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Oscar Piastri liked to believe he was his own man.
A final year architecture student (because, quote, “it’s like building Lego but you get a degree”), he’d survived moving out of the house, cooking for himself, and understanding student loan paperwork - the last one nearly killed him. But even now, on a quiet Sunday morning, standing barefoot in his childhood kitchen with a bowl of cereal, Oscar had to admit one inconvenient truth.
He was exactly like his dads.
And not in a metaphorical, "oh, I’ve inherited your kindness" way. No. It was the annoyingly specific, hauntingly genetic sort of way.
Take the cereal situation, for example.
“Why are you eating the cereal dry?” came a voice, muffled by a yawn and heavy footsteps from the hallway.
Max entered the kitchen, hair a mess, shirt askew. He looked like a man freshly awoken from a dream where he’d been driving a lawnmower through a hurricane. Charles, trailing behind him in perfect matching pyjamas, looked far too composed for 8:15 a.m.
Oscar blinked at them. “I like the crunch.”
“Oh God, you sound exactly like Max,” Charles muttered, moving to the coffee machine. “Dry cereal is not food. It’s just flavoured concrete.”
“You ate dry cereal in bed two days ago!” Max shot back, gesturing dramatically as if he were relitigating a major betrayal.
“That was because Oscar finished the milk.”
Oscar shrugged, spoon still in his mouth. “I didn’t think anyone else was using it.”
“You left the empty bottle in the fridge,” Charles accused.
Max clapped his hands once, triumphantly. “Just like me? See? He’s got your annoying habits.”
“He’s a menace,” Charles corrected, pouring his espresso and leaning against the counter, unimpressed. “He’s you, with better hair.”
Oscar smirked. The hair thing was a point of pride - his bronze curls had the unruliness of Max’s and the photo-shoot-ready shine of Charles’. Somehow, he’d gotten the best of both hair genes. His friends at uni were deeply suspicious.
“So, what’s the plan today?” Max asked, ruffling Oscar’s hair as he walked by. “You working on that project with the mini-models? The one with the - what was it, the concrete? Slabs?”
Charles and Oscar both turned at Max like he had offended their Monegasque heritage.
“I’ve told you five times, it’s sustainable prefab housing. You keep calling it ‘concrete cubes.’”
Max threw his hands up. “I love the concrete cubes.”
Charles rolled his eyes and took a sip of coffee. “That’s because you think they look like pit garages.”
Oscar suppressed a grin. Their house was never quiet, but it was a chaos stitched together with soft gestures and endless teasing - the kind that only came from knowing someone’s rhythms down to the breath.
When Oscar had first started living on his own, he thought he’d enjoy the silence. The “freedom.”
But Oscar did also believe in this theory about university flats.
They were, by nature, a kind of living, breathing monster: half dishwasher leaks, half stolen hoodies, and entirely too many mugs that nobody ever washed. His own flat - three bedrooms, one off-brand kettle, and a suspicious stain in the living room – had been no exception.
It also came with roommates. Loud, chaotic, incurably nosy roommates.
“So, what was that face?” Lando asked, the moment Oscar walked through the door. “The one you made when you unlocked your phone just now.”
Oscar blinked. “What face?”
“The one where your eyebrows do the thing. You always do that when your dad texts something embarrassing.”
Oscar ignored him, stepped over Alex’s gym bag, and tossed his backpack on the couch.
George, who was sitting on the floor with his laptop and suspiciously little clothing for late October, looked up. “Wait. Which dad?”
“Tall, emotionally stunted dad,” Alex offered from the kitchen, where he was burning toast with the efficiency of a man who once used an oven mitt to answer a call.
“That’s...both of them,” George said, grabbing an apple and not noticing Alex was using the bottom of the toaster.
Oscar sighed and flopped down between them. “Max sent me a meme of a goat in sunglasses and said, ‘This is what I looked like in my twenties.’”
George tilted his head. “And he’s... wrong how?”
