supervillain domistique

It's still raining when he arrives at his destination, not uncommon for northern Belgium, but the doorstep is fortunately big enough for Charles to close his umbrella. He fixes his hair, then pulls out his phone to double-check the apartment number of Max's address.

E3, right. He rings it.

"—eeft waarschijnlijk het verkeerde appartement gebeld." The crackly audio makes the Dutch even less intelligible, but he still recognises Max's voice.

"Max? It's Charles," he says. "—uh, Leclerc. You should've gotten an email from the publisher about me coming."

There's a loud sigh from the other side, then the blip from the intercom being disconnected, but the front door clicks open.

He's long known just how difficult a client Max is, so he doesn't even get upset at his rudeness. Very different from their earliest work interactions, when Charles was a freshly hired acquisitions editor and Max a first-time author, and Charles was sure that there couldn't be a more uncharismatic, arrogant person to work with. It was through the years working together that the demanding personality became more of a welcome challenge than anything.

The door marked E3 swings open before he can knock, cutting his thoughts short.

Max looks like he's not slept at all, his blonde hair spikey like a little porcupine. He's in shorts and a white shirt that's slightly wrinkled, and he's got a headset looping around his neck. Charles would love to think that he's been writing and was too deep in the zone, but he's got the impression this is most likely to do with video games—Max had once mentioned that he loved to sim-race and play Minecraft.

"Charles?" Max asks, voice raspy.

They blink at each other, both weirdly caught off guard.

For Charles, it's just that…Max Verstappen hasn't ever been one for style or put-togetherness, but this version of him is a more devastating version than any other he's been privy to. Too domestic, even vulnerable, maybe? He sweeps away his own thoughts.

"Max, hi. Can I come in?"

"Yeah."

The door closes behind him.

The apartment is not what Charles expected. Having lived in Monaco his whole life, he's used to more natural light—even in smaller apartments. Instead, the living room is practically windowless and only illuminated with low-amber table and corner lights. There are also lots of plants, a wide bookshelf overflowing with titles, and two small cats napping on the sofa. It's cozy, almost like a Pinterest photo if it weren't for the fact that half the plants look like they're dying and that there are multiple empty Red Bull cans on the coffee table.

"Do you want—" Max starts, gesturing vaguely toward the kitchen.

"Please," Charles says, before he can finish the offer. "Water or tea. I travelled more than thirteen hours, and I think the last time I had water was when my train arrived in Paris."

Max nods and leaves, so Charles takes the opportunity to set his bag down on the floor and take a seat on the couch. He's careful not to rouse the cats.

Not even a minute later, just as he's taking out his laptop, Max reappears with two mugs and sets one down in front of him. He informs Charles it's masala chai, and seats himself on a small stool across from him with his own mug cradled between his hands.

"So," He says. "Fred sent you."

"Fred is worried," Charles begins, tries to put it diplomatically. "Three deadline extensions, the last one four months ago."

"Yeah."

"We're well past the point where I can keep—"

"I know," Max says, looking away. He probably wants to seem dismissive, but he ends up looking more like a kicked puppy.

Charles allows a moment of awkward silence to pass between them.

"Is it the saga?" he asks, more carefully this time. "If it's a question of where the story goes next, we can work through that. It wouldn't be the first time, and Sequitur Quodlibet is a loose 'series', it doesn't even have to be a follow-up thing."

Max fidgets with his hands, clenching and unclenching one hand's fingers over the other's back. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?" Charles asks. Another pause. "Max?"

"I don't want to write another one," Max finally says, flat. Something pressed down for a long time, out in the open now, deflated rather than burst. "The saga. I don't…I'm not interested in it anymore. I think that exploring it further would be a disservice to what we set out to do originally. I think it's done."

Privately, Charles had thought so as well, even from the moment they'd sent the final draft over to Silvia. But he knew that saying so would be going against Ferrari's interests—there was still money to be made, people who would buy two or three more books without fully getting bored, even with the unavoidable decline in quality from having exhausted what to say.

"Okay," He says. "So something new, that's fine, too. You've published over 15 books, all acclaimed, there will be little issue convincing Fred. You know this; you're a great author. My best author."

Max is looking back at him now, but his skin has gone blotchy, and his body language remains mysteriously shy. Charles still doesn't understand why he's looking so apprehensive, so he continues:

"My guess is you want a standalone? What genre are you thinking of? You've mostly written speculative sci-fi, but I think you'd do great at speculative historical or fanta—"

"You're right, I don't want to stay in the speculative space," Max says, through gritted teeth.

Charles looks up, raising his eyebrows at the force with which Max agrees to what he was saying. He finds Max staring very determinedly at the floor, as if he's about to be scolded.

"Right," Charles says slowly. "Then what space do you want?"

The tension and secrecy are bordering on ridiculous. Max would do well to remember that all of his shiny golden eggs are worshipped at Ferrari, and this one will be as well.

Max coughs, first, then ends up revealing: "Romance."

The admission catches Charles so off guard that he can't help but blurt out, "What?"

"I mean, literary fiction, with romance—as, uh, as a component." Max stutters out, and Charles feels bad for not controlling his reaction.

Charles is a professional. He has been an acquisitions editor and developmental editor for eight years. He has sat across from authors in the middle of complete creative reinventions, has talked people off ledges and onto entirely different continents of genre, and he has done most of it with equanimity. He has known Max—or known of Max—since their university years, even before Ferrari. He knows how to handle him.

So he reins in his disbelief and simply says, "Tell me more."

The embarrassment is, at last, wiped from Max's face. He looks almost annoyed.

"It's just. There's a story I want to write. It's—it's two people, and they know each other for a long time, and there's this." He stops. Starts again. "There's a tension. That neither of them does anything about. For a long time. And I want to write about what that does to people." He says it very quickly, in the manner of someone ripping off a bandage. "So. Literary romance. That's what I want to do."

Charles nods without thinking. "That's—genuinely interesting, Max. That's a strong premise."

"You don't have to say that."

"I'm not saying it to be nice, I'm saying it because it is." He is also saying it to be nice, but he does see it. When you read any of Max's books, the strengths are clear: his prose is always a living thing, sensory and pulling you down and under.

It would work very well with romance, too, and suddenly Charles yearns to know how Max would describe what love is like.

"Why are you embarrassed about it?" He asks.

"I'm not embarrassed." Max frowns slightly.

"Your neck is still red."

Max pulls his collar up with one hand in a gesture so reflexively self-conscious that Charles has to work not to smile. "It's a completely different audience. My readership isn't going to—will they follow me there? Maybe, but then people will think it's—I don't know."