matcha meditation

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.

"But it would be so simple to put us on the same day!" Charles says, throwing his hands up. "Fans would love it. Alex and Rebecca would love it! We would be the stars of the red carpet."

"Ferrari would not love it," Carlos says quietly. "You know that."

Charles barely refrains from flinching. He watches Carlos carefully across the table, across two cappuccinos and the crumbs of a croissant they split down the middle. Carlos's smile is soft, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes as he gazes out over the busy Monaco street, toward the sparkling harbor. Charles feels a sudden urge to reach across the table, smush Carlos's strong jaw between his hands, and mold joy back into his face with his thumbs.

He takes a sip of his lukewarm cappuccino instead.

"It is stupid that they pretend you do not exist," Charles mutters into his cup. "I know they still love you. It is just… pride, or something." He glares at the milk foam clinging to the ceramic rim of his cup. "Stupid."

"Well, they can't entirely pretend I don't exist," Carlos says. "Not when you refuse to leave me alone." His lips curve into a teasing smile, and Charles's ears feel warm.

"Of course I will not leave you alone," Charles says defiantly. "You will not be rid of me so easily. What if I just show up to Cannes a day early? What will they do, throw me out?"

"No. But you'd probably stress out every stylist L'Oréal have while they scrambled to schedule you into the day." Carlos arches a brow. "Maybe not the best thing to do on your first appearance as an ambassador."

Charles huffs.

Carlos shakes his head with a grin and lifts his own cappuccino to his lips. Charles can't help but follow the motion, his gaze caught by Carlos's unfairly elegant fingers. His mind helpfully reminds him of the goosebumps left in the wake of those fingers in the dark hours of the night before, gentle touches pressed to his back, his throat, his thighs. He wonders what Carlos will look like in his tuxedo tomorrow, hair perfectly coiffed and Rebecca sleek and stylish on his arm, camera flashes sparkling in his dark eyes.

He wonders how much better Carlos would look with Charles and Alexandra on his other side, how stunning the four of them would be together, stunning and untouchable.

"Stop moping." Carlos pinches Charles's waist beneath the table. "I will see you this weekend. The girls are already looking forward to it."

"Yes," Charles says, his cheeks growing warm at the idea of the four of them alone again in the apartment Charles shares with Alex, flush with wine and laughter and easy kisses that lead to soft touches and rapturous sighs. "I—I'm also looking forward to it."

Carlos smiles at him, soft and familiar, and Charles smiles back. They sit in comfortable silence, looking out over the harbor, until Carlos's phone lights up with a reminder of his next appointment, some training session or another. They stand, and Charles leans in for la bise before he remembers that they don't always do that with each other, but Carlos catches him by the arm before he can lean away. Their cheeks brush, and Charles tries and fails to hold back a pleased shiver at the gentle scruff of Carlos's afternoon stubble.

"Have a good time at Cannes, Charles," Carlos says as he pulls away. "I'll see you this weekend."

"Yes," Charles says eloquently. "You too. This weekend."

Carlos smiles as he leaves, and Charles watches him go, his heart in his throat.

(And if he spends the next day refreshing his social media feeds, drinking in every glimpse of Carlos at Cannes, no one knows about it except Alex, who saves a few select photos of Rebecca and Carlos in between kisses pressed to Charles's cheeks.

He’s not even holding his phone properly. It’s flat in his palm like an offering. He’s been staring at the lock screen for the entire elevator ride and the stairwell and the too-long hallway walk, watching his own reflection ghost across the glass. The screen is smudged with thumbprints. He looks like someone trying to rub a mistake out of existence.

There are two unread messages from his manager. Four from his mum. A group chat meme that he knows will be about Lando, because his friends think humor is a bandage and they are not wrong, they are just… early.

And one from Carlos, thirty minutes ago, because Carlos is the kind of person who notices absence.

You in Monaco?

Oscar did not reply. That was part of the plan.

The plan, originally, was: stop. Cut it out. Be an adult. Don’t let yourself build anything with a person who can see you. Oscar had been proud of how clean he made it. Proud, like he’d won something. Like he’d finished first in the category of Not Getting Attached.

He hates that word now. Proud.

He hates that he can feel the plan dissolving in his hands, right here, in front of this door.

Oscar lifts his fist. He holds it there, hovering, because his brain is still trying to offer him a good exit.

Turn around. Go home. Get on the plane. Australia. Mum’s kitchen, a cup of tea, a dog sleeping against your shin. Nobody asking you to smile. Nobody asking you to be okay. Nobody asking you anything you can’t answer.

Except the other version of his brain, meaner, more exhausted, whispers: And then what? Sit alone with it?

Oscar’s throat tightens like it heard that and took it personally.

The loss is not a single event in his mind. It’s a loop. It plays in fragments at inconvenient moments: opening a cupboard, looking at a mirror, standing in a hallway like this one. The last race is an involuntary highlight reel, just the worst parts, edited by a petty god. He’ll be buttering toast in six weeks and suddenly his fingers will remember the steering wheel. He’ll be walking down a beach and a corner will appear in his peripheral vision. It has started to feel like the championship didn’t end. Like it’s still happening, somewhere, without him.

And the question Are you okay? has been hunting him, too. It follows him in elevators. It hides in emails. It crouches in conversations like a cat about to pounce.

He’s been asked it by strangers with soft eyes. By Lando trying not to look relieved. By people who want to sound human on camera. He’s been asked it so many times that the words have lost their meaning and become a noise: areyouokayareyouokayareyouokay like a sensor alarm that won’t shut off.

Oscar wants to climb out of his own head. He wants to be a body only. He wants something loud enough to drown out the internal commentary. He wants heat. He wants friction. He wants a few minutes where he isn’t expected to be noble.

He wants Carlos.

And he hates that, too.

Oscar presses the buzzer before he can think better of it.

The sound is stupidly small. A polite little chirp. Like ordering room service. Like asking for a towel. Like he didn’t just choose something horrible.

His heart kicks hard enough he feels it in his fingertips.

He waits.

He can hear movement behind the door—footsteps, a pause, the faint click of a lock. That pause stretches just long enough for Oscar to feel the full stupidity of what he’s doing. Then the door opens.

Carlos is there in a T-shirt and soft pants, hair slightly damp like he’s either showered recently or has been running his hands through it because he can’t sit still. He looks tired, but not wrecked. Carlos looks like a person who has been sleeping, which is rude. Oscar hasn’t slept properly since the last race. He’s been dozing in thin slices, waking up with his jaw clenched like he’s been grinding grief into dust.

Carlos blinks at him. Surprise flickers across his face, quickly smoothed into something careful, like he’s putting a lid on a pot before it boils over.

“Oscar,” Carlos says in his stupid accent.

The Spanish accent is there, noticeable in the warmth of the vowels, the softness in the edges. It makes Oscar’s stomach dip in a way he resents. It would be charming on any other day. Oscar is not in a charming mood.

Oscar’s mouth does the thing it learned in media training: a neutral shape. “Hi,” he says.

Carlos’s gaze flicks over him in one quick scan: the set of his shoulders, the stiff line of his jaw, the fact that he has turned up unannounced after weeks of not answering. Carlos’s eyes linger on Oscar’s face, and Oscar feels the familiar irritation of being read.

“You are in Monaco,” Carlos says.

 It’s a fact, said out loud like Carlos is grounding himself.

Oscar shrugs, too casual. “So are you.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, but it doesn’t arrive. “Yes. I—” He stops, as if he’s about to say something softer. Oscar steps forward before softness can form.

“I need…” The word catches. He forces it out anyway. “A distraction.”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift slightly. “A distraction, oh.”

Oscar nods once, stiffly, like he’s signing a contract. “If you don’t want to, I’ll go.”

It’s the line Oscar uses when he wants to pretend he’s giving someone a choice, when really he’s bracing for rejection because rejection is easier than being held. Carlos doesn’t move out of the doorway. He just looks at Oscar, steady and quiet, like he’s trying to decide whether this is desire or desperation wearing desire’s clothes.

Oscar hates the assessment. Oscar hates that Carlos can do it.

After a beat, Carlos steps back.

“Come in,” he says. “Vale.”

Oscar steps inside.

The apartment smells like laundry and citrus and something faintly sweet, like a candle that’s been doing its best. There’s evidence of a life continuing: shoes by the door, a jacket over a chair, a glass near the sink. It makes Oscar feel absurdly angry, like the world keeps moving even when he’s been nailed to a moment.

Carlos closes the door behind him.

Oscar turns and kisses him. It’s fast and angry, like Oscar is trying to start a fire by friction alone. Carlos makes a small surprised sound—more breath than voice—and then kisses back automatically, hands finding Oscar’s waist in a familiar grip that makes Oscar’s chest ache.

The ache is inconvenient. Oscar shoves it down by moving faster.

He presses Carlos back a step, then another, steering him by the shoulders like Oscar needs to be in control of something, anything, even if it’s just the angle of Carlos’s body in his own living room. Carlos yields because Carlos is good at yielding. Carlos has always been good at giving Oscar what Oscar asks for.

Oscar wants it hot. He wants it mindless. He wants it to be loud enough that he can’t hear the season. He drags his mouth over Carlos’s, biting down on any softness. He feels Carlos’s hands tighten. He feels Carlos breathe his name against his lips.

“Oscar,” Carlos murmurs, and it sounds like a warning dressed as affection.

Oscar hates warnings. Oscar hates being reminded that consequences exist. He grips Carlos’s shirt and pulls, impatient, trying to turn the moment into something purely physical. His pulse is loud. His fingers tremble a little, and he’s furious about it, so he grips harder.

Then Carlos stops. Just… stillness. A shift of pressure: one hand firm around Oscar’s wrist, the other at his cheek, steadying him.

Oscar blinks, irritated, breath sharp. “What—”

Carlos’s eyes search his, quick and thorough, like he’s reading telemetry.

“Hey,” Carlos says quietly.

Oscar’s chest tightens. The word is too gentle. It feels like being approached by someone holding a blanket. Carlos’s thumb brushes Oscar’s cheekbone, grounding him in a way that makes Oscar’s skin prickle.

“Are you okay?” Carlos asks.

Oscar feels the question hit his sternum like a thrown rock.

It’s ridiculous. It’s four words. It’s a normal thing to ask. It’s what you say when someone looks wrong. Carlos is allowed. Carlos means it. That’s the problem. Carlos means it.

Oscar laughs once, ugly. “Don’t.”

Carlos frowns. “Do not ask?”

“Yes,” Oscar snaps, and the anger flares fast enough to cover the sudden sting behind his eyes. “Don’t ask me that. I’m sick of that question.”

Carlos goes still. The warmth drains out of his face like someone turned off a light.

“It is… a normal question,” Carlos says carefully. The accent thickens just a little at the edges when he’s irritated, when he stops smoothing himself down. “From someone who is not a stranger.”

Oscar’s jaw clenches. He hates the not-a-stranger part most of all.

“I didn’t come here for this,” Oscar says. “I didn’t come here to—” He gestures, furious at the concept of concern. “Talk.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “You came here to use me.”

Oscar’s head jerks up. “I didn’t—”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “You did. You said it. Distraction.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He hates being quoted. He hates being pinned to his own words like they’re evidence. He hates so much lately.

“I came here because I wanted—” Oscar stops. He can’t say you without making it sound like a confession. He can’t say sex without making it sound like a weapon. He chooses the flattest version, because flat feels safe. “I came here because I didn’t want to think.”

Carlos exhales sharply through his nose. “And you think I am what. A button you press to stop your brain.”

Oscar’s anger spikes. “You’re being dramatic.”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift. “Me?”

Oscar takes a step back, creating space because space is needed. “You are the one who stopped.”

Carlos’s gaze holds his. “Yes.”

Oscar laughs bitterly. “Right. So what’s the plan? You stop and you ask me if I’m okay and then I tell you my feelings and then you give me a glass of water and we all grow as people.”

Carlos’s jaw flexes. “Do not do that.”

“Do what?”

“Mock,” Carlos says, and his voice is low and tight. “Be cruel.”

Oscar feels a flare of shame, quick and hot, and he hates shame even more than he hates pity. Shame is how you end up apologizing for needing anything.

“I’m not being cruel,” Oscar lies. “I’m being honest.”

Carlos’s mouth twists. “Honest would be telling me why you are here after you—” He stops himself, breath catching. “After you cut me off.”

Oscar’s stomach drops. The words land with a weight that makes the room feel smaller.

“I didn’t cut you off.” 

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “Oscar. You did. You stopped answering. You stopped looking at me. You stopped fucking m—” He breaks off, frustrated, and a soft swear slips out under his breath, almost involuntary. “Joder.”

Oscar’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “I was busy.”

Carlos’s eyes narrow. “Busy.”

