Work Text:
Touch my body tender
'Cause the feeling makes me weak
Kicking off the covers
I see the ceiling, while you're looking down at me
How can we go back to being friends
When we just shared a bed?
How can you look at me and pretend
I'm someone you've never met?
It was last December
You were layin' on my chest
I still remember
I was scared to take a breath, didn't want you to move your head
How can we go back to being friends
When we just shared a bed? (Yeah)
How can you look at me and pretend
I'm someone you've never met?
The devil in your eyes
Won't deny the lies
You've sold, I'm holding on too tight
While you let go, this is casual
How can we go back to being friends
When we just shared a bed? (Yeah)
How can you look at me and pretend
I'm someone you've never met?
The first rule had been Oscar’s.
“Friends first,” he’d said,
They had been standing on the narrow balcony outside Max’s flat, sharing a cigarette neither of them really wanted after kissing for twenty solid minutes in the kitchen. Inside, their friends were shouting over a card game. Alex was accusing George of cheating. Someone had put the same song on for the third time.
Oscar’s mouth was red. His brown hair had been thoroughly ruined by Lando’s hands, and the collar of his T-shirt sat crooked where Lando had dragged it aside to get at the mole beneath his jaw. Lando had wanted to put his mouth there again and again.
Instead, he’d leaned against the railing and said, “Obviously.”
“Sex second.”
“Sure.”
“Nothing romantic.”
That one had lodged somewhere beneath Lando’s ribs. He had smiled anyway. At twenty-three, he should probably have been too old to think pretending not to care counted as emotional maturity.
“And,” Oscar had added, pointing the cigarette at him, “nobody gets weird about it.”
Lando had laughed. “You’re the one giving a pre-sex terms-and-conditions speech.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Oscar had watched him with those nearly black eyes of his, dark enough that his pupils disappeared into them. He was two years younger than Lando, broad through the shoulders from climbing and the university gym, with square hands and brown moles scattered over his skin like someone had flicked paint across him.
Lando had already been half in love with him.
He’d said, “Sure. I can do casual.”
Oscar’s shoulders had relaxed.
“Good,” he’d said, and kissed Lando again.
That had been the beginning.
The problem was that Oscar was absolutely terrible at casual.
Casual people went home afterward. Oscar fell asleep with his face pressed between Lando’s shoulder blades and complained bitterly when the alarm went off.
Casual people didn’t acquire drawers. Oscar’s had begun with a T-shirt he left on Lando’s bathroom floor, then expanded to include boxers, socks, an old pair of joggers and three hoodies, only one of which Lando had technically stolen.
Casual people didn’t let themselves into your flat before an eight a.m. lecture, set down two coffees and say, “Oat milk, enough sugar to kill us,” as if remembering the order meant nothing.
They didn’t call at two in the morning and say, “Are you awake?”
They didn’t turn up twelve minutes later when the answer was yes.
They didn’t climb into bed without trying to initiate anything, tuck themselves against your side, put their head on your chest and fall asleep to the sound of your heart.
They didn’t whisper “I missed you” just before falling asleep.
Oscar did all of those things.
He also became unbearable whenever anyone flirted with Lando. It had happened with the girl from Alex’s birthday, with the tattooed bartender near campus, with Lando’s ex-boyfriend when they’d run into him outside the library.
“I’m not jealous,” Oscar had insisted every time.
No one had mentioned jealousy until he denied it.
Their friends knew they were both bisexual. It had never been a point of drama. Oscar had dated women and men before; Lando had done the same. The friend group’s only real objection to their arrangement was that, in Max’s words, it was “the stupidest slow-motion disaster any of us have ever been forced to witness.” Lando had told him to mind his own business.
Then December happened and afterward, Lando would remember the cold first.
Snow against the windows. Oscar’s freezing feet sliding between Lando’s calves. The radiator clicking uselessly in the corner while they shared the duvet, naked and damp and still catching their breath.
They had slept together plenty of times by then, but December was different.
