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Oscar watches the way the sun catches on the brown curls, the way his eyes sparkle as he smiles, the infectious laughter bubbling out of him. They make eye contact then. It feels like the world fizzles away, leaving behind that blinding bright light that Oscar can’t tear his eyes away from. It’s brighter than a star - it’s more like what happens when a star dies, something explosively spectacular. A supernova.
Oh, Oscar thinks.
-
Oscar remembers hearing about soulmates. But that’s all fairytale bullshit that’s spread around in fiction. Soulmates don’t exist. What does exist, are stars and their white dwarves. Starbounds is the term some people would use to call the pair of fated people.
The biggest difference between soulmates and starbounds, is that you never wish to meet your starbound.
-
Oscar doesn’t wish to meet Lando. He also doesn’t not want to meet him. It’s something about the magnetic pull that Oscar, or Lando for that matter, can’t seem to resist. The way they gravitate to each other no matter how much distance is between them. Even if Oscar had gone 23 years of his life not knowing the other man. Those 23 years now feel pretty pathetic in retrospect. He doesn’t remember ever feeling this alive.
“Fancy seeing you here, mate,” Lando says, smiling around the rim of a cup.
“Must be fate,” Oscar deadpans. His heart clenches at the way Lando bursts out laughing.
He’s only half joking. He can’t tell whether Lando knows that. He doesn’t even know if Lando knows that they are starbounds.
“Oscar, right?” Lando asks, making himself comfortable on the seat next to him.
There’s something about the way the name rolls off his tongue, sounding a lot more like Oscah. It makes Oscar want to shiver. He doesn’t know if it’s in a bad or good way.
“Yeah. I know you’re Lando,” Oscar says.
“Famous, aren’t I?”
He winks obnoxiously. It shouldn’t be this endearing, but Oscar finds himself laughing. A soft but honest laugh.
They’re in the same group of friends. They apparently have been for years, all the way back since their university days, but they just hadn’t crossed paths much before this. Although Oscar did hear quite a bit about the other man. Mostly not so flattering stuff, like the time he almost burnt down his dorm room because he had accidentally left his oven on while he was out at night. Oscar blames it on the few sips of alcohol he'd drank earlier for losing his brain to mouth filter, because he finds himself voicing it out loud.
“Definitely. Arsonists weren’t too common in our university dorms.” Oscar’s lips quirk up slightly.
Lando’s jaw drops almost comically. “Who is telling you these stuff? Tarnishing my reputation.”
“As if you had any to begin with,” Oscar quips.
He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. He somehow finds himself unable to hold back the dry sarcastic retorts. And from the way Lando responds, he doesn’t seem at all offended. The dangerous twinkle in his eyes looks a lot like he’s having fun.
Lando leans towards him, his voice dropping lowly. “Fine then. What’s your reputation like in a place like this? Hit it off with the ladies easily?”
“Is that what I look like?” Oscar asks, raising an eyebrow. He doesn’t think he does. He’s dressed simply in a t-shirt and jeans. And this club isn’t even his scene. Which is why he’s wasting away at the bar while the rest of his friends are mingling about on the dancefloor, getting sweaty bodies pressed into them.
Lando seems to consider it, his eyes raking over Oscar from head to toe. Oscar’s skin tingles.
“No,” he says finally, “but maybe you could hit it off with the men easily.”
Oscar can’t help the flush that bursts down his neck. He’s suddenly hyper aware of the way his shirt is clinging to his back, the thick and humid air getting to him.
When Oscar doesn’t respond after a beat, Lando continues, “Wanna get out of here?”
Oscar blinks slowly at him. Sure, they had exchanged pleasantries a couple times every time their circle of friends had dragged them into each other. But Oscar doesn’t think they’re acquainted enough to do, well, whatever it is Lando seems to be insinuating. He imagines it’ll make things very awkward if things went badly.
Lando suddenly bursts out laughing, that same infectious cackly laugh that Oscar had seen and heard him do the first time they had properly met. “Mate, you should see the look on your face.”
He takes a while to calm down, wiping tears from his eyes as he rights himself back up on his seat. Or, as right as he can be when he seems to enjoy slumping down precariously, his chair tilted over on its hind legs, the way primary school kids loved to do in class. Oscar mentally maps the best way to help break his fall if the chair does go toppling over.
“I didn’t mean it that way. You just look like you’d rather be anywhere else but here. I could do with some fresh air too,” Lando clarifies. “Although…”
He trails off, a single finger ghosting over Oscar’s knee. He pulls away quickly before Oscar has a chance to respond. “I’m just playing with you.”