Oscar hears himself. He hears how thin he sounds. It makes him furious. “Yes. It was the season. And it was… complicated.”

Carlos’s expression tightens. “Complicated how.”

Oscar’s heart thuds hard. He looks away, because looking at Carlos is dangerous. Carlos has eyes that invite honesty. Oscar is trying to survive on dishonesty right now.

“It didn’t need to be anything,” Oscar says, voice flat. “It was just a thing.”

Carlos flinches, just barely, like the phrase caught on something tender.

“Just a thing,” Carlos repeats. “Okay.”

Oscar snaps his eyes back to him, annoyed at the quiet. Quiet is worse than shouting because quiet means Carlos is actually listening.

“I’m not saying it was bad,” Oscar says, too fast. “It was—fine. It was good. It was hot. Whatever. That doesn’t mean it needed to keep happening.”

Carlos’s gaze is steady. “And now you want it to happen again.”

Oscar’s face heats. “Because I need—”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift. “Need.”

Oscar’s mouth tightens. He hates that word in his mouth. He hates the way it makes him sound like he’s begging.

“I lost,” Oscar says, and the words come out harsher than he intends. “Okay? I lost. And I’m tired. And I don’t want to talk about it. And I didn’t come here to have a conversation about the moral implications of—” He gestures vaguely at them, at the air, at the fact that Carlos is still holding his wrist like an anchor. “This.”

Carlos’s grip loosens. He lets Oscar’s wrist go, slowly, like he’s trying not to startle him.

“I am not asking you for a moral lesson,” Carlos says. “I am asking you if you are okay because you look like you are about to—” He stops, searching for a word that won’t make Oscar flinch. “You look… not good.”

Oscar laughs, sharp. “Oh, brilliant. Thank you. I hadn’t noticed.”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “Oscar.”

“What?” Oscar snaps.

Carlos’s accent deepens as his patience frays. “You came here. You kissed me. And then you get angry that I notice.”

Oscar’s chest tightens so hard he feels briefly nauseous.

“You’re not entitled to notice,” Oscar says, and he hates himself the moment he says it because it’s unfair and it’s not even true. He’s just trying to build a wall out of words.

Carlos’s face goes very still. “Okay.”

The single word lands like a door closing.

Oscar’s anger flickers, confused. “Don’t ‘okay’ me.”

Carlos’s mouth twists. “What do you want me to say.”

Oscar opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. The truth is too big. The lie is too thin.

He wants Carlos to stop asking. He wants Carlos to hold him. He wants Carlos to want him without seeing him. He wants the impossible.

Oscar’s throat burns.

“Just—” he says, and it comes out rough. “Just… don’t.”

Carlos watches him for a long second. The silence between them hums, tense. Then Carlos turns slightly away, rubbing a hand over his face like he’s trying to reset himself.

“I cannot,” Carlos says quietly. “I can’t just… do it, Oscar, when you look like this.”

Oscar’s anger flares again because there it is: the refusal. The boundary. 

“So you’re rejecting me,” Oscar says, voice sharp.

Carlos’s eyes snap to him, offended. “No.”

“It feels like it,” Oscar says, and he hears how childish it sounds. He can't help that his voice wobbles for half a second.

Carlos exhales slowly. “I am not rejecting you. I am refusing to—” He searches for the English words, frustrated. “To take you when you are using it to… not feel.”

Oscar’s hands shake. He curls them tighter into fists, nails biting into his palms like he can anchor himself by pain.

“I am feeling,” Oscar snaps. “I’m feeling angry. I’m feeling—” He stops because sad is a word he refuses to say out loud. Sad feels like surrender. Sad feels like acceptance. Oscar is not ready to accept anything. Carlos’s gaze softens a fraction and Oscar hates it so much he could scream.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Oscar says.

Carlos’s brows draw together. “Like what.”

“Like you’re sorry for me,” Oscar spits.

Carlos’s expression hardens. “I am not sorry for you.”

“Everyone is,” Oscar says, and the bitterness in his voice surprises him with how deep it goes. “Everyone keeps—” He makes a vague gesture, imitating softness, imitating concern. “And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being consoled. I’m sick of being told it’s inspiring. I’m sick of being patted on the head because I came third like it’s a participation medal.”

Carlos’s jaw clenches. “You do not think you deserve comfort.”

Oscar laughs, sharp and humorless. “I didn’t say that.”

“You do not have to,” Carlos says.

Oscar feels the sting behind his eyes sharpen. He blinks hard, furious at his body.

Carlos takes a small step back, giving space again. “Sit,” he says, gesturing toward the couch.

Oscar recoils instinctively. “No.”

Carlos’s voice is careful. “Oscar—”

“No,” Oscar repeats, louder, because sitting feels like admitting weakness. Sitting feels like letting it land.

Carlos’s gaze holds his, steady. “Okay. Then stand. But stop fighting me like I am the enemy.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He wants to say something cruel again. He wants to throw a line that will make Carlos flinch so Oscar can feel powerful for two seconds. Instead, he hears himself say, raw and sharp: “I don’t know what to do with it.”

Carlos’s face changes—softening, immediately, and Oscar can't look at it because it means Carlos heard the truth.

“With what,” Carlos asks, quieter.

Oscar’s throat tightens. He swallows hard. “With losing.”

The word hangs there, ugly. Carlos doesn’t flinch. He nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar’s jaw clenches. “Don’t ‘okay’ that either.”

Carlos’s mouth twists, almost a smile, but it doesn’t arrive. “I am sorry. It is—” He shrugs a little, helpless. “It is what you do when someone tells you something you believe.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He looks away. The apartment feels too bright suddenly, even though the curtains are half drawn. Monaco light gets in everywhere. It’s greedy.

“I keep thinking,” Oscar says, voice rough, “that if I’d done one thing different—one corner, if I didn't switch like the good boy they wanted me to be, one—” He stops because his throat is closing. He swallows hard. “And then people tell me it was a great season and I want to—” He makes a small, violent motion with his hand, like snapping something.

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “Yeah.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “And then I feel like a terrible person, because Lando—” He stops. His throat tightens. “He deserved it. He drove well. He—” He can’t say I’m happy for him because he isn’t, not cleanly. He can only manage: “And I still feel like biting him. With Max it's different. You know it's different with him, because you drove against him. He is different.”

Carlos nods once, as if that’s the most normal confession in the world. “Yeah. That is… normal.”

Oscar’s laugh turns bitter. “Everything is normal, apparently.”

Carlos’s gaze stays steady. “Oscar.”

Oscar flinches at his name in that tone—gentle, careful—and the sting behind his eyes finally breaks. A tear slips down his cheek before he can stop it. Oscar freezes, horrified. It’s a small betrayal, but it feels catastrophic. He wipes it away immediately with the heel of his hand like it’s dirt.

“Don’t,” he says, voice rough.

Carlos doesn’t move closer. Thank god. He just watches, expression tight with restraint, like he knows pity would insult Oscar more than cruelty.

“I am not doing anything,” Carlos says quietly.

“You’re looking,” Oscar snaps, because looking is unbearable.

Carlos’s voice is steady. “Yes. I am.”

Oscar’s breath shudders. Another tear threatens. He hates it. He hates his body for doing this here, in Carlos’s living room, after he came with a plan to feel nothing. It's thge first time he allows himself to feel hate in a long time.

He turns away sharply, as if he can outrun his own face.

“This is why I ended it between us,” Oscar says, and his voice shakes with anger again because anger is the only thing he can hold without breaking.

Carlos’s brows lift slightly. “Because I look at you.”

“Because you make it—” Oscar gestures, frustrated, searching for the word. “Because you make it real.”

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “You made it real.”

Oscar’s head jerks back. “I didn’t—”

“You did,” Carlos says, and now there’s real anger in his voice, controlled but unmistakable. The accent thickens around the edges. “You do not get to act like I invented feelings, Oscar. You do not get to—” He cuts himself off, breath tight. “Joder.”

Oscar’s heart thuds. He hates hearing Carlos swear; it always means Carlos is close to saying something he can’t take back. Oscar’s instinct is to run. He’s been practicing that. Avoidance as cardio. Instead he snaps, because snapping is easier than admitting he’s scared.

“I came here for a distraction,” Oscar says again, deliberately. Weaponizing the word. “If you don’t want to be that, fine.”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “Do not talk about me like I am—”

“Like you’re what,” Oscar challenges, voice sharp.

Carlos’s jaw tightens. “Like I am a thing you use when you can’t stand yourself.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. The sentence lands too close to the truth.

Oscar’s anger surges, desperate. “Then don’t be perceptive,” he says, and it’s a ridiculous accusation, but he throws it anyway. “Just—do what you always do.”

Carlos stares at him, disbelieving. “You ended it.”

Oscar’s chest aches. “Yes.”

Carlos’s voice is low. “And now you want it back.”

Oscar’s mouth twists. “Yes.”

Carlos exhales slowly, as if he’s trying to stay calm. “Do you hear yourself.”

Oscar’s eyes sting again. He blinks hard. “I don’t care.”

Carlos’s face tightens. “You do care. That is the whole problem.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He can't believe that Carlos can say that so calmly. He despises that Carlos is right. The sadness in the room is heavy now, pressing down. Oscar can feel it trying to settle into him. He doesn’t want it. He wants to keep moving. He wants heat. He wants noise. He wants anything else. Oscar steps forward suddenly, closing the distance, trying to turn the conversation back into something physical because physical is simpler. He reaches for Carlos’s shirt again, as if they can rewind to the moment before the question.

Carlos catches his hands.

It's firm.

“Oscar,” Carlos says, and his voice is tight. “No.”

The word hits like a slap.

Oscar’s anger flares white-hot. “So you are rejecting me.”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “I am rejecting this. I’m—” He lets out a breath, frustrated. “I am not going to let you break yourself on me.”

Oscar stares at him, breath ragged. “Who asked you to be my therapist.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “Nobody. But I am not stupid.”

Oscar laughs, sharp, cruel. “Congratulations.”

Carlos’s gaze hardens. “Stop.”

Oscar’s voice rises a fraction, finally. “Stop what?”

“Stop trying to punish yourself,” Carlos says, and his accent catches slightly on the consonants, the words coming faster. “Stop coming here to— to make hurt less for five minutes and then leaving me with the mess.”

Oscar’s stomach drops. The sentence is too true, too direct. It makes Oscar feel exposed. The tears threaten again. Oscar hates them. He hates that his body is taking sides. He goes for the sharpest defense he has: he attacks.

“I didn’t ask you to care,” Oscar says.

Carlos flinches. Just barely. Oscar sees it. The flinch lands in his gut like guilt. He detests guilt. Carlos’s voice drops, quiet and dangerous. “You can’t stop someone from caring by pretending it is not there.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He swallows hard. “We weren’t—”

Carlos cuts him off. “Do not.”

Oscar’s eyes snap up. “Don’t what.”

“Do not insult me,” Carlos says, and his voice is calm, which is worse than shouting. “Do not come into my home after weeks of silence and pretend what we had was nothing.”

Oscar’s breath catches. His chest aches. The word home feels intimate in a way that makes his skin prickle. He wants to say, It wasn’t nothing. He wants to say, That’s the problem. He wants to say, I stopped because I started to feel something and I didn’t want another thing I could lose.

Instead, he says the cowardly version.

“It was just sex,” Oscar says flatly.

The words hang there like a slap.

Carlos’s face goes very still. Then a small, pained smile flickers and disappears.

“Sure,” Carlos says softly, and the softness is brutal. “If it was just sex, why did you stop answering me.”

Oscar’s mouth goes dry.

He looks away, staring at a spot on the wall like it’s interesting. There’s a framed print—something abstract, tasteful. Monaco art: expensive and meaningless. Oscar would like to throw it out a window.

“I stopped,” Oscar says, voice rough, “because it was getting complicated.”

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “Complicated for who.”

Oscar laughs bitterly. “For me.”

Carlos nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar snaps, anger spiking again because he can’t stand the calm. “Stop saying okay like you’re—like you’re—”

“Like I am what,” Carlos asks.

Oscar’s voice breaks on the truth and he hates it. “Like you’re better at this than me.”

Carlos stares at him for a long second. Then he says, quietly, “I am not better, querido. I am just… I do not run as fast.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He swallows hard. The silence between them is heavy.

Oscar’s chest aches with the urge to confess and the urge to flee. Two instincts pulling in opposite directions until he feels like he might tear. Carlos moves first—not toward Oscar, but toward the kitchen. He gets a glass of water. The clink of it is unbearably domestic. Oscar is irritated how normal it sounds, like this is what people do when someone is falling apart: they offer water. As if hydration is the solution.

Carlos sets the glass on the coffee table within Oscar’s reach, not in his hand. Carlos is annoyingly respectful even when he’s furious.

Then Carlos sits— in the armchair opposite, leaving space like a gift.

