Chapter Text
“Calamar, you are dry.”
Charles turns just in time to see Pierre tip the bottle of sparkling rosé into his glass. It’s crisp, effervescent – exactly how Charles likes it. He doesn’t taste it at all.
“What are you thinking about?” Pierre asks, taking a seat on the lounger beside him.
Charles looks out to the horizon. The Aegean is stunning, especially this time of year. The water looks like something out of a daydream. Shimmering, bright. Flush with color.
“Hmm.”
Pierre laughs at his non-answer and relaxes back. Charles follows his line of sight down to the level below them, where his eldest boy is splashing around the infinity pool, Kika keeping a watchful eye on him. Fatherhood looks good on Pierre. As does retirement. But that’s not something Charles wants to think about. His friend has other plans.
“Are you having regrets?” he probes.
“No,” Charles says stubbornly. “If I were still racing, would I be here on holiday with you?”
Pierre quirks a disbelieving brow at him. “No you are right. You would likely be on one of your side quests, risking your life unnecessarily.”
Charles scoffs, covering up the tightness in his chest. He hasn’t been on one of his adventures in a while, not since he gave up the red and stepped away from the track. It can’t be a coincidence.
“Shut up and enjoy the sunset,” he instructs, making a point of drinking the wine that remains tasteless. Pierre laughs loud and hearty but doesn’t object.
-x-
They eat together that evening. Charles. Pierre. Kika. The boys. Pierre’s mom. Charles loves spending time with his godsons, wishes Milan was closer – he’s selfish like that. He supposes with all his free time now, he can make the four-hour drive no problem. Something to think about when he gets home.
It’s their last night here. Kika offers to put the kids to bed on her own so he and Pierre can have one last hurrah. They leave the villa, walking the dark cobblestoned streets to the main town, which is really just a couple tavernas, a handful of bars and one questionable night club that only plays reggaeton.
Oh to be young, Charles thinks as he watches a group of teenagers disappear behind the velvet ropes. They find a bar with outdoor seating and order a round of ouzo. Even after two weeks in Greece, Charles hasn’t quite developed a taste for it.
Pierre, on the other hand…
The Frenchman brazenly pulls out a pack of smokes and offers one to Charles. He almost declines one on instinct, but then thinks, why not? There’s no one to weigh him, take his vitals, lecture him on his diet and exercise plan. He is free now.
“Just don’t tell my wife,” Pierre warns, a cigarette stuck between his lips. Charles grins. At least some things remain the same.
They drink and smoke in companionable silence for a while. It might be the alcohol getting to him or simply that it is easier to confess things under the cover of night, but Charles feels a kick inside him.
“I do not have regrets,” he announces suddenly. If Pierre is surprised, he doesn’t show it. “I just wish I knew what I was doing next. That is all.”
For so much of his life, really since he could remember, his path has been drawn. He knew what he was doing for the next month, year, decade. As long as he was racing, he was climbing, taking each rung of the ladder up, up, up. It drove him, fueled him. Gave him purpose.
Without racing, what is he? Who is he?
He doesn’t think Pierre can understand. He has children. A family. Charles doesn’t have those things. He’s not even really sure he wants them.
Pierre leans forward, smoke billowing around him. “I read somewhere once, can’t remember now where, that for any athlete giving up a sport is like getting a divorce.”
“And that’s relevant how?”
Pierre laughs. “You’re right. For that to make sense, you’d have to be married first and with your record –”
“What a strange way to kick me when I am down.” Charles frowns.
“Are you? Down I mean.” Pierre asks, concern twisting his features unnaturally. Charles wants nothing more than to erase it from his face.
“No.” He denies quickly.
“Why do I not believe you?”
“Because you are stupid.”
“Or very smart.” Pierre winks and blows out a ring of smoke. Charles resists the urge to roll his eyes. He picks up one of the shot glasses, motioning for Pierre to do the same.
“Let me not bore us with my troubles while we are still here,” he suggests, and because his best friend can always be relied upon to have a good time, Pierre follows suit.
Later, when they’re stumbling back to the villa, giggling over some ridiculous story from their karting days, Pierre stops abruptly.
“You would tell me if you were not okay, yes?” he asks.
Charles blinks for a second, the alcohol making his brain a little fuzzy and slow on the uptake. Then, like dawn breaking, everything comes into focus. Pierre’s worried gaze, the late night breeze caressing his cheek, the stale taste of cigarettes and liquor in his mouth.
He is so detached from it, it’s terrifying. As though now that he’s not in a car speeding 200kph, he is no longer anchored to anything. Not even this.
“Of course,” he says, clasping Pierre on the shoulder. “I tell you everything, non?”
-x-
He’s barely settled into his apartment when he gets a call from Mia. He’s kept in touch with quite a few people from Ferrari – a lot of engineers, some of the guys from the pit crew, some mechanics. But none as much as Mia. She’s one of the most talented social media strategists Charles has ever met. Sometimes he wonders why she stayed with Ferrari for so long, why she hasn’t taken her talents elsewhere.
The same could be said for him but he doesn’t want to venture there.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asks cheerfully. His phone is on speaker on the counter, the espresso machine buzzing behind him. The open balcony door brings in sounds of life. Monaco is waking up.
“My darling.” Mia’s voice comes through loud and clear. “How have you been?”
“Alright.” He shrugs, even though there’s no one in the apartment but him, hasn’t been for quite some time.
“Così male, eh?” Charles can hear the humor in her tone but it still hits him square in the chest.
