Tanpa judul

[sevynchaos]

Hungarian GP 2026 - Day 1 | 📸 Bryn Lennon

[polarprude]

im tired oscar can you for once try taunting/bantering and put the yearning eyes to rest

[polarprude]

i was hungary and waiting for this fanstage

[selfixxx]

he could hold the phone with one hand btw

mwah :*

[lealu]

i love your carcar in tough to be tender! so maybe you can give us a bonus scene of theirs?

BONUS SCENE 3 for Tough to be Tender, spoilers ahead (read the fic before you read this!!! like seriously, big spoilers!), carcar, around 3k, sorry that it became Christmas-y...i wrote on it all week, (TW: mentions of death):

Oscar Piastri knows an extraordinary number of facts about Carlos Sainz and if you string them together, they mostly tell the story of a man who should not have been allowed to move into Oscar’s flat.

He knows that Carlos likes Christmas with the sort of aggressive sincerity that should embarrass him and somehow never does. He knows that Carlos pretends to be very relaxed about decorations, but has strong opinions about warm lights versus white lights and that Carlos will say he does not need presents and then stare at the wrapped things under the tree like a child with cow eyes.

He knows that Carlos calls his mother every Sunday unless he is angry with her, in which case he calls his father and talks loudly about football until she takes the phone off him. He knows that Carlos cannot fold fitted sheets, but thinks he can and that Carlos buys fruit with too much optimism and then acts wounded when Oscar points out that no two-person household needs that many mandarins.

He knows that Carlos sings when he cooks, sings when he drives, sings when he is putting away laundry, sings under his breath when Oscar is working late on the sofa and Carlos thinks Oscar cannot hear him.

He knows that Carlos loves him.

He knows this in large ways and stupid ways and the sort of ways Oscar does not think about directly because looking at it too hard makes him feel like he has walked into a room without any skin on.

He knows that Carlos loved Alex too.

This is the problem with Christmas.

The honey burns at 4:17 in the afternoon. Oscar knows this because there is a schedule.

The schedule is written on the back of an envelope and stuck to the fridge with the tomato magnet Carlos bought at a market because I love tomatoes, Oscahhh! The schedule has the potatoes, the carrots, the chicken, the pudding, both planned parent phone calls, and the exact moment Oscar is supposed to put on the playlist Carlos likes without making a face at the third consecutive Spanish Christmas song that sounds, to Oscar, exactly like the second.

At the bottom, in smaller writing, it says: do not text George unless he texts first.

Oscar has been pretending he did not write that down.

The honey is not on the schedule, which should have been the first sign that it was dangerous. It is for turrón, or something near turrón, or something that looked possible when Oscar found the recipe at 1:12 in the morning and thought, with the confidence of a man who has been awake too long, that Spanish nougat could not possibly have structural complexity.

It can, apparently. The pan sits on the hob, smoking faintly, the honey dark and glossy and hardening into something less like food and more like evidence. This is exactly why he never cooks and lets Carlos take over.

Oscar turns off the heat.

He stands very still with the wooden spoon in his hand and the tea towel over his shoulder. The flat smells like burnt sugar and rosemary and chicken and the orange candle Carlos lit in the living room before Oscar told him to stop helping and sit down for once in his life.

Oscar scrapes at the pan. The honey does not move. He scrapes harder.

A black flake breaks off and skitters across the hob.

“Fuck,” Oscar says.

From the living room, Carlos calls, “I heard that.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“You said fuck.”

“I said fork.”

There is a pause.

“You are not holding a fork.”

Oscar looks down at the wooden spoon. “You don’t know that.”

Carlos appears in the doorway. He has been pretending not to hover all afternoon, which mostly means he has hovered from further away. He is wearing the red jumper Oscar bought him because he thought it would be funny and then had to watch Carlos love it, actually love it, without irony or shame or any sense that he had been meant to be mocked.

There is flour on one sleeve. Oscar has not given him access to flour. Carlos looks at the pan. Then at Oscar. Then back at the pan.

“Oh,” Carlos says.

Oscar points the spoon at him. “Don’t.”

Carlos presses his lips together. It lasts for about half a second. “Oscar,” he says, very carefully, “why is honey like this?”

Oscar looks at the pan. “I don’t know.”

“You do not know?”

“I looked away.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, Carlos, long enough for it to become like this.”

Carlos bites his lips harder. Oscar points the spoon more aggressively. “If you laugh, I’ll leave you.”

“No you won’t, my love.”

