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onewithnomightypowers · 15 days ago

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Blessed with great writing and banger music taste!!

05.05.24 Miami, Part 1

ULTRA: Drowned in Reflection CH13

Elegant rot. Sacred speed. Ruin as ritual.

Word Count: ~2600 / 35,073 total, jump to CH1 / CH12 + cross-posted on ao3.

Summary: What if all of Lando Norris’ fears, insecurities and flaws had a name — and a smirk, and a playlist full of rage? This is a story about desire, ambition, obsession and the art of losing (or refusing to).

Disclaimer: ☆ This is fiction. ☆ I don't know these people, I don't work in F1. Lando Norris (2024 season) is used here purely as an archetype for storytelling. With that in mind, read on!

Warnings: Explicit language, drinking.

I wrote + edited the back half of this chapter while listening to a lot of Nick Hakim. If I were to suggest one song to listen to while reading, I'd say "Vertigo" off COMETA, but that whole album is fitting.

Jeremiah sped over to Cosette with the urgency of someone putting out a fire, weaving through the celebrating McLaren employees.

“Did I hear that right?” he asked, ducking to her height, voice pitched low. His expression was nothing short of scandalized. “Let me fly you to Amsterdam?”

Cosette let out a small huff of laughter, her grin slow and wicked. She took a step back and leaned against the pitlane wall, one foot propped against the concrete, the lingering scent of champagne, rubber, and fuel tickling her nostrils.

"Boy got a taste and now I'm living rent-free in his head," Cosette said, her lips curving into a predatory smile as she paused for effect, "and his wallet," finishing with a slow, deliberate wink.

Jeremiah’s jaw dropped a couple inches. Impressive, given how low it had been to start with.

But hearing her own words made her bravado falter. “…Shit, I sound insane,” she said, quieter now. “I don’t even know what he wants.”

Jeremiah blinked again, slower this time, then slumped beside her. “Damn girl, you’re going to have to catch me up on a lot,” he muttered. “Wanna grab dinner?”

The conversation with Jeremiah over dim sum had cracked open a part of her she’d kept carefully ignored the past few days. Between bites of steaming-hot xiao long bao she'd been forced to see her and Lando’s relationship for how it was: messy, confusing, and completely out of her control, despite her facade, despite her carefully constructed confidence. Could finally see where her act bled into self-deception.

When they’d fucked, it had been like a circus act — Cosette moving through some practiced choreography, a routine designed to dazzle, to distract, to dominate. She hadn’t let herself feel Lando, not really. Just performed what she knew men liked.

And yeah, she thought, I’d say he fucking liked it.

He’d fallen asleep easily, curled on his side facing her, long lashes casting stupidly delicate shadows across his cheeks. Meanwhile, she’d tossed all night, looking for some specific combination of angles and pillows and breathing patterns that might unlock sleep. Watching him, she’d felt a twist in her chest, foreign like disbelief. She thought of Tomoya, who slept like a starfish, a hand on her lower back. And Scott, who stole the covers. And the men before them, a faded procession of faces she couldn’t clearly recall anymore. They didn’t matter. They weren’t supposed to. But this one — this one was already harder to shake, and that terrified her, kept her awake, made her fingers twitch, just a little. And worse, he hadn’t asked for the performance. Hadn’t needed it. But she’d given it anyway.

By three in the morning, she felt like a stranger in her own skin. A blow-up doll in a sleek, high-rise fantasy set in a city twelve time zones from Atlanta. A boy with too much money and too much softness, still asleep in her bed like he didn’t know what she’d done. Like there was still a version of the night where it had meant something. In the murky depths of the night, brain churning, she couldn’t outrun the voice in her head: Whored yourself out again, Cosette. Great fucking job.

At just past 4 a.m. — she’d checked the clock on the bedside table — she’d made yet another adjustment, turning on her side, then heard a low whine from Lando. She felt a large palm slide across her stomach, pulling her backside flush with his chest. She’d held perfectly still, uncertain. But he let out an exhale, his breath hot against the back of her neck. She wasn’t even sure if he was conscious.

Cosette looked down at his hand resting on the bare skin between her shorts and tank. His palm was rough with calluses against the softness of her stomach, but the contrast felt grounding, not uncomfortable. She brought her own hand toward his, then hovered close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, the fine hairs on his knuckles. But she hadn’t let it land, just considered for a moment. Even that was more than she thought she deserved.

She drew her arms back, breathing in what remained on the pillow beside her: expensive hotel soap mingled with his cologne, sharp citrus layered over something darker, leather and musk. She'd always known his surface, bright as grapefruit, warm as ginger. The question was what lived underneath and if she’d ever let herself get close enough to meet it. Somehow, she fell asleep. Her breathing lined up with his, bodies synced in an unconscious rhythm.