Oscar hadn’t rolled away. He’d stayed curled against Lando with his cheek on Lando’s chest, one heavy arm draped over his ribs. His hair tickled Lando’s chin. Each exhale warmed his skin. Lando lay awake for nearly an hour. He didn’t move and barely breathed. Every muscle began to ache, but he was terrified that if he shifted even slightly Oscar would wake, remember the rules and leave. So he stared at the ceiling while Oscar slept over his heart.
It was sometime after three when Oscar stirred. Lando closed his eyes just before Oscar opened his. He lifted his head and for one wild, humiliating moment, Lando thought he might have been caught awake. Then Oscar pressed a soft kiss over his heartbeat. Another beneath his collarbone. His lips brushed Lando’s forehead too. Lando pretended to sleep through all of it.
By morning, Oscar had tangled one leg between Lando’s and stolen most of the duvet. He woke slowly, blinking up at Lando before leaning in to kiss him. It was clumsy with sleep, Oscar’s mouth warm and unhurried.
“Morning,” Oscar murmured.
Lando kissed him once more. “Morning.”
He stole Lando’s oldest university hoodie despite having two of his own in the drawer. He drank coffee from Lando’s mug while sitting on the kitchen counter, his bare knees bracketing Lando’s hips.
For a few minutes, Lando let himself imagine it. Oscar here every morning. Oscar’s coffee beside his. Oscar leaving textbooks on the table and trainers by the door. Oscar kissing him because it was morning, because he could, because Lando belonged in the shape of his life.
“This is nice,” Oscar said.
Lando’s heart lifted so sharply it hurt.
Then Oscar smiled into Lando’s mug.
“I’m glad we can do this without making it complicated.”
Lando looked at him. Oscar’s expression was open, fond and completely unsuspecting.
“Yeah,” Lando said eventually. “Me too.”
That was when he knew he was fucked.
By April, Oscar was sleeping at Lando’s flat four nights a week.
They still called it casual.
On Friday, the group ended up at a bar not far from campus to celebrate Charles submitting his dissertation. The place was crowded and overheated; the floor tacky beneath Lando’s boots. Max had commandeered a booth. George was losing badly at darts to Alex. Logan was accepting drinks from anyone willing to buy them.
Oscar had been beside Lando all evening. Not obviously or not in any way Lando could accuse him of. Just a warm thigh pressed to his beneath the table. A hand at Lando’s back when they moved through the crowd. Fingers hooking briefly through Lando’s belt loop when somebody shoved between them. Each touch was gone before Lando could acknowledge it.
Then Oscar disappeared to the bar with Logan, and a man took his place. His name was Olivier. He was doing a master’s in political science, had a pleasant smile and apparently remembered Lando from an economics seminar the previous term.
“You asked Professor Ross if his model accounted for the possibility that people are idiots,” Olivier said.
“Yeah, it didn’t.”
“He hated you.”
“He hates everybody.”
Olivier laughed. He was attractive, Lando supposed. Blond, blue-eyed, a little taller than him. He leaned closer to be heard over the music and rested one elbow on the back of the booth.
“You want another drink?”
Before Lando could answer, a glass appeared in front of him.
“He’s got one,” Oscar said.
He slid into the narrow space at Lando’s side. There had been room for him to sit normally. Oscar ignored it, crowding Lando into the corner until their legs pressed together from hip to ankle. His arm settled along the back of the booth behind Lando.
Olivier looked between them. “Right.”
“Oscar,” Lando said, in warning.
Oscar took a drink from his beer. “What?”
“We were talking.”
“I can see that.”
Olivier’s smile had gone uncertain. “Are you two—”
“No,” Oscar said.
“Yes,” Lando said at the same time.
Oscar turned to stare at him and Lando stared back.
“We’re friends,” Oscar corrected.
“Very close friends,” Lando added.
Oscar’s jaw tightened.
Olivier, displaying more courage than sense, looked at Lando. “So, that drink?”
