Work Text:
Max Verstappen’s morning started in the worst possible way.
It wasn’t the alarm. He was used to the alarm.
It wasn’t the light filtering through his expensive blackout curtains. He could sleep through a hurricane.
It was his phone. It buzzed once, a sharp vibration on the marble nightstand. Then it buzzed again. And again. And then it started ringing.
Max groaned. He flung a heavy arm out from under the duvet. He fumbled for the device. His fingers found it. He squinted at the blinding screen.
A string of text messages from an unknown number. The first one had come through at 5:47 AM.
Unknown Number: Congratulations! Today is your day of alignment. The universe has spoken. You will form a lifelong, unbreakable bond with the first living creature you meet upon stepping outside your dwelling today. This is a decree of cosmic fate. Good luck!
Max blinked. He read it again. His sleep-addled brain processed the words slowly.
“What the hell?” he muttered, his voice rough with sleep.
The second message had arrived two minutes later.
Unknown Number: This is not a joke. The parameters are set. The first living being. Outside your door. A bond for life. Marriage, if you will. Prepare yourself.
Max snorted. He almost threw the phone across the room. Some idiot fan had gotten his number. This was a new level of stupid. Marriage? To the first thing he saw outside? He wasn’t even dating anyone. He lived with three cats. His idea of a perfect evening was sim racing and ignoring the world.
The phone rang again. The same unknown number. Anger, hot and quick, flashed through him. He answered.
“Who is this?” he growled. “Listen, you’ve got the wrong person. Stop texting this crap.”
There was a pause on the other end. Then a smooth, calm, faintly robotic female voice replied. “The information is correct, Mr. Verstappen. The prediction is active. It commences at your first exit. Have a pleasant day.”
The call ended.
Max stared at his phone. He felt a prickle of something… odd. It was ridiculous. It was beyond ridiculous. But the certainty in that voice was unsettling.
“It’s a prank,” he said aloud to his empty, dark bedroom. “Daniel. It has to be Daniel. Or Lando. They’re bored.”
He checked the time. 7:02 AM. He had no training scheduled until later. He had planned to lounge, maybe take Jimmy and Sassy for a supervised balcony inspection, play with Donut.
But now this stupid text was in his head.
First living creature you meet.
He got out of bed. He padded to the ensuite bathroom. He brushed his teeth, glaring at his own reflection. His blue eyes looked tired. His blond hair was a mess.
“A lifelong bond,” he mimicked in a mocking tone. “Yeah, right.”
He pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants and a black Red Bull t-shirt. He walked out of his bedroom and into the spacious, modern living area of his Monaco apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed a stunning, sleepy view of the marina. He ignored it.
His eyes went to the three feline inhabitants currently observing him.
Jimmy, a large, spotted Ocicat, was draped over the back of the white sofa like a miniature leopard. Sassy, his sister, was delicately washing a paw on the windowsill. Donut, the fluffy blue-golden British Longhair, was curled in a round, perfect donut shape on a velvet cushion.
“You three don’t count,” Max informed them. “You’re already inside. The text said upon stepping outside. So you’re safe. I’m not marrying any of you.”
Jimmy blinked slowly at him. Sassy ignored him. Donut began to purr, a loud, rumbling sound.
Max walked to his large front door. He peered through the peephole. The hallway of the luxury building was empty and quiet.
“Okay,” he breathed. “What’s the worst that could happen? A neighbor? Mrs. Dubois from down the hall with her little dog? I’ll just say good morning and run. That’s a meeting. Bond avoided.”
He smirked. This was stupid. He was a Formula 1 World Champion. He wasn’t scared of a weird text.
He unlocked the door. He took a deep breath. He pulled it open and stepped out into the hallway.
He looked left. Nothing.
He looked right.
There, sitting directly on the pristine, cream-colored marble floor about two meters from his doorstep, was a cat. A very small, very fluffy cat with short legs. It had rich, chocolate-brown fur and large, expressive green eyes that were currently wide with what looked like absolute panic.
Max froze. The cat froze.
They stared at each other.
The cat’s fur was slightly ruffled. It looked clean but bewildered. It wasn’t wearing a collar. It was just… sitting there. Staring at him.
Max’s brain short-circuited.
The text. The prophecy. The first living creature.
A laugh burst out of him. It was a loud, relieved, genuinely amused sound that echoed in the quiet hallway.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” he said, grinning. He looked down at the little brown cat. “A cat? That’s the big threat? The cosmic bond? I’m supposed to marry a cat?”
The cat just stared at him. Its green eyes were incredibly intelligent. And now they were narrowing. If Max didn’t know better, he’d say the cat looked offended.
“Sorry, little guy,” Max said, still chuckling. “I think the universe’s wires got crossed. I already have three. I don’t need a fourth wife.” He gestured back to his apartment door. “And you’re kinda in the way. Are you lost? Do you live here?”
The cat didn’t move. It just kept staring. Then, it did something strange. It looked past Max, down the hallway towards another apartment door. Its gaze was desperate. It let out a small, pathetic meow. It was a soft, high-pitched sound. It sounded… sad.
Max followed its gaze. He realized which door the cat was looking at. It was Charles Leclerc’s apartment.
Of course. The Monegasque prince and his menagerie. He had that long-haired dachshund, Leo. Maybe this was a new pet? A weird, short-legged cat?
“Charles’s?” Max asked the cat. “Do you belong to Leclerc?”
At the name ‘Charles’, the cat’s head whipped back to look at him. Its ears perked up. It let out a series of quick, urgent meows. It tried to take a step forward, but its short legs made the movement comically wobbly.
