Chapter Text
There is something about Monaco.
The wealth. The beauty. The people. The city, the lights, the streets.
The salty breeze, the taste of expensive champagne.
The yachts. The silks. The parties and the music and the way country holds its breath during the Grand Prix.
How it rewards precision and punishes clumsiness. All the risks, all the rewards. How it brings fame and offers bragging rights.
Historical importance for the sport, shiny title, a proof of skill.
There is something about Monaco — for Charles, it’s the homesickness of it all.
Despite residing in Monaco, making and living his life in Monaco, he knows the streets and the corners like no one else. His youth scattered on the streets, chasing busses, tried inside the walls of his old school — Monaco is home.
And yet he feels homesick.
The paddock is quiet now. Quali has been over for a while now, and the media duties have been checked off camera by camera. The crew is thinning by the minute as they prepare to re-open the track for the public.
Charles knows he should be heading off before then to not risk being swarmed by the fans. By the residents. By the faces he sees on his day to day between races, walking alongside him on the streets, waving to him at the store, lifting their glasses through windows when he passes.
Hometown hero.
They look for his name as the winner. One of their own taking bringing the trophy home — keeping it home.
P4.
From P4. With a car that isn’t tuned quite right. With a team that talks to him less and less. With his seven-time worldchampion teammate in front of him, with a four-time worldchampion ahead, with a teenager that just seems to get it. With the weight of starting P4.
Monaco is nice this time of evening. The sun slowly setting and the streets around him lit up with lights that look like stars from afar. He hears the Mediterranean sea in the background, quiet sizzles under the chatter and footsteps of people.
The night is barely starting.
There is something about Monaco at night.
“Not sleeping yet, Lord Perceval?”
Charles smiles to the asphalt under him, tapping the heels of his boots alternatively on the barrier he is sitting on. He straightens to inhale before slouching again when exhales, fidgeting with his fingers between his legs.
“Not tired yet!” He replies cheery.
He looks up to see Carlos making his way over, wearing the Williams’ navy-blue jacket zipped all the way up over his white suit. His blue boots look darker but they are quiet step by step, and he has his hands in his pockets, no hat atop his head.
Good, Charles thinks, glinting at the curls swaying from the gentle breeze. Carlos’ hair is good, always has been. It’s a fact that never changes.
It’s comforting.
“Thinking too much is no good,” Carlos teases, lightly kicking Charles’ right boot with a childish smile. His eyes land on the brief contact before flickering up to meet Charles’ eyes. “Mira, you will only walk in circles thinking by yourself. That is no good, because you blink, then it will be too late and you won’t be able to get home.”
Charles drops his head with a short laugh, shaking it as Carlos jumps up to sit beside him in the barrier. There are a couple inches between them, but he can feel the warmth. He can’t tell if it’s the alpha he senses or if it’s just Carlos, because it’s Carlos after all. The same Carlos.
They don’t rush to fill the silence between them, only letting the occasional tap of their boots on the barrier break the monotony. There is very little they haven’t talked about, so maybe Charles can tell Carlos about his homesickness. Try to explain why he feels that way despite being in Monaco. Carlos might know why, Carlos might not know why, but Carlos will know and that is almost enough.
Monaco gets louder, begging to have its streets back, the night-life drooling to commence and take. And take. And take.
The smell of rubber sticks to his clothes and boots, just loud enough to mask away the scent blockers. The sanitized scent on himself and Carlos.
There is salt somewhere in the air.
Charles pushes his thumb on the edge of the barrier, feeling the cold metal warm under his skin, and he lets out a short laugh.
“That corner was not there when I was little,” he says humorously, thinking of the last second mistaken he’d made on his final lap. The difference between pole and P4, between winning and being just another car in the streets of his home race.
“I swear it is new,” he continues, quieter, bracing for the ricochet that has been jolting down his spine all evening. “They keep changing things. I won’t be able to recognize Monaco!”
“Mate,” Carlos shakes his head, hand firm on Charles’ shoulder. His grip sinks through the layers of his jacket and suit, through his fireproofs, burning right into the skin of his shoulder. Charles folds under it, shoulders slumping further. “That corner has been there for forever. Don’t invent.”
“No,” Charles insists, turning to look at him with a stern expression. “It is new, I am telling you. It has never been there before.”
Carlos raises his brow, then lightly shoves his shoulder.
“It’s late. It will get cold soon.”
“Did the weather app say that?”
“Yes. I checked.”
“Okay, okay.”
Charles cedes with a sigh, scooting closer to the edge to jump down, only stopping when Carlos’ arm jumps at his front to stop him.
He watches Carlos jump off first, taking a step back on steady feet before retrieving his hand. His eyes are on Charles, attentive in a playful manner like he is waiting for Charles to cheat at another of their media games.
When Charles slides off, the world tilts on its axis and it crumbles under him.
Carlos catches him strong in his arms, Charles against his chest, and everything breaks.
Monaco shatters into another city. Just another street circuit, just another city. The lights blur under the tears pooling in his eyes, soaked right into Carlos’ shoulder as he clings to the back of his jacket. Fistfuls of fabric in his hands. Tangled legs. Shaking and he can’t even feel it.
“What am I doing wrong?” he questions, small in the arms of his former teammate. He breathes shakily, sobbing soundless into the Williams’ team jacket, ashamed of the person he is in the streets of his home.
He feels sick.
His omega is tucked away in the corner, letting him feel the brunt of the distress himself. Charles Leclerc. Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.
Of Monaco.
He begs his home to not turn its back on him.
“I tried so hard. It was not… I made a mistake. I made a mistake and I failed and– and… I did not push, I pushed too hard, I… I could not do it.”
“See? I told you, thinking too much is not good.” Carlos whispers, not stern or cold but a statement that sits in the air carefully. He cradles the back of Charles’ head with one hand, the other holding his hip firmly.
Charles stands between the barrier and Carlos, feeling the city rumbling under his feet.
“I don’t know if I can do it tomorrow,” he whispers, buried in the tear-soaked shoulder, wanting to crawl under the heat to forget already. “I don’t know if I can do anything.”
“You drive,” Carlos whispers back, slowly pulling back. Charles doesn’t chase, he wishes he could, but he doesn’t. Instead, they stand in front of each other, face to face, Carlos as Carlos and Charles red-eyed and exhausted. “You do one thing, drive. Whatever happens, happens. But you drive and you drive like the Charles I know. That is all you need to do.”
Charles wants to kiss him. Wants to breakdown. Wants to take him home and keep him. Wants to cry, properly cry. Ugly and broken and vulnerable.
But Carlos is not that person. Not that alpha, not that home.
He wishes Carlos were.
“I cannot win, Cahlos.”
He thinks of his pack, of empty nests, of feelings too similar and too bitter to be in the same room.
The words lodge in the back of his throat. The wants and feelings stuck between buildings, waiting in every corner.
Carlos shakes his head, but his hand is out, palm up, between them, and Charles takes it. Calloused palm. Warm. He squeezes the muscle until the tension makes it feel real.
The streets are familiar. The lights are the exact same every night. The cars, the crowds, the music.
The colognes, the perfumes, the scent blockers.
The heels on the pavement. The rubber on the asphalt. They keys in pockets.
Monaco is Monaco, as it always has been. As it will always be.
He looks out to the track through the massive windows, the living room encased in darkness, everything is shadows and stillness. It’s not his couch, not his carpet, not his view.
Carlos leans against the wall beside the windows, head turned to look out.
“You win when you drive.”
Charles looks at him, staring at his profile from the back of the couch.
Carlos looks at him, “So drive.”
Monaco will never change. He just hopes the pit in his stomach eases some day.