The sleeves of his McLaren hoodie are too long on him, which means they are too long on Carlos. Oscar tries not to dwell on the fact, because eventually he’ll start thinking about how they match each other length for length (hah), palm to shoulder an almost perfect fit, which then gets Oscar all gooey and atrociously warm, and he can’t have that. Especially not in this moment, with Carlos attempting to hold Oscar’s hand discreetly using the too-long sleeves. At least one person has to keep their head screwed properly on their shoulders.
“Not subtle,” Oscar informs him.
“What,” Carlos says, but it’s Carlos, so it’s more like a whaaaaaat? “You’re shy, Oscar? Don’t tell me you’re shy.”
“I’m shy.”
“You’re no fun if you don’t protest,” Carlos says, still flapping his orange paw around the vicinity of Oscar’s hip.
Feeling a little too indulgent, Oscar lets Carlos chase his fingers while he half-heartedly tries to escape. Halfway through play-fighting in the middle of a street like children, Carlos’s palm slips out of his sleeve like a nervous squirrel and envelops the whole of Oscar’s. Victory! the grin on Carlos’s face says, and yep, that, among a million other things concerning Carlos, Oscar’s barriers have no hope against. The joy exuding out of Carlos’s pores when he stands on a podium, dragging Oscar right out of the doom symphony playing in his head on fortissimo in Qatar. The delight when he steals the last pancake out from under Oscar’s nose. And the apparent pleasure Carlos gets from simply holding Oscar’s hand.
Oscar allows his hand to be held, very much a conscious decision. Even to be swung around merrily.
“This okay?” Carlos asks.
“Uh huh,” Oscar says immediately, even though he means Obviously Not.
The Obviously Not comes in the form of a couple of blurry photos, and suspiciously nonchalant questions thrown around at testing. The ill-fitting length of Oscar’s sleeves remains a lifesaver. Held up in court, no one can definitively claim if Carlos’s hand was actually curled around Oscar’s (it was) or not.
“I was cold,” Carlos says, just as nonchalantly, except it’s Carlos, so it’s more like a cooooooooold. “Oscar was very kind, eh? Lending me his hoodie.”
“Didn’t really have a choice mate,” Oscar says. “You were moaning a lot.”
Carlos opens his mouth.
“Don’t,” Oscar quickly interrupts, “offer a demonstration.”
“Hm,” the journalist says, fascinated. “Hm,” Lando says. “Hm,” the rest of the paddock with two eyes says.
Even in promo snippets and the videos they film for Grill the Grid, they’re getting a little careless with it. Who would you go to a desert island with? Who has the best hair? Who’s the best cook? Have you ever been to the house of another driver on the grid? Who?
Carlos. Carlos, I feel like that’s going to be a very popular answer, because, duh. Carlos. Yes. Carlos.
Years of PR training kick in, and Oscar begrudgingly remembers to throw in other drivers for pepper and spice. Having a singular answer to all these questions should be worrying. It’s putting all his eggs into one basket. It’s poor planning, Mark would say. But as myopic as it may be, Oscar can’t stop his teeth from forming around the vowels in Carlos’s name each time.
At least it doesn’t seem to be a game he’s playing alone. When they’re apart, when Oscar’s feeling a particular kind of way, lonely and dressed down, he pulls up the video where they’d sectioned the drivers’ faces into three, and you had to make guesses. It was clear Carlos wasn’t trying to be obvious, but he had taken one look at Oscar’s lips, and knew.
Maybe it had been obvious only to Oscar. Maybe.
Eventually, the unwanted attention grates and chips away at them, and the third time he’s asked Oscar wants to take the journo’s head off. His skin itches with agitation. He starts to wonder if they’ve finally gone too far. He starts to wonder if there’re clearer photos. Unwittingly, the edges of his body turn sharp. Sensitive even to the most minute of fractures in Oscar’s expressions, Carlos withdraws. And continuing the cycle of misery, Oscar will resign himself to three weeks of distance before Carlos feels comfortable enough to take Oscar’s hand in public again.
Carlos meets him after testing’s done, orange hoodie carefully folded up and hidden under one arm.
“Thank you for letting me borrow,” Carlos says.
“I don’t need you to return it,” Oscar says, failing spectacularly at disguising his hurt. “Since when do we return each others’ clothing?”