Max raised an eyebrow. “Okay, okay. Calm down.” He glanced at Charles’s door. It was firmly shut. No signs of life.
He looked back at the cat. It was shivering slightly. The hallway was climate-controlled, but maybe it was scared.
The text message flashed in his mind again. Lifelong bond. Marriage.
He shook his head. “This is insane.” He addressed the cat. “Look, I’m going to ring Charles’s bell. If you’re his, he’ll let you in. If not… I guess I call building security. But I am not marrying you. That’s not happening.”
The cat made a sound that was almost a huff.
Max walked towards Charles’s door, careful not to step too close to the cat. The cat tried to follow him, but its progress was slow. It was like watching a very fluffy, very determined coffee mug scoot along the floor.
Max pressed the doorbell. He heard the chime echo inside. They waited. No answer.
He pressed it again. Longer this time. Nothing.
“He’s probably still asleep,” Max muttered. “Or he’s at the gym. Or he’s in Italy. Who knows.”
He looked down at the cat. It had reached his feet and was now looking up at him, those big green eyes glistening. It meowed again, softer now. It sounded defeated.
A weird feeling tugged at Max. He wasn’t a soft person. He was pragmatic. He was focused. But leaving a small, defenseless-looking animal alone in the hallway felt… wrong. Even if it belonged to his rival. A rival who was currently unavailable.
And the text… No. He wasn’t superstitious. But the coincidence was bizarre.
“Fine,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You can wait inside. Just until Charles shows up. But you’re going in the guest bathroom. I have three cats who won’t be happy about a stranger. And you are not my wife. Understood?”
The cat blinked at him.
Max took that as a yes. He bent down, moving slowly. He expected the cat to dart away. It didn’t. It allowed him to slide his hands underneath its soft, warm body. It was lighter than he expected. He lifted it up.
The cat immediately curled into his chest. It tucked its head under his chin. A deep, rattling purr started up, vibrating against his skin.
Max stiffened. “Hey. None of that. This is temporary.”
He carried the cat back into his apartment. He used his elbow to hit the switch for the guest bathroom light. He stepped inside the clean, tiled room and set the cat down on the floor.
“Stay,” he commanded.
The cat didn’t stay. It immediately tried to dart between his legs to get back into the main living area. Max was quicker. He blocked it with his foot.
“No way,” he said. “You stay here. I’ll get you some water. And I’ll text Charles.”
He closed the bathroom door. He heard a faint, protesting scratch at the wood.
Max went to the kitchen. He filled a small bowl with water. He found a spare, shallow dish and opened a can of Jimmy and Sassy’s high-grade wet food. He wasn’t sure what this little thing ate, but it was something.
He carried the bowls back to the bathroom. He opened the door just a crack. The cat was sitting in the middle of the floor, looking up at him.
“Food and water,” Max said, placing the bowls inside. “Don’t make a mess.”
He closed the door again. He leaned against it. This was not how he planned his morning.
He grabbed his phone. He opened his messages. He had Charles’s number. They weren’t friends, not really. But they were neighbors and colleagues. They exchanged necessary information sometimes. Track logistics. Building notices. Never anything personal.
He typed a message.
Max: Hey. This is Max. There’s a small brown cat with short legs in the hallway. Looks lost. Is it yours?
He hit send. He waited. No immediate reply.
He put the phone down and went to deal with his own cats. Jimmy and Sassy had come to investigate the bathroom door. They were sniffing at the crack underneath it. Jimmy’s tail was twitching. Sassy looked curious.
“It’s a visitor,” Max told them. “Be nice. Or ignore it. Preferably ignore it.”
Donut had finally uncurled and was wandering over. His fluffy tail was held high.
Max fed his own trio. He made himself a large coffee. He sat on his sofa, scrolling through his phone, trying to ignore the occasional faint meow or scratch from the guest bathroom.
An hour passed. No reply from Charles.
Max frowned. That was odd. Charles was usually prompt, especially about his pets. He was obsessed with that dog.
He sent another message.
Max: Charles? The cat? It’s in my apartment now. Just so you know. Let me know when you’re back.
Another hour ticked by. Nothing.
The weird feeling was back. Maybe Charles was away for the weekend? But he would have taken Leo, or had a sitter. Would he have gotten a new cat and just… lost it?
Max got up. He walked to the bathroom door. He listened. It was quiet.
He opened the door.
The cat was sitting by the empty food bowl. The water bowl was half-empty. It looked up at him. Its green eyes were less panicked now, but still full of a strange, human-like anxiety.
“He’s not answering,” Max said, as if the cat could understand. “Did he leave you behind?”
The cat meowed. It walked towards him, its gait adorably clumsy due to its short legs. It rubbed its head against his ankle. The purring started again.
Max sighed. “You can’t stay in here all day.”
He made a decision. “Okay. You can explore. But slowly. And if Jimmy hisses, you hide. Got it?”
He stepped back. The cat cautiously padded out of the bathroom. It looked around the large open-plan living space with clear interest. Its nose twitched.
Jimmy and Sassy were on the sofa. Both went perfectly still. Eight feline eyes fixed on the intruder.
The brown cat froze. Its tail puffed up slightly. But it didn’t run. It held its ground. It let out a tiny, non-threatening meow.
To Max’s astonishment, Jimmy, the usually aloof hunter, just sniffed the air and settled his head back on his paws. Sassy began washing her shoulder, losing interest. Donut, the gentle giant, wandered over. He sniffed the new cat thoroughly. Then he let out a soft chirp and nudged it with his head. The brown cat stumbled but seemed reassured. It nudged Donut back.
