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It’s four in the evening when Lando first realises that he’s missed a chapter.
He’s sat hunched back in one of the chairs in the lounging room of their rented cabin. His shoulders over both sides as his muscles stretches over the furniture. Voices bounce around the walls, and the faint background noise of Alex’s playlist is weaving through the room. The fireplace is lit, warming the room along with just the warmth of the group all together in one house.
It’s a stark contrast to the outside. The sun is almost below the horizon, painting the sky orange, and there thick flakes of snow falling. It builds on the meters of snow already on the ground.
There’s a porch wrapping around the room on the outside, and their skis are all lined up against the wall. Massive windows surround the room, and the view is gorgeous from up here — looking down on the slopes, and the snowy nature scattered around the other wooden cabins on the mountainside.
“I’m just saying,” George starts, “that tomorrow we could do something different.” his voice is trying to be optimistic, but the underlying insult is in there. “Maybe someone could drive down to the bakery, instead of making our own — attempting to make our own bread for breakfast. Because I can’t be the only one who thought it was disgusting.”
“Or maybe just someone who’s not Lando and Charles could make breakfast.” Alex chimes in from the end of the couch.
Lando meets Charles’ eyes. They share a frown before they scoff in perfect unison.
And as if the talk of failed cooking summoned another one, there’s two loud shrieks coming from further down the porch.
All eyes in the room turn to look out.
Lando twists in his seat, peering over his shoulder to see. The big windows expose the scene to those inside the warmth.
Standing by the grill is Oscar and Logan. Or folded over by the grill, Oscar is, at least. His hands wrap around his front as he’s bent over himself, a loud laugh slipping out his mouth. The hood of his blue hoodie falls over his head with gravity. Next to him is Logan, who’s stood with his legs far apart and his mouth open as if in shock. In his hand is a spatula, and on the ground in front of him there’s an uncooked hamburger splayed on the wood.
There’s a collective laugh at them inside the room and Alex says “Aww, Logan,” as if stunned between fondness and sympathy.
“And who put them in charge of dinner?” George says through a laugh.
It had been themselves. Logan had stood up and shouted it before everyone left the table after breakfast. ‘Me and Oscar are making dinner!’
Carlos chimes in with his factual, flat voice, “Oscar is actually a really good chef.”
Lando feels himself chuckling at that. Soft laugh slipping out up his throat before he can think. “How would you know?” he asks, higher pitched with the laughter in his voice.
And Carlos just shrugs. “He’s stayed over at mine sometimes. He cooks great meals.”
Lando laughs again but it catches weird in his throat. A confused frown makes his way between his brows. “What? Since when?” he says, baffled.
“I don’t know. Earlier this year.”
“I didn’t know you were friends?” Lando says, incredulous, like Carlos is messing with him.
“Yeah, Oscar’s lovely.” Max also decides to chime in from next to Charles on the couch. And suddenly there’s a collective agreement around the room that Oscar’s amazing; great, wonderful, universally liked.
Lando doesn’t doubt it, that Oscar is great, he just didn’t know his friends were so close with him.
“Why does everyone except me know know him? When the fuck did that happen?” he feels stupid for missing it.
George speaks up again, then — from his chair where hes perched back and sitting with his legs crossed. “I dunno. I thought you didn’t like him.”
And there’s nothing in his voice. Not a hint of any confusion, weirdness or happiness, even. As if this was just common knowledge.
Which it seems like it is. Because nods and sounds of agreement ripple through the room. Landos mind screams what.
His eyes feel a little wide, not yet sure if they’re messing with him. “What do you mean?” he sounds like a question mark. “Why?”
Alex huffs a breath. “No, what do you mean ‘why’? Do you not remember George’s party?” And frankly, no. Lando doesn’t really remember the party. He remembers that he’d been pissed off when he arrived, because Max had gotten under his skin earlier in the day. He remembers walking in. He remembers really seeing Oscar for that first time. He’d seen Oscar before, at parties and hangouts, but they’d never really spoken. He remembers thinking that his hair was cute. But then he’d stride into the kitchen, where Carlos had fed him shots. And he remembers waking up at noon the following day. His mind has never found the missing pieces in between. “You practically spat him in the face.”
Lando can imagine that he hadn’t been too pleasant that exact day. Max really knows how to get to someone’s nerves. But he can’t imagine that he’d done something bad. Something bad to Oscar. Swoopy hair, soft eyed Oscar.
He looks back over his shoulder, then. Oscar’s face is still bunched up in a smile but he’s vertical again. The apples of his cheeks are soft and pink from the cold and his hair falls over his forehead in that cute way it always does. Dread curls low in Lando’s stomach when he looks back at Alex.
He gestures over his shoulder with his thumb, voice caught somewhere between worried and disbelieving. “Does he think I hate him?”
The words feel a little sickening coming out his mouth.
George answers, clearly entertained. “Only to the extent you would expect when someone scream ‘dickhead’ at you during your first-ever conversation.”
Max has the audacity to laugh. As if this isn’t his fault.
Lando’s eyes go a little wide and the frown between his brows gets deeper. “I called him a dickhead?” he asks, genuinely horrified.
