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Under the lights of Yas Marina, everything gleamed like it was made of diamond—cars, trophies, even sweat. The noise was still thick in the air, a hurricane of cheers and champagne mist. Max stood at the top of the podium, smile mechanical, eyes brighter than the silver sky overhead. Five titles. Five in a row. The photographers wanted the smile, the pride, the unbreakable world champion. He gave them the expression they expected, but his throat felt like it was closing.
Charles, on the step beside him, clapped with just enough sincerity to hide the mess twisting in his chest. Max hadn’t looked his way once since the chequered flag. Not in parc fermé, not during the anthem, not when they’d shaken hands for the cameras. He’d known Max long enough to feel the distance like a wall. The kind that meant something was about to fall apart.
The microphone was placed in Max’s hand, a routine as old as his victories. He thanked the team, the fans, his family, his voice practiced, unshakably calm. Then he paused. A strange silence slid across the crowd, that instinctive hush when everyone feels something shift.
“I want to share something important,” Max said, gaze fixed on the horizon of flashlights and flags. “Tonight is not only the end of this season for me. It’s the end of my Formula 1 career.”
The crowd rippled in confusion. The presenter blinked, laughed awkwardly, thinking it was a joke. But Max didn’t smile.
“I’ve made the decision to retire. I’ve done what I came here to do, and… I’m going to be a parent soon.”
The words were clean, steady, heartbreakingly ordinary. But they hit like a crash.
The cheering didn’t stop. It collapsed. The air went hollow. The camera caught Toto’s eyebrows shooting up, Helmut mouthing something sharp. Reporters shouted questions before the mic even left Max’s hand. “Expecting?” “With who?” “Is this confirmed?”
The chaos was instantaneous, the roar of gossip drowning out applause.
Charles froze. His chest tightened like he’d taken a punch. He didn’t need confirmation. The math was immediate, cruelly clear. The last time they’d been together, after Monza. He remembered the smell of Max’s skin, the quiet in the hotel room when the world outside screamed about their rivalry. He remembered Max saying, almost as an afterthought, “We shouldn’t keep doing this.”
And now this.
Max didn’t look at him even once. Not on the stage, not when the photographers tried to gather them close. Charles clapped when the anthem replayed, purely out of reflex, but his pulse was thunder in his ears.
When Max finally stepped off the podium, the cameras followed him like a tide. Charles stayed behind, staring at the space he’d left. The world champion was walking away, and it felt less like retirement and more like disappearance.
And Charles knew—it had to be his child.
And Max had chosen to tell the whole world before telling him.
That knowledge burned colder than any champagne could.
The storm began before the podium lights dimmed.
Social media detonated like an engine seizing mid-lap, feeds flooding with disbelief, outrage, and conspiracy.
Retiring? For a baby?
Is he serious?
Five titles and he throws it away? Typical omega move.
Within an hour, #MaxDownfall trended in fifteen countries. Commentators on late-night sports shows scrambled for explanations. Some speculated a health issue. Others whispered about secret contracts. But the worst of it came from the fans, those who had once called him unstoppable. Their words turned feral.
“He’s a disgrace to the sport.”
“Can’t keep racing because he’s knocked up? Weak.”
“Five titles and his brain melted into hormones.”
“Who’s the alpha? Oh, right, no one claimed him. Figures.”
Screenshots, clips, gossip pieces, it all built a wall around him before he could even leave the paddock. His PR team begged him to release a statement. He didn’t. He didn’t even open his phone. When someone asked him to smile for one more photo, he just shook his head and walked straight past them.
The internet didn’t just talk. It screamed. Every time Max’s name appeared on a screen, it was flanked by words like coward, weak, selfish.
Five-time World Champion turned runaway omega.
He had seen the headlines before, in smaller forms, in smaller moments. But now they felt like teeth closing in.
He told himself he wouldn’t read the comments. He told himself it didn’t matter. But the silence in his empty house made the temptation louder than reason.
He scrolled until the screen blurred. He wanted to stop, but stopping felt like surrender. Every insult found a place to land, small, sharp cuts until he couldn’t tell which one started the bleeding.
He closed the laptop and pressed his palms into his eyes until stars flared. He wanted to disappear back to the podium, before the announcement, before the microphone, before the crowd’s cheer turned brittle and cold. He replayed it, his own voice calm and certain, the decision that had felt right in his chest.
He hadn’t done it to shock anyone. He just didn’t want to lie anymore.
But now, in the echo of his own choice, it felt like he had detonated something that couldn’t be fixed.
The kettle clicked behind him, but he didn’t move to pour the water. His reflection in the window looked like someone he didn’t quite know, skin pale from exhaustion, jaw locked from holding too much in. He pressed a hand against his stomach, the gesture instinctive, grounding. The warmth beneath his palm was the only thing that made sense anymore.
He tried to tell himself this was enough. That the child mattered more than anyone’s noise. That he didn’t need support. He’d done harder things alone.
But in the quiet that followed, regret crept in like a draft.
Not regret for the pregnancy, never that. He’d always wanted a family someday, though he’d never said it out loud. The thought had always been private, soft, something to protect from the world that only knew speed and competition. He just hadn’t wanted it to happen this way. Not as a scandal. Not under hate. Not in isolation so complete that even joy felt suspicious.
And not without him.
Charles’ face came to him then, the last night they were together, the warmth of his hands, the small, reckless smile that always appeared after a race when the tension finally broke. The way Charles had said, voice low against his throat, “You always run too fast, Max.”
Max had laughed it off. Said, “You never catch up anyway.”
Neither of them had meant it as a promise.
He thought about calling him now, just to hear his voice, not to explain, not to justify anything, just to know that someone else still existed in the version of the world where he wasn’t a headline. But then he imagined Charles’ reaction, the confusion, maybe anger, and the guilt tightened again in his chest. He couldn’t face him. Not when he’d learned the truth from the microphones and not from him.
He had tried to protect the one thing that mattered, this small, new heartbeat inside him, and somehow ended up alone, vilified, surrounded by the kind of silence that eats at you from the inside.
He turned off the phone. The house went still again. Only the sound of the rain against the windows filled the space. He sat there in the half-light, hand still resting where life was quietly growing, and thought,
It wasn’t supposed to feel like losing everything.
For Charles, the world had turned loud and far too bright. Cameras followed him through every airport, microphones chasing him with the same question phrased ten different ways:
“What did you know?”
“Are you the alpha?”
“Did Verstappen leave because of you?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Every word felt like it might detonate something he wasn’t ready to face.
