Work Text:
The thing about this thing between him and Lando was that it was so full of unwritten rules and unsaid things that Max sometimes felt like he was choking trying not to let them slip.
The first unwritten rule was that they do not talk about the thing, it strictly exists in stolen moments in hidden hotel rooms with cheap sheets that Lando always complained about, but as soon as they are out of that room, they are just Max and Lando, two best friends. Definitely not Max and Lando, best friends who fall into bed almost every single time they are in the same city, which to the surprise of Max, is actually not as often as he first thought it would be, with Lando always doing something and Max also traveling around all the time so it mostly ends up being just race weekends and a few days where Max actively tries to think about every nice thing that he ever did to deserve this.
Other unwritten rules include stuff that every friends-with-benefits situation does. Do not tell anyone about it; Max let it slip to his sister on one of their weekly phone calls.
They switch between who pays for the room; Max always gets there first, just so he can pay in advance, so that he can see the grimace on Lando’s face when he goes to pay.
Absolutely no calling the other on their names during sex; despite trying his best, Max calls Lando on his name one time while Lando is clinging to him while Max fucks into him, moaning and fisting Max’s hair, clearly out of it but still mouthing off, fucking asking if this is all Max got, still calling Max champ, the rule closely following is absolutely not using the pet names outside, especially during race weekends; Max calls Lando baby during a drivers parade, it gets swallowed up by the noise of the crowd and Max has to move to the other side of the truck.
The final and most important rule, the only one that was actually said out loud, whispered between kisses on the first night they did this in a shitty hotel somewhere near Austin still high on the adrenaline, is to not to fall in love, Max laughed and joked that the only one falling would be Lando; Max realized later that he doesn’t remember a time where he wasn’t in love with Lando Norris.
It’s not even that he is bad at the casual, friends-with-benefits thing. He had casual hookups, friends with whom he hooked up for a few months, where the chemistry was there, but the feelings weren’t, and it was fine. Max got out of those, knowing they had their fun and that it’s over. Now the looming ending feels like a punch to the gut when he thinks about it.
Turns out Max is just horrible at casual, friends-with-benefits sex when it comes to Lando Norris, because every time he has Lando in his lap, all tan skin and cocky smile with the look in his eyes that at least on some level he absolutely knows what he is doing to Max, Max straight up folds like a wet paper towel.
Max decides he has to end it during the summer break, when, by some stupid reason, because Max is nothing if a pathetic lovesick idiot, he lets Lando rope him into going somewhere together for a few days, just the two of them, and then jokingly makes a calendar note in Max’s phone, calling it a sexcapade. The mental image of Lando in his swim shorts, or, better yet, nothing at all, sitting in the sun with his stupid curls and stupid grin, is the only thing Max can think about for days.
That’s how they end up going to Italy for four days because Max has a friend who owns a small villa in a secluded part of the beach.
Four days, where they barely make it through the door before Max is pushed against it and kissed breathless.
Four days where they go to restaurants where nobody recognizes them, and Max lets Lando order both of them as if they have been doing this all their lives. Where Max gets to hold Lando’s hand after the table.
Four days where they keep falling into bed and Max keeps trying to drag it out and savor every single touch Lando is willing to give him.
Four days where Max knows that he has to break it off.
Because the thing is that Max might just be a masochistic idiot who loves punishing himself, but he refuses to let Lando also be affected by Max’s feelings. He tries to justify the trip to Vic by saying how they need to finish this thing between them on a high, and nothing says that more than spending four days straight fucking through every surface in an Italian villa. Max cannot even blame Vic when she snorts and tells Max how he is an idiot; she also doesn’t mention how he never mentioned wanting to end things with Lando.
Lando, to his credit, doesn’t comment on Max lingering and being on his head more than usual, just lets Max kiss him longer than normal, doesn’t comment when Max calls him by name while they shower on the second night, and squeezes Max’s hand when Max drops him off at home after their trip.
(…)
Max always thought that one of his fatal flaws was his inability to let people go. He always hated it, how he clung to people who showed him even an ounce of kindness and caring. Hated how people in his life who mattered looked out for him because they knew Max trusted too easily and loved too deep and people found out and used it over and over again until they took everything Max had to offer and Max just gave and gave and silently begged on his knees for them to keep loving him, as if he needed it as a sick badge that said “Hey look, I can be loved too”.
