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The thing about Oscar and Logan is that they have been friends for years. Long enough and young enough that when the first blotches of injuries had bloomed on their skin, they were long into a friendship and halfway in love.
There, achingly young yet eighteen years old, Logan’s legs bloomed bruises and his fingers grew a pale, painless burn, barely at the tips of his nails. Logan, eighteen and full of acne and in want to race forever, tries to ignore how the burns at his fingers were like Oscar’s; skin melted from touching a hot pan a few seconds too long. He instead shows Oscar his legs on the morning of New Year’s, the bruises like small half-formed fruits, funky and light around his ankles. He laughs one-sided, unaware that beneath Oscar’s long, overstretched pants were identical marks, aching slightly from tripping over a stray rubbish bin.
Oscar waits until his eighteenth birthday to slice his finger over a stove in the middle of the night, then immediately calls Logan – burnt finger running under cold water, stinging like hell but full of proof – and asks, in the groggy night, “Did you feel it too?”
—
The tug in his wrist aches more than it normally does. It pulls his arm unwillingly toward some random direction, making his body hurt to move away. He can feel the throb enter his veins and can hear his own heart in his ears, as it thuds so loud and painful at the distance between him and his soulmate.
“Carlos?” an engineer asks. “You okay, mate?”
“Yes, sorry,” Carlos says, ignoring the way his skin tingles in sensation and his chest begins to ache. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
Charles gives him a careful, considerate look, before the rest of the meeting flows through, words rattling in Carlos’ ears and dribbling out with no second thought.
Carlos manages to get as far away from the meeting room as possible, escaping the worried glances and words from the team and Charles, and stows himself away in his driver’s room with the fragile, breaking lock holding him apart from the rest of the world.
“Joder,” he mumbles to himself, unwrapping his wrist to touch, feeling the cold ink warm under his fingers. He traces the lines of it, as if to dizzy himself, then buries his feelings away by rewrapping his soulmarks again, tighter and tighter than ever before. He wishes the feeling of them and their presence – so close yet so far – would just fade away forever.
—
Oscar and Logan are in the corner of the room, quiet and so loud, laughing at a shared joke. Their soulmarks, hidden beneath loose bandages, feel like burns on Carlos’ wrist. He wonders if they feel the harsh tug and longing the same way he does; he wonders if they realise something might be missing.
“Ciao,” Charles says, nudging Carlos’ shoulder. Carlos tears his eyes away from them in the corner and faces Charles, smiling taut. “Are you okay?”
“Sì, of course,” Carlos says. “Why?”
Charles' eyes shift just slightly, if only for a moment, but Carlos thinks he must see them. “Oscar and Logan are pretty close, hm?”
“Huh,” Carlos says, dumbly, adding, “so? They are friends, no? They are… very good friends.”
“Carlos,” Charles says.
“I am fine, promise,” Carlos tells him, then pats him once, twice on the back of his shoulder. “Gonna go now, I have a debrief with my engineer. Later, sì.”
He does not wait for Charles to answer, and hides away once more in his driver’s room, blood hot on his wrist.
—
Carlos is weird. He is weird in the way that it took him six years to even feel a tingle on his skin, stretched along the wonky scars of his weird, blotchy soulmark, a half-formed bruise as a reminder of a soulmate somewhere out there. He first thinks it must be a fluke; even if younger, soulmate injuries still turn on your skin sometimes, trembling like an unnatural blemish, ready to disappear – until they are old enough, and any injury will burn like a first touch. But it takes Carlos six years to even feel the breath of his soulmate’s clumsiness, and another year to finally feel the heat of the touch; to wince when a burn strikes his fingers in the middle of sleeping; a reddening, maddening feeling that stirred him crazy thinking of who his soulmate was.
“A nice young girl,” his father reassures him, at the edge of the race track, when Carlos is eighteen, confused why he does not feel any different.
“A beautiful lady might not be clumsy,” his mother tells him, carefully holding his hands, fingers careful not to linger by the wraps Carlos uses to cover his soulmark.
His soulmarks, the shapes so identifiable now that his soulmates have touched him; the professional handshake Logan gave him at first encounter, to the careful hi-five Oscar shared when they first met.
It should feel life-changing, to know your soulmate. It should feel like a weight lifted off – to be finally free, free of the tug in your gut that drags you through dirt to find your other half (halves), to finally breathe without the weight of unknown injuries and worries scarring your skin. To be able to wear looser bandages around your marks and to breathe with little feeling of that overwhelming yearn.
