Chapter Text
When Charles wakes up, he has no idea where he is.
The lights around him are bright. Rhythmic, a steady beeping sound comes from someplace close. There’s a weight against his right hand, warm and present, but he can’t identify it. His head is pounding. The thing he has the easiest time placing is the fact that something is wrong.
God, where is he? Every recent memory left for him to call upon comes back vague, thin around the edges and ruthless. He remembers driving, he remembers lights, he remembers pulling away from a start line, and not much else. It’s hazy. Thinking too hard about it makes him ache.
Blinking himself back into the room, he figures he’s in a hospital. The walls are white, thin sheets swaddled around his ankles, something equally flimsy draped over his shoulders. His bed is familiar in the way all hospital beds are, and it’s terrifying by every stretch of the word. If he’s in a hospital, then something bad must’ve happened, right?
His head is pounding. A noise ripples at the back of his throat, but it barely leaves his head.
As his surroundings slowly start to piece themselves together, Charles feels the twitch of unbelonging fingers. He realizes with a stutter that the weight against his palm is another person’s hand, grip curved and unyielding in a wrap around his palm. A part of him is afraid to look down the bed and find the owner, expectations rattling around in his aching head—it might be his mother, or Arthur, or maybe even Pierre; those are all names that ring bells somewhere in him. It’s quiet, but his mind can conjure faces for those people, so he figures they must be important.
But when he looks, Charles finds it’s not any of the people he expected. Instead, he sees a boy, broad and dirty blond and hunched over the edge of the bed. He’s sitting in one of the plastic chairs from the edges of the room, dragged over to sit beside the bed, close enough to hold Charles’s hand and set his head against the mattress. His face is hidden, forehead pressed down against his opposite arm, back rising with slow, even breaths—he’s asleep. In spite of that, the grip he has on Charles doesn’t let up.
It takes Charles a moment to identify him. He’s mostly obscured, clad in dark fireproofs, the edges of a race suit slung loose at his hips barely visible over the edge of the bed. He looks like he just walked off the track, a familiar air to his hasty inelegance and the drape of should-be-recognizable fabric. Charles vaguely remembers racing, and it’s the only standout thing from his life he can pinpoint that’s not a person.
Then it all hits him at once. His mind fills in the blank for a face he can’t see, for someone attached to the Red Bull logo emblazoned across the boy’s back, for the person sat crumpled against the side of his bed.
It’s Max Verstappen. Why Max Verstappen, of all people, is the only person in Charles’s hospital room when he wakes up is a mystery. A wicked heat creeps up the back of Charles’s throat, thick and asphyxiating. He’s never felt sick like this, dry, sticky lips parting slowly, something nestled deep inside him half-worried he’s going to throw up on himself at the thought of—of this.
The last thing Charles can remember about Max Verstappen is that he’s an asshole. They borderline hate each other. They’ve been at each other’s throats since they were kids, and Charles can remember it, remembers rain and the smell of old rubber and the twisted face of some Dutch kid who was always beating him. The warmth of his hand is brutal, the predictability of his breaths worse, and the steady-going beep emanating through the room has started to pick up without permission.
If he knows anything about Max Verstappen, it’s that he should be anywhere but next to Charles’s hospital bed right now. Anywhere.
Charles rips his hand away from Max’s and folds it in close to his own chest. A tired, underwhelming noise rips from his throat, flooding his mouth with the taste of something bitter. All the movement makes Max jolt, head lifting in a flurry; he looks tired. Scratch that, he looks horrible. Messy, unshowered, futile—his stubble is patchy and uncared for, far more than Charles can ever recall him growing. Charles can’t imagine he looks much better. He wants to throw up.
“Charles,” Max says, all breath, stupid and disgustingly fond. His voice is deeper than Charles remembers it being, and maybe he could blame it on the exhaustion under his eyes if his face didn’t look older, too. “Charles, schatje, oh my god.”
Max reaches for him with shaking hands, quivering smile too-large on his face. With a jolt, Charles reels back, that same sour taste stuck to the backs of his teeth.
Voice broken, discordant, he parrots, “Schatje?”
That’s not a word that belongs to him. In his accent, it sounds horrible; he mangles it horribly, unassisted by the scrape in his expiring throat. In Max’s, it sounds worse. It sounds sweet, cradled, practiced—Charles wants to throw up. Or maybe he wants to cry. Perhaps both.
Max’s face falls. It’s almost awful to look at, almost, the stippled dread in his eyes drooling down every last angle of his cheeks. It muddles with his exhaustion, tangled into the overgrown stubble littering his chin, hands falling to fist at the terrible sheets crumpled beneath Charles’s weight.
