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“George William Russell,” Lando says, voice quiet yet riddled with amusement, turning his head to look at George, “are you about to propose ?!”
He says it like a joke, mostly intending it to be one, yet George stays quiet for a second too long. He doesn’t turn to meet Lando’s eyes, gaze stuck on the ceiling above them. The moonlight seeping through the windows paints them in its ivory glow, light dancing on the contours of George’s face. Lando stares, begins to count the lashes fluttering over his ocean-blue eyes.
“Maybe.” George finally says. Lando follows the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he speaks, the two syllables murmured into the night for just Lando to hear reverberating through his very bones.
Lando jerks up, sitting in a motion so abrupt it sends his head spinning and vision blurring, and turns to get a proper look at George’s face. He bows his body over the other, who finally lets his eyes dart away from the ceiling, pupils shaking as they meet Lando’s.
“You’re serious?” Lando whispers, disbelieving. He can feel his heart in his throat.
George’s mouth twitches. “As serious as i’ve ever been about anything.”
“Oh, Georgie .” Lando says. His voice cracks comically, like his vocal cords aren’t able to handle the surge of ecstasy that suddenly washes over him in a disorienting torrent.
George smiles then, eyes glazed over, the telltale signs of tears that Lando doesn’t know if he’s prepared to tend to when he feels his own chest expand and fill to the brim with something too tender to define.
Lando doesn’t cry, but right now, George gently reaching over and taking his hands in his, calloused thumbs brushing over the whites of his knuckles in the gentlest touch, Lando thinks he might have to make an exception.
“Is that a yes?” George asks, so quiet Lando barely hears it.
Lando shakes his head, huffing out a breathless laugh. “ Fuck , you muppet , is that even a question?!”
George giggles as Lando falls into him, collapsing in a hug that’s more like a collision; something celestial, a cosmic embrace, and the feeling of stars colliding explodes in Lando’s chest.
He raises his head from the crook of George’s neck, and George is proper crying now, a thin trail of saltwater running down his cheeks, eyes red-rimmed and grin wavering.
“Oh God, look at you,” Lando says, fondness burning in his gut. He brings a hand up and cups George’s cheek, brushing away the moisture from under his eye.
George sniffles. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“How could I not when you make it so easy?” Lando says cheekily, grinning when George rolls his eyes through the tears and groans.
“Do you even like me?” George asks.
“Unfortunately, Georgie, I adore you very much.” Lando says, the edge of amusement fading into something softer.
He leans down, the space between their lips mere centimetres, noses bumping at the weird angle they’re in, but neither care at the moment.
George surges upwards to close the last bit of distance, and their lips slot together like two puzzle pieces, a perfect mismatch of shapes that they somehow make work.
They weren’t written in the stars, Lando would say. There’s nothing about them that screams that they’re meant for each other.
It’s just that, they don’t have to be. They’ve chosen this. They’ve decided to make it work, and it does, brilliantly so.
The kiss they share under the silver light of the moon in the living room of Lando’s two bedroom Monaco apartment feels like a galaxy of stars exploding in his veins, and loving George Russell feels like a choice he’d make every second, again and again.