Chapter Text
Daniel doesn’t feel his toes. The dim heat of the sun above him shines on his scalp and makes him itch.
He doesn’t scratch.
Daniel’s fingers start to feel a bit numb from being put into fist too forcefully for too long, but he doesn’t let go. He’ll leave little crescent moons on his palm for Future Daniel, Tomorrow Daniel, to look at during his morning shower.
Current Daniel doesn’t care about crescent moons on thin skin yet, and that’s good. He cares about breathing, in and out, at least ten times every twelve seconds, and about letting his heart beat, at least twelve times every ten seconds, and he cares about keeping his eyes closed as long as he can, as long as the sun shines dimly on his scalp and makes it itch, as long as his toes don’t fall off and scatter in his race shoes, as long as he feels the faint damp breeze of a normal afternoon in Zandvoort, as long as the crowd around him all sing one word: Max.
Current Daniel stands up too fast and the Daniel two seconds later feels it in his stomach, in his knees, in his palms that are starting to burn like the soft skin of his scalp. Daniel grips the metal bar in front of him, the one he bumped his temple or chin against a few times when the bus rolled over a pothole or took a turn too harshly.
Daniel listens to himself breathe, listens to the guys all around him talk, listens to the fans chant in one big voice that echoes all around the track, listens to the wind, and to the sound his fingernails do when they scratch against the metal material of the bar the Daniel from ten seconds ago used to ground himself. He breathes. In, and out. Four seconds each. Two laughters. One chant.
The bus bumps and scatters again, misses to hurl Daniel off of it by a few centimeters, misses to crash into both McLaren cars so Daniel wouldn’t have to see himself get a worse result than his teammate again.
Lando’s voice is too far away to hear. Daniel hears it buzzing in his ears. Buzz, buzz, buzz. He breathes. The buzzing gets louder, somehow.
They reach the finish line at some point. First time of the day they’ll do that. Daniel tries his best not to think of the second time just yet. He has approximately three hours and seventy two laps of nightmare worthy understeer and lack of speed until that happens. Daniel breathes and keeps his eyes closed and makes a point of gripping the bar with both hands tight, so tight he can almost feel the indents Past Daniel left with his Past Daniel fingernails.
Some fan gave Daniel a Max flag earlier in the week. Friday, Daniel thinks it was, but he’s not so sure anymore. He’d intended to throw it away, or maybe give it away, give it to Seb or something, because he seemed too interested in it for a guy that has had his title as Red bull’s favorite taken away twice in the last decade. And anyways, it’d just have made more bacteria-filled hands touch and defile the flag, but.
Daniel kept it. He signed it for some reason, black marker that doesn’t go away in the wash, black permanent marker that will stay black as the orange of the flag fades into yellow, into grey, into white, until all there is left is plastic polyester thread and the memory of a fan giving it to Daniel on maybe Friday, Daniel signing it on maybe Saturday.
He feels it in his back pocket now, folded and tucked away safely for no one to recognize. The black ink marker is a stiff shape alongside it. Daniel felt it dip into his arse cheek when he was crouched. He doesn’t know if it will leave a red rectangle shaped mark like his nails will leave little curved shapes on his palms. Daniel doesn’t think about the time he will have to take his clothes off to see. To change.
He breathes. Doesn’t take out the flag, or the marker, or anything.
Someone taps him on the back too lightly, another missed opportunity for Daniel to fall out. They guide him off the bus’ roof, down the stairs, through the two lines of seats and back on the ground. Cold asphalt welcomes his shoes like brothers their returning sibling. It aches and a fucking gravel sticks itself in Daniel’s shoe. Daniel feels its pointy tip sharp on his feet arch, sole, tendon.
It doesn’t leave. Daniel feels it permanent like the sun on his scalp, the burning in his stomach, the buzzing in his ears. The thought at the back of his mind that tells him that maybe, one day Max will call him and tell him he’s sorry, too. That he misses him, too. That he’s been the fucking kid Daniel always knew he was.
