Work Text:
Max Verstappen had three rules for winter break streams.
One: no serious questions about next season.
Two: no asking where he was going for Christmas, because he had already said “home” seventeen times and apparently people still wanted exact coordinates.
Three: nobody was allowed to be weird about the fact that sometimes he looked slightly to the left of his monitor and smiled.
The third rule had not been announced out loud, mostly because announcing it would make it worse.
It was still a rule.
Unfortunately, the internet had never respected a rule in its life.
“Chat,” Max said, eyes on the virtual grid in front of him, one hand on his wheel and the other reaching blindly for the can of Red Bull on the desk beside him, “stop saying I am looking at the wall. Maybe the wall is interesting.”
His chat immediately became worse.
CHAT: MAX THE WALL IS A WALL
CHAT: how can a wall be interesting
CHAT: blink twice if the wall is monegasque
CHAT: he keeps looking left he keeps LOOKING LEFT
CHAT: winter break max has a secret
CHAT: MAX DOES NOT SMILE AT WALLS
In his headphones, Lando made a noise that belonged less to a racing driver and more to a raccoon finding an unlocked bin.
“Mate,” Lando said, delighted already and they had not even started the race, “why do they think your wall is Monegasque?”
“I have no clue,” Max said.
From just outside the face-cam frame, Charles Leclerc lifted his head from the book he had allegedly been reading for 23 minutes without turning a page.
Max glanced at him.
Chat detonated.
CHAT: LEFT AGAIN
CHAT: HE DID IT AGAIN
CHAT: WALL CONFIRMED
CHAT: MAX WHY IS YOUR WALL INTERESTING
Charles mouthed, Stop looking at me.
Max mouthed back, Stop being suspicious.
Charles looked down at himself, deeply offended.
He was sitting in one of Max’s spare gaming chairs, in socks, sweatpants, and a Ferrari-red hoodie. It was his own hoodie, which somehow made it worse, because Charles had stepped into his closet, looked at multiple clothing options, and chosen the bright red one while knowing Max was planning to stream.
He was outside the camera frame.
Technically.
Mostly.
If he held still and did not do anything stupid, he was safe.
This was unfortunate, because Charles Leclerc had never successfully held still in his entire life.
He rocked backward on the chair.
Max saw it, because Max saw everything.
He narrowed his eyes.
Charles immediately stopped.
“For someone alone in the room,” Lando said, voice sweet with violence, “you are making a lot of faces.”
“I always make faces,” Max said.
“No, you don’t. Usually you stare at the screen like you’re calculating how to ruin someone’s weekend.”
“I am calculating how to ruin your weekend.”
“See? Normal Max. That I believe.”
The virtual lights began to come up on Max’s monitor.
Max adjusted his grip on the wheel, leaned forward slightly, and became, for a few beautiful seconds, the version of himself that terrified the entire racing grid. Focused. Silent. Clinical.
Charles, off-camera, watched him with the helpless expression of a man who had once listened to Max explain brake migration for forty minutes and somehow fallen more in love instead of seeking medical attention.
“Hey,” Max said without looking away from the screen.
Charles jolted so hard the chair wheels squeaked.
Lando went silent.
Chat went nuclear.
Max added, “Stop moving the chair.”
There was a pause.
Charles stared at him.
Max stared at the screen.
Lando inhaled.
Then, in the deepest voice Charles could produce without sounding like he had swallowed a haunted cello, Charles said, “Of course.”
Max’s mouth twitched.
The race started.
For approximately seven corners, everything was normal.
Then Sassy entered the room.
She did it with the quiet confidence of a small animal who had been told, repeatedly, that doors were not suggestions and had disagreed on philosophical grounds. She slipped in through the barely cracked opening, tail high, paws silent on the floor, and looked at the simulator rig as if she had been personally invited by Race Control.
Max did not see her immediately.
Charles did.
Charles’s entire face changed.
He pointed toward the floor, remembered he was not supposed to be seen, and then pointed harder with only his wrist from behind the edge of the frame like a very panicked weather forecast.
Max glanced down.
His expression softened so violently that half the chat forgot how spelling worked.
“Hello, baby,” he said.
Lando, in Max’s ear, made a choking sound.
“Sorry,” Lando said. “What?”
“Not you.”
“I was hoping not.”
CHAT: BABY?????
CHAT: WHO IS BABY
CHAT: max voice changed omg
CHAT: THAT WAS A CAT VOICE
CHAT: or a wall voice????
CHAT: I am sat. I am listening.
