Work Text:
July
The gray sofa that was in the Ferrari hospitality represented for Carlos an oasis of incredible rest and relaxation. The best part was that he shared it with Charles, at his side most of the time.
That morning they were both sitting there, with their phones in hand, scrolling their social accounts and laughing together if either of them found any funny videos or memes to share.
Carlos was usually very participatory in their little ritual, but he saw a picture on Instagram that caught his attention and fell silent for several minutes.
"Hey, mate... you're strangely quiet. What are you looking at?" Charles asked, stepping into his personal space and completely leaning on his shoulder.
Carlos's heart skipped a beat due to that contact; it was something he had painfully accustomed to over time for quite a while.
"A company that produces barbecues appeared in my IG's suggested posts. It's really cool, check it out," he exclaimed, giggling.
He moved his phone between the two of them and allowed Charles to observe.
It was a huge and shiny three-burner charcoal and gas barbecue, made in Germany. It had a lot of functions for the temperature and for the gas cylinder, a giant shelf to put spices... it was a luxury and design product, highly customizable.
It was very expensive, yet that wasn't the problem for Carlos. But in the garden of his family's villa in Mallorca there was already present a magnificent coal barbecue made of bricks... he and his father loved cooking meat for their family and their guests. It was their favourite thing to do together when they disconnected from everything else for a few weeks in summer.
"Mamma mia, that's so cool, mate! You have always told me that you like a lot to grill and eat meat. I think your infinite love for burgers is now common knowledge!" he chuckled as he moved away from him and allowed Carlos to stare into his eyes, green as two luminous emeralds.
"True, I plead guilty. You know, now that I think about it... you and I have never been able to eat meat cooked by me together since we've known each other, right?" Carlos told him in a feigned indifferent way.
Actually, he often thought about all the things he wanted to do with Charles - he would list them in his head in detail and then torment himself about the ones he could never achieve.
Kissing him until his breath was taken away, sleeping with him in the same bed, waking up together in the morning, telling him he was in love with him, hearing him say I love you.
These were all actions that would never, ever happen, he knew perfectly well. However, at that moment, the idea of having Charles in the garden of his villa in Mallorca, next to him while cooking him hamburgers with all his love and care seemed to be the only thing Carlos could finally reach.
And so, he decided to give it a try for once in a while.
"I own a beautiful brick barbecue in Mallorca, I have everything I need to make you taste the best burger of your life, I swear to you. Did you know that in Spain we have one of the best meats ever? Rubia Gallega is delicious," he stated with zero salivation in his mouth.
Come on, Carlos, you can manage to have at least this memory with him in your life, he thought before sinking the final blow.
"A few weeks ago, you mentioned to me that you were thinking of cruising your yacht between Corsica, Sardinia, and Ibiza during these summer holidays... right?"
Charles's head made an affirmative sign. His front tooth was nibbling on his lower lip, and that action stunned Carlos for a moment.
"That’s right... why are you asking me?"
"Well, you might be able to stop by Mallorca for a day, or even just one night. After all, it's on your sailing route," he declared before taking a breath and continuing to speak. He was feeling a terrible heat in his neck and all over his chest, he was about to melt like an ice cube in the sun. "Dad would be so happy to spend time with you and tell you a lot of stories from his rally career. My mother and my sisters like you very much... I would be delighted to finally be able to cook you proper burgers, sometimes I manage to prepare them myself, with my own hands. How about it? Do you want to come?"
Please, please, please, come to my house, accept my invitation. You would make me the happiest man in the world.
A smile full of joy appeared on Charles's face, and an embarrassed chuckle spread through the air.
Music to Carlos's ears.
"I'd like to come! You know, I'm with my friends from Monaco and there are almost ten of us, so it wouldn't be easy to get organized... but it would be cool. Text me to remember this, you know I'm forgetful lately," was Charles's reply.
And that made Carlos ecstatic as never before.
Dios, he had always dreamed of having Charles with him in Mallorca, one of the places he had always been most fond of.
