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dancing-inasnowglobe · 13 days ago

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I LOVE THIS SO MUCH ANDKDJABA

heads will roll ⛐ 𝐎𝐏𝟖𝟏

that, my friends, is house music! it doesn’t judge you! (but oscar might.)

ꔮ starring: frat dj!oscar piastri x reader. ꔮ word count: 3.9k. ꔮ includes: romance. mention of alcohol; suggestive language/thoughts. alternate universe: non-f1, alternate universe: university. frat party, reader is in a sorority (and objectively cooler than oscar), oscar is a loser (affectionately), frat president!lando. title from yeah yeah yeahs’ heads will roll. ꔮ commentary box: my love for @norrisradio has taken me places i never thought i would go, e.g. writing a frat fic. i know this is open-ended, but i must warn: a second part is not imminent. i simply like putting oscar piastri in situations!!! anyway. love you, tara. ask me to jump, i’ll say ‘how high’; ask me to put oscar in a frat, i’ll do it. major shoutout to the oscar piastri house music playlists on spotify 🎧 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Oscar arrives late.

This is not unusual. He is late to most things that involve standing around and pretending to enjoy himself. He arrives halfway through parties, halfway through brunches, halfway through semesters. It’s a strategic thing. Timing his entrance so the work of socializing has already started, the engine of conversation already churning, so he can just slide in without needing to spark it.

But tonight, the Delta Sig house is already humming like a generator gone slightly feral. There’s a thrum in the walls that feels structural. Lando will be pleased.

Oscar shoulders through the front door just as someone hurls a ping pong ball past his ear. The air smells like beer, cheap cologne, and the citrus-synthetic scent of a dozen different hair products. He steps over a knocked-over Solo cup and feels it stick to his shoe for two full steps before letting go.

The house is carnivalesque. Someone has looped LED lights over the antlers above the fireplace. The DJ setup—if it can be called that—glows from the dining room like a spaceship crash-landed in suburbia. Oscar catches sight of Lando standing on the staircase, giving what appears to be a pre-battle briefing to a group of pledges.

He makes his way over. “Is this a party or a military coup?” Oscar quips.

Lando, dressed in a white polo shirt that’s already unbuttoned to show off his ridiculous tan, chirps, “Both, ideally.”

“You said last time if more than three people came, you’d kiss the composite.”

“And I will,” Lando replies solemnly, waving off the pledges. They scatter obediently. “Out of gratitude. Right on Mason’s laminated forehead.”

Oscar squints at the crowd. “What happened? You threaten to draft people?”

“Alpha Nu’s Social Chair said she might come. Word got around.”

That catches Oscar off guard. He raises an eyebrow. “The DJ?”

Lando gives a vaguely dismissive gesture. “Not officially. But she has a playlist. People like her taste. Or maybe just her face.”

Oscar drifts off before Lando can say more. It’s not that Oscar cares. He doesn’t. He just—

Okay, the music is good. Not ironically good, not frat-party passable, but objectively good. Layered, textured. A bassline that actually builds. Songs stitched together like a conversation instead of a collision. No abrupt transitions, no whiplash-inducing BPM jumps. Someone cares. Someone curated this.

Which is weird. No one in Greek life cares about anything except optics and ankle tattoos, and maybe the occasional philanthropy event. He pushes past a group doing shots off someone’s stomach and follows the music to its source.

He finds you.

You’re not DJing, exactly. You’re mixing from your laptop, one earbud in, expression vaguely disinterested. Like you’re scoring a film no one else has seen. Like you’ve done this a dozen times and never been impressed.

Oscar recognizes you. Kind of. Alpha Nu’s infamous Social Chair. The one who once convinced an entire fraternity to re-theme their winter formal so it wouldn’t overlap with your aesthetic vision. The one who dated Sigma Zeta’s Logan Sargeant for three weeks before breaking up with him via GMail.

You’re wearing sunglasses. Inside. At night.

God, you’re fucking obnoxious.

Oscar sidles up beside you like a challenge. Like a dare. “Is this a setlist or a flex?” he says in lieu of a greeting.

You don’t look at him. “Does it matter?”

He shrugs. “Only if you’re trying to outshine the party.”

You glance at him then, just long enough for him to see the smirk tug at your mouth. “Maybe the party should keep up,” you say.

