kill for me one day?

by moneycat (therivernile)

Summary:

“Of course, I know you are not a criminal.” Max quickly reassures Charles.

“Oh,” Charles finally says with a nonchalant roll of his shoulders. “But it’s true, though? I am a mafioso. It’s not exactly a secret. I thought you knew. The whole of Monaco knows.”

Huh, Max thinks.

“Huh?” Max says.

“Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh,” Max says again.

Notes:

i wrote this while severely sleep deprived and stressed out. i haven't even read through it from top to bottom, so.

idk anything about the mob. all i had going into this fic was the 'why mafia isn't a fucking aesthetic' meme and an edit of charles to lana del rey's i want it all (demo 2).

 

 

 

Max would never be caught dead saying it, but he loves the Monaco Grand Prix. He love-loves it. Not because it’s the ‘crown jewel of Formula 1’ or whatever—he actually hates the circuit itself because it’s so fucking boring to drive (and the kerbs feel like shit when he drives over them but. Oh well). 

 

But, he loves that he can stay at home in his own apartment the whole week leading up to the weekend, and during the weekend. 

 

He can spend time with his cats despite it being a race week, he can use the proper simulator in his living room instead of the shitty, portable one he carries, he can exercise at home instead of in a shitty hotel gym under the watchful gaze of other patrons, he knows where all the good food is, and, well. Of course. He knows where the best clubs are to celebrate after a (boring) victory. And he can go back to the comfort of his own bed, with his soft, cool pillow in the wee hours of the morning after partying the night away.

 

He supposes that it’s nice also that the racing atmosphere is so upbeat and cheerful, with all the signs the citizens hang up on their balconies visible from the cockpit of his car as he zooms through the familiar streets of Monte Carlo. 

 

Anyway, the point is—there are many things Max loves about the Monaco Grand Prix. 

 

So when Nico Rosberg congratulates him on getting P2 in qualifying and asks ‘what makes the Monaco Grand Prix so special for you?’ Max has no idea why he blanks completely and splutters out, “uh. Um. The people here are pretty special, I guess. I mean– the atmosphere is always really great, haha.” 

 

He waves awkwardly at the cheering crowd. Anyone with functional hearing would be able to tell the weird, little inflections in his voice as he lamely stammers through the last part of his interview. Max can already see the evil, shit-eating grin on Lando’s face out of his periphery where he’s waiting for his pole interview. 

 

Max stubbornly avoids Lando’s insistent stare when he hands the microphone back to Nico and swaps spots with the McLaren driver. Oscar is standing next to him, having finished his P3 interview before Max. 

 

Max sees this as a golden opportunity to cope with his embarrassment by complaining about how bad his rear stability felt whenever he hit a kerb—”like, no joke, I was all four wheels off and basically flying through them!”

 

Oscar just nods his head patiently when Max starts flapping his hands about in his face to demonstrate the bouncing. Max isn’t even deterred when Oscar takes even sips from his bottle and only listens silently with his eyes closed.

 

In the midst of Max’s vivid yapping about the graining on his front tyres, he tunes back into Lando’s interview and catches the end of it. 

 

“–uh huh. Like Max said, there’s always special people in the paddock at every race, but particularly here at Monaco. Actually, you should ask Max more about the special people tomorrow after the race.” Lando cackles wickedly like a witch. 

 

Max blinks and actually stops talking. Oscar pats him on the shoulder in condolence. 

 

“So you expect Max to be on the podium tomorrow?” Nico asks slyly, his tone teasing.

 

“You don’t?” Lando fires back, tilting his head down and looking up at the former world champion sceptically. He shrugs. “You have more experience racing him than I do. Just saying.”

 

“Okay, let’s not go there.” Nico laughs though it sounds nervous even to Max’s ears. “Thank you for the interview, Lando. Good luck in the race tomorrow.”

 

The crowd applauds Lando as he joins Max and Oscar for the qualifying photo. Max wraps an arm around Lando’s shoulder on his right side while Oscar does the same on Lando’s left. 

 

He gasps lightly when Lando cheekily spanks him on the bum before laying his hand against his back. 

 

“Oops.” Lando huffs out, his shoulders shaking with the effort to hold back a full body laugh. “Do you think he’ll see that and try to kill me? I guess if I disappear tonight, you’ll know who got me.”

 

“I’m gonna run you into the wall tomorrow.” Max mutters quietly through gritted teeth as he plasters on a plastic smile for the cameras. 

 

“Yeah yeah. And I’m gonna brake test you and take us both out so Oscar can win. Mwah.” Lando blows him a disgusting kiss and then walks off to sign the pole tyre. 

 

Max imagines flipping Lando off in his mind very hard. 

 

He doesn’t actually do it because he does not want to be slapped with a ten-place grid penalty from the stewards for swearing (would it even be counted as profanity if it’s a mere physical gesture and Max isn’t saying anything? Maybe he’s just found the perfect loophole). He would gladly take it in Spa, where the reward of telling Lando to fuck off far outweighs the risk of a grid-drop. Alas, in Monaco, track position is everything.

 

“Max!” A familiar voice calls out to him.

 

“Speaking of the special people.” Oscar deadpans as he steps away to follow his PR manager to do the post-qualifying press conference. Max wants to cry—not you too, Oscar. You’re supposed to be different!

 

Max takes a self-assuring deep breath and spins around. He’s blinded by the absolute face-card of Charles, anyway.

 

Gemma, where are you? Max thinks desperately. Never has he wanted to do media so bad. He never knows how to talk to Charles. Always, his heart beats funny, like it wants to skip its way out of Max’s chest and plant a fat kiss on Charles’ plush, pink lips.

 

“Ooh, Max. Are your eyes okay?” Charles frets as he reaches where Max is standing. 

 

“I’m fine. Just a little dust.” Max lies with his eyes screwed shut. He just needs a moment for his vision to recover after witnessing the dazzling sight of Charles excitedly waving at him as he bounded over from the small crowd in the paddock. 

 

He’s wearing another bespoke suit today. It’s cream linen because of the sunny weather, so it's more casual than yesterday's navy suit. He looks amazing either way. Charles could wear a trash bag and he’d still make it look fashionable. Even the obnoxious flaming red Ferrari cap on his head somehow fits his overall vibe. 

 

Max swallows a mouthful of spit. “Anyway. Hello Charles.”

 

“Yes. Hello sweetheart.” 

 

Max hesitantly opens one eye and immediately has to shut it again because Charles is positively beaming. The smile on his beautiful face is so radiant Max is concerned Charles’ body is starting to produce bioluminescence. 

 

“Congratulations on qualifying P2. That was an amazing lap, I couldn’t take my eyes off you,” Charles says, clapping a hand over Max’s hip. Is this how men normally congratulate each other? Max’s comparison pool is a bit off since Lando likes to grope his ass, and also, Max can never tell when it comes to Charles. “Dare I say it was better than even your lap last year? Shame you lost out to Lando, though. But I’m sure you can win it tomorrow.”

 

“You say that you think I can win at every race.” Max jokes, finally feeling brave enough to blink open his sore eyes. They still water a bit at the gleaming expression on Charles’ face, though. 

 

“Of course!” Charles agrees vehemently with a very serious look in his eyes. “I go into every race knowing you can win it, Max.”

 

“Charles, you’re a Ferrari fan.” Max reminds him. It’s embarrassing how quickly he blushes whenever Charles compliments him, which is, like, always. Hopefully the flush from qualifying can cover up the reddening heat on his face. 

 

“Non.” Charles tuts. “Charles is a Max fan, oui?” 

 

Max should find it stupid that Charles just referred to himself in third person. He should find it gross and cringey that an adult man with a cock and hair on his balls is speaking like this and cooing at him, another adult man with a cock and hair on his balls. 

 

Max must be sick. Something in him must be fundamentally broken. He must be fucked in the head from all the crashes he’s been in (hardy har har, after Silverstone 2021 he wouldn’t be surprised if he had lasting brain damage) because instead of being disgusted, Max finds it incredibly endearing. 

 

“You say that but what about the Ferrari cap on your head? Why don’t you wear a Red Bull one?” Max points out, the teasing tone in his voice evident.

 

“I don’t like Red Bull. I like Max.” Charles nods sagely. “But if you do not like my Ferrari cap, I will throw it away.” He says it with such odd intensity Max has no doubt that Charles really would throw away all his Ferrari merchandise at the drop of a hat if Max had asked seriously, including his Ferrari car collection.

 

“No.” Max shakes his head warily, eyes wide. “I was joking. Please don’t do that.”

 

“Sorry to interrupt, guys, but media calls.” 

 

Max has never been so glad to see Gemma (which– sorry, Gemma).  

 

“I’ll catch you later!” Max calls out as Gemma herds him towards the press room. 

 

Charles gives him one of his infamous boy-failure winks. Max doesn’t know how it’s possible but his face heats up even more.

—

Max meets Charles at the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. 

 

Charles had been visiting the Red Bull garage for Pierre and Max had greeted him as he does with any of his teammate’s family and friends. With an easy-going smile and a perfunctory handshake. Except after the handshake, Charles hadn’t let go of Max’s hand.

 

Instead he brought it to his mouth and pressed his lips gently into the pale skin of Max’s knuckles.

 

Max stood there in shock, so baffled that only a small, hoarse noise weakly left his chest, his usual pleasantries aborted in his throat. Pierre stood next to them, looking like the rookie driving his car in a FP1 session just admitted to peeing in the cockpit. 

 

“That’s enough.” Pierre hissed, left eye twitching. He grabbed Charles by the back of his collar and bodily hauled him off Max. 

 

“Nice to meet you, Max.” Charles winked at him as he was dragged off by his best friend. He had a disarming grin on his face that would come to haunt Max’s dreams like a spectre, though Max doesn’t quite know it at this exact moment.

 

Max was left alone, rooted in his spot, legs stiff, hand tingling and his face as red as the Ferrari livery.

—

On Sunday, Max makes easy work of pipping Lando in the rundown to the Sainte Devote. The McLaren car has been struggling terribly with wheel spin at the race starts this year—not that Max is complaining.

 

From there on out, it’s just a matter of maintaining the gap between him and Lando to keep the Papaya driver in his dirty air, and managing his tyres to ensure that Lando doesn’t undercut him. 

 

The race is, as Max expected, boring as fuck. He doesn’t overtake a single car, apart from Lando at the race start and when he’s lapping the back markers. He doesn’t get overtaken, either. 

 

He is a bit nervous when doing his out lap after pitting, but he manages to come out ahead of Lando and it then goes back to maintaining the gap and managing his tyres until the end of the grand prix.

 

He complains to GP on the radio about almost falling asleep, and GP just tells him to focus. How boring.

 

Still, when Max crosses the finish line, a burst of euphoria shoots through his veins. It doesn’t matter how many times he does it, winning is always a different feeling. Max loves it. 

 

The cheers from the crowd are deafening enough he can hear it over the roar of his engine. He can’t help but smile.

 

“Congratulations on another one, Max.” GP’s voice filters through his earphones.

 

“Yes, haha. Bit boring, that. But still a lovely win,” Max replies. “Monaco is always very lovely.”

 

He’s expecting Christian’s voice to come on to congratulate him like always—another familiar ‘good job, Max’.

 

“Max! Tu étais magnifique aujourd'hui! C'était incroyable!” Charles’ deep voice booms excitedly through the radio, instead.

 

Max almost screams into his radio. He manages to keep his composure. Just barely. It’s a very close call, though. ‘Half a centimetre from the wall’ kind of close. He also almost bins it into the wall, but saves it at the last moment. Hopefully no one watches his onboards post-race.

 

“Ch-Charles?” He squeaks out. 

 

“Yes. Charles,” Charles says adoringly on the radio, like Max had just performed a miracle and won Monaco from P20 even though he only did it from P2. “Comme d'habitude, tu es comme un ange qui nous fait l'honneur de sa douce présence. Je me sens tellement chanceux d'être ici avec toi. You must celebrate big tonight, oui?”

 

Max has no clue what Charles is saying but his enamoured tone is enough to make Max feel flustered and cause heat to rise in his ears. 

 

“I will. Thank you, Charles.” Max laughs after taking a deep breath so his voice doesn’t come out all high-pitched and shaky. 

 

God, this team radio is going to get clipped and posted absolutely everywhere on the internet. Max sighs. He can’t wait to see what Skysports have got to say about it.

—

Max still doesn’t exactly know what Charles does (despite knowing him for five years, which—okay, a bit embarrassing for him). But, what Max does know about Charles Leclerc is that: one, Charles is Very Rich, and two, Charles is Very Important, which, when considering the concoction of people living in Monaco, that’s saying a lot.

 

He knows that Charles is mind-bogglingly friendly with His Serene Highness, Prince Albert, is a huge fan of Ferrari and owns several of them, is always at Imola and Monza, is always at the Monaco Grand Prix because he is Monegasque and uh, obviously not French! How could you not tell, Max? Now you’re offending me.

