Chapter 1: Chapter One
Chapter Text
Milton Keynes, 2025
Max thinks that once upon a time, he actually liked Vicky. He can't tell for sure, because it feels like days since she’s been gone to plan out his foreseeable future, even if it's only been hours, and he knows he has no say in it whatsoever. She took one pitiful yet supportive look at him this morning when he walked in, and then disappeared into an office with Christian and Helmut.
To add insult to injury, the office Max is sat in front of but not allowed into is see-through, so he can and does observe the conversation they’re having about him and his life. Knowing it doesn’t soothe the sting whatsoever, and neither does knowing that Vicky, at least, has his best interests at heart. Same can’t be said for Christian and Helmut who would put the team before him any day of the week, but Max doesn't blame them. He doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for them, but he wouldn’t want to be in their shoes right now, either.
Still, better than being Max Verstappen at the moment.
He stretches out in his designated seat of torture – it’s like the armchair was specifically designed to inflict more pain on him should his current life circumstances not be enough – and has another sip of his Red Bull. He’s on the sixth one of the day, and he should probably give it a break, but he still feels low on energy. The room is vacated bar him, at least, which allows his thoughts to circulate in his brain on a loop, running him through scenarios each worse than the other, until finally returning to the main issue at hand, and with each new round another cold chink settles within Max’s chest. He is pretty sure he won’t be fired immediately, his contract preventing that pretty nicely, but he can’t say what his future until it runs out will be like. He definitely knows there will be no extensions to dream of, as if he should get so lucky.
He thinks he had a good run of it – he won tens of races, amassed a very respectable number of podiums, made world-champion twice, even if a little behind schedule for the first one. Not many get here. If he’s on his way out, he can at least say he’s proud of what he’s achieved, even if there is so much more he saw himself doing. One way or another, he’s a foot in for the championship this year, too, and he still has another year on his contract. If all goes to plan, he can retire a four-time world champion, no matter the circumstances around his leaving the sport.
He once again curses Ross in his mind. Had he done what he promised and kept Max a secret, Max could have continued working on his goal of breaking the championship record. He’s only a couple of months shy of turning 28 – he would have had plenty of time to add accolades to his name. Instead, he’s sat in a stuffy Red Bull office thinking of an ex he hasn’t seen in three years and trying to repress the memory of waking up to Vicky’s call. That’s what had clued him on something being wrong: Christian and Helmut call him before humanly acceptable hours on the regular, but Vicky has more respect for him than that.
She had been gentle about it, too. Max, we have a problem on our hands. Ross talked to the Daily Mail, and they have some photos of you together. It’s pretty solid evidence. I haven’t spoken to Christian or Helmut yet, but the sooner we get on it, the more damage control we can do, so I’ll see you at the headquarters in an hour. And Max? Your ex is a total fucking dick. At the time this brought little comfort to a barely-awake Max, mind sluggish from the sleep, but now it’s the only thing he can hang onto. He had switched off his phone immediately after reading the article in question, not wanting to hear from anyone until he had wrapped his own head around it, and now Vicky’s words are the only source of stability he can cling onto. If nothing else, there is one person in the room of doom, as he has come to call it in his mind, who he can call his friend.
If he had known he was going to be alone with his thoughts for coming onto – he checks his watch – three hours, he would have at least grabbed a book or a tablet to keep him company. Not that he thinks he could focus on anything right now, but anything would be better than replaying images of Ross and the last time they saw each other. It was a fairly amicable break-up, which is why Max didn’t think he needed to get him to sign an NDA, even if Ross had looked like he felt sorry for Max as he told him he couldn’t be together with someone who was so very clearly in love with someone else. Max hadn’t argued back, and Ross had said it was fine. No hard feelings. So much for that, then.
Back then, Max really thought he could feel something for Ross. He had liked him, and he had been expecting to eventually develop deeper feelings like Ross had done for him. He was just Max’s type, too – slender, with dark curly hair and an addictive smile, a couple of tattoos. He was funny, and he tolerated Max’s mood swings, which was no small feat. Turns out, sooner or later, Ross had figured out why exactly he was Max’s type, and that had led to their ultimate split up.
Max realises he has zoned out when Vicky comes out of the room, and while he doesn’t want to read too much into her expression, she looks to be smiling cautiously at him. He shifts up from offensively uncomfortable armchair and follows her into the room, where Christian and Helmut are sat waiting for them. He seats himself at the end of the long table, and meets Christian’s eye to the left of him.
“Firstly, Max, we want to say how sorry we are for your situation. I can’t imagine how difficult this must all be for you,” he says, slightly reaching out to clap Max on the shoulder. Max swallows and nods in acknowledgement; he doesn’t trust his voice to speak. From the other side, he sees Helmut’s gaze on him, and while it looks far less sympathetic than Christian’s does, it’s not completely unkind.
As Vicky settles in, Max takes the time to inspect the room for any signs of what he’s about to face. There isn’t much to clue him in, not that he expected, but on the far end of the wall there is a mounted screen. Max wasn’t able to see it from his position outside the room, but now from his seat directly facing it, he can see where it reads 1.04.56, call ended with Dietrich. There is no way that’s good news.
“We have good news,” Vicky says. Max nearly scoffs at that, but reminds himself to remain calm. Things are mostly out of his hands, here, and the better he presents himself, the better his chances of Red Bull not ruining his future are. If only his eighteen-year-old self could see this. Back when his speed was all that mattered, no one could have told him that one day he would willingly tamp down on his temper and conceal his demeanour. “Most importantly, Max, let me assure you that you’re very much part of this team, and we think of you as family. This was news to some members of the team” - Vicky’s gaze flicks to Christian and Helmut - “but you’re no less important and dear to us. We fully support you.”
Helmut clears his throat, and Max prepares for the but, except that it never comes.
“You waited for us to give you a winning car for nearly ten years. We want to show you that same kind of loyalty.”
“Red Bull is nearly synonymous with Max Verstappen,” Christian adds. “You’re our world champion.”
Vicky types something on the laptop placed in front of her, and the screen flicks from the ended Teams call to an online article Max has only seen once, but that is brandished into his memory forever.
“If we have a look at the photos Ross shared with Daily Mail, it’s all pretty watertight. If it were one or two photos, we could always say it was photoshop, but there’s a good few, and he was seen in the paddock regularly, which gives his claim more credibility.”
She scrolls down to the photos, and try as he might, Max can’t avert his gaze when they land on a selfie of Max and Ross kissing in bed, Ross lying on Max’s chest. The photo is at an angle Ross couldn’t have taken.
Betrayal simmers low in Max’s stomach. That was meant to be private. That was meant for him and Ross only, to keep memories of their hidden moments that they could look back on. It was never meant for anyone else, and now it’s been published online for millions of people to see and dissect to their hearts’ content. Somewhere beneath betrayal, there is also a vague feeling of shame, and Max hates that more than anything. He shouldn’t feel ashamed of who he is – he's not. He hasn’t felt that way in years, not since he came to terms with who was he when he met -
He cuts his thought off. He’s not ashamed of who he is, but there is something about being laid bare – figuratively, if not quite literally – in front of the whole world, and allowing them to see parts of himself he wasn’t ready to share. Not just yet.
Fuck, he doesn’t even know what the response to this has been. He had cut himself off from the world the moment he had read the article, and his time since has been filled either in the car on the way to the office, radio very much turned off, or sat alternating his stare between the walls and the ceiling in front of the meeting room he is currently in.
“So denial isn’t really an option,” Vicky continues, unaware of Max’s internal crisis. “We’ve looked at the response of the public, and I would say the vast majority is very positive. There’s a lot of outrage regarding how this all came to light, understandably, but apart from that the general public seems supportive of you. We also had a chat with representatives of a couple of sponsors, and they’re on board too. Should someone wish to pull out, it won’t be any of our main sponsors, and we can afford that, but that would also reflect negatively on them.”
Vicky switches screens again.
“You’ve also received support from a lot of the current and ex drivers, which is a great starting point,” she scrolls through a collection of Tweets and Instagram posts from Max’s colleagues, but Max refuses to read them. He feels sick to his stomach. Everyone around him knows. They will take one look at him, and never see him the same way again. “All in all, there’s no major reason for concern, but obviously we need to handle this and spin it the right way.”
Christian interrupts her briefly. “Before we go any further, your contract isn’t in danger, Max. Not now, and not when you’re up for renewal if you continue as you are. You drive fast, we’ll take care of the rest.”
Max lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, and forces himself to finally speak for the first time since he got off the call with Vicky this morning.
“Thank you, Christian. And the whole team. I really appreciate it,” he croaks, throat feeling dry despite all the Red Bulls he had downed. “This is more than I ever could have expected.”
Vicky smiles at him from his seat.
“We'll be totally honest with you, Max. This wasn’t planned, but Red Bull is a team first and foremost formed to promote a brand, and we take our opportunities as they come. To have this – the first openly gay driver in the sport – fall into our lap, we see this as a good thing. Many other teams might not, but we want to capitalise on the situation. We want you to grab the bull by its horns, so to say, and be open about this.”
Max nods dutifully. He might not be the most open driver about his personal life, but he thinks he can do this. It’s the least he owes the team for not even considering dropping him, apparently, and instead encouraging him to unapologetically be who he is.
“That’s fine by me,” he says out loud, and is met with three faces of varying optimism. Christian smiles, clearly pleased,
“There is one small ask. Not a but - ,” he quickly tacks on, before Max can imagine all the possible worst-case scenarios in his mind “- simply an ask. The final decision is yours, but we would very much like this to happen, and I think you will see it from our perspective too. It will be good for you.”
Before Christian is even done speaking, Max internally promises himself he will do whatever is asked of him. He trusts Red Bull, and anything they need can’t be that bad, anyway.
Vicky turns the screen off, and faces Max directly when she breaks the news.
“It would be good for PR if you were in a committed relationship at the time of your coming out. With your past and reputation, we need to manage your image tightly with this, and presenting you as someone in love would go a long way to establishing you as a settled and stable driver, not only on-track, but also off it. We found a candidate, too, someone who is planning on retiring from the sport this year, and was planning on coming out after that anyway. This would be even better for media exposure, and would be fantastic for all parties involved. I’ll cut to the chase. We want you to pretend to date Daniel.”
Well, fuck.
Chapter 2: Chapter Two
Notes:
thank you so much for all the comments and kudos on the first chapter - they mean so much and i hope everyone likes what's in store !!
Chapter Text
“You want me to what?” Max asks. Despite what he promised himself, he can’t quite bring himself to process the words Vicky just voiced, nevertheless agree to the plan.
Christian seems to sense the inner conflict Max is currently going through, and perhaps there is something in his face that is showing how rooted to the spot he feels, but this is absurd. He can’t possibly pretend to date Daniel. He can’t even comprehend he’s just been told Daniel will retire after this year – that’s certainly not public information yet, and Max was fully expecting him to sign a new contract any one of these days. And – he had been planning to come out after retiring?
Max knows he’s not been much of a friend lately. There was a time he and Daniel were inseparable, and they largely kept that up after Daniel left Red Bull back in 2019, until the end of Lewis’ championship reign, throughout Daniel’s championship year and well into Max’s first one. For whatever reason, they had grown apart a little bit in the last year and a half, but it certainly wasn’t by choice. They weren’t as close as they once had been, but Max would have expected Daniel to tell him something as big as this, to give him fair warning.
If he’s completely honest with himself, he knows he’s at least partially, if not mostly, to blame for the distance between them. Once Red Bull had a competitive car, he didn’t want to lose any more time than he already had – if that came at too high a price, he had only started to realise it too late, and at that point admitting that he had made a mistake was too painful. So he had taken what was was still in-tact or salvageable, which wasn’t what they used to have, but it was enough to still call Daniel a friend; certainly one that he would have wanted to share life events and news with.
The upset he feels about that is nearly strong enough to make him forget about Red Bull’s plan for him, but he shakes himself out of it. He can’t expect something from Daniel that he himself hasn’t offered, as much as that might pain him to admit.
“This is all confidential, of course, but we’ve already spoken to him, and he’s on board with the plan. It will also look credible to the media, seeing how you two were at Red Bull. It’s not a massive jump to make from a friendship like that to a relationship,” Christian says, and it’s probably meant to be soothing, but Max feels anything but soothed. If having private photos of him and Ross out in the open, for anyone to see, was like splaying his soul open and baring all his feelings, it’s nothing compared to what he’s feeling now.
And Daniel – of course Daniel agreed. He has the biggest heart of anyone Max knows, and to come to Max’s rescue, even at someone else’s behest, was probably a no brainer for him. Max really has been a shit friend to him in comparison.
“We want to make the announcement as soon as possible, so while we want to give you some time to deliberate, I’m afraid we need to hurry you up. We have press releases ready to go for either scenario. Let’s say lunchtime?” Vicky checks the time. “That gives you just over an hour, but of course, the sooner the better. Any questions, we're here for you.”
Max nods in acknowledgement. He doesn’t think he’ll need the full hour, because despite his reservations and mini freak-out, he already knows his answer. He just needs to process this and give himself a chance to accept this as his reality for the foreseeable future. This wasn’t exactly on his to do list for the day when he first pried his eyes open, and as silly as it might be, he feels a slight bit of nostalgia for the person he was before he read the article this morning. In no way was he prepared for the events of the day, and he doesn’t even know which has shaken him more – the outing or what followed.
They want him to date Daniel. Fuck. He’s about to jump head-first into something he’s very much not emotionally equipped to handle.
“How long would this be for? Am I committing the rest of my time in racing to pretending to date Daniel?”
Vicky shakes her head.
“Not quite. Obviously until the end of season, and once 2026 kicks off we can start phasing it out, saying you two have split up but remain on friendly terms. You can go back to being how you are now. Well, nearly,” she says, a hint of guilt to her tone over her slip-up.
Max nods again, because he really doesn’t know what else to say or do. It seems like he’s listening to plans that are being made for someone else, for someone else’s life, rather than himself. He wishes that was the case – that this was all hypothetical, and he could disassociate himself from all of this, that this wasn’t his reality. As it is, he has a ticking deadline working against him and a vague memory of normality from yesterday. To think that twenty-four hours ago his biggest worry was which Italian take out place conforms to his diet requirements more. He would take that anytime over the public shitshow his life has become since then.
He knows he doesn’t really have a choice, either. This is a small price to pay for retaining Red Bull’s public support, and he already promised himself he would do whatever the ask of him was going to be. In contrast to some of the other drivers, he’s managed to keep his dating life fairly out of the press and the public eye, so to sacrifice that for a year – he could do it.
Plus, pretending to be in a relationship with Daniel isn’t the worst possible outcome by a long shot. They could have picked far worse alternatives, and even if Max will have to suppress an emotion or two when he’s around him, it’s still better than having to fake being in love with some aspiring model or whatever other alternative Red Bull could have chosen for him. If he has to hold hands and bring someone to galas and outings as his date and say a couple of nice, media-proofed words about, Daniel is pretty much the top option. Hell, at least a couple of thousand people would still be jealous of him, even knowing the realities of his situation. He just has one last doubt before he agrees.
“Vicky, can I borrow your phone? Mine is sort of-,” he begins, but she silences him by outstretching her unlocked iPhone to him.
“It’s under Daniel R,” she says simply.
Max gives her what seems the first genuine smile of the day, even if it’s small, and wastes no time vacating the room to get some relative privacy. Christian and Helmut don’t seem to mind, both immersed in their respective laptops, so Max deems it acceptable to do this one thing for himself.
He finds Daniel’s number under recent activity, and isn’t surprised that Daniel answers quickly when he dials his number.
“Victooooriaaaaa,” he sing-songs, as casual as ever. Despite himself, Max grins a little at his voice, feeling some remote sense of normalcy at this tiny, tiny thing.
“It’s me, actually,” he says, unsure, and instantly feels stupid. Daniel has pre-emptively agreed to help Max out in the biggest mess of his life; he shouldn't feel on eggshells around him. Daniel is hardly going to deny him an opportunity to speak to him.
“Ahh, Maximus. What a big pile of shit, eh?” he laughs, like Max isn’t under the threat of facing shitty comments from strangers who don’t even know him for the rest of his career – hell, life – and dragging Daniel straight down the rabbit hole with him. Or well, holding the door to the rabbit hole wide open and allowing him to slide right in by choice. Whatever. It’s just as bad.
“That’s one way to call it, yeah,” he chuckles. Something in his chest already feels lighter, like he’s been holding a breath he didn’t know he needed to let out. “Guess not even I am immune from shitty exes,” he laughs self-deprecatingly.
“Guess not,” Daniel responds. He doesn’t ask how Max is holding up, which he’s grateful for. God knows it’s not well. “Gave you a nice publicity boost, though. You’re like, the talk of the town. Surpassed me with Instagram followers, you little dickhead.”
This time the laugh Max lets out is completely genuine.
“Only took me a couple of years, and I didn’t even have to get my abs out. A win for my dignity.”
Daniel lets out a howling laugh, and before he can respond, Max ploughs on.
“I’m gonna take the deal, when I go back into the room of doom.” He makes it sound like he’s a criminal being let out on parole, and to some extent, he feels like one, too. It’s testament to how well Daniel knows him he doesn’t even question Max’s choice of words. “But are you sure?”
He doesn’t tell Daniel he doesn’t have to, because Daniel very well knows that. He just wants to give him an out, him personally and not through third parties whose livelihood isn’t at stake here. “I can do it on my own, too. You have five months left, you could avoid all this unnecessary drama. You could choose a much easier option, do it after you retire.” That’s what I would do, he doesn’t say.
“One hundred percent. I was planning to do it anyway. Maybe not this soon, but if I can help one of my best friends while I do it, why shouldn’t I?” he says, like it’s that simple. Maybe for him, it is.
One of my best friends, Max thinks. Hearing the words is as much of a blessing as it is a curse.
“Okay,” Max sighs. “Okay,” he repeats, because what else can he say that? “Thank you. I’m gonna go tell them.”
“Good boy. Can’t wait to parade you around on my arm like a trophy husband,” Daniel says. Trust him to make a joke out of a situation like this.
“Hey, I have more championships than you! If anyone’s going to be the trophy husband, it’ll be you,” Max argues back, biting down on his lip to control the smile threatening to take over his face again.
“Alright, Anna Nicole, whatever helps you sleep at night. I won’t spoil you then. Just know I’m not cheap.”
Max laughs and bids Daniel farewell. It’s funny how one phone call can make him feel so much better about the circumstances he’s wilfully being forced into and make him think maybe it will all turn out okay. It’s not hell if he has Daniel by his side, and he’ll be there physically holding his hand. If there is anything to get him through whatever he has to withstand, it’s this.
When he returns to the room, no one even looks up at his announcement to agree to the plan. Vicky sits him down and tell him they’re in for a long day, with Daniel and a representative from McLaren due in soon, and Christian and Helmut get on a call with Dietrich to get him up to speed. It’s fairly clinical, really, working like a machine in a factory, which helps take the emotional edge off and allows Max to distance himself from the whole plan. He also supposes that his nervous system has been on edge since seven a.m., so the break is welcome when he can sit back a little and let everyone sort out his life for him. He feels a little bit like a puppet, each one of his strings controlled by a different person, and for all that he usually hates feeling like a means to an end, now it’s a reprieve he so very much craves.
Once Daniel and Charlotte arrive, it’s all business. They run them both through the game plan, detailing what is going to be expected from them over the coming eight months. Max isn’t one for notes, but with something so big and precarious he starts writing down key points, and by the end of the meeting he has four pages worth of pointers for himself to memorise.
They’ve covered pretty much everything – the press release, the narrative of how they got together, the finer details of how Red Bull allowed and even encouraged them to form a bond away from the public eye (which is complete bull crap, but Max settles for sharing an amused glance with Daniel at that instead of calling them out) which allowed them to cross the line to more than friends, the level of physical affection they will have to show towards each other. Max is relieved to learn that not that much will change; they’re racers, first and foremost, and bar the initial coming out they won’t need to do much to allude to the relationship between them. An Instagram post here, a hug there – it's nothing they don’t already do. He guesses the big difference is that now, there will be a whole different meaning behind each one of their moves, and everyone will read into it so much more. It won’t be just for them anymore, but for everyone else, too.
Around midday, Vicky releases the press statement.
Max doesn’t know what the reaction is, still hasn’t got around to turning on his phone (if he’s being completely honest with himself, he’s not exactly in a rush to do that), but judging by Vicky’s expression as she takes it all in it’s not too bad, if Max allows himself to be cautiously optimistic. They schedule a press conference with Natalie for the evening, and until then Max and Daniel spend the time answering questions from Red Bull’s sponsors.
Technically, the moment they switch on the camera for the first time to speak to Exxon, they’re on stage. They’re acting, they’re presenting a united front, they’re trying to convince the sponsorships director of the company they’re a couple, but somehow, it doesn’t feel like it.