“Huh,” Max said, impressed. “You passed the Donut test. That’s the only one that matters.”
With the feline introductions seemingly peaceful, the brown cat grew bolder. It began to explore. It jumped onto the low windowsill with surprising effort. It looked out at the view. Its green eyes tracked a boat moving slowly through the marina.
Max watched it. There was something… precise about its movements. The way it sat. The way it held its head. It was oddly familiar.
The cat jumped down and wandered towards Max’s sim racing rig, set up in a corner of the room. It sniffed at the pedals. It looked at the wheel. It then turned and looked directly at Max. It meowed, tilting its head.
“What?” Max asked. “You like sim racing? All cats like to sit on the equipment. It’s a rule.”
The cat made a different sound. It almost sounded frustrated. It walked over to the large television screen. It sat down in front of it. It looked at the black screen, then back at Max.
“You want to watch TV?” Max asked, amused. “It’s a bit early for cartoons.”
He grabbed the remote anyway. He turned on the TV. It was on a sports news channel. A highlight reel from a past race was playing silently.
The cat’s reaction was instantaneous. It leaped to its feet. Its fur bristled. It stared intently at the screen. Max saw a flash of red—a Ferrari—on the track.
The cat let out a sharp, loud yowl. It was a sound of pure distress.
Max quickly changed the channel to a nature documentary about fish. The cat slowly relaxed. It sat back down, but it was trembling.
“Okay,” Max said slowly, putting the remote down. “No F1. Noted. You’re a weird cat.”
The day progressed strangely. The brown cat followed Max around at a respectful distance. It watched him make a protein shake. It observed him doing some light stretching. It sat on a dining chair while he ate a late breakfast, just watching him with those intense green eyes.
Max found himself talking to it. “You’re not like any cat I’ve ever met,” he said, finishing his eggs. “You’re more like a… a little supervisor. Are you judging my form?”
The cat just blinked.
His phone buzzed. He grabbed it eagerly, hoping it was Charles. It was his manager.
He took the call, discussing some sponsorship logistics. The cat listened, its ears swiveling.
When Max hung up, he sighed. “Work,” he explained to the cat. “Always work.”
The cat meowed in response.
By late afternoon, there was still no word from Charles. Max had even gone so far as to ask the building concierge if Mr. Leclerc was away. The concierge confirmed Charles was in Monaco and had been seen returning with Leo the previous evening. He hadn’t left the building today.
That was seriously weird.
Max stood in his living room, hands on his hips, looking at the brown cat. It was curled up on Donut’s cushion, with Donut himself curled around it protectively. They looked like they’d been friends for years.
“Okay,” Max said. “Plan B. You stay the night. But you’re not sleeping in my bed. You can have the cushion. Tomorrow, I’m knocking on Charles’s door until he answers. This is getting ridiculous.”
The cat looked at him. It didn’t seem upset by the plan.
Max got ready for bed that night feeling unsettled. The text prophecy was a joke. But the situation wasn’t. He had his rival’s missing cat asleep on a cushion next to his own cat. He had received no explanation. The cat itself was bizarrely intelligent and calm.
He brushed his teeth. He climbed into his large bed. He turned off the light.
He was just drifting off when he felt a slight dip in the mattress near his feet. Then a small, warm weight settled itself carefully against his calf. A soft, persistent purr filled the quiet room.
Max didn’t open his eyes. “Fine,” he mumbled into his pillow. “But only because you’re small. And lost. And this doesn’t mean anything.”
The purr grew louder.
The first thing Max registered was warmth.
A solid, living warmth curled against his side, accompanied by a steady, rhythmic vibration that seemed to seep into his ribs. It was comforting in a way he hadn’t anticipated. The second thing was the smell—clean fur, a hint of the expensive wet food he’d offered, and something else, faintly floral, like expensive soap or cologne. Weird for a cat.
He opened his eyes.
Morning light was bleeding around the edges of his blackout curtains. The digital clock on his nightstand read 8:17 AM. And there, nestled in the hollow between his arm and his torso, was the small, brown Munchkin cat. It was sound asleep, its head resting on his bicep, its body a relaxed loaf. The loud purr was coming from it.
Max lay perfectly still.
He never let his cats sleep in his bed. Jimmy and Sassy were too energetic and would treat his feet as prey at dawn. Donut sometimes snuck in, but he preferred the foot of the bed or a pillow of his own. This creature, this stranger, had not only invaded his bed but had made itself a little spoon.
And he had slept through it. Deeply, in fact.
A confusing mix of feelings churned in his gut. Annoyance, because this wasn’t the plan. Bewilderment, because the cat’s behavior was consistently odd. And a reluctant, undeniable fondness, because the weight and the purr were… nice.
The prophecy text flashed in his mind, absurd and unwelcome.
Lifelong bond.
He scoffed silently, the movement making the cat stir. Its green eyes blinked open, slow and drowsy. For a moment, it looked utterly peaceful, soft. Then awareness flooded its gaze. It lifted its head, looked at where it was nestled against Max, and then up at Max’s face. The purring stuttered and stopped.
It didn’t jump away in alarm. It just stared, as if assessing the situation. It seemed almost… embarrassed.
“Morning,” Max said, his voice gravelly with sleep. “Make yourself comfortable, why don’t you?”
The cat had the decency to look slightly abashed. It slowly, deliberately, uncurled itself. It stretched its front legs, its back arching, the short legs making the stretch look comically earnest. Then it sat up, still on the bed, and looked at him expectantly.
“Right,” Max grunted, sitting up. “First order of business: finding your actual owner.”