“You sound very confident for someone whose Christmas dessert is dead.”

Carlos steps into the kitchen. “I did not ask for the dessert.”

“But you like turrón.”

“Well, yes.”

“Yes, well, I was trying to do something nice.”

Carlos stops. Oscar hears the sentence after he says it: The edge in it. He sets the spoon down too carefully.

The flat is warm. Too warm. The windows have gone dark with their reflections. The tree in the living room is a little crooked because Carlos picked it and said it looked brave and Oscar had said trees cannot be brave and Carlos had said, “This one can.” The lights are too colourful and there are crackers on the table.

Two crackers.

Oscar keeps seeing that.

Last year there were four.

Last year Alex stood in this kitchen with two paper crowns on his head and stole a roast potato off the tray after he explicitly told him it was too hot. Alex had eaten it anyway.

He made a noise like he had been shot. George, from the doorway, said, “I struggle to feel sorry for you.”

Alex turned to him with his mouth still full. “You’re my boyfriend!”

“I am aware.”

“You’re meant to be supportive...Fuck, that's hot...”

Carlos had laughed so hard he had to put his wine down.

Oscar remembers that.

He remembers George in a navy jumper, one hand curled around his own elbow, looking at Alex like he was trying not to smile and losing. He remembers Alex leaning back against the counter, cheeks pink from wine, paper crowns slipping, entirely pleased with himself. He remembers thinking that George looked happy in a way that made him difficult to look at, then Carlos putting a hand on Oscar’s knee under the table later, when Alex started trying to convince George to sing and George looked like he might walk out to avoid it.

Oscar had looked down at Carlos’s hand. Carlos had squeezed once.

Last year, Oscar thought they were at the beginning of something.

He supposes they were.

Carlos comes closer now. He does not touch Oscar immediately, which is how Oscar knows he has noticed the edge too.

“Oscar,” he says.

Oscar looks at the pan. “I wanted it to be good.”

“It is good.”

“The honey is not.”

“I do not care about the honey.”

“You love Christmas!”

Carlos sighs a little. “Yes.”

“So.”

“So I love Christmas,” Carlos says. “I do not love Christmas because of perfect honey.”

Oscar snorts. “That’s not what you said when you made me go to three different shops for the right biscuits.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“They were important biscuits.”

Oscar looks at him. Carlos looks back, face entirely serious, which makes it worse. Oscar has to look away because the laugh is too close to something else.

Tomorrow, Carlos flies to Madrid.

Oscar flies to Melbourne.

It is not ideal but it is what they managed. It had seemed sensible when they booked it, sometime in October, when everyone was still speaking about December like it was a thing that would happen to other people. Neither of them had been able to face the proper version of Christmas with each other’s families. Spain, New Zealand, all the questions abiut the accident, all the food, all the people who would mean well.

They decided on today instead: One Christmas Day in London with just them.

George is with his parents.

Oscar knows because he has checked. Several times. George texted at lunch with a photo of a roast potato and the words Mum is feeding me with carbohydrates.

Oscar replied, Good. Submit to starch.

George sent a thumbs up.

Oscar has been staring at that thumbs up in his head for four hours.

“He is at his parents’,” Carlos says.

Oscar’s head snaps up. Carlos is watching him in that way he does sometimes, like he has read all the footnotes and is trying not to be smug about it.

“I know,” Oscar says.

“He is not alone.”

“I know.”

“His mother will feed him.”

“I know.”

“Maybe too much.”

“Carlos.”

“She seems like a woman who would feed a man too much when she is worried.”

Oscar leans back against the counter. “You’ve met her like once.”

“Yes. I am good with mothers.”

“That is unfortunately true.”

Carlos smiles a little, then it goes.

Oscar looks away. “I’m not worried,” he says.

Carlos says nothing.

Oscar hates him.

“Okay, I’m worried,” Oscar says.

“Yes.”

“Don’t say yes like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you knew.”

“I did know.”

Oscar makes a frustrated noise and reaches for the pan again. Carlos catches his wrist before he can do anything to it.

“Oscar.”

“What?”

“You cannot save him with nougat.” Carlos seems to regret the wording instantly, but he does not take it back. Oscar looks at Carlos’s hand around his wrist. It is so, so warm and soft and a bit hairy. Carlos’s thumb moves once over the inside.

Oscar says, “I know that.”

“No,” Carlos says. “You know it here.” He taps his own forehead with his free hand, which is a very Carlos thing to do. “But not here.”