Is he really that transparent?
Between Pierre’s concern, his mom’s nonstop texting, and now Mia picking up on his discontent from kilometers away, he wonders if within eighteen months he somehow lost all of his media training. He used to wear the mask so effortlessly, he thought it might have sunk into his skin permanently.
“I have great news for you.” When Mia speaks again, he realizes he hasn’t said anything, and is grateful for his old colleague for moving on. “How would you like to be a guest of Ferrari’s at the Monaco race next weekend?”
It’s not like Charles doesn’t know the race is coming up. It’s not like he hasn’t kept up with the schedule and the driver lineups. Sometimes he thinks it’s impossible to fully leave Formula One. Once you’re in, you’re in for life. Like a cult.
Or maybe it’s just his masochistic tendencies that are to blame for why he finds himself in the Ferrari garage ten days later.
It’s an outrageously beautiful afternoon. The kind where clear skies feel preordained, where the yachts look like pearls floating on the water. For Charles, there is no better place to race than in his hometown. It’s been over a decade since he won here but he can still picture the moment so clearly, like it lives in another part of his mind that’s untouched, unblemished by all his failures and disappointments.
The garage is a buzz of activity, a controlled sort of chaos that is immediately familiar to him. Charles knows the rhythm of this place, the way it moves, the way it breathes. The people may have changed but the heartbeat is still the same.
He fits in seamlessly, without even trying. And he hates it, hates how much he’s missed this.
Without the focus of being in the car to distract him, he’s an exposed live wire, confronted with everything he doesn’t have anymore. Everything he chose to walk away from. The decision to turn and flee now is an easy one, but he doesn’t make it past the outside of the garage before a voice calls to him.
“Charles, is that you?”
And of course standing there against the cloudless sky, like an extension of the sun itself, is none other than Max Verstappen.
His one time rival. The driver he’d spent the most time chasing, following, driving wheel to wheel with. The one person he absolutely hates showing any weakness around. Even now, when neither of them belongs to a car anymore, a team.
Charles plasters on a fake smile and shuffles over. “Max, hi.”
Max is in a dark blue polo and blue jeans, matching the Red Bull colors perfectly. If Charles had felt he could easily slip back into all of this, Max simply looks like he never left. He’s even wearing a cap still, this one pulled just as low. Charles can’t see his eyes and he thinks maybe that’s for the best. He can convince himself that Max can’t see right through him.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Max says.
“Last minute decision.” Charles lies, and doesn’t even know why. “How is everything?”
“Good, and you?”
“Oh you know, same old, same old.” He waves his hand around as though this is where he goes every weekend.
Max tilts his head up, a smirk on his lips. Charles can finally see his eyes - those pools of cerulean that outmatch the heavens behind him.
“Right.” He gives a light sort of laugh, reminding Charles that underneath all his bravado, Max is just a little bit awkward too.
Someone comes out of the Red Bull garage then, looking for Max. Of course even in retirement, he is needed. He is someone of importance. Max doesn’t slip into the chaos like Charles, the chaos orbits around him.
“I’ve got to run,” Max says, “but I’ll come find you after the race? If you’re sticking around.”
“I am,” Charles says, even though he’d absolutely planned on leaving not even ten minutes prior. Something about going now, when Max has seen him, feels very much like running away. And well, he’s never backed down from a challenge, not where Max is concerned.
“I’ll see you then.” Max gives him one more smile and disappears back from where he came.
Charles genuinely thinks this is it. He swallows his panic down and tries to enjoy himself, forgetting about Max for a while. For two blissful hours where the cars are looping around the track at breakneck speed, Charles pretends that everything is the same. Nothing in his life has changed. He’s still fighting for positions, still chasing that glory, that pride, the feeling of knowing he is the best in the world and no one can beat him.
That drive kept him going in his darkest moments, gave him a lifeline when he needed it most. It’s also what sank him in the end, what made him walk away.
For the duration of the race, Charles doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t think at all. He just watches, absorbs, participates.
Mia finds him right after, pulls him into a tight hug and whisks him away to some afterparty. Ferrari didn’t win but they got P2 and P4, which this season is just as good, so the mood is quite festive. People mill about with drinks on the sun drenched balcony. Charles stops and watches the sky oscillate between orange and pink, the shades bleeding into each other like a watercolor painting.
“Hey, mate.”
He doesn’t mean to jump but it’s inevitable. His drink follows suit, spilling over his hand in a less than graceful fashion that has Max trying to suppress a laugh. In a very dad-like move, Max smoothly walks away and returns with napkins.
“You’re here,” Charles says stupidly as he mops up the vodka soda off his wrist.
“I did tell you I’d come find you after,” Max says, watching him.
“You’re right, you did.” Charles wishes the sunlit floor would just swallow him up. When did he get so awkward?
Max doesn’t seem to notice his inner turmoil. He comes off relaxed, nonplussed, entirely in his element. It sets Charles’s teeth on edge.
“I’ll get you another,” Max offers, nodding towards his abandoned glass. He doesn’t give Charles a chance to push back, not like he would anyway. Saying no to Max Verstappen is not really something that’s in his DNA. Despite their history.
They find a quiet corner on the deck, and sip their drinks side by side, admiring the sunset. Charles takes the opportunity to study Max. He looks pretty much the same, broader in the shoulders maybe, with a few more laugh lines around his eyes and mouth but still just Max. The only difference is his hair, which considerably longer. Even that, Charles has to begrudgingly admit, looks good on him.
