a lestappen au (with side ships like landoscar and brocedes) where magical creatures coexist with humans, and on the current grid charles is the only human. or at least, that’s what he thinks.
because even with humans competing alongside magical beings, every non-human driver is required to take a suppressant before races, a medication designed to temporarily suppress their supernatural traits and abilities in order to keep the grid “fair,” otherwise someone like max, a lion hybrid, would have an unfair advantage with his enhanced strength, reflexes, senses, speed, hearing, and instincts. the same goes for drivers like lewis, who is a vampire; lando, an oracle; oscar, a wraith; carlos, a werewolf; kimi, a witchborn; ollie, a phoenix; fernando, some kind of immortal being no one has ever been able to identify; and others who are sirens, fae, half-ghosts, dragons, and things even stranger.
the suppressants work. mostly. the problem is what happens after they wear off, because once the magic comes rushing back, it leaves them weak, unstable, and vulnerable to the worst parts of their nature. some recover naturally after a few hours, others need help.
max always comes back half-feral, hyper-territorial, restless, oversensitive to light and sound, with an almost unbearable instinct to hunt. but underneath all of that there’s also this desperate need for physical contact, for the presence of people he trusts, people he considers his pride. give him food, sleep, and someone safe to lean against, and eventually he’ll recover.
lewis, meanwhile, becomes painfully sensitive to light and unbearably hungry for blood, which is how he and charles ended up making a deal.
human blood is significantly more effective for vampires than the blood of magical creatures, with only a few rare exceptions, so charles offered to let lewis feed from him occasionally. after enough hesitation, lewis accepted. he’d tried animal blood before, but it barely helped, and because human blood consumption is legal as long as it’s consensual and doesn’t harm the donor, eventually he gave in, especially because charles’ blood affects him differently. a small amount is enough to satisfy him completely, and more than that, it tastes better than any other human blood lewis has ever had.
the arrangement causes problems almost immediately, because nico hates it.
he knows he’s being unfair, but he can’t help it. he wants to be the one taking care of lewis, except as a fae, his blood is poisonous to vampires. fundamentally incompatible. even without the blood issue, their magic still hurts each other physically if they stay too close for too long, and how is that fair? charles can heal lewis. charles can feed him. charles can help him survive. meanwhile everything nico naturally is only causes harm. sometimes nico wishes he were human.
charles, watching the absolute mess everyone else’s lives seem to be, is simply grateful that he’s ordinary. until he starts noticing strange things. his hands shaking constantly, the cold that never seems to leave his body, exhaustion so severe he sometimes struggles to stand, dilated pupils, a racing heartbeat around certain people, and underneath all of it, this unbearable hunger.
the strangest part is that the hunger seems entirely directed toward men, which makes no sense because charles has spent twenty-eight years believing he was straight. he has no intention of acting on it. whatever this is, he just wants it to go away.
except it only gets worse.
the craving for touch becomes impossible to ignore, and then there’s the effect he starts having on other people. the way his voice sometimes seems hypnotic, the way people unconsciously lean closer to him, the way his scent lingers, the way everyone notices him the moment he walks into a room as if he’s magnetic. charles knows he’s attractive, but this feels different. too much.
and as he grows weaker and weaker, he finally turns to his older brother for answers.
unfortunately, lorenzo has them.
charles was never human. his parents and lorenzo always knew, but they spent his entire life trying to suppress it, hoping he would never have to carry the burden of what he really is. the medication charles has been taking since his teenage years, the one he thought was for a heart condition, was actually suppressing his magic.
and now it’s failing.
succubus.
that’s the word lorenzo uses, and charles feels condemned the moment he hears it. against his better judgment, the first thing he does after getting home is research exactly what that means, and every answer horrifies him more.
because yes, succubi feed through sex, but that’s not all they feed on. they feed on attention, affection, desire, validation, obsession. without it, they become weak, irritable, hollow, desperate, emotionally dependent.
and charles convinces himself he can handle that. surely hugs, brief touches, maybe kisses at most would be enough to survive without hurting anyone, because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
he quickly learns that even unintentionally, succubi manipulate people around them. attraction becomes instinctive. addictive. and the more emotionally attached someone is to him, the easier it becomes to feed from them. the more they love him, the more he takes.
at first the effects are mild. euphoria. comfort. obsession. people wanting more and more of his attention, his touch, his presence. but if he’s starving, or if the contact becomes sexual, it gets worse. fatigue. dizziness. insomnia. emotional dependency. eventually physical collapse. in extreme cases, succubi can drain years from someone’s lifespan.
charles refuses to become that kind of monster, so he starts starving himself instead.
until his eyes begin glowing gold.
until the hunger becomes unbearable.
until one night, desperate and shaking and unable to think about anything except the ache inside him, he finally gives in.
and for the first time in his life, with another man inside him, charles feels full. alive.
the man is a stranger, nameless, someone charles never intends to see again for his own safety, because if he leaves before the attachment forms, the effects should fade eventually.
so charles makes himself a plan. whenever the hunger becomes impossible to resist, he’ll find strangers. no attachments. no names. no love.
he tells no one about what he is besides lewis, who had already figured it out. he hides the physical changes, hides the symptoms, and because everyone in the paddock is constantly medicated anyway, it’s surprisingly easy to pretend nothing is wrong.
except max is a predator, and predators can smell hunger.
the moment charles’ instincts begin slipping through the cracks, max notices, and once he figures out the truth, he becomes determined to convince charles to feed from him instead.
because max isn’t human. he’s stronger. the side effects would be weaker on him. charles wouldn’t hurt him.
charles refuses immediately. they’re too close. this would ruin everything.
but max keeps pushing until eventually he convinces him. he promises charles it’s safe as long as there are no romantic feelings involved.
and charles agrees.
completely unaware that max has been hopelessly in love with him since they were fourteen.
