Chapter Text
_2021
Max is still visiting his family when Daniel gets back to Europe in January, so the first time he sees him again is in a shoebox office at the factory in Milton Keynes, for a bloody Marketing meeting, of all things. Daniel usually doesn’t hate these meetings as much as Max very openly does. But he zones out about ten minutes in, because –
Because Max isn’t even pretending to pay attention. He’s looking at Daniel, unabashedly, with the single-minded focus he usually only displays when it comes to racing, and it makes Daniel feel hot under the collar of his stupid Red Bull polo. He misses two or three questions addressed to him and has to excuse himself, blame jetlag, and tries very hard to pay attention for the remainder of the meeting.
Once it’s over, he’s out of his seat, and out of the office, rounding one corner, and then another, before coming to an abrupt halt. He only has to count to three before he hears hurried steps, and then Max almost barrels into him, practically Baku in reverse.
“Hello Daniel,” Max says with a smile once he’s recovered from his late braking. “How was LA?”
He doubts Max really wants to know about LA, and Daniel has no interest in talking about LA. “You gotta stop looking at me like that.”
“Why?” Someone who didn’t know Max might mistake his expression for genuine confusion, but Max is far shrewder than a lot of people give him credit for.
Daniel takes a steadying breath. “It makes me want to lick sauce off your face.”
Max’s broad shoulders are stretching the fugly Red Bull polo he’s wearing. He pulls at the hem, nervous fingers betraying his otherwise calm façade. “Do you want to have dinner tonight?”
Daniel can’t help himself. “Chicken?”
Max smiles, teeth showing; a shark smelling blood in the water. “If you would like.”
There’s nothing unusual about them hanging out in Milton Keynes, after a long day of sim work and meetings, and they usually always catch up right away, over dinner, at either his or Max’s place. But Daniel feels a bit… overwhelmed, maybe, suddenly, thinking about what they got up to at Christmas, and what it could mean, what it could potentially do to a good thing they’ve got going. He’s probably – definitely – overthinking it, but he figures he should screw his head on straight before boundaries can blur even more.
Daniel wants to focus on himself, and his racing, before he runs out of time. This may be his last shot. And he needs to feel the urgency of that.
“Maybe another time, yeah?” He finally manages to say. Max’s face doesn’t exactly fall, but there’s something in his eyes that just – shutters. “I’m still, like, a bit jetlagged. Plus, I promised my mum I’d call.”
That last sentence is a low blow. There’s no plan to call his family, even if they are going to be delighted if he calls, but mostly he knows that Max won’t even think to insist now.
“Simon’s waiting, but I’ll see you around, Maxy!” Daniel knows his smile is tight, so he pats Max’s shoulder like a f*cking moron, ignores the look of confusion Max undoubtedly gives him in response, before doing a one-eighty and disappearing from where they came from.
The first tests on the RB16B are promising. Covid f*cked with the regulations as well as last season’s schedule, so it’s not an entirely new car, but the team has tinkered with its skeleton, given it a new chassis and power unit, and additional changes to the gearbox have given it more downforce. It’s – it’s fast. Daniel feels exhilarated hurtling down straights, knows he still needs to push it a bit more in the corners. But he thinks he’ll have a good handle on it by the time pre-season testing rolls around.
They’re not flying to Barcelona this year, which will be a bit weird, Daniel guesses, but testing in Bahrain and then also having the first race there will make things easier for sure. Until then, the team runs them ragged, which suits Daniel just fine. It keeps him occupied, and it keeps Max distracted from potentially bringing up whatever the hell that was at Christmas, and they’re all too hungry for blood to lose focus.
The team has always been optimistic about their chances, but this year, there’s something in the air. Daniel can f*cking smell it.
Bahrain is a powder keg. It’s barely above twenty degrees, but the track is bloody boiling, sun mercilessly beating down during the day and a sharp chill setting in during the night. There’s no protection from the elements out here in the middle of the goddamn desert, but at least the sand isn’t blowing all over the track and paddock. Small mercies.
It's good to see everyone again, even behind masks, although it is strange to see Seb at Aston Martin, and Carlos at Ferrari, and Checo at McLaren. Truly a merry-go-round. Fernando is back as well, which is wild. Back at Renault, or Alpine, now, Daniel guesses. New driver pairings, new team names, and some new faces as well. It kind of makes Daniel appreciate the constancy of Red Bull these past few seasons, which probably comes as a surprise to everyone. A lot of other teams, and Netflix, naturally, were probably hoping for an implosion; scheming between driver camps, backstabbing and strategy meddling and on-track disasters.
A real Shakespearean tragedy. Not Hamlet, but the Scottish one, where everyone dies and there’s witches. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Daniel thinks. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and that, at least, is true.
On the day of the first practice session, a sandstorm engulfs the entire track. In Blade Runner-esque atmosphere, Mercedes eats the dust Max all leaves them in. Daniel leads the morning run, but Max sets the fastest lap of the day under floodlights, Lewis more than two seconds slower, and Valtteri a distant taillight. Max doesn’t run the second session, so the whole day is Daniel’s and while it’s great to get the time, and the team’s focus, he knows deep down that Max doesn’t need practice.
It's like he said to Adrian ‘make it fast, and whatever that means, I’ll deal with it’, and is actually doing it. He throws himself into every corner, and when Daniel finally gets a look at Max’s break patterns, he feels dizzy trying figure out how the f*ck Max isn’t shunting the car ten times per lap. Blind faith, maybe. Incomparable skill, definitely. Valtteri sort of redeems Mercedes by setting the fastest lap, but late in the day, on super soft tyres, so everyone knows it doesn’t really count. Daniel is in the upper quarter of the table, having completed one hundred and seventeen laps, but he’s roughly a second slower than Max.
He matches Max’s time from the first session on the third and final day, but Max goes another two seconds faster. It’s an encouraging result for the entire team, unless Mercedes are sandbagging the hell out of it during testing. Judging by the sour look on Toto’s face though, Daniel suspects they aren’t.
Max finds him in his hotel room, after pre-season testing wraps up, knocking curtly and pushing past Daniel before he can beg him inside.
“You’re avoiding me,” Max cuts to the chase.
It’s not exactly true, but it’s also not not true. They have been incredibly busy, and there is really no avoiding your teammate when you’re in the same garage and meetings all day, and Marketing makes you play silly games to keep their followers entertained. But unlike in previous seasons, Daniel is not going out of his way to spend time with Max outside of it all. He’d hoped that it wouldn’t be so obvious, but considering how much time they’d always spent together, and how glued to one another they’d always been –
It's not even an entirely conscious thing, because they hadn’t even been awkward with each other after – well, after. Right before Daniel had gone to the States and hadn’t been able to hook up with anyone. So maybe he is a bit spooked. Maybe it’s a whole amalgamation of things Daniel isn’t really self-reflective enough to pinpoint.
