Chapter Text
After their second meeting, Max scores more consecutives points than he’s ever managed to do so far in his short career. 43 points and two podiums in Hungary and Germany, plenty of good battles on track and stupid questions asked by journalists. Still, his brain seems to be entirely monopolized by Charles and the evening they spent together. He often catches himself thinking back about the little puffs of air the prince-turned-king was letting out while napping against him, or the regret in his eyes when he and Max had to go on their separate ways. Strangely enough, with these thoughts in his mind, his usually boring flights pass in the blink of an eye.
In Hungary, he doesn’t have the pace to reach the top three and barely manage to hold his fifth position. His race against Sebastian on the track was fun and intense, so he holds no regrets after finishing the crossing line. Yet, his father isn’t too pleased about him, tells him he’s too distracted, that he’s losing focus. But Max barely listens to him, for once.
He’s happy about is achievement of the day and no one will take that away from him. A part of him wishes this sudden wisdom came from him. But deep down he knows he wouldn’t have such an appeased state of mind without the dozens of encouraging and congratulating texts he received from Charles throughout the week-end.
Max never thought he would be one of those people constantly glued to their phone, but with Charles he throws his common sense out the windows. Their discussion sometime revolves around Max’s results during his races, but also often deviate far, far away from it. They talk about everything, from the terrible Italian food Max tried out with his mom at a newly opened restaurant in Monaco or a funny meme that makes them both laugh. Charles also sends him selfies of the outfits he’d like to wear to events he’s invited to and asks for his advices. Frankly, it’s quite ironical considering how clueless Max is about fashion and how he’s certain Charles would look good in rags.
Soon enough, they discover they share a common love for gaming and it’s then that he learns that behind his gentle and benevolent smile, Charles hides an even bigger competitive side. More often than not his already chaotic sleeping schedule get thrown out of the windows when he and Charles find themselves wide awake at ungodly hours playing against each other on FIFA, Call of Duty or basically any games that Charles tries to beat him on.
Thankfully for him, two weeks later the last race before the summer is done, so there’s no need for him to go to bed early. Especially when Red Bull officially banned him from coming at the simulator during the entire summer break.
“Are they even allowed to do that ?” Charles enquires curiously when he tells him just that through his headphone.
Max scoffs before answering, desperately trying to get his players to defend against Charles strikers on FIFA. “Apparently I was putting in too many hours in the simulator last summer,” he groans when Charles easily scores a goal, passing through his defense as if no one was there “they told me they could get be accused of using me to develop the car during the mandatory summer shutdown....”
“Aw, so what are you going to do during this break ?”
“I’ve got a few of my friends coming over next week for the week-end and then I guess I’m going to be practicing on iRacing.” he explains.
“Oh, nice...” Charles begins, his voice sounding distracted, “So, you...You uh.- You’re going to be around Monaco for the next few weeks ?”
“Yep !”
For a few seconds, Charles doesn’t say anything, but Max is too distracted trying to remember how to control his goalkeeper to notice.
“So that means you could come over if you wanted to ? I mean, to my house ? That would be great ! We could play together so you’ll see I’m not cheating !” Charles starts to ramble on the more he speaks and Max doesn’t answer to his proposal, his entire mind frozen at the unexpected proposal. “I mean if you have time ?” he finishes in a high pitched-tone that give away his nervosity.
On the screen, neither of their team are moving.
Finally, after a few more seconds his brain finally catches up to him. “Yes !” he begins loudly, making his microphone saturate “Yes, I would love to !!”
Through his headphones, Max can hear Charles sighs out of relief. “but...Your house is like...The palace of Monaco ? Do I need to ask for a formal meeting with the king or something like that ?” he asks teasingly, once his surprise is gone.
And just like that, he finds himself the following morning at the Palace gate, just behind a tourist group queuing to do a tour of the monument. He had a short night of sleep, his mind too energized by the thought of meeting again with the king in the intimacy of his home. He’s taken out of his own thoughts once he realizes he’s been standing still for four minutes, his gaze lost in the void.
Like Charles instructed him, he steps aside of the group and walks toward a guard next to the main gate.
“L’entrée sans supervision d’un guide est interdite, veuilliez retourner faire la queue.” the guard rapidly says in a tense voice when she sees him approaching.