He beams, all teeth. Oscar somehow doesn’t think he’s entirely joking, but he lets it slide.
“Fresh air sounds good,” he agrees, slipping out of his seat.
Lando follows suit, fishing his phone out of his back pocket. “Mint. I’ll just drop a text to the others and let them know we’re heading out already.”
Oscar spies over his shoulder as he types out a message to Alex: osc and i r heading out
“‘Osc’?” Oscar asks, raising a questioning eyebrow at him.
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Oscar feels his chest shutter at the smile Lando shoots his way - it’s bright, bright, bright. It’s a painful reminder that they are starbounds.
-
It starts the next morning after that night at the club, with Lando randomly texting him a picture he had taken while they were standing on a random bridge the previous night, the chill air blowing through Oscar’s hair the only movement in the peaceful night. Oscar had misjudged the other man. He definitely didn’t think Lando was capable of seeing things in such a soft light.
Oscar almost doesn’t feel like he’s looking at himself. It’s a picture of Oscar, smiling at something Lando had said, his head ducking down as he kept his eyes on the river flowing below them. The white light from the moon frames his figure just so, it almost looks like he’s glowing.
Ah, he thinks, the white dwarf to the star.
He compliments the picture sincerely, tells him how magical and glowy it makes him look. Lando is actually a really talented photographer so he deserves to hear those praises, even if Oscar is mildly concerned it’ll all just go to his head.
Then his breath catches in his throat. He can’t quite remember how to swallow his saliva, how to suck in air into his aching lungs from how long he stares breathlessly at Lando’s response, long enough that Lando has gone offline. He stares and stares and stares, but the words on the screen don’t miraculously change.
the white dwarf to the star huh
Lando knows.
-
“You know where I live,” Oscar says. It’s not a question.
Lando just grins lopsidedly at him and lets himself in, squeezing past Oscar’s unmoving body.
“I told you I was coming over,” he says by way of explanation.
“When- What?” Oscar flounders, mildly lost for words.
He picks his phone up from where he had left it charging on the kitchen counter. He hadn’t checked his phone for a few hours. He didn’t know Lando had even texted him.
He sighs. “That still doesn’t explain how you got my address.”
Lando rolls his eyes, but he looks amused from where he sits perched comfortably on the sofa, making himself at home already. “You weren’t responding, so I just asked around.”
Oscar makes his way over to sit next to him. He carefully leaves a space between them. He pretends not to see the way Lando eyes the space.
Oscar thinks about kicking him out.
“Sorry, I should’ve just waited for you to respond,” Lando suddenly apologises sheepishly. “I wasn't thinking much.”
When Oscar turns to look at him, the other man looks almost small from the way he curls into himself, realisation seeming to hit him harshly like a slap in the face.
Oscar snorts derisively. “You don't do much of that, do you?”
Lando still has that kicked puppy look. Oscar can't tell if that is deliberate, a means to manipulate others by tugging at their heartstrings, but Oscar can be heartless when he wants to be. If he wants to be.
“It's fine,” Oscar says with a sigh. “You can stay.”
He thinks he knows what Lando meant, about not thinking straight. Something does tug at his heart, and it isn't because of the faces Lando is pulling at him. It's something invisible, something that ties them together, something that's basically written in the stars. Oscar thinks he might learn to hate that word. Stars, that is.
Oscar doesn't kick him out.
-
Oscar thinks this is a bad idea. Lando is a magnet for bad ideas. Oscar can’t resist.
They start spending more time together. Maybe it hadn’t started from that text message. Maybe it was there all along, since that day their eyes had met and Oscar just instantly knew with every fibre of his being, that they are starbounds.
He doesn’t know what it’s like for the star of the pair, whether they feel it like the white dwarf of the pair. For him, it had been like seeing visions, spectres, phantom ghosts, of a supernova that had yet to happen. It had felt blinding.
Lando shrugs at him when Oscar tells him this. “It was just… quiet. All I could see was you.”
Fitting that all Lando saw was him. Because that was all that would be left one day.
-
The others don't find it odd when they appear at the restaurant together, or when they sit on the same side of the booth together, or when they spend basically the whole night glued to each other's side.
Oscar wonders if, or when, Lando would get bored of him. He doesn't seem to be getting bored though, snickering into Oscar's ear about George's shirt, Alex's hair, or Charles's pants.
Oscar pretends he doesn't lean in to him to hear him better, sometimes staying pressed against the other man for longer than needed. The wolfish twinkle in Lando's eyes tells him it doesn't go unnoticed.
-
Oscar doesn't even blink when Lando appears on his doorstep again, unannounced. He steps aside wordlessly.
