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Lewis realises he lost his umbrella mid conversation with Kimi and then he makes it everyone's problem:

I lost my umbrella :( where did my umbrella go :( I think i lost an umbrella down here :((?went down the side :( my umbrella :( ?

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este helping jack out of the car

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Formula One//made for this

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Little bit of fic for a Wednesday night.

(contains mpreg, reference to giving birth, Max Verstappen's bad dad and some extremely vague offscreen bad stuff).

rivers of light part 1

The baby cries at check-in. He cries going through security. He cries at the gate. He cries when Max, exhausted, still hurting from giving birth, tries to remember how to collapse the pram at the plane door while holding a baby. He cries when Max curls up into the window seat in the front row, the baby tucked up against him, the flight attendant helping Max by storing his backpack and changing bag in the overhead locker before showing Max how to fasten his belt and his baby's.

Max wants to cry too, but he doesn't, because Max doesn't cry. He cradles the baby's head instead. Kisses his little downy-soft hair. His tiny hands and his little red cheeks. Max's baby doesn't like it when Max isn't holding him. He doesn't like the pushchair. He doesn't like the noise of the airport and the bright lights and being away from the sea. Or maybe that's just Max. Maybe this is a bad idea. He's not ready to race again yet, but when he'd begged this meeting with Cyril, he'd thought it would be easier. He'd thought he'd just give birth and have a baby and be okay again. He thought he'd get his life back, his space on the track, his racing future.

He hadn't known about the… bleeding. He hadn't known how much everything would hurt. About how to feed or how it hurt to go to the toilet or how his fucking tits hurt or anything. He hadn't known anything. If he'd known a single fucking thing he wouldn't have used up all his capital trying to get a meeting with fucking Renault this soon after giving birth.

He'd thought he could cope with being tired. He always had before.

His baby snuffles against him. He's happier being held. He's happier in Max's arms than anywhere else. Max is happier too. His baby. His little baby. He kisses the top of his head.

The plane has filled up, but nobody's come to sit next to Max. Maybe they won't. Maybe he'll get a row to himself, just him and his baby. He can feed him and not feel embarrassed. He can rock him and hope he sleeps, even though his baby's never slept anywhere but Max's little place by the sea.

Max wishes he'd known more before the baby had arrived. He wishes he'd known more before accidentally getting pregnant, before his dad had found out, before his dad had tried to make his baby go away. He wishes he'd had someone to ask. Someone to talk to. Someone to tell him all the things he still doesn't fucking know.

They're about to close the doors of the plane when the final passenger jogs down the air bridge. You only just made it, the flight attendant tells them. Max doesn't look up. He cradles his little baby, who's cried so much he's red-faced and angry, finally looking like he might fall asleep given half a chance.

A bag lands on the seat next to him. Max kisses his baby's head. It's okay, baby. It's okay. Daddy's here. Everything's going to be okay.

"Max?"

Max looks up. It's Daniel. Max hasn't seen him in two long, lonely years. He swallows.

"Max," Daniel says. His curls have grown out. He's in a hoodie even though it's the south of fucking France, even if it's not the cool and exciting and tax-free part where Max had once tried to start living a different life.

The flight attendant's urging Daniel to sit down and buckle up.

Daniel keeps staring down at Max and at Max's tiny red-faced son. "Max."

"Hi," Max says.

"Yeah," Daniel says. "Where the fuck have you been? What the fuck are you doing here?"

Well, Max thinks. Isn't that the ultimate question? As if on cue, his baby starts to cry. Again. Max is so, so, so fucking tired. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what he's doing here either. He wants to cry too, have someone comfort him and look after him like he's trying to do for his son.

"Max," Daniel says, softer this time. He's sat down now, his belt buckled closed. "It's okay. Who's this little beauty, huh?"

Max looks at him. "My baby," he says. He's never introduced him to a friend before. He doesn't have any. Not anymore. Maybe his baby's as lonely as he is.

"What's his name?" Daniel asks.

