Archive of Our Own ^beta

Max is lying on his stomach on his lounge, face pressed into the cushions, trying to tempt Sassy over with treats, when there’s a fierce banging on the door. 

The noise scares off Sassy, and makes Max jump in fright, rising up onto his knees to look over the back of the lounge towards his door, wondering who it could possibly be at the door. 

There’s another knock, even louder than the last, and then his phone starts to ring. 

Max looks down to his coffee table, sees Charles’ face, and swipes it off the table. 

“Hey,” Max greets, lifting himself off the lounge to start to walk towards the door. “What’s up? There’s someone at my door, so I can’t talk—” 

“Yes, I’m at your door,” Charles says, a little breathlessly. “Open it. I need to talk to you.” 

Max blinks at the back of his closed door, then opens it up, dropping his hand to end the call as Charles storms inside. 

“Thank God you’re home,” Charles says, sounding completely relieved. “I need to talk to you.” 

“You mentioned,” Max says, closing his door and following Charles slowly. “What’s wrong?” 

“Do you know what fanfiction is?” 

Max blinks. “Yeah?” 

“Oh, good,” Charles says, even more relieved. “Do you know people write about celebrities?” 

Max rolls his eyes. “I’ve been briefed by PR, yeah.” 

Charles flops down on the lounge, Sassy and Jimmy long gone, and props his feet up on the coffee table. Max rolls his eyes again, then sits down next to him. He and Charles are friends, kind of, and certainly closer now that they’ve ever been before, but he’s never really witnessed Charles having a PR-related meltdown before. They’re not that close. 

Oh, well. A first time for everything, he supposes. 

“Great!” Charles says cheerily, then unlocks his phone and shoves it in Max’s face. “Do you also know that we’re ranked second on Archive of Our Own?” 

Max can’t say he actually knows what Archive of Our Own is at all, let alone what we’re or ranked second means. 

He takes Charles’ phone from his hand carefully, holding it a little further away from his face so the screen isn’t blurry, and then see’s a little grey menu tab with a variety of drivers listed in pairings. 

What Charles said starts to make sense, because he can clearly see Max Verstappen/Daniel Riccardio (3897) ranked right above Max Verstappen/Charles Leclerc (3453). 

“Okay?” Max says, perplexed. “And?” 

Charles stares at him like he’s crazy, which is pretty much how Max feels right now. 

“And? Max, we’re second. We’re losers.” 

“Actually, I’m first and second. I’m a winner, twice.” 

“Max, this is serious!” Charles snaps, then snatches his phone back. “I can’t be a loser. I can’t.” 

Max has genuinely no idea why that’s his problem, or why Charles is trying to make it his problem. He really doesn’t think they’re close enough friends to try and help Charles through this—he’s not sure he knows Charles well enough to be well-equipped enough for it. 

“A loser at what?” Max asks, trying to be patient. Maybe if he realises the problem, he can help Charles by calling Pierre or something. 

“At fanfiction!” 

Max sighs deeply. “So you want us to be number one on this website? Why?” 

“Because—I—can—not—lose,” Charles says slowly, carefully, staring deeply in Max’s eyes while he does it. “You don’t want to lose either, do you, Max?” 

“Right, but I am first.” 

“With Daniel.” 

“Charles, I really—” 

“You barely even talk to him anymore!” Charles presses, resting his hands against the cushion between them to lean closer. Max leans backwards, a little terrified of the crazy look in his eye. “And what if he loses his seat? Then you’ll be number one, but with someone who’s not even a driver. That’s loser behaviour, Max.” 

“Oh my god,” Max murmurs, eyes wide. “You’re crazy.” 

Charles stares at him for a long moment, then sighs deeply, leaning against the back of the lounge and staring up at the ceiling. 

“Fine,” he says sadly, lips pulling down into an exaggerated pout. “I get it. You’re ashamed to have your name next to mine. I understand. No, no, you don’t need to say anything to make me feel better—wait, Max, why aren’t you saying anything to make me feel better?” 

“I figure you just need to get this out of your system,” Max says, but doesn’t add whatever the fuck this is. “Do you want a drink?” 

“Maaaax,” Charles whines, looking at him with big, wide, green eyes. 

“Are you fucking three years old?” Max asks, incredulous. “Charles, seriously. Why are you so hung up on this?” 

“I just am! We are better, and I want to be first. Max, we’re enemies to lovers, we have a compelling narrative history. We should be first.” 

“We’re enemies to what?” 

“To lovers! It’s like you’ve never been on the Internet before. Also, I’ve been through the Maxiel tag already, and I really think that you should have a look because I don’t think these people understand you at all—” 

“Charles, I’m going to kick you out if you keep talking.” 

“—but it’s alright, because I really think that the Lestappen writers are onto something, except for some reason you’re basically always the top which I don’t really see, but I guess maybe that’s because I really doubt that I bottom—” 

Max stands up and grabs Charles by the wrist, dragging him up from the lounge while he keeps yapping away, grating against Max’s brain. 

“—not that either of us know, because we’re straight—” 

Max rolls his eyes, starting to tug on Charles to pull him towards the door. 

If only Charles knew. Then again, they really aren’t close enough for Charles to know his sexual preferences—certainly not to know who, exactly, was his sexual awakening. Then again, maybe in this moment Charles would be delighted to know that preteen Max’s first ever orgasm was to thoughts of him. Maybe that would satiate whatever weird thing he’s going through right now. 

“—anyway, so I just really think it would be so easy to fix, because I’ve also been looking on this website called Tumblr, and people really like us, so I’m just thinking that maybe we hang out, get photographed together, and then I think that the lestappies—that’s what they’re called, by the way—I think that they’ll take it from there—” 

“Goodbye, Charles.” 

He shoves him through the door and slams it quickly in his face, before Charles can say anything else traumatising. 

There’s a few blissful moments of silence, where Max can only hear his own heavy breathing, and then the peace is broken by Charles speaking loudly through the door. 

“I’ll send you some links and some ideas!” 

Then Max can hear the sound of his disappearing footsteps echoing down the hall. 

He hopes, desperately, that that was the last of—well, whatever that was. He has a terrible, sinking feeling that it wasn’t. 

His fears are proven correct at only the next race, when he gets a message early on Thursday morning from Charles. 

Charles Leclerc 

Okay, we’re 444 fanfics behind Maxiel. 

[IMG_345.jpg]

I’m going to sit next to you at the press conference today. 

Do NOT ruin this for me. 

Max leaves him on read. 

-444

Max sits at the end of the lounge, on the opposite side of Nico, talking quietly to him in German. 

He’d sat at the end purposefully, so that Charles couldn’t sit next to him, but by the time Charles blusters into the presser Max is so engrossed in his conversation that he’s forgotten about it all. 

A big mistake, because Charles marches directly over to him, standing at his feet, hands on his hips. 

Max glances up at him for a brief second, giving him a quick smile in greeting, then turns back to Nico, asking him about Noemi’s newfound addiction to rubber ducks. 

Charles huffs loudly, then says, “Oops,” and falls into the tiny space between Max and Nico. 

Max grunts as Charles half-falls on him, the microphones probably half stuck up his ass, Nico trying to wiggle his hand out from under Charles’ thigh. 

“Charles,” Max sighs, exasperated, shoving Charles off him. 

“Yes?” Charles asks innocently, batting his eyelashes at him, repositioning himself more on the lounge as Nico shifts over. He crosses one leg over the other, then purposefully moves his leg further down so that his foot is touching Max’s in the air. There’s a flurry of lights as the cameras go off. 

Charles doesn’t move his foot. 

“A little close there, Charles,” Nico says, amusement clear in his voice. “Everything alright?” 

“Well,” Charles starts, beaming widely. “Thank you for asking, Nico. In fact, everything is not alright, because there’s this website—” 

Max slaps his hand over Charles’ mouth. 

Nico raises his brows, while Max shakes his head at him furiously. “Do not ask,” Max warns. “He’s on some kind of—I don’t even know how to describe it. I think maybe his Monaco win has sent him off the deep end.” 

Charles bites his palm, hard, and Max whips his hand back, cradling it to his chest. 

“Nico, do you know what fanfiction is?” 

-437 

“Max, this is a real problem,” Charles says, pacing from one end of the room to the other. Max is doing his best to ignore him, focusing instead on his game of FIFA on the TV screen. Every time Charles passes by, there’s a brief moment where he can’t see anything and he has to hope and pray that nothing dire is going to happen and he’s going to miss it. “Are you even listening to me?” 

“No,” Max says honestly, because this situation literally cannot get any worse and he’s got nothing to lose. 

Charles snatches the controller from his hand. 

Well. Turns out it can get worse. 

“Nico is a fucking snitch!” Charles says, practically shrieking in Max’s opinion. He wonders whether he could hold a pillow over Charles’ face to kill him; surely it would put them both out of their misery. Maybe it would even be a kindness. “He told the rest of the grid that I want to be first on AO3, and now Pierre is trying to get Yukierre to the top.” 

“I don’t know what any of those words mean,” Max says, snatching the controller back while Charles is distracted. 

“It means you could be a loser,” Charles says, hands flying around. “Max. Please. I am begging you. I’m losing it. I need you to help me out.” 

Max sighs loudly, sitting back down on the end of the bed, pausing the game and putting the controller down next to him. 

“I need you to explain to me why this matters so much,” Max says, shifting over slightly so Charles can sit down beside him. “Seriously. You’re acting crazy.” 

Charles sighs, sitting down, fists clenched in his lap. “I don’t know,” he answers sullenly, lips turned down into a pout. “I just—I’ve known you the longest. You and I have been driving against each other for twenty years. We’re compelling. Why aren’t we interesting enough to be first? Why don’t people like us?” 

“If length of time is the only criteria, then Lewis and Nico should be number one,” Max says, perhaps slightly unhelpfully. Charles glares at him. “Okay, fine. We’re compelling, or something. Daniel and I were good friends, you know, and we spent so much time together on camera. The entire PR Strategy was designed to leverage our friendship. You and I hardly spend any time together in public. It’s probably impressive we’re even number two.” 

Charles sighs loudly. “I guess,” he says, still pouting. “But, Max, I can’t—” 

“—be a loser, yes, you’ve mentioned.” Max sighs, rubbing his palm against the bridge of his nose. “Have you even actually read any of this stuff?” 

“I have,” Charles says eagerly, probably sensing blood in the water. Max can’t help it—he’s unfortunately always been a bit weak when it comes to Charles. That’s probably why Charles has doubled down—he knew he’d get him eventually. “Some of it is really good. Like, really good. Some of it is actually scarily good—” 

“How much have you read?” Max demands, suddenly terrified that Charles has genuinely been spending his spare time on this website. 

“Enough,” Charles says, waving his hand around frantically. “Enough to know that our writers are the best.”

“You’ve been reading other pairings?” 

Max is a little horrified. This is more serious than he feared. 

“I had to know what we were up against,” Charles says, pulling his phone from his pocket and poking around on his screen a couple times. “Look. Read this one. It’s not that long.” 

Carefully, Max takes the phone from Charles’ hand like it’s a bomb, holding it in his palm and looking down. 

He sees the relationship tag, Charles Leclerc/Max Verstappen, sees the characters, Charles Lecerlc, Max Verstappen, sees additional tags, Canon Compliant, Monaco Grand Prix 2024, Established Relationship, Secret Relationship, Coming Out, Smut, and then sees that it’s almost ten thousand words. 

“Charles, how the fuck is this not that long?” 

“Read it,” Charles urges. 

“You just like this one because you won this race,” Max grumbles, but scrolls down a little further anyway. 

karma is my boyfriend, the title is, posted by Anonymous. 

Max gets that. He thinks he wouldn’t want to have his name attached to this, either. 

Charles’ fingers are tingling. 

The trophy is heavy in his hands, and his fingers are tingling. 

“Charles,” Max starts, unsure what he wants to say but feeling very uncomfortable with what’s going on right now. He doesn’t think he should be reading this. It’s not for him. 

“Read it.” 

Max sighs again, then settles down, laying back on the bed, phone hovering over his face as he reads. 

—tears spilling over, hot down his cheeks, like holy water burning away his sins—

—a baptism by fire, and now he’s come through the other side, absolved, benediction found in the tarmac he grew up riding his bike on—

—“I’m so proud of you,” Max says, voice rough, and Charles wonders why he never really believed Max when he told him he could do it—

—feels so free, weight lifted off his shoulders, and when he looks up to the sky he thinks of his father— 

—the weight of expectation is momentarily gone, like after all this time, all these years, all he ever needed was to win in Monaco—

—Max’s heavy eyes on him from the other side of the club, and there are too many people but still he’s drawn to him, the invisible string tying their lives together now drawing him towards his boyfriend—

—“I want to fuck you so bad,” Max breathes. “The Prince of Monaco, and you’re going to be begging for my cock.”—

Max swallows, putting the phone down his chest, staring up at the ceiling. 

His chest feels a little tight, like he’s just been for a run. For some reason, he feels genuinely emotional. 

“What part are you up to?” Charles asks eagerly, leaning over to look down at the screen. “Oh, you’re just getting to the good part.” 

“Charles, this is porn.” 

Charles sighs loudly, then reaches over to pick the phone up from Max’s chest. 

Max’s skin tingles where Charles’ fingertips brush against him. 

“There’s sex, but it’s more than porn,” Charles says defensively. “There is this whole category called porn without plot, but this—this is psychoanalysis. The religious imagery, with Ferrari as the devil and Monaco as Heaven—come on. Don’t try to pretend it’s bad.” 

