Chapter Text
To say he was angry would be the understatement of the century.
Max was furious.
He was fucking mad with rage.
George Russell, an underclassman, had the nerve to laugh at his face.
You? You’ll run for president?
The words skip around in his head, ricocheting like bullets in a war zone.
After all, it wasn’t just an insult.
It was a declaration of war—and Max was going to win it. At all costs.
The thing was, Max had absolutely no intention of ever running for the stupid council. He thought the council was nothing but a sham, another one of Effon High’s useless extra-curriculars that amounted to nothing. It was a club for show-offs, students who talked more than they could ever act. Like real politicians.
On the flip side, Max was a simple creature. He attended classes regularly, kicked the football with his team and went home. He had zero interest in school politics.
Great one, Verstappen!
Yet, the insult wedges itself deep into his ego. A junior, of all people, laughing at his face—because he thinks Max Verstappen did not have what it takes to win a stupid fucking election.
He had to prove him wrong.
Wouldn’t it be simply lovely to laugh back at his pretty little face?
“Let’s get this in order, boys,” Max claps his hands together, calling the guys at the football field.
Daniel, his Commander-in-Chief stands beside him, arms tucked before his chest, looking around the room of underclassmen—freshmen and sophomores alike, or as Daniel likes to call it—“Max’s Minions”.
Kimi is at the forefront of the pack, chest flared and brows furrowed, ready to head any of Max’s orders. He’s brought along Gabi and Franco from the football team and Ollie, despite being in the cheerleading team, follows Kimi wherever he goes. Liam is the only junior out of the lot.
“Lunch is going to be over in five minutes. You have exactly two hours to collect the signatures for the nomination,” Max begins, starting a timer on his smart-watch. “Remember our slogan—ACT NOW.”
Daniel nods beside him, “Cause you really need to make them act now.”
The minions follow his nod collectively.
“Alright, get back to us with the signatures. Go!”
They disperse almost immediately, running up to their peers to collect the signatures.
Max turns to Daniel with a grin, “Okay, let’s meet our running mate then.”
Max and Charles are good friends. When Max had transferred abruptly during his sophomore year, Charles was the one to extend the friendly hand, showing him around his hometown and helping him settle down. It did help that his friend was conventionally attractive and charming, helping him network with the other students with ease.
But, Max saw Charles for who he was—that beyond his dimpled smile was simply a sentimental weirdo who laughed at dad jokes harder than he should.
“You’re running for Head Treasurer with me.”
Max picks up a piece of chicken drumstick from Charle’s plate and sits beside him at the cafeteria table. Pierre and Yuki are off to the side, probably gossiping behind their backs.
“I’m already running for—” Charles chuckles but stops. His brows furrow. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘with me’?”
Max chomps down on the piece of chicken with a grin.
“Max, what did you do?”
Charles’s tone is accusatory.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, mate. You only look like that when you have bad ideas.”
Daniel slips beside Charles.
“Max decided to run for president. You’re going to be on his side in the council,” Daniel takes the last piece of chicken, “I mean I would have ran too but I have better things to do than try to prove Georgie wrong.”
“Georgie? Who–Russell? The junior?” Charles squints his eyes to his right. “Wha—why him? What are you guys saying, I don’t understand—”
“Look,” Max proceeds to drink from Charles’s bottle, “I am running for president of the stupid student council.”
A pause.
Charles’s mouth opens wide like his eyes.
“Oh my god, I need to tweet about this.”
Max grimaces. His friend and his need to tweet about every single thing. Although…
“Yeah, do that. We need all the coverage we can. Ask your fans to vote for me.”
“They are not my fans.”
“Right,” Daniel grins, “Yeah, you’ll also need to ask Pierre to pump up his game. Get him on the Student Editor role—if you’re spreading propaganda, you need to control the media.”
“Yeah, just like World War 2 when—”
“So,” Max cuts him off before insinuating anything else, “Pierre will be eyes outside. You will be my ears inside the council. And, I can count on you to bring Sainz to our side—”
“That is not possible!”
Charles snatches his bottle from Max’s grasp.
“Why?”
A pause.
Charles is frowning.