“Ah.” Carlos scratches the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s better. Less questions.”
“Coward,” Oscar mutters, and Carlos flushes red. Between the both of them, it’s Carlos who is the most honest. His arm is still tight around the hoodie; he hasn’t handed it back to Oscar. As reluctant to part with it as Oscar is to receive it. Back of neck scratcher, face flusher, heart on sleeve wearer.
“I meant less questions for you,” Carlos says angrily. “You want me to wear it to the next press conference? Then they’ll ask you, hey, and what will you say?”
A couple of things become clear at once. First, that they can’t be protecting each other in circles. Second, that there are exceedingly few things in a racing career and even less things in a racing career mixed up with another racing career that Oscar can stand absolute on. Only that Carlos swung their hands between them, fingers interlaced, that night. And the world isn’t ending yet.
“That I gave it to you,” Oscar says. “What else? I gave it to you.”
“Fine,” Carlos says, jerking his arm back almost violently. “It’s mine. I’ll wear it when I want. Maybe now, even.”
Oscar wants to kiss the stupid man, cameras be damned. “Good.”
“Good.”
“I said it first.”
“Well.” Carlos tugs the hoodie back on, too-long sleeves and all, and the soft part in Oscar packed with yearning cheers. “I said it better.”
After Abu Dhabi, they’d met in Oscar’s hotel room and Carlos had known it’d be the last time. Carlos was cut open raw from his goodbye from Ferrari and he could taste the restless energy crackling off Oscar, both of them too exhausted by this long season for pretenses. They’d slept together; a little too slow, a little too sweet and Carlos knew this would never survive the light of day. When they were done, Oscar had looked at a place just to the left of Carlos’s nose and said he um, yeah, really needed to focus next season, so that he didn’t think it’d be a good idea to continue, um, this. Carlos had already made his peace with having nothing much to look forward to in the upcoming year and rationally speaking, what Oscar said was true. So Carlos had agreed. No hard feelings.
He’d been surprised to find that there really seemed to be none. They’d seen each other around in Monaco, England, on six hour flights to Bahrain. And now, five hours after the race in Melbourne, Carlos was surprised to find Oscar at his hotel room door.
“Come in,” Carlos said and Oscar nodded stiffly before doing so. Tearing his eyes away from the tight line of Oscar’s shoulders, Carlos closed the door and cleared his throat.
“Nice recovery to–”
“It was shit,” Oscar said, voice flat. “Shit race, shit mistake, shit recovery.”
Carlos shrugged. “You got back into the points.”
“Yeah, that’s more than you can say.” Oscar bit out.
“Yup,” Carlos agreed easily. In general, Oscar didn’t need to bring his A-game to bait Carlos into a fight, but this was an appallingly cheap shot and Carlos had standards. Oscar looked at Carlos, really looked at him for the first time since he showed up and his face tightened. “You’re not even mad,” he said, sounding almost betrayed.
Carlos had been, for the first ten minutes, helpless resentment burning hot in his diaphragm, but James had intercepted him and gone through the data with him and Gaetan. It’d been a power surge caused by an oddity in the Merc engine under safety car mode and Carlos hadn’t known. He couldn’t have known, really, with how limited testing time was. James said that, Gaetan said that. Carlos made himself believe them.
In Oscar’s jaw, Carlos could see a ripple of muscle as Oscar ground his teeth together. What was going to follow was either Oscar doubling down with a meaner insult or Oscar storming off in a huff–for someone who considered himself cool, calm and collected, he could get remarkably pissy in Carlos’s vicinity.
“Will you fuck me?” Oscar said, in a tone so terse it took Carlos a few seconds to reconcile it with the meaning of the words. Buying time, Carlos ran his tongue over his bottom lip–Oscar’s eyes boring into Carlos’s didn’t waver.
“Have you ever, before?” Carlos asked and Oscar’s face tightened further.
“What does that matter?”
Very carefully, Carlos considered his response. It was hard, resisting the ingrained instinct to shield his vulnerable underbelly when Oscar was like this, but Oscar had spent a lot of last year in the blast radius of Carlos’s desperation, so Carlos figured he deserved an honest answer, at least.
“Well, I haven’t,” Carlos said. “And if we–if I ever do, I like to be set up for success.”