Oscar stands there, breathing too fast, staring at the water like it might bite him.

“I did not come here to cry,” Oscar says, voice rough, as if that’s the worst part.

Carlos’s mouth twists. “I did not ask you to cry.”

Oscar huffs a laugh that turns into something dangerously close to a sob. He clamps down on it. “I came here because I didn’t want to be—” He stops. The word alone catches in his throat.

Carlos’s gaze stays steady. “Alone.”

Oscar’s shoulders tense. He swallows hard. “Everyone keeps asking me if I’m okay,” Oscar says suddenly, and the words come out like a confession he’s been choking on. “And I don’t know what they want me to say. Do they want me to say yes so they can stop feeling awkward. Do they want me to say no so they can feel like a good person for asking.”

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “And when I asked.”

Oscar’s mouth twists. “When you asked, it felt like—” He stops, searching. He can’t say it felt like you could see through me. He can’t say it felt like you’d make me answer honestly. He settles for the ugly truth. “It felt like pressure.”

Carlos nods slowly. “Okay.”

Oscar glares. “Stop.”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift. “What do you want me to say, Oscar.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. “I don’t know.”

Carlos leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees, voice careful. “Then tell me what you do not want.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “Everything.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches. “That is not helpful.”

Oscar wipes his face again, furious at the wetness. “I don’t want pity. I don’t want consolation. I don’t want to be told it’s fine because it’s not fine. I don’t want—” His voice cracks. He swallows hard. “I don’t want to feel like I’m going to carry this forever.”

Carlos’s gaze softens and Oscar can't look at it because it makes the sting behind his eyes worse.

Carlos’s voice is gentle, but not pitying. “You will carry it,” he says. “But not like this.”

Oscar’s laugh is bitter. “How would you know.”

“Because I have lost things.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He knows Carlos has. Careers are built on loss. Every driver carries a museum of almosts.

Oscar’s mouth twists. “This one was… close.”

Carlos nods once. “Yes, Oscar.”

Oscar looks down at his own hands. They’re shaking again. Small tremors. He curls them into fists, nails biting in. Pain as anchor. He feels suddenly, sharply, tired. Like the last three days have been him holding a plank position in his own skull and he can’t do it anymore.

Oscar’s voice comes out small, despite himself. “I didn’t want to lose you too.”

The sentence hangs there like a dropped glass. Shattering quietly. Oscar’s heart slams. He didn’t mean to say that. He didn’t mean to say anything that true.

Carlos goes very still.

For a beat, the apartment feels like it’s holding its breath. Then Carlos exhales slowly. “Ah,” he says, soft. 

Oscar’s throat tightens. He looks away, staring at the water. He doesn’t drink. Drinking would feel like accepting care.

“I know,” Carlos says quietly. “I—” He stops, searching. His voice roughens a little. “I know you did not stop because you were bored.”

Oscar’s eyes burn. He blinks hard. “Don’t make it sound romantic.”

Carlos huffs a small laugh, humorless. “It is not romantic, Oscar. It is—” He gestures vaguely, frustrated by language. “Is stupid... human.”

Oscar’s breath shudders. The sadness is finally catching up. It chose this moment. He came here to avoid feeling. Instead he has said the one sentence that cracks him open. Carlos’s voice is gentle, but firm. “You can be angry here,” he says. “You can be sad. You can—” He hesitates, then adds, quieter, “You can be a mess. But don’t pretend you don’t care. Not to me.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He swallows hard. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admits, and his voice breaks on the last word.

Carlos’s gaze holds his. “I know.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “You keep saying you know.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches. “Because I do.”

Oscar wipes his face again. He feels humiliated by the tears. He hates that Carlos isn’t reacting like it’s pathetic. Carlos is treating it like weather: unpleasant, real, not shameful.

Oscar’s voice comes out ragged. “I came here because I thought if I could… if I could have you, I could forget.”

Carlos’s face tightens with something like pain. “And did it work.”

Oscar shakes his head, small. “For a minute.”

Carlos nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar glares through tears. “Stop.”

Carlos’s mouth twists, almost a smile, but it doesn’t arrive. “Sorry.”

Oscar’s shoulders slump slightly, the fight draining out of him in exhausted trickles. “I am going to Australia,” he says, because he needs to say something practical, something solid. “Tomorrow. Or the next day. I don’t even know. My calendar is—” He gestures vaguely. “My calendar hates me.”

Carlos huffs a quiet laugh at that. “Yeah.”

Oscar swallows hard. “And I thought… I thought I should cut you out. Cleanly. Because if I keep…” He stops. He can’t say if I keep wanting you. He can’t say if I keep letting you in. He tries again. “Because if I keep doing this, it becomes another thing I can’t control.”

Carlos’s gaze softens. “Oscar.”

Oscar flinches at his name again. “Don’t make it—”

Carlos interrupts, voice gentle but firm. “I am not making it anything. It already is.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He sits down suddenly on the edge of the couch, as if his legs have decided to quit. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.

He feels small. He doesn't like feeling small. The silence stretches. Oscar can hear his own breathing. He can hear Monaco outside, continuing to exist as if it hasn’t ruined him.

Carlos stays where he is. He just… stays. It’s infuriatingly kind.

Oscar’s voice is quiet. “I don’t want you to think you’re—” He swallows hard. “Disposable.”

Carlos’s breath catches slightly. “Okay.”

Oscar lets out a broken laugh. “You’re doing it again.”

Carlos’s mouth twists. “Sorry. It is… I am trying not to say the wrong thing.”

Oscar looks up at him, eyes burning. “There is no right thing.”

Carlos nods once. “Yeah. I know.”

Oscar’s chest aches at the repetition. He wipes his face again, dragging his sleeve across his cheek like he’s trying to erase evidence.

“I’m angry,” Oscar says, as if confessing a crime. “All the time. I’m angry when I wake up. I’m angry when I eat. I’m angry when someone says his name. I’m angry when someone says my name. I’m angry at—” He laughs bitterly. “I’m angry at the sun.”

Carlos huffs a small, surprised laugh. “The sun.”

“It’s too cheerful,” Oscar says, dead serious.

Carlos’s eyes soften. “Yeah.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He stares at the floor. The anger he’s been living in for days feels suddenly like a thin shell, and underneath it is grief—soft, enormous, unavoidable.

Oscar’s voice drops. “I wanted it,” he says, and that’s the saddest sentence in the world because it’s so simple. “I wanted it so badly.”

Carlos’s face shifts, pained. He nods once. “I know.”

Oscar’s breath shudders. He feels another tear slip. He doesn’t wipe it this time. He’s too tired to keep fighting his own face.

He says, very quietly, “And now I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Carlos just says, gentle and steady, “You don’t have to know tonight.”

Oscar looks up, eyes wet, and something in his chest twists because that’s all he’s wanted: permission to not solve it immediately.

Why does it have to come from Carlos. And why does it feels like relief.

Oscar’s voice cracks. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “Maybe.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “Helpful.”

Carlos’s expression softens. “I am so glad you came, Oscar,” he admits quietly, and then adds quickly, as if to correct himself, “Not like that. Not to—” He gestures vaguely, frustrated. “But I am glad you are here.”

Oscar’s throat tightens hard enough it hurts. He looks away because if he looks at Carlos too long, he’ll fall into something he can’t climb out of. He whispers, rough, “I don’t know what we are.”

 “We do not have to decide right now.”

“That sounds like you’re being nice.”

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “I’m being honest.”

Oscar swallows hard. “You’re annoyingly good at that.”

Carlos huffs a small laugh. “I know.”

Oscar snorts despite himself, and the sound comes out wet and pathetic. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, furious at his body.

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “Drink the water.”

Oscar glances at the glass like it’s an enemy. Then, because he is exhausted and because fighting everything is getting old, he reaches for it and takes a sip.

The water is cold. It tastes like nothing. It is, annoyingly, grounding. He sets it down again.

Oscar’s voice is small. “I’m sorry I—” He stops. He can’t say used you without choking. He tries again. “I’m sorry I came here like that.”

Carlos nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar glares weakly. “Stop.”

Carlos’s mouth twists into a real smile this time—small, tired, fond in a way that hurts. “I cannot help it,” he says, the accent rounding the words. “It is my coping.”

Oscar’s chest aches again, but this time it’s softer. Less sharp. He looks at Carlos, really looks, and sees the tiredness there too. Sees the way Carlos is holding himself still like he’s trying not to make Oscar bolt. Sees the restraint. The care.

 “You’re leaving soon,” he says, because he needs to say something that won’t make him cry again.

Carlos nods. “Yeah. A few days.”

Oscar nods too. “Right.”

Silence settles again. Not as heavy. Still sad, but less jagged.

Oscar knows, with a dull certainty, that he will still go to Australia. He will still get on the plane. He will still sit in an economy seat pretending he doesn’t know how to be famous in public. He will still land and be looked at by people who love him and feel the loss like a bruise. And he knows this moment won’t fix anything. It’s not that kind of story. It’s not a montage. It’s not a neat resolution.

Oscar’s voice is quiet. “If I leave tomorrow,” he says, and his throat tightens, “will you… be angry.”

 “I’m already angry,” he says, then softens. “But not at you for leaving. I get it.”

Oscar swallows hard. “Will you… stop talking to me.”

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “Is that what you want.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He shakes his head, small. “No.”

Carlos nods once. “Then no.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He looks away quickly because the relief feels too close to gratitude and gratitude feels like debt.

He whispers, rough, “Okay.”

Carlos huffs a small laugh. “There,” he says. “Now you are doing it.”

Oscar manages a watery snort. “Shut up.”

Carlos’s smile is tired and gentle. “No.”

Oscar’s eyes sting again. He blinks hard, fighting it, but the sadness is stubborn. It sits in his chest like a weight.

He says, very quietly, “I thought if I came here, I wouldn’t feel it.”

Carlos’s voice is soft. “And now.”

 “Now I feel it more.”

“Yeah.”

Oscar laughs once, broken. “Great.”

Carlos’s eyes stay on him, steady. “It will pass,” he says, and then adds quickly, because he can hear how that sounds, “Not completely. But it won’t be like this forever.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He nods, because he can’t speak without breaking again. At some point, Oscar stands. Slowly, like he’s not sure his legs will work.

Carlos looks up at him, cautious. “You going.”

Oscar nods. “Yeah.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “Okay.”

Oscar’s lips twitch in something like a smile and something like grief. “Stop.”

Carlos’s expression softens. “Text me when you land,” he says, and it’s not a demand. It’s not a claim. It’s just… a thread offered.

Oscar’s chest aches. He nods again. “Okay.”

He walks to the door. His hand hovers on the handle.  His palm is damp. His heartbeat is loud enough to be embarrassing. He doesn’t turn the handle because turning it would mean stepping back into Monaco—into the sun, the yachts, the questions. Into people’s faces doing that careful thing where they pretend they’re not afraid he’ll say something ugly.

Behind him, Carlos is still in the armchair. 

“I didn’t come here to talk,” Oscar says again, because he is childish like that.

“I know,” Carlos answers, soft.

Oscar exhales through his nose. His throat burns. He keeps his hand on the handle anyway, as if contact alone can count as leaving.

He doesn’t want to go.

That thought arrives and stays. He doesn’t want to step out into the hallway and be alone with his brain again. He doesn’t want to go home and stare at his ceiling like it’s going to explain why a few points can ruin your appetite. He doesn’t want to disappear, either. Not like this.

He turns halfway. “If I… stay for a bit,” he says, voice rough, “you’re not going to—”

Carlos’s brows lift. “Ask you if you are okay?”

Oscar’s mouth twists. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

Oscar blinks. “Just like that.”

Carlos shrugs, a little helpless. “Just like that, no? You asked.”

It’s so simple Oscar almost gets angry again, just on principle. Then he realizes his anger is tired. It wants to sit down. It wants to stop performing. Oscar releases the door handle. His hand tingles like he’s cut a wire. He turns back to the room as if he’s pretending he didn’t almost leave. “I’ll stay,” he says, and the sentence is smaller than it should be, like he’s trying not to spook himself.

Carlos’s expression changes—quick, bright relief that he tries to hide, because Carlos is also not in the mood to make this a spectacle.

“Okay,” Carlos says, and then immediately grimaces like he’s heard himself. “Sorry. I—” He rubs his face. “I said it again.”

Oscar huffs a laugh despite himself. It’s barely a laugh. More like air escaping. But it counts.

“You’re addicted,” Oscar says.

Carlos’s mouth quirks. “It is my coping.”

Oscar rolls his eyes and walks back to the couch, sitting this time with less stiffness, like his bones have stopped bracing for impact. He stares at the glass of water on the table like it’s a dare.