He had never been able to find the courage to invite him; there had never been the perfect situation for it, but now he had finally created it and had not missed his shot.
For Carlos it was difficult to find circumstances outside Ferrari or Formula 1 that would allow him to spend time with Charles without commitments, races, cameras, sponsors. Yet, now, the rare chance of being able to be with the person he had understood by now he loved in the silence of his heart for some time, seemed closer than ever.
He wouldn’t have desired anything else from him... just to be together in peace at his villa in Mallorca, in the company of his family, spending pleasant hours together chatting, eating, and laughing, as they already did the rest of the year.
He didn’t expect anything else from Charles in any other way.
Dreaming for a few hours of something that he unfortunately could never have had, however, would have been so beautiful anyway.
And Carlos really hoped with all his heart that Charles would keep his promise.
August
Carlos’s Instagram feed showed him, as always, Charles’s posts first. He had added him to his favorites, so they immediately popped up every time.
Charles had posted twenty minutes earlier a carousel of wonderful photos of him among his friends, in a bathing suit and all his skin red as a tomato - he knew very well that he got burned the first few days in the sun, yet he always insisted on not putting on any sunscreen.
Carlos was sitting in his hammock in his garden in Mallorca, and zoomed in on the images to better admire his teammate.
As usual, he let out a deep, regretful sigh that froze his lungs. He couldn't do anything else when he knew he wanted something that was way beyond his reach.
Charles was truly the most wonderful person he had ever met in his life, and his beauty made his wrists tremble every time. Besides, he really missed him so much in his day-to-day life - he wasn't used at all to spending so much time without him by his side.
He was the familiar face that accompanied him all over the world, his faithful companion in laughters and battles on the track, the teammate that always offered him consolation and understanding. And being separated from him, as well as having very little direct contact with him, since Charles left his cell phone somewhere far away during the summer break, was truly torture of the worst kind.
Then Carlos noticed his post caption.
Thanks Corsica and Sardinia for the wonderful memories! 🌊 Next stop - Ibiza ☀️
Carlos's mind went back to their conversation on the Ferrari sofa in July, to Charles's promise to visit him in Mallorca to eat his burgers.
He could have done it without problems: Mallorca was on the way to Ibiza. He shouldn't have to make convoluted sea maneuvers, waste gas, and go off course.
So Carlos took heart and sent him a message which he took a good five minutes to painstakingly compose.
Mate! I saw that you are on your way to Spain. What do you say, could you come over to my house for those infamous burgers? Don't worry if you are with your friends, space is not a problem at my parents' villa. We have a gigantic garden and our table under the gazebo can accommodate up to twenty people. Keep me posted.
Incredibly, Charles's response was not long in coming.
And, unfortunately, it wasn’t what he would have liked to receive.
At all.
Mate... I am too busy. We can't stop in Mallorca, we have other plans. I will sail Sedici directly to Monaco on the way back. Perhaps another time... We'll see each other again in a few weeks :)
That text took Carlos' breath away as if it had just been given him a well-aimed kick in the stomach.
It wasn't because of the burgers, or because of the postponed invitation (or perhaps it would have been better to say refused, at this point?), or because Charles was with his lifelong friends.
His pain stemmed from a terrible awareness: it had just served before his eyes the definitive proof that he wasn’t that important to Charles.
Carlos wanted so much to have him at his home, with his family, in one of the very few places in the world where he could be completely himself.
But, obviously, Charles didn't care about such a thing.
Dios, Carlos felt a lump in his throat that was taking his breath away as he continued to reread those words on his cell phone screen. But no matter how many times he stared at them with his own eyes, they always remained mercilessly the same.
He wasn't outraged, he wasn't even angry or furious. He didn't have an impulsive character like Charles's, who was much more prone to anger than him.
Inside himself, Carlos only felt boundless disappointment at his own broken hopes. He had been, as always, a fool who had deluded himself; for once, he thought that he could hold on to a little sparkle of joy in a personal love life that sadly revolved around unrequited love.