But the truth lived behind his ribs like a live wire. He had known, or at least, he’d suspected, in the deepest, most unspoken way. He had felt the change in Max’s scent after Monza, the softness around his edges that appeared when no one else was looking. He’d asked once, in passing, half-joking: You’re not nesting already, are you? Max had just smiled, tired and secretive, and kissed him instead of replying.
Now Charles replayed that smile like a confession he had missed in real time.
He tried calling.
At first, politely: Max, it’s me. Call me back when you can.
Then, urgently: I just want to talk. Please.
Then, finally, raw: You can hate me later, but at least let me know you’re okay.
Each call ended the same, with voicemail. Each message went unanswered. He saw the little “delivered” mark turn grey, then nothing.
When Max’s number went from “active” to “unreachable,” Charles felt something cold twist in his stomach.
He called Jos Verstappen next.
“Charles, I don’t think it’s my place—”
“You think I care about your place? He’s pregnant, Jos.”
A pause. The kind that said yes, I know, and no, I won’t tell you anything more.
Then the line went dead.
The night after, Charles sat alone in his apartment in Monaco, lights off, the sea outside flashing with lightning. He scrolled through photos from the podium, the one moment where Max’s face had cracked, where he looked like he was forcing the words out.
I’m going to be a parent soon.
The sentence didn’t leave him. It looped in his head like static, both blessing and punishment. That announcement had meant more to Charles than he’d ever admit to anyone. It wasn’t just a retirement speech. It was the proof of something real that what they had shared, however undefined, had consequences that mattered. That he had mattered.
And yet, the world had found out before he did.
That fact hurt worse than the headlines.
Because for Charles, Max had always been a secret too large for the walls of their hotel rooms. Their thing, if it could even be called that, had lived in stolen spaces: nights between races, whispered arguments about control and trust, a language of hands and silences they never named.
Charles had told himself he didn’t need more. That maybe Max was right—better to keep feelings behind the start lights, not between them.
But now that Max had walked away from the entire sport, from him, to protect something they’d made together… the truth cut too deep to stay buried.
He stared at his phone again, thumb hovering over the last message he’d sent: Please, just tell me if you’re safe.
He typed another one. Deleted it. Then another. Deleted that too.
There was too much to say and no way to make any of it sound simple.
He leaned back in the chair, head against the wall, whispering to no one,
“I should’ve told you I would’ve stayed.”
Outside, the thunder rolled closer. In the reflection of the window, he caught his own face, tired, frightened, and softer than he wanted to admit. The kind of softness he’d only ever allowed Max to see.
He thought about flying to the Netherlands, finding him, showing up at his door. But he didn’t even know which door anymore. Max had vanished so completely that it felt like chasing a ghost.
And still, Charles couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, Max was reading the same headlines, sitting in the same storm of noise, and thinking about him too.
He pressed a hand over his chest and closed his eyes, the memory of Max’s scent haunting him like warmth that refused to fade.
“I’m here,” he whispered to the silence. “Even if you don’t want me to be.”
Max had always thought silence was peace. He’d spent his whole life chasing it, the stillness after a race, the soft hum of an empty garage, the brief calm before an engine screamed back to life. But the silence that filled his house now wasn’t peace. It was rot.
The walls of the old place in the Netherlands creaked when the wind shifted. Each sound made him flinch. He kept the blinds closed even in the morning, too aware of the way lenses could flash through anything. Somewhere out there, someone was always watching, always waiting to twist him into something easier to hate.
The hate didn’t start all at once. It came in waves, like the weather.
At first, the headlines were clinical: Verstappen Announces Shock Retirement; Expecting Child.
Then came the opinion pieces: When Champions Quit Too Soon.
Then came the human ones — the ones written in lowercase, from anonymous accounts with usernames made of anger.
He read them for too long.
“Five titles, and that’s it? Pathetic.”
“So all it takes is one pregnancy for him to fold.”
“A perfect example of why omegas don’t belong in real competition.”
“He should’ve terminated it and kept racing.”
“Bet he doesn’t even know who the alpha is.”
“If I were him, I’d be ashamed to show my face.”
They called him weak. They called him disgusting. Some said he’d faked it for sympathy. Others said no one would ever hire an omega again after this. Someone even wrote, you’ve ruined every kid who looked up to you.
That one made him stop breathing for a second.
He closed the screen, but the words stayed, hanging in the air like a smell that wouldn’t go away. His body reacted before his mind did, stomach tight, pulse uneven, a rush of heat behind his eyes. It wasn’t just anger; it was the kind of hurt that sits under your ribs and makes you nauseous.
He told himself not to cry, that tears wouldn’t make the noise stop. But his chest hurt in a way he couldn’t explain, as if every word had weight, and now they were all pressing down at once.
He tried to eat, but everything tasted like cardboard. He tried to sleep, but when he closed his eyes he saw comment sections scrolling endlessly, usernames melting into a blur of cruelty. His own name had become a curse.
On the third night, he found himself at the window, half-hidden behind the curtain, staring at the empty road outside. There was no one there, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that the world was standing just beyond the glass, whispering. He caught his reflection in the window and didn’t recognize it, skin too pale, shoulders slumped, eyes dull.
He pressed his hand to his stomach, feeling the small, fragile warmth there. “I’m still here,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or the tiny heartbeat inside. “We’re still here.”
The next morning, he turned his phone back on. Messages flooded in. Thousands of them. His inbox looked like a battlefield. Some begged him to come back to racing. Most told him to disappear.
He scrolled until he found one that said, simply: You’re a disappointment to everyone who ever believed in you.
He dropped the phone then. It hit the floor hard, but not as hard as the words. Something inside him broke with the sound.
His breath came too fast, chest tight, vision dimming at the edges. It wasn’t panic; it was pain that his body didn’t know where to send. His skin burned, his throat closed. For a moment, he thought — this is what it feels like to be erased in real time.
He stayed on the kitchen floor until the sun moved across the tiles. Hours passed, or maybe minutes. He didn’t know. He only knew that everything in him was loud, heartbeat, breath, shame, and yet the world outside stayed perfectly quiet.
By the time he got up, his body was trembling. The nausea didn’t fade for days. His doctor later called it “stress-related complications.”
Max called it what it was. Hate poisoning.
That night, he deleted every app, every account, every connection to the noise. He went to bed with the blinds closed and the phone turned off. But even in the dark, he could still feel it, the echo of thousands of strangers, all shouting the same thing: you are no longer who we loved.
And he wondered, not for the first time, if maybe they were right.
The clinic was small and quiet, tucked behind a narrow street lined with birch trees. Max chose it because it was anonymous — no paparazzi, no curious fans, no noise. He arrived with a cap pulled low, mask up, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. The receptionist still recognized him. She didn’t say his name, just nodded softly and led him inside.