 

After Max won in Monaco for the first time in 2021, Charles had organised that massive super-yacht for the Red Bull crew, and after Max’s second Monaco win last year, Charles had booked out several clubs for the crew, even though he only treated the team to dinner when Checo won in 2022. 

 

Although he isn’t an official sponsor for Red Bull, Charles has been somewhat of a personal sponsor for Max. If he’s free, Charles will be in the garage to cheer Max on for the race. If he’s away on business, he’ll always call or text Max during the race weekend. 

 

Since they both live in Monte Carlo and the place is barely the size of a football stadium, Max sometimes hangs out with Charles off-track during the breaks, though that’s a rare occasion because Charles is a Very Busy man. He’s also always gifting Max presents for some reason. Max figures maybe Charles wants him to promote the products so he always receives them graciously and makes sure they get screen time in press photos. 

 

Sometimes Charles’ well wishes extend to hospitality for Red Bull, and sometimes it doesn’t. After all, Charles is still a Ferrari boy at heart. Speaking of which–

 

“Max, if you drove for Ferrari, even just one year, I would be so happy,” Charles whines. He brings it up at least once every time he sees Max. 

 

Max snorts happily and chugs the rest of his gin and tonic. The alcohol burns hotly down his oesophagus, leaving a warm trail all the way down to his belly. He’s had a lot to drink tonight—he had just won the Monaco Grand Prix, after all. 

 

The bustling of the crowd and the booming bass of the music is somewhat dampened by the alcohol fogging his mind, and with Charles sitting so close to him, Max can’t help but use the last bit of his energy to focus on him over the noises of the club. 

 

“I said I would retire in 2028 after my contract ends.” Max slurs over the rim of his glass. 

 

“What can I do to change your mind, mon chéri?” Charles crows sadly. He’s always like this when he’s had a few drinks. Behaving like such a baby and making Max want to coo at him like a fucking freak. “Oh, what I wouldn’t do to see you in rosso corsa.”

 

“I don’t know.” Max swallows a burp. Oops. “Maybe if they actually have a decent car and strategy? It would be cool to win a world championship with Ferrari.” He laughs at his own joke. 

 

“Okay,” Charles says, so scarily serious that it makes Max sober up a bit. “Okay. I will call Jean Todt tomorrow after I wake up. Promise.”

 

“No.” Max hastily shakes his head, bewildered. “No promise. Charles, what? You can’t just call Jean Todt.”

 

“Yes, I can.” Charles insists stubbornly. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. “Watch this.”

 

Max lunges forward to grab Charles’ phone, because Charles is insane. Okay, first of all, Max hadn’t even known Charles had Jean Todt’s personal number saved in his phone, and secondly, why is Charles like this, ughhh (heart emoji). 

 

Because he is drunk, Max overestimates the amount of force it takes to snatch Charles’ phone out of his hand and ends up toppling over into Charles’ lap. 

 

“Oh. Um,” Max says, intelligently. Wow. Charles’ crotch. Looks great (and generously-sized). 

 

Charles doesn’t seem to mind the suggestive position at all. He touches a hand reverently to the crown of Max’s head. “Your hair is so soft.” Okay. Well, at least he’s distracted from calling Jean Todt.

 

“Bathroom.” Max finally finds his bearings enough to bolt upright. His face is definitely doing its best to imitate a tomato right now, and his heart is certainly beating faster than the RB20 around the tracks of Monaco today. Neither of those Max can honestly blame on the gin and tonics. 

 

He shuffles his way lamely to the men’s bathroom. Thankfully Charles doesn’t follow him. 

 

Max locks himself in a stall, because he is not in the mood for fans to be asking for photos at the urinals. He even sits down to piss, since he is swaying a bit on his feet and he doesn’t want to be irresponsible and cause a mess.

 

As he is relieving himself on the toilet, the bathroom door swings open and Max hears a few pairs of footsteps enter. 

 

“You know that guy? Leclerc?” He hears over the sound of pissing. Which, yuck. Max is getting out of here. Before he can stand up fully, however, a second voice pipes up.

 

“Yeah, the mob guy.” 

 

Max pauses and sits back down.

 

“Is he actually a mobster?”

 

“Fuck, man, ‘you serious? He’s part of the Sicilian mafia. Cosa Nostra and all that. It’s why no one ever pisses him off. Everyone knows this.”

 

Not everyone, Max thinks wildly. 

 

“So what? You’re saying that an Italian gangster is mates with Max Verstappen? Did you hear that shit he said to him after the race today?”

 

Charles? Italian gangster? No fucking way. Max has seen the man rolling around on the floor being bullied by Jimmy and Sassy before. There’s absolutely no way Charles is some sort of thug. Max refuses to believe it. People sure do come up with interesting bullshit to keep themselves entertained.

 

The two men don’t stop chatting.

 

“Dude. They’re fucking homos, I’m telling you. I ain’t even speak to my girl like that.”

 

“Mate, that’s your problem. I reckon Leclerc’s paying his way into Red Bull with his dirty, blood money. What a fucking weasel. Dregs of society. Bloke should put one in his own fucking head.”

 

“Can’t believe Verstappen is rolling around with him. Must feel fucking great, though, parading a world champ around like that. What a fucking ego boost that would be.”

 

Time to fucking leave, Max decides. He stands up and pulls his jeans up as loudly as he can. Even presses the flush extra hard and stomps his way to the sink to wash his hands. 

 

The two guys startle when Max bursts out of the stall and quickly clamp their mouths shut. 

 

Max cups his hand in front of the automatic tap. Lucky for him, the water comes out pressurised enough it ricochets off his hand and jet-streams one of the guys in the face. 

 

“I think you should keep your mouths shut.” Max sneers meanly as he wipes his hand with a paper towel. “The real fucking weasels are, of course, people who don’t have the balls to say stuff to other’s faces and instead whisper behind their backs.”

 

He chucks the used paper towel away and angrily storms off back to Charles, who is still waiting for him.

 

Max makes the smart decision to slide into the bench opposite Charles instead of next to him like he had been sitting earlier. As much as he wants to, Max doesn’t want to risk face-planting into Charles’ dick again in public.

 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Charles asks gently, noticing the frown on Max’s face. He’s so sweet. Always so in tune with Max’s emotions. How can a man like this possibly be a mobster? Max huffs. Mafioso, his ass. 

 

“Nothing. Just–” He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Charles bats his hand away and cups Max’s face. He uses his thumb to softly smooth out the frown and Max almost forgets about why he’s so mad in the first place.

 

“Well there were these two fuckers who were saying these rude things about you, like you are some criminal or gangster just because you have money. I told them off. It’s not nice to gossip behind someone’s back, you know?” Max explains reluctantly. 

 

Charles is quiet for a moment. Max begins to feel panic rise in his throat. God, he should’ve just lied. Why’d he go and blurt out those hurtful things to Charles without thinking? Now Charles is going to be upset. Who wouldn’t be if they found out people are spreading such baseless, insipid rumours about you behind your back? Max probably just ruined Charles’ night. Fuck, he’s such an idiot.

 

“Of course, I know you are not a criminal.” Max quickly reassures Charles. 

 

“Oh,” Charles finally says with a nonchalant roll of his shoulders. “But it’s true, though? I am a mafioso. It’s not exactly a secret. I thought you knew. The whole of Monaco knows.”

 

Huh, Max thinks.

 

“Huh?” Max says. 

 

“Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh,” Max says again. 

 

“Max–” Charles starts. 

 

“Stop. Wait.” Max holds a hand up, his mind whirling. His other hand goes to cradle his head which is starting to throb painfully. “Maybe I am too drunk for this. Did you just say that you are a mafioso?”

 

“Sì.” Charles nods. Max feels a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. “For Cosa Nostra, do you know? Sicilian mafia. Gravano famiglia. I’m the capone for the Monaco operations, so I’m only needed in Italy when the don calls on me.”

 

“If this is a joke, you can quit it now.” 

 

Max tries to laugh but it comes out all funny since he can’t control the trembling in his voice. The laugh sounds empty even to his own ears.

 

“If you’re worried about drugs, racketeering or hits, don’t be. Eh, maybe a little bit of drugs, but you knew that already.” Charles smiles, ignoring Max’s deflecting comment. He still looks every bit the sweet-baby-angel-man Max saw earlier today, which is really fucking crazy. Max is screaming inside his head. “In Monaco, there is only money laundering. Why do you think there are so many casinos and clubs?”

 

“I don’t know?!” Max yelps hysterically. “I thought they were for tourists!”

 

“You don’t think tourism can fund Monaco’s entire economy, do you?” Charles questions, squinting his green eyes at Max. He chuckles when Max just stares back in confusion. 

 

“Ah, mon cœur. Comment tu peux être aussi innocent et naïf? Even Prince Albert knows, sweetheart. I’m so deeply embedded into Monaco’s GDP, they couldn’t get rid of me even if they wanted to. Not that they want to.” Charles laughs cockily at that, his head tipping back and accentuating his neck. He sits with his legs spread wide, exuding the kind of natural, laid back confidence that alpha male podcasters wish they have. Max finds it ridiculously hot, even though he knows he should not.

 

There is, however, something else that’s been skittering around in Max’s mind like a tenacious roach.

 

“So it’s true, then? You’re just flaunting me around to– to show off your status?” 

 

There’s a tight, acute sting in Max’s chest. He already knows deep down in his heart that there’s no chance in high heaven, earth or hell that Charles would return his sentiments, but he had thought they’d bonded over the years and had come to consider each other as close friends. But finding out that Charles just saw him as a status symbol. Well. Max is going to need a few more gin and tonics than whatever he’s had tonight to get over that.

 

“What? No!” Charles shouts, his tone suddenly very harsh. His clenched fist makes a heavy impact as it connects with the table. Instinctively, Max knows it’s not directed at him. Charles has never ever been even stern with him, let alone harsh. 

 

He grips Max’s jaw with one hand and forces him to look directly at Charles. Charles peers into his blue eyes, searching. His touch remains as reverent as always, despite the intensity of it all.

 

“That is not true, Max. You are very dear to me. Do you understand?” 

 

Charles’ voice sounds pained, like he’s hurt by the mere thought that Max doubts his sincerity, and really, how dare Max ever question Charles’ devotion? How dare Max let another man’s apprehensions infiltrate his mind when Charles looks at Max the same way a man does up at the statue of the saviour, prostrated on his knees in the church, his cross clenched piously in his tight fists?

 

Max nods his head rapidly, trying to placate the distress swimming in Charles’ eyes. Having found what he was looking for in Max, Charles lets him go, but not before giving his ear a little rub.

 

“Now, tell me. Who said that? Je vais leur casser les dents.” The last part comes out in a deep growl.

 

“I don’t know?” Max says warily, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Charles is some sort of mafia boss and possibly believes that Max is the second coming of Christ.

 

“That’s fine, sweetheart. You remember their faces?” Charles is glaring off to the side now. Max has never seen him so displeased, so angry. There’s a vein popping out at his temple and Max can hear the chalkboard-squeak of the enamel of his teeth gnashing against each other from where he’s sitting. “I’ll get a sketch artist in, oui? I know a coupla’ guys with a motorbike and a crowbar.”

 

A motorbike and a crowbar? Is Max speaking to Tony fucking Soprano right now? He must be dreaming because none of the words that have just come out of Charles’ sweet, charming mouth can be real.  

 

He pinches himself on the arm. It hurts. Max wants to cry. 

 

“Please don’t do that. Please.” 

 

Charles is so fucking livid, fury radiating off from him like body heat. 

 

A career criminal—a mafia boss at that, clearly irate and seething, with all the power and money of the world disposable to him at the flick of his wrist—and Max isn’t scared about being at the centre of the attention. 

 

Rather, Max is—Max is turned on. The man sitting casually in front of him, so effortlessly alluring and suave, and probably responsible for many, many people’s downfalls, probably the reason why so many people’s lives are ruined, yet he’s always so unconditionally kind to Max—never letting Max lift a finger, never expectant when he’s spoiling Max with expensive gifts, never asks Max for anything in return. 

 

Always, he does everything for Max—always, Max, Max, Max (parce que tu m’as montré comment respirer à nouveau, Max remembers those quiet words pressed devoutly into his hair that one, warm night they spent pressed against each other at the Monaco shores, the sand soft and smooth beneath his feet and Charles’ arm wrapped steadily around his back)—and that makes Max so aroused.  

 

Seriously, what is wrong with him? 

 

 “J'adore quand tu dis 's'il te plaît’.” Charles sighs softly. He finally turns around and looks at Max. Just the mere sight of Max worrying his bottom lip between his teeth is mollifying enough that the tension in his jaw bleeds out along with the furrow in his brows. 

 

Charles reaches forward and carefully grabs one of Max’s hands with his own. “I do what you want me to do, non? What do you want me to do?”

 

“I– I…” Max stutters, praying that the hand that’s touching Charles isn’t sweaty and gross. His heart is thudding so loudly in his ribcage, he wonders if Charles can feel it through his pulse. His head is spinning, spinning, spinning—doing pirouettes faster than Max can in his car when the back end of it steps out on him. “I don’t want that. Please don’t break their kneecaps, or– or kill them. Please, Charles?”