Daniel walks. His legs feel cottony, humid behind his knees, goose-bumpy on his thigh, tight on his shins. The ground feels like it’s made of potholes, Daniel feels like his journey is made of metal bars banging against his temple, or his chin.
The air is crisp. Makes the voice talking beside him sound softer, somehow, less human and more ethereal. Daniel listens to it talk like a lullaby, lulling him further into a sort of sleep state he’s been in for a couple months now, induced by stress, non warmth and tacky personalities. Daniel wants to throw up. Instead, he breathes, listens to the air as it enters his lungs, leaves them, as it’s pushed out with more force by sounds from the person beside him. He walks and breathes, and times his inhale when he lifts his left foot, and his exhale when he pushes his right foot for the second time into the ground.
Everything smells burnt. Not like rubber, not like fuel, but simply. Fire. Like a forest fire that’s been burning for really long, cold and ashy by the time someone gets to smell it. Everything is dead. There’s a faint scent of sugar too, and Daniel gets a sudden image of apple candy sticks lit by petrol. His stomach clenches. He walks, and breathes, and listens to the voice beside him melt with the sugar, with the sun, with the sweat.
Daniel breathes. He walks.
The gravel crunches under his feet like broken glass. He wonders if it’d hurt more to walk barefoot over it. Not in a masochistic way. Not really. More in a scientific curiosity kind of way. Like. How much damage can a body take before it stops registering it as pain and just calls it normal?
The garage smells like oil and burnt carbon, familiar in the way a memory becomes a second skin after enough time. Daniel’s mouth is dry, his throat scratchy, but no one’s talking to him. Not that they need to anymore.
Daniel learnt that there’s a rhythm to being ignored, a sort of pulse that you learn to move with. You notice it when it stops, when the static quiets, and that’s when it gets loud. That’s when you feel it in your chest, the weight of being seen through, like you're not really there at all.
He passes Seb sitting on the pit wall, helmet balanced next to him. Seb raises a hand in a lazy wave, eyes squinting against the sun. He’s got that look again. The one that says he sees through people like glass.
Daniel shivers. Pointy goosebumps that become achey when they linger a second too long.
“You look like shit,” Seb says cheerfully when they pass. “Want a mint?”
Daniel shrugs. “You offering therapy with that mint?”
Seb tosses the pack, aim shit. It hits Daniel in the chest. “Only if it comes with a side of not pretending you’re fine.”
Daniel opens the pack. Takes one. Leaves the rest. Gives the little plastic cube back by hand like the gentleman he is. It scratches against the turquoise of Seb’s racesuit. The stickers make Daniel want to puke.
“Whatever, mate.”
Daniel doesn’t register any of what Seb says after that. He thinks sticky and glue, thoughts slimy like they’re melting from Daniel’s scalp being under the not warm sun of Zandvoort for too long.
The words fall away. Daniel’s mind swims in the weird, melting haze of the afternoon. It’s like he’s somewhere between real and not-real, everything a little blurry, and then Seb’s tap on his back rips him out of it. It’s the same tap from before, the one from the bus. The one that makes him want to ask what the hell he’s supposed to do with it, but he doesn’t.
He thinks he says that out loud because Seb looks at him weird. He’s got his helmet on his knees now, hands propped on it like a lady being painted. Fancy.
Daniel walks, eventually. Away from the others. Not toward anything.
There’s a small gravel path behind one of the paddock buildings. It’s mostly tucked away, half-forgotten, the kind of place marshals smoke behind, the kind of place Daniel can vanish inside for a few minutes without anyone noticing. Or caring.
Footsteps behind him. He doesn’t turn around.
The air back here is still, thick with humidity and the faint reek of petrol soaked into concrete. There’s a dull electric hum from a transformer box near the fence, buzzing like it knows something Daniel doesn’t. Daniel listens to it buzz differently than the Lando buzz buzzes.
He leans against the chain-link, lets the metal press cold into his back through the fabric of his race suit. Somewhere, not far, someone yells something in Dutch. A laugh follows. It’s not meant for him, but Daniel laughs anyway, the sound coming out of him in an almost-automatic way, like it’s not his own.
