I wouldn't normally do this, but I know it's been a while since the last update, so this will be a special little treat for the tumblr lovelies.
✨Fractured chap 18 snippet✨
~~~~~~~~
“Can you take me up to your room?”
“No.”
Oscar’s expression had changed instantly and Lando was rather pleased seeing the younger boy be so caught off guard.
The next words that follow are also ones Oscar wasn’t expecting to hear.
“I’d rather go to yours instead,” Lando said.
The younger boy hadn’t fought him too hard in his request, and Lando couldn’t have been more thrilled.
He knows the Slytherin common rooms are in the dungeons and surrounded entirely by the Black Lake, but he’s not exactly sure what he expected they’d be like inside. He didn’t quite get a good glimpse of the main common area before Oscar quickly rushed him down the prefect’s hallway. But here, inside Oscar’s room, Lando can really see the effect of being submerged underwater.
The windows on either side of the room don’t actually offer real sunlight, it’s just the filtered bluish and green glow of the lake that shines through. Oscar’s room has what Lando’s doesn’t, and that’s the faint rippling patterns of water across the stone walls inside. And it’s quiet. Lando doesn’t have that either. Even up in the tower of his room, he can still sometimes hear the rambunctious echoes of his housemates below him. But Slytherin house, he’s quickly learned, is much more subdued.
Besides how dim it is, the bed is the first thing that catches his attention. It’s not particularly dissimilar to his own, with of course the dark green sheets being the major difference. But it’s still the same size, same structure, same carved posts rising at each corner. Except Oscar’s bed is a complete mess.
The covers are half-pulled back, flashing the white from the undersheets against the green in a careless heap. Lando remembers how the younger boy had to point out that he was surprised that Lando’s bed was properly made up when he came to his room. He knew that was supposed to be a jab at him, but Lando could throw it right back, being surprised that this orderly boy is such a mess in his room. Lando’s mouth can’t help but slightly twitch in a smile.
His gaze drifts to the bedposts, noticing the small serpent emblems carved into the wood. He then sees a tall cabinet standing against the wall, its doors transparent, revealing rows of bottles inside. They’re potions, most likely, or vials of ingredients, and the glass also reflects that strange underwater light, making everything inside shimmer slightly.
And right beside it is a table where a small cauldron sits off to one side, somewhat rusty along the rim, and beside it is a cutting board littered with the remnants of crushed leaves. Tiny, delicate things, scattered and abandoned mid-task most probably.
Lando huffs softly under his breath. Of course someone like Oscar would love to take his work with him to his room. He probably sits there late at night, sleeves pushed up, completely absorbed in whatever he’s brewing, forgetting the time and forgetting everything else.
This place really is so Oscar.
Now the corners of his mouth pull into a full smile.
“Bit different from Gryffindor,” Lando says, his eyes roaming once more around the room before settling back on him.
“Sorry it’s a bit dark in here,” Oscar mutters. “Let me turn on a light.”
The boy crosses the space and sits on the edge of his bed, reaching for the lantern resting on the bedside table. A second later, the wick catches and the flame blooms to life.
The warm orange light spills outward, pushing back the cool, underwater glow that had filled the room before. Lando hadn’t realized how much the dimness had been hiding until that bright flame illuminated Oscar’s face so beautifully. It paints his skin in shades of gold and amber, absolving the pale tones of before.
Lando can see him much better this way.
“The water does get brighter on sunnier days, believe it or not,” Oscar says.
Immediately Lando can tell that Oscar’s voice doesn’t sound natural, he’s only trying to be. He looks at the younger one a bit longer and he realizes that Oscar is unmistakably nervous.
The boy is sitting stiffly on the bed, his gaze still lingering on the lantern instead of wandering back to him, and there’s that faint crease between his brows. At this point, what do they have to be nervous about?
It’s absurd, yet it’s the most endearing thing Lando’s seen all day.
He pushes himself away from the door and crosses the room before Oscar can retreat any further into his own head. The mattress dips slightly when he sits down beside him, practically glued to his side as their thighs press together immediately, leaving no space between them.
Oscar doesn’t flinch as he feels him, but he’s still not looking at Lando either. His eyes stay fixed on the lantern, watching the bright flame flicker and most definitely using it as a distraction from the boy up against him. Lando knows Oscar isn’t ready to meet his eyes just yet.
