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Chapter 4 Is out! 😊

The next chapter should be up either tomorrow or the day after, and we’re going back to Max’s POV. This means we’ll get his first impressions of Charles First day (😏) plus Daniel, Alex, George and Oscar’s reactions to Charles’ arrival and the fact that he was assigned to max cell… and to Max not being subtle about his interest in him hehe 😏

Chapter 3 is out! Charles meets Sebastian, and then Max, hehehe!

A Little Snippet: “The way Max watched him was not what Charles was used to.

He had spent his life being looked at. Men looked at him and saw beauty first, name second, usefulness third, if they were clever enough to get that far. Some saw softness and wanted to ruin it. Some saw enough of the darkness to step away without understanding what had warned them.

Max looked at him as if beauty was only the door, and he had no intention of stopping there.

Charles’ hand twitched once at his side before he stopped it, but it was too late: Max saw.

In the space between one breath and the next, Charles decided there were two problems.

The first was that Sebastian had not exaggerated: Max Verstappen was dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with reputation and everything to do with the silence around him. The cell felt calibrated to his stillness. Even Vettel, standing at Charles’ shoulder, had become more careful since the door opened.

The second was that Max had already seen too much.Not everything. Charles would not insult himself by believing one glance could undo years of work. But Max had seen the shape of the lie. He had looked at Charles’ lowered lashes, his careful mouth, the fragile line of his shoulders beneath the prison uniform, and understood that none of it was accidental.

Sebastian said something beside him. Charles heard his own name and little else.

Max was still watching him.

The Monegasque put the mask exactly where it belonged and met his eyes.

Blue.

The air shifted in a subtle way. There was no dramatic silence, no foolish little instinct whispering destiny like something out of a bad novel. Charles didn't believe in destiny. He believed in work, blood, leverage, timing, and the occasional usefulness of beauty.

Still, something shifted.For one brief second, Charles forgot to look harmless.

Max’s mouth curved, barely.

So the chapter will be posted tomorrow instead!

We’re going back to Charles’s POV (I always alternate POVs chapter by chapter) and we’ll follow his arrival and first day from his side, including his first interaction with Max in the cell hehe.

Chapter 2 is out! 🏁💙

This time, we get a glimpse into Max’s life, and into the moments that shaped him into the person he is now.

Featuring Max meeting Daniel, Alex, George, Oscar, GP, and Kimi.

Hi guys!!!! Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll! The snippet about Max meeting Oscar won with 33%. Max meeting Daniel came very close with 31%.

Oscar’s scene is maybe the one with the least emotion, simply because Oscar is the hardest person to approach in Max’s group. But it’s actually a good choice, because there’s a part of the scene where it’s explained how Max met Daniel, George, and Alex. So you’ll get Oscar, plus a little spoiler about Max’s dynamic with the others.

Snippet:

Oscar was the last one to become part of his group.

He was already in prison when Max arrived. Nineteen years old, though people said he had been inside for two years, which meant he had walked into that place at seventeen and somehow survived long enough for men twice his age to learn not to bother him unless they had been given a reason.

At the beginning, Max had been alone. Daniel, Alex, and George were still outside then, still part of the world he had been taken from, and inside the prison Max had no one. That didn't worry him, of course, but it made things boring.

People watched him, like always. He was Jos Verstappen’s son, thrown into a cage by his own father, too young for some men to respect and already too dangerous for others to ignore. Max watched them back and found very little worth remembering.

Then he noticed Oscar Piastri. He was younger than Max by four years, with slightly long brown hair that fell too neatly around a face that looked almost too still, and dark brown eyes that gave away less than they should have. He was lean, quiet, and built in a way people mistook for harmless because he didn't waste movement trying to look dangerous.

That was what everyone said about him.

Quiet boy. Blank-faced boy. Barely more than a shadow, with an expression that gives nothing away.

Men who didn't know him called him harmless unless ordered otherwise. Men who had spent years around him called him difficult to read.

Max looked at him once and saw a blade laid flat on a table, waiting for the correct hand.

Oscar’s eyes were the important part. They catalogued the room with calm precision, moving from door to guard to camera to distance to timing, storing every movement around him as if the whole world was a problem that could be solved if he found the right angle.

Max watched him and thought, he has potential.

Oscar looked back with no fear but no challenge either, only a quiet kind of understanding, as if he had already worked out the same thing about Max and was simply waiting to see what he would do with it.

For one brief, foolish moment, Max wondered.

Oscar carried more darkness than Alex, George, or Daniel ever had; clean, quiet, patient darkness, the kind most men would miss until it was already too late. Max saw the violence tucked beneath the stillness and thought, perhaps this one is like me.

He understood later on that he was wrong.

Oscar liked control. That was where the pleasure lived for him: in precision, obedience, and the exact moment a body stopped being unpredictable and started answering exactly the way he wanted it to answer. Torture, death, silence, fear; all of it mattered because it could be managed.