"Bastiaan," Max says. "His name's Bastiaan."

Max has barely said it out loud before. For a moment, it feels like he's coming to life.

"It's a good name," Daniel says, reaching out to touch Bastiaan's little hand. "Hi, baby. Hi, Bastiaan."

"I missed you," Max says impulsively.

There's a pause. "Yeah," Daniel says. He's looking at Bastiaan. "I missed you too."

[continued here: part two]

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shall we read this story all over again? it'll never be different.

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icarus please I did not wake up at 6am to watch you bin it from first

I do not have time to render this properly but like you see the Vision

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maxiel, galex, scaniel, brocedes!

OOOH OK I am ready.

Maxiel: makes sense, compels the FUCK out of me

I genuinely don’t think there’s been a ship that has compelled me like Maxiel. They make me so insane and I’ve spent the last 8 months of my life going up and down all 200ish AO3 pages in the tag like some kind of deranged possum, searching for more Maxiel content. They just make so much sense in my mind. You have Max, who has been taught his entire life that his only purpose in life is to win races, who is this angry, strung up little kid when he first joins F1…and then he meets Daniel, who is so kind and charismatic and has always been taught to enjoy the moment and the process of it all and just treats him with so much love even when he’s not winning or when he’s getting criticized by the media…and Max finally learns how to enjoy life outside of racing for the first time. Even outside of the general RPF scene of it all, the absolute pivotal Maxiel moments are so important and have so much significance in the grand scheme of the sport. Daniel leaving Red Bull because of Max (to an extent) which then caused a ripple effect on a whole bunch of people’s careers and ultimately led to the Horrors that we are currently living through, but at the end of the day, it’s about “If it can’t be me, I’m glad it’s him” and that fastest lap into “Thank you, Daniel.” Yeah, I could talk about them for DAYS if given the chance.

Galex: makes sense, compels me

They’re everythingggg to me. I love the childhood friends to lovers thing they have going on. The Galex lore is so interesting, like the throat infection incident, the collarbone biking accident, the whole thing about George being Alex’s hype man/personal photographer as a kid… underrated ship fr. They have the best chemistry and their sense of humour actually work so well together, and I NEED more content from them. I also CANNOT ship either of them with anyone else because it just does! Not! Work! In my head. They are each other’s ride or die and I love that for them.

Scaniel: makes sense, does not compel me

I love their friendship a lot and I think they have so much weird gay energy between them, but unfortunately my day one Daniel ship is still Maxiel. I think Scaniel has potential for growth, but unfortunately they do kinda give off besties to me. I will admit they have had some good, shippable moments, but Scotty just feels like a straight man in my mind. I think it’s just the DR effect (every man within a 5 mile radius falls in love with him) that drives this ship forward tbh.

Brocedes: makes sense, compels me A LOT

THIS is THE SHIP of all ships. The lore goes so hard and it’s so devastating to me. I’m a sucker for a good childhood friends to lovers to enemies storyline, so they are right up my alley. It’s just the most insane story that when I tried explaining it to my casual F1 fan friend, they asked me if it was from a movie and I was like NO! This is irl!!! The way that they have a 6 hour, 3 part YouTube docuseries about their relationship is crazy. No other ship has as much angst as them, and no one will ever come close to being them. It’s the way that they fundamentally are a part of each other’s careers and that you cannot mention one without the other, it’s the way that Nico talks about that era of his life and how he could only stomach their childhood favourite cereal on the weekend before cinching the championship, how he ruined his body and soul to beat Lewis and how his retirement changed Lewis’ whole outlook on the sport!!! And through it all, there is an awkward third-wheel in the form of either Daniel Ricciardo or Sebastian Vettel just smiling through the most disgusting vibes a room could ever have, which, in my opinion, adds to the whole drama of the ship. This ship has so much narrative and character and it is so so devastating to think about, I need to see or make a Brocedes movie before I die.