Doesn’t mean Daniel is just going to own up to it. “Literally in my hotel room, Maxy,” he drawls and sits down on the couch. “Not sure what you mean.”
Max eyes the armchair opposite Daniel, covered in clothes he’s not even worn yet. The entire contents of his suitcases are haphazardly strewn around the room, because Daniel tells himself he thrives in chaos. Instead of making room and sitting down though, Max just sways back on his heels, pushes his hands into the pockets of jeans he really ought to throw out. Someone should buy him a decent pair, really, as an act of public service.
“I’m not stupid,” Max simply states, and there’s something echoing in his tone that makes Daniel think he doesn’t even want any sort of response. Max isn’t really one to ask too many questions. He barrels in, speaks his mind, and leaves you to deal with it. And this is probably something for Daniel to deal with; to stop giving Max excuses that are just that. To stop avoiding him. It.
“You’re losing time in the corners,” Max changes the topic so sudden it practically gives Daniel whiplash.
“Uh – what?”
“Especially in turns four and ten,” Max barrels on like Daniel doesn’t f*cking know where he’s losing time on this sandbox track. Like he hasn’t already gone over it all in detail with Simon and the rest of the team.
He knows that Max doesn’t mean to be a dick, even if it comes across that way. Daniel is still a bit offended. “What are you, my race engineer?”
Max finally moves to perch on the armrest of the armchair, and he is looking at Daniel like he was tasked with debriefing. “The downforce is much stronger now,” he says. “You don’t need to brake so much, going into the corners.”
“Great, Max, hadn’t thought of that at all,” Daniel snarks back at him. It’s late, and he really is not in the mood. “Not like I got all this data from three days of testing to figure out where I’m going wrong.”
Max purses his lips. “I am just saying –”
“Well, save it, okay?” Daniel tells him. “I don’t need a lecture, and I don’t need driving lessons from you.”
He can tell from his face that Max is biting his tongue, quite literally. Maybe Daniel has taken it too far, with all this talk of how they’re a team. It’s their individual lap times that count, in the end, and it doesn’t matter how much Daniel has spent the last weeks, months, years indulging Max and letting Max’s attention stroke his ego.
It’s not making him drive any faster. But, to be fair, neither is being a c*nt.
“Sorry,” he relents, “I know you don’t mean it like that.”
Max gaze drops to the floor, and Daniel sighs. His impulse is to suggest a reset, sort themselves out and just wipe the slate clean so they can focus on the season ahead. But he doesn’t actually want to wipe it clean. Their relationship is important to Daniel and he likes the way it is, or was, before he started overthinking and being preoccupied with how it might look from the outside, all too aware of the Netflix cameras following them around the track, boom mics inconspicuously being dangled into every conversation.
Max glances up at him again, his eyes as endlessly blue as the sky above Western Australia stretching towards home. “I want us to win,” he says.
It’s a nice sentiment, but at the end of the day, there’s only space for one person on that top step of the podium. Daniel wants to believe him anyway.
When the first race weekend of the season rolls around, Max leads all three practice sessions, and then takes pole position in qualifying, Daniel landing in fifth behind both Mercedes’ and Charles.
Bahrain is a powder keg, and Max is the one lighting the fuse.
A slow pitstop and not ideal strategy f*cks with Max’s race, and f*cking Pierre making contact with Daniel’s rear means he is no place to challenge for a podium. Max’s second place finish isn’t terrible, but after dominating in pre-season testing, free practice and qualifying, Mercedes being back on two podium spots, is honestly a slap in the face.
Everyone is steering clear of Max’s room after the race. Don’t poke the bear, or the lion in this case, but that’s never stopped Daniel. As if he’d timed it, a loud thud sounds from the inside when Daniel is reaching out to grab the doorhandle and he has about a second to wonder what it was that Max undoubtedly hurled across the room. An empty water bottle, he discovers, once he steps inside and quickly closes the door behind himself again. At least not the second place trophy.
Max, red-faced and sweaty, is halfway through peeling himself out of his fireproofs, racesuit still tied around his hips. He freezes with his arms suspended mid-air, midriff bared, expression thunderous. Daniel, who didn’t finish on the podium, but was sixth across the finish line, feels a bit miffed all things considered. Second place is the first loser, et cetera – he gets it. But maybe Max also needs to start reading the writing on the wall.
Daniel looks at the bottle on the floor, and back at Max. “Jesus, Maximus, what’re you gonna throw if you finish off the podium?”
Max rolls his eyes, tugs his top the rest of the way off, balls it up and tosses it into a corner. His hair is pointing in all directions and his skin is flushed all the way down to his waist.
“This is so stupid,” he spits and looks primed to throw something else against the wall, so Daniel steps up to him and grabs his shoulder. Max is hot to the touch, his skin damp. He smells like a heady mix of sweat and fuel – heat.
Daniel is suddenly very aware of the difference between their states of dress. Even though they’ve shared f*cking ice baths before. “Max. Maxy. Hey,” he starts, swallowing around an itch in his throat. “We did it. We closed the gap. And we’re gonna get him.”
Never mind the fact that Daniel didn’t close sh*t.
“You need to go faster.”
Daniel blinks. Then snorts. “Yeah, no sh*t.”
Max shakes his head. “No, you don’t understand,” he insists. “You need to go faster. I do not want to race Lewis. I want to race you.”
Daniel doesn’t – well. His brain is tripping over a couple of words and thoughts before me manages to say, “you’d rather race me than the seven time world champion? Aw shucks, Maxy.”
But judging by the way Max’s brows pull together in response, that’s not what he wanted to hear. He takes a step closer to Daniel, consciously or not, practically staring him down and Daniel feels the heat he’d shed with his post-race shower return in full force.
“I am serious,” Max stresses, his mouth twisting unhappily. “And of course if the team had built you a better car, you would also be world champion already.”
He says it with such confidence, like it’s a foregone conclusion, like it’s really only the team’s fault that Daniel has never gotten his hands on the most coveted trophy, even though Daniel would wager that there are plenty of pundits, so-called experts and even drivers who’d disagree with him there.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence. Truly,” he says, and means it. Doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of the open attention and admiration – adoration – Max gives so freely and unflinchingly. “We’ll get them at Imola.”