When Max starts bouncing his leg under the table in the middle of a tough question, Daniel slips his hand into his even though it’s not even visible to the camera, and rubs soothing circles into the space between his thumb and his index finger. When Max gets frustrated having to recite the memorised lines of how they first got together, Daniel jumps in and makes it look so smooth Max isn’t sure himself he didn’t just get politely cut off. When a sponsor from Mobil1 asks Max about Ross, the poor girl doesn’t get even halfway through her question before Daniel firmly lets her know they won’t be answering any questions about Max’s ex.
Daniel is like a breath of fresh air, but it’s also all so familiar, how it used to be back when they were teammates, and Max finds himself falling back into a routine with Daniel easily. Despite all the years in between, in some ways it’s like no time has passed, but it’s also a reminder that just like last time, this has a definite ending in sight culminating in Daniel leaving him.
Max tells his mind to shut up, and enjoys the feeling of Daniel’s fingers slotted in between his.
That night, when the day is done, he drives back home, radio still very much turned off. It’s bright outside despite being past nine, Julys in England full of light until late, but it’s a perfect contrast to how he feels.
He settles into his bed, alone and exhausted, and now that there isn’t an imminent threat hanging over him for the first time in hours and hours, it’s like the weight of the world crashes over him. He’s twenty-seven, yet in the artificial darkness of his bedroom created by the heavy curtains over his windows, he feels seven. He feels helpless, and lost, and unsure of the ground beneath his feet like he has never felt before, which makes him sick to his stomach. He realises he hasn’t eaten anything today, not in addition to the Red Bulls he consumed in the heat of the stress this morning, but still his stomach heaves and his throat is tight.
He does the only thing he can think of, in that moment, and fumbles around blindly for his phone where had chucked it on the side table. He turns it on, ignores all the notifications he has accumulated over the day and rings a familiar number.
“Hi, mum,” he says when the person on the other end picks up. Then, he cries.
Chapter Text
The first race after the coming out is in Hockenheim. It’s also the last race before the summer break, which is both a blessing and a curse: blessing in that it will allow people to get over the news quicker while Max hides away from the public eye, but also a curse because there’s no races to distract the masses from the very same topic. That means the media circus is full-force in Germany, ready to strike while the iron is hot.
He shows up to the paddock holding Daniel’s hand.
It’s not any different from other couples – Charles, George, Pierre, even bloody Lando now that he’s finally found a girl patient enough to tolerate him, make it a habit of bringing their partners with them wherever they go, but somehow the flock of media seems to circle them more than anyone else. He supposes it makes sense – they are one of a kind. Max is annoyed but not surprised; after all, it’s the first time they’ve held hands in public.
“You alright?” Daniel asks, squeezing his palm gently. His hand is warm in his, perhaps a bit too much so in the sweltering heat of the German sun, but Max would be severely disappointed should there no longer be a point of physical contact between them in this exact form. He squeezes back.
“Peachy,” Max replies. “Netflix is following us this weekend. Not us us, but like, Red Bull us,” he clarifies, nodding towards the small group of filming crew gathered to the left of them.
“Your favourite!” Daniel laughs, making a barking noise at the cameras and widening his smile to that camera ready, poster boy pin-up he moulds himself into at a moment’s notice. It’s as beautiful as it’s exasperating.
Max rolls his eyes, but he suspects the warmth he feels inside him is fondness.
“Christian says I have to play nice and cooperate. Such bullshit. How those guys have something to film even after all this time, I don’t know,” he grumbles, and sends a glare Netflix’s way. No need for them to get too comfortable.
“I mean, I can think of a couple of things that contribute to the drama. Like the fact that two world champions are gay and dating,” Daniel wiggles his eyebrows and swings their linked fingers between them exaggeratedly.
“Ha, yeah. What happened to the narrative of the first season? I thought I was meant to despise you.”
“Same here, baby,” Daniel laughs. Max doesn't have the heart to tell him there’s no microphones in sight to pick-up the nickname, but he secretly revels in it anyway. “It’s a full-blown soap opera. That character arc from hatred to love? Reckon they’re going for an Oscar, here. Not gonna be easy to explain this development when last time we were on screen we could barely even tolerate each other.”
“Good,” Max rolls his eyes at the memory. “They deserve it for making up storylines that don’t have a speck of truth to them,” he huffs, and comes to a halt to drop Daniel off when they reach the McLaren garages. “Alright, wish me luck entering the lion’s den.”
Daniel leans in and kisses him on the cheek, which makes another round of flashes go off behind them. It’s not quite what Max meant, but he’s not complaining.
“Good luck. Make them pay for season one editing,” Daniel winks at him, and disappears into the McLaren garage. Max has an inkling that out of the photos published online later that day, a good chunk of them will be of him looking after Daniel longingly.
Netflix is, in comparison to the rest of his weekend, actually pretty bearable, which is unexpected. Amidst the wider mess that his life has become, he manages to forget that Thursday means media day, and while that has become an everyday factor of his life in the past week, one thing he hasn’t considered is other drivers.
His social bubble since the news first broke has mostly been limited to his team and a select few other individuals, and so he just sort of.... forgot to consider the rest of the first-hand racing world. The press? Yes. The FIA? Sure. Even the fans? Definitely. But the other drivers, who he would have to see on a regular basis and interact with? Not so much.
In fact, his only consideration of them is limited to Vicky showing him their messages of support on the day Daily Mail published the article, and back then Max was still in the denial stage of the mental process. He couldn’t recall a single one of the tweets if his life depended on it. It seems silly, to neglect the only nineteen (or eighteen, not counting Daniel) other people in the world who do the same job as him and who he spends weekends in close quarters with, yet somehow that's exactly what he’s managed to do.
When he had finally braved going through his WhatsApps, he was pleased to see a few supportive messages from a couple of the drivers on the grid, and after they broke the news about him and Daniel, Christian had sat him down to show him all notable congratulatory messages online to assure him their plan was working just as predicted.
But that was different – that was for him and Daniel as a unit. He’s still mostly unaware of their opinions to his own outing to begin with. Logically, Max knows it’s the twenty-first century, and his eyes have registered the positive reactions of everyone on social media, but reading them online and actually being in the same room with the people who wrote them are not the same thing.
Motorsports is an archaic, homophobic slice of the sporting community, and try as Max or Red Bull might, change isn’t inherent to a structure that benefits from enforcing the straight white male narrative. It wasn’t supportive of Victoria when she wanted to race professionally, and it wasn’t supportive of Lewis when he brought attention to the racism that was present in the sport, so why should it be any different for him?
It makes Max nervous to face his fellow drivers, even if realistically none of them can be outright hostile to him for publicity reasons. He doesn’t want the covert looks, the hushed whispers when he passes by. He wants back what he had before his dickhead of an ex decided his private life deserved to be shared with the rest of the world.
In the end, he should have worried about something completely different when it came to seeing everyone in person. There is no hidden tension he feared facing, but there is a fair bit of attention when he enters the waiting room alone, Daniel having been scheduled for the press conference preceding Max’s.
It’s mostly Pierre and Lando surrounding him immediately, the latter launching himself at Max who barely catches him in a gangly hug, with the other drivers in the room coming up to him to give him a few friendly backslaps. It’s not awkward; in fact, it's fairly pleasant how accepting everyone is, and Max finds he doesn’t have to think twice before showing or reciprocating any physical contact, freely squeezing the shoulders of Carlos and Lance.
They only have a couple of minutes before they have to go in front of the press, Max timing his arrival as closely to the stage time as possible to avoid any extra socialisation in case the reception to his presence would turn out to be icy. Their little crowd disperses in favour of hooking up any mics, or, in Pierre’s case, being told to put on clothes more covering than the nearly see-through fireproofs Mercedes seem to like on him, and Max breathes a sigh of relief when he finally thinks he’s alone.
There is a polite cough from behind him, and Max turns around to see Sebastian stood there, looking at him with a friendly smile. He clearly has something on his mind is his expression is anything to go by; Max isn’t sure he’s ready for this, but he gives a cautious nod anyway to signal for Sebastian to go ahead.
He isn’t the same person he was five years ago, doesn’t have that secret need for approval from Sebastian as much as he used to, but god, he doesn’t want this to be something that changes their dynamic.
“I know I already said, but I really wanted to congratulate you and Daniel again,” he says, and his smile widens to something soft and kind and – proud, dare Max say?
“Thanks, Seb. It means a lot coming from you,” Max replies in a polite manner, a bit confused about where this interaction is headed.
Sebastian rubs at his temple momentarily and shifts his weight from one foot to another.
“I don’t want this to sound like the opinion of an old man or anything, so don’t take it as such,” he begins, and for a second Max thinks Sebastian is about to express his disappointment in Max, until he mentally shakes himself. He just congratulated Max – why would he now backtrack and reverse his opinion? And besides, this is Sebastian. He should know better than to doubt him.
“I’ll keep my mind open,” he promises, tongue in cheek, and Sebastian chuckles, squeezes Max’s hip lightly.
“Not a lot of the current grid were there when you joined Red Bull. Well, honestly, I think it’s just me and you and Daniel and Carlos, but I remember what you and Daniel were like from the start. You were obviously taking over the team that I had left, so I was curious to see what was going on there,” he says, smiles good naturedly. Max raises his eyebrows slightly to show him he’s listening.
“You were so young, but you two came together so well. It’s like neither of you had eyes for anyone else once you became teammates. Like, not to be arrogant, but Daniel said you were the best teammate he ever had, and he was teammates with me after I won four championships. I know with this ex of yours, you haven’t always been together with Daniel, but I could see it in the way you looked at each other. He’s been gone for you for so long, and I think so have you for him. I’m very happy for you two, that you finally figured it out.”
Max can’t help but stare at Sebastian. He doesn’t know what to make of what he’s just heard, and to an extent he feels bad for lying about his relationship to someone with such genuine motives, but he swallows it down. He’s making the best out of a shit situation, and he shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for that.
He also wants to tell Sebastian that how Daniel used to look at him – how he still does – is nothing but how Daniel is as a person. Max isn’t special for receiving some of his attention for years on end when they were pushed together by circumstances, no matter how badly he might want that to be the case. He can’t exactly tell Sebastian that, though.
“Thanks, Seb,” he croaks, and even to his own ears his voice sounds clipped. He hopes Sebastian mistakes it for nerves instead of the anxiety that’s actually bubbling up inside him.
They’re called in just then, the other drivers filing out of their press conference. He sees them coming out, headed up by Charles and Callum, and Max moves to the side to let them through. Daniel brushes past him and rubs their shoulders together when passes him, one of the last in order, a hand coming up to Max’s waist briefly. It’s nothing they wouldn’t have done before, nothing out of the ordinary, but something about it still causes Max to bite down on his lip to prevent his face from grinning. He doesn’t miss the gentle smile Sebastian sends his way.
The media is brutal. A lot of the interactions Max has had so far have been tightly controlled, shaped, screened, the questions for his coming out interview with Natalie agreed ahead of time and Netflix being given a list of topics they were safe to discuss. The press release Vicky put out was poured over by a few different press team members, as well as the top Red Bull management, but now that the media has unobstructed access to Max and no guidance from the powers that be, Max is left to fend for himself.
No matter how hard Max tries, he can’t quite hide the biting edge to his voice when he’s asked about Ross and the pictures in Daily Mail, nor can he help some responses that Max of 2018 would have been proud of. It’s fine. If it means Daniel got less shitty questions, Max will take the heat and cope with it – after all, he’s only been the target for some stupid prompts since he first started driving in Formula 1.
It does, however, mean that Max is cranky when he walks out, and the other drivers leave him be with one look at his face. It’s the last press conference of the day, everyone else done earlier on, so Max can afford to hang back and wait for the route to the Red Bull garage to empty out as much as possible to avoid any unnecessary interaction, messing around on his phone as he does so.
He thinks he’s in the clear when a couple of minutes have passed and the premises are mostly empty. He makes his way out through the waiting room, quickly walking towards the exit, when someone comes up to him and blocks his escape route.
“Hey, Max,” Callum says apprehensively. Max is, like, seven or eight steps away from the door. “You got a moment?”
He’s clearly waited the whole of Max’s press conference to speak to him.
Max is getting sort of tired of everyone wanting a one-to-one with him. Goddammit, he comes out once, and suddenly he’s the talk of the town. He can count the number of times he’s even spoken to Callum, yet here he is, with no escape. Callum doesn’t look threatening, though, and Max needs every ally he can possibly amass, so he resigns himself to being nice for the next five or ten minutes, even if that means faking a smile to cover up his frustration post press conference.
“Sure,” he replies, forcing the corners of his mouth to lift up. “What’s up?”
Callum looks nervous in a way that makes Max want to comfort him, but he decides that the best course of action is to stay quiet and wait for Callum to get to the point on his own.
“I think it's really brave what you did,” Callum begins, fiddling with the hem of his shirt and running a hand through his hair. “Obviously, I know you didn’t really have a choice, but I think it gives a lot of hope to other people in the motorsports community. It's good to have someone to look up to, someone people can point to that is a multiple time world champion and is also gay. It's comforting to a lot of people, to have someone who looks like them at the top of this sport. Well, it's comforting to me. So, I just wanted to say, it means a lot.”
As Callum speaks, Max can feel the irritation leave his body. He’s no longer annoyed he has to be here. In fact, he finds he’s grateful he’s been entrusted with this. He doesn’t know how many of or even whether the others know, but the fact that Callum has opened up to him is big. He doesn’t think he would have had the guts, back when he was still more or less fresh to F1. He wishes he had been more like Callum, himself.
For the second time that day, he has no idea how to respond, but he thinks back to how he was a couple years back and what he would have liked to hear back then.
“It’s okay, you know. None of this impacts your ability to drive. You don’t have to fit every corner of the mould they create for you. I can’t really tell you what it’s like, to be out” – he hopes he’s read Callum’s tone correctly, and when no correction comes, he continues – “but I know what it’s like to hide a part of yourself. It wasn’t my choice to come out, but the past years I never really hid it, either. I just let people draw their own conclusions and often that was to assume what they wanted to assume. Less hiding, more being private. It helps in the long-run.”
Callum looks at Max for a long time, staying silent to the point Max thinks he’s overstepped, until slowly he bridges the gap between them and wraps his arms around Max. It takes Max a couple of moments to realise he’s being hugged, and he settles into it, smiling over Callum’s shoulder. He never expected this to be one of the consequences, but he finds himself enjoying it as he gives Callum’s back a few friendly pats.
God, he’s sees where Sebastian was coming from, with his old-man attitude.
“My boyfriend and I, we were so thrilled when you and Daniel came out,” Callum says when they eventually separate. “He looks up to Daniel a lot.”
Max smiles, genuine. He’s yet to meet any driver that doesn’t look up to Daniel, himself very much included and leading the pack.
“Oscar, I’m guessing?” Max asks, and by the blush on Callum’s face he thinks he got it right in one. “Daniel likes him a lot, too. He told Renault to put him in F1 as soon as they could before he left, but you know how this business is,” Max tells him, feeling a little more comfortable now that they’re talking about racing again.
“He’s the youngest FE champion there’s ever been. Can’t complain too much,” Callum shrugs non-committedly, but his face is fond as he says it. “I’ll let you get back to your garage, you must be tired. Just, uh, thanks.”
He claps Max on his arm again and then he’s off, leaving Max alone in the empty waiting room. He has a spring in his step on his way to the garage, and even when he plays his press conference back in his mind, it doesn’t dampen his mood at all.
Max’s real problems start on the Saturday, when he has an issue with the brake ducts and has to skip all of FP3 just to have a chance of a functioning car for qualifying. In the afternoon, he gets through to Q2 and then Q3, but right before the final check his team finds a bigger issue with the front suspension. Christian makes the call to focus on tomorrow’s race with a fully in-tact car, and so Max never gets out on track for the third time, stuck in the designated P10 spot.
His bad luck doesn’t run out on Sunday, when he is first crashed into by a rookie Haas driver who takes part of his floor with him, then spins twenty laps in because he has no semblance of grip once it starts raining, and finally has to retire with seven laps to go even though he was heading for a points finish when the same suspension issue from yesterday acts up again.
On the face of it, it’s not a very good two days for him at all. Somehow, he still doesn’t leave the weekend feeling like utter shit. He counts it as a win, which might also have something to do with the fond spark in Daniel’s eye when Max tells him about his conversation with Callum, but that’s between himself and his heart.
Notes:
I couldn’t resist the classic “third party tells them they always knew” moment. and yes I added a little callum / oscar despite never seeing any interaction between them. what about it
Chapter 4: Chapter Four
Notes:
this chapter is a bit longer. I really enjoyed writing it so I hope you like it !!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Okay, now place your foot on top of my foot. Go slow,” Max instructs, struggling to stay still himself.
Luka giggles at Max but obeys, carefully moving his one foot off the floor and to fit on top of Max’s.
“Good boy. Second foot. Come on, before mum gets here.”
Luka wiggles his little foot and places more of his weight onto his palms, which are on top Max’s hands as they’re pressed close to his chest. Max’s back is starting to hurt a little from lying down on the hard balcony floor, but he is nothing if not committed to performing acrobatics with his nephew.
Luka finally sets his other foot on top of Max’s, so their four limbs are connected and Luca is fully extended on top of Max, Max’s hands and feet crouched close to his body.
“Okay, ready to be lifted?” he asks, like he doesn’t already know the answer.
Luka grins widely at him.
“Really really high, uncle Max! I want to fly.”
“I will do my best,” Max promises, and starts extending his hands and feet, lifting Luka up into the air little by little. It’s unstable and shaky even if Luka is fairly light at only four years old, but Max isn’t one to give up. Besides, Luka’s smile looks way too infectious for Max to not do anything he wants. He manages to straighten his hands and legs eventually, Luka tightly clutching onto his fingers, and they smile at each other victoriously.
“I’m in the air!” Luka shouts.
“You’re in the air!” Max concurs. “Hold on really tight now.”
He bends his feet and hands a little bit and then extends them again, simulating a rollercoaster, and Luka giggles loudly. Max repeats the movement a couple of times until Luka is in fits of laughter, his mouth wide open and a twinkle in his eye from where he’s looking at Max from on top of him.
“Max Emilian, if you injure my son, you are never seeing him again,” comes Victoria’s voice from the doorway to Max’s balcony. Max freezes, as does Luka in the air above him, and a second later he comes tumbling down onto Max’s chest and stomach. His elbow lands just under Max's ribs, and Max lets out a loud groan when the pain blooms in his side.
Luka looks up at his mum with wide yes.
“But mummy! We were having fun,” he pleads.
Victoria looks rather unimpressed. “I’m sure you were. Go wash your hands, lunch is ready.”
Luka scrambles up and off Max, thankfully without injuring him any further, and Victoria’s eyes turn to her brother. Max blinks back up at her. It’s funny how despite being the younger sibling, Victoria bosses Max around just as much as her own children whenever she’s in her mother mode.
“You know, it was all going fine until you came here. I had it all under control,” Max tells her from where he’s still lying on the floor, the dull pain ebbing below his skin.
Victoria looks at his side, where his hand is currently resting and rubbing in soothing motions. “Yeah, sure looks like it.” She raises one unbelieving eyebrow.
“I had a come down plan, and it involved zero sharp edges. You owe me a really fancy massager or something.”
Again, Victoria looks unimpressed. Christ, it really is like having a second mother.
“You literally employ someone to look after your body.”
She has a point, but Max doesn’t intend to let her know that. She’s come to have way too much power since giving birth to Luka, but it’s been particularly apparent after she had Zoe two months ago.
“You’re mean,” he says instead, because sometimes he can be a child, too.
“I’m being practical,” she shoots back without pause and turns around to go back inside. “Go on then, wash your hands and come have lunch so you’re not late. Teaching my children bad manners isn’t on my things I want you to do, either.”
Max rolls his eyes silently, but gets up to follow her instructions.
“I saw that!”
Lunch is an uneventful affair, if you don’t count Max showing Luka how to make airplanes out of tortilla wraps. He’s on his third one, and even though they’re not very prone to being airborne, it’s good fun. Luka seems to enjoy it too when he lands one in his sister’s hair, causing Victoria and Tom to sigh audibly as Zoe gurgles in confusion.
Max is forbidden to continue his quest of building sustainable food-based aircraft pretty quickly after that, so instead he opts for an opera singing competition between himself and Luka, who is perhaps an even worse singer than Max himself. Luka is so much like Max himself already, both in looks and personality, and Max would feel bad for his sister if he wasn’t having this much fun with him.
When Luka hits a particularly ear-torturing note, Victoria decides it’s nap time.
“But mommy, I’m four. I’m not a little baby anymore,” he protests. “Uncle Max doesn’t need a nap, why do I?”
Victoria eyes Max up dangerously.
