Work Text:
Time goes by so slow when you're not here
There’s a lull at mid-morning, after everybody has gotten their morning coffee, but before people start taking their lunch breaks. In this quiet hour, Max and Lando pull out the meat, cheese, and vegetables to prepare homemade sandwiches for the lunch rush. Loaves of bread that have been resting in still slightly warm ovens are cut into slices, and the methodical and repetitive practice of stacking foodstuff starts anew.
Because the place is empty, Lando grabs ahold of the playlist and starts blasting whatever songs he likes. He of course keeps this appropriate, y’know, for the customers coming in for a snack, a late breakfast, or even an early lunch.
He’s playing the Leclerc album right now. The new one. The one he and Pierre had texted about seven months ago, maybe, he hasn’t been keeping track of the time.
Lando is always playing Leclerc these days—every day—but when there are no customers sitting at the tables, or hanging out in the booths, or working at the bar top, he will play an album straight through, from beginning to end as was intended by the artist.
“Order is important,” Lando has told Daniel, when the Aussie had tried to put an album on shuffle. “The first song is first for a reason!”
Max should probably consider giving Lando a raise. He does so much for The Lion’s Den; finance, music, register, food prep. Or maybe he should hire some extra help, taking something off Lando’s plate. Though, if he’s learnt anything from ‘I’m happy to do everything’ Lando and ‘yes I have a full time day job, but I like it here’ Liam, that’s probably not going to happen.
That being said, The Lion’s Den is no longer a small mom and pop—bro and bro—shop that can be sustained with only a few employees. Max is honestly surprised the four of them haven't crumbled to dust under the weight of everything yet.
For now, he and Lando are making sandwiches while Daniel runs out to talk with suppliers for something or another. Max doesn’t really know, that’s why he hired Daniel in the first place.
Living life without you's what I fear
“The fans found something on Emilian,” Lando tells him, sliding his phone across the counter.
“I thought Leclerc told them to not do that.” It kills Max to not call him Charles. The surname feels foreign on his tongue, even after years of use.
“It’s died down a lot.”
Max hums as he cuts the sandwich in front of him diagonally.
“There’s a picture. Young Charles, young Pierre, and this third random blond kid.”
The wax paper crinkles in Max’s hands. His stomach bottoms out.
Lando isn’t looking at him. He’s fiddling with the sandwich ingredients in front of him. “I think I’ve seen this kid before,” he says. “I think I’ve seen this exact picture before.”
Max places both halves of the sandwich longside down on the half-full platter. He looks at the photo on the Brit’s phone. It’s the three of them in their go-karts; numbers 16, 33, and 10. Max has a copy of this framed in the back office. It’s propped up behind the computer they use for their finances.
He shrugs, deliberate in his movements.
Wish I could go back and fix what I broke
Lando hands Max a sandwich. Max picked up the knife.
“And you knew Pierre Gasly’s coffee order when he came in that one time. The way you’ve memorised all of the regulars’ orders. I didn’t think you even knew who Pierre Gasly was.”
Max pushed Lando’s phone back to him. He doesn’t say anything. He picks up another piece of wax paper.
“You don’t have to worry about me running to Twitter or anything. I’m not going to tell.”
Max was never worried about Lando telling the world. “Okay.”
Lando still isn’t looking at Max. He fiddles with another sandwich. “Why did you break up with him?”
Max was worried about how this might affect them. “He broke up with me.”
“Oh.”
“I do not mind that everybody thinks I broke his heart. It makes for a better story, don’t you think?”
But it's too late now 'cause you're moving on your own
After the lunch rush, Lando goes into the back room to take his break.
There’s still a trickle of people coming in, so Daniel comes out to help ‘man the register,’ but he spends more time hanging out with Max than taking orders.
They don’t really get to hangout during work hours, spending their time on opposite sides of the employee’s only door.
“Why is Lando yelling in the breakroom?”
Yelling is a strong word for it. It sounds like Lando is screaming very loudly, but he’s muffled it with something. Maybe one of the seasonal pillows they have stored back there.
“Should I go check up on him?” Daniel asks.
There’s a gap in the screaming, just long enough to take a breath, before it starts up again.
Max winces. If anyone should check on the Brit it has to be him. “Nah, he’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Let’s let him get it out.”
Another scream.
“I’ll talk to him later.”
You like an itch
That I can't reach
Lando is in the middle of a scream when the bell over the door rings.
He cuts off, but not fast enough that Ollie doesn’t frown. “Is everything okay?” he asks. “Hi Daniel.”
“Everything is fine. Probably. Welcome to The Lion’s Den, mate. What can I get ya?”
“The usual please.”
“Honey ginger cinnamon latte.”
“Thank you Maxie. And a selection of six cupcakes, coming right up.”
“Green tea,” Max tells Daniel, when the first order comes across his screen.
Daniel nods, turning to Kimi. “Cucumber sandwiches today?”
“Yes please.”
The way you drivin' me crazy
'Cause you know I need you
After the uni students settle into their usual booth in the back, Max goes to check on Lando.
