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wastelandresident · 3 months ago

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Rescue / Lestappen

Charles can tell his friend is in an abusive relationship, so he makes up his mind to get her out of it. But a few months into having her in their home, he gets a little confused about his feelings.

Charles wasn't blind, he noticed the signs.

It all began with the way she interacted with her boyfriend when they were in public–she tried to look small, always looking apologetic as if she had done something wrong if he as much as looked at her way, and she seemed generally nervous every time he touched her. It wasn’t healthy, no woman should act like that in the company of someone they supposedly loved.

But then they met in a store, and the sleeve of her jumper slid up her forearm, revealing a bruise on her wrist that was unmistakably the sign of someone grabbing her with enough force to leave a mark. When she noticed the way he was looking at it, she quickly pulled down the jumper and said goodbye. It broke his heart, because she was so kind to everyone, she surely didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

The breaking point arrived at a party they both attended. She was wearing a turtleneck sleeveless shirt that covered up most of her neck, but he was looking at her at the right time and noticed the way she pulled away the neck of the shirt to rub her throat. It was bruised, purple marks showing the way she had been probably strangled by her boyfriend. It took every ounce of willpower not to confront the guy or her, so instead he went to find the only person he trusted with this in another room.

Max looked surprised when Charles grabbed his arm and dragged him away to a quiet corner, looking angrier than he had ever seen him. “What is it?” he asked.

“I’m going to kidnap her.” The Monegasque looked sure of himself, determined to do exactly what he was planning, but his boyfriend looked utterly lost and gave him a questioning look to get him to tell him who exactly he was talking about. “Y/N. There are bruises on her neck! We can’t let her stay with him, we have to do something.”

“And how exactly are you planning to do that?” Max wondered, honestly interested in the plan–if he even had one.

This seemed to make him stop and think. The wheels were clearly turning in his head as he thought about it, probably going through dozens of possible conversations and scenarios. “I’ll spill my champagne on her, then I’ll ask Kika to help her in the restroom. I’m sure another woman helping her wouldn’t ring the alarm in her boyfriend. Then I’ll go into the restroom, talk to her, and convince her to come with me.”

The Dutch raised an eyebrow at this. “And?”

“And what?” Charles asked, looking confused.

“You get her to come with you,” Max began to explain, keeping his tone firm, but kind. It wasn’t condescending, yet his boyfriend knew it perfectly well it meant he had his doubts about his idea. “To where? And what then?”

“To our place, obviously.”

“Without asking me?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m asking you now.”

With a sigh, he folded his arms over his chest. “Okay, she comes with us. How will she start a new life without leaving Monaco? I’m sure she’ll meet him again sooner or later, and who knows what he will do then.”

“Then she stays by our side and we will protect her,” he replied, sounding utterly confident.

“Charles.”

This drew an annoyed huff out of him. “What? We can’t leave her in that relationship! She’s obviously afraid to leave him. Let’s help her,” he tried.

The thing is, he was perfectly aware of the fact that Max was smitten with him and always had a hard time saying no. So, when he let out a defeated sigh and ran a hand through his neatly combed hair, he knew he won. “Okay, fine. Pierre and I will keep her boyfriend occupied while you and Kika deal with her,” he said.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile before leaning in to give him a quick kiss on the lips.

Max took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Try not to screw it up. The last thing I want is a fist fight with her boyfriend.”

“It will be fine. I'll give you a call when we're far enough.”

“Okay, good luck.”

Knowing he had help, he was becoming more and more sure of the success of this mission. They looked for Pierre and Kika to quickly fill them in, and while the other two men left to mingle with the group Y/N’s boyfriend was chatting with, Charles was busy picking up a glass of champagne with his partner in crime before heading out to find her. She wasn’t hard to spot, and they didn’t hesitate to walk her way with wide smiles on their faces.

Kika was ready to do most of the talking, acting like it was her idea to find her, and after a few minutes of pleasant conversation, Charles finally found the perfect reason why he poured his champagne at her in the face of a poor guest who happened to bump into him. With an exaggerated move, he acted like he lost his balance, and the champagne flute turned her way just enough to spill the drink on her shirt. She looked a little distressed, and they looked at each other for a moment before she started to panic.

“It’s okay, why don’t we go to the restroom and clean it up? It’s no big deal. I’ll help,” Kika offered with a smile.

She looked uncertain for a moment, but then she agreed and so the two of them left. Charles waited a minute, but then he went after the girls, not bothering to check if anyone saw him enter the ladies’ room. The panic in Y/N rose to an even higher level, but he was quick to raise his hands to calm her down. “Don’t freak out, I just wanted to talk to you in private.”

