I've always wanted to write, it’s the only way I can get my feelings out into the world. However I've never had the courage to write anything for others to read. Recently I finally decided I would start my writing journey with fanfics.
My most recent obsession is Lestappen. I'm forever fascinated by their lore in real life, it makes you feel like they're actually star crossed lovers destined to always cross paths in every lifetime. In short, they're very easy to build off of.
If you're interested in reading any of that, feel free to check out the links below of my fics:
He is startled by a squeal from Lily and before he can comprehend what happened she takes off running in the same direction Charles just came back from and he's prepared to run after his daughter when he hears, "MUMMY!" followed by an excited -almost maniacal- giggle from his daughter.
He looks further and finds Kelly smiling down at their daughter and kneeling down to take Lily in her arms, hugging her tightly to her chest as she lets out a breath of relief. She looks almost the same as she did three years ago just with the addition of a few wrinkles around her eyes which is to be expected from a woman who is thirty seven years old. Hugging Lily with the handcuffs on must be uncomfortable but she doesn't let it show and now that he's standing closer to her, he can see that she's crying as well which makes him all the more awkward as he stands there waiting for her attention to finally shift to him.
——————————————————————————
He was out of his depth for the entirety of dinner with Charles, he had had to look up what he could feed Lily for dinner and when he realised she could eat a little bit of adult food, he decided he could just make her a smaller portion from his own plate and ordered some food with veggies too so he wasn't just feeding her pasta. He felt like he was having an out of body experiance as he helped her eat while he and Charles talked. That was really his daughter, it was undeniable since she looked just like he did when he was a child.
He couldn't help but feel a little excited at the realizaiton that he could get to know her, even as he was paralyzed by anxiety because of the possibility that he could fuck this up and he might be separated from her once again. Dinner was quick for him and Charles, and before Charles left they had agreed to text each other tomorrow so they could meet up before Kelly's arraignment. Now that Charles had left it was just him and Lily and he felt awkward. She was still occupied by the toys that Margot had brought in one of Lily's bags.
He is reminded of how Lily already knew he was her dad, she had even recognised him so Kelly had probably shown her pictures of him so he wonders why Kelly hadn't reached out to him when she found out she was pregnant or anytime after that. Their breakup wasn't so bad that she felt like she couldn't reach out to him about something as big as a whole child.
An idea struck him, he walked over to Lily before he could talk himself out of it. He sat on the couch near her and called her over. “Lily, Hey can I ask you something?" He tried to get her attention and gently grabbed her hands to turn her towards him. "How do you know who I am? What did your mom tell you?" His heart was already beating faster, he wondered how much of his question Lily will understand, he could only hope she knew what he was talking about.
She seemed to be thinking about it as she squeezed his hnds and used them as a tether to hang herself back and sway back and forth. He was so endeared, his heart squeezed. It was like all the love he would've had for her in the past two years wanted to pour out of him all at once. He didn't know how to express any of it so he settled on taking a shaky breath and promising himself to always protect her and to do right by her.
"She showed photo of you and said you were my dad." Lily answered although she seemed confused.
"Did she tell you why I was away?" He asked. She just shook her head and went back to swinging back and forth. He had expected as much. Lily couldn't have known much, Kelly didn't have much time to explain to a toddler in a way she would understand. He still hoped she didn't make him out to be the bad guy although he fully deserved to be the bad guy after the way he left everything and went no contact with everyone he knew. Anyone outside would probably think his breakup was bad enough for him to want to go completely dark with all his friends and acquaintenses.
Soon after Lily had tired herself out and couldn't keep her eyes open. He moved her to the bed and made a wall of pillows so she wouldn't be able to move too close to the edge of the bed in her sleep.
He moved to the coffee table to get some work done before he went to bed although he could barely get anything done. He kept looking over to Lily to make sure she was safe and hadn't moved from her place on the bed. After about an hour he just gave up and told himself that he would start over tomorrow with a fresh perspective.
He dreams he's running from something and then realizes Lily isn't with him and immediately startles awake and when he looks to his right she's right there sleeping on her stomach facing him. She looks so adorable that he clicks a picture. He couldn't afford to let anyone see it so he will have to settle for it being his home screen and not lock screen. Its still better than having no photos of her before this one. He promptly tears up when he realizes that fact. He sniffles and then curses himself, he was never a crier but now it seems like he cries every couple of hours. Its ruining his self image.