“Charles,” Max says, like he doesn’t believe something. It’s different from how he said it before, like he’s testing the word in his mouth, watching Charles’s face to anticipate his reaction. “You—” he stops himself. Max stands abruptly, chair scraping loudly against the tile floor. Startled, Charles pulls into himself, arms crossing over his chest like he needs to protect his heart. “I am going to get the doctor.”
He speaks without looking at Charles. He speaks to the floor, to the space between Charles’s legs hidden by the blanket. Chest heaving, he doesn’t move. He’s twisting at a ring on his finger with his right hand. Charles digs his own fingers into the sides of his arms.
Hoarse, he tries, “Okay.”
Max turns and walks out the door. His shoes are gold, back garishly branded with the Red Bull logo. It makes something turn in Charles’s stomach, familiar and horribly unwanted. He looks broader. He looks different than Charles thinks he should. There’s an image he has of Max in his head, young and golden laughing next to Daniel Ricciardo, giving Charles a dirty look, something smug about him that says I got here first. The crestfallen expression on his face, eyelashes parted by the blinding light of the hospital room—it doesn’t match. It never could.
The door swings shut with a clamor. Max is gone, and Charles is alone.
Slowly, his own grip loosens on his arms. The steady beep echoing through the room starts to dwindle, falling closer to where it was when Charles woke up. His head is pounding. Maybe it was always like this.
The deep breath he takes barely does anything to calm him down. He shuts his eyes like that will help. It makes the light go away for a moment, fading out of blinding stagnance. The reprieve isn’t quite enough to trick him into thinking anything is okay.
Charles doesn’t know what to do. He can’t think of what day it is, and he doesn’t know how long he was asleep for, but the clock on the wall says it’s quarter to five. He doesn’t know if it’s morning or night. There’s too much light in the room to tell if any of it is sunshine or not.
In his temporary silence, Charles tries to think of what he knows about himself.
My name is Charles Leclerc.
I am from Monaco.
I am a Formula One driver.
I race for Sauber.
I am in the hospital. It was probably a racing incident. I wonder if it was Max’s fault.
When the door opens again, the pounding in Charles’s head has gotten worse.
A stranger walks in first. Max Verstappen is on his heels, the sleeves of his race suit knotted sloppily at his waist. His concern is larger than life, occupying every last inch of his not-so-familiar face, like it’s too big to fit there. Charles is starting to think his theory that it was Max’s fault might hold some ground. Why else would he look so guilty? Why else would he have come all this way to sit with Charles in the hospital? Why else?
The only thing that doesn’t explain is schatje. It’s a word his head can barely recognize, hailing from a language he doesn’t know, but he remembers enough to know it means something Max would never intend for him. Charles might think his pounding head had made it up if not for the word’s grueling weight still melting on his tongue.
Max keeps his distance from the bed. As the doctor approaches, he lingers in the corner, arms crossing over his broad chest. Charles is content with the distance. He is not content with the way Max keeps staring at him, eyes prying, mouth tight. He’s tapping his foot.
“Charles,” the doctor says, accent unrecognizable. Charles looks away from Max, muscles tensing. “How are you feeling?”
Charles frowns. His voice is tired, limbs a little heavy. “Head hurts.”
“We’ll get you some medicine for that.”
Charles nods; he doesn’t want to speak anymore. He lets himself take a worried glance towards Max in the corner, weight uneven between his golden feet. He’s uncrossed his arms. He’s twisting at that ring again; when he looks close enough, Charles realizes it’s on his left ring finger.
Max is married? When did Max get married?
The doctor’s voice is like static, background noise. “Do you know how old you are?”
When Charles parts his lips, they stick. On paper, it’s a simple question, but it makes his head hurt. He doesn’t really want to think about it at all.
Clenching his arms tight between sweaty palms, he feels something rigid against his skin. It’s cold. It’s not flesh. Twitching, he lets his hands pool in his lap, catching the glint of light before he makes sense of the object reflecting it back at him.
It’s a ring. Plain, silver, unassuming. It’s only assuming when Charles realizes it’s on his left ring finger.
“I’m—” he starts, but his voice dies in his throat. Charles presses his thumb against the ring, hard, pushing deep enough to feel it through his skin.
Looking up at Max, he’s giving Charles a horribly, dreadfully fond look. His eyes dance, perhaps twitching between Charles’s face and the ring on his finger, the horrible, stupid ring that Charles has no memory of putting there, and he’s not sure he even wants that memory, if he wants any of this at all.
He thinks that even if his voice were intact enough to say the words, he wouldn’t have been able to get them out. That even if pressed, held down and told to say it, he wouldn't have found a way. I’m married to Max Verstappen.