 

Charles’ eyes instantly soften. “Oh, mon cœur. If you say so.” He touches his other hand to Max’s face and caresses the pad of his thumb across Max’s cheekbone. “No need to be so upset, mm?”

 

Max nods, oblivious to the fact that he’s subconsciously leaning into Charles’ warm touch. It just feels so nice. Max’s mind is kind of floating away in the clouds right now, anyway. So he’s unaware as he tilts his head and rubs his cheek against the palm of Charles’ hand. He almost wants to purr like the way Jimmy and Sassy do when they get comfortable in his lap. He also wants to climb all over Charles’ lap.

 

“So, when are you two getting married, huh?” 

 

Max practically jumps out of his skin. Charles’ grounding touch is the only thing that manages to keep him tethered to earth.

 

“What the fuck, Lando?” He yelps. “How long have you been here?”

 

Lando is crouched over at the end of the booth table with his head resting between his hands. He’s got that classic Lando Norris gremlin smirk plastered all over his smug face.

 

He is, in Max’s humble opinion, clearly not drunk enough and way too coherent for Max’s liking.

 

“Hi special person,” Lando says to Charles with a coy smirk on his stupid face, and completely ignoring Max’s question. He slides into the booth seat next to Max and receives a warning slap on the arm as a welcome gift.

 

“Hello Lando,” Charles says, sharp and trite. “Congratulations on your podium today. Of course, race winner looks the best on Max so I am happy for your loss. Voglio eviscerarti come un pesce per quello che hai fatto dopo la qualificazione di ieri.”

 

“Woah.” Lando blinks. He turns to Max, who is currently redefining what blushing means. He’s got to be redder than the SF-24 at this point. Anymore and Max is going to implode and explode simultaneously. “What’d he say? Tell him I don’t understand a lick of French.”

 

“It's Italian." The you fucking idiot goes unsaid but it's evident through Charles' peevish expression. He smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. "I said that you should go and celebrate.”

 

Lando raises both hands in surrender and shuffles out of the booth. “No more cockblocking. Got it, bossman. Wouldn’t wanna end up floating in the Monaco harbour now, would I?” 

 

He blows another kiss at Max and then he’s gone.

 

Charles scowls. “Quel petit con.” He mutters petulantly under his breath, tone clipped. 

 

Max giggles. He knows what that means. 

 

Charles mellows at the sound of Max relaxing. He smiles, and this time it does reach his eyes, which sparkle prettier than the disco lights inside the club. Max is immediately mesmerised.

 

“I hope my profession does not turn you away, sweetheart. I really thought you knew.” Charles interlocks their fingers together. “It would break my heart but I do not want to see you sad.”

 

“No, of course not.” Max rushes to deny, the speed of which the words burst out of his mouth surprising even for himself. 

 

“I– um.” He takes a deep breath and tries to steady his voice. He’s way too drunk for this—he just knows that he’s going to sound like a bumbling fool. He doesn’t have the natural, flirting confidence and charisma that Charles has. Max tries anyway. 

 

“I know you are a good man, Charles. You are good to me.”

 

“I will always be good to you, Max. The day you think that I am not is the day I want you to take my gun and put a bullet hole through my head.”

 

Max chokes on his spit, slightly losing his momentum.

 

“Oh, um. Haha, funny that, Charles.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously before steeling himself and meeting Charles’ intense gaze head-on. 

 

“I choose to believe this version of you that I’ve seen through my own eyes is the true you. And this version of you is also very dear to me, you see. Uh. O-of course, I do not know much about mafia stuff, but, um– it must be an interesting job, um, k-killing people…? Do you– uh– kill… people?”

 

Charles brings their intertwined hands up to his mouth and presses a delicate kiss to the back of Max’s hand. Charles does this—opening showing his affections—a lot. Max pettily wonders if he does it with his other friends, also.

 

“I try not to,” Charles says cryptically, his eyes infinitely dark from his dilated pupils and drawing Max in endlessly like an abyss. Even if he does want to look away, avert his gaze, Max can’t find it in himself to do so. He falls impossibly deeper for Charles—how could he not? Charles is so breath-taking to watch—if Max had it his way, he would have Charles’ image seared onto his eyeballs so he could never forget it even if he went blind. 

 

Whoa. 

 

Where’d that thought come from? His mind reels and it feels like the floor has been pulled from beneath his feet—very woozy feeling, that. 

 

Max blinks, then yawns, suddenly very tired. 

 

“I think I am ready for home.” He announces to no one in particular. 

 

“Yes. Home.” Charles agrees, not nearly as intoxicated as Max is. He helps Max stand up with a secure arm around his waist. “Let’s get you to bed, mm? Mon petit bébé doux est prêt pour le lit.”

 

Home? Max thinks as his eyes slip shut. But he’s already at home, though? In Charles’ arms.

—

Max doesn’t remember much of the journey back to his apartment, mostly because he spends the majority of the taxi ride knocked out and drooling clumsily onto Charles’ shoulder.

 

When they arrive outside the lobby of Max’s apartment complex, Charles tenderly nudges Max awake. He chuckles quietly when Max whines in response and burrows further into Charles’ neck like a temperamental child. 

 

“Max. C’mon. You need to wake up or we can’t get you to bed.” Charles pauses for a short moment. “Unless you want me to carry you like a princess, hm? Of course that will make me very happy.”

 

“No. No carry.” Max protests sleepily, rubbing one of his eyes with a finger. 

 

He clambers out of the taxi, wobbling on his legs like a newborn giraffe. Charles manages to catch him by his arm before Max decides to accidentally make out with the concrete pavement. 

 

Somehow, Max stays upright the entire time to his apartment, even if in the elevator, he had to lean heavily on Charles and use the Monegasque as a support pillar every time the elevator floor shuddered when stopping and arriving at different floors.

 

“I’m gonna throw up,” Max declares just as Charles gets the entrance door open. There are already the telltale signs of saliva pooling in his mouth and the uncomfortable tension in his chest. 

 

“Now?” Charles asks, incredulous. 

 

“Yes.” Max chokes out. He clasps a hand over his mouth as his stomach lurches. “Would you like to hear it in French, too? Oui.”

 

Charles scrambles to get them into the bathroom in time. Jimmy and Sassy take one judgmental eyeful of Max’s condition and both of them make themselves scarce—unwilling to be caught up in the ensuing mess (traitors, Max crows in his head). 

 

Max all but collapses against the white porcelain of the toilet seat as the first wave of retching hits him. Tears well up in his eyes and mucus gathers in his nose. 

 

The acrid taste of vomit overwhelms his mouth as he hurls his dinner down the toilet. 

 

“Oh, mon pauvre bébé.” Charles sniffles sympathetically. He strokes Max’s back evenly as another bout of the retching takes over. “Pourquoi Dieu ne peut-il pas prendre toute ta douleur et me la donner?”

 

He stays like this, calmly tracing his hand up and down Max’s back while Max grips the seat with both hands like a lifeline, knuckles drawn so tight that the skin around them is as pale as the porcelain of the toilet. 

 

It feels like weeks, months, even years have passed when Max finally coughs up the last bit of bile into the toilet bowl. 

 

“I’m never drinking again,” he moans miserably against the edge of the toilet. 

 

“I’m sure,” Charles replies sarcastically. He helps Max get up from the bathroom floor and leans him against the sink, fills a glass with water and hands it to Max. 

 

“Here. Rinse your mouth.” 

 

Max feels so sluggish that he takes the glass without a fuss. Even gargles the water in his mouth a few times before spitting the acidic taste into the sink. He hears Charles flush the toilet multiple times, probably to get rid of all the vomit. 

 

Before he can mumble out his thanks, a toothbrush with toothpaste already squeezed onto it is passed to him. Max takes it obediently again and brushes his teeth lazily as Charles washes his hand at the sink and towels them dry. 

 

Once his breath is adequately minty again, Max hobbles his way into his bedroom and keels over face-first on top of his bedsheets. 

 

“Non.” Charles scolds lightly, following him in. “Come on. Change into your pyjamas before sleeping. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

 

“Nooo,” Max grumbles stubbornly, rolling onto his back. He pulls his shirt easily over his head and tosses it somewhere onto the floor and turns onto his side to go to sleep.

 

“Chéri.” 

 

“Please, Charles. I’m so tired. Let me sleep?”

 

Max hears Charles sigh. There’s no particular trace of annoyance in his voice, though, just fondness instead. 

 

“At least take off your jeans?” He reasons, which—that’s a great idea. It’s a fantastic idea, why hadn’t Max thought of that earlier?

 

His hands fly to the button. He manages to unzip himself but the skinny jeans are stuck to his legs like glue. Max whines, frustrated by his lack of progress after several minutes of uncoordinated tugging. 

 

Gentle hands pry Max’s away when the fabric ends up bunched at his thighs. Charles must be a miracle worker because he gets the jeans off Max instantly. 

 

Max peers down his body as he watches Charles pull the cuffs off his ankles, suddenly jerking awake when he realises that he’s lying basically naked in his bed while Charles is touching him at the foot of it. Max is so glad that the violent puking had made him feel so ill that he couldn’t get hard even if he tried. 

 

Charles folds the jeans carefully and neatly places them on a chair. He shuffles over to where Max is still laying very still on his bed and manhandles him until he’s tucked in snuggly underneath his blankets. 

 

“Goodnight, Max.” Charles crouches down and presses a tender kiss to Max’s clammy forehead. 

 

Max, caught off-guard by a sudden surge of anxiety that spikes through him, shoots a hand out and grabs Charles as he is rising from the bed.

 

“Charles, I know I’m asking for a lot, but can you. Um…” Max trails off.

 

Charles looks at him expectantly. Max squirms under his earnest gaze. 

 

“Can you please stay the night in–” He swallows a nervous hiccup, heat rising rapidly up his neck. “Can you please stay the night here– uh. I-in my bed, please…”

 

“Oh, sweetheart. Are you sure?” Charles asks softly.

 

“Yes.” Max nods eagerly. 

 

“Just to sleep, I promise!” He tacks on hastily when he sees the wide-eyed look that Charles gives him. “Just. It, um. It feels safer, when, you know– when, like– you’re here…”

 

“Of course, Max.” Charles coos. Max buries his entire head under his pillow out of embarrassment. “Just give me a second to brush my teeth. I’ll be right back.”

 

Max is half asleep when Charles finishes up in the bathroom and comes back into the bedroom. He vaguely feels the bed dip under Charles’ weight as he climbs under the sheets.

 

“I borrowed a shirt and some shorts. I hope you don’t mind,” Charles whispers into the modest distance that he’s left between the two of them. Max fights and stamps down the disappointment that tries to crawl up his mind. Why didn’t he buy a smaller bed when he first moved into the apartment?

 

Charles must be also lying on his back because Max catches a whiff of his minty toothpaste wafting over the gap. 

 

“Um, Charles?” Max murmurs into the stillness of the night, slipping in and out of sleep. 

 

Charles hums lightly in response. 

 

“I know I said that stuff about not caring that you’re in the mafia. I just want you to know I was, of course, being serious about it. You are a special person to me–” Max pauses to smack his lips, barely lucid. “I would lo…”

 

He drifts off, the sentence left unfinished, half of it still hanging in his mouth as sleep thoroughly tides him over. 

 

Because he is already off to dreamland, Max is entirely oblivious to the wide, adoring smile that spreads across Charles’ face, who slips his hand into the space between them and finds Max’s hand already waiting for him, even in his slumber. 

 

“We will speak in the morning, mon cœur. Pour l’instant, j’espère que tu es béni avec les rêves les plus doux.”

 

Charles links their fingers together and lets sleep slip his eyes closed as well.

—

The sun streams gently into the bedroom through the small crack in the curtains where it doesn’t quite close, slivers of the light caressing and illuminating the room.

 

Max slowly blinks back into consciousness. He must’ve done some good deeds recently because he wakes with a pleasant ache in his body and not even the slightest hint of an earth shattering hangover. 

 

He uncurls his arms that were tucked against his chest and lazily stretches, wiggling around beneath the sheets to get comfortable, and jolts into stillness when he realises the firm outline of a body pressed into his back.

 

An arm is slung heavily across his waist and a possessive hand rests flatly against his stomach, body warmth radiating off of it. 

 

He freezes, mind rocketing from 0 to 100 on the sobriety scale faster than he can launch off the startline.

 

It’s Charles, his unhelpful lizard brain supplies.

 

I know! Max irritably shouts back, going into a state of subtle panic. He squirms some more, trying to get up from the big tangle of mess that he, Charles and the sheets have become. However, his efforts are fruitless. Charles stirs but doesn’t wake up, just grunts grumpily and tightens his embrace, pinning Max to place against his strong chest. 

 

A pink flush rises up Max’s neck. His whole face feels like it’s been set on fire–

 

–there’s something unmistakably hard poking him in the ass. 

 

Fuck, Max thinks.

 

“Fuck,” he says out loud emphatically. 