“I don’t know if it’s more disturbing that he’s right or that I’ve seen the photo it’s based on.”
Lando leaned over and peered at the screen. “Oh yeah, you’ve definitely got that same goat smugness. The Leclerc eyebrows with Verstappen levels of quiet judgment. It's terrifying.”
Oscar threw a cushion at him. “Go away.”
“Still,” Alex said, flipping the toast and narrowly avoiding a fire, “you’ve got the calm thing, too. Like, when that guy started yelling at the group project presentation last week, you didn’t even flinch.”
Oscar shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? Fight him?”
“No, but like,” Alex continued, “it was very... icy. Like a ‘my father will hear about this’ moment, except quiet.”
George chimed in, mouth full of apple. “Nah, that’s the Verstappen in him. Have you seen the way Max looks at people when he’s unimpressed? It’s like being judged by a wolf that has a mortgage.”
Lando laughed. “Meanwhile Charles judges you like you are a literal waste of resources.”
The trio looked at Lando that said: Seems like its just a you problem, mate.
Lando blinked incredulously, “Seriously? Am I the only one who Charles can’t stand?”
Oscar rubbed his temples, ignoring Lando. “How do you people know so much about my dads?”
George tossed a sock at him. “You bring them up constantly.”
“I do not.”
George and Alex said, in perfect chorus, “You do.”
Oscar looked affronted. “Okay, well, excuse me for having supportive and highly dramatic parental figures who send me voice notes arguing about dish towels.”
George raised an eyebrow. “Still my favourite clip of all time, by the way.”
Oscar narrowed his eyes. “You saved it?”
Alex held up a finger. “Quote: ‘This is a lemon-patterned dish towel, Charles. We don’t eat lemons in this house. It’s a hostile aesthetic.’”
Oscar buried his face in the cushion. “Why do I even talk to you people.”
“Why do I talk to you when one of your clearly dads hates me?” Lando said, flopping down next to him, staring at the abyss.
“Oh my god Lando you should’ve thought twice before calling my dad not very smart and never been chill in his life.”
“AND I APOLOGIZED FOR THAT! MULTIPLE TIMES! It was a joke – or at least I was trying to joke. Max said he forgave me.”
“Yeah, Max did. Not his husband.”
“Oh, my goodness”, Lando spoke after a beat, “Will Charles ever forgive me?”
Oscar looked up at him, “I think you already know the answer to that.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment until Lando’s voice was heard barely above a whisper,
“Did - can you forgive me?”
FLASHBACK – TWO YEARS AGO
Oscar wasn’t even trying to eavesdrop.
He’d just walked into the kitchen to grab his favourite mug (black, chipped, and clearly stolen from home), only to hear the unmistakable, grating sound of Lando’s voice echoing from the living room.
“…I’m just saying, he’s kind of a dick, right? Like, Max? Never been chill in his life.”
Oscar paused, fingers tightening around the ceramic.
Lando kept going. “You know the type. Everything’s either dead silence or he’s ten seconds from throwing hands. No social awareness. Zero people skills. Literally built to argue with vending machines.”
Alex laughed nervously. “Okay, but like… Max did help Oscar move all his stuff in. Dude drove four hours with a van full of shelves.”
Lando waved it off. “Sure, but that’s for Oscar. I’m saying, in general? The guy’s got the emotional depth of a spoon.”
George snorted. “That is an insult to spoons.”
Oscar stepped into the doorway.
“Say that again.”
The room went silent.
Lando looked up, surprised. “What?”
Oscar didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t throw his mug, or sigh dramatically. He just stood there - quiet, composed, frozen, like a glitch in the simulation.
“I said,” he repeated, “say that again.”
Lando blinked, trying for his usual smirk. “Come on, mate, it’s a joke -”
“Is it?” Oscar asked, tone calm enough to feel like a threat.
No one spoke.