He had never assumed that Charles could reciprocate his feelings, and had accepted this hard fact with dignity, remaining relegated to dear friend and teammate’s role. But he didn't even think he really mattered so little to him.
He was at the bottom of Charles’s hierarchy of importance. And for Carlos, realizing this had been like receiving a very violent slap in the face.
He quickly typed a very short answer to Charles. He didn't think much about how to articulate it, he just wrote it straight away.
Oh, okay. All right.
Then he put his phone next to him in the hammock, rocking it gently with his bare feet on the very green grass of his villa.
Carlos lost himself for a few minutes in the depths of his own mind, detaching himself from the outside as he often did, to focus on what he should do with Charles in the following weeks.
I will not write to him. And not only because I have pride and I feel so hurt, but because he is so busy that he doesn't have time for me.
And that painful decision was for him like swallowing a handful of broken glass all along his throat.
Carlos' mood, definitely low, didn’t improve even two days later.
In fact, it got considerably worse.
That morning he crawled into the kitchen of his villa and sat at the table in his usual place, his favorite breakfast cup already put beside a steaming coffee pot. Meanwhile, Ana and Blanca greeted him with a nod and a whispered Buenos días - they knew that they shouldn't speak to him until he had a lot of coffee into his veins.
At one point, the silence that had established between the three of them was broken by Ana's voice.
"Carlito, did you see who Charles met in Ibiza last night?"
Hearing Charles's name spoken by his sister was as if someone had stuck a fork into his heart and started digging into it with it. However, he swallowed the sip of coffee he had encased in his palate, let it down through his esophagus, and then opened his mouth to answer her.
"No, Ana." Because I haven't been writing to Charles in days, not looking at his posts or checking his Ig stories. Because I have been suffering like an animal for days after distancing myself from him. Because I feel like a perfect, jealous idiot about a fucking refused invitation. "Who was he with yesterday in Ibiza?"
His younger sister handed him her phone to show him, while Blanca was at her side, intent on biting into a toast with jam spread on it.
"Fedez and Chiara Ferragni! They were so beautiful!" Ana exclaimed enthusiastically.
Carlos knew very well who Fedez and Chiara Ferragni were... the most famous couple in Italy. He was a singer, she had basically invented the influencer profession; they had two wonderful children and were very much loved all over the country.
He had no idea they were in Ibiza to spend their summer holidays.
Charles was smiling by their side, dressed in total white... he was so tanned. Seeing him again was for Carlos like feeling himself drowning in the waves, a horrible sensation that completely took possession of his chest, crushing it hard.
He missed him so much that he could hardly believe it, and, in a moment of clarity, he understood why he hadn't come to see him in Mallorca.
Because Charles had clearly preferred to have fun in some of the movida clubs in Ibiza with his friends, to meet famous and popular people like the Ferragnez, rather than spend a few hours with him at his home eating hamburgers.
In the end, they obviously wanted two very different things in life, and that hurt Carlos so much. A pain never experienced before in his entire life.
He struggled to find his voice to answer Ana, returning her phone. "Good for him," was his succinct reply before standing up, say goodbye to her sisters, and going to train.
He would eat something later... now Carlos just needed to go to his villa’s gym, put on his boxing gloves, and punch his punching bag.
And to be alone with the pieces of his broken heart.
The month of August lazily continued to slip away and Carlos noticed that Charles had begun to write to him every day; a lot more than his usual standards.
He sent him funny memes, videos about Ayrton Senna or Gilles Villenueve, various photos of Ibiza (Mate, how beautiful is Spain? It's a magical place!), asked him about the strategy for Spa... and yet Carlos sticked to his position.
It wasn't easy, but he incredibly managed it. He wasn’t friendly or warm towards him, quite the contrary; he replied to his messages sometimes as long as five or six hours after receiving them, and in monosyllables.
Any request to play chess together on their phone app was systematically denied.
Carlos didn't want to hear Charles, he didn't want to be his attention's consolation prize occasionally. And the disappointment he had felt at the beginning had, little by little, left room for a growing irritation towards him and towards himself.