Lando, on the other hand, took one look at Max when Max was too long and too skinny, and his limbs felt too big for his lanky body, and Lando barely reached his shoulders with a grin that somehow felt wider than it is now, still safe from the endless hate and criticism, and simply chose to love Max. Lando never needed Max to beg for him; he never needed Max to hold on because Lando simply chose to stay and stay no matter what life threw at them or the media tried to sell it as if they were mortal enemies. Lando never needed anything more from Max than Max gave freely (Max would move mountains if Lando asked him to).
That’s why Max feels sick of the thought of letting go of this one part of Lando that he barely had time to learn. Max wants to spend the rest of his days learning this version of Lando, the one that gets this impossibly soft look on his face when Max touches him gently, the one who says thank you, baby, with that soft raspy voice when Max brings him water and gently cleans them up as if Lando is not used to someone doing it for him. Max wants to take that version and hide it away so it’s only visible to him and can only be cherished by him and nobody else.
Still, after Max drops Lando off, he doesn’t text Lando at first, and it helps that Lando doesn’t text him for a few days either. It’s normal after they just spent a few days together, and Max knows they’re both the kind of people who need time to recharge; it’s fine, really.
So when Daniel calls him and complains that he hasn’t heard from Max much recently, Max does the next logical thing and gets to Australia as soon as he can.
Being with Daniel is nice. It always is. He brings a type of lightness into Max’s life that Max cannot really explain to anyone logically. Max spent his entire life being an older brother, and it’s nice to be the younger brother for a few days.
“So how was your break?” Daniel asks, handing a beer to Max in the process.
“It was fine,” Max says, trying, and failing, to sound casual. “Hung out with Lando mostly.”
Daniel hums and sits down at the lounger next to Max’s. “Is he still cocky?” Daniel asks, and Max can hear the fondness in his voice. “God, I haven’t seen the kid in months. You should’ve invited me to come hang out, too.”
Max, in fact, doesn’t think they should’ve invited Daniel. If Daniel knew how they spent those few days, he would probably share the same opinion. “You didn’t miss much. Just the same old Lando.”
They stay quiet for a while, enjoying the sound of the pool and the cold beer hitting his tongue. Maybe Max should move to Australia. It’s almost okay to pretend he isn’t in love with Lando here.
“So, where did you stay?” Daniel asks, squinting at Max. “Did you rent a place?”
“Nah,” Max shakes his head. “Do you know how Jon has that place on that private place he got from his dad?”
Daniel squints harder and lies back against his sunbed again, clearly thinking about it before looking at Max, confused. “Dude, that studio villa?”
And fuck, Max really should’ve thought before speaking. Daniel’s face does something complicated that Max recognizes as being somewhere between realization and trying very, very hard not to ask too many questions.
Maybe also trying not to laugh. “Dude, that place has a queen-sized bed, and that’s it.”
“Technically, that’s a king-size,” Max mutters while pretending he is really interested in his beer’s ingredients. “It also has a really nice pull-out couch.”
Daniel makes a strangled noise. “Dude-”
“We made it work. It was fine.”
“You are telling me, you, Mr. my-summer-break-is-sacred, spent four days voluntarily sharing a bed with Lando Norris,” Daniel says slowly. “And you are telling me it was fine?”
“I have shared beds with Lando before when we were kids,” Max shrugs, because that’s all he can do besides hoping Daniel will drop the topic soon.
“Yeah, when you were 17 and terrified of sleeping in hotels alone.”
“That was once,” Max rolls his eyes.
“No, it happened like 10 times or something before you got used to it,” Daniel says, pointing a finger at him. “You used to show up at my door and pretend you just wanted to talk.”
Max flips him off and adjusts his sunglasses.
Daniel grins victoriously, sits up properly in his bed, and turns to Max. Something in his expression changes, as if he is trying to solve a problem. “You doing okay?”
That’s the problem with Daniel, for all his grins and jokes, Daniel always asks things too gently.
Max weighs his options carefully. He could lie, obviously. Normally, he would. He is good at it by now, good at dodging questions and pretending this whole thing with Lando is not clawing at his ribs, begging to be let out.
But, on the other hand, Max is tired, jet-lagged, sun-warm, and worn so paper-thin from spending every day since leaving Italy trying not to think about Lando’s lips on his skin, or the way Lando smiled sleepily in the morning when he saw Max with their coffee, like seeing Max the first thing every morning made him happy.
