Work Text:
Oxford, Summer 2003
The air in Oxford carried the weight of history, of cobblestones worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, of ivy clinging to ancient walls. It was late June, and the city hummed with the fleeting freedom of summer term’s end. Students spilled out of lecture halls, their laughter mingling with the chime of bicycle bells and the distant toll of chapel bells. Max Verstappen, a second year Physics student, navigated the chaos with his usual quiet intensity, head down, hands stuffed in the pockets of his faded jeans. His blond hair fell into his eyes, and he didn’t bother to push it back. He was used to being invisible, a shadow slipping through the world.
Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, was impossible to miss. A third year PPE student, he moved through Oxford like he belonged to it. Confident, warm, his dark eyes catching the light as he laughed with friends outside the Radcliffe Camera. His Spanish accent softened the edges of his English, making every word sound like an invitation. He was the kind of person who could make a room feel brighter just by stepping into it.
They shouldn’t have crossed paths. Max kept to his small circle of physics nerds, his evenings spent hunched over equations or reading novels in his cramped dorm room. Carlos was always surrounded, always moving. Debates, parties, late night discussions about politics and philosophy. But the universe, it seemed, had other plans.
It started with a coffee order. Max was at The Missing Bean, a cramped café near the Bodleian, waiting for his usual black coffee, no sugar. He was rereading Lie With Me by Philippe Besson, the pages worn from too many late night readings. The story of two boys in love, set against the stifling backdrop of 1980s France, had burrowed into him, though he’d never admit why.
“Black coffee, no sugar,” the barista called, sliding a cup across the counter.
Max reached for it at the same time another hand did, a hand with long fingers, a gold ring glinting on the index. Max looked up, startled, into warm brown eyes.
“Sorry, mate,” the stranger said, his voice carrying a faint Spanish lilt. “Didn’t mean to steal your coffee.”
Max blinked, caught off guard. “It’s fine,” he mumbled, stepping back. “You take it.”
The stranger, Carlos, Max would learn later, grinned. “Nah, we can share custody. I’ll get the next one.” He picked up the cup, took a sip, and made a face. “No sugar? You’re a masochist.”
Max felt his cheeks heat. “It’s just coffee.”
Carlos laughed, bright and unguarded, and something in Max’s chest shifted, like a gear clicking into place. “I’m Carlos,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Max,” he replied, shaking it briefly, his fingers tingling where they touched.
Carlos tilted his head, noticing the book tucked under Max’s arm. “Lie With Me? Good taste. I’m halfway through it myself.”
Max’s eyes widened. “You’re reading it?”
“Yeah. Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?” Carlos’s voice softened, and for a moment, the bustling café seemed to fade away. “See you around, Max.”
Max watched him go, the coffee cup forgotten in his hand.
They kept running into each other. At a party in a cramped flat off Cowley Road, where Max lingered awkwardly by the drinks table and Carlos swept in, offering him a beer and dragging him into a conversation about Radiohead’s latest album. In the hallway outside a lecture theater, where Carlos nearly knocked Max over in his rush to a seminar, laughing as he steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. At the library, where Max found Carlos asleep at a desk, his copy of Lie With Me open beside him, a pencil tucked behind his ear.
Each encounter chipped away at Max’s walls. Carlos was relentless. Not in a pushy way, but in the way he seemed to see Max, really see him, when no one else did. Max, who’d spent his life shrinking under his father’s shadow, his father’s voice echoing in his head, Useless, weak, not good enough, found himself unfolding in Carlos’s presence. Carlos was color and warmth, his laughter a counterpoint to the gray monotony of Max’s days.
Carlos, for his part, was drawn to Max’s quiet intensity. Where his own life was a whirlwind of debates and social circles, Max was an anchor, steady and thoughtful. He listened when Carlos rambled about political theory or his family back in Madrid, his dark eyes tracking Max’s reactions like he was memorizing them. Max’s rare smiles, shy and fleeting, felt like victories.
