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formulahs · 19 hours ago

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When Carlos gets up out of bed, his knees creak and Oscar muffles a laugh into his wrist. Not successfully, because Carlos’s head snaps back and he scowls at Oscar. It’s ridiculous what Carlos looks like at 42, carrying all the dignified signifiers of age like grey streaking his temples and laugh lines, and showing absolutely no sign of the bad ones like baldness or jowls. The less said about Oscar’s hairline at 35, the better, although most of the damage there occurred long before his thirties.

“Who’d have thought,” Oscar says, still a little giddy with alcohol and endorphins. He always gets talky after coming. “After all the like, on-track rivalry and, y’know. Crazy.”

“Ehh,” Carlos says, picking through the heap of clothes on the floor to determine which are his own, apparently intent on turning this one-night stand into a half-night stand. “Kind of obvious, no?”

“Obvious?” Oscar says. He might have misheard, distracted by looking at the muscles of Carlos’s back moving under his skin as he bends down to pick up a sock. Retirement looks good on Carlos, his frame filled out a little, leanness intercut with small pockets of softness that felt good under Oscar’s hands and even better between his teeth.

“Yeah,” Carlos says, tugging his briefs up over his legs. Oscar didn’t know Carlos, like, did this, now. Flirt in Monaco bars, hook up with men, leave in the middle of the night. “You make me question my sexuality, I hit you with my car. Classic.”

“Uhh,” Oscar says and Carlos turns around in the middle of untangling his shirt, giving Oscar a strange look. “You kept pushing me off track because you thought I was hot?”

“And vice versa,” Carlos says. “I am not taking all the blame for this.”

“I didn’t think you were hot,” Oscar sputters. “I thought you were annoying.”

“Pshaw,” Carlos says dismissively. “I also thought you were annoying. They don’t cancel each other out. If anything, the opposite.”

“No, wait,” Oscar says. “Go back to the—I made you question your—? Me?”

“Os-carrrr,” Carlos admonishes him and Oscar blinks before he realises Carlos thinks he’s fishing. To reiterate his point, Oscar waves a hand in front of his face and upon reflection, over his body as well. He’s not insecure or anything, he’s just aware of the fact that Oscar has to rely a little heavier on character to make people like him than Carlos does and in the years Carlos is referring to, Oscar wasn’t really treating Carlos to his best performance, personality-wise. “Oh, don’t act like that. You were very—with the teeth and the—” Carlos makes a vague, swoopy gesture in front of his face. “—hair. Insufferable, also. Which made it extra annoying that I thought you were cute.”

“You had a crush on me?” Oscar asks and Carlos rolls his eyes, starts doing up the buttons on his shirt. It’s over a decade ago, but Oscar can still conjure up how he felt after Miami, after Spa, after Monaco, the way his blood would fizzle in his veins when he’d see Carlos after the race, relaxed and talking to the media, easily calling Oscar a rookie and overly optimistic and inexperienced while the only word that would reverberate through Oscar’s skull was cunt cunt cunt. Remembers 2025, where he’d pull up next to Carlos to lap him and wonder, for just a fraction of second, whether Carlos would let his car step out in the slightest, wheels tapping as Oscar passed him, but Carlos never did and Oscar didn’t know what to label the feeling, because disappointment couldn’t be right. And he remembers the first time, in 2026, when it turned out Williams had gotten the new regulations right, when Carlos pulled up next to him in turn 1, lap 1 and Oscar had thought, fucking finally, before pushing him off track.

“Oh my god,” Oscar says. “I had a crush on you.”

“Yuh-uh,” Carlos says and Oscar can’t believe he forgot how fucking smug Carlos could be, what his stupid face looked like when he was looking at Oscar thinking he knew better than him, his dumb, fat lips curling into a self-satisfied smirk, his ridiculous eyes creasing with it.

“Don’t go,” Oscar says, his idiot mouth bypassing his brain altogether, because that’s what Carlos does to Oscar. Nearing one-and-a-half decades of exposure and somehow, Oscar’s still that rookie with a chip on his shoulder scowling at Carlos. Wanting Carlos’s anger and his respect and his frustration and mainly just his attention. “You can’t just tilt my entire worldview and then leave.”

“I cannot believe you didn’t notice,” Carlos says, but his hands reverse course and start undoing the buttons he just fastened. “Did you all this time just think I just really liked hitting you with my car?”

“Um,” Oscar says and his silence is damning, because Carlos pauses while freeing his wrist from his shirt sleeve and his eyes widen.