George laughs at his expression and shrugs.
Lando guesses maybe this is why Oscar’s acted like stone whenever Lando had tried speaking to him after that. He’s always told himself Oscar was just rude, and that it was unfair that someone so pretty had such a horrible personality, but then again, it hadn’t really added up when all his other friends seemed to like him.
The glass door slides open then, cold air streaming into the room as Logan stands in the opening. His cold cheeks smile as he meets Alex’s eyes. “Hi, can you come help me?”
Lando follows Logans gaze to Alex, and it’s impossible to not ‘aww’ at him, who looks at Logan with such gentle and soft eyes Lando almost feels the urge to blush himself. Alex ‘mhmm’s before standing up, stepping over all the legs stretched out over the floor before meeting Logan by the door whose hand is stretched out. Alex locks it in his own before Logan slides the door back closed and they walk over to Oscar and the grill.
“Is that why Logan always gives me a look?” Lando says as if he’s just gotten a revelation.
There’s another collective laugh at him, as is there hasn’t been enough of them already.
“Logans been death staring you for like half a year and you’ve never wondered why?” Charles says, voice puzzled but entertained.
“I just figured that was his face. Or maybe that mine just triggered something in him.” he says flatly. It doesn’t make sense when he thinks about it now.
Laughter again.
“Almost everyone except Alex has triggered something in him before, I think.” Charles says, but his voice fades a little to Lando.
“Yeah, aren’t they adorable!” George gleams.
Heads turn to look at them outside like they’re an exhibit. Lando’s vision stay fixed on the coffee table in front of him, quiet, and he’s trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
———
Lando still hasn’t figured it out by midnight.
Silence exhales through every room and every crevice of the house — quieting in the night when everyone’s asleep. The only distinct sounds there are, is the hum of the fridge in the kitchen that’s almost next to Lando’s bedroom and the slight popping from the fireplace that’s not fully burnt to embers yet.
He slips out of his room gently, shoving artfully at his creaking door. His woollen slippers knock softly on the panel floor with every step — sounding louder as he makes his way down the dark hallway. His phone is flipped around in his hand, some half-watched video casting a faint, blue, glow over the unfamiliar layout of the cabin. Shadows stretch long and warped along the walls as he walks, toiletry bag dangling from his fingers and a clean shirt folded over his wrist.
Carlos had been the one to get the room with the en-suite. Lando rolls his eyes at it now, as he navigates through the first floor or the house to find the bathroom. One of the two all the others must share.
The bathroom door is left ajar as Lando approaches. A warm glow of light spills into the dark hallway.
A momentary soft stream of water run, before he hears the faint, repetitive sound of brushing teeth.
It doesn’t really come as a surprise that there’s someone in there, when he’s close enough to see the full interior of the room.
What does come as a surprise, is the fact that it’s Oscar.
He’s standing further into the room, his shoulders broad and relaxed, head tilted slightly forward as he brushes his teeth. The hair falls messily over his forehead. His phone is perched in his other hand, thumb scrolling absentmindedly.
He’s changed, since dinner, Lando notices. Hoodie traded for a maroon t-shirt. It drapes around his waist as he’s leaning slightly forward.
Lando’s brain stutters, unsure what to do.
But then Oscar looks up and their eyes meet in the mirror. Lando doesn’t really want to make Oscar impression of him even worse.
“Hi,” Lando decides. Voice gentle and deliberately polite. Like he’ll undo his wrongs at the correct sway of his vowels.
Acting cool, calm and collected he strolls up to the other sink next to Oscar on the counter. Perks of renting a massive and expensive cabin, is the need for everything double.
Oscar pulls the toothbrush out of his mouth slightly before he murmurs out a “hey”. His voice is a little restricted, his mouth too foamy.
Lando puts his stuff down on the white marble counter, the sound too loud in the earie quiet room. He digs into his toiletries to fish out his own toothbrush.
Oscar spits into the sink, rinses and turns the water off. His eyes are still locked on the phone in his hand, and the silence feels heavier than before.
The ventilation hums softly from somewhere above them.
Lando squeezes toothpaste onto his brush, stares at himself in the mirror for a second longer than necessary, eyes flickering a little left to the reflection of Oscar whos eyes he’s not meeting. He sticks his toothbrush in his mouth, letting the mint coat his tongue.
“I kinda took you to be the type to be in bed by, like, nine.”
The words come out casual, but he feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing with the way his heart is thumping.
A break in the silence brings Oscar gaze back up, first looking at Lando in the mirror, before turning his head properly.
Lando can feel the way his features get studied before the gaze is gone again — back at that damn phone.
Oscar hums as his thumb double taps on his screen. “A lot you don’t know about me, you know.” He states flatly.
Lando awkwardly nods his head, unsure if whatever he’s doing is good.
He pulls the toothbrush out his mouth. A string of spit and foam lingers on it before it breaks. “I could know, though,” Lando hints like a freak.
It earns him a laugh.
A sarcastic one, at that. At least Lando thinks so.
Oscar looks up again, eyes meeting Landos though they tell him nothing except for the fact that Oscar is very empty. “You sure, mate?”
