Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Daniel meets Max, actually meets him, his first impression is sort of a great big nothing.

It’s 2016 and Max is a wunderkid, obviously, one of those people that lives and breathes the car, but he’s rough around the edges, arrogant on the track, too desperate for a win. That’s Daniel’s first impression, and it’s uncharitable, but it’s true.

It doesn’t help that Jos Verstappen is there at every turn, always lurking, always with some cutting remark that Daniel can understand even through the language barrier.

Max is shorter than Daniel, though Daniel can tell he won’t be for long, and he has a broad, pale face marked with spots that flushes when he’s angry, which is more often than not. He’s gangly outside the car, like a foal that hasn’t quite figured out walking yet. He stutters around Daniel and watches him and blushes almost every time Daniel talks to him. Daniel can’t tell if it’s hero worship or a crush or both – the kid is a beta, only a dull scent hanging around his shoulders, something bland and unappealing, a little sour like the pith of an orange, or the chemical tang of paint. It’s unusual in a bad way. Nothing like the soothing scent of Michael when he’s bullying Daniel about the length of his runs, or his engineer’s faint scent left behind on his suit when he claps a congratulatory hand to his shoulder after a good race.

When Max is in the car, though– well. Nothing bland about him there. When he’s in the car, he flies. And he makes rookie mistakes like everyone does, but he beats himself up about it like he’s supposed to be some kind of god, like everyone else is a mere mortal and it’s okay for them to make mistakes, but not him. He’s supposed to be something different. Better.

And Daniel keeps his distance successfully from the tangled shitshow that is Max Verstappen, as far as he can get while still being a congenial teammate, until Max crashes his car in Monaco.

Well. Until after Max crashes his car in Monaco.

Daniel hears it before he sees it.

It’s like putting a puzzle together, because Daniel rounds the hotel corridor a second too late to actually see it. He just hears a sharp sound, then sees Max’s cheek, red and stark against his pale skin.

Max doesn’t even say anything. He doesn’t put a hand to his cheek. He doesn’t do anything at all except lower his head a little.

Jos Verstappen stands in front of him, breathing hard. It’s clear he’s just finished a rant. Daniel stops at the end of the corridor, still trying to understand what he’s seeing, and Jos says something rapid and cruel-sounding to Max, and leaves. Just walks off.

Max doesn’t go anywhere. He stands there, looking at the hotel wallpaper.

And okay, Daniel knows Max didn’t have a great result today. Daniel is sticky with champagne and sweat and his brain is buzzing with alcohol and adrenaline, but Max looks small and young in the aftermath of his DNF, his crash. Especially just off the high of the win in Spain.

Normally Daniel would walk past him, let him brood, let him say something proud that blames everyone but himself, scoff at it, etc. But for once, he gets it. He gets it all of a sudden.

“Hey, Max,” he says, very softly, walking up to Max the way one walks up to a baby gazelle. Slow, in his line of sight, soft.

“What,” Max says, harsh. He turns to Daniel a little as he says it, and Daniel inhales sharply, and Max suddenly turns away again, shifting his body so his pink cheek isn’t as visible anymore. Like this, it’s impossible to mistake what happened: there is a handprint clear as day on his cheek, still round with baby fat. His scent is like a damp basement. Daniel wants to sneeze.

He also kind of wants to go fucking feral on Jos Verstappen for some reason, slap him back and see how he likes it, but that’s an impulse he frankly doens’t have time to examine. He inhales, pushes down the fury. “You okay?”

It’s a stupid question. Of course Max isn’t okay.

But Max just frowns. “I of course am okay. The crash was not that bad. I am not injured.”

Oh, Max.

“I wasn’t–” I wasn’t asking about the crash, Daniel almost says, but then he actually processes the way Max has gone stiff, the way his gaze has focused over Daniel’s shoulder, like he’s looking for an escape route. Daniel shifts slightly under the guise of shifting his weight from one foot to another, and when he’s not blocking the corridor anymore, he sees Max relax a little. “Yeah, okay. Glad to hear it. You wanna go clubbing?”

What the fuck, Ricciardo? he thinks to himself. But he really truly doesn’t know what else to say.

“Yes, okay,” Max says, a little too quickly. “Let me– put on different clothing.” He gestures to himself, his typical jeans and Red Bull polo, and Daniel knows that he is just going to put on a different pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt. Daniel feels a sudden pang of fondness, and it is not a welcome feeling.

They both change. The pink mark on Max’s face has faded by the time they meet up at the elevators, though his mouth is still twisted. When he sees Daniel, in his unbuttoned shirt, way too low to be decent (sue him, he’s got half the grid offering to buy him a drink tonight, and he knows he looks good enough to eat, high off his win) his face goes pink again. The entire thing, this time.

Daniel keeps an eye on Max in the club. He’s clearly a lightweight, two drinks in and flushed in the cheeks, eyes a little glazed. He’s friendly, touchy, and men especially seem to find him compelling, all baby fat and eagerness to please. Daniel makes eye contact with a few of them and warns them off succinctly, resisting the urge to bare his teeth at them.

Max is eighteen and drunk as hell. If the men trying to grind on him had been his age and equally soused, that’s one thing. But the ones Daniel has frightened off from halfway across the club, making sharp eye contact through the flashing lights, looking with strength past the column of Max’s neck as his head lolls back, have been older and far more sober looking. Daniel absolutely isn’t having that.

People congratulate him, and he revels in it. P2 on (kind of) home territory, baby. He doesn’t buy his own drinks that night.

There’s a lull in the people clapping his shoulder and the people trying to get his attention, the Monaco podium-placer, and Daniel becomes aware of Carlos’ presence. The man is holding a drink that’s mostly ice at this point.

“What’s turned you into a– how do they say, mother chicken?” Carlos asks, suddenly next to him for some reason and watching as the third girl in a row that tried to dance with Daniel wanders off with frustration after he spent the entire time distracted, trying to keep Max in his sights from across the floor.

“Hen,” Daniel says absently. There’s a beat of nothing between them, then, and Daniel wonders why Carlos is even here.

“I am celebrating a Red Bull podium, mate,” Carlos tells him, one eyebrow raised. “I am Toro Rosso, but it is still a celebration.”

Whoops, Daniel did not mean to say that out loud.

“Be careful,” Carlos says, out of nowhere. Daniel hadn’t realized he’d gotten distracted watching Max again. “Make sure you know what you are doing.”

Daniel is suddenly very aware that Carlos and Max know each other, however distantly and professionally. Carlos’ gaze is a little too knowing when he looks at Daniel.

“I always know what I’m doing,” Daniel lies, and goes off to extract a drunk-off-his-ass Max from the arms of a guy who looks at least forty.

Daniel ends up ducking out early (for him, which means before two in the morning), and taking Max with him.

The kid is clumsy, giddy, and when Daniel slides up behind him and tells him come on, kid, you’re wasted and it’s time to sleep, he doesn’t even protest. Just follows Daniel like an obedient puppy. His plain t-shirt is soaked with sweat when Daniel ushers him along with a hand on his back.

Daniel has had an obscene amount of alcohol tonight, but the contact makes him feel abruptly sober. Max is eighteen. Daniel’s job is to get him into bed without any creepy men (oh boy, why does that strike a weird chord) and make sure he goes to sleep on his side so he doesn’t choke on his own vomit during the night.

They get a cab, and Daniel maneuvers Max inside, though the kid only stops whining at him when he realizes Daniel is also getting into the cab. When he slides into the seat next to him, Max plasters himself to Daniel’s side, tipping his head to rest on Daniel’s shoulder with a sigh. Daniel tells the cabbie the name of their hotel and tries not to disturb him. They’re both at a hotel this weekend, even though Daniel has an apartment here – Red Bull insisted, something about focusing and having both their drivers in the same place.

They’re a few minutes from the hotel when Max stirs. Daniel honestly thought he was asleep, but Max turns his face against Daniel’s shoulder, a lock of hair brushing against a strip of Daniel’s skin where his shirt has been tugged askew, and locks a hand abruptly around Daniel’s wrist, where it’s lying in his lap.

“Daniel,” Max says. His voice is a bit slurry, but aware. “Please do not. Please–”

Daniel’s blood runs cold. Please do not what? Does he think Daniel is taking him back to his hotel room to–

“Please do not tell anyone. About earlier.”

Oh. Daniel’s heart rate goes down again. “About–?” He knows what Max means, but he wants to see if he’ll say it.

“My father is strict. He wants me to perform better. I can handle it. I am strong.” Max’s voice is very quiet.

Oh, Max. Daniel’s heart pangs in his chest. “I don’t think you’re weak, Max. But that isn’t okay. Your father shouldn’t– shouldn’t hit you.”

He feels more than sees Max flinch. “He did not hit me.”

“He slapped you,” Daniel says, implacable. He knows what he heard, what he saw on Max’s cheek.

“That is not proper hitting,” Max argues, voice a bit slurry again. “Please. Daniel. If you tell someone it will only make it worse. My father does not like to be challenged. He is doing what is best for me. People may not understand.”

Daniel doesn’t know what to do, what to say. He feels out of his depth. But Max grips his wrist again, and says, “Please,” and Daniel doesn’t like the situation, but he suspects Max is right when he says Daniel will only make it worse by interfering. Well, by interfering with Jos. This doesn’t mean Daniel can’t keep an eye out for Max.

(Still, if he could, he’d deck Jos Verstappen. He doesn’t– god. You don’t do that. Daniel thinks about his own dad, with broad, rough hands from the farm. Daniel’s dad has never hit him. Would never hit him.

For a second, he thinks about his own dad punching Jos, and it’s satisfying in a way he doesn’t entirely understand.)

“Okay, Max,” Daniel says softly. “I won’t say anything about today.”

When he tips Max into bed, the kid goes easily. He’s asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, whole face flushed and limbs akimbo. Daniel rolls him onto his side and pries his shoes off, then leaves. He barely keeps himself from putting a glass of water on his bedside table.

It’s not exactly a usual podium night. His phone is lighting up with people asking him where he is, and there’s no beautiful girl in the bed next to him, but somehow he feels– satisfied. Good.

He rolls over and falls asleep.

Daniel would like to say it’s a one-off. That’s it, just one weird night where he tows this awkward Dutch kid that’s suddenly his teammate to a club he’s not technically old enough to be at, thinks of some weirdly fervent revenge fantasies toward his shithead of a father, etc. But it isn’t.

After that, he’s got a Max-shaped barnacle against his side. And it’s weird, but it’s– calming, somehow. To badger the kid about having eaten that day, about how much sleep he’s getting, about not staring at the sim without blinking for that long. It fulfills some weird buried alpha instinct in him that he never has a chance to satisfy, this urge to care for someone, tow them around and make sure they’re protected, happy and healthy and safe.

It’s extremely weird for multiple reasons, not the least of which being that Max is a beta, which means that not only should Daniel not be getting this kind of satisfaction from making sure he’s drinking enough water during the day, but Max shouldn’t be so okay with Daniel being this overbearing. He’s not an omega, who might thrive off this kind of attention. He’s a beta, and should be irritated.

But instead he seems to flourish under the attention, like a flower turning to the sun. Every time he makes a joke, he turns to Daniel to see if he’s laughed, and when he does, Max smiles so big it seems like it shouldn’t fit on his face. He falls into step at Daniel’s shoulder after a race, a half-step behind, whenever they walk together, explaining endlessly about the car, the track, the tyres, gesturing big and wide with his hands like Daniel didn’t just do the exact same race in the exact same car on the exact same track.

It’s like he’s got this little GPS of where Daniel is all the time, never approaching him first but always hanging in his space, at the edges of where he is, until Daniel pulls him in with an arm around his shoulders, stealing his ever-present cap, ribbing him endlessly and kind of reveling in how Max leans into it every time.

He’s needy for a beta, always seeking contact but never initiating it, but that’s okay. Daniel doesn’t mind. He’s always been a touchy guy.

All in all, Daniel chalks everything down to hero worship or the probable crush again, shrugs it off, and goes on with their weird little arrangement. He managed to wrangle Max into a sweater (Red Bull branded, of course) today in the factory because the air conditioning was on high enough to chill a penguin, and he’s honestly still riding that high.

The media is brutal.

Max is new, shiny, young, still practically with the plastic wrapper on him. The media slavers over him, desperate for a piece, and Daniel can only do so much. Max is aggressive on track, a rookie, and that’s all true because he’s eighteen, Chrissake, and they were all kind of idiots on track at eighteen.

But the media rips him to shreds for it. Calls him Mad Max, Crashstappen, replays frustrated radio messages from him and half the grid ad nauseam. There’s one particular presser where Daniel ends up shepherding Max away from the ravenous masses, stepping in with his megawatt smile and easy demeanor, and Max catches the edge of his hand for the barest split second, squeezes it just a bit, eyes grateful, the entire thing too fast for any reporter to catch. Daniel feels it keenly anyway.

“What is that,” Daniel says, gesturing at Max’s jacket.

Max gives him a weird look, like he thinks Daniel’s gone senile. “It is of course my coat,” he says, slowly.

“No, that’s a rag, that’s what that is,” Daniel says, shivering for a moment at how much he sounds like his mother. But it’s true – Max’s jacket is thin and almost worn through at the elbows. This happens, sometimes, with new drivers. They don’t realize just how much of a pay raise they just got.

Daniel absolutely does not accept that– that thing as Max’s jacket for the day. It’s fucking freezing outside the factory, especially since they’ve been on the sim for hours and the loss of adrenaline and exertion makes you cold as hell. Daniel shrugs off his own and offers it to Max before he can stop himself.

Max gives him a look. “I am not trading my coat for yours. I like this coat,” he says, and holds the jacket a little closer to his chest.

Daniel rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to do a switcheroo. Just take mine and put it over that thing. God knows it’s thin enough to fit under.”

“You will not be cold?” Max asks.

“No,” Daniel promises. “I have an extra in my office.” He thinks he does, at least.

There’s a weird moment then, where Max does put the jacket on, and then kind of just– deflates into it. Realistically, Daniel isn’t that much larger than him, but he likes his clothing a bit oversized, and it settles nicely around Max. They look at each other, and Max’s eyes go a bit half-lidded with what looks like contentment. Daniel tells himself he must just be finally warm, and ignores the matching feeling in his own chest.

Daniel never does get his jacket back. He doesn’t mind for some reason.

Max can be weird about his food sometimes — sometimes shovels it all down as fuel, sometimes gets antsy when it’s time to bulk. He’ll mostly eat anything, but it’s weird, because once a month or so he’ll get odd about textures. It’s erratic but constant. Daniel doesn’t know what to make of it, and neither does Jake, it seems. Max just gets twitchy for a few days, sensitive.

Jos is always lurking. Everywhere. Daniel can’t forget about that sharp sound, the pink mark on Max’s cheek. But Max begged him not to say anything and all Daniel can do is drop a few specifically worded comments to Christian and hope something happens.

He’s not a wait-and-see kind of guy, never has been. But this situation doesn’t let him do anything else.

Jos is always everywhere with his weird smoothies, too. Jake doesn’t seem to love them, prickles a bit, clearly itching to have any food going into Max first in his hands, but Jos insists. Daniel has seen them in one of their tense conversations, Jos’ hand tight around the smoothie container like someone’s going to take it away from him. He insists it’s a tradition. He makes a smoothie for Max every day, leaves extras in the fridge when he’s not going to be there for a day, makes Max promise to drink them.

They’re this sort of beige-greenish colour, incredibly off putting, and they look nauseatingly thick.

Max sounds stiff when Daniel asks him about it.

“He just has his ways,” Max says, lifting one shoulder and dropping it in an awkward shrug. He isn’t making eye contact with Daniel. “Things he does. I of course listen to him.”

There’s a note of defeat, there. Daniel doesn’t like it. “Do they at least taste good?” he asks, jokingly.

Max’s answering smile is strained. “Not really.”

Daniel darts forward before Max can stop him, wrapping his lips around the straw. He takes a short, hard suck of it, and ends up with a mouthful of the thing. It tastes awful. Rubbery, almost, and underneath the familiar kale and spinach and probably algae or something, there’s a chemical tang, an undertone like truly terribly protein powder, something almost chalky.