By July, they were inseparable. They spent lazy afternoons by the Cherwell, Carlos sprawled on the grass, reading aloud from Lie With Me while Max sketched equations in a notebook, pretending not to listen. They biked to Port Meadow at dusk, the sky streaked with pink and gold, and shared cheap wine from a bottle Carlos had nicked from a party. They talked about everything, physics, politics, the stars, their fears, except the one thing neither dared name.
The first kiss happened in August, under the shadow of Christ Church. They’d been at a pub, crowded and loud, and slipped outside for air. The night was warm, the air thick with the scent of honeysuckle. Carlos was tipsy, his cheeks flushed, his laughter louder than usual. Max was quieter, nursing his pint, his eyes fixed on Carlos like he was trying to solve him.
“You’re staring,” Carlos teased, leaning against the stone wall.
Max flushed. “I’m not.”
“You are.” Carlos stepped closer, his voice dropping. “What’re you thinking about?”
Max’s throat tightened. He wanted to say you, but the word stuck. Instead, he looked away, his heart hammering. Carlos reached out, his fingers brushing Max’s jaw, turning his face back.
“Max,” he said softly, and it was a question, a plea, a promise.
Max didn’t pull away. He leaned in, tentative, and their lips met. Soft, uncertain, then desperate. Carlos tasted like beer and summer, and Max felt like he was falling, like the ground had vanished beneath him. When they pulled apart, Carlos’s eyes were wide, his breath uneven.
“Is this okay?” he whispered.
Max nodded, unable to speak. It was more than okay. It was everything.
They didn’t talk about it, not really. They didn’t need to. They fell into a rhythm, a secret shared in stolen moments. Kisses in Max’s dorm room, hands brushing under pub tables, late night walks where they could pretend the world was just the two of them. Carlos would slip into Max’s room with a grin, sprawling on his bed like he belonged there, and Max would let himself believe, for a little while, that this could last.
But it wasn’t that simple. Max had grown up in a small Dutch town, under the weight of his father’s expectations and his mother’s quietness. Jos Verstappen was a man of sharp edges, his voice a constant litany of criticism.
“You’re not trying hard enough. You’re weak. You’ll never be anything.”
Max had learned to make himself small, to hide the parts of himself that didn’t fit his father’s vision. And this. This thing with Carlos, didn’t fit at all. His mother’s Catholicism, though softer, was no less clear. Love between men was a sin, a deviation, something to be fixed.
Carlos, too, carried his own burdens. Raised in a devout Spanish family, he’d grown up with the rhythm of Mass, the weight of tradition. But his faith was warmer, less rigid, shaped by his mother’s gentle reassurances and his father’s pragmatic love. Still, he knew what it meant to love Max in a world that didn’t always understand. He felt the fear, the guilt, but he pushed it down, telling himself that love couldn’t be wrong, not when it felt like this.
They talked about it once, late at night in Max’s room, the window open to let in the summer breeze. Carlos was lying on his back, one arm behind his head, the other tracing lazy circles on Max’s wrist.
“Do you ever think about it?” Carlos asked, his voice quiet. “What it means, us?”
Max tensed, his fingers stilling where they’d been playing with the hem of Carlos’s shirt. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” Carlos turned his head, his eyes searching Max’s. “This. Us. It’s not… easy.”
Max swallowed, his throat tight. “It’s not supposed to be like this,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “My dad, he’d kill me. And my mum… she’d say it’s wrong. That I’m wrong.”
Carlos sat up, his expression fierce. “You’re not wrong, Max. This isn’t wrong. It’s just…” He trailed off, searching for the words. “It’s love. How can that be wrong?”
Max looked away, his jaw tight. “It just is.”
Carlos reached for him, pulling him close. “It’s not,” he said firmly. “It’s not wrong to feel this. To want this. I don’t care what anyone say. My family, the Church, anyone. I want you.”
