Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter Text
They said he could see racing lines the way others saw colour, and that when the lights went out, he was already gone. Tracks whispered his name and circuits bent subtly to his will. Every apex, every chicane, and every straight was mapped in a mind so precise it bordered on prophecy. He did not race, but commanded the machine beneath him as if it were an extension of his own body, and the world could only watch in awe.
Even in victory there was something untouchable, almost forbidding, about him. A boy raised beneath the iron shadow of his father, where friendship was scorned as weakness and laughter forbidden as frivolity, he had grown into a man whose dominion over speed was absolute but so was his solitary. Four World Drivers’ Championships gleamed in his trophy cabinet like a sequence of crown jewels, proof that mastery was his alone, yet behind the cold precision of his grin and the calm of his helmeted stare, a hollowness stirred, a quiet hunger no victory could satiate.
Legends are born of awe, but only truth reveals the cost. Max had learned that in every perfect lap, in every flawless overtake, there was a thinning of the self. Gentleness was a forgotten luxury, human warmth, a liability. And yet, the world adored him. They saw only the brilliance, the beauty, the terror of speed made flesh. Few dared glimpse the man beneath the legend and fewer still knew how little of him was left.
Tonight, in the fading glow of floodlights, with the scent of burnt rubber still clinging to him, that man stood apart. Applause and champagne rippled through the gala, a cascade of light and sound, but he barely noticed. He had won again and yet already, he was elsewhere. Somewhere faster. Somewhere sharper. Somewhere no one could follow.
______________________
The championship gala was immaculate. Every light, every polished surface, every whisper of fabric and glass had been choreographed to perfection. Even the air itself seemed to hum with expectation, with soft music drifting through open doors and laughter spilling like champagne. The castle - all terracotta spires, palm trees, and deliberate coastal beauty - had been designed to impress, and it did. Perched high above the coast, it ruled its cliffside like an aging monarch, the last echo of an empire that refused to die.
Its walls, pale stone kissed by centuries of salt wind, breathed light. Chandeliers trembled under their own brilliance, and mirrored panels caught and multiplied the shimmer of champagne, of sequins, of movement. Gold and silver gleamed on every surface, until even the shadows seemed expensive. Beyond the balustrades stretched the Côte d’Azur, an expanse of deep blue velvet under the last of the sun. From this height, the world looked ornamental, with yachts pricking the horizon like scattered pins of silver, the distant murmur of traffic reduced to the faintest hum, and the sea breaking gently below, unseen but always heard. The view was the kind that silenced a room, the kind that made people whisper about fortune and legacy.
And yet, for all its grandeur, there was a stillness threaded through the splendour. A sense that the castle, for all its beauty, was watching rather than welcoming. Its high windows held reflections of the sea instead of light, and its gardens were too quiet, their fountains whispering into empty space. The laughter of the guests rose and broke against those stone walls like waves against a cliff ... beautiful, fleeting, gone too soon.
Inside, laughter scattered like coins on marble. Someone had hired a string quartet, but their music barely rose above the hum of conversation and the slow pop of champagne corks. Perfume mingled with salt air and the faint sweetness of night, and from every direction came the flutter of conversation - names, laughter, speculation - the soft, controlled chaos of people pretending they were not hoping to be watched.
The château glowed as though it belonged to another century, a monument to beauty built on solitude. Its walls threw the light back into the night, defiant and dazzling, but inside the man it celebrated stood apart, the silence between victories louder than the music itself.
Max Verstappen stood near one of the great windows, his posture immaculate and tie knotted just so. The suit, midnight blue not Red Bull blue, had been chosen by his stylist, who had insisted that simplicity was power. Max had not argued. It was easier that way. Easier to wear the armour someone else selected, easier to let the fabric speak than to explain what he no longer felt.
The glass before him reflected the room like a dream; gold lights, slow smiles, and the kind of laughter that only ever sounded sincere in champagne air. He watched the world move behind his own reflection, like a double exposure of elegance and exhaustion. He had been here before, in different suits and different cities, but the rooms always looked the same and the people even more so.
People drifted toward him now and then, with their hands extended and smiles rehearsed. Congratulations, champion. Another season conquered. Another record fallen. He shook hands, nodded, said the words expected of him, and each time the conversation dissolved, he felt the same faint relief, like surf receding from his ankles. The season was over, and as such there was nothing cruel in him tonight, no temper. Only distance. A gentler kind of armour.
Behind him, a burst of laughter from the terrace spilled through the open doors - Daniel’s voice unmistakable, bright and messy and alive. Seb’s low chuckle followed, and then Nico’s dry tone trying, without conviction, to restore order. The sound reached him like sunlight through glass, a warmth he was unable to touch.
From where he stood, he could see them out there. The closest thing he had to friends (or acquaintances, depending on how charitable he was feeling), half-dressed in tuxedo shirts and loosened ties, laughing too loudly for the hour.
Daniel had long since abandoned his shoes, one foot propped on the low wall, gesturing wildly with a glass of something amber that sloshed dangerously close to the rim every time he made a point. Whatever story he was telling, and it was always a story, seemed to require a full reenactment. His laughter showcased the kind of bright, reckless joy that Max had forgotten how to feel.
Sebastian stood nearby, his tie gone and his collar undone, animated as ever. He was attempting to argue the moral philosophy of overtaking ethics, hands moving with the same precision he’d once reserved for pit-wall briefings. Max could almost hear him even through the glass; that particular German cadence, the clipped doch, the sarcastic natürliiiich, the way he punctuated sincerity with a grin. And of course, because he couldn’t help himself, Seb was flirting. Brazenly. With Nico, despite Lewis lurking somewhere in the grounds.
Rosberg had his arms crossed and his chin tilted with calculated disdain, but the glint in his eyes gave him away. He looked infuriatingly polished, as though his tuxedo had been starched directly onto him and his blonde hair was styled perfectly. Every so often, he interrupted Seb’s speech with a quiet correction. “That’s not ethics, that’s ego,” Max imagined him saying. Only to have Seb counter with something maddeningly sentimental like, “Ego is just passion without forgiveness Nico Schatzi." Nico would roll his eyes, mutter something about hopeless romantics, and turn back to his drink, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him. There it was, that reluctant smirk, the one that said he’d already lost the argument and didn’t entirely mind.
Max watched them for a while - that small constellation of light and noise - and tried to decide whether he envied them or pitied them. Perhaps both. Since retirement, they were free in a way he no longer remembered how to be. Their joy as reflexive as breathing. The easy camaraderie, the shared history, the harmless chaos should have comforted him, yet it only underscored the distance. They had stepped off the carousel, before he had even known he was on it.
Further down, near the edge of the pool, Antonelli and his gaggle of friends were sprawled across deck chairs, drinks in hand. Bearman and Hadjar were attempting (and failing at) card tricks, whilst Bortoleto, Doohan and Lawson watched on in quiet amusement. The lights from the terrace danced across the surface of the water, turning their reflections to liquid gold. Every ripple caught laughter and threw it back, multiplying it until the whole night seemed to shimmer with it.
George Russell was doing his best to corral them into civility not yet mastered at their age, with his sleeves rolled and his voice pitched halfway between stern and indulgent, though he was clearly fighting a losing battle. There was an authority in him that might have cowed lesser spirits, but not this crowd. Every time he straightened to deliver some half-hearted reprimand, Lando immediately undermined it with laughter, collapsing against him and giggling into the crook of his arm like someone too tipsy to care for consequence. The sound of it rang light and bright across the water - a sound without weight, a sound that forgave everything.
Oscar lounged nearby, his expression composed, but his amusement betrayed by the faint smile in his eyes. Every now and then, he added a quiet remark that sent the younger boys into hysterics, his voice the calm at the centre of their chaos. Around him, the other boys traded playful insults and sipped from flutes they were far too young to appreciate. Their laughter wasn’t sharp or self-conscious, just alive, the kind of sound that belonged to people who believed the night had no end.
It carried easily across the water, that noise, and for a moment it seemed to Max that it didn’t just echo, but breathed. It wove itself into the hush of the sea, into the soft pulse of the evening air, until the line between music and laughter blurred. From where he stood, they looked like figures in a painting; sunlit in a world that no longer needed sunlight. No concept of the notion that youth was gilded and fleeting.
Max watched them for a long moment - the glow of camaraderie, of warmth, of the simple pleasure of existing without consequence. He could read their ease in every gesture. Lando tipping his head back against Oscar's shoulder now, Kimi gesturing animatedly with his glass, Liam’s steady amusement never breaking stride. They were of the world, still tethered to it by noise and laughter and the softness of happiness.
He, on the other hand, was just the quiet shadow in the window. A spectator of his own creation. He had built this place for peace, for silence, for control. For the absence of distraction. The marble floors, the glass, the symmetry of the rooms was designed to contain, to still, to tame, and yet tonight it all felt suffocating. The air was too heavy and the perfection too precise. Every sound outside seemed to press harder against the terracotta walls, reminding him of everything he had deliberately excluded.
The glass in front of him reflected the scene like a cruel mirror. His own face, distant and untouchable, floated above the faint image of the pool, and the living world beyond. For a brief, treacherous instant, he wondered what it might feel like to step through it. To be among them, not above them. To sit barefoot on the stone, to drink something too sweet, to say something foolish and be forgiven for it.
But the thought passed quickly, like a wave recoiling from shore. He straightened his tie, adjusted his cuff, and let the reflection settle back into place. The glass gave nothing away, and neither did he.
He turned away from the window, his expression schooled back into calm. The guests were still laughing, still praising him, still repeating the same words they always did. “Genius, domination, history”. As though saying them enough times could make him feel anything at all.
And yet, even amidst the laughter, the glinting glasses, the gilded ease of youth, a fissure had appeared - subtle and almost imperceptible, like a front wing starting to flex under the downforce. Barely noticeable at first, but enough that the tiniest misjudgment could send everything spiraling.
A faint murmur swept through the room, nothing more than the soft rustle that follows the arrival of someone unexpected. It began at the doors and travelled like static, too subtle to be alarm, but just enough to tilt every conversation half an inch off its balance. Max turned his head slightly, not out of curiosity but habit, the instincts of someone who had spent a lifetime responding to motion.
And there he was.
Fernando Alonso did not so much enter as arrive, perfectly at ease, as if this were his living room and not a chandelier-strangled gala. The doorman hesitated to announce him, unsure if he should, and so the name arrived unspoken, carried instead in the subtle widening of eyes and the hush that moved through the room like a tide. He was dressed simply - black suit and yellow pocket square - nothing showy, nothing loud. His smile was soft, almost affectionate, as though amused by the pageantry.
Alonso reached the centre of the ballroom and stopped beneath the chandelier. He didn’t speak immediately, but when he finally did his voice carried easily, calm and conversational, but weighted with something that felt ancient.
“A fine party,” he said, almost to himself. “Though I’ve seen enough of these to know how quickly they end.”
It was the kind of remark people were supposed to laugh at - but no one did.
Max’s pulse quickened in quiet protest. He wasn’t sure why. He told himself it was just a mistimed joke, that Alonso’s words weren’t meant for him. And yet, when the older man turned and their eyes met through the crowd, all the warmth felt drained from the room.
There was no malice in that look. If anything, there was the thing Max detested most, pity. But beneath it, a strange and heavy certainty that whatever had bound them once was not yet finished.
Alonso inclined his head slightly towards the terrace, as though greeting an equal, or perhaps a student who had disappointed him. Then, with that same calm, he stepped past the guests and out into the night air.
The glass doors closed behind him with the softest sound and for a long moment, Max remained by the window, watching the reflection of the sea swallow the light, before following after the older man.
The terrace was quieter now the young rookies had left, likely to cause mischief elsewhere. From inside, the music continued, softer and diluted by the glass doors, but to Max it felt as though it was being played from another world in which he was no longer welcome. The night had taken on that sort of strange and lucid clarity which only comes just before a storm.
Alonso stood at the balustrade, hands resting lightly on the stone, gaze fixed on the horizon. The salt air moved through his hair, which had gotten too long in retirement, carrying the faint scent of rain that hadn’t yet fallen. He didn’t turn when Max approached. But he didn’t need to.
“Still hiding from your own party?” Alonso’s voice was low, unhurried. It was a voice that could cut through engine noise without raising a decibel.
Max stopped a few paces away. “You made it sound like I invited you.”
That earned the smallest smile. “You didn’t. But then again, you never did.”
The wind shifted, brushing cool against the back of Max’s neck. He can’t remember when it got so cold. He wanted to look anywhere but at the older man beside him, and yet his eyes kept being pulled there - to the calm, to the quiet certainty of someone who had seen too much to ever be impressed again.
Alonso took a slow sip from his glass. “You’ve built quite the fortress here,” he said, glancing up at the towers. “Beautiful. Cold. Immaculate. Like you.”
Max gave a short breath of laughter. One filled with not quite amusement, but not quite derision. “I like silence.”
“No,” Alonso said gently. “You like control. Silence is just the shape it takes.”
Max frowned but said nothing, and in doing so proved Alonso's point. The air between them tightened, not hostile but heavy. The starting lights were blinking and turn one would be make or break. The glow from the chandelier spilled across the terrace, catching on the edge of Alonso’s profile, turning him half real, half reflection.
“Do you ever tire of it?” Alonso asked after a moment.
“Tire of what?”
“This endless victory. The noise, the praise, the isolation that follows.”
He tilted his head, watching Max the way a teacher might watch a student struggle with a simple question. “You win, Verstappen, because you cannot do anything else. And yet, when the winning stops - ”
“It won’t,” Max interrupted, his tone steady. Not boastful, but absolute. “Not until I want it to.”
Alonso studied him, the faintest trace of sadness touching his expression. “It always stops, niño. You just don’t feel the crash until you’re already spinning out.”
The words landed with quiet precision. Max looked away, jaw tightening. He didn’t know what irritated him more - the condescension, or the fact that Alonso’s voice still carried that same calm authority that had once made him listen. Back when he was just the seventeen year old kid Toro Rosso had decided to take a chance on, and not Max Verstappen, four times World Driver Champion.
“What do you want?” Max asked finally.
“To remind you.” Alonso set his glass down on the stone ledge, the sound impossibly small. “That there are lessons you cannot outdrive. That there is always a cost to speed. You forget that even light slows when it reaches the sea.”
Max almost laughed. “Is that what this is? Another riddle?”
“Call it a warning.” Alonso’s tone softened, the edges almost kind. “The world has given you everything you asked for. Be careful it doesn’t start taking back what you didn’t offer in return.”
Max laughed. A short, humourless sound that cracked the night open. “You think you know me.”
“I know what happens to men who mistake talent for mercy.”
And that hit somewhere raw. Max’s hand tightened on the railing, the veins in his wrist standing sharp under the light. “You don’t know a damn thing about me. You left me before you could.”
Alonso’s eyes glimmered faintly, neither offended nor surprised. “I left Formula 1 because I’d already seen the ending.”
“The ending?” Max’s voice rose, a jagged edge breaking through his composure. “You talk like a priest at a funeral. There is no ending, Alonso. Not for me. I built this - ” he gestured toward the castle, toward the gold and glass and impossible symmetry of it all. “Every inch of it. Every victory, every lap, every sleepless night. You think I got here by luck? By waiting for some moral balance to correct itself?”
“No,” Alonso said quietly. “You got here because you couldn’t stop.”
Max turned on him fully now, anger flaring bright and beautiful - the kind that came from conviction, not cruelty. “And why should I? Why should anyone stop when they’re finally ahead? You all talk about humility as if it’s a prize. You say control like it’s a sin. I earned this. I haven’t asked for forgiveness because I haven't done anything wrong.”
Alonso’s expression didn’t change. His stillness was infuriating, the kind that made rage feel childish. “You confuse victory with virtue Max,” he said softly.
Max stepped closer, shadows cutting sharp across his face. “And you confuse age with wisdom.”
For the first time, something flickered in Alonso’s eyes - a faint, sorrowful anger. A sliver of who he used to be. “You really believe that the world bends only for your will.”
“It already has, old man,” Max said. “Look around you.”
“I am,” Alonso murmured, gaze sweeping over the marble, the chandeliers, the impossible perfection. “And what I see is a boy who built a cathedral to himself and mistook it for peace.”
Max’s jaw clenched, his voice lowering into something colder and more deliberate. Closer to the Mad Max the media wished him to be, than the Max he was. “If you came here to lecture me, you’ve wasted your time. I don’t need saving. Not from you, not from anyone.”
Alonso’s head tilted slightly, that faint, knowing smile returning, although this time it held no humour at all. “You don’t need saving,” he repeated. “No. I came because you are approaching a crossroads, and the road you’re choosing is the one that ends with you alone in a castle just like this.”
Max stilled.
Alonso continued, tone almost tender.
“You confuse victory with safety. Control with peace. Solitude with strength.”
“Still playing prophet?” he said, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s pathetic. You were great once. Now you stand at parties trying to sound like a warning siren.”
For a heartbeat, neither spoke.
Then Alonso exhaled, slow and steady, not in anger, not even in disappointment. It was almost tender. “Yes Max, I was great once,” he said. “And I lost everything I loved learning why.”
He turned to leave. The air rippled faintly as he passed, the candle flames on the tables bowing inward as though to him.
Max’s anger flared again, quick and bright. “You think you can scare me with old children's stories? I don’t believe in curses.”
Alonso paused in the doorway. Without looking back, he said quietly, “I hope you like the trophy Max. I think you will spend a lot of time looking at it soon.”
And then he was gone - absorbed into the golden hum of the ballroom, his figure swallowed by light and glass.
Max stood alone on the terrace, chest rising too fast. The night had gone still, unnaturally so. The sea below looked darker, its surface smooth and unbroken. Somewhere far off, thunder murmured, though the sky was clear. He tried to shake it off, to swallow the unease, but the taste of it lingered.
Inside, laughter resumed and music swelled, but the air felt heavier - the walls too close, the chandeliers burning a little too bright.
He straightened his cufflinks, forcing calm back into his movements, refusing to look toward the horizon again. Whatever Alonso had meant, it didn’t matter to him. He would simply keep winning.
He was still Max Verstappen.
He was still the best.
He still had it all.
And yet, the champagne in his hand had gone flat.
______________________
By the time the last guest departed, the castle had fallen into an uneasy quiet. The staff moved through the wreckage of celebration like ghosts - clearing glasses, gathering crumpled napkins, the final detritus of luxury. Outside, the terrace still glowed with scattered candlelight, their wicks bent low from the wind. The sea was a sheet of ink.
Max stood at the window again. The reflection met him instantly; the composed figure in the dark suit, the unreadable expression. The perfect man in the perfect castle. The image pleased him and repulsed him all at once. His father would be proud.
Behind him, someone laughed faintly - the tail end of Daniel’s voice, slipping through the last open door. Then silence. The kind that wasn’t peace but absence. The kind that pressed.
He exhaled. The night had stretched longer than he’d expected, and for the first time in his life the exhaustion wasn’t physical. It lived somewhere lower, dull and stubborn. He loosened his tie, the gesture strangely human amid all that marble.
The sky outside had clouded over, faintly luminous with the reflection of the coast. Monaco glittered in the distance, a necklace of lights curved around the sea which offered a constant reminder of Formula 1 and the history and perfection of which it commanded. He thought of Alonso’s words, ‘be careful it doesn’t start taking back what you didn’t offer,’ and felt his irritation rise again. It was ridiculous, the sort of pseudo-mystical nonsense retired men said to disguise regret. He’d even heard it from Sebastian occasionally.
He poured himself another drink. The glass trembled slightly as he set it down, though he told himself it was only the wind. The chandeliers swayed, just enough to make their light flicker, and for a brief second the entire ballroom seemed to hold its breath.
He turned, half expecting to see someone there. But there was nothing. Only the soft echo of the sea against the cliffs.
The clock above the mantel ticked once, twice - then stopped. Max didn’t notice at first, but the world had gone utterly still. Not quiet, that would be normal for his fortress above the hills, but still. The sea no longer moved, its surface had frozen into a mirror, and the air was colder now, though no storm brewed. The horizon glowed faintly silver despite the early morning hour, like light refracted through glass.
He looked down at the pool, also perfectly still, and his own reflection stared back at him, flawless and fixed. When he moved, it didn’t.
Something in his chest tightened. The unease was small but precise, like a needle rather than a knife. He straightened, forcing his breath even. It was only exhaustion. Too much champagne. The lingering weight of Alonso’s nonsense.
Inside, one of the lights flickered again. Just once, but when it steadied, the shadows had shifted. The room seemed … changed, though he couldn’t have said how. He felt it more than he saw it; the sense of something vast folding inward, the world drawing its first quiet breath before the long exhale of consequence.
He set his glass down, left the terrace, and closed the doors behind him.
In the garden below, the wind moved through the palms once, then stopped. The sea held its silence.
And far away, beneath the stone foundations of the château, something ancient and unseen turned its face toward him.
Max did not feel it. He only felt the stillness and mistook it, as he always had, for control.
Chapter 2: Coffee, Cars & a Curse (Yeah It's Still Alpine's Fault)
Notes:
A quick recap of the previous chapter (inspired by additiv , who was inspired by WinterLantern ) :
Fernando: You’ve built yourself a fortress.
Max: It’s a château.
Fernando: I didn’t mean the building Max...-----------------
Fernando: The world won’t love you forever.
Max: So??? I literally don’t even like myself???
Fernando: Aaaand there’s the problem !!-----------------
Fernando: I hope you like the trophy.
Max: Which one?
Fernando: The one that’s about to start breathing :))))))))))
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Charles Leclerc's morning always began with noise.
Not music, but the sound of wrenches against metal and the hiss of air compressors, the restless heartbeat of a workshop coming to life. The air inside smelled of engine oil and salt, and through the open shutters the sunlight trembled on the bonnet of a half-finished Alfa.
Charles wiped his hands on a rag that was already beyond saving, a motion which was more habit, than necessity. He worked in silence for a while, with the sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbow and hair sticking to the back of his neck in the heat, until Pierre straightened from under the lifted hood of his latest obsession - a battered but beautiful 1975 Alpine A110 -his hair sticking up and grin wide enough to rival the Riviera sun.
“You owe me coffee,” he announced.
Charles glanced over, one eyebrow raised. “Do I?”
“For doubting genius. She runs again.” Pierre gave the car an affectionate stroke, as if it might purr in response. “You said it couldn’t be done.”
“No Calamar, I said you couldn’t do it.”
Pierre gasped, hand to heart. “Blasphemy.”
Charles smirked, rolling a socket wrench between his fingers. “I was half right.”
Pierre barked a laugh and twisted the radio dial until a grainy Italian ballad found its way through the static. The sound filled the narrow garage, weaving between the scent of oil and sun-warmed soap. Outside, the street shimmered in the noon light, and a Vespa buzzed past.
“Monaco at its most glamorous,” Pierre said, gesturing at the cracked tiles and dripping gutter. “We really live amongst kings.”
“Don’t insult her,” Charles replied, nodding toward the street. “She has character.”
“She has mould.”
“Same thing, non?” Charles said, tightening a bolt with exaggerated care. “You just have to call it vintage.”
The bell above the door gave a tired ring - once, then again, as though protesting the enthusiasm of whoever was on the other side.
“Mes amiiiiis!”
The voice - bright, unrestrained and clearly lacking a French accent - was unmistakable.
Alex appeared in the doorway like a beam of sunlight that had wandered into the wrong building. His grin was wide and hopelessly infectious.
“Wow,” he said, taking in the chaos of the workshop. “So this is where cars go to die.”
Carlos followed, calm where Alex was colour. Even in casually rolled linen and polished loafers, he radiated the precision he was known for in the racing world - tan skin, crisp sleeves, cologne and confidence. The pair of them looked violently out of place in the mechanic’s garage, far too glossy and far too golden.
“We were just in the neighbourhood,” Carlos said, his accent carrying that familiar lilt that made everything sound like a secret. His eyes found Charles instantly, the smile that followed lingering a little too long.
Pierre didn’t look up from beneath the Alpine’s hood. “The neighbourhood being the other side of town?”
“Details,” Alex said cheerfully, waving a grease-stained paper bag like a peace offering. “We come bearing gifts. Still warm, too.”
Pierre squinted. “Bribes?”
“Pastries,” Alex corrected, already unwrapping one. “Well. Pastries and friendship, but mostly pastries.” He took a bite, scattering flakes across his shirt. “Ignore that.”
Charles finally looked up, wiping his hands on his rag. “You two are a long way from Monte Carlo,” he said, the faintest hint of amusement in his voice.
“Field research,” Alex replied with mock seriousness. “Carlos said I needed to touch grass. This counts.”
Charles straightened from where he’d been tightening a bolt with a faint smile tugging at his mouth, he had always liked Alex. “You two really are out of place here.”
“Which is exactly why we came,” Alex said. “Exposure therapy.”
Carlos, meanwhile, had drifted closer to the Alfa, eyes lingering on the car with admiration that quickly turned to something more human. “You still work too much,” he murmured, his voice soft, threaded with that easy confidence that came naturally to him. “Always this… focus.”
He leaned closer, his shoulder brushing Charles’s, a smile ghosting across his lips. “You could work in F1 with me, you know. I'd let you race me on weekends, you’ve always had the instinct. Imagine it - you and me, side by side at Monaco's Box 98. Maybe I'd even let you win.”
Charles let out a quiet laugh. “You’d never let anyone win.”
Carlos tilted his head, feigning thought. “Maybe not anyone.”
From the other side of the room, Alex spoke through a mouthful of pastry. “Careful, mate - that sounded dangerously sincere. Don’t go ruining your reputation as a smooth criminal.”
Carlos rolled his eyes but the faintest glimmer of laughter passed through them. “Dinner,” he said, turning his attention back to Charles. “Tonight, Pavyllon Monte-Carlo. I’ve already reserved a table.”
Pierre straightened, finally looking over. “Ah, so this was a recruitment mission then. You are stealing my mechanic.”
“Borrowing,” Alex said quickly. “Strictly part-time. For morale.”
“Dinner,” Carlos repeated, unbothered. “Eight o’clock. Good wine, better company. I’ll save you a seat beside me. It’ll be fun”
Alex raised what remained of his croissant. “I second that. Worst case, you get free food and a show. Carlos loves performingm thinks he’s subtle, he isn’t.”
Pierre chuckled. “You two never change.”
“Consistency,” Alex said. “It’s our only virtue.”
Carlos turned back to Charles, eyes glinting. “Don’t keep me waiting, cariño.” he said, tone dropping to something quiet, coaxing.
With that, they left - Alex still joking, Carlos still shining - the bell above the door sighing one last weary note as it swung shut. The silence that followed was almost peaceful, the kind that hummed at the edges.
Pierre exhaled a laugh. “You’ve got strange friends. That one flirts like it’s his job.”
Charles smiled faintly, returning to the Alfa. “They mean well,” he said. “Mostly.”
With that, the calm settled again, familiar and easy. The smell of coffee and pastry faded, replaced once more by the scent of oil and salt. They worked in a companionable quiet after that. Every so often Pierre muttered about invoices or suppliers and Charles responded with a murmur that might have been agreement. He was somewhere else, mind adrift in the rhythm of repetition.
The radio slipped into a news bulletin;
— four years since the unexplained disappearance of the Dutch national, whose absence still —
Pierre turned the dial before the sentence could finish. “Not that again,” he said, too quickly. “Every year it’s the same nonsense. Aliens. Secret island. Cult.”
Charles shrugged. “People like mysteries.”
“They like headlines.” Pierre wiped his hands, then softened. “Coffee?”
Charles nodded. “Black.”
Pierre disappeared into the small adjoining room that passed for a kitchen. Charles leaned back against the workbench, stretching his shoulders. The words from the radio lingered for a moment, four years since…, and then faded. Charles remembered him as a racer, everyone else thought he was crazy. Yet, when he tried to picture the man he and Pierre would watch on Sundays, the one who never smiled unless he was winning, it felt distant, like remembering a dream you weren’t sure was yours.
Pierre returned, two mugs in hand. “To small victories,” he said.
Charles raised his mug. “To keeping the lights on.”
“Sexy as always.” Perre laughed manically, before he set his cup down and nodded toward the Alpine. “She’s ready for delivery. Cannes tomorrow. The client’s paying what we asked.”
“Finally.”
“Come with me,” Pierre said. “A day off. Driving the coast. We’ll be back before night.”
Charles hesitated. The invitation was tempting, the thought of open roads and sunlight over the hills, but he shook his head. “You’ll drive faster without me.”
Pierre rolled his eyes. “Coward.”
“Practical,” Charles corrected. “Someone has to stay and man the phones.”
“What phones? The only people who call us are your mother and that old man with the Renault.”
“Then I’ll keep them company.”
Pierre snorted, but he was smiling. “You’ll regret it when I come back with a tan.”
Charles looked toward the sea again, squinting against the brightness. For a second he thought he saw the faint outline of something on the other side of the bay - not a ship exactly, but a shape that caught the light wrong. He blinked and it was gone, just haze.
He shook it off, finishing his coffee and the day moved on. The noise returned…engines, chatter, the city breathing. And somewhere far up the coast, a cursed château waited as silent as ever, its windows catching the same sunlight that warmed the oil on Charles’s hands.
______________________
The next morning unfurled over Monaco like a painter's brushstroke, the sun ascending with a deliberate grace that bathed the narrow streets in a luminous glow.
In the garage, Charles was already halfway through his first cup of coffee when his phone buzzed across the workbench.
Carlos: you missed dinner again.
Alex: he’s lying, it wasn’t dinner it was chaoooossss
Carlos: chaos can have courses, no?
Alex: Carlos flirted and the waiter cried lol
Alex: we needed you here to distract him
Charles smiled despite himself and thumbed out a reply.
Charles: Sorry, I was working
Three dots appeared, disappeared, reappeared.
Carlos: you need a life, mon ami.
Alex: we’re staging an intervention soon….with breadsticks !!!!!!!
He set the phone down, still smiling faintly. Outside, a delivery truck rattled past, the sound bright and ordinary, and for a moment it almost felt like enough, the grease, the sun, the jokes that arrived whether he answered or not.
Pierre was already immersed in the ritual of preparation, his figure silhouetted against the open shutters where the sea' horizon stretched infinitely. The Alpine stood as the centerpiece, its azure bodywork gleaming under the fluorescent lights, curves sleek and timeless, evoking the spirit of races long past. The car seemed almost alive, its panels reflecting the morning as if breathing in anticipation of the journey ahead. Charles approached, his footsteps echoing softly on the cracked concrete floor, a thermos of steaming coffee in hand. A ritual offering in their shared domain.
"You're up early," Pierre noted, his voice resonant with the warmth of camaraderie, though muffled slightly as he secured a strap around the toolkit nestled in the trunk. His hands, marked by the scars and calluses of countless battles with machinery, moved with the precision of a surgeon, each adjustment a testament to his intimate knowledge of the vehicle's soul.
"Couldn't sleep," Charles confessed, handing over the thermos. "Kept dreaming of transmissions slipping and leaks that wouldn't seal. The usual haunts."
Pierre straightened, accepting the coffee with a grin that illuminated his features, his eyes sparkling. "The mechanic's curse, eh? Well, rest easy - this one's a fighter. She's tuned to perfection, ready to devour the road to Cannes."
"You sure the brakes are fine Pear?" Charles inquired, his tone laced with a subtle undercurrent of concern that he masked with casualness. He knelt beside the front wheel, his fingers tracing the contours of the calipers, feeling for any imperfection in the metal's surface. The touch was cool and reassuring, a tactile affirmation of reliability in a world where machinery could betray at any moment.
Pierre's laughter erupted, a robust sound that reverberated off the garage walls like sunlight fracturing on ocean waves. "Better than your nerves, Calamar. I've tested them three times over. She'd halt on a euro coin even if it were tumbling down the Monte Carlo hairpin."
Charles rose, dusting his hands on his jeans, as Pierre slid into the driver's seat. The key turned in the ignition, and the engine stirred to life with a low purr that deepened into a resonant growl, vibrations coursing through the floor and ascending into Charles's very bones. It was the anthem of departure, a melody of freedom.
"Call me when you get there," Charles said, leaning against the doorframe, his voice steady yet his gaze lingering a moment too long on the distant horizon where the sea met the sky in an eternal embrace.
Pierre nodded, revving the engine once more for dramatic effect, the sound echoing like a challenge to the waking city. "Will do. And try not to turn the place upside down while I'm gone. We need paying customers, not a demolition site."
And with that, he eased the Alpine forward as Charles remained rooted in place, watching the car's form diminish against the vibrant tapestry of Monaco awakening. The taillights flared crimson one final time, a poignant farewell wink, before the vehicle vanished around the bend, swallowed by the city's labyrinthine veins.
Charles immersed himself in the day's labors, wiping down the workbench, and invoices fluttering under his hands, numbers and names blurring into a narrative of survival. Their small business teetering on the edge of solvency, buoyed by passion more than profit. Charles refused to let Carlos help, it wasn’t in his nature to cede control like that. .
His mind wandered to Pierre's journey, envisioning the Alpine carving graceful arcs along the Grande Corniche, the road twisting like a serpent along the cliffs - the Mediterranean flashing intermittently on one side in brilliant blue, sheer rock faces rising on the other, stoic in their nature. He pictured the wind rushing through open windows, carrying fragrances of wild thyme and pine, the engine's harmonious song blending with the symphony of crashing waves far below. It was a romantic notion, this escape, a brief respite from the garage's confines.
The afternoon waned gradually, the light softening into amber hues that painted the walls in nostalgic tones, evoking evenings spent in companionable silence with Pierre. Pierre, who would reach Cannes soon and send a triumphant text recounting the client’s awe, perhaps accompanied by a snapshot of the Alpine resplendent in its new home, sunlight glinting off its hood like a crown.
Yet, as shadows elongated across the floor, a subtle shift permeated the atmosphere.
Charles glanced at the clock, its hands marching inexorably forward, and felt a sharp pang, like the prick of a concealed thorn amid a bouquet. He shook it off, blaming the subtle weight of solitude, he never did enjoy being alone, attributing it to growing up with two brothers. Charles tried to think positivly, his mind drifting to future plans. Perhaps after this delivery, they could take on a bigger project, a classic Ferrari or a vintage Porsche. The client in Cannes had connections and maybe Pierre was right, this could be the break they needed.
By evening, the sun had dipped below the horizon and the air had cooled perceptibly. Charles glanced at his phone for what felt like the hundredth time, the screen’s cold glow a stark contrast to the warming dimness enveloping the space. The Alpine should have graced the client’s driveway in Cannes hours ago. The delivery window had been midday, a precise slot now long expired, leaving only silence in its wake.
He had initiated contact at noon with a text. “Made it yet?”, a simple probe into the void.
No reply materialised.
At three, another. “Everything good?” , concern veiled in brevity.
Still, the screen remained inert.
At five, Charles' call rang through to voicemail, Pierre’s voice emerging cheerful and distant - an echo from a time when worry was absent, now taunting in its nonchalance.
Charles paced the garage floor, the space, once a vibrant sanctuary of clanging tools and shared laughter, now felt expansive and hollow. He pulled up Find My iPhone, the map blooming on the display, Pierre’s location pin anchored stubbornly in the inland hills, deviated from the coastal trajectory he ought to have pursued.
The coordinates throbbed faintly, a virtual pulse ridiculing his anxiety. Dead signal, he justified internally, like an incantation against the surging tide of apprehension. Bad reception in those hills was common enough, and yet as the minutes elongated into hours, the rationale frayed like aged wiring exposed to the elements. He refreshed the app compulsively, it changed nothing.
As night deepened its hold, unease blossomed into full-fledged anxiety. He envisioned dire tableaux; a mechanical failure, a roadside stranded in darkness, a curve misjudged, the car skewed in precarious repose. But Pierre was resourceful, a master improviser, he would have found a way to communicate if peril truly loomed.
Nevertheless, the silence endured and Charles found himself transfixed by the phone, imploring it to shatter the quiet with a reassuring chime, to dispel the shadows with light.
Recollections surfaced unbidden: Pierre’s enthusiasm for a stubborn restoration, the light in his eyes when an engine roared to life, their shared dreams of expanding the garage into something grander, a haven for vintage souls. Their friendship was an anchor, a constant amid the flux of seasons and fortunes.
Now that anchor trembled, hairline cracks spreading through its certainty.
He considered calling Carlos or Alex, if only to share the worry, but pride restrained him, it was probably nothing. Yet the clock mocked him, its hands creeping forward, the silence growing deafening.
Upstairs, the apartment was small and cluttered with memory - photos of races watched together, tools abandoned after lazy evenings. He tried distracting himself with a book but the words blurred on the page, and his mind continued to snap back to the map. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Still the same pin, pulsing mockingly.
In the stillness, he replayed their morning banter - Pierre’s laugh echoing in memory. “Better than your nerves,” he had said. Now the words haunted, a reminder of the fragility of plans. The night wore on, the delay a void devouring light, leaving only darkness.
Around one, Charles surrendered to wakefulness and descended to the garage, sat hunched over his phone, the map still stubbornly displaying its damning pin. The air hung heavy, thick with the mingled scents of oil and salt, remnants of the day now overpowered by dread.
Then, the phone erupted, a single ring cleaving the silence. Pierre’s name flashed across the screen, accompanied by a photograph from last summer’s beach outing; a captured instant of joy that now seemed almost cruel in its serenity. Charles seized the device, his heart thundering.
“Pierre? Where are you? Are you alright?”
The connection severed abruptly with a decisive click that left only the resonance of his query hanging in the vacant air. He stared at the screen, breath suspended, before redialling with quivering fingers. Voicemail again - Pierre’s cheerful recording now a merciless reprise.
Moments later, a notification pulsed across the display.
New voicemail.
The audio began with a crackle, Pierre’s voice emerging distorted and warped, as though transmitted through water or crushed metal.
“ - harles, it’s fine. Just - took a wrong - road - ”
A surge of static devoured the words, a hiss that drowned coherence, leaving only fragments behind.
“ - lights - wrong - not - ”
Then, silence. Sharp and clean as a blade, as final as a door slamming in a storm.
Charles replayed the message, volume pushed to its limits, the distortion filling the garage with an otherworldly vibration. Pierre’s voice carried an indefinable quality like urgency masked as reassurance.
He glanced at the timestamp: 3:17 a.m.
Two hours into the future.
A malfunction, of course. Lagging servers, a time-zone glitch, a digital misfire. And yet his skin prickled, whispering another explanation that defied logic. From the corner, the radio stirred, its low hum blooming into static, echoing the voicemail’s corruption as if commiserating. Charles rose, pacing the cold floor in his socks, the message looping in his mind, each replay tightening its grip.
What lights? he wondered.
Wrong how? Not what? Not who?
It was Pierre’s voice, unmistakably - yet altered, as if shaped by a place where sound obeyed alien laws. He played it again. And again. Each listen revealed new unease - the way “fine” stretched unnaturally long, the snap after “road,” the whisper of “lights - wrong.” It was as though Pierre struggled, speaking through interference or fear.
Charles’s mind raced; a storm disrupting signals? A crash in the hills?
Something worse? Something human? The scenarios spiralled.
For a moment, he considered calling the authorities. But what would he say? A late delivery and a strange voicemail? They would laugh. Instead, he replayed the sound, trying to filter the noise in his head, chasing meaning through static.
Night deepened. The city slept. His eyes burned from the screen’s pale glow as the clock crept toward 3:17. He watched the minute hand pass the mark, half dreading, half yearning for something to occur, but nothing did. Relief mixed with disappointment.
By the time dawn hinted faintly at the horizon, the message had settled in him like a command. The fear no longer paralysed but compelled.
He would drive.
The phone rested before him, screen dim but alive with that single persistent image - Pierre’s location pin, still pulsing faintly in the hills. A flicker of light in a digital wilderness.
“Two hours,” he whispered to no one, his voice steady in the hush. “I’ll drive two hours. Find him. Then we’ll laugh - bad signal, flat tire, some ridiculous detour.”
The words were anchors, something to cling to against the rising tide of unease as he stood, before the raio hissed again, a voice nearly forming his name.
He froze, then exhaled, shaking it off. "Be reasonable," he told himself, "it’s nothing but air and static."
He locked the door behind him, slid into the Fiat, and turned the key as the engine rumbled to life with comforting familiarity.
The choice was made. The line crossed.
Affection and fear braided into one unshakable instinct - GO. He couldn’t sit still while the unknown mocked him from the hills, and action was the only antidote to terror.
The Fiat’s cabin was a small cocoon of familiarity. The seats worn to fit his frame and the dash humming gently in the dark. He adjusted the mirrors and tightened his grip on the wheel. The journey began with the intimacy of Monaco’s streets and the narrow veins of light winding through the sleeping city. The Fiat moved quietly, its headlights cutting clean paths through the darkness, glancing off shuttered storefronts and salt-streaked windows.
Soon, the glow of lampposts thinned, the last traces of civilisation dissolving behind him. The sky widened, the night deepened and the sound of the engine became his heartbeat - constant, mechanical, alive. The GPS stuttered, recalibrating in fruitless circles before freezing entirely, Pierre’s pin guided him instead, a pulsing beacon leading him from the motorway onto a narrower, hidden road that twisted between the hills. The trees closed in, their dark silhouettes crowding the edges of the headlights like silent witnesses.
The air changed. Pine and damp earth replaced the sea’s brine, the world growing heavier, quieter. His phone signal wavered and vanished, yet still he drove.
And then he saw it - the château.
It appeared as if summoned, its silhouette unfurling from the mist with impossible suddenness: turrets piercing the low clouds, windows faintly aglow, the suggestion of stone walls vast and ancient. Its presence was magnetic - regal but wrong somehow, as though it had been waiting for him. Past the gate, the Alpine sat in the courtyard, its blue body bathed in gold from the château’s lanterns. Parked neatly, perfectly still.
Charles cut the engine and stepped out, his breath catching as he took in the building’s enormity. It felt alive, watching.
He crossed the courtyard slowly and paused at the broad stone steps leading to the terrace. A soft breeze swept through the bougainvillea, carrying with it the faintest melody. No more than a hum, almost imagined.
The doors towered above him, carved oak and black iron intertwined, their artistry worn but unbowed. He raised a hand, hesitated, and murmured under his breath, “sésame, ouvre-toi.” and the knock that followed landed against the chill of the surface, colder than it should have been.
Something inside shifted and then a hinge stirred, slow and deliberate, and one of the great doors yielded soundlessly inward.
Charles froze on the threshold, heart steady but high. Behind him, the Alpine gleamed faintly through mist; ahead, the château breathed, its corridors spilling a trembling light across the stones.
He stepped forward.
The door groaned shut behind him, sealing the night out.
Silence returned.
Then, from somewhere deep within the halls, a sound - soft, measured, deliberate.
A piano?
Charles stepped further inside, and the air shifted. The cold from the terrace vanished, replaced by a still warmth that smelled faintly of polish and something sweet, like lavender caught in dust. The staircase curved upward in perfect symmetry, banisters gleaming as light spilled from a chandelier above, its crystals trembling as if disturbed by breath. Charles hesitated, pulse steady but high, then moved toward the corridor where the faint piano note had sounded.
The door was ajar, the handle warm when he touched it. Inside, a ballroom waited with pale marble floors and furniture draped in sheets. Further in, he saw it against the far wall, the piano, with It's lid stood open. One key was pressed down, low and imperfect, still humming faintly. Charles frowned.
“Pierre?” The word came out smaller than he intended. Nothing answered.
He crossed the room, tracing his fingers over the piano’s surface. Dust clung to his skin. The key lifted with a small click, and for a heartbeat, silence. Then -
The piano stool jolted.
Charles froze. The stool wobbled once, then twice, before settling as if… clearing its throat. An unmistakably deliberate soft creak followed. Charles took a careful step back as the air in the room changed again, the way it does when someone else enters.
Then came another sound, not from the stool this time, but from within the piano itself. A low vibration, half-melodic and half-breathing. The instrument shivered as if exhaling, its lid trembling just slightly before falling still again.
Charles’s chest tightened and he didn't dare move. His reflection in the piano’s glossy surface blurred, shifting and for a split second there were two figures instead of one, before the piano gave a sigh, yes, a sigh, deep and exasperated, the sort of sound made by someone waking up to find a stranger in their living room. The stool wobbled again, as if bouncing nervously on its legs.
“Right,” Charles murmured, barely breathing the word. “That’s… new.”
He took another step back, but the stool followed, scraping lightly across the floor as if trying to keep up. The piano hummed again, a single note low and resonant, as if exasperated. The chandelier above stilled, the air settled, and the silence lasted just long enough for Charles to reassure himself he was sane.
Then, a voice came from the direction of the stool.
“Alright, that’s enough horror movie nonsense,” it said cheerfully. “He’s terrified. You’re terrifying Osc, it’s making me look bad.”
Charles blinked. “Pardon?”
The stool gave a little bounce, wood creaking indignantly. “Don’t ‘pardon’ me, mate, you’re the one who barged in uninvited.” The voice was young, British, and dangerously pleased with itself. “And for the record, I was having a nap.”
“Lando,” another voice said, this one lower, calm, and already weary, “you were not napping. You hardly have eyelids.”
The piano gave a single elegant ping, like an eye roll in sound form.
“Oh, here we go,” the stool, Lando, apparently, muttered. “Mr. Perfect Pitch himself.”
The piano replied smoothly, “Honestly, do you ever think before you speak, or do words just fall out of you by accident?”
Charles stood frozen between them, trying very hard to process the fact that he was, apparently, being scolded by furniture.
“I…” He gestured helplessly toward the door. “I was looking for someone. My friend. Pierre - ”
“Pierre?” Lando interrupted, as though the name were familiar. “Tall, loud, smells vaguely like motor oil and hair gel?”
Charles blinked. “Yes?”
Oscar gave a resigned groan. “He’s alive,” he said quickly, before Charles could panic. “Mostly. He wandered in yesterday and Max found him before - ”
“Oi!” Lando cut in. “We don’t do the scary reveal straightaway! Ease him into it. Atmosphere, tension, narrative pacing, Oscar.”
“I’m not building tension you buffoon," Oscar snapped. “I’m warning him.”
Lando swivelled slightly toward Charles, all wooden legs and misplaced confidence. “What he means to say is, Pierre’s fine. Bit shaken, bit curse-adjacent, but fine.”
“Curse-adjacent?” Charles repeated, feeling his pulse climb.
Lando hesitated, then shrugged with what might have been an attempt at nonchalance if he weren’t, in fact, a piece of furniture. “You know. Castle things.”
Oscar sighed. “He means the Beast.”
The word settled in the air like a dropped coin. Even the chandelier above flickered, as though even it disapproved of the term.
Charles frowned. “The what?”
“The Beast,” Oscar said again, quieter this time. “The master of the château. You’d… better not let him find you wandering.”
Lando wobbled on two legs, muttering, “Yeah, or do, depends what mood he’s in. Sometimes he’s grumpy, sometimes he’s ... actually, no, he’s always grumpy tbh. But occasionally he’s poetically grumpy, which is almost worse ! ”
“He’s not poetic,” Oscar said dryly. “He broods.”
“He broods musically, Oscar. That’s practically poetry.”
Charles’s mind, which had been doing its best to keep up, gave up entirely. “Are you telling me there’s an actual … what? Monster?”
“Define monster,” Lando said, helpfully unhelpful. “If you mean ‘giant angry man with commitment issues,’ then yes. Big scary monster. Furry. Emotional damage deluxe.”
Oscar made a disapproving sound from somewhere deep within his strings. “He’s not a monster. He’s - ”
“ - cursed,” Lando finished. “And honestly? Deserved it.”
“Lando.”
“Well, he did! You can’t go around being all I am speed, I am dominance, behold my perfectly symmetrical castle and not expect cosmic consequences. I said that at the time, didn’t I, Oscar?”
“You said, and I quote, ‘This place could use a disco ball.’”
“Same thing, really.”
Charles stared at them, utterly lost, caught between terror and disbelief. “You’re both insane.”
“That’s rude,” Lando said. “True, but rude.”
Oscar gave a long, patient sigh. “You shouldn’t be here. The curse affects anyone who stays too long. The château… rearranges itself. People forget who they are. Objects remember too much. You need to leave before - ”
“ - before Max sees you,” Lando supplied brightly. “He doesn’t do visitors... Or conversation... Or feelings... Or - ”
Oscar groaned. “Can you not for once?”
“What?” Lando protested. “If the Beast finds him, he’ll lose his head and I’ll lose my seat. Literally.”
“Charles,” Oscar said firmly, ignoring Lando. “If you came for Pierre, he’s alive but the way back isn’t safe. The gates close after dark so you’ll need to wait until morning.”
Charles frowned. “Then I’ll find him myself.”
Lando gasped like a melodramatic Victorian aunt. “Find him yourself? In this castle? Mate, it’s like Ikea built by ghosts. You’ll turn a corner and end up in a broom closet debating philosophy with a coat rack.”
“That only happened once,” Oscar muttered.
“Twice,” Lando corrected cheerfully. “And the coat rack won both times.”
Charles pinched the bridge of his nose. “I appreciate the warning, truly, but I can’t just leave him.”
Oscar regarded him quietly, a soft hum resonating through the air like a sigh. “Then be careful where you tread, the château listens.”
“Yeah,” Lando added. “And it’s kinda judgy. Don’t look at the portraits too long, either, they gossip. Also, if you see a candelabra flirting with a clock, just… don’t ask.”
Charles blinked. “Why would I - ?”
“Trust me,” Lando said solemnly. “You don’t want to know.”
A brief, heavy silence followed, broken only by the faint ticking of a distant clock. Then, with a deep inhale, Charles straightened. “Ok, tell me where to start.”
Lando exchanged a look, or what might’ve been one, with Oscar. “Brave, isn’t he?” he said, awed. “Or stupid. Hard to tell.”
“Both,” Oscar said. “Down the hall, near the west wing. That’s where Pierre last was before… everything.”
Charles nodded, already turning for the door.
“Hey!” Lando called after him. “If you see the Beast, tell him I said hi!”
Oscar made a horrified noise. “Do not tell him that!”
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll know it was you, and I’m the one who’ll have to tune his temper.”
Lando snorted, unrepentant. “You love it.”
Oscar’s keys shivered like a warning. “I really don’t.”
Charles glanced back once. The piano gleamed softly in the candlelight as the stool gave a cheeky little wiggle.
“Good luck,” Lando said with a grin in his voice. “You’re gonna need it.”
And with that, Charles stepped out into the hall, the warmth of the salon fading behind him, leaving only the faint echo of laughter and the quiet hum of the castle, alive and listening.
______________________
The corridor narrowed as Charles went deeper into the château. Somewhere far above, the faint hum of the piano still carried, a heartbeat through the marble.
He didn’t realise how far he’d gone until he noticed the floor beneath him had changed from marble to flagstone, the edges uneven and cold under his boots. The hall opened into a long gallery. Windows stretched tall and arched, their glass clouded with age. Moonlight filtered through, silvering everything.
And there, a voice.
“Charles?”
He stopped dead. It came from the far end, low and incredulous, like someone saying a name they hadn’t dared to hope for.
“Pierre?”
The answer was a sharp intake of breath, then the sound of hurried footsteps. When he appeared from the shadow of an archway, Charles’s chest unclenched so fast it almost hurt. Pierre looked wild - his curls tangled, clothes rumpled, eyes too wide - but alive.
“Mon dieu,” Charles exhaled, and then Pierre was running, arms thrown around him so tightly that the candle nearly went out.
“I thought … I didn’t know if … ” Pierre’s voice cracked somewhere between laughter and tears. “You idiot! What are you doing here?”
Charles, too relieved to manage dignity, only clutched him harder. “Looking for you, obviously! You left without saying a word!”
Pierre drew back just far enough to study him, disbelief all over his face. “And you followed me here? Charles, do you have any idea what - ” He gestured wildly toward the corridor, toward everything. “This place is cursed!”
“Yes, I gathered that,” Charles said dryly. “The talking furniture was very convincing.”
Pierre blinked. “The what?”
“The grand piano, and the stool. Oscar and Lando.”
Pierre stared for a moment, then groaned. “Of course you’ve gone insane Charles.”
“They were quite polite,” Charles protested. “Well. Oscar was. Lando less so.”
Pierre rolled his eyes heavenward. “You think everyone is polite. Carlos, Alex and now even the furniture.”
Charles frowned. “Non? You did not talk to them?”
Pierre gave Charles a confused look, “Never mind that. Listen, you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have come at all.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you Pear,” Charles said simply.
That stopped Pierre short. For a heartbeat he just looked at him, the way he did when Charles said something too sincere for his own good. Then he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Always the romantic. One day that heart of yours will get you killed.”
“Probably,” Charles said, smiling faintly. “But not today.”
Pierre snorted despite himself. “You always say that.”
Silence stretched for a moment, soft and heavy with relief. Then Pierre’s expression changed, the humour dimming, replaced by something sharper. “You need to leave before he finds you.”
Charles’s stomach dropped. “He?”
Pierre glanced toward the windows as if expecting the night to answer. “The Beast.”
Charles waited for him to laugh. He didn’t.
“He’s not … I don’t know what he is,” Pierre went on. “But he’s strong, and angry, and the castle listens to him and moves when he wants it to. I tried to find a way out this morning, and the corridor looped back on itself. Like he wanted to keep me here.”
“But how - ” Charles began.
“I don’t know,” Pierre said, the words tumbling out fast. “And there’s no pattern to his moods. Sometimes he’s quiet. Sometimes - ” He broke off, shaking his head. “You don’t want to see him angry. I heard him through the walls.”
Charles hesitated. “And yet you’re still alive.”
Pierre’s lips twisted. “Because I’m useful. You, on the other hand - ”
“I’m charming. And handsome non?” Charles offered.
Pierre groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “For once in your life, could you not flirt with death?”
Charles arched a brow. “I don’t know, I think it quite likes me.”
“Charles.”
“Pierre.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, before both exhaled, identical and exasperated.
Pierre finally gave a half-laugh. “I forgot how impossible you are.”
“And I forgot how dramatic you get when you haven’t had enough coffee.”
Pierre swatted his arm. “I’m serious. We need to get you out of this place and back to Monaco.”
He turned, leading Charles through a smaller door hidden behind a curtain. The passage beyond was narrow and lined with old tools, the smell of metal and oil faint in the air. It reminded Charles suddenly of their workshop back home - the one with the cracked skylight and the sea wind that carried the scent of salt and petrol.
“What happens when he finds out I’m here?”
Pierre hesitated too long to be reassuring. “Let’s hope he doesn’t.”
Something thudded in the distance then, low and resonant, like a door closing somewhere deep in the castle. Both of them froze as the air shifted, thickening as though the very walls had taken a breath.
Pierre’s eyes went wide. “Nevermind, he’s awake.”
“How can you tell?” Charles whispered.
Pierre didn’t answer. He just grabbed Charles’s arm, dragging him toward the far end of the hallway.
“Pierre…”
“What?”
“I’m really glad you’re alive.”
Pierre’s features softened for the first time since they’d met. “You too, mon frère.” He smiled faintly. “Though if we die because of your hero complex, I’m haunting you.”
Charles grinned, too tired to point out that they’d both be dead. “Deal.”
For a while they sat in quiet, the kind that didn’t weigh but steadied. The castle above them groaned, stretching as though waking.
Then, somewhere far down the corridor, came a sound that wasn’t the wind but heavy and deliberate footsteps.
Pierre went still. “He’s not supposed to - ”
The steps drew closer, steady and unhurried, each one echoing through stone and air. The light in the hallway dimmed, as though trying to hide.
Charles’s pulse hammered. “Pierre,” he whispered. “If that’s him - ”
Pierre shook his head once, eyes wide, voice barely audible. “Don’t move.”
The footsteps stopped just beyond the door and for one long moment, nothing moved, not even the dust.
Then a shadow stretched across the stable door, vast, broad-shouldered, and unmistakably human and not.
Pierre’s grip tightened and Charles felt his throat go dry. The air was thick with the scent of smoke and fur and something darker, something that hummed like restrained fury.
The Beast had found them.
Cold rushed in, raw and sharp, and smelling of pine and steel. The candle flame snapped out and for a heartbeat, everything was dark. Then a shape filled the doorway, too large, too still. Pierre’s breath hitched beside him. Charles didn’t move.
The figure stepped into the light.
He was human, but only just. Broad shoulders and strong arms, his hair, dirty-blond and too long, fell around his jaw in uneven strands. And his eyes, blue so fierce they looked almost unnatural, catching the faint glint of the dying candle.
The Beast.
Pierre made a sound, small and involuntary and the man’s gaze snapped to it, sharp enough to cut.
“What,” he said, the single word was low and growled, not spoken. It came from somewhere deeper than his throat, a sound made for silence to obey. “Are you doing in my house?”
Charles could feel Pierre trembling and so he stepped forward before he could stop himself.
“Looking for him,” he said, voice steady.
The Beast turned that gaze on him, and the world shrank to blue and breath. “You broke into my gates.”
“You locked my friend inside them.”
The air thickened. The castle itself seemed to listen.
The Beast took a step forward, the boards groaning beneath him. “You think this is a place you can just walk into?”
Charles’s pulse thundered in his chest but his expression didn’t change. “I didn’t see a sign saying otherwise.”
The man’s jaw tightened, a twitch, a muscle jumping like the start of a snarl. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I know exactly what I’ve done,” Charles said quietly. “I've found him.”
The Beast’s nostrils flared, the faintest flash of teeth under his breath. “You should be on your knees begging I let you leave alive.”
Pierre made a strangled noise. “Please, he didn’t mean - ”
But Charles cut him off, still calm, still impossibly steady. “If you wanted me dead, you’d have done it already.”
That stilled him. For the first time, something flickered behind those eyes, not soft and definitley not kind, but startled, as if no one had ever spoken to him like that before.
Charles took another step forward. “He’s done nothing wrong. If you mean to punish someone, punish me.”
The Beast’s head tilted, the motion almost animal. “You offer yourself in his place?”
“Yes.”
The silence that followed burned, as the Beast stared at Charles as though he were some impossible creature standing there. Fragile, foolish, defiant.
When he spoke again, it was almost a hiss. “You think you understand sacrifice?”
“No,” Charles said softly. “But I understand loyalty.”
The words landed like stones dropped into deep water, soft but heavy enough to reach the bottom.
The Beast exhaled through his nose, a sound half human and half threat. His next words were quieter, but sharper. “You’re not afraid of me.”
“No.”
“You should be.”
“Would it change anything if I were?”
The sound he made wasn’t laughter but closer to disbelief, a rough, low noise that came from somewhere behind his teeth. “You mock me?”
“I speak plainly.”
He moved then, fast, too fast for his size. One moment he was across the room, the next his hand shot out, catching the back of the wooden door and slamming it shut so hard the walls shook. Pierre yelped and stumbled backward, but Charles didn’t move. His heartbeat stuttered once but he met the man’s eyes.
The Beast leaned closer, his voice almost a growl now. “You come into my castle, defy me to my face, and still stand there like - ”
“ - like someone who won’t run,” Charles interrupted, calm as ever.
The silence that followed was brutal. For a long, dangerous second, the Beast didn’t move. Then, slowly, his hand unclenched from the wood, knuckles whitening as he released it. His jaw worked once, twice, like he was forcing the next words out through his teeth.
“You’re either the bravest man alive,” he said, voice dropping low, “or the stupidest.”
Charles thought that right now he might be both.
“Stay in the east wing,” the Beast spoke again. “Touch nothing and speak to no one.”
Pierre opened his mouth to answer, but the Beast’s glare silenced him instantly.
“And if you try to leave,” he added, “the castle will not let you go.”
He turned toward the door, reaching for the handle. Before stepping out, he paused just once, head half-turned, profile catching in the dim light.
“You play,” he said.
Charles blinked. “What?”
“The piano,” the Beast said. “You touched it.”
Charles hesitated. “Yes.”
His hand tightened on the door. “Don’t.”
Then he was gone, the door slamming behind him so hard that dust rained from the beams.
Silence.
Pierre’s breath came out in a rush. “He’s … he’s insane.”
Charles stared at the closed door. “No,” he said quietly. “He’s furious.”
“Furious? He was ready to tear you apart!”
“He didn’t.”
Pierre groaned. “Because he’s saving it for later.”
Charles ignored him. His heartbeat had slowed again and his fingers itched where they’d brushed the air between them, in the lingering static of danger.
He turned toward the far wall, eyes unfocused. “He’s not what I expected.”
Pierre stared. “He’s a beast, Charles.”
“Yes.” Charles’s voice was soft, almost thoughtful. “But a beast who listens.”
Pierre rubbed both hands over his face. “You’re fucking insane Calamar.”
Charles laughed before he could stop it. Above them, somewhere in the castle, a door slammed and the walls seemed to sigh.
Charles closed his eyes. “He’s angry,” he murmured, half to himself. “But not mindless.”
Pierre shot him a look that was half horror, half disbelief. “You’re actually admiring him?”
“No,” Charles said, opening his eyes again. “But I think he admires defiance.”
And though he didn’t know it yet, upstairs in the empty ballroom, Max stood beside the piano. His palm pressed flat to the cool wood and his jaw tight, breath coming slow. His reflection in the polished lid wavered, a monster pretending to be a man and the anger still crawled under his skin, begging for an outlet he couldn’t name.
He hadn’t heard the door open but then again he never did with Sebastian. The light changed first, a soft gold flicker that reached the room’s corners before the voice followed.
“Still brooding by candlelight, mein Junge?”
Max didn’t turn. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me.”
“I don’t sneak,” Sebastian said. “You just forget to notice anything that isn’t your own misery.”
The light drifted closer, gentle but insistent as Sebastian’s form resolved beside him, half man and half flame. His coat shimmered between fabric and smoke and his blonde hair caught light like burning copper. The faint crackle of fire underscored every word he spoke.
“Another tantrum?” he asked mildly.
Max’s jaw tightened. “I only lost control for a moment. Enough!”
“For a moment?” Sebastian arched an eyebrow. “The entire east wing rattled. Even Nico’s clock stopped out of fear, and he insists it never does.”
“I said enough.”
“Yes,” Sebastian murmured, “you always do. But somehow it never is.”
Max stood abruptly, the stool scraping back. “He broke in. What was I supposed to do? Offer tea?”
“Could’ve been nice,” Seb said, smiling faintly. “It’s been years since we had company.”
Max turned, fury flashing across his face. “You think this is funny?”
“I think,” Sebastian said evenly, “that you are angry at the wrong thing.”
The words cut like clean metal.
Max’s breath came through his teeth. “You didn’t see him.”
“I did.” Seb tilted his head. “Brave little thing. Very pretty, too, don’t you think.”
The look Max shot him could have scorched stone. “Don’t.”
Seb laughed softly, not mockery, just warmth curling at the edges of sadness. “There it is. You can rage at me if it helps. Better me than the walls.”
“I don’t need lectures.”
“Then stop proving you do.”
The flame that made up Sebastian’s left hand flickered higher as he waved it absently, and the nearby candles reignited in a perfect line. The table, the windowsill, the far mirror. Their reflections doubled, a dozen versions of Max staring back, each one angrier than the last.
“You frighten them, you know,” Sebastian said quietly.
“I’m supposed to.”
“Ach.” Seb’s tone softened. “Is that still what you tell yourself at night? That fear is the same as respect? I thought you’d let that go after Qatar 2024.”
Max’s throat worked, but he didn’t answer.
Seb sighed, stepping closer until the warmth of his presence cut through the chill. “You were not made for this kind of solitude, Max, none of us were. Even monsters need more than reflections that speak back.”
“I don’t want company.”
“Then why did you keep him alive?”
The question hit like impact. Max turned sharply away. “Because he wasn’t worth killing.”
“Liar.” The word was gentle, but it cracked open the air between them.
Seb watched him for a long moment, expression unreadable behind the flicker of light. “You could have thrown him out and yet you didn’t, because something in you recognized something in him and it frightened you.”
Max’s voice came low, dangerous. “I don’t get frightened.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
He looked down. His hands were clenched so tightly the tendons stood out pale against his skin.
Seb’s flame dimmed, his tone softening. “You think this anger makes you strong, but all it’s done is make you lonely.”
“That’s the point,” Max snapped. “It’s safer this way.”
“For who?”
Max didn’t answer.
Sebastian’s voice grew gentler still. “You forget, I was like you once. Fast, proud, unyielding. Red Bull’s prodigal son. I mistook motion for meaning and you are repeating the same race on an endless track.”
Max huffed, turning back toward him. “Save the philosophy, old man.”
Seb smiled faintly into the silence that followed, heavy but not cruel. They stood in it together, the firelight flickering over marble and shadow.
Seb broke it first, stepping closer, flame-bright eyes softening. “He’s not your enemy.”
“He’s a trespasser.”
“And yet here you are,” Seb said, “playing songs because of him.”
Max stiffened. “I wasn’t - ”
“You were.”
Seb’s smile was small, sad and knowing. “You can’t help it. You hear a voice that doesn’t tremble and it reminds you of the man you were before all this. That frightens you more than any curse.”
Max turned away again, shoulders tight beneath the fur. “He doesn’t belong here.”
“No one does,” Seb murmured. “That’s what makes us all prisoners, even you.”
For a long time neither spoke. The fire in Seb’s chest burned low, gold instead of orange. Finally, he sighed and reached out, laying one bright hand on Max’s arm. The heat didn’t burn, it steadied.
“Try not to make an enemy of every kindness that finds you,” he said quietly. “It’s a miserable way to live.”
Max didn’t pull away, but his voice dropped, raw. “He won’t last here.”
“Maybe,” Seb said. “Or maybe he’s the first thing in a long time that will.”
Max looked down at the flame-hand still resting on him and for a heartbeat he almost said something, something unguarded, but the words caught on his tongue.
Instead, he only muttered, “Go back to your candles, Sebastian.”
Seb chuckled, stepping back. “Always with the orders.” His flame flared brighter, casting gold along the stone. “I’ll leave you to your brooding but remember, even darkness listens when you play."
And with that, he turned, the light of him retreating down the corridor until the door closed and the room dimmed again.
Max exhaled, long and low.
He looked at the piano. The keys gleamed faintly in the firelight, waiting.
“Not afraid,” he muttered again. The words didn’t sound like an accusation this time - more like a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.
Then he sat back down, pressed one key, and let the castle listen.
Notes:
Max's château is inspired by this castle near Cannes !! I researched apartments and houses in Monaco but none were regal enough or castle-like in the way I wanted :'(
Charles and Pierres Garage was inspired by Garage des Moneghetti
Here is an article about the beautiful Alpine aka my dream car !!!
The most fire restaurant in Monaco, I had the best lobster of my life at Pavyllon but I think they've taken it off the menu :(
Anyway, thanks for reading !!! Come chat to me on Tumblr , I'll be awake at 4:00am for the Brazil GP and love yapping :')
Rest of the castle will be introduced next chapter hehe
Chapter 3: The Rookies Set the Table (and the Bar Low)
Summary:
What happened last time:
Charles: Are you sure it’s safe?
Pierre: What could possibly go wrong?
Charles: That question has literally summoned demons in every horror film ever.
Pierre: Charles, please. It’s the French countryside, not a horror movie.
A haunted château 40 minutes away: [warming up its piano] “So anyway—”
-----------------
Pierre (recording): —lights—wrong—not—
Charles: …Okay. That’s fine. Totally fine.
Radio announcer: And now, smooth jazz.
Charles: I gotta fucking go.
-----------------
Seb: Bottling up negative emotions is bad for your mental health.
Max: I know, that’s why I bottle up all my emotions, both positive and negative, so it cancels out.
Seb: No, that’s not how this works-
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The day had already turned toward afternoon by the time Charles stirred beneath the weight of the blankets, momentarily unsure where he was. Then the smell of coffee, as impossible as it seemed, reached him.
He blinked.
Pierre was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside a small fire that hadn’t been there the night (or technically morning) before, coaxing warmth from a battered copper pot balanced on a makeshift stand. His shirt was half-buttoned and his hair dishevelled, but his face looked a little less haunted than it had before.
“You found coffee,” Charles said, voice still rough with sleep.
Pierre looked up with a grin that didn’t quite hide the exhaustion. “I found something that smells like coffee. I’m not asking questions.”
Charles sat up, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “You’ve been awake long?”
Pierre shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. The walls creak and I swear I heard someone singing at one point.”
“That was probably Lando.”
Pierre blinked. “Who?”
“The stool.”
Pierre stared at him for a long moment, then sighed. “Right. You're still on about the furniture singing. Excellent.”
Charles smiled faintly, rubbing a hand over his face. “It’s not so bad here.”
Pierre snorted. “You’ve been awake five minutes.”
“Still true.”
They fell into an easy quiet, rare and fragile. The kind of silence that existed only between people who’d nearly lost each other. Pierre handed him a chipped mug and sat back, eyes soft.
“I still can’t believe you came,” he said after a moment.
Charles sipped, the drink was bitter and slightly too strong, but real. “Of course I did.”
Pierre studied him, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You’re going to get yourself killed one day for doing the right thing.”
“Probably,” Charles said. “But I’ll be right about it.”
Pierre laughed properly this time, a sound that filled the cold room. The tension in Charles’s chest eased a little.
For a few minutes, it almost felt like they were back home - sunlight, teasing, the smell of burnt coffee and oil. The castle, for once, seemed to let them have it.
But somewhere above, a door closed.
The air shifted. It was subtle, a chill threading through the warmth, the faintest hum from the walls.
Pierre noticed first. “Did you feel that?”
Charles set his mug down, listening. “Yes.”
The footsteps that followed were unhurried, but deliberate. The sound of boots on stone, heavy and measured, and when the door opened, the fire dipped low as if bowing.
The Beast filled the threshold.
He looked different in the daylight. No less imposing, but more human in the worst possible way. His hair caught the pale light, streaked with gold and shadow, and his jaw was sharp, mouth set in a line that might once have been patience. The furs across his shoulders shifted as he breathed, silent but watchful.
Neither of them spoke.
Max’s eyes flicked over the room towards the fire, the mugs, the way Pierre sat too close to Charles and the sight seemed to freeze something behind his ribs.
“You’re awake,” he said finally.
Charles stood slowly. “We were having breakfast.”
The edge of Max’s mouth curved, though it wasn’t a smile. “So I see.”
Pierre rose too, setting his mug aside. “We didn’t mean to intrude. The fire - ”
“I said nothing about the fire,” Max interrupted, his voice quiet but razor-sharp. “You’ve both eaten. You’ve both slept. That’s more than most who enter this place manage."
Pierre’s eyes darted to Charles, unsure whether to speak again.
“Thank you,” Charles said instead, careful. “We appreciate the… hospitality.”
That earned him a glance - blue and unreadable, lingering a second too long.
Then Max’s tone changed into something cooler and more controlled. “He’ll go.”
Pierre blinked. “What?”
Charles frowned. “Pardon?”
Max didn’t repeat himself. He stepped into the room, the air tightening with his presence. “The gates will open for him. He leaves before sundown.”
Charles’s heartbeat picked up. “You can’t - ”
“I can.”
“It’s not safe,” Charles said sharply. “You said yourself this place changes - ”
“For you, it changes,” Max cut in. “Not for him. He doesn’t belong here.”
Pierre’s face hardened. “Neither of us do.”
Max’s eyes narrowed, a flash of something dangerous breaking through. “You’ve overstayed your welcome.”
Pierre opened his mouth, but Charles stepped in front of him. “He’s my friend. You can’t just send him away because - ”
“Because what?” Max’s voice dropped low, quiet enough that Pierre flinched. “Because I don’t want to keep you both?”
The question wasn’t meant to escape, but it did, and the silence that followed was immediate and heavy.
Max turned away before either of them could answer, jaw clenched. “The gates will open at noon. He’ll find his way.”
Pierre’s breath hitched not in fear, but in recognition. He understood something that Charles didn’t yet, and it was that this wasn’t about cruelty, but about envy.
Still, he said nothing. He just nodded once. “If that’s what it takes.”
Charles stared at him. “Pierre - ”
“It’s alright.” Pierre managed a small smile. “You said it yourself. He doesn’t seem without reason.”
“Pierre - ”
But Max was already leaving and when the door closed, the warmth didn’t return. Instead, the fire hissed and then went out entirely.
Pierre exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand across his face. “Well,” he said softly, “that answers that.”
Charles looked at him, anger low in his voice. “You don’t have to go.”
Pierre shook his head. “I think I do. He’s not a man you argue with twice.”
“Then I’ll come with you.”
Pierre’s smile faltered. “No. You shouldn’t Calamar. We both know it won’t work”
“Pierre - ”
He reached out, gripping Charles’s shoulder. “Listen to me. Whatever he is, he let me live and he let you stay. That means something and you shouldn’t waste it trying to follow me.”
Charles didn’t answer.
Pierre sighed, forcing a grin. “Also, you watch your mouth or you’ll have him throwing furniture by tomorrow.”
Despite himself, Charles huffed a small laugh. “Go to hell.”
Pierre winked. “I’ll send a postcard.”
They embraced once more, and it felt brief, tight and final.
When Pierre left, the door stayed open just long enough for Charles to see the light shift, the faint shimmer of enchantment curling through the air, guiding him out before the door shut and scilence returned.
Pierre was gone.
Charles stood where he was for a long time, eyes fixed on the door. He half expected Pierre to come back through it with that familiar half-grin, muttering something about “forgetting his wrench” or “taking one more look at his own reflection.” But the minutes passed and nothing moved. He told himself not to be angry, that Pierre was right in that it was safer this way. Safer for him, at least.
For the first time, he noticed how quiet the castle really was without another voice to fill it. No laughter, no clatter of cups, no soft sound of Pierre’s boots pacing the floor. Just silence and the faint hum of enchantment beneath it, that eerie, living vibration that seemed to have no clear source.
Charles rubbed the back of his neck, exhaling through his nose. “So that’s it, then,” he murmured.
He left the room, the sound of his boots sharp against the marble. The halls beyond had changed again to appear slightly longer with the windows set higher. The castle always shifted when no one was watching. The corridor opened into the main foyer, sunlight pouring through the tall windows and spilling across the marble floor. It was beautiful but cold in its perfection, just like the rest of the place.
He paused at the base of the staircase, and could see the faint outline of the west wing, the corridor fading into shadow. He could feel him there.
Max.
The castle seemed to orient around that awareness, every breath of air drawn toward him.
Charles’s jaw tightened. “You think you can control everything,” he muttered. “But you can’t.”
His words fell flat but something, a vibration or a flicker in the chandelier’s crystals, answered.
He turned, scanning the room. “Is this what you do? Listen from your shadows?”
Silence.
Then, he heard a faint voice, not in the air but in his memory:
“You’re not afraid.”
“Would it help if I were?”
He closed his eyes, forcing the memory back. He wouldn’t give the Beast the satisfaction of knowing he was still thinking about him.
Still, when he opened his eyes again, the castle felt different. Less oppressive and more watchful, curious even.
Charles lifted his chin. “Fine then,” he said aloud. “If I’m staying, I might as well see the place.”
He climbed the staircase, his footsteps echoing faintly. The air changed with every step - warmer, then cooler with the light bending oddly in the corners. He passed open doors that led to strange, half-forgotten rooms; a study with papers scattered as though abandoned mid-thought, a library whose shelves stretched beyond sight and filled with books whose titles rearranged themselves when he blinked.
In one of them, a candelabra flickered to life on its own, three flames swaying like they were listening.
Charles hesitated. “Who’s there?”
No answer, but he thought he saw movement, like the faint outline of a figure disappearing into another room, and the soft crackle of laughter just beyond the threshold.
He exhaled, shaking his head. “Brilliant. I’m arguing with architecture now.”
Still, the warmth that followed him through the hall didn’t feel cruel. The castle seemed to be testing him like it was watching how he would handle the solitude, the curiosity, the grief.
When he finally reached the upper corridor that led to the music room, he stopped at the doorway. The piano sat there beneath the chandelier, its lid gleaming faintly in the sunlight. He crossed the room slowly, every step echoing. The air smelled faintly of lavender and smoke.
The same stool waited before the piano.
Charles hovered a moment, then sat with his hands rested on his knees, unwilling to touch the keys.
He didn’t play, not yet. The silence was enough.
He let out a slow breath. “I hope you’re safe, Pierre,” he said quietly.
The chandelier above him trembled, just slightly. Then, from somewhere deep in the walls came the faint sound of a low note that sounded suspiciously like a heartbeat.
He glanced up.
“Oscar?”
Nothing, just the echo, but it sounded almost like comfort.
______________________
Elsewhere, in a room shadowed and cold, Max stood before the tall window that overlooked the courtyard.
From this height the gates were a distant arc half swallowed by the light of late afternoon, and beyond them, the faint speck of an Alpine moved into the forest, shrinking with every metre.
Pierre.
The sight should have satisfied Max and yet it didn’t.
The air in the room was heavy with smoke from the dying hearth and the stone seemed to hold the echo of Max’s anger, a pressure that hadn’t quite eased since morning. His jaw was set and his shoulders rigid beneath the black fur draped over them. He watched until the figure disappeared into the trees before turning away, expression unreadable.
“You let him go.”
Sebastian’s voice came from behind him, smooth and unmistakably amused. The sound was followed by a soft crackle of warmth as light spilled across the wall. Max didn’t need to look to know the shape forming in the reflection of the glass.
Seb stepped into the room fully, his boots silent on the stone.
Max’s gaze stayed fixed on the window. “He didn’t belong here.”
“Perhaps not,” Seb replied, his tone soft but edged. “But neither did you, once.”
That earned him a glance. Quick, sharp, and unamused.
Seb smiled faintly. “You forget I was here the day you arrived in Formula 1. All pride and arrogance and thunder, certain the world owed you its silence.”
“Don’t.”
The german lifted both hands in mock surrender, flames curling lazily between his fingers. “Very well. No nostalgia, only facts.”
“I’m not in the mood for your philosophy,” Max muttered.
“You’re never in the mood for anything that involves reflection, nor fun for that matter.”