 

The sound of Max speaking breaks the tranquil silence in the room. Charles, like a sleeper agent whose secret code is Max’s voice, muffles a yawn into Max’s nape and a small, questioning hum reverberates from his chest. Max feels the tiny vibrations against his back. 

 

Finally, Charles wakes up. 

 

“Good morning, Max,” he says, purring like a big, lazy cat. He’s completely unaware of the pressing matter at hand. 

 

“Charles,” Max whines. He’s aware of how needy he sounds but he’s too focused on the boner pressed against the small of his back to think about anything else. 

 

“Quoi?” Charles says, snapping to alertness with concern lacing his voice. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling oka– oh.”

 

“Um.”

 

Charles immediately loosens his arm around Max and scrambles to sit up. The disappointment that flares up in Max is so sharp and obvious that he can’t even, hand to heart, lie to himself that he doesn’t miss being held in Charles’ arms. 

 

“I am so sorry. Oh my god,” Charles says, mortified. He’s hiding his red face with both hands, but even the tips of his ears are tinged red. 

 

It’s– cute. Adorable, even.

 

Which is a crazy way to think about probably the most terrifying man in all of Monaco.

 

But it’s also just Charles. A bit of drool dried up at the corner of his mouth. Hair rumbled from rolling around in his sleep. Eye boogers still hanging about. Soft and endearing, blushing redder than his beloved Ferraris on Max’s bed in Max’s pyjamas like he’s always belonged here. 

 

“It’s okay. It’s just morning wood, mate.” Max says with an awkward laugh. A rush of heat spreads across his face. Charles peers at him curiously through the gaps in his fingers. With a shaky voice, Max admits quietly: “also, I don’t mind it.”

 

Charles stops hiding. 

 

“Max.” 

 

“Um.”

 

“Max,” Charles says again, a wide smile spreading across his face.

 

“Um.”

 

“Max.” Charles looks like a shark that’s gotten a whiff of blood after starving for days. Max feels every bit like the image of a prey reflected in his green eyes. “Max, do you like it? Me having a boner for you?”

 

“Um.”

 

Charles shifts, closing the gap between them. “Stop saying ‘um’, sweetheart. Or have I managed to leave you, of all people, speechless?”

 

“Oh, fuck off, Charles.” Max spits rudely, humiliation washing over him like a massive tsunami wave that engulfs everything in sight.

 

The smile on Charles’ face spreads impossibly wider.

 

“Tell me, mon cœur, do you like it? Do you…” Charles trails off, batting his lashes and looking up at Max coyly, like a cat that got the cream. “–like me?”

 

“Yes!” Max bursts, the words ripping themselves out from his chest. Years of pent up feelings pouring out of him now that the dam has been broken. He can’t stop it even if he tries. “Yes. Fine. I like you, okay? Who wouldn’t? Look at yourself, Charles! You’re like a handsome, sexier version of Mario. All Italian charm even though you’re not Italian, which I guess makes sense now, but that’s besides the point– what am I saying? Whatever. Of course I like you, oh my god–”

 

Charles cuts off Max’s ramblings by surging forward and capturing his lips in a heated kiss. Max moans into it and collapses against the bed with Charles’ familiar weight blanketing him. 

 

“Can I kiss you?” Charles asks against Max’s lips, voice thin. Max laughs inwardly, hysterically—wants to remind Charles that he should probably ask that question before he has sucked the breath out of Max’s lungs, but all he can do is nod his head and meet Charles’ lips halfway. 

 

Kissing Charles is exactly as Max has fantasised countlessly over the years and nothing like his imagination at all. Kissing Charles is like standing at the gates of heaven. 

 

Charles kisses him with the passion and fervour of a man drowning, one of his hands gripping Max at the hinge of his jaw and the other fisted tightly in his hair. But Charles is also as gentle as always, touching Max delicately like a porcelain doll—like he’s afraid that even if he is just a touch rougher, Max would shatter at his feet into a million pieces. 

 

Charles slips a hand from Max’s face downwards until he’s cupping a tit in it. Max breaks away from the kiss to gasp. 

 

“Charles.” He pleads, his skin blotchy with patches of red and pink all the way from his face down to his chest. 

 

“What do you want me to do?” Charles rubs a thumb over the peak of Max’s nipple and then he draws back, away from where Max wants him the most. “I will do anything for you. You just have to say the word, sweetheart.”

 

“I hate you.” Max whines, hips bucking off the bed in effort to grind his crotch against Charles’. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you so much and I want you to fuck me stupid until I cannot walk properly or sit in the car next week without feeling the imprint of your dick in my ass.”

 

Charles smirks meanly. He’s an evil, cruel man. Max finds him ridiculously hot, anyway.

 

“Tu dis des choses très dangereuses en ce moment, chéri.” He bends down and sucks Max’s right nipple into his mouth, tugging on the nub lightly with his teeth. “I am going to make you come harder than you have ever before, and you are going to take it.”

 

“Yes, yes,” Max sobs frantically. “Yes. Charles, please.”

 

Charles pulls away for a brief moment to pull his shirt off and discard it somewhere unimportant, and then he’s back on Max, big warm hands gripping his thighs urgently as he drags his tongue wetly across Max’s stiffening cock still in his underwear. 

 

“Charles.” Max hisses. “Mouth. Now.”

 

True to his word, Charles obliges without a single complaint about Max’s bossiness. Max’s boxers are gone and disappeared in a matter of seconds. Woah. Houdini. Then his head is between Max’s thighs again, and he swallows Max’s cock from tip to root. 

 

“Fuck! Fuck. What is wrong with you?” Max wails, hands shooting down and gripping Charles’ hair like a steering wheel. 

 

The wet, suctioning warmth of Charles’ mouth is there for a moment and then it’s not there anymore. Max is about to cuss some more when Charles wraps his lips around the head of his cock and sucks.

 

Max loses his mind. He’s gotten blown before but never has it felt like this– ever this good before. It’s like Charles was made to suck his dick, to trace his tongue down the veins of it, to hold the tip of it in the back of his throat. 

 

Charles is blowing him like he wants to suck Max’s life out of his cock, and he’s succeeding. Max is reduced to a trembling, pitiful mess, unable to hold back his high pitched moans as Charles swallows him down from tip to root, again and again, sinking further down every time. 

 

Max bucks uncontrollably into Charles’ mouth, the force of it unexpected. Charles chokes a little, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes and whimpers. Max feels every little vibration– all of it. He’s not even coherent enough to apologise.

 

Charles pins his arm across Max’s hips and swirls his tongue in Max’s slit in revenge just to watch him arch off the bed trying to get closer but unable to against Charles’ hold.

 

“Charles. Charles.” Max begs, voice hoarse from all the screaming. He pushes his fingers into Charles’ face desperately. Charles grabs his wrist and slurps off his cock, leaving a mess of saliva and pre-cum behind, and sucks the fingers into his mouth instead. A violent shudder rocks through Max’s body. 

 

“I want to come on your dick.” He declares wetly, trying to name all of Mercedes’ staff in his head (Toto, Lewis, George– ugh, that’s enough) so he doesn’t come then and there and end their tryst prematurely. 

 

Thankfully, Charles halts his attempt at killing Max through orgasm and looks up at him with dark eyes, almost all the green in them swallowed by the blackness of his pupils, leaving only a green ring around it. 

 

“Lube and condom.” Charles sits back on his haunches and shucks his shorts and underwear off in one fell swoop; they, too, join the scattered pieces of abandoned clothing, forming a halo around Max’s bed.

 

Max reaches up in his bedside cabinet and pulls out the lube, handing it shyly to Charles.

 

“Can we– can we not on the condoms?” He asks sheepishly, face burning. “You know we are tested every month so I am clean. And I trust you.”

 

Charles bends down and presses a chaste kiss to Max’s forehead, where the sweat has gathered in his hair and wet the strands. “Of course, sweetheart. Anything you want.”

 

He settles back down between Max’s knees and squirts a generous amount of lube onto his fingers. Max tries to regulate his breathing, compose himself, but the vision of Charles, face concentrated and the glistening skin of his abs taut with tension, veins protruding on the back of his hand and up his forearms is enough to send Max hurtling into cardiac arrest. 

 

Max flinches at the first touch of Charles’ fingers at his rim, the lube too cold in comparison to his heated skin. Charles makes a cooing noise at him as if to soothe him. 

 

He palms Max’s ass with his other hand, kneading the plump muscle of it as he breaches the tight ring with his middle finger and inches it in to the first knuckle. 

 

Max moans, nails digging in hard on Charles’ muscled back. “More, Charles. You can do more.”

 

Charles slides the finger in to the root. Max gasps as pleasure shocks across his body. Charles’ finger is in him– Charles is in him–

 

“Beautiful.” Charles pants, breathing harshly. “You are so beautiful, so perfect. I want to see you like this every single day until I die.”

 

“Please, Charles. You can do more,” Max can only beg as Charles begins to prod against his inner walls with his finger, twisting it and thrusting it in and out. 

 

It’s not the first time Max has been fucked, but it’s definitely the first time that just a single finger in him has already brought him to the edge. 

 

Charles pulls his finger out and lets a thick wad of saliva drip down from his tongue onto his palm, where it mixes with the lube. He thrusts his ring finger in alongside this time, scissoring his digits to make sure Max is properly stretched. 

 

“How are you so pretty, huh, baby,” Charles says, eyes fixed on where his fingers are fucking in and out of Max wetly, his ass squealching shamelessly, noisily every time Charles fucks his finger back in. Max should probably be embarrassed by how sloppy and wet he’s becoming with only two fingers in him, but his mind has been whited out with pleasure long ago. 

 

“It’s like you are trying to kill me. Merde. My dick will fall off before I can get it in you.”

 

“No.” Max cries, nails raking down the broad span of Charles’ back.  “No, your dick can’t fall off! I need it. I need it. Please, Charles, you promised.”

 

“I did, didn’t I?” 

 

Charles grips Max’s neglected cock in one hand as he fucks three fingers into Max, quick and rough. Max is leaking profusely at the tip, which has turned an angry shade of red. 

 

“Fuck. Everything about you is so pretty, sweetheart. Pretty face, pretty cock, pretty ass. All for me, non?” Charles hisses wetly into Max’s ear, tongue tip tracing the inner-shell.

 

Max nods frantically, barely hearing the accented words spewing out of Charles’ words over the buzzing white noise filling his ears from the pleasure melting his brain. It doesn’t matter what Charles says, he’s right either way. 

 

“Fuck, baby, I am never letting you go now. No one else can have you like this, okay? Not unless you get tired of me one day and kill me. Even then, my ghost will haunt you forever.”

 

Max moans. Why is Charles talking so damn much? 

 

“Charles, hurry,” he orders blearily. “Hurry up already.”

 

“Sì.” Charles leans over and kisses Max again, messy and uncoordinated. 

 

He runs his drenched fingers over his cock, jerking it a few times while watching Max’s sloppy hole spasm around nothing expectantly. 

 

“Charles. Your dick.” Max mewls. 

 

He’s looking at it. It’s glorious. Fat and long, with a thick vein running down the side. Max wants it in his mouth next time, he wants it sitting hot and heavy on his tongue while the salty pre-cum pools and mixes with his spit in the back of his throat. It’s beautiful, but why isn’t it in Max already?

 

Max makes an impatient, keening sound, digging his heels desperately into the small of Charles’ back. 

 

Charles grasps the dip of Max’s waist with a big hand and grips his cock with the other, guiding the head to Max’s hole. Max opens his mouth to shout come on, what are you waiting for but before the words can leave his mouth, Charles finally pushes inside. 

 

An animalistic growl rips from Max’s chest. 

 

Sparks are going off inside his head. Fuck, Charles feels huge in him. His rim is strained tautly around the base of Charles’ cock, and Max can feel the head of it sitting in his guts, the overwhelming heavy weight of it, just below his belly button. 

 

Charles pulls back slowly, almost dragging Max’s walls out with him, and rapidly shoves the entirety of his length back in without warning, crushing Max’s prostate in the process. It punches out a shocked sob from Max’s throat, his body going tense like an elastic band pulled too tight.

 

He’s full– he’s too full–

 

Max tries to tell Charles to slow down, but all that leaves his mouth is a gargle of incoherent sounds. His arms lay limply around Charles’ shoulders. 

 

“Max, fuck, you feel too good.” Charles gasps out hotly like he can’t breathe. “On dirait que tu es fait pour ça.”

 

“Charles.” He’s starting to sound like a broken record but it’s the only coherent noise Max can currently manage.

 

Charles fucks him at a brutal pace, hands gripping Max’s hips like handles as he pulls his body down onto his cock at the same time as fucking it roughly back in. Max can only hold on and scream into Charles’ neck and pray that he comes, then dies, preferably in that order. He’s soaked in sweat and pre-cum, his vision is blurred from the tears in his eyes, Charles’ monster cock feels like a fist pounding his insides, dragging wetly in and out of his hole with every thrust of his hips. 

 

Max can never ever sit in a Formula 1 car again. His ass is now too ruined for it.

