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Looking back, it honestly doesn’t really feel like anything when it happens.
Max is actually pretty sure when it did happen, it happened mid-race. After, as he combs through his memories as carefully as he’s able, there’s no specific moment he noticed. No pain or inciting incident. No sudden shift in the fabric of his universe.
No instant he became suddenly aware.
There’s no clear cut before and after, no data to easily be compared.
It was just suddenly there, when it wasn’t before.
He got into the car during the fifth grand prix of the season very pointedly not being able to hear the thoughts of those around him.
Then he won the race, got out of the car, and everything else tilted on its axis.
*
Charles is the first person he touches after, because of course he is.
Max goes to squeeze his shoulder, to clasp hands with him and tug him into a half hug because he likes when they’re both on the podium, when they look at each other and smile through their helmets.
There’s something especially pleasing about seeing Charles’ eyes go all crinkly. It’s fun. Easy.
Simple and joyful, even with everything else their relationship has tied up in it.
Their gloves are both off when they go to grab hands, which Max realizes later must be the caveat.
Palm against palm. A satisfying smacking sound when they connect.
Max glances down at their hands as they grab onto each other, making his usual objective observations. He’s paler where Charles is tan. Charles’ fingers are slightly longer than his, though his own palm is wider, his fingers thicker. Piano hands, aptly named. There are no rings on his fingers, not yet, not this soon after a race, and there are tiny bands of lighter skin where his usual jewelry sits.
They hold onto each other for a beat, smiling goofily into each other’s open visors.
Then he hears Charles say, “Max.” in a tone so fond it makes him do a triple take.
He’s never heard him sound like that before. Not once.
Unless you count Drive to Survive clips of Charles baby talking to his dog, maybe.
But that sweet, doting warmth that colors his words? Absolutely not ever directed toward Max. He hasn’t even been in physical proximity to anyone that Charles might speak to like that where Max could overhear.
Charles talks about him with some sort of fondness when prompted, yeah. An appreciation Max guesses is built on his own skill, their shared history, and the smoothed out, almost neutral way they’re able to behave around each other after almost a decade in the same space.
But not with pure, raw affection like that.
Belatedly, he realizes that Charles’ mouth didn’t move when he spoke. Max was staring right at him, looking just slightly down into the concentrated beam of Charles Leclerc’s squinty, happy smile.
His mouth didn’t move, he thinks to himself. What?
Max blinks a few times. Doesn’t say anything, doesn’t shift, just keeps staring at Charles’ face.
They’re still holding hands because not even a second has passed outside of Max’s suddenly malfunctioning brain. Their fingers are clammy from being in their gloves for over two hours, grossly sweaty and wet, but Max doesn’t let go.
Charles pulls him in tight, claps his back. Two weighty thunks right between Max’s shoulder blades. It’s a good feeling. Something he always absently enjoys.
In that same tone as before, Charles says something fast and halfway to a full sentence in French that Max can’t even begin to parse with his rudimentary grasp on the language. Then, with a slant to his words that’s almost like wonder, Charles breathes, “Glad it’s us, always glad it’s us, glad when it’s him.”
Max pulls back, dumbfounded.
“What did you say?”
Charles gives him a look. “Didn’t say anything, mate, but congrats. Great race.”
He murmurs a thanks. Gives his own half hearted congratulations that he wishes he could put a little more effort behind, but Max is pretty sure he’s losing his actual mind right now.
They’re still holding hands, suspended in this weird moment in parc fermé that Max doesn’t know how to break.
This time, when Charles says something—or doesn’t say, because his mouth doesn’t fucking move, what is going on— his voice isn’t as fond, but it’s still filled with something like heat. “Looks good when he’s sweaty, hair all messed up, put your hands through it, putain, do not do that.”
Max can feel his mouth fall open in surprise. Watches the tiny furrow between Charles’ eyebrows deepen as he looks at Max with blatant, growing concern.
He thinks he might be having a stroke, actually.
He continues to say nothing, holding Charles’ hand, looking directly into his eyes.
With careful movements, Charles releases his grip on Max’s hand to pat at his arm a few times, and it’s like the ambient noise of the end of the race snaps right back into place like a rubberband.
For a second, it’s overpowering. The flood of a million people talking, of cameras flashing, of the fans still shouting in the stands all rushing back in at once.
He sort of wants to grab Charles’ hand again. There was quiet there, oddly, when they touched. Even if Charles was saying things when his mouth wasn’t moving.
He doesn’t.
Charles leans close, still breathing a little bit heavily with exertion after everything. He’s quiet enough that with his helmet tilted to the side, nobody can read his lips when he asks, “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Max reassures, absolutely lying through his teeth, “I’m good. I’ve got to—go?” He finishes off this insane interaction by tossing a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward the scale and his team and all of the bullshit they’ll have to do before the podium ceremony, as if Charles hasn’t done it all before.
“See you,” Charles chirps, still smiling softly at him, before turning and disappearing into the crowd.
What the fuck is going on?
*
It starts to make a little bit more sense as the afternoon continues.
He’s touched by so many fucking people in such quick succession post-race that he would be an absolute idiot to not understand what’s happening.
GP meets him after he gets weighed and right before he’s shepherded to the post-race interviews. Slaps him on the back, then slides his warm, firm hand up to the nape of Max’s neck and squeezes. Just a hint of skin on skin.
Max is blasted with a wave of pride and satisfaction and delight that’s so strong it almost takes him to his knees.
GP thinks so clinically, so analytically, that his thoughts feel like telegrams on a page. Like ticker tape at the bottom of a news broadcast, straightforward and clean and easy to read.
Christian claps him on the back next, but no thoughts come. Max has a blessed second of relief before he reaches up and ruffles Max’s hair, his fingertips catching on his temple.
Christian’s thoughts feel sinuous. Winding and snake-like, but still focused. Shadows of something alive in the grass, purposefully making its way across a field. Max doesn’t actively dislike it, but he doesn’t enjoy it either.
There’s pride and satisfaction there too, but it feels different. Less so in Max and more so in their team, what they represent, the social and literal currency they’ve earned and how they can spend it.
Max pointedly avoids touching Helmut and does his best to reply normally to all of the congratulations.
The muscle memory of shaking hands as he completes each step after the race is so deeply ingrained in him that he gets insight into the thoughts of almost fifteen to twenty people about himself before he even makes it to the press pen.
It’s terrible, in an abstract sort of way.
People are mostly kind in their thoughts as they look at him, as they shake his hand and look up into his face. A lot of “so cool”s and “oh wow”s and “so talented”s. A few of the women and at least two of the men comment internally about his looks, which should feel good but doesn’t. Someone, he can’t remember if it was someone dressed in Aston Martin green or not, thinks something less than savory about his after-race demeanor, as if Max isn’t having a full blown fucking crisis right in front of him.
He holds it together. Barely.
The post-race interviews give him a second to breathe. To spew sanitized, practiced versions of the same statements he usually gives. He’s off, he knows it, he can feel it, and is sure those well versed in his PR bullshit can see it too. There will probably be comments later about how he’s not grateful enough, not excited enough, too numb to winning because he’s done it so often.
Max doesn’t give a fuck. He just needs to make it through the next ten minutes without anyone touching him.
They make it to the cool down room, Charles, Oscar, and him. He doesn’t want to shake their hands, doesn’t want to touch them, but it’ll go over poorly online if he doesn’t.
He takes a deep breath to attempt to steady himself and reaches out.
Oscar’s thoughts, the brief glimpse of them he gets as they shake hands, are cool and collected. They stack on top of each other like boxes, concrete and almost geometrically configured.
He’s complimentary toward Max, proud of himself, happy to be here with the two of them. He’s sweaty, he’s tired, and he wants to shower, get something to eat and call his girlfriend, in that order.
Max is less apprehensive about touching Charles, especially when his lilting accent mentally whispers, “Hello again,” across the scraped-raw insides of Max’s brain as they shake hands.
He chats with them both on autopilot, trying to mentally calculate how many more handshakes he has left before he can fuck off to the garage and then speed through Red Bull’s debrief.
There’s the “here’s your trophy” handshakes that will apparently get him into the brain of some random old guy who has no actual connection to racing on a live broadcast. There’s the champagne spraying and the typical picture taking and the meandering route back to the hospitality and—fuck.
He wants to be, no, needs to be home. Right now. In the silence of his apartment. The quiet, where he can recalibrate and agonize over whatever the fuck is happening to him.
Maybe there’s a Reddit post about this, he thinks, slightly hysterical.
Maybe he should call Daniel.
*
Max gets home after an absolutely brutal twelve straight hours of traveling.
Even with his own plane, his own crew, there was still so much touching. Constantly aware of where his people are in his space—the pilot shaking his hand and thinking about his wife, their bed, how badly he wants to be home, the stewardess’ fingers glancing against his as she hands him a drink, thinking about how her feet hurt and how Max is relatively low maintenance when he wins.
It’s awful and he’s tied himself into so many knots he doesn’t think anything will untangle them.
At least his car is at the airport, a tiny bit of space just for him, where nobody can fucking get near him. He drives with a lead foot all the way back from Nice, staring straight ahead and pointedly thinking about absolutely nothing. Music is out of the question, he’s so stretched thin that he can’t even bear it.
His apartment feels thankfully familiar and comforting. Quiet and clean with tiny cat feet pitter pattering on the floor to him as soon as he swings the door open and drops all of his shit in the entryway.
All he wants to do is face plant on the couch, scoop Jimmy up, and press his face into his fur.
But he’s afraid to touch the cats at first, because fuck no to knowing what they’re thinking. He’s too freaked out to even try until they both curl around his ankles like figure eights and take the choice right out of his hands.
(Max can’t read their minds. It’s the smallest blessing he’s ever had.)
He takes a shower, changes into the comfiest clothes he can find, freaks out for a solid twenty minutes until he’s panicked so hard he can barely breathe, then he goes the fuck to sleep.
Googling “I can read minds help how do I fix” can wait until tomorrow.
*
If he had to quantify it, he wouldn’t call himself a particularly physically affectionate person.
Max has people he likes to touch, where he seeks it out.
His family, when they’re around. Not so much his dad, but his mom who holds his hands and cups his face and kisses his cheeks. His sister who pinches at him and tugs him around in the way little sisters often do. His nephews, who climb him like a jungle gym and paw at his cheeks and hair and shoulders.
GP and Christian who touch him like it’s second nature, who have done so for so long that he doesn’t think about it too hard.
His friends, people he enjoys solely for the reason that they like him for who he is and not necessarily what he can do. He’s a fan of roughhousing as affection—pinching ears and poking sides and covertly trying to sack tap his idiot friends.
The other drivers on the grid, more so by necessity than by choice.
He’ll offer handshakes and quick touches to backs and arms and sides. Hugs and arms slung around shoulders if he’s feeling particularly endeared toward someone.
Max might not consider himself someone who touches as an expression of affection, but he sure as hell doesn’t realize how often he touches people until touching them gets him a front row seat to their thoughts.
By the second week with this newfound ability, he’s pretty sure he’s going to start crawling up the fucking walls.