Carlos looks down at his wrists on the first night of knowing, staring as the two half-formed bruises melt apart and split, growing into two beautiful soulmarks so unique and careful Carlos had cried.
He tries not to take the bandage off after that. Even when the tug in his chest drags him closer to them in the corner of the garage, so close and nearly there. If only they were one person who was still looking for a soulmate. Maybe then.
—
“Max,” Carlos greets.
“Carlos,” Max says back, sipping a can of Red Bull. In lieu of formality, Max crushes the emptied can in his hand, and says, “How are your soulmates?”
“How is yours?” Carlos fires back.
Max nods, like he approves. “At least I am not always dying because I cannot touch them, like a weirdo.”
“At least I am not trying to replace mine with voodoo shit, like a loser,” Carlos says back.
They both look at each other, nod, and look away.
It is sometimes good to have someone who understands.
—
Since the season started, Carlos has not had to deal with the strange tingly bumps of love that decorate his body. But now, with the break so clean and long, he wakes up in the middle of the night, tired and alone, and feels the bruising of something along the edge of his hip.
(He knows, even before seeing it, what it is.)
He pulls down the band of his boxers, just everso slightly, and already his fingers are touching sacred marks; marks he thinks are so private and personal, that if only they knew, they would curse him out forever.
Carlos has woken up to the feeling of hickeys along his skin for years now. He thinks it must be weird, to know the shape of another person’s mouth, without it ever having been on you. To know how they bite into your skin, or suck against your body, with the marks that litter all over him.
He is used to it now; to covering up hickeys that were not his own, that were not for him, that will never be for him. To cover up hickeys so high, high, high, and to trace them and wonder, so low, low, low. To watch them form along his body.
Now, though, he feels like a pervert. After meeting the two of them, after racing against them and feigning rivalries and friendships, he feels like some predator, watching the marks bloom across his hips. The pattern spreads, all over, like an infection; another one by his waist, one pulling up to his ribs, and one-
Carlos tries not to think about it, as he feels a bite engrave itself to his chest, clinging onto the frame of his clavicle. He wonders, just momentarily, if it was Oscar or Logan. He thinks it must be Oscar. Oscar, who he knows is a biter. Like when Carlos showed up to the Williams hospitality to talk to Alex, and Logan was there wearing a turtleneck that barely hid growing bruises, Carlos himself having had trouble covering them up just earlier that morning.
Carlos likes to think he can feel the suck of his teeth, or the bite of his tongue; under the weight of caring, loving hands and a touch that was gentle and warm. He puts his fingers over where finger-shaped bruises are starting to form above his waist, and thinks of kissing and hugging and a cuddle in the morning.
He steps under the cold, running shower at two in the morning, feeling guilty and unreasonable. If only he had a soulmate – one he could hold forever, love forever, have in his arms without wondering of what ifs.
He does not fall asleep again until the sun is past above his shoulders and the streets awaken below. Even then, the nightmare lives on.
—
“Oh, hey!” Logan greets him. He has his phone in his hand, switched-on mid-article, already sitting on the couch Carlos had been eyeing.
“Hi,” Carlos says hesitantly, unsure. “Sorry. Is Alex-”
“Busy,” Logan tells him, before patting the spot next to him. “Come sit. He might take a while. Soulmate things, you know?”
“Right,” Carlos says. He sits next to Logan, weak in all ways, barely resisting the urge to reach out and grab Logan’s wrist.
The silence is awkward, for a moment, as Logan scrolls on his phone a few moments longer, before he says to Carlos, “You have a soulmate?”
“What?” Carlos says, surprised.
“Ah, sorry, that was a little rude,” Logan says sheepishly. “Just, wondering if you know your soulmate?”
“Oh,” Carlos says.
“I mean, it’d be cool, you know?” Logan says, shrugging. “Like them and Alex. Knowing your soulmate.”
“I don’t think everyone will like their soulmate,” Carlos tells him.
Logan’s body seems to tremble at that, like he had been drenched in icy, cold water. “Oh,” he says.
“And soulmates,” Carlos continues, “are never quite platonic either. They always seem to be romantic. It is hard.”
“I mean, you can feel it, by the bond,” Logan says. Then stammers, “That I’ve heard of! Of course. You know. Uhm. You could choose? If that’s… the issue with…”
“Hey Carlos,” Alex says. Carlos is immediately relieved at Alex’s timing, the ache in his wrists growing stronger as he sits too close to the person he should be with forever. “Sorry for the wait. Ready to go?”