Max blinks, the words Charles’ exhale shakes loudly in the bathroom, and then he drops down to his knees in front of Max, ready to give his sacrifice to one of the many gods that racing knows repeating in his mind. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

He isn’t—there’s no fucking way he’s getting turned on right now. 

“It called me a racing god.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Charles says gleefully. “There’s a whole bit comparing your come to the holy communion—” 

“Jesus Christ,” Max groans, then immediately regrets that wording when Charles starts to cackle. “These people are going to Hell.” 

Charles laughs again. “Well, you’ve read it now. You’re going, too.” 

Max sighs, scrubbing his hand over his face, palm dug into his eye. 

“I guess it was alright,” he says, begrudging, unwilling to admit to anything else. 

“So you’ll help?” Charles asks hopefully. “Number one?” 

Max sighs again. Fuck his life. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Number one.” 

-420 

“We need a game plan,” Charles says, early on media day at the next race weekend. “Pierre is going to be talking about Yuki on the fanstage, and Nico and Kevin posted that photo on Instagram, and I’m pretty sure Oscar is trying to decide whether he has the best chance of getting the most fics with Lando or Carlos with, like, graphs and some kind of excel algorithm or something—” 

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Max says, putting his hands down on top of Charles’ shoulders to get him to stop bouncing in place. “What are you talking about?” 

“I told you Nico snitched,” Charles answers, rolling his eyes. “There’s a grid wide competition now to try to get to number one. We’re only 420 fics behind Maxiel, so we’re in the best position to win, but we need a game plan. Carlos and Lando are a thousand fics behind us, but who knows what they’re willing to do. They’re crazy, you know.” 

Max has to stop himself from laughing in Charles’ face. God, he doesn’t even know how he sounds. 

“So, this is what I’m thinking,” Charles starts. “We’re not in the presser together today, but I thought that maybe I could come to your drivers room, I’ll take a couple photos of you, like, getting ready for the day, and I’ll post them to my stories—” 

“Okay, stop talking.” 

Max takes a deep breath, trying to calm his suddenly racing heart. 

It’s not Charles’ fault, not really. He’s never sat through a million PR meetings, having it drilled into him how important it is that nobody ever finds out his sexuality, how dire it could be to his safety, how much it could jeopardise his future in the sport. Max, at least, has the slight buffer now of being a multi-World Champion. 

The last thing Charles needs is rumours about his sexuality, especially when they’re not even true. 

“Let’s start a little smaller, maybe,” Max suggests. “I can tell a story about us from karting at some point today. Why don’t you mention that we saw each other in Monaco this week?” 

“Oh,” Charles breathes, eyes wide. “That’s—that’s good. I can do that.” 

“Alright,” Max agrees, patting him on the shoulder, unreasonably fond. “Off you go.” 

-401 

“Daniel is onto us,” Charles says into the phone, on the Sunday morning of the next race. Max groans, blindly trying to turn the digital clock to face him so he can see what time it is. He’d turned it away in the middle of the night, infuriated at how bright it was, but now he needs to see it so that he can shout at Charles for waking him up. “He wants Maxiel to stay number one. Max, I swear to God, if you’re cheating on me with Daniel to boost the Maxiel numbers . . .” 

Max groans, pulling the phone from his ear so he can put it on speaker and lay it next to his face. He settles back into the pillow, smushing his cheek into it, closing his eyes and trying desperately to chase after the sleep that Charles has ruined. 

“Wha’?” 

Charles goes quiet for a moment, then says, “Were you sleeping? Sorry. By the way, we’re down to only 401 fics between us now. We’re going to be in the 300s by the time the weekend is out, I know it.” 

“There is something so wrong with you,” Max grunts, nuzzling his cheek into his pillow. 

There’s a faint pleasure rolling through his body, mind drifting in and out of full consciousness. 

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” Charles says. Max barely remembers what he told him in the first place. “So about Daniel—” 

Max groans. 

“Daniel doesn’t matter,” Max says, wishing he remembered what peace feels like. “I’m not cheating on you.” 

Then he blinks awake, slightly disturbed with himself for saying it like that. He also realises that he’s half-hard, hips rolling slightly into the mattress. 

He stops himself immediately, mortified. 

“Oh, good. By the way, an amazing one-shot was posted last night. I’m going to send it to you now. TopCharles Leclerc, can you believe it? I knew there were top me truthers out there somewhere.” 

Max groans, then reaches over to end the call. 

Only a moment later, he hears the sound of a text chiming. 

He doesn’t even bother to pretend he’s not going to read it, because he’s read a couple more since the first one. Only ones Charles sends him—he’s not yet at the stage where he’s going to go searching. 

Charles has sent nothing other than the link, so Max rolls over onto his back, clicking it open. 

He skips over the tags, regretting it immediately when the first line is literally Max has always known he likes to be fucked. 

Taking a deep breath, he scrolls through it half-heartedly, because Charles has yet to lead him astray. Rather the opposite; unfortunately, everything he’s sent has been good. 

The further down he goes, the harder his dick is getting. 

He’s going to fucking kill Charles. 

He exits out quickly, determined to not yet stoop so low as to be getting himself off to fucking fanfiction. 

-392 

With a triple header breathing down their necks, Max is eager to take the opportunity between races to rest as much as he can. 

He’s laying on the lounge, stomach flat on the cushions, petting Sassy between the ears. 

Then, all of a sudden, he hears an agitating, grating voice. 

“Max, have you ever done anal?” 

He jerks, body flailing as he falls off the lounge, Sassy shooting off right before she gets squished. Max lands against the ground, hard, shoulder aching immediately. 

“Oh my God, are you okay?” 

Max stares at the space underneath his lounge, looking at all the dirt and dust and cat hair that’s collected under there, and wonders whether he’d die if he tried to shove his face in it. He can only hope. 

“I’m fine,” he says after a long moment, staring at a particularly large mound of hair/dirt/dust. Maybe he could shove it in Charles’ mouth to shut him up. 

“Okay, good. So, have you? Because this fic is using spit as lube but that doesn’t really seem safe.” 

Max blinks, rolling that sentence over his mind, staring at the hair/dirt/dust pile, and then he sits up so fast he gets dizzy. He ignores the way his eyes spin around in his head to say, “They’re using what as what?” 

“Spit as lube,” Charles says helpfully, smiling down at Max like there’s nothing crazy about the conversation they’re having right now. 

“No,” Max says, horrified. 

“No, you haven’t done anal?” 

“I haven’t—fucking Hell Charles, yes, I’ve done anal. Fuck. You never use spit as lube, Jesus.” 

“Oh. Okay. Get up off the floor, would you?” 

Max groans, but dutifully hoists himself up, sliding back into the lounge. Charles’ feet are propped up on the table again, but he lifts them off just long enough to lean forward to get the TV remote, and then he leans back as he switches the TV on. 

“Did you do it with a woman?” Charles asks, staring down at the remote as he messes with the settings. If Max didn’t know any better, he’d think that Charles is avoiding looking at him as he asks. Maybe he’s being toocasual. Or maybe this conversation is just getting to his head. 

“I have,” Max answers slowly, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. He takes a breath, then bites the bullet to say, “But mostly with men.” 

“Hm,” Charles hums, frightfully neutral. Max wonders what he’s thinking, how he feels about the biggest secret of his life. Then, “Do you top or bottom? Because Maxiels think you bottom, but lestappies think you top.” 

Well. That could’ve gone worse. 

Max swallows, feeling warm everywhere, from the tips of his ears down into his toes. “I switch. Depends on who I’m with.” 

“Hm,” Charles hums again, fiddling around with his phone. He’s still not looking at Max when he says, “What would you do with me?” 

Max sweeps his gaze from head to toe, picturing for a moment just how he’d take Charles to bed, mind unfortunately full of all those stupid fanfics Charles has been sending him, with scenes where Charles is on his knees, Charles is on his back, Charles is on his hands and knees, Charles is rocking into Max—

The screen flickers, filling with white, and Max eagerly takes the opportunity to be distracted. He turns away from Charles, cheeks warm, dick chubbed up a little more than is socially acceptable, to look over whatever it is that Charles is casting on screen. 

He’s horrified immediately when he reads Max spits on his fingers, then reaches down to press his index against Charles’ hole. 

“Charles!” Max yelps, flinging himself over to try and grab the phone from his hand. 

Charles holds it out of reach, laughing loudly as he tries to wiggle away from Max’s searching hands. He can’t go far, because he’s now pinned beneath Max’s thighs, yet he still manages to keep the phone away.  

“Okay, okay, I’ll put another one on,” Charles says, almost wheezing as he laughs, phone dangling precariously over the edge of the lounge. 

“No more spit as lube,” Max warns, climbing off his lap and settling back against the other side of the lounge. 

“I’ll find one with more plot,” Charles says diplomatically. Max wonders when the fuck he went from reading stories that included psychoanalysis to apparently reading anatomically incorrect porn. “Here, help me pick.” 

Max watches on the screen as Charles navigates to what is apparently his own profile—what the fuck else is Charles keeping from him?—and then to a little tab called Marked for Later. 

The first one Charles scrolls past immediately (“Not enough words,” he explains), then he pauses over the second one (“It’s unfinished,” he says, “but this author is really good so I want to read it all in one sitting when it’s done.”), before ultimately settling on one half way down the page. 

Max, in the end, didn’t help him pick at all, but he’s glad to hold at least some kind of distance from all this. Unlike Charles, who has apparently made a profile and is learning what tags he enjoys. 

“Okay, so smut means sex,” Charles explains, hovering over the top of the page. Max feels a headache coming on. “Coming Out, so probably we’ll be announcing our relationship to the world. But, Max, look—Ferrari Driver Max Verstappen. This is going to be amazing. You wouldn’t last a day at Ferrari, I want to see how they handle this.” 

“No beta we die like RBR in 2024,” Max says slowly, blinking. He’s quite sure that none of those words have any real meaning, particularly not in that order, except he knows that he should be a little offended. “Also, Jos Verstappen's A+ parenting? What the fuck does that mean?” 

“Oh,” Charles murmurs softly, biting his lip. “Um. It’s—well, they’re not going to paint him in the best light. Sorry, I didn’t see that tag. We can skip this one?” 

Max takes in his worried expression, putting two and two together, realising that the tag isn’t literal and is actually poking at his relationship with his father. The thought makes him a little uncomfortable, but he takes in Charles’ guilty expression, thumb hovering over the back button like he’s ready to get out of the page as soon as Max gives the word, and he sighs. 

“It’s fine,” he mumbles. 

Carefully, Charles scrolls down, hovering over the title and the top section. 

“These are author’s notes,” Charles explains, a little less tense. “We always read the author’s notes, Max.” 

“We always read the author’s notes,” Max repeats dutifully, wondering who he’s become. 

Hi everyone! 

I know I said this would be out earlier, but my sweet baby pup, Gertrude, got hit by a car last week. 

“Charles, what the actual fuck!” 

“It’s called the AO3 writer’s curse,” Charles says solemnly. “Something will happen to an author while they’re writing a fic, and it will stop them from finishing for a while.” 

“Charles . . .” 

“Look, it says Gertrude is fine!” 

She’s fine, but I’m unfortunately stuck with some vet bills I can’t really afford to pay. But, hey, at least she’s alive! 

Max sighs loudly, wondering how he might be able to send this random person some money to pay for their vet bills. He can’t imagine something like that happening to Sassy or Jimmy, and then having to worry about how to pay for it. 

Sorry for any mistakes, english isn’t my first language. 

And as always, please do not share this story anywhere else. If you’re the real people, or know the people depicted, please do not read. 

Thank you <3

“Charles, it literally says—” 

“Eh, they all say that,” Charles says, waving him off. “What are they gonna do? Block me? They have no idea who I am.” 

Max is slightly terrified at the wording of that, as if Charles has been . . . interacting. He’s not going to ask—he definitely doesn’t want to know the answer. 

“I haven’t read this one, but I like this author,” Charles tells him. “I’m sure it will be really good.” 

Max is also terrified that Charles recognises author usernames. 

“Lets just read it,” Max grumbles. 

—“We don’t need Red Bull,” Jos tells him, hand on his shoulder. “But Ferrari? They haven’t won anything in years, and they won’t win a Championship any time soon. They couldn’t do it for Hamilton, and they won’t do it for you.”—

—Charles has always been so loving with his gear, folding it neatly, caressing the red, tracing the outlines of the Cavallino, and Max has never really understood but maybe he could try—

—Ferrari will never love him like they love Charles, but he doesn’t need them to love him. He needs them to give him Championships.—

—“You’re throwing away everything we’ve ever worked for,” Jos spits. Max doesn’t care what his father thinks; he’s won more than his father could ever have dreamed of winning.—

—The truth is, Max isn’t really sure what his father ever actually did on their journey towards greatness. He gave up a marriage, that his mother would have left eventually. He gave up his career, which had already failed. He gave up being a real father, but maybe he never really wanted to be that anyway.— 

—“My dad won’t talk to me,” Max mutters, swiping at his eyes. They’re burning suspiciously, lump in his throat, and he knows Charles doesn’t understand this, because Charles doesn’t like his father, but he’s never tried to make Max grow any distance between them. “I don’t know what to do without him. I don’t know who I am.”—

—The red makes him feel like he’s on fire, clashing terribly with his pale skin, and Max feels a little like he needs to claw it off him. He didn’t know it would be like this. He’s been in F1 for fifteen years, and this is the first time he’s walked into the paddock in anything other than navy blue, and it feels wrong, so, so wrong— 

—“He didn’t text me,” Max says numbly, staring at Charles’ concerned eyes. “My first race with Ferrari, and I won, and he didn’t text.”—

Max takes a deep breath that rattles deep in his chest. 