Or never leave his apartment ever again.
*
Predictably, Max is prickly and agitated from the start of the weekend.
He isn’t an overly emotional teenager anymore, no longer strangled by overly high expectations from every direction and ruled almost entirely by hormones. He’d like to think that he’s generally a lot calmer, less of a dickhead, more well adjusted.
But he’s kind of got a lot of shit going on right now, if he’s honest.
He’s not rude. Or at least he tries not to be, actively. But he’s shorter with his team than normal, even less willing to do stupid media bullshit than usual.
And he keeps noticeably twitching whenever anyone approaches him.
Which isn’t subtle or helpful, but whatever.
By the time Friday afternoon rolls around, he’s wound so tight that he’s practically forcing himself to breathe manually.
He’s loitering in one of the liminal in-betweens of the paddock, desperately willing everyone to stop touching him for at least fifteen minutes, when the faint light from the entryway of the alcove he’s in goes dark.
“Max,” someone says from beside him, the cadence of his name familiar. He knows who it is before he even turns, but of course, there Charles is with his big green eyes and messed up hair. His rings glitter in the low lighting, Max’s gaze drawn to his hands immediately. “Are you alright?”
The people close to him know he’s off. The people forced to be in close proximity to him week in and week out for a majority of the year can tell.
Christian and Helmut think he’s going through something, an emotional disturbance. That’s actually the phrase Helmut thought in his head before brushing off Max’s bad mood and beginning a relatively sinister mental tangent about the VCARB reserve drivers that Max absolutely did not want insight into.
GP is barely concerned, attuned to Max’s general ebbs and flows. He knows Max will even back out, will claw his way back to where he needs to be. His press officer thinks he’s being a cunt, which he absolutely is.
Everyone else thinks he’s just quieter than usual. Less tolerant of the usual song and dance.
But of course Charles notices.
He’s not even sure how Charles would notice. But he has.
“M’fine,” Max mutters, simultaneously slightly agitated at the concern and actively forcing himself to not be endeared by it.
Before he can stop it, Charles reaches out and touches the back of his hand with the tips of his fingers. Immediately that strange nothing-but-something feeling snaps into attention in his head, like an invisible string pulled taut.
“Did something happen?”
Before he can open his mouth to reply, a torrent of Charles’ thoughts rush over him, all falling into Max’s mind like dropped marbles scattering across a floor.
Charles thinks differently than almost everyone else Max has had the misfortune of experiencing so far. His thoughts layer over each other, one barely over before the next one has begun. And they feel soft, swaying and tipping over and against each other. Almost like the leaves of a tree in the wind.
Sort of musical, like Charles’ weird accent when he speaks aloud.
Something is wrong, a convoluted bit in French that he can't easily translate, is someone sick? Is his mom okay? His dad? Are the cats alright?
Warmth blooms low in his belly. Embarrassment too, but in a sweet sort of way.
“My parents are fine,” Max reassures without thinking, flipping his hand over to cup Charles’ in his own. The contact makes his heartbeat pulse in his ears. Charles’ nails are bit down to the quick, the cuticles on his ring and middle fingers a bit jagged. “The cats too.”
Charles brow furrows, considering. Then his mouth drops open, his pretty face contorting in a truly ridiculous expression where his eyes kind of bug out of his head a little bit.
It’s a look Max has seen before, in the absolutely stupid “Charles loves gossip” compilations that float across his burner social media accounts from time to time.
He glances down at their hands then back up at Max’s face. Then he does it again, but faster, obviously putting the objectively insane pieces together.
Fuck. Fuck.
Rapid fire thoughts in French pour into his head, each more hysterical sounding than the last. He recognizes “merde”, “putain”, and “pensée” and that’s it. Unhelpful.
“Charles,” he murmurs, slightly apologetic, “French.”
Charles’ eyes get even bigger, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. He makes a noise that if Max were a slightly less merciful person he would call a squeak.
The bouncing look from hands-face-hands happens again, slower this time. Watching him make the absolutely unhinged connection in real time is fascinating.
Then carefully, in tentative English, You are hearing my thoughts?
Miserable, Max nods. Then shrugs. Fuck.
“Max,” Charles practically hisses, his grip on Max’s hand going tighter. The pinprick of his nails feels like the only thing connecting Max to the earth. “What the fuck?”
“I know,” he groans, “I know.”
More frantic French thoughts that he can’t understand tumble into his head, followed by a panicked mental bleating of his own name and swear words in three languages, then Charles abruptly switches tactics and starts internally humming.
It’s a lullaby, Max thinks, almost immediately soothed by it. Something twining and soft.
The mental humming has the dual advantage of calming Max down and overshadowing all of Charles’ other thoughts. It’s actually pretty clever, when Max thinks about it without the pounding of his own heart in his ears.
With another too-hard squeeze, Charles pulls away. He’s looking down at his own hand, somewhat stunned. “What’s going on?”
The space in his head where Charles’ warm, curling thoughts live goes thankfully quiet.
“I don’t know.” Max is trying not to whine, but sort of failing. He’s usually pretty composed, if he does say so himself, but he’s been pushed to the edge of what he can effectively handle. “It’s been like this for almost two weeks.”
“How did it happen?” Charles asks, accent thick with confusion. “I did not know this was even a thing that could happen. This should not be a thing that can happen.”
Charles repeating the same statement three different ways out of vague hysteria shouldn’t be as comforting as it is. At least someone else thinks this is as fucked up as he does.
At least somebody else knows now, rather than Max holding it all in his brain and starting to crack like an egg.
It’s kind of nice, seeing him freak out. Misery (and insanity, apparently) loves company.
“Yes, I know.”
“Max,” Charles mumbles, still sounding stunned.
He nods, unsure of what to say. Charles’ eyes are still big as hell in his face.
“It is everyone? Whenever you touch?”
“Everyone,” he agrees with a sigh. “And only when it’s skin to skin, I think. It doesn’t happen through clothes.”
Charles immediately reaches out, placing his palm flat on Max’s chest over his team kit shirt, to test it. Which. Okay, what the hell, sure.
They make eye contact, Charles making an exaggerated thinking face. “Anything?”
Blissful silence. His own thoughts in his brain and that’s all. “Nothing.”
“Well, that’s good, I suppose?”
Max nods. Charles is still touching his chest, but they’re both apparently going to pretend that isn’t happening.
“Are you alright?” he asks again, but this time in a different way. Softer, more concerned. Max isn’t sure what about it shifts, but something does.
He takes a deep breath. Then decides to tell the truth, just a little bit.
“I think it’s ruining my life, maybe. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
Charles’ expression goes contemplative, like he’s running through the fast paced crush of their lives, through how many people join the F1 circus on any given day, and inspecting it through this new lens.
“Never really thought about how many people might touch you in a weekend,” he says, reaching up to nibble at the cuticles of his unoccupied hand, his fingers slurring his words a bit. “Or outside of it.”
“I’ve been sitting alone in my apartment as much as I can,” Max admits, without thinking.
It sounds incredibly pathetic. It might be. But it’s also the truth, yet again.
Charles nods sympathetically. His palm is so warm it feels like it’s burning a hole through Max’s shirt into his chest. He needs to get it together.
“I am so sorry,” Charles murmurs, his eyebrows pulling together in a frown. Max wants to poke at it, to smooth it over with his thumb. That’s an insane thought, actually.
“What is it you always say,” he asks, his voice tipping up in jest, “it’s like this?”
“It is like this,” Charles nods, smiling but trying not to. “Unfortunately for you.”
They stand in silence for a while, curled toward each other. It’s quiet in this makeshift alleyway, the customary din of the paddock still there, just further away than usual.
“Does it work the other way?” Charles asks, after a beat or two longer of the silence. He shuffles his white sneakers against the concrete, shifting gently at the shoulders. The movement brings him closer to then further away from Max, swaying.
“Does what work the other way?”
“When you touch,” Charles clarifies, pressing his hand a little harder into Max’s chest, “can people hear your thoughts?”
“Don’t know, I haven’t tried,” he says, considering it. “I have tried pretty hard to do the exact opposite, actually.”
“Should we try now?” Charles pronounces the “l” in should and it makes Max want to grab him by the waist with both hands and squeeze him. Maybe shake him a bit, too.
“Why?”
Charles gives him a look like he’s a fucking idiot. An unfortunate side effect of being so expressive is being unable to hide when you think people are being absolutely stupid.
Max is pretty sure he has the same problem, just nowhere near as intense as Charles does.
“So we know the extent of what is happening. No surprises.”
Honestly, Max doesn’t even care. He should probably be more concerned about what he can and can’t do, but he’s pretty solidly in the “I’m never going to purposefully touch anyone again” category of this experience. That one is closely followed by the “I’m going to die alone” phase and topped off with “When I die my cats will have no choice but to eat me” phase.
He’s doing well, clearly. In good mental shape. So normal.
But Max can still race, so even with how bad everything else is, at least it’s not as bad as it could be.
Racing is actually perfect, if last weekend is anything to go by. Two hours where nobody can get to him. Where nobody forces him to shake hands with back to back celebrity guests who wouldn’t know an F1 tire if it rolled over their expensive, ugly shoes. Where he doesn’t have to have random fans reach for him, or have ten mechanics patting at his shoulders and face at once.
Where it’s just him and his thoughts and no physical contact at all.
Charles, without warning once again, reaches out with the palm not on Max’s chest to grab his hand. Their fingers curl together and it takes less than a second for him to ask, Can you hear me?
“Yes,” Max says out loud, to which Charles scowls.
He mentally mutters something undoubtedly unflattering about Max in French. Then lets go of his hand for a second to talk audibly.
“Do not say it outside of your head,” Charles corrects, unimpressed. “Try talking to me with your mind.”
He cannot believe this is happening.
Max gives it a shot though. What does he have to lose?
Aside from the very tenuous grasp on what little sanity he has left, he guesses.
They clasp hands again, still hunched over in the tiny space between hospitalities.
At first, he tries thinking “yes” in his head over and over.
Charles squints at him. Try something other than the yes you said out loud, floats into his head in a prissy mental tone.
Alright, fine. He’ll try something else.
Max thinks, Your ridiculous Monaco win bracelet is shining light directly into my eyes, with unparalleled focus. Charles does nothing.
He tries again. Your hand is still on my chest. I think I like it a little too much. Why are you touching me?
Charles hums, the lullaby he sang earlier to cover his thoughts turning the space between them calm and still.
I didn’t mean to tell you, Max thinks, looking at the slope of Charles’ nose, the carefully maintained facial hair of his goatee and mustache. The dainty, almost feminine dip of his Cupid’s bow. I didn’t want to tell anyone. but I’m not unhappy that you know. I think it might be nice, to share this burden with you.
“Max,” Charles mumbles, green eyes flicking up just a bit to meet his gaze. He almost sounds disappointed. “I am not hearing anything.”
A shame, he thinks. Mental communication would’ve been cool. Maybe.
“Guess that answers our question,” he sighs, untangling their fingers. Charles watches his hand until it settles back at Max’s side, looking somewhat mournful.