“Max, I literally spent an hour telling you yesterday! Carlos is avoiding me! And, I have no idea why!”
“Yeah, yeah. I remember that…”
Max does not remember. But he has a vague memory of Charles babbling in his ear with a mix of English, French and some Spanish while he was fighting for his life on Call of Duty with his other friends. Something about Carlos getting into a fight with Lando and now he has a girlfriend or something.
“You are such a liar, you know that?”
“Charlie, you can just have Pierre ask around,” Daniel reasons, “He’ll sniff it out in a minute.”
The senior narrows his eyes at Daniel as if he is contemplating.
“Actually that is not a bad idea…”
The lunch bell shrills around the school compound.
Max suddenly gets up from the table and pats on Charles’s shoulder.
“Do that later. First, we need to secure some signatures.”
Mr. Wolff is getting into his Mercedes in the parking lot when Max presses himself onto his window.
The Chemistry teacher raises a brow before rolling down his window.
Max hands over the sheets of signatures. The teacher flips through the papers.
“Hm, Leclerc for Head Treasurer with fourty four signatures. Oh, Max for…president? This is very unexpected of you,” Mr. Wolff scans the scribbles, “Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three signatures… Well, that’s…adequate, I suppose. Although I see that Liam only has sixteen for vice-president so he can’t get the nomination—”
“No!”
Max whips his head to the source of the distraught voice across the parking lot.
George Russell stomps towards him, crystal like eyes glaring, hands crossed, face contorted as if he’s constipated.
“You’re a minute late to submit the signatures,” he taps on his wrist watch, “So, it does not count.”
“It’s just a minute, mate,” Max frowns.
“Oh, now it’s a minute?” the junior’s forehead is lined with tension, “It wasn’t like that in the debate last year!”
Max is taken aback.
The debate last year?
What does that have to do with this?
“George, it’s fine,” Mr. Wolff steps in, “I can take his nomination for president. You’re still unopposed for vice-president.”
“That’s not the point, Mr. Wolff.” George sends a nasty side-eye to Max. “Principal Ben had clearly stated the nominations were supposed to be submitted by 4 PM. He’s a minute late!”
“Actually, as the election co-ordinator I can accept submissions till the end of the day as per my convenience. I don’t have a problem with accepting his nomination. Just focus on your campaign and prepare a speech for tomorrow, okay?”
With that, the Austrian man drives away, leaving the two at the parking lot.
“Just accept it, Russell,” Max holds his head high with a smirk, “You’re too scared Lewis is going to lose against me.”
“In your dreams, Verstappen,” George scoffs. “He’s got the best oratory skills out of all you seniors.”
Max blinks, taken aback.
It’s sort-of…true.
The ever calm and composed Lewis could command an entire auditorium, each syllable sounding like words of enlightenment.
Him, on the other hand—well, Max liked speaking without giving two shits because in fact, he gave none. He needed to let everyone know of his truest, deepest intention without winding his words down to make it palatable. His words were much like himself. Simple and direct and able to land pretty heavily.
It worked.
Last year, Max had won the debate contest against the “great” Lewis.
“You’re probably thinking you’re better than him because you won the debate last year,” George grits his teeth as if reading his mind, “Well, neeews flash, Verstappen. You, of all people, must be aware that it was the time limitation and not the content of your arguments that got you that gold medal.”
“You’re missing the main point, smartass,” Max grins despite feeling the heat crawl up to his temple. “I won the damn thing. I win. I always do. This election’s going to be the same.”
George clamps down on his lips, his pale skin going visibly red, vibrating with anger. And he’s got these big blue buggy eyes inside those stupidly long lashes, going crimson at the edges, glassy and full, like he’d spill right in front of him if Max uttered another word.
He looked almost ruined.
He looked…beautiful.
Huh.
“George, come on, mate!”
Alex honks at him from his blue scooter.
The junior throws him one last glare, before stomping off to his friend.
Once he is out of the parking lot, Daniel brings his own car around. His friend finds him rooted in his place, wide eyes fixed nowhere in particular and mouth slightly agape.
His heart is pounding in his ears.
“Mate, what happened? You’ve been super quiet.”
Daniel looks to his side, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
Max blinks for a couple of times, focusing back onto the traffic outside his window.