“Oh, I think it’s nap time for uncle Max, alright.”
“What –” Max begins, but then her gaze flickers to where his phone is perched on one of the side tables. Max doesn't like to spend the little time he has with his family online, so he usually leaves it lying around until a quieter moment to check his messages; that doesn’t explain Victoria’s expression, though.
“Put Luka to sleep and call your boy. He’s been messaging you non-stop all day,” she says, which has Max’s face heating up in some sort of embarrassment. Victoria is one of the few people who actually know the truth of their dynamic, and she very much knowns that Daniel isn’t his boy by any stretch of the imagination. It might simply be a way to word it to not make Tom suspicious, he thinks, but judging by the mischievous glint in her eyes, this is her teasing him.
“Mum arrives tomorrow. Pretty sure you’d rather not have that sort of conversation with her nearby,” she winks, and yeah, definitely teasing him.
Ugh. Sisters.
“Victoria, let your brother be. He’s allowed to miss his boyfriend, they’ve been separated for a whole four days,” Tom says, exaggerating ‘four’ way over the top. Max narrows his eyes. So much for guy solidarity.
“If you had seen what I saw, you wouldn’t be saying that,” she replies, which is most certainly a lie, but Tom wouldn’t know that. They share a look between themselves, one that Max can’t nor particularly wants to be able to decipher, and then Victoria waves in the direction of Luka. “This year, please.”
Max collects his nephew and they head to his guestroom together. Surprisingly, getting Luka to sleep isn’t too difficult a task considering the post-lunch energy dip, and Max doesn’t even get to the good part of Winnie the Pooh before Luka stops hmming at the right moments.
Max tucks his nephew in tighter, and after ensuring he won’t fall out of bed, presses a kiss to his forehead and tiptoes out and into his own bedroom, carefully closing the door behind himself. He feels like a bashful teenager, sneaking away from his family to talk to a cute boy in his bedroom under the covers so they won’t overhear or worse, see him blush, but, well – he may not be a teenager anymore, but Daniel is still a cute boy and he doesn’t want Victoria to see just how bad he’s got it.
Daniel picks up on the second ring.
“Boyfriend!” he exclaims, and Max can see his wide smile all the way to his bed in Monaco, even if Daniel is needed at the factory in England.
“Hi, Daniel,” Max murmurs in response, already feeling something in his tummy swoop at the sound of his voice.
“You’ve been ignoring me all day,” Daniel drawls, and Max can practically imagine how his lower lip is jutting out. “Wait, switch to video.”
Daniel’s request comes through a second later, which gives Max less time to make sure his hair isn’t in total disarray than he’d ideally like, but needs must. He presses accept, and there, filling his whole screen, is Daniel’s face, radiant and so, so good-looking. Fuck.
Daniel bites his lip for an instant upon seeing Max, and for a moment neither says anything to the other, just looking at the screen in silence. Daniel seems to be somewhere outside, the sun shining down on him where he’s reclining in a chair in a thin t-shirt as he runs a hand through his curls. Max doesn’t know what Daniel’s London flat looks like, but he would wager a bet on him being on a balcony, and it stings a bit that he let their friendship cool down over the last year enough that he doesn’t know the basic features of Daniel’s apartment. There’s another sting at his throat for seeing Daniel smile at him, and he can’t bring himself to speak first when the breath’s been knocked out of him.
Daniel breaks the moment when he shapes his face into the expression Max had imagined only a second earlier, pouting and giving Max puppy eyes.
“You’ve been ignoring me all day,” he repeats.
“Yeah, sorry. Been busy with Luka, Victoria and Tom and the kids flew over last night and mum’s coming tomorrow, so I’ve been trying to be on my phone less. Is this you telling me you miss me already?” Max asks, tone perhaps a bit too transparent and hopeful.
Daniel grins. “Always, Maxy. I won’t say I’ve been counting the days, but I think it’s four.” It is, Max wants to confirm, but thinks better of it just in time. Stupid Tom. “You do anything exciting yet?”
“Took Luka to SeaLife this morning, saw some cool fish, bought him way too much candy afterwards. You know, the usual,” Max laughs. “Wait, I’ll send you something.”
He selects a selfie he took with Luka earlier that day, both of them sticking out their tongues at the camera with a stingray behind them that seems to be doing the same. It took multiple attempts to get the timing right for all three of them, but the end result is really cool, if Max says so himself, and he sends it to Daniel without overthinking it.
Daniel’s face melts into something very soft on camera when he sees the photo. He blinks at it, the corners of his mouth turned upwards, and bites at his lower lip again. He needs to stop doing that if he wants Max to retain any semblance of sanity.
“You should take your nephew, too, when you guys are in Monaco. He’ll like it. Hey, maybe we should introduce him to Luka one day. I know he’s a bit older, but they’re the same kind of crazy,” Max rambles on while waiting for Daniel to react. “Actually, I did a bunch of research for children’s activities in Monaco, so I can –”
“You’re cute,” Daniel cuts him off. Max looks up from where he’s been twisting his fingers in the covers.
“Yeah, it took us a couple of tries, but we got there event–”
Daniel interrupts him again. “No, you’re cute.”
Max sort of needs a moment to process the words he’s just heard, not quite believing his ears, but Daniel’s intense gaze over the camera is enough confirmation. Embarrassingly, his first reaction seems to be to blush, which he’s only done a handful of times in his whole life, and then he giggles, which is infinitely worse. Daniel must think he’s a lunatic, reacting like this to a boyfriend that is very much fake.
Then there’s the fact that Daniel flirts with everyone, and is oblivious to the reaction he causes in people who actually want that flirting to be intentional.
He doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so instead he coughs and changes the topic.
“So why exactly did you need my attention so bad today?” he asks.
“Straight to the business with you, as always. Can’t let me sweet talk you a little bit,” Daniel jokes. “You know how McLaren have everyone and their uncle sponsor them?”
Max nods, thinking back to the McLaren car that is more advertising board than Formula 1 vehicle at this point. It did give Daniel his championship three years ago, so he can’t be too critical, but he’s certainly impressed by their marketing department's might in forming relationships.
“Zak thought we need to do something to keep them engaged during the summer break, give them some entertainment and incentive to keep investing, so he’s planned a gala.” Max must groan audibly, because Daniel laughs gently. “I know, I know. But as a driver it’s very much mandatory for me to attend.”
Max lifts an eyebrow. “I think I can see where this is going.”
Daniel blinks up at him, eyes deliberately wide.
“Come on, it’ll be fun. Well, the event won’t be, but I’ll make it fun for you. Remember our sponsor events at Red Bull?” He wiggles his eyebrows exaggeratedly, no doubt thinking of all the times they made up totally inappropriate drinking games or dares to make the events at least somewhat interesting. “Lando’s bringing his girlfriend, too, so we won’t be the only people under forty there.”
Max flicks his eyes up to directly stare at the camera to show Daniel just how much he is not on board with this.
Daniel scrunches his nose at him. “Open bar?” he tries.
“Getting hotter.”
“I’ll owe you one?”
“You can do better.”
“I’ll let you drive my new McLaren there.”
“I can buy one if I want.”
“I'll take you quad biking the day after.”
“Make it monster trucks.”
Daniel rolls his eyes.
“Monster trucks it is.”
“Your treat?”
“My treat.”
Max heaves a put-upon sigh and tries to repress his triumphant grin. “Fine, you win. I’ll take both the favour and the driving rights on top of that, though.” He doesn’t mention that had Daniel gone to Vicky first, she probably would have made him go regardless, and with nothing in return for his time.
“I expect nothing less,” Daniel smiles, and it’s so bright in the sun that somehow, Max thinks he’s not the one who won here at all. “It’s black tie, so dress up. We’re gonna show everyone up.”
Max groans. “I hate you.”
“Not according to the press, you don’t. There’s a rumour going around we’re dating.”
Despite himself, Max can’t help but burst out laughing at that.
“Next you’re gonna tell me we’re considering coming out,” he says, which causes the laugh lines to appear on Daniel’s face again. Max wishes he was in London next to him, but he thinks saying something like that is the same as admitting he’s missing him, which is ridiculous. It’s been four days. He’s spent much longer without Daniel in the past – this fake dating ordeal is just messing with his head.
“That’s preposterous,” he responds and runs a hand through his hair. He looks off camera for a moment, turning around, then looks at Max again apologetically. “Listen, I need to go before Michael thinks I’m avoiding him –” Daniel switches to a whisper – “which I am –” he goes back to his normal voice – ”so I’ve got to go. I’ll speak to you soon, yeah?”
“Of course,” Max replies, way too quickly, but it doesn’t matter when Daniel lights up. “Say hi to Michael.”
“And you to Victoria. Poor woman’s looking after three kids. Alright, bye hot stuff!”
Daniel disconnects before Max has a chance to say his own byes, and it takes him a second to realise Daniel has just both offended and complimented him in one sentence. He types out replies to a couple WhatsApps while he’s deciding on which emotion to feel, and comes out of the bedroom a mixture of annoyed and exasperatedly fond.
Victoria doesn’t comment on it verbally, but she does press a kiss to his cheek and give him a gentle squeeze to his shoulder, so he thinks she understands.
***
Despite the fact that the actual reason for texting him has now been discussed and put to rest for the moment, Daniel keeps texting Max constantly throughout the day. It’s been over a year since Max was used to this kind of treatment from him, and now with every notification alert he hears, his stomach drops as if he’s on the exciting part of a rollercoaster ride, and if that isn’t a fitting analogy for how Daniel makes him feel, Max doesn't know what is.
Max is put in charge of collecting his mum from the airport when she flies in in the morning, and thankfully she doesn’t comment on how Max stutters in his story of the previous day and turns his phone over where it’s sat in the centre console when it keeps pinging. That’s just as well, because when they get home and he opens his messages, Daniel has sent him photos from a restaurant he apparently went to that looks like a sex shop from the outside. Among them is a photo of him posing in front of the neon pink adult video sign looking unfairly hot, which Max immediately saves to his camera roll for personal reasons. He doesn’t need his mum to witness that.
That evening when Luka, who is learning to read, plays on Max’s phone while the grown-ups are making dinner, chooses a lull in the conversation to loudly ask “Uncle Max, who is Daniel Honey? They keep texting you” to three pairs of curious eyes on him. Max wants to defend himself and say it’s actually Daniel Honey Badger, Luka probably not reading quickly enough to catch the full name of the contact, but he knows it would be fruitless.
The worst, perhaps, is when he goes out to the beach with Tom, the women and the kids electing to go shopping instead, and asks him to take a photo of him. The fact that he is shirtless and he thinks the ocean will be a nice backdrop for his eyes is neither here nor there. He just wants to send Daniel something in return for the sex shop / restaurant picture. Tom doesn’t say anything, taking Max’s phone from him and snapping a few options for him to choose from, even going as far as directing his angles and telling him to look slightly to the right to make it seem like the photo is casual. Max has to admit that he’s onto something when he sees the end product; he looks pretty good, if he does say so himself.
It’s not until they’re home that it comes up again. Max has nearly forgotten all about it, thanking the stars Tom has more integrity and respect than his own family. He should have known better. Max is on his phone, this time actually very innocently checking the route for Sophie’s planned walk tomorrow, when she comments on it.
“Sending that beach photo to Daniel, are we?” she asks, not even bothering to hide the fact that she knows.
Max shoots Tom a look, who is the picture of innocence as he holds his hands up. “Hey, she’s my mother-in-law. I can’t keep things like this from her.”
“No,” Max mutters in response to his mother. He did so earlier on, but his family are a nosy bunch who don’t deserve to know that. Daniel sent him back a bikini emoji followed by a leg emoji followed by water droplets. Max is afraid to read into it.
Sophie hums. “You should. He’ll appreciate your thighs and chest. Guess your face isn’t too bad, either.”
“Mum!” Max exclaims, to laughter from Victoria and Tom. Traitors, the lot of them.
Sophie shrugs, unbothered. “I’m trying to help. He clearly makes you happy, why shouldn't you send him something a little seductive in return.”
Max groans and rests his head in his hands. He’s never inviting his family over again. He’ll spend the next summer break in Alaska, if that’s where he needs to go to get away from this abuse.
“It’s hardly seductive, Mum,” Victoria speaks, and for a second Max has hope. “Should have taken it coming out of the sea so he’s all wet, now that would be seductive.”
Max throws his phone at her, but Sophie’s scolding words are muted by the loud ping! his phone lets out.
The rest of the week that his family is over is spent relaxing and eating their way through Victoria’s list of restaurants she wants to visit, as if she hasn’t been to Monaco a million times before. Max and Sophie offer to babysit for Victoria and Tom one night for them to have a date night out on the town, and Max drives Sophie to a farmers’ market in France the next day for some local cheeses.
All in all, it’s a good time, and the evening before they’re supposed to be leaving Max already feels a sense of missing them. It’s not like he doesn’t see them often enough, making it work even between the races, but something about spending a whole week uninterrupted with his loved ones makes him mournful. His mind feels fresh and his body recharged from the first half of the season, whether because he’s allowed himself to not think of the championship pursuit, or because his family has taken his thoughts off the coming out. It’s still at the back of his head most of the time, but it’s no longer a sharp pressure, and the presence of his family has eased the sting.
Their flight is early next morning, and so on the Saturday preceding it everyone heads to bed early, wanting to catch a good night’s sleep before travelling. Max kisses Luka and Zoe goodnight, telling the adults to be ready at six a.m. sharp as he doesn’t fancy driving over the speed limit again, and retreats to his own room.
He flops down on the bed, considers watching some Netflix to drift off to sleep, and while making that decision ends up lying on top of his covers, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram instead. Twenty minutes later he’s still in the same position when a quiet knock comes from his door.
Victoria doesn’t wait for a reply before she walks in, the confidence of a little sister who didn’t have the misfortune of growing up in the same household as her brother, and sits down next to Max on the bed. She is holding two glasses of rosé, wearing pyjamas, and smiling warmly at Max.
Max sits up on the bed, disposes of his phone and eyes one of the wine glasses.
“Bradley probably wouldn’t agree with that,” he says, but he’s already reaching for the glass.
Victoria winks at him secretively. “What Bradley doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I certainly won’t tell, so if he finds out, that’s on you.”
Max’s mumble of agreement is muffled by him taking his first sip. “You’re definitely my sister.”
Victoria snickers and nudges Max gently with her shoulder.
“You can always count on me for wine,” she says, taking a sip of her own. When she’s swallowed, her expression changes to something more composed. “Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for having us. I know life’s not exactly been easy for you the last month, so I really appreciate it.”
Max can read Victoria like an open book, and knows this is an opener, an extension of offer to talk about all the things he’s left unsaid so far. He shrugs, because it’s true that life has been a bit cruel towards him lately, but he doesn’t want to audibly acknowledge it. “It is what it is, right?”
“Still shit. I never liked Ross, but I wouldn’t have expected him to do that. Has he reached out to you?”
Max shakes his head no. Now that he thinks about it, he’s actually surprised he’s not heard anything from his ex. He doesn’t even know why he did it. He’s come to terms with what’s happened by now, conscious of the fact there’s nothing he can do to undo the damage, but the sting of betrayal still sits rooted deeply and firmly inside him. Perhaps it always will.
“Maybe that’s for the best. I don’t know what I would say to him if he tried to get in touch.”
“He better hope none of us ever get close to him,” Victoria nods. “I was furious when I read the news. Is there any chance of suing him or Daily Mail, at least?”
“Not really. Technically what they printed was true, and they had the photo rights because of Ross, so that’s not possible either. I could sue them for invasion of privacy, but at this point why would I do that? It won’t reverse anything,” Max recites the words told to him by both Vicky and Red Bull’s legal team.
Victoria purses her lips, and her eyes flicker to where Max’s phone is lying at the foot of the bed.
“At least something good came out of it, right?”
Max opts to take another sip of his wine while he thinks of how to respond to her. If only she knew how bittersweet it has all been – he's not told her in so many words that he still has feelings towards Daniel, but she was there when he first joined Red Bull, and she was there to hold him he realised he might be very much gay, and subsequently when he told Sophie. She saw, first-hand, what being teammates with Daniel did to Max and his self-acceptance.
He thinks that now, too, she knows, and he’s grateful he doesn’t have to voice his inner world to her.
“We're back to be being good friends, yeah,” he says, which is not really an answer.
She sighs but doesn’t say anything, scooting closer to him until they’re touching. She sets a hand into his hair and scratches at his scalp comfortingly, and Max eventually makes himself smaller to fit against her and rest his head on her shoulder.
“He acts like we’re actually dating. He compliments me, and he teases me, and he holds my hand when there’s no one around to pretend for. He calls me pet names. It’s literally like we’re together, except without the sex or kissing. I wanted to get some perspective on it during this break, but you’ve seen how much he texts me. And even so, I want more of him, more of his attention.”
The words come out of Max easily, tumble out without permission, but he finds he doesn’t want to take them back. Victoria is his sister, after all, and he’s glad he has someone to share this with who knows the true nature of Daniel and Max’s relationship.
“He sounds like he wants more of you, too,” she says, like it’s that simple. “You barely spoke to him over the last year, if you compare it to how it used to be, so this is like making up for lost time. And would it be so wild if he actually liked you, too?”
Max has no response for her. He’s spent so many years trying to understand his emotions for Daniel and then not acting on said feelings, he’s never quite considered that. On top of that there was Ross, and then he had a real chance of winning the championship, and he kept focussing on things that would distract him for a year or two, and always come back to wondering when his heart will stop beating faster at seeing Daniel around the paddock. He’s had no luck so far, and he doesn’t think that will change anytime soon.
The look in Victoria’s eyes when Max looks up at her tells her she doesn’t think so, either.
Notes:
the restaurant that looks like a sex shop does actually exist, and it’s wonderful. monaco also doesn’t have a sealife, it has an oceanographic museum which judging by google images looks fairly similar, but im not going to type ‘oceanographic’ into my fic, so excuse my creative freedoms !!
Chapter 5: Chapter Five
Chapter Text
London is stiflingly hot. Max, of course, should know and be prepared for this, seeing that it’s been the base for Red Bull since before he joined, but somehow, he is not. Instead, he is sweating the moment the door of the jet is open and he feels the sticky air cling to his skin. It’s not like Monaco is better, but well – in Monaco, he expects it. When it comes to London, or the whole of UK actually, he would bet on cloudy and grey most of the time, and he would be right to do so, too.
He had narrowly avoided telling his team his movements for the week, letting them believe whatever they want to believe until McLaren’s Instagram and Twitter clue them in on his whereabouts, which means he has no official Red Bull business for once despite being on British soil. This means he’s free to head straight to Daniel’s to get ready for the event, and maybe get a little bit familiar with his London flat. If asked, it’s mostly the former reason, of course.
One thing he had indeed known to expect is the traffic, which stretches on from the airport and all the way to Primrose Hill, where Daniel is waiting for him outside his flat. He’s only dressed in a pair of tiny shorts and a skimpy vest top, his skin somehow looking radiant in the sunlight. Max has always known Daniel is a handsome man, and somehow he's only got better with age, but he’s not too proud to admit he is so distracted looking at him he nearly scratches his car driving into the courtyard.
“Should I tell Christian what I saw here today?” Daniel asks in lieu of a greeting when Max gets out of the car.
“You’re taking that to your grave,” Max warns him, opening the boot and getting his suitcase out. “We’re getting ready here, right?”
“Daniel’s beauty salon is at your service, yes,” Daniel replies, and stretches his hands above his head. His vest top rides up a bit, showing a strip of tan skin just above his hips, and Max has to physically remind himself to tear his gaze away before he does something stupid like shut the boot on his own fingers. “We’re taking my McLaren there anyway, so you need to put your stuff there before we leave.”
Max grins at him. “Don’t for a second think I’ve forgotten. It’s the highlight of my trip, getting my hands on your girl.”
Daniel laughs, guiding Max inside the building. “And here I was, thinking you were excited to spend a night in the same hotel room with me,” he wiggles his eyebrows.
Max pretends to be non-plussed, even if the butterflies in his stomach very much contradict his casual air. He only spent the whole flight thinking about it. “Eh, nothing we’ve not done before. The novelty wears off.”
“Dickhead,” Daniel tells him, but lets him into the flat once they reach the fifth floor. “Just for that, you’re taking the bed closest to the door.”
“But I hate the bed closest to the door,” Max argues.
Daniel smiles at him winningly. “Exactly the point. Now come on, Goldilocks, we have an hour to get a snack, shower and make us presentable if we want to get there on time and beat the traffic. Zak said I'm absolutely not allowed to be late, so I did the maths and if we’re thirty minutes late, we’ll still beat Lando, which will save our asses.”
"Have I told you that you’re the best?” Max asks, at which Daniel grins.