Only understanding a few words of what she said, Max looks for his identity card and hands it to the dubitative guard. “I-ehrm- I'm Max Verstappen ? I was invited by the king, he said he put me on a list or something ?” he starts to ramble as he rubs his own neck out of stress. “You -uh, you understand english ?”
The guard doesn’t answer, but look at him with suspicious eyes. Had Charles forgotten to warn the guards ? Will they just think he’s some kind of terrorists trying to infiltrate the palace ? He thinks anxiously.
Meanwhile, the guard reaches for her talkie-walkie and starts having a discussion with someone else. Blood start to rush through his ears when the guard tells him in a heavy french accent to wait for one of her colleagues. Okay, he’s really going to end up in a police station now , he thinks. Eventually though, he sees a guard rapidly approaching them.
“Mister Verstappen !” the man comes to a halt to bow to him “His Serene Highness awaits you ! Please follow me.”
The tension in Max’s body immediately releases and he follows the guard, ignoring the curious stares of the tourists he passes by. He’ll get to enjoy his freedom for a few more days .
Once they enter the palace, Max feels massively underdressed in his sweatshirt and jeans. They walk for what feels like an eternity through long corridors, pass by a dozen of palace employees, all running rapidly from room to room. It’s been a long time he hasn’t been into a museum, but Max feels like walking through one, with ancient tapestry adorning the walls and statues of Charles ancestors. Without knowing how to explain it, he starts to feel a bit constricted, as if the overload of colors and objects used to decorate the palaces made its halls seem smaller than they actually are.
Still, he doesn’t have time to ponder too much on what he sees when he’s busy trying to keep up with the guard guiding him. After a few more minutes, they arrive at a visibly less frequented and more guarded part of the palace.
“King Charles apartment are uh- still quite far away ?” he decides to ask once it feels like they’ve been walking for five good minutes already. The guard momentarily turns toward him, a judging look on his face.
“His serene highness Charles” the man corrects him “has is living-quarters in quite an unorthodox part of the palace, but we are only a few hundred meters away from it now, so if you would like to pick up the pace, that would be appreciated.”
“Oh-uh, yes sorry !”
True to his words, they walk down a few corridors until they arrive in front of a flight of small stairs. “Here, you’ll just have to walk on top of them and then take the first turn on the right.”
He follows the man’s instruction and arrives in front of an unassuming door at the end of the corridor. He must have taken a wrong turn, he realizes. He’s about to turn back when he hears soft footsteps approaching before Charles appears out of the corner of the other end of the corridor.
“Max !“ he says enthusiastically, his face visibly perking up when his eyes fall on him.
“Charles !” he answers back dumbly, before his host surprises him by closing in the distance between them. He has no time to understand what is happening before he feels the king’s arms take him into a gentle hold.
“It’s so good to see you again !"
Their embrace must last barely longer than a few seconds, yet Max allows himself to close his eyes to revel in the warmth of their contact.
When they break apart, he feels a bit dazzled. It’s only then that he realizes that Charles is wearing an oversize jumper over simple linen trousers, clothes that are a far cry from the usual elegant and elaborate style he’s seen him in up until now.
“Uh- I-” he stumbles on his words, distracted by how those kind of clothes fits him, making him look cuter and cuddlier than a man of Charles rank should have the right to be. Immediately his cheeks redden at the thoughts he’s having.
Charles follows his gaze to look down at his own clothes ”Oh, it’s okay if I'm dressed like that ? I figured since I had no event to attend to I could just stay in those !” he stammers, his voice tinged with a tone of doubt and a frown on his face.
Shaking himself out of his stupors, Max immediately reassures him “No, no sorry, you look great ! I just wasn’t expecting you to wear that, but you look really good!”
A smile appears immediately on Charles face, as well as an almost unnoticeable blush on his cheeks. “You mean you thought I wore suits even under the shower ?” he asks playfully.
“Nah, I was expecting you to see you dressed in a dark coat exiting a coffin to be hone-” he retorts teasingly before Charles lightly hits him on the shoulder. “Oh, shut up !”
