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There are some things Max Verstappen remembers vividly.
His first kart.
His first win.
The first time he told a grown man to eat asphalt and die.
But nothing is seared into his memory like that day at Genk.
The Day of the Menace.
The Day of the Drawing.
The Day he met Charles Leclerc.
He was five years old.
And he had no effing clue what a soulmate was.
It was raining. The kind of sad, grey Belgian drizzle that turned every kid into a snot-drenched gremlin.
Max was standing trackside, helmet tucked under his arm, staring down at his hand like it had personally offended him.
He had a black marker. Jos had given it to him to “stay still and stop terrorising the pit crew,” which was bullshit, because all Max had done was tell the mechanic his carburettor looked like a sad baguette.
Anyway. Max, bored and chaotic, had drawn a fat little smiley face on the back of his hand.
Nothing crazy.
But then—then—the boy next to him gasped.
Max turned.
Saw him.
This tiny, shiny, angelic-looking creature, standing under a red umbrella. Brown curls. Big eyes. Dimples. The kind of face you’d see on a box of French biscuits.
Max stared.
The boy stared back.
He held up his hand.
Same smiley face. Same spot.
“What the fuck,” Max muttered, because five-year-old Max was already fluent in Advanced Swearing. “Did you steal my hand?”
The boy blinked. “No,” he said in perfect, smug little French-accented English. “You drew on your skin. So now it’s on mine.”
Max’s eyes narrowed.
“Witchcraft.”
“No,” said the boy, looking far too pleased with himself. “It means we are soulmates.”
Max blinked.
Pause.
Then: “The shit is a soulmate?”
The boy smiled. It was angelic. Seraphic. Ethereal.
It was also a trap.
“It means we are destined to love each other forever and ever,” said the boy, like he wasn’t about to emotionally ruin someone.
Max’s face twisted. “Love? Are you cracked? I don’t even like other people.”
“That’s okay,” the boy replied sweetly, “I already hate you.”
Max flinched like he’d been slapped by a cloud.
He blinked. “But. I thought. I thought we were gonna be besties or whatever the hell soulmates are supposed to do—”
“Yeah,” the boy said, brushing past him to the pit lane like a tiny, smug windstorm, “that was before I realised you draw like a rat on caffeine.”
Max blinked again.
Then sprinted after him.
The rest of the day was hell.
It started in qualifying.
Max had pole.
The other boy was second.
They were five. They should have been normal. Should have been nervous.
Instead—
“Try not to cry when I beat you,” Max muttered as he slid into his kart.
“I’ll cry when you learn to take corners properly,” the boy chirped, strapping in beside him.
“Who even are you?”
“Charles.”
“Charles what, baguette boy?”
“Leclerc. And I’m going to destroy you.”
And he did.
The little shit overtook Max on the last corner, waved as he passed, and threw a flower at him in parc fermé.
Like a ballerina assassin.
Max lost his mind.
The thing is, Max hadn’t meant to tell anyone about the beginning. The origin story. The catastrophe. The fact that Charles Ferrari Golden Boy Leclerc is his soulmate.
About the smiley face.
The umbrella.
The moment that kid—that tiny, smug French idiot—had looked at him with those big brown eyes and said “You drew on your skin. So now it’s on mine.”
Or how he’d said “I already hate you,” with a smile so sweet it gave Max a cavity.
He had not planned on telling Lando.
Not ever.
Not in this lifetime. Not in the next. Not even if Lando was the last soul on Earth holding the antidote to whatever Max definitely got from hugging that one Dutch fan with the suspicious ferret.
And yet—
There he’d been.
2 a.m.
Private jet.
Champagne-stained fingers.
Eyes on the stars.
Soul in shambles.
And his hand.
The middle finger. Crown doodle.
Below it, in chaotic glitter ink:
“leclerc p1 SUCK IT BITCH 👑”
It wasn’t his handwriting.
It wasn’t his fucking pen.
And Lando, tipsy and nosey and vibrating with mischief, squinted at it like a man discovering a new species.
“Wait,” he said.
Pause.
Long pause.
“…who the fuck wrote that on your hand?”
Max didn’t look up.
“Charles,” he said, casually. Like he was mentioning the weather. Or death.
Silence.
Absolute. Deafening. Silence.
Then—
“I'M SORRY. CHARLES. WHO?”
Max turned, eyebrow raised. “Leclerc.”
“CHARLES LECLERC?!”
Max blinked. “Do you know another Charles who defaces my body every week?”
Lando opened his mouth. Closed it.
Reopened it.
Then:
“WHY IS HE DRAWING ON YOU.”
Max, swirling his champagne like a wine aunt, sighed dramatically.
“Because he’s my soulmate.”
And that?
That was the exact moment Lando Norris died.
It started small.