He grabbed his phone from the nightstand. Still no reply from Charles. He frowned. This was bordering on negligent. Even if Charles was sick or something, he’d have someone checking on Leo. A missing new pet would warrant a response.
He typed another message, his thumbs hitting the screen with more force than necessary.
Max: Charles. Seriously. Is this your cat or not? It spent the night. It’s fine, but I need to know. Call me.
He sent it and threw the phone on the bed. The cat leaned over and sniffed the device.
“No answers,” Max told it. “Your dad is being useless.”
The cat’s ears flattened slightly at the word ‘dad’. It let out a disapproving mrrp.
Max got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. “Don’t get into trouble.”
When he emerged, showered and dressed in fresh training gear, the scene in the living area was one of surreal domesticity. Donut was meticulously washing the brown cat’s face. The smaller cat sat patiently, enduring the grooming with a look of long-suffering resignation. Jimmy and Sassy were watching from the sofa, their earlier indifference solidified into casual acceptance. The newcomer was being integrated.
“I see you’ve made friends,” Max observed, walking to the kitchen to start coffee.
The brown cat extricated itself from Donut’s lavish tongue and trotted after him. It sat by its now-empty food and water bowls from last night and looked pointedly from the bowls to Max, then back again.
“Hungry?” Max asked. “You and everyone else.”
He refreshed the water bowl and opened another can of food, dividing it between four small dishes. He placed them in a row. His three came immediately. The brown cat approached more slowly but ate with a delicate, precise manner, not a drop spilled. It ate like it was at a Michelin-starred restaurant, not gobbling like Jimmy.
While they ate, Max scrolled on his phone, his mind working. The concierge said Charles was home. No answer to texts. Something was off.
“Okay,” he said aloud, after finishing his coffee. The brown cat had finished its breakfast and was now sitting neatly, cleaning a paw. “We’re going on a field trip. Two goals. One, we are going to bang on Charles Leclerc’s door until he answers. Two, if that fails, we’re going to the vet to check for a microchip. You are clearly not a stray.”
The cat paused its cleaning. At the mention of ‘Charles’ and ‘door’, its ears perked up. At ‘vet’, its eyes widened in what looked like sheer horror. It shook its head vigorously, a very human gesture.
Max stared. “Did you just… shake your head ‘no’?”
The cat froze, paw in mid-air. It slowly lowered it, trying to look innocent. It failed.
“Right,” Max said, a slow smile spreading on his face. This was getting weirder by the second. “You’re a weird cat. Come on.”
He found a soft-sided carrier he rarely used. The cat took one look at it and bolted under the sofa.
Max sighed. “It’s just for the hallway and maybe the car. I’m not carrying you loose. Jimmy, Sassy, Donut—help.”
His cats, of course, did nothing. Donut wandered over and sniffed the carrier, then lay down in front of it, blocking the entrance helpfully.
After a brief, undignified scramble that involved Max on his knees and the cat using its short legs with surprising agility, he managed to gently corral the creature into the carrier. It glared at him through the mesh, green eyes full of betrayal.
“It’s for your own safety,” Max said, feeling oddly guilty. “And mine. If you ran off in the parking garage, I’d never find you.”
He carried the carrier into the hallway and directly to Charles’s door. He set it down and knocked firmly. No answer. He knocked again, louder.
“Leclerc! Open up! It’s Max!”
Silence.
He pressed his ear to the door. From within, he heard a faint, high-pitched barking. Leo. So the dog was there. Which meant someone should be, too, or at least a sitter coming soon. But no other sounds.
The cat in the carrier let out a soft, sad meow.
Max tried the doorbell again, holding it for a good ten seconds. Nothing.
“Okay,” he said, picking up the carrier. The cat inside was now pressing itself against the mesh, staring desperately at Charles’s door. “Plan B. The vet.”
The drive to the trusted, discreet veterinary clinic he used for his own cats was short. The cat in the carrier on the passenger seat was utterly still and silent, a bundle of tense misery.
“It’ll be quick,” Max found himself saying. “Just a scan. Maybe you have a chip with your real owner’s info. Maybe you’re not Charles’s at all, and some nice old lady in Monte Carlo is missing you.”
The cat made no sound.
At the clinic, the receptionist recognized him immediately. “Mr. Verstappen! Here for Jimmy and Sassy’s check-up? I don’t have you down until—”
“No, it’s not for them,” Max interrupted, placing the carrier on the counter. “I found this one. Or it found me. Wanted to check for a microchip. See if it’s reported missing.”
“Of course,” the receptionist said, smiling at the carrier. “Let’s have a look.”
The vet tech, a cheerful woman, took them to an examination room. She opened the carrier. The brown cat slinked out but didn’t try to run. It sat on the cold metal table, trembling.
“Oh, what a sweet little Munchkin!” the tech cooed. “And such beautiful green eyes. Don’t worry, little one, this won’t hurt.”
She ran the scanner over the cat’s shoulders. It beeped once. Hope flickered in Max. Then the tech frowned, looking at the readout.
“That’s odd,” she said.
“What?” Max asked.
“There’s a chip. But it’s… unregistered. The number is in the system, but no owner information, no address, no name attached to it at all. It’s like someone had it chipped but never completed the paperwork. That’s very unusual, especially for a purebred like this.”
Max looked at the cat. The cat looked back, its expression unreadable. Of course, its eyes seemed to say. Nothing can be simple.
“So, there’s no way to find an owner?” Max pressed.
“Not through the chip, no,” the tech said. “We can check lost and found reports, but if the chip isn’t registered, it’s a dead end. He seems healthy, though. A bit stressed, but in good condition. No fleas, coat is perfect. Someone has been taking excellent care of him. Recently, too.”