Oscar’s hand landed on Lando’s waist. It wasn’t subtle. His palm spread over the narrowest part of Lando’s body, thumb pressing beneath the hem of his shirt. Heat bled from his skin.
“He said he has one,” Oscar replied.
“I don’t remember asking you,” Olivier said.
Oscar smiled without warmth. “He doesn’t like gin.”
Lando’s drink was gin.
He looked down at it. Oscar followed his gaze and frowned. “Since when do you like gin?”
“Since someone bought it for me.”
“I would’ve bought you something.”
“You weren’t here.”
“I was gone for two minutes.”
“Osc.”
“What?”
“You’re being a dick.”
Oscar removed his hand as though Lando’s waist had burned him.
“Fine.”
He stood and disappeared into the crowd.
Olivier watched him leave. “He seems nice.”
“He usually is.”
“Your friend?”
Lando took an unnecessary drink. “Apparently.”
He tried to keep talking. Olivier was funny and smart. He was interested in Lando’s research. He was really easy to talk to. He also had nice hands and an uncomplicated smile.
Lando lasted ten minutes before excusing himself.
He found Oscar near the back door, alone except for the smokers gathered on the pavement outside. Oscar was scowling at his phone.
“What was that?”
Oscar didn’t look up. “Nothing.”
“Would it have been less subtle?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You had your hand around my waist.”
“It was crowded.”
“You answered questions for me.”
“He was irritating.”
“You’d known him for thirty seconds.”
“It was a difficult thirty seconds.”
Despite himself, Lando nearly smiled.
Then Oscar asked, too casually, “Are you actually going home with him?”
The fragile amusement vanished. Lando studied his face: the tense line of his mouth, the muscle working in his jaw, the way he refused to meet Lando’s eyes.
“Maybe. Why do you care?”
Oscar went still. For one second, Lando thought he might finally say it.
Because you’re mine.
Because I wanted his hand off you.
Because I love you and I don’t know what to do with it.
But Oscar just put his phone into his pocket.
“Just asking.”
Something inside Lando tore, not completely, but enough to hurt.
“Right,” he said.
He went back inside.
Olivier left with his friends shortly after midnight. Lando told himself he didn’t care.
At half past twelve, Oscar appeared beside him with his jacket.
“Ready?”
Lando should have said no. Instead, he stood and they went home together. Oscar’s fingers curled around his wrist when they crossed the road, and he didn’t let go until they reached Lando’s building.
Neither of them spoke in the lift.
Inside the flat, Lando turned to lock the door. When he faced the room again, Oscar was standing directly behind him.
“You’re angry,” Oscar said.
“I’m tired.”
“You do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say you’re tired when you’re angry.”
Lando laughed under his breath. “You know me so well.”
Oscar flinched as if there were something cruel in it.
Lando moved to step around him and Oscar caught his waist. It was the same touch as before, but different without witnesses. Both hands this time, broad and warm, spanning Lando’s sides. His thumbs found the strip of skin above Lando’s jeans. Lando stopped and looked at him.
“Oscar.”
“Tell me to go home.”
He probably should have. Oscar’s face was close. His dark eyes moved over Lando’s features as if trying to read them. One of the moles on his cheek disappeared into the shadow cast by his lashes.
“Do you want to?” Lando asked.
“No.”
The answer was immediate. Lando hated how much it soothed him.
He caught Oscar by the back of the neck and kissed him. Oscar made a low sound against his mouth and pushed him into the door. The kiss turned hungry almost instantly, sharpened by everything they hadn’t said at the bar. Oscar’s hand slid into Lando’s hair, catching in the longer curls at his nape.
“Were you going to go home with him?” Oscar asked.
Lando bit his lower lip.
Oscar’s grip tightened. “Lan.”
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“Why?”
Oscar stared at him, breathing hard. Then he kissed Lando again instead of answering. That was how it always went; Oscar gave him everything except the one thing he asked for. His hands, his mouth, his body. His nights. His half-asleep voice through the phone or his coffee order held in the careful architecture of his memory.