Charles leans over his bed and throws up on the floor.
——
When Charles wakes up again, Max is sitting in the corner of the room. He’s staring at his hands, fiddling with something. He’s still wearing his race suit.
Charles remembers waking up before. His head still hurts, though a little less, now. He remembers Max, and his aged expression, and his tired eyes. He remembers his gold race boots. He remembers the ring on his finger, and the matching one he wears himself. He remembers the taste of bile in his throat.
The thought of everything before makes him feel sick again. Clenching his fist, Charles is almost horrified to find the ring is still there. He wishes someone would’ve taken it off. He wishes he knew what to do with himself. Splaying his fingers out against the sheets, he tries to ignore it, but Max is still here, still watching—he might not be looking at Charles, but there’s still something about him lacing the air between them. In sickness and in health, Charles’s mind supplies.
He swallows. “Where is the doctor?” he asks, words horribly mangled, and the sound of his voice makes Max look up sharply.
His hair is wild. He looks worse than he did before.
“He is checking on another patient. He will be back, soon.”
As soon as he’s answered, Max looks at the floor again. The tension in his muscles is visible even from here, rigidity unhidden beneath those skin-tight fireproofs. He starts picking at the skin of his thumb.
“When…” Charles stops. He’s not sure what he had been intending to ask. “What happened?” he tries, voice cracking over the syllables.
Max barely looks at him. “Maybe it is better you don’t remember.”
Before Charles can ask what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, the door clicks open. The same doctor from before comes in, appearing calm as always. At least, Charles thinks it’s the same doctor—his face looks familiar enough.
“Charles,” he says, cautious, observing. “Are you feeling any better?”
“A little,” Charles answers. His mouth tastes like sick. His head spins, and it might hurt a little less, but it bears the brutal ache of confusion.
The doctor clicks a pen. He hums, as if that means something. He scribbles something against a clipboard. “Do you know how old you are?”
Charles doesn’t hesitate on the answer this time. “Twenty-one.”
Max makes a horrible, futile sound from the corner. When Charles looks at him, he’s wearing a completely new expression. His left hand is clamped over his mouth. The glimmer of his ring makes Charles’s stomach turn.
The doctor mumbles something. It sounds like “that’s what I was afraid of.” Charles feels sick again.
He’s wrong, then. There was a piece of him that figured he must be, because there’s too many gaps, and Max looks too old, and he’s wearing a wedding ring. But when Charles counts his memories, he’s twenty-one. He’s a Formula One driver. He drives for Sauber. He must have gotten in an accident.
It must’ve been bad.
Charles’s head starts to pound again. “I’m sorry,” he says, though he’s not sure what for. At least his voice sounds a bit better. “I’m sorry.”
He wants to go back to sleep. He wants to wake up and be right. He wants to be as twenty-one as he thinks he is.
——
Perhaps Max had been trained to always expect the worst. He was never an optimistic person—he never tried to be—and the closest anyone ever came to changing that about him was when he was teammates with Daniel.
But Max tried to be optimistic, for once. Even when it came after watching the most horrifying crash footage he had ever seen, he tried to be optimistic. He knew there was a bias in there somewhere, because that red car with the number 16 on it was the last thing he wanted to see crumpling into the wall, but the tension in the pit lane during the red flag was just as heavy as anything else. Time moved at a horrible, dragging pace. The footage played on replay, again and again and again, and Max couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch.
Charles was removed from his car. He didn’t get out, he was taken out.
No one would tell him what hospital they were taking him to. The only people around Max to beg were from Red Bull, and they wouldn’t know as much as Ferrari, and Max wished he had enough time to run to the other garage and get on his knees and cry.
He didn’t, though. They were putting him back in his car before he could find the words to say he didn’t want to. There was a ring on his finger, beneath his gloves, something he was supposed to always take off. He never listened. Sitting in his cockpit waiting for the restart, Max pressed on it through his glove, and somewhere in his panic-addled mind, he convinced himself that Charles could feel it.
Max finished the race. He didn’t podium. He didn’t want to.
All he wanted was to get out of the car and go to the hospital. So he skipped the podium ceremony even when Checo was up there, in some place, he couldn’t remember, and he skipped team debrief, and he ran. He had to make sure Charles—no, he had to make sure his husband was okay. But no one was supposed to know.
Every lap, he hated himself a little bit more. He should’ve gone to the hospital. He shouldn’t have agreed to get back in the car. He shouldn’t have said he felt okay to race. He should’ve demanded to go see his husband, to make sure he was okay, to hell with the race, to hell with the championship, to hell with his points lead.
But no one was supposed to know.