Is this one of those moments again? One where everything feels like too much at once? One where neither of them quite knows what to do with the sudden shift in air between them. Maybe it is. But he can’t let it go on any longer.
Lando leans forward, just steady enough that Oscar doesn’t startle when Lando’s lips brush against his cheek in a kiss. He stays there for a second longer, and with his nose resting against Oscar’s skin, warmth spreads through the non-existent space between them, and he instantly feels the shiver that runs through Oscar’s body.
So, he doesn’t stop, and presses another kiss to the same spot, even softer this time, then again as he lets his lips drift slightly lower, grazing the edge of Oscar’s jaw.
This tenderness is something that he’s rarely tried. That hasn’t really existed between them before. Even when they were up in Lando’s room, the tenderness usually came after everything, hardly before.
His lips brush along Oscar’s jaw again before slipping lower, the next kiss landing against the side of his neck. He keeps it slow, barely more than a warm press when he feels Oscar’s breath catch and he doesn’t rush past it.
Another kiss follows, then another, until his mouth finds the curve where Oscar’s neck meets his collarbone. The smallest breathy sigh leaves Oscar then. Lando lingers there for a moment, breathing in softly as Oscar’s warmth spreads beneath his lips.
“I know you must’ve had a lot of unpleasant memories in this room,” Lando whispers against his skin. “Every morning waking up.”
He can practically feel Oscar stop breathing.
Lando lifts his head just enough to press another slow kiss back up along the same path, stopping just beneath Oscar’s ear where he can feel the faint, uneven rhythm of his pulse.
“I wanna help make some better ones for you,” he mutters quietly.
The words sink into Oscar like a raindrop in the lake, rippling all through his body. Slowly, he finally turns his head until he meets Lando’s disarming eyes. And his stomach fucking flutters.
It’s so strange to feel so light and nervous all at once.
Erasing every bad feeling he’s ever had in here and replacing it with something good, with Lando…
He’d very much like that.
He follows his body’s instinct and leans forward to capture Lando’s lips in a kiss. Their mouths slot together like perfectly fitted puzzle pieces, and he realizes, there really is no reason to be nervous anymore.
When they pull back only slightly, Lando’s voice lowers to something softer than Oscar has ever heard from him.
Double Horizon - a carcar time loop/roadtrip fic written for the @motorsport-halloween fest 2025!
carlos/oscar (carcar), 5/5 chapters, 75k words, rated E, FINISHED
“If this is hell, you’re a terrible person to spend eternity with,” Oscar says and lowers his head on the steering wheel.
Carlos smiles. “At least you won’t be lonely.”
Carlos and Oscar should be in Austin, preparing for a race right now. Instead they're stuck in a time loop on a road that never ends.
George/Max, 9.3K, Rated T, Written for @f1-fic-secret-santa
...
The knock comes again, forceful. George blinks. Maybe it’s Alex, come to lecture him about leaving the party early. Maybe it’s Toto with some last-minute contract additions to goad George into signing before the new year.
Fine. George can pull himself together and politely tell whoever it is to go away for the rest of the evening. He sulks over to the door and opens it slowly, blinking at his new guest. It takes a minute for the image in front of him to sink into his retinas.
Because the person on the other side of the door looks an awful lot like George Russell.
//
Or: George goes on a journey through his past. Max is around for a lot of it.
a couple of people have asked for a carlos POV of in theory and actually. thinking about it. it's pretty funny. imagine being carlos, carlos who gets everything in his life he's ever wanted carlos, carlos who feels he has nothing further to prove to anyone carlos (this is a lie btw), carlos who gets saddled with OSCAR, who barely tolerates him, as an executive assistant.
oscar who shows few emotions. doesn't give a f about seniority. thinks carlos is incredibly arrogant (he's not wrong here but, like recognises like.) oscar who knows carlos can't even do his own expenses without having an emotional support espresso or spending half an hour whining to oscar even though he did it himself years before oscar even joined, etc etc.
and carlos has to. endure it. while oscar blatantly ignores his charm offensive and his attempts at being jovial and his bad bilingual puns and carlos, because everyone usually loves carlos, and he-- he just. he cannot for the life of him figure out why he's also so compelled by this australian dude. doesn't know what to do with himself. just keeps interactions to a transactional minimum and puts up a front like he is soooo curt and uncaring about everything but. the warmth seeps through anyway, a vine that's destined to grow despite his attempts not to let it.
so what, if carlos lies awake in bed with racing thoughts too late at night thinking of revenues and EBITDA and platinum tiers and air miles. so what, if this sometimes bleeds into thoughts regarding his work-life balance or lack thereof, and therefore, oscar's stupid little hair swoop, his frown. his insane excel sheet formulas that even carlos, MBA graduate, takes a second to understand. oscar and his indifference and his scary efficiency and the way he talks a bit too fast when he's tipsy and his ice cold hands.
