Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s this misconception about soulmates.

Most people will say that they’re the love of your life, that you will spend forever with them.

He’s heard all the legends—about how soulmates are two parts of the same soul, about how they used to be one before they were split apart and scattered.

They’re supposed to be your better half, your happily ever after, your good ending.

But Max has seen what someone can do to their soulmate. How the concept of soulmates can destroy people.

He’s leaning against a balustrade, arms crossed in front of his chest.

The sun is warm on his face; it’s nice compared to the rain the past few days. He likes rain—he’s grown up in the Netherlands; he probably needs to like rain to a certain degree to not go crazy—, but he will always prefer the sun and warmth over it.

It’s one of the reasons why he’d moved to Monaco once he turned eighteen.

It’s quiet except for laughter and voices carried over by the wind every now and then. The paddock is nearly empty, but that doesn’t overly surprise him. It’s still early, and it’s what Max likes so much about living in a motorhome during the European leg.

He’s stretching his wrists careful to not ruin the tape Brad had applied earlier when he can hear voices. It’s not unexpected. It’s been almost thirty minutes since he came here, and he knows that there are multiple other drivers who like to get to the paddock early and maybe do some running on the track before it gets too filled up for them to do anything but stay in the garages and squeeze through dozens of people.

He straightens up, closes his eyes and tries to focus on the sun in his face instead of the voices ringing out. He’d hoped for a bit more silence until the paddock would start to burst with life, and he’d also hoped that he wouldn’t meet them this early.

Charles isn’t known for being an early riser, and Carlos seems to have adapted to it. Back when they’d still been teammates, Max remembers quite vividly that Carlos would somehow always manage to appear the moment Max stepped into the garage.

Maybe he can—

But before he can decide what he wants to do and whether he’s up to talking to people already—he hadn’t even had a Red Bull yet—, Charles already calls out his name.

“Max!” he yells. “Hi!” There’s a smile on his face when he gets closer, and he looks surprisingly awake. Despite that, his hair is messy, but Max can’t say anything about that because his own probably isn’t any better.

Carlos is a step behind him, hands buried deep in his pockets, and his hair looks as impeccable as always. It’s something that Max will never understand how it’s possible.

“Good morning,” he says. “Why are you already awake?”

Charles rolls his eyes. “This one”—he points at Carlos—“wanted to do some early exercise.”

Max snorts. “Crazy.”

“I know?” Charles exclaims, nudging Carlos who just laughs.

“We always did that,” he says, gesturing at Max and then back at himself. For a moment, Max’s eyes linger on Carlos’s wrists and the lightly miscoloured skin. He knows if he could see Charles’ hands, that he would spot the exact same marks.

“To be fair,” Max says, tearing his eyes away from Carlos’s hands and back to their faces. “We never ended up doing anything.” The plan had always been to go “running,” and then “do some exercises,” and in the end, they just got up early and ate a big breakfast. It was always nice though because there was barely anyone else in the breakfast rooms, and their trainers weren’t there either to remind them of what they were allowed to eat and what not.

Carlos laughs. “Not wrong,” he says, and his hands are back to being buried in his pockets.

“What are you doing here?” Charles asks like Max’s running shoes and outfit might not be a clue

“Oh, you know,” he says. “I wanted to do some running because Brad said I am not exercising my stamina well enough.” He rolls his eyes. “Of course, he would not know.”

They laugh—Carlos’s eyes are squinted in amusement, and Charles’ dimples are brought out. Max shuffles back against the balustrade with a satisfied smile.

“Do you mind us joining you?” Charles asks, and yes, Max does mind. It’s his hour of completely uninterrupted silence. There’s not a lot of time during race weeks where he has a bit of time to himself or when it’s quiet enough for him to be able to hear his own thoughts, and he already doesn’t listen to music and barely ever has background noises on. He doesn’t say that though.

“Sure,” he says. “Suit yourself.”

And they, for sure, suit themselves. They don’t leave Max’s side until there’s some Ferrari employee suddenly appearing out of nowhere to call them back to the garage.

Charles tips his head. “Duty calls,” he says.

Carlos pats his shoulder one last time.

And Max looks after them until they have disappeared.

He doesn’t like to think about the first time he’s realised who his soulmate is.

It was back when his parents were still married, when he’d still believed in soulmates, that they mean something, that they were more than some stupid fairy tale for children.

It happened during a karting championship—as much as Max still vividly remembers the details of some of the things that had happened that day, he doesn’t remember what championship it had been. Just that it had been international, that they had been in France.

He had tried some stupid overtake during the race and lost his position, and even though, he’d been able to gain it back and win, his dad hadn’t been pleased at all.

He’d grabbed Max by his wrists after the podium ceremony, pulled him to where they had parked their car and started to yell at him. About his risky move. About how stupid he’d been. About how he almost lost because he tried something when he clearly knew that he had the faster kart and would’ve been able to overtake normally just a few turns later.

And during the entire rant, he hadn’t let go of Max’s wrists, had held tightly onto them like he’d been afraid that Max would run if he should let go.

Max wouldn’t, and his dad had known that, but it hadn’t changed the fact that his dad held his wrists so tightly that he knew the skin would bruise.

He’s not sure anymore what happened between the time his dad finished yelling at him and the time, Charles Leclerc was suddenly standing in front of him, but it also never seemed important enough for him to remember.

“Are you okay?” Charles had asked, and he remembers just staring in shock at Charles’s bare wrists.

His own had been covered by the sleeves of his racing suit, but Charles had already changed clothes and switched to some more comfortable ones because they always played football after a race—something that Max never joined, so there was never the need to change clothes—, so now the bruises on his wrists were clearly visible.

“Yes, of course,” Max had said, and he still remembers how much his voice had shaken.

Charles hadn’t believed him, but they both had been children back then, and there was no reason for Charles to ask more, so he’d let it go.

He had just nodded. “Do you want to play football with us?”

And Max wanted—he had always wanted to join—, but then he’d looked at his dad who was frowning at him with lips pressed together and a red face that didn’t seem very normal, and he’d shaken his head.

“My dad wants to go home,” he’d said, apologetically. “Next time.”

Charles had smiled. “Next time, sure.”

(He never joined the next time either. Or the time following that. And at some point, the other boys stopped asking. But that had been okay. Because Max wasn’t participating in those races to play football with the other boys. He was there to win. And his dad always told him it was easier if he didn’t have any friends holding him down.

(He doesn’t think about it often, but sometimes when he does remember, he always gets reminded that Charles never stopped, that Charles always asked—no matter how often Max had to say no.))

He knows he’s staring, but he also can’t bring himself to care. It’s hard not to look, and there are enough people around him that it’s not very conspicuous.

Charles is laughing, head thrown back, and Carlos wears that same complacent smile on his face that he always does when he’s managed to make Charles laugh. Which he always does, anyway.

Maybe it’s creepy that he knows what this smile looks like or that Carlos makes Charles constantly laugh, but that’s a thing he can’t bring himself to think about.

He’s too far away to hear what they’re talking about, but Charles seems to be speaking rapidly, and his movements are so quick that his hands blur.

They look happy. Even with the shit season that Ferrari has been having, and sometimes, it makes him wonder if it helps to have your soulmate as your colleague.

Max knows that they’ve known for quite some time that they were soulmates before they went public with it—he’s pretty sure that they knew long before Ferrari, and he wonders if Ferrari knew before they signed Carlos as well.

Max can’t imagine it’s easy to race your own soulmate in the same team. They all know what it can do to teammates and friends. He doesn’t want to know what it can do to soulmates.

But they knew, and they did it anyway.

Maybe they think that the universe can stop them from mauling each other, that destiny will be enough to hold off resentment. Maybe they think that there’s a reason that they’re soulmates, and that if fate decided that they would fit together, that they also could go through everything with each other.

He isn’t sure he could do that. Because at some point, there’s probably a decision you have to make. Racing or your soulmate. A World Championship or your soulmate. Max doesn’t know what he would pick.

No. That’s wrong.

He’s already picked.

And he picked the World Championship.

Although he’s not really sure it counts. Because he’s not with Charles or Carlos in the same team, and he’s not destroying any kind of relationship. Not a soulmate relationship either way.

For that, they would have to know that he’s their soulmate first.

He tilts his head.

Someone comes to a halt next to him. He doesn’t even need to look away from Charles and Carlos to know that it’s Daniel.

“Max!” he exclaims, and Max only takes his eyes off Charles and Carlos long enough to give Daniel a quick hug.

“Hey,” he says. “How are you doing, mate?”

Charles is whispering something in Carlos’s ear, and it looks like he’s giggling.

Daniel nudges him. “You’re staring, Maxy,” he says, a teasing tone in his voice.

“Shut up,” Max says mildly, but he’s, in fact, still staring. There’s blush spreading across Carlos’s cheeks, and then, for a quick second, their eyes meet.

Max nods his head in a greeting and finally looks away.

Daniel is squinting at him when Max meets his eyes. “What was that about?” he asks, and he sounds incredulous.

“What?” Max asks and acts clueless. He’s not very keen on talking about it. Daniel can think whatever the fuck he thinks, it’s not like Max cares. All that much.

“I’m not stupid,” Daniel says, and look, Max never said that. This is a conclusion Daniel reached all on his own. Max didn’t do anything. “I have eyes, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Max says, “otherwise you would not be able to race, Daniel.”

Daniel laughs, and for a moment, Max hopes that he drops the topic, but of course not. It’s Daniel. If there’s one thing, he’s interested in, it’s gossip, and Max knows that Daniel probably thinks there’s a lot of gossip to find here. There’s not. “That is not what I meant, and you know it.”

Max grins at him. “What did you mean?”

Daniel tilts his head, crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Why are you staring at our resident soulmate couple, hm?”

“Appreciating good-looking men,” Max deadpans. Well, it’s not even a lie.

“Keep your secrets,” Daniel says. “I’m going to find them out anyway.”

Max just shows him the middle finger.

Soulmates aren’t exactly a topic that’s often brought up when they see each other, but they also don’t never talk about them. It happens mostly when one of them has found their soulmate or once they’ve started to drink.

Lando is sprawled out of the couch against which Max is leaning while sitting on the floor. His head is spinning but not in a bad way, and he has by far not drunk enough to be drunk.

“Have you met your third yet?” Lando asks, and his words sound slurred. He hadn’t even had a lot to drink tonight, but Lando has always been a lightweight.

Charles tilts his head. He’s sitting the wrong way on a chair across the couch, arms resting on the back of the chair. “Not yet,” he says, “but hopefully soon.” He’s smiling softly, and his dimples dig deep into his cheek.

Max takes a swing from his bottle and tries to blend out the conversation. He’s not drunk enough for this conversation yet, but like the fool he is, he continues listening. He curses Lando and his curiosity.

Lando hums. “Do you know anything about them?”

Carlos shakes his head. “Not a lot. Just that they have to be around Charles’ age? My mother, at least, said that their marks started to appear around the same time.”

“Maybe it’s Max,” Lando jokes. “Same age as Charles.”

Maybe Max wants to throttle Lando.

Carlos rolls his eyes. “Imagine,” he says, and the amusement is obvious in his voice.

“Sure,” Max scoffs. It’s a joke, he tells himself, just a stupid fucking joke. All three of them aren’t aware of the truth, and Max likes to keep it that way. There’s a reason why he doesn’t want them to know.

“Yeah,” Charles agrees. “Me and Max? No way, mate.”

“Exactly,” Max says. “There is no way that Charles and I could be soulmates.”

Charles straightens up, frowns. “Do you even have a soulmate?” And if it wasn’t obvious before that he’s drunk, it’s obvious now. Carlos flicks him against the shoulder which just leads to Charles squinting at him.

It’s a rude thing to ask, but Max just snorts. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

And then they switch topics just as quickly as they switched to this one, and Max relaxes back into the couch and tries to forget about all of this.

His dad hates the idea of soulmates. He has never told Max why he dislikes them so much, but Max can guess. His parents used to be—are—soulmates, and yet, they still didn’t work out, still didn’t have their happily ever after like everyone is being promised once they find their soulmate.

Max doesn’t necessarily think soulmates are stupid, but they seem silly. The universe chooses a person for you with whom you’re supposed to be happy, that you’ll share the rest of your life with? Yeah, right. It doesn’t seem like it makes a lot of sense, it doesn’t seem like it could ever work out.

You’re predestined, chosen for each other by the universe, but how does the universe even know that you’ll get along? That you are the perfect match for each other? Perhaps people only think they’re the perfect match because they wait and wait to meet their soulmates, and they never enter any long-term relationship because they know they’ll only settle with their soulmate, and then they just never have a reference point for a perhaps better relationship than they have with their soulmate.

His parents’ relationship didn’t work out despite the fact that they’re soulmates, and Max can’t imagine that they’re the only one, that they’re the only soulmate couple that failed. There are not a lot of stories about that—because soulmates are supposed to be your happy ending, are supposed to be everything you want, are supposed to be everything in your life—and people love to be romantics and believe in fairytales.

His mum doesn’t talk about soulmates, but he also doesn’t expect her to. Her own soulmate failed her and failed her family to the point that they had to get a restraining order against him. It’s not surprising that soulmates are a bitter topic to her, that she’d rather not think about them, and that she doesn’t want her children to believe that their soulmates are the only ending they can have.

Maybe Max took it too far, looked too deeply into it, tried to find answers that don’t exist.

His sister, on the other hand, loves everything that has to do with soulmates. She’s always been like that, ever since she was a small child. She had never been able to shut up about them, had always dreamed about meeting her Prince Charming and start a family with him. Children, she had talked about, two or more. Definitely more, she’d always said.