A quiet choke.
A single hiccup of disbelief.
Then, in a horrifying crescendo of emotional instability, it exploded into:
“YOU’RE SOULMATES?!!”
Max winced.
“Why are you yelling.”
“YOU AND CHARLES LECLERC?! THE MAN YOU TRIED TO PUNT INTO THE STRATOSPHERE AT SPA??”
“I was aiming for the gravel, actually—”
“THE MAN WHO CALLED YOU ‘THE HUMAN EQUIVALENT OF A POTHOLE’ ON LIVE TV??”
Max shrugged. “He wasn’t wrong.”
Lando was vibrating.
No, vibrating was too tame a word.
Lando was molten.
Apoplectic.
Rolling around on the jet floor like a dying raccoon.
“YOU HATE EACH OTHER.”
Max took a sip. “Correct.”
“YOU’VE SENT EACH OTHER LEGAL THREATS.”
“And memes.”
“MAX. YOU LITERALLY CALLED HIM A WET BAGUETTE IN PARC FERMÉ.”
“Technically I said ‘a soggy bakery disappointment’—”
“MAX.” Lando grabbed his own skull like it was trying to escape. “YOU’RE. SOULMATES.”
At this point, Max probably should’ve stopped.
He could’ve laughed it off. Played it cool. Said something vague and unprovable like “we were drunk once in Genk and got matching tattoos” or “it’s just a prank bro” or “maybe it’s gaslighting from the FIA.”
But he didn’t.
Because he was, unfortunately, fucked up on Dom Pérignon and long-term emotional repression.
So instead, he told Lando—
Everything.
The smiley face.
The umbrella.
The little kid with curls who had looked up at him with angel eyes and said, “We’re soulmates, dumbass.”
The first insult. The first doodle. The boobs on his eleven-year-old forearm.
Charles Leclerc, age five, writing “Verstappen is a gremlin with wheels” on Max’s neck in permanent marker.
Lando was feral.
Tears. Real ones. Streaming down his cheeks.
Laughter so loud the pilot radioed back to ask if someone was dying.
“THIS IS—THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE,” he gasped, between wheezes.
He pointed at Max’s hand, where the glitter ink sparkled ominously.
“HE WRITES THAT STUFF ON PURPOSE? TO BOTHER YOU?”
“Yes.”
“AND YOU JUST LET HIM?”
Max stared at him. “I don’t have a choice.”
Lando dropped to the floor again, hands over his heart like he was reenacting a Shakespearean death scene.
“I CAN’T BREATHE. I CAN’T—OH MY GOODNESS. THIS IS SO ROMANTICALLY HORRIBLE.”
Max sighed. “It’s a war crime.”
“IT’S A LOVE STORY WRITTEN IN MARKER.”
Max considered jumping out the window.
It didn’t stop there.
Lando asked a thousand questions. All at once.
“Do you draw back??”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever write like, I dunno, ‘Charles sucks’??”
“No, I draw accurate track maps of his career failures.”
“OH MY GOODNESS—”
“What does he draw on race days?”
“Insults.”
“What about your birthday?”
“Insults with glitter.”
“Christmas?”
“A sketch of me as a reindeer with a red nose and a DUI.”
Lando collapsed again.
Eventually, Max just stared out the window, face blank, hand still cursed, soul even more cursed.
Lando, sprawled across the leather seats, whisper-sobbed:
“I thought you hated each other because of… like… ego.”
Max didn’t answer for a long time.
Then;
“I think it’s worse than that.”
Lando frowned. “Worse?”
Max looked down at the glitter on his hand.
“I think we remember everything.”
And Lando, finally—finally—shut the hell up.
Now, one year later, Max still won’t talk about it.
Lando does. All the time.
He told George.
He told Carlos.
He might have told a Netflix producer in a moment of weakness.
Max denies it through his teeth.
He rolls his eyes. Brushes it off. Pretends the marker stains are from himself.
Anyway.
Back to the present scenario. Issue. Whatever.
Max had fully intended to go to bed.
He swore.
After a long-ass day of Monza heat, Italian fans, Ferrari tears, and doing that little wave on the podium that Charles definitely flipped him off for, all Max wanted was:
-
a cold shower
-
a snack
-
and maybe a quick sim race to assert dominance over 13-year-olds online
He was not—he repeats, not—looking to emotionally unravel at the hands of his drunk soulmate scribbling stupid shit on his thighs.
And yet.
There he was.
Sitting on the bed in nothing but black boxers, a Red Bull tee, and two glitter pen penises on his legs.
One of them had a cape.
The other one was labeled “KING MAXWELL” in swirly cursive, with a crown on the tip.
Max blinked.
Rubbed his thigh.
It didn’t smudge.