The sterile smell of the examination room made his stomach twist. He used to hate hospitals for the waiting. Now he hated them for the silence. Every time he came here, the quiet felt sharper.
His doctor — a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and no patience for small talk — reviewed the chart with a sigh that felt heavier than usual.
“Your blood pressure’s too high again,” she said, tapping the tablet. “Your hormone levels are unstable. And your sleep pattern is… nonexistent, from what I can see.”
Max gave a half-shrug. “Can’t really control the internet.”
She looked at him then — really looked. “I’m not talking about the internet, Max. I’m talking about you.”
He didn’t answer. The room hummed with quiet electronics, the faint beeping of the monitor that had recorded his pulse. It was still faster than it should’ve been.
She turned the screen toward him. “The pup’s heartbeat is irregular. Nothing catastrophic yet, but this much cortisol in your blood…” She trailed off, choosing her words carefully. “Stress doesn’t just stay in your head. It gets into the bloodstream. It reaches the child too.”
He stared at the image — the small, flickering blur on the ultrasound. That pulse used to calm him. Now it looked fragile, unsteady, like a candle caught in wind.
The doctor leaned forward. “You need regulation, Max. You need scent balance. That means contact with your alpha.”
He laughed, but it came out hollow. “That’s not really an option.”
Her tone didn’t soften. “Then find a way to make it one. I’m not suggesting romance. I’m talking about biology. Your body’s trying to hold two lives steady. Without balance, it’s working twice as hard. That’s why you’re dizzy, why you can’t sleep, why you feel sick all the time.”
He rubbed his temples. “You’re saying it’s my fault.”
“I’m saying you can’t do this alone.”
That sentence hit harder than any insult online. Because it wasn’t hate — it was truth. And truth hurt worse when it came without cruelty.
He left the clinic with the printout in his hand, folded small enough to fit into his pocket. Outside, the wind was cold, carrying the damp scent of rain and wet leaves. The world looked exactly the same, but it felt uninhabitable. Every sound startled him — a passing car, the click of a bicycle chain, the flutter of wings. His body stayed braced for impact even when nothing touched him.
On the drive home, he kept thinking about what the doctor had said. You can’t do this alone.
He had spent his whole life doing exactly that. From karts to titles to the endless grind of proving everyone wrong — alone had always been his default setting.
But this was different. The silence he’d chosen no longer protected him; it was consuming him.
When he got home, he sat in the living room with the lights off. The folded ultrasound picture burned in his pocket. He tried to ignore the doctor’s voice, but the words looped back, calm and relentless: You need your alpha.
Charles’ name surfaced in his mind like a reflex, uninvited and immediate. His scent, his touch, the steady rhythm of his breathing when they’d fallen asleep once — only once — after a night that wasn’t supposed to mean anything. The kind of warmth that had terrified him precisely because it felt safe.
Max pressed a hand against his stomach, whispering so quietly the walls barely caught it.
“I can’t call him.”
But his body didn’t care about his pride. The ache in his chest pulsed deeper, the memory of Charles’ scent rising like something his body was already craving.
He went to bed with the ultrasound photo beside him. Sleep didn’t come easily, but for the first time in weeks, he dreamed — of engines, of sunlight on a red helmet, of hands steadying him when the world tilted.
And in the dream, he wasn’t alone.
Charles had learned to move through his days by muscle memory.
Wake up, coffee, gym, simulator, brief with the team, repeat. The rhythm had become survival, each lap of routine a way to keep his thoughts from wandering where they always wanted to go.
It had been weeks since Max disappeared. The news cycle had started to fade, the noise softening into background chatter. People online were still cruel, but time had made the hatred repetitive, and repetition made it easy to ignore. Almost.
He had stopped hoping for a message. The first few days, he’d checked his phone every hour. Then every night before bed. Then not at all. The silence had begun to calcify into something dull, like scar tissue.
Until that morning.
He was rinsing a mug when his phone buzzed across the counter. He barely looked at it, probably Carlos sending memes again, but then he saw the name.
Max.
For a moment, he didn’t breathe.
He wiped his hands on a towel, heart slamming so hard it hurt, and opened the message. It wasn’t long. Just a single, clinical sentence:
We need to meet. Doctor’s orders. For the pup.
Charles stared at it until the letters blurred. He reread it again, and again, as if a different meaning might appear if he looked long enough. The phrasing was pure Max, detached, precise, defensive. But underneath it, Charles could feel the tremor of exhaustion, like a wire pulled too tight.
He wanted to answer right away. His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Yes. When? Where? I’ll come now.
He typed it, deleted it, typed again.
He couldn’t sound desperate. He didn’t want to scare him away.
He settled on:
Tell me the time and place. I’ll be there.
Even that felt too formal, too small for what it meant. He pressed send before he could change his mind.
Then came the waiting.
He tried to go back to normal, finished washing the mug, pretended to eat breakfast, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Every small noise made him look at the phone again. When Max finally replied — Tomorrow. My house. Noon. — his breath left him in a rush.
Just like that, the static that had filled his head for weeks was replaced with a single, impossible clarity: he was going to see Max.
The rest of the day stretched endlessly. He went through training on autopilot, missing turns on the simulator, forgetting to answer engineers’ questions. He kept imagining the moment they would meet, how Max would look, what he would say, how close he’d be allowed to stand.
He tried to picture Max the way the headlines had described him, broken, reclusive, fading under the weight of hate, but the image felt wrong. Charles couldn’t make himself see Max as fragile. Not him. Max had always been a storm. Unstoppable. Burning. The idea of him retreating from the world hurt more than he wanted to admit.
But then another image crept in, quieter, gentler. Max in soft clothes, hair unstyled, sitting somewhere by a window. His hands were resting on his stomach. Their child beneath them, alive and real.
Charles closed his eyes and let himself imagine it, just for a heartbeat. The way it would feel to reach out, to place his palm there, to feel warmth and movement under his skin. The proof of what they had created, not chaos, not rivalry, not adrenaline, but something living. Something his.
He didn’t know what he’d say when he saw him. There were too many words, apologies, explanations, and questions, all tangled into one impossible knot. But maybe he didn’t need to speak right away. Maybe he could just look at Max and see if he’d been forgiven for not knowing, for not being there.
Charles lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling. Every version of the meeting played out in his head — Max angry, Max cold, Max crying. He rehearsed every possible answer and every possible silence. But under all of it, one thought stayed constant, simple and aching:
I just want to see him breathe. I just want to touch what we made.
The morning crept in gray and slow, the kind of cold light that never warmed the room. Max had barely slept. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind spun in loops: Charles arriving, Charles seeing him, Charles saying something he wasn’t ready to hear.