Everything except a name for it.
Oscar walked him backward toward the bedroom, never letting more than a few inches open between them. Lando pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it in the hall. Oscar’s gaze fell to his body. It always did this to Lando, the way Oscar looked at him. As if Lando’s body was a problem he intended to devote his entire considerable intelligence to solving.
Oscar was studying mechanical engineering. He understood force, tension, structures, the precise amount of pressure required to make something bend without breaking. He put the knowledge to unfair use.
“On the bed,” Oscar said.
Lando raised an eyebrow. “Ordering me in my bedroom?”
“You like me in charge.”
“I like you useful.”
Oscar’s mouth curved. “That too.”
Lando sat and reached for Oscar’s belt, but he caught his wrist.
“Let me.”
The words were quiet but changed the air between them. Lando released him and Oscar dropped to his knees. He removed Lando’s boots, then his socks. Pressed a kiss to the inside of each ankle. His hands traveled slowly up Lando’s legs as he rose, palms firm over his calves and thighs. By the time he opened Lando’s jeans, his cock was already hard. Oscar tugged Lando’s jeans and underwear down together, waited for him to lift his hips and drew them off. Then he settled between Lando’s spread knees and looked up.
Oscar still had all his clothes on, while Lando was naked. The imbalance should have made him self-conscious. Instead, it made heat coil low in his stomach.
“Still tired?” Oscar asked.
“Exhausted.”
“Poor thing.”
“Fuck you.”
Oscar turned his head and kissed Lando’s inner thigh.
“No,” he murmured. “Other way around.”
Lando’s laugh broke into a gasp when Oscar took him into his mouth.
There was nothing casual about the way Oscar touched him. He never rushed. Never treated Lando’s pleasure like a necessary step toward his own. He learned every response as carefully as if he would be tested on it: the pressure that made Lando’s hips jerk, the spot beneath the head of his cock that made him curse, the warning tremor in his thighs when he was getting close.
Tonight, Oscar seemed determined to dismantle him.
His mouth was hot and wet, one hand wrapped around what he couldn’t take. The other held Lando’s hip against the mattress when he bucked.
“Osc.”
Oscar hummed; the vibration went through him. Lando’s head fell back.
“Fuck.”
Oscar’s thumb stroked the hollow beside Lando’s hipbone. His mouth moved lower, tongue tracing the underside of Lando’s cock before returning to the head. Lando looked down. Oscar’s brown hair was falling over his forehead. His lips were stretched around Lando, eyes lifted to meet his. That stare nearly undid him. He caught his hair and tugged.
Oscar let him slip from his mouth. “Too much?”
“No.” Lando swallowed. “I’m going to come if you keep doing that.”
Oscar pressed a kiss to the inside of his knee. “Not yet.”
He stood, stripping quickly. Shirt first, revealing the familiar solid planes of his chest and stomach. Lando knew every mole on him now: one beside his left nipple, two low on his abdomen, a scattered line across his right shoulder. When Oscar pushed his jeans down, Lando’s gaze followed.
“You’re staring,” Oscar said.
“You were on your knees with my dick in your mouth thirty seconds ago.”
“And?”
“I think modesty has left the building.”
Oscar laughed softly and there was the real danger. It wasn’t sex, Oscar naked in his bedroom, not even the way Lando’s body reacted when Oscar climbed over him. The danger was Oscar smiling against his mouth. Oscar’s weight settling between his thighs. Oscar kissing him until the last of Lando’s anger softened into want.
Lando ran his hands over Oscar’s back. “Condom.”
“Drawer?”
“You know where.”
Oscar reached into the bedside table and took out the condoms and lube without looking. The drawer also contained Oscar’s spare phone charger, an engineering textbook and the watch he had misplaced three weeks ago. Lando wondered whether Oscar knew it was there.
Oscar sat back on his heels.
