Work Text:
Oscar has recurring dreams.
He enters a room. There's a dog in the middle, running in circles, barely visible. The bell hung around its neck jingles as it moves.
Then, Lando's there. It was already a lot to look at him, normally. The gold of his skin and the blue-green-grey of his eyes and the gap between his teeth. He doesn't know why it's worse in the near-darkness. The way the low light cups Lando's cheek– chiaroscuro, how it settles in the crater of his dimple. There was the vacuum of air and sounds and sensation all around Oscar, and there was Lando and the shadow of his eyelashes and the devastating slope of his smile and the light years of distance between them.
I want you, he thinks, desperately. It claws through him, even in this liminal space. Oscar's eyes meet the dog's. They both look away.
—
Lando greets Oscar with a warm hand on his shoulder.
“Osc! Osc, Osco. Oscah. Oscah,” Lando's dragging out the last syllable, sliding onto the bench beside him.
He looks away from the cards in his hands, blinking away the system of equations of Newton and the shearing stress of his fluids.
“Hey,” he says, “your hair.” Lando grins, big and bright. Jesus Christ, Oscar thinks. Lando runs thick fingers through his curls, tugging lightly at the hairs at the base of his head.
“Good, isn’t it?”
“It’s a, um, mullet for sure.”
“Shove it, mate,” he says, sliding closer to Oscar, bumping their shoulders together. There's heat crawling up his neck and gathering at his cheeks. When Lando leans forward to glance at the index cards Oscar has strewn on the table, Oscar’s eyes lock on the glittering metal of Lando’s necklaces, the clasps like beacons.
—
Oscar thinks of Siken, the poem Edie had sent him years ago. He thinks: consider the hairpin turn.
—
Lando is slumped against the wall when Oscar leaves their lecture room.
Oscar says, “How was it?” Lando shakes his head ruefully, takes his thumb and pointer, and plays with the edge of his hoodie strings. The fluorescent yellow is brighter against the overcast weather.
“Finished early and shit,” Lando starts, pushing himself off the wall, “And, well– shit. Fuckin’ dynamics.” Oscar cracks a smile at that, squeezing Lando's shoulder.
“Where you off to after this?”
Lando shrugs, one shoulder rising enough that Oscar's hand slips off. His palm is immediately cold without Lando's heat. He clenches his fist and releases it, stretching his fingers against the sensation.
“Wanna drink, actually. Come over?”
“I'm not day drinking with you, mate.”
“Not now now, you muppet. Tonight. Let's play a freakin’ game or– something. In the meantime. This week fucked me to hell.”
Oscar says yes, takes his sweet time, though, like there was any other answer to Lando.
—
They play some COD because Lando lives off campus and has a TV and consoles and a PC setup. He pulls out the alcohol when the clock hits 10.
Oscar hates Tequila, that's the thing. But he takes a shot, three, Lando stops pouring shit into his glass after four. When he stands up to go to the bathroom, he stumbles, Lando laughs a little, crouches down to get rid of the socks on Oscar's feet. And just– that. Oh. Oscar rushes quicker into the bathroom.
He braces his hands against the sink, looks into his reflection's eyes. Tries not to think too hard about the room tilting around him.
—
oscar
i cant do this i js realized
like i cant
wow
im alittle drunk and im
indont know
im never drinkinf agaib
edie
Oscar ☹️
—
Consider the hairpin turn. Oscar thinks of handbreaks and grip and drag and suspension. How the acceleration would make him slide backwards, heel on the brake, foot off the clutch, foot on the throttle, ready to go even with bald spots on his tyres.
His hold on the steering wheel tightens. Accelerating and accelerating, still. He's considering the hairpin turn. He hopes against spinning out.
—
Is and should and want. There are gaps, more real than the one he's desperately fighting against examining.
—
“Everything okay in there?” Lando yells through the door, probably worried about Oscar or something. Oscar clenches his eyes closed.
He manages a, “Yeah.” Half-convincing, if he does say so himself.
Oscar takes stock of what he knows, tries to calm his mind down before he can stumble out of Lando's bathroom. There's floss on the shelf over the sink, small bottles of moisturizer and hand cream. Lando's one of his best friends. Lando's excellent at math. Lando smells like clean boy and menthol and expensive perfume. The last time they were drunk, when Oscar sat on the floor and cried, Lando had held him and whispered into his ear until he came back down. Lando tells people that Oscar is the younger brother figure he's never had. Oscar wants to cry. He doesn't.
He stumbles out of the bathroom instead. Neck wet with the water he's splashed onto his face. There are tissues on Lando's counter. Oscar takes two, fumbles with the bin, takes the entire top off to throw the tissues when he can’t get the lid to open like it's supposed to.
—
Oscar thinks of the Psychology elective he took in his second year. Propriosense. Spatial awareness. He's in the car, speedometer going around and around. He registers spinning, registers the sick hope in the pit of his stomach: maybe he won't hit the wall, maybe he'd already stop before then.
—
It’s normal. Oscar’s just being– weird about it. He usually is. There’s the things Lando says and the things Lando does, and Oscar isn’t in the position to draw conclusions about any inconsistencies he hopes are there. This is what Lando’s telling him, this is what Lando’s giving him. It’s not Lando’s fault Oscar doesn’t know how to put those two together without being weird. What a mess he is, really.
So when Lando says, “Is this okay?” And Oscar can feel the puff of his breath blow softly against his nape, when the heat of Lando’s palm is firm against the bare skin of Oscar’s stomach, all he can say is:
“Yeah,” hoping he doesn’t sound as gone as he feels.
—
The dog's eyes are beady, prominent in the near-darkness. Its eyes are pinned on Oscar's, even as it spins around and around. Lando's so close. Oscar's frozen, though. The dog is watching him. He's watching the dog. It's still a vacuum. Oscar knows how the wind feels; he also feels like the only reason he's crawled out of creation was so he could find his way to Lando.
—
They've switched places. Oscar's half asleep. Drunk, still. His front is plastered against Lando's back, arm slung over Lando's waist.
“Hm?” Lando's voice is syrupy slow. Time feels the same way, Oscar thinks, staring at the hair on the back of Lando's head. How the fabric of his sweater looks against his skin, sees the texture more than the color, since it's so dark.
“Hm,” he says back. Oscar's not sure Lando's even awake. Probably not, or he wouldn't have threaded his fingers with Oscar's, wouldn't have pulled his arm tighter against his middle. There's a lump in Oscar's throat, blood rushing in his ears. He tips his head forward, rests against the top of Lando's spine, the knob a soft pressure on his forehead. Oscar closes his eyes, breathes as steadily as he can.
I'm not surviving this, he thinks, delirious, pressing closer. The beat of Lando's heart is bright against his fingertips. There's no way I'm surviving this. He doesn't move back. He knows what he's hoping for, knows just as well that it would never come.
Lando reaches back, rests a hand against Oscar's head. The comforting weight stays there until Oscar falls back asleep.
—
Oscar hits the wall.