Him. So it was a male.
“Thanks for trying,” Max said, feeling deflated.
The tech smiled sympathetically. “Are you thinking of keeping him? He seems very attached to you.”
Max glanced down. The cat had moved to sit directly in front of him, leaning its side against his stomach as if for reassurance. The vibration of a hesitant purr started up again.
“It’s… complicated,” Max said. “He might belong to my neighbor. I’m still trying to confirm.”
“Well, good luck. He’s a lovely boy.”
Back in the car, Max didn’t put the cat in the carrier immediately. He let it sit on the passenger seat. It stared out the window, watching Monaco pass by, its small body sagging with what looked like dejection.
“No chip,” Max said quietly. “Or a useless one. And Charles is ghosting me. What is going on?”
The cat turned its head and looked at him. It then lifted a paw and placed it gently on Max’s arm, which was resting on the center console. It wasn’t a demand, just a touch.
A strange, warm sensation spread from that point of contact. It was just a cat’s paw. But the gesture felt… deliberate. Comforting.
“You’re not just a cat, are you?” Max murmured, more to himself than to the animal.
The cat retracted its paw and looked away, out the window again. A classic non-answer.
The rest of the day fell into a routine that felt both new and strangely natural. Max did his physical training in his home gym. The brown cat found a safe perch on a shelf, observing his every rep with intense focus, as if critiquing his form. It was disconcerting.
Later, Max settled at his sim rig for some practice. He put on his headset, immersed in the digital cockpit. During a particularly aggressive lap, he took a corner too sharply, overcorrected, and spun out.
“Damn it!” he cursed, ripping the headset off.
A soft thump made him look down. The brown cat was at his feet. It looked at the screen, which showed the crashed car, then up at Max. It slowly, deliberately, shook its head again. The disapproval was palpable.
Max burst out laughing. “Are you seriously judging my sim driving?”
The cat blinked, then walked over and butted its head against his ankle before hopping onto the sofa to watch.
The interaction tickled something in Max’s brain. The head shake. The intense watching. The specific interest in the sim. The familiar, elegant posture. The green eyes.
An impossible, insane idea began to form in the back of his mind. It was so ridiculous he immediately shoved it away. But it lingered, like a stubborn ghost.
As evening approached, Max’s phone finally buzzed. It was a message from Charles. His heart gave an inexplicable jump.
Charles: Sorry, Max. Been unwell and not looking at phone. Not my cat. Maybe it’s a stray? Good of you to take it in.
Max read the message three times. The tone was off. It was curt, distant. Charles, who posted a dozen stories of Leo, who talked about his pets with unabashed love, was dismissing a lost, purebred cat as a ‘stray’? And ‘unwell’? He hadn’t even asked for a picture or description.
It made no sense. Unless…
He looked at the cat, who was watching him from the back of the sofa, a small, dark silhouette against the twilight window.
“That was Charles,” Max said, his voice carefully neutral. “He says you’re not his. Says he’s sick.”
The cat’s reaction was subtle but distinct. Its body stiffened. It let out a low growl, a sound of pure frustration. Not fear, not sadness—frustration. Then it leaped off the sofa and stalked to the guest bathroom, where it had spent the previous day, and scratched at the closed door.
Max followed. “What? You want to go back in there?”
The cat scratched again, more insistently.
Max opened the door. The cat marched inside, went straight to the closed toilet lid, and jumped up. It then turned to face Max, sitting up perfectly straight. It lifted a front paw and gestured, a clear, sweeping motion, towards the large mirror above the vanity.
Max stood in the doorway, utterly baffled. “The mirror? You want to look in the mirror?”
He stepped into the bathroom and turned on the light. The cat didn’t look at its own reflection. It kept its gaze fixed on Max in the mirror, as if trying to communicate something through their reflected images.
Max looked at their reflection. A tall, blond, confused Dutchman, and a small, serious brown cat with emerald eyes.
Green eyes.
Charles Leclerc had striking green eyes.
The insane idea came roaring back, louder this time. It was preposterous. It was the stuff of bad fantasy movies. But the pieces… the cat appearing at his door the morning after the prophecy text. Charles’s bizarre unavailability and uncharacteristic dismissal. The cat’s intelligent, human-like reactions. Its familiarity with racing. Its frustration. Its eyes.
“No,” Max said aloud, to the reflection, to the cat, to himself. “That’s impossible.”
The cat in the mirror stared at him, unblinking. It looked… hopeful? Pleading?
Max turned off the light and walked out of the bathroom, his heart pounding strangely. “Dinner,” he announced, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears.
He fed the cats on autopilot. He ordered food for himself but barely tasted it. He couldn’t stop turning the idea over in his mind. It was crazy. But the alternative—that he was developing a bizarre emotional attachment to a random, overly intelligent cat while his rival neighbor acted completely out of character—was also crazy.
The brown cat stayed close to him all evening, a silent, comforting presence. When Max finally went to bed, he didn’t close his bedroom door.
He lay in the dark, thoughts racing. The prophecy. The cat. Charles.
He felt the familiar dip in the mattress. The small weight settling carefully beside him. This time, it didn’t curl against his side. It lay next to his pillow, close enough that he could feel its warmth and hear its purr, but not touching him.
They lay there in the dark, two creatures suspended in a reality that seemed to have cracked at the edges.
“If this is some kind of joke,” Max whispered into the darkness, “it’s not funny.”
The cat let out a small sigh, a very human sound.
Max woke up sometime deep in the night. The room was pitch black. The purring had stopped. The warm weight was still beside his head, but it felt… different. Larger. Warmer in a different way.