Of course it didn’t. Charles always used permanent marker soul-magic bullshit. Zeus forbid Max try to live.
He sighed, grabbed his phone, and opened messages.
MAXIME
Are you drunk.
CHARLIE
i’m not a coward if that’s what u mean 😌
MAXIME
That didn’t answer anything.
Also there are dicks on my thighs.
CHARLIE
ur welcome 😇
MAXIME
Are you in a club again.
CHARLIE
noooo
i am in my rooooom
vibing
like a responsible adult who drinks responsibly and does not climb tables even if they’re very climbable
MAXIME
So you were at a club.
CHARLIE
the club was BORING max. i left. it did not deserve me.
CHARLIE
i am now in a towel.
in bed.
like a gremlin princess.
MAXIME
Don’t say “gremlin princess” to me.
I have a race win to protect.
CHARLIE
u’re welcome for p1 😌
MAXIME
I passed you on Lap 32 and you called me a whore on the radio.
CHARLIE
playfully
Max choked.
He should not be smiling.
He should definitely not be blushing.
(He was definitely blushing.)
He glanced down at the second penis, the one with the cape, and ran a finger over the word “KING MAXWELL.”
MAXIME
Stop drawing on my thighs.
CHARLIE
make me 😚
MAXIME
You’re so annoying.
CHARLIE
and hot.
don’t forget hot.
also talented. and good under pressure. and sometimes i’m nice to children.
MAXIME
You just told a seven-year-old to “get a real job” at the track today.
CHARLIE
he said he liked george more. i was provoked.
MAXIME
You are not normal.
CHARLIE
and yet u love me 😇
MAXIME
debatable
CHARLIE
babe u keep every drawing i make on ur abs for 3 days minimum.
i drew a frog with boobs on ur rib once and u refused to shower.
MAXIME
It was a good frog.
Max lay back on the bed, phone above his face, staring at the messages like they were radioactive.
The worst part wasn’t the dicks.
It wasn’t even the gremlin princess comment.
It was the fact that he missed him.
Like—physically. Stupidly. Ridiculously.
Like he could feel, in his very bones, that Charles was right there, just two floors down in the same hotel, wrapped in a towel, doodling chaos and sending flirty texts and probably giggling like a drunk fairy in a forest glade.
He hated him.
He—
“You want me to come up?”
The message pinged like a landmine.
Max’s stomach went nuclear.
MAXIME
Why?
CHARLIE
bc i’m cute. and warm. and full of love. and i brought the glitter pen
MAXIME
That is not a good reason.
CHARLIE
what if i say plz 🥺
MAXIME
Still no.
CHARLIE
what if i say plz and i offer to draw a tuxedo on your dick.
MAXIME
charles
CHARLIE
what if i say plz and i look at u with my very long eyelashes and my very sad baby deer eyes
CHARLIE
🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
MAX
You’re a demon.
CHARLIE
the demon wears ferrari 😇
Max stared at the screen.
Sighed.
Fought a losing battle with himself.
Then typed, slowly—
MAXIME
Bring snacks.
CHARLIE
ON MY WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY 🥳🎉🍓🍫🍪🍷🍷🍷
There were three knocks.
Then silence.
Then the sound of something plastic falling. A crash. A curse. Something about “fucking gouda cheese legs—”
And then—
“MAX,” came the high-pitched, slurred cry through the door. “MAXIMILIAN EMPEROR OF THE NETHERLANDS, OPEN THE GATES.”
Max contemplated not opening the door just to annoy Charles. Then he remembered Charles is drunk. And a drunk Charles is an unhinged Charles.
“Fucking damn it,” he muttered, tossing the phone aside and getting up, still in his oversized Red Bull shirt and black boxers.
The door flung open right when he touched it.
“HELLOOOO,” Charles Leclerc announced, kicking it wide open with one socked foot and bursting in like a drunk elf on Christmas Eve.
Max blinked.
Charles was holding:
-
two bags of chips
-
a Nutella jar
-
a full box of acrylic paints
-
three glitter pens tucked behind one ear
-
and a paintbrush in his mouth like a pirate dagger
His hoodie was on backward. His jeans were criminally unzipped. His hair looked like it had tried to escape his head and failed mid-heist.
Max stared. “No.”
“Yes,” Charles beamed, marching forward and dropping everything on the bed like a seagull offering cursed treasure. “It is I. Your soulmate. Your glitter dealer. Your art daddy.”
“Don’t ever say ‘art daddy’ again.”
“Too late,” Charles said, winking. Then he pointed the paintbrush directly at Max’s chest. “Now. Take off your shirt.”
Max squinted. “What?”
“I want to draw on you.”
“No.”
“Max,” Charles said, serious now. Deadpan. “I am drunk, French, and full of artistic passion. This is not the time for modesty. This is the time… to become my masterpiece.”