He decides to shower and freshen up before Lily wakes up and then get her ready for the arraignment hearing. By the time he comes out of the bathroom she seems to be waking up already so he sits beside her and gently coaxes her awake. He whispers a hello and a good morning when she opens her eyes, he didn't use his normal voice yet, not wanting to annoy her first thing in the morning. She looks confused for a second upon seeing him but soon realizes who he is.
"We're going to see your mom today, remember?"
She nods excitedly and giggles, her enthusiasm brings an involuntary smile on his face as well. "Well then we should get you ready to see your mom yes?" she shoots out of the bed and then grabs his hand and starts pulling him to the bathroom mumbling, "Come on, come on, why are you so slow daddy?"
"Oh I'm slow now" he sighs and then helps her brush her teeth, pee, and take a bath. When they're done he wraps her in a long towel and sits her down on the bed. He shows her outfit options and lets her pick what she wants to wear. They end up looking polar opposites on the color palatte but he finds it too amusing to change. He checks his watch and realizes they only have fifteen minutes left so he decides to feed some snacks to her, not wanting to cause a mess and a delay. He assumes he'd be yelled at by his own mother if she saw him feeding her grand-daughter snacks for breakfast, but they're already late and this is something he can't afford to be late to.
He has a text from Charles saying he's on his way to pick them up, he didn't want to use his own car in case the guy from that night recognized it somewhere so he agreed to let Charles drive them. Charles is a detective so he reckons he'd be safer with Charles than on his own. He's pretty sure Charles already suspects that Max was lying yesterday but he's willing to take that risk just for the next few days.
Once they're in the elevator he asks Lily if she wanted him to pick her up the rest of the way to Charles' car, to which she looked up at him with a deadpan and continued walking ahead of him. He's startled when he realizes how much she looked like him in that moment, he remembers looking at his childhood photos and wondering what he was so angry about in those photos, turns out its a Verstappen thing and not just a him thing.
When she sees Charles standing by his car, she immediately runs to him and lets him pick her up. He would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit jealous at how easy it seems for Charles to get along with his daughter while he's struggling. He reminds himself that he's only had her for a day, that they will be more comfortable with each other with time. He walks closer to them and its when he's looking at the way Charles is paying attention to his daughter's ramblings that he realizes Charles has green eyes. Charles turns his attention to him and he has to look away in embarrassment at almost being caught.
Charles moves to strap Lily in a car seat and he's reminded that he also doesn't have a car seat, he will have to buy one on their way back from court. Now he's even more greatful to Charles for offering to pick them up, he hadn't even remembered something as essential as a car seat. He really needed to get his head on straight or he's going to put Lily in danger and he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he ended up hurting her even if its unintentional.
They're mostly silent on the way to the court, Max ends up looking up different shades of green to see if he can find out the exact color of Charles'eyes, he's embarrassed again but he supposes he can allow himself that much leeway considering things as they are. He finds himself looking over his childhood years trying to pin point the exact moment he should have clocked that he was bisexual but nothing specific comes to mind. He thought he knew himself well enough to know these things about himself, because he feels like he's been blindsided by his sudden attraction to Charles from the moment he saw him.
He supposes he never gave himself the chance to figure it out when he was younger, he wouldn't lie to himself and say he wasn't atleast a little bit fucked up when he was younger, hell he was fucked up even just a few years ago. His little self isolation tactic made him reflect on his younger years and the way he always jumped into serious relationships with women who were definitely too old for him, even he and Kelly started out that way. He knew now how unhealthy that was, he understands that objectively but when he puts himself in those hypotheticals he still can't quite grasp the whole issue. He decided to put it off until later because now was definitely not the time to be going over his childhood trauma.
When he looked up from his 'self reflection' he found Charles glancing at him, "Everything okay?" he asks.
"Yeah" he smiles, possibly to hide his embarrassment but most probably to hide the fact that he was having a midlife -quarter life?- crisis right here in Charles'car. Lily makes a noise in the back and they're both instantly distracted from him zoning out and instead tuning in to listen to Lily explain how car rides with her mom and sister are so fun. He feels guilty for a second but he decides not to be, he's had her for less than a day, he'll learn to become the fun dad instead of the dad that has no clue what to do with her. He's reminded of his own dad behaving exactly as he is behaving right now and immediately backtracks. He curses himself out, its not like him to be having spirals like these during the day but to have two in the span of thirty minutes is just annoying.