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Your daily affirmations brought to you by Alex Albon

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Oscar Piastri secures the first pole position of his career

"I just had a little scream in my helmet" 😐 girl we cant tell

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The cut to the lovely fan sobbing tears of joy for Oscar and then Oscar's monotonous voice narrating like "mega job guys 😐"

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“Oscar, you haven’t talked.”

“I was quite happy just standing here.” (from twitter/x)

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7: Mouthwash

Lily goes off to shower afterwards, stretching and shooting a cheeky, satisfied look over her shoulder at Alex as she disappears into the bathroom.

George ducks his head like it might give them all some privacy. It feels, bizarrely, like waking up after a big night out - like everything’s fine, for a moment, and then suddenly not at all.

He’s violently aware all of a sudden that this is Alex and Lily’s bedroom. There’s a half-drunk cup of tea on the window ledge, a messy little pile of Alex’s clothes in the corner. Next to George, on the bedside table, there’s a photo of Alex and Lily that he’s never seen before, the two of them smiling cheek-to-cheek. He’d been so focused on keeping himself in check and making sure he was looking at Lily on the way in that he’d hardly noticed any of it; now it feels like nothing is safe.

“Are you hungry?” Alex asks from behind him. “We’re ordering but if you’re feeling macro-conscious I’ve got some meal kits in the fridge you’re welcome to.”

If George turns around he’s going to know what Alex looks like sprawled out naked on the bed, loose and easy, scrolling his phone.

“Oh, that’s kind of you,” George says, grabs his underwear off the floor and pulls them back on. His cock is still sticky from the condom, he feels disgusting. He scans for his jeans, snatches them up too - his shirt’s out in the living room where Lily had tossed it over the back of the couch. “But I’m right, thanks. I’d best be off home anyway, I’ve not finished packing yet.”

“God, neither,” Alex says. “Really though, don’t feel like you need to run off or whatever. We love you, obviously.”

He laughs as he says it, warm and self-aware. It feels for a second like George’s legs are going to give out, like he’s been punched in the head. It’s excruciating to hear Alex say it so casually like that, everything and nothing all at once.

“Do you mind if I use the other bathroom?” George asks instead of answering. He sounds normal, he thinks, but it’s hard to hear himself over the rushing in his ears.

“Yeah, ‘course not,” Alex says, “go for it.”

It’ll be too weird if George doesn’t turn around. He finishes buttoning his jeans and makes himself look up and smile. Alex has one arm tucked under his head. The light from his phone turns the flat plain of his chest blue, sharpens the angles of his face. He’s only sort-of looking at George, distracted by a video of something.

“Cheers,” George manages to say.

He’d thought this might be enough. Alex had started talking about buying a ring months ago, so when he’d carefully asked for this George hadn’t hesitated.

It would be okay to have it this one time, he’d figured, because it would all be so controlled, organised. They’d compared diaries, shared a fucking iCal notification about it. But he hadn’t thought past the getting, what it would be like to feel Alex’s hands on him in the heat of the moment, of getting to see what Alex looked like when he came. There’s so much more now that he hadn’t even considered he would have to try and forget: the way when George had fucked into Lily, Alex’s fingers had pressed right up against the base of George’s dick; the heavy feeling of Alex’s hand on the back of his neck. How Alex’s face had gone slack and hot when he’d watched Lily come; the tender way he’d held her afterwards as she came back to herself.

George collects his shirt from the couch and his backpack from near the door, fumbles his way into the little spare bathroom and locks the door behind him. He dry heaves over the sink; twice, three times.

So he knows now. Good. He’d wanted this, he reminds himself as he splashes water on his face, tries to fix his hair with shaking hands. He won’t ever have old cups of tea on the windowsill or piles of dirty washing on the floor, but he has this now, the searing feeling of Alex’s hand against his bare ribs and the rich low sound of his voice when he’d said fuck, that’s good.

George wrestles his travel kit out of his backpack, the tiny one he takes on flights, and pulls out the mouthwash. At the end, when Alex had already come and they’d had Lily sandwiched between them while George fucked her, Alex had leaned forward and kissed him. George had embarrassed himself; made a stupid, hungry noise and pushed back into it, thrusting into Lily as hard as he could just to feel the resistance of Alex on the other side of her.