Sassy walked straight toward the pedal box.
Max’s eyes sharpened.
“No,” he said.
Sassy disappeared under the rig.
“No, no, no. Sassy, no.”
“What’s happening?” Lando asked, already laughing. “Have you been attacked?”
“My daughter is doing something stupid.”
“Oh, so it’s family drama.”
Max tried to brake for the next corner.
The pedal moved halfway, then stopped.
Max went straight on.
His car shot across the runoff like it had received spiritual instructions.
Lando burst out laughing.
“Did you just forget how to drive?”
“No,” Max said, staring down at the pedal box. “My cat is under the brake.”
“You’ve been beaten by a cat?”
“She is not beating me. She is blocking the brake pedal.”
“So she’s beating you.”
“She is under the brake pedal, Lando.”
“That sounds like a skill issue.”
Max ignored him and leaned as far forward as the sim seat allowed.
“Sassy,” he said, in a voice so soft it should have come with a warning label. “Baby. Come out.”
Charles made a sound.
Max looked left.
Charles clapped a hand over his own mouth.
Chat saw the look.
Chat smelled blood in the water.
CHAT: LEFT LOOK LEFT LOOK
CHAT: wall reacting to baby voice
CHAT: did the wall just make a noise
CHAT: SASSY SABOTAGE
CHAT: cat said no brake bias today
CHAT: max verstappen defeated by daughter confirmed
Max tried to keep racing.
This was a mistake.
He reached the next braking zone, pushed the pedal, and got half a brake again.
The virtual car sailed into the gravel.
Max’s jaw tightened.
“Sassy. Baby. I cannot brake.”
Lando wheezed.
“Sorry, say that again.”
“I cannot brake.”
“No, the whole sentence.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Max.”
Max took one hand off the wheel and reached down uselessly.
“Sassy, baby, come out. I need the brake. This is not a good place for you. It is not safe. Also you are ruining my race.”
The cat did not move.
Charles had folded forward in the chair now, shoulders shaking silently. The book was abandoned in his lap. He looked like he was one noise away from expiring.
Max saw this too.
“Do not laugh,” Max told him.
Charles, still silent, shook his head desperately.
Lando said, “Is your wall laughing?”
“My wall is behaving.”
Charles made another sound, this one higher and significantly less dignified.
Max’s car hit a tire barrier.
Lando laughed so hard his microphone crackled.
Max sat back in the rig, hands on the wheel, staring down at the pedal box with the expression he usually reserved for bad strategy calls.
“Sassy,” he said. “Listen to me.”
The cat did not listen to him.
Max clicked his tongue.
Nothing.
He made a kissy noise.
Nothing.
He tapped the side of the rig.
Nothing.
Lando, who had recovered just enough oxygen to choose violence, said, “Maybe you need to speak her language.”
Max paused.
Charles’s head snapped up.
“No,” Charles mouthed.
Max looked at him.
“Yes,” Lando said, because he could not see Charles but had clearly sensed weakness. “Go on. Communicate.”
Max looked down at the cat.
Then, with the dead seriousness of a four-time world champion solving a technical issue, he meowed.
“Mrrp?”
Charles froze.
Chat stopped being chat and became a riot.
CHAT:
CHAT: DID HE
CHAT: MAX????
CHAT: HE MEOWED
CHAT: NO WAY
CHAT: MAX VERSTAPPEN MEOWED ON MAIN
CHAT: WALL DOWN WALL DOWN
CHAT: LANDO SAY SOMETHING
CHAT: THIS IS HISTORY
Lando was silent for one entire second.
Then he said, very calmly, “Mate.”
Max looked down.
The cat did not move.
Max meowed again, lower this time.
“Miauw.”
Charles made a strangled noise.
Lando whispered, “Oh my god.”
Max tried a higher pitch.
“Mew?”
The chair went backward.
There were several things that happened at once.
Charles, who had been rocking on the chair because his body had apparently decided being invisible was too easy, lost his battle with gravity. The chair tipped. Charles grabbed for air, found none, and vanished out of his carefully maintained off-camera hiding place with a soft but unmistakably human thud.
Then came a muffled, furious, deeply French:
“Putain—”
Max turned his head.
His face was flat.
“Are you alive?”
The room went silent.
The stream continued.
The chat, for one blessed heartbeat, seemed to process the evidence.
Then Charles remembered the camera.
He coughed.
It was an awful cough. Theatrical. Criminal. The cough of a man trying to lower his voice while lying on the floor under a gaming chair.