Because, in the infinite stupidity of his love for him, Carlos had allowed Charles to hurt him. He had allowed him such ample freedom of maneuver in his life that he had found himself vulnerable and defenseless in front of him.
And what had been the consequence of this? Carlos found himself alone, fighting to maintain a relationship that perhaps he had placed a greater value on than it actually had.
He had been so blinded by the bliss Charles had brought into his life that he ignored the fact that it wasn't the same for his teammate.
And that's why being in love with someone who didn’t love you back in the same way really sucked.
Every single thing reminded Carlos of what could never be his, because it was placed in a shadow cone beyond his possibilities. Every single thing reminded him that Charles was enjoying his vacation away from him and that he didn't care about being with Carlos.
Because, most likely, he didn't care a damn about him.
The end of the summer break split Carlos in two: on the one hand, he felt a profound relief at the idea that his life would return to normality. He missed Italy, he missed Ferrari, he missed being a driver and driving on the tracks. On the other hand, the mere idea of seeing Charles again after weeks away and with very little contact between them by his own will made his heart drop to his shoes.
Carlos didn't even know how to behave; whether to continue with his indifference, an attitude that by now was bordering on the purest masochism, or to go back to being his usual affectionate teammate.
The decision was made when he saw him in Maranello, for a small meeting with the engineers and workers in the factory; the next day they would all leave for Belgium.
Charles was even more handsome than he remembered, and that created a knot in Carlos’ stomach.
"Hey, mate!" he told him as soon as he saw him. His skin was golden because of his tan, he was dressed in white, and Carlos felt like crying like a fool.
He approached him and engulfed him in an embrace that projected Carlos to hell and heaven at the same time.
Hell, however, prevailed within him. That contact was as painful as a crown of thorns resting on his head, and it made Carlos want to die.
Joder, he missed Charles so fucking much. His holidays had been horrible, he had filled his hours in every possible way to not think about him - long walks with Piñón, nights on the boat with his father, afternoons spent watching Netflix movies and series with his sisters.
What had Charles done instead? He had met people left and right, had a lot of fun, and never thought about him.
Not even once.
Tough shit.
"Hey," Carlos whispered in Charles's ear, wrapping himself around him, but in a detached way. Before, he took advantage of their hugs to feel him close in any way... now he shunned them, because they weighed like boulders on his heart.
Charles broke off their contact and looked him up and down before speaking to him. "So, how was your summer break? We haven’t speak to each other very much lately... I have been busy, but so have you. But I really enjoyed these holidays, it was just what I needed!"
Oh, I know you had so much fun. You even went to Fedez and Chiara Ferragni's villa to play bowling with them. You didn't come to visit me for this, did you? Because you were too busy. A single thought about me never even occorred to you. While I was in Mallorca all alone like an asshole, desperately trying to get you out of my head.
"It was okay. See you later on stage with Mattia," was all he said to Charles before walking away.
Carlos was so annoyed with him and himself, and he couldn't even put his feelings out in a way that didn't make his liver basically explode with rage.
No, unfortunately, he was used to suffocating everything inside to full measure.
Mamma mia, being in love is really the most terrible thing that could ever happen to a human being, he thought as he stepped away from Charles and clenched his hands into fists. It was simply the worst feeling in the world... he would have sacrificed anything to stop feeling at the mercy of another person's whims.
A person who had not even realized the destructive power he had over him and who was literally annihilating him.
Returning to his home in Sassuolo was pleasant for Carlos.
He really felt the need to be alone, in the midst of his own things, and detach from his thoughts for a while.
He was standing in his kitchen, in the background there was a Bake Off Italia’s rerun on his tv. What can I make for dinner? he wondered thoughtfully as he was checking the papers Rupert had given him about his own diet.
He still had a funereal mood; the Spa race over the weekend was already starting to take up space in his head to focus on, and the constant thought about Charles was eating his brain.