The press of Lando's thigh against his as they sit on the couch feels comforting and grounding. It scares him.
They order food and watch some trashy romance movie about soulmates. Lando mocks all the cliché plotlines, laughing when one should be crying, grumbling when one should be touched.
“Does it scare you?” Oscar suddenly asks, cutting Lando off mid-sentence. He had been listening, up until the point his thoughts started spinning noisily in his head and he could no longer hold it in. “That we're starbounds?”
That you're a star, Oscar doesn't say.
Lando falls silent. Oscar knows he hears the unasked question.
“I don't know,” Lando finally responds, long after Oscar had started to regret asking the question and long after he had stopped expecting a response.
-
Oscar feels like shit when he wakes up. Sleep had been restless. He had dreamt of flashes and too bright lights. He doesn’t remember much else. He’s too tired.
-
There’s a dull ache in his chest. Not a physical ache, no. Nothing too worrying, his life isn’t in danger.
And maybe that’s the problem. The fact that he’s healthy and alive, alive, alive.
His hands shake as he pulls out his phone and reads the text message from Lando.
come downstairs
When Lando calls, he answers. He goes downstairs.
He barely remembers to throw on a used hoodie, shoving on his shoes as if on autopilot. He doesn’t even tie the stupid laces and nearly trips himself as he takes the stairs two at a time, sprinting his way down.
It’s only when he catches sight of those now-familiar brown curls through the fogged up windows, does the tension in his body release. Something in his chest constricts - it feels a lot like a hole in his heart is being filled up. Filled up to the brim and now he has to hold it in, hold it from bursting at the seams.
He takes a steadying breath before he climbs into the passenger seat.
Lando’s gaze on him is heavy but he doesn’t say anything. He puts the car into drive. Oscar doesn’t ask anything either. Wherever Lando goes, he follows.
They both feel it. The catch in their breaths, the hollowness in their hearts.
Lando drums a weird irregular beat with his free hand resting on the centre console. When he stops, the sudden silence is almost jarring. Oscar spares a glance down.
Lando has his palm up, resting there within reach, right between them. It almost looks like an offering.
Oscar turns his head to look out of the window, watching the city lights pass him in a blur. He stares intently but sees nothing.
He doesn’t take his hand.
-
It becomes a normal occurrence then. Almost every time Oscar feels that hollow ache in his chest, he’ll get a text message from Lando to call him downstairs. They usually just drive, drive, drive. Aimlessly. As though they could outrun the weight of the blanket of stars blinking overhead in the sky.
Sometimes, Lando will be out of the car, standing by the passenger seat, as he waits for Oscar to arrive. Those times, Oscar drives.
It’s not always silent. In fact, it’s rarely silent. Lando fills the heaviness in the car with his chatter. Oscar finds himself sinking into laughter without even realising it. He always ducks his head shyly whenever he realises it. It’s futile, he knows. Because Lando is watching him, always watching him.
He directs the attention elsewhere by making dry sarcastic remarks that send Lando into giggles. He knows the laughter is genuine. Because he watches Lando, always watching him.
-
It dawns on Oscar one day that maybe, they don’t feel the exact same things. He had assumed from the way Lando always seemed to need the drive and his company the exact same times that he does, that Lando also had the twinge in his chest and that hollowness that could only be filled by the other. He was wrong.
He gets into the car much faster than usual one day, having waited downstairs before Lando had even texted him.
Lando is curling up on himself in the driver's seat, a hand clutching at his chest, mouth falling open in a soundless scream. Oscar sees the tension in his body from the way the veins on his neck and temples stand out, beads of sweat visible on his face.
When Oscar gets in, Lando jolts himself upright, yanking his hand away as if burnt, and the previous pain immediately hidden behind an indifferent mask. He looks shocked, panicked, from having gotten caught. Oscar hates that he reacts that way.
He wants to ask. He doesn’t know how to ask. Lando seems content on not having a question to answer.
Oscar can tell it gets worse. Sometimes, even when he takes his time to make his way down, Lando struggles to compose himself. Oscar almost feels the pain vicariously, just watching the way Lando forcefully pulls himself together, piecing together the pieces that don’t want to fall into place.
The next time Oscar sees Lando’s palm facing up between them, even though it’s angled away, possibly to protect his already shattering heart, Oscar takes his hand.
-
“Does it hurt?”
“...”
“Lando, you can talk to me. I’ve seen what it does to you.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Just… tell me what it feels like for you.”
“It feels like my heart is getting fucking shredded into pieces. What’s that thing called? Death by a hundred cuts?”
“Thousand, actually.”
“I always knew you were useful, you nerd.”
