Chapter Text
Max wakes up thinking Charles just overtook him.
Which is rude, because Max had pole. And it’s Monaco. And Charles doesn’t overtake people. He just wins sometimes (twice) and makes it sound like he’s apologising for it. So really, the dream is suspicious. Possibly illegal.
Also, Max is horizontal. Which is not a racing line he remembers taking.
Also also, someone is poking at his eyelids.
“Mr Verstappen?”
Max blinks. Then squints. Then decides blinking is a scam. It makes his eyeballs feel like they’re full of soup.
“You had a concussion. You're in a hospital. Please don’t move your head too fast.”
Ah. A concussion. Good. Explains why he’s dreaming in French.
He stares at the nurse. Then past her. Then a little to the left, just to be difficult.
“Where’s Charles?” he croaks. His voice sounds like it lost a bar fight.
The nurse blinks. “I’m sorry?”
Max clears his throat like he’s rebooting an old microwave. “Charles. Leclerc. Ferrari. Monaco guy. Big eyebrows. That one.”
He doesn’t add the cute guy, the light of my life, the source of my teen horrors, the mouse to my cat — but Max thinks it’s fairly understood.
The nurse looks confused. Or possibly scared. Max is very charming when concussed. “Mr Leclerc retired last year,” she says gently, like she’s talking to someone who’s just remembered they used to own a horse.
Max stares.
Then he stares harder, because that can’t be true. Then he blinks again because everything is turning a little sepia-toned. Then—
“What the fuck,” he mutters.
Which is honestly generous. The more appropriate response would’ve been WHAT THE FUCK . Full caps. Possibly followed by the immediate resurrection of every brain cell he’s ever murdered with G-forces.
“Mr Verstappen, what’s the last thing you remember?”
Max stares.
Long pause. Very medical.
“I said ‘fuck,’” he announces.
The nurse blinks. “That’s... not especially specific.”
“I say it with nuance.”
She writes something down. Probably “Patient: unhelpful but confident.”
Max rubs a hand down his face. “Wait, wait. Did Charles really retire?”
There’s a pause. Like she’s not sure if she should say yes, or if this is the part where the concussion wins.
“What year do you think it is?” she asks carefully.
“2025.”
Another pause. It gets louder somehow.
The nurse tilts her head. “It’s 2026.”
Max stares.
Then stares harder.
Then blinks slowly like an owl being force-fed a tax return.
“…That’s fake,” he mutters.
“I’m going to get the doctor,” the nurse says, already halfway out the door, absolutely done with him.
Max stares at the ceiling like it poked him. The room is suddenly too bright. His skull feels like it’s buffering.
The nurse hesitates in the doorway. “Would you like to call someone?” she asks, tone professional, like she’s not talking to a man who just time-traveled via brain damage.
Max is already one step ahead. He’s hallucinating.
He’s hallucinating Charles winning Monaco, and then smiling about it, and then crying about it, and then leaving the sport like a melodramatic asshole.
Oh.
Max is hallucinating retirement .
Retirement. Like a normal human. Like Charles would ever do that without telling Max.
Except now Max is remembering the last GP of 2025. Charles winning by 2 points lead. Charles crying. Charles going “I’m fine” over the radio and to his face after crashing the Abu Dhabi but still winning the championship.
Oh. He did retire.
Charles. Retired.
Charles.
Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles.
The horror sinks in somewhere between his ribs and his spleen.
“Mr Verstappen?”
Max returns to reality. The reality of Charles leaving in 2025 with a singular World Driver’s Championship. The reality of Max losing his shit. The reality of oh-no-it’s-2026-now-and-max-probably-dnf'd-monaco-like-an-idiot.
“Like who,” Max says. “Charles retired.”
Charles. Retired. Max’s brain isn’t supplying the deets on why Max is still in this sport when the love of his life and the father of his future kids isn’t around anymore. Max hates his brain.
She blinks. Again. This poor woman has done more blinking in ten minutes than a normal human does in a week.
“Like a relative?” she tries. “Maybe a friend?”
Max thinks.
Then says, very deadpan, “I don’t think I have any left.”
The nurse writes something else on the clipboard. Max’s bet is existential crisis: early onset.
Max sits up. Then regrets sitting up. Then tries to lie back down but miscalculates the existence of gravity and ends up slightly sideways.
The nurse makes a sound that suggests she’d rather be doing literally anything else.
Max drapes a hand over his face. “Okay. How bad was the crash.”
“Just a concussion and mild bruising,” the nurse replies. “You hit the barrier at Sainte Devote.”
Max frowns. “That’s like. The first corner.”
“Yes.”
“Did I lose?”
“Yes.”
Max sighs like he’s been betrayed by physics. “Did Zhou win?”
“No. Lando did.”
“Ugh.”
The nurse leaves him with a cup of water and instructions to “please be normal for five consecutive minutes,” which is rude, but fair.
Alone, Max stares at the ceiling and tries to remember why his chest feels like someone filled it with cotton wool and heartbreak. Then he remembers again.
Charles is gone.
Not dead. Just…retired. Which is worse. Dead people don’t get to choose to disappear.
He remembers watching the press conference where Charles said he was taking time off. Personal reasons. Family. No further comment. Arthur looked like he was about to cry. Fred Binotto or whatever hybrid boss Ferrari has now looked like someone just told him espresso was being outlawed.
Max had just. Nodded. Like an idiot. Like it was normal. Like it wasn’t the beginning of the worst off-season of his life.
He presses the cup of water to his forehead like it might summon divine intervention.
Then he remembers the dream.
Charles overtaking him. Laughing. Turning around in the cockpit to wink at him mid-corner like some kind of Monaco-certified traffic demon. Which is very unrealistic because… Charles hasn’t winked at him in 6 months.
Max groans. He’d been having dreams about Charles on and off for months. It was funny at first. Then it was annoying. Then it became a nightly tradition. Like a bedtime story from hell.
Now it’s just insulting.
“You left me, you little bastard,” he mutters at the ceiling. “You won and then dipped. And now I’m out here headbutting barriers like a freshly concussed crab.”
There’s a beeping noise from the monitor. Max wonders if it’s judging him.
Then he wonders if Charles still uses his old number. (He doesn’t. Max remembers checking. Max remembers calling. Max remembers leaving thousands of voicemails. Max remembers getting a text back saying, ‘This is Justin, not Charles. But I hope you get therapy.’ )
He drinks the water like it’s a shot of tequila and plots his next terrible idea.
The door opens.
Max squints at the intruder, already ready to bite. It’s Christian. Looking like someone tried to iron a headache onto a dad.
“Ah,” Max says flatly. “My least favourite team principal.”
Christian exhales through his nose like he just finished a 10K and Max is the finish line made of pure disappointment. “Good to see you’re still you.”
“Unfortunately,” Max mutters.
Then the door opens again , because the universe has a vendetta today, and Daniel walks in, beaming like a kid on a field trip. Wearing socks with pineapples on them.
Max stares. “Why the fuck are you here.”
Daniel points at himself with mock offence. “Moral support, obviously. And I brought you pudding. But I ate it. For morale.”
“I have a concussion, not a funeral,” Max says, voice flat. “Why do you look like you’re here to sing?”
Daniel shrugs. “Never know when it’ll be the last time. Concussions are spicy.”
“I hate everyone in this room,” Max decides. “The water tastes like wet paper, the nurse thinks I’m hallucinating, and I crashed in fucking Monaco . I hope the track collapses. I hope the entire principality falls into the sea. I hope they outlaw street circuits and three-race weekends and— fuck . THREE HEADERS. That’s what did it. I told you, Christian. I told you. Too many races, not enough Charles. My brain literally gave out from boredom.”
“The technical term is triple header.” Daniel supplies.
Christian pinches the bridge of his nose. “The nurse said you might be experiencing some amnesia.”
Max laughs. Then laughs harder. Then wheezes like an old radiator.
“AMNESIA? HAHAHAHA. NO, BITCH. AMNESIA ZERO, MAX ONE.”
Daniel snorts.
“I remember everything. I remember that I won Bahrain. And Jeddah. And Melbourne. And Baku. And China. And Miami. And Canada. And Imola. AND I REMEMBER THAT THIS SEASON IS ASS .”
Christian raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah, I’ve been winning,” Max says, already bitter. “Thanks for the rocket ship. But do you know what winning feels like without Charles on the track? It feels like jerking off in a trophy cabinet. It’s pointless. Hollow. And also deeply uncomfortable.”
Daniel chokes on air. Christian looks like he regrets not getting a real job after university.
Max keeps going. “I’m not even joking. Charles retires, and suddenly I’m just—what. Competing against Lando? Respectfully, no. I like Lando. But no. That’s like replacing cocaine with almond milk.”
“I think Lando would be offended,” Daniel offers, grinning.
“Lando would understand,” Max snaps. “Charles and I had— a thing. Not like that ,” he adds quickly, because Daniel’s eyebrows are climbing. “Like a racing thing. He made it fun. He made me angry . I haven’t wanted to murder anyone since Abu Dhabi. What am I supposed to do, just keep winning alone? That’s not racing. That’s admin work .”
Daniel throws himself into a chair. “You’re such a romantic, Maxie.”
“Shut up. I’m not romantic. I’m traumatised .”
Christian cuts in. “Max. You crashed into a barrier at 200 km/h. We’re just trying to make sure—”
“I crashed because I was distracted. And you know why I was distracted? Because I saw a guy in the crowd who looked like Charles. And then my brain short-circuited. And then—BAM. Monaco said ‘goodnight.’ I saw an angel. He looked like Charles too.”
Daniel’s wheezing into his hands. “You’re obsessed.”
“Yeah. I am,” Max says, unapologetically. “Because no one just retires at their peak unless something’s wrong. And Charles didn’t even tell me. He just vanished. Poof. Gone.”
Christian is looking at him with what might be concern or the kind of fear reserved for people about to punch walls.
Max leans back with a sigh. “So, unless one of you is gonna give me his address, I’m going to start tailing every house in Monaco until I find his stupid face. And when I do, I’m gonna yell at him. And then maybe kiss him. And then yell again.”
Dead silence.
“…So definitely not amnesia,” Daniel says finally.
“Congratulations,” Max replies. “You’re both geniuses.”
The water cup slips off his chest and spills on the sheets.
Max glares at it.
“Add that to the list. Water is shit too.”
Christian, in his eternal quest to preserve what little sanity he has left, sighs. “Max. Did you pretend to have amnesia in front of the nurse?”
Max stares at him like he just asked if Max recreationally eats batteries. “ No , I didn’t pretend. I was just slightly disoriented from a vivid neurological betrayal. Otherwise known as a dream.”
Christian blinks. “You crashed into a barrier and woke up asking for Charles Leclerc.”
“Yes,” Max says. “Because I was dreaming about Charles Leclerc. I think he overtook me. Which is how I knew it wasn’t real, by the way.”
Daniel claps his hands together, all sunshine and menace. “Aww, Max dreams about Charles. That’s so romantic. ”
Max glares. “It’s not romantic. It was a stress dream. He passed me in the tunnel. It was horrifying.”
Daniel grins. “So you’re saying Charles is your sleep paralysis demon.”
“Yes. But Monegasque.”
Daniel nods, solemn. “Even scarier.”
Max rolls his eyes so hard it qualifies as exercise. “Why are you even here ? Aren’t you retired? Shouldn’t you be in Australia right now, drinking something with an umbrella in it and pretending you don’t miss us?”
Daniel raises an eyebrow. “Mate, I live in Monaco.”
Max makes a noise that isn’t so much a word as a keyboard smash turned sentient.
“UEGTIRJKNFVDMGHURVFJKNM.”
Christian winces. “You okay?”
“No,” Max says. “I’m not okay. He lives in Monaco. Charles used to live in Monaco. Everyone lives in Monaco. Monaco is the worst. I hate Monaco. I’m moving to Mars.”
“Bold choice,” Daniel says. “Little dusty. Good straight-line speed though.”
Max slams his head back onto the pillow, muttering, “This is why aliens don’t visit us. We let people retire without warning and then we pretend water is hydrating.”
Daniel tries very hard not to laugh. He fails.
Christian looks like he aged five years in five minutes. “I’m going to talk to the medical staff about clearing you for release.”
“Great,” Max says. “Get me out of here before I start dreaming about Carlos too. I can’t handle another Ferrari man with hurt feelings.”
Daniel pats his ankle like he’s a sulking golden retriever. “Cheer up. You only crashed a little bit.”
“Tell that to my dignity,” Max mutters.
Daniel smirks like he’s been waiting for that.
“Your dignity? Oh, you mean that little puff of smoke that evaporated when you lost Monaco ?”
Max turns his head—slowly, because concussion—and levels Daniel with a dead-eyed stare. “Do you want to die here, or should I wait till I’m discharged?”
Daniel props his feet up on the edge of the bed like this is a casual hangout and not a crime scene. “Just saying, mate. Monaco? That’s the one they remember. People name yachts after that one. Babies. Pasta dishes.”
“I have won in Monaco before. Statistically more times than you have.”
Daniel smirks. “But have I binned it here?”
“I hate Monaco,” Max grits out. “I’ve always hated Monaco.”
Daniel gasps. “Blasphemy.”
“It’s a glorified slot car track with no overtaking, no grip, and no runoff. And rich people watching you crash from hot tubs.”
Christian, from his corner, mutters something about sponsors and PR, but Max is already on a rant.
“I live three minutes from the circuit and I still got stuck in traffic yesterday because someone was flying a drone shaped like a fucking Ferrari.”
Daniel’s laughing so hard he nearly slips off the chair.
“I’m serious! I don’t even think Monaco’s real . It’s just a collective hallucination we all agree to crash into once a year. I won Imola blindfolded, but here? Barrier. First corner. Out. Gone. Boom. Monaco, baby.”
“Poetic,” Daniel wheezes. “You and Charles both peaced out of Monaco, just in different years.”
Max throws a pillow at him. It’s the world’s saddest, flattest throw.
Daniel catches it. “Are you crying?”
“I’m not crying, I’m concussed. ” Max hisses. “There’s a difference. And my head hurts.”
“Aww. My poor little Monaco-hating baby. But in all honesty, you could have just —”
“Shut up,” Max says. “If you say ‘you should’ve braked earlier,’ I will unplug your soul from your body.”
Daniel holds his hands up. “Too soon?”
“Too soon would’ve been braking into the corner, Daniel.”
Christian looks like he’s considering faking a phone call and leaving the room forever.
Max grumbles and flops back again. “It’s not even about losing Monaco. I could handle that.”
Daniel tilts his head. “Oh?”
“It’s about losing Monaco while Charles is missing like a fucking cryptid . It’s rude. If I crash, he should be around to laugh at me. That’s the deal. I crash, he smirks. He crashes, I smirk. Mutual smirking.”
Daniel is smiling now, soft around the edges. “You miss him.”
“I miss being bullied properly,” Max mutters. “These new kids just say ‘good race’ and smile. It’s disgusting.”
“Have you tried texting him?”
Max makes another demonic keyboard-mash sound. “Yes.”
Daniel looks half-pitying, half-amused. “You need therapy.”
“I need Charles ,” Max grumbles.
“You need to win something that isn’t based on trauma bonding.”
Max glares. “I’m literally going to make Monaco illegal.”
“Go ahead.”
Max groans like the thought physically wounded him. “I hate street circuits.”
“You hate everything right now,” Daniel says with a laugh.
Max doesn't argue.
He just stares up at the ceiling again.
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe too loud. Tries very hard not to feel like a badly rendered version of himself. He’s halfway through contemplating the possibility that this hospital bed is actually a psychological trap when the door creaks open again.
Doctor Annie strides in with a tablet and the no-nonsense vibe of someone who’s sewn Max back together more times than his race suits have sponsors.
“Afternoon, Max,” she says, all steady and professional, like she hasn’t scraped him off the pavement before. “How’s the pain?”
Max shrugs. “Which one? Head? Neck? Soul?”
Daniel snorts from the chair. “He’s fine. A little dramatic. Possible side effect of losing Monaco.”
Annie glances at the chart, entirely unbothered. “Pain scale, Max. One to ten.”
“Physical: three. Emotional: 2012 Fernando Alonso.”
Daniel wheezes. Christian sighs so hard the floor shakes (metaphorically).
She taps that in like it’s a real metric. “Headache?”
“Feels like someone parked an Alpine on it.”
“Blurred vision?”
“Only when Daniel smiles.”
Daniel flashes a blinding grin. Max flips him off. Annie doesn’t bother hiding her snort.
“Good. Reflexes look intact.” She shines a penlight in his eyes. “Bruising on the ribs, mild concussion, nothing broken. You’ll live.”
“You’ve got at least twenty-four hours of observation left,” she says, adjusting something on the stand. “If your brain behaves, we’ll let you go home with instructions. If not, I get to keep you like a cursed F1 collectible.”
Max mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “I hope this hospital explodes.”
But she smiles anyway, that same familiar, patient expression that’s less “I’m your doctor” and more “You’re an idiot and I care anyway.”
Christian leans forward. “Can he be cleared for Barcelona? It’s in two weeks.”
Annie checks the chart. “Neurologically, fine. Keep him off the sim work for a week, no heavy lifting, plenty of sleep. If symptoms stay mild, he can race.”
Max waves a hand. “Pass. F1 is boring. I already won the championship in my sleep.”
Daniel’s jaw drops. “What the— we need to scan his brain again . He just said no to racing.”
Annie raises a brow. “The CT was clean, Danny. This is just Max with opinions.”
Christian rubs his temples. “Max, you hate missing races.”
“I hate winning by default.” Max shrugs, winces at the bruise. “Charles is gone, everyone else is polite, the trophy engraver is on autopilot. Not fun.”
Annie folds her arms. “Take the two weeks, then decide. Spend time… relaxing.”
Max grimaces. “Define relaxing.”
“Activities that don’t end in carbon fibre confetti. Walking. Reading. Therapy.”
Daniel claps. “Therapy. Finally.”
Max glares. “I get therapy. It’s called telemetry.”
“That’s not—” Annie sighs. “Whatever. Any nausea?”
“Only when I think about Monaco.”
“Good. Keep the ice pack on your temple ten minutes every few hours. Hydrate—”
“Water tastes like printer ink here.”
“I’ll get you Dutch brand water, princess.”
Max points at her. “That’s why you’re my favourite doctor.”
She smirks. “I’m your only doctor because you keep doing stupid things on my stretch of coastline.”
Christian stands. “Alright, we’ll follow your recovery plan. Thank you, Doctor.”
Annie nods. “Buzz me if the headache gets worse, vision changes, or he starts making sense.”
Daniel cackles. Max flips him off again, gentler this time—concussion etiquette.
Annie pauses at the door. “Seriously, Max. Rest.”
Max averts his eyes. “Yeah. Sure.”
She leaves. Silence pulses.
Which is dangerous.
Because Max’s brain immediately starts spinning again. Not in a productive way. In a Max Verstappen spiral way.
He exhales sharply, looks around, then lies on his side like he’s about to perform Hamlet to the IV drip.
“I hate Monaco,” he says.
Daniel, sensing the start of something dramatic, sits up straighter and starts scrolling his phone. Pretends it’s accidental. It’s not. This is entertainment.
Christian groans quietly. “Here we go again.”
Max frowns at the drip. “It’s full of old people, yacht influencers, and weird dogs in Prada shoes. Everyone here either owns a private jet or is a private jet. It’s a scam. The whole country is like, if LinkedIn had a scent. I walked past a toddler the other day who said ‘Daddy just bought another island.’ He was three.”
Daniel doesn’t even look up. “You’re literally describing yourself.”
“I don’t say it out loud like an asshole toddler.”
“You’ve been an asshole toddler. You made your first Red Bull PowerPoint at twelve.”
“That’s called ambition.”
“It had a slide titled ‘Why Nico Rosberg Should Be Afraid of Me.’”
“He still is .”
Christian interjects cautiously. “So… what are you getting at?”
Max turns, still facing the IV like he’s doing therapy with it. “I’m moving.”
Christian stares at him. “You can’t just move . You live here. You have a literal apartment with your initials on it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m evicting myself.”
Daniel perks up. “Okay, now I am listening.”
Christian sighs the sigh of a man about to get a migraine. “Max. Monaco is the best country in the world for tax evasion— I mean tax management. Unless you want to go to Switzerland, which is just colder Monaco with more cheese.”
Max shrugs. “I don’t care about taxes. I’m moving.”
Daniel gasps. “Someone sedate him before he builds a bunker in Amsterdam.”
“Shut up,” Max snaps. “I’ve had it with this country. The people. The stupid Grand Prix. The tunnel. The overpriced espresso. The air that smells like generational wealth. The guy upstairs.”
Christian blinks. “What guy upstairs?”
“My neighbour. I hate him.”
Daniel raises a brow. “Who’s your neighbour again?”
“ Lando. ”
“Lando moved again?”
Daniel howls. “You live below Lando Norris and you’ve never mentioned this once.”
Max glares. “I don’t talk about my suffering publicly.”
“Does Lando know you hate him?”
“I don’t hate him, I just— despise his lifestyle .”
Daniel is wheezing now. “Max, you are his lifestyle. You both drive cars fast and post thirst traps accidentally on purpose. Him, more on purpose than you.”
“His espresso machine is too loud. He plays Coldplay at full volume. And he wears socks with slides. Like a war criminal.”
Christian is rubbing his forehead now. “Okay, so if you hate Monaco, hate Lando, hate yachts, hate coffee, hate taxes, and hate luxury… where exactly are you thinking of moving to?”
Christian shakes his head. “Because logistically? No country is gonna want you.”
“I’m not a criminal.”
“No, but half the UK thinks you personally sabotaged their national pride. You crash into their drivers, steal their trophies, and say things like ‘it wasn’t my fault’ with the emotional range of a dead fish. They want you gone.”
Max shrugs. “Cool. Not going there.”
“America won’t notice you exist, and you’ll spiral because no one will recognise you at the airport.”
“Better than being recognised by Lando’s playlist.”
“Spain?” Christian tries.
“Carlos lives there. I already made peace with one Ferrari driver leaving me. I can’t handle two.”
Daniel whistles. “Emo.”
“Shut up.”
“France?”
“France is Monaco. With fewer Lamborghinis.”
Max shrugs, deadpan. “I’ll go back to the Netherlands.”
Silence.
Christian chuckles awkwardly. “Right, yeah. Haha. Sure. National pride and all.”
Max doesn’t laugh.
He’s still staring at the IV like he’s arguing with it telepathically.
“…Wait. You’re serious? ”
Max shrugs again. “I’m buying a flat in Alkmaar. With blackout curtains. Near a bakery.”
Christian’s voice rises half an octave. “You’re going to go from the tax haven of the elite to—what? A windmill? You’ll be paying 48% income tax and living next to a tulip farm.”
“Sounds peaceful,” Max says.
Daniel blinks. “You’re actually doing it.”
“Yep.”
“Because you lost in Monaco?”
Christian snorts. “That’s not that serious.”
Daniel leans in. “It’s not about Monaco. It’s about Charles. ”
Max stiffens. “Shut up.”
Christian squints. “It is about Charles.”
“I said shut up.”
Daniel grins. “This man is packing up his entire life because Charles isn’t around to haunt the paddock like a sexy ghost.”
“I’M MOVING COUNTRIES BECAUSE MONACO SUCKS, ” Max barks.
Daniel hums. “You know what else sucked? Charles vanishing like a freaky magician.”
Max doesn’t answer. He’s too busy angrily adjusting his hospital blanket.
Christian sighs. “So. Netherlands. You, home. In a little house with a dog named Charles.”
“I’M NOT NAMING MY DOG CHARLES.”
Daniel smirks, “You absolutely are.”
Christian’s expression warps into something between genuine concern and scheduling a therapist. “Okay. Okay. Daniel, you’re going with him.”
Daniel looks horrified. “Excuse me? No. No. Ew. No. I like Monaco. I like sunshine. I like normal people. I like not living under a dictatorship of absolute, uncontrolled rage.”
“You’re the only person he won’t ignore. I can’t trust him alone.”
Max stares. “I’m very responsible.”
“You poured Red Bull into your humidifier once.”
“It smelled amazing.”
Christian throws his hands in the air. “I give up.”
Max sighs, exhausted, emotionally constipated. “I just want peace.”
“You want Charles .”
“SHUT UP.”
Daniel grins, smug as hell. “It’s okay, baby. We’ll find your little Monegasque cryptid eventually.”
Max flips him off again.
It’s the only language he speaks fluently anymore.
Christian sighs—again, because that’s just what he does now—and crosses his arms. “So is this moving to the Netherlands thing like… a three-week retreat? Or a forever kind of brain fog moment?”
Max blinks at him. “Yes.”
Daniel snorts instantly. “Goodness gracious, you’re so stupid.”
“Thank you, Daniel!” Christian pulls a hand through his hair. “At least someone voiced my thoughts.”
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. But it’s also hilarious, so I support it emotionally, even if it’s clinically insane.”
Max sits up with all the energy of… energy. “I need to call my boss.”
Christian squints. “ I am your boss.”
Max pauses. “Right. Sorry. Still mildly concussed.”
Daniel's already doubled over. “This man forgot who signs his million-euro contracts but remembers that Lando wears socks with slides.”
Max waves him off. “I’m leaving, okay? Don’t try and stop me. I’m going to pack one hoodie, a toothbrush, and whatever’s left of my dignity.”
Christian leans on the edge of the bed. “Okay. But I have to ask. The whole ‘F1 is boring, I hate winning, the world is Charlesless, therefore I want to die’ meltdown—is that real too? Or was that just head trauma talking?”
Max shrugs. “F1’s still boring, yeah. But no, I’m not quitting.”
Daniel blinks. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah. Even though it's emotionally dry toast right now, I’ll just race like it’s 2023.”
“2023?” Christian repeats. “The year where you destroyed the grid by August?”
“Exactly,” Max says. “I’ll crush everyone out of spite.”
Daniel raises both eyebrows. “So let me get this straight—you hate this place, you’re emotionally distraught over the human goblin formerly known as Charles Leclerc, you’re moving to a country where it rains six days a week and everyone’s built like a cyclist, but you’re still showing up to every race just to lap people like it’s a casual Monday in Suzuka?”
Max shrugs. “What else am I gonna do? Knit?”
Daniel throws his head back. “You are absolutely the weirdest person I know. And I’m friends with Lando.”
Max narrows his eyes. “I will bury you under this hospital bed.”
Christian sighs again. “Okay, so we’re keeping the job, but doing a self-inflicted Dutch exile.”
Max nods. “Correct.”
“And you’re not quitting because—what, you want to keep suffering publicly?”
“I want to keep winning publicly. So if Charles ever watches a race from wherever he is, he knows I’m still better than him.”
Daniel fake wipes a tear. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. Toxic as hell. But romantic.”
Max lies back down and stares at the ceiling again. “I miss when he used to yell at me after quali.”
Christian mutters to himself and pulls out his phone. “I’m booking you a therapist who takes emergency appointments. And possibly performs exorcisms.”
“Get one for Lando too,” Max says blankly. “His Coldplay phase is getting worse.”
—---
Max Verstappen is moving to the Netherlands for a week. Not forever. Not even that dramatically.
(Okay, maybe a little dramatically.)
But the point is: Max is going. Temporarily. Not out of heartbreak. Not because he’s spiraling. Not because his best friend/rival/possibly the love of his miserable life ghosted the entire sport after winning a single world title and vanishing like an emotionally repressed Monegasque cryptid. No.
He’s going because Monaco sucks.
Monaco sucks and everything in it sucks. The espresso machine has been making weird hissing noises. The hallway smells like Dior Homme and someone else's marital tension. The yacht parties outside never shut up. There are too many linen shirts and not enough serotonin.
Also, Charles lived here once. And then he left. And now it’s weird.
Max's Monaco apartment, which cost an ungodly amount of money and has floors polished to the point of existential dread, feels like a cursed museum. Every room has too many windows. There’s always some natural light reminding Max of things he doesn’t want to think about. Like 2025. Like Abu Dhabi. Like Charles smiling for the cameras, smiling at the team, not smiling at Max.
Max swore he didn't care. But then Charles left .
And now Max is mutely shoving things into a duffel bag, surrounded by the sterile luxury of a Monaco penthouse that feels too empty and too loud at the same time.
His Netherlands apartment—his backup apartment, his old apartment, his “I used to live here when I hated everyone and had acne” apartment—is, in theory, still intact. He hasn’t been there in three years. Last time he checked, the radiator screamed, the curtains were see-through, and the kitchen smelled like discount bread. He painted the walls orange when he was twenty because he thought patriotism was a personality.
It wasn’t.
That apartment had terrible Wi-Fi, one (1) functioning plug point, and a balcony too narrow to stand on but too wide to ignore. It was awful. It was home.
He’ll go there. Reset. Breathe. Loathe himself in peace.
And no, it’s not because of Charles.
(Okay. It's entirely because of Charles.)
Charles, who used to send him grainy selfies from hotel lobbies. Charles, who would insult his racecraft one minute and hold his hand on a plane the next. Charles, who won his first championship in 2025, then retired with the smirk of a man who’d been planning it all along. And then disappeared.
No forwarding address. No texts. No ‘goodbye, Max.’ Just... gone.
And Max would’ve handled that like a normal person. Except Charles left behind a silence . The kind Max couldn’t outrun on track. The kind that sat in his passenger seat and made itself at home in his ribs.
Max kept a photo in his drawer. Not a romantic one. Not even friendly. Just him and Charles, from their karting days, both sweaty, annoyed, and flipping each other off. Peak mutual hatred.
He kept it.
Daniel found it this morning.
Daniel— annoying, smug, Daniel —held it up and made a face. “Aw, young love!”
Max hasn’t spoken since.
Not a word. Not even a grunt.
He’s been rage-packing for the past thirty minutes in absolute silence. Pure spite. He has three hoodies, two chargers, no socks, and approximately forty unresolved feelings.
Daniel’s still sitting on the bed, eating Max’s cereal, pretending not to laugh every time Max zips and unzips his bag like it’ll change something. The picture is still on the dresser, face down.