He reaches for it, takes a sip. And then he immediately swallows wrong. He coughs, sharp and undignified. Water goes down the wrong pipe. His throat spasms like it’s trying to eject him from his own body. He bends forward, coughing hard, eyes stinging, suddenly choking on nothing like he’s never learned how to drink.

It’s absurd. It’s humiliating. It’s the least heroic thing he’s done all week.

Carlos is out of the chair in a second, halfway across the room, alarm flashing through him like a dashboard light.

Oscar lifts a hand, wheezing. “It's fine—”

Carlos freezes mid-step like he’s been shouted at by a traffic marshal. His hands hover in the air, useless. His face does a whole complicated series of expressions—concern, restraint, guilt, are you okay choking back down his own throat. Oscar coughs again, and then, finally, the obstruction clears. His lungs pull in air like they’re grateful to be alive.

He sits up, blinking.

Carlos is standing there, tense, hands still half-raised like he’s about to catch Oscar if gravity decides to be rude.

Oscar wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes are watering. His face is hot. He looks, objectively, ridiculous.

Carlos stares at him for a beat, fighting his own instincts, then says carefully, like he’s defusing a bomb, “So. The water. Not your friend.”

Oscar’s laugh comes out before he can stop it—realer than the earlier huff, a startled sound that surprises him with its own existence. He laughs again, shorter, because it’s either laugh or cry and he’s already sick of crying.

Carlos’s shoulders drop with visible relief, and the relief is contagious. His mouth twitches, then he cracks, too—this quiet, breathy laugh that makes him look younger. Less composed. More human. Oscar shakes his head, wiping his eyes. “I’m—” He coughs once, glaring at the water like it personally betrayed him. “I’m fine.”

Carlos points at him accusingly. “Don’t.”

Oscar snorts. “Shut up.”

Carlos’s smile widens despite himself. “Okay,” he says automatically, then winces. “Sorry.”

Oscar laughs again, and it feels strange. Like finding a familiar object in a house that burned down. Carlos sits on the edge of the coffee table, not too close, but closer than before. “You were very brave,” he says, deadpan, as if Oscar has survived a war and not a sip of water.

Oscar wipes his face again, still smiling unwillingly. “Yeah. Call the FIA. Tell them I fought valiantly.”

Carlos’s accent warms the sentence when he says, “We will add it to your highlights.”

Oscar’s laugh softens into something quieter, and in the quiet there’s a tender ache. He looks down at his hands. They’ve stopped shaking, for the moment. Or maybe he just doesn’t notice because his chest isn’t full of knives right this second.

Carlos shifts, glancing at Oscar like he’s checking a weather forecast. “Do you want… coffee?” he asks, careful. “Or something that is not—” he nods at the water with suspicion “—trying to kill you.”

Oscar’s lips twitch. “Coffee's fine.”

Carlos stands, heads toward the kitchen, then pauses like he’s remembered something. “Milk?”

Oscar blinks. It’s such a normal question. A question that belongs to normal life, not to whatever wreckage Oscar’s been dragging around.

“Yeah,” Oscar says, voice softer. “Milk.”

Carlos nods once, like this is important intelligence. He disappears into the kitchen. Oscar hears cupboards open, the soft clink of a spoon, the coffee machine. Domestic noises. The kind that make you feel like the world hasn’t ended, even if you’re pretty sure it did.

Oscar stares at the couch cushion beside him. It has a tiny wrinkle in it, the fabric slightly pulled where he sat earlier like a statue. He smooths it absentmindedly, then stops, because why is he making the couch neat, who is he trying to impress, the couch?

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

He doesn’t look.

He sits there with his hands empty and realizes, with a dull surprise, that he can feel the loss and also feel… this. The warmth of a room. The normality of a coffee machine. The faint sting in his throat from choking on water like a clown.

Maybe there’s room in him for more than one thing.

Carlos returns with two mugs. One of them is plain. The other one says FER in big letters, like it’s a half-finished tattoo.

Oscar stares at it. “What is that—”

Carlos looks down at the mug like he’s just noticed it exists. “It was a gift,” he says, sheepish. “From someone. I don’t know.”

“That’s not even a word,” Oscar says.

“It is almost a word,” Carlos argues. “Like you.”

Oscar makes a wounded sound. “Oh my god.”

Carlos sets the mugs down, smiling. “Too soon?”

Oscar shakes his head, smiling despite himself. “You’re horrible.”

“I am funny,” Carlos corrects, and then adds, softer, “I am trying.”

Oscar’s smile falters for a second at the gentleness in that.

He takes the plain mug. Carlos takes the FER one like he’s accepting his punishment. They sit—Oscar on the couch, Carlos on the armchair again, but angled closer now, his knee almost touching the edge of the couch if Oscar leans.

They sip. The coffee is hot. The milk makes it taste like home in a way Oscar wasn’t prepared for.

Carlos clears his throat. “I won’t ask,” he says quietly. “But… if you want to tell me anything, I can listen. And if you do not, we can—” He gestures vaguely at the room, the mugs, the absurd mug situation. “We can just exist.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He stares into his coffee like the surface might show him a better version of himself.

“I don’t want to be inspirational,” Oscar says, low. “I don’t want to be—” He searches for the word and it comes out ugly. “Gracious.”

Carlos’s eyes soften. “Okay.”

Oscar points at him with his mug. “Careful.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches. “Sorry. I mean—” He takes a breath. “You do not have to be anything. Not here.”

Oscar’s chest aches again. He swallows. His voice comes out smaller. “I’m so angry.”

Carlos nods, slow. “Yeah.”

“And I’m tired of people treating the anger like it’s… inappropriate,” Oscar says. “Like the correct emotion is acceptance.”

Carlos’s accent curls around the consonants when he says, “Acceptance is overrated.”

Oscar’s laugh is quiet, surprised. “Is it.”

Carlos shrugs. “Sometimes you accept later.”

Oscar looks down at his mug. His hands are steady. He hates that noticing it makes him want to cry again.

He says, carefully, “I didn’t come here to be… like this.”

Carlos’s gaze holds his. “I know.”

Oscar’s jaw tightens. “I came here to—”

“I know,” Carlos says again, firmer, and then, because he can’t help himself, adds, “And I still wanted you to stay.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He looks up. Carlos looks almost embarrassed, as if he’s said something too honest without permission. His ears go a little pink. He takes a sip to pretend he didn’t just do that.

Oscar’s heart does a weird, stupid lurch. He sets his mug down slowly, like he’s making sure his hands don’t betray him again. He looks at Carlos, really looks. Carlos sits very still, giving Oscar space like it’s sacred. Oscar doesn’t know how to do this without turning it into a strategy, without turning it into something he can win.

So he tries a different thing.

He asks, quietly, “Can I—”

Carlos’s eyes widen slightly. “Yes,” he says immediately, then stops himself, flustered. “I mean—what.”

Oscar’s mouth twitches. “Can I kiss you.”

The words are simple. Not a distraction. A question, like a human being. Carlos’s face softens in a way that hurts. He nods once, careful. “Yes,” he says, quiet. “If you want.”

Oscar leans in slowly, giving himself time to change his mind if panic arrives. It doesn’t. Or maybe it does, but it sits in the corner and watches, sulking.

Carlos meets him halfway.

The kiss is soft at first, tentative, like they’re both learning the temperature of something new. Oscar feels Carlos’s hand come up—hesitate—then rest lightly at the side of Oscar’s neck, thumb warm against his skin.

Oscar exhales into it, the relief of gentleness making his head spin.

It’s not the frantic heat from earlier. It’s… a candle. Steady. Warm. Something you can hold your hands over.

Oscar pulls back after a moment, forehead hovering near Carlos’s, like he’s checking whether the room is still real.

Carlos’s lips curve slightly. “Better than water,” he murmurs.

Oscar huffs a laugh against him. “Everything is better than water.”

Carlos smiles, and it’s small and bright, like he’s relieved in a way he doesn’t want to admit. “Okay,” he says again, then groans. “Joder. Sorry.”

Oscar laughs, properly this time—quiet but real—and the sound makes something inside him unclench.

He sits back, still close, and says, with a self-disgusted honesty that feels almost brave, “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

Carlos nods. “Me neither.”

Oscar blinks. “That is not very you.”

Carlos shrugs. “Maybe I am learning.”

Oscar’s mouth twists, fond despite himself. “That’s terrifying.”

Carlos’s smile softens. “We can go slow,” he says, and he looks at Oscar like he means it. “We can… not decide tonight. We can just—” He gestures vaguely, helpless. “We can try again. If you want.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He thinks about Australia. About leaving. About the instinct to cut everything clean the moment it starts to matter. He thinks about how tired he is of clean cuts.

“Yeah,” he says. “We can try again.”

Carlos’s eyes widen slightly, the same open surprise, like he didn’t expect Oscar to hand him something real.

“Yeah?” Carlos repeats, soft.

Oscar feels warmth rise into his cheeks. He hates himself. He does it anyway. “Yeah.”

Carlos smiles. It’s gentle. 

Oscar sits there in Carlos’s apartment in Monaco, coffee cooling on the table, the city glittering outside like it always does, and for the first time in days, the sadness isn’t the only thing in the room. It’s still there. It’s still heavy. But it’s sharing space with laughter and warmth and the fact that Carlos’s hand is still resting lightly at Oscar’s neck like he’s allowed to be held.

Oscar exhales, long and slow, and says, half-muttering, “Don’t ask me if I’m okay again.”

Carlos’s mouth quirks. “I won’t.”

Oscar glances at him. “Promise?”

Carlos nods solemnly. “Promise.”

Oscar’s lips twitch. “Okay.”

Carlos points at him, delighted. “Ah. Now you’re doing it.”

Oscar throws a couch cushion at his face.

Carlos catches it easily, laughing, and for a second it’s so normal Oscar could cry for entirely different reasons.

Carlos drops the cushion, leans in, and kisses Oscar again—quick this time, light, like punctuation.

“Stay a little longer,” Carlos says softly.

Oscar looks at him, then nods once. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

And the word doesn’t feel like surrender.

He’s not even holding his phone properly. It’s flat in his palm like an offering. He’s been staring at the lock screen for the entire elevator ride and the stairwell and the too-long hallway walk, watching his own reflection ghost across the glass. The screen is smudged with thumbprints. He looks like someone trying to rub a mistake out of existence.

There are two unread messages from his manager. Four from his mum. A group chat meme that he knows will be about Lando, because his friends think humor is a bandage and they are not wrong, they are just… early.

And one from Carlos, thirty minutes ago, because Carlos is the kind of person who notices absence.

You in Monaco?

Oscar did not reply. That was part of the plan.

The plan, originally, was: stop. Cut it out. Be an adult. Don’t let yourself build anything with a person who can see you. Oscar had been proud of how clean he made it. Proud, like he’d won something. Like he’d finished first in the category of Not Getting Attached.

He hates that word now. Proud.

He hates that he can feel the plan dissolving in his hands, right here, in front of this door.

Oscar lifts his fist. He holds it there, hovering, because his brain is still trying to offer him a good exit.

Turn around. Go home. Get on the plane. Australia. Mum’s kitchen, a cup of tea, a dog sleeping against your shin. Nobody asking you to smile. Nobody asking you to be okay. Nobody asking you anything you can’t answer.

Except the other version of his brain, meaner, more exhausted, whispers: And then what? Sit alone with it?

Oscar’s throat tightens like it heard that and took it personally.

The loss is not a single event in his mind. It’s a loop. It plays in fragments at inconvenient moments: opening a cupboard, looking at a mirror, standing in a hallway like this one. The last race is an involuntary highlight reel, just the worst parts, edited by a petty god. He’ll be buttering toast in six weeks and suddenly his fingers will remember the steering wheel. He’ll be walking down a beach and a corner will appear in his peripheral vision. It has started to feel like the championship didn’t end. Like it’s still happening, somewhere, without him.

And the question Are you okay? has been hunting him, too. It follows him in elevators. It hides in emails. It crouches in conversations like a cat about to pounce.

He’s been asked it by strangers with soft eyes. By Lando trying not to look relieved. By people who want to sound human on camera. He’s been asked it so many times that the words have lost their meaning and become a noise: areyouokayareyouokayareyouokay like a sensor alarm that won’t shut off.

Oscar wants to climb out of his own head. He wants to be a body only. He wants something loud enough to drown out the internal commentary. He wants heat. He wants friction. He wants a few minutes where he isn’t expected to be noble.

He wants Carlos.

And he hates that, too.

Oscar presses the buzzer before he can think better of it.

The sound is stupidly small. A polite little chirp. Like ordering room service. Like asking for a towel. Like he didn’t just choose something horrible.

His heart kicks hard enough he feels it in his fingertips.

He waits.

He can hear movement behind the door—footsteps, a pause, the faint click of a lock. That pause stretches just long enough for Oscar to feel the full stupidity of what he’s doing. Then the door opens.