He touches Oscar’s chest, very briefly. Oscar hates that more. Stupid Carlos and his romantic metaphors and all that. He pulls his wrist away, but Carlos lets him.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Oscar says.

Carlos’s voice goes quiet. “Christmas?”

Oscar shakes his head. The word sits in him like something too large to swallow. “George,” he says and looks at the fridge. At the stupid schedule with the tiny line at the bottom.

“I don’t know how to keep him alive.”

Carlos inhales. Oscar presses the heel of his hand against his eye until little sparks show up behind the lid.

“I know,” Oscar says. “I know that’s not fair. I know he’s not mine to keep alive. I know he’s not a task.”

“No.”

“But every time he doesn’t answer, I think about it. Every time he says he’s fine, I hear him lying. Every time he goes home alone, I think—”

He stops. There is no good end to that sentence. Carlos is quiet for a long moment.

Then he says, “I think this too sometimes.”

Oscar hates the relief and hates that it is easier when Carlos is frightened too.

“I get angry,” Oscar says, and that is worse. Worse than the fear. “Sometimes.”

“At George?”

Oscar nods. Carlos does not look shocked. That helps too.

“It’s disgusting,” Oscar says.

“No.”

“It is.”

“No, cariño.”

Oscar looks at the dark window because his face is doing something he does not want Carlos to see. Which is stupid because Carlos always sees. “He lost more,” Oscar says. “I know that. I’m not an idiot.”

“I know.”

“I know what Alex was to him. Obviously I know. We all knew. It was impossible not to know. George looked at him like—”

His voice cuts. Oscar swallows. “But Alex was ours too.” Barely even loud enough for the kitchen.

Carlos’s eyes go wet almost immediately. Oscar looks away.

“He was ours too,” Oscar says again. The shame comes after. Oscar closes his eyes. “Sorry.”

Carlos says, “No.”

“That was horrible.”

“No.”

“It was!”

Carlos steps closer. “Oscar, my love.”

“I don’t mean it like that.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want less room for him.”

“I know.”

“I just—”

“You miss Alex,” Carlos says.

Oscar opens his eyes. His face open and sad and very handsome in the stupid red jumper. Oscar thinks, wildly, that Alex would have loved the jumper. Alex would have looked at it and said something about Carlos being physically incapable of passing a festive display without becoming prey to capitalism.

Oscar laughs once. It comes out broken. Carlos reaches for him andOscar lets him.

He goes into Carlos’s arms and hates that he needs it and is very grateful that he gets it. Carlos holds him properly, both arms around him, one hand spread over his back. Oscar puts his face against Carlos’s shoulder and breathes in.

Orange candle.

Carlos.

Burnt honey.

“I miss him,” Oscar says into the jumper.

Carlos’s arms tighten.

“Yes,” Carlos says.

“I keep thinking he’s going to text something stupid.”

“Me too.”

“Or send a photo of George being weird.”

Carlos makes a sound that is almost a laugh. “He loved catching George being weird.”

“George is always weird.”

“Yes, but Alex made it art.”

Oscar pulls back enough to look at him. Carlos wipes under Oscar’s eye with his thumb.

“Huh?.”

“You are crying.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay,” Carlos says again, because he is smart enough to know when winning is losing. Oscar leans his hip against the counter. Carlos keeps one hand at his waist.

“Last Christmas was good,” Oscar says.

Carlos nods. “It was so good.”

“I didn’t know we were meant to memorise it.”

Carlos’s face folds. Oscar looks at the table in the living room. Two plates. Two glasses.

He remembers last year too clearly now that he has started. He remembers Alex making Carlos retell the story of how he moved in with Oscar because Alex liked taking credit for it. He remembers George, stiff with wine and affection, saying, “You can’t call it matchmaking if you lied about both sides of the housing crisis.” He remembers Alex saying, “George! I can call anything anything.”

Carlos had toasted him. Oscar had said, “You committed tenancy fraud.”

Alex said, “I created love.”

George had looked at him. “That is an extremely generous description of meddling.”

Alex had leaned sideways into George. “And yet.”

And yet.

Oscar had only needed a roommate. That was how it started, officially.

His old flatmate was moving out and London rent was doing the thing where it made everyone consider whether living in a cupboard would build character. Oscar had mentioned it at work, mostly because Alex was in the room and Oscar trusted Alex not to make a thing of it.

Two days later, Carlos stood next to Oscar’s desk with a coffee Oscar had not asked for and said, “Alex says you need a roommate.”

Oscar looked at the coffee. Then at Carlos, who had been hovering for weeks already.