His fingers itch. He wants a cigarette. He doesn’t smoke. Not anymore.
Max finds him before the others do. Because of course he does.
Daniel’s not even sure how it happens. One second his eyes are closed, his lungs are expanding rhythmically, religiously, foot to breath to fire to sugar, and then he looks up and Max is just there. Like he's never left. Like Daniel hasn’t left. Like the past three years had been a particularly vivid fever dream wrapped in orange smoke and regrets.
Daniel forgets to breathe for a second. The rhythm dies in his chest.
Max looks like he always does. Calm in that not-calm way, quiet in that never-silent way. Eyes flat. Frozen sea. Expression unreadable unless you’ve spent years mapping out the whole coastline.
Daniel has. Had. Has.
Max doesn’t talk. He never does. He never did. That hasn’t changed apparently, along with the pout and the flat-brimmed cap he seems to have taken a liking to once again. “You were quiet on the bus,” Max says after a while. He’s still standing. Towering over Daniel.
“You were quiet for three years,” Daniel says, too fast, too sharp. His voice doesn’t die at the end of his sentence like it tends to do these days.
Max’s mouth twitches. “That’s not the same.” He says. More bitter than Daniel remembers Max being before. Back when he was still a pimply teenager. Then again, Daniel remembers a lot of things wrong lately. Doesn’t trust the shape of anything anymore unless it comes with telemetry data.
“No,” Daniel agrees, “it’s not.”
Daniel has a fleeting thought that he’s at Max’s dick height with his mouth. His own dick doesn’t seem interested. Heatstroked, his mind supplies. Unhelpful.
(Late afternoons in Italy means being the only two still at the track. The sun’s already dipped behind the bleachers, but the air is still hot like an oven left on too long.
Jules is standing barefoot in the middle of the kart paddock, skin golden and arms sunburnt. Daniel is older than him, barely by a month, but he still feels like a kid, way younger, awkward in the chest, still growing into his body. His race suit is unzipped, sleeves tied around his waist, the too-small collar of his fireproofs digging into his neck.
“You burn easy,” Jules says right after swallowing a bite of his peach, looking down at Daniel’s ankles. They’re red as hell, contrasting with his white but dirty socks, tender where the suit didn’t quite reach.
“Wasn’t like that last month,” Daniel mutters, embarrassed. “I think I grew.” He tries to make the suit stretch a bit with his foot, but it just confirms its smallness. He still manages to slop a sock under his ankle, where it doesn’t burn as much.
“You’re growing, man.” Jules says, then pauses. “Or Helmut’s shrinking it in the wash to keep you humble.”
Daniel snorts, surprised into a laugh. “Shut up.” Daniel giggles, tries to rearrange the collar on his growing neck. “My ‘ma would though.”
“She already cut holes in your socks. It’s a pattern.”
Daniel laughs. His voice is too loud when he answers, “She did not.”
“Fuck off, I know for a fact she does. It’s exactly why you’ve got half your heel hanging out every other race weekend.” Jules says, laughter making his voice all honey-like. He’s got the juice of his peach beginning to slide and roll along his forearm. Not that Daniel’s looking.
“Maybe I like the breeze,” Daniel says, rolling onto one elbow. His ass kind of hurts from sitting too long in the kart, and sitting on it on the burning asphalt ground isn’t helping. “Maybe I’m a free spirit.”
“Maybe you’re just a dumbass.”
Daniel sticks his tongue out. Wanted to give Jules the finger but he’s not sure they’re quite there yet. In a few months, maybe, they’ll reach that kind of friendship.
Jules throws the pit of his peach at him. It misses, barely by a couple centimeters, and lands in the grass with a dull, sticky thud.
It makes them laugh. Easy. Loud. The kind of laugh that comes from too many hours in the sun and too little food and the kind of friendship that makes everything stupid feel important.
Daniel stretches his legs out and pokes at the red skin blooming just above his socks. The skin comes back white and pale, blooming like fake lilies in a European garden. “Seriously though. Look at this. I’m gonna need skin grafts.” The blood comes back slowly, filling back red, red, red.