Max could respect that.

For him, though, violence had never been only about control. Control was useful, but it was never the heart of the thing. Max wanted shape. He wanted consequence made visible. He wanted the moment when pain became meaning and everyone in the room understood exactly what had been created in front of them.

Oscar wanted only control.

Max wanted art.

That was why Oscar could stand beside him, useful and dangerous and almost familiar, and still never feel like an answer.

Still, almost familiar was more interesting than anything else prison had offered him, so Max tried to keep him close.

Oscar made that difficult at first.

Daniel had chosen Max over Jos. Alex had stayed when he could have left. George had been dragged into Max’s life by Alex and then, somehow, had made himself impossible to remove. All of them had taken the openings Max gave them, even if none of them would have described it that way.

Oscar avoided every single one.

A seat left empty beside Max remained empty. A question that could have become conversation received an answer so precise it killed the possibility of anything more. A useful job offered indirectly was completed perfectly and then returned without gratitude, obligation, or any sign that Oscar understood it had been an invitation.

He understood perfectly, and that was what made Max lose his patience at first.

He was used to people choosing quickly around him. Most men decided within minutes whether they wanted to run, stay, become useful, or become stupid. Max had grown good at reading the shape of those choices before they even opened their mouths.

Oscar was different. He watched longer, stood farther away, took every opening Max left him and inspected it from a distance instead of stepping through. At the time, Max mistook that for refusal. Later, he would understand it had only been caution from someone who had learned that closeness was never harmless just because it was offered.

For weeks, Max watched him move through the prison like a ghost with a pulse. Men knew not to touch him. The first one Max saw trying to grab his shoulder ended up with his wrist bent so badly he screamed before he hit the floor. By the way others laughed and told the man it had been a stupid move, Max understood it probably wasn't the first time.

He thought, at first, that it was about hierarchy.

Prison was full of men making statements with their bodies. A look held too long. A shoulder not moved in a corridor. A hand placed where it had not been invited. Violence was language there, and Oscar spoke it with careful fluency.

So Max made the wrong assumption.

He thought Oscar was drawing lines because he wanted everyone to know exactly where they were. He thought the broken bones were a demonstration, a clean little lesson delivered by someone who didn't like repeating himself. He thought, perhaps, that Oscar was refusing his invitations because he was waiting to see how far Max would go.

One afternoon, after a fight in the yard had left two men bleeding and Oscar watching from the edge like he had already calculated six ways it could have ended faster, Max walked up beside him.

“Are you avoiding me?” Max asked, curious despite himself.

Oscar glanced at him. “What makes you think that?”

Max almost smiled, though he managed to keep his expression neutral. “Don’t answer me with a question.”

The teen looked back at the yard. “Then don’t ask stupid questions.”

That was funny enough that Max let it pass. For a moment, they stood side by side in silence while the prison moved carefully around them, pretending not to watch. It had already started doing that around Max. He had been there long enough for people to understand that his quiet was not empty, and Oscar knew it too.

Still, he didn't step closer, so Max did.

It was deliberate, a test and nothing more. His hand closed around Oscar’s arm just above the elbow, firm enough to be noticed and light enough that it should not have meant anything beyond pressure, proximity, a question asked in the language prisons understood best.

Oscar reacted before Max had even finished the thought. His whole body turned sharp, hand coming up to break the grip, shoulder twisting, weight shifting for the angle. For half a second, it was controlled, precise and cold, exactly what Max had expected.

Then he saw his eyes.

The panic was hidden well enough that most men would have mistaken it for rage, small, buried and humiliatingly unwanted, gone almost as soon as it appeared. But Max had seen it, and in that instant he understood that he had made the wrong move.

A strange, unpleasant weight settled under his ribs. Regret, maybe. Max didn't like the feeling enough to name it properly, but it was there all the same, sharp and immediate, because he understood immediately that Oscar had not been challenging him those weeks. He wasn't refusing Max’s openings to prove a point or see who would break first. He only needed more time. He had been watching from a distance because distance was where he could still breathe, and Max had put a hand on him like an idiot.

The strike came.

Max caught it, moving before Oscar could turn the reaction into something worse. He used his weight and the wall behind them to pin him in place, one wrist first, then the other, quick and efficient enough that Oscar had no room to make the fight bigger. His breath hitched once, and though his face stayed blank, his eyes didn't.

Oscar went very still beneath his hands, the kind of stillness that belonged to someone preparing to survive whatever came next. For a second, Max could have done anything, and they both knew it. The younger man knew exactly what position he was in, how little room he had to move, how many ways Max could hurt him before anyone decided whether interfering was worth the risk.

Max saw the exact moment he understood it, and let go immediately, as if the touch had burned his hands.

He stepped back far enough that Oscar had space to breathe, move, and decide whether he wanted to break Max’s nose after all.

The yard seemed to hold its breath around them, waiting for one of them to turn this into something louder.

