Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Normandy, Summer 2012

Three boys sit under the canopy of trees, in a clearing in the forest where birds sing that they haven't heard anywhere else, and rare for them all to witness but particularly for the non-native. They play Monopoly as the sun filters through leaves and the pointer of the day turns to lazy afternoon. They curse each other louder in their mother tongue than they ever dare in their mothers' presence, playfully smacking each other on skinny arms and shoulders, aiming the occasional kick and shove in the ribs.

There are humorous jibes thrown each other's ways, teenage crushes made fun of, and plans for winter break imagined. Many nightmares go unaddressed in the throes of childlike wonder and youthful innocence.

"And then you will find a lovely girl and tell me you've kissed her. Too bad Anthoine beat you to that. But your time will come, Cha. Fourteen isn't such a ripe old age, after all. You'll kiss your first girl yet. You'll grow balls enough to do that, don't worry," the oldest of the three says.

The younger covers his face in his palms, dragging skinny fingers over it. "It's not a girl, Pierre."

The other two are still too young to be aware that gasping is probably not the most liberal response, so their hands fly to their mouths as they draw in awe-filled breaths.

"Charles, why the fuck did you think it was okay to not tell us? Of all people, you felt like hiding from myself and Anthoine?" Pierre scolds. He is, after all, the oldest by two years, and he feels sore that his young friend didn't trust him. 

"Have you seen yourself? Fucking... oh goodness, you're both so Catholic, you ever thought about that? I was still thinking maybe I made a mistake." Charles freaks out just that tiniest bit.

Anthoine leans forward, rubbing Charles's malnourished-level skinny knees, the smile in his bespectacled eyes making him look more than ever like the most kindhearted person Pierre has ever met.

"Charles we are literally your bestest friends. There is nothing holier than our friendship, and Jesus loves everybody, I don't care what the Pope tells us, Jesus said to love everyone. And that means I love you. Even were you to think that we wouldn't want to be associated with you because you harbor feelings for another man, I will always love you. You being in love with someone is not anyone's business but yours. And God loves everyone the same." He speaks in his soft, gentle voice, trying to stop his glasses from slipping down his nose with his index finger.

"He does not but thank you. I... don't know how to face the idea that I am gay and have an unhealthy obsession with a boy who genuinely hates me. He hates me so much and it’s because... because he and I are so similar. When I first read in English class, "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," I thought about him. We are both fueled by a fire and we will never back away from our dream. And that is why he hates me so much. Because I am his only competition." Charles tells them in a depressed tone.

"Charlie, you will find love, because I just know it. You are worth loving." Anthoine tells him.

Pierre responds with, "Charles, we will be there for you, please never forget this. Please, I beg of you. You're worth loving and I will fight this asshole if he treats you like shit."

Charles laughs shakily. "You don't know him. He's wild."

"Wilder than me?!" Pierre shrieks in his recently changed voice, and he sounds even funnier to Charles than ever, trying to be the protective older best friend.

They get out the food basket, where Pierre's mother has packed them cheese and chicken sandwiches, and some cucumber pickles, as well as apple juice, putting no sugar in Charles's, because he begged for it. Charles picks through the sandwich, leaving out the cheese for Anthoine who is crazy about cheese in any form, and getting out the chicken strips and putting them on Pierre's outstretched hand, eating the lettuce and cabbage and putting the pickled cucumber on one slice of the bread. He picks little pieces off the second one and throws it around for the birds. He could put his whole meal at a hundred calories, and it gives him some sick sort of power over everyone else his age. They all feel the need to eat whereas he feels the need to restrict.

The youngest boy of the three stops on his way up the little hill to catch his breath. The two older boys behind him burst out laughing.

“Charlie will be on his deathbed before he turns thirty if he keeps going at this rate,” Pierre shouts, devilish grin adorning his foxlike face.

Hands on his knees, Charles chokes out a, “I’m aware. Just after the World Championship, please.”

“Stop being an imbecile, Charlie, you just need to eat,” Anthoine warns.