Max doesn’t want to look at it.
Or talk about it.
Or think about it.
Which is why he’s moving to the Netherlands for seven days of self-imposed exile, where no one can mock him, and the walls are orange, and the radiator sounds like it’s being murdered.
It’s gonna be perfect.
Which, in Max Verstappen language, means deeply miserable but controlled. A strategic deployment of sadness. Like pitting early to avoid traffic—except instead of traffic, it’s emotions. And instead of tyres, it’s Charles.
Behind him, Daniel is talking. Has been talking. Won’t stop talking.
Max wouldn’t know the specifics. He tuned out somewhere between Daniel comparing Monaco real estate to “a giant overpriced soap dish” and asking if Max was bringing his “emotional support Haribo” or just planning to “raw-dog the depression like a true Dutchman.”
Max doesn’t answer.
Max is busy.
He’s folding his eighth identical Red Bull polo shirt and placing it next to seven others. Precision-folded. Military-level. A perfectly uniform wall of navy polyester repression. He doesn’t even like polo shirts. But Charles once said he looked good in them.
That was two years ago.
Max still remembers.
Daniel is on the couch now, surrounded by Max’s throw pillows like a reality TV villain. He picks up one of Max’s racing shoes and holds it up like it’s Exhibit A in a courtroom drama. “You know, if you’re moving to the Netherlands to mourn your breakup, maybe bring something other than ten shirts that say ‘Oracle’ on them.”
Max places the next polo into the suitcase. Smooth. Centered. Silent.
Daniel throws a pillow at him. “HELLO? Are you even listening to me or are you pretending I’m not here like that picture of Charles you secretly keep in your drawer?”
Max doesn’t flinch.
Max doesn’t blink.
Max continues folding .
Daniel sighs so loud it echoes. “Cool. Just checking. I’ll be over here, providing the only personality in this flat.”
Max pulls out polo number nine. Same shirt. Same pattern. Same haunted energy.
He doesn’t say it out loud, but packing is the only thing keeping him from exploding. So he does it. Over and over. One shirt at a time. One compartment of his brain at a time.
Charles is gone.
Monaco is ruined.
And this—this stupid little suitcase—this is something Max can control.
Unlike the emotional fallout of Charles "I Win One Title Then Ghost the Planet" Leclerc disappearing into the European wilderness like a stylish Bigfoot.
Unlike the Monaco Grand Prix, which Max crashed out of like a subplot in a Netflix docuseries.
Unlike Daniel , who is now lounging on Max’s $900 throw blanket and googling “how to say ‘delusional’ in Dutch.”
Packing? Max can do that.
Max is a packing king .
This duffel bag is going to be tighter than his jaw every time someone brings up Charles in the paddock.
The only problem is: Max is not allowed to commit to this new Netherlands Hermit Era full-time.
Because Christian Horner—Team Principal, energy drink overlord, and Max’s unofficial legal guardian—said no.
Specifically, he’d said:
“Max, don’t be childish. You’re not selling the Monaco apartment just because your neighbour plays Coldplay and Charles Leclerc disappeared like your emotional support Monegasque.”
Then he said something about taxes and brand image and how Max had a contract and can’t just disappear into the Dutch fog every time someone hurts his feelings . Which was rude.
And also correct.
So now Max has to return to this apartment.
Eventually.
Which is stupid, and cruel, and basically counts as psychological warfare.
Because this Monaco apartment?
It’s cursed.
The espresso machine makes a sterile noise every time Max tries to use it.
The shower pressure is aggressively French.
And somewhere in the walls, Lando Norris is doing heaven knows what—TikTok core workouts? Discord karaoke? Probably crying in bucket hats? Max doesn’t know. Max doesn’t want to know.
All he knows is that Christian made him promise he’d be back in a week.
Which is how Max knows he’ll be gone for at least two.
Because Max may be a driver, but above all—he is petty .
Petty and packing.
Daniel, from the couch: “You know, it’s not even like you like the Netherlands.”
Max, still silent, folds Polo #10.
Because this isn’t about liking the Netherlands. This is about escaping this beige emotional hellhole of scented candles, Coldplay, and the ghost of Charles fucking Leclerc.
And also because Max painted his Dutch apartment orange and refuses to admit that was a mistake.
Even though the walls glow like radioactive traffic cones and the living room gives off the vibe of a nationalistic prison cell.
But Max doesn’t regret it. Regret is for cowards.
Regret is for people who don’t have Charles Leclerc’s stupid soft smile etched into the backs of their eyeballs like a branding iron.
Max simply has a palette , and that palette is rage and poorly mixed Dulux paint.
He is mid-pack, carefully positioning a deodorant bottle so it won’t explode on his Red Bull socks, when he notices movement.
Daniel.
Fucking Daniel.
The Australian gremlin has somehow slinked off the couch without making a sound (Max suspects years of prank-based stealth training), and is now holding The Photo . Max’s Photo. The one that lives in the drawer. The sacred artefact of Max and Charles, circa 2011, sweat-drenched, sunburnt, and flipping each other off during karting days when hate was easier and love was just aggressive eye contact in Parc Fermé.
Daniel waves it like a fan. “Aww. Look at baby Max. Baby Charles. So full of life. So full of mutual loathing and future sexual tension.”
Max lunges .
Daniel dodges like a professional snake and yeets the photo into Max’s open duffel bag.
Max slaps him.
Not metaphorically. Not emotionally.
He actually slaps him.
A soft, vengeful smack across Daniel’s stupid grinning face. “You don’t touch that.”
Daniel holds up both hands, fake-gasping, but his eyes are gleaming with unholy joy. “Oh my goodness . You’re unhinged. Are you gonna marry the photo? Or just stare at it until it bursts into flames from your unresolved issues?”
Max grabs the bag to extract the photo—but Daniel is faster.
He snatches it back out, sprints to the suitcase, lifts up the portable sim monitor like he’s performing a heist, and shoves the picture under it.
Max opens his mouth and unleashes a string of swearing so intense it sounds like a demonic chant in four different languages. Dutch, English, some mangled French, and one word that might’ve been Klingon.
Daniel grins, triumphant. “Too late! Now it’s travelling with you. Just like your guilt!”
Max tackles him.
There’s no warning. No buildup. One second Daniel is standing smug, the next he’s airborne and then horizontal, slammed backwards onto the mattress with Max half-climbing him like an enraged raccoon.
“What the fuck, you unmedicated hedgehog— ”
“TAKE IT OUT.”
“MAKE ME.”
And then it’s on.
No gloves. No rules. No mercy.
The Cat Fight Begins.
Max goes for the hair first, naturally. Years of sibling-level hatred have taught him where the soft spots are.
Daniel bites.
Not hard. Just enough to establish dominance.
“Did you just BITE ME?”
“You started it, emotionally constipated Lego man!”
Max slaps .
Daniel kicks .
They roll.
They tangle in the sheets like two feral otters fighting for control of a cursed heirloom. The mattress squeaks violently, the throw pillows explode off the bed like startled pigeons, and at one point Max ends up sideways, his foot lodged in a lamp that was definitely not rated for Verstappen-level aggression.
“Give me the fucking photo!”
“No! You clearly need it to work through your feelings! ”
Max tries to smother Daniel with a blanket. Daniel screams like he’s being exorcised.
There is a crunch . Neither of them knows what broke. They do not stop.
“WHY ARE YOU SO STRONG, YOU’RE RETIRED!”
“I DO YOGA , YOU TINY DUTCH BRUTE!”
Someone knocks from the ceiling. Lando. Of course. The world’s worst upstairs neighbor.
Max screams at the roof. “FUCK OFF, NORRIS!”
Daniel shrieks laughing, then almost chokes on a throw cushion. Max gets him in a chokehold, Daniel tickles him in retaliation, and they both go rolling off the bed in a heap of limbs, curses, and unresolved emotional trauma.
Silence.
Heavy breathing.
Blanket over both their heads like the aftermath of a very confusing battle.
Max speaks first, voice muffled. “You’re a menace.”
“You love me.”
“I hate you.”
“You miss Charles.”
Max punches him in the thigh.
Daniel wheezes. “Okay, okay, truce. You’re like a feral toddler. Goodness, Maxie.”
Max sits up, wild-haired, flushed, and vibrating with frustration. His shirt is halfway off his shoulder like he just survived a fight club held in a mattress store.
“I’m going to the Netherlands,” he growls.
Daniel coughs, spitting out a tuft of duvet. “God help the Netherlands.”
The framed photo lies face-down again. But it’s in the suitcase now. Trapped. Smuggled in. A relic of whatever the hell Max is trying not to admit.
They both look at it.
Max sighs.
Daniel grins.
Max is freshly bruised from the Daniel fight, his socks are still AWOL, and he's now somehow managed to zip one of his hoodies into the lining of his suitcase.
But it's fine.
He's coping.
He's in control.
Which is exactly when it starts.
Upstairs.
The distant beat.
The doom.
“IT’S FRIDAAAAY THEN—SATURDAY, SUNDAY WHAT—”
The speakers thunder .
It vibrates through the light fixtures. The whole building begins to hum like it's preparing for takeoff.
Max’s eye twitches.
Daniel looks up like he’s trying to pinpoint the wrath of angels.
“That’s not that loud,” Daniel says.
The song immediately gets louder .
The bass doubles in violence. The windows literally tremble .
Daniel flinches. “Okay why is it so loud?”
Max doesn’t even look up from angrily stuffing his remaining toiletries into a ziplock bag. “Lando found a loose tile in his apartment,” he mutters. “When the speaker hits the tile just right, the sound vibrates down through the entire floor. Like the evil himself is DJing through the grout.”
Daniel stares. “That’s not how physics works.”
Max is already storming to the balcony. “I don’t care how it works, I just want it to stop. ”
He flings open the sliding glass door like a man possessed and steps out into the Monaco sun, jaw locked, voice rising.
“NORRIS,” Max yells up toward the floor above, “TURN THAT SHIT OFF BEFORE I FILE A NOISE COMPLAINT WITH HEAVEN. ”
A beat.
Then: fwump.
A sock slaps Max in the face.
Direct hit.
Max stands there, unmoving, sock dangling from his cheek like a medal.
From the balcony above: giggles .
Not Lando’s. Lighter . Feral. Giggly.
Oscar Piastri’s messy head peeks over the railing.
He looks down like a cherub caught in a crime. “Hi, Max.”
Max squints up at him. “Hi Oscar. Tell your boyfriend to shut the fuck up.”
Oscar blinks innocently. “I don’t know what you mean. Lando’s just having a moment. He said it’s cardio.”
Daniel walks out onto the balcony, still holding Max’s shoe like a cocktail. “Is he doing cardio or calling spirits? I think my fillings are vibrating.”
Oscar smiles, sickly sweet. “He said the beat helps him regulate his heart rate.”
Max glares. “I’m gonna regulate his skull into the concrete.”
Oscar leans a little farther over the railing. “Maybe you just need a nap.”
Then he throws another sock.
It hits Daniel square in the chest.
Daniel catches it. Sniffs it. Pauses. “Smells like foot trauma.”
Oscar grins down at him. “That’s because he was cardioing in it .”
Max full-body gags . “WHY WOULD YOU—”
Oscar shrugs like he’s just handed over a pie instead of a sock infused with Lando’s gym foot DNA. “It’s payback. For the Red Bull winning streak.”
Max looks offended. “ Excuse me? Lando literally won Monaco. You know. The Grand Prix I crashed out of while the entire nation watched. In 4K.”
Oscar nods sagely. “Yeah. And he hasn’t stopped talking about it for, like, ten hours. So actually, this is payback for me. ”
Max opens his mouth to fire back something truly foul—like a comment about Oscar’s weirdly wholesome Instagram captions—when the music abruptly cuts off.
Glorious, vibrating silence.
Max exhales. “Finally.”
Oscar blinks down at him. “How’s your concussion, by the way?”
Max frowns. “How the fuck do you know I have a concussion?”
Oscar shrugs again. “The grid has a group chat, Max.”
Max’s brain stutters. “Why am I not in it?”
Oscar grins. “Because we like peace.”
Max turns to the side. “Are you in it?”
Daniel shrugs. “Maybe.”
Max growns with the power of a thousand lions but the gravitas of a kitty cat. “I hate every single one of you.”
The younger Australian man tsked. “So I am guessing the concussion is all cured, then?”
Daniel, stepping into frame like he’s narrating a nature documentary, goes, “It’s been half a day , and this man has already challenged me to a wrestling match and tried to throw a suitcase at me. I think the concussion’s healing great.”
Max rolls his eyes. “You bit me.”
“You smothered me with a throw blanket. ”
And then—
Another head appears.
Right next to Oscar’s.
Floppy hair. Smug grin. Eyes full of post-Monaco victory sparkle.
It’s Lando Fucking Norris.
The Monaco winner . The asshole .
“Hey, Maxiekins!” Lando chirps.
He’s shirtless. Zero socks. Super sweaty. Has the energy of someone who just ruined your party and stole the cake.
He waves. Like they’re friends. Like they don’t have an eternal balcony war involving vibrating cardio music and emotional damage.
Max just stands there. Silent. Visibly suppressing the urge to launch himself upward like a furious Sims character.
Daniel’s watching the standoff with the delighted grin of a toddler watching someone else get scolded—like Max is the kid who just got caught eating glue and Lando and Oscar are the ones tattling from the top bunk. Max, meanwhile, looks like he’s calculating the structural integrity of the balcony above and whether he can legally demolish it with a golf club.
Oscar and Lando are leaning over like nosy little raccoons, arms resting lazily on the railing, eyes glinting with the toxic joy of men who know they are annoying and thrive in that role.
Daniel leans closer to Max, craning his neck up like he’s trying to spot constellations. “Hey, did I tell you guys? Max is moving to the Netherlands for a bit.”
Instant reaction.
Oscar’s eyebrows shoot up.
Lando gasps like he’s just found out Santa isn’t real.
They both light up like Christmas came early and it’s personally about Max Verstappen’s emotional instability.
“Wait, what ?” Lando leans so far over the railing Daniel has to squint to make sure the idiot doesn’t fall. “You’re moving ?”
Max sighs through his nose. “It’s just a vacation.”
“Since when do you do vacations?” Oscar asks, eyes narrowing like a detective sniffing out a cover story. “You told us once you hate beaches because the sun is loud.”
“It is loud,” Max mutters.
Lando, grins wide. “This is so unlike you, Maxiekins. You hate leaving your espresso machine.”
“It’s just for a week or two.”
Oscar tilts his head, faux-sweet. “Is it because of the music?”
Max throws him a side glare.
Lando gasps again, clutching his heart. “Poor Maxie is traumatized . All because I was doing a little spiritual cardio .”
“It wasn’t spiritual, it was illegal. ” Max folds his arms across his chest. “Also, shut the fuck up.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
Max exhales through his nose like a bull preparing for impact. “It’s just a vacation .”
Lando squints. “You don’t take vacations.”
Oscar nods. “Yeah, your idea of a break is switching from sim to real car and back again until you forget how to blink.”
Max shrugs. “I just need some space.”
Daniel, still craning upwards with one hand on his hip like a gossiping auntie, adds helpfully, “He’s going for a week because he misses his pretty best friend. ”
That lands like a grenade.
Lando HOWLS.
Oscar makes a soft, stunned sound like a rabbit discovering taxes.
Max immediately turns around like he’s about to jump into the sea.
“Oh my goodness , MAX,” Lando wheezes, nearly doubling over. “You’re running away to cry over your pretty best friend? ”
Oscar, blinking rapidly, whispers to Daniel, “Is the pretty best friend Charles?”
Lando flings an arm around Oscar’s shoulder like they’re hosting a game show. “OBVIOUSLY it’s Charles. Who else does Max write sonnets about in the privacy of his rage journal?”
Max turns back toward the balcony, face blank, tone flat. “I don’t have a rage journal.”
“You totally have a rage journal,” Oscar says.
“It’s probably titled ‘My Life With Charles: A Slow Burn Tragedy’ ,” Lando adds, nodding sagely.
Oscar points a finger down at Max, as if preparing to interrogate him. “Wait. Wait wait wait. Is Charles in the Netherlands?”
Max blinks. “No.”
“Then what the hell is this plan?” Oscar asks, flabbergasted. “You’re going to your country just to cry about Charles in spirit? ”
Daniel claps his hands once like a camp counsellor. “No no. He’s going to the Netherlands to reconnect with his roots and forget Charles. It’s a deeply personal journey of self-hatred.”
Lando falls backward off the railing, laughing so hard Oscar has to grab his shirt to keep him from dying. “Forget Charles?! Max is OBSESSED. I’ve seen less fixation in crime documentaries.”
Daniel nods solemnly, as if he’s testifying in court. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
Max rubs both hands down his face, mumbles something into his palms that sounds a lot like “I should’ve moved to Antarctica.”
From above, Lando shouts, “He’d still find a penguin that looks like Charles and get emotionally attached.”
Oscar hums thoughtfully. “And then try to kiss it.”
Daniel grins. “And then write about it in his rage journal.”
Max flips them both off without looking.
Daniel mimics the motion, still smiling.
From above, Oscar tips his chin back over the railing, curls bouncing, voice sweet and deceptive like a demon disguised as a schoolboy.
“Do you, uh, need company for this little Dutch vacation? Because, like—” he gestures vaguely, “—we’ve got nothing better to do.”
Max squints up at him. “What do you mean , you’ve got nothing better to do?”
Oscar shrugs, perfectly innocent. “Lando’s banned from four casinos. I’ve finished Baldur’s Gate twice. We’re free.”
Max’s spine stiffens. Beside Oscar, Lando immediately leans farther over the railing like a moron acrobat . Half his torso is now dangling over the ledge like he’s testing God’s patience.
Daniel instinctively steps forward, squinting up like a worried parent. “Can you not die? I don’t want to explain this to Zak.”
Lando throws both arms in the air like he’s at a carnival. “I’M EXCITEDDDDDD.”
Max stares up at him. Silent. Emotionless. Loathing every atom of Lando’s stupid body.
Lando grins like a Golden Retriever who’s just chewed through the national grid. “WE SHOULD MAKE THIS A GROUP TRIP.”
“Absolutely not.”
Lando steamrolls past Max’s words like they never existed. “We’ll call Carlos. He’ll totally come. He has deep forest man energy. The Netherlands has forests. We’ll vibe. ”
Oscar gasps softly like Lando just invented travel. “Carlos would definitely be a good addition.”
Daniel perks up. “If Carlos is going, I’ll go. Obviously.”
“ NO. ” Max explodes before anyone else can open their stupid mouths. “No no no no no. I’m going to sulk in peace . That’s the whole point. I’m not hosting a fucking Formula 1 therapy retreat.”
Daniel gasps. “So you admit you’re sulking!”
Max’s neck jerks toward him like a haunted puppet. “ Shut the fuck up. ”
Oscar tilts his head like a curious bird. “You said it’s not about Charles though, so—”
Max holds up one finger, staring him down like a warning light.
Oscar backs up immediately, hands raised. “Just checking. No judgment. Just… wondering if we should bring tissues or…”
Lando flips upside down from the railing completely unnecessarily and yells, “I’M BRINGING MY PORTABLE SPEAKER!”
Max yells back, “IF YOU PLAY THAT STUPID ‘FRIDAY THEN’ SONG I WILL HUNT YOU IN THE WOODS.”
“YOU WON’T FIND ME ,” Lando howls. “I BLEND IN WITH THE MOSS!”
Daniel leans into Max, voice dry as toast. “What exactly was your plan here, anyway? Get into your sad little orange apartment, stare at the walls, and eat cheese sticks until Charles magically appears in the fog?”
Max growls. “It’s a valid plan.”
Lando shouts from above, still upside down, “Sounds like a romance novel written by a forklift operator!”
Oscar, hands still on the railing, giggles softly like a background fairy. “He means that with love.”
“I mean that with hostility ,” Lando calls.
Daniel turns to Max. “Okay but if this is becoming a squad trip, I’m absolutely coming. I am not missing the moment Max snaps and throws someone into a Dutch canal.”
“It’s not becoming anything,” Max mutters, dragging a hand down his face. “There’s no group. There’s no trip. There’s no—no Charles. There’s just me , my suitcase, and one very ugly apartment.”
Lando peers over again. “Do the walls still glow orange like radioactive pumpkins?”
Daniel cackles. “Do you think Charles will feel Max’s longing through the heat paint?”
“Shut up shut up shut up,” Max chants, turning around and pacing back into the apartment. “I am going alone. I am sulking alone. I am brooding like a functional, independent adult.”
Daniel strolls after him. “Babe, you have a framed photo of Charles next to your sim rig like it’s a shrine. ”
Max throws a hoodie at his face.
Outside, the balcony demons continue plotting, louder now, high on chaos.
Max mutters into his suitcase, “I should’ve gone to Finland.”
Daniel, muffled by the hoodie, says, “You would’ve found an elk that reminded you of Charles and cried.”
Max doesn’t answer.
—--
Max steps out of his private jet and takes the deepest breath his lungs can manage.
Ah, the Netherlands.
Smells like… tarmac. And fuel. And the inside of a very expensive airport.
Perfect.
He adjusts the strap of his duffel bag—overpacked, obviously, because he has no sense of moderation when it comes to emotional spirals—and drags his suitcase behind him. The wheels thud rhythmically against the concrete like a slow, ominous heartbeat. Like the universe clapping politely for the drama he’s about to cause.
At the far end of the airport strip, he spots her.
Victoria.
Leaning against a cherry red Ferrari. A Ferrari .
Of all the possible crimes.
It’s her Ferrari—the one he bought her on a dare. The one Charles made him get after one of their post-race hotel-debrief-wine-night-existential-crises where Charles told Max, “You don’t know how to give gifts.”
So Max, not to be challenged by a man who owns seven scarves and no emotional stability, bought Vic a Ferrari just to prove a point.
The point being: fuck you, Charles Leclerc.
Max tries not to think about Charles.
Max thinks about Charles immediately.
Like a disease.
Like a song you hate but know all the lyrics to.
He swallows hard and drags the suitcase a little faster, like maybe if he walks quickly enough, he can outrun the part of his brain that’s still stuck in January. The part that lived on two energy drinks a day and half a banana because eating felt like performing and what was the point if Charles wasn’t watching?
It was cold in January.
He wore gloves inside. He slept under three blankets and still shivered.
The heating worked fine—his brain didn’t.
There was a week where he didn’t speak to anyone. Just drove the sim until his knuckles bled, and then drove some more. Sometimes he’d lie on the floor and press his ear to the ground like maybe Charles would call. Or text. Or anything . But Charles was somewhere else—lost, hidden, gone , and Max was left with this unbearable, heavy ache that felt a lot like the part of him that still wanted to believe in happy endings just curled up and died.
He didn’t mean to fall apart. Not really.
He’d made it all the way through pre-season testing pretending he was fine.
Smiled. Joked.
Let people call him Champion like it still meant something.
But some nights he would sit on the edge of his bed with a razor in one hand and his phone in the other, rereading the last message Charles ever sent him:
“You’ll be fine without me.”
Just that. No emoji. No goodbye.
Like Max was some annoying habit Charles finally gave up.
In the end, he did bleed.
But it wasn’t a cry for help.
It was clinical. Quiet.
The only thing Max has ever done with absolute control.
He bandaged himself up. Went to bed.
Woke up the next day and won a race.
Because that’s what Max Verstappen does.
But that doesn’t mean he stopped thinking about Abu Dhabi.
Heavens , Abu Dhabi.
He remembers the way Charles laughed when they crashed.
This wide, ridiculous, cracked-glass kind of laugh. Like he wasn’t afraid of the fire or the chaos or the fact that Max’s rear suspension had exploded into confetti.
He remembers Charles unbuckling his seatbelt in that slow-motion way, like a movie protagonist, and standing in the gravel with his helmet off and hair everywhere. And Max, crawling out of his wreck like a drunk raccoon, couldn’t do anything except laugh with him because—because that’s what they did.
They laughed. They hurt.
They won and lost and ruined each other with this unspoken agreement that nothing ever needed to be said.
And then.
The next day.
Max woke up, turned on his phone, opened the F1 app—like he always did—and there it was.
The headline.
CHARLES LECLERC ANNOUNCES SHOCK RETIREMENT FROM FORMULA 1.
And Max had sat there, phone in hand, breakfast untouched, staring at the screen for twenty-three minutes.
No message. No explanation.
Just gone .
He broke a mug that day. Then a chair. Then a sim pedal.
Then didn’t break anything for a while, because breaking things was better than breaking himself , and he was already walking that razor-thin line with nothing but Red Bull and self-loathing holding him up.
Charles Leclerc: gone.
Retired.
Poof.
Max Verstappen: still here.
Still winning.
Still stupidly, murderously in love with a man who didn’t even say goodbye.
And now he’s here, in the Netherlands.
In front of Victoria.
Next to the Ferrari.
The engine purrs as she unlocks it with a click. The world is silent otherwise, and Max breathes again.
He wishes he could tell her everything.
He won’t. He’s Max. That’s not what he does.
She opens the passenger door for him and says something soft—he doesn’t hear it.
Because the wind shifts.
And for a second—just a second —he swears he smells that cologne.
The one Charles wore in 2023.
The one that lingered in Max’s bedsheets for six fucking months.
He grips the suitcase handle tighter.
He’s going to survive this.
Even if it kills him.
He doesn’t realise he’s moved until he’s already halfway into her space. Until his arms are curling around her waist, tight and sudden, like his body acted first and only now his brain is catching up.
Victoria startles a little, frozen mid-movement, Max’s suitcase still half-lifted. “Oh,” she breathes, quiet.
Max doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t explain.
He just hugs her. He just holds her, like she’s the last fixed point in a sky that’s tilting sideways.
The leather of her jacket is cool beneath his fingers. She smells like perfume and airport coffee and familiarity. She’s warm, solid. Real.
And he hadn’t known he needed that until now.
She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t ask. Her hand just comes up to curl softly around his shoulder, her chin resting gently atop his head.
He closes his eyes.
For a second—just one slow, stretched second—he lets himself exist here. Still. Held. Alive. Not a headline. Not a name in a statistic. Not a world champion or a press quote or the fucking ghost of the man Charles used to smile at.
Just Max.
Just someone’s little brother.
She rubs his back once. No words.
Max doesn’t cry.
Not really.
But his chest feels scraped out. Hollowed. The kind of hollow that echoes.
He tells himself he’s just tired. Jet lagged. Maybe sore from the flight. Maybe sore from the year .
But his mouth is dry and his eyes are burning and he’s still holding onto her like she’s the only real thing on Earth.
“Sorry,” he says, voice low, cracking like old vinyl.
Vic shakes her head. “You don’t have to be.”
He lets go.
The space between them fills again with the sounds of the airport. The hum of wind. The click of the Ferrari’s cooling metal.
She lifts the suitcase without a word and places it into the boot.
Max stands there with his hands at his sides. Still and quiet.
His fingers twitch.
He blinks too many times in a row. His heart is racing a little faster than it should be. He’s not breathing right—but he doesn’t notice that either.
He doesn’t realise he’s slightly swaying on his feet.
Because to him, everything feels normal.
He thinks it’s just a little post-flight haze. That’s all.
But there’s a softness to the way his eyes stay unfocused. A quiet stillness to how his brain isn’t logging the world properly. The way he’s watching her like a video buffering. Like he’s almost here.
Like he’s not fully inside his body anymore.
And when he looks at the red Ferrari—his gift, a joke, a bet, a memory—he sees the shape of Charles smiling. Leaning on the hood, arms crossed, eyes bright.
For one vivid second, the image is so clear it feels like hallucination.
The laugh is silent. The expression soft. The mouth quirks like it always did—like he knew Max was about to say something mean but loving and pretend it wasn’t either.
Then it's gone.
And Max blinks again, hand clenched, jaw tight.
He doesn’t realise what just happened. Not really.
Not the way his body had gone floaty for a second. Not the fact that he'd looked through Victoria instead of at her. Not how his heartbeat had gotten quiet and his ears a little loud. Not how the red of the Ferrari had turned into another red, the one that used to streak down straights and lean too close in corners, the one that smelled like sweat and cologne and cold champagne.
None of it lands. Not for him.
But Vic notices.
She says something—soft, a little cautious. Max blinks. Misses it.
“Hmm?” he mumbles, dragging his eyes away from the Ferrari badge.
“Are you alright?” she asks again, gently.
Max nods.
Too fast. Too casual. Like a reflex.
“Yeah,” he says, with a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. “I just… missed home.”
Victoria lifts a single brow, not unkindly. Just assessing. The way big sisters do. The way people do when they know you’re lying but also know you need them to pretend you aren’t.
She doesn’t say anything about it.
Instead, she pulls the keys from her pocket. The Ferrari’s.
She dangles them once between her fingers. “Wanna drive, then?”
Max shrugs.
She tosses the keys to him.
He catches them with one hand.
And then—
Heavens. Then his brain does that thing again.
Because Charles has touched these keys.
Charles had taken the keys first when the car arrived. Spun them around his finger. Held them up to the light and said something like, “Not bad. Still not red enough for Ferrari, though.”
He’d smiled.
That soft, sideways smile.
The one Max only ever saw when Charles was feeling dangerous in a gentle way.
Charles had kissed the key, for luck.
Max had rolled his eyes.
That stupid fucking moment—irrelevant, unimportant—burns into Max’s memory like someone scraping a lighter under his ribs.
Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles.
He doesn’t say anything. Just tightens his grip on the metal and walks to the driver’s side.
The Ferrari purrs as he unlocks it.
He slides into the seat like he’s moving underwater. Every movement feels delayed by half a second, like his limbs are processing grief before they process weight.
He sits.
The seat is warm. The leather creaks beneath him. His hands settle against the wheel. He stares straight ahead.
The scent inside is clean. Air freshener. Wax. The faintest, ancient trace of something citrusy and masculine. He tells himself he’s imagining it. Of course he is.