Max just stood there.
Then sat down on the bed, crossing his arms. “No.”
Charles made a noise that was half growl, half pout, like an angry swan.
“Don’t make me beg,” he said. “You know I’ll do it in French. With a trembling voice. Maybe tears. You’re not emotionally strong enough for that.”
“You’re right,” Max said. “But I am physically strong enough to throw you out this window.”
“You wouldn’t,” Charles whispered, scandalized.
“Try me.”
A pause.
Then: “Fine. You win. I’ll just draw on your legs and arms and face like a normal unhinged boyfriend.”
“Not your boyfriend.”
Charles sat on the bed like a dramatic widow, flopping sideways with a Nutella jar in hand. He unscrewed it, dipped his finger in, and ate it like a raccoon who had lost custody of his kids.
“Anyway,” he said around a mouthful of chocolate, “congratulations on your race win today, you sexy cursed troll.”
Max rolled his eyes, but his mouth twitched. “You got P2.”
“I did,” Charles said. “Like a sexy cursed loser.”
“You called me a greasy dildo on the radio when I passed you.”
“It was intimate banter, Max.”
Max snorted.
Charles grinned. “Also. I made your engineer laugh. That counts for something.”
“You made my entire garage laugh. Horner asked me if I was dating you.”
“And what did you say?” Charles asked, eyes glittering.
“I said unfortunately yes, and stormed off.”
Charles gasped. “You ADMITTED IT?!”
Max shrugged. “I was tired. And angry. And you were P2.”
“I was BEAUTIFULLY P2,” Charles said, now crawling over the bed like a predator with a Nutella tongue and bad intentions. “I was sexy and tragic and full of ambition. Like a Shakespeare character. Like… Romeo. If Romeo had a six-pack and got bullied by Red Bull.”
“You are Romeo. You die for no reason.”
Charles giggled and plopped down in Max’s lap, straddling him without shame. “Shirt off. Or I draw on your face.”
Max looked at him.
At his soulmate.
His absolute problem.
His lifelong public enemy #1 who also once held his hand under a table and whispered “you smell like world championships” into his ear after seven shots.
He sighed. “Fine. But if you draw another penis with a hat, I swear—”
“Max,” Charles said gently. “It’s going to be a tuxedoed frog riding a banana rocket ship. I have taste.”
Ten minutes later, Max was shirtless, lying on his back on the bed, glitter pen trails across his chest, Nutella on his neck (Charles said it was for “artistic contrast”), and his legs slowly being turned into a diorama of Monaco.
“Are those yachts?” Max asked, staring at Charles' bare chest that had the same unhinged art.
“Yes,” Charles said. “That one is you. It’s angry. This one is me. It’s drunk.”
“I see that.”
“Oh!” Charles gasped, drawing a red dot. “That’s Lando. He’s drowning.”
Max blinked. “Why.”
“He said I looked medium hot in my podium suit.”
“Fair.”
There was a brushstroke of yellow sun over his ribcage now.
Another yacht taking shape just under his collarbone.
A winding silver line—probably a road, or possibly a snake—looped across his sternum like Charles had forgotten what Monaco looked like halfway through and decided to vibe.
And Max?
Max just watched.
Didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t even breathe too hard.
Charles sat cross-legged across his thighs, tongue sticking out slightly as he worked, dabbing a tiny dot of blue onto Max’s skin, muttering things like “okay, but the Casino corner needs more glitter” and “this yacht has sunglasses, because he’s cool” and “you have very lickable abs, did you know that?”
Max just kept watching him.
His fingers curled slightly in the sheets.
His jaw clenched.
And deep, deep in his chest—somewhere under the fake palm tree Charles had painted on his left pec—Max’s heart was doing unspeakable things.
Not fast.
Not loud.
Just steady.
Like it had always known this. Like it had always belonged to this idiot with Nutella on his cheek and a glitter pen behind his ear.
Max Verstappen, four-time world champion, most aggressive driver on the grid, current owner of approximately five hundred unspoken grudges, was staring at his drunk soulmate like the man was the sun, moon, and the paint set Max never got as a child.
He watched Charles furrow his brow as he tried to draw a palm tree over Max’s chest.
Watched him tilt his head, then tap Max’s sternum thoughtfully with his index finger and go, “hmm… too bumpy here. Your fault. Stop being built.”
Max didn’t even flinch.
He just muttered, “You’re the one who said you wanted realism. That’s where the beach goes.”
Charles blinked at him, face all serious. “I hate how good your memory is. Shut up before I paint the Ferrari logo on your ass.”
Max gave a tired exhale.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever kissed,” he said suddenly.
Charles, mid-stroke with a green brush, froze.
Looked up.