“Shut up, Tonio,” Charles retorts. “It won’t kill me to lose just a couple more pounds. Have you seen that Polish boy? He’s lucky enough to be in an environment that ensures he can be skinny without even trying because it’s fucking freezing out where he lives, but me? I’m a Monegasque boy, in a mediterranean seaside country, okay? So, I absolutely need to cut back on food to make for that weight loss advantage the people from the colder countries have over me, okay?” Charles keeps talking vehemently.

“Fuck it, you’re already a racing prodigy, I don’t think being deathly skinny is going to help you become Michael Schumacher, it’s only gonna help you become dead. You’re already BMI 16.7, I checked,” Anthoine says in a warning voice, as they all sit down on a flat rock.

“How the fuck…?” Charles stutters.

“We just needed some basic info. We’ve been worried, so we started taking data from your trainer. I know it sounds like stalking but…” Pierre doesn’t get the chance to finish whatever he’s about to say next to explain himself and Anthoine, because Charles has gotten up and stalked off; it’s Tantrum Time. Both the French boys usually know to leave him alone when he gets like this, but he’s never been this angry, and frankly it has never been anything this serious, so Pierre sends Anthoine after the youngest, because he knows he himself takes the argument to a much more heated level than calm, even-tempered Anthoine.

Pierre wonders why a sweet boy like Charles (curse him for the way his Maman’s vocabulary has made its way into his own) would want to starve himself when he’s naturally thin, and anyway, he’s such a professional, prodigious karter and racer, Pierre knows he’s going to make it into Formula One, even if he’s not as sure about himself. It feels criminal to think it, but it’s almost as though the hunger, the literal hunger, powers Charles in a way that no other racer his age can be. It’s almost as if he loses a few tenths a lap if he’s been starving for a few hours longer than usual.

The thing is, this lifestyle is not sustainable, because if it were, Pierre is sure every goddamned human who ever stepped foot in motorsports would’ve starved themselves for that extra tenth off their laptimes, because every racer in their right mind knows that more weight is less speed. Pierre fears the day it becomes unmanageable for Charles. He can’t afford to lose this prodigious friend, because the world is just that much more of a desolate place because it hasn’t yet witnessed Charles as he unlocks his full potential, rivaling Schumacher one day.

Anthoine and Charles return a while later, and it’s clear that Charles has been crying; the red eyes and raw nose speak for themselves. Pierre opens his mouth to speak, but Anthoine tries to communicate with a fixed glare that he better shut up. Charles sits back down on the rock, next to Pierre who can feel his friend shaking against his arm.

Chapter Text

Val de Argenton, 2012

Charles shouldn’t be obliged to give answers following what he’s well aware is his first misconduct as a racer, and he feels the formerly unfamiliar snakelike sharp sting of vengeful pleasure, as he watches Max get disqualified as well as himself.

Take that! He thinks to himself, triumphant, because how dare this boy think he’s in any way invincible? Not while Charles is still alive and still very much hungry for the win, and only the win. So what if he broke rules that no one has ever broken before? Max has been ignoring him for so many weeks now, and on top of all that, he tried to overtake him dirty, like Charles was beneath himself, like Charles was just another kid in a kart.

No, Charles will not be dealt like that; Max fucking Verstappen has picked his fucking poison, and Charles Leclerc has never backed down in his life, as long as he's in charge.

So when he tells the reporters that it’s just an incident, making light of Max’s misery, he feels like a balm on the fire in his heart. Charles has always known his love is a little toxic. In love with Max he may be, but that has never stopped him, and will not stop him using people as stepping-stones on his way to the top. He might not be rich enough or fast enough to keep going year by year, but maybe he has the fire enough. Max has both, and Charles fights his fire with triple the amount he’s dealt, to make up for what he doesn’t have.

He doesn’t even feel the effects of his five-day abstinence from food, the idea of getting one over the boy he’s obsessed with feeding his slowly dying sanity, and simultaneously his ravenous gut. He’s leaving Val d’Argenton in a van, with a smirk on his face, even as his Papa lectures him on his unsportsmanlike behavior. He has easily tuned out of the whole thing, mind on some sort of vengeance-fueled cloud nine.