Vic climbs in on the passenger side and shuts the door gently. She doesn’t say anything.
The silence is comfortable.
But Max’s pulse is crawling under his skin like it’s trying to get out.
Like it knows something he doesn’t. Like it’s remembering for him.
The steering wheel feels too familiar under his hands. The Netherlands—his home—feels unfamiliar in the wrong way. Like he’s stepped into someone else’s memory of his own life. A set built on top of something rotting.
He hadn’t thought this through.
Which is impressive, even for him. He’d assumed Monaco was the problem. Monaco with its balconies and its stupid rich air and Lando. But now here he is. Here. And somehow this place has even more Charles in it than Monaco ever did.
He hadn’t realised that was possible.
But it is.
It’s in the road signs they used to mock for having twelve syllables.
It’s in the exact stretch of highway where Charles once yelled “I am NOT a passenger princess!” and then promptly stalled Max’s car.
It’s in the ugly orange apartment with the too-small shower they made out in once and never spoke of again.
And now it’s in the passenger seat of the Ferrari.
Except—no.
That’s Victoria.
Not him.
Victoria, who’s currently watching Max like he’s a wildlife documentary and she’s trying to decide if the creature on screen is about to attack or cry.
She shifts slightly, angling toward him. “Are you alright after the crash?”
Max shrugs, barely. His eyes stay forward. “It bruised my ego.”
“Christian said you were being melodramatic .” She air-quotes it. “Ten times more than usual. His exact words were, ‘Tell your sibling to get a grip or I’m putting him in media training with Lando.’”
Max finally glances at her, deadpan. “That’s a threat. ”
“He meant it like one.”
Max snorts. “Tell Christian I’m reconsidering my entire existence and I’ll get back to him once I’m done crying into the Dutch soil.”
“Can I schedule that in your calendar?”
“Put it after lunch. I want to suffer on a full stomach.”
Victoria smiles. Just a little. It’s not enough to break whatever fog Max is in, but it’s enough to remind him that someone knows him. That she’s here. That this isn’t a dream. Or a memory. Or something worse.
“In all seriousness, you scared the hell out of me.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“You crashed into a wall in Monaco and got amnesia for, like, forty-five minutes.”
“I didn’t get amnesia.”
“You thought it was 2025 and Charles was still on the grid.”
Max glares at the dashboard. He doesn’t answer.
He just presses the key into the ignition and listens to the Ferrari roar to life beneath him—loud, angry.
It feels appropriate.
The engine grumbles like it's annoyed at being woken up, which makes two of them. Max doesn’t move yet. Just lets it rumble under him while the seat vibrates like a heartbeat too close to the surface.
“Are we going to your place or mine?” he asks, eyes still on the road ahead.
“Yours is probably a dirty cave,” Victoria replies without missing a beat.
Max shrugs. “Fair.”
“It’s been empty since, what, 2020?”
“Technically 2021, but emotionally, yes. 2020.”
She huffs a laugh. “We’ll go to mine. You can take a nap. Then we’ll clean your sad little man-den together. I’ll bring gloves.”
Max makes a face. “You think I’m gonna nap?”
“I know you’re gonna nap. I’ve seen your post-flight personality. You get cranky.”
“I’m not cranky. I’m introspective.”
“You tried to fistfight a steward once because your espresso was lukewarm.”
Max squints. “He looked smug.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on. My place first. Then we’ll excavate your apartment like it’s a dig site.”
Max rests his head against the headrest, finally pulling them into motion. “Don’t you have a shift or something? I thought you were still on that night rotation.”
“I took the day off,” she says simply, like it’s no big deal.
Max glances at her sideways. “You did?”
“Yeah. My baby brother was coming home. For a reason that didn’t include winning Zandvoort, which honestly scared the shit out of me.”
He opens his mouth to say something—anything snarky, maybe grateful in a weird way—but his throat feels like it’s full of gravel.
So he just says, “Thanks,” under his breath.
And drives.
The Ferrari hums down the Dutch roads like it knows the way by heart. Max doesn’t even need to think, even though he hasn’t been to this side of the Netherlands in years. His body’s doing the muscle memory thing, turning when it’s supposed to, easing into the curves, cruising like it’s 2019 and his biggest problem was not enough milk in his coffee.
Except now his coffee has more coffee than milk and his brain is a sinkhole.
The highway is smoother than he remembers. The roadside trees are taller. Everything feels a little newer, like someone came and refreshed the texture pack on this whole damn country. Even the signs have been updated—sleeker, flatter fonts, better kerning. Charles would’ve noticed that. Max notices that Charles would’ve noticed that.
“Wow,” Vic says from the passenger seat, “you’re being suspiciously quiet. Should I be worried or just assume you're mentally redecorating your house in your head?”
Max deadpans, “I’m mourning the death of every serotonin receptor in my skull.”
Vic blinks. “Oh, cool. So a normal Tuesday.”
“Yup.”
She leans back in her seat, sunglasses on now, looking obnoxiously relaxed. “You’re not gonna ask me about the changes?”
“I figured you’d tell me without consent anyway.”
“You know me so well,” she says, beaming. “Okay, so they finally built that second bakery we always said they needed—”
“Shitty one’s still there though?”
“Oh, of course. It’s a cultural landmark at this point. They renamed it ironically. It’s literally called Het Slechte Brood. ”
Max barks out a laugh. “You’re joking.”
“Swear on my doctor's license.”
“You have a doctor's license?”
“Goodness, Max.”
He smirks. “Hey, listen, I’m the clinically depressed one here. I’m allowed to ask funny questions. It’s in the literature.”
“That wasn’t funny,” Vic snorts. “You know, I used to think you were just a really dramatic kid. But then puberty hit and you didn’t get edgy—you got existential .”
“That’s the Verstappen DNA, baby.”
“No, I think that’s the you-tied-a-scarf-around-your-eyes-at-11-and-jumped-off-a-roof -DNA.”
“Don’t act like that wasn’t iconic.”
Vic pinches the bridge of her nose.
Max leans his elbow on the door, driving one-handed. Outside, a row of windmills glides past, white and slow against the sky. There’s this pale, cloudless blue that makes the world look gentler than it really is. He remembers this light.
He remembers Charles complaining about how flat the roads were here. “Too easy,” he’d said once, arms crossed from the passenger seat, fifteen years old and already too pretty to look at directly. “You don’t feel the corners like in Monaco.”
Max had called him a stuck-up rat with no depth perception.
Charles had smiled like he was winning.
And maybe he was.
The car turns onto the old road that leads toward town—past the bike shop Max swore he’d burn down after they gave him the wrong handlebars, past the park where he’d once faceplanted on the grass mid-run and Charles had filmed it on Snapchat and added a “💀” emoji.
He passes the shitty little corner store where they used to buy the world’s worst croissants and then rate them like Michelin critics.
He passes the tunnel where they once dragged-raced scooters until Max’s caught fire and Charles screamed and laughed like a maniac while calling Max an idiot in French.
He passes everything.
And every single fucking thing has Charles in it.
In every window. On every sidewalk. Between every damn tree.
Charles with wind-blown hair and that stupid neon jacket. Charles lying on the roof of Max’s car, spitting sunflower seeds into the wind. Charles with that sharp laugh he only used when Max said something accidentally honest. Charles leaning back on a bench with his hands behind his head like he owned the place—even when they were fifteen, even when they were enemies.
Max doesn’t say anything.
He just breathes a little shallower.
“You okay?” Vic asks, glancing over, like she feels the shift.
He shrugs, casual. “Did you know the number of people who die from pothole-related accidents per year is, like, way higher than it should be?”
Vic stares. “I don’t know what that means, but I am taking that as a cry for help.”
“It’s not. I’m just saying. These roads are suspiciously well-paved. The Dutch government might be hiding something.”
Vic smiles. “Still not sleeping, then?”
Max sighs. “Define sleeping.”
She doesn’t ask more.
She knows better than to poke around too much when he’s like this. When he’s making jokes too fast and watching the world like it’s a movie he doesn’t remember auditioning for.
The turn-off to her apartment comes up fast.
It’s a cozy brick building with ivy crawling up the side and flower pots on the balcony. Everything about it screams stable adult human , which is insane, because Max grew up with Vic and he’s seen her scream at soup.
As he pulls in and parks, she takes off her sunglasses and glances at him.
“You’re seriously gonna survive a whole week here?”
Max stares at the building. Blinks. “I’ll try not to kill myself in your linen closet before I move to my apartment.”
“Appreciated.”
He shuts off the car.
For a moment, everything is still.
Then Vic opens her door and the soft hum of birdsong and wind rushes in.
Max follows.
He’s not thinking about Charles. Not directly .
But his brain has filled in every space with echoes.
And every step forward feels like walking into someone else’s memory of him.
The pavement feels too clean. The air smells too familiar. The sound of birds chirping above him feels like it’s mocking him—too cheerful, too bright, like nature itself hasn’t gotten the memo that he’s deeply, profoundly Not Okay™.
Which is so annoying, because he lives here . This country has his name all over it—on billboards and record books and that one supermarket fridge that always has his stupid limited edition yogurt. But it doesn’t feel like his, not today.
All he can think about is how much Charles hated the Netherlands.
“Too grey,” he used to say. “Too quiet. The buildings are all squat. The water tastes weird.”
Max had tried not to be offended. He’d said, “Maybe you just have a weak mouth.”
He thinks about how much Charles hated the Netherlands.
Too flat, Charles would complain. Too many cyclists. Too many cows. Too many people who didn’t give a shit that he was a Monaco-born, Ferrari-driving, French-Italian prodigy with cheekbones that could murder a man.
Charles used to drag his suitcase behind him like it had wronged him personally every time Max invited him here. Max, why are your roads so boring? Max, why does the cheese taste like sadness? Max, I nearly got run over by a grandmother on an electric bike. Max, what do you mean ‘breakfast is cold bread and judgment’?
He was always bitching.
He always came back.
Max had pretended to be annoyed, but secretly, he loved that Charles always came back.
He doesn’t now.
Now it’s just Max and Victoria and the echo of old footsteps on clean floors.
They reach her apartment and he unlocks the door with a key she never changed, because she said “If you ever run from the law, you’ll need somewhere to hide.” She said it like a joke. Max had taken it seriously.
The door creaks open.
And the inside hits him like a punch.
It’s exactly the same.
Same stupid mustard-yellow walls that Vic swore she’d repaint in 2021 and never did. Same slightly crooked lamp in the hallway that Max knocked over in a Red Bull hoodie during a post-season breakdown. Same couch that’s too soft in the middle because Charles sat there every time he visited and sunk into it like a king claiming a throne.
Max drops his duffel bag with a thud.
Doesn’t even unzip it. Just leaves it there like a dying animal.
He walks two steps forward and flops onto the couch with a full-body sigh that probably translates to I’m an emotionally constipated wreck in sibling dialect.
The cushions sigh like they remember him.
So he sighs back.
Vic closes the door behind them and kicks off her shoes. Like a functional adult, she places her bag neatly by the coat rack.
“Go freshen up,” she says, walking past him toward the kitchen. “You look like your flight dragged you here manually .”
Max groans. “I need to cry first.”
She pokes her head back into the living room. “Well. Priorities.”
He doesn’t move. Just leans forward until his elbows are on his knees and his face is in his hands, then flops sideways until his cheek is mashed against the cushion.
Vic sighs and comes over, sitting next to him like it’s routine.
Like it’s three years ago again and he’s come back from a weekend of P4s and sponsor dinners and has nothing left in him but static and Charles Leclerc-shaped silence.
She sits cross-legged and nudges his knee gently. “You wanna talk about it?”
Max makes a noise halfway between a sob and a sneeze. “You know I never want to talk about it.”
“Right,” she says calmly. “You never want to talk about it,” she adds. “But, like, I have to ask. It’s in the Older Sibling Handbook. Page five.”
“Burn that book.”
“I would, but then I’d have no idea how to decode your moods. So do you want to not talk about it while I’m sitting here so you feel emotionally supported in your refusal to open up?”
He groans again and drops his head onto her shoulder. His entire body curls toward her like he’s trying to fold himself into a carry-on.
“You’re so annoying,” he mumbles into her jacket.
“I’m all you’ve got.”
He breathes in. Her perfume smells like vanilla and hand sanitiser. It’s weirdly comforting.
After a long moment, he says, “The Netherlands sucks.”
Vic lets out a snort. “Weird. Didn’t you just flee Monaco to come here?”
Max doesn’t move. “That place also sucks.”
“Christian said you told him you hate Monaco.”
“I do.”
“And now you hate the Netherlands.”
“I’m allowed to hate more than one country,” Max mutters. “You think geopolitical feelings are linear?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Is it because they used to hold someone in them?”
He turns his head slowly, face still mashed sideways, and just stares at her.
She doesn’t back down.
She’s got that Vic Look™—the one that says I know you better than you know yourself, and I’m being gentle about it, but don’t test me.
He lifts his head off her shoulder just enough to look at her.
Doesn’t say anything. Just stares . A full five seconds of expressionless blinking.
“Are you kidding me,” he says flatly. “When did the neurology department start handing out psych degrees?”
Vic grins. “You’re not the only one in the family with an overactive brain and a tragic gay narrative, Max.”
Max glares. “I am not tragic.”
“You’re tragic and dramatic. You’re a walking Lana Del Rey remix.”
Max huffs and flops back down, face-first into the cushion. His voice is muffled when he mutters, “Shut up.”
Vic pats his back. “Just saying. I know you. Even when you pretend you’re made of steel and shit.”
He doesn’t answer.
He can’t.
Because she’s not wrong.
And even though he’s not crying—not yet —his throat feels tight and his chest feels like someone’s pressing a heavy memory into it over and over again until all he can do is breathe through the ache and let the silence sit between them like it belongs there.
Then, without lifting his head, Max croaks, “Hey. Can you get me a cup of coffee mixed with Red Bull and Monster?”
Victoria sighs like she’s ageing ten years just by sharing a couch with him. “Absolutely not. I’m not about to revive your inner 2018 trauma gremlin.”
Max groans and drapes an arm over his eyes. “Then what’s the point of being back here? Why even have a medical license if you’re not going to support my personal beverage-based self-destruction?”
“I can get you coffee with just coffee,” she says, standing.
Max sighs. “Fine. I’ll hydrate like a civilian.”
“You’ll caffeinate like a civilian,” Vic corrects, walking toward the kitchen. “That’s very different from hydrating.”
He doesn’t even argue. His head thunks against the back of the couch as he leans it back, eyes staring up at the ceiling.
The air smells faintly of vanilla, detergent, and emotional repression.
Vic disappears into the kitchen with the kind of purposeful stomp only older sisters can master.
Max reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.
He stares at the tiny plane icon at the top of his screen like it’s mocking him.
Airplane Mode: On.
Just like that. One button and the whole world disappears.
Silence.
Real, digital silence. Not the kind that just fills a room, but the kind that sits behind your eyes and presses in. A silence with weight.
Max holds his phone like it might bite him. Like it might do something—vibrate, buzz, scream Charles’ name out loud—but it doesn’t. Just sits there, quiet and blank and disconnected.
He tosses it onto the coffee table with a thud that makes the mug next to it shake.
Then he breathes.
In. One-two-three.
Out. One-two-three.
Again.
In.
Hold.
Out.
It’s a trick his therapist taught him that one time they tried therapy for six minutes in 2022.
Max had refused to go back after the guy called Charles his “emotional epicenter.”
Still. The breathing thing stuck.
He leans back again, melts into the couch cushions, and focuses on literally anything except the buzzing hole in his chest.
His eyes drift to the side.
Bookshelves. Still there. Still full.
Vic’s shelves are the same weird chaotic mess they were years ago—pharmacology textbooks stacked like Jenga, paperbacks shoved horizontally between hardcovers, and at least one copy of The Secret that he swears she’s never read but insists “came with the apartment.”
Max gets up and pads over, dragging his fingers lightly across the spines.
Most of them are untouched. A thin layer of dust sits like frosting on the tops.
He squints at one shelf. There’s a copy of Cognitive Neurology: The Human Brain in Clinical Practice sitting right next to Twilight: Eclipse . He snorts.
He pulls one out at random. Some self-help thing. The bookmark is stuck somewhere on page 12.
Classic Vic. A diagnosis in 11 pages and ghosted on the 12th.
The room creaks softly behind him as the coffee machine wheezes in the kitchen.
Max walks to the window.
It’s cloudy outside. A kind of pale gray overcast that makes everything look sleepy. Across the narrow road, there’s a bakery. Closed on Sundays.
He remembers Charles once tried to break into it at midnight because he claimed he’d “never smelled bread that powerful.”
Max had laughed so hard he nearly threw up.
Now he just stands there.
Breathing.
In.
Hold.
Out.
He’s here. He’s in the Netherlands.
He made it. The escape. The reset. The fresh start.
So why the fuck does he feel exactly the same?
His eyes flick to the corner of the room.
There’s the same photo frame Vic’s had forever—a picture of the two of them from years back, post-karting championship. Max is holding a trophy. Vic is giving him bunny ears. He looks…. Happy.
He doesn’t recognize that version of himself.
He walks back to the couch.
Stares at his phone again.
It’s still on Airplane Mode.
He picks it up. Stares at the icon.
He is here for peace.
For growth.
For healing.
He is here to reconnect with the earth, to let the grief pass through him like a gentle storm.
To finally let go.
He switches off Airplane Mode in 0.6 seconds and opens Instagram.
Letting go is a process , okay.
Besides, nature can wait.
His thumb scrolls with the kind of practised apathy that only a man with world titles and a semi-crushed spirit can master. Pictures of dogs, espresso, race edits. A weird meme Lando posted about neighbours that Max denies acknowledging. A gym thirst trap from George that’s clearly aimed at Alex. A story from Lance that Max doesn’t understand and refuses to ask about. A Red Bull highlight reel from Monaco, which he scrolls past so fast it nearly dislocates his wrist.
Max doesn’t know what he’s watching half the time, but if it helps him from stop thinking about Monaco and Monegasques and French accents and hell, then so be it.
Shit.
He’s thinking about Monaco and Monegasques and French accents and hell again.
Max searches for cute dogs on Instagram. At least that will stop him from thinking .
It works.
Sort of.
His eyes flick lazily to Vic’s phone buzzing on the coffee table.
One bing.
Then two.
He looks back at his own screen.
Then back to hers.
Then back to his.
Then back to hers.
“Hey,” he says, his brain cells suddenly standing still and also running 300 kmh simultaneously, somehow. “Someone named P. Charles is texting you.”
From the kitchen, the coffee machine whirs. “Oh,” Vic replies like it's nothing. “That’s my patient.”
Max narrows his eyes. “P as in... Patient?”
“Sure,” she yells over the machine.
He nods.
Nods again.
But his gaze is glued to the name.
- Charles.
P.
Charles.
P.
Charles.
Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles. Charles.
His brain short-circuits. He’s not blinking. He might have forgotten how.
It’s just sitting there. On the screen. Two words. A dot. A name that hits him like getting slapped with a tire blanket at 300 kph.
- Charles.
Max looks at the phone.
Then at the window.
Then back at the phone.
Then at the ceiling.
Then at his phone, like it might know something.
He blinks. Slowly. A little too slowly.
And then his brain—his clinically-depressed, half-cooked, sleep-deprived, post-monaco-crash brain—goes:
CHARLES.
CHARLESSSSSS.
And then it’s like the slideshow of pain starts playing in his brain again.
Charles in karting gear, fourteen and already insufferably fast.
Charles in a hoodie, flicking Max off across the garage.
Charles in a suit, smiling on podiums.
Charles laughing at a Red Bull joke and saying, “I’ll still beat you on Sunday.”
Charles in Abu Dhabi 2025 quali, eyes wide, smile real, before everything burned.
Max squeezes his phone.
He glares at Vic’s.
He glares harder, as if maybe the force of his stare will unlock the identity of this P. Charles.
Because there are many P’s in the world. Could be Patrick. Paul. Patricia. Or Pascal. Pascal sounds like someone who goes to therapy. Vic treats therapy guys.
But also…
It could be him .
Couldn’t it?
Max’s foot bounces like it’s trying to physically launch him out of his own skin.
He swallows. “What’s the P stand for?”
“Hmm?” Vic’s voice floats back.
Max casually yells, “The P in P. Charles. Is it, like… Philippe?”
“Nope,” she says, popping back into view with two mugs.
“Pierre?”
“Nope.”
“Pietro?”
“You’re just naming drivers now.”
“ Perceval? ”
Vic snorts and hands him the mug. “You’re so weird.”
He sips. Then stares. Then sips again like the caffeine will kill the curiosity blooming in his throat.
Vic sits next to him and props her feet up. “Let it go, Elsa.”
Max slouches down into the couch, hands wrapped around the coffee, and squints at the wall.
But in his head, it’s just Charles again.
Charles saying Max’s name in that ridiculous accent.
Charles asking if the food in this country always tastes like shit.
Charles laughing. Charles frowning. Charles leaving .
Max stares into his coffee.
He is so, so doomed.
He takes another sip of his coffee like it’s going to un-doom him.
It does not. It burns his tongue.
He hisses. “Why is this boiling?”
Vic raises a brow and sips hers without flinching. “Because I’m a functioning adult who drinks coffee before it’s sad and lukewarm.”
“Okay, sorry, didn’t realise I was sipping the liquid core of the sun,” Max mutters, clutching his mug.
Vic shrugs, amused, and sips again.
Max glares. Takes another sip anyway, because he is weak. Then clears his throat.
“So,” he starts slowly, “hypothetically…”
Vic nods. “Aha.”
“…If someone were to, you know, pull an extreme Rosberg.”
“As in?” she asks, though she already knows. She’s just being a pain about it.
“Go off-grid. Vanish. Retire on a cryptic note. Join the Witness Protection Program. Live in the woods and only emerge once every blue moon to talk about their mysterious inner peace but never do that part in this particular case. Extreme Rosberg. ”
Vic raises a brow. “You’re asking me what country Charles would disappear to if he ‘Extreme’ Rosberged.”
Max squints. “No. I’m asking a hypothetical question. ”
“Sure.”
“Seriously.”
She sips again, totally unfazed. “Okay. Hypothetically.”
Max nods slowly, looking off like he's deep in philosophical thought. “It wouldn’t be Monaco, right?”
Vic hums. “Probs not. Monaco is attention distilled into real estate. If he wants to disappear, he would choose a place that wouldn’t recognise him.”
Max slumps. “Exactly.”
There’s a pause.
“Maybe he went to Nepal.” Victoria shrugs. “Spiritual cleaning and all that. Perhaps that’s the reason why he doesn’t contact anyone.”
“But,” Max starts, but cuts his words down before they could spill off his tongue. He sighs. “I don’t know.”
“Mood.”
Max snorts. He takes another sip of his coffee and looks at his sister again. “I hate this.”
“The coffee?”
“No.” Max straightens up. “This. 2026. Charles. This feeling.”
Vic stays silent. Probably in hopes that Max will keep talking and interrupting him might be equivalent to forcing a deer to stare at the headlights.
Then he tries to sound casual, “So… do you think he quit because of Abu Dhabi?”
Vic glances over. “What do you mean?”
Max stares into the dark abyss of his coffee. “You know. The crash. The—whatever that was. Do you think that’s why he left? Because he got badly hurt, maybe?”
Vic tilts her head. “Didn’t he seem fine in the post-race interviews?”
Max doesn’t look at her. “He didn’t show up for the celebrations.”
She considers. “Maybe you missed him? Maybe he came late or slipped in through the back—”
“No,” Max says flatly, finally looking at her. “He wasn’t there.”
Vic goes quiet.
Max shifts in his seat. “He was supposed to meet me. In my room. Post-race.”
“Oh,” she says. “Oh.”
“It wasn’t like… that,” Max adds quickly, waving his hand. “Not that . It wasn’t anything weird or anything, really. We just always—after every championship, after every season, we’d meet. Even when I won, even when he lost, we’d meet. Just to talk. Just to…” He pauses. “Celebrate.”
Vic watches him.
“It started in 2021. He dragged me into his room. We were both half drunk and giggly and… yeah.” Max continues, counting them off like they’re medals lined up in his brain. “All four years I won, and he still came. Still showed up. Still sat on the edge of my bed, and we’d drink whatever was left in the minibar and he’d complain about my stupid champagne habits, and I’d call him a princess, and he’d say ‘yes but I’m your princess,’ and we’d laugh—” He cuts himself off.
Vic raises a brow. “A little dramatic for something that wasn’t like that .”
Max glares. “Shut up.”
“Just saying.”
He huffs. “Anyway, he didn’t come.”
Max takes another sip of his coffee and lets it scald down his throat like he deserves it. The caffeine isn’t kicking in. The feeling emotions thing is still kicking very much in .
Across from him, Victoria watches like she’s just waiting for him to snap and start quoting Poe at full volume.
She tilts her head. “Honestly, I didn’t know you two were this close.”
Max grunts and sips again, very pointedly avoiding eye contact.
“You and Charles,” she clarifies. “You always had this… weird energy. But I always thought it was very… loose in definition, I guess.”
Max lifts a brow. “You mean a friendship?”
Vic lets out the most unhinged, witchy laugh Max has heard since Christian found out about the Miami marina being fake. “THAT’S not friendship,” she says, practically howling. “That’s trauma bonding with extra steps.”
Max shrugs like this isn’t his slow public unravelling.
“You know,” Vic continues, sipping her coffee like she’s not casually detonating bombs in his emotional landscape, “when you were like sixteen and Charles would visit sometimes, I genuinely thought you guys were dating.”
Max frowns. “Why?”
“I don’t know, man,” Vic says, now leaning forward like she’s settling in for the drama. “You guys had sleepovers. You talked in weird half-coded sentences. He’d come over, sit on your bed cross-legged, and you’d both just stare at the ceiling and then laugh at nothing for like thirty minutes straight.”
Max rolls his eyes, but there’s a faint twitch in his mouth. “You thought I was gay for Charles.”
“More like a crush,” Vic says breezily. “The slow-burn, sports-rivalry, Brokeback Mountain kind. You know, karting edition.”
Max stares at her for a beat. Then, “It wasn’t a crush”
“It’s alright, Maxie. You can be honest with me.” Victoria laughs. “Besides, it would be weirder if you weren’t crushing on Charles.”
“No, I didn’t have a crush on Charles,” Max says, tone soft but also laced with forbidden knowledge.
“ Puhleaseee. There were vibes. ” Vic crosses her arms. “Like, I fully thought you were dating. Like. Fully prepared to sit Mom down and explain your whole closeted high-performance situationship.”
Max frowns. “That’s dumb. We weren’t closeted.”
Vic blinks. “You—”
“We were dating.”
She freezes.
Max takes another sip. Shrugs again. “I mean, kinda. Like. Charles didn’t want to label it. You know how he gets. All ‘we are too young for this’ and ‘what is the point of putting words on something that is already so true’ and ‘Max stop biting me during arguments.’ ”
Vic blinks.
Max takes another sip of coffee like nothing happened.
“Wait—what?” she says, voice jumping an octave.
Max shrugs, too tired for theatrics. “He said labels were for... I don’t know. Milk cartons. ”
“Excuse me?”
“But yeah. We first kissed when we were like twelve or something and then swore a blood pact behind the karting paddock. It was this whole thing. We promised to choose each other for life. Very medieval. Lots of swearing in multiple languages. He bled on my race gloves. I still have them somewhere.”
Vic is staring.
“...I don’t think he remembers it,” Max says, much more softly.
“Hold on— hold on. ” Vic puts her coffee down like she’s about to throw it for emphasis. “You. And Charles. Were dating.”
“Yeah.”
“You— dating. ”
“Technically.”
“Like. Romance.”
Max blinks slowly. “I didn’t blackmail him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not what I was—”
“Heavens, Vic.”
“I thought you were just really codependent,” she says, stunned. “Like emotionally entangled in a sad, racetrack-based way.”
“That too.”
“But also boyfriends??”
“Again, technically.” Max gestures vaguely. “We never really said it out loud. Charles used to say it cheapened things. Labels. Words. He had a whole speech about it once. I stopped listening after he compared love to a downforce curve.”
Vic still hasn’t moved.
“Pretty sure Charles doesn’t remember any of it now, if I am being honest,” Max adds, and it sounds almost flippant, except the corner of his mouth twitches in a way that betrays something cracked open and bleeding.
“WHAAAT,” Vic says finally, putting her coffee down because she needs both hands to process this.
“It’s all in the past,” Max mutters, glancing down into his mug like it might swallow him whole if he stares hard enough. “Besides, Charles isn’t around now. So.”
Vic points a finger at him. “WAIT. So you guys were dating. Like dating-dating. ”
Max shrugs again. “Not anymore. Kind of hard to date someone who left the planet.”
“He didn’t die.”
Max makes a face. “Did he not?”
“I cannot believe this,” Vic says, looking vaguely betrayed. “You mean to tell me that I was right this whole time and instead of telling me you just sat there like a little sad rat for ten years letting me think I was making stuff up?”
“I was a little sad rat,” Max says defensively. “I was a rat in love. There’s a difference.”
Vic is still gaping at him.
Max sets down his mug. Leans back against the couch like the gravity of this entire conversation has tripled. The cushions creak beneath him. His face is unreadable, in that very Max Verstappen way that actually reads: My heart is screaming but I will die before admitting it aloud.
He says, quietly, “It wasn’t like that. Not really. It was… everything. And nothing. And then we got older, and racing happened, and it kept happening, and we never really figured out how to be anything else.”
Vic watches him.
Max doesn’t look at her.
“Maybe he never meant it the same way,” he adds. “Maybe I misunderstood. Or maybe I got it right and I just… wasn’t enough to stay for.”
Vic doesn’t laugh now. She doesn’t say anything snarky. She just sits beside him, eyes softer than he deserves.
Max doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. Just stares ahead like the space in front of him is playing old footage of Charles on loop. The helmet toss. The wink. The last smile before Abu Dhabi 2025.
Vic clears her throat. “You never told me.”
“There wasn’t much to tell.”