He laughs again but it doesn’t really sound promising for Lando, this. “Didn’t really seem too up for it last time round.”
Hmm, definitly sarcastic.
It’s Lando’s turn to laugh now, though his is weak and awkward. He’s stuck in a weird place between wanting to disappear and needing to feel the gaze Oscar hold him under — steady and stern. “Touché,” he admits, “Though, I don’t really remembers last time. No food, horrible friends and about a thousand shots too many’ll do that to you.”
He looks up at himself in the mirror, inspecting his own face for fault lines. He looks tired, too expressive and there is a guilty glimmer in his eyes.
Oscar laughs again. Maybe Lando’s become delusional, but it feels less sharp this time.
Oscar grabs the toothbrush out of his mouth again even though he hasn’t even brushed anything since the last time he did. He lifts the hand with his phone again, holding it in both now.
His thumbs type at the screen while he a little loudly whispers, “‘justifies behavior with excessive alcohol intake’”
Lando pauses mid-brush and his eyes narrow.
“What’re you doing?” he asks, voice stuck somewhere between uncomfortable and entertained. His words are slightly slurred.
“Just adding to your list of red flags,” Oscar says calmly, mouth slightly turned up at the crease.
Alarm bells rings at full volume. Anxiety and dread spikes in Lando’s stomach making the toothbrush feel suffocating in his mouth.
He spits quickly, wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nuh-uh,” he says the second the disgusting minty paste is out of his mouth. “The fuck you on about, mate,”
Oscar laughs. A psychotic smile, soft over his cheeks that make them pink by the apples. Lando feels like it psychotic, anyway. “No, I’m joking.”
As if Lando nearly getting a heart attack is a matter of ‘laughs’. The mere thought of someone not liking him twists his gut. The idea of a long list of things to hate him for, feels like death.
Can you be a horrible person without knowing?
Lando almost throws up.
“It’s Logans list,” Oscar follows up. As if that clarification will make Lando feel any brighter.
It doesn’t, so he stares at Oscar with a fixed look.
“Logan has a List. On you.”
Lando’s ears perk, and his eyebrows raise as they frown.
“I find out seven hours ago that he doesn’t like me, and he has a List on me? Why has he got a List on me?” A look of betrayal flashes across his face, mostly for dramatic effect. “His boyfriend is my best friend. Has Alex never stood up for my name before?”
Oscar laughs at him. It’s gentle and soft and cute. Lando scoffs.
“I’m gonna make a fucking list on him.” he huffs, studying Oscar for his reaction.
“Yeah?”
Lando hums.
“And write what?”
That’s a great question. “That it’s a red flag to keep a list of red flags of a person you’ve never spoken to.”
Oscar shrugs, big shoulders raising and falling while a tiny smile growing over his features. “He’ll add that one to his own, you know.”
Lando groans dramatically, words coming out fast, “What even is this concept?” he exclaims. “I call you a dickhead one time, while I’m absolutely plastered at a party and I just turn into his biggest enemy?”
Oscar hums as if there’s something to add. “You also said ‘sensitive’”
“‘You sensitive dickhead, can you shut the fuck up’” he says in a voice that maybe is supposed to imitate Lando, but it’s mostly just a little twist on his Aussie accent in a different pitch.
Lados eyes widen, jaw dropping open. Full gape — almost catching flies, and his eyebrows pinch together. He abandons his toothbrush on the counter before shoving his face into his hands. A low groan escapes him.
“Oh my god,” he groans, “I’m so sorry.”
Oscar chuckles. Lando can’t tell if its awkward or genuine. “Don’t worry, mate. You were drunk.”
Lando huffs a laugh himself, but he doesn’t want to edge away from it. He shakes his head. “No, but genuinely,” he starts, “I was a dickhead. I’m sorry.”
Oscar shrugs softly, a shy smile over his features. “Thanks. S’fine.”
It’s quiet for a moment then. In a way it wasn’t awkward like it had been, when Lando entered the bathroom a couple minutes ago.
“I can contribute with things for the List if you want.” he jokes while leaning his hip against the counter.
That laugh again. “Nah, I’d rather you didn't.” he speaks. “Logan just likes to remind me that you’re ‘not worth my time’ or whatever.”
And if Lando wasn’t trapped inside this box of a room with heat too high and proximity too low, he’d let the burn of his eyes set flame until they eventually spill out.
But he can’t. Instead, he speaks. “I’m not actually a terrible person.” his voice is gentle before adding. “I don’t think.” his eyes frowning as he thinks about it.
“Hmm, you don’t think. Yeah, that’s reassuring.” Oscar laughs at him.
“I’ll prove it to you.” Lando says with a voice that could come off pleading to anyone who really knows him. His eyes stay locked on Oscar, who’s started packing up his stuff from the counter.
Eventually Oscars eyes meet his through the mirror, again.
His cheeks are pink at the apples. “Looking forward to it.”
Lando licks the corner of his mouth.
“See you tomorrow?” he asks hopeful, just as Oscar reaches the doorframe.
He looks back at Lando then, letting out a soft mhmm as he’s smiling. “Night.”
And then Lando’s left alone in the silent hum of the bathroom. He closes his eyes and smiles.