“I don’t want to read this anymore.” 

Charles locks his phone immediately, and the TV goes dark. They’re both silent for a long moment, Max’s heavy breathing filling the air. 

He doesn’t know why he feels this way. Really, he doesn’t know how he feels at all. There’s something heavy and gnawing sitting in his gut, and he feels like maybe he needs to scream, or be held in his mother’s arms. 

“Why are you reading this?” Max asks, curling his knees to his chest, resting his chin on top and staring blankly at the wall. “These things . . . Jules, your dad, my dad. They’re private. These people don’t know us, but they’re writing about us like they do. They’re strangers, and they don’t deserve to write about these people we love like they’re characters.” 

Charles is quiet beside him for a moment, and then he sighs a little, shifting slightly closer to him in the lounge. He feels Charles’ hand against his back and can’t help but lean into it slightly, seeking out the comfort. 

“I guess . . . It feels cathartic, for me. They’re writing like they’re characters, but I suppose . . . It feels like they’re living on, in a way. Everyone knows how much papa and Jules meant to me. I like knowing that people know that. I like that nobody is forgetting about them.” 

Max wishes people would forget about him and his father. Maybe it’s different for Charles, because he’s living with a memory that he can never quite reach. Max is still living this reality every day. 

“I think I liked the porn more,” he says. He’s trying to make a joke, but his voice is hoarse, and Charles is staring at him with some kind of concerned, amused smile. 

“I can find some smut,” he agrees, clearly not joking at all. “I’ll finish this one later.” 

Max huffs out a little laugh, shaking his head against his knees. “Find a way to give them money for their dog, would you?” 

“I already have,” Charles tells him, patting his back a couple times before retreating back to his corner of the lounge. “We’ve spoken on Tumblr. I sent them a few grand on PayPal.” 

Max feels ridiculously fond of him, even though he still thinks Charles is insane for all of this.

Charles sends the fanfic to a new tab, then goes back to his Marked for Later list. He scrolls through it quickly, clearly knowing what he’s looking for, and then he gasps loudly, paused over a fic. 

“Max, do you know what omegaverse is?” 

He doesn’t, but he’s got a feeling he’s about to find out. 

He skims through the tags, but he’s now genuinely concerned that these people are speaking another language because he cannot figure out what they’re all talking about. 

Omegaverse, chussy, Mpreg. 

“Charles,” he says, feeling apprehensive. “What . . .” 

“Oh, I’ve heard about this,” Charles says, delighted, eyes lit up with joy. “We are going to the next level today. Chussy, Max. I didn’t know it was real. This feels like seeing an endangered animal in the wild.” 

Max feels a bit like he’s about to cry. “What the Hell is chussy?” 

Charles laughs loudly, clicking on the fanfic immediately. “I really shouldn’t be so surprised,” Charles says, which doesn’t answer the question at all. “Did you know that F1 apparently has the fifth highest percentage of omegaverse fics on all of AO3?” 

He really needs to kick Charles out. He hasn’t known a single second of peace since all of this began. 

“Okay, shush, we’re starting,” Charles says, which is ironic because Max has barely been speaking while Charles has been yapping away at a hundred miles an hour for what feels like weeks at this point. 

God, maybe it has been weeks. 

Charles’ eyes go wide, lips parting in shock, so Max drags his eyes away from him to stare at the screen, wondering what could’ve gotten such a reaction. 

It doesn’t take him long to figure it out, because, unfortunately for him, this particular story starts right in the middle of the porn—sex—smut—whatever. 

Max has always loved the little noises Charles makes when they have sex. 

Now, swollen belly between them, pussy grinding against his thigh, slick dripping over his skin, Charles’ sweet little mewls echoing around them . . . well, he thinks that there’s nothing better than this. 

Max shoots up from the lounge, hands on his hips, staring down at Charles. Charles, whose wide eyes are glued to the screen. 

“Charles, they gave you a vagina,” he screeches, cheeks flushed. “You’re—they made you pregnant. What the fuck. Oh my God. I think I’m having a stroke.” 

“Chussy means Charles plus pussy,” Charles says distractedly, still staring at the screen. “And what did you think Mpreg meant?” 

“The whole website needs to get shut down,” Max says decisively, smacking his hand into the palm of the other. “I’m calling my lawyer. No, I’m calling the RBR lawyer. No, I’m calling the Red Bull lawyer!” 

“I forget how dramatic you can be sometimes,” Charles says, still locked onto the screen. 

“Charles, you don’t understand,” Max says angrily, feeling more than slightly crazed. “This is—this is just a bunch of straight women writing self-insert fucking porn, using your name to make themselves feel better, fetishising gay men so they can get off and not feel guilty about it.” 

Charles flicks his eyes up to Max, frowning. 

“That’s not very nice,” he says. 

Max glares down at him. “This is fucked up! You don’t get it because you’re not gay.” 

Charles narrows his eyes at him. “How do you know I’m not?” 

Max blinks, a little thrown at his response, and then immediately feels hurt. All this stupid fanfiction is getting to Charles’ head, if he thinks it's alright to joke around about something like this. 

“Charles, seriously,” Max says through gritted teeth. “This is wrong—” 

“Oh my God, who the fuck cares?” Charles says, rolling his eyes. “Get off the moral high ground, idiot. They’re not hurting anyone. They’re not even sharing this stuff around! I literally had to go looking for it. It’s better than those fucking assholes who send us DMs asking for dick pics, or the women who try and proposition drivers to cheat on their wives, or when sponsors try to pay for some alone time. You’re not even the one pregnant!” 

Max stares down at him, heart beating hard in his chest. 

He . . . supposes that’s true. He still thinks this is some kind of weird fetishisation, but Charles is right. Max would never have known that this exists without it being shown to him—without it being sought out. It’s not, technically, hurting anyone, even if he thinks it's weird. 

“Besides, I don’t think you’re angry at them for giving me a pussy, or making me pregnant,” Charles says, a little too pointedly. Max knows he’s not going to like this. “I think you’re angry because you’ve been enjoying all this, and you don’t know how to deal with it.” 

Max was right. He does not like that. 

“So why don’t you sit down, shut up, and read five thousand words of you fucking my pussy with me?” 

Max flushes bright red. 

“Charles,” he says, a little helplessly. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to feel. 

Charles unlocks his phone, and Max sits down beside him, staring dutifully up at the screen. 

—It doesn’t take Charles long to cum, but it often doesn’t these days. He drenches Max’s thigh, arms draped around his neck, sweat making his hair stick to his forehead, crying out softly as he rides him through it.—

—Charles’ thighs clamp down around his ears, body trembling as his pussy clenches around Max’s fingers. He’s grinding against his face desperately, and even though Max needs to breathe, he wants to get Charles all the way through because if he’s lucky then he’ll cum all over his fingers and face and Max will be able to lap it up like he’s starved.—

—“After this one is born, I’m going to fuck another baby into you,” Max gasps, eyes caught on Charles’ bouncing tits, thumb making quick, tight circles on his clit. “God, I fucking love you like this.”— 

Max puts a pillow over his lap, cheeks so hot he feels feverish, and doesn’t look at Charles when he laughs. 

-377

At the next race, Max almost misses a step when Gemma, his PR officer, says, “And at midday we’ve got a shoot with Liberty and Charles for that driver on driver series F1 are doing, Box of Bluffs.” 

“With Charles?” Max asks, perplexed. “Leclerc?” 

“Do you know another Charles?” Gemma asks him, brow raised. Probably at his sudden interest, when he never shows much enthusiasm for anything on media day. “It was a request from Ferrari, apparently.” 

Max sighs. Of course it was. 

He feels like that’s the only reason he ever sees Charles during race weekends these days—he’s got some plan to get them photographed together to get them to number one. He kind of misses when they would see each other to debrief the race, or to talk shit about the other drivers. 

He likes how much they see each other these days, but he kind of wishes Charles didn’t document half of it to share it online. 

Still, he nods his head, because there’s not much he can do about all of this now. 

-349

Charles pushes into Max’s apartment as soon as he opens the door, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, phone in his hand. 

“We’re down to 349 fics,” Charles says, instead of a greeting, bending down to scratch Jimmy’s head. 

Max closes the door behind him, wondering whether he’d invited Charles over today. He’s pretty sure he didn’t—he’s extra sure he didn’t invite him over for something that needs a fucking bag. 

“Great,” Max says, unsure what else to add. He’s not really that invested in this, aside from it making Charles happy. He likes it when Charles is happy. 

“And you will not believe the ask I got sent this morning,” Charles adds, straightening up and wandering further into the apartment. 

“The fuck is an ask?” 

“On Tumblr. I told you about that, didn’t I?” 

“Charles. No.” 

“Oh. Well, I started a lestappen blog, dedicated to my journey of getting us to number one, and I have, like, a thousand followers now, and people send me asks with suggestions for what to read.” 

“You . . . started a blog. Do people know it’s you?” 

“Of course they don’t. I’m not an idiot. And I’m not allowed to rig the competition like that—George was very clear about the guidelines.” 

Max sinks down onto the lounge, lightheaded. He doesn’t want to know what fucking competition he’s talking about, or what George has to do with it. 

“So anyway,” Charles says, sitting down beside him and beginning his routine of mirroring his phone screen to Max’s TV. “I got sent an ask about an omegaverse WIP, and I—” 

“A WIP?” Max asks, feeling helpless. Just when he thinks he’s finally getting a grasp on all this, Charles introduces a new term. 

“A work in progress. Anyway, I started reading it, and it was kind of weird, but then I got strangely invested so I thought, well, this is the perfect fic for us to read together.” 

Max has no idea what kind of weird might mean to Charles, because he’s been sending kind of weird fics to him in the middle of the night for almost two months now, and he’s never given that qualifier before. 

“What’s it about?” Max asks carefully, as Charles goes to his browser and pulls up the fic that he’s already got loaded in one of his tabs. Actually, he’s got about a thousand tabs open, and all the ones that Max can see are for AO3. Fucking Hell. 

“Ferrari sells me at auction, and you buy me for a hundred million euros.” 

Max snorts, shaking his head. Where the Hell do people come up with this shit? “Charles, I’m genuinely worried about you.” 

“You have to get through the first couple chapters,” Charles allows. He’s already on chapter four, but he quickly goes back to the beginning. “They’re weird. But once you get into it, it’s good. I swear. It’s, like, commentary on the patriarchy. Also, so far I think it’s a bit unrealistic because if you actually did half this shit to me, I’d have found a kitchen knife and stabbed you to death. But, again, if we overlook that, you’ll enjoy it.” 

Max levels him with a dark stare. 

“It’s got lots of smut,” Charles teases, stretching his leg out to dig his toes into Max’s ribs. Max pushes his foot away, huffing out a laugh as he does. “And your favourite: breeding kink.” 

Max’s face heats up, staring at the screen resolutely and refusing to look over at Charles. 

He hasn’t really changed his mind about the ethics and morals of it, but he has, maybe, read all the fics that Charles sends him with it. It’s a thing, one that he’s trying to work through, but he’s trying to just lean into it and not think too much about it, like Charles told him.

Charles' throat burns as he heaves. 

Max settles in the lounge as Charles starts to scroll through. 

By the time they come up for air, they’re almost nine chapters deep, Max hasn’t moved on the lounge in hours, and Charles has been providing a steady stream of commentary. 

(“Max, why would you refuse to tell me anything? Just tell me the truth!”) 

(“Why do you think you bought me? I think this is all an elaborate scheme to get me to Red Bull.” 

“No, clearly I’m in love with you.” 

“Well obviously you’re in love with me, idiot.”) 

(“Oh my God, you broke his fingers. That’s kind of hot.” 

“Does violence turn you on?” 

“It does when it’s protective, obviously. You’d make a bad omega.”) 

(“Wait, what the fuck is going on with your mother?” 

“Why are you asking me like this actually happened? I don’t fucking know what’s going on with her.”) 

(“You had an affair with Lando! I’m going to kill you.” 

“I think you need to see someone. Like, professionally. I’m genuinely concerned that you’re confusing reality with fiction.”) 

(“Max, would you buy me a Steinway?” 

“No.” 

“What? Alpha Max puts you to shame.” 

“Charles—”

“Shame.”) 

They’re roused from their stupor by Sassy jumping on the lounge and knocking Charles’ phone from his hand. 

“Fuck,” Max groans, wiping his hand over his face. It’s dark outside now, so it must be past eight. He feels kind of greasy, and his bones ache, all things he hasn’t realised until now. “What time is it?” 

“Almost nine,” Charles says, sitting up straight and stretching his neck. “Let's make dinner, I’m starving.” 

Max is as well, which he also hadn’t realised. 

Charles plugs his phone in to charge while Max gets out a can of tuna for the cats as an apology for ignoring them. They won’t have gone hungry, because they have an automatic feeder, but they’ve had no attention in hours. Clearly that’s getting to them, because Sassy had knocked Charles’ phone from his hand. 

“You have leftover Chinese,” Charles says, emerging from Max’s fridge with the takeaway boxes in hand. “I want that.” 