Daniel swallows with difficulty. “That,” he says, pointing at the container while Max just gapes at him, “is disgusting.”

Max seems to recover, then. “Yes,” he answers, looking from Daniel’s mouth back to the straw, “Disgusting.”

Daniel feels off the entire day.

He’s just in the factory for meetings, thank god, no sim races today, and he’s thankful for it. He feels weird, off. Kind of nauseous.

Michael grills him about it when he mentions it off hand in their meeting about meal schedules, and Daniel tries to play it off. “Something I ate,” he says cheekily, grinning at Michael and trying to pretend he doesn’t feel kind of sweaty, hot. “You should check that out, eh?”

The feeling goes away by the end of the day, anyway. Daniel doesn’t really think about it further.

It’s when Jake finds him double-checking that Max’s driver’s room has been set up properly in Belgium that Daniel gets dragged into an intervention.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Jake tells him sternly, clearly half a second away from wagging his finger at Daniel. He’s called Michael, too, which is frankly unfair.

Daniel opens his mouth to argue, and Michael levels him with an unimpressed look. “This isn’t healthy, and you know it. You using Max as some sort of weird surrogate to make you feel like a good alpha or whatever–” (Michael is a beta, and it’s really showing at the moment) “-- isn’t good for you, and it can’t be good for Max.”

“I was just checking that his room was set up properly,” Daniel protests. “I’m being a good teammate – so what if that happens to be good alpha behaviour too? He gets stressed when they have the setup wrong. Sometimes they forget the hangers and I have to move mine in before he notices.”

Michael’s mouth twists at the same time as Jake’s does. “Daniel,” Michael says, very slowly, “Max is a beta.”

“Yeah,” Daniel scoffs. “Obviously.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jake says, throwing his hands up in the air and turning to Michael to hiss “He’s never going to get it,” before turning back to Daniel to say, “You need to stop trying to use him to satisfy your omega-courting urges.”

“What,” Daniel says. He’s not! Or– he doesn’t think he is?

“I get that you’re getting all this serotonin from engaging in courting behaviors and having it reciprocated to an extent,” Michael says, serious, sounding like he’s regurgitating a book about complex dynamic navigation called How To Manage Your Idiot Alpha, “But he can’t give you that, and it’s going to end badly. Your hormones are going to realize there’s no chemical reciprocation, and Max is a beta who is not going to court you back, and it’s going to fuck with his hormones too if you’re not careful. This is a bad idea, and it’s bad for both of you.”

Shit. Daniel’s alpha hindbrain blares the alarms at it’s going to fuck with his hormones, shrieking at the thought of hurting Max, even unintentionally, and that’s what makes him understand the gravity of the situation. He takes a shaky breath. “Max is eighteen,” he says stiffly. He’s still got spots, Chrissake. “I don’t– I don’t think about him that way.”

Jake’s face, which has been stern this whole time, softens a little. “I know, mate. You’re clearly providing for him in a platonic way, or else I would’ve decked you. But this needs to stop.”

There’s a pit opening up in Daniel’s stomach. He doesn’t want to stop.

But he has to. They’re right.

Max has become used to Daniel dropping in on his lunch, making sure he’s eating everything, badgering him gently about remembering his sweater. Max always seems cold.

When Daniel starts pulling back, trying to distance himself a little, Max seems oddly vulnerable and small, watching Daniel’s back as he leaves the cafeteria at the factory, as he stops draping his arm over the back of Max’s chair during meetings.

Max invites him over to play FIFA (read: to win at FIFA and laugh at Daniel losing) in his hotel room like always the night before the first free practice for the German GP. Daniel doesn’t bring snacks their trainers would disapprove of, doesn’t tick the thermostat up because Max is more comfortable in a warmer room but always forgets, doesn’t make sure he’s drinking enough water. The whole evening there’s a gap between them, an uncomfortable space, and Max seems off balance, his gaze finding Daniel’s face every time he looks away.

Daniel’s alpha instincts are screaming, and honestly, so is the rest of him – he likes Max, wants to be a good friend, wants to make sure he’s comfortable and safe and happy.

On Sunday, Daniel gets P2. Max gets P3. When they share the podium, Daniel drags his gaze away from Max’s upturned face, rosy with exhaustion, skin shiny with sweat, glimmering like gold. He showers him in champagne and then does the same with Lewis, pretending that the other man is holding his attention. It’s almost painful not to be facing Max, his adoring look, to soothe his frustration at being anywhere on the podium except the top step, to see his shoulders shifting under sweat-soaked Nomex, the way his whole body angles toward Daniel.

Daniel tells himself that the lost look on Max’s face when he turns away doesn’t sear like a brand. It’s for Max’s own good. For both of their own good.

It doesn’t make it any easier.

Chapter Text

It’s not why Daniel leaves Red Bull. It isn’t.

But it is part of it, he can’t deny. The constant temptation to touch Max’s shoulder, to make sure he’s warm and fed, to try to edge off Jos’ hold as much as he can at any given moment.

Daniel just can’t handle this — the irritation at team orders, the heavy weight of Max’s success, the debilitating feeling of being past his prime. He can’t handle that in combination with whatever he feels for Max, complicated and tangled and instinct-driven, especially because Max seems to welcome it.

He leaves Red Bull. He leaves, and pretends it doesn’t feel like his heart is breaking when Max’s face shatters at the news, openly betrayed, before he shutters like he hasn’t in years and spits at Daniel that it’s fine. It’s fine. It is not like you were a challenge anyway.

It doesn’t sting, but only because Max’s voice shakes as he says it.

Renault is Renault. There’s a sickening feeling of relief at not having to compete with Max the same way, of not having him at arm’s reach all the time, wanting to throttle him and yet also simultaneously wanting to care for him, wanting to keep him warm and fed and safe.

Daniel dates, and pretends it doesn’t feel like his whole world has tipped upside down, leaving him here — no Red Bull, no Max, no satisfied thrumming feeling in his bones at Max’s small smile, at the purr of the engine at his back.

The girls are pretty. Omegas and betas both, one alpha, but no men — somehow it feels too tender, to hold someone’s jaw and rub his thumb across their stubble without thinking of someone else’s. The girls are bird-thin the way all the girls in the Monaco circles seem to be, painted over with bright colours and tall, tall on knife-sharp high heels. They’re nice, laughing at Daniel’s jokes and holding onto his arm. He wouldn’t date someone he didn’t like. But he just— doesn’t like them quite as much as Max.

There are two types of girlfriends in the F1 circuit. The ones who don’t give a shit about the attention you pay them, because they’re there for the lights and the money and the champagne, and then the ones who are actually there for a relationship and do care about the attention a boyfriend is supposed to pay them. Daniel’s dated the former before, because they use each other all the time, him for the media appearance and her for the media attention, and it’s fine, but kind of empty feeling. He mostly dates the latter these days, but has to stop. His heart isn’t in the relationship, and it isn’t fair.

When he breaks up with his latest girlfriend, she gives him a knowing look. “You have to get over them,” she says, too kind, holding Daniel’s hand like he hasn’t just dumped her incredibly awkwardly, much clumsier at this than he should be at this point. He’s usually good at breakups. Has stayed friends with a bunch of his exes, even. “This is going to destroy you, Dan.”

He doesn’t say anything, and she pats his cheek and leaves. What is there to say? It’s true.

Max is still furious – betrayed. Daniel can read it on his face.

He ignores Daniel when Daniel tries to talk to him, and then sends Daniel furious texts about how mad he is about being ignored. Daniel doesn’t know what to do. He tries to text Max like everything is going to be okay, like they’re still friends, inseparable, walking through the factory with an inch of space between them. Eventually, Max stops texting him. By the time the season ends, Daniel’s texts are all unanswered. It’s a horrible feeling.

Daniel feels kind of wrecked about it all, honestly. He can feel Max’s gaze on him across the paddock, and the younger man is terrible at pretending he wasn’t looking. There’s something to salvage there, a friendship to save, if Max will let him.

He just doesn’t know if Max will let him.

Rut is bad.

It’s like Daniel’s alpha is extra unsettled, and he ends up tearing into multiple pillows with his canines, leaving fluff everywhere and pieces of shredded pillowcases. He loses weight during the three days, and even though his ruts are only twice a year, because he’s on the same hormone pills that the rest of the alphas on the grid are on to reduce his ruts and keep them to the offseason, the one that hits after his last official week at Red Bull is terrible. It’s the worst it’s ever been.

He tries to invite someone over exactly once, and it goes badly immediately. He can’t even let her in the door, his alpha growling at the scent of wrong wrong wrong, can’t let her into his den, his safe space. He’s in his Monaco apartment, lived-in and comfortable, because he thought it would make him feel better, but the fact that he spends so much time there just makes his alpha more protective over it.

He keeps obsessively fluffing pillows and folding blankets around the apartment, like he’s preparing for an omega. But when he actually does invite someone over – just the once, he doesn’t make that mistake again – it’s nauseating. She tells him through the door that it’s okay, she understands, instincts are hard, and is so nice about it that he almost feels bad. The rest of him is overwhelmed by his alpha telling him it’s good that he didn’t let his space get invaded, that it’s still pristine, good, suitable.

Suitable for what? he wonders, and doesn’t allow himself to think the real question.

(Suitable for who?)

Max keeps up the cold shoulder when the season starts. Michael leans against Daniel’s side, beta scent comforting in its undertones of warm acacia. He smells like home in multiple ways, and Daniel clings to it as he relearns the paddock like he’s twenty-two again and new and all wrong-footed.

It’s before the Chinese GP that Max breaks. Daniel is in yellow and Max is in navy blue and Max comes barrelling through Renault hospitality like his ass is on fire.

He’s shoving his way into Daniel’s driver’s room before any of the confused mechanics can stop him, phone held out like he’s a disappointed parent grilling their kid about an Instagram post.

“What is this?” he hisses, jabbing the phone at Daniel’s face.

Daniel takes it with a fair amount of confusion, squinting at the screen. It’s a text conversation – someone’s sent Max a screenshot of one of those terrible gossip mags, the headline a lurid splash claiming that Danny Ric Says He Misses Red Bull Before China GP!

“Oh, probably my Insta post,” Daniel shrugs. The gossip sites always do this – misconstrue the throwback post to last year’s China race with Red Bull that he’d made earlier as a declaration of regret or something. “Just a memory, mate. Nothing more.”

He’s trying to be nonchalant, but this is the closest Max has been to him in months. Daniel is trying not to stare too obviously at Max, at his pink cheeks, his ever-present cap jammed down over his head, the way his frown etches grooves into his face that Daniel wants to press a thumb to.

Jesus, get it together, Ricciardo.

It’s true to say he doesn’t regret going to Renault. It’s not true to say he doesn’t miss Max. He’d have thought that his unanswered texts would have indicated that, though. (It had taken enormous strength not to text again after the first few went ignored by Max. If he’s being honest, it was probably only because Michael took his phone away that he didn’t.)

“You do not get to–” Max seems to stall, angry, before he collects himself again and continues, “You do not get to do this, this, ‘throwback,’ when you left us.” He shakes his head and corrects himself. “The team. When you left the team.”

You left me, goes unspoken but not unheard. Daniel knows from the way Max flushes even deeper, blotchy now, that he can tell. It’s the same thing, to Max – him and the car, the car and Red Bull. It’s part of why Daniel left, knowing that the team and Max had fused into one and it would always leave Daniel stranded on the sidelines.

“Max,” Daniel tries, “You know that gossip mags do this. They do it all the time. They’re shit at news, wrong about everything.”

“They were right about you leaving,” Max spits, and oh. That’s— yeah.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and everything. The media had been making shit like that up for ages, it’s just that it happened to be true last year. And Max is still angry about those headlines hitting before he’d found out from Daniel himself.

Daniel doesn’t know what to say. The worst part is, no matter how unpleasant it is to have an angry Max cornering him in his driver’s room, there’s still a rush of relief at having Max near him at all. He doesn’t think before he does it, just reaches out and curls a hand around Max’s wrist. “Max,” he says, softer than he means to, “I had to. You and me, right? It’s still you and me. But it couldn’t be if I stayed, and I think you know that.”

You and me, Daniel had told him at the German GP that first year they raced together, Daniil an embarrassingly distant afterthought in both their minds, high off the thrill of a fast car and a shared podium, something forming between him and Max that they couldn’t identify but knew to be special.

Max’s face is scrunched up like a child’s, the terribly earnest face he only makes when he really truly can’t hold it together, when he’s trying so hard not to cry in the way he almost never does. His eyes are glassy, and after a second of Daniel just looking at him and him looking back, one tear slips out, unbidden. Max swipes a rough hand across them, too rough, like he’s trying to punish himself for crying. He might be abrasive sometimes, but never more so than with himself. It’s the one thing all his critics can never seem to realize.

Daniel catches his other wrist to stop him scrubbing at his face like that, all mean and fast. He tries to ignore the way his fingers are curled lightly around Max’s scent glands, and how Max leaves his arms limp in Daniel’s grip, even though he’s just as strong and could easily break the hold.

Daniel can’t bear it anymore. He tugs gently on Max’s wrists, and Max resists for a long moment, getting out a choked “You– you can’t–” before he’s collapsing into Daniel’s arms. Daniel spares a second to hope that Max locked the door when he came in, can’t imagine a Renault employee catching them like this, or, worse, Cyril, before his attention is totally consumed.

“You–!” Max gets out, angry, held in Daniel’s arms, his own coming up to hit at Daniel’s chest weakly, much more weakly than Daniel knows he’s capable of, like an overwhelmed child. “You cannot just–”

“I know, Max,” Daniel tells him, not a coo but still painfully gentle. “I know. I miss you, you know? Don’t make me miss you when you’re right here.”

It’s Thursday, and media duties don’t start for another hour, so Daniel lets Max twist in his arms and get it all out. To be honest, he thinks he’d let Max do what he had to do even if today was Friday and FP1 was looming on the horizon.

The first time Max wrenches a little, body twisting away, Daniel slackens his hold to let him leave if he wants and Max makes a wretched little noise. Daniel tightens his hold and revels in the way Max slumps into him. They do this over and over, until eventually, Max slumps for the last time, his face tucked into Daniel’s neck, wet cheeks hot with frustration. It’s absurdly soothing to get to care for Max like this, filling some pit in his stomach. It’s equally as painful to know that Daniel caused this in some way, and worse still to know that it was a decision he would make again.

“You text me like I am a stranger,” Max gets out, the words muffled against Daniel’s skin where the team polo doesn’t cover, and Daniel closes his eyes for a second, mad at himself.

It’s true. The messages Daniel had sent after the news broke had been stiff, uncomfortable, trying not to beg Max to text him back and somehow ending up on the wrong side of impersonal. The last one had been before Australia – Good luck today. Like he was texting Nico, or Checo. He’d wanted to send something else, like come to Perth after, please, just for a day, but he’d chickened out.

Now, he wonders if Max would have said yes, would have broken that stony, hurt silence. Probably not, but still.

Max has always retreated into himself when he’s actually hurt, not just mad, and it’s one of his worst traits. Daniel wonders what it says about him that he can’t even bring himself to be irritated about it.

“I’m sorry, Max,” Daniel tells him, because he can’t apologize for any of the rest of it but he can apologize for that. He had to go, but he never intended to leave Max. “We’ll start again, okay?” He feels desperate, suddenly. “We’ll do this all over again and we’ll get it right this time. Maybe– how about FIFA tomorrow? Huh?”

Max has bent himself into Daniel’s grip like he’s shorter than Daniel again, like it’s three years ago. He’s crammed his face into Daniel’s shoulder and is breathing hot, shuddery breaths against his scent gland. “Okay,” he says. That’s it. Okay.

For Max, it’s a lot. Daniel can read it, the subscript on his tangled relationship with English, the way he speaks when he’s feeling vulnerable.

“Okay,” Daniel repeats.

Okay.

Daniel’s headed back to Renault hospitality later that day after media duties and crosses paths with Charles on his way through the paddock. For some inexplicable reason, Charles gives him a terrible attempt at a wink (mostly closing both eyes) and pretends to flip his hair over his shoulder.