Oscar’s mouth flattened. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” he said and Carlos stepped in, caught Oscar around the wrist. If there’s one feeling Carlos had become intimately familiar with it was the acidic burn of humiliation and if Oscar wanted to numb it by doing something stupid, well. Case in point, Carlos could be plenty stupid.
“Come here,” he said. Oscar gave him a look full of contempt and tried to wrestle his arm loose.
“I’m leaving,” Oscar snapped. “This is fucking stupid, we don’t even–I don’t even–”
“Yes, yes,” Carlos said. Even with the difference in exhaustion from not racing today, it was a little embarrassing for Oscar how easily Carlos could wrestle him to the bed, flat on his back under Carlos. “Stop trying to slap me.”
“Let me go,” Oscar barked and Carlos hummed, jamming his knee into the meat of Oscar’s thigh to pin his thrashing legs while trying to keep his flailing arms down. “You fucking–I shouldn’t–”
“I am trying to get my hand down your pants,” Carlos said mildly. The angry flush on Oscar’s face had painted him bright pink from hairline to collar and it made Carlos feel helplessly, unwisely fond.
“I don’t want your fucking–” Oscar snarled and then his eyes rolled back into his head when Carlos managed to jam his hand into Oscar’s joggers and squeezed Oscar’s dick where it was already pressing fat and hot against the confines of his briefs. A strangled sound wrung out of Oscar’s throat and Carlos resisted the urge to press his mouth against Oscar’s and swallow it.
“Fuck,” Oscar panted and Carlos pressed the flat of his thumb under the head of Oscar’s dick. It made Oscar’s entire body jolt and as Carlos wobbled on top of Oscar, he managed to wrench his wrists loose from where Carlos had them pinned over his head. For a moment, he was sure Oscar was going to buck him onto the floor like an angry rodeo bull, but instead, Oscar’s hands landed, shaking, against Carlos’s ribcage and twisted into his shirt. Carlos took his chances on freeing his hand so he could lick his palm and wrap it back around Oscar’s dick. The measured neutrality had melted off Oscar’s face, now his expression was twisted in that way that always gave Carlos a second of breathless anxiety that he was in pain. His hips twitched into the tight circle of Carlos’s hand.
Like always, Oscar got so fucking wet–it fascinated Carlos endlessly. He thought that Oscar’s body looked for ways to get around Oscar’s restraint, that maybe if Carlos looked at Oscar close enough, he could find the other places where Oscar’s true feelings leaked out at the seams. Sure, it was possible that Oscar’s precome production had nothing to do with his emotional state, but that didn’t help Carlos at all. Carlos rubbed his thumb into the wet slit and Oscar made a high, hurt noise. His body was a hot, tense line under Carlos–only Oscar’s jaw was slack, the rest of him still wound tight.
Carlos thought about what he would have wanted someone to tell him, when he got fired, when he saw every door to a top team slam closed, when he had to let Charles by in his last home race where he’d have a competitive car.
“You did well,” Carlos said and Oscar twitched. “I have never heard a crowd cheer like when you got off the grass.”
“Fuck off,” Oscar gasped, thrashing in Carlos’s grip. “Fuck you.”
“Do you know the TV graphic already said you were out?” Carlos said and Oscar made a wretched sound. “Everyone thought you were done for.”
“Stop fucking–talking and just fuck me,” Oscar rasped out, voice thick and Carlos shook his head. He did want to fuck Oscar, quite urgently. In fact, you couldn’t really look at the tight curve of Oscar’s waist veering into the generous swell of his ass and not want to fuck it. But when Carlos was going to fuck Oscar, it wouldn’t be on a night where Oscar would slink off in shame, lashing out recklessly on the way to the exit no matter what Carlos did. Carlos didn’t spend six months picking which contract to sign because he was the kind of person that left his success up to chance.
“No,” Carlos said simply. When he twisted his wrist, Oscar’s entire body pulled tight, chest arching up against Carlos’s. They weren’t kissing, but something so close to it, Oscar’s mouth open and against Carlos’s, his sharp gasps echoing off the back of Carlos’s throat. Carlos tightened his hand around Oscar’s dick, still remembering how Oscar liked it near the end, fast and more ruthless than Carlos could ever bring himself to be.
