#for some reason i had this in my drafts since 2020! 🙈

[pinkcores]

types of people : self-care things 💅💕

spa days: lighting your favorite scented candle, trying out that new lotion, soft skin with a slight glow to it, sinking into the bath with your favorite song on blast, trying not to laugh so you don't mess up the face mask, feeling like a million bucks, soft hair and even softer smiles at yourself

baking: flour smeared across your cheeks, stealing another taste of the batter, taking silly videos while you wait, pretending you didn't make a funny shaped treat on purpose, staring into the oven in hopes your intense gaze will make it bake faster, all the sprinkles, "forgetting" to do the dishes

binging shows: just one more episode, not skipping the opening sequence to hum along to the song, cozying up under a blanket in pjs, picking off food crumbs from your clothes, stretching and flopping back after you're done, accidentally spoiling an episode for yourself, "are you still watching?"

learning something new: setting up pretty notes with colors, doodling because you're procrastinating, adding this to the list of projects, working along with lofi girl, a cat sitting in your lap as you write and read, feeling proud the one moment you can use your new knowledge, sticking to schedule

[hurtsprincess]

The Rest That’s Still Unwritten

Hi folks! 👋🏻

Today I wanna establish a new category / posting-series on this blog, and as you can guess from the title (...if you know, you know 😉), this will be all about yet unwritten stories. Or to be exact: About my many, many drafts, unfinished works and raw concepts 🤓

Cause there really are a lot of them by now! Since I started writing Carlando-fanfiction in 2020, I’ve had so many cool ideas for stories, long or short, that I sadly just cannot realise them all anymore by now - the old problem of ‘so many projects, so little time’ that probably every creative mind knows… 😬

However, even if I personally love them all, there are nonetheless some ideas that I don’t think will ever overcome the state of just ‘vibing’ with them in my head. For whatever reason, I just don’t see me actually writing them - let it be plot holes, unanswered questions, too high efforts or that I just don’t “feel” them anymore to really take on the writing journey. (Especially with the longer projects!)

But because I like these basic ideas nonetheless and feel pretty bad for leaving them in my “not now��-folder and would rather want to somehow appreciate them - I thought, why should I not write them down in a shortened form and share them with you still? 🤓

As something somewhere between what you call a ‘prompt’ and a ‘ficlet’ here or the like - sorry, I’m not good with internet slang, haha 🙈 But just something that will give you a little movie in your head and that you might enjoy still, even if it’s not properly narrated - and that also allows me to clear my mind of the many open tabs 🙈

...and yeah, that is exactly what will happen in this category 🤗

(Oh, by the way, if you happen to like one draft a lot and want to turn it into an actual story, please feel free and do it!! ♥ Just please credit me for the idea and of course send me the link later if you publish it, cause I’d definitely LOVE to read your take on them! 🤩🤩)

…so, enough of explanations - let’s get started with the first story that I will not write! Which is also the most recent idea on my list, since it is the continuation of my latest one-shot “Red like Love / Rot wie die Liebe”.

I know I said in the notes that I won’t write a part 2, because these scenarios have been done often enough meanwhile (in my eyes) - but that doesn’t change that said scenario just won’t leave my head anymore ever since, haha. Because I do have a clear vision of what will happen next… 👀

So I decided to word it, for everyone else who might want to know, too. But, warning: If you haven’t read the actual OS yet and don’t want any spoilers, then please don’t click on the cut and read the main story first! ☝🏻

#1 Red like Love / Rot wie die Liebe Part II

We’re picking up right where the original story has ended: With Lando standing on Carlos’ doorstep, breathless from his flight from the Lola Lounge, and desperate to talk to his now ex-teammate.

