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George wishes he were a brave person. If he were, he would get up, walk over to Lando, knock that book out of his hand, and kiss him.
He's probably not even reading it. Knowing him (and judging from the way he's sitting on the floor against the armchair instead of in it), he's probably just staring blankly at the words until he's decided enough time has passed for him to turn the page.
No, maybe he is actually reading the book. He's currently going through a punk-but-not-quite phase, evidenced by his baggy cargo jeans and the band tee he has layered over a long sleeve and his backward baseball cap—he wouldn't bother with something that throws off his ‘vibe’ (as he calls it) if he didn't truly care about it.
He's so…rugged. His curls stick out wildly from underneath the cap and his goatee is fuller than usual and decorated with patches of blonde. Even his hands seem larger and more calloused than when George last paid attention to them. They practically swallow the book; the ring on his pinky sits near the knuckle instead of the base.
He's so rugged and so pretty, George thinks.
He really wants to kiss him.
They haven't uttered a word in the fifteen minutes they've sat in this room. The sunroom, of course, because it's the closest to the garage, and Lando is always too lazy to take off his shoes to sit in the living room when he knows he’ll be outside again in just a few minutes. His bass guitar is resting strings-up on the rug, and he's reading a book, and George is staring at him and doing nothing else, silent and wanting to kiss him.
Lando flips a page. He scratches his chin. The sound makes George wonder how the facial hair would feel against his face.
Then Lando looks at George. George promptly looks away, at a wall.
“This book is pure shit,” Lando says.
George looks back at him, perking up like he didn't have his attention before but now does. “Really? What's shit about it?”
It feels nice to have Lando’s eyes on him. Even if they're studying him sternly, even if it makes his statement feel more like a secret interrogation than an invitation for small talk.
“This guy keeps going on and on about this other guy’s backstory,” is Lando’s answer. “It feels like the author couldn't come up with a better way to set it up so he made a single guy talk for over ten pages. Ten pages!”
He doesn't read very often, but when he does, he gets passionate, and George finds it cute.
Lando is cute regardless of what he talks about, though. He’s cute when he talks about a new song he's written and he's cute when he talks about a new update for one of the video games he likes to play. He's always cute. George could listen to him ramble forever.
George’s voice cracks. “Yeah, that's the problem with classics. Everything's so long-winded.”
It seems to go unnoticed by Lando. He returns to his book with a scoff. “Definitely. Probably doesn't help that this is a translation, too.”
“Nah, I don't think changing the language can fix a terrible monologue like that.”
Lando cracks a smile at that (and George mentally pats himself on the back for saying something that amused him). “True. German or English, shit writing is shit writing.”
Then he dog-ears the page, slams the book shut, stands, tosses it onto the armchair, and picks up his bass. “Well. That's probably my sign to get back to practice, then.”
Oh…
George likes it here. He likes this space that's become theirs after seeking refuge in it so often. It's where Lando comes when he needs a break from his band (or life, really) and it's where George follows him when he wants to be near him (which he always does). It's where the windows drench them in a golden curtain that the world can’t penetrate. It’s where they’re entirely alone, and it’s where George can be Lando’s sole companion for just a few moments, where he can pretend he means as much to Lando as he does to him.
Sometimes George wishes Lando never started his band. The music is good—he can only describe their sound as being reminiscent of the early 2000s post-hardcore bands Lando showed him when they were teenagers—even if the lyrics are a little intense for his personal taste, but it cuts into so much of the time that was previously reserved for themselves. Instead of having a morning workout together, Lando is facetiming Oscar about a new riff; instead of running errands together, Lando is shopping around for new pedals or bass strings; instead of cooking dinner together, Lando is coming home from Oscar’s place with a wild grin on his face, ready to talk about a ‘totally funny thing’ Oscar did.
George actually can’t stand Oscar sometimes. He’s a decent guy, but he holds most of Lando’s attention these days, and he walks around as if he knows that bothers George. George figured that out when they went to the cinema together and, when Lando chose to cling to Oscar each time the film’s jumpscares got him, Oscar gave him a smug look when Lando chose to sit next to him at the diner they later visited.
Whatever. George doesn’t own him. Lando is free to spend as much time as he wants with anyone he wants, no matter how deep the ache in his chest settles when he remembers Lando will never be his.
“Play a different song this time, yeah?” he tries to quip. “I’m tired of hearing the same thing five times in a row.”
Lando smirks at him, his green eyes gleaming. “Anything for you, princess.”
