Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Osc, c’mon! Let’s go. Please.”

Lando, strewn across Oscar’s almost-twin-sized bed, has been incessantly whining for too long, if you ask Oscar. Oscar, more concerned about doing his physics notes, is very much doing his best to ignore Lando’s incessant whining.

“Lando, no.”

Oscar’s said no at least five times already, but Lando, for better or worse, never knows when to stop. Especially because he knows Oscar doesn’t ever actually care too much if Lando “bothers” him. Lando never actually bothers Oscar; Oscar’s reassured him as such when Lando’s had his perhaps too-often-to-be-normal breakdowns about being annoying and overbearing. 

“Oscar, yes. It’ll be fun. You need to take a break anyway. It won’t even be fun without you.”

“Pretty sure Max and Charles are going to come pick you either way. You’ll be okay. And I really need to finish these,” Oscar says, waving his notes in Lando’s direction without turning around.

“You’re so mean to me.”

Lando’s lying. Oscar is probably the least mean person he knows, especially when it comes to Lando, but he’s imploying every tactic he knows — such as lying, manipulation, and guilt tripping. Guilt tripping tends to work the best on Oscar, because he’ll break down eventually if he thinks Lando’s actually on the verge of being upset. It’s sort of cute — not that Lando thinks of Oscar like that. 

“I’ll even pick out what you should wear so you don’t have to bother!”

“You’ll make me look like a slut.”

“You deserve to look like a slut,” Lando rebuttals. 

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Oscar, please. At least look at me.”

Oscar does not want to look at Lando. He knows he’ll be making that face. The one Lando knows Oscar falls for every time.

“Oscar, please,” Lando tries again, his accent getting heavier, Oscar sounding more like Osc-ah. And he can’t help himself. 

Oscar was right. He’s making the face. The one where his eyes shine just right, the perfect shade of green-brown-blue that Oscar can never quite describe, and his lips pout so prettily, bottom lip sticking out just a little. It’s the face that makes Oscar feel a way he can’t name and will always make him give in to Lando’s wildest whims.

“Fine.”

Lando mimes cheering from where he's tucked himself up by Oscar’s headboard. 

“But I’m going to wear what I want to wear.”

“That’s no fun! That wasn’t part of the deal, Osc.”

“I never agreed to the deal, I just said that I’d go. Don’t make me take it back.”

“No, no! It’s okay. Wear whatever, I guess.”

Lando pouts again. If Oscar really looked closely, he may even think Lando’s eyes have started to water — another attempt at emotional manipulation surely. He looks a little stupid, but it twinges something in Oscar’s heart and naturally, he folds.

“Ok, show me what you want me to wear. But no promise I’m wearing it.”

“Have I ever told you I love you?”

Yes, Oscar thinks. Too often, but not enough. 

Oscar’s agreement has Lando bounding out of his bed and towards the dismal closet Oscar keeps his nicer clothes in. Not that he has many. Just that his mom told him not to crumple his nice sweaters and shirts into his drawers, and he’s always trusted her. 

Lando rambles continuously as he pushes around hangers and pulls things out just to shove them back in. Not that Oscar minds, he doesn’t take the best care of his clothes anyways. Oscar thinks Lando’s saying something about how they should go shopping because Oscar definitely does not have enough clothes, but Oscar’s not really listening. He’s just, well, absorbing Lando’s energy.

He’s silently letting Lando tear through his wardrobe, recognizing he’s never finishing these physics notes and accepting defeat at the hands of Lando Norris. 

“Here, this one. This one’s good, Osc.”

Lando’s shoving a white button down towards him. One Oscar hasn’t worn since a horrible presentation he had to give for a business class he didn’t really mean to nor want to take. 

“Isn’t this a little prim and proper, like tea with the royals?”

“Mate, that sentence was more British than anything I’ve ever said. You can’t forget your Aussie roots, Oscar. Your mom would be so disappointed.”

“Lando—”

“And no, it isn’t. Just don’t do like .. the top half of the buttons.” 

“The top half?”

“Like mid-chest, Oscar. You can figure it out. You’re attractive enough.” 

“Sure, yeah, whatever that means. What else?”

Oscar lays the shirt on the bed behind him as Lando starts rapidly sliding around his hangers again. 

Lando’s already dressed for the party. Had come ready. Hadn’t planned to go back to his off-campus flat. Actually told Max and Charles to pick him up from Oscar’s, even before knowing if Oscar would go or not. Maybe Lando knew Oscar was always going to say yes. 

And if Lando’s outfit is anything to go by, he’s basically trying to get Oscar to dress like him. Lando’s in his favorite party-shirt, a black button up. Open up at the top like he wants Oscar to do. It falls open just enough that Oscar can see the beginnings of his collarbones and the shirt lapel creates the perfect space for one of Lando’s many chains to fall into. Beyond that, he’s wearing jeans that Oscar is definitely not cool enough to wear. They’re baggy, a little low waisted. They hang perfectly on Lando, accentuating his waist, making him look cool and artsy. Oscar would look like a drowned rat if he tried to pull them off. 

Instead, Lando turns back to him with a pair of black dress pants. Slacks, more or less. Oscar had bought them for some cousin’s wedding a year back during his last visit to Australia. He’s worn them once or twice, dinners and the like, maybe even a party. Oscar likes them. But paired with the white button up, he’s still worried about looking a little too business casual for whatever basement they’re going to end up in. He expresses as much to Lando.

“Osc, c’mon. If you just style it right, you’ll be perfect. And you have to have the right energy. If you don’t have business casual energy, no one will think that of you.”

Oscar does not think that’s how that works. He also doesn’t know if he knows how to exude the so-called right energy. 

“Ok, now that your fears are quelled,” they’re not, “go get changed.”

“How do you know I’ve agreed to this outfit? I could still pick something else. Hell, I could just go in what I’m wearing.” He wouldn’t, not in his black sweatpants and an oversized university shirt, but he’ll threaten it to Lando anyways.

“Of course you’ve agreed, Osc. You wouldn’t have let me get this far otherwise. Now go change, pretty please.”

Once again, Oscar finds himself surrendering. He lets Lando get comfortable in his bed again as he putters off to the tiny bathroom he’d been gifted with his new dorm at the start of the school year. He returns almost a whole ten minutes later after wrestling with one too many buttons, trying desperately to decide how many to unbutton, staring at his reflection for too long, unable to decide if he liked how he looked, and then messing around with his hair a little to try and look less … business casual. 

He can’t explain why he’s nervous when he leaves the bathroom. But he’s convinced it has nothing to do with what Lando thinks. Because why would he care what his best friend thinks about how he looks?

“So?” He prompts, causing Lando to look up from the bed.

Lando eyes him up and down, dead silent. His eyes seem to glaze over for a moment, just looking at Oscar, and then he coughs, straightens up, and says, “Yeah, yes, yeah. You look great. Here, let me just fix some things. And … can I give you one of my bracelets or something? You should accessorize more, Oscar.”

“Uh, yeah. I guess, do whatever you need to, Lando.”

Lando smiles all bright and giddy at that and moves towards Oscar. Lando starts at the top of Oscar’s shirt, muttering something about Oscar needing to let go a little as he unbuttons another button. “Better,” he murmurs to himself, sticking out his tongue to focus. Then, he carefully rolls each of Oscar’s sleeves up to his elbows. Lando’s finger grazes Oscar’s forearms as he does so, and Oscar has no reaction. Or that’s what he tells himself. 

Lando steps back, looks at Oscar, shakes his head and approaches again. This time, though, his hands are reaching for the hem of Oscar’s shirt. Lando’s nails just barely touch Oscar’s stomach as Lando pulls the shirt’s hem towards himself, but Oscar barely conceals the little punched out noise he makes when they do. 

“Alright, Osc?”

“Fine.”

Lando just hums in response, fingers diligently unbuttoning the bottom two buttons on the shirt. He holds either side of the shirt for a moment, just sort of staring at his own hands before starting to move again. He drops the left side of the shirt. Then, before Oscar can even guess what he’s about to do, the fingers on Lando’s now-free hand skim just over the top of Oscar’s waistband. Somehow, so innocently, he slots one finger into the waistband of the pants before looking up at Oscar. And everything stills.

They just look at each other, Oscar stock-still, hands dangling by his sides, and Lando, one hand grasping Oscar’s shirt, the other encroaching just in the top of Oscar’s pants, touching the bare skin of his stomach. And then, it shatters.

Lando jumps back, hands now at his own sides and fidgeting with his own clothes. “I was just going to … You should just, uhm, tuck one side of the shirt in. Like asymmetrical and shit. Whatever side. I was going to tuck the right side, but whatever you want. Or you don’t even have to tuck it. Really it’s whatever.”

As Lando stumbles over his words, Oscar’s brain manages to reboot. He, casually, or as casually as he can manage, tucks the right side of his shirt into his pants, palm smoothing over a few wrinkles and creases. 

“Like this?” He asks, silencing Lando’s continued mutterings and apologies and fashion advice.

Lando beams. “Just like that, yeah.” And then he’s moving back towards Oscar, and Oscar’s glad that whatever awkward energy they created dissipated just as quickly as it came.

Lando scans him again, judging and then looks down at his own wrists. They’re littered with bracelets Lando’s collected over the past couple years, each one often attached to a little story Lando knows by heart. He slides off a black string bracelet and a beaded gold one and then slides them both onto Oscar’s left wrist. 

“If you have the bracelets on the left, it’ll contrast that you have the shirt tucked on the right. It’s like balance.”

“Yes, Lando, it’s like balance.”

With the bracelets snugly on Oscar’s wrist, Lando has his hands free to smack Oscar on the chest and call him mean again. 

“Now, go look at yourself in the mirror and try to tell me you don’t look stunning.”

Oscar does admittedly look better. Between the half-tuck, and the way his collarbones are on display, and the bracelets, he hardly looks business casual. He does run a hand through his hair again to try and achieve some casually-messy-gorgeous look that only works half the time. But it works okay right now, so Oscar supposes it’ll do.

“Okay, I look good.”

“No, Oscar. You look stunning.” 

Lando’s lounging on his bed again, watching Oscar through the small doorway into the bathroom.

“Fine, I look stunning.”

“Good.” 

— I'ma crawl outta the window now, 'cause I don't like anyone around, kinda hope you're followin' me out, but this is definitely not my crowd. 

The basement is way too fucking loud, too fucking bright, and Oscar is too fucking sober.

He doesn’t have to be. Max drove and will gladly drive Oscar — and probably Lando — back to his flat at the end of the night. But Oscar doesn’t mind the Sprite he’s drinking and doesn’t want to deal with the repercussions he’ll face tomorrow morning if he drinks himself off his ass. 

He’s content — well content is a strong word, but he’s fine — to just watch the party from a corner. The only corner currently not being used for gossip sessions or a steamy makeout. He lost Lando, Charles, and even Max the second they made it in the door; Lando sprinting off to get a drink, Charles spotting some people he knew, and Max, ever addicted to Charles, heading after him. Oscar doesn’t mind. He doesn’t really need anyone to keep him company, as long as he can people-watch and tune out the harsh music, he thinks he’ll manage for at least another hour.

It’s what he always does at parties. Push through on his ability to zone out. And occasionally accept a distraction from someone tolerable. Like Charles.

Charles who, already well on his way to being drunk, barely misses Oscar when he slams into the wall beside him, panting from whatever way too excited dancing he was managing. 

“Hey, Oscar.”

“Charles.”

“You good, mate? Not bored or anything?”

Oscar huffs a laugh. Oscar is definitely bored, but he’s good. And he’ll be less bored if Charles stays around a little to keep him company, slurring at random times and giggling at everything Oscar says, no matter how funny. 

“Peachy.”

“You’re funny, Oscar. Who says things like that? Peachy,” Charles mocks, his French — Monegasque — accent overpowering his brief attempt at Oscar’s Australian lilt. “You’re like … a classic.”

And Oscar doesn’t know if he means a classic novel, a Latin text, or an old Hollywood movie, because Charles could be referencing any of the above, but Oscar just accepts it, nodding like he’s in on some joke. 

“It’s just a word, Charles.” 

“But it sounds a little silly, non ?”

“Sure, maybe it does.”

“Did you know Max is with Daniel, right now? Beer pong or something stupid. He’s teammates. With Daniel. I didn’t want to play. Max wouldn’t have wanted to be on my team anyway,” Charles huffs.

And, of course, Daniel Ricciardo. Max’s ever-relevant ex-boyfriend. They’d been friends long before they dated and stayed friends after they broke up, because while their romantic relationship had reached its expiration, neither one had been able to give up their friendship. And according to Charles, it didn’t bother him, Max can be friends with whoever he wants, it's not like he and Charles are even dating, so why should Charles care . 

No, they’re just fucking. Regularly.

They’ve both admitted as much to Oscar in separate rants, and that one time Oscar walked in on them that he is very much choosing to forget about. Both have told Oscar it's entirely no-strings-attached, casual, out of convenience, totally normal. Which Oscar might believe if either could actually be normal about the other. 

But they can’t. 

Charles is the only person who can settle Max’s occasionally fiery tempter. Charles is the only person Max will truly allow constant, casual affection with — hand taps, and shoulder grabs, or hugs. Max is the only one who can really get through to Charles when he gets too in his head and spirals a little too much. Max is the only person Charles really allows himself to cry too, not just the dramatic fake tears he exhibits elsewhere. And of course, there’s the fact that they’re having regular, supposedly “very good,” totally casual sex. 

Oscar feels lucky to know two people so absolutely stupid. 

“And how do you know Max wouldn’t have wanted to be your teammate?”

“Because he has Daniel. And I never matter when Daniel is around.” 

Another glowing example of Charles being perfectly stupid. Because anyone with eyes can tell that Charles matters to Max all the time. Even Daniel surely knows. Because Max could be sitting on Daniel’s couch laughing his ass off, with a video game controller or a beer in one hand, and still be only really looking at Charles. Max could be sitting across from Daniel, giggling and chatting at dinner, and still sneak a hand under the table to rest it on Charles’ thigh. Max could be doing just about anything, and still Charles would matter the most. 

“Charles, mate, I bet he’s probably wondering where you are right now.”

“Yeah?” Charles’ eyes glow a little when he turns to face Oscar, partially from the drinks, sure, but also because Max just does that to Charles. Makes him glow.

“Definitely. He’s probably winning at beer pong and still whining about you not being there to cheer him on.”

“I am his biggest cheerleader.”

It’s true. At football games, Charles writes Max’s name on his cheek and yells his name louder than anyone. Honestly, the audacity of these two to claim anything they have is casual. 

“That you are.” 

“You’re so supportive, Oscar.”

Oscar hums, glad he can quell Charles’ entirely nonsensical worries about Max Verstappen.

Charles just watches him for a second, and then, before Oscar can even blink, Charles’ whole face shifts. It turns to something gremlin-esque, eyes shimmering and mouth conforming to some sly, mischievous smirk.

“Oscar?”

“Yeah?” Oscar responds hesitantly, the look on Charles’ face worrying him.

“Are those Lando’s bracelets?”

He means the black and gold bands on Oscar’s wrists. The two that aren’t typically there. The one Lando made at a youth camp he worked at a year or so back and the one Lando got as a birthday present from George or Alex or someone. The two bracelets that are apparently recognizable as Lando’s. 

“Yes. He got me ready before we left. Let me borrow some shit to make me look better, I guess.”

Charles lets out a low whistle, “He got you ready, did he?”

“Jeez, Charles, you make it sound dirty.”

“Surely, it is, non ?”

“Not everyone’s fucking their best friend.”

“But you wish you were.”

That stops Oscar. He’s sure Charles has said something like it before. Something rancid about him and Lando. But Oscar doesn’t know what it is about today that makes Charles’ statement mean more.

Maybe it’s the careful way Lando had unbuttoned Oscar’s shirt. Or the way his palms had tenderly grazed Oscar’s arms as he rolled up his shirt sleeves. Or the way his fingertips had dusted Oscar’s stomach, just above the waist of his pants, one finger just in his waistband.  

And suddenly, Oscar’s warm all over. The condensation on his cup feels more intense, like it’s about to slip out of his hand. And the janky disco lights in the basement feel like they’re blinding him even more so than they had been before. Like he can’t see straight. And his ears feel like they’re bleeding as the music blasts so loud he feels like he can feel the bass under his feet. Charles might still be talking, but Oscar wouldn’t know.

“I’m gonna get some air.”

“Oscar—”

“No, don’t worry about me. I’m all good. Go find Max,” he says, shoving his Sprite towards Charles, who takes it from him without any more questions.

He pushes some people as he fights towards the stairs. He thinks somebody calls out to him, probably wanting to push back and cause a whole scene. Oscar can’t be bothered. Somebody’s drink splashes on his shoes but he just keeps going. Whatever breath of fresh air he thought he’d receive by getting to the stairs doesn’t come. Instead, each step just feels heavier and heavier, like his legs are genuinely unable to move. To carry himself out of this vodka-filled hellhole. 

At the top of the stairs, his thighs burn and his feet feel like they’re made of quicksand. Like he’s sinking. Some stupid comment from Charles, and all of a sudden, he’s losing his mind. 

There’s only a few people on the ground floor. A couple making out on a couch. A girl with her head in a trash can. Another girl digs around in the fridge. Oscar guesses she wants a bottle of water. There’s another couple heading down the stairs from the floor above. Oscar can only assume what they had gotten up to. 

He takes them all in, but he doesn’t linger. He can’t. He needs out. 

Oscar, stumbling like he’s drunk when he’s not, finally pushes through the front door and receives the breath of fresh air he wanted. Whatever wave he’d been drowning under rolls over him. The purple-green-blue lights that have been blinding him and lingering in the corner of his eyes fade, only remaining as a faint pain pushing on the front of his eyes. He can hear himself think, even if he can still hear the music downstairs. And his head hurts, but he can breathe again. 

The door opens behind him and somebody steps out. And Oscar knows who it is even before he can see him. There’s only one person who he knows will always follow him. 

“Lando.”

Lando stumbles a little bit as he comes to stand beside Oscar. Oscar almost reaches out to steady him, but he doesn’t. Not yet.

“I saw you run out. You looked … wrong. Charles said he didn’t know what happened, just that you left.” 

And maybe, beneath it all, Lando’s the reason he’s spiraling, but somehow Lando makes his head go even quieter. He finds that his headache eases a touch.

“Just needed a breather. It was … loud. Claustrophobic.” Oscar looks down at Lando’s bracelets on his own wrist. He doesn’t want to bring up anything Charles said. So he doesn’t.