He distracts himself by asking Charles if he can connect his phone to the audio system and play music for the rest of the drive. Before he can actually listen to the music, he gets a call from Christian and his heartrate spikes, he answers the call only to find out Lando had messed up one of his reports and now Max needed to fix that before the end of the work day. He sighs before he can stop himself once the call ended and he sees Charles looking at him with amusement from the corner of his eyes. He looks up and shoots Charles what he hopes is an apologetic smile and not a sarcastic smile.
He realizes the reason Charles is looking at him for so long is because they're stopped in the parking lot of the courthouse. "Sorry, it looks like my department can't function without me for more than a day." He apologizes and then gets out of the car to unstrap Lily from her car seat. As he gets Lily out of the car, Charles comes over and leans against the side of the car and asks, "What's your job? I never got to ask you yesterday."
"I'm the assistant manager of the design department at Aeronex, one of my juniors just messed up a report I was working on so I'm gonna have to fix it today or they can't go ahead with the rest of the report while I'm not there. I thought I'd have time to relax and forget about work for a couple of days but I guess I was too optimistic."
They'd started walking inside the court house while he explained, he was just following Charles with Lily's hand held tightly in his right hand. Lily had a toy car with her, she had taken his love of cars at least. He finds it fascinating that she picked up that interest from him even though he had never been there to share it with her.
"You must be great at your job if you got promoted so young." Charles says as he takes them up three floors on an elevator.
"I'd say I was just good at doing things quicker than my colleagues could at the time and I was good at getting people together during projects so my boss thought he could promote me and dump half of his workload on me and it worked for him. I'm just stuck working long hours and cleaning up after my colleagues but atleast I get paid really well for taking on this job."
They stop in front of one of the courtrooms when Charles says, "It sounds a lot like you're babysitting a bunch of grown adults most of the time."
He's chuckling as he replies, "Yeah, that's pretty much it."
"Alright you guys wait here, I'll go talk to the officers bringing Kelly."
Charles walks across the hallway to a couple of police officers and shows them his badge and starts talking or ordering? He can't figure it out from so far away. He feels something go up his leg and looks to his side to see that Lily had started racing her toy cars up his leg. He could see the red car winning and couldn't stop the smile that takes over his face. He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled so much. He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and the cuteness aggression at seeing her pouting and playing with cars wins out so he kisses the top of her head.
Before he can say anything to her a shadow falls on them and he turns to see Charles standing beside them trying to hide his smile and failing. Max raises his eyebrows in question to which Charles clears his throat and says, "They're willing to bring her up early but you only have fifteen minutes before she has to be inside."
He feels nervous after hearing that, which is weird because before this he was so lost in other things that he totally forgot about the fact that he was about to see his ex who he hadn't seen in three years, who didn't tell him she was pregnant or that she had the baby, the ex that he broke up with, who he ghosted after the breakup, who he disappeared on without any warning. Now as he considers all of this, he's scared for himself, this is the same woman who almost ran someone over just a couple of days ago, he can only imagine what she could do if she's angry enough with him.
He is startled by a squeal from Lily and before he can comprehend what happened she takes off running in the same direction Charles just came back from and he's prepared to run after his daughter when he hears, "MUMMY!" followed by an excited -almost maniacal- giggle from his daughter.
He looks further and finds Kelly smiling down at their daughter and kneeling down to take Lily in her arms, hugging her tightly to her chest as she lets out a breath of relief. She looks almost the same as she did three years ago just with the addition of a few wrinkles around her eyes which is to be expected from a woman who is thirty seven years old. Hugging Lily with the handcuffs on must be uncomfortable but she doesn't let it show and now that he's standing closer to her, he can see that she's crying as well which makes him all the more awkward as he stands there waiting for her attention to finally shift to him.
He clears his throat when enough time has passed and she still hasn't looked up which makes him even more awkward because who even does that. When she finally looks up he says, "We should talk."
She just nods and stands up with Lily in her arms and moves to the bench outside the courtroom as she whispers something to Lily. Whatever she says makes Lily stop her rambling and just sit quietly in her arms. She finally turns her attention towards him with an unreadable expression and he's surprised he can't get a read on her now because it used to be so easy for him in the past. It seems like she's not going to say something so he bites the bullet.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" He didn't intend to sound as mad as he just did but he doesn't nave the time to sugarcoat things.