By eight, he gave up on sleep entirely. He walked through the quiet house like a stranger in his own space. The air still smelled faintly of cleaning detergent. He’d spent the evening before scrubbing everything that didn’t need scrubbing. It wasn’t that he cared what Charles thought of his housekeeping; it was the only thing that kept his hands from shaking.
The baby moved once, a flutter beneath his ribs. His body felt heavier lately, slower. The fatigue came in waves, like gravity pressing harder some days than others. He looked down at himself, at the curve that wasn’t possible to hide anymore, and felt the familiar sting of contradiction: pride and shame tangled together.
He wanted to look strong. Not like someone fragile or needy or small. That was what the world thought now, that he’d quit because he couldn’t handle being an omega and a champion. He wouldn’t let Charles think that, too.
So he dressed with care, jeans, a plain shirt, nothing soft, nothing that screamed nesting comfort. He pulled his hair back, washed his face twice, and forced a neutral expression in the mirror until it held.
Then, for a while, he just stood in the doorway of the guest room, staring at the pile of blankets he’d dragged there earlier. Instinct had hit him without warning that morning, sharp and stupidly domestic, the need to build something safe. He’d started layering blankets, rearranging pillows, searching for a scent that felt calm.
Halfway through, he’d stopped.
The sight of it, the half-made nest, warm and expectant, hit him like humiliation. What was he doing? They weren’t them. There was no us. Whatever he and Charles had been, it had never had a name, and it had ended the moment the microphones caught his secret instead of his voice.
He kicked the blankets back into a pile and walked away.
By noon, the house smelled faintly of dust and rain. He’d made tea and let it go cold. His phone sat on the table, screen dark, but his gaze kept flicking to it anyway, like waiting for proof that the decision he’d made wasn’t a mistake.
His heart thudded hard enough to hurt. Not from excitement, from nerves so sharp they made his skin buzz.
He didn’t know what to expect when Charles walked through that door. Anger, maybe. Pity. That one would be worse. Charles had always looked at him like an equal, never above, never below. That balance had been their secret language, even in bed. Max remembered how easily they’d switched, how he’d pressed Charles down with a grin, how their power had always felt like a game instead of a rule.
Now, standing there in his kitchen with trembling hands and a body that refused to obey him, he didn’t feel like the same man. He felt smaller, softer, stripped of the edges that used to make him unshakable.
He hated it.
He rubbed a hand over his stomach, trying to ease the ache there. The baby shifted again, gentle, unaware of the noise inside his head.
“It’s just for you,” he whispered. “Nothing else.”
That was what he’d told himself since sending the message. This wasn’t about forgiveness or reunion or wanting. This was about biology, health, duty. The doctor’s words had left him no choice. Charles would come. They’d meet. They’d regulate. And that would be it.
He repeated the plan like a mantra, though it sounded thinner every time.
When the knock finally came, soft, hesitant, but unmistakable, his body froze. Every heartbeat felt too loud. For a long moment, he couldn’t move. Then he took a breath, straightened his shoulders, and told himself: You’re still Max Verstappen. You don’t break that easily.
He opened the door.
The air between them changed the moment the door swung open.
For a second, neither of them moved. The rain outside had stopped, leaving the smell of wet earth and cold air clinging to Charles’s jacket. Max stood framed in the doorway, hair pulled back, skin pale against the dark of his shirt. He looked smaller than Charles remembered, not in height, not in presence, but in the way light touched him, as if it had to tread carefully.
“Hi,” Charles said, voice quieter than he’d planned.
“Hi,” Max echoed, the syllable clipped, cautious.
They stared at each other, two ghosts suddenly made real again.
Charles wanted to reach out, to close the distance, to do something, but the look in Max’s eyes stopped him. It wasn’t anger. It was armor.
“Come in,” Max said finally, stepping aside.
The house was still, filled with the kind of silence that didn’t invite conversation. No music, no television, no movement beyond the rhythm of their breaths. Charles slipped off his shoes, the small gesture feeling strangely intimate.
Max gestured toward the living room. “Sit, if you want.”
He stayed standing, arms crossed, watching Charles as though measuring how much space he would take up.
Charles looked around. The place was clean, obsessively so, but something in it felt unfinished. The furniture was pushed too neatly into corners, the cushions too perfectly arranged. It wasn’t a home; it was a place trying to remember how to be one.
“You look—” Charles started, then stopped himself. The word tired felt wrong, too small for what he was seeing.
“Don’t,” Max said softly. “I’m fine.”
He wasn’t. Charles could see it in the tension in his shoulders, the faint tremor in his hands. He noticed the way Max’s clothes hung a little looser at the collar, and how his scent, once sharp with confidence and engine oil, was dulled now, softened by fatigue and something rawer underneath.
“I didn’t come to fight,” Charles said carefully.
“I know,” Max replied, folding his arms tighter. “You came because I asked.”
He didn’t look at Charles when he said it.
Charles nodded slowly. “The doctor?”
Max’s gaze flickered, just for a heartbeat. “She said… it would help. For the pup.”
The way he said the pup, distant, deliberate, stung more than it should have.
Charles sat down on the couch, unsure whether to make himself comfortable or stay ready to leave. “Then tell me what you need.”
For a moment Max didn’t answer. His fingers tapped against his arm, restless. “I just need you to be around sometimes. Not all the time, not—” He hesitated. “Just enough that it helps.”
“Helps,” Charles repeated. The word felt mechanical in his mouth.
Max nodded, still not looking at him. “That’s all.”
Charles watched him, the slow, careful way he stood, the way one hand hovered near his stomach even when he wasn’t aware of it. His chest tightened. He wanted to move closer, to rest his palm there just for a second, to feel the truth of what they’d made. But the distance between them felt sacred and dangerous at once.
He tried to smile, though it came out uneven. “You don’t have to do this alone, you know.”
Max’s laugh was short and quiet. “I’ve done everything alone.”
The silence that followed was thick. Charles opened his mouth to reply, to say you shouldn’t have to, but stopped. Words weren’t safe here yet.
Instead, he took a small step forward. “Can I—?” He motioned toward Max’s stomach, unsure if he was even allowed to ask.
For the first time since opening the door, Max looked directly at him. His expression flickered, unreadable, before he gave a small nod.
Charles moved slowly, like approaching something wild. When his hand finally met the soft curve beneath Max’s shirt, warmth spread instantly through his palm, real, alive, impossibly delicate. His breath caught.
Max didn’t look away, but his body went still. The faintest movement stirred under Charles’s touch, not a kick, just a shift, a reminder. His throat closed around a dozen things he could have said: I missed you, I’m sorry, thank you. None of them made it out.