(at the christmas party with yuki. carlos pretends not to listen but hears every word. why would oscar tell yuki all that, and not him, when he’s tried to ask about oscar's interests before? anyway.)
and then. the christmas gifts happen and carlos thinks he's crossed a line. was the terrarium too far, he wonders. normally people love it when carlos is thoughtful like that. his exes even said so. but no! oscar takes the terrarium, the one carlos made a specific detour for on an airline that he couldn't even get miles on!
and oscar just. stares, and stares at the terrarium. then he gives carlos this...look. and it gets embarrassingly intimate and carlos "really does have to go take his call" even though the client did say it is fine to switch to email because, christmas. yeah. and then he's thinking about it the whole way back to madrid too.
then oscar QUITS on CHRISTMAS DAY (rude) for no explainable reason and carlos is like oh my god is it really ME. how can anybody not like ME ? reddit, AITA???
so carlos mulls on it. carlos wants to atone. just maybe. set things straight. let oscar know that. actually. all feelings aside, he was really an excellent EA and carlos wishes him the best with everything. he maybe sends a text to thank him with those very words. but christmas eve comes and goes, and so does christmas day, and there's no reply at all from oscar. what the hell, carlos thinks. no i can't have him leave and there's so much in my email that i – i didn't even say. he just. needs to let oscar know that he appreciated it.
(he doesn't know what "it" is per se. just that. he feels strongly. so he needs to do something about that.)
soooooo then carlos, who values for family more than anything in the world, spends christmas day just only half paying attention to things going on and thinking jesus, what did i do. and his sisters are like, hermano, please just. get it together and sort this out if you care so much. we'll be fine with mamá and papá and piñón okay there's roast ham for days. and his ma is like: "if you are visiting someone at least pack some dessert. where are your manners". and carlos is like "what". and his mum is like: "did i not teach you anything at all. are you or are you not a sainz". so carlos just takes his tiramisu and his sister's teasing and. he goes. might even try to pull a favour from a client to use a private jet and get there in time.
he flies back to the city in a fit of possible stupidity to try and clarify... his feelings for oscar his professional record and integrity.
and then. oscar is. actually HAPPY he is there.
(carlos knows he's happy, not because oscar's face changes. but because oscar puts his actual plant shears down in order to talk to him. which in oscar-world is a very big deal really. before, oscar always used to look like he wanted to stab carlos with a pen when carlos spoke to him. and if carlos were truly honest with himself, and hindsight being 50/50, well– he'd say that actually, the times oscar looked like he wanted to stab him were actually some of the moments he felt most alive.)
For when you want to put your favorite little guy (gender neutral) in a fanfic-type Situation. Send in a fandom, character(s), and/or relationship/ship as well as a number (or a few!) Feel free to use for fanfic, art, or whatever you choose!
Touch starved/cuddle curse
Time loop
Misunderstandings
Mind meld/telepathy/mind reading
Amnesia
Reverse amnesia (everyone else has no memory/recognition of your character)
Trapped in a room/closet/elevator
“Who did this to you?”
Sleep deprivation
Framed for a crime they didn’t commit
Hiding from pursuers
Turned invisible
Drunken/drugged/sleepy confessions
Role swap
Soulmates
Meeting past/future self
Tending to an injury/wound/illness
Possession/Mind control
De-aged
Personality swap
Fear poison/gas
Truth or dare/party games
Loss of powers/abilities/skills
Showing up injured at their friend/mentor’s house
Showing up injured at their enemy’s house
Group project/team effort
Demon summoning
Curse of obedience/can’t disobey a direct order (the “Ella Enchanted”)
Time jumping/time travel/fix-it
Only one bed
Cursed/turned into an animal
Body swap
Reincarnation
Love spell/curse/potion
Hatred spell/curse/potion
Avalanche/huddle for warmth
Secret relationship
Multiverse/meeting alternate version of self
Avoiding a conversation
Identity reveal/major secret revealed
Panic attacks
True love’s kiss/breaking a curse
Fake dating
Arranged marriage
Realization of feelings at the Worst Possible Moment
re-reading happy death race right at the moment can you tell us something more about that 17-time loop🥹
⚠️happy death race spoilers⚠️
one
“Dead? No, no. He is not dead.” Carlos spins in the swivel chair, black cape belling outward with the centrifugal force of it. Little hair clippings swirl away from him.