“Vamos,” Carlos says back. He waves half-heartedly at Logan, trying to avoid looking at him once more, and almost runs off when Alex starts walking them away.
“Bye!” Logan says politely, voice shaky, as they part.
If Carlos had any dignity left, he would leave forever and burn himself alive.
—
Carlos has no dignity left.
Oscar had asked him to meet in his driver’s room. Instead of saying no like he would if he were smarter, less desperate, less tired, Carlos said yes, and now his knuckles are brushing the wood of a repainted door, bandages extra tight around the marks of his wrists.
“Come in,” Oscar says, from the other side of the door.
“Hi,” Carlos greets back. He tries not to scratch the insides of his wrists, itchy at the proximity of Oscar. “What do you want me for?”
Oscar sighs, and leans back until he falls into a chair. He points at another chair opposite him, and Carlos sits down almost too obediently.
“You made Logan sad,” Oscar says plainly.
“Uh,” Carlos says, because it is not a useful time to be feeling confused. “Do you mean-”
“Do you know who your soulmates are?” Oscar asks.
“Do I-” Soulmates. Oscar is asking about soulmates.
“Yeah, dumbass, soulmates,” Oscar says. “So you know?”
“Oh,” Carlos says.
“Oh you fucking idiot,” Oscar tells him. He stands up, and lets a deep breath out. “So you don’t like us, then?”
“What?” Carlos asks.
“You told him not everyone likes their soulmates, when he asked you,” Oscar says. “So you don’t like us? Then why didn’t you, just, say that instead of-”
“I do like you,” Carlos says, eyebrows furrowed. “Why would I not like you?”
Suddenly hands are digging into the scruff of his collar, and Carlos stands up on impact, Oscar’s fingernails long enough that they touch against Carlos’ pulse. “Carlos,” Oscar says sternly, breath harsh and hot on Carlos’ face. “Think for a fucking second.”
“Yes?” Carlos says. He can barely think, struggling not to push Oscar hard against the wall and just take, take, take-
“We’re soulmates,” Oscar breathes out, grip loosening. “You couldn’t, what, just tell us that?”
And Carlos is a weak man, because he is not sure how else to talk when Oscar is right there, fingers hot on his skin and nose inches from his. All Carlos has to do is step forward, and so he does – then he is kissing Oscar against the wall, his own fingers trying to reach out and grab, wrist burning with the long-yearned touch.
“Please,” Carlos tries to say through his teeth, lips hissing at Oscar’s mouth.
Oscar leans in, if not just for a second, before shoving Carlos off, hard and unmissable. “Carlos,” he says, breathless.
There is a knock on the door, and Carlos thinks he could combust at any moment, the intense, longing heat for Logan behind that door struggling to contain itself any longer. “I’m so sorry,” Carlos says, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Joder, I should not have-”
“You in there, Osc?” Logan asks. The door opens regardless of an answer, and Logan is walking in, standing there, cheery smile melting off his face. “Oh, hey…”
“Logan,” Carlos says curtly. He wipes his mouth again, as if it could reverse any of his actions. “Again, sorry,” he says to Oscar, but he can barely lift his face to look at him. He shoulders past Logan, like he is known so rudely, and tries to run through the hallway to the safety of privacy.
Vaguely, he hears footsteps trying to follow him, which stumble at some point and vanish next. Carlos can only move and move.
He hides in the alley between two random motorhomes, bandages around his wrist damaged by his scratching, small patches of blood sticky on his skin. But more important, small patches of blood staining the beautiful, beautiful tattoos of Oscar and Logan’s souls.
It feels like hours of sitting there, scratching at his limbs, head in his knees, before he hears someone stop near him.
“Carlos?” says a voice.
Carlos is delusional and fevered, trying to drown out the concern, but then a hand taps on his shoulder so gently, he can only look up. “Max,” he says, hoarse.
“Hey, you okay mate?” Max asks. “Do you. Uh. Let me call Fernando.”
Carlos shakes his head immediately.
“Do you want Lando?” Max offers instead. “Or Charles. Anyon-”
“Por favor,” Carlos whispers. Max nods, like he understands. Of course he would understand.
Max slides down to sit next to Carlos, and places a careful hand on his knee. “Want to talk about it?” he asks softly, free hand tipping a can of Red Bull open.
“Not really,” Carlos replies. He had never been so grateful for the horrid, sweet taste of a Red Bull before.
And Max, of course.
—
Carlos avoids Logan and Oscar on the Grid, and later at a Grid dinner, does not attend at all. He still gets messages from them, blurry and messy in his eyes, and he leaves them on delivered more often than he leaves his stalkers.