Max turned from the window, the movement sudden enough to stir the curtains. “Do you have a point or are you here to gloat?”
Seb regarded him for a long moment. “Neither. I came to make a suggestion.”
“I’m not in need of suggestions.”
“Clearly,” Seb said dryly, “because your methods are so effective.”
The look Max gave him could have frozen fire. “Fine. Speak, Sebastian.”
“Invite him to dinner.”
Max blinked. “What?”
Seb’s grin widened, faintly wicked. A glimpse of his younger self appearing. “You heard me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Max stared. “Absolutely not.”
Seb folded his arms. “You can’t leave him wandering the east wing forever. He’s human - he needs food, warmth, conversation.”
“He’s alive. That’s sufficient.”
“Alive,” Seb repeated, unimpressed. “You sound like a prison warden or - ” Max cut him off before he could mention his father.
“I’m not hosting a banquet for a trespasser.”
“It’s not a banquet, it’s dinner,” Seb said, unbothered. “One guest. Two plates. Maybe you could even refrain from snarling for an hour, I’d call that a triumph.”
Max’s expression darkened. “He has no reason to dine with me.”
Seb arched an eyebrow. “You’re the master of this château Max. That’s reason enough.”
“I told him to stay out of my sight.”
“You tell everyone that,” Seb said lightly. “It’s a miracle we still appear at all. The boy is curious, he’ll come if you ask.”
Max turned away again, muttering under his breath. “He’s infuriating.”
“Because he speaks to you like you’re human?”
Max’s eyes flashed. “Because he doesn’t know when to stop.”
Seb smirked. “And yet, you’re still talking about him.”
The silence that followed was heavy, the kind that hummed between truth and denial.
Max exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “He’s reckless. Arrogant. Foolish.”
“Mm,” Seb said, pacing a slow circle around him. “Reminds me of someone I once knew.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m only saying,” Seb continued, “that perhaps the château has a sense of humour. It sent you a mirror, not a prisoner.”
“I don’t need mirrors,” Max said, voice rough.
“No,” Seb agreed softly. “You need company.”
Max turned on him. “I don’t need anything.”
Seb tilted his head. “Of course not. You just spend your nights talking to the piano and watching people leave.”
For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then Max’s mouth twitched, not a smile, but something dangerously close. “You’re impossible. Oscar likes me.”
“You wouldn’t know. Oscar talks and looks the same at everyone,” Seb said cheerfully. “But I’m also right.”
“You always think you are.”
“I usually am.”
The flicker of firelight brightened with his grin. “Invite him. Properly. Nico and I will prepare the dining hall, maybe it'll even give him an excuse to talk to Lewis. To fight over coordinate colour schemes or whatever those two do. It’ll remind everyone that the château can still host something other than your temper.”
Max grunted. “And if I refuse?”
“I’ll tell George you’re sulking again,” Seb said pleasantly. “He’ll start doing that weird British thing where he fusses over tea and then secretly gossips with Lando. You know he will."
Max groaned - half threat, half defeat. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re predictable,” he replied, his tone warm now and fond beneath the teasing. “You’ll do it.”
Max crossed his arms, glaring at the far wall. “Why should I?”
“Because,” Seb said simply, “his is how you keep from regretting things.”
That struck deeper than Max expected. He didn’t answer immediately. His hand flexed once against the edge of the windowsill, the faint scrape of calloused fingers on stone the only sound.
Finally, he muttered, “One dinner.”
Seb’s smile softened. “One dinner.”
“If he refuses - ”
“Then he refuses, but you’ll have asked.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “Fine.”
“Excellent,” Seb said, already turning toward the door, the gold light around him flickering brighter. “I’ll tell Nico to dust off the good silverware. Try not to glare too much."
“I don’t glare.”
“Schatz, you glare. You did even before this mess. ”
“Seb - ”
“Yes, yes, I’m going.” Sebastian paused at the doorway, his flame-cast shadow stretching long across the marble. “Try to smile once, just for the novelty.”
“Get out.”
Seb’s laughter followed him down the corridor, soft and crackling like embers in winter.
When the sound faded, Max was left alone again. He stood still for a long time, staring at the empty space where his friend had stood, the faint scent of smoke lingering in the air.
Then finally, with a low exhale, Max said to no one in particular,
“Dinner, then.”
______________________
The grand dining hall woke like a stage remembering its cues.
Curtains exhaled. Chandeliers brightened by degrees. Dust rose and spun in the late-afternoon gold as Seb sailed through the doors, three flames blooming along his candelabra arms with theatrical timing. For a heartbeat his human outline flickered there too, blonde hair catching the light, and then the illusion softened back into fire and gilt.
“Oscar,” Sebastian called, voice like a velvet bell. “Places.”
From the corner, the piano cleared his throat in a dignified E-flat. Oscar’s lacquered lid lifted a fraction, revealing the outline of a watchful face in the polished black. “Places imply a plan, Seb.”
“Schatz, I am the plan.”
A sharp little tic tic tic came trotting fast on wooden feet. Nico - a handsome, if not slightly harried, mantel clock with a gold bezel and an expression of permanent responsibility - skidded onto a side table and inhaled like a kettle about to scream.
“Absolutely not,” Nico announced, adjusting his faceplate as if it were his long blonde hair of the past. “We do this properly or not at all. Linens first, then cutlery, then crystal, then seating. No improvisation. No… jazz fueled stupidity.”
Sebastian’s flames purred. “You forgot charm.”
“I did not,” Nico sniffed. “Charm comes after punctuality.
Sebastian leaned in, heat kissing the clock’s gilt. “I forgot how insufferable you could be.”
Nico’s hands flew to his sides. “I - You - You’re doing this on purpose now.”
“Kill a man for wanting to see you flustered.”
Nico made a scandalised sound from somewhere near his pendulum and tried not to smile. “Tablecloths. Now.”
Lando bounded in, all carved paws and boundless enthusiasm, a footstool with too much energy and not enough brakes. He launched himself at a stack of linen, snagged the corner, and executed a dramatic slide down the length of the table, somehow leaving a perfectly straight runner in his wake.
“Ta-da!” Lando declared, wiggling like a dog expecting applause.
Oscar played a prim little trill. “Accidentally flawless. How typical.”
From the service door, George rolled in with gentle authority. A sturdy porcelain teapot with a mother-of-pearl sheen and an unmistakable don’t test me tilt to his spout. Steam curled from his lid in heart-calming spirals. Perched on his tray, Kimi the teacup bounced so hard his saucer rattled.
“George,” Seb sang, “you look radiant. New glaze?”
“Don’t you start, Sebastian,” George said, setting himself at the head of the sideboard with a clink. “We’re feeding a guest, not opening the opera.”
“Why not both?” Daniel chimed, sweeping in as a feather duster of ridiculous beauty with his plumage immaculate and handle carved like a dancer’s spine. His human outline flashed with a wink - all dark eyes, and sunny smile like mischief weaponised. “Max is finally hosting? Put me near the candles, I like to look expensive.”
“You always do,” Oscar said dryly.
Kimi piped up, voice bright and very earnest. “Is the guest scary?”
“Not at all,” George said, then aimed his spout meaningfully at Sebastian. “But some hosts are if they don’t remember their manners.”
“There is only one terrifying thing here,” Nico declared, “and that is the concept of a place setting with the fork on the wrong side.” He clucked at the rookies gathering by the door. “You lot. Line up.”
The cutlery brigade tumbled in like excitable swallows; Jack as a gleaming fork, Gabi a serious spoon with a burnished bowl, Liam and Isack a pair of knives who kept catching their reflections and forgetting to stand still. Ollie, a dessert fork with dreams, vibrated with hope so intensely his tines hummed.
“Orientation,” Nico snapped. “Forks left, knives right, spoons top. Walking, not clattering!”
Liam raised a tine. “What if we do just a little clatter? For flair?”
“No flair,” Nico said, horrified. “We. are. not. jazz.”
Seb slid between them in a wash of honeyed light. “A little flair never hurt anyone, mein Schatz.” He lowered one flame conspiratorially. “Unless it did. In which case, we blame Danny.”
Daniel preened, flicking a plume over a candelabra arm. “I’ve been blamed for worse and looked sensational doing it.”
Gabi, focused and practical, nudged Jack. “We should practice the approach. Max will be watching.”
Ollie whispered, reverent, “Do you think he’ll… smile?”
Isack’s blade flashed. “He nodded at Gabi once, at Silverstone. It was a very respectful nod. I documented it mentally.”
Kimi bounced on his saucer. “Max is nice! He helped me in karting!”
George gave a satisfied little puff of steam. “There, you see? Not a danger, just… broody.”
“Broody,” Oscar repeated, rolling the word around a chord. “Like an overture in a minor key.”
From the doorway, a tray cart squeaked in with a mountain of crystal. Lando leapt, missed, caught the bottom cloth with a valiant chomp, and yet somehow, through some sort of divine nonsense, landed upright holding three napkins like flags.
“Tell me you saw that,” Lando panted.
“Tragically,” Oscar said. “Again, accidentally flawless.”
Nico climbed onto the table, hands whirling. “Focus. We have twelve settings. No - fourteen. Sebastian, are we inviting the entire east wing?”
“Just the one,” Sebastian said, turning down his flames until they glowed like candlelight in a chapel. “But the room remembers what it is when we honour it. Lay for fourteen.”
“And what if Max refuses to sit?” Oscar asked, letting a mild and knowing chord melt into the rafters.
“He won’t,” Daniel said, voice fond. “I’ll make faces at him until he breaks.”
Kimi leaned toward the knives to whisper, stage-quiet, “Max used to smile. In pictures. Lots.”
“Well he used to be The One,” Liam said with sincere awe, “F1’s best driver.”
George side-eyed him. “Don’t start.”
“FIA’s worst nightmare more like,” Oscar murmured, setting himself with a precise ding. “Depends on the day.”
“Enough gossip,” Nico barked, then flicked his gaze to Seb with traitorous softness. “Seb, centrepiece?”
Seb beamed. “Ahh I knew my Britney would never forget romance.”
Nico’s tic escaped in a helpless hiccup.
Music swelled with Oscar, unable to resist, slipping into a bright and bustling tempo. The rookies took it as marching orders. Spoons shimmied. Forks paraded. Knives attempted a dangerous can-can until George cleared his throat with a motherly ahem that would stop armies.
“Walk,” George said. “Not dance.”
Isack slowed, solemn. “Copy.” Then, to Gabi, sotto voce-esque “Do you think dolphins are trying to contact us or are they just being - ”
“Isack,” George warned.
“ - both,” Isack concluded, chastened.
Lando bounded up the long carpet, trailing ribboned napkins like streamers. “We need banners. Maybe a big one that says ‘Welcome to Dinner, Please Don’t Growl !!’ ”
“Tempting,” Oscar said, “but perhaps not Lan.”
Daniel swooped across the table, dusting with balletic precision. “Seb, you’ll stand here to light, I’ll fluff there, and when Max glowers I’ll wink. It’s foolproof.”
“Max is not a fool,” Nico said, then added, heartfelt and immediate, “and neither is this Charles I’m sure.”
The name settled the room and for a moment the bustle slowed, like the hall had taken a breath. Even Seb’s flames gentled. Oscar changed keys, warmer now, something hopeful under the bright.
“Then we make it beautiful for Charles,” Seb said softly. “So he remembers that beauty still lives here.”
George’s spout dipped. “And so Max remembers how to sit at a table without armour.”
“He has table armour?” Kimi whispered to Liam.
“Metaphor,” Liam whispered back, deeply impressed.
Nico clapped his hands. “Back to it. Placards. Seating. Rookies, stop vibrating. Oliver, dessert left to right, not - ”
Ollie’s tines trembled with pride. “I can do it. Hope and Delusion say I can.”
“Who?” Gabi said.
“Never mind,” Ollie said quickly, scooting to the end with heroic purpose.
Kimi hopped closer to George, voice small. “Will Max be… mad?”
George nudged him with a porcelain warmth that felt like a hand. “Max can be many things Kimi and still be kind. Remember that.”
The doors at the far end breathed open on a draft of evening.
Max did not appear - but his presence rolled through, unmistakable as a weather front. The rookies froze. George whispered, “Act normal.”
“We are normal,” Gabi said, already normal.
“We are absolutely not normal,” Liam stage-whispered, attempting a suave lean and falling off a chair.
Isack helped him up. “Grace is a construct.”
Seb’s flames brightened. “Hold,” he murmured, and the room obeyed, a living tableau of gleam and glow, every place set, every glass singing quietly of possibility.
Oscar let the cadence fall into silence and for one pure second, the hall was perfect.
And then -
A wardrobe cleared his throat in a deep, velveteen baritone.
All heads turned as Lewis rolled in, his carved doors paneled like the inside of a jewel box and hardware polished to a gentleman’s shine, the suggestion of a sharply dressed man flickering in the grain. His presence steadied the air the way a hand on a shoulder steadies a friend.
Lewis took in the table, the rookies at attention, the footstool tangled in ribbon, Seb radiating glory, Nico mid-fluster, Daniel mid-preen, George and Kimi poised like a benediction - and he blinked, slow and dignified.
“What,” Lewis asked, with the weary patience of someone who had seen everything and chosen calmness anyway, “is all this noise?”
Seb turned, utterly unrepentant. “Dinner, Lewis.”
Lewis’s hinges sighed, always the elegant prelude to a lecture. “Then perhaps,” he said, rolling closer with kingly calm, “we should discuss a few house rules before this turns into a musical.”
The rookies straightened as if inspected by a monarch. Nico glowed with vindicated purpose. Daniel grinned like mischief crowned him. Oscar’s keys chimed a polite, anticipatory chord.
Across the table, Seb’s smile sharpened, delighted.
“By all means,” Sebastian purred, "let’s talk law.”
The hall still glittered from the aftermath of Seb’s rehearsal of perfection. Candles flickered in obedient rows, napkins folded into origami-like swans that looked ready to fly off the plates.
It should have been serene.
It wasn’t.
Lewis rolled to a dignified stop beside the long table, his polished doors gleaming like black marble. His human outline shimmered faintly within the grain - calm, composed, impossible to ruffle.
“This,” Lewis began, surveying the linen-strewn battlefield, “is not a dinner preparation. This is a five car pile-up at turn 1, that the stewards have decided to ignore.”
Seb leaned lazily against the nearest candelabra arm, light spilling from him in smug golden arcs. “Stewards imply we have leadership, Lewis. You’d need to issue an order first.”
Daniel laughed softly from his perch by the window, a feather catching the light. “Don’t bait him, darling. He’ll start making lists again.”
Lewis arched a perfectly sculpted brow. “At least one of us must keep order.”
“Oh, please,” Nico muttered from atop the table, where he was aggressively adjusting cutlery spacing. “If you had your way, we’d hold court in silence while you monologued about harmony and self-expression.”
Seb’s flames flickered brighter. “I would pay to see that.”
“You’re paying with patience,” Lewis said smoothly. “And I don’t imagine you’ve much left.”
“Oh, I’ve got patience to spare,” Seb replied, straightening a napkin with exaggerated care. “I keep it in the same drawer as my mercy.”
“That drawer’s been empty since 2010,” Nico muttered.
George snorted from the sideboard. “Ah, there it is. The nostalgia.”
“Don’t encourage them,” Oscar said from the piano. “We’ll never get the table finished.”
Lewis turned his gaze on Nico, the faintest smile curving his mouth. “You’re being spiteful and vindictive again.”
Nico didn’t even look up. “Compliments? This early in the day?”
Seb made an impressed noise. “Touché.”
George whistled low. “I give it five minutes before someone gets launched out a window.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lewis said. “I’m far too civilised to launch him.”
“I’ve seen you launch hats,” Nico snapped.
“That was self-defence,” Lewis replied serenely.
“Self-defence against what?”
“Bad taste,” Lewis said.
Daniel’s feather plume trembled with laughter. “He’s got you there, clockwork.”
Nico’s pendulum ticked so sharply it almost sounded like a heartbeat. “This is absurd. The boy will be here any moment and this table - ”
“ - is flawless,” Seb interrupted. “You’ve done marvellously, liebling, truly. You’ve managed to make fine dining look like a war crime.”
“You’re intolerable,” Nico hissed.
“And you’re adorable when you’re furious,” Seb said with a grin.
Daniel groaned. “Get a chandelier, you two.”
George poured himself into the moment with calm finality. “Seb, stop flirting. Nico, stop combusting. Lewis, stop pretending you’re above this.”
Lewis blinked, offended on principle. “I am above this.”
“Sure,” George said. “And I’m a gravy boat.”
Seb laughed, delighted. “You’re my favourite, George.”
“Everyone says that until they want tea.”
The rookies at the far end were whispering furiously. Kimi and Liam arguing about whether Max would sit at the head of the table or refuse entirely. Gabi had started polishing a spoon purely to hide his panic.
Lewis noticed. “Rookies,” he said, without raising his voice. “You’re trembling. Why?”
Liam swallowed. “Sir, with respect, it’s the Beast.”
George tsked. “None of that talk here. He’s Max to us.”
“Max,” Kimi repeated softly, half in awe.
“He’s terrifying,” Gabi whispered.
“He’s tall,” Liam corrected.
“He’s - ” Isack began, but one look from Lewis stopped him.
“Whatever he is,” Lewis said, tone velvet but iron, “he’s our master and tonight, we behave like civilised enchantments.”
Seb gave a languid shrug. “You do realise the last time Max attended dinner, he broke a chair.”
“Because someone,” Nico said pointedly, “insisted on toasting him.”
“I was being encouraging,” Seb protested.
“You called him ‘Your royal Grumpiness.’”
“Well, it was accurate.”
Lewis’s patience finally thinned enough to show. “Gentlemen,” he said, cool and low, “enough.”
The room froze. Even Seb’s flames dimmed.
Lewis turned to Nico. “If you can’t manage civility, perhaps you should - ”
Nico snapped upright, bristling. “Perhaps I should what, Lewis? Leave? Like apparently I always do? Wonderful idea.”
And before anyone could stop him, Nico hopped off the table, gears whirring, and stormed out. An impressive feat for a clock.
Daniel gave a low whistle. “That went well.”
Seb sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was only teasing.”
George rolled his eyes. “We know, you tease everyone. Nico just takes it personally.”
“Because it’s Lewis,” Daniel said softly.
Seb looked toward the door Nico had vanished through. “They’ll either kill each other or fall madly in love… again”
“Why not both?” George murmured.
“Guys I am right here and can hear you,” Lewis exhaled, straightening. “You’re all impossible.”
“Thank you,” Seb said. “We try.”
Lewis glanced toward the hall. “I’ll speak to Nico later.”
“Of course you will,” Daniel said, smirking. “Nothing gets you moving faster than him storming out.”
Lewis gave him a long, warning look that only made Daniel grin wider.
Seb, sensing the edge of mischief, clapped his hands once. “Enough gossip. The boy needs dressing.”
Lewis blinked. “What boy?”
“Charles, obviously,” Seb said, voice lilting. “You can’t let him dine with a beast wearing travel clothes. It’s bad optics.”
“Optics,” Daniel repeated, amused. “We’re cursed furniture, Seb, not HR running a press tour.”
“Details,” Seb said breezily. “Still, Lewis, do try to make him look presentable. If Max sees him looking scrumptious, he might - ”
“Might what?” George asked.
Seb’s smile turned sly. “Remember he’s lonely.”
Lewis rolled his eyes, already turning toward the door. “You’re all insufferable.”
“And yet,” Seb called after him, “you love us.”
Lewis didn’t answer but as he left the hall, the faintest curve touched his mouth.
Outside, the château murmured with evening light. Somewhere down the corridor, the clock ticked faster than usual, and Lewis followed the sound - ready to smooth ruffled tempers, soothe chaos, and perhaps, dress a dinner guest who had no idea what kind of night awaited him.
______________________
Charles had been sitting for what felt like hours, though time in the château was a slippery thing.
The air had gone amber. That strange, in-between light that turned gold to dusk, and yet nothing around him moved. The piano was silent, the footstool hadn’t reappeared and even the air seemed to hesitate, like the whole castle was waiting for something.
He was starting to wonder if this was part of the punishment, solitude disguised as luxury, when the door opened without sound.
The voice that followed was low, smooth, and distinctly human.
“Ah,” it said. “You’re the new arrival.”
Charles turned as the figure in the doorway caught the light like it was an accessory he’d chosen on purpose. He wasn’t quite human. The outline shimmered between man and wardrobe, tall and sculpted, his panels gleaming like dark lacquered wood. His reflection flickered with a faint metallic sheen; the suggestion of piercings in his ears and the shimmer of something gold at his wrist.
He was, quite impossibly, stylish. For a wardrobe…
Charles blinked. “You’re… a wardrobe.”
“An excellent observation,” the man said dryly. “And you’re underdressed.”
“‘Scusi?”
The wardrobe stepped forward, his human silhouette solidifying briefly, handsome, elegant, and composed. Dressed in a blend of fitted tailoring and streetwear drape that somehow belonged in both Paris and a dream.
“Dinner is in less than an hour,” he said. “Seb insisted I handle you.”
“Seb?” Charles repeated cautiously.
“The candelabra, Sebastian. ” the wardrobe confirmed, voice smooth as satin. “I’m Lewis, the wardrobe. I handle appearances.”
“Appearances,” Charles echoed.
Lewis gave him a polite, assessing once-over, not cruel, just calculating. “You look like you’ve been through a hedge maze and won.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”
“It’s not.”
Charles opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally said, “You people are all very - ”
“ - helpful?” Lewis offered.
“ - strange,” Charles finished.
Lewis’s smile was quick, precise. “We’ve had time to practice.”
He walked to the far wall, and with a gesture that seemed more instinct than magic, the wardrobe doors swung open and the scent of cedar and linen filled the room. Inside, the clothes arranged themselves with military precision; shirts folded by colour, and coats suspended midair as if they’d been waiting centuries for this moment.
Charles stared. “You keep clothes in there?”
“What did you think I kept in there?”
“I don’t know,” Charles admitted. “Skeletons?”
Lewis smirked. “That’s Nico’s department.”
The clothes shifted on their hangers and one garment floating forward, a coat in deep navy velvet, its lining shimmering faintly when it moved. Lewis caught it effortlessly, examining the collar like a curator appraising art.
“This one,” he said, holding it up against the light. “Structured shoulders, slim waist. Quiet drama.”
Charles blinked. “It’s… beautiful.”
“Of course it is,” Lewis said simply. “I designed it.”
“You - ”
“Yes.”
Charles frowned. “You design clothes for prisoners now?”
Lewis’s tone stayed calm, but his expression softened. “For guests. And it’s been a long time since we had one worth dressing.”
The implication hung there, weighty but not unkind.
Lewis handd him the coat. The fabric was soft, impossibly so, and warm as if it remembered sunlight. Charles hesitated before sliding his arms into the sleeves. It fit perfectly.
“Good,” Lewis said, stepping back to survey him. “Turn.”
Charles turned. “Is Sebastian like this? Like you?”
“I have better taste,” Lewis said, unbothered.
“You’re very confident,” Charles observed.
“Someone has to be,” Lewis said. “Seb gets distracted by aesthetics, Nico panics if anyone sneezes off-beat, and George… well, George means well.”
Charles blinked. “There’s a George?”
“You’ll meet him soon,” Lewis said. “He’s the one who makes the tea and lectures everyone about manners.”
Charles gave a soft laugh. “You all sound - ”
“ - mad?”
“I was going to say lonely.”
That caught Lewis off guard. For a second, the smooth composure wavered. “We’ve had a long time to be both.”
Charles looked down at the coat again, tracing the subtle embroidery stitched along the hem. “You made this for me.”
Lewis inclined his head. “Technically, I made it for whoever survived long enough to wear it. You’re just lucky the cut suits you.”
Charles smiled faintly. “You’re not very good at flattery.”
Lewis’s eyes gleamed. “Lucky then that I don’t flatter, I tailor.”
He stepped closer, adjusting the collar with a deft touch. “Better,” he murmured. “The navy works with your eyes.”
Charles startled. “Do you flirt with all your guests?”
“Only the ones who look like trouble wrapped in innocence,” Lewis said.
Charles laughed, quiet but genuine. “That’s fair.”
Lewis’s tone softened, less teasing now. “You’ll be dining with Max tonight.” The name hit the air like a dropped pin.
“I assumed,” Charles said, trying not to sound nervous.
Lewis tilted his head. “You seem calm.”
“I am pretending.”
“That’s a good start.” Lewis’s expression warmed slightly. “Seb says the same thing about courage, that pretending often becomes the real thing.”
Charles considered that. “And you?”
“I don’t pretend,” Lewis said simply. “I am too old for that.”
Charles grinned despite himself.
Lewis turned toward the wardrobe again, retrieving a silk tie in a subtle pattern - dark gold woven with fine red thread. “This will do. Stand still.”
Charles obeyed as Lewis tied the knot with quick, elegant precision, the faint smell of cedar and something warm, amber maybe, lingering around him.
“There,” Lewis said, stepping back. “A gentleman, at least from the collar up.”
“And below?” Charles asked, amused.
“Questionable,” Lewis said, though the faint curve of his mouth betrayed amusement. “But don’t worry, no one looks at trousers in this château. Too much trauma.”
Charles bit back a laugh. “You’re all mad,” he said again.
“Yes,” Lewis agreed. “But we’re very well dressed.”
He adjusted his cuffs, unnecessary but habit, and then nodded toward the door. “The rookies will escort you to the dining room. Try not to insult Seb’s centrepieces as he takes them personally.”
Charles nodded. “And Max?”
Lewis’s tone gentled. “Don’t let him see you afraid. He doesn’t know what to do with kindness yet.”
Charles frowned. “That sounds sad.”
“It is,” Lewis said. “But it’s also fixable.”
He reached for the door, then paused. “Oh - and, Charles?”
“Yes?”
Lewis smiled, the kind that felt like sunlight filtered through glass. “If he growls, it means you’re winning.”
And with that, Lewis turned and left, leaving behind the scent of cedar, silk, and something quietly electric. Charles exhaled, glancing down at his reflection in the glass. The coat caught the dying light, its colour deepening to ocean blue.
“Dinner with a beast,” he murmured. “And a wardrobe that flirts.”
Somewhere in the corridor beyond, the château seemed to chuckle in agreement.
______________________
The west-wing study pulsed with candlelight and impending disaster.
Max paced the length of the room like a caged animal, his shoulders tight beneath his black coat, jaw set and expression carved from something colder than stone. Every few strides he stopped to glare at the fire, and mutter something low enough to make the hearth shrink.
From behind the heavy curtains came a whisper.
“Seb,” hissed a voice, feather-soft but panicked, “he’s going to hear you breathing.”
“I don’t breathe,” Seb whispered back. “I flicker.”
“Then flicker quieter!”
Daniel’s feather-duster plume quivered with anxiety as he peeked through the curtain gap. “He’s doing that pacing thing again. You know, the dramatic angsty prowl. It’s very - ” he tilted his head “ - Mr Darcy, but if he was cursed and even more repressed.”
Seb grinned, flame glinting gold. “It’s called atmosphere.”
“It’s called anxiety,” Daniel countered.
“Mein gott, semantics!,” Seb said.
Across the room, Max stopped and turned toward the window and his reflection caught the faint shimmer of their hiding spot. “I can hear you both,” he said flatly.
Seb froze, then whispered, “Act natural.”
Daniel, very helpfully, dropped to the floor and pretended to dust.
Max sighed, the long, exasperated sound of a man forced to coexist with chaos. “Seb. Daniel”
“Yes Maxy?” came the angelic reply.
“Out.”
Seb stepped from behind the curtain in a blaze of self-satisfaction, flames curling like golden ribbons. “I was just checking the lighting. You’re terribly backlit tonight.”
Daniel emerged behind him, brushing imaginary dust from his feathers. “And I was making sure your aura’s symmetrical.”
“My aura,” Max repeated, dumbfounded.
“Presentation is everything,” Seb said, unfazed. “Especially when one’s dining with a human.”
Max’s expression twitched. “He’s not a - ” he stopped himself, jaw tightening. “He’s a prisoner. That’s all.”
“Of course,” Daniel said smoothly. “A prisoner you’ve been pacing over for half an hour.”
Seb’s grin sharpened. “And fixing your hair for.”
“I wasn’t - ” Max gestured sharply at them, teeth gritted. “I was thinking.”
“Thinking,” Seb echoed, folding his arms. “I thought my english was good, but I never realised that was a synonym for vanity now?”
Daniel tried and failed to suppress a laugh. “Awww he’s nervous.”
“I am not nervous,” Max growled, though the way his hand immediately went to smooth his coat collar betrayed him.
Seb’s flames brightened. “You know, if you admitted to caring once in your life, the château might stop creaking in protest.”
“Seb,” Max said warningly.
“What? I am helping.”
“You’re interfering.”
“Same thing.”
Daniel perched delicately on the edge of the chaise, plume flicking idly. “You’re doing better than last time, at least.”
Max frowned. “Last time?”
“The attempted dinner with George,” Daniel said. “He made onion soup and you glared at it so hard it evaporated.”
Seb snorted. “To be fair, George was lecturing about manners.”
“He still does,” Max muttered.
Seb stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Listen, Max, I know you don’t want this. You think it’s a performance, a waste of energy - ”
“It is,” Max said.
“ - but this boy isn’t like the others,” Seb continued, ignoring him. “He’s seen you angry, and he stayed. That’s not fear, that’s… curiosity.”
Max turned sharply. “He doesn’t know what I am.”
“Maybe,” Seb said softly, “but he’s not running. Isn’t that worth one meal?”
For a moment, the firelight caught Max’s face and the sharpness in his eyes softened just a fraction. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to him.”
Daniel grinned. “Try hello. Or, if you’re feeling bold, please pass the salt.”
Seb elbowed him lightly, then looked back to Max. “Be civil, be honest, maybe even smile.”
Max gave him a look that could have frozen a river. “I’m not smiling.”
“Then don’t,” Seb said, shrugging. “But don’t snarl either. It confuses the young ones.”
“That’s true,” Daniel added. “Nico almost had a breakdown over their failure to be real cutlery last time.”
Max groaned softly, rubbing his temples. “Why do I even listen to you two?”
“Because you like us,” Seb said sweetly.
“I tolerate you.”
Daniel fluttered a feather. “Ahhhh same difference when it comes to you Maxy boy.”
Seb’s flames dimmed to a mellow glow. “You’ll do fine, Max. You’re terrifying, but you’re not heartless.”
Max didn’t answer, instead he looked out the window again, toward the east wing where light was beginning to gather in the hall. “He won’t come.”
“He will,” Seb said confidently. “Lewis dressed him.”
That earned the faintest flicker of a smirk. “So he’ll look ridiculous.”
“Exactly,” Daniel said. “And you’ll love it.”
Max rolled his eyes and muttered something in Dutch that made Seb laugh.
At that moment, the door creaked open again - not wide, just enough for a sliver of light to cut across the floor. The rookies’ muffled voices echoed faintly down the corridor.
Seb brightened. “He’s arriving.”
Max’s shoulders stiffened instantly. “Out.”
“We’re moral support,” Daniel winked. “Just like that time at Jimmy’z in 2019.”
“You’re a fire hazard and a feather duster.”
Seb gave an extravagant bow. “Charming as always.” He swept toward the door, flames dimming to a polite glow. “Try not to scare him within the first five minutes.”
Daniel lingered a moment longer, voice low and teasing. “You’ll thank us later, boss.”
Max glared, “Get. Out. Now.” but also felt better for them.
They went, still laughing.
And when the door shut behind them, Max let out a slow breath. The fire cracked once - a single spark leaping high - and then the room stilled again. He looked down at his hands, flexed them once, and muttered with an attempted smile, “Dinner.”
Somewhere in the corridor outside, Seb’s voice drifted back, triumphant and wicked.
“See? He’s already practising.”
______________________
The rookies arrived all at once - a flurry of voices, movement, and uncoordinated enthusiasm.
The door burst open, hitting the wall with a bang that made Charles flinch.
“Sir Charles!”
“Don’t call him sir! He’s not cursed yet!”
“I said Sir because it’s polite, not because he’s ancient!”
“Still rude!”
Charles blinked, halfway between alarm and laughter.
Six of them stood in the doorway; silver and porcelain and brass, glowing faintly in the lamplight like the remnants of a spell gone charmingly wrong. They couldn’t have been more different if they’d tried - but somehow, together, they worked.
Kimi was the first to reach him - small and bright, his porcelain surface gleaming faintly in the lamplight, with a tiny chip on his rim that somehow made his smile more endearing. “Lewis said you were ready,” he chirped. “And you’re even better than ready! You’re dazzling!”
“Stop flirting with the guest,” muttered Gabi, a spoon whose surface gleamed darkly, like polished pewter. His tone was dry but not unkind. “You’ll frighten him off before dinner.”
Behind him came Oliver, a slender dessert fork with a shimmer of silver and a habit of tripping over his own reflections. He bowed, immediately knocked into a rug, and then stood upright again as if nothing had happened.
“I’m Oliver,” he said earnestly. “Ollie for short. Don’t mind Kimi, he thinks everyone is dazzling.”
Kimi gasped. “That’s not true! Only people who are nice.”
“Well, that narrows it down,” Ollie muttered, earning a scandalised gasp from Kimi.
The other three followed. Liam and Isack, both knives, both trying very hard to look professional and failing spectacularly, and Jack the fork. They offered awkward bows that nearly ended in a duel.
“We’re your escort!” Isack announced proudly.
“Technically we’re security,” Gabi corrected. “But escort sounds more romantic.”
Jack gasped. “We’re not romantic! We’re professional!”
“Speak for yourself,” Ollie said dreamily. “He has wonderful cheekbones.”
Charles let out a startled laugh, unable to help it. “You’re all so - ” he gestured vaguely “ - je ne sais quoi.”
“Thank you!” Kimi said brightly.
“Not a compliment,” Liam said dryly.
“It can be,” Ollie countered.
Charles smiled. “Lewis sent you, then?”
They all nodded at once.
“‘Make sure he arrives alive,’” Gabi recited dramatically, pitching his voice lower in a spot-on imitation of Lewis. “‘And preferably not wrinkled.’”
Kimi giggled. “We won’t let a single wrinkle near you! Except Isack - he’s wrinkled inside.”
“Hey!”
Charles shook his head, amused despite the nervous flutter building in his chest. “You’re all very different from the others.”
“Because we’re the best part of the curse,” Ollie said confidently. “The rookies.”
“The chaos division,” Liam added.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kimi said, waving his handle dismissively. “We’re the heart of the castle.”
“George says we’re the headache of the castle,” Isack muttered.
“George has no sense of humour,” Jack replied.
“George is just tea,” Ollie said. “He doesn’t need humour.”
They made Charles laugh again, properly this time. It startled him how good it felt. “You’re all … parfait !” he said, and meant it.
They preened collectively, clearly unused to praise.
Then Kimi’s tone softened. “You don’t look scared.”
“Should I be?” Charles asked, though part of him already knew the answer.
The six exchanged uneasy glances.
“Not of us,” Gabi said finally. “Of him.”
“You mean the Beast,” Charles said quietly.
Even saying the name changed the air. The candle nearest the door flickered.
“Um,” Isack said. “Yes. Him. Max”
“He’s not bad,” Kimi rushed to add. “Just… big.”
“And loud,” Ollie said.
“And intense,” Gabi added.
“And they used to call him Mad M - ” Isack began, but the word stuck. He froze mid-sentence, expression blanking like a clockwork toy run out of spring.
“Isack?” Charles asked gently.
Liam’s knife bent slightly, a shiver of unease passing through his metal. “We can’t. The castle doesn’t like us talking about… before.”
“Before?”
“Before him,” Kimi whispered. “When we still remembered everything.”
Charles frowned. “It won’t let you remember?”
Kimi nodded, small and solemn. “Every time we try, it’s like fog. You can almost see it, then it’s gone.”
“It’s okay, though,” Ollie said quickly, forcing brightness back into his tone. “We have each other.
“Yeah,” Gabi agreed, bumping Isack’s handle. “And George makes good tea.”
“And Seb and Daniel keep things entertaining.” Added Liam.
“And Max keeps us safe,” Kimi added, so softly Charles barely heard it.
The others didn’t argue and for a moment, the corridor seemed to hush around them. Then Ollie clapped his tines together. “Anyway! Dinner!”
“Yes,” Kimi said, bouncing. “Dinner!”
“Try not to trip over anything,” Liam muttered.
Kimi gasped. “That was one time!”
“It was three,” Isack corrected.
They spilled into the corridor, six voices weaving over each other in cheerful argument. Charles followed, smiling despite the ache in his chest. The hallways glowed softly as they passed. Sconces flaring awake and shadows curling out of their path like they were being gently pushed aside. Every step seemed to carry the hum that was customary of the low, steady heartbeat of the château.
“So what’s dinner like?” Charles asked as they turned a corner.
“Formal,” Liam said. “We’ve set the table like there’s a royal inspection.”
“Seb insisted on candles,” Ollie added. “Hundreds.”
“Daniel wanted fireworks,” Gabi said. “ But Nico said no.”
“George said absolutely not,” Isack said.
“Max didn’t say anything,” Kimi finished, voice small again.
Charles looked at him. “He’s that frightening?”
Kimi hesitated. “Not frightening. Just… sad.”
That word hit something deep in Charles’s chest. “Sad,” he repeated softly.
Ollie nodded. “You’ll see. He tries to look angry, but really he’s just… tired.”
Liam glanced at him. “Don’t pity him. He hates that.”
Charles smiled faintly. “Noted.”
Kimi perked up again. “You’ll be fine! Just don’t make sudden movements. Or jokes about fur. Or touch the piano.”
“That last one is important,” Ollie said gravely. “Oscar’s still sulking about it.”
Charles chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good! Now head up straight and chin high,” Gabi instructed as they approached the grand doors at the end of the hall. Candlelight spilled through the cracks, painting the floor in molten gold.
Kimi bounced on his saucer. “He’s already inside.”
“Max?”
“Mm-hm.”
Ollie grinned. “Don’t worry. If he growls, it means he likes you.”
“Growls,” Charles repeated. “Right, yes Lewis said.”
“Roars means admiration,” Isack added helpfully.
“And if he smiles - ” Liam began.
The others all looked at him.
Liam shrugged. “He won’t.”
Kimi gasped. “Liam!”
“What? It’s true.”
Charles laughed again, shaking his head. “You’re all unbelievable.”
“Compliment accepted,” Ollie said brightly.
They stopped just short of the door. The rookies straightened in something resembling a line - crooked, noisy, but proud.
“Good luck,” Kimi said softly.
Charles looked at each of them in turn, and for a strange, fleeting moment, he felt affection bloom, genuine and unguarded. These odd, chattering little souls were his first friends here. Or maybe children?
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For the company.”
Ollie’s tines gleamed, pleased. “We’ll be right outside in case you need rescuing.”
“I’ll try not to make you work for it,” Charles said.
Then he drew a slow breath and stepped forward.
The rookies watched as the great doors swung open, the golden light swallowing him whole. When they closed again, the corridor fell into hush.
Jack leaned toward Isack. “He’s going to die.”
“No, he’s going to flirt,” Liam said.
Kimi sighed, dreamy. “He’s brave. I like him.”
Ollie nodded, tines soft in the candlelight. “He’s doomed,” he said cheerfully, “but he’s lovely.”
The six of them lingered there a little longer, listening to the castle’s heartbeat steady itself before the storm.
The dining hall looked like it was holding its breath. Only the chandelier shivered once, then stilled, as if the château itself had noted the importance of this dinner and decided to behave for one. Charles paused at the threshold, pulse loud in his ears and coat sitting impossibly well on his shoulders thanks to Lewis. The doors swung wider.
He stepped into the gold.
Max was already there.
Mostly human, almost brutally so. Tall enough to make the room feel smaller and shoulders heavy beneath a dark coat that didn’t quite tame him. His hair was a little too long and falling in uneven strands that wanted to curl. The blue of his eyes cut through the candlelight like winter sun. Hands braced on the back of his chair, but he didn’t sit. He watched.
Charles crossed the last stretch of carpet and stopped at his place. “Bonsoir,” he said, as calmly as his mouth would allow.
Max’s reply was a low, unhurried rumble. “You came.”
From behind the half-closed doors, three very quiet voices and their keeper:
Seb: “Mein Gott ! He’ll live.”
Daniel: “Don’t jinx it.”
Lewis: “Shh.”
Nico, exasperated: “...”
Charles reached for the chair. It moved before he touched it, polite and faintly unnerving. He sat. Max did not.
“Thank you for the invitation,” Charles tried, and then, because the room seemed to demand honesty, “and for not throwing me out of a window.”
One corner of Max’s mouth twitched, dangerously close to humour but immediately denied. He slid into the head chair with a grace that was all control and the slightest threat. “If I intended to throw you, I wouldn’t waste a window.”
“Comforting,” Charles said lightly. “I’ll try not to deserve it.”
Max’s gaze lingered on him. Noted the collar Lewis had fixed, the cut of the coat, the steady chin for someone whose heartbeat could be heard by the furniture. “You look different.”
“Dressed,” Charles said. “Lewis’s fault.”
From the crack in the door:
Daniel (delighted whisper): “He noticed.”
Seb: “Of course he noticed. I dressed the room to force the shot.”
Lewis: “You dressed the room Seb? I dressed the boy.”
Nico, exasperated: “...”
A soft clink as plates slid into place, guided by invisible hands. George materialised on the sideboard with dignified steam, Kimi hopping at his saucer like a planet with its moon. The rookies kept to the shadows in reverent silence, as if they were watching theatre.
“Eat,” Max said. Not unkind, not gentle - simply a command wrapped in civility.
Charles lifted his spoon. The soup smelled remarkable, warm and subtle. He took a sip, and the flavours unfolded like a hand opening. His eyebrows rose despite himself.
“George,” Charles said to the room, because one should thank the magic, “it’s perfect.”
George puffed, pleased. “Manners. From a guest. Imagine.”
Max’s eyes flicked to the teapot, then back to Charles. “You can see them.”
“I can,” Charles said simply. “I think they like being seen.”
Max’s jaw shifted. “Most prefer not to.”
“Then they’ve chosen the wrong castle,” Charles said, as mildly as he could manage when his insides were currently performing Swan Lake. “I think everything here wants an audience.”
Seb’s whisper, smug: “He understands scale.”
Lewis, sotto voce: “He somehow understands you.”
Daniel: "This is the best day ever!"
Nico, exasperated: “...”
They ate. Or rather, Charles ate and Max rearranged cutlery with the intensity of a man disarming a bomb via stern glaring. The candles breathed and the rookies passed along bread with reverence. Oscar, somewhere distant, let one approving chord roll through the bones of the house, and then behaved because Nico would have a stroke if he didn’t.
“Why did you come here?” Max asked at last.
“For Pierre,” Charles answered, steady. “And now? For dinner.”
A pause as the ghost of something like surprise crossed Max’s face. “You joke.”
“Always,” Charles said. “It’s a coping strategy.”
“And if I don’t find it amusing?”
“Then I’ll have to get better at it.”
The silence that followed should have been awkward, yet it wasn’t. It was a wire strung tight between them, humming.
Max leaned back slightly. The candles carved his face into stronger lines, lines which softened nothing and forgave even less. “You challenged me yesterday.”
“I challenged your tone,” Charles said with a faint smile.
“And now?”
Charles met his eyes. “Now I’m trying not to die of nerves in an attractive coat while pretending it is normal to sit at cursed tables.”
Seb (in awe, whispering): “He’s insane.”
Daniel: “He’s perfect.”
Lewis, pleased: “The coat is working.”
Nico, exasperated: “...”
Max’s mouth almost softened. “You don’t sound afraid.”
“Max,” Charles said gently, and the name changed the temperature of the room by a degree, “I am absolutely terrified. I’m just choosing to be annoying about it.”
Something broke, tiny and bright, like frost cracking on a window. Max did not smile, but his eyes warmed half a fraction and he set down the knife he was clearly not going to use and folded his hands.
“You are different,” he said.
“I’ve been told that a lot,” Charles replied. “Usually by exasperated teachers.”
The next course arrived, by itself of course. Plates lifted, slid, and arranged with the choreography of a well-mannered haunting. Charles tried not to gape. Max didn’t look at the movement at all, instead choosing to watch Charles watch the magic, as if his reaction mattered more than the meal.
“You touched the piano,” Max said, quieter now.
Charles swallowed. “I did.”
“Again, don’t,” Max said, and there was no anger in it, only a flicker of something like… protectiveness? Or warning?
“I won’t,” Charles said. “Unless Oscar invites me. In that case I’ll be polite.”
From the door:
Lewis: “He’s winning.”
Seb: “He’s not losing. There’s a difference.”
Daniel: “I give it six minutes before Max actually smiles.”
Lewis: “Eight. Max is stubborn.”
Nico, exasperated: “...”
Charles set down his fork, his appetite secondary to the question burning a hole in his good sense. “Why did you let Pierre go?”
Max went very still. Even the flames noticed.
“Because he doesn’t belong here, amongst the broken and unsure,” Max said finally.
“And I might?” Charles asked, softly incredulous.
Max considered him, head tipping a fraction, the motion strangely animal. “You haven’t decided yet.”
The honesty hit Charles harder than cruelty would have and he could feel his mouth run ahead of his brain. “And you?” Charles asked, voice steady but low. “Have you decided about me?”
For the first time all night, the air changed, and Max remembered that he was a beast here, not just a man having dinner with another man.
It wasn’t silence so much as a pressure, the kind that thickened every breath and made the flames gutter. The candles bent toward Max like they couldn’t help it.
He didn’t speak immediately but when he did, the sound came out raw and sharper than the edge of Isack and Liams knives. “You really think you matter enough for me to decide anything?”
Charles froze.
Max’s voice grew harder, colder, “You wander in here, ignorant and fragile, talking as if the world should open for you. And then you sit at my table like we are equals.”
“I didn’t ask for equality,” Charles said quietly.
“No, you demanded it,” Max snapped, rising so quickly the chair legs scraped like thunder. “You think your courage makes you untouchable. Your charm is just arrogance. Your loyalty? Stupidity.”
The room shifted with him. Curtains stirred in a wind that didn’t exist. A glass cracked neatly down the middle.
Charles’s chest tightened, but he didn’t move. “You think arrogance and honesty are the same thing?”
Max’s eyes burned blue. “You think they’re different when it’s you speaking?”
“I think you hide behind cruelty because you don’t know how to speak without it.”
That landed. For a heartbeat, Max looked less like a man and more like the shadow of omen with his shoulders heaving and his hair falling wild around his face. Breath rough enough to sound like growling.
“You don’t know me,” he said, low and dangerous. “You don’t know what I am.”
“Then tell me,” Charles said, voice steady but almost shaking at the edges. “Tell me what you are. Because all I see is a man so afraid of being hurt he’d rather make everyone else afraid first.”
The words hit the air like a thrown knife.
Seb, behind the door, muttered, “He’s actually suicidal.”
Lewis, very softly: “Or honest.”
Daniel, gripping Seb’s arm: “Do we intervene?”
Seb: “No. Let him cook.”
Nico, exasperated: “...”
Max’s hands curled into fists. The table groaned beneath one palm, the grain splintering where claws - faint but real - pressed through the skin of his fingers. “You think you understand fear? You’ve never lived a day where the world looked at you and flinched. You don’t know what it is to be something that is either pitied or hated - ”
“I think you hate yourself enough for the rest of us,” Charles cut in, voice sharp now, breaking through instinct. “But sure, keep blaming the curse for that. Hate is choice Beast, not magic.”
The entire castle seemed to recoil as the chandelier rattled and candles flickering wildly. A roar, not quite human and not quite beast, shuddered out of Max’s chest before he caught himself. The sound echoed off the walls like thunder in a cathedral.
Charles stood too, his heart racing but eyes clear. “There you are,” he said, breathless but certain. “Finally. I was starting to think the stories lied.”
Max stared at him in half fury, half disbelief. “You are not afraid?”
“Of course I am,” Charles said, voice breaking once, then steadying. “But you don’t get to use fear to control me.”
The air hung between them, hot and cold all at once. Max’s breathing slowed and the light in his eyes dimmed from storm to sea. He looked down at the cracked wood under his palm and the faint curl of smoke where his anger had seared through polish, almost embarassed.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Max’s voice came quieter, scraped raw. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Maybe,” Charles said, still trembling, “but I did.”
Max looked up, and whatever fight was left in him faltered. Something like exhaustion, like regret, replaced it.
Charles swallowed hard. “Now perhaps,” he said, the bravery leaving his body via his lips as usual, “we can try talking normally over dessert, non?”
From the door, Daniel made a strangled sound that might have been a muffled scream. Seb pinched him with a flame. Lewis did not move, but his silence radiated capital-A Approval. Nico continued to look exasperated.
George, ever diplomatic, signalled the rookies. The six of them executed a flawless relay; plates out, sweets in, not a single spoon clattering. Young Ollie glowed with pride so brightly that his tines sparkled.
Charles glanced down. The tart looked like an apology wrapped in pastry. He smiled, “your Seb has taste it seems.”
Max’s gaze flicked to the centrepieces - of course Seb had overdone them, artfully - and back. “Seb has opinions. And he is not mine.”
“So do you,” Charles said lightly. “You’re just louder with yours.”
“Careful,” Max said, but there was no real warning in it.
The fork hovered and Charles felt it, the edge, the precipice of something not yet permitted by the castle, not yet named. Maybe it was the way Max was holding himself, still as a drawn bowstring. Maybe it was the memory of “You should be afraid” and the way Charles’s mouth had said “Would it change anything?” before his brain had a chance to veto the entire plan.
He lowered the fork. “I have another question.”
Max’s eyes sharpened. “Ask it.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
On the other side of the door, four spies stopped existing.
The chandelier hummed. The candles leaned forward. The room listened.
Max’s jaw worked once and when he spoke, the sound was careful, as if words were knives. “No.”
Charles exhaled. “All right.”
“That’s it?” Max asked, incredulous and, God help him, slightly offended. He had an image to uphold afterall.
“What were you expecting?” Charles’s smile tilted, reckless and true. “A dramatic faint? You should know by now that I am no princess Max.”
The breath Max took was almost a laugh. Almost. He cut it short like a dying man refusing water on principle. “You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told,” Charles said. “Often, recently.”
Silence again, but easier now, like the room had learned their rhythm. The rookies, emboldened, peeked from behind floral arrangements and Kimi beamed so hard George had to nudge him back into dignity. Oscar, very far away and very smug, let a few more approving notes curl up the stairwells.
Max nodded at the plate. “Eat.”
“Yes, your Bosiness,” Charles said before his survival instinct could stop him.
From the door:
Seb, ecstatic whisper: “He did not - ”
Lewis, very calm: “He did.”
Daniel: “Six minutes. Pay up.”
Nico, exasperated: “ … “
Max’s eyes flashed. Charles held his breath.
The moment stretched … and then broke, clean as a snapped thread. Max’s mouth curved, unwilling, brief, rare, and gone in an instant like a shooting star. Charles’s heart did something unhelpful. He picked up his fork, suddenly aware of every place his skin met the air.
They finished their desserts more by ritual than appetite, and when the last glass settled, the castle sighed and seemed sated by spectacle.
Max rose first and the air shifted to accommodate him. He looked for a fraction of a second, like he might say something human.
“Tomorrow,” he said instead. “You will walk the gardens. With me.”
Charles swallowed. “Is that a demand?”
“No.”
“Then I accept,” Charles said, because his survival instinct had stormed out the building and apparently his mouth ran the place now. “Thank you for dinner.”
Max’s eyes held his for one long, grounding heartbeat. “Don’t touch the roses.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Charles lied politely.
The chair pushed back for him, the candles bowed, and when Charles reached the door, it opened a fraction too quickly, revealing four eavesdroppers tumbling in like cats caught on a countertop.
Seb recovered with an extravagant bow.
Lewis pretended to be a wall.
Daniel discovered sudden business with his plume.
Nico didn’t even bother to look repentant.
Charles paused, amusement warming his mouth despite everything.
“Goodnight,” Charles said to all five of them, counting the shadow he could feel behind him.
Max didn’t answer but he didn’t have to. The castle did it for him with a low, satisfied note through the bones of the hall, like a promise accepted.
Charles stepped into the corridor and the doors breathed shut behind him.
On the other side, Seb fanned himself with literal flame. “Well,” Seb said, delighted, “we’re doomed.”
Lewis allowed himself the smallest smile. “Finally,” he murmured, “something worth dressing for.”
And Daniel, grinning at the door like a man with the best gossip in the world, whispered, “tomorrow, gardens. Place your bets gentlemen ! ”
______________________
The candles were nearly gone by the time Max realised he was still sitting in the same place.
The dining hall had quieted to its bones and the last of the plates vanished back into the ether. Wax pooled around the holders and dripped onto linen that would never stain. He hadn’t moved since Charles left.
The chair across from him sat empty, shadowed but not silent, with the echo of laughter - human and far too bright for this place - clinging to the air.
Max dragged a hand through his hair and cursed softly under his breath. For Max, silence was a relief and yet this was not. It was too quiet now, in a way that reminded him of sound instead of soothing its absence. The castle was listening, he could feel it in the walls and in the subtle pull of the air around him.
“You’re pleased,” Max muttered to no one in particular.
The chandelier above gave a faint tremor, crystal chiming in response.
“I’m not,” he said. “He’s - ”
He stopped. The word wouldn’t come.
Alive, bright, foolish, beautiful?? All of those fit, but none of them were what he meant.
He exhaled sharply, elbows braced on his knees. “He doesn’t belong here.”
The fireplace crackled in quiet dissent.
“I should have thrown him out.”
One of the candles flickered out, almost in mockery. Max was convinced Seb had something to do with it.
“Don’t start,” Max warned the room. “You’re all obsessed with him.”
The chandelier tinkled, a suspiciously innocent sound.
Max leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “He talks too much.”
The room didn’t answer.
“He stares too much.”
A pause.
“He doesn’t listen.”
A draft stirred the curtains, and the faint scent of him in it; cedar, silk, the faintest trace of something like engine oil.
Max closed his eyes and breathed in once before catching himself. “He’s infuriating.”
The castle hummed.
“He’s…” Max’s voice caught, softer now. “He’s not afraid.”
That last bit came out quieter than he meant it to. And, the words hung there, swallowed by the vastness of the room.
He stood abruptly, as though distance could undo the thought. The chair scraped back too hard - George will probably complain that he’s woken one of the rookies - but he didn’t care. The great doors at the end of the hall opened of their own accord, obedient but wary. Max paused on the threshold, looking back only once.
The table looked smaller now.
For a moment, he imagined Charles still sitting there, with his chin propped on his hand and his eyes alight with some unholy mix of terror and amusement, saying something reckless just to see if Max would react.
The thought made his jaw tighten. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he murmured, mostly to himself.
But the castle stirred, as if it disagreed.
He turned toward the west wing, boots striking stone, shadows sliding away before him.
Halfway down the corridor, he stopped and glanced at one of the tall mirrors lining the wall. His reflection looked back - more man than monster tonight, though he still wasn't enough of either.
Notes:
Come chat to me <3
Chapter 4: How to Throw a Picnic (Or, Ruining a Love Story in five Easy Steps)
Summary:
Reeeecaaaap time:
George: I’m surrounded by giant idiots
Oscar: Now that’s a bit harsh.
Oscar: I wouldn’t describe Lando as “giant”-----------------
Lewis: Of course I dress well.
Lewis: I didn’t spend all that time in the closet for no reason.-----------------
Charles: I can’t mansplain, manwhore, manipulate my way out of this one boys.
Also, Charles: Hang on wait -
Chapter Text
In the staff kitchens, the entire place buzzed like an enchanted beehive.
Seb was in his element, golden light flickering as he paced the table like a general mid-victory speech. “I told you! I told you! I said the boy would last the evening, and not only did he survive - ” he flung out a hand dramatically “ - he made Max smile!”
“It was barely a smile,” Oscar said from the piano near the wall, striking a sardonic note. “More a grimace with aspirations.”
George poured tea into his own cup, ignoring the steam curling from his spout. “Still counts. We’ve had dinners end with unnecessary anger and borderline violence. Progress is progress.”
“Thank you, George,” Seb said. “Finally, someone appreciates the artistry.”
Daniel snorted. “Artistry? You set him up like a first date … except the date is in a horror movie. And there’s no romance… so actually maybe not like a date at all…”
“I staged vibes,” Seb corrected.
“You threatened the candles,” Oscar said. “vibes under duress. I thought Germans were more logical than this?”
Across the table, Lando was sprawled across two chairs, still half-asleep, curls everywhere. “Did Max really not yell?”
“Nope,” Daniel lied. “Didn’t roar either.”
“Tragic,” Lando muttered. “I had a bet on that.”
“Who with?” Seb asked curiously.
“Everyone.”
“Ah.” Seb grinned. “Then technically, you owe everyone.”
Lando groaned into his arm.
The rookies sat a little apart, clustered around the end of the table like schoolboys who’d wandered into a staff meeting. They were whispering furiously.
“I told you he was brave,” Kimi said proudly.
“You also said he’d probably faint,” Ollie pointed out.
“I said he might faint,” Kimi corrected. “Different.”
“Max smiled,” Gabi said reverently.
“Did he, though?” Isack asked. “Or was it more of a facial twitch?”
“Let’s not question miracles,” Liam muttered, still polishing a spoon that didn’t need polishing.
Seb leaned toward them conspiratorially. “What’s this? My young grand-disciples whispering secrets?”
Ollie sat straighter. “We’re discussing the significance of Max’s smile.”
Seb grinned. “Ah, yes. A phenomenon rarer than a Williams podium and slightly more dangerous.”
George poured more tea. “And you all are gossiping instead of letting the poor man process that he’s developing emotions.”
“Developing is a strong word,” Oscar murmured.
Daniel perked up, all too cheerful. “You’re just jealous, Oscar. He actually likes Charles. Whilst you’re still traumatised from when he tried to tune you.”
“I was not traumatised,” Oscar said coolly. “I was offended. There’s a difference.”
Seb smirked. “Admit it. You like him too.”
Oscar played a single note - sharp, bright, final. “No comment.”
“See?” Daniel said. “He’s smitten.”
Lando lifted his head from the table. “We’re all smitten. Charles is like - I don’t know, polite chaos. It’s very French. He’s also very handsome, maybe if Max doesn’t hit I coul- ”
“ - Montequesque Lando,” Seb corrected, cutting him off. “Do not let him hear you say that.”
George nodded sagely. “He reminds me of a young Max.”
Everyone stopped.
Seb blinked. “George, darling, that’s either incredibly insightful or blasphemous.”
“I meant the stubbornness,” George said quickly. “Not the trauma.”
“Good,” Seb said. “Because one cursed man per household is enough.”
Daniel twirled his feather plume, grin lazy and knowing. “Max is going to ruin himself over this one.”
“He already has,” Oscar said. “He just hasn’t noticed yet.”
The rookies gasped, delighted. “You think he likes him?”
Seb turned to them with mock solemnity. “My dear grand-children, Max Verstappen hasn’t liked anyone in over a century. The fact that he didn’t throw Charles into the pool means we’re witnessing history.”
Ollie beamed. “We’re a part of history!”
Liam sighed.
George rolled his eyes fondly. “All of you, finish your tea before Lewis finds out we’re gossiping again.”
“Speaking of Lewis,” Seb said, eyes gleaming, “where is our resident fashion demigod this morning? Usually he’s here to tell me my flames clash with the drapes.”
Daniel smirked. “I heard him and Nico in the east corridor earlier. Arguing.”
“Arguing?” Seb gasped, scandalised. “At this hour? How generous they are to wait until after dawn.”
Lando perked up. He loved gossip. “What about?”
Daniel shrugged. “Existing, probably.”
Seb clutched his chest dramatically. “Such a tragic romance.”
George muttered, “Tragic, yes. Romance, no.”
The east corridor always felt colder when they shared it.
Nico stood perfectly still, pendulum ticking too fast, pretending he hadn’t been waiting. Lewis appeared at the far end, framed by pale light and immaculate. Coat open over layered silk and street-cut tailoring that looked criminally good for someone technically made of mahogany.
They met halfway, neither slowing.
“You know, I always keep a note in my pocket that says ‘Lewis did it’, just in case I ever get murdered,” Nico said, deadpan.
Lewis didn’t stop walking. “You think I’d kill you? You flatter yourself.”
“Oh, definitely not,” Nico called after him. “But if I die, I don’t want you getting remarried.”
Lewis turned then, a slow pivot, expression carved in control. “We were never married Nico.”
“We were everything but no?” Nico shot back. “Don’t rewrite history just because you can’t stand the ending.”
The clock’s tick echoed, sharp as a heartbeat.
Lewis’s mouth curved - not a smile, something colder. “History Nico? History is only history if you learn from it.”
“I learned that you’re incapable of losing gracefully.”
“And I learned you’d burn down the world for validation,” Lewis said, voice velvet and venom in equal measure.
Nico’s gears stuttered once, like the words physically hurt. “Still rehearsing that line, I see. You always did prefer performance to honesty.”
Lewis stepped closer; the air between them went thin. “Honesty? You want honesty, Nico? You’ve been seething for a century because you walked away and my world didn’t end.”
Nico’s hands balled into fists at his sides, the tick of his pendulum climbing toward frantic. “I didn’t walk away, you ran - the moment you couldn’t control the outcome.”
“I control what matters.”
“Then why are you here?” Nico demanded. “Why are you still in this castle, following the same curse, orbiting the same people - me - if you control anything?”
Lewis’s jaw flexed. “Because someone has to stop it all from breaking further.”
Nico laughed once, brittle and bright. “Ah, yes. The saint. Still pretending righteousness looks good on you.”
“It does,” Lewis said coolly. “Everything looks good on me.”
That infuriating grin, practiced and perfected, made Nico’s voice rise. “You’re unbearable.”
“And you’re predictable.”
They glared, the air humming between them. For a second, neither spoke.
Then Lewis sighed, a small, frustrated sound that broke the tension but not the distance. “We shouldn’t do this before breakfast.”
“Or ever,” Nico muttered, turning away. “Go play dress-up with your new favourite mortal.”
Lewis’s eyes narrowed. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Nico.”
“It’s not jealousy. It’s pity. Someone should warn him you ruin everything you touch.”
Lewis’s reply was quiet and cruelly precise. “Better that than never touching anything at all.”
The words landed hard. Nico froze, face turning away. The only sound was the faint, furious tick of his pendulum.
After a long moment, he said, without looking back, “You’re going to wish you hadn’t said that.”
Lewis adjusted his cuffs, composure snapping back like armour, although underneath there was a flicker of pain. “I already do.”
Nico stormed off down the corridor, the echo of his footsteps too fast, too human.
Lewis watched him go, expression unreadable - only his reflection in the marble gave him away, one hand flexing once at his side, as if he wanted to reach but couldnt.
Seb was mid-story, describing the “romantic tension” between Max and Charles using firelight reenactments, when Nico, and then Lewis entered.
Lewis, who was perfectly put together, glowing faintly gold against the morning light. Nico though, was precise, albeit flustered and ticking faster than usual.
“Morning,” Lewis said. “What did we miss?”
“Gossip,” Daniel said.
“Insults,” Oscar added.
“History,” Kimi piped up.
Seb grinned. “Proof that love still conquers beasts.”
Lewis arched a brow. “Dramatics then?”
“You’d know about dramatics wouldn’t you Lewis,” Nico shot back.
George sighed. “They’re all children.”
“Better children than clocks,” Seb retorted.
Before another argument could bloom, the rookies leapt up. “We’ll clean the table!” Kimi announced.
“Yes! Before Max wakes up!” Ollie added.
Seb gave them a radiant smile. “Good idea, little ones. He’s terrifying before Red Bull.”
George poured more tea. “He’s terrifying after, too.”
Daniel leaned his elbows on the table, smirking. “So, bets on how long before Max does something stupid in the name of repressed feelings?”
“Half a day,” Lando said immediately.
“A week,” Oscar guessed.
“Lunch,” Seb declared. “He’s already halfway there.”
George shook his head but couldn’t quite hide his smile. “All of you are hopeless.”
“Hopelessly invested,” Seb corrected. “Now, let’s discuss the roses.”
The rookies froze mid-polish.
Gabi whispered, “He said the roses.”
Isack swallowed. “He told Charles not to touch them.”
Seb smiled, all flame and mischief. “Which means, my darlings, that by sunset… he absolutely will.”
And with that, he and Daniel set off on their mission to push things along.
So too, did the rookies, albeit a lot less subtly.
______________________
The study always looked better in the morning, when the light was at its most honest. It came in at an angle through the high windows, pale and clean, laying out the room in sharp lines, whilst the castle hummed quietly beneath the floorboards, curious as ever.
Max sat in front of a sim rig that he'd hardly touched.
He hadn’t slept. He’d done the thing he'd repeatedly told the rookies not to do - he’d replayed it the crash.
The way Charles had stepped into the candlelight like he’d been born for it.
The reckless, steady mouth.
That stupid, miraculous joke about princesses. The word had lodged under Max’s ribs like a splinter.
He steered the car. It spun precariously into the wall at Maggots and Beckett.
“Tragic,” Daniel said from the doorway. “All these World Drivers Championships and you can’t make a corner.”
Max didn’t look up. “Fuck off.”
Daniel came in anyway, because of course he did. He flopped into the armchair opposite, upside down first - long feathers thrown over one side, head barely missing the carpet - then rolled to a sprawl. He’d brought an apple from somewhere, and bit it like a punctuation mark.
“So,” Daniel said, bright as lousy weather. “How was your date?”
Max turned off the sim. “It was just dinner Daniel.”
“That you didn’t end by throwing furniture.” Daniel bit again, chewed thoughtfully. “Growth. I’m so proud Maxy.”
Max studied the apple as if it were the problem. “You’re insufferable in the morning.”
“I am a delight until noon and a menace after,” Daniel said. “You know my hours.” He angled his head, eyes sharp beneath the grin. “He survived.”
Max’s jaw ticked. “He ate.”
“Yes. And survived. Most don’t manage both.”
“He talked too much.”
“Mm,” Daniel said, feathers ruffling, pleased. “Someone had to.”
Max ignored that. He stood, the chair sighing as if relieved, and walked to the window. The glass was old; it held a wavering version of the gardens, the roses a dark rash against the green. “Seb put too many candles.”
“Seb’s a candelabra, that’s how he says I love you,” Daniel said. “With fire hazards.”
Max felt, rather than saw, Daniel’s gaze track him. They’d been doing this long enough, their friendship spanning over a decade, that the air between them had its own map; where Max would stand when he wanted to look unbothered, where he’d put his hands when he was lying to himself, and, where Daniel would sit when he was about to push.
“You almost smiled,” Daniel said, as casually as he knew how.
“No,” Max said.
“Not a big one,” Daniel conceded. “Micro. A tremor. But seismologists probably felt it.”
“Eat your apple,” Max said.
Daniel did, still watching him. “What did he say?”
Max’s mouth considered not answering. “He asked if I was going to hurt him.”
Daniel’s feathers hit the carpet, interest sharpening despite already knowing the answer. “And?”
“I said no.”
Daniel let out a breath like a laugh that had changed its mind. “Look at you. Learning sentences.”
Max stared out at the roses. They stared back. “He asked like he already knew.”
“Yeah,” Daniel said softly. “He seems to do that.”
Silence. The castle listened like a nosy aunt.
Daniel broke it with a hum. “What do you think of him?”
Max didn’t move. “He talks with his hands without meaning to.”
Daniel grinned. “So you were looking at his hands.”
“I was looking at a hazard,” Max said. “He has the talent of walking straight into places he shouldn't and pressing buttons.”
“Gorgeous talent,” Daniel said. “We like a man with initiative hey Maxy.”
“Stop.” Max’s reflection in the glass looked like it had been carved out of a colder morning. He softened it by force. “He thanked George. He saw Kimi. He didn’t touch the piano.”
Daniel heard the quiet under that one. His voice gentled, the way it only did when he was about to push a truth across the table. “You wanted him to?”
Max’s hand closed on the window ledge. Old stone, smooth from five lifetimes of palms. “No.”
Daniel smiled without teeth. “Liar.”
Max turned, finally. “If he touches the piano, it becomes a conversation. I don’t - ” He cut himself off, jaw working once, twice. “I don’t want conversations I can’t finish.”
“You mean ones you can’t win,” Daniel said, not unkind.
Max didn’t take the bait. “He wore blue.”
Daniel brightened. “Lewis will be insufferable all week.”
“He looked…” Max stopped. The words shied like startled deer. “He looked like he belonged to himself. The room didn’t take that away.”
Daniel sat up properly. The grin eased into something human. “And how did that make you feel, your highness?”
“Like throwing a chair,” Max said.
“Progress and regression. Complex man.” Daniel tossed the apple core into the fireplace. It vanished before it landed. “I’m going to ask a horrible question, and you’re going to pretend to hate me for it.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Daniel spread his hands. “Do you remember the last time someone looked at you like that? Not afraid. Not worshipping. Just… measuring whether they can trust you, with their heart rate as the only judge.”
Max’s mouth thinned. The question went into him anyway. It moved through the wreckage, stepped on some old glass.
He remembered the crowds.
He remembered the noise.
He remembered men who had looked at him and wanted to take, to beat him. Beat him and then take.
He remembered one or two who’d wanted to stay; the curse had made sure they had to either way.
“No,” he said.
Daniel rocked back as if that had landed where he’d hoped. “Right. So… you’re out of practice.”
“With what?” Max asked, already knowing.
“Being wanted for the parts you didn’t break,” Daniel said simply.
Max looked back at the gardens to avoid the line of that. The roses breathed, a slow, collective pulse. “He doesn’t know me.”
“Not yet,” Daniel agreed. “So maybe don’t introduce him to the worst bits first.”
“I am the worst bits,” Max said, almost conversational.
Daniel snorted. “Please. You’re a grumpy old man with a temper and a talent for moving too fast. Half the curse is you pretending you don’t miss speed.”
That tugged a different wire. Max felt it in his fingertips - a memory of throttle, the old miracle of control. He didn’t look at it. “Speed is noise.”
“Speed is prayer,” Daniel said. “You used to know that.”
“I used to know lots of things,” Max said.
Daniel’s voice softened again. “You still do. They’re just rusted.”
Max said nothing. The room breathed with him.
“Okay,” Daniel went on, his tone brightening back to the setting most people mistook for foolishness. Max knew it was a scalpel. “New topic before you walk out and hit a wall out of principle. Hypothetical, if - and I’m not saying this will happen - but if the boy likes engines…”
Max’s head turned. “He does. You know he is a mechanic”
Daniel’s grin flashed. “Then maybe you show him a project.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Daniel said sweetly. “Something with grease and memory. Something that doesn’t talk back but forgives steady hands. Something blue, or red.”
Max stared long enough that Daniel’s grin gentled into the shape of relief. “You’re thinking about it,” Daniel said.
“I am not.”
“You are,” Daniel said. “You’re moving through your inventory. ‘Which relic of my sins do I hand to this man to see if he leaves fingerprints.’”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “If you keep talking, I will exile you to the north tower with Nico for a week.”
Daniel brightened. “Oh, we’d have the best time. He’d stress, I’d yap. Perfect holiday.”
“Daniel.”
“Fine, fine,” Daniel said, palms up. “But hear me please. He speaks machine. You do too. If words get tangled, and they will mate, you can talk through bolts and balance. You can say ‘I care’ with torque.”
Max looked at his hands again. The scars were just stories now and the strength, decorative. The curse had given him power and taken away motion. He imagined the blue coat, the curious mouth saying Ferrari like a prayer, imagined a bonnet lifting, imagined two sets of hands over an engine that had not run in years.
“It’s not time,” he said.
“I didn’t say now,” Daniel said. “I said maybe. Later. After walks and gardens.”
Max’s gaze flicked, involuntary, toward the roses. “He won’t touch them.”
Daniel’s brows lifted. “Won’t he?”
“He listens.”
“Does he,” Daniel said, merrily sceptical. “Or does he file threats under ‘things to flirt with’?”
A reluctant breath escaped Max’s nose that might have been the ghost of a laugh. “He’s worse than you.”
“No one’s worse than me,” Daniel said, delighted. The delight faded into something quieter. “One more horrible question?”
Max didn’t bother groaning this time. “What.”
“What happens if you let yourself want this,” Daniel asked, gentle, as though his hand was pressed on a wild animal’s neck, “and it disappears like everything else?”
There it was. The real wire.
Max felt it snap under his teeth before he bit it. “Then I will be what I was before.”
Daniel held his gaze. “No. You won’t.”
Silence. The castle shifted - just the smallest adjustment, as if to make room around the sentence.
"Time for you to go Daniel."
Daniel stood, shaking out his wrists like a boxer. “All right. But first, strategy time before the lights go out! You’re walking the gardens with him.”
“That was not a request,” Max said.
“Pretend it was.” Daniel ticked items off on his fingers. “One … Don’t snarl in the first five minutes. Two … If he makes a joke, let it land. You don’t even have to laugh mate, just don’t murder it. Three … if he looks at the roses, let him look. Four … if he asks, answer something true. Not everything, just something. Five … ”
“No,” Max said immediately.
“ … don’t threaten exile,” Daniel finished cheerfully. “You’ll need that later.”
Max stared until Daniel raised both hands, surrendering. Then Daniel’s eyes softened again at the edges. “And, Max?”
“What.”
“If you catch yourself almost smiling,” Daniel said, “let it happen. Nobody dies because of it.”
Max looked back at the window. The light had shifted warmer and the roses seemed to lean toward it like an argument. He thought of a boy in blue telling terror to sit and wait its turn. He thought of Would it change anything if I were afraid? and how the answer had been no and also everything.
“I’ll try,” he said.
Daniel grinned. “Attaboy.”
“And you,” Max added, because revenge was a language he remembered, “will keep Seb away from him until then.”
Daniel saluted with two fingers. “I can promise to try. Which is to say: no.”
Max closed his eyes once, brief, like a man preparing to step into the harsh Dutch rain. When he opened them, the room had drawn itself into order around the decision. The castle liked requests dressed as commands.
Daniel headed for the door, all swing and sunlight. At the threshold he paused, turned. “Hey.”
Max lifted his chin.
“You know the funniest thing about last night?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
“You looked happier in your anger, than you’ve looked in your boredom since your second WDC,” Daniel said, kind as a knife that cuts clean. “Try that on for size.”
Before Max could tell him to leave, Daniel did, whistling down the corridor with the castle following the sound like an old dog.
Alone again, Max let the silence come back. It set itself around him like armour. He loosened it with a hand at the collar.
On the desk, lay a small, folded scrap of grease-stained linen, a remnant from a different lifetime. He didn’t remember putting it there. He touched it with two fingers and thought, against his will, of blue metal sleeping under a tarp.
Not yet, he told the thought. Then, unbidden; soon.
He looked out at the gardens one last time, at the rose bed cutting accross the lawn. The wind moved over them and they turned, very slightly, toward the east, toward where Charles would be, with his mouth that wouldn’t quit would be asking questions Max didn’t want to answer and would anyway.
Max exhaled. The glass fogged, cleared.
“All right,” he said to the castle, to the morning, and to the part of himself that had started listening again. “Let’s see if he can walk without touching.”
The chandelier in the hall chimed as if to say no chance.
Max almost smiled. Then he didn’t. He pushed off the window and went to find his coat.
______________________
Across the gardens, morning had crept into the east wing slowly.
The château, which usually woke in murmurs and gossip, was unusually quiet as if it too were watching to see what the day would bring.
Charles found himself on the terrace, coat slung loosely over his shoulders, a cup of tea cooling beside him. Below, the gardens shimmered with dew. He hadn’t yet worked up the courage to step into them. The memory of last night still clung to him like static - the candlelight, the look in Max’s eyes, and, the way the air had felt alive around them.
He’d been staring at the horizon for long enough to forget time when a voice spoke behind him.
“Ah,” said a smooth, accented tenor. “You found my favourite view.”
Charles turned.
The newcomer leaned casually in the doorway - tall and parental, but still with a boyish charm, and carved in gold light. His form flickered gently between man and candelabra, flames burning where his hands should be, his expression somewhere between amusement and assessment.
“You must be Charles,” he said, pronouncing it the French way, and stepping onto the terrace with the graceful confidence of someone who had never once been unwelcome anywhere. “Sebastian Vettel. Aber Seb, bitte.”
“Charles Leclerc,” Charles replied, standing automatically. “I think I’ve met most of the castle by now except you.”
Seb smiled, a quick flare of warmth that made the air hum. “Then you’ve met the amateurs first.”
Charles laughed despite himself. “You’re modest.”
“I am German,” Seb said, mock-serious. “Modesty is a trap; efficiency is better.”
He crossed to the balustrade and gestured with one burning hand at the gardens below. “You’re going walking with him today.”
“So I’ve been told,” Charles said carefully.
“You do not have to Charles.”
“I’d have to be stupid not to.”
“Ah,” Seb said approvingly. “So not stupid. Good.”
He leaned against the railing, his flame flickering low and steady. “How was dinner?”
Charles hesitated. “Unexpected.”
Seb’s smile curved. “Most things about him are.”
Charles looked back at the gardens, unwilling to meet that knowing gaze. “He’s… difficult.”
“He’s disciplined,” Seb corrected gently. “It only looks like difficulty when you haven’t learned his rhythm.”
“Does he have one?”
Seb chuckled. “He used to.”
Charles glanced at him. “You’ve known him a long time, then.”
“Longer than he’d admit.” Seb tilted his head, watching him through the flicker of candlelight. “You’re curious about him.”
“I’d have to be made of stone not to be.”
Seb nodded, approving of the honesty. “Good. Stones don’t break curses.”
That made Charles pause. “You think I can?”
Seb shrugged, smiling with his eyes. “I think you already have him thinking, il Predestinato.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or a warning.”
“Both,” Seb said cheerfully.
