Chapter Text
The digital clock on the library wall glowed a harsh, unforgiving 2:14 AM, but the corner of the fourth floor was deceptively warm.
Lando blinked his eyes open, his neck cramped from the awkward angle he’d been sleeping at. The quiet hum of the building’s HVAC system was the only sound, a stark contrast to the thumping bass that was undoubtedly currently rattling the floorboards of the Delta house across campus. He should be there. It was a Thursday night—thirst Thursday, the guys called it—and as the social chair, his absence was definitely being noticed. But he wasn't there. He was here, buried under a pile of discarded thermodynamic diagrams, with Oscar Piastri’s shoulder serving as a makeshift pillow.
Lando didn't move. He barely even breathed, terrified that shifting his weight would break the spell. Oscar was still awake, staring intently at his laptop screen. The blue light caught the sharp line of his jaw and the tired shadow beneath his eyes.
Lando watched the steady, rhythmic way Oscar tapped his pen against his notebook. It was a nervous habit Lando had learned to track over the last six weeks. Fast tapping meant a coding bug. Slow tapping meant deep thought. Right now, it was slow.
A terrifying, suffocating tightness bloomed in Lando’s chest. It was the same feeling he’d been getting a lot lately, usually right after Oscar offered him a deadpan, devastatingly funny observation, or when Oscar blindly reached out to share half of his overpriced campus coffee.
I would rather be here than anywhere else in the world, Lando thought. The thought dropped into his stomach like a lead weight.
He was so screwed. Suddenly, a harsh vibration shattered the quiet.
Lando flinched as his phone lit up in his pocket. Oscar paused his tapping, glancing over with a soft, tired smile that made Lando’s heart do a stupid, traitorous flip.
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Oscar murmured, his voice a low rasp that sent a shiver down Lando's spine. "You’ve been drooling on my study guide."
"I don't drool, Piastri. That’s a slanderous accusation," Lando shot back automatically, his voice thick with sleep. He rubbed his eyes, trying to ignore the way Oscar’s lips curled upwards at the corners.
The phone vibrated again. And again.
Lando pulled it out of his pocket, wincing at the bright screen. It was the inner-circle frat group chat.
Max: Where tf is Norris?
George: Probably off playing house with the Ice King.
Max: No way he's actually missing the mixer for a study session. Bet's almost up, mate. Is he falling for it yet? Send a pic for proof or you owe us a keg.
Lando stared at the glowing words. The fluorescent lights of the library suddenly felt blinding, exposing every horrible, ugly layer of what he was doing. Six weeks ago, in a haze of cheap beer and bruised ego, he had sworn to them he could get the untouchable engineering prodigy to fall in love with him.
He looked up. Oscar had gone back to his screen, totally unaware, completely trusting. He looked so calm. Lando felt physically sick. His thumb hovered over the keyboard. He wanted to type “Fuck off.” He wanted to leave the chat. He wanted to tell them the bet was off, that the joke was over, that he was the punchline. But the muscle memory of being the untouchable frat king kicked in. The fear of being a laughingstock, of losing the only hierarchy he knew how to navigate, paralyzed him.
His hands shaking slightly, Lando angled his phone. He made sure Oscar’s face was out of frame, capturing only the back of his head, hunched over his impossible thermodynamics equations, with Lando’s own feet propped up casually on the desk beside him.
He attached the photo.
Lando: Relax mate he’s obsessed, almost too easy
He hit send. The swoosh of the outgoing message felt incredibly loud in the silent library. Lando immediately flipped the phone face down, feeling a wave of self-loathing so intense it burned the back of his throat.
"Everything okay?" Oscar asked, not looking up from his screen. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Yeah," Lando choked out, forcing the trademark, carefree grin onto his face. "Just the guys being idiots. You almost done with that?"
Oscar finally turned to look at him, his dark eyes soft and unguarded. "Almost. Thanks for staying with me, Lando. I know you had places to be tonight."
"Nowhere I'd rather be, mate," Lando lied. Or rather, he told the absolute truth, wrapped in the ugliest lie he had ever told.
Oscar closed his laptop with a soft click that seemed to echo in the empty library. He began neatly stacking his notes, completely oblivious to the war waging inside Lando’s chest.
"I should let you get to your mixer," Oscar said, his voice dropping an octave as he slung his worn canvas backpack over one shoulder. "You've suffered enough academic ambiance for one night."