Oscar did not call it hovering at the time because that seemed dramatic, but it was hovering. Carlos appeared near the kitchenette when Oscar made tea. Carlos asked him questions about edits that could have been emails. Carlos laughed at things Oscar said that were not jokes, which was suspicious behaviour.

Oscar said, “Did Alex send you?”

Carlos said, “No.”

Oscar waited.

Carlos said, “A little.”

It turned out Carlos did not actually need a room in any urgent sense. His lease was inconvenient. His commute was annoying. He had several options, all of them perfectly survivable, but Alex had told Carlos Oscar needed a roommate.

Carlos moved in a week after that with two suitcases, three plants, a coffee machine, a framed photo of his parents, and the pan currently holding the corpse of Oscar’s turrón.

The pan had, according to Carlos, changed lives.

Oscar had said, “If you are the kind of person who says things like that about cookware, I need to reconsider this arrangement.”

Carlos had smiled and said, “You will love me.”

Oscar had said, “That’s ambitious.”

Carlos had been right. They kissed for the first time in the hallway after a work party, both of them a little drunk and very tired and standing too close for no reason that made sense if they were going to keep pretending.

Carlos asked first. He always did, when it mattered. His hand near Oscar’s face, not touching.

“Can I?” he said.

Oscar said, “This is a terrible idea.”

Carlos smiled like Oscar had given him something precious.

“Yes,” he said.

Oscar kissed him anyway.

Alex, upon finding out, said, “You’re welcome.”

Oscar said, “For what?”

Alex said, “Your great love story.”

“You lied to us.”

“I encouraged proximity.”

“You manufactured a rental crisis.”

“I arranged domestic inevitability.”

Carlos lifted his wine. “To domestic inevitability.”

George came to Wolff Media a little later.

Carlos and Oscar were already a thing everyone knew about because Carlos had the discretion of a brass band and Oscar did not actually mind as much as he pretended. Enough that Alex had become one of Oscar’s favourite people at work, which was unfortunate because Alex knew it and was smug.

George arrived in a suit too serious for the building and with a face like he was expecting someone to grade him. Carlos leaned toward Oscar by the cafeteria and whispered, “He looks like a nervous giraffe, no?”

Oscar made a noise into his mug. Alex did not laugh. That was how they knew.

Alex, who laughed at Carlos’s worst jokes because he liked Carlos and had no taste, who found almost everything funny if it was stupid enough.

Alex went quiet.

He watched George speak to Susie. George had his hands clasped behind his back. Shoulders straight. Chin lifted. Polite in a way that seemed less like manners and more like self-defence.

Oscar looked at Alex, who was making the stupid face.

“Oh,” Oscar said.

Alex blinked. “What?”

“You’re doomed.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re staring at him.”

“I’m observing a new colleague.”

Carlos leaned in. “With your whole soul?”

Alex threw a sugar packet at him. It missed and hit Linda from accounts. Linda kept the sugar packet for months.

It got worse after that.

Alex found reasons to pass George’s desk. George smiled when Alex walked away, which he seemed to believe nobody could see, despite having a face with very little hiding ability when Alex was involved. Carlos narrated developments until Oscar threatened to leave him at a service station.

Eventually, Alex asked George out.

Oscar thinks about that now, standing in the kitchen with Carlos’s hand still at his waist. How much of their lives Alex touched and rearranged, of how much he set in motion and then left them with.

It makes Oscar want to be furious at him, but it also makes Oscar miss him so badly he has to grip Carlos’s jumper. Carlos just covers Oscar’s hand with his own.

“We do not have to make this one like last year,” Carlos says. Oscar looks at him. “We cannot,” Carlos adds.

“I know.”

“But we can make this one.”

Oscar looks at the pan. “This one is terrible.”

Carlos looks too. “This part is terrible.”

“This part is solid.”

“Yes.”

“It may never come out.”

“We can throw away the pan.”

Oscar looks sharply at him. “It’s your life-changing pan.”

Carlos shrugs. “My life changed already.”

Oscar stares at him. Carlos looks suddenly embarrassed, which almost never happens and is therefore devastating.

Oscar says, “That was disgusting.”

“Yes.”

“Really awful.”

“I know.”

“You should be ashamed.”

“A little.”

Oscar kisses him because there is nothing else to do with that. Carlos makes a small pleased noise into his mouth. Oscar hates that he knows the noise. Hates that he loves it. Hates that Alex is not here to make fun of them for being disgusting in the kitchen next to a failed dessert.