There was something about waking up beside a lover. Not a hookup or a one night stand. She felt a weight lifted: no regret, no guilt; the turmoil of her late-night thoughts were forgotten as she looked into Lando’s eyes, Mediterranean blue, sleep-crinkled and amused. His mullet had crumpled into a full-blown faux-hawk, and the image — this rich, famous idiot with bedhead — burrowed under her skin and made itself at home, blood carrying it to every corner of her body until she was full of him, saturated. He hadn't even said anything, done anything, just let her see him unfiltered while she forgot to keep her distance, and now they were both exposed, both defenseless. That was the moment she'd felt truly inhabiting her own body, real and present, heart pulsing warm and steady in her chest. Like she'd stepped back into her skin after watching herself from the outside the night previous. When she’d thought, Maybe this can work. Maybe I deserve this.

In the weeks that followed the China GP, curiosity, hope, and desire were present in Cosette’s mind, never obsessively, but softly in the spaces between conscious thought. She let some of it slip like steam, starting with Eva — who’d helped her get here, and needed to know what came next. Jeremiah knew, which meant Jess knew, but none of them had told Andrew. The man would combust if he knew his favorite driver and favorite technician were falling for each other.

Cosette wanted a second round. A chance to try again, not as a projection, but as herself. Between Lando’s packed schedule and her own, with car improvements inbound for Miami, they’d barely found time to talk. Their texts were sporadic and mostly logistical, but whenever his name lit up her screen, a smile tugged at her lips, easy and automatic.

LN: kings day is the 27th, a saturday. do you think you could leave the mtc maybe a few hours early, say 3 on friday? then you could fly out that night from heathrow

CM: yeah, that works :) will you be on the same flight?

LN: ill be in ams the prior thursday through monday. sunday night ok for you to leave? or too late for work?

CM: you of all people should know i can operate on shockingly little sleep

LN: !

LN: if you get an email from Amanda, that’s my assistant. she’ll be reaching about booking details

A few hours later, another message arrived that made her pulse quicken.

LN: what type of accommodation are you okay with?

Cosette watched with amusement as the typing bubble appeared, vanished, then reappeared.

LN: We could share a room, if that’s alright with you. But I’m happy to book two rooms.

She bit her lip, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

CM: hmmm

CM: yeah im thinkin we wont need two xx

As the plane lifted from Heathrow, Cosette was happily settled in her first-class seat, gin and tonic in hand, phone in the other. She’d queued her flight playlist with care, choosing Amaarae’s “Counterfeit” for takeoff. The Ghanaian-American singer’s high, dreamy voice filled her ears.

Rich bitch, rich bitch

Na-na-na-na-na

Maybe not subtle, but fuck, it felt good. She followed it with 454’s “GEORGIA,” a nod to home. Her body moved as much as the plush seat would allow, head bobbing lightly to the beat.

Don’t hate on the player but hate on the game

Might take a plane and kick back in the A’

It was a short flight, just under ninety minutes, but between music and two more G&Ts, it passed in a blink. The third drink left her a bit unsteady, enough to knock her hip, hard, against the seat ahead as she deplaned. It was the bright type of pain that flashed like a stubbed toe but it dissipated as she walked through the airport.

Outside security a tall man, blond with an impressively groomed beard and mustache, held a sign bearing her name. He wore a suit with a skinny black tie and a wool overcoat, his polished shoes glinting against the atrium's tiled floor, which was dull with layered grime and dust.

“Ms. Moulin,” he said, his voice polite, clipped, professional. “Right this way.”

He’d answered her questions: how long it would take to get there, what part of the city was she staying in — but offered nothing else to fill the silence of the drive. The leather seats creaked softly as she shifted in her seat, the rich smell filling the car's interior. Outside, the city sounds were muted through the tinted windows: distant horns, the whir of bicycle wheels as cyclists drifted past in dedicated lanes, bells chiming at intersections. She leaned forward from the backseat, drumming up some conversation. Maybe she was still tipsy. Does drinking at altitude do weird shit?

“You can talk to me, you know. I don’t bite.”

The flirty tone caught in her throat before it left. Why the fuck am I about to flirt with the driver Lando hired to pick me up? Fucking slut.

Maybe she just had a thing for drivers. Maybe she was just nervous to see Lando again.

From his spot in the hotel lobby, Lando watched Cosette before she even noticed him. He was halfheartedly playing a game on his phone but really focused on the revolving door at the entrance, waiting for her to arrive. He ached to see her again, to touch her — knowing here, away from racetracks and paparazzi, he could. Every time they’d crossed paths at the MTC, a crowd or a videographer was never far behind. He’d been caught staring more times than he could count, like when Oscar nudged his arm and nodded toward a photographer by the trophy wall, pulling Lando’s attention away from Cosette’s retreating figure.

