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The first thing Carlos thinks when he sees Charles in the paddock on Friday is, oh.
Oh. Charles is wearing white and blue.
The thing is, Carlos himself hasn’t gotten used to the reflection he sometimes sees in passing as he zooms through the corridors of the garage towards where the car is. Carlos hasn’t gotten used to spotting himself on Instagram posts. Carlos’ eyes, trained horses that once ran around rampant but not anymore, go for the red — and then, this weekend, they settle for pristine white.
Sometimes that means Liam and Isack.
Carlos thinks it’s funny because he was them, once, in a different shade. And because the boy in dark blue and bright red and shiny gold was, too. Isack, all big, brown eyes that shine with something that must be kindness, doesn’t know the story. He doesn’t need to.
So Carlos goes for red, and he always finds him.
The shade is different this year. It’s not a justification, he supposes.
He looks a bit older. Tired, one would say. Carlos definitely thinks so, but he’s not allowed to. His beard looks a bit scruffy (he never allowed it to go to those lengths before, so it’s shocking, even), the space under his eyes is hollow and vacant. His mouth has a tilt to it — downwards, but almost unnoticeable. The eyes are the same they always are, but the bottle-green looks almost teal nowadays. Maybe Carlos had never looked close enough.
That’s a lie. It must be. He doesn’t dwell on it. He doesn’t dwell on most things.
Carlos goes for red, and — that’s Ollie, that’s Ocon — Russell, veering towards something salmon, even.
When Carlos finds him, next to his teammate, he thinks about the quick pantomime on the corridors of the Williams garage. That thing that looks spooked, unsettled, almost jittery.
A straight nose and a bat of blondish eyelashes later, Carlos blinks, and he’s there.
“Charles.”
There’s a lack of use to the name. It’s croaky. Carlos remembers talking about him in an interview just today, so it must be a lie.
The eyes that look more-teal-than-not find Carlos, and his head goes again, oh.
Carlos spares a thought to his self-preservation, or lack thereof, as Lewis Hamilton adjusts his airpods in his periphery.
“Hello, mate.” Charles smiles, a stupidly pretty vision. The dimples make him look less tired, a little bit sparkly. He stops for a second, as if giving Carlos time to swallow his smile down, and then speaks again. “Hi, Carlos.”
They’re wearing white and blue. Both shades are obscenely similar to the ones Carlos himself is donning, but the layout is different. The demeanor is, as well. Maybe it’s the fact that Charles has always carried himself proudly and so has Lewis — the same kind of stuff that made Carlos’ shoulders hunch forward in the most unflattering manner. For the first time, at least this year, he wonders if he looks — vulgar. If people see him and can immediately tell, point at him and read his insides, the way he still looks for red.
Lewis is moving his head slightly to an unknown beat, eyes scrunched together from the profile Carlos can see. His braids follow the movement swiftly, orderly. White is a good look on him.
Charles, white and blue, says something that makes Pierre laugh obnoxiously, and Carlos knows he has been quiet for too long. Pierre balances himself on both feet, the undone race suit flopping awkwardly like a pair of wings that cling to his waist.
No one notices him leaving. They hadn’t noticed him approaching either. He crashes during the sprint race — Charles doesn’t even start it.
Sunday always comes like an afterthought, anyways. And it goes like this—
He arrives at the paddock, signs a couple of everythings, semi-smiles for pictures, and looks for red.
Carlos goes for red, and he always finds him.
This time is no different, but the pretty cherry color is on his arm. Alex is a nice girl. She’s beautiful, polite and elegant. Regal, the same kind Charles could be described as. They look good together with Leo, too.
Carlos goes for red, but turns his head at the sight of dimples, a crinkly smile and soft lips meeting each other.
Instead, he makes acquaintances with the thing in dark blue and white, with wild hair and rosy cheeks like something juvenile, and it haunts every one of his steps through the garage.
It follows him, together with the tall, lanky shadow of one Alex Albon, all the way to the grid. Miami is stupidly humid — the air is charged with something. Something like that could swallow them whole, he reasons, wet towel making something of his sweaty neck.