Oscar stepped forward, slow and deliberate. “You don’t get to call my dad a dick just because he doesn’t like small talk or sugar-coating bullshit. You don’t know him.”
Lando raised his hands slightly. “Okay, chill, it’s not that serious -”
“No,” Oscar snapped, sharper now. “It is.”
Because Max? Max had been the one who stayed up with him when he couldn’t sleep before starting uni, quietly sitting outside his room and pretending to scroll his phone. Max was the one who fixed his bike without being asked, who drove six hours to deliver a forgotten USB drive for a midterm project, who once offered to find the professor who gave Oscar a low grade and “speak to them calmly.”
Oscar stepped closer, voice low but shaking with force. “My dad might not charm people at parties, but he’s never once lied to me. He doesn’t pretend. He doesn’t fake nice. He’s real. And if that makes him hard to deal with? Maybe the problem’s not him.”
Lando opened his mouth.
Oscar cut him off.
“And yeah, he’s intense. You’d be too if you grew up the way he did - constantly picked apart, expected to be perfect or else. You think you’d survive that with your personality?”
Lando went quiet.
No smirk now. Just guilt, uncomfortable and sticky.
Oscar let the silence hang.
“You don’t get to reduce someone I love to a punchline because they are different from you.”
He turned and walked away.
Ten minutes later, Alex found him in the kitchen, sipping cold tea and pretending it was warm.
“You good?”
Oscar nodded.
“You really love him, huh?” Alex asked, a little softer this time.
Oscar didn’t answer right away. He looked down at the mug - Max’s old mug, technically, black and faded and always a little too hot when filled properly.
“Yeah,” he said eventually. “I do.”
Alex offered a small, wry smile. “You know you had his exact facial expression back there?”
Oscar tilted his head. “The ‘I will drag your soul into the sun’ one?”
“Yeah.”
Oscar grinned. “It’s a family thing.”
The next day, Lando left an apology note on Oscar’s door. It was long, sincere, and extremely Lando-like. He included a drawing of Max labelled “Cool scary dad. Sorry for saying dumb things.”
Oscar didn’t respond.
He didn’t need to.
The note stayed pinned to his door for a week, then quietly disappeared.
Max never heard about it.
But if he noticed Oscar wearing his hoodie that week and bringing him coffee just because?
Well.
He didn’t say anything either.
---
Two days later when Charles did find out what Lando said about Max - the exact words, the tone, the smug smile after - something far colder settled into him. Not rage. Not even irritation.
Strategy.
The truth is - Charles had never liked Lando.
That wasn’t a secret. In fact, Oscar’s friends had an internal group chat titled “When Will Charles Snap” where they placed bets on how he’d eventually destroy Lando - dramatic monologue, slow-burn exile, or good old-fashioned ghosting.
They were all wrong.
“Papa’s coming over Sunday,” Oscar said, casually flipping through his sketchbook.
Lando was already sweating. “Cool. Great. Love him.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
George asked, skeptic. “Should we… hide the wine?”
Oscar smirked. “No, he thrives with wine. It’s when he’s sober that you need to worry.”
Lando, very aware of the tension, looked genuinely apologetic. “I said I was sorry!”
Oscar didn’t even look up. “You did.”
“But you haven’t told Charles, right?” Lando asked, almost pleading.
Oscar smiled. Not kindly. “No. I haven’t said a word.”
He didn’t need to.
---
Sunday arrived.
Charles was early.
He stepped into the flat with the kind of calm that set off every smoke detector in your soul -hair perfect, scarf artfully draped, sunglasses still on indoors. He greeted everyone politely.
Even Lando.
Especially Lando.
“Bonjour, Lando,” he said, voice smooth and unreadable. “How’s the brain? Still functioning?”
Lando laughed nervously. “Haha. Yeah.”
Oscar coughed. George whispered “round one” to Alex.
They sat down for brunch. Charles brought homemade croissants.
“I made these at 6 AM,” he announced.