She raises an eyebrow.
Max shrugs. “It’s all in the past.”
She gives him a long look. “Is it?”
Max doesn't answer. Just takes another sip and mutters, “Coffee’s shit.”
Silence falls. Then it unfalls.
Vic shifts, legs tucked beneath her. “So the last time you saw him…”
Max’s face tightens. “Was the crash.”
He’s quiet for a second.
Then, slowly, he speaks again.
“I got out first. I thought—” Max swallows. “I thought he was hurt. But he took his helmet off and said, ‘I’m fine.’ Just like that. Just—‘I’m fine,’ and then walked off with the stewards like nothing happened.”
Vic watches him, still.
Max frowns at his coffee. “He came back for the press conference, obviously. Said the right things. Thanked the team. Gave his usual media-trained smile. Won the title by two points and then just…” He gestures vaguely. “Disappeared.”
Vic whistles. “Dramatic.”
“I know. And I’m the drama queen.”
“You are the drama queen.”
Max makes a face. “Okay, but I’m usually loud about it. He just— vanished. Like a magician who rage-quits mid-act.”
Vic nods. “The Leclerc vanishing act. Very on brand.”
Max sighs. “You think I did something wrong?”
Vic tilts her head. “Aside from almost killing him in the final race of his career?”
“That was mutual!” Max protests. “ We crashed. It wasn’t just me. He threw it in late.”
Vic raises an eyebrow. “Did he?”
Max groans and buries his face in his hands. “I don’t know. That’s the thing. I don’t know anything anymore. One second we’re racing, then we crashed. Then he won. Then he left. And now I am winning but he still.. He’s still gone . ”
Vic leans back. “Well. On the bright side, at least you didn’t have to do a whole podium thing with him and fake-smile while holding second place.”
Max mutters, “I would’ve thrown the champagne at him.”
Vic grins. “Now that’s the Verstappen spirit.”
He slumps further into the couch.
Vic nudges him gently with her foot. “Hey.”
He blinks at her.
“You’re not the reason he left.”
Max shrugs. “Maybe.”
“You’re not.”
He doesn’t answer.
So she says, softly, “Even if you were, he would’ve said something. You know he would’ve.”
Max says nothing.
Max doesn’t move.
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t argue.
Which, in Max-language, is basically a scream.
Because Max always argues. Always snaps back. Always lobs sarcasm like grenades until the conversation dies of exhaustion.
But not now.
Now he just sits there, jaw tight, eyes vaguely fixed on the coffee table like it's about to provide him a step-by-step emotional recovery program.
Vic sighs. She nudges his foot again. “Hey.”
Max exhales slowly, like it takes effort. “I don’t blame myself,” he says flatly.
And it’s the kind of sentence that’s already lying to itself halfway through.
Vic raises a brow. “Right. Sure. That’s why your shoulders are currently doing their best impression of a man who carries seven emotional corpses.”
Max shoots her a look. “I blame the FIA regulations , if anything.”
Vic grins. “Okay. Now that sounds like you.”
He sips his coffee again, slower this time. Less rage. More… resignation.
There’s a pause.
And then he mutters, “I just wish I knew if he was okay.”
Vic’s expression softens. “Wherever he is, I’m certain he’s safe.”
Max glances at her, quick and sharp. “How can you be so sure?”
She shrugs, resting her cup on her knee. “Intuition. Or maybe… hope.”
Max makes a face. “Disgusting. Gross. Don’t say ‘hope’ to me. What are you, a Marvel movie?”
Vic laughs under her breath. “Sorry. I forgot you’re emotionally allergic to optimism.”
“I’m not,” Max mumbles, but it’s already too late. His coffee is suddenly very interesting again.
Vic leans sideways, bumping her shoulder against his. “Look. I don’t know what happened between you two. But if he was in real trouble, or hurt, or—anything—you’d know.”
Max doesn’t respond.
Because that’s the part that aches worst of all.
He doesn’t know.
Charles has always been a fixed point in his life. Even when they were enemies. Even when they were rivals. Even when they were laughing in Max’s kitchen at 2AM eating stroopwafels like children.
Even when they hated each other, Charles was present.
And now he’s just... gone .
Max doesn’t want to say it out loud, but there’s something in the silence, something crawling under his skin, something that tastes like regret and sounds like—
Maybe I should’ve said something sooner.
Maybe I should’ve asked him if he was really okay.
Maybe I should’ve known.
Vic breaks the silence again, voice gentle but firm. “This isn’t your fault.”
Max huffs, rubbing his face with one hand. “I know. ”
Eventually, Max sighs again. Slouches back into the couch like gravity is being petty.
Vic’s voice is quieter this time. “You miss him.”
Max doesn’t reply.
He doesn’t have to. His silence says everything.
She nudges him again, less teasing this time. “You loved him.”
Max lifts his cup. Sips. “Still do.”
Vic stares. “Max…”
He looks away. “Don’t.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Don’t,” he repeats. Not angry. Just… tired. “It doesn’t matter now.”
She doesn’t argue. Just reaches out and rests a hand on his knee, warm and solid and there.
Because even if he’s not saying it— especially because he’s not saying it—he needs someone to hold onto.
Even if it’s just for a minute.
Even if it’s just his sister. Even if she can’t bring Charles back.
Even if nothing can.
—---
The next day dawns with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.
Max wakes up groaning like an 80-year-old with a bad hip and a grudge against gravity. His back hurts. His neck hurts. His brain hurts. He’s jetlagged and mildly concussed and for some reason, the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is a very aggressive stuffed alpaca sitting on the top shelf of Victoria’s bookshelf.
He stares at it for ten whole seconds before muttering, “Why the fuck are you still here.”
The alpaca, like all his emotional problems, remains completely unfazed.
By 11 AM, Max is standing in the middle of his old apartment in the Netherlands, holding a trash bag full of Red Bull cans and broken ambition.
Vic is across the room, wielding a Swiffer like it’s a weapon of war.
The place looks exactly how he left it when he was 20 and vaguely unhinged. The couch is too low. The curtains are from IKEA and haven’t been washed since 2019. The windows are streaked with the tears of forgotten responsibility. The air smells like dust, ancient energy drinks, and emotional stagnation.
And the wall. Heavens.
The Orange Wall.
Max glares at it like it offended his bloodline on a daily basis.
He painted it when he was twenty, convinced it was “cool” and “patriotic” and not “horrifically migraine-inducing.” It’s the colour of a radioactive carrot and reflects light like a demon’s tanning room.
Vic pauses her sweeping and looks up. “You still didn’t repaint this?”
“I’ve been busy,” Max mutters, stuffing an old sock into the trash bag. “Winning world championships. Breaking records. Having depressive episodes.”
“You could’ve hired someone.”
“I was going for ‘raw and real.’”
Vic snorts. “It’s giving ‘safety hazard.’”
“Shut up,” Max says, half-heartedly throwing a pillow at her.
She ducks easily and flicks the Swiffer in his direction. “Clean, peasant.”
“I am cleaning,” Max says, wiping the dust off the TV with his sleeve. “Look at me. Cleaning. Looking good while cleaning. Lando could never.”
“You are obsessed with Lando.”
Max snorts. “Well, that doesn’t make me any better than Lando, I guess.”
And just as he turns back to the shelf, he hears it.
Piano.
Soft, warm, curling like steam under the doorframe. It's coming from the apartment next door — not too loud, not obnoxious, but weirdly gentle.
A melody that feels like a lullaby from a movie he half-remembered as a kid.
It’s... weirdly nice.
Not in a Max way. Max likes silence, or engines, or music that sounds like someone’s being slowly murdered with synths. But this? This is like the piano version of a hug.
Vic pauses too, lifting her head. “Wow. Okay. Better than Lando’s playlists.”
“Everything’s better than Lando’s Friday playlist,” Max mutters. “Lando’s playlist is what they play in hell when you’re stuck on hold with demons.”
Vic grins. “Didn’t he remix ‘It’s Friday Then’ with the sound of his own car engine once?”
“He sent it to me as a birthday gift,” Max says flatly. “Blocked him for a month.”
The piano continues — a soft shift, a rise and fall, almost familiar.
Max frowns, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Do you know who moved in next door?”
Vic shrugs. “Some private tenant. I heard it was a temp lease. Why, you gonna complain already?”
“No,” Max says, eyes narrowing. “Just… weirdly soothing. Like, weirdly.”
Vic raises an eyebrow. “Oh no. Is Max Verstappen being soothed? Alert the press.”
“Shut up. ”
They resume cleaning, but the piano stays. Floating around the room like it owns the air. Max doesn’t hate it. Which is suspicious.
Vic opens a cabinet and finds three empty Monster cans and a shrivelled practically fossilised apple. “Ew.”
“Don’t touch my bio experiments,” Max says, deadpan. “But please throw it out. Ew.”
“Did you live here or haunt it?”
He shrugs. “A bit of both.”
The piano tune shifts again — a little sharper, but still sweet. Something about it makes his stomach twist a bit. Not a bad twist. Not exactly good either. More like... when you know you’ve forgotten something important but can’t quite place what.
He rubs the back of his neck.
“Still jetlagged?” Vic asks.
“Still mildly concussed.”
“You slept like a corpse yesterday.”
“I dreamed like a corpse yesterday,” he mutters, tossing a tangled charger into the junk pile. “Except the corpse was being haunted. By memories. ”
Vic rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Says the woman who cried when the café stopped selling seasonal pastries.”
“Touché.”
Max just smirks.
The apartment is slowly returning to something that resembles functionality. Still gross, still vaguely Max-coded in its depressive glory, but at least the floor is visible now. Which is an improvement.
The piano keeps playing.
And Max doesn’t say it — not out loud — but for a second, it feels like the place is breathing again.
And maybe, just maybe, so is he.
For like five seconds.
And then he opens the bathroom cabinet and a stack of empty Red Bull cans tumble out like a cursed waterfall of shame and regret.
“ Kut! ” Max yells, jumping back as a can hits his bare ankle. “Why the fuck did I—”
Vic leans in from the hallway. “Oh, good, you found the Shrine of Denial. I was waiting for you to clean it up yourself.”
“This is not a shrine,” Max mutters, tossing the cans into a giant trash bag with increasing spite. “It’s… vintage art.”
Vic snorts. “It’s a cry for help, schat.”
“Everything I do is a cry for help.”
They stand in front of the open bathroom cabinet for a second, staring at the remaining items: a nearly-empty toothpaste tube, three expired vitamin bottles, and a Red Bull-branded toothbrush.
Vic blinks. “You brushed your teeth with branding ?”
“I was sponsored!” Max protests. “I’m loyal!”
“You’re ill.”
“ I’m dedicated. ”
Vic walks away laughing, and Max sighs as he pushes the cabinet shut.
The bathroom, weirdly enough, is in pretty good shape. It even smells decent, like soap and trauma. Max gives it a quick mop just to feel productive, then turns to his next battlefield.
The kitchen.
Which looks like it was hit by a tornado and the tornado had anxiety.
The fridge is empty except for a jar of mustard, and something that might be cheese or might be a crime.
The counters are covered in a thin layer of dust that has evolved into a sentient being. There are four — four — energy drink cans on top of the microwave alone.
Max stares at them. “Why are you here.”
The cans do not respond.
Vic walks in, blinking at the dust storm. “Did you cook in here or just commit crimes?”
She picks up a can, squints at the label. “This expired in 2023.”
“That means it’s vintage.”
“That means it’s fermented. ”
They start scrubbing. Max violently wipes down the countertop while Vic opens the window to let in air that doesn’t smell like death. The piano music is still playing from next door, drifting in gently through the open pane.
It’s soft. Calming. Almost suspiciously emotional for someone who just moved in.
“Do you think the piano guy is going through a breakup,” Max says, elbow-deep in a cupboard.
Vic, wiping the stove, shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe he’s just… Dutch.”
Max huffs. Pulls out another can from behind the toaster. “Seriously, why did I keep hiding these like they were illegal drugs.”
“Because they kind of were ,” Vic mutters. “There’s no way your liver functions at 100%.”
Max opens the trash bag again and dumps the entire drawer in without checking. If anything in there was important, it’s gone now. May it rest in peace with the expired mustard and the ghost of his personality.
The cleaning gets easier. The air feels lighter. The apartment doesn’t look like a crime scene anymore — just a slightly tragic 20-something male's habitat.
The piano next door plays something bright. Something that almost makes Max feel like this whole moving-back-to-his-depressing-orange-wall-era thing might have been a slightly okay idea.
Vic leans against the counter, sweat on her forehead, shirt sleeves rolled up. “It’s almost livable in here.”
Max wipes his face with a paper towel. “You say that like it wasn’t a cursed wasteland thirty minutes ago.”
“It was,” she says. “We exorcised it.”
Max glances around. “We’re basically the Ghostbusters.”
“ Spoken like a man who’s probably still mildly concussed. ”
He grins, throwing his towel in the sink. “ Dank je wel, zusje. ”
She throws a dish sponge at him. “Don’t get sentimental on me now.”
“I’m always sentimental,” Max says, deadpan. “You just never notice.”
“Yeah,” she mutters, opening the fridge. “Because your version of ‘sentimental’ is storing five-year-old mustard because ‘Charles liked it once.’”
Max freezes.
Vic freezes.
Silence.
The piano next door shifts to something softer. Sadder. Almost like it knows.
Max coughs. “Unrelated.”
Vic smirks. “Right.”
Max points at her. “Shut your mouth.”
Vic leans against the counter with all the grace of a woman who has just won a particularly vicious round of emotional Uno. “I knew it,” she says smugly, crossing her arms. “I knew that mustard had something to do with Charles.”
Max throws his head back like the world is conspiring against him personally. “You didn’t know shit.”
Vic grins. “You just admitted it.”
“ Dammit, ” Max mutters, scrubbing harder at the stovetop just to have something to do. “This is why I don’t tell you anything. You always turn it into a moment.”
Vic smirks. “It’s called being observant. And emotionally available. You should try it sometime.”
Before Max can respond with something deeply sarcastic and emotionally repressed, his phone starts ringing. Loudly. Aggressively. The ringtone is the sound of a V10 engine revving.
He looks down. Daniel Ricciardo 💀. FaceTime.
“Absolutely not,” Max says.
Vic, too fast, grabs the phone off the counter and presses accept. “ Hello, Danny! ”
Max groans.
On the screen, Daniel’s face appears—beaming, chaotic, hair slightly damp, like he’s either just showered or been lightly tased. Behind him is an apartment that Max very unfortunately recognises.
“GUESS WHERE I AM!” Daniel yells.
“No,” Max says immediately.
The camera swings violently to the side. Now Oscar is in the frame, lying on the floor surrounded by open suitcases and semi-neatly folded shirts. He looks up and waves. “Hi Max!”
Then Lando enters the frame upside-down, hanging off the back of the couch. “VICKY!” he shouts, and Vic positively beams.
“Lando, schatje, you’re going to fall,” Vic says in her nicest motherly voice.
“I’m acrobatic!” Lando replies, before tumbling directly out of frame with a loud crash and a giggle.
Max pinches the bridge of his nose. “What the fuck is this shit.”
Daniel leans back into view. “Packing party! We’re coming to the Netherlands!”
“No no no no no,” Max deadpans. “Absolutely not.”
Oscar looks up innocently. “Daniel said it would be good for you.”
“Daniel says a lot of things,” Max replies. “Daniel is wrong. Stop listening to that man.”
Daniel gasps in fake offense. “I’m trying to support you, mate.”
Vic peers over Max’s shoulder at the screen. “Are you all flying out together?”
“Yup. In two days,” Daniel says proudly. “Oscar booked the tickets.”
Oscar gives a thumbs-up from the floor. “I got us window seats.”
“I like the aisle,” Lando’s voice whines from somewhere offscreen.
“You lost aisle privileges after the yoghurt incident,” Oscar says calmly, not even looking up.
“I WAS TRYING TO MAKE IT FUNNY!”
“It exploded in the overhead bin.”
“It was comedy!”
Max turns to Vic, horrified. “ Why are they like this?”
Vic is delighted. She’s leaning into the screen. “Wait, are you all staying with Max?”
“NO,” Max says, just as Lando pops back into view with a single sock on his hand.
“He’s our grumpy little host!” Lando says in a baby voice, sock waving. “Grumpy! Grumpy Maxie!”
Victoria wheezes. “That’s adorable.”
Max stares into the camera like it’s a portal to hell. “I will call border control.”
Daniel makes a face. “Chill, drama queen. We’ll get a hotel.”
Oscar perks up. “Carlos might come too!”
“ What? ” Max says, as Vic chokes from laughter.
“He said he’s considering it,” Oscar says. “I think he’s sad he missed Monaco and wants to bond.”
“With me? ”
Daniel smirks. “You’re so lovable when you’re depressed, Maxie.”
“I will throw this phone.”
“You won’t,” Vic says sweetly. “Because you like when people come visit. Even if they’re loud and annoying.”
Daniel grins. “She’s so wise.”
Max glares. “You told me last day that I needed space!”
“You told me you were gonna move to the Netherlands and never speak to another human again, ” Daniel counters.
“I still might.”
Lando’s sock puppet appears again. “Grumpy Grump! Maxie’s gonna cry! ”
Max looks directly into the camera. “Lando. If you say one more word, I’m going to post that photo of you in the pink wetsuit on Instagram.”
“Which one?” Oscar asks.
“There’s multiple? ” Daniel yells, laughing.
Vic is howling now. “ Please post them.”
“VICKY, nooo! ” Lando wails, flopping across Oscar’s lap.
Max sighs. “This is a circus.”
Vic pats his shoulder. “Your circus. Your clowns.”
Daniel raises a brow. “So, we’re really coming, then?”
“No.”
Oscar nods.
Vic laughs. “Definitely.”
“I’m going to throw myself out the window.” Max ends the call.
He stares at the black screen of his phone like it just tried to poison him.
Vic is still laughing. “They’re going to drive you insane.”
“They’re already there,” Max mutters.
From next door, the piano keeps playing.
Soft. Gentle.
Max exhales, long and slow. His shoulders fall back a bit.
Maybe letting the clowns come to town isn’t entirely the worst idea.
But if Carlos shows up with Ferrari-adjacent trauma, he’s locking the door.
He has a limit, okay.
It’s somewhere between Lando’s puppet plays and Carlos Sainz crying over the death of human morale as we now know it.
“Anyway,” Vic says, standing and stretching her arms over her head, “I need to be at the hospital in a few hours.”
Max frowns. “Why. No. Stay. Help me suffer.”
“I already did,” she says cheerfully. “I cleaned your graveyard and witnessed your emotional collapse via mustard. That’s enough bonding for one trip.”
Max sighs and flops back onto the half-dusted couch. “Fine. At least let me order pizza before you go. I’ll bribe you with food.”
Vic gives him a look. “Healthy food?”
“Absolutely.”
“Max.”
“Definitely something… green.”
She raises a brow.
Max grins innocently. “Pickles on a burger count.”
Vic rolls her eyes so hard they might fall out. “You have the dietary sense of a six-year-old on their birthday.”
“And the emotional range of one too,” Max says proudly, already pulling up a delivery app on his phone. “What do you want? Cheeseburger? Fries? Onion rings that’ll rot your soul?”
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Vic announces. “When I come back, I expect to see a salad. ”
“Cool,” Max says, already adding double cheeseburgers with bacon and a pizza for her to the cart. “Salad with beef. Very trendy.”
She disappears down the hallway, mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like “hopeless.”
Max kicks his feet up, one sock on, one sock missing (RIP, Monaco packing chaos), and scrolls through Instagram. It’s the usual mix of F1 memes, old karting photos, Lando doing TikToks with Oscar for McLaren PR hell, and some fan account that posted a blurry picture of Charles at the 2025 GP like it’s a peace offering.
He doesn’t let himself pause there. Not today.
Instead, he double taps a video of a cat falling off a couch and keeps scrolling.
And then—
Ring.
Not his phone.
It’s Victoria’s.
Sitting right there on the dining table, screen lighting up next to her half-eaten granola bar. He doesn’t mean to look. He really doesn’t.
But his eyes betray him anyway.
The screen says:
P. Charles
Max’s heart plummets like a Red Bull pit stop gone wrong.
He stares at the name like it’s a fucking ghost. Which, in a way, it is. Not his Charles, not the one who used to fall asleep on his couch after night races or dared him to gift Vic a Ferrari. Not the one who disappeared from the grid like a magician mid-act.
Just… some patient, apparently. P for Patient , obviously.
Max knows that. He knows that.
And yet.
The phone keeps ringing.
Max glances toward the hallway. No sound. No movement. Vic’s still in the washroom. Possibly plotting to kill him.
He looks back at the screen.
He shouldn’t.
He really shouldn’t.
He picks up the call.
“…Hello?”
There’s a second of quiet static.
Then a voice. Familiar in a way Max’s bones recognise before his brain does.
“…Vicky?”
Max’s blood runs cold.
There’s a pause. Then Max says, slowly, “No. She’s busy.”
Silence.
The kind that doesn’t just fill the air but chokes it.
“Oh,” the voice says. Soft. Breathless. Barely audible. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Who is this?” Max asks, voice quieter than usual.
The voice on the other end falters. “Just—just tell her I called. Bye, M—… mhm, bye.”
Click.
The line goes dead.
Max is still holding the phone to his ear when Vic walks back into the room, drying her hands on her towel. “Did it stop ringing?”
Max lowers the phone like it’s radioactive. “Yeah. They hung up.”
Vic pauses. “Oh. Okay.”
She takes her phone back without asking. Max watches her too carefully, and she notices, because of course she does.
“Who was it?” he asks.
She blinks at him. “I told you yesterday. It’s just a patient.”
Max tilts his head. “With your personal number?”
Vic shrugs. “Special case.”
Max says nothing.
Vic sighs. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting.”
“You are,” she says, sitting down beside him again and bumping his knee with hers. “You’re doing that thing where your jaw gets tight and your eye twitches like you’re about to start a war.”
“I’m not twitching,” Max mutters.
“You’re definitely twitching.”
He isn’t sure what to say. So he doesn’t say anything at all.
Outside, the wind rattles against the windows.
Inside, the silence stretches, brittle and strange.
Max rubs his thumb against the curve of his knuckle.
And when the delivery guy rings the bell with a loud ding-dong thirty seconds later, Max practically jumps.
Because he knows— he knows —that wasn’t just a patient.
And he really shouldn’t be hoping it was Charles.
Because if it was, it means something he’s not ready to think about.
And if it wasn’t, then he’s even more pathetic than he thought.
But.
But Max knows.
Of course it’s him.
Of course it’s Charles.
Max could pretend. He could blink and lie and say maybe not , say it could be someone else , say it doesn’t make sense,
but Max knows.
He knows the voice. Even distorted through a hospital phone and a soft cough and the echo of a room meant for patients, Max knows it.
He knows the lilt at the end of every question.
He knows the pause before a word like Max , like it still feels too intimate even when whispered.
He knows the cadence—how Charles speaks like he’s been trained not to cry. How his voice breaks a little around the edges like something constantly trying to hold itself together.
Max knows the way his name sounds in Charles’ mouth.
He knows the silence that follows.
He knows that breath.
The hesitation.
He knows.
Because he remembers Charles reading out karting race lineups in a voice that tried not to shake.
Because he remembers Charles muttering don’t crash into me again, idiot in 2019 like it was a love confession.
Because he remembers Charles whispering congrats under his breath after Monza 2022, like Max couldn’t feel every letter against his neck.
Because Max has memorised Charles.
Because Charles was once everything—rival, teammate, best friend, maybe something else, something more, something deeper—and Max is still full of him.
Because some things don’t change, even after months and crashes and silence.
Max knows it’s him.
It’s always him.
He opens the burger box first — peels the wrapping back like it’s something delicate, even though it’s very much a greasy mass of pickles and melted cheese and questionable meat. He places it on the plate beside him, then pushes the pizza box across to Vic.
She takes a slice without looking at him. He expected a snarky remark about health. But the fact that she keeps silent is enough proof of everything that Max is thinking of.
The piano next door has stopped. The silence buzzes.
Max takes one bite. It tastes like nothing. Maybe it’s the aftermath of a day old concussion. Maybe it’s just the fact that he’s not really here, not really sitting in this dusty apartment with his sister, eating fast food, pretending he’s not cracking open like an old soda can from the inside.
He chews slowly.
Then, still looking at his plate, he asks, “Was that Charles?”
Vic doesn’t answer.
Max blinks once. Lifts his eyes. “Victoria.”
She picks up her napkin. “What?”
“The call.” His voice is too even. That’s how she’ll know he’s serious. “The one you got. The one I picked up.”
“Max—”
“The name said Charles. ” He swallows thickly, wipes his fingers on the napkin like it helps. “Is that Charles? My Charles?”
Vic presses her lips together.
Max just stares.
He places the burger back on his plate, slowly, like it might explode. Swallows the bite that’s sitting in his throat like it doesn't want to go down. His jaw flexes.
“Vic,” he says again. “Please.”
She doesn’t meet his eyes.
And that’s answer enough.
Max’s pulse goes loud in his ears.
There’s a weird rushing sound, like wind or blood or maybe just grief.
He leans back slowly in his chair and whispers, “Is it him.”
Victoria finally looks at him.
Her face is so soft. So guilty. So sad.
Max doesn’t know why she’s sad.
He stares at her like maybe he’ll figure it out if he just looks hard enough. Like there’s an answer stitched between her freckles, or hidden in the dip between her brows.
But all he finds is her looking at him.
Like he’s the one breaking.
Like he’s the one who’s already broken.
His throat feels tight again, the kind of tight that doesn’t come from tears, but from pressure—internal, stupid, too much. He doesn’t want to ask. He doesn’t want to know.
“I can’t say anything,” she murmurs.
Max’s fingers tighten on the edge of the table. “You can’t or you won’t?”
“There’s a—” Vic falters. “There’s an NDA.”
Max stares.
Max stares.
Max stares.
It’s not a flinch. Not a twitch.
It’s more like something inside him just slides slightly out of place. Like someone turned the world sideways and forgot to warn him.
He just breathes in that raw, terrifying way people do when they’re balancing on the edge of something enormous and they don’t know what’s beneath.
“Is it him, ” Max asks again, so quietly it feels like a secret.
Vic closes her eyes.
That’s another answer.
Max looks away. Looks down at the burger like it’s mocking him. His hands curl into fists on either side of the plate.
And then, still too calm, still too still, he whispers, “Is he dying?”
Vic’s eyes snap open. “ Max. ”
“I just—” his voice breaks a little, just a crack, a hairline fracture, and then he shuts it down like a machine overheating— “If you can’t tell me anything else, just tell me that.”
Vic reaches out slowly. “Eat your food.”
He looks at her.
Really looks.
His sister, who helped him clean this apartment, who knows the weight he’s been dragging since January, who sat with him when he didn’t speak for two days in March, who told him he’s still here when he wasn’t so sure he wanted to be.
He looks at her and sees the ache she’s hiding.
Which means whatever’s going on—
It’s bad.
“Vic,” Max says, barely audible. “Is he going to be okay?”
“I can’t say,” she whispers.
“Can’t or won’t,” Max mutters again, mostly to himself. Then louder, “ Victoria ”
“Max, please,” she says, softly. “I need you to trust me.”
He doesn’t touch the burger again.
He just sits there, breathing through something sharp and burning in his chest, something that feels like every scream he never let out during the winter and every question he didn’t ask because he was afraid of the answers.
His Charles.
His.
Gone.
And maybe not just from the sport. Maybe from—
No.
He can’t.
Vic says nothing else.
The room fills with the smell of grease and silence.
And Max just stares at the spot on the table where his hands are, not sure when he started shaking.
But they are—trembling slightly, rhythmically, like the panic is moving through his bones and leaking out in soft little vibrations.
Like the shaking is just the only way he hasn’t screamed.
He stares.
At his knuckles.
At the way they’re flexed so tight that his skin’s gone white.
At the redness creeping in where his fingernails are pressing too hard into the meat of his palm.
And then at the thin, raw line he must’ve scratched without realising—because now there’s blood. Not much. Just a sliver. Like his body needed somewhere to put the pain.
Vic notices, of course she does.
“Max—” she starts, voice cracking a little.
He doesn’t look at her.
“Is it because of the crash?” His voice is hoarse. Thinner than before. “Did something happen to him after Abu Dhabi?”
“Max.”
“Tell me the truth.” He looks up. Eyes rimmed red. His expression is pinched in the way it gets when he’s not crying yet but he’s right on the edge. “Was it me?”
“It wasn’t you.”
“You don’t know that.”
Vic stands slowly and moves around the table. She crouches beside his chair, hand coming up to cover his. He flinches at first, but doesn’t pull away.
“You always think it’s you,” she says, softly. “But it’s not.”
Max swallows. His throat feels like it’s filled with sand. “I—he was fine. I saw him walk away. I saw him wave. He said he was fine.”
“He was. It’s not your fault.”
“Then why didn’t he come?” Max whispers. “He promised he’d come to the room. I waited. I waited, Vic.”
Her heart breaks in real time. “Max.”
“I sat there for hours. He didn’t even text. Not even after. Not after the interviews. Not after I flew home. Not after New Year’s.” His voice is shaking now. “I called. And called. And—he didn’t pick up. And I thought—”
He cuts himself off. A breath. A gasp.
And then—
The first sob punches out of him.
It’s not loud.
It’s quiet.
Painfully quiet.
Like it snuck out before he had the chance to stop it.
Vic squeezes his hand tighter. “Max. He’s okay. He’s—he’s going to be okay.”
“You’re just saying that,” Max chokes. “You’re saying it to make me eat. To keep me sane. But it’s not—” His other hand claws into his sleeve, scratching again, again, as if pain is the only way to stay in the moment.
Vic leans forward and pulls his hand away from his arm, gently but firmly. “Stop. Stop, Max. Look at me.”
He does. Barely.
His face is crumpled. Eyes glassy. Cheeks blotched red in that way he gets when his emotions overtake him before he’s ready.