“I was proud of you,” Carlos murmured, half hoping Oscar wouldn’t hear. A sob ripped from Oscar and he came messily over Carlos’s hand and wrist. His breath pulsed hot and hitchy against the thin skin over Carlos’s throat. Oscar’s entire body was shuddering and Carlos wiped his soiled hand on the farthest end of the sheet he could reach and ran a gentling hand down Oscar’s side. He knew Oscar was crying and he figured that if he mentioned it, Oscar would be halfway to Shanghai before Carlos could even get his pants back on. And it wasn’t like he could go anywhere, Oscar’s hands still fisted in Carlos’s shirt so tightly that Carlos could feel the fabric of his collar cut into the back of his neck. So he lowered some of his weight onto Oscar and thumbed at the curve of Oscar’s hip while Oscar shook under him.
“I can,” Oscar said after the worst of it seemed to have subsided, voice still hoarse and raw. “I can get you–”
He untwisted one of his hands from Carlos’s shirt and tried to push it down Carlos’s joggers.
“Pass,” Carlos said, catching Oscar around the wrist. “I will cash in this chip when I need it later in the season.”
Oscar stiffened under him and Carlos tried not to cut himself on the sharp edge of rejection.
“I did not mean–” Carlos said and Oscar sighed, closed his eyes again.
“I know,” he said. “When I said–I didn’t mean–you know that, right?”
“No,” Carlos said. “Yes. I don’t know what you mean, I think.
“Yeah,” Oscar scrubbed a hand over his blotchy face. “When’s your flight to Shanghai?”
“Wednesday,” Carlos said. It felt like a confession.
“Oh,” Oscar said. He snuck his hands under Carlos’s t-shirt, fingers spread wide at the underside of Carlos’s rib cage. Carlos tucked his forehead under the hinge of Oscar’s jaw. “Okay.”
race engineer carlos? 👀 does he perhaps work at mclaren? 👀👀
Two and a half weeks pass before they see each other again, at the strategy meeting kicking off the second half of the seas, in Woking. Carlos catches Oscar around the wrist after the meeting has concluded, waiting until they’re alone. To the untrained eye, Oscar’s face is neutral, but Carlos recognises the pinch between Oscar’s eyebrows for the scowl that it is. Currently, it’s only a fraction deeper than it’s been all day whenever he’s spared a look at Carlos.
“If there are any hard feelings,” Carlos says, very patiently. “I would like to know now, so we can talk about them before we get back to racing.”
“Nope,” Oscar says, twisting his arm out of Carlos’s grip. “No hard feelings. None at all.”
“We can be adults about this,” Carlos says and Oscar’s glare darkens.
“Sure can,” he says. “Bye.”
And then Oscar stalks off. Carlos tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. “Fuuuuuuuuck,” he mutters to himself, lengthening the u until he’s out of breath.
*****
Half an hour before FP1, Carlos looks at himself in the mirror in the bathroom and resolves to, whatever Oscar says, respond with grace and humour. He will not let himself get baited into a spat on the radio.
He lasts six minutes. When he asks Oscar to describe the balance, Oscar just grunts out: “Fine.”
“A little more detail?” Carlos asks from between gritted teeth and Oscar audibly sighs.
“Not good, not bad. Ergo: fine.”
“If you tell me what is bad about it,” Carlos says, talking so slowly Andrea is already looking at him with a bewildered expression. “We can change it. In case you were wondering about the technicalities of communication.”
“I have been wondering about the technicalities of communication, actually,” Oscar says, icily. “I will make sure to ask someone else to explain them to me.”
Carlos takes off his headset and counts to ten. To twenty. Thirty. Forty. Then he puts his headset back on.
“Push lap now please,” he says and Oscar scoffs.
*****
“Would like some guidance on engine modes if you’re not too busy,” Oscar says during FP2 and Carlos is already getting worked up over the fact he’s going to see this clipped on the internet tomorrow with a caption about Oscar being cool, calm and collected. People hear a level voice and they automatically assume composure, but Carlos knows Oscar, knows what’s going on here: Oscar is whining.
“No engine mode will fix your entry to turn seven,” Carlos says and next to him, he can hear Andrea groaning.