All in all, Max appears totally comfortable in his own skin. Unlike Charles, who spends an inordinate amount of time each morning plucking gray hairs out of his head.
“You’ve been good then?” Max asks, cutting into Charles’s self-deprecating thoughts.
He shrugs. “Yes, more or less.”
Max gives him a side glance, one that’s a little too aware. “The first few years are like that. Then it gets easier.”
Not knowing what to say, Charles takes a sip of his vodka soda. It’s stronger than the one before and he welcomes the burn, more comfortable than admitting that he is struggling.
“How is Lily?” he asks instead, and feels a jolt of something warm at the way Max’s face lights up.
“She’s good.” He smiles. “Growing like a weed. Lives full time with her mum in London.”
“Oh, that’s far,” Charles blurts out.
“Closer than Brazil,” Max jokes dryly but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Charles immediately realizes his faux pas. As a rule, he doesn’t bother with tabloids, knows first hand how damaging they can be. News of Max’s divorce was splashed all over social media and gossip sites – impossible to ignore. And what little Charles knows does not suggest any of it was amicable.
“Je suis désolé.” He apologizes, dragging his hand over his flushed face. It hits him then, out of nowhere - the gravity of this moment. The two of them reunited at a party that’s not for them – a ritual of a sport they both quit. Charles starts laughing and doesn’t stop. With anyone else, he would feel embarrassed, maybe a little insane. With Max, it’s just easy. Familiar. And apparently it’s infectious because a moment later, Max is laughing too.
“I’m sorry, this is just so crazy, non?” Charles says as he wipes some errant tears from his cheeks. “It’s been what? Four years?”
“Five.” Max corrects him. Half a decade since they hugged after Max’s last race, did a photo op for the press, and went their separate ways. It feels wrong that they didn’t keep in touch, an aberration that he and Max Verstappen weren’t in each others’ lives. Now that Charles has the chance, he needs to fix it. For someone who's been operating without any real purpose since he hung up his helmet, the idea is borderline seducing.
“A toast then.” Charles raises his drink towards Max. “To not waiting another five years to meet.”
Max looks at him a little strangely, like maybe for once Charles is a mystery he can’t solve. Then he clinks their glasses together. Charles feels it all the way in his bones.
-x-
“How is it possible,” Charles asks between gulps of air, “that you are still so terrible at padel after all these years?”
Max laughs as he slumps against the fence, squirting water into his mouth from a Red Bull branded bottle.
“No practice courts in Hasselt?” Charles teases as he reaches for his towel.
“Nope, just a lot of cows,” Max deadpans, before using the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. Charles forces himself to avert his eyes from the strip of skin above Max’s shorts. Whatever he’s been doing in retirement seems to be working for him. Even if he still sucks at padel.
There are other things Charles has learned about Max in the weeks since the Monaco GP. He splits his time between his hometown in Belgium and London. He’s kept his apartment in Monaco but mostly out of convenience. He’s still involved with Redline but in a managerial capacity, and very occasionally he drops in on Formula One races, whenever the mood strikes.
In between all that, he does his best to co-parent, and look after his three cats, who his mother is dropping in on while he is in Monaco.
To Charles, it seems like a full life. One that isn’t busy just for the sake of it. A part of him is jealous.
“You play a lot?” Max asks.
“More frequently than you, it appears,” Charles jokes – not yet ready to reveal that he doesn’t do much these days. Eighteen months later and he still hasn’t figured out what he’s going to do with his life.
“I read that Arthur got married.”
“He did,” Charles confirms. It was a beautiful wedding. If Charles got a little too drunk and cried in the bathroom, Max doesn’t need to know that.
“They’re having a baby in October.”
“How lovely.” Max’s face lights up again, and while it’s not something Charles can relate to, he certainly appreciates the result. How the skin around Max’s eyes crinkles attractively, how his lips widen, the freckle there stretching. He looks younger when he smiles, more vibrant. It does absolutely nothing to tamp down the latent attraction Charles has always felt towards him.
“You ever think about it?” Max asks, and Charles wishes that could pretend like he doesn’t know what Max is alluding to.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I see myself more as a step-parent at this point.”
He winks for good measure, like it will deflect from what he doesn’t say.
“It’s not too late.” With anyone else, Charles might be annoyed but with Max that’s hard to do, when he knows he’s just being honest. Factual.
“I have to figure out my life first,” he says, then bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying more. From admitting that he’s scared racing was the only thing he was good at. The only thing that he was good for. That anything else he tries to do next will pale in comparison simply because it is second. He wishes there was a blueprint, a framework to follow so he wouldn’t have to think so hard about it.
“How long are you planning to stay in Monaco?” He asks in an effort to distract himself.
“Not sure,” Max shrugs before taking another pull from his water bottle and passing it over to Charles. “I get Lily at the end of the month but nothing before then.”
Charles takes the bottle without thinking, drinks from it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“You should stick around then. It might be nice to hang out.” He says it casually, like it doesn’t cost him anything. Because Max is who he is, he doesn’t make a big deal of it. He stands up and brushes off his shorts.
“I think I will. At least until I can beat you at one game of padel.”
Charles rises too. “You can certainly try.”
Max grins with the wattage of a blazing sun. “Challenge accepted.”
-x-
Max ends up staying for three weeks. As much as Charles is rue to admit it, this is the most fun he’s had in months, if not years.