 

Charles is fucking in so deeply now, hips slapping sharply against the skin of Max’s ass every time he thrusts in, Max swears he can feel the imprint of his cockhead in the back of his throat. Charles must be fucking him so hard that he’s rearranging his guts, because why else would Max’s navel tingle like that. 

 

He’s coming before he is even aware of it, cock untouched, and ass clenching and clamping down on the thick, heavy girth of Charles’ cock. 

 

Max comes so hard that his vision whites out entirely and his ears ring. His mouth is open but he’s not sure any sound is coming out. Charles is a fucking visionary above him, sweat dripping down his nose, lips shiny from spit and swollen from the kissing, his brows drawn in concentration, and those deep eyes of his—trained on Max like Max is– 

 

Like Max is everything to him, the stars, the moon, the sun, the planets. Every molecule, compound, atom that forms space and time, and Charles is just a little speck of dust, an inconsequential being who chooses to watch the brilliance of the universe shape life around him. 

 

And then Charles is coming, too, cum shooting forward, coating Max’s insides with white, sticky fluids. His eyes roll into the back of his head, lips falling open in a silent scream of Max’s name.

 

He collapses forward onto Max, who is so tired that he can’t even muster up the energy to catch him. Charles’ dick slips out in the process, and a rush of lube and cum pour out of Max’s loose hole. It feels so lax that Max is briefly afraid that it will never close back up again.

 

For a while, it’s just the two of them panting and breathing into the stillness of the room. Charles is the first to stir, falling off to his side so he’s no longer crushing Max under his weight.

 

“Ti amo.” He tilts his head upwards and presses a kiss into Max’s hair, just behind his ear. “Je t'aime.” Another kiss, this time planted sweetly on Max’s cheek. “I have loved you since the moment I laid these undeserving eyes of mine on you. And I will continue to love you until my heart stops beating.”

 

Max thinks he’s crying. Something wet slides down his cheek. Okay. He’s definitely crying.

 

“I love you, Charles.” He whispers, voice trembling with emotion. Charles brings a hand up and gently caresses the tears away. 

 

“I love you, too, Max.” He’s smiling, like he always is around Max.

 

“Même Dieu lui-même ne peut pas m'empêcher de t'aimer.”

—

Once they both had calmed down, showered, and Max had started feeling more like a civilised human again and less like a sticky rabid animal whose only primitive instinct was dick dick dick, they’re back to lazing on Max’s bed.

 

There’s a bunch of missed calls on Max’s phone, with the top notification being a text from Gemma that reads: Please call me when you see this message, Max.

 

Max calls Gemma in bed and puts her on speaker, figuring that PR content is probably fine for Charles to listen in on since it isn’t car-related or technical information. 

 

“Hello Gemma,” Max says when the dial tone goes through. “You are on speaker, by the way. Charles is over at mine.”

 

“Hi Max, Charles,” Gemma says. Max tries not to think too deeply about why Gemma is so nonchalant about him and Charles being together. “How are you feeling this morning?”

 

“Fine, yeah, and yourself?”

 

“I’m doing alright. Thanks for asking.” Gemma pauses, as if to gather her words. “Max, I’m sorry about having to break uncomfortable news, but unfortunately photos of you in the restroom have been leaked on social media platforms overnight.”

 

“What?” Max blinks. Charles swears quietly under his breath from next to him. 

 

“Yes, we’re not yet quite sure how that has happened, given the stricter protocols since George’s incident earlier this year.” Gemma’s tinny voice explains through his phone speaker. “We’ve managed to remove most of it from the internet, but right now, we can’t locate the source.” 

 

“Was it explicit?” Max asks, hands clammy. “Like– was my dick in it? Sorry.”

 

“No, you’re all good,” Gemma says. “I probably can’t send you the photo over the phone, but I can guarantee that no genitals were shown. You’re fully dressed in the photo, standing by the sink with two men. It wasn’t at the urinals or inside a stall. If you want to look at it for yourself, I’ll see if I can get an encrypted copy to you via email. How’s that sound?”

 

“Yes, please do that.” 

 

Max’s mind is reeling. The bathroom from last night at the club? He clearly only remembers two men being in there with him. He wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t remember what happened. 

 

“Was it CCTV footage that was leaked?” Max asks in confusion.

 

“No, we believe it was taken from a handheld mobile device,” Gemma replies with a sigh. “Max, I am so sorry that this has happened to you. We’re looking into it to the best of our ability right now, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can on any updates.”

 

“It’s not your fault, Gemma,” Max placates. He’s not too fazed by it considering the photo itself is innocent enough. “Thank you for trying, anyway.”

 

“Okay, Max. I’ll see you soon, bye bye.”

 

“See you. Bye.” Max hangs up the phone.

 

Charles is already seething, Max can see the wrath and rage in his eyes whirling around and clashing against each other like violent waves during a storm. 

 

“It’s fine,” Max says. 

 

“No, it’s not fine.” Charles hisses. He looks like he’s about to kill someone, which, considering the implications, is not something to be taken lightly. “Max, someone is invading your privacy, in my club. That is not fine. I will take care of it if your idiotic team is incompetent.”

 

“Woah. Hey. There’s nothing for you to take care of. Also, you own Jimmy'z?” 

 

“There is, yes? A freak is out there taking photos of you. I own all the clubs and casinos in Monaco.” 

 

Max had thought Monaco citizens weren’t even allowed inside the casinos and here Charles is, telling him that he owns all of them? Alright, that’s something for Max to think about the next time he’s out there driving alone in a race that has 19 other cars.

 

“If taking photos of me makes people freaks, then there would be a lot more than just one person for you to ‘take care off’.” Max mocks with a roll of his eyes. He crosses his arms against his chest. “Look. It was probably just a drunk guy. Probably thought he would get a lot of clicks if he uploaded it on Twitter or something. Now he’s too scared to get in trouble if he steps forward. No harm done.”

 

“Max, it was taken of you inside the bathroom. That is so different.” Charles argues, voice frustrated. “That is not okay.”

 

“I’m far from the first celebrity to have my bathroom photo leaked.” Max raises an eyebrow. “I was just washing my hands. Better than George, at least.”

 

Charles just scowls. 

 

“Charles.” Max sighs. “I get that you’re angry for me. But it’s not a big issue that needs to get blown up. It’s not even the worst photo scandal I’ve been in, okay? I’ve handled much worse. You don’t need to be mad on my part.”

 

Charles huffs out a reluctant noise. “I am not mad at you, mon chéri. I will never be. But I don’t like this at all.”

 

“I know.” Max smiles, knocking his shoulder against Charles’ playfully, trying to lighten the mood. “Thank you for that. Just– let’s not think about this anymore, okay?”

 

“If that is what you want, mon cœur, then that is what I do.” 

 

Max cheers sarcastically, but he can’t even fight the grin that spreads on his face. He pecks Charles lightly on his lips and goes back to sorting through the other notifications on his phone. 

 

However, even though he’d vehemently denied to Charles about this incident bothering him, Max can’t help the unplaceable, anxious ball of ugly trepidation and unease that rises in his chest. 

 

Max swallows and tries to ignore it, but it just falls back down and settles unperturbed, deep in his stomach. 

—

If Max had thought Charles was over-the-top with his gift-giving before, that’s because he’s yet to experience Charles’ generous nature after they start dating. 

 

It’s a sunny Saturday morning in Montreal, Max is preparing for FP3 in his driver’s room when there’s an unhurried knock at his door. 

 

“Come in.” He calls out and sets the resistance bands down on the bench.

 

“Hello sweetheart.” A familiar French lilt.

 

“Charles! You’re here?” Max gasps excitedly. He could’ve sworn that Charles had said he’d be too busy with work to make it to the Canadian Grand Prix. Max had whined and sulked for a bit but then he realised that running a crime syndicate is probably not light work. 

 

“Yes. I’m here.” Charles enters the room with a gigantic bouquet of red roses. “I finished everything early so I am here.”

 

Max takes the roses gratefully, holding them under his nose to take a whiff. “You didn’t have to.”

 

“I wanted to.” Charles smiles. “As good luck for this weekend, non? Even though I do not think you need it.”

 

Max leans over the flowers and kisses Charles lightly on the lips. “Thanks.”

 

He places the roses down carefully on his desk, making sure that not a single flower is crushed. Charles watches him warmly, eyes crinkled with adoration. 

 

Max grins, a sudden thought popping into his head. He yanks Charles forward by the collar of his shirt and crushes his mouth against Charles’. Slowly, he backs Charles against the wall with a firm hand around his hip and the other one sinking into his artfully tousled brown curls.

 

“I have some time till FP3,” Max says with a naughty glint in his eyes. He slips down to his knees and wraps his hands around Charles’ thighs. “Let me thank you properly, hm?”

 

“Max–” Charles whispers.

 

Max just puts his mouth on him in response and lets Charles melt. 

—

Charles is off to talk to Pierre in the Alpine hospitality before qualifying. 

 

Max wonders to himself if Pierre also knows that Charles is a mobster. Who is he kidding, Pierre definitely knows. Lando certainly knew and acted on the basis that Max knew, too. It seems like everyone had known, except Max, which– okay. He doesn’t think he’s stupid, but maybe he is.

 

At least, Max hopes everyone doesn’t think he’s as stupid as he feels.

 

Leaning against a wall in the back of the garage, Max scrolls aimlessly through Instagram reels as he waits for the go ahead to put on his balaclava and helmet and get in the car for Q1. 

 

He likes an edit of Moo Deng to Charli XCX’s apple and clicks at the top to refresh his feed, hoping that will help the algorithm feed him more baby hippo content.

 

The connection’s a bit shit in the garage with the amount of electronic devices the team’s got running in here so it takes a second longer to load than normal. Max glances around while waiting, smiling and waving at team personnel.

 

When he looks back down at his screen, he almost drops his phone.

 

The post that’s just loaded–

 

It’s photos of a hotel room. Inconspicuous and nondescript to almost anyone. Everyone except Max. He recognises the room instantly, because it’s his. His hotel, his room, his luggage, laid out in the open, his personal items strewn about. 

 

The blood in Max’s veins instantly curdles into ice. 

 

He hasn’t unpacked his luggage to that extent yet. 

 

He doesn’t like to unpack everything when he gets to a hotel, just takes out what he needs as the days go by. He’d learnt early in his career that it’s easier to pack up this way when it’s time to go. It also keeps his room neat, which is good for his general mood.

 

Never would he let it become so messy like this. Clothes scattered all over the carpet. His laptop, sitting open on the table even though he always closes the lid after using it. Underwear thrown about on the bed. His–

 

Someone’s gone through his stuff. A stranger. Inside his hotel room. Touching his things–

 

“Here you go, Max.” Rupert hands his helmet to him with one hand. His other hand outreached, waiting patiently for Max to hand him his phone.

 

Max clicks his phone shut and drops it in Rupert’s hand. He pulls his balaclava on and then his helmet. 

 

His limbs feel stiff and robotic. His mind is a haze, relying on muscle memory alone to tuck the balaclava into the neck of his race suit and do the buckles on the helmet. If Rupert notices something wrong with Max, he very politely keeps it to himself. 

 

Max is climbing into the car when a tap on the shoulder knocks him back into consciousness. 

 

Christian is standing there, a harried, daunted look marring his face. “We need to talk after qualifying. Head in the game now.”

 

Even without any context, Max, unfortunately– dreadfully, already knows what he’s referring to.

—

Q1 is uneventful and Max is thankful for that because his mind is all over the place. 

 

He does a banker lap on fresh, soft tyres and then goes back out for a second lap later with the same, used ones. He improves by 2 tenths on his second flyer due to track evolution but his first lap time is good enough that he would have gotten through regardless.

 

Q2 is a different story. Max sets the fastest time on new softs on his first run, but then the track is ramping up very fast and Max needs to get a second lap in or he’ll probably get eliminated. 

 

The traffic is impossible to navigate on his out lap and then he’s massively impeded by Magnussen on his second run. It’s so bad that he backs off immediately and has to take the chequered flag without a second fast lap, cursing and swearing loudly on the radio so that there’s no way GP and the stewards can excuse a grid penalty for the Haas driver. 

 

He progresses into Q3 in P10, safe from being dropped by only seven milliseconds. He makes sure that GP is very aware of his displeasure with the timing of his laps. 

 

By Q3, Max’s frazzled thoughts have sharpened into acute anger. 

 

How dare someone do this to him? Treat his privacy and his dignity and his security and his life like an insignificant game? How dare they, how dare they, how dare they. 

 

Lando gets on provisional pole with thirty seconds left on the clock. They both came into Q3 with two sets of new softs and the McLaren have been very competitive all weekend. Max can feel his temper boiling over as he upshifts recklessly fast while coming out of the braking zone in for the turn 13, 14 chicanes. 

 

He zooms down the final, last straight, bouncing in the car from the porpoising. He’d been a bit late on the brakes through the hairpin in sector 2 and the car had wobbled dangerously, flinching underneath him. The mistake costs him about a tenth or two. It’s time that he has to make up for in sector 3—the shortest sector of the track.