He hadn’t stopped thinking about George’s eyes, of all the fucking things in the world, during the car ride.
“Nothing. Just thinking about the speech I need to prepare for tomorrow.”
“Right, about that,” Daniel hums for a second, “Look, mate, I totally get your whole ‘I’ll say whatever the fuck I feel’ vibe but do you want to consider that you’re up against Lewis?”
“So?”
“So, don’t you want to prepare a bit?”
“Like, actually write stuff down?”
Daniel shrugs.
Max hates stuff like that. Reading a note card like a nerd. He’d rather just scream into his mic and leave.
You, of all people, must be aware that it was the time limitation and not the content of your arguments that got you that gold medal.
But then again, it’s Lewis.
Should he get some words down?
No.
Fuck that.
There’s no way he’s going to let that junior eat at his brain like that.
He’s going to ace that shit. Just like last year.
The next morning, Max walks to the gates alongside Charles.
Suddenly, they’re greeted by a large poster of Lewis in the hallway. He’s got his slogan “Rise Up” slathered across, made from small scraps of newspaper. The other students read about his manifesto, about his promises for a better future for everyone, about leaving no one behind.
Max frowns.
Then, there’s him.
Or, at least his poster.
George Russell, smiling down at him with his perfectly lined teeth, and his eyes—
His crystal blue eyes bear a sort of sincerity, as if they did not just tear up just yesterday—as if those pink rosy lips didn’t throw words like silver arrows, plunging deep into his gluttonous ego, degrading his overall HP with mere indications of his short-comings.
God, he’s like a two-faced snake.
“Max! Max!”
Kimi skips towards him, followed by the other sophomores. They’ve got some form of markers and paint on their hands and faces.
“We were just putting up your posters!”
Gabi grins, pointing at the ones across the hallway notice boards.
“So, we’ve got them up at most places—classrooms, cafeterias, washrooms. Some at the field as well…”
Max looks up to his poster.
It’s his own face, edited into Uncle Sam’s famous “I WANT YOU” poster, with a “to vote for me” attached at the bottom.
The other one is the Bernie Sanders meme with a “I am once again asking you to vote for Max” as the caption.
Kimi and Gabi keep pointing out and Max begins to realize that all of them are just memes edited to add their slogans.
“Wait,” Charles narrows his brow, “That’s–that’s—where did you get that?!”
It’s a picture of Charles’s half-naked mirror selfie clearly screenshotted from Snapchat.
“That guarantees all your votes,” Ollie explains.
“These are great. I like it,” Max smiles at the group of underclassmen, “Good job, guys!”
“Max, you can’t be serious!”
Charles throws his hands up, walking away in annoyance.
“We can’t wait to hear your speech, Max!”
Kimi and the group also bid their farewell, the sophomore’s smile graced with such sincerity—it kind of reminds him of George—
What the fuck.
“Well, well, well.”
Speak of the devil.
“Would you look at that—those are pretty great,” George snickers behind his hand, “For 9GAG. I’m not sure about votes but the crowd will definitely upvote those.”
He saunters towards them with Alex and Oscar following behind, awkwardly trying to avoid anything that might escalate the situation.
Max remains calm.
“I wonder what your speech will be like? Will you be recreating Chaplin’s silent comedies on stage for the laughs?”
Max does not remain calm. His hands curl into a fist by his side, glaring at Alex and Oscar, as if it’s their fault George is an unhinged little shit.
The junior passes by, giggling at his posters, like a pompous bastard just to prove his point.
“I don’t care what you think, Russell,” Max mutters to himself, “I’m winning the election with memes, mate! It’ll be fucking epic!”
“Alright, settle down,” Mr. Wolff speaks into the mic, allowing the claps to fade away, “So, that was Lewis Hamilton, running for President.”
Max gulps.
His maroon tie is feeling a little too snug at his throat. He loosens it, the tips of his fingers feeling a bit shaky.
Lewis, who just finished his speech, comes down from the podium and sits beside him. Next to Lewis is George and Alex. Oscar seems to be opting out of the whole speech all-together. To his own side sits Charles, glancing down at his leg that keeps bouncing.