They play padel nearly every other day – sometimes with other people, sometimes just the two of them. Charles likes the sound of their sneakers hitting the pavement. The good natured curses that bounce off the net when one of them (usually Max) misses a hit or loses a point.
It’s refreshing to watch Max struggle with something, but it’s entirely overshadowed by the intensity of his commitment to get better. Charles has never known him to do anything half-way, even something as insignificant as a recreational game between two former coworkers.
Charles knows he can be a lot. Sometimes maybe too much for people. He’s too emotional. Too open. And he runs when he’s scared. He’s spent many sleepless nights thinking about people he had let go of, people he didn’t fight enough for. Lately, because of his presence in Charles’s life, Max has somehow made it to the top of that list.
He doesn’t know what it means that he’s equated Max to one of his exes. So he really tries not to think about any of it at all.
The days are warm, perfect for trips out to the water. Sometimes Joris and Arthur join them; sometimes it’s just the two of them and Leo, who mostly just sleeps these days. His closest companion isn’t as young as he used to be. Charles can relate.
At night, they party; going out to various clubs and bars, and one or twice, to yacht parties. Charles stupidly thought those days were behind him – drinking too much, stumbling home after sunrise. But he’s glad to learn he can still have a good time, so long as he’s with the right people. When he retired, Charles tried to strip himself clean of everything Formula One related, only keeping in touch with Ferrari people. Now he wishes he hadn’t isolated himself.
Going out with other drivers is fun. Retired or not, they are still the people Charles relates to the most.
Max is at the center of it all, sipping on a gin and tonic, arm stretched across the back of the booth as the strobe lights dance playfully across his face. Lando says something and Max throws his head back, a wild unbridled laugh that Charles can’t hear over the music but is still drawn to. He’s been doing that a lot lately, just staring at Max. Some part of him is still having a hard time believing that he’s really here.
Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Something Charles can’t quite articulate and that’s why it’s bothering him so much.
“So what’s up with you, Charlie?” Out of nowhere a heavy arm drapes over his shoulder. The scent of tequila wafts from the side as he’s confronted with Danny Ricciardo’s joyful and slightly inebriated face.
They’re out today because Danny is in town – a quick trip on his way to Croatia with Heidi. ‘A proper boys’ night’ he’d called it when he sent the mass text. As soon as they arrived, he’d ordered multiple bottles of top shelf tequila.
Charles can still feel the bite of the alcohol even though he’d wisely switched to seltzer a half hour ago. Danny, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have stopped.
“I’m alright,” Charles says in his cheeriest tone.
Danny smirks. “That bad, huh?”
Charles is sure it’s meant in good humor but he feels himself frowning. It’s not the first time he’s wondered if he’s that obvious, if his sadness is plainly laid out for anyone to see.
If he really thinks about it, he and Daniel aren’t all that dissimilar, at least not when it comes to how they left the sport. But this isn’t the time or the place.
“I’m just more sober than you,” he teases.
“Or somber,” Danny corrects, making Charles laugh.
“You know who’s not sober?” Danny nods towards the other side of the VIP booth where Max and Lando are still sitting together, giggling like little girls.
“That guy.” Danny points to Max specifically, and Charles feels a pull somewhere below his navel.
It’s not that Max is always serious but it’s been a while since Charles has really seen him let loose. It’s probably been a long time since Max allowed himself to. So it’s nice. All of it is nice. Especially when Max catches his eye and smiles back. It’s a dopey sort of grin that’s earnest and also very clearly indicative of how not-sober he is.
“I’m sooo glad you guys are hanging out again, dude.” Danny chirps in his ear, forcing Charles to tune back in. “It was pretty dire there for a while.”
“What do you mean?” Charles asks right away, even though a distant part of him feels like this is information that he shouldn’t be hearing. And that Daniel wouldn’t be sharing if he wasn’t six tequila shots and two vodka sodas deep.
“Well, the divorce was rough and then the whole custody thing, and the girls moving to England. Maxy would never admit it but I think he was kinda depressed for a while. All he did was Redline stuff and work on his house. When I suggested he go see some races, visit some old friends, I didn’t actually think he would take me up on it but I’m so glad he did and…”
Charles tries to keep up with what Daniel is saying but it’s like his mind won’t process the words fast enough. Did Max know he’d be at the Monaco race? Was that why he was there? Was that why they ran into each other?
Charles tries to replay that moment but comes up short. He had been too in his head about being back to remember anything clearly. And even if what Daniel is saying is true, what Charles can’t stop thinking about is that Max was depressed. Max had gone through all of that and Charles wasn’t there for him.
They hadn’t been that close when they were competing, met each other more on the track than off, and still…
Charles takes a long sip of his seltzer, thankful he’d stopped drinking when he did.
He doesn’t even notice that Daniel’s stopped talking until his friend is already looking at him, eyes a little too sharp, smile a little too knowing, for how much alcohol he’s ingested.
“He’s okay now,” Daniel says, “and you will be too.”
He clasps Charles aggressively on the shoulder and gets up suddenly. “I gotta take a piss, do not go anywhere.”
And then the Australian is off, not quite stumbling through the crowd towards the bathrooms.
Charles contemplates going to join Max and Lando’s conversation but decides against it when the song changes. The more fast-paced tempo lures him to the dance floor. He disappears into the mess of gyrating bodies, all moving with abandon, without purpose.
Max finds him, because he always does. Even back then, Charles never had to look too long for him.