Alex had swept his tongue around behind George’s teeth, hot and wet, and then bitten at George’s mouth before pulling back; George had come like that, still leaning forward, trying to chase him. Pathetic.

Everything else he can live with, he thinks as he swirls the mouthwash around in his mouth. If he can just burn that feeling out, wipe out the taste of Alex before the stain sets in, he can probably make himself alright again later.

He spits, rinses again. He looks at himself in the mirror, practices smiling until he can make it look normal each time.

Alex is in the kitchen when George comes out. He’s leaning on the sink, still on his phone, but he’s wearing boxers now at least.

“Right, then,” George says, checking his pockets for his keys, his phone. He smiles, big and easy. “Thanks for a lovely night, then. Say bye to Lily for me, and thanks to her too of course.”

“I mean, thank you,” Alex says. “You’re - you’re all okay? I felt kinda weird after, the first few times with Lil’s mate. Do you need anything?”

“Alex, have you ordered yet? I’m starving,” Lily calls from the bedroom, comfortable and familiar like she’s used to having Alex right there, all the time. At the sound of her voice Alex turns away, glances back to the bedroom.

“I’ll leave both you to it,” George says, slipping out the door.

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All I have are smoking guns (George/Alex, outsider POV, 600 words)

“It was so funny,” Lando tells them all, “I went over to Williams earlier to say happy birthday, and it literally sounded like they were having sex. It was all moaning and grunting, I actually thought Alex had a girl in there until he said George’s name.” 

Kimi hasn’t really been paying Lando too much attention, more focused on debating whether he still has time to pee, but maybe this is something he could use on George. Maybe they were fighting, maybe George will be distracted in the car. 

“That would give it away, yes,” Alex says. He’s sipping from his straw like he doesn’t care, like he’s happy to stand here and listen to Lando tell his little story to half of the grid. 

“Except,” Lando keeps going, “it was more like Georrrrge” — he throws his head back and moans dramatically. Netflix aren’t here this weekend, Kimi doesn’t think, but they’d have loved that one. Might even have made the trailer.  

Alex laughs, so Kimi lets himself snigger too. He stops when he sees George coming. Alex doesn’t. 

“Chaps,” George nods as he steps in behind Alex. There’s not much room where they’re huddling behind the barriers until they absolutely have to go out for the parade. Not much room, but probably enough to accommodate George in the circle. He doesn’t move. 

“We were just talking about you,” Alex leans back into him. It makes him lose some height, makes it so that he has to look up at George. They probably aren’t having a fight then, just wrestling over something. Damn. 

“Oh yeah?” George leans in, obviously interested. 

“Lando here was just telling us how he overheard our life-changing shag earlier in my room.” 

“Woah, woah, woah,” Lando cuts in, “nobody said anything about life-changing, don’t give yourselves too much credit.” 

“I wasn’t life-changing?” George gasps, one of those little faux-shocked things he loves to do when somebody makes a joke about him in a meeting. It always works—Kimi’s been thinking of trying it out, but it probably won’t land the same for him. 

“Eh, you were fine,” Alex wiggles his hand in a so-so gesture. 

“Fine?” George’s voice is higher now—he’s good at this. “I come all the way over to Williams to give you a birthday seeing to, and all you can say is fine?” 

“Hey, I could have been seeing to you,” Alex has been doing a good job at keeping his voice steady before, but now even Kimi can hear the smile seeping through.  

“Not likely,” Lando snorts. 

“Oi!” 

It devolves from there until they’re finally called outside. Kimi manages to get up next to Max as the parade starts, nice. He isn’t half as much of a dick as George likes to paint him—whatever’s going on there isn’t Kimi’s problem. Honestly, he likes talking to Max anyway, but he especially likes the little wrinkle between George's eyebrows whenever he catches them talking.  