Carlos is there in a T-shirt and soft pants, hair slightly damp like he’s either showered recently or has been running his hands through it because he can’t sit still. He looks tired, but not wrecked. Carlos looks like a person who has been sleeping, which is rude. Oscar hasn’t slept properly since the last race. He’s been dozing in thin slices, waking up with his jaw clenched like he’s been grinding grief into dust.

Carlos blinks at him. Surprise flickers across his face, quickly smoothed into something careful, like he’s putting a lid on a pot before it boils over.

“Oscar,” Carlos says in his stupid accent.

The Spanish accent is there, noticeable in the warmth of the vowels, the softness in the edges. It makes Oscar’s stomach dip in a way he resents. It would be charming on any other day. Oscar is not in a charming mood.

Oscar’s mouth does the thing it learned in media training: a neutral shape. “Hi,” he says.

Carlos’s gaze flicks over him in one quick scan: the set of his shoulders, the stiff line of his jaw, the fact that he has turned up unannounced after weeks of not answering. Carlos’s eyes linger on Oscar’s face, and Oscar feels the familiar irritation of being read.

“You are in Monaco,” Carlos says.

 It’s a fact, said out loud like Carlos is grounding himself.

Oscar shrugs, too casual. “So are you.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, but it doesn’t arrive. “Yes. I—” He stops, as if he’s about to say something softer. Oscar steps forward before softness can form.

“I need…” The word catches. He forces it out anyway. “A distraction.”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift slightly. “A distraction, oh.”

Oscar nods once, stiffly, like he’s signing a contract. “If you don’t want to, I’ll go.”

It’s the line Oscar uses when he wants to pretend he’s giving someone a choice, when really he’s bracing for rejection because rejection is easier than being held. Carlos doesn’t move out of the doorway. He just looks at Oscar, steady and quiet, like he’s trying to decide whether this is desire or desperation wearing desire’s clothes.

Oscar hates the assessment. Oscar hates that Carlos can do it.

After a beat, Carlos steps back.

“Come in,” he says. “Vale.”

Oscar steps inside.

The apartment smells like laundry and citrus and something faintly sweet, like a candle that’s been doing its best. There’s evidence of a life continuing: shoes by the door, a jacket over a chair, a glass near the sink. It makes Oscar feel absurdly angry, like the world keeps moving even when he’s been nailed to a moment.

Carlos closes the door behind him.

Oscar turns and kisses him. It’s fast and angry, like Oscar is trying to start a fire by friction alone. Carlos makes a small surprised sound—more breath than voice—and then kisses back automatically, hands finding Oscar’s waist in a familiar grip that makes Oscar’s chest ache.

The ache is inconvenient. Oscar shoves it down by moving faster.

He presses Carlos back a step, then another, steering him by the shoulders like Oscar needs to be in control of something, anything, even if it’s just the angle of Carlos’s body in his own living room. Carlos yields because Carlos is good at yielding. Carlos has always been good at giving Oscar what Oscar asks for.

Oscar wants it hot. He wants it mindless. He wants it to be loud enough that he can’t hear the season. He drags his mouth over Carlos’s, biting down on any softness. He feels Carlos’s hands tighten. He feels Carlos breathe his name against his lips.

“Oscar,” Carlos murmurs, and it sounds like a warning dressed as affection.

Oscar hates warnings. Oscar hates being reminded that consequences exist. He grips Carlos’s shirt and pulls, impatient, trying to turn the moment into something purely physical. His pulse is loud. His fingers tremble a little, and he’s furious about it, so he grips harder.

Then Carlos stops. Just… stillness. A shift of pressure: one hand firm around Oscar’s wrist, the other at his cheek, steadying him.

Oscar blinks, irritated, breath sharp. “What—”

Carlos’s eyes search his, quick and thorough, like he’s reading telemetry.

“Hey,” Carlos says quietly.

Oscar’s chest tightens. The word is too gentle. It feels like being approached by someone holding a blanket. Carlos’s thumb brushes Oscar’s cheekbone, grounding him in a way that makes Oscar’s skin prickle.

“Are you okay?” Carlos asks.

Oscar feels the question hit his sternum like a thrown rock.

It’s ridiculous. It’s four words. It’s a normal thing to ask. It’s what you say when someone looks wrong. Carlos is allowed. Carlos means it. That’s the problem. Carlos means it.

Oscar laughs once, ugly. “Don’t.”

Carlos frowns. “Do not ask?”

“Yes,” Oscar snaps, and the anger flares fast enough to cover the sudden sting behind his eyes. “Don’t ask me that. I’m sick of that question.”

Carlos goes still. The warmth drains out of his face like someone turned off a light.

“It is… a normal question,” Carlos says carefully. The accent thickens just a little at the edges when he’s irritated, when he stops smoothing himself down. “From someone who is not a stranger.”

Oscar’s jaw clenches. He hates the not-a-stranger part most of all.

“I didn’t come here for this,” Oscar says. “I didn’t come here to—” He gestures, furious at the concept of concern. “Talk.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “You came here to use me.”

Oscar’s head jerks up. “I didn’t—”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “You did. You said it. Distraction.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He hates being quoted. He hates being pinned to his own words like they’re evidence. He hates so much lately.

“I came here because I wanted—” Oscar stops. He can’t say you without making it sound like a confession. He can’t say sex without making it sound like a weapon. He chooses the flattest version, because flat feels safe. “I came here because I didn’t want to think.”

Carlos exhales sharply through his nose. “And you think I am what. A button you press to stop your brain.”

Oscar’s anger spikes. “You’re being dramatic.”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift. “Me?”

Oscar takes a step back, creating space because space is needed. “You are the one who stopped.”

Carlos’s gaze holds his. “Yes.”

Oscar laughs bitterly. “Right. So what’s the plan? You stop and you ask me if I’m okay and then I tell you my feelings and then you give me a glass of water and we all grow as people.”

Carlos’s jaw flexes. “Do not do that.”

“Do what?”

“Mock,” Carlos says, and his voice is low and tight. “Be cruel.”

Oscar feels a flare of shame, quick and hot, and he hates shame even more than he hates pity. Shame is how you end up apologizing for needing anything.

“I’m not being cruel,” Oscar lies. “I’m being honest.”

Carlos’s mouth twists. “Honest would be telling me why you are here after you—” He stops himself, breath catching. “After you cut me off.”

Oscar’s stomach drops. The words land with a weight that makes the room feel smaller.

“I didn’t cut you off.” 

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “Oscar. You did. You stopped answering. You stopped looking at me. You stopped fucking m—” He breaks off, frustrated, and a soft swear slips out under his breath, almost involuntary. “Joder.”

Oscar’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “I was busy.”

Carlos’s eyes narrow. “Busy.”

Oscar hears himself. He hears how thin he sounds. It makes him furious. “Yes. It was the season. And it was… complicated.”

Carlos’s expression tightens. “Complicated how.”

Oscar’s heart thuds hard. He looks away, because looking at Carlos is dangerous. Carlos has eyes that invite honesty. Oscar is trying to survive on dishonesty right now.

“It didn’t need to be anything,” Oscar says, voice flat. “It was just a thing.”

Carlos flinches, just barely, like the phrase caught on something tender.

“Just a thing,” Carlos repeats. “Okay.”

Oscar snaps his eyes back to him, annoyed at the quiet. Quiet is worse than shouting because quiet means Carlos is actually listening.

“I’m not saying it was bad,” Oscar says, too fast. “It was—fine. It was good. It was hot. Whatever. That doesn’t mean it needed to keep happening.”

Carlos’s gaze is steady. “And now you want it to happen again.”

Oscar’s face heats. “Because I need—”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift. “Need.”

Oscar’s mouth tightens. He hates that word in his mouth. He hates the way it makes him sound like he’s begging.

“I lost,” Oscar says, and the words come out harsher than he intends. “Okay? I lost. And I’m tired. And I don’t want to talk about it. And I didn’t come here to have a conversation about the moral implications of—” He gestures vaguely at them, at the air, at the fact that Carlos is still holding his wrist like an anchor. “This.”

Carlos’s grip loosens. He lets Oscar’s wrist go, slowly, like he’s trying not to startle him.

“I am not asking you for a moral lesson,” Carlos says. “I am asking you if you are okay because you look like you are about to—” He stops, searching for a word that won’t make Oscar flinch. “You look… not good.”

Oscar laughs, sharp. “Oh, brilliant. Thank you. I hadn’t noticed.”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “Oscar.”

“What?” Oscar snaps.

Carlos’s accent deepens as his patience frays. “You came here. You kissed me. And then you get angry that I notice.”

Oscar’s chest tightens so hard he feels briefly nauseous.

“You’re not entitled to notice,” Oscar says, and he hates himself the moment he says it because it’s unfair and it’s not even true. He’s just trying to build a wall out of words.

Carlos’s face goes very still. “Okay.”

The single word lands like a door closing.

Oscar’s anger flickers, confused. “Don’t ‘okay’ me.”

Carlos’s mouth twists. “What do you want me to say.”

Oscar opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. The truth is too big. The lie is too thin.

He wants Carlos to stop asking. He wants Carlos to hold him. He wants Carlos to want him without seeing him. He wants the impossible.

Oscar’s throat burns.

“Just—” he says, and it comes out rough. “Just… don’t.”

Carlos watches him for a long second. The silence between them hums, tense. Then Carlos turns slightly away, rubbing a hand over his face like he’s trying to reset himself.

“I cannot,” Carlos says quietly. “I can’t just… do it, Oscar, when you look like this.”

Oscar’s anger flares again because there it is: the refusal. The boundary. 

“So you’re rejecting me,” Oscar says, voice sharp.

Carlos’s eyes snap to him, offended. “No.”

“It feels like it,” Oscar says, and he hears how childish it sounds. He can't help that his voice wobbles for half a second.

Carlos exhales slowly. “I am not rejecting you. I am refusing to—” He searches for the English words, frustrated. “To take you when you are using it to… not feel.”

Oscar’s hands shake. He curls them tighter into fists, nails biting into his palms like he can anchor himself by pain.

“I am feeling,” Oscar snaps. “I’m feeling angry. I’m feeling—” He stops because sad is a word he refuses to say out loud. Sad feels like surrender. Sad feels like acceptance. Oscar is not ready to accept anything. Carlos’s gaze softens a fraction and Oscar hates it so much he could scream.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Oscar says.

Carlos’s brows draw together. “Like what.”

“Like you’re sorry for me,” Oscar spits.

Carlos’s expression hardens. “I am not sorry for you.”

“Everyone is,” Oscar says, and the bitterness in his voice surprises him with how deep it goes. “Everyone keeps—” He makes a vague gesture, imitating softness, imitating concern. “And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being consoled. I’m sick of being told it’s inspiring. I’m sick of being patted on the head because I came third like it’s a participation medal.”

Carlos’s jaw clenches. “You do not think you deserve comfort.”

Oscar laughs, sharp and humorless. “I didn’t say that.”

“You do not have to,” Carlos says.

Oscar feels the sting behind his eyes sharpen. He blinks hard, furious at his body.

Carlos takes a small step back, giving space again. “Sit,” he says, gesturing toward the couch.

Oscar recoils instinctively. “No.”

Carlos’s voice is careful. “Oscar—”

“No,” Oscar repeats, louder, because sitting feels like admitting weakness. Sitting feels like letting it land.

Carlos’s gaze holds his, steady. “Okay. Then stand. But stop fighting me like I am the enemy.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He wants to say something cruel again. He wants to throw a line that will make Carlos flinch so Oscar can feel powerful for two seconds. Instead, he hears himself say, raw and sharp: “I don’t know what to do with it.”

Carlos’s face changes—softening, immediately, and Oscar can't look at it because it means Carlos heard the truth.

“With what,” Carlos asks, quieter.

Oscar’s throat tightens. He swallows hard. “With losing.”

The word hangs there, ugly. Carlos doesn’t flinch. He nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar’s jaw clenches. “Don’t ‘okay’ that either.”

Carlos’s mouth twists, almost a smile, but it doesn’t arrive. “I am sorry. It is—” He shrugs a little, helpless. “It is what you do when someone tells you something you believe.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He looks away. The apartment feels too bright suddenly, even though the curtains are half drawn. Monaco light gets in everywhere. It’s greedy.

“I keep thinking,” Oscar says, voice rough, “that if I’d done one thing different—one corner, if I didn't switch like the good boy they wanted me to be, one—” He stops because his throat is closing. He swallows hard. “And then people tell me it was a great season and I want to—” He makes a small, violent motion with his hand, like snapping something.

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “Yeah.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “And then I feel like a terrible person, because Lando—” He stops. His throat tightens. “He deserved it. He drove well. He—” He can’t say I’m happy for him because he isn’t, not cleanly. He can only manage: “And I still feel like biting him. With Max it's different. You know it's different with him, because you drove against him. He is different.”