“It doesn’t really hurt. For me. It feels more mental and emotional. It never really goes away. Even when it feels better, it feels too much.”
“That sucks.”
“I think it sucks for you more.”
“Nah, the mental and emotional stuff sounds worse. I’d rather have whatever the fuck this pain is, than have to live forever feeling like you.”
Oscar doesn’t think either of them are talking about the pain anymore.
-
“I’m heading home to see my family this week,” Lando tells him.
Oscar thinks about telling him that he shouldn’t be talking around a mouthful of pizza. He settles for kicking him in the shin instead. Lando winces but continues to chew happily on his slice of pizza.
“How long will you be gone for?” Oscar asks.
“Just a week.” Lando’s lips curl mischievously then, and he coos, “Aww, will you miss me?”
Oscar kicks him again. He takes a bite of the pizza to hide his smile.
“Don’t worry, babe. I’ll send you pictures,” Lando says, taking the lack of a proper response as an agreement.
He isn’t wrong. Oscar thinks he might actually miss him.
Lando really does send him pictures. He sends pictures of just about anything and everything. Like the set dining table, his family dog, his childhood bedroom. Even his sleep rumpled face when he wakes up first thing in the morning. Oscar jokingly reacts with a vomiting emoji, but sends a hasty selfie in response too. The reply comes in almost immediately.
i missed ur face
i miss u
Oscar slams his phone down on the pillow, his face hot.
-
The dreams are worse than ever. Oscar barely gets any sleep. After the third day of this, he feels like he's losing his mind.
He thinks of Lando, lying in bed, curled up in pain. He can’t fall asleep again.
-
He's functioning on autopilot, barely feeling alive. Everything is too hollow and filled with a starving ache. He needs something, he needs something, he needs something. Someone. His starbound. Lando.
-
Oscar doesn't immediately head over when Lando texts him that he's back. He takes a shower (another shower that wasn't really needed), pauses to consider his clothes but realises that's a stupid thing to do and yanks whatever t-shirt he finds off the rack, takes his time downing a glass of water, then tries not to break every speed limit law on his way over to Lando's place.
He doesn't know why he bothers. Acting nonchalant, that is. The relief that crashes into him, that mawing void in his heart and soul suddenly filling up to the brim, almost too much - he doesn't remember ever feeling this alive. But even more than that, is seeing the state Lando's in. His dark eyebags are probably rivalling Oscar's, his cheeks look paler and more gaunt than Oscar remembers even though he'd just seen a photo of him just a few days ago, and the tremors in his hands are obvious even from a distance.
He doesn't even remember closing the gap to the other man, just that he's suddenly a mere breath away. And then Lando is in his arms, warm and safe and very alive.
In a moment of insanity, Oscar briefly considers leaning down and kissing him. He doesn’t.
-
“I never asked. Are you seeing anyone?”
“No. Are you?”
“I’m seeing you now. You’re right in front of me.”
“Lando.”
“Oscar.”
“...”
“...”
“Do you think, even without the whole starbounds thing, it could’ve been us?”
“What could’ve been us?”
“Never mind, forget it.”
“No, yeah. Yeah… It could’ve been us. It already is us for me, mate.”
“Yeah, it is for me too.”
-
They do kiss eventually. It feels like fireworks threatening to tear a hole through his chest, ripping up his throat, exploding at the point where their mouths meet.
It’s dizzying, it’s warm, it’s euphoric.
He doesn’t remember who had moved first. They’re parked up at a random viewing spot near some hill, but the carpark is devoid of other people because it’s so late. He remembers staring at Lando, taking in the soft look on his face, the relaxed slope of his shoulders as he looked out of the window, the warmth of his rough palm on Oscar’s slightly clammy one. Then he had turned, meeting Oscar’s eyes. One of them, or maybe both of them, had moved, closing the gap between them.
When Lando leans back in his seat now, lips wet and shiny, his eyes even shinier, Oscar thinks he sees literal sparkles cascading around the other man. Starry showers, he supposes.
Oscar doesn’t even register the centre console digging into his hip painfully. It’ll probably bruise. He pulls Lando back towards him with a hand tenderly cradling his cheek, chasing that warmth, hoping his lips will be sore and bruised too so he can permanently burn the memory of this night into his brain.
-
Oscar can’t sleep at night. He learns that Lando can, but he wakes up in pain in the middle of the night, then lies awake for the rest of the night. So they don’t do much of that. They sit together. Sometimes in the car, sometimes some random quiet place outside, sometimes in one of their apartments, sometimes watching a movie, sometimes just talking.
They kiss a lot too. Oscar thinks that’s his favourite thing to do. He never gets tired of it. He never wants to stop.