Speaking of, where—oh, George is over talking to Nico. He looks happy enough, giving little waves out to the crowd every now and then, as if anyone is looking at him when Lewis is in red beside him. George’s face changes as Kimi watches, flowing from bland politeness to something warmer. Nico might not have noticed, hasn't had to spend as many excruciating meeting room hours with him, but Kimi can tell. Besides, it's only Kimi at the correct angle to see Alex’s foot, small in his boot, run along the back of George's leg. They're lucky Mercedes aren't in white this weekend, or there'd be a mark. Though, he supposes, even in plain sight probably nobody would notice. 

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@janinaduszejko i gotchu babe

Carlos calls, which must mean it’s even worse than Oscar thought.

Oscar lets it go to voicemail. The buzzing takes forever to stop, and the room isn’t even quiet afterwards: he can still hear the chatter of the TV from the living room, the rolling rise and fall of his mum’s voice intercut at irregular intervals by his dad’s.

The phone starts up again. Dutifully, Oscar rolls again to make sure it’s not Zak or Andrea. Carlos Sainz (jnr) it says across the display, the text scrolling over the dark screen. There’s no contact picture, which makes it easier to put the phone back down, go back to replaying the race on the chalky-white ceiling of his bedroom. Lando had gone off, too. Oscar had been following too closely maybe - complacent racing, running in Lando’s wake like a rookie. He can’t seem to stop feeling it: the car skidding across the track, foreign and unresponsive under him, his helmet cracking against the headrest as he hit the grass. The walled off panic, and then, a brand new kind of horror as the wheels spun in the grass, all that torque useless.

The embarrassment sits right next to him on the bed, disappointment dipping the mattress around him. In his head, Oscar starts the lap again for the thousandth time. He traces the circuit across the ceiling with his eyes, feet twitching involuntarily as he imagines hitting the breaking points. Each time he does, the starchy fabric of the doona underneath him makes a soft scraping sound, fabric strangely slippery beneath this heels. After he’d signed with McLaren, his mum had changed the room around - they still called it Oscar’s room but it wasn’t really anymore, just a guest space that was kind of Oscar-themed. The indistinctness of the space makes him itch, unsettled.

He’s off the track; in the grass. Oscar pinches his eyes closed, rubs both hands over his face in frustration.

He opens his eyes; restarts the lap.

The car feels good down the straight. He can win, still. Lando’s right there. The track is slippery, shining; he can win still. Lando doesn’t like pressure but Oscar can sit in it - he’ll force the overtake, if he has to. Turn six races up towards him in his mind’s eye; he hears his mother’s muffled voice; the bedsheets shift under him; he loses the car and the track is suddenly impossibly far away —

The fucking phone rings again.

“Are you dying or what?” Oscar snaps when he answers. “Fuck’s sake.”

On the other end of the line, Carlos’ laugh is rich and warm. Oscar’s skin prickles.

“They don’t say hello where you’re from?” Carlos asks. He’s outside somewhere - his voice is tinny, far away.

“I’m from here,” Oscar says stupidly, bristling all over.

“A beautiful city, Oscar,” Carlos placates. It’s ridiculous, the way Carlos says his name: Oz-car, the second syllable always boarding on comically over pronounced.

“Is there a bloody emergency? Do you need something? I’m, like. Busy.” Oscar can’t just be fielding calls all night. He’s got to focus, lock in. He has to lie here in the dark, in his old bedroom in his parents’ house, and hate himself. It’s practically a full time job.

“No emergency,” Carlos says. “I just wanted to—”

“Don’t,” Oscar snaps. His stomach squeezes, roils at the idea of Carlos trying to console him. “I’ve had it all day, I can’t.”

“No, no,” Carlos says - blasé, dismissive. Oscar licks his lips, tries to imagine what kind of tilt Carlos’ jaw is doing.

“You had a tough race, why would I call about this. If you’re lucky, you’ll have plenty of tough races. No, I called to tell you about my race,” Carlos says. “I had a very good race today, you will like it.” He sounds relaxed, which makes Oscar so annoyed that he has to sit up to deal with it.