Oscar didn't move at first. Then he lowered his hands slowly, trembling, dark eyes fixed on Max with the first honest confusion the older man had ever seen on his face.

Max hated the way something twisted under his ribs. “I won’t do that again” he said, rougher than he meant to.

Oscar’s expression didn't change, but something in his shoulders shifted. “You touched me on purpose.”

Max’s jaw tightened. For once, the easy answer didn't come quickly enough. “I thought you were testing me.” He shifted his weight, irritated by the fact that he felt like he needed to explain himself at all. “I was wrong.”

That did something. Trust would have been too much, and Oscar was not stupid enough for it anyway, but something in his face shifted all the same. He looked at Max for a long moment, as if he had just handed him a piece of information that didn't fit anywhere in the system he had built to understand the world.

“You admit that often?” Oscar asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Max huffed, relaxing slightly at the way the other was trying to lighten the mood. “No. Don’t get used to it.”

This time, when Oscar looked away first, it didn't feel like avoidance. It felt like retreat, controlled and chosen.

Hi everyone 💕

First of all, I wanted to say thank you again to everyone who gave me advice before I posted the first chapter, and to everyone who has been supporting the story on AO3 with kudos.

The next chapter is going to be longer than the first one, because it works as a mirror of chapter one, but from Max’s POV. And with Max, there are a lot more relationships to explore before we begin. With Charles, the essential ones were Pierre, Lando, Jules, and the rest of his family as a whole, but Max’s side has more individual dynamics that I really wanted to show the heart of fromt he beginning.

I’m planning to post the chapter on AO3 on Friday, but before that I’d like to share a small snippet here on Tumblr tomorrow.

So… which scene would you like to read as a preview?

Max meets Daniel at 15

Max meets Alex at 17

Max meets George at 18

Max meets Oscar at 23

Max meets GP and Kimi (I’m putting them together because, separately, those scenes are shorter than the others.)

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Formula 1 RPF Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Max Verstappen, Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri, Background Alexander Albon/George Russell, background Andrea Kimi Antonelli/Oliver Bearman Characters: Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Alexander Albon, George Russell (Formula 1 RPF), Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Daniel Ricciardo, Gianpiero Lambiase, Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc's Family, Nico Hülkenberg, Liam Lawson Additional Tags: mutual obsession, Apex Predator Dynamics, Mind Games, Dark Charles Leclerc, Dark Max Verstappen, Possessive Charles Leclerc, Possessive Max Verstappen, Jail AU, Dark Romance, Prison Violence, Past Trauma, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri Side Plot, Dom Oscar Piastri, Sub Lando Norris, Power Exchange, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs Therapy, no one gets therapy, But They Do Get Hugs, Protective Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel Needs A Raise, Gianpiero Lambiase Needs A Raise, Kimi Antonelli is a menace, George Russell Is A Drama Queen, Alex Albon Loves Him Anyway, Nico Hulkenberg And Liam Lawson Try To Stay Neutral, Kimi Antonelli Ruins Everyone's Plans Summary:

Charles Leclerc has committed many crimes. The murder that sends him to prison is not one of them. Framed, isolated from his family, and placed in the cell of Max Verstappen, Charles intends to keep his head down, draw no attention, and survive until his brothers come for him. Unfortunately, Max takes one look at him and sees the monster beneath the mask. Even more unfortunately, Charles looks back and sees something just as familiar. They are two apex predators placed in the same cage. By every law of instinct, they should clash until only one of them is left standing. Instead, the prison watches in horror as they find the concept of folie à deux, madness shared by two, in each other. Neither of them expected to find it in a prison cell. That doesn’t mean they’ll look away.

Or:

Good news!!!! AO3 finally accepted my invitation request, which means I can post the prologue!!

Before I do, I wanted to ask something practical: what posting time would work best for you?

Please tell me the time you’d prefer chapters to go up and where you’re reading from / your time zone. I’m from Italy and I’d like to find a posting window that works for the people who commented and helped me here on tumblr.

While I wait for your answer, I thought I’d do something similar to the character sheets for the main dynamics/couples. Nothing too spoilery, just a little guide to the relationships at the centre of the story.

Couples Sheet

Lestappen

Max and Charles are the centre of the story and the reason the title is Folie à Deux.

They are two apex predators placed in the same cage, so they are supposed to recognise the threat in each other and turn the room into a battlefield. Max is territorial, blunt, and dangerous in ways everyone has already learned to fear. Charles is controlled, elegant, and far too used to turning himself into whatever shape a room expects to see. They should collide until one of them gives way.

Instead, they become fascinated (to put it lightly).

Max looks at Charles and sees the monster waiting under all that softness. Charles looks back and recognises something just as dangerous, though Max wears his violence in a different way.

Their relationship begins with observation and turns into provocation before either of them can stop it. They test each other through silences, small shifts in control, and a kind of intimacy neither of them would call intimacy out loud. The more they understand, the worse it gets, because neither reacts the way the other expects.