“Oh my god,” Carlos says. “I was going through the most harrowing realisation of my life and you were just—you were just there. In my way.”

“I’m making up for it now,” Oscar says, reaching out and making grabby-hands motions in Carlos’s direction, because this conversation has really healed him of any notion he still has dignity on any and all matters involving Carlos. “On the realisations front. It’s kind of fucking me up, if I’m being honest.”

“Good,” Carlos says, sliding between the sheets and into Oscar’s open, waiting arms.

#MIDLIFE HOOKUP???????????? THANK GOD #fic rec

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formulahs · 20 hours ago

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Ooooo for the prompts 11) mother in law, I was originally going to say maxiel but this seems more fun w carcar

Aaah, first I was unsure, but oh my god...This was so fun to write! My first time writing carcar in an established relationship as well. I love writing established relationships btw! Thank you for prompting me!!! Here is 11) mother in law, carcar, around 2k words:

They don’t speak for the first stretch of the drive. Not heavy silence, just the kind that sits evenly on your lap. The radio murmurs. The vents do their quiet push of air. Carlos keeps adjusting them even though it’s fine. Oscar drives like the car came with him.

At the lights, Carlos says, “I am sweating.”

“You’re not sweating,” Oscar says. He checks his blind spot like it insulted him once.

“I am sweating emotionally,” Carlos says. “Different category.”

“That’s not a category,” Oscar says, and then, because he can’t help himself, “But your hands are a bit clammy. I noticed earlier.”

Carlos wipes his palms on his thighs. “Traitor.”

It's actually a crime that Oscar took so long to introduce him to his mother, Carlos thinks.

They roll past a man walking a dog the size of a pillow. Carlos follows it with his eyes. “That dog is too small. It looks like...how do you say—a croissant with legs. Probably called croissant too.”

“You have Piñón,” Oscar says.

“Piñón is a proper dog,” Carlos says instantly. “This is…snack-sized.”

“You named your dog after a pine nut,” Oscar says.

“Piñón fits him. He is not too small but very dignified.”

“Sure,” Oscar says, but he’s smiling.

Another set of lights. The sky is that thin gold Melbourne does before it remembers it’s winter again.

“Okay,” Carlos says. “Give me the rules.”

“Shoes off,” Oscar says. “Say yes to tea. If she offers food, take it even if you’re full. If she says, ‘Come look at this,’ you go. No asking what it is.”

“That’s all?” Carlos asks. “No…formal titles?”

“Nicole,” Oscar says at once. “Please don’t ‘Mrs Piastri’ her. She’ll get that look.”

“A look?”

“You’ll know it if you see it.”

Carlos drums his fingers on his knee. “What if she does not like me?”

“She will,” Oscar says.

“You are very sure.”

“Because—” Oscar starts, and then he blows out a breath and says it like he’s telling the road, “Because I love you.”

Carlos looks straight ahead. His ribs do that thing where they become too many. He swallows. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Oscar says, dry, but his hands go steady in a way they weren’t before.

“No, I mean— good,” Carlos says. “It is good that you love me.”

“Yeah,” Oscar says, deadpan, but the corner of his mouth tips up. “It is.”

“And I love you,” Carlos says, equally casual, equally not. He can feel the words settle in the car like a weight that makes everything level.

“Okay,” Oscar says softly, like they’ve ticked the last box on a form no one else saw.

They take a left. The indicator clicks. Tick. Tick. Two polite little knocks.

“Any other things?” Carlos asks. “She likes football? She hates architects?”

“She’ll call you handsome,” Oscar says. “Immediately.”

Carlos blinks. “Immediately?”

“Yes. And then she’ll tell me I’m ‘punching.’”

“Punching?”

“Out of my league.”

Carlos thinks about it. “She is correct.”

Oscar snorts despite himself. “You’re unbearable.”

“I am preparing,” Carlos says. “Also, should we have brought…flowers or something?”

“No flowers! She likes mandarins with the leaves on,” Oscar says like it's normal. “But they have to be the right size. Too big and she thinks they’re show-offs.”

“Why are we not bringing mandarins then?”

“Because I love you,” Oscar says again, with the exact same tone he uses for weather and food choices.

Carlos smiles faintly at the window, but his voice is warm when he says, “You didn’t always say it that easy.”

Oscar flicks him a look. “Yeah, well. You didn’t always make it that easy.”