Max kept his eyes on the ceiling. Voice steady. “I’ve kissed you. That’s it. That’s the whole list.”
Charles was still. Silent. Wide-eyed.
Max finally met his gaze.
“Is that weird?” Max asked, quietly now.
Charles didn’t answer.
Max watches as he wrote a ditto below his Adam's apple.
He set the brush down.
Crawled up, very slowly, until he was nose to nose with Max.
Slid a glittery hand over Max’s chest, smearing part of the yacht in the process.
Then, barely above a whisper:
“Do you want it to stay that way?”
Max’s heart tripped over itself. They don't talk about these. Unless one of them is drunk. Unless both of them are drunk.
He swallowed. Nodded. “Yeah.”
Charles smiled. That dangerous, devastating, fucking disaster of a grin that Max had spent years pretending he didn’t want to see every day for the rest of his life.
“Good,” Charles said, and leaned down—
—but didn’t kiss him.
Instead, he nuzzled his cheek against Max’s like a smug cat, curling back down and flopping his entire weight onto Max’s chest like he owned it.
“’Cause I’m not sharing either,” he added, casually. “If anyone else kisses you, I’ll eat their kneecaps.”
“Romantic,” Max deadpanned, arms wrapping around him anyway.
“I try,” Charles murmured, already sounding half-asleep. “Your nipples are cold.”
“Because you painted them, Charles.”
“Shhh. Masterpieces don’t complain.”
Max sighed into the mess of curls pressed against his collarbone.
His chest was a disaster. His bedsheets were glittery. His skin smelled like paint and sugar and French pride.
And wrapped around him like a human oven, limbs tangled and heart loud, was his idiot.
His soulmate.
Max was a lot of things right now.
Tired. Shirtless. Streaked in wet acrylic. Slightly sticky. Emotionally compromised.
Also—very unfortunately—bare chest to bare chest with a very drunk Monegasque who had just flopped down on top of him like a weighted blanket made of wine, glitter, and the national anthem of Monaco.
Max exhaled slowly. His hands slid instinctively to Charles’ thighs, trying to anchor him, stabilize the disaster, keep him from smudging the entire damn mural of Monaco Charles had painted across his chest like a toddler on a creative bender.
“Charles,” Max said flatly. “The paint is still wet.”
“I know,” Charles grinned, clearly not caring at all. “But I wanted to cuddle.”
“You’re literally erasing your own work.”
“Maybe I’m adding depth. Ever think of that? Ever heard of texture, Maxime?”
Max narrowed his eyes. “If you call me Maxime one more time, I will eat your Ferrari contract.”
Charles gasped like Max had threatened the pope.
“You wouldn’t—!”
“Try me.”
Charles pouted. And then looked down between them. Then pouted harder.
“I worked so hard on this piece! The beach has character! The yacht has a tan! The palm tree is called Bernard!”
“Why are you naming the palm tree.”
“Because Bernard respects me,” Charles sniffed. “Unlike some people.”
And then—because apparently Charles was on a mission to make Max physically implode tonight—he sat up a little, reached behind Max’s head, and pushed his curls back like he was about to propose.
Max froze.
“What,” he asked suspiciously, “are you doing.”
Charles, already brandishing a gold glitter pen with all the restraint of a child with a Sharpie, beamed at him. “Forehead canvas. Don’t move. I’m inspired.”
Max blinked.
“You are not drawing on my—”
“Shhh,” Charles whispered, dramatically. “This is what art demands.”
And then.
Oh, then. Then he started.
Charles Leclerc. Twenty-seven years old. Formula 1 driver. Ferrari poster boy. Drunk menace.
He leaned in, one hand sweeping back Max’s hair like they were in a romance novel, and began furiously sketching something on Max’s forehead.
His thighs pressed against Max’s hips. His breath smelled like Nutella and sin.
Max didn’t move.
Mostly because Charles’s forehead was also becoming a canvas now—his canvas—and Max, ever the competitor, was watching in morbid fascination as the words “HOT BITCH” in fluorescent green slowly appeared across Charles’ skin in a mirrored glow.
Max’s hands tightened slightly on Charles’ thighs.
And just like that—his brain betrayed him.
Not because of the glitter. Not because of the drunk giggling.
But because the weight, the heat, the way Charles shifted his hips just slightly for balance—
—it reminded him.
He remembered.
That night in Monaco.
A hotel room.
Age nineteen.
Still rivals. Still soulmates. Still trying to pretend it didn’t mean anything.
Charles had looked at him the same way then.
All flushed cheeks and “you gonna let me on top?”
All bare skin and “don’t act like you’re not into this.”
Max hadn’t blushed then either.
He didn't blush when it happened again.
And again.
And again.
He didn’t now.
But his fingers twitched.
And the pressure of his hands on Charles’ thighs just slightly increased.