He tugs him into a tight hug, to cheer Max up just as much as Daniel needs to settle the storm that’s been brewing in his chest since leaving Max’s apartment in Monaco and hightailing it to LA in a desperate attempt to physically and emotionally distance himself from whatever it is that is relentlessly pulling them together. He is hyper-aware of all the points where they’re touching; his fingertips digging into the small of Max’s back and the meat of his shoulder, his tee sticking to Max’s chest, nipples pebbled by the air-con in the room, so much so that Daniel can feel –
Max exhales against the side of his neck. He is taller than Daniel at this point, not by much, but he is taller, and broader, and yet he fits himself against Daniel like he’s seventeen again. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying something stupid, his hands twitching as he tries to stop himself from doing something stupid. But Daniel feels a bit like he’s spent the last weeks balancing on a tightrope, and now, he’s finally slipping. His belly certainly swoops like he’s about to fall.
Max’s lips rest against his pulse. There’s really only one way this is going to go.
Daniel takes a deep breath, Max’s chest moving with his. “Go shower. You stink.” When he pulls away, his shirt continues to stick to Max for a second. He’ll undoubtedly have sweat staining it, but Daniel doesn’t think he’ll get changed again.
Max’s gaze is unblinking, unflinching; burning into Daniel’s back as he leaves.
The free practice sessions in Imola are an absolute sh*tshow, crashes and red flags left, right and centre. They’ve all heard the rumblings in the paddock; how everyone expects them to win here. Double podium. Daniel feels the pressure. Max drives like the devil is on his tail and Daniel clenches his teeth, closes his eyes, and decides to follow. The W12 doesn’t have their pace, but Lewis isn’t just a record world champion because he always had the fastest car. The true testament to how unstable the car really is, is how much Valtteri apparently struggles to get anywhere near Lewis’ consistency, finishing eighth in qualifying to Lewis’ pole.
Max, by his own admission, fumbles it in the final section of the track in Q3, losing vital milli seconds in the Rivazza double left-hander, meaning that for the first time in far too long, Daniel outqualifies him, having finally come to semi-terms with the updated RB. There’s only a hair’s breadth separating the top three, Charles’ Ferrari in fourth three hundredths of a second slower. It’s probably way too early to call this a three horse race, but Daniel thinks he’s in it now.
He's proven to himself, the team, Max, that he can keep up.
Max gets a jump on both him and Lewis in the very first corner, charging ahead like a madman. If Daniel were less experienced, less confident in his own pace, he’d rush going after him. Simon is in his ear telling him that Lewis has picked up damage on his front wing, and to bide his time. He knows he has the pace, and he knows they have a good strategy, and so Daniel spends the first couple of laps staying close to Lewis’ tail; close enough to know that Bono will be giving him updates on the decreasing gap every other corner. He watches Lewis’ lines, conscious of the wet track, eyes on the car in front and Max probably roughly a second ahead.
Max gets called in first to change to slick tyres twenty-seven laps in, and Simon lets him know when Lewis gets the order to box just the lap after. He’s a bit slower and can’t use the overcut to overtake Max, actually losing so much time that Daniel is pretty sure he can catch him if he gets a quick pitstop. It works out perfectly and while Daniel would’ve preferred a classic overtake on track to an overcut, he’s not complaining when he exits the pitlane and sees the W12 in his rearview mirror.
Slowly but steadily, the gap between him and Lewis grows and grows. He disappears entirely, at some point, and while there’s plenty happening in the middle and back of the field, he and Max have a fairly uneventful race. Valtteri and Russell crash pretty horrifically, and post-red flag, Daniel’s heart almost drops out of his arse when Max almost spins during the restart, but they bring home a solid one-two, over twenty seconds between them and the rest of the field.
It's f*cking beautiful, and exactly the way it’s supposed to be. Sure, he thinks he could’ve won if he’d had a better start, but he’ll take it, because the view from the podium is fantastic, and the view of Max grinning at him, holding out his hand expectantly while Daniel readies their first shoey of the season, is even better. For a split second, when Max is close, Daniel wants to grab him by the neck and put his boot to his lips, but thankfully, he snaps out of the impulse in time.
He feels restless, and parched, even with champagne pouring down his throat, distracted enough that he doesn’t notice Lewis slinking away before Daniel can force a shoey on him. The post-race press conference seems to stretch on forever. Lewis is gracious in defeat, but Daniel figures that’s because he doesn’t expect to be losing again. Anything less than first probably only registers as a blip for him. Daniel gets an annoying amount of questions about losing out to Max despite qualifying ahead of him, and he feeds the press standardised lines on autopilot. Usually, he likes to speak off the cuff, as much as the team allows him. But now, growing swarm of ants crawling in his belly, he is grateful to follow a pre-approved script.
Daniel can’t even begin to tell himself that he’s just experiencing a normal post-race adrenaline drop, dehydrated or in desperate need of shower. This really ain’t it. Because Daniel is hyper-aware of Max’s body next to his, and has been since they’ve climbed out of their cars in parc fermé, hugging tightly whilst still wearing their helmets before getting swamped by their team.
The smell of him sticks to the back of Daniel’s throat and the image of Max’s throat working as he’d swallowed champagne and Daniel’s – Daniel’s – sweat is f*cking burned into his retinas. He needs a few moments to gather himself before the party that night, before he can be the focus of Max’s penetrating gaze for an entire night; a cold shower and an ill-advised wank, maybe.
But he and Max have adjoining rooms, and so they match each other, step by step, until they’re right in front of Daniel’s door. Max follows him inside, and Daniel doesn’t tell him no. Their relationship in a nutshell, maybe. Max barrelling on, and Daniel indulging him. He’s in another team-issued shirt and those godawful jeans and Daniel really shouldn’t –
“That near-spin at Rivazza almost cost you the win,” he says and tosses his backpack onto the couch. A quiet thud just two seconds later tells him that Max has dropped his on the ground without having to turn around. He does so anyway.
Max is still a bit flushed, his skin pink, and that flat-brimmed cap hiding the mess of his hair. His lips twitch and he walks further into the room, sidestepping an overflowing suitcase until he’s barely a foot away from Daniel, close enough for him to smell the generic body wash Max must’ve used to rinse down after the race. Daniel wonders if he could still smell the track on Max, hot concrete and sharp fuel, if he were to move even closer.
“But it didn’t,” Max replies, looking as focused and high-strung as he had just before the race, and perhaps Daniel isn’t alone in feeling like he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin. Though that shouldn’t be surprising. They’ve always matched each other’s energy.
“If you had not overcut Lewis after your pitstop,” Max goes on, and maybe he’s moving closer or Daniel, or they’re meeting in the middle, who the f*ck even knows at this point, who the f*ck even cares – “where would you have overtaken him?”
An odd question to ask, but not for Max Verstappen. And he’s only asking because he knows that Daniel has an answer; had f*cking pictured it, lap after lap after lap, watching Lewis go down every straight and into every turn. Daniel had picked a few spots, actually. But he’d had a favourite.