“I’ll call if you need to work the machine.”
Max smiles. “You know how to use the machine Daniel.”
“But it’s your baby. You don’t let Lando touch him.”
“Lando doesn’t let himself touch the machine. If he wants to learn, I will teach him.” He slips behind the employee’s only door and finds Lando at the computer.
“This doesn’t look like taking a break.”
“It’s been over fifteen minutes.” Lando double clicks something on Excel, probably doing something used that he and Daniel will appreciate later. “My throat hurts,” he laughs, bringing up the elephant in the room.
The song changes, and Ollie lets out a whoop.
Lando’s shoulders tense. “I can play something else.”
Max shakes his head. “You like it.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods. “He sounds good, no?”
Lando’s shoulders tense.
Really had me smokin', drinkin'
Poppin' with no feelings
Lando is playing another gig at Sainz.
Max and Daniel are on the floor, at the front of the crowd.
They are both swept up in the energy. Daniel is dancing, he’s got his arms up and waving them around wildly. Max has to keep ducking to dodge them. He himself is bopping silently, smiling just enough that it looks like he’s having fun.
He takes a sip from his Red Bull.
His feet hurt. Honestly everything hurts for some reason. He probably needs to sleep more.
The song changes, and now Lando is playing a song off of Leclerc’s new album.
I felt like I was grieving
I really thought I needed you
On the table in his kitchen, Max has a stack of full notebooks of scribbles, words, and blank pages.
He rips off the plastic covering of the newest notebook.
But I miss your touch, your hips
Your body and your lips
Max is not so down bad that everything he writes is about Charles: Past-Charles he’s still in love with, or Present-Charles he still cares deeply about. Sometimes he writes about the trainwreck that is Lando and Oscar.
He is very close to forcing Lando to learn how to use the coffee machine, just to have to suddenly take a break when Oscar walks into the cafe. He just wants to see what happens.
The bell rings and Oscar comes into The Lion’s Den. Max pulls out his notebook and flips over to a new page. He sets the machine to make Oscar’s order: a plain black coffee with a double shot of espresso, a double double, and a large dark roast with count ‘em twelve sugars.
And the way we kissed
When we were just kids
The new Leclerc music video comes across his YouTube homepage while he’s making dinner.
Max can’t not watch it. He can’t help it. He’s weak.
Charles looks good, Max can admit. He looked a little sad on the last tour, but whatever break he had taken has been good for him.
He’s also very pretty these days.
Max is jolted from his musings when he recognises a line. It hits him like an F1 car hurling towards the barrier, at speeds that cause it to coast just above the gravel traps.
This new album, the return to his roots has been really good for Charles. At the same time it’s been terrible for Max, because the echoes of his younger self haunt him wherever he goes.
I'm missin' you
Max’s preferred method of writing is free writing. The act of writing, and writing, and writing, and writing is calming to him. If he can just keep the pen moving, the ideas flowing, at the end there might be something in there that he likes.
When the words stop coming, he will start doodling spirals down the width of the lined paper until the next set of words appear in his mind.
Then he keeps writing, and writing, and writing, and writing until he feels all dried up.
I'm missin' you
He’s eight pages deep when he comes to.
It’s only a little embarrassing that seeing Charles singing and dancing around his childhood bedroom in a three minute music video has given him enough material to fill four completed spreads of thoughts, feelings, words, spirals, and little white space about Charles.
Current-Charles. Now-Charles. The one he knows very little about, because he doesn’t follow him anywhere. Anything he knows about Charles’ current state of affairs comes in glimpses of headlines, the odd photo captions, and listening to Lando yammer on about his favourite artist.
Max closes the notebook.
He goes to bed.
But I miss your touch, your hips
Your body and your lips
And the way we kissed
When we were just kids
The next morning—when it’s early enough and Daniel and Liam are in the cafe under his floor baking today’s batch of bread, but not late enough for him to make the trek downstairs—he goes through the pages again.
By the end of the hour he’s pulled out everything useful.
Thirty minutes later, he’s written a song.
I'm missin' you
This is the first time he’s finished a song to ‘completion’ since the break up.
Before it’s always been fragments.
A verse here. A chorus there. A bridge in the margins of pages full of other terrible ideas.
He has no one to show this to.
I'm missin' you
Daniel, Liam, and Lando are certainly not Charles and Pierre, but they are all Max’s friends. Co-workers? Employees? Max thinks it’s cringy to call the staff at The Lion’s Den family, but Liam and Lando have both called him dad multiple times, so he’s already doomed in that regard.
Max recorded a shitty little demo on his phone. He’s not a terrible singer, and he’s able to carry a tune, but he can’t get it right. He thinks the problem is that he doesn’t sound like Charles, but that’s not a problem he can exactly fix right now. He has no instruments in his apartment, so he settles for tapping a basic drum beat on the counter.