Carlos nods once, as if that’s the most normal confession in the world. “Yeah. That is… normal.”

Oscar’s laugh turns bitter. “Everything is normal, apparently.”

Carlos’s gaze stays steady. “Oscar.”

Oscar flinches at his name in that tone—gentle, careful—and the sting behind his eyes finally breaks. A tear slips down his cheek before he can stop it. Oscar freezes, horrified. It’s a small betrayal, but it feels catastrophic. He wipes it away immediately with the heel of his hand like it’s dirt.

“Don’t,” he says, voice rough.

Carlos doesn’t move closer. Thank god. He just watches, expression tight with restraint, like he knows pity would insult Oscar more than cruelty.

“I am not doing anything,” Carlos says quietly.

“You’re looking,” Oscar snaps, because looking is unbearable.

Carlos’s voice is steady. “Yes. I am.”

Oscar’s breath shudders. Another tear threatens. He hates it. He hates his body for doing this here, in Carlos’s living room, after he came with a plan to feel nothing. It's thge first time he allows himself to feel hate in a long time.

He turns away sharply, as if he can outrun his own face.

“This is why I ended it between us,” Oscar says, and his voice shakes with anger again because anger is the only thing he can hold without breaking.

Carlos’s brows lift slightly. “Because I look at you.”

“Because you make it—” Oscar gestures, frustrated, searching for the word. “Because you make it real.”

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “You made it real.”

Oscar’s head jerks back. “I didn’t—”

“You did,” Carlos says, and now there’s real anger in his voice, controlled but unmistakable. The accent thickens around the edges. “You do not get to act like I invented feelings, Oscar. You do not get to—” He cuts himself off, breath tight. “Joder.”

Oscar’s heart thuds. He hates hearing Carlos swear; it always means Carlos is close to saying something he can’t take back. Oscar’s instinct is to run. He’s been practicing that. Avoidance as cardio. Instead he snaps, because snapping is easier than admitting he’s scared.

“I came here for a distraction,” Oscar says again, deliberately. Weaponizing the word. “If you don’t want to be that, fine.”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “Do not talk about me like I am—”

“Like you’re what,” Oscar challenges, voice sharp.

Carlos’s jaw tightens. “Like I am a thing you use when you can’t stand yourself.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. The sentence lands too close to the truth.

Oscar’s anger surges, desperate. “Then don’t be perceptive,” he says, and it’s a ridiculous accusation, but he throws it anyway. “Just—do what you always do.”

Carlos stares at him, disbelieving. “You ended it.”

Oscar’s chest aches. “Yes.”

Carlos’s voice is low. “And now you want it back.”

Oscar’s mouth twists. “Yes.”

Carlos exhales slowly, as if he’s trying to stay calm. “Do you hear yourself.”

Oscar’s eyes sting again. He blinks hard. “I don’t care.”

Carlos’s face tightens. “You do care. That is the whole problem.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He can't believe that Carlos can say that so calmly. He despises that Carlos is right. The sadness in the room is heavy now, pressing down. Oscar can feel it trying to settle into him. He doesn’t want it. He wants to keep moving. He wants heat. He wants noise. He wants anything else. Oscar steps forward suddenly, closing the distance, trying to turn the conversation back into something physical because physical is simpler. He reaches for Carlos’s shirt again, as if they can rewind to the moment before the question.

Carlos catches his hands.

It's firm.

“Oscar,” Carlos says, and his voice is tight. “No.”

The word hits like a slap.

Oscar’s anger flares white-hot. “So you are rejecting me.”

Carlos’s eyes flash. “I am rejecting this. I’m—” He lets out a breath, frustrated. “I am not going to let you break yourself on me.”

Oscar stares at him, breath ragged. “Who asked you to be my therapist.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “Nobody. But I am not stupid.”

Oscar laughs, sharp, cruel. “Congratulations.”

Carlos’s gaze hardens. “Stop.”

Oscar’s voice rises a fraction, finally. “Stop what?”

“Stop trying to punish yourself,” Carlos says, and his accent catches slightly on the consonants, the words coming faster. “Stop coming here to— to make hurt less for five minutes and then leaving me with the mess.”

Oscar’s stomach drops. The sentence is too true, too direct. It makes Oscar feel exposed. The tears threaten again. Oscar hates them. He hates that his body is taking sides. He goes for the sharpest defense he has: he attacks.

“I didn’t ask you to care,” Oscar says.

Carlos flinches. Just barely. Oscar sees it. The flinch lands in his gut like guilt. He detests guilt. Carlos’s voice drops, quiet and dangerous. “You can’t stop someone from caring by pretending it is not there.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He swallows hard. “We weren’t—”

Carlos cuts him off. “Do not.”

Oscar’s eyes snap up. “Don’t what.”

“Do not insult me,” Carlos says, and his voice is calm, which is worse than shouting. “Do not come into my home after weeks of silence and pretend what we had was nothing.”

Oscar’s breath catches. His chest aches. The word home feels intimate in a way that makes his skin prickle. He wants to say, It wasn’t nothing. He wants to say, That’s the problem. He wants to say, I stopped because I started to feel something and I didn’t want another thing I could lose.

Instead, he says the cowardly version.

“It was just sex,” Oscar says flatly.

The words hang there like a slap.

Carlos’s face goes very still. Then a small, pained smile flickers and disappears.

“Sure,” Carlos says softly, and the softness is brutal. “If it was just sex, why did you stop answering me.”

Oscar’s mouth goes dry.

He looks away, staring at a spot on the wall like it’s interesting. There’s a framed print—something abstract, tasteful. Monaco art: expensive and meaningless. Oscar would like to throw it out a window.

“I stopped,” Oscar says, voice rough, “because it was getting complicated.”

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “Complicated for who.”

Oscar laughs bitterly. “For me.”

Carlos nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar snaps, anger spiking again because he can’t stand the calm. “Stop saying okay like you’re—like you’re—”

“Like I am what,” Carlos asks.

Oscar’s voice breaks on the truth and he hates it. “Like you’re better at this than me.”

Carlos stares at him for a long second. Then he says, quietly, “I am not better, querido. I am just… I do not run as fast.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He swallows hard. The silence between them is heavy.

Oscar’s chest aches with the urge to confess and the urge to flee. Two instincts pulling in opposite directions until he feels like he might tear. Carlos moves first—not toward Oscar, but toward the kitchen. He gets a glass of water. The clink of it is unbearably domestic. Oscar is irritated how normal it sounds, like this is what people do when someone is falling apart: they offer water. As if hydration is the solution.

Carlos sets the glass on the coffee table within Oscar’s reach, not in his hand. Carlos is annoyingly respectful even when he’s furious.

Then Carlos sits— in the armchair opposite, leaving space like a gift.

Oscar stands there, breathing too fast, staring at the water like it might bite him.

“I did not come here to cry,” Oscar says, voice rough, as if that’s the worst part.

Carlos’s mouth twists. “I did not ask you to cry.”

Oscar huffs a laugh that turns into something dangerously close to a sob. He clamps down on it. “I came here because I didn’t want to be—” He stops. The word alone catches in his throat.

Carlos’s gaze stays steady. “Alone.”

Oscar’s shoulders tense. He swallows hard. “Everyone keeps asking me if I’m okay,” Oscar says suddenly, and the words come out like a confession he’s been choking on. “And I don’t know what they want me to say. Do they want me to say yes so they can stop feeling awkward. Do they want me to say no so they can feel like a good person for asking.”

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “And when I asked.”

Oscar’s mouth twists. “When you asked, it felt like—” He stops, searching. He can’t say it felt like you could see through me. He can’t say it felt like you’d make me answer honestly. He settles for the ugly truth. “It felt like pressure.”

Carlos nods slowly. “Okay.”

Oscar glares. “Stop.”

Carlos’s eyebrows lift. “What do you want me to say, Oscar.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. “I don’t know.”

Carlos leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees, voice careful. “Then tell me what you do not want.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “Everything.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches. “That is not helpful.”

Oscar wipes his face again, furious at the wetness. “I don’t want pity. I don’t want consolation. I don’t want to be told it’s fine because it’s not fine. I don’t want—” His voice cracks. He swallows hard. “I don’t want to feel like I’m going to carry this forever.”

Carlos’s gaze softens and Oscar can't look at it because it makes the sting behind his eyes worse.

Carlos’s voice is gentle, but not pitying. “You will carry it,” he says. “But not like this.”

Oscar’s laugh is bitter. “How would you know.”

“Because I have lost things.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He knows Carlos has. Careers are built on loss. Every driver carries a museum of almosts.

Oscar’s mouth twists. “This one was… close.”

Carlos nods once. “Yes, Oscar.”

Oscar looks down at his own hands. They’re shaking again. Small tremors. He curls them into fists, nails biting in. Pain as anchor. He feels suddenly, sharply, tired. Like the last three days have been him holding a plank position in his own skull and he can’t do it anymore.

Oscar’s voice comes out small, despite himself. “I didn’t want to lose you too.”

The sentence hangs there like a dropped glass. Shattering quietly. Oscar’s heart slams. He didn’t mean to say that. He didn’t mean to say anything that true.

Carlos goes very still.

For a beat, the apartment feels like it’s holding its breath. Then Carlos exhales slowly. “Ah,” he says, soft. 

Oscar’s throat tightens. He looks away, staring at the water. He doesn’t drink. Drinking would feel like accepting care.

“I know,” Carlos says quietly. “I—” He stops, searching. His voice roughens a little. “I know you did not stop because you were bored.”

Oscar’s eyes burn. He blinks hard. “Don’t make it sound romantic.”

Carlos huffs a small laugh, humorless. “It is not romantic, Oscar. It is—” He gestures vaguely, frustrated by language. “Is stupid... human.”

Oscar’s breath shudders. The sadness is finally catching up. It chose this moment. He came here to avoid feeling. Instead he has said the one sentence that cracks him open. Carlos’s voice is gentle, but firm. “You can be angry here,” he says. “You can be sad. You can—” He hesitates, then adds, quieter, “You can be a mess. But don’t pretend you don’t care. Not to me.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He swallows hard. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admits, and his voice breaks on the last word.

Carlos’s gaze holds his. “I know.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “You keep saying you know.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches. “Because I do.”

Oscar wipes his face again. He feels humiliated by the tears. He hates that Carlos isn’t reacting like it’s pathetic. Carlos is treating it like weather: unpleasant, real, not shameful.

Oscar’s voice comes out ragged. “I came here because I thought if I could… if I could have you, I could forget.”

Carlos’s face tightens with something like pain. “And did it work.”

Oscar shakes his head, small. “For a minute.”

Carlos nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar glares through tears. “Stop.”

Carlos’s mouth twists, almost a smile, but it doesn’t arrive. “Sorry.”

Oscar’s shoulders slump slightly, the fight draining out of him in exhausted trickles. “I am going to Australia,” he says, because he needs to say something practical, something solid. “Tomorrow. Or the next day. I don’t even know. My calendar is—” He gestures vaguely. “My calendar hates me.”

Carlos huffs a quiet laugh at that. “Yeah.”

Oscar swallows hard. “And I thought… I thought I should cut you out. Cleanly. Because if I keep…” He stops. He can’t say if I keep wanting you. He can’t say if I keep letting you in. He tries again. “Because if I keep doing this, it becomes another thing I can’t control.”

Carlos’s gaze softens. “Oscar.”

Oscar flinches at his name again. “Don’t make it—”

Carlos interrupts, voice gentle but firm. “I am not making it anything. It already is.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He sits down suddenly on the edge of the couch, as if his legs have decided to quit. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.

He feels small. He doesn't like feeling small. The silence stretches. Oscar can hear his own breathing. He can hear Monaco outside, continuing to exist as if it hasn’t ruined him.

Carlos stays where he is. He just… stays. It’s infuriatingly kind.

Oscar’s voice is quiet. “I don’t want you to think you’re—” He swallows hard. “Disposable.”

Carlos’s breath catches slightly. “Okay.”

Oscar lets out a broken laugh. “You’re doing it again.”

Carlos’s mouth twists. “Sorry. It is… I am trying not to say the wrong thing.”

Oscar looks up at him, eyes burning. “There is no right thing.”

Carlos nods once. “Yeah. I know.”

Oscar’s chest aches at the repetition. He wipes his face again, dragging his sleeve across his cheek like he’s trying to erase evidence.

“I’m angry,” Oscar says, as if confessing a crime. “All the time. I’m angry when I wake up. I’m angry when I eat. I’m angry when someone says his name. I’m angry when someone says my name. I’m angry at—” He laughs bitterly. “I’m angry at the sun.”

Carlos huffs a small, surprised laugh. “The sun.”