“Not in so many words, but I know you always think that.” Max doesn’t even want to think about how much he agrees, especially not when Daniel crowds against his back to shove him into the guest bedroom. “Go shower, I’ll grab us a bite in the meanwhile.”
Sixty minutes later, Max, still a little damp but at least less hungry, is standing in front of the mirror in the en-suite of the guest bedroom. He luckily remembered to bring his hair gel, but while the tuxedo he had packed had been easy work, his hair doesn’t seem to be cooperating. He thinks he looks alright, from the neck down, Victoria having helped him pick one of his better options before she had left, but it’s like he’s forgotten every notion of how to style hair overnight. Whichever way he shapes it, it looks a bit flat or plastic-y or just plain odd, and he is this close to adding more hair gel and risking it looking too greasy now, when Daniel bursts in through the door.
“Max, we need to leave like, now. They can’t really fire me for being late, I’m retiring anyway, but –” Daniel’s sentence cuts off halfway through when Max turns around and their eyes meet.
All breath gets a little bit knocked out of his lungs when he sees Daniel, because Daniel looks – he looks stunning, fuck. Daniel always looks stunning, nearly with no exceptions, but seeing him in a suit and up this close does something to Max. The heat outside has nothing compared to how his body warms up at the sight.
The perfectly cut tuxedo frames his shoulders and his narrow waist snugly, the crisp white of the collar wrapping tightly around his neck. The black material of the blazer is a perfect contrast to his lips that somehow look even more pink and inviting than usual, his scruff adding up to the sharp edges of his face. He has tattoos peeking out of the shirt sleeves, the rose and the three sitting pretty on his skin, and if Max had less impulse control, he would drop to his knees this very second, because surely there is no image in the world more compelling than this.
And yet, somehow, what unravels him the most, is the look in Daniel’s eyes when he looks at him. His gaze is dark, intense, so rich Max finds it hard to breathe in his presence but impossible to step away from.
For a moment, they do nothing but look at each other in silence, lettings the seconds tick by, until Max somehow finds the willpower to shake himself out of the trance.
“My hair isn’t cooperating,” he says dumbly, pointing at said hair and immediately wanting to smack himself upside the head.
Daniel’s eyes flick up for a second, and then he wordlessly closes the distance between them, crowding into Max’s personal space so their knees are touching.
“May I?” he asks. Max feels his breath hit his cheek from how close they are, and in this moment, he would agree to absolutely anything Daniel asked of him. He nods, not trusting his mouth to blurt out what’s on his mind, and only realises his heart is beating faster when Daniel reaches his hands into his hair.
Max is transfixed by the way Daniel bites his lip as he works, presumably sorting out his hair, and he can feel the body warmth radiating off him. If he just leaned in a tiny little bit, their chests would touch and Max could press their mouths together, or run his hands over Daniel’s neck and down his shoulder blades. Instead, he grips the sink behind him and internally recounts twinkle twinkle little star in Dutch. He’s about halfway through the second verse when Daniel lowers his hands to Max’s shoulders and squeezes a little.
“There. You look good,” he says, voice serene and dark. He slowly slides his hands to Max’s waist and further down to his hips, and turns him around in his grip so they’re both facing the mirror, barely an inch of space separating Daniel’s chest from Max’s back. “See?”
Max wants to look at his hair, he really does, but how can he? Daniel is still holding him by his hips, standing behind him and looking at him so fiercely that it’s impossible to look anywhere but their combined reflection.
The thing is, they look like a couple. They’re wearing identical tuxedos, the cufflinks on their wrists matching, each dressed to the nines and looking like one half of a whole. Daniel’s grip on him is possessive, firm, and when Max’s gaze finally lands on his fingers, the touch looks as right and natural as it feels.
He supposes that is the point here, after all, but away from anyone else this – this is for them. Here, when Daniel squeezes Max’s hips through his suit and Max smiles at him in the mirror, it’s private. When Max lightly brushes his fingertips over Daniel’s, it belongs to the two of them, and when Daniel’s exhale against Max’s neck leaves goosebumps in its wake, it’s real.
“Thank you,” Max eventually breaks the silence.
“Anytime,” Daniel responds, and takes Max’s hand to pull him along.
***
The drive is, just as Daniel said, long. McLaren have rented out some swanky hotel in the countryside for the night, and the exit routes out of London are blocked with evening traffic, despite it being past eight pm already. With twenty minutes left on their route according to the navigator, Max turns onto a narrow country road surrounded by trees so thick barely any light is filtering through, and he has to quickly look at Daniel in the passenger seat next to him, distrusting of the GPS.
“Have you been here before? No way is there a fancy hotel in the middle of this fucking forest.”
Daniel physically turns Max’s head to face the road ahead. “Eyes up front on the road, please. You crash my baby, I’m feeding you straight to the wolves. And to answer your question, no, but Lando has and he said the route is a bit inconspicuous.”
“Inconspicuous, yeah right,” Max mutters, but keeps driving. “I don’t know if driving your car once is worth getting lost in the English countryside. Too many mosquitos, and the nights are cold. I’ll freeze to death.”
“I’ll keep you warm, don’t you worry,” Daniel replies, not missing a beat, and while Max can’t look away from the winding road ahead of him, the tone of Daniel's voice certainly insinuates something. For his own sanity, he chooses to disregard the comment for now.
Just as he’s about to complain about the road again, convinced nothing worth visiting could possibly be hidden in a place like this, the next turn curves into a gentle private country road. It looks much more kept, trimmed and neat instead of overgrown, and barely seconds into driving down it, the road opens up to a stone laid pavement leading onto a long, wide strip of gravel. A luscious green lawn lines both sides of the gravel, and in the distance at the end of the strip stands an imposing country manor.
As they get closer to the main building, Max starts to make out the design of the country house, an Italian style build swirling in soft beige colours, a stark, royal presence lit up against the slowly fading light of the sky.
“Fuck,” Max exhales in awe, not really knowing how else to express his feelings. The hotel is simply stunning, far more extravagant and stately than he had expected, and he had expected a lot. It feels a lot more like an elegant gala than a run of the mill sponsor event.
“Welcome to Cliveden,” Daniel smiles from the passenger seat next to him. “McLaren don’t do things halfway.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Max murmurs, bringing the car down to a slower pace as he spots other vehicles parked up either side of the gravel. He can see people in formal wear walking towards the entrance, men in dressed in tuxedos similarly to Max and Daniel, ladies in long evening gowns. It feels no less like the Oscars, if Oscars took place in apparently the most lavish countryside manor all of England had to offer.
He parks at the end of the row, killing the engine, and just sits in the seat, breathing in for a moment. He is prepared to go in, of course, years of practise suffering through Red Bull’s sponsor events finally working to his advantage, but it’s also the first formal event he would be making an appearance to as Daniel’s significant other. Shit, maybe he should have told Vicky about this. She would have made him do a bunch of promo, but at least she would have told him how to act. Now, it’s just him and his instincts against a Daniel he can’t resist on a good day, nevermind looking like this.
He swallows nervously, releasing his seatbelt, when there is a warm palm on his knee. He looks over, surprised to see Daniel leaning in over the centre console and gazing at him with kind eyes. Perhaps he sensed Max’s nerves a little bit, or had his own realisation about this being their first official outing as a couple, outside of a handful of interviews and one race weekend, but seeing something that looks like understanding on his face settles Max’s blood.
"We’re in this together, yeah?” Daniel asks. Somehow, even though it’s phrased as a question, it soothes Max, like Daniel is telling him that they are in this together. That they have each other’s backs, again after the stumble of the past year – or maybe throughout it, too.
“Of course,” Max replies, doesn’t have to think twice about it, and gets out of the car. It’s time to convince hundreds of people he’s in love with Daniel, and only get appropriately drunk while doing so.
As soon as they both make it out of the car, Daniel entwines their fingers, and they walk between the long row of cars towards the manor. It’s lit up beautifully, practically glowing in the early dusk of the night, welcoming people in like a lighthouse in the middle of open sea.
If Max thought the exterior was elegant, it has nothing on the grandeur he finds inside. They enter the lobby together, walking into a room with décor nothing short of breath taking, rich maroon and cherry oak surrounding them from each side. The room is tastefully made up yet the right side of excessive, the kind that shows old wealth without shame, dark but no less shiny for it.
“Clearly they’re paying you too little if they can still afford to hire out this place,” Max leans in to whisper into Daniel’s ear as they line up in the lobby, ready to sign in and collect their hotel key for later in the night.
Daniel’s laugh is low and husky as he eyes Max. “Don’t worry, I got my hike after I gave them their championship. The sponsors came rolling in, after that.”
He collects their key cards, slipping Max’s into his breast pocket for him, and leads him into the reception hall. The room is buzzing already, filled with hundreds of people from sponsors to team management to investors and special guests, all lit under a dark purple light with simple yet rich golden accents. It feels less imposing, and the casual music playing in the background gives it all a more approachable atmosphere.
“Remember, I’ve swept you off your feet and you have eyes for no one else,” Daniel winks at him. As if Max could tear his eyes away from him to begin with. What a silly thing to say.
He’s thinking of a witty reply, but before it makes it to the tip of his tongue, a strong clap hits his shoulder and they both turn around on their heels.
“Ah, the lovebirds!” Zak says, accent thick, eyes crinkled with how hard he’s smiling. “You look nearly good enough to make me forget what time it is.”
Max shoots Daniel a look, not sure how to respond to a team principle that’s not his – Christian he could handle within seconds, and Daniel, too – but Daniel doesn’t even flinch.
“And where is Lando, then?” he asks cheekily, pretending to look around the room.
Zak shakes his head good naturedly.
“Lando-dando,” he sighs, but the smile is permanent on his face. “Lando is good, but you’re my champion. And of course, my champion and his champion together is a big deal, so people note when you arrive,” he glances at Max.
Daniel snickers. “I’m your cash cow then basically, am I? What does that make Max?”
This time, Max doesn’t even need to think about his response. “I’m the bull, obviously.”
Zak looks him over for a moment before bursting into laughter.
“You’ve been dating for what, a month? And he’s already picked up your sense of humour,” he winks at Daniel.
Daniel wraps a hand around Max and smooths a palm down his side until it’s gently resting on his waist. It’s a bit pointless, seeing as Zak knows this isn’t real – not real in the way that matters to McLaren, anyway – but he finds himself leaning into the touch anyway.
“That’s my boy,” he says, eyes flickering to Max’s for a second, something so tempting in the warm brown he meets. When he looks back at Zak, his smile is more subdued, more knowing.
“Alright, you two. Go mingle while I think of some words for whenever my other rogue driver arrives,” he says, again squeezing both their shoulders before taking his leave.
“See? Told you Lando would be even more late,” Daniel says as he pushes Max gently along with his hand on his side, guiding them towards the bar.
Max is grateful he gets in a whole gin and tonic and a secret shot before they are swarmed by people. They only have about fifteen minutes before the main event begins and they are ushered to their tables, but they feel more like a whole fifty. Daniel is a popular character among the McLaren people – with everyone, really – and they barely catch a breather between one sponsor claiming their attention and the next.
By association, Max becomes the second person everyone wants to speak to, and the only thing that makes up for the chatter driving him up the walls is Daniel’s insistent touch on him. He gestures wildly, each conversation marked by a wave of a wrist or the flick of a finger, but it always, without fault, returns to Max somehow.
What’s even worse is that he does it so bloody naturally; he explains his race strategy to a representative from McLaren’s road division, then squeezes at Max’s hip before landing his hand there. He tells the lady from Deloitte how the regulations next year will affect the front wing, then places his palm at Max’s neck, his thumb pressing gently but insistently into the nape. He jokes around with Andreas, then rests his hand between Max’s shoulder blades, heat radiating through the fabric of his suit.
Max feels dizzy and hot, accidentally cutting off in his conversation each time Daniel does it, praying no one picks up on it. He needs more alcohol like, five minutes ago, if he is to survive this evening.
He interrupts a conversation Daniel is having with the wife of some very important investor, not caring how it comes off at this very moment – he has to prioritise his mental sanity, here.
“I’m gonna get a drink. What can I get you?” he asks, preening a bit at how Daniel’s whole attention shifts to him immediately.
“Surprise me, darling,” he says, reaching out to cup Max’s jaw gently. Behind the blood rushing in his ears, Max faintly hears the wife of the investor let out a cooing sound at them, but all his focus at the moment is on the way Daniel’s fingertips feel against his face, warm and tender. Well, two can play this game – Max turns his face a bit into the touch, kissing the skin of Daniel’s palm that falls away a moment later. The deep brown he faces is fiery, now.
He makes a beeline for the bar, then, his mind really needing something to take the edge off the way Daniel is looking and touching him tonight. It’s good, it’s so good, it’s hard to remember it’s all an act, even if Daniel looks so sincere doing it. He supposes their environment has taught them a little about acting a certain way, pretending to be a specific type of person in front of various sets of people, but maybe Daniel has more of that ability than he ever knew.
He flags the bartender down, ordering another gin and tonic and a shot for himself, and a long island iced tea with an extra vodka shot for Daniel, because if Max is left to decide, he will at least get Daniel fucked up tonight. He downs his shot, standing at the bar while he waits on Daniel’s cocktail and debating how many more minutes of small talk he can withstand before forcing the event to get started, when someone slides in next to him.
The man is dressed smartly in a navy-blue suit, glasses framing his green eyes, hair artfully slicked back, and objectively attractive, but what stands out the most to Max is how young he is. Most of the sponsors are in their forties and fifties if not older, but the man in front of him cannot be over thirty-five. He looks at the empty shot glass next to Max, and gestures at it.
“I can’t blame you for needing that to survive the night,” he says, smiling in what Max is sure would be a charming manner to anyone else, but to him it pales in comparison to his date for the night. That doesn’t mean he’ll be rude to this stranger, though, so he chuckles agreeably.
“And we’ve barely got started,” he says, then watches in amusement as the stranger orders two jagerbombs. He slides one of them in Max’s direction as they are poured.
“This is sort of your home drink, right?” he asks, eyebrows lifted. “I don’t think you can legally decline anything with Red Bull in it.”
Max has half a mind to resist the offer, seeing as he still needs to keep his wits about him until he’s allowed to retire into the hotel room, but then he feels the phantom touch of Daniel’s fingertips on his body, the heat of them burning into his skin, and he gratefully takes the shot in front of him.
“In that case, I won’t even try. To a more eventful evening than it has been so far,” Max grins, and holds up his shot glass. The man returns his smile, clinking their glasses together, and they both down their shots, the stranger wincing at the taste a bit.
“Sorry, I’m not as used to the taste as you must be,” he laughs, then extends his hand in Max’s direction. “I’m James.”
“Max,” he answers, shaking the man’s hand, and nearly wants to roll his eyes at himself. James probably knows that, if he knows anything about Formula 1.
“I don’t want this to sound like a line, but I have to say you’re even more handsome in person,” James says, giving Max a once over. Under normal circumstances, perhaps if James wasn’t trying so hard, Max might even be interested, if not in anything long-term than at least in spending the night together, but as it is, his mind is only stuck on a loop of Daniel Daniel Daniel. Part of it is professional, remembering the main reason he is here is to play into the role of Daniel’s boyfriend, to work on the cover that is helping him out of a sticky situation, but the far more dominant factor is that it’s hard to look at anyone when he’s spent the last four weeks being treated like an actual boyfriend by Daniel. It’s a small taste of what the real thing could be like, but even that is enough to make the competition irrelevant to him.
Max is about to reply to James, something between a thank you and a gentle rejection, when strong arms slide around his torso, a stubble scratching at his skin when a kiss is placed low on his neck.
He cranes his heads towards Daniel, inhales the spiciness of his cologne and the underlying scent of Daniel himself, all thoughts of James flying out of his head at once. Until Daniel shakes him out of his daze by responding to the stranger, that is.
“He is, isn’t he?” Daniel asks, gluing his whole body to Max’s where he’s stood behind him, and when Max looks at his face, his gaze is a mixture of heat and irritation as he stares at James. It’s a good thing Daniel is practically holding him up, because the look makes him a bit weak in the knees. “He’s stunning, and all mine,” Daniel rasps, arms tightening around Max’s core.
He’s jealous, Max realises suddenly, watching how Daniel barely blinks when James clears his throat, his eyes dropping to where one of Daniel’s fingertips has now dipped below the waistband of Max’s slacks. Something hot and pleasant curls low in Max’s stomach, and he wills himself to focus on how awkward James looks rather than anything about the way Daniel is currently behaving, his possessiveness somehow so attractive to Max.
James coughs, smiles politely at Max and moves to leave with a glance at Daniel Max can’t quite decipher. Daniel still has his arms wrapped around him, and he only lets go of one side as he reaches over and into Max’s space for his cocktail, sitting ready on the counter. He takes a sip, maintaining eye contact with Max the whole time, thumb pressing into his hip.
“We should take our seats, the actual gala starts shortly,” he says once he swallows, Max’s eyes tracing the bob of his Adam’s apple in fascination. Max doesn’t say anything to that, but he pulls Daniel along towards the tables.
Daniel’s hand remains high on his thigh for the duration of the whole event.
Notes:
I recommend googling cliveden house, its so stunning I spent hours and hours looking at pics of the whole estate instead of writing this fic looool. fun fact, after I already decided where the gala was going to be hosted and did a bunch of research, I then discovered cliveden hosted a mclaren owners club meeting in 2018. Crazy !!
Chapter Text
Max is pleasantly more than tipsy by the time the night winds down. He doesn’t remember much of the gala itself, not because of his alcohol consumption, but because he simply didn’t pay attention; it was hard to, when he had Daniel next to him, fingers tapping a beat on his inner thigh, slowly sliding up and down from his hip to his knee, squeezing the flesh of his quads. Instead, he vividly remembers the heat seeping from Daniel’s body and into his skin, the way his breath would fan across Max’s neck and raise goosebumps in its wake when Daniel leaned in to whisper something to him.
“Max, you’ve tried four times, I don’t think a fifth will do it,” Daniel tells him, holding their overnight bags and watching Max fail to open the door to their room.
Max turns around to glare at him, fully prepared to tell him to mind his own business and that he will open this door if it’s the last thing he does tonight, but when he turns around, his brain short circuits for a second. Daniel is much closer than anticipated, practically glued to him, and when Max swallows with nerves, he can see Daniel’s eyes flick down to his throat.
“Then I will break this fucking door down,” Max answers, ready to do just that should the next slide of his key card not magically work.
“Use mine,” Daniel offers instead, and then does a weird full body wiggle as if Max is supposed to read from his body language what that means.
He lifts his eyebrow in question.
“Well, I’m a bit occupied here,” he nods at their where his hands are holding their carry-ons. “It’s in my pocket.” Daniel cocks his hip out, pushing it towards Max. Fuck, they really need to put some distance between themselves, but Max is physically stuck between the wall and Daniel, and if he stays here for a second longer, his brain will actually explode with how overwhelmed he is. He spares a thought for the irony of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, and thinks Daniel would appreciate the humour, but he’s not sure that’s something he’s ready to share even in his drunken state. Instead, against every single one of his rational instincts and his brain screaming at him in alarm, he slides his hand into Daniel’s pocket.
Daniel’s breath hitches a little bit, and Max can’t stop looking into his eyes as he fumbles around for the card. It’s stupid, objectively, is the thing. They spent two and a half years practically living in each other’s pockets, pun not intended, witnessed each other go through the whole spectrum of emotions during that time; they had been so tactile it apparently still made a solid base for a whole fake relationship according to Christian. A simple thing such as this shouldn’t have this impact on Max, not when they’ve shared hotel rooms and drunken nights and breakfasts and lunches and dinners non-stop. Even if it’s been a while, Max shouldn’t feel like his veins fill with something fizzy the moment he gets physically close to Daniel.
Max clears his throat, snaps the card out of Daniel’s pocket, and turns around to open the door, which of course it does immediately and easily.
If he thinks his problems have ended, he is very much in the wrong. He steps into the suite, Daniel on his heels, and stops right in his tracks, Daniel gently smacking into his back and swearing at the contact.
There’s only one bed.
Which, of course, makes sense. The number of people who know about the actual nature of their relationship can be counted on two hands, and it’s not like Zak or Andreas made the hotel bookings themselves. It would probably be suspicious if they had asked whatever intern got stuck with the admin tasks to book them a room with two beds, and way too risky in a situation as precarious as theirs to begin with. This one’s on him, really – he should have seen this coming, if he had bothered to think past the inconvenience of attending a gala.
Max hasn’t even fully finished processing that information yet when Daniel lets out a high-pitched squeal from the other side of the room. Max didn’t even notice him move out from behind him, nevermind having at some point gotten rid of his blazer and loosened his bowtie. The strip of fabric hangs on either side of his neck, the top few buttons of his shirt undone and showing the tan skin of Daniel’s collarbones. A mental image of pulling him in by the straps to kiss him flashes in Max’s mind momentarily.
