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theloveliestembrace · 2 years ago

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Let it happen. | CL

Charles Leclerc/Reader

f1 masterlist

crossposted to ao3

Summary: The five times you meet Charles Leclerc. (The four times it doesn’t work out, the one time it might,)

Warnings: Non-explicit (but definitely inappropriate) teacher-student relationship

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Reincarnation au

W/C: 2.7k

A/N: What’s good people, I’m back again. This fic was very cinematic in my head (it still is), so I hope the writing captures that. Enjoy~

The first time you meet Charles Leclerc, he’s a barista at the coffeehouse down the road from your interning job. It’s a brief stint in the industry as you wait for a university acceptance letter, so you don’t expect to stay for long.

He’s sweet, beaming at you from over the counter nearly everyday, remembering your order before you’ve even asked for his name.

“Charles,” he says, sweetly accented, “my name is Charles Leclerc.”

That day, the flowing script of your name on the takeaway cup is accompanied with a ‘have dinner with me?’ and a smiley face. You picture him, eyebrows scrunched and eyes squinted in concentration, trying to write neatly on the curved surface, and smile.

As it turns out, Charles Leclerc is also waiting for a university acceptance letter, to a prestigious place in the United Kingdom for the study of Liberal Arts. He laughs awkwardly as he confesses, “My English is not so good yet, so I am worried they won’t find me so elegant.”

You bat it off as nonsense, pulling him in for a chaste kiss, whispering sincerely against his lips. “They’ll be foolish not to accept you, cheri.”

He’s a sweet relief from the bustle of your internship, where you’re surrounded by presumptuous old men and women who expect their coffee orders and bottles of perrier on their desk before eight. Your work in the fashion industry is not as glamorous a job as made out in the novels. The twelve centimeter heels you’re forced into daily pinch at your toes, and all your coworkers are size-zero hyenas, vying for a position. It takes all your energy to keep up.

Just the sight of him, though, waving cheerily in the morning as you run in for coffee pickup, hands in his pockets as he waits for you to get off work, the soft kisses when he walks you home. It’s easy to get lost in this, lost in him , fingers slotted between yours and a glass of wine shared between interlocked fingers. It’s a romance out of a metropolitan chick flick, something about finding love in the middle of modern day bustle, finding quiet in the loud city.

Everything falls apart when you get your acceptance letter. You haven’t talked about the inexorability of the end, not really. Sometimes Charles will bring it up half-heartedly, and so will you, but the inertia to dealing with your very real future is too great, and you both end up kissing on Charles’ sofa instead of facing the truth.

It culminates in one big fight, your fingernails pressed to draw blood, Charles bracing himself against the wall to prevent himself from losing his temper.

And it goes like every other fight in the movies, things like i was always going to go anyway and why don’t you just fucking go then, if you have nothing to stay for , and don’t hold me back just because you don’t have the certainty of getting into your course, Charles spinning around and saying i already got in, i’m hesitating because of you and the pressure in your chest growing so large it’s all you can do to stop your tears from running.

The movies lied to you. This is the part where Charles apologises and you hug and make up and you stay for each other. That’s the love story.

Instead, you say, go then, if staying for me burdens you so . And he goes, your apartment door slamming behind him.

You spend days wallowing in self-pity, avoiding the coffeehouse, running through the motions, thinking about the last ten months of your life, and make the decision when your hand reaches for a coffee cup that isn’t there.

You’ll stay, for Charles, because you love him, even if it isn’t like the movies. Because it isn’t like the movies, and you’ll love him even when the post-credits have rolled.

It is this that makes you run to the coffeehouse the next morning, forgoing an umbrella in your haste, soaking your blouse straight through. You yank the door open, waiting for the head of curls at the counter to look up so you can beg for a chance. Just one.

Instead, the older lady who owns the place, looks up and smiles sadly at you. “I’m sorry, kid. He flew off to the UK yesterday, he said you never called.”

And again, this doesn’t happen in the movies. The main character doesn’t step back out into the rain alone, heels soaked against the pavement, nor do they spend the next week waiting for the love of their life to call.

You hit reply on the acceptance email, and change your number to a local one when you land in America.

Somewhere on another continent, a call doesn’t get connected.

On the sixteenth of October, the people of Monaco are blessed with an announcement. A prince is born, the news reports.

Charles, they named him. Charles Leclerc.

In another ward down the hallway, another woman gives birth to a girl. The royal family hasn’t realised it yet, but down the hallway, is their future pr manager.

Your first day on the job is fraught with just about every roadblock you could face.

At four in the morning, one of your neighbour’s ridiculous scented candles tips over and sets enough things on fire to trip the fire alarm. Management ushers every single person in the vicinity out of the apartment building, where you stand shivering in your bathrobe.

A few hours later, your coffee machine breaks down before your espresso even finishes running.

Then, five minutes after you leave the apartment to catch your Uber, your heel breaks, so you’re forced to change your shoes and foot the late arrival fee on your car.

When you finally find the meeting room fifteen minutes after you were supposed to reach, you're very much on the verge of tears.

You’re met with a frowning Charles Leclerc, whose expression instantly evaporates into fondness when he recognises who’s at the door. He stands to bring you into a hug, as if you’d been friends since you were children. (You had been, of course, but you didn’t forget that he was a literal prince. Hugs are not commonplace.)

It’s an odd feeling, standing in front of the boy you’d known from birth, tasked with covering up his scandals and manufacturing relationships to keep him in the public eye.

It’s even odder to fall in love with him all over again, especially while you’re both poring over staged Instagram posts of him and Monaco’s richest bachelorettes. But Charles is so— good, easy to fall in love with, like those princes from storybooks. He laughs at exactly the right moments, cracks jokes that have you gasping for breath, charms you so thoroughly it’s almost embarrassing.

It falls into place like poetry, too many moments without supervision, secret smiles over the table, quiet mornings in the palace, hidden in his room. You pick up the closeness of your youth near flawlessly. Falling in love has never been this easy.

(It’ll never be this easy again.)

The end comes knocking in the form of his mother. Marriage. You almost choke on the enormity of it, caught in the noose of your own stupidity. Because that is your job, isn’t it? The prince is almost thirty, you are almost thirty, and this has always been the final point, of your job, of his scripted relationships.

You don’t even fight, which is kind of the worst part. A choice is presented to Charles, and he chooses.

It’s a special kind of cruelty, to stay. To sit with the photographers and videographers and event crew and wedding planner, poring over fabrics and angles, as if it’s your fucking honour to plan what’s set to be the greatest union in Monaco for the next decade.

You were wrong. The worst part is standing at the fringes, in your blue dress, watching the love of your life slide a ring onto another finger and speak the vows that were meant for youyouyou . The worst part is knowing the photos will be beautiful, because you planned them yourself.

The worst part is knowing there is no universe where he chooses you.

Your new French Literature professor is… really fucking hot. You’re not just saying this because he’s a decade older than you, or because he’s at least three decades younger than the guy who used to teach the class. He’s just, objectively of course, a really attractive man.

The way his accent rolls off his tongue when he says “Charles, my name is Charles Leclerc.” definitely doesn’t help. In your periphery, you see the girl seated next to you furiously typing on her phone, with caps and exclamation marks and sweating emojis. You can’t even blame her.

And it’s almost criminally obvious, the way he looks at you, eyes darting to your open polo, the way he lingers on the syllables of your name when he calls on you to answer in class.

It’s subtle enough to not warrant any accusations of misconduct, but not subtle enough to avoid the envious stares of the girls (and boys) in your class. You’re unbothered, of course, given that he hasn’t actually made a move, but also the fact that he wears his wedding ring all the time.

And if you start wearing tighter shirts and shorter skirts to class, just to see his breath hitch when you uncross your legs just so, well that’s nobody’s business but your own.

It’s almost cliche, the way your little game unfolds. You make sure to book the latest possible consultation slots with him, in a cute ensemble and flawless makeup, toting a copy of Les Miserables as if you’re actually struggling with the material.

It’s fun, to rile him up, watch his tongue slide against his lower lip as he looks at you from across the desk. You don’t typically make a habit of seducing professors, especially the married ones, but you figure it’ll probably make a great story for your grandkids, or something. He holds out much longer than you thought, so much so that the illusion of needing aid in your best subject starts to grate on you. Still, the sight of his forearms when he rolls up his sleeves, or the line of his throat when he sips water during lectures keeps you hooked.

When he finally bends you over his desk, you’re almost disappointed that the game has ended. The imprint of his wedding ring stays on your waist for days. Your friend tuts nervously when you return back late, murmurs something about morals and regretting your decisions and something else you tune out.

Un brin de folie egaye la vie, right? Some madness will brighten your life. You continue ignoring her.

It’s only after months of your routine that you can form the all-important question, perched on his lap in his (locked) office, “Why cheat on your wife?” And the room is instantly suffused with silence. You expect him to tell you to get out or something of the sort, but instead he hums thoughtfully, shifting you further onto his thighs.

He’s silent for a few seconds, running fingers through your hair, “Why do we do anything?” You snort at the obvious deflection, raising an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

“On n’aime que ce qu’on possède pas tout entier. Proust says we love only what we do not have entirely.” You giggle a little at that, “you love me because you cannot have me?” He sighs against your cheek, “something like that, yes.”

In the end, it ends much cleaner than affairs like this tend to. You graduate top of the class, watch Charles and his beautiful wife at the ceremony, and laugh a little meanly at how oblivious her smile is. How he watches you, still, as you give the valedictorian speech, the smirk on his face as you thank your professors with false fervour.

And then, one last time for the road, in the handicap bathroom where the bustle of the hall isn’t quite muted, breaths mingling hot in the stale air. A kiss, almost chaste, and you leave.

Your grandkids howl with laughter at the story, nearly seventy years down the road. You smile, think about green eyes and rolled up sleeves. Another life, maybe.

You’re still not used to the wag lifestyle. It’s one thing to be recognised in Monaco, another to be Il Predestinato’s girlfriend. It’s almost obscene, the red that greets you down every hallway, the way you bite your tongue and watch the team fuck him over every weekend. The way the crowds chant his name; Charles, they scream, Charles Leclerc.

It’s not like you haven’t earned a place in the paddock. You’ve done the work, the pr activities, the carefully curated soft launches, the jet lag, the helmet kisses and the careful, careful styling. You’ll always be silent and pretty, always smiling and skinny and happy for him, existing to prove something.

The point is, it isn’t that you don’t love Charles anymore. It isn’t that he’s neglectful and distant (he is), or that you’re unhappy with the constant scrutiny and ever changing time zones (you are). You can swallow these things, breathe deep and let it settle.

Mangia questa minestra o saltar questa finestra; eat the soup or jump out of the window. Accept things for what they are, don’t hurt over things that cannot be changed.

And it really does feel like nothing will ever change, watching the man you love turn into a beating husk, consumed with his want. A championship, a victory, draped in enough red to drown you both, a hundred years of history. Nothing will change, you will always be the girlfriend, the girl in-the-pictures. You can feel the shadow of Charles’ name as heavily as he feels Ferrari’s. That will never change.

The championship is a hollow victory, when it comes. You and Charles have devolved across the year into a state of a perpetual tense silence, intercut only with the curl of his fingers around your waist when the cameras come flashing, and drawn out, passive aggressive conversations.

You begin to fly out less and less, blame it on the job you pretend to hate for Charles’ sake. Slowly, you learn to be on your own, find your way around loneliness, spaces within yourself previously occupied with your boyfriend. You toss about the idea of him cheating on you while you miss his races, and find the thought less impossible and less painful each time.

By the time you see him again in Abu Dhabi, the Monacan flag wrapped around his shoulders, fingers pointed to the sky, you only feel affection for the man you would’ve given everything up for a year ago. The knowledge squeezes painfully in your chest.

You reach for him in the cooldown room, wince at how unfamiliar his hands are to you now, look him in the eyes, “It’s been over for a long time, hasn’t it, cheri?” Tears rise unbidden within you when he nods, eyes wet. You clasp his hands tighter, relish the feeling of his fingers against yours one more time, “I want you to remember the best parts of us,” you sniffle lightly, attempt a smile, “not the end. I want you to remember that I am always proud of you.”

The room is quiet. He leans against your shoulder, for a moment you are both twenty-one again, guileless. The enormity of what you are losing has settled in your bones.

The soup is unassuming on the table. You choose the free fall from the window.

The new doctor is cute, in a puppyish sort of way. Charles watches the way you interact with all your new coworkers, smiling and shaking hands, the way you laugh at a joke Max just made.

You come up in front of him, and falter, tilting your head like a startled animal. “Have we met?” The deja vu hits him so hard his head spins, shaking his head at your question anyway.

He kisses your outstretched hand, soft under his lips, revels briefly in your furious blushing. His mother likes to tell him; doctors only date other doctors. He intends to test the theory.

“My name is Charles,” he says, “Charles Leclerc.”

#f1 angst #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #charles leclerc angst #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc fic #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc smut

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theloveliestembrace · 2 years ago

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If we survived the great war (marry me?) | MV

Max Verstappen/Reader | Max Verstappen/Charles Leclerc (past)

f1 masterlist

crossposted to ao3

part 2: all roads.

Summary: Sometimes, you don’t get to have all the things you want, all at once. This is especially true for a woman in motorsport. Oftentimes, you choose a thing, and you have to make it enough.

Alternatively; you get the wins, and you also get Max, but never at the same time.