When Max got to the hospital, he thought the sight of Charles, asleep and bruised and swaddled in just as many questions as he was flimsy sheets, was the worst he’d ever seen him. He looked just as much like himself as he didn’t. Max had seen that sleeping face more times than he could count, but never like this. Never like this.
Pierre was the first person who came to visit. He was still in his race suit, too, like he’d run here from debrief. Pierre stared at Max when he was spinning the ring on his finger, and Max figured he knew, that he’d figured it out, but he didn’t say anything. Neither of them did. Pierre sat and prayed for a while, silent with moving lips. Max sat next to him. Pierre brought him food, looked a little too long at Charles’s hand, and left without much ceremony.
Then Carlos came to visit. He told Max that Antonio would be in Charles’s seat until he was better. Max didn’t really care. He wanted to call Christian and tell him he wasn’t going to race for a while, either, but he already had enough frustrated texts filling up his phone. When he told Carlos that, he got a soft smile in return. Carlos gives really good hugs. Max cried into his shoulder until he thought their secret was out.
Then Lando came to visit. He hugged Max for a long, long time. They didn’t talk much. Lando held Max’s hand and Max held Charles’s, like they were all connected, somehow. They both stared at Charles for a while, like something was going to change if they blinked. Max thought about him a lot. He kept hoping he would wake up.
Then Daniel came to visit. Max figured it was more for his sake than it was Charles’s, but either way, it was nice to see him. He was smiling, even if it didn’t go all the way up to his eyes, horribly recognizable. Daniel was the only person Max said it out loud to in that hospital room, “Charles and I are married,” and it was almost relieving, but it wasn’t. He was crying. He was scared. Daniel looked scared, too.
Then Charles’s mother came to visit. She already knew about them, knew to hold Max’s hand and look sad with him. She spoke a lot of French, and Max couldn’t understand, but he knew she sounded afraid. He tried to use all the French Charles had taught him to comfort her, but it made him feel weird, the syllables in his mouth. She cried with Max in the uncomfortable plastic chairs, soaking the shoulder of his fireproofs through. They’d be dry before Charles woke up.
It couldn’t have been longer than three days, but it felt like an eternity. Max was starting to smell. He didn’t want to go anywhere, didn’t want to leave in case the moment he left was the moment Charles woke up. He didn’t really sleep at night, but sometimes, he’d pass out on the edge of the mattress, folded over with the creases of the sheets pressing into his cheek. The doctors filtering in and out of the room never asked him to leave, but sometimes they’d look at him a little too long. Max wouldn’t have left if they asked him to, anyway.
And of course Charles woke up when Max was asleep. But when he finally met his husband’s eyes again—they were open, blissfully open, lacking a little in life but nothing in presence—he was looking back at him like he didn’t recognize his face at all.
He didn’t know he was afraid of it until Charles was retching over the side of the hospital bed. Max barely managed to find a trash can before he threw up, too.
——
Charles is put through a dizzying amount of tests before they release him from the hospital. He can’t really remember much of it, but at the end of everything, they tell him he has retrograde amnesia. He’s lost memories from the past. He retains the new ones, mostly.
He remembers waking up. He remembers all the ways Max looked at him. He hates this one the most, he thinks, when they’re telling Charles he’s cleared to leave and go home and Max is just staring at him. His eyes are halfway to unreadable, soft yet distinctly frightened, and he regards Charles with something that calls him weak, weak, weak.
Is beating me not enough? Charles wants to ask. Do you have to look at me like I might shatter any minute now?
He figures it might be earned. Yesterday, Charles could barely walk without assistance. Max still holds him by the arm to keep him upright when they stand by the desk, Charles dressed in clothes Pierre had brought over, unbranded and unidentifiable. Max is finally out of his race suit, too, showered and looking a little better. Charles thinks he looks hungover. He knows the truth is worse than that.
As Max leads him to the door, Charles musters up enough strength to ask, “Where are we going?”
Max swallows. It’s audible, and Charles is close enough to see the way it shifts his throat. That’s too close.
“We’re going home,” Max says, not making eye contact. He looks in front of him, opens the door, leads Charles through it. The sun is blinding. “You are going to rest. I will be there, too, for whatever you need.”
He speaks like the words hurt like. Like spines, sharp and mutilating, are crawling up his throat. Charles finds speaking difficult, too. There’s something in him that doesn’t like relating to Max. He doesn’t like having his weight supported by him, either.
The way Max says home haunts him, too.
“Okay,” Charles says, rather than asking Max to let go of him. He tries to focus on walking, and it feels natural enough, but he’s still a little dizzy. The sunlight makes his head hurt. “Do you live with me?”