After a moment, Max stepped back. “That’s enough.” His tone wasn’t cruel, but it carried finality.
Charles nodded, withdrawing his hand. “Okay.”
The air felt heavier now, full of everything they hadn’t said.
“I’ll come again,” he murmured. Max’s eyes softened, if only for an instant. “If you want.”
Then he turned away, and Charles stood there for a long while, trying to remember how to breathe.
When the door clicked shut behind Charles, the quiet felt different. Not empty anymore, just ringing, full of the ghost of his scent.
Max stood there for a long time, back pressed against the wood, breathing him in even after he was gone. The air still carried the faint traces of him: rain, motor oil, something sharp and clean that had always cut through Max’s thoughts like clarity. Charles’s scent used to drive him mad, on track, in bed, anywhere, but now it reached somewhere deeper, somewhere his body hadn’t stopped missing.
He hadn’t realized how much he’d been starving for it until that moment.
The touch itself had lasted seconds. A warm palm against his stomach, hesitant, reverent. It shouldn’t have meant anything. It wasn’t even that close to intimacy. But the moment Charles’s skin met his, his whole body had reacted like he’d been shocked back to life. His pulse had steadied, the ache in his chest had eased, and even the pup had shifted gently, responding.
His body knew what his pride refused to admit: it needed this.
It needed him.
Max sank onto the couch, hands gripping his knees to keep from trembling. He tried to force logic into his thoughts, to remind himself that this wasn’t about emotions, or history, or wanting. It was about biology. Stability. Hormones. Doctor’s orders.
But his heart didn’t care about clinical reasons. It only replayed the moment, Charles’s hand, Charles’s breath catching, the softness in his eyes that Max hadn’t seen since before everything broke.
The warmth still lingered on his skin. He pressed his own hand there, where Charles had touched, and felt the echo like a bruise of memory.
For a second, all the walls he’d built began to crack. The instinct was so strong it almost hurt to get up, run after him, catch him before he left, bury his face against that familiar chest, and just breathe.
He wanted to tell him that the silence hadn’t been anger, it had been fear. That every cruel comment, every headline, every whisper had taken something out of him until nothing was left to give. That he’d never stopped thinking about the way Charles’s laugh sounded when they were still just rivals pretending they weren’t already falling.
But then he remembered the look on Charles’s face, the careful distance, the way he’d asked permission before touching him. It wasn’t rejection, not exactly, but it wasn’t closeness either. It was a restraint. And restraint meant doubt.
Max swallowed hard. Maybe Charles’s reaction had been instinct, an alpha thing, nothing more. The body responds to what it was wired to protect. Not affection, not want. Just duty.
He hated how much that thought hurt.
His eyes burned, but he didn’t let himself cry. He’d done enough of that lately, quietly, behind closed curtains. He pushed himself up, forced his breathing steady, and went to the window. Outside, the rain had started again, light, steady, relentless.
He pressed a hand to the glass, watching the droplets race down.
“I’m fine,” he whispered to the reflection that didn’t look like him anymore. “You can do this.”
But his body was still humming with the memory of Charles’s scent, the warmth of his skin, the way their child had moved between them. And no matter how hard he tried to silence it, a small, treacherous part of him whispered back:
You don’t want to do this alone anymore.
The first time Charles came back, it felt like walking on glass. Every movement, every word, every breath had to be measured. He’d never known how to be careful around Max before; their entire history was built on competition and collisions. But now, the smallest thing, a glance, a word, could make Max pull away, and Charles couldn’t bear that.
So he learned to move slowly.
Each visit followed the same pattern. He’d knock. Max would open the door just enough to let him in, never enough to invite comfort. They’d exchange a few words about doctor updates or food or the weather, pretending that the conversation was normal.
Sometimes they sat on opposite ends of the couch. Sometimes they didn’t speak at all. The silence between them had shape now, sharp edges and quiet gravity.
Charles watched him quietly, learning the details of Max’s new world: the untouched tea mug by the window, the curtains always drawn, the faint tremor in his hands when he tried to hide exhaustion. Max didn’t let anyone see it, but Charles noticed everything. The way his shoulders stayed tense even when he was sitting. The way he pressed his palm against his belly when he thought Charles wasn’t looking. The way his eyes flickered toward the window whenever a car passed outside, expecting another flash, another headline.
The hate online hadn’t slowed down. Charles saw it too, the endless flood of comments, each more vicious than the last. He’d stopped reading them after one night when he saw Max’s name trending again and nearly threw his phone across the room. But he couldn’t stop thinking about how much worse it must be for Max, living inside that storm.
He wanted to reach out, to do something, anything, that would make Max believe he didn’t have to fight alone. But every time he tried, Max froze, lips tight, posture guarded.
It broke him a little each time.
By the third visit, the silence had grown softer, almost familiar. Charles found himself looking forward to them, even if they were awkward, even if Max barely looked at him. It was still something.
He’d started bringing small things without thinking about it: fruit, tea, a blanket that reminded him of Monaco. Max never said thank you, but he stopped refusing them. That was enough.
Sometimes, when Max was too tired to keep pretending, Charles would see flashes of the man he used to know, a dry comment, a twitch of a smile that tried not to exist. Those moments made something inside him ache, because he remembered exactly how it felt to laugh with him, to fight with him, to want him.
He’d go home after each visit and lie awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying every detail, how Max’s voice sounded when he finally spoke, the slow rhythm of his breathing, the faint scent that lingered on his clothes long after he left. With every meeting, the distance between them felt a little smaller, but the longing grew unbearably wide.
Charles didn’t know when concern had turned into need.
It was late one evening when he asked the question.
They’d spent most of that day in quiet. Max had let him stay longer than usual, maybe too tired to ask him to leave. The rain had started again outside, and the air was thick with the smell of it.
Charles was sitting on the arm of the couch while Max rested back against the cushions, one hand absently tracing circles on his stomach. It was the most peaceful Charles had seen him look in months, still, grounded, almost calm.
And that was when the thought hit him: maybe he could do something. Something real. Something that could protect him.
“Max,” he said, voice low, careful not to startle him.
Max looked up, eyes heavy but alert. “What?”
Charles hesitated. “You know the hate online isn’t slowing down. They’re still saying things, awful things. And I can’t just… watch it.” He swallowed. “If I said something, publicly, if I told them I’m the father, it might help.”
The words hung there, heavy and trembling.
Max blinked once, then again, like he hadn’t processed them. “You’d do that?”
“Yes,” Charles said immediately. “If it makes them stop hurting you.”
Max stared at him for a long time, unreadable. His expression didn’t shift, but his scent did confusion, fear, something too fragile to name.