She’s, in fact, also met him, and he seems like a nice person from what Max can tell. He hasn’t spent a lot of time with that guy even though it’s been years, but he makes his sister happy and as long as that’s the case, Max is also happy. (Not even mentioning the two nephews he has and that he absolutely adores.)

And Max— Well. Max is happy with things staying exactly how they are. He doesn’t need soulmates to be happy. And they don’t need him.

“How do you feel about the race?” Charles asks, and it’s so sudden, Max almost startles.

See, it’s not that they don’t ever speak, and this is about something racing-related, so it’s double the normal, but he could swear that Charles has recently been reaching out to him quite a bit more often than during all the past years combined.

Although, he guesses, that’s not all too difficult considering that there was a period of time when they didn’t speak at all. 2019 had been awkward as fuck, and Max doesn’t really remember anymore how they even solved that. If they even solved that. He knows that they’re still not following each other on Instagram again, and he knows that the fans like to talk about that like it says anything about their friendship status and—

Max doesn’t even use Instagram all that often anymore. No, that’s not entirely correct. He barely uses any social media at the moment. He’s just…busier with other things, and to be honest, he forgot about the whole Instagram thing until Lando of all people reminded him of that.

He thought about following Charles again, but then he decided that it would be weird, so he didn’t.

Whatever.

The point is that him and Charles get along well enough during race weekends and after races when they didn’t try to take each other out.

It still doesn’t explain why Charles has recently been sticking more to him, why he’s constantly in Max’s peripheral vision, and why he keeps striking up conversations about the most random thing.

He’s not even sure what he’s supposed to say now. Charles has seen the car, and he’s seen how it performed during qualification, and he’s seen that he’d been five-tenths faster than P2, and really. With how the season has been going, Max doesn’t think he can feel anything but positive about the race.

“Better than you,” he finally says, adopting a joking tone.

Charles snorts. “Probably not wrong,” he says like Ferrari hasn’t been struggling this entire season, and maybe that’s where having your soulmate as your teammate is a positive thing. Especially if you’re both Ferrari drivers. Maybe it helps with the positive thinking and trying to delude yourself even more.

You can just keep hyping each other up until you both believe in the team again and think that maybe Ferrari can get their shit together.

Yeah. Max wouldn’t be good at that.

“It will probably be a nice race,” he says, and Charles rolls his eyes.

“Are you going to do an extra pitstop again?”

“Maybe. Who knows? You need all the points that you can get, after all.” With how successful this season has been, he probably doesn’t need them, but it’s still nice. Even if it’s just an extra point, but a point is a point, and if he stopped fighting for every point he can get, then he could just stop with racing.

Although that’s maybe a bit dramatic.

Charles laughs. “You could spare some for the rest of us.”

Max grins. “Only if you are fast enough.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Tell that the SF-24. We are trying.” He’s pouting now, and really, he should look ridiculous. Somehow, he doesn’t.

“To be honest, I do not think a lot could help that car.” The more he hears about the car, the worse it seems to be. He’s seen Adrian glare at it.

Charles just grimaces.

“Do you want to meet your soulmate?” Lando asks; he’s lying on Max’s couch as he stares at the ceiling of his apartment. He looks tired, almost like he hasn’t gotten any sleep the night prior—which probably isn’t entirely false and probably has to do with the fact that a new season of that TV show Lando likes so much has come out.

Max still doesn’t remember what the TV show is called or what it’s about, but he knows about its existence and that’s more than he could’ve told anyone just a few days ago.

“Maybe?” Max squints. “I don’t know. Not yet, I guess.” It’s the safe answer, probably. He can explain that he doesn’t think he has the time for a soulmate and family yet, and that he’d hate it if his soulmate didn’t even like racing and wanted to spend more time with him. Because how exactly would he solve that? Should he stop racing? Not get together with his soulmate until his retirement? Just ignore his soulmate altogether?

Chances that something like that will happen, are low—for him anyway. But that’s not something anyone else knows, and he doesn’t plan on more people knowing, so.

“Makes sense,” Lando mutters.

Max tilts his head, so he can properly look at Lando—and Lando is still staring at Max’s ceiling. Max hadn’t known that a white ceiling could be as interesting as Lando apparently seems to think it is. “Why did you ask?”

“Just curious.” Lando shrugs. “You never talk about soulmates, y’know? But, like, you have one, and I’ve just been thinking about all of this for some time now…like, about what I would do if my soulmate wanted me to stop racing.”

It’s a valid fear. It’s a fear he would also have if he cared more about soulmates, if he didn’t know who his soulmates are. If they weren’t Charles and Carlos. And he hopes for sure that they want him to stop racing.

Even if they wanted him to, he wouldn’t.

But for them to want him to do so, they would have to find out first, anyway. And that’s not happening, not in a million years.

“And what would you do?” he entertains Lando because that’s what friends do—even if he continues to keep dozens of secrets from Lando, but maybe it’s also for Lando’s sake, he tries to tell himself. He wouldn’t want to dump something as his childhood or the whole soulmate thing onto him, and he knows that Lando hates to keep secrets from Carlos, so, really, he’s doing him a favour by simply not telling him a single thing about this whole situation.

Not that there even is a situation. For it to be a situation, it requires things to have happened, and no things have happened. Except for Daniel knowing that he’s got two soulmates, but Max doesn’t count that because Carlos and Charles aren’t closer to finding out about him by Daniel finding out about that years ago, so it’s basically never happened.

It’s flawless logic, really.

“I haven’t fully decided yet,” Lando admits, “but that’d be certainly something that would put a damper on the whole situation. And I mean, I know that soulmates don’t necessarily mean that it’s the end, full stop, but…I would like that my soulmate likes me and my career. I don’t think I could stand it if they disliked something so important to me.”

That might be the ultimate fuck you by the universe. ‘Here the person that is the most compatible with you, but they also hate what you love, and no, there’s no one else who would fit better and who actually also likes what you do. Bye.’

It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened. In fact, Max might be able to think of multiple past drivers who retired because their soulmates had wanted them to—not just because they were constantly fearing for their significant other’s life, but also because they simply disliked the sports.

It makes sense, of course, why Lando wouldn’t want this to happen to him.

And it’s almost funny that his parents got lucky with that part of being soulmates. They certainly never had to worry about this.

Max hums. “I get that,” he says and sighs. “It really doesn’t help that my parents are a clusterfuck of soulmates.”

They might be the perfect example of what not to do. (Jokes on them, if he just never tells his soulmates about his existence, then he also can’t do any of the mistakes his parents did.)

Lando snorts. “Tell me about that.”

Finding out about Carlos isn’t as much of a shock as finding out about Charles.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that he’s older now, that it didn’t happen after his dad yelled at him for fifteen minutes, after he’d grabbed his wrists so tightly that the skin started to bruise.

(Maybe it’s easier because he’s left with the knowledge that both of his soulmates now have someone else they can love.)

It happens during their time at Toro Rosso—it’s not very long, not compared to the time that Carlos will later spend at McLaren and Ferrari, nothing compared to all the years that Max races for Red Bull.

One and a quarter season. That’s how long they’re teammates. That’s how long it takes for Max to realise.

He doesn’t carry a lot of bruises and scars from his soulmates—there are the typical scrapped knees and the small cuts on their hands, the random bruise here and there, but for the most part that’s it.

It’s nothing, probably, compared to what his soulmates must have amassed from him.

Either way. There are so few scars and bruises on Max’s body that it takes him eighteen years to notice that he has more than one.

It’s nothing unusual—there are a lot of people with more than one. He’s heard about a girl once who had four soulmates. It sounds insane, and Max is glad that this is not him, but somehow, he’s also glad that his soulmates have each other.

It makes it easier for him—Charles still doesn’t know that Max is his soulmate, and Max doesn’t know how he’s supposed to bring that up. If he brings it up at all. He hasn’t so far, and he doubts he’ll do it soon either.

And especially after finding out that both of them seem to have another soulmate—

Max’s hands are still taped when he notices that Carlos’s knuckles are slightly bleeding. He’s picked up boxing some time ago, and Carlos keeps forgetting to actually put on boxing gloves. It’s a bit funny at times because Carlos never manages to forget to complain about it afterward.

He doesn’t think a lot of it; it’s quite normal, and Carlos gets huffy when he mentions it, so when he peels off his tapes when he’s back in his hotel room, he doesn’t expect the marks covering his own knuckles.

He hasn’t focused on Carlos’s bleeding knuckles all that much, but he does know what those wounds should look like, and the marks on his own knuckles very much reflect that and— how likely are the chances that Carlos has injured his knuckles at the same time that Max’s soulmate has without him being that soulmate?

He doesn’t panic, and he doesn’t try to think too much about it. Instead, he asks for his hands to get taped every time he exercises and during the race weekends, his hands are mostly covered anyway.

And then, he gets promoted to Red Bull and barely sees Carlos anyway.

He has two soulmates. It’s whatever. It doesn’t mean anything.

His focus is on racing anyway, and a soulmate would just unnecessarily distract him.

Maybe he will mention it to Carlos at a later time. He’s not sure yet. But maybe he will.

(He doesn’t.)

And then, Carlos leaves for Renault, and Max doesn’t say anything. He watches as Charles enters Formula One, and he still doesn’t say anything.

He’s not sure when Carlos and Charles realise, but he notices after they did, how they exchange glances, the way they aggregate towards each other, the way they always seem to touch when they don’t think anyone’s watching. And yet, he still doesn’t say anything.

They become teammates, and it makes Max want to ask them if it’s worth the risk, if they think that their soulband can survive something like that, but he doesn’t, and he doesn’t say anything either.

And then— and then, they announce that they’re soulmates to the rest of the grid, and maybe that would be the perfect time to tell them that he’s their soulmate, too, but he can’t. He feels frozen in place, he feels like he can’t breathe—and once he’s able to again, he congratulates them and leaves as soon as possible without looking impolite. He still hasn’t said anything.

After that, it feels silly to even mention it, and Max isn’t sure either how he should bring it up. ‘I’ve known for years that we’re soulmates’? So, he doesn’t say anything.

Either way, they look happy. Carlos makes Charles laugh, and Charles manages to calm Carlos down, and—

Max doesn’t know how he would fit into their dynamic.

They look happy. They are happy, Max knows that. There’s no need for another one, and maybe, if Max is lucky, they’re not even aware of that.

So, he still never says anything.

Not a lot of people know that his parents were soulmates.

His dad doesn’t like to talk about it, and his mom never mentions his dad anyway.

Max didn’t know until after a few years after the marriage when he was properly able to understand what had happened.

It makes sense, probably. Why his dad hates the idea of soulmates as much as he does.

He doesn’t know what his mom thinks about the whole situation—she never talks about his dad, and she also never talks about soulmates.

Whenever Max used to talk about them when he’d been a lot younger, back when he hadn’t understood yet, his mom would stroke his hair and tell him that he would find someone to spend his life with.

She never called that person his soulmate, and back then, he didn’t think a lot about it.

Now, though.

Now—

It makes Max wonder.

If he would be able to find his happy ending even without a soulmate. If there was someone who would be willing to spend the rest of their life with him that wasn’t also his soulmate.

Of course, things are never that easy.

He probably should move.

It must have been fifteen minutes by now that he’s standing next to the track, staring at it while he leans against the balustrade. He hasn’t moved since he’s gotten here, and it feels like he hasn’t even blinked in the entire time.

He knows how he looks to the people hurrying past him, but he also can’t bring himself to really care about that right now.

Someone steps next to him, and Max doesn’t have to look up to know who it is. He suppresses a groan—exactly what he had hoped for to not happen. But he doesn’t show it, doesn’t want to hurt Carlos because he has issues he hasn’t properly worked through yet.

And even though he knows that Carlos is next to him, he still jumps as soon as words leave his mouth. “Are you okay?”

Max frowns as he removes his arms from the balustrade that Carlos is now with his back leaning against. “Yeah, why?”

“You’ve been really jumpy the past few days,” Carlos explains. He doesn’t exactly look at Max at the moment, but from his words, it seems like he’s been looking at Max the days prior. Which— Max hadn’t even realised that. Why the hell would Carlos look at him?

Max laughs awkwardly and puts his arms back on the balustrade. It’s not exactly wrong. His dad announced that he’d be here during the race which in itself might not be entirely unusual, but it’s also been months since Max has last seen his dad, and he doesn’t think he can handle a lecture right now. He just…really doesn’t want to get screamed at.

“Yeah,” he says, “my dad’s coming.”

Max risks a glance at his soulmate. Carlos frowns. “I thought he was banned.”

“Kind of?” Max shrugs. “Not really.” Technically, he’s been banned from the garage because some of the mechanics get too twitchy, too distracted when he’s around, and it influences the dynamic of the team too much to be viable, but Helmut keeps inviting his dad, and Max can’t really say anything. From what Max knows, the problem is that Helmut thinks his dad and Max still have a better relationship than they actually have, and Helmut likes Jos, and Jos feels like he’s indebted to Helmut since Helmut vouched for Max.

It doesn’t really matter in the end—all it means is that his dad still comes to races every so often. Not as much as he used to do but still enough to throw Max off.

Carlos hums. “But you’re okay otherwise?”

Max squints, looks at Carlos again, but Carlos still stubbornly looks straightforward. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m great.” It sounds a lie in his own ears, but he hopes Carlos will still swallow it.

They haven’t been close in years—they’re friends, but they’re not as close as they used to be—and with that Max hopes that he’s gotten more difficult to read. (Who is he kidding though? He’s always been an open book even to those who barely know him.)

His entire season has been going great until a stupid fucking crash ruins it all.

He’s the defending World Champion, and he’s supposed to win the Championship within the next few races, and then George fucking Russell crashes into him during the opening lap into turn one.

