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December 24th
Christmas Eve smells like garlic and butter and wine.
The table is a mess in the best way—crumbs everywhere, an empty bottle tipped on its side, the good bread torn apart with hands instead of knives. Lando is laughing about something dumb, something about Carlos would say the pasta needs exactly two more minutes next time, and Oscar is warm in that loose, boneless way that only happens when he forgets to be careful.
The doorbell rings.
Lando stands immediately. “That’ll be it,” he says, already moving. “I ordered something last minute, don’t yell at me.”
Oscar huffs. “You’re impossible.”
“Yet beloved,” Lando shoots back over his shoulder.
The door opens.
Oscar doesn’t hear anything strange. No bang. No shout. No sound at all, really—just a heavy, wrong thud that rattles through the floorboards.
“Lando?” Oscar calls, smiling, still seated. “You okay? Did you trip?”
No answer.
He stands, mildly annoyed, heading toward the hall. “If you spilled wine on the—”
He smells it first.
Iron. Sharp and thick, like a coin pressed to the tongue. Under it, faint but unmistakable: burned powder.
Oscar stops so hard his foot skids on the wood.
Training snaps into place before thought does.
Gun.
Close range.
Recent.
His heart is suddenly too loud in his ears. He moves faster now, rounding the corner—
—and there’s hair on the floor.
Curly. Familiar. Too brown against the dark red spreading beneath it.
For half a second, his brain refuses to connect it. Break-in. Revenge. Someone stupid enough to try to take Lando Norris in his own home. Oscar scans automatically—door, shadows, angles—
“—no,” he breathes.
Lando is on his back, eyes half-lidded, one arm bent wrong beneath him. Blood is blooming through his sweater, dark and soaking fast.
Oscar drops to his knees so hard they sting.
“Hey,” he says immediately, voice soft, wrong, like this is normal. “Hey, love. You fell. You—”
He presses his hand to Lando’s chest and feels it. The wound. The warmth. Too much warmth.
“No no no,” Oscar whispers, already pulling Lando’s favorite sweater up, fingers slipping. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re gonna be so mad about this sweater, I’m so sorry—”
He balls the fabric and presses it down hard, right where the blood is pouring through, his hands shaking but steady enough. The sweater darkens instantly.
Too fast.
“Stay with me,” Oscar murmurs, forehead dropping to Lando’s temple. “Please stay. You promised pancakes tomorrow.”
Lando’s mouth moves. No sound comes out.
Oscar fumbles for his phone with one hand, keeps pressure with the other. Carlos. Carlos. Carlos.
No answer.
Again.
Still nothing.
Panic claws up his throat, sharp and animal, but he forces it down. Lando wouldn’t want him to leave. He knows that. Lando wouldn’t want him to run for help and come back to—
“No,” Oscar says aloud, like correcting a mistake. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
His hands are slick now. Blood is everywhere—on his sleeves, his knees, the floor. He adjusts the pressure, remembers something about angles, about slowing the bleed. His training is loud in his head, ugly and useful and unwanted.
This would be easier if it were anyone else.
The thought makes him feel sick.
“I love you,” he says instead, urgently, like that might anchor Lando in place. “You hear me? You don’t get to leave. Not tonight. It’s Christmas Eve. That’s not allowed.”
Lando’s chest rises. Falls. Shallow.
Oscar presses his forehead against Lando’s, breath shaking, counting without meaning to.
One.
Two.
Three.
Footsteps echo somewhere distant—voices, finally, faint and rushing—but Oscar doesn’t move. He doesn’t look up. He keeps his hands where they are, holding Lando together by sheer refusal.
“I’m here,” he repeats, over and over. “I’m here. I’m here.”
And he stays.
The door opens again.
Oscar doesn’t register the sound at first. He’s kneeling in the doorway, knees numb against the wood, hands slick and red and pressed so hard to Lando’s chest his fingers ache. The house is too quiet now, like it’s holding its breath with him.
“—mate?” someone says, confused. Careful.
Footsteps. Two sets.
Oscar lifts his head slowly, like it weighs too much.
Carlos is standing there with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, a bottle of wine in one hand. Logan is half a step behind him, holding a stupid little gift bag with tissue paper poking out the top. They both freeze the moment they see the blood.
Carlos drops everything.
It hits the floor—glass shattering, fabric sliding—none of it matters.
“Oh my god,” Logan breathes.
Oscar’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out the first time.
He swallows, hard, and tries again.
“Carlos,” he says, voice wrecked, barely sound. “Help me. Now.”
Carlos is already moving.
He’s beside them in seconds, hands steady, eyes sharp, taking in the scene with terrifying speed. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t hesitate. He drops to his knees opposite Oscar, one hand immediately replacing Oscar’s on the pressure point.
“Okay,” Carlos says, calm as glass. “Okay. I’ve got him.”
Oscar doesn’t let go right away. His hands shake violently now, cold finally catching up to him, adrenaline draining out of his body all at once.
“I didn’t hear it,” he says, uselessly. “I didn’t—I thought he fell.”
Carlos meets his eyes, firm. Grounding. “You did exactly right.”
Logan hovers, pale, frozen in place until Carlos snaps, “Logan—phone. Ambulance. Now.”
Logan jolts like he’s been slapped into motion. His hands fumble, but he does it. He always does.
Oscar leans back on his heels, breath coming in sharp, broken pulls. His sleeves are soaked through. His hands look wrong—too red, too slick. He stares at them like they don’t belong to him.
Carlos shifts closer, lowering his voice. “Oscar. Look at me.”
Oscar does.
“Stay with me,” Carlos says. “I need you here.”
“I stayed,” Oscar whispers. “I didn’t leave.”
“I know,” Carlos says, and something fierce flickers behind his eyes. “You stayed.”
Sirens wail in the distance, growing louder.
“You did good,” Logan says softly. “You did so good.”
For a moment, everything fractures into motion.