“I don’t think… It’s not… He’s gonna–” she began, her voice broken and terrified.

Kika gave him a worried look, finally understanding how bad the situation was, and Charles didn’t hesitate to move over to her. “It’s okay, Max and Pierre are making sure he’s occupied. Look, I saw your neck, and I remember seeing that handprint shaped bruise on your wrist a month ago, and I’m not blind, I can see the way you act around him. Is this really how you want to live your life?”

“He’s not that bad, it’s just that sometimes he has a bad day, and–”

“Y/N, please,” he tried. “Leave him. If you come with me now, you can hide at our place and we’ll figure out how to get you out of this relationship for good. We’ll protect you, okay?”

She gulped loudly, then she licked her lips as her eyes moved over to the other woman, as if she was waiting for someone else’s opinion. “I know it’s hard to leave, I know you must be afraid, but we’re here to help. Nothing will happen to you, we promise,” she said with a kind smile.

Charles’ heart broke when he heard her talk about how she shouldn’t do this, how she shouldn’t doubt that he loved her, how impossible it was to start a new life, but he didn’t give up, he kept telling her it would be okay, and eventually they managed to convince her to go with them. So he left, moving to the elevator to get to the parking garage, while Kika and Y/N followed him a few minutes later. Once he noticed the two women approaching the car, he sent a message to Max to tell him they were leaving, and he got into the car with the damsel in distress.

The car ride was silent–the kind of thick and heavy silence that felt like being wrapped in a weighted blanket. It made Charles nervous, forcing him to wonder if it was even a good idea, if her boyfriend would put the pieces together and confront them. But even if that happened, he was just some random guy from a rich family, someone his parents ignored most of the time. No connections, no fame. Him and Max? The whole world knew who they were, and there were F1 fans everywhere, he was sure he could pull a few strings to get the guy out of the picture eventually.

The silence was broken by her heavy sigh, one that drew a questioning hum out of him. When he briefly looked at her, she bit on her lower lip and gulped, eyes shiny from the tears she was trying to hold back. “I only have my bag with me, but I don’t have any spare clothes or… I should just go home. I will tell him I didn’t feel well, but I didn’t want to bother him either,” she mumbled as she unlocked her phone, clearly ready to either message her boyfriend, or call him to apologize for leaving.

Charles slowly reached out and gently put a hand on her wrist, making sure he didn’t startle her. “I’ll give you something to sleep in, then tomorrow I’ll go and buy you some new clothes with Kika, okay? And if you need anything else, just write a list, we’ll get everything,” he assured her with a smile.

“This is too much, if he finds out I left…”

He squeezed her hand a little, hoping this gesture could make her focus on him. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re safe with us, and we’ll figure out what’s next.” She nodded, then looked out of the window, lost in her thoughts as she watched the buildings pass by. Taking a deep breath, he considered whether or not he should ask what was on his mind. But his curiosity was stronger than his common sense, so he went, “How long has this been going on anyway? Him treating you that way, I mean.”

She turned to him with a surprised look on her face, but then her gaze shifted to her hands that were anxiously gripping her dress. “It’s not like that, he’s not a bad person,” she muttered.

“Y/N, come on. No one should treat you like he did, you deserve much better than someone like him,” he said softly, forcing himself to stay calm.

“Do I?”

This was like a slap across his face. It wasn’t some hopeful question as if she was trying to figure out if she truly had a chance to find someone better. Instead it was something sadder, more depressing, a question that told him she didn’t think she was worthy of being treated better than that. He had known her before she started dating her boyfriend, he knew how different she had been back then, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pinpoint the time when things changed so drastically for her.

“Yes, you do,” he assured her.

Two hours later she was curled up under the comforter in the guest room, hopefully sleeping peacefully, but most probably crying and thinking about her escape and the possible consequences. Charles didn’t want to bother her, after all he had assured her that if she wanted to talk, or if she needed company, he would be in the living room. Max arrived half an hour after them, but they agreed not to talk about her before they were sure she was asleep, because the last thing they wanted was her overhearing their conversation. So he sat in the simulator, occasionally checking on his boyfriend since he wasn’t streaming at the moment.

Once they peeked into her room and made sure she was asleep, the two of them discussed what to do now. Charles wanted to buy her the essentials the next day, inviting Kika to make it less suspicious, then he also wanted to find her a therapist, because after their conversation in the car he was sure she could use it. Max was okay with everything, but there was one little issue that had to be talked about: the upcoming race weekends.

He didn’t trust her judgment enough to leave her alone in Monaco, afraid she would go back to her boyfriend despite their best effort to help her, but Charles had thought about that too and already sent a message to the right person at Ferrari to get her a pass for the triple-header.