“Yeah. The lights were a little much. The drinks were good though. This great punch-like thing. Oh my god, to die for. Like tropical.” Lando stops his drunken ramble. He looks up at Oscar. The moonlight reflects just a glint in Lando’s eyes, and as it always does, Lando’s tongue sticks out a little as he studies Oscar. “But you’re okay, yeah?” 

Lando has one hand by his side and the other just sort of out in front of him like he wants to reach out for Oscar, maybe rest a hand at the hem of his shirt just about where it was either. Oscar doesn’t know why he won’t, Oscar would let him. 

“Now that I can actually hear words and thoughts, yeah. Now that …” Oscar doesn’t finish, but he hopes Lando hears it anyway. Now that you’re here.

Oscar thinks Lando might actually know, because he finally, finally reaches out for Oscar. One hand fisting at the untucked hem of Oscar’s shirt and the other landing on Oscar’s bicep.

“Good,” Lando licks his lips, “yeah, that’s good. Glad you, uh, feel better.” Lando somehow gets closer, his chest brushing Oscar’s. Oscar’s warm again. 

It’s not overbearing this time. 

And then Oscar smells it. The vodka on Lando’s breath. Mixed with something tropical, pineapple maybe. Whatever punch-like thing Lando was obsessed with. And he can still see the moonlight in Lando’s eyes, but he also sees the way they’re fogged over with Lando’s drunken haze. A little unfocused as he smiles at Oscar, bottom lip between his teeth. 

And neither of them speak, run out of things to ask or half-hearted answers to respond with. Oscar’s sort of just letting Lando hold him, distantly aware of what Charles had said under the disco lights, and more consciously aware of how drunk Lando is pretending not to be. 

Lando’s thumb brushes back and forth idly on Oscar’s bicep. Oscar reaches out to hold onto Lando’s waist, helping him stand a little straighter. There’s still nothing to be said, there’s just the silence between them and the way they’re staring at each other. 

Until Lando’s mouth goes to open, ready to say something —

The door slams open, two bodies stumbling out. Their footsteps freeze, Charles and Max taking in the current entangled state of Lando and Oscar. And maybe if they were different people, or Lando was sober, they would jump apart. But they don't. Lando just steps aside, a hand still on Oscar’s shirt hem, and one of Oscar’s hands still at the curve of Lando’s waist. 

Charles looks at Oscar like they both know something that neither Max or Lando do. Oscar looks away. 

Max just looks between all three of them for a moment, his hand snugly in Charles’. Oscar wonders what was said between the two after he left, and what happened to Daniel. And how long it’ll take before Max and Charles realize casual will never work for the two of them. 

“Oscar, Charles said you didn’t seem like you were feeling well. Said to give you a moment to breath and then see if you want to leave. You ready to head out?”

Oscar looks down at Lando. He’ll stay if Lando really wants to, even if he hopes Lando is ready to leave. Lando looks back up at him. And Oscar hopes Lando knows what he’s asking without any of the words Oscar doesn’t want to say.

“Yeah, it’s time to go,” Lando tells Max.

Max just watches the two of them, nods, and then shepherds them all to his car, having to give Charles, who keeps drunkenly trying to faceplant into the concrete, a little extra support. Oscar doesn’t suppose either of them mind all that much. 

When Lando and Oscar end up back in Oscar’s flat that night, they each take turns in the bathroom, washing faces, and brushing teeth, and getting quietly changed. 

They don’t really fit in Oscar’s dorm bed. A challenge they’ve already faced and conquered a handful of times. They’ve found that if Oscar tosses his arm Lando’s waist, and they tangle their legs together, and Lando tucks himself closer to the wall, but not too far from Oscar, and they share both of Oscar’s pillows, even though maybe Lando’s head will more realistically end up on Oscar’s chest, then they fit perfectly. 

And if in the darkness, Lando’s head resting carefully over Oscar’s heartbeat, letting out small little sleep-produced breathes, Oscar recalls Lando’s hands in his shirt, or the way they were tangled together on the porch, or the way Charles had looked at him, or the things Charles had implied, then there’s not another person awake enough to know. 

—

Oscar hates this physics guest lecturer. His typical professor, Dr. Webber, who he adores and adores Oscar back is sitting in the front row listening so intently, like fluids and pipes are the most interesting things to ever exist. 

Meanwhile, Oscar is ten minutes away from ripping his ears off. He swears he likes physics, likes maths, likes engineering, but he’ll admit there are some absolutely boring people in this so-called profession he loves.  

He didn’t even catch his name when Webber introduced him. Spent more time taking in his graying hair, his god awful purple vest, and the way he has a calculator stashed in the front pocket of his chinos. It got worse when he opened his mouth, speaking in the most barely audible, droning tone Oscar has ever had the displeasure of hearing. Everything he’s said has gone in one ear and out the other. It seems like his classmates agree. He saw two girls who sit near him in the back just flat out leave. Everyone else seems more locked in on games on their laptops, essays for other classes, text messages, and chugging their energy drinks. 

Oscar, like everyone, is doing just that. He’s nursing a Red Bull he stole straight out of Max’s hands in the maths hallway earlier that morning. And he’s sent texts to almost half his contacts trying to get somebody to entertain him. He texted Lando, Max, and Charles, then a group chat with all of them. Then Alex and George. Then his mum and one of his sisters. Then Logan, a friend from boarding school. Then Arthur, Charles’ little brother who Oscar actually met first because he’s in his year. He’s gotten some sparse texts back with his family being in a different time zone and most of his friends in classes or busy with their dismal social lives. 

He’s almost worried about dying from pure boredom when a flash in the corner of his laptop wakes him up. Lando texted. Oscar’s eyes flick up to the clock on his screen, and yeah, Lando probably just got out of one of his graphic design classes. 

Lando’s degree is something artsy, with visual art classes, and marketing, and communications, and a handful of literature classes Lando doesn’t love but he takes. 

Sometimes, Lando’s Lit classes overlap with Charles’ and then, he doesn’t hate them as much. The program is relatively new, new enough that the official title has changed at least twice since Oscar’s known Lando. He doesn’t know what name they’re on by now. What he does know for certain though is that Lando’s graphic design classes are always in the morning. When Oscar has physics with Webber. 

Lando’s text asks about a party tonight. Some sports party where Lando only knows someone who knows someone who’s on the team. But he says Max and Charles are definitely going, that Charles is fairly close with someone on the team. He says he can probably get Max and Charles to give them a lift again. Offhandedly, Lando also mentions that apparently Charles doesn’t want to drink tonight, though Lando could never guess why. 

Unfortunately, Oscar knows it's because Max won’t sleep with Charles if he’s sober and Charles’ is even the littlest bit tipsy. He hates that he therefore knows what their plans are for tonight. Lando then mentions that he thinks Alex will go, which means George will go. Then, Lando adds that he knows parties aren’t Oscar’s favorite so it’s really okay if doesn’t want to go, but Lando would love it if he could go, even just for a little bit.

That’s Lando’s style of texting. Just like the way he thinks. His text messages are short, but then he sends fifteen in a row. Little chunks at a time. 

The thing is, Oscar doesn’t really want to go. He doesn’t really like parties, Lando’s right, especially the sports parties, where student athletes just get drunk as hell and make sure everybody knows how cool and athletic they are, taking off their shirts and offering arm wrestling contests. Oscar was a student athlete, he knows all about the damn parties. 

He doesn’t know what team, Lando didn’t clarify, but they’re always the same. Lando had once dragged Oscar to a party hosted by the table tennis team, which Oscar didn’t even know existed. Naturally, Oscar had expected a room packed with a bunch of nerds, and god, if only he had been right. 

Instead, teammates were wrestling each other on couches, surveyors standing around and acting as if there was a scoreboard somewhere nearby. Somebody had asked Oscar to arm wrestle them, and Oscar really didn’t want to, but he had actually given in and had a little to drink, and Lando was beside him cheering him on. And yeah, Oscar had rolled up his shirt sleeve and won. After all, he’d played sports for all of boarding school and some of uni, often enough that he still likes working out and didn’t really lose any of his muscle since he quit, but he’ll truly never underestimate the strength of a table tennis player ever again. 

So Oscar wants to say no. Wants to claim he should study, or catch up on sleep. But he pictures Lando on the other side of the phone, secretly waiting for Oscar to respond. He probably has his tongue poking out of his mouth and is picking at his nails. He’ll claim not to care if Oscar’s say no, but he knows Lando will, just a little bit. And then he pictures Lando at the party alone — well with Max and Charles and George and Alex — but alone. He wonders if Lando would think about Oscar, wonder where he is, or if he would be just fine talking with his other friends, or even finding somebody new to talk to.

And yeah, then and there, Oscar decides he’s going to the party. 

— Knees weak, but you talk pretty fly, wow, ripped jeans and a cup that you just downed & Trade drinks, but you don't even know her, save me 'til the party is over. 

Oscar regrets it already. He always does. He’s sandwiched between Alex and George who are “in a fight,” which really just means something stupid like Alex didn’t do the dishes or George bought the wrong cereal. Predictably, they’re watching two volleyball players wrestle each other, a handful of other teammates scattered around cheering their names.

Alex and George are talking through Oscar like a walkie-talkie. 

“Tell George that this fight is stupid and if he would just apologize, all this would be settled.”

“No. Tell him yourself.”

“Well, then tell him I think the guy in the blue shirt, Franco or whoever, is going to win.”

Oscar rolls his eyes but turns to George anyway. “Alex thinks the one in blue will win.” 

George huffs, taking a sip of his drink. It’s whiskey. Because George is a pretentious asshole, but they love him anyway. “As if,” George mutters, sounding remarkably like Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. Not that Oscar would ever mention any of their similarities to George himself. “The one without his shirt is clearly more fit. He’s going to win.”

“Uhm, George thinks the other one is more, well, fit. He thinks he’ll win instead.”

Alex crosses his arms over his chest and glares at George. 

“Oscar, can you please tell George he should not be telling his boyfriend that other guys look fit?”

“Well, really, he didn’t say it to you. He said it to me.” Oscar doesn’t know why he said it, typically not one to get involved in Alex and George’s on-and-off bullshit. They’ve been on for a while now, but with the two of them, it could change in an instant. He didn’t know childhood best friends could be so damn spiteful and in love all at once. 

“Well, thank you, Oscar. Because clearly Alex doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Oh, so you can hear me, asshole.”

“Of course I can hear you, Alex. You’re standing two feet from me.”

“Then fucking talk me to, dumbass.”

“Well maybe I don’t want to!”

They’re fully arguing over top of Oscar’s head, and Oscar figures that must mean he’s officially served his purpose as translator. He pushes off the wall, the other two not even noticing him leave, too engrossed in their love-hate for each other. Oscar hopes one day they talk through whatever issues they very obviously have. 

Other than those two, the only people Oscar actually knows at this party are Max, Charles, and of course, Lando. And Carlos, Charles’ friend on the team, but Oscar doesn’t really like Carlos’ vibe or the fact that he’s almost as smart as him in maths, so he tries to avoid Carlos when possible. He hopes he can find at least one of the other three before his overwhelming urge to just walk home wins. 

He’s ended up with a can of Dr. Pepper as he scours the house for a sign of anyone he knows. The fizz is gone and Oscar bets the pack had been sitting out in the house for at least a week before Oscar had grabbed one, but it’s whatever. A little bit disgusting and flat, but it's fueling his hunt, so he can’t complain too much. 

He spots a few people he vaguely knows. The two girls who sit in the back of Webber’s physics class. A kid he knew from the lacrosse team when he still played. The boy who once tried to kiss Oscar in a dingy club bathroom freshman year. Oscar thinks they actually made out at a party later that week, but Oscar had been actually drunk then, and it could’ve just been another blonde kid. Oscar remembers Lando ignoring him for almost a week after that. Oscar hopes the kid doesn’t notice nor remember him. 

He gets a little giddy when he thinks he spots Charles through the archway into the kitchen. He wonders if Charles would want to go into the backyard with him and get some air for a second. Charles could probably bum a cigarette off someone back there if he wanted to. 

Unfortunately, whatever hopes he had of luring Charles outside with the prospect of a cigarette vanish when he sees he’s actually pressing Max up against the counters to kiss him. And according to Lando’s text earlier, they’re both entirely sober. He’s not sure if that makes it worse or not.

The two of them, making out in public, entirely sober, where anyone could see them, both fully in a clear headspace, and still claiming that whatever they have is nothing. They could go on a date and still argue they were just friends. He hopes one of them gets smited with realization one day. He can’t take their stupidity much longer. 

He also wonders how Lando doesn’t know anything’s going on between them. 

Maybe everyone’s stupid. 

His last remaining hope is Lando. Oscar thinks maybe he should cut his losses and head home now. He thinks Lando is probably drunk off his ass somewhere, probably bothering the general vicinity with ramblings and giggles. Oscar would probably find it cute, sure, but he doesn’t know if it’ll make him want to stay. If anything, he’ll be more inclined to shepherd Lando off towards Max’s car and hide him under Oscar’s blankets. 

And he’s right. When he finds Lando, it only makes him want to go home more, but instead, for some unknown reason he can’t name.

Lando’s in a corner talking to some brunette girl with a bob. She has a hand on his arm and is giggling at whatever Lando’s saying. Lando looks a little weak on his feet, like he’s definitely had too much to drink, but it doesn’t stop him from saying whatever it is he’s saying. From here, Oscar thinks Lando almost sounds more put together than he typically does, his voice a stark contrast to the wobble in his knees. Lando’s probably giving this girl a million reasons to fall in love with him. 

Because if his suave voice isn’t working, then his outfit must be. His black jeans are so fucking ripped that Oscar can see both his knees and half his thigh through the rips in the front. Oscar knows Lando put in most of those rips himself, sitting on the floor of Oscar’s dorm with a pair of scissors and way too much midnight confidence. 

His white shirt is tight, making it obvious that Lando goes to the gym enough but not too much. Enough that he’s clearly fit, but also isn’t morbidly bulking out of his clothes. And there’s an inch of skin between the hem of his shirt and the button on his jeans. He looks great, and Oscar is just staring from the distance as Lando talks to the girl. 

Lando leans closer to whisper something in her ear, placing a casual hand on her waist to steady himself. Whatever he said must have been absolutely fucking hilarious because her head shoots back in laughter, the hand on his arm moving to wack him on the chest. 

He says something. Oscar thinks it’s a question because he knows how Lando looks when he talks. He knows the way Lando’s brows pinch, his head tilts, and mouth quirks when he asks a question.

She looks him up and down for a second, and Oscar suddenly becomes very concerned by the prospect of what Lando’s question could’ve been. Then, she nods, and Oscar’s stomach drops.

But instead of grabbing her hand and pulling her off somewhere like Oscar might’ve suspected, Lando passes her his drink, and they swap. Lando ends up with a bright blue concoction with an umbrella in it. Oscar assumes its some atrocious combination of Gatorade and alcohol that should by no means have the right to be considered a drink. The girl ends up with Lando’s red solo cup which probably contains whatever cherry red punch Oscar saw in the kitchen. 

Lando leans down to drink his new Gatorade monstrosity and his lips land right next to the pink and yellow mini umbrella. Where the girl’s lips had been two seconds ago. And Oscar can’t watch anymore. 

Oscar has some horrible feeling in his stomach, maybe because he feels like a creep for watching or because of something else he doesn’t want to think about. Either way, he disappears into the crowd to find a distraction.

His distraction comes in the shape of none other than Carlos Sainz. Who places a hand on Oscar’s shoulder, asks if he’s alright, and then convinces him to do a vodka shot. It’s disgusting, burning Oscar’s throat, and in the long run, Oscar knows it probably won’t do much. Oscar, contrary to popular belief, is not a lightweight. But he hopes it soothes the dull, pounding ache in his chest anyway. 

He has a surprisingly decent conversation with Carlos, mills around a little bit, and then subjects himself to playing around on his phone. He responds to a few texts from his sister and then, in the ultimate admit of defeat, starts playing mobile solitaire. He knows it's lame but he can’t find it in himself to care. 

Oscar plays a whole eleven rounds before he’s interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. 

“You good, man? Carlos says you did a shot with him,” Max asks.

Oscar doesn’t know what it says about him that every time he drinks, his friends immediately assume something’s up with him. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just felt like it, I guess. And, you know, can’t really feel it or anything, so doesn’t matter much.”

Max looks at him like he doesn’t believe him. He shouldn’t, but Oscar really hopes he’ll let it go.

“Sure, whatever. Just, you can always talk to me, okay?”

Oscar nods.

At that, Max brings an awkward hand behind himself to rub the back of his neck. “Well, anyways, Charles and I, uh, want to head home.” Oscar knows why. “So, I sent Charles to go find Lando, but I assume you’re okay with heading out?”

“Yeah, of course.”

He sends Max a smirk. He doesn’t want Max to think he’s getting away with being absolutely head over heels for Charles. Max just rolls his eyes and looks away.

Max and Oscar make trivial conversation while they wait, catching up on exams, and annoying professors, on Max’s most recent football game, and Oscar’s feelings about the current lacrosse season — the one he’s not playing in.  

When Charles finally shows up with Lando, who looks definitely more drunk than before and only vaguely like he actually wants to leave, it takes two seconds for Lando to throw himself at Oscar.

“Osc,” he giggles, “I missed you. I think I tried to find you. No, I definitely tried to find you. And I couldn’t. Wanted to tell you about this horrible blue drink I had.” The horrible blue drink he took from the brunette girl. 

“Well, I was around, Lando. Not doing anything interesting.” 

Lando pouts. “Should’ve been with me instead.”

And Oscar doesn’t really know what’s implying by saying that, and Oscar doesn’t want to know nor does he want to pretend like he knows, so he drops it. 

“Let’s just go home, okay?”

“Your flat?”

“Sure, we can stay at my flat.”

Max’s car is quiet. Charles’ phone is connected to the aux and playing soft classical music, drastically different to the raging pop music and EDM that was playing in the volleyball house. And Max and Charles must really not be giving a fuck tonight because Max’s left hand is off the steering wheel and placed comfortably on Charles’ thigh — like that’s where its meant to be.

If Lando’s noticed, he’ll probably bring it up to Oscar later. If he can even remember it tomorrow that is. Oscar doesn’t know if he can lie to Lando about Charles and Max’s whatever. He doesn’t know if wants to. He really wants someone else to be able to bitch to about the two of them. 