“Turn over?”
Lando shook his head. Something flickered across Oscar’s face.
“You want to see me,” he said.
It wasn’t a question. Lando resented how easily Oscar could say things like that when they meant nothing to him.
“Is that a problem?”
“No.”
Oscar bent to kiss him. “Never.”
He poured lube onto his fingers and warmed it between them before reaching down. The first press made Lando all tense and Oscar paused.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Osc.”
“I need you to say it.”
Lando met his eyes. “I’m sure. Please keep going.”
Oscar did. One slick finger eased inside him. Oscar watched Lando’s face the entire time, stroking him slowly, patiently, until the tension left his thighs.
“Good?”
Lando nodded. A second finger joined the first one. Lando exhaled through his teeth. Oscar’s other hand spread over his stomach, thumb drawing idle circles against the skin below his navel.
“Relax,” Oscar murmured.
“You relax.”
“I’m not the one trying to strangle my fingers.”
“You’re welcome.”
Oscar laughed again, then crooked his fingers.
Lando’s vision flashed white. “Oh God.”
“There?”
“You know it’s there, you smug bastard.”
Oscar did it again. Lando grabbed his forearm; Oscar’s muscles flexed beneath his hand. He kept the pressure precise, his eyes fixed on Lando’s face as he worked him open.
“More,” Lando said.
Oscar’s expression went dark with want.
He added a third finger. The stretch burned briefly before melting into something deep and aching. Lando let his knees fall wider. Oscar leaned over him, kissing the sharp curve of his hip, the center of his stomach, his ribs. Each kiss landed with unbearable tenderness. Lando stared at the ceiling. Oscar looked down at him; his gaze felt like another touch.
When Lando was ready, Oscar withdrew his fingers and rolled the condom on. He slicked himself, then settled between Lando’s thighs and guided Lando’s legs around his hips.
“Tell me if you need me to stop.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
Oscar held Lando’s gaze as he pushed inside him. Lando’s mouth fell open. Oscar went slowly, giving him time to adjust to each inch. His jaw was clenched, muscles taut with restraint. Even when Lando pulled him closer with both legs, Oscar refused to rush.
“You’re all right?”
“Yes.”
Another shallow press.
Lando’s fingers dug into his shoulders. “Please, more.”
Oscar breathed his name, then he gave him more. The final push drove a broken sound from Lando’s throat. Oscar stilled fully inside him, forehead dropping to Lando’s.
For several seconds neither of them moved.
Oscar kissed the corner of Lando’s mouth. “You feel—”
He stopped and Lando’s heart struck his ribs.
“I feel what?”
Oscar kissed him again.
“Good,” he said against Lando’s lips. “You feel good.”
The disappointment was vicious and absurd.
Lando turned his face aside. “Move.”
Oscar drew back and thrust into him. The drag was slow at first, deep enough that Lando felt every inch. Oscar braced himself on one forearm and slid his other hand beneath Lando’s back, holding him close as he found a rhythm.
He fucked Lando the way he did everything else with him: attentively. He adjusted when Lando’s breath ccaught. Changed the angle when Lando arched. Slid a hand between them and wrapped it around Lando’s cock without being asked.
Lando shut his eyes.
“No, look at me.”
The words hit somewhere far deeper than Lando’s body could reach. He looked. Oscar’s face was flushed, brown hair damp at the temples. Want had swallowed his eyes until they looked almost black. He gazed at Lando as if there were nothing else in the world worth seeing.
Oscar thrust harder; Lando moaned.
“There,” he gasped.
“I know.”
“Again.”
Oscar gave it to him again; and again. Each stroke forced Lando higher. The headboard knocked softly against the wall. The covers tangled around their legs until Oscar kicked them away, leaving the bed stripped and ruined beneath them.
Lando’s fingers traced the moles across Oscar’s shoulder. Oscar caught his hand and kissed his palm. The gesture was so gentle Lando nearly told him to stop. Instead, he pulled Oscar down and their mouths met. Oscar swallowed every sound Lando made, fucking him with slow, devastating precision while his thumb worked over the head of Lando’s cock.
