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They're drivers most of the time.
Charles drives for Ferrari. Max drives for Red Bull. This is how things are in most universes.
We've all heard of this story, their story. But this isn't the only story. With endless and infinite possibilities, their paths are bound to converge in more ways than one.
Charles drives for Ferrari. Max drives for Red Bull.
But sometimes, they both race for Red Bull, fighting so far up ahead it’s as if there is no one else but them in the world.
Often, they go on to define a decade of Formula 1, fulfilling the promises of greatness that have been placed on their too-young shoulders. They’re unmatched and unstoppable, stealing wins and championships like they steal kisses in between dark hallways and motorhomes.
It isn't always like that. They don’t always succeed. Sometimes, even talents like theirs can't beat the odds of luck. In a distant reality, they never get to leave their shitty backmarker teams— leaving the world to wonder what could have possibly happened to Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc if the cards were in their favor.
Sometimes, Charles is Max’s race engineer, the voice in his ear telling him to switch gears and to keep pushing. Unlike Max’s previous engineers, Charles doesn't let him get away with anything, especially not swearing on the radio. It's one of the reasons why Max loves him so much.
Other times, Max is Charles’ performance coach, the nondescript best friend that accompanies him on jogs around Monaco and trips to the supermarket.
In one universe, Charles is the pretty little thing on Max’s arm, the model with a gorgeous smile and Max’s heart in his hand. He watches Max race through screens in the garage, kissing him good luck and letting him jump into his arms to celebrate his wins.
Sometimes, things aren't that easy.
A horrific crash in Monza, one that Charles can't even think about without feeling sick to his stomach, sends Max to the hospital by a helicopter. When he finally wakes up after three agonizing days, his legs wrapped in casts and his head covered in bandages, Charles is there holding his hand. He never lets go after that.
Sometimes, neither of them get to Formula 1 at all.
Sometimes, much to his father’s disappointment, Max isn’t interested in cars and karting. Instead, Max picks up a camera and travels all around the world. He’s in Monte Carlo taking photos of the coastline when he falls in love with a beautiful local named Charles.
Sometimes, they grow up in the same apartment building, their mothers smiling at how wonderful it is that their boys are only separated by sixteen days. Other times, they dance The Nutcracker together in the Bolshoi Theatre. Sometimes, Max is a pretentious barista and Charles is the kind of customer who orders his coffee with too much sugar and too many pumps of caramel.
Perhaps they've been connected by the strings of fate, across space and time and every statistical possibility. Maybe they were made from the same stardust, and their encounters across space and time have long been written in the constellations.
Max, the physicist who studies the multiverse, doesn't like to think of it that way. He likes to think he chose Charles. In a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, he would find Charles and choose him. This Max dedicates his life’s work to Charles, his Charles and all the other Charleses there could possibly be.
Sometimes, they meet when they’re five. They’re enrolled in the same kindergarten class and they share animal crackers and apple juice over sticky blocks and toy cars. Charles calls Max ‘Maxy’. Max has a lisp and he can’t quite pronounce Charles’ name properly until he’s eight.
Sometimes, they meet in a crowded university lecture hall. Charles is hunched over his laptop desperately trying not to fall asleep. Max is the godsend blond stranger who kindly offers him a sip of his Red Bull to help him stay awake.
Other times, they don’t meet until much later, when their hairs have greyed and the skin around their eyes have wrinkled. Max’s kids tell him they’re happy he’s found love. His grandkids, bless them, make sour faces and say ew, grandpa! when he leans in to kiss Charles’ chapped lips.
Sometimes, Max is Maxine and Charles is Charlie. Maxine is a personal trainer— the kind that Instagram influencers rely on to stay skinny— and Charlie is the girl with the high ponytail and pink Dior lip glow oil on her lips. Maxine loves Charlie like Max loves Charles, endlessly and irrevocably.
In most of the universes, they don’t even like each other when they first meet. Sometimes, they’re debaters in an inter-school contest. Other times, they’re on opposite sides of a chess board. They’re cut from the same cloth of stubbornness, refusing to admit how much they actually like each other until their feelings boil over.
It’s particularly dramatic when Charles is a superhero and Max is his villain arch-nemesis, or when Charles is a plucky Hufflepuff and Max is the cold Slytherin he gets partnered with for a potions assignment.
Sometimes, well, most of the time, Max hates pop music, but Daniel drags him to a concert of a band who makes Billboard Top 40 songs, and Max spends the next two hours pretending like he isn’t attracted to the vocalist who is better than Harry Styles in every way.
Sometimes, Charles is an architect and Max is the annoying client who can’t decide what he wants. Charles hates him until he loves him and can’t get enough of him. They bicker and argue until Charles shoves Max against his drawing board and kisses him until he realizes they’ve ruined Charles’ blueprints.
Sometimes, on rare occasions when fate is particularly cruel, they find each other but they don't stay together.
Charles loves Max, and Max loves Charles, but sometimes, love isn’t enough to prevent them from falling apart. They get married, and they have three kids, and it should be perfect because they do love each other, but days spent apart stretch into long lonely months, Max’s side of the bed has gone cold, and “mon amour” becomes “your dad”.
Divorce, one Charles finds, hurts so fucking much when you’re still in love with your husband.
It’s alright. Those universes are few and far between. There is only so much the wider multiverse can do to keep them apart. Regardless of the circumstances, wherever there is a Max, there is a Charles, and Max and Charles love each other.
Sometimes, they lose their way before finding each other again.
Sometimes, it takes thirty years after for Max to get his head out of his ass and realize what he really feels about Charles. Sometimes, Charles leaves his bride at the altar so he can do what he should have been doing with Max.
Most of the time, they’re racing drivers.
Sometimes, they’re actors who develop real feelings for each other on set.
Sometimes, at a party, Max is jokingly dared to kiss Charles, and they don’t stop kissing after that.
Sometimes, Max is an author struggling with writer’s block and Charles is the pianist who becomes his muse.
Every time, there is Charles and there is Max.
And in every lifetime, in every world, in every story, Max and Charles will always find each other.