Still half-asleep, he shifted. His arm, which had been draped over his own chest, slid out. His hand landed on the source of the warmth next to his pillow.
It wasn’t fur.
It was skin.
Warm, smooth, human skin.
Max’s fingers brushed over a sharp collarbone, then the curve of a shoulder.
His sleep-fogged brain short-circuited. Confusion, then a jolt of sheer, adrenaline-fueled shock.
He yanked his hand back as if burned and shot upright in bed, fumbling wildly for the lamp on his nightstand.
His fingers found the switch.
Light flooded the room.
And there, in his bed, lying naked on the pillow next to his, was Charles Leclerc.
Charles was asleep, his long, dark lashes fanned against his cheeks, his familiar, beautiful face relaxed in slumber. A sheet was tangled around his hips, leaving his torso bare. His brown hair was tousled. He was here. In Max’s bed. Naked.
Max’s brain simply stopped.
He stared.
He opened his mouth.
No sound came out.
He closed it.
He looked around the room, as if expecting to see a hidden camera or the brown cat somewhere. The room was empty except for them.
His eyes snapped back to Charles.
The man stirred, a soft murmur escaping his lips. He shifted, his brow furrowing slightly. Then his green eyes—the same vibrant, intelligent green from the cat—fluttered open.
They were blurry with sleep, then confused, then they focused on Max’s horrified, stunned face staring down at him from inches away.
Charles’s eyes widened in dawning, mirroring horror.
For a long, eternal second, they just stared at each other in the harsh light of the bedside lamp, frozen in a tableau of pure, unadulterated shock.
Max finally found his voice. It came out as a hoarse, disbelieving croak.
“What the fuck?”
Time stopped.
The world narrowed to the harsh glow of the bedside lamp, the disheveled white sheets, and the impossible reality lying bare before him. Charles Leclerc. In his bed. Naked. The same Charles Leclerc who was, last Max checked, a fully grown human Grand Prix driver, not a small, brown, short-legged cat.
Max’s brain, usually so quick, so sharp, so capable of processing complex data at 200 miles per hour, was a smoking crater of static. His mouth hung open. He could feel his own heart hammering against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of pure shock.
Charles’s expression mirrored his own. Sleepy confusion shattered into wide-eyed, panicked recognition. He jerked upright, the sheet pooling around his waist. His hands flew up, one instinctively crossing over his chest, the other grabbing for the sheet to pull it higher. A faint, rosy flush spread from his neck to his cheeks.
“Max,” he breathed. The voice was Charles’s voice. Husky with sleep, laced with terror. Not a meow. A human word.
That single syllable broke the paralysis.
“What the fuck?” Max repeated, louder this time, the words tearing out of him. He scrambled back, putting distance between them, his back hitting the headboard with a thump. He stared, his blue eyes raking over Charles’s form as if verifying it wasn’t a hallucination. “How? What? Where’s the cat?”
Charles flinched at the questions. He looked down at his own human hands, turning them over as if seeing them for the first time. A shudder ran through him. When he looked back up, his green eyes were glistening with a mix of fear, relief, and profound embarrassment.
“The cat… I was the cat,” he said, the words stumbling out. His Monegasque accent was thicker than usual, stressed.
“I know that now!” Max exploded, running a hand through his already messy hair. “I mean… I suspected… but how? Why? When? Why my bed?”
“I don’t know!” Charles’s voice rose, edged with hysteria. “I went to sleep in my own bed! In my apartment! With Leo! I woke up on the cold floor of your hallway, tiny, covered in fur, and I couldn’t speak! I couldn’t get into my apartment! My paw… my hand wouldn’t work on the scanner! I was stuck!”
The story poured out of him in a frantic rush. The disorientation. The terror. Seeing Max open the door. The humiliation of being carried. The frustration of being unable to communicate. The desperation of the vet visit. The text messages from Max’s phone that he couldn’t answer.
“You texted me,” Max said, piecing it together with dawning, horrifying clarity. “The replies. That was you? But you said you weren’t sick…”
“I was panicking!” Charles cried, dragging the sheet tighter around himself. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hello Max, it’s Charles, I’m currently a cat in your bathroom, please help?’ You would have thought it was a joke! A bad one! And then… and then I started to… to like being near you. It was safe. And you were… kind. Even though you were grumpy.”
The admission hung in the air, soft and vulnerable. Charles looked away, his flush deepening.
Max’s mind was reeling, but one absurd anchor point held firm amidst the chaos. “The text. The prophecy text I got. ‘You will form a lifelong bond with the first living creature you meet.’ I met a cat. That cat was you.”
Charles’s head snapped back to look at him. “What text?”
Max grabbed his phone from the nightstand, his fingers clumsy. He found the messages from the unknown number and thrust the screen toward Charles.
Charles read them, his eyes growing even wider. “Cosmic fate? Marriage?” He looked from the phone to Max’s face, a new kind of horror dawning. “You thought… you were going to marry the cat?”
“I thought it was a stupid prank!” Max defended hotly, snatching the phone back. “But it happened! I opened the door, and there you were! As a cat! And now you’re… you’re here! Like this!” He gestured vaguely at Charles’s sheet-clad form.
“So what are you saying?” Charles asked, his voice small. “That this… this is fate? That we’re…?” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I’m not saying anything!” Max shouted, overwhelmed. “I’m saying I need a minute! I need a thousand minutes! I need you to put some clothes on!”
That finally broke through the surreal tension. Charles looked down at himself, seeming to fully register his state of undress for the first time. The embarrassment returned full force. “I… I don’t have any,” he whispered.
