GENTLE VIOLENCE - Lestappen

5. Torniquet

(Mild CW: Crying, sad vibes. But they're finally noticing each other now! )

Thursday 23 November 02:00 am

Charles Leclerc

It's the middle of the night and he's got no one to call or text. He doesn't want to call home and worry his mother and he doesn't want to wake up any other driver. Who would he even call? Maybe Carlos or even possibly he could call Lando- but that would mean explaining why he's crying like a little child in the middle of his hotel room.

So Charles stays alone and he stays crying on his own, sniffling softly along side the sound of the Tv he's turned on not to feel as lonely. His shirt is now more dark gray with snot and tears than it is light gray and Charles feels 16 rather than 26. Like he wants to go back home, pack this whole GP up all together. Max will win, the Ferraris are unreliable this year and nothing can change this weekend anyways.

He wants back home to his apartment and he wants his own bed, his own secure walls- where no one has to look at him unless he wants to show himself to the world that day.

The way that Max had looked at him.

He's said those things and looked at him as if he was the most disgusting thing on earth for having feelings beyond entirely friendly for a man. Maybe Charles had made a mistake in thinking that Max was being anything but friendly- but he didn't have to insult him the way that he had. Just remembering the words having been said to him makes another wave of sobs wrack through him and Charles doesn't sleep much that night.

The whole night is spent going in and out of sleep, feeling his throat hurt whenever he wakes up just enough to remember why it was so hard to sleep.

He hadn't even told his mama yet- his brothers didn't know. His papa would never know.

But now Max did without Charles even having to say the words or having properly accepted it himself yet. He was still somewhat convinced that he was straight- that this was just a hiccup, that he craved intimacy and someone's closeness after so many months alone and that it had somehow just made him want Max a little more than he should. Max had given him what he was looking for and it had made something go wrong inside of him- made him want something he shouldn't.

Charles twists and turns where he lays within his covers, he wraps himself tight in his duvet and hugs the t-shirt he's now taken off to sleep- closer to himself. He could pretend that he was back home if he just closed his eyes hard enough and right now that was his only comfort in all of this.

Besides the fact that this was the last race of the season of course, the thought now more comforting than anything. Soon he wouldn't have to be faced with the dutchman anymore and it's with that thought that Charles is finally able to fall back asleep for the last time that night.

Max Verstappen

He's never felt so stupid in his life as he does as he walks back to his own hotel room. It's early in the morning and where he went to Charles because he was worried about him and wanted to make him feel better- he's now made things oh so much worse.

Max lays down in bed that night with a heavy heart and tears threatening in his own eyes, unable to shake the feeling that he's becoming his father. The hurtful thing he'd said he was expecting to make Charles angry, fight back- yet the Ferrari driver had cowered immediately. Just the way that Max had whenever his father was mean to him as a child, his shoulders had dropped and Charles had paled and he'd cried- unable to fight back.

The worst part about it? Because Max's words were true. This wasn't how he wanted to find out about that- not that it was ever his business who Charles slept with and not, but now in hindsight maybe Charles would've told him in is how time had Max not been this big of a damn asshole about it.