So instead of lying, Max says, “I think I really fucked up.”
Daniel snorts into his beer. “Okay, that’s a little vague because you do fuck up a lot. Do you want to narrow it down for me?”
“With Lando. I think I fucked up with Lando.”
Max dares a glance at Daniel’s face, and even with the sunglasses on, he can see the amusement fading from Daniel’s face.
Not because Daniel knows and Max would rather drown himself in this pool than willingly explain the whole situation out loud. But Daniel knows them, knows the shape of them, knows the years and years of orbiting each other.
Daniel opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again, “What happened?”
“Technically, nothing,” Max rubs a hand over his face.
“Yeah, that means something, probably very big, absolutely happened.”
Max lets out a sharp exhale through his nose. “I just…” he tries to find the words. “I think, maybe, I let it go too far.”
Daniel stays quiet for a beat and then, very carefully asks, “Too far how?”
Max laughs once, humorless. “I don’t know. We spend too much time with each other. We act weird, everyone makes jokes about us and now it’s…”
Now it’s waking up and kissing Lando’s shoulder, being tangled together, with sunlight pouring over his shoulder and lighting Lando up.
Now it’s Lando stealing food off Max’s plate while Max has to stop himself from kissing him stupid right there, in front of everyone.
Now it’s being in love with Lando. This horrible, all-consuming love that Max keeps trying to shove into smaller and smaller boxes, and it’s leaking through the cracks anyway.
Daniel watches him for a long moment.
“Are you in love with him?” Daniel asks, finally.
Max goes completely still.
Because the thing is, nobody ever asked him that before. Not even Vic, who vaguely knows about him and Lando.
Not directly.
His family always danced around his and Lando’s friendship. His engineers joke about it. The internet screams it 24/7. But nobody ever looked Max in the eye and asked him plainly enough that lying suddenly feels impossible.
Max stares at his hands.
“Yeah,” he says quietly.
Daniel sighs like someone who just watched a car crash he knew was going to happen in slow motion. “Oh, mate.”
Max lets out a brittle laugh. “Yeah”
“He doesn’t know?”
“Of course not.”
“And you are sure about this?”
“Yes,” Max says, because if Lando knew, he for sure would’ve stopped this already. “He was very clear about what this thing is.”
Daniel hums.
“What?” Max hates that hum.
“Nothing.”
“Dan-”
“I just think you are not giving Lando enough credit,” Daniel says, scratching his jaw.
“You think Lando Norris sits at home and secretly pines for me?”
“I think,” Daniel says, clearly careful with his wording, “that I met the kid, hell, I worked with the kid. And I have watched him look at you like you were the greatest thing to ever happen to him since he was like 18 with acne.”
“That’s not-” Max can feel the heat crawl up his neck.
“And,” Daniel keeps going, “I also think friends-with-benefits situations don’t usually include private Italian villas.
Max nearly chokes on his beer. “How do you know it’s a friend-with-benefits thing?”
Daniel blinks.
Max blinks back.
Then a delighted horror spreads across Daniel’s face. “Oh, my god. Oh. My. God.” Daniel says, “You are sleeping with Lando Norris.” Daniel points at him.
Max drops his head and groans. “I am leaving.”
“Oh, absolutely not, sit your ass down,” Daniel grabs his shoulder and laughs helplessly. “What the fuck, dude? Since when?”
“Can we not-”
“Since when?”
Suddenly drowning himself in that pool doesn’t sound too bad.
“A few months,” Max chokes it out eventually.
Daniel makes a strangled noise. “Why are you only telling me this now?”
“Because I wasn’t planning to tell you at all,” Max mutters.
“Obviously,” Daniel says. “You said ‘thing’ like you were discussing tax fraud.”
Max begs for the ground to swallow him whole.
Daniel keeps laughing for a minute, clearly placing details together before leaning back and wiping at his eyes. “Right. Okay. Serious now.”
“I really fucking hate you,” Max says, but can’t help but smile.
“And I love you!” Daniel nudges Max’s foot with his own and tilts Max’s head up fully with his hands. “Have you thought about talking to Lando about this?”
Max shakes his head.
“Why?”
“Because I would prefer keeping whatever dignity I have left.”
“Max,” Daniel rolls his eyes.
“It’s just casual sex,” Max says flatly. “That’s the whole point of it.”
“Is it?”
“Yes”
Daniel gives him an unimpressed look. Max glares back.