Carlos is talking—clear, sharp, authoritative—words like gunshot and through-and-through and pulse present cutting through the cold air. Paramedics flood the space, hands replacing Oscar’s, voices stacking over each other. Someone gently but firmly moves him back.
Oscar lets them.
He ends up sitting on the floor just outside the door, knees pulled in, blanket slipping off one shoulder. The night air is sharp against his skin now that the adrenaline is gone. His teeth chatter, but he can’t tell if he’s cold or just… emptying out.
Logan crouches in front of him.
Careful. Always careful.
He lifts a hand slowly, gives Oscar time to pull away.
Oscar doesn’t.
Logan’s fingers brush through Oscar’s hair, gentle, reverent. It’s stuck to his forehead with sweat and blood that isn’t his. Logan smooths it back anyway, again and again, like muscle memory from a life they barely got to have.
“Hey,” Logan murmurs. “You’re okay. He’s breathing. I saw it. He’s still breathing.”
Oscar’s eyes are open, fixed somewhere past Logan’s shoulder. He nods once, not really in response.
“I stayed,” he says again, like he needs someone else to witness it. “I didn’t leave him.”
“I know,” Logan says. His voice wobbles just a little. “You never do.”
Logan keeps talking—quiet nonsense, grounding things. The sirens outside. The cold. The fact that Oscar’s hands are shaking because his body’s being stupid, not because he’s weak. He wipes at Oscar’s forehead with the edge of the blanket, thumb careful near his temple.
Oscar blinks.
Then suddenly—too suddenly—he moves.
He’s on his feet before Logan can react, legs stiff and creaking like they don’t belong to him anymore. The world tilts, but he doesn’t stop. He steps past Logan, straight toward the open ambulance doors.
“Oscar—!” Logan grabs for his sleeve.
Oscar shakes him off, not angry, just desperate.
“I’m not staying,” Oscar says, breath hitching. “I’m not staying behind.”
One of the paramedics turns. “Hey—sir, you can’t—”
Oscar’s already climbing up, hands gripping metal, knees banging hard against the step. He scrambles in like gravity itself is trying to pull him back.
“I have to be here,” he says, wild-eyed now, voice breaking at last. “He can’t wake up alone.”
Carlos looks up sharply from where he’s talking to the lead medic. Their eyes meet.
For a half-second, Carlos sees everything—blood, fear, resolve, love—and then he nods.
“Let him,” Carlos says. Final. “He’s staying.”
The paramedic hesitates, then steps aside.
Oscar collapses onto the bench seat inside the ambulance, knees knocking, hands fisting into the edge of the stretcher rail. He leans forward until his forehead presses against Lando’s arm, careful not to touch the wound, just close enough to feel warmth.
He doesn’t speak anymore.
He just stays.
And when the doors slam shut and the ambulance lurches forward into the night, Oscar doesn’t let go—not of the rail, not of the moment, not of the promise he made on a blood-soaked floor.
Not now.
The waiting room is too bright.
The kind of bright that makes everything feel exposed, like you’re doing something wrong just by existing in it. White lights, plastic chairs bolted to the floor, a TV murmuring quietly to no one. Somewhere down the hall, a machine beeps in a rhythm Oscar hates because it isn’t Lando’s.
Oscar sits on the edge of his chair, knees wide, leg bouncing so hard the whole thing rattles.
He doesn’t notice.
Carlos is standing by the window with his phone pressed to his ear, voice low and lethal and controlled. Logan sits beside Oscar, close enough that their shoulders almost touch but not quite. He’s learned that distance matters.
Oscar’s hands are still red.
Someone tried to wipe them clean in the ambulance. He didn’t let them. Now he keeps rubbing them together like that might erase the color, like friction could undo the last hour of his life.
“I—” Oscar starts, then stops. His throat closes in on itself.
Logan turns fully toward him. “Hey. You don’t have to—”
“I do,” Oscar says, voice already breaking. “I need to— I need to say it right or—”
His leg bounces faster. He presses his palms to his jeans, leaving dark smears behind.
“He got up to answer the door,” Oscar says. The words come warped, stretched thin by tears he’s trying and failing to hold back. “He said it was my gift. I told him not to order last minute because he always messes it up and—” A breath catches hard in his chest. “I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t hear the gun.”
Logan’s jaw tightens. He says nothing.
“I smelled it,” Oscar whispers. “Before I saw him. I smelled it and I knew. I knew and I still didn’t think it was him. I thought— I thought someone was trying to get in, like it was just another thing I had to fix.”
His hands curl into fists. Blood flakes dry against his skin.
“I used his sweater,” he chokes. “His favorite one. The stupid soft one he wears when he’s cold. And I was thinking—” He laughs once, broken and sharp. “—I was thinking he’d be upset about it. Like that mattered.”
Tears spill over. He wipes at his face with the back of his hands without thinking, smearing red across his cheek.
Logan moves instantly, catching his wrists gently but firmly.
“Hey,” he says, voice shaking despite himself. “Oscar. Don’t— not with that.”
Oscar looks down at his hands like he’s only just realizing what they are.
“Oh,” he breathes. “I didn’t— I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” Logan says. He pulls a wad of tissues from the dispenser behind them and presses them into Oscar’s hands. “Here. Please.”
Oscar scrubs at his face too hard, breath hitching over and over like he can’t quite get enough air.
“I didn’t leave,” he says again, smaller now. “I stayed. I stayed the whole time. I stayed with him.”
Logan’s eyes fill. He nods, once, fiercely. “Yeah. I know.”
Carlos finally ends the call and turns around. His face changes when he sees Oscar—really sees him—crumpled forward, shaking, hands red and ruined like proof of love.
He crosses the room in three strides and crouches in front of Oscar, bringing himself eye level.
“You did exactly what you were supposed to do,” Carlos says, steady as a hand on a railing. “You saved his life.”