They stood in companionable silence for a moment, whilst the breeze played across the terrace, making Seb’s flames bend gently without extinguishing. Charles watched it, fascinated by the way the light shifted across him, both solid and insubstantial.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Seb said after a while.
“By you?”
“By any of this.”
Charles thought about it. “Maybe I should be. But I don’t know, it feels like I’ve walked into a story I already half-remember.”
Seb’s expression softened. “That’s usually how the good ones start.”
He studied the younger man for a beat, then added, “You’re different from others.”
Charles gave a small, dry smile. “So I’ve heard.”
“No.” Seb shook his head. “Not in the way he says it. You’re different because you still see the world as fixable.”
Charles huffed a laugh. “And you don’t?”
“I’ve had decades to be taught otherwise,” Seb said. “But maybe it’s contagious.”
They fell quiet again, watching the sunlight crawl across the hedges.
Then, as if sensing the shift in Charles’s thoughts, Seb changed the subject. “Lewis says you’re good with machines.”
Charles blinked, surprised. “Lewis told you that?”
Seb grinned. “He tells me everything. He likes you already and that’s rare.”
“I’ve always liked engines,” Charles said slowly. “The precision of them. The way something can sound angry and still be beautiful.”
“Ah,” Seb said, his flames brightening.
“You like cars too?”
“Like?” Seb laughed. “They were like religion to me once. I was a pilot before all this. All of us were.”
Charles’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Seb inclined his head. “Before the castle, before the curse. Speed, engineering, competition … it was everything.”
“Do you miss it?”
Seb smiled sadly. “Every day. I’ve learned to find speed in other things, but still, I sometimes dream of red engines.”
Charles looked at him curiously. “Red?”
Seb’s grin turned mischievous. “Ferrari red. The best colour in the world - fast even when it’s standing still.”
Charles laughed, bright and genuine. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“Well you know what they say, everybody's a Ferrari fan,” Seb said, still grinning.
They leaned on the balustrade together, the air between them easy now, almost like old friends.
Seb studied him a moment longer. “He had one, you know. Once.”
Charles frowned. “A Ferrari?”
Seb nodded. “His pride. He built it himself - a miracle of engineering. It’s sleeping somewhere under dust. The curse hasn’t taken it because the castle remembers how much he loved it.”
“Do you think it still works?”
Seb’s flames flickered slyly. “I think it waits for the right hands.”
Charles’s smile turned thoughtful. “Maybe he should show me.”
Seb arched a brow. “You’re either brave or suicidal.”
“I’ve never been good at telling the difference.”
Seb laughed, a sound like a crackle of warm firewood. “Ah, you’re trouble. He needs that.”
Charles shrugged, amused. “He doesn’t seem like he’d agree.”
“Max rarely agrees with what’s good for him,” Seb said. “That’s why the rest of us exist.”
He turned to face Charles properly, his expression gentling. “He’s not cruel, you know. Just careful. Everything he loves breaks and so he’s stopped touching things.”
Charles’s voice softened. “Maybe someone should remind him how.”
Seb’s eyes gleamed with old hope catching new light. “Maybe someone will.”
They fell silent again, the conversation settling like dust in sunlight. The garden stretched below them, lush and wild, the path curling through roses that glowed faintly even in daylight.
Seb’s gaze followed Charles’s. “Don’t touch the roses,” he said lightly.
Charles glanced at him, smiling. “Why not?”
“Because he told you not to.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“It’s the only one that keeps him sane,” Seb replied, but his tone was gentle, not forbidding.
Charles’s smile turned softer, more curious than defiant. “I’ll remember.”
Seb’s flames flickered approvingly. “Good. Or don’t. Either way, it’ll be interesting.”
Charles laughed under his breath. “You’re a menace.”
Seb bowed, one arm of flame sweeping dramatically. “Takes one to know one Charles, and you’re the first real chaos we’ve had in a decade. I find that promising.”
He started back toward the door, pausing just long enough to add, “You should eat something before your walk. He’s more bearable on a full stomach.”
Charles rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Thank you, Seb.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Seb said, heading inside. “You haven’t seen him in daylight.”
When Charles turned back to the gardens, the sun was higher now, the roses glowing like embers under glass. For a moment, the wind shifted and he could have sworn they moved towards him, all at once, like a field bowing to something unseen.
In the west wing, at that same instant, Max paused by his window. He looked down and saw a figure in blue on the terrace, sunlight caught in his hair, a flicker of flame beside him.
For a second, everything stilled.
Then both men - one in shadow, one in sunlight - stepped away from their windows, the same thought pulling them toward the same path.
Toward the garden.
Toward each other.
______________________
Seb found Daniel in the ballroom, because of course he did.
If Seb was the château’s flame, Daniel was its echo - loud, bright, and absolutely everywhere he shouldn’t be. He’d made himself at home on one of the long tables, feather plumes on the wood.
Seb’s flames brightened as he entered. “You’ll stain the table.”
Daniel waved his feathers airily. “It’s cursed Sebi. It’s seen worse.”
“Respect the furniture,” Seb said, mock stern. “It’s older than you.”
“Everything’s older than me,” Daniel said cheerfully. “Except Britney’s grudges... and you !”
Seb laughed, a low, golden sound that made the candles flicker in agreement. “Don’t let him hear that.”
Daniel watched him for a beat. “You’ve been out with the boy.”
Seb inclined his head. “He’s fascinating.”
“Of course he is,” Daniel said, as though this were obvious. “Anyone still capable of sarcasm after a dinner with the Beast deserves a medal.”
“He’s curious,” Seb said thoughtfully. “Not afraid, but not reckless. He listens. And when he looks at things - engines, walls, people - he sees how they work.”
Daniel grinned. “And you’ve already decided he’s the sun of the château.”
Seb ignored that. “He reminds me of Max before all this.”
Daniel’s grin softened at the edges. “Yeah. I saw it too.”
They fell into a companionable silence, the kind that only came from years of practice. Seb wandered the row of alcohol pressed up behind the old bar, running one burning hand along the bottles - each touch leaving a faint trail of warmth behind.
Daniel propped his chin on his hand, watching him. “He’s got you hoping again.”
Seb turned, one eyebrow raised. “And that’s a crime?”
“No.” Daniel shrugged. “It’s just… been a while since I saw you light up for something that wasn’t arson.”
Seb laughed. “My hope predates your chaos, kumpel.”
Daniel grinned. “Barely.”
Seb stopped beside the window, glancing out toward the terrace where Charles had stood earlier. He still seemed to linger there somehow, like a ghost of personality against the pale stone.
“He asked about cars,” Seb said quietly. “About engines.”
Daniel perked up. “Oh, now that’s dangerous.”
“He understands them,” Seb continued. “He speaks that language. Precision, rhythm, control. You can tell in the way he talks about motion. He loves it.”
Daniel smirked. “And you told him about Ferrari, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” Seb said. “I couldn’t resist. The moment I mentioned red engines, his eyes lit up.”
Daniel let out a low whistle. “And you wonder why I call you a romantic.”
“I’m German,” Seb said for the second time today. “We are not romantic. We are efficient at feelings.”
Daniel laughed so hard the feather nearly fell from his hand. “Ahh yes, just look at Nico. Also, you’re the least efficient person in this castle.”
Seb grinned, unabashed. “And yet everything gets done.”
Daniel chuckled, then leaned back, the playfulness fading into something gentler. “You really think he could help?”
Seb’s flames dimmed, more candle than blaze now. “I think he already has.”
Daniel considered that. “Max won’t let himself believe it. He’s too good at punishment.”
“Yes,” Seb said softly. “But we both know he’s actually terrible at pretending not to feel. That’s why it hurts so much.”
They both fell quiet again. The air in the ballroom hummed faintly, aware of their conversation.
Daniel looked toward the far window, where the morning light was turning from gold to white. “Do you remember when he used to smile without apologising for it?”
Seb smiled faintly. “I remember when you used to make him.”
Daniel’s grin was bittersweet. “Ahh we were so young. Fast. Reckless. It was easier to outrun ghosts back then.”
“You’ve never stopped trying,” Seb said gently.
Daniel shrugged. “Somebody had to keep the engine running.”
Seb turned fully toward him, firelight exposing the fine lines of his face. “You think you’re the only one who stayed for him?”
“No,” Daniel said quietly. “But I think we all stayed for different reasons. You stayed because you believe he can change. I stayed because I remember who he was before he did.”
Seb’s eyes softened. “Both are true.”
Daniel leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. “Do you ever think about what’ll happen if the curse breaks?”
Seb smiled. “Every day.”
“And?”
“I think he’ll drive again,” Seb said simply. “He’ll build something. Maybe he’ll even laugh.”
Daniel tilted his head. “You think the boy’ll stay?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a dangerous bet.”
Seb grinned, flame brightening. “All the best ones are Danny.”
Daniel laughed under his breath. “You’re impossible.”
“I learned from you,” Seb shot back.
They shared a look - the kind old friends could hold without flinching, filled with everything they’d survived and everything they hadn’t said.
After a while, Daniel spoke again, softer now. “He’s taking him to the gardens.”
“I know.”
“You think that’s wise?”
“No,” Seb admitted. “But necessary.”
“Those roses scare me, mate.”
“They should,” Seb said. “They’re what’s left of his heart.”
Daniel fell quiet, eyes thoughtful. “Then maybe it’s time someone touched them.”
Seb’s smile turned melancholy. “Maybe.”
They stood there for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts. Then Seb exhaled and clapped Daniel lightly on the shoulder. “Come on. If we’re going to interfere, we should at least look like we’re helping.”
Daniel laughed. “You really think he’ll thank us for meddling?”
“Of course not,” Seb said brightly. “But that’s never stopped us before.”
As they headed toward the door, Daniel paused. “Hey, Seb?”
“Yes?”
“You ever think we’re just… repeating the same laps? Same arguments, same hope, same heartbreak?”
Seb glanced back, his flame soft and steady. “That’s the thing about laps,” he said. “You still get faster every time.”
Daniel smiled, small and genuine. “You really did love racing, didn’t you?”
Seb nodded once. “Still do. Just changed circuits.”
They left the library together, laughter and candlelight spilling into the corridor behind them.
And somewhere else in the château, two men — one in shadow, one in sunlight — were already walking toward the same garden.
The old friends shared a look that said here we go again.
Then, almost in unison:
“Ten minutes before disaster.”
“Five,” Seb said confidently.
They grinned - until they reached the end of the hall and looked out through the tall windows that overlooked the east gardens.
Seb froze. “Daniel.”
Daniel followed his gaze. Down below, on the broad lawn beneath the olive tree, five rookies and one over-excited footstool were very obviously staging what appeared to be a romantic ambush.
“Oh, no,” Seb whispered, both horrified and delighted.
“Oh, yes,” Daniel said, breaking into a grin. “Ten minutes just became instantly.”
______________________
The gardens hadn’t seen this much life in decades.
Sunlight spilled over the terrace steps and down into the maze of hedges, catching on spider silk and dew.
And right in the centre of it all - next to the usually peaceful pool - chaos bloomed.
Five rookies and one very smug footstool were hard at work.
“Put the cloth straighter!” Ollie shouted, balancing a Red Bull can precariously on his tines.
“It is straight,” Liam said, deadpan, knife glinting. “The ground must be crooked.”
Gabi, spoon bowl catching the light, squinted. “No, that’s Lando’s fault. He keeps moving.”
“I’m fluffing the grass,” Lando protested indignantly from where he was bouncing up and down, trying to smooth the picnic blanket with his paws. “It’s called presentation lads.”
“You’re shedding on the strawberries,” Isack pointed out.
Kimi gasped. “No! They’re for Max! They have to be perfect!”
George rolled into view then, steam puffing from his spout like a storm cloud. “What,” he asked in a tone of grave doom, “are you all doing?”
Six heads turned - some guilty, some sparkling with pride.
“Morning, dad, I mean .... George!” Kimi chirped, pretending innocence badly.
George surveyed the scene. A red-and-white blanket spread across the grass, plates stacked haphazardly, fruit tumbling dangerously close to disaster, and flowers arranged in vases that definitely hadn’t existed five minutes ago. Magic shimmered faintly around everything, the kind of enchantment that only appeared when hope overpowered good sense.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” George sighed. “Tell me you didn’t raid the kitchens again.”
“We didn’t!” Ollie said brightly. “We borrowed like good children do!”
“Borrowed implies returning,” George said. “And I highly doubt those éclairs are coming back.”
“They’ll come back as happiness,” Lando argued, tail wagging.
“Joyful crumbs,” Liam added dryly.
George closed his eyes. “I knew this would happen the moment Seb started talking about destiny.”
“This isn’t destiny,” Kimi said solemnly. “It’s logistics.”
George blinked. “You’ve been talking to Nico, haven’t you?”
Kimi tilted his saucer shyly. “Maybe a little. He is very persuasive.”
Ollie clattered forward, full of righteous excitement. “Listen, George. We’ve been thinking - ”
“Oh no,” George muttered.
“ - Max and Charles had dinner last night - ”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“ - and Max smiled!”
George paused, surprised despite himself. “He did?”
“Gabi saw it!” Isack said. “And he never lies! Except when he’s late.”
Gabi bristled. “It was a micro-smile. Subtle but there.”
“Still counts,” Ollie insisted. “So we thought, what’s better than one smile?”
“A holiday?” George offered dryly. “The extended cut of Casino Royale?”
“A second smile!” Kimi declared, at the same time Isack asked, "what's Casino Royale?"
George sighed. “Oh, dear lord.”
“So,” Ollie continued proudly, “we made a picnic!”
Lando bounced once in agreement. “With berries! And Red Bull! And cushions! And a view of the roses! It’s romantic and practical!”
“Practical how?” George asked.
“They’ll sit,” Lando said confidently. “Max literally never sits unless it's in his sim rig.”
George gave him a long look. “That’s your definition of progress?”
“Yes!”
The teapot stared at them all for a long, slow moment. Then, with the weariness of a parent outnumbered by toddlers, he exhaled steam and muttered, “If this explodes, I’m telling Seb it was your idea.”
“It is our idea,” Kimi said, like George was the idiot in this situation.
George groaned. “Wonderful.”
Still, he didn’t stop them.
He watched, grumbling quietly, as they worked - Liam leveling the blanket edges with impossible precision, Gabi and Isack arranging plates into rough symmetry, Kimi bouncing from one task to another like an enthusiastic comet. Ollie supervised with the air of an artist unveiling a masterpiece.
Even the castle itself seemed to help. The air warmed. The hedges leaned a little closer, their shadows stretching to shade the cloth. The breeze carried the scent of roses without stirring a single petal.
“You realise,” George said finally, “that if Max finds out you interfered - ”
“When he finds out,” Liam corrected. “I tried to warn them.”
“ - we’ll all be polishing silver for a month.”
“Worth it,” Kimi said firmly.
“Absolutely worth it,” Ollie agreed. “He needs this.”
George tilted his head, studying the tiny cup’s earnest face. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
Kimi nodded. “He’s lonely. But he doesn’t remember how to stop being.”
Something in George softened. “You’re far too wise for your size.”
“I read Seb’s secret books,” Kimi said proudly. “The ones with the scary dragons and tragic men who think they can’t love.”
Lando snorted. “You’ve just described Max.”
“Exactly,” Kimi said.
Ollie looked toward the château, where the sunlight hit the tall windows of the west wing. “He’ll come,” he said quietly. “They both will.”
George followed his gaze. The castle hummed faintly with that telltale vibration of magic in agreement.
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified,” George admitted.
“Both!” Gabi said brightly. “That’s what love is, right?”
George nearly dropped his lid. “Who told you that?”
“Daniel,” Isack said innocently.
“Of course,” George muttered. “I should’ve known.”
They fussed a little longer, adding finishing touches; flowers (arranged entirely by magic, NOT by teenage boys), a carafe of something sparkling and cold, plates that refilled when no one was looking.
Lando jumped back to admire the scene, tail wagging furiously. “Perfect! It’s got romance, sugar, and potential disaster!”
George sighed but couldn’t help smiling. “It’s… actually lovely boys.”
The rookies preened collectively.
Then, without warning, the château itself seemed to inhale. A ripple of movement passed through the hedges. A soft adjustment, like a bow.
Kimi froze. “He’s coming.”
“Which one?” Ollie whispered.
“The important one,” Kimi said.
“Oh, we’re so dead,” George muttered, straightening his spout.
The air shifted again, this time carrying a note of anticipation and something new, something alive.
The rookies scattered to hide behind hedges and planters, peeking out like guilty children. George stayed where he was, pretending authority, though his handle trembled faintly.
And then -
Footsteps.
Soft and measured.
Charles appeared at the far end of the garden path, the morning sun behind him, hair catching the light, the blue of his coat cutting a perfect line through the gold and green.
He slowed when he saw the picnic, brow furrowing in surprise, and then laughing, ran a hand through his hair.
“Of course,” he said softly to himself. “You ridiculous, wonderful things.”
He stepped closer, crouching to inspect their handiwork. “You’ve outdone yourselves.”
From behind a hedge, Kimi whispered, “He likes it!”
“Of course he likes it,” Ollie hissed back. “We’re legit geniuses.”
“Do you think it’ll work?” Isack asked.
Lando wiggled in the grass. “It haaaas to. The castle said so.”
George, watching from his place by the table, sighed. “Let’s hope the castle knows what it’s doing.”
Charles smiled, straightening. The roses swayed faintly beside him, like they’d been waiting too.
He took a breath, turned toward the path leading deeper into the garden and the waiting shadow at its far end.
“Right,” he murmured, half to himself, half to the air. “Let’s see what happens next.”
The wind shifted, carrying the faintest whisper of laughter through the roses. A sound like the castle’s heartbeat, hopeful and afraid in equal measure.
And from somewhere beyond the trees came the sound of approaching footsteps - heavier and more deliberate this time, unmistakably Max.
The rookies ducked.
George groaned.
Lando whispered, “It’s working.”
The petals of the nearest rose trembled, as if they agreed.
Charles heard Max before he saw him. The deliberate, even rhythm of a man who refused to hurry for anyone but himself.
Then, he turned.
Max was coming down the path from the west wing, coat open, hair messy from sleep, the sunlight catching in it just enough to ruin his effort at intimidation. In the bright day he looked almost human. Mostly. The scale of him was still too wrong for peace - too large, too certain - as though still built for speed and violence he no longer allowed himself.
He stopped when he saw the picnic.
The expression on his face went from suspicion to disbelief to something that definitely qualified as rage.
“What,” Max said, every syllable wrapped in control, “is this.”
Charles glanced at the blanket. “A trap, probably.”
Max’s eyes flicked to him, blue and sharp. “Did you do this?”
“I wish I could claim it,” Charles said. “But no. I think the castle’s gone feral.”
A quiet, horrified clatter came from a nearby hedge where Lando and the rookies were pretending to be foliage.
Max’s gaze tracked to the sound. “Lando, I am not stupid. Only you would do this.”
The footstool froze. “Hi?”
Max stared. “Explain.”
Lando’s little carved paws fidgeted. “It was… morale building. For the household. A team exercise. You like teamwork mate!”
Max’s jaw flexed. He looked ready to attack, or perhaps flee.
Ollie whispered, “Abort mission,” and was immediately elbowed by Kimi.
Charles, fighting laughter, stepped between them and the supposed beast. “They meant well.”
“They meant meddling.”
“They’re children,” Charles said, gesturing at the blanket. “And very proud of this. You could at least pretend gratitude before you incinerate anyone.”
“I don’t incinerate people,” Max said flatly.
Lando whispered to the others, “Guys, I don't think he likes picnics.”
“I thought everyone liked picnics,” Isack questioned in return.
“Leave,” Max ordered without raising his voice, and the rookies scattered so fast even George didn’t attempt discipline.
The garden fell still again.
Charles looked back at him, all feigned innocence. “So. Shall we sit?”
“I don’t sit outside.”
“Then it’s a new experience,” Charles said brightly, lowering himself to the blanket. “Try it. You might even survive.”
Max regarded the set-up as though it were a riddle designed to humiliate him. Then, perhaps because the castle had shifted faintly in encouragement, he sat - stiff-backed and formal. Perhaps the least relaxed man to ever touch grass.
Charles bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “See? Not so bad.”
Max gave the impression of someone surviving surgery without anaesthetic. “Why are you always talking?”
“It fills the silence.”
“I like silence.”
“I’ve noticed,” Charles said. “But I don’t trust it. It always feels like the calm before something terrible.”
Max’s mouth twitched. “Maybe.”
They were quiet for a beat. Birdsong filled the space where nerves didn’t belong.
Charles reached for the fruit bowl. “Strawberry?”
“No.”
“Afraid it’s poisoned?”
“Afraid it’s unnecessary.”
Charles ate one himself, making a show of enjoying it. “Tragic. They’re actually quite good. You’re missing out.”
“I’ve missed out on worse.”
“That sounds philosophical,” Charles said, lying back on one elbow. “Do you practise that in the mirror?”
“No. I am that.”
He said it without irony, and somehow that made Charles laugh. The sound startled a small flock of petals from a nearby rose bush. They drifted between them, soft as breath.
Max watched them fall. “Don’t touch those.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
Charles grinned. “You read minds now too Max?”
“You think loud.”
“And you brood loud,” Charles shot back. “It balances out.”
For a moment, Max almost, almost, smiled again. Then he looked away, jaw tightening as though he’d caught himself. “You don’t know what they are.”
“Roses?” Charles asked. “ I mean I thought they were flowers non? Fragrant. Sometimes romantic, occasionally tragic.”
“They’re not just that.”
“Then what?”
Max hesitated. The words he wanted, gathered behind his teeth and refused to leave. The curse always interfered when truth tried to make itself known.
Instead, he said, “They’re what’s left.”
Charles sat up a little. “Of what Max?”
Max didn’t answer. But this time the silence wasn’t hostile but defensive. The air between them grew heavy with unspoken things.
Charles looked at him, really looked. In daylight, the edges of him were softer. He still looked dangerous, but not cruel. The lines on his face belonged to someone who’d lived hard and fast and kept the receipts.
He said quietly, “Seb said you loved cars.”
Max blinked. “Did he.”
“He said you built one from parts once. A Ferrari.”
For the first time, Max’s composure faltered. “He talks too much.”
“Maybe,” Charles said. “But it made me curious. Why Ferrari?”
Max’s eyes flicked toward the roses, then back. “Because red is the only colour that looks fast even when it's stood still.”
Charles smiled. “That’s exactly what he said.”
“Of course it is. He stole it from me.”
Something broke loose in the air - small, unguarded laughter. Brief but real. The sound startled even Max, and Charles grinned wider. “See? Not so bad.”
Max shook his head once, almost rueful. “You’re infuriating.”
“So I’ve heard.”
A breeze moved through the garden, stirring the picnic cloth. One of the roses brushed against Charles’s sleeve, leaving a faint streak of scarlet pollen like blood. He didn’t notice. Max did.
He froze. “Don’t - ”
Charles looked down, then up again smiling. “It’s fine. See? I’m not dead.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Max said.
The words hung there, heavier than either of them meant.
For a long moment they just looked at each other, the whole garden holding its breath between them.
Then Charles cleared his throat. “You know, for someone who claims to hate company, you’re surprisingly good at it.”
Max rose quickly, ignoring the compliment. “Walk.”
Charles blinked at the sudden change in tone. “Now?”
“Yes. Before I change my mind.”
Charles stood, brushing grass from his coat. “As you command, your Grumpiness.”
He half-expected another growl, but Max only sighed. A quiet, defeated kind that sounded a lot like surrender.
They started down the path side by side. The roses swayed as they passed, whispering in colours the human ear couldn’t hear and behind them, the forgotten picnic gleamed in the sunlight.
And in the windows high above, a handful of enchanted faces watched - Seb with his hand over his heart, Daniel with a grin, Lando vibrating with excitement, George muttering prayers about restraint.
“They’re walking,” Daniel whispered.
“For now,” Seb said.
Lando bounced. “It’s working ! I have to tell the children ! ”
George sighed. “Or it’s the calm before something terrible.”
Below, the beast and the boy disappeared into the roses, the air alive with the sound of two heartbeats learning how to match pace.
Max didn’t say anything at first, which would have been fine if the silence didn’t feel so curated. He walked like the garden belonged to him and he despised it for that, with hands clasped loosely behind his back and his gaze forward. Charles matched his pace half a step off, watching him from the corner of his eye.
The roses lined the path in disciplined rows, each bush perfectly in bloom - no browning edges, no petals on the ground, no bees. A little too beautiful. A little too still. And, after growing up in the backstreets of Monaco, Charles never did feel comfortable with perfection. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets to stop himself fidgeting.
“So,” he said eventually. “Do you ever let them grow wild?”
Max didn’t look at him. “No.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t die on their own,” Max said. “If I stop cutting, they won't stop growing.”
Right. Practical nightmare. Charles glanced at the nearest bush. Every rose was identical, like it had been printed. “Is that why they look like that?”
“Yes.”
“They’re unsettling,” Charles said honestly. “Beautiful, but kind of wrong.”
“Yes. That’s the idea.”
Charles huffed a quiet laugh. “Of course it is.”
They walked a few more steps. A breeze came and went. The roses didn’t move.
“Does the garden go further?” Charles asked.
“Yes.”
“Is that where you keep the bodies of people who annoy you?”
Max glanced at him, one eyebrow tilting. “No. Those go in the lake.”
Charles met his stare, weighed it and decided; “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
Charles hesitated, suddenly unsure. “Mon Dieu.”
Max let him stew for three strides before adding, “I don’t sink people Charles.” He felt Charles visibly exhale and then deflate beside him. For some reason, the idea that Charles believed him capable made Max upset.
“Your sense of humour is terrible,” Charles muttered.
“You keep talking to me,” Max said.
Charles shrugged. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
That earned nothing visible, but the air between them loosened a fraction.
“So,” Charles tried again, “how long have you been here?”
Max’s jaw worked. “Long enough.”
“That’s not a number.”
“It’s enough.”
Enough to crush curiosity, enough to fossilise guilt. Charles heard all the things Max didn't say.
“I’m just trying to understand,” Charles said more quietly.
“Understand what?” Max asked. “The curse? The rules? It does not matter to you.”
“Of course it matters to me,” Charles said. “I’m here.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“But I am.”
Max exhaled, annoyed that this was technically true. “You’re here because you refused to leave.”
“Yes.”
“That was stupid.”
Charles smiled, small and sharp. “It was my choice.”
They passed another bed of roses. Rows and rows of red, every one of them flawless and motionless.
Charles’s fingers twitched.
“Don’t,” Max said, voice low.
“I wasn’t - ”
“Yes you were.”
Charles looked at him, stubborn. “If I touch them, what happens?”
Max’s gaze hardened. “Don’t test it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t have the answer you want,” Max snapped. “They shouldn’t be touched. That is all.”
Charles studied him; the tension in his shoulders, and the way his hand flexed once like it remembered grabbing wrists too hard. “Are you protecting me,” Charles asked softly, “or them?”
Max stopped walking.
The path went silent.
Charles halted a pace later, turning back. “That’s not an attack,” he added quickly. “I just… I can’t tell if you’re warning me because you care or because you’re used to controlling everything.”
Max’s eyes were very blue in the daylight. “I’m used to cleaning up disasters people make when they don’t listen to me.”
“You are very good at not answering questions Max,” Charles said.
Max’s mouth flattened. He started walking again, forcing Charles to fall into step beside him.
“Seb said you were a racer,” Charles tried, shifting gears. “Before.”
Max didn’t flinch, but something changed. “We are not talking about this.”
“He said you were good,” Charles went on. “Engines. Speed. Building.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“I’d like to see the Ferrari Max,” Charles said, light but sincere.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Max finally looked straight at him. “Because that part of my life is over.”
“You still think about it.”
“This doesn’t matter.”
“It mattered enough for the curse to cling to it,” Charles said. “If the car’s still here, then - ”
“It is not for you,” Max cut in, sharp and final.
Charles shut up for a moment, stung. They walked in brittle silence until he couldn’t bear it.
“You know,” Charles said, “I am trying.”
“I don’t care. I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know,” Charles said. “I decided to. That’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t know what to do when something isn’t forced.”
Max’s head tilted. “You think you know me now?”
“No,” Charles said. “But I’ve met men who’d rather sit in the steaming wreckage than risk getting out and building something new. You feel familiar.”
That hit. Max’s expression hardened. “Careful.”
Charles’s pulse jumped, but he met it. “Oh I am careful. That’s why mon chéri, I am asking you this, instead of touching your dramatic murder-roses.”
The corner of Max’s mouth twitched despite himself. Gone quickly. “They’re not - ” He stopped as the words refused again.
Charles stepped in front of him, not blocking, but just enough that Max had to notice. “If I’m going to stay here, I cannot just exist like your furniture. I need to understand what I’m walking through.”
“You’re not staying,” Max said quickly.
Charles blinked. “You said - ”
“I said you’d walk today and that is all,” Max said. “I didn’t promise anything beyond not hurting you.”
The way he said it made ‘not hurting you’ sound like the only oath he trusted himself with.
Charles swallowed. “All right. Then let me ask one honest thing before you shut down again.”
Max stared. “What.”
“Last night,” Charles said. “When I asked that, if you’d hurt me, you didn’t hesitate. Why?”
Max looked away. The curse tightened, tugging at his tongue like a leash. “Because I won’t.”
“That’s it?”
“What else do you want?”
“The truth,” Charles said. “The real one.”
Max snapped, “You don’t get the real one. You get what’s safe.”
There it was. The turn.
Charles felt it - the shift from wary conversation to something with teeth.
He could have backed off. Maybe he should have backed off even. He didn’t. He was ready to bite back.
“Tut tut Max. My safety is my decision,” Charles said. “And you don’t get to decide what I know.”
“I do,” Max said. “In my house, I do.”
Charles laughed once, incredulous. “There it is. The champion under the beast.”
Max’s eyes flashed. “You know nothing about champions.”
“I know controlling ones,” Charles shot back. “And I know cowards who hide behind curses and rules so they never have to be vulnerable again.”
The words came out before he could stop them.
It hit like a slap.
Max went very, very still.
So too did the path and the air. The entire garden seemed to stop and look.
Charles realised exactly how far he’d pushed and, for just a moment, regretted the phrasing. But the part of him that was wired for survival through bravado, the part that knew he couldn’t charm his way out of this one, held his ground.
Max’s voice, when it came, was deathly quiet and cold. “You think I’m a coward Charles.” He was giving him the choice to clarify, back down and apologise. And yet,
“I think you’re afraid of hope,” Charles said instead, “and you’re very good at making it everyone else’s problem.”
That landed even deeper. Under the anger, something old and raw snarled.
“You come into my home,” Max said, every word precise, “break my rules, put yourself on the line, and when I don’t change the world for you, you call me afraid?”
“I came here for someone I love,” Charles snapped. “And then I met you. You who threatened me, imprisoned me, then invited me to dinner without knowing what to do when I didn’t kneel. I have every right to ask why you are the way you are.”
“You have no right,” Max said, and the gravel under his boots shivered.
Charles flinched, but only barely. “If you want me gone, say it. Stop circling and be the big bad Beast Max.”
Max opened his mouth.
He meant to growl and demand an apology.
What came out was worse.
“You’re nothing here,” Max said.
Instant regret. It flashed across his face, but the damage was done.
Charles’s expression went blank in that dangerous, controlled way that meant he’d been hit in a place that mattered.
“Understood,” he said quietly.
Max took a breath, trying to wrestle the words back. “That’s not - ”
“No,” Charles said. “You made it very clear. I’m a guest on your terms. I ask too many questions and I make too much noise. I touch too much. I’ll adjust.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Max forced out, but the curse dragged iron across his tongue, turning every attempt at softness into static.
“Then what did you mean?” Charles asked, giving him a chance.
Silence.
Max’s hands curled at his sides. He was furious, at the magic, at himself, at this boy who wouldn’t be properly afraid. At the way the roses watched, perfectly still.
“I can’t - ” he started, and the castle yanked.
He bit it off.
Charles watched him struggle, and something inside him - that reckless empathy that never knew when to stop - softened despite the hurt. “Max,” he said, quieter, “I’m not your enemy.”
Max looked at him like that made it worse. “You’re a risk.”
“So is being alive,” Charles said. “That’s the point of life. To take risks.”
“Not for me,” Max snapped. “When I risk things, people break.”
He’d meant to say stay away, or I don’t want that for you, or I don’t trust myself, but it came out as a threat.
Charles absorbed it. Really absorbed it this time.
He nodded once. “Then maybe I should give you space.”
Max’s stomach dropped. “That’s not - ”
“It’s what you want,” Charles said. “Isn’t it?”
He held Max’s gaze for a moment that lasted too long. There was fear there now, yes, but held with anger and something like disappointment.
Then Charles stepped aside, out of his way on the path, as politely as if he were letting a stranger pass on a city street.
Max felt the pull, to say something else and stop him, fix it. But, the curse was a hand on the back of his neck pressing down.
He strode past instead.
As he did, his sleeve brushed a rose. A single petal detached and fell, soundless, to the gravel.
It didn’t wither. It just lay there, whole and wrong.
Charles watched him go, throat tight. He let Max get some distance before he let himself breathe out.
“You idiot,” he muttered, unclear even to himself, which of them he meant.
The roses around him stood perfect and inert, like they’d never moved, like nothing had happened. He had the sudden, stupidly childish urge to stomp around on them.
From the terrace above, Seb’s flames burned low; Daniel’s grin had vanished into a worried frown. Lando and the rookies peered through the balustrade, crushed.
George just sighed. “There it is,” he said softly. “Disaster in under ten.”
“Shut up,” Seb murmured, eyes fixed on the path.
Max didn’t look back.
Charles turned the other way, deeper into the garden, needing space that didn’t smell like hurt. The air tasted of roses and things unsaid.
The castle watched them separate, its magic coiling tight, like a held breath that wasn’t ready to give up yet.
______________________
The château always grew still in the hour before dusk.
Light gathered low across the floors, warm as old honey, dust floating in perfect lines through the air. It was the kind of stillness that begged to be disturbed and yet Max sat inside it, unmoving.
He’d been there since the garden.
His sim rig from the morning remained switched on near his desk, unplayed. The rose petal that had fallen in the garden lay beside it. He didn’t remember picking it up, but there it was, perfect as usual.
Every word he’d said to Charles still echoed in his head.
You’re nothing here.
He hadn’t meant it, or worse, he had. Just for a moment, and the truth of that was enough to make him feel sick.
“Beautiful view for self-destruction,” a voice said softly behind him.
Max didn’t turn. “I told you to knock.”
“You told everyone to knock,” Lewis said, crossing the threshold anyway. “That’s why no one listens.”
Lewis always looked like he carried his own light. Composed, immaculate, deliberate. Even here, in a cursed château that dimmed everything it touched, he managed to shine.
He came to stand beside the desk, glancing once at the rose petal and then at Max. “You fought with him.”
“Observation or accusation?” Max asked.
“Neither,” Lewis said. “Just fact.”
Max leaned back in his chair, gaze fixed on the window. “He pushes things too far.”
“He asks questions that no one else will,” Lewis said. “That’s different.”
“Same result.”
Lewis smiled faintly. “You hate curiosity because it looks too much like care.”
Max shot him a look. “I hate it because it ends in disappointment.”
“Ah,” Lewis said. “You sound like I used to.”
That earned him a pause.
Lewis shuffled slowly to the window, wardrobe doors folded neatly. “Once upon a time, I decided it was safer to win alone than lose with someone I loved beside me. I told myself solitude was discipline. It worked - until it didn’t.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “I know the story of you and Rosberg. Everyone does. This isn’t the same.”
“Isn’t it?” Lewis asked. “You build walls and you call them rules. You mistake silence for control. You tell yourself you’re protecting them, him, but really you’re only protecting the idea of being untouchable.”
“I’m protecting the castle,” Max said, sharper now.
Lewis turned. “From what Max?”
Max didn’t answer.
Lewis studied him for a long moment. “You hurt him.”
“I didn’t - ”
“You did,” Lewis said gently. “And you meant it for half a second. That’s the half that counts.”
Max stood abruptly, pacing to the window. “He doesn’t understand what he’s playing with.”
“Then explain it to him,” Lewis said “I know this - he - hurt you too.”
“I can’t,” Max snapped.
“Can’t or won’t?”
Max faced him. “Both.”
Lewis’s expression softened - pity without condescension. “You remind me of a man I used to be very proud of. He thought breaking his own heart was a strange kind of strength.”
“I’m not looking for sympathy,” Max said.
“You’re not getting it,” Lewis replied. “Just perspective.”
They fell quiet. Outside, the last of the light caught the edges of the roses, turning them the gold-red.
Lewis crossed his doors. “He isn’t afraid of you, you know. That’s why you can’t stop looking at him.”
Max’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
“And you,” Lewis added softly, “you’re terrified of what happens if he stops looking back.”
Max turned away. “He shouldn’t have come here.”
Lewis sighed - not disappointed, just old and tired in the way wisdom makes you. “Maybe not. But he did. And you’ve already started acting like he matters.”
“That’s the problem,” Max said.
“Why?”
Max’s voice dropped. “Because when I care, things break Lewis. You have seen this.”
Lewis nodded slowly. “Yes. They do. And sometimes they heal. But you never get either if you keep your hands behind your back.”
The silence after that stretched long enough to feel like a verdict.
Finally Max said, “You think I should apologise.”
“I think you should decide if you want him to stay,” Lewis said, "and if the answer to that question is yes, then you need to apologise."
Max looked at him, eyes cold again. Not because he didn’t feel, but because feeling had just become unbearable and he knew Lewis would be able to see that. They generally reflected each other more than they would like to admit. “You said it yourself. You chose to be alone. And sure enough, it worked. You won Lewis.”
Lewis’s smile was small, rueful. “It cost me everything.”
“Maybe that’s the price,” Max said. “Maybe that’s what keeps people safe.”
Lewis tilted his head, sadness creeping into his tone. “No one’s safe if you keep burning bridges before anyone can cross them.”
But Max had already turned back to the window, jaw set. “He needs to leave.”
Lewis didn’t move. “That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what I heard,” Max said. “And it’s right.”
Lewis watched him for a long moment - saw the tension, the fear, the heartbreak folding itself into resolve - and realised nothing he said now would reach him.
So he nodded once. “All right,” he said quietly. “But understand this Max, when you send him away, it won’t be the curse that hurts him. It’ll be you.”
Max didn’t answer.
Lewis turned toward the door. “And when that happens, and when there are consequences” he added, “remember that you were warned.”
Instead of replying, Max aimed for the heart, “Send Rosberg. He was always the more loyal half.”
Lewis, who was far too old and far too composed for games just nodded and left. The room fell silent. The rose petal on the desk still hadn’t moved.
Max picked it up, turning it between his fingers. It was lighter than air and refused to die.
He closed his fist around it, and felt it press against his palm, delicate and wrong.
“Better me than him,” he muttered.
Outside, the last light slid off the glass and the castle dimmed by one shade.
Somewhere deep in the garden, a single rose stem cracked.
______________________
The clock on the mantel had stopped.
Or maybe time itself was hesitating.
Max stood in the middle of the great hall, the dusk light bleeding through tall windows, a storm still undecided above the turrets. His hand clenched and unclenched around the rose petal Lewis had left him with. It was crushed now - not dead, not alive, but caught between the two. It seemed fitting really.
Nico’s ticking was the only sound in the room.
“You’ve been standing there for half an hour,” the clock said wearily. “That’s either impressive discipline or a nervous breakdown.”
“I need him brought here,” Max said.
Nico’s pendulum slowed. “Charles.”
Max didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
The clock’s brass hands twitched in disapproval. “That’s unwise.”
“Do it.”
“You’re angry.”
“I’ve decided Rosberg,” Max corrected, voice low. “Don’t pretend you would do otherwise.”
“Decisions made in anger are rarely worthwhile, believe me.”
“I said do it.”
Nico’s gears clicked once in agreement, or resignation. “As you wish.”
He found Seb first.
Seb always burned brighter when worried. He stepped out of the corridor like light escaping from beneath a door crack, flame-hands throwing restless shadows against the walls.
“Nico,” he said. “You’re not going to him, are you?”
“I have orders,” Nico replied. “He’s calling for the boy.”
Seb’s flame flared. “Then stall.”
“I can’t.”
“Backpfeifengesicht !” Seb said. “You can.”
“That’s not how I work.”
“Then break pattern,” Seb snapped. “You’re not his servant.”
“I’m everyone’s timekeeper Seb,” Nico said. “Even his.”
Seb’s light flickered, desperation creeping into his tone. “He’s hurting. He’ll do what hurts more just to prove he can.”
Nico stopped, watching the flame tremble in Seb’s face. “Would you rather I lie to him?”
“Yes,” Seb said. “For once, forget your German heritage and lie.”
But the clock kept walking.
Seb followed, matching pace, voice dropping low. “He thinks driving Charles away will make the pain smaller. It won’t. It’ll turn it into stone.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Nico said quietly. “I don’t have a choice.”
Seb’s flames dimmed. “Then at least warn the boy.”
Nico’s brass mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite regret. “I assumed you just did.”
He turned the corner and was gone.
Charles was halfway through unbuttoning his shirt when the knock came. It was precise, three evenly spaced beats. No human hand sounded like that.
He opened the door to find Nico framed in the lamplight, posture rigid.
“Max requests you in the great hall,” Nico said.
“Requests,” Charles repeated. “That’s generous.”
“It’s closer to a command,” Nico admitted. His inner gears clicked once, like a sigh. “You should know - he’s not calm.”
“I gathered,” Charles said. He glanced past the clock. “Did Seb send you?”
“Sebastian tried to stop me.”
“Of course he did.”
Nico hesitated. “You have to go.”
Charles gave a tired, humourless smile. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
Seb appeared then, as if conjured by his name, a flare of warm gold filling the hallway. “Charles, don’t.” His voice was all urgency, none of its usual charm. “He’s cornered himself. He’ll use you to make the wall higher.”
Charles met the candelabra’s worried gaze. “If he’s going to build walls, someone should at least tell him they’re ugly.”
Seb groaned. “You sound like me when I was young and stupid.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment.”
The flame wavered. “He’s not rational, Charles. Not cruel, just ashamed.”
“Then he deserves to look me in the eye,” Charles said softly.
Seb shook his head, despairing. “You are either the bravest or the most foolish creature I’ve met.”
“Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, non?” Charles said, stepping past him.
Seb’s flame guttered low. “Nico,” he said sharply. “If this goes badly - ”
“It will,” Nico interrupted. “Max has always been a terror. Even before the curse.”
The corridors to the great hall were almost empty. Only the house’s hum followed them. That low, uneasy vibration that came when the château knew something was about to fracture.
As they walked, the light changed. Windows blackened with the approaching storm and torches hissed and flared. The air smelled of rain and roses.
Charles felt it all press on him, both the anticipation and the weight of eyes unseen. “He does this often?” he asked quietly.
“Not like this,” Nico said. “Usually he just disappears until he stops feeling.”
When they reached the great doors, Nico stopped. His pendulum swayed once. “I’ll announce you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It’s habit.”
He pushed the doors open, the sound echoing up into the vaulted ceiling.
Inside, the hall was all shadow and glass. The stormlight through the windows painted everything silver and blue. Candles flickered on their own accord, unwilling accomplices.
Max stood near the window, back turned, and every line of him drawn tight.
“Your guest,” Nico said.
Max didn’t look away from the storm outside. “Leave us.”
Nico hesitated, gears whining softly. “Max - ”
“GO!”
The clock bowed his head - an old, weary movement - and stepped back. As he left, he caught Seb’s shape at the far end of the corridor, still glowing faintly, and watching through the gap. Their eyes met; Nico shook his head once.
Seb mouthed a prayer in German.
Then, as the doors shut behind the clock and the candelabra, the first drops of rain began to strike the glass.
Max stood by the window, his reflection warped in the glass, a silhouette taller than human. The lines of him were wrong again. Too still and too controlled, like rage dressed up as poise.
“Max,” Charles said quietly.
No response.
He took another step. “You wanted to see me.”
Max turned. His eyes looked like they’d forgotten warmth entirely.
“You’re leaving,” he said.
It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t even anger. Just a verdict.
Charles blinked. “I - what?”
“I should have sent you away sooner.”
“Why?”
“Because you talk too much. Because you ask questions that aren’t yours to ask. Because this house worked fine until you started filling it with noise.”
Charles stared at him, caught between disbelief and fury. “Worked fine? Everyone here is terrified of breathing wrong!”
“And now they’re terrified of you,” Max said, voice low and steady. “You’ve distracted them. You’ve distracted me.”
“That’s not a crime.”
“It’s an infection,” Max said. “I don’t have space for it.”
He started toward him, slow, and deliberate. Charles held his ground.
“What are you doing?” Charles demanded.
“Ending this before it ruins more than it already has.”
“You can’t just - ”
“I can,” Max snapped. “You forget where you are.”
The air around them shivered. The chandelier swayed and the curtains snapped like sails.
“You said - ”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I said.”
Charles flinched. His hands clenched at his sides. “You’re angry because you can’t control what this is.”
“What this is,” Max bit out, “is a mistake I’m correcting.”
Lightning cut across the window behind him, lighting his face white. His teeth looked sharper than usual in the flash.
“Putain ! Do you even hear yourself?” Charles asked. “You’re trying to be a monster because it’s easier than being fucking sorry.”
Max’s laugh was short, violent, humourless. “You think I need forgiveness from you?”
“I think you have something human left,” Charles said, voice trembling but clear. “But you’d rather burn the whole place down than let anyone see it.”
Something in Max’s expression changed - a twitch, a flicker of real rage.
“Enough,” he said, and when he said it, the word came out like a snarl. The chandeliers trembled. A single candle went out.
“We spoke about your racing,” Charles pressed on, breathless now, because he knew if he stopped he’d lose. “How Seb said you loved it. The speed. The risk. You obviously weren’t afraid of motion back then, so what are you so scared of now?”
Max’s voice rose, sharp and guttural; “Of you!”
Silence followed, an awful, ringing silence that made the storm outside hesitate.
Charles blinked, stunned. “What - ”
“Of what you do to this place,” Max said, words snapping now, raw. “Of how everything bends when you walk through it. The castle listens to you. They listen to you. It makes them soft.” The ‘it makes me weak’, went unsaid.
“Then maybe that’s not weakness,” Charles said.
“It is.” Max’s voice dropped low, dangerous again. “I built this house on discipline. I kept it alive on fear. I don’t need softness crawling into and infesting my walls like mould.”
“You mean you don’t want to need it,” Charles said.
Max moved before he knew he’d decided to - one long stride, two - until the air between them was charged enough to sting. “You think you can fix me Charles?” he hissed. “You think you can walk in here, smile, talk, touch things, and make me … what? Grateful?”
“I think I can make you honest,” Charles said.
Max’s hand slammed against the pillar beside Charles’s head, hard enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling. Charles didn’t even flinch.
“Look at me,” Max said. “Look at what I am. You still think honesty fixes that?”
Charles’s voice shook but didn’t break. “Yes.”
“You’re a fool.”
“And you’re a coward Max.”
For a second, Max almost did it. Almost roared, almost shattered the air. Instead, he laughed, low and awful.
“You’ll have the perfect story to tell back in Monaco,” he said. “The cursed beast. The fool who thought he saw a man inside it.”
“Don’t twist this into theatre,” Charles said. “You’re not angry at me. You’re angry at the part of you that still wants.”
The storm outside broke all at once, as if the sky had been waiting for that line. Thunder rolled through the walls; wind ripped through the cracks in the windows, flinging rain like handfuls of gravel.
Max stepped back, just enough for distance to hurt more than the nearness.
“You’re leaving,” he said again, flat, final. “Nico will escort you to the gates by dawn.”
Charles stared at him. The fight bled out of his voice. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” Max lied.
“Then congratulations Max,” Charles said softly. “You finally sound like the monster they think you are.”
He turned, walked to the door, each step heavy with pride pretending it wasn’t pain.
In the hallway, Lando moved instinctively from his hiding spot, eyes wide. “Charles, wait - ”
Oscar’s lid snapped open, his voice hard for once. “Lando, stay where you are.”
“But - ”
“No, Lando,” Oscar said quietly. “He needs to go. The house has to learn what emptiness feels like again.”
Charles didn’t hear them. Or maybe he did and couldn’t bear to answer. He went to pack his small bag, walking like a man heading for the gallows.
The moment he was gone, something in the castle broke. The chandelier swung hard enough to scatter wax across the floor. Every candle guttered.
Seb appeared from the hallway, his flame blown half out by the wind. “Max, stop this madness!”
Max turned on him, voice rough. “You want to burn too?”
“I want you to look at what you’ve become!” Seb shouted back. “He gave you a chance to remember who you were, and you threw it at him like a weapon.”
“I told him the truth.”
“You told him your fear,” Seb said. “And hid it dressed it in cruelty.”
Lightning flooded the windows again, and for a second the whole hall glowed like a portrait of ruin; the beast, the flame, and a storm outside clawing to get in.
In the doorway behind Seb, George held the rookies close, all porcelain and trembling brass. Kimi whispered, “It’s worse than before.”
Daniel stood beside the piano, arms folded, face unreadable. “He’ll realise,” he said softly. “When there’s no one left to listen.”
Seb’s flame shook. “You’ve lost him. Don't be suprised if others follow.”
Max’s voice came low, almost a growl. “Good.”
The flame recoiled like it had been struck.
Seb turned away before his voice could betray him. “Then enjoy your victory, Beast.”
He left. The rookies followed, George herding them away. Daniel lingered the longest, eyes steady on Max. Loyal to a fault.
“Proud of yourself?”
Max said nothing.
“Didn’t think so.” Daniel shook his head, the faintest hint of pity breaking through the sarcasm. “When you finally miss him, try not to call it discipline mate.”
He left too. Perhaps his loyalty could only stretch so far.
And then there was only the storm.
Max stood where he was until the sun began to rise, chest heaving, hands shaking though he would never admit it. The rain outside blurred everything until even the roses were only red smears in the dark.
He pressed a hand to the glass. It was cold.
For a moment, as dawn broke, he thought he saw movement down near the gates - a figure climbing into a bright red car, shiny and sleek against the wild garden. Then the lightning faded, and there was only his reflection; monstrous and indistinct.
He turned away before the next flash could prove it.
The castle groaned. The wind howled. Somewhere deep in its heart, something beautiful began to die.
______________________
A brief interlude:
That night, the castle felt hollow.
It always sighed in storms, but this was different. The thunder didn’t roll so much as grumble, and every corridor carried a low, tired sound like an animal too proud to whimper.
Max was in the west wing, stalking in his study, breaking silence and mirrors in equal measure. The others were in the east, pretending his actions didn’t shake the walls.
“Right,” George announced briskly, steam puffing in disciplined bursts. “We are having a morale meeting. I didn’t have time to make PowerPoints but - ”
“ - it’s almost midnight mate,” Oscar said from the hearth, his lid half open like a weary eye. “And it’s raining inside again.”
“That’s morale leaking out,” Daniel said from where he sat cross-feathered on a rug.
Seb chuckled, his flame flaring soft gold. “So we’re doing group therapy, then.”
“Tea,” George corrected. “Proper British coping mechanisms.”
Kimi, Ollie, Gabi, Isack, and Liam were already curled up in a pile of cushions like mismatched kittens. Lando had squeezed in beside them, tail wagging faintly. The rookies looked rumpled, wide-eyed and exhausted from crying spells they all failed to admit to having.
“He’ll calm down children,” Seb murmured.
“He yelled,” Kimi said quietly.
“He always yells,” Ollie whispered.
“Not like that,” Isack said, and the way the words fell made the room go still for a moment.
Lewis, sitting on the arm of an old chair, sighed. “Anger’s easier than shame boys. Believe me, I’ve seen it.”
Nico, standing nearby, folded his arms but didn’t argue. “Sometimes the problem with being right all the time,” he muttered, “is that you forget humility.”
Lewis arched a brow. “Are you speaking from experience?”
“Always, Lewis.”
They almost smiled at each other. Almost.
George poured tea into mismatched cups that refilled themselves by magic. “Drink,” he ordered. “We will not let that man’s temper define our evening.”
Oscar muttered something about emotional damage, but even he reached for a biscuit when Lando proudly rolled up with a tray.
“Snacks!” Lando announced. “Courtesy of Oscar and me.”
“Half of those are stale,” Oscar pointed out.
“And the other half are not,” Lando said. “Cup half full!”
Seb grinned. “Teamwork. Very good. Next we’ll teach you empathy.”
Lando tilted his head. “Is that an edible thing?”
Daniel laughed, sprawling back on the rug. “God, this reminds me of Kvyat and I before the US grand prix in ’14. We were both dancing around in the rain like idiots, pretending nothing was wrong despite the storm. Except back then we knew there was alcohol waiting for us.”
Kimi blinked up at him. “What was Kvyat like?”
Daniel sighed, glancing at Seb with a smirk. “A torpedo. And more fun than putting pants on an octopus.”
Even Lewis smiled at that. “You used to be better at metaphors drunk.”
“Still am,” Daniel said cheerfully. “If we had champagne, I’d prove it.”
“Tea will suffice,” George said primly, though the corner of his handle trembled with amusement.
For a few minutes, the storm outside faded into background noise, just wind and rain while laughter stitched the air together again.
Seb leaned back, watching them all with that fond, fatherly expression that made his flames burn steadier. “He’ll come around,” he said finally. “He always does, eventually.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Lewis asked softly.
Seb shrugged, eyes gentle. “Then we’ll remind him that love doesn’t vanish because he’s too proud to look at it.”
“Deep,” Daniel said. “But can we not tell him I cried when you said that?”
“You cried?” Lando asked, delighted.
“No,” Daniel said. “Shut up.”
The rookies giggled, the first real sound of joy since the doors had slammed.
Nico checked his pocket watch, gears ticking in approval. “It’s one in the morning. We should all be in bed.”
“Or on a racetrack,” Seb said absently. “The same thing, sometimes.”
Lewis looked at him sidelong, smile faint but true. “You miss it too.”
Seb’s flames flickered. “Always. But tonight I miss our Max more.”
The group went quiet again, the silence comfortable this time - full of breath, not fear.
Kimi yawned, leaning against George. “Will Charles come back? I like him.”
George’s steam hissed softly, almost a sigh. “I don’t know, dear. But the castle isn’t done with him. Or with Max.”
Gabi stirred. “It feels different now.”
“It is,” Seb said. “Every curse changes right before it breaks. Usually by hurting first.”
Outside, thunder rumbled low, but the worst of the storm had passed.
Daniel lay back on the rug, eyes half closed. “Tomorrow, we start phase two.”
“Phase two?” George asked.
“Operation: Make the Beast Realise He’s an Idiot,” Daniel said. “Catchy, yeah?”
“Terrible name,” Nico said.
“Accurate, though,” Seb murmured.
They laughed softly. The rookies huddled closer together. Tea refilled itself. Oscar played a lullaby, and even the windows stopped rattling.
Upstairs, the storm still raged around Max, but in this room, warmth returned - fragile, stubborn, alive.
Lewis set his empty cup down and glanced toward the dark ceiling above them. “He’ll figure it out,” he said. “We all did, eventually.”
Nico’s pendulum ticked once, perfectly in time with the piano’s tune. “Did we?,” he scoffed lightheartedly.
Seb smiled. “Yes, we did Nico. Don’t be childish in front of the actual children. They might get ideas.”
But the rookies were already half-asleep, George still fussing with blankets and tea. Daniel was telling a story about a race none of them remembered, Lando humming along to Oscar’s quiet music.
The castle listened, soothed, its magic curling around them like a sigh.
For the first time that night, it didn’t sound like grief.
It sounded like waiting.
Chapter 5: Wherein Things Fall Apart (Mostly the Car)
Summary:
Last time:
Daniel: So how’s Charles?
Max: Well, I have bad news.
Daniel: Oh God, what-
Max: Unfortunately, he’s still alive.-----------------
Rookies + Lando, doing something stupid:
George: Look at these idiots, who is meant to be watching them?
George:
George: Oh shit, I’m the adult.
George: I have to go ------------------
Max: You’re leaving.
Charles: …I literally live here?
Max: Not anymore :))
Chapter Text
The Ferrari was far too powerful for him. The oversteer, too strong.
He knew it the way one knows an argument is over but still keeps talking. The engine purred under his hands like something alive, elegant in its restraint and cruel in its potential. A machine built for someone else’s temperament. For a man who commanded rather than asked nicely.
For Max.
Charles gripped the wheel tighter. The leather was smooth, almost soft, yet his palms stung as if it burned him. The air inside the cabin carried the faint scent of metal and smoke and something distinctly him. A sharp, clean smell of oil and rain on skin.
He’d stolen it out of spite.
He could admit that much.
And, it certainly wasn’t the clever kind of revenge, either. No, this was the petty, human sort - like pushing someone off the track and into a puddle, despite the race being finished. He’d told himself he was only borrowing it, that the gates had opened too easily for his theft to truly count as sin, but that was a lie. He’d wanted to be seen. Seen leaving, seen for his lack of fear, seen for who he truly was. He’d wanted the engine to echo through those silent halls and make the Beast step outside for once.
The mist clung low to the road, pale and gold at its edges. The sun hadn’t yet cleared the trees, and the light that touched the world looked hesitant, like it wasn’t sure if it was welcome. The forest road twisted in long, narrow coils. The tyres cut through puddles left by the storm raging down, throwing water up like wings.
He should have felt free.
Instead, every breath tasted like defeat.
The château had let him go so easily.
And, absurdly, that was what haunted him most.
Charles’s jaw tightened. The rhythm of the wipers, the steady pulse of the engine - it all began to sound monotonous, like his thoughts. You wanted him to stop you. The idea came unbidden, and cruelly honest. He shoved it away, pressed his foot harder against the accelerator, and felt the machine surge forward in perfect obedience.
The steering wheel thrummed faintly beneath his fingertips. The Ferrari wasn’t a car so much as a heartbeat made of steel - impatient, relentless. When he pressed down, the world responded instantly - trees blurred, shadows fractured, and the road hissed under the tyres. The machine didn’t just move; it obeyed.
Of course it did. It was Max’s and Max built things that did.
Charles swallowed hard. He could see it now, the man at his workbench, hands stained with oil and precision, creating engines the way the ancient gods built the weather.
Control. Always control.
But beneath it, something else. Fear, maybe. Or, a desperation not to be small.
Charles had seen that, and said so. And Max? Max had looked at him like it was both a curse and a confession.
The memory of that look, furious and unguarded, struck him now, clearer than the dawn outside. He had felt like Icarus; brilliant, dangerous, and standing far too close to the sun.
He laughed once, dry and sharp. “You’d hate this,” he said to the empty car. “Me behind your wheel. In control of your prized possession.”
The sound of his voice felt alien. He hadn’t realised how quiet the world had become. Even the sea seemed to be listening.
The dashboard’s faint glow lit his knuckles, white against the wheel. He’d left just before dawn, still shaking from the fight, and barely aware of what he was doing. Just the burning need to move. To get away before the castle’s walls and his own pride collapsed in on each other.
Now the adrenaline was fading, and what lingered wasn’t satisfaction. It was the strange ache that comes after breaking something valuable and realising you actually might have wanted it.
He tried to picture Monaco, its bright streets and the neat geometry of normal life, and couldn’t. The road felt endless, as if he were driving through a dream too stubborn to wake.
He thought of Pierre, somewhere safe by now, and of Seb’s warm voice telling him to be brave. He thought of the rookies and their foolish, childish hope, and of George’s careful hands pouring tea for ghosts.
And, inevitably, he thought of Max.
Always Max.
Every part of this car was a language he didn’t speak but somehow understood. He could feel him in it - in the balance of weight, in the way it demanded precision, in the quiet refusal to forgive mistakes. The whole thing felt like him. Brilliant, unyielding, lonely.
“Beast,” Charles muttered, and it came out more like an endearment than an insult. He fucking hated that.
The horizon brightened by degrees. The sky went from bruised lilac to pale rose, and the wet road caught the light like glass. He drove faster, not because he wanted to, but because the rain had stopped and slowing down felt too much like regret.
The wind was loud now, rushing through the open crack in the window. It whipped his hair into his eyes, cold and stinging. He didn’t bother to brush it back.
Charles blinked against it, eyes burning.
The engine was still purring, docile and lethal. The speedometer climbed; he barely noticed.
He thought he saw movement on the far edge of the road, a shimmer in the fog, low to the ground. Probably nothing. His mind had been playing tricks all morning. Still, he eased his foot from the accelerator, just a fraction.
And then it came again - sudden, vivid. A streak of gold cutting across the road, so small and fast that his heart didn’t have time to react before his body did.
“Merde !”
He jerked the wheel.
The Ferrari lurched sideways, tyres screaming on the slick road. The world became noise and motion - metal shrieking against its own control, gravel exploding from the shoulder. The car fishtailed and spun once, before catching the guardrail with a brutal sound that split the dawn in half.
Impact.
A flash of white.
Then silence so total it rang.
Steam rose from the crushed bonnet, mixing into the air which smelled of metal and salt and burning rubber. The rain hissed softly on the wreckage, a sound almost gentle after the violence.
Charles hung against the seatbelt, breath coming in short, shocked bursts. Every nerve was alive, and screaming. He could feel blood warm against his temple, dripping down the side of his neck and his ribs throbbed. A deep, sharp pain every time he tried to breathe properly.
He blinked until the world steadied. The windshield was cracked into a spiderweb of fractured dawn. Through it, the fog glowed faintly, gold and white.
Movement again.
A small shape stood on the road ahead, framed by mist and headlight. A dog. So golden and short-legged, almost ridiculous in its bravery. Its fur was soaked and glinting, eyes dark with alarm.
Charles groaned, fumbling for the door handle. “Ah, putain …”
The door resisted, then gave way with a tortured creak. Cold air hit him hard. He stumbled out, one hand on the roof to steady himself, boots slipping in the mud.
The world tilted. The trees swayed. His vision blurred at the edges.
The dog barked once. High, sharp, impatient.
“Leo,” Charles murmured, reading the small tag glinting at its neck as it trotted closer. “You again.”
He tried to smile. It hurt.
Leo yapped at him, darted toward the treeline, then stopped and looked back.
Another bark, urgent this time.
“What?” Charles rasped. His throat ached. His hands were shaking.
The dog barked again, louder this time, his tail snapping like a command. It wanted him to follow.
Charles wiped at his temple, the gesture smearing blood across his wrist. “No, I’m -” He stopped, and let the world tilt again. “I’m not following a dog into the forest.”
Leo barked once, twice, like a metronome of insistence. Then he turned, vanishing into the trees, his small shape flickering like gold caught between raindrops.
Charles swayed where he stood. The wind carried the scent of pine and wet earth, sharp as salt. He should try and get help. He should go back to the car. He should do a dozen things that didn’t involve chasing stray dogs into foggy forests.
Instead, he took one step toward where Leo had gone. Then another.
“Fine,” he muttered, voice thin. “You win. Just, slow down, alright?”
The road behind him disappeared into mist. Ahead, the trees gathered close, dark and wet and whispering. He stumbled after the sound of distant barking, boots sinking into the soft ground.
The pain in his side was getting worse. He pressed a hand against his ribs and felt something shift beneath the touch, sharp enough to steal his breath.
“Ah - ”
The forest seemed to lurch with him. The mist thickened, swallowing the shapes of branches, and worse, the light.
“Leo,” he called, or tried to. It came out as little more than a whisper.
There was another bark, faint now - somewhere ahead.
He tried to follow it. Made it a few more steps before his knees buckled.
The earth came up fast. Wet, cold, and smelling of moss and stone. He caught himself on one hand, but the strength went out of him all at once and the world blurred again, grey, green, and gold.
The last thing he saw was the shape of the dog, waiting a few metres ahead, tail still wagging rapidly as if encouragement could hold a man upright.
Then Charles exhaled, slow and shuddering, and the forest took him.
The dawn went on burning quietly above, uncaring.
______________________
The château had never been this quiet.
No Daniel, humming Nick Cave under his breath as he swept.
No Nico and Lewis, their bickering echoing down the corridors like an old song played hundreds of times before.
No Lando, convincing the rookies into chaos and calling it team-building.
Even Oscar had fallen silent. The piano lid closed, its keys untouched.
The stillness was complete.
The silence felt like an accusation.
Every corridor was dimmer now. The fire in the west-wing study had burned itself down to a sullen red knot and refused to revive. Even the sea beyond the cliffs sounded distant, like it had turned its face away.
Max hadn’t slept.
He sat in the chair by the tall window, the one that overlooked the courtyard and, far below, the serpentine road cutting toward the coast. His coat hung open, and shirt collar undone, the marks of the night’s rage still visible; a cracked glass on the floor and the dark bruise of a fist in the plaster near the mantel.
He tried to convince himself that quiet meant victory. The peace after an argument won.
He didn't believe it.
He could still see him.
Charles, standing in candlelight, chin high and eyes bright with fear he refused to show.
You don’t get to use fear to control me.
Control. Always control.
Max dragged a hand through his hair, breathing out hard through his nose. The movement made the firelight flicker across his reflection in the window; his beard too scruffy and blue eyes too sharp, the faint outline of the man he used to be.
Once, they’d called him Mad Max - a badge, a myth.
He’d loved it at first. The noise, the adoration, the fury that he disguised as genius. They said he saw corners before they existed. That he could smell victory. That his hands never trembled and his corners never slowed.
They hadn’t seen what came after.
The way the world narrowed to milliseconds. The way winning stopped feeling like flight and started feeling like drowning in air too fast to breathe. The loneliness of perfection.
He remembered the crash at Silverstone ‘21 - , Lewis clipping his rear right tyre, and the car spinning in a blur of blue and red. He’d climbed out unhurt, but with rage pouring out of him like smoke. And still he’d gone back the next day. Still he’d needed more.
He’d told himself he didn’t need people. He needed precision. Machines didn’t pity. Machines didn’t leave.
And then came Alonso and his curse. The perfect symmetry of punishment as he’d labelled it. The house obeyed Max the way his cars had. Every door, every light, every heartbeat of the château bent to his will.
Until Charles.
Charles hadn’t bent at all.
Max exhaled sharply. The air felt thin. “You wanted honesty,” he muttered, half to the empty room and half to Alonso, wherever the fuck that old man was. “You got it.”
Nobody answered of course, but something deep in the walls shifted. Not sound, but sensation, like a long, slow breath taken elsewhere.
He ignored it, poured a drink he wouldn’t finish and watched the horizon grey into dawn.
By the time the first light touched the turrets, the house had grown colder still.
He rose finally, restless, and crossed the room. The floorboards creaked softly, reluctant to bear his weight. The air in the study always carried that faint metallic tang, the smell of engines and oil, of storms trapped in metal. The remnants of a life that used to make sense.
At the far end of the room, beneath a shroud of dust and quiet, stood the trophy.
The World Drivers’ Championship.
The case around it was glass and shadow, rimmed in silver filigree that pulsed faintly with enchantment. Within, the tall spiral of gold and platinum gleamed like something holy, but wrong - its light dimmed from within, the glow uneven and dying.
He approached it without meaning to. The glass misted faintly as he exhaled, and for a heartbeat he could see his reflection doubled - man and monster - one overlapping the other.
It had been his once. His altar.
Alonso had found it fitting to turn the symbol of his obsession into a mirror of decay.
Each name etched into its base, champions of years long past, was fading one by one. Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Senna, Lauda, even Alonso. Legends unmade by the slow, cruel curse that ate history from the edges inward.
And now, after all these years stuck here, only his remained clear.
Max Verstappen - 2021
Max Verstappen - 2022
Max Verstappen - 2023
Max Verstappen - 2024
The final name. The only name.
Every time another vanished, he felt it - a faint sting behind the ribs, like the loss of something invisible but vital. He’d stopped counting years ago.
Now, even his reflection in the glass looked like it was disappearing.
He lifted a hand and rested it against the cold surface. The metal inside responded, faintly humming beneath his touch, like a dying heart remembering it once beat for applause.
He could still remember the night of the curse. Alonso’s voice, calm and all-knowing.
“There are lessons you cannot outdrive. There is always a cost to speed. Even light slows when it reaches the sea.”
“What I see is a boy who built a cathedral to himself and mistook it for peace.”
“You need to learn what silence really is. What stillness really is.”
“The world has given you everything you asked for. Be careful it doesn’t start taking back what you didn’t offer in return”
And then the party had ended and the lights had gone out.
He’d woken in the ruins of his own legend. His ‘friends’ changed. The cars, still gleaming but hollow. The château rising around him like punishment, filled with the echoes of the people he’d once ignored - voices he’d tuned out, faces he’d reduced to symbols.
For some reason they’d stayed with him, those voices. Half-mad and half-loyal, their souls folded into this gilded prison of his own making.
He thought he’d made peace with it. That solitude was easier than guilt.
Then Charles had arrived and made him feel seen.
And now, Charles was gone too.
He stared at the trophy until the engraved letters blurred. “This is what you wanted,” he told himself. “You won.”
The glass case flickered faintly, as though the magic disapproved of the lie.
He turned away, jaw tight, eyes stinging from exhaustion he’d never admit to. The château watched him go. Its walls strained with his tension, the air tasting faintly of iron and storm.
When he reached the doorway, he paused, half expecting to hear footsteps behind him, a voice cutting through the silence. But there was nothing. Only the pulse of enchantment low in the bones of the place, as though the château itself was holding its breath.
He looked back once more at the trophy, the gleam of his name staring back at him, isolated and sharp amid a field of vanished light.
“Alone,” he said softly, as if the word were both confession and curse.
The case responded with a faint crack, a hairline fracture crawling up the glass like frost.
He didn’t notice.
Outside, the dawn had long broken over the cliffs - not golden, but pale and cold.
Somewhere far below, hidden by fog, a car had stopped moving.
The château stirred, uneasy. The curse, for the first time in years, had shifted its weight.
______________________
Elsewhere in the château, morning broke badly.
The great hall, usually golden with reflected light, looked tarnished, as if the sun itself had given up on trying. Seb’s flames burned low and narrow, the colour of old brass. Nico ticked out of sync. George’s steam was thin and listless.
Daniel lounged against a pillar, feathers unkempt and eyes shadowed. “If this keeps up,” he said, “we’ll all end up like the piano, sighing at our own keys.”
Oscar’s voice drifted from the music room, “I can hear you.”
“Good!” Daniel called back. “I want you to suffer with us.”
Seb sat on the banister, head in his hands, elbows glowing faintly. “It’s been one night,” he said. “One! And already the place feels half-dead.”
“That’s because it is,” Nico snapped. He’d stationed himself near the hearth, winding his own mechanism with irritable precision. “He hasn’t spoken since sunrise. The temperature’s dropped five degrees. If this continues, I’ll freeze in place and then where will you all be? Late, that’s where.”
“Drama,” Daniel muttered.
“Accuracy,” Nico retorted, teeth thin.
“You two sound like a pit board arguing over tyre choice,” Seb flung back, a brittle laugh undercutting him. “Less analysis, more comfort.”
George set a tray down too hard. “Enough. We can’t just sit here bickering. Someone has to go after him.”
“After Charles?” Seb looked up. “Or after Max?”
“Yes,” George said flatly.
At the foot of the grand staircase, the rookies had turned from worried to loud. Kimi hopped from foot to saucer, his voice a high, anxious bubble. “We should go find Charles! I can fetch a blanket and - ”
“Blankets won’t help anything,” Liam snapped, spoon clattering against a bannister as he gestured, suddenly fierce. “We need plans, not bedding supplies.”
“Plans?” Ollie interrupted, tripping over his own tines and nearly toppling into Gabi. “We suck at plans. We are good at - what are spoons actually good for?”
“Being shiny,” Isack answered with grim solemnity, and the exchange ignited a small, ridiculous argument about the metaphysics of cutlery that ballooned until Gabi and Isack were nearly duelling over who was the better utensil.
Lando, tail tucked a fraction too low, padded into the room like a man arriving at a wake he’d helped schedule. “Maybe it’s my fault,” he said suddenly, voice small in the swell of noise. “If I hadn’t been so loud the night he came - if I hadn’t made such a fuss welcoming him … Charles might not have stayed. I should’ve left him alone.”
“Lando,” Seb said sharply, but even his rebuke trembled.
“No,” Lando insisted, a rush of guilt unspooling. “And, I said stupid things. I tried too hard forcing the picnic and the walk and Max and now … now look. He’s gone. I brought trouble.”
“Don’t.” George’s voice cut through the escalating noise like a warm spoon. He was steady as always, porcelain calm, steam furred at his spout. He set a tray down with practised gentleness and met Lando’s eyes. “Blame isn’t helpful. We do what we can and worry about what’s next.”
“Well then, I vote we rescue Charles. He says thank you when you help him.” Lando supplied.
Seb groaned. “It’s not a vote, kleiner Fußhocker.”
“Should be,” Daniel said. “Democracy works.”
“Not under curses, it doesn’t,” Nico muttered.
Oscar struck a low note that vibrated through the floorboards, muttering, “He’s right. We’re fracturing.”
“Not helpful,” Nico snapped. “Not helpful at all.”
“Also not helpful,” Daniel muttered, “is the everyone-should-calm-down chorus. We are not calmers. We are helpers. Or we are loud. Pick one.”
“How about we pick rational action?” Nico shot back. “Someone goes to Max. Someone monitors the gates. Someone stays here - by logical priority - ”
“And someone makes tea!” George interjected with unexpected firmness, and the room faltered into a short, bewildered silence that tasted like truce.
Seb’s hand fluttered to his chest and he gave a laugh that was uncharacteristic for him. “Tea then. If the world ends, it will end properly caffeinated,” he said, and for a beat the absurdity steadied them.
But the quietness didn’t last. Voices picked up again, smaller fissures of blame and tender panic snapping at each other; Nico fretting about timetables, Daniel rolling his eyes at sentiment, Lando apologising into the carpet, and, the rookies attempting and failing to organise themselves into something resembling competence. Kimi whispered, “Maybe it’s part of the curse. Maybe if we meddle, it gets worse.”
Liam whispered back, “Maybe if we don’t meddle, Max dies.”
That shut them up for a moment.
Lewis arrived last, gliding rather than walking and polished even in despair. His reflection gleamed in the lacquer of his doors, calm disguising exhaustion. “He won’t listen,” he said quietly. “He never does when he’s hurting. And the château’s responding to him. That is what you can feel. The magic’s heavy again.”
Seb rubbed his temples. “So we just wait? While he rages and the rest of us unravel?”
Lewis sighed. “I said he won’t listen Seb, I didn’t say we should stop trying.”
Before anyone could answer, the wind shifted.
A sound - faint at first, then distinct.
A bark.
Everyone froze.
“Tell me that wasn’t…” Daniel began.
Another bark - louder this time, echoing through the marble corridors like something absurdly alive.
Lando perked up. “Doggy!!”
“Impossible,” Nico, shut the idea down immediately. “Nothing crosses the grounds uninvited.”
Yet there it was again. Closer now, quick little footsteps tapping against stone.
Kimi gasped as a small golden blur skidded into the hall. A dachshund, soaked, panting, tail wagging furiously. He looked far too mortal to exist here, and yet the magic didn’t reject him. The great doors had opened for him as though he’d been expected.
Leo stopped in the centre of the floor, shaking water onto priceless rugs. Then he barked again - sharp, insistent, almost scolding.
Seb crouched, eyes wide. “Hallo, kleinen hündchen. How did you get in here?”
Leo barked once more, impatient. He turned toward the west wing, then back to them, barking again, his tail cutting the air like punctuation.
George whispered, “He wants Max.”
Nico’s pendulum stuttered. “That’s not possible. Outsiders don’t know Max.”
“Then maybe,” Lewis said softly, “he’s not an outsider.”
The household exchanged looks. The air itself seemed to shiver. Candles relit along the corridor without being asked.
Seb straightened, his fire brightening for the first time in hours. “Where there’s a messenger,” he said, voice trembling somewhere between hope and dread, “there’s a message.”
The dog barked again - urgent, commanding.
And that was when the air changed.
It wasn’t even sound that gave him away, it was pressure. A subtle tightening, as if the château itself inhaled. Every candle guttered and every shadow drew inward. Even Leo froze mid-step, tail rigid and head turning toward the west wing.
A heartbeat later, he appeared.
Max filled the threshold like a storm made of flesh - tall, shoulders drawn tight beneath his black coat, the last remnants of night still clinging to him. His hair was mussed, his eyes tired but sharp. The silence that followed was instant and absolute.
“Why,” he said, voice low and controlled enough to make it worse, “is there barking in my house?”
No one answered.
The rookies had gone rigid, spoons and forks frozen mid-air like guilty children. Lando’s tail tucked so far under he nearly tripped himself. Nico’s gears clicked in stuttered panic, Seb’s flame dimmed to a trembling ember.
Leo barked again - once, twice - and to everyone’s horror, trotted straight toward him.
Max’s head tilted, the faintest crease between his brows. “A dog,” he said, disbelief flattening into irritation. “Who the fuck brought a dog into my château?”
“We didn’t,” Seb blurted, halfway between awe and terror. “He came on his own.”
“Impossible,” Max said.
“Most things are until they’re not,” Daniel muttered.
Max’s gaze snapped to him. “Not now, Daniel.”
Daniel raised both hands, feathers flashing and grin smothered. “Noted.”
Leo barked again, louder this time , sharp and insistent, refusing to be ignored. He stood before Max’s boots, small and furious, drenched and shining in the candlelight.
For one mad moment, no one breathed.
Then, impossibly, the dog growled.
Seb made a strangled sound that sounded suspiciously like a giggle. “He likes you,” he said weakly.
Max stared down at the tiny creature, unamused. “He is lucky he’s small.”
But he didn’t move away.
Instead, he crouched, slowly, stiffly, as if afraid of what the gesture might mean. The dog didn’t flinch. He met Max’s eyes and gave one short, decisive bark.
Something in the air shifted again, a pulse through the floor, faint but undeniable. The chandeliers trembled. The walls seemed to exhale.