Oscar hates how much that thrills him. He leans against the table, arms crossed. “You always DJ your enemies’ events?”

“Only when they’re tragically under-stimulated.”

“Delta Sig is plenty stimulating.”

You nod toward the living room. “Someone just tried to eat a glowstick.”

He follows your gaze. Lando’s doing shots with someone in a lobster costume. Oscar turns back, trying to pretend his best friend is not embarrassing him in front of the hottest girl within a fifty mile radius. “Okay,” says Oscar solemnly, “point taken.”

You lower your sunglasses. Meet his eyes. “Did you want something, Delta Sig?” you drawl. “Or are you just here to commentate?”

Oscar tilts his head, considers. Then offers his hand. “Oscar.”

You don’t shake it. You just say your name and return your attention to the screen. The music shifts. A deeper, slower beat slides in, something low and sticky and magnetic. He feels it in his knees.

You say, without looking at him, “If you’re going to stand there all night, at least make yourself useful.”

Oscar smiles, because of course you’re going to be like this. “I intend to,” he says just for the sake of saying something.

More people arrive.

Oscar notices it not in the volume but in the weave of the crowd. The faces get shinier. Glossed, bejeweled, more daring in silhouette. Platform boots on carpet. Crop tops in defiance of the marine layer. Someone walks in carrying a box of White Claw like it’s a peace offering to the gods. He thinks he sees a Theta Psi guy dressed like a referee for no reason.

Your sisters show up all at once, like a coordinated strike. Tall girls with glittery lids and matte lips, weaving through Delta Sig like they own the place. Maybe they do. One of them gives Oscar a nod that’s not quite flirtation. More like acknowledgment. Recognition of ecosystem.

He drifts. Says hi to Alex, who’s halfway through a conversation about microdosing and NFT futures. Lance spills a beer on his own foot and blames the rug. Lando is still trying to convince someone to pledge by comparing fraternity life to a meritocracy with better T-shirts.

But Oscar keeps circling back to you.

It’s not intentional. It’s gravitational. Something about the way you don’t try to command attention. You just... have it. The way you flick through your laptop with fingers that know exactly where they’re going. No hesitation. No playlist, like Lando had claimed. Just instinct and memory and maybe a little malice.

He shows up beside you again sometime after eleven, holding a cup that’s 60% ice and 40% a mystery. “Okay,” he says, as the beat drops, voice pitched just loud enough for you and no one else to hear. “You’re mixing synth-pop with UK garage. That’s illegal in three countries.”

“This isn’t one of them,” you say through your teeth.

“It’s weirdly working.”

“I know.”

He watches you add a vocal sample, distorted just enough to sound like memory. “You ever consider doing this professionally?” (Oscar is flirting, he thinks. He’s never really had to do it before.)

“You ever consider shutting up?”

Oscar almost laughs. He raises his cup, hiding his smile behind it as he hums, “Cheers.”

He leaves. Returns twenty minutes later. This time, he offers a suggestion. “You could loop that outro and overlay the bridge from the last track. Would buy you ten seconds.”

You pause. Not long, just enough for him to register it. Then you do it. Exactly that. And it does work. You don’t say anything.

He tries again later. “Little heavy on the snare. Might want to EQ that down.”

You adjust the levels silently. It becomes a pattern. He critiques. You implement. Like he’s a mirror you refuse to admit you’re checking.

Until—

“Okay, no,” you snap, somewhere between 12:13 and 12:19 AM. “Do you want to DJ?”

Oscar blinks. "What?"

You swivel, finally facing him. You’re flushed—not from the heat but from restraint. The kind of anger that simmers under professionalism. “You’ve been offering unsolicited advice all night like you’re auditioning for a guest spot on Pitchfork,” you spit. “If you think you can do better, do better.”

The words land like a dare. Not loud enough to draw a crowd, but just sharp enough to cut through the music.

Oscar’s first instinct is to deflect. To make a joke. To raise his hands and walk away. But he doesn’t. He sees it—the frayed edge beneath your veneer. The strain of precision. The desire to be left alone colliding with the desire to be heard. It’s less about music and more about proving something.

Maybe to him. Maybe to yourself. Maybe to a party full of people who never really listen.

Oscar nods. Slowly. “Alright.”

He doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to. Not really. Only that he is. That something inside him is shifting to make room for it.