The last thing he remembers thinking before it all goes out is, who the fuck does Max Verstappen think he is?

And when he comes to, he’s in a small infirmary in a school, the closest thing to a hospital on the village roads in the middle of nowhere in France. They’ve stuck an IV fluid needle in the top of his palm. He’s seen how this stuff works; all that hard-earned weight loss, he can kiss goodbye already. He makes a sound to try and speak, and it comes out like a whimper.

His father is right there, starting to fuss over Charles, asking him what’s bothering him. Charles sits up, anticipating a head rush like he’s used to, and when he doesn’t feel it, that holy lightness, he loses his shit, all notion of the fact that half a minute ago he couldn't even speak properly forgotten.

“Why did they do the infusion? Do they even know it’s all just sugars, only sugars? It’s so… I hate this so…” he never gets to say more. His face is stinging lightly, he’s hyperaware of his father’s heavy breathing, his ears resounding with the sound of the first slap he’s ever gotten from his father in all fifteen years of his life.

“How dare you abuse your body like this? How dare you turn a gift into this trash, this garbage can of bones? Charles!” his father’s voice goes rattling through his ribcage, the deepest he’s ever heard it; at least when it’s directed at him or anyone in the family, he never sounds this angry. It’s enough to reduce Charles to a crying mess. One moment he’s staring wide-eyed at his father and the next he’s sobbing like his life depends on it.

“I don’t want to be f-fat, Papa,” Charles whimpers. “I want to be the fastest out there, and you know fat people can’t make the fastest racers.”

Papa isn’t the sort of man who can stay angry for too long. He holds Charles’s head in his soft but callused hands, touching foreheads with him.

“Oh little one, it’s good to have a dream, but it’s terrible that you’re passing out after races. A real racer is a healthy racer, you’re supposed to be one with the machine but if you become so starved you pass out from it, who will sign you on, knowing that your talent is overshadowed by a craziness?”

“Papa, I can’t… it’s impossible not to obsess over what goes into my system,” Charles sobs.

Papa asks softly, “We like Formula One because we love?”

“Ayrton Senna?” Charles whispers.

“Ayrton Senna,” Papa nods. “He wasn’t a pile of bones when he got into Formula One, he was a healthy man. And that’s why he became one of the racing gods. Or Schumi. He doesn’t starve himself to win for the Cavalino Rampante. And our very own Jules, look at him, a solid, fine young man. He’s started in F1 free practices and all that. He doesn’t look like he’s about to fall over any moment. Why you, pins a roulettes?”

“Because I’m not naturally as good as any of them. Jules got his FDA seat because he is smart, fast and calm. Ayrton and Schumi were born for it. And I have to work to even dream of reaching that level, because I am not a natural. I was not born to be a racing legend.”

“Oh Cha, you were. You were. You’re a brilliant little boy. And I know you make dumb mistakes sometimes like this weekend with Max, but you’re a great racer in the making. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be challenging the boy they’re all calling a purpose-bred racer.”

“He’s too good, Papa. And he will make it to F1, and be world champion, and I will just sit and watch and not be there,” Charles can’t help but to sob harder, the idea of Max making it without him too much to handle. His Papa holds him through it all, as Charles feels an intense headache build up behind his eyes from all the crying.

Chapter Text

“Oh Charles, what happened to you?” Pierre says softly, stroking his hair, hoping to the god he never did anything to please that this is the breakdown to end everything; many people have that moment of panic and distress and emotional vulnerability, and it helps them, and Pierre really, really hopes against hope that Charles stops doing what he does.

“I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s so hard.” He sobs, head poking the meat of Pierre’s shoulder.

“What’s so hard?” Pierre probes: this is one of those moments he knows he has to, because Charles will let up easily.