Max’s voice dropped. “What is this?”
Lewis, ever the calm amid collapse, stepped forward. “He came through the gates on his own. The wards didn’t stop him. In fact, they opened.”
“That’s not possible.”
“They did,” Lewis said. “We all felt it.”
Max’s jaw clenched. “The gates don’t open without my - ”
He stopped. Because the castle was still moving.
Not physically, not yet, but humming, low and insistent, like something buried far beneath the foundations had turned its face upward. He could feel it in the bones of the place, in the air around his hands, and in the sudden tremor that ran through the stone.
Seb’s flames flickered uneasily. “The magic’s… off.”
“Off?” Nico’s clock hands quivered. “Define off.”
“It feels - ” Seb hesitated, eyes flicking to Max. “Like it’s afraid.”
That stilled everyone again. Even the rookies.
Max rose slowly, the movement carrying all the gravity of an executioner drawing a blade. The silence around him seemed to deepen; even the wind outside had stopped.
“Afraid of what?” he asked.
The answer came from the dog.
Leo barked once - a sound that echoed unnaturally long - then turned, padding toward the great doors. He stopped halfway, looked back, barked again.
It wasn’t random noise, but direction.
“Follow him,” Daniel whispered.
“No,” Max said, but his voice had lost conviction. His gaze stayed fixed on the small golden shape, on the way the magic around it seemed to ripple. “Something’s wrong. It’s Charles.”
Seb exchanged a glance with Lewis, a flicker of dread between them. “You can feel it, can’t you?”
Max didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His expression had already shifted from irritation to something colder. Sharper.
He stepped forward, past the others. The rookies scattered. The dog waited.
When Max reached the door, he hesitated only once, palm hovering over the handle. The wood was warm beneath his hand, the magic thrumming like a heartbeat.
Then, very softly, almost to himself, he said, “He’s not dead.”
And before anyone could ask how he knew, the great doors opened of their own accord, not with violence, but with recognition, and the wind that rushed in carried the faint, unmistakable scent of rain, oil, and blood.
Max’s jaw tightened.
“I’ll go,” he announced without turning. “Seb, keep everyone inside.”
Lewis frowned. “Max, is it safe for you to leave? We don’t know if the curse - ”
“I have to. This is my fault Lewis”
Then he stepped out.
The wind tore at him the moment he stepped outside.
The rain had begun again, thin, cold and relentless. It slicked the stone steps and soaked through his coat in seconds. The world smelled of salt and smoke, of something burning far away.
He started walking, then running. The château gates yawned open as he approached, the iron shifting with a groan that wasn’t mechanical but alive, as if the castle itself were pushing him out.
Beyond the walls, the road stretched in a grey ribbon toward the sea. He could see it immediately - the thin column of smoke rising through the mist, dark against the washed-out dawn.
For the first time in decades, Max didn’t think.
He ran.
His boots hit the wet gravel hard, sending up water in sprays. The air bit at his throat, sharp as punishment. Every step was an argument with himself - he should have known, should have felt it sooner, should have gone after him when the gates opened this morning.
The forest on either side blurred to green and grey. The smoke grew thicker. The smell of fuel carried on the wind.
When he saw the car, his heart stopped.
The Ferrari sat half off the road, its crimson body twisted and blackened down one side. The metal was scorched and steaming, with the front end buried in the ditch. Max’s body reeled like it had gone through the impact - not for the wreckage itself, but for what it meant.
He stumbled to a stop, his breath coming sharp and uneven as he tried to take in the scene. Rain fell hard against the wreck, hissing where it met the twisted metal and sending thin trails of steam curling into the air. The road around him was littered with shattered glass, fragments catching the weak morning light as they scattered across the wet tarmac.
For a moment, the world narrowed to that single image - the ruin of control, a monument which seemed to mock his arrogance.
Then he saw the puddle of blood on the driver’s side.
Max’s chest tightened painfully, and before he even realised what he was doing, he was already moving, stumbling down the embankment with the wet earth giving way beneath his boots, mud splashing up his legs and soaking into his knees as he hit the bottom. His voice broke the air, rough and desperate. “Charles!
The only answer that came was the rain.
He wrenched the door open. It came apart with a tortured shriek. Inside, the seat was empty. Blood streaked across the leather in uneven smears, a clear handprint near the console, and a trail of red leading away into the grass already slick with water.
He froze for a moment, staring, trying to understand what he was seeing. His eyes darted to the road, to the trees, to the thick curtain of fog that seemed to close in around him. His pulse was so loud it blurred the sound of the wind, which hissed through the branches like someone breathing just out of sight.
“Charles!” he shouted, voice raw from the cold and from fear. It wasn’t command or anger this time - it was panic, stripped bare. “Charles, answer me!”
Nothing came back. Only rain, wind, and the low groan of the settling car.
He turned sharply, scanning the verge, the treeline, the patch of grass beyond the ditch where the faint marks of footsteps, half-washed away by the storm, disappeared into the dark. His breathing came too fast, chest tight and painful. Every instinct screamed danger, loss, too late.
He could fix cars, build engines, rebuild an entire machine from ruin, but this? The thought of not finding him, of the silence that might come next, was something else entirely.
He pressed a hand to the car, gripping the crumpled metal hard enough to cut his palm. “You stupid, impossible - ” His voice broke. “Why would you leave?”
The rain answered with another hiss, colder now.
Then a sound - soft, sharp, close.
A bark.
He turned.
Leo stood a few metres away, half-soaked, mud caked up his legs, tail raised like a banner. He barked again, urgent, insistent, then darted toward the trees.
Max stared after him, heart still hammering. “No,” he said under his breath. “No, no - ”
But the dog stopped, turned, and barked again, more forcefully this time.
Max’s jaw tightened. He pushed himself up from the wreckage, the cold biting into his bones. The blood on the grass led the same way.
He started running.
Branches whipped against him as he broke into the forest. The ground was slick and uneven, and the canopy above swallowed what little light the dawn offered. Every breath was a knife of cold air.
“Charles!” His voice echoed through the trees, low and ragged.
No answer - only the rhythm of the dog’s barking ahead, the sound pulling him deeper into the green.
He stumbled once, caught himself, and kept moving. His coat snagged on a branch and tore. He didn’t stop. The forest seemed to stretch endlessly, the mist thickening and the smell of rain turning metallic.
Then, through the haze, he saw movement - a flash of gold and red.
Leo barked once, sharply, then stopped, tail still.
Max slowed, breath unsteady. “Where is - ”
And then he saw him.
Charles, crumpled among the roots, his coat soaked and face pale, blood dark against his temple. One hand half-buried in leaves, the other curled loosely at his side.
Max froze, the world narrowing to the shape of that stillness.
For a heartbeat, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Everything in him - the curse, the fury, the pride - went silent.
He took a step forward, the mud soft and heavy under his boots, clinging to each movement like it wanted to hold him back. Then another, slower this time, his breath catching somewhere between his chest and throat.
“Charles.” The name left him quietly, barely more than air. It wasn’t a shout now, it was plea and disbelief tangled together, the kind of word a person says when there’s no one left to hear it.
Leo gave a low, uneasy whine and began to move in a small circle, restless before finally sitting beside the still figure on the ground. His fur was plastered flat with rain, and his head hung low, as if he understood exactly what was at stake.
Max dropped to his knees beside them, his body shaking from the cold and from everything that had broken loose inside him. The rain ran down his face and into the corners of his mouth; he didn’t bother to wipe it away. Up close, he could see how pale Charles was, how the steady rise and fall of his chest faltered against the rhythm of the storm.
“Don’t you dare,” Max said, the words raw and uneven. His voice cracked halfway through, swallowed by the sound of the rain hitting the leaves around them. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
He reached out, hesitated for a second, then brushed the wet hair back from Charles’s forehead, his fingers cold and clumsy, a clear reflection of the lack of tenderness he’d bestowed on others. The skin beneath them was clammy but still warm. Relief flickered through him, brief and violent, before the fear came rushing back in full force.
He leaned closer, speaking just above a whisper, his voice barely holding. “I found you. You hear me? I found you.”
For a moment, nothing moved but the rain and the faint, rhythmic tremor of the dog’s breathing.
Max stayed there for a moment, his hand still at the side of Charles’s face, until the sound of the rain began to feel louder than his own thoughts. He forced himself to move.
He slid an arm carefully under Charles’s shoulders, the other beneath his knees, wincing at the way the body in his arms felt both light and heavy at once - light from shock, heavy from the pull of water and blood. Charles’s head fell against his shoulder, damp curls sticking to the collar of his coat.
“Come on Schatz,” Max said under his breath, half command, half prayer. “Stay with me.”
He pushed himself to his feet, boots sinking into the mud before finding enough grip to move. The strain hit him immediately; his breath came rough, his muscles shaking with the effort, but he didn’t stop. The weight against his chest was uneven, fragile.
Leo trotted ahead, stopping every few paces to check they were still following, his paws leaving small prints that filled instantly with water. Max kept his eyes on the dog and the faint break in the trees beyond. Each step felt longer than the last.
Branches scraped against his shoulders and mud pulled at his boots. The wind whipped through the forest and carried the faint echo of the château’s magic, a low vibration that ran under the ground like the hum of something waking up. He could feel it responding, even from here, sensing the precious cargo he carried.
When he stumbled, he caught himself against a tree and pulled Charles closer to his chest, the movement rougher than he meant. He checked again for a heartbeat, lowering his ear toward his chest. Still there. Faint, but there.
“Good,” he whispered. “That’s good. Keep it that way.”
He started walking again, faster now. The forest began to thin, the slope of the hill turning back toward the road. The sound of the sea was louder. He could see the faint outline of the château through the mist, its towers rising pale and still against the sky.
Leo barked once, a sharp sound that seemed to echo back from the walls. The gates opened before Max reached them.
He didn’t slow.
By the time he stepped onto the courtyard stones, his arms were trembling with exhaustion. The tea-set and Lando were already there - drawn by the magic or by instinct, he didn’t know. Their faces, bright with candlelight and fear, blurred at the edges of his vision.
“Get the doors open,” Max said, voice breaking as he shifted his grip. “Now.”
George was the first to move, hurrying forward with a steady spout. The rest followed, silent for once.
Max crossed the threshold just as the last of his strength gave out. He dropped to one knee, still holding Charles upright, refusing to let him touch the floor. His voice cracked again, lower this time, almost pleading.
“Someone get Sebastian,” he said. “And keep the fire going.”
The château trembled - a deep, shuddering pulse through the floor, the sound of walls remembering warmth.
Leo barked once more, softer now, and settled at Charles’s side as the others gathered around them.
The great doors closed behind them with a heavy thud that rolled through the building like thunder. The sound echoed in the marble halls and settled deep in the bones of the house.
Max lowered Charles gently onto the rug in front of the sitting room fire, his movements slow and deliberate, every breath an effort to keep his hands from shaking. The light from the hearth cast over Charles’s face, bringing a faint warmth to skin gone too pale.
Seb was there almost instantly, dropping to his knees on the opposite side. His flames had brightened, no longer the dull brass of worry but the gold-white of purpose. “He’s breathing?”
“Barely,” Max said.
Seb pressed a glowing hand to Charles’s chest, then to his forehead. The heat shimmered faintly against the skin. “He’s cold. We need blankets, towels, and something dry.”
George was already moving, shouting orders to the rookies. “Kimi and Gabi, water on the boil. Liam and Isack, fetch linen from the east wing. Daniel, go with Ollie to bring firewood - now, not later.”
Daniel blinked at him, startled. “You’re giving me tasks now?”
“Unless you’d like to watch him freeze,” George said, sharper than usual.
Daniel went.
Lando, organised for once, appeared at Max’s elbow with a heap of blankets, still warm from the laundry room. He didn’t speak, just handed them over and knelt beside Leo, who had stationed himself at Charles’s feet, watching anxiously.
Seb worked quickly. He brushed his palm across Charles’s ribs, melting the wet fabric of his shirt enough to pull it free. Steam lifted where his fire met the damp. “He’s lost blood,” Seb murmured. “Not much, but enough for a head wound. The rest is shock.”
Lewis moved through the background with quiet precision, adjusting curtains to block the wind that sneaked through the old frames. His voice was calm, the kind of calm that carried authority. “We should move him upstairs once he’s stable.”
“No,” Max said immediately.
Lewis glanced over, one eyebrow raised. “You’d rather keep him on the floor?”
“I’m not moving him,” Max said. “Not until he wakes.”
There was no argument in his tone, only certainty.
Seb looked up, ready to retort, but stopped when he saw Max’s expression. The anger was gone. What was left was so much worse. Fear, stripped of armour.
“Okay Max,” Seb said softly. “Then we make here enough.”
He passed a hand through the air above the hearth. The flames grew, deepening from gold to white. Heat rolled through the room in a single steady wave. The wet air steamed, and with it the smell of smoke and salt began to fade.
Charles stirred faintly at the change, a small sound caught in his throat. Max leaned closer immediately. “He’s waking?”
“Not yet,” Seb said. “It's just a reflex, but a good sign nonetheless.”
Daniel and Ollie returned with wood and a pile of rags respectively. Daniel’s feathers drooped, but his hands didn’t tremble. He set everything down and crouched beside Lando. “Hey, you did good, kid,” he said quietly. “You got the blankets.”
Lando nodded, eyes fixed on Charles. “He doesn’t look good.”
“He’s alive Lan,” George said. “That’s good enough for now.”
Nico ticked nervously by the doorway, refusing to come closer. “And what about him?” He flicked his gaze toward Max. “If the curse is reacting - ”
“It already is,” Oscar said, waving his hands slowly. “Look.”
The château was glowing. Faint, subtle, but real. The walls pulsing softly with the same rhythm as the fire. The chandeliers hummed, crystal trembling as though catching some invisible heartbeat.
Lewis turned to Max. “It’s tethered to you,” he said. “Whatever happens to him, the magic’s responding through you.”
Max didn’t answer. He’d stopped hearing them somewhere between the fire and the sound of Charles’s shallow breaths.
He reached out, brushing the back of his fingers against Charles’s cheek again, slower this time. The warmth there was stronger now, not fever, but life creeping back under the skin.
Seb noticed, his voice low. “Keep doing that. The contact helps and the house listens.”
Max didn’t look up. “He’ll be fine.”
Yet it wasn’t a statement of confidence. It was a command to the universe.
Seb met Lewis’s eyes over the fire but neither of them spoke. The room was thick with the weight of magic and exhaustion.
George poured steaming water into a basin, the scent of tea leaves rising. Lando and the rookies hovered close, watching every movement, quiet now in the presence of something larger than their worry.
Outside, the storm began to ease. The wind softened. The rain tapered to a slow, steady rhythm against the windows.
Leo circled twice, then settled near the fire, his head resting on his paws and gaze fixed on Charles.
Seb sat back on his heels, exhaling. “He’ll wake soon. The magic’s realigning.”
Max nodded faintly, though his eyes never left Charles. “Then we wait.”
No one argued.
The château held its breath with them, the quiet no longer accusing but expectant, like a silence alive with the possibility of what might still be saved.
______________________
The château had gone still again, but this time the stillness felt different, softer somehow.
Hours had passed since they’d brought Charles in, and the fire had burned down to a low, steady glow, light flickering across the walls in slow rhythm. The storm had spent itself against the cliffs; now only the occasional drip of water from the turrets broke the quiet.
Most of the household had fallen asleep where they sat.
Seb was slumped sideways in a chair, one arm hanging loose, the tips of his fingers still glowing faintly like dying coals. George had dozed upright on the settee, porcelain gleaming in the firelight, steam sighing softly from his spout each time he exhaled.
Nico had wedged himself into a corner, ticking at irregular intervals,and muttering something about poor time management even in sleep. Lewis had somehow ended up next to him, their edges just touching - polished wood against gilt brass - the kind of closeness that looked accidental but wasn’t. Even asleep, it seemed Lewis couldn’t quite stop propping him upright. And on the floor beside them sat something that looked suspiciously like the remains of a box of Kellogg’s Frosties.
Daniel lay half sprawled on the rug near the hearth, feathers ruffled and singed at the ends, one wing twitching whenever the fire cracked. Lando was a small heap beside him, tail curled tight, breathing deep and even. The rookies had collapsed in a tangle of limbs and metal near the doorway, the remnants of their nervous energy finally gone.
Only Leo stayed awake. The dog lying at Charles’s feet, his small frame rising and falling with every steady breath, as Kimi sat beside him, saucer tilted slightly as he lay quiet.
Max hadn’t moved for hours. He sat cross-legged on the floor beside Charles, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed. The shadows under his eyes looked carved in. The firelight touched the edges of his face but never quite reached his eyes.
He had stripped off his coat earlier, leaving only his shirt, the sleeves rolled to the elbows. His hands were raw from the cold and from holding too tightly. Every time Charles stirred, even faintly, he looked up. When the boy quieted again, his gaze dropped back to the fire.
The others had offered to take watch in turns, but Max refused. He couldn’t leave. Not now. Or ever again.
The minutes stretched long and slow. The fire popped once, and Max flinched at the sound before letting out a breath that was half a laugh. It was the first noise he’d made in hours.
He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, and looked at Charles. The colour had begun to return to his face and his breathing had steadied. The line of his jaw looked softer in sleep, the edges of defiance replaced by the faint vulnerability of exhaustion.
Max’s throat worked once before he spoke. His voice was rough, low and unsure.
“You look awful,” he murmured. “And yet you still manage to make this house look less cursed.”
He exhaled, a sharp breath that trembled at the end. The silence that followed was heavy enough to feel.
“I didn’t mean for any of it to happen.” His eyes stayed fixed on the fire. “You were supposed to leave. I was supposed to stay angry, stay… simple. It was easier when it was just me.”
The words came slow, as if they’d been waiting too long to escape. “You walk in here and you don’t follow any rules. You talk back, you touch things you shouldn’t, you ask questions no one’s asked me in years.” He rubbed at his temple, his voice fraying. “You made everything harder. And I can’t even be angry about it.”
His hand found the edge of the blanket draped over Charles and pulled it higher, tucking it in around his shoulders. “You don’t listen, you don’t think before you speak, and you drive me insane,” he said, quiet again now. “But you tried for me. You stayed when you shouldn’t have. And you were right.”
He paused, swallowing hard. “You’re always right. It’s unbearable.”
He sat back, the movement stiff. His next words were barely more than a whisper.
“I’m sorry Charles. For everything. You can’t hear me, and maybe that’s for the best, but I’m sorry.”
For a while, he just sat there. The only sound being the slow crackle of the fire and the faint hum of the château breathing around them.
Kimi watched from across the rug. He’d never seen Max like this. He’d seen the temper, the orders, the impatience - but never the quiet. Never the part that looked tired and failable and human.
He hesitated, bouncing once on his saucer, then took a tiny, brave hop forward. Leo lifted his head but didn’t bark, just watched with soft, curious eyes as Kimi inched closer.
When Max noticed the movement, he blinked, startled. “What are you doing up?”
Kimi tilted slightly, porcelain glinting in the firelight. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. His voice was small but steady. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Max exhaled a quiet breath that almost passed for a laugh. “I’m not the best company tonight Kimi.”
“That’s alright,” Kimi said, shuffling a little closer until he was right beside him. “Ollie’s terrible company in the mornings sometimes, and I still love him.”
For a moment, Max didn’t know how to respond. The words were so simple and so unguarded that they slipped past all his defences before he could even register them. Something in his chest tightened - not pain exactly, but the unfamiliar weight of feeling something in the place where he’d thought there was nothing left.
For a long moment, neither spoke, letting the fire fill the silence for them.
Then Max reached out, hesitated, and rested one large, careful hand on the rim of Kimi’s cup. It was an awkward gesture, unsure and heavy-handed, but gentle.
“Thank-you,” he said finally. The word sounded strange coming from him, too soft, but also real.
Kimi leaned slightly against his palm. “He’s going to wake up,” he said confidently, glancing toward Charles. “You found him. That means he has to.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “He’d better.”
They sat together in the orange light, man and cup and dog, the faint rhythm of Charles’s breathing steadying the air around them.
And for a brief, impossible moment, the Beast looked less like a curse and more like a man sitting by a fire, waiting for someone he loved to wake up.
Chapter 6: Max Verstappen Learns To Sit (And Other Miracles)
Summary:
I'm sorry this is a short chapter because I've been sick UGH! Spring in Australia is not it this year :'(
Anywho recap:
Charles: It's only my first time driving a V12 car. In a storm. On no sleep. Filled with anger. What could possibly go wrong??
Also Charles: Oh FUCK -
-----------------
Lando: This is all because I talked too much.
Oscar: Lando, talking too much is your baseline.
Lando: … aaaand that does not make me feel better.
-----------------
Leo: growls
Max: … excuse me?
Seb: He likes you, Max.
Max: This is what liking looks like?!
Daniel: You literally do that when you like someone???
Max: offended gasp
-----------------
Kimi: You shouldn't be alone!
Max: I'm literally a gumpy beast who only growls and paces.
Kimi: I don't care, this is what family is for !!
Max: Family????? Can you define that? I'm not sure I know it.
Chapter Text
The first light of morning crept into the château like something shy and unsure on whether it was welcome, gold seeping gently through the high windows and falling in broken ribbons across the floor.
The fire had burned low, embers glowing steady beneath a film of ash.
Most of the household still slept on, where exhaustion had claimed them. Seb’s head rested against the arm of a chair, one hand flickering faintly whenever the fire crackled. George leaned sideways on the settee, porcelain cheek pressed against the cushion, a faint curl of steam rising each time he sighed. Daniel was curled like a fallen bird near the hearth, one wing covering his face and Lando had rolled halfway under him sometime during the night.
Nico and Lewis were still wedged into their corner, a kind of closeness that would have been denied to death if either were awake.
Kimi finally asleep near the hearth, whilst Leo slept next to him, ears twitching at every sound.
And Max, Max hadn’t moved since the night before.
He sat beside Charles, shoulders hunched and his back against the sofa, eyes half-closed but not asleep. One hand rested loosely on the edge of the blanket near Charles’s arm, not quite touching but close enough to feel the warmth radiating through the fabric. The faint rise and fall of Charles’s chest had become his anchor, the only proof that the night hadn’t been another punishment.
He blinked slowly as the light reached them, turning the strands of Charles’s hair copper where it touched. His face was still pale, but the sharp edge of fear had left it. He looked, impossibly, peaceful.
Max let out a quiet breath, the first one that didn’t shake, but didn’t speak this time. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t undo him.
For a while, it was enough just to sit there, listening to the small sounds of the world returning. The soft groan of the old beams as the château stretched with the warmth and the faint hiss of steam from George’s spout, the occasional snore from Daniel that made Leo’s tail twitch in irritation.
And then -
A sound. Barely there, but real.
Charles shifted. A low sound escaped him, half-breath and half-word, as his fingers twitched beneath the blanket.
Max straightened instantly, every trace of weariness gone. “Charles?”
No response. Just another faint movement, the smallest crease of his brow.
Seb stirred in his chair, blinking blearily. “He’s waking?”
“I think so,” Max said, voice barely above a whisper.
The words were enough to wake the room. George sat upright. Oscar let out an accidental note. Lando untangled himself from Daniel with a noise of triumph and immediately tripped over a half-folded blanket. Nico jerked awake with a start, ticking in panic until Lewis, still half-asleep, put a hand on his shoulder.
“Steady,” Lewis murmured, his voice rough.
The rookies clustered in the doorway, whispering excitedly. Kimi scooted closer to the fire. Seb knelt at the other side of Charles, his flames warming to gold again. “Charles,” he said softly, “can you hear me Schatzi?”
A faint noise in response, small but enough.
Max leaned closer. “You’re safe,” he said quietly. “You’re home.”
Charles’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, pupils tightening against the light. He blinked once, twice, before his gaze finally found the figure beside him.
“…Max?”
The sound of his name - cracked, weak, but unmistakably real - seemed to echo through the entire room. Every enchanted soul in the château froze mid-breath.
Max’s reply came slow, rough, careful. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s me.”
For a heartbeat, Charles just stared, in confusion, disbelief, and then something like rage and relief passing across his face all at once. His eyes closed again, before he uttered in barely a whisper. “You look terrible.”
Max huffed, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “You should see the car.”
That earned him a faint, drowsy smile. It was small, uneven, but enough to make the entire castle exhale with him.
Seb sat back, murmuring something in German that sounded a lot like a prayer. Lando quietly wiped at his eyes whilst Daniel kindly pretended not to notice.
Max leaned back against the sofa as every muscle in his body finally eased. The light had reached the far wall now, climbing high and bright and, for the first time in a long time, morning didn’t feel like something to endure.
Then, the room shifted all at once and sound returned like a tide breaking.
The rookies were the first to move, surging forward in a babble of voices that all tried to whisper at once.
“He’s alive!”
“I told you he’d wake up!”
“I didn’t actually cry,” Isack insisted, though his tines were still trembling and no one had actually asked.
“Give him space,” George said firmly, waving them back with the authority of a general. “He doesn’t need a stampede right now.”
Kimi hopped toward the rug, saucer rattling with excitement. “You did it, Max! You saved him!”
Max didn’t answer. He was still sitting close, one hand hovering above Charles’s shoulder, close enough to catch him if he fell. He’d gone very still - the kind of stillness that came after too much movement, when the body hadn’t yet realised it could stop.
Charles blinked slowly, eyes adjusting to the dim gold light. The room tilted in his vision, fire, faces, voices. It took him a moment to recognise any of them.
“…how long was I out?” he asked, voice rasping.
Seb smiled faintly. “Long enough for the house to redecorate itself in anxiety.”
“Long enough is right mate,” Daniel added, dragging a chair closer and dropping into it with a sigh. “Honestly, next time you want attention, just write a note instead of crashing an antique Ferrari.”
Charles groaned softly, eyes half-lidded. “It wasn’t antique,” he muttered, voice still hoarse.
Daniel leaned back, feathers twitching with amusement. “It is now.”
Lando snorted and immediately tried to hide it behind a foot. “Too soon?”
Seb gave him a look. “Much too soon.”
The rookies had clustered just beyond the firelight, whispering furiously amongst themselves about who should be brave enough to bring him water. Kimi solved it by hopping forward, saucer steady, a cup balanced carefully on top. “Tea,” he announced just as George had taught him to, as if unveiling treasure.
Charles smiled faintly, reaching out with a shaky hand. “Merci, Kimi.”
“You’re welcome,” Kimi said, sitting straighter. “I made George help.”
George sniffed from behind the tray. “Made is a strong word Kimi. I offered, as that’s what responsible people do.”
“And were you quite responsible for the Frosties, as well?” Daniel attempted to ask seriously, although his giggles gave him away.
Nico, half awake and glaring, followed his gaze toward the half-empty cereal box still by the wall. “That is not mine, Riccardio.”
Lewis’s mouth curved in a lazy smile. “Of course not. It simply appeared next to you.”
Daniel perked up at that. “What’s this? Breakfast in bed for the happy couple?”
Seb groaned. “Not again.”
Nico spluttered. “Lewis, tell him - ”
Lewis stretched languidly, voice smooth as his polished wood. “I’m sure I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
That earned a ripple of laughter from the others, tired but relieved and genuine. Even Max’s mouth twitched at the corner, though he tried to hide it.
Charles turned his head toward him, the motion small but deliberate. “You didn’t laugh last night,” he said softly.
Max blinked, caught off guard. “I didn’t have much to laugh about.”
“You were worried,” Charles said. It wasn’t a question.
Max looked away, jaw tightening. “You nearly died Charles.”
“Nearly,” Charles repeated, his tone gentler than it had any right to be. “But not quite.”
Something flickered in Max’s eyes, a flash of emotion too brief to name. He stood abruptly, moving to the window as if the air near the fire had grown too heavy. “You shouldn’t have left,” he said, not turning. He knew the statement was unfair.
“I know, but you told me too,” Charles said. “ and I was angry.”
“So was I. And, you never listen to what I tell you to do.”
“I noticed,” Charles murmured, and though his voice was quiet and there was no venom in it. Just tired honesty.
Max’s reflection in the glass looked older than it should have. “You scared me.”
The room went still again. Even the rookies stopped whispering.
Charles’s reply came soft but certain. “You scared me first.”
That almost drew a smile from him. Almost.
Seb rose from his chair, stretching. “Alright, that’s enough confessions for one morning. He needs rest, and the rest of you need to stop staring at him like he’s a Peugeot A4 engine and it’s the last race of the season.”
“I’m fine,” Charles protested weakly.
“You’re not,” George said, already fussing with blankets. “Drink the tea, stay still, and if you so much as think about standing, I’ll pour boiling water on your shoes.”
That drew a faint laugh from around the room. Even Max’s shoulders eased slightly, the tension bleeding out in silence.
Leo lifted his head, gave a single bark, then curled himself against Charles’s legs with a satisfied sigh.
And Seb was right, the room did feel different now. Lighter. The château itself seemed to breathe again, the air warmer, the faint hum of magic no longer strained but steady.
Max turned back from the window, the light of the fire catching on his face. “Rest,” he said simply. “We’ll talk later.”
Charles’s eyes were already closing. “That sounds like a threat,” he mumbled, voice fading.
“Maybe it is,” Max said.
Charles, still half-lidded, managed a small sound that might have been agreement, until Max added, almost absently, “And when you’re awake, we’ll need to find whoever owns the dog.”
Charles’s eyes snapped open. “What?”
Max blinked. “The dog,” he repeated, nodding toward Leo, who was now snoring softly against the blanket. “He must belong to someone.”
“He does Max,” Charles said indignantly. “Me.”
“You’ve known him what, eight hours?” Max pointed out.
“Long enough,” Charles shot back, reaching down weakly to scratch behind Leo’s ears. “He found me and saved my life. That’s literally ownership by fate non?”
Max stared at him. “That’s not how that works.”
Charles gave a faint, defiant hum. “Well, it’s how it works now.”
Across the room, Daniel - halfway to the door - murmured, “You’re doomed, mate,” before Seb smacked him lightly on the arm and ushered him out.
Leo thumped his tail once, as if sealing the argument in Charles’s favour.
Max sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and muttered, “Fine. Keep your dog.”
“I was planning to,” Charles said, already drifting back toward sleep, smug even with his eyes closed.
The rest of the household began to slip quietly from the room. Nico and Lewis still muttering, Lando trailing happily towards Oscar, and Seb pausing just long enough to meet Max’s eyes with a small nod.
The rookies lingered in the doorway just long enough for Gabi to whisper, “He’s already losing arguments.”
Liam nodded solemnly. “And the relationship hasn’t even started.”
Ollie just seemed confused. “I thought he couldn’t lose?”
Lando snorted from the ballroom, trying not to laugh, and George shooed them all away with a look that couldn’t quite hide his grin.
Max pretended not to hear it.
When they were gone, only the crackle of the fire and the sound of rain softening against the windows remained. Max sank back into the chair beside the sofa, watching the slow, steady rise of Charles’s chest.
He wasn’t sure when exhaustion overtook him, only that when it did, his last thought was simple and impossible and terrifyingly real;
Stay.
And for once, the château didn’t feel like a cage. It felt like waiting.
______________________
In the days that followed, the château learned to breathe again.
It began subtly, the warmth returned to the air, and the candlelight stopped flickering like a held breath. The walls, once dulled by grief, seemed to recall their colours, and tapestries regained their depth. Even the flowers on the balcony dared to bloom out of season, heavy with scent and dew.
Charles slept through the first day almost entirely. Seb kept watch at intervals, pretending to dust the mantel every time he passed by, while the rookies arranged themselves like a small army of concern outside the door. Daniel brought jokes and biscuits, and George brought rules about how many jokes and biscuits were appropriate for a patient.
Max brought silence. Worried that if he said anything, then Charles would leave again.
When he wasn’t at Charles’s bedside, he walked - through hallways that no longer felt empty but not yet alive. The silence followed him differently now. Not hostile, not oppressive, just curious. It wanted to see what he’d do next.
By the third day, Charles could sit up for short stretches. His face was still pale, but his voice had returned enough to tease anyone who stood still too long. He had also, with absolute certainty, declared Leo his constant companion. The dog followed him faithfully, tail wagging at every half-smile. No one argued with it. Not even Max.
On the fourth morning, Seb brought breakfast on a tray, though it was really an excuse to check the colour in Charles’s cheeks.
“Bread, tea, and unsolicited wisdom,” he announced, setting the tray down. “Two of which you should consume.”
Charles smiled faintly. “You’re worse than George.”
“George likes being a mother hen,” Seb said. “I like seeing you.”
He turned toward Max, who was lingering near the window again, as though daylight were something that had to be watched. “You could help, you know,” Seb said lightly. “Perhaps even carry the tray next time.”
Max didn’t look up. “He has hands.”
“Yes,” Seb said, “but yours need practice at gentleness.”
It was the kind of jab Max usually returned with a glare or a remark sharp enough to slice through the tension. But now, he only muttered, “I’m trying.”
Seb’s expression softened. “I know.”
He left them like that, with the sunlight just beginning to spill across the floor. Charles half-smiling into his tea, Max standing in the golden haze as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch it.
______________________
By evening, Charles had convinced the rookies to sneak him into the garden.
It was a ridiculous, half-shuffled expedition, all stealth and giggling and bad planning. Kimi had brought the blanket, Isack and Gabi had brought the food, Liam had brought a guitar he’d somehow found, and Ollie? Ollie had brought absolutely nothing (but enthusiasm). Lando, who had technically been left in charge as the eldest, had spent most of his time panicking about the potential wrath of Seb.
Instead it was Max who found them, and the sight nearly stopped him; Charles propped against a cushion beneath the rose arch, Leo sprawled beside him and the rookies clustered close, whispering secrets into the warm air. The whole tableau looked impossibly alive, in a way he’d never seen since the curse.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Max said finally, arms crossed, voice somewhere between exasperation and disbelief.
Charles looked up, unrepentant. “I am Max. Just… horizontally in a different location.”
“That’s not rest Charles ,” Max said, stepping closer.
“It’s recovery,” Charles countered. “Sunlight is good for that, non?”
“Doctors say that?”
“Fairy tales do.”
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of Max’s mouth, though he tried to hide it. “You’re not in a fairy tale Charles.”
The rookies snorted into their sleeves. Even Lando looked relieved. The mood of the garden, which for so long had been haunted by stormlight, turned lighter and warmer. The roses rustled and leaned in to listen.
Max hesitated, then awkwardly sat beside him, leaving a careful space between them. Leo immediately relocated to fill it, resting his head on Max’s knee with all the diplomacy of a creature who understood emotional stalemates. Charles laughed softly.
“He likes you.”
“He likes sleeping on me.”
“That’s affection.”
Max glanced down at the dog, whose tail thumped once, decisively. “He has terrible taste.”
“Then he’ll fit right in,” Charles said.
For a moment the silence stretched, but it wasn’t empty. It was the kind of quiet that existed between people who’d both nearly lost something. More of a shared exhale. Max turned his head slightly and the sunlight caught in his hair, making it look more blonde than usual. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.
“I shouldn’t have let you go that night.”
Charles didn’t look at him, only plucked a petal from the nearest rose, testing Max’s composure. “And yet, you did.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From me.”
That drew Charles' gaze, sharp and searching. He studied him for a long moment before saying quietly, “You can’t protect people by making them afraid of you Max.”
Max’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he looked toward the sea and the endless line of silver beyond the cliffs. “I’m learning.”
“I can see that,” Charles said. “ I mean, you’re already sitting in a garden without yelling.”
“That’s progress?”
“For you? Monumental. Just last week, you told me you didn't sit !”
The laughter that followed was small, but it was real. And for the first time since Alonso’s curse, the château seemed to laugh with them, the breeze stirring and the ivy whispering against the stone.
Which was, of course, the precise moment the rookies decided to ruin everything.
A loud whisper - which was really more of a shout - drifted from the other side of the picnic blanket. “Is he smiling? Did you see that guys? He’s smiling.”
“Shh!” hissed Isack. “You’ll scare him off. You have to move slowly or he goes feral.”
“I do not go feral,” Max said without turning.
There was a startled squeak and a clatter as a watering can hit the gravel. A guilty chorus followed.
“Sorry, boss - sir - your uh Beastiness...”
Charles snorted, half covering his mouth to hide his grin. “They’re improving. Last week they hid under Oscar when you walked past.”
“I preferred that,” Max muttered, dragging a hand over his face.
Lando poked his head out from where he was hiding behind Gabi, eyes wide with awe and terror. “You’re, um, doing great, by the way! With the emotional vulnerability stuff!”
“Out,” Max said flatly.
Ollie immediately saluted. “Retreat! He’s blushing!”
“I am not-” Max began, but the rookies had already scattered, tripping over each other in a flurry of laughter and clinking cutlery.
Charles was laughing openly now, warm and unguarded. “They adore you, you know.”
“They fear me.”
“They fear disappointing you,” Charles said softly. “There’s a difference Max.”
Max didn’t answer. He was still glaring in the direction the rookies had run to, though the corners of his mouth betrayed him. “You’re all insufferable,” he muttered finally.
Charles leaned back, satisfied. “And yet, you’re still here.”
For a heartbeat, the sunlight caught between them again, bright, ridiculous, real.
And somewhere inside the château, Oscar struck a chord that sounded suspiciously like applause.
______________________
Later, Seb found him in the west wing - the echoing artery of stone and shadow where the château’s heart seemed to pulse the slowest. Max stood before the glass case, shoulders squared as though bracing against an unseen wind. Inside, the World Drivers’ Championship trophy flickered with a faint inner sheen, the kind of light that didn’t belong to metal at all. It was the glow of something counting.
Max’s four, now three.
Remained etched in perfect clarity, bright as if freshly struck. But the empty spaces around them felt cavernous.
Seb approached quietly. Even his flames dimmed at the threshold of that strange, watchful light.
“He’s getting better,” Seb said softly, as though speaking too loudly might disturb the fragile quiet suspended around them. The gallery was dim, lit only by the low glow of the chandeliers and the faint, uncanny radiance of the trophy under glass.
Max didn’t turn. “The house feels different.”
“It’s not the house,” Seb murmured, stepping closer. His flames dimmed instinctively, out of respect for the strange gravity of the moment. He leaned against the carved balustrade beside the display, tilting his head to study Max rather than the trophy. “It’s you.”
Max exhaled, long and slow - an exhausted, disbelieving sound. The kind he rarely let anyone hear. He kept his gaze fixed on the trophy, on the ghostlike curl of a name that flickered once… then vanished. Gone. Erased as though it had never been carved at all.
“It won’t last,” he said quietly. “None of this does.”
“Maybe not,” Seb replied. “But neither did the storm.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty; it was thick with everything unsaid, everything Max had never allowed himself to feel. The château seemed to lean in, its air shifting almost imperceptibly - a held breath, an old instinct waking. Even the lights softened to a warmer hue, as though the walls themselves knew vulnerability when they saw it.
Seb folded his metal arms, watching the three remaining names - Max’s three - glimmer with steady, unnerving certainty. “You do realise what the curse is asking of you, don’t you?” His voice had lost its joking cadence. “It was never about redemption.”
Max’s eyes sharpened, not in anger but in something far more dangerous, fear. Quiet and consuming. Not of the curse, but of what it demanded.
Seb’s flames gentled into a low gold. “It wants understanding.”
Max’s fingers hovered over the rim of the glass. He didn’t touch, he never touched, but the tremor of restraint betrayed him. “Understanding what?”
“That control and kindness aren’t opposites,” Seb said, his tone warm but unyielding. “You’ve spent your whole life convinced that you can’t have both. That to be strong, you must be alone.” His flames flickered. “The curse disagrees. I disagree Max.”
Max’s breath hitched. Just slightly, but enough. The trophy cast fractured gleams across the marble floor, like shards of light trying to guide him somewhere he refused to look.
From deep in the château, laughter drifted upward, tangled and bright. Daniel’s unmistakable chaotic joy and Charles’s voice interwoven with it, light as a ribbon caught on wind. Every time Charles laughed, the castle changed. Its shadows softened, its tension eased, its echoing halls warmed as though remembering summer after a long winter.
For Max, the sound struck somewhere unbearably tender. A place he had buried under years of precision, discipline, and silence.
It was a language he used to know. One he used to speak without effort. And now it reached him like something whispered through time.
He shut his eyes. Waited for a heartbeat and then,
“Seb…” His voice was low, unarmoured. “What if it’s too late?”
Seb’s flames turned from gold to copper - the softest, most human colour he had. “Then make peace with what remains,” he said quietly. “Or - ” he glanced at Max sidelong, “you could try.”
Max opened his eyes. His expression was unreadable, carved from instinct and fear and longing in equal measure.
“Try what?”
Seb shrugged - the elegant, theatrical gesture of someone who knew he was treading a fine, enchanted line. “Kindness. Patience. Allowing yourself to want something that isn’t victory.” A beat. “Allowing yourself to build something instead of destroy it.”
Max’s chest tightened. Seb saw it. And pressed just a little further, in the way only a parental figure could.
“Leo adores him. The rookies practically glow when Charles is in the room. Even Nico warms by two degrees.” Seb’s flames glinted. “You could try letting him warm you too.”
Max swallowed. His throat felt tight, as though the castle air had thickened around him.
Seb leaned in conspiratorially, his flame flickering with a hint of mischief. “Start small,” he murmured. “Rebuild the car with him. Let him get his hands dirty. He wants to understand you, Max. And you? You’re terrified because you want to be understood.”
Max went very still. Not icy-still, not controlled-still, but the stillness of someone standing on a precipice and seeing, for the first time, the shape of the world beyond the drop.
Slowly, painfully, he breathed out.
“…I don’t know if I can.”
“You won’t know until you try,” Seb said gently. “And trying is already more than you’ve ever allowed yourself.”
He placed a warm flame-hand on Max’s shoulder. The metal under Max’s skin didn’t flinch or tense this time but simply yielded. A subtle shift but a shift all the same.
Then Seb stepped closer again, shifting gears properly, circling Max the way a tutor might study a stubborn student.
“Max,” he said quietly, “stop standing here waiting for a stupid piece of metal to give you permission.”
Max blinked. The words hit with more force than the flames ever could.
Seb nodded toward the trophy, toward the three names still burning like coals in the dimness. “This thing has taken enough of you. Years. Breath. Blood. It doesn’t need another minute.”
Max’s shoulders tightened. “I’m not - ”
“You are.” Seb cut in gently. “Thinking. Overthinking. Strangling every feeling before it can breathe. You stand here trying to solve yourself like you’re another goddamn gearbox.” His flame flared, exasperated in that fond, fatherly way only Seb mastered. “You cannot logic your way out of loneliness, Max.”
Max’s jaw clenched. “I’m not lonely.”
Seb stepped closer, forcing Max to meet the glint of molten gold in his flames. “Feeling isn’t a weakness. Wanting isn’t a threat. And trying - ” he tapped lightly against Max’s chest, right above his heart, “trying is not something you do in your head. It is something you do with your feet.”
Max swallowed hard. He hated how the air felt suddenly thin.
Seb softened. “He’s just down the hall, Max. Laughing. Alive. The castle leans toward him every time he breathes. And you - ” he exhaled, almost tenderly, “you’re standing here staring at a trophy like it’s going to teach you how to be a man.”
Max’s breath stuttered. “What if I - ”
“Stop asking,” Seb tutted. “Stop thinking. Stop holding your own throat.”
Then, with a small, crooked smile, “Just go to him. Try. Not as a F1 driver. Not as a beast. As a man.”
For a moment, Max didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
Seb watched him with a quiet patience that had weathered years of podiums, disasters, triumphs. “You won’t understand a damn thing until you feel it. So go,” he murmured. “Before you convince yourself not to.”
And finally - finally - something shifted in Max’s posture. His hand dropped from the glass dome. His breath eased, shakily. The cold stillness around him cracked, just slightly, like frost breaking under first light.
He turned his head toward the distant corridor, where laughter drifted warm and bright, tugging at him like a tide.
Seb stepped back, satisfied. “There he is,” he said under his breath.
Max took a step.
Small, hesitant.
Then another.
And for the first time in his life, Max didn’t walk toward a trophy, or a finish line, or a victory carved in metal.
He walked toward a boy with starlit eyes and too much heart, toward something human, something terrifying, something real - toward himself.
The walls exhaled, the lights warmed, and the ancient enchantment shivered like a great beast stirring from sleep.
Max didn’t notice.
He was already following the sound of Charles’s laughter, down the east corridor and towards the ballroom.
The ballroom.
He hadn’t been inside since the night Alonso cursed him, when it had been filled with people he didn’t like. People he didn't even know. And yet now it seemed more daunting, filled with only one.
The door stood slightly ajar, as though in waiting.
Warm light spilled out in a thin gold ribbon across the stone floor, and beneath it, a sound, not laughter this time but a soft and curious creak. Max pushed the door open a fraction more.
Charles was there.
Standing before the grand piano, with his hands hovering above the keys as though trying not to frighten an animal.
Max froze.
The sight hit him with a quiet, unexpected force; Charles in the dim glow of sconces, hair mussed from the garden, his injured arm carefully braced against his chest, and his gaze softened with that instinctive reverence he reserved only for two things - engines and art.
Oscar, to his credit, was doing his absolute best to look dignified.
“Please,” he whispered, voice coming out of the strings. “Do not touch anything without consent. Max never lets anyone near me and I’d rather avoid being dismantled for emotional collateral.”
Charles startled, then laughed and sat down. “Mon dieu! I forgot you talk!”
“Oh God,” Max muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oscar - ”
“Yes,” Oscar sighed. “I talk. And I judge. And right now I am judging your posture. At least sit up straight, for heaven’s sake.”
Charles brightened. “You sound like my piano teacher.”
“I should hope so,” Oscar sniffed, “I was built in Vienna, not a department store.”
Max stepped fully into the room then, and the castle reacted immediately. The lights warming and the air settling. The shadows even seemed to shift subtly to guide him toward Charles rather than block the way.
Charles turned at the movement.
The moment stretched, golden and fragile.
“Oops, you found me,” he said softly.
Max’s throat tightened. He’d meant to say something ordinary - something safe - but instead what came out was the truth.
“You weren’t hiding.”
Charles blinked, surprised, then touched, and then something else entirely flickered in his eyes. Max wished desperately that he could read it.
Oscar made a small, discreet sound like a throat-clearing from the lower keys. “Right. Well. You two can stare at each other all night or we can accomplish something productive.”
Charles laughed again, breathless and warm. “I was just looking. I used to play, when I was younger.”
Max shifted, uncertain. “It’s… old.”
“It’s beautiful Max,” Charles corrected gently. “There’s beauty in age.”
And then, so carefully Max felt it in his bones, Charles reached out his good hand and rested a single fingertip on the edge of Oscar’s polished lid.
Oscar did not combust. A triumph, really.
Max waited. Tense. Braced for the instinct to snap, to withdraw, to close off as he always had. But the instinct did not come.
Instead, the castle sighed.
A soft ripple of air moved through the room, stirring the velvet curtains, and Oscar’s strings thrummed faintly, almost like he was holding his breath in anticipation.
Charles looked at Max. A silent question.
Max swallowed.
“Go on,” he said. “Play.”
Charles’s smile bloomed slow, cautious, radiant. “Are you sure? It’s your piano.”
Max shook his head. “It was mine,” he said quietly. “Before. You can… try.”
He didn’t say the rest.
I’m trying too.
Charles sat, wincing slightly as he adjusted with one arm. Oscar helped by raising the bench with a put-upon huff (“Honestly, you people are going to be the end of me”). Charles smothered a grin, set his fingers above the keys -
-and paused.
“Anything you want to hear?” he asked.
Max stared at the floor, forcing his breath steady. “No. Just play what you feel.”
Charles nodded, exhaled, and let his hand fall.
The first notes were soft.
Tentative.
A little uneven, not from lack of skill but from the unfamiliarity of playing with only one arm. But the melody that unfurled was unmistakably Charles; wistful, tender, edged with stubborn hope.
The castle reacted instantly.
Lights dimmed to a hush.
Curtains stirred in a breeze that wasn’t there.
Dust motes rose like stars from the air, suspended in a slow and luminous drift.
The magic listened.
Max listened.
And somewhere between the second and third phrase, between the rise and fall of Charles’s improvised melody, something inside Max loosened.
An old, rusted hinge turning.
A locked room opening.
A breath he hadn’t taken in years.
Charles glanced up at him mid-phrase, eyes bright, cheeks flushed with concentration and something soft, and Max felt the impact of it like a blow.
Not painful.
Just undeniable.
Charles’s playing grew bolder then, freer, as though he could feel Max’s heartbeat in the room’s atmosphere. Oscar hummed along beneath the melody, supportive, steady, proud. It didn't go unnoticed to Max that this was the first time he had ever accompanied anyone willingly.
When the final note faded, the silence that followed wasn’t silence at all.
It was full.
Charged.
Alive.
Max didn’t realise he’d been holding his breath until Charles lifted his hand from the keys.
“Was that… alright?” Charles asked.
Max stared at him.
At the piano.
At the room that had once held his loneliness like a shrine.
At the air that felt new.
“It was…” He swallowed, searching for something honest. “It was good.” Not honest then.
Charles arched a brow. “Good?”
Max’s lips curved despite himself. “Fine. Beautiful.”
Oscar immediately played a smug arpeggio.
Charles laughed again, soft and breathless.
Max felt it in the center of his chest.
Charles rested his hand lightly over the keys once more. “I can play something else. If you want.”
This time, Max’s answer came without hesitation.
“I want.”
A simple word.
A seismic shift.
Charles’s smile, slow and warm and impossibly fond, was worth every year Max had spent alone.
“Then sit with me,” Charles said.
Max froze. “Sit?”
“Yes. Beside me.”
Oscar groaned. “Oh God, here we go.”
Max ignored him. Moved. Sat.
Close.
Very close.
Charles began to play again. A new melody that was gentler, warmer, and this time Max didn’t watch the keys.
He watched Charles.
Watched the way the light touched him.
Watched the way his lashes brushed his cheeks.
Watched the way he breathed, steady and brave.
At one point Charles whispered, not looking away from the keys, “You can breathe, you know Max.”
Max’s voice came low, honest. “I’m trying.”
And Charles smiled, small and secret and devastating.
Music filled the room, soft and human and real.
For the first time since the curse, Max wasn’t holding himself at a distance.
He was letting himself feel. Letting himself stay. Letting himself want.
The last notes of Charles’s melody faded into the rafters, carried upward like smoke.
Even after his fingers stilled, the piano hummed - Oscar keeping the resonance alive, unwilling to let the moment disappear too quickly.
Max didn’t speak.
Couldn’t speak.
He sat beside Charles, strangely breathless, blinking as though re-learning how light worked.
Charles looked at him, the corners of his mouth lifting with quiet triumph.
“It wasn’t terrible, non?”
“It was…” Max started, then stopped, annoyed at how soft his voice sounded.
He tried again.
“It was… not terrible, no Charles.”
Charles’s smile grew. “You’re welcome.”
Oscar clanged a prim little flourish, as though taking partial credit.
Max looked at him fully, nothing hidden.
Charles held his gaze, both steady and hopeful.
And the silence between them wasn’t cold.
Wasn’t distant.
Wasn’t filled with fear.
It was full.
Warm.
A beginning.
The sort of beginning the castle had been waiting for.
______________________
The ballroom glowed at the end of the long corridor, its door cracked open just enough for warm light and music, to spill out like honey.
Charles played.
Softly.
Tentatively.
But with a tenderness that made the ancient walls shiver.
The first to arrive was Seb.
He’d meant to call Max for dinner.
Instead he froze mid-step, one flame-hand rising instinctively to his chest.
“Oh,” he whispered, flames flickering gold. “Oh, Max.”
He stood there listening, utterly still, as though the sound itself anchored him.
A moment later, Daniel rounded the corner at a jog, skidding to a stop before colliding with him.
“What? Is he dying? Should we call - ”
He heard the music.
His jaw dropped.
His eyes widened.
He slapped a hand over his mouth.
“No. No way. Is that - ?”
Seb nodded once, eyes shining.
Daniel made the tiniest squeak of joy, grabbed Seb’s arm, and nearly vibrated out of his skin.
“HE’S LETTING SOMEONE PLAY THE PIANO? VOLUNTARILY?”
Seb elbowed him.
“Hush. Don’t ruin it.”
They stood together, leaning toward the slender gap in the door.
Then footsteps sounded at the far end of the corridor - fast, chaotic, unmistakable.
The rookies arrived in a cluster of limbs and panic, skidding across the old stone like puppies on ice.
Isack whispered too loudly, “Did you hear it too?!”
Gabi nodded vigorously. “It’s music. Real music.”
Liam added, voice shaking with awe, “This hallway hasn’t had music in, like… literally ever.”
Kimi simply stared at the glow under the doorway as though it were a portal to another world.
They all pressed closer until Seb held up a stern, flaming hand.
“Quiet. All of you.”
It worked.
Miraculously.
Only Ollie dared lean forward and whisper, “Do we clap? Is that allowed?”
Seb glared.
“No. This is not a school recital Oliver. This is - ”
He gestured vaguely toward Max and Charles.
“This is… everything.”
The rookies nodded in reverent silence.
The next pair to appear moved slowly, quietly - Lewis with his wardrobe doors open and relaxed, Nico at his side pretending he was still holding onto his composure.
Nico elbowed Daniel aside.
“Stop gawking, you maniac.”
Lewis, appearing just behind him, arched a brow.
“You’re gawking too.”
“I am observing,” Nico whispered sharply.
Lewis leaned in, voice low, lips brushing Nico’s ear with casual intimacy.
“That’s what you called it during our whole career together.”
Nico hissed. “Lewis, not now - ”
Lewis smiled, soft and smug. “Yes. Now.”
Seb slapped a hand to his forehead. “Not in front of the grandkids, please.”
From farther down the hall, George materialised, dragging Lando by the tail.
“I told you not to run - ”
Lando wiggled free immediately.
“Shhh! George, shut up! They’re bonding. It’s a moment.”
George rolled his eyes, but when he heard the actual music, something in him softened too, posture relaxing.
The corridor, all stone and shadow, had never held so many hearts beating so quietly.
Inside the room, Charles continued to play, fingers coaxing melody out of time itself.
Max’s low murmur drifted through the crack in the door, so rarely gentle and unbearably human.
The rookies collapsed to the floor in a heap, leaning on each other like puppies.
Daniel rested his chin on Seb’s shoulder.
Seb let him.
George folded his arms protectively, as though guarding the moment itself.
Lando pressed a hand to his heart. “He’s… nice.”
“Oh don’t faint,” George muttered.
Nico let out a shaking breath he tried to disguise as a sigh.
Lewis tapped a soothing rhythm at the base of his spine.
Nico didn’t move away.
And Seb, steady, fiery Seb, whispered to no one in particular, “He’s changing.”
The corridor held that truth like scripture.
The castle felt it too - a tremor of warmth running the length of its old bones, ivy outside the windows unfurling in the moonlight, and the stone beneath their feet humming faintly, as though remembering what joy sounded like.
Inside, the music slowed, Charles finishing the piece with a soft, lingering note.
His voice came immediately, unsure but with hope threaded through every syllable.
“Was that…alright?’
Max’s voice came after a breath, “It was … it was good.”
A huff, “Good?”
And then Max - low, reverent, stripped bare in a way none of them had ever heard - offered the truth.
“Fine, beautiful.”
In the corridor, the household turned toward one another, eyes wide, hands frozen mid-air, lungs forgetting how to work. A collective breath held so tightly the entire château seemed to lean into it.
Daniel whispered, “He said the B-word. I’m going to faint.”
Seb flicked a spark at him.
Nico whispered, “Max Verstappen complimented someone. Out loud.”
Lewis smirked. “History books will have to be rewritten.”
The rookies clasped hands like overexcited pilgrims.
But no one moved.
No one dared interrupt.
Because beyond the door, Charles spoke again, quiet and hopeful.
“Do you want to hear another?”
Max didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
Music began anew.
And the château, the house that had endured storms, silence, and centuries, felt its heart beat for the first time in years.
Seb let out a long, trembling exhale.
“Let's let them be,” he whispered.
The household nodded.
No one left.
No one spoke.
They simply stood - one odd, mismatched, enchanted family - gathered in the corridor like witnesses to the beginning of something sacred.
The music played on.
Soft.
Tender.
Transforming.
And in that corridor, under flickering candlelight and the hush of a house finally waking, every single one of them understood;
This was the moment everything changed.
______________________
That night, Charles dreamed of engines and salt air, of the sound that Max’s voice carried through the château - low, rough as though apologising to the silence itself. When he woke, the dawn was pale and blue, the kind that turns shadows to ghosts.
He turned his head to find Max asleep in the chair beside him, still in the same clothes, one hand resting near the edge of the sofa despite the fact that Charles was no longer particularly injured. Leo snored softly at his feet. For a moment, Charles just watched them, the two creatures least suited to peace, both asleep in it.
The château was quiet, not from emptiness but from contentment. Somewhere down the hall, a piano began to play, soft and imperfect. Oscar, easing into the morning, knowing now that music was no longer unwelcome.
Charles smiled faintly, eyes drifting shut again. The sunlight climbed higher, spilling across the floorboards, gilding the air.
The curse, for the first time, didn’t feel like a sentence.
It felt like the beginning of something, like learning how to live.
Chapter 7: A Brief History of Pining (Most of It Max’s)
Summary:
I was going to split this chapter up into two ... but then I felt bad because the last chapter was so short ... so now this is just stupidly long. I'm so sorry...
Recap:
Max: We should also return the dog.
Charles: No, he is mine??
Max, reading the very obvious dog-tag: Charles, there is literally a name and phone number listed here.
Charles, dramatically: Oh so you wish Leo had never saved me and I'd DIED in the forest alone?!?!
Max: Keep your fucking dog.
-----------------
Sebastian: We all have our demons.
Sebastian, pointing at Max: This one’s mine.
-----------------
Charles: So did you like my song?
Max, dying inside and trying not to combust from all the emotions he's feeling: It was mid :))
Chapter Text
By late morning, the château had decided that peace was no excuse to skip breakfast.
The great dining hall, which once creaked under the weight of silence, now hummed with something far far messier, plates clinking, voices overlapping, cutlery attempting to obey gravity and failing. Sunlight slanted in, and the wind blew perfectly through the high windows. The long table ran the length of the room like a runway, and at either end, like poorly disguised bookends, sat Max and Charles.
Chaos occupied the middle.
Seb and Nico were halfway down, in the midst of what had started as a civilised conversation about table placement and had somehow transformed into a three-act drama about architectural symmetry, moral philosophy, and the proper way to stack plates.
“It’s not just about efficiency, Nico Schatzi,” Seb said, gesturing with a piece of toast like it was a judges gavel. “It’s about beauty and you must let the chaos breathe.”
“The chaos does not need help breathing,” Nico replied, voice crisp as fine crystal. “The chaos is currently drinking orange juice out of a gravy boat.”
All eyes flicked to the rookies.
At the far side, Kimi had in fact mistaken the gravy boat for a cup. Ollie was clearly encouraging it. Isack and Gabi were trying (and failing) to stifle laughter, while Liam and Jack leaned in with the avid focus of spectators at a particularly promising first corner.
George, in teapot form on a tray, sighed with the weight of his years. “Kimi,” he warned, steam puffing in a scolding rhythm, “what did we say about using tableware for its intended purpose?”
Kimi swallowed, set the gravy boat down delicately and said, “That we should… absolutely do that?” with the guilty hope of a child reciting half-remembered scripture.
Oscar, perched nearby as the upright piano wheelbase pushed in through one of the side doors, chimed in dryly, “This is why we can’t have nice things. Or normal mornings.”
Daniel lounged somewhere between Seb and the rookies, all elbows and shameless delight. “Let the kid innovate, Georgie Porgie. Formula gravy. The future.”
Lewis, resplendent as ever along the sideboard, half-gilded wardrobe, half unbothered deity, took a measured sip of his tea. “At least he’s not trying to drink champagne out of a shoe,” he murmured. “Ask Daniel about that night.”
“Allegedly,” Daniel shot back. “And it was a very clean shoe.”
The room pulsed with light laughter, the kind that didn’t have to be forced. It bounced off the marble and threaded around the chandeliers, tugging open windows just slightly wider. The château, listening as always, leaned into it.
Charles watched it all from his end of the table, chin propped daintily on one hand. The morning’s blue softness still clung to him, and he hadn’t fully shaken the image of Max asleep in the chair, with Leo curled into his feet like a guardian. Every now and then he glanced down the table, past Seb’s gesturing hands and Daniel’s grin and George’s exasperated steam, to where Max sat.
Max who looked wrong and right all at once.
He was at his usual end of the table, his shoulders squared and posture precise as usual. He still cut into his food with the same care he might use on a suspension problem, and yet there was a looseness that hadn't been there before - his tie missing, shirt sleeves rolled to his forearms, and his hair still slightly mussed from sleep. The hard line between his brows had softened, replaced by something almost uncertain.
He wasn’t participating in the chaos, of course. But for once he was not outside it either. When Seb declared dramatically, “Frühstück wie ein Kaiser, Mittagessen wie ein König und Abendessen wie ein Bettler,” something in Max’s expression flickered. The corner of his mouth tilted, barely, like a smile remembered rather than performed. (eat your breakfast like an emperor, your lunch like a king, and your dinner like a beggar).
Charles saw it. Of course he did.
Their gazes met once, just briefly, across the length of the table. It was only a second, barely enough time for anything at all, but in it Charles heard last night’s voice again, “Fine, it was beautiful”, echoing between them.
Max looked away first, reaching for his glass with unnecessary deliberation.
The château noted that too. The light above the table warmed by a shade, lanterns along the walls brightening as though exhaling.
“Alright,” George said at last, corralling the rookies with the sheer force of his tone. “We are going to have one breakfast without someone catching fire, melting, or emotionally combusting. Eat.”
“Too late,” Oscar muttered. “Seb’s been emotionally combusting for twenty minutes.”
“Jealousy is not flattering on you,” Seb sniffed, then caught Charles’ eye and winked. “Did you sleep well, mein Häschen?”
Charles flushed, but smiled. “Very well, thank you.”
Daniel’s eyebrows shot up at once. “Oh? Interesting. Yeah Interesting. Very interesting.”
“Don’t,” came Max’s voice from the other end of the table. He didn’t raise it, but something in the way it cut the air made Daniel throw his hands up in surrender, grin widening.
“I didn’t say anything,” Daniel protested. “Yet.”
Nico checked the clock face on his own chest, gears ticking just a touch too fast. “Can we have one meal that doesn’t threaten the structural integrity of my nervous system?”
“Doubtful,” Lewis said serenely.
The rest of breakfast passed in that strange, delicate balance of noise wrapped around a silence that no longer hurt. Charles talked a little with the rookies, with Seb, with George. Max said almost nothing, but he didn’t leave early. He stayed until plates were nearly empty, until coffee had cooled, until the rookies were being shooed away by a flustered teapot and an unimpressed piano.
Only then did he stand.
Chairs scraped softly and conversation dipped. Charles tried very hard not to notice the way Seb’s flame flickered more brightly at the exact moment Max’s eyes found him.
“Charles,” Max said.
Just his name. But the sound of it carried, low and rough at the edges, like he was still apologising to a silence that no longer existed.
Charles looked up. “Yes?”
“Can I - ” Max stopped, jaw shifting. He glanced once, briefly, towards Seb and Nico and the rookies who were absolutely not listening and absolutely listening. His shoulders tightened and he took a deep breath in. “Can I speak to you. For a moment.”
At that, the room did something almost theatrical in response. Voices resumed immediately, too quickly, the way people talked when they were trying not to make it obvious they weren't watching. The rookies began a loud, pointless debate about the weather in Australia. Seb grabbed Daniel by the wrist and launched into a monologue about the importance of bees. Nico’s ticking grew audible as his stolen glances did obvious .
Lewis only smiled, lazy and knowing. “Of course, Max,” he said, as though granting an audience. “Take all the time you need.”
Max ignored him.
Charles rose, napkin folded automatically in his hand. Leo, who had been napping under the table, trotted after him without question, long body wriggling into wakefulness.
In the doorway, just beyond the spill of breakfast light, Max waited. He looked oddly formal despite the rolled sleeves, hands tucked into his pockets like he wasn’t sure what else to do with them.
Charles stepped into the corridor, the door swinging shut behind them with a soft click. The sound cut off the dining hall’s buzz, replacing it with the quieter breath of the château, all distant bells and shifting beams, the hush of sea wind in the stone.
“Is everything alright Max?” Charles asked gently.
Max’s gaze flicked to him, then away. “Yes. I mean. No. It’s not -” He broke off and then exhaled, visibly annoyed by his own lack of eloquence. “I wanted to… show you something.”
The words dropped between them with more weight than they should have had. A simple offer instead spoken like a confession.
Charles felt it instantly. The shift. The way the air folded in around that sentence, like the castle itself was leaning closer.
“What is it?” he asked, though he suspected, in the way one sometimes knows a storm is coming before a cloud appears.
Max hesitated, then met his eyes fully. There was fear there - not sharp, not defensive, but soft and bewildered. “My workshop,” he said quietly. “I haven’t…” He swallowed. “I haven’t been there. Since.”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. The gala, the curse, the night the castle had turned from fortress to prison. All of it hovered in the unspoken.
Charles’ heart tightened. He did not reach for Max . He wouldn't yet, not here, in this narrow corridor lit by indifferent sconces. But he stepped closer, close enough that Max could feel the intention.
“I would like that,” Charles said, carefully, reverently. “Very much.”
Something in Max’s shoulders eased, almost imperceptibly. A wire slackening by a fraction.
“Alright,” he said. “Then… come.”
Leo trotted ahead as if he’d known all along.
______________________
The path to the workshop led away from the familiar halls, away from the grand staircases and echoing galleries. They moved deeper into the château’s quiet bones, past shuttered rooms and old portraits that watched with dim curiosity, and then down a staircase of worn stone that smelled faintly of old dust, colder air, and the ghost of engine fumes.
The deeper they went, the more the light changed. The bright, golden morning of the dining hall narrowed to cooler bands from small, high windows. Their footsteps echoed differently here, less grand, more intimate. The walls felt closer, not in a choking way, but in the manner of a secret being approached.
Max walked half a pace ahead, his jaw set and eyes fixed on the path. He hadn’t spoken since they turned down the first back corridor. Silence sat between them, not comfortable, not hostile but taut, like the moment before an engine turns over.
Charles let it be. He knew enough not to fill it with idle talk. Instead he noticed, the way Max’s hand brushed the stone wall once, briefly, like it was grounding, and the way the château’s chill seemed to lift fractionally whenever Charles stepped closer, as if the building itself approved.
“You don’t have to,” Charles said softly, when the stairs curved and he sensed the end of the path approaching. “Show me, I mean. If it hurts.”
Max stopped on the next step. For a second he didn’t turn, his profile sharp against the faint light spilling from ahead. “It does,” he said simply. “That’s not… the point.”
Charles’ chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with his earlier injury. “What is the point, then?”
Max’s hand tightened on the rail. “You wanted to understand,” he said. “You keep… looking at me like you’re trying to see the whole track at once. This is where it started. The curse. The stillness.” A beat. “If you are going to stay Charles, then you should see what you’re staying in.”
Charles held his gaze when he finally looked back. There it was again, that startling honesty, too blunt to be manipulative, too raw to be anything but true.
“Thank you,” Charles said, quiet and sincere. “For trusting me with it.”
Max made a small, helpless gesture, as though brushing off the word trust before it could even begin to settle. Then he turned and took the last few steps.
The workshop door was heavy, old wood set into stone. Brass fittings, dulled with disuse, formed the outline of what had once been an elegant arch. The keyhole looked like a small, accusing eye.
Max hesitated just a fraction before he reached for the handle. For an instant, the air seemed to cool.
Then the château intervened.
A lantern just above the frame flickered on, though no hand touched it. The brass fittings gleamed faintly, as if reclaiming their purpose. The weight in the corridor shifted, not disappearing, but rearranging itself, giving Max just enough.
He noticed. Of course he did. His eyes flicked to the lantern, then to Charles, as if to say you see this too, right?
Charles only nodded, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “It missed you,” he said.
Max huffed under his breath. “Has a strange way of showing it.”
He pushed the door open.
______________________
The workshop was a cathedral of ghosts.
The air that rolled out to meet them smelled of oil, metal, dust, and faintly, stubbornly, of sea salt. High windows along the top of the far wall let in thin slices of daylight, cutting the room into bands of light and shadow. Workbenches stretched in ordered rows - tools hung on walls in fastidious formations, diagrams peeled on clipboards, coils of wire and stacks of tyres patiently awaiting hands that had not touched them in a very long time.
Everything was stopped mid-breath. An engine block lay open on a central table, entrails of machinery exposed, as though someone had stepped away for a moment and never come back. Dust lay over it all like fine ash, muting the colours, preserving the moment of abandonment.
And at the far end of the room, under a torn grey sheet, something larger loomed.
Charles felt it before he saw its shape. The air changed, not with magic but with memory. A heaviness, a hush, something unspoken gathering at the edges of the room.
Max walked toward it with the slow, reluctant step of someone approaching the scene of a crime. Leo, unusually solemn, stayed pressed close to Charles’ heel.
“After the accident,” Max said quietly, stopping at the edge of the sheet, “the house wanted to take it away from me. Scrap it. Pretend none of it happened. I could feel it” His fingers curled into the grey fabric. “I had it brought here instead.”
Charles blinked, startled. “You… wanted to keep it?”
Max didn’t look at him. “Yes.”
“Why?”
A pause. A muscle in Max’s jaw jumped.
“I thought I would fix it,” he said finally. “That if I put it back together, it would mean…”
He trailed off, the unfinished thought hanging sharp and tense in the air.
It would mean I didn’t lose something I shouldn’t have lost.
But Max didn’t say that.
Charles swallowed. “…You never tried.”
“No.” Max shook his head once. “I came down here the night after the accident. I uncovered it. I thought I’d start - take it apart, assess the damage and see what could be salvaged.” His breath hitched, barely audible. “Instead I stood here for a long time. Then I walked out, shut the door, and didn’t come back.”
A faint draft stirred the dust on the floor, rising in slow, reluctant swirls.
Max inhaled. Exhaled.
Then he pulled the sheet away.
The wreck of the Ferrari, Charles’s Ferrari, emerged like a body dredged from the sea.
Red paint torn and warped. Carbon fibre splintered. The front shattered and sidepod crushed inwards. The driver's side gaped open, empty now but carrying the exact shape of the impact Charles had lived through. The gravel scratches, the scraped decals, the mangled geometry of metal and fury - all untouched since that night.
Charles’ breath left him in a violent, soundless rush.
His hand came up instinctively, hovering just above a jagged piece of carbon. Not touching. Not yet.
“Mon Dieu…” he whispered. “You brought it here.”
“Yes,” Max said, voice clipped. “I didn’t want them to take it.”
“Why?” Charles asked again, softer this time, bewildered. “Why keep this? It must not be a nice reminder, and - ”
Max cut him a sharp look. “Because it mattered.”
Charles fell silent.
He had seen accidents before. He’d been in them. But seeing his own crash preserved like this - unchanged, unedited, un-softened - shook him in a way the impact itself hadn’t.
“You really thought you could fix this?” Charles asked, voice barely above a murmur.
Max let out a hollow laugh. “I can fix almost anything.”
“But you didn’t fix this,” Charles said.
“No,” Max replied. “I didn’t.”
Charles circled slowly, studying the damage with a mechanic’s instinct rather than a victim’s fear. He traced the lines of the broken chassis, reading the violence in its angles.
“This is… a lot of work,” he said, amazed. “The frame alone, wow. You - you didn’t hold back.”
Max winced. “You were the one driving it.”
“And you built it so well that I’m standing here,” Charles replied, looking at him. “So do not wince at me Max.”
Max’s shoulders tightened, but he didn’t look away from the wreck. “How long did you think I’d let you keep pretending you didn’t love speed?” he muttered. “You stole a Ferrari, Charles. Not a bicycle.”
Charles flushed. “That’s beside the point.”
“It really isn’t.”
Charles huffed out something close to a laugh, but his eyes drifted back to the broken front and the twisted metal. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
“How long,” he asked, “did you avoid this room?”
Max’s jaw worked. “Since the night everything changed for me,” he said. “I thought if I stayed away from it, the… weight of that night would stay down here. Out of sight.”
He swallowed hard.
“But some things don’t stay where you leave them.”
Charles looked at him then, truly looked, at the rigid control and the taut restraint, the way Max stood like someone bracing for impact that never ended.
He made a decision.
“We will fix it,” he said.
Max blinked. “What?”
Charles’ eyes were bright, not with pity, but with the clear, stubborn light Max was beginning to recognise as trouble. “We fix it,” he repeated. “The car. The workshop. You.” A beat. “Not necessarily in that order.”
“That’s not how it works,” Max said, sharper now, instinctive rejection kicking in like traction control. “You can’t just - this isn’t a fairy tale where you throw elbow grease at a tragedy and it becomes… meaningful. It’s scrap Charles.”
“No,” Charles said, calm as a verdict. “It’s a machine Max. And machines can be repaired.”
“Not this one,” Max snapped. “Look at it. The chassis is compromised, the suspension’s a joke, half the monocoque might as well be papier-mâché. Even if we could put it back together, it would never race again. It would just be a…” His voice cracked very slightly. “A monument to how badly I fucked up.”
Charles listened to the snap, and instead of flinching, he stepped closer.
“And?” he asked softly.
Max frowned. “And what?”
“And what if it doesn’t need to race again,” Charles said. “What if it just needs to exist without being a weapon aimed at your own throat?”
The words hung there. Max opened his mouth, closed it, staring at him like he’d just spoken in a language only the castle understood.
Charles didn’t look away. “And, technically I fucked it up. So you’re going to have to blame me then.”
“That is impossible Charles,” Max said quietly.
“Why,” Charles replied. “You’re different now. The house is different now.” He glanced around. The lanterns along the wall seemed to be listening, their light a little warmer, the shadows less sharp. “It wants you down here. I can feel it.”
“The house doesn’t get a vote,” Max muttered.
The nearest lantern flared, entirely on its own.
Max startled. Charles raised an eyebrow.
“Apparently it does,” he said.
That earned him an actual, audible huff of almost-laughter. The sound skittered across the room like a small animal that had been shy for too long.
“This is insane,” Max said, but the fight had gone out of his tone. He looked back at the car, expression caught somewhere between dread and longing. “You don’t know how much work it would be. Months. Years. There are parts you can’t even order anymore. We’d have to fabricate half of it from scratch. And for what? A statue in my basement?”
“For you,” Charles said simply. “So that every time you come down here, you don’t just see the moment everything went wrong. You see what you did with it.” He reached out again, fingers resting briefly on a less broken piece of the nose. “And for me,” he added, softer, almost shyly. “Because I want to build something with you that isn’t just… arguments in hallways and piano pieces at midnight.”
The admission slipped between them like a wire live with current.
Max stared at him. The workshop seemed to lean in closer, the air thick with oil and unsaid things. Somewhere in the rafters, a long-disused chain creaked.
“You really want to spend your time doing this?” Max asked at last, voice low, disbelieving. “Sweating over a dead car in a cursed workshop with someone who doesn’t know how to…” his hand flailed vaguely, “…be around people without terrifying them?”
“Yes,” Charles said at once. No hesitation. “I do.”
“Why?” Max demanded. It wasn’t a challenge, just a bewildered plea.
“Because you cared enough to bring it here,” Charles said. “Because you stood in front of it and wanted to fix it and then you couldn’t. Because you’re still here and so am I and I don’t believe in coincidences.” His mouth quirked, faint and bright. “And because I like engines. And you.”
The last word landed like a dropped tool.
Max inhaled too sharply. He looked away at once, as if the car might help. It did not.
Charles, perhaps mercifully, turned his attention to the nearest workbench. “Where do you keep the socket set?” he asked, as though they’d already agreed. “And the good torque wrench, not the liar one.”
Max blinked, thrown by the sudden shift. “Far wall. Left of the drill press. And it’s not a liar, you just don’t know how to - ”
He stopped when Charles shot him a look over his shoulder. It wasn’t challenging. It was fond. It was something dangerously close to already yours.
Max’s mouth snapped shut.
“Thank you,” Charles said, and crossed the workshop.
As he moved toward the tools, something subtle began to change.
Lanterns warmed, one by one, casting the room in richer gold. Dust motes stirred, swirling not in chaotic eddies but in slow and deliberate spirals, as if drawn to the motion of Charles. Tools on the wall rattled faintly and then stilled, a spanner shifting half an inch closer to Charles’ reaching hand. A toolbox lid, once rust-stuck, lifted itself with a quiet groan just before he touched it.
Charles froze, watching a ratchet slide the smallest distance toward his fingers. He glanced back at Max, eyes bright with immediacy.
“It really likes you,” he said.
Max’s ears went pink. “It likes the idea of being used properly,” he muttered. “The house has standards.”
Charles laughed under his breath, bending to retrieve the ratchet. As he did, Max stepped closer to the car, reaching out without thinking to brace himself on the bent wing.
His hand came away with a smear of old grease along his fingers.
He wiped it absently across his cheek.
Charles turned back and stopped mid-step.
“Yes?,” Max said warily.
“You have - ” Charles gestured vaguely at his own face. “There. No, there. Wait.”
He set the tools down and crossed the space between them before Max could decide whether to retreat or not. Suddenly he was close, so close Max could see the faint gold flecks in his eyes, the morning’s softness still clinging to the curl of his hair.
“Hold still,” Charles murmured.
Which was unnecessary really because Max forgot how to do anything else.
Charles reached up, thumb gentle as he brushed along Max’s cheekbone. The grease smear dragged under his touch, dark against skin, and he huffed a quiet laugh, using the pad of his thumb to chase it away. It was a purely practical gesture, as automatic as breathing and yet, somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, the air changed.
Max’s breath caught.