It’s at that moment that Daniel recalls that the name across the top of the text conversation had been damn leclerc and curses the fact that he now owes the man a drink or two. It’s impossible to tell if his goal had been to distract Max for the weekend or to help them, but still. Daniel owes him for the sweet press of Max’s cheek to his shirt, before Max had plucked at the fabric with two fingers and made a disgusted noise about the colour.

Daniel has a life. He has a life and friends and family, and he is thankful for the opportunity to drive crazy fast cars and feel his heart beat in his ears like he’s flying, even when the car is shit and the team is shit and it makes him feel like shit. But it’s still momentous to have Max back. He’d told the truth, after all – he wanted to keep Max, even when he wanted to leave Red Bull behind. He wanted to keep Max a terrifying amount.

McLaren is good and bad. Daniel revels in the win, but Lando is their golden boy, their chosen one, treated with an almost prophetic reverence combined with the deep fondness of a team completely committed to their driver. Daniel’s an outsider even as one of them, and he doesn’t mind so much, doesn’t need them to love him, but it’s still hard.

Daniel can feel his mental health slipping, can feel his grin getting more and more forced.

Lando is so young, a baby alpha with a crippling sense of self-doubt hidden under a frat boy persona. They get along, but it isn’t the same as it was with Max.

Nothing is like it was with Max.

Between races, Daniel finds himself scrolling on sites he has no business being on. They’re all directed at alphas, with guidelines on omega-friendly fabrics, furnishings, how to install blackout curtains and where to move your bed in a room. It is absurd. It is, unfortunately, holding Daniel’s brain in a chokehold at the moment, thinking of his Monaco apartment and the time Max spends in it. How he could make it so Max spends more time in it.

Sure, Max might not be an omega, but he likes softer fabrics, dimmer light, a gentle room. It makes him relax, even though he’d never ask for it himself. And those years ago, Michael and Jake cornering Daniel, throwing around words like ‘courting,’ well – this isn’t that. This is just– being a good friend. Making his space comfortable for Max, because even as a beta, he’s sensitive.

Not that Daniel is doing this for Max.

And if he looks up couch fabrics that are resistant to cat-scratching, so what? So what? That could mean anything.

It could mean anything, just like the little stashes of black licorice Daniel doesn’t like and yogurt-covered blueberry granola bars he doesn’t eat that appear in his kitchen could mean anything.

Anything at all, except for what it does.

It takes a long time for Max to come over to the Monaco apartment again, in the aftermath of Daniel leaving, even though they used to spend hours there. Max does eventually come, though, especially because they live in the same building – he’ll drop by sometimes after a run, pink all over, sweet and soft on Daniel’s couch, wiggling himself into the cushions like he doesn’t realize he’s grinding his scent into the fibres. If Daniel presses his face to them after Max leaves to go shower, that’s his business.

Sometimes they watch movies together, Max rubbing his hands over the pillows rhythmically, mindlessly. He likes the softest ones the best, the specialty ones Daniel spent ages agonizing over. When Max goes to get a glass of water, he trails his fingers over Daniel’s hand towels, silly Australia-themed ones Max got for him years ago, hanging over the oven door handle. Everywhere, Max’s scent hangs – embedded into the apartment, thin wisps of pith and blandness that Daniel finds himself unaccountably fond of, because it’s Max.

When Max is grumpy, irritated, he’ll let himself into Daniel’s apartment with the key they exchanged for emergencies years ago, already complaining and throw himself onto the plush carpet in front of the TV, lying on his back and gesticulating angrily at the ceiling, wriggling indignantly. He doesn’t seem to notice that the carpet gets plusher the third time he does this, although the time spent on it does increase.

Max falls asleep on his couch one afternoon, a furrow between his brows, having arrived looking tense after ‘a phone call’ (read: Jos called), and Daniel draws the blackout curtains and watches the furrow soften as Max sleeps. He wakes him an hour later, and they go for a run together, the Monaco sunshine kind and warm on the backs of their necks.

Daniel’s accountant calls him to confirm that all the home-decoration orders aren’t fraud. Daniel confirms, and does not provide an explanation.

Max sleeps over rarely. It usually just happens, after he’s baited Daniel into one too many games of FIFA where Daniel loses badly, and Max is feeling a little too sleepy to trudge two floors down and Daniel is feeling a little too much like a pushover to make him.

Daniel loans him clothes to wear to bed in the guest room a few times, trying not to look too closely at the way they stretch over Max’s broader shoulders, his thick thighs. Trying not to note the colours that go well with his complexion, the thin, pale skin on the undersides of his wrists. An English rose, Daniel’s mother would say, even though Max is neither English nor a rose, unless you count his thorns.

Daniel releases his next merch in shades of pale blue and pink, washed-out and soft, in carefully chosen fabrics he annoys his production team over, getting them to send him samples so he can worry them obsessively between his fingers. He keeps a size up of his favourites in the closet, even though he already has ones he’s wearing for promotion. They sit in an unmarked box.

He hates how much more his Monaco apartment feels like home with all these little things done, his alpha purring in contentment. The next time he goes on a date, they don’t go back to his apartment. They don’t go back to hers, either, actually. He has a perfectly nice dinner and they have a chat along the beach and she smiles at him gently, with a little bit of pity, when he stammers out an explanation at the end of the night and she says, It’s okay, I could tell.

Tell what? he keeps himself from asking.

Michael doesn't mention the new decoration, which is more restraint than Daniel had expected, quite frankly. He does, however, look at Daniel straight-on, more seriously than he has since Daniel told him over the kitchen counter after a workout one morning, not making eye contact, that he was going to leave Red Bull. Michael looks at him, and says, “Just be careful, okay?”

Daniel is starting to really hate that word.

McLaren has Daniel and Lando do a bunch of media together, and after the first year, they thaw out and find themselves something like friends. It’s surprisingly nice to have a teammate he has a connection with again. Lando is practically twelve, still a baby alpha trying to get used to it all, but he’s funny and easy to tease and Daniel can see past the bravado to where he’s got a horribly soft little core, all self-doubt and anxiety.

He looks to Daniel for how an alpha acts in the paddock whether he wants to admit it or not, and it makes Daniel more conscious of how he interacts with people, trying to set a good example. He doesn’t know that he’s particularly good at it, but there’s something to be said for watching Lando greet Greta, the omega woman who works in PR, with a little slight dip of his head, and Greta smiling back at his manners.

It’s a little like watching a toddler in a suit and tie, but still. It’s something to focus on that isn’t the way McLaren holds Lando as their own little il predestinato. Daniel is pretty sure some of the staff have an altar to the guy in one of the MTC bathrooms.

During the breaks, Daniel doesn’t go over to Max’s apartment a lot. It’s a little bare, a little cold, only made lived-in by the massive sim rig that dominates the corner of the living room, the gaming consoles next to the couch, and the lithe bodies of Jimmy and Sassy winding through the chair legs.

After a while, Max begins to bring Jimmy and Sassy with him to Daniel’s apartment. Daniel’s always asking about them, even though he doesn't know that much about cats, because he knows they’re important to Max. Max has apparently taken this as Daniel having an interest in them, and shows up with the two of them one day outside his door, Sassy tucked under his left arm and Jimmy under his right.

He’s wearing a backpack filled with that imported beer he likes, and Daniel lets him in without mentioning the existence of things like cat carriers. It’s only two floors, after all.

They watch a movie that Max has seen before, and he explains the entire thing to Daniel as it’s playing, hand sketching expansive gestures in the air. Sassy occasionally bats at Max’s hands, steadfastly ignoring Daniel to her right, but Jimmy curls up next to Daniel’s leg, small, warm body pressed to his thigh, right where the ship crashes through the water inked on his skin. Daniel hardly breathes for fear of dislodging him.

Max keeps winning.

Daniel comes back to Red Bull.

He expects it to feel like losing, like giving up, to become third driver after so long fighting for his seat on the grid. But to be honest— he’s just kind of relieved.

When Max gets the news, he shows up at Daniel’s Monaco apartment with a bottle of wine, the nice kind Daniel knows he must have asked someone about, because his taste in wine is terrible. He’s flushed with excitement, like Daniel isn’t technically being demoted, dragging his sorry ass back home like a sadder version of the prodigal son.

“The team will be so happy to see you,” Max tells him, pink with wine on his couch, sounding genuine. He had briefly skated over the difficulty of being third driver rather than having a proper seat, but blown completely over it to gush — as much as Max gushes about anything — about how much the garage has missed Daniel.

Daniel can’t even bring himself to be irritated that Max isn’t acknowledging the complex feelings associated with the move, because Max just seems so excited. He keeps trying to reel himself in, but he’s a couple of glasses of wine deep, and seems unable to. He keeps listing to the side, into Daniel.

Daniel lets him. “Yeah,” he says, “I’ll be happy to see them too.” I’ll be happy to see you.

Listen. Daniel’s not an idiot.

He’s thought about it – isn’t sure if Max is maybe transdynamic, or has hormone dysregulation, given the way he acts, but Max looks like he wants to die anytime anyone gets within five feet of the topic of secondary gender, and Daniel– well.

He realizes he doesn’t really care what Max is, as long as he’s Max. It is a nauseatingly sappy realization.

The Thursday before the Japanese GP, Max shows up to the plane looking green.

“Mate, are you okay?” Daniel asks, because Max is somehow both the shade of kale and also incredibly pale.

Max makes a noise of agreement and waves Daniel off, making his way up the stairs. Of course he would be late to his own private jet taking off. “Bad fish,” he says. “Should not have left it in the fridge that long. Stupid.”

Meaning: Brad made him fish and Max skipped it because he doesn’t like fish that much, and then realized a few days too late that he should probably eat it, and forced it down without wondering why it tasted a little off.

“Oh, Max,” Daniel says, commiserating. Max just makes a semi-pathetic face at him and collapses into the seat next to Daniel. “You look like you’ve thrown up.”

“A lot,” Max mutters into Daniel’s shoulder. “Have not been able to keep anything down for 24 hours.”

“You gonna be okay for Suzuka?” Daniel asks doubtfully.

Max gives him a thumbs up, face still in Daniel’s sweater.

Max is sweaty and exhausted the entire flight, and Daniel should really find it gross. Instead, he wipes Max’s face with one of the fancy face wipes Charles has stocked the plane with for when he joins AirMax (and what gives him that confidence, Daniel doesn’t know – they’ve always been weird about each other, Max and Charles) and cajoles Max into drinking water, allowing himself this because Max is unwell.

Max falls asleep against Daniel about fifteen minutes in, whole body going lax, and he slides from Daniel’s shoulder to his lap in the space of two breaths. Daniel finds himself with a lapful of Max, and no idea what to do about it. It’s not like he’s going to wake Max up.

At one point, without permission from his brain, he finds his hands in Max’s hair, which is sticking up in every direction. It should be a bit gross, with how sweaty Max has been, but it’s Max. It’s like Daniel is gross-proof when it comes to Max.

Besides, Max makes a little unconscious humming noise in the back of his throat, pleased, when Daniel cards his hands through his hair. He smells like his usual musty, sour scent, if fainter than usual, and something else underneath that, along with his blasted 3-in-1 shampoo/body wash/conditioner and the face wash he’s used since he was eighteen, when Daniel recommended it (i.e. left it in his washbag one day because god knows he looked like he needed the help).

Max’s head is heavy against Daniel’s thigh. Daniel manages to fall asleep without meaning to, hand still in Max’s hair.

True to form, Brad doses Max with a bunch of electrolytes and weird algae-immune-boosting stuff, and Max musters himself enough for free practice on Friday. He looks a lot better, and Daniel envies his ability to snap back from sickness like that, muscling through it. Sometimes it really backfires on Max, his effort to constantly work through pain, but sometimes it pays off. Like now.

Daniel just keeps a water bottle in Max’s hand and watches him carefully.

Max is glorious on the Suzuka track. He moves like he’s part of the car, like he’s sunken into his seat enough that he’s actually fused with the engine, the brakes, every gear and button and piece of carbon fibre.

Still, despite his truly beautiful race, it doesn’t really hit Daniel that Max isn’t a teenager anymore, young and lanky, face round with baby fat, until after the grand prix.

Daniel hugs him in the garage, of course he does, Max won, and Max is sticky and sweet-smelling with champagne, grinning hard, the planes of his face angular and sharp somehow in an adult way. His mouth is plush and red, and his shoulders are broad under his sweat and champagne soaked fireproofs, the material melded to the curves of his muscle. His— god, Daniel is trying really hard not to notice this, but his chest, which has always been a little softer on him than most beta men, is a gentle curve under his shirt, just a little sweet rise.

Daniel lets him go, abruptly feeling himself flush.

“Daniel,” Max says, his name, always saying his name so much, and grins wide. His hair is falling over his eyes, dark with sweat, and Daniel has the insane urge to lick his shining cheek and see if it’s salty or sweet. He’s even redder than he normally is, whole body pink, so warm that Daniel can see a drop of sweat trace his jaw, roll down his flushed neck.

“Maxy,” he says in return, knowing his voice is hopelessly besotted even as he says it. But Max’s smile gets deeper, truer, and he leans in to bump his head to Daniel’s shoulder in a sweet little movement, dragging that shining cheek along Daniel’s team shirt, so quick no one could possibly notice. To Daniel, it feels like it lasts an eternity.

“Come out with me tonight,” Max tells him, like what he just did was completely normal between bros. Like Daniel wouldn’t be out there with him anyways. “Let’s go clubbing.”

It’s a mirror of what Daniel said to him all those years ago in the hotel corridor. It’s not lost on him. He says yes despite himself.

Chapter Text

Daniel has been told he has a good scent. Strong, earthy, hot like metal in the sun. A little cut of eucalyptus, soothing. A lot of people have told him that it’s attractive.

So when he hesitates over the scent blocker, he lets his hand drop away. He’s been wearing scent blockers around Max since Michael had that intervention before he left Red Bull, even though he doesn’t normally wear them a whole lot. The paddock stinks of sweat and gasoline anyways, so the FIA mostly doesn’t give a shit unless something gets drastic.

But he thinks of Max smearing his cheek across Daniel’s shoulder, like some clumsy, impulsive scenting, and doesn’t put them on. Instead he adds the tiniest dab of a smoky cologne, something people have told him complements his scent, and undoes a frankly slutty amount of buttons. His neck is open and bare, and he knows his shirt will shift around to expose part of his shoulder, too, over the night.

He puts on a pair of tight jeans that make his ass look great, and tells himself this is how he usually dresses for a night out. It’s not a lie, but it’s not as true as he wants it to be.

Max is in a white t-shirt that looks like it was painted onto him and a pair of jeans that make his ass look fantastic. Daniel wants to lick his chest until the fabric goes translucent.

He reins that thought in real quick and tries to be a normal human being when Max drags him into the elevator.

It’s stifling in there, filled with Max’s bland scent and Daniel’s thick, heady one. Max’s scent has grown on Daniel over the years, and honestly, at this point, Max could smell like a garbage tip and Daniel would still be slavering over him. It’s not unpleasant, just off a little, and Daniel’s fine with that.

More than fine, actually, because Max seems to be wearing the tiniest amount of some kind of cologne that is making Daniel’s mouth water. It’s got a clean, sharp edge to it like lemon, and something baser like engine grease. That’s all Daniel can catch without shoving his face into Max’s neck or wrist (wherever he’s applied it, and god, Daniel needs to stop thinking about that right now) and he’s sure as hell not doing that. Tonight, at least.

The doors open to the lobby and Daniel nearly bolts.

They’re sharing a cab, though, so that’s useless, and Max keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye.

“How d’you feel, winner boy?” Daniel asks in the cab, leaning back against the seat and rolling his head lazily to grin at Max.

“Still sticky,” Max says with an adorable frown. “I feel much more sticky than I usually do.”

“That’ll happen,” Daniel says, which is really just a nonsense response, because he’s distracted by just how pink Max’s lips are in the low light of the backseat.

Before he has the chance to say anything else stupid, though, the cab is pulling up to the club Charles of all people had chosen, and they’re getting out.