Three months later things seemed to be a lot better. Charles could see the woman she had been before picking the wrong partner, and while she insisted on finally moving out after selling her old apartment and buying a new one that her ex didn’t know about, the Monegasque was usually against the idea. They had settled into a comfortable rhythm together, and he didn’t feel like letting that go just yet. Max thought differently, he tried to convince his boyfriend that she wouldn’t be that far away from them, they could meet whenever, and she could even go to some of the races with them, but it was futile.

“Are you ready?” Charles asked as he stopped in front of her room, his fingers playing with one of his bracelets as he looked at her.

Picking up her jacket, she walked over to him with a big smile. “Yes, we can go now.”

Since Max left the day before to film another challenge with Red Bull, it was just the two of them until Charles also had to travel to the next race, and he wanted to use this time to have fun with her. The two of them had gotten close in the past months, reviving their friendship that was lost because of her past relationship, but things weren’t weird, the conversations were effortless and lighthearted, and some even confused their banters with mutual flirting.

Deep down Charles knew he shouldn’t get this attached to her. There was something about the rumors, about the occasional articles that included photos of their nights out, that made him think about what exactly he was doing. Max never complained, he never said a word about this, but he could tell it bothered him. And he had every right not to like it. Yet every time he looked at her, he remembered that small crush he had had on her back in the day, way before he and Max got closer than expected.

“What got you thinking so hard?” she asked with a small smile as they sat in his car in the parking garage.

He got so lost in his thoughts that he completely forgot how to function, so he just sat there in the driver’s seat and stared out of the window. It was only her voice that brought him back to reality, and he turned to her with a sheepish smile. “Nothing, I just… I don’t even know.”

The Monegasque fell silent, his head full of questions and ideas, but once again he got lost in the noise. He didn’t even know what he was doing until he felt his lips being pressed to hers, a hand instinctively moving to the back of her head to keep her close. At first, she returned the kiss, but then she placed a hand on his chest and gently pushed him away, her eyes wide from the confusion.

“Charles, what are you doing?” she asked quietly, her hand covering her lips as she leaned against the door to be as far from him as possible.

“I have no idea,” he admitted with a sigh. “Look, I’m sorry. I crossed a line I shouldn’t have.”

But she just shook her head, chest heaving from her panicked, heavy breathing. “No, it’s–it’s my fault. I really need to go,” was all she said before quickly getting out of the car and heading to the elevator.

Charles cursed under his breath for being this stupid, then decided to follow her so they could sort this out like adults. He had to wait for the elevator to return, but he could only hope she went back to the apartment, and didn’t leave the building to go for a late night walk alone. Five nerve-wracking minutes later he was finally inside his home, moving to the guest room without hesitation since the lights were on. And when he looked inside, he found her packing a suitcase.

“Y/N, don’t do this, let’s just talk about what happened,” he tried, but she only shook her head at this. So, with a sigh, he walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder to make her look at him. “I’m sorry, okay? I–I don’t know why I did it, but I know it was a mistake. Just don’t blame yourself, it’s all on me,” he clarified.

“I shouldn’t have… I think I just shouldn’t have been so nice to you, I should have kept my distance, I should have moved out a long time ago,” she said, already sobbing. “It’s definitely my fault, I’m sorry.”

It was only now that he realized she was terrified. She was back to that woman she had been a few months ago, the quiet scaredy cat that alway assumed she had done something wrong, and who expected some kind of punishment for it. “Hey, look at me,” he said softly as he placed a finger under her chin to tilt her head up. “I was the one who kissed you, not the other way around. I’m the one to blame, not you. Do you really want to move out?” She nodded, her cheeks wet from the tears that kept falling. “Alright, I… I guess I will help you move, okay? Will you let me do this?”

Shaking her head, she let out a sigh. “I’ll call a friend to help, if you don’t mind him coming here. I’ll see if he can jump in tonight. The sooner the better.” Charles licked his lips as he watched her, his green eyes focused on her, taking in every little movement that could tell him about how she felt. It looked like she truly felt better now, her mind made up about the plan. “Please?”

He nodded, knowing perfectly well there was no reason to fight. “Sure, sure, it’s okay. I just… Weren’t the three of us good here? I like what we built up in the past months and–” he began, but was interrupted by her putting a hand on his arm.

“Max will be thrilled that I’m out, believe me,” she said with a sad smile. “And I need some space. I need to be away from you, I need to clear my head. Maybe one day we can talk again, but that… I don’t know, it seems a little far away.”