He hadn’t been this close to anyone in years. Not like this. Not without the buffer of adrenaline, of helmets, of media walls, or of celebrations. Just a hand on his face in a quiet room that smelled like his own ghosts.
Charles’ fingers were warm. His thumb lingered a fraction of a second too long at the corner of Max’s jaw, not quite cupping, not quite letting go. His lashes flicked up, and their eyes met at a distance measured in centimetres and catastrophes.
Something in Max’s chest lurched, violent as an impact, but it didn’t hurt. It was worse. It felt like hope.
The château felt it too.
Lanterns brightened soundlessly, their light deepening to a soft, honeyed glow. The dust in the air glimmered like a thin, golden mist. Along the workbench, a set of wrenches slid a little closer together, creating space as if anticipating new hands. A clock somewhere in the wall, long-silent, ticked once.
Charles’ thumb stilled. His expression shifted, some of the humour giving way to something quieter, more solemn.
“There,” he said, voice low. “Better.”
Max couldn’t speak. His heart hammered so loudly he was half-convinced the entire building could hear it. Heat rose along his throat, up to his ears. He knew what a blush felt like, he’d had them as a teenager, the humiliation hot and unbearable, but this was different. This felt like his skin didn’t know how to contain everything moving under it.
“Charles,” he managed, and even that came out hoarse.
“Yes?” Charles asked. He hadn’t moved his hand yet. Seemingly, trying to decide his next move.
Max’s brain short circuited as Charles moved impossibly closer. He’d obviously decided what he wanted.
Then, the door at the far end of the workshop, which had been oh-so-carefully left ajar, betrayed them.
A chorus of tangled whispers hissed down the stairwell.
“Move, you’re stepping on my handle - ”
“I can’t see! Kimi, your head is in the way - ”
“I am small, I am trying my best - ”
“Shh, he’ll hear - ”
“He’s blushing,” someone breathed, reverent and horrified.
A beat.
“HE’S BLUSHING,” another whisper came, slightly louder. “THE BEAST IS BLUSHING.”
Charles froze.
Max closed his eyes for a brief, murderous second.
Charles’ hand dropped from his cheek. Slowly. Reluctantly.
“Please don’t turn around,” Max said under his breath. “You’ll encourage them.”
Of course Charles turned around.
In the crack of the door, squeezed together with all the subtlety of a marching band, were the rookies. Kimi front and centre, eyes round; Isack and Gabi stacked behind him, Liam somehow half-pressed against the wall, Jack clinging to the banister, and Ollie attempting invisibility and failing spectacularly. Behind them, further up the stairs, a familiar feather-duster silhouette was absolutely not trying to hide.
“Hi,” Daniel said weakly, when it was clear they’d been seen. “We were just, ah, conducting a… safety inspection?”
“Of what?” Max asked, very calmly. “The structural integrity of my patience?”
Isack, who had been the one to declare the blushing, made a strangled noise. “Sorry, sir,” he said, which somehow made it worse.
Kimi looked like a child who had just witnessed a miracle and was ready to start a religion. “You looked… happy,” he blurted, then flinched, as if the word itself might bite him.
Max’s first instinct rose sharp and defensive - to snarl and send them all away, to slam the door hard enough to shake dust from the rafters.
But Charles was still standing close. Charles, who had just offered to spend months at his side rebuilding his greatest failure. Charles, whose thumb print still burned like a brand on his cheek.
Max inhaled. Exhaled.
“Out,” he said, finally as softly as he could manage. “All of you.”
The rookies scattered so fast it was almost magic in itself. Daniel lingered, grinning helplessly.
“For the record,” he said, backing up the stairs, “this is my favourite era of you, Maxxy-boy. Please do continue."
“Out,” Max repeated, but there was no real venom in it.
The door swung shut at last, against a flurry of retreating whispers and muffled squeaks. Silence flowed back into the workshop, softer now, startled but not afraid.
Charles turned back to him. His eyes were laughing, but it was a gentle thing, not cruel at all.
“They’re right, you know,” he said.
“About illegally trespassing in closed areas?” Max asked dryly.
“About you looking…” Charles hesitated, then chose the word anyway. “Happy.”
Max looked at him for a long moment.
“I don’t know what I look like,” he admitted. “It feels like… standing on the edge of a turn you’ve misjudged, and somehow the car still sticks. Like it should be terrifying, but instead you just - ” He broke off, shaking his head. “I am not explaining this well.”
“You’re explaining it perfectly,” Charles said. “You feel like you’re about to lose control, but instead, you’re held.”
The word lodged somewhere deep.
Held.
Max looked away, staring at the wrecked Ferrari. The broken lines, the ruined grace, the stubborn endurance of the chassis that refused to disappear. For the first time since it had been dragged into this room, he didn’t see only failure.
He saw possibility.
He saw Charles’ hands, already reaching for tools. The rookies’ whispers in the stairwell. Seb’s knowing gaze when they went back upstairs. Leo’s tail thumping against his ankle with quiet certainty.
He saw something like a future.
“Alright,” Max said, and this time, when he stepped closer to the car, his hand did not tremble. “We’ll do it.”
Charles’ smile lit the room more effectively than any lantern. “We’ll do it,” he echoed. “Together.”
The castle heard that word like a promise.
Light spilled warmer across the workbenches. The silent clock on the wall ticked twice. A drawer slid partially open, revealing clean cloths, untouched by dust. The wreck of the Ferrari, still broken, still brutalised, seemed less like a corpse and more like a patient finally admitted to a ward.
Max laid his palm gently on the damaged nose and for the first time, he did not flinch.
“I don’t know if I deserve this,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure if he meant the car, the help, or the man beside him.
Charles didn’t hesitate. He reached out, placing his hand on the carbon just next to Max’s, fingers almost brushing.
“Then we’ll build something,” he said, “until you do.”
The workshop exhaled - a soft shift of dust, of air, of unspent time.
And for the first time since the curse had sunk into the château’s bones, Max stood in the heart of his fear and felt, not condemned, but chosen.
______________________
Time did not rush after that morning in the workshop.
It stretched, gently and warmly, the way sunlight spills across a tiled floor, changing by degrees rather than declarations. The château, long-starved of laughter and footsteps and movement, welcomed it with the subtle enthusiasm of a sleeping creature waking limb by limb.
Most mornings found Max and Charles side by side beneath the workshop’s soft amber lanterns.
The first day after the decision - We fix it. Together. - the workshop still felt like a mausoleum. Dust lay thick on every surface, muffling colour, and turning the wrecked Ferrari into a relic of something better left alone. Tools hung on the walls in eerily perfect rows, untouched for so long that outlines of clean metal were stamped into the grime behind them.
Max unlocked the door with more care than was strictly necessary, as if the room might bolt.
Charles, standing just behind him, could feel the tension in his shoulders from a breath away. He watched the way Max’s hand lingered on the key a moment too long, fingers pressed into cold brass, gathering himself before he pushed the door open.
The air that greeted them was cool and stale, scented with oil, rust, and old disappointment.
Charles stepped over the threshold anyway. “Bonjour,” he said quietly, to the room, to the car, to Max’s ghosts. “Let’s try again, hm?”
The château noticed the greeting. The nearest lantern flickered, then steadied, its glow a fraction warmer. A draught moved, just enough to stir cobwebs in the far corner, as if the workshop were stretching.
Max saw it. He pretended he hadn’t.
“Don’t talk to the room,” he muttered, closing the door behind them. “It encourages it.”
Charles smiled. “Hmm I think it needs encouragement, it reflects you after all.”
Max rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth tugged upward, traitorous.
Dust had been chased, somewhat begrudgingly, into corners by the end of that first week. Tools were taken down and set back up again, reorganised by function (Max), then by ‘how pretty the handles are’ (Charles, just to be annoying), then mysteriously rearranged overnight into a compromise neither of them would admit the house had suggested.
The wrecked Ferrari, once frozen in the exact shape of catastrophe, slowly transformed from corpse to patient.
They started gently, breaking the work into smaller rituals. One day it was just cataloguing the damage, with Charles crouched by the bent suspension and Max leaning over the front, both of them speaking in careful, technical language as if numbers and torque settings could keep the memory of impact at bay.
“Wishbone’s gone,” Charles said quietly, fingertips hovering over the twisted arm. “Maybe the hub, too. Mon pauvre.” He stroked a relatively intact piece of metal with unnecessary tenderness.
Max, watching, said nothing. But the knot in his chest loosened a fraction every time Charles called the car mon pauvre instead of piece of shit. It sounded less like an accusation, more like an apology.
On other days, they simply cleaned. Carbon dust came away under gloved hands and shards of gravel trapped in seams were carefully fished out with tweezers. They wiped away black streaks of rubber and dirt until red paint, scratched and battered but still defiant, emerged beneath.
Charles hummed under his breath as he worked, scraps of melodies he’d heard played on the radio in the workshop with Pierre, remembered inaccurately but repeated anyway. The sound settled into the corners of Max’s workshop in the same way, turning sharp silence into something softer.
Max worked in quiet, the concentrated kind of quiet that had once belonged to race strategy briefings. His hands were steady, even when his jaw wasn’t. Sometimes he caught his reflection in a sheet of polished metal - eyes too dark, shoulders too tense - and had to look away before the wrong night came back.
But he kept coming back.
That alone felt like a kind of miracle.
Their shoulders brushed more often now. At first it was accidental, a by-product of tight space and shared focus. The third time it happened in one morning, Charles murmured, “Pardon,” and didn’t move away. The fifth time, Max didn’t either.
The silences between them changed, too. On that first day, they had been brittle, either filled too quickly with facts or left empty and echoing, but by the end of the second week, they were thick with something else; concentration, ease, and the unspoken comfort of knowing the other was there.
“Hand me the 10mm,” Max said one morning, not looking up from where he was loosening a stubborn bolt.
Charles, who had been ready with it for the past ten seconds, placed it in his palm without comment.
Max’s fingers brushed his.
“Merci,” he said.
“De rien.”
The moment passed. The warmth stayed.
And every afternoon, without fail, the workshop door creaked open a few centimetres.
At first, Charles assumed it was the castle playing its games - doors moved on their own sometimes, imperceptibly but surely, as if breathing. But on the third day, when the door stopped at the same angle and stayed there, he glanced up in time to see a shadow in the gap.
Then a mop of hair appeared.
Kimi.
He stood in the doorway, half-tucked behind the frame like a child who hadn’t quite decided whether he was intruding. His handles were jammed deep into the pockets of his too-big teacup. His hair was a lost cause. His expression was not.
“Hi,” he said.
Max froze mid-turn. “No.”
Kimi blinked. “No what?”
“No,” Max repeated, as though that clarified anything.
Charles turned, his brow quirking. “Bonjour, Kimi,” he said warmly. “You’re always welcome.”
Kimi brightened immediately and stepped inside. “See,” he told Max, “I am welcome.”
“That is not what I said,” Max muttered.
Kimi’s gaze swept the room, wide and impressed. “Woah,” he breathed. “It’s like… a dragon’s cave. But for cars.”
Charles’s mouth curled. “Exactly,” he said. “And this - ” he gestured to the ruined chassis “ - is our poor dragon.”
“It’s a Ferrari,” Kimi whispered, reverent. “My dad would die.”
“Please don’t tell him, then,” Max said dryly.
Kimi nodded solemnly, as if they’d just signed a treaty. Then he noticed the tool wall.
“Oh,” he sighed, starstruck. “You have all the things.”
Before Max could stop him, he’d crossed the room, reached up, and taken down a torque wrench nearly as long as his arm. He held it with both handles, face lit with pure, uncomplicated joy.
Max inhaled sharply. “Nope. Absolutely not. Kimi, this isn’t -- you’re too young -- no, that is a very sharp -- Charles, stop encouraging him -- ”
Charles, who was doing absolutely nothing to help, leaned back on his heels and watched, thoroughly entertained. “He looks very responsible,” he said mildly.
Kimi did not look responsible. He looked like a child seconds away from dismantling reality.
“Give me that,” Max said, stepping forward.
Kimi hugged the wrench to his chest. “I want to help,” he said, earnest. “You’re fixing the car Charles crashed, right? So he doesn’t feel bad?” He glanced at Charles, eyes fierce with loyalty. “I don’t want him to feel bad.”
Charles’ throat tightened around a sudden lump.
Max opened his mouth, ready with a practised refusal - It’s dangerous, it’s complicated, it’s easier if I do it alone - and then Kimi looked up at him with that expression.
The workshop seemed to hold its breath.
It was not just admiration. It was worse. It was trust. Kimi’s gaze said; you are big and strong and terrifying, but I know you are safe. I want to stand where you stand.
Max’s resistance melted like butter under a blowtorch.
“Fine,” he said, tone sharp, betrayal absolute. “You can… hand us things. Carefully. No touching sharp edges. No wandering off with the power tools. And you wear protection.”
Kimi, misunderstanding with catastrophic enthusiasm, perked up. “Like armour?”
“Goggles,” Max said. “And gloves.”
They spent the next half hour trying to find child-sized safety goggles.
The château helped.
A drawer that had previously refused to open slid out with suspicious ease, revealing an old pair of adjustable goggles. When Max lifted them, the straps flicked themselves shorter like they were offended by his height.
He held them out. “Here.”
Kimi took them like they were a crown and slid them over his head. They swallowed half his face, but the straps tightened neatly, settling snugly around his hair.
“How do I look?” he asked, squinting up at them through slightly fogged lenses.
“Ridiculous,” Max said.
“Very professional,” Charles said at the same time.
Kimi beamed.
Max pretended not to care. Charles absolutely cared.
Sometimes Kimi fetched tools, scampering across the workshop with surprising precision and returning with a 13mm spanner or a flat-head screwdriver as though he’d been born in a pit lane.
“Socket,” Max would say, holding out a hand.
Kimi would place the requested piece in his palm with the solemnity of a ring-bearer in a royal wedding.
Max once said, “You missed your calling. You’d make a terrifyingly efficient mechanic.”
Kimi straightened a little at that, cheeks colouring proudly. “Do you think so?”
Max, realising what he’d admitted, looked away. “You’re… not the worst.”
On other days, Kimi held a flashlight with grave seriousness, arms beginning to tremble but refusing to lower them. Charles, kneeling beside the car with his head half inside the wheel arch, would glance up and say, “You’re doing great, mon petit. Five more seconds.”
Kimi would grit his teeth and last at least thirty.
Sometimes he sat cross-legged on the floor, Leo draped across his lap like a judgmental fur stole, while the grown-ups worked. From his vantage point, he had a clear view of the evolving choreography in front of him, of Max and Charles trading tools and glances, leaning over the same section of car, elbows bumping, voices low.
He watched everything. Children were excellent at that.
He also offered Very Serious Observations, usually delivered at the exact moment Max least expected them.
“I think the car likes Charles best,” Kimi announced one afternoon, entirely unprompted.
Max, who had been tightening a bolt, dropped the wrench.
It clanged off the chassis, bounced, and rolled under the bench with the precise kind of ricochet that only happened when the universe was laughing.
Charles looked up, biting down a smile. “Pardon?” he asked.
Kimi was unperturbed. “I said, the car likes you best,” he repeated. “It doesn’t make those weird creaking noises when you touch it. And the lights get brighter when you’re here.”
Max glared at the nearest lantern, which absolutely had brightened when Charles came in. “That’s just… faulty wiring,” he said.
“There is no wiring,” Charles pointed out, glancing up at the old gas-style fixtures.
“Then it’s faulty… whatever,” Max snapped. “Stop talking to the lighting.”
Kimi patted Leo’s head. “He gets grumpy when he’s embarrassed,” he told the dog.
Leo, tail giving one treacherous thump, agreed.
But Kimi was right about the lights. The workshop shifted noticeably when Charles entered, the lanterns warming by a shade, shadows retreating somehow, and the air losing its harsh chill. Charles, still oblivious to the broader pattern, merely chalked it up to good timing and Max’s meticulous standards.
He liked it here. The workshop belonged to Max in a way the rest of the château did not, stripped of marble and chandeliers, filled instead with the steady logic of machinery, with bolts and bearings and schematics. It felt like stepping inside Max’s mind; orderly, precise, full of things taken apart and laid out so nothing would surprise him.
Charles found that grounding. He also found it infuriating, and occasionally endearing.
One late morning, they were wrestling with a particularly stubborn section of the front end. A bolt, rusted in place and buried at an awkward angle, refused to move.
Max lay half under the chassis, braced on his shoulder, straining against the wrench. Charles knelt beside him, holding the car steady, one hand resting on the battered frame.
“It won’t go,” Max grunted.
“You’re not at the right angle,” Charles said.
“I am.”
“You are not. You’re fighting it.”
“That’s how bolts work, Charles. You fight them until they lose.”
“Or you listen to them,” Charles countered, eyes glittering a little. “Sometimes they are just telling you they don’t want to move like that.”
“They are metal,” Max said, halfway between exasperated and amused. “They do not talk.”
“The car likes me,” Kimi piped up from his spot on the floor. “Maybe it will talk to me.”
“You are not negotiating with the suspension,” Max said from under the car.
Charles laughed, then shifted his hold, fingers reading the structure. He nudged the wrench a few degrees, felt for the line of force, the give.
“There,” he said. “Like this.”
Max adjusted fractionally, more out of grim determination not to argue than actual belief.
The bolt loosened with a sharp, satisfying crack.
Max went still.
“See?” Charles said, smug. “Gentler.”
Max slid out from under the car, grease smudged across his forearms, hair dishevelled, eyes narrowed. “I loosened it,” he insisted.
“Of course mon chéri,” Charles agreed smoothly. “With my help.”
Kimi nodded gravely. “The car listened to Charles.”
Max looked like he wanted the floor to open up.
Days layered over one another that way.
There were mornings when Max arrived early, alone and intending to “get a head start” before anyone else joined him, but ended up standing in the doorway instead, watching the wrecked car in a room that no longer felt like a punishment.
The first time he came down to the workshop and found Charles already there, humming under his breath as he sorted socket sets, Max stopped short in the doorway, his heartbeat stuttering.
Charles glanced up, curls mussed, sleeves already rolled, a smear of grease on his cheek like it belonged there. “Bonjour,” he said, brightening. “I let myself in. I hope that’s alright.”
Max’s answer came out quieter than he meant it to. “It is.”
He stepped inside. The air felt… settled. As if, in his absence, the workshop had found a new default state, not empty, not haunted, but inhabited.
On another day, rain drifted in from the sea, blurring the coastline beyond the high windows. It pattered on the glass, turned the light into a softer, diffused grey. The world outside was all mist and wet stone and the soft hiss of distant waves.
Inside, the workshop was warm. Charles had brought down a small radio someone had found in a cupboard; it crackled quietly with some indistinct classical station, strings weaving in and out of the clink of tools.
Max stood at the workbench, hands deep in a box of salvaged parts, searching for a piece that hadn’t entirely given up on life. He found a control arm that was bent but not broken and turned it over thoughtfully.
“Do you ever miss it?” Charles asked, from where he was seated cross-legged on the floor, sorting bolts into neat little piles by size.
“Miss what?” Max replied without looking up.
“Life,” Charles said. “Before.”
The word hung there. Before the crash. Before the night he stole it. Or before the fateful night when everything changed for Max and Alonso crashed both of them into one another like badly managed variables.
Max was quiet for a long moment. The rain filled in the gaps, soft and persistent.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I miss… what it could have been.”
He did not say, I miss the ease of things before, when I was just a racecar driver and you were just a mechanic. It would have been a lie now anyway.
Charles studied the bolt between his fingers. “If we fix it,” he said, “it will not be what it was. It will be something new.”
Max glanced at him. “You think that’s better?”
Charles met his gaze. “I think sometimes you cannot go back. So you go forward instead. Even if forward looks a little crooked at first.”
Kimi, sprawled on his stomach beside Leo, chin propped on his fists, listened to this like it was church. He didn’t understand all that Charles meant, but he understood enough.
The work wasn’t constant progress. There were days when nothing seemed to move, when bolts stripped and measurements didn’t line up and one particularly cursed bracket refused to exist in the same dimension as the rest of the chassis. On those days, Max grew sharper, his frustration simmering under his skin.
“This is pointless,” he snapped once, tossing a rag onto the bench. “We’re rebuilding a monument to disaster.”
Charles set down the torque wrench, wiped his hands on his overalls, and regarded him for a long moment.
“Is that what you see?” he asked quietly. “Because when I look at it now, I see… us. Our work. Your patience.” His mouth quirked. “And Kimi’s very crooked clamp.”
Kimi, who had indeed mounted a clamp at a questionable angle, flinched. “It’s symbolic,” he said hastily.
Max’s lips twitched. Just a little.
Kimi brightened. “See? He smiled.”
“I didn’t,” Max said, but the protest lacked bite.
“Un petit peu,” Charles murmured.
The château heard it. A warm draft moved, brushing past them like a hand.
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the wreck stopped being just the Ferrari Charles crashed. It became a shared project, a shared language. Each replaced part was a conversation. Each cleaned surface, an apology neither of them quite knew how to make out loud.
The room itself changed with them.
Where it had once felt like a low stone vault, heavy with weight, it now held something like anticipation. The high windows seemed cleaner, though no one had officially scrubbed them. Light reached further into the corners. The cold patch by the far bench, the one that had made Max avoid that side of the room without thinking, had faded.
One evening, as they were packing away tools, Charles paused and listened.
“What?” Max asked.
“It sounds different,” Charles said. “The room.”
Max frowned. “Rooms don’t sound.”
“Yes, they do,” Charles insisted. “When they’re empty. When they’re full. When they are…” He gestured vaguely at the walls. “Lonely.”
The word slipped out before he could stop it.
Max went very still, watching him.
“What does it sound like now?” he asked, low.
Charles considered this. Outside, the last light of day was turning the horizon violet, waves sighing against the cliffs. Inside, there was the clink of metal, the soft scrape of footsteps, Kimi humming tunelessly to Leo.
“Less lonely,” Charles said finally. “Like it remembers what this room is for.”
He met Max’s eyes, and for a heartbeat something passed between them, something too fragile to name.
Kimi ruined it, of course.
“I think it sounds like a pit lane,” he announced. “But… far away. In a dream.”
Both adults turned to stare at him.
“I thought you hardly knew about pit lanes?” Max asked, a fraction too sharp.
Kimi shrugged, unbothered. “Grandpa Seb tells stories.”
Max closed his eyes briefly. “Of course he does.”
Charles filed that away for later.
Light pooled warmly around them in that workshop, day after day, slow and steady. It settled on their shoulders, caught in Charles’ curls, touched the sharp angles of Max’s face and made them gentler. It reflected off Leo’s glossy coat and Kimi’s goggles, off the curve of a newly cleaned suspension arm, off the fine lines beginning to web across Max’s knuckles from years of grip and strain.
And Max - Max let himself stay there.
He stayed when he could have retreated. When old instinct whispered that solitude was safer, that rooms without other hearts in them were easier to survive. When the sight of Charles bent over the car, brow furrowed, lips moving silently as he counted out torque increments, made something in him lurch so hard he wanted to flee.
He stayed through Kimi’s questions (“If the car likes Charles best, who do you like best?” “We are not ranking people.” “If we were?”), through Leo’s habit of choosing the exact spot Max needed to step into and then refusing to move, through Charles’ insistence on naming the individual components “so they feel appreciated.”
The château pressed in gently around them, walls listening, stone remembering. The workshop, which had once echoed with the sharp, lonely ring of metal meeting metal, now held something else. Softer sounds, shared work, the occasional helpless laugh when Kimi mispronounced a component and Charles ran with it.
“Pass me the… what do you call it?” Charles asked one day, gesturing at a specific tool.
“The breaker bar,” Max supplied.
“Non, the long angry stick.”
Kimi snorted. “Long angry stick!”
Max glared at both of them. “It’s a breaker bar.”
“Long angry stick,” Charles repeated under his breath, just loud enough for him to hear.
He did not smile. He absolutely wanted to.
If anyone had told Max - months ago, years ago, in the loud and glittering days when he stood at windows and watched parties he couldn’t feel - that his favourite place in the castle would one day be a dusty workshop where he fixed an old wrecked car with a runaway pianist and a child in ill-fitting goggles, he would have dismissed it as sentimental nonsense.
Yet there it was.
Morning after morning, he found himself walking the same path, down through corridors that no longer echoed quite so hollowly, past portraits whose subjects seemed less disapproving by the day, along stone steps that remembered his weight now. His feet knew the way without needing his mind’s permission.
Every time he reached for the workshop door, some small, stubborn part of him braced for the old feeling - that heavy, suffocating sense of being judged by his own past. It still flickered, now and then. But it didn’t own the room anymore.
Now, when he opened the door, he was just as likely to be greeted by Charles’ voice saying, “Max, viens, I need your help with this bracket,” or by Kimi yelling, “You’re late!” as if Max had a timecard to punch.
He wasn’t late. He was right on time.
He was, for once, exactly where he was supposed to be.
And the château, in its ancient, quiet way, was overjoyed.
______________________
And sometimes they spent their days in other ways.
One afternoon, with the sun dipping low over the Côte d’Azur and the sea breeze threading peppery, herb-salted scents through the olive trees, Seb decided - with the fervour of a man struck by divine revelation - that everyone needed “cardiovascular enrichment.”
Which of course meant football.
Which of course meant chaos.
The château’s south garden, once a place where drowsy bees hummed and the lemon trees stood in aristocratic silence, was transformed into a battlefield. A makeshift pitch was marked by two flowerpots and a rogue chair Daniel had found. The grass glowed gold in the late sun and the sea glittered beyond the balustrade. The roses trembled as if already bracing for impact.
Seb strutted out first, chest puffed, carrying a whistle he absolutely did not need. Nico followed, murmuring a prayer to the gods of order. Daniel bounded behind them, already shouting rules he was blatantly inventing. Lando jogged in circles, warming up with all the grace of a caffeinated lemur.
And Charles… Charles trotted onto the field as if someone had just told him this would be fun.
It was not fun.
It was carnage.
Daniel played like a golden retriever let loose in a vineyard, all limbs, wild enthusiasm, and occasional acrobatics that made absolutely no sense in context.
Lando cheated every time he breathed.
“Handball!” Nico shrieked at least once every two minutes.
Seb coached with the emotional intensity of a man leading Germany to another World Cup Final against England. Every gesture was a sermon. Every whistle-blow, divine judgment.
“PRESS!” he barked.
“FORMATION!”
“Lando, if you nutmeg Charles one more time, I will personally revoke your biscuit privileges!”
Lando nutmegged Charles.
Charles, for his part, moved across the field like a baby deer who’d yet learned to walk, wobbly, flailing, and endearingly earnest. His limbs performed their own independent rebellions. His knees disagreed with every direction he attempted. His centre of gravity abandoned him entirely.
But he laughed. Loud and unrestrained, with his head tipped back in the golden light. Lando only had to blink in his direction for Charles to stumble, giggle, then shout something half in French, half in outrage.
“Mais arrête, you little - LANDO!”
Below them, the garden buzzed with energy. The château, unused to this kind of sport, responded with crackling lanterns and suspiciously helpful gusts of wind - one of which redirected Daniel’s wild kick away from a stained-glass window that would definitely not have survived.
From the balcony above, Max watched.
Not brooding - not quite. More… paused.
He stood with his arms folded on the stone balustrade, gaze snagged on the moving mess below. The sunlight caught in his hair, warming the copper in it. His profile was sharp, still, carved in concentration like a statue deciding whether it envied the living.
Every now and then, his eyes followed Charles a little too long.
Oscar pressed against the railing beside him, unimpressed by the entire spectacle. He looked, in the golden hush of late afternoon, like a mildly judgmental gargoyle.
“You know you’re allowed to join them, right?” he said flatly.
Max snorted without looking away. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll make me run,” Max said darkly.
Oscar blinked. “And?”
“And talk,” Max added.
Oscar waited.
“And Daniel will probably hug me.”
Oscar considered this. “Valid objection.”
Max shot him a glare. Oscar remained unbothered.
“You’re enjoying this,” Max accused.
“I enjoy anything that makes you mildly uncomfortable,” Oscar replied, adjusting the angle of his fall board by a millimetre. “It’s enriching.”
Below them, Charles scored a goal.
Nobody was entirely sure how. The ball hit his knee, ricocheted off Daniel, bounced off the flowerpot, rolled directly through the makeshift goal, and somehow - miraculously - counted.
Charles whooped in triumph, arms shot in the air.
Daniel threw himself dramatically into the grass like he’d been shot.
Lando collapsed, wailing about injustice and corruption.
Seb lifted Charles under the arms and spun him around like a father with a very tall toddler.
The sound of their laughter lifted through the garden, bright and unguarded.
Max’s hands tightened on the balcony rail.
Oscar saw everything.
“…You could go down,” he said quietly.
Max didn’t answer.
Instead he watched Charles - sunlit, flushed, smiling with something that looked dangerously like unfiltered joy. His curls gleamed like burnished bronze. His cheeks were pink from exertion. His shirt clung where he’d tripped in the grass. His laugh came easily, freely, warm enough to make the air ripple.
He looked alive.
Alive in the way Max had once forgotten to imagine people could be in his company.
Max swallowed, jaw tightening.
“You want to,” Oscar added, not unkindly.
Max’s fingers tightened on the stone. “Don’t.”
Oscar shrugged, eyes back on the scene. “Just saying. You look like you’re studying him.”
Max bristled. “I’m not.”
“You look like you’re studying him very, very hard.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re leaning.”
Max straightened instantly.
Oscar smirked.
From below, Charles shouted something up at the balcony. Not even words, just a happy, wordless sound, some noise of triumph or teasing or invitation.
Max flinched very slightly.
Charles didn’t know how much he gave away when he smiled like that. How much brightness he spilled effortlessly. How much of Max’s restraint he pulled thin without touching him at all.
“You could go down,” Oscar said again, softer this time.
Max forced himself to breathe. Slow. Controlled.
“They’re fine,” he said. “They don’t need me.”
“Maybe not,” Oscar said. “But that’s not the question.”
Max didn’t ask what the question was.
He knew.
Below, Seb blew his whistle with the conviction of a man summoning an army. Daniel tackled Lando, badly, and ended up rolling sideways into a lemon tree, bringing down half the blossoms in a flurry of fragrant carnage. Nico yelped from somewhere near the hydrangeas about boundary violations. Charles bent over laughing, hands on his knees, curls falling forward.
The sight punched something loose in Max’s chest.
A breath he didn’t know he’d been holding finally escaped him.
“Fine,” Oscar said after a moment, apparently done with emotional labour. “Stay here and pine.”
Max turned sharply. “I do not - ”
“Pine,” Oscar repeated with scientific certainty. “The word is pine, Max. It’s what you’re doing.”
“I’m not - ”
“Staring at the same person for eighty consecutive minutes while sighing heavily?” Oscar said. “Classic pining behaviour.”
Max opened his mouth to object, but the problem was he had been staring. And sighing. And leaning.
Oscar straightened, stretching his legs out.
“Look, if it helps,” he said, “you’re not subtle.”
Max froze. “What?”
“You think you’re subtle,” Oscar continued. “You’re not. Daniel’s already planning a wedding. Lando picked out a colour palette.”
“Oh my god,” Max muttered, pressing his fingertips into his temples.
“Seb asked Lewis if he should give you ‘the talk’.”
“He does not need to give me anything.”
“I told him that,” Oscar said. “Then he asked if he should give Charles the talk.”
Max went absolutely rigid.
“No,” he said. Quiet. Absolute. “He absolutely should not.”
Oscar nodded calmly. “Then perhaps you could descend from your gothic tower Dracula and make your intentions known.”
“I don’t have intentions,” Max hissed.
Oscar gave him a full, slow blink. “Yes,” he said. “And I am a xylophone.”
Max scrubbed a hand over his face, muttering something vicious in Dutch.
Oscar let him stew.
Down in the garden, the match devolved further into a kind of chaotic interpretive dance. Daniel attempted a bicycle kick and nearly dislocated something. Lando ran in a zig-zag that defied physics. Seb shouted plays that made no sense. Nico officiated with the energy of a man clinging to civilisation.
Charles tripped over Daniel, recovered, tripped again over nothing at all, and dissolved into helpless laughter.
Max’s heart twisted painfully.
He didn’t understand how someone could be that unskilled at football and still make it look beautiful.
He didn’t understand how someone could be that alive, that happy, in his garden.
He didn’t understand how the sight of Charles smiling could both hurt and soothe him in the same breath.
“You know,” Oscar said thoughtfully, “you could go down there without actually playing.”
Max snorted. “What would I do?”
“Stand on the sidelines. Judge them. Yell at Daniel. Pretend to have opinions about football.”
“I don’t - ”
“You know Seb will try to make you a goalkeeper,” Oscar continued. “He thinks tall people are destined for it.”
“I’m not - ”
“And Charles will fall over within thirty seconds and look at you like it’s your fault.”
Max’s mouth twitched, involuntarily. “That does sound like him.”
Oscar smirked. “See? You could go.”
“I’m not going.”
“Of course not.”
Max’s eyes cut toward him. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“That tone.”
“I don’t have a tone.”
“You have a tone.”
Oscar crossed his arms. “Max. Go down.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because if I go down there, I won’t be able to pretend I don’t want to be near him.
Because Charles looks at me like he expects something human from me.
Because I don’t know what to do with the way he laughs.
Because I am terrified of being seen.
Max didn’t say any of that.
So he said nothing.
Oscar sighed, a long-suffering exhale worthy of a much older, much wiser being.
“Fine,” he said. “Stay.”
Max stayed.
But his grip on the balcony softened.
His shoulders loosened.
His expression gentled as he watched Charles chase the ball, laughing, limbs everywhere, joy spilling out of him like it was effortless.
The sun dipped lower, casting the garden in warm apricot light. The air shimmered faintly with heat. Olive leaves rustled. Lemon blossoms drifted.
The château felt warmer.
Alive.
Awake.
And Max, despite himself, leaned forward again.
He watched Charles with an attention too careful to be casual, too soft to be purely observational.
Max stayed on that balcony until the match dissolved into sweaty complaining and Daniel claiming victory over rules no one had agreed on.
And through it all, Max watched Charles.
Sunlit.
Laughing.
Alive.
Alive in a way Max hadn’t realised he’d been starving to witness.
Something ached in him.
Something opened, quietly, without his permission.
Something that felt like the beginning of a very dangerous truth.
______________________
Other days, Charles discovered a different form of entertainment.
Not football.
Not the rookies.
Not even Seb’s ongoing attempt to teach Daniel the difference between “flamboyance” and “arson.”
No - what Charles discovered was something far rarer, far richer, and far more potent:
Nico and Lewis.
By the pool.
Bickering like two aristocratic swans who had been divorced for twelve years without ever having been married.
It began innocently.
The first afternoon he found them there, the sun was high and drowsy over the Côte d’Azur, turning the pool water into liquid turquoise. Oleander bushes trembled in the breeze and lemon blossoms drifted like confetti on the surface of the pool.
Lewis lounged on a sun-chair as though he’d invented the concept of lounging. Sunlight slid across the polished lacquer of his wardrobe frame, catching on the delicate inlays that formed the sweep of his shoulders. One carved leg extended with effortless poise, and his mirrored sunglasses perched perfectly where his elegant wooden lines met his sculpted face. Soft silk hung from one of his open wardrobe doors, fluttering in the breeze with aristocratic disinterest.
Even the shadows around him arranged themselves gracefully, as if acknowledging the presence of a being designed to hold beauty.
Nico sat exactly two chairs away, of course, his clockwork body wound tight with precision. His brass pendulum swayed in short, irritated ticks, matching the sharp angle of his crossed arms. The face of his built-in clock glinted in the sun, the hands twitching minutely every time Lewis breathed too close. His sunglasses rested rigidly over the carved brow of his clock casing, looking moments away from splintering under the tension.
They were ‘fighting’, of course.
They were always ‘fighting’.
“Your umbrella is too close to mine,” Nico said sharply, not turning his head, voice calm in the way storms sometimes look calm before they devastate a village.
Lewis didn’t even open his eyes.
“Your existence is too close to mine,” he said serenely.
Charles nearly dropped the lemon he’d been carrying.
From behind a potted lemon tree - partly hidden, partly enthralled - he watched.
“You’re blocking my sun,” Nico declared.
“You,” Lewis replied, “are blocking my serenity.”
Nico sat up. “I moved my umbrella precisely thirty centimetres away - ”
“And yet,” Lewis murmured, “here we are. In each other’s tragedy corners.”
“You moved your chair.”
“You should move your face.”
Charles bit back a delighted gasp.
He had no idea what this was, but it was theatre.
It was opera.
It was possibly a doomed romance.
And Charles, innocent soul that he was, became emotionally invested within twenty-five seconds.
This was not bickering.
This was tension.
Tension with history.
Tension with capital letters.
He would have stayed hidden for hours if Max hadn’t joined him.
Not on purpose, Max had simply walked onto the upper balcony with Seb trailing behind like a friendly shadow. Then he paused, leaned over the balustrade, and saw exactly what Charles saw.
Charles tilted his head up, grinning conspiratorially. “Who started it?”
Max scoffed softly. “It was years ago.”
“Years?” Charles echoed, delighted.
“Maybe even a decade. They’ve turned pettiness into an ecosystem,” Max said, arms folding across the balcony rail.
Down below, Nico and Lewis continued their war.
“Move your towel,” Nico snapped.
“Move your attitude,” Lewis replied without lifting his head.
Seb rolled his eyes. “They’re performing for an audience.”
Max gave him a look. “They don’t know we’re here.”
“Oh,” Seb said. “They know.”
Charles glanced between them. “Why do they fight like this?”
Max hesitated, which was rare. He leaned just a little closer to Charles, voice lowering instinctively.
“They used to be partners,” Max said quietly. “Teammates. Friends.”
Charles blinked. “Friends?”
“More than friends,” Seb muttered under his breath.
Max shot him a glare.
But Seb wasn’t wrong.
Charles could feel it. That specific brand of bickering wasn’t casual. It was threaded with familiarity, too pointed to be meaningless and too soft underneath to be real hatred.
A kind of choreography old as muscle memory.
Charles leaned even further around the lemon tree, utterly captivated.
Max continued, quietly, reluctantly. “They met in karting. They were inseparable. Trained together. Travelled together. Nico’s family helped Lewis with expenses. They were so close the paddock used to joke about them.”
Seb snorted. “Not joke. Bet.”
“Paddock? Bet?” Charles whispered, wide-eyed.
Max froze before answering the second question, the easier question “Yes. On when they’d admit they were… more than teammates.”
Charles’s mouth fell open.
Nico and Lewis, still mid-bicker, had drawn closer to each other without noticing. Their chairs were now only inches apart.
“You’re in my emotional space,” Nico hissed.
“You’ve been in my emotional space since 1997 Nico,” Lewis shot back.
“That is exactly the problem,” Nico replied.
Max rubbed his forehead like this conversation aged him twelve years.
“It got worse the more serious their careers got,” he said, reluctantly resuming the story. “Before being on top, they were still close. They got their first podium together. They celebrated like… ”
“Like lovers,” Seb supplied helpfully, grinning like he’d won the lottery.
“I was going to say idiots,” Max deadpanned.
“That too.”
Charles let out a tiny gasp, delighted. This was more delicious (and confusing - teammates ? podium ? career?) than he could have imagined.
Max hesitated again. He wasn’t usually a storyteller. He didn’t usually share history - not his, not others’. But Charles was listening with such earnest curiosity that Max found the words coming more easily than he expected.
“Then they became competitors,” Max said. “Mercedes. Dominant. Two men fighting for the same glory.”
“And?” Charles urged.
Max lifted a shoulder. “They imploded.”
“Spectacularly,” Seb added.
“They went from best friends to…” Max gestured downward at the scene below, “to whatever this is.”
“Your sunscreen is splashing onto my towel,” Nico accused.
“Your jealousy is splashing onto my aura,” Lewis replied.
Charles clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a sound that would have been far too close to a giggle.
Max continued, voice softer now. “The pressure broke them. Lewis said they weren’t friends anymore. Nico started therapy. They took each other out in Barcelona.”
Charles blinked. “Took each other out… romantically?”
Max choked. “No - crashed. Literally crashed into each other.”
“Ah,” Charles said, embarrassed. “That’s less romantic.”
Seb shrugged. “Debatable.”
Max shot him a glare that could have felled a bull.
“Then Nico won what he needed to in 2016,” Max finished. “And retired five days later.”
Charles stared at him. “He retired after beating Lewis?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like heartbreak,” Charles whispered.
Max hesitated. “It was something.”
Below, Nico adjusted his towel with sharp, irritated movements. Lewis stole the suncream out of his hand and used it without asking. Nico made a strangled noise of despair.
Charles leaned closer, voice hushed. “Do they still… you know…”
Max cleared his throat. “They’re civil.”
Seb snorted. “Lewis buys Nico presents every Christmas. Nico follows Lewis on social media like he’s following a comet.”
Charles’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
“And once,” Seb added, “during a broadcast, Crofty said the legendary line - ”
Seb straightened, adopted an announcer tone, and declared dramatically:
“This man knows Lewis Hamilton.
Friend, teammate, childhood buddy, rival -
everything but lover.”
Charles slapped a hand to his chest, gasping. “No!” His latest guess was that they used to be drag queens??
“Yes,” Seb said smugly.
Max rubbed his face. “Why do you know this?”
“Why don’t you know this,” Seb shot back.
Charles was glowing. “They are… very romantic.”
Max groaned. “They are not romantic.”
Below them:
Lewis: “Must you inhale with such force? You’re agitating the surface of the pool.”
Nico: “Must you position yourself inside my space? Some of us value boundaries.”
Lewis: “Your ‘space’ expands and contracts depending on your mood. It’s basically theoretical.”
Nico: “Your face is theoretical.”
Lewis didn’t even look at him. “You studied my face like coursework for twenty years after all.”
Nico, caught off-guard, spluttered. “Why would you say that?”
Lewis finally turned his head, sun catching the lacquered edge of his wardrobe frame in a soft gleam.
“Because it’s true,” he murmured, smooth, quiet and devastating.
Nico’s pendulum skipped a beat.
He opened his mouth, closed it again, then said, very softly, very sharply:
“You shouldn’t say things like that unless you intend to follow them up.”
Lewis’s smile curved, slow, knowing, infuriating.
“Who says I don’t?”
Charles turned to Max, eyes shimmering. “Max. Mon Dieu. They are a tragic romance.”
Max’s willpower broke.
He put his head in his hands.
Seb patted his shoulder. “You tried.”
“But why do they pretend to hate each other?” Charles asked softly.
Max exhaled. “Because it’s easier.”
Charles looked up at him. “To hate?”
“To pretend,” Max corrected. “To act like the past doesn’t matter. To keep distance when closeness hurts more.”
Charles stared at him, heart squeezing.
Max stared straight ahead, jaw tight.
Below them, the argument had softened. Lewis was now rubbing sunscreen absently onto Nico’s shoulders - without permission, without apology, with the intimate absentmindedness of someone who had done it a thousand times.
Nico leaned away exactly one centimetre and then did not move again.
Charles whispered, awed and aching, “They’re in love.”
Max choked on absolutely nothing. “NO.”
Seb shrugged. “Define love.”
Max shot him a look that could melt steel.
Charles leaned on the balcony rail, head tilted. “You can tell when people look at someone like that. Like they remember every version of them.”
Max went still.
Charles didn’t notice - he was still watching Nico and Lewis, who now seemed to be arguing over the correct angle of a sun lounger.
“They used to be everything to each other,” Seb said softly. “Sure the official statement was everything but a lover, but those close to them knew the truth.”
Max swallowed.
Charles sighed, equal parts romantic and heartbroken. “So now they fight?”
“Now they survive,” Max said.
Charles turned to him with a soft, searching gaze.
“And do you… have someone like that?” he asked.
The question slipped out innocent as a whisper.
Max’s body went taut. His eyes flicked sharply to Charles, then away, then back, then away again. His throat worked.
“That’s - ” he said, voice cracking once before he forced it steady. “That’s another story.”
“A long one?” Charles whispered.
Max nodded once. “Another life.”
Their eyes met.
Soft.
Curious.
Shy.
Dangerous.
Below them, Nico and Lewis continued their petty ballet.
Beside him, Seb watched everything with infuriating insight.
And Max, for just a moment, let the truth flicker in his expression.
Not the whole truth.
Not yet.
But enough that the château noticed.
Enough that Charles noticed, though he didn’t understand why his heart jumped.
Max looked back down at the garden as if it were safer than looking at Charles.
But his voice, when he spoke again, was gentle.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Before they drag us into it.”
Charles smiled.
He followed Max inside.
______________________
And then there was what George labelled, The Chaos Days.
Late afternoon sunlight spilled over the château’s kitchen windows in broad, honeyed sheets, as if the whole room had been dusted with gold.
It was peaceful.
It was quiet.
It was doomed.
Because at precisely 3:42p.m., the rookies burst in like a six-person emergency response unit with the emotional subtlety of a stampede.
George, currently perched on his designated pedestal, had only a fraction of a second to register the sound of frantic feet before the rookies skidded to a halt in front of him.
“We have a crisis,” Kimi announced, voice grave as a surgeon.
“We do,” Gabi echoed.
“A severe one,” Isack added.
Jack nodded violently. “Dire.”
Ollie, who had clearly been nominated as spokesperson but appeared overwhelmed by the responsibility, inhaled shakily and declared;
“Charles and Max forgot to eat lunch again.”
A moment of silence followed. A terrible, charged silence.
Then George’s ceramic lid flew off with such force it nearly hit the ceiling.
“NO,” he cried, scandalised to his porcelain core. “Not on my watch.”
Steam puffed out in a furious burst, the teapot equivalent of a gasp.
Kimi stepped closer, hands clasped behind his back like a soldier making a report. “They are very busy with the car. They have not emerged in hours.”
“They look thinner,” Gabi whispered dramatically.
“Max always looks thinner,” Isack said.
“That’s because he forgets that food exists,” Jack muttered. “He only eats when Charles physically hands him things.”
Ollie nodded. “And Charles only eats when someone force-feeds him.”
George made a squeaking noise of pure, parental agony.
“What were they even doing?” he asked.
“Fixing the car?? Kimi literally just told you that.” Liam said. “It’s very important.”
“Emotionally important,” Kimi clarified.
“And mechanically,” Isack added.
“And romantically,” Ollie whispered.
George ignored that, because if he acknowledged it, he would simply pass out.
He cleared his throat, steam rising as if someone had turned his internal temperature dial to Concerned Mother Hen, Maximum Setting.
“Alright,” George said briskly. “We will nourish them.”
The rookies straightened.
“We will rally.”
George hopped down from his pedestal (a graceful little plink on the marble) and spun toward his domain; the countertops, the spice racks, the drawers he curated like sacred scripture.
“You,” he commanded, pointing his spout at Kimi, “are Mixer.”
Kimi puffed out his chest. “Yes, chef - I mean, teapot.”
“Liam: Measurer.”
Liam saluted with a seriousness that would have made Seb proud.
“Gabi and Isack: Taste-testers. Only within reason,” George added sharply. “We do not need anyone bouncing off the ceilings again like last time.”
“That was one time,” Gabi protested.
“And I apologised,” Isack said, wounded.
“Jack: Sprinkles.”
Jack already had the jar in hand, eyes shining.
“Ollie: Moral support.”
“Oh,” Ollie said, relieved. “Good.”
“A united front,” George declared. “A mission of care.”
“A pilgrimage,” Kimi added solemnly.
George nodded. “Let’s begin.”
And yet, Chaos ensued immediately.
Kimi attacked the mixing bowl like it was a personal rival. Flour exploded in a white cloud around him, settling in his curls like premature snow.
Liam attempted to measure sugar using the precision of a Swiss engineer, but Gabi kept “accidentally” bumping into him, causing catastrophic over-scooping.
Isack taste-tested the chocolate chips with increasing suspicion. “Some of these taste different,” he said, sampling another. “They all taste different.”
“Stop eating them,” George said.
“I’m calibrating.”
“You’re snacking.”
“It’s called preparation.”
Jack sprinkled everything - including the countertop, the floor, his shoe, and Kimi - with rainbow nonpareils.
Kimi didn’t notice. He was in the zone.
Ollie stood on a stool, giving emotional support by telling everyone they were doing amazing despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
“You’re doing so well,” he told Kimi as the bowl threatened to tip over.
“Kimi, gentle!” George cried. “The dough is not your enemy!”
“It could be,” Kimi said, wrestling with it.
The resulting dough was… curious.
The cookies looked as if they’d survived a tornado.
They were misshapen. Lumpy. Slightly scorched on one side and undercooked on the other. The sprinkles melted into psychedelic streaks. The chocolate chips had formed a topographical map of chaos theory.
They were horrifying.
They were perfect.
George surveyed the baking tray with the resignation of a parent whose children have made something that cannot be displayed publicly but must be praised anyway.
“Well,” he said, attempting an encouraging smile. “They’re edible.”
“Are they, though?” Liam whispered.
Gabi bit one dramatically, paused, then said, “It has… spirit.”
Isack nodded. “A lot of spirit. Like too much spirit.”
“It tastes like enthusiasm,” Jack said.
Nobody dared test what kind of enthusiasm.
“Perfect,” Kimi declared. “They will love them.”
George clinked approvingly. “Then we deliver them.”
And so they marched.
Tray held aloft like a holy relic, the rookies processed through the château’s west corridor in solemn formation. Their steps were purposeful. Their expressions grave. Their cookies smelling… sweet in the way that meteors smell hot.
Leo padded beside them as if escorting them to a royal court.
It was a pilgrimage.
It was a quest.
It was a rescue mission.
The closer they got to the workshop, the more the air buzzed with the sound of clinking metal, muffled voices, and the occasional French swear word from Charles, followed by Max’s low, reprimanding mutter.
Light glowed warmly from beneath the workshop door.
Kimi raised his fist and knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
“They can’t hear us,” Ollie whispered. “They’re in Fixing Mode.”
Jack pushed the door open. “We go in.”
The rookies entered with the gravity of priests approaching an altar.
Max and Charles were deep in concentration, shoulder to shoulder, bent over the newly aligned front suspension. Max had grease up his forearm. Charles had grease on his cheek in the shape of a fingerprint Max absolutely did not want to think about.
They were lost in their rhythm.
Max handed Charles a ratchet without looking.
Charles adjusted the tension without asking.
They were, unmistakably, in their own world.
The rookies barged into it.
“WE MADE COOKIES,” Kimi announced.
Charles jerked upright so fast he hit his head on the chassis.
Max reached out to him before electing to freeze like a startled deer instead.
The tray was thrust forward.
“Eat,” Kimi commanded.
Max stared at the cookies like they were prototypes of experimental weaponry.
Charles clapped a hand to his mouth, his whole body folding in on itself as he dissolved into helpless laughter.
“Oh -- mon Dieu --” he wheezed, doubled over.
The rookies glowed.
Max looked at the tray again.
“Kimi,” he said carefully. “Are these… cooked?”
Jack nodded vigorously. “Yes. Mostly.”
“Mostly,” Max repeated faintly.
Kimi’s eyes widened - earnest, glittering, filled with hope. “We made them for you Max.”
For a moment, a long, suspended moment, Max forgot how to breathe.
The rookies watched him with reverence.
Charles watched him with tenderness.
Leo watched him with expectation.
Max reached out.
He picked up the least threatening-looking cookie.
It crumbled instantly.
“It’s fragile,” Gabi said helpfully.
“Like your masculinity,” Isack added. Max ignored that.
“Eat,” Kimi repeated, more firmly this time.
Max obeyed.
It was terrible.
Burnt and gooey. Crunchy and soft. Sweet and bitter. Undercooked in the middle and volcanic around the edges. A culinary paradox.
His eyes watered slightly.
But Max chewed.
And swallowed.
And nodded.
“It’s… really good,” he lied with the sincerity of a man facing death bravely.
Kimi lit up from within. “Really?!”
Max forced a smile that looked like emotional contortion. “Yes.”
“We will make more,” Ollie announced.
Max paled.
Charles nearly fell over laughing again.
Max ate another bite, willingly, because Kimi was watching him like he hung the moon.
He finished the whole thing.
Watching Kimi glow with pride.
Watching Charles watch him with something warm and unguarded and devastating.
Charles’s heart nearly burst out of his chest.
Because Max - awkward, intense, terrifying Max - ate a really really terrible cookie for a child he pretended not to care about.
For a moment, the workshop felt brighter than any lantern could make it.
For a moment, Charles forgot about curses, secrets, and the shadows lurking in the castle’s history.
All he saw was this:
Max, softening.
Max, choosing people.
Max, choosing him.
And the rookies, cheering.
And the château, glowing.
And something warm blooming in the quiet spaces between them.
A life beginning.
A family forming.
One burnt cookie at a time.
______________________
And so the days unfolded and the château warmed.
Literally, the windows held more light, the hallways felt less cold, the ivy outside unfurled greener. But also figuratively, the place breathed differently.
Laughter threaded through rooms that had forgotten it.
Footsteps echoed not with loneliness but with life.
Afternoons smelled of sea salt and fresh wood shavings. Nights hummed with Oscar’s quiet piano fragments drifting down hallways.
The wrecked Ferrari was still broken, but less broken now.
Max was still guarded, but less guarded now.
Charles was still figuring things out, but closer now, to the truth, to Max, to something neither dared name yet.
On some evenings, the two of them sat on the balcony in the late lavender light.
Max would point to distant corners of the coastline.
Charles would lean against the warm stone rail, listening.
They spoke softly then - not about the accident, not about the night Charles fled, not about the strange shifts in the house - but about small, human things.
Favourite routes. Strange dreams. The feel of the wind at dawn.
Normal things.
Soft things.
Living things.
The days grew longer.
The sun returned.
Chapter 8: The tale of Max's Trust Issues (and it's not the Uno, unless...)
Summary:
Even I'd forgotten the last chapter ... SORRY, I've been camping on the beach with no internet :/// but, on a positive note, the rest is pretty much written wooo :
*Max and Charles staring at the Ferrari*
Charles: Hey, I've seen worse!
Max: Really?
Charles: No. We are most definitely fucked.
-----------------
Kimi, to Max and Charles: Good work, gays.
Max: Do you mean ‘guys’?
Kimi: Did I stutter?
Charles: !!!!! :))))
-----------------
Oscar: How are you doing?
Max: Well, I’m breathing.
Oscar: Setting the bar pretty low, huh?
Max: It’s better than Charles anyway.
Charles, faceplanting over a football: Honestly? Fuck you
-----------------
Nico: I really want to kiss you.
Lewis: What?
Nico: I said “if you died I wouldn’t miss you”.
-----------------
Come chat to me on Tumblr as always
Chapter Text
There was a particular kind of trouble that only appeared when things were going well.
Charles recognised it because he had always been prone to it. Give him safety and he would immediately start testing the edges of it, like a child pressing their fingers into a bruised apple just to see how deep the damage went.
The château had been… soft lately, and wasn't that a dangerous thing.
Max had fully opened the workshop for ‘business’. The rookies brought cookies and chaos. Oscar made dry comments from the piano whenever Charles tripped over a wrench. The gardens had started to remember what sunlight felt like. Sometimes, when Charles walked through the long galleries humming under his breath, wall sconces lit before he reached them, like the house was lining his path with small, earnest lanterns.
It felt good.
And because it felt good Charles’ brain, the treacherous and restless thing that it was, started looking for the bit that hurt underneath.
He became aware of it one afternoon when he and Max were bent over the Ferrari’s exposed engine, sleeves rolled past their elbows, the grease streaked along Charles’ forearms like war paint. Kimi was on a stool in the corner in his child-sized goggles, carefully polishing a single bolt as if it were the crown jewels. Something Seb had said about “teaching responsibility” and “fine motor skills” and “no, Kimi, you can’t drive the car yet, mein Gott”.
Max was explaining the airflow through the intake manifold with his fingers tracing lines in the air. He had that look he got when he talked about engineering, like his stillness was turning from defensive to focused, sharp, almost reverent.
Charles watched his hands. The precision. The subtle tremor that appeared only when Max realised Charles was looking at his mouth, specifically the mole next to his lip, instead of the engine.
The castle warmed around them like an exhale.
It made Charles happy. Stupidly, quietly happy in a way that lodged behind his ribs and refused to leave.
Which, obviously, meant he started thinking about the one place that remained frozen.
The West Wing.
Max had mentioned it once, voice going clipped, flat, and inconsistent. You do not go there. Ever. No explanation. No joke to soften it. Just a line drawn in the dust.
The house had backed him up. The few times Charles had wandered vaguely in that direction, doors had inexplicably failed to open, stairs had shifted under his feet, and corridors had looped insistently around until he found himself back in familiar territory with a teapot tutting nearby.
But lately, the château had been more indulgent. Doors opened when he nudged them and windows unlatched at his touch. Once, when he’d been shivering after a rainstorm, a heavy velvet cloak simply… fell on him from a wardrobe door Lewis insisted had not been open a moment before.
It felt as if the house was, tentatively, on his side.
So of course Charles woke one morning with a thought that felt very much like trouble; I wonder what would happen if I asked the house to let me in.
And so that thought took root there, in the quiet part of his mind, and grew all through breakfast.
George poured tea with the solemnity of a surgeon. “You need proper sustenance,” George insisted, filling Charles’ cup to the brim. “The last time you worked more than four hours on an empty stomach we found you trying to negotiate with a torque wrench.”
“It was very unreasonable,” Charles said mildly.
Oscar, perched as a silent upright piano near the window, played a single judgmental note.
Lando, in footstool form next to Leo, vibrated with sugar. “Can I come to the workshop again?” Lando asked. “I’ll be good. I swear. I only knocked over, like, two shelves last time.”
“Three,” Oscar corrected shortly. “And you almost concussed Max with a falling carburettor.”
“That was gravity’s fault,” Lando muttered.
Max wasn’t at breakfast. He’d gone down early, muttering something about checking a part order that “might not arrive on time”, even though Nico had promised it would, and he treats schedules like religion, unsettlingly”.
Charles ate his toast. Smiled at the others. Patted Kimi’s head when Kimi marched in late, trailing crumbs, and clutching a screw like a talisman.
All the while, the thought sat there. Waiting.
By the time he left the breakfast room, it had crystallised into decision, and the castle felt it immediately.
The corridor brightened, then dimmed, in a nervous little flutter. One painting he’d never liked, a stern-faced ancestor with a moustache that looked personally offended by joy, swung slightly sideways, as if frowning at him.
Charles tilted his head. “You know where I want to go.”
A muted shudder ran through the floorboards. No, the house seemed to insist. Not there.
Charles smiled softly. “But you’ve let me see so much already. The workshop. The garden. The ballroom when it was still sulking.” He trailed his fingers along the wall, feeling the faint warmth there. “You want him to be free, non?”
The light in the sconces steadied, uncertain.
“And you chose me,” Charles added, very quietly. “You brought me here. Or helped. Or allowed. Whatever you did… you did it on purpose.”
He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but it felt true and Charles wasn't stupid, he’d realised that the castle reacted to the emotional shape of things more than their accuracy. So he wasn't surprised when the corridor brightened.
Somewhere far above, a door slammed in exasperation. Charles felt like that might've been Nico though, not the house.
Charles softened his voice. “I won’t break anything,” he promised. “I just… I need to understand him. I can’t help someone if I’m blind to the worst of it.”
There was a long pause. A deep, interior silence, like the château was conferring with itself.
Then, without fanfare, the far end of the hallway rearranged.
It was subtle at first… a shadow receding here and a doorframe shifting angle there, and then, in the space where there had been a dead-end archway yesterday, there was now a narrow passage stretching off into a dim, untouched distance.
Charles’ heart kicked.
“Merci,” he whispered.
The house did not reply, it simply let him walk. The further he went, the less the castle resembled the place he’d come to know. The warm murmurs faded, the air thinned, and the walls lost their gentle clutter, bare stone replacing tapestries and the odd teacup left out in a place no teacup should reasonably be.
The château’s moods had become familiar to him - shy, hopeful, petulant, amused. This though, this was something else. Not anger. Not malice.
Abandonment.
The floorboards here did not creak, they sighed, as if exhausted from holding so much unspoken history, and Charles felt that restless part of himself quiet into something more solemn. This no longer felt like mischief, but rather it felt like trespass.
The castle had opened for him though and that had to mean something.
He passed a tall arched window so dust-choked it turned the sun into a grey smear. He reached up, wiped it clean with the edge of his sleeve watching the light spear in, catching dust that swirled in brief golden constellations before drifting down again.
For a moment, the corridor looked almost beautiful. Almost.
He continued.
At the very end, he found the door.
It was not grand, just an old wooden panel, with the paint peeling in long, tired strips, and the handle tarnished with disuse. No lock. Max had not needed one, the house had been his lock.
Charles hesitated with his fingers a whisper from the handle.
“This is a bad idea,” he murmured, because honesty with oneself was important even at the threshold of catastrophe. The castle seemed to agree, making a low, uncertain creak.
“Oui,” he agreed. Then opened the door.
The room beyond felt like stepping into the aftermath of a storm that had never quite moved on. It had the stillness of destruction that had not been cleaned, not because no one cared, but because someone could not bear to look at it.
Broken furniture lay in contorted heaps. Shattered wood, twisted metal, splintered chair legs like bones. A torn curtain drooped across a smashed window, the glass had mended itself at some point, the magic too strong to allow structural unsafety, but it bore a spiderweb of cracks like healed scars.
Claw marks raked down a section of wall, not the wild arcs of mindless rage, no these were deeper, slower, almost deliberate. A man trying to drag something out of himself through stone.
Charles’ throat tightened.
At the centre of the devastation stood a plinth draped in a stiff, dust-stiffened sheet.
Of course.
He crossed the room on careful feet, the way one crossed a church nave.
When he reached the covered shape, he rested his hand lightly on the cloth. It was cold, the dust rough against his skin, as thought time had settled into its weave.
“Whatever you are,” Charles said quietly, “I think I already know what it means.”
He lifted the sheet.
The trophy’s polished metal caught the light in a sudden, merciless flare.
A World Drivers' Championship trophy. He knew the design of course, he was from Monaco, he’d seen replicas, archive photos, promotional posters, all of it. But not like this, never like this. All the plates were blank, smooth and empty surfaces where names should have been. No champion inscribed, no years etched, nothing to mark the passage of glory or time.
Nothing… except one.
Max Verstappen.
The letters glowed with a solemn, lonely clarity, as if the rest of the world had been scrubbed away to leave this single, stubborn fact; he had been champion, once, twice… four times.
Yet, no one remembered.
Charles stared.
The world blurred at the edges of his vision. Not with magic but with memory.
He remembered races watched with his brothers, or with Pierre in the garage after a long day. He remembered the odd year when statistics looked wrong, when leaderboards got skimmed over, or when a commentator stuttered and corrected a sentence mid-air, glossing past a gap like a stone skipping water.
He remembered re-watching the 2022 year, and pausing a documentary to frown at a table of champions and runner-ups that made no narrative sense, like a story with a chapter ripped out. He’d gone digging, but the records looped in strange circles. Nobody seemed to agree with what had happened that season. And even stranger, no one seemed to care.
“A controversial exit,” one article said vaguely.
“4 time champion gone missing,” another hinted, then swerved away.
A third didn’t mention it at all, like that year had been administratively inconvenient and thus politely erased.
And now here it was.
Not erased. Hidden.
The castle hummed under his feet, very faint, very tense.
Charles reached out and touched Max’s name. The metal quivered and a pulse ran through the trophy, down through the plinth, out into the floor, and then outward as if he’d tapped the château’s spinal cord.
Images flickered behind his eyes, unclear, like emotional impressions. A roar of crowds. Rain on asphalt. The peculiar, hollow rush of crossing a finish line and feeling nothing. A young man on a podium, jaw set so hard his face hurt, holding a trophy as though it burned.
Then -- nothing.
Silence. Forgetting.
Charles stumbled back a step.
“You shouldn’t touch it so impulsively,” a voice murmured behind him, gentle and wry. “It’s a bit like poking an exposed nerve.”
He turned sharply.
Sebastian stood in the doorway, bathed in the room’s muted light, gold casing dulled by dust he clearly never let himself track into the rest of the château. His flames were low but steady, like candles in a vigil.
“I’m sorry,” Charles said immediately, and meant it. For the trespass. For the touching. For being here at all. “I just - ”
“ - can’t help yourself?” Sebastian finished kindly. “Yes. I’ve noticed.”
Charles opened his mouth, then closed it. Seb was right after all.
“I should be angry,” Seb said, drifting over the wreckage with the strange grace of something not bound by gravity. “Max gave you a very explicit instruction.”
“He did,” Charles admitted.
“You’ve ignored it.”
“I have.”
Sebastian paused by a cracked mirror, his reflection a distorted blossom of gold and shadow. “Do you regret it?”
Charles looked back at the trophy. At the lone, etched name.
“No,” he said quietly. “But I do feel… guilty.”
Sebastian hummed. “Guilt is just love holding a measuring tape and wondering where it overstepped.”
“That’s not a real saying,” Charles muttered.
“It is now,” Seb replied. “I’m very quotable. Very wise.”
Despite himself, Charles huffed a short and unsteady laugh.
Sebastian floated to his side. They gazed at the trophy together.
“So,” Seb said softly, “you’ve found our little… discrepancy.”
“Discrepancy?” Charles repeated. “You mean the part where the world was missing a World Champion and I thought I’d gone insane trying to find out what happened?”
Seb smiled sadly. “Yes. That one.”
Charles swallowed. “This is real, then. It’s not some elaborate metaphor you’ve constructed for the sake of an aesthetic.”
“Oh, I wish,” Sebastian said fervently. “Do you have any idea how much easier it would be if this were all a metaphor? No, Schatz. It’s quite literal.”
The endearment slid out so naturally that Charles almost didn’t register it. Hearing Seb call Max Schatz always did something to his chest. It was a tenderness that hurt.
Charles wet his lips, gaze still on Max’s name. “What… what did he do? To deserve this?”
Sebastian’s flames shrank, then steadied. “Ah. There it is. The question people never stop asking about curses. What did he do?”
“That’s how it works in the stories,” Charles said. “Someone is cruel, selfish, monstrous, and then … ” He gestured faintly around them. “This.”
Sebastian studied him for a long moment, the room reflecting in his metal. “Do you believe Max is cruel?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Charles said at once, then halted, hyper-aware of the speed of which he’d answered.
“Selfish?” Seb pressed.
“Sometimes. But in the way of someone who has never had the luxury to be anything else.”
Seb’s eyes softened. “Monstrous?”
“No.” Charles shook his head. “Wounded. Guarded. But not monstrous, never monstrous Seb.”
“Then perhaps the stories got lazy,” Seb said “and reality demanded something more complicated.”
Charles glanced at him. “You’re not… angry I’m here?”
“Angry?” Sebastian looked around the ruined room, expression turning carefully neutral. “I’ve been waiting for you to get in here since the day Leo first bought you back through our doors, half-dead and wholly stubborn.”
Charles blinked. “You … what?”
“You think doors rearrange themselves out of boredom?” Seb asked, tone light but eyes sharp. “The castle bends around the people it chooses. Around Max, yes, and around you, increasingly.” He nodded toward the corridor. “It has been guarding this room more fiercely than anything else, until today. And then, suddenly… it decided to let you through.”
Charles frowned. “So you think - ”
“I think,” Sebastian cut him off gently, “that if the house truly did not want you here Charles, you would be in the library right now, buried under a suspicious avalanche of romance novels that Lewis would insist was an accident.”
“Harsh,” Charles muttered, half to himself.
“You are missing the point,” Sebastian chastised softly. “The point is - it let you in. Which means it is time.”
“Time for what?”
“For you to know what Max never wanted you to know,” Sebastian said. “And what will destroy him a little, and save him a lot more.”
The castle gave a faint, tremulous shiver, as if agreeing and bracing itself in the same breath.
Charles looked at him, heart beating unevenly. “You’re not going to try to send me away?”
“I could,” Sebastian said. “But then you’d go back to him with only half the story, and half-knowledge has been killing Max slowly for years.”
He drifted closer to the trophy, flame-fingers hovering just above the engraved name. “He was champion, some say the greatest of all time even,” Seb said. “You know that much.”
“Yes,” Charles whispered. “But the world doesn’t.”
“Because the curse took their memory,” Seb said. “Not their history, the facts still exist in some places, like echoes. But the emotional truth of him? The sense of him in the world? That is what was ripped away.”
Charles shivered. “Why?”
Sebastian looked at him then, really looked. “Because Max believed he did not deserve to be held in anyone’s mind,” he said simply. “And the magic, cruel and faithful thing that it is, decided to agree.”
Charles staggered back a half-step, as if the words had physical weight.
“The magic in this house,” Seb went on, “is not some neutral, external force. It is tied to feeling. To belief. I think you know this. You’ve seen the way the chandeliers brighten when Max lets himself laugh, the way the corridors open when you’re determined, the way the air goes thin and mean when he thinks he’s failed.”
Charles nodded, throat tight.
“The night everything changed,” Seb said, “Max had already been running on emotional fumes for years. Pressure from every side. A childhood spent performing for a future he couldn’t yet understand. A talent that felt less like a gift and more like a debt he had to repay with his spine.”
He moved slowly as he spoke, drifting through the ruined room like a man retracing his own footsteps.
“And then Fernando arrived,” he said.
The air changed when he spoke the name.
Not dramatically, or theatrically, the castle was not that crass. But there was a subtle concentration of atmosphere, a stilling, as if the stones themselves were staring inward.
“Fernando is…” Seb searched for a word, lips quirking. “An event. You don’t meet him, you experience him. He walks into a room, and everyone discovers they have more nerves than they thought.”
Charles almost smiled, even as his skin prickled.
“His magic is particular,” Seb said. “He doesn’t throw lightning or turn people into frogs. Thank God; Nico would never recover from the statistical anomaly.” A faint fondness flickered in his eyes. “Fernando sees what people are hiding from themselves. And he has a terrible habit of saying it out loud.”
Charles swallowed. “He did that to Max.”
“Yes.” Seb’s voice gentled. “He saw a boy who had been raised to be a weapon, a shield and spectacle. He saw someone who had never been allowed to be clumsy, or uncertain, or soft, or still. He saw a heart built for wild, fierce love that had instead been forced into a kind of utilitarian efficiency. And he thought, this cannot stand.”
“So he cursed him?” Charles asked, frowning. “To fix him?”
“Oh, no.” Seb shook his head. “The curse was not his first instinct. Fernando tried, in his own… intense way, to offer what Max had never been given by the people in his life.”
“Which was?”
“Choice,” Seb said. “The freedom to be still. The chance to be something other than inevitable.”
He paused, flames dimming. “He told Max he did not have to carry all of it alone. That he could slow down. That he could fail and still be loved. That he was more than what he did in a car.”
“That sounds - ” Charles began.
“Horrifying, yes,” Seb said dryly. “To someone who has built their entire survival strategy on never needing anyone.”
Charles exhaled slowly. “So Max rejected it.”
“With all the stubbornness of a man being offered oxygen and insisting he prefers to drown,” Sebastian replied. “He pushed Fernando away. Denied he needed help. Denied he even wanted it. He said - ” Seb’s voice softened, mimicking an old, remembered cadence. “you’ve wasted your time. I don’t need saving. Not from you, not from anyone.”
Charles flinched. He could hear Max in that, the particular sharpness he used when he was scared and pretending not to be.
“The castle heard him,” Seb said. “And so did the magic Fernando carried. They listened to this man who had been taught his whole life that wanting anything other than success made him weak. And, in some twisted act of respect, they decided to make his words real.”
He gestured around them. “If Max insisted he did not need anyone, then the world would show him what that truly felt like. Force him into stillness.”
Charles felt sick. “By… removing him.”
“By removing the imprint of him,” Seb corrected. “We still remember. Of course we do. We’re part of the emotional architecture of the place. But outside?” He nodded at the trophy. “History re-stitched itself around a hole where he should be. People misremembered races. Commentators misspoke. Fans looked at old photos and swore they were photoshopped.”
“And Max?”
Sebastian’s flames flickered low. “He thought it was punishment. For arrogance. For existing. For daring to be great and messed up in equal measure.”
The room seemed to contract with his words.
“He believes he caused this,” Seb said quietly. “That his refusal, his fear, his temper - that all of it warranted this… obliteration.”
Charles braced a hand on the plinth. “But he was just… frightened.”
“Yes,” Seb said simply. “Terrified. And very good at turning terror into anger, because anger felt less vulnerable.”
Charles closed his eyes.
In the workshop, Max’s careful hands. In the gardens, his clumsy attempts at small talk. On the balcony, the way Max watched him with a kind of stunned concentration, as if Charles were a star that might disappear if he looked away.
“Has he ever told you any of this?” Charles asked.
“Of course not,” Seb replied. “Max apologises by fixing things, not by explaining them. He believes that if he doesn’t speak the worst of himself aloud, he can keep it contained.”
“And you’ve all just… waited here with him,” Charles said, voice shaking a little. “Stuck. Enchanted.”
Seb’s expression softened into something like pride. “We chose to stay Charles. The curse warped us, yes, but it anchored us to him. Someone had to wait with the boy who thought he deserved to be alone.”
A lump formed in Charles’ throat. “You talk about him like - ”
“ - like a son?” Seb supplied, a bit brusque, as if uncomfortable with the admission. “That’s because he is, in the ways that matter. Nico thinks the same, though he’d never admit it. Our Max was a problematic teen.”
A faint smile tugged at Charles’ lips.
“And Lewis?” he asked softly.
Seb made an inelegant little noise. “Lewis would design a twelve-step skincare program for his soul and then act offended when Max actually followed it.”
The image was ridiculous and somehow perfect. Charles let himself smile properly this time.
Seb watched him, relief flickering through his flames. “You see it, then. He isn’t a monster.”
Charles shook his head. “No. He’s… tragic.”
“Careful,” Seb warned gently. “We are not curating him for aesthetic value, Charles. He is not tragic for drama’s sake. This isn’t some gothic tableau for you to admire at a distance.”
“I know,” Charles said quietly. “That’s not what I meant.”
Seb waited.
Charles searched for the right words. “He is tragic because he lives like a man who does not believe he is allowed to need anything,” Charles said slowly. “Like if he reaches out, reality will correct him.”
The room warmed a fraction.
Seb’s gaze softened. “Yes,” he said. “That.”
They stood there a moment, the silence thick but not empty.
Then Seb said, very carefully, “We’re not afraid of Max, you know.”
Charles looked up.
“We’re afraid for him,” Seb finished.
The words landed with the soft weight of a blanket over cold shoulders.
Charles inhaled shakily. “That’s why you meddle so much,” he said, half to himself. “Why you push him? Why you pushed me?”
“Of course,” Seb said. “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is, watching someone you love stand at the edge of a life he could have, insisting the cliff edge is safer than the valley?”
Charles’ eyes burned.
Seb’s voice gentled. “And now you understand what’s at stake.”
“Yes,” Charles whispered.
“Good.” Seb’s gaze flicked over Charles’ shoulder, then shifted, focusing on something behind him. “Because you’re going to need that understanding in approximately… now.”
Charles turned. Max stood in the doorway.
He must have come silently, but the room had shifted the moment he arrived - the air tightening and light drawing around him like wary magnetisation. He hadn’t crossed the threshold. He stood just outside it, his broad frame braced and expression unreadable. Only his eyes gave him away.
They were fixed on the trophy.
On his own name.
Charles felt the breath leave him in a cold rush.
Seb’s flames dimmed in a gesture that was almost a bow. “Max,” he said softly.
Max did not look at him. “Seb.”
His voice was calm, too calm, and something in the castle flinched. Charles could feel his own heartbeat in his throat.
Seb drifted back, placing himself halfway between Charles and the door for a moment, as if deciding whether to shield or surrender. Then, with a quiet sigh, he chose.
“I think,” Seb said gently, “that this conversation is long overdue.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “That depends on whose conversation you think this is Sebastian.”
“It’s ours,” Sebastian said. “All of us, whether you like it or not.”
Max’s gaze flicked briefly to Charles then, quick and sharp, as if confirming he was still there. Charles held that look, refused to drop his eyes, even though his instinct screamed not to corner a wounded animal.
“We’ll be careful,” Charles said quietly.
Max’s mouth twitched, a not-quite-bitter but not-quite-amused, almost-smile. “You only say that right before you do something reckless.”
“That’s why I prefaced it with ‘we’ instead of ‘I’,” Charles replied, because if he did not use humour now, he would start shaking. “I am expanding my brand.”
Seb made a faint harrumphing sound that might have been a laugh if the situation were lighter. The castle seemed to lean in.
Seb floated toward the door, but as he passed Max, he paused, his flame-fingers brushing the air near Max’s elbow but not quite touching. “We’re on your side, Schatz,” he murmured. “All of us. Even when we drag your business into the open, especially then.”
Max’s throat bobbed but he didn’t answer.
Seb’s gaze softened, then turned resolute. He looked at Charles. “Be gentle,” he instructed. “But not indulgent. He has had enough of people letting his fear go unchallenged.”
Then, more quietly a benediction, “Trust what you see.”
And with that, Sebastian left. The room felt bigger and smaller at once.
Max and Charles stood facing each other across the ruined space, the trophy between them like a third presence.
For a long time, neither spoke, but Max broke first. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”
It wasn't an accusation so much as a weary statement of fact.
Charles inhaled. “I know.”
“Then why are you?” Max asked.
Because I can’t stop wanting to know you, Charles thought.
Out loud, he said, “Because you told me not to.”
A flicker, something like incredulity. “That’s… not usually how instructions work.”
Charles stepped closer to the plinth, keeping his movement slow. “You told me not to, and the house has been bending for me more and more, and I thought… maybe if it let me in, it meant it was time.”
Max’s gaze sharpened. “The house is not your toy.”
“No,” Charles agreed. “It’s yours. That’s the problem.”
Max flinched as if struck.
Charles winced. “I didn’t mean - ”
“Yes, you did,” Max cut in, not harshly. Just… accurately. “If we’re doing this Charles, then we do it honestly.”