When they pull apart, Carlos rests their foreheads together for a second. Oscar lets him.

Then : “He is alone,” Oscar says. Carlos is quiet.

Oscar looks at him. “Don’t do the face.”

“What face?”

“The face where you’re about to say something insane and romantic.”

Carlos looks offended. “My faces are handsome.”

“Carlos.”

Carlos smiles a little. “Maybe he will not be alone forever.”

Oscar blinks. “George hates most people,” Oscar says.

“Not most people.”

“Many people.”

“Some people.”

“Enough people.”

Carlos makes a conceding noise.

Oscar leans back against the counter. “Anyway. He’s not exactly making new friends.”

“No,” Carlos says. Then, after a moment: “But he argued with someone last week.”

Oscar groans. Carlos points at him. “You saw?”

“I see everything.”

Oscar thinks about George last week, pale and too neat at his desk, arguing with Max from sports over a cut in the Bahrain segment. Everyone in earshot had gone very quiet except Carlos, who looked delighted by the existence of conflict that did not involve him. Oscar had dismissed it at the time because George arguing with people is not notable. George could argue with a printer if it had the wrong energy.

But George had looked alive. Not like the motionless, numb shell. Angry, yes. Annoyed, absolutely, but alive.

Oscar looks toward the tree. Maybe alive is enough.

“Alex would probably find a way to take credit for it,” Carlos adds.

Oscar closes his eyes. After a moment, he laughs. It scrapes on the way out, but Carlos smiles anyway.

The ruined honey sits on the hob. The schedule on the fridge is useless now, or maybe it was always useless, but Oscar leaves it there because he cannot quite bring himself to take it down.

Carlos reaches around him and for a moment Oscar embarrassengly almost squeals when his hand touches his ass, but he just grabs Oscar’s phone from his pocket.

Oscar asks, “What are you doing?”

“Texting George.”

“We were not supposed to.”

Carlos points at the fridge. “You already failed at the schedule.”

“That is rude.”

Carlos types with one hand, tongue caught slightly between his teeth because he is terrible at typing and refuses to admit it. Oscar grabs it from him and looks at what he sent: There is burnt honey in the pan.

And a moment later, Oscar’s phone pings. George writes back almost immediately.

Tell Carlos I always suspected sugar would defeat him.

Oscar stares at the message.

Carlos gasps. “He blames me?”

“You are very blameable.”

“I was in the living room.”

Carlos looks at him with narrowed eyes, then types again.

It is not my fault your friend cannot cook Spanish food.

George replies: My friend cannot cook most food.

Oscar laughs and Carlos laughs too, loud and warm, and for a second the kitchen feels almost full. Not the same. Never the same.

Oscar takes the phone back and sets it on the counter, face up this time. Carlos looks at the pan. “We order something?”

“For Christmas dinner?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sad.”

“Then we make it not sad.”

“How?”

Carlos shrugs. “We put it on plates and fuck after.”

Oscar looks at him. Carlos grins. Oscar shakes his head, but he is smiling now. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

Carlos’s face does the thing it still does sometimes when Oscar says it first. Like he is surprised and trying not to look surprised because he wants to be cool about being loved. He is not cool about it at all.

Good.

Oscar likes that.

“I love you too,” Carlos says.

Outside, London gets darker.

[selfixxx]

carcar crumbs at the drivers' parade

[lealu]

a scene from my fic Double Horizon (carcar)

[maroonshirt81]

oddly specific AUs

ski resort au

circus au

museum au

library au

IKEA au

olympics au (insert category) 

call center au

moving company au

farmer au

horse riding au

rock climbing au

free diving au

hotel au

delivery driver au

paramedic au

taxi driver au

hairdresser au

zookeeper au

summer camp au

D&D au

surfing au

archaeology au

train au

airport / airplane au

theme park au

national park au

debate team au

cooking competition au

aquarium au

lighthouse au

morgue au

orienteering au

red carpet event au

therapy group au

backpacking au

hot air balloon au

polar research au

open mic night au

street food festival au

farmer’s market au

hostel au

IT department au

DMV au

coast guard au

animal shelter au

birdwatching au

laundromat au

landlord/lady au

neighbors au

flea market au

haunted house au

book club au

optometrist au

dentist au

(insert your own idea) au

[lealu]

hi im chaptercarcar thank you so much for reblogging my post!! anyways for the fic ask game what about number 55 carcar and crocheting/knitting?

hi, @chaptercarcar!!! omg, are you kidding me? i am obsessed with your writing and the birdwatching au one is of my favourite fics ever! sorry, that it took so long and sorry that i kinda made galex a part of this one...but here is my humble offering: 55) crocheting/knitting, carcar, 2.5k

George’s apartment smells like garlic.

