Chapter Text
Max feels it first in the corners.
Singapore. Night race. Heat pressing against his suit like a second skin. He takes turn eleven and the track warps for a second—like a ripple in a pond—and he blinks hard, trying to clear it.
Then his heart starts sprinting. Not adrenaline. It’s wrong. He knows his body better than anyone—he’s trained it, broken it, pushed it past the edge and hauled it back again. This isn’t that.
Ignoring everything his body is telling him he finishes the race anyway.
Of course he does because if he didn’t that would mean something was wrong. And it’s not.
In the paddock afterward, he collapses.
Not a dramatic fall. Not the kind of thing that makes headlines right away. Just a moment. One second he’s walking toward the hospitality unit, and the next, he’s making his way to the floor, slumped against the wall, legs folded underneath him like they gave out. It feels like they did, they're heavy, he’s dizzy, his vision tunnel, heart palpitating.
Charles is here.
“Max. Hey. Hey.” Charles’ voice is alarmed but quiet. He kneels, hand hovering over Max’s shoulder. “You okay?”
Max wants to snap, Do I look okay? but his tongue is too heavy. Sweat clings to his hairline. He blinks, and the world tilts again.
“Just tired,” he mutters. “Heat. That’s all.”
“You didn’t drink enough,” Charles says gently. He pulls Max’s water bottle out of his bag. “Come on. Sip.”
Max hates how his hands shake when he takes it. Hates how Charles steadies the bottle for him like it’s second nature.
He drinks. He breathes. He waits for his body to catch up.
It doesn’t.
A week later, they’re back in Monaco between races.
Max thinks he’s hiding it well. He skips the gym. Claims he’s sore. He tells Charles he’s going for a walk but sits on the sofa for two hours because every time he stands, his heart spikes and the floor sways like he’s on a boat.
Charles notices.
Of course he does.
“You’re pale,” he says one night. “Not like normal. You’re grey, Max.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Max wants to argue. Wants to pull on the hard mask he’s worn since he was seventeen, tell Charles to stop mothering him, to stop looking at him like that, like something precious and fragile.
But he doesn’t. Because he’s tired.
Bone-deep, marrow-hollow tired.
He feels even if he slept for four days straight nothing would be better.
So he sinks down into the kitchen chair and stares at the floor and says, “Something’s wrong with me.”
Charles doesn’t flinch. Just walks over, slips behind him, and wraps both arms around his shoulders. His cheek presses lightly against Max’s temple.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says quietly.
The thing in Max’s chest twists.
He doesn’t deserve this.
He doesn’t deserve him.