Warnings: Nsfw; vaguely public sex, unsafe sex (wrap it before you tap it fellas), smoking, drinking, mention of eating disorders, use of google translated french

Genre: Angst, Smut, Fluff, Non-linear narrative

W/C: 13.8k (she's a whopper ladies and gents)

A/N: welcome to another episode of me projecting all my teenage issues and angst, coupled with insane max brainrot. i even had a spreadsheet for all the race dates and hypothetical point totals (shit was wild). in conclusion, it gets pretty crazy guys, enjoy the ride.

2nd June 2023

“-we’re here with the Red Bull princess herself, live on Sky Sports,” the pretty news reporter turns her gaze upon you, sending you a conspiratorial half smile that immediately sets you on edge.

“So we’ve all seen those photos of you and your hotshot teammate over the weekend, care to give us a little context?”

She asks as if it’s a question, like she’s your best friend, sitting across you trying to wheedle gossip about a crush. It isn’t a question, it most certainly isn’t gossip. Ever since you’d signed that contract to drive, nothing had ever been as simple as giggles over silly crushes any longer.

You try to settle into the persona drawn up for you. Confident, smiling, grid sweetheart. The grin on your face feels as though someone has lodged two fingers into the side of your mouth and pulled up, but if the reporter opposite you notices, she says nothing.

Your publicist nods at you meaningfully, her eyes dead set on you. The planned answers to all the questions about you and Max have been run through hundreds and hundreds of times, so you let them flow out smoothly.

Just a small fight between teammates-

Oh no, certainly not a lover’s quarrel-

Ah yes, of course we’ve resolved it-

-ever so excited for the upcoming race…

You’re a media trainer’s dream. The lies slip from your lips like butter. You haven’t seen Max since that night, except for the ever-moving silhouette that is always disappearing down hallways and conspicuously away from wherever you were.

1st June 2023

The reasonable part of your brain knows that fighting outside one of Monaco’s biggest clubs is a terrible idea. God knows TMZ or whatever paparazzi was lucky enough would have a field day with it.

The less reasonable part of your brain, however, is currently standing outside the Amber Lounge, jabbing a finger into Max’s chest, trying to figure out what was his problem.

Courtesy of his new stylist, he’s finally in clothes that don’t have the Red Bull logo on them. If you weren’t on the verge of tears, trying your absolute fucking hardest to find out why he hasn’t spoken to you in a week, you’d probably be telling him how handsome he looks like this.

(And he does look handsome like this, hair mussed and shirt clinging to his shoulders.)

“What’s wrong with you?”

His eyes have taken on that flat unamused quality that he directs towards reporters asking stupid questions.

“Nothing,” he grits out.

“You’re lying to me-”

His mouth settles into a firm line, jaw clenching dangerously.

“Yeah?” He sneers down at you, “what makes you think so?”

“You can’t just accuse me of sabotaging you, then spend the next week pretending I don’t exist! And when we finally get a single fucking night of peace, you end up making out with some girl right in front of me? What’s wrong with you?”

Now it’s his turn to jab you in the chest, pushing you backwards step by step.

“I don’t owe you anything. You’re a second driver who got fucking lucky because daddy is an investor, a fucking fraud who thinks F1 is a game. I do not owe you monogamy.” He punctuates every word of his last sentence with jabs to your chest.

Your chest feels tight, the unfamiliar burn of tears in your throat.

“How could you-” you choke on the syllables, “why would you say such vile things?”

He scoffs at you, turning on his heel and striding back to the car. The dismissal is clear.

Your jacket is in his backseat. It’s nearly midnight and a chill has developed across the city, your phone’s weather report tells you it’s sixteen degrees out. The sheerness of your dress leaves you exposed in the night air.

The flash of a camera jerks you out of your reverie, shocking you back to the real world. Your publicist was going to kill you. Turning away from the camera, you carefully wipe the tears from your lashes, sliding back into the media persona.

Smiling. Confident. Grid sweetheart.

You turn to the paparazzo with what you hope is a dazzling smile.

“Hey man, could I borrow that jacket?”

Hopefully the walk back isn’t too long.

23rd May 2021

The grin Max levels you with on the podium is blinding. He’s a step above you, so the glow of the sun against the back of his head creates a halo around his face. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed with exertion, pupils dilated with the high of the win.

He’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. The fans and the engineers are a roiling wave of excitement, but it feels like the two of you are the only ones that exist.

Looking back, this is probably when you started falling for him.

Interlude; To be a woman is to perform.

You’ve always been better with the media than Max. It’s not saying much though, given that most of the grid is better at managing journalists than he is. Being the only girl on the track had jolted you into the spotlight so fast you hadn’t even had time to catch a breath before a microphone was being shoved into your face. You learnt how to smile, how to wave, how to thank your fans with just enough fervor to earn their affection.

As such, you’re often left alone when the journalists come hunting for a statement. Your novelty as a woman meant that Max now had leeway to slip off to Red Bull hospitality the moment he stepped off the podium. The post-race routine of laughing off his absence and handling the difficult questions exhausts you, but he’s Max Verstappen, and you’re just a woman. One mention of it to your publicist and you know it’s a moot point.

November 2018

You’re first officially introduced to the team at sixteen when your father visits the office. Max sees you, in your demure pink dress and white heels, and stirs with interest. He sees Daniel lean forward, smiling widely as always, shaking your father’s hand.

He wonders if the Australian has figured it out yet, that you’ll be replacing him eventually. If he even plans on sticking around long enough to find out.

Unofficially, you’ve known Max since you were five. Jos never let his eyes stray from the glare of junior trophies, of course, but he knew you all the same. He didn’t bother himself too much with you, which is what five years between children tends to do, but he doesn’t treat you differently from any of the other children either. You’re apathetic to each other.

Your father expresses that you’d started karting as a child, that you’d always been in love with the sport. And like the dutiful employee that he is, Max offers to give you a tour of the compound, and takes you down to the karting tracks used for junior training.

He doesn’t expect you to be able to keep up with him. At your age, he was already on his way to the Formula 1 grid, of course, but girls like you don’t usually stray to things like racing, of all things.

Even when you sign that contract three years later, and Alex is cut out of RBR, he still sees that sixteen year old, in that modest bubblegum pink dress and Mary Jane heels, and he can’t quite bring himself to believe it.

28 May 2023

It should’ve been an easy race. It had been an easy race.

‘No risks required’, ‘twenty-eight second lead’, ‘another stunning performance from the two Red Bull drivers’.

David doesn’t realise that a race isn’t over until it’s over. Granted, neither did you, nor the engineers, not even Max himself.

He’s right in front of you, the tail end of his car so close that you see the exhaust releasing from the pipe. “Strategy A,” they said, “Bossman wants to secure a 1-2. Maintain your position. I repeat, maintain p2.” It pisses you off a little, of course, forced to keep to second when seconds prior, it could’ve been either of you.

The finish is in sight, just a second more and you would be on that podium, a second more and you’d be hoisted onto Max’s shoulders, the sounds of the engineers’ cheers reverberating throughout the night, your father with that tiny, proud smile on his face.

A second is enough for disaster to strike.

You watch in horrified slow motion as the car in front of you spins uncontrollably in a nauseating three-sixty. Some delirious part of your brain is thinking, it’s Max. Not any other driver, it’s the Max Verstappen, who has corrected three-sixty spins a million times now.

He smashes into a barricade just in time for you to sail past the finishing line into P1, and your mind goes white.

The car bursts into flames, and the knowledge that he did not, in fact, correct the spin slams into you like a sledgehammer. You can’t hear the cries or the screams or the cheers from the stands. The sound of David announcing your name, the calls for an extinguisher, the whir of a medical car, it all disappears. Your hands shake violently as you unbuckle the harnesses, forcing yourself out of the seat.

The post-race adrenaline keeps you moving, forces you to break into a run, ignoring the warnings to stay away from the crash site, ignoring your ankles’ protests, mind dead set on the flaming car.

The careful persona you have built for yourself is falling apart in tandem with every step you take. Thousands and thousands of euros on fire and all your mind chants is his name, a horrifying litany. You reach before anyone does, skidding to a stop, because all you see is flames, spilt fuel making the grass shiny.

Your glove slices open on a piece of wrangled metal, sending white hot pain lancing up your hand. You fumble with the harness, jamming it until it pops free, and you haul the Dutchman out of the wrecked car bodily. His helmet falls away, and his entire mass bears onto you, nearly sending you to the ground once again, but you lock an arm under his shoulder, pulling him away from the burning wreck with a grip fuelled by desperation.

His breaths against your neck are irregular and burning hot, eyes fluttering open to stare at you in confusion. The irises are glazed, impossibly long lashes casting spidery shadows on his cheeks. His temples and cheeks are peppered with cuts.

He’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

But then a flurry of motion separates you, and the medical personnel are pulling him out of your arms and probably to the hospital, and you’re dragged back forcefully by your father, whose face is flushed and is apoplectic with rage.

He pulls you to a marginally more secluded spot, though you doubt you’ll lose the paparazzi so easily. You’re backed steadily into a corner, and your father is yelling at you about tarnishing the family name and never losing your composure and how disappointed he is in you.

(But you are eleven again, being yelled at for accidentally scuffing your father’s shoes at a motorsports event you were reluctantly allowed to attend. He’d done a good job at hiding his anger in front of a crowd of uber-rich magnates, smiling amicably at his business partners and feigning apathy.

The moment you step foot into the house, he explodes, about how he shouldn't have brought you along, about how he’ll never let you race again if you pull this again, about how your mother’s hospitalisation does not excuse a lack of decorum.)

It’s always the same story, with your father. You’re just a little older now, and this time there’s jarring flash photography capturing the moment he raises his hand to slap you, the moment he pulls himself together, just about dragging you to the motorhome instead, where the noise abruptly ceases.

Your peace lasts less than a minute, because your publicist (who’s always around the corner, somehow) bustles over with an impersonal smile, reminding you that you’re due on the podium in a minute, pushing you out of the motorhome and into the fray once again.

Stepping onto the top podium position feels like a betrayal. The trophy in your hand feels like a bomb. You raise it in both hands and press it to your mouth, as if that can somehow erase the fact that it should be Max’s hands on the trophy and his lips pressed to yours. The champagne, at least, tastes familiar.

The Red Bull stands are empty, they’re all with him, en route to a hospital. You sit by your car, shoulders against the wheel, and wait for someone to drive you home.

It hits you then, the all important question.

(It isn’t about whether it was your fault. You know it isn’t.)

When did you start caring more for Max than the wins?

12th August 2022

Your excited squeals wake Max up. It’s that lull between races again, and you’re back in Monaco, sleeping in on his bed. Or at least, you’re supposed to be sleeping in. Instead, he’s been roused by your elated giggles.

“Maxie,” you whine, “Maxie, wake up!”

He attempts to blink sleep out of his eyes and fixes you with a distinctly unimpressed glare, tightening his arm around your waist and pulling you closer in the hopes that you’ll drift back off to sleep. It doesn’t work, though your body lying flush to his eases the disgruntled Dutchman.

“The new karting place is opening today, we’ve got to go now if we want to avoid the crowds,” you murmur, though you’re already settling into him comfortably, shifting yourself against him suggestively.

He grinds back into you lazily, feeling the whole body shiver he elicits from you. Little gasps exit your mouth as he repeats the action.“Or we could just go later…”

He grins against your neck, pulling your underwear off easily, the Monacan sun turning you into some goddess of some sort. You gasp at the sensation of fingers drifting to the apex of your thighs, barely skimming your cunt. He chuckles amusedly, the early-morning rasp in his voice scratching against your ears pleasantly, “It’s so early, and you’re already dripping, schatz.”

You huff with annoyance, though the pet name softens the tease. ‘’Shut up and fuck me, Maxie.”

He does, rocking into you lazily, letting you get used to the stretch of him. Little gasps and moans fall from your lips, fingers drifting back to grasp his tightly.

Even after he comes in you, cum leaking from your cunt, he stays, rubs patterns into your back and savours the feeling of you around him. It is only when you start to whine in discomfort that he pulls you up for a shower.

30th May 2023

You hate hospitals.

You’re fully aware, of course, that most people in the world are much less fortunate, and instead visit their loved ones in public hospitals where the hallways are crowded and the doctors are brusque. You still don’t think it’s particularly unreasonable for you to hate hospitals anyway, even if it’s a state-of-the-art, private institution, where the doctors are kind and smiling and competent.

It’s late, nearing the end of visiting hours. The hallways are even more sparsely populated than usual, and your heels echo down the pristine hallways. The nurse is young, someone you don’t recognise, which is unusual, considering how long you’d spent watching your mother waste away in these halls.

She glances up at you, a wan smile on her face. It’s clear she’s exhausted. You clear your throat awkwardly, flexing your fingers in the wrappings around your palm.

“I’m here to visit Verstappen.”

She stares at you suspiciously, probably mistaking you for a particularly deranged fan.

“And what is your relation to him?”

A pause. You don’t know what you are. Friends feels too general, too trivial for what Max is. Lovers, on the other hand, feels too intimate. Uncharacteristically, you stumble, but then right yourself.

“I work with him. The company has put together a list of permitted visitors, yes?” You pull down your surgical mask and flash your id, and she hastily ushers you down an eerily silent hallway.

He’s scrolling listlessly on his phone, the artificial light turning the little plasters peppering his face blue. The nurse protests weakly and tells him to rest, but he turns his trademark unamused stare onto her, and she backs out of the room quietly, blushing all the while. He still doesn’t look at you.

A beat of silence, two.

