Work Text:
The paddock is quiet as Max walks in early on Sunday morning. There is no press, a few photographers and a handful of hospitality staff wheeling carts of supplies to and fro.
Monza is historically unkind to him. If he’s honest, three wins three years in a row would be lovely, but today he is not so sure. Seventh is not enough to win here, not in this car or on this track or in this city. The cheers of the crowd are fuel for one team and one team only. They can boo all they want when it is Max up on the top step, holding the trophy. They can cheer in approval when it is one of their own. But Max is a winner, so he is not here to be liked.
The turnstile next to him beeps and clicks as someone walks through. Arthur lifts his cap and gives Max a small smile before heading on his way. Max supposes he’s always known Arthur in a peripheral sort of way.
Charles has always been there, a figure of somewhat comparison in karting, a car he could count on to race on track. Comparatively, Arthur was more like a mote of dust on the lens of a digital camera — a blur in every picture, a greyish circle obscuring the same spot over and over and over again. He’s a silhouette against the asphalt, an outline in the background. He’s a name mentioned behind Max, behind his brother. In fact, Arthur’s name was mentioned so little to Max as he climbed the ranks that when they stood eye to eye on an F2 feature race weekend in 2019, the only clue Max had to his identity was the striking resemblance he bore to his brother.
It intrigues Max that Arthur is here alone and early and not dressed in red. None of his family is around to be found. Perhaps he just enjoys his role as development driver that much. The thought itself gets a snort out of Max.
Here, Arthur is small and alone, but alive and still breathing. This, Max can find it in himself to appreciate.
—
The race was a shitshow. The car was a terrible monster to drive. The slow pitstop was just the icing on the cake. In truth, Max wants out. Out of the media, out of the paddock, out of Italy entirely. Max is tired of damage control, of recounting mistakes and vouching for his team to a sea of journalist sharks. Max is loyal. He would never consider jumping ship over a single race. Second place means terrible, terrible self-punishment. Sixth, somehow, carries much less of a sting.
As team debrief ends, Max counts his truths the way he’d been told to. Something counted as true means it doesn’t need to be mulled over too deeply. Nothing changes the truth.
He is still leading the championship. This is true.
He now has eight more points. This is true.
He is outscoring his teammate. This is both true and not difficult to do.
He can see Arthur Leclerc?
He blinks.
He can see Arthur Leclerc.
Max so rarely hangs around long enough to see other people celebrate, but Arthur looks joyless and tired, watching mechanics and team members jostling his brother in the Ferrari garage entry. He is now wearing red. Max can see in Arthur exactly what he saw in Charles back in 2021 and 2022 and 2023. But this is the thing. Who ever thinks about Arthur Leclerc? Who finds him worthy or interesting when his brother has finally won in the two places that matter most? Who sees him when Charles has just won in Monza again?
Well, Max sees him. He wonders, watching Arthur's profile go still against the noise of the celebrations, what it sounds like from inside. What the cheering sounds like when none of it is for you.
In a strange kind of way, Max thinks he gets it too.
Arthur sees his life clearly for the first time in the pews of a dusty church. A pastor is preaching, his voice echoing in the stone void, and his mother is sat next to him, neatly tied up in a version of her Sunday best. It is vitriol; the words of the preaching are wrong, but Arthur is young, and the French is a melodic lilting telling him that people who kill themselves go to hell. But Arthur only prays for a god who knows mercy. Arthur prays for a place that feels like home.
The champagne is spraying in the paddock, and there is Charles dead in the centre, Il Predestinato, Ferrari’s chosen one. He’s back lit by the setting sun, glowing gold in the country that loves him as red as the blood that runs through him. Victory is rosso corsa, giallo modena. Charles is lore, myth, and magic that triumphs in the face of grief – the boy who stood on a podium the week after his father died. The boy who signed the promised contract, who drives in red and holds the torch that was passed to him on a devastatingly rainy day in Suzuka in 2014 with pride. Destiny rests now, because for Charles, it is fulfilled.
Their mother says god is good at bookkeeping — that the things we hide from each other cannot be hidden from the one who knows all. The rules may feel arbitrary, but there is an end goal in mind, of course. There is a fiery pit somewhere, but us, people like us, we don’t go there. Arthur, you don’t belong there. But his mother spends so much time with her bible, so close to god and yet so lost.