“Mm, I guess.”
Neither of them move to do anything, but it isn’t all that awkward, which Max is thankful for. If his typical, trusted relationships became weird on top of the general weirdness of his life right now, he might have to throw himself off of something. And Charles is handling this remarkably well, all things considered.
Unlike Max, when he was hit with the thoughts of almost his entire team back to back and then had to go home and hyperventilate into his cat.
“Maybe we go get something to eat?” Charles asks, distracting him from his self-pitying thoughts. “I will sit on my side of the table and not touch.”
Max typically doesn’t mind eating with Charles. Enjoys watching him eat, even though that might be fucking weird. Even standing next to him is nice, most of the time. Getting food shouldn’t be a hardship, compared to everything else going on.
“Sure, might as well.”
He isn’t sure how to appropriately convey that Charles might be the only person who he doesn’t mind touching, right now.
So he doesn’t.
*
It’s odd—being forced to view the people he spends twenty four weekends a year with and has firm opinions of in a completely different light based on their internal narratives.
It shifts the way he thinks about them. His friends, his coworkers. His fellow drivers.
He fist bumps Oscar hello and gets another insight into the categorical, almost uniform way that he thinks. His boxes, stacked up in steady order. Standardized.
Yuki is all rapid-fire Japanese and short phrases in English, punctuated by his big feelings. Pierre is wisps of French that don’t feel anything at all like Charles’ as they float past. Gabi with his fast paced Portuguese that blurs together and Nico who thinks in sturdy, familiar German.
Lando thinks in loops and tangles, a tinge of anxiety echoing over almost everything. Carlos thinks in Spanish with occasional English breakthroughs, one thought at a time to completion. Max doesn’t particularly mind hearing Carlos’ thoughts because they come fully formed and slow, with pleasant gaps of quiet. Unlike Ollie’s constantly changing and shifting mental trains.
Max is pretty sure Ollie might have ADHD, actually. But that’s none of his business.
For the most part, nobody is actively talking shit about him in their brains whenever he’s around.
Which wasn’t something he was necessarily worried about until suddenly he was.
Alex has a variety of unimpressed thoughts about the Red Bull team kit that he thinks impulsively then pivots from with a touch of guilt. George, who thinks like how a typewriter functions, has a variety of rude thoughts he’d like to say to Max if he were less of a coward, but they’re so tepid and harmless that Max only squeezes his hand a bit tighter during their handshakes and lets it go.
Lewis, whose mental landscape feels like a still, calm lake, doesn’t think anything rude about Max at all. Something that both surprises and discomforts him. He tries not to think much about Lewis, personally, but he doesn’t like that the same courtesy is apparently extended to him.
Everyone is focused on what they need to do next. On getting through this interaction, the next one, not making a fool of themselves, not putting it into the barriers. Not disappointing their teams, their families, their friends.
They’re tired of media, tired of being paraded around. Tired of traveling and of missing their girlfriends and homes and pets and of listening to their trainers.
Thoughts that Max himself has had countless times before.
They’re excited for the race, chasing a win, anxious about strategy. Fantasizing about the trophy in their hands. Everyone wants something so viciously it almost hurts when it slips into Max’s brain. Some of them are aiming high, some just want to finish the race, but everyone is determined and focused and driven.
It’s kind of reassuring, in a way. These people don’t hate him—they’re cranky, they’re exhausted, they’re entitled and justified and funny, in their own silly ways.
He doesn’t particularly care for most of them and he quite enjoys the rest of them, but they’re all here and there’s really not much more to it than that.
*
He and Charles are in the same press conference slot the following weekend. The final race in their triple header.
Thank fuck. He’s only felt this sort of dread for the season schedule a handful of times before, but god damn, if he doesn’t need a break. Mostly so he can sit in silence in his house with his cats whose minds he can’t read.
Having Charles in the same vicinity as him makes his stomach tie in knots, but also is a relief.
Charles is still the only person who knows.
Max doesn’t want to tell anyone out of fear of being diagnosed with a psychotic break or something equally as traumatic. He doesn’t know how to tell anyone without demonstrating and that alone feels mortifying. Plus, who’s to say anyone who didn’t experience it firsthand would even believe him.
Five time world champion has a complete mental breakdown, thinks he can read people’s thoughts. The headlines practically write themselves.
And everything comes back to Charles, anyway. First person to touch him after it happened, first person to know. Something about the closed loop feels right.
Max’s got his arm spread along the back of the press conference couch when Charles eventually rocks up.
He smiles, sly and pleased, the second that they make eye contact. Max absently notes that the jeans he’s wearing are laughably wide legged and baggy. At least no one online will be able to make fun of him for his own preferred skinnier style because he’s wearing shorts today. Hah.
Charles drops down next to him with a huff, but doesn’t touch him.
Yet another thing Max notices without fully meaning to.
They get a few seconds to chat quietly before everyone else arrives.
“How are you doing?” Charles asks, fidgeting with the bracelet on his wrist, then the ring on his thumb, before actively stilling his body and putting both hands on his knees.
“Managing,” Max replies, gaze caught on Charles’ knuckles.
There’s a scrape on one, a few days old maybe. Max wonders how he got it, curious if it hurt.
“Have you discovered anything as to why?”
“No, nothing. Not even a hypothetical Reddit post.”
That was an especially grueling discovery. If no weirdo on Reddit has ever posted about it before, Max is most likely shit out of luck in terms of finding a way to fix this. To make it stop.
“Interesting,” Charles mumbles, abandoning his purposeful stillness to bite at his nails.
Max wants to grab his hand, secure his fingers in his own grip, but he wouldn’t do that even on the best of days. Even when physical touch didn’t give him access to people’s thoughts.
He nudges him with his knee instead, against the welcome barrier of Charles’ big ugly jeans. Then he flicks his eyes pointedly to his fingers. Charles goes delightfully pink, but slips his hands underneath his own thighs as if Max admonished him out loud.
The conference starts with feedback from someone’s microphone, George Russell’s annoying voice, and an immediately exhausting introduction. They aren’t able to say much after that.
It’s very much the usual Thursday. Boring questions, boring answers. Attempts at being inflammatory to bait them. The same topics a million times over.
George is droning on about something when Charles noticeably shifts next to him.
Max doesn’t look, but he wants to.
Leaning back more firmly, Charles shuffles his body a few centimeters lower. He ticks his gaze over to Max’s arm where it’s still on the back of the couch quick enough that it’s not obvious to the rest of the room. Then he tucks his chin to his chest briefly before shifting back again.
The movement lines up the nape of his neck—the soft stretch of skin typically covered by his hair that he occasionally can’t look away from when it’s exposed—with the bare skin of Max’s forearm.
That same barely there connection that he only notices in its immediate absence floods the back of Max’s brain. It feels so good it’s almost startling.
What the fuck.
Are you listening? Charles asks, his mental voice swirling into Max’s head. He isn’t loud. Isn’t pervasive or grating. Just there.
Max hums, so quiet it’s almost subvocal.
Charles shifts his head and the wavy bits of hair that are touching Max’s arm tickle a bit. Goosebumps rise in response and he has to forcibly repress a shiver.
I am very bored.
Max would like to agree, but after their futile attempts last weekend, the mind reading clearly does not work both ways.
Charles knows that. Inherently. He was literally there. He made them test it.
He’s just being a little shit for the thrill of it.
In public. In front of a livestream broadcast globally.
George is being, mmm, Charles mentally hums again, multiple thoughts tripping over themselves to make a clear picture in his own mind. Max hasn’t ever had someone purposefully think to him so clearly like this. It's an odd feeling, different from the way he usually inadvertently skims across the surface edges of people’s thoughts. I don’t know the word for it, then there’s a thought in French about boxes, and standing on them, and George being so tall in Charles’ brain that Max has to grit his teeth to not laugh.
“On his soap box?” Max mumbles out of the side of his mouth, making sure his microphone is tilted away.
Charles’ thoughts go pleased, pink and rosy at being understood. He hums mentally again and it feels how he imagines being pet like a cat would, a warm hand down Max’s spine.
Yes, yes, exactly that. I am tired of hearing his British voice.
Max wants so badly to reply out loud. To say something lightly cutting about George and whatever bullshit he’s monologuing about. He wants to ask about Charles’ expectations for the weekend, to talk about turn 6, to ask about his dog, about how he’s feeling.
He doesn’t, mostly because he can’t, but the desire is so strong it almost has him opening his mouth.
Shhh, don’t look so distracted, Charles admonishes, his thoughts winding around Max’s. People will know you are not paying attention.
To emphasize his point, Charles puts the barest amount of pressure against Max’s forearm with a minute tilt of his neck. It wouldn’t be visible, but he feels it.
He wants to shift his arm, slide his fingers into the shaggy hair at the back of Charles’ head and tug on it in retaliation for him being such a bastard right now.
Max won’t, he really won’t, but he wants to. And Charles can tell he’s probably thinking something along those lines, based on how he huffs a laugh to himself under his breath.
The moderator directs a question to Max out of left field and he has to ask her to repeat it like a fucking clown. Charles smiles, a slanted little curve of one side of his mouth. Jesus Christ.
Charles’ thoughts sweep into his brain, the heat from the nape of his neck emanating into Max’s entire body. The raspy, jolting laugh that Max most frequently associates with Charles leaning back or over with delight, multiple thoughts about how Max is cute when he turns pink, a tiny sliver of a thought about Max’s mouth that he tries to follow and can’t, and sheer, unmitigated delight in Max’s embarrassment all shower through his head.
Looking at him blatantly now, Charles grins and happiness radiates from his thoughts like the sun.
God, Max thinks, with an audible laugh he can’t hold back as he answers yet another banal question, what a dick.
*
Max deserves a goddamn medal for how incredibly chill he’s being about all this.
He knows his own reputation, is fully familiar with how his press team wants to choke him out regularly. Loose with his words, free with his criticism, relatively unconcerned with how the fans, the other teams, everyone involved with him in any way at all view him because how is he supposed to change when he is who he is?
When who he is works. The stress of driving in F1 is already so all-encompassing, he can’t stand to try to force himself into being someone else on top of it. So he doesn’t.
But right now, with this experience, he’s the most neutrally and appropriately PR trained version of himself he’s ever been and he isn’t even getting credit for it.
The last three weeks he’s unintentionally heard so much bullshit, so many poking and prodding little comments about himself mixed in with the inane thoughts of everyone around him that he’s giving himself grace for not simply starting to scream during interviews.
Just grits his teeth and works through it as best he can, relying on bland PR strategies, counting to thirty in every language he knows, and forcibly ejecting his consciousness from his own body.
It’s mostly involved a lot of shouting in his own head, escaping social situations via increasingly ridiculous means, and actively filtering every word that comes out of his mouth, so he doesn’t reply to thoughts.
How weird he’s being is obvious, but everyone seems to chalk it up to Max being Max, which is lightly offensive.
After quali but before leaving the paddock for the day, Charles sidles up to him. He moves the way he always does, loping and graceful and cool without really trying, until he’s standing right beside Max. His sneakers scuff against the pavement.