“It won’t help,” he said finally. “They’ll just find someone else to blame. You. Us. And I don’t want you dragged into this.”
Charles shook his head. “I don’t care about me. You’re the one they’re destroying.”
Max’s jaw tightened. “I can handle it.”
“No,” Charles said softly. “You shouldn’t have to.”
Something flickered behind Max’s eyes then, quick and unguarded. It wasn’t trust, not yet. But it was close.
He looked away, voice quieter than a whisper. “Let me think about it.”
Charles nodded, even though the urge to reach out and hold him nearly crushed him. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
When he left that night, Max didn’t follow him to the door. But as Charles stepped outside, he heard him call, barely audible through the rain:
“Thank you.”
It was the first time Max had said those words to him since everything had fallen apart.
And for the first time in months, Charles allowed himself to hope that maybe, slowly, painfully, they were finding their way back to each other.
Max didn’t sleep the night before. He’d spent hours staring at the screen, rereading his last conversation with Charles until the words blurred. Every part of him ached from pretending the hate wasn’t getting through anymore.
It had grown louder again, journalists using his name like a weapon, former drivers hinting he’d “lost the edge,” even sponsors leaking that they’d “reconsider future collaborations.” He had trained his whole life to tune out noise, but this wasn’t noise anymore. It was a slow, steady dismantling.
At dawn, he finally gave in.
He opened the chat and typed:
I want you to say it.
Publicly. That you’re the father.
He hesitated before sending the second line. His thumb hovered over the screen until his pulse matched the cursor’s blinking. Then he pressed send.
It felt like stepping off a cliff.
Charles saw the message while stretching before training. He froze mid-motion, staring at it until the words pulsed like a heartbeat.
I want you to say it.
He didn’t think. He didn’t plan. He just acted.
He still had the photo, one of the few things Max had allowed. A single picture, quiet and unposed, taken a week earlier. His hand resting against Max’s stomach, both of them half-smiling, shadows soft around them. He’d kept it like something sacred, never meant for the world.
But now Max was asking.
Within minutes, he opened Instagram, selected the photo, and adjusted the brightness so the light looked gentle. He wrote:
We’re fine. Leave him alone.
He tagged Max. Posted it to his story. Pinned it. Locked his phone.
And then, the world exploded.
The first reactions were confusion. Then disbelief. Then outrage.
News outlets screeched in every language at once. The photo flooded timelines, dissected frame by frame.
“Leclerc confirms paternity—F1 rivalry turns domestic.”
“Verstappen’s retirement linked to Ferrari driver.”
“Alpha and omega drama breaks motorsport internet.”
By noon, chaos had a pulse.
Max’s phone vibrated without stopping. He hadn’t even opened the app before it was everywhere: screenshots, mentions, half a million comments.
“He ruined two legacies in one pregnancy.”
“What a circus—five titles and now this soap opera.”
“Charles could have anyone. Why would he settle for that?”
They called him manipulative, weak, and scandalous. Some fans wrote paragraphs pretending concern: ‘He needs help.’ Others just said he deserved everything he got.
It wasn’t better for Charles.
“He’s throwing his career away for pity.”
“A real alpha doesn’t get trapped by an omega like Verstappen.”
“Ferrari should suspend him. Unprofessional and disgusting.”
“So he knocked up his rival? Disgrace.”
Even people who had claimed to support them before turned vicious. Accounts that used to post their race photos are now captioning them with disgust. Memes spread faster than apologies ever would.
By evening, team representatives were calling. Managers. PR heads. Everyone wanted a statement, an explanation, a retraction.
Charles didn’t give one. He just sat in the corner of his apartment, phone face down, staring at the floor while messages poured in, hate, shock, fake sympathy. He thought he’d prepared himself for it, but it still hit like a crash.
He’d wanted to protect Max. Instead, he’d made him bleed again.
Max couldn’t look at the internet anymore. He shut the phone off, but the echoes didn’t stop. His body reacted before his mind did: nausea, tightness in his chest, trembling hands. He felt the baby move inside him, startled by the rush of adrenaline.
He’d thought it would help, having the truth out there. That people would finally stop guessing, stop treating him like a scandal. But the truth didn’t calm anything; it just gave them a bigger target.
And now Charles was caught in the crossfire, too.
He sat on the floor beside the couch, knees pulled up, staring at the flicker of the television he wasn’t watching. His throat burned, his skin hot with shame and fear. He could already imagine the headlines:
“F1’s fallen alpha and omega.”
“Love or manipulation? The Verstappen-Leclerc scandal.”
He pressed a hand to his stomach, whispering through the ache, “I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t even sure who he was apologizing to: the child, Charles, or himself. Maybe all of them.
He’d wanted to make it easier. Instead, he’d set everything on fire.
Charles called him that night. Max didn’t answer the first five times. On the sixth, he picked up. Neither of them spoke for a while. The sound of their breathing filled the static between them.
Finally, Charles said, voice hoarse, “I thought this would help.”
“I know,” Max whispered. “So did I.”
Outside, the headlines screamed; inside, the line stayed quiet.
For the first time, they both understood that no matter how much truth they offered, the world had already decided what kind of story they were allowed to be.
And yet, even through the noise, neither of them hung up.
The world hadn’t stopped buzzing all day. Even with his phone off, Max could feel the noise like electricity under his skin. Every thought was sharp, every breath too shallow. His body wouldn’t settle. The house felt too small for the storm inside him.
When night finally came, the silence felt heavy, almost mocking. His heartbeat thudded too fast, his skin clammy with exhaustion. He told himself it was just stress—that the dizziness, the ache low in his stomach, the trembling hands, were all from not eating, not sleeping, not resting.
But something in him already knew.
He lay down, hoping sleep would trick his body into calm. The room tilted every time he closed his eyes. There was a moment, one still, suspended moment, when he felt a strange, cold absence inside, like a sound cutting off mid-note. Then warmth where there shouldn’t be warmth.
The realization came slowly, crawling through his chest before it reached his mind. And when it did, everything inside him locked.
He got up. The world swayed. His body felt foreign, light, and heavy all at once. Then he saw the stain spreading beneath him, deep and final.
The first thing he felt wasn’t pain. It was disbelief, so complete it left him hollow. Then fear. Then something beyond words, a tearing, not just in his body but in everything that had been holding him together.
He reached for his phone with shaking hands. The screen blurred with tears he hadn’t noticed. He dialed emergency services on reflex, but his voice barely worked. The dispatcher’s words dissolved into static, questions he couldn’t answer.
By the time the ambulance lights painted the windows red, the pain had started to settle into something dull and endless. The medics’ faces told him the rest before their words did.