He looks like the boy who crashed his kart at 12 and curled up behind the paddock trailer pretending he didn’t care.
He looks like he’s been hit.
“You loved him,” Vic says quietly. “You still do.”
Max looks away.
“And maybe,” she continues, “you don’t have the full picture. Maybe he couldn’t come. Maybe something was already happening. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. It doesn’t mean you broke him.”
“But I did something,” Max says. “I had to. Because he left. He left, Vic.”
“And people leave,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s your fault.”
He sniffs hard. Wipes his eyes on his sleeve.
Then finally—fragile and wet—he says, “Why didn’t he say goodbye?”
Vic doesn’t have an answer.
So instead, she hugs him.
Tight. Like she’s trying to press the broken pieces back together.
Like if she holds him hard enough, his breathing won’t stutter like it is right now.
Like she’s the only anchor left.
Max leans into it slowly, like his body doesn’t quite trust the comfort, like it doesn’t know what to do with it. And then—like something’s finally cracked—he hides his face in her shoulder and sobs.
Like the months of pretending it didn’t hurt are finally collapsing.
“I just want him to be okay,” he whispers.
“He will be,” Vic says.
“Even if I don’t get to see him again. Just—” Max breaks again. “Just let him be okay.”
And Vic, knowing she can’t promise what isn’t hers to give, just holds him tighter.
And says nothing.
Because hope is the only thing left.
And even that feels thin now—brittle, sharp around the edges like glass after a fall.
Max stays curled into Vic’s arms for what feels like hours, though it’s probably minutes. The sobs don’t stop. They just change shape—less thunderous now, more like little earthquakes cracking through his ribs every few seconds, tremors that won’t settle. Every breath is a struggle between breaking down and trying to breathe like a normal person. He doesn’t win either battle.
His shirt is damp where his face is pressed into Vic’s shoulder. Her palm rubs soothing circles on his back. At some point, she’s resting her chin against his temple. There’s nothing else she can do.
Because she can’t fix this.
She can’t fix any of this.
And neither can Max.
He’s known pain before—on the track, in the press rooms, in silence—but this…
This is different.
This is the pain of maybe.
Maybe he’s out there.
Maybe he’s not okay.
Maybe he’ll never come back.
Maybe he didn’t want to leave.
Maybe he did.
Maybe it was Max’s fault.
That last thought burrows the deepest. It nests somewhere behind his lungs, between every stupid thing he said all those years and every worse thing he didn’t say. Somewhere between the crash and the win and the disappearance.
“I should’ve known,” he whispers. “I should’ve—seen it, or— something. He looked tired. That last week. Before the race. He looked—he looked done, Vic.”
She says nothing. Because she doesn’t want to lie.
“And I was just—” He lets out a bitter breath. “I was just so pissed. That he was ahead in the points. That he might win.”
“Max,” she says, soft but sharp, “you were racing.”
“I was racing him, ” he says. “And I thought—I don’t even know what I thought. I was scared. Because he’d never beaten me to the title. And I wanted to win. And he knew that. He knew. He always knew. And I should’ve—”
He swallows. Hard.
“I should’ve told him.”
Vic pulls back just enough to look at him. “Told him what?”
Max doesn’t answer.
He can’t.
Because it’s not a thing you say in the middle of a meal or a cool-down lap.
It’s not something you whisper in the dark when you’re both too tired to sleep but too wired to stop talking.
It’s not something he ever got to say.
So he just shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Max—”
“It doesn’t,” he repeats. “He’s gone. And I’m here. And maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Vic frowns. “You don’t believe that.”
“No,” Max admits. “But it hurts less if I pretend I do.”
The room is still. The food is cold on the table.
And Max’s heart is splintered down the middle like a cracked chassis no one’s bothered to fix.
He wipes his face again. Another tear slips down. “I just—”
He stops.
Because if he says it, it’ll be real.
But it already is.
“I just miss him so fucking much.”
It slips out like a breath, but lands with the weight of a wreck.
Vic says nothing for a long moment.
She just stays beside him, hand still on his knee, steady and quiet, like if she breathes too loudly, he’ll break further.
And maybe he will.
Max’s fingers are curled so tight against the fabric of his jeans that they ache. His throat burns. His nose is running. He doesn’t even care.
He leans forward again, elbows on his knees, breathing hard like this is a race he doesn’t know how to finish.
Then, hoarse and quiet and unbearably raw, he asks, “Can I see him?”
Vic stills.
Her eyes flicker across his profile.
He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t even blink.
“Please,” he whispers.
“Max—”
“I can’t, ” he says, suddenly, louder. His voice cracks like glass under pressure. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t just—pretend he’s not real, Vic. I wake up and I see him. I go to sleep and I hear him. In the car. On the radio. Every time I take a corner too hard, I remember the way he laughed after Japan when I spun out and blamed the wind. I remember the jokes. The arguments. I remember—”
He cuts himself off. He’s breathing too fast now.
“I remember everything. ”
Vic swallows.
“I remember his mouth when he smiled,” Max chokes out. “I remember what it sounded like when he said my name. I remember the way he said it—like it meant something. Like I meant something.”
Vic reaches for him again, but Max jerks away, just an inch. Just enough.
“And now I don’t even know where he is,” Max says, quieter. “I don’t know if he’s alone, or scared, or—fuck, I don’t even know if he remembers me the way I remember him. ”
He scrubs his face with both hands. “It’s not fair, right?”
“No,” Vic says, gently. “It’s not.”
“So let me see him,” Max begs. “Just—once. Please.”
Vic hesitates.
Max turns toward her fully now.
Eyes red. Cheeks raw.
“I need to see him,” he says, voice shaking. “Please, Vic. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll sign something. I’ll pretend I didn’t. I won’t even say a word. I just—I need to know he’s okay. That he’s still him. That he didn’t—”
He can’t finish that sentence.
Vic’s eyes drop.
Max knows that look.
He’s seen it before.
“Vic,” he whispers. “He’s not dying, is he?”
“No,” she says quickly. Too quickly. “No. He’s not. But—”
“But?” Max presses.
Vic’s mouth tightens.
“Charles’ NDA is… elaborate,” she says finally. “It’s not like the usual ones. It’s layers and layers of legal paperwork. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m not even supposed to say I’m involved.”
Max stares at her.
Vic looks away.
Max swallows thickly. “Does he not want to see me?”
Vic flinches.
Max's breath catches. “ Does he not want to see me? ”
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t—Max, I’m sorry.”
“Did I do something?” Max’s voice is barely there. “Did I—was it me?”
“No—”
“I crashed into him. I still don’t know how. I don’t even remember half of it. ” Max is spiraling now. The words are tumbling out too fast to catch. “One second we were racing, and the next—I saw him walking away. And then he was gone. That’s all I remember. That’s all. And I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell him—”
Vic’s hand reaches out and squeezes his again, hard.
Max breathes.
Shaky. Unsteady.
“Vic,” he says again, quietly. “Please. Please just tell me. Why wouldn’t he want to see me? ”
Vic stares at him for a long time.
Her eyes are glassy now too.
She bites her lip, and it wobbles. That’s when Max knows. She’s not holding back because she wants to. She’s holding back because she has to.
And it fucking kills him.
“He’s not dying,” she says softly, finally. “But… he’s not the same.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Max looks at her like she’s just torn the last piece of him away.
He sees the apology in her eyes before she says it. Sees how badly she wishes this were different. How much it’s killing her too.
But she says nothing else.
And Max—
Max breaks a little more.
He presses his palms against his eyes. His breath catches. His shoulders curl in like he’s trying to shrink away from the grief bleeding out of him.
It’s not loud. It’s not violent.
But it’s devastating.
Vic leans into him again, arms wrapping around his trembling frame.
And in the silence that follows, all Max can think about is how he once had the world.
And how it vanished with a crash.
And a wave.
And the softest voice he’s ever known whispering, I’m fine.
He wants to believe that still.
But he can’t. Not without proof.
Not without Charles.
Not without the only person who ever made Max feel like he wasn’t just surviving this world—he was living in it.
And maybe it is.
Maybe crying over Charles has become Max’s full-time job, and Vic’s just his unpaid emotional support intern.
Her fingers are gentle as they dab the edge of his eye with a napkin that smells like old garlic butter. Max doesn’t even flinch. He’s too tired to flinch. Too full of ache.
Vic sighs as she pulls back. “I need to leave for the hospital.”
And maybe she meant it like: I have a shift.
But Max hears: I have to leave you alone now.
He clears his throat. “Does—does Charles have an appointment today?”
There’s no anger in his voice. Just soft devastation, folded in.
Vic freezes mid-step, keys in her hand. “Max, please.”
And that’s enough answer.
Too much of an answer.
He nods once, but it feels like dragging his entire body forward with just the weight of his skull. He blinks. His mouth opens. “I’ll come with you.”
“Max.”
“I’ll just drive,” he says, already pushing himself up. “You’re tired. You helped me clean this hellhole. I’ll drive you.”
“You’re—”
“I’m not asking for a medical file, I just—” He looks around for a fresh shirt in the bag. “I can be in the same building, Vic. That’s not illegal, is it?”
“Max—”
“I’ll wait in the parking lot. You don’t even have to look at me. Just let me drive you. ”
Vic is still staring at him like he’s an open wound.
He doesn't care.
He finds his Red Bull polo. He runs a hand through his hair, grabs the food containers off the table, and looks at her like a man holding on to the last thing he hasn’t ruined.
“Five minutes,” he says. “Just wait five minutes.”
Vic opens her mouth. Closes it. Sighs again.
But she nods.
Max doesn’t sprint to the bathroom, but it’s close. He changes fast. Splashes water on his face. Doesn’t look in the mirror because he already knows what’s there: bloodshot eyes, blotchy skin, something too broken for a Red Bull campaign.
When he comes back out, Vic’s at the door, keys dangling, resignation in her eyes.
He hands her the food containers. “You forgot lunch.”
She takes them. She doesn’t smile.
They step out of the apartment. The air is cool. Overcast sky. Typical Dutch weather.
And all Max can think of is Charles, Charles, Charles, Charles.
Every step feels like walking toward him, even if that’s not the plan. Even if it’s stupid. Even if it’s pointless.
Charles.
The name is loud in Max’s head.
The memory of him, louder.
The scent of the paddock in late October, the way Charles laughed at something Max didn’t even think was funny. The shape of his hand curled around a champagne flute. The heat of his palm on Max’s shoulder in Abu Dhabi, before everything broke.
Charles.
Charles.
Max opens the car door, slides in, grips the steering wheel like it’s the only thing tethering him to Earth.
Vic buckles herself in. Doesn’t say a word.
Because they both know.
Max isn’t driving to the hospital.
He’s driving toward a ghost.
And he's flooring it.
Max grips the steering wheel like it said something rude about his mother, foot pressed way too hard on the accelerator, eyes wide and unblinking like he's in Q3. The roads blur past, and Vic braces herself against the door handle with the grim patience of someone who has absolutely no power over the situation but refuses to die screaming.
“You do realise the roads has speed cameras, right?” she says calmly, staring out the window like maybe the wind will adopt her.
“Then let them catch me,” Max mutters. “This is Formula One.”
“This is Rotterdam, Max. Calm the fuck down.”
He doesn’t respond. Just squints through the windshield like it might cough up answers.
Vic sighs and sits up straighter. “Okay. Listen. I know you. I know you’re gonna try something when we get there.”
Max scoffs. “I’m literally just your chauffeur.”
“Max.”
“I am. ”
“You’re my chauffeur the way Oscar is a sweetheart goodie-two-shoes.”
Max glares at the road.
“Let me be clear,” Vic continues. “You are not to stalk the hospital. No wandering. No snooping. No fake moustache and lab coat situation.”
“...Would a fake moustache be that bad though?”
Vic groans. “Don’t even mention my name. If you do, I’ll have your sim rig burned.”
“That’s literally inhumane.”
“I’m not joking. You’re not here to investigate, Max. You’re here to drop me off. That’s it.”
“You don’t think Charles would sue you,” Max says, suddenly, quieter. “Right?”
Vic pauses. “No. He wouldn’t.”
Max swallows.
“But I still signed an NDA,” she adds. “And my licence is on the line.”
Max nods. “Right. Yeah. I know. I just—”
He trails off.
Vic watches him. Her voice softens. “I know.”
There’s a stretch of silence, filled only by the sound of wheels rolling over asphalt and Max’s barely-there breathing.
“Why did you become his doctor?”
Vic exhales through her nose. “Max.”
“I’m not asking for the files,” he says. “I’m just asking why. Like—why you. Why would he pick you?”
“I didn’t say he picked me.”
“So what? Did someone assign him to you?”
“I can’t say.”
Max’s hands twitch on the wheel. His jaw tightens.
“Okay,” he says. “Fine. Not my business.”
Another beat passes.
Max stares ahead. His voice is almost flat now. “Then let me ask this.”
Vic glances sideways.
He doesn’t look back. “Why does Charles have a neurologist?”
Vic closes her eyes.
“Victoria.”
“I can’t say, Max.”
“You can ,” he mutters.
“I won’t, ” she corrects.
Max drives in silence again. A long, stretching silence. The air in the car feels heavy—thick with all the things neither of them are saying.
He doesn’t push again.
Because he doesn’t need to.
Not when the worst possibilities are already screaming in his head.
Not when every breath he takes feels like it’s dragging those possibilities deeper into his lungs.
The hospital appears over the rise of the road like something out of a memory—wide glass doors, a bright logo, flags flapping stupidly in the breeze. Max slows the car and pulls into the drop-off zone.
She unbuckles and starts to open the door.
Max clears his throat. “I’ll just find parking.”
She pauses. Looks back at him like she’s about to say something motherly and wise, then sighs instead.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she mutters.
Max holds up both hands like he’s innocent. “I’m just your driver. Dropping you off at work.”
She squints at him. “Max. Behave.”
“I always behave.”
“ Max. ”
He grins. “Scouts honour.”
“You were never in Scouts.”
“Still counts.”
She stares. He stares back.
Eventually, Vic shakes her head and gets out, slamming the door gently in the way that says she knows he’s about to do something stupid but loves him anyway.
Max watches her walk up the steps and badge herself in. She doesn’t look back.
He exhales.
Then finds parking.
Once the car’s safely tucked into some obscenely expensive underground garage (Vic probably has a sticker or a pass or some magic licence plate trick), Max gets out and straightens his polo shirt and his cap.
The air in the garage is cool. Industrial. Smells like oil and expensive floor wax. He slams the car door shut and locks it. His sneakers squeak faintly as he walks.
He ascends from the garage like a man with a mission. And an unstable emotional foundation.
At the hospital entrance, the automatic doors part.
And Max walks in.
He’s doing his best to pretend like he’s not famous.
He pulls his baseball cap low. Keeps his head slightly bowed. Shoves his hands in his pockets like he’s just your average 28-year-old random dude who happens to be very fast in cars and emotionally ruined by a Monégasque boy.
Thankfully, the receptionists are busy. A nurse is yelling something about paperwork. A child is crying in the corner. An old man is coughing in a way that definitely sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Max slips past them all.
No one recognises him.
He moves through the corridor like a shadow, heart thudding in his chest like it’s counting down to something he’s not ready for.
He’s not doing anything wrong. Technically.
Just walking. Like a guy.
A guy who once kissed a Ferrari driver behind the media pen in Spa and thought that was going to ruin him.
Turns out this is worse.
Way worse.
Because now he’s roaming a Dutch hospital like a lost child, looking for a Charles-shaped man and trying to act like this is completely normal behavior.
He’s not stalking, okay? He’s investigating.
Emotional support reconnaissance.
Totally reasonable.
He walks through the corridors with all the subtlety that he could muster, eyes scanning every room, every hallway, every vaguely Monégasque silhuoette.
Nothing.
He does a slow loop of the first floor. Nothing but nurses, old people, and one extremely pissed-off toddler throwing a toy against the wall. Max respects the hustle. That used to be him. It still is him, except the toy is his career and the wall is his emotional capacity.
He rounds the corner near what looks like a physiotherapy room and—bam. Fan.
She’s maybe fifteen. Bright red hoodie . She freezes like she just saw a demon in cargo shorts.
“Are you—”
Max sighs, adjusting his cap. “No.”
“You are. ” She’s already fumbling in her pocket. “Holy shit. You’re Max Verstappen. My dad hates you.”
“That’s fair.”
“No like—he really hates you. Like, 'Hamilton should’ve won' kind of hate.”
Max shrugs. “I hate me too.”
She pulls out a pen and—curiously—a phone, handing both over. “Can you sign my phone?”
“…You want me to autograph your phone ?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry, it has a screen protector.”
He takes it and scrawls Max V :) across the case like he’s leaving a passive aggressive note at a break room fridge. He hands it back, deadpan. “Tell your dad I said ‘suck it.’”
“I will. ” The girl grins wide.
She scampers off, presumably to cause problems on purpose.
Max resumes the hunt.
Two flights of stairs later (because he doesn’t trust elevators—long story involving Dietrich and a mechanical failure), he makes it to the neurological and brain department. He pauses outside the door and breathes deeply, as if the air inside will taste different. Like answers.
It doesn’t.
Inside, it’s… quiet.
Too quiet.
Like a suspense film, just before the jump scare.
Or like Charles’ hotel room after Abu Dhabi, 2025.
Max steps in. There’s a reception desk. A nurse typing something. A couple of people reading ancient magazines like it’s still 2003. A man quietly clicking his pen. The click echoes in Max’s ears like it’s trying to unlock his skull.
He walks down the corridor slowly. Pretending to check signs. Pretending to read department names. Pretending he belongs here.
Which is wild, because no one who looks like Max belongs here.
He’s wearing an RB-branded polo, Red Bull sneakers, and the aura of someone who once broke a sim rig with his knee after a rage-quit at Belgium.
A woman in scrubs eyes him, but says nothing.
He keeps walking. Peeking into windows. Checking shadows.
No Charles.
Nothing that looks like Charles.
Nothing that smells like Charles.
Nothing that feels like him.
He exhales and rounds a corner.
That’s when it happens.
A soft thud, like something dropped—or someone.
He jerks toward the sound instinctively.
There’s a man on the ground just ahead of him, half-kneeling, trying to right himself with the help of one of those white folding cane-walker things—the ones blind or vision-impaired folks use to navigate.
The guy mutters something—fast, low, irritated.
Max doesn’t clock it.
He crouches automatically, hand out, helping him upright. The guy nods,but doesn’t look up. He’s already turning away when Max brushes dust off his own jeans.
Max doesn’t really think about it. Just keeps moving. He’s been in this hospital for thirty minutes now, and he has seen approximately zero Monégasques, zero beautiful faces that make him want to scream, and zero people who whisper French insults with passive-aggressive elegance. Which is to say—no Charles.
The hallway is long and a little too quiet, with that sterile, antiseptic smell hospitals always have, like someone deep-cleaned every emotion out of the air.
He slows down in front of a set of doors with names printed in black on frosted glass. One reads Dr. van Hout. The next is Dr. Linssen. And then—of course—
Dr. Verstappen.
Max rolls his eyes and keeps walking. He already knows she’s here. And he already knows she’s going to kill him if (when) she finds out he’s wandering around unsupervised like some bloodhound but for emotions. An emotionhound. So he does the mature thing.
He ignores her entirely.
He rounds another corner. There’s a break room filled with vending machines and one very tired nurse eating instant noodles directly from the cup like it’s her last lifeline. Two older women shuffle slowly past him with matching walkers. A man coughs in the corner like he’s trying to summon a demon.
Max does a full lap of the department.
Nothing.
There’s a teenage boy in one of the chairs, fidgeting with his headphones and playing some game on his phone. Everyone else looks over sixty. Someone’s grandma waves at him with a blank stare and Max nods back out of politeness, even though he’s pretty sure she thinks he’s someone named Stefan.
He sighs.
Maybe Charles isn’t here today.
Maybe Victoria lied to get him to calm down.
Maybe he is stupid.
Max leans against the wall and groans into the inside of his elbow. “This is the worst mission I’ve ever been on and I once tried to hide a hamster from my trainer for six months,” he mutters.
Then he pulls out his phone.
He opens iMessage and does the only logical thing; he texts Daniel.
max: currently mid hospital heist. no time to elaborate. i need your help.
The typing bubble appears almost instantly, because of course Daniel Ricciardo has absolutely nothing better to do.
daniel: WHAT.
daniel: MAX WHAT.
daniel: WHAT DO YOU MEAN HEIST. WHY ARE YOU IN A HOSPITAL. WHO DID YOU KILL.
Max squints and types.
max: no one died. i’m stalking.
daniel: …what.
max: i need help finding someone who could be anywhere in this hospital.
daniel: MAX WHAT.
max: i’m asking for your expertise in tracking/stalking pls keep up dan
daniel: why do you assume i know how to stalk ppl in a hospital???
max: well don’t you?
There’s a pause.
Then:
daniel: yeah ok fine.
max: so help me then
daniel: which department are you in?
max: neuro.
daniel: the worst one. not much traffic. too quiet. are you even thinking logically.
max: that’s not really my brand
daniel: did you check general med???
max: no
daniel: are you STUPID. that’s the MOST LIKELY place to find someone. it's the most crowded, nobody questions anyone, it's a vibe.
daniel: i bet you’re just lurking in neurology like a sad ferret
max: i am NOT a sad ferret
daniel: you’re exactly like a sad ferret
Max scowls at his screen. He walks briskly down another corridor, rounding past the neurology wing and muttering “sad ferret” under his breath like a curse.
A nurse wheels someone past him. Another older man squints at him like he’s vaguely recognisable but also could just be a plumber. A kid in a Spiderman hoodie zips by with a juice box and nearly crashes into a wall. Max would laugh, not because it’s funny but because it’s relatabl.e
Max turns toward the signs at the end of the corridor and spots General Medicine three arrows down. Bingo.
He texts Daniel again.
max: heading to gen med.
max: if i find him, i’m naming my firstborn after you.
daniel: that’s beautiful. please consider daniella ricciardo verstappen. has a ring to it.
daniel: wait who are u looking for again?
Max puts his phone away, sighs, and starts walking again.
His stomach twists a little.
Because maybe—maybe this time he’s close.
Maybe this time he’ll actually see him.
Charles.
Or maybe he’ll just get caught loitering in a hospital and arrested for being emotionally unstable in public again.
Fifty-fifty.
Which, statistically speaking, are better odds than most things in Max’s life.
He takes a sharp left through the automatic doors and enters General Medicine. And immediately regrets every life decision that led to this moment.
Because it is packed.
Wall-to-wall humanity. People on chairs, people against the walls, people wheeling IV drips like they're trying to win a race. Crying babies, old men coughing, a woman arguing with her husband over insurance, someone watching TikTok at full volume like it’s their personal concert. There’s a kid on the floor with a Nintendo Switch. There’s another one screaming for reasons Max doesn’t care about.
Max halts near the entrance like he’s stepped into a warzone. He squints, trying to scan the room. But it’s like trying to find Charles in a Where’s Waldo book if Waldo was blurry, injured, and actively avoiding him.
He grabs his phone, and fires off another text to Daniel.
max: okay i take it back this was a mistake
A moment later:
daniel: what happened?
daniel: are you in jail?
daniel: are you being arrested by sexy dutch police?
Max rolls his eyes and types.
max: it’s impossible. there’s too many people in general med. i can’t find him in this mess.
max: at this rate i might die before i find charles
The reply is instant.
daniel: MAX.
daniel: MAX.
daniel: U R LOOKING FOR CHARLES??????
Max freezes. Then types.
max: forget i said anything
max: delete this convo actually
max: just forget it
daniel: MAX.
daniel: YOU FOUND HIM???
max: no
daniel: BUT HES IN THE HOSPITAL????
daniel: IS HE OKAY
daniel: IS HE DYING
daniel: MAX WHAT THE FUUUUUUUCK
max: shut up shut up shut up
max: shut uuuuuuup
max: i don’t know anything
max: stop texting
He lowers his phone like it’s a bomb about to go off.
Across the room, a woman sneezes violently into a tissue and three people flinch like it’s 2020/21 again.
Max takes a deep breath and readjusts his hat. Then steps forward.
Every part of this is stupid. He's not even sure what he's expecting.
To find Charles sitting under a "Broken Ribbed Monegasque Zone" sign? To turn a corner and have Charles spin around like they’re in a romantic comedy?
Also, Max is 90% sure Charles would actively walk into a janitor’s closet to avoid him for reasons that Max doesn’t know of.
Still.
He walks through the crowd slowly, trying not to look as suspicious as he feels. Which is difficult, because Max always looks like he’s about to yell at someone even when he’s buying toothpaste.
A child points at him and whispers, “That’s the Red Bull man,” to his mum. Max immediately ducks behind a decorative skeleton model.
This is going great.
He loops once around the waiting area. He even pokes his head into the side hallway where some of the checkup rooms are. A nurse looks at him and frowns. Max pretends he’s looking for the bathroom and walks away very, very, very quickly.
He checks behind curtain dividers. Nothing.
He almost runs into a wheelchair. He apologises to the empty wheelchair. Then to the man standing next to it. Then to the nurse pushing it. Then to a poster.
This is a disaster.
He loops back toward the entrance, eyes darting, trying to pretend like he’s not having an existential meltdown in a hospital lobby. His hands are sweating. His heart's being annoying. His head is still mildly concussed but now also full of Charles.
He sits on the arm of a chair. Pulls out his phone again.
Daniel has sent seven messages in a row.
daniel: i know ur ignoring me
daniel: but if you don’t answer i’m calling vic
daniel: i’ll do it
daniel: im serious
daniel: ill CALL HER
daniel: MAX
daniel: i swear im losing my shit
Max thinks that’s bold of Daniel to think, as he never had his shit to begin with.
max: its fine
daniel: WHAT IS FINE NONE OF THIS FINE U SAW CHARLES????
max: i might have hallucinated a phone call
daniel: hE CALLED???
max: he called vic. or maybe he didnt idk
max: theres nothing i have got to talk abt. everythinfs fine.
daniel: ur logic is so full of holes
daniel: it’s a fuckin cheese grater
max: that doesnt even make sense
daniel: THEN WHERES CHARLESSSS
Max types one-handed.
max: daniel i am BEGGING you to stop
max: i already feel like a criminal
max: don’t make it worse
daniel: have u considered going to therapy
max: have you considered dying
Daniel just sends a photo of a wine bottle next to Lando’s dog with the caption guess who’s emotionally healthier than you. also tEXT IMMEDIATELY AFTER U FIND CHARLES U MORON LY BYE.
Max exhales slowly. Then gets back on his feet.
Because he didn’t come here to sit around and fail.
He came here to find Charles.
Even if he has no idea what he’ll do when he does.
Maybe Charles will yell. Maybe Charles will walk away. Maybe Charles won’t recognise him at all.
Still.
He takes another deep breath.
And dives back into the crowd.
One foot in front of the other.
The hallway curves, bends, widens again. People move past him like slow, uneven waves, and Max keeps his head down, hands tucked into his pockets, jaw locked like it’s the only thing keeping him from screaming.
He walks. And walks.
And thinks.
And he doesn’t want to think. Because every time he thinks, he ends up thinking about Charles.
Every combination. Every possible outcome. Every timeline.
In one version, Charles sees him and laughs. Tells him he’s being dramatic. Smacks him on the shoulder and says, Mon dieu, Max, it’s not that deep. And they go get shitty coffee from a vending machine and argue about whose karting days were worse. Like it’s still 2018 and everything is soft and biting and familiar.
In another version, Charles sees him and flinches.
In another, Charles doesn’t look up at all.
In one of the worst ones, Charles just says, Please leave.
And Max would.
He would.
Because he’s never been able to say no to Charles, even when he was supposed to.
Even when he really, really should’ve.
But then—
Then there’s the version that eats at him.
The one where Charles doesn’t remember him.
Or remembers too much.
The one where Charles says, I didn’t tell you because you would’ve looked at me like I was broken.
Max wouldn’t.
He knows he wouldn’t.
He’d just stare and feel like his own ribcage is too small to hold all the ways he wants to fix it.
He rounds a corner too fast and almost slips on the polished floor. His hand goes to the wall for balance. His lungs feel too tight. He slows down, just barely.
Neurology.
It’s not a cold word. Not to most people. But it is to him now. It sounds clinical. Sounds wrong.
Because—
Because what could possibly be wrong with Charles ?
What could’ve been bad enough that he went to Vic? That he made Vic sign an NDA ?
Max knows Charles. He knows how private he is, even though he pretends to public with everything. He knows how many things Charles would rather bury than speak aloud.
So what the hell is this?
What is so wrong that Charles would disappear completely rather than let Max know?
His mind claws at the edges of every terrible possibility.
A brain tumour.
A degenerative condition.
Memory loss.
Motor function issues.
Something genetic.
Something rare.
Something terminal.
He shoves the thought down but it keeps crawling back up like bile.
Charles always had headaches. Always had migraines. Back in 2023, he’d missed an entire Friday because of one. Back in karting, he’d once fainted in the paddock and told everyone it was low blood sugar. He never liked bright lights. He has hated bright lights. He sometimes blinked too much. He always rubbed the side of his neck like it ached. He—
No.
Max stops walking.
Leans against the wall again.
Shuts his eyes.
His hands are shaking again. He doesn’t notice until someone brushes past and he almost flinches.
Why didn’t Charles tell him?
Why the fuck didn’t Charles tell him?
They were each other’s person. Not always nicely. Not always cleanly. But when everything else was loud, they were the quiet in each other’s noise.
Max would've carried it.
Whatever it is.
Max would’ve—
He swallows.
Maybe he’s being selfish.
Maybe he only wants to know so he can feel like he still exists in Charles’ life. Even if it’s just the version of him that exists as a ghost haunting the memory of a friendship.
His vision goes a little blurry.
He’s not crying.
Not really.
It’s just his head.
Still a little concussed.
Yeah.
He wipes his sleeve across his eyes anyway.