It’s filled with drivers and their assorted people, along with a multitude of others attracted by the chaos and excitement of a Grand Prix weekend. Daniel can see Lando across the room, flushed and a few drinks in already, a more sober-seeming Oscar tucked behind him, looking bored but fond. The other drivers are in here too, he knows, hidden in the crowd.

The throng of people jostles them as they head to the bar, and Daniel finds himself with a hand low on Max’s back to steady him, the fabric of his shirt already damp with sweat, Daniel’s fingers slipping against it until his palm is nestled up against the curve of Max’s lower back. It feels absurd to have his hand on that secret little dip, and Daniel doesn’t know when he became the kind of guy to lose his mind over a back.

He also tries to ignore the way Max seems to push back into his hand as he leans against the bar counter, ass canted back a little as Daniel tries desperately not to stare. He swallows, mouth unaccountably dry, and orders himself some sake. Before Max can ask, Daniel follows up with an order of jack and coke — Max is a picky drinker, preferring one of his expensive imported beers or a plain jack and coke unless another driver is daring him to take a shot.

The bartender slides it across with a wink to Max, and Daniel smiles stiffly in thanks. Max, oblivious, is taking a long sip, already turning his back to the bar. Daniel becomes suddenly aware that they’re pressed close together, the crowd pushing Daniel into Max’s front, where his shirt is already beginning to go a bit translucent with sweat in the hot, heavy air of the club. The lights play across the sharp angles of his face, his plush mouth.

Someone shoves past Daniel, jostling him forward, making one of his hands, unbidden, find Max’s hip for stability, soft under the squeeze of his fingers. Daniel’s mouth is dry. He takes a sip of sake to cover whatever look is on his face.

“Daniel,” Max says, looking at him.

“Maxy,” Daniel says back, torn out of him. “Let’s go dance.”

Daniel remembers what Max was like at clubs years ago, seventeen and illegal in many of the places they raced at, not yet good at holding his liquor, awkward and unsettled in his own body. Daniel remembers looking at him, painfully fond, that body that relaxed immediately into the car, braced for every curve like it was second nature, becoming all stiff and blocky under the lights.

Max is different now, stiffness worn down a bit by years of this, along with Lando forcing him into dancing time and time again when they were both plastered, grinding to the pounding music until Daniel and Carlos came to collect their respective responsibilities.

Now, he’s a warm body in front of Daniel, still not a natural the way Daniel has always taken to club dancing, but a burning heat against Daniel’s front nonetheless. His head is thrown back, the shining column of his neck exposed, making Daniel’s jaw ache, aware he must stink right now, alpha scent intense and smoky. Whatever cologne Max is wearing is stronger now, sticking in Daniel’s nose, making him want to press his face to Max’s neck and lick up the line of his throat, taste the sweat and see if there’s still traces of champagne under it.

Max grinds back in a move he’s surely not aware is as dirty as it is, and he makes a little noise as he does it, too breathy to be a moan but not nearly far enough from it to keep a bolt of heat from running down Daniel’s spine. People press up close to Max’s front, congratulating him, and Daniel resists the insane urge to snap at them.

Max shines, like the gold of a trophy. Like he’s gilted, picked out in silver thread, carved out of something precious. Daniel doesn’t know what to do here — he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Daniel has never, not once in the entire time he’s known Max, been normal about him. But he’s keenly aware that the things he wants are the things an alpha wants from an omega. The things he wants, and the way he wants them, involve a complicated dance of hormones, and he doesn’t want to— to ruin Max. To want him too much in ways he can’t give. Or, worse, to want him so badly that it would be obvious how desperate he is. He knows, terribly, that Max would allow him to smother him with behaviors an omega would find comforting and a beta stifling.

He would let Daniel bite him even though it wouldn’t give him the instinctual thrum of pleasure it would give an omega. It would hurt. Daniel would hurt him.

And Max, he’s almost sure, would let him.

Daniel’s whole jaw aches acutely with the urge to sink his teeth into the pale stretch of skin. The thought sends a bucket of ice water down the back of his neck, so strong that it takes him aback for a second, makes him shake his head, down his sake, and be a coward.

Daniel pulls away as the song ends, shakes his empty glass at Max as an excuse, and heads to the bar. Max’s eyes burn a hole into his back as he goes.

He manages to order from the same bartender, who looks disappointed at Max’s absence, before he turns back to look for Max in the crowd where he left him.

He makes eye contact, but then the next thing Daniel knows, Max is being pulled into the throng, disappearing even as he seems to turn back to look for Daniel. Overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of his feelings, Daniel finds himself trying his utter best to fight the thing that seems to still pull him to Max after all these years, so he lets him go.

Max’s face pops up in the crowd a few times, but people are surrounding him to congratulate his win, and when Daniel gives him an it’s okay wave, he seems, oddly, disappointed but allows himself to be tugged into the circle of celebration.

Pierre finds Daniel then and Daniel lets himself get dragged off in the opposite direction, lets Pierre pick him out some ghastly (ha) concoction, and eventually finds himself surrounded by fluid French, Pierre to his right with Charles draped over his side, dressed in the most chaotically patterned, semi-slutty shirt Daniel has ever seen (which is saying something) and Esteban looking uncomfortable to his left. They’re all speaking in French, because Daniel’s apparently been zoned out for the last five minutes. The glass in his hand is cold, though, and he suspects Pierre topped him up.

“I am going to go,” Esteban says, in English probably for Daniel’s benefit, raising his half-empty drink and nodding toward the exit. “I–” he thinks for a second, then seems to give up on making up an excuse. He just shrugs, and Pierre nods in understanding, shoos him off with what looks like a bit of relief.

Carlos joins them just as Esteban heads out, and Charles moves like a lizard switching from one rock to another to sunbathe, pressing even closer to Carlos than he had to Pierre, forming a Charles-shaped growth at Carlos’ side. Carlos seems impossibly fond, wrapping an arm around him to bring him closer.

“And how is Danny boy today, hmm?” Pierre asks, grinning, turning to Daniel now that he’s free of his Monegasque parasite.

Carlos echoes it, grinning too.

“Fuck off,” Daniel says automatically to Pierre, and turns to Carlos. “How’s your tumor over there?”

“A beautiful tumor!” Pierre proclaims, butting in, and Carlos makes a noise of agreement, pressing a kiss to the top of Charles’ absurdly coiffed hair. Charles smiles dopily up at Carlos.

“What is up with him?” Daniel asks, because Charles is a bit more– pliable than he usually is. The clinginess isn’t new, though.

“He– how you say, pregamed? With a bottle of very good tequila while I got ready.” Carlos looks pleased.

It’s not unusual, exactly, for there to be grid relationships or for alphas and betas and even alphas and alphas paired up, but Carlos and Charles, and Pierre and Yuki are all painfully open about it among the grid. It makes something in Daniel’s teeth ache, and he doesn’t want to examine why. The relationships are, of course, kept only to the knowledge of the grid and their closest.

Charles is a slim alpha who always has people who don’t know him mistaking him for an omega, and the way he tucks himself under Carlos’ arm, a fellow alpha, doesn’t help. Pierre is a beta, partnered with Yuki, an alpha.

“Very good tequila,” Charles asserts, then leans his head against Carlos again.

Daniel doesn’t know why he says it, but he does, turning to Pierre as Carlos and Charles bend toward each other, in their own little world. “How does it work? With an alpha and a beta?”

Pierre raises an eyebrow. “You need me to explain the mechanics of it to you, Ricciardo?”

Daniel doesn’t flush, because he just doesn’t. He’s said and done far filthier things with a straight face. “No, of course not. I just meant– hormones and everything. Since you’re not an omega.”

Daniel’s had relationships, obviously. They just tend to be omegas, and none of them have ever felt this— intense.

“Well, I let him satisfy his instincts without encouraging them,” Pierre says. “It has never really been a problem. He does not have the urge to treat me like an omega. Why would he? His body recognizes me as a beta, and is fine with that.”

“So he doesn’t try to– like. Take care of you? Keep you– warm and safe?”

“Aside from a normal, conscious amount? No, I do not believe so.” Pierre frowns at him, and then turns to look for Yuki, who must be here somewhere. He raises a hand in beckoning, and sure enough, Yuki appears, hard to see in the crowd with how short he is but apparently perfectly capable of seeing Pierre at all times.

“What?” Yuki demands, characteristically blunt, but he belies it with a soft scenting gesture against Pierre’s wrist.

“Daniel is asking if your alpha instincts want you to treat me as an omega, mon amour.”

“No,” Yuki says, frowning. “Of course not. My instincts know him as he is. Pierre is a beta–” he says this with a tone that implies that is immediately followed up with and perfect as one, though Yuki would rather die than say that aloud, “And my body knows this.”

“So you don’t, like. Try to give him your jacket constantly, or anything?” Daniel is aware he is perhaps saying too much.

Yuki frowns harder, somehow. “If he is being an idiot and going outside without one, yes, but that’s not instinct. That’s just common sense.”

“He doesn’t make your alpha go crazy?” Daniel is aware he’s seemingly progressively crazier.

“No, Ricciardo, I have said this,” Yuki tells him shortly. He seems to be torn between being offended, protective of his relationship, and thinking Daniel is an idiot. “He makes my alpha calmer. He is– mine.”

Here, he flushes a bit and looks away. Pierre looks delighted, and tugs him closer, under his arm, until they’re pressed close together.

“Why all the questions about alphas and–” Pierre starts, before he stops abruptly. “Betas. Oh. Oh.”

Fuck.

“No,” Daniel says, pointing a finger at Pierre. It only makes the man’s grin worse.

“Danny,” Pierre says saucily, looking deeply mischievous. “Is this about–”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, because Lando appears out of the crowd and yanks Daniel’s arm, tugging him forward with a breathless, “Max needs you.”

Daniel goes immediately.

Lando takes him to a bathroom on the second floor of the club, one of the fancy VIP ones that they have to flash their wristbands to get past, the guard waving them through. Lando drags him down the hallway, but just before he opens the door, he turns to Daniel and tells him, “Some alpha girl tried to bite him. Like on the throat. I don’t know why, he’s a beta for god’s sake, but it really freaked him out. I don’t blame him. Super– what’s it called? Violining?”

“Violating,” Daniel supplies, around the angry growl rising in his throat.

“Yeah, that. He’s with Oscar, but to be honest, I think Osc is kind of freaked at how freaked Max is, and he was asking for you, so.”

“Oscar was asking for me?” Daniel is a little bit drunk, and a lot confused.

“No, you muppet,” Lando glares. “Max was asking for you. He’s really upset.”

Lando turns to open the door, then, before hesitating and swinging back around. His baby alpha scent has matured over the years, and he smells like an adult now, though Daniel will always think of him as a kind of younger sibling. It rises, now, until it’s a strong scent between them, rubber and alder tree and a note of oranges.

“Listen, mate, he’s really messed up. If I didn’t know you like I know you, I wouldn’t let you in right now. But I just– I know you’re like, weird about Max. Whatever. We all have our stuff, I guess. It’s just– he needs you right now and he’s super fucking vulnerable. So. Just be careful.” Lando’s expression is uncharacteristically serious, and Daniel, as much as he balks at the disguised threat, appreciates the strength of Lando’s friendship.

For all that he’s a hyperactive gamer kid, Lando can be serious when he needs to be. Underneath all the weird gremlin energy, he’s deeply loyal and steadfast.

Daniel feels abruptly glad that they’re friends. “I just want to help. Promise.”

Still, the echo of be careful from another year, another club, another driver, makes him a bit nauseous. He pushes it down, and pushes open the door.

Max is curled on the floor in a corner, and an extremely awkward-looking Oscar is crouched in front of him with his hands out. Max isn’t even looking at him, head buried in his knees.

“Max,” Daniel says, and Max’s head flies up.

His eyes are glassy with tears and alcohol. “Daniel?” he asks, like he needs the reassurance.

“Yeah, Max, I’m here,” Daniel answers softly, and gestures to Oscar that it’s okay for him to head out. The Aussie looks deeply relieved, and leaves, shutting the door behind him. The rustle of feet that’s audible over the pounding music assures Daniel that Lando will make sure no one interrupts them.

Club bathroom floors are gross as all get out, and this one can’t be that different even though it’s a nice club and a private bathroom, but Daniel kneels down anyway to be eye level with Max.

“Daniel,” Max says, almost a whimper, and Daniel doesn’t know what to do. Max is curled tight into the corner, and the last thing Daniel wants to do is drag him out of a place he feels safe, but all his instincts are screaming to get Max out of this bathroom, out of this club, into a hotel room where he can properly look after him.

He reaches out a hand and Max just stares at him with big, wet eyes. He doesn’t seem more distressed, though, so Daniel finishes the motion, cupping the side of Max’s face.

Immediately, Max turns his head into his palm, nose pressed to his wrist, and his hands come up to hang onto Daniel. He seems insensate, almost non verbal, and his distress is a sharp, acrid scent, like burned lemon peel, way stronger than Daniel’s ever smelled it. Max’s usual distress-scent is like old basement, something musty and a little moldy, but this is different. It’s like a soured version of that cologne he was wearing earlier.

Daniel tries his best to keep his scent even, make his pheromones comforting, even though as a beta, Max’s nose isn’t strong enough for pheromones to make that much of a difference. Still, it seems to affect him, and he lists forward a little until Daniel has to scramble to catch him. Max’s arms come up around his shoulders, and Max switches his nose from Daniel’s wrist to his neck, pressing the entirety of his face to the crook of it, uncaring of the sweat on Daniel’s skin. Daniel suppresses a shiver at the intimacy of it, Max’s nose pressed to the scent gland on his neck.

If it helped Max, he’d take his whole skin off and hand it over. (He pushes that thought to the back of his mind and chooses not to examine how it reeks of adoration and fever-strong devotion.)

Max has almost collapsed into Daniel’s arms at this point, so he wraps his arms around him to take more of his weight.

“Maxy, how about we head back for the night? Huh?” Daniel asks, hoping Max is there enough to hear him.

“Het spijt me,” Max mumbles, nonsense for a moment until Daniel recognizes the familiar shape of Dutch. He can’t understand it, but the tone is clear — apologetic.

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, and makes a decision. Max is curled up like a pill bug, except for where his arms are gripping Daniel’s shoulders, so Daniel sweeps an arm under his bent knees and gets him into a princess hold. He waits for a second to see if Max will protest, but he doesn’t, so Daniel heaves them both off the floor — dreading what Michael will say if he ever finds out, core screaming — and makes his way to the door. He can’t knock with both his hands holding Max up, and Max actively trying to press closer to Daniel, so he kicks the door twice until it creaks open and Lando’s face appears in the gap.

“What’s the update?” he asks, looking at Max with a furrowed brow. He doesn’t say anything about the princess carry, doesn’t make a joke about it all, and Daniel feels absurdly grateful. Lando has grown up a lot, and it shows.

“We’re going back to the hotel,” Daniel says, and Lando’s face makes an expression he can’t quite read.

“Max should probably get some sleep,” Lando says, slowly, like he’s actually saying something else. “He’s had a… rough night.”

Daniel feels himself frown in confusion. Seeing Max in distress sobered him up significantly, but his brain’s still a little muddled. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Figured I’d let him get settled in his hotel room and maybe stay on his couch if he wants, once he’s feeling more like himself. I’ll call Brad and let him know, too.”

Lando’s face relaxes for some reason. “Good plan. Couch, and everything. Max kicks in his sleep.”

Daniel’s face spasms. “How do you know that?”

Lando shrugs. “You know how I like to nap. Just so happened that the couch Max was sleeping on before Silverstone was the only available surface — remember, they closed the paddock for a day due to ‘nonspecific threats?’ Couldn’t get to my driver’s room. He said it was fine, so we squeezed on. But oh man does he kick. Didn’t last.”

“Oh.” Daniel doesn’t really know what to say to that. “Well. We should get going.”

Max’s breath is hot on his neck, and he seems to have tried to barnacle himself on. It’s pretty effective. Daniel’s alpha hindbrain feels insane with the need to protect, and even having Max this vulnerable in front of Lando, a friend to both of them but still another alpha, is making him want to growl. Which is stupid, and he won’t be doing it, but still. It would be a lot easier to control if they weren’t in the doorway of a club bathroom.