“What am I supposed to eat?” 

“Max, I can’t do everything. I supply the fics, now I’m supposed to supply the food?” 

“It’s my food, that I paid for.” 

“I’m sure you know what’s available for you to eat, then.” 

Charles is quickly distracted by a ping on his phone, and he abandons the containers on the counter to pick his phone up. 

Max rolls his eyes and gets it, carefully portioning out the leftovers onto two plates. He’s got some naan bread somewhere, and some broccoli he can steam, so between all of that he’s certain it’ll be fine if they share. 

He’s halfway through chopping the broccoli when Charles gasps loudly. 

“What?” Max asks, a little panicked, dropping the knife. “What? What happened?” 

“Someone sent me an ask,” Charles starts. Max groans, head tilted back. He thought something was wrong. Charles is going to be the death of him, Max is sure of it. “Max. Oh my God. The longest F1 fic on AO3 is Mark and Seb. Mark and Seb. It’s like two million words.”

“Two million—” 

“Why hasn’t somebody written two million words about us? We’re worthy of two million words.” 

“Charles, do you even understand how much time it takes to write that much?” 

“The fic has been going for, like, ten years, so I’m pretty sure it takes that long.” 

Max sighs, abandoning Charles’ side to go back to cutting the broccoli. 

After a moment of blissful silence, Charles says, clearly delighted, “I have to tell Seb about this.

He’s got his phone out before Max can say anything, phone ringing. Max stares on, horrified, as Charles greets Seb fondly, smiling widely. 

“Why am I calling?” Charles asks into the phone after a moment. “Oh, well. Do you know what fanfiction is?” 

Max groans. 

After they finish dinner, through which Charles makes them read chapter 9, Charles announces that he’s staying over. He brought a bag, he explains helpfully, gesturing to the duffel bag that Max had forgotten all about. 

Whatever. It’s not like Max hates Charles. He enjoys the time they spend together, and maybe his mind is opening a little bit to this whole fanfiction thing. 

He draws the line when Charles pads into Max’s bedroom after he’s showered, hair sticking up in every direction, pyjama pants low on his hips, shirt stretched tight over his chest, and then simply climbs into Max’s bed. 

“I have a guest room,” Max tells him, perplexed. 

“So? How are we supposed to keep reading if I’m in a different bed?” 

Max’s eye twitches, but he supposes that Charles might have a point. He does kind of want to know what happens next. 

“Fine,” he agrees, then climbs in beside him. 

Charles immediately snuggles in close, head resting on Max’s chest, the taut line of his body pressed up right against him. 

“So that we can read easily,” Charles murmurs, holding his phone up. 

Max hesitates for a moment, swallowing deeply, trying not to think too much about how it feels to have Charles pressed up against him like this. 

They’re friends. Maybe they’re even close friends. This isn’t weird, and he shouldn’t make it weird. 

So, really, Max doesn’t draw a line at all. 

-303

“Box of Bluffs was amazing for our stats,” Charles tells him as they’re walking towards the presser. “Daniel is super upset at how quickly we’re closing the gap. I want to see him cry before all this is over.” 

It’s the last race before summer break, and Max is honestly looking forward to it. He and Charles have organised a little holiday down to Corsica for a bit over a week, and Max is almost buzzing with anticipation. 

Just him, Charles, and a little villa on the water. No cameras, no photos, no nothing. It’s going to be bliss. He can’t wait. 

“Oh, Daniel, hi!” Charles calls out loudly, waving over Max’s shoulder. Max looks over, sees Daniel change course to veer towards him, and gives him a quick wave as well. Beside him, Charles says, much quieter and clearly only to Max, “Destroy him, Max. Make him cry. I’ll see you in there.” 

He tilts his cheek a little, enough to give Max space, so he quickly leans forward and presses his lips to the apple of Charles’ cheek. 

Charles barely looks up from his phone as he skips off afterwards, speeding up to leave him and Daniel some privacy. Max watches him go fondly, wondering what kind of bullshit he’s looking at on his phone now, and waits for Daniel to catch up. 

“Hey, Max,” Daniel greets with a clap on his shoulder. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you?” 

They haven’t really spent a lot of time together in a while. Their friendship picked up again once Daniel got his full time seat at VCARB, but it’s never been how it used to be. Max has learned to make peace with that; he doesn’t have to cling on to relationships like he used to, because he has so many more friends now. 

“Yeah, good, good. Sorry I’ve been a bit absent, I’ve been spending a bit of time with Charles.” 

“Yeah, I noticed,” Daniel says, with some kind of careful tone to his voice. “You just kissed his cheek. What’s that about?” 

Max glances over at him, brows pulling down. He thinks back to how he just said goodbye to Charles, but he can’t think of anything out of the ordinary. 

“No, I didn’t,” he says, confused. 

“Riiiight,” Daniel says, staring down at Max like he’s crazy. “You guys are really taking this competition seriously, huh?” 

“Oh, is this about the fanfiction thing? I don’t know, Charles is really fixated on it. I’m just doing what he tells me to do.” 

Daniel gives him a strange look, then smiles widely. “Oh, so maybe I could tempt you to the side of Maxiel?” 

He waggles his brows, and Max rolls his eyes, smiling as well. He does actually like Daniel—he’s always so easy to be around. 

“Sorry, Charles would kill me if I cheat on him, and I’ve only just got him to stop kicking me in the middle of the night.”

“Wait—cheat—Max, are you and Charles living together?” 

But Max ignores him, because he’s just spotted Charles, perched on the lounge, and looking up at him with clear expectation. Max is not actually going to make a grown man cry, though, especially not his friend, so he rolls his eyes and wanders over, taking a seat beside Charles. 

Daniel sits down on his opposite side, staring at them oddly. Max ignores it, pulling his phone from his pocket as it pings loudly, switching it over to silent for the presser. 

The text on there is from Charles, and simply says: 

Charles Leclerc 

I’m going to make him cry. 

Max snorts, then slides the phone back into his pocket, rolling his eyes as Charles beams at him. 

The presser is boring, as always, the same questions, on and on, particularly to Max asking how he feels about his current form. He’s not feeling great, but the WDC is still within his grasp, and he’s determined not to start panicking about it until after the summer break. 

Nothing of any particular interest happens until Daniel, somehow, turns a question about his chances of a seat next year into a story about how he and Max once got forced to share a hotel room while on a holiday in Africa. 

Max laughs a little at the memory, still not able to quite believe how crazy that trip had been. He’d only been 18, fresh-faced and starry-eyed at having a real friend, somebody he could look up to and who actually liked him for him. 

“We shared a few hotel rooms back in the day, didn’t we, Maxy?” Daniel says, laughing a little and nudging him in the side. 

Max laughs as well, shoving him off. It’s embarrassing to admit that they did. 

Beside him, he sees Charles lift his microphone. He doesn’t think anything of it—not until it’s too late. 

“Funny, I didn’t see any of your bags in our room this morning,” Charles says, enunciating each word carefully and saying it directly into the mic. 

Max’s jaw drops open. Fuck, he didn’t think they were telling people they were sharing. He knows how it looks, even though that’s not what’s going on. They’re friends, really close friends. Max is pretty sure Charles is actually his best friend. So why would he say that? 

Daniel goes quiet for a second, clearly as shocked as Max—and everyone else in the fucking room—and then he laughs nervously into his mic. 

“Has he let you share his toothbrush yet?” Daniel asks, clearly trying to play it off as a joke. Max is pretty sure he’s about to come out of this looking like the whore of the grid. 

“No. Has he let you suck his—” 

Max launches himself towards Charles, simultaneously yanking the microphone from his grip and slapping his hand over his mouth. 

“What the fuck?” Max hisses under his breath. “Are you insane?” 

Charles glares at him, eyes storming, and crosses his arms over his chest like a child. 

Max stands up, gripping Charles tightly around his bicep and pulling him up from the lounge. 

“Come on,” he snaps, furious with Charles for being so stupid. 

He drags him out of the room, ignoring the shouts of the press behind them, footsteps thudding loudly against the ground, and Charles follows after with no resistance, even though the scene they’re making is probably going to make the situation a thousand times worse. 

Max doesn’t care about any of that. 

Ten fucking years in F1, hiding this secret, and Charles just blurted it out carelessly. Max is going to kill him. He can’t believe that Charles would do this to him. 

Angrily, Max shoves Charles into the first door he can find, slamming it closed behind them. 

“Are you kidding me?” Max demands immediately. “I told you that I’m bi in confidence, and then you fucking out me?” 

Charles’ eyes go wide immediately, the red flush in his cheeks draining away to leave him pale and colourless. 

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, Max, I’m so sorry—oh my God, I swear I didn’t mean to—to out you. I was just—” 

“Just what?” Max demands harshly. “Trying to get the numbers up on that stupid website? This isn’t a joke Charles, this is my life. What’s wrong with you?” 

“Max, no, I swear—” 

“You have no fucking idea what you’ve done,” Max says, head dropping into his hands. “Charles. How could you do this to me?” 

“Max,” Charles says desperately. He feels Charles’ hand on his back, but he flinches away, stepping back to put space between them. “Max, I swear, I didn’t do it on purpose.” 

“Then why did you do it?” Max asks. He can barely breathe, and he thinks he might be on the verge of a panic attack. 

Charles goes silent, eyes wide and watery. 

“Max,” he says helplessly. 

Max scoffs, his own eyes burning. 

“I’ll fix this,” Charles swears, reaching out for him again. “I promise, I’ll fix this.” 

Max backs away, ripping the door open. “Just leave me alone.” 

-328

Charles doesn’t come back to their hotel room that night, and doesn’t text him in the morning either. 

Usually Max wakes up to an update about how many fics they gained in the last 24 hours, but the message is suspiciously absent. 

What’s also absent is the peace that’s usually on his phone at this time of day. Instead, there’s so many messages and news articles that he can barely make sense of it. 

It doesn’t take him long to figure out what’s going on—article after article has the same headline. 

Charles Leclerc comes out as bisexual! 

Charles Leclerc is bisexual? 

Charles Leclerc comes out in emotional Instagram post. 

Max is on the phone almost immediately. 

Charles answers just as quickly, even though he sounds completely exhausted, like he’s barely slept all night. 

“Max,” he says, relieved. “Max, I’m so sorry. Please—” 

“Are you making fun of me?” Max demands. “Or are you telling the truth? You’re bi?” 

“It’s the truth,” Charles breathes out. “I made sure to say that there’s—there’s nothing going on between us. Every word was the truth.” 

Max’s stomach twists uncomfortably. 

He doesn’t like the way Charles has phrased that. 

“Charles, do you even know what you’ve done?” Max asks, voice weak. “What did Ferrari say? Fucking Hell.” 

“I’ve done it now,” Charles says, voice wet as he laughs a little. “What are they going to do? Fire me?” 

“They might.” 

“They won’t,” Charles says, so decisively that Max falls quiet. 

Even though they fall into silence, Max can still hear Charles breathing down the line. He wonders what he’s thinking right now. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Max asks eventually. “At the beginning of all this, you said you were straight.” 

“We didn’t really know each other then. I didn’t know you were bi, either, and I wasn’t sure . . .” 

Max gets that. It’s not like he corrected Charles’ assumption then, either. 

“But after,” Max presses. “I told you. And you asked about anal. Why would you ask that if you’ve been with men?” 

Charles goes silent. 

Max gets a terrible, sinking feeling in his stomach. 

“Charles, please tell me you’ve been with men.” 

“This is all very new,” he explains weakly. “I didn’t know until recently.” 

Max drops his head into his hand. Fucking Hell. 

He can’t believe Charles came out without ever fucking a man. He certainly can’t believe he did it for Max. 

“Come over,” Max says, a little desperately. “I missed you last night. The bed was cold and empty.” 

“Okay,” Charles breathes. “Yeah. I’ll come.” 

“Maybe there are some fics about all this already. You can read about it to cope.” 

Charles sniffles. “There are. I already read them.” 

Max huffs a laugh, shaking his head fondly. 

This man. He’s really, truly going to be the death of him. 

-321 

That afternoon, after FP1 and 2, all the drivers are forced into the driver’s briefing. 

Charles’ sits beside him, on his phone for most of it, but whenever Max peeks over to his screen, expecting to see him scrolling mindlessly on Twitter or Instagram, he’s instead answering questions on an app Max doesn’t recognise. 

Anonymous ask: 

Hi Charlie! I know everyone is talking about Charles’ announcement, but I wanted to see what you thought about the presscon? Max seemed so angry at Charles, what do you think? 

Leclerifying answered: 

He definitely seemed angry, but I’m sure they worked it out. They’re great friends, and I know Charles didn’t mean to say that. Max would have understood. 

Anonymous ask: 

Charlie what did you think of FP2? Max did great in FP1, but I’m worried he might not qualify well…. 

Leclerifying answered: 

Even if Max is on pole, he has the grid penalty … Max is an amazing driver, but I’m not sure even he can win from P11 (or lower) with the state the RB20 is in. Best to start preparing yourself. 

Anonymous ask: 

Girl i swear the fics are going to go crazy after that press conference and Charles’ announcement. You’re going to get them to number one so quick. You should start to write your own fics! 

Leclerifying answered: 

Lol why do you assume I’m a girl? But you’re right, the fics have been going crazy. We’re going to beat Maxiel by the end of the season. And I don’t think I’d be any good at writing themself. English is my third language, I think it would end very badly …

Muffinhamster ask: 

Prayer circle for lestappen podium!!! 