*****
“The Alpine–” Oscar starts and Carlos rolls his eyes, presses the button to cut him off. It’s FP2, for God’s sake and they’re not even doing quali sims until tomorrow.
“The Alpine is pitting after the next corner and there is no traffic, so you’re free to do your last flyer,” Carlos says.
“No tow,” Oscar states, snootily and Carlos closes his eyes, imagining wrapping his hands around Oscar’s big neck and strangling him.
“I don’t want to hear from you until you come over the line,” Carlos says. “Stop inventing, start driving.”
*****
When Carlos looks up from the FP2 data, he has two minutes to make the four minute trip to the debrief meeting room. He tucks his notebook under his arm and breaks out in the barest of jogs. Almost, he’s rounded the corner when he hears Zak’s voice saying his name and on instinct, freezes.
“—you and Carlos’s working relationship is always a little rough around the edges, but today raised some eyebrows.”
Oscar’s voice is short when he replies: “It’s fine, I think we were both frustrated about the performance of the car.”
Zak’s quiet for a long moment and Carlos breathes in and out through his nose as quietly as he can.
“Felt a little spicier than usual,” Zak finally says. “You’re sure something didn’t happen?”
Oscar doesn’t say anything at first and Carlos wonders if they’re remembering the same thing. A hug that lasted longer than it should have after Oscar crossed the finish line first in Hungary for the second time, neither of them calling it redemption. The feeling of Oscar’s tongue against Carlos’s fingers as he closed his lips around the shot glass Carlos held up for him. Rough, sweat-damp cotton under Carlos’s hands as he ran a hand up Oscar’s back in the elevator. Oscar’s thick thighs, spread out over white hotel linens, Carlos’s mouth against the inside of Oscar’s knee. The spit-slicked slide of Carlos’s dick in Oscar’s hand. Almost no discernible wobble in Carlos’s voice when he said, the next morning: “This shouldn’t have happened and it won’t happen again.” Oscar saying “Carlos” in a shocked, small voice before he cleared his throat. No trace of any emotion in his tone when he spoke after that.
“Yup,” Oscar says. “All good.”
“You’re our priority, Osc,” Zak says. “The WDC is in reach. If you need a change, we’ll make it happen.”
“I’ll remember that,” Oscar says. “Now, should we—?”
Carlos waits for the sound of the door to the debrief room opening and closing. Then he waits another thirty seconds, to be sure. Sweat beads at his temples and he dabs it away with his sleeve.
“Sorry I am late,” he says when he comes in and Zak smiles at him, jovially waves Carlos to his seat. Carlos sits down, directly opposite Oscar, ensures he doesn’t meet his eyes. When Oscar makes suggestions for the set-up, Carlos agrees with them. When Oscar proposes a strategy, Carlos supports him. When Oscar says something, Carlos nods. At the end of the meeting, Zak looks mollified and Oscar's so red in the face he looks like an angry strawberry.
“What the fuck was that,” Oscar demands after the meeting, cornering Carlos on the way back.
“Oh, hm,” Carlos says. “I just thought your suggestion on ride height was very good.”
“No, you didn't,” Oscar hisses. “I said that to trick you into—”
His face goes flat. “You heard,” he says.
“You are the priority,” Carlos says, shrugging with practiced nonchalance. “It is probably about time I fall in line.”
Oscar’s scowl is so sudden and deep it’s a little funny.
“You're of no use to me if you don't say what's on your mind,” he says finally, and Carlos cocks his head.
“I am of no use to Zak if I do, apparently,” he says and Oscar scoffs.
“If he threatens you I'll refuse to get into the car, see how long he holds out.”
“And that is why it shouldn’t have happened,” Carlos says, a horribly jaded tone in his voice he can’t eliminate in time as he motions between them. “Oscar, I am dependent on you and you alone for my job. That is—that is a very big risk, for me.”
“Right,” Oscar says. “That is—I mean. Yeah, that’s. Yeah.” He chews on the inside of his cheek, a mulish pinch between his brows. He’s thinking, Carlos can see it. Trying to reason his way out of it. But he can’t, because there isn’t. Carlos would know.
“Are we good?” Carlos asks and Oscar’s shoulders sag.