“Mate, I think I’m a little drunk,” he says as he nearly drapes himself over Charles. And because Charles is just a man at the end of the day, he lets him, slinking his arm around Max’s waist to steady him. They’re close enough that Charles can feel the heat radiating off Max’s body, can smell the gin on his breath. It should be off putting but isn’t. It just makes Max smell better, adding a nice floral hint to the clean scent of his cologne. Charles feels himself grow hard, pulse quickening.
“C’est quoi ce bordel,” he mutters under his breath. What the fuck is happening?
“Did you say something?” Max leans in, a little too close. Charles resists the urge to whimper.
“No.” He shakes his head, grateful for the dimness of the club for concealing how flushed he must be. “Perhaps it’s time to take you home, non?”
Max grins. A little lopsided. A lot attractive. “Are you offering?”
Charles has to swallow against the lump that suddenly forms in his throat. He laughs, trying to shrug it off.
“What kind of friend would I be if I let you stumble home alone?”
They say their goodbyes quickly, with Charles ignoring Danny’s wink, and promising Lando a game of padel before Max leaves at the end of the week.
Charles tells himself it’s perfectly normal that Max latches onto his arm as they make their way out, that he doesn’t protest when Charles shoves him into the back of the car and tells him to drink water.
He tells himself the same thing when they easily bypass the doormen in Max’s building, because all the staff know him, and he tries not to downright lose his mind when Max hands him the keys to his apartment.
It’s surprisingly easy to make Max toe off his shoes and push him in the direction of this bedroom. Charles has a brief respite from his treacherous thoughts as he watches Max struggle with his shirt.
“It’s these damn buttons,” he defends weakly and Charles tries not to laugh.
Thankfully, Max manages to get himself mostly undressed and under the covers all by himself. Charles sneaks out and fills up a glass of water, finds some paracetamol in the bathroom, and lays both out on Max’s nightstand. He takes the extra time to shut the blinds.
He’s already by the door when he hears Max shuffle in bed.
“Don’t go,” he says, voice scratchy. And Charles could blame it on him being already half-asleep, but then he hears it.
“Charles,” Max says, not in the English way but it the proper way - all soft and warm and so tempting. Charles bites back a groan, leans his head against the wall, trying to gather himself. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t think he could handle whatever image Max paints lying curled up in his too big bed.
“I won’t,” he says finally, still facing away, “I’ll be on the couch.”
He is a little relieved and a lot disappointed when all he gets in response is a light snore.
The next morning Charles wakes up to a crick in his neck and the sound of hushed voices in the other room. Everything is awash in light, sunrays spilling onto the wood floor and across the plush cream colored furniture surrounding him. From his spot on the couch, Charles can see how the light reflects off the collection of trophies and racing memorabilia prominently arranged in the glass case mounted on the opposite wall.
There are photos too.
Some of them are of Max when he was little – a smile too big for his face, his dad standing over him with an expression that’s still intimidating to Charles even in his adult years. There are also pictures of Max's mom and sister. His niece and nephews.
The majority of photos, though, feature Max’s daughters, tracking them through the ages. It reminds Charles of his mother’s house, where every available space is covered in mementos of his childhood, reminding him that he always has a home. A place he can return to. People that love him. It makes his chest feel tight, a lump forming in his throat that he wants to chase away. In an attempt to do that, he grabs another photo.
This one is also of Max as a kid. He’s on the podium, clutching a big trophy, a gold medal resting prominently against the blue of his racing suit. And there on the step right below him is Charles, his floppy brown hair falling over his eyes, lips pressed together as he looks up at Max.
It shouldn’t come as such a surprise to him that he’s captured here. So much of their childhood had been intertwined, if not off the track then certainly on. But something about Max having it here, so prominently displayed, layers onto this fluttering feeling that Charles has been trying to make sense of since yesterday. Since Danny drunkenly told him things that Charles is still having a hard time wrapping his mind around.
“I believe that photo was taken a few days after the infamous inchident.” Max’s teasing voice startles him, causing him to almost drop the frame.
Charles tries to play it cool. “Yes, yes. Rub it in why don’t you. You and your dozens of number ones.”
He carefully sets the photo back on the shelf and turns to gaze at Max. He’s not sure what he’s expecting exactly, but it’s strange that Max looks the same. His eyes are a little bloodshot, skin a bit paler, but overall he looks like he did the night before. Just a little hungover.
Yet everything feels different. Like maybe Charles is seeing him in a new light. The realization manifests in his intense desire to reach up and run his fingers through Max’s hair, see for himself if it’s as soft as he thinks it is. Charles swallows, shoves his hands in his pockets.
Max smiles ruefully, mistaking Charles’s sudden awkwardness for exhaustion. “I’m sorry if I woke you. Lily called. We try to talk every morning.”
“It’s alright,” Charles says quickly, “I should probably go anyway.”
Max frowns. “You won’t stay for breakfast? It’s the least I can do after having you take care of me and then you spending the night on that couch. I have a guest room, you know.”
He says it with a lightness Charles simply doesn’t feel. Because how is he supposed to tell Max that the guest room felt too far away, that he’d only gone to the couch because he was afraid of what he might have done if he’d laid down next to Max. How he doesn’t trust himself to not do something stupid that would blow up the friendship they just rekindled.
A friendship that has kept him from sinking into the lows that have been plaguing him ever since he decided to retire.
A friendship that he is terrified of ruining but at the same time can’t help thinking is a precursor to something more.
He doesn’t know how to say any of those things, but he also can’t say no to Max. He’s never been able to.
