Chapter Text
“He was sunshine, I was midnight rain/He wanted it comfortable/I wanted that pain”
The first thing Lando noticed about his new roommate was the suitcase.
Not because it was particularly interesting. It was just plain black. Expensive-looking, maybe, but plain. The weird part was that it rolled into the dorm room at nearly midnight on a Thursday like some kind of ominous warning.
Lando glanced away from his monitor long enough to squint towards the door. His Twitch chat exploded immediately.
"UHM SOMEONE'S THERE???"
"ARE WE GETTING A ROOMMATE REVEAL?"
"Lando you didn't say someone was moving in"
Lando adjusted his headset. "I literally didn't know someone was moving in," he told the chat. "I thought I got this room to myself."
The suitcase stopped just inside the doorway. Then came the person attached to it.
Hoodie. Dark jeans. Headphones around his neck. Exhausted expression. Dark curls flattened slightly like he'd been running his hands through them for hours.
And, weirdly enough, sunglasses. At midnight.
The guy looked around the room once, expression unreadable, before his eyes landed on Lando and the glowing setup taking up half the dorm.
There was a pause.
Then, in a quiet Australian accent: "You're loud."
Chat went insane. "AUSTRALIAN???" "HE'S HOT WAIT"
"ROOMMATE LORE HAS BEGUN"
Lando blinked at him. "Hello to you too?" The guy looked unimpressed.
Which, honestly, should've annoyed Lando more than it did. Instead, he found himself sitting up straighter.
Because most people reacted to him. Either they knew who he was already—popular streamer, campus social magnet, painfully recognizable around uni—or they got overwhelmed by his energy within five minutes.
This guy looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. Interesting.
"You know there's a camera on, right?" Lando asked. The guy looked directly at the camera.
Chat immediately flooded with:
"FACE REVEAL" "HE LOOKED"
"ROOMMATE IS DONE WITH YOU ALREADY"
Then he looked back at Lando. "Tragic."
And walked straight past him.
Lando stared after him as the bathroom door shut. Slowly, he turned back to his monitor.
"...okay," he said finally.
Chat was moving so fast he could barely read it. "HE'S FUNNY"
"I LOVE HIM"
"GET HIM ON STREAM" "WHAT'S HIS NAME??"
"Wait, yeah." Lando pointed toward the bathroom dramatically. "What is your name, mysterious man?"
The bathroom door opened just enough for the guy to lean out slightly. "Oscar."
Then the door shut again. Lando blinked.
"That's it?" he called. No answer.
Chat spammed laughing emotes, memes popping up, one after another.
Lando leaned back in his chair, grinning despite himself. "Right. Cool. Fantastic start."
—
The next morning, Oscar was already awake when Lando dragged himself out of bed at ten-thirty.
Which shouldn't have been surprising.
What was surprising was that Oscar was sitting perfectly still at the desk beside the window, fully dressed, typing something on a laptop with terrifying concentration.
No music. No phone. No distractions. Just silence.
It felt unnatural.
Lando squinted at him. "Do you ever sleep?" Oscar didn't look up. "Do you?"
"That's different. I'm charming and irresponsible." "Hm."
Lando narrowed his eyes.
That wasn't even rude. Somehow it was worse.
He wandered toward the tiny kitchenette area, grabbing cereal. "So where're you from?"
"Australia."
"No shit sherlock"
Oscar finally glanced up.
Lando nearly laughed because the expression was so flat. "You figured it out?"
"Oh, shut up."
To his surprise, the corner of Oscar's mouth twitched slightly before disappearing again.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Lando dropped into the chair across from him, balancing the cereal box on his knee. "What're you studying?"
"Engineering."
"Oh my god, you are boring." "Hm."
"Do you know any other words?"
Oscar looked back at his laptop. "Unfortunately." Lando stared at him for a second.
Then burst out laughing.
Oscar looked mildly alarmed by the reaction. "You're actually funny," Lando wheezed.
"I try not to be." "Why?"
"You're already enough for both of us."
Lando pointed at him dramatically. "See? That. That's funny." Oscar sighed like he was deeply exhausted already.
It was eight in the morning.
—
Within a week, Lando had learned several things about Oscar. One: he vanished constantly.
Not in a dramatic way. He'd just... disappear. Friday afternoons especially.