Oscar looks at him, eyes wild. “What if I didn’t?”
Carlos doesn’t hesitate. “You did.”
A nurse appears at the doorway, clipboard tucked under her arm. All three of them snap to attention like they’ve been waiting for a verdict.
“Lando Norris’ family?” she asks gently.
Oscar stands so fast his chair screeches.
“I’m—” His voice cracks. He swallows. “I’m here. I’m with him.”
The nurse’s expression softens. “He’s out of surgery. He’s stable. You can see him soon.”
Oscar’s knees almost give out.
Logan’s hand catches his elbow. Carlos’s hand comes down on his shoulder, solid and real.
Oscar presses his bloodied hands together and bows his head, breath shuddering out of him at last—not relief, not yet, but something close enough to survive on.
He stayed.
And it mattered.
The doctor asks for next of kin.
Carlos answers without hesitation.
Oscar stays sitting, hands folded so tightly in his lap they ache, leg still bouncing even though he’s trying—really trying—to stop it. The waiting room smells like antiseptic and burnt coffee and something vaguely metallic that makes his stomach flip.
The doctor is calm. Middle-aged. Kind in a practiced way.
“Mr. Norris sustained a gunshot wound to the right side,” she says, looking at Carlos. “Through and through. Very clean.”
Clean.
Oscar hates that word.
“No major vascular damage,” the doctor continues. “If the trajectory had been even a little higher—” she pauses, measuring the space with two fingers, “—it would’ve hit the liver. That would’ve been much more serious.”
Oscar’s breath stutters.
A little higher.
His mind betrays him immediately, replaying it in brutal, microscopic detail: the door opening, the angle of Lando’s body, the way he fell backward. Oscar feels suddenly nauseous, like the floor might tilt again.
“But it didn’t,” the doctor says firmly, grounding the moment. “The surgeons are very happy with how it went. We expect a smooth recovery.”
Carlos nods once. “When can we see him?”
“Soon. He’s still in recovery, but he’s stable. Awake briefly. Asking for—” she checks her notes, then smiles faintly, “—someone who sounds important.”
Oscar looks up so fast his neck hurts.
“That’s him,” Logan says quietly beside him.
The doctor glances at Oscar then, really seeing him for the first time—his shaking hands, the dried blood under his nails, the way fear sits in him like something structural.
“You can go in,” she says gently. “Just for a few minutes.”
Oscar stands, but his body lags behind the decision. His knees lock. The room spins just a little.
Carlos’s hand comes out automatically, steadying him. “Easy,” he murmurs. “He’s okay.”
Oscar nods, but his eyes are glassy.
“He almost—” Oscar starts, then stops. His voice won’t cooperate. “If it was higher—”
Carlos meets his gaze, unflinching. “But it wasn’t.”
“That’s—” Oscar swallows. “That’s so small.”
Carlos’s expression softens, just a fraction. “So is the distance between living and dying. That doesn’t mean you didn’t do enough.”
Oscar presses his lips together, fighting the tremor there.
Logan steps closer, shoulder brushing his. “You stayed,” he says again, like it’s a fact that can’t be argued. “That’s why it wasn’t higher.”
Oscar doesn’t know if that’s true.
He just knows his chest hurts, tight and sore, like he’s been holding something heavy for too long.
The nurse opens the door to recovery.
Oscar takes one step forward—then hesitates, fear crashing back in all at once, sharp and childish and overwhelming.
Carlos squeezes his shoulder. “Go,” he says. “He’s waiting.”
Oscar nods.
He moves toward the door on unsteady legs, heart in his throat, terrified not of what he might see—but of how close he came to never seeing it again.
The room smells wrong.
Sterile. Bleached. Too clean. Too empty.
Oscar freezes just inside the doorway, hand still on the frame, breath catching hard in his chest. The lights are dimmed, machines tucked close, cables snaking across the floor like they know where they’re going even if he doesn’t.
It smells like the compound.
Not exactly—but close enough that his body doesn’t bother checking the details.
His eyes snap immediately to the heart monitor.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Too loud. Too rhythmic. Too familiar.
His vision blurs at the edges and suddenly he’s not twenty-something and shaking in borrowed clothes—he’s seven, feet not touching the floor, sitting in a vinyl chair that squeaks every time he breathes wrong. He remembers the way his mum’s hand crushed his, remembers the way adults kept saying sleeping when they meant gone.
Beep.
Beep.
And then—
Flat.
The sound that isn’t a sound, just a line. Just absence.
Oscar’s chest seizes.
“No,” he whispers automatically, barely aware he’s said it. His fingers dig into the doorframe like it might slide out from under him. “No, no, no—”
The monitor keeps going.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
He swallows hard, forces his legs to move. One step. Then another. Every inch closer feels like he’s tempting something cruel to notice him.
Lando is there.
Pale, yes. Bandaged, yes. Tubes everywhere, sweater gone, chest rising shallow but steady under the blanket.
Alive.
Oscar doesn’t realize he’s crying until a drop hits the floor.
He reaches the bedside and just… stands there, useless, terrified to touch him in case that’s what breaks the spell. His hands hover over the blanket, shaking.
The monitor beeps again.
His breath hitches violently.
“What if—” Oscar whispers to no one, voice warping. “What if it just—stops?”
His brain knows that’s not how this works. Knows the doctor’s words. Knows the numbers on the screen are good.
His body doesn’t care.
His body remembers sitting in a hospital room where everyone lied gently and waited for permission to grieve.
Oscar squeezes his eyes shut, forehead dropping to the edge of the bed.
“I can’t—” he breathes. “You can’t—please.”
The monitor keeps going.
Beep.
Beep.
Oscar bows his head, pressing their joined hands to his mouth, breathing Lando in—soap, antiseptic, faint gunpowder ghosted in his memory but alive, alive, alive.
The monitor keeps its steady rhythm.
Not flat.
Not gone.
Still here.