You step aside. The crowd doesn’t notice. The music doesn’t stop. But Oscar’s heartbeat ticks up like it knows this is the moment. For the first time tonight, he’s not circling; he’s landing.

Oscar doesn’t feel nervous.

There’s a click as he slides his hand across the mixer, like muscle memory waking up from a nap. He’s done this before. In his room. In basements. On a borrowed controller with a cracked jog wheel and only one functioning RCA cable. House music was the first thing he ever claimed without irony. Something about the way it moved without needing permission. It made space where there was none.

He’d picked up mixing sometime sophomore year. Quietly, without the SoundCloud repost campaign or the viral thirst trap TikToks. No brand. No name. Just a kid in headphones, looping vocal samples and slicing kicks until it felt like something he could live inside.

He shifts the tempo—just a little—and bleeds out of ANOTR into WizTheMC. It’s smooth. So smooth. Like walking downstairs without looking. Like pouring something expensive without spilling.

Charli xcx rolls in next, half for the girls, half for the serotonin. He lets the synths swell just long enough to hook the ones who are paying attention. Someone screams, “Who’s DJing?”

Lando shouts up from across the room, beer in hand like a flag. “That’s my boy! That’s my Exchequer!”

Oscar doesn’t look over. Doesn’t need to. Because you’re still there by his side, like you didn’t mean to stay but couldn’t quite leave.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Maybe disdain. Maybe indifference. What he sees on your face—caught between frustration and lust—is so much better. Your arms are crossed. Your eyes narrow as he fades in a percussion track underneath a bassline that shouldn’t work, but does. You look like you want to slap him. Or kiss him. Or both.

And that?

That does something to him.

He’s never considered himself the one-night stand type. He’s the fraternity’s most well-guarded secret. The one who remembers birthdays and sets up chairs for philanthropy events. He knows the quarterly budget down to the cent. Girls don’t usually flirt with that guy. They trust him with their phones when they want to take a picture. They call him a sweetheart like it’s a curse.

But right now, you’re leaning into his side, brushing hair out of your face with a motion that’s all precision and impatience. “You’re heavy on the low end,” you snap. “It’s drowning the mids.”

He adjusts the EQ. “Sure. Want me to run the lighting rig while I’m at it?”

“God, you’re so—”

You don’t finish the sentence. You just scowl, fingers already reaching to tweak the next transition. Your shoulder brushes his. He doesn’t move away. “Pitch it up two BPM,” you mutter.

He does.

You nod. But your eyes are still narrowed, like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s messing with you or just naturally this irritating. Oscar flashes a grin that’s rarely on his face at parties like this. “You always this fun at parties?”

You roll your eyes, but you don’t leave.

And so he keeps mixing, keeps obeying every clipped command you throw his way. Shift the vocal loop, cut the reverb, bring back the original tempo. He does it all, fast, without question, and he hates how much he likes it. How sharp you sound. How good it feels to be barked at by someone who knows what they’re doing.

He’s aroused.

God help him, he’s aroused by criticism.

You reach past him to kill the echo effect and mutter, “If you weren’t so cocky, you’d be almost good.”

He doesn’t respond. He just lets the music swell, watches your profile in the glow of the mixing screen.

Oscar realizes with a kind of sinking feeling that he’d rather be ‘almost good’ in your eyes than the best in anyone else’s.

The crowd gets loose and glossy as the night progresses. Hips slung sideways and necks glinting with sweat. The beat has been steady for thirty minutes straight—his doing. So when he punches in the synth-washed intro of Let It Happen, it’s not about them, or Lando, or you. It’s about him. Oscar thought he had earned the right to be indulgent.

Which is, apparently, where things go wrong.

You elbow past someone in a rhinestone corset and march up to the booth like a woman on a mission. You don’t even say anything at first, just shoot him a look that could peel paint. Oscar grins like he’s won something. He hasn’t. He just likes the shape of your anger and how hot it makes you underneath the dim lights.

“Tame Impala?” you say.

He shrugs. “It’s a classic.”

“It’s a self-indulgent eight-minute spiral.”

“Exactly.”

You reach for the controls and he shifts to block you, one hand catching yours mid-air, the other bracing on the table. A beat passes. Then another. He leans forward, deliberately, his chest pressed flush to your back, arms caging you in.