People pass. A nurse pushes a trolley with samples. A man bickers with the receptionist over a prescription. A mother hushes her child in Dutch, soft and low. It’s all normal. It’s all nothing.
Max stands in the middle of it, unable to move, because everything in him feels like it’s waiting to be told whether or not his universe is still alive.
That’s what Charles is, isn’t he?
Max has been orbiting Charles his entire life.
And now he doesn’t know if the sun is still burning.
He squeezes his fists tight. Feels the sting of his own nails in his palms. Focuses on the pain, because it’s real, and here, and not a memory of someone’s helmet being lifted off while Max was still catching his breath in the gravel.
Because that was the last time.
That was the last time he saw him.
The last time Charles said I’m fine and walked off like everything was okay.
Like they weren’t supposed to meet after the press conference.
Like he hadn’t just won a championship by two points and promised Max he’d see him after.
Like Max hadn’t waited three hours in his hotel room, door unlocked, staring at the hallway.
Like it hadn’t all meant something.
And then the next day—
Charles Leclerc announces sudden retirement from Formula 1.
No explanation. No follow-up. Nothing. Not even a text. Not even a voicemail. Not even a fuck you, I’m out.
Just silence.
Max breathes in.
And then he walks again.
Because maybe if he keeps moving, the ache won’t catch up to him.
And maybe—just maybe—he’ll finally find the reason everything hurts.
And the more he walks, the more his thoughts stop making sense.
Because maybe— maybe Charles is dying.
The thought comes in suddenly. Loud and fast and blunt like a punch.
Max stops in the middle of a corridor, half-turning like the air just got knocked out of his lungs.
Dying.
Like—terminally.
Like—soon.
And he wants to scream, except it feels like he’s going to vomit instead.
He swallows hard.
His hands are cold.
His skin feels wrong.
No.
No.
Charles isn’t—
He wouldn’t—
Vic said he’s not dying.
Did she?
Max can’t remember.
She said he’s safe. She said he’s not dying. She said—
But people lie. Especially when you’re shaking and crying and digging your nails into your arms in the middle of your dining area.
Max takes out his phone.
His fingers are trembling.
He opens Chrome and types: “neurological diseases that are lethal.”
The autofill finishes the sentence for him like it’s done this before for other people.
He presses the first link.
And then stares at the screen, blinking hard.
ALS.
Brain tumors.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
MS.
Parkinson’s with rapid progression.
Meningitis.
Encephalitis.
Huntington’s.
Brain stem glioma.
Words.
Just words.
But they all taste like acid.
The phone screen starts to blur.
Not just from tears but from the sudden heat behind his eyes and the tension crawling up the back of his skull.
What if it’s one of these?
What if it’s something else?
Something rarer?
Something worse?
He turns his phone off.
Locks the screen.
Slips it into his pocket and starts walking again like the hospital tiles are the only thing keeping him upright.
The fluorescent lights are too bright.
His breath is coming too fast.
His ears are ringing.
He walks.
And walks.
And his pulse feels like it’s trying to escape his wrists.
Charles is dying.
Charles is dying and Max didn’t even know.
Max closes his eyes for a second, just one, and sees it—
Charles in a hospital bed.
Wires.
IVs.
Eyes dull.
Voice soft.
Saying something like I wanted to tell you and I didn’t want you to look at me like that and it’s okay, I’m ready.
Max opens his eyes again.
He’s going to throw up.
He’s going to—
He stops by a wall and braces himself against it, breathing in, out, in, out.
He swallows it all down.
The bile.
The scream.
The ache.
And with the little strength he has left, he takes out his phone again and opens his chat with Daniel.
max: where would a dying person be in a hospital
Three dots appear instantly.
Then:
daniel: WHAT THE FUCK
daniel: WHAT
daniel: MAX WHAT
daniel: are you okay
daniel: do i need to come over
daniel: is it charles
daniel: MAX
daniel: is charles dying
daniel: WHAT
max: forget i said anything
daniel: Max wtf
daniel: MAX
daniel: you CANNOT just say that and then say forget it
daniel: i’m literally going to get on a flight RIGHT NOW
daniel: tell me what’s going on
daniel: MAX ANSWER
The phone rings.
It’s Daniel.
Max immediately presses decline.
max: he wouldn’t tell me if he was anyway
max: right?
max: he wouldn’t say anything
daniel: you think charles is DYING and you didn’t think to maybe LEAD with that???
daniel: i’m calling you again
daniel: i’m going to call victoria
daniel: you are clearly not okay
daniel: MAX PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE
Max puts the phone on Do Not Disturb.
max: where would he be
daniel: i don’t fucking know
daniel: general ward?
daniel: private room?
daniel: palliative care??
daniel: rehabilitation???
daniel: there’s so many departments
daniel: what do you mean he’s dying
daniel: what did victoria say
daniel: is he in the neuro ward?? is he admitted?? did you see him??
daniel: MAX.
Max doesn’t answer.
He can’t.
His mouth is dry.
His chest is tight.
He’s staring at the sign that says Diagnostic Imaging like it might give him the answers.
He types.
max: i don’t know
max: i haven’t seen him
max: maybe he’s not even here today
max: maybe vic lied
max: maybe she’s protecting him
max: maybe he’s already in hospice
max: maybe he’s not in the country
max: maybe i’m late
max: maybe i’m fucking late
max: i dont know dan
max: i just want to see him
He doesn’t send that last message.
He deletes it.
He puts the phone in his pocket again and keeps walking.
Because if he stops now, he won’t move again.
And if Charles is somewhere in this building—
If there’s even a 1% chance—
Max will find him.
He has to.
He walks.
He walks like it’s all he knows how to do anymore. Like every step forward might lead to a door he’s scared to open but needs to anyway.
Max walks past the same corridor thrice. Doesn’t realise it until the fourth time. The linoleum creaks under his sneakers. He’s walked so long his feet ache, and he can’t even feel it properly through the heaviness in his chest.
He checks rooms through open doors. Checks faces. Desks. Walls. Anything.
He checks silhouettes .
Where the fuck are you, Charlie?
His chest tightens with every breath. A pressure, like someone’s sitting on it. He presses a palm over his sternum like that’ll help. Like he can hold his own ribs together just by wishing hard enough.
He rounds another corner and sees the Information Desk . Thinks about asking someone if a Charles Leclerc is admitted. Thinks about using a fake name. Thinks about pretending to be a cousin or a concerned friend or—
Family. He used to be family.
Max stares at the whiteboard with patient locations. There’s no Charles. No Leclerc. No initials that match. No one who fits.
His hand is shaking again.
He swallows.
He keeps walking.
He walks past a stairwell.
He walks past a vending machine.
He walks past—
The word Morgue .
His entire body halts.
Max stares at the arrow pointing left. It’s simple. It’s small. It’s just a part of the hospital like any other department, like Neurology or Cardiology or Physiotherapy.
He breathes in sharply.
No.
No, no, no, no.
But the thought’s already there. Like a parasite.
What if they lied.
What if that call on Vic’s phone—what if he imagined the voice? What if Charles had died. What if he died before Max even got here and this has all been a joke, a fantasy, a breakdown waiting to crash.
He takes one step toward the arrow.
Then stops.
Clutches the wall.
He heard Charles.
He knows he did.
It was him .
It was his voice .
He heard it. He knows that voice more than he knows his own.
Max presses his forehead to the wall, eyes shut tight.
His lungs won’t work.
His knees won’t work.
He takes out his phone with hands that are already moving before he can think.
max: dan
max: dan what if hes dead
Three dots appear immediately.
daniel: MAX
daniel: YOU SAID YOU HEARD HIM
daniel: YOU SAID HE CALLED VICTORIA
daniel: YOU’RE IN A FUCKING HOSPITAL
daniel: NOT A GRAVEYARD
daniel: GET IT TOGETHER
daniel: he’s not dead
daniel: you’re spiraling
daniel: I say that with love
daniel: you are a fucking mess rn and i love you but STOP IT
Max stares at the text.
Then replies.
max: i keep looking
max: and i can’t find him
max: i keep thinking im gonna round a corner and he’ll be there
max: like he always was
max: i’m losing it
max: i feel like im losing it dan
daniel: ok
daniel: ok
daniel: breathe
daniel: do you want me to come now
daniel: i literally just got a ticket for day after but i can shift it
daniel: i’ll bring lando
daniel: oscar
daniel: carlos is thinking about it too but he’ll defo come
daniel: we’ll all come
daniel: max
daniel: just go back to ur apartment
max: im not
daniel: yeah
daniel: i figured
daniel: i’m moving my ticket
daniel: we’ll be on the next flight out
daniel: just hang on okay
daniel: do not go full feral in a dutch hospital
daniel: also pls dont check the morgue
daniel: I have a weird feeling u might for some reason so dont do that
daniel: that’s insane
daniel: i say this as the person who literally once got banned from a helipad
Max lets out a sound. It’s a laugh. Or a sob. He doesn’t even know.
He types:
max: okay
max: thank you
daniel: you’re gonna be okay
daniel: and so is he
daniel: promise
Max wipes his face.
It’s wet.
He didn’t know he was crying again.
He turns around slowly. Walks away from the Morgue sign like it wasn’t calling to him a second ago.
Like he wasn’t—seconds ago—convinced that maybe the reason everything hurt so much was because it was already over .
His footsteps feel heavier now. Not the kind of heavy that comes from weight but the kind that comes from carrying something inside your chest that’s too big and too sad to ever be let out properly.
His legs hurt.
Like genuinely hurt.
Like he’s run a marathon barefoot on gravel, except all he’s done is spiral down a hospital hallway for forty minutes with shaky hands and doomsday scenarios.
So he sighs. And sits.
There’s a bench against the wall. It’s hospital-grey and cold, and it squeaks under him like it’s offended that Max Verstappen just sat on it.
Whatever.
He’s too tired to care. His head lolls back, resting against the wall. The ceiling above him has a stain shaped like Australia. He thinks about texting Daniel just to send a picture of it. Just for the chaos. He doesn’t.
He stares at his hands instead.
They’re steadier now. Still pale. Still raw at the knuckles where he scratched too hard earlier. But they’re not shaking right now. That has to count for something.
There’s a weird number of women around him. Most of them are sitting quietly, talking to each other, rubbing their stomachs, wearing oversized sweatshirts and soft shoes. Some have partners. Some don’t. A nurse walks by with a clipboard.
One of the women next to him is talking about potential baby names.
And Max thinks about something absolutely fucking unhinged.
He thinks—
He thinks Charles would’ve wanted a daughter.
It’s a thought that ambushes him out of nowhere. Blindsides him. Smacks him upside the head with zero warning and zero context and no right to be here.
But now it is here.
And it’s staying .
He imagines Charles holding a baby girl, red-cheeked and scowling just like her dad. Her middle name would be Ferrari, obviously, because Charles would say he owes them that much for all the blood, sweat, and seasons sacrificed.
(Which makes no sense, because if anyone owes anything, it’s Ferrari.)
They’d name her something cute and elegant. Maybe Daisy. Or Eleonora. Or fuck it—Lauda.
(“Lauda Ferrari Verstappen-Leclerc,” Max mutters under his breath, horrified.)
(That kid would start driving at age two. Charles would hand her a go-kart like it was her birthright.)
He thinks of Charles beaming.
Of a hospital room just like this.
Of holding that tiny bundle in his arms, Charles curled up next to him, whispering how they actually did it, Max, look, she’s here.
Max’s stomach clenches.
What the fuck.
What the fuck is he doing thinking about this now?
He blinks.
Looks up.
Oh.
He’s sitting in front of the Gynecology & Obstetrics department.
He stares at the door.
Then stares harder.
Then groans and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes.
“What the actual fuck , Max,” he mutters to himself, loud enough that a man three chairs over glances at him warily.
He waves awkwardly.
Adjusts his cap.
Avoids eye contact with the entire female population of the Netherlands , apparently currently hanging out in this very corridor.
He shouldn’t be here.
He’s literally loitering in front of a pregnancy ward while spiralling over his maybe-terminally-ill ex-rival-best-friend-boyfriend-fiance (yes the last one happened, no they were not normal about it).
Heavens.
Maybe he should’ve just walked into the morgue.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, palms over his face.
Because somehow thinking about death felt less painful than thinking about that imaginary daughter they’ll never have.
Because she was smiling. In his head.
She was smiling.
And Charles was alive in that memory.
And so fucking happy .
Max takes a breath.
Then another.
They taste like hospital air.
Stale. Cold. Bitter.
Somewhere in the hallway, a soft lullaby tone plays over the intercom. Someone’s baby heartbeat monitor is beeping faintly behind a door. A nurse passes by with a coffee that smells exactly like the kind Charles used to drink, the one that made Max gag but Charles swore was “elevated taste.”
His chest hurts again.
He gets up slowly.
Because if he doesn’t move now, he’s going to start crying again.
And he’s already cried twice today. Which is, frankly, enough emotional openness for the next three decades.
He pulls out his phone.
max: dan
max: i somehow ended up at the pregnancy place
max: dont ask
daniel: better than a mortuary, at least.
max: also
max: what if we had a daughter
daniel: ???
daniel: what if WHO had a daughter
max: what if we had a daughter
max: me and charles
max: hypothetical
max: she’d also be so pretty
max: she'd have charles' eyelashes
daniel: max
daniel: did you eat today
max: no
daniel: okay that tracks
daniel: go back to your apartment
daniel: oscar wants to call you and talk about how babies are made
max: shut the fuck up
daniel: noted
daniel: also did u find charles?
Max slips his phone back into his pocket.
Takes one more look at the GYNAC door.
Then turns.
And walks again.
Because what else is there to do, really, except keep looking .
The hospital corridors blur at the edges. Every person starts looking the same—white coats, pastel scrubs, tired eyes, families in various stages of hope and heartbreak. Max’s head is buzzing. It’s not just the migraine forming at the base of his skull, or the dehydration, or the fact that he hasn’t eaten anything but one quarter burger in the past fews hours. It’s the not knowing that’s starting to press against the back of his throat like bile.
His phone rings again.
He sighs so hard he almost tips over from the force of it and yanks it out of his pocket.
Daniel Ricciardo.
Of course.
Max sighs again and answers, already walking.
“Hi,” Daniel says, softly. The energy is dialed down to like a 2. He sounds like he’s talking to a horse that might kick him in the jaw.
Max doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking down a corridor that leads to nowhere.
Daniel tries again. “You alright, mate?”
“No,” Max mutters. “Why would I be alright.”
A pause. “Okay. Good point. Just thought I’d check. You sounded—spirally.”
“I am spirally.”
“I know. I’m just…” Daniel makes a hum of sympathy. “You find anything? Or… anyone?”
“No.” Max turns a corner, walks past what looks like a hydrotherapy room. “No one knows anything. Except Victoria. Apparently. So that’s fucking great.”
Daniel sighs. “Okay. So. There’s, um. A situation.”
Max’s stomach immediately drops. “What kind of situation.”
Daniel hesitates. That’s never good. “More people might be flying to the Netherlands.”
“What.”
Daniel clears his throat. “It’s just—Lando maybe got a little too excited and posted in the driver group chat.”
“ What did he say.”
“He said—and I quote—‘GUYS. UPDATE. MAX IS HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN IN THE SAME COUNTRY AS OUR LONG LOST MONEGASQUE PRINCE.’”
“What the fuck.”
“And then Oscar added, ‘charles sighting possibly confirmed. should we raid, boys?’”
“Goodness, Danny.”
“And now Sebastian has replied with ‘🧍♂️’, Pierre said ‘what the actual fuck’, Carlos replied in Spanish, and even fucking Lance is like, ‘I’m bored, I’ll come.’”
Max is seething . “This is a hospital . It’s not fucking Coachella.”
“I know,” Daniel says. “But to be fair, no one’s had drama since Abu Dhabi last year. We’re all very bored.”
“My life is not mere entertainment.”
“Yes, you contain multitudes. We are very much aware, Max.”
Max swears under his breath.
And then—
He sees someone.
A figure. Shorter than average. Cap pulled low. Sunglasses on. Shoulders hunched. Moving too fast for someone who's just “on a walk.”
From that hallway.
From the side wing that Max didn’t get to earlier.
His heart stops.
“I think I see him,” Max says sharply.
“What?” Daniel says.
“I think I see Charles. ”
He doesn’t wait.
He doesn’t care.
He just moves .
Daniel’s still on the line, babbling something about flights and tickets and Vic is probably not being malicious, Max. They have this hipaa thing or something.
But Max doesn’t hear any of it.
He pushes past a group of elderly visitors. He mutters apologies. He sidesteps a kid holding a balloon shaped like a fish. His shoulder collides with someone in a wheelchair, and he barely registers the tch he gets in response. His eyes are locked on the figure ahead—who’s turning the corner fast, stepping out into the hospital’s side garden area that leads toward the exit.
Max’s voice is a hiss. “He’s leaving—he’s walking out—I’m gonna lose him—”
Daniel says something, probably concerned. Max doesn’t register it. Doesn’t care .
The man ahead walks fast.
So does Max.
They reach the glass sliding doors that open to the hospital’s side lot. A breeze hits his face, too cold for spring but perfect for spiraling. The sunlight makes the person’s hair gleam a little under the cap before they put the hoodie over their cap again.
Light brown.
Golden, almost.
Familiar in a way that makes Max’s heart slam against his ribs.
He sprints.
“ Charles! ” he shouts.
The man doesn’t turn.
He picks up the pace instead.
Max shoves the door open, steps out into the evening, his shoes slapping against the concrete, his phone nearly slipping out of his hand.
“Charles, wait! ”
The guy disappears around the corner.
Max follows.
He’s panting now. Heart racing. The side of his head pounds with every step.
He turns the corner—
And the sidewalk is empty.
Gone.
No Charles.
Nothing but a bench, a trash bin, and the parking lot.
His chest collapses in on itself.
Daniel’s voice is still coming from the phone. “Max? Max? What happened?”
Max lifts the phone to his ear, dazed. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“He was there. I saw him, Daniel.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
Max hesitates.
The cap. The glasses. The way he moved. The way he ran.
He isn’t sure.
He doesn’t say that.
Instead, he turns around slowly, scanning the area like maybe Charles will reappear like a video game character that accidentally phased out of frame.
But he doesn’t.
He’s gone .
Max presses a hand to his temple. “I need to sit down.”
“Please do,” Daniel says. “And maybe eat something. Or drink water. Or scream.”
Max cuts the call after saying a quick bye.
Max doesn’t scream.
Mostly because his throat feels like sandpaper and he’s already wasted all his energy on sprinting after a ghost in sneakers.
But the urge is there.
To throw his phone into the bushes. To kick the empty bench so hard it gives the bench a concussion this time. To scream into the air and shatter whatever fragile thing inside him is still pretending it can be okay. Still pretending Charles Leclerc isn’t just a collection of memories now—grainy, brittle, half-faded—and rapidly slipping through his fingers every time he blinks.
He doesn’t scream.
He just walks over to the bench like he’s eighty-five years old and sinks into it. His legs are shaking. His head is throbbing. His hand still trembles as he clutches his phone, knuckles white around it.
The hospital door hisses open behind him. Someone walks out. He doesn’t look.
Could be Charles.
Could be a nurse.
Max doesn’t look.
He just stares at the grey concrete and breathes. One shaky inhale. One shakier exhale. Again. Again. Again.
He scrolls mindlessly through his phone with his free hand, pretending he isn’t holding his phone like it’s the only thing tethering him to this planet.
His reflection wobbles faintly in the dark screen.
He looks like shit.
Like someone who lost something years ago and just remembered today.
Maybe he did.
Maybe this is what grief is.
Not screaming, not crying, not punching a wall.
Maybe it’s just sitting on a bench in the parking lot of a hospital you don’t belong in, waiting for someone who’s already left.
He lets his head fall back.
The sky above is blue, of course. That same dumb blue Charles always liked. The same blue that hung above Zandvoort when they were seventeen and screaming at each other over engine maps. The same blue above Suzuka when Charles crashed in qualifying and Max crashed in Q2 and both of them stood in the paddock like the world was ending.
The same blue they swore they’d retire under.
Together.
He closes his eyes and lets the sun warm his skin like it’s trying to soothe him, like it knows.
Like it misses Charles too.
When his phone buzzes again, he doesn’t open his eyes. He just lets it buzz against his leg.
He’ll go back in soon.
He’ll try again.
But for now—
Max just sits in the quiet.
And hopes the next time he sees Charles, it won’t be from behind a closing door.
Chapter Text
Max drops Vic off at her apartment at precisely 10.16 PM, which is way too late for the kind of emotional trauma he’s currently running on.
She unbuckles her seatbelt and stretches. “Thanks for the lift, taxi Verstappen,” she says, slapping the Ferrari she technically owns but he technically bought her because of a dare from a Monegasque lunatic three years ago.
He needs to stop thinking about the Monégasque lunatic.
He reminds himself that’s the reason he came to Netherlands.
He also reminds himself that he ran around a hospital in search for the said Monégasque lunatic, like a lunatic.
He brain shuts up.
Max flips her off. “Leave the car keys,” he deadpans.
Vic places them gingerly in the cupholder. “Treat him well. I expect him back with a full tank, no scratches, and no Verstappen-adjacent rage stains in the car.”
Max snorts. “What do you think I’m gonna do? Weep into the upholstery?”
Vic opens the door. “Honestly, yes. That is precisely what I fear.”
“Drive into a wall and cry?”
“Spot on, Maxie.”
He makes a face. “Bit of an exaggeration.”
“You were the one crying outside a hospital for the past ten hours because you’re in love with a man who ghosted the whole sport.”
Max opens his mouth. Closes it.
Vic leans down into the window, grinning. “Also, I took the Bluetooth pairing off your phone. You’re welcome.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.” She winks. “See you later, broertje.”
And just like that, she’s gone, vanishing into her apartment building like she hasn’t just emotionally eviscerated him and then said "Bluetooth pairing", which honestly stings more than it should.
He drives in silence because he’s petty like that.
The five-minute drive back to his own apartment feels longer somehow. Not in distance, just in existential heaviness. The kind of time-stretching that happens when your brain’s done being dramatic but your heart is still performing for an audience of what used to be one. The one. Max tries to not think about it.
The car is warm. The sun’s almost fully set, casting long blue shadows on the narrow streets.
He parks in the usual spot—slightly crooked but acceptable. He’s too tired to care. It’s been a long day. The ghost of Charles Leclerc has been haunting his cortisol levels for about ten hours straight. His legs feel like lead. His eyes are dry and itchy. His soul is tired. He’s already dreading walking up those stairs—
“Oh fuck,” he mutters out loud, staring at the building.
The stairs.
He groans.
He sighs into the steering wheel. His life is a tragedy. An indie film. A slow-burn horror movie where the monster is just daily responsibilities .
He climbs out of the car, stretching like he’s sixty years old, then opens the boot.
Inside lies the evidence of his and Vic’s weirdly wholesome grocery trip after her shift.
Milk. Coffee. Bananas. Two packs of stroopwafels. Monster Energy (only one because Victoria hates him). A carton of eggs. Juice stuff. Six different kinds of cheese. Green stuff. A suspicious-looking bottle of kombucha that Vic forced on him. A plant neither of them remember picking up.
Max groans again. Not just at the stairs—but also because the bag with the eggs in it just snapped its string and almost plummeted back to the void.
He kicks the ground.
“Cool,” he mutters. “Very chill. Love that for me.”
Max suppresses the vague urge to scream.
He starts to gather the groceries. Bags on one arm. The plant somehow under his armpit. The kombucha bottle balanced against his neck like a broken emotional support system.
And then he does the worst thing a man can do at the end of a soul-destroying day.
He walks up the stairs.
One floor up: his knee makes a crack-a-lacking sound, despite him being a high-performing athlete (ki ki aye). “Fuck this,” he mutters.
Two floors up: he remembers why he doesn’t take elevators. Once got stuck in one for six minutes and decided that was enough trauma for a lifetime. Charles had made fun of him for a full month . Called him an elevator pussy.
Three floors: He’s sweating now. Like not cute sweat. This is stress sweat. Stairs-of-hatred sweat.
“Who designed this building?” he mutters to no one.
He kicks the wall gently. Accidentally squishes the plant against it. “Sorry.”
The plant doesn’t respond.
At the fourth floor, he pauses, breathing hard. His legs are aching. His arms feel like they’ve dislocated. He regrets everything. The hospital. The Leclerc. The groceries. Letting Vic leave. Being born.
And then finally—
Finally—
He makes it to his door.
His apartment.
The one with the hideous orange accent wall he painted at age twenty because he was going through something and refused to call it a patriotic phase.
He kicks the door open with what little strength remains in his soul. The door squeaks in greeting. The air inside is stale and still faintly dusty. His home smells like four years of abandonment personified. Smell-ified, even.
He dumps the groceries onto the kitchen counter with a groan of relief and kicks the door shut behind him.
“ Thuis, ” he mutters. “Barely.”
He stares around at the chaotic landscape of a bachelor cave that’s been frozen in time. The orange wall still haunts him. The couch is slightly crooked. The sim rig is covered in a towel he used as a cape once. At least everything’s cleaner than whatever mess it was in the morning. (RIP apple and mustard and the thousand something red bull cans.)
His phone buzzes.
He closes his eyes.
This is what emotional rock bottom looks like.
This. Right here.
Max Verstappen, former multi-time world champion, conqueror of circuits, breaker of records, standing in his dusty apartment while trying not to cry into a pickle.
And he’s only been in the country for like—what, twenty-four hours ?
This is fine.
This is totally fine.
He picks up the Monster drink and sighs.
Tomorrow, maybe he’ll start feeling normal again.
Or maybe—
Maybe he’ll go back to the hospital. And stalk the love of his dysfunctional life.
But first, Max puts the groceries in the fridge because if he doesn’t do it now, he knows he’ll forget and end up poisoning himself with expired milk tomorrow morning. He’s already on the verge of a breakdown, and food poisoning feels like a bit too much character development for the week.
He stacks the cheese like he’s playing Jenga and tosses the kombucha bottle onto the middle shelf with a grimace. It clinks against the egg cartons in protest.
He closes the fridge with his hip and sighs.
Then he freshens up—if you can call aggressively rubbing his face with cold water and throwing on clean sweatpants “freshening up.” His reflection in the mirror looks exhausted. Not “overtired” exhausted, but soul-weary. Black hole under the eyes. Cheekbones trying to break free. Mouth pressed in a tight line that hasn’t fully relaxed since December.
He dries his face and mutters, “Stupid.”
He walks back to the living room and grabs the leftover burger from the pizza box, which is now his sad little dinner shrine on the kitchen island. He plops onto the couch and chews.
From the apartment adjacent to his, the piano starts playing again.
Max freezes mid-bite.
It's the same as morning. The soft lullaby from next door. Except now, it’s shifted into something older. More practiced. A full piece.
It’s Mozart. Or Bach. Or—whatever. Some old dead white guy with a music fetish.
Charles would know.
Charles always knew.
Max takes another bite and chews slowly. His jaw is tight. Not because the burger’s tough, but because everything in him is clenched like it’s preparing for a crash.
It’s ridiculous how many things Charles loved that Max actively remembers. He used to make fun of him for listening to classical music while weight training. “You're bench pressing to Beethoven , mate. What’s next, jazz during sim?” he used to say. Charles was offended that he considered jazz anything close to resembling Beethoven.
Max drinks the kombucha.
It tastes like carbonated sadness. Like vinegar pretending to be deep. Like punishment in a bottle. Like shit.
He drinks again.
His throat burns. His stomach turns.
He doesn’t stop.
His brain won’t shut up.
A few hours from now, Daniel’s showing up. Probably with Lando, who’s going to make fun of Max’s apartment and call him “Maxiekins” and ask why the couch smells like unresolved issues. Oscar will look concerned. He always does. Carlos might show up, because Lando told the whole drivers’ group chat, and Carlos is nosy . And all of them— all of them —will ask about Charles.
Because apparently Charles is here.
In the Netherlands.
Why the fuck would Charles be in Netherlands if not for psychologically tormenting Mr Max Verstappen to the sun and back? Bitch .
Max takes another sip. Bigger this time. He gags.
He doesn't understand how kombucha is a real beverage that humans voluntarily drink.
The piano from next door shifts into Chopin.
Fucking Chopin.
Max stares at the kombucha bottle and wonders if he could throw it hard enough to break through the wall and end the concert.
But he doesn’t.
Because a part of him—a horrible, traitorous part—doesn’t want it to stop.
The melodies are delicate. Thoughtful. Haunted.
It sounds like Charles. Not his voice, but his presence. Something that lingers in the room even after he’s gone. Something that makes the silence afterward feel too loud.
Max continues thinking about Charles. He wishes he could stop, but at this point he’s certain that Charles has bewitched him, body and soul.
(And Max loves him. He loves Charles. Loves Charles.)
Max rubs his face with one hand and sighs.
This was a mistake.
The Netherlands was a mistake.
Coming here, trying to “self-heal” or whatever fake spiritual he talked himself into, was a colossal mistake.
Because it still hurts. Everything hurts. The piano hurts. The food hurts. The fact that he can feel the shape of Charles’ absence hurts. It’s right on top of his chest, on his sternum, in his heart. He places a hand on his chest and feels the beats. It hurts. Everything hurts.
He drinks again.
And wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie even though he swears he isn’t crying.
Just a bit of kombucha burn. That’s all.
A few hours later, everyone’s going to be here.
And he’ll still be sitting in this apartment—haunted, cracked open, listening to piano through the wall—and wondering how the hell he ended up here.
He should have listened to Christian. He should have. Max is being stupid. Max is always being stupid. Max has never not been stupid. Max deserves a prize for being so so stupid.
The sink water is still too cold when he washes his hands, and the soap smells like mint. He scrubs anyway, lets the water run longer than necessary, like maybe the friction and chill can wash off whatever’s curling in his chest.
After he dries his hands with the kitchen towel (which has a redbull logo on it—of course it does, of course. Max is obsessed with redbull even if the world seems to not notice), he drops onto the couch. Not the middle one. Not the one with the sunken cushion from years of sim racing stress-sits. No, he goes to the one closest to the wall.