And George watches him leave, and he doesn’t kiss him.
—
George is only here on Lando’s insistence.
The song his band played was nice. It's a new one, more complex in its structure than their other material—George is sure to voice his enjoyment once the amps’ screeching comes to a halt.
Oscar answers for Lando. “Really? Didn't think it’d be your thing.”
He's referring to George’s outfit: all black and layered and oversized. He once joked that his sleeves looked like bat wings which prompted Carlos to add that George was actually a vampire, and Oscar explained his point still stood because vampires transform into bats sometimes, and they laughed amongst themselves while Lando tried to get them to stop and George burned with embarrassment. The ‘pale goth vampire’ joke is overdone, yes, and George typically rolls his eyes and shrugs it off without a problem, but it hurt particularly bad that time, because it came from Lando’s bandmates, serving as proof that he truly doesn't fit in Lando’s world.
But George knew that already. Well, more like he's recently come to know that. He used to think he did since he's known Lando longer than them. He used to think time meant something.
Feelings can change so quickly. He's sure Lando would've abandoned him by now if they weren't still roommates.
He kicks at a pebble, shoves his hands in pockets. Oscar watches him with one hand on his hip and an arm resting on the neck of his guitar.
“I like everything,” George mumbles.
This is fucking embarrassing. He almost wants to believe Lando invited him to their practice to humiliate him.
He doesn't understand what's so special about Oscar or what they do together without him that makes Oscar snarky with him and only him. He doesn't understand what Oscar has that he doesn't or why his company no longer seems to be enough for Lando. Even if he weren't in love with Lando, he'd still want to be around him always. That's just how deep their bond runs, at least on his end.
He wishes he were likable. Desirable. Interesting enough to not only capture someone's attention but to keep it too. He’s the best at that, actually, at having potential on the surface. He can't count how many times he's been told he's ‘cool’ by people who leave just as fast as they approached him after a single conversation. It's gotten to a point where the second someone tells him, “You’re so cool!” he starts preparing himself for the connection to inevitably end.
Lando called him cool the first day they met. He saw the Lebanon Hanover vinyl in his hands and, after giving him a lookover, said, "You're, like, really cool." And maybe that's the blight that's been weighing on their relationship, preventing it progressing any further than just being a pair of good friends.
Are they even good friends anymore?
George doesn't know anything these days.
He suddenly hates the clothes he's wearing. They function as an extension of all the things wrong with him. Why couldn't he have worn a tattered muscle tee and baggy jeans like Oscar? What’s up with him and this satin button-down and these fingerless fishnet gloves and this black nail polish and these heavy combat boots and this rosary he's fashioned into a necklace and this singular cross earring dangling from his left ear? What happened to being simple, casual, just a shirt and jeans and trainers and nothing else? No wonder why Lando prefers Oscar: George is so much, so hard on the eyes, so embarrassing to be seen with.
George wishes he were average height instead of gangly. Charismatic instead of introverted. Normal instead of…whatever he currently is. Maybe then he'd be brave enough to kiss Lando and make him his and put an end to this fretting over Oscar and the other men Lando is always giddy around.
But for now, he bites his lip and crosses his arms over his body, hunching in on himself. If Oscar responded to him, he didn't hear it.
“Hey, actually, we were thinking of adding a cover to our set,” Lando suddenly says into the mic. The volume makes George jump; of course Oscar notices that, and of course he snickers. “I think you'll like what we chose.”
George shrugs. “Okay. Let's hear it.”
Turns out the song is from a classic goth band. George can't figure out why he chose this and how he convinced Carlos and Oscar to learn it—the gritty bass riff is the only thing that connects it to their original material—but Lando’s voice surprisingly suits it, and George finds himself imagining Lando in his own world after the first verse, dressed head to toe in black and possibly harsh eyeliner, haunting the stage with his presence. He'd blend right in, and he'd look beautiful.
It’s a good cover. It’d be better if they had another guitar, but George likes it. It allows him to pretend that Lando has accepted the weirdness he's becoming more and more ashamed of and this is his way of signaling that to him. He can pretend Lando is saying, I see who you are, and I like it.
He applauds when the song is finished. Lando smiles at him warmly. His cheeks are rose red, but George concludes it's from the late spring heat, and thinks nothing of it.
—
It’s past midnight, and George is dancing with Lando in the living room. Their playlist has ranged from pop to punk to emo to metal; right now they're on a song from Asylum Party, a dark and sinister yet danceable post-punk song that George can't help but to go wild to.