“Piratella,” he says, and Max is right there, his eyes relentlessly boring into Daniel’s. His knuckles graze the hem of Max’s dumb Red Bull polo, and Daniel twists his fingers into the fabric, pulling. “Going outside, braking late.”
Their toes touch. Daniel wants to take off Max’s cap, so he does. Brushes it right off his head and runs his fingers through the thick, damp strands of his hair until finding a spot at the back of Max’s neck.
Max’s lips audibly part. “Cutting him off right before turn ten?”
Daniel nods. “Yeah,” he breathes, throat dry like he hadn’t downed a litre of electrolyte drink after the race.
“If that had not worked,” Max says against the side of his face –
“DRS, between thirteen and fourteen,” and Daniel turns his head, and kisses Max. No sauce. No excuses.
His head goes quiet. The heat of Max’s mouth, the slick shock of his tongue, pushes away all else, just as Max himself had single-mindedly elbowed his way into the team, into Daniel’s life. Everything they have been, everything they are now, and everything they might be this season bleeds into the way Daniel holds onto him now, and Max clings to him in return.
Wheel to wheel, rubber burning on the tarmac, racing towards the finish line.
Daniel tries to wrap his head around it, when he has a moment to himself between Imola and Portugal, waiting for Michael to come over for a workout. Max has Brad scheduled to put him through the wringer, which is probably the only reason Daniel actually went to his apartment instead of Max’s after touching down in Nice.
He wants to be closer to Max, physically, on and off track. Simple as that. He wants to close the gap to him in the next race just like he wants to press up against Max’s back . He wants to loom over him from the top step of the podium and he wants to cover Max’s body with his. He wants to match him, point for point, corner for corner, and he wants Max’s eyes on him and only him as they take the championship away from Lewis.
He feels on edge when Max isn’t in touching distance, and he finally recognises where he knows that feeling from. It’s like being out in Q1 when Max makes it to Q3. A DNF while Max podiums. Daniel had been worried about lines starting to blur. But he realises now that he hadn’t had even the slightest inkling what lines had been in danger of blurring, and to what extent.
Maybe this is what it means, to be consumed by something. Maybe this is what it takes.
Lewis wins again in Portugal. Daniel finishes P2, having made up two places from an okay-ish Qualifying. Max, who’d qualified just behind Lewis, rounds up the podium after executing a recovery drive that has them both buzzing once the race is finished. They maintain a polite distance between each other in the cool down room, mindful of Lewis and the cameras, but Daniel wants to put his mouth on Max when he watches him spin on the screen, drop to thirteenth, and then overtake ten cars over the course of the race.
Post-podium, post-press conference, he ushers Max into his driver’s room before unceremoniously shoving him against the massage table, demanding a detailed description of every single overtake while Daniel pushes the collar of Max’s fireproofs to the side and does exactly that.
Lewis wins Spain as well, Daniel and Max trading podium places and a lot of f*cking spit once they’re back in Daniel’s hotel room. It pisses them both off that despite the better car, Lewis is still leading, but Daniel can feel the momentum, sees proof that things are different, and then Lewis flunks Monaco, and Charles seems to be cursed, and they have their next one-two finish, Max beaming from the top step.
Daniel pushes Max into the pool with his race suit still on. Just about a half hour later, slipping away from the party, hopefully unnoticed, they shoulder their way into a bathroom, where Daniel helps Max peel out of it, his hands frantic and hungry for bare skin, and when Max comes between their bellies, Daniel’s own org*sm is gut-punched out of him.
It's so good. As good as Simon’s voice in his ear saying, “and that’s P1, Daniel, well done!”
(The Netflix cameras are everywhere. Daniel isn’t exactly paranoid, but he is aware how the entire paddock looks at him and Max with bated breath, like they’re a ticking time bomb about to explode, boom-mics primed to record it. He’s pretty sure some think their closeness is just for show, part of Red Bull’s PR machine, papering over the cracks that they believe have only grown since twenty-eighteen.
f*ck, there are moments Daniel wishes he were faking the way his eyes follow Max around the garage, fingers incessantly twitching at his side, heart helplessly thudding in his chest when Max looks back. A teasing ki ki ki that Max answers wherever he is, and whatever he’s doing.
Even if people don’t believe that particular narrative, Daniel knows that his and Max’s increasing closeness raises a few eyebrows. Michael’s, for sure, regularly disappear towards his hairline these days, especially since Daniel had brought him on board with the specific purpose of – well. Of keeping Max in his place. Because Daniel hadn’t known – no, hadn’t understood… that Max’s place was right next to him. On the track, in the garage, and in his own goddamn bed.
“I just think it’s odd,” Michael says, clearly in response to something relating to Max that Daniel has off-handedly mentioned without second thought. Maybe their dinner plans. Maybe a bet with GP Max had mentioned to him earlier in the day. But it’s just as likely that he’d just been on Daniel’s mind. He always is, these days.
Michael isn’t looking at him, busy setting up the next exercise. “First you go on and on about how he is selfish, a brat, a bad teammate, and now you’re suddenly –”
Daniel drops the plank, and sits down heavily on the training mat. “What?”
Yeah, suddenly they’re… what, exactly? It’s not like Daniel has an answer.
Michael shrugs. “I don’t know, mate. Just wondering.”
Daniel digs his fingers into his calf muscle, feels a cramp coming on. “Well, maybe we just talked it out and moved on. Maybe we both grew up.”
Maybe Michael needs to mind his own f*cking business.)
Max has a left-rear tyre failure in Baku, and Lewis locks up after the wrong break mode, sending him onto the escape road, putting him last. Daniel gets past Carlos, Charles and Pierre and finishes first.
And all of a sudden, Daniel is leading the championship.
He’s in his driver’s room after the race; after a shoey on the podium, and after the post-race press conference where he’d been flanked by the two Ferrari drivers. It had felt great, and weird, and about another hundred juxtaposing things. Now Daniel is pulling off his fireproofs, distractedly looking at his first place trophy, and when the door flies open, Max standing in the doorway with a heaving chest, white tee clinging to his skin, he wonders if this is the blow-up they’ve all been waiting for.
Daniel has half a mind to ask Max whether he wants to wait for the cameras, but he cottons on to the actual motive behind Max finding him post-race when he shuts the door and pointedly turns the key in the lock. The resulting click is quiet, but nevertheless echoes through the room.
“Max –”
He is in front of him in three quick strides. “Shut up, Daniel,” Max says, unceremoniously sinks to his knees, and Daniel realises he’s been half-hard since the final lap.