Leclerifying answered: 

If we get a lestappen podium, I personally bet we see Charles do that weird wink to Max. Someone better write a fic about them making out afterwards.

Max nudges him in the side with his elbow. 

“I don’t think you can make those bets when you have insider information,” Max whispers, as quietly as he can. “That’s illegal.” 

Charles laughs under his breath, smiling widely at him. “Only in politics,” he whispers back. “And I need to start laying the groundwork—we’re halfway through the season. We have to be number one by Abu Dhabi, so I need to start, like, subliminal messaging people with ideas for fics.” 

The rest of the briefing drags by slowly and painfully, like always. Max is so glad these things aren’t filmed anymore. 

When it’s done and all the officials start to file out, Max stands, stretching his back. 

Charles grabs him by the wrist and tugs him back into his seat, and Max’s breath expels out of him at the force. He goes to ask Charles what his problem is, and then realises that none of the other drivers have made a move to get up either. 

Max has no clue what’s going on until the last F.I.A rep leaves, and then George shoots up from his chair, going over to lock the door. 

“Alright, everyone,” George says, pulling his computer out of his satchel. “We’ve got thirty minutes and a lot of ground to cover. There’s been a lot of movements in the last month, so let’s get started. Firstly, everyone welcome Max to his first meeting.” 

Everyone turns to look at him. Max flushes bright red, wondering what the fuck is going on. 

“I can’t believe he’s in the number one and two ship and he hasn’t even been coming to the meetings,” someone mutters, and it sounds suspiciously like Lando. 

“Maxiel is just superior,” Daniel brags loudly. 

“Hey, fuck you!” Charles shouts, but he doesn’t sound angry. He sounds like he’s enjoying himself. “Lestappen are going to win the Championship if I have anything to say about it.” 

“Right, that’s a great point,” George says, as a Powerpoint loads on screen. 

In huge bold letters, the title Archive of Our Own Championship: Steering Group 4 is smacked across the middle. The AO3 logo is pictured in the corner. 

Max wants to die. 

“Today we’re introducing a new rule about influencing the outcome of the Championship. But, first, for Max’s sake, let’s do a quick review of the findings from the last three Group meetings.” 

Everyone groans loudly. 

“Max, as I’m sure you’re aware, Lestappen are rapidly closing in on Maxiel. You’ve closed in on Maxiel by almost 100 fics in the last month alone, which is impressive stuff. Carlando, you had a big surge after that golf outing, but you’ve plateaued again. Piarles—well, it’s slow going, but you’re still fourth. Keep up the . . . work. Simi, as always, isn’t counted in the Championship because neither of them are on the grid. Brocedes, not a huge amount of movement in the number of fics, but you’ve collected a lot of extra points this month because you’ve gone number one in percentage of Explicit fics.” 

Everyone groans again, Charles included. 

“Fuck,” Charles mutters. “We’ve got to do something about that.” 

Max feels dizzy. Lightheaded. Like he might pass out. He has no idea what’s going on, or what any of this means. He’s never heard the word Simi in his life. 

“What?” he asks weakly, hands limp by his side. 

“We need more smut fics,” Charles tells him, eyes locking on the graphs that George is now explaining. “The Championship is based on the number of fics in your ship, but there’s a sub-Championships—a Constructors, if you will—where we collect points based on the rating of the fics. Explicit gets the most points, General gets the least. So the more smut fics we have, the more points we get.” 

Max can’t believe this. 

Charles has infected the entire grid with his sickness. He’s been propagandising behind Max’s back. 

What the fuck. 

“I’m going to have to tell people you have a breeding kink,” Charles declares under his breath, already reaching into his pocket for his phone. “That will get us some omegaverse fics—they’re always explicit.” 

Max snatches his phone from his hand and shoves it into his own pocket. 

“So, let’s quickly review the new rule. It’s come to my attention that there are certain people on the grid who are . . . swaying the outcome.” 

Charles sinks down a little in his chair. 

“Now, we’re all very clear on the fact that none of us is allowed to disclose any details of the competition to the press or to the public with our real identity. However, I’ve recently been told that there are some people who have started fake fan accounts to try to encourage more fics.”

Half the room groans. Charles starts to bite at his thumbnail. 

“Lando, Daniel, Alex, all three of you are officially being asked to cease all activity on your accounts. If you don’t comply, all your ships will become void in the Championship.” 

“Oh, come on!” Daniel groans loudly. “Charles is out here talking about sucking Max’s dick in a presser and I can’t even retweet some Maxiel fics on a private account?” 

“I don’t think they know about me,” Charles whispers, eyes a little wide. 

Max wonders if he should say something. It would apparently get Charles and his ships banned from the competition—maybe Max would finally be free of all this. 

The thought makes his heart squeeze a little. If Charles wasn’t so invested in this, would he still want to see Max? Would he spend this much time with him? 

Max doesn’t want to find out. 

“No,” George says to Daniel. “The same goes for the rest of you—if I find out that any of you have private fan accounts for this, you will automatically be disqualified.” 

Max feels like Charles’ phone is burning a hole in his pocket, which is ridiculous because it’s not even him breaking the rules. He didn’t even know there were rules. 

“Alright, and onto what you’ve all been waiting for,” George says, tapping the spacebar of his laptop loudly. A huge, complicated graph with about a million lines comes up. Half the people in the room groan again; beside him, Charles slaps his hand against Max’s thigh in excitement, grinning widely. “The projections for Abu Dhabi. As we can all see, the purple line—Lestappen—has the biggest upward trend, clearly going to take the number one spot long before the final race. But if you look down here, we’ve got something very interesting happening with CarCar . . .”

-296

“Come on, one more picture,” Charles wheedles, fingers digging into Max’s side. 

Max gasps and flinches away from him, trying not to laugh as Charles takes about a dozen more selfies. Max has a horrifically ugly expression on his face in all of them, but Charles looks so happy that he can’t bring himself to tell him to stop. 

“Surely you have enough pictures by now,” Max says once he settles down. 

Charles has been taking about a thousand every day—selfies, photos of Max, photos of every dog they see, photos of fruit he’s never seen before, photos of the cocktails he orders at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 

Max’s chest goes a little soft every time Charles gasps loudly in delight and shows him a particularly good one, declaring, “Antoine will be so proud.”

“I have to remember this trip forever,” Charles tells him, swiping through all the photos he’s just taken. “Our first holiday together. It deserves to be memorialised.” 

“Memorialised,” Max repeats, pulling his sunglasses back down over his eyes and leaning back into his chair. The Mediterranean sun is beaming down beautifully, and even though Max is already quite pink, he’s not too concerned. “That’s a big word. Don’t hurt your brain trying to get all the syllables out.” 

“I’ll put sand in your bed tonight.” 

“Funny. Unfortunately, it’s your bed too. You wouldn’t dare.” 

“I have two brothers. You’d be terrified to learn what I’d put myself through just to get revenge.” 

“If you put sand in our bed, I’ll slash your tyres in Monza.” 

“Oh, that’s low.” 

“I never joke about sand.” 

They lapse into silence, Charles’ hand brushing against Max’s in the space between their chairs, pinky hooking around his.  

Max doesn't dare move. 

-281

“So, I’ve been recommended this fic,” Charles starts over dinner, finger dragging around the rim of his cocktail glass. He’s been fidgeting nervously since they sat down at the restaurant, and Max has been waiting for him to bring up whatever it is that has had him so antsy. He figures this is probably it. “It’s really intense.” 

Max wonders what could be more intense than the shit they’ve been reading up until now—Charles coping with Jules, Jos abusing Max, Max watching Charles struggle through childbirth (still a weird concept, but then his eyes had burned so much while reading that he’d had to go and wash the dishes as a distraction. Charles had mercifully not teased him about it). 

“Do you want to read it together?” Max asks, dipping his spoon into his bowl of carpaccio. 

Charles looks relieved. “Yeah. It’s one where I win my first WDC, but have a huge crash at the end of the race and can never drive again.”

Max blinks, worried yet again about the mental state of the people writing this shit. And for the people reading it, he and Charles now apparently included in that group. 

“Right,” Max says. “Of course it is.” 

“You’ve come a long way with all this, you know,” Charles says after a moment, poking at his caprese with his fork. “You once shouted at me about Mpreg, and now you have a breeding kink.” 

Max goes red, like he always does when Charles brings that up. “I do not,” he says, way too defensive for it to sound honest. “And I didn’t shout at you.” 

“You did,” Charlesa says cheerily. “Something about it being fetishisation and self-insert bullshit?” 

Max frowns at the table. He barely remembers that conversation now. 

“And what have we learnt since then?” Charles asks him mockingly, kicking his leg gently underneath the table. 

“It’s catharsis,” Max says, repeating the words Charles has since drilled into him. “People write it to work through their own emotions.” 

“Oh, my little boy,” Charles says, pretending to sniffle and wipe a tear from his eye. “All grown up now.” 

Max rolls his eyes and returns the kick under the table—but he’s not anywhere near as gentle. He grins into his soup when Charles yelps. 

—He’s already won the Championship. The race doesn’t matter, not really, except every race matters. Charles wants to win the final race of the year just as much as he wanted the WDC, and he’s going to stand on the top step of the podium, no matter what.—

—The brake is decompressed under his foot, but nothing is happening, he’s still going, and going, the barrier coming at him at 300 kilometres an hour, and his last thought before he hits is, Oh, I should’ve known.—

—Charles wakes slowly, eyes so heavy he can barely pry them open. He can’t feel his body. He can’t really hear anything. He can barely think.—

—“Max,” he sobs, “my hands. My hands.” 

Tears are rolling down Max’s cheeks as well, hand gently pushing his hair back from his forehead. “I know, baby,” he says, voice wet. “I know.”—

—“I can’t,” Charles says, throat burning. His physio looks at him with so much sympathy it’s bordering on pity. Charles hates pity. “I can’t do it. They hurt too much.”—

—Max is silent as he cuts up every item on Charles’ plate. Charles is too useless to even do that, now. He can’t even look at his husband, he’s so ashamed.—

—“Max, please, you have to get rid of it,” Charles cries, his useless hands shaking by his side. “I can’t just sit here and have that fucking sim staring at me everyday, knowing that I’ll never be able to—to—Max, please, if you love me. Get rid of it.”—

—“The trophy is coming today,” Max says quietly. 

Charles’ stomach swoops, and then he stands and walks away. Max sighs, but Charles pretends he doesn’t hear.—

—They’re barely speaking anymore. They haven’t had sex in almost two months. Charles can’t look at himself in the mirror, but he can’t stand to look at Max, either. He wonders whether all this will be easier, once Max finally leaves for the first race of the season. He has a feeling it won’t.—

—The cars start up, the roar buzzing through the T.V., reading for the formation lap. Charles turns it off.—

—“Enough is enough,” Max snaps. “Racing isn’t the only thing you have in your life. This isn’t the end of the world. You can’t drive anymore, but you’re alive. Why isn’t that enough?” 

“Retire, then.” 

Max stops short, eyes widening. 

“If driving means so little, then retire,” Charles sneers. “Right now. Don’t go to the next race.” 

“Charles, c’mon. Be serious.” 

“I am. That’s what happened to me. One race to the next, and my career is gone. Don’t you ever tell me to just get over it again, or I’ll leave you.”—

—“I think we should get a divorce.” 

Max’s eyes flick up to him, then back down to his plate. “No. Don’t you ever say that again.”—

—Charles is crying before Max has even pressed inside him completely. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Max whispers, voice so full of emotion he sounds like he might start to cry, too. 

“No,” Charles whispers back, breath hitching half way through. His hands are resting on Max’s back, but he can’t feel the muscles beneath his fingertips anymore. He can’t feel anything with them anymore. 

Max shifts, chest pressed tightly into Charles’, and the feeling of his cock sliding in further punches the breath out of him. 

He can’t feel anything with his hands, but he can still feel this. He can still feel Max. 

“I love you,” Charles croaks, head tipping back into the pillow as Max slides all the way inside him. “I love you so much. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

“No, baby, no,” Max murmurs, leaning down to press his cheek tightly against Charles’. “Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry.”—

Max’s ears are ringing. His chest is aching, right beneath his ribs. 

In his arms, Charles is shaking slightly, like he’s shivering from the cold; the sun has set, a light breeze blowing in through the open window of the bedroom of the villa, but it’s not cold. 

The light from Charles’ phone is blaring over both their faces, the buttons at the end of the fic taunting them. Max gently plucks the phone from Charles’ hand, locking the screen and putting it down beside their intertwined bodies. The room goes dark, but Max is glad; it means Charles can’t lift his head from Max’s chest to look at how colourless he probably is. 

“Sometimes I think I’m crazy for enjoying this,” Charles confesses into the dark, so quietly Max has to strain to hear. “Nobody else is reading what’s being written about them.” 

Max stares up at the ceiling, heart pounding in his chest. “I am.” 

Charles’ fingers tighten in Max’s shirt, right over his stomach. 

“You don’t think it’s weird?” 

“It’s so weird,” Max whispers, gently running his fingers down the length of Charles’ spine, then back up. “But that’s alright. You can’t be perfect in everything. You had to be a little weird with something.” 

Charles laughs a little against his chest, turning his head to rub his wet nose against Max’s pyjama shirt. 

“You’re so mean to me,” he says, sniffling.  

Max slides his hand into the hair at Charles’ nape, scraping his fingernails along his scalp. 

