Chapter Text
It had been a week since Oscar added Lando back on Snapchat, a week of switching between pent-up excitement, forcing himself to type a message, and then sulking after deleting it point five seconds later. And it seemed like Oscar was having the same issues on the other side–or was trying to reach out to make sure Lando needed anything again with the sheer number of almost sends he had. By the end of that Friday, Logan looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.
Lando’s hand hovered over the message: hey dude, his teeth sinking into his lower teeth, his jaw growing sorer. No, hi dude. Or scratch the dude? No, just hi sounded lame.
“Hello, dude,” Lando whispered under his breath, testing how it would sound on Oscar’s side. That was definitely the worst one
“Hi!”
Lando jumped, fighting back a yelp once he saw there was a kid who looked like he was in junior high tops, maybe a freshman to be generous with it, waiting patiently by his side. How long had he been waiting there? No, why was he waiting there?
“Hey, kid. Need a phone or something?” Lando asked, quickly swiping away from the Snapchat screen and onto the homepage of his phone, which, to Logan’s credit, wasn’t Oscar. He thought Logan was all about traditions, but when it just so happened to be his best friend, now it's weird.
The kid frowned, almost pouting at Lando. Maybe he wanted candy; fuck, he didn’t have any. How did his parents deal with him when he was a child? Oh right, they let him join a motorbike gang-group, so maybe that wasn’t the best starting point
“Um– my name’s Arvid. You’re Lando, right?” Arvid asked with a tinge of annoyance, between muttering something that sounded vaguely like “didn’t we see each other last week.”
“Yeah?”
“Great! They told me I could find one of you guys here. This is great. So you guys do motorbiking. I have a motorcycle; can we make things work?”
That’s when Lando saw the glaringly white motorcycle nestled comfortably to Arvid’s side. Between the fact that there was no way this was legal and the fact that he was older than six, Lando felt the type of headache that he got when he tried to understand his classes.
He never got those headaches.
“Wait, aren’t you the guy who screamed about how we had a gang?”
“It was for comedic effect,” Arvid said blankly–that was admittedly good acting on his part. Was he in the theatre?
Lando sighed. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen, how old do I look?”
“Never mind, as long as you know how to ride. Just–rule one: don’t get killed. Rule two: don’t get others killed.”
Arvid smiled back, looking behind his shoulder at numerous heads emerging from behind him, all bickering at each other. “You guys can leave! I got in!” Arvid shouted excitedly at the visibly disappointed children behind him.
“Are you kidding me? We’ve been waiting an hour, and you promised we could jump him!”
Lando whipped his head around back at Arvid, staring at the concrete beneath them. “You said what?”
“It was for comedic effect?”
“Arvid, just say Plan B!” Isack shouted.
“We... know stuff about Oscar,” Arvid announced proudly, and he could hear the sound of someone smacking their face from afar.
“So much stuff,” Franco added
The rest of them nodded in agreement.
Lando raised his eyebrow; he didn’t know how much he should trust a group of teenagers trying to ply their way into a biker gang.
“So do we have a deal?”
“Why would we have a deal?”
“Because we know stuff about Oscar!” Isack insisted.
“Oh, really.”
Kimi scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Like what happened between him and Logan back in 2024–”
Everyone froze and looked at Kimi, who was innocently blinking at Ollie before cupping his hand over his face in realization. “Shit.”
“Kimi!” Ollie hissed, grabbing the boy’s forearm, although it seemed to act more as protection against the swarm of freshmen crowding around him.
“You want in? Fine, get in, but tell me what you know.” Lando said, his tone telling them that this was final. To be honest, whatever happened between them was completely irrelevant to anything with trying to talk to Oscar, but for one, he can never turn down gossip either way, and two, he could use this to ask Logan for help.
“First, let me go out for a ride with you guys once!” Arvid responded, clutching at his motorcycle.
“... Deal,” Lando said, putting his hand out to Arvid, who high-fived it instead. Anything works.
“See, everything worked out fine anyway.”
“Shut up, Kimi.”
—-
Yup, leave it up to the weird freshmen to gather all the gossip you need about your three-week-old crush. But it wasn’t the type of information that he necessarily wanted–details of him in middle school playing an insanely awkward game of spin the bottle and kissing a few guys being a little too into it for other people’s comfort. Which was great news, he was into it! And also he might’ve been traumatized by the rumors that circulated afterwards, which was not great news. But all gossip, right? It was like years ago; Oscar probably didn’t even care about it anymore.
Lando knew that today would be the day that he would finally reach out–the fact that they made eye contact for a solid second before Oscar continued walking in the direction he looked at Lando was confirmation of it. Plus, if anything did come out of it, the freshmen gave him wonderful date ideas that included, but were not limited to, going skydiving, doing a marathon, and training for months to “get the most out of the slow burn,” people watching, bird watching on a mountain, and committing credit card fraud together.
He wasn’t convinced that a single one of them had ever dated before, except perhaps Arvid, who told him that he should ride motorcycles together, and Isack, who told him the same but without the motorcycles. Both excellent bonding activities–but before he even talked to Oscar, Lando knew the first would be the one.