 

Max is the last one to cross the line. The crowd roars. Purple, yellow, purple. He’d dunked three tenths on Lando’s time in the last sector alone.

 

He’s on pole. 

 

Fuck you, he thinks angrily, take that and fuck you. Fuck. You.  

 

His father didn’t raise him to cower in the face of adversity. His father didn’t–

 

Fuck. Max doesn’t even want to think about what his father thought about the photos. His head throbs in muted pain.

 

“That’s P1, Max. P1. That was a good save there at the end. Norris P2. Piastri P3.” GP tells him over the team radio. He can hear the muffled cheers of his team celebrating in the background—it’s his eighth pole of the season and there’s only been nine rounds.

 

“Yes, haha. Almost lost it there in turn 10.” His voice sounds empty even to his own ears. “Thank you to everyone. Tomorrow will be a good race.”

 

Christian’s voice filters through his earpiece. “Good job, Max. Another fantastic pole. Looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

 

Max thanks Christian perfunctorily on team radio and pulls his car into parc fermé. 

 

Now that the anger has dissipated, he’s left holding his ugly heart in his hands. For the world to see.

 

He climbs out of the car, raises his fist and jumps down. There’s a routine for him to stick to without much thinking necessary. Go to his team, clap their backs. Take off his helmet and balaclava. Go get weighed. Yap about his laps to an unsuspecting Oscar. Do his pole interview with Hinchcliff. Press conference, media pen, shower, change, team briefing in the hospitality, go over his data for the race, eat dinner, get in the car, go back to the hotel–

 

“Max.” 

 

He hates the pitiful gentleness in Gemma’s voice. He thinks Charles’ uncontrolled rage was better. Easier to deal with, navigate, react to.

 

Easier to swallow. 

 

“Max. Christian is waiting for you in his office.” So they know he knows. Rupert must have said something after all. “Charles is there, too. He’s been made aware.”

 

True to her words, Charles is sitting in the armchair across from Christian, eyebrows drawn tight and his lips pulled shut, forming a thin line. His jaw bulges from the sheer force that he is clenching it with. 

 

Christian just looks tired, but not as much as Max feels. 

 

“Max,” he says, looking up from his computer when Max walks in with Gemma trailing behind. 

 

“Mon cœur,” Charles says, so much more enveloping, so much more understanding. He stands from his seat and meets Max halfway, wrapping him up in his strong arms carefully. 

 

Max breaks instantly, muffling the scream he wants to let out into Charles’ shoulder.

 

He lets Charles lead him to a chair and flops down carelessly, exhaustion seeped into his bones. Charles remains standing behind him, a big hand resting on Max’s shoulder reassuringly. 

 

“I want it deleted off the internet,” Max finally says, staring at Christian with barely hidden scorn and resentment alight in his blue eyes. 

 

“We’ve done that already, Max.” Christian explains. “No news site will be publishing anything on it either. Neither will any of the journalists be asking you, or anyone, about it for that matter. If they do, we are going after them with as many lawsuits as it takes for them to never even mention your name again.”

 

“Okay. Then we are done here.” Max concludes. 

 

“Max, wait.” Christian holds up a hand, palm facing outwards. “We’ve rearranged your accommodation, and also increased your security detail.”

 

Charles bitterly hisses out. “You cannot catch one man. It’s the same man, now it’s the second time. How many more times does he need to hurt Max for you to do something? Forget it, I am going to take care of this from now on.”

 

“Absolutely not,” Christian argues. “Max’s safety is our priority, nothing can be compromised. We can’t take risks anymore. Especially your involvement, which one might assume correctly would be through illegal means, anyway.”

 

“At least we take care of our own,” Charles says angrily. “Hurting us the same way twice is not possible. You know why? Because one attempt and we cut off the head of the snake. I shouldn’t have let you take care of it the first time. Look at where we are now.”

 

“And where does that put Red Bull? If it breaks out that the mafia–”

 

“Enough.” Max stands from the chair, Charles immediately moving around him and laying a hand on the small of his back to support him. “I want to rest. There’s still a race tomorrow to complete. Head in the game, right?” 

 

He chuckles humourlessly.

 

“We’ve sent your clothes to be laundered, Max. And your laptop to be analysed in case it was hacked into. Here.” Gemma holds out a shopping bag to Max. “It’s all new stuff. Clothes, toiletries, everything. There will be bodyguards staying with you at the new hotel for the time being.”

 

Max sends Charles a look. 

 

“Of course, chéri.” He presses a sad kiss to Max’s temple. He takes the bag from Gemma’s hands. “Of course I will be there with you.” 

 

The clean, sleek angular edges of the gun hidden under Charles’ jacket in his shoulder holster brushes against Max’s arm as they walk to the car waiting for them.   

 

For once, its presence is calming for Max.

—

Max wins the race on Sunday. It’s a good one, with lots of strategy at play with the rain and wet weather tyres. 

 

The Red Bull pit-wall gets everything correct with Max’s feedback about track conditions, and Max sails past the finish line with Lando trailing five seconds behind.

 

It’s an exhilarating win. A close one, by Max’s standards. But all that goes through his mind is his apartment in Monte Carlo, Jimmy and Sassy twirling around his legs, his race-sim, his bed, Charles waiting for him on the couch in the living room– his home.

 

The celebrations after the race are a blur. By the evening, Max is in his private jet, already flying back to Monaco. Lando and Daniel don’t catch a flight with him, this time. They can’t. Not with the security detail shadowing Max’s every move and therefore, also taking up his plane seats. At least there’s one left for Charles. Max may have lost his mind otherwise. 

 

There’s a two week break until the Spanish Grand Prix and Max wants to spend at least half of it with his face buried in his pillows in self-pity. 

 

It pisses him off that he’s going to have to do that now with the upgraded bonus of having two suited strangers flitting through his apartment. 

 

It’s for his own good, Max knows that, but no one likes strangers in their home, no matter how non-intruding or non-invasive they try to make themselves appear to be. 

 

Max does exactly as he plans. Sticks to his bedroom the first three days after getting back because he hates running into the guards in his hallways. Charles stays overnight with him on the night they land back in Monaco, but by Tuesday, he has to go back breaking kneecaps and helping the Italian mob wash their dirty cash into clean, upstanding citizen taxable income.

 

On Thursday, Max wakes to the insistent buzzing of his phone. He slaps a hand over it sluggishly and tugs the charger out. He squints at the screen, which is way too bright for him. Charles’ name flashes across it.

 

“What,” Max answers with a yawn.

 

“I’m coming over.” Charles says, his voice flat. It jolts Max awake. Always, Charles croons sweet nothings into Max’s ear in the morning. Never this—cold, collected and not– not Charles. “I’ll be there in five.” 

 

Max hangs up the phone and stretches, sitting up in his bed. 

 

Before he can do anything else, a security guard knocks on his door. 

 

“Mr. Verstappen.” The monotonous voice speaks. “I have received instructions to tell you that it would be best to remain offline for a while.”

 

“What?” Max asks, confused.  

 

He immediately unlocks his phone. They should know by now that Max will always do what others tell him not to. 

 

A spew of notifications fly in. There are several missed calls, from Charles, Gemma, Christian, friends, even his mother and Victoria. And the one Max wants to avoid returning the most, his father. 

 

Max’s heart sinks into his stomach. 

 

There can only be one explanation.

 

He taps open Twitter, and immediately closes out of it.

 

He sees enough, anyway. 

 

The photos. This time with Max’s back to the camera and Charles sitting opposite him on the couch. Max knows exactly when they had been taken. Charles and Max were watching a movie, and Max had leaned over to say something to Charles about the plot. The angle in the photo makes it seem like they were kissing, difficult to deny without proper context. 

 

Max chucks his phone at the wall. It has made headlines this time. He saw the tweet, the article linked. 

 

F1 Champion Max Verstappen Pictured Cozying Up with the Rumoured Monegasque Mobster Charles Leclerc: Could it be that the Monaco GP Results were Fixed in the Champion’s Favour?

 

Max wants to laugh at the absurdity of that headline. Charles and race fixing. Charles. 

 

Charles would probably bite his own tongue off before he arranged to fix a race, much less in Red Bull’s favour. 

 

Monday night after they’d landed, they watched a movie on Max’s couch, in Max’s living room, in Max’s apartment. The photo had been taken from the story of a building that's level to the height of Max’s. 

 

Max’s apartment is fucking sixteen floors up. It’s why he doesn’t mind that the glass, balcony sliding doors don’t have curtains. 

 

He scrambles up hastily from his bed, legs tangling with the sheets as he struggles his way to the curtains. There’s a small gap he likes to keep, so the sunlight can wake him naturally in the mornings. He yanks them shut, agitation shaking in his limbs. 

 

The fucker– the stalker, Max is forced to acknowledge, knows where he lives. Is peering into Max’s innards like an omnipotent force, soulless, eyeless. 

 

Just. Darkness.

 

Charles bursts through the door. 

 

“Oh, baby.” He collapses at the side of Max’s bed, hands clasped together in a prayer. Max looks at him with sunken-in eyes. “Let’s get you out of here.”

—

Christian agrees to let Max stay with Charles for the time being on the condition that they up the security detail again and this time, they’re involving proper law enforcement. 

 

They’re not helpful, though. The Monaco Police are a small team that is unfamiliar with dealing with international stalker cases that span continents. Max hadn’t thought the police would be useful, anyway, it’s why he wasn’t offended when Christian never mentioned involving them in the first place.

 

But it would look weird, wouldn’t it? If Max Verstappen had caught a stalker that’s been leaking intimate photos from his private life online and Red Bull hadn’t gotten law enforcement involved.

 

Max lays listlessly in Charles’ bed for the rest of the week, not moving unless he had to use the bathroom or when Charles manages to coax him gently into eating something and getting some sustenance in. 

 

The world continues to spin, moving on as Max becomes stuck in time, hidden in the sheets. No one dares to disturb him, not even Rupert.

 

If he’d been in a better mood, Max would probably spend a day exploring Charles’ place. It’s large, with two guest rooms, a bathroom, a master bedroom with an ensuite, an office, and a home gym. The kitchen connects to the living room, which leads to the entrance. 

 

It’s a nice place to call home. 

 

Max misses his own.

—

By the following Monday, Max determinedly pulls himself out of his little depressive episode. He deletes Twitter off his phone, ignores George’s long-winded condolence-filled text in the GPDA whatsapp chat, and facetimes his mother and Victoria.

 

They are very concerned for him. Max apologises for worrying them, and assures them that he’s fine, that it was a shock finding out, but he’s slowly coming to terms with it. 

 

Victoria tries to ask about Charles nonchalantly, but her excitement is poorly hidden. Max confirms that they are indeed together, but it’s not yet public knowledge. 

 

Victoria pauses, deflates a bit. “I’m so sorry, Max. No one deserves this happening to them, least of all you.”

 

Max, tired of all the people who are never the problem apologising for people who are, redirects the conversation. He asks his sister about how the pregnancy is coming along, whether the baby’s going to be a niece or a nephew. Secretly he’s hoping for a girl since he’s already got two adorable nephews. But deep down in his heart, he knows he’s going to love the little one the same regardless of gender. Can’t imagine not loving them.

 

He and Victoria arrange for a meet-up in the summer break, so Max can spend some time with the baby in person before being confined to cooing at them through a phone screen as he has to return to Formula 1.  

 

It makes Max feel a lot better like this, talking to his family and about the things in his life that he cares for that doesn't involve racing.

 

Max doesn’t call his father back.

 

For once in his life, he doesn’t care for what the man has to say.

 

He does, however, call Rupert. Apologises profusely about falling off his exercise routine in the midst of an active season. Rupert tells him that Max has got absolutely nothing to be sorry about and promises that he’ll come over tomorrow with the driver-specific training gear so they can make sure that Max is still in tip-top shape for the upcoming race in Barcelona. 

 

Max hangs up the call. Goes for a run for cardio (and how fun that was, with five security guards tailing him) and then comes back to Charles’ apartment and uses the equipment in the gym for his muscle resistance training. 

 

Eats his calories, macros and micros. Rejoins the continuously spinning world.

 

At night, Charles arrives back home some time after midnight. Max is already asleep, tucked snugly under the sheets. 

 

The sound of Charles rustling about in the bedroom manages to stir him a little, however. 

 

“Charles?” Max calls out blindly, stifling a yawn.

 

“Sorry, sorry. Putain, Charles.” Charles apologises as he slides under the sheets behind Max. “Go back to sleep, mon cœur. I will be here when you wake up. Sweet dreams now.”

 

Max snuffles, shifting backwards into the secure embrace of Charles’ sturdy chest. Charles instinctively wraps an arm around Max’s middle. His hand slides up from Max’s stomach and lays flat on his sternum, over where Max’s heart is beating softly. Like Charles has to remind himself that Max isn’t just a cold, lifeless corpse taking up space in his bed all day long. 

 

Max covers Charles’ hand with his own. 

 

It’s warm. 

 

“Just hold me like this.” He murmurs quietly, already falling back asleep. “I like it. It’s nice.”

