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There was a knock on his door at ass o’clock in the morning.
Oscar groaned, dragging himself up and hobbling to the door. He squinted through the peephole. Of course. Carlos.
Carlos was… complicated. “Magnets,” he’d called them once—inseparable on the track, bound by some unrelenting force that wouldn’t let Oscar have a moment of peace.
Despite that pull, they make it a point not to talk outside of work. No unnecessary interactions, no overstepping, lest they were called rude. But Lando, infuriatingly, couldn’t take a fucking hint and kept trying to make them friends.
Nonetheless, they keep interactions at a minimum. Which was why it was strange to see Carlos in front of his hotel room.
He was drunk. Cow-eyes bigger than usual and Grecian hair just slightly ruffled through. He still looked infuriatingly put-together.
Oscar sighed. “Hello Carlos.”
The man charged through his hotel room and made himself comfortable on his couch. “I stay here. I lost my hotel card.”
“Great.” Oscar grimaced. A beat, “Why here?”
“I knocked at Lando’s but he wasn’t back. So I went next door,” he explained intelligently. Oscar muttered a ‘ whatever ’ and headed right back to bed.
He felt the plush mattress right below him, and immediately melted into it. What he wouldn’t give to just retire at that moment and sink into the bed forever and ever. He felt at peace, tranquil and—
“Oscar, Oscar, Oscar!” Carlos exclaimed three times, as if once wasn’t enough. He groaned, taking one of the pillows and placing it on top of his ear.
“Oscar.” Poke. “Oscar.” Poke. “Oscar” Poke.
“What do you want?” he grumbled, albeit a little too harshly. It didn’t seem to deter Carlos.
“Look at this!” he said excitedly, pointing at his phone.
It was a tiktok. Carlos woke him up to show him a tiktok. It was a video of two girls dancing to HOT TO GO by Chappell Roan.
“This looks fun. We should do this.” Carlos said enthusiastically.
“No, Carlos, I want to go to sleep,” Oscar mumbled.
“No.” he said pointedly. “Teach me.”
When Oscar’s eyes were on the verge of closing, Carlos shook him awake again. “C’mon, Osc, it will be fun!”
Carlos had that determined look in his eye, akin to when he was in the car. It was at that point that Oscar knew he would not relent until they did the dance.
“Fine. Promise me that after this you’ll let me go to sleep.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he said dismissively, practically jumping with joy when Oscar got up from the bed. “So how do we do this?”
“First, you put both your hands up like this.” he demonstrated, and Carlos followed. It reminded him of when his sisters tried to teach him the dance. “This is H.”
“Then, you make an O with your hands.” he said, touching the tips of his fingers above his head. Carlos nodded, doing the same.
“Then, a T like this.” he put his arm out straight. “T again, then O,” Carlos diligently followed along.
“Then make a G like this— no, put your left hand down. Then another O.”
Oscar taught him the rest of the dance, and once Carlos considered himself proficient enough, he propped the phone on the nightstand and hit the record button. The timer started counting down.
“ H-O-T—”
When Carlos attemped to do the T, he nearly stabbed Oscar in the eye. Turns out he was infinitely more dangerous drunk than he was in an F1 car.
“ Mate , be careful.”
They redo the dance again, with a larger distance between the two. This time, Carlos forgot the next part of the dance.
Once they had a perfect take, Carlos gleefully pressed ‘Post’ and Oscar couldn’t be half-assed to think about the ramifications. Instead, he dove into his bed, tugging the covers over him and closing his eyes.
“Oh my god, there is a Toto version!” Carlos gleefully exclaimed, pattering over to him to show what he found.
And when Carlos looked at him with those big brown cow eyes and that small pout, Oscar could do nothing but say yes to all his whims.
So after 20 minutes of trying to learn the dance, and 20 more minutes of recording, Carlos posts his second tiktok of the night.
Right as he’s about to lay down on the mattress, Carlos’s stupid and annoying voice with his stupid and annoying Spanish accent piped in again.
“I did not like it.” he said simply.
“ Carlos, I am not doing another tiktok .”
“No, not that,” he said. “I did not like it when you called me mate.”
“Oh,” Oscar said dumbly. “Right, I guess we’re not mates. I’ll stop doing that.”
“Because—“ he said, in a tone that indicated he did not listen to anything Oscar said. “Because it reminds me that we are not friends. Why is that?” he asked, as if it was the most important question in the universe.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we keep clashing on the track.”
Carlos crawled in Oscar’s bed without being invited. “But I like clashing with you on the track.”
“You do?” Whenever Carlos spoke on his and Oscar’s numerous incidents, he acts as if Oscar personally killed his childhood dog in front of him. This discovery came as shocking to him.
“Yeah, it’s fun, no?” Carlos lifted the covers, making himself comfortable.
“I suppose,”
“So why aren’t we mates?” he asked Oscar, chin propped up by his hands. “We have the same friends. Lando, Max, and Charles.”
Oscar sighed. “I— I don’t know.”
Carlos nudged at his forearm, and he turned to look at him. Carlos with those same big brown eyes and full lips, Carlos with those tan skin and rosy cheeks.
“Do you want to be my mate?” Carlos asked him, and it sounded so raw and so earnest.
Oscar paused. Being friends with Carlos wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Like he said, they had a lot of mutual friends, and they both liked racing cars in circles. Besides, Carlos wasn’t exactly the worst person to look at.
So he shrugged. “Yeah, sure,”
“Yay!” Carlos exclaimed, akin to a child, and lunged forward to hug Oscar tight. A few moments after, he heard the slightest snore from the Spaniard.
He was asleep. And Oscar couldn’t get out of his iron-clad grip.
Whatever. He closed his eyes, then let the sleep take over.
chilli55 @chilli55ainz • 5m
LMAO CARLOS WHAT IS THIS
LOSING MY MIND?? @agendacarcar • 6m
OH MY SHAYLAASSSSS
aric SAW TS IN LA @iamstuupid • 2m
oh so carlos went to oscar’s hotel room right after his win? okay im so totally normal about this!
[ picture attached: zoomed up background of the second tiktok, showing a suitcase full of papaya clothes superimposed by a red circle. ]
mika [semi-ia] @piasstrizzz • 3m
HE LOOKS SO DONE WITH HIM IM CRYING
[ picture attached: close-up of Oscar’s sleepy face, where he looks very annoyed at Carlos. ]
carcar #1 shipper @carcarisreal • 4m
GUYS I TOLD YOU CARCAR IS REAL