“Okay, I want an honest answer. When you are with him, does it feel like just casual?”
Max opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Because Max knows, somewhere distantly knows casual wouldn’t feel like this.
Casual would not be Lando smiling against Max’s mouth in the mornings.
Casual would not be sitting at restaurant tables with fingers tangled together.
Casual would not be Lando falling asleep on Max’s chest for 4 days, and Max having nowhere else he would rather be.
Daniel must see the realization on Max’s face because his next reaction is, “Oh, mate.”
“Don’t do that,” Max groans.
“Do what?”
“Don’t pity me.”
“I am not pitying you, just maybe a little.”
Max groans and flops back in his bed.
(…)
Max is exhausted by the time he gets back to Monaco 5 days later.
His flight got delayed, his phone ran out of charge halfway through, and somewhere between his flight and getting to his car, Max managed to convince himself that Daniel was wrong.
Completely wrong. Delusional, actually.
Because Lando doesn’t love him.
Lando likes him. Wants him, probably. Cares about him, definitely.
But that’s different because Lando is affectionate with everyone he loves. Lando throws himself across people’s laps, Lando grabs heads and kisses cheeks, and says I love you with the biggest, most genuine smile on his face.
By the time he pulls into his parking spot, he is already thinking about ways they could have this conversation. How he is going to end things properly this time. He is going to act like an adult and calmly end things.
Then he opens his front door and nearly turns right back around.
The first thing he registers is the soft music playing in the kitchen.
The second is the very familiar pair of sneakers on the floor.
The third thing is Lando.
He is lying on Max’s couch like it’s his, with one cat sleeping on his chest while the other is spread out on his lap, completely boneless, both of them looking deeply unimpressed by Max waking them up from their sleep.
And then Lando looks up from his phone and smiles softly.
Something painfully twists in Max’s chest.
“Max,” Lando says.
Max just stares at him for a second. He is in one of Max’s hoodies and a pair of grey sweatpants. His curls stick up in a hundred different ways, and he looks so soft that Max feels his heart actually skip a beat.
“What are you doing here?” Max asks weakly.
Lando tilts his head and smiles. “Hanging with your children, obviously.”
As if that explains anything.
Sassy, traitorous little thing she is, stretches lazily across Lando’s stomach comfortably.
“You sent the sitter away to hang out with my cats?”
“Well,” Lando says with a smirk, “I also knew you were meant to come home today.”
Max feels his stomach flip.
“Also, you gave me a key, so” Lando adds. As if that makes Max feel more grounded.
Because Max did do that.
In his defense, though, Lando once got caught in the rain while waiting for Max to get back from the gym, and Max had been tired and fond and stupidly in love enough to hand over the spare key without thinking about what it meant.
At the time, it felt harmless. Now?
Now it doesn’t feel harmless as he is looking at Lando being covered in Jimmy and Sassy in the middle of his living room.
Now it feels like a catastrophic mistake that sealed his fate.
“You have been ignoring me,” Lando says suddenly.
“What?” Max frowns.
“I have been texting you,” Lando squints at him.
Right. His phone.
“My phone died,” Max says honestly, and then watches as Lando’s expression softens.
Jimmy chooses this moment to try to climb over Lando’s shoulder, nearly smacking Lando in the face with his tail. Lando giggles under his breath and catches Jimmy, setting him on the ground.
And fuck, Max is so in love with him it actually hurts.
Because this is so ridiculous.
Lando Norris should not be sitting in Max’s house, cuddling with his cats while waiting for Max to come home like some boyfriend.
That is not what their thing is about.
Lando finally manages to untangle himself from Sassy and Jimmy and stands. The cats follow him like ducklings.
“You doing okay?” Lando asks gently.
“I’m fine.” Max is not fine, actually.
“You are acting weird,” Lando squints at him, studying his face. Max tries his best not to look at his nose, scrunching up.
“I’m acting weird?” Max asks, trying to lighten the mood. “You broke into my house to hang out with my cats.”
Lando laughs, and it sounds heavenly. “They do like me better than you,” Lando says smugly as Sassy winds around his ankle.
“Traitors,” Max mutters and can’t help but smile.
Lando smiles and steps closer, studying Max’s face more closely. “Seriously, though. You’ve been weird since Italy.”
Lando hooks his fingers loosely around the sleeve of Max’s hoodie, tugging on it softly. Max can only hope Lando can’t feel his pulse jumping.