“Oh wow,” George said. “They’re amazing.”
“Of course they are. I was imagining Lando’s face as I kneaded the dough.”
Oscar nearly choked on his coffee. Alex gave George five quid under the table.
Lando, trying to be brave, grinned. “Nice. Glad I could be your inspiration.”
Charles tilted his head. “Oh, you always are. Like a motivational poster for disappointment.”
Round two.
The room went quiet. Oscar buttered his croissant very slowly.
“Anyway,” Lando said, voice too loud now, “I’ve been working on a new app idea. Might pitch it at the next uni startup fair.”
Charles took a sip of espresso. “How innovative. Another way for men to talk without saying anything of value.”
Alex whispered, “Oh my god.”
Lando blinked. “I - well, it’s not that bad. I mean, come on, Charles. I’m Oscar’s mate.”
“Unfortunately.”
Lando tried again. “I mean, you know I respect you. And Max. Even if I sometimes joke around -”
Charles set down his cup.
“I’m going to explain this once,” he said softly. “And then I will move on, because unlike you, I have a life.”
Lando shut up.
“I don’t care that you don’t like Max. That’s your business. But when you speak about him like he’s beneath you - like he’s some caricature to mock - in front of my son, in my space, and then sit at this table and eat food I made with hands that love him?” He paused.
“You’re not just disrespecting Max. You’re disrespecting Oscar. And me. And yourself, though you clearly don’t value that much.”
Silence.
“You are allowed to be many things, Lando,” Charles added, voice feather-light and deadly. “But ignorant in my presence is not one of them.”
Oscar’s eyes were wide, full of something like pride.
Lando swallowed. “Right. Got it.”
Charles smiled, as if nothing had happened. “More orange juice, anyone?”
---
Later, when Charles left - scarf flowing, croissant tin empty - the flat was dead silent.
“Holy -” George muttered.
Alex gulped. “I think my hairline receded during that brunch.”
Oscar, leaning against the counter, smirked. “And you all said I overreacted.”
Lando, still pale, whispered. “I think he cursed my entire bloodline.”
Oscar clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’re lucky that was him polite.”
Lando nodded solemnly. “I will never speak again.”
Oscar grinned. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”
That evening, Charles sent a message to Max:
Oscar’s friends are charming.
Except Lando.
He remains an oxygen thief.
Max replied:
Lando’s still alive?
You’re getting soft.
Charles smiled.
But only a little.
Oscar had always found himself coming back for dinner more weekends than not. Not for the food - Charles had once scorched a pizza into carbon - but for the way Max always stole his socks and Charles made lists on color-coded notepads and neither of them ever remembered where they parked the car.
They were messy in very specific, mirrored ways. And Oscar had inherited every single one.
Like how he hoarded pens he liked. That was Max. But how he broke every single pen within a week? Charles.
Or how he could burn a pot of rice while standing right next to it (Max), but insisted on plating his meals with annoying finesse (Charles).
He once opened the family group chat to find both dads sending him photos of their dinner plates and asking who did it better. It was a trap. He answered, “You’re both pathetic,” and they rewarded him with 94 unread messages of retaliation.
Now, standing in the kitchen in his threadbare hoodie (Max’s), sipping espresso from a tiny cup (Charles’), Oscar stared at both of them and sighed deeply. “You two are lucky I’m around. Without me, this house would fall apart.”
“Without us, your eyebrows wouldn’t even match,” Charles said sweetly.
Oscar raised one eyebrow. “They don’t match. I got one from each of you. It’s very distressing.”
“He gets that sarcasm from you,” Charles pointed at Max.
“And the pout from you,” Max replied smoothly.
Oscar held up a finger. “Actually, the pout is all me. Trademarked and perfected by age 16.”
Charles’ eyes went wide. “See? That actually finger? All you, Max.”
They laughed. It was always like this - slightly ridiculous, often overlapping, always warm.