Like he’s trying to seduce the entire block through seasoning. Oscar shows up early, because George begged for help in the kitchen, and immediately regrets it when George stands over his shoulder correcting his chopping technique.

“You’re not a chef,” Oscar mutters, mangling a tomato out of spite.

“I’m a host,” George says, grave. “And hosting is an art.”

“You’re unbearable,” Oscar says.

“You guys wouldn't eat without me,” George says back.

Oscar does not reply, mostly because Alex breezes in carrying a bag of wine bottles like a sacrament. He presses a kiss to George’s cheek and then looks at Oscar’s cutting board. “Christ, mate, what did that tomato do to you?”

Oscar drops the knife. “I’m done.”

The thing is, George’s place is the designated dinner spot because he has the big table and the patience to cook, and the rest of them bring chaos and wine. And down the street, two blocks from George’s apartment, there’s a cracked concrete basketball court with nets that hang like tired laundry. That’s where most of them met properly—Oscar, Alex, Max, sometimes George, sometimes Lando, shooting hoops until the light dies.

Carlos showed up a few weeks ago.

New to the city, apparently. Just walked onto the court like he belonged, and of course he was good. Too good. The kind of good that makes Oscar instantly competitive. Since then it’s been back-and-forth: Carlos stealing rebounds, Oscar tripping him just enough to count as an accident, Carlos laughing in a way that makes Oscar’s skin itch.

Tonight is the first time he’s been invited to George’s place. Which explains why Oscar feels like the apartment’s five degrees hotter than it is.

Everyone trickles in: Max immediately claiming the couch and a throw blanket like a throne, Lando sprawled on the rug scrolling his phone, Alex flitting between kitchen and living room, always leaning against George like they’ve been doing it forever. And then—Carlos. Last to arrive, also a bottle of wine in hand, black t-shirt fitted in a way that should be illegal, smile too bright for this dim flat. He greets George, makes that bro-y handshake thing with Alex, hugs Lando, claps Max on the shoulder. He turns to Oscar last.

“Evening, rival,” Carlos says, warm, teasing.

Oscar crosses his arms. “Evening, liability.”

Carlos just grins wider.

Dinner is loud. George preens every time someone compliments the food, Alex keeps sneaking him sips of wine, Max keeps trying to steal bread off everyone’s plates, Alex tells stories about his uni placement. Lando launches into something about a streamer beef that nobody really understands but everyone humors. Oscar eats quickly, aware of Carlos across the table—how he laughs with his whole mouth, how he listens when Alex talks, how he stretches in his chair like the apartment belongs to him.

It’s deeply irritating.

Then George, flushed with wine and self-satisfaction, gestures toward Carlos. “Since you’re the new one here, we should all say what we do. Properly. So you know who’s who.”

Carlos leans back in his chair, easy. “Yes, please. Right now I only know who fouls the most in basketball.” His eyes flick to Oscar.

Oscar glares. “You foul every time.”

Carlos spreads his hands. “That is strategy.”

“Cheating,” Oscar mutters.

“Strategy,” Carlos repeats, grin curving.

George clears his throat, delighted to go first. “I’ll start. Law Office. Very important office. Without me, the real court would collapse.”

“Boring,” Max declares.

“Essential,” George corrects, and Alex pats his arm indulgently.

Alex goes next—last year of uni, training to be a teacher. Lando explains, in painful detail, about finance and streaming, and Max interrupts to say he’s still a student, which is obvious because he treats deadlines like folklore because of his football scholarship.

Carlos tips his chin when it’s his turn. “I am finishing sports science. And I work at a gym.”

“Of course you do,” Oscar mutters automatically.

Carlos’s eyebrows lift, amused. “Why ‘of course’?”

“Because you look like you live in a gym.” He definitely did not mean to say that out looud.

Carlos laughs. “And you look like you live on the court. But I don’t say it is bad.”

Oscar doesn’t have a comeback for that, which annoys him even more.

And then, inevitably, everyone looks at him.

Max grins, malicious. “Go on, Oscar. Tell him what you do.”

Oscar narrows his eyes. “He doesn’t need to know.”

“He does,” Lando says instantly. “It’s tradition. Everyone knows.”

“Yeah,” Alex adds, beaming. “We love it.”

