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All things considered, even after winning the final race of the Formula One Season; Charles Leclerc really shouldn’t get black out drunk.
Of course, Charles didn’t have the forethought to consider possible side affects of getting black out drunk.
Charles had started the night with a simple whiskey, talking and joking with Lando Norris (who had placed 3rd) and the other Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz.
After a few drinks the rest of the grid, minus Oscar Piastri and the 2nd place winner, and now 4 time world champion, Max Verstappen; had arrived and began taking shots. By the time the first hour had passed everyone from the Grid had arrived, and they were all past the point of tipsy, certainly well on their way to becoming pissed.
It was at the hour and a half mark that the drinking games had started.
As Charles was already quite drunk, his hand-eye coordination was rather out of wack.
This, of course, resulted in him spectacularly failing at at least two of the drinking games, causing him to consume a large amount more alcohol.
He was now, well and truly, pissed.
It was then that the Monegasque bumped into Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda (who were also heading in the direction of plastered.)
They gave him the challenge of downing a Bacardi in one.
Charles, being too drunk to think better of it, accepted the challenge. (Really it was a wonder he didn’t throw up.)
All in all, by the time the four-hour mark rolled around, Charles (along with the rest of the Grid members.) was understandably, absolutely plastered.
I suppose this means that Charles couldn’t technically be held responsible for his following actions. However, as I pointed out earlier, it is entirely his fault as he should’ve had the forethought to not drink stupid amounts of alcohol.
Anyway, now you’ve all been caught up, lets get into the actually important part of the story.
Ж
The music was loud, bass thumped rhythmically.
Charles downed yet another shot, savouring the burn of the liquor.
He headed through the crush of partying people, who were variously chatting, dancing, and drinking.
Charles bumped into someone who turned to look at him. The man looked familiar but in Charles’ drunken state all he managed to think was, “Shit, he’s hot.”
The two men made eye contact, and something passed wordlessly between them. Charles went over to the bar and got two beers, before joining the familiar stranger on the balcony.
They stood in the warm night air and conversed about the race and racing related things.
As the stranger yapped about tyres Charles looked at him, only half listening. He stared, mesmerised, trying to deduce what colour the other man’s hair was. In most light it looked brown, but in some of the light colours flashing from inside the penthouse bar it looked blonde.
It was then that Charles realised that the guy had stopped talking and was staring back at him with dazzling blue eyes.
The atmosphere was electric, and as a new song started playing from inside they leant in simultaneously. The soft kisses they traded quickly descended into drunken making out.
Eventually the two paused in their fervent kissing and gazed at each other. They seemed to easily communicate through glances. The pretty blonde/brown-haired guy grinned suggestively at Charles, before grabbing his hand and half leading, half dragging him through the party and down to the street.
Ж
Charles awoke the next morning with a pounding headache. He slowly opened his eyes, groaning, and took in the unfamiliar hotel room in which he was lying.
Without moving Charles could tell that whoever it had been had already left.
He tried to sit up and felt a wave of nausea ripple through him. He scrambled out of the bed and almost tripped on his pile of hurriedly discarded clothes as he rushed into the bathroom.
He threw up a frankly ludicrous amount of alcohol into the sink.
He leant his head against the cool surface of the mirror, and tried to remember any details about who he had slept with.
After about thirty seconds of fruitless thinking he stopped, as all he had achieved in his attempt to jog his memory was worsening his already splitting headache.
He hopped into the shower, and allowed the warm water to run over him, washing away the sweat, vomit and *ahem*other bodily fluids, and soothing his aching muscles.
He got back into the clothes he’d been wearing the night before. His headache had been slightly alleviated by the warm shower.
As he was exiting the hotel room he was struck by a hazy memory of a stranger with aquamarine eyes. More importantly, Charles felt; was that it was a guy.
Sure, Charles was comfortably bi, but he still slept with women far more often than he did with guys.
He checked out of the hotel and felt blessed that the young woman at the desk didn’t recognise him. She did give him an odd look though.
Charles stopped at a corner store to buy some headache tablets and a bottle of cold water, he forwent food, as he’d be able to make himself something it eat when he got where he was going. (He also didn’t entirely trust the quality of the food that was purchasable from that little store.)
He decided to walk back to the hotel in which the rest of the Grid were staying, forgoing the use of public transport.
As he walked through the already bustling streets, more pieces of memory surfaced.
Spectacularly failing at drinking games, kissing someone blonde, all though his hair might’ve been light brown? (The persons face wouldn’t come into focus no matter how much he tried.), downing the Bacardi to the encouragement of Pierre and Yuki.
He reached the hotel and headed up to the aforementioned Frenchman’s room. (Pierre had given Charles the spare key, trusting he would keep it from getting lost.)
Charles entered the apartment-like room and saw Pierre crashed out on the couch.
Shaking his head fondly, Charles opened the little fridge in the kitchenette, and began preparing the both of them some food.
Charles had just sat down with some bacon and eggs when Pierre got up, hastily rushed into the bathroom to throw up, before walking back out and turning into the kitchenette. He blinked at the sunlight streaming through the window.
“Hey Charles.” He said, yawning.
“Hello, I made breakfast, there are some headache tablets on the bench.” Charles said, gesturing vaguely with his fork.
Pierre took a couple of tablets dry and sat down next to Charles.
The two ate in companiable silence for a while before Pierre remarked, “Fun night?”
On Charles’ confused look, the Frenchman gestured at the Monegasque’s neck.
“What?” Charles asked, confused.
Pierre raised his eyebrows and shot Charles a small smirk.