“Now, we have George Russell for vice-president. He’s running unopposed so I hope he’ll keep his words short.”
George takes up the podium with an air of confidence. In the spotlight, his hazelnut hair shines, his cheeks glow with an unearthly hue and his eyes gleam like stars. Max feels his heart jumping up this throat. The audience hushes into pin-drop silence.
George begins with a smile.
“...and therefore, I believe it’s not about us. It’s about you,” George pauses for a bit, “The Student Council is by you and for you. So, I urge you to Rise Up. Vote for what you feel is right. Because you matter. Your vote matters.”
The hall bursts into claps.
George steps down and flicks a glance at Max with a smirk.
Max, who’s already sweating and balls deep into borderline anxiety, rolls his eyes.
It is Alex’s turn.
Then, Charles.
Then, some other junior he doesn’t know.
Finally, it’s his own turn.
“We have Max Verstappen for President,” Mr. Wolff reads his name off the list.
Max walks up to the podium.
The spotlight is glaring at him and so is the audience. Or, maybe that’s just his mind. The auditorium is filled with students but he can’t see beyond the spotlight. It’s like he’s gazing into the abyss from the stage.
But, he knows George is looking at him, burning a hole through the back of his head.
“Uh–hey,” Max coughs, straightening the lapel of his blazer. Some of the audience laugh. “So, listen.”
He stops.
I wonder what your speech will be like? Will you be recreating Chaplin’s silent comedies on stage for the laughs?
Wait.
That’s it!
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be the president.”
The crowd gasps.
Max swears he hears some curse words in Italian.
“I don’t want to be the president,” he continues, gulping, “That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.”
The light dims a bit, glowing into a softer yellowish tone.
“Instead, I should like to help everyone. And, I know there’s like a million things I can promise here but I know none of that shi—I mean, none of those things get done.”
There are murmurs.
“So, I’m not gonna lie, the only thing I can do is try to do my best.”
A small “aww” gets thrown around.
“And, I don’t want to waste your time making you listen to my nonsense. I know we all hate being here.”
The crowd laughs. Max laughs too, taking a quick glance behind. Charles is laughing while Lewis and George raise a brow at him, mouth agape.
“So, vote for me or don’t. I don’t care,” he shrugs, “Just act now. That’s all. You can go do whatever now!”
The auditorium erupts with standing ovation, laughs and chatters, dispersing almost immediately as Max leaves the podium.
Mr. Wolff is tightlipped, hands folded, shaking his head, frowning so hard that he’s got five lines over his forehead.
Charles claps him on his back.
“Wow, mate, you took inspiration from Charlie Chaplin’s speech!” he chuckles, “Where did you get such an idea?”
Max smirks, watching George walk away without a word.
Max is congratulated all the way. Juniors crowd him left and right, telling him how cool he was and that they were definitely going to vote for him.
It feels fucking amazing.
“Man, fuck whatever I said yesterday,” Daniel laughs beside him, “That was freaking awesome!”
They are about to head out when he spots the junior—with another junior. A girl, with tan skin and long curls.
He’s got his smile on and it’s nothing like the ones targeted towards him. It’s…softer. He’s nodding along to what the girl is telling.
Max feels the prickle of heat crawling into the center of his chest as he passes by them.
“Ah, yes, I was so impressed you guys reused scraps to make your poster unlike some of the other candidates wasting papers,” the girl admits, “I take that as a win for our Environmental Club.”
“Really? Thank you, Carmen. I hope our friends from the Club will vote for us,” George nods shyly.
Max wants to shove himself into the conversation. Make the junior roll his eyes at him. Or, even scoff. Anything to get him to notice. Especially after his grand success. But he does not say a word.
Instead, when he winds up around the hallway.
Suddenly, he’s cornered by the big blue eyes on the wall again.
Staring down at him.
Smiling.
Beautiful.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Daniel revs up his engine as they drive away.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Max glances at the back seat.
There’s a roll of paper poking out of his bag’s zipper. As the car picks up pace, the paper unrolls slightly, a small part of it showcasing a familiar looking mop of hazelnut hair.
Max rests his cheek on his knuckles as he gazes out the window.
“Nothing.”