"Look, I went on a few dates with that guy before I enrolled Penelope in his class, he made me trust him so much and I thought he would be good for Penelope but when she came to me two weeks later saying he had touched her inappropriately I couldn't just let him think he could get away with it."
She sounds almost pissed at him but he had already expected that. It makes sense why she did what she did. "You still could've have let the police handle it." He grits out, now also annoyed at her.
She looks at him with a glare and he knows she's just about to start an argument so he interrupts her before she can start.
"Look before you start, I have something very important to tell you." He checks his watch, they've already wasted seven minutes, he needed to get this over with quickly or he would have to wait for her to get transferred to prison officially and take even more time off work to visit her there in the next week, which would be seriouly inconvenient considering all the things he has to take care of just this week alone along with all his work from the office.
"Do you remember George Russell? He started working with me when I first got the job at Aeronex."
"Yeah" she looked at him sceptically as she answered.
"Okay, so three months before we broke up, he called me over after work one night, said he wanted me to look over some data he had been working on."
"Where are you going with this Max?" She asked exasperated.
He gritted his teeth before answering in a low voice, not wanting to raise his voice in front of Lily. "If you let me talk uninterrupted for two minutes you'd find out." He gave her a serious look before starting again.
"His job was looking at the design of our 787-8 Dreamliner and see which design aspects of that could be carried over to a mock design our team was working on. You remember how much of a stickler for rules he was. He found something fundamentally wrong with the emergency system in that plane and he went to Horner about it. Long story short: Horner didn't do anything for weeks so he came to me. That night I told him I would look over the report he had compiled and see whether he was right." He looked up for a second and he could see that she had realised that this was going in a direction she wasn't going to like. He glanced at his watch before continuing.
"It took me eight weeks to finish looking it over and confirming everything, and Kelly, it was so much worse than we thought, it wasn't just the emergency systems, it was the structure of the plane itself. But before I could get back to George about it, he disappeared, just didn't show up to work one random Tuesday."
She looked over at him in horror, she already knew what that meant. She wasn't a stranger to how things worked in big corporations with billions of dollars in the mix. That was one of their biggest differences during their relationship. Although they shared the same racing background, they didn't come from the same financial background. Her father had won championships while his had struggled for points for years before retiring, it meant they didn't grow up in luxury like Kelly did but they were still comfortable enough.
"I also never stopped what I was working on. I never told anyone about it until now but you understand why I had to leave right. I couldn't put you or Penelope at risk. But I'm almost done now. I was planning on leaving the country as soon as I finished but I have Lily now and I… I needed you to know before I left suddenly like last time." He glanced at his watch. Two minutes.
"You have every right to be angry and to hate me, but please consider letting her be with me. She will be in too much danger if she's away from the both of us." He saw Charles moving towards them from the corner of his eye. He had run out of time. He gave her one last desperate look and added, "Please."
The two guards grab Kelly by the elbows and drag her towards the end of the hallway and Lily yelps and tries to run after her but he's quick to stop her and pulls her into his chest, he doesn't know why he's hiding it from her now when he's going to have to explain to her why her mom won't come home with them later. He supposes its to comfort both of them.
Charles comes over and takes the seat Kelly had just vacated and looks at Lily with concern. He pulls away from Lily to look into her eyes and when he sees her wide teary eyes he feels like his breath has been knocked out of him as he realizes that was going to be a problem. There's no way he can ever say no to anything she asks for when she looks at him like that. He panics a little and says, "Baby, you will see her again in just a few minutes, okay?" He wipes her tears quickly as Charles stands up.
"Let's go inside, its time." He opens the door of the court room in front of them and waits for Max and Lily to enter before coming in and guiding them to the front row. Max wasn't exactly new to courtrooms with who his father is but the feeling of impending doom he gets as the trial goes on never gets old, it was probably the worst feeling ever in his opinion so it was only fair that the world made sure he got to experience that feeling as much as possible in his short lifespan.
That feeling only intensified over the course of the next fifteen minutes as he heard the discourse between Kelly's lawyer and the prosecutor and the judge. The prosecutor states the facts of the case and hearing it in legal terms sounds so much worse than what actually happened that he's kind of offended on Kelly's behalf but then he reminds himself that she's the one who did this to herself, he doesn't need to worry about her in any other capacity.
“You are charged by indictment with the offense of attempted murder in the second degree. How do you plead?”
Kelly looks at her lawyer who gives her an encouraging nod as if confirming what they talked about before this. He still had some semblance of hope left it seems but it gets crushed as soon as he acknowledges the fact because Kelly says, "Guilty."