Max let out a long, strained groan. He swung his legs out of bed. He was wearing pyjama pants and a t-shirt, thank god. He stalked over to his walk-in closet, his movements stiff.
He returned a moment later and tossed a bundle of fabric onto the bed beside Charles. A pair of soft black sweatpants and a dark blue hoodie. “Here. They’ll be big.”
Charles didn’t move for a second, just stared at the clothes. Then, with immense caution, he said, “Can you… turn around?”
Max rolled his eyes but turned his back, facing the door. He heard the rustle of sheets, the soft sounds of movement. The image of Charles’s bare shoulders, the line of his spine in the lamplight, was now seared into his brain. He shook his head violently, trying to dislodge it.
“Okay,” Charles said quietly.
Max turned back. Charles was swimming in his clothes. The sweatpants were rolled at the ankles, the hoodie engulfed his slender frame, the sleeves covering his hands. He looked young, fragile, and utterly lost. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his own feet in the oversized fabric.
The sight did something strange to Max’s anger. It deflated it, leaving behind a bewildered, uncomfortable concern.
“So,” Max said, leaning against the dresser, arms crossed. “You’re really Charles Leclerc. Not a shapeshifting alien or a… a figment of my imagination.”
“I am really Charles Leclerc,” Charles confirmed, nodding slowly. He looked up. “And you are really Max Verstappen. Who… who feeds his rival-turned-cat expensive wet food and lets him sleep in his bed.”
A tense, almost hysterical laugh bubbled in Max’s throat. He suppressed it. “Don’t forget the part where I carried you around in a carrier and took you to the vet.”
Charles’s face crumpled. “That was the worst part. Besides the… the litter box issue. Which we will never, ever speak of.”
Max couldn’t help it. A short, sharp bark of laughter escaped. “Deal.”
The sound seemed to ease something infinitesimally. Charles managed a weak, wobbly smile.
“What now?” Charles asked, voicing the question hanging between them.
Max sighed, the weight of the situation settling on his shoulders. “Now, you tell me everything you remember. From the beginning. And we figure out how to… reverse this. Permanently.”
They moved to the living room. The grey pre-dawn light was starting to filter in. Jimmy, Sassy, and Donut were gathered in the doorway, curious about the night’s disturbances. They saw Charles, sniffed the air, and their reactions were illuminating.
Jimmy gave a slow, approving blink. Sassy sauntered over and rubbed against Charles’s borrowed-sweatpants-clad leg. Donut, with a happy chirp, jumped onto the sofa beside Charles and headbutted his arm insistently.
“They know,” Max observed, sinking into an armchair opposite the sofa. “They knew it was you all along.”
Charles’s eyes filled with tears as he petted Donut. “They were kinder to me than I deserved.” He took a shaky breath and began his story.
He recounted a normal evening. Dinner. Some sim work. A call with his brother. Going to bed with Leo curled at his feet. Then, waking up with a strange, muffled sensation, seeing the world from a foot off the ground, seeing his own furry paws. The panic. Trying to get back into his apartment. Seeing Max’s door as the only hope.
“And the text,” Max pressed. “You really didn’t get anything like that?”
“Nothing,” Charles said. “Just… a normal night. Then a nightmare.”
They sat in silence for a while, the only sound Donut’s purring and the distant hum of Monaco waking up.
“The first living creature I met was you,” Max said, not looking at Charles. “A bond for life. Marriage.” He said the words as if testing their weight.
Charles stiffened. “Max, you can’t possibly think… that’s not… we can’t take that seriously. It’s a coincidence. A mad one.”
“Is it?” Max asked, finally meeting his gaze. His blue eyes were intense, probing. “How many coincidences stack up before it becomes something else? The text. You appearing right then. You turning back… here. In my home. In my bed.”
Charles looked away, his throat working. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Max said, standing up abruptly. He paced to the window. “I’m stating facts. A weird prophecy said I’d bond with what I found. I found you. You, who I’ve known for years. You, who I fight with on track. You, who has been sleeping on my pillow for two nights.” He turned around. “The bond part… that already happened, didn’t it? I got used to you being here. I talked to you. I worried about you. I… liked having you around.”
Charles’s breath hitched. He looked down at his hands, now protruding from the giant hoodie sleeves. “I liked it too,” he admitted, so quietly Max almost didn’t hear. “It was simple. You were… just Max. Not Verstappen. Not my rival. You were just the person who gave me food and a safe place. It was… nice.”
The raw honesty in the words hung between them, fragile and undeniable.
“So what do we do?” Charles asked again.
Max made a decision. He was a man of action. Of facing problems head-on. This was the strangest problem he’d ever faced, but the principle was the same.
“First,” he said, his voice firming. “You stay here. Until we know this,” he gestured at Charles’s human form, “is permanent. We can’t have you turning back into a cat in the middle of the grocery store.”
Charles nodded, relief washing over his features. The thought of being alone, of the transformation happening again, was clearly terrifying.
“Second,” Max continued. “We research. We look into… I don’t know, curses, magic, weird Monaco legends. Something caused this.”
“And third?” Charles prompted.
Max looked at him, a long, steady look. The dawn light was strengthening, painting Charles in soft gold and grey. He looked beautiful, even drowning in borrowed clothes, with fear and hope warring in his expressive eyes.
“Third,” Max said, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. “We order a very large breakfast. And you explain to me why, as a cat, you felt the need to judge my sim racing line at Turn 12.”
A genuine, shaky laugh escaped Charles. It was a beautiful sound. “Because you were late on the apex. It was obvious.”