It all happens in the blink of an eye, and once the dust has settled, all Max can think of is that he didn’t let go.

It’s a stupid thought, all things considered, but it’s also the first thing his dad has ever taught him.

‘Don’t let go,’ he’d said. ‘Whatever you do, you don’t let go.’

And Max never let go.

He didn’t let go either now when he crashed into the barriers. He didn’t let go either when a stabbing pain passed through his entire arm.

When GP asks him if he’s okay, he realises he’s still holding onto the steering wheel. His wrist hurts, and his chest burns, and he coughs.

“Fine,” he says, forcing his hand to let go of the steering wheel, and he’s not sure things are actually as fine as he thinks they are.

His wrist is throbbing, and his eyes are burning, and when he tries to heave himself out of the car, his arm gives out from underneath him.

The pain is so unbearable that he thinks he might have blacked out for a few seconds.

It doesn’t even take a minute until the marshals are by his side, trying to help him out of the car.

“Are you okay?” one of them asks, and they sound panicked.

Max shrugs. “Just bruised.” He’s sprained his wrist probably. It makes sense with how much it’s hurting.

It starts to bruise by the time the race resumes. It had been red-flagged because parts of the tyre barrier had been damaged—not like Max really cares. His race had been over long before they brought out the red flags.

“Let me see,” Brad says, holding out a hand for Max to put his own into. “Your wrist you say?”

Max nods.

“Hm,” Brad makes. “It’s already bruising, and I think I can see some swelling, too. Does that hurt?” He presses with a finger against Max’s wrist, and it’s not even harsh, but—

“Fuck!” Max exclaims and if not for Brad’s grip on his arm, he’d pulled his hand back.

His wrist had throbbed even before Brad had pressed onto it, and now it feels like it’s burning.

“What the fuck,” Max complains. “Was that necessary?”

Brad tilts his head. “I think it’s not sprained,” he tells Max.

“What?” Max asks, looking up to Brad, but his trainer isn’t smiling, isn’t laughing, doesn’t tell him that it’s a joke. “Then what else should it be?”

Brad sighs. “It’s broken, probably. I mean I can’t see your bones, but it’s already bruising quite badly, and you’re in more pain than you’d probably be if it was just sprained.” He shrugs. “I’d definitely get it checked out.”

Max looks back at his wrist. “But it can’t be,” he says, and he knows that he sounds like a pouting child. “If it’s broken—” Then he can’t race. Then he’ll have to sit out for multiple races. He has a championship to defend. He can’t miss any races, can’t lose any points.

“It can’t be,” he repeats.

Brad rubs his face. “I’m just telling you what I see,” he says. “Maybe I’m wrong,” he continues, “but I still would get an x-ray done just to be entirely sure. It’s better to get it taken care of as soon as possible instead of waiting for another few days, y’know? The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you’ll be back in the car.”

“Fuck George Russell,” Max mutters. He hates everything.

In fact, it turns out later, he didn’t just sprain it.

“You are kidding,” he says, squinting at the doctor even though Brad had already warned him, even though he can see the x-ray of his wrist, even though the stupid fucking fracture is clearly visible.

Well, he guesses bitterly, his dad always told him that this was supposed to protect the car and not him.

“I’m sorry, Max,” the doctor says, and they are a lot more patient than Max would be in their position. “But the x-ray very obviously shows a fracture.”

Max groans.

“How long will it take for it to heal?”

The doctor presses their lips together. “It’s a wrist fracture, so…it might be six to eight weeks. Maybe longer. The biggest issue could be your range of motion.”

For a few moments, all Max can do is stare at him. “You’re kidding. There is no fucking way.”

“That’s sadly how it is,” the doctor says. “Wrist fractures can be quite complicated and with that, they usually also need a bit longer to heal. Of course, there are things you can consider that might help with them healing quicker.”

Max sits up straighter. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” the doctor starts slowly, “you might want to consider surgery.”

Charles doesn’t notice the bruising until they’re back at the hotel.

The race hasn’t been anything to write home about even after George turned into Max and crashed them both out of the race. Once again, the SF-24 has proven to have the absolute worst race pace, and Charles can’t even be particularly angry about it anymore.

Frustrated, sure, but at the moment, he feels like he’s always frustrated, and it’s not helping that Carlos doesn’t feel all that better.

He’s just not angry anymore. He thinks he’s too exhausted for that.

“Charles—” Carlos’s voice rings out, and Charles turns to him, both eyebrows raised.

Carlos is staring at him.

“What?” he asks.

“Your chest—” Carlos says, his eyes are wide, and then he steps closer until he’s close enough to brush his fingers over Charles’ skin.

Charles blinks at him. “What do you mean?” he says while looking down and— oh.

Oh.

That’s weird.

He squints at his chest again.

Not weird, more worrying. Because his entire chest is covered by bruises—they’re dark against his skin, and they look like they hurt a lot. Only that Charles doesn’t hurt at all, and obviously, he’s also not gotten hurt, so it can’t be his.

But nothing has happened to Carlos either that would explain these bruises, and Charles is sure that Carlos would’ve brought up injuries like this.

“They’re not mine,” Charles says, voice blank.

For a few seconds, Carlos is just staring at him, eyes flickering between Charles’ face and his chest, and then he’s shrugging his own t-shirt off, and it doesn’t surprise either of them that the same bruises span over his chest.

They know that there’s another one, that they both have two soulmates. But it’s still...weird at times when they actually notice it, when shades of purple and red mark their bodies that neither of them left there, that don’t belong to them. They haven’t known for a long time that there’s another one, that it isn’t just them.

Charles swallows.

They look worse, somehow, on Carlos than they do on Charles.

“Can you turn around?” Charles says softly, and Carlos complies without another word.

There are a few bruises covering his back as well, but they’re nothing compared to what Carlos’s chest looks like, and Charles’ stomach twists at the thought of their soulmate who’s carrying the real bruises.

“What do you think has happened to them?” he whispers, and he can’t ban the horrified tone out of his voice.

They haven’t always known that there was a third soulmate, but since they realised that there was another one, they also knew that there were things going on that neither of them really liked to think about.

When they were children, they had assumed the bruises had been each other’s, that there was just one. There is no way to differentiate between bruises, no way to tell how many soulmates you have until you meet them.

They had also only realised after they found out about each other that there had to be another one, that it wasn’t just them. That it wasn’t just Carlos and Charles.

They still haven’t met them, and sometimes, the more time passes, Charles isn’t sure that they ever will, but now that he’s staring at the bruises covering Carlos’s chest, he can’t help but hope that they will find them as soon as possible.

Carlos has balled his hands to fists, and Charles lays a hand on his shoulder.

“I hope we find them soon,” Carlos says, and his voice is soft despite how tense his body is. But it’s shaking, and Carlos doesn’t look at him either.

“We will,” Charles says, and he sounds a lot surer than he feels.

When they find them, he hopes it’s not already too late by then.

Max’s entire body aches, and he wants to scream.

His dad is mad at him—of course, that’s not very surprising—, and the potential surgery

 is still a possibility, but it’s not going to shorten the healing process as much as Max would prefer.

“It’s all we can do,” the doctor says, an apologetic smile on her face.

“It’s fine,” Max grumbles although it’s very much not fine.

He hates this. He hates everything. He can’t fucking believe his perfect season got destroyed like that.

‘I held onto the steering wheel like you told me,’ Max had said when his dad had finished with his rant, and for a split moment, it had looked like his dad had planned to backhand Max.

Somehow, he’d managed to not flinch, but afterward, he also hadn’t said more.

His dad had been furious as it is, and if Max is honest, it’s been a long time since he’s last since his dad that furious. But that probably also had to do with the fact that Max is winning most of the time right now—and the few times, he hasn’t, it hasn’t really been his fault.

“I can’t tell you yet how long it exactly takes,” the doctor says now, and she’s still smiling. “Or how long it will take for your wrist to be healed enough to race again.”

“As long as it does not take as much time as it would if it naturally healed,” Max mutters.

“Well, I guess I can’t promise you anything.” As expected. Max rolls his eyes. His dad is going to be excited to hear that. Not even mentioning Christian and Helmut.

Although—

All things considered, they probably would be more understanding than his dad, but that also isn’t particularly hard, Max muses. Almost everyone he knows is more understanding than his dad—but it’s also not really a bad thing. He wouldn’t be here otherwise. And he can’t be mad either because he knows just how much his dad had to sacrifice to get him where he is now.

“I thought so,” Max says, sighs. “It is fine.”

“It will just be very important that you work with a physiotherapist after that,” the doctor says now. “I assume you have your own personal one?”

Max nods. “Yeah, he’s been working with me for quite some time already.”

She nods. “That’s good. It’s very important that your wrist doesn’t get stiff, but I’m sure your physiotherapist also knows that. Other than that…do you have any questions?”

Max smiles rigidly. “No, thank you.”

“Alright,” she says, standing up. “Then that would be all for today. We’re going to see each other in two days, then?”

He can only hope that things actually work, and that this whole thing doesn’t accidentally make things worse. He could see that happening. It would just be his luck.

“Two people who can disappoint me,” Max joked, once, and Daniel looked at him like he’d just admitted to eating children.

Daniel often reacts like this when Max makes a joke like that—be it about his childhood or about soulmates—, and he still hasn’t quite figured out which jokes are fine and which aren’t because Daniel doesn’t always behave weirdly when Max tells him about how he grew up.

It’s usually not as bad when they’re on camera—Daniel doesn’t try to refute anything he says, doesn’t try to challenge him on his beliefs, but it’s different when it’s just them.

“Why would you think they’re going to disappoint you?” Daniel asks, carefully. Max can feel him look at him, but he doesn’t look at Daniel.

“My parents were soulmates,” Max says like that explains everything, and then he shrugs. Daniel knows him and his dad well enough to know that it should suffice as an explanation, and anyway, he’s really not in the mood to talk this through.

It’s just been a joke because Daniel had wanted to know how excited Max is to meet his soulmate. A shitty joke, to be fair. A joke, nonetheless.

“Yeah, but your parents are also—” Daniel gestures, and Max snorts. “Listen I love your mum, but your parents’ relationship isn’t, like, the perfect example.”

“Yeah,” Max agrees, “and I’m the result of that relationship.”

Daniel makes a noise, and when Max looks at him, there’s an unhappy expression on Daniel’s face.

“What?” Max asks.

“You know that your parents and mainly your dad don’t dictate who you are, right?” Daniel asks. Maybe they don’t, but he’s still his parents’ child. He still has his dad’s temper and his mum’s eyes. He knows that people see his dad in him.

“Whatever,” Max says and rolls his eyes.

They don’t talk about soulmates after that, and Max scratches soulmates from the mental list he has of things he can talk about with Daniel without somehow drifting towards the topic of his dad again.

The surgery is fine. His doctor tells him that everything looks great. “You’re back to racing in no time,” they tell him, and Max hopes they’re right.

He doesn’t remember the last time he had to sit out a Grand Prix, and he doesn’t like the fact that it’ll be multiple now. One would’ve been bad enough, but now it’s not even sure whether he’s able to come back before the end of the season.

The whole situation is a load of bullshit.

When he tells Christian about it, he just slaps Max’s back and offers a smile.

“It’s not ideal, of course,” he says, and it makes Max scoff—that’s certainly a nice way of putting it; his dad had found quite a bit of other words for it, “but it’s not anything that anyone could’ve expected. Don’t worry too much about it.”

Max is so annoyed about the whole situation that he’s going to worry about it out of spite.

“Just watch,” Christian says, “you’re back before you know it, and then you’ll still have enough time to catch up if needed.”

He snorts. “The McLarens look too good for that.”

Christian shrugs. “You never know.” And see, maybe if Max was someone else, he would appreciate it, but Max also sees no use in hoping for things that have no leg to stand on, so the whole thing of Christian trying to cheer him up, is useless.

It’s nice though. Max can acknowledge that.

(His dad would never. But his dad also told him to never let go.)

Carlos is fifteen when he first realises that there’s something off about his soulmate. Back then, he didn’t know yet that he’s got two, and before that, most of the bruises and scars appearing on his body were just the average injuries children would spot—scrapped knees, paper cuts, bruises on their shins from playing football. There’s no reason to think that things are off before that.

And then he wakes up with a bruise in the shape of a hand on his face.

It’s faint and barely visible, but when he stands in the bathroom in front of the mirror trying to shave the bit of beard, he’s been able to grow for a few months now, it’s difficult to not acknowledge it.

He wonders, for a moment, if maybe his soulmate got into a fight but when he compares his own hand to the handprint on his face, he quickly realises it’s a bigger hand—quite a bit larger than Carlos’s own, and he’s recently hit a growth spurt. He doesn’t have to be a genius to release that it must have been an adult’s.

“Oh, dear,” his mum says when he comes into the kitchen. “What’s happened to your face?”

Carlos grimaces. “It’s not mine,” he says, and now there’s a frown on his mum’s face.

“That’s terrible,” his mum says so softly that Carlos is sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it.

The issue is, though, that they’re not sure how to help. Carlos doesn’t know who his soulmate is, and he doesn’t know how he should reach out either. And the worst part is that it’s the first time he notices them.

It doesn’t stay the only time.

Charles doesn’t have suspicions.

He’s sure of it.

Okay.

Maybe he’s not entirely sure of it, but he’s pretty convinced that he’s right even if Carlos is frowning and squinting and very obviously not believing him.

“It makes sense,” Charles insists, arms crossed in front of his chest. It’s been a few weeks since they noticed the bruises and while they’ve faded by now, Charles took pictures of them because there’d been something off.