He can barely breathe, but he doesn’t dwell on it.
He doesn’t dwell on the thing that touches his leg. Carlos looks down, at bright blue and white, and then up. Vest, sponsors, pristine white, and then — scruffy beard, lips stretched like those of a caricature, a straight nose, and squinty eyes later, he’s there.
“Hey, Carlos.”
The anthems are about to go off. Charles blinks and his eyelashes never stop touching each other. Carlos needs to swallow back all the spit pooling in his mouth.
“It’s hot, eh?”
The smile that was beginning to falter rushes to the dimples once again. The humidity is making Charles’ hair curl — it’s longer now than it ever was last year. Carlos knows, if not by touch, because he has imagined his own fingers treading through it one too many times.
He smiles, too, and he probably looks a bit goofy.
Charles winks one eye, cap forgotten somewhere in his driver’s room where Lewis didn’t get it for him.
“It’s going to rain.”
The Monégasque looks up, and his nose cuts a beautiful picture into the greyish sky. A pretend weatherman who just checked the weather app on his iPhone. Carlos wants to laugh at him, and then kick at the soft skin on the back of his knee just to watch him stumble, hear his breathy giggles that make him sound young.
“You think?”
It’s an absurd conversation, but Carlos is grasping at it. He claws at the borrowed time they’re on. Every time he breathes it’s like trying to open your mouth underwater. Charles looks down again, and Carlos wonders if he’s seeing spots, if he’s dizzy, too.
His mouth turns upside down — cartoonish — and he shrugs a bit.
Then, he laughs, swallowing part of the Pacific into his lungs like it’s nothing. “Well, I don’t know, mate.”
The anthems begin, so there’s that.
And, for a second, as someone gives a flamboyant rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, Carlos entertains the thought. A random shade of blue, not important, and pristine white. Different sponsors, sure, but white fireproofs nonetheless. The suits are down at the waist, so the familiar yellow crest isn’t visible. Surely one could overlook the blue arms that flap behind Charles, all bunched up at the shoulders because he is careless with things sometimes.
And, if one doesn’t think about the red that should be all-encompassing when it comes to Charles, the one that makes the skin under his eyes look purple and his eyes more-green-than-teal — if one were to entertain the thought like Carlos is, they almost look like teammates again.
A tale told in another life, maybe. One where leaving didn’t hurt as much as it did, or one where no one left. One where Carlos didn’t look vulgar and his shoulders didn’t roll forward with shame. Charles looking more-teal-than-green; tired, yes, but easy to breathe around. Maybe that Carlos would be laughing with his head back. Maybe that Charles’ hand would curl around that Carlos’ elbow, right where the white fabric leaves way to a valley — maybe his tendons would hurt from the pressure, maybe it would make his eyes water with want.
Carlos wants— Carlos has wanted for a while— he wonders how this Charles would react if Carlos asked to kiss him.
It’s this Charles that smiles, neither here nor there. He had planted himself there in the first place. Carlos can only produce something close to whatever his mouth does whenever he smiles, because his lips are still tingling from something that can’t be there.
The once-teammates march in opposite directions, and they go to race.
It’s chaotic. It’s shit. Carlos doesn’t understand the car yet, doesn’t trust the brakes as much as he should — doesn’t trust his teammate as much as he should, or his engineer, for that matter. He grinds his teeth together, mouth going clackity-clack to make up for the suspension that the car cannot provide him with.
He trusts him, though. He trusts his own hands on the steering wheel, finger going over to the shift paddle on the straight, because he’s close, he’s close, he’s close—
Carlos always goes for red, and the car is still red, and Carlos always goes for him.
He launches for the overtake, and then his front tyres are ahead. Charles doesn’t change the trajectory, not that much. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. It won’t matter in a couple of turns — laps, if he’s lucky. Carlos pretends to breathe all the stuffy air inside his helmet, pretends to turn his eyes away from his right-side mirror, and pretends to go on the hunt for the car ahead.