The obsession grows from that recognition.

That is where the folie à deux begins: two monsters who should have destroyed each other finding, instead, someone willing to look at the worst parts of them and find an equal (aka partner).

Landoscar

Lando and Oscar should make even less sense than Max and Charles.

Max and Charles, for all their differences, share enough darkness to recognise each other. There is common ground beneath the masks and the brutality: control, obsession, possessiveness, the instinct to protect what they decide is theirs no matter what it costs everyone else.

Lando and Oscar have almost none of that at first glance.

Lando survives through attachment, warmth, emotional intelligence, and a brightness that makes people forget how much grief he carries. Oscar survives through control, distance, silence, and the refusal to let anyone touch anything he has not chosen to give. Lando feels loudly even when he tries not to. Oscar feels in ways he has trained himself to keep contained.

Oscar’s need for control (Yes, Dom Oscar) comes from a place where control once meant safety. Lando’s need to surrender is tangled with devotion, and the terrible instinct to give too much of himself to the people he loves. What makes them work is also what makes them difficult: neither of them can approach intimacy casually.

Their relationship builds slowly because it has to. Every boundary matters, as does every moment of trust.

Where Max and Charles recognise each other almost violently, Lando and Oscar have to learn each other piece by piece.

Galex

Alex and George are already together when the story begins, and they are the emotional support couple of the fic in the most prison-appropriate, emotionally damaged sense of the phrase.

Their relationship is lived-in. They have history, routines, arguments they have had before, silences they know how to read, and a kind of devotion that no longer needs to announce itself. Alex knows how to soften a moment without losing control of it. George knows how to turn worry into structure, strategy, and occasionally a lecture no one asked for but everyone probably needed.

They balance each other because they have already made the choice the others are still circling around. Alex and George know what it means to stay. They know what it means to be afraid for someone and angry at them and in love with them all at once.

In a fic full of people being surprised by recognition, Alex and George are the proof that choosing someone once is only the beginning. The harder part is continuing to choose them, again and again, even inside a world built to make that difficult.

Bearnelli

Kimi insists that Ollie is his best friend, which would be more convincing if he did not talk about him like gravity might stop working without him.

Their story is more off-screen than the others at first because Ollie is not physically present for much of the fic. Kimi, however, is extremely willing to compensate for this absence by mentioning him whenever possible, providing unnecessary context, sharing details no one asked for, and acting very confused when people draw the obvious conclusions.

According to Kimi, this is all completely normal best friend behaviour.

Ollie is present in the story through the way Kimi talks about him: casually at first, then constantly enough that everyone around him begins to understand that the absence has weight. He is the person Kimi returns to in conversation, the name that makes him brighten, the point of reference he uses without realising how revealing it is. Kimi may not have the language for what Ollie means to him yet, but he gives himself away almost every time he opens his mouth.

Here we go with the character sheet, hoping AO3 accepts my request soon, because I keep rereading and changing the prologue and Chapter 1, and I probably won’t stop until I publish them xD

I also rewrote the summary for AO3, so I’ll put it there.

There are no love triangles in my story because I might like drama, but I also like the trope of “he is the only one for me” on both sides of a pairing. So yeah… Lestappen, Landoscar, Galex, and Bearnelli supremacy xD

New Summary, do not repost on other websites:

Charles Leclerc has committed many crimes. The murder that sends him to prison is not one of them.

Framed, isolated from his family, and placed in the cell of Max Verstappen, Charles intends to keep his head down, draw no attention, and survive until his brothers come for him.

Unfortunately, Max takes one look at him and sees the monster beneath the mask.

Even more unfortunately, Charles looks back and sees something just as familiar.

They had both spent their whole lives fascinated by the idea of folie à deux: madness shared by two.

Neither of them expected to find it in a prison cell.

Or:

A Lestappen jail AU where Max and Charles are two seconds away from making their mutual obsession everyone else’s problem; Lando falls embarrassingly hard for Oscar at first sight; Kimi is a menace with no survival instinct; Alex, George, and Daniel are just along for the ride; and GP and Sebastian Vettel are absolutely not paid enough for this.

Main Characters

Charles Leclerc

Age: 25 First appearance: Prologue Role: Main protagonist Pairing: Max Verstappen

Charles comes from a powerful organized crime family that controls Monaco. The Leclercs have the power to reach much further, but they choose not to, preferring to keep a low profile and remain almost unknown outside France and Monaco.

Charles does not agree with his family’s methods. The Leclerc way is quiet, clean and controlled: fast deaths, no spectacle, no unnecessary attention. Charles, however, sees death differently. To him, the death of an enemy can become a message, a warning, almost a form of art.

He is possessive, manipulative, patient and dangerously charming. Charles studies every situation carefully and uses his charisma to make people lower their guard, turning circumstances in his favour even when anyone else would have no chance.