“Being alive. I swear, Pierre, it has never been such a burden to be alive as now. I need to prove that I’m not a one-hit wonder, that my Championship last year wasn’t a fluke, that I am not beneath Max in any way, that he didn’t gift it to me or some shit. And I’ve spent my whole conscious life now trying to beat him and I am just… tired of it all. I used to pine for him and even that is gone now. All that’s left is some hollow thing in me that keeps telling me to get in the car week in and week out and just win, but I am so tired, Pierre. I am… so, so tired.” Charles breathes out against him, and Pierre wraps his arms around his little boy, even if he’s neither little nor a boy anymore. Pierre isn’t shocked to find his elbows and shoulders actually painful to touch, even through the jacket. Where once there was at least muscle because that was the only thing Charles allowed the weight of on his body, there is just bones now, and Pierre can’t lie: he isn’t shocked, but oh boy, is he scared.

“Petit, look at me. Will you please listen to me right now? Can I please, please, please make you a milkshake? We’ll talk over that, huh?” Charles is so done, he just looks up at Pierre, through the tears that are crowding on his eyelashes. Pierre can’t stand the green of those eyes, not when they’ve lost what made them the most memorable green eyes he’s ever seen.

Pierre gets up, blends some mango with sugar and milk, making it as frothy as he can. It takes all of five minutes for him to put some crushed almonds in it to make it just a little more nutritious. He takes it to Charles, who hasn’t moved from the position he’s been in for so long now. Pierre wonders if Charles has anything more left in him to burn for just getting out of bed, but then he remembers how anorexic people have some sort of magic that pulls them out of bed even if they’re dying.

Pierre gives him a hand, pulls him to a sitting position and holds the mug of milkshake to his lips. Charles starts to take small sips, pausing for anything between ten seconds to longer than two minutes, staring out at the screen while the tears just force their way down his cheekbones. Pierre has surely forgotten what disordered eating looks like, not because Charles got better, but because Pierre hasn’t seen him eat or drink anything other than water and electrolytes for… he can’t even remember how long. So, the small, deliberate sips, the forced suppression of his gag reflex and the way he shakes slightly, it all really unnerves Pierre in a way he shouldn’t have been. Every bob of Charles’s Adam’s apple reminds Pierre how problematic and basically fucked up everything is right now.

Charles takes off his jacket because Pierre’s air-conditioned the room to the warmest temperature he can manage; he remembers how a seventeen-year-old Charles made his ears hurt because they were having a sleepover and he had cuddled with Pierre for warmth and his jaws were clattering like a 9.5-Richter earthquake. However, it’s only when he’s just in his t-shirt that Pierre gets the rudest awakening he’s had in years: the shirt leaves nothing up to the imagination, as Charles is bent over to hug his skinny knees; Pierre can make out his serrated vertebrae, his fully protruding ribs, his meatless elbows. He is this close to dying, and Pierre barely holds in the gasp that’s building up in his system. It’s not just that Charles has started isolating worse than he ever has; it’s that Pierre hasn't (and well, no one else in the world, for that matter,) seen Charles in anything that doesn’t cover him up fully in months. He isn’t even wearing Ferrari polo shirts anymore; he’s just wearing oversized hoodies or jackets, and layering up, because even in sweltering heat, he feels cold. Pierre remembers a tiny point in his own life when he was possessed by a similar, though way less severe demon, but he’s glad he still had enough left to fix. He’s sure his best friend has gone somewhere unsalvageable, and he refuses to be helped medically, and Pierre doesn’t even want to think about how dirty he’s playing with hush money and blackmailing to still race. He’s still alive simply so he can seal his Championship, of that Pierre is sure.

“Cha, petit, are you okay?” Pierre rubs soft circles into Charles’s back, like he knows he likes it; Charles might look like he doesn’t enjoy physical affection because of how he pushes people away, but when it’s the right people, Charles acts like dog getting a belly rub.

“Mm-hmm. Could you massage my shoulders? Please?” Charles asks in a small voice, tears subsided, yet voice still hoarse from sobbing too long.

Pierre complies, once again struggling to keep his surprise stowed away some place Charles can’t see it.

He presses the heels of his palms into his shoulders, massaging slowly, gingerly, because Charles looks breakable. He slumps sideways into Pierre’s lap, limp ragdoll. All the anger Pierre has felt up until today at Charles for inflicting all this shit on himself has turned to pity.

Charles speaks up, startling Pierre.