Oscar
heyy dude
do you remember what the physics hw was
Perfect, it took baby steps. Lando could be patient; he was great at being patient. Plus, he didn’t know what the physics homework was, so win-win.
–
Fifteen minutes of staring at a phone with no response were crushing. Lando’s expression was sunken, dryly swiping up and down his Snapchat scroll bar only to be met with the same two lines because there was nothing else that they had ever sent each other. Maybe he should have just asked him for his number like a normal person.
American Bitch
yo tell oscar to check his snapchat
or smth
actually no that’s suspicious
add him to a gc and tell him to check his snapchat
hahhaah im so smart
…
Did you finally text him man
fck off
just od it
What do I get out of this
theres some stff charles shud know
:)
how do you
Fine just give me a second
Lando smiled, satisfied with his phone, sighing contently swiping to the app, waiting comfortably beside it. How nice of the freshmen to have added a little something extra to help. Lando should really team up with them more often. Almost as much as he should learn their names instead of referring to them as an entity called the freshmen. Which, to Lando’s defense, they kind of were.
Finally, Lando saw Oscar’s head pop up on the messages screen. His heart lit up, thumping in his chest as he waited for the typing to begin. And then it left. Lando collapsed onto his bed and groaned, shoving the phone across the nightstand beside his bed. He buried his face in his hands, disappointment rather than anger settling inside of his chest. It was fine if Oscar didn’t want to talk, was being kind of–very weird about his crush. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if he knew already, although that prospect seemed like a nightmare.
His phone buzzed, and Lando flipped over, scrambling to grab it.
Oscar
The online packet on course modules. It is due at 8 AM tomorrow.
Lando stared at the message. He didn’t know what to expect, but zero emotion or tone behind it wasn’t one of the things. How could he tell how he thought of Lando when there was zero emotion behind the text?
Oh, right, he doesn’t think anything of Lando, yet.
Oscar
lol ok
do u like motocycles
What?
Attached Image
the thing with two wheels
I know what a motorcycle is.
Not especially.
oh ook
Don’t recruit me into your motorcycle gang, I’ve heard enough from
Nevermind
dang it
Why?
dont worry abot it
Read 8:17 P.M.
American Bitch
LOHAN
LOGN
OGAN
LOGAN
Get a life
What
HE HSTES ME
HR THINKS IM WIERD
glad his brain is stil working
what did you say
I ASKNE IF HE LIKES MOTORCYCLES
SOMETHING IN COMON
:D
i doubt he cares
no offense man
remind me why would he hate you for asking if he likes motorcycles
YOUR SAYING HE DOESNT CARE ABOUT ME??
:C
youre*
have you changed my contact name yet
Read 7:15 PM
-<>-
Lando let out a short breath, glancing between his hands, palms sweaty, and Oscar, who was handing in something that was hopefully not homework for the night to their professor, making conversation at the beginning of class. Why wouldn’t he just go back to his seat and talk to a peer like a normal person already? His foot rapidly tapped against the stone floor of the classroom, muffled by the chattering of their classmates. But loud enough for Max to place his own shoe firmly on top of his.
“Ouch, what was that for?” Lando said, trying to squeeze out of Max’s hold on his shoe.
“You want to impress Oscar, right? Stop making so much noise, mate.”
Lando protested, “He’s on the other side of the classroom!”
“I know–you’re being loud enough that he can hear you.”
Lando rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, cut off by the professor’s voice successfully reaching his ears.
“Lando, and how can we get ‘V’ initial?”
Shit. There were five different variables, all with a little letter to the side, and he had no clue as to how to get to the rest of the equation.
He looked at Oscar, who was staring thoughtfully at the teacher, then glancing towards him.
This was it; he could kiss goodbye any prospects of getting with Oscar after this. He swallowed, staring at the whiteboard with a nervous expression.
“Vf minus a times t,” he mumbled quietly, looking instead at the equation on the board left of the whiteboard.
The teacher stared back at Lando with a semi-concerned look. The man turned his head towards the equation on the left board, and his eyes grew minutely wider in understanding.
“So we know the final velocity is…”
Oscar was staring at the teacher again–Lando could finally breathe.
–
The bell rang, and at once every student stood up from their desk and began packing their stuff. Lando’s attention remained fixed on Oscar, already finished packing. He left his folder half-hanging out of his bag and rushed to him.
Lando was either going to make a fool out of himself or be able to talk to Oscar for once. Or both.
“Thanks for saving me yesterday.” Lando rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, grinning at the unamused teenager. Oscar’s eyes drifted past Lando, despite him being the only thing directly in front of him.
“You're welcome,” Oscar began, flatly. “... Reach out if you need help, any time.”
“I will–”
Oscar was already walking away in the other direction. Right, class. Max dragged him by his collar again. Lando sighed as he was pulled, fighting back a louder groan from Oscar’s complete disinterest. Even a smile, out of human decency.
He really wasn’t going to get with Oscar this time, was he?