“It’s too cheerful,” Oscar says, dead serious.

Carlos’s eyes soften. “Yeah.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He stares at the floor. The anger he’s been living in for days feels suddenly like a thin shell, and underneath it is grief—soft, enormous, unavoidable.

Oscar’s voice drops. “I wanted it,” he says, and that’s the saddest sentence in the world because it’s so simple. “I wanted it so badly.”

Carlos’s face shifts, pained. He nods once. “I know.”

Oscar’s breath shudders. He feels another tear slip. He doesn’t wipe it this time. He’s too tired to keep fighting his own face.

He says, very quietly, “And now I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Carlos just says, gentle and steady, “You don’t have to know tonight.”

Oscar looks up, eyes wet, and something in his chest twists because that’s all he’s wanted: permission to not solve it immediately.

Why does it have to come from Carlos. And why does it feels like relief.

Oscar’s voice cracks. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “Maybe.”

Oscar laughs, broken. “Helpful.”

Carlos’s expression softens. “I am so glad you came, Oscar,” he admits quietly, and then adds quickly, as if to correct himself, “Not like that. Not to—” He gestures vaguely, frustrated. “But I am glad you are here.”

Oscar’s throat tightens hard enough it hurts. He looks away because if he looks at Carlos too long, he’ll fall into something he can’t climb out of. He whispers, rough, “I don’t know what we are.”

 “We do not have to decide right now.”

“That sounds like you’re being nice.”

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “I’m being honest.”

Oscar swallows hard. “You’re annoyingly good at that.”

Carlos huffs a small laugh. “I know.”

Oscar snorts despite himself, and the sound comes out wet and pathetic. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, furious at his body.

Carlos’s voice is quiet. “Drink the water.”

Oscar glances at the glass like it’s an enemy. Then, because he is exhausted and because fighting everything is getting old, he reaches for it and takes a sip.

The water is cold. It tastes like nothing. It is, annoyingly, grounding. He sets it down again.

Oscar’s voice is small. “I’m sorry I—” He stops. He can’t say used you without choking. He tries again. “I’m sorry I came here like that.”

Carlos nods once, slow. “Okay.”

Oscar glares weakly. “Stop.”

Carlos’s mouth twists into a real smile this time—small, tired, fond in a way that hurts. “I cannot help it,” he says, the accent rounding the words. “It is my coping.”

Oscar’s chest aches again, but this time it’s softer. Less sharp. He looks at Carlos, really looks, and sees the tiredness there too. Sees the way Carlos is holding himself still like he’s trying not to make Oscar bolt. Sees the restraint. The care.

 “You’re leaving soon,” he says, because he needs to say something that won’t make him cry again.

Carlos nods. “Yeah. A few days.”

Oscar nods too. “Right.”

Silence settles again. Not as heavy. Still sad, but less jagged.

Oscar knows, with a dull certainty, that he will still go to Australia. He will still get on the plane. He will still sit in an economy seat pretending he doesn’t know how to be famous in public. He will still land and be looked at by people who love him and feel the loss like a bruise. And he knows this moment won’t fix anything. It’s not that kind of story. It’s not a montage. It’s not a neat resolution.

Oscar’s voice is quiet. “If I leave tomorrow,” he says, and his throat tightens, “will you… be angry.”

 “I’m already angry,” he says, then softens. “But not at you for leaving. I get it.”

Oscar swallows hard. “Will you… stop talking to me.”

Carlos’s gaze sharpens. “Is that what you want.”

Oscar’s chest aches. He shakes his head, small. “No.”

Carlos nods once. “Then no.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He looks away quickly because the relief feels too close to gratitude and gratitude feels like debt.

He whispers, rough, “Okay.”

Carlos huffs a small laugh. “There,” he says. “Now you are doing it.”

Oscar manages a watery snort. “Shut up.”

Carlos’s smile is tired and gentle. “No.”

Oscar’s eyes sting again. He blinks hard, fighting it, but the sadness is stubborn. It sits in his chest like a weight.

He says, very quietly, “I thought if I came here, I wouldn’t feel it.”

Carlos’s voice is soft. “And now.”

 “Now I feel it more.”

“Yeah.”

Oscar laughs once, broken. “Great.”

Carlos’s eyes stay on him, steady. “It will pass,” he says, and then adds quickly, because he can hear how that sounds, “Not completely. But it won’t be like this forever.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He nods, because he can’t speak without breaking again. At some point, Oscar stands. Slowly, like he’s not sure his legs will work.

Carlos looks up at him, cautious. “You going.”

Oscar nods. “Yeah.”

Carlos’s mouth tightens. “Okay.”

Oscar’s lips twitch in something like a smile and something like grief. “Stop.”

Carlos’s expression softens. “Text me when you land,” he says, and it’s not a demand. It’s not a claim. It’s just… a thread offered.

Oscar’s chest aches. He nods again. “Okay.”

He walks to the door. His hand hovers on the handle.  His palm is damp. His heartbeat is loud enough to be embarrassing. He doesn’t turn the handle because turning it would mean stepping back into Monaco—into the sun, the yachts, the questions. Into people’s faces doing that careful thing where they pretend they’re not afraid he’ll say something ugly.

Behind him, Carlos is still in the armchair. 

“I didn’t come here to talk,” Oscar says again, because he is childish like that.

“I know,” Carlos answers, soft.

Oscar exhales through his nose. His throat burns. He keeps his hand on the handle anyway, as if contact alone can count as leaving.

He doesn’t want to go.

That thought arrives and stays. He doesn’t want to step out into the hallway and be alone with his brain again. He doesn’t want to go home and stare at his ceiling like it’s going to explain why a few points can ruin your appetite. He doesn’t want to disappear, either. Not like this.

He turns halfway. “If I… stay for a bit,” he says, voice rough, “you’re not going to—”

Carlos’s brows lift. “Ask you if you are okay?”

Oscar’s mouth twists. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

Oscar blinks. “Just like that.”

Carlos shrugs, a little helpless. “Just like that, no? You asked.”

It’s so simple Oscar almost gets angry again, just on principle. Then he realizes his anger is tired. It wants to sit down. It wants to stop performing. Oscar releases the door handle. His hand tingles like he’s cut a wire. He turns back to the room as if he’s pretending he didn’t almost leave. “I’ll stay,” he says, and the sentence is smaller than it should be, like he’s trying not to spook himself.

Carlos’s expression changes—quick, bright relief that he tries to hide, because Carlos is also not in the mood to make this a spectacle.

“Okay,” Carlos says, and then immediately grimaces like he’s heard himself. “Sorry. I—” He rubs his face. “I said it again.”

Oscar huffs a laugh despite himself. It’s barely a laugh. More like air escaping. But it counts.

“You’re addicted,” Oscar says.

Carlos’s mouth quirks. “It is my coping.”

Oscar rolls his eyes and walks back to the couch, sitting this time with less stiffness, like his bones have stopped bracing for impact. He stares at the glass of water on the table like it’s a dare.

He reaches for it, takes a sip. And then he immediately swallows wrong. He coughs, sharp and undignified. Water goes down the wrong pipe. His throat spasms like it’s trying to eject him from his own body. He bends forward, coughing hard, eyes stinging, suddenly choking on nothing like he’s never learned how to drink.

It’s absurd. It’s humiliating. It’s the least heroic thing he’s done all week.

Carlos is out of the chair in a second, halfway across the room, alarm flashing through him like a dashboard light.

Oscar lifts a hand, wheezing. “It's fine—”

Carlos freezes mid-step like he’s been shouted at by a traffic marshal. His hands hover in the air, useless. His face does a whole complicated series of expressions—concern, restraint, guilt, are you okay choking back down his own throat. Oscar coughs again, and then, finally, the obstruction clears. His lungs pull in air like they’re grateful to be alive.

He sits up, blinking.

Carlos is standing there, tense, hands still half-raised like he’s about to catch Oscar if gravity decides to be rude.

Oscar wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes are watering. His face is hot. He looks, objectively, ridiculous.

Carlos stares at him for a beat, fighting his own instincts, then says carefully, like he’s defusing a bomb, “So. The water. Not your friend.”

Oscar’s laugh comes out before he can stop it—realer than the earlier huff, a startled sound that surprises him with its own existence. He laughs again, shorter, because it’s either laugh or cry and he’s already sick of crying.

Carlos’s shoulders drop with visible relief, and the relief is contagious. His mouth twitches, then he cracks, too—this quiet, breathy laugh that makes him look younger. Less composed. More human. Oscar shakes his head, wiping his eyes. “I’m—” He coughs once, glaring at the water like it personally betrayed him. “I’m fine.”

Carlos points at him accusingly. “Don’t.”

Oscar snorts. “Shut up.”

Carlos’s smile widens despite himself. “Okay,” he says automatically, then winces. “Sorry.”

Oscar laughs again, and it feels strange. Like finding a familiar object in a house that burned down. Carlos sits on the edge of the coffee table, not too close, but closer than before. “You were very brave,” he says, deadpan, as if Oscar has survived a war and not a sip of water.

Oscar wipes his face again, still smiling unwillingly. “Yeah. Call the FIA. Tell them I fought valiantly.”

Carlos’s accent warms the sentence when he says, “We will add it to your highlights.”

Oscar’s laugh softens into something quieter, and in the quiet there’s a tender ache. He looks down at his hands. They’ve stopped shaking, for the moment. Or maybe he just doesn’t notice because his chest isn’t full of knives right this second.

Carlos shifts, glancing at Oscar like he’s checking a weather forecast. “Do you want… coffee?” he asks, careful. “Or something that is not—” he nods at the water with suspicion “—trying to kill you.”

Oscar’s lips twitch. “Coffee's fine.”

Carlos stands, heads toward the kitchen, then pauses like he’s remembered something. “Milk?”

Oscar blinks. It’s such a normal question. A question that belongs to normal life, not to whatever wreckage Oscar’s been dragging around.

“Yeah,” Oscar says, voice softer. “Milk.”

Carlos nods once, like this is important intelligence. He disappears into the kitchen. Oscar hears cupboards open, the soft clink of a spoon, the coffee machine. Domestic noises. The kind that make you feel like the world hasn’t ended, even if you’re pretty sure it did.

Oscar stares at the couch cushion beside him. It has a tiny wrinkle in it, the fabric slightly pulled where he sat earlier like a statue. He smooths it absentmindedly, then stops, because why is he making the couch neat, who is he trying to impress, the couch?

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

He doesn’t look.

He sits there with his hands empty and realizes, with a dull surprise, that he can feel the loss and also feel… this. The warmth of a room. The normality of a coffee machine. The faint sting in his throat from choking on water like a clown.

Maybe there’s room in him for more than one thing.

Carlos returns with two mugs. One of them is plain. The other one says FER in big letters, like it’s a half-finished tattoo.

Oscar stares at it. “What is that—”

Carlos looks down at the mug like he’s just noticed it exists. “It was a gift,” he says, sheepish. “From someone. I don’t know.”

“That’s not even a word,” Oscar says.

“It is almost a word,” Carlos argues. “Like you.”

Oscar makes a wounded sound. “Oh my god.”

Carlos sets the mugs down, smiling. “Too soon?”

Oscar shakes his head, smiling despite himself. “You’re horrible.”

“I am funny,” Carlos corrects, and then adds, softer, “I am trying.”

Oscar’s smile falters for a second at the gentleness in that.

He takes the plain mug. Carlos takes the FER one like he’s accepting his punishment. They sit—Oscar on the couch, Carlos on the armchair again, but angled closer now, his knee almost touching the edge of the couch if Oscar leans.

They sip. The coffee is hot. The milk makes it taste like home in a way Oscar wasn’t prepared for.

Carlos clears his throat. “I won’t ask,” he says quietly. “But… if you want to tell me anything, I can listen. And if you do not, we can—” He gestures vaguely at the room, the mugs, the absurd mug situation. “We can just exist.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He stares into his coffee like the surface might show him a better version of himself.

“I don’t want to be inspirational,” Oscar says, low. “I don’t want to be—” He searches for the word and it comes out ugly. “Gracious.”

Carlos’s eyes soften. “Okay.”

Oscar points at him with his mug. “Careful.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches. “Sorry. I mean—” He takes a breath. “You do not have to be anything. Not here.”

Oscar’s chest aches again. He swallows. His voice comes out smaller. “I’m so angry.”

Carlos nods, slow. “Yeah.”

“And I’m tired of people treating the anger like it’s… inappropriate,” Oscar says. “Like the correct emotion is acceptance.”

Carlos’s accent curls around the consonants when he says, “Acceptance is overrated.”

Oscar’s laugh is quiet, surprised. “Is it.”

Carlos shrugs. “Sometimes you accept later.”

Oscar looks down at his mug. His hands are steady. He hates that noticing it makes him want to cry again.