His and Max view of death is loosely inspired by some conversations between Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter in the TV series Hannibal, specifically the idea of death as a form of art. Charles himself is not based on either Will or Hannibal.

Main relationships besides the pairing: Lando Norris is his best friend, Kimi Antonelli immidiatly attaches himself to Charles when they meet in prison. Charles is also deeply connected to his family, though the prison setting means he does not interact with them as often during the main story.

Max Verstappen

Age: 25 First appearance: Chapter 1 Role: Main protagonist Pairing: Charles Leclerc

Max also comes from an organized crime family. The Verstappen name is not spoken with the same reverence as the Leclerc name, but it is made clear in Chapter 1 that his father ran a large operation.

Max shares Charles’ view of death as something that can become art, but their methods are very different. Charles hides behind charm, masks and manipulation. Max is much more direct. Control matters to him, but he is not interested in pretending to be softer than he is.

He hides emotions that make him vulnerable, but he never hides his darkness the way Charles does.

Main relationships: Alex Albon, George Russell and Daniel Ricciardo are already part of his group before prison. Oscar Piastri meets him in prison and becomes his right hand. Kimi is not part of Max’s group and is more important to Charles, but Max protects him from the moment they meet.

Jos is mentioned in Chapter 1, but he does not appear directly in the main story. (heck no!) Victoria and his mom are not really present in Max's life.

Main Secondary Characters with their own POV.

Lando Norris

Age: 23 First appearance: Prologue Role: Main secondary character Pairing: Oscar Piastri

Lando comes from a family allied with the Leclercs. After his family dies in an enemy attack when he is fifteen, Charles’ father takes him in and brings him to Monaco.

He is one of the rare people who sees Charles’ darkness and never truly walks away from it. He does not always understand it completely, but even when Charles shows the monster inside him, Lando stays.

Lando is clingy, emotionally intelligent and deeply attached to Charles, almost as if Charles is his anchor. He uses a lot of physical contact and can be insecure because he knows he can be “too much".

Main relationships besides the pairing: Charles Leclerc, Daniel Ricciardo once they meet.

Oscar Piastri

Age: 21 First appearance: Chapter 1 Role: Main secondary character Pairing: Lando Norris

Oscar comes from an Australian organized crime family that is not connected to either the Leclercs or the Verstappens. He ends up in prison at seventeen and meets Max when he is nineteen.

He is the only person in Max’s group who meets him in prison rather than before it.

Oscar is quiet, guarded and difficult to read. His expression rarely gives anything away. He is cautious, controlled and hates physical contact because of past trauma. Control is extremely important to him.

Main relationships besides the pairing: Max Verstappen, Alex Albon.

Main Secondary Characters Without POV

These characters appear in most chapters, but the story is told only through Max, Charles, Lando and Oscar’s POVs.

Kimi Antonelli

Age: 16 First appearance: Chapter 2 (mentioned already in chapter 1) Role: Main secondary character without POV Pairing: Ollie Bearman (Ollie does not directly appear in the story and is only present through Kimi’s stories)

Kimi is spontaneous, honest and has no intentional cruelty in him. He meets Max first, and even though Max is not openly affectionate with him, he protects Kimi from the more twisted minds inside the prison from the start.

Once Charles enters the prison, Kimi attaches himself to Charles’ side and basically never leaves. Charles protects him just as much as Max does.

Kimi has a good relationship with almost everyone and is, in many ways, the most important character among the secondary ones without POV. This is mostly because, early on, he accidentally triggers two or three events that lead to the first real, unmasked interactions between Max and Charles. He is a freaking menace xD

Main relationships: Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, and eventually almost everyone in the group.

Alex Albon

Age: 26 First appearance: Chapter 1 Role: Main secondary character without POV Pairing: George Russell

Alex comes from a family that owed money to Jos. He meets Max when Alex is eighteen and Max is seventeen.

He is the first person close to Max’s age who sees what Max is and does not walk away. Alex chooses to stay, and that choice becomes extremely important to Max.

Alex is the most empathetic member of Max’s group and the easiest one for outsiders to approach. He looks soft, but he is far more observant and strategic than people expect.

Main relationships besides the pairing: Max Verstappen, Oscar Piastri. He gets along with almost everyone, but he does not have a good relationship with his own family.

George Russell

Age: 24 First appearance: Chapter 1 Role: Main secondary character without POV Pairing: Alex Albon

George joins Max’s group because of Alex. He meets Max when George is 17 and Max is 18, one year after Max and Alex first meet.

At first, George and Max do not get along. Their personalities clash constantly. George likes order, structure and planning, and he does not like violence unless it is necessary.

Despite this, when it truly matters, George proves that he cares about Max and the group and that he might have joined for Alex, but he is staying for all of them.

Main relationships besides the pairing: Max Verstappen. He also grows attached to Charles quickly after Charles arrives. His interactions with Oscar are limited, while most of his scenes with Daniel are banter.