And Oscar stays standing there, shaking, terrified, loving him like it’s the only thing keeping the line from ever going straight again.
Oscar doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there.
Time has stopped behaving normally—stretching thin, snapping back, looping in on itself like it’s stuck on something. The room smells wrong. Too clean. Too empty. The machines are too loud, each beep a sharp, clinical reminder that Lando is still here. Still breathing. Still tethered to this world by wires and numbers Oscar doesn’t understand.
He hasn’t let go of Lando’s hand since they brought him in.
Every time the monitor stutters, Oscar’s heart does something ugly in his chest, and he has to count again. One. Two. Three.
Still alive.
The door opens softly.
“Oscar,” a nurse says, gentle in the way people get when they’ve already decided something for you. “Honey. You need to step out for a bit. Go wash up. Change your clothes.”
Oscar doesn’t look at her.
Lando’s hand is warm—still warm—but the rest of him is wrong. Too still. Too pale. His skin has lost its color, like someone turned the saturation down without asking permission.
Lando is supposed to be tan. Sun-soaked, golden, warm like summer even in winter.
Why is he pale?
That’s not fair. That’s not right.
“Oscar,” the nurse repeats, closer now. “You can come back in a little while, I promise. But you need—”
“No,” Oscar says.
It comes out quiet. Flat. Not loud enough to be rude. Not loud enough to matter.
The nurse sighs, the way people do when they think you’re being difficult instead of terrified. She steps closer and places her hands lightly on his shoulders.
That’s when it happens.
Oscar’s grip tightens around Lando’s hand like a reflex, fingers locking down, pulse skittering under his skin. His vision narrows. The room tilts. His body reacts before his brain catches up.
Don’t touch me.
Don’t take me away.
Don’t—
“Please,” the nurse says, trying to guide him up. “He needs rest.”
Oscar’s head snaps up.
The words slam into him sideways.
He needs rest.
As if Oscar is the problem. As if Oscar being here is hurting him. As if leaving would somehow be better.
Something sharp and feral twists in his chest.
“No,” he says again, louder this time. His voice cracks straight through the middle, ugly and raw. “He needs me.”
The nurse freezes.
Oscar can feel himself shaking now, a fine tremor running through his arms, his legs, his whole stupid body. He doesn’t care. He won’t let go. He can’t.
Lando needs him.
He promised.
Didn’t he promise?
“I’m not—” Oscar swallows hard, his throat burning. “I’m not leaving him. I can’t. He—he doesn’t like hospitals. He hates the beeping. He—” His breath stutters. “He needs me.”
The nurse glances toward the door, uncertain.
Then Carlos is there.
Not loud. Not angry. Just solid, stepping into the space like a wall that doesn’t need to explain itself.
“He’s staying,” Carlos says calmly.
Hospital authority meets syndicate authority and, for once, backs down.
The nurse hesitates, then nods. “Five more minutes,” she says softly. “That’s all I can do.”
She leaves.
The door clicks shut.
Oscar doesn’t notice.
He’s staring at Lando’s face, at the faint crease between his brows like he’s thinking even in sleep, like he might wake up annoyed about something stupid.
“Hey,” Oscar whispers, leaning closer, forehead almost touching Lando’s knuckles. “You’re okay. You’re okay, yeah? You scared me. Just—just don’t do that again.”
His voice wobbles. He presses his mouth to Lando’s hand, careful of the IV, careful of everything, like he might break him if he’s not gentle enough.
“I’m here,” Oscar breathes. “I’ve got you. I won’t go.”
The room settles into something awful after the door closes.
Not silence—never silence. The monitor keeps its metronome beat, too steady, too indifferent. Air hums through vents. Somewhere far away, a cart rattles. Life keeps moving outside this room like it didn’t just knock Oscar’s world flat.
Oscar doesn’t move.
His forehead rests against the edge of the mattress now, close enough that he can feel Lando’s warmth through the sheets. His fingers are still laced with Lando’s, careful around the tape, careful around everything. He’s holding on like if he loosens even a fraction, the universe might take that as permission.
Wake up.
Please.
He counts again. One. Two. Three.
Still breathing.
Still pale.
Still not awake.
The door opens again, slower this time.
Oscar doesn’t look. He doesn’t need to. He knows the weight of footsteps now, the way Carlos moves—measured, controlled, like he’s always bracing for impact. Normally, that would irritate him. Normally, Oscar would catalog it, keep it filed away as things I don’t trust.
Right now, he doesn’t care.
Carlos stops just inside the room.
He takes in everything at once—the blood-stained sweater folded on the chair, the way Oscar is half-curled against the bed like a guard dog who won’t leave its post, the colorless face of the man who is very much not supposed to be lying here.
Carlos exhales.
“Oscar,” he says quietly.
No response.
“Oscar.”
Still nothing.
Carlos steps closer, careful not to crowd him. “He’s stable,” he says, low. “The doctor said—”
“I don’t care,” Oscar cuts in.
His voice is flat. Empty. Dangerous in its own way.
Carlos stops talking.
Oscar finally lifts his head, eyes red-rimmed and unfocused, like he’s been crying underwater. He doesn’t look at Carlos. He looks at Lando.
“I want him awake,” Oscar says. “I want him to open his eyes. I want him to complain about the lights and say something stupid about hospital food. I want him to—” His voice breaks despite his best efforts. “I want my Lando.”
Carlos swallows.
“He will,” he says. Not falsely cheerful. Just certain. “He’s strong.”
Oscar’s grip tightens again.
“So am I,” he says, too fast. Too sharp. “That didn’t stop them.”
Carlos winces, just barely.
Oscar’s chest rises and falls too quickly now. He presses his face into the mattress, breathing in antiseptic and Lando’s soap and that faint, familiar hint of his cologne that still clings to him like a ghost.
“He promised,” Oscar whispers. “He said Christmas was ours. Just us. He said he wasn’t going anywhere.”