 

Charles kisses the bare skin on the notch at the top of Max’s spine, between his shoulder blades where his sleeping shirt doesn’t quite cover. 

 

“Okay. Okay sweetheart.” There’s a pause, long enough for Max to drift off. Behind him, Charles’ eyes are as cold and rigid as the ice glaciers in Antarctica. 

 

There’s bloodlust in them. A kind of cold, hard fury that won’t be quelled unless heads are rolling at his feet and blood is spilled.

 

“Adesso ci sistemeremo a modo mio.” Charles seers it like a promise into Max’s skin. “Neanche Dio può proteggerlo da me.”

 

Max hears it in his dreams.

—

The Spanish Grand Prix is one of Max’s favourite tracks of the calendar, although he is probably more than a bit biassed in his opinion. 

 

He’d made history here back in 2016. Broke a record that has yet to be re-broken. Marked down his name on a forever list of Formula 1 Grand Prix race winners. 

 

Those are things that can’t be taken away from him. 

 

On Thursday, Max is in the FIA presser with Lewis, Yuki, Zhou, Logan and Lance. He’d been tempted to conjure up a stomach bug so that he wouldn’t have to attend. In the end, he still went.

 

Lance has just brushed off an awkward question about the backwards performance of the Aston car at his home race last time out when another journalist is passed the microphone.

 

“Hello Max, question for you.” The journo greets. Max gets a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he hasn’t gotten from a media question since 2015 when he had been too bull-headed to know how to answer with any grace or courtesy. 

 

“As you know with the leaked photos, there has been some speculation with your relationship to Charles Leclerc and the Monaco Grand Prix. Can you clarify on your relationship to Leclerc?”

 

The room falls quiet. Tom has a panicked look in his eyes. 

 

Max doesn’t know what look he must have on his own face. He sees red. Ferrari red. It clouds his vision. He can feel the immediate tension in his jaw, the sneer forming on his lips. He’s sure there’d been a media presser earlier where it was told that the topic of Max’s stalker and the photos that have been leaked was banned and prohibited, and therefore, couldn’t be brought up to the drivers or team personnel. 

 

Maybe the journalist thinks he’s doing something—being contrary. Maybe he needs the extra clicks on his article or his publication is going to fire him. Whatever it is that he’s doing, it’s at Max’s expense. And Max is not happy about that. Neither will Charles be, when word about the press conference inevitably gets back to his ears.

 

“Actually, can I answer that question for him?” Lewis interrupts right before Max tells the reporter to fuck off, community service penalty be damned.

 

Max shrugs, giving Lewis the go-ahead. Be my guest, he thinks bitterly. He hadn’t wanted to answer the question anyway.

 

“I feel like with social media and stuff that fans have become a lot more invested in drivers’ personal lives. And it’s been a lot more accessible,” Lewis says in that not-British, not-American accent of his. 

 

“But it’s important to remember that drivers are still humans and we want to keep our personal lives private, some more than others, and you have to respect that. Personally, I don’t think it’s okay to ask intimate questions like this about a driver’s private life. You’re stepping on a boundary that’s been clearly set, and disrespecting it. That’s not what journalism is about.”

 

“Right, okay,” Tom says, relieved that the question has been resolved without Max cussing up a storm. “Moving on. Any more questions?”

 

Someone else asks Yuki about the VCARB team orders that had played out at the last grand prix; Max drops the microphone against his leg and tunes it all out. Fades into the background. 

—

The next day, there’s a buzz around the paddock, an unusual nervous energy blanketing the track.

 

“What’s going on, do you know?” Max asks Daniel over lunch at the Red Bull motorhome, in between the two Friday practice sessions. 

 

“Oh, I heard that some guy didn’t turn up for his job,” Daniel says around a mouthful of chicken. “Apparently they called his home to ask around and he hadn’t been there either. His wife panicked and called the police to file a missing persons report.”

 

“Huh? What guy.” Max frowns.

 

Daniel swallows his chicken. He looks at Max blankly. 

 

“You know the one. That guy who asked you that bullshit question yesterday.”

 

Oh, Max thinks, heartbeat picking up, his breathing coming out harder and faster. 

 

Parce que tu m’as montré comment respirer à nouveau.

 

Adesso ci sistemeremo a modo mio.

 

Oh, Charles.

—

The police never find the body.

—

No one asks Max about the photos again.

—

The first time Charles had shown Max his gun, it was in the week between the Monaco Grand Prix and the Canadian Grand Prix. 

 

It was probably the first time Max had gone to Jimmy'z with no intention of drinking and partying his life away. 

 

Charles was working late, and Max missed him. Why not visit him at work? He’d thought while pulling a hoodie over his head and walking down to the club.

 

Max asked one of the bouncers for Charles, and they brought him in through the back. Charles was in the manager’s office, tucked all the way in the back behind the kitchen. 

 

“Chéri!” Charles had gasped excitedly when he looked up to see Max entering the office. 

 

He jumped up from his armchair and bounded over to Max, peppering his face with chaste, sweet kisses.

 

Max blushed and pushed Charles away with fingers in his face. He peered around the office curiously, trying to take it all in. 

 

That’s when he notices the glint of metal resting on the large mahogany desk.  

 

A gun. A real gun.

 

Max had only ever seen props in films and on television. He’d had fake plastic, brightly-coloured ones for toys when he was little. But he’d never seen a real one before, there was never any need to. 

 

Charles was watching him intently when Max turned back around, fiddling with the gold signet ring on his pinky. 

 

“Tools of the trade.” He smiled. “Would you like to hold it?”

 

He walked over to the table and grabbed the pistol off it, twirling it with a finger as he walked back to Max.

 

Max held out a hand and Charles gently placed the gun in it. 

 

A real gun. In Max’s hand.

 

The metal of it was cool to his touch. It sat heavily against his palm, heavier than Max had thought handguns were supposed to be. He felt the weight of it, the power of it sit in his hand. The implications of holding it, of firing it. Of what Charles has already done with it, planning to do with it.

 

How many times has a bullet been shot from it to end someone’s life? 

 

How many times has it missed, hitting the wall or maybe the ground, instead? How many times has it fulfilled its intended purpose? 

 

Max’s heart was beating so fast and hard, there was no doubt that Charles couldn’t hear it pounding against his ribcage, too. 

 

Charles grabbed Max’s hand. He wrapped Max’s palm around the handle, index finger resting against the trigger.

 

He let Max turn the gun around in his hands in fascination. Then he suddenly grabbed the barrel of it, and brought it up to his forehead. 

 

Max’s heart leapt up into throat. He stood very still. 

 

“If I ever fail you one day–” Charles had whispered. “I will hold it for you. All you have to do is pull the trigger.”

 

“Charles, this isn’t funny.” Max tried to laugh, tried to yank the gun away from Charles but he wasn’t budging. 

 

Slowly, Charles sank down to his knees, hand still holding the barrel of the gun, pointing it at himself, resting against his forehead. 

 

“It would be God’s will. Divine punishment. Fitting end to a mafioso’s life of crime, non?” Charles said.

 

He unzipped Max’s jeans with his teeth, the white of the enamel glinting in the low, overhead lights of the office. Pulled the jeans and underwear down with his free hand until they were bunching around Max’s knees.

 

Max was already painfully hard. 

 

Charles gripped the base of his cock with one hand and kissed the wet tip of it the way he kisses the tip of Max’s nose in the mornings. Reverently. 

 

Max keened and let go of the gun as his hands flew to yank at Charles’ hair. 

 

Charles let the gun drop, the metal of it clattering loudly against the floor and drowning out Max’s needy moan as Charles swallowed him down.

—

Lando manages to drag a ragtag group of them out to a casino one night during the summer break. It’s the last week of it before they’re back on in Zandvoort. Max is flying out in a couple days to spend the week with Victoria and his mother before the race weekend.

 

Summer break has treated Max well. In the first week, Charles had chartered a week-long yacht for them in the waters between Bonifacio and Sardinia, spending all day lazing around in the sun on the boat deck and deepening their summer tan (or in Max’s case, toasting the skin off his bones). 

 

After the journalist had gone missing, there had been no more photos of him leaked. Eventually, the security detail following Max around had trickled down to just one guard, who Charles shooed away.

 

“My men are better at this, anyway.” He’d hissed hotly down the phone to Christian. 

 

Christian gives up on fighting Charles over the issue and Max is freed. It’s like weight has been lifted off his shoulders. 

 

He’s still staying at Charles’ place, though Jimmy and Sassy have also moved in. 

 

“I just want to play some slots,” Lando says while shrugging. 

 

“You know those machines are rigged against you, right?” George says with a lifted brow. 

 

“Yeah. Piss off, Russell.” Lando frowns. “How stupid do you think I am?”

 

“Well, I’m just saying.” George is way too uptight for a man who has the money to lose all he wants in a casino. 

 

“No fighting.” Fernando sighs. Max is still amazed at how Lando managed to convince the Spaniard to come with them, considering that the old man’s bed time had passed almost two hours ago. “Casinos are a little fun, no?”

 

“Yeah, Nando. You tell him.” Lando cheers and bolts off to the carousel of slot machines. George huffs but trails after him reluctantly. 

 

He stalks over to where Lando’s hunched over on the machines, already locked in, like he’s never even stepped foot in a casino before, legs and back stiff. Max wouldn’t be surprised if he never actually has.

 

He wonders if George would keel over and foam at the mouth if he knew that this is one of Charles’ money laundering fronts.

 

“I’m going to go for some blackjack,” Fernando says. It takes a second for Max to realise that he’s speaking to him, since the other two have gone off to muck around with the slots. 

 

“Yeah, okay,” Max replies with a shrug, waiting for Fernando to walk off. But he doesn’t.

 

Instead, Fernando raises an eyebrow at him, questioning as if to say will you be okay if I leave you on your own?

 

Which– okay. Max is a 26 year old man. He does not need a chaperone at that age. 

 

“I–” He shuts his mouth. There is no way to say I’m not a kid without sounding like a petulant child, no matter how old you are. Instead Max says: “I’m not Lando.”

 

“A-hah.” Fernando nods his head and then he’s off as well.

 

Max wanders around for a bit. Plays a hand of old maid with a dealer and loses a few chips. He decides to join Lando and George at the slots. Lando has somehow won $100 and has decided that he can flip it into $1000. Max asks George how’s it going for him. 

 

George’s lips tighten into a small line. “It’s a load of bollocks.”

 

Max laughs loudly at him, hand on his chest as he folds over, lungs wheezing and torso shaking. He sits down to play and immediately loses $20. Lando glances at him and offers him some tips but Max ends up losing another $20. 

 

Humbled, he mumbles out an apology to George and leaves before he loses any more money to the slot machine.

 

He’s back to wondering about. He’d made fun of George, but Max hasn’t spent much time in a casino either. Most of the card games he’s unfamiliar with, and he doesn’t really understand the thrill of gambling either.

 

He’s walking past on the sectioned-off, private rooms with a flute of champagne in his hand when he catches a flash of familiar brown curls. 

 

He steps into the room. The guards standing outside don’t move to stop him. They already know who he is. 

 

It’s a private poker room. There’s five people sitting around the table, all dressed formally. Two women with dark hair in black gowns. One of them has a lit cigar between her knobbly fingers. When she lifts her hand to her face to take another draw, Max realises that she’s missing her pinky all the way down to her knuckle. The other woman wears a pair of dark, silky gloves. The gold signet ring that sits on top of it glinting all the same.

 

There’s a bald man in a tailored, three piece suit. He looks to be around Max’s father’s age. Even sitting down, he’s much taller and broader than the other men in the room. When he takes a sip from his glass, Max catches in his mouth, the spark of gold bouncing off the lights in the room. And there’s another, younger man, fretting around in his seat, face less steeled than the others. 

 

All of their eyes track Max as he walks over to Charles. 

 

And of course Charles. Beautiful, sweet Charles. Absolutely dashing in his black suit, tailored to perfection. His white dress shirt is open at the top two buttons, and the gleaming silver of his necklace peeks through demurely every time he shifts his chest. 

 

He’s perfection. Down to every little detail. Max loves him more every time he catches sight of Charles.

 

“Max!”  

 

Charles’ eyes light up like Christmas lights when he spots him. “You are here?” He’s out of his seat instantly. 

 

“Hello Charles.” Max smiles unwittingly. 

 

Charles wraps an arm around his waist and brings Max in for a hug. Max returns it with an arm around Charles’ back. They exchange cheek kisses and Charles nods at one of the attendants to bring Max a chair. 

 

Max stops him with a shake of his head. He leads Charles back to his seat and nudges for him to sit down. Charles looks confused but he does as Max asks, taking the champagne gently from his hands and placing it onto the table.

 

Max glances around the room. He can tell from the apprehension in all their eyes that they know exactly who Charles is, and who Max is. They’re all trying to mask it, but fear is a palpable thing. It’s the strongest, most compelling emotion, amongst animals and humans alike.

 

None of them will ever dare to speak about what transpires inside the room. So Max folds himself sideways, neatly into Charles’ lap, his legs hanging off one side of it. 