Daniel repeats their need to get going when Lando just lurks there awkwardly, and Lando snaps into action, obligingly roping Oscar into making sure they have a clear path out the back entrance and calling them a discreet car to pick them up quickly enough that the chance of someone getting an ill-timed photograph is negligible.

Daniel finds himself in the backseat with Max still curled in his lap. “Maxy,” he says, and Max lets out a little breath, just the hint of a whine. “Maxy, I have to get you buckled in.”

Max’s fingers are twisted into the back of Daniel’s shirt. He’s probably pulling the fabric out of shape. Daniel doesn’t give a shit.

“Maxy,” he tries again, and Max digs his face into Daniel’s shoulder harder. Daniel sighs. The driver is determinedly looking straight through the windshield and leaving them their privacy.

Fuck it, he decides. They both drive crazy fast cars for a living, and it would clearly do more harm than good at this point to pry Max off of himself. Daniel musters himself enough to tell the driver the address and that they’re good to go.

Daniel manages to get Max walking at least through the lobby, because his back can’t take much more carrying (although god knows his alpha says it can) but it’s a slow, lopsided walk, Max putting all of his body weight against Daniel’s side. He looks drunk off his ass, unable to put one foot in front of the other. Daniel basically hauls him into the elevator and past prying eyes, waving off people’s concerns with an easy smile that he doesn’t feel.

He ends up digging Max’s keycard out of his pants when the man refuses to cooperate, both hands fisted in the front of Daniel’s shirt at this point. It’s a shockingly intimate action, Daniel screwing his hand down into Max’s front pocket, trying to be as quick as possible. Max tilts his hips into the motion in a way Daniel has to ignore for his sanity.

When they finally get into Max’s room, Daniel pauses.

Max’s bed is— well.

The duvet and all of the extra blankets, plus any loose pillows in the suite (and it’s a luxury hotel, so there’s a lot of pillows) are piled in the center of the bed. It’s an extremely weird arrangement, like a pillow fort a child would make.

It also looks like something someone else would make, but Max is a beta. What would he be making a nest for?

Daniel gets Max onto the bed with some difficulty, because Max is basically attached to him at this point. Daniel only gets him to lie down by basically bending down overtop of him, so he’s propped up on his hands looking down, Max’s hands still fisted in his shirt.

That’s the angle it takes for Daniel to see Max’s neck.

Max has had his head buried in Daniel’s own neck, so Daniel hasn’t been able to see his. Now, though, hovered above him, Daniel can see a red mark on the side of Max’s neck. Right over his scent gland.

Daniel’s vision goes red.

Before he can stop himself, he’s shifting his weight to one hand and pressing his palm to Max’s neck, covering the mark. Max is flushed and glassy-eyed beneath him, mouth pink and slack and open.

Max turns his head to the side, pressing into Daniel’s hand. That smell is back, the one Daniel could smell in the elevator, the intoxicating cologne.

Except it isn’t a cologne, he’s realizing. It’s Max’s scent.

It’s a blooming kind of scent with Daniel’s broad palm held against his scent gland, sharp lemon and tart red currant and the warm, base smell of engine grease. It’s thick and inviting.

Daniel realizes he’s inhaling deeply, pulling air over the roof of his mouth, nose working. God. Why does Max smell like this? Why is it so good?

This doesn’t make any sense. People’s scents don’t change like this. And Max’s— there’s something else to it, something Daniel just can’t quite put a name to.

He summons enough will to pull his hand slightly away from Max’s neck, other arm screaming as if supports his whole body, and sees that some of the red has transferred to his own skin.

Oh. It’s lipstick. Tried to bite him, Lando had said. Not succeeded.

Before he realizes how intimate it will be, Daniel is swiping a thumb over the mark — also directly over Max’s scent gland — and wiping it away. It comes off under the pressure, leaving just pink, clean skin. Daniel feels the almost irresistible urge to lick it just to make sure, and barely keeps himself restrained.

Max is whining under him. Daniel lurches back in mild horror at how he’s positioned himself, almost holding Max down, even though Max himself had pulled him into that position. The motion is enough to break the hold of one of Max’s hands, but the other remains anchored in Daniel’s shirt.

Daniel is breathing heavily, he realizes.

The distance seems to be enough to give Max some clarity, though, because he manages to speak properly for the first time in a while.

“Hot,” he pants, eyes locked on Daniel. “Why is it so hot? Heet. Heiß. Turn the hot down. Daniel.”

He nearly whimpers the last word, and Daniel risks putting a hand on his forehead, only now realizing just how overheated Max looks. Max whines at the movement, and his free hand presses Daniel’s closer. It’s probably cool against his flushed skin.

Max definitely has a fever. Fuck.

Combined with how he’s acting, there could be something seriously wrong. Daniel hasn’t been entirely sure what’s going on here — a breakdown? But it becomes clear to him that they need a medical professional here. They need a doctor.

He digs his hand into his pocket, thankful he’s managed to hang onto his phone thus far, and calls Christian.

Christian is a little cranky on the phone until he realizes that A) it’s about Max, his precious golden boy and also a kid that he’s kind of treated like his kid for the last few years, and B) Daniel is genuinely freaking out.

He promises there’ll be a doctor there in thirty minutes and tells Daniel that he’ll be there in twenty, then hangs up.

Max is squirming in his little pillow fort, like he can’t get comfortable. He’s red-faced and sweating, the gleam of it along the bridge of his nose and high on his cheekbones. He keeps pulling blankets around him until he’s built up more little walls, a tiny fortress to protect himself.

“Daniel,” he whimpers, and Daniel can’t do anything but sit on the outside of the blanket walls and keep his hand on Max’s forehead.

He– Max clearly wants him closer. But he’s sick, not thinking clearly, and Daniel doesn’t want to do anything that will make him uncomfortable later, when he’s in his right mind.

Christian knocks on the door five minutes early, and when Daniel goes to pull away, Max makes a horrible noise, some pained keening, and Daniel finds he just can’t. He can’t move if it makes Max sound like that.

Luckily, it seems Christian was just knocking as a courtesy, and has acquired a keycard, because he lets himself in a second later. When he steps into the room, his head jerks back and he blinks once, twice, like he’s processing something.

“Daniel…” he says, very slowly. “Did you have a visitor over? Did Max?”

“No,” Daniel says, confused. Max gets protective over his hotel room before a race, doesn’t like anyone in it except Daniel and Brad, and they’d been together after the race. No one has been in here except housekeeping, and they wear industrial-strength blockers to avoid leaving scents behind.

Actually, housekeeping might not have even come in, because the do-not-disturb sign is discarded on one of the tables, and Max’s bed had been a right sight when Daniel had opened the door.

Christian looks troubled. “Okay,” he says, not like he doesn’t believe Daniel, but like there’s something going on that Daniel is missing completely. “Doc should be here in a minute.”

He steps closer, but Max scrambles back a little, not fearful but definitely nervous. “No,” he mumbles, “Not in.”

Daniel doesn’t get it, but Christian stays obligingly a few feet away from the bed. He’s looking at the scene with a critical eye.

“You said he had a fever,” Christian says, and Daniel confirms. “Has he thrown up or anything? Any flu symptoms?”

“Just the fever. He threw up a few days ago, but that was on Wednesday, and it was food poisoning. He seemed totally fine after Brad got to him with those weird waters.”

“Okay.” Christian’s face sets oddly, then, like he’s about to ask something he doesn’t want to ask. “Max,” he says, and it’s gentle, as gentle as Christian ever gets, “Do you want me to call your father?”

There’s a pungent flash of rotting citrus in the air, immediate and strong. Daniel, out of instinct, presses his body closer against the blanket wall.

Max turns his face into the bedding, and Daniel tries to take his hand away to respect his space even though his body screams at him, but Max somehow gets an iron grip on his wrist and keeps him there, at an awkward, smushed angle. Daniel lets it happen.

Max mumbles something into the sheets.

“Maxy,” Daniel murmurs, bending down so it’s soft in the space between their faces, “What do you want right now? You can always change your mind later.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Max’s face turns back upward a little. One eye is visible, creased like he’s in pain. There’s a long, long moment, and then he finally says, quiet but clear, “No.”

Daniel doesn't ask him if he’s sure. He just turns to Christian and shakes his head, conveying the message.

Christian is still standing by the door, and Daniel can recognize the soothing, calming pheromones he’s releasing, like a pack alpha to a pup or an omega. It’s– weird. But Max is melting a little into the bed, like it’s relaxing.

Something niggles at the back of Daniel’s mind, but he just can’t put his finger on it.

There’s a knock at the door then, and Christian steps back to let Brad in. He looks anxious, but Christian keeps him back when Max makes his little rumble noise again. They bend their heads together and confer quietly for a moment until there’s another knock, and Christian moves again, this time to let the doctor in.

She’s a severe-looking woman, hair scraped into a tight, dark braid at the back of her head, wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and pressed grey slacks. Her sensible, expensive-looking loafers make no noise on the room carpet.

When she steps in, she frowns at whatever she can apparently scent in the air, and then recovers enough to introduce herself. “I am Dr. Lia Pakar. What seems to be the matter?”

Max growls when she steps forward again, and Daniel finds himself matching it in a similar timbre rumble, subconsciously aligning himself with Max and turning his body so he’s slightly in front of him.

Dr. Pakar frowns at them. “Well. At least tell me what hormone medications Mr. Verstappen is on.” She pauses, then peers closer at the bed. When she speaks next, her voice is louder and crisply dictated. “Mr. Verstappen, do you consent to medical discussion in the presence of Christian Horner and–” she squints for a moment at Brad, and then at Daniel, and then continues, as if she’d briefly forgotten their names even though she’s an FIA doctor, “Bradley Scanes and Daniel Ricciardo?”

Max is currently rubbing his face into Daniel’s hand, long, slow movements against the place where his palm meets his wrist. Daniel is feeling kind of insane. He still jostles Max’s face with his hand a bit, trying to get the man to listen.

“Maxy, hey,” he whispers, because speaking normally seems too loud for where Max is at right now. “D’you want me and Christian and Brad to leave? It’s okay if you do.”

Max opens his eyes at that and digs his nails into Daniel’s arm. “No,” he hisses, fervent, eyes intent on Daniel’s face. Then he scrunches his face, waving a hand at Dr. Pakar. “They can know anything,” he mumbles in her direction, “They’ll know now or later.” His tone is– terribly resigned.

Daniel winces, rotating his arm a little so Max doesn’t let go but does take his nails out of Daniel’s flesh. “Got it, sweetheart,” he says, and immediately wants to punch himself. Sweetheart?

Max lets out a deep rumble in his chest in response and closes his eyes again.

Well, fuck. That is not going to dissuade Daniel from doing it again in the future.

Dr. Pakar is watching with a sharp eye. “What hormone medications is Mr. Verstappen on?” she asks again, this time to the room at large.

Brad speaks up. “None, really. The FIA only mandates managing medications for alphas. And omegas, I suppose. Max is a beta, so he’s only on the regular nutrient regimen, because there’s no need to balance his hormones.”

Dr. Pakar’s mouth slants downward a little. She already knows all of the regulations, and they all know it. “Is he seen regularly by an endocrinologist?”

“No?” Brad looks confused. “Again, endocrinologists are only standard for the alphas on the grid. Betas don’t require the same level of hormone monitoring.”

“When was the last time Mr. Verstappen saw an endocrinologist?”

Brad is beginning to look frustrated. Daniel and Christian are just watching, confused. “Uh… a long while ago. Monitoring isn’t mandated, and his father stated during contract negotiations that Max goes to a private endocrinologist. I don’t know the name, though.”

Daniel gets a bad feeling in his stomach. A bad, bad feeling.

“But you’ve never heard anything about this endocrinologist?” he asks Brad, who shakes his head.

“No. I always assumed if anything relevant came up, it would be relayed to me. God knows Jos makes sure any race-relevant things always come to the team so we can ‘do our job properly.’” Brad makes finger quotes. They’re all aware it’s something that’s been shouted at him by Jos, especially when he won’t disclose private information about Max to Jos. Will Max immediately tell his father? Sure, but that isn’t the point. He at least deserves the chance for privacy.

Daniel swallows around his suddenly dry throat. “So you think there’s something wrong with his hormones?”

“Think? Yes. Know? No.” Dr. Pakar tilts her head. “If you could kindly inform Mr. Verstappen I will be approaching.”

It’s phrased as a question but said as a statement.

Daniel doesn’t know what good that’ll do, but he obligingly bends his head and murmurs, “Doc’s gotta come closer, okay, Max? She’s here to make you feel better.”

Max has been largely non-verbal thus far, unsettlingly so. Daniel doesn’t know what to do about it, but right now, he seems lucid, one suspicious eye appearing against the sheets and then both as he turns his face outward to watch Dr. Pakar.

“Hot,” he mumbles, and Daniel’s heart pangs.

“Yeah, we know. We know.” He nods at Dr. Pakar, and she approaches, Max’s gaze trained on her the entire time.

“Mr. Verstappen, I am going to put my hands on your throat,” she informs him, calm, even as Max erupts into growling, lips drawing back from his teeth. “I will be wearing gloves and Mr. Ricciardo–” here, her eyes soften a little, and she backs up, “Daniel will be right here. Okay?”

Max shifts uncomfortably, still curled like a cooked shrimp, and shuffles until he’s curled up against the blanket wall, Daniel on the other side, practically lying sideways on the bed at this point. Then he mutters, barely audible, scratchy and painful-sounding, “Get it over with.”

True to her word, Dr. Pakar snaps on a pair of thick-looking latex gloves and reaches for Max’s neck.

Daniel suppresses his own growl. He doesn’t know why, aside from the fact that Max looks absurdly vulnerable right now.

Dr. Pakar gives him a calming look, like he’s an anxious tiger at the zoo, and probes Max’s scent glands. She gets to both sides, perfunctory but thorough, Max wincing the entire time. When his face gets a little too close to looking teary with pain, Daniel reaches for her hands and she withdraws them before he can tell her to stop.

Her face is serious when she steps back and peels her gloves off. She sighs, and walks back to Christian.

Whatever she says to him, very quiet, makes Christian's face spasm in shock. Brad, listening in, makes a choked noise.

She turns to Daniel, then, approaching the bed again and stopping a foot away, as Max’s growls dictate. “Mr. Verstappen, I need to inform you that, given all appearances, you are an omega.”

That’s it. Simple, clear, like she isn’t dropping a bomb on the room.

Daniel feels all the blood drain from his face, and abruptly feels lightheaded.

All he feels in the next second is his body sliding off the bed and the air rushing around him and the impact of the hotel carpeting.

Chapter Text

Daniel wakes up to a light rumble filling the room, and the cajoling tones of Dr. Pakar.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” she’s saying, calming, “Just a shock.”

Daniel blinks, and the rumbling briefly stops.

“Wake up,” hisses an irritated voice in his ear. “You fainted.”

“I did not faint,” Daniel denies, barely conscious but ready to argue.

“I cannot believe you fainted,” the voice continues, and Daniel presses his head harder into the warm, soft surface he’s lying on and insists, “I did not faint.”

“Mr. Ricciardo, you did indeed faint. Mr. Verstappen caught you before you could hit your head. Now, can we move on with the next medical steps that need undertaking?” Dr. Pakar sounds slightly exasperated.

Daniel opens his eyes to find Max leaning over him, pupils still blown and face still beet-red, but laser-focused on him, his arm under Daniel’s head where he’d kept him from hitting the floor.

“I’m good, Maxy,” Daniel mumbles, blindly patting Max’s other arm and letting Max manhandle him into the blanket fort, settling him against the inside edge and then immediately boxing him in with his warm body, like he’s trying to trap Daniel. Daniel, for his part, doesn’t exactly mind. He feels more than sees Max rub his cheek against the top of his head.

Dr. Pakar clears her throat. “Back to the subject at hand: Mr. Verstappen is an omega. He is currently experiencing a stress heat.”

Daniel feels himself go lightheaded again, and Max shakes him.

“Don’t you dare,” Max hisses, and Daniel finds himself curving his whole body around Max, pressing him into the mattress in a way he'd apologize for if it weren’t for the fact that Max immediately relaxes under the weight.