Lando felt his orgasm building. “Osc—”
“I’ve got you.”
That was another problem; Oscar always said it like that. Like a promise.
Oscar drove into him, found the place that made Lando shake and stayed there. Lando’s orgasm hit hard enough to blank his mind. His body tightened around Oscar as he came across his hand and his own stomach. Oscar groaned his name, he buried himself deep and followed, hips going still between Lando’s thighs.
For a long moment there was only breath, Oscar’s weight and his mouth against Lando’s neck, his heart pounding where their chests pressed together. Then Oscar softened and lifted himself carefully. Lando felt the loss immediately.
Oscar tied off the condom and threw it away. He returned with a warm cloth, cleaning Lando with the same care he used for everything, one hand soothing over his thigh when overstimulation made Lando flinch.
“Sorry,” Oscar murmured.
“It’s fine.”
Oscar smiled at him.
Afterward, Oscar climbed beneath the sheets and pulled Lando against him. Lando let him. Oscar traced meaningless patterns across his bare side. A circle around his ribs, a slow line down his spine. The sweep of his palm over Lando’s waist.
Lando stared at the ceiling, while Oscar looked at him.
He kissed Lando’s shoulder, then his cheek. Finally, he pulled the covers over him and tucked them around his body.
“Stay here,” Oscar murmured.
Lando almost laughed.
They were in his flat. His room, his bed, his ceiling above them. But he knew what Oscar meant. Stay close. Stay where I can touch you. Stay, without asking me to call it anything. That was the moment when something inside Lando finished tearing.
“Fuck, what are we doing?”
Oscar’s hand stopped.
“What do you mean?”
Lando did laugh then; the sound came out small and ugly.
“Of course.”
Oscar pushed himself onto one elbow. “Lan?”
“You sleep here four nights a week.”
“That doesn’t—”
“You have a fucking toothbrush in my bathroom.”
“So?”
“You have a drawer. You have your own mug.”
“You bought me that mug.”
“Because you complained mine were too small.”
“They are too small.”
“You know my coffee order.”
Oscar’s brow furrowed. “You know mine.”
“You call me when you can’t sleep.”
“We’re friends.”
“You nearly started a fight tonight because someone bought me a drink.”
“He was being pushy.”
“He asked whether I wanted gin.”
“You don’t like gin.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is the point?”
Lando looked at him and realized that Oscar genuinely didn’t understand. Or he was pretending so well it no longer mattered.
“The point is that you don’t get to do this.”
“Do what?”
“All of it.” Lando pushed himself upright. “You don’t get to sleep in my bed and leave your clothes in my flat. You don’t get to hold my hand under the table where no one can see. You don’t get to act like anyone who wants me is personally insulting you.”
“I don’t.”
“You had your hand around my waist all night.”
“It was crowded.”
“Stop saying that.”
Oscar sat up too, the covers fell to his hips.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“The truth would be mint.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“No, you’re not.” Lando’s voice broke. “You touch me like—”
He stopped and Oscar had gone very still.
“Like what?” he asked.
Lando looked at him again. At his sleep-ruffled hair. His bare chest. The tiny mole beneath his collarbone Lando had kissed a hundred times. The man Lando loved, sitting naked in his bed and asking him to translate a language Oscar had taught him.
“Like you love me.”
Silence filled the room.
Oscar’s face emptied. Lando wished he could take the words back. Not because they weren’t true, because they were. He still forced himself to continue.
“You don’t get to touch me like you love me and call this casual.”
Oscar looked away and that hurt more than anything. He stared at the floor, throat moving as he swallowed. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained.
“We agreed what this was.”
Lando’s last fragile thread of hope snapped. “Yeah.”
He climbed out of bed. “We did.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.”
Lando found his underwear and pulled it on. His hands were shaking, so he kept them busy gathering Oscar’s clothes from the floor.