His chest tightened at the thought. Did she really want to leave for that long? Was she really planning to avoid him? It was worse than he thought, and he didn’t think he could let her go so suddenly. Maybe he had feelings for her. Not the same ones he had for Max, but still, he had a soft spot for his friend, something that could be a little confusing. With a sigh, he took a few steps back and ran a hand through his hair as he thought. Maybe she wasn’t the only one needing a little time.

When she saw him nod and leave the room, she made a phone call that he partially listened to, so he knew she called that friend of hers. Then she returned to packing her things, and he could do nothing but sit on the couch and stare at his phone. Should he tell Max that he had kissed her? Or should he only say that they agreed she would move out tonight? In the end, he decided not to cause drama. It wasn’t like there would be anyone between the two of them after the kiss. It didn’t mean anything. It was just a mistake. Something that would never happen again.

#lestappen #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #f1 x reader #f1 x you #formula 1 #f1 #max verstappen

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wastelandresident · 3 months ago

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Lovesick / MV1 & CL16

She was his first love, but then they drifted apart. Now her relationship with his greatest rival is revealed after their sex tape leaks. Max is looking for closure.

When she joined Ferrari a few years ago, Max was happy to have her around again. He imagined things would be back to how they used to be, with the two of them hanging out as much as they could, this time reminiscing of their younger days. The days when his frustration disappeared the moment she flashed a sweet smile at him, when his heart went crazy from feeling her gentle touch on his cheek. But she was so focused on her career that she barely had time for him, and eventually he decided to take a step back and wait for her to come around.

But she didn’t.

And then, out of nowhere, it was announced that she would become Charles’ race engineer from the following season. He was so proud of her, yet he had no chance to tell her that. As strange as it was, despite spending so much time in the same paddock, his mother talked a lot more to her than he did. She was the one who told him how happy she was, how she couldn’t wait to start in her new position, and it was also her who mentioned that the poor girl was scared as hell because she didn’t want to disappoint the Tifosi.

There was no reason to worry as it turned out. The first season was full of playful banter and casual jokes between her and Charles, something the Tifosi appreciated very much, leading to the mutual decision that she was their precious princess next to the prince of Monaco. And then this year their communication changed, blatant flirting appeared in the short radio messages, making millions of fans lose their minds.

And every time Charles is seen with her, they are always looking at each other with a fond look in their eyes. It’s a look Max has known so well from his younger days, when her big, bright eyes were watching him with this same fondness in them. These days he’s happy if she even glances his way, and this isn’t because she ignores him, she’s just a little too busy being friends with literally everyone but him. They talk properly like twice a year, but even those meetings are brief and awkward.

Max knows that it’s probably his fault. He’s not happy to see her and Charles getting closer and closer, which probably radiates from him and keeps her away. And now that he saw their little sex tape? He just wants to scream into the void and curse the universe for this cruel joke. The universe is laughing at him, he knows that. Seeing his greatest rival do the things he wants to do with her is painful.

Sometimes he wonders if she knows how much she means to him. If she even suspects that her number is saved under the name loml. Groaning, he picks up his phone and opens the chat with her, hoping she’s still awake to see it. He can’t wait until having the chance to meet her at the track, he wants to talk to her right away. So he asks her if she can talk, if he is allowed to call her now.

After a few messages sent back and forth, she eventually agrees to talk to him, and he finds himself worried about how this will go. But he can’t back out now, he needs to get some answers. Yes, he’s drunk, that’s why he suddenly has the courage to tell her the truth about his feelings, taking a huge risk knowing she’s in a serious relationship.

“Why him?” he asks her not more than half a minute into the conversation. She’s confused, having absolutely no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s ready to give her all the answers she’s looking for. “Why Charles? I’ve been trying to get through that wall you built, but you make it impossible to approach you,” he blurts out before taking another sip of his drink.

There’s heavy silence on the other end of the line, and after a while he begins to think she will end the call without saying a word. But then he hears her let out a long sigh before speaking up. “What do you want me to say, Max? When I came to F1, you were in a relationship. You seemed happy and madly in love, who was I to get into the picture? And what was I supposed to do anyway? Get on my knees and beg you to choose me? Thanks, but I have dignity,” she explains.

His breath catches in his throat. “But then I broke up with her, so why did you keep your distance?”

“I don’t know, I kinda forgot about my feelings for you. Look, is there anything else? Charles is waiting for me.”

That’s all he wants to hear. Maybe this won’t give him the closure he was seeking, but it was a small step towards it. Time can help. Time can heal his heart. Time can give him the chance to recruit his mother and hope she would be willing to help him win you over.

#max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you #max verstappen #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #f1 #f1 x reader #f1 x you #formula 1

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