Carlos, in turns, is of course massively confused - considering both the time (somewhat middle of the night) and the unexpectedness of their reunion, since the two of them had not really seen each other ever since the departure from their last race as teammates together in Abu Dhabi. Of course they had in a way taken notice of each other during the testing week, but only briefly and from afar, as they both had been busy with their respective, now different teams. So they had not talked really ever since December, and neither texted or communicated at all in any other way than liking each other’s Instagram posts and viewing their stories, in order to keep up with what the other one is doing. Because after all, they do not hate each other. Of course they don’t. They used to be best friends before Carlos’ last day at work, and even more. They have just never talked about it, but they have never argued or the like.

And probably that dynamic, combined with the surprise effect and the rest-sleepiness in his head, is the reason why the Spaniard doesn’t yell at him what the f he is doing here so late at night, waking him up and everything, but steps back from the door and actually invites Lando in - albeit still in massive confusion over this situation. Is he maybe only dreaming the whole thing…?

But on the other hand, he apparently is also glad to see him again so unexpectedly - or at least does it look like that to Lando. In the way that he watches him come into the room, with a faint shimmer of anticipation and… hope? in his chocolate-brown eyes.

And also from how his ex-teammate, who still looks strange to him in his Ferrari-shirt, is not  interested in small talk when Lando nervously makes a first comment about that this is a nice room - even if his own one, two floors down, looks pretty much just the same. The typical medium business suite that they stay in wherever they go for a race.

But in this moment, it feels so much smaller and narrower and just more… intimate, especially in the only very dim lighting - obviously, Carlos has only switched the night lamp on his bedside-table on when he has made his way to the door.

Maybe the abrupt waking is also the reason why he is not interested in having a casual chit-chat about hotel interior, but shuts it down instantly. “You did not really come here to talk about my room now, did you?”, he asks, a litte passive-aggressively, and from his face, it is beyond doubt that he would then get but angry.

Which Lando definitely doesn’t want.

Shaking his head, he says: “No, no, of course not-”

And when he sees the hopeful, begging, unspoken ‘then what…?’ in Carlos’ eyes, this is the last call that the younger one needs to speak out the truth that he has been carrying with over the whole winter: “It’s just- I- I miss you.”

Three words which hit Carlos like a thunderbolt, catching him so off-guard that he cannot even reply anything - but Lando doesn’t wait for his reaction either. As it seems, once he is talking about this, he can’t stop anymore; and so he tells Carlos everything.

That he is aware that he has never said it explicitly and has, even more, denied it even in this one press conference. But that he does miss him. That he has known it before that he would, but that he was too afraid to admit it even to himself. Because he was too scared of kicking something off  in his mind that would change everything and that he could never un-think again.

But the truth is, he misses Carlos. Every time he sits in the briefings or has to do social media content, which used to be so much fun last year when they were doing their shenanigans, or just comes to the track and sees a different number than 55 in the other side of the garage.

He misses Carlos, and- he says that he can’t really narrow down why either, but he just wanted  to let him know that.

But no, that is not true - the younger one knows exactly WHY he wanted him to know.

Because he also misses him beside him in the far too big hotel-bed at nighttime. He misses feeling his palms roaming over his skin, misses kissing him, misses sharing things with him that nobody else does. Misses him, in every aspect of his life.

However - these feelings appear to be one-sided, given how Carlos stands there and just… looks at him when he’s finished. Stares at him with wide eyes from shock, speechless, motionless.

As a result of which Lando suddenly is very aware of what he has just done here.

“S-sorry. That was weird-…”, he mumbles and makes moves to turn around and take flight from the suddenly even smaller, far too small hotel room. “I better go-”

But ere he could reach his hand out for the handle, Lando feels a grip on his wrist, and before he knows, he finds himself with his back against the door and Carlos right in front of him, staring him down with the intensity of a supernova in his eyes.

“Is that true?”, he wants to know, with his voice so low in awe that it scratches, and his face as serious as never before. “You… miss me?”

And blame it on the intensity of the moment and how close they are suddenly again, but even though he at the same time is embarrassed for his break-out, Lando can’t lie. Can’t deny it.

No more.