Finally knowing he didn’t count in his life, not even as a friend, was an extremely difficult reality for Carlos to deal with.
At one point, his tranquility was interrupted by the trilling sound of his doorbell. He almost jumped in the air - he didn't expect anyone to visit, especially in the late evening.
So he turned his TV off, went to his door, and checked the surroundings from his peephole.
And the identity of his visitor made him open his jaw in amazement.
"What are you doing here?" he said to Charles, opening his house door for him. He was dressed exactly like in the afternoon, but just one detail was different: in one hand, he was holding a green shopping bag.
"Wow, what a warm welcome, mate," he began sarcastically. "Can I come in?"
Carlos stood aside and, without uttering a single word, allowed him to enter.
Charles walked into his kitchen as if he were being driven by an autopilot, he noticed. And Carlos's mind filled with their past memories, which had been so precious to him.
How many times Charles had been there for dinner with him, because Carlos was the better cook between them. How many times they played chess together on the kitchen table, fighting each other until the last moment. How many times had Carlos looked at him and had only one devastating thought in his head.
Don't leave me, just stay another five minutes, please. I need you so much here with me.
Meanwhile, Charles placed his bag on the table and began taking out its contents.
He silently passed a bag of potato chips into Carlos’ hands. But not just any: they were his favorites, Fonzies. He always ate some of it during his cheat day, Charles knew it very well.
Carlos didn’t know what reaction he could have in front of that gesture, because he hadn't the slightest idea about Charles‘s purpose, with this surprise visit of his and gifts.
He was silent, clutching the Fonzies' bag in his hand and looking at Charles as if he were an alien directly came from Mars.
After that, Charles took a white package out of his shopping bag. It was wrapped in glossy paper, and he handed it to Carlos, looking him straight into his eye.
He opened it, and a sensation of surprise exploded inside his chest like a firework.
Inside that package, there were four hamburgers.
"Errr... I thought you could finally cook me tonight the burgers we talked about before the summer break," he began with a very insecure, but sweet tone at the same time. "I know you don't have your wonderful brick barbecue here and it's not like being at your villa in Mallorca, but that's okay with me. After all, what really matters is the company, right?"
While listening to his words, Carlos felt his astonishment dissolve into a cloud of nervousness that enveloped from head to toe in an instant.
In his veins, he felt something glowing flowing through him, as if it were gasoline ready to ignite.
"Yeah... it matters so much to you that you've been in Ibiza with people who only know you because you're a Ferrari driver. People that don't care about you, and don't know anything about you,” was his angry reply.
A distant part of his brain advised Carlos to bite his tongue and shut the fuck up, but the exasperation and pain he felt inside himself had reached a too high level to be repressed in any way.
It was like being a raging river that was about to overflow and overwhelm everything around it.
"Sorry, what did you say, mate?" was Charles's shocked question. They had known each other for nearly four years, and Carlos had never addressed him like this.
"You heard me," he said firmly, setting Charles's burgers on his table with a loud thud. "Why are you doing all of this now? Fonzies, the meat? You don't really care much about me, I know it very well."
His words shocked Charles, Carlos was fully aware of it. He was stunned as he had never seen him.
"What are you talking about? Why are you so mad at me? Could you please tell me what I did to you?"
Oh, we should rather talk about what you didn't do. I asked you to come to me, to my house in Mallorca, and you snubbed me. As if I didn't count at all, as if I were someone whose presence is not that important for you. The truth is you broke my heart and I feel like a total idiot because I love you.
"Nothing, forget it. You never see what’s right in front of you," was Carlos' sharp judgment.
It seemed to him that he was a raging bull in the arena, in front of which the bullfighter waved the red flag to make him nervous.
Charles's face took on the most astonished expression that Carlos had ever seen up to that moment. His mouth opened and his green eyes turned darker.
"Do you know why I'm here? Because you were incredibly cold towards me today, and nothing like this has happened between us since we've known each other," he said with a calm that almost didn't belong to him. But Carlos was seeing that, beneath the surface, he was angry just like him. "Do you think I haven't noticed that you've been distant for weeks? But I preferred to put it aside. I hoped that whatever it was, it could be resolved seeing each other in person. Or that any problem you were having, would be already fixed."