Right now, though, Lando seems more preoccupied with cooing over Oscar. 

“I really like that shirt on you.”

Oscar nods.

Lando is in the middle seat, not the seat behind Charles, the seat that would keep Lando’s prying hands further from Oscar. 

He reaches out a hand to toy with Oscar’s sleeve.

“It reminds me that you go to the gym. Because your shoulders are huge.”

Oscar’s vaguely reminded of the parallel thoughts Oscar had about Lando’s shirt during the party. He doesn’t pay any mind to the similarities in their thinking though. He’d rather not think about it.

“But not like huge in an unhealthy looking, bodybuilder way. In a subtle way. Like in a pretty way, y'know?”

Oscar in fact does not know. He has no clue what he means for his shoulders to look huge in a “pretty” way, and he definitely does not know why Lando’s saying any of the things he’s saying right now. He hopes Charles and Max can’t hear.

“There was this girl I was talking to.”

Yeah, Oscar wants to say, I know. I saw you. He stays quiet.

“I think she liked me. I thought that she could tell that I didn’t like her, but I don’t know if she could. I might’ve been flirting with her, I don't know.”

Oscar thinks Lando was definitely flirting with her. Letting her hold his arm as they both swayed. Leaning down to whisper in her ear. Placing his mouth right where hers had been on the glass. 

“I don’t like her though, not like that, anyway.” As he says it, he looks up at Oscar. His eyes, his fucking eyes that Oscar can never shut up about, look glassy. Oscar can’t tell if it's tears building up from whatever emotions Lando is harboring — because Lando is a big crier; any time his emotions, whatever those emotions are, get too big, he cries — or if it's just the immense amounts of alcohol he consumed. Or both. Either way, Oscar is ready to dry his cheeks if tears do fall. 

Lando has his bottom lip in between his teeth, the way he typically does when he’s worried, or too excited, or just plain happy. It always causes his bottom lip to be a little torn up, and Oscar’s certainly not thinking about buying Lando chapstick or anything of the sort. 

“Not like that,” Lando says again. And Oscar thinks that's the end of it. That Lando will go quiet now, maybe cry tonight when he’s tucked up in Oscar’s arms, but he thinks for now, Lando’s done.

Until Lando decides to open his mouth again. “But I like you like this, Osc. I like you when it’s quiet.”

Not when you’re quiet, when it’s quiet.

“When it’s loud, I don’t have to think, so I feel like nothing matters as much, like I could talk to anyone or be whoever. When it’s quiet, I think too much. You know that. I think and I think, and I can’t stop. But you make it stop. When it’s so quiet that all I can hear is myself, you make it all stop. You make it actually quiet. You’re so good to me when it’s quiet. So good.” 

At that, Lando’s head lands on Oscar’s shoulder and he finally stops talking. He’s not asleep, he’s just resting there. In the quiet. 

And Oscar, Oscar’s mind is blank. He can’t understand a single thing Lando just said. Maybe it was just Lando’s drunken rambling, but somehow, it sounded like it meant something. Meant something more than just drunken nonsense and too much vodka. 

Charles steps out to help Oscar get Lando out of the car when they get to Oscar’s building. He then ropes Oscar in for an odd half-way hug, limbs tangled awkwardly because of the way Lando’s desperately attached to Oscar’s other side. 

In the midst of the hug, Charles leans up to whisper in Oscar’s ear, “Just be careful with him, yeah?” Oscar knows he means Lando, but he doesn’t care to think about what the rest of that sentence means. He just watches Charles get back in Max’s car, takes brief notice of the way Charles leans across the center console to kiss Max, and then lugs Lando upstairs to his flat. 

Lando does cry in Oscar’s arms that night. Not because of anything specific, not because he’s sad or angry, just because drunk-Lando feels everything ten times more than normal-Lando, so all his feelings are extra big, even when Lando just feels fine. So he’s crying over feeling fine, and feeling it all too much. Really, Oscar doesn’t care about the specifics, he’ll hold Lando anyway. 

When they wake up that morning, sunlight streaming lazily through Oscar’s curtains, Lando’s head still on Oscar’s chest, Lando tracing vague shapes on Oscar’s bare arm, Oscar doesn’t know how much Lando remembers. Doesn’t know if he remembers anything he said. 

The only real hint that Lando remembers any part of last night, is when he looks up at Oscar and asks, “Did Max and Charles seem different last night? Like touchier or something?” 

If only Lando knew.

— 

Oscar never has a good answer for why he quit sports. Why he quit cricket, or football, or lacrosse — the sport he intended to do all throughout uni, and maybe after if things really worked out. 

He wonders if maybe it had something to do with the way that kid from the other team called him slurs once after Oscar had scored a seemingly impossible goal. Or the way his coaches used to put too much pressure on him, because he was “too good to be fucking around.” Or the way he would lay in his bed at boarding school after a particularly rough game and have to cover half his body in ice.

When people ask, he chalks it up to a shitty injury from freshman year. He’d fucked his knee in the last ever lacrosse game he’d played. He didn’t know it would be his last ever game. He knew it’d probably be out for the season, but he was planning to do all the right training, PT, and dieting that would allow him to go back sophomore year, and then he just didn’t. 

He did the PT, the dieting, the training, his knee no longer ached when he walked, he just didn’t go back. He got a calendar notification for the first day of sophomore pre-season and just didn’t go. Now, with the end of sophomore year quickly approaching, Oscar still can’t explain why he didn’t go. 

When he told his mom over the phone, she had asked him if he was really, truly okay. If he wanted to talk to someone because she could set him up with someone she knew. She said he didn’t seem like himself; he’d always played sports, been competitive, cried when he had to miss practices or games as a kid, worked and trained as hard as he could to be the best out there. 

He’d said he was fine. He was just going to focus more on his studies, that as he grew older maybe he cared less about competitiveness or being the best on the field. She’d said if that’s what he really wanted, then she trusted him, but she sounded like she didn’t trust him anyway. 

He thinks he misses it all as he sits in the stands and watches Max play football.

Charles is in his usual garb. He’s got Max’s number on his cheek — drawn in bright red and blue face paint, their school colors. And he’s in Max’s jersey.

Which Oscar knows, but he doesn’t think anyone else does.

They’ve had a good football team for the past couple years, best in the school’s history, so they sell named jerseys at the school store. Lando probably thinks Charles, the ultimate fanboy, went out and bought himself a Verstappen jersey. Oscar knows he didn’t. There’s a couple tatters at the hem of the jersey, and one particularly tough looking dirt spot by the sleeve that Oscar knows means it’s truly Max’s white away jersey. 

Charles is up and screaming with Alex as they watch Max pass the ball to some distant teammate. 

Lando nudges him. “It’s a shame you don’t play anything anymore, Osc. Now I know you well enough that I could be painting your number on my cheek like Charlie boy over there.” 

Oscar’s heart stutters over itself for a beat. Because god, isn’t that an image. Lando, cheering from the stands, big, bright 81 on his cheek as Oscar’s playing lacrosse. Oscar would let Lando wear his jersey. Would be almost too obsessed with the way it would probably hang a little loose on him. Oscar still has all his jerseys, really there’s no reason he can’t give one to Lando anyway, except for that he has no actually good reason to. 

Oscar doesn’t know if he’s ever regretted quitting more than this very moment.

“Yeah, a shame,” Oscar echoes back, still lost in his imaginary image of Lando.

Max and their team win. The whole student section is screaming, towels waving in the air and kids hollering chants as they pour out of the stands. 

Charles grabs Lando, who grabs Oscar, who lets Alex and George get lost in the crowd. Charles is dragging them closer to the field, an area where they’re only debatably allowed, but no one ever seems to care.

The second Charles spots Max, he drops Lando’s wrist, allowing Oscar to sidle up next to Lando as they watch the other two. In all his excitement, Max genuinely lifts Charles off the ground in their hug, spinning him around once and then twice.

Oscar bets it’s taking a lot of self-control from both of them not to just flat out kiss right now.

“Those two are weird, aren’t they?” Lando asks.

“Yeah.” Oscar agrees. 

Max puts Charles down, and they just watch each other for a second. Oscar thinks Charles is talking, too soft for anyone else to hear, but just loud enough for Max, who is, against all odds, blushing under Charles’ attention. Max’s face finally splits into a huge grin before Charles turns out of Max’s arms, staying just close enough for Max to still hold onto Charles though. 

“Uh, hey, guys. Thanks for coming,” Max smiles, face red and hot, clearly worked up from all the adrenaline, panting a little through his words.

Lando and Oscar both mutter back of courses and totallys, because at this rate, they go to every home game, and even a handful of away games when Charles is feeling particularly pushy. Charles had forced them on the train to Ireland once because it was supposed to be “the best game of the year.” 

“Some of the guys, like Liam and Daniel,” Charles visibly stiffens in Max’s grip, “are hosting a party if you want to go. I’m making Charles come with,” Max says, grinning down at Charles. Whatever tenseness Charles was feeling about the mention of Daniel dissipates the second Max’s eyes are on him again. 

Lando looks over at Oscar, tilting his head to the side in questioning: do you want to go?

Naturally, Oscar thinks no, he very much does not want to go. He’s tired and hot and would love to just watch a movie tonight, preferably with Lando if that's something Lando would like. But maybe, just maybe he’d go to the party. 

It would be at the big football house on the sports block, which means Max could actually drink and stay over if he wanted, which means Charles would stay over. Which means Oscar would be responsible for getting Lando home on his own. 

He supposes he could manage. 

Lando’s still looking at him, lip between his teeth again. And suddenly, all Oscar can picture is Lando with Oscar’s number painted on his cheek. 

“We’ll go.” 

— Take me where the music ain't too loud.

This party is better than the last few Oscar has been to recently. He thinks it's because every drink and every shot Lando’s had, he’s had at Oscar’s side. Because for some reason, today, Lando hasn’t left Oscar alone. 

Typically, Lando disappears early on, scouting out drinks, and random acquaintances, and empty pockets of space to dance in. But today, Lando had grabbed a hold of Oscar’s bicep, followed him around, and barely let go. 

And he’s drunk, but he’s drunk and still choosing to be by Oscar’s side.

“I can’t believe I only saw you play lacrosse once,” Lando laments, draping himself over Oscar’s right side. 

“You could’ve come to more games my freshman year.”

“Yeah, but you know my schedule was terrible, and we weren’t as close last year. But god, that one game. I swear I’ve never seen anything hotter.”

“Lando—”

Lando slaps a hand over Oscar’s mouth, shushing him too. “No, no. Let me talk about you, please, Osc.”

Oscar, defeated as always, nods, even though Lando’s hand still won’t leave his mouth.

“You were so fast, oh my god. And you made that goal. The one right before the game ended. The one that won the game. And everybody was cheering, but all I could do was stare at you.”

Seriously, what the fuck is hapening right now.

“But, oh, like halfway through the game, that guy hit you with his stick. And I know that’s like a thing, but I felt so worried, but then you hit him back harder and managed to get the ball from his net-stick-thing. And oh my god, I think I could’ve died then and there.”

Oscar would interrupt him if Lando’s damn hand wasn’t still over his mouth. 

“And then, after, when we went down with Arthur to find you. You were all sweaty, and a little red, but sweaty. And it’s like all of sudden I could actually see all your muscles. Which you still have by the way,” Lando says, using his free arm to squeeze Oscar’s bicep. “And I think I would’ve let you tackle me.”

Ok, that’s officially enough. Oscar, who probably could’ve done it that whole time, finally pries Lando’s hand off his mouth. “I am not going to tackle you, Lando.”

“But you could.”

“But I won’t.”

“But I’d let you.”

“I’m not going to tackle you.”

“I want you to.”

And nope, Oscar is not letting himself think about anything. 

Luckily, Oscar doesn’t have to do much to distract Lando. The song playing loudly reaches its ultimate beat drop, and Oscar, as much as he desperately doesn’t want to, asks the one question he knows will shut Lando up: “Do you want to dance?”

“Oh my god! Yes, yes, please. Oscar, let’s dance. C’mon!” Lando’s already tugging Oscar to whatever spot he deems perfect for whatever dysfunctional dancing Lando has planned. 

He immediately slots both his arms over Oscar’s shoulders, giving Oscar no option but to hold Lando’s waist. And from there, Lando just, sort of, bounces. At one point, he forces Oscar to spin him in a circle, shouting over the music to Oscar that he “wants to feel like a ballerina.” Then, Lando grabs Oscar’s hands off his waist, holding them in his own, and pumping them up towards the ceiling, jumping around while swinging their arms in the air. 

They go on like that for almost twenty minutes, bouncing, jumping, arms in the air, and then wrapped around each other, and then in the air again, Lando shouting as many song lyrics as he knows. 

Oscar’s not necessarily reciprocating the energy, a little too introverted for shouting and jumping, but Lando doesn’t need it. Lando is fine to jump all on his own, and Oscar is fine to watch. 

Lando only stops once to down the shot Liam offers him, and then immediately goes back to pump his arms in the air. 

Finally, though, and inevitably, Lando crashes. He’s jumped one too many times and attempts one last measly jump before just crashing into Oscar’s chest. 

Lando’s arms go back around his neck, but they’re so much closer than before, so his arms drape down lower, and Lando’s running his fingers up and down Oscar’s spine. 

Oscar shivers, then tells himself that all of this is normal.

He wraps his arms around Lando’s waist, pulling the other an inch closer to him. 

Lando’s head rests on his shoulder, falling to the side a little bit to get comfortable in the crevice between Oscar’s neck and shoulder. 

They’re really just hugging, but they’re swaying, so to an extent, they’re still dancing. And yeah, they’re technically slow dancing to raucous EDM, as other people are still jumping and doing shots around them, but Oscar just holds Lando and everything feels sort of quiet. Lando running his hands down Oscar’s back, Oscar tapping a beat on Lando’s waist where he’s holding him. 

It’s all just calm. 

But then Lando’s trying to say something. Oscar can feel his mouth moving, but over the beats, he doesn’t know what Lando’s actually saying.

“Lando, Lando, I can’t hear you.”

Lando’s still trying to talk to him, but it’s soft and quieter than Lando typically speaks. And in his drunken haze, he can’t hear or is actively ignoring Oscar trying to get him to speak up. 

Finally, Oscar just slots a hand under Lando’s chin to get him to actually look at him. Lando’s staring at him, open mouth, eyes all squinty and glistening. “Yeah?” Lando asks quietly.

“Lando, baby,” and Oscar has no idea where the fucking pet name came from, “I can’t hear you at all.”

Lando tilts his head, hums quietly, and then leans up to whisper in Oscar’s ear, “Then take me somewhere quiet. Where the music isn’t so loud.” 

And fuck, Oscar’s brain starts moving a million miles an hour, thinking of all the things Lando could be implying if they were two different people, in an entirely different situation, who meant something entirely different to each other. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Do you want to go outside?"

Lando nods, “I’d like that.”

And that’s all Oscar needs. Oscar grabs Lando’s wrist, Lando in turn grabs Oscar’s bicep, giggling as he squeezes a little, like he’s trying to feel Oscar’s muscles again. 

Carefully, all too aware that Lando’s stumbling a little bit, Oscar leads them through the house, dodging a huge group playing spin the bottle in the living room like a bunch of children. He thinks somebody calls out to them, asking if they want to play. At the very image of the bottle landing on Lando, Oscar tugs Lando along with a little more energy. 

Lando’s humming under his breath the whole time, chirping little comments at Oscar, giggling when Oscar has to pull them past a couple pressed against the wall of the foyer, then finally taking a deep breath when Oscar gets them out the front door. 

In the dim porch lights, Oscar looks down at Lando again, one hand squarely on his hip. Lando’s light on his feet, swaying a little bit, weak in the knees, just like he was with that girl at the volleyball party. But this time, he’s got his hands on Oscar’s arms, no neon blue drink or brunette bob, just his sweet little smile and Oscar’s name on his lips. 

“It’s quiet now, yeah?”

“So quiet. Thanks, Osc.”

And Oscar doesn’t know if Lando means it’s quiet because the music isn’t as loud, or if it’s quiet because Oscar “makes it quiet.” He doesn’t ask, he just smiles at Lando and nods. “Of course.”

Lando giggles, murmuring, “Of course,” in a subtle mocking of Oscar’s accent. 

Oscar ignores him. 

“So, were you trying to say anything important in there, Lan?”

Lando coughs a little, stuttering over some words he never says, then drapes himself over Oscar’s front, as if maybe he’s braver with his head tucked over Oscar’s shoulder, hidden. 

“Uh, yeah, I was. So I’m gonna say it now. Like this. Right here, and I want you to be quiet, yeah? Just let me talk.”

“Lando, is this something important?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s just something. So shush, okay?”

“Lips sealed.”

Oscar’s nervous. Maybe. He doesn’t really know. Lando could say anything. He could say he’s dropping out and moving back to live with his family, or he could say he’s tired and wants to go home. Both probably feel equally important to Lando right now. Maybe he should tell Lando to wait till he’s sober, but Oscar’s not sure if he can get Lando to stop now that he’s started.

“Ok, I’m gonna start.” Oscar hums to tell Lando he’s listening. 

“So, y’know, we’re friends, yeah, Osc?”

Oscar nods. 

“But I was thinking.”

“Okay,” Oscar responds.

“Shush, Oscar. Remember what agreed.”

Oscar nods again.

“Well, I was thinking. About us. About you and me, and like, our relationship, okay?”

Oscar thinks he’s shaking a little bit, shaking where his hands are supposedly steadying Lando’s drunken knees. Oscar doesn’t think he’s faring any better than Lando though. With whatever it is Lando thinks he’s about to tell him. 

“Ok, so this is where I need you to listen. Oscar, I have these … feelings about —”

“Lando.”

“No, I told you to be quiet.”

“Lando, please,” Oscar pulls away from Lando, standing squarely in front of him, giving Lando no choice but to look directly at him. “I think this should wait till you're sober. You probably don’t even know what you’re saying.”

“No, no! Oscar, please, I know everything I want to say. Please. I’ve thought about this, I promise, genuinely.”

“Lando, when you’re sober, how ‘bout I ask you what it is you meant to tell me?”

“But, I want to, right now. I’m trying to be brave, Osc. I’m confident, right now. What if I lose it?”

“I won’t let you, okay? I’ll ask when you’re sober.”

“But drunk words, sober thoughts, right? I know what I mean to say, really, Osc, I swear.”

“Lando, I’ll ask tomorrow.”