By the time the season has concluded, Carlos is drained, and he has bumpy eczema scars all over his soulmarks. He also feels like he is dead, dying, forever lost, trapped to be alone forever in the comfort of his own bedroom in his own private house.
Then Max calls him, on an unusually rainy Saturday morning, barely getting a word in before his doorbell rings and he feels them there before he sees them. He feels their presence cleansing his sickness that has withered his body, that has claimed his soul. He feels the calming, soothing urge to reach and touch and have forever, the peace that washes over his mind because finally, finally he was once again near them.
He hangs up on Max to open the door, to see if they were actually there, and nearly collapses into the soggy, tired frames of Oscar and Logan.
“Oh,” Carlos breathes out, trying not to sound so relieved.
Oscar has the brute to push past Carlos into getting into his house, and Logan has a tight hand to Oscar’s, dragged in behind him. Carlos tries not to let his heart break so loudly, at seeing the two of them, connected so carefully.
He manages to chase them into the living room, where they stand so stagnantly in the middle, awkward and contrasting. Instinctively, Carlos tries to reach for the bandages on the couch, but Oscar stares at him so painfully angry he instead shoves his hands into his shirt.
“Hi,” Carlos says. “Why-”
Logan suddenly lifts his forearm and bites hard into his skin. Carlos reacts out of concern, spluttering nonsense as he moves forward to stop Logan, but Oscar stands firm between them. Then Carlos feels the bite on his arm, so solid and strong, trying to grow without the weight of his bandages.
Carlos tries to make no reaction to the pain, but from the way even Oscar flinches, blemish forming on his own skin, Carlos knows he must be painfully obvious.
“You really,” Logan breathes out, as if in disbelief. “It’s really you.”
“Told you,” Oscar says half-heartedly. Then he wipes his mouth with his arm, like a signal. “Carlos.”
“Show us,” Logan says. “Even just this once, please can we- can I see? Please?”
Carlos is weak for Logan regardless of the begging, and his arm pulls away from his shirt like a command. There, a light pink mold of Logan’s mouth is formed into his skin, a perfect shape of bruise.
“Fuck,” Logan whispers, eyes staring intensely at Carlos’ arm. Carlos is almost ashamed at the attention he is getting from them, tempted to pull away and hide himself forever.
“So?” Carlos says instead. “Now you know, now what?”
“How long have you known?” Oscar asks, eyes shifting to meet Carlos’ gaze. Carlos tries not to watch as Oscar’s fingers flex slightly as they tighten around Logan’s.
“A while,” Carlos says.
“How long?” Logan asks, like he is choking.
“Since our handshake,” Carlos blurts out. “And that time when you were with Zhou, and I asked for a hi-five.”
“That was so long ago,” Logan says.
“I had already waited longer,” Carlos tells them.
For a while, he feels weightless, standing there in the middle of the room, ready to collapse any second. Anticipating Oscar or Logan to shout at him, scream, reject him so painfully the way Carlos always thought they would.
When they stay quiet, in the dimming light, Carlos looks up slightly, at least looking for the anger he had nightmares about. Instead, all he saw was Oscar’s free hand outstretched, fingers twitching, as if reaching out for Carlos.
“Please,” Oscar says, like an echo of what happened in his driver’s room. Next to him, Logan’s hand is drifted slightly out too, palm exposed for Carlos to take.
From his angle, he also sees something else.
He sees their soulmarks. Their soulmarks. Vulnerable and open, and staring at him with a bright, wide-eyed stare, and Carlos feels the tug in his gut begin to fade, weakening at the sight of such warmth.
Slowly, Carlos brings a hand out to Oscar’s, fingers barely touching, and he is tugged by them into a tight, sewn hug. Carlos feels like the sky has opened above him and dragged him whole, the ache in his wrists unravelling like plaster, the urge to reach out no longer there as he is tucked, kept, so warm and so full.
For once, in his life, with two soulmarks on his wrist, Carlos finally feels complete.
—
In the paddock, nothing really changes.
Carlos is in less pain, wears his bandages looser, is friendlier with them in public, but no one seems to care and no one really asks.
At home, away from the paddock, from the fancy cars and street lights, he gets to have Logan tucked against his chest, Oscar’s arms around his waist, and his heart soothed with the touch and love of two soulmates he never thought he would have.
And when he closes his eyes, trying to sleep in the dark, deepened trenches of the night, he does not worry about those nightmares.
For all he could dream of has already come true.