The wall beyond where the piano lives.
The wall where Charles’ memories seem to be breathing.
Max lies flat on it, hoodie bunched at his waist, legs half off the edge. He stares at the ceiling, listens.
It’s Chopin still.
Sweet and quiet, like a whispering apology. Like whoever is playing the piano is doing it for Max specifically.
And all he can think is: Charles, Charles, Charles.
Charles, barefoot at age twelve, making Max swear on a half-eaten sandwich and a bloody pinky that they’d always race together. Always. Even if they hated each other. Especially if they hated each other.
Charles, sixteen, proposing with a champagne bottle cork in the middle of a karting paddock. “Marry me, Verstappen, and we’ll rule Formula One.” Max had said yes. Obviously. Who doesn’t say yes to a Monégasque with curls and deluded by grandeur?
Charles, eighteen and crying after losing. Charles, twenty and laughing after Max beat him. Charles, twenty-two and humming under his breath just to piss Max off.
Max closes his eyes.
His phone buzzes.
He groans and picks it up, but it’s not a message. He doubts there was even a buzz. Perhaps just muscle memory. He swipes open the Photos app.
It’s all Charles.
Well—Charles and telemetry sheets. Charles and a poorly lit sim setup selfie. Charles and a few photos of Daniel pulling dumb faces. Charles and one of Lando sobbing after karaoke. Another of Zhou and Charles laughing in a hotel hallway, Max’s thumb half visible in the corner.
He swipes slowly, like he’s moving through time.
The piano is still playing. Still soft. Still pulling.
He finds the picture of them in Italy, post-sprint, post-everything, pre-podium. Charles’ hand on Max’s shoulder. Max’s jaw clenched like usual. Charles grinning like he won the world.
His chest hurts.
The piano shifts.
New melody.
Same hands. Same player. Different tune.
It’s familiar build up. He’s hard it before but Max couldn’t pinpoint the tune. He continued scrolling. He reached a picture of Charles— maybe five or six, grinning at the camera with all his teeth. Max debates on trying to call Charles again even though Max knows someone else owns the number now.
The melody remains.
Max frowns. It’s—
No. No way.
It’s the ‘du du du du Max Verstappen’ chant.
In piano.
Max sits up like someone just poked him hard. He blinks. The melody is unmistakable. It’s being played . With intention. With flair and shit.
What the fuck.
A fan? A Dutch fan in the Dutchland playing a Dutchman’s song?
It’s not exactly rare knowledge, but who in this building would take the time to learn and perform the Max Verstappen chant on piano?
The tune trails off.
Chopin returns.
Max stares at the orange wall like he can see through it. He mutters, “What kind of warped musical theatre is going on in there?”
He slouches back onto the couch. The cushions suck him in. He exhales, long and slow, and closes his eyes again.
Another tune starts.
Max freezes.
It’s faint— way too faint —but it’s…
No.
It’s “It’s Friday then (duh duh duh duh), it’s Saturday Sunday what” in fucking piano .
Max’s eyes snap open.
“Okay. No.”
He sits up again like a zombie rising from the grave.
He checks his phone. 23.33.
This is psychological warfare.
He walks over to the door, flips the lock, and steps out barefoot in his hoodie and sweatpants. He’s pissed off. Max did not suffer Lando’s version of the song in Monaco to come to Netherlands and go through the same experience but in piano. He’s on vacation, for crying out loud! Spiritual healing and all that.
He marches over to the apartment adjacent. Stares at the number on the door. Glares at it, even.
And then he knocks.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Firm.
Decisive.
Final.
The music stops.
Dead.
Silence.
Max straightens.
He hears movement. A thud. A shuffle. Something falling. Something breaking. Maybe a laugh.
Then footsteps.
And for the first time all day, all week, all month—he’s not thinking of Charles.
He’s thinking of committing a crime. Because he’s almost ninety percent sure that Lando bought this apartment and came here to personally kill Max just because. Well, just because Lando can .
The door creaks open.
It’s dark inside. Not just dim— dark . Like, lights-off, cave-dweller, piano-by-moonlight dark.
Who does that ?
Who the fuck plays Chopin in full shadow like a vampire prince who’s about to monologue about grief and cursed bloodlines?
Insane. Borderline psychotic behaviour. Unforgivable. Not worse than playing ‘It’s Friday then,’ but it’s pretty fucking close in the psychometre.
Max straightens, preparing himself for the most peaceful midnight confrontation of his life. He clears his throat, ready to say, “Hi, sorry, it’s literally midnight and your concert’s been echoing through my skull for half an hour and I would like to sleep instead of spiralling through memories of my ex-boyfriend who was also a pianist, though an amateur one. Thanks!”
He opens his mouth.
But then—then—
The man steps forward. Just a little. Just enough that the hallway light hits his face in soft gold.
Max’s words die in his mouth.
Because it’s—
It’s Charles.
Grinning. Apologetically. “Yes?” he says, quiet.
Max stares.
And Charles—Charles stares right through him .
And Max falls to his knees. His legs just stop . Like the bones inside them have clocked out. Like his body is buffering, trying to compute the unreality in front of him.
He’s shaking .
Charles tilts his head. He doesn’t move closer, but he does follow Max’s motion down. Like he’s mirroring Max’s descent.
Charles is holding something in his hand but Max doesn’t have enough time to pay attention because Charles . Charles.
Charles. Charles. Charles. It’s Charles. Charles is right here. Max’s Charles. Max might be hallucinating. It might be real. Charles. Charles is here? Charles?
Then Charles frowns a little, eyes drifting to the left of Max— past him, through him.
“Um, you alright?” Charles asks helpfully.
Max makes a noise in the back of his throat. Something that sounds like a cracked apology and a dying animal.
He stays there in that kneeled position like he’s been hit with something enormous. A wall. A planet. A full season’s worth of dreams turning to dust.
Charles is looking at him—but not looking at him. Looking through him. Like he’s a stranger. Like he’s just some guy on the street, knocking on doors too late at night with sleep in his eyes and grief in his bloodied shaking hands.
His mind runs through every version of this moment he ever imagined. Over the months. Six months.
The reunion where Charles runs into his arms like the world hasn't changed.
The one where Max slaps him first, then pulls him in.
The quiet one, sitting side by side on a hospital balcony, fingers twitching to touch.
The loud one, screaming across a track, past a checkered flag. Because Charles visited.
The one where Max gets to say everything he never said.
The one where Charles says thank you for finding me, even though I didn’t want to be found .
None of them. None of them looked like this.
This—
This is worse.
This is Charles squinting at him in the dark hallway, confused. Curious. Polite.
This is Charles holding the door like he’s expecting Max to state his business .
This is Max’s knees giving out, right there in the corridor, because it’s easier than holding the weight of this. Because Charles doesn’t know him. Because Charles doesn’t see him.
Because Charles—
Charles forgot him .
Charles left .
And then forgot .
Max’s whole brain goes white.
Of course . Of course . That’s why Charles went to Vic. That’s why there’s an NDA. That’s why there were no calls, no answers, no goodbyes. Charles developed a neurological issue. A memory thing. A fucking brain rot.
CHARLES. FORGOT. MAX.
Max curses in Dutch. It bursts out of him—raw, ugly, torn from the hollow between his ribs.
“Verdomme. Klootzak. Kankerzooi—kút—kút, kút, kút—”
His voice is shaking. His hands won’t stop.
“Je bent weg—je ging weg—je vergat me. Je vergat me. Jezu—wat heb ik gedaan ? Wat heb ik fout gedaan, Charles—waarom—waarom heb je me—”
His throat closes up. His forehead drops forward, pressing to the floor like a man in prayer or defeat or both.
“Waarom ben ik niet genoeg geweest?”
The words spill like blood. Wet and hot and irreversible.
He stays there. On his knees, fists clenched tight at his sides. He doesn’t dare look up. Doesn’t dare breathe. The shame tastes like rust and ash in his mouth.
Because he never swears at Charles—not like this. Never in English. Or French. Never where it lands sharp.
And never in Dutch. Not unless it’s a joke. Not unless it’s love dressed in mockery.
This—this is none of those things. This is grief. This is heartbreak in a dialect Charles doesn’t understand.
Because if Charles understood, Max would never say it. Because Charles forgot. Charles looked at Max like he’s a stranger.
Because Charles forgot Max. And Max doesn’t know how to live with that. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t.
He hears the faintest intake of breath. Feels more than hears the subtle shift of the air.
Then:
“Max?”
Soft. Careful. Like glass in bare hands.
And suddenly—
Suddenly, Max freezes.
Because it’s not the words. It’s not even the name.
It’s the way Charles says it. The exact, specific weight of it. Like he’s felt it in his mouth before. Like he’s known it.
That voice.
That voice that used to whisper across hotel pillows.
That voice that used to call him out after an unfair race.
That voice that used to laugh mid-battle on karting tracks and curse sweetly in everyday Monaco traffic.
It’s the same . It’s him .
He just lets out a broken sound that’s somewhere between a sob and a breath and a please .
He’s still trembling. Still kneeling.
Max looks up, still kneeling. Still kneeling.
Charles leans forward a bit. “Max,” he says, voice uncertain. “Is that you?”
Max gapes . “Yeah,” he croaks. “It’s—yeah. It’s me.”
Charles’s eyebrows pinch slightly. “Why’re you on the floor?”
Max scrambles to his feet, legs still wobbling. “You—” He hesitates. “You didn’t lose your memory?”
Charles’s face twitches. “No?”
He says it like he’s the one confused. Like Max is’t the guy standing in someone else’s hallway, half-hyperventilating, while soaked in two gallons of anxiety sweat.
Max stares.
Charles is still not looking at him. Still staring past him. But now, now that Max’s brain isn’t swallowing itself, he sees it .
The way Charles tilts his head just to the right of Max’s voice. The way his gaze skims the room but never lands. The way his pupils don’t quite focus.
Something clicks .
Max steps forward. Slowly. Cautiously. Until he’s close —closer than should be allowed after ghosting someone for months.
Charles’s gaze doesn’t move.
And then— then —it does .
Just slightly. Just enough to meet Max’s eyes. Just enough to anchor.
Just enough to anchor him there , to stop the spiral, to tether him to the boy he thought he’d lost— again .
And Charles smiles.
It’s not a grin. It’s not bright. It’s fragile , barely stitched together, like he’s holding back the full weight of whatever storm has been sitting behind his ribs for months . But it’s there.
“Hi,” Charles says.
Max’s heart slams into his ribs so hard he nearly stumbles again. It’s like… It’s like his body forgot how to contain this much feeling.
He opens his mouth. He tries to find the right thing, the reasonable thing, the thing that will make this moment make sense. But all that comes out is—
“Did—did you lose your eyesight or something?”
Charles lets out a laugh. It cracks halfway through. He tilts his head, one corner of his mouth curling higher.
“Only a little,” he says. Soft. Gentle. Like he’s trying not to break the air between them.
Max exhales sharply. “Only a little ,” he echoes, like the words hurt to say. He lets out a half-hysterical sound that might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been a sob.
Charles’s fingers twitch slightly at his side, like he wants to reach out but doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know if he’s allowed .
“I thought—” Max chokes. He’s still not blinking. “I thought you forgot me.”
“I couldn’t,” Charles says quickly, fiercely. His voice is trembling. “Max. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t .”
Max’s mouth opens and closes. There’s too much to say and none of it is safe. So instead, he watches as Charles steps forward—cautious, a little slow, but sure.
Max’s face crumples.
Charles reaches for him then, gently, a little to the right, like Max might shatter, like he might.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he whispers. “I didn’t know how.”
Max lets out a trembling breath. “You left.”
“I know.”
“You left me .”
“I know .”
His hand lifts, reaches—lands somewhere near Max’s shoulder, but not quite. It brushes his collarbone, then slips lower. It lands directly over Max’s heart.
Max doesn’t move.
Neither does Charles.
His palm lingers there, as if he’s trying to feel the rhythm. As if he’s trying to remind himself that this is real, that Max is real. That this isn’t just another dream or memory breaking apart at the seams.
His thumb shifts a little, almost absentmindedly, like he’s tracing the beat.
Max’s breath hitches.
Charles swallows. His throat works once, then again, like the words are caught somewhere between apology and disbelief.
“So,” Charles breathes in, like he’s trying to find steady ground inside a storm. His fingers twitch at his sides. “Why… um, what are you doing here?”
Max stares at him for a long, long second. The overhead light is flickering — probably just bad wiring — but it makes Charles’ hair gleam gold in one breath and shadow in the next. His face is a map of pale exhaustion and quiet hope. There are soft lines around his mouth that weren’t there before. His hand on Max’s chest don’t stop moving, even when he tries to make it stay.
Max swallows around the knot in his throat. “I hate Monaco.”
Charles blinks. “You’ve always hated Monaco.”
Max shakes his head, and the breath that leaves him is uneven. “I hate it now because you’re not there.”
Charles’ mouth parts just a little.
His lips twitch—not quite a smile, not quite not. Then, all at once, he laughs. Quietly. Tiredly. Like something warm slipped through the cracks without permission.
“That’s sappy,” he says.
Max doesn’t smile.
The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.
Charles’ laugh fades. His shoulders rise, then fall slowly. He glances down at his own hands like he’s not sure what they’re supposed to be doing. Like they betrayed him somehow by not reaching for Max first.
“I’m sorry,” Charles murmurs, suddenly. The words feel like breaking glass—sharp and delicate and overdue. “I should’ve told you. I should’ve said something. Anything. I didn’t—I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Max doesn’t respond immediately. He can’t. There’s too much.
Too much time lost. Too much distance carved by silence. Too many months. Too many nights Max spent wondering if Charles hated him or simply disappeared on purpose.
“I thought you forgot me,” Max says, and it comes out quieter than he meant it to. Smaller.
Charles’ eyes fly to his, panicked. “No—Max, no, never. Never that. I couldn’t. I didn’t—”
“I thought you died.” Max continues. “I thought the next time I see you would be in a—”
His voice breaks, and he bites the inside of his cheek, like it’ll help hold the rest of him together.
Charles grabs the front of Max’s hoodie tighter, like he’s forcing them both to stay, to… to exist.
“I just… I didn’t know how to tell you. And then I waited too long. And then I—” Charles gestures to himself helplessly. “I broke a little. I thought if I came back into your life, I’d ruin it.”
Max’s fingers curl at his sides as if they want to reach to Charles. His chest aches. It physically hurts. Like someone carved out his ribs and left only the echo of Charles’ voice inside.
His voice isn’t loud. It doesn’t need to be. It lands with the weight of truth — with the weight of years spent orbiting the same sun, burning too close, too fast. With the weight of silence. Of missing birthdays. Of watching races end with no Charles waiting in the paddock.
Charles exhales. Shaky. Fragile.
And then — the flicker. That unmistakable flicker in his eyes. Like a thunderstorm caught behind glass, like something is rattling loose inside him. A thousand apologies flash through his face — they come and go in microexpressions. A twitch of his brow. A tightening in his jaw. The smallest crack in his voice. But only one word makes it out.
“Sorry,” he says.
And it is so much more than five letters. It is shattered nights and unopened texts. It is the shaking hands Max clenched under tables at team dinners. It is the echo of Charles’ voice in old voicemails, ones Max couldn’t bear to delete. It is months of wondering why he left and why he never looked back.
Max swallows. He can feel his pulse in his throat. He’s scared to ask. But he has to.
He has to.
“What happened to your eyes?”
There’s a pause. Like even now, Charles is still trying to decide how much Max deserves to know — how much he can handle. His lashes lower. The air feels too still.
Charles breathes out slowly, his hand a bit shaky on Max’s chest, and for a moment he just stares ahead. Like he’s remembering all the versions of this conversation he practiced in the dark. All the ones where Max walked away. Or cried. Or hated him.
“MS,” he says simply.
And it sounds like a sentence.
Max stares .
For a second—just a second—Max can’t feel his hands. Like the word crawled under his skin and turned off something vital. Like Charles just handed him the truth, and Max doesn’t know where to hold it.
MS.
Multiple sclerosis.
Max knows the term. He knows the basics. He remembers seeing it on Google a few hours ago when he was spiraling through neurological disorders in the middle of a hospital hallway like a lunatic. He remembers scrolling past it, thinking that can’t be it. Please don’t. Please.
Except it is .
Of course it is.
Max exhales, and it sounds like grief. Sounds like a plea.
His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Not yet.
Charles watches him, or atleast tries to — not with the ease of familiarity, but with the tremble of someone who doesn’t know if they’re allowed to look anymore. Someone who’s not sure if they still have the right.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” Charles adds softly. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Max steps closer again, his hands only a heartbeat away from Charles’ waist.
There’s ringing in his ears. There’s pressure behind his eyes. And suddenly, he’s twelve again and Charles is promising him forever with a pinky held out across a go-kart track. He’s sixteen again and Charles is kissing him under a paddock umbrella. He’s twenty-four again and they’re holding hands behind the FIA press wall. He’s twenty-nine and alone.
“You could’ve told me,” Max whispers. “You should’ve told me.”
Charles nods. “I know. I know.”
But knowing doesn’t fix it.
Max looks at him. The way his shirt hangs just a little looser. The way his body tilts ever so slightly to one side when he stands. The faint shadows under his eyes. And the quiet acceptance in his face — like he’s already made peace with the idea of Max leaving because of this.
But Max doesn’t leave.
He reaches out before he even thinks. His arms move on instinct—because there’s no version of him that doesn’t know how to hold Charles.
He crashes forward, a little ungraceful, a little breathless, and wraps himself around Charles like gravity finally won. His arms loop tight around his waist. His face tucks into Charles’ neck. His breath catches halfway through his throat, stutters against skin and cotton, turns into something horrible and human and raw.
He squeezes like Charles might fall apart if Max doesn’t keep him together.
And then he squeezes harder anyway. Just to make sure he’s real.
Charles lets out a sound—half-laugh, half-wind-knocked-from-him. Startled and light and so utterly him . “Wait,” he breathes, and his voice is still sunshine, still Monaco rooftops and Ferrari red and Max’s home , somehow. “Wait, Max—I need to—”
His hands come up, curling over Max’s jaw so carefully, like Max’s face is breakable. He shifts him back—not far, just a few inches. Just enough. Just—
“My vision’s only perfect at this one dumb distance,” Charles says softly, his thumb brushing under Max’s cheek. His eyes squint, then blink slowly. A fragile grin pushes at the corner of his mouth. “There.”
Max’s breath hitches again. He almost smiles, almost.
“I thought you had only a little vision loss,” he says, voice thick.
Charles snorts faintly. “There’s more loss than vision, to be honest.”
Max lets out a laugh that’s not really a laugh. It cracks in the middle. It tries its best to sound whole.
He watches him—watches the way his lashes flutter and the line of his neck moves when he swallows. He watches how close he has to be for Charles to see him.
And he nods. Slowly. Steadily.
“Okay,” Max whispers. “I’ll just stay in that dumb distance, then.”
Charles’ breath catches. He bites his bottom lip, hard. Max can tell he’s trying not to cry.
But Max doesn’t stop there.
“I’ll stay right here,” he says. “Where you can see me. Always.”
And he means it. With every aching part of his tired, reckless heart. He means it like it’s a vow. Like it’s the most important podium he’s ever stood on.
Charles’ eyes—clouded, dim, unfocused—find Max's face with something almost like clarity. Like the blur parts for just a second. His thumbs press lightly into Max’s arms to keep him still. Max doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe.
“I missed you,” Charles says.
It’s not dramatic. Not tearful. Just soft. Like a truth he’d been holding in the centre of his chest for too long, letting it hum quietly beneath his ribs. Just three words, barely a whisper, but they knock the air out of Max like he’s been punched square in the lungs.
Max breaks.
“Fuck you,” he whispers.
Charles blinks, startled, lips parting like maybe he didn’t hear it right. His brows pinch slightly—tired, tender confusion written all over his face.
“Fuck you, Charlie,” Max says again, but this time his voice is wobbling straight down the middle, like a line of ice about to crack. “You left me.”
He says it quietly, like saying it louder would destroy them both. And then, just as softly, his hand finds Charles’—delicate, cautious, reverent—and pulls it gently into his own. He holds it like something precious. Like something he’s been aching to touch for too long. He presses a kiss to the back of it. Barely a touch. Just breath and lips and grief.
“And I—I get it, okay?” Max says. His voice trembles. “I get why you left. I do. I get that this wasn’t about me. That this wasn’t some random goodbye. But you did. You did . You left.”
Charles swallows, eyes locked on Max’s. His thumb shifts slightly in Max’s hold, a quiet anchor.
Max exhales shakily. “And you didn’t call. You didn’t explain. You didn’t trust me. You just—disappeared. Like I wouldn’t care. Like I wouldn’t break .”
He squeezes Charles’ hand a little tighter, like he’s trying to ground himself in the feeling. In this . In the very real, living, breathing presence of him.
“I thought you were dead, Charles.” His voice cracks like glass. “Do you get that? I thought you were dead or gone or—I don’t know, hiding somewhere in a ditch with your memory wiped. I thought you forgot me.”
Charles opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Just breath. Just pain.
Max lets out a laugh—if it can even be called that. It’s sharp and broken and full of every unshed tear. He presses his forehead to their joined hands. His eyes squeeze shut, and he breathes in through his nose like that might stop the spiral. Like he can hold himself still.
“You’re such an asshole,” he says, muffled.
“I know,” Charles whispers, his voice barely there.
“I needed you,” Max says, after a pause. Not accusing. Not cruel. Just honest.
Charles’s breath shudders out again. “I know.”
And then, softer—barely audible, like he’s asking for permission to exist:
“I need you too.”
Max lifts his head, slow and quiet, eyes glassy but locked in. He kisses Charles’ hand again. This time it lingers. Warmer. Longer. Like it might stitch time back together.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs. “Even if you ask me to.”
His voice is low and hushed, just for them. Just for now. And it’s not a vow, exactly—it’s something older than that. Something lived. Something earned .
Charles doesn’t speak right away. He just looks at him—really looks, as best as he can, the corners of his eyes crinkling faintly. Like it takes effort. Like Max is bright enough to strain him.
Max notices then—only vaguely, only because his focus has narrowed to everything Charles —the slim black cane leaning against the wall just beside the doorframe. Plain, utilitarian, well-used. It’s angled like it was placed down with careful hands. Not discarded. Not forgotten. Needed.
Max swallows hard, the lump thick in his throat.
Charles follows his gaze, sees where he’s looking, and nudges Max with a tiny smile. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That’s mine.”
Max doesn't say anything. He just shifts, a quiet shuffle, until his side is fully against Charles’s. He curls a hand over Charles like he’s afraid he’ll vanish again if there’s too much space between them.
“Does it help?” Max asks quietly, nodding toward the cane.
Charles hums. “Mostly,” he says. “Some days, less.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then Max exhales and mutters, “I’m going to burn every stair in Monaco and Netherlands.”
Charles laughs . Really laughs. His hand reaches again, landing somewhere around Max’s elbow, and he clings lightly, like Max is a tether.
“You’re stupid,” Charles murmurs fondly, eyes still shining. “I love you.”
Max’s chest tightens like he’s seventeen again and Charles has just kissed him under a streetlamp.
“Say it again,” he whispers.
Charles turns his face to him, nose brushing Max’s cheek, eyes closed. “I love you.”
Max closes his eyes. Breathes him in. “I love you,” he says back. “I love you. I love you. You don’t get to leave again. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Charles says, smiling like his bones finally don’t hurt. “I wasn’t trying to. I swear. I just—”
“I know,” Max says, even though his voice breaks anyway. “I know.”
Charles shifts beside him and slowly folds his legs, settling cross-legged on the floor. Max follows wordlessly, rearranging himself until they’re shoulder to shoulder, knees almost touching, arms tangled like vines. Like this is normal. Like they haven’t been ghosts to each other for months.
Max leans into him. Charles leans back.
Charles reaches up and tucks a piece of Max’s hair behind his ear. It’s awkward—his hand trembles, and Max notices again how his wrist looks thinner now, how his neck is almost fragile, too elegant for the body of someone who used to wrestle with Max on hotel beds and kiss him until sunrise.
“You still wear that cologne,” Charles murmurs, more to himself than anyone. “I missed that.”
Max chokes on air.
“Stop talking like you died.”
Charles turns toward him, lips quirking.
Max wipes his face. “You’re so fucking annoying.”
“I know ,” Charles says, smiling.
Max turns to look at him. Really look. And yeah, it’s Charles. His Charles. His. The same stupid grin, same soft hair, same everything .
Except his eyes are different now. They drift a little when he’s not focused. He turns his head more than he used to, using sound to navigate. And there’s a heaviness in his bones that wasn’t there before. Not physical. Emotional. Like he’s been carrying this for a long time, alone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Max asks quietly. “I know the answer. But I just–”
Charles leans his head back against the doorframe. “Because you’re Max. Because I knew you’d show up with a mic, screaming to the world that I’m fine and I’m still Charles Leclerc, and I didn’t want the world. I just wanted… peace.”
Max doesn’t answer.
Charles exhales. “And I knew I wouldn’t race again. And I didn’t want to talk about that with the person who loved racing with me the most.”
The silence feels like glass between them.
“You should’ve trusted me,” Max says eventually.
“I know.”
Max closes his eyes. “I would’ve handled it.”
Charles smiles. “And you’re handling it now?”
“No. Fuck.” Max lets out a broken laugh. “No. I’m losing my mind.”
Charles shifts. “I’m sorry.”
Max turns his face toward Charles and leans in—just enough that their foreheads brush. Charles closes his eyes instinctively.
“You’re not allowed to leave again,” Max says.
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Even if you can’t see shit.”
Charles snorts. “I can see you .”
“You’re guessing.”
“I always guess.”
He leans into Charles like he used to. Charles rests his head on Max’s shoulder.
They stay like that.
Doors cracked open. World on pause.
Just breathing. Together.
Max stays quiet for a moment more, forehead still against Charles, the warmth of him soaking through every bone in his body like it’s been waiting to thaw for months.
Then softly—so softly, it almost doesn’t break the quiet—he asks, “How fast is it progressing?”
“Relapsing-remitting. Still in that stage. I had a flare-up in January.” Charles blinks, but doesn’t look away. “Vision started going. Weakness in the legs. Sometimes fatigue. Brain fog. Mostly it just makes me feel like a very dumb old man.”
Max stares at him.
Charles adds, lightly, “It’s not fast. But it’s not slow. It’s like… time has decided to be unpredictable.”
Max doesn’t say anything. He leans in instead, presses a kiss gently to Charles’ temple—warm and lingering, lips against skin that still smells faintly like that soap Charles used to steal from Max’s hotel rooms and also like eucalyptus ointments. Max doesn’t even pull back when Charles chuckles a little and moves to cup his face again, gently adjusting the distance between them so he can see Max, his eyes flickering into focus.
Max would laugh, if he weren’t biting back a fresh wave of something too tender to name.
“You look like a mouse,” Max mutters.
Charles grins at that—broad and sleepy, eyes slightly hooded like he’s either about to cry or nap—and says, “You look like someone who is in love with a mouse, then.”
“I do ,” Max says, voice barely above a whisper.
Charles’ expression softens so instantly it hurts.
He places his hand over Max’s heart, palm flat. “I love you,” he says simply.
Max closes his eyes. For one long second, he just feels it. The heat of Charles’ hand. The stupid rhythm of his heart. The weight of everything unsaid.
Then he opens his eyes and says with a grin, “You still left, you idiot.”
Charles barks a laugh. “I left with a WDC, and it was a very cool exit. I deserve credit.”
“You Rosberged on me is what you did,” Max mutters, placing another kiss on Charles’ temple.
“Is that jealousy I hear?”
Max narrows his eyes. “Of the trophy or the disappearing act?”
Charles doesn’t answer—he just giggles. That same musical, light, infuriatingly charming sound that used to drive Max insane during media days. Max kisses him again, this time beside his jaw, just to shut him up. Charles goes still at the contact, but then leans into it, sighing quietly.
Max says, voice muffled from where his cheek is still pressed to Charles’ shoulder, “I’ve been stalking your hospital all day, by the way. Like, full spy mode. The moment I heard your voice on Vic’s phone, I just—spiralled. Hard.”
Charles hums. It sounds like a smile. “Why am I not surprised?”
Max groans. “I even thought about where a dying person would be in a hospital.”
“Mon dieu, Max,” Charles whispers, half-laughing. “That’s so dark.”
“Yeah,” Max says. “Because I’m in love. And losing my mind because of it.”
Charles bites his lip to hide the grin, but it’s glowing through his whole face anyway. “Well,” he says lightly, “I kind of knew my time in hiding was up when I heard people moving in next door.”
“This implies that you picked this specific apartment to torture me personally.” Max perks up. “Wait—wait, wait, you knew I was here?”
“I recognised your footsteps.”
Max stares. “That’s not—no, that’s not real. That’s not a scientific method, Charlie.”
Charles shrugs like a little shit. “It is . Yours are very heavy. They do the stompy stomp .”
“They do not do the stompy stomp,” Max says, completely scandalised.
“They absolutely do,” Charles insists, fighting a giggle.
“I have very elegant footsteps,” Max protests. “Nimble. Like a panther.”
Charles stares at him. He still looks like a mouse.
Max crosses his arms, chin tilted up. “You don’t have to believe me, but I know my truth.”
“Oh, I believe you,” Charles says with a straight face. “I’ve just never seen a panther trip over their own shoes before.”
Max huffs. “You are bullying a man who just spent over six hours stalking a hospital to find you.”
“You make it sound so so romantic,” Charles says, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “Hospital stalking.”
“It was romantic. There was sweat and heartbreak and hallway brooding.”
“And Google searches about dying, I assume.”
“Exactly.” Max sighs. “Love.”
Charles hums again.
There’s a long, quiet moment where they both just sit down, shoulder to shoulder, breathing the same air, surrounded by the soft thrum of being not-lonely anymore.