He doesn't know how Lando managed to drag him here. He doesn't dance unless he's alone in his room or tucked in the corner of a club during goth night, and he's not very good at it—his movements are wide and stiff and abrasive as if he’s mimicking a bat in flight—and he would never dare to do it in front of Lando regardless of how many years they've known each other.
But he's dancing now. Could be due to the beers they've had tonight. Could be due to the fact that Lando is too preoccupied with his own dancing to pay much attention to him.
His thoughts naturally drift to Oscar, how he watched him dance with Lando once at an indie rock show. They were hand in hand as they bounced around excitedly, smiles on their faces and laughter shared between them. They looked so much like a couple, like a bride and groom sharing their first dance, like a pair that's known each other forever but have yet to grow tired of the other's company, that George had to focus on the stage for the rest of the night to keep his tears from welling up. Never mind the way they behaved as though he weren't even there with them—he likes to stand near the side of the crowd, but at some point they disappeared into the center without a word to him.
So really, his dancing truly doesn't matter right now. He can be as strange as he wants and it won't matter. Lando will never hold him close like he did with Oscar that night; he's made sure to keep a considerable gap between them. He's on one side of the rug while George is on the other, and they're technically not dancing together more than they happen to be dancing in the same room.
Nothing matters. It truly doesn't. George loves this song and he loves this band and it doesn't matter how apparent it is in his movements, because Lando isn't looking, because Lando doesn't care.
It'd be nice if he did, though. If just for a second.
The song comes to an end. George is expecting the next one to play automatically. He stops dancing and turns to Lando, confused, when it doesn't.
Lando is already facing him. That same rosiness from earlier is present in his face again, only this time his eyes are soft and doting, like he's staring at something in amazement.
Oh…George’s dancing couldn't have been so bad that it left him dumbfounded, right?
He frowns. “What happened to the music?”
Lando’s entire demeanor shifts. He straightens, and his eyes (along with the rest of his face) harden. “Oh. Right. Uh, fancy another goth song?”
He can't even look at George directly right now. He hangs his head low as he heads to the stereo, rubbing at his mouth in the way people do when they want to conceal laughter or a smile.
George couldn't have been that bad…right…?
And just like that, his entire body has become paralyzed with shame.
“Actually, nevermind. Let's call it a night.”
He heads towards the stairs without another word. He hears Lando call after him—”Already? But—Oh, well, goodnight, I guess.”—but he doesn't respond.
—
4 men 2 beds
Today, 13:54
oscar
Ok your turn george
Truth or dare?
lando
Mate he's working right now
oscar
He can answer when he gets to his phone 😑
George isn't actually working. Business is incredibly slow today—he's standing in the parking lot and waiting for his turn with the glasses that'll allow him to see the solar eclipse.
“I can't see anything,” Max says, squinting into the glasses as he stares into the sky. “Are you sure it's here?”
“Yeah? It didn't just get dark out of nowhere,” Alex answers, then, snatching the glasses from him, says, “Gimme that.”
George can only imagine how insane they must look right now: three goths, two tall and one short, dressed in black clothing too long and heavy and layered for the heat, standing dazed and confused in the middle of an empty parking lot underneath the eclipse.
Alex is the coolest out of them. Opting for traditional Thai jewelry instead of typical cheap silver gives him an edge no one else has to George’s knowledge. Max’s ‘edge’ is more subjective with his blonde hair and black nail polish earning him accusations of wanting to be a knockoff John Koviak, but still imaginative nonetheless. Then there's George…
He's trying to be minimal in the way Oscar is minimal. He can't bring himself to wear muscle tees and jeans, but he did convince himself to ditch his usual smudged eyeshadow and make the contour he likes to place underneath his cheekbones faint, barely a smudge, almost imperceptible. He kept his cummerbund at home and, for once, he's not wearing his fingerless fishnets. His hair is thoroughly combed and his jewelry is minimal, only his rosary and single earring.
Yet he still feels wrong. He feels like he's gone back to studying and mimicking the popular boys at school like he did as a teenager.