He hadn’t realised at first, but when he’d looked in the mirror that evening, he’d noticed that they had been arranged in a pretty specific shape. It had almost looked like a seatbelt had dug into their chest. A seatbelt used in Formula One cars.

And, okay.

Yeah. It’s a pretty wild theory, Charles can admit that. How likely are the chances that all three of them are Formula One drivers? Pretty slim, all things considered.

So, he’d wondered if maybe it was someone else from a different motorsport. Or maybe they weren’t connected to motorsport at all and just owned a car with a pretty weird seatbelt.

Still, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, and the fact that there had been a crash on the exact same day as they found the bruises had just convinced him more.

He hadn’t immediately mentioned it to Carlos—if he’s honest, he had to digest the possibility that Max could be their soulmate first.

It’s not like he hates Max. He’s more mature now than that, and to be fair, he doesn’t think he’s ever hated Max.

Charles has barely ever hated someone, in fact.

They had their arguments and fights back when they were children, and some of the years in karting had been pretty intense, but that was the case for most of the other drivers as well, and apart from that and outside of racing, they’ve always gotten along well. Even if the time spent together outside of racing has always been quite limited.

2019 has been the only exception, really, and even then, it was never anything personal. Most of the time. Unfollowing Max had been something he’d done because he’d felt petty and frustrated, and he’d simply never followed Max again because he hadn’t wanted to cave first.

But even if Charles has never hated Max, there’s still a pretty big difference whether Max is just a casual friend or his soulmate.

It makes sense though, doesn’t it? Charles doesn’t like to think about some of the bruises he’s spotted from his soulmates growing up, but they all know Jos and they’ve all heard the stories. Everyone knew.

Hell, Charles has seen some of the behaviour Jos exhibited. Just none of these things he’d witnessed had ever left any marks that Charles could have found on his own body.

And now Max crashed and there were bruises that suspiciously looked like they could’ve been from a seatbelt and then—

Well.

And then, Charles woke up with a red wound on his right wrist one morning.

Max hadn’t told them when he would have his surgery, but different journalists had reported that he would have surgery for his broken wrist soon, and it hadn’t taken long until Max had been spotted with white bandages around his wrist instead of the cast.

It seems pretty sound.

And he knows that Carlos also knows it.

Carlos sighs now, rubbing his forehead. “How did we never notice before?”

Charles shrugs. It’s not like you meet your soulmate, and you suddenly have a big revelation that they’re your soulmate. There are no fireworks, your world doesn’t tilt out of its axis and doesn’t burst into colour.

When Carlos and he met for the first time long before Formula One and Ferrari, they hadn’t known. And they hadn’t found out for years afterward either.

He still remembers that one time he’d scrolled through Instagram and suddenly had a video of Carlos working out on his For You. The mark on his chest had been hard to miss, and the mark on Charles’ own chest had been even harder to miss.

It hadn’t been very romantic, but Charles hadn’t cared back then, and he’s not cared ever since. In fact, he’s always thought it had been more fitting this way.

And the thing about Max—

It makes sense in a way, that they didn’t notice earlier. They don’t train together, and since they’re not part of the same team, there’s not going to be a ton of times, they see each other out of racing suits and fireproofs. And well, those cover your entire body pretty well.

And he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Max—or Red Bull for that matter—post a topless picture or video of himself.

He wonders, though, if Max knows.

Probably not, right? He surely would’ve said something. And also, it’s Max. He probably doesn’t like to focus on anything that’s not racing, and Charles does remember that Max once said he’s not looking for his soulmate because he fears that they might distract him.

He frowns. “Do we tell him?”

If they knew for sure, it would be easier. Charles doesn’t want to make a mistake here because that would be more than uncomfortable for everyone involved, and he doesn’t think he could ever look at Max again if he gave him the false hope that they could be his soulmate.

“What if you’re wrong?” Carlos counters, but he doesn’t sound very sure. In fact, he seems pretty convinced himself that it might be correct, that Max is their soulmate.

“We could just ask,” Charles muses. “Show him the mark on our wrists and ask if it mirrors his own.” Max would probably appreciate that more than them trying to sneakily find out whether they’re soulmates or not. He likes it when things are to the point and when people don’t dance around the topic, and Charles can’t imagine that it will be different here.

Carlos snorts. “Okay,” he agrees easily. “When do you think Max will be back anyway? I don’t think this is something you should do over text or whatever.”

Definitely not. Charles might have realised that they were soulmates because of a post on Instagram, and he also already had Carlos’s number back then, but there was absolutely no way he would have brought that up in a text message. Even a call seemed wrong, so he’d waited for the next race to talk to Carlos.

“Hm,” Charles makes. Max has been to a few of the Grands Prix in the past weeks, but not to all because he had deemed it useless.

‘I can’t do shit anyway,’ he’d said, shrugged. ‘I can see the data at home, too.’

And, yeah, Charles wouldn’t have wanted to fly to Singapore either for twelve hours when he hadn’t been able to do anything but watch. Max can’t even do any of the sim work.

“Probably useless to make a detailed plan,” he says. “Just the next time we see him, we can talk to him?”

Carlos smiles at him. “Sounds like a plan,” he says before pressing a quick kiss on Charles’ lips.

Charles grabs Carlos’s wrists before he can pull away and raises his eyebrows. Carlos just rolls his eyes. But he stays. Like always.

He’s bored. There’s nothing he can do. He’d been banned from sim racing, and he can’t play Padel either because it’s his fucking right wrist, of course.

He’s so bored, in fact, he actually flies to the US for the Grand Prix. He still can’t do anything, and he won’t be able to support Red Bull with sim work either, but at least he has people there to talk to, and he’s not going insane because there’s nothing to do at home.

Lando makes fun of him, and Daniel tries to fuck with him by lying about how long everything will take to heal—even though he had an entirely different injury and knows shit about Max’s—, and Carlos and Charles are acting weird.

Weirder than usual.

Max isn’t sure what’s going on or what their issue is, but he notices that they’re constantly watching him. They look away when he acknowledges them, and they’re always whispering.

It’s so obvious that even Lando mentions it, and Lando has the awareness of a two-year-old.

Max doesn’t know what to make of it until he’s adjusting the bandages. His wrist is itchy again, and it’s so unsatisfying to scratch it through the bandages, but he’s also pretty sure that Brad would kill him again if Max came to him for the third time today to tell him to clean up his bandages.

Which…fair.

But that also means that Max is dealing with a constant itchy wrist, and it’s driving him insane.

The point though is that he’s adjusting the bandages, and when he looks up, Carlos and Charles are watching him again, and then he looks back at his wrist and—

Oh.

They must have carried the bruises from the initial crash, and then they must also have the scar from the surgery and—

Do they know or are they just suspecting that he might be their soulmate?

Either way, it makes sense now why they’re acting like this.

He grimaces. He really should have thought about this earlier—he’d never posted any pictures of himself where any marks were visible, and it’s not the only reason why he doesn’t really post topless pictures of himself and why he doesn’t want Red Bull to do so either, but it is one of them, and it’s worked so far.

No one suspected anything. Why would they?

And now—

Maybe he’s wrong.

Maybe they haven’t realised yet. Maybe they’re talking about something entirely else like…how they plan to get P1 in the championship back or something.

Maybe Max is lucky.

He’s never been optimistic enough for that.

Talking to Max turns out to be a lot more difficult than Charles had thought it would be.

They’re never alone—Charles isn’t sure if he just never noticed before because they never needed to talk about something personal that Charles didn’t want to speak about while being surrounded by other people.

He’s asked himself for a moment if maybe Max was trying to avoid them and staying where everyone else is for a reason, but there’s also no reason for Max to avoid them, so he’s quickly thrown that theory out.

Because well, Max isn’t even avoiding them. He talks to them, and he makes jokes and he doesn’t act any differently from usual.

The one time Charles tries to ask Max if they can speak later, Max offers him an apologetic smile and tells him that he has a flight to catch and that they surely can catch up later instead. Charles agrees, of course. But they also never actually agree on a date or even on a country, so that seems pretty futile as well.

Carlos isn’t any luckier. He even visits the Red Bull hospitality once—former Red Bull driver, whatever, whatever; Charles just rolled his eyes—, but Max hadn’t been there, and no one had known where he could be instead.

So.

But Charles doesn’t feel all too upset about it. It would be great if they had clarification soon, but they’ve also lived without their third soulmate for years now, so what are those few days when it means they’re doing it properly?

Charles just really doesn’t want to start this relationship off on the wrong foot.

See, Max had hoped, and now he can also admit that he wasn’t wrong and that they, in fact, seem to have suspicions.

When Charles asks him if they can speak after the day is over, Max lies to him about having to catch a flight, and while he feels bad about it, he also doesn’t feel bad enough for him to reconsider it.

The longer he doesn’t have to deal with this, the better, and Max isn’t sure yet what he even wants.

Or, well, he does know what he wants, but that seems to be pretty off the table right now.

He hasn’t made a plan yet of what he should do or what the best plan of action is, and it’s making him uncomfortable.

It’s not like he expected it to never come out because no matter how careful he is, there will always be a few things out of his control, and that certainly proved to be correct.

The point is, he didn’t expect it—or didn’t want for it to happen—quite this early, and now he doesn’t know what to do. How to act. How to make it clear that he doesn’t want any soulmates without them thinking it’s because of them.

Although it’s probably pretty impossible to reject your own damn soulmates without them thinking that it’s because of them. Because why else would you reject them if it wasn’t due to them? Right. Never.

Everyone loves soulmates. Everyone wants to meet theirs. Everyone wants to live their happily ever after.

He should, too. He knows that. He knows how weird it is that he doesn’t have the same opinions on soulmates as basically everyone else.

He knows.

It won’t change anything about his opinions on soulmates though.

He doesn’t think anything really can. He’s had these same opinions for almost his entire life—but certainly since the divorce—and, well. He’s pretty set on them.

It’s funny, maybe, how different his sister and him are regarding soulmates even though they grew up with the same parents and in similar circumstances.

But his sister also found her soulmate quite early, and from what Max can tell he’s a great dude.

Charles and Carlos are also great, but—

His sister already had pre-formed, positive opinions before she met her soulmate. And Max has pre-formed, negative opinions.

It doesn’t really change anything that he’s known about Charles before those formed. Because that had been influenced by something else. It’s still pathetic, all things considered.

Maybe that actually just makes it more pathetic.

“Do you think he knows?” Charles echoes the sentiment from a few days ago.

It’s not like he suddenly knows more now, like it’s more than a hunch at the moment, but there’s been something off about Max’s behaviour the past few days, and Charles can’t quite put a finger on it. Although he doesn’t think he’s ever been able to make much sense of Max.

“I don’t know,” Carlos says, but he hesitates, and there’s an uncertainty in his voice that Charles hasn’t heard in a long time.

He frowns. “What is it?” Because Charles doesn’t even have to be Carlos’s soulmate to know that there’s something bothering Carlos.

Carlos shrugs.

“I was thinking about Toro Rosso,” he says eventually. “Back when Max and I were teammates because…” He tilts his head. “He’d been always a bit weird about soulmates.”

Charles doesn’t think he’s ever seen Max talk about soulmates beyond the one time he’d been asked if he’s trying to find them. And even that had been years ago, probably only a bit after Max’s debut—he’d definitely still been driving for Toro Rosso at least. It made sense then that Max would have that view on soulmates, but it also makes Charles wonder if things have changed since then.

Charles frowns. “Weird?”

Carlos gestures. “I don’t know how to explain it,” he says slowly like he’s trying to figure out what words to use, “but he didn’t like the topic of soulmates, hated it whenever someone spoke about it, all that. I always thought it was because his parents were soulmates.”

Charles stops, blinks. Max’s parents were soulmates? He’d always assumed that they aren’t considering how their relationship ended. It’s not exactly uncommon that people that aren’t each other’s soulmates end up dating, but it’s also not exactly common.

Just not unusual enough for Charles that he would’ve stopped to think further about it.

“Wait, wait—” Charles quickly gets in before Carlos can continue. “Jos Verstappen and Sophie are soulmates?”

For a moment, Carlos just looks at him like it comes as a total surprise to him that people might not know about this. “Yeah?” he says, frowning. “You didn’t know?”

Charles presses his lips together. “With how their marriage worked out, I didn’t really think they were.”

It’s probably an assumption he’s carried over from when he was a child. He knows now, of course, that not every soulmate relationship works out even when he’d assumed so back when he’d been younger.

Although even now, it’s sometimes hard to comprehend that soulmate relationships might not be a happy one.

His parents were soulmates. Both of his grandparents were. Lorenzo already has found his soulmate, and they’re all happy. They were all happy.

Growing up, he’d only ever been surrounded by happy soulmate couples, so the first time, he’d heard about one not working out, it had come quite as a shock to him.

It is even now sometimes.

Carlos grimaces. “I guess it is not something anyone really talks about.” Then he sighs. “I’m not saying that Max knows and didn’t tell us or whatever, but…maybe we need to approach this whole situation a bit differently.”

It’s a good point now that Charles knows. They still don’t know whether Max is even open to a soulmate relationship at the moment. They only know about his stance from eight years ago, and a lot might have changed. But it’s also possible that nothing at all has changed.

And to blindside him with this whole situation is probably not their best idea. Especially when it might feel like they’re cornering him, like there’s no way out.

This all would’ve been so much easier if they had found out back when they were still karting.

“Probably,” Charles agrees.

Carlos smiles sheepishly. “Any suggestions?”

Charles kicks him for that.

The bandage comes off much sooner than he’s expected for it to happen.

It’s not entirely healed yet, but his doctor tells him that a band-aid is also okay, and Max much prefers that over a bandage.