Carlos stays silent. There’s nothing safe to say to that.
Minutes pass. Or hours. Time has given up entirely.
Oscar doesn’t notice when his tears soak into the sheets. He doesn’t notice his leg bouncing, the tremor in his hands. All he notices is the way Lando’s thumb twitches once.
It’s small. Barely anything. Could be nothing.
Oscar freezes.
His entire body locks up like prey sensing movement.
“Lando?” he whispers.
Nothing.
His heart slams painfully against his ribs. He laughs once—short, broken. “Okay. That’s fine. That’s fine. I’m just—seeing things.”
He doesn’t let go.
Carlos shifts behind him, watching closely now.
Another minute.
Then—this time, unmistakable—Lando’s fingers curl weakly around Oscar’s.
Oscar sobs.
It rips out of him, raw and uncontained, his forehead dropping fully to the bed as he clutches Lando’s hand like a lifeline. “Oh my god,” he gasps. “Oh my god, you’re here. You’re here, I’m here, don’t you dare—don’t you dare leave me.”
Lando doesn’t wake. Not fully.
But his grip stays.
Carlos turns away discreetly, giving them the dignity of privacy even in this small room.
Oscar presses his mouth to Lando’s knuckles, voice shaking but fierce. “You don’t get to scare me like that,” he murmurs. “You don’t get to do that and then not wake up. I need you. You hear me? I need you.”
The monitor keeps beeping.
Steady.
Alive.
And Oscar stays exactly where he is, daring the universe to try and move him again.
December 25th
Morning doesn’t arrive so much as creep in.
The light is wrong first—too pale, too clean, sliding through the blinds in thin lines that stripe the wall and Lando’s face. It makes him look even lighter than he did last night, like someone turned the saturation down and forgot to fix it.
Oscar is still there.
He never left the chair. At some point, his cheek ended up pressed against the mattress again, his fingers still tangled with Lando’s. His neck aches. His eyes burn. His whole body feels like it’s been wrung out and left to dry.
He blinks awake when the monitor shifts tone slightly, his heart leaping into his throat before he realizes it’s just a nurse adjusting settings.
“Good morning,” she says gently.
Oscar stares at her like she’s speaking another language.
She glances at Lando, then back at Oscar. “He did well overnight,” she adds. “Vitals stayed steady.”
Oscar nods once. He doesn’t trust his voice.
The nurse checks the IV, smooths the blanket. When she leaves, the room feels too big again.
Oscar exhales shakily and looks at Lando’s face.
Still asleep.
Still breathing.
Still here.
“That was rude,” Oscar murmurs hoarsely. “You know that, right?”
His thumb traces the back of Lando’s hand, careful of the tape. He presses his forehead lightly to Lando’s knuckles, grounding himself in the reality of him.
“I stayed,” he adds, like it’s a promise and a confession all at once. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
A quiet sound pulls his attention back.
Lando’s lashes flutter.
Just once. Then again.
Oscar freezes so hard it almost hurts.
“Lando?” he whispers.
Lando’s brow creases faintly, like waking annoys him on principle. His mouth opens, closes. His voice comes out rough and dry, barely more than air.
“Why,” he croaks, “do I feel like I got hit by a bus… driven by an idiot?”
Oscar lets out a laugh that turns immediately into a sob.
“You got shot,” he says, voice wobbling. “On Christmas Eve. Which is objectively worse.”
Lando squints at him, unfocused. “…Rude.”
Oscar leans forward without thinking, pressing his forehead to Lando’s temple, breath hitching. He doesn’t care that there are tubes and wires and rules. He just needs to be close.
“You scared me,” he whispers.
Lando’s hand shifts, weak but intentional, squeezing Oscar’s fingers again. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Didn’t mean to… ruin dinner.”
Oscar laughs wetly. “You didn’t. The pasta was bad anyway.”
Oscar doesn’t realize he’s shaking until Lando notices.
It’s subtle at first—the way Oscar’s knee won’t stop bouncing, the way his fingers keep flexing like he’s checking they still work. He’s been awake too long, adrenaline finally draining out of him in uneven waves, leaving something hollow and raw behind.
Lando watches him from the bed, eyes half-lidded, body sore and heavy and alive. He says nothing at first. Just tracks the signs the same way he would a race—quietly, patiently, waiting for the moment that matters.
“Osc,” Lando murmurs eventually.
Oscar hums without looking at him, still staring at the wall like it might suddenly explain everything.
“Come here.”
Oscar turns instantly. Alarm flares. “I’m here. I didn’t go anywhere.”
“I know,” Lando says softly. “I’m not saying you did.”
Oscar swallows. His throat feels tight, like admitting anything more would crack him straight open.
Lando shifts as much as the wires and pain allow, patting the narrow space beside him. “Lie down with me.”
Oscar shakes his head before he can stop himself. “I can’t. What if—what if you need something? What if they come back? What if—”
“What if you collapse?” Lando counters gently.
Oscar freezes.
Lando reaches out, fingers brushing Oscar’s wrist. His grip is weak, but intentional. Anchoring.
“You’ve been holding me together all night,” Lando says. “Let me do it for five minutes.”
Oscar laughs once, brittle. “You’re the one who got shot.”
“Yeah,” Lando says. “And you’re the one who looks like he might float away if I blink.”
That does it.
Oscar’s breath stutters. He scrubs at his face with both hands, then nods—once, sharp, like he’s bracing for impact.
He climbs onto the bed carefully, awkward with the wires, settling on his side opposite of Lando’s bad one. The moment he’s there, Lando shifts just enough to make space, to cage him in gently with warmth and presence.
Oscar exhales.
It leaves him all at once, like he’s been holding it since Christmas Eve.
His shaking gets worse before it gets better. Lando wraps an arm around him as best he can, hand resting between Oscar’s shoulder blades, grounding pressure.
“I’m still here,” Lando murmurs against his hair. “You don’t have to watch me anymore.”