Oscar points his fork at them. “You are all the worst people I know.”

Even George smirks, which is a betrayal. “Come on. Say it.”

Oscar exhales through his nose. “I…run a shop.”

Carlos looks interested. “What kind of shop?”

Oscar wants the ceiling to fall on him. “Etsy.”

Lando leans across the table like he’s about to broadcast it. “He crochets.”

“Shut up,” Oscar hisses.

Carlos blinks, then smiles—slow, genuine. “Crochet?”

Oscar braces for laughter. But Carlos only says, “That’s…very cool.”

Oscar blinks. “Cool?”

Carlos shrugs. “Of course. I cannot even fix a button. And you—what do you make?”

Oscar mutters, “Animals. Hats sometimes.”

Alex jumps in gleefully. “Didn’t your sister get you started? He made her this little bee—”

Oscar groans. “I hate all of you.”

“Adorable,” George says, delighted, nudging Alex.

Carlos’s smile doesn’t move. “I think it is nice,” he says, accent curling faint at the edges. “Better than lifting weights for strangers, no?”

Oscar stares at him, caught between horror and the awful truth of how attractive Carlos is in the low, cozy light. His ears feel hot. He drops his gaze to his plate and pretends he can’t feel Carlos’s eyes on him.

Dinner rolls on, everyone teasing, Max demanding a crochet goose, Lando suggesting merch for his stream. Oscar tries to crawl inside his hoodie. Carlos stays mostly quiet, but every time Oscar dares look up, he’s still watching. Interested. Which is worse. Much worse.

Later, when everyone is stuffed and sprawled, Oscar slips out to the balcony for air. The city hums below, basketball court two blocks away like a ghost under the streetlights. He leans on the railing and breathes.

The door slides open. Carlos steps out, wine glass in hand. “Hiding?”

“Cooling off,” Oscar says.

Carlos comes to lean beside him. Close enough that Oscar can feel the warmth off his arm. “They like teasing,” Carlos says. “But they did not mean to embarrass you.”

“They absolutely did,” Oscar mutters.

Carlos chuckles. “Maybe. But the crochet…it suits you.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I want to,” Carlos says, then gestures at Oscar’s phone sticking out of his pocket. “Show me something. What you make.”

Oscar hesitates, then sighs. He unlocks his phone, scrolls to photos. A lineup of stuffed animals, a striped hat, a lopsided turtle. He holds it out, muttering, “Fine. Here.”

Carlos leans closer, but Oscar starts talking before he can stop himself. “That one’s Tunisian crochet, it’s like a mix between knitting and crochet—harder to keep tension right, but it makes this really solid fabric. And that turtle, see the shell? It’s made with puff stitches, they give it texture. Took forever. And—”

He catches himself mid-ramble, heat climbing his neck. He’s geeking out about crochet in front of someone who probably thinks a yarn hook is a fishing tool. “Sorry. I’m boring you.”

But when he glances up, Carlos isn’t looking at the phone. Hasn’t been, for a while. His gaze is fixed on Oscar, warm and intent.

“You’re hot,” Carlos blurts.

Oscar blinks. “What?!”

Carlos sets the phone gently back in Oscar’s hand like it’s fragile. “I said, you are hot.” His accent digs into the vowels, firm. “I am trying to listen about stitches, but I can only look at you.”

Oscar’s brain short-circuits. “You—you think I’m—what?”

Carlos smiles, crooked. “Hot. Very.” He leans in, close enough that Oscar can smell the faint tang of wine on his breath. “Problem?”

Oscar’s heart is slamming. “No,” he manages. “Not a problem.”

Carlos kisses him.

It’s not careful—it’s sure, immediate, the city humming below them, garlic and laughter spilling from the apartment. Oscar melts into it before he can stop himself, one hand gripping the railing, the other brushing Carlos’s shirt like proof.

When Carlos pulls back, his grin is devastating. “See? You are hot.”

Oscar swallows, dizzy. “You’re still annoying.”

Carlos leans in again, softer this time, voice against Oscar’s mouth. “And still you like me.”

Oscar kisses him again, because resistance is pointless.

They linger, city air cool around them, kitchen light golden behind. Carlos finally leans back, thumb brushing Oscar’s knuckles like he’s testing how much space there is between them.

Inside, Lando’s voice carries through the glass—something about beating George at his own trivia game. Max laughs too loud. Alex shushes them and then laughs louder.

Oscar huffs out a shaky laugh. “If we go back in like this, they’ll know.”

