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Charles's quick step echoed in the Ferrari HQ’s empty corridors, while external noises of celebration muffledly reached his ears.
In his head, there was only one fixed thought: it was essential to find Carlos.
After Silvertone race’s ending, which finished with his teammate's first F1 victory ever, Charles was looking for him almost like a man looking for water in the desert.
Although he had already congratulated him on the track once the GP was over (he was the first person doing so), in front of the whole world, he needed to talk to him in private.
Away from prying eyes, Charles wanted to tell him what he had already said in all the post-race interviews: his own frustration with how things went shouldn't have affected Carlos's exceptional result in the least.
"Today Carlos won and I wish the press focus could be on him, not on my disappointment. I don't want my problems to steal the light out of his well-deserved first P1," were his words. And he stood by that.
Charles Leclerc was literally heartbroken about how his race had gone, but he was simultaneously the happiest person in the world for Carlos Sainz Jr.
After a while, he finally managed to find him: Carlos had locked himself in a room, away from everything and everyone, sitting on a white sofa. In hand, his cell phone and beside him, his trophy.
Charles opened the door and immediately knew what he was doing - he was reading the comments left on Ferrari social media accounts by fans who were angry about his Sunday race. Probably the kindest thing he had read was that he had stolen the P1 from his teammate and that he should have resigned from Ferrari team.
The sound of Charles slamming the door made Carlos jump. Then he looked at him with his dark brown eyes filled with tears and his mouth half open in surprise.
Charles walked over to him and literally snatched his cell phone from his fingers. His action surprised Carlos so much that he didn't even have the readiness to be able to hold it in his hands or to say something to make him stop.
"Why does Caco allow you to read Instagram comments? You don't have to do that!" he told Carlos angrily, throwing his cell phone on the sofa. The electronic device made a faint sound before remaining motionless like a stone on the white fabric.
Charles was so pissed off; he knew how devastating social media could be for a racing driver's mental balance. Those words would become stuck in Carlos' brain, and haunt him like ghosts. He had been there before, unfortunately. "I wanted to talk to you and here you are, depressedly reading words that come out from fucking strangers who pontificate from their sofa and who don’t know anything about us or what it means to be a Formula 1 driver."
His tone was terribly nervous, and he knew he was probably wrong in being so aggressive towards Carlos, yet... Charles was so temperamental. He always acted first, then he reflected on things. He listened to his gut and was extremely protective of the people he cared about.
And he loved Carlos in an incredible way.
The latter stared at him in shock, almost as if Charles had gone crazy - which was plausibly true -, and started talking to him with a dull and sad voice.
"They may be fucking strangers, as you say, but they are right about some things. The-"
Carlos didn't have time to finish his sentence. Charles stopped him with a burning anger; he wouldn't let him behave like that on the day of his first victory.
"I swear to God, I don't want to hear you talking shit," he told him walking away from the sofa and turning his back to him, towards the door. Almost if he could stop him from saying things like that.
He heard Carlos get up and approach him gently from behind, as if he didn't want to force him. "No, you have to listen to me now. I've always been used to being second choice, and that's a role I should resign myself to. Yet I have always fought against this inevitable fate of mine with tooth and nail. It has been like this since I was at the Academy with Max... and now it's the same with you."
Then he took a deep, shaky breath and continued talking to Charles.
"You are raw talent, you have an instinct that is incomparable to mine, I know that. But I'm skilled too, and I've polished my ability ever since I was driving karts. You have ease and power behind the wheel, I just have my hard work and my obsessive attention to detail on my side," he admitted with pain in his voice.
Charles knew that it wasn’t easy for any driver in the world to allow someone else to see him like that; vulnerability was a double-edged sword in their work environment. And he felt terribly guilty for being responsible for such an unwarranted inferiority complex.
"I'm not sorry I won, on the contrary… I'm very happy. But I'm sorry for you anyway, Charles," Carlos whispered in his low, hollow voice, catching his attention and spinning him to look him in the eye. Every time he said his name in his beautiful Spanish accent, Charles felt like he was dying.
In a good or bad way, it depended only on the unpredictable days they lived.
"I'm so regretful I couldn't have you on the podium with me today. I wanted to turn from the top step and see you next to me. I wanted you with me... you were faster than me and you didn't manage to reach P3."
Carlos's voice sounded so disappointed that Charles almost tasted a bitter taste in his mouth. So he took him by the shoulders, squeezed him tightly, and let his tongue express his thoughts without hesitation.