“I’ll stay on the condition that you feed me something terribly greasy.”
Max’s face splits into a wide smile and it’s like the sun peeking out of the clouds after a storm.
He leads Charles to the kitchen, and Charles tries not to shiver at the press of Max’s hand to the small of his back.
Mon Dieu. He is so fucked.
-x-
Charles wasn’t born with a love of racing in his heart. It came to him gradually. Years of watching his father’s eyes fill with passion, years of making him proud, years of getting that thrill from the competition.
In interviews, Charles used to pretend that he’d loved it from the start, that he’d laid eyes on the karting track and felt instantly at home. But that isn’t the truth. At least not the whole truth.
What he really loved was the look of the race karts, and the vivid colors of the racing kits. He loved sketching them even more.
He could spend hours with paper and colored pencils, creating abstract drawings of things that were familiar to him. The little toy keyboard his parents had given him on his third birthday; the bright Monaco sun on warm summer days; their neighbor’s dog – a dark chocolate dachshund who loved to roll over and demand belly rubs.
When he got older, sketching became a form of stress relief. Something he did in between races. He mimicked the outlines of karts, captured the silhouettes of his friends in their racing suits. He still remembers the drawing he gifted Pierre when he made it into Formula One – an old sketch of nine-year-old Pierre in front of his racing kart. It looked more like a caricature than anything, an outline of a boy in his green suit, maybe smiling, maybe not. Pierre keeps it in his house to this day. Charles had caught a glimpse of it in the background of Pierre's office the last time they FaceTimed.
It’s been ages since Charles has seen any of his other drawings. His mother’s house has always been filled to the brim with memories. Photos of him and his brothers. Trophies from all stages of their karting and racing careers. It would make sense that Charles had not come across this specific sketch in a long time, that his eyes had merely glazed over it in the sea of others hanging on the giant accent wall in his mother’s living room.
Today, it catches his eye. He can’t remember drawing it but he can recognize his own strokes from anywhere.
The F2004 – the car that won Schumacher his fifth consecutive championship, giving him his most dominant season ever. A car that represented Charles’s first memory of a proper Formula One race.
He’d been seven years old but he can still remember the blur of red speeding down the Monaco track – how many screens it was plastered on. The television in their house replayed the races featuring that car so often, it was burned into his memory.
That’s when his racing obsession started in earnest. When his ambition was born. He no longer wanted to be just an observer. He wanted to be one in the car, the one winning in signature red.
Or maybe he had absorbed his father’s dream, driven by his desire to make his father proud. To make everyone he loved proud.
His mother had taken one look at the sketch and grinned. Le petit garçon en rouge, she’d called it. The boy in red.
Seeing the drawing now, after all these years, after everything that happened to him while he’d been shrouded in red, makes him a little sick to his stomach. His lungs squeeze with the need for air.
Charles tries to temper it, to stave off the panic attack. He taps his wrist, blinks rapidly a few times.
Nothing seems to work until —
“That’s pretty.”
The very air changes around him as Max comes to stand beside him. For a second there, Charles had forgotten that he was at his mother’s house, that he wasn’t alone. As he turns to look at Max, everything rushes back in like he’s just come out of the tunnel into the Nouvelle chicane.
He remembers now joking about Max coming to his maman’s for dinner so she can finally give him a haircut. Max was so thrilled by the idea, Charles ended up inviting him to come. He’d asked what kind of wine Charles’s mom preferred, or if she liked flowers more? In the end, he’d brought both. Maman had kissed Max on both cheeks and complimented his impeccable manners.
Dinner had been lovely, maybe a little too much so. Lorenzo is out of town. Arthur has a race. So it was just the three of them, talking nonstop over his mother’s coq au vin, which Max complimented effusively in broken French.
It was soothing to have Max there, like a final puzzle piece slotting into place. Charles has tried really hard not to think about Max leaving in just a few days. He's tried to make peace with it, to be present in the moment instead of worrying about what would happen in the future. It's never served him anyway.
But standing here, with Max shoulder to shoulder, staring at a relic of his past and trying to calm his racing heart, Charles can’t do it. Can’t shut it off. Can’t stop the prickle of tears that threatens to spill over and reveal him to be the weakling that he is.
It doesn’t help that Max looks like his old self again. Charles truly doesn’t know how long he’s been standing here but it’d been long enough for his mother to have pushed Max into the bathroom and chopped off his growing locks, reviving the closely cropped haircut Max used to sport during his racing days. It’s more than looking into the past now – it’s being confronted with everything Charles has missed in the last five years; everything he’d been too terrified to pursue when they’d been weaving in and out of each other’s lives every other weekend.
How long has he had these feelings? He’s asked himself this so many times over the past couple weeks. And he hasn’t been able to come up with an answer until now.
Now that he’s standing here, with Max, who looks no different than he did all those years on the track – even with his laugh lines and his sturdier frame – Charles knows the answer is far longer than he ever thought before. That maybe there’s no finite beginning or end to the fire that burns hot inside him. All that mess of emotion and desire curling into a spark he’s been trying to snuff out and no longer can.
“Charles,” Max whispers, a divot formed between his brows. “Are you okay?”
“I-” Charles clears his throat, tries again. “ Just reminiscing.”
He nods towards the drawing, then looks up, letting his tears sink back in.
“Did a fan draw this?” Max asks.
Charles immediately snorts. “You could say that.”
Max steps forward to take a closer look, his shoulder brushing against Charles’s.