Carlos would see it anyway in his face, as close as they are.

So the younger one just nods, slowly; his voice hoarse from honesty. “Y-yeah…” He gulps. “A lot…”

His eyes insecurely scan Carlos’ mien for any reaction, but only for a second - cause already in the next moment, Lando finds himself pressed against the door and involved in a stormy kiss when Carlos downright desperately pushes his lips onto his.

The Briton has reckoned with everything, but not with that, but of course he does not complain - within seconds, the switch from ‘anxiety’ to ‘enjoyment’ in his brain is flicked and he without thinking returns the kiss.

It’s only for a few seconds, until Carlos once more breaks away to breathe a — by now rather superfluous — “I miss you too…” against his lips, before their mouths are locked again and they are kissing like they used to throughout all the last year; as if they had never stopped, as if December and the unevitable goodbye has never happened - but at the same time, the feelings hit so much deeper than back then.

Cause between the kisses that they share, still at the room door, Carlos tells him in chopped portions that he has been through just the same. That he has missed him all the way. That he has only understood how much he means to him — that he has always been more than just his teammate, his muppet friend, his bed neighbour — when they have been about to be separated. That he has wanted to say it and has so often in the last weeks of the season been close to do so, but that he has never dared it in the end.

Because he has been too scared that Lando wouldn’t feel the same, given how reserved the younger one has always acted when someone has addressed the topic of the team-change.

But in his overwhelm over hearing all these beautiful words from Carlos’ mouth, the younger one also doesn’t know any hold-back anymore and clears it all that up. That this has only been for self-protection. That he has had such a feeling as well, but that he has not wanted to deal with it. Has wanted to prevent the chaos that it would cause in his head, if he’d admit to himself that he is not only bisexual or ‘curious’, as he has first thought when they have started going to bed together - but that he has somehow caught actual feelings for Carlos. More than he has ever felt for anybody.

So he has just pushed every glimpse of that down, filed it under nostalgic sentimentality in the view of the upcoming end of their time together, and just tried to put on a brave front. Cause as long as you don’t think about it, it’s not true, right?

But the visit to the strip club has brought his so strainedly kept-up facade of self-betrayal to crack, and made the whole issue — the truth — impossible to ignore it any further.

Admittedly, Carlos makes big eyes of surprise when he hears that his always so innocent and younger-looking friend has been to a strip club - but this is not the time to crack jokes. Because only his experiences there, even if they do indeed sound very amusing, have made Lando realise what he feels.

What he has always felt.

“I- I guess I love you, Carlos…”, he whispers and even if a part of him still cannot believe that this is actually happening — that he is actually saying this to him —, these words feel so damn right on Lando’s tongue.

And even better do they sound in his ears, when Carlos returns the magic phrase…

Latest from then on, they both do not know any reservation anymore, and neither does one of them bother about the late hour and the exact circumstances. The only thing that matters to them are each other, about so unexpectedly being united again and to get over to the bed, in order to have it a little more comfy for the obviously following making-out-session…

Originally, this is where I saw the story ending for me: With the two of them in bed, cuddling up close and just glad over having the respective other one. I only wanted to make Lando utter a affectionate, cheeky comment like “Red suits you, by the way”, concerning the new team colours on the Spaniard and because he has not actually congratulated him on being able to wear them yet — to throw a bridge back to the beginning and the title.

But, you know, just an overall sweet, happy ending scene.

But! After an involuntary inspiration from a lovely reader (…you know who you are ♥), the scene developed further in my head and I saw Carlos giggling a “Thank you” before my inner eye - and then how the two of them exchange a look of the ‘are we thinking the same?’-kind. Yes, they are. And so, Carlos will slowly move his hands to get rid of this shirt - and then will give Lando an exclusive demonstration of what an enjoyable private dance is like… 😁 😏

And with these images in your head, I’ll leave you for now - this is really it for this story now 😉 Hope you liked the little add-on and see you next time, for the next unwritten story ♥