Daniel Ricciardo

Age: 33 First appearance: Chapter 1 Role: Main secondary character without POV Pairing: None (unless someone wants a Ricciardo/Vettel pairing..)

Daniel is originally one of Jos’ men. He is the first person in the group to join Max and the first to choose Max over Jos, when Max is sixteen and Daniel is twenty-four.

Daniel is light, loud and constantly joking, but he can absolutely be dangerous when needed. He is very close to Max and becomes attached to Lando quickly once they meet.

For the most part, Daniel talks, jokes, flirts with danger and torments every other character in the room.

Supporting Characters

Sebastian Vettel

Age: 38 First appearance: Chapter 1 Role: Supporting character

Sebastian is the only honest and incorruptible guard in the prison. He cannot be bought, bullied or easily ignored. He is serious, stubborn and determined to enforce the rules without making exceptions.

Charles doesn't know him, but Sebastian seems to know who Charles is and is still determined to keep Charles safe from a distance. He is the reason Max and Charles end up sharing a cell.

For now, Max and Charles are the only two characters he directly interacts with in the story. That could change in later chapters.

GP

First appearance: Chapter 1 Role: Supporting character Pairing: None

GP is also a guard. He is practical and sharp-eyed. He values order, information and survival more than empty morality.

He becomes one of the few people who can tell Max he is being stupid and survive the experience. His relationship with Max slowly becomes a father-son dynamic.

There are other drivers in the background, like Hulkemberg and Lawson, but they’re not as present and they play neutral roles.

Before I do, I wanted to ask: what do you usually like to see in a character sheet?

So far, I’ve set it up with: age, personality, main pairing, most important relationships with characters outside the main ship, family background.

The family section is mostly because they’re all criminals, so it helps explain the hierarchy a little hehe.

Sooo guys! The snippet of Charles realizing he’s darker than his brothers won the poll!

I realized I read the date wrong for when AO3 will accept my request, and I’ll have to wait one more week. :( So, over the next few days, I can also post the Max-Oscar meeting and the character sheets, which came in second and third in the poll.

I’ll also have to redo the summary because, instead of using these days to write more chapters, I’ve been rereading the prologue and Chapter 1 over and over again… and I changed something every time.

I started with Charles being dark, but not giving in… and after 3 days of editing, I ended up with Charles being a lot darker than I originally thought. Blame the TV show Hannibal and the conversations between Hannibal and Will… they kind of inspired me.

So yeah, the summary I posted before? It still applies to Max, Lando, and Oscar… but Charles is even darker now. xD

You’ll see it in the snippet in a second, but yes, I’ll need to rewrite the summary a little… maybe I’ll focus on the concept of 'folie à deux'. xD

Let me know what you think, and of course, be warned: there are mentions of violence. Nothing actually happens, but it’s Charles’s POV, so you do get his thoughts about it happening.

Snippet from the Prologue. Don't repost on other websites please.

"Charles had just turned eleven when he realized his brothers were not the frightening ones.

There was something to be understood about the Leclercs.

Outside France and Monaco, no one really knew who they were. Their name was only ever whispered, if it was spoken at all, attached vaguely to one of the old families of organized crime. But that was by choice. The Leclercs had connections in other countries, favors owed and alliances carefully maintained, but they kept them buried deep enough that no one could trace the shape of them.

In France, it was different.

Ask the right people, and they would tell you the Leclercs controlled only Monaco because they had chosen to control only Monaco. Not because they lacked the reach to take more or because anyone had stopped them. They held only what they wanted to hold, and they held it well.

That was their style: quiet power, clean deaths; no spectacle, even when it might have served a purpose. Fear, to them, was useful only when it was measured. Even pain had its place, usually behind closed doors, when information needed to be pulled from someone reluctant to give it.

Hervé Leclerc had built his house on restraint.

Lorenzo understood that. Arthur would come to understand it too.

Charles did not.

Or perhaps he understood it too well, and still found something inside himself reaching for more.

His mind did not stop at death. It moved past it, rearranging it, turning punishment into image, image into warning, warning into fear.

A body could be more than a consequence: it could be made beautiful in the worst possible way and then displayed, becoming something people would remember before they ever remembered the name of the man it had once belonged to.

Charles did not understand the shape of that hunger inside him until Pierre came home with blood on his mouth.

That man had not managed to hurt him badly: Pierre only had a bruise on his arm and a split lip.

It was nothing, in the language of their world. A warning, perhaps; or a stupid man putting his hands on a child who had been standing too close to the Leclerc name.

Charles remembered Pierre’s blood on his sleeve.

It was not much, but it was enough for him.

He remembered Lorenzo standing too still beside their father. Arthur, younger and furious, clenching his small fists until his knuckles went white, while their mother made Pierre’s favorite pie to cheer him up.