A beat passed.
Charles glanced back at the trophy, then at him. “You were a four time world champion,” he said quietly. “You still are. That’s real.”
Max’s jaw clenched so hard Charles could see the tension in his cheek. “Not anymore.”
“It happened,” Charles insisted. “Even if the world forgot, it happened. You did it.”
“Did I?” Max asked, voice low. “Tell me, Charles. When you looked for those seasons, however long ago it was, what did you see?”
Charles hesitated. “Confusion. Gaps. Commentators tripping over themselves. Nothing that made sense.”
“Exactly.” Max’s laugh was short and bitter. “It’s like trying to remember a dream after waking up. They know something is missing, but they don’t know what. Or who.”
He moved finally, stepping into the room. The castle’s timbers groaned quietly in response, as if reluctant to let him back in.
He approached the trophy and stared at his name, expression hollow.
“This is all that’s left,” he said. “One line on a thing no one sees.”
Charles watched him. Watched the way his shoulders rounded inwards, as if making himself smaller would make the story hurt less.
“You think this is punishment,” Charles said.
Max didn’t answer.
“You think you did something to deserve being erased,” Charles continued softly. “That you were… arrogant. Ungrateful. That you hurt people. That you pushed too hard. Wanted too much.”
“Didn’t I?” Max asked, and there was real anguish in it now. “I didn’t listen. I was given everything and I still wanted more. I pushed the car, the team, myself beyond the limit. I told people to leave me alone, to stay out of my way. And then when someone actually offered to - ” He cut himself off, jaw locking.
“To help,” Charles supplied. “When Fernando offered to help.”
Max’s eyes snapped to his.
“You know nothing about that,” Max said quietly.
“I know enough,” Charles replied. “Seb told me.”
Anger flared in Max’s gaze. “Of course he did,” he muttered. “He loves holding emotional interventions in this place.”
Charles took a step closer. “He told me you were afraid.”
Max went very still.
“Not selfish. Not cruel. Afraid,” Charles said. “Afraid of needing anything. Afraid that if you admitted you wanted help, or rest, or love, that the world would laugh in your face and walk away.”
Max’s hands curled into fists at his sides.
“That’s not - ” he began before remembering his own insistence on honesty.
“It is,” Charles said gently. “You think if you never ask, you can’t be refused.”
Silence.
The castle’s light flickered, then steadied. Charles took another half-step forward, close enough, now, to see the fine tension around Max’s eyes and the way his breathing had quickened.
“This curse,” Charles said, nodding at the trophy, the room, the castle around them, “it isn’t some divine judgment on your character. It isn’t saying ‘you were a monster, so now you must live like one’.”
He searched Max’s face, willing him to hear it.
“It is the logical conclusion,” Charles continued, “of a man who has been taught his whole life that needing people is dangerous.”
Max’s throat worked. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“I’m not trying to make it better,” Charles said. “I’m trying to make it… accurate.”
Max huffed a short, humourless breath. “You should spend less time with Rosberg.”
Charles huffed back. “You’ll cope.”
Another beat. The tension in the room shifted - not lessened, exactly, but sharpened into something more focused.
“You can’t keep living like this,” Charles said quietly. “As if you’re some tragic figure in a cautionary tale. You’re not cursed for drama, Max.”
“No?” Max asked, voice raw. “Then why am I here? Why are we stuck in this… limbo, waiting for a clock I can’t see to run out?”
Charles took a breath.
“Because,” he said, very gently, “you told the world you didn’t need it. And it believed you. Now you have to decide if you want to be believed forever.”
The words hung between them like a balance brought to stillness.
For a moment, Max looked utterly lost.
Charles felt something inside his chest twist. He wanted, absurdly, to reach out and steady him, as if one touch could reorient him on some moral axis.
He didn’t. Not yet.
Instead, he said, “Seb told me they were never afraid of you.”
Max blinked. “What?”
“They’re afraid for you,” Charles said. “All of them. Seb, Nico, George, Lewis, Oscar, Lando, Daniel, the rookies with their burnt cookies. They’re terrified of what happens to you if you go on like this. Of what it means that you can win everything and still believe you deserve nothing.”
Max stared at him like the language had shifted under his feet.
“They waited,” Charles said. “They stayed. They let themselves be twisted into objects and clocks and wardrobes and teapots, because they refused to leave you alone in your own fear.”
His voice softened. “Does that sound like the sort of man who deserves to be forgotten?”
Something splintered in Max’s expression.
He looked away, jaw working, eyes bright with a shine he would never acknowledge as tears, as the castle reacted in a deep, subterranean thrum, like the foundations were bracing for impact.
“Charles,” Max said, voice thick, “you shouldn’t have come in here.”
“You keep saying that,” Charles replied, stepping closer still. There was barely a foot between them now. He could feel the cold bleed off Max’s skin, the tension coiled under it. “But the truth is, you didn’t need to tell me that you wanted me to know. The house did it for you, it could have kept me out. It didn’t.”
Max’s gaze snapped back to his. There was fear in it now, but also something else. Hope, thin and hazardous.
“You think this is my idea?” Max asked.
“I think this is all of you,” Charles said. “You, the castle, the curse, whatever Fernando did or didn’t do. I think something in you is tired of being the only one who knows how bad it is.”
Max swallowed hard as Charles lifted a hand, slowly this time, barely moving, like an offering more than a gesture. He held it there, hovering in the space between them, waiting to see if Max would retreat.
Max didn’t move.
The castle’s lamplight warmed by a fraction.
“Max,” Charles said softly, “you are not tragic for decoration. You’re tragic because you live as if you are undeserving of rescue while simultaneously fighting for everyone else’s.”
A tear - one single, treacherous drop - broke loose at the corner of Max’s eye and tracked down his cheek.
He didn’t wipe it away.
Charles’ chest ached.
He closed the distance, very gently pressing his palm to the side of Max’s face. His skin was cold, but not dead-cold. The kind of cold that came from standing too long outside a house he’d never believed he was allowed to enter.
The room warmed in a sudden, breathless wave, and Max inhaled sharply, his eyes fluttering shut for one brief, unguarded second.
“This,” Charles whispered, thumb barely stroking once along Max’s cheekbone, “is not something you get to do alone anymore.”
Max opened his eyes again, and they were wrecked in the most human way.
“Why?” he asked, almost like a child. “Why are you doing this?”
Because I think I already love you, Charles thought.
Out loud, he said, with a small, crooked smile, “Because I’m very bad at staying where I’m told. And because you let me into your home, and your life, and your workshop.” He swallowed. “You opened the one place that’s the most yours. It’s only fair I pry open the place that hurts you the most.”
“That’s not how fairness works,” Max muttered.
“It is in this castle,” Charles said. “You should try reading the fine print.”
Max snorted, helpless and soft. The sound cracked the tension like glass, and the castle responded at once; the light in the broken window brightened, dust lifted in lazy spirals, a faint warmth seeped into the stone. Somewhere, distant but distinctly, a clock tick softened as if Nico had sighed in relief without knowing why.
Charles let his hand fall away slowly, not wanting to spook whatever fragile thing had just emerged.
“We can leave,” he said. “For now. I just… I needed to see it, to understand what you’re carrying.”
Max glanced back at the trophy. “And now that you do?” he asked quietly.
Charles followed his gaze for a moment, then looked back at him.
“Now,” Charles said, “I’m going to be unbearable about refusing to let you disappear.”
Max huffed, eyes wet, mouth twitching. “You already are unbearable.”
“I know,” Charles said serenely. “It’s part of my charm.”
For the first time since he’d stepped into the room, Max smiled. It was small, crooked, and broke halfway through, but it was real. The castle bloomed with it as a faint echo of sunlight rolled up the walls and the cracked window mended one more invisible line. Charles felt the shift like a promise.
Max glanced away, embarrassed by his own softness. “We should go,” he muttered. “Seb will pretend not to be listening from down the corridor. Nico will absolutely be timing how long we stay in here.”
“And I’m sure Lewis has a whole outfit change planned for my ‘emotionally reckless exploration of forbidden trauma zones’,” Charles said lightly.
“Don’t give him ideas,” Max warned. “He’ll make you a sash.”
“‘Miss Catastrophic-Curiosity’,” Charles said thoughtfully. “Has a ring to it.”
“You’re not wearing that.”
“We’ll see.”
They turned toward the door together. As they crossed the threshold, the house shifted again. The cold in the West Wing receded by a degree and a single, unseen draught carried the faintest hint of warmth into the ruined room, as if the château itself had exhaled.
Behind them, the trophy remained on its plinth with Max’s name gleaming like a stubborn star in a half-forgotten constellation. But the air around it felt… different. Not forgiven, not yet, but less desolate. As if the story written there had finally been witnessed by someone who would not look away.
Max walked a fraction closer to Charles than he needed to.
Charles did not step away.
And somewhere far behind them in the West Wing, stone and magic and memory rearranged themselves by an almost imperceptible degree, as if the curse had loosened one more reluctant thread.
When they reached downstairs however, the world felt louder.
Not in noise but in awareness.
As if every chandelier, every portrait, every enchanted teaspoon had been holding its breath for the last hour and was now vibrating like a plucked string.
Charles registered it first.
The shift in temperature, the cautious brightening of hallway sconces, the faint tremor in the banister under his fingertips, like the castle whispering, are you both still alive?
Max walked beside him in absolute silence.
Not angry, not cold, just… overwhelmed, in that contained way he had, as if every emotion came with its own seatbelt.
He didn’t speak, but the castle kept close to him, the floorboards creaking with the tentative eagerness of a dog wanting to climb into his lap but terrified of being told no.
Charles would have smiled if his heart didn’t feel like it was still stuck standing in the West Wing.
______________________
They managed to reach the landing, before the ambush happened.
“THEY’RE BACK!”
A voice exploded from below like someone had fired a starting pistol inside a cathedral. It was Daniel - of course it was Daniel - bursting into view with the reckless sprint of a man who believed dramatic entrances were a biological requirement. He skid-stopped at the foot of the stairs, feather-duster plumage flaring like an alarmed peacock.
Behind him, Lando nearly tripped over his own enthusiasm in footstool form, wheels squeaking in panic. “I WASN’T READY !! I WASN’T READY !! ”
Max closed his eyes for a long, suffering moment whilst Charles tried not to laugh.
Daniel gasped theatrically, one hand pressed to his chest. “Maximilian. You look like a man who has just confronted either emotional devastation or a tax audit.”
Max stared at him flatly. “…Those are the same thing.”
Daniel pointed wildly at Charles. “And you !! Researcher of forbidden corridors, breaker of rules, destroyer of emotional architecture … HOW WAS THE VIBE??”
Lando chimed in, voice pitched somewhere between awe and terror. “Did you die? You look like you died. But like … romantically?”
The castle groaned overhead, which Charles suspected translated to please stop talking.
Max stepped past them without comment and that alone was enough to cause panic.
Daniel’s mouth fell open. “Oh no. He’s doing the Silent Walk. The Silent Walk is NEVER GOOD.”
Lando spun in a tiny panicked circle. “Should we - should we get George? Should we prepare tea? Should we hide the porcelain?!”
Oscar’s dry voice drifted from the music room. “Please hide yourself.”
Lando squeaked and moved two inches closer to Charles, as if Charles could protect him from piano-based judgment.
Max reached the bottom of the staircase and kept walking, not fast, not fleeing, just… retreating. Quietly, like he needed walls thick enough to breathe against. Charles watched him go but didn’t follow, not yet.
Daniel deflated with relief and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. Good! Yes. Let him marinate.”
Lando nodded solemnly, as if that were an established psychological practice. “Like… emotional sous-vide.”
Charles blinked. “I regret every moment of my life that led to this sentence.”
Oscar played a single, delicate note of agreement.
The rookies appeared next, materialising from behind furniture with the stealth of poorly trained raccoons that froze when Charles looked at them.
Kimi whispered, loudly, “Be casual.”
No one moved. Jack dropped a spoon.
Isack hissed, “ACT NATURAL,” then immediately saluted.
Liam stared at Charles with the wide, reverent eyes of someone meeting a mythological creature.
Gabi mouthed, Is Max crying???
Charles shook his head gently. “He’s fine.”
All six rookies sagged with visible relief, then immediately attempted to appear as if they had never cared in the first place.
Ollie coughed. “We weren’t worried. We just - we thought maybe - we didn’t - It’s not like we like him or anything.”
Kimi elbowed him. “We love him.”
Ollie stared at him, betrayed. “WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT OUT LOUD?”
Charles smiled, small and soft. “He knows boys.”
The rookies went silent.
Hushed.
Humbled.
And then slowly, cautiously, they beamed.
From the doorway to the salon came a delicate clink.
Lewis stood there, his wardrobe doors half-open and fabric shimmering. His expression was neutral, but the kind of neutral that concealed at least seven emotions and one monologue. Nico hovered beside him, posture rigid, clock hands ticking a fraction too fast.
Daniel and Lando instantly froze like deer who had been caught shoplifting.
Lewis arched one eyebrow. “What,” he asked, voice smooth as polished glass, “exactly is happening here?”
Lando whispered, “We’re emotionally supervising,” as if that explained anything.
Nico made a small strangled noise. “That’s not a thing - ”
Lewis placed one hand lightly on Nico’s shoulder, and Nico stopped mid-panic.
Just, stopped.
The ticking softened by several beats.
Everyone noticed.
Daniel’s eyes widened. “Oh. My. GOD.”
Lewis did not look away from Nico, voice softening by a microscopic degree. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Nico muttered, but the words came out less like protest and more like surrender.
Lewis didn’t move his hand.
Charles felt his throat tighten, not with sadness but with the startled tenderness of seeing something quietly, accidentally intimate.
Lewis spoke without looking away from Nico. “Max?”
Daniel answered. “Upstairs.”
Lewis nodded once, slow and decisive. “Good. He needs time.”
Nico swallowed. “And Charles?”
“I’m here,” Charles said puzzled.
Lewis’ gaze flicked to him, assessing and sharp but not unkind. “And are you alright?”
Charles hadn’t expected the question.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Thought.
“I will be,” he said honestly.
Lewis inclined his head, his approval subtle and rare.
Nico exhaled.
The rookies whispered excitedly:
“Did they just … talk?”
“Like adults?”
“OH MY GOD ARE THEY IN LOVE AGAIN NOW?”
Oscar hit a dissonant chord from the next room. “Please. I am begging. Stop narrating reality.”
Daniel slapped both hands over his heart. “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. BROCEDES JUST HAD A BREAKTHROUGH AND I WAS HERE TO WITNESS IT.”
Lando burst into tears for no reason at all.
Nico flailed. “I - we - nothing happened!”
Lewis lifted a brow. “Denial is unbecoming.”
Nico turned pink metal. “WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT IN FRONT OF PEOPLE?!”
Lewis smirked, soft and devastating. “Because you like when I do.”
Nico’s ticking sound cut out entirely.
The rookies fainted in spirit.
Daniel whispered, “This castle is a soap opera and I’m not emotionally prepared.”
Charles sank onto the nearest settee. The castle adjusted the cushions beneath him subtly, like a hand at his back. Lando climbed onto the armrest like a gremlin seeking warmth and Daniel sat cross-legged on the carpet, staring up at Charles as if waiting for the next chapter of an ancient prophecy.
Oscar rolled forward from the music room, stopping at a safe observational distance.
Lewis and Nico stood close. No longer touching but aligned in a way that hadn’t been true in a very long time.
The room settled, with everyone quiet but present.
Daniel finally spoke, gently this time. “He’s really hurting, huh?”
Charles nodded. “Yes.”
Lando whispered, tiny and fierce, “We won’t let him be alone.”
Kimi squared his little shoulders. “Never.”
Jack echoed, “Never.”
Isack added, “Not even if he growls.”
Liam nodded vigorously. “Or tells us to go away.”
Gabi sniffed. “Or throws a wrench.”
Ollie concluded, solemn, “We can dodge now.”
Oscar sighed. “That is… not the takeaway.”
But Charles smiled, truly smiled, for the first time since leaving the West Wing. Because that was the point, wasn’t it? Max didn’t need an army, he already had one. Not polished, not perfect, not elegant, but loyal, chaotic, and ridiculously and stupidly in love with him.
Lewis spoke again, soft but certain. “He’ll come back down when he’s ready.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Nico asked quietly.
Lewis looked at him - fully, directly, without armour.
“Then,” Lewis said, “we go up.”
Something in Nico went very still, then very warm, as Charles watched them, heart full in a way that hurt but felt right.
Then, footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Everyone froze.
Even the castle stilled, the lamps holding their breath and floorboards quieting into reverence.
Max appeared first, not guarded, not shattered, just… Max again. A little red-eyed, hair slightly mussed and expression calm in a way that came from effort rather than suppression. Seb followed a step behind, composure bright as his candlelight, wearing the satisfied expression of a man who had successfully prevented an emotional casualty without anyone bleeding on the carpet.
Daniel sprang to his feet. “HE LIVES!”
Max stopped at the bottom of the stairs and blinked at him. “Why would I not live?”
Lando answered from Charles’ elbow, “You had… feelings.”
Max stared. “…So do you. All the time.”
“Yes,” Lando said gravely. “But mine can’t kill me. Yours often seem like they might.”
The rookies nodded in tragic agreement.
Seb patted Max’s shoulder. “They were simply worried, Schatz.”
Max huffed. “They don’t need to be.”
Kimi piped up, tiny but fierce, “We will ALWAYS be.”
Max’s face did something complicated. Charles' did something worse, he smiled.
Max saw it, and cracked, just a little.
He exhaled, rubbed the heel of his hand over his face, and said deadpan:
“Okay. New rule. No one is allowed to stare at me like I’m about to explode. If I explode, I promise you’ll know.”
Daniel gasped. “IS THAT A JOKE??”
Lando shrieked. “HE’S BACK!!”
Oscar hit a triumphant chord. The castle brightened the sconces all at once, as if throwing confetti. Lewis’ lips curved, tiny, elegant and victorious, whilst Nico’s ticking steadied into something almost serene. Even George relaxed an inch, which was the equivalent of another man fainting from relief.
Sebastian clapped his hands once, flame-tips sparking. “Well! Since emotional crises are apparently today’s warm-up, who wants to play cards?”
A collective gasp.
The rookies immediately formed a huddle like a small, uncoordinated rugby team.
Daniel flung an arm around Max. “Oh YES. Let’s ruin friendships.”
Oscar rolled toward the doorway. “I’ll get the deck. And by deck I mean three, because Daniel cheats and I don’t have the bandwidth.”
Daniel gasped, offended. “I do NOT cheat.”
Lando whispered loudly, “He cheats so much.”
George adjusted his teapot lid indignantly. “Then I will supervise. Fairness is essential to morale.”
Lewis drifted past him. “Georgie, you view Pictionary like a hostage negotiation.”
Nico choked. “He once laminated the rules.”
“That was ONE TIME,” George protested. “And the humidity levels were unacceptable.”
The rookies looked at each other with awe.
Ollie whispered, “This is SO much better than television.”
______________________
They migrated to the ballroom, a cavern of soft chandeliers and polished floors that hadn’t hosted dancing in years, but had the perfect acoustics for dramatic reactions.
The castle was delighted and showed it, with curtains unrolling, candles flaring, and a draft sweeping through like a bowing usher.
Max entered last, and for once he didn’t hover at the edges. Instead he walked straight to the long table where Charles was already sitting and sat down next to him - not too close and not too far, just a normal, friendly distance away.
Close enough that their shoulders almost brushed when either of them breathed.
Charles pretended not to notice.
Max pretended worse.
Sebastian floated to the head of the table like a benevolent monarch. “Teams,” he announced. “We begin.”
The rookies instantly scrambled into formation across one side of the table - a six-unit hive mind.
Kimi sat in front, eyes fierce. Jack shuffled the cards with the solemnity of a priest. Liam and Isack cracked their knuckles like they were entering a professional tournament. Gabi adjusted the chairs with unnecessary precision. Ollie whispered, “We can do this. We’ve trained our whole lives for this moment boys.”
They had not.
Daniel planted himself opposite them and spread his cards like a man presenting a legal argument built entirely on lies. “Listen up, children. This is a delicate art. Cheating is not cheating if you commit it with confidence.”
George looked appalled. “We are HERE to model integrity, Riccardio.”
Lewis, sliding gracefully into the seat beside Nico, smirked. “Yes, George. And you are modelling it loudly.”
Nico tried to hide a smile, failed, and immediately stared at the table as if it caused the offense.
Oscar took his place beside Lando, who was vibrating like a small appliance. “Alright,” Oscar said dryly, “Lando and the rookies are forbidden from sitting on the same side of the table. The structural integrity of the castle is at stake.”
Lando pouted. “But we’re besties.”
“You are a hazard,” Oscar replied.
______________________
The game began.
And immediately devolved.
Daniel’s first play was illegal in three different countries. George tried his best to confiscate the cards that did not belong to him.
Lewis and Nico, horrifyingly, played in perfect silence, predicting each other’s moves without speaking, trading glances so subtle they could have been micro-expressions or telepathy.
Daniel pointed at them. “NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. THAT IS CHEATING VIA SOULMATE ENERGY.”
Lewis did not look up. “Consider it teamwork.”
Nico adjusted his clock-hands sweetly. “Are you jealous, Daniel?”
Daniel sputtered. “OF COURSE I’M JEALOUS.”
Across the table, the rookies reacted as a single organism - gasping, whispering, fist-pumping, and at one point, high-fiving so hard Gabi fell off his chair.
And Oscar calmly fed Lando quiet (helpful) suggestions, which for some reason Lando always repeated at full volume.
“OSCAR SAYS PLAY THE RED ONE.”
“Yes,” Oscar sighed, “brilliant, thank you Lan, subtle as always.”
Through all of it, Max played badly.
Very badly.
Not obviously - he still held his cards correctly, still made logical choices - but his attention was shot.
His eyes kept drifting, to Charles’ hands, to Charles’ profile, to the way Charles smiled when the rookies won a round by accident and immediately celebrated like they’d conquered Rome. Charles caught him twice and was kind enough not to comment, instead just softening at the corners of his mouth.
Max lost three rounds in a row.
Daniel stared at him, scandalised. “You’re throwing.”
Max shrugged. “Maybe I’m distracted.”
Charles raised a brow, all innocence. “By what?”
Max stared at him for half a second too long.
The chandelier brightened.
Daniel screamed.
Oscar buried his keyboard in despair. “Sebastian, please, for the love of God, regulate the emotional lighting.”
Seb lifted a flame. “I will do nothing of the sort. This is the most progress we’ve seen in years.”
Lewis murmured, “I told you. Patience.”
Nico replied softly, so softly Lewis was the only one who heard, “I’m trying.”
Lewis’ expression flickered - pride, fondness, something warmer.
Somehow, the rookies noticed.
They exploded into delighted chaos.
Daniel snapped his fingers. “That’s it. I’m calling it now ... Brocedes is ENDGAME.”
Nico nearly combusted. “STOP SAYING THAT.”
Lewis looked unbothered. “He’s not wrong.”
Nico made a noise like a distressed metronome.
______________________
In the end, the rookies won.
Not through strategy. Through sheer, overwhelming enthusiasm.
They leapt up screaming, chairs flying backwards, Kimi standing on the table like a victorious war-general.
“We protected Max’s honour!” Kimi declared.
“You did nothing of the sort,” Oscar muttered.
Max leaned back in his chair, one hand over his eyes, laughing, quietly and helplessly, the kind of laugh pulled from somewhere deep. Something in the castle unfurled at the sound. Not magic exactly, but relief.
Charles watched him, really watched him, until Max lowered his hand and met his gaze. For once, there was no wall between them but rather a wire, alive and bright.
Charles smiled, small and private and just for him, and Max returned it just because he could now.
______________________
Later, when the cards were put away and George forced everyone to hydrate and Lando had fallen asleep half on Oscar and half on Charles’ arm with Leo underneath them, Max passed behind Charles’ chair on his way out of the ballroom.
He didn’t stop, he didn’t speak, he just let his fingers brush - very lightly - across Charles’ shoulder.
Barely contact, but intentional. The castle glowed.
And for the first time since the curse began, nothing felt fragile and everything felt possible.
Chapter 9: Lessons in Subtlety (None of Which Max Learns)
Summary:
Before we jump into recaps pls note that I don’t know shit about cars, other than what my dad and Wheeler Dealers taught me over the years. And, I definitely don’t know how to repair a Ferrari engine, so I’m sorry in advance for what follows...
Anyway,
Sebastian: I raised a perfectly sane and helpful child.
Charles: Do you have another child I don’t know about?
-----------------
Max: Yeah I am 4 times WDC Max Verstappen.
Charles: Oh so I wasn't schizophrenic ????
-----------------
Lando: Please don't do this, I love you guys.
Rookies: I'm sorry but we have to.
Lando: Pls after all we've been through together? You'd ruin the family?
Rookies: I'm sorry [places a +4 card}
Rookies: Uno
Lando: *Cries into Oscars shoulder*
Max: *Is so busy staring at Charles that he missed the whole thing.*
Chapter Text
The workshop stopped feeling like a tomb the day Charles started bringing Max a Red Bull in the morning, alongside his own coffee. An acknowledgment from Charles, that he remembered Max’s past and accepted it.
Not a grand announcement or a cinematic flourish, just a silver and blue can, left beside Charles’ chipped mug, and left on a corner workbench that had previously held nothing but dust and resentment. The smell of coffee mingled with oil and metal and old rain, domestic and human.
The château noticed first.
The air in the workshop shifted even more. No longer did it feel like a graveyard, but now rather a greenhouse, with potential new roots curling at the edges of things.
Max noticed second.
He would never admit that the sight of Charles perched cross-legged on a stool, mug balanced precariously on a stack of manuals, made his chest feel too full. Or that he had started making sure the workshop was warm before Charles came down each morning; lamps brightened, drafts hushed, and the tools laid out in clean, neat lines.
It was just practical.
That was all.
Obviously.
The Ferrari still looked like the aftermath of a bad decision (although … it was the aftermath of a bad decision). They had replaced panels, rewired electrics, coaxed life back into parts that should have been scrap. But the car remained unfinished, balanced in that liminal space between wreck and resurrection.
But Charles liked it there, in that subliminal space.
“It’s like you,” Charles said once, blunt in that earnest way that never felt cruel. “Not dead. Not whole. Just sort of stuck in the middle.”
Max stared at him. “You realise that’s not the reassuring metaphor you think it is.”
Charles grinned. “You can choose to feel complimented anyway. I do.”
“I’m not you,” Max muttered.
“Tragically,” Charles replied.
Max had not recovered form for the rest of the afternoon.
Today, the light poured through the workshop windows in a low golden slant, catching sweat on forearms and the faint smear of grease on Charles’ cheek that Max absolutely was not staring at. Charles leaned over the engine bay, his brow furrowed and lips pursed in concentration. His hair, which had gotten too long, fell into his eyes. He blew it out of the way, only to have it fall straight back again.
Max lasted thirty seconds.
“Hold still,” Max said.
Charles glanced up, puzzled, but did not move when Max stepped closer.
Max reached out, all rough fingers and gentle touch, and brushed the hair back, tucking it behind Charles’ ear. His knuckles grazed skin. Warm skin. Charles’ breath hitched, barely, and Max realised what he’d done, snatching his hand back in response.
“There,” Max said stiffly. “You looked stupid.”
Charles smiled, ever so slow and doubly devastating. “Merci Max.”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” Max protested.
“It was, I think,” Charles said. “You just lack emotional vocabulary.”
From the corner, Oscar rolled closer on piano wheels, lid half-open like a raised eyebrow. “You two are flirting,” Oscar observed, deadpan.
“We’re working,” Max said.
“And flirting,” Oscar repeated.
Charles tilted his head thoughtfully. “I am, yes Oscar.”
Max choked, and the rookies, who had absolutely been hiding behind a stack of tyres, made strangled noises into their sleeves.
Kimi whispered, “Do we intervene?”
“Absolutely not,” Liam whispered back. “This is seminal.”
______________________
The work itself would have been meditative if Max weren’t so hopelessly aware of the man sharing his space.
They fitted a new manifold, shoulders brushing. Max passed Charles a socket wrench and Charles’ fingers lingered a half-second longer than necessary when he took it. Sparks danced somewhere inside the walls.
“Explain this bit again,” Charles said, nodding at the assembly. “You know I’m not stupid, but I have never repaired a V12 engine before.”
“Also, I like it when you talk.” He tacked on like it was nothing.
“I don’t talk that much,” Max said defensively.
“You talk a lot when it’s engines,” Charles replied. “It’s like listening to a… sermon. Or maybe a love letter. Depending on the day.”
Max nearly dropped a bolt.
He managed to recover with only a slight clatter and a very aggressive exhale. “The flow path,” Max said, a little too sharply, “is what we’re changing here. It will affect throttle response. So we need to align this - ”
Max took Charles’ hand without thinking, adjusting Charles’ grip on the part and guiding the angle, his thumb pressed along the inside of Charles’ wrist.
Charles went very still.
Max felt Charles’ pulse under his thumb. Beating dangerously fast.
The castle’s lamps flared.
They both ignored it.
“ - like this,” Max finished more quietly. “Feel the line. Don’t force it. Let it fall into the place where it wants to sit.”
Charles swallowed. “I see.”
“Good,” Max said, stepping back like he’d just touched fire.
Oscar played a soft chord that sounded suspiciously like, idiot.
______________________
Later, when the sun sank lower and the light turned honey-thick, Max decided Charles was ready.
“Start the auxiliary,” Max said. “I want you to listen.”
Charles obeyed, flipping the switch and leaning close to the engine as it rumbled to life. The sound was rough but not sickly, more like a voice clearing its throat.
“We will get proper data later,” Max said, coming around to stand beside him. “But first you learn it this way.”
Charles frowned. “What way?”
Max tilted his head, listening. “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes,” Max repeated. “If you’re looking, you’ll try to match numbers. I want you to feel it first.”
Charles hesitated, then obeyed. The castle dimmed the workshop slightly, as if in solidarity.
Max stepped closer. So close Charles could feel Max’s breath at his temple, the warmth of Max’s body at his side.
“Now what?” Charles murmured.
“Give me your hand,” Max said.
Charles did. No hesitation. Somewhere along the way he had begun to trust Max with his life.
Max took it, turned it palm-down, and pressed it gently against the engine block, near a safe point of contact but where the vibration was strongest. Then Max laid his own hand over Charles’, broad, rough and anchoring.
Charles sucked in a breath. Max pretended not to notice, even as his own pulse stuttered.
“Feel that?” Max asked.
Charles nodded once.
The vibration thrummed through their joined hands, through the muscle and the bone, through the fragile bridge of connection neither of them dared name.
“When it’s too lean, it will feel tighter. Higher frequency,” Max said quietly, voice dropping into a register that tugged at something behind Charles’ ribs. “Too rich, it will feel sluggish. Heavy. Not just the sound, but the sensation.”
“Like listening with the skin,” Charles whispered.
“Yes,” Max said.
Charles risked a small smile, eyes still closed. “Poetic of you.”
“It’s descriptive,” Max muttered.
“It’s both.”
They stood there, hands layered, listening.
Breathing.
Existing, gently, in the same small pocket of air.
The château melted around them, not literally, but it felt like it. Edges softening, walls humming, light pooling warm. A rag on a nearby workbench slid slightly toward them as if even inanimate fabric wanted to be closer.
Charles eventually opened his eyes, and still Max didn’t move his hand.
“Alright,” Charles said. “So this, right now - this is…?”
“Almost right,” Max replied. “We’ll lean it out slightly later. For now, I just want you to remember this as a baseline.”
Charles held his gaze, hands still together on cool metal. “I am not sure that I could forget it.”
Oscar coughed from across the room. “Do you two need the rest of us to leave, or…?”
Max dropped Charles’ hand like it had burned.
Charles smiled, unbothered. “He’s teaching me to feel.”
Oscar stared. “Right... I never thought I’d see the day … Max Verstappen teaches someone to feel.”
______________________
Charles didn’t mean to fall asleep there.
He meant to finish bolting one last bracket and then go upstairs, to wash and maybe read, or more likely to think about Max in ways that were becoming increasingly unhelpful.
Instead, fatigue ambushed him.
Hours later, Max looked up from a bench where he had been quietly calibrating a sensor, and realised he hadn’t heard Charles for at least thirty minutes. Which was alarming. Charles was a constant source of sound - humming, muttering to himself, asking questions, saying “Max” in a way that made the castle’s stones shift as if leaning in closer.
And so Max turned and quickly saw why.
Charles was slumped on the floor, back against the Ferrari’s side, legs stuck out in an unglamorous sprawl. One arm lay palm-up on the ground, fingers curled around nothing. His head was tilted at an angle that made Max’s neck hurt in sympathy.
Max stood.
Walked over.
Stopped.
And then knelt beside him.
“Charles,” Max said softly. “Hey.”
No response. Just slow, even breathing. Up close, Charles looked younger. The tension in his forehead was gone, leaving a kind of vulnerable openness that made Max’s chest ache.
“You idiot,” Max whispered, and it came out far too tender.
He reached out.
Hesitated.
Then brushed his knuckles very lightly against Charles’ temple, not to wake him, just to reassure himself that he was warm and real and there. Sometimes he still worried, despite the months that had passed since the accident.
The castle shivered and Max exhaled.
“You can’t sleep here,” Max said quietly. “You’ll hurt your back. And Seb will kill me if you catch a cold from the concrete. And the rookies will cry. Again.”
Still no movement, although Charles’ lips parted slightly, something like a murmur caught behind them.
Max sighed, low and resigned.
“Fine,” Max muttered. “You win.”
He slipped one arm under Charles’ knees, careful not to wrench anything. The other arm went behind Charles’ shoulders, gathering him up in a fluid, practiced motion. Max had carried unconscious teammates off tracks before. This should have felt the same.
It didn’t.
Charles melted against him.
Charles’ head dropped onto Max’s shoulder, face nestling into the curve of his neck. Warm breath ghosted against Max’s skin as one of Charles’ hands bunched weakly in Max’s shirt, like some part of Charles’ subconscious refused to let go entirely.
Max stood slowly, as if any sudden movement might break the spell.
And the workshop, traitor that it was, glowed. Lamps brightened, shadows retreated and the air smelled less like oil and more like rain on stone and a hint of coffee.
Max’s heartbeat had decided to relocate to his throat.
He forced himself to move, each step measured, boots sound barely whispering against the floor. The castle shifted in response, doors opening a second before he reached them, carpets smoothing themselves out, the usual creaks and groans of old wood falling conspicuously silent.
At the base of the main staircase, Daniel peeked around the corner, eyes widening comically.
“Oh my God,” Daniel breathed. “Oh my God.”
Lando rolled into view, nearly tipping over in fear. “Is he DEAD?!”
“No,” Max hissed, lowering his voice out of instinct. “He’s sleeping.”
Daniel clasped his hands together. “You’re carrying him. MAX EMILIAN. Do you understand the symbolism -- ”
“If you say one word with more than four syllables, I will put you in the moat,” Max said.
“We don’t have a moat,” Lando whispered.
“We can arrange one,” Max replied.
The banister under his free hand warmed. It appeared the castle was delighted.
Seb appeared halfway up the stairs, flames bright and his expression a complicated mix of tenderness and smugness. “Oh,” Seb said, voice softening. “Finally.”
“Don’t,” Max warned.
“I haven’t said anything,” Seb protested innocently.
“You’re radiating commentary,” Max muttered.
Seb’s smile gentled. “Get him to bed, Schatz. We will debrief your emotional growth later.”
Max pretended not to hear that.
Carrying Charles to his room felt like walking through a corridor of witnesses. The paintings on the walls seemed to lean a fraction closer and the light overhead tracked their progress like a spotlight.
Max paused at Charles’ door and nudged it open with his foot. The bedroom welcomed them with a rush of warmth.
Max lowered Charles onto the bed as if laying something sacred on an altar. He adjusted the pillow beneath Charles’ head and tugged the blanket up over his chest. Charles made a soft, sleepy sound that hit Max like a physical blow.
As Max straightened up, Charles’ hand latched onto his wrist, fingers barely curling.
“Mm,” Charles murmured. “Stay.”
Max froze.
His gaze darted to Charles’ face.
Charles’ eyes were still closed, lashes fanned against his cheeks. Completely asleep.
Max swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.
“I can’t,” Max whispered. “If I stay now, then I won’t ever leave again.”
The château’s walls shivered around him.
Max carefully pried Charles’ hand from his wrist and tucked it gently under the blanket.
“Sleep,” Max said instead, the word more like an apology than an order. “You’re safe.”
He hesitated at the door, looked back once, and then forced himself to step out, closing the door with quiet care.
He didn’t see the way the curtains lifted in a phantom breeze, or how the room’s lamps dimmed to a perfect softness, or how the bed warmed a fraction more around Charles, as if the castle were wrapping him in Max’s absence.
______________________
The next day, the rookies convened a council.
This was not unusual. They convened councils over everything; snack distribution, prank ethics, which of them was most likely to die if Max ever found out who had rearranged the torque specs shelf.
But this council had weight.
They cornered Charles in the hallway outside the library, where he was attempting to return a book and not think about how his neck still ached pleasantly from having been carried.
Kimi stepped forward as spokesperson, goggles perched on his head like a crown of serious intention.
“Charles,” Kimi said. “We have decided something.”
“That’s never good,” Oscar muttered from the nearby piano, rolled in for atmosphere.
Charles regarded them with wary amusement. “What have you decided?”
Jack straightened his tiny shoulders. “We had a vote.”
Liam added, “We used a real ballot box.”
Isack nodded. “And statistical verification.”
Gabi produced a sheet of parchment with chaotic handwriting on it. “And we made a certificate.”
Ollie held something behind his back, vibrating.
Kimi took a breath.
“We have voted you as the Future Second Dad,” Kimi announced.
The castle hummed as if stamping an official seal.
“Pardon?” Charles blinked. “I am the what?”
“The Future Second Dad,” Liam repeated, as if clarifying. “Of the house. Of us. Of - ” He made a vague wave that encompassed everything. “Everything.”
“We love Max, obviously,” Isack hurried to add. “He’s still our First Dad.”
“He always will be,” confirmed Jack.
“But you’re the one who’s going to… you know.” Gabi flailed his hands, then whispered reverently, “Fix things.”
Charles felt something in his chest wobble. “I’m not - ”
“We made you this,” Ollie blurted, finally whipping the object out from behind his back.
It was a sash.
Of course it was a sash. Max had warned him after all.
White fabric, slightly crooked stitching, hand-painted letters reading FUTURE SECOND DAD with small, uneven hearts and badly drawn tires around the edges. Somehow glitter had been involved.
Charles stared at it.
Inexplicably, his eyes stung. Leo yapped at his feet.
“Put it on,” Jack urged. “Please.”
Charles laughed, soft, startled. “You realise Max is going to have an aneurysm if he sees this.”
“We know,” Kimi said calmly. “That’s part of the fun.”
Charles let them drape the sash over his shoulder and the castle lit the nearest sconces with an extra little flourish. Oscar played a gently mocking fanfare.
Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Max came around the corner, clearly on his way to the workshop, his expression already beginning to crease with familiar concentration.
He stopped dead.
Silence fell.
Max’s gaze travelled slowly from Charles’ face to the sash and back up.
Charles lifted his chin, eyes bright with barely contained laughter. “Good morning.”
Max stared at the words FUTURE SECOND DAD.
Seb’s distant cackle echoed faintly through the stone.
Daniel materialised from nowhere. “THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.”
Max opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“That’s not - ” Max began weakly. “That sash is factually - ”
“Premature?” Lewis suggested smoothly as he appeared behind Max, wardrobe doors half-open in interest.
“Inaccurate,” Max managed.
The rookies gasped.
“Do you not want him to be our Future Dad?” Ollie demanded, scandalised.
Max flushed a deep, betraying red. “That’s not - I didn’t say - ”
“He didn’t say that,” Nico cut in, handing George a stack of tea cups like this was the most ordinary conversation in the world. “He meant we should not assume inevitability.”
Lewis coughed delicately. “But we might suspect it.”
Max looked like he had been hit with a low-speed but emotionally devastating car.
Charles watched him. Watched the flush, the fluster, the way Max’s hand curled around the banister as if physically holding himself steady.
Charles smiled, gentle and fond. “You can take it up with my campaign team,” he said, giving Max a way out. “I’m only the figurehead.”
Kimi beamed. “WE HAVE A CAMPAIGN?”
The castle thrummed with unhinged joy as Max dragged a hand down his face and muttered something creative in Dutch.
But he didn’t tell Charles to take the sash off.
______________________
Later, after the ‘sleep incident’ and the ‘sash incident’, after Charles had disappeared up to his bedroom with Leo at his side and a faint blush that had not left his cheeks, Max found Seb in the small sitting room that had unofficially become “Seb’s corner”.
Seb was reading something ancient and probably boring, candles hovering around him like a private constellation.
Max hovered in the doorway.
Seb looked up. “You have the look of a man who has just been emotionally mugged,” Seb observed.
“I’m not - ” Max started, then stopped. “I need to ask you something.”
Seb closed the book slowly, giving him his full attention. “That sentence alone is progress.”
Max ignored that, choosing instead to cross the room and sit in the chair opposite, posture so stiff he might as well have been bolted there.
Seb waited.
Max scowled. “How do you… theoretically … show interest. In someone. Without…” He gestured vaguely. “Being weird.”
Seb blinked.
Then smiled, slowly, like sunrise. “You want to be subtle?”
“Yes,” Max said.
Seb folded his flame-hands together. “You understand that you are, by nature, not subtle.”
“I can be,” Max insisted. “I have restraint.”
“You have repression,” Seb corrected cheerfully. “Different thing.”
Max glared.
Seb sobered, but his eyes stayed warm. “Well. Start with what you’re good at.”
“Breaking things?” Max said dryly.
“Fixing things,” Seb replied. “You pay attention. You notice what people need before they ask. Use that.”
“I already do that,” Max muttered.
“Then do it more,” Seb said. “Deliberately. Let him see you care.”
Max shifted, uncomfortable. “That’s not… subtle.”
“That’s affection,” Seb said. “If you want subtle, here.” He counted on his flames. “Stand closer. Look at his mouth ‘by accident’. Mirror his gestures. Laugh at his terrible jokes.”
“His jokes are good,” Max said, offended.
“There you are,” Seb said softly. “You’re halfway there already.”
Max stared at the fireplace and said helplessly, “He’s wearing a sash that says ‘Future Second Dad’.”
Seb made a strangled noise of glee. “I know. I had to pretend I didn’t see it so he wouldn’t be embarrassed. But he wasn’t, was he?”
Max remembered the way Charles’ eyes had sparkled. How easily he’d worn the title like something that fit too well.
“No,” Max admitted. “He wasn’t.”
Seb’s gaze softened. “You’re in trouble, Schatz.”
“I know,” Max said.
“You can’t un-know this,” Seb continued. “You love him.”
“I didn’t say that Seb,” Max protested, heart slamming.
“You didn’t need to,” Seb replied. “The château said it for you. The ferrari said it. The way you carried him upstairs might as well have been a declaration in skywriting.”
Max covered his face with one hand. “I’m not… ready.”
“Of course you’re not ready,” Seb said gently. “No one ever is. That’s what makes it real.”
Max expelled a breath. “I asked how to be subtle. Not for you to narrate my demise.”
Seb leaned back, giving him a little space. “Fine. Subtle. Do what you already do, but let him see the intention.”
“How?” Max demanded. “Explain like I’m… Ollie.”
“Leave things where he can find them,” Seb said. “The tool he always forgets. The coffee he likes. Fix the hinge on his door so it no longer catches. Ask about his day and listen to the answer.”
“I already do that,” Max muttered.
“Then,” Seb said, “stop pretending you don’t.”
Max looked up.
Seb’s gaze was kind, heartbreakingly kind. “You’re allowed to like him,” Seb said. “You’re allowed to want him here. You’re allowed to look at him the way you do.”
“How do I look at him?” Max asked warily.
“Like he’s the checkered flag at the end of a race you didn’t know you were running,” Seb answered.
Max groaned. “That’s disgusting.”
“It’s beautiful,” Seb corrected. “And if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it.”
Max sat there a long moment, absorbing the enormity of being perceived.
Then he said, cautious, “What if I ruin it?”
“You will,” Seb replied easily. “Repeatedly. That’s how relationships work. The point is to ruin it together and then fix it. You’re very good at fixing things.”
Max huffed a reluctant laugh. “Charles calls me domesticated now.”
“Oh, that’s terminal,” Seb said happily. “You’re doomed.”
But his voice was soft with pride.
______________________
Meanwhile, in a different corner of the château , Charles made a similarly catastrophic choice. He went to Lewis, and by extension Nico, for advice.
He found Lewis in the wardrobe room, of course, rearranging fabrics with the ruthless efficiency of someone who considered colour palettes a moral axis.
Lewis glanced up as Charles entered. “Ah. My favourite chaos vector.”
Charles leaned against the doorframe. “Do you have a minute?”
“For you?” Lewis said, reaching for a silk shirt to refold. “Always.”
Charles stepped inside, suddenly unsure. The room smelled like cedar, perfume, and the faint, comforting trace of old magic.
“I wanted to ask… something,” Charles began.
Lewis’ eyes sharpened with interest. “Go on.”
“How do you show interest,” Charles asked, “without scaring someone who is… not so good with feelings?”
Lewis smiled, slow, feline, delighted. “Oh, finally.”
Charles flushed. “This is not - I mean, it’s not necessarily about - ”
“Max,” Lewis finished, waving a dismissive hand. “Spare me the preamble. We’ve all clocked it. The château has pulled out the metaphorical popcorn.”
Charles groaned softly. “Is it that obvious?”
“To everyone but the two of you,” Lewis said. “Sit. I am an expert in repressed, German-speaking men.”
Charles obeyed, perching on a cushioned stool as Lewis fussed with a row of jackets.
“First question,” Lewis said. “Do you want subtle or effective?”
“Both?” Charles tried.
Lewis gave him a sympathetic look. “Adorable, but also not possible.”
Charles laughed despite himself.
“Max does not read nuance well when it comes to himself,” Lewis continued. “You could set yourself on fire in front of him and he would assume the room is cold.”
“I’d rather not take that route,” Charles said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s… so good at hiding. And yet so bad at it at the same time.”
Lewis hummed. “Yes. He’s like a stag hiding in a glasshouse.”
“How poetic,” Charles murmured.
“I contain multitudes,” Lewis said, shrugging.
A pointed cough came from behind a row of coats and both Charles and Lewis froze. A wardrobe door eased open just enough to reveal Nico, polishing his clock casing with aggressive dignity.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Nico said crisply. “I’m just listening to Lewis Hamilton, the apostle of emotional subtlety.”
Lewis closed his eyes. “Nico - ”
“No, no, please continue,” Nico said, stepping fully into view. “Tell Charles more about subtle romantic communication. I’m sure your unmatched expertise dates back to, what, 2001?”
Lewis blinked. “I was very smooth in 2001.”
Nico barked a laugh. “You tried to court me by leaving engine telemetry on my desk.”
“It was your telemetry, personal notes,” Lewis snapped.
“It was DATA,” Nico fired back. “You flirted in spreadsheets.”
Charles stared between them, delighted and terrified. “So this is… normal?”
“No,” Nico said.
“Yes,” Lewis said.
They glared at each other.
Nico crossed his arms, ticking slightly faster. “Tell him the part where you spent eight months pretending you didn’t like me and then nearly combusted when someone else offered me a seat.”
Lewis lifted his chin. “I was dignified.”
“You sent me a fourteen-page letter,” Nico said.
“It was mainly bullet points,” Lewis corrected.
“There were appendices,” Nico seethed.
Charles bit his lip to keep from laughing. “So… you weren’t always this smooth?”
Lewis gave him a betrayed look. “I am smooth now and that’s what matters.”
“Debatable,” Nico muttered.
Lewis ignored him with the grace of someone who had decades of practice. “As I was saying - ”
Nico made a strangled noise. “Unbelievable.”
Lewis placed a gentle hand on Nico’s arm without looking at him. “Tick slower, darling. Your hinge is going to lock.”
Nico’s ticking softened instantly and Charles watched the transformation, stunned.
Lewis smirked. “See? Smooth.”
Nico flushed metallic gold and refused to comment.
Lewis turned back to Charles, victorious. “Now. Where were we?”
Charles was still trying to recover. “Uh -- how not to scare Max.”
“Right.” Lewis resumed, calm and wise again. “Stay. Show up when he expects you. Consistency is intimacy for someone like him.”
Charles nodded, serious now.
“And ask about things that aren’t the curse,” Nico added. “His other life. His favourite tracks. The first thing he ever drove. His worst haircut. His best memory. Let him be something in your eyes besides tragedy.”
“I already want that,” Charles said softly.
“Good,” Lewis said. “Next, touch.”
Charles nearly dropped his composure. “What?”
Nico made a distressed clicking sound. “Lewis -- ”
“Relax,” Lewis told both of them. “I mean small things. Shoulder bumps. Handing him a wrench with your fingers brushing. You two generate more emotional voltage from one grease smudge than most couples do with a weekend getaway.”
Nico covered his face with both hands. “I’m reliving my youth and I hate it.”
Lewis patted his back. “Hush.”
Nico whispered, mortified, “You flirted with data tables, Lewis.”
“And yet you married me,” Lewis replied sweetly.
Nico went silent.
The ticking paused.
Charles’ heart twisted.
Lewis turned back to him, voice gentling. “You’re not going to run, are you?”
“No,” Charles said at once, surprised by the steadiness in his own voice. “Even if I should.”
Lewis smiled, soft and proud. “Good boy. Then you’re already doing more for him than any magic could.”
Charles exhaled. “And if he doesn’t… feel the same?”
“He does,” Lewis said simply. “But if he never says it, you will know you tried. You will know you were kind. That matters. We know what happens to this house when love is offered and refused.”
Charles thought of the West Wing.
The trophy.
The clawed wall.
“I don’t want to curse him further,” he whispered.
Lewis laid a warm hand on his shoulder. “You won’t, you’re not here to curse him. You’re here because, for some reason, the universe decided he deserved a chance he missed the first time.”
Charles swallowed. “Do you believe that?”
Nico answered before Lewis could.
“Yes,” Nico said quietly, sincerity slipping through. “We do.”
Lewis nudged him, gently. “See? Smooth.”
Nico glared. “Shut up.”
Lewis beamed. Then, with devastating cheer,
“Now go, before I start designing coordinated declarations of love. I have sketches.”
Charles froze. “You have what?”
Lewis just winked.
Nico muttered, “Run while you still can.”
Charles did.
And the castle brightened as he went.
______________________
The days stretched.
Soft.
Dangerous.
Beautiful.
Max started doing exactly what Seb had told him to do, so so badly but earnestly.
He left Charles’ favourite mug clean and ready on the workbench each morning. He fixed the sticking hinge on Charles’ wardrobe door without being asked. When Charles mentioned in passing that he missed the way the ocean sounded near Monaco, Max showed him a part of the grounds where the wind curled off the cliffs in a similar echo.
He stood closer.
He laughed more.
He let the castle warm around them without snapping at it to stop.
Charles, coached by Lewis, responded with his own gentle siege.
He showed up. Every day. On time. He brought stories - childhood chaos, racing memories shared with his brothers, tiny absurdities from life before all this. He asked Max questions that had nothing to do with the curse, about his own family, still safe in the Netherlands. He let his hands linger, continuing to wipe grease from Max’s cheek with his thumb, making terrible jokes about “war paint”.
Max often laughed a little too loudly, but the château blossomed.
Hallways that rearranged themselves less to prevent accidents and more to facilitate proximity; doors that opened conveniently into shared spaces, chairs that ended up a little too close, the single sofa that absolutely did not need to be quite that small suddenly replacing a larger one in the salon.
George pretended not to notice and then started brewing more tea.
Nico’s ticking settled into a calmer rhythm.
Daniel leaned into the drama with glee.
Oscar remained exasperated and quietly soft.
Lewis and Nico bickered less and walked in step more.
The rookies drew increasingly elaborate diagrams of “Max’s Emotional Progress” and taped them secretly to the underside of tables.
And Max?
Max was in love.
He did not have the word yet.
But he had everything else; the ache, the pull, the absurd happiness when Charles walked into a room, the quiet devastation when Charles yawned and smiled and said his name.
Everyone saw it, but the castle saw it most of all, and it responded the only way it knew how, by growing light wherever they stood.
And though Max did not understand it yet, not fully, he didn’t flinch from it anymore.
Not every time.
Sometimes, late in the workshop, with Charles laughing at something stupid and the Ferrari slowly becoming whole again, Max even let himself think,
If this is a curse, I could live in it.
The house heard. The roses bloomed harder. And somewhere deep in stone and spell and memory, the old magic loosened one more careful, trembling knot.
Night settled over the château the way a sigh settles into a tired body, slowly, softly and without asking permission.
Most of the house slept.
The rookies collapsed in a heap somewhere between the library and a plate of abandoned biscuits. Daniel snored face-down on a chaise like a man who had died mid-monologue. Oscar closed his lid in self-defence. George kept vigil over everyone’s hydration levels even while unconscious.
But in the small hours, two figures remained awake.
Seb drifted onto the moonlit balcony that overlooked the south garden, roses glowing faintly in the dark like embers that refused to cool.
And Lewis was already there, because of course he was. Leaning against the balustrade, his wooden arms folded and expression carved from patient irony. The breeze fluttered the edges of his silks as if the night itself had dressed to impress him.
Seb settled beside him, flames dimmed to a soft, candle-gold hush. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Lewis sighed, long and elegant. “I’m surrounded by emotionally stunted men. Rest is a fantasy.”
Seb smiled, warm and private. “They’re trying.”
Lewis arched a brow. “Are they? Because from where I stand, Charles is one heartfelt conversation away from spontaneous combustion, and Max looks like he’ll need divine intervention to admit he has a crush.”
Seb’s flame-shoulders lifted in a gentle shrug. “He carried Charles to bed.”
Lewis stared at him. “You’re joking.”
“No,” Seb said, pleased. “With both arms. Bridal style.”
Lewis covered his mouth with his hand, not to hide laughter but to contain something dangerously close to hope. “Well. That’s practically a marriage proposal for Max.”
“He didn’t drop him,” Seb added proudly.
“Stunning progress,” Lewis deadpanned. “Next he might voluntarily sit next to someone on a sofa.”
Seb’s flames flickered with amusement. “He stood very close in the workshop today.”
Lewis inhaled sharply. “Proximity?”
“Proximity,” Seb confirmed.
They shared a moment of reverent silence, like priests witnessing a minor miracle.
Then Lewis murmured, softer, “He’s opening.”
Seb nodded. “Slowly. Terrifyingly. But yes.”
The roses rustled below, stirred by a breeze that wasn’t weather.
Lewis watched them with an unreadable expression. “Do you think it will last this time?”
Seb didn’t answer immediately. His flame-eyes softened with memory of before, not dramatic, just deeply lived.
“It’s already different Lew,” Seb said. “Before, Max was loved at him. This time he is being loved for him.”
Lewis let out a quiet breath. “Charles sees him.”
“Charles refuses not to,” Seb corrected. “And Max is not used to being someone’s choice rather than their responsibility.”
Lewis hummed, low and thoughtful. “He doesn’t know what to do with gentleness.”
“No,” Sebastian agreed. “But he’s learning.”
A pause.
A warm one.
The kind that sits between two people who have survived long enough to recognise fragile miracles when they appear.
And then Lewis tapped one finger against the stone railing. “Charles asked me how to show interest without scaring him.”
Sebastian grinned. “Ah, good. He came to the expert.”
From inside the castle, a faint ticking erupted, fast and outraged.
“I HEARD THAT,” Nico yelled from some distant corridor.
Lewis smirked. “He only meant recently, darling.”
The ticking softened into flustered silence.
Sebastian looked deeply satisfied. “So what did you tell Charles?”
Lewis lifted his chin, regal. “To stay. To show up. To touch lightly. To ask about things that aren’t the curse.”
“Astonishing advice,” Seb said gravely. “You never used any of it.”
Lewis pressed a hand to his chest, scandalised. “I was subtle.”
“You were a catastrophe with bad hair,” Seb corrected.
Lewis sniffed. “And still irresistible.”
“Unfortunately,” Nico muttered faintly from inside.
Seb’s flame-laugh glowed across the balcony, warm enough to feel.
Then Lewis’ voice gentled, losing its sharpness like a blade sheathing itself. “Charles doesn’t want to break him.”
“He won’t,” Seb said. “He’s the first person who isn’t trying to fix Max. Just… be with him.”
Lewis looked out across the moonlit garden, at the roses, the softened shadows, the faint glow of windows where magic breathed like a sleeping heartbeat.
“The castle is waking up,” Lewis murmured.
“It was waiting,” Seb said quietly.
“For what?”
Seb’s answer came without hesitation.
“For someone to stay.”
Lewis swallowed once, almost imperceptibly. “Do you ever think,” he said, voice carefully casual, “that we’re getting a second chance? Not us - but… all of this?”
Seb’s flames flickered, faint and nostalgic. “I think curses don’t break from grand gestures,” he said. “They break from small, repeated kindnesses.”
Lewis smiled, soft and aching. “Well. Max is doomed then.”
“Completely,” Seb agreed. “Charles likes him too much.”
Lewis huffed a quiet laugh. “Idiots.”
Seb leaned his flame-elbows on the rail, watching the night like it was a living thing. “The best kind. They’re going to ruin everything.”
“And then?” Lewis asked.
“And then,” Seb said, gently triumphant, “they’ll rebuild it. Together.”
Lewis exhaled, almost sounding relieved. “About time.”
Seb nodded. “We’ve been waiting a very long time.”
Silence settled but it wasn't empty, before Seb glanced sideways. “And what about you and Nico?” he asked lightly, but not joking. “Something’s shifted.”
Lewis didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze stayed on the garden, voice low. “He stopped running,” Lewis said. “Or maybe I stopped chasing. Hard to tell the difference when you’ve been circling the same thing for years. I think Max and Charles inspired us in a way.”
Seb’s flames gentled. “You look… less afraid.”
Lewis let out a soft, surprised breath. “So does he.”
A beat.
Then Lewis added, barely above a whisper, “We’re trying again. Slowly. Carefully.”
And at that Seb smiled, not dramatic, not smug. Just full of old, steady warmth. “Good. You deserve soft endings too.”
Lewis huffed a quiet laugh. “I don’t know if Nico and I qualify as ‘soft.’”
“No,” Seb agreed thoughtfully. “More like… emotionally enriched shrapnel.”
Lewis snorted. “Thank you for that beautiful image.”
Seb bowed his head in mock grace. “Please Lew, I’m a poet.”
“You’re a menace,” Lewis corrected.
Seb’s flames brightened just a little. “And yet you love me anyway.”
From somewhere deep in the castle, Nico’s distant, indignant voice echoed;
“I HEARD THAT AS WELL VETTEL !”
Lewis smiled small, helpless, unguarded.
Seb clapped him lightly on the shoulder, as close to an embrace as a candelabra could manage. “See? Progress everywhere.”
Lewis shook his head, but he was still smiling. “Our idiot boys don’t stand a chance, do they?”
Seb looked back out at the blooming roses, the glowing windows, the world shifting one fragile thread at a time.
“Neither did you at one stage,” he said.
Then, with perfect timing:
“But at least this time they’re supervised, you weren’t.”
Lewis laughed, soft and real. The castle hummed in agreement, and the night held them gently, two old souls watching new love learn how to breathe.
Chapter 10: The Workshop Gets Hot (And It’s Not The Engine)
Summary:
This is kinda rubbish and not proof-read because I had a literature exam today and I'm TIREDDDDD and have written enough !
What's happened:
Charles, pointing at a tyre: What does this do ??? :)))))))))
Max: Charles, you're a qualified mechanic.
Charles: I like your voice.
Max: SO ... a tyre is a ring-shaped rubber covering that fits around a wheel's rim to provide traction, absorb shocks and -
-----------------
Ollie: Do you not WANT Charles to be our Future Dad???
Max: I didn’t say that ...
Rookies: Oh so you DO want it? Desperately?
Max: I DIDN’T SAY THAT EITHER?!?!
-----------------
Max: How do you… you know… show interest in someone without being weird?
Seb: Oh my sweet summer child.
Seb: You really think YOU can do that?and, elsewhere ...
Lewis: Ah, my second favourite disaster twink.
Charles: who's the first?
Lewis: My husband, obviously??
Chapter Text
It was all going so beautifully.
That was the problem.
The château had spent three full months in a kind of delirious bloom, as if the magic itself had given up pretending it wasn’t besotted with Max and Charles’ slow, and potentially catastrophic courtship. The halls were warmer, the roses refused to wilt, and the rookies worked like a hive of industrious (albeit emotionally compromised) bees. Even Nico’s ticking had softened into something almost meditative.
And the Ferrari…
The Ferrari sat in the centre of the workshop like a patient finally waking from a dream. Not yet whole, but undeniably alive again, shaking off the remnants of a long, cursed sleep. The room itself had taken to holding its breath whenever Max leaned over the bodywork, as if the stone feared disturbing the ritual of rebuilding.
Which meant that today, with the last pieces finally falling into place, the château was practically vibrating.
Max was bent over the open bodywork, sleeves shoved past his elbows and his hair a mess that he’d given up trying to discipline. He moved with that focused grace Charles had come to recognise, something between a surgeon and a man trying not to think too loudly.
Charles leaned beside him, fingers tapping a happy rhythm against the panel they’d just aligned. His leg brushed Max’s … accidentally …and then not so accidentally.
Max ignored that.
Or tried too.
“You tightened this one?” Max asked, pointing without looking.
“Yes,” Charles said.
Max leaned closer, squinting. “No, you didn’t.”
Charles made a scandalised noise. “You don’t trust me.”
“You cross-thread screws like it’s a personality trait,” Max said, reaching past him to grab something.
Charles caught his wrist lightly. “You flirt in the rudest ways Max.”
Max froze, then went red, then snatched his hand back, nearly elbowing a toolbox.
“I’m not flirting. I’m correcting.”
“This is the same thing when it comes to you, I think,” Charles murmured.
The workshop doors groaned open, and Daniel strutted in like a man interrupting a soap opera at precisely the right moment, but maybe that's because he was. He had his feather-duster plume fanned dramatically and a bandana tied around his neck like a cowboy who had misplaced his horse but not his confidence.
“Oh my GOD,” Daniel announced. “I can’t leave you two alone for ten minutes without walking into foreplay.”
Max groaned. “It’s not … we’re not -- go away.”
Daniel slapped a hand over his chest. “Maxxy! You wound me. I am here to supervise … For safety… For morale… For posterity.”
“You’re here to gossip,” Charles said, smiling.
“Well, yes,” Daniel admitted cheerfully. “But safety is a close second.”
The rookies snorted from behind a stack of tyres, where they were very obviously spying. Kimi had binoculars. Ollie had popcorn. Gabi had a notebook titled EVIDENCE.
And Max pretended none of this was happening. That was a coping mechanism he’d learnt long ago, probably his favourite one actually.
He stepped back to survey the aligned panel. “Okay. That’s good. Much better.”
Charles dropped into a crouch, running his palm along the curve of the chassis. “She looks strong,” he murmured. “Stable. Like she could finally race again.”
Max’s throat tightened. Every time Charles touched the car like that, reverently and with affection, it hit Max somewhere he had no armour.
“She won’t,” Max said. “But she’ll run.”
“And as we agreed at the beginning, that is enough,” Charles said softly, so softly the workshop warmed a degree.
Max sank down beside him, their shoulders brushing. “I never thought I’d finish this.”
“You didn’t,” Charles said, scandalised. “We did.”
Max looked at him and saw it again, that question he wouldn’t voice, sitting heavily between them like a tool left out of place. And Charles, as always, met it with the beginning of an answer he wasn’t brave enough to say yet.
Instead, Charles nudged his knee. “Show me the manifold again.”
Max blinked. “You already know the manifold Charles, I have told you three times already”
“Show me anyway,” Charles said grinning. “You know how much I like it when you talk pipe systems.”
Daniel gasped from somewhere behind them. “SCANDALOUS.”
Max threw a bolt at him.
Daniel dodged with a squeak and vanished behind a pillar like a cartoon villain.
Max cleared his throat and focused, if only because looking at Charles while speaking was far too much.
“This part controls the airflow,” he said, slipping into the tone he used only when teaching engines or soothing rookies. Low. Focused. Unusually gentle. “It’s the breath of the engine. You can’t force it, you guide it. You smooth the path and you give it room.”
Charles watched him, not the car. “You always speak like you’re looking after something fragile.”
“It is fragile.”
“No,” Charles said quietly. “You are.”
Max choked on nothing. “I -- that’s -- no.”
Charles hummed with infuriating satisfaction and leaned in closer under the pretence of examining a bracket. The castle hummed with him.
Daniel peeked back around a corner. “Should I leave? Should I stay? Should I get a fan? A camera? A fire extinguisher -- ”
“GO AWAY,” Max and Charles said in unison.
Daniel saluted and disappeared again.
They worked in that slow, absorbing rhythm that had grown between them - Charles passing tools, Max guiding hands, Charles leaning too close, Max pretending he didn’t notice, the rookies whispering like church mice drunk on cheap wine and gossip.
At one point, Charles’ hand slipped on a bracket.
Max caught it without thinking, fingers curling around his. Their palms pressed, warm, too warm.
Charles inhaled sharply.
Max didn’t let go.
“Careful,” he murmured.
Charles smiled, small and dizzying. “Maybe show me again?”
“Again, you already know,” Max whispered.
“Again, I like when you guide me,” Charles whispered back.
Daniel emitted a strangled shriek from behind the tyres. “OH MY GOD THEY’RE DOING HAND PORN.”
Max swore, dropped Charles’ hand as if it burned, then turned bright red. “We are working Daniel.”
“On each other sure,” Daniel muttered.
Max hurled a wrench in his direction.
Daniel shrieked again and fled behind an engine hoist.
Charles laughed, a soft, helpless little thing that made Max want to smile into his own hands.
They kept working until the light shifted from gold to honey-thick, soaking the workshop in a glow that made everything - metal, dust, the curve of Charles’ cheek - look unreal.
Charles tapped the chassis. “This piece. Can you show me again where it connects?”
Max stepped behind him, guiding Charles’ hand into place with his own. Their fingers overlapped, Charles’ knuckles brushing Max’s wrist and Max’s breath landing feather-light against Charles’ ear.
“I am aware you are a mechanic, Charles,” Max murmured. “This is not very subtle.”
Charles’ pulse jumped under his fingertips.
Daniel’s head popped up from behind a workbench. “THIS IS ILLEGAL IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES.”
Max grabbed the nearest rag and threw it. “STOP WATCHING US.”
“I CAN’T,” Daniel shouted. “I’M INVESTED.”
The rookies agreed with muffled applause.
Max muttered something Dutch and deadly.
But when he looked back at Charles, the chaos faded out again, as it always did.
Charles tilted his head. “You okay?”
Max swallowed. “Yes.”
“You look… happy.”
Max stared back at him, and something shifted, a small, fragile truth rising through the cracks. For once, he decided Charles deserved to hear it.
“I think I am,” Max said quietly.
Charles softened. “Good.”
They returned to work, but more slowly now, like pulling themselves away from a gravitational pull. The château seemed to reshape itself around their proximity, doors settling softly, lamps warming, even Leo curling up closer as if unwilling to disturb the mood.
After another hour, Charles leaned too far over the engine bay, stretching in a frankly irresponsible way toward a stubborn, half-hidden bolt.
His centre of gravity shifted.
The wrench slipped.
The world tilted.
“Charles -- ”
He wobbled dangerously, and Max moved without thinking.
One hand caught Charles firmly at the small of his back, the other closing around Charles’ wrist just before the wrench could clatter down into the guts of the car. The movement was fluid and practised in a way that suggested Max had, unfortunately for his own sanity, been saving Charles from himself for months.
“Hold still Charles,” Max said, voice low.
And for once, Charles froze.
Max stepped in behind him, close enough that Charles could feel the heat of him along his spine. He adjusted Charles’ grip on the wrench, guiding his hand into the correct angle with careful, precise pressure. Their bodies bracketed the metal, breath mingling in the narrow space above the engine.
“Here,” Max murmured, his mouth close enough to Charles’ ear to count as a separate problem. “You taught me when this began not to fight it, and now look. Let it fall into place. Feel where it wants to sit.”
Charles’ heart thudded so loudly he was half-convinced the car would pick it up as a new vibration. He wasn’t entirely sure if Max was still talking about bolts.
“I see,” he managed, though what he saw was mostly Max’s hand covering his, broad and steady and so utterly sure.
Max’s thumb rested for a moment inside Charles’ wrist, right over the frantic pulse there. Whether he did it on purpose or by accident would keep Charles entertained in the sleepless hours for weeks.
“Good,” Max said, and his voice had dropped into that softer register, the one Charles privately thought of as the one he used for strays and engines and rookies who were trying.
Charles swallowed and leaned further into Max. “You’re very… hands on, today.”
A beat.
Then, mercifully, a clatter from the other end of the workshop.
Daniel, who had been attempting to stack tyres and eavesdrop at the same time, went down in a tangle of rubber and limbs.
“I HAVE SEEN THINGS,” he howled from the floor. “I AM A WITNESS. THIS CASTLE IS CORRUPTED.”
Max jerked back like he’d been shot.
Charles’ hand slipped free, suddenly cold without Max covering it.
“We’re working,” Max snapped, with more force than dignity.
“Mm,” Daniel said, sitting up, hair wild, feather plume askew. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
The rookies snickered from their hiding spot behind a tool cabinet, the sound like a nest of guilty hyenas.
Kimi whispered, far too loudly, “They’re in love.”
“Shut up,” Max and Charles said at the same time.
Which helped.
Not at all.
______________________
The light slid lower, turning the air inside the workshop amber and soft. They were down to the last details now. A bracket checked and re-checked. A cable re-clipped. Sensors calibrated. Things Max could have done alone with the speed and efficiency of long habit, except that now he didn’t want to do any of it alone.
Charles held a panel in place while Max secured the fastenings. “You know,” Charles said conversationally, “you’re much less terrifying when you talk about cars.”
“I’m never terrifying,” Max muttered, eyes narrowed as he checked the alignment.
“You used to be,” Charles said. “In the beginning. Before you started letting everyone bully you into card games.”
“I don’t get bullied.”
“Of course not,” Charles said soothingly. “You’re just… intensely suggestible when Seb tilts his head at you.”
Max scowled, partly because that was true and partly because Charles was far too pleased with himself. “Stop moving. I’m trying to line this up.”
Charles held still. “Hmmm you’re very good with your hands.”
From the corner, Daniel made a noise like a dying accordion.
Max’s ears went pink. “Why are you like this?”
“Beautiful and charming?” Charles suggested.
“Unbearable,” Max corrected, but his mouth twitched.
The last bolt went in with a satisfying, clean turn.
Max exhaled, the sound almost disbelieving. “Okay. That’s… that’s it.”
Charles blinked. “Sorry… That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“As in… it’s done?”
Max glanced over the car, his car, their car, with an expression so naked Charles felt suddenly like he’d intruded on a private prayer. “It’s done,” he said, very quietly.
Charles’ chest pulled tight.
They stood like that for a moment, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, looking at what they had made together out of wreckage and stubbornness and an unreasonable amount of money and high-quality steel.
Then Daniel clapped his hands so loudly the nearest spanner jumped.
“Okay,” he said, eyes bright and slightly manic, “first of all, congratulations on your shared mechanical baby, very proud, ten out of ten parenting, would push in a stroller --”
“We’re not -- ”
“Second,” Daniel barrelled on, “this requires a party. A ceremony. A ritual. An EVENT.”
Charles gave him a wary look. “What kind of event?”
Daniel spread his feathers. “Oh Charles babe, I am so glad you asked!”
______________________
The castle had been waiting for an excuse.
It took Daniel approximately four minutes to convince Seb. It took Seb ten seconds to convince George. It took George no time at all to decide that if there was to be a celebration, it would be done properly, which in his mind meant canapés, tea, and perhaps a small treatise on appropriate napkin folding.
Within an hour, the entire château was coordinating like an enormous, slightly unhinged organism.
“Front drive,” Daniel said firmly, perched on the edge of the map table in the small salon. “Big reveal. Shocking drama. Automotive theatre. The house deserves to show off.”
“It’s a car, not a debutante,” Nico muttered, clock-hands ticking a touch too fast as he tried to rearrange the scheduling chart to account for the ‘mass outbreak of emotional nonsense - evening’.
Lewis, lounging with deceptive idleness against a wardrobe, regarded the plans with interest. “Front drive is good,” he agreed. “The light is better. And we can use the balcony as a viewing platform. Very Monaco. Very ‘tragic prince launches his heart into the world.’”
“That’s not - ” Max began from the doorway.
“It is now,” Lewis said.
George bustled past with a list, teapot lid snapping with purpose. “If we’re doing this, we will need; tiered stands, at least three blends of tea, something savoury, something sweet, small sandwiches - but not too small, that’s offensive - and we must, absolutely must, have enough chairs for everyone.”
“You sound anxious,” Nico murmured ironically.
“The last time we did something like this,” George said stiffly, “the rookies used the sugar cubes as building materials and Daniel tried to sabrage a bottle of lemonade. I am merely preparing my mind.”
Daniel pointed at him. “The sabrage almost worked mate.”
“It covered the west terrace in citrus,” George said.
“Yes,” Daniel said. “And??? You’re welcome.”
The rookies were already at work stringing lanterns through the trees that lined the drive. Kimi had somehow acquired a whistle and was directing traffic with the gravitas of a general. Jack and Liam attempted to construct a welcome sign. Isack measured distances that didn’t need measuring. Gabi made a seating chart and then immediately lost it. Ollie followed Leo, who had decided he should inspect the flowerbeds personally.
Charles watched the chaos from the top of the stairs with a small, incredulous smile.
“Does all of this feel… excessive to you?” he asked.
Seb floated up beside him, flames bright with pleased mischief. “For what?”
“For a car,” Charles said.
Seb smiled, soft. “For what it means? No. It’s not enough.”
Charles glanced at him, throat tight. “You really think so?”
Seb’s gaze drifted past him, toward the workshop where, for now, Max was still inside with the finished Ferrari. “That car,” he said, “is the last thing Max loved before the curse hit him. It is also the first thing he has allowed himself to love through it. We’re not celebrating the engine, Charles.”
“What are we celebrating, then?” Charles asked, though he suspected he knew.
Seb’s eyes turned gentle and unguarded. “That he stayed. That he fought. That you came. That you both refused to let that night be the end of his story.”
Charles’ fingers tightened on the banister.
Down below, Kimi blew his whistle at Jack for tying lanterns too low. Daniel nearly tripped over Leo. George shouted something about finger food hygiene. Lewis laughed at something Nico said and then pretended he hadn’t.
The château glowed quietly, its magic moving through stone and wood with an almost giddy delight.
“Yes,” Charles said softly. “I suppose that is worth a party.”
______________________
Getting the Ferrari to the front drive became its own processional.
Max refused to let anyone touch the steering wheel.
“I’m the only one who knows how she talks,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat with a care that bordered on reverent. Charles didn’t bother pointing out that he also knew how the steering worked.
“You’re so dramatic,” Daniel said, eyes shining. “This is why I love you.”
“You love the drama,” Max corrected, checking the handbrake.
“Yes, but also you,” Daniel said honestly.
The car, still engine-off, rolled slowly along the internal passage way on enchanted casters the castle supplied with quiet pride. Doors along the route opened like curtains. Hallway sconces brightened as they passed, like a line of small, delighted bows.
The rookies walked alongside in a lopsided formation, Lando guiding them, as they just existed in the general vicinity whilst vibrating at frequencies unsafe for humans.
“Steady,” George called from somewhere above, peering down from the gallery like a fretful regent. “Careful on that corner. Do not scratch the paint. I will cry.”
“You cried when we ran out of Darjeeling,” Nico pointed out.
“That was a somatic response to structural mismanagement,” George said primly.
Charles sat in the passenger seat, one hand resting lightly on the bodywork, not because it needed him, but because he could. Every time Max glanced in the side mirror, he saw him there and it did something strange to his breathing.
They emerged into the late evening light of the front drive like a small parade as Oscar played a melody that seemed to signify peace. The sky was awash with the last traces of sunset, streaks of rose and orange fading into deepening blue. Lanterns hung from trees, already lit with soft golden flame. The central gravel sweep had been cleared and raked smooth, ready for its guest of honour.
The castle’s façade, usually imposing, looked almost… proud.
“This is ridiculous,” Max muttered under his breath.
Charles, sitting close enough to be heard, smiled. “It’s wonderful,” he said. “Let them be ridiculous for you, just this once.”
Max didn’t answer. But he didn’t argue either.
Leo trotted ahead, an unofficial marshal, with his ears perked and his tail high.
“Slowly,” Seb called. “Like baby steps. We want her centered. This is about aesthetics and symbolism, Max, not lap time.”
“Everything is about lap time,” Max muttered.
“An ex-champion never truly retires,” Lewis said dryly, appearing on the steps in a cascade of impeccable fabric.
“Glad you recognise my suffering,” Max said.
Lewis smiled, faint and knowing. “We always did.”
That was too much, too sharp, so Max looked back at the car instead.
They eased the Ferrari into place in the centre of the drive, and the castle, satisfied, let the casters melt away until tyres touched gravel with a soft, final whisper. A velvet cover hung ready on a rigged pulley system, draped over the car like a secret waiting to be told. Leo sat beneath the front bumper, tongue lolling happily. The rookies gathered, eyes wide. Lando bounced between Daniel and Oscar in excitement.
George fussed over trays on side tables. “Finger sandwiches, minimal crust, cucumber with herbs, smoked salmon, small quiches. I have three kinds of tea and one experimental punch I do not wholly trust but felt emotionally compelled to prepare.”