Dr. Pakar continues, “Mr. Verstappen, do you continue to give your consent for me to share medical information with the individuals present?”

Max sinks a little further under Daniel’s weight and squeezes his eyes shut hard for a second, before opening them and saying, clear and lucid, “Yes.”

Dr Pakar nods. “Noted. I will need to take a blood sample to confirm your current hormone status and get you stabilized.”

Things move quickly after that. Dr. Pakar is allowed to approach as long as Daniel tells Max beforehand, takes the blood, and disappears. She’d apparently come fully prepared.

Daniel offers to leave at one point, aware of how screwy instincts can be, and Max’s hand clenches on his arm before forcibly relaxing. He turns his head away and mumbles that it’s fine, Daniel can leave if he wants to, but Daniel feels everything in his body screaming at him to stay, and what’s more, everything in Max’s body screaming at him to stay, so he does.

The next ten hours pass in a haze. Dr. Pakar reappears and explains some things, avoids other topics, and Christian is darting in and out, weirdly focused on Max’s hotel minifridge, and Daniel is just entirely preoccupied by trying to get water and food into Max.

Someone delivers a pack of bottled water and a box of the granola bars that Brad approves of and Max likes. Daniel spends a lot of time breaking off pieces of the bars to hand feed to Max. It’s– something that’s good for omega regulation. Hand feeding. Daniel can’t think about it too hard or else he’ll combust.

Honestly, having Max pressed to him, hot and plush and craving Daniel’s touch, is a lot to handle. But he’s clearly uncomfortable and stressed, and all Daniel really wants to do is make him as comfortable as possible, so he focuses on wiping Max’s forehead down with a cool cloth and warning people off from Max’s– nest when he’s asleep.

That’s what it is, isn’t it? A nest.

An amateur and uncertain one, obviously, a bit slapdash, but still. A nest.

Max is soft and wanting – this is a stress heat, not a mating heat, so all he wants is contact and reassurance, an alpha’s scent and an alpha’s presence. Daniel tries not to feel smug about the fact that despite this, he’s the only alpha Max will let near. Dr. Pakar says it’s because he’s familiar with Daniel, and Daniel feels safe – Max’s instincts are on overdrive, failing to categorize even people he knows as ones that won’t hurt him.

It’s hard not to read into that, knowing Max. Knowing that he probably doesn’t know that they won’t hurt him.

Jos doesn’t appear at any time, and Max doesn’t ask for him. It’s weird, actually, because Daniel would have expected the man to come barreling in, welcome or not, but he’s conspicuously absent.

There’s a rotating cast of Red Bull people outside the door, from what Daniel can smell – he knows at least GP, Brad, and Christian, and recognizes some of Max’s pit crew and Laura, Max’s Red Bull PA (a position unofficially named ‘Max-Wrangler’). Most of them are alphas, and it makes Daniel relax a little to know they’re out there, protecting Max, even though Max himself can’t seem to scent them. He can’t seem to scent much at all, actually, nose barely better than a beta, but maybe that’s to be expected this early on.

Even if he can’t smell others that well, Max’s own scent pours out, lemon and spice and engine grease and tart red currants. Daniel tries not to note how compatible their scents are, tries to ignore how the earthy, base notes of his own hot-metal smell and the sharp undercurrent of eucalyptus match Max’s tones so nicely.

Max keeps his nose pressed to Daniel’s neck for hours, face warm, sweaty, slipping against the curve of Daniel’s shoulder, chin dug into the dip of his collarbone. His open mouth smears across Daniel’s skin, hot puffs of air against the places he’s made damp with spit.

Daniel’s alpha feels insane. He wants to pin Max to the bed, remembering how much he liked Daniel’s weight on his, and rub his scent everywhere. Lick up the column of his throat, over his scent glands, the salt of his skin. Push up that sweat-soaked t-shirt he’s cajoled Max into keeping on in some attempt to keep Max from getting too mad at Daniel for letting him cuddle him, and put his mouth to his soft pectorals, the sweaty dip between them. Suck bruises and press loving bites into the softness at his waist that no amount of conditioning ever seems to get rid of. Press handprints into the meat of his thighs.

He wants. Doesn’t even necessarily want to fuck Max (though jesus christ he also does want that), just wants to get his scent everywhere, bragging invisibly that Daniel is the alpha Max chose, that Daniel is trusted and safe, that Daniel is Max’s. That maybe Max is Daniel’s, too.

Daniel’s lap is full of Max, and their shirts are sticking together, and Max is making incoherent sounds into his skin. Brad and some PT he’s roped in are laying cold cloths on the back of Max’s neck while he whines in protest. Daniel’s brain is spinning.

This goes on for nearly ten hours.

Daniel almost loses his mind.

Eventually, Dr. Pakar arrives again with a legion of specialists. It’s at this point that Daniel gets kicked out.

Max has come back to himself somewhat, and clearly remembered the declaration of omega to some of the people closest to him. It’s made him shrink into himself, away from everyone, even Daniel. He’s curled up, away from Daniel, his clothes slowly drying, crunchy with sweat. He smells like bad limoncello, like when Daniel’s dad made some but included far too much pith. Bitter, acrid.

It’s painful to watch, but when Daniel asks if Max wants him to stay, Max doesn’t say yes. So he leaves.

He doesn’t want to, all his instincts screaming at him, but– Max has the right to his privacy.

So Daniel goes to the hotel gym and runs on the treadmill until he can’t see straight and Michael is stopping him and he has to collapse, exhausted, into his bed, where he dreams of fire and smoke.

Max is tall these days, broad-shouldered and solid. He’s the picture of a healthy beta driver, if a little softer around the edges than some of the other drivers are. He’s grown into some of his angular features, his big pink mouth, his blue eyes.

But Daniel remembers when Max was younger. When he was still spotty-faced and tripping over his own feet like a colt, desperate enough for the win that he was gnawing at the bit even when blood was dripping down his chin.

Max, always at his shoulder, his back, always one half-step behind, following Daniel everywhere. Hanging onto his every word, making jokes and instantly looking to see if Daniel had laughed, not even trying to hide it. Maybe not even knowing how.

The thing is– it was hero worship. That’s all. Surely there were other people he looked at like that before Daniel. Surely there were other people whose shoulders his hands lingered on, whose bodies his eyes followed in dark clubs and the paddock alike. Surely his sweet supplication to Daniel organizing his driver’s room and bullying him into sweaters and adding sugar to his coffee was something he’d given to other people and would again.

Surely he had in the past, because otherwise Daniel can’t take it.

But surely he won’t again – because Daniel can’t take that either.

Daniel’s not a big poetry guy, but his mother is always sending him things, little messages, when she knows he’s feeling particularly down. The last few years have been– somewhat awful, and she knew it. Was one of the few that did.

One of them had been by some guy named e. e. cummings – a name Daniel is a little ashamed to admit he laughed at, and also doesn’t understand why it’s all lowercase – and it’s one of the only poems he knows. Even then, only in bits and pieces.

Mostly he remembers it because it reminds him so much of Max: i fear no fate, for you are my fate. Daniel feared his fate, once. He still kind of does.

He feared it so much in 2018 that he left Red Bull and everything he knew and loved behind; he doesn’t necessarily regret the move, but he doesn’t quite know if he’d do it again. He doesn’t know what he’d do instead, though.

But here he is, back at Red Bull. Back behind Max.

He’s a driver – he’ll always go for the gap. But if his fate is one with Max, in whatever shape that takes, maybe it isn’t so bad. Maybe his fate is Max. Behind him, in front of him – mostly beside him, hopefully.

Maybe it always has been.

It takes a few days for Dr. Pakar to sort everything out, and Max doesn’t appear outside his hotel room after the specialists leave.

Won’t open the door to anyone, not Daniel, not Christian.

Not his father.

Daniel doesn’t know what to do. He finds out the rest of the story soon enough – Max, dear Max, bland-scented beta Max, is an omega.

He’s always been an omega. The whole thing unfolds in a horribly plausible manner.

Max had presented when he was almost eleven, early, on the karting circuit. On the road with Jos Verstappen. Jos had told him it was the flu, and together with an endocrinologist he was old friends with, figured out an illegal suppressant dosage that would keep Max’s scent mild and his heats nonexistent.

Jos had been dosing Max daily for over a decade through his smoothies.

Brad knew that Max wasn’t taking any hormone medications, but he brought up the smoothies — the only thing Max ingests that he doesn’t know the contents of — to Dr. Pakar, who had them tested. Official records are being filed as they speak.

Max had gotten sick before Suzuka, throwing up, unable to keep anything down, including his smoothies, and the attempted bite at the club (probably due to his increased pheromone output in addition, of course, to an asshole of an alpha) in combination with the fact that his body had already started fighting back against the chemicals – here, Dr. Pakar throws a significant look at Daniel that he doesn’t fully understand – meant that he’d entered a stress heat, worsened by the fact that Max didn’t know what was going on, hadn’t had a heat in over a decade, and still had suppressants in his system fighting his natural hormones.

“There is only a certain amount of time you can suppress someone’s nature,” Dr. Pakar says to Daniel, looking uncharacteristically sympathetic, “Especially in the face of a compatible mate.”

“A compatible–?” Daniel manages, and Dr. Pakar gives him an are-you-an-idiot look.

“Fuck,” he says, very softly and very meaningfully.

Daniel finds out an hour after it’s happened that Jos Verstappen and Christian Horner got in a fistfight in the hallway of the hotel they’re all still trapped in. (Lucky the next race isn’t for two weekends, in the US.)

Apparently, Christian had told Jos he was banned, and Jos had broken his nose. He’d been escorted out and banned from all Red Bull Racing territories.

When Daniel finds Christian, the man still has an ice pack on his face. He’s eating alone in one of the hotel’s private lounges, avoiding the ice.

“Daniel,” he greets, like he didn’t punch Jos Verstappen in the face after the man did the same to him. Daniel really doubts he regrets it. “Good to see you. Gone to see Max yet?”

“No,” Daniel admits, sitting when Christian gestures at the other seat. He doesn’t quite know why he’s here, aside from the fact that Michael and Scotty don’t quite seem like the right audience for his questions.

Christian sighs, and lowers the ice pack. His nose has clearly been reset and his face cleaned, but it’s all still a painful-looking red. “Look. There are– implications to what has happened. Max being an omega means that we’re going to have to do a lot of wrangling of the FIA and the media. This’ll come out somehow, and right now the only choice we have is how we handle that. Of course, we won’t do anything without Max.”

“So you’re not invoking the clause in his contract?” Daniel asks. He’s aware this is a lot of information about their star driver to be sharing with him, the third. But Christian knows just how close they are, and Daniel is ravenous for any information about Max.

Christian gives him a look, and it reminds Daniel of all the times he’s seen Christian put himself between Max and Jos, all the time he’s held himself to his full alpha height, done everything but bare his teeth at threats to Max.

Max is Christian’s golden boy, yes. But Daniel is also keenly aware that even past that, even past the shine and the money Max brings to Red Bull, Christian has developed an odd sort of paternal instinct towards him over the years.

Christian has been much more of a father to Max than Jos has, and maybe that isn’t saying a lot, considering Jos, but still. Still. It means something.

“Dynamic discrimination is illegal,” Christian says, as if that means anything – businesses have always found ways to get around the laws when it comes to keeping omegas out. There’s a reason why the highest an omega has ever gotten in the Formula series is F2, and even then, only as a replacement driver.

But F1 Academy is filled with women and omegas both, and Susie Wolff, woman and omega both, has been doing her damndest to try to fix motorsport’s issue with dynamic and gender discrimination.

“This is his world,” Daniel says, because it’s all he can think of to say. This is Max’s everything.

“I know,” Christian says. “This is going to take a lot, but if Max wants to stick with us for the rest of the season – and hopefully beyond – we will stick with him. In the meantime, I’d suggest you pay him a visit.”

“He isn’t letting anyone in right now.” Daniel knows Christian knows this. Everyone knows this. The best they’ve gotten is Brad shoving meals and water through the cracked door.

“Daniel, Max has an attachment to you that is so strong that, with a little help, it broke through over a decade of chemical dosing. Whatever you two are to each other, and trust me, I don’t want to know, it’s significant. At the end of the day, you and I both know that you’ve been his alpha for a long time.” Christian levels him with a Look. “Go take care of him. And don’t make me kick your ass.”

Daniel goes.

Because he’s apparently gone off the deep end, Daniel stops to collect things first. He sends Michael out for bars of that incredibly dark chocolate Max likes, the ethically-made ones with the thick squares, dotted with large crystals of sea salt, and digs out a bag of those gross Dutch black licorice beagle-shaped candies he’d picked up three races ago and kept in his bag for a rainy day. Then he grabs the shirt and shorts he’d worn to sleep last night, trying not to second guess himself, and promises big bucks to the receptionist if she can acquire one of those giant, soft nesting blankets that every omega likes as a base to their nest.

She has it at his hotel door in a half hour, and he gives her a wad of cash in thanks for her speed and discretion.

Bundling it all up makes him feel a little ridiculous, especially because Michael has truly given in and accepted this as inevitable.

“You know what, hormones aside, I guess our only complaint back then was that you weren’t doing it right. If you’re doing it right, then, well. Alright.” Michael just helps Daniel bundle all of his stuff in his arms.

“This is— this is just helping out,” Daniel protests, and Michael just claps him on the shoulder and shakes his head.

Max yells “Go away!” as soon as he hears the knock.

The last time Daniel tried to ask him if he needed anything was more than 12 hours ago, and Max had just denied needing anything at all in an incredibly shaky voice. Now, though, things seem different.

As soon as he heard Daniel’s voice asking to be let in, there’s a lurching noise and the lock unclicks.

Max’s face, red and shiny and exhausted, appears in the doorway. “Why?”

“You look kind of a right mess, mate. Two pairs of hands are better than one, right? Just want to help.” Daniel wants to smack himself. Who tells a fresh-out-of-heat omega that they look like a mess?

Max’s eyes narrow. “Help how?”

“Thought I could bring you some snacks and you might like another set of hands for your nest building. Helped my sis make hers when I was a pup, so while I’m not, like, an expert or anything, I can be helpful. Promise!” Daniel smiles, hoping to diffuse the tension.

Luckily, Max’s face has relaxed a little, like that was the right answer. Daniel doesn’t know what the wrong answer would be, but he’s glad he didn’t give it.

Max lets him in.

Chapter Text

Max’s room is a mess.

His bed is bare, empty, just the mattress. Everything else has been pushed off the sides, and the entire room smells of sweat and that burned-lemon-peel smell that Daniel now knows is Max’s actual distress-scent.

“No nest?” he asks, lightly. The one they’d been in a few days ago was hasty, amateur, but it was built out of need and instinct. Daniel had curled around Max in it, held him close while Dr. Pakar took his blood, fed him bites of granola bars.

To see it destroyed – which is clearly what happened – is kind of heart-wrenching.

Max is evidently on the tail end of his heat, flushed but not insensate anymore. It’s a stress heat, not a regular one, so there were no mating instincts, just the desire to be close and safe and held. He’d denied himself that, that much is clear, after he’d kicked Daniel out.

Daniel is torn between wishing he hadn’t left and knowing he didn’t want to violate Max’s boundaries.

“No nest,” Max repeats, looking drawn and pale under his red cheeks. He seems exhausted.

“Why?”

Max looks away, at the floor, where there are some granola crumbs ground into the carpet. “I don’t– I’m a beta. You know I’m a beta. Everyone does.”

Daniel can read between the lines of that. Max is always denying himself; everything that doesn’t go towards racing is discarded.

Daniel is pretty sure he is the only thing Max has ever kept past its usefulness.

Of course he would dismantle his nest like it would change what was happening, alter the story. Like he could tough this out too, deny himself into being a beta.

“I know you,” Daniel says. “And I think a lot of omega things brought you comfort. That’s what’s important to me, Max – that you’re comfortable. Whatever that looks like. Stop thinking about what other people think they know, okay? I know that a nest looks a hell of a lot more comfortable than a bare mattress, and I think we should do something about that.”

