#this is about my specialest boy aka sharl

[effervescentdragon]

charles leclerc + the color red

i wrote this a long time ago, for a fic that is coincidentally named redredred. i dont know how i remembered it. im scheduling this, so i hope you still see it, anon ❤️

"Do you think I'm too much?"

Pierre raises his head from the carrots he is chopping and just looks at Charles, his hand stilling on the knife.

"Explain?" He says, but his eyes are full of knowing, and Charles hates himself for just blurting it out. He knows he's blushing, so he concentrates on measuring the pasta portions.

"Forget it," he mumbles. "It was just a thought, I don't know what I was thinking."

"Calamar," Pierre trails off. "Explain, please."

Charles thinks on all he wants to say, all the things bubbling under his skin, tearing at his throat and clawing their way out in any way possible, begging and screaming to be let out. He thinks about the races and the cars and the apologies and the incidents and the way he sometimes just wants to scream until he has no voice left to even whisper anymore. He thinks about making meaningless apologies and saying sorry when he is anything but and the way the curves of the track play out before his eyes when he closes them in the attempt to sleep. He thinks of eyes that are blue blue blue and disappointed and angry and the background and foreground that are all red red red and he thinks how the color of anger is not the one you would assume it is. He thinks of harsh words and broken promises and icy coldness where before there was warmth and he doesn't want to think about the grey grey grey of rain in Spa and of the black black black of the funeral clothes and the way fear seeps in wearing shades of pale yellow sunsets and green green hills. The carrots before Pierre are orange and the pasta in his shaking hand is brown and he jerks his head.

"I can't," he whispers. When he looks at Pierre's face, it's carefully expressionless, the only evident emotion shown in the tightness around his eyes. "Not now, sorry, not yet."

Not about you, he doesn't say.

Not to you, he doesn't say.

Not you, he doesn't say.

Pierre stares at him for a moment, as if he'd heard that thought, as if he knows, and it's Pierre, his best friend, so maybe he does know, and Charles can't even be ashamed because if he knows, then he also understands, and then nods.

"Don't apologize, there is nothing to be sorry for. It's alright," he says seriously, going back to chopping the carrots with steady hands.

Charles doesn't say Thank you because he doesn't need to. Pierre knows everything about him.

The countertop is marble imitation and purple and the knife in Pierre's hand is shining silver and his shorts are pink and Charles is white - white as the bread he's not supposed to eat, white as the lights above the tracks they race on, white as the knuckles on the steering wheel.

Charles is as white as the void within him, devoid of feelings, devoid of anything relevant. The white noise on the car radio, broken by the words Red flag, keep the Delta positive, red flag, red flag, redredred.

They don't speak again until the food is done, and by then Charles doesn't want to say anything anymore.