Charles shivers again. Maybe Max does need to close the window. 

“You’re using it to work through your shit,” Max murmurs. “I guess it doesn’t really matter how you find comfort, right? As long as it works.” 

“I do feel comforted,” Charles whispers. He lifts his head up, sliding his hand between his chin and Max’s chest and propping himself up. Max has to tilt his head down to see him, probably giving himself a double chin in the process. Whatever. It’s Charles. “I think there’s something wrong with me. That I can read that stuff about my life falling apart, can’t use my hands ever again, can’t even tell you how I feel, and it makes my chest hurt so much to read it. And then afterwards I just feel . . . lighter. Like, yeah, that could happen to me one day, and now if it does I’ll be prepared. Does that make sense?” 

Max doesn’t really see it like that. He’s not preparing himself for bad things that could happen in the future; it makes him think about all the bad things that happened in the past. 

It’s not a coincidence, he thinks, that since he started reading all this fanfiction he’s stopped texting his dad back as much. 

But he does understand what Charles is saying. If it helps, then it helps. Max isn’t going to judge him for doing it so unconventionally. 

Besides, if there’s anything he’s learnt in this process, seeing all these author’s notes and watching Charles interact with people on Tumblr, it’s that none of these people are weird. They’re all maybe a little lonely, and definitely trying to find their place in the world, but Max thinks that just makes them all human. If this is how they want to work their way through their emotions—well, he’s seen worse ways. He’s done worse. He’s been on the other end of worse. 

“Yeah,” Max whispers, gently massaging the back of Charles’ head. “Yeah, that makes sense.” 

-269

On the second last day of their trip, Max flops down on the lounge chair next to Charles, dripping wet from the sea and starving. 

Charles has half-emptied the bag of chips they’d brought down from the villa, and the dip is completely gone, so Max resigns himself to eating the grapes instead. Charles is messing around on his phone, like he has been for half the time they’ve been here, but Max is feeling a bit needy because they’re leaving tomorrow. 

“Hey,” Max says, leaning over on his chair to poke Charles’ cheek. “What are you doing?” 

“Nothing,” Charles says distractedly, barely looking up from his phone. “How was your swim?” 

“Good. A bit cold. And I’m hungry, but someone ate all the chips.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Maybe I should find a snorkel or something, there were a lot of fish.” 

“Totally.” 

“Are you listening to me?” 

“Of course.” 

“Really? Because I saw a huge shark, and I almost died. It tried to bite my dick off.” 

“Wow.” 

“Charles, oh my God. What are you doing?” 

“Noth—wait, did you say a shark tried to bite your dick?” 

Max sighs, laying back down on the lounge chair, sullenly dragging his fingers through the pebbles beneath the chair. 

“No, don’t pout,” Charles says, finally putting his phone down. “I’ll tell you what I’m doing, but you can’t laugh at me, okay?” 

“Okay,” Max agrees, pouting. 

“I’m writing fanfiction.” 

Max blinks, runs that through his head, then sits up. Charles is barely looking at him, biting on the skin beside his thumbnail nervously. 

“Sorry, I think maybe I misheard. It sounded like you said you’re writing fanfiction.” 

“Yeah, I . . . that’s what I said.” 

Max blinks again. “Oh my God. What? Why?” 

“Max, you said you wouldn’t laugh,” Charles says, voice wobbling. 

Max immediately feels bad, because Charles looks really upset, nose scrunched up and a line between his brows. He gets up off his own lounge chair and presses himself onto Charles’, gathering him up in his arms. Charles presses his cheek against Max’s bare chest, sighing into his skin, so Max leans down to rest his own cheek on top of Charles’ head. 

“I’m sorry,” Max murmurs, hand settling over Charles’ waist. It feels so tiny in his hand, but he’s sure that’s just because all these fics have it in his head that it tapers down into nothing. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing. I was just . . . surprised. I didn’t know you had any interest in writing?” 

Charles is quiet for a moment. “I’m working through my emotions.” 

Max tightens his fingers into Charles’ waist for a moment, then loosens his grip again. “You can talk to me, you know? You don’t have to write about them.” 

“I can’t talk to you about everything.” 

He sounds so sad when he says it, like there’s something really eating up at him, but Max has no idea what it could be. He wishes, desperately, that he could make whatever it is better, because he never wants Charles to be sad. He just wants him to be happy, and he wants to see it every day, for the rest of his life. Charles is maybe the best friend Max has ever had. 

“I want you to talk to me about everything,” Max says, a little desperately. 

Charles goes limp against him, breath shuddering against Max’s bare skin. 

“You could read it?” Charles offers quietly. “If you want.” 

It’s not exactly what he wants, but it’s better than nothing. And he knows how vulnerable these stories can be, so he thinks, if he looks hard enough, he might be able to work out what’s eating at Charles. 

“I’d like that.” 

“You would?” 

Charles sounds so painfully hopeful that Max feels even guiltier for making Charles feel silly for writing. 

“Yeah. Of course. It’s you.” 

He feels Charles smile against his chest, and then Charles sits up, digging his phone out from underneath his butt. 

“It’s already finished,” he says, a little breathless. “Do you want to read it now?” 

Charles is looking at him so hopefully that there’s no way in Hell that Max is going to say no. 

So he holds out his hand for the phone, then starts to read. 

-270

Cancel my plans in case you’d call (you weren’t mine to lose) 

by Leclerifying 

Summary: Charles pines. Max doesn’t notice, until he does. 

Notes: Hi everyone. 

This is my first time posting … my beta, Maxsplaining, said it’s good. I don’t think he really understood the point of the story, but I guess that doesn’t matter. 

English isn’t my first language, or my beta’s, but we tried hard to fix the mistakes. I hope you enjoy! 

Comments: 

Tia_l: Charlie I can’t believe you’re writing your own fics now! This was so good, you should’ve started sooner! I can’t wait to read what you write next … hopefully Max isn’t so stupid in the next one xD 

.pegasus_01: part two with smut?? 

Andijaq: I can’t believe you teased us with smut and then skipped over it! Maybe next time?? Also, I don’t want to overstep … but I wondered about your characterisation of Charles? He doesn’t really seem like the type to silently pine. Still amazing, I look forward to the next one. 

-268 

It’s not until they’re on the flight home, Charles asleep with his head in Max’s lap, that Max realises Charles didn’t post a single picture online. 

-257

Max is in the middle of a workout, two days before he’s due at Milton Keynes for the final preparations before the season starts again, when he gets a call from Charles. 

He barely pauses in his sit ups as he presses answer, Charles’ voice immediately crackling through his headphones 

“Max, tell me, in explicit detail, how to finger a man.” 

Max chokes. 

“Also, what does it feel like to have your prostate stimulated?” 

He abandons his sit ups, laying flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling. 

“What happened to hello, how are you?” 

“Oh. Hi, how are you, I guess.” 

Max laughs, lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. 

“Fucking Hell, Charles. Why do you want to know, anyway? Do you have a date?” 

He ignores how the thought makes his stomach twist. Charles is allowed to go on dates, and that has nothing to do with Max. 

It’s fine. It’s totally and completely fine. 

“Yes, I’ve managed to find a man to date in Maranello, a tiny Italian town dedicated to worshipping me,” Charles says flatly. Then he sighs. “No, I’m writing smut. I need help.” 

“Ah, you’ve graduated from General to Explicit, then?” 

“There are more points for Explicit,” Charles says primly, repeating the same conversation they’ve had a million times at this point. “I want both Championships. Brocedes is beating us over my dead body.” 

Max laughs again, then starts his next set, hands behind his head as he pulls his body up to his knees and slowly lowers himself down again. 

“I think you’ve read enough of it by now to know how it goes.” 

Charles sighs again. “Yes, but you always complain about how unrealistic it is. I want it to be real. Somebody complained about my characterisation of myself, can you believe that? And I wrote an analysis of your race in Spa on my Tumblr, and somebody said I don’t know wheel! I almost gave up my identity I was so angry. So, yeah, I need the smut to be right.” 

“Don’t use spit as lube, and I’m sure it’ll be fine.” 

“Max, just tell me how you’d fuck me, and then I’ll write that.” 

The breath punches out of him, body falling back against the yoga mat with a thud. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

How he would—Holy shit. 

His brain is melting. His chest is tight. His dick is, embarrassingly, a little hard. 

Get yourself under control. 

“Which of us tops?” he asks, voice hoarse. He clears his throat, looking up at the ceiling of his balcony, wondering whether Sassy or Jimmy might do him the honour of sitting on his face and suffocating him. 

“You,” Charles says quickly, and then, after a long moment stretches out, he adds, “Well, I mean, that’s what’s popular, right? So . . .” 

“Right,” Max agrees, brain buzzing a little weirdly. “Um, well, is it your first time? Is it mine?” 

“My first time,” Charles says, and this time his voice sounds a little strange. Max brushes it off, because for all he knows Charles is in the middle of a workout as well. “Not yours.” 

“So it’s our first time together?” 

“Yeah.” 

Max bites his lip. 

It’s—God. He’s been with men that have never had sex with other men before. He’s been with men that have never had sex at all before. He always tries to make it good, but it can be a lot of effort to try and coax someone through their first time. Max usually tries to make a point of avoiding it these days, because he’s really only having sex casually now. 

Not that he’s been doing much of that, either, since all this started with Charles. 

But if it’s Charles . . . Well. 

He’d go to all the effort in the world to make it good for him. 

“I’d go slow,” Max starts, trying to find some balance between imagining it and not imagining it. He doesn’t want to put images in his head that don’t belong there, because Charles is asking as his friend, and Max doesn’t want to overstep his bounds and be, like, predatory or something. 

Charles clacks away at his keyboard quickly, and then he stops. 

Max tries not to laugh, but he can’t help but roll his eyes. 

“And I’d—okay, well, I guess we can skip all the prep stuff. That’s probably boring to write about.” 

“Max Verstappen, are you backtracking on your opinion of no fics including douching?” 

Max wishes he’d never met Charles. 

“Do you want me to talk you through this or not?” 

Charles laughs loudly, which always brings a smile to Max’s face. “Yes, sorry, sorry. Keep going.” 

“Okay, well, assuming you’ve already done that kind of prep,” Max starts again, “I would . . . wait, are we on a bed? Please tell me we’re on a bed. I wouldn’t have sex with you for the first time not on a bed.” 

Charles types away furiously. “We can be on a bed.” 

Max doesn’t want to know what Charles had written originally. He’s just glad to be steering him in the right direction. 

“Alright, well . . . the first time is a lot. There are a lot of muscles that you don’t really think about using, and having something inside you can be—well, there’s a lot of resistance, at first.” 

Charles clacks on his keyboard loudly. Max stares up at the ceiling. 

“So, I guess I’d . . . I’d want you to relax. I’d use a lot of lube, spend a lot of time just circling your hole, getting the muscles to relax. I’d probably blow you at the same time, so you have something else to focus on.” 

Charles is breathing a little louder as he types. Max is breathing a little louder, too. 

“The first finger doesn’t really hurt,” Max continues. “But it feels . . . It’s not uncomfortable, but you’re aware. You know there’s something inside you. Kind of a heavy feeling.” 

Max wonders what Charles would look like, spread out beneath him, one of his fingers inside him. Whether sweat would be making his hair stick to his face; whether he’d be squirming around in discomfort. Whether he’d be making any sweet little gasps.

He shifts in place, pants starting to feel a little tight. 

“But I’d want you to feel good,” Max murmurs, voice gone low. “I’d slide my finger in slowly, but all the way, so I could curl it up and touch your prostate. Gently. Rub my finger against it a little, get the blood flowing.” 

“What would it feel like?” Charles asks. The breath sounds punched out of him. 

Max doesn’t really know how to describe it. He’s not a writer, and he’s not particularly poetic. Still, he tries to picture it, tries to remember that moment where there’s the first touch of stimulation. 

“Warm,” he says, eventually. “It feels warm. Like you’re turning to liquid from the inside out.” 

“When would you add a second finger?” 

“When you start to beg me to let you cum.” 

Charles exhales shakily, fingers typing a little slower. 

“I’d beg, would I?” 

“If it’s me fingering you? Yeah, you would.” 

Charles swallows loudly. Max shifts in place, focusing on a dark patch on the ceiling. 

“What would you call me?” 

“What do you want me to call you?” 

“Baby,” Charles answers, almost immediately. Like he’s been thinking about it. Max blinks sluggishly, stomach burning. “Or that one they always write about. Schatje.” 

He butchers the pronunciation completely, and Max’s heart swoops. 

“That’s not how you say it.” 

“What’s it supposed to be? Say it to me.” 

Max bites his lip. 

“Schatje,” he whispers, eyes fluttering, throat closing. “Mijn schatje.” 

On his next inhale, Charles’ breath shudders loudly. Max can’t think straight. 

“What happens next?” Charles asks quietly. 

“I’d add a second finger. This one hurts a bit more—the stretch burns. I’d go nice and slow, just work the tip of my finger in, get you used to it. Then I’d press in a little more, keep it inside you a little longer, until I can get them both in to the knuckle.” 

Charles has stopped typing. “Max,” he breathes, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice. “Max, can I . . .” 

“Can you what?” Max asks. He doesn’t dare assume; he can’t be wrong about this. He’d never forgive himself. “What do you want?” 

Charles groans quietly, then takes a deep breath. “Just—keep going. Give me another finger.” 