“I’m good,” Charles said, in a voice so deep it sounded like he was narrating a documentary about shipwrecks. “I dropped my book.”
Max stared at him.
Lando did not breathe.
Chat became the FBI.
CHAT: A BOOK????
CHAT: THAT WAS NOT A BOOK
CHAT: DID THE BOOK SWEAR IN FRENCH
CHAT: book said putain????
CHAT: why does max’s book have a french accent
CHAT: concrete book
CHAT: 00:28:14 unidentified adult man impact
CHAT: 00:28:16 french curse
CHAT: 00:28:18 fake deep voice
CHAT: suspiciously ferrari-coded book
Lando’s voice came back at a volume that suggested he had left his chair spiritually if not physically.
“Is that him?”
Max turned back to the screen.
“No.”
“Is that HIM in the room?”
“No.”
Lando’s voice climbed. “I’m not saying names.”
“Good.”
“But is it him?”
“No.”
“You are lying.”
“I am racing.”
“You are in a wall.”
“I am still racing.”
From the floor, in the fake-deep voice, Charles said, “I am still a book.”
Max slowly turned his head again.
Charles, half-trapped beneath the chair, gave him a thumbs-up that was barely visible at the bottom edge of the frame.
Max’s eyes said, You are embarrassing both of us and also you are terrible at crime.
Charles’s eyes said, I am doing my best.
Max’s eyes said, Your best is illegal in several countries.
Lando whispered, “The book has hands.”
Max looked back at the monitor.
“This is all very distracting.”
“Max,” Lando said, voice trembling with joy, “you meowed on stream, your cat disabled your brake pedal, and your French book just fell over. I think distraction is the least of your problems.”
”I’m not French.”
Max tried to brake again, choosing to ignore Charles’s struggle and misery.
Sassy remained in position like a tiny, furry FIA directive.
The car went straight on.
Max exhaled.
“Okay.”
Lando gasped. “Oh, he’s angry.”
“I am not angry.”
“You said okay like George when strategy is bad.”
“I cannot race like this.”
“Because your daughter is better at defense than half the grid?”
“Because she is under the brake pedal.”
“Again, sounds like defense.”
Max quit the session.
Chat exploded again.
CHAT: RAGE QUIT
CHAT: CAT WON
CHAT: SASSY P1
CHAT: MAX DNF DUE TO DAUGHTER
CHAT: investigation paused, cat victory confirmed
Max took off his headset with the calm precision of someone who had decided the situation was not worth dignity. He stood up from the sim rig.
Charles, still trying to climb out from under the chair with the book clutched to his chest like a prop in a very bad play, froze.
The camera angle was unfortunate.
Max was wearing a dark hoodie, socks, and shorts that were perfectly normal for being at home and absolutely catastrophic for being on the internet. He had not thought about the camera. Why would he? The cat was under the brake. This was a rescue operation.
He bent toward the pedal box.
Chat abandoned the not-French book instantly.
CHAT: LEGS
CHAT: OH
CHAT: CAMERA ANGLE
CHAT: MAX???
CHAT: respectfully looking
CHAT: disrespectfully respectfully looking
CHAT: WINTER BREAK MAX IS DANGEROUS
CHAT: SOMEONE CHECK ON THE BOOK
CHAT: THE BOOK IS NOT OKAY
CHAT: THE BOOK IS ABOUT TO COMMIT A FELONY
Charles saw the chat.
Charles saw Max.
Charles saw the camera.
Charles saw, in a single flash of horror, the entire internet looking at Max’s bare legs.
Something ancient and possessive activated in him.
He forgot the fall.
He forgot the fake voice.
He forgot the plan.
He forgot that he was wearing a Ferrari-red hoodie in Max Verstappen’s streaming room while Max Verstappen was live to thousands of people.
He launched himself toward the camera.
For one devastating second, the stream caught everything: the red hoodie, the flash of brown hair, the panic, the unmistakable shape of Charles Leclerc entering frame like a man trying to prevent a national security leak.
Then his palm slammed over the lens.
The screen went dark.
“Mon cœur,” Charles snapped, in his normal voice, outraged and breathless, “you cannot just show your legs to the world!”
Silence.
Perfect silence.
Max, bent over with Sassy now halfway in his hands, looked up at the covered camera.
Lando made a sound that no human throat should have been able to produce.
Charles went still.
Max said, “Charles.”
Charles removed his hand from the camera slowly.
Too slowly.
As if maybe, if he took long enough, time itself would reverse and he would return to the floor, where he had at least been only a suspicious book.
It did not work.