Lando’s voice is wet in the earpiece, like it might drip out the little dots, like they’re speaking through water pipes instead of telephone lines. He called four times in a row. “Mate, he’s dead.”
“Dead,” Carlos scoffs sing-songingly. “Yes, sure, Oscar Piastri is dead.”
Pascale Leclerc sets down her shears. Her face falls into well-worn grief lines. There’s a wedding ring on the hand she uses to cover her mouth.
“He would sing in his car, during races,” Lando says.
Carlos’s neck feels cold. The spray bottle Pascale had used has a smiling rain cloud on it. On the trolley beside him, it’s smiling even now.
two
On the way to the hospital, Carlos’s pulse pounds so hard he wonders if he’ll have to go to cardiology instead. He counts the individual pebbles embedded in his calf while his ribs pulverise his heart.
three
From: Carlos
I think you should stay home and do nothing today
I heard there would be
An earthquake
From: Oscar
Who is this
From: Carlos
It is Carlos
From: Oscar
How did you get my number
From: Carlos
Lando
He did not get Oscar’s number from Lando. Lando was exceptionally unnerved that he even asked, demanding to know the reason. Carlos found Oscar’s number in the GPDA Directory George had sent him in January. Beside Lewis Hamilton’s name, it just said CLASSIFIED. Carlos actually has Lewis’s number, but now he wonders if George doesn’t.
From: Oscar
I’ll be sure to drop cover and hold mate
It won’t be enough to just tell Oscar to look out. He had called his family from atop the crinkly paper of the exam table while waiting for someone to come pick gravel out of his road rash. You have to stop it, Carlos; it cannot stop itself.
From: Carlos
Can I come to your place
For the earthquake
I have
Many paintings that will fall on me
Oscar does not reply. He presumably dies though, because it begins again.
eight
Carlos organically runs into Oscar at the boulangerie, after four loops of observing and memorising his movements. It seems like the most natural place to meet. But next time, Carlos won’t get a croissant or won’t wear a black shirt.
Oscar nods at him, “Oh, hey.”
“Hi. Did you”—Carlos focused so much on this spontaneous meet-up that he forgot to plan what he would say—“feel the earthquake?”
Oscar’s eyes go wide. “Earthquake?” He pulls out his phone like he’s just going to fact check Carlos’s unsourced claims.
“Very local,” Carlos heads him off. “Maybe only in this bakery.”
“What.” Oscar frowns. He looks around disapprovingly, like—oh god—like Carlos might be making a joke about someone’s weight.
Hot needles in his cheeks, Carlos says, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and leaves. He doesn’t watch the rest of Oscar’s day. Seeing him die twice—hearing her scream—knowing it was because of him—it was enough. Plus, Oscar’s very sensitive to being stalked and publicly upbraided him twice already, accusing Carlos of living inside him.
nine
This time, Oscar’s greeting is different. Like because Carlos is in a light shirt and not eating a croissant, what he says somehow changes. He asks, “How ya goin’?” and it throws off Carlos so much he replies, “I did not feel an earthquake.”
Oscar gives him a look. “Yeah, ace. Me neither.”
“Do you want to run with me?” Carlos offers it because it’s what Oscar is doing after this.
Oscar says, “Ah, I’ve got a dentist appointment.”
ten
It’s a doctor appointment this time. Maybe Carlos had food in his teeth before.
eleven
Oddly, meeting Oscar at his deathplace somehow soothes Carlos’s nerves. If he gets it wrong, at least it’ll be over soon. He gets restless, waiting for the end. He’s been learning French. Ça ne va pas.
It’s cooler up on Mont Agel, and windy. Oscar’s flushed and out of breath. He greets, “Whoa, hey,” looking genuinely pleased to see Carlos.