It just makes everything a tad bit easier, and it also doesn’t attract as much attention.

He isn’t yet cleared for racing again, but he flies to Milton Keynes to do some of the sim work that he is allowed to do. It’s great. And it makes him realise just how much he’s missed this.

Things are great. And the sim work takes up so much of his concentration that he’s even able to forget everything about the topic of soulmates.

Things, of course, stay never that easy.

He returns to the paddock two weeks later.

Brad told him to take it easy after he’d been cleared, and Max promised him he would. He is going to take it easy. As easy as he can take it.

He’s lucky that he returns for a race that’s on the lighter side of what strain a race can put on a driver’s body.

He grimaces. He could’ve passed media day up though.

But that’s not possible, of course, so that’s what he has to get through before he’s able to be back in the RB20.

Charles smiles at him. His eyes have lit up when he saw Max, and Max doesn’t want to think about what it might mean.

“Max!” he exclaims. “It is good to see you’re back!”

“It’s good to be back,” Max says. “How have things been?” If he doesn’t let Charles take control of the conversation, it might be possible to stay away from the whole soulmate topic even longer—although he’s not even sure that Charles knows.

But Max also isn’t planning on finding it out today. Or ever.

Charles grimaces. “You know…”

Max knows.

He wouldn’t even have needed to watch the past few races. They all know the SF-24 and they also all know…Ferrari. So.

It’s absolutely no surprise that things haven’t been going great.

“Maybe next year,” Max says, and hey, maybe next year will be Ferrari’s year. Personally, he doesn’t think so, but, he guesses, it might be possible. That they have a somewhat okay car, at least.

“Maybe next year,” Charles echoes, and he looks a lot unhappier than he has just a few minutes ago. It probably wasn’t the greatest topic choice, but everything is great if it means that he doesn’t have to talk about soulmates.

He also doesn’t mind talking about this, but he also doesn’t drive the SF-24 and for Ferrari.

“Anything else that I have missed?” Max asks as he runs a hand through his hair.

Charles shrugs. “Not really. Not a lot has happened although”—Max tenses—“eh, not really.” He sounds distracted.

“So boring?” Max jokes.

Charles doesn’t immediately respond, and when Max looks at him, Charles’ attention isn’t on Max’s face anymore, instead, he’s looking down where—

Max follows Charles’ gaze and—

Oh.

He forgot.

He doesn’t know how he forgot, but he forgot.

Because now, Charles is looking at Max’s hand—at his exposed wrist to be exact, and maybe normally, that wouldn’t mean anything. Normally, it might just mean that he’s curious about the injury and the healing process, but with Charles, it’s not that easy.

It’s not that easy at all.

Charles’ hand is twitching like he wants to reach out. And Max doesn’t even have to actually look at it to know.

There’s going to be a mark on his wrist. And it will look exactly like the scar on Max’s own hand. Charles probably has seen it hundreds of times on Carlos as well.

Max takes a step back.

“Max—” Charles says, and this time he is lifting his hand like he wants to grab Max, but Max is faster.

He’s faster and he’s already turned around, and then he walks away as quickly as somehow possible without looking like he’s fleeing from Charles even though that’s exactly what he’s doing.

He’s fleeing.

From his own damn soulmate.

Charles doesn’t follow him. And he doesn’t think he feels happy about it. He should.

Chapter Text

His hand is still stretched out when Max has already long since disappeared in the crowd.

Max knows. Max has known for God knows how long.

And Max—

Doesn’t want to be his soulmate? Doesn’t want to be their soulmate?

Charles isn’t sure yet. He just knows that Max knows and that he left. Fled, really.

He fled from his own soulmate.

He knew that it was a possiblity that Max was aware, but he never really considered it. He never really thought it was true. He didn’t think it could be true.

It is, it seems though, to be true.

That Max knew. And that Max still hasn’t changed his stance on soulmates.

It’s not something that Charles can comprehend, not really. That someone wouldn’t want to be with their soulmates, that they would knowingly not seek them out, that they wouldn’t even get into contact with them to let them know.

He doesn’t—

It seems impossible.

And yet, it looks like it might be true. Like it might be Charles’ reality.

Carlos is frowning at him. He’s worried, Charles knows that.

Carlos had been worried the moment Charles came into his driver room. He was shaking, and he doesn’t want to know what he looked like.

There were multiple Ferrari employees who asked him if he was okay, and he’s not. He’s not. He couldn’t tell them that.

He can’t even tell Carlos.

His mouth won’t form words; every time, he tries, his throat closes up, and his brain draws up blank, and he needs to tell Carlos. He needs to share. He needs to get this off his chest, but he can’t.

He doesn’t know how.

“I—” he says and nothing more.

“Charles,” Carlos starts; he’s kneeling in front of him. With every passing minute, he looks more worried, and Charles didn’t think it was possible to look more worried than he did when Charles threw the door open.

He feels nauseous.

He thinks he’s going to be sick.

Carlos is stroking Charles’ thighs, and the touch is helping. It’s grounding, but it’s not enough. It doesn’t help as much as it should, and—

Fuck. This is a mess. Charles isn’t sure how to fix it.

He’s not sure they can fix it.

He takes a deep breath—tries to, at least. But his throat still feels closed up, and it’s more a hiccup than a breath.

“Max knows,” he chokes out.

And for a moment, Carlos doesn’t react. He just continues stroking Charles’ thigh with his thumb, and there’s still the worried frown on his face, and—

“He knows?” Carlos asks, and Charles doesn’t think Carlos has realised what he’s talking about.

“That we’re soulmates,” he says, only barely able to bite back a sob.

Carlos blinks. His face is blank. “Oh,” he makes, and then he gets up. Charles immediately misses the warmth of his hand on his leg. “He knows?” he asks again, but this time, it sounds more like he wants to get confirmation again.

“He knows,” Charles says, and this time, he actually sobs.

“I know who my soulmates are,” he says as soon as his sister picks up.

For a heartbeat, he just hears breathing, then, “What?”

No one really knows that he has more than one soulmate. It’s not something he really talks about—really, soulmates in general is a topic he doesn’t talk about. He always indulged his sister when she dreamed about finding her soulmate, and then after she had found him, about her wedding and the life she will have with him and children and—

The point is, they never talked about Max’s soulmates. And there were never enough marks to deduct that Max could possibly have two soulmates. It had taken him eighteen years to find out.

It makes him wonder how they realised that they have more than one. That it’s him. If it’s a recent realisation—probably after that crash if he’d have to guess. The bruises were hard to ignore, and it would’ve been even harder to ignore that neither of them was involved in an accident in any way that could leave bruises like that.

He doesn’t really think that Charles only realised once he saw the scar on Max’s wrists, but that it was more confirmation than anything else. He didn’t seem…particularly shocked.

Or maybe that was the shock.

Max hasn’t really decided yet. He hasn’t really decided yet either how Charles and Carlos think about him being their missing soulmate.

If it’s only a recent development that they’ve realised that they have another one, then Max doesn’t want to imagine the confusion and shock that it has caused. It must have messed up everything they’ve known. And maybe it’ll mess up their relationship dynamic as well. And if they’ve known for quite some time—well, that doesn’t mean either that they would want him to be their soulmate.

He doesn’t know if he wants to be their soulmate.

“Max?” his sister asks. “You what?”

Normally, if he has problems that…he knows his dad wouldn’t be able to help with, he calls his mum. But he doesn’t want to talk to his mum about this topic. It’s always been a sore topic for her, and Max doesn’t really understand it since he doesn’t have the same experiences, but he doesn’t like talking about soulmates himself enough to get it.

And soulmates has always been something that he’s talked with his sister about—even if it was never about his.

Now, he’s not even sure anymore he wants to talk to his sister about it either. But it’s also too late now to back out of this.

“I found my soulmates,” Max says as nonchalantly as he possibly can manage. His voice doesn’t shake, but he doesn’t think that he, apart from that, really succeeds at it. It’s not something he’s ever been great at, and his sister has always been quite good at reading him even without having to see his face.

It’s what happens, he guesses, when you grow up apart, when the only way of communication is a call every now and then. Recognising emotions in someone’s voice is the only way to recognise them at all.

“Soulmates?” Victoria says slowly. “As in…plural?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my god,” she says, snorts, and yeah, okay. Max can admit that it’s a bit funny. That he ended up with two soulmates out of everyone must be some sort of fucked up karma.

“How long have you known?” she asks, and—

He’s known about Charles since he was a pre-teen. It’s not been as long for Carlos, but by now it’s been almost a decade, too. And both are things he doesn’t really want to admit to. Not to his sister, and not to them either.

Max hesitates.

It’s long enough for his sister to assume something.

“Do they know?” she asks, and her voice is soft.

He pulls a grimace. She knows him well enough, that’s for sure.

“They do now,” Max croaks out. His voice breaks. He still doesn’t know what to do, what he wants. He only knows that he feels like shit, that he feels sorry for Charles and Carlos that they have to deal with this. Maybe he feels sorry for himself, too, that the universe decided to send him his own personalised “Fuck you” in the personification of two soulmates that he’ll never be able to live up to.

“Oh, Max,” Victoria says like she means his name like an insult, and that seems fitting enough that Max can’t even be mad.

“I know,” he says. “I’ve…I have known for some time,” he finally admits, voice quiet. “But I don’t think that they have realised until…recently.”

“Until the accident?”

“Yes.” He hesitates again. “Although I cannot say if they knew it was me or if they only found out that they have a third soulmate then and had their suspicions. But…they saw the scar on my wrist, and—” He takes a deep breath.

“I mean…they must have known after the crash?” his sister says. “I don’t think bruises like that are very…easily obtainable in normal circumstances.”

“Probably,” he agrees. “I wouldn’t really know if they have known beforehand because I might have…tried to avoid them.”

Victoria lets out a laugh. “Of course, you have.” And yeah, he definitely deserved that.

“I know,” he says. “I just don’t really know what to do.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and Max can already guess that she’s going to tell him something that he’s not going to like. But, well, that’s also why he called her, isn’t it?

“You could talk to them,” she says slowly. “Tell them the truth, you know? That soulmates aren’t something that you’ve ever really been comfortable with.”

“I…guess,” he says. He could tell them about his parents, about how the divorce might have fucked with his head more than he had ever wanted to admit.

He could also not.

Maybe Carlos and Charles are happy enough with each other to just forget about the whole situation if Max acts like none of this ever happened for long enough. He doesn’t need them, and he doubts they need him.

“I know,” she says because of course, she knows that Max doesn’t actually plan on telling them anything. “But the issue isn’t going to go away by ignoring it, now. Is it?”

He groans and hangs up on her.

(He calls back not even a minute later, and Victoria of course immediately answers. And then, she tells him the exact same thing again.)

He knows that she’s right. Of course, she is. Of course, he does. Even if he doesn’t like it.

Considering the fact that there are only twenty of them, Max is pretty hard to find.

It’s not exactly unusual, Carlos muses. Max has always been like this—if he’s not racing in a car, he’s somewhere doing sim work. He still remembers the suitcase Max used to carry with him everywhere he went.

Obviously, Carlos can’t quite say how this developed throughout the years they weren’t teammates, but Carlos still knows Max well enough to know that he’s never liked the spectacle around racing, that he’s here to race first and foremost, and he knows that this has never changed.

He knows that Max only comes to the paddock at the last minute, that he spends the rest of his time either doing sim work or with the sim racing team he has.

So, it doesn’t surprise Carlos that they barely see him throughout the weekend, and that the few times, they do see him—after quali, before and after the race—that he’s busy with other things, that he’s talking to the other drivers, to the journalists, to his team. Carlos wouldn’t say he’s exactly avoiding them, but it gets obvious quite quickly that he tries not to be alone with them either.

Which…

Carlos hasn’t quite figured out how he feels about it.

He doesn’t think it’s anything personal. That it has to do with the fact that Charles and Carlos are Max’s soulmates specifically.

All of them know about Jos. It’s hard not to. And Carlos also knows about the divorce. It had already been long finalised by the time Max and him became teammates, but they spent enough time with each other for information to seep through. And Carlos is online enough to have…seen more.

He doesn’t think Max ever really realised just how fucked some of the things he said were. And he never really wanted to think about the things that Max didn’t share.

So, it’s not hard to imagine that Max’s perspective on soulmates might be a bit…warped. And he gets it, he thinks. His own dad hasn’t always been the easiest, most loving person. He knows that his parents used to be happier.

Still. There’s a heaviness on his chest that he hasn’t felt in a long time, not since he was in his first year in Formula One, and sometimes, he finds his hands shaking.

It makes it hard to breathe. And it’s even harder to wrap his head around all of this.

Max doesn’t know how he’s able to avoid them as long as he does, but he almost feels proud of it.

It’s also absolutely a shitty, asshole move.

See, he knows. He’s not delusional enough to think this is anything but him being a dick, but that also doesn’t really change anything about the fact that he doesn’t know if he even wants anything of this, or if this is just going to be the biggest mistake he’s ever made.

And, sure, he should definitely talk to them, should tell them that he’s sorry for keeping this a secret all this time, and sure, he should just be open about it, and get it over with, and then they can find a solution together, and— yeah. That’d be the best-case scenario.

That would be something a smart person would do.

Max has never claimed to be smart.

He thinks about calling his sister again to get some more advice, but he knows what she’ll say, and he doesn’t really want to depend on her for this either, so he doesn’t.

And then, he wonders if he should talk to Lando or Daniel about it, but he dismisses it as quickly as the thought came. They’re friends. Lando is probably the best friend he has on the grid, but Max also isn’t sure he wants to talk with either of them about this whole…thing.