“I don’t think they quite captured your brilliance,” he muses, then turns to look at Charles over his shoulder. His smile drops as soon as he does.
“Seriously, mate. What’s wrong?”
And Charles doesn’t want to lie. Can’t find it in himself to do it.
“It’s just hard sometimes. Being confronted with all of this.” He sweeps his arm around, gesturing to all the racing momentos – the photos, the medals, the trophies. He has more at home but they’re locked in his spare bedroom, away from prying eyes. And he’d never ever ask his mother to put these away, anymore than he would ask her to move the photos of his father and Jules.
“I get it,” Max says softly, returning to Charles, bringing back his heat, his proximity.
“Does it ever get better?” Charles can’t help but ask. Maybe he’s asking too much here, leaning too heavily on Max, but he has to know. He needs to know.
Max smiles like he knows exactly what’s going through Charles’s mind. “Of course it does.”
“When?” Charles probes wetly, feeling his eyes sting again. The tears don’t come though, as if he doesn’t even have the energy to properly cry. His neck grows hot with humiliation but he refuses to look away. The only thing that’s steadying him right now is Max.
“I don’t know,” Max answers honestly.
“You seem so sure though,” Charles points out. Max laughs, his lips quirking up into a familiar smirk but one that has very little snark in it. Just adoration.
“Of you? Always.” And Charles doesn’t even have time to process the depth of those three simple words because Max does something truly unexpected.
The first brush of Max’s hand against his is so light, Charles thinks he’s imagined it. But then Max threads their fingers together loosely and squeezes, and Charles feels it all the way down in his toes. A pleasant zing rushes through him, as if bringing him back to life. And he wants nothing more than to hold on.
So he does. And Max holds him right back.
They stay like that, staring at the wall of memories, until his mom walks out of the bathroom and insists they stay for a nightcap. Sometime between letting go of Max’s hand and helping his mom set the table for tea, Charles makes a decision.
It might’ve been inevitable all along.
-x-
He’s jittery on the way back, grateful that he drove them so he has something to focus on as the anticipation builds.
If Max notices, he doesn’t let on – prattling on about the result of a football match he’d missed that afternoon. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles watches him rant and can’t help but smile to himself. It’s one of the many things he loves about Max, his passion, the intensity with which he experiences the things that he loves.
Love. Merde.
Is it love? What Charles feels? What he’s started to feel? Or is it just attraction, lust? Charles knows it’s not that but anything else is so terrifying, he grasps for the least overwhelming option.
By the time they reach Max’s building, he’s filled to the brim with anxiety. He swallows it down, maneuvering the car into a parking spot.
“Can I come up?” he asks resolutely as he kills the engine. Max quirks his eyebrow but ultimately shrugs.
“Of course,” he says before slipping out of the car. Charles takes a deep breath and follows.
Max’s apartment is dark, save for the glittering city lights streaming through the floor to ceiling windows. It’s the perfect backdrop for Charles to see Max as he shuts the door and leans against it.
He’s certain Max is a second away from asking him what’s wrong, and he’s so sick of that, sick of being broken, of not finding his way yet. Of wondering if he’d made a terrible decision eighteen months ago and if he’ll ever feel normal again.
He’s even more fed up with not knowing whether all this time he’s been a damn coward with his heart too. Too afraid to put himself out there. To take a chance. And he needs to now, needs to get it out there. Needs to know that he is not crazy and this thing brewing inside him is real.
He marches over to Max with purpose, invading his space. Max’s eyes grow wide in recognition or surprise or something else, Charles isn’t sure. He reaches up to touch his cheek anyway.
It’s warm, rough from his stubble. He scans Max’s gaze, searching for confirmation there. Max is a blank slate, giving nothing away and Charles can’t temper his amusement. Even here, Max is testing him, giving him a challenge.
And well, Charles hasn’t been known to give up on anything. Especially not on something this huge.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, and Max finally gives something away. A sharp inhale that Charles feels where his palm is pressed to the base of his jaw. Charles uses that palm to guide Max forward and finally, finally seals their lips together.
The world stills in that moment. Everything around and inside of Charles goes quiet for the first time in so, so long, he nearly whimpers with relief. Maybe he actually does whimper, because in the next second, Max’s hands are on him; one curling around the back of his head, the other yanking him impossibly closer by his waist. Suddenly, they’re fused together with more than just their mouths.
And Charles can feel it all. The tug of Max’s fingers on his hair, the fabric of his shirt where Charles’s hand is squashed between them, the knee-buckling heat of his lips. Max takes control of the kiss, tilting Charles’s mouth for a better angle and wasting no time in plunging his tongue inside. Charles gives in easily, practically falling into Max’s body and moaning unabashedly into the kiss.
Max tastes divine. A mix of tea and the cake they shared at his mother’s but underneath all that, something familiar, something Charles has been chasing for what feels like ages. It’s always been a little out of reach, fleeting. But he has it now, and he does not want to let it go.
They’re both straining for air, chests rapidly bumping against each others’. Charles doesn’t want to stop; doesn’t want to curb the momentum. A distant part of him worries that once they pull apart, Max will come to his senses and all of this will be a thing of the past. Charles can’t let that happen.
He rips his mouth away, surprising them both, and drops to his knees with little regard for how his joints pop. Max sucks in a breath, half-lidden eyes going big but not protesting at all.