“I hear you pulled me from the wreck.”

“Yes.” The terse response makes him look at you, scanning the familiar dress and the dainty heels, unable to suppress a snort. You haven’t dressed like this since you were a teenager.

“What is it,” you snap, “what’s so terribly funny?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs nonchalantly, “who dressed you, your father’s stylist? You look like you’re sixteen all over again.”

You run your uninjured hand over the dress, smoothing out the non-existent creases. The jab makes you suddenly self-conscious, in a way nobody but Max could accomplish.

“I’m sure we have better things to talk about than my fashion choices, Max.”

He shrugs at you again, a picture of boredom.

“You’re the one who came to visit me, so I don’t know. Perhaps we can talk about how it felt to win P1 two days ago, I hear you conveniently came in first right after the crash.”

The scoff you let out is scathing, and he nearly jolts at how cold it is.

“Maybe I came to talk about how you told everyone who accompanied me to visit you for the past two days that you didn’t want to see me. Maybe I came here to see if you were alright, because I-” You pause, nostrils flaring, then sigh visibly, shoulders slumping.

“I had your car checked out. The back wheels were gaining power faster than the front ones, and the car spun out, so you can stop blaming me now. ”

You stand up and leave, not even bothering to slam the door closed. The answering silence feels like a slap to the face.

1st June 2023

You watch him play along with the pretty blonde who’s grinding against him in the club. The after party for your win had happened days after the race itself, and the fact that it’s only being held after Max has been discharged does not escape your notice. Red Bull’s hero can’t possibly be absent from a celebration party, could he?

Jealousy curdles in your abdomen. Then she turns around and presses her lips to his, and you wait and wait and wait for him to push her off like he normally would at any other party, and you’re hit with the sinking realisation that he’s making out with her right in front of you. Bile rises in your throat.

It isn’t like you to take up Lewis’ offer to dance, but you’re not feeling very much like yourself, so you allow yourself to be pulled to the dance floor by the older man, who trails his fingers along your waist flirtatiously, grinning all the while. It’s a cheap ruse, and you both know it, because he’s seen your eyes on Max the entire night.

It’s fun for a while, the bass beat imprinting itself into your veins, Lewis’ rings pleasantly cool on your heated skin. All of a sudden you’re being ripped away, yanked onto the pavement outside the Amber Lounge harshly, and you sway on your stilettos before meeting the eyes of your teammate.

The rest isn’t worth further expounding on, in your opinion. Netflix and your publicist does it for you in the days that follow.

2nd June 2023; 2am

Your hotel room in Monaco is always booked this time of year, when race weekend rolls around and this suite specifically goes under your name for a month. Lewis had told you to invest in some real estate in Monaco, but you truthfully like the familiarity of the room. The staff have an amicable relationship with you, so it’s significantly less lonely when you’re in town.

You haven’t been here in two weeks. Time in Monaco for the past year or so has been spent at Max’s apartment, so much so that you’re forced to use the spiky hotel toothbrush because yours is in Max’s bathroom.

The real answer to his question about your clothes is quite simple, though the intimacy of it all makes you shiver. Virtually your entire wardrobe has been stuffed into his, although the sparseness of his existing wardrobe has certainly helped. All you have left in the hotel room are clothes in the style that your father chooses.

The ringing of your phone cuts through your train of thought easily. The picture of Max and his arm slung over your shoulders flashes across the screen, your throat constricting at the name.

“Where are you?” It’s more of a demand than a question. He knows exactly where you are.

“I’m in my hotel room.”

A pause. A disembodied “Why?” comes out a second later. Rage bubbles in you like a drug.

“Because you picked a fight with me on purpose, and proceeded to leave me to deal with the horde of paparazzi that wanted a quote, a picture, an explanation. And I didn’t have a car, or anyone to drive me home, obviously, so I had to borrow a jacket from one of the paparazzo and fucking walk back. So no, Max, I can’t say I was in much of a position to go back to the apartment.”

Another pause, far longer than the last. You begin to wonder if he had simply fallen asleep, or was just at a loss for words. You contemplate hanging up, finger hovering over the red button.

“Come home, liefje,” his voice has gone soft, raspy with tiredness, accent slipping through a little stronger than normal. It shouldn’t make you as weak as it does, but for a moment you genuinely consider booking an uber and going over.

Then everything he said to you comes rushing back, and you curse yourself for being so weak.

“No, Max. You can’t just accuse me of sabotaging you, pretend I don’t exist for a week, kiss other girls, and trivialise my whole career, then expect me to run back to you like a dog just because you’re Max fucking Verstappen. No,” you choke on the last word, throat closing up.

“It was my dad, you know.”

Your brows furrow in consternation.

“What?”

He sighs again. It’s clear that he’s enjoying it as much as one would enjoy a tooth extraction.

“He told me that you clipped my rear, and that caused the spinout.”

“And you trusted him? Over my word? Over my integrity? I don’t need to risk your life to try and beat you Max, you know I wouldn’t do that. Why would you even-“ you blink away the tears building up in your throat.

“Why would you believe that?”

“I don’t know schatz,” another sigh, “I don’t know.”

“Max,” you say (plead), “I’m your teammate.” You hate the whine in your voice, but you wait, and wait, and he says nothing. The seconds on your screen tick by tauntingly.

You hang up.

November 2022

Max is convinced that you’ve stolen his cats’ affections from him. The typically elusive Bengals are almost perpetually curled around you, crawling onto your lap when you’re perched on the sofa reading, twisting around your ankles when you stream from his set up.

They monopolise your time with alarming efficiency. Max wakes up one morning and finds Sassy wedged between the two of you, purring smugly at your warmth.

He finds you filming a tiktok with Jimmy the next day and pouts until you finish, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you onto his lap hungrily.

“Are you here for the cats or for me?” he whines.

You turn and brace your knees on his thighs, drawing him into a deep kiss, fingers threading into tawny hair.

“Two things can be true at once, Maxie.”

God, he loves you.

February 2022

The first time you sleep together is characterised by days and days of buildup. Christian had politely requested (demanded) that you stay with Max following a particularly dedicated fan climbing into your hotel room from the balcony above. It plays out like a poorly written romance novel, lingering touches and heated stares.

You spend weeks dancing around the tension, talking around it, every second in each other’s presence ticking away like a grenade. The both of you play at normalcy, as if you aren’t professionals at letting emotions run high and tensions boil over.

When it’s all said and done, what you ponder most isn’t the sex, or Max’s face right before he comes (though you do think about it a lot). It’s the morning after that always bothers you, because the two of you never discussed it. You sit on his bed, nursing a hangover, and wait for him to say something unintentionally cutting, but he escapes to the kitchen and hopes you don’t broach the subject.

A five-second lapse when you make eye contact (Christian likes to tell you that five seconds can ruin careers), and the discussion never comes up.

You can’t help but think that the two of you probably should have talked about it.

June 2023

The cats don’t like your absence. They paw anxiously at your side of the bed, burying themselves in hidden corners of the wardrobe, wrapped in your clothes. It takes them a few days to realise you aren’t coming back, and in those days they act as though in mourning, curling up only where you used to perch, scratching at the apartment door as if it’ll open and you’d walk through, stroking their ears and cooing.

It’s almost like they’re grieving. Max doesn’t know what to make of it.

30th November 2023

The closure of the racing season takes you away from each other for a long while. Max wins the Championship, amidst the controversy surrounding Abu Dhabi, which leaves him on edge, and thus leaves the engineers on edge as well.

You flee from the media storm, deflecting and oftentimes ignoring the questions of “Do you think Max should’ve won?” or “Is Red Bull fixing FIA officials now?”

Instead, you return to your family home in Monaco, although the word estate would probably be a more apt description.

The knowledge that you no longer know how to drive to the house irks you, but not as much as having to change your default home location on google maps from Max’s address to something else.

Losing things from your childhood is familiar. Losing Max is another thing altogether.

The extended downtime is spent drinking with your father, keeping up with training programmes and ignoring the elephant in the room that is Max. It frustrates you endlessly that his presence still permeates your mealtimes and your tea breaks, that you’d open your wardrobe and see the stupid dresses you hate, and still, you’d think of him.

He calls you one night, clearly drunk, voice husky with sleep. Your hands shake as you pick up the phone, tugging the charging wire out and venturing to the balcony. The cool air ruffles your hair.

There is a murmur in the background, the rise and fall of someone speaking. You detect some french profanities, and judging by the incoming flood of text messages from Charles, you’re guessing it’s him.

“Max? What’s wrong?”

“I love you.”

You can’t help spluttering as the words sink in.

“Max-” you start, but he continues anyway.

“Charles is telling me that I’m drunk, but it doesn’t matter. I love you when you’re on that podium with me, I love you when you’re under me,” a choking sound crackles from the speaker, followed by Charles hissing at Max about boundaries.

Max continues, unbothered.

“I love you when you’re swearing on the radio, when you’re angry with me, when you’re near, when you’re away. All the time.”

The air feels as though it has been punched out of your lungs. Any girl would be elated at a confession like this, maybe. Elated at how romantic it is to be spoken to like this, a world champion on the line and telling you he loves you.

The wrongness of it all is so palpable that you can hardly answer. So many months, dancing around the idea of it all, and all you can think is; Max is drunk. Max isn’t going to remember this tomorrow.

A soft call of your name brings you back to reality. Your fellow Monegasque repeats your name until you find your voice again.

“Hey, êtes-vous bien? Max has fallen asleep.” he murmurs.

“Oui,” you whisper, “I’m fine.”

His voice turns soft with concern, maybe pity, telling you to get some rest.

The whole interaction leaves you shaken, fingers clenched around the phone. You’re awake until the wee hours of the morning.

1st June 2023

You are looking away from him, jaw clenched so tight he can see the muscles in your cheek go taut with the exertion. He can see the tears in your eyes, pooling at your waterline. They don’t fall. The party in the Amber Lounge rages on, the music muted outside on the pavement.

Max has only ever seen you cry once. He’s seen you flushed with exertion after a race, head between your knees as you fought off panic attacks more times than he can count. But tears? Only once.

(It’s 2009, which means you’re only seven, a slip of a thing in your red racing suit. One of the other juniors had pushed you, the crowd of children chortling at how you landed on your palms, which were now skinned and bleeding.

Your father is crouched before you, turning your palms over and pouring water over them, blood tinting the water pink. You’re crying in earnest, face balled up, eyes and nose red. Your father just looks impatient.

Max remembers with perfect clarity, your father pressing an alcohol swab into your wounds, staring at your face twist in pain apathetically.

“You are not ever going to race in Formula 1, much less Red Bull, if you cry like this. Red Bull drivers don’t cry, do they?” His voice has taken a gentler cadence, as if coaxing a frightened animal. Your sniffles taper out almost instantly.

“And you do want to become a Red Bull driver, yes?” Your father’s voice hardens almost imperceptibly, daring you to disagree. You nod once, a small, sharp thing.)

Max hasn’t seen you cry since.

1st December 2023

Charles tells him what happened last night, accompanied by an awkward pat on the shoulder.

“Maybe you should talk to her?”

He calls you again. This time, you don’t pick up.

30th January 2022

Moving in with Max is strange. More aptly, Max is strange. You’d grown up with this image of him, the hyper-competitive boy destined for greatness who had a penchant for picking fights with your fellow Monagesque.

You never expected to be his teammate, much less living with him. Granted, you’d always hoped to drive for Ferrari, like most other karters your age. When it came to choosing, your father, hand on your shoulder, had told you to decide.

(“Do you want to drive for a mythos, or do you want to drive for trophies?” You knew which you wanted. You suppose Max did as well. )

The man you live with isn’t who you remember, or maybe he isn’t the Max you know. He dotes on his cats like they’re his children, and is honestly, a pretty shy guy.

He’s also deeply oblivious to how he affects you, how the sight of him with his glasses on leaves you breathless, eyes glued to how the muscles of his arms strain as he tows your bags into the penthouse.

Maybe it’s because he’s a total enigma to you, or maybe it’s because he’s older and a little cutting, mean in a way that leaves you hanging onto his rare smiles and laughter. Either way, it leaves you constantly on the edge, breath stuttering when his voice goes raspy in the morning.

12th February 2022

It comes to a head when he invites you to go clubbing with him. You’d been dancing around each other for days now, pretending not to hear each other’s moans in adjacent rooms, feigning lightheartedness when you passed each other in the kitchen.

In the haze of alcohol and flashing lights, you land up half on his lap, squished into a vip booth that’s far too small for everyone.

The whole table is drunk and probably a little high, smudges of powder left along their nostrils, eyes on the verge of too bright. Max’s thigh is wedged between yours, whether by design or accident, and you swallow gasps every time he shifts.

Lando leads everyone to the DJ booth, drink in hand, leaving you and Max alone in the booth. The thump of the music is a little muffled here, and you don’t move from your spot despite the abundance of space around you.

It’s the alcohol, you think, that gives you the courage to turn to face Max, shifting until your knees are bracketing his hips, fingers braced on his chest. His pupils are so dilated there’s hardly any turquoise left. It could be the drugs, or maybe it’s the way your dress is riding up, or the way your neckline leaves little to the imagination.

Then he pulls you in for a kiss, one hand on the small of your back, the other gripping your jaw. It’s positively filthy, his lips pressing insistently against yours, forcing the seam of your lips open and licking into your mouth.

His fingers shift from your face to ghost over the column of your throat, drawing a whine from your mouth. Your hips grind down onto his jeans almost involuntarily, his hand moving once again to dip between your thighs, thumbing at the seam of your panties.