Why is normalcy so suffocating?
george
No I'm here
Truth :)
oscar
Told you lando
Ok
What’s your ideal partner?
lando
Wtf 😭
What kind of question is that
George don't answer that
oscar
What's wrong with it?
lando
I'm sure there's better things he’d be willing to tell you
oscar
Sure but I want to know about this rn
lando
Why????
oscar
Why not
Unless he's dating someone
george
Lol Lando it's fine and no I'm dating anyone
Ummm
He's thought about this. He's thought about how he's heard the way people talk about the discomfort of being chased by someone undesirable, how embarrassing it is, how awkward it is, how it's almost an invasion of privacy to be made the center of unwanted attention. He's thought about it, and he's thought about how Lando might have similar sentiments if he ever became privy to his feelings, and he's thought about how Lando wouldn't think that way if it weren't shameful for him to have those desires in the first place, and he's thought about how it’s shameful because he's himself, and he's thought about how he's strange and emotional and bug-looking and entirely too much in every aspect of the label, and he's thought about how much heartache he could've saved himself if realized his undesirability sooner.
He's thought about all of it, and he's told himself the less he can think about Lando the better, and when he catches himself thinking about Lando, he reminds himself how people like him shouldn't burden people like Lando with their affection, so it's best that he doesn't have it all. Mute it, bury it, get rid of it. No one, let alone Lando, would ever want him that way.
George used to love unsettling others. He used to pride himself on being the guy who received mixed reactions from strangers on the street. He loved standing out and knowing that his presence alone was polarizing; he loved it when he'd go out with Lando and Lando would call him his guard dog due to how people deliberately avoided walking in their direction.
He doesn't know when that changed. Probably when he accompanied Lando and Carlos and Oscar to a music shop and the cashier asked if George was with them, to which Oscar jokingly replied, “Do we look like we hang out with Dracula?” and earned a laugh from Lando.
“I see it!” Alex exclaims.
Max starts tugging at his arm for the glasses. “What the hell! How? Where?”
george
Idk? I haven't thought about it
oscar
Really
Yeah I'm not buying that
george
It's the truth tho
Relationships aren't on my mind usually
So idrc what kind of person would be right for me bc I don't want a partner
lando
Oh george
oscar
Woahh
See this is why I asked. I knew he'd have an interesting answer
And isn't that what you told me once lando?
lando
Huh when
oscar
When that girl asked you on a date
Don't tell me you don't remember 😑
lando
Oh
You mean last week at the bar???
They went to the bar without him?
“Holy shit!” Max squeaks. “Oh, this is awesome!”
Alex: “Keep the glasses on, dumbass.”
oscar
Yep
You said ‘I'm not looking for a relationship right now’
lando
Yeah keywords right now
That doesn't mean it isn't on my mind
oscar
Oh shit
So you just told her that bc you didn't like her?
lando
Duh
oscar
Why not tho she was cute
lando
I'm just unavailable at the moment ok
Off the market uninterested whatever
Doesn't matter how cute someone is
🙄
Alex, again: “Get off your phone.”
He's holding the glasses towards George when George looks up. Max is rubbing at both of his eyes with his fists.
Yeah. He should get off of his phone.
He pockets it and takes the glasses. He finds it hard to believe Max couldn't find the eclipse at first—it greets him as soon as he turns to the sky, a haloed black that's inviting in a way an abyss is inviting, an unsettling force that immediately has him transfixed.
“Wow,” he says. “This is amazing.”
That's the truth.
He wishes this type of thing could happen more often. He wishes he could view it with Lando each time it did. He wishes he could interrupt his current conversation with Oscar and ask if he's seeing it right now, and, if he isn't, tell him to stop what he's doing and look so they can be connected, or George can at least pretend they are.
He wishes the eclipse could miraculously collapse into a black hole and pull him into its vortex, effectively put an end to this wanting that's doing all harm and no good.
Lando is unavailable. Even if George were desirable, he wouldn't want him anyway.
—
When George is alone and can't stop thinking of Lando, he buries his face in his pillow, shoves his hand underneath his blanket, and tries his best to keep quiet.
The images in his head tonight are inspired by Lando standing behind him in the kitchen just a couple hours ago. He was teaching him how to mince ginger—he held George’s wrists, skin against skin, as he guided him with the knife, his voice soft and low as he encouraged him with “Good,” and “Like that,” and “You got it.”
George's brain has morphed that into something else entirely: Lando fucking him from behind while whispering those same praises in his ear.
He knows how big Lando’s dick is. He's seen the outline of it in more fabrics than he can count on one hand. It's thick and heavy and would likely hurt as it fills George’s virgin hole but he'd take it so well and Lando would tell him he's taking it so well and those same large hands that swallowed his wrists would grip his hips hard enough to leave marks and George would love every second of it.