Oscar presses his face into Lando’s chest, breath hitching. “If I sleep—”
“I’ll be here when you wake up,” Lando says immediately. No hesitation. No joke. Just fact. “I promise.”
Oscar nods against him, fingers fisting in the hospital gown like it’s the only real thing left in the world.
It takes less than a minute.
His body gives up the fight, exhaustion finally winning. His breathing evens out, slow and deep, weight settling fully into Lando like trust made physical.
Lando stares at the ceiling, chest aching—not from the wound, but from the boy sleeping against him like this is the first safe place he’s ever known.
The door opens quietly.
Carlos stops short when he sees them.
He doesn’t interrupt. Just stands there for a moment, taking it in.
Lando turns his head slightly. “He okay?” Carlos asks under his breath.
Lando nods. “He will be.”
Carlos hesitates. “We need to talk. Not now. But soon.”
Lando’s jaw tightens just a fraction.
“Yeah,” he says. “We do.”
Carlos watches Oscar for one last second—curled in, breathing steadily, finally at rest—then leaves them to the quiet.
Lando lowers his chin, pressing a careful kiss into Oscar’s hair.
“We’re done running,” he whispers—not to the room, not to Carlos, but to the promise he’s already made.
And this time, he means it.
December 27th
The hospital never really sleeps. It just changes shifts.
The hallway outside Lando’s room smells faintly of disinfectant and bad coffee. Christmas decorations still cling stubbornly to the nurse’s station—tinsel drooping, a paper snowflake curling at the edges like it’s tired of pretending this is festive.
Oscar left an hour ago.
Logan hovered in the doorway like he didn’t quite believe he was allowed to take him. Oscar had kissed Lando’s cheek, careful of the bruising, and whispered I’ll be back tomorrow like it was a vow.
Now the room feels too big.
Lando sits propped up against pillows, hospital gown swapped for a sweatshirt that’s definitely Oscar’s—too soft, too familiar. His color’s better. Not good. Better.
Carlos stands near the window, arms folded, watching the city like it might give him answers.
Neither of them speaks at first.
“This was sloppy,” Lando says eventually.
Carlos doesn’t turn. “It was.”
“They knew where I’d be.”
“They knew when Oscar would be alone with you,” Carlos corrects.
Lando closes his eyes.
“That can’t happen again.”
“It won’t,” Carlos says. Then, after a beat, “Not like this.”
Lando opens his eyes. “That’s not enough.”
Carlos finally looks at him.
“You’re asking for change,” he says.
“I’m telling you it’s happening,” Lando replies quietly. “With or without permission.”
Carlos studies him—really studies him. The way his shoulders are tense despite the pain meds. The way his gaze flicks instinctively to the door, even now.
“You fall in love,” Carlos says dryly, “and suddenly you want to rewrite the rules.”
Lando doesn’t rise to it. “I almost died on my own floor.”
Carlos’s jaw tightens.
“And he almost watched you bleed out,” Lando continues. “Alone. With no backup. No choice.”
That one lands.
Carlos exhales through his nose. “You want out.”
“I want quiet,” Lando says. “I want him safe even when I’m not in the room.”
Silence stretches, broken only by the monitor’s steady beep.
“We can downshift,” Carlos says slowly. “Pull back operations. Make it boring.”
Lando snorts faintly. “Never thought I’d hear you say boring like it’s a goal.”
“I’m serious,” Carlos says. “But it comes with cost.”
“I know.”
“Less control. More exposure. You won’t like it.”
“I’ll like it better than this,” Lando says, gesturing vaguely at himself, at the room, at everything.
Carlos nods once.
“The people who did this?” Lando asks.
Carlos’s expression goes cold. “They don’t get a second attempt.”
Good.
Lando relaxes back into the pillows, breath easing. “Oscar’s going to be mad we’re talking about this without him.”
Carlos shakes his head. “He’s going to be relieved you didn’t make him choose.”
Lando stares at the ceiling. After a moment, his voice drops.
“I thought I was past this. Thought I’d already lost everything that mattered.”
Carlos watches him carefully. “You didn’t.”
Lando turns his head, meeting his eyes. “I almost did.”
Another pause.
Then Carlos steps closer, lowering his voice. “Rest. I’ll handle the rest.”
Lando nods. “Carlos?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For him.”
Carlos glances toward the door Oscar walked out of, then back at Lando. “For both of you.”
Outside, a cart rolls past. Somewhere, a phone rings.
Inside the room, the two of them sit with the knowledge that something fundamental has shifted—and there’s no going back to the way it was.
January 8th
Oscar doesn’t realize he’s counting until he gets to twenty-three and has to start over.
The living room looks the same. That’s the problem.
The rug’s been cleaned—professionally, thoroughly, expensively—but Oscar can still smell it if he lets himself. Iron, faint and phantom, like his brain is replaying a memory it doesn’t trust the world to keep. His hands feel sticky even though he’s washed them raw. He presses his palms together, then against his jeans, grounding, grounding—
Lando shifts beside him.
Warm. Solid. Tan again, thank God. His shoulder brushes Oscar’s, curls soft where Oscar’s fingers have already been once, twice, like checking he’s real. Like checking he’s not cold.
“You’re doing that thing,” Lando says quietly.
Oscar blinks. “What thing?”
“The disappearing one.”
Oscar exhales through his nose. “Ah.”
They sit there for a moment longer, knees touching, the city humming outside like nothing ever happened. The Christmas tree’s gone now. Just an ordinary room. An ordinary couch. Two people who should not have survived the week they did.
Oscar swallows.
“Things are… different,” he says finally.
Lando doesn’t pretend not to understand. “Yeah.”
Oscar picks at a loose thread on the cushion. “Carlos doesn’t—” He stops. Tries again. “There aren’t as many people. And the cameras outside are… different ones.”
Lando hums. Encouraging. Not defensive.