Charles took a step towards Carlos, placing himself at a closer distance from him. And for Carlos it was like feeling the force of gravity trying to push him towards him at any cost.
"I'm asking you again... what happened?"
The deep sigh that came from Carlos's lungs lasted for a few seconds, which served him to try to stifle the storm of feelings that was impressively stirring in his chest.
"Nothing. Nothing happened. Thanks for the Fonzies chips and the burgers, they seem tasty. You can go now, you'll surely have better things to do than stay here with me."
His words finally triggered Charles, who answered him with his usual determination.
"Stop saying these things! Tell me what the fuck is wrong with you... what do you mean I don’t see what’s right in front of me?" he asked him, crossing his arms across his chest and unknowingly exposing his muscular biceps.
Carlos just wanted to throw himself into his arms, but he knew it was a fruitless hope. Like wishing it would snow in the desert.
And that painful awareness made him lose his patience once and for all.
"You know, in my life I've always been the one to be overshadowed. I had to constantly work harder than others to prove my worth, to stand out. My surname and my wealth helped me in the beginning, I gained all the rest thanks to my efforts and my stubbornness," he began, words running one after the other as if they were a very fast train. "I accepted without saying a word that here at Ferrari no one will want to see me overtake you, because you are il Predestinato and I will always have to stay one step behind you. No matter how fast I am, how consistent I am on the track... I will never be like you."
As he spoke, Carlos noticed that Charles's face was turning white as a sheet. Perhaps he had never thought about what it was like for him to live in his shadow, but now he would certainly know.
"But that’s okay, I understood that and I adapted. I'm extremely good at adapting, you know. But there is one thing that I absolutely cannot accept and I cannot adapt to. The fact that I am nothing to you. It's more important for you to party in Ibiza with people you don't know. Fuck, I literally disappeared for weeks without contacting you... and you just didn't care. Do you know what all this means? That you don't care about me," he said, almost breathlessly.
Carlos wasn't screaming, he wasn't throwing everything out of his heart in pure anger. No, he was using words as if they were knives.
And he was de-fleshing himself in this way.
The look Charles gave him was completely lost, shocked. As if a 1.5 tonne weight had been thrown over his shoulders and his back was struggling not to break.
"What are you babbling about? Where does this self-pity, this inferiority complex come from?" he wondered in a whisper that was lost in the air. Then he moved even closer to Carlos, and he swallowed at their physical closeness. "I don’t care about you? And where would I be right now, huh? Answer me, mate."
Carlos looked him straight in the eye and, for a moment, lost himself in the green sea of Charles’ irises before answering him.
"Where were you when I wanted you close to me in Mallorca for just one night? To beg for a few hours of your precious time in the midst of your busy schedule? I just needed one dinner together, you know."
Charles's head bent over after his answer and didn’t rise for a while.
"I- I didn't think you cared that much. I am sorry, I made a mistake with you," was his clear admission. But Carlos didn't feel better after those words.
Not at all.
He just felt like crying. You never think of me. That's the real problem between me and you. You are my sun in my universe, and I am only a distant satellite lost in the darkness in yours.
"It's okay, mate. It'll get over it," was his last remark before a thick icy silence fell into his kitchen, killing his ears and heart for several, endless minutes.
Then that horrible quietness fell apart.
"Please, Carlos... I apologized. Don't be mad at me anymore," was the prayer Charles threw at him, hoping he would welcome it.
Carlos felt so tired to his bones that he took a deep breath and gathered his last energies. How could he ever make him understand that even his smallest gesture could potentially be destructive to his balance? That every action of him could tear him down and destroy him? That he loved him so fucking much and he saw every day that his love for him was wasted, like a useless offering at the feet of a deaf and blind God?
"Thanks for coming, just forget the rest. You can go now," he said with great difficulty. He tried to move from his position in the kitchen, but he couldn't.