“Is it alcoholic?” Daniel asked.
“No,” George said firmly. “We have enough disasters without ethanol.”
Daniel deflated. “Coward.”
Seb floated to a prominent position near the bottom of the steps, candles high, like the benevolent officiant of a very strange wedding. Lewis took up a position beside Nico slightly higher up, the two of them forming a composed, glittering line of commentary whether they liked it or not.
Max and Charles, without really agreeing to it, ended up standing together by the car’s nose.
It felt right.
It felt dangerous.
The château thought so, too. The air around them hummed with magic, as if the house were leaning in close enough to listen.
“Alright,” Sebastian said, voice carrying easily over the gathered chaos. “Everyone ready?”
“No,” Nico said.
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“We were born ready,” Kimi declared.
“I literally wasn’t,” Jack whispered.
Charles’ hand brushed Max’s, just once, along the side of the car.
Max didn’t move away.
Seb inclined his head toward Leo. “Then, ladies, gentlemen, and assorted cursed objects… Leo? If you would do us the honour?”
Leo barked once, bright and sharp, and seized the edge of the velvet cover in his teeth.
The rookies gasped.
Daniel clutched his own chest.
Max forgot how to breathe.
Leo pulled.
The cover slid back in a single, smooth motion, rippling like a silken wave before falling away onto the gravel.
The Ferrari stood revealed.
Not as it had been the night of the accident - wild, lethal, and on the cusp of disaster - but as something new. Clean lines restored. Scars healed. Paint deep and gleaming in the lantern-light. Every rivet and every curve, a testament to hours of careful, stubborn labour.
The silence lasted exactly one heartbeat.
Then the château reacted.
Lanterns flared. The windows along the façade brightened. Roses along the front steps opened wider, their petals catching the glow. A warm breeze swept through, lifting hair and cloth and feathers as if the house were exhaling in joy.
The rookies screamed.
“Oh my GOD,” Gabi shouted.
“She’s so pretty,” Ollie wailed.
“We did it,” Kimi declared, instantly taking credit for everything.
“We held a screwdriver twice,” Isack said soberly. “We are heroes.”
Jack made a noise like a tiny kettle boiling over.
From a table nearby, George actually steamed, overcome. “Magnificent,” he said, voice thick. “Absolutely magnificent. And none of you dropped anything on it, oh I’m so proud of you my children.”
Daniel wiped at his eyes. “Look at her,” he sniffled. “My child’s child. My grandchild.”
“You contributed absolutely nothing Danny,” Oscar said dryly from where he’d been wheeled out as a piano for “mood.”
“I contributed vibes,” Daniel retorted. “Essential vibes.”
Lewis smiled down at them all, expression softer than he would ever admit. Nico’s ticking had slowed to a steady, almost peaceful beat. Seb, watching Max more than he watched the car, let his flame-tips brighten with something like relief.
Charles stood in the middle of it, breathing it in, eyes shining. He turned to Max, who was staring at the Ferrari like it might vanish if he blinked.
“Max,” Charles said, gently.
Max’s focus snapped to him.
“It’s beautiful,” Charles said, and the words landed with the weight of far more than the car. “You did this.”
Max opened his mouth to say something deflecting, something built out of habit and survival. But, what came out instead was the truth…
“You’re beautiful Charlie,” he said.
Silence slammed down over the drive.
Charles’ eyes widened.
Seb’s flames actually staggered.
Nico choked on air.
George dropped a spoon into the punch bowl.
Oscar hit a chord that could only be described as oh my God.
The rookies froze as a single organism.
Lando put both hands over his mouth and turned in a small, ecstatic circle like a kettle about to blow. “Oh my GOD,” he hissed into his own palms. “He SAID it. He SAID IT. I didn’t hallucinate, right? Did I die? Am I dead?”
Lewis’ lips parted in sheer, delighted horror.
Max seemed to realise, with a delay of two or three eternal seconds, what he had just announced to a gathered audience.
Colour flooded his face, vivid and unmissable.
And sure, he could have laughed it off. He could have sputtered and said, I meant the car, and everyone would have pretended to believe him because they were good like that. He could have looked away, made a joke, thrown up another wall.
Instead, he did none of that. Instead, his jaw tightened, he held Charles’ gaze, and he did not take it back. The magic in the air tightened like a held breath and Charles’ heart did something catastrophic in his chest.
“Oh,” he said softly.
It wasn’t eloquent but for once it didn’t need to be.
A slow, stunned smile started at the corner of his mouth, spreading with almost dangerous warmth.
“Merci,” he said.
Max’s throat worked. “I -- ” He stopped. Started again. “I meant -- ” Another pause. “I meant… it.”
Lewis made a noise only dogs should have been able to hear.
Seb covered his own face with one hand, the candle-flames at his tips flickering wildly. “Finally,” he muttered, reverent.
Daniel actually dropped to his knees on the gravel. “THE PROPHECY IS FULFILLED,” he cried.
“What prophecy?” Jack whispered, eyes enormous.
“The one I made up in my head,” Daniel replied. “It still counts.”
The rookies exploded into whispered chaos.
“He called him beautiful.”
“He didn’t deny it.”
“HE DIDN’T DENY IT.”
“Oh no, oh no, this is too much.”
“Kimi, I think I’m going to faint.”
“You can’t faint, we need witnesses.”
Nico turned to Lewis, ticking slightly unevenly. “You didn’t tell me we’d be attending a live emotional meltdown,” he hissed.
Lewis, smiling like the cat who had not only got the cream but designed the dairy, murmured, “I only suspected.”
George cleared his throat, flustered and far too British for what was happening. “Tea?” he said to absolutely no one and everyone. “I think we all need tea.”
The château itself practically vibrated. Light flared, a breeze rippled the surface of the punch bowl, and the roses on the front steps seemed to lean slightly toward Max and Charles, petals glowing. And, in the middle of it all, Max stood like a man who had accidentally thrown himself off a cliff and was waiting to see if the fall would kill him.
Charles stepped closer.
The world narrowed to the space between them.
“You keep doing that,” Charles said gently.
Max blinked. “Doing what?”
“Saying impossible things,” Charles replied. “And then… leaving them there. For me to pick up.”
Max swallowed. “Are you complaining?”
“Non,” Charles said. “I’m deciding what to do with them.”
Max huffed a breath that might have been a laugh if he weren’t so unsteady. “You don’t have to do anything. I just - ”
“You meant it,” Charles said. “You already said so.”
Max shut his mouth and looked briefly like he might die of his own honesty. But he also held his ground.
Charles watched him, heart so full it almost hurt. “Good,” he said softly. “Then I will hold onto it. That truth.”
Max exhaled, something in his shoulders loosening. “Okay.”
Behind them, Daniel slapped Kimi on the back. “We’re witnessing history,” he whispered. “Write everything down. I need transcripts. I need -- ”
“I can’t write,” Kimi pointed out.
“Emotional transcripts,” Daniel clarified looking down at Kimi’s teapot form.
Seb drifted closer, organising his expression into something that could pass for dignified. “You two,” he said, voice warm enough to light lamps, “have done something important today.”
Charles glanced at the Ferrari. “We finished the car.”
“That too,” Seb said. “But I meant, you let the castle see you. Both of you, together, on purpose.”
Max shifted, uncomfortable with being perceived. “Everyone already sees us.”
“No, Schatz,” Seb replied. “Until now they watched. There’s a difference.”
Max frowned. “I don’t - ”
“No, but you will,” Seb said, not unkindly. “In the meantime, please enjoy the fact that George has made three tiers of sandwiches and a fruit tart shaped like a steering wheel.”
George, overhearing, preened. “It’s structurally accurate.”
“Of course it is,” Nico muttered.
Lewis slipped past, brushing a hand lightly along Charles’ shoulder in passing. “Well done,” he murmured, too quietly for anyone else. It wasn’t clear whether he meant the car, the confession, or surviving it with some level of dignity. Possibly all three.
Charles’ cheeks warmed. “I didn’t do anything.”
Lewis gave him a look that suggested he had done far too much. “You stayed,” he said simply. “That’s never nothing.”
______________________
The party unfolded in waves.
At first, everyone hovered around the car, admiring, exclaiming, pointing out small details.
Kimi showed anyone who would listen the exact bolt he had once polished. “This one,” he said solemnly. “I am father to this bolt.”
“That’s not how that works,” Jack said.
“It is how it works in my heart,” Kimi replied.
George plied everyone with tea. “Hydrate,” he insisted, pressing cups into hands. “You cannot regulate emotion without regulating fluids.”
Daniel attempted to convince George to spike the punch. “Just a little something? For courage?”
“You don’t need courage,” George said. “You need supervision.” And, then he slipped a little something in anyway.
Oscar played soft chords from his chosen corner, sound drifting out over the gravel like the secondhand emotions of a romance novel, Lando dancing uncoordinately next to him.
Lewis and Nico bickered about whether or not the car’s paint should be described as “Rosso Corsa” or “Rosso Scuderia,” their elbows almost but not quite touching.
The rookies clustered around Max in a kind of disorganised halo.
“You did it,” Gabi said, eyes wide.
“Obviously he did it,” Liam said. “He’s Max.”
“Don’t be rude,” Isack said. “We did it too. Remember the holding things?”
Ollie nodded vigorously. “We were essential.”
Kimi patted Max’s arm. “We’re proud of you,” he said.
Max opened his mouth to deflect, before he saw their faces - earnest, adoring, so stupidly hopeful - and something inside him softened.
“Thanks,” he said, honestly.
“I couldn’t have done it without you guys,” he added, not so honestly.
The rookies collectively malfunctioned.
“We HAVE to win at cards tonight,” Jack whispered. “He’s soft.”
“We can’t take advantage,” Gabi gasped.
“We absolutely can,” Liam said.
“Morally, we must,” Isack agreed.
“We’re bad people,” Ollie concluded, impressed.
Charles drifted in and out of conversations, always circling back to Max like the tide returning to shore. He watched the way Max stood a little taller tonight. The way his smile lasted a beat longer. The way he let himself be touched - by rookies, by Seb, by Leo, by the castle itself - without flinching.
At one point, Charles found him off to the side, just barely removed from the crowd, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the car.
“Are you hiding?” Charles asked, stepping up beside him.
“I’m standing,” Max said.
“You’re standing like a man hiding,” Charles corrected gently.
Max huffed. “It’s a lot.”
“It is,” Charles agreed. “Are you okay?”
Max considered the question, as if it were a problem that required calibration. He looked at the car. At the house. At the little knots of his people, scattered across the drive. Then he looked at Charles.
“I think I am,” he said. “For once.”
Charles swallowed past the idiotic urge to cry. “Good,” he said. “We like you better that way.”
“Better than what?” Max asked.
“Than half-alive,” Charles replied.
Max wanted to argue.
He didn’t.
Instead he let his shoulder tip just slightly toward Charles as they stood there, the small point of contact grounding him more than any tyre to gravel. Above them, the château watched. It had been a long time since it had seen Max like this, not merely enduring, not merely functioning, but present. The magic pressed softly around them, warm and pleased. If curses loosened from small, repeated kindnesses, then tonight felt like someone had undone an entire knot.
Seb floated to the steps and clapped his hands once, the flame-tips sparking. “Well,” he announced. “Now that the sacred rite of ‘car unveiling as metaphor for emotional rehabilitation’ is complete, who wants dessert?”
Six rookie hands shot up.
Lando shouted, “ME,” louder than all of them.
George sighed. “Please form an orderly queue. And for the love of all that is holy, do not fight near the tarts.”
Lewis leaned toward Nico. “We should make them give a speech.”
“No,” Nico said instantly.
“A little one,” Lewis persisted. “You used to love podium ceremonies.”
“This is different,” Nico said. “This one matters.”
Lewis’ expression flickered with something soft. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It does.”
He fell silent.
The evening settled.
Not into quiet, the rookies were incapable of that, but into something gentler. Laughter rose and fell. Cups clinked, lanterns swayed, the car gleamed, the château glowed. And in the centre of it all, Max stood at peace, surrounded by those who loved him for him.
For the first time since the curse began, the house felt not just inhabited.
It felt lived in.
Loved in.
The magic, famished for so long, feasted. Deep in its bones, the château loosened one more careful, trembling thread. Tonight, at least, everything was good.
______________________
For two full days after the unveiling, the château floated in an afterglow so warm it felt like a season rather than a moment. Everything hummed - softly, delightedly, conspiratorially.
The rookies kept replaying Leo’s triumphant leap as if the dachshund had just won Le Mans.
Daniel retold the unveiling story with more embellishment each hour (“Max cried! He did! A SINGLE tear! I saw it with my own eyes!”).
George kept producing little celebratory tea servings like a man overcome by the weight of hospitality.
Lewis and Nico walked close together. Not touching, but close enough the castle lit their path like two points of starlight destined to orbit.
And Max…
Max walked around with the dazed, shell-shocked look of a man who had accidentally proposed marriage in front of 20 witnesses and then forgotten how to stand upright.
But Charles had done something far worse. He kept smiling at him about it.
Not teasingly. Not triumphantly. Not to make Max sweat (though, admittedly, that happened anyway).
No - Charles smiled at him like the confession had mattered.
Like it had been heard.
Like it had been kept.
If the workshop had been warm before, it was molten now.
They worked on the very last pieces of the Ferrari - polishing, tuning, and adjusting things that were already perfect simply because neither was ready to let the project end. It had stopped being a car and instead it had become a ritual, a reason to lean close and say everything neither could say directly.
Never mind that Max had blurted out a truth so ferociously tender the castle had nearly combusted. He had said it. He had not taken it back. And the world had held.
That alone felt like miracle enough.
But the miracle did not last.
Not untouched.
Not forever.
______________________
It began on the third night.
Charles noticed it first - not in the corridors or the lighting or the roses, but in Max.
He’d come down late, to find Max already in the workshop, his hair still messy from sleep and jumper thrown on backwards (a detail Charles did not comment on because he cherished his life). A wrench in hand and shoulders drawn so tightly he looked carved from tension.
The Ferrari gleamed in gold lamplight. Perfect. Finished. Whole. And yet Max did not look at it. He stared instead at the far wall, his jaw set and eyes unfocused.
“Morning,” Charles said, moving to lean against the car beside him.
Max flinched. Not dramatically, just a twitch, a tightening, a recoil so small you’d miss it unless you knew him. But by now, Charles knew him.
“Max?” he asked carefully. “Is everything alright?”
Max blinked, shook himself once, and gave a tight, mechanical smile. “Yeah. Just … thinking. Couldn’t sleep.”
Charles stepped closer, brushing his shoulder. “About what?”
Max moved away - Subtle. Barely, but it was an unusual movement. Distance, where there had been none in the days preceding.
The wrench clattered softly as Max set it down. “Nothing important.”
A lie.
The castle, traitor to secrecy and ally to truth, flickered its lights in disapproval. So Charles tried again. “Max.”
“I said it’s nothing,” Max said too quickly, too sharply.
And then, as if startled by his own tone, he ran a hand through his hair and added, “Sorry. I just… need a minute.”
Charles paused. He could give him space, of course he could, he was not his keeper. But something in Max’s stance, the tight line of his shoulders and the hollowed set of his breath, pressed cold fingers along Charles’ spine.
It was a sensation he hadn’t felt since the night in the West Wing.
“Okay,” Charles said softly. “A minute, then.”
But Max didn’t speak again.
Not that minute.
Not for an hour.
Not for the rest of the morning.
And the castle…
The castle dimmed, not a lot, not even obviously. Just enough that the warmth Charles had grown used to - the little hum in the floorboards, the way the sconces glowed when Max looked at him, the roses blooming too eagerly - all of it quieted. Sobered, as if holding its breath.
By the afternoon, the rookies were whispering.
“Did he fight with Charles?”
“No.”
“Did Charles fight with him?”
“NO.”
“Then why is the castle doing the ‘pre-Charles’ lighting?”
“I don’t know, stop asking me!”
Daniel was the first to voice it out loud, “Something’s wrong.”
And Charles, stomach unsteady and heart knotting, already knew.
______________________
The signs continued to come slowly.
A faint chill leaking through the old stone. The roses outside the workshop window drooping at their edges. A distant vibration in the castle’s bones, the kind that woke Charles at night without him knowing why.
The rookies felt it too.
Animals hid.
The wind changed.
Doors that once opened eagerly now hesitated.
It wasn’t a full force, not yet. Just a shadow slithering through cracks and a whisper brushing under doors. A pressure that made the lamps flicker twice before holding steady again, like an old house remembering how to fear.
Max felt it deepest.
He stiffened every time a draft passed.
He paused mid-sentence when the stones shifted underfoot.
He flinched when Charles touched him unexpectedly, not because he didn’t want it, but because his body was already coiled to react to something else.
He slept badly. He ate little. He worked too much on god knows what.
And worst of all -
He retreated.
Not visibly, not like before. There were no slammed doors and no clipped words, just a slow drawing inwards, like shutters closing before a storm. Charles could feel him slipping one inch at a time, and he refused, absolutely refused, to lose him to silence again. Charles Leclerc did not lose, ever.
So on the fifth night, when he found Max standing alone on the terrace outside the workshop, staring into the dark woods with his arms folded tightly across his chest, Charles went to him.
Quietly, steadily, as if approaching a frightened animal he loved too much to startle.
“Max,” he murmured. “What’s wrong?”
Max didn’t turn. “You should go inside.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know,” Max said.
The air between them tightened as Charles stepped beside him, looking out at nothing - the dark lawn, the quiet roses, the forest edge swaying like a held breath.
“What are you feeling?” Charles asked softly.
“Nothing,” Max said.
Another lie then.
Charles let the silence stretch, patient as moonlight.
Max exhaled, shaky. “Something’s wrong.”
“What kind of wrong?”
Max swallowed. “Magic. Old magic. The kind that doesn’t belong here anymore." His fingers curled against the railing. “It shouldn’t be this close.”
Charles turned fully. “Can you sense what it is?”
Max finally looked at him, and Charles almost stepped back in shock at the fear there - quiet, controlled, but unmistakable.
“No,” Max said. “But I know who it feels like.”
Charles’ breath stilled.
“Alonso.”
The name barely left Max’s lips before the wind shifted, becoming sharp and cold, threading through the garden roses like invisible claws. The lamps behind them flickered and the castle shuddered once and Charles reached for Max’s arm on instinct. So human in his response, so loving.
Max flinched away.
“Don’t,” he said, voice cracking. “Charles, please. Not now.”
Charles froze, hurt slicing deeper than he expected.
“Why?” he asked quietly.
Max closed his eyes. “Because if he’s coming, if he’s here even, then you need to stay away from me.”
Charles froze. Then, firmly, “Absolutely not.”
Max’s eyes snapped open like something tore inside him. “Charles, we’re not negotiating - ”
“No,” Charles cut in. “Try again.”
Max’s jaw clenched. “You’re not listening - ”
“No,” Charles said, stepping forward. “You’re not talking.”
The château’s lanterns flickered like a heartbeat losing rhythm.
Max dragged a hand through his hair, pacing away from him. “I’m telling you to stay away.”
“And I’m telling you that’s not happening.”
“You don’t understand,” Max spat. “You can’t be near me when he arrives.”
“Why?” Charles demanded. “Tell me.”
Max turned on him, eyes wild.
“Because he will use you!”
The castle lights blew out, total darkness sweeping across the property, then flared violently back to life, and Charles recoiled, not in fear but in shock. “Use me?”
“He’ll find the things I care about most,” Max rasped. “And break them to get to me. That’s who he is. That’s what he does.”
“That’s what you think he does,” Charles snapped. “Because you’ve already decided you’re the problem.”
Max’s expression contorted, fury and panic colliding. “Don’t twist this into something it’s not. You don't know everything.”
“You think you’re cursed,” Charles accused, stepping forward. “You think loving you is lethal.”
“Don’t you dare - ”
“You said it yourself!”
“I said he would break you!” Max roared, so loud the balcony rail vibrated. “Because you matter to me more than -- ”
He cut himself off with a choke.
But the truth was already out.
Hanging.
Seething.
Unbearable.
Charles’ voice dropped to something sharper than anger. “And that gives you the right to decide my risks for me?”
Max looked away, his voice cold and certain, “Yes.”
Charles stared at him. “You - you would decide that for me?”
And Max, stupid, stubborn Max, didn’t take the retreat that was offered, but instead doubled down.
“Yes,” he said again, louder, harsher. “If it keeps you alive? Yes. I will decide. I’ll take the hit. I’ll deal with him. I’ll be the shield. You stay out of it.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Charles demanded.
“Someone who knows what he’s capable of!” Max snapped.
“No.” Charles stepped forward, eyes burning. “You’re someone who’s scared. And instead of trusting me, you’re shutting me out like I’m some breakable child.”
“Maybe you are,” Max shot back.
Charles actually froze, as if Max had struck him. The wind sliced cold through the balcony. The roses below shriveled at their edges. Magic recoiled violently.
Charles’ voice came low. “Say that again.”
Max swallowed. Hard. But he didn’t apologize. “You don’t know what he can do - ”
“And YOU don’t know what I can do,” Charles fired back. “Because you’ve never even tried to let me in.”
Max’s expression twisted, something like pain and anger tangled. “I’m trying to SAVE you!”
“I don’t need saving,” Charles said, voice breaking, “I need a damn teammate."
Max sucked in a breath as if struck.
“I can’t lose you,” he said, raw and cracked.
“And YOU WILL,” Charles said, “if you keep pushing me away.”
At this the Magic surged again, a tremor under their feet and a crack along the stone.
Max shook his head violently. “You’re twisting everything, you’re - ”
“I’m asking you to trust me.” Charles’ voice trembled. “For once Max.”
Max let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Trust you? To survive Alonso? To stand there while he - ”
“This isn’t about Alonso anymore,” Charles threw back. “This is about YOU. You won’t let yourself be loved. You never have … Not by me, not by anyone.”
Max’s entire body flinched.
“Don’t say that,” he whispered.
“Why?” Charles demanded. “Because it’s true?”
Max looked away like the truth hurt to look at. “Charles, stop - ”
“No.”
Charles grabbed his wrist again. Not tender, but desperate.
“Look at me.”
Max resisted.
Then turned, slowly, fury and fear and despair all fighting in his eyes.
“You don’t get to decide what I can handle,” Charles said. “You don’t get to protect me from yourself. Not anymore.”
Max’s breath stuttered. “I - ”
“You always run,” Charles whispered, pain hardening into something fierce. “Every time you’re scared. Every time I get close.”
Max shut his eyes briefly, hiding the pain, shame and fury swirling in them. “That’s not - ”
“But not this time,” Charles said, and it wasn’t gentle.
It was an ultimatum carved from grief.
“If you run from me now, Max?” His voice broke. “You run the race alone.”
Max staggered as if the words hit physically. He opened his mouth as if to answer, but before he could, the wind screamed.
The castle shook.
The roses wilted.
The lamps blew out.
A cold presence pressed against the wards like a palm against glass.
Max turned sharply toward the gardens.
“No,” he whispered. “Not now.”
The magic scraped along the château walls - amused, hungry, intimate. It knew what was coming, who was coming. Charles felt it like a whisper in his bones.
A voice, ancient and smiling, brushed the edge of the grounds:
Max…
Max’s face drained of colour. “Charles … go…”
“No.”
“Charles, PLEASE …”
“No.”
They faced each other - furious, terrified, heartbroken - and the house shook between them.
Max took one step backward toward the forest.
Charles took one step forward toward him.
And the wind, delighted with the tension, carried a single name;
Fernando.
And so they stood there, untouching - not reconciled, not healed, not ready. Just two men in the ruins of a fight neither knew how to finish.
The wards strained.
The castle shivered.
The night cracked open.
And nothing, nothing, was resolved.
______________________
The castle did not sleep the night of the fight.
It sulked.
Lanterns guttered low, floorboards refused to warm beneath Charles’ feet, even the roses along the south arch drooped as if they’d been told off. Only the wind moved, restless through the corridors, like a nervous friend pacing outside a closed door.
Charles did not sleep either.
He had gone back to his room after Max finally let him go, not rejected, not reconciled, just… suspended. Max’s last look had been a bewildering tangle of fear and longing and the sharp reflex to pull away just when it mattered most. And Charles’ final words still echoed in him like a bell struck too hard.
“If you run from me now, you run the race alone.”
He hadn’t meant them as a threat, he meant them as truth and that made it worse.
He couldn’t stay in the room. The walls felt too close, the air too thin, the castle too wounded by their shouting. So he wandered, barefoot, hair tousled, shirt unbuttoned at the collar - the image of a man trying not to think too much about the way Max had whispered I’m scared into the air like it was a sin.
The corridor turned him gently without force, guiding him as surely as a hand at the small of his back. It led him, not toward the gardens, or the west wing, but toward the balcony on the opposite side of the château.
Toward the place where a familiar, soft glow waited.
Sebastian stood alone, flames low, a handful of candles hovering around him like quiet companions. He didn’t turn when Charles stepped onto the balcony, but the flames leaned toward him as if in greeting.
“Can’t sleep?” Seb asked, voice soft as a library whisper.
Charles huffed a humourless laugh. “What gives it away?”
“Your heartbeat,” Seb said. “It’s very loud tonight.”
Charles joined him at the balustrade, leaning on his elbows. “The castle is upset.”
“The castle is invested, it cares about you as we all do.” Seb corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Charles didn’t answer. The silence stretched, long and gentle, tugged thin by the weight of everything he’d said to Max, and everything Max hadn’t said back.
Seb sighed. “You and Max had a… discussion.”
“That’s generous.”
“I’m very generous.”
Charles dragged a hand through his hair. “He tried to push me away.”
“And you stopped him.”
“I tried,” Charles said, voice raw. “I don’t know if it was enough.”
Seb studied him for a long moment, expression softening into something that reminded Charles painfully of a father who’d watched too many sons make the same mistakes.
“It was,” Seb said quietly. “More than you know.”
Charles swallowed. “He thinks Alonso will hurt me.”
“And Max thinks everything will hurt you,” Seb murmured with a sad smile. “Especially himself.”
Charles closed his eyes. “You know him better than anyone. Why does Alonso frighten him so much?”
Seb’s flames flickered. “Because Fernando is not… ordinary.”
Charles waited.
“He’s not cruel,” Seb said slowly. “But he is relentless. You cannot hide from him. You cannot lie to him. He sees the truth in people, and he speaks it. Out loud. Without mercy or apology.”
“That doesn’t sound… evil.”
“It isn’t,” Seb agreed. “It’s why I respected him. And why I could never be close to him.”
Charles glanced sideways. “Not even as rivals?”
Seb smiled, rueful. “We understood each other on track.” He paused. “But off it… no. There was no chemistry, no easy camaraderie. He had fire, a brilliant and dangerous fire, but no softness. And by the time I retired, I was all softness with a shell of steel. We were made to race each other, not to know each other.”
Charles nodded slowly. “Max says he’s dangerous.”
“Oh, he is,” Seb said cheerfully. “But not the way Max fears. Max thinks Fernando cursed him out of spite or jealousy or some petty rivalry.”
“And that’s not true.”
“No,” Seb said. “Fernando does not waste ambition on pettiness. If he curses someone, especially someone like Max, it is because he sees something in them.”
He turned fully toward Charles, flames small but intent.
“Fernando is a storm, Charles. The kind that teaches you something when it hits you. Often something you didn’t want to learn.”
Charles’ throat tightened. “And what did he see in Max?”
Seb hesitated.
And that, that was new. Seb always chose his words with precision, but he seldom paused like this.
“He saw a boy building a monument,” Seb murmured. “And mistaking it for a home.”
Charles went still.
“Max’s talent,” Seb said softly, “was a fortress. His pride was armour. His victories were bricks in a wall he didn’t know he was trapped inside. Fernando saw that and he tried to tell Max, in his own way, that you cannot live alone at the top of a mountain.”
Charles swallowed. “And when Max refused…”
“You know this Charles. He wasn’t punished,” Seb said. “He was… rerouted.”
Charles’ brows knit. “Into what? This?” He gestured to the sprawling château, the cursed staff, the isolation.
“Into solitude,” Seb said. “Until he learned to open the door.”
Charles let that sink in.
A curse not born of cruelty.
Or jealousy.
Or revenge.
But recognition.
Seb’s gaze drifted toward the dark treeline. “Fernando always had an eye for drivers who climbed too high, too fast. He saw it in Nico. In Lewis. In Max.” Seb smiled faintly. “Even in me, once.”
Charles blinked. “Did he ever curse you?”
“No,” Seb said. “But he warned me, just as he did the others. I just so happened to be lucky, but with Max I think he’d had enough of the pattern repeating”
The wind shifted, cold enough that Charles felt it through bone.
Seb straightened, expression sharpening with faint alarm. “Do you feel that?”
Charles did - a pressure, soft, heavy, curious, pressing against the edges of the magic like a fingertip tracing old scars.
“What is that?” Charles whispered.
Seb’s flames dimmed to thin, trembling lines.
“Old magic,” Seb murmured. “Older than the château. Older than the curse. And very familiar.”
Charles felt something cold slide down his spine. “Alonso?”
Seb stiffened. “Charles - ”
But Charles had already taken a step back. Had already felt the castle tilt toward the gardens. Already felt the strange, inexorable pull.
Seb reached for him, flame-hand gentle. “Be careful. He is not what you expect.”
“Neither am I,” Charles said quietly.
The castle opened the path without a single creak, and Charles followed it.
______________________
The gardens were dark.
Not dead but watchful, the petals of the roses trembling as though in a cold dawn breeze. The path lights flickered, uncertain whether to illuminate or hide.
Charles stepped onto the gravel and the world shifted.
Not violently.
Not magically.
Just… subtly, like the air inhaled.
A man sat on the stone edge of the fountain. He did not appear dramatically, he was simply there, sat like he belonged, with his hands loose on his knees. Posture relaxed and eyes half-lidded as though studying the courtyard with fond, private amusement.
“Ahh Charles Leclerc,” Fernando Alonso said, voice warm as wine beside a fireplace. “We meet at last.”
Charles froze, but It wasn’t in fear. It was recognition, without memory, without reason, without logic. As if the universe knew this man, even if he didn’t.
“You’re…” Charles swallowed. “You’re him.”
Fernando laughed, delighted, soft, and unthreatening. “Yes. I am him.”
He rose smoothly, his steps quiet and almost feline, as Charles realised with a shock that Alonso wasn’t tall, wasn’t imposing, wasn’t shimmering with magic.
He was simply… confident. Completely comfortable in a world not built for mortals.
“All this trouble,” Fernando said, gesturing lazily to the château, “and we finally meet in the garden. How poetic.”
Charles cleared his throat. “You’re the one who cursed him.”
“Yes,” Fernando said easily. “Though you should understand, the word curse is rather dramatic.”
Charles stared at him. “He lost everything.”
Fernando shrugged. “You cannot lose what you never held, Charles.”
Something in Charles bristled. “He won championships.”
“He achieved them,” Fernando corrected. “He did not hold them.” He gestured at his own chest. “Here. Where it matters.”
Charles took a step closer. “Is that why you did this to him? Because he wasn’t humble enough?”
Fernando’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Ah… you think too small.”
He paced slowly in a circle around Charles, in a way that was not predatory, not ominous, but simply studious, like a professor examining a promising student’s thesis.
“Humility is not the lesson,” he murmured. “Anyone can be humbled, that is a matter of circumstance.”
He stopped behind Charles’ shoulder. “The lesson is empathy.”
Charles’ breath hitched.
Fernando leaned in slightly, his voice low and intimate. “Do you know what all the great drivers share, mi amigo?”
Charles swallowed. “What?”
“The belief that they do not need anyone.” A soft chuckle. “An illusion of invincibility. It keeps them alive on track, and kills them impossibly slowly everywhere else.”
He stepped around Charles again, coming to stand in front of him.
“And Max Verstappen,” Fernando said, head tilting with something almost fond, “was the most invincible of us all.”
Charles’ voice cracked. “Why him?”
Fernando smiled - warm, quiet, and devastatingly sad.
“Because I saw myself in him.”
The roses bowed their heads at the words, petals trembling.
Fernando clasped his hands behind his back. “In my time, I learned the lesson too late. I climbed my mountain alone, and when I reached the top, there was no one to share the view.”
He gave Charles a long, measured look. “I did not wish the same ending for him.”
Charles blinked hard. “So you trapped him here?”
“I gave him a refuge,” Fernando corrected. “A fortress of self. A place where his ego could not pretend it was enough.” His smile softened. “And where someone like you might climb in through the windows and rearrange his walls.”
Charles flushed. “I don’t - ”
“Oh please,” Fernando said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve seen thunderstorms with less chemistry.”
Charles stared at him. Because it was gentle, it was teasing, it was not cruel.
“You’re… not what I expected.”
“I am often not,” Fernando said. He took Charles’ hand - lightly, politely, far gentler than any magic had the right to be - and turned Charles’ wrist upward.
“What are you - ”
Fernando traced a symbol onto Charles’ skin with one cool fingertip. It glowed faintly, not burning, not binding, just marking.
“What is that?” Charles whispered.
“A warning,” Fernando said. “And a blessing. That is the mark of someone who has begun to see the truth.”
The glow faded into a pale shimmer.
“But also,” Fernando added casually, “that is a message to the château not to attempt to eat you if things get exciting.”
Charles blinked. “It can do that?”
“Oh yes,” Fernando said cheerfully. “It tried once.”
The castle’s lanterns flickered indignantly.
Charles exhaled. “Max thinks you’ll hurt me.”
Fernando smiled, slow and knowing. “He would rather bite off his own arm than let that happen. Which, incidentally, is why he needed the curse.”
Charles frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Fernando stepped closer. “He was not cursed for being cruel, Charles, nor for being arrogant. He was cursed for never letting anyone love him.”
The words hit Charles like a blow.
“It is not a punishment,” Fernando said softly. “It is a mirror.”
Charles’ throat tightened. “And what happens when he does let someone in?”
Fernando’s smile widened, warm as sunrise. “Then the story ends. Beautifully.”
But the warmth faded, replaced by something sharper.
“Of course,” Fernando said, “there is the matter of Monaco.”
Charles’ stomach dropped. “What about Monaco?”
“Your friend,” Fernando said. “Pierre. He is drowning.”
A pause. “And Carlos and Alex - they are circling the business like wolves. One wrong step, and they will take everything.”
Charles felt the blood drain from his face.
Fernando tilted his head, studying him with unsettling fondness. “You cannot be in two worlds at once, Charles. Sooner or later, you must choose where your priorities lie.”
“My friend needs me,” Charles whispered.
“And Max needs you also,” Fernando said.
Charles looked up sharply.
Fernando smiled gently. “Time is running short.”
“For the curse?” Charles breathed.
“For Max,” Fernando corrected. “He stands at the edge of understanding. One more blow could shatter him. Or free him. You can decide.”
Charles swallowed hard. “And what do you want me to do?”
Fernando stepped back, hands sliding into his pockets, posture as casual as if they were discussing weather.
“Do what you already plan to do,” he said. “Stay. Push. Refuse to be shut out. He will test you again. They always do.”
He winked. “Make sure he fails.”
Charles stared at him. “You’re helping me.”
“No Charles,” Fernando said warmly. “I am helping him.”
He began to fade, not vanish, just thin as he walked away, like a shadow pulling away from stone.
“Wait - ” Charles reached for him, but Fernando only smiled, amused.
“Oh, and please tell Sebastian,” Fernando said, “that I am still faster in the rain.”
The roses shivered, the air warmed, and Fernando Alonso vanished into the garden with nothing more than a soft, lingering laugh.
Charles was alone, except he wasn’t. The mark on his wrist glowed faintly and above him, the castle exhaled, long, trembling and afraid.
Because Charles finally understood:
Max was running out of time.
Chapter 11: The Moment ™ (AKA The Rookies Commit a Hate Crime)
Summary:
Ahhhh Abu Dhabi has me stressingggggg ... so I present to you, my favourite chapter yet!!!!!
Recap:
Charles: Why is your hand on my ass?
Max: It was an accident.
Charles:
Charles: Why is it still there?
Max: It's still an accident.
-----------------
Fernando Alonso: Exists
Everyone Else: He's him.
-----------------
Fernando: I saw myself in him.
Charles: That sounds… ominous.
Fernando: Oh it is. But also flattering. For him.
Fernando: *Leaves as Father Figure by Taylor Swift plays daramatically in the background*
Chapter Text
The castle woke up wrong.
Sure, it wasn’t obvious, not if you only looked once. The walls were still standing and the towers still cutting their sharp silhouettes against a washed-out morning sky. No stones had fallen in the night and no windows had shattered.
But the moment Charles opened his eyes, he knew.
The air had that too-clean taste it got after the magic had flared hard and then retreated, like the château had taken a breath that was almost a sob and was now pretending nothing had happened.
He lay there for a long moment, staring up at the canopy above his bed, watching the way the fabric shivered. He hadn’t slept so much as drifted in and out of the same looping thought, of Max turning away from him, again and again and again.
I can’t …
You shouldn’t …
It’s not …
He squeezed his eyes shut forcing the words to scatter before they could settle into sentences. The argument from the night before was already fragmenting into texture rather than dialogue, in the way Max’s jaw had locked, the way his hands had gone very still, the way the terrace had narrowed until there was only the space between them and the knowledge that Max was going to run.
He rolled onto his side and then pushed himself upright. Every muscle complained, all tight and shivery, like he’d done a double race distance with no cool down. His head ached, grief and anger and fear stewed together into something thick.
He pulled on clothes without really thinking about it, soft shirt, jumper, and the track pants Lewis had slipped into his wardrobe weeks ago with a fondly exasperated, “You’re allowed to be comfortable and stylish, darling.” The castle, unhelpfully, chose that moment to tighten the floorboards under his bare feet, almost like a subtle encouragement forward.
“I know,” Charles muttered. “I’m going.”
The door to his room opened before he could reach for the handle, without any of the smoothness of a normal day. He took two steps left, toward the kitchen before the floorboards underfoot gave a half-hearted protest, pushing him in the other direction and towards the workshop.
“Tea first?” he offered, because his voice sounded steadier when he was trying to be funny.
A draft slid along the baseboards, cool and insistent, tugging at the cuffs of his track pants like a child pulling at his sleeve and forcing him where it wanted him to go.
The workshop.
He swallowed. “I don’t even know if he’s - ”
The nearest door popped open halfway, then shut itself with a decisive click, like it had changed its mind about offering an escape.
“Okay,” Charles said softly. “Okay.”
As he started walking, the rookies’ whispers followed him, half-heard from somewhere above.
“Do you think they broke up?”
“They were not together to begin with.”
“Not officially, but …”
“Shh, he’ll hear you.”
The voices came in snatches, bouncing down stairwells and around corners, sometimes accompanied by the clink of porcelain or the suspicious scrape of tiny cutlery attempting stealth.
He turned his head once, sharply, when a giggle skittered past his shoulder like a thrown pebble but no one was there.
Leo padded alongside him for a while, claws clicking on the stone and ears at half-mast, occasionally glancing up, as if assessing whether he needed to herd Charles like an errant sheep. When Charles’ steps faltered at an intersection, uncertain, Leo gave a quiet woof and trotted decisively toward the stairs to the workshop.
“Traitor,” Charles told him, but his mouth softened at the corners.
He realised, somewhere between the second and third corridor, that he hadn’t seen Max once that morning. Which, in itself, wasn’t unusual, Max disappeared sometimes. Into the workshop, into the west wing, into the kind of bone-deep solitude that felt less like introversion and more like punishment.
But usually, the castle told on him.
A humming light, a warmth under a particular door, the faint echo of an engine run for comfort rather than necessity, but today, there was nothing. No hint. Just the château’s quiet, urgent insistence, tugging, nudging, leaning the walls into a suggestion.
Make him stop running.
The thought didn’t feel like his. It came with the the thrum of magic threaded through plaster and felt like the way Oscar’s piano sometimes played on its own when they stood too close, only this time there was no melody, just a plea.
The roses in the big staircase arrangement were worse. He’d always loved that display and the way it changed subtly with the seasons, colours shifting like moods. Today, the blooms had collapsed inward at the tips, petals darkened to the shade of drying blood, a few lying scattered on the steps.
He bent to pick one up and the stem pricked him, sharply enough that he hissed. A bead of blood welled at the pad of his thumb, bright and almost obscene in the muted light.
“Really?” he asked the house. “Drama queen.”
The chandelier above him shuddered in its chains, as he sucked the blood from his thumb and started walking again. By the time he reached the workshop door, the air felt thick, as if the magic had pooled there and was waiting.
He lifted his hand to knock and the château gave up its pretense of subtlety. The handle turned under his fingers without his input, and the door eased inward by someone else’s will.
Charles exhaled, shaky. “Fine,” he whispered. “Have it your way.”
The workshop swallowed him.
It was dimmer than it should have been. The lamps along the walls glowed low, embers rather than flames with their light pooling in small and uncertain circles. Dust motes hung in the air like suspended ash, and there, at the centre of it all, like the axis on which this little universe turned, the Ferrari.
Max stood with his back to the door, bent over the car’s chassis. His hands were braced on the metal, fingers spread wide and knuckles white. For a moment, just for a moment, Charles thought he was praying. There was something religious in the angle of his shoulders and the way his head bowed, in the absolute stillness of him.
He looked like a penitent at an altar he didn’t believe he deserved to approach.
The door clicked shut behind Charles of its own accord. The sound was soft, but it might as well have been a gunshot in the quiet.
And still Max didn’t move.
The castle, on the other hand, reacted with visible relief. The lamps flared all at once, a bright, eager rush that painted everything in sharp lines. Then, as if remembering that this was not supposed to be a celebration, they dimmed back down, settling into a careful, tremulous half-light, but the message was clear enough.
It wanted this. It had maneuvered him here with every tilt of floorboards and every flicker of flame, and underneath that want, vibrating through the beams and the low hum of the walls, was something like fear.
It was terrified of what would happen next.
Charles stood just inside the threshold, with his hands at his sides and his fingers curling into his palms. The workshop felt like the inside of a held breath, and yet the silence wasn’t empty.
It had layers, like sediment, months of unsaid things packed tight and heavy, Charles could feel it in his teeth. He could hear it in the low hum of the lights, the way the magic curled back along the rafters, trying very hard not to intrude and failing miserably.
Max still hadn’t moved.
He stood bent over the Ferrari, braced on his hands, the long line of his back tense and unmoving. He might have been carved from the same stone as the castle, all sharp angles and locked joints, except Charles knew better. There was too much life under that stillness. Too much fear.
The door had already shut behind Charles when he’d entered, the castle taking that decision out of his hands as usual. Now, he reached back without looking and felt for the handle anyway. His fingers closed around cold metal. He pushed and the latch clicked again - small and final. Not magic this time but choice.
No soft opening. No banter. No giving Max room to wriggle free of this, like he always did, like smoke through fingers, like a car slipping neatly out of a badly judged overtake.
If Charles offered him an escape, Max would take it. Not out of malice, not even out of cowardice, but because he had spent his entire life taking the line that led away from vulnerability and towards the easiest win. It was instinct, muscle memory.
But here, Charles wasn’t going to indulge it.
“Max,” he said again, this time not as a greeting but as a summons.
“Don’t.”
The word came out low and hoarse, scraped from somewhere deep. Max didn’t lift his head, but his fingers dug into the metal of the chassis as if it were the only thing holding him upright.
“I can’t do this right now.”
The castle reacted before Charles did. A draft slipped under the door and curled around his ankles, chilly and disapproving, as if the house itself wanted to argue. One of the overhead lamps flared bright, then dimmed in quick apology, like a heart misfiring.
Charles almost laughed, almost, but the sound died in his throat. There was nothing funny about the way Max’s shoulders were set, rigid and wrong. Nothing funny about the way his voice had broken on this.
I can’t do this.
This being Charles. This being honesty. This being the one conversation that might actually save them and yet Max would rather walk into a burning car than have it.
Charles’ own heart was hammering. He’d hardly slept at all, his thoughts had spent the night doing frantic laps, feverish and exhausted, flickering between anger, hurt and fear, and a stupid, stubborn hope that refused to die.
He thought of the argument, of Max’s eyes gone flat with desperation, of his own voice rising in something too close to panic.
You don't get to make this decision for me…
I have to …
You don’t have to keep sacrificing yourself for…
And then Max had turned away, like he always did, like it was the only defence he knew. The castle had flinched and Charles had wanted to shake him until something rattled loose.
Now they were here. No audience, no rookies pretending not to listen, no Seb hovering in the doorway like an anxious flame, no Nico ticking a warning rhythm from a shelf. Just the two of them and a car that had watched everything from the middle of it all.
Charles set his jaw.
“We’re doing it Max,” he said, and the words fell into the space between them like a marker dropped onto tarmac at the start of a lap. Non-negotiable.
Max went even stiller, if that was even possible.
“We are not,” he muttered. “You should be asleep. You have to go back to Pierre, and there’s - ”
“This is not about Pierre,” Charles snapped, sharper than he’d intended.
Charles took another step, coming up alongside the Ferrari. He didn’t crowd Max yet, but he came close enough that he could feel the heat of him radiating through the space, the warmth of his skin, the electric prickle of magic that always gathered around Max when his emotions ran high.
Up close, the stiffness in Max’s shoulders looked worse. It wasn’t just tension but a kind of bracing, like he was waiting for a blow.
Charles remembered that posture from press conferences, from old footage. The set mouth, the wrists knotted together on the table, the expression fixed somewhere between belligerence and boredom. It was the look of a man who had learned not to give anything away because the world was always watching, always judging, always waiting for failure.
This was worse. This was that same armour turned inward, against someone who lov- cared for him.
“You’re running again,” Charles said quietly, he didn’t need to raise his voice. The observation itself carried weight; it was an accusation and an act of care in the same breath.
Max made a small, ugly sound. Half scoff, half exhale.
“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he snapped.
And there it was, the edge. The temper he leashed so carefully most days had slipped free in that single sentence, not explosive but cold and precise, honed by years of defending himself. The words lashed through the air and hit Charles dead centre.
Charles swallowed the first answer that rose to his tongue.
He’d argued with Max before, and now he knew the patterns. Push too bluntly and Max would shut down, a door slamming and bolting from the inside. Go too soft and Max would nod and agree and quietly continue to consign himself to whatever lonely martyrdom he’d decided was necessary.
There was a narrow path between those extremes, and Charles was currently walking it without a guardrail.
“You keep saying that,” Charles said. “Safe. Like that’s the only thing I want. To be kept safe, to be tucked away somewhere where nothing can touch me, where nothing can hurt me, where nothing can change.”
Max’s fingers flexed on the metal, tendons shifting under skin, but he didn’t answer.
“You keep protecting me,” Charles went on, each word chosen, measured out like a precise throttle. “From the curse. From Alonso. From your past. From your feelings.” He let himself breathe once, deliberately. “You keep protecting me from the very thing I want.”
The castle shuddered.
It was more than a tremor this time. The floor under Charles’ feet gave a brief, disconcerting lurch, like the whole building had swayed and then thought better of it. Dust sifted down from a beam. A wrench rolled off a bench and clattered onto the floor, spinning in wild circles before it came to rest at Max’s boots.
Max’s knuckles went even whiter.
“Charles,” he said, and now the name came out in a plea. “Stop.”
The request was soft, but there was a desperate edge threaded through it.
Charles’ first instinct was to flinch back, to retreat, because he knew that tone. He’d grown up around it - from Carlos, in the mechanic shop, in rooms where teachers insisted they knew what was best.
Stop asking. Stop pushing. Stop making this harder. Stop being so much.
The thing inside him that had always wanted to be easy - easy to love, easy to keep, easy to manage - reared up in reflex. But this time he didn’t listen to it.
He thought instead of the rookies’ faces when they looked at Max, of the way Seb’s flames steadied whenever Max entered a room, of the way the castle had warmed the first time Max’s hand had brushed his by accident in this very workshop.
He thought of Max in the sunshine on the front drive, open and honest, calling Charles beautiful like it was an admission of failure rather than the bravest thing he’d ever said.
He thought of the look on Max’s face last night, wrecked and determined, as he insisted that letting Charles go was the only way to save him.
He thought of the car under Max’s hands, the first thing they’d built together, the way the engine still seemed to hum with every unspoken thing between them.
Charles lifted his chin.
“No Max,” he said, and his voice shook but he did not lower it. “Not this time.”
Max went very, very still, and then slowly he lifted his head. He still didn’t look at Charles, instead his gaze slid to the far wall, to some fixed point beyond the workbenches, his jaw clenched and throat working.
“You’re tired,” he said, almost reasonable in tone. “You’re upset. Last night was … I said things I shouldn’t have. We can talk when - ”
“When you’ve decided on a version of the truth that hurts you the most and me just enough that you think I’ll accept it?” Charles cut in.
Max flinched.
The castle pulsed around them, an invisible heartbeat syncing to Charles’ own now, not Max’s.
“That’s not what I - ”
“It is what you do Max,” Charles said. “You decide how much of yourself you’re allowed to give. You decide what I’m allowed to feel, what the others are allowed to feel. You hold everything at arm’s length and you call it protection. You lock yourself away and then you say it’s for my own good.”
His voice was rising now, not in volume but in intensity, each word landing with the force of a carefully taken corner and the castle didn’t try to dampen it. If anything, the floor under Max’s boots seemed to tilt a fraction toward Charles, subtle and undeniable.
Max shook his head, eyes fixed stubbornly on the far wall. “You don’t understand what you’re asking. This is not a game.”
“I know.” Charles stepped closer, eroding the distance between them one deliberate pace at a time. “That’s why I’m still here.”
Max closed his eyes for a moment and his lashes cast small crescents on his cheeks. His hands flattened fully against the Ferrari, as if he could press his panic into the metal and seal it there instead.
“You need to go back,” he said. “I heard Alonso. Pierre needs you, the business - ”
“Pierre has made bad decisions, and Carlos is an ass, and we will fix it,” Charles said, a little impatient now. “But that is not what this is about and you know it. You’re using it as a shield, you’re using everything as a shield.”
The words landed between them like debris from a crash.
Max’s nostrils flared and he finally turned his head, only halfway, but enough that Charles could see more of his profile, the hard set of his mouth, the tightness around his eyes.
“That’s not fair,” he said, and suddenly there was a frayed edge there, something raw and almost honest. “You don’t … I am trying to - ”
“To what?” Charles pressed. “To be noble? To be tragic? To be the hero in a story where you never get what you want because you’ve decided you don’t deserve it?”
The castle’s magic surged like a wave hitting stone and the temperature in the room jumped a degree, then two before receding again. Tools rattled faintly, vibrating in their trays.
Max laughed, short and joyless. “You think this is about what I deserve, Charles?”
“I think you have spent your entire life being told that the only thing you deserve is pain unless you win,” Charles said, the words rushing forward now, unstoppable. “And you have decided that anyone who loves you has to share it.”
Max’s head snapped around.
He still didn’t meet Charles’ eyes, but his gaze landed closer, cheekbone, jawline, ear, anywhere but the pupils that would give him away. His mouth opened, closed, opened again.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but the protest lacked bite. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“You’re right,” Charles said quietly. “I don’t know what it’s like to be raised by Jos Verstappen. I don’t know what it’s like to have the world watching every mistake since you were a child. I don’t know what it’s like to be cursed by Fernando Alonso at the peak of your career.”
The name hung in the air like thunder.
Outside, waves crashed harder against the cliff, as if the sea itself had stirred at the mention of Alonso. The windows fogged at the edges.
“But I do know what it’s like to love someone who keeps trying to decide, for the both of us, that it would be better if I walked away,” Charles continued even though his throat felt tight. “I know what it’s like to be told that my own choices don’t matter. That my own heart doesn’t matter.”
Max’s fingers twitched. His gaze dropped to the floor.
“You know nothing about - ”
“I know you,” Charles said, and the conviction in that simple sentence made the magic ring like struck glass. “I know how you breathe when you’re about to lie. I know how your hands shake when you’re scared. I know you, Max. So stop pretending this is about Pierre or Carlos or the curse.”
He could feel the castle behind him, around him, within him, leaning in and listening. Even the ever-present hum of the magic had gone thin with concentration.
Max’s shoulders rose and fell, unevenly.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked, finally, the words scraped bare. “That I’m selfish? That I’m scared? That I don’t trust myself not to ruin your life?”
Charles’ heart lurched. Yes, he wanted to say. Yes, say it, say anything that isn’t another half-truth wrapped in sacrifice.
Instead, he reined himself in a fraction.
“I want you to stop running long enough to tell me the truth,” he said. “Not the version where you’re a monster and I’m fragile and the castle is some morbid punishment that you deserve. The real truth.”
Max’s mouth twisted. “There is no version where I’m not a bea - ”
“Don’t,” Charles cut across, and for the first time his voice sharpened into something that made the castle bristle. “Do not call yourself that in front of me.”
The lights above them flared, hard and bright, then dimmed to a smouldering glow, like the house had added its own warning.
Max swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“You want the truth?” he said, slowly. “Fine. The truth is that you should never have stayed. The truth is that you are too good for this place, for me, for - ”
“I didn’t ask you to rehearse your self-hatred,” Charles snapped. “I asked why you won’t even look at me when you talk about what you’re doing.”
“That’s not - ”
“What are you so afraid of?” Charles asked, the question dropping like a stone into deep water.
The workshop went still. The castle stopped pretending it wasn’t listening and held its breath. Max’s hands clenched once more on the Ferrari, as if he could crush the answer into the metal, and his shoulders trembled, imperceptibly.
“Charles,” he said again, and now his voice had shredded down to threads. “Please. Stop.”
Charles had never heard him say please like that, not to anyone.
It almost undid him.
For a heartbeat, Charles saw the alternative. He could step back, he could say ‘all right, another time then’, he could let Max breathe, let this simmer, let the castle rock itself back into uneasy equilibrium.
He could go back to his room, pretend he hadn’t heard the break in that please, and let everything between them slide back into that half-lit, half-spoken space where it had been for weeks. They would drink tea, they would add to the car, they would trade touches that meant too much and never say any of it out loud.
Max would keep planning to send him away, and so Charles would leave one day, either by choice or by force, with his hands empty of all the things he had wanted to carry.
He thought of Pierre, of the mess waiting outside these walls. Of Carlos’ smirk and Alex’s worried eyes. Of the rookies, wide-eyed and loyal, clinging to the edges of an almost-family.
He thought of Max’s face illuminated by sunlight, the first time he’d called him beautiful.
“No,” Charles said again, more softly this time, but with something iron underneath. “Not this time.”
The words dropped into the room like an anchor and the castle accepted them like a vow.
The lamps steadied and the floor stopped its faint trembling. The magic, taut and bright, rearranged itself around their decision and for a long moment after the words left his mouth, they just…hung there.
No. Not this time.
The castle absorbed them first. The magic ran a silent circuit through the beams and the stone, and the lamps along the walls steadied into a low, molten glow. The floor, finally, stopped its faint, anxious trembling.
Max didn’t.
He stared at some invisible point beyond the Ferrari’s open chassis, shoulders still drawn up around his ears, every line of him pitched forward like he was bracing for impact. His hands stayed flattened on the metal, as if bolted there.
Charles watched him.
In another life, another context, he might have reached for humour here, some crooked little smile to soften the edges, to tempt Max into loosening his jaw by making him roll his eyes. But humour would only give Max somewhere to go, an exit ramp of a packed highway.
Charles wasn’t giving him exits anymore.
And, so he moved.
Not around the workbench this time, not to the side, but straight ahead, tracing the curve of the Ferrari’s front until he was level with Max, the car a physical barrier between them that felt suddenly like an accomplice rather than an obstacle.
Max’s gaze dropped as Charles came into his line of sight. Not subtly but deliberately, like he had spotted Charles’ approach in his peripheral vision and chosen to look anywhere else.
The avoidance hit harder than a physical blow would have. But Charles let the hurt pass through him, acknowledged and unhidden, until it didn’t knock him down but instead sharpened him.
“Look at me,” he said.
It wasn’t a demand, not yet. More like a request with teeth.
Max’s fingers flexed against the chassis, the tendons shifting under skin and still he didn’t lift his head.
“You don’t want that,” he muttered.
Charles exhaled slowly, pulling the air all the way down into the ache sitting under his ribs.
“Why not?” he asked. “Why don’t I want that, Max?”
Max shrugged. It was a tiny movement, but it looked like it cost him something.
“Because I’m angry?” he tried. “Because you’re tired. Because last night was - ”
“Last night was you running away mid-sentence and me letting you,” Charles cut across, gently but without room for argument. “Last night was you deciding for both of us that it would hurt less if you shut a door in my face.”
“That’s not - ”
“Max, this time I will not let you.”
He waited.
Silence stretched and the castle didn’t fill it. Max’s throat worked and his eyes remained doggedly on the car, that stupid broken thing they had poured so much love into that it had become almost safer than each other.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, eventually.
“What did you mean, then?” Charles asked. “Explain it to me because I’m here, I'm listening, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s the problem,” Max muttered.
Charles’ heart stuttered.
“What do you mean?” he said, softer now, but the question was no less precise. “What about me staying is a problem?”
Max’s fingers curled again, his nails squeaking faintly on metal. He still didn’t look up. His breathing had gone shallow, the rise and fall of his chest quicker than it should have been for someone who hadn’t moved more than a few centimetres in the last ten minutes.
“You’re shaking,” Charles said before he could stop himself.
“I’m fine,” Max replied, almost reflexive.
“You’re not.” Charles let the objection stand without apology. “And I’m standing right here watching you try to disappear into a car.”
He shifted his weight, leaned forward just enough that his words would hit without him having to raise his voice.
“Why can’t you look at me?”
Max’s jaw clenched and the muscle there jumped once, twice.
“I am looking at you,” he said.
“At my reflection in the bodywork, maybe,” Charles said, and could not quite keep the edge from creeping in. “At a convenient approximation of me that doesn’t talk back sure. But not at me.”
Charles waited.
He did not touch, not yet. He let the lack of touch say its own thing; I am not forcing you, I am not dragging this out of you with my hands, but I am not leaving, either.
“Max,” he said again, and something in his tone shifted, some small fracture of patience and fear and affection.
Nothing.
“Max.”
This time, the name came out rough and scraped. He heard himself in it, heard how close he was to cracking open if Max didn’t meet him halfway.
And still nothing.
Charles’ fingers curled against the edge of the car. He could feel the heat in the metal now, the way the Ferrari held all the energy in the room, every unsaid thing vibrating quietly along its frame.
He thought of all the times Max had used motion as escape; walking away down corridors, vanishing into the west wing, drowning himself in laps on the simulator but here, there was nowhere to go. The castle had seen to that. The door was shut.
So of course now Max was using stillness as a shield instead.
Charles swallowed, then repeated the only question that mattered.
“What are you so afraid of?”
His own heart was pounding hard enough that he felt slightly dizzy. Part of him wanted to step back, to take the pressure off, to say never mind, later, rest. But later had stretched and stretched and stretched until it had become its own kind of lie.
Max went silent in that particular way that didn’t mean nothing was happening. It meant everything was happening inside, under the surface where no one could see.
When the answer finally came, it wasn’t a shout. It wasn’t even spoken directly to Charles. It came out slantwise, a confession addressed to the metal between his hands.
“…Of you,” Max said.
Charles’ knees nearly gave out. He actually had to brace his hand on the Ferrari to keep himself upright. The word fractured something in him he hadn’t realised was still intact.
“Of me,” he repeated, faintly. “You’re afraid of…me?”
Max’s mouth twisted. “Congratulations,” he muttered cruelly, voice shredded. “You wanted the truth.”
“That’s not a truth,” Charles said, all his practiced composure slipping. “That’s the start of one. maybe.”
Max’s laugh was a short, wrecked thing, born without any real humour. It sounded like broken gravel under tyres.
“You don’t know when to stop, do you?” he said.
“No,” Charles answered. “That’s not who I am Max.”
He watched the struggle play out across Max’s face. It was all in micro-movements, the way his lips parted as if to speak and then closed, the way his gaze flicked infinitesimally toward Charles’ shoulder and then away, the way his knuckles trembled against the chassis.
Then Max inhaled deeply, paused and then exhaled slowly. When he spoke again, the words were pulled out of him, thread by thread.
“I am afraid,” he said, “of loving you.”
The castle reacted like it had been struck.
Light surged, then dropped. The air went hot, then cold, then found a feverish middle. The roses outside unfurled a fraction, then snapped tight again, unable to decide whether to blossom or barricade.
Charles felt the sentence like a physical blow. It knocked the breath out of him more effectively than any crash ever had.
There it was. No evasion. No elaborate diversion. No protection masquerading as logic.
Just the raw, excruciating truth of it.
“Of loving me,” he echoed, dazed.
Max nodded once, the movement stiff, as if he’d had to force his neck to obey.
His grip on the Ferrari grew brutal. His fingers dug into the metal hard enough that Charles could see the faint tremor in his forearms and the car dinting beneath his hands.
“It ruins everything I touch,” Max said.
The words came faster now, as if they’d broken loose and could not be shoved back into whatever cramped compartment he’d been keeping them in. He still wasn’t looking at Charles, instead staring at the car as if it were a black box recorder, as if he were finally playing back all the data he’d spent years ignoring.
“Everything I care about ends up broken,” he went on, voice quiet but ferociously steady now that it had momentum. “Because of me. Because I don’t know how to - I don’t - ”
He faltered, fingers clenching and mouth moving around unfinished verbs.
To be gentle. To stay. To hold on without crushing.
He didn’t say any of those things, but Charles heard them anyway.
“You don’t understand,” Max said instead, and now the words were fraying again at the edges. “You have this idea of me, and it’s … ” he broke off, jaw locking. “…You don’t understand what it costs to love me.”
There it was, the core of it. Not that Max was unlovable, but that love came with a price tag that he had decided was too high for anyone else to pay.
Charles stared at him as thoughts swirled through his mind.
He thought of tabloid headlines about gas stations and the grainy footage of Jos at karting tracks. He thought of all the podiums where Max had looked more relieved than happy, like every win had been a stay of execution. He thought of the curse, and the cold, and the years this house had stood silent with a man-turned-beast pacing its rooms like an animal in too small a cage.
The magic around them vibrated with a low, constant ache.
“That’s not your decision,” Charles said, but it came out in a whisper, the words barely making it past the thickness in his throat.
Max flinched, it was small but devastating.
“It is,” he insisted. “It has to be. You don’t know what it’s like when I choose something and then - ” He bit the rest off, shaking his head hard, as if he could dislodge the memories. “When they leave or when it breaks, when I break it. When I’m too much. Too angry, too - ”
“Human?” Charles suggested.
Max recoiled from the word like it had teeth.
“You don’t get to say that,” he said. “You have never seen the worst of it.”
“I see more than you think,” Charles replied, the softness draining out of him, leaving something sharper. “I have seen you hurt and not lash out. I have seen you angry and still choose to walk away instead of burn everything down. I have seen you hold a scared kid’s hand and sit on a cold floor all night so he wouldn’t feel alone.”
“That doesn’t cancel - ”
“Life is not a ledger Max,” Charles snapped, sudden and fierce. “You don’t get to weigh acts of kindness against every mistake and declare your entire existence a net loss.”
The workshop’s air crackled and surface dust lifted and resettled. Max’s breathing had gone ragged and he looked like he was standing on the edge of something, stones crumbling under his heels.
“I have to protect you from that,” he said. “From me. From what happens when I -- when this --”
He gestured vaguely between them, as if there were something visible there, a rope or a chain or a flame.
“If I let this happen,” he said, “you are the one who pays the price. You get cursed by proximity. You get trapped here. You lose Pierre, your career, your future, your life, because you were stupid enough to fall in love with someone who was already fucking ruined.”
And there it was, the word that hung between them - love.
The castle shivered like a struck bell.
Charles felt it reverberate through the walls, through the car, through his bones. The magic tasted the honesty and brightened, thin threads of light crawling almost visibly along the edges of the workshop, up the lines of wiring, through the wood grain.
He stepped around the nose of the Ferrari, closing the last of the distance between them.
Max still didn’t look at him. His eyes had dropped to the floor now, as if the stone there were suddenly fascinating and his hands had not left the car, as if he were afraid that if he did not physically anchor himself he might fall apart entirely.
Charles stood close enough to feel the heat of him, close enough that if he lifted a hand he could touch.
But he didn’t, not yet. He still needed more.
“You keep talking about costs,” he said quietly. “Like love is a contract you have to protect me from signing. Like you’re some bad investment that I’m too naive to understand.”
Max’s mouth compressed into a hard line.
“And I am still telling you, weeks later, ” Charles went on, each word deliberate, “that you don’t get to decide that for me.”
The castle exhaled, dust sank, the lights steadied. A fine crack that had been inching its way up the wall beside the window halted, as if the pressure behind it had finally found another outlet.
Max’s head jerked up, almost despite himself and for a fraction of a second, his eyes met Charles’.
They were wrecked.
Fear and old shame, yes, but also a grief so bone-deep that Charles almost staggered under the weight of it. Under all of that however, was something else, flickering stubbornly like a pilot light that refused to go out
Want.
Care.
Love, already there and already burning, whether Max admitted it or not.
Charles’ chest hurt.
“You don’t,” he whispered one last time, steadying both himself and Max with the truth. “You don’t get to decide that.”
Then, finally, for a moment Max met his eyes, properly met them, and the world rearranged itself.
Not dramatically. Not with a burst of magic or a shattering of glass, just a subtle tilt, the kind that happens when the truth finally stands upright after years spent leaning crooked. The air took on the charged stillness of a storm eye and the workshop felt suddenly too small, too intimate, too full of every unsaid thing that had been tightening between them for weeks.
But Charles didn’t flinch, no he was done with flinching. Instead, he stepped closer.
Max’s breath hitched.
“You talk like loving you is a disaster,” Charles said, voice low, taut. “Like it’s something dangerous that I’m foolish for wanting. Like it’s a bomb I don’t know how to hold.”
Max stiffened, as if expecting impact.
“I see you do it,” Charles continued, careful and deliberate, unwilling to look away. “Every time I get close, every time I choose you, you recoil like I’m reaching for a fuse you forgot to cut.”
His throat thickened, damn it, but he didn’t let the wobble take his voice.
“But I see you,” he said. “Not the curse. Not the house. Not the shadows you hide in. You Max, always you.”
Max’s eyes shut, pained. Not resisting, but suffering.
Charles felt something in his chest twist sharply. It was the same twist he’d felt on the rainy night Max had admitted he didn’t know how to be soft without breaking. The same twist that had kept him awake last night, staring at the dark ceiling while the castle trembled around him.
He slowly reached out.
He didn’t go for Max’s face, not yet. He took his wrist, gently, with both hands, thumb brushing the inside pulse point.
Max flinched, not away this time, but toward. And that small, involuntary lean forward nearly undid Charles completely. It was the clearest truth Max had given him all morning; I want this, even if I think I shouldn’t.
“You’re not saving me by shutting me out,” Charles said.
The castle hummed, quiet but urgent, like the house itself was clinging to the words.
“And I can’t -- ” Charles swallowed hard. “I won’t let you do that anymore.”
Max’s eyes opened and everything in them burned.
Fear. Want. Shame. Hope. All strangled down to a faint ember, a lifetime of restraint in them.
“If I…” Max started, then stopped, breath snagging in his chest. He tried again, “If I let this happen…”
He looked broken when he said it, like he was holding something jagged between his teeth. So Charles moved closer, just a fraction, enough that their foreheads might have brushed if Max leaned even an inch forward.
“Yes?” Charles whispered. “If you let this happen, Max… then what?”
Max’s mouth trembled.
“Then I lose you.”
The sentence wasn’t defensive, it wasn’t angry, it wasn’t even loud. Instead, it was desolate. It was the kind of fear that lives in someone who has learned that every good thing is temporary, conditional, destined to vanish if touched too lovingly or too roughly.
Charles could barely breathe.
“Max,” he whispered, “you don’t lose people because you love them. You lose them because you never let them love you back.”
Max inhaled sharply, like the words had struck him.
Charles lifted a hand and hesitated for half a heartbeat, just long enough for Max to see the decision being made, and then he cupped Max’s jaw. Max leaned into the touch as if starved for it, as a soft, wrecked sound escaped him. A desperate mix between a sigh and a prayer.
Charles’ thumb brushed the line of Max’s cheekbone and Max’s breath stuttered. His hands, still on the Ferrari, tightened desperately, as if he were holding onto the last part of himself he trusted not to break.
“Look at me,” Charles whispered.
And this time Max did.
The moment their eyes locked again, something shifted between them, quiet but irreversible. The kind of shift that made the magic pulse like a second heartbeat.
His pupils were wide. His lips parted, trembling. A flush crept up the column of his throat and Charles felt more than saw the surrender tugging at him, the instinct to step into the warmth instead of away from it.
Charles slid his free hand up, fingers threading into Max’s hair, slow and reverent. Max’s full body shuddered, breath catching in a throat suddenly too tight.
“Max,” Charles murmured, “it’s alright.”
“It isn’t,” Max whispered, voice cracking. “It’s never been.”
“Maybe it could be,” Charles said. “If you let it.”
Max made a small, helpless sound.
Their faces were close now, too close, the kind of close where the tiniest movement would collapse the distance. Their breaths mingled in one uneven rhythm. The warmth of Max’s skin seeped into Charles’ palm and the heat of Charles' touch ran along Max’s spine like electricity.
Everything tilted forward.
Charles didn’t know who moved first, but it didn’t matter. They were drawn together like magnets, small incremental shifts, cheeks brushing, noses grazing, foreheads touching with a soft, devastating thud.
Max’s hands finally left the Ferrari and hovered near Charles’ waist. Not touching, but trembling just short of it, as if the distance itself were some doomed attempt at restraint.
Charles exhaled, the breath ghosting across Max’s lips, and said softly “you’re allowed to touch Max.”
Max inhaled sharply at the warmth of it before letting his hands rest on Charles’ waist. His head tilted, just slightly, and Charles felt it like a spark.
He leaned.
Max leaned.
Every atom in the castle leaned.
Charles’ fingers tightened in Max’s hair and Max’s eyes fell half-shut.
Their lips brushed once, barely, like a promise so fragile it might dissolve and Max made a sound, quiet, wrecked, needy. Charles felt it vibrate through their joined breath.
And, the castle went incandescent. The walls warmed, the metal sang, the air thickened into something holy, dust motes spun like stars around them.
And so they sank into the gravity of it, their bodies tilting closer and foreheads pressed together. Charles’ thumb stroked Max’s cheekbone and Max’s breath shuddered against Charles’ mouth. The kiss as inevitable as the morning sun.
Just one inch more.
And then, the castle snapped - not violently, just startled, like something had leapt out from behind a corner.
Because something had.
There were footsteps.
Then a clatter.
Then …
Fate, disguised as six overexcited enchanted teenagers and one unhinged Australian with zero boundaries.
And so, in the very instant Charles’ breath mingled with Max’s in a warm, trembling almost-kiss -
In the very instant the castle reached a fever pitch of glowing, vibrating anticipation -
In the very instant Max made a soft, helpless noise that Charles would replay in his mind until the day he died -
The door detonated open.
Not pushed.
Not swung.
Detonated.
A blast of hallway air slapped into them, cold, humiliating, and immediate. Charles jerked so hard their foreheads collided with a muted crack. Max stumbled sideways, catching the Ferrari with a frantic, scrambling hand.
And in the doorway,
Kimi Antonelli.
Teacup. Saint. Demon. Traitor.
Holding a tray of pastries like a sacrificial offering to the gods.
“WE BROUGHT SNAAACKS - ” he shouted, too loud and too cheerful …
And then he saw them, and stopped.
And so did everyone else behind him.
Because Kimi had not arrived alone.
Oh no, that would be too much to ask. Instead, he had brought the entire colony of enchanted chaos gremlin children.
Jack, vibrating with anxiety.
Isack, knife-energy incarnate.
Gabi, already taking notes.
Ollie, one gasp away from fainting.
Liam, regretting every decision in his life.
And even Leo, the traitor, barking with glee at the scene like a tiny furry executioner.
Then, behind them, because tragedy always outdoes itself,
Daniel
Who looked like Christmas morning had come early.
For exactly three seconds, nobody moved.
Not Max, who had leapt away from Charles with the reactive speed of a F1 Champion, breathing hard, pupils blown, and hair messed by Charles’ fingers.
Not Charles, who had both hands raised like he was trying to hold the air in place, eyes huge, face flushed scarlet, and mouth parted in devastation as the moment evaporated.
Not the rookies, petrified mid-step like a tableau in some chaotic fresco of teenage stupidity.
Not even the castle, which seemed to be calculating whether to collapse a beam in protest.
Then, Kimi dropped the pastries, the tray hitting the floor with the sound of a dying cymbal.
Lando, a beat late as usual and peering from behind Daniel’s plume, squeaked, “WE INTERRUPTED A MOMENT.”
Jack whimpered, “We’re going to die.”
Gabi scribbled furiously: Moment confirmed. Emotional fallout imminent.
Ollie whispered, “Oh my God, they were kissing. They were ACTUALLY - ”
Isack, reverent, “A moment. A MOMENT moment.”
Leo barked, seemingly thrilled to witness the downfall of his fathers.
Max produced a sound Charles had never heard from any creature on this earth, a sort of strangled, choked, mortified snarl, like a man being flayed alive by embarrassment.
Charles wanted the floor to swallow him whole.
The castle, for its part, flickered its lamps in a pattern that was unmistakably, are you KIDDING me, going dim, bright, dim, bright, like a furious, magical tantrum.
Daniel stepped forward into the disintegrating silence.
His eyes were huge.
His grin was feral.
His joy was obscene.
“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
Max squeezed his eyes shut as though praying for death.
Daniel threw both arms wide, beaming. “DID WE JUST INTERRUPT FOREPLAY?”
“RICCIARDO,” Max barked.
Not spoke. Barked.
Daniel froze, hands up, dimples undeterred. “Okay, okay. But also… foreplay…?”
Jack actually fainted against Liam.
Isack said, “Respectfully, that’s legendary.”
Gabi wrote, “Max’s bark indicates sexual frustration (??)”
Daniel stopped mid-rant, held his hands up, and nodded solemnly like he had just been warned away by a dangerous predator, and was absolutely thrilled about it.
“Okay,” he said, calm as still water. “Understood. But …”
He pointed at Charles.
He pointed at Max.
He pointed at the centimetre of air where their kiss had almost happened.
“That was a moment.”
Jack Doohan whimpered. “Oh god, he said it. He said it.”
Ollie clutched his own handle with both hands, “We’ve committed a magical crime.”
Liam, voice trembling, “Nico is going to kill us.”
Isack, resigned, “Worth it.”
Kimi, completely earnest, “Umm the pastries are still warm?”
Charles wanted to put his head through the wall.
Max, surprisingly, did not explode but rather imploded. He went red in a violent, catastrophic flush that crawled from his neck to his ears, flooding his cheeks until he looked like a human-shaped warning light.
Charles reached out instinctively, then froze, remembering the audience.
Max felt the aborted touch anyway as Charles saw it ripple down his spine like an electrical surge. He took a breath and then another.
Then he said, very quietly,
“Out.”
The rookies screamed like someone had fired a gun.
“OUT,” Max repeated, louder.
And they scattered.
Not in an orderly retreat, but in a full-scale chaotic evacuation.
Gabi dropped his notebook.
Jack yelled, “SAVE YOURSELVES.”
Isack ran into the doorframe with a metallic clang.
Ollie grabbed Kimi by the handle and physically pulled him out.
Lando, who had technically not been invited, fled while yelling, “WE’RE SORRY, WE LOVE YOU, PLEASE KISS SOOOO MUCH LATER -- ”
Leo chased all of them, thrilled to be included.
Daniel remained, because of course he did, leaning against the doorframe and delighted beyond ethics.
“You two are SO - ”
“Daniel,” Charles warned, voice cracking.
“ - DOWN BAD IT’S UNREAL GUYS.”
The chandelier above them flickered in the unmistakable rhythm of, he’s right and I hate it.
“You two,” Daniel said, sweeping a hand between them, “need a locked room and no rookies within fifty kilometres.”
“Danny, get out,” Max muttered.
Daniel laughed, “love you too, big guy.”
And then, just when they thought it was over, Daniel winked, finger guns blazing.
“Kiss later! Communicate sooner! Use protection … well, magic probably does that for you, maybe… I’m not really sure how -- ”
Max’s roar shook the walls and Daniel bolted, leaving only the echo of his delight behind him.
The silence that settled was nothing like the earlier ones.
No, this one was hot and messy and embarrassed. It trembled with everything that had almost happened, and everything that still hovered between them like a charged wire.
Charles exhaled first, tentatively and then,
“Max,” he said, soft as silk but shaking slightly.
Max did not turn.
“I’m sorry,” Charles murmured.
Max’s head snapped up, looking at Charles with confusion in his eyes.
“For them,” Charles clarified quickly. “For the interruption. Not for …”
He swallowed.
Not for the almost-kiss.
Not for touching you.
Not for wanting you.
Max’s hands tightened on the edge of the workbench.
“Not for what?” Max asked, voice unsteady, unsure.
Charles took another breath, this one steadier.
“For being close to you,” he said. “I’m not sorry for that.”
Max closed his eyes and for a moment Charles thought he might actually physically break, crumple sideways or lean into him or fall apart in whatever direction gravity pulled him.
The castle held its breath until Max opened his eyes again.
“I’m trying,” he murmured. “I just … I don’t know how to do this without hurting you.”
Charles steped closer, not touching yet but an invitation to nonetheless.
“You won’t Max,” he said. “Not if you stop running.”
Max’s gaze flickered to his mouth and then to his eyes, something raw, terrified, and yearning cracked open in them.
“I want you. More than I should.”
That’s the confession. That’s the wound.
Charles’ breath catches. “Then why - ”
Max steps back. Just one tiny step, barely there, but to them it’s an entire world.
“Because I don’t trust myself,” he says hoarsely. “Not yet. Not when everything feels like it’s… shifting.”