But here is Arthur, who grew up in the same house, and is marred also by the same sorrows as his brother. They are both shaped by the same dream, baptised in the colour red since racing was only a childhood daydream. He’s standing apart from the celebrations, allowing them a wide berth, even though it’s him who gave up his dream so that his older brother could keep racing, could keep chasing the dream that keeps his adrenaline pumping, and could keep tasting the citrus of that champagne.
So, Arthur is not a Samaritan. He sees suffering and yet he keeps walking. He sees the pain in his brothers’ eyes and knows the grief in Charles firsthand, but still he is selfish. He closes his eyes and hopes one day that they won’t open again. He hopes wherever he goes he is free from racetracks and the colour red and that the only person who exists there is him.
He can kiss ass at Maranello and clock inhuman hours on the simulator. He can wear the title of ‘Development Driver’ and smile through gritted teeth. He can pretend that he’s earned this and it isn’t a byproduct of his brother. But here, forced to live through the same losses but forever barred from getting the same successes, he is lost too.
Arthur hates the colour red. This he’d never admit out loud.
Max waits in his garage. Something tells him to wait. He watches as the hive of red dissipates, one by one. Charles first, then the friends and family, then the team, until the pit lane is empty once again. In a single hour, there is no evidence that there was a race here at all.
A rumble echoes through, a slow grind of mechanical gears that pull up the metal shutters of each garage. A head sticks out and whips around as if checking the coast is clear. Arthur is no longer wearing the polo, just a plain white t-shirt. Max watches as he places his bag on the floor and steps out into the marked pit box. Arthur signs the cross. Once. Twice. Again. His lips move, mouthing around something too quietly for even the wind to carry it towards Max. Then he stands still, chest square and head tipped up to the dark, evening sky.
Admittedly, there may have been better methods, but Max is silent in his approach. “Arthur.”
The guy jumps about a foot in the air. Up close, he is much less like Charles. His hair is lighter, naturally much wavier. His jaw is less square, tapering into a flattering point. Arthur’s eyes are blue like only the rough parts of the Monaco Sea, and he can stare Max straight in the eye.
“Sorry,” Max says, genuinely apologetic. “I did not mean to make you jump.”
Arthur smiles. This is where he resembles Charles most. “It is okay. I was just heading out.”
“Me too.” Max gestures for Arthur to start walking. “No celebrating for you?”
“No, of course I must.” His smile turns into a cheeky little grin. “It is not every year that Charles wins here.”
“You must be happy for him, no?”
"Yes." Arthur is less animated. “We are all where we are supposed to be.”
The turnstile is rapidly approaching again, letting them through with a little beep and little fuss. Arthur turns, veering left, and Max cannot leave him to go to a funeral in disguise, feeling sad like this.
“312.” It comes out a bit like a shout.
“What?”
“My room number. We are at the same hotel.” Max smiles. “If you feel like cutting the celebrating short.”
Arthur falters, mouth opening and closing, but Max leaves, walking back to his car.
Arthur, so different to his older brother, indeed.
—
The knock comes, as Max expected, but closer to midnight than he would’ve hoped. Through the peephole, Arthur is convex and distorted. But he is dressed nicely: a linen shirt and dark wash jeans and a little flush of red across his cheeks. Max is dressed down, only in a t-shirt and shorts.
Arthur starts to pace gently outside the door, and Max realises he should probably open it.
“Hello.” Max steps aside, gesturing Arthur into his suite.
“Hi Max.” Arthur shows no hesitation as he walks in, shoulders loose. “Thank you for the invite.”
“Would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you.”
The silence is awkward actually. Arthur does a little spin as if to survey the contents of a hotel room most likely identical to his own. He sits on the sofa and tips his head back against the cushioning.
“You are tidy for a driver. Charles is very messy.”
"I have the same room every year," Max says. "It is easy, when you know where you are supposed to be."
The sentence appears to land differently than Max had intended. Arthur looks at him, a quick flicker, and then back at the ceiling. Still, Max watches him turn it over.
Arthur nods once.
“If we do this,” He looks down at Max's hands. “I need you to make it hurt, Max.”
“No.”
“Please,” Arthur moves to sit upright. “It is only real if it hurts.”
Max knows what this is. He has been driving since he was barely old enough to see over the wheel, and the thing nobody says out loud is that speed is not always about winning. Sometimes you take the corner too wide and fast because the sensation of almost is the only thing that makes sense. He is not going to give Arthur almost. He is not going to give him a pain that only confirms the worst thing Arthur believes about himself.