“You can have another,” Max agrees quickly, swallowing down his disappointment. He’ll give Charles whatever he wants, even if it’s just to talk him through the story and not . . . something else. “Once you’re open, grinding down on my hand, I’d give you another. I’ll work you through that one slowly too, until you’re loose around me. I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“You won’t,” Charles swears fervently. “You’d never hurt me.” 

Fuck, he’s so hard. He swallows deeply, refusing to press the heel of his palm into his dick. He’ll deal with this after, but not while he’s on the phone with Charles. That would be too far. 

“Not on purpose. But I want to make you feel good, so I’ve gotta get you loose and gaping for me. Then I can fuck you.” 

“No condom. I want to feel you.” 

“That’s not safe, you know. If you want it realistic—” 

“Don’t you want to come inside me? Keep me full of you?” 

A little groan slips past his lips, before he can stop it. He presses his palm onto his mouth to stifle any more noise that might accidentally come out, and then he slides it up to cover his eyes. 

His face is hot under his hand. 

“It’s not as glamorous as those stories make it sound. You’d have my come dripping out of you for hours. It’s messy.” 

“Yeah, want it messy, want to feel you—” 

Max bucks his hips into his palm, pleasure fizzing up his spine, and then, all at once, he realises what he’s just done. 

He whips his hand away, slamming it on the ground as he sits up abruptly. The blood rushes out of his head, half of it probably already in his aching dick, and he stumbles over his words. 

“Sorry, Charles, I’ve gotta go,” he rushes out. 

He fumbles for his phone, Charles’ alarmed, “No, wait, Max—” coming through his headphones, before he cuts the call. 

God. Oh, God. 

What did he do? What the fuck has he done? 

He’s ruined everything, this beautiful friendship that they’ve both grown from nothing, because he was stupid, he was so stupid, thinking with his dick and not with his head. 

He needs to apologise. He’ll call and apologise. 

As soon as he’s not hard anymore. 

-240 

I choose you and me, religiously 

by Leclerifying 

Summary: Charles wins Monaco. Max fucks him about it. 

Notes: Thanks to Maxsplaining for talking me through this and beta-ing. 

Comments: 

Killjoythereader: oh. my. god. This was so hot. The phone sex before???? I think it might’ve been better than the actual fucking. You can really feel how much Charles wants it. Amazing work! 

Eeyuenasii: oh to have Max Verstappen talking me through an orgasm after I win my home race Monaco. 

-231 

I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew/please don’t be in love with someone else 

by Leclerifying 

Summary: Charles first meets Max on the school playground, where he pushes him into a puddle. Twenty years later, Charles has been in love with Max for half his life, but Max won’t spare him a second glance. Somehow, Charles makes it the problem of everyone else in the office. 

Notes: My first AU! As always, thanks to Maxsplaining for being my beta :) 

Comments: 

Ladychina: Charles …. The pining …. Omg. he’s so pathetic, i love him so much. Thank god Max finally put him out of his misery!  

Ioanna4259: Charles kneeling down under Max’s desk to suck him off …. That image is going to stay with me. 

-225

Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you 

by Leclerifying 

Summary: Charles watches Max win his first WDC, and wishes he could be the one to congratulate him after. 

Notes: thanks Maxsplaining for helping me write all the emotions around Max winning! 

Comments: 

Chamomile_t: noooo this is so sad!!! Why didn’t they get together in the end!!! Charles rewatching the final lap and cumming all over himself and then crying himself to sleep afterward …. I am BEGGING you to add a second chapter with a happy ending!!!

-213 

And I’ll do anything you say (this slope is treacherous) 

by Leclerifying 

Summary: Max comes second at his home race, so Charles gets on his knees to comfort him. 

Notes: sorry this took so long, I had a crazy weekend at work! A shame Max wasn’t on the podium with Charles on Sunday, Monza would have been a good look for lestappen. Thanks maxplaining for helping! 

-97

“So, in conclusion,” George says, his laser pointer circling out the top of the graph. “Lestappen are sub-100 fics away from catching Maxiel, and we’re only one month and four races away from Abu Dhabi. If you want to make major moves, now is the time, people! And remember, no fan accounts, no writing fics yourself, and Yuki, I would recommend you try something other than telling everyone how beautiful Pierre’s eyes are.” 

Max watches from the back of the group as Charles leans over to whisper something in Pierre’s ear. 

He misses him. He misses him so much. 

He’d called Charles a day after that mess, and he’d apologised for crossing the line. Charles had sighed and said it was fine, but he’d sounded so sad that Max had known that it wasn’t fine at all. 

Since then, he can’t quite pinpoint what’s been different between them, but he knows something is. 

Charles is still writing, still sending his stories to Max, they’re still texting every day. Charles is still walking with him around the paddock, and debriefing races with him, and sending him photos of anything that catches his fancy. 

But Max’s apartment is empty. His bed is cold at night. Charles’ toothbrush isn’t next to his anymore. 

And he misses him so much that his heart is always aching, a constant companion. 

“Good luck this weekend everyone,” George says, tapping his space bar to pull up a picture of Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. “I’m sure you’ll do great.” 

Half the grid stands and files out immediately, while the rest hang around and chat amongst themselves. He’s not surprised that half of them have lost interest; now they have no chance of winning the Championship, they probably don’t think the competition isn’t fun anymore. 

Charles is quick to say goodbye to Pierre, so Max eagerly follows after him. 

“Hey,” Max greets him with a hand on his shoulder. 

Charles gives him a brittle smile, lips barely pulling up. He looks terrible: pale, dark bruises under his eyes, hair a little limp. 

“Hi, Max,” he says. “I can’t really talk, I’ve got to get back to Ferrari.” 

Max falters a little, biting his lip. “That’s alright. I was just wondering if you wanted to come around tonight?” 

Charles’ shoulders slump, and he sighs quietly. “I better not,” he says, sounding a little wistful as he does. “I need to sleep. I’ve been up all week writing.” 

Max frowns. He didn’t know Charles was writing anything new this week. He usually tells him what his plans are before he starts, so Max can give his opinion. 

“Oh. Do you want me to read over it?” 

“It’s alright. I already posted it.” 

Max blinks, and then he frowns. The weird ache is back in his chest again. 

“Oh.” 

Charles gives him a small, sad smile, then says, “Bye, Max.” 

He’s turned on his heel before Max can think of anything else to say. 

-23 

The race weekend is long gone, and so is the next one, by the time Max finally gets around to reading Charles’ fic. 

He settles into his empty bed in Vegas, feeling listless and untethered. The team are all worried about him, because he’s been so unfocused, and it’s looking like the Championship might come down to the last race. They need him at his best now more than ever, but all Max can think about is Charles. 

He pulls open Charles’ profile on AO3, and clicks on his latest story, settling in to read.

Love of my life (loss of my life) 

by Leclerifying. 

Summary: Charles realises that Max will never love him back. 

Notes: Hey everyone. Thanks for all your support over the last few months. I think this might be my last story here .. I’ve lost my inspiration a bit. I should probably focus a bit more on work anyway. 

Sorry it’s so sad. 

Unbeta’d. 

[...]

But Charles can’t spend the rest of his life in love with Max. He has to move on eventually. 

He wishes that he’d never spoken to him that day by the karting track; he wishes he’d never looked at the boy with blond hair and blues and thought Oh, he’s so pretty. 

He wishes, more than anything, that he’d never tricked himself into thinking Max might love someone as damaged and broken as him. 

He wishes Max had been braver. 

He wishes he could’ve had him for longer than one night. 

But there’s no use for any of that, now. He can’t change the past, but he has to control his future. 

With an arsonist’s match, Charles sets his field of dreams alight. 

Max’s breath shudders. 

He puts his phone down beside him and he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks. 

-15 

It’s Qatar that he realises just how stupid he’s been. It hits him like a truck, and suddenly he has that sinking feeling that’s always described so well in all those stories, with only one word. 

Oh.  

-8

The competition closes at midnight on Sunday night, and they’re still behind Maxiel. 

Charles doesn’t seem to be making any moves to try and get them the win, but Max knows him. He knows how much this meant to him, in it’s own, fucked up little way. 

And Max—

Well, he probably doesn’t have time for this. Lando is only a few points behind him in the Championship. He might actually beat him in the WDC if he wins the race this weekend. 

But he knows he fucked up. 

He fucked up so, so badly, and he couldn’t bear to lose Charles because of it. 

Max settles in to write. 

+1

I don’t want you like a best friend 

by Maxsplaining. 

Summary: Max realises he’s an idiot. He hopes Charles might be able to forgive him. 

For Leclerifying. 

Notes: this is kind of terrifying. I don’t think i really appreciated how brave Leclerifying was for doing this. I wrote this for me and him, but it turns out, it’s the last fic needed to get lestappen above maxiel on ao3. You guys probably don’t know what that means, but … it felt too poetic not to post. 

Max wakes up to a loud banging on his door. 

He rubs his fist into his eye, yawning widely, then stumbles through his hotel room, stubbing his toe against the corner of his suitcase as he goes. 

“Who is it?” he remembers to ask, hand on the door knob. 

“It’s me. Open the door.” 

Max opens it immediately. 

Charles blusters in quickly, red Ferrari hoodie pulled over his face, phone in his hand. Max closes the door behind him, leaning back against it, watching carefully as Charles makes his way into the room and sits down on the end of the bed. 

Max has desperately missed sleeping with him. He used to spread out in the middle of the bed, limbs splayed everywhere, but now he can only sleep on the right side because Charles used to beg him to let him sleep on the left, no matter where they were. 

“You posted a fic.” 

Max swallows, then nods. “Was it any good?” 

“Was it—Max.” Charles’ voice sounds a little wet, and his bottom lip is wobbling. “That memory you wrote about us in Italy as kids and neither of us really spoke English but I gave you that apple and we just sat together . . . I didn’t know you remembered that.” 

Max softens, hands clenching into fists behind his back. 

“Of course I remember it. It’s you.” 

Charles is looking at him with some mix of hope and torment, and Max can barely stand it. He crosses the room, sitting down beside Charles and taking his hand in his. 

“Max, please,” Charles whispers. “Are you making fun of me because you finally realised what I’ve been telling you and you don’t feel the same?” 

Oh, Max has messed this up so badly. 

“No,” he swears fervently. “No, baby, I’m not making fun of you. I’m sorry it took me so long to understand.” 

Charles’ lashes flutter, and his breath hitches. “That day, when I called you to help me write the sex scene, I thought . . . I thought you were . . . But I was basically begging you to have to sex with me, and you just hung up. I thought you must have realised what was going on and you were so disgusted—” 

“Oh God, no,” Max interrupts, horrified at how badly he’d misread everything. “No, I was about two seconds away from coming in my pants. But we’re friends, and you’d said you’d never been with a man, and it felt like I was taking advantage of you.” 

Charles levels him with a blank stare. 

“Max, I’ve been writing you love letters. How could you possibly think you were taking advantage?” 

“They were very pornographic love letters,” Max says defensively, frowning. “For a competition.” 

“Oh my God. I’m in love with an idiot.” 

Then Charles leans forward to kiss him. Max is absolutely besotted. 

All the feelings that he’s pushed far, far, far down come rushing up, cracked open and spilling everywhere. 

He cups Charles’ face in his hands, tongue swiping against his bottom lip, moaning in delight when Charles fists his shirt over his chest. 

“I love you,” he breathes into Charles’ open mouth, thumbs gently smoothing over his cheeks. “I love you so much. I’m sorry I was so stupid.” 

“I forgive you,” Charles says, clearly distracted. “Now kiss me again.” 

Max dips in, pressing their lips together. Charles turns it hot and messy quickly, opening his mouth and sliding his tongue against Max’s, insistent and desperate. 

Oh, God. This is happening. This is really happening. 

Charles leans into him, then pulls away only long enough to swing his leg over Max’s lap to straddle him, knee planted either side of his hips. 

“I douched,” Charles informs him, grinning widely. “And brought lube. And a condom, unfortunately. Also, I fingered myself a little, to speed things along.” 

The breath punches out him in a long whoosh, and Max can only stare up at him in wonder and awe. 

“You—” 

“I want you to fuck me, Max. Please.” 

“We have a race this afternoon,” Max says, a little desperate, a little crazed. He shouldn’t—no, he can’t—

“Maybe I’ll be sore enough to accidentally slip going into turn 1 and take Lando out so you can win.” 

“You’re crazy,” Max says, but he can hear how soft and ridiculously in love he sounds. It’s got no bite at all. 

Charles leans down to kiss him again, tugging at his shirt, and, well. Max supposes that’s the end of that conversation. 

He lifts his arms up, letting Charles’ pull it off him, and when he slides his hands down Max’s bare chest, all Max can think about is their holiday over the summer break, when he’d had Charles in his arms and he’d put his head down on Max’s bare chest and he’d been able to feel his breath puffing against his skin and he’d been so determined not to think about anything. Hadn’t dared to let himself hope. 

Now he thinks he just wasted so much time. 

“I’m not going to beg,” Charles tells him softly. “But I want to have sex, if you do as well.” 

Max groans. 

He thinks he might die, actually, if they don’t. 

“I do,” he breathes, sliding his hand underneath the back of Charles’ hoodie, pushing it up. “I want you. I want you so much, fuck.” 

Charles frantically pulls the hoodie off, then searches through the front pocket and pulls out a bottle of lube and a string of condoms. 

“Christ, how much sex do you think we’re gonna have?” 

