Chapter Text
(06.03.2023, 10AM in Bahrain)
It had all been a terrible accident. A stupid, stupid mistake. He should have left instead of letting Danny convince him to drink that vodka energy, and then the shot with the little lemon slice, and then to stay. He should have been more responsible, known better than to behave like a teenager at his first party.
Charles should have left and he shouldn’t have had that much alcohol. But he didn’t leave and then he did have that much alcohol. And now it was monday and he was fucked. So utterly fucked.
His phone was still buzzing. He rubbed a palm over his face, sent a prayer up and then picked up the phone, answering Vasseur’s call.
He was practiced in facing the consequences of his actions – his whole journey at Ferrari had definitely taught him that. Yet it still made him feel sick. He may have bombed his career and now he was completely at the mercy of his superiors. Superiors who did not look kindly upon missteps.
Ferrari had an extensive history of blaming and not standing behind their drivers, so Charles was glad it was Frédéric calling him.
“I’m here.”, he greeted his new team chef defeatedly.
“Charles. Nous retrouverons dans 30 minutes dans mon bureau d'hôtel. Ne parlez à personne! Nous pouvons sauver cela, mais seulement si vous ne parlez à personne tant que nous n'avons pas clarifié notre stratégie. ”
“D’accord.”, Charles replied resignedly. He didn’t feel like answering anybody’s questions anyway, avoiding being seen wouldn’t exactly be a hardship.
“Nobody, Charles!” Vasseur emphasized harshly and cut the line.
Charles let his hand sink. The phone fell with a dull thump onto his hotel room’s carpet. He sighed into the ringing silence afterwards.
He fucked up.
Oh how he had fucked up royally.
18 years in the sport, never any huge mishaps, he’d maintained a great public image overall. He smiled bitterly. That was over now, he supposed.
And there was someone else dragged into this disaster. He anxiously rubbed his thumb over his index finger. No, thinking of him didn’t help now, he had fifteen minutes to get ready before he had to leave for Vasseur’s hotel a few blocks away.
Brushing his teeth, rinsing his hair quickly after smelling cigarettes and the lemon sirup from yesterday in it, dressing in clean clothes and discarding the party hat he brought back with him last night, Charles rushed through making himself presentable.
His phone buzzed again and he flinched as he read the caller ID.
Not yet. He wasn’t ready to hear his voice again yet.
He shoved it in his pocket and grabbed a mask and a cap – fuck, it was Ferrari, that was too conspicuous, pick the plain one – and his keycard and walked out. He rushed through the lobby with his mask on and his head down. Thankfully nobody stopped him and he thanked the whole Covid-19 time for normalising masks enough for him to be able to use it as disguise.
Vasseur already stood in the doorframe as Charles came around the corner from the elevator. His face didn’t say much, but his arms were crossed and a loud discussion carried out of the seminar room behind him into the hall.
He looked at Charles and then nodded at him. It said: We can do this. Let’s get it done.
Charles loved Vasseur in that moment. The biggest difference between Binotto and him had been his attitude right from the start.
Vasseur always gave him and Carlos the feeling that it would all be alright in the end. (A sense of security that Binotto certainly never showed.)
Charles sighed and steeled himself as he followed his team chef into the temporary office. Inside, the various executives were sat around a glass table, Enrico Galliera –Marketing and Commercial Officer – at the head, Maria Liuni and Charlie Turner to his left and right side.
They all stared at Charles as he entered and the discussion from before ceased.
He sat down, Vasseur across from him.
Disappointment hung heavy over his head. Charles took a breath and started: “I know, this is bad. I want to clarify that I didn’t mean for this to happen, obviously-”
“You were photographed by paparazzi drunk, making out with Max Verstappen, who is male, another driver, specifically a rival team’s driver who is not known for his charming nice personality.”, Galliera said cooly. “That are five different problematic issues.”
“Are you gay?”, Turner asked bluntly. Charles flinched.
Because that was one of the two big problems Charles was facing since waking up after kissing Max Verstappen at the Bahrain Opening Party.
He had finally lost his control over that part of himself that looked at other men a bit too closely sometimes. And then he had gone and stumbled into a whole mess with the very man who made it the most difficult for Charles to control that attraction.
The other side of the coin was of course that he was in major trouble because it had been caught on camera and now threatened to end his career, his whole life. But it also had revealed something Charles had consciously avoided to find out since he was 12.
Yet he couldn’t say that he was gay. Because he wasn’t. But he also couldn’t betray the fact that he had…tendencies. So he settled for deflection.
