charles. I took advantage of him, and he still loves me.”

Wringing his hands in despair, Charles protests, “You’ve been bewitched, then! Trapped under his spell! How could you, Eros, fall in love?”

“Loaded question, isn’t it?” Oscar meets Charles’s eyes steadily. “You know my love for him is real. It’s as real as it gets, and every moment I spend away from him feels like a feather plucked from my wings, and I’d rather cut them off than suffer any longer.”

Charles slumps forward, defeated.

“You really do love him,” he concedes at last, the first time since he arrived at Oscar’s home and refused to leave.

What a load of good that did, because Oscar is leaving his station permanently.

“I love him, for all his flaws. And he loves me, for all of mine,” Oscar agrees, endlessly patient. “You’re more like Lando than you know because you’re flawed too, as much as you Olympians try to present yourselves as perfect beings.”

“That- that’s not true.”

“Then tell me why your own husband refuses to look at you, with all your otherworldly beauty? Why does Max prefer whiling away in his forge than in your arms? He thinks you’re shallow, that you care about nothing more than outward appearances, but I know you love him. You’re just afraid he’ll see something unsavory if you act upon it, so you take it out on mortals who don’t deserve to be on the receiving end of your anger and sorrow.”

Despite his flat tone, Oscar’s pointed words hit their target, just like his arrows.

“Don’t try to convince me that love gods can’t fall in love. I’d consider myself an expert on the matters of the heart, and you, of all gods, should know that love is to be earned.”

Lando jerks awake, startled by the pair of arms wrapped tightly around him and the body pressed against him from behind.

He locked all the doors and the windows, and there’s no chance-

“Shh, I didn’t mean to wake you,” a voice says, so familiar that Lando is convinced he’s dreaming.

The voice he heard every night for a month without a face to attach it to, a voice he thought he’d never hear again.

“Osc,” he murmurs, sleepy. “Is it really you?”

“Yeah, Lando. And I’ll still be here in the morning, my love.”

Oscar keeps his promise, and Lando has to pinch himself to make sure he isn’t still asleep. He stares.

“What?” Oscar asks, face coloring. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Trusting he’ll be caught, Lando peels the covers away and all but throws himself at his husband to kiss him. Oscar’s arms immediately wrap around him, hugging him close as he exhales a mix of relief and happiness against Lando’s mouth.

“I missed you,” Lando whimpers. “Don’t leave me again.”

“I won’t,” Oscar replies. “I won’t. I missed you too. So much.”

Hands reach for the hem of Lando’s shirt, tugging it over his head, as he kicks his boxers away, equally as desperate. Lando, fully bare in front of his husband, stops and just takes him in, the mess of brown hair that’s devastatingly attractive to him, the hungry look in his pretty eyes, like he wants to devour Lando whole.

Oscar fucks him into the mattress, slow and methodical, and it feels so him, that tears well up in Lando’s eyes. Soft lips kiss them away, lingering at the corner of his eye.

He wonders how Oscar feels, knowing he has Lando so completely.

He barely manages to open his eyes in time to watch Oscar come inside him with a low moan, and he spills into Oscar’s hand at the same time.

It’s like he’s finally seeing Oscar for the first time.

Oscar shuffles nervously on Lando’s doorstep.

The door opens.

“You know you have a key, right?”

He thrusts the bouquet of flowers in his husband’s face, feeling extremely out of his depth when he says, “Go out with me. Please.”

Lando looks so pretty when he blinks, confused. He looks even prettier when his face morphs into a smile, eyes sparkling with mirth.

“Oscar,” he drawls, “are you asking me out on a date?”

“Uh, maybe?”

Oscar finds himself tugged into Lando’s flat.

They don’t end up going out. Eating food that Lando ordered on the couch while watching a movie is actually preferable, in Oscar’s humble opinion. It’s very domestic and rather romantic, especially when Lando tentatively cuddles up to him in the middle of the movie.

“You’re so cute,” Oscar blurts out.

His statement is followed by a moment of silence, during which he adjusts himself to very smoothly put an arm around his husband. He’s such a natural at this.

“This is so embarrassing,” Lando mutters, screaming into the pillow he has in his lap before cuddling even closer.

Oscar tilts his head, amused. “What is?”

“It’s so embarrassing that I have such a huge crush on my husband! What the fuck is wrong with me?!”

“Well, if it helps, I used to be the god of love, so it’s only natural.”

Lando glares at him. “That’s so not helpful.”

“If I kiss you, will that make things better?” Oscar offers, happily doing exactly that when Lando meekly nods. “It’s more embarrassing that I, a former god of love, have an even bigger crush on you.”

“Good thing we’re married then, huh?”

“Yep.”