Instinctively, Max tries to retaliate, but Charles dodges him by a centimeter while laughing. From behind them, an audible gasp resonates in the corridor which both makes them freeze. The guard that escorted Max is there, looking at him as if he was an alien, one hand ready to reach for the gun on his holster.
“Est-ce que tout va bien Monseigneur ? Voulez-vous que j’escorte Monsieur Verstappen en dehors du palace ?” the guard anxiously asks.
“O-oh non ! Tout va bien, on s’amusait, c’est tout...Nous allons retourner dans mes quartiers de toute façon !” he says in french before he takes Max’s hands. Rapidly, Charles leads him to the inside of his quarters and close the door beside them.
“Sorry about that...” the king says embarrassed, as if it wasn't Max who just clearly overstepped his boundaries. An offense of lèse-majesté they call it in some country, his mind unhelpfully supplies.
“No, it's me ! I shouldn’t have tried to hit you!” Max corrects as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other with restless energy.
“Are you kidding me ? I started it ! Anyways, don’t care about him, it’s the royal guard, overreacting is kind of their job...” he brushes off. “Anyways, here is where I live !” he declares proudly and Max turns this back to Charles to see the King’s living quarters.
To his surprise, his apartment looks nothing like the ostentatious corridors of the palace. Here, it doesn’t seem so crowded anymore. He even get to finally seesthe beige stones of the palace walls that are hidden behind pompous portraits and royal emblems in the rest of the palace.
But what catch Max attention as he follows Charles to sit on the couch is how ordinary the place feels.. Sure, it’s evident that not any of the furniture in this piece were bought at Ikea, but their modern yet simple design make him almost forget he’s sitting in the king of Monaco’s royal suite, or whatever they call it. Hell, the couch he’s on is so comfortable he can already imagine himself napping there.
“I decorated everything myself...” Charles adds almost shyly, bringing him out of his thoughts.
“It looks....Small ?” Max comments clumsily “I mean, it’s beautiful but I was expecting it to be more...grandiose, I would say ?”
“That’s because it used to be a butler’s room ! It was supposed to be turned into a storage room during the renovation of the palace in 2015, but as soon as I saw it I asked my mother if I could move my stuff in it ! Look at the sight I have !” Charles rambles enthusiastically as he points to the windows.
Curiously, Max walks toward them and watches in awe the view the palace has over the rest of Monaco. Past the cityscape, he even sees the tip of Mount Agel, the mountain overlooking the french riviera. He whistled in amazement
“Yes ! Crazy, right ?” Charles says. “Anyways, I started the Ps4 already ! What do you want ? Tea ? Coffee ? Red Bull ?”
“Oh, uh a Red Bull would be great !”
“Coming right up ! Make yourself comfortable while I go get that !”
Once Charles disappears outside of the chamber, Max takes one of the two gamepads of the PlayStation to launch a game of FIFA for the both of them. As he waits, he nervously taps his fingers on the two joysticks of the controller he’s holding. His attention is then caught by a half-finished watercolor painting on the coffee-table in front of him. To distract himself as the game update itself, he carefully takes the picture in his hand. It’s a painting of turbulent sea and a ship riding its wave. Its sails, deformed by what he can imagine is strong gush of wind, seems to be the only source of light in the entire painting as if it had absorbed every sunray of the sea.
He might be more tired than he thought, because he swears he can almost hear the sound of the waves crashing against the hull of the ship and the song of the seagulls that fly above the sails.
He has to fight the urge to touch the painting, afraid to smudge the colors together. Delicately, he puts back the painting on the coffee-table and he wonders how many hours of practice it would takes him to reach that level of artistry . Probably a thousand, he thinks regretfully. When he puts back the painting on the table, he then notices a newspaper opened at a page with a seemingly benign picture of Charles. His understanding of french might be terrible, but the world scandal written in bold letters all over the page tells him it’s probably nothing more than a stupid tabloid articles. He wonders why Charles bother with such a heap of shit. Then, a notification sound rings on the PS4 and his attention is back on trying to set-up the game console.
A few seconds later, Charles comes back into the chamber with a bag of chips and two red bull cans in his hands.
“Here ! Your Red Bull !” he hands it to him as he hops on the sofa.
“Nice ! Thank you !”
“So, did you choose your team ?” Charles asks.