Oscar never wants to ask. Doesn’t want to know what Lando has to say about their relationship. Oscar thinks he knows, maybe. He thinks it has something to do with the way he holds Lando too close when they share his bed, or the way Oscar had shivered when Lando ran his fingers over his back, or the way he would’ve let Lando entirely unbutton his shirt that one day if Lando had thought it best. 

And Oscar doesn’t know what that would mean for them. If all those thoughts were just out there, instead of hidden in a little box in the back of Oscar’s head. He knows it means they probably couldn’t be friends anymore, but he doesn’t know if it means they could be … more, or if they’d resort to being nothing. And Oscar couldn’t take that. Couldn’t handle not having Lando. Couldn’t deal with having to split up their friends and walk on eggshells like a couple going through a messy divorce. He couldn’t.

“Oscar! No, you aren’t listening to me! You promised you’d let me talk, you promised.”

There’s tears in the corners of Lando’s eyes, and Oscar’s heart breaks. Because, yeah, Oscar promised. He promised he would let Lando talk through whatever important-unimportant thing Lando had tried to tell Oscar when the music was too loud and the lights were too bright. And they’re real tears, not Lando’s guilt tripping fake tears that he’s remarkably good at using against Oscar.

Oscar almost wishes he had never tried to hear Lando. He wishes he had just let him talk quietly into the EDM beats, believing Oscar could hear him when he couldn’t. 

“Lando, please.”

“Oscar, Osc, I just want —”

The door smashes open.

“Has anyone ever told you your a fucking asshole?” Alex yells back to George, who’s following him out the door. 

“Alex, please. I didn’t mean —”

“You didn’t mean to what? Say that shit? Or didn’t mean for me to hear it?”

“Baby, please, just listen to me.”

Lando moves closer to Oscar, grabbing one of his hands tight. When Lando’s worked up, on the verge of tears, like he is now, loud noises, such as the sound of two people screaming at each other, only make it worse.

“No. Fuck you, George. Seriously, fuck you. Find somewhere else to stay tonight.” 

And, oh . Oscar’s seen George and Alex fight plenty of times, even being forced to mediate once or twice, but this, this is something else entirely. Unless they were on an off-stage, Oscar’s never seen the two of them not go home together at the end of the night. 

But there Alex goes, storming off in what Oscar assumes is the direction of his and George’s shared flat. The flat that George isn’t welcome in right now. 

Lando, still sort of just hiding in Oscar’s chest, subtly turns the two of them around to face George.

George, who clearly fucked up and is definitely an asshole sometimes, looks pathetic right now. His hair, typically gelled perfectly, the picture of model British excellence, is all ruffled, locks strewn across his face, reaching down towards his eyes. His hands are picking each other apart, his fairly well manicured nails becoming demolished under the nitpicking of his fingers. And his cheeks are soaked, clear lines of tears down the front, his eyes red. Oscar’s never seen George so disheveled. 

But of course, he’s George, so he tries to act like nothing’s wrong.

He must spot the tears in the corner of Lando’s eyes or the way Lando’s clutching to Oscar.

He coughs, clears his throat, wipes unhelpfully at his face, then speaks, “Uh, Lando, you alright?”

Oscar looks down at Lando, ready to answer for him if Lando doesn’t want to talk right now. He wouldn’t blame him. Lando already seemed distraught over trying to tell Oscar whatever it is he wanted to say; Lando’s never had an easy time saying important things. And then, here comes George and Alex, screaming their heads off, so typical of them, but so unlike them at the same time. 

But despite it all, Lando, mirroring George, clears his throat, turns towards George a little more, still making sure to stay snug in Oscar’s arms, and answers. “Yeah. I’m okay. Just tired, I think. But, uh, George, what about you? Are you okay?”

George sniffles, so unlike any form of George Oscar’s ever known. He wonders if Lando’s seen him like this before. 

“Yeah,” he frowns immediately, “I mean, no, obviously no.” George sniffles again. “Fuck, I’m sorry. It’s my fault, I have no right to be crying.”

Lando shakes his head, “It’s okay to be upset, George. It’s okay.”

Oscar wonders if drunk-Lando is always this wise or kind, or if maybe he’s sobered up a little since everything started going wrong.

“Yeah, I guess so. I just said some shit about Alex that I really shouldn’t have to some of my mates. Stuff that isn’t true, that I don’t believe, that you don’t say about someone you … love.” 

Oscar wonders if George has ever told Alex he loves him before. If that’s even something the two of them say to each other.

“And I don’t know why. Don’t know what the fuck I was on. I was probably mad at him. For something stupid, something I’ve already forgotten. Something that would’ve been easily fixed. But this, I don’t know if I can fix it this time.” 

George lets out the most heartbreaking sob Oscar’s ever heard, and Lando flinches, seeming stuck between curling himself closer to Oscar and reaching towards George.

“George, hey,” Oscar starts, “It’s not much, but I have a couch. You could crash at mine tonight, if you want?”

Lando looks up at Oscar, and Oscar wonders if Lando’s going to judge him. If he’ll think Oscar’s picking George over Alex, when Alex is probably just as rightfully upset at George as he deserves to be. 

Instead, Lando looks vaguely proud of Oscar.

“Oh, uhm,” George wipes a handful of new tears away and just stares at the two of them. “I mean, yeah, but Lando was probably planning to stay at your’s, yeah? I wouldn’t want to put him out.” 

Oscar genuinely has no clue what George is talking about for a second. Putting Lando out? Why would George staying on Oscar’s couch put Lando out? 

Then, he recalls the weird only-slightly-bigger-than-a-twin bed Oscar has in his dorm, and oh, yeah, George probably thinks Lando sleeps on the couch every time he stays over.

“Oh, no, it’s fine. Lando typically—”

“We can both fit in Oscar’s bed, right, Osc? Don’t mind cuddling for the night, do ya?”

Oscar doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that Lando doesn’t want George to know that Lando and Oscar typically share the bed, so he just nods. 

“If you’re sure.”

“Positively,” Oscar responds.

It’s an awkward, slow walk back to Oscar’s building.

George is lingering a little behind them, kicking his feet, wiping his face, and sniffling still. At one point, he has his phone out, thinks about calling Alex, then just texts him to let me know that he’s found somewhere to stay and will get there safely, just in case Alex still cares about his well being at all. 

Lando hovers right at Oscar’s side, seemingly still shaken from everything that’s happened. His fingers fidget with the hem of Oscar’s jacket, and Oscar’s just glad he’s not ripping his nails apart like both he and George apparently love to do. 

“You okay, Lan?”

“Mhm,” is all he gets back.

Oscar takes a deep breath, reminds himself that Lando tried to be brave for him, and reaches down to interlace their fingers, squeezing Lando’s hand tight to remind him that Oscar’s there. That he’s not planning on going anywhere, despite whatever scary, unimportantly important conversation Lando had planned. 

Lando squeezes back. 

Lando goes to get ready for bed while Oscar helps George get settled. 

He finds an old blue set of sheets he remembers bringing with him from Australia when he first started boarding school. George immediately takes them from him to start making up the sofa. Oscar wants to tell him to just sit down and let Oscar take care of it, but he figures George already feels bad for disturbing him and it’ll only get worse if Oscar doesn’t let him help.

He heads to his bedroom to scan for a few extra blankets, some pillows, maybe some pajamas he can give George. 

Lando is sitting on his bed in pajamas, a pair of blue plaid bottoms and an old, extra soft worn-down shirt of Oscar’s. He knows Lando likes it because it “feels like a blanket.” He’s not under the covers. He’s just sitting on the edge, legs kicking against the side, hands fisted into Oscar’s comforter. His head’s down, watching his feet kick. 

And Oscar is startled by how small Lando looks. How he’s basically crumpled in on himself to try and get even smaller. And he’s so quiet too. Which means he’s probably thinking too much. Running through whatever horrible things he’s got going on in his head. 

Oscar approaches him quietly, gently reminding himself not to forget that his main task is to get more bedding for George. Because if he forgets, he knows he won’t be able to stop himself from just crawling into bed with Lando then and there and holding him close to his chest till they both fall asleep. 

“Lando?”

For a second, he thinks he’s not going to get a response, but timidly, Lando looks up at him, eyes still a little wet and face all scrunched up.

Oscar reaches out a hand, almost like approaching a scared animal, but instead of running, Lando reaches out and grabs his hand. They both squeeze.

“I’m going to grab a few more things for George, okay? And then I’ll come back and we can go to bed, yeah?”

Oscar doesn’t know what compels him to do it, but as Lando nods, humming an okay, he reaches out and runs his free hand through Lando’s hair, just gently scratching at the back of his neck. 

As he finally goes to pull away, he almost thinks Lando isn’t going to let him go, but then, Lando squeezes his hand one more time and silently drops it. 

He hasn’t moved, still curled in on himself, but Oscar thinks he looks even the littlest bit less small. 

Oscar sets back to his main goal quickly, digging through the top shelf of his closet for a thick, soft throw and his best extra pillow. He digs around in his dresser for a second, grabbing a shirt and sweats for George to sleep in, then returns to the living room where George is.

George is still fiddling with the sheets even though they look perfect to Oscar. 

Oscar reaches out a gentle hand to rest on George’s back to stop him before his tedious pulling and stretching wears a hole into the sheets. George flinches then melts.

“George?”

“Yeah?”

“Here’s a blanket and a pillow, and of course, you can rearrange any of the pillows on the couch as you need, and please don’t be afraid to come get me if you want another blanket or something. Just wake me up. And the bathroom’s through there too if you need it. You won’t wake me or Lando up if you need to come through, I swear. And here’s some stuff to sleep in, it should fit okay, I hope. Let me know if it doesn’t. You can just change out here when I go back, I really don’t care.” 

Oscar pauses, studying George for a moment. He’s still shaking a little it seems, hands curling up and around his own arms. 

“And you can go through the fridge or any of the cabinets if you’re hungry. And there’s a water pitcher in the fridge and cups in the clear cabinet. I think it would be really good if you drank some water, yeah?” 

George slumps down to sit on the couch, gratefully accepting everything Oscar’s holding.

“Thanks, man. Really. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, of course. Take care of yourself, okay?”

George nods, then speaks again.

“Hey, is Lando okay?”

Oscar thinks about Lando just the room over. Small, and quiet, and sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for Oscar to come back.

“He’s okay. Or he will be. You know how he gets, I’m sure. He’ll be better with some sleep and … ” 

Oscar doesn’t know what he intended to say. That Lando will be better with him there? With Oscar cuddling him to sleep? 

“He’ll be okay.” 

“Yeah, okay. I get it. You’re, you’re good for him, Oscar. Really good for him. Take care of him, yeah?”

“Okay.”

For a moment, they just look at each other. Some mutual understanding of what they mean for each other and those around them between them. And then, with finality, Oscar nods, and retreats back to the bedroom to find Lando. 

Lando’s exactly where he left him, but a little looser, hands no longer fisted in the sheets, legs just resting instead of kicking. But he moves to get under the covers as Oscar changes, switching his shirt out for a hoodie and shedding his jeans to leave him in his boxers.

With the ease of a well oiled machine, right as Oscar’s finished changing, switching the bedside lamp off, Lando lifts the comforter up for Oscar to slide under with him. It speaks to how casual this situation has become for them. Sharing a bed. 

Naturally, their limbs tangle, both of them having a shit understanding of the other’s personal space. When Lando’s head finds itself comfortably on Oscar’s chest, Oscar thinks the night’s come to an end.

That Lando, brain all jumbled and tired with the million things that happened today, is finally ready to just sleep. Sleep and wake up better tomorrow.

But Lando, voice quiet, only audible enough for Oscar to make out, speaks. 

“I’ve never seen them fight like that. Ever.” 

Alex and George. The same Alex and George Lando’s known since he was eleven. Who knew each other even longer before that.

Oscar remembers first meeting Alex and George, as some move by Lando to incorporate Oscar more with his friends. Lando wanted him to know his childhood friends, the people who watched Lando grow up. He remembers Lando telling him to ignore any stupid shit they said about what Lando was like as a kid. 

They’d been nice, funny, absolutely cordial to Oscar. To each other though, they were almost mean. Oscar knows now that they’d been nearing an off-period, a short one, barely two weeks before they got back together, but when he first happened to meet them, they were on edge just before breaking up again. Back then, though, Oscar didn’t understand. Lando had told him they were dating, but watching George and Alex bicker and call each other names, Oscar wondered if maybe dating meant something different when you were in college. 

He’d told Lando as much when they’d left the bar that night. Told him he didn’t understand why the two of them were together. 

It was the first time Oscar had seen Lando genuinely snap.

“They love each other, Oscar. They’ve just been through a lot together and have a hard time showing it. They’ll figure it out one day. They’re made for each other. Now, please don’t say something like that again.” 

Oscar hadn’t. He had instead eventually come to understand where Lando had been coming from that night. Because when Alex and George are really truly on, it’s clear they love each other so deeply, both somehow more private and more public with the care they have for each other than otherwise. 

Oscar, perhaps a little morbidly, wonders if this real, hardcore fight is what they need to figure themselves out. 

“I know,” he finally responds to Lando, “It was a little scary, huh?”

“Yeah. I haven’t seen George like that in … in a while,” Lando pushes himself impossibly closer to Oscar’s chest. 

Oscar brings a hand up to run his fingers through Lando’s curls. 

“And I didn’t even get to see Alex, but I hope he’s okay. I hope he called somebody or something. Maybe I should go check on him tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Lan, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.” 

Lando lifts his head a little to get a better look at Oscar. 

“We’re okay right?”

Oscar thinks back to the two of them on the porch. Not yelling at each other, not like Alex and George, but raising their voices more than they typically do. He thinks vaguely about whatever Lando had been trying to tell him. He wonders what it would’ve done to their relationship if Lando had actually said everything he’d wanted to. 

But with Lando back in his arms, rattled but calming, and George in the living room, grieving the relationship he needs the most, Oscar doesn’t care about the hypotheticals of that conversation. Doesn’t care about what would’ve happened if Lando had said it all. He has Lando, like this, for now, and that’s fine.

“Yeah, Lando, we’re okay.”

“Good, because I don’t want to lose you. Not that Alex and George are losing each other, they couldn't live without each other. Just that, I don’t want to lose you. Not over something stupid. Or yelling at each other. Or emotions that can be handled. Okay?”

“Okay.” 

“Good.”

“Perfect.”

“Sleep now,” Lando finally says, dropping his head onto Oscar’s chest with finality.  

Oscar could keep thinking. Could keep thinking about what it would be like to lose Lando. To feel too many things and not be able to control it all. To have all his strongest emotions towards Lando become anger or sadness. But he won’t. Not tonight. Not when he feels like he should appreciate what he has while he still has it.

He listens to Lando’s breath even out, their hearts beating right on top of each other, and falls asleep. 

When Oscar wakes up, he hears the shower running, but with Lando still securely in his arms, that must mean George is the one in the shower.

He rolls over, carefully as to not disturb Lando, checks the time, and promptly discovers it’s too fucking early. But George is up, so for a moment, he considers getting up and maybe making a lousy breakfast for the three of them. Then Lando makes a little noise in his sleep, pushing his nose into Oscar’s neck, and Oscar thinks he wouldn’t mind sleeping for a little longer. 

When he wakes up the second time, it’s because George, freshly showered and in his clothes from last night, is trying and failing to quietly shut the bathroom door.

Oscar looks up and makes dead eye contact with him.

George jumps a bit. “Oh shit, sorry, man. I really wasn’t trying to wake you.” 

“Don’t worry, you’re fine. I’ve already woken up a couple times.”

It’s a lie. Oscar only woke up that one other time to the shower running, but he’d feel bad telling George. 

“Oh, okay.”

George just stares at him. Stares at the way Lando is comfortably still asleep on Oscar’s chest and the way Oscar’s hand has subconsciously moved up to rake through Lando’s curls. Oscar wonders what he’s thinking.

He wonders if George denotes this whole situation as normal or if he’s rethinking everything he knows about Oscar and Lando.

“I know it’s early, but I was thinking of heading out. I’ve sort of thought about what I want to say to Alex. So I want to go and apologize, and then see if he’ll let me keep living with him.”

George laughs, but it’s sad and distant because really, nothing’s funny. 

Oscar’s mouth opens but George keeps talking before Oscar can say what he wants to.

“I know, I know you’re gonna say I can come back if I need to, but I have other friends, Oscar, really. Friends with bigger places.” George laughs again, a touch more genuinely this time. “It’s okay, honestly. I wouldn’t want to intrude on your space any longer.”

Oscar wonders if he saw the second toothbrush in his bathroom or Lando’s curly hair products in the shower. 

“Okay, if you're certain. But you’re really not an inconvenience, George. If you need anything, let me know, yeah? And let me know if you have to find somewhere else to stay, okay? Even if it’s not here.”

George nods, and they just watch each other. Oscar doesn’t know why he continues, but he does.

“Lando,” Oscar says, looking down towards the still-sleeping figure on top of him, brushing his hand more intentionally through his hair, “was planning on maybe checking on Alex later today.” 

Oscar thinks maybe he shouldn’t have said it. He doesn’t want George to get upset with Lando for wanting to see Alex too. Not that George would have any right to get upset; after all, Lando is Alex’s friend too. Nonetheless, George, whatever he’s thinking, just keeps watching him.

“So, let us know if you work things out. And if not, I would never want to violate Alex’s privacy, but maybe, if Lando stops by, we can let you know how he’s doing.”

George nods at that.

Oscar wonders if he noticed that Oscar keeps saying things like us and we , continuously, subconsciously, naturally tying himself and Lando together. 

“Yeah, I will. And, uh, yeah, if it comes to that, I’d like to know Alex has someone, that he’s doing okay. Only if Alex is okay with it.”

Oscar hums his agreement.

“Well, I’m going to get out of your hair. I folded everything up on the couch.”

Oscar wants to tell George he didn’t have to do that, but he thinks George knows.

“Thank you, Oscar, really. I mean it. And uh,” he pauses to look down at Lando, “tell Lando thank you too when he wakes up.”

“Of course, any time. I mean it too.”

George smiles, and then musters up whatever courage he needs to face Alex, and makes his way out of Oscar’s room. 

Oscar strokes another deliberate hand through Lando’s hair and down his back, and all of sudden, Lando’s voice rings out.

“You’re a good person, Osc.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough.”

— 

A week and half later, with Charles sobbing on his couch, Oscar hasn’t heard much from George or Alex, but he hopes they’re closer to figuring they’re shit out, because he really wants one person he’s friends with to have a nice, stable relationship. 