“So wet already, schatje,” his voice dripping with amusement, “and in public too.”

You pull him in for another kiss to shut him up, savouring the taste of tequila and the softness of his lips, your hips pressing closer to the stimulus.

He can hardly take his hands off you in the taxi, fingertips curling around your wrists, tucking hair behind your ear, wrapping around your waist.

It’s clear what you’re both up to, though the driver makes a valiant effort to avoid eye contact in the rear view mirror, despite clearly recognising the both of you.

He’s pressing into you almost instantly after entering the bedroom, jeans and t-shirt shucked off carelessly in a corner.

He doesn’t even bother removing your dress, simply pulling your panties aside and sinking into you. You’re so wet, the slide barely burns, but you choke at the stretch anyway, girth just bordering on too much, fingernails sinking into Max’s biceps.

He groans aloud at the tightness of your cunt, grip on your waist tightening. There will be bruises tomorrow, and the thought of it leaves you gasping for breath.

You tighten your hold on his shoulders, whimpering as he continues to press into you. “Slower, Maxie, please-” he ignores your plea, running his palms down your sides soothingly. He continues to press in, firm and insistent.

“You can take it, hm? Be a good girl.”

And it’s the pet name that gets you, the protests drying from your tongue. The groan that leaves him as he bottoms out sends you spiraling, whimpers spilling from your mouth incoherently. You can’t feel or think of anything but the pleasure-pain of being filled so thoroughly.

He snaps his hips against you experimentally, nudging right against that spot within you, and your scream gets stuck in your throat. Your entire body seizes up, thighs shaking around Max’s waist, fingers in an iron grip.

He smirks down at you wickedly, repeating the motion and tracing patterns onto your clit until you’re convulsing against him almost violently from the overstimulation, sweat dripping down your temples, moans filling the room.

You try to twist away from him, away from his constant assault on your clit, but his hand on your waist digs in and holds you in place. He lands a sharp slap on your ass, and you yelp in surprise at the suddenness of it.

“Don’t move.” The sheer authority emanating from him turns you on so much you think you may die of want.

As soon as your body stops shaking, he pulls out totally, and for a moment you think he’ll stop, but then he slams back into you, wrenching a scream from your throat. It leaves you blushing with humiliation, though quickly forgotten as he sets an unforgiving pace, rocking in and out of you like a man possessed.

He’s tucking stray hair behind your ears, eyes a little unfocused.

“Give me another, schatje, you can do it,” he coaxes softly, punctuating the sentence with a particularly hard thrust against your g-spot. Your body arches off the bed almost involuntarily, pulling another raspy groan from him as you tighten around him.

“Are you on-” he doesn’t even need to finish the question before you’re nodding frantically, pushing your ass back against him to match his thrusts, whining almost incoherently. “Fill me up, Maxie.”

It’s the whiny Maxie that does his head in, pulling you flush to him and releasing in you. The warmth of his cum sits heavy in you, little moans floating from your lips at the sensation. Too quickly, he’s pulling out, fetching a cloth to clean you up.

The feeling of his cum running down your thighs and staining the sheets makes you whine in discomfort, and Max moans loudly at how you immediately reach down and push it back into you, fingers plugging your cunt.

He smooths the warm towel across your stomach and legs, murmuring softly, “I’d like to fuck that pretty mouth of yours next time, schat.” The promise of a next time makes you shiver, but exhaustion pulls you under before you can read too much into it.

20th June 2023

The reporter settles himself into the sofa across from you and Max, fiddling with his microphone. He’s stereotypically handsome, fake tan and a perfectly white smile in place. He gestures at the both of you, eye flicking to the cue card in front of him before speaking.

“It has been said that both of you are such prolific drivers because your fathers are incredibly hard on you,” he starts, chuckling awkwardly. You suck on your teeth, waiting for the question about your feelings, wheedling anything that would indicate a parental rift.

“Would you say that your other family members have contributed to your career as well?”

Max responds with “In a different way to my father, but yes.” at the same moment when you say “Not at all.” There is a brief lapse in sound as you both glare at each other in your peripherals. The awkwardness is almost tangible.

It had always been your father and racing, your sister and your mother resenting you for it. For taking up his time, for being his favourite daughter, all of it. This is an old story. There is no other way to tell this story. Not to a reporter, not to Max, not to anyone.

March 2017

You and Charles made a pact to stop smoking when you both joined Formula 1. It had seemed achievable, then, fifteen and twenty, Formula 1 appropriately far away.

Charles is almost an adult, and you’re still fumbling through the later stages of puberty, but here on the beach he lights your first cigarette anyway.

Charles was never any good at keeping promises. You keep them like vows.

6th December 2023

The two of you sit on Charles’ terrace, and the end of the stick burns red as he inhales. Your vape pen sits pretty between your fingers, artificial watermelon sticking to the air around you. It's naive of you to think switching vices is considered keeping a promise, but you’ve always been one for semantics.

There was a time, when you were twelve maybe, when Charles had been the most beautiful boy you’d ever seen. You think of him at seventeen with his dimples and long fingers and how you had thought maybe, just maybe.

Now you close your eyes and see turquoise eyes burned into the back of your lids.

“Has Max spoken to you?” He asks in english. (Another reminder of what you both have lost. French does not come easy to either of you anymore.)

“He has tried,” you raise the pen again, blow out another fruity puff, “I did not respond.”

“Pourquoi?”

There was a time when it would’ve been easy to put into words. A time when you would’ve laid your head on his shoulder and said I love him so much, but but but. The Championship, Charles. The Championship. You do not know how to say these things without spilling the actual magnitude of your want, but you figure Charles of all people would understand.

He nods anyway, hearing all the words unsaid.

“Max,” he begins haltingly, “does not have as much to prove as you do.” You snort at the needless statement, as if either of you could forget, but he continues thoughtfully anyway. “And we know what happened with Nico and Lewis when lovers try to fight for a championship.”

“I do not know which to choose, cha.” It comes out small, like a child, but you never had to worry about sounding pathetic with Charles.

He pulls you into his side, a move that is at once nostalgic and unfamiliar.

“You do,” he says with absolute certainty. You look at his profile in your peripheral, framed in smoke, and think, maybe, just fucking maybe.

You shut your eyes again, see the Championship trophy staring back at you, hear the screams of your name, and your decision is made.

14th December 2023

The club’s filthy bass beat is thrumming through your entire body, rocking onto the balls of your feet to stay upright. It’s another one of Monaco's ragers, the entire club packed with drivers, models, and whoever was lucky enough to get in. You half expect Max to be tucked at the center of it all, drink in hand, high on a little bit of blow.

You expect to find him lounging in the vip section, drink in hand, colour high on his cheeks. What you don’t expect to see is your sister (your beautiful, supermodel sister that hates you) half perched on his lap, cigarette dangling from her fingers.

There is a glint in her eyes that triggers a familiar fear in you (your therapist says it is a knee-jerk reaction from childhood). The way she’s practically riding his thigh leaves no room to misunderstand her intentions. Bile rises in your throat as she sing-songs a hello, baby sister.

“Max, I need to talk to you,” you say, hating the way it pitches up with your panic. Your fingernails are digging bloody crescents into your palms.

She slides off him neatly as he stands, glossy lips pulling into a smirk. He navigates you through the throng of people to a side entrance, your lungs eagerly sucking in the fresh air as it hits you.

Standing outside the club feels like a horrible sort of deja vu, the bass distant and far away. You are trying very hard not to panic.

Max smells blood the moment the haze of smoke and drugs clears. He flicks his eyes to where your hands are clenched, fists shaking. You still haven’t said a word.

“You must stop keeping your fingernails long if you are going to destroy your hands like this,” he sighs, prying your palm open. The sight of brown under your nails makes him nauseous.

“Why were you with my sister?” The question feels wrenched from you, a little too loud for a sidewalk like this.

“She found me,” he says simply.

You fall into silence.

“You do not like her?” He observes keenly.

“She is my sister,” you say, “ I love her more than anything.” You pause for a moment, teeth sinking into your lip. “She is my sister,” you repeat, softer, “and she is spiteful.”

Max waits for you to expound on the unspoken why, but silence instead sits between you.

He tilts his head in remembrance, “You wanted to talk to me, yes?”

You look at him, considering, eyes entirely sober.

“Are you drunk?”

He grins a little sheepishly. You roll your eyes at him, unsmiling. Pause, as if considering some invisible question, then shake your head. “Nevermind,” you whisper. He has to lean in to hear you better.

You shove at his shoulder, but it’s a light touch. It’s innocent, but it’s been so long without you that he shudders with want. You inhale harshly, withdrawing.

“I’m going back to Charles’ place, if you want a lift home.”

Oh. Oh. He flinches back as if burnt, watches a mix of confusiona and hurt flash across your face. You rock back and forth on your heels uncertainly. He’s not sure how you haven’t fallen.

“It’s not- Charles and I- we are not doing anything, like you and I.” It comes out as a quiet mutter, like an admission.

He nods absently, trying very hard not to be relieved. You motion awkwardly towards the car, pulling the keys from your purse.

The silence between you is almost suffocating as you pull up to the apartment complex you used to stay in. You help him up to the flat without question, knocking the door open with your hip with ease.

He’s really not that drunk, but he finds himself exaggerating a little, leaning his weight on you more, and feels a little bad for making you stagger with his weight. The press of your side into his is electrifying after so long without it though, so he doesn’t feel bad for too long.

Your hand brushes his cheek as he settles into bed (it had been shared, once), and he doesn’t hesitate to grab it, slotting his fingers in the space between yours. His grip is almost bruising.

“Do you still love me?”

It’s the most vulnerable you’ve seen him, probably. There’s something childlike about the question, every word begging for the right answer.

And you do, you do love him, love him enough to stay here forever, love him enough to still have the apartment saved as home on google fucking maps.

As it is, you doubt he’ll remember this conversation tomorrow. The truth slips from your tongue easily with that knowledge. You hope the dark conceals the way you shake with want.

“Loving someone and getting to be with them are two very different things.”

Then you turn off the lights, drive back to Charles’ apartment, where you smoke what’s left of his cigarettes, and fall asleep on the couch.

You wake to soft sheets and a disapproving glare from Charles.

“Tu étais censé arrêter de fumer, non?”

“You were supposed to quit too,” you grumble, rolling off the bed and ambling to the bathroom.

He switches to english placatingly. “Where did you go last night?”

“Dropped Max home,” you mumble around the toothbrush. Charles makes some unidentifiable sound behind you. “Have you talked to him?”

You shrug noncommittally, bending to spit toothpaste back into the sink. “He was drunk with my sister yesterday, so.” Charles drops the glass of water in his hand, though the cup doesn’t shatter on the soft carpet.

You shiver as the cold water splatters on your ankles. Charles has picked up the glass, leaning against the door once again. “Oh,” he says, realisation dawning on him. You sigh, rinse out your mouth a tad aggressively, “Yeah.”

5th October 2012

You are ten years old, clad in your race suit, helmet tucked snugly under your arm. It has begun to drizzle outside, leaving a fine surface of water on all the window panes. You shiver preemptively.

The threshold is empty, save for your sister, fifteen and filled with disdain for you. She’s perched on one of the balustrades, legs swinging carelessly as she sneers down at you. You shiver again.

“Mama and dad are fighting because of you,” she says, almost smugly, “it’s their anniversary, and he’s missing all of their plans, because you need to be driven to your race.”

The rest comes out accusatory, but even at ten you know there’s no use in saying you didn’t know, that karting wasn’t your choice, that none of this was your choice.

That day, your father drives in total silence, glaring mutinously at the rain. You drive till your visor is blurred with rain, your fingers freezing so hard that they come away from the wheel curled.

They give you a trophy for third as you watch Max and Charles glare at each other on the podium. Your father is standing next to Jos, matching glares on their faces. You and Max reach them at the same time, flinching when they say almost synchronously, “You wasted time on the last turn.”

You both go without dinner that night.

16th November 2014

The divorce will come without surprise. You can only stand there helplessly as your mother cries after you tell her you will not be leaving with her. Your sister set your racing boots on fire in exchange.

You can’t help but feel that the entire affair is your fault. The charred material on your bedroom floor reaffirms it.

The next eight years of your life are spent seeing your mother and sister in hospital rooms only, battling your mother’s desire for you to stop racing, watching your sister’s hatred grow every time you refuse.

Interlude; Freefall

You did not fall in love with racing all at once, if at all. What was there to love? The weekends were either too hot in the kart or too cold in the rain, and you were so slight that every turn was a gamble of staying in the kart to begin with.

No, you did not fall in love with racing. You fell in love with the few instances where everything would align, and your kart would slice past all the older boys, and it would be your turn to stare contemptuously down at everyone else on the podium. The tiny smile on your father’s face, the strange high of it all.

You fell in love with the view of parc ferme from the paddock, the fireworks and the champagne, before you fell in love with racing.

Or maybe you had always loved it, like a gene twisted into your very bones, like knowing nothing but the thing you were purpose bred for. Every moment since then has been about chasing the rush, shivering on the podium with the sheer magnitude of your desire.

At nineteen, you do not fall in love with Max Verstappen all at once, but in tiny pieces, until they all made up a whole person. Until he smiled down at you, sun in his hair, and the world shook to a stop around you.

(You do not realise, in that instance, that one love will make you give up the other.)