He says, carefully, “I didn’t come here to be… like this.”

Carlos’s gaze holds his. “I know.”

Oscar’s jaw tightens. “I came here to—”

“I know,” Carlos says again, firmer, and then, because he can’t help himself, adds, “And I still wanted you to stay.”

Oscar’s breath catches. He looks up. Carlos looks almost embarrassed, as if he’s said something too honest without permission. His ears go a little pink. He takes a sip to pretend he didn’t just do that.

Oscar’s heart does a weird, stupid lurch. He sets his mug down slowly, like he’s making sure his hands don’t betray him again. He looks at Carlos, really looks. Carlos sits very still, giving Oscar space like it’s sacred. Oscar doesn’t know how to do this without turning it into a strategy, without turning it into something he can win.

So he tries a different thing.

He asks, quietly, “Can I—”

Carlos’s eyes widen slightly. “Yes,” he says immediately, then stops himself, flustered. “I mean—what.”

Oscar’s mouth twitches. “Can I kiss you.”

The words are simple. Not a distraction. A question, like a human being. Carlos’s face softens in a way that hurts. He nods once, careful. “Yes,” he says, quiet. “If you want.”

Oscar leans in slowly, giving himself time to change his mind if panic arrives. It doesn’t. Or maybe it does, but it sits in the corner and watches, sulking.

Carlos meets him halfway.

The kiss is soft at first, tentative, like they’re both learning the temperature of something new. Oscar feels Carlos’s hand come up—hesitate—then rest lightly at the side of Oscar’s neck, thumb warm against his skin.

Oscar exhales into it, the relief of gentleness making his head spin.

It’s not the frantic heat from earlier. It’s… a candle. Steady. Warm. Something you can hold your hands over.

Oscar pulls back after a moment, forehead hovering near Carlos’s, like he’s checking whether the room is still real.

Carlos’s lips curve slightly. “Better than water,” he murmurs.

Oscar huffs a laugh against him. “Everything is better than water.”

Carlos smiles, and it’s small and bright, like he’s relieved in a way he doesn’t want to admit. “Okay,” he says again, then groans. “Joder. Sorry.”

Oscar laughs, properly this time—quiet but real—and the sound makes something inside him unclench.

He sits back, still close, and says, with a self-disgusted honesty that feels almost brave, “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

Carlos nods. “Me neither.”

Oscar blinks. “That is not very you.”

Carlos shrugs. “Maybe I am learning.”

Oscar’s mouth twists, fond despite himself. “That’s terrifying.”

Carlos’s smile softens. “We can go slow,” he says, and he looks at Oscar like he means it. “We can… not decide tonight. We can just—” He gestures vaguely, helpless. “We can try again. If you want.”

Oscar’s throat tightens. He thinks about Australia. About leaving. About the instinct to cut everything clean the moment it starts to matter. He thinks about how tired he is of clean cuts.

“Yeah,” he says. “We can try again.”

Carlos’s eyes widen slightly, the same open surprise, like he didn’t expect Oscar to hand him something real.

“Yeah?” Carlos repeats, soft.

Oscar feels warmth rise into his cheeks. He hates himself. He does it anyway. “Yeah.”

Carlos smiles. It’s gentle. 

Oscar sits there in Carlos’s apartment in Monaco, coffee cooling on the table, the city glittering outside like it always does, and for the first time in days, the sadness isn’t the only thing in the room. It’s still there. It’s still heavy. But it’s sharing space with laughter and warmth and the fact that Carlos’s hand is still resting lightly at Oscar’s neck like he’s allowed to be held.

Oscar exhales, long and slow, and says, half-muttering, “Don’t ask me if I’m okay again.”

Carlos’s mouth quirks. “I won’t.”

Oscar glances at him. “Promise?”

Carlos nods solemnly. “Promise.”

Oscar’s lips twitch. “Okay.”

Carlos points at him, delighted. “Ah. Now you’re doing it.”

Oscar throws a couch cushion at his face.

Carlos catches it easily, laughing, and for a second it’s so normal Oscar could cry for entirely different reasons.

Carlos drops the cushion, leans in, and kisses Oscar again—quick this time, light, like punctuation.

“Stay a little longer,” Carlos says softly.

Oscar looks at him, then nods once. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

And the word doesn’t feel like surrender.

Oscar’s face flares. He does check the ring finger of the other guy, though. It’s bare. 

“If you are," Runner Guy continues, grinning, "you’re very handsome. I must have made a good choice."

"I'm not–"

In the corner of Oscar's eye, a swan has waddled its way near them. It gives a warning honk and flaps its wings, staking its territory. This won’t do. Oscar refuses to be deported on account of an altercation with one of the King’s scheming birds.

“Mate, it’s very probable that you’re concussed,” Oscar says, in a loud voice so that anyone passing by can hear that he’s not being untoward.

"Oh… is that what happened?"

“I think so. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Seventeen," Runner Guy says. Then catches Oscar's worried face. "Okay, two."

"That's good. I'm going to help you up now.”

“Okay.” 

They struggle up. The guy is lean, but more densely muscled than he looks, because Oscar has to brace his entire body weight to support him. Runner guy emanates heat through his t-shirt. He must've been on a roll for a PB or something.

At this opportune moment, a bunch of kids burst through the clearing from the nearby field.

“Mister, you alright?” comes a child’s voice to Oscar’s left.

“Sorry 'bout the ball,” says another. “Was just kicking it high, like.”

“Is he DEAD?” says a third.

Oscar has to muffle a snort by coughing into his left elbow. Runner Guy shifts his weight, and Oscar bumps his hip against him in an attempt to keep his balance.

Oscar looks at the concerned kids in an attempt to be reassuring. “He’ll be okay. But I do need to move him,”

“Let's don't move,” the guy says.

The kids look between each other, worried. They can't be more than ten years old, but even at ten, Oscar remembers having a mind of his own, and more importantly, an ability to tattle to his parents. Oscar thinks it's best not to cause a scene lest he end up on the news or somebody's social media. MAN HIT IN HEAD WITH FOOTBALL AND RESCUER BULLIED BY SCHOOLCHILDREN. YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!

“It's better if you can sit down. Come on,” he says to Runner Guy in a tone that is hopefully low and reassuring.

"Will he be alright?" asks one of the kids with knee pads and a big t-shirt.

Oscar nods. "He'll live."

"Told you not to kick that high, Chester, you're not Ronaldo," one of the girls says.

"He's not even good anyway," another kid says. This seems a bit of a discredit to Chester, who must have sent that football flying at least fifty metres.

But as entertaining as they are, it's time to leave the gaggle of kids behind. Oscar gives a polite nod at their chorus of "good luck" and "maybe you should call his mum" and "that was proper stupid mate", and the kids drift back to their game.

"Good luck, Mister, with your husband!" the girl with the knee pads cries out.

"Notmyhusband," Oscar mumbles, under his breath.

To his credit, Runner Guy just laughs it off.

They find a bench at a quieter spot, and manoeuvre to sit without either collapsing into an embarrassing heap. Pigeons run aimless circles near their feet.

“You must be a guardian angel,” Runner Guy says.

“I’m just on my way to the office.”

“Ah. And where's that?"

“I work at the zoo,” Oscar volunteers, making conversation. It’s good to keep the guy talking until he can find a park warden or maybe call an ambulance, whichever happens first. He scans the area for anybody who might be able to help, but it's quiet at this time of day, with only the burble of fountains and whispering leaves to keep them company.

“I like the penguins. They are hardier than they seem,” the guy declares. Oscar doesn’t think this is up for debate, plus it is rude to correct someone who may have a concussion, so he just nods. 

“That's true. Adélie Penguins, in Antarctica, like picking the rocks out of retreating glaciers to build their nests. They're the only ones who do that. They also toboggan across the ice sheet on their bellies if there's enough snow. Sorry, I tend to go on about penguin fun facts. That are mostly fun. To me."

Runner Guy may be concussed, but a smile still breaks open on his face, as if Oscar's offered him a genuine gift. “You have enlightened me. Thank you, Doctor…”

“Oscar. Just Oscar. I’m a grad vet, so we’re not called doctors. Technically.”

“But you are still saving animals. And me.”

Runner Guy catches his eye for a moment, and some pigeons coo behind them. He's hot, a part of his brain registers. He blinks in surprise and makes a show of checking the other man's forehead for scrapes or scratches.

(Maybe it'd be good if a football bonked him in the head right now.)

At this opportune moment, the swan from earlier chooses to make an reappearance. It stares at them with beady eyes, and fluffs its feathers.

"Hey," Oscar says, in a warning tone. Runner Guy follows his eyeline to the big bird.

"Doc, aren't you supposed to be nice to the animals?"

Oscar narrows his eyes at the bird. "I am being nice. By setting appropriate behavioural boundaries."

Runner Guy snorts, and pulls out a gel from a hidden pocket, and sucks on it. Oscar tries very hard not to stare at his mouth, working on the shiny packet. Or the way his tongue darts out to suck.

“Your pupils seem fine, and you're talking steady, which is good. Though, we should probably get you to a human doctor,” Oscar says, keeping his tone even. He focuses on opening his maps app. His arm jostles Runner Guy's, and he tries to put the spark of contact at the back of his mind, focusing on his task. University Hospital isn't far from here, so maybe they could walk over there? He's got a couple of checks to make on the animals at the zoo health centre, but with more grads around now to pick up shifts, he should have a bit of wriggle room. Besides, it's technically a medical emergency. For a human. A good-looking, if confused, human.

"I should be fine," Runner Guy says.

"I'd really feel better if you got that checked out."

"Okay. I trust you. You are a doctor."

He's not, but okay.

“Doctor Oscar," Runner Guy says, rolling the rs in his mouth. "Y mi nombre es Carlos.”

Runner Guy – no – Carlos, says it like he hadn’t realised he’d switched output channels for a minute. Oscar wonders where the lyrical accent is from.

"You should probably drink something too," Oscar says, digging into his backpack for his water bottle. He can't remember if he already swigged out of it this morning, which means they would trade spit, which in another context might not be a bad thing, but he tells himself there are more pressing matters to be dealing with. Carlos accepts the bottle, staring at the stickers.

"Gracias. Is that…a turtle?"

Oscar elects to spare him the lecture about the evolutionary importance of the Galapagos Giant Tortoise. His middle sister had said that one was enthralling, in a tone that implied it was anything but.

"Just sit tight. You'll be alright."

Carlos just shrugs and drinks. Oscar watches carefully, to make sure he's sufficiently hydrated. Under his gaze, the heartbeat on Carlos's smartwatch climbs gently up.

"What?" Carlos says. His upper lip is wet.

"Keep talking. What do you do for work?"

"Ah. I'm a lawyer. I am a senior associate on the Partner track at–"

He's got the guy yapping, so now he tries to multitask and figure out the fastest way to A&E from where they are, and whether it's walkable or they should Uber or something. He vaguely makes out bits about how Carlos once wanted to play football for Real Madrid, but school became more important, so now he works at a law firm, but he's lately not sure if he really likes it, was thinking of changing teams or maybe industries, and he was also trying to figure out his work-life balance but it seems like a never-ending debate with himself, and also maybe he should get a dog?

"I'm really sorry, I didn't catch all of that. But I'm glad you're talking," Oscar says.

"Oh," Carlos says, sounding disappointed. Oscar has been told in the past that his patient manner, even with animals, could be more expressive. Less clinical. Softer. The last thing he wants to do is cause hurt when the football has already done that. An impulse sparks in Oscar, loud and simple: make the other man's sadness go away– damned be the consequences.

So in the middle of the park, amongst the prams and the peonies and the intrepid pigeons, Oscar shoves his phone in his pocket and says the thing that he was least expecting to say all day.

"Let's get you sorted out with medical. And maybe we can talk more over coffee sometime?"

Carlos stares back at him with big, brown eyes. His mouth opens slightly in surprise, as if Oscar's read his mind, and he might have been on the way to saying the exact same thing, too. Funny how that works.

"I mean– I don't drink coffee," Oscar adds. "But there's a café on Cleveland that does a great hot chocolate. I assume you drink, what, a cortado?"

Miraculously, Carlos smiles. Soft, and devastating, in a magazine cover way that works in real life. Oscar finds himself wondering what it'd be like to get the full power of that smile, sans head injury. "You assumed correctly, Doctor Oscar.

Carlos nudges Oscar's arm with his elbow. The spark of contact there travels up Oscar's arm. Possibly into his left ventricle. Who's to say.

"And yes, I would like that," Carlos says. "I would like that very much."

--🍁🌰🍁🌰🍁🌰🍁--

big thank you to @seaplease and @georgiasbrainstuff for helping me talk through some stuff as i worked on this! the whole thing got a lot longer than i anticipated at the start, and they were very patient with me <3