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Charles paces in front of the narrow office door.
Surveillance and Security is engraved into the golden plaque next to it.
This may be the stupidest thing Charles has ever done, the most idiotic, risky, braindead thing he’s ever come up with.
He left is bed for this.
More importantly, he left Max Verstappen in his bed for this. When he woke up this morning, uncharacteristically early, he half expected last night to have been a dream.
It wouldn’t be the first time he dreamt of Max’s hands, and eyes and lips, but when he turned his head, lo and behold, there he was, sleeping soundly.
So, Charles hadn’t imagined Max’s hands mapping his body, his eyes looking into Charles’, intense and focused and soft. He hadn’t imagined his lips either, not in the elevator the night before, not in the hallway and not in his bed.
She shakes his head, and before he can stop himself, or talk himself out of hit, he raises his hand to knock on the door.
“Come in”, comes the muffled voice from inside. Charles takes a deep breath and pushes the door open, sliding though the door. He feels exposed, and a little silly standing there in his robe and pajamas, probably looking a little lost.
„Hello. “, he says, awkwardly.
The office space is tiny, and cramped, screens all along the wall, playing different angles of every inch of the hotel.
The guard who’s sitting at the equally cramped desk, watches him up and down, his face a mix of judgement and exasperation. Clearly, he doesn’t recognize Charles, or if he does, he’s very good at pretending he doesn’t. Charles puts on his most charming smile.
“Listen”, he says, “I was hoping you could do me a favor.”
“What?”, the man says, not quite rudely, but not friendly either. He picks up his comically large, bright pink mug and takes a sip, his eyes never leaving Charles. He has a heavy accent, maybe Scottish?
Cedric his nametag reads.
“Well,”, Charles starts, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Oi, come on, lad, just spit it out.”, Cedric says, slamming his mug down like it’s a tankard in a tavern.
“You have cameras in the lifts, right?”, he asks.
Cedric cocks his head, eyes scanning Charles’ face again. Then a horrible, horrible grin passes over his face. “Ah,” he says, sounding absolutely delighted . “It’s you. I knew it. They always come crawling the next morning. Don’t worry, boy, you’re not the first, you won’t be the last.”
“Uh— “, Charles says, not very intelligently. “Me. Yes.”
“Gave me quite the show yesterday.”, Cedric says. If there was ever a moment, Charles wished the ground could swallow him, this would be it. “Seemed like you and your boy had fun. Quite handsy the man, is he not?”
Oh, Cedric has no idea…
Charles shivers at the memory of Max’ hands roaming over him, firm and determined, how they gently guided him out of the elevator and into Charles’ room, how they continued to stroke and pet and tease, warm and certain, taking Charles apart, bit by bit, touch by touch and—okay, he needs to get a grip.
“Let me guess.”, Cedric says, still grinning like a devil. “You want the footage deleted.” He rubs his hands together. “I can do that. But it’s gonna cost you.”
Charles closes his eyes. Well, in for a penny.
“Actually”, he says, “I was hoping I could maybe… have a copy.”
Cedric, for a moment, is frozen. He stares at Charles. Charles stares back. He thinks about whether to just carefully back out of the office and pretend this never happened.
Then Cedric bursts out laughing, loud and booming.
Jupp, this is it. This is how Charles Leclerc will die, from embarrassment, right here, in a stuffy office with a Scottish guy laughing at him.
“Damn, boy.”, Cedric wheezes. “You’ve got balls.” He turns to his screen. “You can have as many copies as you like. It’s still gonna cost you.”
“How much do you want?”, this at least is something he doesn’t have to worry about.
Cedric swivels around in his chair, giving Charles a once over again, like he’s trying to calculate his net worth off his shoes. Too bad for him, Charles is wearing the hotel issued slippers he found in his room.
“Thousand.”, he says.
“Cash or PayPal?”, Charles asks.
Cedric raises an eyebrow. “Damn”, he says. “I should have gone for more.”
Charles shrugs. “Get me the copy on a flash drive and I’ll give you two, and we forget I was ever here.”
“I like you.”, Cedric says, turning back to his screen, furiously tapping. Finally, he motions for Charles to come around and look at the screen. “This it?”
He presses a key and a grainy video jumps to life.
Charles watches himself stand in the corner of the lift, leaving against the handrail. Max is across from him, not quite visible yet from the angle of the Camera. He can almost feel the ghost of the cold mirror glass on his back even now.
They both were still in their tuxes after yet another boring sponsor event, and they’d shared a car back to the hotel, ending up in the same elevator up to their rooms.
Charles can see the moment Max’s eyes had moved down to his lips on his own face. His eyes widen, his lips part slightly. He remembers how he thought he’d imagined it, how it couldn’t be, there was no way Max would actually want him.
He can’t hear their conversation, but he knows what Max said. The words are burned into his brain, he’ll never forget them.
“Charles, I— “, Max had whispered, voice sounding strained, like he’d been holding onto his self-control with every bit of his power.
“What, Max”, Charles had asked, heart racing, head spinning.
“Just—tell me, if I’m reading this wrong.”