He didn’t cry at first. He just sat there, staring at his hands, at the blanket, at the empty air. His body felt weightless, disconnected from him. The silence in the room was wrong now, too deep, too complete.
Only when they guided him toward the door did the sound finally come, raw and small, torn from somewhere he hadn’t known could hurt that much.
It wasn’t just grief. It was the shattering of every hope he hadn’t let himself admit he had.
And when the lights of the ambulance disappeared into the night, the house stood empty again, holding only echoes and the faint, bitter smell of rain.
When Max opened his eyes, the world was white. White walls, white light, white sheets that smelled of antiseptic. A soft hum of machines somewhere nearby, steady and indifferent.
He didn’t move at first. His body felt hollow, as if something essential had been scooped out of him while he slept. There was a strange quiet inside him, too quiet. For the briefest moment, his half-awake mind searched for the familiar pulse that had lived within him for months. When he didn’t feel it, he remembered.
It came back all at once.
He turned his head to the side, staring at the window where morning light pressed against the glass. It was raining again, thin streaks of silver tracing down the pane. The sight made his chest tighten.
The door opened softly. A doctor stepped in, gentle voice, practiced face. The kind that had delivered bad news before. He spoke quietly, words chosen with care, but Max didn’t really hear them. He didn’t need to. The apology was enough. The phrase too late was enough.
Two words that carried the weight of a whole universe collapsing.
Max didn’t respond. He stared at the blanket covering him, hands still, face expressionless. The quiet stretched until the doctor spoke again, quieter this time.
“There’s something else I have to explain.” His tone changed, gentle but clipped, the sound of truth delivered carefully. “This kind of trauma places extreme stress on the body. Your system will recover, but it’s unlikely that another pregnancy would be safe. I wish I had better news.”
Max closed his eyes. The light behind his lids pulsed, white and endless. He wasn’t surprised. Some part of him had already known before the words were said. The ache in his chest wasn’t shock; it was confirmation.
“Do you have anyone you’d like me to contact?” the doctor asked after a moment.
Max shook his head. His voice wouldn’t have worked even if he tried.
“All right. Rest today. We’ll keep you for observation until this evening.”
The doctor left the way he came, softly, respectfully. The door closed, and the hum of machines filled the silence again.
Max stayed perfectly still. His fingers twitched against the sheets, but he didn’t feel the fabric. The room seemed too bright, too clean for what had happened. He could hear the faint sounds of the hospital corridor: footsteps, a cart rolling past, someone laughing too loudly somewhere distant. Life continuing.
Inside him, everything had stopped.
He thought of all the words the doctor had used—trauma, strain, unlikely. Words that sounded medical, professional, detached. But what he heard beneath them was finality. A quiet erasure of something he had just begun to believe he could have.
He turned his head toward the window. The rain had stopped, leaving streaks of water that caught the morning light. He could see his reflection faintly in the glass, eyes red, lips colorless, face that didn’t look like his own anymore.
He pressed a hand to his chest. The heartbeat under it felt wrong, too loud in a body that had failed to protect what it loved.
He whispered, almost soundless, “I’m sorry.”
Sorry to the child. Sorry to himself. Sorry for believing that peace was something he could ever hold.
The room didn’t answer.
It just stayed bright and quiet, as if the world had already decided to move on without him.
Evening came quietly, soft and grey.
The hospital released him with a handful of instructions he didn’t hear and a list of follow-up appointments he didn’t intend to keep. Outside, the air smelled of wet pavement and exhaust; it was strangely ordinary for the day his world had folded in on itself.
The drive home passed in a blur. The landscape slid by, flat fields, thin light, the occasional flash of water in the ditches. He kept one hand on the wheel and one pressed against his chest, as if to check he was still solid.
When he finally stepped into the house, it felt heavier than before. The silence had a weight to it, familiar but changed. Every room looked untouched, exactly as he’d left it, but there was a faint echo in the air now, like the house knew something was missing.
He moved slowly through it, switching on one lamp and then another, the light soft and gold against the rain-streaked windows. He didn’t sit. He didn’t cry. He just stood in the middle of the living room, phone in hand, staring at the blank screen.
He told himself he didn’t owe anyone an explanation. But there was one person who had the right to know.
It wasn’t about wanting comfort; he couldn’t bear that. It wasn’t about trust either. It was simply about truth.
Charles was the father. And fathers deserved to know what they’d lost, even if they hadn’t wanted it to begin with.
Max unlocked the phone. His fingers trembled once, then steadied.
He opened the chat.
No kid anymore.
He stared at them for a long time before pressing send. There was nothing else to say, no context, no explanation, no apology. Anything more would sound like asking for pity, and pity was the one thing he could not stand.
The message went through instantly. A blue tick appeared almost at once.
He imagined Charles reading it, the silence that would follow, the confusion, the helplessness. Maybe, probably, relief. Charles had a career, a life, a future unshaken by scandal. This might even be good news for him.
Max tried to believe that.
He set the phone down on the counter, opened the settings, and began to block. Everywhere. Number, chat, social media, and mail. Each click made the world a little quieter, a little smaller. When the last connection disappeared, he felt his shoulders drop, the tension easing into exhaustion.
No more messages. No more sympathy. No more kindness that wasn’t real.
The house hummed softly with the sound of rain against the roof. Max sank onto the couch, legs drawn up, arms folded tight around himself. The phone lay face down on the table, dark and silent.
He whispered into the emptiness, “Now no one needs to pretend.”
Outside, the storm rolled past, leaving only the sound of wind through the trees. Inside, Max closed his eyes and let the silence fill the space where everything else had been.
The message hit like a spin at 300 kph, no warning, no saving it.
Before his mind could form a reply, the chat went grey. Then the call failed. Then every attempt, busy signal, voicemail, nothing. Charles stared at the screen until his reflection looked like a stranger. His hands shook once, hard, and then he was moving—keys, jacket, door, stairs, ignition.
He didn’t remember buckling in. He remembered the sound, engine upshift, tires biting wet asphalt, the howl of wind through barely sealed windows. The world smeared into rain and sodium-orange streetlights. He knew the limit; he exceeded it anyway. Every kilometer he covered felt like stealing time back from a verdict already read.
He’d never thought of it as Max’s baby. From the first moment he’d understood, quietly, privately, in the space behind his ribs, it had been theirs. A plural that had scared him and steadied him in the same breath. He’d trained himself not to say it aloud. Alpha restraint. Control. Wait for the right moment. The right sentence. The right room.
He’d waited too long.
Water lifted off the highway in sheets. The wipers lost the fight and found it again. Charles leaned forward, white-knuckled, mouth set, replaying the four words until they weren’t words anymore, just an impact echoing through bone.