“Did I do something?” Lando asks. “Or say something that hurt you?”
Max has to close his eyes briefly because Lando genuinely sounds worried. Worried that he had hurt Max somehow.
“No, of course not.”
“Then what is it?”
Max wants to say you. It nearly slips out. “I promise you it’s nothing,” Max says instead.
Lando studies him for a second too long, and Max prays to a god he doesn’t believe in that Lando can’t see anything, then Lando steps forward, grabs Max by the front of his hoodie, and kisses him.
It’s devastating. Warm and familiar.
It’s immediate.
Max sighs into Lando’s mouth before he can stop himself, his hands finding Lando’s waist like a sick instinct, pulling Lando into him.
Behind them, one of the cats, probably Sassy, lets out a deeply offended meow as Max lets one of his hands slide lower and slide into Lando’s sweatpants.
“Your children are judging us,” Lando laughs against Max’s lips.
“Don’t care,” Max says, trying to tug Lando even closer. “They judge everything anyway.”
“Max,” Lando lets out a laugh as Max squeezes his ass.
Then Lando kisses Max again, somehow even deeper this time, and then Max is being backed into the hallway with Lando attached to him like he has no intention of letting go.
“I missed you so much,” Lando says against Max’s jaw.
And fuck if it’s not the greatest and most painful thing Max has ever heard, and suddenly it’s like the hours he spent planning between the plane and getting into his car dissolve instantly.
They should talk. They really fucking should. “Lando,” he manages to breathe weakly.
“You have been gone forever,” Lando complains softly.
“Baby, I was gone for 5 days,” Max says, and he can’t help the endearment slipping out. He spent 5 days not talking to Lando, and he feels like he deserves to call him baby once.
“Exactly. Unacceptable behavior from you.”
Max lets out a helpless laugh and lets Lando kiss him deeper while he is pushed into his bedroom.
By the time Max is pushed back into his bed, his thoughts are all Lando, Lando’s hands on his shoulders, Lando’s weight in his lap, Lando’s lips on his skin. It’s all reduced to the soft, pleased noise Lando makes when Max pulls him closer.
Lando grins against Max’s lips. “There you are,” Lando murmurs. “My Max.”
My Max.
Max thinks his heart might actually stop beating.
Because Lando says possessive little comments wrapped in jokes, easy affection tossed around like it costs nothing all the time.
My driver.
My idiot.
My baby.
My friend.
My. My. My.
Usually, Max can survive it. Usually, Max can deal with the dangerous bursts of hope before it gets out of hand.
Right now, though, with Lando in his lap and kissing him like he has been starving for it, Max feels frighteningly close to losing his mind.
Max swallows and places his hands on Lando’s arms. “Lan,” Max says, quieter this time.
Lando hums against his skin, distracted, lips sliding along Max’s skin. It’s everything Max could ever possibly want. “Mm?”
“We should talk,” Max says and gently pushes against Lando’s arms, hoping for some distance.
“Max, can you save the overthinking for later?” Lando asks and gently bites at Max’s ear.
Max swallows and pushes harder until at least Lando is no longer kissing him. “Lan, this is important.”
Lando immediately stills. Not fully, but enough that Max can feel his breath catch, enough that Max can see something sharpen in him. Enough that his hands let go of the fabric at Max’s waist.
“That sounds serious,” he says carefully, and god, Max already hates this.
Because the thing is, he had imagined this conversation hundreds of times. He imagined it on the plane, in the car before practice, in Italy, while Lando was curled around him in the middle of the night, and he imagined it the first time they kissed. It was always logical, clean, and reasonable. He would explain how they crossed the line and how, somewhere between the first time they had sex and Italy, it started getting messy, that maybe they, mostly Max, needed space before they crossed a line so far that they ruin everything.
But now Lando is actually here. In Max’s lap. Waiting patiently for Max to talk to him.
Lando, who spent all day at Max’s house, hanging out with Max’s cats, was waiting for Max to come home. For Max to come home to him.
Lando, who kissed him the second he had a chance.
Lando, who keeps looking at Max like he is still someone worth protecting. Like, Max is something precious, not a broken man masquerading as whole.
But now Max feels sick at the thought of losing this.
Lando looks at him, and his expression softens. “Hey,” Lando says, cradling Max’s face in his hands. “What’s wrong? Did something happen in Australia? Did Daniel say something?”