“Jesus motherf*cking – ”, but the rest is drowned in a moan that seems to get drawn out from very deep within in his belly. His left hand flies up to his mouth and he presses it against his lips, because –
f*cking hell, there are a few dozen Red Bull employees lingering just outside his door, packing up after a semi-successful weekend, probably already looking for them. Daniel is expected to celebrate and Max is expected to be happy for him. Instead, Daniel scrabbles for purchase against the massage table that digs into the small of his back, his knees slowly but steadily turning into jelly. The view of the top of Max’s head at hip level is a bit too much for him to comprehend right now. He’s spinning out and sliding towards the barrier, just bracing for impact.
Daniel gets a short, barely-there reprieve when Max pulls off, his forehead coming to rest against Daniel’s lower belly, breathing hotly, wetly against his skin. The hand currently not muffling the sounds threatening to tumble past Daniel’s lips drops against the side of Max’s face, cupping his cheek, fingertips curling along his jaw. Daniel presses down lightly, just enough to tip Max’s head back and to meet his heated gaze, pupils blown so wide the blue of his eyes is barely there.
“I won,” Daniel breathes, even though he’s not sure why he feels the need to say it; what he’s even referring to. The race? The championship? Who’d get the other on his knees first?
“I will win in France,” Max croaks, voice already shot.
“You can try,” Daniel says, and lets his other hand come to rest on top of Max’s head, fingers running through the shower-damp strands of his hair. Absentmindedly, he wonders if this is what Nico and Lewis got up to. If this is when they’d stopped. If this is why it all blew up.
Max chuckles into his pubes, then pumps his dick a few times before swallowing him down again and although Daniel’s got a grip on him now, angling Max’s head, controlling the speed and then pushing in, in, in –
He's not sure who’s at whose mercy here.
Max does win in France, just like he’d promised, leapfrogging to the top of the leaderboard, Lewis squeezing between them, but his second place not quite enough yet to move up from third in the drivers’ standings. They head to Austria after that for a double header of Red Bull’s home Grand Prix, one of which they’ve rebranded as the Styrian Grand Prix, which is stupid, but Daniel likes the track in Spielberg, and he’s just happy to be in one place for a while.
Max wins the first header in Spielberg, five seconds ahead of Daniel; a Red Bull one-two to increase the gap to Mercedes, and to Lewis. Daniel wins the second with Max coming in third behind Lewis after issues with his gearbox in the last fifteen laps of the race slow him down enough for both Daniel and Lewis to overtake him. He’s a bit disgruntled when they pull into parc fermé, but cheers up significantly after Daniel makes him do a shoey on the podium. His bad mood is all but gone when Daniel pulls him along towards his hotel room while the team’s party is still in full swing, lays him out on crisp, white sheets, and wrings two org*sms out of him, three fingers deep.
And the Silverstone happens.
Daniel makes a rookie error in Q3 that means he has to start fifth while Max and Lewis make up the front row for the race. But he feels surprisingly okay with it, knowing that he’s got the pace to move up the field in the first couple of laps. He and Max have an eleven and twenty-three point lead, respectively, over Lewis and while Max can build on his lead if he continues to drive like that, Daniel has a good shot at maintaining or even extending the distance between himself and Lewis as well.
He has an excellent start, and manages to already get past Charles while they’re all heading towards the first corner, and gets around Valtteri as they come out of the third. Unfortunately, it also give him a front row seat to what happens next. Lewis pushing right from the start to get ahead of Max was never in doubt. Him trying to hang on into the first couple of corners was just as likely. But the cars aren’t exactly side by side heading into Copse, Max looking poised to stay ahead. Daniel sees it the moment they make contact. He sees Max veer off the track. A split-second later, a giant gravel cloud whirls towards the sky as his car flies towards the tyre wall.
Daniel’s hands shake on his steering wheel. It’s pure instinct and muscle memory that has him keep the car on track, and in front of Valtteri and Charles, his fingers frantically searching for the radio button. Lewis seems to lose pace, and suddenly, there’s no car in front of Daniel anymore, and he cannot find the f*cking button.
When he finally does, Simon is already in his ear.
“Red flag, Danny, red flag. Max hit the wall.”
“I f*cking saw, f*cking – Lewis clipped him! Is he okay?”
There’s a pause, and Daniel’s heart almost falls out of his arse. “I will find out for you.”
“What do you –” Daniel feels frantic. His body is shaking and his chest feels tight. Maybe he’s about to have a goddamn heart attack. “GP is right next to you! Is Max okay?”
Another pause that is probably just a second but feels like an hour. And then, just, “please line up on the grid, Daniel. Race is neutralised, please line up on the grid.”
“f*cking hell – Simon! Is he okay?” Daniel calls out again, and doesn’t care that everyone and their mother are probably listening in on him losing his sh*t. Full speed, fastest corner of the track. Right into the wall. “Is he out?”
“Daniel, it’s Christian,” and Daniel thinks –
Oh God, oh f*cking God –
“He’s conscious, we’ve got contact,” Christian finally says, and Daniel breathes a sigh of relief so big he feels a bit dizzy. “They’re getting him out of the car, and I will keep you updated.”
He doesn’t doubt that Christian is worried, but it’s baffling how calm he can sound when needed. Daniel takes a breath, and another. “Lewis clipped him,” he repeats, just in case they don’t know yet. Just in case nobody else saw. “He touched his rear tyre.”
“I know, we are already filing a complaint with the stewards,” Christian lets him know, but what the f*ck are they going to do? Max is in the f*cking wall, and Lewis isn’t. “And he is out of the car, Danny. Max is out and on his own two feet, he is all okay. I’ll let Simon take over again.”
Simon relays some information, but Daniel barely follows, ‘he is all okay’ repeating in his head, over and over. The race is paused for ten or fifteen minutes while they remove Max’s car from the track and repair the tyre wall. The race restarts and Lewis gets a ten second penalty, which is a joke, because that’s basically half of what they’re ahead of the rest of the grid most races. They might as well have given him a slap on the wrist.
It's not Daniel’s best race. He leads for most of it, but he’s off and a combination of a slow pitstop and a power issue during the first half of the race means that he can’t pull away from Lewis, keeping him in his rearview mirror until he catches up and overtakes with two goddamn laps to go. Lewis’ win and Daniel’s second place finish mean they both get ahead of Max in the championship, but there’s only six points separating all three of them, and Daniel is still – barely – in the lead.
Not that he gives a flying f*ck about it right now. When he pulls into parc fermé, Lewis is on top of his car, punching the air, and Daniel wants to punch him. He doesn’t, but it’s a close call. Thankfully, Christian finds him before he can do something he may or may not regret, giving him hug, squeezing his neck. But there’s a tightness in his expression that makes Daniel feel uneasy all over again.
“Well done, all things considered,” Christian says. “And before you hear it from anyone else – medical decided to send Max to the hospital.”
Daniel freezes. “What?”