“Do you still love me, Pierre? Like you and Tonio told me in Normandy?” He asks, and Pierre is surprised it isn’t a rhetorical question.

“Of course, I do.” He rubs Charles’s arm.

“Then please say you’ll let me go. When I want to go. I need your permission, because you matter to me. I asked Lorenzo and Arthur and Maman already. They didn’t want to, but they said they’re happy as long as I’m happy. Please, Pierre, I can’t go on any longer. I swear, I…” He wraps his arms around Pierre’s thighs, voice muffled against Pierre’s plush pants.

“Charles, what are you asking of me? Get off, get off!” Pierre can’t keep the horror out of his voice. Charles shuffles over on the sofa and Pierre jumps off of it.

“Pierre, please don’t make a fuss.” Charles pleads, eyes closing of their own accord to keep himself from blacking out, no doubt, voice powerless and softer than Pierre can ever remember it being.

“Tell someone else to sign your Do Not Resuscitate order!” Pierre is ninety-nine percent sure he’s lost it; he’s shouting.

“Pierre, fuck it, you’re being so loud, it hurts my head, please.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU MOTHERFUCKING DICKHEAD!” Pierre takes him by the collar of his T-shirt and shakes him. “Look at me! This is your idea of love? You sick fuck, you think this is how love works? Asking people to let you fucking die? You bastard, you will never have my blessing to kill yourself.” Pierre is barely aware of the flecks of spit that fly out of his mouth as he screams.

And Charles starts crying again. And unlike the past hour, it’s fucking ugly; he’s sobbing, heaving, gasping. Pierre’s put his arms around him again, Charles’s face buried in his stomach because of how Pierre is still standing and Charles is sitting on the sofa, his hands scrunching up Pierre’s shirt at the back.

“Calamardo, mon petit bebe, shhh… Don’t cry. I’m sorry I shouted at you. I’m sorry.” Pierre tries shushing him, despite shaking with quiet tears himself. Charles’ arms fall slack some time later; he’s cried himself to sleep, shallow breaths resounding in the room. Pierre untangles himself from Charles’s arms, and cradles his head in his hands, slowly helping him lie back. Charles curls up into a sideways fetal position, taking up less space on the sofa than a sleeping child. That’s when Pierre acknowledges his own steadily running nose and his wet face, bringing a hand up to wipe it, wondering how the fuck he ended up here, with the closest friend he’s had since childhood asking for his blessing to let him die.

Chapter Text

Pierre thinks he might’ve blacked out when he sees the crash. It's a nightmare that he had to sit out the race because he did not start. It's like the whole "I saw it happen in slow motion" moment, the only blessing being that he thinks he blacks out for a few minutes. He watches the car crash, but his panic response sends his whole body into a semiconscious state, and he only becomes aware of his surroundings again when Pyry pokes his shoulder hard.

Pierre realizes there's tears on his face and a distinct lack of air in the whole universe right now. Or maybe it's all just in his head. Yes, that seems like the better explanation. He wants to say he's seen this film before, but the thing is, he hasn't. He hasn't seen the red car with the number one go flying into a wall of tires after skidding on itself sideways and splitting halfway through.

Part of Pierre wants to know how many G's of force that was, and mentally calculate the impact and how bad it is. Another part of him already feels a sense of loss. Had it been any other driver, he might’ve put his hopes up. But this is his little one, his little baby friend that he's spoiled for so long, this is the boy with the bones so brittle they would turn to crushed calcium with the slightest impact, who's so dangerously underweight Pierre has not been able to unflinchingly look at him without clothes on for the past couple years.

Pierre rushes out to where he's sure Charles is getting airlifted to the nearest hospital. He tries to look for where the reporters are no doubt gathering to gather as much footage as they can because fuck the fact that their lives are televised life and death matters. He sees Max who has just gotten out of his car, and has no doubt been the recipient of fresher news than Pierre who just rushed out without intel.

"Max. Any idea?" Pierre asks breathlessly.

"GP just told me he's being resuscitated on a radio transmission he didn't allow live. Pierre, he won't live. I know it, oh fucking hell, I know he isn't gonna live. He's already a dead body." Max's voice trembles as he says.