“Yeah,” he says, holding out his fist for Carlos to bump his own against. It’ll be worth it, when Oscar wins his first WDC this season, when he can defend his title next year and for many years to come. They’re building something here for the long term. Something exceptional, all the elements of something legendary. It’ll be worth it.
And if Carlos repeats that to himself often enough, he can almost pretend that for the last few weeks, whenever he closes his eyes at night, the only thing his mind conjures up isn’t the memory of Oscar’s mouth against Carlos’s throat, his hands on Carlos’s hips and his shocked little gasp when Carlos made him come.
i understand (on paper) why companies are anti-piracy but its funny when random individuals are also strongly anti-piracy. like how does it negatively affect your life if someone you know downloads a cracked torrent of sims 4. you dont work for EA. EA isnt gonna pay you for this. you lose nothing. its fine. chill out.
I don't have time to write this as a full fic bc I just started a new job but I will spend the next while thinking about a carcar time loop fic focused on this race:
They're fucking but have not defined the relationship and both think the other doesn't want it because of complementary insecurities (hehehe 🚬).
Carlos is obvs frustrated because of the general Williams malaise.
Oscar is frustrated because he somewhat yielded last year with the promise of better years to come and McLaren aren't really in it this year. But he's too proud to say this.
Oscar made a glib comment about Williams this morning that was unfortunate but not that bad but Carlos is feeling so shitty about his season that he snaps back and things are tense.
The on-track incident happens and then Oscar DNFs.
They have fight about it and break up that evening. Oscar says "then we're clearly not compatible so we shouldn't fucking be together," and Carlos says "we're not together, I'm just fucking you," and Oscar says "clearly" and then walks out.
Oscar goes to sleep sad and angry but mostly sad and then wakes up and it's race day--classic being late for a meeting because he doesn't realise it's Sunday again.
Oscar doesn't make the glib comment that morning but he's weirdly quiet and Carlos takes that the wrong way and they're still testy going into the race.
As Oscar is in the formation lap he realises he can avoid the crash and he can win and then also he won't fight w Carlos.
He avoids the contact w Carlos and doesn't dnf and then makes a comment afterwards at their standing post-race fuck--"you can fuck my face because you didn't fuck my race"-- and this makes them have a fight and they break up again.
Over like 20 loops, Oscar manages to sometimes not fight w Carlos before the race, and sometimes not fight after the race, but never both. He never loses the race now that he knows about the contact.
He tells Carlos about the time loop a few times in the morning but it never makes a difference.
He has one loop where he has contact with someone else and DNFs and when he's with Carlos afterwards he can see the directions out of the fight but he doesn't take them because if the loop resets he won't win the race.
Over the loops Oscar comes to understand more about how Carlos is feeling; Carlos is really proud of his own driving in the Williams and he has become conflicted about sticking with Williams through its alleged ascension (as it was sold to him) vs bailing to a better team.
Similarly, over the loops Oscar gives Carlos bits of his own insecurities about sitting back in second place to Lando and fearing that he made the wrong choice and that he'll never have another chance at a wdc.
Eventually Oscar accidentally lets the contact happen again and it's Carlos's fault and Oscar dnfs but he apologises to Carlos afterwards about everything that's between them and they make up and don't break up, but the time loop still resets again and it's still Sunday.
But that was the best day Oscar has had this whole time so he does it again and dnfs but tells Carlos about it after the race and it's weird but Carlos believes him and they spitball about what they're misunderstanding to keep the loop going.
Oscar realises that in all of Carlos's proposed solutions Oscar still wins the race. He realises Carlos respects his right and will to win, that Oscar simultaneously realises and says out loud that he'd rather dnf than lose Carlos.
other drivers: it was unfortunate but these things happen on track, just a racing incident.
oscar piastri: when stupidity is great enough it becomes malice. not only is carlos an idiot and a criminal and a life ruiner but he's annoying. everyone thinks so. we've talked about it.
charles on having max as teammate: "if one day it happens, it would be a nice story because we started in 2010 together, we've done all karting categories together... so why not?"
And penguins lack large terrestrial predators, so their reaction to humans tends to be, “HELLO STRANGE GIANT PENGUINS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO YOU HAVE ANY FISH?”
There is an international treaty that says we’re supposed to stay 6m away from penguins, and it’s really difficult because no one told the penguins, and they all desperately want to wander up and say hi.
izzy806
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