Chapter Text
The first time Daniel sees Max drunk, they’re in a club in Malaysia. He’s flushed, and wobbly walking, and laughing too much.
Now, he’s quiet, though. They’re flying from Malaysia to back home in Monaco. They’ve partied all night, so obviously they still have some alcohol running in their blood, even though Daniel’s bodily fluids feel more like blood running in alcohol, and it makes his head buzz. He hasn’t seen Max pretty much all evening, only sharing a couple glances here and there, too caught up in the adrenaline of the win and the pretty girls that flooded the dance floor, but now he feels kind of bad. Max deserved to celebrate a one-two too as well.
Except the celebration is finished now, they’re on the plane, a plane that’s too bright and loud for Daniel’s liking, and don’t even get him started on the kid that’s been fighting the back of his seat for at least half an hour now. Daniel has never been much of a child person and this particular one isn’t helping with the view Daniel has of the species. Little fucking monsters.
Max helps though. He’s next to Daniel, on the window seat, lucky bastard, and also completely passed out. His always neat hair is fucked up, spiky and still smelling like a mix of Red Bull, vodka and sweat, his eyes are more bags than actual skin and his lips are so dry it makes Max look like someone who’s just passed three years in fucking Antartica, despite having spent a week in a country that’s way too hot and humid.
It’s kind of sweet, though. Max is a kid, and he looks like one, all pimple and red cheeks flushing so fucking always but he doesn’t feel like one sometimes. Like, sure, he and Daniel joke around all the time, and they’re pretty immature about it, too, laughing like they’re on a candy high 24/7. And Max’s dad is near most of the time, a shadow in the paddock no one wants to cross, not even fucking Max, it’s pretty scary. So it’s clear Max is still barely eighteen. A kid.
But they have these conversations sometimes, in the middle of the night when they’re both in Monaco and they know they could easily go to the other’s apartment any time they want, but they don’t. They text. Like kids. And in those moments, when Daniel can’t see the baby fat around Max’s face and the childish sparkle only half-hidden by big and thick eyelashes, Daniel can’t associate Max with being barely an adult. It certainly doesn’t feel like it, in the way he speaks, all fancy and perfect English, and his voice isn’t there to crack and betray his age. So, it’s times like these Daniel likes Max a little more than he should.
And right now, he’s sitting in a plane with Max beside him and the only thing going through Daniel’s mind is that he wants to kiss him. Doesn’t even want to be gentle about it either, he wants to be rough, teeth clacking and saliva everywhere, make it something mature that Max just isn’t. But it’s easy for Daniel to think it’s something that could happen when Max is sleeping peacefully, pale like a sick man and snoring like a grandpa. It’s easy.
It shouldn’t be.
It isn’t easy when Max puts a hand on Daniel’s shoulder just as he goes to sip his drink. Drunk Max is a touchy Max, Daniel’s noticed, but what he notices less and less these days is that drunk Max is still eighteen-year-old Max, even with how much Daniel wishes it wasn’t the case. But being eighteen doesn’t come with not being touchy, and maybe Daniel’s reading too much into it, or maybe the tequila is fucking with his brain, but he can’t not stare at Max’s lips when he takes a shot, and the fucking lip freckle that Max always licks when he passes his tongue over his mouth to get the last drops of whatever he just drank in his stomach. Daniel thinks it isn’t fair.
And Max laughs, and laughs, and snickers when his mouth is still full of liquid, because drunk Max is still easy-to-laugh Max, especially when Daniel’s here.
And drunk Daniel is still easy-to-laugh-it-off Daniel as well, so he shakes Max’s hand off of his shoulder and ruffles Max hair to make himself remember he’s a kid. It’s not right. So Daniel shakes it off, laughs to pretend everything is okay and a single touch hasn’t awaken his libido in fucking seconds and goes to find a reasonably aged girl wherever a reasonably aged girl could be in a Monaco club.
Turns out there’s lots of them. They’re all pretty. Daniel doesn’t want to look too much into it when he picks the one with short dirty blond hair and red plump lips. Tells himself he’s into European looking girls, even though he’s never been, that maybe it’s a thing he’s picked up when he turned 27 last month.
Daniel’s 29 now. He’s still into tall blonde girls and ones that laugh too loud. He’s still into girls with freckles on their face and ones that can’t dress to save their lives. He’s still into girls that don’t look like strangers but that are. It’s easier that way.
Max is 21 now. He’s still a kid, just a tad older. He isn’t as round on the face, sharper nose and cheekbones. He isn’t as sharp in his body, rounder waist and arms. Daniel doesn’t want to notice that but he does. He notices the hair that starts to grow just under that sharper nose and the muscle that’s building up on his chest, making his Red Bull merch polo stick to his shoulders tighter than it used to.
Max is 21 and his face is sharper and his body rounder but he still can’t handle alcohol. Two shots of vodka in and slowly nursing a g&t, Max can’t stop himself from getting his fingertips on the small of Daniel’s back. Daniel’s learned to ignore it now. He gets better at it every time they go out, even though they don’t as much this year. The DNFs start to pile up.
But it’s Mexico, and Daniel got pole, but Max won, so Daniel wonders what he’s even doing here. The girls in Mexico always have dark feature, long brown hair that cascade down their back and chocolate eyes that Daniel used to want to drown in, but not anymore. So it’s clear he isn’t taking anyone home tonight. He’ll have to drown in shitty whiskey and expensive tequila instead. He’ll have to drown under Max’s touch that seems to want to spread over Daniel’s whole body and go home before midnight to not wonder what the fuck he’s doing with his life.
One night, when they’re both in Monaco again, and Daniel is just waiting for the season to end, he finds a drunk Max on his doorstep. A very drunk Max. Which isn’t usual. Not that Max is drunk, because he always is in some type of way, drunk on a win or some wine it doesn’t matter, because Daniel’s used to Max being giddy. He’s used to Max being drunk Max. Thank God for it.
The weird thing is, when they’re both in Monaco, and even when either one of them is drunk, the only thing they’ll do is text. Like fucking kids, text message that always have too much abbreviations for Max and typos for Daniel. It’s always this way. Texts. Daniel is glad for it in a way, because drunk Max being a drunk Max, he can’t handle himself, and Daniel’s fine handling him in public, but he’s not sure he’ll be able to do it at home. Especially after the neat whiskey he’s started to drink after already finishing three, the one in the glass that’s still on his nightstand. Daniel drinks in bed, so what.
And this drunk Max is flushed, but still standing, so that’s good, but the flush is making the pimples and red spots on his neck and jaw pop out, which isn’t fucking good. At all. Makes Daniel remember Max is still only 21 and that he shouldn’t lust after a guy that just grown out of his teen years.
« Fuckin’ hell, mate, what the fuck are you doing here. »
« Shut up. »
Drunk Max is a touchy Max. Turns out he’s also a kissy Max. And he kisses like a kid. All teeth and too much tongue, not even bothering to ask if he can hold Daniel’s waist in the obscene way he’s doing right now. He kisses like he has a lisp, lips scattered everywhere and letting out noises Daniel knows he’ll hear in his dreams tonight. He really hopes Max will be there while he dreams too, though, which isn’t something he should be thinking. But Max has a grip that’s just a little too tight on his hair and it’s fucking up the whole thing sitting inside Daniel’s skull.
Fucking drunk touchy kid fucking up his whole life.