Max doesn’t look convinced.

“You want cuddles?” Daniel asks. “I’d like cuddles.” He waggles his eyebrows, knowing that’ll at least chip away at the tense fix of Max’s shoulders.

Max presses his lips together like that will disguise the open desire in his eyes.

“Much more comfortable in a nest.” His tone is cajoling, sweetly convincing. "You know, your scent is pretty fucking fantastic right now. I haven't been sleeping, but that might help me drop off."

That’s what does it, because Max runs a frustrated hand through his sweat-spiky hair and says, “Fine, if you want it so bad,” grudgingly, as if he doesn’t look eager under the false exasperation.

Daniel did actually help his sister make her nest when he was a pup, but he’s not all that good at it. Luckily he doesn’t have to be – just hands over the big soft blanket he brought with him, willing his face not to go red, and lets Max lay it out as a base and then build on it. Daniel gives a little bit of commentary at the beginning, and then keeps putting more and more stuff on the bed, because Max will move it where he thinks it belongs anyway.

Max seems doubtful at the beginning, poking around at the various items he’s got scattered around the room. If Daniel’s gut is right, then Max has only ever built half-nests unconsciously, when he’s especially stressed, like the one that was in his room before. Before long, though, Max is back to being bossy the way Daniel is so fond of him, direct and blunt, sorting things out like he’s listening to some voice in his head he didn’t even really know he had.

He’s kind of adorably specific about it all, adjusting the pillows to be just so and the blankets to lie neatly, and Daniel moves around the bed to give the illusion of contributing, all the while being careful not to mess up anything Max has set up.

It’s a bit of a gamble, but Daniel takes his sleep shirt and shorts out of his bag, heavy with his scent ground into the fibers, and puts them on the floor on some of the other discarded materials. He’s not that presumptuous.

Then he moves around to a different side of the bed and pretends to be helping to tuck some blanket edges in.

Daniel watches out of the corner of his eye as Max moves around the edges of the nest, fixing the placement of things, until he turns back to the materials pile and sees Daniel’s clothes. There’s a moment of flexed hands, Max’s mouth dropping slightly open to inhale deeply, pull the scent over his soft palate, and then Max is grabbing them furtively, as if Daniel didn’t just clearly place those there for him if he wanted them.

Daniel pretends not to see as Max tucks them into the inside edge of the nest, under two pillows and wrapped in the corner of the big fluffy blanket.

It takes them the better part of an hour, but finally Max is just poking around, seemingly satisfied.

“Wanna try it out, Maxy?” Daniel asks, gesturing grandly at it. “Looks pretty comfortable.”

Max shoots him a dirty look but picks his way gingerly over the outer edge, until he’s lying flat on his back in the center of it. He looks like the world’s tensest starfish.

“This is not good,” Max says, and it’s clear what he means is this isn’t as good as the first one.

“Well, lie on your side, Max, rather than imitating rigor mortis,” Daniel laughs, watching, hands on his hips, inner alpha purring deeply at the sight of Max in his nest.

Max does so, tucking his head into the corner where he hid Daniel’s clothing, and his whole body shudders once, twice, before it relaxes. “Oh,” he says, in a very small voice. “I did not know–”

He stops there. “Daniel, you are not in the nest.”

“Alphas don’t get in unless invited by the omega,” Daniel explains, because he doesn’t actually know how much dynamic education Max has, especially on the road as he was. He doesn’t want to be patronizing, but it’s important that Max know that socially, he has protections as an omega. “Don’t wanna get in there and smear my scent around unless it’s wanted.”

One baleful eye becomes visible as Max raises his head. “What would an omega say if he wanted an alpha to get in his nest?”

Daniel swallows around the knot in his throat. He doesn’t know if it’s desire or a deep anger at Jos. “Uh, well, it depends a bit on the place and the language. In Australia, it’s usually you may enter, alpha.”

“You may enter, alpha,” Max says, testing out the words on his tongue, repeating the new phrase.

Daniel feels more than smells his pheromones flare, strong and potent in the face of a willing, available omega. They’re not salacious, or anything – just please-mine-safe-warm-safe, like little waving flags from his alpha.

He can see the pupil in Max’s one visible eye expand, black and huge. Max seems a little dazed, blinking slowly.

“Careful, Maxy,” Daniel laughs awkwardly, “A guy might think you mean it.”

“And if I do?”

Daniel looks at him, curled and lonely in his nest, clearly exhausted and overwhelmed but more lucid, more in his right mind. Max had pulled him into his nest on instinct a few days ago, terrified and confused and alone.

Now, he seems to be inviting him in clear-headed and intentional.

It feels momentous, even if Daniel is keenly aware that he’s probably just a convenient alpha to practice on now that Max is in his right mind, one that Max already feels safe with.

“Then I would be honoured,” Daniel says, softly, and when Max moves his hand over the pillow wall to hold out slightly, as though making a smaller gesture will make it hurt less if he’s rejected, Daniel takes his hand. It’s warm, a little sweaty, broad and rough with familiar callouses.

Daniel steps inside and curls himself in the available spot, gently tugging Max backward, giving him the option not to stay that close together, but Max takes it gladly. He turns around so his face is buried in Daniel’s sweatshirt, fingers twisted into the fabric of the kangaroo pocket.

“Better from the source?” Daniel asks into his hair. It’s forward, but he knows Max knows what he means – Daniel’s clothing is still in the crease of the nest where Max had been hiding his face.

“Good,” Max says after a long moment, like he’s still scared that this is all some elaborate joke. “It’s good.”

They sleep for a while. To be honest, Daniel is also exhausted, because the only way he’s been able to get any sleep without obsessing about how Max is doing is by working himself into oblivion, which isn’t exactly conducive to a well-rested body.

He wakes up eventually, because even his sleep deprivation isn’t as strong as the heat exhaustion Max is experiencing, and figures he better check his phone. Michael and Scotty have been fielding a lot for him, he knows, always hovering at the edge of the situation as though Daniel’s going to have a breakdown.

(Did he feel like he was going to have a breakdown? Maybe. Did he have one? Mostly not.)

Opening his phone is a fucking nightmare. He’s got a ridiculous amount of messages, mostly from Lando (aside from texting him that they’d gotten back to the hotel the night of the club, Daniel had forgotten to update him) and Lewis, oddly enough.

Lewis’ are— strange.

sir lewis: rumor has it max got a pretty big shock. let me know if I can do anything.

sir lewis: if it’s true, he’s not the first. fyi.

What the fuck, Lewis?

Daniel knows Lewis is aware of almost everything that happens on the grid, since the drivers form a very loose pack and Lewis is the pack alpha. Plus, he’s been here long enough and earned enough respect that people know if he’s asking questions it’s for a good reason and he’s not going to spread things around.

Lewis’ text is just vague enough not to give anything away, but also has some interesting implications.

“Hey, Max?” Daniel cranes his head back to look at Max, loathe to wake him up but needing to know.

“Ja?” Max mumbles, still half asleep. “Yes?”

“How much do you want the grid to know? Lando and Lewis and the others are kinda worried about you.” Understatement of the year.

Max buries his head further into the nest. “Can I not just ignore everything forever?”

“Unfortunately I suspect either you tell them or they find out.”

“Bah. Fine. Tell them. It doesn’t matter anyway now. Just please— tell them do not discuss it? With everyone?”

“Will do.” Daniel sends off a text to Lewis: not sure if im reading you right, but stop by and we’ll chat. rm 436. dont come if ur gonna be an asshole. He doesn't think Lewis will, but better to be upfront with it.

He ignores Lando. He’ll get to him, he just has to deal with Lewis for now.

Lewis knocks at the door about fifteen minutes later.

Apparently everyone at Red Bull being grounded has set off a chain of events where a bunch of the other drivers have ended up staying, too, especially because a few of them had planned on flying with Max on his jet.

News moves fast, so most of the grid knows that something has happened at Red Bull, even though they don’t necessarily know what. Daniel knows Checo is holed up somewhere in the hotel, video chatting with his wife and kids (hopefully).

Lewis looks the same as he always does — smooth skin, braids pulled back, expensive looking shirt-and-shorts set, even more expensive looking loose cardigan. There’s a furrow to his brow, and his scent is calming but concerned.

Daniel’s an alpha, but Lewis is the driver pack alpha. He tilts his head a little as both an invitation for Lewis to come in and as an acknowledgement of his position.

Lewis does, and the only sign that he notices the new information in the room is a strong blink as he must get hit in the face with Max’s omega scent, strong with stress heat. It’s blunted now by Daniel’s presence and the comfort of his nest, so that there’s just the earthy tone of engine grease and a lighter citrus tone above it.

“Max,” Lewis says in his measured tone. There’s a second of silence, and then he blinks slowly and tilts his head downward, not sideways, as an alpha does with respect to an omega.

Max is narrow-eyed, shoulders up around his ears, scooted back in his nest. “Lewis,” he returns, slow, defiant, like he’s afraid he’ll be scolded for not calling him Alpha now that he’s not a beta.

Daniel gestures at the chair in the corner, and Lewis sweeps himself into it. He looks as comfortable there as he does everywhere. “A surprise for everyone, I imagine?”

Daniel turns to Max for permission — they’d discussed how and if Max wanted to disclose information, and his decision had been for Daniel to explain it so he didn’t have to. Max nods, so Daniel launches into a brief explanation of the last two days.

Lewis nods thoughtfully at the end of it all, and looks to Max. He pulls his phone out, evidently calls someone, and raises the phone to his ear. Daniel can’t hear the other side, but Lewis says, into the phone, “Yeah, yeah. It’s what we talked about. You still okay with this, man?”

Whoever is on the other side must say yes, because Lewis passes the phone to Daniel and gestures for him to pass it to Max. He does so, and sees a glimpse of the contact info as it leaves his hand: seb.

Seb. As in– that Seb?

Daniel looks to Lewis, who raises an eyebrow at him.

In his nest, Max has curled around the phone and is speaking softly into it. He seems surprised at first, but then relaxes, speaking quiet German.

The pieces come together slowly for Daniel. Sebastian Vettel, famously silent on his dynamic, always assumed to be a beta.

Scent blocker has existed for a while. If he timed his heats right and was religious in his blocker application — as Daniel knows he was, always chalking it up to adherence to FIA guidelines, which was always a bit funny — he could pull it off.

It’s still an incredible realization, and a bit humbling. Oh, Daniel thinks.

This is going to be Max’s salvation.

Max has never been good at being the first. He needs something to strive for, a record to break, and he’s more than happy to do that — it’s what drives him.

But the first? No. No. He was happy to come and sweep the win from Daniel, to pull the championship from under Lewis’ feet, to go farther than his father ever did. But he needs someone to go against, someone to beat, someone to have done it first, if only so Max can do it better.

This seems huge and overwhelming for Max. If Seb did it first, well. Max can do it better.

Daniel’s biggest fear with all of this was that Max was just going to shrink into himself and disappear. That he’d go into hiding, run away, and that it would destroy him. Max has to race. It’s who he is, what keeps him going. Maybe one day he’ll be ready to retire, and then he’ll find other things to fill his life with, but it’s not time yet. There is still driving to do.

Max’s face sets over the phone call. Lewis is lounging in the chair, and Daniel isn’t even pretending to do anything but watch Max.

“Mate,” Lewis says, suddenly, when it seems like Max’s call is wrapping up. He looks up at Daniel, stood just in front of him, but it’s clear he’s not the submissive one here. “Be careful.”

And— fuck. Daniel is tired of hearing that. Sick of it.

But he looks at Lewis, handsome face set and serious, concern clear in both brown eyes, and can’t even be mad about it.

“Yeah,” he sighs instead. “I know.”

Max gets Daniel’s attention then by throwing a pillow at him. His aim is terrible, but it’s a big pillow.

Daniel comes to get the phone he’s holding out imperiously, but Max makes a little disgruntled noise in the back of his throat and Daniel obediently bends to pick up the pillow first. Honestly, this man.

Daniel exchanges the pillow for the phone, but is stopped from returning it by a hand wrapped around his wrist. When he looks, Max is looking up at him with big eyes, whispering a little. Daniel bends closer to hear.

“—said it was okay, which of course, does not mean it is still okay, I know.”

“Sorry, back up, what?”

Max’s eyes crease in irritation. “His sweater thing. I want it. Sebastian said— it helps.”

Daniel feels an irrational flare of jealousy, then immediately remembers that Max has been sleeping with his face shoved into Daniel’s pajamas. Yeah, okay. Wanting pack scents makes sense.

Daniel still got there first. It’s childish but true.

Also, anything that makes Max more comfortable, makes him go back to this, bright-eyed and demanding the way Daniel likes him, is worth it.

“I’ll ask, okay?” Daniel promises, and Max releases him.

Lewis had been watching the entire exchange with amusement. “He wants the cardigan, right?” he says as Daniel steps toward him. “Seb was always a burrower. Swear he had eighteen of Kimi’s shirts.”

“Yep, pretty much,” Daniel agrees, and Lewis shrugs out of it and hands it over. It’s one of his expensive designer ones — well, everything Lewis wears is expensive and designer — but he doesn’t seem upset about giving it up. He even swipes his wrists over the fabric for good measure a few times.

Daniel thinks about that reaction, and thinks about Sebastian Vettel. Yeah, checks out. Definitely would have bullied Lewis out of his stuff, even before he was the driver pack alpha.

Daniel ferries the sweater over, feeling kind of like a ridiculous four-feet courier, but Max makes a little happy rumble noise and takes it from his hands like he’s afraid it’ll be taken back, shoving it deep into the structure of his nest.

Lewis gives them a little two-fingered salute and steps toward the door. He stops with his hand just on the handle and looks over to them. “You guys’ve got this. Let me know if you need anything.”

Then he nods, like he’s punctuating his words, and leaves.

Chapter Text

MAX

Max always knew there was something off about himself.

Not just the way his dad talked, like he was halfway between a prodigy and a failure, halfway between the golden son and a weight on a back, given the genetics to succeed and faced with the reality that there was no option but to do so.

He loves racing. He loves it like breathing, like living, like– like the slip of engine oil on his fingers, the way they curl in gloves around the wheel, the pounding of his heart in his ears inside his helmet, the ache and stretch of his muscles like he’s being made anew every time he gets in the car.

He remembers learning about Prometheus in some book of Greek myths, one of the ones left at the race track that he’d picked up out of boredom on one leg or another of their constant road trips around the circuit. How the eagle ate Prometheus’s liver every new day, and it grew back. To Max, racing felt a little like that. It ate something out of the very core of you and you grew it back because you had to, all for the track, for the car, for the race. And then it came and hollowed you out again.

But for all of his skill – he’s good, and he knows he’s good – there has always been something off about Max. He saw it on his father’s face sometimes, and never more so than that summer when he turned eleven and sweat his guts out in the back of the van until he was dragged back to the Netherlands and into a doctor’s office, where the man greeted Jos like an old friend and Max was poked and prodded at and given shots until his temperature went down and every single person around him stopped smelling like a nauseating mix of scents.

Jos told Max he had the flu. Max never dared to talk back, to say that the flu didn’t make your nose go on overdrive, didn’t make your whole body light up with the need to be touched – not sexually, just hugged and cuddled and cared for. Didn’t make you pant for safety, in a way Max had long learned was not meant for him.

When Jos had started making Max smoothies after that, ones that made him feel a little nauseous, thick in his throat, made him lose half his new scenting ability, made him sneeze at his own scent, he’d ignored it. Listened when Jos half-assed an explanation about imbalanced hormones, accepted it. Accepted it when Jos didn’t mention his ‘hormone imbalance’ in contract negotiations or to the team doctor.

His mom wasn’t– he hadn’t seen her in a while, by that point. He wouldn’t see her for a while after, either. The next time she called, sounding frustrated that Jos apparently hadn’t been picking up, she’d tried to soften her voice to talk to Max, but he could tell she was stressed. He hadn’t wanted to add to it.

Besides, what did it matter? Max was a beta. That’s what his father told him. He was a beta.

He had to be.

As long as he could race, it didn’t matter anyway. He was what his father called him. He always had been. Max, named by Jos, described by him, always beholden to him the way the Biblical animals were to Adam once he’d named them. Owned.