“It’s just a precaution,” Christian tells him, keeping his hands on Daniel’s shoulders, steadying him. “It was a 51G impact.”
His eyes probably bug out of their sockets. “Jesus,” he breathes, but it shouldn’t be surprising. Max had been going full throttle. “But he’s – you said he was okay.”
“He is. He felt a little dizzy, a bit stiff in the knees. So they just want to run a few tests.”
The crash replays in Daniel’s head. Max’s car sliding off the track and into the gravel, a giant cloud in its wake. Thinking of what that impact must’ve felt like makes Daniel feel a bit sick. “It looked bad.”
“Yeah,” Christian nods. “Yeah it was.”
“That penalty was a joke,” Daniel says again, out loud, for good measure, knowing that Christian agrees.
His boss squeezes his bicep, then gives him a light shove. “Get yourself to the podium. Try to enjoy it, Danny. And try not to cause any trouble during the press conference.”
Yeah, that’s going to be a challenge. “I’ll do my best.”
Daniel graciously accepts his second place trophy, and waits for the anthem to stop playing. When it wraps up, and Lewis and Charles start spraying champagne, Daniel takes his bottle, and his trophy, and leaves the stage without a single glance over his shoulder.
Naturally, that makes good copy for the press. Daniel shook Lewis’ hand in the cool down room, congratulated him without really meaning it, but when someone in the press pool asks him about walking off stage, insinuating that it might be construed as disrespectful towards Lewis, Daniel grits his teeth, and lets them – and Lewis – have it.
“Well, I’d say celebrating like that when you caused another driver to crash with 51G might be construed as disrespectful, but to each their own, I guess.” He feels Lewis’ and Charles’ eyes on him, but Daniel keeps his gaze pointed straight into the press pit, squaring his jaw.
The thing is, he likes Lewis. He genuinely likes him, and has a lot of respect for him, but right now, Daniel sees the crash, and he can practically feel the impact, and he thinks of Max being airlifted to the closest hospital, and he wants to throttle Lewis. The rest of the grid has spent years lamenting Max’s dangerous driving, and his supposed disrespect, but with the tables turned, they suddenly seem to have forgotten all their own f*cking arguments. Lewis has been racing for long enough to know when a corner isn’t his. When to cede position. But Max was faster, and Max was winning, and Lewis simply didn’t accept it.
Seb had told him a fancy German word for it, a while ago; for what Lewis was. Is. Erfolgsverwöhnt, Daniel remembers. Spoiled by success. He’s dominated the grid for so many years that he’s just not used to a challenge. Doesn’t know how to handle a genuine threat. Even today, the team told Valtteri to let Lewis overtake. And sure, Daniel knows he’s probably being unkind to Lewis, but it feels pretty on point from where he’s standing right now.
“With Max missing out on points this weekend,” the reporter from Sky Sports drones on, “you’ve retained the lead in the championship. So would you call this weekend a success?”
Already, Daniel doesn’t want to imagine tomorrow’s headlines. “We all want to win. But not like that.” He sees the reporting already opening his mouth to probably ask another similarly stupid question, so he adds, “maybe you want to move on from me. Because I’m pretty sure I’m about three seconds away from saying something the team won’t be happy with.”
Thankfully, for once, the press acquiesces. Daniel zones out for the rest of the press conference, and once it’s finally done, he brushes past Lewis and Charles, and makes his way back to the Red Bull garage.
He needs a f*cking shower.
When he sees Max just before they’re supposed to fly back, pale and bruised and on goddamn crutches, all the effort Daniel just put into composing himself unravels in an instant, and he is fuming again. But Max doesn’t need Daniel’s misplaced anger, or his… his ungratefulness over finishing second, and he doesn’t need to listen to Daniel bitch about Lewis and Toto f*cking Wolff.
Max, up to his neck in painkillers, sleeps the entire plane ride back to Nice. Charles, Pierre and Lando are onboard as well, the latter two conked out a row in front of Daniel, while Charles, as per usual, has taken the free seat opposite Daniel, eyes flittering between him and Max by his side, in the window seat.
It takes forty-five minutes for Charles to ask the question Daniel has been expecting since take-off.
“Do you think he would have said the same, if you had been the one to crash instead?”
Jesus Christ, Daniel thinks. “Not really one to deal in hypotheticals, Charlie-Boy.”
Charles hums, and leans back. It’s not the answer he wanted, or maybe expected, but Daniel has no idea what Charles wants to hear. They have a strange relationship, he and Max, a rivalry stretching across an entire decade, with Max usually coming out on top, coloured by Max’s inability to forge normal human connections and Charles’ propensity to self-flagellate in the face of Ferrari’s continued shortcomings. They’re friendly enough, Daniel supposes.
“If he wasn’t your teammate, you’d win it.”
Daniel has thought this very thought, or at least iterations of it, before. Pretty much on a loop throughout twenty-eighteen. Blaming Max for his bad results. For the team’s shifting attention and commitment. And he guesses from the outside, it’s easy to buy into that logic. But Daniel knows that he wouldn’t be leading the championship if he didn’t have Max pushing him, lap after lap. He wouldn’t be fighting Lewis for the title. Lewis would be out in front, on his own, just like before.
He guesses Charles needs a few more years on the grid to figure that out for himself. If he’s lucky.
“And if Ferrari hadn’t built a sh*t car, maybe you would,” he says in the end.
Charles, who has had his season pulverised by reliability issues, just shrugs. “That is fair.”
And thankfully, he doesn’t feel the need to ask about anything else.
Even if Max had objected to it, Daniel is pretty sure he wouldn’t have taken no for an answer and forced his way into Max’s apartment. But Max shows no signs that he believes Daniel is supposed to anywhere but right there next to him. So Daniel carries their bags, and he steadies Max with a firm hand on his waist as he struggles with his crutches, bruised and sore and still semi-out of it due to heavy-duty painkillers. They’ve barely exchanged more than a handful of words. Nothing more than Daniel asking if Max needs some water, and Max telling Daniel where his keys are.
He gets Max out of his clothes and into bed, bites his tongue when he sees the bruising that had been hidden by his sweatshirt, and makes him take some more painkillers.
“It was my corner,” Max mumbles, already mostly out of it again, into the pillow when Daniel tucks him in.
“I know, baby,” Daniel replies and switches off the lights.
Then he feeds the cats, sits down on the couch, puts his head between his knees, and allows himself to have a quiet meltdown.
Hungary is a weird one, but at this point, Daniel is ready for a break. The shock of Silverstone still clings to his bones and the bruises on Max’s skin are still there when he climbs into the car for free practice. He’s cleared to drive, but Daniel really doesn’t want to let him. It’s been difficult enough to let Max out of his sight the last week and a half, trying to keep up the façade of actually sleeping at his own apartment in front of Michael and Blake, but heading straight back over to Max’s the minute they’d left to make sure Max was resting his sore leg and taking his painkillers. Daniel feels sick to his stomach when he has to watch Max pull out of the garage.