He didn’t need to explain anything to his sister because she gets it, and he knows that he would need to explain it to Lando and Daniel even if they already know more than Max feels comfortable with.

He’s going to have to explain this whole thing to Charles and Carlos anyway, and he’s not keen on having to explain it more than once.

Which also means that Lando and Daniel are both off the table—not even mentioning that it would be unfair to unload something like this onto them.

And there’s no one else really.

It’s also no one else’s problem except for his, so maybe he should figure things out on his own, too. Even if he doesn’t think, he’s going to get a lot done.

In fact, he doesn’t get anything done.

He keeps hiding from Carlos and Charles—which really gets ridiculous after some time. Lando even comments on it after the next race.

He has raised his eyebrows, arms crossed in front of his chest. “Have you had a fight with them recently?” he asks, and he sounds as confused as he looks.

“No,” Max says. “Why?” He knows why. He still wants to know why Lando seems to think so.

“You’ve been avoiding them all weekend,” Lando says. “I don’t think I’ve seen you and Charles talk even once.”

He’s not wrong. Max and Charles, in fact, haven’t talked the entire weekend, but it’s also weird that Lando knows. Has it been this obvious that things are off? Or is this just Lando paying attention to the weirdest things known to mankind instead of the things he should actually be focusing on?

Sometimes, Max hates how big the whole joke about maxplaining and leclarifying has gotten because people wouldn’t notice things like this as much if that had never been a thing.

“Are you stalking me?” Max jokes, but this time, Lando doesn’t take the obvious bait to redirect his focus.

“I’m serious,” Lando says, and Max can definitely see that. “You’ve been acting strange for the past few weeks now, so I was just…worried.”

Ah.

So, it’s not only been that. It would’ve worried Max if that had been the only thing, if people had been able to assess his mood simply because he didn’t talk to one person. Even if people are his best friend.

Max forces a smile on his face. “There is nothing you have to worry about,” he says. “Promise.” At least, it’s not something that Lando has to worry about. Max probably should worry about it. And he probably should actually take care of it. And—

He really should find a solution as soon as possible.

Maybe he should talk to Lando about it. It’s possible that Lando is able to come up with an idea that Max hasn’t thought of before. But Max also really isn’t in the mood to talk about it.

Lando doesn’t look like he really believes Max, and Max can’t fault him for that. Max wouldn’t believe himself either.

“It is just,” Max hesitates, “you know with my hand and everything. It’s still giving me trouble, and I guess it’s annoying me more than I really have realised.”

It’s not exactly a lie. His hand sometimes still hurts. And he can’t put as much pressure on it as he’d like. Of course, it’s also not the main reason why he’s been off the past few weeks. But it’s nothing that concerns anyone but him.

“Hm,” Lando makes, but he accepts it. “If you say so.”

The season drags on. Somehow, it’s worse now that he’s trying to avoid Charles and Carlos.

He spends even less time on the paddock, but luckily, it doesn’t seem suspicious to anyone considering that he’s already spent most of his time away from it.

He does a lot more sim work than he’s done before; Christian seemed surprised by this the first time Max offered to take over—he told Christian that he would like to get as much training done especially regarding his hand—and while Christian hadn’t looked like he totally believed Max, he also hadn’t commented on it, and that’s enough for Max.

It’s also not totally a lie. He does need the extra training after sitting multiple weeks out. And it’s also good for his hand to get used to everything again. But Christian doesn’t have to know that there’s more to it.

It’s just a thing now, and he likes doing sim work anyway. He likes it more than any other thing that might be expected from him—especially marketing. He shudders alone from thinking about it.

Social media was a mistake, and he wishes he could burn marketing to the ground.

Either way.

It’s a great way to stay away from the other drivers—but mainly Charles and Carlos—without looking suspicious. No one is going to say anything when he excuses himself because he still has work to do, and he didn’t even have to lie about anything.

It’s perfect. Really.

He also knows, of course, that things can’t continue like this forever, and that things will change at the latest during the winter break.

But those are also things he tries to ignore as much as possible.

He’s sim racing when the bell rings. Recently, he’s been more home again, has spent less time with some of his friends. Lando has already complained about it, but the chances that he’ll accidentally meet Charles and Carlos are far too high whenever he’s around other drivers.

He’s not sure yet how he’s supposed to explain that.

The bell rings again.

With a sigh, Max sits up, removes his headset. It’s still early in the morning, and he’s not really expected to see anyone today. It’s a free weekend, and Max really wanted to use all the time he has to work on a few things. It’s why he made sure to keep today free.

He also can’t quite think of anyone who it might be. Daniel is already in Milton Keynes to work on a few things, and Lando is visiting his parents. And there’s no one else really who would just come visit without asking Max first.

His friends outside of Formula One don’t know his schedule enough to just fly to Monaco without making sure that he’s actually home. And his family always plans weeks in advance when they’ll visit him.

So, he opens the door, expects a package that he forgot about ordering, or maybe a neighbour who needs help with something. Instead, he sees Charles in front of him.

He thinks about closing the door, about simply ignoring all of this like he’s done the past few months. Years.

It has to be visible on his face, too.

“We just want to talk,” Charles pleads, and Max isn’t strong enough to shut the door in Charles’ face when he looks like that.

But he also can’t bring himself to open the door.

“Please?” And how can Max say no when Carlos looks like a kicked puppy?

He lets both of them in, doesn’t try to think about how messy he must look. He’s still in the clothes he slept in, and he’s not washed his face either.

His…apartment isn’t overly messy. He’s probably not home enough for that.

“Do you want something to drink?” he asks them. “I don’t really have coffee at home, but—” He trails off.

Normally, he never has coffee at home, and even the tea is only for when people come to visit. But he’s not sure there’s really anything left. Lando complained once about the lack of coffee in Max’s apartment and then raided the entirety of his tea collection, and Max hasn’t had the time to stock up again since then.

“Just water, please,” Charles asks, and Carlos nods.

“Okay,” Max says, gesturing to his couch. “You can just…sit down.” He walks into the kitchen, takes a deep breath as he buries his face in his hands. He’s glad that the kitchen can’t be seen from the living room.

Fucking hell.

He’s not sure how he’s supposed to deal with this.

He didn’t expect it. And he’s not prepared for this at all. He just—

He breathes out slowly. They’re going to want answers from him, and he doesn’t know if he can give them the answers that they want to hear.

If he’s honest, he can’t even explain any of this to himself really. It makes sense in a way, but not enough to explain what he’s thinking or why he’s reacted like this. Or, at least, he’s not sure it makes enough sense to them.

His hands tighten around the glass he’s taken out of the cupboard. None of this would’ve happened if not for George fucking Russell—

He takes another breath.

It’s unfair to blame George for this. George didn’t give him soulmates. George didn’t force Max to hide all of this from Carlos and Charles, and he didn’t make Max run away from both of them for months.

All of this is his fault, and his fault alone.

He should have just been truthful with them, should have told them that he’s not ready yet for any relationship even one with his soulmates, that he doesn’t think he could be a good partner with his attention so on everything else.

But what’s done is done, and he can’t change things anymore. He can just try to fix them.

Charles’ hands close around the glass, and he smiles at him. Max tries to not look at the mark on Charles’ wrist that matches his scar perfectly. That he knows he will also find on Carlos’s wrist.

“Thank you,” he says; Max just presses his lips together, nods once.

“Of course,” he says before quickly turning away and handing Carlos the second glass.

Then he sits down on the armchair instead of next to them on the couch.

He’s not sure if he’s just imagining the brief flash of disappointment on Charles’ face, but he tries not to think about it too much. He doesn’t think he can deal with more.

It’s quiet. Max doesn’t look at them, but he can feel their eyes on him, and he desperately wants to curl up into a ball and disappear.

For the most part, he can deal with people staring at him even if he hates it—otherwise, his job would be a lot harder—, but right now, he wishes it was possible to not be perceived in any way.

“We’re not mad,” Carlos finally starts. “I need you to know that.”

Max swallows. Maybe that’s worse. He can deal with anger. He knows how to deal with anger. He doesn’t know how to deal with this.

“Okay,” he says quietly, and he still doesn’t look at either of them.

“We just…” Carlos hesitates. “We just don’t really understand.”

He doesn’t expect them to. Not yet, not when he hasn’t given them any kind of explanation. And he won’t either once he’s tried to explain it to them. He doesn’t think he fully understands it.

It’s just…always been easier to run away from this than having to confront it.

He doesn’t want to deal with it, doesn’t want to deal with how his parents’ relationship might have affected him, how the way he grew up might have left more marks than he feels comfortable thinking about.

He’s seen the comments. He’s been asked about it. And so far, it’s always been possible for him to just push it away, to tell them that it was needed, that it got him where he is now.

Because it’s true. He isn’t sure yet how it applies to soulmates as well. If it does.

His hand curls around his wrist. He can feel the raised scar under his fingertips. He isn’t sure about a lot of things anymore.

Charles clears his throat. “Yeah, it’s— I think because my experience with soulmates has always been positive, I do not really get it.”

He’s glad they don’t understand. He doesn’t want them to. Not like this.

“I am…not sure I really understand it myself,” Max admits, and his voice sounds so meek that he knows his dad would laugh at him for it. “I don’t know if you know, but my parents are soulmates, and I— I guess something changed after their divorce.”

He knows what changed after the divorce. He’s seen how his dad treated his mum—long before the topic of divorce even came up. And he’s seen how he treated her afterwards. He’s seen how much it destroyed her, and he hadn’t even been able to spend a lot of time with her after the divorce.

There’s a reason why she had a restraining order against his dad.

And, well, his dad hadn’t changed after it, hadn’t treated his next partners differently, but seeing his dad treat the person like this when she was supposed to be his other half, when he was supposed to be her happy ending—

It had destroyed a lot of the daydreams he used to have about soulmates.

Maybe it’s stupid that one failing soulmate relationship influenced him so much—he’s seen dozens and hundreds of soulmate relationships that did work out, and just because one didn’t, doesn’t mean that all of them will be the same. That his would be the same.

But it’s made him cautious. If one can turn out like this, if the person being your soulmate doesn’t stop you, then it can be repeated. Then it can happen to others as well. Then it could happen to him.

Then Max could turn out just like him.

“I don’t— I don’t really—” His eyes are burning. This is so incredibly pathetic. He doesn’t want to know what he looks like.

“It is okay,” Charles says, and his voice is gentle. Max knows it isn’t. Nothing is okay. Not a single fucking thing.

“I’m sorry,” Max says finally, and it doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t undo anything, and he doesn’t think it will make anything better either, but—

But.

He still needs to.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and he’s not sure when he’s started crying, but his eyes are burning, and he can barely breathe, and it takes everything in him to suppress a sob. “Fuck,” he says, turning away from them to wipe his eyes, “sorry.”

Just when he didn’t think everything couldn’t get more pathetic.

He can’t stop the tears, can’t bring himself to stop crying, and when he turns around to excuse himself, Carlos is kneeling in front of him. His face is full of worry. Charles hovers a step behind him, almost like he’s unsure how he’s supposed to deal with this.

And now that Carlos is so close him, it’s impossible to miss the mark on Carlos’s wrist. It’s the perfect replica of Charles’ mark. Of Max’s scar. There’s no way to pretend they’re not soulmates. There’s no getting out of this.

Max doesn’t think he wants to do that, but it would be easier for them. It would be easier for them if they could just pretend that there’s no third soulmate, that it’s just them, that it’s always just been them, that it’ll always just be them.

He should want that, he knows. He should. He doesn’t.

Max forces a laugh out. “Sorry,” he says. “I did not mean to.”

Carlos’s face twists with anger, but before Max can wonder what he’s done wrong this time, Carlos’s hand settles on Max’s thigh as if he wants to ground him, like the warmth of his body would be enough to melt all pretense and uncertainty and doubt away.

(Max doesn’t want to admit that it’s working, that his body relaxes and that his mind goes quiet.)

”There is nothing you have to be sorry for,” Carlos says, and he almost sounds honest, like he actually means it.

Max doesn’t think he has to energy to disagree.

They eventually talk. After Charles brings him a glass of water and tissues from wherever he’s found them. Max didn’t know he even had tissues in his apartment.

It’s…easier than expected. Maybe.

Carlos settles back on the couch, and Max refuses to acknowledge that he misses the warmth of his hand. He almost wishes he could sit next to them on the couch, but that would be too much, wouldn’t align with what they’re going to have to talk about, with what Max will have to tell them.

It’s easier like that. If there’s space between them. If he doesn’t feel like he belongs, if he doesn’t want to stay.

He still refuses to look at them. Somehow, this has gotten worse in the past half an hour than it was already to begin with, and alone the fact that this is…necessary is awful. Max hates everything about this. But alas. His fault. His job to deal with this.

“I do not think I am ready for a relationship,” he finally says, quietly. “Not yet.” He doesn’t want them to think that he’ll never be ready for one, but he also can’t say if he ever will.

Charles smiles at him. “That is fine,” he says. “Rushing into this is probably not the best idea.”

It’s true, maybe. Definitely. He’s had his fair share of too-fast relationships in the past, and perhaps, they’d always been doomed from the start because he’d always known that the moment they found their soulmates, the relationship wouldn’t be able to survive.

But it had still always been obvious that they wouldn’t have been able to survive either way. Even without soulmates.

Max flexes his hands. “Right,” he says.

“It’s not—” Carlos stops. “We don’t expect anything. And it’s totally fine if you aren’t ready for any of this yet. Just talk to us?”

And yeah, maybe he can do that.

“Okay,” Max agrees, and it’s easier than he’s expected.

They only leave when it’s already dark outside.