“You’re thinking about something,” Charles sing-songed, not looking up as he scribbled a little star over Max’s eyebrow. “You’ve got that face.”
“What face.”
“The ‘I’m thinking about fucking you but also wondering if you remembered to unplug the iron’ face.”
“That’s not a real face.”
“It is,” Charles said. “It’s sexy. Very daddy.”
Max visibly winced.
“Take that back.”
“No,” Charles grinned. “Say ‘thank you’ like a good boy.”
“I hope the Ferrari brakes fail next race.”
“I hope you trip over a seagull.”
“I hope you wake up bald.”
“I hope—OH MERDE, MAX—”
Because Charles finally glanced up—caught sight of his own reflection in the mirror behind Max’s head—and saw the glowing words HOT BITCH on his own forehead.
He stared.
Max smirked.
Charles scowled.
“You—” he poked Max in the chest—“are an actual war crime.”
"And you have an astonishing lack of brain cells." Max didn’t even blink. “You misspelled Monaco on my nipple.”
“Did not!”
“You wrote ‘Monoco.’”
“IT WAS AN ARTISTIC CHOICE!”
“You’re an artistic mistake.”
Max should’ve known.
He should’ve known the second Charles said, “You’re full in the front,” while still straddling him like it was his personal Ferrari seat.
Max blinked, blinking again when Charles tapped at his chest like he was disappointed.
“No more space,” Charles pouted, gesturing to the disasterpiece that was currently drying across Max’s torso. “You are fully Monaco’d out.”
“I told you that after the second yacht,” Max muttered.
“Don’t be rude,” Charles sniffed, reaching behind to grab more paint. “I need more room.”
“You are not painting my dick.”
Charles rolled his eyes. “The back, Max. Obviously.”
Max raised a brow. “You think the hotel’s gonna be chill with you slapping glitter paint all over their Egyptian cotton sheets?”
Charles gave him the most innocent smile known to man. “I’ll pay for it.”
“With what, your P2 prize money?”
Charles gasped like Max had personally defaced the Mona Lisa.
“You absolute Red Bull goblin,” he hissed. “I was eight seconds behind you! You’re lucky I didn’t throw a wrench at your car.”
“You’re lucky your car even made it to the finish line without crying.”
“You were crying!”
“That was sweat!”
“Your sweat has feelings, Verstappen!”
Max sighed, because of course it was like this.
Of course his soulmate was half-satan, half-sunlight.
Of course they couldn’t be normal.
Of course this was the kind of night that started with Charles drawing Monaco on his chest and now involved Max flipping onto his stomach like an art installation.
He groaned into the pillow.
He could already feel Charles shifting—knees on either side of his hips, the weight of him pressing into Max’s back like a warm fucking memory, a phantom of every single night they shouldn’t have had but did anyway.
His Red Bull shirt was long gone. His boxers were hanging by a thread. His pride? Evaporated.
“Don’t move,” Charles said. “I need a smooth surface.”
“You’re sitting on me.”
“Exactly.”
Max exhaled, staring at the stupidly plush pillow.
And as the brush made contact—cool, smooth, deliberate across his spine—he felt it.
Not just the paint.
But the memory.
The weight of Charles above him.
The breathless silence.
The first time, age nineteen.
That shitty Monaco summer.
The one where they lost their minds and their virginities in the same ten-minute window.
They’d pretended it meant nothing.
They’d pretended they were just curious, bored, rivals with nothing else to do.
It was Charles who had whispered “you good?” into the crook of Max’s neck.
It was Max who had kept his hand pressed against Charles’ hip like he was scared he’d disappear.
It was them, always them, even when they were pretending it wasn’t.
This?
This was nothing like that.
This was so much worse.
This was intimate. Stupid. Domestic.
Soft.
Max could feel every brushstroke.
He could feel Charles's fingertips steadying the skin.
Could feel the moment Charles switched to glitter gold for what sounded like a sun.
Could feel Charles’s breath, warm and quiet.
It was... a lot.
“You’re quiet,” Charles murmured.
Max grunted. “Just waiting for you to draw a penis and claim it’s ‘the architecture of Monaco.’”
Charles snorted. “Don’t tempt me.”
Then silence again. Except not really. Not with Charles humming under his breath. Not with the brush gliding across his shoulder blades like it belonged there. Not with his thighs bracketing Max’s hips like this was just normal.
And goodness, Max was remembering everything.
That time in Spa when it rained and Charles had pulled him behind the Ferrari garage just to say “I miss when we were easy.”
That post-season party in Singapore where they’d kissed in a corridor and then fought about it for three hours.
The night Max showed up in Monaco unannounced, stood outside Charles’ door at 3AM, and said “just shut up and let me in.”
Now?
Now Charles was painting stars on his back.