Stroking fast makes too much rustling. It's hard to avoid that when thinking of Lando feels so damn good. George thrusts into his hand to make up for the speed he can't implement and pushes his face further into his pillow. He imagines Lando is shoving his head down as he fucks him harder, warning him that he'll stop if he gets too loud. And George is trying really hard to be quiet, he really is, but this feels so good and Lando is so pretty and he's getting so close and he's trying to be quiet he swears he is but he can't help the hushed whimpers that begin to fall from his lips, tiny mm’s and uh’s that turn into “Lando, Lando, fuck, Lando, please, Lando, please—” as he picks up the pace on his cock and—
There's three knocks at his door.
“You awake, George?”
George’s eyes fly open and all of his movements cease.
How does Lando know he's awake? Did he hear him? Oh god, he was loud, wasn't he? Lando heard him begging for him and now he's going to come in and confront him about it and George can't seem to tuck his stiff dick away in his pants fast enough before the door fucking opens and Lando peeks his head into the room.
He’s propped up on his elbow with the blanket pulled up to his waist when they make eye contact. He switches on his bedside lamp, dies a little inside when he sees Lando’s expression is confused.
“What?”
Lando is smoking a cigarette; he raises it to his lips. “I want to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
Then Lando saunters in without shutting the door behind him and sits at the foot of the bed and George sits up and tries not to moan when his thighs accidentally squeeze his still hard dick. Lando takes a drag and exhales the smoke away from George.
And isn't this just lovely? Lando and his muscular arms and a perfect view of his sculpted side profile being this close to George while he’s aching?
“I have a problem,” Lando announces.
“Okay.”
“So—Well…You’ve probably noticed by now, but there's this guy I really like.”
Oh.
Right, yeah, George should've seen this coming. 'I'm unavailable’ really meant ‘I have my eye on someone’ and he wasn't honest about that because he didn't want to hurt George’s feelings because of course, of fucking course, his feelings are obvious and predatory.
Lando continues: “I've liked him for…oh, I don't know…let's just say years. The original plan was to not say anything about it because I didn't want to weird him out, and honestly I can go without a relationship. Dating doesn't always have to be the end goal with these things.”
True. But also…years? Oscar has only been around for one. He entered the picture when Lando and Carlos were recruiting a guitarist last spring.
It’s late and Lando is obviously stressed, hence the cigarette.
Semantics.
“So I've stayed quiet about it. Yearning in silence, if you will. For years. And I was doing quite well with it until recently. Since, like, a month ago maybe, it's been weighing on me more than usual, and now all I can think about when I'm around him is how much I want to kiss him or something, which is a problem because I'm around him a lot.”
Right…
“He's just really fucking kissable. He has the prettiest lips I've ever seen, I swear. Everything about him is just so pretty.”
Then he takes an exaggerated drag from his cigarette, blows the smoke to the side, and turns to George. The sudden attention makes George’s stomach lurch (and his dick throb).
His undereyes are red in that way they get when he's been losing sleep over something. Oscar—or whomever this guy is—has him reeling, and for a moment George almost chokes up with envy. What kind of person would he have to be to capture Lando’s attention like this? How has he known him for this long, lived with him for this long, and not stirred a single emotion in him like this, not once?
He raises his hand, starts fiddling with his lone cross earring. Maybe it's time to stop wearing this too, and once he's done that, he can start switching out his wardrobe for clothes that are less ‘gay’ and ‘Peter Murphy wannabe.’
He can't even get Lando to look at him for long. He's still turned in his direction, however his expression has gone from focused to dazed, like he's seeing past George or has become lost in thought and George is simply caught in his line of sight.
“So fucking pretty…” Lando repeats. He puts the stick between his lips again, and flops onto his back with a sigh.
Then the room is silent. Lando stares at the ceiling and George stares at him.
“What should I do, George? What would you do if you loved someone but didn't know how to say it?”
Love!
George shrugs. “I don't think you can ever know how to say it in a situation like that.”
Dejected. “Yeah.”
“Sorry. I'd have better advice if I knew who it was.”
“Oh, no,” Lando says quickly. “Can't tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“What would you do, George?”
Okay, right. What a way to confirm that it definitely is Oscar or at least someone they both know, which would be, again, Oscar.
“I don't know. You're better off just telling him directly.”
Inhale. Exhale.
Lando hums in thought. “But tell him how? Just say ‘Hey, I love you?’”
