Chasing cars || Max Verstappen x Charles Leclerc (lestappen)

It's all coming back to me now

"Are you ready?" The red headed nurse Kiki had asked them, they would now be turning off the ventilator Max had been hooked on for the last couple of days.
Jos and Sophie nodded as they looked at Victoria who also nodded though she wasn't looking at them. She couldn't.
Charles sat there rooted in his spot , unable to move, swallowing away a big lump in his throat.
"Charles?" Jos asked as he squeezed his shoulder.

Charles wanted to react but he couldn't, the unfamiliarity felt familiar somehow as he looked up he saw The room changing. As he saw Max morphing  into Jules laying in the hospital bed Max standing next to it gazing at him as he turned his head to the monegasque and softly smiled. "Don't worry about me lief, I'll be with Jules until it's time and you come back to me"
The monegasque felt his breath getting restricted. "Charles?" As he was brought back to the present the room shape shifting back to it's original state as Sophie nodded for nurse Kiki to go on.

As Charles saw her hands moving to the ventilator he panicked "NO! NO! STOP! JUST WAIT!" He exclaimed as he stood up wincing at the pain coming from his still bruised abdomen. The Dutchman's parents looked at him with wide eyes as Victoria let out a audible sob.

"I- I'm- I'm sorry, I just... I just" but he never finished as he placed his hand on Max's chest. Feeling the steady rise and fall underneath his. A soft thud against his finger tips as he sighed closing his eyes. Concentrating on the warmth.

"chérie, je ne veux pas te perdre, ne me quitte pas, je ne peux pas vivre sans toi!" (darling, i don't want to lose you, don't leave me, i can't live without you!)

When he opened his eyes again he nodded softly at nurse Kiki to tell her she could continue.
She turned off the ventilator before she removed the tube from his troath.

She then listened with her stethoscope and looked at the screens where Max still was connected to as she wrote something down on the chart.

As she sighed with a smile. "He's doing well, he is breathing on his own" and a mutual sigh of relief was heard in the hospital room. "This is good" she tried to reassure them. Especially looking at Charles. Afterwards she chatted a bit with the family before she left. "We come and check again in 30 minutes, if anything changes call us"

A silence fell over the room after she left and Charles could only look at his hand which he had intertwined with one of Max's. A feeling of shame and guilt washing over him. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made that about me..." he sighed as he tried to keep his eyes from crying. "He is your son, your family and- and I shouldn't interfere"

"FOR FUCK SAKE CHARLES ARE YOU STUPID OR WHAT!?" Victoria all of a sudden bursted out angrily at him tears streaming down her face. Now he couldn't help to look up perplexed he felt his body start to tremble as he made eye contact with her.

"YOU!" She said before she took a deep breath and lowered her voice. "You are his fucking family Charles, just like , just like you are our family..." she said as she whipped her tears away and went to sit next to Max's leg on his bed. Rubbing her right hand over her brother's leg as she took hold of one of Charles's hands with her left and looked at him.

"You are family Charles, and we all get how this brings back memories, just please don't apologise all the time!" Charles nodded at her still not sure off what to say. "And I'm sorry for my outburst but it is just all so much, I guess this had been building up inside of me... it's just all so unfair!" Victoria added sadly as Charles held out his arms to wrap her in a hug. An invitation she gladly took. Charles kissed her temple as they hugged. "You should also stop saying sorry, it's so understandable nothing about this is okay " he whispered softly. "We love you Charles" she sighed. And he smiled "I love you too"

As they parted Victoria was wrapped in the arms of her mum. He watched as she was cradled in her mothers arm.
Jos held out his arm to Charles too. "Come here son" and Charles let him self be wrapped in his boyfriend's father's embrace. "It will be okay, you know him, he is a fighter"

———————-

Charles sat on the chair next to Max's bed. "Honey, are you really sure you don't want to sleep in the hotel tonight?" His mother sighed as she watched her son. "No, I need to stay here" he told her.
Max's family had already left as they were in desperate need of some sleep, they hadn't gotten proper night rest since they got the call 2 days ago. And it wouldn't help Max if they all stayed there, exhausted. But Charles felt like he couldn't leave.

"You need to rest love, you need to heal!" She said as she rubbed her hand over her sons back as she held his shoulder. "I know but I can do that here, I can't rest if I don't know that he is alright... that-that he is still breathing"
"Okay" she sighed as she looked up and tried to blink away the tears that where forming in her eyes.

"I can't loose him mom... not him... not him too" he said and then he couldn't stop crying. All the emotions off the last two days catching up on him. The memories of his father, of Jules, of Anthoine. He couldn't loose Max too.

"It all feels so much the same as with Jules" he sobbed as his mother wrapped her arm around him and hugged him tight letting her own tears fall as well.
"Oh honey..." she kissed his cheeks before she placed her hand on it as she lowered herself to his hight to look him in his eyes.
"This is not as with Jules honey" as she caressed he thumb over his cheekbone. "Max has brain activity, and is off the ventilator ... he is breathing on his own... he is fighting" she tried to reassure and encourage her son.

Charles sniffled whipping his nose as he looked at his mother again. "But he is still not awake mom, I feel like - like I've been talking to his shell for days but he isn't there" another loud sob escaping him. "And even if he wakes up... wh-what... what if he isn't Max anymore?"
"Cherie..." she cradled his hair. "Max is strong"

"I-I know, but in the ambulance he told me I would be okay, what-what if he? If he felt subconsciously that he himself wouldn't be?"
"You got to keep faith Cherie, do it for him cause I know he's doing the same in there too"

After a while their tears died down. "And you know?" His mother started pulling back to look at her son again. Holding his cheeks between her palms "It's Max Verstappen we are talking about here, your boyfriend is the most sweet but also stubborn and headstrong person I've ever met!" She smiled reassuringly at Charles. "He's to stubborn to leave you here" though Charles's eyes were still sad a small dimple made it on to his cheeks with a little chuckle. "I guess you're right mum.. thank you" he sighed. As what his mum said sounded just like Max.

——-

As it came close to ten his mother left to sleep at the hotel coming back in the morning. Though technically he wasn't allowed to, nurse Kiki and night Nurse Marion had a soft spot for him so they let him sleep in Max's room. The presence of loved ones and talking could be heard by people in a Coma they had told him.

As Charles couldn't find his rest to sleep on the extra bed placed in the room he carefully climbed on to the Dutchman's bed.

Cuddling him close as he laid his head carefully on Max's chest, a sigh he didn't know he was holding leaving his lips as he heard the soft but steady thudding of Max's heart.

"Max, I need you, I love you, please wake up..." he said before he carefully placed a kiss on his cheek as he laid down again. Finally falling asleep.

That night as night nurse Marion came to do her rounds she saw the couple laying on the bed. She sighed as she grabbed the blanket from the couch as she placed it over the monegasque.
A soft whisper "goodnight" as she turned of the lights.