23rd December 2023

You corner Max during a lunch break, uneaten meal plan clutched in your fingers. There is a prepared spiel in your head, about why whatever it is the two of you have needs to end. You’d said it in Charles’ mirror about a dozen times this morning, mouthing the words over and over again.

Now that he’s fixed you with a stare, however, the words are gone. All that comes out of your mouth is, “I want to win the championship next year.”

He quirks an eyebrow at you, confusion lining his smile, “Did you not want the championship for the past two seasons?” It’s his trademark sarcasm, of course, but this time it hits a little closer than usual. You ignore it, because you know better than to let anger control you in a public space like this.

“We need to end, whatever this is,” you gesture between the both of you. “I’m going to move out, because I can’t carry on the way we are while competing with you the way I need to.”

The awkward smile slips from his face. You’re now faced with the placid, bored expression he gives to journalists, but the skin around his eyes is tight. The edges of his mouth turn down, and that is the only indication you get that he’s feeling anything at all.

He nods jerkily, clears his throat. Then says, “We need to head back to the sim in ten minutes, so,” he nods awkwardly at his own pre-packed lunch, and walks away, jaw clenched. The look on his face has you tossing your lunch into the trash.

He crashes the sim three times later that day. Your fastest lap time is now two milliseconds faster than his. The only thing running through your mind as you clear your things from his apartment is; is it worth it?

Yes, you insist. Yes.

March 2024

You take first in Bahrain and Australia. Max wins narrowly in Jeddah. You cannot taste anything but sweetness when the champagne hits your lips in Australia.

It is early in the season, but you have no intention of the season being anything but a title race for you. Max has three championships, stacked neatly in the sim room, next to his Red Bull mini fridge. You have nothing.

The car is a rocket fucking ship. The championship is yours to play for, and you are so hungry for it that your whole body aches. It’s worth it, you think. It is.

14th October 2015

The other children in class have prepared a birthday celebration for your thirteenth birthday. It’s a private school, so the cake is artisanal and gourmet, topped with italian buttercream and sugared flowers.

All you see is a pile of sugar and unneeded calories, though courtesy has you choking down a few bites anyway. Your father has given you hours of lectures on nutrition, on why lower body mass means you can push your speed higher. How that increment makes all the difference.

You excuse yourself to puke it all up in the bathroom. Just as you’re lifting a cupped hand of water to rinse away the remnants of your cake, still sticking to your lip, one of the cubicle doors open.

It’s the girl who everyone knows is destined to dance for the Bolshoi ballet company. Her cheekbones look carved out of her face, and she speaks to you with a lilting Russian accent that makes you wonder why she’s even studying in Monaco to begin with.

(In your mind, she’s beautiful.)

“It is much cleaner to not eat, you know.” She pauses, hesitating, then shrugs and pulls a packet of cigarettes from her pocket. “These don’t keep you skinny forever, obviously, but for the short run…” she looks at your expression, chuckles to herself, tucking them back into her pocket.

(You see her on television, nearly seven years later, in her size zero yoga pants and talking about body positivity in ballet. It takes everything in you not to laugh at the horrible fucking irony of it all.

She was right about the cigarettes, at least.)

26th May 2024

It always comes back to Monaco, notoriously unkind to Monegasques, famously kind to Red Bull racers.

A year ago on this track Max had spun out so dizzyingly you still remember the taste of bile in your throat, the way fear had gripped you so hard it felt like the world was ending.

A year ago on this track you had won. It felt fake then, like you’d stolen something from a particularly high shelf, like they could take the trophy from you at any moment, hands left empty.

You will win today, if nothing but to show them all. To prove that you deserve it, and more than anything else, that this cannot be taken from you. You can feel the car at your fingertips, the way it bends to your will, the roar of the engine beneath you.

You slice into Max’s racing line on the final turn, send a quick prayer that you’re not hit with a penalty, and hold your breath until you cross the finish line. Your hands are trembling on the wheel.

Betrayal is written all over Max’s face in the cooldown room, cheeks flushed and eyes disbelieving. You can hear all the words he wants to say, suspended in the air like poison. Charles sits next to him, fingers curled tenderly at the base of Max’s neck, whispering something softly. He won’t even look at you.

(“What would you do for a championship, papa?”

A pause. The man’s eyes glint.

“Anything,” he says, “everything.”)

14th October 2024

Max is itching to send a happy birthday text. He knows you’re spending it alone, because your father is in a shareholder meeting with Christian that’s going to last till fuck o’clock in the morning. Even then, you’d hardly spoken to anyone this year, a lone figure in parc femme all season.

He’d been stunned at your aggression, at first. The way you’d fucked his race line over and over, disregarded team orders, violently rejected the notion of being a second driver in all but name.

He doesn’t even know what your setup looks like anymore. Once, he’d been privy to the thousands of discussions you’d had with Hugh over your setup, over the car, strategy, everything. It feels like Lewis and Nico all over again.

(You hadn’t forgotten his birthday, this year. His phone had chimed at 12am on the dot, a Fijne verjaardag Maxie flashing bright across the screen.

Lando and Charles were still drunk and screaming in his ear. Somehow, someone had forced the dj to play an edm version of a traditional happy birthday. It’s sweet, if a little jarring.

Most of the grid is here, even Lewis, who had toasted with him earlier. It dawns on him that Charles and Lando had decided to organise the whole thing without inviting you. He wonders if you know, sitting in your hotel room just a street down— wonders if you, too, feel his absence like a wound.)

He doesn’t send the text.

You keep his chat open anyway, waiting for the chime. You wait, and you wait, until it’s no longer your birthday and you’ve stopped wondering if you deserve to get a birthday wish at all.

3rd November 2024

Brazil is where you start to doubt yourself. Engine failure leaves you stuck in Q1, a first for the entire season. Hugh attempts to placate you with reassurances that it’s being fixed, that the car will perform.

You’ve always believed you had a sixth sense for races. You can feel it in your very bones now, sure as the sky is blue, that the car won’t perform the way you need it to.

The numbers are clear to you, a twenty-seven point lead for the championship. You don’t need a reminder as to how quickly that can slip from your grasp. Max is starting from pole.

As you stare at each of the five red lights blinking out, five thoughts hit you in rapid succession.

One, your weight has hit an all time low.

Two, your hands have begun to spasm against the wheel from exhaustion.

Three, Kelly is in the stands, cheering for Max.

Fourth, you are going to lose this race.

Last, you’re no longer certain if it was all worth it.

The race starts. You end up in p10, Max comes in first.

23rd November 2024

Max wins again in Las Vegas, even though you nick the fastest lap point from him. You’ve lost the lead.

Red Bull books out a nightclub down the Strip to celebrate the 1-2 finish and winning the constructors. It should be packed with celebrities, drivers, engineers and possibly even the team principals. Max is probably with some other girl, celebrating his wins, celebrating retaking the lead.

You wouldn’t know, because you’re stuck in your hotel room dry heaving into the toilet bowl. Nobody, not even Christian, asks where you are. You didn’t really expect them to.

Is it worth it? You wonder, your mind’s eye turned to the championship trophy. You’re almost pleading now, to a God you don’t believe in. Let it be worth it, you beg. Please, let it be enough.

But God is silent, and you’re alone, curled on the bathroom floor.

30th November 2024

Qualifying in Qatar is unkind. Not just to you, but to everyone. The temperature and humidity is unforgiving to everyone, which makes tomorrow’s race all the more foreboding.

You finish on pole, but spend the next two minutes or so coming to the conclusion that you can’t get out of your fucking car. The pitlane is full of people, engineers with their drills, journalists scattered around, media people running around filming content for Tiktoks and promotional material.

Nobody notices the way your fingers can’t get a grip on the halo. You’re burning up in the car, the confines of the machine making you claustrophobic.

It seems like a karmic intervention when Charles offers you a hand. You don’t have the energy to be suspicious of him any longer, instead taking the hand and staggering out of the car.

He wraps an arm under your shoulders, leads you to your motorhome, where you both sit in silence for several minutes. It is odd, to sit across the man who had been your rock a year ago, and have no words to say.

“Max and I have known each other a long time,” he starts. “He is one of my closest friends.”

I’ve known you forever, you want to say. You were like a brother to me. I loved you always. Why did you choose him over me? Why did you tell me to choose if you were going to hate me for it?

You say none of these things.

“But you have always been a sister to me. How can I watch you destroy yourself, destroy each other like this?” His eyes are suspiciously wet now. “He and I… were something once. I loved him more than anything. Watching the two of you ruin each other is like, comment dire- watching two parts of my heart fighting.”

He waves his arms about agitatedly, “And now I see you, my baby sister, sacrificing your health for this. It’s like tu disparais, right in front of me!” He pauses for a long moment. “I don’t want you to disappear, cha.”

You plant your face in your hands, and cry. It’s odd to cry now, after nearly fifteen years of disuse, but Charles pulls you into a hug, pulling your face into his shoulder, and for a moment you are a child again.

“Tu m'as dit de choisir,” you sob into his shoulder, “j'ai choisi.” You cling on to the last vestiges of your resentment, “You said I would know what to choose— but I don’t know anymore, and now I’ve fucked everything up.”

He hugs you tighter, fingers brushing across your shoulder blades. “I know, I’m sorry.” And he says it over and over, rocking you back and forth, as if any of it could mean anything now, as if either of you could take any of it back. You’ve never felt more loved.

Even then, you just want it all to be over.

July 2015

Jules’ death hits Charles hard, leaving him distant and cruel and constantly pushing everyone away.

(You’d all spent months sitting at his bedside, you and Charles and his brothers, sharing lunch, talking to Jules as if he’d wake up any moment and laugh at your jokes. It’s a little awkward, being the only girl, and being the youngest. All this is eclipsed by how fucking badly you want him to wake up.)

Nobody loved Jules like Charles did, and you think it’s a little unfair, to suffer for loving someone. This string of thought doesn’t last for very long, especially when you try to give Charles a hug and he snaps at you, “Tu ne le connaissais pas, et les filles n'ont pas leur place dans le sport automobile de toute façon,” and then he shoves you off.

You knew what misogyny was, even then. You’d spent your whole life with your mother and her internalised dialogue, with the constant reruns of girls can’t be f1 drivers in a loop. It surprises you anyway, because it’s Charles, and you soon figure out that the throbbing feeling in your chest is hurt.

A week later he sits next to you at Jules’ funeral, translates the parts of the eulogy you don’t quite understand yet, and holds your hand when he begins to cry.

It starts then, maybe, the habit of forgiving people without getting an apology.

7th December 2024

Max finished fourth in Qatar. You’ve snatched back the lead by a clear margin. It’s the night before Abu Dhabi, and your body chooses now to fucking betray you.

You know— of course, that there’s a medical term for what you’re doing. Anorexia and bulimia were common back in school, where all the girls were trying to find new and inventive ways to hurt themselves. You’re a high performance athlete, you know what you’re doing to yourself, you know what happens when you lose control.

All the muscle mass you built is gone now, at the last race of the season. It’s been working for the entire year, taking the corners faster, going down the straights so fast your head spun.

As it stands, you’re ill, and the only person you know is Max in the room next to yours. You don’t have a thermometer, but you don’t need one to know you’re burning up, and thus in dire need of a painkiller, which Max is far more likely to have than you.

You half wonder if you would acquiesce, if it was Max standing at your door, eleven points ahead of you, shaking and feverish. It’s not much of a question. You love him too much to say no.

What you didn’t expect to see are Charles’ shoes, tossed haphazardly near the entrance of Max’s hotel room. You see the little stars peeking past when Max opens the door shirtless, and wonder deliriously if you’re hallucinating new narratives to replace how fucked up the real one is.

You’re wrapped in your duvet, hands shaking where they’re holding the edges closed. “Would you happen to have any painkillers?” He looks stunned.

“Max? Who is it- oh,” Charles’ voice rings out, messy hair peeking out from behind Max’s bare shoulder. His eyes widen fractionally, before he lifts his hand in greeting, a play at casual.

You think of Charles’ words back in Qatar, of all the times you’ve seen him touching Max with an inexplicable tenderness. Max’s eyes going soft when he says Charlie. The way they fucking look at each other, even, at every single race.

The narrative snaps into place like a rubber band. It makes sense, like childhood frenemies to lovers. Charles is just as easy to love as Max is, and they’ll know how to love each other gently, the way they deserve to be. It’s the right ending.

(But shouldn’t you have gotten a break by now? Haven’t you given up enough? Couldn’t you have gotten to keep one of them, at least?

But— perspective. You get to drive fast cars and throw parties that cost an entire mortgage. You get to fuck A-listers and live off a trust fund for the rest of your life. The championship odds are stacked in your favour. You have all the things a million girls would kill for.)

Max is saying something. Charles is saying something. You’re batting both of them off, smiling as gracefully as you can. (Isn’t this what you’re good at? Losing with grace? No tantrums, no complaints? You’re not sure when you lost practice.) The three steps back to your own room are cold through the hotel slippers.

8th December 2024

You wake to your alarm blaring at six. There is a plastic bag of paracetamol and an array of supplements on the table. As if on cue, you get a text from your trainer, telling you to take the pills and sleep in before the race.

An honest-to-god interlude.

The problem isn’t that Max probably doesn’t love you anymore, or that nobody on the grid likes you very much nowadays. The problem isn’t that you’ve always been hard to love, or that Max and Charles are something even they’re both confused about.

Your therapist tells you that your upbringing is the problem, that growing up so pressurised has warped you. Or something. This is not true.