Charles got out his phone, ignored the 15 missed messages, and opened the camera app.
He swore as he saw the very obvious hickey just below his jaw. Cursing the politeness of strangers the Monegasque shot a half-hearted glare at his French friend.
Pierre laughed. “Guess there’s no need to ask where you went off to!” He grinned, “Who was she?” He asked.
“He,” Charles corrected absentmindedly.
“Okay, who was he?” Pierre asked, unfazed.
“I don’t remember.” Charles said honestly.
Pierre looked rather disappointed, before the clapped his hands together and said, “Could you wash up? I’m gonna go have a shower.”
“Good, because you stink.” Charles said, gathering up the dirty dishes, dumping them into the sink.
“Rude,” Pierre said, flipping him off as he went back into the bathroom.
Charles heard the hiss of water from the bathroom as he began methodically washing the dishes.
He settled into the monotonous task and allowed his brain to wander, his hands automatically moving to complete the repetitive task.
By now he had recalled enough slivers of memory to piece together a rough timeline of events at the party.
He’d arrived at the bar reasonably early, where he had drunk his first couple of drinks while chatting with some of the Grid members.
He remembered taking a god-awful amount of shots, and then failing miserably at drinking games.
He knew that after the games he’d downed a Bacardi, before stumbling onto the dancefloor, bumping into a (frankly beautiful) guy.
He’d then gotten a beer for himself and the guy, which they’d drank while standing on the balcony, looking down at the busy night activities on the streets below.
Charles felt as though the identity of the pretty stranger was on the tip of his tongue, yet for the life of him he couldn’t remember who it was.
The next thing that had occurred was that Charles and the guy had begun discussing something to do with Formula One, maybe tyres?
Charles felt a nagging suspicion that he was missing something important.
From there he and the blonde (brunette?) had made out, before stumbling back through the party, onto the street, and to the hotel in which Charles had woken up.
Charles finished washing up and dried his hands, leaving the plates and utensils in a neat stack for Pierre to put away. (Charles wasn’t his personal assistant after all.)
He walked over to the couch and began straightening pillows.
He spotted a black hoodie slung carelessly over the back of the couch. He picked it up.
It was a Redbull hoodie.
Charles turned to Pierre, who had just exited the bathroom, and raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“Oh, I picked that up at the party, it’s probably Perez’s or something.” Pierre explained.
Charles breathed in, a familiar smell washing over him. The awful realisation struck him like a ten-tonne truck.
“Shit. Fuck. You’ve got to be kidding me. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Charles swore.
“Uh, dude, you good?” Pierre asked, mildly alarmed.
Charles flopped dramatically onto the couch, allowing himself some melodrama in this trying time of realisation.
He held up the hoodie, and voice muffled he said. “This is Max’s.”
Pierre sat next to him, confused. “How can you tell? It’s not like it has a name tag.”
“It smells like his cologne.”
“O-kay? Why do you kno-“ Pierre stopped.
“Oh. Oh.”
“I recall who I slept with now.” Charles said bitterly.
“Shit. You’re joking, right?” Pierre said (without much hope.)
“I can’t fucking believe it. Max. Fucking. Verstappen. I slept with him. Of all people, why him??”
Charles stat up and looked at Pierre earnestly.
“Damn. What’re you gonna do?” The Frenchman questioned.
“Pretend it never happened?” Charles said hopefully.
“That is a terrible idea, and you know it.”
“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do??”
“Talk to him of course!” Pierre said as though it were obvious (which it was.)
“No. Absolutely not.” Charles refused.
Pierre sighed. “It’s your funeral mate.” He knew there was no point in trying to convince Charles to talk to the Dutchman.
Ж
Charles managed to successfully avoid Max for two months, (which to be honest, wasn’t much of an achievement, seeing as the Formula One season had ended.)
Unfortunately, Charles knew it would be impossible to avoid him forever. He had had at least hoped he’d have more time.
He got an unassuming looking email on an unassuming Tuesday evening, from the Ferrari PR team. Inside it detailed a press conference/interview on the upcoming Sunday, which all the Grid members were required to attend. There would be discussion about the previous season and the upcoming season of Formula One.
Charles sighed defeatedly and began mentally preparing himself for the weekend.
Sunday rolled around, and Charles rocked up at the interview place. It was lucky that most of the Grid members lived in Monaco, as it meant he didn’t need to fly to anywhere.
Charles hoped against hope that Max had taken ill and would be unable to attend.
He had no such luck.
The interview began, and he squeezed himself between the P3 and P4 placing racers (Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton.) He ignored the rather annoyed and confused look he got from Hamilton and prayed to whatever gods were out there and listening that he wouldn’t be required to move.
He was, again, not so lucky.
The interviewer asked if he could please move next to Max, so that drivers would be in the order that they had placed in the final race of the 2024 season.
Charles reluctantly moved next to the Dutchman. He pointedly avoided making eye contact with him (though from the corner of his eye he could see Max looking at him with barely masked longing.)
The benevolent beings of the universe seemed to take pity on Charles, and the first couple of hours or so of the interview did not require him to look at or talk with Max Verstappen. However, the mercy of the benevolent beings, unfortunately, only extended so far.
“Mr Leclerc, Mr Verstappen, there seems to be an odd lack of talking and interaction in general between the two of you. Has something happened to drive a metaphorical wedge between the two of you?” The interviewer asked innocently.
Charles looked at Max and was struck by just how pretty he looked. He swore to himself and cleared his throat, looking away.
He opened his mouth to respond and thought. “Yep, I am well and truly fucked.”