The camera came back.
Charles was fully visible now: Ferrari-red hoodie, ruined hair, bright face, wide eyes, one hand still hovering near the lens like he might cover it again if Max’s knees became too politically sensitive.
Sassy, finally freed from the pedal box, was tucked under Max’s arm like evidence.
Chat became unreadable.
CHAT: CHARLES
CHAT: CHARLES
CHAT: THAT WAS CHARLES
CHAT: MON CŒUR????
CHAT: HE SAID MON CŒUR
CHAT: FERRARI HOODIE
CHAT: THE BOOK WAS CHARLES LECLERC
CHAT: HARD LAUNCH BY LEG JEALOUSY
CHAT: MAX’S LEGS CAUSED INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY
CHAT: SASSY DID THIS
CHAT: THE CAT PLANNED IT
CHAT: NO ONE MOVE
Charles’s expression changed.
Not calm.
Not composed.
Not even remotely intelligent.
Just the expression of a man watching the entire side of a mountain collapse and deciding, bravely, stupidly, that he could still stop it with one hand.
“No,” Charles said.
Max blinked at him.
Lando whispered, “Oh, please.”
“No,” Charles repeated, louder. “No, no. I did not say that.”
“You did,” Lando said instantly.
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I said something else.”
Max shifted Sassy against his chest and stared at Charles.
Charles stared back.
Max’s face said, Please do not make this worse.
Charles’s face said, I am about to make this worse because I have chosen death.
“I said,” Charles announced, very clearly, “mon chœur.”
There was a pause.
Lando said, “Your what?”
“My choir,” Charles said.
Max’s mouth went very flat.
Chat achieved a new state of matter.
CHAT: HIS CHOIR????
CHAT: NO HE DID NOT
CHAT: CHARLES PLEASE
CHAT: MON CHŒUR????
CHAT: WHY WOULD YOU SAY MY CHOIR
CHAT: THIS IS WORSE
CHAT: THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE
CHAT: he said mon cœur and we all heard it
CHAT: MAX SAVE HIM
CHAT: actually no let him cook this is incredible
Lando sounded like he had slid under his desk. “Why would you tell Max not to show his legs with your choir?”
Charles glared at the headset, which did absolutely nothing because Lando could not see him.
“Because he was meowing.”
Max stared harder.
Charles nodded once, as if this had solved everything.
“He was doing different pitches,” Charles said. “So it was like vocal practice.”
Lando made a tiny, devastated noise.
Charles continued, gaining confidence in a plan that deserved none, with years of experience from dealing with Ferrari’s strategy. “Like a choir.”
Max looked at him for a very long second.
Then he looked at the camera.
“Charles is visiting for the day,” Max said.
Charles nodded immediately. Too fast. Too desperate. So red he was beginning to blend into the hoodie.
“Yes,” Charles said. “I am visiting.”
“We are hanging out.”
“Yes,” Charles said again. “Hanging out.”
Max added, with the calm of a man reading weather conditions, “Like friends do.”
Charles nodded even harder.
“Like friends do.”
Chat did not buy it.
Chat bought negative amounts of it.
CHAT: VISITING FOR THE DAY
CHAT: LIKE FRIENDS DO
CHAT: FRIENDS WHO SAY MON CŒUR
CHAT: sorry mon CHŒUR
CHAT: friends who protect each other’s legs from twitch
CHAT: completely normal friend behavior
CHAT: ferrari hoodie at red bull house friendship
CHAT: this is so heterosexual of them
CHAT: nobody believes you king but continue
CHAT: THE CHOIR EXPLANATION HAS LEGAL WEIGHT
Lando was quiet.
That was terrifying.
Max slowly put his headset back on.
“No,” Charles said immediately.
Max sat down in the rig.
“Max.”
Max placed Sassy in his lap.
“No, no, no, wait. You cannot just go back to racing.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Max, the chat is—”
“The chat is always like this.”
“The chat thinks I called you mon cœur.”
“You said mon chœur.”
Charles stared at him.
Max glanced at the camera.
“My choir.”
Lando made a broken sound.
Charles looked like he might start praying.
Max adjusted his wheel settings as if this was any other stream, any other race, any other evening where one of his cats had sabotaged him and Charles Leclerc had sprinted into frame in Ferrari red to defend his legs from the internet.
Lando finally spoke.
“So.”
“No,” Max said.
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“No.”
“I was only wondering.”
“No.”
“Can I join the choir?”
Charles dropped the book on his own foot.
Max ended the stream six seconds later.