He really only wanted to show Lando, because Lando is a DJ, which is basically a producer, so maybe he’ll be able to see past the crap and find the good. Not that he’s concerned about Daniel or Liam making fun of him or anything.
Lando also knows. Knows about his history with this thing that he used to love, even though they haven’t talked about it. He at least has an idea. Has an idea about this part of Max. This part of Max that he used to love. This love that he’d hidden from the world because it hurt too much to even touch.
Max doesn’t bother waiting for Liam to leave, or for Daniel to go to the backroom. He just plays the song while making everybody their morning coffee. A caramell latte for Daniel, an americano for Lando, and Liam's first double shot of espresso for the day.
Late night drives just to clear my mind
Wishin' you're with me to pass the time
'Cause I thought we'd be together forever
But for you it was whatever
So I rest my case in the bed you made
Hope I'll be okay
But you drive me insane
So I'll lay back while you in a Maybach
And I like to drink but you like to smoke
But I would do both just for you to know
Daniel stops wiping down the counter to hoot and holler, even though the song is not one to hoot and holler to.
Liam starts to dance with the broom instead of sweeping the floor, even though the melody is clunky as all get out.
Lando claps his hands along, even though Max can’t keep to meter.
“It’s about the words,” he tells them, while Daniel is rushing to the back to grab the spring decor flowers to present to Max. “I know it sounds terrible. Don’t assure me,” he says when they all open their mouths to do just that. “Like objectively, I cannot sing very well.”
“It sounds a bit like a Leclerc song,” Lando tells him under his breath, after Daniel finally makes his way to the back, and Liam is out the door with his first cup of coffee of the day.
“We write very similarly,” Max tells him. “That’s why it worked so well.”
But I miss your touch
Max and Charles’ writing styles have always been intertwined.
Max thinks he’s probably the only person besides Charles who could tell the difference. Maybe Pierre could do it.
There’s something hollow about the song, maybe it’s because Charles hasn’t added his polish to the piece.
Your hips
When Max listened to the Leclerc albums, the ones that didn’t have him on the writing credits, he could sometimes hear elements of himself come through. Charles had always been better at being able to write like Max, than Max had ever been at emulating Charles. It was as if Charles was able to capture the essence of Max in his hands, and manoeuvre it into what he desired.
Your body
“I like it a lot! It’s good. You’ve still got a writer in you.”
“Thank you.”
But Lando isn’t Charles. Nor is he even Pierre.
And your lips
He opens instagram and considers sending the lyrics to Pierre.
Then he imagines Charles singing his words. Properly singing them, maybe on stage, maybe a little changed. He imagines the way his mouth would form the syllables Max had put to paper.
And the way we kissed
Max never stifling. It was something about being too seen, too understood. It had scared him.
It had never sacred Max.
This does. He closes Instagram.
When we were just kids
Max doesn’t think it’s stupid. He doesn’t begrudge his younger self.
If he were allowed to, he’d still be in love with Charles. Would have followed him all the way across the globe, writing songs, and making him coffee.
I'm missin' you
Max presses down on the nozzle of his industrial coffee machine.
He laughs.
Here he is doing all of those things: being in love with Charles, writing songs, and making coffee.
Maybe he should go on a trip, Daniel has been telling him to take a vacation for years.
I'm missin' you
Lando is doing a remarkably good job of being normal about Max being Emilian.
He’s less normal about the “Help Wanted” sign Max puts up on the counter.
“Can I still work the register? Or are you kicking me to finance only? Max I love talking to people. Max I would rot back there, I don’t know how Danny does it!”
“I want to reduce your hours. Because you are here from open to close seven days a week Lando.”
“I like it here!”
“You DJ at night.”
“I also like doing that.”
“Yes. But you need sleep.”
“You aren’t my dad.”
“No, I am taking you off closing and afternoons if I can help it.”
Lando is baffled. “But I stay up? Surely you want me to sleep in or something?”
“And deprive you of Oscar in the mornings?”
The look Lando sends his way is one part horror, one part terror, and one part delight. “You are a horrible boss.”
“Worst boss ever, I know. I am also giving you a raise.”
“So I’ll make the same money even though I’m working more hours?”
“So you’ll make more money because I don’t think you’re going to listen to me when I tell you to go home after lunch.”
"Max I don't need a raise. You pay me fifty an hour. That's like, office job salaries. You know, if you weren't so hopeless with the finances I'd be half convinced this place was a front."
Max sends him a confused look. "The average wage is thirty-five an hour. I went higher because I want my employees to be comfortable. Lando, you are doing a million things here at The Lion's Den. Let me give you a raise."
"Max, the average for service work is fifteen."
"Fifteen is not enough to live comfortably."
But I miss your touch, your hips
Your body and your lips
And the way we kissed
When we were just kids
Ollie and Kimi are excellent hires.
Max isn’t sure if leaving Lando to do employee training was the best idea. Especially when Max has to step in anyways to teach them how to use his machine.
Lando manages to weasel out of that lesson by telling Max he’ll take the afternoon off.
I'm missin' you
I'm missin' you