“Charles,” he says quietly, with a hint of reverence that makes Charles’s cock twitch. “You don’t hav–”
“I want to,” Charles interrupts him, already reaching for Max’s belt. Briefly, he wonders how he’s going to peel these impossibly tight jeans from Max’s thighs. Then he traces the length of him through the material, sees how Max’s eyes flutter shut at the simple touch, and all reservations, distant or otherwise, fly out of his head.
He works on instinct, unbuckling the belt, unzipping the fly, and there’s a moment there when all he wants to do bury his face against Max’s clothed cock and inhale, but there are more important things to do, like getting it in his mouth before Max inevitably changes his mind. He yanks the jeans and briefs down, and then he’s wrapping his hand around the base. Max arches into the touch, his fingers shamelessly tightening in Charles’s hair, and Charles realizes with horror that neither of them are going to last very long. He pulls Max’s cock into his mouth until his lips meet his fist.
“Holy shit, Char–”
The praise skitters deliciously down his back, a motivator if Charles has ever had one. He doesn’t stop, opens his jaw wider, as wide as it can go, then flicks his tongue along the thick, warm, salty underside and moans around it. The vibration must do something because Max starts mumbling nonsensically in Dutch, words that Charles doesn’t understand but has a vague idea of from the way Max can’t help but fuck his mouth. Charles feels so full, so giddy with it. Every stroke of his tongue makes Max moan louder, has him tugging on Charles’s hair a little harder, encouraging.
The feedback loop is insane, dizzying. Charles hadn’t really been prepared for that – how much Max’s pleasure would induce his own. He is achingly hard, his cock straining in his pants, but his own arousal is the furthest thing from his mind. He sucks harder, twists his wrist expertly, making up for the space his tongue can’t reach.
Later, he decides if he has the opportunity, he will lay Max down naked on the nearest surface and admire him for hours on end, but for now he keeps the pace going. The hand not playing with Max’s cock, presses flush against his opposite hip, pinning him down to keep him suspended on the knife’s edge of pleasure.
“Fuck, Charles, I’m going to come.” Max moans from somewhere above him, his voice like gravel, broken and scratchy.
Good, Charles wants to say, so good, mon amour. But all he can do is gaze up at Max, mouth full of him, hoping that his eyes can convey everything he can’t say. Everything he hasn’t been able to say long before this.
I’m sorry I’ve been such a coward.
I think I might be depressed.
I think I love you.
I think I’ve always loved you.
He’s not sure what does it. Maybe the eye contact or how deep he takes Max. Or maybe it’s the desperation dripping out of both of them, but the intensity of the moment swells until the pressure is too much and Max lets out a border line growl and freezes. The back of his head hits the door, and a second later, Charles feels the hot spill of him down his throat. Charles is greedy for it, for the taste, for the feel of Max convulsing in his mouth. Even the hard floor beneath his knees is a massive turn on. His cock is weeping for attention now, begging but Charles doesn’t give in.
He’s too preoccupied with keeping Max right there, languishing in a post-orgasmic daze. Pride seeps into every one of his pores as he observes just how wrecked Max looks, how absolutely ruined he’s made him.
But the joke seems to be on him, because no sooner does he pull away, then Max hauls him up, spins them around and presses Charles into the door. His hand drops to the waistband of Charles’s baggy jeans. You don’t have to, he wants to say, parroting Max’s words back to him but the truth is Charles wants this, so, so much.
Now that he’s had a taste, he can’t walk away. The wild, determined look on Max’s face tells Charles he’s not alone.
He kisses Max hungrily, with teeth and tongue, and lets Max shove his hand into his underwear. He doesn’t even need spit. Charles is so wet, precum dripping all over his cock and now Max’s wrist, and Max is so close to him, barely even giving himself room to jerk Charles off. It somehow makes it even hotter, this tight space between them, just for them. A shield that they’ve created from the rest of the world. A place devoid of Charles’s fears, his insecurities, the dull hollow ache that’s been following him around for months.
He can be himself here, he can let go, because he knows Max has him. Max will never let him fall. He says as much, sucking the words into a spot right below Charles’s ear, and all it takes is a few strokes for Charles to feel the crest coming. He’s already thinking about how embarrassing his dry cleaning bill is going to be, when Max kneels down and lets Charles come right into his open mouth.
It’s got to be one of the hottest things Charles has ever witnessed. Max Verstappen on his knees in front of him, come dribbling out of his mouth as he holds Charles steady by the hips.
Charles reaches down and runs his fingers through Max’s closely cropped hair, indulging in the overdue fantasy of feeling the soft strands. His other hand drops to Max’s jaw, stroking there too, feeling the softening outline of himself against his cheek. Charles expects it to be awkward, expects there to be stilted silence and the awful pall of reality falling over them.
None of that happens.
Max slowly rises to his feet, taking the time to tuck himself back in, and then Charles too – displaying care that makes Charles’s heart swell.
Charles finds himself smiling, no grinning. With unbridled joy. Relief. The kind that he knows isn’t only due to the mind blowing orgasms they just gave each other.
Max parts his lips, clearly intending to speak but Charles brings his fingers to those full lips, shushing him.
“Don’t,” he says quietly, “let’s not ruin it.”
Max’s eyes spark with something like adoration. He nods and Charles melts. They kiss, a light chaste press of their lips, just enough to solidify the moment; bring them full circle.
Charles reaches back, feeling for the doorknob.
“Sleep well, Max,” he says with what he hopes is a lot of promise and slips out of the apartment. Hours later, as he lays in bed, Charles realizes he hasn’t stopped smiling since he got home.