Jules crouches down beside him, peering dramatically at Daniel’s ankles like a fake doctor in a badly shot and acted soap opera.
“Oh yeah,” he says, nods, snorts while trying to be really serious, which makes his lip wobble and tremble a lot, “Classic case of Ankular Combustion. Very serious. Very rare.”
“Ankular?”
“Latin term.”
“You’re so full of shit.” Daniel laughs through it, pinches the skin of his ankle to see the white-to-red spectacle again.
“Bilingual,” Jules corrects, pointing a finger at Daniel like it’ll make him believe it.
Daniel kicks him lightly with the good ankle, the one that’s not spent too many hours in the west-setting Sun. “Why are you like this?”
“Genetics. Trauma. Being French.”
Daniel’s laugh comes out like a bark. His whole body shakes with it. Sudden. “That last one explains a lot.”
Jules grins, the corners of his mouth sticky with peach juice. He plops down beside Daniel, their shoulders bumping. Daniel shivers. He figures it’s either heatstroke or a weird ass mosquito’s bitten him during the night. They get a lot of these these days, loud and obnoxious when Daniel is trying to go back to sleep after a quick night piss.
The air between them hums with heat and nothing unspoken, or maybe everything unspoken, but not heavy yet. Not then.)
“You still have that flag?” Max asks, breaking the silence. His body is casting a shadow over Daniel’s ankle. Daniel doesn’t remember anymore which of his ankles was burnt. He doesn’t know if it’s something he’s supposed to remember.
Daniel almost snorts. His racesuit screeches against the wall as he goes to sit on the floor. “Seb tells you everything?”
“He just said it was weird.” Max answers, shrugging. He’s getting a small sunburn on his cheeks from the non existent UV. Daniel doesn’t know which adjective to qualify it with.
“It is weird,” Daniel admits. “But y’know, it’s just. I, like, couldn’t throw it away.”
He waits for Max to make a joke, but he doesn’t.
“You know,” Max says slowly, eyes still fixed somewhere ahead, “some things you just, keep even if they don’t belong to you anymore.”
Daniel looks at him. He doesn’t know what Max is saying. Doesn’t know if he’s become a fucking eighteenth century philosopher overnight or if Daniel missed it in the three years they haven’t spoken. “Are we talking about the flag?”
Max’s mouth quirks like he’s considering a smile but doesn’t want to commit to it. “Maybe.”
Daniel looks away first this time.
His scalp is still itching. He can’t feel if the gravel is still in his shoe, now that he’s sitting. His back is aching even though they’ve not even raced yet. He’s still set to be behind Lando for a good portion of the afternoon, staring at his rear like he would to an annoying but pretty girl in a club.
“Why did you keep the flag?” Max’s voice is closer now. He’s sitting across from Daniel, back unsupported by a wall.
“I don’t know,” Daniel lies. He blinks. Max blinks back. He looks like he’s about to say something along the lines of a ‘yes you do’ so Daniel repeats, a little firmer, “I really don’t, mate.”
“Yes, you do.”
Daniel laughs, dry and brittle. He knew it. His voice comes out raspy when he says, “Maybe I like orange now. You ever think of that?”
Max doesn’t laugh back. He looks, Daniel thinks, just a little wounded. It’s the most real thing he’s seen on Max’s face in years.
Good.
(In their tiny Italian flat, with the dishwasher going wild because of its age in the background and the spring breeze howling through their window, Jules once whispered into Daniel’s hair, voice thick with sleep, “You want things too much. That’s your problem.”
Daniel had mumbled back, “I don’t want things.”
Jules had smiled without opening his eyes, fingers grazing just below Daniel’s ribs, right where Daniel hadn’t had the courage to touch just yet. “You want me.”
Daniel hadn’t denied it.
He hadn’t said anything at all. )
Max looks at him, finally. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes say something. They always did. He's got that curious look in his eyes, the one he always has when something is getting out of his control, out of his hands, the look that looks like it screams ‘why’ but really means ‘how’.