Lando stood from the armchair, striding to Cosette with a hand raised. For a moment, he hesitated, unsure how to break the silence, but then he met her in an easy hug, reminded once again of her scent — jasmine, ambergris, and this time a little lime.

"Good flight?" he asked, taking her carry-on.

"Three gin and tonics good," she said, and he laughed. “Do you people just fly first class because the flight attendants get you plastered?”

"Christ, you're going to be fun tonight." Lando replied quickly, thankful a semi-flirtatious response had surfaced above the flicker of unease. Flashes of Cosette in London, hungover and bleeding. Cosette in his lap, the taste of champagne thick on her tongue, pulling back from a kiss, looking him dead in the eyes spitting cruel words on purpose. He shook the thought from his mind.

He took her out to dinner, somewhere fancy, subdued with dim lighting and tablecloth covered tables that muffled the conversations of neighboring tables. She turned down wine without explanation, and a slight tension in between his brows relaxed. She’d ordered the lamb — thankfully she hadn’t gone for the fish — and Lando found himself captivated by small details: the precise way she held her knife, the soft sound of satisfaction she made at the first bite, how the candlelight caught the angles of her face as she leaned forward to speak.

She told him about Eva, her friend who'd be at Miami. About her research at university, her voice taking on a different quality — animated, passionate. Lando was surrounded by brilliant engineers at McLaren, people who spoke of their work with genuine love, but Cosette displayed a pure joy he'd only seen when she moved to music. The way her eyes lit up explaining non-destructive testing, how her hands moved as she described the physics — he stored each detail, mapping the way her mind worked, grateful for every glimpse she offered.

The elevator back to the hotel room was slow, torturously so. Lando could see her reflection in the polished steel walls — she winked with a tilt of her head and a smile that sent blood to his cheeks and somewhere lower. He could feel the heat radiating off her, could smell her perfume mixed with something purely her. She hadn’t touched him, not yet, but he felt the pull as if she had.

The moment their door clicked shut, shoved him back so hard the handle dug into his spine, her mouth finding his with desperate hunger. "I've been thinking about this all through dinner," she breathed against his lips. His body reacted just as quick as he would have in a car, clutch into gear. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, not rough but possessive, and flipped her so her back hit the wall. Her pulse thudded beneath his fingertips, the rhythm something sacred. "God, Cosette," he groaned against her throat. There was more he’d meant to say, but the words were lost in the way her tongue dragged down his jaw, the clasp of her fingers around the back of his neck. He tugged her toward the bed by the hip, grip greedy, and she let out a startled yelp that made him stop for a moment to search her eyes. She didn’t waver, instead wrapped her arms around his neck, jumped into his arms, her legs locking around his waist with a fluidity that told him everything he needed to know. They stumbled together, barely coordinated, half-laughing into each other’s mouths as they crashed toward the bed. Hands fumbled at fabric, tore at zippers. And when skin finally met skin, she arched into Lando with a gasp that turned into his name — and fuck if that didn’t undo him. He wasn’t sure what had changed, only that something had settled in her, could see it in the way she met his gaze, and held it, like it mattered, like she meant it. And when Cosette breathed against him like that, heavy, exhausted, certain, he could finally breathe too.

Afterward, they lay tangled together, her head on his chest, and Cosette listened to his heartbeat slow back to normal. Beneath her, Lando's hand slipped from her back as he drifted off. But still, she couldn’t sleep.

She didn’t toss or turn — not this time. The restlessness was still there, coiled under her skin, but it no longer felt like a swarm of bees pounding at her insides.

The hum of the air conditioning wove itself into the road noise below, cars gliding along hushed boulevards, drunken patrons leaving bars and hailing cabs in Dutch and English, orchestrating a delicate accompaniment to Lando's soft exhalations as his chest rose and fell beneath her cheek in a cadence that seemed to slow her own racing thoughts, the warmth of his skin seeping into hers like honey through cloth. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Cosette felt comfortable with the silence: not the oppressive kind that demanded to be filled with words or movement or performance, but a warm and undemanding lull enveloping them in velvet, letting her simply exist in this moment without needing to be anything other than exactly who she was.

Thinking the Miami section is going to be many parts (for obvious reasons). Buckle up! -- nora

next chapter out Monday, June 9! follow me or the #ultraln4 tag to keep up with the story 🤍

tags: @onewithnomightypowers, @shadycloudphilosopher, @graceln4

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