One of his laces is untied.
Max kind of wants to go to his knees and tie it for him, but once again, that’s legitimately insane.
Nudging his bare elbow against Max’s, he thinks, almost smug, Stop looking so angry, you are on pole.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he says back, brain almost entirely focused on the heat of Charles next to him.
Primly, Charles says, “I am not,” even though he very much is. I am, he concedes almost immediately, in the quiet of Max’s mind. But you are looking very cranky for being our pole sitter.
Max has half a mind to point out that it’s just the two of them and Charles is absolutely able to speak to him out loud with little to no repercussions, but he doesn’t. Hearing Charles verbally and mentally is interesting, his two distinct voices layered over one another. And the way his thoughts feel is almost a balm compared to everyone else’s.
“Hulkenberg called me a bitch earlier.”
Charles’ eyes go wide, his mouth dropping open. There’s that face again, so gossip oriented.
“Out loud?”
“Yeah, directly to my face—no, Charles, not out loud. In his head.”
Charles turns toward him fully, so close that they make a vee from the point where they’re still touching. “Aren’t you friendly with him? What did you do?”
Okay, fucking rude. Possibly warranted, but still.
“I did not even do anything, I wasn’t even talking to him at the time. He thought it while shaking my hand before leaving the conversation.”
Did not do anything this time, Charles trills, laughing out loud and in his head. His giggles overlap, making Max’s head spin a bit but in a nice sort of way.
“I really didn’t,” he counters, trying to track through their earlier exchange. “I joked with Gabi about something stupid and then he rolled his eyes, shook both of our hands, called me a bitch, and left.”
“Devastating,” Charles hums, still smiling. His thoughts cant to the right, veering away from their conversation as he looks Max up and down—he’s appreciative of Max’s smile, likes how light his hair looks in the sun, grieves the Red Bull race suit compared to the outfit Max is wearing right now.
He thinks Max looks handsome in the dark blue coveralls. He also thinks Max looks like a dweeb in his current outfit.
He can’t believe Charles knows what the word dweeb means.
“Stop talking shit about my cargo shorts.”
“I am legally obligated to have opinions on those shorts. They are hideous.”
Ouch.
Max snorts. “You think they make my thighs look good.”
Charles makes an absolutely disgusted noise and wrenches his arm away, removing the steady train of his thoughts and the physical contact. Max wants both of them back almost immediately, which is pathetic.
“Mate, I’m not the one who said it.”
“I didn’t say it,” Charles corrects, somewhat bitchily. He’s glaring but he’s also kind of smiling, the end result being a deeply confusing expression that Max wants to keep looking at until he understands every aspect of it. Charles is so damn weird. “I thought it.”
“You’re such a snob,” Max says, cataloguing the way Charles’ eyebrows go up with indignation. “What? You are! You just said—excuse me, thought—that you hate cargo shorts because they make me look American.”
Rolling his eyes into the back of his head, Charles throws his hands up and starts to walk away without saying goodbye. “I’m going elsewhere. Good luck tomorrow, you are going to need it.”
“Charles, what?” Max asks, laughing as he does so. “You can’t pivot from critiquing how many pockets my shorts have to vaguely threatening me from P3.”
Instead of replying, Charles throws a jaunty wave to Max over his head without evening turning around.
He doesn’t realize he’s smiling at Charles’ back as he gets smaller and smaller in the distance until his cheeks start to hurt.
Goddamn.
Max needs to get a grip.
*
Even with all the extra stress of suddenly being able to read minds through physical touch, Max can still put together a damn good race. It’s perhaps the only thing he can still do.
He finishes exactly where he started—first—and feels victory sing through every vein in his body.
Charles made good on his promise, overtaking to second and spending a good half of the race forcing Max to work for P1.
It feels like that first parc fermé all over again, a handshake with their helmets still on. Charles sweaty and a little disappointed but mostly happy, Max caught up in how fond his thoughts are, distracted enough to need prompting to go get weighed. They make vague plans to meet up at the club tonight that actually end up happening.
Hours later, they’re standing and talking near the bar, curved toward each other like parentheses. Charles has his hip cocked egregiously, leaning against the countertop with one elbow, entire body tilted toward Max.
Predictably, he’s wearing a fuck off huge pair of jeans. But at least his dark colored button up is normal sized and good looking. Especially with the cuffs rolled up to his forearms.
They chat shit, talk about nothing, rib each other. Not touching, even though Charles, who already speaks with his hands, keeps moving them as if he’s going to, then stops himself right before he makes contact with any part of Max.
He noticed it early on in the evening but hasn’t addressed it. Isn’t sure if he’s going to, what with how pleasantly buzzed and happy to be away from the crowd he is.
Max doesn’t ever really dance and sure as hell isn’t going to dance tonight, but even navigating the short distance across the crowded dance floor to get back to the bar almost had him throwing up from overstimulation.
Too many drunk thoughts all at once almost pulled him under, even if having a few drinks himself had sanded the edges off of the mind reading.
Being here with Charles is nice though.
They’re in the middle of arguing the merits of personalized console controllers when someone approaches Max from his opposite side.
A tall blonde woman he’s met before but can’t remember where says his full name, all complimentary and excited. It takes a few seconds to clock what she wants and Max is flattered that it’s him, full stop.
She’s clearly trying to pull, gorgeous and tipsy. Easy with her physical affection, fluttering her hands around him, kind of like Charles but with the actual contact. He doesn’t send her away as quickly as he might have otherwise.
He attempts to include Charles in the sudden conversation as it continues, Max’s body still turned toward him. Charles replies a bit at first, chasing the straw of his drink around in his glass while humming appropriately at various intervals.
Minutes pass, the woman laughing, a hand on his arm. Her palm is soft and delicate against his skin.
Her thoughts are all warmth and delight and appreciation, not overtly sexual in nature. He appreciates that. Could get there though. Quickly.
Next to him, Charles has gone quiet, his face blank.
Warning sirens have started in the deep recesses of Max’s mind, but he’s floating in the low stakes appreciation this random woman whose name he can’t remember to save his life has for him.
When the subtle invite back to her table is denied, she graciously bows out of their conversation and saunters away, her long blonde hair trailing behind her.
Charles says nothing, even when Max picks back up the thread of their conversation from before with little to no hesitation.
He’s been chattering away for a few minutes before he realizes that Charles is staring down at the floor. Max decides addressing it might be worth it. He nudges at him, aiming for the soft spot of his waist and laughing to himself when Charles flinches.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Charles tips his face away from Max when he answers, gulping down a huge mouthful of his drink. It makes his lips shiny, reflecting the neon strobe of the club until he uses the back of his hand to roughly wipe his mouth. “I am fine.”
It’s an obvious lie. Max can’t help but prod a bit.
“Charlie,” he mumbles, edging closer.
Charles shifts away, eyes flashing with something Max can’t name.
Without thinking, he reaches out and grabs Charles’ shoulder, not even meaning to touch his skin.
He just wants to put his hands on him, feel him solidly underneath his palm. The tip of his thumb touches the edge of Charles’ shirt collar when he tries to physically manhandle Charles back into facing him. He drags over the smooth, hot skin just at the top of Charles’ collarbone and is hit with so many thoughts at once that he almost tips over.
Jealousy, hot and sticky, seeps into his own mind. Charles is internally ranting, petulant and unimpressed.
She is not even all that pretty, too tall, too similarly colored with her hair, her eyes are too big and her shirt is ugly, the names and faces of all of Max’s previous girlfriends flashcard shuffling through Charles’ brain, making him even more glum. Why not me—right here—standing here waiting like a goddamn dog—foolish, so foolish, such an idiot, should just walk away, can find— then a desperate, aching sort of thought about Max’s hands.
Another about his mouth, a third about his eyes that melts into an observation about how his hair is flopping into his face, how it makes him look boyish, like the Max from his childhood memories. All of it is warmed through and sticky like honey.
The cadence of Charles’ thoughts shifts, turning pointed and sharp. Aimed inward, as they almost always seem to be.
Second, second, second—never enough, not for anyone, not for first place, for Ferrari, for—combined with an overlapped rant about Max’s stupid, big mouth and how he wants to press his own stupid, less big mouth against it, shot through with mournful sounding French.
Just before Charles yanks his entire body out of Max’s grip, the thoughts arc closer to where they’ve always been leading—to Max himself.
He’s caught glimpses over the last few weeks. Those first initial thoughts in parc fermé, the surprising fondness. The humming to cover up the direction Charles’ thoughts almost automatically go in, sometimes. How his internal narrative has curved around something, detouring past a familiar and well worn mental groove.
Charles wants, so badly. Wants and wants and wants, this Max has known forever. They’re made out of the same things, endlessly wanting. Constantly hungry.
Scrapping, furious little boys to wealthy, talented, grown men who at the end of the day, still want so desperately that they drive cars as fast as they can in modified circles for most of the calendar year.
Chasing after a title, a trophy, regard in their sport. The sheer vindictive pleasure of winning.
Their make ups haven’t changed.
But this want feels huge, feels private. Has been held close.
And Max is looking at it, observing it and inspecting it and following it straight back to the source, all while the club’s shitty music pulses in his ears.
Charles jolts away from him, mouth parted in a gasp.
They stare at each other, completely silent. Max’s hand is still outstretched, partially curved around where Charles’ shoulder just was.
“Oh,” Charles says, breathy. He sounds faintly unwell, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I should go, I think.”
He doesn’t even take his drink, just spins around on his heel and starts speed walking away.
Max, stunned stupid and frozen in place, almost instantly loses sight of him, people bobbing across his field of vision as he watches the back of Charles’ head move quickly away from him.
Jumpstarting back to life, he follows immediately, because he has never left well enough alone. Not once in his life.
“Wait, Charles,” he calls, dodging drunk clubbers and vaguely recognizable people in Red Bull polos. Floundering, he attempts to follow after him, shoving past a group of people who stop directly in his path. Everyone keeps clapping him on the back and touching his shoulders, his arms, his face in congratulation as he weaves through the crowd. For the first time, he isn’t even hearing their thoughts, so focused on following after Charles. “Stop for just a second!”
Max almost has to break into a run near the club doors, but he catches up with him.
He grabs too hard at Charles’ wrist to pull him to a stop, is hit with his sheer, unmitigated panic. It’s so powerful it makes his own breath come short.
Charles is mentally flailing, rushed thoughts being clamped down on at basically every turn so they can’t be heard. Max keeps hold of him, bodily tugging him into a hallway, then an alcove that’s quiet enough he can hear himself think. Just barely, under the chaotic rush of Charles’ train of thought.
Gripping Charles’ wrist so tightly it probably hurts, Max doesn’t let him go. Keeps herding him until they’re tucked away from view.
They’re almost the same height, so it’s easy to catch Charles’ gaze, especially when it’s frantically flicking across his face.
The thoughts come again, a bit slower now that Charles isn’t legitimately fucking running away from him.