Max feels drained, and yet, he doesn’t want them to leave, doesn’t want them to leave him alone.

But he just forces a smile onto his lips as he bids them a good night. He can still feel the dried tears on his cheeks.

They’re already out of the door when Max stops them again.

“I just…need to you to know that this is has nothing to do with you,” he says. “That you are my soulmates, I mean. I do not think I would have handled this better with any other soulmate.”

They had always been the least of his issues even if he’d disliked Charles growing up, it’s been years since then, and it’s been years since he found out that Charles was his soulmate. He’d been able to accept that, no matter what racing incidents there had been, even with 2019.

Carlos, somehow, had been easier. Maybe because he’d been older, because there hadn’t been the same history he’s had with Charles. And it had helped that whatever issues there had been during their time at Toro Rosso had always been between their fathers. They never had fights because of that, and they’d always gotten along quite well despite the tension in the team.

He doesn’t think his dad would be excited about Carlos being his soulmate, but Max doesn’t think his dad would be excited in general that Max found his soulmates. For him, Max’s first priority should continue being Formula One and only Formula One.

And he’d always agreed with it, always put Formula One over everything else. Maybe he’s still doing it by trying to take all of this slowly.

Max just doesn’t know anymore.

Charles squeezes his hand. Carlos smiles at him.

“Sleep well, Max,” Charles says.

And then they’re gone.

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this empty.

He doesn’t sleep well that night.

First, it’s too hot, and once he’s taken off his shirt, it’s too cold, and the blanket sticks to his body, and—

He grabs his phone, tries to distract himself, but all of his friends are asleep or busy, and he’s not sure what he’s thinking, but suddenly, his finger is hovering over Carlos’s number.

He’s not going to call them. It’s three AM. They’re going to be asleep. And he doesn’t think he can talk to them right now anyway, but he could— he could text. Maybe.

He doesn’t click on Carlos’s contact nor on Charles’, throws his phone next to him onto the bed and tries to sleep again.

He doesn’t succeed.

But he also doesn’t make the mistake of pulling up either of their contacts again.

When he gets up the next morning, he’s barely slept, and he feels exactly like that.

He feels drained, empty.

He should be happy, probably. That they’re not mad at him. That they’re okay with taking things slow. That they don’t expect anything from Max.

But—

He’s not sure if he’ll ever be ready, doesn’t know if things will ever change. And how long will they be able to go with this? How long will they be okay with it? How long until Max has to decide?

It’s unfair, he knows, to think like that, to expect them to go back on their words, but Max can’t imagine that anyone would be okay to wait for someone who is supposed to want to be in a relationship with you, who has been destined to be your happily ever after. Who is supposed to make you your best self.

Because even if he’ll be ready one day, he doesn’t think he could be any of these. Not for Charles. Not for Carlos. Not when they already have each other.

Nothing changes, really.

Max continues with his life as if nothing has ever happened. He hangs out on Discord with the Redline guys, he trains with Brad, and then he flies to Milton Keynes to do some sim work.

It’s the same as always.

The only difference is that he suddenly has more contact with Carlos and Charles even outside of race weekends.

It’s not like they never spoke before that—they hang out sometimes, the odd text here and there. But it’s never been like that where they’re in contact constantly.

It’s not obtrusive, it doesn’t annoy him. It surprises him if he’s honest.

It’s just…easy in a way that he didn’t think was possible.

They don’t expect anything, they don’t push the conversations into directions Max doesn’t want them to go, and they don’t even mention the whole soulmate business.

They just talk—not small talk, and there are no unnecessary conversations about the weather, and Max can admit that he enjoys it.

It’s weird. It’s so unlike him that he’s not sure how he should feel about it.

“I don’t know,” Charles says, staring at the chocolate bars in his hands.

“What do you not know?” Carlos asks from where he’s lounging on the couch.

“Maybe it will be weird?” Charles says, frowns. They bought chocolate when they were in Germany for a couple of days. He’d seen it in the store, and he’d known he had to buy it for Max.

Back in karting, Max had often brought chocolate to the track, and he’d always shared it with Charles. It had been Max’s favourite, and Charles had never been able to understand it because he’d not been able to stand the taste of it.

He hasn’t thought about it in ages, but seeing it in the shelf had brought back memories he didn’t think he had. So, he’d bought it. It had seemed like a good idea back then, and Carlos had agreed.

But now—

At some point, Max stopped bringing this chocolate, and Charles doesn’t know why. If it was because of his diet, or because he stopped liking it, or if there was another reason, so now, Charles isn’t sure if he should even give it to Max. What if he doesn’t like it anymore? What if he thinks it’s weird that Charles still remembers something like this after years?

“You think too much, Charlie,” Carlos says. “I think he’ll like it.”

“Maybe you don’t think too much,” Charles retorts.

Carlos sighs, stands up. “It’ll be fine,” he says, pressing a quick kiss on Charles’ lips before he disappears into the kitchen.

“You’re useless,” Charles says, and it’s just loud enough that he knows Carlos will hear him.

“I heard that!” Carlos complains, and Charles suppresses a grin.

“Still does not change anything about that!” He could swear he can see Carlos’s pout through the wall.

It doesn’t take long until Charles hears the familiar noise of their coffee machine. Imported from Italy, and it uses proper coffee beans. Obviously. Ferrari would terminate their contracts otherwise.

“Hey!” Charles yells after Carlos. “Can you also make me coffee?”

That still doesn’t answer the question if he should give Max the chocolate.

He presses his lips together as he continues to stare at the lilac package and the German words that he still can’t read even though he took a few German lessons back when he was Seb’s teammate.

Maybe he should pick it up again. Although maybe it would make more sense if he started learning Dutch.

It would be nice to be able to speak in Max’s mother tongue. He knows that Max understands a bit of French—more than he can talk. He’s seen Max try. It’s endearing even if it’s wrong. But at least, his pronunciation isn’t atrocious.

Maybe he could even get Max to start learning Italian. It could be fun—he tilts his head—, and it’s definitely too early to even start thinking about this.

Charles sighs and puts the chocolate bars into his bag. And to make things worse, he’s also bought multiple of them.

He’ll take them with him to the next race, and then he can decide spontaneously if he wants to give them to Max.

Max is leaning against the balustrade as he watches the buzz of activity on the paddock. It’s the first race weekend in two weeks, and he feels readier than ever to race again.

He tries to focus on the conversation he’s supposed to be having with Daniel, but his mind has been drifting off ever since he spotted Charles in his red team kit a couple of minutes ago.

Charles had waved when he’d seen Max, and after a few seconds, Max had waved back. Daniel hadn’t commented, but the raised eyebrows had been more than enough.

“Max?” Daniel says, waving a hand in front of Max’s face. “Are you even listening to me?”

Max hums noncommittally. It looks like Charles is making his way through the crowd towards them, but maybe he’s just imagining. Either way, two weeks ago, Max would have made sure to get away as fast as possible, and now—

Now, he’s hoping that Charles is actually on his way to him and doesn’t just have to go in the direction where Max and Daniel stand.

“You are not listening to me,” Daniel exclaims, but he sounds amused enough for Max to know that he’s not mad.

“Sorry,” Max says, shaking his head quickly as he looks away from Charles. “What did you say?”

“Did you hear anything I told you?”

“Sorry, what did you just say?” Max jokes.

Daniel hits his shoulder, but before he can continue with what he’s talked about before, Charles taps Max’s shoulder.

“Hi,” he says brightly, and there’s a broad smile on his face. “Max! Hi, Daniel.”

Daniel is grinning now. “How’s it going?”

“Good, good. You, too?” But he doesn’t even wait for Daniel’s answer before he turns his face to Max again.

“Carlos and I have been in Germany a couple of days ago,” Charles says like Max hadn’t already known about it, “and when we saw this in the supermarket, I remembered that it was your favourite chocolate.”

Max gingerly takes the chocolate bars from Charles. Their hands don’t brush.

“I hope it still is since it has been a bit!”

“Thank you,” Max says, frowns. “It really was not necessary—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Charles is still smiling brightly. “I have to go. Bye!”

And then he’s gone. Max watches as he leaves, the chocolate still in his hands.

Back when he had still been karting, Max had always eaten this chocolate. His dad had stopped him some years ago because Max had started to grow and therefore also had gained weight too quickly, but before that, he’d sometimes brought chocolate to the races they went to. He had usually shared it with the other boys, but that must have been almost a decade ago.

He hadn’t realised that Charles still remembers that—and he would’ve never thought that Charles would remember it well enough to know the brand and the flavour of the chocolate bar.

Daniel is staring at him.

“What was that?” he asks—there’s no judgement in his voice, and when Max looks up, Daniel is wiggling his eyebrows.

He’s not sure himself what just happened.

“Oh, shut it,” Max says. “He has a boyfriend, and you know that he is just being nice.”

He also isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about this.

“Yeah,” Daniel says, and his tone is incredulous. “He’s also nice to me, and he’s never brought me my favourite chocolate. How does he even know what’s your favourite?”

Max would also like to know how Charles still remembers. It’s been so long that even Max forgot what the packaging looked like, and he hadn’t been able to live without it when he’d been a child.

It’s been so long, and he hadn’t thought about it in what must have been years.

It feels weird—not in a bad, just…in the way that he hadn’t thought that Charles had paid so much attention to him even back then during a time when they hadn’t always gotten along all that well.

“Maybe you just have to try harder,” Max deadpans.

“Sure,” Daniel says, and then, “Also, I don’t think that Carlos has an issue with that.”

Max blinks, straightens up as he looks around. Has Daniel spotted Carlos somewhere? It really shouldn’t be too hard considering that he’s most likely in team kit, but Max hasn’t seen Carlos all morning.

“What?” he says.

Daniel points in the direction in which Charles disappeared again, and finally, Max does see Carlos. It seems like he’s looking in their direction, but Max is too far away to properly see his face.

“He’s been staring at you for the last five minutes, y’know?” Daniel points out, and Max doesn’t even want to know how Daniel realised that.

“Maybe he is trying to kill me with his eyes because Charles bought the chocolate,” Max suggests.

It has Daniel snort. “Sure, Maxy.”

They go out to eat after the race—which Max won, of course, but it wasn’t great for either of the Ferrari drivers.

A double stack, he’d seen it on the screens. And then the stupidest strategy he’s heard about all weekend. Sometimes, it comes even as a surprise that Ferrari gets their shit together enough to make sure that both of their cars make it to the destination. It really wouldn’t come as a shock if they somehow managed to lose one, if not both, during the transportation between races.

“I think I would just retire,” he tells them, and it’s a joke, mostly. Back when things still weren’t great, where he had a DNF almost every other race, the topic of changing teams often came up. His manager had even been in contact with Mercedes, but in the end, it never happened because Red Bull managed to fulfil the pre-agreed conditions, and maybe there hadn’t been any other great choice either way. They’ve always been hesitant to actually tighten any possible ties to Mercedes with Lewis still on the team, and Red Bull did turn out to be the best choice for him after all.

He knows it’s similar for them now—even if things might change for Carlos in 2026. But he also knows that things won’t ever change for Charles, no matter how often Ferrari continues to fuck up.

It’s impressive, Max can admit so much. He knows there’s no way he would ever do that, but for him, the priority had always been winning. It had never mattered with what team as long as he was winning.

Charles groans. “The SF-24 certainly makes me want to.”

“It looked like a tractor, mate,” Max says, and Carlos snorts.

“It felt like we were driving on ice,” he says. “It just did not turn. I thought I was about to shunt it into the walls any second.”

Max saw. They had showed the moment on screen when it looked like Carlos lost control of the car. He’d somehow kept it out of the walls, but it had been obvious that the car was terrible today. As always.

“Horrible,” Charles says. “Can we maybe talk about something else? I do not think I want to think for even a minute longer about this.”

Max laughs. “Of course.”

Charles perks up as if he’s just remembered something. “Did you already try the chocolate?”

He did. He ate it whole. Brad hadn’t been impressed. And then, he’d forced Max to go running for an hour longer than what they usually did. Max hated it.

He still doesn’t regret eating the chocolate. It made him remember that there was a reason why he’s always loved it so much. Maybe he needs to start eating it again more often even if it’s going to be shit for his diet.

“Right!” Max says. “I wanted to know how you even remembered. It must have been years since I last brought it to a race.”

Charles’ face is red. Carlos just looks amused.

It makes Max raise his eyebrows. “What?”

“This is embarrassing,” Charles says, and he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Carlos stifles his laughter. “He doesn’t want to admit that he had a bit of an obsession with you when you were children.”

Max blinks.

It’s true that they had often gotten into arguments as children. It didn’t help that they’d always been so close in age and skill, but also— Max squints. He hadn’t been able to often participate when the other boys played football after the races, but he distinctively remembers that Charles still always asked him. No matter how often Max had to turn him down.

“I did not!” Charles protests, but his face is so red that it’s barely believable.

Carlos rolls his eyes. “Even when we found out we were soulmates, he was not able to shut up about you.”

Charles opens his mouth, closes it again.

“You can just admit that it’s true,” Carlos says, his eyes crinkle.

“You are terrible,” Charles decides, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Carlos ruffles Charles’ hair, but Charles quickly bats Carlos’s hand away.

“Do not touch my hair,” Charles threatens, but there’s no real bite in his voice even if he’s squinting at Carlos. He carefully pats his hair to get rid of the mess that Carlos created.

Carlos laughs—his head is thrown back, his eyes form crescents, and Max thinks he could sit here and listen to them forever.

He forces himself to look away.

There’s an easiness between them that only comes with years and years of familiarity—a familiarity that he’ll never be able to relate to, that he’ll never know.