“Max, come look!” Daniel shouts from where he’s now opened the door to the patio and is sticking his head out. Max has a feeling deep in his stomach that whatever Daniel is looking at cannot be good news for him, and that suspicion is confirmed when he steps out to join Daniel on the wooden terrace. “We have a fucking private hot tub!”
Daniel’s eyes are glimmering with excitement when he looks at Max, and he's already walking towards where there is a light switch to turn on the fairy lights hung on the wooden garden wall next to the hot tub.
“I’ll get us a bottle of whatever they have in the mini bar and turn off the lights, you get undressed and jump in. I’ll be out in a minute,” he rattles off, clearly not even needing Max to agree to the plan. Not that it’s much of an issue in the first place – Max will always go along with Daniel’s plan, even if it’s two am in a posh historic English manor in the middle of the fucking woods and neither is sober enough to make particularly good decisions.
Max strips off his shoes and outer layers, not bothering to fold them as he lets them fall in a pile next to the tub, until he’s only left in briefs. He considers it for a moment before shrugging and hooking his thumbs into the waistband, pulling his underwear down and kicking it into the pile as well.
The water is a pleasant hot, pinking his skin just right as he slides in. With a bit of searching around, he manages to find the button to turn the bubbles on, and he settles into the tub, craning his head back to rest on the ledge and closing his eyes. The alcohol in his blood makes his thoughts a bit hazy, and he feels like he’s physically floating when he relaxes into the position, letting the steam work at his muscles and his mind wander.
When he opens his eyes, it’s to find Daniel climbing into the tub, equally naked. He’s surprisingly quiet and stealthy about it, and while Max avoids looking at his crotch area out of respect, he can’t help but let his gaze linger on the dark expanse of tattoos decorating Daniel’s thigh. It’s grown in size since the last time Max paid attention to it, a couple more pieces added just above the knee, and it’s just as captivating as it was when he first saw it when he was eighteen.
“I got us a bottle of limoncello,” Daniel announces, brandishing the bottle in front of Max’s face. Max snorts at the choice, because this hotel is the weirdest fucking place he’s been and nothing about it makes any sense, then makes grabby hands at the bottle.
Daniel smiles smugly at him and shakes his head, uncorking the bottle. “Open up,” he gestures, and moves towards Max, his voice breaking through the silence only interrupted by the stir of the bubbles around them.
God, Max doesn’t even have it in himself to protest. Instead, he lets Daniel climb over his lap, settled just high enough not to touch each other in the water, and parts his mouth, automatically licking over his lower lip.
Daniel looks him in the eye as he tips the head of the bottle past his lips. It’s barely anything, a single drop sliding onto Max’s tongue, and Max shifts impatiently, his thigh knocking into Daniel’s and wobbling a little bit in his position. Max places a hand on his hip to stable him, Daniel’s free palm coming to rest on Max’s shoulder instead of the edge of the hot tub, which would probably be the saner, smarter option here.
“Come on, Daniel, don’t tease,” Max says, voice rough and mouth dry.
The smirk on Daniel’s face that was there a second ago has vanished without a trace when he replies huskily. “Patience, baby. I’ll give you what you want.”
Max can’t help the little whine he lets out at that, which apparently is the right thing to do as it kicks Daniel back into action. He brings the bottle up to Max’s lips again, and this time he pours in a good amount, filling Max’s mouth with the liquid until a droplet runs past his lip and onto his jaw, trickling down still.
Max watches Daniel’s eyes trace it, dark and intense, and then he ducks in before it reaches any lower, licking the liquid off Max’s neck. Daniel sighs at the taste, still in Max’s lap, and Max is becoming increasingly aware of how if Daniel shifted down just a little bit, he could feel exactly how much this is affecting Max right now.
Daniel lifts the bottle up. “My turn?” he asks, and Max nods, taking the bottle from him, their fingers tangling for an electric moment. He manoeuvres Daniel until he sits down on the far end of his thighs, the middle parts of his hamstrings on Max’s spread knees. He doesn’t want to think how accessible this position makes Daniel, and instead he brings the hand from his waist up to Daniel’s neck.
“Tilt up for me, yeah?” he asks, and when Daniel complies, he fits a hand around his throat to keep him in position, wrapping his fingers just below his jaw as he opens up for Max.
Pouring the alcohol into Daniel’s mouth is nothing short of a religious experience. Max watches, transfixed, as Daniel swallows and licks his lips, his grip on Max’s shoulders tightening. Max uncontrollably lets out an approving hum, and Daniel’s eyes snap to his face.
The stay in the silence for a moment, Max lightly tracing Daniel’s jawline with his thumb, Daniel’s eyes intent on his face. He gets rid of the bottle in his one hand, blindly placing it on the edge of the tub and hoping for the best, not really caring about how steady it is when he has a lapful of Daniel in front of him, wet and warm and gorgeous.
Daniel brings one hand up to Max’s hair, combs through the slightly damp strands. His eyes are dark, his lips pink, cheeks tinted with a bit of a blush that makes him look ethereal, and Max can’t look away. He’s hyperaware of his heart beating rapidly in his chest, but he also feels calm and sure and right, despite the shiver running down his back when Daniel leans in just slightly.
“Fuck, Maxy,” he exhales, crowding closer to him until they're barely inches away from letting their bodies slide slickly against each other in the warm water. Max uses his other hand to wrap around Daniel’s waist to keep him firmly in his grip.
Max feels Daniel’s breath hitting his mouth with each exhale, their eyes boring into each other as they both bridge the gap, so close their lips are nearly touching but just shy of actually doing so.
Daniel closes his eyes, tilts his head up to expose the line of his throat, inhales like the fresh air gives him some courage he doesn’t otherwise have within him. Max takes the opportunity to press his lips to the underside of Daniel’s jaw, nothing more than a gentle caress to let Daniel know he’s there, and he wants this, and he’s not going anywhere. The anticipation coursing through his veins is liquid hot.
Instead, Max looks up at Daniel to find him looking up at the sky, and he grabs Max’s hand where it’s still resting on his waist. He gives it a quick squeeze, demanding Max’s attention, and when Max follows Daniel’s gaze, he sees what he means.
The sky keeps lighting up with shooting stars. There’s a multitude of bright flashes across the dark background, one after another, painting the cloudless scenery with golden specks all over. Max has never seen anything like it, and some rational part of his brain registers it must be a meteor shower for the shooting stars to appear as often as they do, but his breath gets caught in his lungs when he looks at Daniel’s face. He is transfixed, smiling slightly up at the sky, expression open and peaceful.
He untangles Max’s fingers from his hip, never once looking away, and for a second Max is afraid Daniel doesn’t want him near anymore, but then he intertwines their fingers under water, and all of Max’s worries dissipate. The heat is still there, and he’s still very much turned on, but it’s more of a hindthought, now. It pales a bit in comparison to having Daniel slide off him and sit next to him, bodies flush together so intimately from knee to shoulder. He slowly scoots until he is able to drop his head on Max’s collarbone, hands never separating as Daniel draws slows circles into Max’s skin with his thumb.
“You should make a wish, you know,” Daniel murmurs quietly against Max’s shoulder, his lips brushing against Max’s skin. Max is distantly aware of his skin erupting in goosebumps where Daniel is touching him.
“Have you?” he asks, voice equally as quiet. It’s hard to look away from Daniel, no matter the spectacle the sky is offering. However rare this might be, having Daniel next to him is more precious than a few celestial objects.
Daniel’s smile is small and private, his eyes reflecting another burst of light in the sky.
“I have. It’s your turn, now.”
Max closes his eyes and listens to the quiet breathing breaking the silence, the bubbles having subsided by now. He focuses on the comforting body warmth where Daniel has melted them together. He squeezes Daniel’s palm where their hands are clasped together, resting on Max’s thigh underwater. He recalls how Daniel had looked earlier today, how he had fit right next to Max, how he had gotten jealous over Max talking to someone, how he had kept a possessive touch on him for the rest of the evening. How they had nearly kissed just minutes ago.
Max lets his eyes find Daniel again, and he commits to memory the way he looks right now, every corner of his face, the curve of his lips, the sparkle in his eyes.
He thinks the stars already know what he wishes for, but he wishes for it anyway.
Notes:
i wont unfortunately be able to update next week, but i hope this chapter is a nice little tie-off for the mini break. the next chapter will pick up where they left off, so should be easy to get back into it
see you in a week and lets hope baku is good to us !!
Chapter 7: Chapter Seven
Notes:
we’re back !! sorry for the break and thanks for bearing with me hehe. hope this chapter makes up for the wait
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
For the ride back, Max voluntarily hands the keys to the McLaren to Daniel, much preferring to curl up in the passenger seat. He doesn’t get bad hangovers, never really has, but he does get cranky when he gets less than his assigned eight hours of sleep, so when Daniel nicks some sort of yogurt concoction from the breakfast Max chooses to sleep through, he is more than happy to take the offering and stretch out his feet on the dash instead.
Once he’s eaten, he has every intention of falling asleep to the gentle motion of the car cutting through the dull English country side, the quiet beats of the background music Daniel has picked relaxing him more into the leather behind his back, but the sleep doesn’t come no matter how hard he tries. He tosses and turns in the seat, adjusts the angle of the backrest, folds the sleeves of his hoodie under his cheek, but all of it with no luck. What does come, however, are the images from last night that his brain projects onto his closed eyelids.
Nothing noteworthy actually happened after they climbed out of the hot tub, warm and satisfied with the number of stars they had seen cross the dark sky. Daniel helped Max get out of the tub, letting him shower first in the en-suite, and when Max realised that he left his towel outside in his drunken haze, Daniel fetched it for him while gently teasing him for how wild his wet hair looked. Max swatted at him with the towel and they swapped places, Daniel showering as Max got dressed for the bed, pulling on a pair of boxer briefs and finding his phone charger amidst his hastily packed overnight bag.
By the time Daniel got out, Max watched him make his way to the bed, Daniel waggling his eyebrows and flexing playfully when he noticed Max looking at his naked upper body still covered in water droplets in places. Max smiled shamelessly at him, not bothering to hide where his gaze had rested, helping Daniel plug in his own phone when they figured out there were no sockets on Daniel’s side of the bed.
They slid in under the covers, facing away from each other, bed big enough that they wouldn’t touch even if they had splayed their limbs out. Max’s breathing evened out, until Daniel twitched lightly on his own side of the bed. A second later there was a slightly there press of a calf against his under the covers. It was more than enough, and Max fell asleep with his heart feeling full.
So nothing big happened, but it was lovely. Domestic. Cosy. Emotionally satisfying in a way Max never thought he would come to enjoy, and in a way that he is now cherishing hours later.
Maybe Max should send whatever intern that got stuck with the booking admin a gift basket.
The ride back to London isn’t actually all that long, especially with the traffic non-existent, and by the time they make it back to Daniel’s, Max still hasn’t managed to catch a wink of sleep. Somehow, he still doesn’t find it in himself to be grumpy.
True to his word, Daniel takes him monster trucking that afternoon, wining and dining him after their bellies hurt from how much they laugh when Max drives full speed through a muddy patch, splashing Daniel in dirt through the open window he forgot to close. They get a few dirty looks from the other customers because Max refuses to tell Daniel he still has a black stain on the side of his forehead he missed when cleaning himself up, and the tips of their shoes touch under the table the whole time.
The next morning, they exercise together under the watchful eye of Michael. He makes Max do extra push ups to further build up his chest, which makes Max suspect he’s been speaking to Brad (Michael doesn’t admit to this no matter how hard he presses). On the other hand, Daniel whistles at him when he sweats through his shirt, and when he collapses on the ground after his last rep, Daniel scoots over to trace the outline of one pec through the fabric.
“You’ll have the biggest tits in F1 after this,” he says in a tone which isn’t quite teasing but not quite serious, either. His finger is still on Max’s chest, and Max prays to any god that exists or doesn’t that Daniel won’t notice how his nipple tightens at that.
Michael coughs at them.
“It’s pretty hard to beat Gasly. Max has a ways to go.”
Max wants to glare at him for being a substitute Brad, but Daniel beats him to it.
“Pierre is Pyry’s personal fitness experiment, though. No way he counts.”
“He does if it stops the two of you flirting like you’re in pre-school,” Michael rolls his eyes.
“We’re boyfriends, we’re allowed,” Max contests, eyebrows knitted, but it’s pretty pointless when Michael looks back at him incredulously.
“Yeah, like you need to convince me,” he shakes his head, but he’s smiling. Max should have figured out he would know – he has no idea why he didn’t assume that to begin with, but he quickly realises he doesn’t like Michael knowing. Call it consistency, but if he’s pretending to date Daniel, he’d rather do that in front of as many people as possible, however fucked that logic might be.
“Ignore Michael, he’s just jealous,” Daniel grins, perhaps sensing the change in Max’s mood. He’s still lying on the floor, panting and trying to get his breath to calm down, so he’s not sure how Daniel is so in tune with his feelings or where he’s reading his emotions. He flicks Max’s hard nipple, and disappears into the bathroom.
Max leaves London a mess of contradictions. He’s annoyed and horny and so, so stupidly happy-giddy.
***
The season gets under way the following weekend.
Max sees Daniel on and off throughout the next month, making PR orchestrated paddock entrances that feel less compulsory and more convenient, but other than that his focus is on racing. He is a shoe in for his third championship, Pierre in P2 a whole twenty-five points behind him, and while that’s a considerable lead, he knows he can’t afford to get distracted. He’s seen Mercedes steal the championship from under his nose before, and he will die before he lets that happen again.
He gets a home win at Zandvoort, a DNF in Monza, and back-to-back wins in Japan and Vietnam. It’s a good scorecard, but it does keep him busy and exhausted, particularly when he’s away from home for an extended period of time for the Asian races. The pressurising heat only seems to add to the atmosphere, not letting him relax at any point of the day, going to bed wrapping himself in thin sheets and waking up with sweat already covering his body.
The engineers get a bit demanding with his time, too, wanting more of his input to not fuck up the championship now that they nearly have it clenched. He’s not complaining, far from it, but it does mean long days spent in the garages, pouring over data and set-ups until he can barely keep his eyes open. By the time he gets to his hotel room after eleven p.m. if he’s lucky, it’s usually to a quick shower before he passes out. He speaks to mum and Victoria a combined four times in the space of three weeks, and his only social interaction is seeing Martin one night for drinks, and even that is only because he’s touring in Japan and won’t take no for an answer. Other than that, he keeps his head down and his eyes on the target, both metaphorically and physically.
Before he knows it, it’s the end of September and Max’s birthday is creeping up on him. It falls on the Monday following the Singapore Grand Prix that ends the Asian triple header, and so by the time he is out of his car and standing on the podium, he doesn’t even remember he’s turning twenty-eight in a matter of hours.
It only hits him when Daniel texts him not to fly to Sochi that day, but to wait until Tuesday, with no further information. He figures it’s due to some PR commitments but doesn’t bother asking Vicky about it, assuming she’s in the loop.
What he gets instead is a whole bunch of secrecy.
“I have a surprise for you,” Daniel tells him in lieu of greeting when Max meets him in the hotel lobby on the Monday.
“I hate surprises,” Max mutters, but diligently follows Daniel into a taxi waiting for them. There’s no fighting him when he gets an idea stuck in his brain, so his best option here is to go along with whatever Daniel has planned and pray it doesn’t end up with either of them in trouble.
“You’ll like this one.”
Daniel sounds confident when he says it, and his tone leaves no room for argument.
It’s unexpected, then, that instead of taking him anywhere actually exciting, the taxi stops at a shopping centre in downtown Singapore.
Max eyes Daniel incredulously.
“Your big surprise was taking me shopping?” he asks. He doesn’t even have it in himself to pretend to be hyped up for this. He could be on a plane sleeping as they speak, but instead he’s going to be dragged to some bubble tea shop to satisfy Daniel’s sweet tooth, he just knows it. Nothing wrong with bubble tea, but he would buy Daniel a whole chain if that mean he could use this time to sleep.
Daniel tsks at him. “You have no faith in me. Out you get.”
Max won’t argue with that – at the moment, he has negative faith in Daniel, and his face must show it, because Daniel grins when he looks at him.
“I promise I’m not taking you shopping, okay?” he assures, only to lead him into the middle of the shopping centre. They take the escalator up, which only works to showcase how many more floors of shops there are, until they reach the very top floor of the building. It’s a good deal less crowded, and instead of being surrounded by clothing chains and cafés, the floor is mainly made up of industrial type offices.
It’s better than shopping, but only barely. Max gets caught up in his thoughts, mentally cursing out Daniel, and doesn’t notice when Daniel leads them through a corridor and behind a corner, only to arrive at some sort of departure point, a short line queuing up in front of them.
Max looks around them, confused and pleasantly surprised Daniel doesn’t indeed plan to buy him a whole new wardrobe, seeing a long cable car line stretching out in front of them. It’s a sunny and bright afternoon, allowing him to see an island not far off the Singaporean coast that the cable car seemingly leads to. He wishes he were more familiar with the local geography to know where they’re headed, but as they board their car and are slowly hoisted into the air, he finds he doesn’t mind it being a surprise all that much.
“You’re whisking me off to an island? How romantic,” he teases Daniel when he’s done taking photos of the stunning Singapore skyline spreading out in all directions. It’s a breath-taking view.
Daniel rolls his eyes, but he looks pleased.
“That’s not even the surprise. We’re just going there because the main event of our day isn’t in mainland Singapore. Save the excitement,” he says, and Max doesn’t miss the slight tinge of pink at the tops of his cheeks.
“I was actually going to commend you on your itinerary, but I guess you don’t wanna hear it, then.”
The smug expression Daniel gets at that isn’t what Max expected.
“That’s okay. You’ll love what I have planned either way, you can tell me how genius I am later.”
“Confident, are we?” Max raises an eyebrow.
“I have every reason to be, baby.”
Max laughs at him, shaking his head fondly as their cable car arrives at the island. It looks fairly small, with the line extending to either end, but instead of heading to any of the activity trails Max can see advertised, Daniel heads towards the escalator leading down to the ground.
“You brought me to an adventure island and you won’t even let me explore? Real nice, Daniel. What a surprise. Getting better by the second,” Max fake complains, even if there’s something yet unnamed fluttering in his tummy. So he might actually be excited to see what Daniel has thought up for them. Sue him.
“Next time,” Daniel waves him off, not bothering to elaborate.
Once they arrive on the ground level, he leads them out into the hot sun and towards where Max can see a stack of heavy buildings in a flurry of white and pink and yellow colours, something about them reminding him of an amusement park. He looks longingly back at the rainforest part of the island now being left behind them, but continues behind Daniel nevertheless.
Daniel must see his worried look, because he takes pity on him. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to Universal Studios, although that’s an option too, if you don’t like what I have planned.”
“Don’t go back on your word now,” Max tells him. Indeed, as they walk on, the people surrounding them get older and older, until there are practically no kids around them, and they have firmly entered a space that looks to be a holiday resort, a handful of hotels lining the beachfront dotted with palm trees and tourist traps.
In front of them, where Daniel is clearly leading them, is a wide cluster of buildings either side of an entrance that reads Resort World. It’s swarmed with tourists, even on a Monday, and as they walk inside through the gates, Daniel takes a sharp turn left towards one of the large buildings.
Once they enter it and Max sees the lobby, he can’t help but burst out laughing.
“A casino?!” he asks, unbelieving, giggling at the flashy red sign in front of him. It’s so ridiculous, and so stupid, and so very thoughtful of Daniel to bring him to the one place in Singapore that will make him feel like he’s back home in Monaco. It’s the beach, and the over-the-top tourist appeal, and the casino and the overpriced cafés surrounding them. “How the hell did you find this place?”
Daniel grins at him, visibly pleased with Max’s reaction, like he was nervous he might not actually appreciate this.
“I have my ways. You still gonna complain, or you wanna go play?” he asks, teeth bright behind his even brighter smile. He looks radiant, and he brought Max here.
“Let’s go,” Max tells him, and pulls him towards the entrance.
Neither of them is actually any good at gambling, but they still have fun for the next few hours. Daniel beats Max at blackjack, which Max is convinced only happened because he kept flirting with the dealer who dealt him all the best cards. In retaliation, Max absolutely annihilates Daniel at poker. He actually starts out losing, but Daniel gets cocky halfway through, and not long after Max clues in on Daniel’s tell as he licks his lower lip and then bites on it every time he bluffs. It’s hellishly attractive, and it also costs Daniel three thousand dollars, so it’s a win-win situation for Max.
By the time they resort to fucking around on the slot machines, both of them are pleasantly tipsy and somewhat peckish. They’ve both lost more money than they won at any point, so they decide to cut their losses and venture out into the resort when another slot machine eats Max’s tokens with nothing in return yet again.