He’s only gotten about half the story out of Charles so far.

Max had Daniel over, alone, when Charles was out of the flat. Max had been visibly startled when Charles came home earlier than expected. According to Charles, Max had looked guilty, but Oscar thinks that might be Charles’ insecurities talking. But Charles tried to be polite and then went to hide away in his bedroom. Which from what Oscar knows is hardly used because Charles typically just passes out in Max’s bed every night. And then, naturally, Charles had tried to eavesdrop. 

That’s what they’re up to now. The things Charles had heard when Max thought he wasn’t listening.

“He,” Charles hiccups, sobs, then continues, “he was telling Daniel that he didn’t know how to tell me something. I couldn’t hear what,” he stops to sob again, “he always got extra quiet when he said it, but he clearly has something he’s not telling me.”

Oscar reaches a hand out to rest on Charles’ knee.

“And how do you know it’s something bad?”

“Why would he whisper it otherwise? And Daniel kept telling him to just rip the band-aid off. That Max was only making things worse by delaying it. That has to mean it’s something bad.”

Oscar thinks it’s more likely to mean something that starts with L and ends with E and is the title of a Nat King Cole song, and unfortunately, Max's chosen source of advice on said particular subject seems to be his ex that Charles “has no issues with.” 

“Okay, well, that’s one way to see it. But just because Max is struggling to tell you, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Plenty of people struggle to say even the good things.” 

Especially people like Max, who are notoriously bad at social cues and vulnerable communication, but Oscar doesn’t say that part out loud. 

“Sure, Oscar, sure they do. God, how are you so optimistic?”

Oscar just shrugs.

“And I didn’t mean to yell at him, I swear. But after Daniel finally left, I told him I didn’t want him having Daniel over anymore. And then I said that ideally, he wouldn’t see Daniel again at all. But I knew I couldn’t ask that of him, especially not with football and everything, but I still said it.”

Charles hides his face in his palms for a moment. The only thing it really does for him is transfer some of his tears onto his hand. 

“And he kept demanding to know why. And I couldn’t tell him. Because I don’t have a good answer, do I? I couldn’t exactly just say that it’s because I don’t really like Daniel. That’s not a good enough reason, and we both knew it.” 

“Charles, look at me.”

Charles does, even through his red eyes, tears still pooling in them.

“Have you ever thought about why you don’t really like it when Max hangs out with Daniel? His ex-boyfriend? That Max used to date?”

Charles glares at him.

“If you didn’t know, Oscar, I’m very fucking aware that Max and Daniel used to date.” 

“Okay, good, that’s a start. And why do you think that you, who has been casually sleeping with Max for the better part of a year, considers Max your best friend, and can never seem to let Max out of your sight or mind, would be upset that Max is hanging out with his ex?”

And Oscar all of a sudden feels like a pre-teen again, trying to explain to his younger sisters why he was going to go to boarding school all the way in England. Trying to walk them through every part of the situation until they understood why he was doing what he was doing. 

“Oh my god, Oscar, yes! Okay. I fucking know its because I’m in love with him. Stop treating me like a child.”

And oh, Oscar didn’t think it would be that easy. He thought he’d have to pry harder to get Charles to realize and/or admit his feelings. 

Charles starts sobbing again.

“Jesus, that’s the problem, I’m so fucking in love with that stupid man. Meanwhile, he’s probably gearing up to tell me that him and Daniel want to get back together, and we need to stop fucking. And I don’t want that. God, I don’t want that.” 

God, Charles can be so daft sometimes.

“Charles, do you have any proof that Max and Daniel want to restart their relationship?”

“No, but, I mean, have you seen them? They’re so close, y’know. I don’t think anybody’d be surprised.” 

Oscar thinks everyone would be surprised. Oscar wants to ask Charles if he’s seen himself and Max. If he had, he too would be surprised if Daniel and Max got back together. 

Anybody with eyes can see that Max and Charles are something. Indescribably tied together. So deeply obsessed with each other. That they would be absolutely perfect for each other if they actually started dating. Anybody could see that, even if they didn’t know that Max and Charles were fucking. 

“Charles, I don’t think it’s doing you any favors to be jumping to conclusions.”

“So what, I just go back there, apologize, and walk around knowing Max has something important that’s not telling me?”

“Well, I think you have something fairly important you’re not telling Max. So maybe you start it. You tell Max that you love him. And maybe it’ll make him feel like he can tell you whatever he’s hiding too.”

Oscar hopes he’s right. He’s almost positive Max loves Charles back. But he’d want to die if he’d sat here convincing Charles to profess his love for Max just for Max to turn around and admit actually he is getting back with Daniel. 

Charles laughs. “You want me to tell Max,” he sobs again, “tell Max … I love him?” 

Oscar just looks at him. 

“Oscar, please, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t feel good.”

Oscar figures that’s fair.

“Sure, okay. But we’re not dropping this conversation forever, okay?”

Charles nods.

“How about you go rest in my room? I feel like some sleep would do you good.”

“Yeah, sleep, that sounds nice.”

“And we’ll get you some water, yeah?”

Charles nods. 

“And I’d like to maybe wash my face.”

“Of course, bathroom’s yours, whatever you need.” 

Charles nods, smiling faintly at Oscar. 

“Oh!” Charles starts quickly, realization blooming on his face. “Uhm, I know Max and I we’re going to go to that party with you and Lando tonight, but I don’t feel like going, and Max probably won’t either. I’m sorry. I know that means you won’t have a ride.”

Oscar, with everything going on, had forgotten they had plans tonight. He doesn’t think he would mind skipping out on the party. He could sit on his couch and eat ice cream with Charles for hours instead. But Lando had really wanted to go, raved about this party for days after Oscar had finally agreed to go. Oscar would hate to disappoint Lando like that. 

“We’ll make it work. I can just walk to Lando’s and then we can take his car. I’ll just drive. It’s not like I would’ve been drinking either way.”

“Okay, good. I didn’t want to ruin your plans with Max and I’s … stupidity.” 

“Never. Now, go get in bed. I’ll bring you water.”

“You’re the best, Oscar.”

“You should say that more often.” 

— Kiss me in the seat of your Rover, real sweet, but I wish you were sober & Trip down the road, walking you home, you kiss me at your door, pullin' me close, beg me, "Stay over,” but I'm over this roller-coaster.

“I forget you know how to drive, Osc.”

“That’s just because I don’t have a car.”

Oscar had made the fairly short walk to Lando’s building, broke it to him that they were going to have to drive Lando’s car, a 2014 silver Range Rover, and was immediately met with “oh my god, I think it’s so cool when you drive.”

“Well, yeah, but I have a car, and I don’t drive.”

“Because you’re bad at it, Lando.”

“Oi! I’ll have you know I used to be an Uber driver.”

Oscar scoffs because it’s technically true. Lando had a barely two month long stint as an Uber driver last year, occasionally ditching hang outs and invitations to lacrosse games because he had to go drive some random person halfway across town. 

“And then you quit because someone left a one star review because they said it felt like you were trying to kill them the whole time.”

Lando huffs, crossing his arms and slumping further into the passenger seat.

“They just didn’t appreciate my high regard for punctuality or my specialized driving skill set.”

“I don’t think they appreciated your affinity for so-called shortcuts.”

If this party was any closer, Oscar would’ve been content to get Lando to just walk with him. Lando doesn’t like walking, always bumming rides off of unsuspecting friends like Max or even Daniel at times. Honestly, Oscar thinks every time he’s been in Lando’s car, he’s been the one driving it. But Oscar has found that for all of Lando’s manipulation skills, Oscar has a few of his own.

If he contorts his face just right, puffing out his lips and bullying Lando just a little, Lando will say yes to just about anything Oscar asks. Even walking.

But this party, according to Oscar, is too fucking far away. It’s not even a uni party or anything. 

Lando knows a different Max, Max F, who knows all these DJs, one of whom apparently throws frequent parties out of his too-large house nearly twenty minutes away from Lando’s building. Lando had finally, after begging Max, secured an invite for what was supposed to be the four of them but is instead just him and Lando. 

Oscar’s been trying to convince Lando that invite-parties are fake. No matter how exclusive these things claim to be, Oscar knows people who know people who say you can just walk in most of the time.

But in a strange turn of events, it was Lando who had been more cautious, insisting he didn’t want to be humiliated if he got turned away because it wasn’t as free-for-all as Oscar had told him. And Lando also said that Oscar, of all people, certainly had none of the necessary qualifications for Lando to trust his partying advice. 

So now, Oscar’s driving them twenty minutes out of their way, when most of the parties they go to are within an immediate walking distance. He’d complain, but then Lando would be genuinely concerned he’s inconveniencing Oscar, and at the end of the day, he’s really not.  

Oscar’s also a little nervous because he’s not going to know anyone. He rarely does at their normal parties, but he can typically spot at least a couple friends, a few familiar faces, or somebody from the lacrosse team if he feels really desperate to make conversation. But now, he’ll know Lando. And only Lando.

And yeah, last time they went to a party, Lando hadn’t left him alone. But typically Lando sort of ditches him and then finds him again when it's time to go. Especially at a party like this, with so many new faces and networking opportunities, he’s worried Lando’s going to have a field day with meeting new people. 

Oscar, however, thinks it sounds like a nightmare. But he’s trying to … be brave for Lando.

“It’s just hot when you drive.”

Oscar coughs.

“What?”

“Like how you only need one hand on the wheel. It’s so … nonchalant.”

Oscar laughs because otherwise he might scream.

“That’s because you keep your hands obsessively at ten and two.”

“Because I’m being a safe driver!”

“Sure, Lando.”

“But also, you do that turn around thing when you reverse, y’know? The like textbook hot-guy thing. And you put your hand on the back of my seat and it makes your arm look all big.”

Oscar swallows. He’s used to Lando saying shit. Complimenting Oscar, telling him he’s hot, or whatever. But ever since that night, when Lando had wanted to talk about their relationship, everything Lando says feels different. Like it means more. Or Lando’s secretly trying to say something else that Oscar isn’t quite comprehending. 

“That’s gonna make some girl swoon one day, Osc.”

And just like that, everything stills. But not in the way it does when Lando looks at Oscar just right. No, now it feels heavy. Like they’ve both stopped breathing. Oscar doesn’t know if it feels like an admittance of defeat from both of them. As if they’re both moving on from something that hasn’t even started.

“Or some guy,” Lando adds. It’s quiet. Timid. Introspective, maybe, but Oscar might just be hearing what he wants to hear.

“Yeah.”

It’s silent for the rest of the drive. Lando’s sort of playing music, but it’s really fucking quiet because originally they had been talking. All it does now is make the silence seem louder. 

“Uh, I think it’s that one,” Lando says eventually, pointing out of the window towards a big white house down the road. 

“Really, Lan? You think it's the one where you can see the purple LED lights from the outside?”

“You’re so mean to me.”

And just like that it feels a little more normal between them again. 

Oscar parks a little ways down and across the street. He doesn’t think rich DJs, even ones throwing house parties, appreciate people parking right in front of their houses. 

Oscar barely gets one foot out of the car before Lando has a hand on the hem of his jacket and is dragging him towards the house.

“I’m so excited, Osc, you don’t even understand.” He’s right, Oscar doesn’t understand. “From what I’ve heard from Max, these things are insane. Like actual DJs, obviously. Real drinks, not just Gatorade and solo cups. People who are actually cool, not just like the star cricket player or whatever. And there’s drugs. But I promised Max I wouldn’t do shit.”

Oscar stops them right there in the middle of the street. 

“Lando.”

“Hm?”

“Look at me.”

Lando does, all bright eyes and wide smile, teeth poking out.

“I know you already promised Max, but promise me right now you won’t take or do anything, okay? I want you to stay safe.” 

Even in the dark, Lando blushes a little bit.

“Aww, Osc. You care about me.”

“Lando.”

“Yes, Oscar. I promise you, right here, right now, that I won’t do anything.”

“Thank you.”

When they start heading towards the house again, Lando’s hand slips from the hem of Oscar’s jacket to interlance itself with Oscar’s. 

There is a guy standing at the door, which Oscar thinks is pretty fucking stupid, especially because he doesn’t ask anything, just looks them up and down and lets them in.

Oscar nudges Lando as if to say I told you so. Lando just swats at him. 

Lando doesn’t leave Oscar immediately. He clings to Oscar’s arm, dragging him around and forcing him to introduce himself to people. Lando takes his first two shots attached to Oscar’s side, giggling and pointing out people he thinks look cool enough to get to know.

It’s making Oscar feel a little less nervous about this whole situation. With Lando by his side, his hands always somewhere on Oscar, Oscar feels like he can almost do anything. He feels like there’s a buffer between each new person they meet. More often than not, Lando introduces Oscar for him, so Oscar barely even has to say anything.It’s comfortable. Lando and Oscar moving around like this. In a way that makes him feel like everyone knows that Lando came here with him. 

But Oscar should’ve known it would never last. 

As quick as Lando is to put his hands on Oscar’s arm, he’s just as quick to take them off and disappear. He doesn’t even really know how it happened. One moment, Lando had been dragging them through a crowded patch of the room, and next thing he knows, he’s alone, head spinning as if on a pivot in his attempts to find Lando. He’d given up after all he could see were Instagram models, aspiring Soundcloud rappers, and people who looked like they peaked playing sports in school. 

Naturally, with Lando gone, Oscar’s folded in on himself.

He dug through a cooler until he found an ice cold can of Sprite and receded to the quietest space he could find: the corner of a fairly empty living room where he could sort of hide lamely behind a too-tall potted plant.

There’s some people in the other corner, two guys quietly flirting, but it doesn’t seem like Oscar’s bothering them. And there’s three girls against a wall, one who keeps shooting looks at him, but he doesn’t pay them much mind. There’s a light dusting on the coffee table that makes Oscar think people were doing lines off of it earlier, but nobody’s there anymore so he’s trying not to care.

And he’s trying not to worry about what Lando might be up to right now. 

He knows he’s being dorky, Lando would probably be disappointed in him, but he’s never been good at meeting new people, especially on his own. So he pulls out his phone again and scrolls around on Instagram, liking posts from kids he went to boarding school with and commenting on his sister’s most recent post about her study abroad program. He knows the stupidest thing he could be doing right now, in a house full of real-life people, is to be scrolling through social media, but he doesn’t care if people around him think he’s weird. 

At the end of the day, he’s only here for Lando. 

“Uh, hey.”

It’s the blonde girl that had been standing against the wall earlier.

“My friends convinced me to come talk to you. I’m Kayla.” 

When she smiles, her teeth flash at him. Admittedly, she’s pretty. And Oscar, despite his usual reluctance to attend parties, knows what it’s like to be flirted with. 

He pockets his phone and smiles at her. 

“Oscar,” he says. 

“Well, Oscar, what brings you here tonight?”

“My, uh, my friend wanted to come. He’s around somewhere.” 

Kayla nods, twisting a lock of blonde hair between her fingers.

“So you don’t really know many people here?”

He nods.

“Thank god. Neither do I.” She points behind her to the two girls she was with, “I literally only know them. I don’t even really know why we’re here.”

“Neither do I,” he smiles. 

Kayla is nice and knows the right things to say to make someone smile.

He learns she goes to uni, just a different one than him. She studies biology and wants to be a pediatric nurse. Her friends, who disappeared at some point, are her roommates. 

She gasps when he tells her about his physics degree, joking that she would rather die than dedicate all her time to physics and maths. He claims that’s how he’d feel about biology. 

She plays rugby and runs track. She says she knows nothing about lacrosse and asks why he quit.

As always, he blames his knee injury. 

They’re not really saying anything important, just getting to know each other, but Oscar’s not mad about it.

He doesn’t know if he’s happy either. They’ve slowly gotten closer. Close enough that she has to look up a little if she wants to look him in the eyes. They each still hold a drink, but a couple times, Kayla’s brought her free hand up to mess with her hair, and he wonders if she’s thought about putting it on his arm. 

He doesn’t know if he wants her to.

He doesn’t even know if he’s into her. He thinks he should be. Objectively, she’s gorgeous, all long blonde hair, and perfect eyelashes, and a pinky lip gloss that makes her smile look glimmering. And she seems smart but also athletic. And she’s got dreams. On paper, she’s perfect. He thinks his mom would die from happiness if he brought a girl like Kayla home with him over winter break. 

He can imagine it now: Oh, Osc. A nurse. That’s so incredible. What a sweet girl. 

But standing in front of her, making idle, pleasant conversation, Oscar can’t help his mind from drifting.

He keeps wondering where Lando is. He wonders if he’s also met someone that he’s having fun talking to. Maybe whoever he’s talking to already has their hands on Lando. A hand on his arm, or his hip, or his back, or even in his hair. Oscar doesn’t even know if he could blame them; his hands easily find themselves in those spots too. 

He wonders, only for a moment, what it would be like to bring Lando home instead of a girl like Kayla. 

He hopes wherever he is or whoever he’s with is keeping him safe. And he really doesn’t mean to be distrusting of Lando because Lando promised both him and Max, and Lando feels really strongly about promises. But it’s just other people he doesn’t trust. Other people who might think Lando would be easy to take advantage of, passing him something and not allowing him to say no.

Fuck.

Oscar really doesn’t like thinking about that.

“Oscar?”

“Hm?”

Kayla’s looking at him with her head tilted, not unlike the way Lando looks at him sometimes. And there Oscar goes thinking about Lando again. She’s fiddling with a strand of her hair again. Oscar wonders if it's something she does when she’s nervous. 

“Nothing. I just asked a question. It’s fine. You seem kind of distracted. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking about the friend I came with.” Oscar is sort of surprised at himself for being honest. “He, uh, tends to get pretty drunk at things like this, and he doesn’t really know anyone either, and I just hope he’s okay, that’s all. Nothing much. What were you asking earlier?” 

“Uh, doesn’t matter anymore. Oscar, can I ask you a sort of stupid, maybe invasive question?”

He sips his Sprite and thinks about saying no. Somehow, he says yes instead. 

“And just know I don’t care what your answer is, okay?”

He nods, but admittedly he’s worried about what she’s going to ask if she had to preface it like that.

“Are you straight? Or I guess, bi, maybe? I just, I don’t know because I can’t tell if you're into me or not. And obviously I thought you might have been when I came over here. But now I don’t know. And maybe you’re just not into girls. And shit, I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what to say to her because he’s not straight, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be into her. But honestly, he genuinely doesn’t know if he’s into her or not. But whatever answer he can’t form doesn’t end up mattering.