Max kneels before Arthur, places his hand open between them, palm up. A gentle offering instead of a festering wound. Arthur places his fingers over Max's, and he is warm, so warm, pressed up against the coolth of Max’s skin.
“You don’t need to lie to me.” Arthur is unable to look Max in the eye. “Everyone who wants me wanted Charles first. It is okay.” His smile is watery, wavering at the edges.
Max doesn’t know what to say. He’s never wanted Charles as anything other than a worthy rival. Charles is to Max what candlelight is to rhubarb that is forced to grow in the dark. Arthur is not a tool for Max for use; Max wants him differently. Max would grow long and strong and sweet for Arthur without him having to even ask.
“No,” Max tries anyway. “It is not like this. I don’t see Charles. I only see you.”
Arthur inhales, short and sharp. His shoulders start to shake, a gentle tremor that reverberates through his entire upper body until he is sobbing loud and open in Max’s hotel room. His tears are round and fat, streaking down his face and dripping off of the slant of his jaw onto the shoulders of Max’s T-shirt. Max is unsure of what to do, other than to pull him closer and let the tears dry themselves out.
“I am sorry.” Arthur’s voice comes out tight and croaky. “I am not usually someone who does that.”
“What? I find it hard to believe that you don’t cry on every man you meet.” Max’s chest loosens at Arthur’s groan and smile. “I hope you know I only invited you here because I wanted you here.”
There is tension that bleeds back into the shoulders of the boy in his arms, but Max soldiers on.
“I think you think that no one understands the way you feel, Arthur, that you’d be ungrateful to voice it. This is not true. It would be stranger for you to look at this all and not feel anything bad. I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you that I think I get it also.”
The voice comes out muffled from where Arthur’s head is mushed into the crook of Max’s next. “I think you’re a liar, Max.”
“I am many things." Max tightens his grip on Arthur's waist. “But I am not a liar.”
“Thank you.” It is punctuated by a featherlight kiss against Max’s jugular.
Max hauls himself up onto the sofa, burying a groan at the residual ache in his knees, still keeping Arthur cradled against him. “You are welcome to stay. We can just sit here. We can do whatever you like.”
Arthur draws back, and for the first time all evening, Max gets to see the blue in his eyes uninterrupted. “Whatever I like?”
It’s Arthur who leans in and nudges their noses together. He smells like something woodsy and sweet as he shifts further into Max with a warm, firm pressure.
“Whatever you like.”
Now, Max isn’t one to ruminate too deeply on kissing, much preferring the main event, but there’s something in the way Arthur kisses him, a closed lipped series of pecks before pressing in a little harder. His tongue isn’t shy as it licks across the underside of Max’s teeth, but he’s gentle, puffing gentle breaths out of his nose. Gentle with the way his fingers rub left to right across Max’s shoulder blades.
It’s Max who pulls away, feeling a bit out of breath and out of body. Arthur simply leans back in to Max’s neck, peppering kisses and licks below his ear.
“You can leave a mark. It’s okay.” His voice is breathless and semi-panting.
Max can only groan as Arthur bites harder than expected, laving over the pulse in his neck. Simultaneously, Arthur pushes them even closer, Max’s lap now both fully awake and occupied. Arthur grinds down, but Max instinctively grabs at his hips, pausing their motion.
Arthur’s eyes are crystal clear when he turns to look at Max with a question, pupils if not slightly blown. There is no sign in his face that he does not want this.
So, Max can’t say no.
It is still dark outside when Arthur wakes. The bed is sleep-rumpled and warm.
Max sleeps on his back, hair astray with gentle breaths puffing through the gap in his lips. There are a smattering of bruises in the crook of Max’s neck, welts of purplish-blue. One hand rests on his sternum, and the other feathers out along the seams of Arthur’s ribcage. He turns Max’s wrist in his palm and feels the steady pulse of his green-blue veins. Max’s hands are smaller than they first appear, only just less in span than Arthur’s own. His skin is warm, its surface rough with a smattering of still blond hair. But he is alive, and so are they both.
Arthur does not need to replay the evening. Max treated him well — will continue to treat him well.
Outside, Italy is still celebrating in the name of Ferrari and Leclerc. It does not matter that Arthur skips a prayer tonight. What relief could a merciful god grant him that he can’t find right here?
This is also true.