Max sat at the table and watched Oscar with the quiet amusement of someone who still couldn’t believe this 21-year-old had once been a wrinkly baby who screamed whenever you took away his pacifier. Charles sat across from him and passed Oscar a tiny butter croissant with a flourish.
“You’ve got Max’s resting angry face,” Charles said fondly, watching as Oscar scrolled on his phone with furrowed brows.
“And your inability to let anything go,” Max chimed in.
“Your inability to apologize,” Charles added.
“Your love of jazz at inappropriate times,” Max shot back.
Oscar just kept eating, slowly, methodically - like he was judging both of them.
“You both realize,” he said eventually, “that your combined DNA has doomed me to being a very charming nightmare?”
They nodded in unison. “Oh, absolutely.”
“But a good-looking one,” Max said.
Charles beamed. “That part’s definitely all me.”
---
After the usual round of morning ruckus, Oscar went back to his room. He had moved back to their home soon, finding freedom with, alongside his parents – a concept which seemed alien and borderline absurd to a lot of his classmates.
He leaned back in his study chair, arms behind his head, and smiled looking around his room.
On his bookshelf: Max’s old Red Bull hoodie.
On his windowsill: a plant Charles insisted he “name and respect.”
On his desk: his own designs - rough, imperfect, promising.
And on his mind, that conversation – that night, when Oscar was 13, his upper body in Max’s arms while his legs were sprawled across Charles’ lap. They had thought Oscar was fast asleep and the conversation had shifted to some other topics rather than Le Mans that was playing on screen.
“I can’t believe how fast he’s growing”, Charles sighed, looking at Oscar, ruffling his son’s brown curls.
“And I can’t stand the thought that he’d be out on his own soon”, Max’s voice merged into the sounds of cracks from the fireplace.
“Max -” Charles started but Max cut his husband off softly,
“You know for a long time I didn’t even realize that -”, his voice cracked, “that what went on in my house was not normal. That it was wrong.”
“Chéri, I know. And you didn’t deserve it. Nobody does”, Charles stroked Max’s thumb with his own.
Oscar, still pretending to be asleep in Max’s arms tried with all his might to not let even a single tear escape from his eyes.
“No, Charles, I know I don’t say this often but – but you saved me. You showed me what life is, what love is.”
“No, Max, that’s where you’re wrong. I didn’t do anything. You saved yourself. You showed strength and resilience and – and gave me a tiny space in that big heart of yours.”
Oscar was now one hundred percent sure that both his dads were crying.
“Tiny? Huh?” Max chuckled through tear-stained voice.
“Yeah, well duh. Amongst all that useless, nerdy stuff that you hold close to heart, I’m surprised that I still have a space over there.”
They both chuckled. For a while, both of them were silent until Max’s voice rang out.
“Do you know what ran through my head that night that I finally found the courage to run away?”
“The thought that you deserved better?”
“Yes, that, but also, a promise to myself - that if I were ever to start a family, I’d rather die than not make it a safe space for my partner and our kids. That they’ll never have to go through anything bad in their lives. Ever.”
There were no words spoken after that but Oscar soon found himself sandwiched between two warm bodies. He didn’t know when his tears betrayed him, and he didn’t care.
It was home, he was home, he’ll always be home with them.
As he grew up, Oscar wanted to test if he actually wanted to stay with his dads or was it because his brain might’ve been biased because of that conversation from that night. Hence, he decided to test it out – “testing new waters” or whatever he told Max and Charles, and after overhearing the conversation that night, he expected Max to be the emotional one – but no, Charles was the one crying. He didn’t know then but now he knows - that Max knew Oscar would do just fine on his own and if he didn’t, Oscar could always turn to his parents – they had made sure of that.
Presently, sat on his chair, Oscar smiled, pulled the hoodie over his head, and hit play on the record as he thought of how being a perfect mix wasn’t such a bad thing.
That it was, if he dared to say, the best thing that could happen to someone – anyone – and knew that he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Ever.