Kayla stumbles to the side all of a sudden, and Oscar is immediately met with Lando plastering himself to Oscar’s front.  

He’s clearly plastered and is muttering something into Oscar’s shoulder that Oscar can’t even begin to understand.

“Lando, hey,” he puts a hand on Lando’s cheek. “Lando, you okay?”

“Yeah,” he slurs out, “just wanna go home.” 

Oscar mouths sorry to Kayla over his shoulder. 

She just smiles, sort of awkwardly puts a hand in the pocket of her jeans and mouths back it’s okay. 

He nods, she slips a piece of paper into one of the hands he now has on Lando’s back, muttering something about just in case, and then walks off. 

Lando’s got his head back over Oscar’s shoulder now, just still slurring random nonsense to himself. 

“Lando, you want to leave, yeah?”

Lando nods.

And Oscar tries not to be worried, but he’s a little worried because Lando rarely admits he wants to leave a party. 

“And you’re sure everything’s okay?”

Lando melts even further into Oscar’s body, nuzzling his face into Oscar’s neck. And he’s so so warm, vaguely like Oscar’s own personal weighted blanket. Oscar can’t help but tighten his arms around Lando even more, drawing Lando so close it's like they’re breathing each other’s air. He finds he doesn’t care that he’s crumpling up the paper Kayla gave him. 

“You take such good care of me, Osc.” 

Oscar laughs, “Yes, Lando, I try.”

Lando mumbles his thanks, his breath hitting Oscar’s neck. Oscar wonders how many times in recent months they’ve ended up like this, wound together, as if they were trying to fuse into one being, limbs combining and breaths mingling. 

“So, you want to go home?”

“Yes, please.” 

In the car, Lando tangles himself into a little ball. He’s twisted in the seat, his side pressed into it, knees pulled up to his chest, just sort of watching Oscar as he drives. He looks like a little kid watching his mom drive him home.

“Who was that girl?”

“What girl?”

Oscar spares a moment to glance over at Lando. He hasn’t moved since they got in the car. But his eyes are closed now, like maybe he can’t bear to look at Oscar while he’s talking. 

“The blonde one. She was smiling at you and asking if you were into her. I didn’t like it.”

“What?”

Lando’s eyes are open all of a sudden.

“She was so close to you, Osc. And I was so worried she was going to touch you. And I didn’t like it. And I didn’t want her to touch you or you to touch her. I only wanted you to touch me.”

What. 

They come to a stop at a red light. Oscar’s hands shaking a little on the wheel, because even more than ever, what the fuck is Lando saying? He’s said insane shit when drunk. He flirted with Max one day to Charles’ utter dismay. He claimed he was going to change his major and start studying solely mathematics. Or there was the time he said he wanted Oscar to tackle him. 

But this, this clear statement of jealousy. Lando claiming he only wants Oscar to touch him, not Kayla or any other girl Oscar may stumble upon. This is too real. It sounds more serious than any drunken thing that’s come out of Lando’s mouth before. It sounds too close to what Oscar imagines that difficult conversation they never had would have sounded like. 

“Oscar?”

Oscar nods at the red light and empty street in front of him.

“Look at me.” 

He wonders why they’re always so desperate to look at each other.

“Please?”

And Oscar has always been bad at saying no to Lando.

He turns, and they just watch each other. Lando looks drunk, maybe, but far less drunk than he looked when Oscar was leading him out of the house. He’s smiling at Oscar, just something small and private. Like he knows something that he can’t wait to tell Oscar. It’s the same smile he gives when he knows gossip he probably shouldn’t be sharing, but he’s going to say anyway because he tells Oscar everything. It’s the same smile he gives when Lando says something about his family even if Oscar already knows it from sitting in on a call with Lando’s mother the week before. 

It’s the same smile he gives when Oscar answers for him or when he corrects something someone else says about Lando. Because right now, at this given moment, there’s no one who knows Lando better than Oscar. 

Lando leans across the center console, slow and deliberate. Out of the corner of his eye, Oscar makes sure the light is still red. 

Lando, controlled like it’s taking everything in him not to just throw himself into Oscar’s seat, places a hand on Oscar’s jaw. 

Oscar lets Lando pull Oscar into him. He lets Lando wrap his hand even tighter around his jaw and drag their faces closer until they're barely a breath apart.

“Oscar, kiss me.”

And that’s when he smells it. Like he could smell it that night with the horrid blue drink, and taking shots out of Carlos Sainz’s hand, and the brunette girl who touched Lando the way Oscar wanted to. 

Oscar suddenly remembers Lando’s drunk. Wasted. Whatever you want to call it.

Because why would Lando, sober Lando, ever want to kiss Oscar? Lando wants Oscar to kiss him because he’s drunk, because he thinks it would be cute, because he’s just gone to the biggest party he’s ever gone to and is high off life. 

Oscar pushes Lando away with a hand to his shoulder, and Lando’s whining back at him, begging no, no, Oscar, come back please. But Oscar can’t because Lando’s drunk and doesn’t actually want to kiss Oscar. And Oscar would never kiss him like this. Kiss him when Lando doesn’t know what he’s saying, when he will forget he ever asked in the morning. 

When the light changes, Oscar can’t get himself to move until the car behind him honks.

It’s silent till Lando speaks nearly fifteen minutes later. 

“Wait, you’re taking me back to my flat?”

Oscar thought Lando knew. He’s pretty sure he told him when he picked him up. 

“Yeah, Lan.” 

He doesn’t know why the nickname feels weird all of a sudden.

“I have Charles sleeping at my place tonight. I’m letting him have the bed, and I’m taking the couch.”

“Oh,” is all Lando can say.

Lando visibly deflates when Oscar finds street parking outside Lando’s building. He contracts up even more, making him look so small in Oscar’s passenger seat. Oscar wants to ask what’s wrong but he doesn’t think he’s going to like the answer.

“Lando, I’m going to help you to the door, and then can I trust you to get up to your flat?”

Lando nods but shows no signs of moving. 

Oscar’s think this is going to be harder than expected.

He gets out of the car and rounds to the other side to help Lando out. With the door open, Oscar realizes he’s going to have to all but pry Lando out of the car. 

“Come here, Lando. Let’s get you to bed, yeah?”

When Lando still doesn’t move, Oscar has to physically reach into the car, planting his hands on Lando’s shoulders, all but physically pulling him towards the door. With Lando facing towards him, he can see the way Lando’s eyes aren’t bright, not like they had been when smiling at Oscar during the red light. It looks like something has left Lando. Like Lando is empty. Oscar doesn’t want to think about why. 

“Work with me here, please.”

Lando cooperates enough to get both his legs out of the car, feet on the floor, and then promptly stops moving. 

Oscar guesses he can’t ask for much more tonight. 

With both his hands under Lando’s armpits, he manages to pull Lando into him. Even drunk and numb, Lando wraps his arms around Oscar’s waist. Oscar feels his heart crack at the notion; even when Oscar’s denied Lando, hurt him even, Lando can’t help but hold Oscar anyway.  

Oscar, simply praying that Lando’s hold on him is enough to keep Lando upright, lets go when they get to the building door, reaching out to punch in the code Lando had trusted him with months ago. 

“I always want you to be able to come over Oscar. Even when I’m stupid and not checking my notifications.”

Oscar holds the door open with his back, positioning Lando in front of him in the open doorway, holding Lando a little away from him so he can get the other man to look at him.

“Lando, listen to me, I’m not going to follow you up.” Oscar can’t because if he does, he won’t leave. “So you need to promise me that you’ll get up to your flat, drink some water, and go to sleep, okay?”

Lando lets out a pathetic noise and fists his hands into the front of Oscar’s shirt.

“Come up with me. Stay over. Please.”

“Lando, I can’t.”

“Why?” He demands, “Why? Why can’t you come up? Please. I can’t stay over at your’s, I know, but why can’t you stay with me?”

Oscar doesn’t know. He doesn’t have the perfect, composed answer Lando’s looking for. Because if this was any other night, Oscar would stay over, no question. He would lay in Lando’s bed and hold him, even though Lando’s bed is bigger than Oscar’s so technically there’s no reason to cuddle. Even though they almost always stay at Oscar’s anyway. But Lando had asked Oscar to kiss him at the red light, and Oscar doesn’t know what that means anymore. Doesn’t know what that would mean for them if Oscar stayed over.

“I can’t. Not tonight. I have to get back to Charles.” It’s a lie. Charles probably doesn’t give a fuck if Oscar comes home tonight, might not even be expecting him back at all. But maybe, Oscar does want to go back to Charles, cradle him through whatever Max-related breakdown he’s having. Maybe Oscar’s just trying to be a good friend. To Charles.

And to Lando. 

To himself.

“Charles,” Lando scoffs. 

And now they’re just watching each other like they always are. Finding each other’s eyes across rooms and inevitably drifting towards each other. Like some gravitational pull they can’t avoid. That typically they don’t want to avoid.

“Then kiss me at least.”

“Lando, you have to go to sleep.”

“No, no, Oscar, please.” 

“You can get to your flat on your own, right?”

“Why won’t you kiss me? I’ve asked so nicely. Both times. And both times you won’t even look at me. Is it me? You don’t want to kiss me? Oscar, please. Please.” Lando pulls one of his hands out of the tangle he’s created with Oscar’s shirt and pounds at Oscar’s chest with it.

He might be crying.

Oscar feels like if he keeps watching, he might throw up.

Oscar grabs the hand Lando’s using to hit him.

“Lando, stop it.” 

He reaches into Lando’s back pocket to pull out his key and thrusts it into Lando’s hand.

“Go upstairs, get some water, and go to sleep. I’ll text you tomorrow, yeah?”

Lando must hear something in Oscar’s tone because he nods, lets go of Oscar, and with no fight, heads towards the elevator. 

Oscar all but runs back out into the fresh air, thinking he’ll lose it if he has to look at Lando any longer. 

Back in his own flat, Oscar takes one step inside, feels the door shut behind him, sinks down against it, and sobs.

Charles, flicking on the light as he stumbles out of Oscar’s bedroom, takes one look at Oscar and rushes over to crouch beside him, simply muttering out, “Oh, Oscar.” 

—

Somehow, it seems like nothing’s changed between the two of them. Oscar can’t help but wonder if it's because they’ve both silently agreed to move on from it or because maybe Lando doesn’t remember it at all.

He tries not to resent Lando, really he does. But sometimes, he can’t help but think that Lando’s got lucky in this whole situation. He gets to say and do all this shit and then wake up and probably forget it even happened. He gets off scot free.

Meanwhile, he leaves Oscar to stew in it all. In every little word Lando’s said to him, every way he’s reached out to touch him. 

Lando asked Oscar to kiss him, and Oscar just has to live with that while Lando can just crack jokes and smile at Oscar like nothing ever happened. 

Oscar’s been avoiding parties. More than he typically tries to, because despite it all, all the supposed hate he has for them, he’s found himself at a lot recently. All because Lando pouts and asks nicely. 

But Oscar’s realized a pattern. Every time he goes to a party recently, something happens with Lando: they hold each other too tight, or they dance, or Lando has something he wants to tell him, or Lando wants to kiss him. Whatever it is, Oscar’s left every party recently with a Lando-shaped memory aching in his brain. 

So the past couple of times someone’s asked Oscar to go, he’s said no. 

Max asked a week or two ago if he wanted to go to a party at the football house, Oscar had politely cited a paper he had to write and said maybe next time. They both knew he was lying.

Then, Charles asked about a party that his friend Pierre was hosting. Oscar, not that he wanted to admit it, said no because he thought he heard Lando talking about the same party earlier that day. Charles just nodded and got Max to drive him anyway because Max and Charles are still best friends at the end of the day. 

(Oscar thinks they’re fucking again, but he knows that either way, they haven’t talked about the whole love thing yet.) 

Lando, laying in Oscar’s bed again, had asked about a party too. Oscar had said no. Lando must’ve known there was something in Oscar’s denial, something soft and vulnerable and true, because Lando hadn’t even pushed, just nodded and let Oscar keep rummaging through his textbook. 

Lando didn’t go to the party that night either. Instead, he sat on Oscar’s couch and watched Jurassic Park with him. Even though Oscar knows Lando prefers stupid rom-coms where a Julia Roberts type falls in love with a Hugh Grant type. 

(Lando’s made Oscar watch Notting Hill at least four times in the time they’ve known each other.) 

And Oscar’s been doing really well, saying no and standing strong. He’s even been studying more. But today, he’s in the stands watching the last lacrosse game of the season because he still knows people on the team and he thinks Charles has a friend on the team too, and their team has been doing fairly well this year even if they’re not making it any further than this game. 

His stomach is subsequently fucking turning.

It’s the first game he’s gone to since he quit. It’s probably the first game he’s even watched in person since he was a kid having to watch other teams play at tourneys. And he doesn’t know what to do with his hands as he watches the players on the field swing their sticks around and dash across the field. His leg won’t stop bouncing, his fingers twitch like muscle memory is taking over, he’s more worked up and anxiety-ridden than he ever was when on the field, and he feels so bare without a uniform or gear. He almost swears when he opens his mouth and he’s not hindered by the familiarness of a mouthguard. He didn’t think it would be this hard. 

He didn’t think he missed it so much. 

So when Charles goes out on a limb and asks if he wants to go to the party everyone’s going to after the game, Oscar feels so wrong inside that somehow it feels more right to just say yes. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s so distracted that he naturally agrees or it’s because subconsciously he longs for the distraction of a party, wanting to replace his shitty feelings about lacrosse with his shitty feelings about parties.

Whatever it is, he finds himself in Max’s car after the game. 

Lando is next to him, idly chatting with Charles in the passenger seat, somehow talking about everything and nothing all at once. Max is relatively silent, only chirping in when directly addressed or he feels particularly moved by a comment. But Oscar catches him looking over a couple times at Charles, barely noticeable, but enough movement that Oscar knows what he’s doing.

He wonders how much they’ve talked outside of Max’s bedsheets recently.

He doesn’t know how they’ve gotten to this point: Max and Charles barely speaking, Alex and George icier than usual, and Lando and Oscar at some standstill in their relationship. He wonders if somehow they’ve done something, and the universe is smiting them for it. 

Oscar never lived at the lacrosse house. They don’t require you to, even if the captains sort of lightly bully everyone who doesn’t. Oscar never cared to. He cared just as much about his academics as he did lacrosse and didn’t think his ideal uni experience included living in a house with a bunch of hulking, dumbass lacrosse players. Even if Oscar was one of them. And even if most of them were plenty nice to Oscar. 

Today, getting drug into the house by Lando, he feels some amount of nostalgia for it he never felt before. Like a missed opportunity he never used to care about.  

It’s as loud and bright and obnoxious as Oscar remembers. 

People — people who used to register as teammates — are tossing themselves around, hooting and hollering, shouting out names across the drunken masses in the living room, and offering out shots like Oprah with cars. 

There’s people from the game too. Girlfriends, siblings, some guy brought his mom, and there’s one guy on the team whose boyfriend came to watch and is here now. 

Oscar wonders who he would’ve brought back if had played in the game.

He definitely doesn’t think about Lando Norris with his Oscar’s number painted on his cheek. 

Lando immediately pulls Oscar to the small kitchen tucked towards the back of the living room. Oscar watches as Lando picks through opened bottles of shit, two bowls of suspiciously colored liquids, cookies that Oscar would rather Lando doesn’t mess with, and the most hideous, colorful amalgamation of plastic cups and shot glasses known to man. 

Lando fills a shot glass with one of the open bottles and does the same for Oscar. Oscar feels like he should say no. He always does because he just never wants to. Today is really no different. He doesn’t want to get drunk. He doesn’t want to do something stupid and forget all about it. He’d rather watch the trainwreck than be in it. 

But here, in this stupid house after that god awful game that had made Oscar feel like he couldn’t sit still, he thinks about it. He thinks about what it would be like to match Lando in drinks, downing glass after glass. It would take him longer to get all-encompassingly drunk than Lando, but after a while, it would work. And then he could giggle at all the stupid shit Lando finds extra funny when drunk, the two of them stumbling over each other's feet and grabbing arms for support. Maybe he’d have no excuses if Lando asked to kiss him again. 

He really thinks about it. 

And then, when Lando holds the shot in front of him, he says no. 

Lando just shrugs and does it himself. 

He loses Lando quickly after that, the other frolicking off to bother everyone else, finding people who will actually take shots with him. As Oscar mills about, he catches Lando’s eye a couple of times.

Like gravity.

He sees Lando having a seemingly very serious conversation with Max. Lando’s probably bothering him about the whole situation with Charles, as if Lando isn’t the one who’s seriously behind on figuring it all out. 

Then he sees Lando again passing around a bottle of something with a few guys Oscar knows are on the lacrosse team. 

Then Lando’s dancing. 

And singing.

And smiling.

And Oscar’s slumping into a couch beside George. Because gravitational pull or not, he can’t watch Lando anymore. 

“Hey, mate.”

“Hey.”

George nurses a beer. Oscar thinks he mentions a cooler, offering to get something for Oscar, alcoholic or not. Oscar shakes his head.

“How have you been?” Oscar asks, busy fiddling with his fingers and looking down at his lap. He’s not being the most polite, he’s aware, but he can’t really find it in himself to become some cheery small-talker any time soon. “I haven’t seen you since, y’know.”

And yeah, George knows.

“Okay. I, well, I stayed with Pierre for a little bit.” Oscar knows this. Lando had told him when he came back from Alex’s that day after the fight, citing that George was nowhere in sight and probably wouldn’t be for a while. “But I’m back at the flat now.”

Oscar knows that too, but he likes that George feels comfortable telling Oscar all of this, so he doesn’t bother admitting that Lando’s already given him the full timeline of George’s living status.

Oscar nods, “And you and Alex?”

“We’re … okay. We’re taking it slow for now. Not trying to get too ahead of ourselves. I think it’ll be good for us.”

Oscar’s never thought of George and Alex as slow. They’ve always been red hot. Too fast to get back together, too fast to break up. Quick to hate each other and even quicker to fall into the other’s arms again. They’ve never taken their time. 

Oscar can’t imagine a world where George and Alex take things slow, but he wants it to work for them. Lando once said they were made for each other and maybe this is their chance to prove it.

“Happy for you, mate. Really, I am.”

George smiles at him, a little gooey and starry-eyed. Oscar’s happy for them, genuinely he is. 