Now Charles was still humming some dumb love song like he wasn’t ruining Max Verstappen’s entire life.
“You’re thinking again,” Charles said.
Max didn’t answer.
He felt Charles shift—slow, smooth, like they’d done this a hundred times.
“Thinking about how hot I look right now?”
“No,” Max deadpanned. “Thinking about whether I should roll over and crush you like a pancake.”
Charles paused. “...You love me.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me so bad it makes you look stupid.”
Max grunted into the pillow. “You’re sitting on my kidneys.”
“Yeah, but emotionally.”
Max exhaled.
Let the silence wrap around them like a weighted blanket made of neon paint and unsaid things.
Then—
“Hey, Max?”
“What.”
“I drew us holding hands.”
Max blinked. “What.”
“On your back. See, this is me—” poke. “—and this is you.” poke poke. “You look a bit like a potato.”
Max’s face smushed harder into the pillow.
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
Max sighed. “This is the worst foreplay we’ve ever done.”
Charles giggled, paint-stained and gleaming. “Yet here you are. Letting me sit on you. Letting me paint. Letting me stay.”
Max didn’t respond.
Not with words.
But his hands moved—slow, reaching behind—curling around Charles’s thighs.
Anchoring him there.
A silent admission. A stubborn surrender.
Charles leaned down. Pressed his glittery forehead against Max’s shoulder.
Max could feel it.
The weight of Charles shifting on his back. Knees digging into either side of his hips like a threat. Warm thighs pressing down like punctuation marks. And then—
A kiss.
Right between the shoulder blades.
Soft.
Quick.
But intentional.
Max’s breath caught. Froze. Then growled:
“Are you licking me?”
Charles snorted. “No, pervert. I’m kissing you. It’s art etiquette.”
Max twisted his head sideways into the pillow, one eye glaring into hotel-linen infinity.
“Who kisses a back painting?”
“Me.” Another kiss. This time on the curve of his right shoulder. “I’m French.”
“You’re Monegasque.”
“I’m romantic, Maxime.”
“I swear to —”
Charles kissed the nape of his neck.
Max stopped breathing.
Because that was... that was a kiss that didn’t belong here.
Not in a hotel room post-Monza.
Not between soul-bonded rivals who fought for the podium like it was blood.
That was a kiss from memory.
From that night.
Barcelona, last year.
Post-podium, post-fight, post-chaos.
The night they got drunk on whatever-the-hell Carlos brought and somehow ended up tangled in Max’s Monaco apartment, pressed against the kitchen counter as Charles kissed him like it was the last lap of everything they’d ever known.
And now—
Another kiss.
Lower, right over the tiny glitter-doodle of two boys holding hands that Charles had drawn on Max’s back like it meant something.
“You’re going to ruin it,” Max mumbled into the pillow. “Your dumb kisses are smudging the dumb art.”
“I’ll paint over it,” Charles said softly, fingers dragging a brush through gold like sin. “But this one’s special.”
Max made a noise. It may have been “hngfh.” It may have been a strangled “I hate how tender you are when drunk.”
It didn’t matter.
Because Charles was kissing his way down his spine now, right around the doodle. Tracing the outline of stick figure Max like it was a fucking relic.
Max groaned. He was melting. Melting.
This was so much worse than sex.
This was Charles being soft. Charles being happy. Charles treating him like—like Max mattered.
He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t take it.
It doesn't happen often, especially because of Charles' Ferrari-infused seasonal depression.
But Max.
He couldn’t think about how Charles always looked at him after races like he wanted to fix something he hadn’t broken.
Or how he always remembered Max’s coffee order.
Or that time in Canada when Charles had held his hand under the table for no reason and never mentioned it again.
Another kiss. This time over his ribs.
“You good?” Charles murmured.
“No.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
Max exhaled slowly. “Do I ever?”
Charles grinned against his back. “You do, actually. Usually with yelling. And sometimes shoving.”
“Do you want to be shoved off the bed?”
Charles leaned forward, pressing all the way down, their bare chests now flush through smears of glitter paint and unnecessary emotions.
“I’d rather be shoved against a wall, but I can work with this.”
Max choked.
“You need to be jailed.”
“I need to be loved, Max. Keep up.”
“Goodness—”
“You’ve been my soulmate since we were five,” Charles said, like it was the weather. Like he wasn’t actively painting a Ferrari car doing a wheelie across Max’s lower back while kissing down his spine. “And you’re still so slow.”
“Slow?” Max barked, twisting half to glare at him. “I won Monza by EIGHT SECONDS.”
“And yet you haven’t kissed me tonight.”
Max blinked.
Charles grinned.
Max blinked again.
“You’re so unhinged,” Max whispered.
“You like it.”
“Do I?”