Non, this cannot be happening, not right now, not here, then flickering thoughts of Max, the bone deep disappointment of second place, various memories of the back of Max’s karting helmets in multiple different races across Europe, the breadth of Max’s shoulders from behind, his Red Bull race suit an exaggerated shade of blue. The blonde woman from earlier whose name he doesn’t remember. An oddly blurry glimpse of Max and his most recent ex-girlfriend holding hands.
A tense thought in French about time, another about the concept of deserving that morphs into each instance Charles has ever been yelled at by a team principal.
They settle into Charles being focused on Max’s hand around his wrist—big and warm, almost fully around my wrist, too tight but not tight enough, need to go, and end with Charles mentally whispering Max’s name, looking at him with an expression that breaks his heart.
And Max can’t help it.
He isn’t strong enough, probably never has been.
He’s a few drinks deep, he’s exhausted from living the life he has over the last month. The life he’s lived over the last decade and a half. All the heavy years before that.
The whiplash of standing on top of the podium to existing in this specific moment has him almost dizzy with all the emotions he hasn’t processed yet.
At his core, Max is still a selfish, desperate child. Probably always will be. And he—right now at this very second—has realized he wants this so badly he almost can’t breathe around it.
Even though every single thought he can hear from Charles right now is adamantly warning away from what he’s about to do, he does it anyway.
Letting go of Charles’ wrist, Max cups his face in both of his hands, pushes forward, and presses his mouth against Charles’ in what is probably the most ill-advised, least romantic kiss of all time.
They’re in an empty hallway in a club and it’s probably like two in the morning. The floors are sticky. Max’s shirt is stuck to the small of his back and his hair still smells like champagne. Charles is so panicked that his thoughts have evened out into a general fuzzy background hum that is deeply foreboding and Max wants him.
Maybe somewhere way in the back of his mind, he already knew he wanted Charles.
Buried deep in his subconscious, he’s probably wanted Charles from the second he realized what wanting someone like this was. But he’s never addressed it. Never removed the thought from the dusty box in his brain where all of the things that make him uncomfortable or vulnerable live and taken it out to look.
Everyone wants Charles, in some way.
Women fall all over themselves in front of him. Men, particularly Italian men, are woefully devoted to him. Captivated and enchanted by him. The Tifosi would kill themselves for him. All the other drivers like him even when they don’t.
Max has always viewed himself as a relatively passive member of this group.
Charles Leclerc is, therefore the people around him want him.
The way of things, a foundational fact of life.
It is what it is. And what it is is none of Max’s business.
Charles is beautiful and weird and personable and above all else, unattainable. Not someone for Max to have, not even someone to abjectly yearn for.
But over these last three and a half weeks, he’s had Charles in a way he never has before. In a way no one else has ever had him before.
Max has been a passenger in his mind, sitting mental shotgun. He’s had Charles’ odd, complicated, fascinating brain curled snugly up against his own, truer than true.
The sweet press of his thoughts, his consistent care. His crinkly smiles and his smirks and his presence, orbiting around Max as he suffers and copes and needs help. He’s been offering it without being overbearing.
Charles’ thoughts have gone quiet, a thin refrain of panic and the word “no” repeated over and over again until it’s lost all meaning.
When he takes a second to think about it, Max is pretty sure his own heartbeat pounding in his head is the reason he can’t hear Charles.
Bruised and aching, I cannot do this right now, not this, not here, is the last thing he gets before Charles steps back, out of his range.
Max follows, because of course he does. Lurches forward one step with his hand stretched out to Charles like he can fix it.
“Do not touch me,” he snarls, backed into the corner Max has pushed him into.
His expression has gone all sharp, his beautiful face scrunched into something that looks like fear overlaid with anger.
Max sucks in a breath, surprised, even though he shouldn’t be. He’s seen worse expressions on Charles’ face. He’s put worse expressions on Charles’ face.
Across from him, Charles almost immediately crumples. Max can practically see the words of an apology forming on his lips.
“Sorry, sorry. I—”
He tries reaching out one more time, because he’s a stupid, stubborn bastard.
Charles shakes his head, guilty and overwhelmed and still slightly panicked. “Max, please,” he practically begs.
And so Max nods, steps back.
Mostly due to not knowing what else to do, he puts his hand back down near his side and watches as Charles closes his eyes for a second.
Then as he inhales sharply, turns around, and walks out of the club without looking back.
*
The two of them don’t talk at all throughout the next weekend.
Max doesn’t make an effort, doesn’t look for Charles even though not periodically hearing his goofy thoughts and the mystery lullaby and incomprehensible French sort of feels like a hole in the head.
Charles doesn’t approach him at all.
It throws how frequently he was randomly stumbling across Max, or purposefully seeking him out, into stark relief.
They’re parallel lines all weekend. Never meeting, never touching.
Charles spins out in free practice and Max watches his onboard three times in a row, listens to the slew of swear words that pour from his mouth afterward, caustic and self-critical.
He tries to project the somewhat familiar knowledge of Charles’ thoughts onto this experience, attempts to imagine what he’s thinking, or what he isn’t.
Max doesn’t get very far with that exercise and all it serves to do is make him grumpy and agitated going into quali. It ends up fine, because it usually does, but—he misses it, a little bit. Charles’ thoughts. His presence.
This entire ordeal has been nothing but grating and brutal, Max long-suffering and at the end of his rope. Pushed to the very edges of the limit he typically lives by. He hasn’t purposefully touched someone in what feels like weeks, sick to death of their voices inside his head.
Now this on top of everything?
Bullshit.
At least Charles’ thoughts were nice, when he had them.
*
Just when he’s fully resigned himself to spending another off-week alone in his apartment contemplating ways to avoid melting into his living room couch, he gets a text from Charles.
Simple. Straightforward.
Charles: We should maybe talk about what happened
And nothing else.
Max doesn’t particularly want to. He’s still feeling lightly stung, left alone in the club after a haphazard first kiss, even if he forced Charles’ hand both proximity wise and thoughts wise.
So he texts back.
Max: You can come over if you want
Neutral, casual. The ball in his court.
Max has never been more normal.
So what if he actively has to pretend like sending a seven word text doesn’t make his hands sweat and his heart race.
Charles: Now?
Charles: Please
Fuck, Max thinks, head tilted back on the couch and gaze focused on the spot on his ceiling that’s either dirty or an oddly shaped shadow, I guess.
He showered this morning, at least. Put on semi-real clothing, if athletic shorts and a long sleeve count. And his apartment isn’t all that messy right now.
Max spends the first ten minutes after answering in the affirmative staring off into space. Then he spends the next five panic cleaning, shoving the pseudo-mess into his spare bedroom and stacking everything else on his countertops.
He’s trying to shoo the cats off of the kitchen table when the buzzer goes off. He’s still trying to shoo the cats off the table when Charles knocks on the door.
Giving up, Max channels normalcy as much as possible and opens the door to his apartment without doing anything too embarrassing.
Across the threshold, Charles looks like he’s about to offer to be nailed up on the cross. All patented religious-level suffering and highly symmetrical beauty in beat up joggers and a giant hoodie. He says hello and it sounds hesitant, almost.
When Max echoes it, his shoulders ease, just a touch.
He looks good, but that’s not surprising. Looks tired, too. That also feels like it’s a given.
As Max shuffles out of the way, he slips inside, almost immediately starting to bite at his nails. Charles doesn’t necessarily look nervous, but he doesn’t look relaxed either. Max would like to touch him to find out exactly why, but he won’t.
He’s been here a few times before, but it’s incredibly odd to see him in Max’s space, all soft and ruffled in his casual clothes.
Charles moves his hands back to his hoodie kangaroo pocket, biting at his lips instead. The switch unfortunately draws Max’s attention there instantly, making him feel like an absolute dickhead.
They meander toward the kitchen, independently choosing to lean against the center island in a parody of their positioning at the bar not even two weeks ago.
“I am sorry I left so quickly,” Charles starts, speaking first because he’s a better person than Max. He doesn’t need to clarify exactly when, they both know what he means. “That was a lot, for me. I am very embarrassed at how I behaved. In general and to you.”
Max hums in acknowledgement, unsure what to say.
“I have so much I want to tell you,” Charles mumbles, stepping forward. Before Max can react to it, he tangles their fingers together. Will you listen to me?
Belated guilt at how he grabbed at Charles in the club floods over him. He didn’t even think about it, didn’t consider it. Just reached out and took that sense of safety, that privacy, without meaning to. All the other occasions Charles was the one who touched him first, who initiated the contact.
Last time, when he should’ve been most careful, Max pushed forward without thinking of the consequences at all.
He won’t do that now.
Max tugs his hand away, shifting back a few steps.
With a dismissive scoff, Charles goes to reach for him again and Max flinches, avoiding his touch.
They do this song and dance twice more in quick succession until Charles shouts wordlessly, tossing his hands up in the air while glaring at Max.
“What are you doing?” he asks, teeth grit. “Let me hold your hand.”
“No,” Max immediately argues back, dodging his wandering fingers. “I didn’t give you space last time and heard your thoughts without asking. I won’t do that again.”
“Max,” Charles says, clearly exasperated now. “You don’t need to ask, I’m the one reaching out for you.”
When he makes a miserable noise in the back of his throat, Charles glares at him. He evades his reach one more time before Charles completely steps into his space, smelling like outside and the expensive almost spicy cologne he always wears.
He’s trapped against the kitchen counter, Charles on one side and his rarely used stovetop on the other.
“Do not run from me,” Charles hisses, puffing up like an aggravated cat. It’s as endearing as it is aggravating. He might be the most hypocritical person Max has ever met, and that’s saying something.
He darts his arm out one last time, snatches up Max’s hand, and holds it just this side of too tight.
The avenue between them thrums, vibrating like a plucked string.
It feels so, so nice. Comically nice. Like something falling back into place. Immediately soothing, whereas everyone else’s minds feel abrasive and harsh.
All of Charles’ thoughts come across at once, frantic and everywhere at first, rushing over each other even quicker than they usually do.
You don’t get to hide, I want to show you, let me show you, something in French that feels like a curse word but isn’t any of the words Max knows. Everything is tinged pink and red and golden.
Charles forcibly slows his own thoughts, hums the lullaby that Max desperately wants to know the name of but can’t recreate outside of his own head in order to find it, and starts again.
He thinks of Max, abstractly at first.
There’s happiness and fear and a bright, red-hot line of jealousy all the way down. He wants what Max has—the fame, the trophies, the legacy. But it’s more than that. His thoughts get clearer, enjoyment at being close to him—wanting to be next to him on the grid, in press conferences, in interviews, in the paddock. In their homes.
Charles shows him what he guesses is a well-worn daydream due to the shimmery, unreal yet familiar quality it has—Max in an ancient t-shirt from his Toro Rosso days that is absolutely jammed somewhere in the back of his closet, not having seen the light of day in years. On Charles’ couch, leaning over to kiss him.
The TV is on in the background, but in his daydreams, that’s clearly never Charles’ focus. The focus is Max.
Same, same, but different, Charles thinks, weaving through their history and all of his complicated thoughts about Max over the years. Everything is flicking by so quickly, with so much emotion packed into it, that Max kind of feels like he’s going to cry.