“And you?” George asks, shifting just enough to get a good look at Oscar. Oscar who still hasn’t looked up from where he’s cracking his knuckles and poking at his fingertips. 

“Me?”

“Yeah, are you good? Y’know, with everything?”

And Oscar’s good. He’s fine. He’s perfectly fine even. And so naturally he says, “With everything?”

“Oscar.”

“I’m fine, George. Honestly.”

George looks at him, and Oscar finally looks back. George looks at him like he knows a secret Oscar should know too. It should feel like an inside joke, but Oscar just feels a little lost.

“Sure, mate.”

He lingers around George for a while longer, trading nonsense stories, bitching about their degree requirements, and circling back to Alex once, just so George can crush on him a little. But George abandons him eventually, muttering something about drinks and Max and people who don’t know how to shut their mouths. 

Oscar doesn’t really ask when it comes to the feud between George and Max. No one does. They all just let it fester and assume that with enough time in the same circle, they’ll have to get over themselves and be at least friendly with each other.

Sometimes, Oscar thinks that's too high of an expectation.  

Oscar gets up again. He has nowhere to go, no one to see. He can’t even spot Lando anymore, but without George, he doesn’t think there’s any way he can sit still any longer. 

He chats idly with Arthur for a little. He knows, as he stands there and gets caught up on the last months of Arthur’s life, that he’s been seriously ignoring some of his friends. And he never intended to. He loves Arthur. He was one of the first friends Oscar made, all loud and flirty and vaguely French during orientation. And they used to hang out regularly. 

They studied in dark, empty libraries. Or played Mario Kart at Oscar’s. And sometimes, when particularly inspired, Arthur would cook and invite Oscar over to taste test. Although Oscar always felt like it might’ve been a ploy to be poisoned.

Now, Oscar can’t recall the last time he truly saw Arthur. When they talked beyond a subtle how’s life and an update on class schedules. He wonders when he became so distant.

He wonders if it correlates at all with the time when the only thought his brain could fully form became Lando Norris and the only thing he dreamt about was a world where Lando liked him sober.  

Arthur, like George, asks him if he’s okay, and Oscar starts to wonder if there’s something wrong with his face. He nods, Arthur shrugs, and they separate. 

He wanders again, feeling a little lost in his own skin, not knowing what to do or where to go or if he should head home instead. 

He wanders till he’s in the dim hallway between the rest of the party and the bathroom. If he were any less out of it, he’d think twice about lingering in a hallway where kids are probably fiending to make out. Instead, he props himself against the wall and just stands there.

Naturally, he thinks about Lando again, somewhere in the living room, all bright smiles and entrancing looks. It’s a wonder the whole student body doesn’t fall at Lando’s feet. But perhaps Oscar is also wildly biased. 

It’s dangerous. This whatever he’s got with Lando. It’s full of questions, and hypotheticals, and lines he used to never dream of crossing. 

He thinks of when he first met Lando, awkward in that first year way he’s not sure he’s even grown out of. Lando was thriving off a year of already attending uni, confident and cocky even, but secretly kind in the way he introduced Oscar to his friends and showed him the right places to go. They’d shared a coding class. Lando had only showed up the first week before ditching, but that first week, he sat next to Oscar and showed him memes and helped when Oscar fucked a line of code. He was funny, loud, somehow equally gentle, nice, and so perfect. 

Oscar was used to living alone, making new friends, boarding school does that for you. But that’s never stopped him from being quietly anxious, shy in a way that makes him cold and sarcastic. Typically, it takes people a little longer to warm up to him. Lando, brave and reckless, skipped over that part, forcing his way into Oscar’s life.

He probably should’ve known right away. He should’ve been more suspicious of the beating in his chest or the way Lando smiled at him. But looking back, nothing could’ve stopped him. Lando would’ve wormed himself into Oscar’s psyche no matter what. 

So maybe all of this, this weird ache in Oscar’s chest and Lando’s drunk almost-confessions were always bound to happen. Oscar just wishes it could have happened easier. When one of them was brave enough to say something in the morning. 

Fred runs into him in the hallway. He’s drunk, Oscar could only expect as much when he’s fresh off a decent lacrosse game. He’d been one of Oscar’s favorite teammates, the kind to actually ask how Oscar was doing and offer to grab coffee with him before practices. He’s another friend Oscar sort of let go. 

“Oscar!” He shouts, vaguely sweating, but gleaming with simple pure joy too. Oscar grimaces at the fact that even though Oscar’s shown a properly poor display of friendship, Fred still seems so over the moon to see him. 

Oscar tries his best to hide his gnawing self-hatred when he responds, “Hey, man. How have you been?”

“Wild! Team’s been crazy this year.”

Fred’s had good play time this year. He was on the bench more than Oscar was last year, but from what Oscar’s heard, Fred’s made it to the field most games this season. He thinks he sees Fred’s own pride in the way his eyes scrunch up when he grins.

“Yeah, you guys have been looking good.” Oscars says it like he’s watched any of the games. He’s followed the season on Instagram and the school’s live scoreboard site. But aside from clips on social media, he’s avoided watching any actual gameplay. 

“So good, man! Not stellar, obviously, but I think we’re going to go crazy next season. I just see it.”

“I’m glad.”

Fred’s always been optimistic. He won some spirit award at the end-of-season banquet last year. 

Oscar had won Rookie of the Year even after cutting the season short with a knee injury. Sometimes he wonders if it was a pity thing. Other times, he wonders what people thought when their Rookie of the Year, who had spent more time on the field than any rookie in recent years, didn’t show up to his sophomore pre-season practices. 

“We’d kill to have you back. If you had played this season, mate, I think it could’ve been insane.”

“I’m sure you did fine without me,” Oscar laughs, but it’s all fake and sad. 

“I sucked the first time they sent me in at pre-season. I think they wanted to send you in, but you weren’t there.”

Oscar wants to take Fred by the shoulders and tell him that he’s not just some fill-in for Oscar. He wants Fred to know that the team really truly wants him. That they aren't playing him just because they don’t have Oscar. Oscar doesn’t know if has the right words to tell him all that right now.

When he doesn’t respond, Fred just stares at him for a moment and asks the question Oscar knows he’s been waiting for. 

“Why did you never come back?”

“My knee,” he says, lying as always. 

“But you did all the PT shit. You were in the trainer’s all the time. We almost thought you’d be back to play the last game with how hard you were working.”

At one point, Oscar had thought that too. The trainer had been commending all his efforts, raving about Oscar’s success, his diligence, his dedication. And he had wanted to. But in the final week before the game, the trainer had very carefully told him she would rather he didn’t risk it. His progress had been extraordinary, yes, and he should begin lacrosse training again as soon as possible to get his body comfortable with it again, but if he played the following week, he wouldn’t have enough time to warm up again, and she didn’t want to see him back with his knee worse than before. 

He’d listened, of course. He’d almost gone to the game anyway just to support, his coach telling him they could get him on the field to watch if he wanted. Instead, he’d stayed at home with a resistance band and a heart rate monitor and told himself he’d be ready for next season. 

“I think I scared myself with the injury.” And he’s never thought that before, so he doesn’t know why he’s saying it, but it doesn’t sound like as much of a lie as other excuses he’s told. “Really wanted to go back and all until I actually had to, and then it was like all I could picture was getting hurt again or not…”

Or not being the best. 

He’d have to fight to get his body used to the field again. He’d have to make up half a season while everybody else was fresh off hard-fought victories and intense practice sessions. He’s never known how to lag behind like that. 

“You never hurt yourself like that before?”

He’d broken a finger playing cricket once. But he’d been seven, and he didn’t care about his success rate back then. Even as competitive as he was. And he’d had injuries sure, but nothing he couldn’t fix with a long ice and some compression. He’d spend days pressing ice packs to various limbs, rubbing bruise cream on purpling spots near his ribs, and wearing compression sleeves on his legs when he walked across campus to attend classes. He’d dodged concussions, and broken limbs, and torn muscles for years. He’d never not gotten up and played again that weekend. He’s had games where he’d played less to protect tender injuries and practices he’d sat out parts of, but losing almost half a season had never happened. 

He’d never not been able to prove himself again. 

“Not really,” he finally answers.

Fred hums, like somewhere in his drunk brain, he’s slowed enough to really think. 

“I tore some shit back in school. Doesn’t really matter how, something stupid anyway, but it took me out my first season and part of my next season too. I thought about not going back.”

Fred picks at his cuticles, and he’s talking to Oscar, but more than anything, he’s talking to the floor beneath his feet. 

“Really, I did. I’m not like lying to be relatable or anything. I’d never not played and part of me didn’t want to give it up. I don’t know what. Maybe the freedom or the weightlessness? Being somebody outside of the uniform and the stick. It was easier to miss it, than to stress over the games again. And I told Coach, and he said I didn’t sound sure, so he invited me to just watch the first practice. I wanted to be out there so bad. So I went back.”

It was easier to miss it, Oscar thinks. 

Oscar’s tried to believe it’s easier to miss it than to face going back, than to have to play catch-up, than to reacclimate himself, than to be just that little bit behind, than to have to face the recovery, than to not be the best. 

He’s never gone back because he doesn’t know how to face the possibility of not being as good as he was. 

“And you’re happy you did?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”

Fred just smiles at him after that, giggling over some nonsense that is probably only happening in his head. 

And Oscar, in the hallway of the lacrosse house, wants to go home. 

He doesn’t even feel that out of it anymore. The music is too quiet in the hallway for it to feel like his head is rattling. The lights are fairly chill except for a couple projecting lights near the TV. In the hallway, with only him and Fred, he can’t find himself overwhelmed by the warm press of bodies. 

Right now, he finds it’s not about leaving, it’s about going home. 

He excuses himself from Fred, who doesn’t really seem to care that Oscar’s leaving, just nods and tells him to have a good life. 

Oscar makes a note to hang out with Fred soon. And Arthur. 

He thinks he should find someone, tell them he’s heading out before someone gets worried.

He doesn’t.

He thinks he should find Lando. He wonders if they were both planning on Lando staying over at Oscar’s tonight. But then he thinks about Lando trying to kiss him in the car, or begging Oscar to stay over at his flat, or crying when Oscar wouldn’t kiss him the second time, asking if it was Lando’s fault. 

Oscar thinks about the way Lando’s never brought it up. He thinks about how it's entirely possible that Lando forgets every time, that he screws with Oscar’s head, acts like he’s hopelessly in love with Oscar, and then forgets. He thinks about how Lando only wants him when he’s drunk.

He wishes that just one of the times Lando had been brave enough to redefine their relationship, he had been sober. 

He thinks, if Lando was sober, Oscar could be brave enough to do something about it right now. 

But Lando isn’t. He’s somewhere in the living room, too many shots deep, probably draping himself over somebody else. And so Oscar doesn’t go seek Lando out. He doesn’t ask if Lando wants to come back to his flat. He wonders if Lando would even know if he left. 

He walks out of the front door and leaves. 

In his room, bundled in a hoodie and tattered pajama pants, he shoots a text to Arthur to ask about hanging out soon and sends Fred a picture of them from last year that sits in his favorites on his camera roll, sticking a nostalgic caption under it. 

He also sets a reminder to email his lacrosse coach tomorrow. 

And then, without the added weight of Lando over his chest, or the deafening memory of something Lando had drunkenly muttered to him, Oscar falls asleep. 

— And I know we're not just hangin' out.

There’s a faint strip of light filtering in through his curtains when Oscar wakes up. It’s positioned perfectly to blind him instantly as he opens his eyes. He grimaces, face scrunching up, and hopelessly trying to roll away from the steam of light. 

He barely manages a twist of his torso before he’s stopped by something thrown over his waist. Briefly, he wonders if he’s just found himself caught in the tangle of his sheets. It’s happened before, having slept so good he becomes embedded in his sheets, the ends wrapped around himself various times. 

Really, though, he knows deep down what it is. There’s something familiar about the weight, something vaguely comforting, something that warms his heart as much as it makes it beat erratically. 

Even if he didn’t leave with Lando, he’s ended up in his bed anyway, legs entangled and arms tossed over each other. 

“Oscar?”

Lando’s voice is quiet, shy, distinctly unlike the persona Lando loves to march around in. Oscar thinks it might say something about how much Lando trusts Oscar. Trusts him enough to be vulnerable around. Or maybe, it just speaks to the fact that neither of them really know how to handle this situation. 

The situation that is so clearly bubbling over. 

“Lando.”

Lando hums, something light and fluffy, and nuzzles his nose into Oscar’s neck. Oscar wants to know what it means that they always seem to end up here at the end of the day, lying in one bed, as if trying to fuse their limbs together.

“Lando, what are you doing here?”

“Sleeping.”

Jesus Christ.

“Did you notice me leave?”

“I couldn’t find you.”

Of course he didn’t notice. 

“So how’d you get here?”

Oscar thinks to really have this conversation, they should untangle themselves, probably sit up, maybe even go out to the living room. But he feels so comfortable, so normal, so content here in Lando’s arms. And from this angle, he doesn’t have to really look at Lando, leaving him in some safe area of plausible deniability. Like maybe nothing he’s feeling is real.  

“Max.”

“Why?”

Lando says nothing, only buries himself further into the crook of Oscar’s shoulder and neck and probably tries to act like nothing’s happening. 

Oscar sighs. He doesn’t like being forceful with Lando, especially not when he’s all gooey and sweet, melted into Oscar’s side, afraid to show his face. And Oscar would think it's cute because he is, but he also knows they can’t talk like this. Oscar can’t keep letting Lando get away with this just because he’s clingy. 

He pushes gently at Lando’s shoulder forcing the other man to roll away from Oscar, and then he sits up, putting himself a safe distance from Lando.  

“Lando, why are you here?”

Lando, as always, has his bottom lip between his teeth, ruining it even more. 

“I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t find you. And I didn’t want to go home home, I wanted to be here, with you. So I told Max to drop me off here. And I know all the door codes and shit, even drunk I guess, so I just let myself in.” 

He pauses, eyes going a little wide, moving to sit up across from Oscar. 

“I’m sorry. That’s so weird.” 

Maybe it is weird, Lando essentially breaking in just to fumble his way under the covers and fall asleep next to Oscar. But it’s Lando. And he’s Oscar. And they’re weird about each other. So weird that it's normal. 

But Oscar, despite all the ways he wants to give in, thinks about emailing his lacrosse coach, and some decision he made last night to be less afraid, and the way Lando had tried to be brave that one time. 

“It’s okay, Lando.”

Lando softens, but Oscar’s not done.

“But why?”

“Why what?”

“Do you ever think about why you want to be here?”

Lando stares.

“With me?” Oscar adds as a thought. As something that gnaws at the back of his mind.

“Because we’re friends, Osc.” 

He inches a little closer to Oscar, further from the wall and nearer to where Oscar’s almost edged himself off the bed. Oscar doesn’t know if he wants Lando to get closer because is that how he feels?

Friends. 

Lando wanted Oscar to kiss him. Oscar’s cocooned drunk Lando into his bed dozens of times. They’ve always held on too close, grabbed hands too naturally. Lando had all but stuck his hands in the front of Oscar’s pants to help him get dressed for a party. Lando wanted to paint Oscar’s number on his cheek and smile at him from the stands. Oscar wants him to. 

“I always want to hang out with you.” 

Oscar thinks of when George stayed over and found Oscar and Lando wrapped in each other's arms. How Oscar had run his hands through Lando’s curls, carefully whispering with George. He thinks of how George had watched them. Did Lando call that hanging out?

Oscar thinks of Lando on the porch, head over Oscar’s shoulder, too scared to look at him as he spoke. He had wanted to talk to Oscar about their relationship, about “feelings” Lando was harboring. Were those feelings that he loved being Oscar’s friend? Was their relationship that of two friends who just loved hanging out?

“Hanging out? Is that what it always is?”

Oscar feels something settle deep in his stomach. Hurt, maybe? 

He can’t sit in his own bed anymore, surrendering his own space to Lando. He tosses his legs off the side and stands, one hand curling into his hair as he takes a step or two back.

He doesn’t know why everything’s hit him all of a sudden. He’s gone weeks and months putting up with Lando, not batting an eye at the stutter of his heart or the warmth in his cheeks. He’s been fine with whatever he and Lando have been for so long. But, today, hearing Lando amount everything to friendship, he suddenly feels like he’s been hit with a wave, stumbling around, not quite able to catch his breath, unable to process what’s smacked him in the face.

“Oscar, what?”

“You can’t seriously call everything we’ve done just ‘hanging out’.” 

“But, Osc—”

Lando cuts himself off, shoving his palms into his eyes as if trying to pretend like all of this is a dream he can wake up from. 

Oscar spots blood starting to fill in the corner of Lando’s lip where he’s bitten too hard. Oscar wants to press his thumb to the spot and never see Lando hurt again. 

He starts picking at his fingernails instead. 

“But what, Lando? You like being friends?”

Lando throws his arms out at that, “I’ve tried!”

What? Lando’s tried to do what?

He must look as confused as he feels all of a sudden because Lando groans, hands hiding his face again. 

“Oh my god, Oscar. I’ve tried to be not friends, but you don’t seem to care. You never seem like you … want it.” 

Every begged for kiss, every hand on his arm, every time he’s collapsed into Oscar’s shoulder, and the one almost-confession. Lando remembers it, did it all on purpose. 

“You—”

“I’m not hanging off of you because I like hanging out with you, Osc. I like hanging out with Alex, but I don’t hold his arm and ask him to, y'know, kiss me. Or crawl into his bed at night. Every time, Osc, I was trying to be brave for us. And you just brushed it off.”

Oh. Okay. 

“I started it every time, and I thought maybe you’d do something or say something about it. You always just ignored it.”

Oscar thinks that’s unfair. He thinks it’s unfair that he expected Oscar to bring it up, that Lando remembered and never said anything about it. He thinks it’s unfair that Lando expected Oscar to be normal about it.

“You remembered every time?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, I know. But you know me, Osc. I’m not good with the big things, the emotions and the right words. I could do it … drunk, but you’re more blunt than me, more straightforward. You say the right words and ask the right questions. I didn’t know how to do that. I only knew how to get drunk and throw myself at you,” he laughs. It’s sad, like Lando wishes everything had happened differently. “And I—” 

He doesn’t say anything after that. Just stares at his hands and pulls his knees up to his chest. 

“And you?” Oscar prompts.

Oscar’s still standing, his hands down by his sides now. He’s watching Lando, afraid to look away, like Lando might run.

“And you let me, and I liked getting to have that. Us. Even if it wasn’t real.”