Daniel rubs a thumb over his knee. “You miss me or something?” He says, even though there’s no fake green grass in front of him that makes his brain spin inside his skull and spill swirly things with his mouth.
Max snorts softly. “You make it hard.”
Daniel frowns at him. Feels it in the way his cheeks tense just slightly. “To miss me?”
“To talk to you.”
Daniel doesn’t respond right away. He thinks about the years that stretched between them like wire, sharp and electric, always waiting to snap. He thinks of the countless times he’s tried to talk to Max, the countless times he’s forbidden himself. The blurs, the eye contacts, the hand movements that mean nothing and something, maybe something, at the same time.
“You talk to Lando just fine.” Daniel answers, because he can’t say any of this shit, and because Lando always seems to be on his mind these days.
Max shrugs. “I know what Lando wants from me.”
That lands harder than it should. Daniel feels the weight of it settle in his chest, cold and heavy.
Daniel wants to laugh. Wants to scream. Wants to take the stupid fucking flag out of his pocket and throw it at him and say look what you did to me.
But he doesn’t. He just nods.
His name echoes once in the silence that’s settled, quiet but not unheard, twice. Someone calling from too far away.
Daniel gets up. He turns away. Leaves Max again.
The gravel’s still in Daniel’s shoe, still stabbing. But he doesn’t take it out. He can’t tell if it’s because he deserves it, or because he’s afraid of what the pain would leave behind once it’s gone.
He walks, eventually. Max doesn’t follow.
(“You’ll always be a bit stupid, mate,” Jules says, swinging a sweaty arm around Daniel’s shoulder. His accent is thick and the air tastes like copper and burnt sugar. “But you’re a romantic. That’s worse.”
Daniel groans, collapsing backward into the half-melted plastic of the go-kart track bench. “You make that sound like a disease.”
“It is a disease. Makes you expect things that don’t happen.”)
Daniel doesn’t find the guy who called him. But he gets back to his side of the paddock in one piece, which he maybe thinks is enough.
He’s taking off his shoe, trying to get that fucking gravel out, when Lando fucking Norris shoots him a goddamn “Good luck Danny!” from the other side of the garage with that goddamn smile of his, toothy and mischevious like he’s about to bite every time he opens his fucking mouth.
Daniel feels his canine sinks deeper and deeper into his jugular each time he stares a bit too long at him, at his car, at his telemetry.
He breathes.
His feet find the way to his driver room more easily than the top 10 these days. Daniel’s room is dark. He’s been told a whole part of the garage won't have power for the day because of some kind of breakdown, which means he’s had to tiptoe and pat around the room since this morning. Feels as humiliating and ridiculous as it has for the past five hours when he waits a couple seconds for his eyes to adjust, for his fingers to stop tingling to pat around for the fridge to take out a water.
Yellow-ish white light hits his retina full-send when he opens the fridge. Then three seconds later, when Daniel’s managed to untie his straw and put it in his mouth, hasn’t had the time to close the fridge just yet, he turns around and- “What the fuck-”
“You cannot-”
“No, what the-, oh my fuck, what-,” Whaaaaat the fuck, “Get the fuck out of my room, what the fuck-”
“You are not to speak to him again.” Daniel has half a mind to just, uppercut the guy in front of him, because honestly, what the fuck is Jos Verstappen doing in his fucking private driver room, “Do not look at me with those stupid eyes. You look dumb.” Then, more forcefully, “Tell me you understand.”
“No, what the fuck.” Daniel’s water bottle slipped out of his grip the second he laid eyes on those icy irises, “I don’t understand. What the fuck. Why are you even-, what.” His un-shoed foot is starting to feel the cold of the water that used to be in his bottle.
Jos frowns. His brows don’t wrinkle and ripple the same way Max’s do. What the fuck. “Oh, so you are stupid.”
“No, what the-, what the fuck are you doing in my room.”