A bird does not simply grow tired of flying and choose to walk instead. The sun does not grow tired of giving light. The problem is that you were made to race— the way birds are bred to fly, the way the sun was made to give light. The problem is that you’ve been tired of racing for a long time, and the knowledge that you are chemically wrong-

Well, that’s the problem. Maybe it really was the upbringing.

2009

Your father likes to recount stories of his epic wins during his stint in Formula 1, 1994 to be exact. Your sister doesn’t much like to listen to the stories, so it’s just you, at your father’s feet.

A title fight, he called it. A battle for a championship between him and the legendary Michael Schumacher. How close it was, how glorious the wins, how it “wasn’t his time”.

You point at the photos of Sebastian Vettel, in his Red Bull racing suit. Everyone says he’s going to win. You jab at it a little more aggressively, turn to your father, rushing to translate all the words in your head from French to English.

“I want to win in a Red Bull, papa,” you say, “I want to win eight, so I can beat Schumacher!”

He chuckles down at you, smoothing hair behind your ears, “You are a girl, liebling. There is no need for eight. Just one, and they’ll chant your name forever.”

(Of course, your name is also his name. That goes unnoticed by the seven year old girl.)

8th December 2024; Post Race.

A p3 is not objectively a bad result, especially when you get your lap time deleted. It is, however, an injurious thing, to stand on the last step of the podium on the night where you’ve won it all.

Still, you kneel at the smoking tyres of a car, and rest your helmet on the rubber. It’s not a goodbye, you don’t think, but it feels like one.

You wonder, if Max is staring at the scoreboard now, at how you’d won by a point, after coming in third in a race he had won so easily. Wonder again, if he’ll be able to conceive the enormity of it, if he’d congratulate you in the cooldown room, or stare at the scores until the mathematics make sense.

It is ironic that Nico Rosberg is the first to approach you when you stand on shaky legs and pull off the helmet and balaclava. He lifts the mic to you easily, “Congratulations on the championship, first female world champion, how does that feel?”

You try to laugh, fall back into the old image crafted by RBR’s pr team. Confident, smiling, grid sweetheart. You don’t really know how to anymore.

“I can’t quite describe the feeling Nico, but you know, it’s been an exhausting season this year, and I’m mostly excited to go back home I think.”

He frowns like that’s the wrong answer, but schools his expression back to neutrality easily. “What makes you call it exhausting, then? Was it the car, the new calendar?” You understand that he’s guiding you to safer waters, helping you avoid the “ungrateful spoiled princess” title that follows you everywhere.

You laugh lightly, fiddling with your helmet strap. “Exhausting like 2016, I think.” It’s funny, almost, watching the way Nico realises what it is that you mean.

When the cameraman leaves, Nico lingers. He stares at you, something unreadable in his gaze, rests a hand on your shoulder. “It’s worth it, kid. Trust me.”

You want to believe him. You walk past Max’s motorhome, pause for a second, and try very hard not to cry. When they play the Netherlands national anthem on the podium, nobody will know the difference.

10th December 2024

You return to Monaco, to the hotel room that you practically own, with its pressed sheets and marble countertops, and fall into bed to sleep for sixteen straight hours.

When you wake, the fever hasn’t abated. You take more medication, try to relearn the motions of cooking for yourself, try to remember how it feels to relax.

It always ends like this, every season. The jittery feeling between your ribs, starting at every sound, as if the races were over but you’re still riddled with the adrenaline. Constantly watched, monitored, the dust particles around you waiting for a mistake.

You waffle around the prospect that there’s something wrong with your body for a couple more days. It hits day five when you accept that yeah, maybe you should call your doctor.

16th December 2024

The doctor stares at you pityingly. If you do another year like this, she says, you’ll die in the car. The diet we are prescribing to you isn’t going to keep you light enough to race.

No more racing, they say, or you’ll relapse. No more racing.

You think of a week ago, kneeling before the car, oblivious to a truth your heart had already accepted. In any case, you’re too tired to try and find a way out, too relieved to do anything but thank her and walk out.

3rd March 2024

Getting the first win of the season loses its shine when Charles stops speaking to you.

(He’s cornered you in the Red Bull garage, eyebrows pulled down and flushed with anger. “What the fuck was that? Tu aurais pu le tuer!”

The feeling in your chest is anger, you realise. Anger that he is doing this here, where all your coworkers are staring, anger that he is angry at all. “I overtook him,” you reply simply, “that is what drivers do, non?”

He makes to say something, but Max’s hand clamps down on his shoulder instead. “Charlie, enough. Let it be.” Then the two of them stride away, shoulder to shoulder, and the sting of it refuses to abate.)

It hurts to lose a friend, you think. Romance and impermanence go hand in hand, but friendship? You weren’t prepared to lose that too.

20th December 2024

Max’s door stands heavy and imposing before you. He doesn’t know you’re there, hovering outside like a poltergeist, hand raised against the wood like a threat.

No time like the present, you reason. If all goes badly you won’t even be his teammate next year, so it’ll hardly matter. You let your fist drop, relish the sting of wood against your knuckles.

There’s the sound of padding feet, then a short “Jimmy, no-“ before the door cracks open, a pause where Max registers who’s at his door. Then his expression shutters, and he makes to close the door. Jimmy yowls aggrievedly, sniffing at your ankles.

You brace a hand on the door desperately. He pushes harder, and you lean your weight against it in a last ditch attempt. “Maxie,” you beg, “I’m sorry.” He stops, lets you step in, toe off your shoes and hover awkwardly in the hallway.

There’s a weighted silence as you make eye contact. You break it by looking away, settling down on the sofa. Jimmy settles himself onto your lap, rubbing his head against you.

“You can sit, you know,” you chuckle awkwardly, “there are some things I need to explain, I think.” He doesn’t smile back at you, instead fetches two red bulls from the fridge and sets them on the table.

You fiddle with the tab on the can, take a breath. The words you had carefully practiced come back to you in pieces. “There are things I cannot apologise for, like racing hard, or winning. But I am sorry that I was a bad friend to you, still. I’m sorry for being cruel.”

Something in his eyes soften at that, but still he says nothing. You continue anyway, bite the bullet, “Do you remember what you said to me last year? Outside the club.” He blinks, almost surprised, “yeah.”

You swallow the lump in your throat, “I think that was… a turning point for me. A reminder of all the things I had not yet achieved, of why all the things I had weren’t enough. I didn’t realise it then, but I’d already chosen, I think. And it’s not an excuse for being an asshole this year, but what happened happened, and I’m sorry it hurt you anyway.”

Before he can respond, you start again, pressing your fingernails into your palms. “I came here, also, to tell you that I will not be driving next year, or the year after that. In fact, I will not be returning at all.”

He jolts with surprise, the first real reaction you get. “Why?”

You shrug, “My doctor has barred me from dieting and the fitness regime because I’m apparently on the verge of a breakdown. But I am also tired, Max. Tired of looking over my shoulder, tired of competing all the time and never being able to relax. I’ve won the championship, and I can’t do another year like this.”

Max looks— upset. You’re not sure why.

“They will give Daniel my seat, next year,” you reach across and press his hands between yours, “You’ll have your best friend and you’ll have racing, and you’ll have Charles to love. Isn’t that enough?”

He stares at you uncomprehendingly, “What do you mean, having Charles to love? I love you, and you’re leaving, and you’re using my ex to make up for that?”

You’ve gone still against him. “What?” You can hardly breathe.

“I told you I loved you, and you don’t pick up my calls after that, then you say we cannot be together, and now you’re using the guy I haven’t dated since 2020 as some sort of placebo. You don’t see how that’s fucked up?”

And then you’re kissing him, pulling him against you and pressing your lips to his. It’s chaste, for the both of you, barely lasting for a second.

You stare at him, dumbfounded, “I thought- I thought you- mon dieu, I am so fucking stupid. God, Max, I’ve loved you since I was nineteen-“

He pulls you into a kiss again, tugging you into his lap, tongue sliding across the seam of your lips, pressing you against him so tightly you can barely breathe. A hand braces against your hip, the other curled around your jaw.

You pull away to gasp for breath. He wraps his hands around your waist, frowning. “You really are too thin, you know. I am sorry I did not see it.”

“Why are you sorry,” you say, tucking your head against the crook of his neck, inhaling the familiar smell of linen spray and body wash and something else intrinsic to Max.

He continues anyway, “I’m sorry for the mean things I said. I’m sorry I’m saying this a year late, but you know I did not mean them, yes?”

You bury your face further into his shoulder, and sob. Big wracking things that shudder through your whole body and soak his shirt with your tears.

He holds you even tighter. Something tells you it’ll work this time around.

24th December 2024

The journalists are staring at you expectantly, cameras poised, pens at the ready and phones recording. Christmas eve makes them impatient to go home, which you can understand.

You take a deep breath, fiddle with the mic in front of you, adjust your Red Bull polo needlessly.

“When I came to Formula 1 three years ago, I was nineteen. I was lucky enough to sign to Red Bull Racing in my rookie year, even luckier to hold onto the seat for three seasons straight. This year, I became a world champion. The youngest, the first woman to do it.”

The cameras begin to flash, a woman in the front row has sussed out what you are trying to say, and is typing furiously onto her computer.

“I’ve broken enough records, I think, enough for all of you to remember my name years from now. I’ve given up and sacrificed endlessly, and I came out a champion. Today, I, the first female world champion in history, am announcing my retirement from Formula 1.”

The cameras begin to flash in earnest. You breathe out, smile into the crowd. It is over, you whisper, it is over.

25th December 2024; Conclusion; Christmas

A photo of you and Max kissing, cheeks flushed from the mulled wine. Another of you, Max and Charles in silly Christmas hats, upending your Christmas stockings. A final picture with Charles’ family, all six of you crammed into frame with a Christmas tree behind you.

And below it all, captioned; So this is Christmas (War is over).

One last interlude; post-credits; 2030.

Formula 1 weddings are a grandiose affair for most, though few and far between. A wedding between two world champions however, is even rarer, even more grandiose. The venue is one of the most exclusive in the city, packed with every single person you both love.

Charles and his brothers, his mother. Lewis, with Nico’s arm around his shoulders. The rest of the grid, arms around their wives and girlfriends, even Christian Horner and Toto Wolff. Sophie, Jos (reluctantly invited), Victoria and her sons, your sister smiling up at you. Your father, in his best tux, your fingers wrapped around his arm painfully.

And then, at the end of the aisle, Max whispering something dirty against the shell of your ear, lips pressing against yours.

You never want it to be over, you think.

(It never will be, if Max has something to do with it.)

#max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x charles leclerc #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 angst #f1 imagine #max verstappen angst #max verstappen smut #max verstappen fluff #nsfw nia

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theloveliestembrace · 2 years ago

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𝐟𝟏 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✧

angst; 🏁 fluff; 🏳️ smut; 🏴 dark content; 🚩

Max Verstappen

If we survive the great war (marry me?) 🏴🏁🏳️

Sometimes, you don’t get to have all the things you want, all at once. This is especially true for a woman in motorsport. Oftentimes, you choose a thing, and you have to make it enough. Alternatively; you get the wins, and you also get Max, but never at the same time.

part 2: all roads. 🏁🏳️

“What changed for you?” He decides to ask.

Another silence, as you think. Eventually, you breathe out, “I made my peace with it. I thought, if Max has decided to stay with me, I will love him as it lasts. And if he chooses you in the end, if what I have is not enough, then I can live with that. I do not mind losing him— if it is you who is happy at the end of it.”

And that’s all well and good, Charles thinks, if that is what you’ve chosen, but— he also thinks you would not look so sad if it were true.

Charles Leclerc

Let it happen. 🏁🏳️

The five times you meet Charles Leclerc. (The four times it doesn’t work out, the one time it might,)

#f1 #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #f1 angst #f1 fic #f1 fluff #f1 smut

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theloveliestembrace · 2 years ago

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The Lamplit Answer | D.M

Draco Malfoy x Fem!Bulstrode!Reader | Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger (minor)

hp masterlist.

cross-posted to ao3

Summary: Draco holds you at a distance. He never pulls you closer in the wake of your encounters, never holds you longer than he has to. In the matters of his heart, he holds you further still.

Warnings: Nsfw; smut, swearing, dom/sub dynamic (kinda), degradation, choking (blink and you’ll miss it), unprotected sex, FWB relationship, it gets soft at the end I swear, mention of underage alcohol consumption

Genre: Angst, Smut, Fluff (like the smallest amount I swear)

W/C: 5.8k

—

A/N: I swear I was going to write something filthy and smutty but I was in my feels so this came out instead :”

—

Draco never confides in you, nor does he share any feelings other than arousal. You wish he would show annoyance at your bratty tendencies, you wish he would express to you some of the anger he feels towards the tragedies that have happened to him, anything. His apathy just makes you feel empty, makes you feel used.

—

“I’m not going to punish you today, because I know that’s exactly what you want.” His voice is almost as cold as his eyes, it makes you shiver. But you put on a brave face anyway, smiling cheekily.

“Well maybe that was the intention, Malfoy. Maybe you’re not as smart as you think-“

He has you pinned against the wall before you can finish, his body caging yours without even touching you, eyes daring you to finish the sentence.

You try and fail to swallow a whimper, desperately avoiding his eyes as a smirk spreads across his face.

“Look at you, hm? Where’s all that bravado gone? Stupid little brat, trying to act bigger than she is.”

Without warning, he digs his fingers into your cheeks, forcing your lips into an ‘o’, before spitting into your mouth. You go boneless beneath him, sagging heavily against his chest.