You tense. Then don't.

The song bleeds into another, and together—reluctantly, warily, almost rhythmically—you mix. It’s less of a duet and more of a hostile co-parenting situation, but still. Somehow, it works.

Oscar queues up something bass-heavy; you swap it out for an early 2010s deep cut. You roll your eyes when he reintroduces the ANOTR loop; he scoffs when you pitch-shift too hard into Jungle. He doesn’t move away, not once. Doesn’t let you, either.

People are watching now. He can feel it. It’s the most anybody has probably ever seen him with a girl, but he’s too busy trying to queue up PAWSA to care. He only really looks up when the flash goes off.

A girl with a disposable camera shouts something neither of you hear. Reflexively, Oscar drops his chin to your shoulder and grins, half-lidded and shameless. The picture is probably going to end up blurry and underexposed, but it’s a moment. You don’t pull away. You even lift your hand in a mock peace sign.

Oscar thinks he might die happy now.

And then—of course—you try to queue up Modjo.

He swats your hand away, quick as a reflex. “Absolutely not.”

You grind back into him, slow and deliberate. Weaponized. He swears—low, startled—and you throw your head back laughing. You’re both ridiculous. He’s so dizzy he think he might pass out. You pull off your Modjo and Oscar lets you, his chin still hooked over your shoulder.

It’s the most alive he’s felt since rush week sophomore year, and you’re not even trying. That’s the thing that ruins him most.

Eventually, Lando’s voice slices through the foggy booth air like a cymbal crash: “Alright, lovebirds, out. You’re cluttering my sonic vision.”

Oscar doesn’t flinch. If anything, he leans in harder against your back, like he might merge with you out of sheer defiance. Your elbow catches him in the ribs—pointed, practiced—and you slip out from under him with the kind of regal detachment that should look ridiculous on someone in glitter eyeliner and worn-in Air Forces. But it doesn’t. You walk like you’ve inherited the pavement.

He watches you disappear into the crowd, flashing lights stuttering across your shoulder blades. It hits him like a car crash in slow motion: he wants to follow you into one of the dingy upstairs bathrooms, slam the door behind you, fog up the mirror until it spits back ghosts. He wants to press you against cracked tile, not to conquer, but to ruin. Just a little. To see what you look like coming apart, breath hitching, lip bitten, pulse stuttering beneath your collarbone. You, raw. You, tangled in his hoodie. You, undone because of him.

But fantasy is slippery. You’re already out of reach.

So he goes after you.

The house exhales behind him. Outside, the air is cooler. Cut through with late-summer softness, warm concrete and chlorinated echoes. Sprinklers click somewhere out on the quad. The front lawn is a battlefield: overturned lawn chairs, glittered Solo cups, someone’s sock draped over a fence post.

You’re standing near the porch light, haloed in amber, your outline all angles and challenge. He jogs up, not trying to be quiet about it.

“Wow,” you say without turning. “Didn’t peg you for the chasing type.”

He smirks, feigning composure. Hands in his pockets. Like he’s not seconds away from offering you his throat. “I’m full of surprises,” he says, aiming for breezy and landing somewhere around manic.

You turn to face him, eyes narrowed, still buzzing from the music or maybe just from proximity. “This your idea of courtship? A remix and a semi?”

He barks out a surprised laugh. “I mean. I didn’t hear you complaining.”

You raise an eyebrow. “I was trying to maintain the vibe.”

“You were grinding on me.”

“That was retaliation.”

Oscar shrugs, half-smile tucked into his cheek. “Still worked.”

You tilt your head, considering him like he’s a quiz you forgot to study for. “What is it you want, exactly?”

He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even blink. “I want to see you again.”

That stalls you. Just for a moment. You shift your weight, looking off to the side. The music from inside is muffled now, just a pulse underfoot. Your eyes come back to his face—searching. Testing.

“Maybe,” you say. Light. Teasing. But then you step forward and press a kiss to his cheek. Soft. Barely there. A postscript.

You turn like you really meant to leave this time. Here’s the thing: Oscar should let you go. That’s what the cool version of him would do. Shrug, say something clever, walk back inside like he didn’t just get metaphorically drop-kicked by your chapstick.

But Oscar’s never been cool.

His hand finds your wrist. Not yanking. Just asking. You glance back, eyebrow lifted in mock offense. There’s answer in your silence, in the half-step you take back in his space.