Lando would come back from lectures and Oscar would be gone, desk spotless, bed made with military precision.
Then he'd reappear, sometime late Sunday night, looking completely exhausted. Every single weekend.
Two: Oscar never talked about himself voluntarily. Lando had tried.
God, had he tried. "Any siblings?" "Yes."
"How many?" "A few."
"What does that mean??"
Oscar had just shrugged and kept walking.
Three: Oscar knew way too much about Formula 1. That part really got Lando's attention.
Because literally everyone at university followed F1.
The mystery surrounding the driver Oscar had become a worldwide obsession
over the last two years. Youngest driver on the grid. No confirmed face reveal.
No public appearances without the helmet. No one even knew his full name.
Just Oscar.
Every social media platform on earth was obsessed with him. And somehow Lando's weird roommate knew everything.
Not normal fan knowledge either. Specific stuff.
Technical stuff.
One time during a race watch party in the student lounge, Oscar casually muttered:
"Front left degradation's worse than they expected."
Three laps later, the commentators said almost the exact same thing. Lando had stared at him.
Oscar stared back.
"...lucky guess," Oscar said. Suspicious.
Very suspicious.
Especially because ten minutes later, Oscar's phone rang and he immediately left the room looking tense.
Then didn't come back until midnight.
—
"You're being weird about him," Carlos informed Lando one afternoon after class.
"I'm not."
"You are."
Lando leaned back dramatically in his chair at the campus café. "I'm just saying he's suspicious."
Carlos snorted. "You think everyone's suspicious." "Not true."
"You accused me of secretly being rich because I bought branded cereal." "That was suspicious."
Carlos ignored him. "Your new roommate's just quiet." "He disappears every weekend."
"Maybe he has a life."
"He knew tyre strategy before the commentators did." Carlos stared at him.
"...you think your roommate is the mystery F1 driver?" Lando pointed aggressively, "THANK YOU."
"That's insane." "I know."
Carlos looked delighted suddenly. "You should investigate." "Oh, I am."
—
Oscar, unfortunately, was impossible to investigate. Every attempt Lando made somehow backfired.
"You free this weekend?" Lando asked casually Thursday evening. "No."
"For once, can you elaborate?"
"No."
Lando glared at him from across the room.
Oscar ignored him completely, focused on whatever engineering assignment he was doing.
The silence stretched. Then:
"You have a staring problem," Oscar said without looking up. "You have a disappearing problem."
"Hm."
"There it is again."
Oscar's mouth twitched slightly.
Lando pointed accusingly. "You think you're funny." "Dangerous accusation."
"You absolutely think you're funny." Oscar finally looked up from his laptop.
And for just a second, he looked less guarded. Tired, mostly.
There were faint shadows beneath his eyes that definitely hadn't been there at the start of semester.
Lando frowned before he could stop himself. "You look exhausted."
The shift was immediate.
Oscar's expression closed off again so fast it was almost impressive. "I'm fine."
"Mhm."
"I am."
"Sure."
Oscar looked away first. Weirdly, that felt important.
—
The next Sunday night, Lando woke up at around two in the morning to the sound of the dorm door opening quietly.
He blinked blearily toward the dark shape slipping inside. Oscar.
Something about him looked off. Not injured exactly.
Just... drained.
More than usual.
Lando pushed himself up slightly. "You good?"
Oscar froze like he hadn't expected Lando to be awake. There was a long pause.
Then: "Did I wake you?" "Yes."
"Sorry."
His voice sounded rough.
Lando frowned harder. "Are you sick?" "No."
But he swayed slightly while taking off his hoodie. Lando's eyes narrowed.
There were bruises along Oscar's wrists.
Not bad ones. Just dark marks across pale skin.
Before Lando could say anything, Oscar tugged his sleeves back down. Silence.
Then Oscar glanced toward him. "You should sleep."
"You should explain why you look like you got hit by a truck." Oscar actually huffed a quiet laugh at that.
It startled Lando enough that he almost forgot the question entirely. Because that was new.
A real laugh.
Tiny, but real.
Oscar shook his head once before moving toward his bed. "Night, Lando."
And despite literally everything suspicious about this man, despite the disappearing acts and the secrets and the impossible F1 knowledge,
Lando found himself watching until Oscar settled safely into bed. Only then did he lie back down.
Weird.
Very weird.