Carlos lets out a laugh, quick and pleased, and the rest of the street hums by, little shopfronts with peeling paint, a corner bar with the lights already on, a tram clanging far enough away to sound friendly.

“You’re stalling,” Oscar says finally.

“I am not stalling.”

“You’re stalling like you stalled the first three months we knew each other.”

Carlos turns in his seat. “Excuse me, I stalled? You were the one who took forty-seven years to realise I was interested.”

“Forty-seven is generous,” Oscar says. “It was closer to fifty.”

Carlos groans and sits back. “Unbelievable. I should have just kissed you the first week.”

Oscar smirks. “You’d have scared me off.”

“See? This is why it took so long,” Carlos says, pointing at him. “You live in your head, doing maths about feelings, while I am—” he gestures at himself— “here.”

“That’s not an argument,” Oscar says, but he’s grinning as they turn down a street where every lawn looks recently told off. The houses sit back from the road like well-behaved dogs. Somewhere, someone’s sprinkler makes a little metronome out of the air.

“Ready?” Oscar asks at the curb.

“No,” Carlos says. “Yes.”

They walk up the path edged with rosemary. The porch light is already on. Oscar raises a hand to knock. The door opens before he gets there.

Nicole fills the doorway like she was built for it. Jeans, jumper, hair down, that open Australian smile that reads as an invitation and a dare. She hugs Oscar first, fast and firm, and then turns to Carlos and looks him up and down with delight.

“Oh thank God,” she says. “You’re handsome.”

Carlos forgets most of his words for a second. “Gracias. I—hello. Hi.”

“Shoes off, love,” she says, stepping back. “Not for the carpet. For my blood pressure.”

They toe off their shoes. Oscar lines his up without looking. Carlos lines his as if the shoes might be graded later. The hallway smells like lemon and butter and laundry powder. Frames on the wall: little Oscar with a tragic hair cut surrounded by his sisters, Nicole squinting at a barbecue, a dog in antlers. Someone has written that’s not your hat on the frame in marker.

“In the kitchen,” Nicole says, already moving.

The kitchen isn’t designer-perfect...it’s used-perfect. Tea steam curls up from a fat pot. A plate sits under a tea towel in the middle. A bowl of mandarins gleams, stems and leaves on like they’re not fully resigned to being indoors.

“Sit,” Nicole says, pointing to the table. “Carlos, milk? Sugar?”

“Milk, no sugar,” he says.

“Same,” Oscar says.

“No one asked you,” Nicole tells him, sliding a mug to Carlos first. “Biscuit?”

Carlos reaches, hesitates, reaches again. “Shortbread?”

“Correct,” Nicole says. “Eat two so I can trust you.”

“Mum,” Oscar says, long-suffering already.

“It’s a joke,” Nicole says. “I trust him more than I trust you. Look at him. He has honest eyebrows.”

Carlos bites into the biscuit to stop a laugh and then laughs anyway. It’s perfec, butter and sugar and care.

Nicole watches him, satisfied. “So,” she says, eyes bright. “Who asked who out?”

“Mum,” Oscar says, warning built in.

“I’m making conversation,” she says, innocent as a lamp.

“I asked him,” Carlos says, quick because it feels like the right line to take. “But it took long because he is very—” he gestures to Oscar without malice— “in his head.”

Nicole gives the world’s most unsurprised nod. “Absolutely. He was like that with even with the toaster. Took a week to admit he liked it.”

“I never said—” Oscar starts.

“You said everything with your little face,” Nicole says. “Whole paragraphs.”

“I don’t have a face,” Oscar says, which goes over poorly for obvious reasons.

“You have a face,” Nicole says, saintly. “And the face says a lot. Carlos, does he do that thing with his mouth? The…pressed line when he’s pretending he’s fine?”

Carlos chokes on a laugh. “Sí.”

Nicole points at Oscar’s mouth. “There it is.”

Oscar drops his forehead to his palm. “This is why it took so long. Why are we here?”

“Because I wanted to meet the man who made you look at your phone like it’s poetry,” Nicole says, sipping her tea. “I told all my friends about the hot Spaniard! Imagine if I had to lie about him. I’d have to go to confession and I’m not even Catholic.”

Carlos stares into his mug to keep his brain attached to the hinges. Oscar groans.

“Alright,” Nicole says, clapping her hands once, tiny. “Quick mission. Carlos, come with me. Oscar, stay. Consider your sins.”

Oscar looks instantly wary. “Do I need to call someone?”

“No,” Nicole says, cheerful. “It’s not a snake.”