The castle groans softly, like stone grieving.
And Charles doesn’t push, not this time. Not when Max is already bleeding honesty and trying so hard to do the right thing, to say the right thing, the honest thing.
Instead Charles nods, slow and pained, but understanding.
“I don’t need you to be ready,” Charles said quietly. “I just need you to not shut me out.”
Max looked gutted.
“I’m sorry,” he added, and this time it’s not to end the conversation, but because he means it. “I’m so sorry.”
And this time, Charles believes him, reaching out to grab Max’s hand.
This time he doesn’t flinch, instead he whispers, “Give me one night, just one. Let me… come back to you with the right words. Let me have time to think.”
Charles’ lips part before he smiles softly..
“Okay Max,” heartbreakingly soft. “One night sounds good.”
Max exhales as if given oxygen, or perhaps mercy, before leaning in slowly to kiss Charles cheek, so chaste Charles was worried he’d imagine it.
“Goodnight, Charles.”
Charles watches him leave, not fleeing or collapsing, but gathering himself, because for the first time, Max didn’t run away. He walked away ready to return.
For a moment, Charles just stood there.
His hand still tingled where Max had held it, and his cheek still burned where Max had kissed it. His heart still thrashed against his ribs from everything that had almost happened, and everything that had.
And the castle … the castle was thrumming.
Not with anger, not exactly, but not with joy, not quite.
“Okay,” Charles whispered to no one, to the magic, to the castle’s watchful walls. “I know.”
The lamps flickered back at him, softly and almost apologetically, before one of the overhead rafters groaned with the heavy energy of a giant trying not to sigh.
But before he could move, before he could take a breath deep enough to settle himself the castle snapped again.
This time not from interruption, but from outrage.
Because the rookies had not gotten far.
______________________
In fact, they had only made it a handful of metres down the corridor before the château unleashed its feelings.
A low rumble crawled beneath their feet and the carpet rolled once, just enough to trip three of them at once.
Jack yelped, arms flailing.
Ollie latched onto Liam’s handle with a shriek.
Kimi toppled like a sacrificial offering.
Gabi’s notebook that he’d miraculously recovered, flew out of his hands.
Isack dove for it with soldier-like precision and missed entirely.
The entire hallway groaned like a disappointed parent.
“We’re being punished,” Jack whispered.
“Deserved,” Isack said, dazed.
“The house is so so mad,” Ollie gasped.
“Understatement,” Liam muttered, rubbing a dent in his handle. “We interrupted The Moment. Oh god … oh god … why did we do that ???? ”
Lando, who had apparently been hiding behind Isack’s spine, squealed,
“WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOCK!”
The lamps snapped overhead in four furious blinks:
NO. YOU. DID. NOT.
“Okay, running,” Kimi said, scrambling upright.
“No, we’re walking,” Gabi corrected. “Respectfully. Humbly. We walk now. In apology to the house.”
Leo trotted past, victorious with pastry dangling from his mouth and his tail wagging like this entire disaster was the highlight of his week.
The castle didn’t trip Leo. It would never trip Leo. Leo was the Prince and therefore immune to all consequences.
______________________
The rookies stumbled into the kitchen like soldiers returning from a war they had definitely lost.
George was already there, in waiting. His handle perched, porcelain polished, and aura radiating a deep motherly disappointment.
“Well?” George asked. “What have you done?”
No one spoke.
“We …brought snacks?” Kimi tried weakly.
George stared at the pastry crumbs stuck to them like damning evidence.
“And?”
Kimi wilted. “And we interrupted a Moment.”
“A capital-M Moment,” Gabi added.
George’s lid rattled in horror. “You WHAT.”
Kimi nodded solemnly. “They were touching faces.”
“Foreheads,” Jack whispered. “Foreheads were touching. Lips were …near.”
“Hands were in hair,” Ollie whispered, traumatized.
Isack, reverent, “Max made a sound.”
George swayed like a Victorian lady about to faint after being exposed to too much collarbone.
“Oh. Oh dear lord.”
Then, Daniel crashed through the pantry door.
Flour on his nose, crumbs in his hair, and eyes sparkling with pure, unfiltered chaos.
“OH GOOD,” he announced. “THE CHILDREN HAVE GATHERED.”
He climbed onto a stool and addressed the room like a general rallying his troops.
“Listen,” he said, his gaze sweeping across the rookies, “I need everyone to know that what happened in that workshop is the single funniest thing I have seen in my entire cursed life.”
Jack emitted a thin whine.
Gabi scribbled Ricciardo: menacingly delighted.
Isack said, “I mean … objectively, yes.”
Daniel pointed at him. “Thank you, tiny knife.”
“Danny,” George warned.
Daniel ignored him and whooped.
“ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE KISS OR ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE KISS LADS.”
“There was no kiss,” Kimi said miserably.
“oh, sweet summer teacup,” Daniel said. “There Was A Pre-Kiss. A Preshadow. A FORETASTE.”
“Oh God, please stop saying things,” Jack begged.
But Daniel kept going. “They were leaning. They were breathing at each other. Max was making noises that I need forty-five minutes and a licensed therapist to unpack -”
“DANIEL,” George snapped, “SIT.”
Daniel sat on a stool, unrepentant, and then spun back to the rookies.
“Anyway. What you did was terrible. Horrible. Inexcusable. Iconic.”
“Can you pick one?” Liam asked weakly.
“No,” Daniel said, delighted. “Because here’s the thing. Yes, you interrupted The Moment -- ”
The kitchen lights dimmed as a pan clanged in distress.
“ -- but also,” Daniel continued, unbothered, “you made it undeniable.”
They blinked at him.
He leaned forward, eyes bright. “Kiddies, there is no going back from what we all witnessed. Charles had his hand in Max’s hair like he was playing a piano and Max was making noises I can’t even philosophically unpack right now. The castle was about three seconds away from throwing confetti.”
He jabbed a finger in the air. “And now, there are witnesses. There is a record. There is an audience. They can’t pretend it’s all in our heads anymore.”
Gabi looked up from his notebook. “You think this… helps?”
“I think this accelerates the inevitable,” Daniel said. “Do you know how many times I’ve walked into a room and felt the tension between those two and thought, ‘Oh good, maybe today,’ only for them to immediately emotionally parkour out of it? You’ve forced acknowledgement. That’s step one.”
“What’s step two?” Kimi asked nervously.
“Step two is not getting obliterated by Nico,” George said darkly as the clock appeared in the doorway.
Nico’s hands were at ten and two, ticking fast. His face was pinched, eyebrows drawn in the exact expression of someone who had just heard about a structural failure in a complex system.
“What,” he asked slowly, “did you do?”
Liam stepped forward bravely. “We interrupted an almost-kiss.”
Nico stared at him, then slowly, his pendulum stopped mid-swing.
“You WHAT.”
In the corner, the kettle whistled in sympathetic distress.
Daniel put his hand up. “In their defence, they did bring snacks.”
“Snacks are not reparations,” Nico said.
The rookies flinched as the wall behind him creaked ominously. The castle was clearly still replaying the moment in its own memory, every inch of stone radiating affront.
“Do you have any idea,” Nico went on, “how long Seb and I have been trying to nudge them in that direction? Do you know how many wardrobe consultations Lewis has orchestrated? How many carefully engineered engine-failure metaphors I’ve had to suffer through?”
“Hey,” Daniel protested. “The metaphors I taught Max are art.”
“They are,” Nico said tightly, “but the point stands.”
He looked at the rookies one by one until they squirmed.
“You will apologise,” Nico said finally. “Properly. To both of them…separately. And you will not joke, you will not giggle, you will not say the words ‘moment’, ‘foreplay’, or ‘detonated’.”
Gabi visibly crossed out three bullet points.
“And,” Nico added, “you will, for the foreseeable future, knock before entering any room in which either of them might be inside.”
“What if it’s on fire?” Jack blurted.
“Then you knock,” Nico said.
George bristled. “Excuse me?”
Nico sighed. “All right, fine. Fire is the singular exception.”
George poured tea into a line of cups with brisk, comforting efficiency. “Drink,” he ordered the rookies. “You’ll need the sugar.”
Daniel accepted a cup, cradling it like an audience member in a dramatic play. “So what’s our next move?”
“Our next move,” Nico said, ticking back into motion with grim purpose, “is damage control. Emotional and magical. We have to keep the castle from staging an actual structural tantrum, soothe Charles before he spirals into thinking he overstepped, and prevent Max from burying his head in the metaphorical gravel.”
“Do we…” Lando hesitated, his feet wobbling. “Do we, uh, talk to them? About it?”
“Yes,” Nico said. “Eventually.”
“And by ‘we’,” George added, “he means ‘Seb and Lewis, NOT you children.’”
Daniel nodded. “Yeah. This is varsity-level feelings guys, and I think we’re bench players.”
“Speak for yourself,” Isack muttered.
“You literally yelled ‘A MOMENT’ at them,” Gabi reminded him.
“And I was correct,” Isack replied, unrepentant.
George sighed. “Finish your tea. Then Gabi and Ollie, you go find Charles. Jack, Kimi and Liam, you’ll start cleaning up the pastry carnage outside the workshop. Lando and Isack, you sit on Daniel if he tries to instigate round two.”
Lando frowned. “I’m literally a stool. I don’t sit?”
“You know what I mean,” George snapped.
The rookies drank their tea like condemned men taking last communion.
______________________
Far above, in a higher corridor, Sebastian stood with his flames drawn tight, flickering anxiously.
He’d felt the emotional shockwave from rooms away. He’d felt the castle surge, hope blooming, and then the violent snap of humiliation.
Lewis drifted beside him in a cloud of quiet, elegant exasperation.
“Did they …?” Seb asked.
“Nearly,” Lewis said.
“Did the kids …?”
“Yes.”
Seb ignited a burst of flame that singed a tapestry.
“I’m going to kill them.”
“No,” Lewis said. “Nico is currently doing that.”
Seb huffed smoke. “What do we do?”
“You take Max,” Lewis said. “Before he convinces himself he ruined everything.”
“And you?”
“Charles,” Lewis sighed. “Before he convinces himself he ruined everything.”
Seb squared his flames. Lewis smoothed his robe. Both set off in opposite directions.
The castle opened the correct doors before they even reached them.
______________________
Charles didn’t make it back to his bedroom before he heard it - Porcelain feet skittering,and a frantic stage-whispered argument.
Then,
“Charles?”
“Charles!! .. oh no he looks sad … Gabi why does he look sad -- ”
Gabi and Ollie appeared around the corner like two guilty children trying to decide whether approaching the principal was bravery or suicidal impulse.
They froze when they saw him fully.
Charles stopped too.
He didn’t mean to look tired, or uncertain, or like the ghost of the almost-kiss was still burning under his skin, but apparently he did, because Ollie’s tines clattered as his hands shot up in panic.
“WE’RE SORRY!” Ollie blurted.
Gabi elbowed him. “We were going to ease into it, Oliver.”
“You don’t ease into ruining someone’s life, Gabi!” Ollie cried. “You take responsibility!”
Gabi straightened his pages like a man preparing to deliver a eulogy. “We have statements prepared.”
“I don’t need statements boys,” Charles said gently.
“You should hear them anyway,” Ollie said, trembling. “It’s good for closure.”
Charles blinked at them.
He hadn’t realised how small they were until this moment. Not in stature, but in fear - metal edges trembling, little handles curled inward, wide eyes flicking constantly between him and the castle ceiling as if praying the house wouldn’t drop a beam on them.
He felt his heart soften instantly.
“Hey,” Charles said, voice gentle. “Hey, hey. It’s alright.”
“It’s not alright!” Ollie squeaked. “You were… you were… leaning! And glowing! And Max looked like he’d swallowed a star and we barged in like drunk rhinos!”
“You just tried to bring us pastries,” Charles whispered.
“We were so stupid that we just barged in,” Ollie snapped.
Gabi opened his notebook. “Entry: catastrophic miscalculation …”
“Gabi,” Charles said softly. “Close the notebook.”
Gabi snapped it shut so fast the pages fluttered. Charles knelt to be level with them, his hands braced on his knees and expression warm. He let them come closer of their own accord.
Ollie approached first, looking ready to cry.
“We didn’t mean to ruin… whatever that was… the Moment”
“Ollie, Nico said we couldn’t say the Moment, please,” whispered Gabi.
“No, he’s right,” Charles said gently. “It was.”
Ollie and Gabi both winced.
“But you didn’t ruin it,” Charles continued.
Two faces looked up at once. A duo of wide eyes with hope creeping in like timid sunlight.
“You were being yourselves,” Charles said. “And you were excited, and you thought we needed cheering up. That’s kind, that’s all.”
“But we interrupted -- ” Ollie tried.
“That’s what families do sometimes,” Charles said softly. “They barge in at the wrong moment. They panic and they meddle.”
“Daniel meddles,” Gabi corrected.
“Daniel specialises in meddling,” said Ollie.
Charles smiled. “You all meant well so I’m not angry.”
The relief that washed over them was physical, little bodies sagging, handles lowering, and shoulders easing.
“But…” Charles added, gently.
Two tiny gasps.
“Let’s agree on a new rule,” he said. “If the castle is glowing gold, maybe knock first.”
The two rookies nodded so hard they rattled before going back and forth.
“We will!”
“Absolutely!”
“New protocol!”
“Safety-first!”
“No more glowing-room entries!”
“I’ll write it down!”
“On the wall!”
“Or maybe in the kitchen! So everyone knows!”
Somewhere, Leo barked in agreement and Charles laughed, quietly and affectionately.
“Thank you,” he said.
And he meant it. They’d brought him back into his body and reminded him he wasn’t alone in this castle, wasn’t some ghost wandering in Max’s orbit.
They were ridiculous.
They were chaotic.
They were his.
Then Gabi approached with hesitant courage. “Charles?”
“Yes?”
“Did you… want to kiss him?”
Charles’ cheeks warmed, but he didn’t hide it.
Didn’t lie.
Didn’t downplay.
“Yes Gabi,” he said softly. “Very much so.”
Then the two rookies swooned.
They actually swooned.
Ollie fell sideways.
Gabi caught him.
Isack muttered “vindicated” from somewhere down the hall.
Leo barked like the world finally made sense.
“And did he want to kiss you?” Ollie asked.
Charles’ breath wavered for a moment. “Yes,” he whispered. “I think he did.”
The boys fell into a meltdown of squeaks, rattles, and delighted shrieks at this, but they kept their distance, sensing this joy came with something fragile underneath.
Because Charles wasn’t fully smiling, not really.
He was… unsure, and it didn’t go unnoticed.
“Charles?” Gabi said softly. “What’s wrong?”
Charles hesitated. “I’m not sure if I pushed him too far.”
A hush fell as the rookies looked at one another. Then, in perfect unspoken coordination (for once), stepped aside.
Because Sir Lewis Hamilton had arrived.
He drifted into the corridor in a silken sweep of fabric, the wardrobe doors framing him like wings. His expression was clear, precise, compassionate, and so perceptive it felt like a hand placed neatly on the center of Charles’ back.
“Alright, ducklings,” Lewis said softly to the rookies. “Give us a moment.”
Gabi and Ollie hesitated, then nodded, wobbling away with solemn obedience, gathering the wandering Leo as they went.
Lewis turned to Charles with a knowing, gentle smile.
“He kissed your cheek,” he said. “I felt it through the walls.”
Charles flushed. “You did not.”
“The castle practically fainted with delight,” Lewis replied. “I’m surprised glitter didn’t rain from the rafters.”
Charles let out a tiny, unwilling laugh, and the sound cracked something in him. He sank against the stone wall, exhaling a heavy breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.
Lewis drifted closer. “Tell me.”
“He said he needed one night,” Charles said softly. “And he asked me to give him time to think.”
Lewis nodded, patient, “and?”
“And I said yes and I meant it. I want to give him space, but now that he’s gone, I just…” He swallowed, “I don’t know if I pushed too far. Or not enough. Or if he’ll wake up tomorrow and decide it was all a mistake.”
Lewis watched him steadily.
“Do you regret anything you did?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you wish you’d held back the truth?”
“No.”
“Do you wish he had?”
Charles stopped, and understood.
“No,” he whispered.
“Good,” Lewis said. “Because that means neither of you stepped wrong.”
Charles let his head fall back against the wall.
“I know he’s scared,” he murmured. “I know he thinks loving me will hurt me. I keep telling him it won’t, but he still -- ”
“Charles,” Lewis interrupted gently. “You’re dealing with someone who was taught that love is a blade, not a balm.”
Charles’ breath caught.
“You didn’t push him too far,” Lewis continued. “You pushed him into honesty, and that’s different.”
Charles looked down at his hands. “They were shaking,” he whispered. “His hands.”
“Of course they were,” Lewis said softly. “He let himself want something without permission for the first time in years.”
Charles closed his eyes. “Do you think he’ll come back tomorrow?”
Lewis smiled, warm, certain, all-knowing.
“He already has.”
Charles opened his eyes.
“But he walked away from me,” he said.
“No Charles,” Lewis corrected gently. “He chose to walk from the room, not run from you. That’s him returning, that’s him trusting you with the space between tonight and tomorrow. I think you know this.”
The words sank into Charles like warmth returning to cold fingers.
Lewis reached out with the soft creak of wardrobe hinges, brushing Charles’ hair back with a delicacy he only used when someone was hurting.
“You were right to stay,” Lewis murmured. “You always were.”
Charles swallowed thickly.
“He wants you,” Lewis continued. “And he will still want you in the morning. Magic doesn’t burn like that for accidents, Charles.”
Charles let out a small, unsteady breath.
Lewis smiled.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s find George and get some tea. You need warmth tonight. And tomorrow - ” his smile grew, soft and certain. “ - tomorrow, he’ll come find you.”
The castle hummed in agreement, it had already begun to glow again.
______________________
Across the château, the west wing balcony was the coldest place to be. Not because of altitude, not because of the sea-wind knifing up the cliff, but because this was the one place the castle did not try to comfort Max.
Not when he came here deliberately.
Not when he walked the long, echoing hall alone.
Not when he opened the heavy door, stepped into the night, and braced both hands on the stone railing like he needed something solid to hold himself upright.
The tension he’d been carrying since the workshop - since Charles’ breath had brushed his lips, since the almost-kiss, since the rookies’ interruption - spiked all over again, tight and trembling.
The magic around him dimmed and even the air seemed to back away, because Max, when he was out here, wasn’t looking for comfort.
He was looking for punishment.
He didn’t even realize he wasn’t alone until a soft gust of warm air nudged his shoulder and Sebastian’s flames flickered into existence beside him.
Not bright tonight, not wild, just steady. Like a lantern brought to a grieving child.
Seb said nothing at first.
He simply stood with him, looking at the dark sea below, candles small and steady, letting Max do what he always did first,
Break in silence.
Max’s jaw was clenched so tightly it ached. His hands were white on the railing and his breath came in short, cut-off bursts like he was trying not to feel anything at all.
Still, Seb waited.
Finally, Max exhaled a shaking breath.
“I fucked it up,” he said.
Not loud, but not quiet either.
Seb’s flames drew a little higher.
“No Max,” Seb said, smiling despite himself. “You didn’t.”
Max shook his head hard. “You didn’t see his face when the door opened.”
“I felt it,” Seb replied. “The castle felt it. The whole continent probably felt it.”
Max huffed a strangled, humorless sound, as he dropped his head, elbows bending as he leaned onto his forearms.
“I shouldn’t have let it get that far,” he whispered.
Seb blinked once, candlelight sharpening. “What part?”
Max’s voice cracked.
“All of it,” he said. “Letting him touch me. Touching him. Letting myself … want. I shouldn’t have -- ”
“Oh enough drama Max,” Seb said rolling his eyes, “It’s getting predictable.”
“ -- and then I kissed him,” Max whispered, voice barely holding. “I kissed his cheek like some fucking coward who couldn’t … couldn’t --”
“That kiss was brave,” Seb said, certain.
“No,” Max said, voice breaking. “It wasn’t. It was me saying goodbye.”
And, that one hit Seb like a blow. His flames surged in a sudden burst of heat before they steadied.
“Max,” he said, no longer joking. “Look at me.”
Max didn’t, and so Seb pressed.
“Max.”
At last, Max raised his head and Seb saw it.
The guilt.
The fear.
The wanting.
The absolute bone-deep certainty that he was going to hurt someone simply by being loved.
Seb’s candles steadied, bright and unwavering.
“You didn’t say goodbye,” he said. “You asked for time, and that is a very different thing.”
Max’s breath stuttered. “I just -- I need to figure out how to love him without destroying everything he cares about.”
Seb’s flames flickered furiously, “You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Seb said. “Because you’ve spent years not loving anyone out loud, and that destroyed you. And it’s hurt everyone who cares about you. You think choosing love is more dangerous than running from it? Well, it isn’t Max, look around you.”
Max looked like he wanted to argue, but couldn’t, because he knew Seb was right.
And still, “It’s Charles,” Max whispered. “He deserves… more.”
Seb’s expression softened with pride and heartbreak.
“And you,” Seb said, “have spent your entire life believing you aren’t more. That’s the lie Alonso cursed you with because it was already living inside you.”
Seb stepped closer, flames warming the night air.
“You didn’t break anything tonight,” Seb said. “You opened something and he did too.”
Max didn’t speak so Seb continued. “And when the rookies barged in like badly timed confetti cannons -- ”
Max let out a strangled sound.
“ -- you did something important. You still didn’t run.” Seb’s voice softened, “You walked, you chose to walk.”
Max swallowed hard.
“And tomorrow?” Seb asked gently. “What are you afraid will happen?”
Max hesitated, then said, “That he’ll wake up and regret it.”
Seb shook his head instantly. “He won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Seb’s smile was small and knowing.
“Because he loves you,” Seb said simply.
Max recoiled as if struck.
“No,” he said immediately. “He doesn’t …he can’t …”
“He does,” Seb repeated. “And even if he hasn’t said it yet, even if he’s holding it quiet inside himself, he knows it. The castle knows it. I know it. George knows it and he’s English and by extension emotionally stupid”
Max’s breath trembled.
“He looked at you tonight,” Seb continued, “like you were the thing he’d been waiting for. Like he’d been waiting years. Like you were oxygen.”
Max pressed a hand over his face.
“I don’t know how to be what he deserves,” he whispered.
Seb smiled softly. “You don’t have to be what he deserves. You just have to be you, trying.”
Max shook his head. “He deserves grand things.”
“He deserves sincerity,” Seb corrected. “He deserves the truth, and you gave him that.”
Max leaned against the railing again, breath spiraling.
He might have spiraled for hours if the balcony door hadn’t creaked, softly, respectfully.
The sound of knocking, three tentative taps.
Seb’s flames bristled as Max froze, then the door opened a crack, and Kimi poked his porcelain head out.
He blinked at them.
“Hello,” he said, solemn as a monk.
Max stared at him. Seb stared harder.
Kimi held something in his saucer, an apologetic cookie, still warm.
“I knocked,” Kimi said quickly and unsure. “Properly. George said three taps was a polite custom.”
Seb sighed. “Come in, Kimi.”
Kimi shuffled onto the balcony, his tiny footsteps delicate against the stone.
He looked up at Max and Max looked down at him, and then Kimi extended the cookie like the world’s smallest peace treaty.
“I am so sorry we interrupted Max,” he whispered. “We thought pastries would help but we chose the wrong moment.”
Max blinked.
Seb leaned over and muttered, “Take the fucking cookie Verstappen.”
Max took the cookie and Kimi visibly relaxed.
Then, emboldened by survival, he said something unexpected,
“Max?”
“Yes Kimi?” Max said warily.
Kimi tilted his head. “You want to give Charles more. Right?”
Max’s breath caught and Seb straightened.
And Kimi, as children do, carried on, earnest and devastatingly simple.
“Then just give him more.”
Max blinked. Seb blinked.
“Like… what?” Max asked, voice small.
“A night,” Kimi said. “A special adult date night. Something that shows him you care.”
Max stared.
Kimi continued, tiny voice very serious,
“You think you almost broke something, but you didn’t. You almost made something. So… maybe you just finish making it? Like cookie dough being left to rest in the fridge!!”
Seb let out a surprised, delighted little flicker. “Out of the mouths of babes,” he murmured.
Kimi ignored him.
“Charles thinks he pushed too far,” Kimi said. “You think you did too. You’re both wrong. So do something that makes it clear you want him. Something beautiful. Something… grand.”
Max swallowed.
Kimi’s saucer glinted under the moonlight.
“The ballroom,” Kimi said simply. “He always looks at it in awe. He loves music. He loves dancing. And he loves you. So… ask him to dance. It always works in the movies I see Daniel watch secretly!”
The sea wind quieted as Seb’s flames softened to a glow. The castle itself seemed to lean in.
Max gripped the railing, breath stuttering, heart thundering.
He whispered, “A night in the ballroom it is then…”
Kimi nodded, proud of himself and Max. Seb smiled wide, prouder still.
“That,” Seb said, placing one fiery hand on Max’s shoulder and the other on Kimi’s handle, “is the first good idea you’ve believed you deserve.”
Max stared out over the dark sea, chest tightening, softening, breaking open.
“Tomorrow then,” he whispered.
The castle hummed. Seb’s candles flared tall. Kimi bounced once, delighted.
“Tomorrow,” Seb echoed.
And for the first time all night, Max didn’t flinch at the hope in the word.
Chapter 12: What to Expect When You’re Expecting (A Regency Dance That Is)
Summary:
Hey Hi Hello !!!!
This was such a slow update I'm sorry, but work is feral towards christmas. Apparently, everyone want's divorces finalised ... who would've thought!!
Also, sorry but I actually don’t care that Charles is the pianist and Max has never shown any inkling towards playing!! It didn’t fit the vibes, sorry!! But hope you enjoy!! This chapter was so fun to write heheh
RECAP:
Max: I can’t do this right now.
Charles: You can actually. I pencilled in “emotionally destroy Max’s coping mechanisms” for the whole afternoon.
-----------------
Charles: You’re afraid of loving me?
Max: Yes.
Charles: Well, that's terrible news.
Max: What?
Charles: I’ve already decided to love you back. The paperwork’s been processed. No refunds.
-----------------
Kimi: *Makes a normal, logical suggestion that doesn't involve repression or humour.*
Seb: This child might be a genius.
Kimi: Uhh thank you??
Chapter Text
The château woke gently. It didn’t drag itself up out of a night of restless pacing and fractured dreams, but instead rose like a tide, slow and hopeful. Like it had decided, today was going to be a good day.
Charles was in the library, because of course he was.
He’d slept, surprisingly, not deeply, not dreamlessly, but enough that when he surfaced it wasn’t with the usual panic-ache in his chest. Instead, it was with Max’s voice still echoing in his head.
Give me one night, just one. Let me… come back to you with the right words.
And Charles had believed him, he still did believe him.
He just didn’t know what “the right words” would look like, and that uncertainty sat fizzy and strange under his skin as he curled up in one of the deep armchairs, legs tucked under him, and an open book balanced on his knees.
He’d read the same page three times without absorbing a single sentence.
The castle could tell.
The lamps above his chair brightened, then dimmed, then brightened again, trying to coax his attention away from whatever loop his brain was stuck in, whilst the spine of the book warmed under his hands and the armchair shifted minutely, padding softening, as if to hold him more gently.
“I’m fine,” Charles told the nearest shelf, which had started to hum sympathetically.
The shelf also did not believe him.
He was just about to give up on pretending to read and go in search of tea when the library door did something very un-library-like.
It… hesitated.
The handle turned, stopped, turned back and then turned again. The wood gave a small, traitorous creak, before it quieted, as if the castle were arguing with someone on the other side.
Charles’ heart kicked.
“Max?” he called, before he could stop himself.
Silence, one beat too long, and then,
“Yes.”
The door opened.
Max stood in the threshold, shoulders squared like he’d had to negotiate with himself all the way here. His hair was still ruffled from sleep and pushed up at odd angles where he’d run his hands through it too often. There was an imprint of a pillow-crease along one cheek, a faint pink mark against the pale morning.
He looked… shy, and Max never looked shy.
“Hi,” Charles said softly.
“Hi,” Max echoed.
Max took a few steps in. Not like he used to, when crossing a room felt like traversing a battlefield, but instead moving like a man walking out on a limb he’d built himself, plank by plank, terrified but determined.
“You slept?” Charles asked, because it was easier than how are you?
“Some,” Max said. “You?”
“Some,” Charles echoed.
He closed the book around one finger, a makeshift marker, and let it drop into his lap. The air between them felt thick, not with danger but with potential. Like the moment before lights out, all that power just waiting.
Max stopped a few feet away, caught between shelves lined with histories and sea stories. He looked down at his hands, then back up at Charles, and Charles saw it; the deliberate choice not to look away, not this time.
“I was coming to find you,” Max said.
Charles’ mouth curved. “Good. I would have been offended if you’d made me chase you down in your own house.”
One corner of Max’s mouth twitched in an almost-smile before he swallowed it back. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his soft, well-worn joggers, and then realised that made him look even more uncertain, and took them out again.
The castle hummed, amused and fond. Charles internally agreed with it.
“Charles,” Max said, and the way he said his name, careful like something precious he was afraid of dropping, made Charles’ chest tighten.
“Yes?”
Max inhaled, then exhaled, then tried again.
“I meant what I said last night,” he began. “About needing time… and I… thought. A lot.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Charles said lightly, because the tension needed somewhere to go.
Max huffed something that might have been a laugh as his shoulders dropped a millimetre.
“It was,” he admitted. “But I had help.”
Of course he had. Charles could practically feel Seb’s emotional fingerprints and Kimi’s earnest chaos on whatever this was already.
Max shifted his weight, then squared his shoulders again, as if aligning himself on a starting grid.
“I told you I wanted you,” he said, with no preamble and no evasive manoeuvres. Just that, like it wasn’t causing Charles’ a heart attack. “More than I should.”
Charles’ breath caught.
“And I still do,” Max added quickly, quiet but steady. “More than anything.”
The library went very, very still.
“But I keep thinking you deserve… more,” Max continued, words picking up momentum now that he’d pushed them into the air. “Not just half-finished sentences in workshops and almost-touches interrupted by a pastry delivery.”
Charles smiled, helplessly. Max’s ears went a little pink, but he didn’t back down.
“So,” he said. “I want to try.”
Charles tilted his head. “Try what?”
For a brief, wild moment, Max looked like he might turn and walk straight out of the room. Not run, those days were hopefully done, but retreat and regroup until the words sat more comfortably on his tongue.
But that might have taken years to come, and so he didn’t, instead he stepped closer.
“Tonight,” he said, “I’d like to… invite you to something.”
Charles’ brows arched. “That sounds very ominous.”
Max made a face. “It’s not ominous. Uhh the opposite hopefully.”
The castle, emboldened, lit a line of lamps that drew a faint path on the ceiling from the library toward the ballroom, like a constellation or an arrow. Max ignored the show-off lighting, eyes only on Charles now.
“I want to give you a night,” he said. “A proper one. Not just stolen moments in workshops and at breakfast tables. Something that feels…” He faltered, searching for the word. “…worthy of you, of who you are.”
Charles’ throat went tight.
“So,” Max said, eyes flicking briefly down and then up again, forcing himself to hold Charles’ gaze. “Come to the ballroom tonight. With me. Please.”
Charles stared at him.
Max licked his lower lip, nervous. “I mean - like a… like a ball, I guess. Not with all the… court politics and terrifying old rich people. Just…” He gestured vaguely with one hand. “Just us. And the others. And music. And -- ” his voice dropped “ -- yeah you, but I’ve said that.”
It hit Charles all at once.
The way Max was standing there, shoulders braced like he was waiting for a crash.
The way his hands kept twitching, wanting something to do.
The way the castle’s magic buzzed just under the surface, unrestrained and shifting with excitement like the house itself was trying not to interrupt.
“You’re asking me,” Charles said slowly, “to a ball.”
Max winced. “When you say it like that it sounds ridiculous.”
“It sounds romantic,” Charles corrected. “Max, you’re inviting me to a ball in your haunted château.”
Max’s blush deepened. “Yes, alright, when you say it like that - ”
Charles laughed, the sound soft and bright, like something unclenching.
“Yes,” he said.
Max blinked. “Yes??”
“Yes, I’ll come,” Charles said. “Mon dieu, of course I’ll come! You asked me like it was an exam you could fail.”
“It felt like one,” Max muttered.
Charles stood, the book sliding forgotten onto the armchair. He crossed the remaining space between them, slow but certain, and stopped just within arm’s reach. Close enough to feel Max’s breath. Close enough that the castle dimmed the lamps around them in a conspiratorial hush.
“Max,” he said, grabbing Max’s hand softly “you could have asked me to sit in the workshop and watch paint dry with you, and I’d still say yes.”
Max huffed a laugh that came out half-sheared and half-amazed. “That can be arranged.”
“I’m sure,” Charles said, “but the ballroom sounds better.”
Max nodded, a little dazed.
“There will be music,” he managed. “And… things. Food and stuff. I’m working on it.”
“You?” Charles teased gently. “In the kitchen?”
Max made a face. “Don’t look so terrified. I have… supervision.”
“George?”
Max’s mouth twitched. “And the rookies. They are very invested in this being perfect, by the way.”
Charles could imagine. Their faces last night and their panic this morning. His heart softened even further than he thought possible.
“What should I wear?” he asked.
The question seemed to steady Max, like it gave him something practical to hold onto.
“Lewis will help,” Max said. “He’s been… planning. I think for a while.”
“Of course he has,” Charles murmured.
Max shifted his weight again, that nervous energy still buzzing under his skin, but there was something else threaded through it now, anticipation, hope.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Max said. “Just, be ready when they come for you. And trust me.”
It was the first time he’d said that last part out loud.
Trust me.
And Charles felt it land between them like an offering, both fragile and heavy.
“I do,” he said, simply. “I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t.”
The library sighed with relief. A curtain fluttered though the windows were closed. A book on a higher shelf slid an inch forward, pleased.
Max’s shoulders dropped, a visible uncoiling.
“Okay,” he said. “Then… I’ll see you tonight.”
Charles smiled. “You will.”
Max hesitated and then stepped in, just enough to brush his fingers, light as a question, over Charles’ wrist. The contact was brief but deliberate.
“Thank you,” he said. “For saying yes.”
Charles’ answering smile was soft and a little lopsided.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Now go before Seb catches you loitering.”
Max made an affronted noise that was mostly fond, and turned toward the door. The castle, so very pleased, opened it for him with a smooth and effortless swing.
He paused on the threshold and glanced back once more.
“Charles?”
“Yes?”
“I’m… really glad you stayed,” Max said, voice quiet but clear.
So am I, Charles didn’t say, because it felt too big for the moment, but he did let it show in his face instead. Then Max was gone, the door closing behind him with a gentle click, and the castle practically vibrated with giddy glee.
______________________
The moment Max slipped out of the library, Charles stood for a long second in the hush he left behind, feeling the warmth of the moment seep into him.
And then, there were footsteps.
Fast ones, chaotic ones. The specific brand of chaotic footsteps belonging to exactly one man in the château.
Daniel Ricciardo, who burst around the corner like a Labrador who’d just discovered fireworks.
“CHARLES!” Daniel shouted. “PACK A BAG!”
Charles blinked. “Um for what?”
“No questions!” Daniel said, already skidding to a stop with enough dramatic flair to make the chandelier jingle. “This is a kidnapping, but a benevolent one, the good kind.”
“There are no good kind -- ”
“Charles,” Daniel said, placing both ghostly-feathery hands on Charles’ cheeks, “there are only two fates ahead of you today. One, you spiral mentally until you’re a puddle of existential goo before your date tonight. Or two, we go on a field trip.”
“A field trip?”
Daniel grinned, wild and delighted. “To the secret beach.”
The library brightened violently.
Charles sputtered. “There is a secret beach?”
“There are four!” Daniel cried. “But Seb banned me from the smallest one because I kept jumping off rocks, so today you get the medium-danger beach. It’s the good one, the one with the beginner waves.”
“Beginner waves?” Charles echoed, suspicious.
Daniel wiggled his eyebrows.
“You’re gonna learn to surf.”
Charles blinked and Daniel grinned wider.
“Today,” he announced, “you become an Australian!”
The path to the hidden beach wound around the back of the château, through tunnels carved centuries ago and reinforced by magic. Daniel insisted on bringing snacks in the form of Shapes and watermelon, towels, and something that looked suspiciously like sunscreen, but was green…? He called it Zinc.
The castle helped, gleefully.
Torches flickered on as they passed, the stone underfoot warmed and doors swung open with romantic comedic timing. Charles laughed more on that walk than he had in days, which the castle rewarded by sprinkling light through cracks in the stone ceiling like liquid gold.
“Does Max know we’re going to the beach?” Charles asked at one point.
Daniel scoffed.
“Max sent me,” he said proudly. “Said, and this is a direct quote, ‘Keep him alive, happy, and away from the castle.’”
Charles smiled so wide it hurt, and didn’t stop until they reached the end of the secret stairwell.
Daniel kicked the hidden latch with a flourish. The door swung outward and Charles stepped into sunlight. The beach spread out below them like a jewel, all gold sand, pale cliffs and turquoise water curling gently onto the shore. The waves were small but perfect, and beginner-friendly.
Charles exhaled softly.
“Daniel,” he murmured. “It’s so beautiful.”
Daniel puffed his chest. “I know. I discovered it!”
“The castle didn’t discover it?” Charles countered.
“The castle assisted,” Daniel corrected with great importance. “Now, strip.”
Charles choked. “What?”
“To swim!” Daniel clarified. “Jesus, kid. I’m not a flirt like Seb, I don’t tease you like that. Get changed.”
Charles rolled his eyes but laughed despite himself.
Minutes later, they were both on the sand, Daniel holding a mysteriously well-maintained surfboard that had absolutely not been bought with Max’s championship money years ago. Charles stood in borrowed swim shorts, staring at the water like it might bite him.
“Okay,” Daniel said, planting the board in the sand like a flag. “Lesson one - don’t die!”
“That feels like a very broad lesson.”
“AND YET SO IMPORTANT,” Daniel yelled, as he dragged the board to the water with a theatrical flourish.
“Now,” he said, “paddle.”
Charles climbed onto the board … and somehow fell off immediately.
Daniel bit his knuckle. “Okay, technically that is step thirty-four, but enthusiasm is appreciated.”
Charles ignored him and swam out to try again … Fell again.
“Daniel,” he choked out, coming up spluttering, with his hair soaked but eyes bright, “THIS IS NOT A BEGINNER WAVE.”
“That’s a literal baby wave,” Daniel said, pointing at the three-inch swell. “It’s practically amniotic fluid. Get back on.”
Charles did.
He wobbled. He balanced. He paddled. He fell.
Daniel cackled so hard he almost dissolved into magical static.
“WHY IS THIS SO HARD,” Charles groaned as he flopped face-first into the sand for the fourth time.
“Because you’re thinking!” Daniel called. “Stop thinking!”
“I CAN’T STOP THINKING!”
Daniel jogged over, pulled the board upright, and spoke with the deep, solemn sincerity of a prophet delivering revelation.
“Charles,” he said. “You just agreed to go to a romantic ghost-ball with Max Verstappen. You’re already braver than ninety-nine percent of the world’s population. Standing up on a piece of wood? Easy.”
Charles blinked and then laughed, loud, bright, and honest.
He paddled again as the next wave came.
Charles moved instinctively, on to his knees, and then jumped up … and stood!!
For exactly two seconds.
Then he fell.
Daniel threw both arms in the air. “WE COUNT TWO SECONDS. WE TAKE THOSE WINS. YOU’RE A NATURAL BABYYYY.”
Charles wheezed with laughter. “I am objectively terrible!”
“Yes,” Daniel agreed. “But happy! And that is the point!”
And god, he was.
They spent hours like that. Laughing. Falling. Splashing each other.
Eating snacks Daniel swore were “vitamin infused” but tasted like sugar and sea salt.
Running barefoot on warm sand and playing something Daniel called beached cricket? Talking about nothing and everything. Charles had not felt this light in years.
Not carefree, but light. He forgot to worry, forgot to replay the almost-kiss, forgot to brace for heartbreak. Just existed.
Daniel ruffled his hair at one point and said, with quiet sincerity,
“He’s going to lose his mind when he sees you tonight, mate.”
Charles flushed bright red but didn’t hide his excitement.
______________________
Elsewhere on the grounds, there was a ball to be prepared for.
And the château knew.
It knew the moment Max left the library.
It knew the moment Charles stepped out into sunlight with Daniel.
It knew the moment the sea wind smoothed Charles’ hair and the salt kissed his skin.
It knew.
And once the house knew, it moved, magic rushing through its bones like fresh blood through dormant limbs.
They had a night to make.
A night worthy of Charles.
A night worthy of Max’s first real, deliberate act of love.
______________________
Max stepped into the kitchen at precisely 10:38 a.m.
He had not intended to be precise. It was simply how his body worked, timing woven into his bones. But the clock on the wall (Nico-approved and aligned to within half a second of the château’s heartbeat) chimed its approval as he entered.
The kitchen froze.
Because Max did not enter the kitchen. Ever.
He hovered in the doorway like a man approaching the edge of a cliff, uncertain of whether the fall would kill him or save him, and then cleared his throat.
“Um Hi.”
Six rookie objects nearly collided trying to stand at attention.
Jack saluted with a fork prong.
Gabi snapped his notebook shut like a spy aborting a mission.
Isack sharpened himself out of nerves.
Kimi straightened his saucer like a soldier adjusting a uniform.
Oliver squeaked out something that might have been “yes sir.”
And, Liam tried to remain composed but tipped over anyway.
George, ever the kitchen captain with steam rising from him like exasperation made manifest, stepped forward.
“Max,” he said, blinking once, carefully. “You’re… early.”
“Am I?” Max asked, brow furrowing.
“You’re usually never in the kitchen,” George murmured, then coughed. “I mean … you’re early for preparations.”
Max straightened. “I want to help.”
The kitchen inhaled collectively.
Help?
Help?!
Daniel would have fainted on the spot if he were present. George recovered first, because he was George, and English, and George, and nothing reduced him for long.
“Excellent,” he said briskly, voice rising an octave in relief and terror. “We have a schedule.”
He thrust a parchment sheet into Max’s hands.
Max frowned. “This is… fifteen tasks.”
“Twenty-two,” George corrected modestly. “The ink smudged on the bottom.”
Max’s head lifted sharply and there was a wildness in his eyes for a second, not his usual anger but absolute panic. The panic of someone who had never been asked to create something emotional with his hands, only mechanical. Someone who had only ever mastered things that were measurable, quantifiable, testable. Someone who had never been asked to make beauty, only excellence.
But he inhaled slowly, steadying himself.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Then tell me where to start.”
The rookies vibrated with the force of barely-contained pride, as George assigned Max to pastry.
This was possibly the most fatal decision the kitchen had ever seen.
“Here,” George said, pushing a bowl of flour into Max’s hands. “Sift this.”
Max took the bowl and stared at it like it was a coded puzzle.
“Sift,” he repeated slowly.
Gabi raised a hand. “Do you… know how to sift?”
Max narrowed his eyes. “One pours the flour through a mesh apparatus at controlled velocity. Yes.”
“Okay,” Gabi said. “Dominant race-brain answer but I’ll allow it.”
Max curled his fingers around the handle of the sifter, and then it happened -
The flour erupted, like a winter storm … or more like God punched a bakery.
Kimi shrieked.
Liam choked.
Ollie yelled “COVER ME BOYS!”
Gabi dove for his notebook like it was a drowning child.
Isack fell backwards in pure betrayal.
Max stood in the middle of a white cloud, blinking. He looked like a ghost, an incredibly distressed ghost.
George screamed, “MY CLEAN TABLES!”
Max wiped his face with the back of his wrist, leaving a streak of white war paint, and the rookies braced for the explosion.
But Max didn’t explode. He stared at his hand, at the flour, at the chaos,
And he laughed.
A short, startled burst that shook the room, and then another, and then a real laugh - deep, warm, unrestrained - the kind he hadn’t made in years.
The rookies froze, then grinned, then dissolved into hysterics.
Kimi threw flour in the air in triumph.
Isack slid across the table like a hockey puck.
Ollie ran in circles screaming, “HE LAUGHED! HE LAUGHED!”
Liam slapped his butter-knife edge against the counter in applause.
Gabi wrote furiously and then drew a portrait to match.
George clutched the edge of the sink like a Victorian widow.
“Don’t throw flour,” he wheezed. “Do not -- stop -- everyone STOP !!!! ”
The castle pulsed in bright affection, and Max, still dusted in flour, wiped his eyes and said softly, “Okay. Again, but properly this time.”
The rookies nearly fainted from joy.
______________________
George moved Max to cookies, which was somehow worse.
“Make them decorative,” George instructed.
Max stared at the tray.
At the little stars.
At the delicate shapes.
His hands hovered awkwardly over the icing bag.
“What does ‘decorative’ mean?” he asked, voice tight.
“Pretty!” Ollie said.
“Delicate,” Liam added.
“Visually satisfying,” Gabi said.
“Symmetrical,” Isack chimed.
“Sparkly,” Kimi added, because he was Kimi.
Max’s eye twitched. “Symmetrical,” he repeated, seizing onto the one word that made sense. “Okay. I can do symmetrical.”
He squeezed the icing bag and it exploded.
Right onto the cookies.
White icing splattered across the tray like a Jackson Pollock piece.
George made a noise. A noise no teapot should ever make.
Max froze.
“This is it,” Liam whispered reverently, “He’s gonna break.”
But he didn’t. He inhaled, steadied, and tried again but this time carefully and more controlled. The icing came out in soft, curling patterns - still messy, still imperfect, but purposeful. Heart-shaped, even.
The rookies watched, slack-jawed.
“He’s learning,” Jack whispered, like they were at a zoo and speech might startle the animal.
“He’s improving,” Gabi said, scribbling furiously.
Max stepped back.
“…They’re crooked,” he murmured.
“Yet they’re perfect,” Ollie said with pride.
Max blushed, actually blushed and the castle glowed gold brighter.
______________________
The kitchen was already a maelstrom of flour, icing, and nervous energy when the door crashed open hard enough to rattle the copper pans and Lando burst inside like an enthusiastic hurricane wearing trainers.
“MAX EMILIAN!” he screamed.
George, who had precisely two fraying nerves left after mediating six rookie crises and one near-structural flour catastrophe, snapped without looking up,
“There is NO music emergency. Do not bring chaos into my kitchen Norris. Remove yourself.”
But Lando only grinned wider.
“WE NEED TO DECIDE THE PLAYLIST!”
George made a sound like he’d swallowed a burning teabag and staggered into a chair.
Whilst Max, still dusted in flour with his sleeves rolled up and hair a soft wreck, blinked once.
“You were supposed to organise this privately,” Max said warily.
“I did!” Lando declared, slamming down a stack of sheet music, several USB sticks, and what looked like a vinyl from 1992. “I just … need your approval.”
“My approval?” Max repeated.
The rookies froze, watching like meerkats sensing an incoming storm. Max Verstappen giving approval for something creative, something emotional, was usually a sign of the apocalypse.
Lando nodded vigorously. “Come on. It’s your night.”
That landed with a soft thud inside Max’s chest. A quiet, trembling thud.
Your night.
It was, and he wanted to get it right so badly it physically tightened something behind his ribs.
He looked at Lando.
Lando, who used to be his rival.
Lando, who used to poke at him until he bristled.
Lando, who had the emotional subtlety of a golden retriever but somehow knew when to step forward and when to step back.
Lando, who was one of his closest friends.
Max hesitated.
Trust was not a muscle he used often. Delegation even less so. He’d grown up doing everything alone, because doing things with others only created opportunities for disappointment, for mistakes, for heartbreak.
But tonight wasn’t about control, tonight was about Charles. And when Max thought of Charles, he thought of…
…how Charles’ eyes softened during music,
…how he tilted his head when he listened,
…how he sometimes tapped his fingers on Max’s wrist when a song he loved came on,
…how he glowed, truly glowed, when Oscar played the piano.
Max swallowed hard.
Maybe, maybe he didn’t have to carry this alone.
“Okay,” Max said quietly. “Show me.”
The kitchen nearly fainted and Lando grinned like the sun. He pulled the first vinyl from the stack, a cracked record, half-faded, with marker pen scribbled across the label.
Max frowned. “What is that?”
Lando held it up between two fingers. “Our first karting season.”
Max froze.
The rookies froze.
Even the castle paused, lights dipping low as if holding its breath.
Lando placed the vinyl gently onto an enchanted turntable (stolen by Daniel in 2014, gifted to Max in 2018, and magically repaired by Oscar in 2026) and lowered the needle.
A soft hiss, a buzz, and then -
Chaos.
Pure, unhinged, twelve-year-old chaos.
The recording was awful. Terrible. The audio peaking every few seconds, the engine noise drowning out half the melody, someone yelling “MAX, YOU’RE GOING WIDE!” in the background.
But beneath all that, there was a melody. A hopeful, messy, joy-drenched melody.
Max’s breath stuttered.
“Why… this?” he asked, voice rougher than he meant.
Lando shrugged, not casually, but gently, like he knew exactly what he was touching.
“Because you were happy then,” Lando said softly. “Before everything got heavy. Before expectations. Before pressure. Before the world told you love was conditional.”
Max stared at him.
And something in Lando’s eyes, so earnest and honest and quietly protective, made Max realise this wasn’t teasing, or nostalgia, or pity.
This was care.
Real care.
From someone he’d spent years pretending not to need.
Max let out a breath that trembled. Then another. And then -
He hugged Lando.
Not politely.
Not carefully.
Not the guarded versions of touch he’d trained himself to offer.
An actual hug - the kind he hadn’t done since he was a teenager with too-big dreams and oil-stained fingers.
It hit the kitchen like a shockwave.
Jack fell off the counter.
Gabi scribbled “HISTORIC DAY” in his notebook.
Isack swore reverently.
Kimi burst into proud tears.
George actually smiled.
Lando just hugged him back, knowing for once, not to make a big deal out of it.
“Play it again,” Max said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
Lando lit up like a constellation.
The rookies collided into each other forming an accidental mosh pit of delight.
And the castle, not to be left out, extended its magic through the rafters, amplifying the melody into the air, softening the engine noise, smoothing the distortion, giving it shape.
And suddenly the kitchen was filled with a hazy, nostalgic tune that sounded like childhood.
Like racing stripes painted on cheap helmets.
Like stolen afternoons at dusty karting tracks.
Like adrenaline.
Like summer rain.
Like joy that never had to be earned.
Max ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head with disbelief, fondness, and something bittersweet.
“This is insane.”
“Yeah,” Lando said, voice bright and proud. “It’s perfect.”
Max looked at him, and something settled between them, something long overdue.
Trust.
Raw, unspoken trust.
“Thank you,” Max said softly. “For showing me this.”
Lando blinked.
Because Max never said things like that.
Ever.
His grin softened too, losing its sharpness, becoming something gentler.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Lando said. “It’s for Charles. And you I guess. And this stupid haunted house that wants to see you kiss like you’re in a period drama.”
Max choked on a laugh. “Lando -- ”
“Hey,” Lando said, nudging him with a shoulder. “Whatever happens tonight? You won’t do it wrong.”
Max exhaled, because for the first time in a long time, Max felt like he wasn’t preparing for something alone.
“Now let me show you the actual songs for tonight! We’re gonna party, that’s for sure!”
______________________
Lewis swept into the kitchen like a divine fashion general.
“Out,” he commanded, and as such, everyone scattered.
Lewis took one look at Max - flour-dusted, icing-smudged, cheeks flushed from laughter - and made a soft, delighted sound.
“You look alive,” he murmured. “Good. But now let’s make you look dangerous.”
Max rolled his eyes, but Lewis ignored that.
He conjured a tape measure and circled Max with the precision of a painter studying light, pressing his palm to Max’s shoulder once, grounding him.
“You’re remarkably easy to dress when you’re not fighting me,” Lewis said.
“I never fight you.”
Lewis hummed. “You have fought me since you were 16 Max.”
Max went still.
Lewis softened immediately, “But not today, today is for softness.”
Max’s throat worked.
Lewis lifted a swatch of fabric as the castle dimmed the chandeliers to give them a little privacy, a hush falling around them like velvet. A midnight blue so dark that it was nearly black. Shot through with the faintest shimmer. Rich without being ostentatious and elegant without being old.
“Charles will forget how to breathe,” Lewis said.
Max swallowed.
“…Good,” he whispered.
Lewis touched his cheek in a rare display of affection. “It’s okay to want that.”
Max nodded, quiet.
Lewis tailored him with slow, precise movements, each stitch a little balm, and for once, Max didn’t twitch, didn’t rush him, didn’t flinch away. He simply let himself be cared for.
Lewis noticed, and smiled.
______________________
Seb entered just as Lewis finished the hem, the rookies trailing behind him looking far too excited.
“Max,” Seb announced, blazing with purpose, “stand up.”
Max groaned. “Why.”
“Because if you dance like you did with Daniel in 2017, we will all perish.”
Max glared. “I wasn't that bad.”
“Max Emilian, my beloved disaster. You danced like a scarecrow having a seizure and then finished it off with a dab.”
Max groaned into his hands. “Fine. Teach me.”
“Good, let’s begin,” Seb brightened, taking Max’s hands firmly. “Now, feet apart. Shoulders relaxed. Stop clenching everything.”
“I’m not -- ”
“You are clenching your entire soul, Max.”
Max exhaled sharply. “Just tell me what to do.”
Seb placed one flaming hand on Max’s shoulder, the other guiding his left hand upward.
“Good. Now put your right hand on my waist.”
Max froze. “Sebastian -- ”
“You will be holding Charles tonight,” Seb snapped, “you can handle touching me for instructional purposes.”
The rookies all whispered, scandalised:
“Oh my god.”
“Waist contact.”
“Not just any waist.”
“Charles’ waist later - ”
“CHILDREN STOP TALKING.”
Max swallowed and placed his hand awkwardly on Seb’s waist.
Seb sighed. “You are holding me like I am a lit bomb.”
“You are a lit bomb,” Max muttered.
Seb ignored him. “Now, waltzing is simple. Step back with your left foot, gently, gracefully. Like you’re gliding.”
Max stepped forward with his right foot.
Right onto Seb’s flaming foot.
Seb shrieked in German.
The rookies screamed.
George fainted briefly (dramatically).
Lando yelled, “STOP PLEASE DON’T KILL SEB!”
Oscar, from the piano room, shouted, “I FELT THAT THROUGH THE WALL!”
Max jumped back. “You moved!”
“I did NOT move!” Seb cried, hopping dramatically. “You stomped on me with the enthusiasm of a baby mammoth!”
“I -- fuck sorry -- I panicked!”
Seb inhaled slowly, flames steadying. “Again. But this time, listen Max. Left foot back. Slow. Deliberate.”
Max lifted his right foot and Seb nearly burst into flames.
“LEFT, Max! The other left!”
Max muttered something vile in Dutch under his breath, switched feet, and stepped back.
Better.
Seb nodded approvingly. “Good. Now, side step.”
Max moved diagonally.
Seb made a strangled noise. “SIDE, not diagonal! You’re trying to drive a racing line - this is dance, not Monza!”
From the pantry, Lando yelled, “LET HIM DO A RACING LINE, IT’S SEXY.”
The castle dimmed the lamps in embarrassment and Max glared. “Okay. Side.”
He stepped sideways.
Seb actually smiled. “Much better! Now forward with your right - NO, NOT LIKE YOU’RE LUNGING TO OVERTAKE - gently!”
Max tried again, slower.
Forward.
Side.
Back.
Seb counted softly, flame flickering in measured rhythm. “One, two, three… one, two, three…”
Max exhaled. “This is… confusing.”
“It is not confusing, you stubborn Esel,” Seb said kindly. “It is unfamiliar. You can learn unfamiliar things.”
Max swallowed, that hit somewhere deep, and didn’t answer.
Seb softened, lowering his voice. “You don’t have to be perfect Max, just present.”
Max looked down. “I don’t want to ruin it. Tonight, I mean. I want… I want it to be good for him.”
Seb’s flames gentled, “It will be,” he said. “Because you care.”
Max blinked hard.
Seb looked away politely, pretending not to notice.
“Now, again,” Seb whispered.
And Max moved.
Slow.
Measured.
Trying, trying, trying.
Seb guided him with small corrections, “Lift your chin, don’t stare at your feet, relax your hands, Charles will follow your lead.”
The rookies watched with bated breath, like this was the emotional equivalent of the World Cup Final.
And slowly, something shifted.
Max stopped thinking about the mechanics.
Stopped fighting his body.
Stopped over-correcting.
He just… moved.
Seb’s expression softened into awe. “Yes. That’s it. Now turn - ”
Max turned.
Cleanly.
Gracefully.
Barely stepping on Seb at all.
The rookies gasped collectively.
Jack whispered, “He’s dancing.”
Liam whispered, “Like, actually dancing.”
Ollie clutched Gabi. “He’s going to sweep Charles off his feet literally and emotionally -- ”
Isack said nothing, but his knife-edge glinted approvingly.
Seb slowed the momentum, letting Max hold the final position, one hand on Seb’s waist and the other guiding their joined hands outward.
Max felt his heartbeat hammering, his breath uneven, but there was also a strange, quiet pride blooming under his ribs.
Seb looked up at him, eyes warm with something fatherly and fierce.
“You see?” Seb murmured. “You can learn softness too.”
Max’s throat tightened.
“…I had a good teacher,” he whispered, surprising even himself.
Seb’s flame flickered dangerously like it might burst from emotion.
But, before either could break the moment, Gabi whispered loudly:
“Kiss! No, shit wait, wrong ship! Sorry, continue!! ”
Seb stepped back immediately.
“Excellent work,” he said, voice suddenly too brisk. “You refrained from crushing my toes for nearly four steps. An incredible achievement.”
Max huffed. “That good, huh.”
“Yes,” Seb said softly. “That good.”
Max, still catching his breath, said quietly, “Seb… thank you.”
Seb froze, actually froze.
The rookies froze with him.
Silence filled the kitchen like a held breath.
Max hesitated. “For… helping. For caring. For everything really.”
Seb slowly straightened, eyes shimmering like candlelight about to break.
“You’re welcome,” Seb whispered. “You… never have to thank me. Not for loving you.”
Max inhaled sharply, and no one breathed.
Not the rookies.
Not George.
Not the chandeliers.
Not the castle.
Until, Jack hissed, “OH MY GOD,”
and Ollie sobbed,
and Kimi declared, “Father-son dance arc COMPLETE!”
Seb burst into flame out of embarrassment, whilst Max just groaned and rubbed his face.
The chaos resumed, but something fundamental had changed.
Max could dance now, not perfectly, not professionally - but enough.
Enough to hold Charles.
Enough to guide him.
Enough to look into his eyes and not fear stumbling.
Enough to let himself want.
Seb patted his shoulder once more “You’ll be perfect tonight,” he murmured.
Max shook his head and laughed, “No I won't Seb, but I’ll try.”
Seb smiled, gentle and proud. “And that,” he said, “is all he’s ever wanted.”
______________________
Leo leapt onto Max’s lap the moment he sat for a breather.
Max blinked. “What are you -- “
Leo licked his face.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“Are you telling me you approve?” Max asked.
Leo barked.
Max, smiled so softly the castle walls sighed.
______________________
When the household finally reached peak chaos, Max slipped away.
He needed calm.
He needed space.
He needed the room where everything would happen tonight.
The ballroom.
Nico sat proudly atop a metronome placed on the piano lid, pendulum ticking with military precision. He glanced up as Max approached, an eyebrow raised in impeccable judgement.
“You’re late,” Nico said.
Max blinked. “It’s two minutes past three.”
“Exactly,” Nico replied sharply. “We agreed on three. Not ‘three-ish.’ Not ‘when Max finishes panicking in the kitchen. But three.’”
Oscar, reflecting in the piano’s lid, didn’t look up from the keys. He simply said, deadpan, “He was panicking in the kitchen.”
“I was not panicking,” Max muttered.
“He was panicking,” Oscar repeated. “Lando said there was flour in your hair and flour represents panic.”
“That’s not … wait when did Lando have time to gossip - ”
Oscar lightly pressed a single note, calm but firm. “Sit,” he instructed.
The bench shifted closer of its own accord until it bumped gently against Max’s legs.
Max sat, and the moment he settled, Oscar’s wood warmed beneath him, his strings humming faintly in greeting. A piano’s version of a steadying hand on the shoulder.
Nico hopped closer.
“We are writing the waltz for tonight,” he announced. “It must be romantic, devastating, and emotionally compromising.”
Oscar added, “Ideally resulting in Charles losing motor control.”
Max’s ears went scarlet. “Can everyone please stop saying things like that?”
“No,” Nico said.
“Absolutely not,” Oscar agreed.
Max placed his hands tentatively on the keys. They trembled so hard Oscar felt it through the ivory.
“You’re nervous,” Oscar observed.
“I’m fine,” Max said stiffly.
Oscar responded by pressing one key on his own, a patronizing middle C.
“Lies,” Nico translated.
Max blinked at them. “Are you two actually working together now?”
“For your emotional improvement? Yes,” Oscar said.
“It’s against my will,” Nico added.
Oscar hummed a soft, rising phrase - hopeful, shy.
Max swallowed. “What was that?”
“A suggestion,” Oscar said. “Play how you feel when he smiles.”
Max went still.
“I can’t … you can’t just ask someone to - ”
Oscar repeated the phrase, softer, coaxing rather than instructing.
Max pressed one note - Quiet, uncertain, beautiful. Oscar’s strings vibrated approvingly.
Nico nodded. “Continue.”
Max played another note, lower and darker, like longing in sound form. Oscar harmonized under it with a warm chord, shaping what Max couldn’t yet articulate.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Max muttered.
“You’re being honest,” Oscar said. “That’s more difficult.”
Nico added, “And more impressive.”
Max’s face went pink again, and so he tried to distract them by building a progression.
It fell apart after four notes.
“That sounds wrong,” Max muttered.
Oscar immediately played a deliberately hideous chord, an absolute mockery.
Max jerked. “What the hell was that?”
“That was wrong,” Oscar said primly. “Yours was just inexperienced. There is a difference.”
Nico chimed in smugly. “He means to say, stop being dramatic.”
“I am not being dramatic!”
Oscar hit two staccato notes that unmistakably meant you definitely are.
Max put his face in his hands. “This is impossible.”
Nico softened the ticking of his internal gears. “It’s not impossible. It’s new.”
Oscar added, gently, “You can do new things… like the dancing! ”
Max lifted his head just enough to glare at the piano. “Since when are you two… nice?”
“We aren’t.”
“Absolutely not, but try again,” Nico instructed, his voice still sharp but missing some of its usual bite. “And breathe this time. You look like you’re bracing for a 50G crash.”
Max exhaled and played.
This time the melody emerged with more shape.
A trembling rise.
A soft fall.
A question asked without words.
Oscar hummed under it, adding small echoes, not overtaking but supporting. The result was tender.
Max swallowed hard, staring straight ahead, afraid that moving would collapse it all.
“It sounds like something,” he whispered.
“It sounds like you,” Oscar corrected gently.
Max froze.
Nico stepped a tiny bit closer on the lid. “And he will hear that.”
Max’s throat tightened. “You really think so?”
Oscar dropped to a low, gentle resonance, warm and steady like the musical equivalent of yes.
Nico added quietly, “Charles listens with his whole heart, and he plays. He’ll understand everything you don’t say.”
Max blinked rapidly. “Oh my god it’s going to make me cry,” he muttered, voice cracking into a laugh.
Oscar: “Good. That’s healthy.”
Nico: “Finally.”
And so, Max played the progression again as Oscar slipped in a playful harmony, something slightly flirtatious, sweeping.
Nico immediately stiffened. “Do NOT play that.”
Oscar repeated it. Nico’s gears clicked furiously.
Max paused. “I don’t know much about music, but that sounded like… romance?”
Oscar: “Correct.”
Nico: “INCORRECT.”
Oscar: “Lewis.”
Nico: “IRRELEVANT.”
Oscar: “Scarf Drawer.”
Nico made a noise that clocks should not be able to make.
Max blinked. “Wait…Lewis keeps things in your clock drawer?”
“It’s for temperature control,” Nico snapped. “Because his wardrobe sometimes overproduces fabric and -- IT DOESN’T MATTER. Stop investigating.”
Oscar played a swooning arpeggio. Nico nearly combusted. Max grinned like a man watching a sitcom unfold in real time.
“This is the best day of my life,” Max said.
Nico pointed at him accusingly. “Focus on your own romance!”
Oscar: “Yes. Yours is far more urgent.”
Max inhaled sharply and the castle hummed knowingly around them.
“I digress, again,” Oscar murmured.
Max placed his fingers back on the keys and something shifted. He didn’t overthink, he didn’t tense, he just played.
And a melody bloomed - hesitant, yearning, but undeniably full of heart. Oscar wrapped around it, harmonizing with a devotion that felt like a hand on Max’s back, urging him forward without pushing. Whilst, Nico’s ticking slowed into something gentle, like a soft backbeat or a quiet heartbeat.
When Max hit the last chord, the ballroom held the moment like cupped hands.
Nico whispered, “he will hear you.”
Oscar whispered, “he will know.”
Max whispered, “…I hope so.”
Nico’s voice softened so much the chandeliers dimmed to listen, “Max, he already does.”
“Once more,” Oscar said. “From the beginning. You need this in your fingers.”
Max nodded, chest tight, breath unsteady, and then he played it again. But this time the melody flowed, not perfectly and certainly not fearlessly, but truthfully.
Nico and Oscar accompanied him tenderly, the three of them creating something delicate and intimate and impossibly human.
When the last note faded, Oscar said, “he’ll dance to this tonight.”
Whilst Nico added “and he’ll fall harder.”
Max pressed his palm against Oscar’s polished wood, grateful in a way he didn’t know how to say.
“Thank you both,” he murmured.
Oscar hummed warmly and Nico softened completely for one dangerous second.
“You’re welcome,” Nico said quietly. “Now… go wash the flour off your face, for the love of God.”
“And moisturize.” Oscar added unhelpfully.
Max groaned, but he also smiled.
And the castle glowed.
______________________
As the sun dipped, the castle sent a warm breeze down the cliff that tugged gently at Charles’ hair and rustled Daniel’s feathers like a summons.
Daniel caught it instantly.
“Oh! Time to go,” he said.
“Already?” Charles asked, breathless.
“Oh yeah,” Daniel said. “They’re going feral up there. Time for Phase Two of Operation ‘Get You Looking Ready To DEVOUR.’”
Charles laughed again, soft and disbelieving.
“Come on,” Daniel said, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Tonight’s gonna be magic.”
Charles looked up at the château glowing above them, golden light flickering like a heartbeat, and nodded.
“I think so too.”
Daniel bounded ahead, towel tossed over one shoulder, curls bouncing with every step. He kept glancing back at Charles with the kind of excitement normally reserved for children before Christmas morning.
Someone else would have found the attention flattering. Charles found it… terrifyingly transparent.
“What.” Charles finally laughed, half-exasperated and half-embarrassed. “Daniel, what is it? You’ve looked like you’re hiding nuclear codes for the last half hour.”
Daniel turned around and walked backwards just to stare at him directly.
“I am hiding nuclear codes,” he said solemnly. “They’re called Max’s feelings, and someone has to keep them from detonating prematurely.”
Charles flushed scarlet.
“Daniel - ”
“No, no, don’t ‘Daniel’ me. Don’t try to school-teacher me, Leclerc. I’m seeing things, I’m Observing™.”
“Observing what,” Charles muttered.
“Oh, you know,” Daniel hummed. “That for the last three hours you’ve had that little grin you think you’re hiding… aaaand that you’re glowing.”
Charles blinked. “I am not glowing.”
“You are glowing like Seb’s forehead on a hot day!” Daniel crowed. “Like a stadium floodlight! Like Lewis when he sees good fabric … or Nico…!”
“Stop,” Charles said, trying to fight a smile.
Daniel leaned in. “Like Max when he looks at you.”
Charles went silent.
Dead silent.
The joke evaporated from the air, replaced by something softer, more fragile.
Daniel’s grin gentled.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “I’m teasing. But also? I’m not wrong.”
And Charles swallowed, because he remembered the library, and he remembered Max’s voice, nervous, earnest and impossibly sincere:
“Come to the ballroom tonight. With me.”
“…I want to give you a night.”
“I’m glad you stayed.”
Charles’s heart pulled tight in his chest.
“What if it’s too much?” he whispered before he could stop himself. “What if I misread something? What if he wakes up tomorrow and regrets all of it?”
Daniel stopped walking, turned around, studied him, and then,
“Charles,” he said softly. “You’re not imagining it.”
“But - ”
“There is no ‘but’ Charlie. Max asked you.” Daniel’s voice dropped into something deeper, more serious than Charles had ever heard from him. “And Max doesn’t ask for things. He endures. He tolerates. He suffers. But he doesn’t ask, not unless it really matters.”
Charles looked away, and for some reason the tunnel walls blurred.
“He’s trying,” Daniel said. “And you’re trying. That’s already more than either of you have ever done.”
Charles let out a long, careful breath.
“I want it to go well,” he confessed.
Daniel smiled in a way that felt like sunlight on tired skin.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, tucking a piece of hair behind Charles’s ear just to annoy him, “it’s already going well.”
______________________
By the time they reached the main corridor leading toward the grand hall, the castle was practically quivering. Not with fear, but excitement - lights flickered in soft waves, roses leaned toward the doorways and drapes fluttered in phantom breezes.
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Daniel muttered to the castle. “He can’t dance with you, you know.”
The castle snapped two lamps in indignation and Charles laughed despite his rising panic.
They managed to reach the final landing before Daniel turned abruptly.
“Alright. New rule.”
Charles blinked. “New rule?”
“No going anywhere alone.”
“What? Why?”
“Because the castle’s going to combust if it sees you wandering freely before tonight, and Seb will combust if he sees Max seeing you before you’re dressed, and I will combust if I lose track of you and Seb decides to set me on fire.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“You signed up for a ball hosted by ghosts, Charles,” Daniel said. “You lost the right to call things dramatic.”
Charles’ response was cut short as the floorboards creaked dramatically (because of course they did) and the hallway lamps brightened in a golden flare.
Someone was coming.
Not rushing, not running, but walking.
Deliberate, measured, and a little nervous.
Max.
Charles felt him like gravity shifting, and his lungs seemed to forget how to behave.
Daniel took one look at Charles’s face and made an unhinged hand gesture toward the wall.
“Turn around!”
“What? Why?”
“MAX CAN’T SEE YOU YET!”
“Why not? I’m not even dressed for -- ?”
“JUST DO IT.”
Charles turned around just as Max appeared. Because even though Charles wasn’t looking at him, he felt him. Felt the pause in his footsteps and felt the subtle inhale.
Daniel slipped between them like a human shield.
“NOPE,” Daniel announced. “Yeah nah. Not allowed mate.”
Max blinked. “What.”
“You,” Daniel said, pointing at Max like an accusatory aunt, “are not allowed near Charles until this evening.”
Max froze. “…Why?”
“Because mystique!” Daniel said. “Because suspense! Because theatrical build-up! Because you paid for ballroom lighting and I refuse to let you waste it!”
Max looked deeply confused… adorably confused… dangerous-to-Charles’-blood-pressure confused (he snuck a look in the window reflection, sue him).
“I just wanted to say -- ”
“NO !” Daniel slapped a hand over Max’s mouth.
Max stared at him and Charles stared at the wall.
Daniel hissed, “This is romance, not an FIA press conference. Go wait.”
Max narrowed his eyes and gently pried Daniel’s hand off his face with two fingers.
He turned his head toward Charles, who was surprisingly still facing the wall, and said softly,
“I hope you had a good day.”
Charles’s lips parted.
“Max -- ”
“NO!” Daniel yelped, grabbing Charles’s shoulders and rotating him away like a malfunctioning Roomba. “No peeking! God you people can’t do anything”
Charles laughed helplessly and Max inhaled like the sound hit him somewhere vulnerable.
And then the castle, the traitor, opened a window just enough to send a soft gust of wind down the corridor, lifting Charles’s hair, and swirling the scent of salt and sun directly toward Max.
Max went utterly still.
Daniel groaned. “The castle is shipping you two. Why is this my life.”
Max swallowed, voice low and warm and so full of something Charles couldn’t name.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he said.
Charles’s heart tripped.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Max hesitated, just a second or two, before he turned and walked away.
“I can’t wait until you guys finally make out"
Charles yelped like he’d forgotten Daniel was even in the room (he had).
Daniel exhaled like a mother of four, “Okay, we’re doing this the right way. Come with me.”
He guided Charles toward the guest corridor. Halfway there, he snapped his fingers and George materialized with the speed of a summoned spirit, teapot lid flapping.
“Is it time?” George asked.
“It’s time,” Daniel declared.
George produced something from under his lid - A silk strip, midnight black and smooth as whiskey.
Charles stared. “I’m sorry, is that - ?”
“A blindfold,” George said.
Daniel grinned in a way that put the Cheshire Cat to shame. “For purely logistical reasons.”
Charles raised an eyebrow. “Logistical.”
Daniel held the blindfold up. “Absolutely. Entirely logistical. Completely un-kinky. Zero percent kink. Nada kink.”
Charles crossed his arms.
Daniel sighed dramatically. “Fine. Ten percent kink. Happy?”
Charles laughed, “I don’t even want to know where this came from.”
George cleared his throat in a manner that suggested he had seen far, far worse things in this house.
“I’ll do it,” George volunteered.
“No offense, George,” Daniel said, “but your porcelain hands aren’t exactly soft on the skin.”
Charles blinked slowly. “I can just close my eyes?”
“No!” Daniel gasped. “You’ll peek. You’re a peeker… you have peeker energy!”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
Charles sighed as though he hadn’t just been peeking. “Fine.”
Daniel stepped behind him and tied the silk around his eyes.
It was soft, and strangely comforting. He tried not to reflect on that too hard considering the night ahead.
“Can you see?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
“Swear?”
“I swear.”
Daniel tapped his cheek affectionately. “Goooood boy.”
Charles flushed. “Daniel I swear -- ”
“Oh hush. You love attention.”
George made a strangled noise and rolled away muttering, “I’m too old for this.”
And so, Daniel led him by the hand with surprising dignity.
Well some dignity.
“This is so fun,” Daniel whispered.
“Daniel, if you tell anyone -- ”
“No, no, let me have this.”
The blindfold made the world feel closer, like every sound was sharper and every shift in the air meaningful. Daniel squeezed his hand.
“Almost there.”
He heard footsteps somewhere distant and felt warmth behind a door on his left. He imagined Max somewhere in all that preparation, with his hair tousled and sleeves rolled up, trying not to panic as the others constructed something worthy of Charles.
The thought made him dizzy.
Daniel opened a door, guided Charles inside and then closed it before untying the blindfold.
Charles blinked, he was in his bedroom.
Light returned in soft gold.
His room was immaculate, curtains drawn, fireplace glowing and a vase of fresh roses on the table.
But more importantly, on the bed, a box. A suit box, with Lewis’s handwriting on the lid.
Charles exhaled shakily. “Oh.”
Daniel smiled. “He’s trying, you know.”
Charles nodded, throat tight. “I know.”
“Get dressed,” Daniel said. “We’ll be outside.”
He paused in the doorway. “Charles?”
“Yes?”
“Tonight’s going to be one of those nights,” Daniel said softly. “The ones you remember forever.”
Charles didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded and Daniel slipped out, leaving Charles to approach the box slowly, as if afraid it would vanish.
He lifted the lid.
And froze.
The suit was… breathtaking.
Not ostentatious or fairy-tale grand, but elegant, soft, romantic. A shadow-blue that deepened into near-black at the seams, made from materials that shimmered only when the light caught them and fine embroidery hidden inside the cuffs, little red threads woven in patterns reminiscent of constellations.
Lewis had understood him perfectly.
Charles brushed the fabric with his fingertips, breath caught in his throat.
“You like it?”
Charles turned to see Ollie stood in the doorway, fidgeting nervously with Leo beside him like a furry bodyguard.
Charles smiled. “I love it.”
Ollie’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Oh thank god, because Lewis said if you didn’t he would throw himself into the sea.”
Charles laughed softly.
“You can come in Ol,” he said.
Ollie stepped in nervously whilst Leo hopped up on the bed like he owned the place.
“Um,” Ollie said, twisting his fork-handle. “I’m here to offer moral support, and emotional encouragement, and maybe help you tie things because Lewis said sometimes humans get overwhelmed when they’re falling in love.”
Charles blinked. “Lewis said that?”
“Oh yeah,” Ollie nodded. “He said you would be delirious with anticipation.”
“I am not delir -- ”
“You’re trembling Charles.”
Charles looked down and realised Ollie was right, his hands were trembling.
Leo nosed his knee gently, tail wagging.
Charles exhaled.
“Maybe a little,” he admitted.
Ollie lit up. “That’s normal! Kimi says love activates the sympathetic nervous system.”
Charles laughed. “Does he, now.”
“Yes! And Isack said it’s like a car engine revving too high before the green light. Very poetic but very stressful.”
Charles slipped into the trousers. Ollie straightened the cuffs. Leo sat proudly watching like a tiny king.
Charles fastened the shirt buttons slowly, breathing deliberately, and then finally, he stepped into the jacket.
It fit perfectly, Lewis knew his shape like an artist knew marble.
When Charles looked at himself in the mirror, he startled, because he looked nothing like a man searching for something, nor like the lost young traveller who arrived months ago. But rather he looked like someone worthy of being danced with in a ballroom, someone someone else might fall in love with.
He swallowed, Ollie beamed, Leo barked once.
And then, a knock at the door.
Soft. Careful. Beloved. Charles froze and his heart climbed into his throat.
Ollie whispered, “That’s the signal, he’s ready for you downstairs.”
The castle’s lights dimmed in reverence as Charles inhaled and then turned toward the door, opened it and walked towards his future.
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