"Look, if I don't win, it's not your fault. If I lose points, it's not your fault. We are not the ones who decide the strategies we implement during the race. And luck is an unpredictable factor to always keep in mind. If people don't like you because you win, well - those aren't real tifosi."
Then he walked over to him and rested his forehead on Carlos's, inhaling his smell hard. His tapered pianist fingers immediately went around Carlos’s tanned neck, wrapping it delicately.
Charles clearly felt Carlos’ blood rushing under his skin, the energy pumping constantly from his heart with every breath. It was incredible to feel him so alive under his own touch, especially after the terrible accidents that occurred on the first lap that Sunday.
"You and I are a team, never forget that," he began. "Sure, you are my first opponent, I would always like to overtake you and finish in P1... but, at the end of the day, you and I are on the same side. Our balance is very complicated, I am struggling right now and I feel split in half like you. But I would never change a thing between us."
Carlos tried to open his mouth to reply, but Charles literally blocked him with his index finger.
"You didn't do anything wrong today, you were perfect. You did everything you had to do as my teammate, you even let me pass when the muretto asked you to. Everything else that happened and hurt me today is unrelated from you. It's not your fault, cram this idea into your stubborn brain!" he asserted firmly.
He would get those words into Carlos’ head at any cost, even by shaking him and yelling at him, Charles thought.
Then he looked into Carlos's stunning dark eyes, clouded by a hint of sadness, and stroked his cheeks to comfort him. He really couldn't help but do it, it was a natural instinct like breathing or driving.
"You're the only one who thinks so. They are slaughtering me everywhere, in all the languages of the world."
Then Carlos leaned on his right palm, with eyes closed, almost as if he were a child seeking consolation from an irremediable mistake. Which was absurd, since he had just won.
But he was so stunning that Charles felt his heart melt in his chest as if he were ice cream under the sun.
"Well, you should care more about my opinion, right?" he asked rhetorically. Carlos shook his head - maybe he was finally understanding what Charles had been trying to tell him for minutes. "You have no idea how ecstatic I am about your first win. I would have taken off your fucking helmet in front of everyone and I would have kissed you in the middle of the track with joy. You deserve it, for fuck's sake, because you are an amazing driver, you just proved it... Ferrari hadn't won here in Silverstone for over ten years. Do you realize what a feat you have achieved?"
Then Charles took a deep breath and told him what was most important to him. "Do you realize how many wonderful things you have done for me since I've known you, on and off the track?"
But Carlos laughed sadly at his words, as if he were a clown from the Monte Carlo circus. That sound broke Charles's heart into a thousand pieces.
"Sure. I hinder you, I steal your victories, I slow you down, I'll make you lose WDC, I don’t help you because I am just a jealous selfish driver who doesn’t know how to play as a team," he declared with a voice so low it seemed almost feeble.
An incredulous expression was painted on Charles's features. His green eyes flew open and he pronounced the most scandalized "What the fuck are you saying?!" ever said in his entire life.
"Are you listening to yourself, Carlos? Ask Lando if you haven't been able to play as a team. Ask McLaren, since they owe you a WCC’S third position in 2020. Ask Ferrari. Ask Mattia. Ask me!"
Carlos replied immediately, with a hint of irony that foreshadowed his return to his usual cheerful personality. "You can't answer objectively on that."
Charles laughed like a child at his objection. "Why? Because I am in love with you?"
Carlos took his hands and squeezed them tightly, as if he wanted to cling to him to feel perfectly still in the midst of the chaos of that contradictory and absurd Sunday.
"Exactly for this."
Charles squeezed Carlos’s hands very tightly in turn, then put his own on his waist and brought his body close to him, as if the force of gravity bound them together in an indissoluble way.
"I'd tell you the same things even if we were just friends and teammates, you know. You gave me back the joy of working together in a team. Knowing that you are here with me, an equal person with whom I can laugh and joke, made such a difference for me. If you don't believe me, watch any of our social PR videos to see how happy I am with you by my side, you dork," was his heartfelt confession.
Charles was baring his soul in front of Carlos, and he would do it again and again to make him feel better. At that moment, it didn't matter how bad he felt: he had to make Carlos feel good at all costs. Otherwise everything that had just happened at Silverstone would have been meaningless and his suffering would have been useless.
"You have no idea how unbearable was Maranello for me before your arrival. I said yes to Mattia to let you sign with Ferrari because I felt with certainty that we would be able to build something amazing together. And we are doing it... we are finally fighting for WDC."
Carlos' finally sincere laugh rang in his ears as if it were the most beautiful melody in the world.
