#in which i bravely ask the question: what if instead of lando with puppies we got oscar with kittens?

[its-all-papaya]

Cat for the prompt game

this one was almost an hour and a half but in my defense my brain is a little fried. forgive.

Lando's looped the video probably about a hundred times already, but it still tickles the back of his brain the same way when he watches Oscar's face light up for the one-hundred-and-first time.

"I'm meeting some fans today, apparently."

Lando's seen it so many times he could mouth the words along with Oscar if he wanted. His expression is one Lando'd already had memorized even before, the bemused little smirk he pulls out whenever McLaren throws him in front of a camera alone. Put-upon, like he wants the whole audience to know he's just humoring them.

"Here they are," says the voice off camera that Lando could place if he thought about it long enough.

He hasn't thought about it at all, though, because it comes just before Oscar's face goes surprised, then melts into something soft and happy. Bit distracting, that part. Because Lando knows that expression, too, and it's only the fact that he's got it in high-def now that keeps him from being jealous that the video has gone and shared it with the whole world.

There are three of them, all orange.

"Hello there," Oscar says. It's in his normal voice, like he's talking genuinely to fans and not to the three itty bitty kittens tumbling around his legs.

The bravest of the bunch noses suspiciously at the top of his sock where it meets his shin as soon as it gets close enough. It shrinks back when Oscar smooths two fingers down the back of its neck.

"I reckon they were born to be fans," Oscar's eyes shoot quickly up to the camera and then back down as the second kitten props both tiny paws on his knee, "they're already in the right color."

It goes on like that. Oscar's smile never fully leaves his face and it never makes Lando's chest feel any less warm, no matter how many times he watches it repeat on his phone screen. The marketing team will probably be in fits over the numbers the post is doing, and all the while it'll be just Lando, curled up in his sweats in bed listening to Oscar say "I've seen that people compare me to one" over and over and over again.

Lando's seen, too. That people compare Oscar to a cat. He thinks that's probably where the whole thing came from, actually, the social team cashing out with a partner and tapping in on the fans' fancies at the same time.

He's not quite sure what they mean, but privately, Lando agrees. Carlos and Daniel had been all dog, bouncing into his life and wagging their proverbial tails at him until he keyed himself up to match. All play-fighting and sloppy, open affection; crowding his personal space and shedding everywhere until he had no choice but to love them back just as loudly, just as whole-heartedly.

Oscar had been different from the get-go. He was wary like a cat, circling quietly closer, sneaking in at the edges when he thought Lando might not notice. Shrinking away when he got too much affection too quickly. Slinking back to his own side of the garage when he'd had whatever he decided was enough, always resetting on his own terms.

"Bit scared, I reckon," Oscar says at the fifty-seven second mark. His gaze is off-screen, watching as the kittens are herded carefully back towards him. "New place, and all."

He chats on about the shelter they're promoting, hands busy corralling the kittens when they try to wander again. It takes until nearly a minute and a half in for him to successfully get a hand under one of them. His cheeks go a bit pink as he draws it up towards his chin, and Lando's always go a bit pink as he watches Oscar smile, listens to him say, "See? It's alright."

The next part is Lando's favorite. Sometimes he's been stopping to loop just the same fifteen seconds over, watching again and again as Oscar tucks the kitten against his chest, one hand cradling its back while the other nudges up under its furry white chin. Lando gets a bit hung up on the curve of Oscar's finger there, and he understands it, the way the kitten's eyes close into two pleased little arches on its face.

"Now you're happy, huh?" Oscar asks. His grin suddenly brightens into a soft laugh, and he looks directly at the camera to say, "I don't know if you can hear the purring."

They can hear it. Lando'd had to pull out his headphones a few loops in to catch it the first time, but he can pick it out through just the phone speaker now that he knows what to listen for.

Oscar finishes the video with the sponsored read at two-minutes-and-fifty-five seconds. The kitten is nearly asleep in his palm. Oscar's just sort of knuckling along its stomach gently as they close out, but he slips the pad of one finger under the kitten's paw just before the fade-out, and the cat's little toes flex out, like he's petting Oscar right back.

"What are you watching?"

Lando's eyes snap up from his phone screen, where the McLaren logo is frozen under the repeat icon. Next to him, Oscar rolls closer with a yawn so wide Lando can hear his jaw click. His voice is groggy, still half-asleep.

"Nothing," Lando whispers back.

Oscar slides an arm around his waist and Lando gets distracted enough by the feel of it that he doesn't notice Oscar's fingers closing around the phone, tilting it up so he can see what's woken him just after he'd drifted off.

He breathes out an exhale sharp enough to be a laugh and drops both the phone - onto the bed - and his head - onto Lando's chest.

"Interested in adopting one?" he asks, too cheeky for how awake he can possibly be. His fingers curl around Lando's bare side and Lando can feel his lips move vaguely against his collarbone.

"Maybe," Lando says back.

Oscar gives another of the breathy laughs, "You don't even like cats."

Lando locks his phone and finally sets it on the nightstand to charge. The stretch jostles Oscar enough that he huffs, but Lando soothes him easily with a palm up his spine. When he reaches the top, he threads fingers through the hair at Oscar's nape and presses a kiss to his forehead at the contented hum it draws out of him. A bit like a purr.

Lando smiles.

"That's not true."