“It better not be a snake,” Oscar says, and when Carlos follows Nicole down the hall he hears him mutter, “It’s never a snake until it is.”

The laundry is domestic ambition. A massive drying rack is wedged diagonally in the doorway like a metal giraffe caught in a turn. A basket of clean shirts balances on top as if belief alone will keep it there.

Nicole sets her hands on her hips. “I thought I could pivot it,” she says. “I was wrong. Rescue me. Don’t smash that vase. My friend made it and she will know.”

Carlos grimaces in sympathy at the vase, then grips the rack. “On three,” he says. “One, two—now.”

They angle, shimmy, lift, swear softly in two languages. Nicole narrates like an air traffic controller: “Left, no, your left, sweetie—hold—good—mind the silk shirt, that’s my funeral outfit, don’t crush it and I’ll live forever.”

They clear the doorway with a sigh.

“Look at that,” Nicole says, delighted. “What a man.”

Carlos grins, breathless for no good reason. He wipes his hands on his jeans. “All good.”

“Don’t tell Oscar,” Nicole says in a stage whisper. “He’ll get competitive.”

“Too late,” Oscar says from the doorway, because he is a soft-footed menace. “How long have you known him? Ten minutes? You’re already conspiring.”

“Fifteen,” Nicole says. “We’re best friends now. Go make me proud by acting normal for five minutes.”

“I don’t have that in my toolkit,” Oscar says, but he is smiling, so the mission is declared a success.

Back in the kitchen, the teapot has done its job. Nicole whips the towel off the plate with a flourish: a cake, sticky jam line in the middle. “Not fancy,” she says, which is how people introduce something they’ll defend in court.

Carlos takes a square and tries not to look like a man who wants to propose marriage to a baked good. “It is perfect.”

“Correct,” Nicole says, then turns the interrogation lamp back on Oscar. “So. When did you realise you fancied him?”

“Mum,” Oscar says in a tone that suggests leaving the country.

“What?” Nicole says. “I’m allowed to ask. I’ve seen the way you talk about him. You did that thing...what was it—oh!” Her eyes light. “Remember after that meeting? You called and you were pretending not to care and then you did your little voice—”

“I don’t have a little voice,” Oscar says, doomed.

Nicole drops into a ridiculous low register, “‘It’s not that big a deal anyway, hey,’” and then snorts at herself. “God, that was the worst Oscar impression. But the energy. The energy was ‘if I pretend it’s rubbish then no one can see me wanting it.’”

Carlos looks between them, delighted and horrified. Oscar looks like he’s trying to fold himself into the teapot.

“So how did you get together eventually?” Nicole asks, suddenly softer, actually curious, and it’s not a trap so much as a hand held out.

“There’s no normal way to explain it,” Oscar says, then clamps his mouth shut.

“Try anyway,” Nicole says.

He shakes his head. “Later.”

“Fine,” she says, and pivots without friction. “Then we’ll talk about how you’re punching.”

“Mum—”

“Don’t ‘Mum’ me. Look at him.” She points at Carlos like a game show hostess. “He looks like—like they messed up at the dude factory and set the dial to ‘too handsome.’ The whole machine’s rattling. Sparks. HR is involved.”

Carlos covers his face with one hand. “Oh.”

“And you,” Nicole says to Oscar, fondly savage, “look like a smoke show too—”

“Mum,” Oscar says, appalled. “Don’t—”

“—but in a quiet way,” she finishes, undeterred. “If he walked past my Pilates class, half the room would fall off their reformers. The other half would say something about his bone structure.”

Carlos peeks through his fingers. “Bone structure,” he repeats, helplessly amused.

“Exactly,” Nicole says, triumphant, and then she reaches across and pats Carlos’s wrist. “Don’t worry, darling, I’m not trying to adopt you. Yet.”

Oscar points at the bowl. “Give him the mandarins and you will.”

“I’m going to,” Nicole says, matter-of-fact. “But only the good ones. With leaves. I have standards.”

They settle, finally, into a rhythm that feels less like an interview and more like a dinner with running commentary. Nicole asks about Madrid properly. What food is actually good, which streets feel safe at midnight. Carlos answers in bits. He tells her about his abuela’s kitchen, too small and always too warm, onions and garlic in everything, a pot that lived on the stove year-round because it was more a family member than a tool.

“Good,” Nicole says. “Food should be a person.”

Oscar sips his tea, content to let them trade stories and jabs. Every now and then he tries to steer the conversation away from an embarrassing anecdote. Nicole is immune to steering.

