yes hello i neeed to know more about the retirement fic!!!!! im so sat!! some good feelings realization decade long yearning middle aged yaoi always gets me i cant lie
Helloooo!! So here’s the structure:
• Max wins his 6th WDC in 2028. The following year, Charles wins his first WDC, and in 2030 Max takes his 7th WDC and retires. In 2031 and 2032, Charles wins his 2nd and 3rd WDC back-to-back and then retires as well!!
In the present, they are both 35 years old and, canonically from the year we know, they’ve been living in the same building all this time! After his retirement, Max of course tries different things related to driving, but Charles, with the emptiness and suffocating sense of meaninglessness he feels after retiring, doesn’t touch anything at all.
The beginning of the fic is almost entirely dedicated to Charles’ sense of being lost :(( Then one day he runs into Max in the building, and he goes like: “Oh, Max!” He looks at Max and he’s so alive, so fit, so… present. For a long time Charles thinks about why retirement hasn’t hit Max the same way it hit him.
After that encounter with Max, they start talking again (because like… hello!! Charles suddenly remembers Max’s existence #lol). As their conversations deepen and eventually reach the topic of “retirement,” which constantly pokes at Charles’ chest, their relationship grows stronger. Let’s say they slowly start becoming closer, returning to their old friendship from their F1 days.
And then one day, Charles invites Max on a trip he’s going on with his friends (the trip is organized by Arthur, because “I know you well enough to know you’re not having a midlife crisis, Charles, and fine, if you’re not going to talk to the psychologist Joris recommended then you’re going on that damn trip”). Charles decides to invite Max to make the experience more fun and bearable! And basically everything happens during that trip.
The feelings Max has been holding for God knows how many years start rising from the depths toward the sunlight of Charles’ smile.
And Charles is like: “Oh. Max. Retirement really made him something? Look at how his body has filled out. He’s very gentle too. And kinda hot—WAIT. what did I just think about Max??” He slowly realizes that he might have actually had a crush on Max since childhood, but never acknowledged it (#lol).
From that point, Charles falls in love with Max, and Max starts remembering that he’s in love with Charles again!!
(And ehem, at the end of the fic I’m thinking of making them teammates at Le Mans because Max will fuel both Charles’ love for him and Charles’ love for driving!!)