That sounds fine to him. Oscar is a straightforward guy; George is sure he'd appreciate someone keeping it plain and simple when confessing to him. “I love you,” Lando would say in that nonchalant tone he has sometimes, and Oscar, (presumably) already smitten with him, would be swept off his feet, and they'd live happily ever after.
George is so stupid to help them get closer to each other like this.
“Yeah?” is his answer. “I don't see why not if you're not hoping to date him.”
“True. I don't think I want to date him right now.”
Oh, okay. That lessens the blow a little. George won't have to watch them kiss and hold hands and show unapologetic affection with each other any time soon.
But then Lando says, “I’d like to fuck him, though. He’s so shy and cute and it makes me want to mess with him. I know he'd be so good for me.”
Oscar can be quiet sometimes, and he's cute, George guesses, but shy?
He doesn't have time to think about that. His cock has apparently heard ‘fuck him’ and ‘good for me’ and is now acting with a mind of its own, still aching and throbbing and sending a familiar tightness to the pit of his stomach and fuck what the fuck is he actually coming right now?
It takes everything within him to not make a sound, to not move a muscle, to not wrap a hand around his cock and give himself the relief he desperately needs at the moment. It’s torturous and uncharacteristically strong, possibly heightened by panic and adrenaline and Lando looking at him again like he's expecting something or can guess what's happening right underneath his nose.
But Lando ignores his sudden silence and offers him a smile. “Sorry. Too much?”
George shakes his head, tight-lipped.
“Okay,” Lando says. He stands with the cigarette still hanging from his lips, raises his arms in the air in a stretch, causing his pajama pants to slip down and reveal a sliver of his torso and happy trail. “I think I got it. Thanks for your help.”
If George could speak, he’d say, “Mate, this could've waited until morning,” and hope playful banter ensues to lighten the air that's suddenly grown tense. Instead, he watches Lando head for the door, turn around and coo, “Goodnight, George,” and exits the room, closing the door behind him with an echoing click.
—
George wishes he were a brave person. If he were, he'd be able to go back inside the shop and ask if they could remake his sundae.
“You don't like it?” Lando asks around his spoon.
“Uh…just a little too much chocolate,” George mumbles.
“Oh. Want some of mine?”
“Um, no…That's okay.”
Lando doesn't protest. He shrugs and continues eating his own sundae, gazing into the distance.
They're sitting in the parking lot of an ice cream shop. Lando’s band finished their first headlining gig hours ago; Carlos suggested they celebrate the successful night with dessert, and Lando, of course, agreed with Oscar when he suggested ice cream, and he agreed again, of course, when he suggested they sit on the concrete “like they do in the movies”, which is how George has ended up sharing a parking block with Lando.
Carlos and Oscar are still inside the shop.
How complicated can an ice cream order be? Don't they know that leaving him alone with Lando right now might as well be leaving him alone to bleed to death?
The stars are visible here. The sounds of the distant highway serve as a gentle ambience. This would be a nice moment if George wasn't still thinking about the way Lando barged into his room a week ago.
But he's thinking about it. And he's tense. Anxious. Practically trembling. He loves Lando so much and he’s proud of how well he performed tonight and he wants to kiss him so badly and he also wants to go home and cry himself to sleep. He knows they look like an awkward pair to any outsider right now—the punk and his vampire—and that makes him burn with shame, suddenly feeling large and misfit next to him.
He puts his sundae cup on the ground.
Carlos and Oscar should be out any second now.
“What are you thinking about?” Lando asks abruptly.
“You,” is what George almost says. “The show,” is what comes out. “You guys were amazing.”
Lando cracks a smile. “You think so?”
“One hundred percent.”
“So you liked our Corpus Delicti cover?”
“Yeah. You could pass for a real goth with that voice.”
Lando giggles at that, so George lets himself laugh too.
But now it's his turn to relay a question. He’s sitting with his knees pulled towards his chest—he picks at the fabric of his pants for a few seconds before he asks upon a shaky inhale: “What are you thinking about?”
Then Lando’s giggles die.
“You.”
Great. His shift in tone can't mean anything good. What was just playful is now bordering on serious, and god, where the hell are Carlos and Oscar?
“Me?”
“You.”
He has Lando’s full attention. His body is leaning towards him and he's completely stopped shoveling ice cream into his mouth. He's wearing the same expression he had that night in his bedroom, the dazed and unseeing one, the indiscernible one, the one that suggests he's admiring something or someone currently not in his vicinity—a longing, if George dares.
