Chapter Text
Regular streams became the only sure thing through the months of quarantine. While Charles didn’t stream as frequently as the others (*cough* Lando), it was a huge part of his life in the early months of lockdown. Twitch took over nearly every day, with Charles sitting down at his desk, turning on the camera, and talking to the screen for hours on end. However, that was all about to end. For a while at least. The newly confirmed start of the season in Austria was quickly approaching and so with it was the end of quarantine and the streams. But Lando – Lando had a plan. He had got together the quartet and Max (yes and Max) for one final stream to finish with a bang.
It started as Charles and Lando. Then eventually Alex and George popped into the stream for the brief time they could spare. With Austria so close, they all had things they needed to do. So it was fair enough when the two of them left a few minutes apart after only an hour or so of playing open lobbies (which, of course, were about as chaotic and crash ridden as you would expect). They switched to Warzone from then on due to a mix of demand from chat and also because Max was scheduled to join at any moment and there was no way he would want to play open lobbies. Max was quite famous across the depths of Twitter and Reddit for his hatred of the F1 games, so playing it with him was never going to happen.
“Charles! How many times do have to die before you realise you can’t just stand in the open?” Lando sighed. This was what felt like the hundredth time this match he had gone down and Lando was left having to get him back up.
“Mate, I’m trying. I just die immediately!" Charles leaned back in his chair, shutting his eyes for a moment to compose himself. "You know I haven’t played this in a while.”
“I know. I’m only jokin’, I just hope Max is better. I can’t carry both of you.”
Exactly on cue, the Discord ping cut through the sounds of gunshots and explosions.
“Hey everyone, sorry I’m late. How are we doing tonight chat and Lando – and Charles?” Max chimed in with his annoyingly happy tone. It wouldn't take long for that to change.
“Get me up!” Max screeched at the top of his lungs. He was bound to get another noise complaint if he wasn't careful.
“I’m trying.” Charles bit his lip in concentration. “And… I tried.”
*You Placed 14th*
"You weren't kidding about Charles, were you?" Max grumbled. It was more a statement than any sort of question.
“To be fair Max, we all remember when you played and fell down that ladder, you can’t say anything.” Lando interjected before Charles could open his mouth.
Streams with both Max and Charles (which weren’t too often) were always something like that. Always tense with a 'jokey' jab being thrown around here and there. Alex, Lando, and George would try to keep the peace as they awkwardly laughed and played it off as banter when sometimes it really was a little more than that.
"Thanks for watching four hours of chaos chat, I don't know what we can do or when the next stream will be, but I will see ya then."
And with that, the final stream for a good while was ov-
“That was a disaster. How many times are we gonna do this? Every time we do this with you two it's the same, there’s not a second you aren’t taking the piss out of each other. I am done with it." Charles was taken completely aback at Lando's outburst. He was always the one who was calm, awkwardly laugh, and interject with some humorous line to relieve the tension. Never would he do anything like this. "I get it, you've raced against each other for ages, but me, Alex and George have been racing against each other for just as long, that was never enough to stop us from getting along, if anything it made us closer. Why can’t you just try to get along, even just for the stream's sake?”
“We’re not like you Lando,” Max spoke up. “You can say that as much as you like, but we aren't. Stop pretending we are.”
Then Charles heard the ping again.