He tugs at your clothes quickly, ridding you of the pencil skirt you wore to work, yanking off the scraps of lace you call underwear. A derisive laugh leaves his lips as he takes you in.

“You’re soaked from this? Hm?” He spins you around to face him properly, lips curled into a sneer, leaning down to your ear to whisper, “Filthy little girl.”

You can’t even bring yourself to protest.

He lifts you effortlessly onto his lap, and you marvel at the way his muscles ripple with it, the elegance of his hands as they grip your waist. There will be bruises in the shape of his fingertips tomorrow, and you will not be able to find it in yourself to heal them, or glamour them away.

“You’re a big girl, aren’t you? You’re big enough to ride me all by yourself then.” He leans back onto his palms expectantly, watching you closely.

You can’t. You know it. More importantly, he knows it too.

You clamber up his lap anyway, pushing yourself onto your knees and resting your fingertips on his broad shoulders. (A delicate touch, no marks: he was exceedingly clear about that.) He’s already fisting himself, cock red and erect.

You line him up with your entrance, trying to sink onto him, but your thighs are shaking so hard that you can hardly keep yourself on your knees. Your bottom lip begins to quiver as tears of frustration gather in your waterline.

He coos at you condescendingly, eyes still cold (always cold, around you). “Poor baby can’t do anything on her own, can’t she?” His hands resume their place around your waist, lining you up once again, and pulling you down harshly till he bottoms out.

The little sounds of hurt get caught in your throat, a mewl pushing itself from your lips as you fight to keep from tipping against him. Merlin knows he would hate it. You quiver around him, pulling a groan from his throat. The sound of it makes you shiver in anticipation.

He pulls you up once again, and you whine at the way the ridges and veins of him drag against your walls, before he slams you down again. Every stroke leaves you choking for air, fingers clenching and unclenching in the space above his shoulders.

Suddenly and abruptly, he pulls himself out, leaving you gasping his name in an embarrassing litany. “No, no please, Draco. Draco, please-”

“Hush,” he mutters mildly, flipping you onto your front and sliding back into you smoothly. He wraps his tie around the base of your throat, and pulls. The strangled gasp that exits your mouth is so undignified that you cheeks burn red with embarrassment, but it only serves to make him fuck you harder, hips snapping almost painfully against yours.

Your orgasm rips through you like a tidal wave. You feel yourself clench around him like a vice, hear his low moans and muttered praises as he empties into you, painting your gummy walls white.

The softness with which he cleans you up feels reverent compared to the way he normally touches you. And once, just once, you close your eyes and let sleep take you. It’s the most peaceful you’ve ever slept.

—

You remember the day you had fallen too far into subspace. Draco had been merciless, some auror accident pushing him into manhandling you a little rougher, being less cognizant of his strength. Subconsciously, you knew you were hardly lucid, knew that you should’ve asked Draco to apparate you home that late at night.

You’ve been friends with him since your Hogwarts days, but you still don’t enjoy asking him for favours. So you don’t ask him to help you, and instead brave the walk back to your apartment, stumbling at corners and barely registering your surroundings.

“Daphie? Are you home?” Your words slur together, as if drunk. The lights come on instantly.

“Love, what’s wrong?” Daphne groggily rubs her eyes, stepping out from her room slowly.

“Daphie, I think… I think m’too far gone. Can’t think-”

She’s on you in an instant, checking your eyes for lucidity, laying you on your bed and coaxing tea down your throat until your eyes flutter shut. You fall asleep to her hand stroking your hair, humming some childhood lullaby.

You wake to the sight of pale grey eyes staring down at you curiously. It startles you so hard that your head snaps back into the pillows, causing the man hovering above you to withdraw with a huff.

“Daphne told me what happened,” he sniffs, “you should’ve gotten me to apparate you home. It isn’t safe to wander about at night. Certainly would’ve saved me a lecture from mother bear herself.” You stiffen at his last sentence.

Of course. Draco Malfoy himself wouldn’t have come and found you for no reason unless Daphne hadn’t dragged him here. You’re not sure why you expected concern from the man who’s never even smiled at you since your school days.

He’s oblivious to your thoughts, continuing to speak.

“I’ve started seeing someone recently, this girl from the Ministry. The Department of International Magical Cooperation, I believe.”

You freeze. The urge to curl up and die hits you like a suckerpunch. You work in that department. He continues anyway.

“-which is why I think we should cease our… activities for the foreseeable future. Out of consideration, of course.”

“Yes,” you breathe, “of course.”

Then he leaves. No fanfare, no goodbye. Your door swings shut like a death sentence. It hits you then.

You are in love with Draco Malfoy.

—

He cannot touch you. Draco cannot allow himself to hold you with delicacy, cannot allow himself to fall for you, even for a moment. He keeps you at arm’s length, he takes effort not to smile at you. Even fucking you wasn’t meant to have lasted this long.

You smiled at him once, a real, bright thing. He doesn’t want to taint it, doesn’t want to tarnish everything bright and good about you. You’re more fragile than you let on, he knows. He cannot let you close enough to touch, lest he love you too harshly, and you crumble in his fingers.

Then that night, that horrible fucking night, when you’d fallen so far down the abyss, and he hadn’t even noticed. It scares him so deeply and profoundly that he instantly occludes to hide from the shame of it all. He takes the tongue lashing Daphne gives him, plans out the most effective way to keep you away from him, enacts the plan flawlessly.

Draco was once a death eater, he knows only how to hurt, how to maim. He watches your expression shutter and close, walks out quickly before he feels compelled to apologise.

His dark mark burns like a reminder.

—

In the months that follow, you see Draco more often than you have in the last year, like the universe was trying to play some sort of cruel trick on you.

First it was Blaise and Astoria’s wedding, then it was Theodore’s birthday, then Daphne’s promotion, and Pansy's housewarming party. Draco had resumed the famous galas his mother used to host at Malfoy Manor, and Daphne makes you attend them all, pushing you teasingly in Draco’s direction.

As for Draco, he keeps his distance. It reminds you, in a way, of the way he was in Hogwarts, the icy exterior, the derision. Even if you were friends with Daphne, Blaise, Pansy, he never let you forget what you were.

Halfbloods were already commonplace when you joined Hogwarts in the first year. With the growing quantity of squibs from generations of inbreeding, pureblood intermarriages were growing unpopular.

You weren’t treated the way Muggleborns were. You weren’t so frequently subject to cruel pranks or the constant taunts of “mudblood”. The purebloods in Slytherin, however, were reluctant to accept halfbloods into their ranks regardless.

Draco Malfoy was onc of those purebloods. He never explicitly insulted you, of course. Regardless of your mother’s supposedly inferior blood, your father was still a member of the Sacred Twenty-eight. It would’ve been foolish him to offend the only daughter of your father.

You knew what he thought of you anyway. It was there, always there, in his gaze, when he looked at you, when he spoke to you. Even when Crabbe and Goyle would crack jokes at the expense of Muggleborns, and he would look at you for a moment, a mocking smile on his lips, before snickering with them.

It didn’t help that he was the most beautiful boy you’d ever set eyes on. You often wailed to Daphne, how unfair it was that a blood purist like him could be so fucking ethereal. It was almost insulting. She just tossed her hair and laughed everytime.

—

It all starts at the manor. One of the famous Malfoy parties, hosted by the woman of the manor herself.

You were invited as your father’s daughter rather than Draco’s schoolmate, but the distinction was moot the moment Daphne swept up to you and whirled you over to where everyone was chatting.

Draco is the first one to acknowledge you, “Ah, Bulstrode. Glad you could join us, I don’t recall seeing your name on the list.”

Blaise sniggers delicately behind his fingers, your cheeks flushing red in humiliation.

Still, you nod and muster up the most pleasant smile you can. “My father insisted I accompany him tonight, as my mother is ill.”

Crabbe opens his mouth, no doubt to make a jab at your mother’s poor health, but Daphne cuts in before he can.

“Well, I’m glad you joined us anyway. It gets awfully boring with the same people every time.” She casts a pointed look at the boys.

Pansy turns a genuine smile on you. “We’re thinking of staying back for a sleepover once the party is over. Lucius has a bottle of Firewhisky in his study we’re thinking of nicking. Want to stay?”

You nod shyly, and it’s settled.

—

Draco flattening you against the wall of the luxurious bathroom and kissing you senseless wasn’t what you imagined the sleepover was going to be.

But the others are all drunken and asleep, so perhaps here, in the safety of the dark, it’s alright to let things happen.

The rest, you suppose, is history.

—

Wandering the halls of the manor isn’t the same a decade later, not that you expected it to be.

Everything was different when you were eighteen. Voldemort hadn’t reared his ugly head for one, your parents were still alive, so on and so on.

The Malfoys had been fortunate. Narcissa’s betrayal of Voldemort had granted them leniency, and the Ministry hadn’t confiscated their property, nor had Lucius served any more than four years in Azkaban.

You had not been so lucky. The ministry saw little value in your father’s marriage with a muggleborn, instead ridding you of all your family heirlooms and property, short of the family vault in Gringotts.

You had no part in Voldemort’s regime, done no wrong, but the Ministry had seen little value in that as well.

You run your fingertips gently alone the dark green wallpaper, the train of your gown trailing behind as you ventured the corridor aimlessly. The sounds of the party drift up. It’s a large party, you reckon that even your colleagues in other departments had showed up tonight.

Strands of the string quartet filling the dark hallways with music. It lulls you into calm, your steps unwittingly taking you further and further down the corridor.

A dry voice interupts your musings. “It’s rude for a guest to wander the house alone, you know.”

You’re immediately on edge again, jumping about a yard into the air, huffing a breath as you turn and see who it is.

You cross your arms defensively, “It’s also rude to startle a guest, Draco.”

He ignores you, stalking closer, steps measured, tilts his head like a panther, studying you.

“What are you doing?”

You instinctively step back as he prowls forward, and it only fuels him to walk faster.

“Nothing,” you smile at him, trying to subtly inch away from the wall he was backing you into.

It doesn’t work. It in fact, works against you.

He cages you against the wall easily, his ancestors’ portraits clicking their tongues and letting out huffs of disapproval at your proximity.

You can smell his cologne, fresh and expensive, as he leans closer to you, grey eyes level with yours. The silence is so tense you could drown in it.

His eyes flicker to your lips, leaning in even closer, but you sidestep forcefully away from him, hands gripping each other like a vice behind your back.

You don’t get to touch him.

His mouth twists in disappointment. You try not to give in to the old teenage urge to soothe, to placate him, try to lessen the scorn directed at you.

“Malfoy.”

A pause.

“Bulstrode.”

“You have a girlfriend.”

Another pause.

“Yes,” clipped, curt.

(Deep breath, don’t show weakness.)

“Where is she?”

“She isn’t here tonight.”

Some unnamable emotion flashes across your face.

“Why? Is she ill? I’ve been curious as to which of my colleagues is the lucky girl.”

“I didn’t invite her.”

(Shock, perhaps. Next comes the conclusion, but the next one is definitely hurt.)

“So me at one gathering, and her at another. Living the best of both worlds, aren’t you?” It’s so venomous that Draco steps back with the force of it.

“It isn’t like that! I wouldn’t do that to you-” he refutes, but you quickly interrupt him.

“Wouldn’t you? Since when have you cared about being kind to halfbloods?”

The air around you has become suffused with silence. Draco looks stricken, but his eyes are looking past you.

You turn slowly, the nipped waist of your gown feeling more and more like a boa constrictor, and meet the warm brown eyes of Hermione Granger.

Hermione Granger, the Wizarding World’s golden girl.

Hermione Granger, the famous Muggleborn witch, who had probably just heard your entire conversation.

Hermione Granger, who works in your department.

It crashes upon you like a tidal wave, and it takes all your meticulously calculated self-control to swallow the choking sound that wants to escape your mouth.

She glides up to him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Is everything alright? I knew I hadn’t originally planned to come because I had work, but I figured you all wouldn’t mind too much.”

You can’t breathe. The very air feels stolen from your lungs.

“Yes,” it comes out terribly. You force oxygen into your windpipe and speak again. “Yes, everything is fine. I was lost and Malfoy was just concerned.”

It is the shock, perhaps, that keeps you from tripping on your ridiculously high heels, or the skirts of your dress as you walk away.

You exit the manor in a daze, habit taking you towards the small side door where you and the others would sneak in after getting drunk in the garden.

“Miss Bulstrode.”

You freeze.

Narcissa Malfoy perches delicately on the oak bench right outside the house, a cigarette in her fingers. It’s so at odds with the woman you know that you nearly turn away again and apparate home.

She taps the space next to her. “Come sit with me.” It isn’t a question.

She breathes out the foul smelling vapour, and you sit quietly next to her, mentally running through all the spells you would need to permanently scourge the remains of cigarette smoke from your gown.

It’s a hilariously frivolous thing to be thinking about, but otherwise you would have to think about Draco, or you would overthink why Narccisa Malfoy had asked you to sit next to her, so there wasn’t much room for anything else.

“You know, when you started sleeping with my son, I must admit I had my doubts.” She breathes another cloud of smoke, and you try to suppress a choke for what feels like the thousanth time this evening.

You’re unsure of how to respond, instead choosing to stay silent. She takes it as a sign to continue.

“Your father… was not someone we accepted easily while we were at Hogwarts. He never seemed particularly ambitious, or charming, or even particularly bright. He was inexplicably open-minded about the Muggleborns in our midst, and we dismissed him often because of it.” It seemed as thought she couldn’t stop once she started speaking, cigarette forgotten.