Max forces a smile on his lips and ignores the twinge in his chest. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

He’s made his decisions, he’s made his choices. It’s his own damn fault that things turned out like this.

There are flowers in his driver room.

He doesn’t think he’s ever gotten flowers before.

He frowns, takes the bouquet to smell the flowers. He doesn’t know enough about plants in general to be able to tell them apart, but it’s colourful and it smells nice and when he puts the bouquet back on the table, it feels like they light up the whole room.

There’s no letter, no note from who it is, but Max can guess.

Even now after all this time, Carlos wanders into the Red Bull hospitality whenever he wants—no one will bat an eye if they see him, and no one will stop him either or inform anyone of it. They used to joke that Carlos was trying to steal information from them—Spygate 2.0 if you so will—, but, well. Carlos still knows a lot of the employees from his time at Toro Rosso since quite a few of them were promoted to Red Bull over the years.

They all like him, but it’s also hard to not like Carlos. Max doesn’t think he’s ever met a person—apart from his dad—who didn’t like Carlos after meeting him.

He gently brushes over the petals of the flowers. It’s nice that they think of him, but he probably also needs to tell them that it’s unnecessary. They don’t have to win him over, don’t have to convince him. If that’s their goal, then they’re just wasting their time.

But when he tells them that, something unhappy flashes over Carlos’s face. Charles presses his lips together.

“Don’t worry about it,” Carlos tells him, nudges his shoulder. “We know it is not necessary, and that we don’t ‘have’ to do anything, but when you like someone, you sometimes just do nice things for them without a reason.”

When you like someone.

Max averts his gaze, tries to not linger on those words. When you like—

They are friends, after all.

Charles frowns. “Unless it makes you uncomfortable, of course.”

Max quickly shakes his head. He still isn’t entirely sure how he feels about the whole situation, but he doesn’t feel uncomfortable. And maybe he also doesn’t want it to stop. It is nice, the attention. “No, no, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I just— I just did not want you to feel like you had to do anything.”

Carlos smiles at him. He sits so close to Max that their thighs are touching. Max tries to ignore the way the heat of Carlos’s body seeps into his own, that he feels so comfortable surrounded by Charles and Carlos that he could sink into the cushions of the couch and never get up again.

He almost allows himself to wish for it to be always like this.

Time passes quickly. Before Max properly realises it, it’s the last race of the season.

It’s been an eventful year, and the Championships are somehow more in the background than Max ever thought they could be.

It’s weird, and Max has never experienced this. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to feel about it.

He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about how much time he’s spending with Charles and Carlos either.

It’s not like they constantly spend time together. They often go out to eat on race weekends, and whenever they have time and are all in Monaco, they try to meet, and Max can admit that he always enjoys those outings. None of them are dates, and they all don’t treat them like it, but it’s nice. It’s nice, and every time, Max catches himself looking forward to it.

But now it’s the last race of the season, and it’s going to be months until the next race weekend, and only then does Max realise that they never even spoke about plans during the off season.

The focus of the past few weeks had been so much on the triple header, and all of them are tired—and somehow, winter break never came up.

It’s going to be weird, he thinks, from seeing them every week to barely seeing them for months.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Carlos tells him, and Max tips his head in acknowledgement.

“Will you be home for New Year’s?” he asks. He usually spends the bank holidays with his family and New Year’s Eve with friends, and this year, he doesn’t have any plans for the end of the year made so far.

He can probably ask Martijn if this doesn’t work out—he thinks he remembers something about some party he’d mentioned months ago. Lando might know more, but it’s also not his first choice. Not this year.

Charles nods. “We are for Christmas in Spain, but for the rest of the winter break, we will probably be in Monaco, and some time also in Maranello.”

He’ll be in Milton Keynes for a big portion of the winter break, too, and he isn’t sure he’s looking forward to it.

Max grimaces. He likes sim racing, and he normally doesn’t have an issue with sim work for Red Bull, but he really just wants to spend at home, do some sim racing for fun and…focus on other things. Maybe.

The season has been long, and Max can feel it in his bones. He’s exhausted to the core, and he thinks he’s going to spend most of the next few days sleeping before he has to leave for Milton Keynes again.

Twenty-four races in a season are terrible, the last races being a triple header didn’t work, and he’s already dreading next season. It’s really not getting better. He just hopes they’re not going to add even more races.

Maybe this would be a valid reason to retire. He isn’t as young anymore as he used to be, and it stresses him more than it would have if he was still twenty. He isn’t sure how Fernando and Lewis are able to do it year after year for two decades.

The more time passes, the more seasons he drives, the less he sees himself there.

31 does sound like a good retirement age. And it’s not like he’s going to stop racing altogether.

“We should sync our calendars,” Max suggests before he can even think about what he’s implying here. But then it’s already too late, and he can’t take his words back without making it sound like a rejection.

“That is probably a good idea,” Charles says and nods. “I can barely keep track of my schedule as is.”

Carlos snorts. “It’s why you have a manager,” he teases. “We are all very glad about that.”

Max isn’t sure their managers feel the same about them. He knows how often Raymond wants to strangle him because he tries to come to events in the last minute, so he can stay on stream with Team Redline or sim race for as long as possible.

At least, he does show up.

“But yeah,” Carlos says. His eyes crinkle when he smiles. “Stay in contact?”

He doesn’t think he would be able to stay away even if he wanted to. He doesn’t think it has been possible for weeks now.

Max offers a smile. “Of course,” he says, and he means it.

The first week, he doesn’t do a lot. He sleeps, he eats all the food that Brad would give a heart attack if he saw Max eating it, and he sim races a lot.

There’s not really a lot of time to think about anything else.

He feels cold sometimes, and there’s this weird empty feeling in his chest, but he ignores it, focuses more on sim racing, and then he’s busy with work anyway, so there’s even less time to think about those things.

Christian pats his back, and Daniel makes jokes, and he looks so long at the data with GP that his eyes start to burn.

No one brings up how jittery he is.

The next week is…worse.

He texts Carlos and Charles almost every day, but they barely call, and he didn’t think it was possible to miss someone so much.

He doesn’t think he’s even missed his mum and his sister as much when they moved away after the divorce. He doesn’t think he missed his dad so much either when he moved to Monaco after his eighteenth birthday.

He grimaces. His dad. He hasn’t spoken to him in a few weeks, ignored phone calls and messages. He must be fuming by now, and it makes Max want to call him even less.

Things…have been weird.

There’s no way that he’s going to tell his dad about Charles and Carlos. He knows what his dad is going to say, and he knows that he doesn’t want to hear it. It’s even worse because Max has two soulmates, and that means he will have even less time to focus on racing, and that doesn’t look good on a World Champion, does it?

He could just not talk about this topic, of course, could focus on racing and racing alone. His dad probably prefers that anyway, but lately, whenever he stares at his wrist, at the scar, every time it hurts, there’s this weird feeling in his stomach, and then, he never wants to talk to his dad about racing either.

He listened to his dad. It didn’t protect the car. And it didn’t protect him either.

So, Max doesn’t have the wish to speak to him. Maybe it’ll change. Maybe by then, his dad will have calmed down from Max ignoring his phone calls, and maybe he won’t yell at Max for it.

But right now, it might be better like this.

The more time passes that he doesn’t see Carlos and Charles, the more off he feels.

It’s…concerning to say the least.

But he doesn’t want to worry either of them, and he isn’t sure about the signals he might be sending either, so he doesn’t mention it to them the next time they speak. It’s still only a call, Max still hasn’t properly seen them in weeks, but the pressure on his chest disappears.

Every time Charles laughs, every time Carlos makes a stupid joke, he feels warm. And by the end of it, his cheeks hurt so much from smiling.

Until they end the call.

Then the feeling is back. Just as bad. Maybe worse.

It feels like he’s suffocating.

So, he does the only sensible thing; he calls Victoria.

“It’s normal,” she tells him. “I always feel like this. You should ask them. I’m sure they feel the same.”

Max grimaces. He’d rather not. Then he frowns.

“What do you mean normal?” he asks quietly. “I did not feel like this before.” He’s pretty sure of that, at least. He’s known for quite some time about them being his soulmate, after all, and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this before. No, he knows. He’d remember a feeling like this, and he knows that he’s never experienced anything similar until now.

He doesn’t think he would be this worried otherwise.

Victoria shrugs. “I can’t tell you. I am not an expert,” she says, “but maybe it’s because you have been spending more time together.”

Max tilts his head. That…would make sense. He spent time with them before all of this, of course, but never so much especially not outside of race weekends. And it’s been quite a lot more during the last few weeks of the season, too.

It had never been like he’d avoided them either—except for a few weeks in the past season—, but he definitely also didn’t spend as much time with them as he did with other drivers, as he possibly could have done.

He groans. “This is annoying,” he says. “The whole soulmate business—”

Victoria smiles at him. It’s a lot softer than it used to be when they were children, less of the edge that their parents’ divorce left. But every time, he still sees her ten-year-old self in it. “I think this is just what being in love means.”

And—

Oh.

Maybe it does.

He swallows. His throat is dry, and he can hear his heartbeat in his ears.

Being in love.

It sounds wrong. It especially does in the context of it being used for him. It doesn’t seem real, almost like the Universe is trying to play a prank on him.

The biggest of them all. After giving him not only one but two soulmates, after years and years of trying to resist fate, after everything.

In love.

It sounds like a dream, like a lie, like a wish. And maybe it also sounds like the truth, like the future, like a possibility.

“I don’t know what to do,” he confesses, voice so quiet he isn’t sure his sister can even hear it.

And maybe she doesn’t. It’s quiet. She isn’t looking at him, and his heartbeat seems louder with every passing second.

Finally, her gaze returns to him. “What do you want?”

And isn’t that the most difficult question of them all?

He doesn’t do anything about it first, tries to ignore it as much as he can, and then—

They’re all in Monaco, and Max still hasn’t figured out what he wants. How he wants to continue. What might change. If things change.

He’s bought them gifts though. Not Christmas gifts. It’s still a bit until then. And it’s nothing big enough for Christmas either.

He just…stood in a store once and stared at the ugliest pants he’s ever seen—ridiculously expensive on top of that—, and well, he knew that Charles would like them. So, he’d bought them. He hadn’t thought about what he’d just done until he’d already been at home, and by then, it had already been too late. He’d thought about returning them, but that had made him feel even more stupid, so he hadn’t.

And after that, he’d spent an entire week trying to think about what he should get Carlos.

It had been stupidly difficult. Getting Carlos’s favourite wine had felt too basic, and anything else, he’d been able to come up with, had felt like too much compared to the pants he bought with no thought.

He’d tried to ask Lando, but Lando hadn’t been any help at all—he’d just teased Max, and after his voice had taken on a far too suggestive tone for the third time, Max had hung up on him and sent him the middle finger emoji. Lando had just sent him laughing emojis back.

Max isn’t sure why he’d expected Lando to be any help.

In the end, he’d settled on a vinyl from a band that Carlos had talked about (and that Max had never heard of before) because he’d remembered one time when he’d been at Charles and Carlos’s shared apartment with Carlos’s vinyls carefully arranged in a shelf next to Charles’ piano.

Charles had rolled his eyes and told Max, “Carlos already has all their CDs. There is no reason for him to need the vinyls as well.”

Carlos had just scoffed and then proceeded to show his collection to Max.

He just hopes that Carlos hasn’t already bought this particular one since they last spoke about it.

And all that because he’d seen really fucking ugly pants in a store that probably no one except for models at fashion shows and Charles Leclerc would ever wear.

He feels ridiculous.

He feels even more ridiculous when he gets to the restaurant they agreed on, and when he has to suppress the urge to get up and hug them so tightly that they can’t breathe anymore. He still has a bit more dignity than that left. But only a bit. And only very barely.

He doesn’t immediately give them the gifts once they have settled down, once the urge to touch them and never let go slowly dulls. It quietly ebbs away, but it never completely disappears, and the light brushes of their hands are never enough.

He tries to not stare at their lips, at their hands, at the way their thighs press together.

But, he realises, there’s not this hate anymore that would’ve been lodged into his chest just a few months ago.

So, he slowly pulls out the gifts, places them on the table. He doesn’t look them in the eyes.

“What’s this?” Charles asks, curiosity written on his face.

Max shrugs. “Nothing really.” But his hands are shaking too much, his heartbeat is too loud for it to be nothing.

He still isn’t sure about this, still isn’t sure whether it was the right decision, if he should give it to them, but then Charles’ face lights up when Max hands him the package, and Carlos squeezes his hands, and maybe this is what he wants.

He doesn’t bring it up until after New Year’s.

“I am still not sure,” he says quietly. They’re sitting on Charles’ couch and so close that his shoulders brush theirs every time he moves.

It makes it easier—that he doesn’t have to look at them.

But he also doesn’t think he would be able to do it if he wasn’t sitting next to them, if he didn’t feel the heat of their bodies through his clothes, if there was nothing to ground him.

“We will wait for you,” Charles says gently. His fingers brush over Max’s hands, and his touch is so light that Max can barely feel it.

He knows that. He’s seen it. It’s been months, and nothing has changed. Maybe that’s why he’s bringing it up again, why he feels brave enough to do so because he knows that they won’t change their minds, that things will continue just like they have before this if it’s not him who takes the first step.

Max swallows. “Even if it’s forever?” he asks, and he isn’t sure why. He has made his decision. But maybe he wants to test them, maybe he wants to see their reaction, maybe he wants to know what they would do if nothing ever changes before he fully makes up his mind, before he tells them.

“Even then,” Carlos says, and when Max turns his head to him, his eyes are warm and his smile sincere.

And maybe Max can do it. He knows that this is what he wants.

Max breathes out shakily. “I think I want to try.”