He hunches (he's aware that this, too, makes him look like a sullen corpse or whatever the fuck Oscar compared him to this morning) into himself. “Me?” he repeats.
Lando seems as sure as ever. “You.”
“Oh, okay…What about me?”
“I'm thinking about oblivious you are.”
Oblivious?
George doesn't quite understand. Did he do something wrong earlier and Lando is only bringing it up because the others aren't here now? He did tamper with Lando’s pedalboard a few minutes before the show, but he told him it was an accident, and Lando forgave him since it was an easy fix…
Lando is facing him more now. One half of his face is illuminated by the lights of the ice cream shop, the other obscured by the night’s darkness.
“You know, I was talking to Oscar about the advice you gave me last week. I told him I thought it was too much, but he said it was perfect because you're all confident and independent and stuff until people start speaking to you. Then you act like they're out to get you or some shit. He said you even act like that around him which I can't understand because he’s been trying to get closer to you since forever. But anyway, I'm saying all this because he said since you're a little insecure, it might help if someone was blunt about how they feel about you. You know, like, leave no room for interpretation. So—”
He takes a breath.
“I love you, George.”
And George doesn't respond.
It's just him and Lando staring at each other while the traffic whizzes and the shop’s fluorescent sign buzzes.
He turns to the shop. Carlos and Oscar are watching them from inside with their faces pressed to the glass; they scatter when they catch George’s gaze.
What the fuck is happening.
“As a friend? Yeah, I figured you do.”
Lando tilts his head. “As a friend?”
“Yes,” George deadpans. “Platonic love and all that.”
He wishes Lando would drop the confused act. His face is scrunched and his cheeks are beet red and it all serves to rub extra salt into the wound that's never fully closed for George, a final fuck you to his pathetic crush, a last attempt at getting him to drop it for good. Tell the boy who wants you that you love him, and he'll realize how idiotic he is and finally leave you alone out of embarrassment, yes, amazing idea, Lando! George was already searching for his own apartment on Zillow for fun anyway!
This is incredibly low for Lando. George almost wants to run away somewhere and cry.
“You're not serious right now, are you?”
God, he's really red. He sounds a bit hurt.
George hunches further in on himself. “I mean, how else could you mean it?”
Then Lando deflates. “George.”
“What? I love you, too.”
“No, George, I love you. And not platonically.”
George can see Carlos and Oscar still lingering by the window. They're doing a poor job at concealing themselves behind a shelf.
“I don't understand. You were talking about Oscar that night and now you're using what I told you on me?”
Then Lando sits straight up. “Oscar? You think I was talking about Oscar?”
Then George sits straight up too, because this is so low it's becoming laughable.
“Who else could you have been talking about?”
“You. I was literally talking about you. I've been going crazy over you for days and I planned to not do anything about it, but then I got hard from hearing you moan my name that night and I just…I don't know. I guess I stopped thinking and went to you."
So he heard him begging for him.
“I don't like Oscar. He's not the kind of guy I'm into at all. Like, I don't even know where you got that from.”
Is he being serious? Does he genuinely think all of his doting and shy smiles towards Oscar look innocent and meaningless and that George is supposed to believe him?
Oh god, he heard him begging for him. What if his desperation made him feel so guilty that he felt the need to satiate it somehow?
Pity! Lando is pitying him. No doubt.
George starts inching towards the edge of the block, putting more space between them. “Lando, you don't have to—”
“Seriously, he's not my type. You are. Oscar knows that. That truth or dare thing was him trying to get me to slip up. And the cover was his idea to get you to be impressed with me or whatever.”
Lando is laughing and shaking his head incredulously. He's so red and he's trembling and George can't tell if it's from the night chill and if it is if he should offer his trench coat and he's so red and George is so embarrassed and sad and scared and he doesn't want to lose Lando because he loves him as a friend too he really does and he's so red and so pretty and it can't be true that he doesn't like Oscar it can't but Oscar is watching them with Carlos like they both know something he doesn't and he's so red and he heard him moan his name and he got hard from it and he's saying he loves him.
Lando scrunches his nose as if he might cry, and that gives George the urge to swallow his insecurities and admit that he loves him too, but all that comes out is, “Oh, Lando, you're cold…” and then he's closing the gap between them and taking his arm out of his coat sleeve and draping the leather over Lando’s shoulders.
Lando doesn't say anything, just grips the coat and pulls it tighter around himself, coincidentally pulling George closer to him.
And silence surrounds them again.