He’d spent weeks acting careful, small, and contained. Because he was an alpha and alphas didn’t beg; they planned. They stood solid. They said the strong thing last. He’d believed he was protecting Max by holding everything in: the certainty, the terror, the ridiculous, tender wish that the three of them might be a small country no one could invade.
He’d told himself there would be time to say it properly. To promise it in a kitchen full of morning light. To vow it with a hand on a belly that answered back.
The sign for Max’s town flashed past, and the ache in his chest changed shape, grief made of movement. He turned off the main road, onto the narrow lane with trees leaning in like witnesses. He killed the headlights before the gate, out of habit, out of some old instinct to protect Max’s privacy even from the night. The gravel hissed under the tires.
He was out of the car before the engine had fully died.
He knocked. Once, twice, three times. “Max?” His voice came out rough, thinner than he expected. He listened for steps, for anything. Rain ticked off the eaves. The trees creaked. Inside, nothing.
He tried the bell. He tried his phone again. Blocked. He pressed his forehead to the door and breathed, counting in, counting out, fighting the rise of helplessness the way he’d fought a sliding rear end in the wet. “Please,” he said, almost to the wood. “Open the door. I’m here.”
No answer.
He stepped back, eyes scanning the windows. A faint lamp glowed in the living room, low, golden, a lighthouse refusing to admit it was alone. He wanted to smash the distance, to be foolish and loud and unignorable. Instead, he set his palms against the door and spoke to the thin gap between them.
“It was never just yours,” he said, voice steadying as he went. “It was ours from the start. I should’ve said it sooner. I should’ve told you I wanted the three of us. Not because it was the right thing. Because it was the only thing I wanted.”
The rain softened. The house listened.
“I know you blocked me. You’re allowed,” he went on, jaw tight. “I’ve been—” He swallowed. “Cowardly. Careful when I should’ve been brave. You thought I’d be relieved. I’m not. I’m hollow. I keep thinking I’ll hear two heartbeats again and I won’t. I know that. But I can still be here for you. That doesn’t end because the world got crueler.”
His hands dropped. He looked down at his fingers, reddened by cold, and flexed them as if grip alone could change physics. He pictured Max on the other side of the wood: shoulders up, breath shallow, the practiced stillness he wore like armor. He pictured going quiet for him, matching his breathing until it steadied. He pictured being the wall Max could lean on without asking.
He pressed his palm flat to the door, one last time. “I’m not going anywhere. I will come back tomorrow. And the day after. You don’t have to open this door, but I’ll be on the other side until you remember you don’t have to do any of this alone.”
He shrugged out of his jacket, the good one he wore to sponsor meetings, and folded it on the step, under the small overhang where the rain couldn’t reach. A foolish gesture, maybe. A flag. A promise.
When he finally turned to leave, the road looked different, narrower, darker, but his decision felt clean. He’d spent years confusing control with courage. This was simpler: show up, and keep showing up, until the door opens.
He got in the car, started the engine, and sat with his hands on the wheel, eyes on the quiet house. He whispered into the fogging glass, a vow meant for one listener who might never hear it.
“You’re it, Max. You’ve been it. I should have said, family.”
The wipers swept once, twice. He pulled away slowly, below the limit now, like speed would be a kind of disrespect. Behind him, the lamp stayed on. Ahead, the night arranged itself into a path he would drive again tomorrow, and the next day, and as many days as it took.
Charles made a ritual of the road.
Morning: coffee gone cold by the second corner, birches flashing like metronomes, the same turn-in, the same gravel sigh at the gate. He’d stand at the door with his knuckles against the wood and say nothing loud. Just: “I’m here.” He’d leave quietly, jacket replaced by a note, the note replaced by a thermos, the thermos by a folded blanket he would never see used.
Evening: headlights off before the drive, rain ticking in the gutters, his breath fogging in the porch light. “I’m still here.” Sometimes he’d sit on the step for an hour, listening to the house not answer.
Day after day, the same. He learned the music of Max’s silence. He learned that the lamp stayed on until 2 a.m. and that there was a floorboard three paces in squeakier than the rest. He learned how to leave without letting despair make noise.
On the seventh morning, maybe the eighth; sleep had lost its count, the door opened.
No prelude. No chain sliding, no cautious call through wood. It simply cracked, then widened, until Charles stood facing the kind of quiet that rearranges what you believe about a person.
Max looked… plain. Not the careful, weaponized plainness he wore for cameras. Just emptied out. Too thin across the collarbone. Colorless lips. Eyes with the shine rubbed off. His scent, once a blade, was faint as ash. The posture was the worst: not defensive, not coiled, just… slack, like someone who had stopped bracing because the blow had already landed.
Every comparison hit at once: not the lion, not the fire, not the omega who could turn his body into a challenge with a glance. Charles felt a pressure behind his sternum like a hand closing. The only thought left was a verdict.
This is my fault.
Not abstractly. Specifically. No condom. No courage. No words when words could have built a shelter. He had made caution into a virtue and watched it curdle into harm. He had been an alpha in the ways that were easiest: control, restraint, patience, and absent in the one that mattered: naming what he wanted and promising it aloud.
Max’s voice came out level, like he was reading a clock. “How long have you been waiting?”
Charles swallowed. The truth was smaller than everything he wanted to say. “Several days.”
No flicker of surprise. No anger either. Max stood there for a heartbeat, then another, and then stepped forward into him like gravity had finally remembered its job.
The hug wasn’t dramatic. No collapse, no sobbing. Just arms around shoulders, a face against a neck, a breath that stuttered once and then matched the other’s rhythm. Charles froze for half a second, fear of squeezing too hard, touching wrong, then folded him in, careful and sure, one hand at the back of Max’s head, the other wide between his shoulder blades. Max’s fingers fisted in Charles’s shirt like an old habit.
And there it was: the terrible, simple recognition that they were the same kind of foolishness, two people who had mistaken silence for safety, who had tried to out-stoic grief and outthink love.
Charles shut his eyes. The apology rose to his tongue and died there; words could come later. He let his body say what he hadn’t: I am here. I should’ve said it sooner. I am not leaving.
Max’s breath warmed his throat. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said, barely audible.
“Me neither,” Charles breathed back. “But I’m here now.”
They stood like that until time lost shape, until the porch light clicked itself off, until the morning settled from grey to pale. When they finally eased apart, nothing was solved, nothing fixed. But some shard inside both of them had shifted, just enough to stop cutting.
Max didn’t invite him in, and Charles didn’t ask. They both understood the math of it—the door was open; they’d done one brave thing.
Tomorrow, they could try another.