“I am telling you not to go near my son ever again.” His eyes are snow white now, the same way they used to be when Max crashed his car in 2016, back when Jos was obligated to come to every fucking race for the misery of everyone in the team, including Daniel. He’s always been weary of the guy, and him coming into his unlit driver room in the middle of a Sunday right before a race isn’t fucking helping. “And this is when you are supposed to answer that you won’t.”
Daniel scoffs. “The fuck I won’t.”
Jos takes a step towards Daniel. Daniel tries to take a step away from Jos but his foot catches on his fallen water bottle, almost making him eat the now completely wet floor in the motion. He has to tumble and catch himself weirdly fast, which probably makes him look stupid, so. Jos chuckles. “The fuck you will, yes.” He has more room to take a couple more steps. In a matter of seconds he’s so close Daniel thinks he should ask what kind of relationship they’re about to have in the next minute. Fighting or kissing. “This is not about you, of course. This is about Max, you understand that.” Daniel swallows. Does he? “He cannot afford to have people coming to see him in hospital and be friendly,” Jos says it like he’s talking about fucking baby poop, “especially with persons like you.” baby poop, again. ”You know too much. Just tell me you’ll forget.”
His whole face is distorted in this sort of angry and disappointed looking frown that Daniel has trouble reading anything into.
After about three seconds of turmoil, Daniel figures it’s probably best this way.
“Right, well, uh, buddy,” Daniel’s mouth is moving too fast, letting out words it shouldn’t, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about so. If you would so kindly leave my driver room so I can maybe drink and prepare for the GP that’d be ace, thanks.” Daniel hides his patting around for the door handle under all the words.
When he opens the door, he almost regrets it instantly. Because now, he can oh so clearly see Jos’ face, and gosh, no one should be able to see that fucking face in broad daylight without being at least twenty hundred fucking meters away.
Jos grips Daniel’s arm. It feels nowhere near as comforting as the touch Daniel usually seeks before and after races. “I do not give a shit about your race, mate. I just need you to understand, and tell me so.” Jos’ grip is tightening as he spit out the words. “Now. Do you understand?”
It’s getting painful. Tingles are starting to form in the middle of Daniel’s left palm from the blood being squeezed too much. “What the-,” He’s getting lightheaded, feels like he’s going to die, feels like Jos isn’t griping his arm but his throat, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, “Fuck, what the fuck even, yes, I understand, what the fuck, get off.”
“Good.” Jos is trying out a small smile. It looks horrendous on his face. Unbelonging. “This is good. Now, you can go back to your drinking and your preparing and Max can go back to winning races like he should.” Jos walks past Daniel, who’s frozen in place, holding the thirty square centimeters of skin where Jos had his hand on seconds ago weakly. Jos stops, lingers in the doorframe a second too long to shoot Daniel a, “You understand you cannot talk to Max. He does not want you to. And you,” Jos spits, “You should not want to, either.”
Jos leaves. He doesn’t close the door as he does, lets anyone that walks past Daniel’s driver room see him torn between crying, puking, and getting his fucking shit together.
Daniel does none of those. He gets out of the room, leaving a fresh memories open like pouring salt on an open wound. He doesn’t lick it, nor look at it, lets it bleed out until the race is happening, and he doesn’t have any choice but to forget about it.
Daniel finishes 11th. One place behind Lando, who manages to clench a fucking point.
Daniel says “I’m sorry guys, I don’t know what I could’ve done better.” Because it’s true. Because he believes it. Because he’s starting to believe he can’t be better than that. Eleventh. Right outside what really matters.
(Daniel sets his empty bottle on the dresser, his movements slow, deliberate. Jules is quiet now, tired because of the race they finished a couple hours ago. Formula Renault isn’t much harder than karting was, but it takes a toll on their bodies anyway, which means Jules’ eyes are closed but his breathing is too uneven for him to be asleep. He’s resting, maybe, but his face gives him away. The faint furrow of his brow, the way his lips press together just a bit too tightly. It’s all there for Daniel to read, as clear as day. It almost feels like all of this is just for Daniel, just for him to see and he could believe it if he tried hard enough.