“Mate, you didn’t even - have you been drinking? You crashed while we were still tooling around behind the safety car.”

Carlos hadn’t even had to do media until way after, because everyone had been so distracted with Hadjar crying all over the place. Oscar had cried too, obviously, but in private and only for like - two minutes. Like a professional.

“Only a little.”

“A little drunk or a little crash?”

Oscar can hear the shrug in Carlos’ voice. “Ay, maybe a bit of both. But listen, though, listen - I got to be an engineer today, it was very good. They have it so easy, carbón, all nice and warm there in the garage. I did a good job, everyone is very impressed, they say: Carlos, how are you so smart and so handsome and still so good at racing.”

Carlos’ British accent is terrible; Oscar doesn’t know he’s going to laugh until it’s already out of him. “You’re not that good at racing,” Oscar says, picking at the stupid doona cover.

He doesn’t really give the story permission to unfold, but it does anyway, Carlos launching off the line. The image in his mind shifts: the pit wall instead of the track, the strange new way Carlos looks surrounded by blue and white. Carlos goes on and on about people from Williams that Oscar’s never met, stretching out his description of the mid-race weather until Oscar wants to strangle him. The whole time he sounds half out of breath, like he’s walking somewhere. Oscar tries to picture him in Fed Square, or by the casino. He imagines Carlos down at the pontoons by the Yarra where all the bars are, his dark hair shiny under all the string lighting. Oscar starts to feel heavy all over, sore; the bed makes its dumb sliding noise again when he lies back down.

“So you’re gonna be head strategist now too, huh? Set the play and then run it yourself?”

Carlos laughs. “I did that already at Ferrari, no? I think maybe I’ll take a break this year.” He says and Oscar snorts, uses his heels to push the blanket down the bed so that he can wriggle under it.

“Yeah, true. What time are you flying out tonight?”

“Not tonight,” Carlos says, sounding distracted, “I change -” He stops, and Oscar can hear the ticker-tack noise of a pedestrian crossing call button. Oscar’s pulse does something funny, out of synch with the sound.

“My flight changed,” Carlos finishes easily. “I go Tuesday, now. Team logistics, you know.”

It’s quiet outside Oscar’s room finally, even though the light in the hallway is still on. He’s been in plenty of unfamiliar rooms with Carlos, which is frankly terrible, because it makes it very easy to imagine what Carlos might look like in this one. It’s even easier to remember what Carlos looked like under him in the last one, back in Vegas, what his knees felt like folded up against Oscar’s ribs.

“We can’t meet up,” Oscar says quickly, to remind himself.

“I don’t have time to meet up with you - I have engineering meetings to run,” Carlos says without missing a beat and Oscar snorts again. There’s a pause that’s just long enough for Oscar to imagine Carlos’ mouth hanging open, how his fat lower lip looks poised around a thought.

“Oh yeah, of course,” Oscar says. His voice sounds rough, as tired and worn out as he feels. “How could I forget.”

“Go to bed,” Carlos tells him. Oscar turns onto his side so that he can go handsfree, the phone wedged between the pillow and his head. It makes Carlos sound very close; Oscar wonders in the airy, exhausted part of his brain if Carlos might say his name again before they hang up. “Don’t stay up and marinate.”

“Bold, from you,” Oscar teases, and then immediately feels bad, but Carlos laughs before he can take it back.

“Exactly, I’m the expert,” Carlos tells him, faux-stern, “and I am saying to you: don’t do it.”

“Yeah righto, boss.”

Carlos goes quiet for a second. It’s not as noisy wherever Carlos is now. Back in his hotel room, maybe, in his own impersonal bed. Oscar can’t remember when he closed his eyes, but the darkness feels nice; obliterating.

“See you in China, no?”

“Yeah,” Oscar says. “See ya.”

There’s a pause again before Carlos hangs up. Oscar doesn’t bother to move the phone, falls asleep with the edge of it pressed so hard into the side of his cheek that it leaves a mark.