Pierre doesn't know what comes over him, but one second, he's listening to Max and the next his hand is flying up to Max's throat. He stops midway, when he realizes with a weirdly Charles-like awareness of camera lenses that he's still in that reality show he calls life.

"Don't. Not from your mouth, I won’t hear it, Verstappen. No. He can't. That's my little squid. He can't just up and leave, I won't let him."

Max, ever the one who's unaffected by his public image, brings his arms around Pierre as he's about to lose his shit. Max is taller by only a few centimeters, but it gives Pierre that comfort that he should be giving Max right now. After all, Max has loved Charles for years, has been head over heels crazy for him. This must be so hard on him too.

They ask for updates from Alex, who is their closest source from the Ferrari garage. He tells them Charles is not breathing voluntarily, respiratory collapse, they're at the medical center to see if he'll stabilize. Pierre is wondering out loud why the fuck they aren't airlifting the fuck out of him, when Alex replies sadly, "Oh Pierre, even if they airlift him, how the hell can they work on helping fix his body, have you seen him?"

"Alex, one more word full of bullshit and I will literally break your neck, I don't care how well you've trained it." Pierre growls.

Alex swallows uncomfortably, standing in the pitlane, when the others start lining up next to them. Max shields Pierre for some reason, hides him behind his big arms. Pierre wants to challenge everyone to say something about Charles's failing health and his eating disorder and his depression and waits for them to speculate that he did this on purpose. That he deliberately tried to take his life.

The worst part about it all is that Pierre probably knows almost as little as the rest of them even if he and Charles spent so long together as best friends. And he fears that whatever they have to say could turn out to be right, and Pierre won't be able to bear that one bit. Not the pain, not the guilt of not being enough to change how his best friend sees life.

Max and Pierre go to Max's driver room to await further instructions and updates on Charles's condition. They can't go to the medical center because they were told Charles is in a critical state. 

It's been forty-five minutes since the crash when Pierre's phone starts ringing, and he sees Arthur's caller ID. His heart leaps into his mouth as he picks up the phone. There's the sound of loud panicked heaving from the other side.

"He's... , Pierrot, He isn't... responding to any stimuli or breathing independently. His heart has stopped four times now. They can't do anything to save him and putting him on vent is useless because his low body weight means he can't be operated on. I wanna die, Pierre. I wanna die."

"Arthur, mon petit, stop spiraling. Max and I are headed to the medical center in a bit, he won't be alone." Even if Charles has repeatedly told Pierre he wants to die alone. Maybe he can stop him dying this way.

Arthur probably has no idea how similar he looks to a distraught Charles in the fall of 2014, and that of all things should tell Pierre that realistically, there is no chance Charles can make it out. Pierre takes the boy (for he will always be a boy, no matter that he is now racing for Williams in their Formula One livery) in his arms.

"Oh Pierre, will he make it out alive?" Arthur asks, voice shaking so much, it tugs on Pierre's heartstrings, and he pulls him even closer, hugging tight.

"I don't know, bebe, I don't know. I'm hoping he will."

"And if he doesn't? What am I supposed to do then?"

It really, really makes Pierre sick to his gut that they've all accepted that he's not gonna make it, but it's also the sort of truth that's unbearable.

So, it's really no surprise when they tell them all the time of death, but Pierre still sobs with Arthur, with Max, with Alex and Carlos and Lando and George.

They watch as the news travels through the place and everyone tries hiding their tears, because everyone knew the man who left today in some capacity, and every one of them is remembering and mourning one moment or another of beauty and kindness and love that he who couldn't see his own beauty or be kind to himself or love himself had shared with them.

Arthur goes inside the medical center to see his dead brother. Even though he knows he’ll be haunted for the rest of his life, Pierre joins him; whatever happens, Arthur is still a kid, Charles was still the older brother he had always looked up to. Pierre goes into the room. They haven’t done the whole covering him up thing, because Lorenzo is sitting there. Pierre reluctantly looks at the body on the bed. He looks softer, more peaceful than he ever did in life, and hesitantly, Pierre comes to terms with the fact that Charles was born to die.