He tunes out after that, he already knows what's going to happen next. The judge will ask her questions to make sure she's not being coerced and knows what she said and the consequences of those words. He will ask to see the evidence once again and then he'll ask the prosecution and Kelly's lawyer what she should be sentenced. Its textbook procedure and that's exactly what happens but he's not really thinking about that, what he's actually thinking about is how he will explain what this means to Lily.
How do you explain to a two year old that she's probably not going to see her mother for the next decade or so. He knows this is probably the least of his worries right now, given the fact that his apartment was broken into less than 72 hours ago and he's not out of the danger just yet. He also knows he has to go and figuratively put his neck in a lion's jaw if he wants to escape out of this mess alive which is such an irony that he almost laughs right in the middle of the judge's sentencing monologue.
“After considering all the facts and considering that this is the defendant's first offense, it is the judgment of this court that the defendant is sentenced to sixty months in custody.”
Five years.
Five fucking years.
Who knows how they'll meet after she's fulfilled her sentence. He decides he doesn't need to worry about that yet. He can worry about that after he has survived this.
The court officers handcuff her again and take her towards a different exit and as she leaves she turns to look at him and the Max from even a week ago wouldn't have understood that look but today he knows exactly what Kelly tries to convey and he hopes he doesn't have to see that look again or worse, be the one to look at anyone else that way. He tries to give her a reassuring smile as she walks out of the door and in proper Max fashion, he misses the timing and she's out the door before she can see it.
He finally looks at Charles, expecting to see him looking at Max with concern or pity or both but he finds neither. It appears Charles and Lily are watching some weird cartoon on Charles phone. He's honestly greatful he has Charles here to distract Lily.
"Alright, time to go." He said after clearing his throat a little awkwardly. Charles looks up at him and smiles, the one where just looking at it feels like it will make everything okay. It pisses him off because who actually looks like that on a random Monday morning after an indictment hearing, its so unfair actually.
Without saying any of that, he stands up and bends to pick Lily up, she wraps her arms around his neck and it still doesn't feel real but he just moves on and starts walking with Charles as they exit the room and then the building.
"Do you wanna get a late breakfast with me? I know a place nearby." Charles asks once they're inside the car and Lily is carefully strapped in. He feels bad for her because he doubts she's all that happy about having to face the seat for the entire ride.
"Sure." He's too hungry to give any other answer, he hasn't had anything to eat after dinner yesterday so he's positively starving, he just hadn't realized that until Charles had mentioned food.
So he lets Charles drive them to some fancy and very French looking cafe in downtown, and he somehow ends up falling asleep in the twenty minute ride to the cafe, only waking up when he feels a finger on his shoulder barely poke him but its enough to wake him.
A soft groan made its way past his lips before he was fully aware what he was doing, all he felt was the slight ache in his neck that told him he hadn't made the smartest decision sleeping in a car. He opened his eyes to find Charles grimace before he says, "Sorry, I wanted to let you sleep but we're here."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep, I think the last few days are just catching up to me." He answers with his own apology and starts getting out of the car. He gets Lily out of her car seat and asks her if she wants to eat again and surprisingly she does. She talks about her favorite breakfast food as she clings to his neck and he carries her over to Charles and the entrance to the cafe.
Charles gives her a fond smile as he opens the door for them and enters after Max. He hears the little bell ringing above him as they go in.
I know the reply is super late but I just saw the ask and the story looks very promising so I will be reading it before bed tonight. Thank you so much for the recommendation🩵
Unwritten Rules of Falling for You - Chapter 1 - foolsgold91 - Formula 1 RPF [Archive of Our Own]
Oscar’s plan: avoid frat boys, ace his classes, keep feelings at bay.
Reality: gets drunk, kisses Max Verstappen, and somehow ends up with a boyfriend—and a found family he never asked for.
I'm so close to writing a fic where Max just retires and moves to the countryside and only shows his face when he’s racing in GT3 and other endurance races.
toto wants max to be his driver. george wants max to be his teammate. kimi wants max. i fear one of these days max will wake up and find himself gagged and bound in a secret room at the merc factory
Franco's car stalled at the beginning of the pit entrance and the Alpine Crew ran all the fucking way to the BACK PIT ONLY FOR THEM TO PIVOT IM FUCKING DRY HEAVING THIS IS SO UNSERIOUS