Charles shrugs. “As many times as your dick can get hard. According to all these fics, that might be a lot.” 

“It won’t be. I don’t have some kind of monster cock either, by the way.” 

Charles shrugs again, finger making little circles on Max’s bare shoulder. “It’ll still be the biggest that’s ever fucked me.” 

Fuck. 

Max goes quiet for a moment, lip chewed between his teeth, then asks, “You still haven’t . . . with anyone else?” 

Charles shakes his head. “No. But I fingered myself for the first time after our call that day. I’ve done it a lot since then, actually. I just kept feeling so . . . Empty, after the first time. I bought some toys, and I’ve been using them.” 

Maybe Charles is actually trying to murder him. Maybe he’s already dead. 

“Don’t look so delighted,” Charles says, patting him on the shoulder and standing from his lap. “You could at least pretend you don’t also have some kind of virginity kink.” 

“I do not,” Max gasps, scandalised at the thought. One day he’ll tell Charles that he usually avoids virgins now—but today is not the time for it. 

“Sure. Just like you absolutely do not have a breeding kink.” 

Max goes warm, like he always does when Charles says that, and Charles laughs as he reaches down to unbutton his jeans. 

“I guess you’re not going to be interested in the omegaverse fic I’m writing?” Charles says, eyes innocently wide. “Tragically there’s no chussy, but you definitely get me pre—” 

Max grabs him by the hips, pulling him in close to stand between his spread legs, fingers dipping below the waistband of his unzipped jeans and boxers. 

“Has anyone ever told you that you talk way too much?” 

“No. Are you going to shut me up?” 

Max pulls his jeans down his legs, Charles’ hands on his shoulder to keep balance, then tugs them off his ankles. 

“No,” Max says, standing to turn them around, gently encouraging Charles down on the bed. “But I am going to make it so that the only thing you can talk about is how much you want me to fuck you.” 

“I don’t beg,” Charles says, but he’s breathless and pliant, and makes no move to stop Max when he cups his hands around the back of Charles’ thighs and pulls them up to his chest. 

“Sure,” Max says, with the same mocking voice Charles had used on him only a moment ago. He doesn’t even have to tell Charles to hold his legs up, because he just does it, hands behind his knees and holding them to his chest. “Just like you’re pretty sure I don’t bottom, Max, not that we’d know of course because we’re both straight.” 

“Max.” 

“So close, baby,” Max says, grinning down at him, eyes caught on the shine around his hole. He obviously didn’t clean up any of the lube he’d used before coming here, and it’s quite the site. “Use your manners, though. Say please.” 

Charles stares up at him with his big doe eyes, already shining, so Max plants his hand down beside his head, hovering over him. 

“I’m gonna fuck you so good you’ll be crying by the end,” he murmurs, nudging his nose against Charles’. 

“That’s called dacryphilia,” Charles breathes. 

“I know. You wrote about it.” 

“I was just trying to fit in with the fandom. Write all the popular things.” 

Max scoffs, leaning down slightly more so that his lips are brushing just lightly against Charles’ lips when he says, “You think I believe that? You wrote me a blueprint on how to fuck you, and you can be damn sure I’m going to follow it.” 

Charles whimpers against his mouth. “God, Max, please, hurry up.” 

Max lowers his mouth down to Charles’ neck, swiping his tongue along his pulse then nipping at it gently with his teeth. He’s not stupid enough to leave a mark, even though Charles’ low moan makes him want to, so he pulls back from him and stands again. 

Charles has discarded the bottle of lube by his side, so Max picks it up, squirting a generous amount on his fingers. 

There is no resistance when he slides a finger inside him for the first time, but Charles’ breath catches in his throat. 

“Max,” he breathes, voice wrecked. “Come on, you don’t need to—” 

“I want to,” he says. “Next time, I want to be the one to do it all. Okay?” 

Charles moans, head thrown back, when Max adds a second finger, pumping them in and out slowly. He’s probably tightened back up a bit since he opened himself up, but he’s taking two fingers well, so Max slides a third and final one in. 

Charles’ mouth drops open with this one, clenching down, so Max slows his movements right down. Charles’ eyes are glazed, chest heaving with his heavy breath, but his mouth is twisted into a little grimace, too. 

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” Max says. 

Charles takes a deep breath that hitches in the middle, then says, “I thought you were trying to make me beg.” 

Max narrows his eyes and slides his fingers home, then crooks them up. He can feel when he finds Charles’ prostate, but he sees it, too, because Charles’ hips buck up and his head tilts back and a long, drawn-out moan spills from his mouth. 

“Oh my—oh my God, Max, holy shit.” 

He’s writhing so much that Max has to lean forward, pressing his hand into his stomach to try and keep him still. Charles’ lashes are fluttering, cock red and leaking against his stomach, so Max starts to slowly move his fingers in and out again, making sure to seek out his prostate every time he thrusts in. 

“Max, fuck, please, I—I need it,” he says, voice cracking with desperation. “Come on, I’m ready, just fuck me.” 

“I’m trying to make this romantic.” 

“Romance me later, if you don’t get your cock inside me now I’m going to—” 

Max pulls his fingers out, ignoring the way Charles cries out loudly, then pushes his pants down and kicks them off. 

The condoms are beside the lube, so he tears a packet with his teeth and rolls it on, watching the red flush on the apple of Charles’ cheeks. 

Fuck, he’s so hard. 

“Pass me a pillow.” 

Charles releases one of his thighs to reach above himself blindly, fisting one of the pillows and throwing it at Max’s chest. He slides it beneath Charles’ hips as he holds his leg up again.  

As soon as he’s covered his cock in lube, Max lines himself up, breathing heavily. 

God, he can’t believe they’re doing this. He can’t believe he’s about to be inside Charles. It feels—it’s so . . . He’s so overwhelmed he can barely think straight. 

“Hey,” Charles murmurs quietly, maybe sensing his hesitation. He releases his legs, planting the soles of his feet down on the edge of the mattress, and then reaches out to take one of Max’s hands in his. He squeezes tightly, thumb caressing his skin, and the tension leeches out of Max. “It’s just me.” 

It’s just Charles, his best friend, the love of his life. 

He leans down, heart squeezing hard, to press their lips together. Charles caresses his back with his free hand, fingers soft and light on his skin, kissing him gently. 

“I love you,” Max moans into his mouth. “I love you, I love you so much, oh my God, Charles.” 

“I love you, too,” Charles whispers, “so much. You beautiful, adorable, stupid man. Now stop having a crisis and fuck me.” 

Max grips his cock in one hand, breathing heavily into Charles’ mouth, then guides himself inside. 

Their matching moans mingle in the air together, Charles’ neck arching up off the bed as he leans forward to press his face into his neck. He’s squeezing Max’s hand so tightly that his nails are digging into the back of it. 

“Oh God,” he moans. “So much better than a fake dick, what the fuck.” 

Max laughs breathlessly, feeding another inch in, but he’s only laughing because he agrees. It doesn’t feel any different to anybody else he’s fucked, and yet, it feels entirely different. It’s one of the best things that's ever happened to him in his life. 

Charles’ breath puffs against his throat as Max slowly bottoms out, fingers digging into the muscles of his back, little whines caught in the back of his throat. Max has to squeeze his eyes shut tight so he doesn’t just come immediately, because Charles is hot and tight and perfect around him. 

This is the best day of his life. 

“Come on, Max,” Charles begs eventually, hips bucking up. “Move.” 

He pulls back, then slides in again gently, because no matter what Charles says, Max knows how uncomfortable it is to be fucked right at the beginning. Charles is holding onto him tight like a koala, legs around his hips, arm around his shoulders, other hand holding onto his tightly, and even though it’s Charles pressed into the bed, Max has never felt so consumed. 

He keeps going with his slow place, rocking into Charles slowly, opening him up and getting him relaxed. He knows that the discomfort is easing when Charles’ little whimpers start turning into loud, impatient whines, hips shifting beneath him. 

Before he can open his mouth and start to complain, as Charles so often does, Max shifts his weight slightly so he can hook his elbows beneath Charles’ knees. He plants his hands on either side of Charles’ shoulders and fucks in, hard and deep, almost combusting from the sound of Charles’ hitched, loud moan. 

“Oh, God,” he groans, halfway to a sob already. 

“Yeah?” Max pants, setting a steady rhythm. He knows from experience that this angle is one of the best, that it’ll have him so deep, have him brushing against his prostate. “Better than doing it yourself?” 

“Yeah, yes, Max, Max.” 

“Better than reading about it?” 

“Max, fuck, I’m—” 

“Better than writing about it?” 

“Yes, Max, I love you, you feel so good, so fucking deep.” 

He thinks about telling Charles to roll over, but then he remembers how many times he’d written in his stories about being manhandled, so instead he simply pulls out, then grabs him by the hips and rolls him over. 

“Oh, fuck,” Charles moans, boneless and pliant. 

Max has to pull his hips up into the air to get him on his knees, and Charles just does it, shoulders flat against the bed and cheek pressed into the mattress. When Max kneels behind him and slides back in, his back arches and he cries out loudly. 

Max feels hot all over. He feels like he’s dying, but like he’s being born again. 

He is so ridiculously, completely, head-over-heels in love. 

Charles’ entire body slides up the bed every time Max thrusts into him, each slap punching the breath out of him, and his hands scrabble against the bed sheets to find purchase. 

Max knows exactly how he feels. He remembers just how overwhelming it was to be fucked properly for the first time, how it felt like he was going to explode and melt into the bed all at the same time. 

He also remembers feeling like he couldn’t take a single second more of it, and he’s quite sure Charles is right at the edge of feeling like that. 

“Max, Max, Max, oh God,” he slurs into the sheets. 

Max leans forward, resting his hand against the side of Charles’ head—not hard, just enough to hold him in place, thumb pressed into the hinge of his jaw to keep his mouth open. 

Sweat is dripping down Max’s chest and temples, hair stuck to his head, breath coming out in sharp pants, but Max can’t stop. His stomach is going hot and molten, and he knows it won’t be long, not with how amazing Charles feels, or the noises he’s making, or the way he’s drooling into the sheets below. 

“Taking me so well, Charles,” he pants, thumb smoothing over Charles’ cheek. He makes some kind of indistinct noise, a gurgled moan, and Max thinks good. He got him to shut up, after all. “Opened yourself up for me, but still so hot and tight, baby.” 

Charles sobs, and Max thinks finally. 

He lifts his hand from Charles’ face, but only so that he can reach around his hips and circle his weeping cock, holding his hand in a fist so that with every thrust, Charles’ cock is fucking into it. 

One of Charles’ hands lifts from the sheets to fist into the hair at the back of his own head, babbling incoherently into the bed, and his ass starts to flutter around Max’s dick. He knows he’s close, but Max is close, too, so he uses the last of his energy to go even faster.

“Come on schatje, come for me, let me see you.” 

Charles’ whole body goes taut when he comes, hole clenching down, whining some kind of MaxGodloveyouloveyoufeelsogood as he drools and cries into the bed. 

Max groans brokenly, string snapping, coming so hard his vision dips white. His whole body tingles as he empties into Charles, hips stuttering. 

Holy shit. 

He feels kind of numb, but in a good way, as he slowly comes to a stop. Charles is making all sorts of sweet little sounds, body shaking and twitching, so Max is careful as he pulls out. 

His own legs are shaking when he stands, carefully sliding the condom off and tying it up. He throws it in the bin by the bed, then swipes his palm down Charles’ sweaty spine. 

“Lay down, baby,” he murmurs, helping Charles stretch his legs out and flop over to the side, avoiding the wet patches of his come and drool. 

His eyes are dazed and unfocussed, and his face is wet, so Max lifts the sheet to wipe away his tears. 

“C’me ‘ere,” Charles mumbles, lifting his arm up and grabbing into the air. 

Max eagerly settles in behind him, pressing kiss after kiss to the back of his neck, arm slung over his waist. Charles slips his hand into his, fingers loosely intertwined. They both seem to melt into the mattress, boneless and satiated, and this content and happy, Max almost falls back to sleep. 

He’s pretty sure he does actually go back to sleep, drifting in and out, because it is early, not even eight yet, but suddenly he’s drawn out of his peace by Charles shifting around in his arms. 

He grunts and pulls him back down, but Charles wiggles around until he’s free. Max gropes blindly for him, displeased, and a moment later Charles settles back down against him. 

Max closes his eyes again, nosing at Charles’ nape, until he hears the telltale sound of Charles giggling, body shaking in his arms. 

Max lifts his head, wondering what the fuck Charles could possibly be laughing at right now, and is greeted with the atrocious and ridiculously humbling sight of Charles on that godforsaken website. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Max grumbles. “I just fucked your brains out and now you’re reading about a fictional version of it?” 

“I have to check what was posted overnight,” Charles says defensively. 

Max sighs, dropping his head back down. Well, he supposes he knew what he was getting into, quirks and all. 

Charles inhales sharply, and then suddenly he’s twisting around in Max’s arms. Max closes his eyes quickly, so he can pretend he’s sleeping, even though they were just having a conversation. 

“Open your eyes,” Charles says urgently. 

Max sighs, but does it anyway, and is met with the bright screen of Charles’ phone. He blinks, squinting a little to try and make out what he’s looking at, because it looks like a drawing. He sees a red shirt and white fireproofs, brown hair, green eyes, hands desperately lifting clothing. 

Is that—

“Max, do you know what fan art is?”