Max isn’t at a hundred percent, and Daniel is clearly f*cked in the head, but somehow, they make it to Q3, and line up third and fourth, though Daniel would be hard pressed to describe how exactly he made it around the track. Race day dawns grey and wet, and the race goes to sh*t in the first corner. Valtteri breaks late, hits the back of one of the McLarens, who in turn hits Max. It’s a small mercy that he doesn’t have a second to worry about Max, because Valtteri hits him as well, sends him off the track, and just like that, his race is over.
Daniel spends the entire race watching Max drag a damaged car towards the finish line by what’s got to be sheer force of will at this stage, heart in his throat. The two points Max manages to score aren’t really any consolation for another sh*tty weekend, Lewis’ second place finish seeing him leapfrog to the top of the table.
It’s not how they wanted to head into the summer break, but it is what it is, Daniel guesses.
Daniel had made his plans for the summer months ago. In hindsight, he wonders if it would’ve been better not to make any strong commitments, because standing on the tarmac in Nice, waiting to get into his own car that will take him back to his own apartment so that he can pack and fly out again come morning, it feels an impossible task to say good-bye to Max. Daniel isn’t sure what’s going to fill the space Max usually occupies in the next few weeks, where he’s supposed to put his restless hands and cold toes. What he’s supposed to listen to in the absence of Max’s post-race ramblings.
He probably hugs him a bit too long, a bit too hard considering how banged up Max still is, and when Max turns his face into his neck, presses his lips to the delicate skin right below Daniel’s ear and just breathes – Daniel has half a mind to pull out his phone right then and there to cancel his flight, cancel all his plans, and crawl into the space between Max’s ribs.
Spend the break right there, cradling his heart.
There are plenty of distractions in Montana. It’s a proper guys’ trip, drinking beer around a campfire and eating way too much smoked meat. It’s the kind of trip Daniel usually relishes, and uses to recharge. Time away from the grid, swapping the RB for quads or bikes, and hanging out with mates who really know him.
Only now, that doesn’t feel so true anymore. He doesn’t know if they’ve changed or if he has, or if everything’s the same and he’s just turned upside down from this season. But once they inevitably start talking about his season so far, and his chances of actually winning, it dawns on him that they, like most people in his life, only really know the side of him Daniel wants them to see. He’s racing against Lewis, and racing against Max, and doing it all with a smile on his face and not a worry in the world.
They don’t know about the punches thrown around; about waste paper baskets kicked across hotel rooms, purpling seatbelt bruises, countless nights spent lying awake, skipped meals and blood-stained tissues cramped into trouser and jacket pockets.
They don’t know, because Daniel doesn’t tell them. Because he could never bring himself to admit to them that his big dream was just as much of a nightmare sometimes.
Because it’s always been Max who’d watched on stoically as put his fist through drywalls, and who quietly righted bins. Who – now – stays up with him when he cannot get his mind to quieten down enough to sleep. Who makes him finish his dinner. Who takes his nervous hands and dabs carefully at his chewed up nails.
Max knows the best parts of him, but he knows the ugly core of him as well.
Hell, he’s been confronted with Daniel’s nastier side more than most people. And yet, it never even occurred to Daniel to censor himself. He doesn’t exactly understand why that is. Maybe because Max has never been anything but unapologetically himself.
Max is… Max, and Daniel misses him so much he starting to wonder how he ever managed before now. He holds out a few days before he’s texting him, and then only another two before they facetime, which is a feat in itself, because Max is on a boat in the Mediterranean and has patchy slash next to no cell service. Although there isn’t even that much to catch up on, having spent the last months essentially living in each other’s pockets, the conversations stretch on and on, from twenty minutes at first, to two hours; Daniel falling asleep with his phone between his cheek and the pillow, Max breathing on the other side of the world.
Towards the end of the second week, he spends so much time looking at his phone, checking his phone, and sneaking away to talk to Max that his friends start teasing him about hiding a secret girlfriend. As if Daniel had ever been secretive about his dating life. As if he’d ever needed to. Before now. Not that whatever he and Max are doing is – well. It’s a lot of things. But it’s not dating.
Michael knows better than to comment on it.
In the end, Daniel begs off from an additional trip back to California, making excuses about meetings, being needed back in Milton Keynes, the pressure of the championship race; has no idea how he’d even begin to articulate to his friends that he thinks he might go insane if he can’t get his mouth on his teammate in the next twenty-four hours. He books a flight back to Monaco, doesn’t know what Max tells his friends about having to leave early, and he doesn’t care, all sense of composure and rationality flying the f*ck out the window the moment he steps through Max’s front door into the apartment nobody but them knows they’ll be at for the next six days.
It's a headrush, seeing Max in the dim light of the hallway, unusually tan with a charming sunburn on his nose and cheeks, hair so much lighter after two weeks of sun and saltwater. Daniel wonders if he can smell it on his skin – if he can taste it. But he doesn’t move; can’t move, going full speed into a sharp corner, car and g-forces pulling him in opposite directions. Part of Daniel thinks he ought to say something, anything, to explain why he couldn’t bear to be away from Max for another day, and why he’s asked Max to cut his holiday short to – to be with him.
Why he thinks he’s about to lose his mind from all the emotions whirling in his chest, even though Daniel doesn’t know where they came from, and what exactly they are, and why they are bubbling up inside of him so violently that he thinks he’s about to drown from the inside.
But Max is there, stepping closer when Daniel can’t, because he’s always been braver than Daniel. He curls himself around his body until Daniel can’t tell where he ends and Max begins. They breathe each other in for five minutes, or fifteen, of maybe five hours, and the storm that’s been raging inside Daniel since saying good-bye to Max on the airstrip in Nice just a couple of weeks ago is soothed into a gentle rumble. He peels Max out of his shirt and helps him shimmy out of his shorts, and then he sinks to his knees right there in the hallway.
Daniel is jetlagged as f*ck, and he falls asleep with his head in Max’s lap while Max plays Call of Duty or something that looks similar enough. The sun is setting when he wakes up, painting the sky in hues of pink and yellow and orange, burning up on the horizon where boats are still bobbing in the shimmering water. The late evening light floods the apartment and washes over their entangled bodies, still feeling too raw to let go of each other, but their abrupt change of plans means Max’s fridge is empty, and once their stomachs start rumbling, they have no choice but to disentangle and get up to go to the store.