Oscar kisses you.

It’s not smooth. Not cinematic. It’s all heat and teeth and wanting. His hands anchor you by the hips, yours twist in the collar of his shirt. You lean into it like you’re pulling him down with you. He swears he can feel the axis of his world tilt, just slightly, just enough.

When you break apart, both of you breathless and stunned, he stares at you like he’s just seen something holy. Your lipstick is wrecked, your grin feral. You pat his cheek once. Mocking, tender. “Oh, baby,” you coo, “you’re in trouble now.”

Then you disappear. His own personal Cinderella, leaving him with lip gloss on his mouth and adrenaline in his chest.

You couldn’t have said it better. He’s in trouble.

For once, Oscar is not late.

Which, already, feels like a narrative rupture. Like the fabric of the universe has tilted sideways to accommodate this anomaly: Oscar Piastri, present, upright, and fifteen minutes early to an elective class on a Monday morning. He even brought coffee. The good kind. Not the stuff from the frat house kitchen that tastes like burnt ambition and unresolved tension.

He settles into the back row of the small lecture hall, feeling the rare, almost illicit thrill of preparedness. Syllabus printed. Pen uncapped. A notebook opened to the first page with the words POLITICS OF MUSIC scribbled at the top in deliberately indifferent handwriting. This is supposed to be an easy win: a few discussions about protest songs, maybe a documentary or two, and a chance to argue about Bob Dylan without anyone asking him for a spreadsheet.

He sips his coffee and exhales. For once, the semester feels like something he might actually enjoy. Like something he chose for himself. No frat obligations, no networking games. Just music. Politics. Conversation. An excuse to exist outside himself for ninety minutes twice a week.

And then you walk in.

It doesn’t hit him at first. It’s the morning version of you—hair swept up, oversized hoodie hiding any glitter from the night before, arms full of books. But the way you move is unmistakable. Confident. Collected. A little predatory, if he’s being honest. Like you’re casing the room for weak spots.

He freezes, halfway through another sip of his drink. You scan the room once, spot him, and smile like you’re already in on the joke. “No,” he says softly to himself. “Abso-fucking-lutely not.”

But the universe, apparently, is not taking feedback this morning. You make your way to the row he’s in, climbing the stairs with the grace of someone who knows the view’s better from above. And then, with ruthless precision, you take the seat next to him. Not one down. Not in the adjacent row. Right there. Knee to knee.

“Morning, loverboy,” you say, voice low and amused.

He coughs into his coffee. He only mumbles a meek ‘hi’ back, his ears burning red with the heat of how different he is in a classroom and, say, Lando’s basement. You don’t press. You don’t have to. Your mere presence is enough to set him on edge, and you know it.

The professor arrives right on the hour. Sir Lewis Hamilton. Black turtleneck, immaculate tattoos, the kind of charisma that makes the room sit up straighter. He launches straight into an opening lecture about sound as protest, about Nina Simone and Kendrick Lamar and the literal weaponization of rhythm.

Oscar tries to focus. Really, he does.

But he can feel you. Not in a poetic way. In a very real, very physical way. Your thigh brushing his. The faint scent of your skin care products and mint gum. The little doodle you’re scribbling in the margins of your syllabus. The way your pen taps twice every time Lewis says the word subversion.

You don’t look at Oscar, but he knows you’re aware. Of course you are. Then Lewis says the thing, the one that Oscar should have printed on his tombstone: “By the way, the person next to you? That’s your semester partner. Seating is now locked in, people.”

Oscar’s stomach drops like an elevator losing tension.

You turn to him, slow and satisfied, with that same wicked smile he remembers from Saturday night. The one that came right after he kissed you.

You hold out your hand. “Hi, partner,” you say, saccharinely sweet.

He begs the ground to swallow him whole. When it doesn’t, he takes your hand. “Looking forward to it,” Oscar says without meeting your eyes.

You hold his hand a little too long. You even give it a little squeeze. Oscar wants to die.

When you let go, he tries to hide the tremor in his fingers by picking up his pen. Maybe he can pretend that he’s taking notes about Hamilton’s dissection of Rage Against the Machine.

Week one, Oscar writes. I am fucked fucked fucked. ⛐

#oscar piastri x reader #n's hall of fame

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