“Lando,” Lando sighs, placing his head on his knees, “You were drunk. I never would have kissed you while you were drunk and I wasn’t. And … and I had no way to know it was real. Lando, you could’ve been spouting bullshit.”

“I wanted you. Every time.” 

“You were drunk.”

“I’m sober now. I want you.”

“Lando.”

“Osc.”

Lando finally starts moving, carefully uncurling himself. He gently pushes himself towards the bed, closer towards an unmoving Oscar. Silently, he places both feet on the floor, mirroring the slow way Oscar had gotten out of bed earlier. Steadily, he stands, walks forward a few steps, and lands in front of Oscar. 

“Not friends?” Oscar asks.

“Not for a while.” 

Oscar can’t help himself anymore. His hands shoot out, cupping Lando’s jaw, thumbs caressing his cheekbones. 

“Kiss me?” Lando asks. But he’s aware this time. So so aware. 

And who would Oscar be to say no?

It’s not an explosion. 

It’s soft and gentle. 

It’s not strobe lights or EDM or spiked tropical punch bowls. It’s just dim porch lights and the classical music Charles plays in the car and the way Lando called Oscar’s too-small flat home. 

It feels right, and normal, and perfect.

They both pull away, not breathless from the kiss, too chaste and kind, but simply because it finally happened and they’re both a little giddy. 

They just sort of smile at each other, until Lando makes a face, groans, crashes his forehead into Oscar’s shoulders, and mutters, “Shit, my head hurts.”

Lando’s hangover always hits eventually.  

— 

Oscar feels raw on the field. His thighs ache and his shoulders scream at him, but god, it feels good when he pushes through the ache and the adrenaline carries him across the field.

His coach had been enthusiastic when Oscar had emailed about coming back. He’d been positive but realistic about Oscar’s return. It would be hard, his body, despite all the gym visits, would be unused to the physicality of the game. And his knee, even with the PT, the work, and Oscar’s continued athleticism, hadn’t experienced game-like exertion since the injury.

Oscar didn’t know how to play with his post-injury body. 

But he’d worked his ass off in practices, with his coach, on the field, and then more with the trainer, in the gym, in his flat. And it had hurt, he had to go back to a regular ice and compression system, eating better, resting more, doing homework with ice packs strapped to his legs. 

And it ached, and he had days where he didn’t know how he would manage. But his knee never got worse and practices became easier, and he’d gotten rid of most of the rust that still crested his bones and muscles. 

Soon, it was like he had never left. He was bonding with rookies, rekindling old friendships, and was on the field just as much as anybody who’d played the extra season he hadn’t. 

In their last practice before the first season game, their coach had even pulled him aside and called him spectacular, saying he was so proud of Oscar for not only his physical efforts but the mental work Oscar had done as well.

He said he doesn’t know what Oscar went through, between deciding to leave and choosing to come back. He knows whatever it was, though, it wasn’t a simple decision. Getting injured, he said, was never easy, but coming back was harder and Oscar had done it with grace and determination. 

He said they had an assistant captain spot they never managed to fill. He said that the rookies looked up to him, that everybody found his return and effort admirable, that he trusted Oscar to make the right calls and play smart. He said he had always wanted the position to be Oscar’s at some point. Sophomore year, Coach tells him, I would’ve asked you. 

Oscar tells him he’ll think about it. Coach says he wants an answer before their second game. Oscar nods, thinks he already knows his answer, but still heads home to his flat first and gets a second opinion.

Out of the corner of his eye, Oscar watches the clock steadily ticking down, five seconds left. He’s still running, heart pounding, muscles aching but in a way that makes Oscar wild with joy. 

Then four.

They’re trying desperately to stop the other team from tying the game. He thinks somebody would pass out if they were forced into overtime. 

They’re 5-4.

He sees the clock dwindle to three.

Then two.

He knows better than to get ahead of himself, but his chest starts to feel lighter all of a sudden, even through the panting breaths he’s letting out.

The clock hits one, and it starts running down through all the hundredths and thousandths of seconds. 

Robert, in goal, catches the other team’s shot before it ever hits the net. 

The timer sounds and the score stays.

5-4.

It’s only the first game, but he did it.

They did it.

They won. 

It’s all still for a moment. And in a ridiculously movie-like moment, Oscar thinks it’s quiet. He’s not running anymore, he’s finally caught his breathe, and fuck, his whole body hurts. He played the whole game, scored two goals, which he’ll pride himself on later. Distantly, he knows he's going to have to ice tonight and will still be sore tomorrow. But none of it matters. 

He’s in the middle of the field, surrounded by a team who he loves again, playing a sport he’d somehow forgotten meant so much to him, and it all feels right. 

And then Fred’s full body slams into him and everything resumes. There’s shouting, and music, and bodies piling into their huddle. Someone’s saying his name, and someone’s chanting Robert’s name, and they’re jumping just a little. 

He thinks he’s shouting too, maybe even crying a little in his helmet, his cheeks wet with someone more than sweat. And maybe crying over this one random win, first of the season, is dorky, but Oscar’s never claimed he wasn’t. Plus, he’s worked hard to get here, he’s allowed to cry. 

He can just see the crowd from the center of the huddle, and if he squints just right, he thinks he can make out Lando in the stands, in Oscar’s old freshman year jersey with 81 all bright and glittery on his left cheek.

—

In Lando’s car, idling outside the lacrosse house, Oscar leans across the center console and kisses him, thumbing tracing his cheek but careful not to mess up the face paint. And if this is the second time today Oscar’s obsessively ran his fingers around the numbers, then who could blame him? 

Lando, all pretty and eyelash-batting, arrived in his flat fully ready for the game hours before it started and hours before Oscar had to head to the field early. He had time, and a boyfriend, and a gooey warmth in his stomach, so naturally he was going to appreciate what was in front of him. 

“You were so good,” Lando says against Oscar’s lips. “Hot too, Osc. Nobody would believe you if you told them you hadn’t played last season. I’m so proud of you.”

Oscar lets himself blush, pink reaching the tips of his ears. 

“Couldn’t have done it with you,” Oscar mutters, cliche yet honest. 

Oscar kisses Lando’s temple, a little reminder right over the 81.

And it’s true. Lando had helped Oscar with workouts in his flat, held him after particularly hard practices, forced Oscar to take a break when Lando knew he needed one, and regularly served as Oscar’s second opinion.

Oscar found his coach in the joyous aftermath of the game and told him he’d take the position. Coach told him they’d get the navy blue ‘AC’ patched on his jerseys as soon as possible.

“Maybe, but you’re more than responsible for your own successes too, Osc. You’re talented, and utterly determined, and perfect all on your own.”

Oscar didn’t know it was possible to blush even more.

“But yeah, I guess I helped some too,” Lando flaunts, all dramatically with faux narcissism.

Oscar rolls his eyes and pushes a little at Lando’s shoulder.

“Lando.”

“Hm?”

“I’m not going to drink tonight, I don’t think.”

“Okay, I won’t either.”

“No, Lando,” Oscar starts carefully, stroking his thumb across Lando’s jaw, “if you want to, that’s okay. I want you to have fun. You don’t have to be sober for me, Lan.”

Lando just fixes him with a glare, like Oscar is stupid.

“Oscar, baby.” Oscar still doesn’t know what to name the feeling he gets when Lando calls him something like baby. “I want to be sober. With you. I’ll still have fun. Trust me.”

Oscar just nods, unsure.

“And, it’s more fun to gossip when we’re both sober.”

The house is loud and obnoxious. 

It’s the type of environment Oscar thinks he should be stressed about. That he would have been stressed out about only months ago. 

But tonight. Tonight, he’s high off the win, loose with the feeling of rediscovering his love for a team and sport he’d left behind. He hasn’t stopped smiling since he left the field, already imagining the next game, where hopefully the ‘AC’ patch will adorn his jersey. 

And, there’s Lando. Lando who’s giggling and grinning, decorated in Oscar’s jersey and those baggy jeans he loves so much. Lando’s whose hand is in Oscar’s, and not just because Lando and Oscar are weird like that, or Lando’s afraid Oscar won’t come inside if he doesn’t drag him. 

No.

It’s because Lando’s his boyfriend. 

No brunette bob or blonde nurse will change that. 

“Is it always like this for you?” Lando asks, awe in his voice.

“Hm?” Oscar doesn’t have a clue what he means. 

“Like parties sober? Like I can actually see everyone. Oh my god, you must know so much. What aren’t you telling me, Osc?”

Oscar remembers watching Franco from the volleyball house practically salivate over Max’s teammate Liam at a party. He’s almost positive they hooked up that night, if the awkward energy between them ever since is anything to go by. But he suspects he’s one of very few people who know.

Oscar thinks of the time that Daniel drunkenly told him about how he only views Max as a little brother now. And how he knows that sounds weird with the whole dating thing — he swears he didn’t view him as a little brother while they dated — but that it's just the truth. He also said he hopes Max and Charles figure it all out eventually. 

He thinks about the time he learned from Professor Hamilton’s TA that Dr. Webber has a thing with Seb Vettel, one of the environmental professors. Frankly, Oscar and just about everybody else who knows them thought they hated each other. But really, thinking about it, Oscar thinks it actually makes too much sense. Still, he doesn’t appreciate the image it creates now every time he sees either teacher. 

He remembers being in some backyard once, trying to catch his breath, and catching Pierre and Carlos in the middle of a screaming match. Mostly, it consisted of name-calling in their respective native languages, neither of which Oscar has any knowledge of. The few times they switched to English though, Oscar came to understand the fight had something to do with football, Daniel’s passing ability, and how alike Arthur and Charles were. Later that night, Pierre drunkenly told Oscar they were really fighting over who knew Charles better and would “get the trophy of best friendship.” 

Apparently, Pierre got the trophy. 

He thinks, obviously, of Charles and Max. It isn’t solely parties’ fault that Oscar knows so much about their situation. Part of that, Oscar likes to think, comes down to his friendship with both men. But much of what he’s witnessed has been at parties. 

Cooing over each other in quiet honey-sweet tones when they thought no one was looking. Sitting too close together on couches and blaming it on the crowd; as if the crowd put Max’s hand on Charles thigh or made Charles comb his hands through Max’s hair. Kissing in dark, but still very public hallways. Charles loudly celebrating Max’s football wins, once even climbing up to sit on Max’s shoulders and cheer from there. Drunkenly stumbling over each other, hands fumbling, and faces split in grins on the few occasions Max actually gets drunk. 

Really, he thinks anybody, sober or not, should be able to notice their nonsense. And while Lando’s questioned them a few times, he’s never truly put the dots together. Oscar wonders if that’ll change tonight. 

Instead of saying any of that, Oscar just shrugs, and Lando scoffs. 

“What’s your drink suggestion?” Lando asks instead.

“Like—”

“Non-alcholic, of course.”

They get Sprites from a half-melting cooler in the kitchen and find a wall to lean against, Lando claiming he wants to learn the “art of people watching.” 

It’s calm. 

There’s EDM blasting, as always, and some of the lacrosse guys set up a pretty mean light system, rivalling the dusty fairy lights the volleyball guys use. And there’s arms pumping in the air, and they’ve been offered shots, always rejected, and people somewhere are cheering. It's anything but calm. 

Yet, Oscar feels fine. 

Good, even. 

He keeps pointing out little things to Lando, whose head, as if on a pivot, keeps looking around like he’s afraid to miss something. 

There’s no hidden urge to run. To go home and sleep away the discomfort. He doesn’t feel claustrophobic, or panicked, or like he can’t breathe. 

He’s just having a good time. 

They end up getting bothered by Alex and George for a little. 

Oscar still doesn’t really know what the fight was about all those months ago. He knows Lando knows, but it doesn’t feel like his business, so he doesn’t bother prying. But they’ve been good. Alex and George. They haven’t broken up once since. Which Oscar knows feels like a low bar, but for them, it's good. It’s really good. 

They hold hands, and smile at each other, and Oscar thinks they’ve finally started saying I love you. 

With Lando-and-Oscar and George-and-Alex figured out, Oscar can’t help but think, in the back of his mind, they’re just waiting for Max and Charles. 

“I want to get a cat,” Alex says, smirking at George in a way that makes it really obvious the two of them have already had this conversation.

“And I told him I didn’t think we were ready.”

“I think you should do it,” Lando chimes in.

“I don’t know if you’re the most trustworthy opinion here, Lando,” George says, turning to look at Oscar, clearly waiting for his opinion on the matter.

Lando tries to argue back to George, sputtering a response he never quite gets out, but both Alex and George have moved on, using Oscar as the final decider, deeming him the ever responsible one. 

Really, Oscar has no clue if George and Alex are ready for a cat. Months ago, he would’ve said no. Now, all he can picture is a little ball of fur running around the apartment, who would somehow take to George the most, even if George didn’t want it. With the image of disgruntled George holding a kitten, he says, “Yeah, why not?”

It’s obviously not what George, with his jaw dropped, expected him to say. But Alex is clearly elated, grabbing on George’s shirt and immediately ranting about what a good idea it is. 

“Good choice, Osc,” Lando says, beaming up at Oscar. Oscar can’t help but picture him and Lando on the couch with a little kitten, or maybe (ideally) a dog. Instantly, he decides maybe they aren’t ready for that.

(Barely a month later, George and Alex have a little gray ball of fur in the apartment. And she definitely likes George better.) 

It’s a little slow once George and Alex leave. There’s not much to say, the weight of the day and the game hitting them. Oscar starts feeling the way his muscles ache, noting the places he’ll have to be more careful of and the spots he’ll ice later. Lando starts leaning further and further into Oscar’s side, head resting on his shoulder. 

“You’re having fun?” Oscar asks. Maybe still worried Lando’s only trying to stay sober for Oscar and isn’t actually enjoying himself.

“Yes, Oscar. This is nice, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“It feels quiet. Good quiet,” Lando looks at Oscar while he says it, and Oscar pictures being in the back of Max’s car and being told he “makes it quiet.” 

“And, I don’t know, I like feeling like I’m more in control of my choices.” 

Oscar just watches Lando.

“Does that make sense?”

“Entirely,” Oscar replies, cheeks a little red and his smile unhideable.

Lando smirks a little, “Like I could kiss you, and you would know I mean it.”

Oscar kisses him. 

They get more Sprites after that. 

Lando starts grilling Oscar on lacrosse, finally revealing how little he knows about the sport. Oscar’s content to answer every question, secretly giddy that Lando’s taking interest in Oscar’s hobbies. 

Oscar thinks he, in turn, needs to study up on anything and everything that Lando likes. Even if that means building a stronger library of romcom knowledge and letting Lando tell him about the kern of different fonts. He doesn’t think he would mind very much. 

They go back and forth for a little, trading interests. Sometimes, Oscar is shocked when he learns new things about Lando because he swears he knows it all. At the same time, he loves adding new little things into the box in his head with Lando’s name on it. Really, he just has an affinity for anything to do with Lando. 

Oscar’s about to start his next question, a really important question about whether Lando agrees with his comparison of Cher from Clueless and their very own George Russell, when Lando grabs his arms and all but shouts, “No way. No goddamn way. Oscar, look!”

Oscar turns, expecting maybe a fight or some shocking dance moves. Instead, what he sees doesn’t actually surprise him very much. 

Max has Charles pressed against a wall, lips firmly attacking the side of Charles’ neck. It’s a little disgusting, but they’re not the only couple in the room grossly intertwined, so Oscar can’t be all that bothered by them in specific. 

Lando, however, looks fucking shocked.

“I’m going to puke.” 

He turns to Oscar, clearly expecting an equal amount of uproar and confusion. Unfortunately, Oscar can’t even pretend to be surprised.

“You aren’t shocked. How are you not shocked? This is atrocious. That’s Max! And Charles! Max and Charles. You are so not shocked.”

“You’ve missed a lot, baby.” 

“Oh my god, you know about,” Lando turns back to Charles and Max, shudders, “about that?”

“Mhm.”

Max carefully detaches from Charles’ neck, places the most tender kiss against his mouth, whispers something in his ear, and grabs his hand so they can wander off towards the kitchen.

“You are telling me everything you know, Oscar Piastri.”

“Of course, baby.”

“I love when you call me that,” Lando giggles. 

They don’t stay too much longer after that. 

Lando keeps asking Oscar to make out with him, to which Oscar keeps reminding Lando they’re very much in public. Lando, nonetheless, keeps whining about it, claiming he doesn’t care. Though Lando goes quiet quick when Oscar mentions that if they made out here it wouldn’t make them any better than Charles and Max.

Eventually, when everybody else’s drunkenness seems to reach a peak and Lando keeps switching between still wanting to make out and wanting to know all about Max and Charles, Oscar herds Lando back to the car. 

“So they’re not dating?”

“Mhm.”

“But they’re—”

“Mhm,” Oscar answers before Lando can even finish. 

“Oh.”

Lando hums quietly on the drive back, playing with Oscar’s fingers while Oscar drives with only his one free hand on the wheel. 

Of course, they’re going back to Oscar’s, where his bed is still a little too small, even if Lando’s bed is a perfectly normal size. They’ve yet to admit that they just like the way Oscar’s bed forces them even closer together. 

As they casually make their way to the building’s elevator, steps steady and heads clear, Oscar can’t help but recall all the times he’d helped Lando drunkenly stumble his way to Oscar’s flat. He thinks of his quiet reassurances and his arm around Lando’s waist. And while he really never minded and would still never care if Lando wanted to get drunk and have Oscar help him home, he thinks this is nice. The two of them coming back to Oscar’s flat like this. When he knows it won’t matter if he kisses Lando behind his bedroom door and tells him how adorable and gorgeous he is all at once. 

They do just that. 

They make out lazily in Oscar’s bed, just like Lando had been begging for. And in between kisses and panting into each other’s open mouths, Oscar compliments Lando until the other boy is giggling beneath him, cheeks all pink. 

Lando smiles up at him, presses a sweet kiss to Oscar’s nose, and says, so casual and so meaningful at the same time, “I love you.”

Oscar thinks of being on that porch, Lando trying to talk to Oscar about their relationship. Or sitting at the red light, Lando begging Oscar to just lean over the console and please kiss him. He thinks both times he remembers smelling alcohol on the edges of Lando’s breath and wondering if Lando actually knew what he was saying. 

He looks down at Lando now, clear eyes and bright smile. Oscar leans down to kiss Lando again and all he can taste is the sweet cherry chapstick he bought Lando last month. 

When he pulls away, he mutters back, “I love you.”