They pull on nondescript caps and sweatshirts and don medical masks before heading into the nearest Carrefour. It’s just fifteen minutes until closing, but their steps are slow and unhurried, Max carrying the basket and holding it out for Daniel to drop in the items his gaze gets stuck on without any real plan. Their elbows knock together as they shuffle down the aisles, air-conditioning so strong that Daniel has to suppress a shiver when he reaches for some pre-packaged chicken breast.
The lady at the checkout either doesn’t recognise them, masks and all, or she sees so many celebrities and Formula 1 drivers every day that she doesn’t even bat an eye anymore. He throws in a pack of gum at the end, and resists the urge to ask for a bag of tobacco. Daniel doesn’t get the urge to smoke a lot, and usually not when he’s sober, but he thinks about sitting out on the balcony in the evening chill, wrapped in a blanket and nursing a glass of red wine, smoke whirling in the air. He thinks he likes watching the glow of it more than anything, the end of the cigarette glimmering in the dark, sparks flying like his car’s tailpipe down the track.
Dinner isn’t anything exciting or particularly tasty this close to the season picking up again, but Daniel can only manage something basic with Max in the kitchen handicapping him anyway. They eat out on the balcony, Daniel in several layers more than Max. Daniel gives Max updates on his mum’s rescue chickens and Max shows him a video of his mum’s dog performing a new trick, photos from an old album Victoria had apparently dug out, the Verstappen siblings blond and chubby-cheeked, Max with the same surprisingly sweet and gentle smile.
They slip easily back into a level of domesticity Daniel has never really experienced with anyone else. It’s comforting, and calming, because instead of getting caught in his own head, rapidly drifting towards the deep end, there is someone right next to him who can pull him right back out or who is ready to jump in alongside him. And aside from being able to brainstorm the upcoming races with Max, the intricacies of the tracks, the updates to the car – it’s just nice.
It's exactly how they should’ve spent their entire break, if only Daniel had managed to pull his head out of his arse earlier.
It’s also more sex than Daniel’s ever had in his life.
They sleep with each other – properly – for the first time the day after Daniel returns to Monaco. Jetlag keeps his libido in check for roughly twenty-four hours, before prolonged proximity to Max sends it into overdrive again. He wakes up just before noon and finds Max standing at the kitchen island in shorts and not much else, and blood is funnelled towards his dick so quickly he feels lightheaded. So he fits himself to Max’s back and buries his face in his neck, one hand moving to cop a feel, the other dropping down towards the waistband of Max’s shorts; rubs against him until he almost comes in his boxers like a f*cking teenager.
Stumbling back into bed is second nature. Wanting Max is, too. Daniel feels starved. He feels electrified, buzzing from the tips of his ears to the soles of his feet. Looking at Max feels like pre-race jitters, and feeling Max’s eyes roam over his body in return is like the anticipation just before the lights go out; touching him the sudden spike in adrenaline when the race starts.
Daniel’s had a lot of sex. But it’s never been like this. He never has the urge to be anything other but in the moment, when he’s with Max. Doesn’t become preoccupied with the way he looks or feel the need to perform, mind pleasantly void of obtrusive thoughts as Max becomes his irrefutable focus. He blows a raspberry between Max’s pecs because it makes him snort with laughter. He slowly slides his hands up the back of Max’s thighs, lingering in the hollows of his knees, because Max is a bit ticklish there, and Daniel wants to see his toes and nose twitch, neither of them worried about projecting an image or keeping their composure.
All that matters is pleasure and proximity, and Max isn’t shy about demanding both, urging Daniel on with the same impatience he displays behind the wheel. Reaching behind himself, fingers tangled in Daniel’s hair at first, and then slipping in the sweat coating their bodies when Daniel slides up and slides in, the world reduced to where their bodies connect. Daniel pants wetly against Max’s neck, knees scrambling for purchase on slippery sheets, white curtains billowing in the soft breeze curling into the bedroom from the sea.
Daniel’s never really at a loss for words, but his vocabulary is reduced to Max, and please, and f*ck, as he turns Max over onto his back, so desperate so kiss him, so starved for the way Max looks at him, and has been looking at him, always. The back of his throat burns with the need to have his mouth on Max, tongue collecting the moisture beading along his jaw, pooling in the dip between his pecs that’s already red and marked up from Daniel’s teeth and beard, skin rubbed as pink as the pebbling nipples on either side.
His movements grow frantic before they hurtle towards the edge, Max’s arms and legs tight around his body not allowing even a fraction of an inch between them; undignified grunts and uncoordinated movement, shaking all over, a rush so all-encompassing he shakes all over – “and that’s P1, Daniel, P1, well done” – before it all goes blissfully dark and quiet.
“Do you remember when we first met?”
Daniel’s shoulders sting where Max’s nails have left deep welts in his skin and he is barely able to move his head to the side to gaze at Max, on his back, diagonally across from him on the bed.
“I think I need to put on some clothes before we talk about you as a teenager, Maxy.”
Max guffaws. His knees are bent, feet planted, not shy about his body or the fact that there’s still a prominent trail of spunk mixed with dried sweat on his belly. They’ve yet to clean up, partially because Daniel thinks he might need another half hour to recover, and partially because he wonders if they should just go for round two instead.
“Zandvoort,” Max goes on, smiling, because that’s where they’re going after Spa, for the first time since eighty-five. “I thought you were very nice. And very handsome of course.”
Daniel has no idea why he’s blushing at that when they both still have their dicks out. And he knows he wasn’t exactly a troll back then, but he feels a bit embarrassed over how he’d looked and dressed. He certainly looks better these days, but for Max to say it now… for Max to think it back then – well.
“I hope your taste has improved since, mate,” Daniel drawls, trying to turn it into some form of light-hearted joke; not minding the fact that he is still the same person, and that calling someone you’ve just been inside of mate is a bit of an overkill.
Max doesn’t respond to the joke, or Daniel’s sad attempt to shift the mood towards something lighter, his expression turning somewhat solemn. Then says, “I knew you were going to be in my life. That you would be important to me,” just like that. Like he isn’t pulling the rug out from underneath Daniel. Like he hasn’t just make him lose his breath.
Like he spent his entire life giving himself to people and flaying himself open, never expecting to be loved in return, and now isn’t expecting anything from Daniel either.
They spend the rest of the afternoon naked on top of the sheets, and Daniel watches Max’s hands move through the sticky air in his bedroom as he talks and gestures his way around the Zandvoort track. And Daniel –
Daniel wants him as much as he wants that f*cking trophy.
The last couple of days before the season picks back up are spent in a rotation of sex, workouts, and virtual laps on Max’s simulator, Max crouching by Daniel’s side when it’s his turn, hands hot and heavy on Daniel’s thighs, moving higher and higher the faster Daniel manages to go.
He’s going develop a goddamn Pavlovian response sooner or later.