Max let himself be held, let Carlos’s warmth seep into him. But the fear lingered, a shadow he couldn’t shake.
By September, Carlos was ready to face it. He’d been writing letters to his parents, testing the waters, dropping hints about who he was, who he loved. He’d always been close to them, especially his mother, and he believed, hoped, they’d understand. One evening, he called home, his heart pounding as he told them about Max. Not everything, not yet, but enough.
To his relief, they listened. His mother’s voice was soft, steady, promising to pray for him, to love him no matter what. His father was quieter, but his words carried weight, “You’re our son, Carlos. Nothing changes that.” They didn’t fully understand, not yet, but they were trying, and that was enough. Carlos hung up the phone feeling lighter, like he could breathe for the first time in months.
He went to Max’s dorm that night, bursting with the news, his eyes bright with hope. “They’re okay with it,” he said, grabbing Max’s hands. “My parents, they’re okay. They want to meet you, Max. They want to know you.”
Max’s smile was small, strained. “That’s… that’s great, Carlos.”
Carlos frowned, sensing the distance. “What’s wrong?”
Max pulled his hands away, running them through his hair. “It’s not the same for me,” he said quietly. “My dad, he’d never… He’d—” He broke off, his voice cracking. “He’d hate me.”
“He doesn’t have to know,” Carlos said, stepping closer. “Not yet. We can figure this out together.”
Max shook his head, his eyes distant. “It’s not just him. It’s… everything. The way people will look at us. The Church, my parents, everyone. It’s too much.”
Carlos’s heart sank. “Max, we can’t live like this, hiding forever. I love you. I want to be with you, out in the open. Don’t you want that?”
Max’s eyes met his, and for a moment, Carlos saw the boy he loved, the boy who laughed at his terrible jokes, who blushed when Carlos kissed him, who made him feel like the world was bigger, brighter. But then Max looked away, and the moment was gone.
“I can’t,” Max whispered. “I’m sorry.”
The breakup was quiet, devastating. Max stopped answering Carlos’s calls, stopped meeting him at the café, stopped showing up at the places they used to go. Carlos tried to reach him, leaving notes under his door, waiting outside his lectures, but Max was a ghost, slipping through his fingers.
Carlos threw himself into his studies, his friends, anything to fill the void. But the ache lingered, a bruise that wouldn’t heal. He kept his copy of Lie With Me, its pages dog eared, a reminder of what he’d lost.
Max retreated into himself, his world shrinking back to equations and solitude. His father’s voice was louder now, a constant drumbeat in his head. You’re weak. You’re nothing. He told himself he’d done the right thing, that this was how it had to be. But at night, alone in his room, he’d lie awake, remembering Carlos’s laugh, his touch, the way he’d made Max feel alive.
Years passed. Carlos graduated, moved back to Spain, built a life. He dated other men, found a community, learned to reconcile his faith with his love. He never forgot Max, though. The pain dulled, but the memory stayed sharp.
Max finished his degree, moved back to the Netherlands, and did what was expected. He got a job, met a woman, proposed. He told himself he was happy, that this was the life he was supposed to live. But sometimes, late at night, he’d think of Carlos. Of warm summer nights, of stolen kisses, of a love he’d been too afraid to keep.
In the summer of 2010, Carlos received an envelope in the mail, postmarked from Amsterdam. His heart stopped when he saw the return address. Max Verstappen. Inside was a wedding invitation, elegant and simple, announcing Max’s marriage to a woman named Kelly. There was no note, no explanation, just the invitation and a small, handwritten line. I hope you’re well.
Carlos stared at it for a long time, his chest tight. He thought of Oxford, of coffee cups and stolen glances, of the boy he’d loved and the fear that had torn them apart. He thought of the words a guy from a gay bar told him that had haunted him ever since.
“Of all the things we could fear, we chose love.”
He didn’t go to the wedding. But he kept the invitation, tucked inside his copy of Lie With Me, a reminder of what could have been.