Because Charles’s hand wrapped around his arm and pinned him, like a snake with its predestined victim.
"No, I'm not leaving your house until you really explain to me what is going on. You told me some absurd things, do you understand?"
God, Charles's stubbornness was really unmanageable.
"I don't care. I don't want to talk to you now. See you tomorrow at the airport to go to Belgium, goodnight," was all he said before trying to free himself from Charles's grip, but in vain.
He was as firm as if he had melted into his muscles like metal.
"I don’t understand you. You tell me that I don't see things in front of me, I ask you for explanations, and you shut yourself off. What am I supposed to do with you?" he told him before letting him go, as if Carlos's skin was burning furiously.
"No, what am I supposed to do with you?!" was Carlos' shouted reply.
Oh mamma mia, he had completely lost control over himself now.
"You don't fucking understand what's going on around you. You don’t realize that maybe there are people for whom it’s important to be with you, away from the media circus that always surrounds us. You don’t realize when someone next to you every day is terribly hurt... because it’s more important to you do something else with someone else!"
Charles stared at him as if he were speaking Chinese out of nowhere. "What are you talking about? Stop blaming me for Mallorca again, I already apologized to you! Why are you behaving like this?"
And the answer flowed from Carlos's lips in such a natural way that nothing and no one could ever stop him from saying it.
"Because I'm in love with you!" he screamed, before realizing what he had just said, and literally covered his mouth with his hands.
Oh no.
He had just ruined everything.
Whatever he had painstakingly built in the last two years of his life had just exploded into the air with a blast that had destroyed everything for miles.
Himself, his relationship with Charles, probably even their balance together in Ferrari as teammates.
Carlos had made a huge mess, and he fully realized it in the deafening silence of his kitchen. The worst silence he'd ever heard in his entire life.
"What did you just say?" was the very feeble question spoken by Charles, as if someone were squeezing his throat so hard that he couldn't breathe.
"Nothing at all. I didn't say anything," Carlos declared, walking away from him. "Go away now... leave me alone, please."
For once in your life, do what I'm fucking telling you to do.
Of course, it was as if Carlos' words were tears in the rain. Charles grabbed him again by the arm and pulled him close.
"You can't tell me such a thing and then walk away! Explain to me... what does it mean that you are in love with me?"
Carlos laughed bitterly, as if he had been told the saddest joke in his life. By now he had turned into a broken-hearted clown.
"What do you think it means, huh? It means that when I'm with you, I'm overjoyed. When we are apart, I feel like shit because it's pure torture. It means that I didn’t make my invitation to Mallorca light-heartedly, but it was something I cared a lot about because it would probably be my only chance to have you there with me. Next year-"
Charles cut him off immediately, his grip on Carlos's arm getting tighter and tighter. His devastatingly beautiful face seemed warped by feelings that Carlos couldn't decipher.
"Next year what? You and I will be teammates."
And once again Carlos was forced to tell him what it meant to be always one step behind him, no matter what.
"You have been in Ferrari all your life. I have already toured four teams instead. You don't have the pressure I have on my shoulders," he confessed between one panting breath and the next. "You have no idea how quickly the balance can change in Formula 1. Next year could be our last together, you know better than me that a signed contract doesn’t have much value. I am not Charles Leclerc, I am not il Predestinato. There is no certainty in this world for me."
Charles looked at him as if he was definitely out of his mind. Maybe Carlos was crazy, he was right.
"What are you talking about? This is insane! Cut this bullshit!" Charles yelled at him.
"It’s not bullshit! These things are real when someone is in love with another person like I am in love with you," Carlos admitted. Saying it made him feel good, even though it seemed like he was imprisoned in a circle made of fire that was burning all around him. "Please, just leave. I don’t want to talk with you about this, about Mallorca, or about my feelings for you never again. Forget all- "
The sentence Carlos wanted to say to Charles never managed to leave his throat.
Because his mouth was covered by Charles's in a kiss.