And then there was Daniel.

Isn’t that Max’s whole life at this point? There was racing. There is racing. And then there was Daniel.

The point is this: he’s not surprised he’s an omega. He didn’t– know, per se, but he also didn’t not know. Christian and Dr. Pakar and Daniel all seem horrified that Jos has been dosing him with illegal suppressant for years, but to Max, it’s just another thing his father has done. This is how it goes. Max races, and Jos does anything at all to make that happen the way he thinks it is supposed to.

Max thinks about driving at nine years old at the track, in his kart, more familiar to him than a bed at that point, in the cold. How his fingers froze around the wheel, a chill seeping in through his gloves, bones aching. How Jos had to actually come over and pry his fingers off at the end of the session, having refused Max every time he begged to go inside where it was warm, until Max learned not to beg at all. Max’s fingers were fine, in the end – no frostbite, just stiffness and a pervasive chill down to his bones and pain, pain in his hands as he curled them under himself in the back of the van that night.

How are some drugged smoothies any different? There has always been pain, and Max has always lived through it. Omegas don’t race.

His mother doesn’t race anymore.

(He tries not to think about how she ended her career to raise him and Victoria. About how, maybe, it isn’t that omegas don’t race – it’s just that every single omega in Jos Verstappen’s path has had either the driver or the omega beaten out of them. Jos just happened to choose the latter to beat out of Max.)

But– Seb. Sebastian Vettel.

Golden-haired, smiling, calm. Wicked in the precursor to the car Max drives now.

Lewis, looking at Max, his dark eyes knowing. His cardigan warm in Max’s hands, saturated with his scent. The texts Max knows he’s been getting from everyone on the grid, even awkward ones from Carlos and Charles and Valterri Bottas, of all people. Pierre. Alex. Lando, yes, but also George, with the weight of the driver’s association behind him, and Logan, Yuki, the others all in the periphery. They don’t know the whole story, but their tone suggests that some things have spread through the gossip network. His phone is bright with them all, even though he can’t bring himself to open or reply to them.

Daniel’s clothes are woven into his nest, soft where Max has wormed his fingers into the fabric, with an undertone of hot metal, earthy and grounded like Max’s own scent, now that he can smell it. He never knew what he smelled like. Not really. He’d been too young to remember.

But he thinks about–

Seb, his voice soothing over the phone, his explanation matter-of-fact. You’re going to be just fine.

Christian, his hand heavy, his gaze solid. It’s all going to be okay, son.

Daniel, his sleep clothes buried in Max’s nest, his body warm around Max’s, his support unwavering and strong.

Max thinks the people who know him best in this world are Daniel and GP. He used to think his father did, until he realized that Jos only knew him when he was in the car. Jos only knew him as a driver.

The realization that that isn’t all Max is was a painful one, but long overdue. It still hasn’t reached his father.

It’s not so much that Max thought he couldn’t be an omega. He just didn’t think he could be. Somehow these are different things.

He remembers Daniel in the early days, his alpha scent soothing, his hands broad on Max’s shoulders, around his middle when they hugged. The alpha in that club, trying to put her teeth to his neck, the panic of it, the way Lando pulled him out of there, the way Daniel made everything better, Max’s face buried in his neck. The burning. The burning.

The feeling of Daniel’s gaze like a balm.

For a while, he’d thought that Charles would be an omega. They all kind of did, the kids at the karting tracks they’d haunted.

But when Charles presented, he presented alpha – all thick, hanging scent, the ragged edges to his face ones put there by an exhausting presentation rut, not a heat. All the older alphas who had been gearing up to give him traditional omega gifts, spurred on by Charles’ pretty face and long, slim legs, had rapidly given up and pretended they’d always known he’d be an alpha.

For Max, it had kind of felt like a blow to the stomach.

First there was Charles’ dad, always there, looking so proud, looking so worried. He’d made sure Charles was drinking enough water that first race back, smoothed his hand over his terrible haircut after his head popped out of his helmet, hugged him close with that tight grip that alphas found comforting from their pack head.

Max had always found that the sight of Charles’ dad soured something in the back of his throat that he didn’t want to examine, but it had been even worse then. His own father had grabbed him around the wrist with a grip just shy of too tight and dragged him off to debrief every single mistake Max had made before half the kids had even gotten out of their karts. Max knows that Charles thinks he was– whatever. That everyone thinks– whatever. About Max’s dad. But it was what it was.

And after Charles had presented, it was like he was trying visibly to be more mature. More adult. His gaze had turned from frustrated to pitying when he watched Max’s father corner him behind the tyre stacks and smack the back of his helmet like that would knock perfection into him. So Max had gotten meaner on track, meaner to Charles. Forced that pity to turn into anger.

After all, there was the second reason Charles’ alpha-ness hurt Max so much. And that was that if Charles had been an omega, at least there would have been an omega that stuck all the way through the rickety karts into the professional ones and then into the real single-seaters, the ones where the engine was a roaring, living thing trembling at your back. Regardless of what Max was or wasn’t, what he suspected he may or may not be, at least there would have been proof that his father was wrong. At least there would have been an omega there. (Another omega.)

But no. Charles was an alpha. And he’d haunt Max all the way to Formula 1, an embodiment of everything Max wasn’t.

But— Max isn’t five anymore. He isn’t thirteen. He isn’t seventeen, pale and pimply, his father’s grip bruising against his awkward shoulders, purple on the sharp bones there.

Max is twenty-six and he’s got his own contracts, his own money, and his own people. He’s got friends. Christian signed him for his own version of the Verstappen name, not his father’s.

Max is bigger than his father now. He doesn’t want to be afraid of him anymore.

Christian talked to him through the door before Daniel arrived, told him he’d cleared the entire hotel floor and been liberal with some NDAs; they’ve done everything possible to give Max time to process this. His voice was muffled, even more so than it should be by the wood, like there was something wrong with his nose. He told Max that he’s going to be okay. He told Max that Red Bull believes in him — Max Verstappen. Not Max the beta.

Throughout it all, he’d pumped warm, soothing pheromones through the crack in the door. Max hadn’t had a keen sense of smell in more than ten years. He knew, still, that his father never smelled like that.

And then Christian was getting up, grunting at his knees as he did so, and leaving. He stopped, though, just before he walked away, and said, “You should consider letting Daniel in, if you’d like.”

His tone suggested that he knew that Max would very much like to let Daniel in.

It felt a little like permission, and Max hated that it made him relax a bit.

Max has seen lots of alpha-omega pairs. He’s seen them walk the paddock, even, Ocon and that girl last year, for example, preened and proud and perfect. Paddock visitors, too. They look beautiful, usually, with soft hair and an arm around their alpha’s, sometimes an expensive-looking collar for the more traditional ones. Things are different than they were twenty years ago.

Omegas have equal rights. They have the right to race. They have the right to a lot of things.

But there have been no omegas in Formula 1. That fact remains, except for the fact that maybe, maybe that isn’t a fact at all— maybe Sebastian Vettel, World Champion, respected far and wide, with his gentle hands and his wicked driving and the admiration of all of his fellow drivers, was also an omega.

Max has always liked a challenge. He’s not used to thinking about himself in terms of things he can and cannot do — it has always been what he will do. What he must do.

Lewis’ We Race As One had included omegas, and he’d always been vocal in his support of F1 Academy. He’d sent Max the regulations about mandated omega support in F1, always hypothetical until now, actually, with a note that George had been a particular stickler with the FIA in order to keep the entire extent of the protections in. Daniel had seemed surprised but not disturbed to see Max, to smell him. For the first time in a decade, Max can smell himself.

He can smell Daniel, even.

Max is fast. He is strong. He can do this. (There has never been can or can’t — there is only must. Will. Need. He needs this. He will make it happen.) He’s always been different, and he can’t pretend this is easy, but if he’s still something Daniel likes, how bad can he be?

Of course he had let in Daniel when he’d knocked. In the end, how could he have done anything else?

Chapter Text

Lando apparently has had enough of being ignored by both Daniel and Max, and since he’s grounded too by virtue of being a MaxAir passenger, he appears at the door of Max’s hotel room the next morning.

Daniel is honestly surprised it took him this long.

He’s banging at the door when Daniel opens it, fresh off a night on the couch, catching Lando mid-swing, eyes wide and surprised at seeing Daniel. They almost immediately narrow into suspicion.

“Daniel?” he demands, “Is Max feeling better? Where is he? Why are you here? Why have neither of you been responding to my texts?”

Daniel holds up his hands. “Whoa, cowboy. One thing at a time. Max is– uh.”

He doesn’t really know how to handle this, and there’s a long silence for a second, Lando’s face expectant, Daniel at a loss for words, before Lando seems to register something and he leans in closer.

“Hey, what the hell? Who–” he shoves a hand at Daniel, who stumbles aside in pure surprise, and pokes his head into the room, sniffing like a cartoon dog.

“You look ridiculous,” says a grumpy, rumbly voice from inside. Max is awake.

For a second they all just stand there staring at each other.

“You’re–?” Lando says, genuinely shocked. Daniel closes the door – the cat’s out of the bag, Lando far enough inside the room now to see the bed. The nest, actually, and Max’s head above the pile of covers, his hair sticking up all over the place. Daniel resists the urge to go over and run his hand through Max’s hair until it’s all neat and the omega is leaning into his hand.

Max’s eyes have narrowed defensively. His face is tight with fear. “Yeah. So what?”

Lando looks kind of struck dumb. “Uh… nothing. I just– was worried?” His voice goes up at the end. “But you’re fine! Like. This is fine! Okay!”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Lando says, “Great!” too loudly, awkwardly.

“Jeetje,” Max mutters, rolling his eyes, before saying, louder, “Give me your sweater.” It’s more of a command than anything.

“What? No!” Lando clutches his front like Max is going to come and take it off him. “I’m promoting the new Quadrant merch.”

Huh. As it turns out, Max is going to come and take it off him.

Daniel watches, not willing to get involved with whatever this is, as Max springs out of the nest with more verve than he’s had in days, apparently energized by fucking with Lando Norris, and tackles Lando.

“What the fuck–” Lando gets out, and then Max pins his head to the ground with one hand and, apparently inadvertently, gives him a faceful of familiar-omega pheromones that make Lando go slack, upon which Max begins stripping the sweatshirt the same way Daniel’s seen him take a shirt off one of his cats – gripping the bottom and just pulling up until the face pops out and the sleeves are dragged off.

“What just happened?” Lando shrieks as soon as he’s released, recovering enough to pull his shirt down from where it got rucked up, and scrambling to his feet. He points at Max accusatorily as the man throws himself back into his nest and immediately shoves Lando’s sweatshirt deep inside, hunkering down so only his head is visible again.

“Hey, hey–” Daniel tries, stepping forward as Lando’s face goes red, but Lando waves him off.

“He’s an omega, fine, whatever, but is he now possessed by the devil? Why is he stealing my clothes?” Lando’s voice has reached a register only men under twenty-five and preteen girls can get to.

“Nest,” Max says smugly from the bed. “Seb said.”

“Sebastian Vettel?” Lando looks like he’s going to pass out.

“Okay, you know what, why don’t we go get something to drink,” Daniel says, and ushers Lando out before he faints like a Victorian maiden and Daniel has to call Oscar and explain the situation to him too.

There’s a disgruntled noise from the bed, and Daniel turns, hand on the door, to look at Max. “That okay?” he asks.

Max glares. “Fine.”

“Be back in an hour.”

“Good,” Max says, vaguely threatening, and sinks back into his blankets.

Well, Daniel’s glad he’s at least got some of his old spark back.

Daniel explains the situation in his own hotel room, after getting Lando some hot chocolate. (He’d offered coffee and been rebuffed.)

It makes him realize what a mess he left his room in, for one, and also realize that the situation is slightly insane, for another.

“Hey, so, you’re not gonna be a dick alpha about this, right?” Lando asks, blowing on his hot chocolate like a child to cool it down. They’re both crammed onto the little hotel room sofa that’s really more for looks than for anything else, because the small table had seemed a bit too cold for this conversation. It means that Daniel has to crane his neck awkwardly to make eye contact.

“What’d’ya mean?” Daniel asks, instead of saying something cutting in his own defense. He’s aware that Max being an omega means he’s a pack omega now, whether the pack knows about him or not, and there’s a glint in Lando’s eyes that says he’s never been a traditional alpha but he absolutely will bite someone in defense of Max’s virtue.

“I mean, like.” Lando pauses and takes a sip of his hot chocolate. Daniel’s feeling on edge enough to not tell him about his resulting milk moustache. “You think he’s hot and,” there’s a hesitation there, before Lando shrugs slightly, like he’s saying oh well before he continues, “You obviously want to fuck him.”

Daniel’s mouth goes dry. “I–” he manages. “I mean. Yeah, he’s hot. And I– yeah. Probably.”

“So what I’m saying is, don’t be a dick about it. If you just want to fuck Max because he’s an omega, I mean.” Lando tilts his head to the side in a little just saying gesture. “Maybe don’t.”

Daniel doesn’t know how to explain to Lando that he’s been crazy for Max since way before there was even the slightest hint he was an omega. That ever since Max was eighteen, drunk and red-cheeked in that club, Daniel has wanted to see him comfortable and happy. And, years later (several years later), as Max grew into his body and his skill, Daniel found saliva pooling in his mouth every time he saw Max’s sweet little tits stretching out the front of his Nomex, way before his suppressants started slipping. Does Max’s omega scent make Daniel feel like a twelve year old boy who just realized his dick could knot? Yeah, quite frankly, it does. But he’s always been gone on Max.

Yes, Daniel wants to do obscene things to Max in bed. But he also wants to do a hell of a lot of things outside of bed, too. He wants to wash Max’s hair for him, and smear his scent all over his nest, and make sure he’s warm and happy and fed. He wants to go to dinner with him and lose at FIFA and make it a drinking game until they’re both too soused to hit the buttons. He wants to hear Max’s endless post-race debrief and maybe share some of his own. He wants to press a kiss to the top of Max’s head so he’ll make that little scrunched-up face like one of his cats.

Holy fuck, he absolutely cannot say any of that to Lando.

“You’re like fourteen,” Daniel says flatly, instead. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

Lando waits, letting the silence stretch in a way he wouldn’t have been capable of two years ago. Daniel blames Oscar.

Daniel sighs. “God, fine. Just– no, it’s not because he’s an omega.”

“Then good!” Lando grins, toothy. “You just won me forty pounds.”

“You little gremlin–” Daniel fake-growls, and pounces, until they’re rolling around on the floor wrestling, Lando’s arms flailing while Daniel tries to pin him.

They only end up stopping when Lando comes a little too close to accidentally smacking Daniel’s head against the table leg. Daniel is not explaining that one to Max.

When they’ve collected themselves, untangling from a mess of limbs, Lando stands up, leaving Daniel sprawled on the floor. He leans over Daniel’s supine body, face upside-down but serious.

“Listen,” he says, face creased in concentration. His stupid facial hair is even patchier from this angle. “I– ugh. Osc is better at arcit- arctic-”

“Articulating?” Daniel offers up, from the floor.

“Yeah, that.” Lando squints, still leaning over Daniel weirdly. “Osc is better at that, at saying the right things. But you’re my friend, okay? Even after everything. Yeah?”

The last part is maybe a little more vulnerable than Lando means it to be, threaded with a little bit of insecurity he can’t quite hide.

“Definitely, mate,” Daniel says, because it’s true. Even with everything that happened at McLaren, the entire shitshow of it all, they are friends. Maybe not quite at Lando-and-Max level, but still.

“So don’t fuck this up, okay?” Lando tells him, the shadow of relief in his face. “Yuck, feelings. Okay, I’ve gotta go meet Fewtrell for Call of Duty. See ya.”

The face retreats, and Daniel can hear the door open, but then the footsteps stop. He tilts his head backwards to see the door, and Lando’s figure, upside-down still, swims into focus. He’s hesitating, face unreadable from this angle, like he’s not sure what to say.

“Good luck,” he says, finally, all in a rush, and then the door is closing and Daniel is left alone on the floor of his hotel room.