Chapter Text
He isn’t even willing to let Max into his room.
“Dan, I…” Max’s voice falters through the sliver of door that Dan has cracked open. “I’m… look, can you let me in?” Dan doesn’t answer, instead opening the door until the chain keeping the door bolted shut reaches its full length. The ring of metal fills the air, filling the following silence that Dan doesn’t feel like breaking as brown eyes meet expectant blue.
“We have to talk,” Max eventually says, and he sounds frustrated, but tough fucking luck because Dan is willing to bet his seat that he’s even more frustrated and furious, rightfully so, mind you, than Max is.
“Talk out here, then. Go on,” Dan challenges.
Max looks around the empty hotel hall. “Are you crazy? Let me in.”
“Oh, I’m the crazy one?” Dan says incredulously. “After the show you put on out there? You might want to get your memory checked, mate. Or your vision needs it more, actually, since you couldn’t see me in your rearview mirror.”
Dan can see Max bristle in indignation, and he’s filled with a dark sense of satisfaction. This is a place they’ve found themselves countless times, and Dan knows how to play the razor-sharp edge of Max’s volatile temper.
“I’m not the one who was swerving around like a drunk behind me! You got too close,” Max snaps.
Dan ignores him. “This is your third crash in a row,” he says. Max flushes in anger, bright splotches of red spreading across his cheeks. “Three.”
“First Lewis, then Sebastian. And now me. By the end of this season you’re going to have made your way through the whole grid, huh?”
“Shut up,” Max says, his voice lowering dangerously. “Shut up.”
He’s coiled tight, a live wire about to snap, and Dan sneers. “So much for it being your year. Although I suppose you say that every season, right?”
Max’s fists clench at his side, knuckles white, and he steps forward as if to push past the half-open door, which is impossible anyway with the bolt set firmly in place. Dan scoffs. “God, I’m glad I’m leaving next year.”
Max freezes.
It’s an awful thing to say. Max is still coming to terms with Dan’s decision to move to Renault, Dan knows, the unspoken topic heavy in the air between them ever since it was announced. It’s a testament to how self-absorbed Max is, unaware of what was happening to his own teammate, his own … friend… and Dan sometimes wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him. Can’t you see? He'd wanted to yell at Max countless times, make him realize what was so plain to see to the media, to the fans, to everyone except Max himself. There is no future for me at Red Bull.
He knows it’s an awful thing to say. And yet… it hits exactly where Dan is aiming at.
“Fuck you,” Max spits, his eyes ablaze. He grabs the doorknob and yanks the door violently open. The chain snaps to its fullest extent again, and Max presses himself against the gap, looking at Dan straight in the eye. “Open the door.”
Dan’s lip curls in distaste as he looks at the scene Max is making. He should probably feel as if he’s being cornered, with the only way out of his room being blocked, but as he looks through the door he sees Max, seething with fury and held back only by a metal chain. The behavior of a desperate, trapped wild animal. Suddenly, it becomes crystal clear.
“Look at yourself,” he says abruptly. “This isn’t working out.”
“This?” The question is dripping in acid, Max clearly reluctant to entertain Dan.
“Us.”
Max’s fingers curl around the chain. “Us?”
“You know, I’m surprised I haven’t thought of it sooner.”
“Thought of what sooner?”
God, how dense could Max be? “Breaking off whatever… thing we had going.”
“What?” Max’s voice cracks.
“Yeah, I mean. We’ve only been fooling ourselves, really. At the end of the day, we’re only teammates and it just doesn’t work. Clearly.”
“Dan. Daniel.” Max is scrabbling at the door, as if it’ll magically open sesame for him. “Let me in, Dan.”
Dan scoffs. “Yeah, no. Sorry you’re going to have to look somewhere else for an easy lay.” He starts to inch the door closed, ignoring Max’s crazed attempts to force it open. “It’s been fun, kid, but honestly. Fuck you.”
He slams the door in Max’s face. Dan sighs and shakes his head as Max starts pounding on the door. So much drama.
“Fuck off,” he calls through the door. “I don’t really want to talk to you right now. Or, like, ever.”
If Max spent the next couple hours at his door, Dan wouldn’t know, because he slaps on his trusty pair of Beats and decompresses, does some cooldown stretches and lets himself stew in his righteous anger over how much of an asshole Max is.
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It’s the worst sleep that he’s had since the night before his first race. Worse, probably, since that night he’d been tossing and turning in bed out of excitement, filled with nervous anticipation. Now, all Dan feels is resentment, gnawing on him and growing every time the argument replays in his head. Why couldn’t Max just see how wrong he was? The crash was covered from all angles, it wouldn’t be hard to go back and clearly see the mistakes that he had made. It was simply just that Max didn’t want to.
Before long, Dan feels as if he’s never going to relax, and he admits defeat and slides out of bed. He hadn’t shut his curtains before attempting to fall asleep, and Dan goes over to open the balcony doors and steps outside. The night air makes him shiver, but it’s refreshing compared to the suffocating heat of his blankets. Anger leeches out of him the longer the crisp air washes over him. There’s an armchair positioned in the corner of the balcony, and he sinks into it, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them to ward off the chill in the air.
The whole of Baku is spread out beneath him, smudged yellow lights glowing against the black. If he looks closer, he can make out little dots moving, each a person going about their life. Dan sighs and relaxes more into the chair’s cushions. He wonders what Max is doing at the moment, then immediately shakes his head to clear it. He’s done with Max, that part of his life ending with the decisive bang of a door being slammed shut. Dan feels as if he should be sad—after all, he and Max were close. Too close, most would say if they knew the truth, but thank god nobody did. He feels mostly empty, though. Max made his bed, now he has to lie in it.
Dan tilts his head against the back of the chair and sighs again, looks at the few stars that were visible in the dark sky. There’s the faint red and green blinking of a plane flying past, its high altitude making it easy to miss. Then, a sudden streak of light flashes by, and Dan follows it until it disappears behind the horizon.
He should probably wish on it; that’s what people do with shooting stars, right? But nothing comes to mind, other than the traitorous part of Dan that hesitates in squashing down any thought of today’s incident and everything that came after. Instead, he goes back inside and climbs into bed. There’s no use in wishing, anyways.