It’s not even that late, but the sky is starting to dim already little by little, the sun no longer as hot and bright.
“There’s one more thing I planned for tonight, actually. If you’re up for it,” Daniel adds quickly.
As if Max is ever not up for something Daniel has planned.
“How high should my expectations be?” he says in favour of an answer, knowing Daniel will read between the lines.
"I mean, I’m pretty impressed with how I came up with this, so I should say, expect away.”
Daniel is smiling conspicuously as they exit the resort area and make their way to a nearby beach. It’s not the height of the season, and either way the countless attractions of the resort offer so many alternative distractions that they’re pleased to find it mostly empty. The only crowds milling about are at the strip of restaurants lining the beachfront, but the actual sand is largely deserted of anybody.
As if on cue, Max’s stomach growls.
“I hope you plan on feeding me tonight,” Max tells Daniel, and to his relief Daniel nods.
“I wasn’t going to bring you back to the hotel hungry, if that’s what you’re implying. I’m a gentleman, after all.”
“Yeah, alright. I’ve seen just how gentlemanly you are when you stretch your stinky feet out on my plane.”
Daniel rolls his eyes. “That attitude won’t get you very far,” he scoffs, but something about his gaze is warm. “Alright, pick a spot on the beach and sit down. I’ll get our food.”
“I don’t get to have a say?” Max protests.
“Do you trust me?” Daniel counters. Max has no choice but to nod, even if he does so somewhat reluctantly. “Good boy. Now, take a seat. I’ll find you.”
Max eyes Daniel for a second, weighing him up with his gaze, but eventually complies and heads towards the sand. He toes off his shoes and walks towards the water, the sand warm under his feet from the sun shining down on it the whole day. It really does remind him of Monaco, even if the sea here is a slightly different shade of blue and when he closes his eyes, he doesn’t hear French and English, but a mixture of Chinese and Malay and English. It’s still the closest he’s felt to home in a few weeks, and he hadn’t even noted how the stress that has recently accumulated in his muscles has seeped out simply by spending an afternoon with Daniel playing games and flirting with each other.
He settles down a good ten meters from the water, not wanting to risk the waves getting them wet, but close enough to hear the gentle lapping of the tide. He stares out into the horizon in silence for minutes. He takes in the feeling in his lungs, the spark in his body when he thinks back to Daniel’s fingers brushing his knuckles for luck as he rolled the dice in craps. He feels at peace.
Daniel finds him in the same spot ten minutes later. He’s carrying two boxes of food in his arms and holding two bottles of water, which he passes off to Max as soon as he’s within reaching distance. Max opens his own box, curious to see what the big fuss about dinner was all about, and his mouth actually drops open when he lifts the lid.
“This can’t be,” he says, looking up at Daniel as he settles down next to Max, tucking his feet under himself. His gaze drifts back to the label on the side of the containers.
“It is,” Daniel smirks at him, opening his own bento box and waiting for Max to have a taste before digging in himself. Max doesn’t moan as he swallows the first peace of beef egg roll, but it’s a close thing.
“How did you find this? This is insane,” Max mumbles through a mouthful.
“They opened a branch here like two months ago. I was looking up some food places for us when I was planning this and I thought the name sounded familiar. Remembered it’s because you wouldn't shut up about this place for half a year after you first discovered it back in Monaco,” Daniel explains, eyes firmly on his food and avoiding Max’s. He’s – embarrassed?
Surely he knows how touched by all this Max is, by him planning everything out, so simple yet so right for them. He remembers what Max talked to him about years and years back, and made the effort to recreate it here, thousands of miles away from their home base. He took the initiative to celebrate Max’s birthday in the middle of a season, on a foreign continent, and he managed to make it feel like home. Max couldn’t have wished for anything better.
Max nudges their feet together in the sand.
“Thank you,” he says sincerely, and he means it both for the meal, but also the day at large.
They finish their food in silence, watching as the sun gets progressively lower and lower in the sky, barely hanging above the horizon. The light above them is painted various shades of orange, and when Max looks over at Daniel, it’s hard to tear his eyes away from him again. His profile is captivating, from his full lips to his crooked nose and long eyelashes. He’s so handsome, always is, but particularly now; Max wants to remember this view forever.
He presses closer into Daniel’s side until they’re touching from hip to shoulder. It’s a good twenty-five degrees outside, so they don’t have the excuse of needing bodily warmth, but Daniel doesn’t move away. In fact, he wraps an arm around Max’s waist, his fingers curling into the hem of Max’s shirt.
Max smiles at the water in front of him and rests his head on Daniel’s shoulder.
“Happy birthday, Maxy,” Daniel whispers when the sun is nothing more than a tiny red sliver against the horizon of the water.
Max is turning twenty-eight, and he feels good.
Notes:
the island they went to is called sentosa if you want to look it up !! theres also a teeny tiny bit of foreshadowing in the first half of the chapter on whats to come ;)
also for no other reason then that I spent so long on this: the restaurant chain that exists both in monaco and singapore is real which was such a weird finding (does it take me so long to write fics because I spend too much time googling food??? maybe....) when I was thinking up activities for them. its closed now but im sure they’ll have opened it back up again by 2026. for my fic purposes. 100%.
Chapter 8: Chapter Eight
Notes:
thanks to amanda for looking this one over for me!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He feels the wheel under his fingertips, sure as anything, both pedals under his feet. His seat is the same comforting weight behind his back, the car his in a way very few things in his life are. Over the years, they’ve become one – Max only has to think about doing something for his body to react on instinct, kick into action and let the car be the physical extension of his mind. He’s sitting where he’s sat hundreds of times before, but the blood rushing in his veins still makes it feel like the first time.
“It’s lights out and away we go!”
Max doesn’t actually hear the words, but his brain very much replicates the trademark sentence in his head. His foot on the throttle is sure, and he gets a clean break. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Charles hesitate in second place, and by the first corner he’s secured the lead of the race, leaving the rest of the field to battle it out behind him.
“Atta boy, Max, good start. Now steady on to the end,” GP’s voice rings in his ears, a reminder that a good start is just that – a good start, but not the whole race.
He focuses his breathing and lets himself drive on autopilot, banking in lap after lap. He doesn’t actually breathe until lap 37, after he’s pitted and come out third, with Pierre and Charles in front of him, but gone a lap later for their own pit stops. He’s first again. He’s first again, and now he only has to finish the race with a clean score and cross the finish line.
He’s got this.
He keeps mental track of the laps as they go past him, steeling his nerves and not letting himself relax, eyes glued to the track, heart beating in his chest. He barely registers lapping the Aston Martin of George, intently focussing on just dragging the car over the line in one piece. He doesn’t dare think of what awaits him on the other side, not until he’s actually there.
And then he wins the race.
“Max, you’re a three-time world champion!” GP screams in his ear, uncharacteristically emotional as they both laugh in relief and in happiness, and Max slows his car for the cool down lap. “You did it, amazing job!”
He hears Christian and Helmut come onto the radio too shortly after, congratulating him, and some of his fellow drivers wave at him or send him a thumbs up as they pass each other on the cool-down lap.
Max makes his way into parc fermé, bringing his car to a halt, and after he kills the engine, he just sits there for a second, motionless, brain trying to process. Fuck. He’s done it. He’s really gone and won a third championship. He feels his eyes water a bit but swallows past it, clambering out of the car and running towards his team, jumping into their arms as they all let the happiness wash collectively over them.
He might be the one who will officially be crowned world champion, but they got here together as a team after so many frustrating years of being second best. This moment belongs to them just as much as him.
He hugs Christian and Helmut, too, for good measure, jumpy and so high off the adrenaline, the excitement coursing through his veins, before the stewards ask him to complete his post-racing duties. He reluctantly moves away, getting rid of his helmet and accepting a fist bump from Charles who came in second. They’ve still got their differences as they did when they first met on karting tracks, but there’s more mutual understanding there, somehow, if on precarious ground.
He chats to Charles for a moment until his eyes fall on the car formation behind him, the bright red Ferrari in P2, and there, in P3, is an orange McLaren. He doesn’t know what happened to Pierre who was third in the race last time he heard, but he doesn’t have time to wonder before he turns around to find Daniel in the embrace of his own team.
It’s funny, how it happens. It’s like Daniel can sense him looking at him all the way from next to the weighing station, and then he turns around, and he can’t stop looking. Daniel is always smiling, so Max can’t say he breaks out into a smile, but it certainly gets wider, brighter, more magnified.
Max doesn’t even try to stop himself from launching into Daniel’s arms, his legs carrying him over in no time until he jumps onto Daniel, his arms catching him firmly, like he expected it from the moment his eyes met Max’s. He’s so beautiful, holding onto him and looking up at Max, his smile splitting his face so hard it must be painful, his eyes radiant, his hair sticky with sweat. He’s glowing and sticky and sweaty, and Max can’t look much better, but somehow nothing else matters, nothing but the feel of his torso in between Max’s thighs as he wraps himself tighter around Daniel, the way his arms support Max’s back as Max gazes down at him from his point of leverage.
“You fucking did it, Maxy,” Daniel tells him, squeezing Max’s side, Max’s hands gripping onto his shoulders. “I’m so fucking happy for you. For us,” he adds quickly, and fuck it. Max can’t think straight.
“Yeah,” he agrees, lost in whatever is going on here, whatever is filling his brain with cotton candy and making one thought stick to the next one. He’s floating, he’s so, so high with happiness, his whole body is thrumming. And he’s being held by the man he loves.
“Kiss me,” he breathes, eyes never leaving Daniel’s, way too low for the roaring of the fans and the screams of the teams around them, but Daniel hears him anyway.
And then he does. It’s messy, both of them grinning too much for it to be coordinated or graceful whatsoever, but it’s also perfect. In this moment, Max couldn’t care for anything else, not when he’s just won a third consecutive championship and the only person that matters to him is there with him, by his side, sharing his happiness. It’s brief, and dry, and they break apart laughing, but the feeling in his stomach is unlike anything else. He feels warm all over, right there with his weight supported by Daniel, and he can’t stop looking at him. The rest of the world doesn’t magically fade away, but Max couldn’t care if it was burning down right next to them.
Sadly, their bubble can’t exist forever, and soon the piercing whistling of both their teams breaks them out of their moment. Max slides out of Daniel’s arms, sharing one last look with him before he gets a move on lest the marshals physically drag him to the weighing station. He can’t stop smiling though, and in the few glances he sneaks Daniel’s way as he queues up, neither can Daniel. And why should he? He’s just got everything he wants in the entire universe.
They go through the podium proceedings fairly rapidly, Max drenching Daniel in champagne and getting drenched in return, a glint in Daniel’s eye Max can’t quite put a finger on. He doesn’t even mind Charles being there so much, not when he goes to the press box still sticky, golden streaks running down his body like a reminder of where Daniel sprayed him. It’s a special kind of high.
The press duties for a renewed world champion are many, both Sky and Ziggo throwing him special celebrations for his world title, and by the time he makes it to his motor home, his hair has dried every which way and the champagne is an uncomfortable remnant on his skin and fireproofs. Even so, nothing can dim his mood.
He gets in a call with Victoria and mum, neither of them able to fly out to Mexico, nearly tearing up anew when Luka waves his little fingers over the screen, signalling three for each of his championships and screams in excitement as he sees his uncle. Even Zoe looks happier and more awake than usual, snuggling in her cot as she blinks up at the camera Victoria is holding above her.
Max just about ends the call when there’s a knock at the door of his motor home. He figures it’s Vicky or Christian, coming to tell him he still has duties and commitments to tend to, but he is surprised to fling the door open to find Michael standing on the other side.
It’s so unexpected Max doesn’t even invite him in, just watches as Michael walks past him and into the motor home. His face is unreadable when Max looks to gauge what he’s here for, but he does smile the tiniest bit when he spots Max’s fresh new trophy, even if it’s not quite sincere or full blown.
“Congrats on the win and the championship, mate,” he says, nodding at the gold statue sat on top of one of the drawers. “You drove beautifully today.”
Max blinks at him.
“Uh, thank you?” He means to say, but it comes out more like a question. He’s still not sure what Michael is doing here. He doubts it’s to congratulate him.
“I wanted to talk to you for a bit,” Michael begins, and Max has half a mind to roll his eyes and say, well, duh, but the spike of happiness in his blood lets it go. Whatever it is, it can’t be that serious, he hardly needs to get worked up about it.
“Well, you have until whenever my team finds me, so go ahead,” he motions, slightly apprehensive.
Michael clears his throat. Max waits.
“Not to ruin your mood, I really don’t want to do this today, so I’m sorry in advance,” Michael begins, looking somewhat uneasy standing in the middle of Max’s room. “He’s my best friend, Max. I can’t stay quiet and watch you hurt him like that.”
Max crosses his arms, suddenly very aware of how he’s trapped between the door and Michael, nearly cornered in his own space. “What? What do you mean?”
“You can’t do that. You can’t take what you want whenever you want it and not consider his side of things. That was such a dick move on your part, mate,” he says, but his tone isn’t friendly at all. It’s accusing, frustrated, unhappy – any number of things Max wouldn’t have thought he would be when he first walked in.
“Michael, what are you talking about?” Max asks, because this is stretching on for far too long. He’s not so sure he wants to know the answer, though, and there is a cold shiver running down his back as he waits for Michael to respond.
“You can’t just toy with him and his emotions like that. You can’t decide how things happen for you two, expecting him to follow your lead. It’s not fair, Max, not when he would do anything for you. He’s putting himself on the line for you, and you’re letting him. What the hell was that kiss?”
Michael’s voice is steady but strong, the opposite of the coldness wrapping a hand around Max’s lungs, sending a tremor through his nervous system as he begins to understand.
“Why would you do that in public? You couldn’t have waited to do that in private? It would have been a couple of minutes, Max.”
“He kissed me!” Max shouts, because there’s desperation bubbling up inside him, and he needs Michael to be wrong. Michael simply cannot be right about this. “I don’t know what you saw, Michael, but I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me.”
At Max’s words, Michael looks at him with something resembling disappointment in his eyes. He sighs, shifts his weight from one foot to another before rubbing at his temple. When he speaks, his voice is calmer, but no less imposing.
“Not before you asked him to, in front of thousands of people and cameras broadcasting to millions. Do you think he really had a choice? What would it have looked like if he hadn’t kissed you when you asked him to? You guys are meant to be dating, for fuck’s sake. It’s not so easy, Max. You never gave him an option not to.”
When Max doesn’t respond, stares silently at Michael, struggling to come up with something to say, Michael sighs and shakes his head.
“You’re so fucking selfish, Max. You didn’t think about him for a split second,” he says, irritated and defeated, and a second later he slams the door closed on his way out, leaving Max to stew in his silence.
He wasn’t being selfish, was he? He’s pretty sure they both wanted it. He’s seen the way Daniel looks at him, the way he reacts to his touch, how much he must want him. He can’t be mistaken about this, but fuck, pretty sure isn’t good enough, is it?
Because Michael is right. He hadn’t thought of Daniel, what it would mean from his side, too lost in his own rush of energy in the moment. He had been too caught up thinking about his win, about his championship, about how it felt to see Daniel, that he hadn’t even for a split second stopped to think how the kiss could be interpreted, how it would look from the outside. He had been too much in his own head, stuck with his inner thoughts and instincts to understand the implications and consequences of his own actions.
Simply put, he had been selfish.
And you don’t act selfish towards the people you love.
He slides down against the door of his motor home, curling in on himself on the floor as he clutches at his stomach, the guilt bearing down on him with its full force. His breathing’s picked up, and he can’t calm himself down, pulse skyrocketing as he processes the situation. He can’t believe he had been so stupid, so naïve. He thought he had grown out of that phase, but apparently, he’s still the same short-sighted teenager he was when he first met Daniel. So much for maturing and becoming someone Daniel could grow to love and see as an equal in more than racing terms. What did it matter how much he had worked on himself and grown up, if it meant he still couldn’t put the man he loved before himself?
He can’t hold off the panic rising in his chest as his throat tightens at the thought of his own actions. He should do better, he wants to do better for Daniel, but reconciling the reality with what he desires carves a deep wound inside of him, and he can’t think past I’ve fucked up, he deserves someone who will put him first. He thought that was himself, but maybe – maybe it’s not. It’s a hard truth to swallow.
It’s at the worst time, then, that there’s another rap of knuckles against the door above him. He can’t physically bring himself to even consider opening, his brain still a mess and his lungs expanding and contracting way too quickly to be normal, when the knock sounds again.
He takes in a ragged breath. “Go away,” he manages, voice fortunately holding strong despite the ache in his heart.
Whoever it is quietens down, as Max can’t hear any sounds as he strains his ears, and he nearly lets himself be relieved for a second. Then the door is being pushed open, despite his instructions, the intruder letting themselves in.
Max jumps onto his feet, quickly schooling his face to something resembling indifference. Anything is better than openly displaying what he’s currently feeling. Let them think he doesn’t give a fuck about his career achievement, if they’re so inclined; he can’t risk letting anyone see the state he’s in.
When he finally focusses his eyes on the visitor, his lungs forget to breathe at all.
“Alright, championship winner?” Daniel grins at him, reaching for his shoulder.
Max steps out of his reach.
“What do you want?” he asks, more rudely than he intends to, and watches with regret as the smile on Daniel’s face dims a little bit. It’s not gone completely, but there’s now an uncertainty that Max hates having put there.
“Well, I wanted to congratulate you in person, you know,” Daniel raises his eyebrows suggestively, before his face smooths out into something gentle, tentative. “In private. Between just the two of us.”
His voice is exploratory, a twinge of hope mixed in the way he curls his tongue around his words. He reaches out for Max again, this time fingertips coming to just barely rest on his waist. Any other time, Max would cherish the touch – he's not tactile in general, but he is with Daniel, and leaning into the warmth of the touch is the only thing he wants to do right now.
Instead, he closes his eyes and shakes his head.
Selfish.
“You should go, Daniel.” He doesn’t want to see Daniel’s face as he says the words shakily, resolve barely holding together. The guilt is gnawing deep in his chest. He hadn’t considered Daniel.
“Max, what?” his voice sounds confused. If Max lets himself think about it more, he sounds hurt, wounded. “What do you mean I should go?”
Max swallows, holding onto the last piece of determination keeping the grief inside himself, not letting it spill out for anyone to see.
“I don’t want you here,” he says, eyes squeezed shut. He doesn’t open them until Daniel’s hand on his waist disappears and the door slams shut wordlessly, loud in the deafening silence surrounding him. It’s for the best, he tells himself, because that’s the only thing holding him together, and if he doesn’t believe that, he doesn’t know where his thoughts will lead him. It’s for Daniel, for once.
He barely makes it to the sofa on shaky legs, collapsing onto the cushions, and lets sobs wreck his body. In the past twenty minutes he’s gone from feeling on top of the world to feeling so incredibly low, like the whole world is coming crushing down around him.
The last thing he remembers thinking before he passes out is that if this is what the aftermath feels like, sucking all the joy out of him, then he doesn’t even want the championship.
Notes:
im sorry to michael who has to be the bad guy here. Im also sorry for letting you only have a little bit of happiness. just overall, im sorry. writing this hurt
Chapter 9: Chapter Nine
Chapter Text
Max doesn't stop living after his fall-out with Daniel, but it's a near thing. Brad still comes over twice a day to keep him in physical shape. He still dutifully attends all interviews Vicky sets up for him. He still talks to his mum and Victoria regularly on his off days. He still has lunch and dinner and drinks his three litres of water a day and eats his protein, but everything feels a little duller than before, like he’s lost the spice to his life and now everything is just bland.
So he might not stop living, but he certainly feels like there’s not much purpose to his keeping going at the moment. Daniel doesn’t text him like he did just a week ago, and his championship is in the bag and wrapped up for the season. There is nothing to wake up to with excitement for, nothing to ignite his passion for the day when he cracks open his eyes to cold sheets, alone.
He doesn’t tell anyone about what happened. He’s not so sure he’s come to terms with it himself yet, and the last thing he needs is the opinion of someone who doesn’t understand the intricacies of his relationship with Daniel, or the current lack thereof. He doubts Christian or Helmut are there for him for this kind of support, anyway, and he’ll be damned before he tells Victoria what an awful son their mother has raised.
He powers through with Red Bull, both in the car sense as well as the drink, and hopes he fakes it far enough that at some point the pain will fade. So far, it’s been a week, and he feels as rotten to the core as he did on Sunday night, but he’s evaded the suspicions of Brad and Ziggo so far, so he’s alright. He thinks.
It’s unfortunate, then, that when on Monday Brad comes in for their training session, there is a determined looking Vicky trailing behind him. She takes residence in Max’s living room, not telling him what she’s doing here, and patiently waits until Max has sweated his whole bodyweight out and then washed that sweat off, crawling out of the bathroom for food.