Carlos tips his head. “Let them.”

Oscar groans. “You don’t understand. They’ll never shut up.”

“Then they talk,” Carlos says simply. His smile is small, almost private. “We kiss again anyway.”

Oscar stares at him, then shoves his shoulder lightly, heat crawling back up his neck. “You’re....” He doesn't finish.

“Thank you,” Carlos says, very pleased with himself.

They stand there one minute longer, pretending they’re not both stalling. Then Oscar straightens, clears his throat, and pulls the door open. “Come on, before they send Max to find us.”

Carlos brushes past him, just enough to let their arms touch. “Next time,” he murmurs, “I want to see the bee your sister has.”

Oscar nearly trips on the threshold. “Shut up,” he hisses, but he’s smiling, and he hates it, and he doesn’t hate it at all.

[bunbunline]

relatively sure that the carcar belgian airport interaction was them giving each other a low handshake and not an air kiss as reports have been saying, but will that stop me from PRETENDING it was an air kiss? no. In fact I believe they went on to make out in the plane bathroom. Sitting a seat away from each other for modesty but it's not working because Carlos keeps spacing out while staring at Oscar. Oscar wants to throw something at him and is incredibly red. My awesomesauce imagination can make anything about them real and true.

[russonellipastry]

CARCAR SIGHTINGS HELLO???

[polarprude]

rich guy dressing like it's the 90s with his (not so controversially) younger boyfriend

[polarprude]

smooch

[polarprude]

smooch

[polarprude]

smooch

[iiwxliaii]

I saw your carcar plot so I decided to give an idea (don't know if it's a good idea tho lol)

Every morning carlos goes on his run he meets this lovely australian woman who kinda looks like his new annoying coworker ?? Anyway he always talks to her and play a little with her dog who looks a lot like his mom's dog

Now cut to Oscar, he always run at night and he keep seeing this woman with a dog that looks exactly like his mom's. He talks with her play with her dog and he notices that she has an spanish accent that reminds him of this stupid guy at his job ugh

Something happened (idk their moms needed to travel or something) and now they have to take the dogs on a walk. They meet at park start arguing over something that happened at their job and accidently switch the dogs.

And now they're fucked.

Not only do they have to get their dogs back before their moms find out but they can't just ask the other because it would be too humiliating so they start acting all nice to each other so they can finally switch the dogs back

This way the dogs won't be so weirded out that they're being kidnapped because they're already familiar with the two

WAITTT ANON I LOVE THIS CONCEPTT. the fact theyre ALREADY connected and intertwined in a small way through their MOMS. this is beautiful. and it solves the whole dog behaviour thing AWW.

honestly im getting inspired?? and imagine the way they actually get the dogs back is one of them(probably carlos) gets drunk at a company party. and the oscar just HAPPENS to know where carlos lives because hes such an overthinker who had initally plotted a plan to find carlos’ address and swap the dogs but never got to it. he brings carlos home and he spends the night(where hopefully some drunken confessions take place) he wales up to the barking of HIS DOG!! hungover carlos wakes up and just realises how stupid all this was when he sees oscar hugging the little canine like a long lost lover. (he also wishes he was the dog..) HAHAH IMAGINE THAT

@polarprude keeping you in the loop because were in this tgt

[notforpenance]

star footballer carlos who is a sociable butterfly, stops for every fan, beloved by all, with his perfect model girlfriend who attends every game, dotes on his wins and cries at his losses, and blows him a kiss everytime she’s on camera

star footballer carlos who can’t stop ogling his sarcastic aussie teammate before every game in the locker room, who fucks himself in club bathrooms moaning said teammates name, and then goes to the hotel and fucks his girlfriend while thinking about him

sarcastic aussie teammate who thinks carlos is the fakest person ever because he’s such a big people pleaser and then he goes out one night and desperately needs to piss and who’s in the shut stall next to the urinals jerking off over the toilet bowl? carlos. and who just came groaning his name? carlos. and who took a two second look at him when he walked out of the stall and just absolutely ran away? carlos.

and all said teammate can think about is that carlos didn’t wash his hands.

oh yeah and carlos’s girlfriend has been picturing carlos’s sister every time they fuck, who also comes to a lot of carlos’s games and who always sits with his girlfriend and who holds her hand that one time they’re nervous carlos might have gotten injured… they both in the same pickle

[iiwxliaii]

Right I know this is like footballer x footballer BUT I have a footballer Carlos x actor Oscar au and idk how to spin it. This just gave me some good thoughts to think about