It’s the pure unadulterated rage of Austria 2019, the frigid neutrality that followed them both for years after, the happiness of Las Vegas 2024. It’s the steadily growing warmth between them the last few seasons. Their post-race debriefs and fun interactions. Their shared experiences and divergent upbringings, being in the background of each other’s memories for years and years.
All of it is threaded through with how badly Charles wants to be good, to deserve. The WDC, Ferrari’s priority, the devotion of the Tifosi, his family’s love.
Max’s attention.
The mishmash of thoughts settles into something sweeter. More tender. A neat little package of Charles’ feelings for him, filtered from all of the pointed, hurting emotions that have followed the two of them their whole lives.
It feels like sitting in the sun. Like coming out of a dark movie theatre and blinking into the bright sky. A little like love.
“Do you see now?” Charles asks, out loud this time. His thumb is stroking along the back of Max’s hand, a steady metronome.
Too choked up to speak right away, Max nods like a goddamn bobble head.
“I tried to keep it from you, with the humming and the distractions and the silly thoughts. But it was difficult. My thoughts are very loud in general, but particularly so when they are about you.”
Charles breathes deeply, visibly centering himself. “And I did not want you to find out all of these things about me, and my feelings, in a not so good club past midnight during a weekend that I did not win a race.”
Max gets that on some level, even though Charles’ brain works in increasingly mysterious ways.
“You understand, yes? All of it?”
When Max nods again, vigorously and without any sense of chill whatsoever, Charles sighs in what looks and what feels like relief.
Everything in his brain untenses. Goes soft and malleable, no more sharp points. The collaged edges of his thoughts feel smooth and significantly less frenzied.
“Now tell me about you,” he asks, sparkling green eyes looking directly at Max. There’s a hint of pleading in his voice. Not begging, necessarily. Just Charles asking for the same aching sort of honesty back.
Max opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again.
“Wish I could show you,” he says, his voice cracking embarrassingly. “Like that.”
“Yes,” Charles hums, smiling slightly. “That would be easier, no?”
It would be. It definitely would be.
But that’s not what this is.
Max pulls back his hand after giving Charles’ fingers a gentle squeeze. “Let’s not touch while I—” He gestures sort of helplessly between them. “I need to think and when I hear you that’s all I can really focus on.”
Charles looks disproportionately satisfied at that.
“I don’t think I realized at first. That sounds stupid, but fuck. You’re you, you know?”
At that, Charles tilts his head to the side, a bit like a dog. He waits, patiently.
Max both appreciates it for the grace it represents and resents it just a little bit, because Charles has got to know what he looks like when he does shit like that. Nobody has ever told him no in his life, probably.
Max keeps chipping away at the words inside of him, even when the effort feels monumental.
“You never felt like something I could have, so I didn’t think about it much. I’ve always liked you, even when I didn’t. You’re fun to talk to, you understand in a way most people don’t. I’ve known you for ages and you’re in the background of a lot of my defining moments. You know what you’re doing, what you’re talking about. You’re also absolutely fucking crazy.”
Probably not something ideal to say during a sweeping romantic confession, but it’s true. And Max is nothing if not honest.
Even worse, Charles smiles at it. All crinkly eyes and perfect teeth.
Max is on a roll now. “And you can be a bit of a bitch. Dramatic too. Prone to histrionics and martyrdom. But I like that, clearly.”
Insanely, Charles goes pink and flushed at that, clearly pleased.
“Like I said, I’m not sure I realized initially. Or even until that moment, maybe.” Max is waving his hands around now, gesturing. “I could hear you saying things, but didn’t realize what they meant. Until I heard you think so much about me. It sounds dumb, yeah?”
“I didn’t mind waiting for you to catch up,” Charles says, simple and easy. Then his smirk grows, “Must be how you’ve felt so far, with all of us.”
“Okay, shut up.”
Before Charles can say something appalling, like “Make me,” Max keeps pushing through to see this to the end.
“And you were so stupidly kind, the entire time. I ambushed you with being able to read minds as if that’s not the most insane thing anyone has ever heard and you tried to help me figure out how far that went. Being around you helped, this whole time. Your thoughts are the only ones I can stand at this point, even though you think like a maniac sometimes.”
It doesn’t feel like enough, isn’t really even the thank you that he means it to be, but Charles beams anyway.
He leans closer, edging across the kitchen on socked feet like if he moves slow enough Max won’t notice he’s doing it. As if he doesn’t live with cats. “I’ve liked it, it feels very much like a mystery.”
“Well, it sucks. And I’d like it to stop happening. But I don’t mind when it’s you.”
Once again, this isn’t even a real confession. It’s barely a compliment. But Charles grins with delight as if it is.
Now that he’s fully in Max’s personal space again, he lifts a hand to cup the side of Max’s face. The there-not-there feeling of Charles in his head swells. He strokes his thumb across the line of Max’s jaw, the cool metal of his ring juxtaposed against the warmth of his hands.
You can kiss me again, Charles thinks, slow and purposeful. I will not freak out this time.
He looks like he’s waiting for it. Like he’s been waiting for it.
Looks like he wants it just as bad as Max.
So, he leans down a tiny bit, reels Charles closer, and does exactly that.
*
If they were normal people, they’d keep it PG and kiss a few times in his kitchen. Confess and kiss once or twice then talk things through. Start their relationship off at a normal speed, like normal people.
Maybe make out on the couch a little bit and watch a movie together after or something.
That’s if they were normal. Or well-adjusted.
To be completely honest, they’re both objectively very abnormal, insane people. Obsessed and high strung and capable only of putting their feet on the gas pedal and fucking flooring it.
Full send.
Which is how he ends up slamming Charles against the wall right beside his bedroom door so hard that he groans like he’s been shot.
It makes the lamp on the entryway table rattle and everything.
Charles is pretty into it, judging by the way that he winds the hand he’s got tangled in Max’s hair even tighter and sets to work trying to lick the back of Max’s teeth.
Also judging by the way his thoughts go monosyllabic and needy, all more, yes, harder, yes, s’il te plaît, oh, please.
The first “more” alone has Max so hard where he’s pressed against Charles’ thigh that he can’t help but rock into him, grinding against him with all their clothes on like they’re idiot teenagers.
A few initial chaste kisses were exchanged in the kitchen after they basically said they’re both stupid for each other.
Then Charles had snaked a hand up the front of Max’s shirt to palm at his hips, his internal narrative skewing from closer, closer, closer to a breathy sort of internal sigh and fifteen different back-to-back sexual fantasies all layered over each other that made Max black out a little bit with how intensely he wanted to participate in every single one of them.
He’d slipped his tongue into Charles’ mouth, after that. Their kisses opened up, wet and warm and gasping. It was easy to bite on Charles’ lower lip, to swipe his tongue across the seam of his mouth and be granted access with nothing more than a oh, yes, this is what I wanted, that shook him to his core.
Max had half a mind to tap the brakes, to corral Charles over to his couch to spoon for a few hours, but then he’d tangled his tongue with Max’s, thrown a leg up over Max’s hip, and started grinding on him right there in the kitchen. In front of God and his cats and everything.
And now they’re here.
Sucking on each other’s tongues, Charles’ hand fisted into the hair on the back of his head for better maneuvering.
He’s got Charles’ hip bones held so tightly in his grip that he’s probably going to leave bruises and Charles is absolutely crooning about it internally.
All make this last, his fingerprints that I can put my own hands on tomorrow, I hope they hurt when I press them, a reminder that this really happened, harder, more, tighter.
The triple threat of Charles’ breathy little noises, the warm line of his body pressed tightly against Max’s, and his actual pornographic thoughts beamed directly into Max’s brain might kill him.
He’s huffing tiny groans into Max’s mouth, tugging his head further to the side for a better angle. It works to both of their advantage when he smears his half-open mouth across Charles’ cheek and chin, going right for the slope of his throat.
Peppering kisses along his Adam’s apple, he inhales the sweet-spice-warmth smell of Charles’ cologne and whatever body wash he uses.
When he bites down at the junction of Charles’ shoulder and neck, he keens and starts chanting fuck me fuck me fuck me so loudly in Max’s head that it’s all he can do not to go to his knees right there.
“Yeah, okay, fuck,” he mutters, layering small kisses against Charles’ throat. He wants to leave hickies, but those will probably be better suited to Charles’ chest and torso and hips. And will get him out of this stupid, likely obscenely expensive hoodie he’s wearing.
He pulls back and Charles follows him, swaying forward like Max’s body was the only thing keeping him up.
Don’t go, stay here, come closer, has him looping an arm around Charles’ waist and more or less pushing them through his bedroom door.
“Don’t worry, baby,” Max sounds breathless, because he fucking is. “Not going anywhere.”
Charles’ thoughts go whiny, almost needy—never again, mine forever, don’t want to spend more than a few days without this ever again, fuck, drop dead before I let you go.
And Max wasn’t going to like, say that out loud, because that’s insane right off the bat like this, but he fully agrees.
So he nods in solidarity, mumbling yes a few times and pulling back a bit to look at Charles again. It’s all too much, looking at him flushed and pink, with his hair mussed up from Max’s hands and his mouth wet and kiss-swollen.
Descending on him, he kisses Charles’ cheeks and his chin and his prickly mustache and the tip of his nose. Then he pushes Charles’ bangs back, revealing his big ass forehead, and drops a few kisses there too. Just because he can.
Charles groans, squirming. He’s smiling though, so Max is pretty sure this detour they’ve gone on is fine, even if he can feel how hard Charles is against him. A warm, firm line against his hip.
“Okay,” Charles says, tone imperious and hands waving around before coming to a delicate stop on the top of Max’s shoulders, “enough of that. Bed please.”
Need to be fucked into next week, s’il te plaît, Charles thinks simultaneously, the one-two punch of the verbal and internal back to back making Max choke.
He spins in Max’s arms, moving forward and taking stock of Max’s relatively normal looking—he hopes—bedroom before reaching behind himself and tugging both his hoodie and t-shirt off at once with almost no fanfare.
Dropping it in a heap onto the floor, he gets started with hooking his thumbs into his joggers before Max comes up behind him, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Wait, wait, we don’t have to go that fast. Turn around, let me see you.”
Give me a show, he wants to say, but he’s pretty sure that’ll go one of two ways. Both which he’ll probably regret.
Charles rolls his eyes into the back of his head but mentally acquises and spins one hundred and eighty degrees with his arms spread. Annoyed about it, but compliant, which is a thrill in and of itself.
Still lets Max look his fill though.
He’s gorgeous, obviously. There’s no question why Ferrari social media is always whoring him out, why the F1TV cameras are always locked the fuck in. Why a million teenage girls carry around laminated pictures of him with little heart stickers all over them.
Max follows the sweep of his shoulders and the slope of his muscular neck with his eyes, tracing along him. Smooth, tan skin and a waist that tapers into a vee, his sweatpants low on his hips.
Not to mention his beautiful fucking face on top of all that.
Max wants to bite him. Wants to squeeze him. Wants to roll him into his bed and lay down on top of him like a blanket.