“You’re not”, Charles had said, not caring what it was exactly, that Max had meant. Charles would have taken anything, everything, every scarp Max was willing to give him.
“Yeah?”, Max’s voice had been nothing more than a breath.
He watches himself nod, a jerked, hectic motion, and then suddenly, Max is on him.
He sees Max’s hands roam all over his body, his hips, his waist his thighs. He sees himself burying his hands into Max’s hair, watches as he melts into Max until they’re flush together.
It’s strange seeing himself like this, it’s like watching a stranger, but at the same time, he remembers every detail, feels the ghost of Max’s touches, of his mouth, the remnants of his gasps and whimpers. It’s nothing like rewatching himself race, or seeing his interviews, this is intimate, a moment that wasn’t meant to be observed, but Charles is infinitely glad it was.
He fights down a wave of arousal as he watches Max’s hand slide down his waist and to his…
“Okay, that’s it, laddie, I don’t need you poppin’ a boner in my office.”, Cedric’s voice startles Charles out of his thoughts.
He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah.”, he says, his voice his hoarse. He forces himself to slow down his breathing.
Cedric cackles and presses a few more buttons, then he goes rummaging through a drawer, produces a flash drive, sticks it into a slot on the computer. Finally, he hands it to Charles.
“I’ll take a venmo.”, he says.
Charles accepts the flash drive, pulls out his phone and they complete the transaction. Cedric watches as his own phone lights up with the notification.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Leclerc.”, he says.
Charles freezes.
Fuck.
Oh fuck.
So, Cedric did recognize him. He’s about to calculate how much it will cost to buy Cedric’s silence, when Cedric waves him off.
“Don’t shit your pants. My silence is included. Also, I don’t care.” He grins. “But I do expect an invite to your wedding.”
Charles feels himself blush. “We literally kissed for the first time yesterday.”, he says. They also did a lot of other things yesterday, but Cedric doesn’t need to know that. It’s bad enough that he’s probably imagining it already. “And I don’t think he’s the type for marriage.” He doesn’t say that Max may absolutely be the type for marriage, but not with Charles. What they’re doing, or have started to do, or may do on the future is very doomed anyway, there is not a chance of this ending well, not in their world anyways.
But God, Charles would give everything…
Cedric gives Charles a look that best translates to Oh, Honey. . He holds up his finger, telling Charles to wait, and goes back to clicking his keys.
“Does this”, he turns the screen, “Look like a man who is not interested in marrying you?”
Charles’ breath catches somewhere in his throat.
On the screen is an image of Charles’ hotel room floor. He can make himself out, as he’s just about to unlock the door, he looks disheveled, his shirt half pulled out of his trousers, his hair’s a mess. But it’s Max that makes him pause.
Max is standing behind him, looking at Charles with an expression that is somewhere between want, and awe and, well, love.
His eyes are crinkled, and his face is soft, softer than Charles has ever seen it. A smile plays around his lips as he watches Charles, like he’s all Max ever wanted, like Charles is something precious, something he wants to gain, and to have and to keep.
Charles swallows around the knot in his throat. “I— “, he starts, not sure of how his sentence is going to end.
“Lad,” Cedric says, “Trust me.”, he reaches behind himself for the small printer and presses a paper into Charles’ hands. “You two? You’ll be fine.”
Charles turns the paper over. It’s a printout of the image, black and white and a little blurry. But Max’s face is still the same.
“Now get out of my office.” Cedric says. “And don’t forget my invite.”
Charles nods and ducks out of the office and into the hall. He leans against the wall for a moment, closes his eyes and allows himself to imagine a future, where Cedric is right. He holds on tight to the picture, careful not to crinkle it.
Then he pushes himself away from the wall, takes the stairs up to the hotel room. He hides the flash drive and the neatly folded picture in his laptop sleeve and crawls back into bed, where Max is still sleeping soundly.
Charles fits himself right back into Max, resting his head on Max’s chest, lets the warmth and the safety of Max’s smell wash over him as the expensive sheets wrap around him like clouds.
The rustling makes Max stir.
“Where’ve y’ been?”, he mutters, not opening his eyes, voice rough from sleep. The covers slide down a little, revealing the line of purple bruises Charles left on his neck and shoulders last night. They suit him, Charles thinks. They make him look claimed, like he belongs to Charles, at least a little.
“Don’t worry, cheri”, Charles whispers back. “Go back to sleep.”
Max sighs, and settles back down, pulling Charles tighter against him and Charles lets himself be pulled.
One day soon he will show Max the footage of their first kiss and tell him what he went through to procure it, and Max will laugh, and then turn serious, and look at Charles exactly like he did that night. Charles won’t show him the picture though, that remains safely hidden away in Charles’ journal, tucket between the pages, his little secret. But Max will kiss him senseless anyways, and Charles will wrap his arms around his neck and let himself believe that they can maybe, just maybe, make it.
Spoiler alert, they can.
(Cedric will be at their wedding, telling everyone who’s willing to listen, the story of how Charles showed up in his office and sheepishly demanded the footage of Charles and his newly pronounced husband making out in an elevator. Carlos will be devastated that he didn’t learn about it earlier, so he didn’t have the chance to include it in his slideshow.)