Daniel sinks back into his chair next to the bed, leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees. For a long time, he just watches Jules. He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t. But the soft glow from the bedside lamp makes Jules look different, softer somehow, and Daniel can’t help himself.
This isn’t what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s supposed to be asleep, gearing up for their ten hour flight tomorrow. Instead, he’s here, in Jules’ room, with Jules' laugh still echoing in his ears and his thoughts all tangled up in ways he can’t begin to untangle.
“Do you ever feel like you’re not meant to be here?” Jules’ voice breaks through the quiet, startling Daniel. He freezes for a second.
“What do you mean?” Daniel asks. His voice is low, but he’s not whispering. Whispers are reserved for after sex talking, and they haven't had sex, yet. Not in a while. Not since Jules got himself a pretty girlfriend glued to his side.
Jules doesn’t open his eyes, but his brow furrows deeper. “Like. This. Racing. Everything. Like you’re not supposed to be here, and someone’s going to figure it out and take it all away.”
Daniel’s stomach twists. He knows that feeling, knows it all too well. But hearing it come from Jules, of all people, feels wrong. Jules doesn’t doubt himself. Jules doesn’t second-guess. Jules kisses first, and Jules laughs and Jules doesn’t hesitate before pushing his lips on Daniel’s chest, sides, dick, even if it’s the first time.
“Jules,” Daniel doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been good with feelings, and even worse at talking about them. It hadn’t seemed to bother Jules.
Jules opens his eyes then, turning his head to look at Daniel. His gaze is piercing, even in the dim light, even though his whole body practically glows with softness the way it always does. “Do you?”
Daniel hesitates, his chest tightening. He thinks about lying, about brushing it off like he does with everything else. But something in Jules’ expression stops him. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the vulnerability, or because of Jules looking at him like his girlfriend doesn’t exist, but Daniel is tired.
“Yeah,” Daniel admits quietly. “All the time.”
Jules doesn’t say anything for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is soft. “You don’t show it.” he answers, the beginning of a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Daniel laughs, but it’s humorless. “That’s the point, mate. Gotta keep up the act, right? Always smiling, always joking. Can’t let anyone see the cracks.”
Jules frowns, his lips pressing into a thin line. “That’s stupid.”
Daniel snorts. He wants to say ‘you do it, too’ but he thinks there’s been enough confessions for the day. “Yeah, well. Welcome to my life.”
Jules sits up then. His thighs are parallel to one another, light and skinny in a way they don’t dig into the mattress, even with the thick plushy covers over it. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, mirroring Daniel’s posture. His chin, too, after a couple seconds. His words are chopped and robotic because of it when he says, “You don’t have to do that with me.”
Daniel’s breath catches. He shrugs. He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything.
“I mean it,” Jules continues. His gaze is gone from Daniel’s, back to lower, watching as his feet stretch and unfold a few times, watching as the muscles tighten and relax, maybe. “You don’t have to pretend.”
Daniel looks to his own feet. One of his toes is beginning to poke out of a hole in his sock. “I don’t know how not to,” he admits, his voice barely above a whisper. But, not a whisper.
Jules doesn’t respond right away, but when he does, his voice is quiet, almost hesitant. “Maybe you should figure it out.” There’s a quiet smile on his face, one that makes the mole right under his eye stand out, dark brown against soft brown tan.
Daniel glances at him, his chest tight. His throat clenches on the words because he doesn’t know how to say them yet. “Why do you care?”
Jules’ eyes soften even more. The look on his face starts to melt, like a dream, a memory that’s fading with time. When he says, “Because it’s you.”, Daniel hears it from a distance, like it’s slipping away.)
So. Daniel breathes.
He counts his steps to his driver room, counts his steps to the shower, to his normal person car and to his hotel room. He takes the stairs because there’s something in him pulling away from the elevator. From the easiness of it, just electrical wires taking him higher. About not feeling the tightness in his thighs after climbing eight floors by foot, about not having to sweat.
By the end of it, Daniel doesn’t feel his toes. He’s starting to like it that way better.