"You are completely crazy. I won my first ever F1 race, I feel like I am the king of the world and a shit at the same time. Yet you have been comforting me for ten minutes... you lost because of me today, you should punch me in the jaw."
"Why should I do such a thing to you? Because you did the very thing for which we put our asses in a racing car, crazily risking our lives every Sunday? You won this race after a perfect weekend, with your first pole position ever. Suck it up, mon cher, I will never blame you for finally taking what you have wanted for so long," was Charles's passionate oration.
For him, Carlos was an indispensable piece of his heart, his work, and his world. He would never allow him such destructive behavior.
Meanwhile, Carlos pulled him close to him, making their bodies adhere completely. Their uniforms zips were open from the hips down; the fabric created a thick barrier, but neither of them cared about that.
"I finally got what I wanted for a long time... as I did with you, right?"
Charles felt all the blood rush violently to his cheeks. Oh God, he was turning Ferrari red!
"Like you did with me, yes, you idiot," was all he said before approaching Carlos's face and leaving him a small, delicate peck on his lips.
There would never be enough words in all the languages in the world to express the amazing happiness Charles felt everytime he was able to kiss Carlos’s plump lips.
The coup de grace was to admire the look crystallized in Carlos's eyes after their contact: he was looking at Charles as if he were the real trophy of his life, his real victory to take home.
And this knowledge made him feel like a schoolgirl with her first crush, despite the fact that he was twenty-four years old.
He loved racing so much; it was the thing he loved most in his entire life. But he also loved the person he was currently holding in his arms, and he knew he would go beyond all the limits for Carlos.
"Well, my winner, do you feel a little better now?" he asked softly.
Carlos finally gave him the first, real smile since they had been talking. "I admit it, mi amor, yes. I can't help it when you look at me like that. If you tell me certain things and I see your dimples on the sides of your mouth... you know I can't resist your dimples!" he joked, with serenity that ultimately overflowed from his voice.
The smile on Charles's lips was so bright that it probably could have rivaled the sun. He knew very well what Carlos’s proximity triggered.
He was a funny, bubbly person whose mission was to make him laugh and forget about everything else. The pressure, the pain, the mistakes... it was as if they vanished in front of him.
Charles was aware of having a unmanageable temper, but a hug from Carlos was always enough to restore that inner peace that very often felt missing in his life. That was why they worked well as teammates and as a couple - they were complementary in every single aspect.
Carlos was as calm and rational as Charles was impetuous and messy. Yet their differences, instead of separating them, had done nothing but unite them more and more over time.
Carlos’s presence was like a light that illuminated the many negative moments that he lived: Charles, more than anyone in the whole F1 grid, knew what it was to lose a father and dear friends.
He knew what it was like to have the salty taste of tears constantly in your mouth and not be able to get rid of it. He knew he always had a crater in his chest that threatened to break him into hundreds of pieces and he had to hold it at bay with all his might.
Perhaps that was the spring that pushed him to give his all as a driver. But every time Charles looked at Carlos, he knew that life could still surprise him positively.
Carlos’s outstretched hand was always ready to pull him out of the darkness that occasionally fell back on him and swallowed him like a sea of black ink.
His warm voice was always there to bring him back down to Earth, with that Spanish accent that had now become his favorite company when they played chess or rolled between the sheets.
He always had by his side his dark eyes to get lost into, his lips to lick and pepper with kisses, his comforting scent.
"Will you promise me that you will never spend a second of your time thinking about that online nonsense and will only dedicate yourself to the celebrations?" Charles asked him sweetly, squeezing his hips a little tighter than usual.
Carlos gave him a fake annoyed sigh. "Okay, okay, I'll do it! But only because you're asking me to. But know that in the next few days I won't let you sleep much... the winner here wants to be celebrated in many ways," he uttered with the most cunning expression Charles had ever seen on someone's face.
His innuendos would have made Charles’s skin perpetually red everywhere, from face to chest, if he wouldn’t stop that immediately.
Every time Carlos entered into his Smooth operator mode, it was terrible for Charles: his brain disconnected and he didn't understand anything anymore.
And the bastard knew what effect his Mediterranean casanova’s skills had on him. Sometimes it was dangerous to be the center of his attentions... now Charles felt such horrible heat, as if they were in Singapore or Abu Dhabi!
"We'll see," was all he could tell him - his throat went dry at the very thought of what they were going to do later. "Now let's get out of here. The winner must be acclaimed!"
Charles reluctantly broke away from Carlos - his body was like a magnet that never stopped attracting him. He clasped their hands, squeezed them with all the strength he had, and they finally walked out of the room together with the trophy, ready for celebrations.