“Oscar, I can’t do this anymore.”
Oscar stared at him. “Do what?”
“This.”
Lando put Oscar’s shirt beside him. Understanding flashed across Oscar’s face, followed quickly by panic.
“We don’t have to sleep together anymore.”
It was offered so earnestly that for a moment Lando couldn’t breathe.
As though sex were the sacrifice. As though Lando could go back to sitting beside Oscar at the pub and watching his mouth. Back to answering his late-night calls without imagining that Oscar reached for him because he needed him. Back to platonic coffees, platonic touches, platonic nights spent aching beneath the weight of Oscar’s head.
Lando looked at him. “That’s not the part that’s hurting me.”
Oscar’s expression crumpled before he caught it.
“Oh.”
Barely heard. Lando turned away; behind him, the mattress shifted. Oscar dressed in silence.
It was December in reverse. Then, Oscar had been lying on Lando’s chest while Lando held himself perfectly still, afraid one wrong breath would make him leave. Now Oscar sat on the edge of the same bed, pulling on his clothes while Lando stood at the window and watched his reflection in the glass. He heard each quiet sound that marked something ending.
Oscar stopped in the bedroom doorway.
“Are you asking me to leave?”
Lando closed his eyes. “Yes.”
Another silence; then Oscar walked down the hall. Lando followed because it was his flat and someone had to lock the door. That was what he told himself.
Oscar put on his jacket.
When he reached the door, his hand closed around the door handle, but he didn’t turn it. For one terrible second, his shoulders shook. Then he looked back.
“We’re still friends, right?”
And there was the safest version of them. The version Oscar understood. The version with no risk, no promises, no way for Lando to break anything that mattered.
Lando could have said yes, and he almost did. Because saying no meant losing Oscar completely. It meant no more coffees waiting outside morning lectures. No more arguments about films. No more Oscar stealing food from his plate or sending him photographs of badly designed bridges. No more head on his chest. No more half of Oscar’s wardrobe occupying space in his flat as if it belonged there.
Lando gripped the edge of the hallway table.
“I don’t think friends have ever felt like this.”
Oscar stared at him. His eyes shone; he looked as though he wanted to speak, but whatever lived behind his teeth remained trapped there.
Then he nodded once, opened the door and left. Lando locked the door behind him.
The flat felt unfamiliar in the sudden silence. He went back to the bedroom and stood beside the unmade bed. The air still smelled like Oscar: soap, sweat and the chocolate perfume Lando had bought him for his birthday.
One of Oscar’s shirts lay on the floor near the desk; he must have dropped it there earlier in the week. Usually, Lando would have taken a picture and sent it to him.
you left your shirt again you muppet
and Oscar would reply:
you mean you stole another one
Lando would probably wear it to bed.
This time, he picked it up, folded it carefully and put it into Oscar’s drawer with the rest of his things.
Tomorrow, he would find a box.
Tomorrow, he would pack all of it.
Oscar made it halfway home before reaching automatically for his phone. The wind had turned cold. He stood beneath the awning of a closed bookshop while rain silvered the pavement beyond it. Lando always made him text when he got home. The first time, Oscar had forgotten. Lando had stayed awake until three and called him furious, demanding to know whether Oscar had been murdered in the six streets between their flats. After that, it had become routine.
home x
Two words every time. Lando would respond with a heart, or a sarcastic comment. If it was very late – a photograph of himself already in bed, Oscar’s pillow conspicuously empty beside him.
Oscar opened their chat and his thumb hovered over the keyboard.
He thought about Lando beneath him, green eyes fixed on his face.
Like you love me.
Oscar’s chest hurt.
He still typed:
home x
He stared at the message and for the first time, he didn’t know whether he was allowed to send it. He stood there until the screen went dark, then he put the phone back into his pocket and kept walking.
How can we go back to being friends
When we just shared a bed?
How can you look at me and pretend
I'm someone you've never met?