He remembered men speaking in low voices in Hervé’s office, using words children were not supposed to understand.

His father said the man would be found and dealt with. That there was no need for spectacle.

Charles listened and thought of all the ways a body could be made into art.

Death seemed too merciful.

The man had tried to touch something that belonged to Charles, and Charles, at only eleven, wanted the world to know what happened to people who made that mistake.

He thought of fingers broken one by one; of skin split open carefully and of a body arranged somewhere public enough that no one could pretend not to understand.

He imagined blood as color and pain as composition. The body shaped with care and left for their enemies to find, so they would understand that touching what was his did not simply earn death.

It earned becoming part of Charles Leclerc’s memory, and then being forced into everyone else’s.

He thought it with curiosity, and with a strange, quiet hunger that settled beneath his ribs and made everything around him seem sharper.

When he looked up, Jules was watching him from the doorway.

They said nothing then.

But for the first time, Charles wondered why everyone else seemed to think killing was punishment enough."

What do you think? :) I feel like this snippet sets the tone of the story pretty well.

The prologue is basically structured around all the most important turning points in Charles’ life:

Charles meets Pierre

This snippet

A Jules and Charles moment that shapes who Charles will become in the future

Charles meets Lando

Charles “unleashes” the monster inside him for the first time.

Charles gets framed after leaving Monaco with Lando.

So it’s not really a traditional prologue, but more like a sequence of key moments that explain how Charles becomes the person he is at the beginning of the story.

I was thinking of sharing a little preview/snippet from my Lestappen Jail AU while I wait for AO3 to accept my request… and I wanted to ask which one you’d rather read first.

For context: the prologue is Charles-centric, while chapter one mirrors it from Max’s side. I structured it this way to properly introduce both of them, their inner worlds, and the relationship dynamics that will shape the story.

I picked the options that give you the best glimpse of the main pairing and the most important side characters, but left out the Lestappen meeting hehe.

Thank you again to everyone who read the summary/plot of my Lestappen (+ Landoscar) AU and helped me. This time I wanted to ask for a more stylistic/writing-related opinion.

Usually, I write fanfiction about TV series or books, so this is my first time writing a story where the main characters are inspired by real people, and I think there are some differences.

How do you like to read scenes where a character is supposed to be speaking another language?

Luckily, the majority of the characters would realistically speak English in the situations I'm putting them in. But if I want some moments to be believable, I think that when Charles talks with his family, he would probably speak French. And with Kimi, maybe Italian.

So I wanted to ask: when you read fics where characters are technically speaking a language that is not English, do you prefer the dialogue to be written in the character’s original language, with the translation in parentheses?

Example:

“Tutto bene?” (“Are you okay?”)

Or do you prefer the dialogue to stay in English, maybe in italics, so it’s understood that they are speaking another language?

Example:

“Are you okay?”

I don’t mean moments like smut scenes, or scenes where a character is really angry/upset and a few worlds of their first language slips out naturally. In those cases, I think it makes sense for the original language to appear here and there.

I’m talking more about important emotional scenes where the whole conversation would realistically happen in another language.

For example, in the prologue there are some of the most important moments of Charles’ life before prison. There is one scene between Jules and Charles that basically shows the heart of their relationship. Realistically, they would be speaking French.

But because it is an important scene, I was thinking of keeping the dialogue in English, maybe in italics, instead of writing the whole conversation in French and putting translations in parentheses.

Especially because I know Italian, but I don’t know even one sentence in French, and I don’t really trust Google Translate xD

What do you usually find easier/more enjoyable to read? Original language + translation, or English in italics to imply another language?

First of all, thank you so much to the lovely people who commented on my previous posts and helped me figure out some things about the plot. You made me realize that there was a third option for Charles’ backstory, one that is basically a hybrid of the other two. ♡

So… after overthinking everything, I think this is the official summary/plot for now.

I’m still waiting for my AO3 invitation request to be accepted, so the prologue isn’t up yet, but I’ll post it there as soon as I can.

In the meantime, if you’re interested, I could post the character sheets here on Tumblr, with everyone’s respective roles in the story. Or, if you have any questions about the Lestappen dynamic or the Landoscar one, feel free to ask!

There is also Galex in the background, but they are already an established couple. And there are hints of Kimi/Ollie too, even though Ollie is never directly in the story… but Kimi apparently can’t shut up about his boyfriend best friend hehe.

The title will be: Folie à Deux

SUMMARY:

Charles Leclerc was not innocent.

He was born into Monaco’s most powerful criminal family. Raised with blood beneath marble floors and grief carved into his bones.

He had always carried something dark inside him, something sharper and hungrier than the clean violence his brothers understood. Only Jules had ever looked at it without flinching.

Charles knew what he was. He just kept it leashed.

Then fate decided to have a terrible sense of humour, and Charles was framed for one of the few things he had not actually done.

His plan was simple: keep his head down, stay invisible, and survive until his brothers bailed him out.