 

Charles doesn’t even flinch, just wraps a big, warm hand securely around Max’s hip and lets his eyes do the talking around the room. 

 

“Do you want to play?” He murmurs into Max’s ear as he presses a kiss into it. 

 

“I don’t know how to play poker,” Max admits.

 

Charles’ eyes relax around the edges. “It’s okay, mon cœur. I will help you, oui?”

 

Is that even allowed in poker? Max wonders. “It’s okay. You play. I am tired, anyway.”

 

“Bien sûr.” Charles kisses Max on the side of his face again and then draws away. “If you say so.”

 

Resting against Charles’ steady, reliable warmth, Max can feel the subtle, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as Charles breathes in and out evenly, slowly lulling him into a haze. It’s nice like this. It makes him feel secure and safe. He knows that Charles is more than capable of protecting him, shielding him from any danger that might come his way. 

 

It’s weird. It’s odd. A life of soundness doesn’t suit him. Max has always been a thrill-seeker. A risk taker. 

 

He wouldn’t be in Formula 1 if he wasn’t. 

 

He likes it when he’s barrelling towards a tight corner at 350 kilometres per hour. He loves the twitches of the car beneath him, his hands, as he downshifts, the car sliding just the necessary amount so he can take the corner with less brake, but not enough to flat-spot his tyres. It’s exhilarating, it’s exciting. It makes Max’s heart beat thrice as hard as it naturally should, adrenaline flooding through his brain. 

 

He breathes harder. Harsher. Heat rises up his skin as the cockpit becomes hotter, less bearable.

 

He likes knowing he can make the corner faster than others, the car driving beautifully underneath his hands, controllable, malleable like an extension of Max himself.   

 

Time floats by. Max is dully aware of the quiet conversations happening around him in snippy Italian, muted to his ears in his daze. He knows that he’d walked into one of Charles’ business meetings. But he didn't care. Max is intimately, eerily familiar with taking risks, spinning, crashing out and making 51 g’s of impact with the barriers. The thrill and the titillation of it all.

 

It reminds him that he’s alive. That he’s Max Verstappen, a three-time world champion—that he's the inevitable. That he’s already done—in a mere 26 years—what others will waste a lifetime attempting to achieve but always falling short.

 

He’s already done it all. Scribbled his name messily into the history of the sport, forever changed and marked by his presence. 

 

There’s a small clink of glass as someone sets down an ashtray. Max hums, burrowing his face further into Charles’ neck, where the scent of his cologne and natural musk is the heaviest. He breathes it in, lets the air fill his lungs. Unwilling to part with it, he doesn’t breathe it out until his lungs are burning and screaming for him to let go. 

 

Charles’ thumb is rubbing smooth circles on the tip of Max’s pelvic bone. It’s comforting and soothing, and Max relaxes in spite of all the people watching him. Somewhere, in the distant back of his brain, he knows he should worry about how he’s presenting himself right now. That he’s not behaving the way a world champion should. 

 

But the doubt, the hesitancy, all the inhibitions—all of it is drowned out, incomparable to the serene happiness glowing in his chest, growing by the day.

 

Home, his mind thinks.

 

Home, his heart agrees.

—

Max isn’t sure how long he stays like that, tucked up against Charles’ chest. He’s stirred awake when Charles shifts, turning his body to the side so a man in a dark suit can whisper something in Italian into his ear. 

 

Charles nods along, replying in short, affirmative noises or a quiet sì so as to not disturb Max. 

 

“Voglio che lo affoghino nel cemento e lo buttino nel porto. Assicurati che il corpo non galleggi.” He snarls coldly, voice firm and devoid of the warmth he always regards Max with.

 

The man nods, he pulls back and stands off against the wall, arms resting by his side. 

 

“Sweetheart,” Charles whispers. Max blinks open his eyes at the familiar sound, the haze fogging his mind beginning to clear. The hand that’s been holding Max’s hip the whole time reaches up, caressing Max’s face in a soft, gentle manner.

 

“I have to go.”

 

Max makes an inquisitive noise, stretching out his legs minutely. 

 

“I won’t be too long, yes?” Charles kisses his hair lightly as if to apologise for disrupting Max’s rest. “I have some urgent business, you see.”

 

When Max finally lifts his head from Charles’ shoulder, he sees that the other guests in the room, including the dealer, are gone. Charles must’ve finished whatever business he had with them while Max had still been under. 

 

They’re alone in the room, except for the two attendants standing off to the side. 

 

“It’s okay,” Max says, and starts getting up from Charles’ lap. Charles helps him stand with a steadying hand on his leg. “I’ll wait for you here.”

 

They exit the room together. Charles gives Max a final kiss on the lips and follows another man in a suit down the corridors of the casino that are marked ‘STAFF-ONLY’. 

 

When Max heads back to the main area of the casino, he spots Lando still hunched over the slot machines. George is resting his head on folded arms next to him, probably asleep. Fernando is nowhere to be seen. 

 

“Are you winning?” Max asks curiously as he approaches the pair.

 

Lando pauses his reel to give Max a brief glance. There are circles the size of fists sitting darkly around Lando’s eyes, and a harried, frenzied look in them to pair it off.

 

“Woah.” Max’s eyes widen. “Have you been sitting here this whole time?”

 

“I’m about to break even.” Lando declares to the air, eyes already back to the slots. He pulls the handlebar and the images spin hypnotically, their reflections whirling around in Lando’s glassy, non-blinking eyes. 

 

Lando’s hands are poised over the buttons. His posture is horrible, neck extended, back bent in an extreme curvature.

 

He loses, the slot machine eats his coins mercilessly.

 

“No!” Lando cries out, slamming his open palms onto the machine with enough force to jolt George awake.

 

“Crickey almighty,” he says with a yawn, stretching his arms above his head. “Are you done, mate? Because I’m fucking ready to go home.”

 

Lando glares at George like he’s just suggested for Lando to pick the old chewing gum off the underside of the machines and put them in his mouth. 

 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” George narrows his eyes. “Come on. You are not winning it back. And it’s way past your bedtime. Just count your losses now, alright?”

 

“Oh, piss off.” Lando hisses meanly. 

 

“That’s it. You’re done.” George scolds. He confiscates Lando’s phone and wallet, holding them just out of reach as Lando hops on his tippy-toes trying to snatch them back. 

 

“Wha– hey!” Lando yaps as George herds him away from the slots. He sounds a bit like a barking chihuahua, but Max keeps that thought to himself.

 

“Where’s Fernando?” Max asks.

 

George shrugs with a roll of his shoulders. “Dunno. Think he probably already left an hour ago. Did you wanna share a cab?” He asks when he’s finally managed to mangle Lando into compliance. 

 

Max shakes his head. “I’m alright. I’m going to wait here for Charles.” 

 

“Beautiful. I’ll see you soon.” George’s fringe is sticking flatly to his forehead. There’s a spot of drool on the corner of his lips. Lando’s still fussing in his grip like an addict but his eyes are beginning to slip shut.

 

Max walks them to the entrance, watches patiently until he confirms they get in a taxi, and then he turns on his heels and walks back into the casino. 

 

He goes up to the bar this time. Orders a gin and tonic.

 

The bartender takes his order, makes it for him. Doesn’t ask him to pay. 

—

Max is leaning against the bar, sipping his gin and tonic intermittently while scrolling aimlessly on his phone when a familiar warm hand wraps around his hip. He instinctively relaxes into it. He could recognise Charles by touch alone. A sturdy body presses in his back. The hand on Max’s hip inches down and rubs the inside of his thigh lightly before returning to his waist. 

 

“Ça va, mon amour?”

 

The deep baritone of Charles’ voice melts away all the tension from Max’s body. He leans backwards into Charles and something warm and hard presses against Max’s ass.

 

“Is that a knife or are you just happy to see me?” He giggles, placing his gin and tonic and phone down on top of the bar table.

 

“I am always happy to see you, Max." Charles rubs the tip of his nose into Max's hair and inhales.

 

"Yeah?" Max huffs, content and gleeful.

 

"Yes." Charles takes a moment to just breathe. "But I cannot lie to you. It’s a gun.”

 

Max pauses and stops grinding against Charles. He turns around slowly and reaches a hand down to the waistline of Charles’ pants where the gun is tucked in, hidden away from the prying eyes of others. It’s not where it normally sits, resting against Charles’ heart in his shoulder holster.

 

The gun is hot to his touch. Not scalding, but warm enough that it can't be explained by way of Charles’ body heat from having it pressed so close to his skin. Max isn’t stupid, and neither is Charles—they both know what it means when the barrel of a pistol is hot. Charles is watching him intently when Max raises his eyes from the glint of metal peeking out from the shadow of Charles’ jacket to his face. 

 

Instead of screaming at the top of his lungs in fear and fleeing away on a plane to another country like a normal, sane person, Max finds himself chubbing up a bit in his jeans. 

 

“You can rest now. Je m'en suis occupé.” Charles tells him, ever so attentive and reliable. 

 

He doesn’t need to say more. Max understands him. The whispered Italian, the speck of blood on Charles’ collar that he must’ve missed in the clean up (because Charles doesn’t like exposing the violent side of his work to Max)—the gun, hot, used, resting in his waistband. 

 

Max feels the unease and trepidation that’s been haunting him insistently over the past few months lift from him. Body becoming impossibly lighter.

 

“He will never, ever hurt you again.”

 

That night in the club, Max had asked so meekly: “do you kill people?”.

 

And Charles had answered with an obscure smile. “I try not to.”

 

Max understands now. Of course, Charles does not go around robbing people of their lives aimlessly, purposelessly. He never moves and acts without reason or logic. If Charles is killing someone, putting a bullet hole through their heart, it’s because he believes in it. Believes that the death is meaningful to the people he cares about, that it must happen for life to keep existing the way he knows it.

 

The world spins and spins, continuously without stop. All life on earth would die from the moment when it stops. Max stands on its surface and spins with it, too. But, he knows in his heart, if all life ceased to exist in this moment, he would not mind it. 

 

Nothing would change for him because Max would know Charles even in death, at the end of the world.

 

“Thank you, schatje.” He closes his eyes and leans down to rest his forehead against Charles’ shoulder. “Dank je. Heel erg bedankt. Je hebt me keer op keer gered. Ik houd van je.”

 

He discreetly brings Charles’ hand down so he can feel Max’s hardness, too. 

 

Charles grins at him, big hand cupping Max through his jeans familiarly. 

 

“I think it’s time to go home.”

 

Max nods. Thinks, says. “Yes Charles. Take me home.”

—

Max rides Charles like it’s his last night on earth, like nothing else matters. Just a mantra of Charles, Charles, Charles.

 

It could be his last night on earth and Max would be satisfied. He’s achieved his life-long dreams, he’s experienced true happiness, the man he loves with his whole heart loves him back—there is nothing more for Max to want. To need. 

 

Charles’ cock punches through his guts every time Max drops down, sitting his ass into the cradle of Charles’ pelvis. He moans, the whine ripping uncontrollably from his throat. His nails dig ugly welts into Charles’ toned abs, the skin red and irritated from Max’s scratches and wet and glistening from the sweat and exertion. 

 

“Fuck. Fuck. Charles.” 

 

Max twists and rolls his hips in short bursts, pulling up off Charles’ cock with the straining muscle in his powerful thighs and then letting gravity press his ass flush against Charles’ groin. He lifts his hips a little higher every time and drops down a little faster, a little harder. He rides Charles rough and hard, and Charles takes it and takes it, like a stallion.

 

Charles fucks up into Max so deeply it feels like that every time his cock is completely in, it’s nestled right up there next to Max’s heart. 

 

Max wants him there. Charles has already made a nest in Max’s heart, anyway. It wouldn’t change things if he spears a hole through it with his dick.

 

Charles is whimpering wetly below him, hands grasping at Max’s waist with enough force to bruise him. He’s saying something, begging for it, words choked up with the sounds of pleasure that rumble deeply from his chest. 

 

One of his hands lets go of Max’s waist and instead grabs onto Max’s wrist, pulling it up desperately to his neck.

 

Max laughs, delighted, evil.

 

“Okay,” he says, bringing both hands up to where Charles is pleading wantonly for it. His hips don’t stop fucking up and down on Charles’ cock.

 

Charles keens. A frantic sob tearing from his mouth. There are tears welling in his eyes. Max leans down and licks them into his mouth.

 

He wraps both hands around Charles’ neck and squeezes, not enough to suffocate Charles to death but firm enough that Charles coughs wetly, suddenly trying to suck a breath in and finding that he can’t. Charles’ back arches off the bed, feet planted flat, and eyes rolling until only the sclera is showing.

 

Max clenches his hands tighter. 

 

With tears streaming down his face, Charles looks up at Max, devout, pious, reverent—like he’s on his knees, hands clutched together in a prayer—and says, “un dieu m'a sauvé.”

 

Max kisses his forehead gently and softly whispers. “Amen.”

 

 

 

Notes:

kudos and comments are always welcome!

i really like this au so i might write more of it lol. out of ideas for now tho.

feel free to chat to me on my tumblr.