“Then he married your mother, sickly as she was. And when the Dark Lord returned, he doggedly did everything he was asked with such brutal intelligence, some bone-deep need to do whatever it took. All of it to protect your mother. And when she died of an illness he couldn’t even control, it was like he… snapped. The strings that kept him tethered to Voldemort tore. He withdrew his funding, told the man exactly what he thought of him, and got himself Avada’d for his trouble.”

It’s sobering to hear it this way. You had always played your father as the weak willed coward in your mind, the Dark Lord’s best lapdog. It was easier to make excuses that way, and it never even occurred to you that he had hated Voldemort just as much as you did.

“Why are you telling me this?” It comes out in a whisper.

Her eyes burn fever bright as she turns to you.

“I love my son more than anything in the world. If he could pull his head out of the pool of self-loathing he’s trying to drown himself in, he would realise that the love he has for you, that his soul, isn’t as tainted as he would believe.”

You recoil as if slapped, shooting up from your seat on the bench, suddenly and all at once filled with a desperation to get away from the house, from the woman in front of you.

You apparate home without saying a word.

—

The news of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy’s breakup reaches you a month later. It comes in the form of Daphne telling you to change up, because “Draco has just broken up with his girlfriend and we are getting him hammered with enough firewhisky to drown a horse”.

An evening with a heartbroken Draco sounds like the last thing you want to do on a Saturday night. The promise of liquor however, wears your resistance down significantly.

Having Hermione Granger as your supervisor in fighting for Muggleborn safety at the Ministry of all places was an uphill battle. You were working overtime more frequently than Daphne, and Daphne was a workaholic lawyer who forgot how to tell the time once she consumed more than two pepper up potions.

You hardly had time to think of alcohol, much less consume it.

As it turned out, Daphne had heavily exaggerated how much Draco would be drinking, and underestimated how much everyone else would.

Somehow, in the flashing lights of the club, you and Draco had ended up alone once again. It reminds you of that night at the manor, all of your friends drunk and asleep, hands pressing your wrists to the walls.

Draco looks down at you. His eyes are molten silver. You are once again abruptly (and unfairly) reminded of how beautiful he really is. You suddenly feel very, very tired.

You speak before he can.

“I think I’ll get going, Malfoy. Commiserations on the breakup.”

His response is instantaneous. “I’ll walk you there. Blaise will make sure Daphne gets home safe.”

Your first instinct is to refute him. Then you remember that you don’t have a wand anymore, that you’re not getting back until you finish your five year attachment to the Ministry, that there are still people out there that want to eradicate your family name. Your throat closes up abruptly, and you give him a short nod.

It’s not a long walk, but with the number of dirty looks being cast towards the both of you, it feels like one.

When you finally come to a stop before your front door, you do not enter immediately. The solid form of Draco Malfoy next to you sends your mind spiraling, arousal cutting through the awkwardness like a knife.

—

Draco watches you pause in front of the door, turning to face him. Your eyes are- fuck, your eyes are so dilated that the blue makes up only a thin ring.

His eyes flicker to your lips before returning to your eyes, and you take that as permission to grip his lapels and pull him into you.

Your lips meet his hungrily, and he responds almost instinctively. His tongue presses into your mouth, running along your teeth reverently. You melt into him instantaneously, hands tangling in his hair, scratching at the roots.

You taste soft, sweet, almost. The feeling of your body pressed to his makes blood pool in his abdomen, tightening his trousers considerably. The intensity with which he devours you is heady, hands gripping your waist, a knee between your thighs.

But then- you are not usually like this. You are not typically so avaricious with touch, nor so desperate in your kisses.

You are drunk. The weight of it hits him like a freight train.

He shoves you away forcefully. The whimpered moan of pain when your head knocks against your door makes him ill. It seems all he ever does is hurt you.

Your eyes are clear now, sobered and alert. You stare at him in confusion, tongue wetting your lip nervously.

“You’re drunk,” he mutters, “I can’t take advantage of you like this-”

Your face contorts in fury, eyes glassy with tears.

“Merlin’s sake, Draco! I am not fucking drunk!”

His silence makes you continue, your tone becoming small and hurt.

“You don’t have to make excuses, Draco. Just go.”

You yank open the door and disappear inside, slamming it shut on him.

—

The insistent knocking on the door of your flat wakes you. You instinctively reach for your wand, but your bedside table only holds the glasses you need for reading. Sighing in frustration, you make your way to the door, wincing as the knocking grows more aggressive.

Perhaps it was Daphne trying to get in? She did have a habit of losing her keys, and wandless opening spells were not her forte.

You once again curse the lack of peepholes in wizarding world doors. The easy access to revealing spells made the muggle invention obsolete even before you were born. Then again, you doubt the flat was made for former death eaters with no wands, so perhaps it was part of your penance too.

You were mostly convinced that if death eaters had come for you, they wouldn’t have knocked, even if the sounds emanating from your door were quickly turning into highly aggressive pounding.

You turn all four locks on the door deftly, yanking the door open, ready to rear back if necessary, only to lock eyes with Draco. The tension leaves you in a second, before rushing back to you just as quickly. You surreptitiously avoid eye contact, hands twisting behind your back.

The bone-deep exhaustion is back, though you’re quite sure it has something to do with the fact that it’s nearing one in the morning, and you’ve been averaging four hours of sleep a day.

“Oh, Malfoy. Daph isn’t here.”

“I’m not here to see Daphne, I’m here to see you.”

You look up at him, really look at him this time, and realise just how exhausted he looks. His typically fair skin is almost translucent, and the shadows under his eyes are so dark that they’re practically bruises.

At your lack of response, he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Are you just going to leave me standing out here?”

You hesitate, then settle yourself even more comfortably against the door.

“Yes. And I want to return to bed, preferably within the next fifteen minutes, so you might want to say whatever it is that you have to now.”

“I want to apologise,” at your raised eyebrows, he continues hastily, “you were drunk that night, and I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that. It was inconsiderate.”

Your expression twists into anger once again at that.

“I wasn’t drunk, you arse! I’m a big girl, Malfoy, I know my limits, so you don’t have to make excuses to spare my feelings. If you didn’t want to sleep with me, you could have just said so. There’s no need to pretend that it was for my benefit.”

He gapes at you disbelievingly.

“Of course I wanted to have sex with you, what kind of a fucking- Merlin, Bulstrode, of course I do. But I’m not good for you!”

It’s your turn to stare at him incredulously now. It takes several seconds for you to process what it was that he was saying before you can find your voice.

“You mean to say, that every time you held me at arm’s length, every time you wouldn’t let me stay the night, all the fucking times you left me wondering about what we were, was because you had somehow decided that you were ‘not good for me’?”

He makes a strangled sound at the back of his throat, “All I ever do is hurt you, Bulstrode. All I know is how to hurt people, for God’s sake, this” he yanks up his sleeve and gestures at his dark mark, stark on his pale skin, “is a reminder of that! And you were the last person who deserved to be hurt even more.”

“And Hermione Granger deserved it? What was the point of dating her if you were going to come here and claim to care for me?”

Your entire being is suffused in incredulity. You’re starting to believe that this entire interaction was a very detailed dream designed by some karmic entity to taunt you.

“I was trying to stop thinking about you! You were everywhere! In my head, my bed, my heart, everywhere! I couldn’t walk into a fucking supermarket without thinking of those stupid muggle cooking contraptions you enjoy-”

“It’s an espresso machine you daft-” you cut in, but he ignores you.

“So I dated Hermione Granger, because she was pretty, and willing, and because, well- she reminded me of you. She was so set on making the wizarding world accept muggleborns, and she reminded me of you.”

He sighs heavily.

“How dare you?” Your voice is shaking.

“How dare you decide on my behalf,” you take a shaky breath, “how dare you simply decide that I cannot love you?”

His eyes are filled with self loathing, and you can audibly feel his shaking hands where they’ve subconsciously drifted to grip yours.

“How could you ever?”

You pull him down and press your lips to his, trying to convey every second you have wanted him. His hands, cleaning you up with uncharacteristic and reverent tenderness. Brushing your hair when it got tangled after your extensive NEWTs preparation, joking about how terrible it looked, but untangling all the knots anyway. Gripping your hand at your mother’s funeral, your father’s execution, letting you into his room without question when the grief tried to drown you.

He shudders against you, the touch on your waist gentle, reverential. His lips move slowly against yours, and he sighs breathily as you run your hands over him, his cheeks, his hair, his broad shoulders.

It occurs to you that you were still very much in public, and should any of your neighbours open their doors, they would all see you and Draco Malfoy snogging in the corridor. And as it happens, the neighbours were already deeply distrusting of you and Daphne, so you pull him into the flat and shut the door as quietly as possible.

He’s looking around the space curiously when you turn back to him. The flat is amply large, though thoroughly warded against extension charms before it was sold to you. The ministry had been exceptionally clear about not having “hidden danger areas” within the apartment.

The walls are sparsely covered in moving photographs, of your group of friends smiling outside Malfoy Manor at fifteen, Draco’s arm slung over your shoulders, shouting something indiscernible into the camera. Your mother, thin and pale, but smiling mischievously at the camera, prone to commentary on your chosen outfits and asking you about work.

“I’ve never seen these in here before,” Draco whispers, eyes darting around the living room, at the kitschy designer decor Daphne had chosen, the scented candles and the scattered books.

You let out a huff of laughter.

“That’s because you were in a hurry the last time.”

You quickly grab him by the arm before he can start talking to the photographs. You lead him to your bedroom, and you haven't even reached the bed before his lips are on yours again, hands pushing you towards the bed.

He pulls your flimsy nightdress over your head, pinning you to the bed with his hips. He undresses leisurely, leaving you squirming below him helplessly. And finally, finally, he settles himself between your thighs, erection pressed against you. You squirm desperately, trying to slide him in, but he tuts and pulls away, a whine leaving your lips.

“Patience, love.”

When you are finally still, he resumes his previous position, sliding into you without preamble. You choke a little at him, the air leaving your lungs in a whoosh as he bottoms out. He groans at the tight heat of your cunt, muttering praises and expletives you cannot catch.

His hands continuously roam your body, fingers catching at your breasts, smoothing over your waist and hips, lingering softly at the base of your throat. Your head feels as though it’s floating somewhere in Muggle London, lost in the clouds. The feeling of him above you, mouth pressed to yours, caged in his arms, is headier than any firewhisky.

You tilt your hips up, the head of his cock brushing against that spot in you that leaves you gasping, stars flashing across your vision. He smirks, pulling your hips up and snapping his hips, and you wail. He takes that as a sign to continue abusing your g-spot, drool slipping out of your mouth as your moans grow even more incoherent.

He coos at you, swiping your saliva away, pushing his thumb past the seam of your lips softly but insistently, pressing down on your tongue. Your hips buck into his, and distantly, you realise that your arousal is pooling on the sheets below, rendering your thighs sticky and wet. Draco’s eyes follow your line of sight, glittering smugly as you continue to suck on his thumb. He pulls it from your mouth, relishing at your little whine of displeasure, and smears your saliva over your chin.

“Fuck-” he groans, “so pretty like this, all messy and small under me.”

He punctuates this with a particularly harsh thrust against that spongy spot in you, pelvis running across your clit, and you feel yourself fall apart in rhythm.

Draco lets out a heavy groan as your cunt spasms around him, your little cries and whines barely audible as you shake. You continue to tighten periodically around him, milking him and sucking him in. He continues to piston his hips against yours, revelling in your little gasps of overstimulation.

When he finally spills in you, you moan softly at the feeling of his cum against your sensitive walls, warming you and leaving you feeling full. He pulls you close, crushing you against him, as if your bare skin on his isn’t close enough.

You inhale a whiff of heady cologne, spicy and fresh, threading your fingers in his hair, savouring the softness of his pale locks. After an indeterminable amount of time, your stasis is broken as he curls further into you, lips brushing your ear.

“I love you.”

And you don’t think that even the strongest Veritaserum could pull a different answer from him.

—

Bonus.

As it turns out, Daphne really did leave her keys in the office. She stands outside the apartment door, groaning in frustration as her Alohomora refuses to work. She attempts knocking in the hopes that you’ll wake and open the door. At the four am mark, she’s grown desperate enough to try using brute force, turning the doorknob and forcing the door open.

Imagine her surprise as she instead tumbles gracelessly into the flat, nearly knocking her forehead on the tile. Blinking at the unlocked door, she immediately grabs one of your expensive muggle kitchen knives, heading straight into the flat. It would be precious little against death eaters with wands and a vendetta, of course, but it was better than nothing.

Once she ascertains that her bedroom has been undisturbed, she creeps to yours, where the door is ajar. She grips the knife more tightly, wishing that she had taken that self-defence class you had told her about a week ago. She pushes the door open noiselessly, expecting to find a death eater or some intruder, but instead…

It’s you and Draco, sleeping soundly atop your decidedly very rumpled sheets. He’s curled around you protectively, an arm around your waist, soft breaths disturbing your hair. She snorts quietly under her breath, her hand falling to the side.

She definitely plans on lecturing you for leaving the door unlocked in the morning, but right now, she needs a bath, sustenance, and sleep, in that exact order.

(Daphne doesn’t consider the fact that you did, in fact, lock the door. Her wandless Alohomora charm had just happened to work that day.)

#Draco malfoy x reader #Draco malfoy imagines #draco malfoy smut #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy x hermione granger #draco malfoy angst #Draco malfoy fluff #nsfw nia

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