Circling his hand at Max in a wickedly Italian gesture, Charles is practically tapping his foot in impatience. He does something complicated with his eyebrows at Max. “Now you.”
Tugging his own long sleeve shirt off, he tosses it onto the already started pile, then more or less tackles Charles into his bed.
He makes an absurd “Oof!” sound when Max lands on top of him, but his thoughts flood into Max’s brain, delighted with the playfulness, the weight of Max on him.
“Mmm,” he hums, squirming underneath him. His mouth ends up back on Max’s almost immediately, magnetic.
It takes them very little to get their momentum back, Charles opening his mouth at the barest nudge of Max’s tongue. Hooking his leg around the back of Max’s thigh, he starts a slow, steady roll of his hips that he accompanies with a multilingual treatise about how he can feel Max’s blatant hard on through their layers.
Should be embarrassing, thankfully isn’t, because he means well with it. The color of Charles’ thoughts are all positive, warmed up and not frantic, yet, but getting there.
He stops thinking in full sentences. Reduced down to just his all-encompassing want, Charles’ thoughts come in two to three word phrases, one starting before the last one has fully finished.
Max keeps having to pause them making out to take huge, gasping breaths because having front row seats to Charles’ deliberation about positions to fuck in for the first time has sent all the blood in his entire body swan diving to his dick.
Getting a hand behind Charles’ neck, he cradles the curve of his head in one palm, still kissing him fervently. The other he snakes down between them, tracing Charles’ ribs and his hip bones, before meandering down to press his palm gently against where he’s hard in his sweats.
The pressure makes Charles twitch, groaning into Max’s mouth. It also makes him think a long string of more more mores and yes yes yes oui oui ouis that blend into multiple thoughts that Max can’t untangle.
He’s not totally sure if he’s going to be able to survive this, but he’s going to give it his best shot.
When Max pulls away from his mouth, Charles makes a mournful noise and tries to pull him back in. He stops fussing when Max laves messy, open mouthed kisses down his chest. Starts fussing in a different way when he nips at Charles’ hip bones, tracing his tongue along the band of his pants.
He needs practically zero encouragement to tilt his hips up into a bridge, shuffling his sweats off. Max gets a glimpse of black boxer briefs that he’d really like to appreciate more before those are flung off the side of the bed too.
It requires no thought to bully his way between Charles’ bare thighs. Of course this is where he’s supposed to be.
Judging by Charles’ thoughts, he agrees. Perfect right there, looks so good, eyes are so blue, pull his hair.
At that last wisp of a thought, Max fumbles in his sheets for Charles’ hand. Popping a tiny kiss on the inside of his wrist, he slips Charles’ hand into his hair and pats at it once, twice.
Charles moans, eyes surprised like he fucking forgot Max is essentially in his head right now.
With that taken care of, he focuses on Charles’ cock. Nicely sized, pink and hard and beading pre-cum, he wants to choke himself on it.
Resting his head against Charles’ hip bone, Max takes his time with his opposite hand. A teasing touch to the tip, a loose hold, a singular stroke up and then another down.
In his head, Charles’ thoughts go wild. It feels like Christmas has come early and he’s won Monaco three times in a row with how pleased he is with Max’s hands on him. He’s murmuring to himself about memorizing this sight, pressing it into his memories so he can take it back out and look at it later whenever he needs to jerk off alone.
Out loud, Charles gasps and whines and thrusts his hips into Max’s fist.
It’s cute, how whiny and pliant he is. How Max pushed him down into his bed and Charles didn’t make a single bit of effort to come back up. It’s clear in his thoughts what he wants, how badly he wants it, but they’ve got time.
After a bit more torture, after Charles’ thoughts and his words go pleading, Max’s name sounding like a full request, he tips back onto his elbows and licks a hot, wet stripe up Charles’ cock.
His thoughts explode, mostly putain, putain, fuck, please on loop. The hand in his hair has gripped tight, prickling at Max’s scalp in a way that only sharpens his focus. He needs to hear what Charles sounds like when he deep throats him. Right now.
That’s an easy fix—a few more teasing licks, a twist of his fist, and Max opening his mouth and letting spit drip onto Charles’ cock. That last thing makes Charles’ thoughts go tight and reedy and near panicked with how badly he wants, turning his swearing into taking God’s name in vain in English, French, and Italian.
When Max takes him all the way into the back of his throat with a single shift downwards, Charles’ entire body kicks up with a jolt, his feet slipping in Max’s sheets. A hoarse sort of sound overshadows whatever blasphemy Charles’ is thinking. Max is going to replay it in his head for the rest of his life.
Thank fuck nobody can hear his thoughts, because he’s going to get a lot of mileage out of this specific one.
Charles takes it for a bit, almost mewling when Max hums around him. Both hands come to grab at Max’s hair, making it easier for him to rock up into Max’s mouth.
Charles gets his wits back about him eventually, his chest heaving but his thoughts coming clear and determined and stubborn. Stop sucking me off, please.
Max pulls away immediately, slightly stunned at the first full sentence in a while, directed right at him. He doesn’t pull completely off though, still swirling his tongue around the head of Charles’ cock.
“Non,” Charles mutters, sounding exasperated through the pleasure, slapping at Max’s bare shoulder. “I do not want to come without you inside me. Get the lube.”
Fucking Christ, actually.
“Better idea, yeah,” Max agrees quickly, swiping his hand against his spit covered chin. Beneath him, Charles’ eyes are dark and wide. Quick as anything, he leans up a bit from where he’s been spread flat on his back, curling toward Max to lick a wet line up his chin and over his lips.
He’s pretty sure he can feel his heartbeat in his dick right now, what the fuck.
Max has to kiss him after that, has to grab him by his fucked up sex hair and get as close to him as possible. Has to slide their tongues together, has to memorize the feeling of Charles’ teeth.
“Enough,” Charles breathes after a minute or two of being kissed so thoroughly, so intensely he’s started whining again. “Put something inside of me now.”
Fingers, tongue, cock, whatever, he thinks, almost haughty. Once again, Max wants to fucking bite him.
So he does, a quick nip at his bottom lip, then another at his shoulder. A final one at his bicep that has Charles yelping, laughing against him as he pushes Max’s entire head away with a hand on his face.
Max shuffles off the bed, a bit unsteady on his feet as he yanks open the drawer to his bedside table. He spends an unacceptable amount of time shuffling the contents around, trying to find the bottle of lube by feel. When he does find it, he can’t help but go, “Hah!” out loud, like a fucking dumbass.
“You are lucky you cannot hear my thoughts right now.”
He throws the lube at Charles, who is apparently still too kissed-stupid to even react much.
Max shucks his athletic shorts and his boxers in one go, getting a hand around himself tight at the base before kneeing his way back in between Charles’ legs.
He settles there, dragging his nails lightly along the inside of his thighs, so inordinately pleased when all of Charles’ thoughts tumble back over him.
He’s purring appreciatively at Max’s body, at the slight stretch in his hamstrings at Max between his thighs. The play of his back muscles as he fiddles with the lube cap and wets his fingers. There’s not a single thing about Max that he doesn’t like, doesn’t want to see more of. Charles’ thoughts wind in and around how badly he wants, has wanted, will want Max.
Hearing a partner like this, in this context, is world shifting. For a few mortifying seconds after taking off his clothes, Max was afraid. Terrified of Charles thinking something awful or lightly critical about him that would send his self-confidence plummeting and his false pride skyrocketing to overshadow it for the rest of his life.
There’s none of that. It’s all heat and desire and Charles spending a wildly long time thinking about putting a trail of hickies along Max’s chest and torso.
Nice cock, he quips, startling him out of his thoughts as he pets at Max’s sides, making his belly jump.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Can’t. Charles smirks up at him, his pupils blown wide. Jesus. Won’t.
“You’re insufferable.”
Charles smiles, satisfied. “Yes. Very much so.” He sounds like he’s glad Max agrees.
He widens his legs further, impressively flexible. Then makes a pointed motion toward Max’s fingers, held to the side of them both to avoid dripping lube onto Charles.
Dropping onto one of his elbows and getting the other between his legs, he kisses Charles again, because he can’t fucking help it. In his mind, Charles hums, wanting everything Max will give him and more after that.
“Tell me if it’s too much, if anything hurts.”
“Sure,” Charles says, with a nod, “but if it does, you’ll probably hear it first. And even then, I won’t want you to stop.”
Duly noted. Of course Charles, masochist extraordinaire and notorious martyr, would like a little bit of pain with his pleasure.
Max pets at him with two fingertips, listening for the way his breathing and his thoughts lurch at the same time. Charles wants him inside of him, now, but even with the thready impatience of his thoughts battering at Max from all sides, he takes his time working him open.
Mostly just so he can listen to Charles’ breathy moans as Max works up from one finger to two, curling them deep and scissoring them slowly. His thoughts have turned back to the chanting of yes yes yes, more more more with a few like that, my god, oh pleases interspersed throughout.
It’s intensely gratifying, a feedback loop of their pleasure. Max does something, Charles makes a delicious, perfect noise at it, then thinks a myriad of pleased, overwhelmed half-thoughts with sporadic direction, which repeats the cycle over again.
At three fingers, Charles is both internally and vocally begging, pleading with Max to get on with it, to give him his cock, to please, please, please fuck him.
“I will flip us,” he threatens, eyes glittering with tears. His pupils are huge, barely any green visible. His mouth is swollen, both from their kissing and from him biting at his own lips. He’s pink, from his cheeks to his neck to his chest. “I will turn us over and get you inside of me myself if you do not hurry up.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Max replies, a little bit breathless. He’s so hard he can’t see straight but is still able to be a dickhead when needs must.
He glances over Charles’ prostate on his second to last thrust inside of him and it makes sparks go off in Charles’ brain. Now he has the angle for later and the knowledge of what Charles moaning at top volume sounds like.
Leaning back, he slips his fingers from Charles as gently as he can and tries not to get waylaid by the view of him splayed out in his bed, cock hard and wet and red, thighs wide open.
He watches, eyes huge, as Max drizzles more lube onto his hand and slicks himself up. Neither of them are probably going to last long, but he’s not really worried about that. They can always go again later.
Bending down, he hooks one of Charles’ legs in the crook of his arm, bringing it up with him as he goes down low onto his palms. Mmm, yes, what I wanted, wanted to see you, look at you, be pinned open for you.
“Yeah, I know,” Max responds out loud without thinking, making Charles huff.
“Finally,” Charles grumbles, looping his arms around Max’s neck without hesitation. Max pinches his inner thigh with his free hand, enjoying the way he yelps and ruts against Max’s belly on accident. At that discovery, he abandons feeling offended, doing it again on purpose.
“Knock it off, I can’t get inside of you if you’re wiggling like that.”
Could’ve been inside of me fifteen minutes ago, so much finger fucking.
“Sue me for wanting to make it good for you,” he replies, laughing a bit and nudging the head of his dick against Charles’ hole. “Sorry that you made such pretty noises I had to keep going.”