“What does it matter?”, Charles stated.
“We just need you to come out of this situation with your good reputation intact.”, Vasseur explained. “There is already a list of measurements we will be taking and several new rules you’ll have to follow but we will get to those later. For now, you need to accept the current plan we are running with.”
And then Frédéric Vasseur dropped the news as if they weren’t an atomic bomb to Charles’ private life.
“We can make it into a PR relationship.”
Charles could only stare at him. Ice spread through his chest, his limbs, rendering him unable to move. “Excuse me…?”, he asked faintly.
“We can use it as positive publicity, there doesn’t need to be any drama or accusations. We can present the fans and the media a unified front.”
Turner added: “We can make a point out of it against the critique of the Scuderia being too old-fashioned. Shake the image of being too stuck on traditions. A modern twist with the first ever openly gay driver.”
Galliera quietly threw in: “There will be too much critique. A public uproar. It’s too difficult, we should discuss an alternative strategy with Red Bull.” It sounded tired, repetitive.
“But it does offer many opportunities. Charles can be our face for inclusivity. We gain a whole new target audience and a range of merchandise. And on top of that is it perhaps a way straight into Red Bull’s garage. Charles can gather intel…”, Liuni said. The woman looked unhappy to back up the plan, but focused.
Charles was still frozen with shock. “A PR relationship? With Max Verstappen? Pretend to be-” They wanted him to fake date Max Verstappen.
He had to be in a nightmare. This was a movie. It couldn’t be real.
Galliera only gave Charles an affirmative gesture and looked over to Vasseur. “Inform John Elkann and Piero Ferrari. And until our meeting with Red Bull, which I give us three hours to discuss our ideas for, no statement will be released yet and Charles: you will not say anything either until then. We meet here in three hours again, at 2PM local time. Frédéric, do you agree?”
Vasseur nodded and then faced Charles. The executive officers looked expectantly at him.
In the silence, Charles suddenly felt powerless. Good news were, he wasn’t losing his contract. But if the price was to lead a PR relationship with his not-crush (because he was not gay) then he apparently had to pay it.
There wasn’t much Charles Leclerc wouldn’t do for racing. And it was Max.
So he said: “Yeah. I’ll do it.”
Vasseur got up and escorted Charles out as the others resumed what Charles assumed was a detailed PR plan. At the door, he murmured: “C'est bien. We will fix it. Think about it. See you later.”
Charles went back to his hotel room in a trance. He felt like he was trapped in a movie, this couldn’t be real. Such things didn’t happen to him. He was not someone to cause this type of uproar in the media.
He owed someone a call, he abruptly remembered as he reached his room. He dialled Max as he held the keycard to the door knob.
“Charles?”, the Dutchman answered after the first dial.
“Hey.”, Charles started. The voice of the other man had kickstarted his pulse and he anxiously tapped his fingers together. He didn’t know what to say.
“So-” Max said right as Charles managed to bring out a: “Listen-” They both stopped. Then Charles mumbled: “Go on.”
Max was audibly stressed. “So, Vasseur got you in a chokehold too?”
Charles felt actual tears well up. Max’ raspy voice made him feel too many things, regret and longing wrapped up in fear, topped with a sense of familiarity he found nowhere else.
He laughed. “You could say that.”
There was a beat of silence. Charles wondered how Max felt about the kiss. The kisses. Instead of asking that, he asked: “Our teams meet at two in the Scuderia’s improvised emergency crisis office, you know already?”
“Yeah, Christian just told me. And he is already discussing the strategy ahead of the meeting with Ferrari.” Max hesitated. “He said we should start a PR relationship.”
“Fréd suggested the same.”, Charles murmured.
Part of him was relieved to hear Max’ sounding like himself, as if this wasn’t one big lead balloon crashing down on their heads. Part of him was anxiously awaiting the questions Max must want to ask.
But the Dutchman just said: “I have decided with Christian that I want to do the fake relationship. If you agree…let’s discuss our strategy together before we are thrown into a room with the team principals and fucked over because we don’t have any plan.”
Charles bit his inner cheek. “You think we should do it?”
“Yeah. Think about it, it’s our best chance to escape media drama! Text me the address of your hotel and I will be there as soon as I can, okay mate?” Max sounded so normal. Charles hated and liked it at the same time.
“Charles?”
He absentmindedly rubbed his cheekbone, returning to the present. “Yeah-”, he replied. “But Ferrari hasn’t decided yet-”
“Bullshit. They will agree. Let’s be ahead of them. Address?”
Charles told him, still a bit dazed.