Be brave. Even if this is pity, Lando is still close to him and telling him he loves him. It reminds him of their time in the sunroom, when Lando was reading and George was watching him and stewing in self-hatred even then.
“Sorry,” he hears Lando say suddenly. “I don't know what I was thinking. Forget I said anything.”
George’s body moves on its own. He hooks a finger underneath Lando’s chin, lifts his head and forces him to face him. He isn't cold at all—he's burning hot, and he's still red, and his eyes are wide with anticipation, or maybe fear, peering at George like his fate has been dropped into his hands.
So George becomes brave. He connects their lips in a shy kiss, nothing more than a gentle peck, and lets them ghost over each other before he pulls away.
The fear hasn't left Lando’s eyes. He appears frozen now.
What even is happening anymore?
Maybe nothing is, and this is merely a hyper realistic dream that he can tell Lando about when he wakes up from it. He should take advantage of what he can't do in reality, take this one chance to tell Lando what he knows he never could there.
“I love you, too.”
Lando reacts by grabbing both sides of his head and pulling him down to kiss him with purpose.
It’s a slow kiss. It’s one of those kisses that’s more of a sensual dance than a mindless gesture. Lando tastes so sweet, and his tongue is so large and wet, and every move sends electric shocks down George’s spine. His stomach is chock full with butterflies, his skin feeling nothing but the prickling of Lando’s goatee, his brain unable to think of anything that isn't Lando and his mouth and how he wants this to last forever, how he wants to keep feeling his warmth and hearing his sighs and moving so seamlessly with him to the point he can almost delude himself into believing they're meant for each other.
It's a magical moment if he's being honest. Two boys kissing alone in a parking lot underneath the stars—it's a fairytale!
Until he hears male voices cheering.
“Finally!” Carlos laughs. “They did it!”
George (mournfully) stops kissing Lando, whips his head towards the voice and practically dies inside when he sees Oscar applauding next to him in front of the shop's entrance.
Perhaps this is waking up.
“Finally…?”
Lando, who's still holding George's face in his hands, maneuvers his head back to him. “Ignore them. They've just wanted me to do this for a long time.”
George is about to ask what ‘a long time’ means when he's cut off by Lando kissing him again.
Two boys kissing in a parking lot underneath the stars while one of the boy’s friends cheers them on as if watching a sports match.
It’s a fairytale.
—
It's never occurred to George that Lando could feel out of place too.
They're hiding in the kitchen while Alex’s house party rages outside the door.
“I don't understand,” George says over the music. “I thought you liked Alex?”
“I do! I do, like, he's really nice. But—” Lando leans in as if Alex is eavesdropping from an unseen corner. “—He scares me so bad. Really bad.”
George’s immediate reaction is to laugh. It's a full belly one, hearty and loud, because wow, ‘Alex’ and ‘scary’ in the same sentence, how hilarious!
Lando backhands him in the stomach. “I'm being serious!”
“You can't be,” George says through his chuckles.
“He literally hissed at me on the way in.”
“You know he does that to everybody! It doesn't mean anything.”
“Okay, well it's still scary! And I don't even think I'm wearing the right clothes, like, oh my god, they probably all think I'm a loser out there.”
And George stops laughing. He hasn't the slightest clue what Lando is talking about. His clothes are fine, and no one here—let alone his friends—thinks he's a ‘loser.’ But Lando looks panicked, looks like he thinks he's made a grave mistake by coming here and is unintentionally ruining George's image, and George hasn't a clue why Lando would think that either until he realizes it's not far from how he felt around Carlos and Oscar.
He shakes his head. “Lando, they like you.”
Lando shakes his head too. “It honestly doesn't feel like it.”
“Okay, well I know the truth and the truth is that they like you.”
Then Lando drops his arms down at his sides, huffing, and gives George a pout.
“Stop that,” George reaches for his hand and interlocks their fingers when Lando takes it. “You're thinking too much. We’re here to have fun, not to impress anyone.”
That’s really the crux of it, isn't it? Appearances are one thing, personalities are another, and the former doesn't matter when the latter is what brings everyone together in the end. All of this fretting over how one fits in with others or how they complement their partner on the surface—it doesn't matter. They love each other, and if their friends are accepting, they'll enjoy the company regardless of differences.
Bauhaus is playing when they return to the party. It takes Lando a couple of minutes to loosen up, but once he does, he joins George in dancing wildly, and George notes how Alex and Max periodically steal glances at him from a little ways away, smiling in approval.
It's incredible how far bravery can get someone.