He’s halfway through a breakfast burrito when Vicky finally deems him important enough to address. Not like he’s the primary focus of her job, or anything.
“Quite the show you gave us last weekend.”
Max’s heart thumps unpleasantly, but he ignores it in favour of keeping his cool, raising an eyebrow to indicate she go ahead.
“The press seemed to like it, as did the fans. You two looked very in love, good job,” she smiles at him, completely unaware of how those words twist the metaphorical knife in what seems his less-metaphorical wound. “Should have become an actor with those skills. I could be in some lounge with Rihanna now.”
“Rihanna’s a singer,” Max tells her instead of acknowledging the other, more pressing part of her sentence. He'd like to delay that as much possible, if they really need to have that conversation.
“Figures. I’m sure Ocean’s Eight had an afterparty,” she responds, tapping away at her phone for a second before setting it aside and finally looking up at him. “I spoke to Charlotte this morning, and it looks like McLaren are pretty chuffed with the social media response your kiss elicited. People are finding your relationship beautiful, and it actually got pretty good traction across the world. Whenever they reported your win, they showed the clip of you two kissing.”
Something bitter and uncomfortable takes residence deep in Max’s throat as he listens to her talk, even if Vicky is smiling gently at him as she says the words. It’s like an awful slap in the face to know how other people see the interaction between them, how beautiful it looks from the outside and was in the moment, and all that’s left in its place for Max is an ugliness he can’t swallow past.
“That’s good,” he responds vaguely, just to let her know he’s listening.
She nods enthusiastically. “It is. I wouldn’t have guessed two drivers dating each other would be the boost it is to our brand, but you’ve been keeping me busy.”
“I’m so sorry you have to do your job,” he responds sarcastically, only to receive a jab of Vicky’s elbow to his side.
“Alright, grumps. I’m here to give you some good news, actually. Charlotte and I have arranged for you both to go on Graham Norton next week, which is a huge thing for us. You’ll have to be on your best behaviour.”
“Am I meant to know who that is?” he asks. He has a feeling that despite what she said, this won’t be good news for him at all, which is some sort of déjà vu.
Vicky rolls her eyes.
“I forget you’re not British sometimes. It’s the biggest talk show in England, millions of viewers. They said they wanted both you and Daniel on it, obviously to talk about your championship win and the season, but also your relationship.”
Max is glad he’s stopped eating, because he wouldn’t be able to down a single mouthful of food after that. If there was anything giving him hope, it was the promise of their agreement of a fake relationship coming to an end, and then Daniel’s retiring in a couple of races anyway. It’s not something he’s looked forward to at all, and he knows he will miss seeing Daniel around the paddock, but it was the tiny bit of reprieve he had allowed himself to think about. Parting ways in the media and mellowing down their relationship was meant to form part of that. Instead, he feels that being torn away from him little by little.
He feels like it’s July again, and the rug’s been pulled out from under him, turning his whole life upside down. Somehow, the prospect of this one particular interview seems much worse than having countless photos of his personal life splayed out on the pages of Daily Mail.
“You will need to be open, of course, so we’ll have to do a couple of sessions to align your stories and get you a backstory that will hold more than a couple of questions. I’ve been told you’ll be expected to share a little bit more than what you have so far, so it’s important that we come up with something credible you will both be able to talk about.”
Vicky’s voice sounds underwater now, Max’s thoughts running a mile a minute in his head, a heavy weight swirling in his stomach. It gets dizzier with each sentence until he can no longer stand it, rushing across the flat to the bathroom to empty out the contents of his stomach. He doesn’t feel any better after, the reason for his distress far from the food formerly in his body, and he’s heaving when Vicky finds him a minute later.
“Hey, you alright, Maxy? You look a little peaky, but I thought it was just the training.” She runs a hand across his back soothingly, for which Max would be grateful if he could think past the impending talk show appearance he and Daniel have to do in a week’s time, apparently specifically to talk about their relationship. A relationship that has never existed in the first place and that went sour barely thirty minutes after it peaked. He’ll have to hold Daniel’s hand, and look at him from close proximity and watch him laugh and charm everyone around them and fuck, worst of all, he’ll have to watch Daniel pretend to be in love with him to sell some perfect fairytale story to the media.
He wants to turn around to Vicky and tell her no, that he can’t physically put himself through something like that, but then he remembers how Red Bull stuck with him when he needed, and he can’t get the words out.
He takes a glass of water Vicky hands him and takes a few tentative sips.
“I think I just ate something dodgy, it’s nothing,” he lies, avoiding looking at her. He doesn’t want to lie to her, but he hardly has options.
Vicky hums and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll let you get some rest, and we can talk about this later.” Max wants to object and tell her there is no better time to talk about this, but he contains himself. “I’ll arrange our first meeting with the McLaren team on Thursday evening so we can plan as soon as we fly in to Austin. Try and sleep a bit, yeah? I hope you feel better.”
She pets at his back one more time before she takes her leave, leaving Max alone with his thoughts. He feels nauseated all over, vomiting again shortly after even if there is nothing left in his stomach, and sliding on the floor of the bathroom, shivers running through his body. He doesn’t want to face Daniel, doesn’t want to pretend to mean anything more than a co-driver to him. He pictures his hurt face every time he closes his eyes, mind making up the images he had kept himself from seeing in real life. It’s bad enough he’s woken up in a cold sweat twice in the last week when just the hurt words replayed in his dreams.
He does listen to Vicky’s advice and takes a nap, praying he wakes up feeling better. He doesn’t, but at least it shortens the hours left in the day, and it’s something to do, so he counts it a relative success.
***
If he dreaded the planning meeting before, thinking that upholding a friendly charade with Daniel in front of Vicky, Christian, Charlotte and Zak would be like driving a needle repeatedly through his skin, he needn’t have feared. Daniel completely ignores him the whole time they’re in the room, not glancing at him once in the two hours they’re in the meeting.
They sit on opposites sides of the table, so reminiscent of the day they had first decided to fake a relationship to soften the blow of Max’s coming out, but this time instead of warmth and familiar glances, there is a cold reservedness. Where there once was Daniel’s foot against Max’s shin, there is now a distance that feels like miles instead of mere meters, and gone are the inviting smirks Daniel had sent his way to distract him from the graveness of the situation.
No one else seems to pick up on it, or if they do, they certainly don’t bring it up. Vicky and Charlotte lead the meeting, getting occasional input from the others, and when Max does his bit, he’s left to study the white plastic coating of the table in front of him. It has a chip on one corner, which he finds much more fascinating than the cold shoulder he’s receiving from Daniel. He doesn’t blame him; he would be much worse in his situation. He’s never known how to bite his tongue, so maybe it’s better to maintain a wall of silence between them, instead.
He’s so engrossed in studying the non-existent patterns of the table, he doesn’t notice when the conference room empties out, now only Daniel and himself left in it. He looks up, startled, to find the heavy brown gaze on him. Daniel’s expression is unwelcoming; Max would nearly call it hostile, if his features knew how to do that. It’s a far cry from the usual smile he sports.
“How’s it going?” he asks, which is the last thing Max expects him to say. He looks stern, collected, and somehow the question sounds challenging.
Max slides his chair back, not ready to have this conversation. “Don’t, Daniel. We have nothing to talk about,” he says, bordering on rude, which is better than any alternative that is likely to bleed through from his heart to his voice.
Daniel chuckles, his teeth baring, but it’s not humorous.
“I should be the one who’s angry yet you’re the one acting like the fucking insulted party, mate.” He rolls his eyes when Max lifts his gaze, reluctantly. “You used me in front of the whole world, and I’m the one wanting to communicate. Sorry I tried, I'll learn for the next time you decide I'm nothing but a prop to you.”
Somehow, Daniel makes it to the door before Max himself, slamming it shut right in front of him. Max is left with an earthy whiff of Daniel’s perfume that makes his lungs burn with yearning and his eyes sting with tears. He’s not sure what just happened, but he knows that somehow, things are even worse now than when the day began.
***
Max comes first on Sunday. He doesn’t feel any way about it.
***
The taping for Graham Norton takes place on Wednesday. Max and Daniel are the second guests to enter the talk show, which Max considers a small blessing given they’ll have less time on-air, and therefore less time in front of other people who need to be convinced of their being very much in love.
As Max looks over to Daniel who is yet to say a single word to him today despite spending two whole hours in the dressing rooms together, he can’t think of anything further from the truth. They’ve been through make-up and hair and styling, made up to look like more glam, glitzed up versions of themselves, and the only interaction between them was when the backstage team asked Daniel to hand Max his pass. He didn’t even look Max in the eye, which Max supposes is fair after the last two interactions they’ve had, but it doesn’t bode well for the actual taping.
Vicky and Charlotte are reading out last-minute notes to them, reminding them how big an opportunity this is to promote not only the sport, but their brands, when one of the producers comes up to them.
“Guys, we’ll need you in the waiting room in five. You won’t be filmed, but the editing might use it as filler footage, so try to keep it appropriate,” she says, not even looking up from her iPad. “It’ll be about thirty minutes, and then Graham will invite you into the actual studio. We think it’s best you hold hands when you do, but it’s up to you, really. Then just be yourselves, answer the questions Graham asks you.”
It’s not really news, Vicky and Charlotte having told them the exact same thing countless of times in the last week, but it still makes a nervous bubble form low in Max’s stomach. He dreads the switch in Daniel when they’re finally in front of prying eyes, and no amount of time has helped him come to terms with that.
“We’ll be on our best behaviour,” Daniel smiles at the producer, tone dipping low to suggest he and Max might do just the opposite. She blinks up at him, taps her iPad once.
“Fucking couples,” she mutters. “My assistant will get you in three.”
Then she’s gone, leaving Daniel with a slightly gaping mouth looking after her.
Out of habit, Max’s first reaction is to burst out laughing at his expression, powerless to resist it despite the nerves. Daniel’s gaze lands on him for a second, the first time all day, but it’s gone lighting fast as Charlotte and Vicky join Max in laughter.
“If only she knew,” Vicky whispers to them, careful to keep her voice low so the production team doesn’t hear them.
If only, Max thinks to himself.
They spend a half hour in the waiting room, sat close but not touching, silently watching the live feed of some upcoming American actress being interviewed by Graham. It’s tense, but not any more so than the past week, and it’s rapidly becoming the new norm for them. Max hates every millisecond of it.
“And now we welcome our next two guests. They made headlines when they made their relationship public three months ago to the surprise of the whole Formula 1 world, and have since been the most talked about duo in sports. Please welcome, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo!”
The audience claps and whistles before they even get to their feet, and for a second Max locks eyes with Daniel, unsure of whether they can do this at all. But then Daniel turns on his press-ready megawatt smile and grabs Max’s hand, entangling their fingers between their bodies, and it’s show time.
“You two look stunning!” Graham compliments as he takes a seat, guiding Max and Daniel to the sofa opposite them, next to the actress. “It’s the look of young love, isn’t it? And we love us some love, don’t we?” he asks, the audience cheering loudly again.
Daniel laughs, the poster boy of happiness and positivity. Max struggles to even put a smile on his face, and then that too falters when Daniel places a warm hand on Max’s knee.
“Who told you?” Daniel asks, mock-surprised, taking a well-placed look at Max. He is a great actor, feeding right into the plan of celebrity lovers, the F1 power couple. Max flushes under his gaze. His clothes feel too hot.
The American actress whose name Max still hasn’t nor plans to learn elbows Daniel in a friendly manner, as if they’ve known each other for years.
“Well for starters, your boy looks ready to get undressed with just one look from you.”
Max wants to drive something sharper than an elbow into her side. Even her accent is so fucking obnoxious. Yar buoy.
Daniel, to his credit, doesn’t look unphased at all by his words. Instead, he squeezes Max’s knee and looks at him again, brown eyes full of something that comes across as pride? Desire? He truly deserves an Oscar for the past five minutes alone.
Graham clears his throat after the laughter of the studio has calmed down a little bit.
“And we really shouldn’t call you a boy, should we, Max? You’ve just won your third consecutive championship in Formula 1, which is no easy feat.”
The conversation moves to racing from there, which Max is grateful for; this is what he knows. He’s spent the past two decades talking about racing, and he lets himself go on autopilot, in full interview mode. Daniel’s hand leaves his knee at some point, and Max breathes a mental sigh of relief, but it soon resurfaces at his neck, fingers now tracing the nape where his hair ends.
Max is in the middle of telling a story about his most challenging win this season, the second-round race in Turkey where he had to struggle to the front in the rain from P6 after receiving a five-place grid penalty, when Daniel interrupts him.
“Maxy is being modest. His car crapped out on him with fifteen laps to go and he only had half the downforce he would ideally expect. It was basically like driving on ice, and he brought it home. It was beautiful to watch. He really is the most talented driver on the grid.”
Max – his breath gets caught in his throat. He didn’t know Daniel knew; it was barely mentioned anywhere, the action focussed on Pierre, Carlos and Guanyu fighting for P2 behind him until the last lap, all within a second of each other. It got brushed over by the press, because he had a solid nine second lead at that point, and no one seemed to care his lead was only three seconds by the time he crossed the finish line. He didn’t mind – a win is still a win, and he knew he’d get his credit in the form of a championship some six months later.
He assumed no one beyond Red Bull cared, and why should they? Like Daniel said, he still won the race. It was irrelevant, at the end of the day. He doesn’t know if it’s the shock of the revelation, or how Daniel sounds proud talking about how Max handled it, but his fingers thrum with the need to do something, to show Daniel it’s reciprocated. It might be the last chance he gets, with only two races left in the season.
“Daniel is still the only one who has beaten me in a race on equal terms,” he blurts out in the moment, stupidly. It’s so unlike him to discredit his own achievements, and he knows the first rule of being successful in the world of sports is to showcase your own success wherever possible – but fuck that. “Not counting the days when I couldn’t finish, he is the only one who’s ever finished higher than me in the same car. He got his championship before I got my first one, so I think we’re on even terms. He taught me racing how I know it.”
The fingers on the nape of his neck still for a second, and Daniel takes the first proper look at Max all day. His face is open with surprise, something like astonishment colouring his cheeks a gentle pink.
“So counterparts, would you say?” Graham asks, but neither of them breaks the eye contact to listen to him. The American actress giggles from next to Daniel.
“Counterparts,” Max confirms firmly. “He’s my only one.” He wants Daniel to know he means it. If perhaps there’s more to it than he lets on, well at least it’s all for show.
The rest of the interview is fairly smooth sailing, particularly when the musical guest arrives and the focus switches from them to some British band Max isn’t familiar with. They’re not half bad, but he might be biased in his thinking because Daniel spends the whole time tracing patterns on Max’s forearm. He’s not even sure the camera is on them at all, definitely not during the performance, but he’s not going to complain.
He’s running out of time to be close to Daniel, and in some fucked up way, he wants to get the most out of it while he can, even if it's under the pretence of making millions of people believe something that isn’t true. He doesn’t dare shift the whole time, his heartbeat louder in his ears than the rock music being played a mere twenty meters away from him.
As they film the ending to the show and exchange goodbyes with Graham and the other guests, one of the band members catches Max on his way out. He turns out to be a fan, asking a couple of questions about the season and expectations for the two remaining races. Max tries to answer them as quickly as possible without coming across rude or impatient, but he can’t help the way his face falls when he scans the room and sees Daniel has already vacated it in favour of the backstage.
He finds Vicky waiting for him in the dressing room, armed with a Red Bull and some makeup wipes. He must look around too noticeably, because she shrugs apologetically instead of greeting Max when he gets within talking distance.
“Daniel and Charlotte left already. Daniel said something about having a dinner to get to.”
Max nods in acknowledgment and prays his disappointment doesn’t show on his face. He doesn’t know what he would have said to Daniel anyway.
Perhaps there’s nothing to be said at all.
Chapter 10: Chapter Ten
Notes:
with this chapter this is now my longest work. crazy !!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Max should be relieved: this was the last scheduled event for him and Daniel together, with no more interviews or appearances or joint race analyses planned for them. There are only two race weekends left, along with showing up to the paddock and making it through press conferences where they will both no doubt be asked questions about the other, but even for those they are grouped separately. After that, their respective teams will slowly release news of Daniel retiring, and shortly after, when the new season starts, they will float the story of Max and Daniel struggling to make it work through Max’s busy race schedule, eventually announcing their break up.
Somehow, Max feels anything but relieved. The more he thinks about the prospect of cutting ties with Daniel, the more he fills with dread. He rationalises it to himself by reasoning that Daniel has always been on the grid since he started racing as a cocksure seventeen-year-old, still rough around the edges and needing someone to fall back onto, Daniel easily taking up that role. He’s been a constant that’s been there for all ten seasons and that is now leaving, but deep down he knows that’s not the reason at all. Of course, he will miss Daniel around the paddock, in press conferences and driver briefings, but what weighs on him more is them going their separate ways like this, so finitely.
A full decade of friendship, thrown away and discarded just like that, with such a sour ending. Max supposes he has no one but himself to blame, but it pains him to admit that.
The thought permeates his brain at the most inopportune of times. When he’s in the middle of doing a neck plank and nearly collapses at the mental whiplash he gets; when he’s phoning Victoria and has to ask her to repeat her sentence three times before he can register it fully; when he’s in bed, hand wrapped around himself and unable to bring himself to finish.
It comes to a head when he finally sees Daniel in Brazil.
Daniel, fortunately, doesn’t see him when Max runs into him in the paddock, busy posing for a picture with some fans (if one of the fans has a toddler with her that Daniel holds in his arms for the photo and Max’s heart lurches at the sight, then so be it). Max is therefore free to slow down his pace of storming through the paddock, nearly causing poor Vicky to run into his back when he suddenly changes to a leisurely stroll in front of her.
Daniel looks – well, he looks beautiful. He is at home in the sun, like he’s taking Brazil’s heat and making it his own, a tiny bit of Australia he carries away from home. He attracts the gaze even without Max wanting to look at him, and he does. He always does. There’s a yearning inside him, to reach out and touch Daniel, to stake a claim by settling in next to him and digging his fingers into his hips where Daniel will feel the heat of his skin. He wonders how Daniel would have reacted, if he had done that two weeks ago when everything was still fine between them.
To have the opportunity ripped away by his own doing is a harsh reality.
His dawdling eventually means that a fan or two are confident enough to approach him to ask for autographs, and he reluctantly tears his eyes away from Daniel’s slim waist, from the smile pulling at his features even when’s listening to someone else speak.
Max carries the feeling in his gut to his press conference, answering each question with an evident grump, through the evening of team briefings he has no desire or motivation to attend, and then to bed where he tosses and turns, unable to stop his thoughts from racing. He supposes it’s good that some part of his body is, even if he might not be allowed on the track on a Thursday.
He misses Daniel’s smell. It’s funny, how he’s only had it a handful of times in his bed, shared hotel rooms in strange cities while they were both at Red Bull, and more recently in the depths of some over the top Berkshire manor, mere centimetres separating them as Max tried not to think about having this every night. Having Daniel in his lap, pressed against him, skin hot even surrounded by the steam of the hot tub, watching how his eyes outshine each shooting star, getting ready for bed together, a space shared in comfortable silence – these are all things he wants and aches to have, instead of the empty bed where the sheets smell like neutral detergent.
He misses his stupid fucking texts, even when they make absolutely no sense and have his family questioning his sanity. At this point, he can’t get through a single phone call with his mum without her asking about Daniel, and he wishes he had something more for her than yeah, he’s doing fine, mum. He wishes he knew – he does, to an extent, knows Daniel can’t be exactly thriving, but he doesn’t want to focus on that thought for too long.
He misses the solid press of Daniel’s body against his, a whisper of birthday wishes lost in the sound of waves as they watched the Singaporean sunset. It had been the best birthday present he had ever been given, no doubt to do with who exactly was behind it, and the fact he most likely won’t get a chance of giving Daniel one in return ever again – it’s not fair. He doesn’t know if he should try and cherish the memory, or if he should repress it and do his best to forget how it felt to lean into him and have Daniel’s frame support his own.
He thinks about the feel of Daniel next to him when they last touched, on the sofa of Graham Norton, mentally so distant in perfect contrast to how wrapped around each other they had been physically. Daniel was so open with him, so complimentary despite how little Max deserved that after he had been so cruel to Daniel, not once but twice. He can’t imagine someone having more space in their heart for people, even if and especially when those people have caused him recent pain.
Daniel had selflessly chosen to help him out when Max had needed him, his whole world crashing around him. Sure, it made it easier for him to come out, too, but Daniel didn’t have to do it while he was still racing. He could have retired in peace, moved away from the limelight, taken a step back from the public eye and then let the news out when it wouldn’t risk affecting his career. Instead, he had been kind enough to take on Max and his problems, even if Max’s own situation was, at best, an inconvenience for himself.