“And the chef left,” Oscar adds, softer. “And the man who used to stand by the elevator.”
Lando turns his head fully now, looking at him. “You’re not wrong.”
Oscar’s chest tightens. He hates this part—asking. He learned a long time ago that questions are dangerous. That curiosity gets punished.
But Lando is here. Lando is breathing. Lando is warm.
“Is it because of me?” Oscar asks.
The words land between them, fragile and terrifying.
Lando answers immediately. “Yes.”
Oscar startles. “Oh.”
“But not like that,” Lando says quickly. He reaches out, fingers curling around Oscar’s wrist, grounding him before the spiral can start. “Not because you’re a liability. Not because you did anything wrong.”
Oscar looks at him, eyes too bright. “Then why?”
Lando’s thumb brushes over Oscar’s pulse. Steady. Alive.
“Because I watched you kneel on the floor with my blood on your hands,” Lando says quietly. “And I realized I was asking you to survive things you shouldn’t have to anymore.”
Oscar’s breath catches.
“I won’t do that to you,” Lando continues. “I won’t build a life with you and keep inviting violence into it like it’s inevitable.”
Oscar shakes his head, almost frantic. “You don’t have to change everything. I can handle it. I have handled it.”
“I know,” Lando says. “That’s why I’m changing it.”
The words sink in slowly.
Oscar looks around the room again—the clean floor, the quieter walls, the absence of constant, low-grade threat. He looks at Lando, at the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his curls fall into his eyes no matter how many times he pushes them back.
“You chose me,” Oscar whispers.
Lando smiles, small and certain. “Every time.”
Something in Oscar finally gives way—not breaking, but releasing. He leans into Lando without thinking, pressing his forehead to Lando’s shoulder, breathing him in. Soap. Skin. Home.
“I still smell it,” Oscar admits. “The blood.”
“I know,” Lando says, wrapping an arm around him. “It’ll fade.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we live with it,” Lando replies. “Together. Quietly. Safely.”
Oscar nods against him.
He doesn’t say I love you. He already did. They both know.
Instead, he closes his eyes, curls closer, and for the first time since Christmas Eve, lets himself believe something radical and terrifying and gentle all at once:
That the world didn’t just spare him.
It chose him too.
January 14th
Oscar hates medics.
He tolerates doctors now—barely—but medics still smell like antiseptic and urgency and the kind of calm that means something bad already happened. So when Lando says, casually, “Love, the medic’s here,” Oscar doesn’t look up from where he’s folding laundry on the couch.
“Tell them he’s fine,” Oscar says. “He’s dramatic.”
“I’m literally bleeding internally less than I was,” Lando offers, unhelpful.
There’s a knock.
Lando opens the door himself, one hand braced against the frame. “You’re late,” he says, familiar.
“Traffic,” a woman replies. Young voice. Steady. London-accented but not quite local.
Oscar freezes.
He knows that voice.
His heart stutters, then slams so hard it hurts.
“No,” he whispers, not to anyone in particular.
The woman steps into view.
She’s taller. Older. Hair pulled back tight, paramedic jacket zipped to her throat, gloves already on. There’s a faint scar at her temple Oscar doesn’t remember—but the eyes are the same.
Sharp. Watchful. Alive.
Lia.
The room tilts.
Oscar stands too fast, the laundry slipping from his hands and scattering uselessly to the floor. His breath goes thin, useless. He takes a step forward, then another, like he’s crossing ice he doesn’t trust.
“Lia?” he says.
She looks at him.
Really looks.
Her face doesn’t change—not much—but her eyes go glassy immediately, and her mouth presses tight like she’s holding something back with her teeth.
“…Oscar,” she says automatically.
Oscar flinches.
She swallows. Tries again. “Oscar.”
That’s it. That’s all it takes.
Oscar crosses the room in three strides and pulls her into his arms like he’s afraid she might vanish if he doesn’t anchor her. She stiffens for half a second—pure reflex—then melts into him, hands fisting in the back of his sweater.
She’s warm.
She’s real.
She’s alive.
“You got out,” she says into his shoulder, voice shaking now. “You actually— you idiot, you did it.”
“You did,” Oscar chokes. “You were supposed to— I didn’t know— I thought—”
“I know,” she says quickly. “I know. Lando made me swear. Carlos too. They didn’t want— they didn’t want it ripping you open again.”
Oscar pulls back just enough to look at her. “You work for him?”
She snorts wetly. “Not for. With. Trauma response, extraction, clean exits. Turns out being seven and terrified gives you a weirdly useful skill set.”
Lando clears his throat gently from the doorway.
“Hi,” he says. “Still bleeding.”
Lia wipes her eyes, instantly professional. “Sit down before I stitch you to the couch.”
Oscar ends up on the floor without really deciding to.
He sits cross-legged in front of the couch, back resting against Lando’s knees. It’s instinctive—like his body knows where safety lives before his head catches up. Lando shifts slightly to make room, careful of the healing wound, one hand automatically settling in Oscar’s hair.
Lia kneels beside the couch, gloves back on, movements precise and gentle. She peels the dressing away slowly.
The scar is pink and angry in places, a neat, ugly reminder of Christmas Eve. Lia hums softly as she checks it, not for Lando’s benefit—but for Oscar’s. She learned that trick a long time ago.
“It’s healing well,” she says quietly. “No infection. Still tender, though.”
Lando exhales. “Story of my life.”
Oscar doesn’t laugh.
His gaze is fixed on the wound. On the way Lia’s fingers move around it without flinching. On the fact that Lando is here. Alive. Warm. Breathing.
His throat tightens.
“Lando,” he says suddenly.
Lando looks down immediately. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
Oscar swallows. His fingers twist in the fabric of his own sleeve. He feels nine years old again. Thirteen. Fifteen. Every version of himself stacked in his chest, all wanting out at once.
“I—” His voice breaks. He clears his throat and tries again. “There’s something I should’ve told you. Earlier. Before all of this.”