Charles moans at that, distracted by that first push forward. Thinks something about making even more pretty noises for Max if he’d just get on with it.
But he takes it slow, even with all the admittedly thorough finger fucking. It’s torturous, kind of, with how badly he wants to shove forward all at once and with how Charles is mentally gagging for it. But he isn’t going to fuck this up, isn’t going to rush.
He breathes through it, eyes trained on Charles’ face, his closed eyes and his lax mouth. He’s probably going to come in like, five minutes, but that’s fine. His entire body feels like it’s on fire.
Max gets fully inside of him and Charles’ thoughts go blurry, unfocused. Centered around feeling full, feeling good and satisfied and happy and so blisteringly, wickedly turned on.
It’s fascinating to hear Charles’ brain go quiet. He’s still thinking, always, always thinking. Just softer, quieter. Less layering of his thoughts and more one at a time. Single-file lines.
When Max rocks against him just a little, just to test, for the first time in the entire three and a half weeks he’s had this ability, someone else’s brain doesn’t rise up to meet his. Charles’ thoughts are suspended for just a few seconds, still.
They rush back in after another harder, more pointed thrust. Babbling internally, Charles huffs a little tiny sound into Max’s neck, fingers digging into his shoulder blades.
There we go, he thinks to himself, easily able to admit that the quiet, while nice, wasn’t what he was after.
Panting into each other’s mouths, Max fucks him with long, deep strokes that punch out gasps from Charles’ mouth. They’re sliding up the bed with the force and Charles worms one of his hands up to push against the headboard for more leverage, rocking his hips down to meet Max’s thrusts.
It’s—quite frankly, it’s a fucking lot. It’s too much. Everywhere they touch is hot and sweaty and feels so fucking good it’s almost stupid. Charles is so warm and tight around him, moaning sweetly into his mouth, and thinking a hundred piecemeal thoughts about how this is everything he’s ever wanted and more.
Hiking Charles’ leg up over his shoulder, Max doubles his efforts. Singularly focused on making this the best fuck of Charles’ life, listening to every thought direction, every request for harder, faster, right there, kiss me, fuck me, love me.
Follows all of them, chases down Charles’ orgasm with a determination not unlike when he gets in the goddamn car.
Max is pretty sure Charles could get there without a hand on his dick, but he wants them to come together, or at least close enough to each other that it still counts. Shuffling his arm behind Charles’ head to stay upright and to hold him close, he licks against his other palm and wraps his fingers, tight, around Charles’ cock.
“Charles, c’mon, fuck. Give it to me.”
Charles’ mewls, the hand still on Max’s back dragging sharp, white hot lines up his back. He’s repeating Max’s name over and over in his head and out loud, the two lines getting tangled up until Max can’t tell them apart.
It takes three strokes lined up with the rhythm of Max’s hips for him to get there. It’s easy, it’s perfect, it’s so goddamn much.
When he comes, Charles’ mind goes bright white and shatters like glass, but instead of the tinkling, sharp feeling Max expects, it feels like something that’s wound tight exploding, bursting into a million little pieces and showering him in prickly light.
The sound Charles makes, combined with how he goes tight and then instantly goes lax, would’ve been enough to send Max right over the edge after him even if he wasn’t basically there already. The feeling of Charles’ mind against his at the same time has him near blacking out, face pressed as far into Charles’ neck as he can get it.
They both hover there, Charles barely in his body for how quiet his thoughts are.
When he blinks back into awareness a few moments later, Charles is panting underneath him like he just ran a marathon. His chest rises and falls in time with Max’s, where he’s slumped on top of him. Probably crushing him.
They’re both sticky. Tacky with sweat and lube. Charles’ come has made both of their bellies wet. Max doesn’t even care.
He can’t help but mumble something incomprehensible in Dutch, lips barely moving against the curve of Charles’ neck. At the feeling, he twitches a bit, flopping a hand onto Max’s sweaty back and doing a half-assed job of rubbing at him soothingly.
It feels nice, even if the both of them can barely move.
As he shuffles a bit, pulling his hips back and getting ready to pull out, Charles sorrowfully thinks something weepy and a bit sad about being empty.
Against his throat, pulse racing against his lips, Max mumbles, “I’ll fuck you again later, promise.”
With a tiny nod and a mental acknowledgement that feels like a pat to the top of the head, Max pulls out as gently as he can. Flinging his body over the side of the bed, he fumbles around for the shirt he threw on the floor earlier and uses it to do a compulsory wipe down of their bodies.
Then, still out of breath, he lets his body go lax against his bed, like a puppet with its strings cut. They’re kind of laid out against each other, Max’s leg slung over Charles’, his hand thrown over Max’s chest.
Charles’ thoughts are coming slow and easy, satisfied and fulfilled. There’s something in French, a thought about being like a limp noodle that Max doesn’t fully understand but generally agrees with, then mon dieu, with feeling.
“What the fuck,” Charles says, staring up at the ceiling, dazed.
“Mate, I don’t fucking know,” Max returns, staring over at Charles, also dazed.
Need a few minutes, Charles thinks, his thoughts sweet and a little sleepy and still pretty horny after everything. He rolls over and curls into Max, smushing his face into the side of his neck. They’re both damp but Max kisses his forehead anyway. Maybe a half hour and a glass of water, then I can probably go again.
“Alright, yeah. That might kill me, but if that’s how I go.”
He shrugs and the motion bobs Charles where he’s resting against him.
Charles laughs out loud and in his head he thinks a simple, concise thought about probably being in love with Max.
It makes him smile so big his face hurts.
*
Max wakes up the next morning wrapped completely around Charles, face tucked into the nape of his neck to the point where he almost can’t breathe.
He’s got an arm thrown around his waist, hand tucked into the waistband of the joggers Charles had the foresight to take off last night before they both came all over them or something equally as immature.
The hem of the Toro Rosso t-shirt Max spent almost twenty minutes digging around in his closet for after he fucked Charles through the mattress twice in a row has ridden high up on Charles’ torso, revealing the dips of his hips and his light happy trail.
And the multiple hickies Max layered across the stretch of golden skin.
He lies there, luxuriating in the feeling.
It takes maybe fifteen, twenty minutes for Charles to wake up and Max spends them pressed so close he can feel Charles’ heartbeat in multiple places. A soothing, steady beat.
Everything is odd in how it isn’t odd at all.
He doesn’t even realize it at first.
Like before, there is no moment where things change, with a capital C. No now I can hear, now I can’t. Just Max blinking into consciousness, his mind quiet.
There are no thoughts curling around his brain, just Charles grumbling a little in his sleep, tensing his muscles and releasing them to flop back further against Max as he slowly wakes up.
There’s silence. An absence where there once was something where before that there was nothing.
It’s sheer, unmitigated relief.
There are no thoughts in his head aside from his own and it almost makes him fucking weep.
Max gasps out Charles’ name and the emotion in his voice is so obvious that Charles twitches out of where he’s hovering between asleep and awake almost immediately.
“Ça va?” he mumbles, actively trying to recalibrate as he realizes he isn’t in his own bedroom. Max doesn’t know this because he isn’t hearing it, for the first time in weeks, but he can tell anyway. Especially with how Charles blinks up at the ceiling, rubbing his fingertips over the blue of Max’s sheets like he’s seeing them for the first time.
Rumpled, eyes still sleepy, he rolls over in Max’s arms and scans his face.
“What’s wrong?” His voice is raspy and deep at the edges, wildly appealing. “You are okay?”
Max should say good morning, sorry for waking you, I’m so glad you’re here, instead he says, the words coming out absolutely awed, “I can’t hear you.”
Charles squints, eyes flicking to his ears briefly, then his face clears in understanding. Seeing how huge his eyes get in his face from this close is fascinating.
He still has the imprint of Max’s blankets on his cheek. Max might be in love with him.
“Oh!” Charles reaches out, cups Max’s face in his hands, gets closer to inspect him. “Oh, that’s so good, yes?”
Max nods enthusiastically, bobbing them both with how fast his head is moving.
“You can not hear what I’m thinking?”
He focuses, listens. Waits.
There’s nothing but the quiet relief of his own thoughts in his head.
“Not a thing.”
Charles makes a noise akin to a squeal, throwing his arms around Max as best he can with the two of them horizontal and already tangled up in each other. Max laughs, a little hysterical, but grabs him back just as tightly.
What the fuck, actually.
A few minutes pass in newly novel silence before Charles pipes back up, speaking into Max’s hair.
“Fucking made it go away then?”
Which, okay. That wasn’t even a thought that Max had. But…looking at it critically, might be the unfortunate and insane truth.
Plus, hearing that in Charles’ stupid morning voice, in his ridiculous accent, almost instantly gets him hard again. Which is unacceptable and ridiculous. And also probably going to be a running theme for the rest of his life.
Max rolls half a turn over to flop onto his back like a starfish. Charles goes up on his elbow, smiling down at him with a hint of mocking glee in the corners of his mouth.
Looking up at the ceiling and past Charles’ sex slash bed hair, he groans. “Fucking you made it go away. Apparently.”
Charles laughs that same wheezing, sort of ugly laugh. His eyes shut with the force of it.
Max is probably, definitely in love with him too.
Like a cat following the shifting sun, he curls into Max, coming closer even though that shouldn’t be physically possible. He snakes a hand across Max’s belly, nudging against the skin exposed from his shirt riding up. Noses into the slope of his neck and places a small kiss there.
“Naturally, I am the cure,” he says, all self-satisfied and smug.
Max might kill him. Then he might kill himself.
How could fucking Charles Leclerc be the solution to the mind-reading problem? What kind of bullshit is that?
Yeah, sure, they mutually confessed, kissed, and immediately went to bed to have objectively mind-blowing sex, but what the hell? What has Max done to deserve this?
Aside from all of the shit he may have done to deserve it, he thinks but doesn’t directly acknowledge.
Charles is still giggling into his neck, dragging his fingertips over the sensitive skin of Max’s hips.
A sudden thought strikes Max still, his heart skipping a beat.
“What if it isn’t as good when I can’t hear you?”
Charles slings a leg over Max’s waist and throws himself up until he’s nestled in Max’s lap, straddling him. His hands come up to Charles’ hips like they were made to go there.
Sitting pretty on top of him, looking down at Max with an expression that makes the hair on the back of his neck rise, Charles smirks. Then winks, especially badly. Dear God.
“I do not think that the two of us will have any issue having good sex.”
Leaning down, Charles kisses him. Slow, sweet, relatively closed mouthed.
“I will tell you what I like. I’m very good at that, and you will do it, because you are very good at that as well.”
He rolls his hips down, a purposeful slow movement. Max’s breath catches in the back of his throat.
“Shall we test that theory?” Charles asks, smiling so brightly Max has to squint at him. How he can look so sweet while actively grinding on Max’s morning wood is beyond him.
“If you don’t want to get out of bed for another few hours, sure.”
With a surety to his voice that Max doesn’t need the ability to read minds to know is true, Charles says, with sincerity and happiness and bone deep truth, “I am right where I want to be.”
Getting out of bed before noon on an off-week is for losers anyway.