“I remember when Oscar labelled every drawer,” she tells Carlos, beaming. “Every single one. And then you got offended when I used them.”

“That’s a lie,” Oscar says, eyes closed.

“It’s absolutely true,” Nicole says. “He used the label maker like it was a hobby. Spoon Drawer. Knife Drawer. Drawer Drawer. My favourite was Mystery Drawer.”

“What was in it?” Carlos asks, compelled.

“Mysteries,” Nicole says solemnly. “Rubber bands. Batteries that we called ‘maybe.’ One single Allen key.”

Carlos laughs so hard he has to set his mug down. Oscar stares at the fridge like if he focuses hard enough he can phase through it.

The conversation is actually easy with her and towards the end they agree on a meet-up with Oscar's sisters, which Oscar looks terrified by.

Nicole grabs a jar from a shelf by the door as they slip into their shoes again. “Pesto,” she says, handing it to Carlos. “I made it myself. You’ll take that.”

“I can’t—”

“You can,” she says. “And you will.”

She packs a paper bag with mandarins, choosing them like a jeweller, flicking stems, discarding one with a spot and adds two slices of the cake into the bag as well. She looks delighted.

Nicole hugs Oscar first, long enough to fix the set of his shoulders. Then she hugs Carlos, properly, cheek pressed briefly to his. “Lovely meeting you, darling,” she says into his shoulder. “Truly. Next time I’ll bring out the really embarrassing albums.”

“I look forward,” Carlos says.

Nicole tucks the paper bag under his arm like it is a baby. “Text me when you get home,” she says. “Both of you. I’m not being left on read.”

“We will,” Oscar says.

“And don’t let him eat your slice in the car,” she tells Carlos. “He’ll try. He’s slippery.”

Carlos clutches the bag. “He will not succeed.”

Oscar glares very without heat. “I wasn’t going to.”

“You absolutely were,” Nicole says. “I raised you. I know the crimes you’ll commit.”

They make it to the porch. The night is cool and clear. The porch light puts a ring around them. Nicole leans on the frame, happy.

“Go on, before I start giving you leftovers you didn’t ask for,” she says.

Oscar steps down first, Carlos a half-step behind, the paper bag tucked like something fragile under his arm. The front garden smells faintly of rosemary and wet brick. Nicole’s wave follows them down the path.

At the car, Oscar pauses with his hand on the door. Carlos tilts his head, questioning.

“Thanks for…coming. I know she's not...I don't know,” Oscar says, awkward only in the way sincerity is with him.

Carlos smiles, soft. “You say that like I did not want to come.”

Oscar huffs a laugh through his nose, then reaches out and tugs lightly at the front of Carlos’s jacket, enough to pull him closer, enough to make it not an accident. Carlos steps in the rest of the way, one hand finding the side of Oscar’s neck like he’s done it a hundred times in the dark before.

The kiss is brief, but steady. Warm. Not for show, not even for Nicole, who’s probably still at the window. Just because the evening deserves it.

When they break apart, Oscar’s mouth tips like he might say something but doesn’t. Carlos grins instead. “Now I really am keeping the slice from you.”

Oscar rolls his eyes, opens the car door, and they get in and he pulls away from the curb. The indicator clicks. The rosemary brushes the tyres on the way out.

“So?” he says, aiming for casual and landing somewhere sweeter.

“So,” Carlos echoes, and then, because he can’t help himself, “She is too funny. And too kind. It’s annoying.”

Oscar smiles into the dark windscreen. “Yeah.”

“She called me handsome,” Carlos says, entirely not smug.

“She has eyes,” Oscar says. “She also said I’m punching.”

“She is correct,” Carlos says solemnly.

“Unbelievable,” Oscar says, but he’s grinning now.

They drive a few blocks in that way you do when the evening has been better than expected and you don’t want to touch it too much. The mandarins smell like a good morning. The foil-wrapped cake radiates promise.

At the next red light, Oscar taps the wheel and then stops tapping. “Hey.”

“Mhm?”

“It did take me too long,” he says, not looking. “At the start.”

Carlos turns his head. “I know.”

“I’m—” Oscar begins, then shakes it off. “I’m in my head. You know.”

“I know,” Carlos says again. “I waited. It was worth it.”

Oscar glances over. The light turns green. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Carlos says. He knocks their knees together, gentle. “Drive. No crashing. I have your cake.”

#this changed my life im not joking #fic rec

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