“Your dick says yes.”
Max groaned, slamming his face into the pillow again.
And Charles just laughed, idiot and angel in one, sitting there on Max’s back like a fucking throne, sipping emotional chaos through a glitter straw.
“You’re doomed,” Max muttered.
“I doomed you the moment I drew a flower on my hand at five years old and you screamed ‘WHY IS MY HAND CRYING’.”
Max groaned again. Louder.
Charles kissed the base of his spine.
“Wanna flip over?” he murmured. “I’m almost out of back space. But your face is a great canvas. Very expressive. Lots of forehead real estate.”
“You’re deranged.”
“And you’re letting me do it.”
Max paused. Then: “...I hate how true that is.”
Charles smiled like a bastard. “You love me.”
Max didn’t answer.
But his hand crept behind, wrapping around Charles’s thigh, thumb stroking a gold streak on his skin.
And Charles leaned down, pressing a kiss to the back of Max’s neck like a period at the end of a love letter.
Charles had barely finished tracing a halo of gold paint around Max’s ridiculous stick figure head before he felt it—
That shift. That very familiar, very dangerous shift in weight.
Max’s back muscles coiled. His shoulders flexed.
And in a movement that was so fast, so clean, so Max Verstappen-coded, the roles flipped.
Literally.
Max turned over and took Charles with him, one quick roll that ended with Max on top, thighs caging Charles in, his hands planted on either side of his head, one brow raised like he’d just won a world championship in Soulmate Pinning.
Charles gasped—dramatically.
“MAXIME!” he cried, clutching invisible pearls. “That’s cheating!”
Max smirked. “Says the man who’s been dry-humping my lumbar spine with a glitter brush for the past twenty minutes.”
“That’s called artistic expression.”
“That’s called horny paint crimes.”
“I was giving you meaning, you barbarian!”
Max leaned in. His voice dropped to that tone—the one that lived somewhere between a growl and a dare. The kind of voice that said: I’m going to wreck your life and you’re going to thank me.
Charles immediately forgot every word in French and Monaco-legal traffic code.
Max’s face was so close now, their noses nearly brushing. His hands slid down, palms flat against Charles’s ribs, thumbs smudging little comets of red and silver.
“Is this how you paint all your conquests?” Max murmured, eyes locked with his like sin. “Or just the ones that beat you by eight seconds?”
Charles opened his mouth to respond—
But Max kept going.
His lips dipped toward Charles’s, close enough that Charles actually stopped breathing, pupils dilating, brain short-circuiting on:
OHMYGOODNESS MAX VERSTAPPEN IS GOING TO KISS ME IN GLITTER I’M GOING TO ASCEND.
And then—
Right when their lips barely touched—
Max whispered:
“You smell like podium disappointment and desperation.”
CHARLES G A S P E D.
Loudly. Like a medieval prince discovering ankles at brunch.
“YOU ABSOLUTE WHORE.”
Max grinned, feral and victorious.
Charles slapped his chest. “I let you on my canvas! I welcomed you into my palace of passion and painted Monaco on your back! And this is how you repay me?!”
Max shrugged. “Should’ve painted a win.”
“SHOULD’VE BEEN A DECENT HUMAN.”
“Oh, that’s rich—coming from the guy who once drew a penis on my shoulder during FP1 and called it ‘symbolic.’”
“It was! Symbolic of your personality!”
Max leaned down again, this time brushing his nose deliberately along Charles’s jaw.
His voice was softer now. Still smug. But dipped in something else.
“You wanna know what’s symbolic?”
Charles blinked, neck arching slightly. “If you say the glitter on my nipples I swear—”
Max kissed him.
Finally.
Mouth to mouth.
Heat to heat.
Max Verstappen to Charles Leclerc.
And everything in Charles lit up—the room, his brain, his everything. Like that first magnetic pull they’d felt as kids decided to go Full Nuclear.
They broke apart a second later—Max’s grin now permanently cocky, Charles’s lips parted and still drunk on whatever the hell just happened.
“I was gonna say,” Max murmured against his cheek, “this. This right here. You. Under me. Covered in glitter. Like an idiot.”
Charles blinked. “That’s... that’s what’s symbolic?”
Max nodded. “Of your soul. Sparkly, chaotic, and fucking impossible to get off my sheets.”
There was a pause.
And then Charles howled, flinging his arms around Max and rolling them again like a gremlin in heat.
“YOU’RE SO IN LOVE WITH ME IT’S DISGUSTING!”
“SHUT UP!”
“MAKE ME!”
Max bit him.
Charles shrieked.
Somewhere in the hotel, a soulmate mark appeared on a Lando Norris’s arm that just said “HELP, THEY’RE MAKING NOISES AGAIN PLS DO SOMETHING MATE” with an orange highlighter.