“Oh, no I got distracted by this !” he points to the painting “It looks real-” he begins, before Charles gasps and hastily snatches the picture away from his sight.
“Oh, this ! It’s just a free time hobby, I was just you know - doodling away...” he rambles, his voice tinted with a hint of panic.
“It looked beautiful.” he comments softly, perplexed by the Charles obvious insecurity about his art. Max then makes a show of turning his attention back to the PS4, to make Charles understands he won’t push the subject further. From the corner of eyes, he sees the timid smile turning the corner of Charles mouth upside at the compliment he received. Still, he hastily puts away the picture into a drawer before coming back on the sofa and focusing on the game on the screen.
The rest of the evening passes in a blur. Later, he won’t be able to remember a single game that Charles and he tried out, but he’ll remember how much he’s laughed despite losing on almost each of them. To be fair, it is difficult to concentrate on anything seriously when Charles is sitting next to him, giggling at his terrible gaming skills, the dimples of his cheeks showing. And if he starts crashing on purpose in the walls when they launch the latest Formula 1 game just to keep Charles entertained, well he’ll never tell.
It’s only several hours later that Max ends ups going back to his apartment. He wouldn’t have ever checked the time had the light of the day not dimmed sufficiently for them to realize they’ve spent the whole day on the sofa. That night, he goes to bed as soon as he comes back to his apartment, his head light and a smile etched on his mouth.
During the entirety of the summer break, Max becomes an usual fixture among the king’s living quarters.
And suddenly, Red Bull’s ban of any simulator time feels almost inconsequential to him.
Obviously, with the constant scrutiny in which Charles is under, they try to be as discreet as possible.
At the end of every day, Charles escorts him to a discreet exit on the other side of the palace. They talk the whole way, passing through the greenhouses of the palace and walking slowly, as if to stretch their time together. And without fail, when they eventually reach the exit, Charles wishes him goodbye with a featherlight kiss on the left cheek. The stroke of Charles lips on his skin leaves Max feeling like a drunk man going back home after a long, dizzying night.
And without fail, he goes to sleep in his own bed thinking about the playful light in Charles eyes that Max is almost certain is a sign that there’s something .
Something more than a simple blooming friendship in between them.
But for now, he doesn’t really even really want to act on his developing feelings. He’s just content to have found a friend who sees past the “prodigal son” or “Mad Max” tag everyone puts on him.
After his training schedule picks up again by the end of July, it takes him two full races to realize his summer break has ended. The confusion is easy to understand, because no matter how far away from Monaco he races, Charles keeps on being never too far away. In his mind, in the texts he receives on his phone, everywhere .
He starts paying more attention to the news as well. Especially the ones revolving around his Monaco, that one article he found on Charles table suddenly coming back to mind.
And what he sees makes his stomach turn. Charles has barely been king for a few months that already dozens of paparazzi seems hellbent on catching even his smallest slip-up during his public outings. More often than not he reads articles online sharing so-called evidences of how Charles isn’t worth of his title. On one picture, a tabloid criticizes him for wearing a suit that is deemed too casual while shaking the hand of the Taiwanese president. On another, he’s seen smiling too brightly at a child in the crowd, his posture judged unkinglike.
Get a life , he wants to shout angrily at those dumbasses.
And Charles in all of that ? Well, Charles tries to laugh it off when he asks him about it. He wears one of those tight smiles, his expression tense and unreadable like he’s second away from turning into a porcelain doll. But on some days, when it’s late at night and they’re both running low on energy after playing a thousandth rematches on FIFA, Charles lowers his mask ever so slightly. He speaks about how the more months pass, the more it feels like he’s stuck in a loop. He tries to do everything right, to make his fellow citizens proud even if sometime he feels like a walking billboard for the Monaco tourist office rather than the head of his country. And then, the tabloids publish a picture of him they find good enough to diss him.
And yet, Charles keeps on trying, keeps on smiling bravely.
During those moments, Max always tried to find something to comfort him. It feels like empty promises whenever they hold those talk through their phones.
But when they are both together, sitting next to each other, he takes Charles hands into his. And even if it all feels a bit like wishful thinking, he hopes running his thumb over the skin of Charles knuckles will help, even if just a little.