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wrote a little carcar drabble with the tsgc for the prompt 'a helping b wash up (whether it be their hair, body, some blood off their hands, etc). enjoy!

Everything hurts. Oscar should’ve seen this coming, really. You don’t really go flying into the barriers at the speed he did without getting at least some bruises. At least there were no broken bones, or internal bleeding. Actually, back in the hospital, because they made him go to the fucking hospital, he’d felt fine, really. Little beat up, yeah, but fine.

But now, now that he’s alone, back in his hotel room spread out on the large queen sized bed, the adrenaline starts wearing off and the pain starts seeping in.

He should get up and shower, he knows. He still finished most of the race, and while he’s long changed out of his race suit he’s still gross and sticky underneath his McLaren polo. But the bed is soft, so soft, and getting up means moving and moving means more pain and maybe he’d just. He’d just rather not, right now.

Which is obviously exactly when there’s knock on his door. It’s not Mark, because Mark left an hour ago after making Oscar promise he’d try to get a good night’s sleep. He saw Lando in the paddock already, big sad eyes and worried hands skimming over his body, but Lando is Lando so Oscar knows he believed him when he said he was fine and just needed to sleep it off.

It’s not his family, because his family is all the way on the other side of the world. His mum had called, earlier, worry etched into her voice. He tried to reassure her, but he’s never been good at that. She’s always been too good at reading him. But no matter how good she is, she’s not magic, so even she can’t condense a 16 hour plane ride into merely two hours.

Which leaves. No one. Which means Oscar is not really planning on getting up to answer. Except the knocking gets louder. More persistent.

Oscar sighs. Takes a deep breath. Hauls himself off the bed and shuffles his way over to the door. His ribs are the worst, where the siding slammed into them on impact. His arms are pretty bruised too, and his legs. He takes a deep breath, and swings the door open. “What,” he asks, hoping to deter whoever has decided to bother him right now.

“Oscar,” Carlos says. He breaks Oscar’s name up, like always. Os-kar. “You are okay?” He sounds breathy, like maybe he ran here. Which is stupid. Because Carlos is not. They’re not.

“I’m not up for sex, if that’s what you’re asking,” Oscar bites, like he always does when Carlos does something that catches him off guard.

Carlos deflates a little, like Oscar answered the question without answering the question. “I am not here for sex,” he says, and that’s even more baffling because. Because that’s all they’ve been doing, really. That’s. That’s what the thing is. They shop u to each other’s hotel rooms, they fuck, they leave. They don’t do whatever Carlos is doing right now.

“Okay,” Oscar says. “Bye.” He goes to close the door, but Carlos’s foot wedges in between. Oscar briefly considers repeatedly slamming the door close anyway until Carlos gives up and removes his foot, but that would give Carlos the satisfaction of knowing he actually managed to rile Oscar up.

“I need to make sure you are okay,” Carlos says.

Oscar pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s tired and hurting and gross, and he so does not want to deal with any of this. “I am fine. Didn’t they tell you I was fine? Just some bruising. It’ll heal. Could really use a shower, but that’s it.”

Carlos eyes scan over him, like he can look through Oscar’s drawstring jeans and McLaren polo and actually assess the bruising underneath. “Why didn’t you?” Carlos asks.

“What,” Oscar asks. His head is starting to hurt too. He wonders if he has any body parts left that don’t hurt, at this point.

“Shower,” Carlos says. “You left the track an hour ago.”

“Are you stalking me or what,” Oscar bites, but when Carlos just stares at him, relents with a sigh. “I’m. It hurts, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? I crashed into the barrier at an ungodly speed and now I hurt. Happy?”

Carlos looks the opposite of happy, mouth pitching down and brows knitting together. “Where?” He asks. The eyes are back, scanning, scanning, scanning. It unsettles Oscar unlike anything else.