It draws a helpless grin out of Carlos too. “Hi.”
“Back home this mountain we hike has heaps of leeches,” Oscar offers. “Even up here now I’m tempted to do a leech-check, hey.”
Carlos imagines it, Oscar stripping down to white underwear. His whole face throbs. “Where was the strangest place you have found a leech?”
Oscar tips back his water bottle but he’s run out. He looks around Carlos’s head, like he’s going to signal one of his friends or walk over to them. Carlos holds out his own water and Oscar says, “Cheers,” pressing the metal to his lips. Kiss by proxy. “Probably, my, um.” Oscar gestures to his ass.
Carlos laughs, big and braying. “Leech Butt.”
Oscar rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Want to come down with us?”
Carlos doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s about to come down much faster than the rest of them, via a plummet to his death, so he says, “Yes, thanks.”
Only Oscar doesn’t fall. He makes it to the bottom and Carlos feels electrified, desperate and overwrought. “Come to mine, Leech Butt.”
Oscar raises one eyebrow.
“You just moved here, yes? Come pick what you want from my things. I have too many, Oscar. I am a hoarder.”
Oscar laughs when he sees Carlos’s apartment, minimalist and organised. He opens drawers and cabinets. “Mate, you have exactly eight forks.”
“There are some in the dishwasher.”
Oscar laughs harder. “What exactly do you want me to take? This framed photo of your family? This painting of—your own dog?”
“I will have a set of linens for you next time,” Carlos vows.
Oscar goes still for a beat, then scratches the back of his neck. “I’m taking your door stopper,” he says.
“It is just a big rock.”
“It’s my big rock now.”
Oscar’s hit by a car on the way back to his apartment. When Carlos gets the news, he keeps thinking about the rock, wondering if Oscar held it tight the moment it happened or if he let it go.
twelve
Carlos teases him this time. “You need to pack enough water to last you.”
“I did! I filled it before we left.”
“You were too greedy, Oscar. You cannot drink so much. You must control your thirst.”
Oscar says, “Oh my god,” and covers his face.
“Have some of mine, here, here. Just for you, H2Oscar.”
This time a little red bird flits to a branch and Oscar’s brows shoot up, intrigued. He steps towards it, opening up his camera app, and he slips on a slick rock. Carlos lunges forward, coiled muscles springing, the lightning reflexes of dread. He holds him for a moment and he loses him, a rock in the hand and then on the pavement.
The red bird watches him fall and lands on her shoulder.
thirteen
Carlos shows up the earliest he ever has, outside Oscar’s apartment building on the first day. He’s too early and has to loop back, sprinting breathless around the block. When he sees Oscar alive and unharmed, some strange alchemy occurs in his body and almost makes him faint.
Oscar finds him leaning against a building. “Whoa, hey. Hey, Carlos?”
“Dehydrated,” Carlos excuses. “Not enough water. I am you today.”
Oscar brings Carlos up to his new apartment, which is so sparsely furnished Carlos resolves to give him the forks and the family photo and the dog painting. Oscar supplies Carlos with water and, curiously, a GoGo squeeZ.
Carlos’s heart has road rash. He says, “I’m gay.”
Oscar blinks. “Like. Delighted?”
Carlos twists the top of the fruit pouch until it click-click-click-pops. “No. Man gay.”
Oscar goes vividly, furiously red. “Oh. Um. Cool. My sister’s queer.”
“Oh.” Carlos plays with the green plastic top. “My sisters are not.”
“Are you having like…a crisis?”
“No. I’ve known this since I was small. When did you learn what you were?” Oscar only blinks at him owlishly, so Carlos adds, “Sexually.”
Oscar swallows. “Um. I’m—uh—I’m not sure.”
Straight people can rarely pinpoint a moment. Carlos finishes two more GoGo squeeZes before he leaves. Oscar falls off the cliff a day early in this loop, like the force of his discomfort summons death.
fourteen
Carlos keeps his appointment with Pascale every time. He speaks obliquely about his situation and he’s fairly certain she thinks he’s in love with Charles.
sixteen
On the walk to Carlos’s apartment, Oscar tells him about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. Carlos can’t figure out what he did differently to get it.
He gives Oscar a new set of linens, even though he won’t get to sleep on them before he dies.
seventeen
At the top of the world before Oscar falls off it, Carlos says, I cannot do this again. Please, please, no.
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