Max Verstappen’s life was simple too. He had a routine.

Breakfast. Training. Violence, when necessary. Surviving George’s existence, Daniel’s mouth, and the fact that Oscar, Alex, and Kimi seemed far too amused by both.

It was predictable. Almost boring.

Until Sebastian Vettel, the only guard in the prison who could not be bought, asked Max for a favour: to share his cell with the new arrival.

Max did not share.

Ever.

But Charles Leclerc walked in wearing softness like a lie, and for the first time in years, Max found something worth looking at.

Charles, naturally, failed his plan to keep his head down and looked right back.

Or:

Lando Norris did not think following his best friend to prison would end like this…

With said best friend and the most dangerous criminal around making heart eyes at each other.

Then again, Lando also did not think he would end up making those same heart eyes at Oscar Piastri, Max’s quiet right hand.

Oscar, who apparently did not want to kill him every time he made a terrible joke or talked too much.

Yeah, maybe Lando should have expected prison to get weird.

Hi! First of all, thank you to the 2 people who replied to my previous post 🥹

I think I was already leaning more toward the first idea too (the Jail AU) so now I need help with another thing: Charles’ backstory.

Just to give a quick recap of the AU in case someone new sees this:

Charles ends up in prison for something he didn’t actually do (at least, not yet) and becomes Max’s cellmate. Max is basically the most dangerous person in the prison, the kind of criminal no one dares to cross, with half of the drivers in his gang. Something about Charles catches his attention, and Max becomes immediately obsessed with him.

Charles is not innocent either.

In both versions I was thinking, Charles’ family is involved in organized crime and basically controls Monaco. Charles has a good relationship with his family, and he doesn’t hate their lifestyle, but he has always stayed a little bit on the outside of it. He lets Lorenzo and Arthur handle the dirty work.

Charles has always had a darker side. A side most people don’t see.

To strangers, he seems like the softest one and with the least twisted mind.

But Lando, his best friend, knows him too well.

Lando has seen the way Charles looks when he is in a position of power or control. He has seen the quiet fascination in his eyes when violence happens in front of him. For Lorenzo and Arthur, killing or torturing when necessary is just part of the job. Something that has to be done.

But for Charles, there is something more morbid there.

He doesn’t act on it. He never really gives in to that side of himself. He lets his brothers do the dirty work and pretends he is different from them.

But Lando notices the small things. The reactions. The gestures. The way Charles watches. And Lando is convinced that, if Charles ever fully stepped into that world, he would become a thousand times more terrifying than his brothers.

So this is where I’m unsure.

Option 1: Charles tried to leave that life behind before ending up in jail.

In this version, after another person close to him dies because of rival families, Charles decides he wants out.

He still loves his brothers and his mom, but he wants to try having a normal life. He wants to leave Monaco and start over somewhere else.

Lorenzo and Arthur are not happy about it, mostly because they are protective. Lorenzo has been running the family business since their father died, and if Charles leaves Monaco, he would be outside their territory. Somewhere Lorenzo can’t protect him as easily.

Lando, on the other hand, is reluctant for a completely different reason.

He knows Charles can defend himself. And he knows Charles would call his brothers if he needed help.

Lando simply doesn’t believe Charles is made for a normal life.

That darker side of him is too present, even if Charles tries to bury it.

Still, Charles and Lando leave Monaco together and move somewhere else — I haven’t decided where yet.

For a couple of years, they try to live normally. Then a girl they both care about is assaulted and murdered.

Charles, tries to get revenge. Since he is not thinking clearly or planning, he ends up going against a very powerful man, who frames him for the girl’s death.

Charles doesn’t get the chance to warn his brothers before he is immediately sent to prison (Lando of course, commits a minor crime to join him becouse of course he is a good friend).

So in this version, Charles ending up in prison is almost a case of wrong place, wrong time.

Which would irritate him so much because, seriously? He always thought that if he ever ended up in prison, it would be because he had chosen to go back to that old life. Not because fate decided to laugh in his face.

Option 2: Charles never leaves Monaco, but gets framed by rival families.

In this version, Charles is still in Monaco.

He still doesn’t do the dirty work himself, but he stays by his brothers’ side.

Then he gets framed in a similar way to the first option, but this time it is not random at all.

It is a targeted move. Rivals who are trying to take control of Monaco from the Leclerc family decide to hit the one everyone seems desperate to protect, the most fragil and the less dangerous one.. of course, they miscalculated badly.

Because Charles was never harmless. He was just waiting for a reason.

And by sending him to prison, they might have just given him the push he needed to finally let that darker side of himself out.

Again, Lando is along for the ride, because of course he is.

In both cases, the dynamic with Max doesn’t really change. They are both dark, and I know it’s a bit unusual, but I love the idea of both of them being dominant while also not wanting a submissive partner.

There’s a reason why the fic will be called "Folie à Deux", after all hehe :)