But he’s the master of his own choices, no matter how poorly executed they might be.
And then the realisation hits him, because he’s fucking stupid and his brain apparently needs several days – fuck it, a whole two weeks to catch up with what is going on in his life. It jolts through his body, shocking him down to the tips of his toes, leaves him gasping for air.
He moves to check the time on his phone, letting out a breath of relief when he sees it’s still before midnight. He throws on the first clothes he finds, a worn t-shirt and some shorts, grabs his key card. On the way out, he calls Lando three times until he picks up, irritated but cooperative once Max explains what he needs and how urgent it is.
Address and room number obtained, he asks the reception to call him a taxi, a nervous thrum in his blood intensifying with each beat of his heart. It’s a risky move, and he doesn’t know what he’ll find on the other side – he might be on his way to shatter his soul once and for all, but he has to try. He’s not risking anything, when everything he fears he might lose he’s already lost.
When he finally makes it to the hotel, he has to calm his breathing, as if he had just run all the way there instead of sitting in the back of a car.
His knock sounds hollow in the deserted hallway. There are no sounds from the other side of the door, silence extending for a full minute until Max knocks again, more firmly this time. He waits impatiently, fiddling with the hem of his running shorts, before the door opens.
Daniel looks up from the handle blearily, and his gaze hardens the moment it lands on Max.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says, already turning around to get back inside the room. Max wants to take a moment to appreciate how sleep warm he looks, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, but he has to act quickly to not let the door shut in his face.
“I know, Daniel, I wouldn’t want to see myself either, right now,” Max hurries to say, standing in the entrance to his room, knowing he’s the furthest thing from welcome here. “Give me five minutes. If you don’t want me here after that, I’ll go. I promise.”
Daniel runs a hand through his curls, frustration clear in his expression. A moment later, he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Fine. Speak, then.”
Max swallows nervously, collecting himself. He thought he was ready, but seeing Daniel in person, actually addressing him and paying him attention beyond the purpose of fooling millions of strangers observing them, he finds his palms suddenly sweaty. He doesn’t think he was this nervous driving a Formula 1 car for the first time, nor crossing the finish line to seal his first championship. This might, quite possibly, be the scariest thing he’s ever done.
“I wanna apologise, first of all. You didn’t deserve me to be so rude, so cruel to you, and you have no idea how badly I regret that. You did nothing wrong, and I can’t imagine how badly I hurt you. Even if everything else I say tonight goes to shit, I want you to know I mean the apology. I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t, so all I can do is tell you I know it was wrong of me. Both times.”
Max’s voice is dry, but he finds the words come out easy when they’re true.
“I thought I was doing the right thing, if not in the best way. I was selfish when I asked you to kiss me in front of everyone, and I never gave you a choice in that. I should have done it in private, and let our first kiss be something that was only for us, but I was lost in the win, in having you there in top three with me. I wanted you, and it was so hard to think clearly when I could have it all that second. The thing is, you were never a public thing for me, and my instincts overwrote my brain when I had everything I wanted within the grasp. So I took it, and I didn’t you give you any say in the matter.
“I spent two weeks beating myself over that, thinking of what could have been if I had thought it through, how maybe you wanted me, too, and what we could have if I had waited a little bit.”
Daniel’s eyes widen a little bit as he listens to Max, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“And I kept coming back to the fact that I had already chosen for us and made the decision, until tonight I realised that I was being fucking selfish again. I took your decision away from you once, when I asked you to kiss me, and now I was doing it yet again when I decided for us that this is all there is, that we can’t be anything more. So I'm righting my wrong, and I'm giving you a choice, Daniel. I want you, and I want us, and I’m so sorry I’ve been a selfish dick. I’m choosing you,” he takes a deep, shuddering breath. “And I’m giving you your choice, and I hope you choose me, too.”
The back of his eyes sting by the time he’s done, but he stubbornly looks at Daniel, refuses to break their eye contact. He wants Daniel to see him open and honest and vulnerable, even if it’s not the most comfortable state for him to be in. Daniel deserves this much from him, after everything.
He barely registers it when Daniel moves towards him, unfolding his arms and gathering Max in his hold. “Of course I choose you, Max,” he says, and finally Max breaks, letting the tears out, dropping onto Daniel’s bare shoulder as they hug. “I thought you didn’t want me, maybe. That I had read all our interactions wrong and you never asked me to kiss you, that I had somehow even got that wrong. That he past few months were all in my head. I wanted you so bad, I didn’t even stop to consider that maybe you didn’t want me back, and when I finally did consider it, it fucking hurt, I won’t lie. But you’re here, and that’s all that matters.”
Max wipes another drop of wetness off Daniel’s shoulder where his fingers are gripping tightly, turning the skin white from the pressure of digging them in so hard.
“I’m sorry, Daniel, I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve any of that. I’ve always wanted you,” he sobs, powerless against the emotion coursing through his body. He thought he would never have this, and his words echo the desperate relief he feels inside. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to hold Daniel like this, both of them finally on the same page and equally exposed in front of each other. He clings onto Daniel harder.
Daniel pulls back to run a finger under Max’s eyes, wiping away the drops he finds there.
“You’re here, baby. That’s all that matters. I forgive you,” he tells him, before finally pressing their lips together, salty and shy and so longing. This one’s for them, and it fills Max from head to toe. He kisses back desperately, moulding his lips to Daniel’s, his hand running a heavy stroke down Daniel’s back to his waist, mapping out the shape of his body against his when they’re like this. It’s new and familiar at once, and it’s better than anything he could have imagined.
They separate gently, Daniel pressing his lips to Max’s temple briefly.
“I know we have so much to talk about, and I’m still angry and hurt, but now’s not the time. Let’s head to bed, yeah? We have all the time in the world to figure us out, but we should still get some sleep before free practise tomorrow. I trust us to make it work.”
He guides Max gently into the unmade bed, letting him take off his shirt before laying him down and plastering himself on top of him, chest to chest, abdomen to Max’s side and legs entangled. His head rests on Max’s clavicle, fingers idly tracing the other collarbone. His skin is as sleep warm as Max expected, his stubble pleasantly scratchy against his own body. His own hand rests on Daniel’s hip, keeping them glued together. He can’t get enough of their skin pressed together, so casually intimate.
They exchange a few soft kisses, keeping it light, after which Daniel rests his head back down on Max’s shoulder. Max keeps his fingers on his cheek, gently stroking his beard. Daniel lets out a small hmm against Max’s palm.
“What is it?” Max asks, bringing his other hand to Daniel’s cheeks to turn up his gaze.
Daniel’s mouth twists a bit. “I don’t want to pry, obviously, I’m just curious. I know I said we’ll figure it all out later, but there’s just one thing. I want to ask you something.”
Max smiles down at him. “Anything. What do you want to know?”
Daniel smiles softly in return, presses a chaste kiss to the inside of Max’s palm.
“For the record, I didn’t think you were selfish. It was what I wanted, too, when you asked me to kiss you. I always wanted you, Max,” he slides his hand down a little to press it against Max’s chest, right above his heartbeat. “But what made you think you were being selfish? You were so happy on the podium, and when I saw you twenty minutes later, you looked broken. And then, well. Then you broke me.”
Max’s heart lurches at Daniel’s words, but he knows they’re not meant as a jab, not meant to hurt him. They need this honesty, if they’re going to crawl out of the hole Max dug them into, and turn it into something lasting. He holds Daniel tighter.
He takes a second to respond, thinking through his words carefully. He doesn’t want to sound like he blames Michael, because he doesn’t; he was wrong, and Michael cared enough for Daniel to call Max out on his bullshit. If anything, he’s grateful he has Daniel's back, is so fiercely protective of him.
“Michael spoke to me after the race. He came to my motorhome and said I wasn’t thinking about you when I asked you to kiss me, and I wasn’t. I don’t think I would have realised it without him, otherwise, how my actions weren’t exactly fair on you.”
Daniel furrows his eyebrows slightly, the circles he’s tracing into Max’s chest stilling for a second.
“What do you mean Michael spoke to you? He shouldn’t have gotten involved, Max, you shouldn’t have listened to him,” he says, frowning.
Max shakes his head lightly in response, stroking Daniel’s cheek.
"No, Daniel, he was right. He might have picked a shit moment to tell me, but he was protecting you, and I needed to hear it. And at the end of the day, I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t said that to me. He cares so much for you, and you’re lucky to have him. He meant well, I'm not angry. You shouldn’t be, either.”
Daniel hums lowly, and Max gets the feeling he doesn't necessarily agree with Max’s point of view, but evidently, he lets it slide.
He presses another kiss to Max’s skin.
“I guess what matters is the outcome, right? And if that means that it had to happen to get you here next to me, then I'm glad it did. You mean so much to me, Max. Even when I'm angry with you, you still make me happy.”
Max hopes Daniel can’t feel the way his heart flutters at his words. On second thought, he doesn’t mind so much if he does. He’s hidden his emotions for too long for them to make the same mistake twice and keep anything from each other.
“We’ll talk tomorrow, yeah? Get some sleep, baby,” Max reaches to press a kiss into Daniel’s curls where they’re tickling his neck, a reminder of how close they are.
“Good night,” Daniel says into the air between them. Max inhales the words into his lungs with his next breath, and closes his eyes.
Notes:
you didn't really think I'd let there be a sad ending, did you? :)
Chapter 11: Epilogue
Notes:
thanks to amanda again for proofing this one. you're a star.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Australia, 2026
Max wakes to soft lips pressing a messy trail across his neck. He wants to burrow further into his pillow while at the same time wanting nothing more than to push himself towards the warm skin on his, which, in the end, is an easy decision for him.
His eyes flutter open just as Daniel presses a kiss to his jawline and Max tangles a hand in his curls. It’s too sensual and way too addictive for a morning when they really don’t have the time, but Max still uses his grip to tilt Daniel’s head up to slot their lips together.
He tastes like sleep and desire, and Max has to force himself to bring some space between them before the situation gets any more impossible.
“Daniel, fuck, we need to get up,” he moans against his stubble when Daniel nibbles at his pulse.
Daniel, the arsehole, hums non-committedly. “Feels like you’re up alright,” he says as he grinds their hips together, making Max sigh another groan.
“Christian will kill us,” Max says again, but doesn’t stop Daniel from brushing a hand against his nipple, and then again.
“Christian thinks the light shines out of your arse,” Daniel snorts. “I think I need to check for myself, with my tongue.”
Max squeezes his eyes shut from the mental pain of hearing those words, only to open them and find Daniel looking at him expectantly, propped up on his forearms. They burst into laughter at the same time, Max picking up a pillow from under his head and throwing it at Daniel’s face.
“Right, for that line alone you’ve lost any privileges for this morning,” he tells him amidst laughter, watching on as Daniel sprawls back onto the bed, smile wide. “No man who thinks that will work on me is getting into my pants. And to think you nearly convinced me to actually be late today.”
Daniel pulls a face. “Eh, I’ll convince you tonight,” he says casually, but Max still doesn’t miss his wistful gaze that follows after him when he gets up from the bed to pull on some boxers.
They get ready quickly, Daniel humming some song under his breath as he throws Max his team wear from where it’s folded on the dresser of the hotel room. Max makes it to the bathroom first and has Daniel’s toothbrush ready, wet from running it under the tap and toothpaste applied, when he walks in a minute later. Max grabs their key cards and water bottles while Daniel fetches Max’s cap, pulling it onto Max’s head backwards. He looks at Max for a second, silent, then brings his hand up to grip the bill of the cap, uses his grip on the bill to push Max forward and towards himself.
He kisses him slow in the hallway of their room, thumb stroking the thin skin under Max’s eye.
He doesn’t need Daniel to say it to know what he’s thinking. He didn’t think they’d ever have this, either – the mornings of getting ready together, of knowing neither will bolt when things get tough or give up on each other at the first inconvenience. Of being sure what they mean to each other, and being able to show it in the simplest of ways, even if it’s something as small as working the other into their morning routine.
It hasn’t been easy, getting to this point. Their first weeks together, in particular, involved a lot of picking at wounds, ones Max would rather have let close up and disappear. Daniel deserved better from him, though, and Max feared not having Daniel by his side again more than he feared admitting his mistakes and explaining his actions, and so he talked and Daniel listened. And then Daniel talked, earnest and never blaming, and Max listened, and somewhere in between the words being said out loud, they found a rhythm for themselves, an understanding they could use as a building base.
Max still feels a twinge of guilt, sometimes, when Daniel shows him too much kindness or goes out of his way for him, but that’s something for him to work on, personally. It’s a small price to pay, coming to terms with himself, when the payoff is Daniel’s unyielding trust in him. He’s reminded of it with every interaction, and with every shared glance, touch, he feels more deserving to have gotten where they are. And it keeps getting better, with every second he spends with Daniel, easier to be with him and harder to remember what ever held him back.
“I love you,” Max says into their next kiss. It’s still new between them – the thrill he gets from saying it and hearing it back is fresh in his veins. With the work put in, they’ve settled into their relationship steadily over the past few months, but it doesn’t make it any less magical whenever he remembers what they share.
“I love you,” Daniel echoes, bringing them together for one last kiss. If it were up to Max, they would stay here forever, but that's not really an option if he wants to remain a Formula 1 driver for longer than the next hour. He still has a season to start.
Outside, it’s so fucking hot Max wants to fold himself into the nearest freezer and never come out. The first race of the season is always giddier than the rest, the whole paddock swarming with people to the maximum, and he feels the thrum of excitement with each step he takes towards the Red Bull garage.
His hand is clutching Daniel’s tightly, and somehow it feels like the first time. It attracts no less attention this time around than it did the first, but knowing it’s real, that this means to Daniel what it means to Max, makes the tips of his ears feel the kind of hot that has nothing to do with the weather.
They get pulled apart by fans coming up to them barely a minute after they’ve entered the grounds. Vicky scoots Max out of the way, steering him towards the side where some of the journalists are gathered, and Daniel ends up on the other end, handing out his own autographs.
Once Max has dealt with the initial onslaught of fans, he’s quickly picked up by Natalie who somehow manages to guide Max towards a mic.
“Max! New season, new expectations. What’s the plan for the year?” She asks, bright and cheery. Max gives her a few mild, media trained answers that have very little input from him and all the right things the press team at large thought up over the off-season. It’s impersonal, and it’s boring, but it doesn’t take away from his excitement to be back on track.
He glances across the wide pathway of the paddock, lets his eyes trace over the figure of Daniel. He’s finally managed to free himself of the fans and is now standing casually by the side, waiting for Max to finish up his interview.
Natalie follows Max’s gaze and smiles gently.
“And obviously, you have your boyfriend here to support you this year,” Natalie prompts. It’s not really a question, wouldn’t usually warrant Max to elaborate. He meets Daniel’s eyes across the press collected around him, suppresses an instinctual giggle when Daniel winks at him. It’s only been a couple of minutes, but he misses being next to Daniel already.
“Yeah, it’s good. He’s good for me. I can’t wait to make him proud,” he laughs, not tearing his eyes away from Daniel. He plays it off as a joke, but he means every word. He knows Daniel already is – in one way or another, Daniel tells him so every day – but the desire to do everything over again and better with Daniel by his side is like fire in his veins.
Christian, Daniel mouths at him, and theatrically smacks his own arse. This time around Max doesn’t even bother trying to suppress his giggle.
Natalie dismisses him a second later, Vicky hurrying the interview up with a knowing smile. Max gives her a grateful nod before making his way across back to Daniel. She might not know the details of what happened between them, but she’s also known Max for a decade and Daniel even longer; Max can read it in the lines of her face that she isn’t as in the dark as she lets on. She didn’t even look surprised when Max told her there was no need to issue a break-up story between himself and Daniel back in December.
“What was that?” Daniel asks when Max returns to him, a smile playing at his lips.
Max returns the smile teasingly. “Oh, just telling them about my trophy wife who’s here to support me.”
Daniel looks at him, puzzled for a second, before it clicks for him, and then he throws his head back and laughs jovially.
“A regular Daniel Nicole Smith,” he says, throwing an arm around Max’s waist as they walk on through the paddock.
They make it nearly all the way to Red Bull, loud music blasting through the air, when Max spots a familiar face in the crowd looking at him.
He turns towards Daniel, putting some space between them.
“You go, I'll be there in a minute, yeah? Try and keep Christian distracted,” he tells him, gently pushing him towards the garage.
Daniel raises an eyebrow, concerned, but Max waves him off with a smile.
He turns around on his heels, heading in the direction of where he saw Ross a minute ago. He finds him relatively easily, stood alone, clearly waiting for Max to approach him. He looks worn down, tired, even if it’s been years since Max saw him last. It's not a good look on him.
“What are you doing here?” he asks him, voice carefully void of any emotion.
Ross clears his throat, fiddling with his fingers slightly as he looks up at Max.
“I wanted to apologise. I shouldn't have done what I did, and it was so shitty of me,” he begins. Max tries really hard not to roll his eyes, but in the end, he fails against the temptation. Ross flinches back a bit. “I was in a bad place, mentally. I needed something to hold onto, so I used the first thing I could think of. It wasn’t ever against you; you were just collateral damage.”
As far as apologies go, it’s a pretty shitty one. He’s not even sure it can be called that, despite what Ross just said. Max can’t help the snort that he lets out at that, either. He’s not sure what made him come to Ross in the first place. He should have just ignored him, and he’s regretting not doing so now.
“Mate, just save your explanation. It is what it is,” Max shrugs, ready for this conversation to be over, now.
Ross looks shocked at his words. “You’re not angry?”
Max thinks it over for a second, and to his own surprise, finds that he’s really not. He tells Ross so.
“No,” he shakes his head. His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he fishes it out quickly to look at the message.
juicy, it reads, followed by a peach emoji. Another one comes through in quick succession. my tongue has better uses than talking down christian off the edge of panic. get here asap and stop wasting its potential
He whips his head around to see Daniel staring at his backside, Christian next to him. Christian waves around some complicated hand gestures in the air, ones that Max takes to mean he is needed in the garage sooner rather than later. He exchanges a furtive look with Daniel, turning back around.
“Actually, I'm grateful. It won’t make any sense to you, and I need to go, but thank you, Ross. You gave me something I don’t think I ever would have got on my own.” Max looks him in the eye for the last time, finding confusion there, and doesn’t bother to clear it up. He quickly closes the distance between himself and where Daniel is getting a full-blown whole lecture from Christian at this point.
“Max is going to cause me a heart attack one day,” he’s saying. “He is taking too long. Did you mention I have the power to demote him to Alpha Tauri? Three-time world champion or not, he needs to get into the briefing room now.” He gestures around some more. “Daniel, show me what you texted him.”
“You really don’t want to know,” Max cuts in before Christian can continue his verbal assault on his boyfriend any further.
Christian furrows his eyebrows, assessing Max.
“And in one piece, too. Remarkable. Come on, GP’s tearing out the hair he never had to begin with.”
Max snorts, turning to Daniel momentarily.
“You’ll be here when I get out?” he ascertains. He knows he will be, but he wants the reminder anyway.
“I will,” Daniel confirms. He swaps their places quickly, presses Max against the cool wall of the garage, kisses him so thoroughly he leaves Max breathless for a second.
“What was that for?” he asks, slightly dazed, running a hand over his lips where he can still feel the phantom touch of Daniel’s mouth.
Daniel shrugs. “For good luck. You’re in my country. I get to be your little fangirl, which means everyone you see is supporting you, too. I also kind of wanted to kiss you properly in front of the cameras.” He pauses for a second, tracing the rim of the cap with his finger where it sits on Max’s forehead, no doubt thinking about the last kiss they shared in public. This one is miles better. “And, well. Because I wanted to. Because I'm happy.”
Max looks into his eyes, still not quite believing they made it all the way here. “I am, too,” he whispers in between them.
“Max, for fuck’s sake!” comes Christian’s frustrated voice.
Max sends another smile Daniel’s way before he hurries off. He already misses him, but he knows Daniel will be there when he’s done.
After all, he waited for him for a decade. One day at the track is nothing.
Notes:
this is a shorter one, but hopefully it has brought this story to a close. thank you so much for every comment, every kudos, every read on this work – ive loved every single one. and of course, thank you for sticking until the end, it means the world. i might write a time stamp a little later on because im not sure im entirely ready to let go of this universe just yet, but we shall see. there is definitely an E rated scene in the works, bc I feel like I cheated you all and myself out of it. twice ;) (i have also developed an affection for callum x oscar lately so... if there is any demand beyond me and my two anons, let me know hehe)
im screwstyles on tumblr in case you have thoughts, opinions, or simply want to say hi!
sep 2024 edit: MASSIVE shout out to ao3 user onlyoneofyou and their best friend, both of whom got the title of this fic tattooed on them. the tattoos are beautiful. i’m so happy this is something special to you and my work brought you joy 💖
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