"It's fine," Lando said quickly, maybe a little too quickly. He stood up, grabbing his own jacket. "I’ll walk you back to your dorm."
Oscar raised an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement breaking through his exhaustion. "My dorm is in the exact opposite direction of the Delta house, Lando. You're going to miss your own party."
"Let them miss me," Lando replied, flashing a grin that felt like it was made of cracking plastic. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets to hide the slight tremor in his fingers. "Besides, someone has to make sure the campus’s finest engineering mind doesn't walk into a tree because he's calculating torque in his head."
Oscar rolled his eyes, but a faint, pleased flush crept up his neck. "Idiot."
The walk across campus was quiet. The London night air was frigid and heavy. Lando kept pace beside Oscar, their shoulders brushing occasionally. Every point of contact felt like a static shock. Lando wanted to reach out and interlace their fingers. He wanted to pull Oscar into the shadow of the quad and kiss him until the rest of the world disappeared.
Instead, he kept his hands shoved firmly in his pockets, his phone sitting like a ticking time bomb against his thigh.
When they reached the entrance to Oscar's dorm building, Oscar turned to face him under the harsh yellow glow of the security light. For a second, he just looked at Lando, his dark eyes searching.
"Have a good night, Lando," he said softly.
"Yeah. You too, Osc."
Lando watched him scan his ID card and disappear through the glass doors. He stood there for a long time, the silence of the campus pressing in on him, until his phone buzzed again.
He didn't need to look at it to know what it said. The sick feeling in his gut intensified, twisting into a knot of pure, unfiltered dread. As he finally turned on his heel to begin the long walk back toward the frat row, the quiet night dissolved, and the memory of how this all started dragged him under.
Six weeks earlier.
The basement of the Delta house smelled like cheap beer and even cheaper cologne. The bass from the speakers was so loud it rattled Lando’s teeth, vibrating up through the sticky, beer-stained floorboards.
Lando was draped over a crumbling leather sofa in the VIP corner, a red Solo cup dangling loosely from his fingers. He was in his element. This was his kingdom. People parted ways when he walked to the keg; girls laughed a little too loudly at his jokes; guys bumped his shoulder and called him a legend. It was intoxicating. It was also, Lando was beginning to realize, incredibly boring.
"I’m telling you, the guy is a robot," Max’s voice cut through the heavy thrum of the music. Max dropped onto the couch next to Lando, leaning forward with a predatory glint in his eyes.
“Who?” Lando asked, not really caring. “Piastri,” George chimed in, leaning against the armrest. “Engineering major. Guy sits in the student union every day, completely ignores everyone. Sarah tried to talk to him yesterday and he literally told her he was 'in the middle of a complex structural analysis' and put his headphones back on. Didn't even look at her.”
Lando scoffed, taking a sip of his lukewarm drink. “Sounds like a dick.”
“Sounds like someone who thinks he’s better than us,” Max corrected, his jaw tightening. He looked at Lando, and that was the moment everything tilted on its axis. Max’s eyes narrowed into a familiar, challenging squint. "I bet he’s completely immune. Uncrackable."
Lando’s ego, heavily inflated by the alcohol and the surrounding crowd, immediately flared. "Nobody is uncrackable, mate. Everyone wants to be wanted."
"Not the Ice King," George laughed. "He’s practically asexual. Or a cyborg. We haven't figured it out yet.”
"I could crack him," Lando said. The words slipped out of his mouth before his brain could filter them. It was a reflex. Never back down. Never look weak. The loud music seemed to fade into the background as the guys around him went silent. Max slowly set his cup down on the sticky coffee table. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. “Is that a bet, Norris?"
"Are you questioning my charm?" Lando deflected, flashing his signature, easygoing smile. “I’m questioning your sanity," Max shot back. "But fine. Let’s make it interesting. You have until the end of the semester. Get Piastri to go out with you. Better yet, get him to actually fall for it. Get him to say it."
Lando hesitated. A brief, fleeting moment of clarity warned him this was a terrible idea. He didn't even know this Piastri kid. Messing with someone's head for a laugh was crossing a line, even for the Deltas. But then George snickered. "He won't do it. Norris only goes for the easy targets." And the trap snapped shut. Lando sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He looked Max dead in the eye, sealing his own fate with a smirk he didn't actually feel. “End of the semester? Please," Lando scoffed, raising his plastic cup in a mock toast. "Give me a month. I'll have the Ice King eating out of the palm of my hand."