The last thing he literally ever expected could happen between the two of them in the midst of such a terrible and heated argument.
And that contact, brief but intense, was etched in his memory forever as something sublime and horrible at the same time.
It was something he had always wanted, but he had achieved it in the absolutely wrong context.
Carlos pulled away from Charles's lips - God, how soft and gorgeous they were -, shocked like few other times in his life.
"What are you doing?" was all he had the strength to ask him. It was as if in that kiss he had sucked out all his anger, all his pain, and put a little sun in his chest that was shining indecently.
"You were saying too much bullshit and I wanted to stop you from talking. My plan worked," Charles smiled. His laugh was low and hoarse, but undoubtedly genuine. "You said too many wrong things, now it's my turn to speak."
He rested his forehead on Carlos’s, who continued to be at the mercy of an unreal feeling, as if he had suddenly ended up in some parallel universe or something, like in the Marvel movies.
"You have no idea how hurt I was because you didn’t talk to me. And every time you answered me, after hours, you were cold and flippant. I looked for a thousand excuses to write to you, but you still kept me at bay... I thought something serious had happened in your family, I didn't understand at all it was my fault," Charles revealed softly, as if everything he was telling Carlos was a special secret he couldn't reveal to anyone else. "Whenever you refused to play chess with me, I felt like shit. I thought that today, meeting again, you would be my usual Carlos with me. Instead, you were as distant as ever, and this threw me into a panic. I spent weeks trying to figure out what was happening to us and why I was suffering like crazy, until one minute ago... when I indulged my instincts and kissed you. And I finally understood."
Then Charles's mouth came close to Carlos's again and he deposited another kiss there, this time longer and more intense, as if it were a natural gesture between them. And not something that had just turned Carlos's entire life upside down.
"I don't want to forget that you love me, don't ask me to do something like that. I want you to remember... and I want to eat your burgers in Mallorca, even if I was an asshole, because I don't really give a fuck about anyone else but you," Charles continued, as if his heart was overflowing with a new awareness and Carlos was the only person worth knowing it. "I want you to talk to me, to tell me everything, and I want to give you self-confidence and safeness inside and outside Ferrari. I want to be together as drivers, and I want to be with you."
Carlos was speechless.
He kept watching Charles's mouth move. He was hearing what he was saying and he was rationalizing it in his brain, but it all seemed surreal, like in a dream.
"I want to love you as much as you love me. And I don't want to make you suffer like this anymore. Forgive me, please."
Every single word spoken by Charles was as if it were a brick that was going to rebuild a wall of happiness inside Carlos’ mind and heart.
He would take care of everything else later; now he just wanted to take everything he never thought he could have in his entire life.
Carlos let out a deep sigh, then a broad smile came across his face.
"You are an unfair cheater, you know? How can I not forgive you when you've just told me everything I've always dreamed of?"
A low giggle echoed in Charles's chest and passed on to Carlos's for how close they were to each other. Their mouths were just a kiss away.
"Because I'm great at giving you everything you want, when you talk to me. Can you promise me you'll never treat me this way again? No more silence, no more coldness? We feel the same things for each other, and I fucking need you," Charles asserted with a certitude that left Carlos breathless.
He affirmatively shook his head.
"Okay, I promise. I swear to you that next summer I will cook you the best hamburgers in the world in the garden of my villa in Mallorca, where I have always dreamed of having you with me. Did you know we have in the living room a beautiful piano build in the early 20th century, all inlaid in wood and with ivory keys?" he asked Charles, with a joy that made his eyes sparkle like two diamonds.
"I didn't know that... I can't wait to play something for you," Charles told him with such a sweetness that overflowed from every single word. "I'll do whatever you want, I swear to you. All I need is seeing you happy and smiling."
On Carlos's features, there was surely a cheerfulness that he had never felt up to that moment. Perhaps, only when he was standing on the Silverstone podium, after his first win.
"If you want to make me happy, well... it’s an easy thing to achieve. You just have to stay by my side," was all he told Charles before kissing him, and never stop doing it forever.