They fall into bed sometimes too. Again, they don’t sleep. Not immediately. They do eventually, sometimes. Oscar usually falls asleep afterwards, Lando in his arms, or him in Lando’s arms. That’s the best sleep he gets, maybe even the only sleep he gets. It’s the same for Lando too, the aching pain staved off for a few hours, long enough for him to sleep soundly. The only pain Oscar feels then is when he wakes up sore the morning after, but it’s soreness in all the right places.
-
It’s one of those nights, one of those nights where they actually get to sleep. Or that’s what Oscar had thought. He wakes up in the middle of the night, residual warmth still lingering in the space next to him, but noticeably devoid of an actual body.
Oscar rolls out of bed, feeling his way in the dark. He sees Lando’s silhouette against the light coming in through the glass balcony doors first. It somehow looks lonely. Everything else comes into view then. The light from outside is bright enough for Oscar to make out his features. Or maybe the lights aren't from outside, maybe it’s those damned stars again.
“Lando,” Oscar calls out to him.
Lando turns, smiles at him. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It looks… sad. Almost like the light from a star dying out.
-
Lando has a socked foot shoved under Oscar’s thigh. Oscar wrinkles his nose at it, playfully.
“What's that supposed to mean? I smell mint,” Lando sounds miffed, digs his foot in deeper.
“I dunno about that, mate. When was the last time you took a shower?”
Lando chucks a cushion at him, pulling a laugh out of Oscar. Oscar has to lean away to dodge the attack, inadvertently exposing Lando’s foot that is no longer burrowing into him.
“You secretly love my feet, babe. You don’t have to hide it,” Lando huffs, now placing both his feet on Oscar’s lap as he crosses his ankles.
Oscar smiles, but doesn’t say anything. He crooks his finger and drags a knuckle along the arch of the other man’s foot.
“Oh yeah,” Lando moans, “that feels good. Damn, you’re a pro at this.”
“I’m sure that would go well on my resume,” Oscar says drily, but he doesn’t stop his ministrations. “Professional foot massager.”
Lando’s eyes twinkle. “My foot massager.”
“Sure.”
Then he punches a knuckle in deep into a particularly tender spot.
“Fuck!” Lando squawks, hurriedly retracting his legs and retreating to the other end of the sofa. “Osc, you’re evil.”
Oscar laughs, unabashed. Lando's eyes seem to go soft with fondness as he watches him, all the while still rubbing at the sore sole of his foot.
-
It’s still good, mostly. Sometimes. They’re together. They’re happy. Almost blindingly so. For now.
-
“I love you, Osc,” Lando whispers into the darkness one day. He probably thinks Oscar is asleep. He isn’t.
Oscar rolls over, meeting those beautiful greenish blueish eyes of Lando’s. He tugs him closer, placing a soft kiss on his lips. “I love you too.”
-
He sees the blood. Lando tries to hide it, distancing himself. Though, it’s hard to do that now that they’re sharing the same roof. Sharing the same bed even. And they can’t stay apart for long. They’d tried, months ago. It hadn’t worked out well. Oscar had felt himself slowly breaking down, both on the inside and outside. Lando hadn’t fared any better.
So he sees the blood. They can’t talk about it. They hug and they go back to sleep. Or they pretend to.
-
Everything happens so fast after that. Light fizzles out. Stars go bright, bright, bright…
Then quiet. Quiet, quiet, quiet.
All that’s left is the white dwarf - an exhausted dimming light that has lost its outer layers.
-
Oscar hears David Bowie’s “Starman” crackling over the radio.
“There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds”
He thinks of Lando. His starbound star who shines so brightly. Shone. He wonders if he’ll really be waiting in the sky for him one day.
-
Oscar wants to resent what he is, what they were. He resents the fact that he's the leftovers, the one that has to live on, even if he doesn't want to anymore. Resents that it's over for Lando, but not for him. But he won't resent that, can't resent that - Lando shouldn't have to suffer like this.
Oscar wonders if it would’ve hurt less, if he wouldn’t have had to live with this sense of loss, living with an unfillable hole in heart. If he wouldn’t have had to live without feeling alive, had they never met, had they never gotten closer, had they never kissed and slept together, had they never moved in together. Had they never loved each other.
No, he decides. It wouldn’t have made a difference. He had loved him too much - still loves him, would always love him - to even consider not doing so.
-
What is left behind when a star dies?
All that's left of the star is its core, now called a white dwarf - the remnants of a once-bright star, slowly dimming until it goes cold.
Oscar is the white dwarf to Lando’s star. Such is the fate of starbounds.