Lia stills.
Not frozen—just attentive. Present.
Lando’s hand pauses in Oscar’s hair, then resumes, slower. “Okay,” he says gently. “You can tell me.”
Oscar stares at the floor.
“I wasn’t… raised,” he says. The word feels wrong in his mouth. Too soft. “Not really. After my dad died, after my mum— I didn’t… They took me. When I was young.”
Lia’s eyes flick to him, sharp with recognition, but she says nothing.
“They didn’t want noise,” Oscar continues. “Or mess. Or kids. They wanted something quiet. Something that could disappear into rooms and come back with answers.”
His nails dig into his palm. He barely notices.
“They taught me what to say. How to stand. When to lie. When to smile. When to hurt someone and not think about it after.” His breath stutters. “They said I was good at it. That it meant I was smart.”
Lando’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t interrupt.
“They didn’t call me Oscar,” he adds. “Not most of the time.”
The room feels smaller. He forces himself to keep going before he loses the nerve.
“I don’t always know what’s normal,” Oscar says quietly. “Or what I’m allowed to want. Or how to stop being… useful.”
Lia reaches out then—not to him, but to rest her hand lightly on his shoulder. Solid. Real.
“You’re allowed to want everything,” she says softly. “Just so you know.”
Oscar’s eyes burn. He blinks hard.
Lando leans forward as much as his side allows, forehead resting briefly against the back of Oscar’s head.
“They didn’t raise you,” Lando says, voice low and steady. “They used you. That’s not the same thing.”
Oscar lets out a shaky breath. “I know. I just— I didn’t want you to look at me and see that first.”
Lando cups his face, gently turning him around despite Oscar’s instinct to hide. Their eyes meet.
“I see you,” Lando says. “I see the man who kept people alive. Who got Lia out. Who sat on the floor with a scared kid and didn’t leave.”
Oscar’s lips tremble.
“And I love you,” Lando adds, like it’s the simplest fact in the world. “Not despite what they did to you. But because you survived it and stayed kind anyway.”
Oscar breaks then—quietly, finally. He leans forward, pressing his forehead into Lando’s chest, careful of the wound. Lando wraps both arms around him, holding him like there’s nowhere else he needs to be.
Lia finishes re-dressing the wound with gentle efficiency, then sits back on her heels.
“You told him,” she says softly.
Oscar nods, muffled. “Yeah.”
“Good,” she replies. “You’re not carrying it alone anymore.”
For the first time, Oscar believes her.
Lia cleans up quietly.
She tapes the last edge of the dressing down, checks it twice, then peels her gloves off and disposes of them with the same care she always does—like order is a kindness. She meets Oscar’s eyes once more.
“I’ll be back,” she says. Not dramatic. Not fragile. A promise she intends to keep. “I just need to check in with someone.”
Oscar nods, still pressed into Lando, fingers curled in the hem of his shirt like an anchor. “Okay.”
She hesitates, then leans down and presses a quick kiss to Oscar’s hair. A sister’s kiss. A survivor’s.
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut softly behind her.
The apartment feels quieter without her.
Lando shifts carefully, easing himself down a little so Oscar can rest more comfortably against him. His arms come around Oscar fully now, protective but not tight. Just… there.
“You did really well,” Lando murmurs.
Oscar lets out a shaky breath that almost turns into a laugh. “I feel like I just— dumped everything on you.”
Lando smiles faintly, nose brushing Oscar’s temple. “Yeah. You did.”
Oscar winces. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Lando says immediately. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you without making it sound like an interrogation.”
That gets a real laugh out of Oscar, small and wet. He tilts his head back just enough to look at Lando’s face. Still pale, but warmer now. Still tan. Still here.
“Does it… change things?” Oscar asks quietly. The question he’s been circling since he opened his mouth.
Lando thinks for half a second. Honest. Careful.
“Yeah,” he says. “It makes me want to be gentler with you. And louder when I need to be angry on your behalf.”
Oscar swallows. “You’re not… scared?”
Lando presses a kiss to his forehead, lingering. “Of you? Never.”
Another breath escapes Oscar, this one steadier. He shifts slightly, tucking himself closer, his hand sliding unconsciously to rest over Lando’s side—hovering near the scar, careful not to press.
“That still hurts?” Oscar asks.
“A bit,” Lando admits. “Mostly when I sit too long or think too hard.”
Oscar hums. “We’re bad at not thinking too hard.”
“Terrible,” Lando agrees. “We should stop.”
Oscar closes his eyes.
The last night is ordinary.
That’s what makes it matter.
It’s late enough that the city outside has softened—lights still on, but dimmed, like it’s learned some restraint. Oscar sits on the floor with his back against the couch, knees drawn up, wearing one of Lando’s sweaters that definitely wasn’t meant to be shared. It smells like him. Chocolate and something clean. Safety, somehow.
Lando’s above him, half-sprawled, half-dozing. One hand draped down, fingers loosely laced with Oscar’s.
No one is bleeding. No one is missing. No one is being hunted tonight.
Oscar listens to Lando breathe and thinks, dimly, that he used to count exits in every room. Used to catalog threats the way other people memorized song lyrics.
He hasn’t done that here. Not once.
“Hey,” Lando murmurs, eyes still closed. “You okay?”
Oscar squeezes his hand. “Yeah.”
It’s not a lie. It’s not a full truth, either. But it’s real enough to stand on.
Lando hums, satisfied, and shifts just enough to pull Oscar closer with his foot, anchoring him like it’s instinct. Like this is where Oscar belongs now, whether he believes it yet or not.
Outside, somewhere far away, something bad is probably happening. That’s how the world works.
But in this room, there’s only warmth. Only quiet. Only a future that doesn’t ask for blood up front.
Oscar leans his head back against the couch, eyes closing.
For the first time in a long time, nothing is chasing him.
And for now— that’s enough.