Then—
Max blinks. “Okay, anyway, I was thinking—what if we broke down the wall between our flats? You know. Combine them. Romantic and practical.”
Charles pauses. His eyes go wide.
Then—gasp. A proper, hand-to-heart gasp . “That’s the historic orange wall, Max. Le Mur de l’Orange!”
Max raises a brow. “So?”
“That wall has character , Maxime. Legacy. That wall has been through things. It’s witnessed the full depth of your early Formula 1-induced spirals, your energy drink phases, and that one time you tried to build a shelf and nearly concussed yourself.”
Max smirks. “All the more reason to tear it down.”
Charles looks genuinely betrayed. “You painted it drunk at twenty with the pride of an entire nation. You said—and I quote—‘This is the heart of Dutch architecture.’”
Max shrugs. “And like all hearts under late capitalism, it’s being renovated. ”
Charles gapes. “You’re disgusting.”
Max leans into him a little. “You love me.”
“I love many people who’ve made terrible architectural decisions.”
Max grins. “But you love me the most.”
Charles scowls at him like it’s the truth and he hates it.
Max gently nudges their tangled arms again, softer now. “We could keep the wall. Or like—move it. Build it inside the new combined flat. Make it a feature wall.”
Charles looks away, but he’s fighting a smile. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Romantic,” Max corrects. “Ridiculously romantic.”
A noise comes from inside Charles’ apartment. A voice. “Charles?”
Max jerks a little, glancing toward the doorway. “Who’s that?”
Charles turns slightly. “Oh. That’s Seb.”
Max’s mouth drops. “ Seb knew??? ”
“He figured it out.” Charles winces a little, sheepish. “Seb comes over a few times. He kept bugging me to move in with his family and let his kids nurse me with herbal tea. I think it was his pyramid scheme on pseudo-adopting me.”
Max stares.
Sebastian steps into the light and blinks at Max. “Oh, hello, Verstappen.”
“Hi,” Max says blankly. Then whips his head toward Charles. “ Why did Seb know before me?! ”
“Arthur slipped up,” Charles says simply. “He was ranting to Seb about how I wasn’t allowed to get hit in the head anymore and accidentally mentioned something under NDA.”
Max blinks. “Did you sue Arthur?”
Charles shrugs. “I made him my chauffeur for every existential soul-searching trip I took to the Alps.”
Seb crosses his arms. “He only went once.”
“I had a sprained ankle, remember?” Charles says.
Max blinks at both of them. “So Seb knows your…?”
“He’s my guardian angel now,” Charles says proudly.
Seb raises a hand. “He made me sign an NDA.”
“I made everyone sign one,” Charles says with a grin. “Even the lady who does my dry cleaning.”
“I saw that NDA,” Seb says. “I read it. It was terrifying.”
“I like to be thorough .”
Max looks from Charles to Seb and back again.
He can’t decide if he wants to cry again or laugh.
Max opens his mouth but then Charles tilts his head and smiles at him again. It’s smaller this time. Calmer. But it still has that quiet, burning warmth that used to follow Max everywhere. It still feels like home.
And Max just stares. At the man who once swore he’d never leave Max’s side. At the man who did. At the man who’s still here now—fragile and fierce and so, so stupidly loved.
He whispers, “I missed that.”
Charles smiles.
“I missed you, ” Max says again, softer.
And Charles leans in, forehead to Max’s again, and says, “Then don’t go.”
A beat of quiet follows—thick with the gravity of everything they’ve said, and heavier still with what they haven’t. And then—
“You two planning to sleep on the hallway floor or what?” Sebastian asks dryly.
Max turns his head and glares up at him.
Charles lifts his head too, still leaning against Max like he might slide apart without the contact. “You’re ruining the moment, Seb.”
“It’s midnight. And you’re both perfectly volatile.” He squints. “Also, Max, you look like you might either cry again or try to eat the drywall.”
“I do not eat drywall,” Max mutters.
“Sure,” Seb replies. “Anyway. Take him inside. Or don’t. I’ll just fetch blankets.”
Max rolls his eyes and stands, still holding onto Charles, and tugs him up gently. Charles makes a soft grunt—his legs are clearly tired—but he rises anyway, steadying himself with his hand on Max’s chest.
Max says as he picks up Charles’ cane, “You’re sleeping in my apartment tonight.”
Seb lifts an eyebrow. “Is he?”
Charles answers before anyone else can. “Yes. Obviously. Absolutely.”
Seb gives a sage nod. “Romantic. He’ll need to stretch a bit in the morning. Don’t let him lie curled like a shrimp.”
“Tell your guardian angel goodnight,” Max says, voice dry as paper and just as done.
Charles, still clinging to Max’s side like a particularly affectionate barnacle, leans over his shoulder with great ceremony and calls out, “ Bonne nuit! ”
There’s a brief pause from across the hallway—just long enough for Max to think maybe, maybe they’ll get away with a normal exit.
“Use condoms,” Seb replies, voice perfectly flat, like he’s done six interviews today and just wants to bully someone. “Be safe.”
Max makes a noise like he’s just been personally assaulted by language. “ Oh my goodness. ”
Charles bursts into wheezy laughter. He curls in slightly, clutching Max’s arm like Seb’s words physically weakened him. “ Go awayyyy! ” he yells, cheeks already pink.
Seb, leaning in his doorway like some kind of smug, judgment cloud, lifts a hand and gives them both the slowest, most sarcastic wave Max has ever seen. “I’ll pray for you.”
“ Okay, Dad, ” Max mutters under his breath, already steering Charles toward his own door.
Behind them, Seb smirks like he’s won something. He vanishes back into his apartment with all the satisfaction of a man who once tortured two Mercedes men through a dark era and came out stronger. The door closes with a final, gentle click.
Max stands in front of his own door, still holding Charles close, eyes tracing every detail of his face like he can’t believe he’s real. And maybe he can’t. Maybe he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and this will all be some jetlagged delusion, born of kombucha, trauma, and poor sleep.
But then Charles grins up at him. “You gonna open the door or are we making out in the hallway too?”
Max turns red, growls under his breath, and unlocks the door.
They step inside.
And from the other side of the hallway, Seb’s voice drifts through the wall faintly, “I meant what I said about condoms!”
“ GO. AWAY! ” Max and Charles yell in perfect, horrified unison.
Charles exhales as he enters, body visibly sagging like someone deflating after holding himself together too long. But his head still turns, slow and deliberate, scanning the space with a look of vague curiosity and mild threat, like a cat entering unfamiliar terrain.
And then—
He stops.
His gaze locks in.
“ Oh wow ,” he whispers, almost reverently.
Max, halfway through kicking off his shoes, pauses with one sneaker dangling off his toe. “What?”
“That wall—” Charles breathes. “Max, that helps with my vision. Like actually . I think it’s because of the contrast. The brightness cuts through the haze. It’s so stupid. I love it.”
Max blinks at him. Then slowly turns to look at The Wall . The very same violently orange wall he painted while drunk off half a bottle of Orangina and the thrill of his own national identity. The same wall that’s been judged by every single visitor since it existed.
“You mean that ?” Max says, pointing as if hoping Charles means a different wall, possibly in a different country.
“Yes,” Charles says, nodding. “It’s so… loud. And bright. And annoying. I can see it so fucking clearly, it’s a crime!”
Max stares at him.
Then starts laughing.
A real laugh. Chest-deep. A little unhinged. The kind of laugh that only comes from sleep deprivation, extreme emotion, and the baffling knowledge that your hideous design choices may have just cured partial blindness.
He stumbles forward, presses a kiss to the top of Charles’ head with affection so fond it might be legally binding. “See? That colour had a purpose. And now it needs to go.”
Charles hums. “We are never taking it down. It’s beautiful.”
“Say that to literally any designer.”
“It’s got personality. Vibrance. It’s like a punch to the cornea. I love it.”
“It’s like being emotionally assaulted by a carrot,” Max says, still grinning.
“It’s like the wall itself is yelling, ‘ Oranje boven, bitch! ’”
They both burst into giggles. Charles leans sideways onto Max, light and exhausted and happy.
“You know,” Max says quietly, “I’m starting to think that wall might be our greatest legacy.”
Charles nods solemnly. “Better than Austria 2022?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Sorry.”
They both stare at it a moment longer.
Max ruffles his hair. “You must be tired.”
“Oh, completely,” Charles says. “This shitty disease has me napping like a ninety-year-old.”
Max presses another kiss to his forehead. “You can sleep as long as you want. My bed is your bed.”
Charles smirks. “You’re such a sap.”
“I have always been a sap.”
“It’s true.”
Then the doorbell rings.
They both freeze.
Charles sighs. “That’s probably Seb. Forgot to give me meds or some lecture on posture.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Max mutters. He helps Charles ease onto the couch, watching as Charles settles back and immediately reaches for a pillow, tucking it beneath his elbow like he’s done this a thousand times.
Max hesitates for one second—just one—and then walks toward the door.
He unlocks it. Pulls it open.
And is immediately crushed into a hug.
Max groans. “Stop.”
Daniel does not stop.
In fact, Daniel squeezes harder , arms wrapping around Max like he’s trying to crack his ribs into catharsis. “You didn’t answer my last five texts. How are you? Are you okay? Did the hospital thing improve? Are you spiralling less?”
“I—Daniel, get off— ”
“I was worried, you dick.” Daniel finally pulls back, clapping Max on the cheek in some deranged show of affection. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” Max mutters.
And then another shape appears beside Daniel—Oscar, semi-neat as always, with two matching suitcases and a single yellow flower gripped between his fingers.
“I read a book about comforting people,” Oscar says quietly, and holds the flower out like a peace offering. “It said to offer a symbol of hope.”
Max stares.
Oscar stares back.
“…Did you pluck this from the garden outside?”
“Yes,” Oscar replies with zero remorse. “There were bees. I won.”
Max sighs and takes the flower anyway.
Then—like a harbinger of doom—someone tries to skitter past him with the energy of a feral puppy yelling, “DID YOU FIND CHARLIEEEEEE—”
Thunk.
Max slams the door shut behind him on instinct, and it connects directly with a nose.
“ OW, ” Lando yelps, staggering back with betrayal etched across his entire face. He clutches his nose like he’s been personally wronged. “ Maxiekins! ”
“Serves you right,” Max says flatly, turning to find all four of them now crowding the narrow hallway outside his apartment. “You— you — all of you need a warning label.”
Carlos, the only one who looks remotely collected, raises a hand in casual greeting. “Hi, Max. How are you?”
“Losing my shit.” Max grins in a very non-grin kinda way.
Carlos nods noblely, as if he expected that answer. “So... the rest of them didn’t get tickets for tonight. They’ll land tomorrow morning.”
Max’s stomach drops. “What do you mean ‘the rest of them?’”
Oscar glances at a mental list. “Pierre, Yuki, Zhou, Alex, George, Lance, Fernando, Ollie, Kimi.”
Max stares. “So… everyone?”
Carlos nods like this is the most normal sentence anyone’s ever said. “Everyone’s worried about you.”
Max slaps his palm against his face. “Why does that sound like a threat?”
Lando is still holding his nose. “It’s not ! It’s an intervention! And a reunion! And maybe a bake sale, if Pierre remembers the muffins!”
Max groans.
Daniel leans in, expression hopeful. “So… did you find him?”
Max turns back to the group, one hand on the door, the other bracing for chaos. “Yes. Yes , I found him.”
Daniel screeches, pure banshee.
Lando lunges again.
Max stops him with a firm hand on his chest. “Don’t even think about it.”
“But—!”
“He’s alive, ” Max says quickly. “And semi-well. But please— please — calm the fuck down. ”
Lando raises both hands. “Okay, okay, I’m calm. I am composed. I’m zen.”
“You’ve never been zen a single day in your life,” Carlos mutters.
“Shush.”
Max narrows his eyes at all four of them. “Listen to me. If you want to see Charles, you have to be calm , and collected, and you absolutely cannot freak out. No yelling. No screaming. No musical numbers.”
Lando sniffs. “I’m just very passionate.”
“I know,” Max deadpans.
Carlos steps forward. “Is he okay?”
Max shrugs, the motion tight. “So and so. He’s… tired. Not himself. But still him.”
Oscar hesitates. “Is it a neurological disease? Daniel said you texted about Brain department or something.”
Max nods. “Yeah. But I want him to tell you. Not me.”
Oscar nods, serious. Then he gently takes the flower back from Max’s hand. “Then I’ll give it to him. It’s more symbolic that way.”
“Yeah, fine. Whatever.” Max waves vaguely.
Daniel raises a hand. “Wait, wait. Question.”
Max sighs. “What.”
“Do we have to take our shoes off inside?”
“ Yes, ” Max snaps. “And don’t touch the orange wall.”
“Why is there an orange wall?”
“It’s historical.”
Carlos raises an eyebrow. “Okay?”
Lando claps his hands. “Let’s go in! I will be silent! I will be respectful! I will—”
Max holds up a hand. “One more word and you can forget Abu Dhabi 2026.”
Lando zips his lips shut.
Max opens the door, slowly, carefully.
And behind him—like the most dysfunctional parade ever assembled—follow his chaos brigade, bearing flowers, emotional baggage, and exactly zero chill.
The second there’s enough space for someone to slip through—
Lando sprints in.
Max doesn’t even have time to blink.
“ CHARLIEEEE! ” echoes down the hallway.
Max exhales slowly. So slowly. So painfully slowly. “Of course.”
Behind him, Carlos clicks his tongue. “That was not chill.”
Oscar, stepping delicately through the doorway with the suitcases in hand, shrugs. “He’s trying his best.”
Inside, there’s already a shriek of pure joy and muffled footsteps—Lando, no doubt flinging himself bodily across the apartment like an overexcited golden retriever that just saw a tennis ball in human form.
Max doesn’t even need to look to know that Charles is probably blinking at him, very confused and maybe slightly alarmed.
Daniel slides past Max next, muttering, “I’m gonna go supervise before Lando breaks a vase or tries to climb him.”
“You’re part of the problem, Dan,” Max mutters.
Daniel tosses him a wink and disappears into the apartment. Instantly, Max hears another delighted, “ CHARLES! ” from Daniel, which echoes right over Lando’s overlapping “ I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD YOU MORON I WAS GONNA WRITE AN EPITAPH! ”
Max groans into his hand.
Oscar comes in next, dragging both his and Lando’s matching wheelies. “I’m putting these in the corner,” he says. “And then I’m going to hand him the flower. I have a speech planned.”
“Just don’t say the word ‘mourning,’” Max mutters, rubbing his temples.
Oscar hums. “I can swap it for ‘spiritual reflection.’”
Max points at him. “You’re the only one I trust right now.”
Carlos is last. As he walks by, he pauses, reaching up to gently pat Max on the head like he’s five years old and overwhelmed. “Buena suerte.”
“Thanks,” Max says with the soul-deep weariness of a man who has clearly made one too many bad choices in his life.
And then Max steps in too.
The living room is—predictably—pure chaos.
Lando is on Charles. Not even in a normal way. He’s crouched beside him on the couch, holding both of Charles’ hands and examining his face like he’s trying to verify he’s not a ghost.
“Your hair’s longer!” Lando says, grinning so wide it might snap his face in two. “You’ve got—like—dude, cheekbones for days! And you smell like — sniff sniff — eh, you smell pretty much the same. Wait—is this— is that a cane?”
Charles, for his part, is smiling with stunned disbelief, clearly overwhelmed by the volume of Lando Norris. “Hi, Lando,” he says in a small, slightly croaky voice.
“Don’t ‘hi’ me, you ghosted me! You vanished! I was so close to staging a heist! ”
“You tried to break into his apartment in Monaco twice, ” Oscar reminds him from the side.
“So I guess I already staged two heists. Details.”
Daniel is lounging on the arm of the couch, blinking rapidly like he’s seconds from crying but covering it with humour. “You look good, mate,” he says, voice unexpectedly soft. “Little sunken, sure. But you’ve got your glow.”
“I—thank you?” Charles says, a little overwhelmed. “You all came?”
Carlos walks over and claps a hand gently on Charles’ shoulder, warm but firm. “It’s good to see you, hermano.”
Oscar approaches last, clutching the stolen flower. “This is for you,” he says. “It represents hope.”
Charles takes it gingerly, hands a bit shaky and searching. “Thank you, Osc.”
Max leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, just watching. The scene in front of him is absurd, chaotic, overwhelming—but also beautiful. Somehow, everyone has gathered. Somehow, they’re all here. For him. For Charles.
And Charles—
Charles is still on the couch, warm light casting over his face, and he looks like he’s glowing.
He’s tired. But his smile is real.
Max watches him. Watches how Charles’ eyes flicker from face to face with the faintest delay, the softest uncertainty. How his gaze lands near them—close enough to feel intentional but not quite direct. Like he’s guessing where they are, rather than seeing them.
Nobody else seems to notice. Or maybe they’re all pretending not to.
Charles is still grinning wide, though. Like this is the best night of his life. Like this messy, absurd gathering of half-unhinged drivers in Max’s cramped apartment is a dream come true.
Oscar clears his throat with enough ceremony to silence the room.
Max immediately knows they’re all in trouble.
“I,” Oscar says, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his hoodie pocket, “have prepared a speech.”
“Oh no,” Max mutters under his breath.
Daniel whispers, “Should I get popcorn?”
Charles tilts his head toward Oscar, smile curious. “You wrote a speech?”
“On the aeroplane,” Oscar confirms, smoothing the paper with practiced elegance. “In case I had to single-handedly raid the whole of the Netherlands to find you.”
“Didn’t need to, though,” Carlos points out helpfully.
Oscar nods. “Yes, Charles was conveniently already located by Max’s stalking attempts.”
“I didn’t stalk—” Max begins, then realises that he absolutely did. “Okay, fine. A little.”
Oscar clears his throat again. “Ahem. Shall I begin?”
The room nods solemnly. Even Lando sits down cross-legged on the carpet like they’re in a classroom. Max stands beside Charles, watching his face—watching how he squints slightly toward Oscar, blinking a bit harder like he's trying to keep him in focus.
Oscar starts, “Charles Leclerc. Monégasque menace. Ferrari’s golden boy. Resident pretty boy with the emotional depth of a tortured artist in a French film—”
“Get to the point,” Max says, exasperated.
“I’m building momentum,” Oscar replies. “Where was I?”
“French film,” Charles offers.
“Right, thank you. I have known you since... well, not very long, actually. But you’ve always been kind to me. And vaguely threatening. And you once told me my socks were ‘offensively papaya,’ which I’m still recovering from. Anyway—” he clears his throat again—“in the face of your mysterious absence, your silent vanishing act, I took it upon myself to find you and deliver this message. Which is: We missed you. A lot. Also—”
He looks down at the page, squinting.
“I left a blank here to fill in what your issue was. For emotional impact. So—what is your issue?”
Charles raises an eyebrow. “My issue?”
“Yeah, the...uh medical one.”
“Oh. MS,” Charles says simply.
Oscar nods like he’s logging it into a spreadsheet. “Cool. I’ll write that in.”
Lando blinks. “Wait— Microsoft? ”
Max suppress a laugh.
“Is Microsoft trying to kill you, Charles?! I will fight them!”
Oscar doesn’t even hesitate. “No. MS is Multiple Sclerosis. A chronic neurological condition. It affects the central nervous system, and—”
“Why do you know that?” Carlos interrupts, squinting at him.
“I read,” Oscar says with a little shrug.
Lando throws an arm around his shoulders. “I love my smart boyfriend.”
Oscar continues, undeterred, “As I was saying. We missed you, Charles. You can’t just ghost us like that. Not when we already had a group trauma bond.”
Charles grins. “Can I hug you?”
“No,” Oscar says immediately. “That’s not in the script.”
Charles does the thing. The mouse thing. Where he tilts his head a little, smiles slightly too wide, and blinks with deadly innocence.
Oscar sighs. “Ugh. Fine.”
He leans forward and Charles wraps his arms around him with the quietest kind of affection. Oscar pats his back awkwardly.
Lando immediately bursts into tears.
“Oh my goodness, I missed this bastard so much!” he howls, flinging himself onto Charles’ other side and tackling him in a very aggressive cuddle. “I was gonna start a conspiracy YouTube channel if you didn’t show up this year!”
“Please don’t do that,” Daniel says from the side, rubbing his temples. “We’re trying to maintain an image.”
“What image,” Max mutters, “we’re barely functioning humans.”
Lando sniffs, still latched onto Charles’ arm like a particularly clingy toddler. “But what is actually wrong with you?” he asks. “Like—for reals?”
Carlos sighs. “Can you be more sensitive, por favor? ”
“I’m crying, that’s all the sensitivity I got,” Lando huffs.
Charles, amused, leans his head back. “It’s mostly vision right now. Some fatigue. Coordination stuff. But vision’s the most obvious.”
Lando blinks. “Wait. How many fingers am I holding up?”
Charles raises his own hand slowly. “This one.” He flips his middle finger up.
Lando howls. “You absolute asshole! I MISSED YOU!”
Charles grins. “Missed you too.”
Daniel’s curled up in the corner with a pillow, eyes shiny. “This is the most romantic reunion I’ve ever witnessed and no one’s even dating anyone yet.”
“I am,” Lando says, gesturing to Oscar. “My little encyclopedia.”
Oscar salutes.
Carlos chuckles softly, leaning back on the couch. “This is the weirdest group therapy I’ve ever been part of.”
Max, who’s been quiet, just standing behind Charles the whole time, finally lets his shoulders drop a little.
He’s still scared. He’s still uncertain. But he’s not alone.
And neither is Charles.
That counts for something.
That counts for everything.
There’s a beat of quiet—the kind of quiet that settles after a collective emotional exhale. The kind of quiet that belongs to late-night kitchens and friendships too old to explain.
And then Lando, in the most Lando way possible, ruins it.
“I have a rap ready,” he announces.
Max visibly flinches. “No. No. No no no. Nee, Lando, absolutely not.”
Lando stands up anyway. “It was originally for calming Max down after he started texting Daniel things like ‘morgue.’” He air-quote. “But now that Max is alive and Charles is alive and you two are clearly still in your era, I’m gonna freestyle for the couple.”
Carlos snorts. “They’re not dating.”
Daniel turns his entire neck toward Carlos with the slowest expression of disbelief Max has ever seen.
“They’re not—?” Carlos falters. “They’re not dating… right?”
Lando gasps like someone just slapped him with a baguette. “They’ve been dating since, like, age twelve? You think they were racing soulmates™ just for the aesthetic?”
Charles, still curled up on the couch, shrugs with a grin. “It wasn’t official.”
Max groans. “That’s because you hate labels.”
“I don’t hate labels,” Charles says mildly. “I just think ‘best friend’ is a more emotionally resonant category.”
Carlos stands. “I need air. I need a ten-minute break. I knew you two were weirdly intimate but I thought it was a trauma bond!”
“It is,” Max says.
“It is, ” Charles echoes at the same time.
Oscar nods solemnly. “They’re trauma-bonded and codependent. It’s beautiful.”
Carlos’ spiralling again. “I watched Call Me By Your Name with Max in 2022 to make him feel better and this entire time you two were making out in the garage?”
“Just once,” Max says.
“In the rain,” Charles adds helpfully.
Lando claps once. “Right. Now that we’re all vulnerable, drop the beat. ”
“No beat is being dropped,” Max says quickly.
“I said DROP THE BEAT.”
And then—without any warning—Lando begins, despite no actual beat being dropped.
“Yo, yo, Charles is back, and Max is less cracked,
Oscar’s got facts, and Daniel’s still jacked.
Carlos is here with his Spanish despair,
And I’m Lando Norris, emotional nightmare.”
“Please stop this nightmare,” Max groans into his hands.
Charles is cackling. “This is better than I imagined.”
“Thank you,” Lando bows slightly, then launches into verse two with arm movements.
“MS can’t stop the Charles of Monégasque flame,
Even if he squints now, he still wins the game.
Verstappen’s in love like it’s '05 karting,
These two are destiny, no point in parting.”
“Lando,” Daniel warns. “You’re too close to rhyming karting with sharting and I don’t trust you.”
“I was going to say heart-ting, ” Lando huffs. “As in—‘the emotion of my heart tingling tingles.’”
“That is not a word,” Oscar mutters.
Lando forges on, pointing at Max.
“Max walked the halls like a man on a mission,
Found his blind boy and gave him permission—
To love, to cry, to sleep in his bed,
Even if Charles sometimes trips on his meds probs.”
Daniel howls with laughter. Charles wipes a tear.
“Okay,” Max sighs. “Okay. That was kinda good.”
“I’m not done,” Lando says ominously.
“Please be done,” Max begs. “I promise it was good.”
“Final verse, and it’s from the heart,” Lando says, placing a hand on his chest.
“Charles Leclerc, your eyes may not see,
But Max is your constant, your soft destiny.
And though your vision might be a bit blind,
You still saw Max—heart, soul, and mind.”
A beat.
Silence.
Oscar claps enthusiastically. Carlos slowly nods. Daniel has his fist over his heart.
Charles, voice soft and serious, says, “That was actually beautiful.”
“Right?!” Lando beams.
Max shakes his head, sighs deeply, then mutters something incoherent under his breath.
Charles nudges him gently.
There’s a beat of soft, resonant silence.
“So,” Lando chirps, all fake-casual and fake-innocent and one hundred percent menace, “does this mean Max is gonna retire too? Like. Midseason?”
Max blinks. “What?”
“Retirement’s fun,” Lando says cheerfully, as if he hasn’t cried ten times tonight. “Charles is here. You’re obsessed with Charles. You clearly don't want to drive unless Charles is trackside glaring at your tire strategy. So. Boom. Retire.”
Max blinks again. “That’s your logic?”
“Yes.” Lando beams. “I’ve had it ready since the group chat started spiralling. If Charles is in retirement, Max should join him in retirement, and I—” he places both hands on his chest “—get to win a WDC for once in my life. It’s called manifesting.”
Daniel throws his head back and laughs. “Honestly? That’s a solid strategic play.”
Max scoffs. “No one is retiring. I’m not even thirty.”
“Retire,” Lando chants softly.
“I will not retire,” Max says.
“Retiiire,” Lando croons. “Let the younger generation thrive. Let me thrive. Let Oscar be fed.”
Oscar, who is sipping a juice box and quietly observing the chaos, raises a finger. “I’d like to win a WDC too.”
Carlos leans in. “If Max retires, Oscar’s gonna win the championship, not you.”
Lando looks personally offended. “EXCUSE ME?”
“I’ve been training him in the way of Spanish resilience,” Carlos says solemnly. “He’s gonna crush you.”
Oscar nods, very calm. “He makes me watch The Notebook and then do push-ups for everytime I cried. It’s working.”
“You’re all freaks,” Max mutters, watching Charles giggle into a pillow beside him.
“Anyway,” Lando interrupts, louder now, “the Norris-Piastri era is COMING. Even if I don’t win and Oscar wins, we’ll still kiss on the podium—”
“Why are you like this,” Carlos mutters.
“—and it’ll be so iconic that Netflix will name an entire episode after it. Like. Ep Four: When the Married Couple Retired and the Chaos BFs Rose. ”
Daniel’s wheezing. “Please. Please. Kiss on the podium. I’ll die happy.”
Max slaps a hand over his face. “I brought you all into my house. I let you near my fragile boyfriend. And this is what I get.”
“I’m not fragile,” Charles mumbles from behind the pillow.
“Right.” Max rolls his eyes. “And I am not a 4x World Champion.”
Lando sighs dreamily. “I want what you have.”
Oscar pats his arm. “You have me.”
“Oh yeah.” Lando grins. “You’re better, you’d let me name our kid something fun like Lightning McQueen Norris-Piastri.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Oscar replies.
Lando pouts.
Max groans. “I hate everyone in this room.”
“You love us,” Daniel says.
“I tolerate some of you.”
Charles hums. “He loves me the most.”
“Objectively true,” Max agrees, and dips his head to kiss Charles’ temple again.
“I love you too,” Charles says softly.
Charles shifts slowly to sit up. Max adjusts the blanket over his lap. Outside the window, the city’s lights blink gently like stars trying their best. Someone—Daniel—yawns obnoxiously. Oscar starts arranging the suitcases by colour. Lando asks if anyone wants hot chocolate, even though he doesn’t know Mr Max Verstappen(-Leclerc?) has no chocolate in the kitchen. Carlos starts going through Max’s old albums.
And in the middle of all of it, Max and Charles sit close. Still slightly tangled. Still breathing through grief and time and disease and love. Still them.
“I think,” Max says, resting his head on Charles’ shoulder, “this might be the beginning of the next forever.”
Charles closes his eyes. Smiles.
“Then let’s make it a good one.”
fin;
littlefroggyfairy on Chapter 1 Wed 25 Jun 2025 03:24AM UTC
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deletedaccountjustkiddingunless2 on Chapter 1 Sat 28 Jun 2025 02:34PM UTC
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28a_platonicmoonwaterjeguluswolfstar on Chapter 1 Sat 28 Jun 2025 02:37PM UTC
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Corusfruit on Chapter 1 Sun 29 Jun 2025 08:08PM UTC
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Idontthinkanymorenow on Chapter 2 Wed 25 Jun 2025 06:02AM UTC
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deletedaccountjustkiddingunless2 on Chapter 2 Wed 25 Jun 2025 07:47AM UTC
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rare2306 on Chapter 2 Wed 25 Jun 2025 06:11AM UTC
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userdislikeslife21 on Chapter 2 Wed 25 Jun 2025 06:54AM UTC
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lectrovert on Chapter 2 Thu 26 Jun 2025 03:23AM UTC
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deletedaccountjustkiddingunless2 on Chapter 2 Thu 26 Jun 2025 03:44AM UTC
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Lavinia (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 29 Jun 2025 08:34PM UTC
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deletedaccountjustkiddingunless2 on Chapter 2 Mon 30 Jun 2025 03:34AM UTC
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Lavinia (Guest) on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Jul 2025 10:08AM UTC
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Corusfruit on Chapter 2 Sun 29 Jun 2025 08:49PM UTC
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