“Everywhere,” he says, because he’s tired, and he hopes that if maybe he just admits Carlos will start the process of leaving him alone.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Carlos moves his foot forward and, catching Oscar by surprise, manages to push his way into the hotel room. “Show me.”

“What? I’m not… Jesus, Carlos, I just told you I’m not having sex with you right now,” Oscar says. They’re in his hotel room and yet Oscar feels like he’s playing an away game with how confusing Carlos is being right now.

“Oscar,” Os-kar “Show me.”

Stupid stubborn bull headed Carlos and his stupid inability to just let things go. Oscar sighs, and pulls off his polo, gently, but still making himself wince, before throwing it on the floor. “There, happy?” He says, testily, frowning at Carlos.

Carlos sucks in a breath through his teeth, steps forward. Mutters something like “Ay, cariño” that Oscar doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to understand right now, and then tentatively reaches out to brush at Oscar’s side, where the bruising is the worse. He’s being so gentle about it, so soft, and Oscar shivers, even though the hotel room they’re in isn’t cold at all. “Alright, let’s get you in the shower,” Carlos says, and it’s so clear he isn’t taking no for an answer, and it’s so clear he worries, and Oscar is so incredibly tired.

So he makes his way to the bathroom, lets Carlos help him take off his pants and his socks and his underwear before getting into the shower. Carlos has undressed too, and Oscar can’t help but look when he’s not looking. He’s seen Carlos naked a million times at this point, but it never tires.

The shower is big enough for the both of them, and Oscar breathes a sigh of relief when the hot spray hits his back, washes of the grim and hurt and pain. He hisses when it hits a particularly nasty scab, but overall the water is lovely, soothing, helped by Carlos gently soaping him in, running his big hands over Oscar’s shoulders, his chest, his arms.

“I saw,” Carlos says, breaking the silence that has fallen over them. He’s turned Oscar around, is gently rubbing soap onto his back, so Oscar can’t see the expressions on his face. “I was three cars behind you and I saw-“ Carlos breaks off then, and Oscar feels him pressing his forehead against Oscar’s neck. “I cannot do this anymore, this thing that we have.” He continues, and suddenly Oscar is glad they’re not facing each other, because he is pretty sure the look on his face is embarrassing.

“Oh,” he says, and he tries to sound unbothered, but he is so so so tired, and Carlos showed up and took care of him and he was lulling himself into a false sense of security, a false sense of something, and now the rug is being pulled right from under him. “Okay.”

“I want more, Oscar. I want all of it. And I know you can’t give that to me and that is okay, but I can no longer just be something casual with you when I have all these feelings.”

Oscar feels like the rugs been shoved right back under him again so hard it’s making him trip up over it. “Feelings?” He says. He turns around now, because he needs to see. He needs to know if this is real if this is. If Carlos means what he is saying.

Carlos is looking at him, big sincere brown eyes. “I am in love with you, Oscar,” he says. Os-kar, it’s the most beautiful thing Oscar’s ever heard. “And I cannot be with you if you do not love me back.”

Carlos goes to step away then, which is so incredibly stupidly absurd, that Oscar doesn’t even blame himself for yelling “Wait!” a little too loudly and reaching out to grab Carlos’s wrist. “You don’t get to… What is wrong with you? You get in a shower with a man and confess your love to him and then you leave?”

“Don’t you want me to?” Carlos asks, tilting his head to the side, and god. He’s so infuriating. If he was not so tired, not so beaten down, Oscar would kiss him right now. Tell him he was in love with him too. But that all feels to big and too heavy right now so all he says is, “Stay. Please stay.” And hope Carlos understands.

And Carlos does, because Carlos has always been able to understand Oscar in ways Oscar doesn’t even understand himself. So he steps back under the shower, soaps Oscar’s hair, rinses it off. Wraps him in a giant towel as they get out, bundles him into bed.

Carlos’s arms are warm and soft around him as he settles into the sheets. Me too, he thinks. Me too, I love you too. And hopes Carlos understands.

Carlos’s arms squeezes around him, very gently. Oscar falls asleep with a smile on his face.