Max swallows again. Charles’s skin pricks where it presses into Max’s, warm without comfort. There’s an expensive-looking car parked in the parking lot. He figures it belongs to Max.
“Yeah,” Max says, quiet. “You moved in with me, before.”
Charles knows there’s more to that sentence. Before we got married. He wonders if Max is afraid he’ll vomit on the pavement.
He’s right about the expensive car. Max stands by the passenger side until Charles is seated with his seatbelt buckled, and he shuts the door, smiling through the window in a curve that wavers. Charles doesn’t offer one back.
As Max drives, Charles runs through what he knows about himself. It was all told to him, by doctors, by Max, and Pierre. When Pierre had come to see him, Charles almost didn’t recognize him. He looks different, similar to the way Max looks different. Broader. A little more sure of himself.
Afraid.
He told Charles everything three times. Charles had nodded, said he understood, but it still felt like bullet points to him. His doctors said he would remember soon. They pulled Max into the hallway, and Charles figured they told him the same thing in more words. Pierre sat with him and held his hand. It felt more comfortable, more familiar than Max’s had when he woke up—why isn’t Charles married to Pierre?
My name is Charles Leclerc.
I am from Monaco.
I am a Formula One driver.
I race for Scuderia Ferrari.
I am twenty-five years old.
I am married to Max Verstappen. I don’t know when that happened. Max said we didn’t tell a lot of people, when it did. Pierre touches my ring more than I do.
I was in the hospital. There was a racing incident. No one will tell me the details. Max looks sick every time I bring it up.
“Charles,” Max says, pulling the brunet from his stupor. He hasn’t called him schatje since Charles woke up. He still says his name like it’s some kind of reverence, though. “Are you feeling okay?”
How could he ever feel okay? He’s lost four years worth of memories, he woke up married to the boy he’s meant to hate, he can barely walk in a straight line on his own. Charles just shrugs, because Max is looking at him with all that dreadful fear, and there’s a red light outside the windshield Charles wishes would turn green.
Max looks away from him when it finally does. “I am supposed to help ease you into things,” Max says, slow and calculated. Charles already knows that; the doctors told him. It’s why they won’t let him have his phone. “But I want you to know. I am here, if you have questions.”
Charles has a lot of questions. All of them make his brain hurt, through attempted predictions and horrible dread. Four years is a long time. He had to be told he was driving one of the red cars he used to dream about as a kid, and he can’t remember the joy of doing it. He had to be told who his teammate was. He had to be told that it would get better.
“When did we get married?” he asks, because that’s what hurts the most.
Last he remembers, Max hated him. He hated Max. They were civil, because they had to be. Charles got sick on jealousy in hotel rooms for years, and Max was always somewhere else. The youngest ever. Max, not Charles. Max, seventeen years old, in a Formula One car. Max, not Charles.
“Almost a year ago,” Max says. His knuckles are white against the steering wheel, but his eyes are soft. Charles wonders if he’s thinking about it. He almost feels bad that he doesn’t remember. “We didn’t really have a ceremony. No one knew we were together. Just your family.”
Charles tries to imagine it. When he thinks of kissing Max, his stomach turns. He’s pushing his ring down into his finger again before he realizes it.
“Who proposed?” he asks, because he can’t imagine it either way. Neither of them are wearing an engagement ring.
Max takes a strangled breath. He makes a noise, low like a hum, high like a whine. Charles dares to spare him a glance, picking out the worry lines along his face. He’s shaved. There are still dark circles under his eyes. His hair remains a mess. Charles wonders if there are races soon, if Max is missing them. He should’ve asked that. He should’ve asked where he stands in the championship.
But Max is answering before he can change the conversation. “You did.”
Charles isn’t sure which would’ve made him feel worse. Saying yes to Max Verstappen’s proposal; proposing to Max Verstappen. He thinks that either way, his mouth would’ve filled with the same bitter, sick taste, heavy on his tongue. He thinks that either way, he would’ve gagged, mouth hot and cruel.
Max must feel horrible. Charles feels horrible, too. He gags again, and Max pulls over, unbuckles his seatbelt, ushers Charles out of the car so he can vomit in the bushes. Everything burns, a new, horrible burn, different when coupled with the fresh air and the sound of passing traffic. Charles feels exposed, down on his knees, choked the same way he gets shoving two fingers down his throat. He feels vulnerable.
And Max is kneeling beside him, ignorant to the way Charles’s instincts cry to run away from him. Max kneels, and he rubs circles into Charles’s back, slow and soothing, murmuring something Charles can’t discern like he’s not getting sick off the idea of loving him. The guilt is enough to make Charles throw up again.