The day that followed was the most surreal of Max’s life. They established a cautious, awkward truce. Charles called his team, citing a sudden personal emergency and vague illness, buying time. Max did the same. The world of F1 continued to spin outside, unaware that two of its stars were locked in a bizarre domestic experiment.
They researched on their laptops, side by side on the sofa, finding nothing but fairy tales and bad fiction. They ate. They talked. They carefully avoided the giant, prophetic elephant in the room.
But the bond, forged in the strange intimacy of the past two days, was already there. It was in the way Charles automatically knew how Max liked his coffee. It was in the way Max handed Charles the TV remote without being asked. It was in the comfortable silence that fell between them, a silence that had never existed before, filled only with the contented sounds of three cats and one confused dachshund (Leo had been retrieved, and his ecstatic reunion with a human-shaped Charles had involved many tears).
As evening fell on the third day, Charles was standing by the window, back in his own clothes which Pierre Gasly had discreetly dropped off. He looked like himself again—elegant, poised, the Monegasque prince. But Max could still see the shadow of the small, vulnerable cat in his eyes.
“It feels like it never happened,” Charles murmured. “But it did. I remember it all.”
Max came to stand beside him. “Yeah. It did.”
Charles turned to look at him. “The prophecy…”
“Forget the prophecy,” Max said, though he knew he couldn’t. “That’s not why…”
“Why what?” Charles’s gaze was searching.
Max took a breath. He was not good with words. He was good with actions. With decisions. He thought of the empty space on his pillow the past two nights. He thought of the silence in his apartment that now felt… wrong.
“You said it was simple,” Max said, his voice low. “When you were a cat. I was just Max. You were just… company.” He paused, gathering his courage. “It was simple. And it was good. Why does it have to be complicated now?”
Charles’s eyes shimmered. “Because we are complicated, Max. We have history. We have a future on track. We have…”
“We have right now,” Max interrupted. He reached out, slowly, giving Charles every chance to pull away. He cupped the side of Charles’s face. His thumb brushed the high cheekbone. The skin was warm, real. “The past is the past. The future… we’ll race. We’ll fight. That doesn’t have to change.”
“Then what are you saying?” Charles whispered, leaning into the touch.
“I’m saying the bond happened. The prophecy was just… a push. A weird, annoying, cosmic push.” Max’s blue eyes were unwavering. “I’m saying I liked coming home to you. Even when you were a cat. I like talking to you. I like having you here. And I don’t want it to stop just because you have thumbs again.”
A tear escaped, tracing a path down Charles’s cheek. Max caught it with his thumb.
“It’s insane,” Charles breathed.
“Totally insane,” Max agreed, a real smile finally breaking through. “So? Are you in?”
Charles didn’t answer with words. He closed the small distance between them and kissed him.
It was not a simple kiss. It was a collision of every unspoken rivalry, every moment of secret admiration, every laugh shared in a press pen, every fierce duel on track. It was the gratitude of a rescued creature and the wonder of a rescuer who found more than he bargained for. It was soft and desperate and perfect.
When they broke apart, foreheads resting together, the last of the tension dissolved.
“Okay,” Charles whispered, a smile blooming on his lips. “I’m in.”
A year later, the same Monaco apartment felt different. Warmer. Lived-in. Jimmy, Sassy, Donut, and Leo coexisted in a state of furry détente. A small, framed photo sat on a shelf: a blurry picture Max had taken of a tiny brown cat glaring from inside a carrier. Their little secret.
The prophecy text had never been explained. The unknown number was disconnected. The universe, it seemed, had given its decree and then left them to it.
Max stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, holding two small boxes. Charles walked up beside him, dressed in a simple, elegant cream linen suit. He looked nervous, radiant.
“Ready?” Max asked, his voice soft.
“More than ready,” Charles replied, taking one of the boxes.
They didn’t need a big ceremony. They didn’t need the world’s attention. They had faced the impossible together. A simple, legal, binding promise was enough.
The officiant was a discreet local official. The witnesses were Pierre Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo, who had been told an abridged (and utterly unbelievable) version of the truth they swore to never repeat.
In their sunny living room, surrounded by their curious animals and two grinning friends, Max and Charles faced each other.
Max looked into those familiar green eyes—eyes that had once been full of feline panic, then human fear, and now held a love so deep it still took his breath away.
“Charles,” Max began, his usual bluntness softened into sincerity. “You literally landed on my doorstep. It was the weirdest, most annoying, best thing that ever happened to me. I promise to always find you when you’re lost. I promise to share my food, even the expensive wet kind. I promise to listen, even when you’re criticizing my racing line.” He smiled. “I choose you. Every version of you. For life.”
Charles’s eyes were bright with tears. He took Max’s hands. “Max,” he said, his voice clear and sweet. “You opened the door. You gave me safety. You saw me when I couldn’t even speak for myself. I promise to always keep you on your toes. I promise to share the remote. I promise to be there when you come home.” He squeezed Max’s hands. “I choose you. My rival. My rescuer. My husband. For life.”
They slipped simple platinum bands onto each other’s fingers.
“By the power vested in me,” the officiant said, smiling, “I now pronounce you married. You may kiss.”
And they did, as their friends cheered, and their animals looked on with what might have been approval, or perhaps just anticipation of the post-ceremony treats.
Later, as the sun set over the marina, painting the water in gold and pink, Max held his husband close on the balcony. Charles’s back was against his chest, Max’s arms wrapped around him.
“A lifelong bond,” Max murmured into Charles’s hair.
“To the first living creature you met,” Charles finished, tilting his head back to smile up at him.
“Best meeting of my life,” Max said, and kissed him again.