And that’s a problem.
Lando always knows.
It’s Max who looks away first.
“No, everything is fine.”
“Max,” Lando says and slips off of Max’s lap, crouching before Max now.
The concern in Lando’s voice actually feels like a punch to the gut. Max is thankful he is sitting because he is not sure his legs wouldn’t give out if he were standing.
Lando takes Max’s hands and presses a kiss to them.
Neither of them speaks for a moment.
Max can hear the cats meowing in the hallway, probably offended by being left alone. It’s also getting closer to dinner time.
“They are going to break down the door,” Lando snorts softly.
Despite the situation, Max huffs out a laugh.
“Talk to me,” Lando pleads softly.
Max cannot get himself to look the love of his life in the eye as he breaks it off between them.
“I think-” Max says softly, stumbling over his words. “I think maybe this was a bad idea.”
The silence is immediate, and the worst thing Max has experienced.
Before him, Lando goes completely still, mouth opening to say something, then closing it.
Not confused. Not surprised. Just completely still. Max realizes his mistake like he usually does, always a second too late.
“You mean the trip?” Lando asks quietly.
“No, I mean-”
“Us,” Lando gestures vaguely between them before standing and running a hand through his hair. “You mean us, don’t you?” Lando’s voice is flat now. Max hates it with every fiber of his being.
Fuck. “That’s not what I-”
But Lando is already pulling away, disappearing so quickly that Max feels the loss physically.
“Oh,” Lando says. “Oh, my god. God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Lan,” Max says, reaching towards Lando.
“Don’t call me that,” Lando says. “It’s fine, actually. Makes sense,” he laughs once under his breath. It’s sharp and humorless. It’s nothing like Lando.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Really?” Lando turns abruptly, running a hand through his curls. They look soft and messy, and Max wants to touch them. “Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you are trying to break up with me.”
Max blinks, and he can see the words hitting both of them at the same time.
Break up.
Lando’s expression twists immediately, something raw and painful flashing across his face.
Max can feel his heart beating violently. “You think we are dating?” he blurts out before he can stop himself.
Wrong answer.
Lando’s head snaps up towards him, hurt clear on his face now. “Wow.”
“No, I didn’t mean-”
“Jesus Christ, Max,” Lando takes another step back, like suddenly being too close to Max is something he can’t stand anymore. “I just spent 4 days with you in Italy,” he says, voice rising. Max had never heard Lando yell before. “You held my hand in public.”
Max blinks. “Nobody saw.”
“Max, that is not the fucking point.”
Sassy comes into the room, meowing loudly and hopping onto the bed, oblivious to the emotional devastation happening around her.
Lando points at Max like this is somehow it fault too.
“You gave me a key to your house.”
“You gave me one to your house, too,” Max says, and he can feel himself getting defensive.
“Because you are there 5 days out of the week!”
Max opens and closes his mouth uselessly.
Lando laughs again, but now he just sounds even more upset. “Fucking unbelievable.”
“Lando, please-”
“No, because apparently I’m the insane one here,” Lando gestures between them. “You call me baby, you cuddle me to sleep at night, you gave me a key to your house and drawers, but sure, obviously we are just casually hooking up.”
Max feels like his brain is malfunctioning because when Lando puts it like this-
“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Max asks faintly and can feel his body snagging.
Lando stares at him in complete disbelief. “Are you seriously figuring this out right now?”
“You thought we were together?”
“I thought we were heading somewhere!” Lando says, clearly worked up.
Max stands so suddenly that he feels dizzy. “We agreed not to fall in love.”
Lando freezes and lets out a long, frustrated exhale. “Why did you think I said that?” Lando says tightly. “God. Okay. Max, I was already in love with you, and I wanted to have you without you freaking out and running out on me.”
Lando looks mad now, but underneath the frustration and madness, Max can see something he has rarely ever seen in Lando. Embarrassment. Like he thinks he’s said too much and can’t take any of it back now. And Lando is never embarrassed; he always stands behind what he says without fault.
“You really never noticed?” Lando asks, finally breaking the silence. His voice is thin, and Max can hear the heartbreak in it. Max hates it.
“Oh,” Max says. “Oh, my god.”
“I’m leaving,” Lando says, and turns around. Max can see Lando wiping at his face.
“No!” Max says and grabs Lando’s arm.
And this is it. This is the exact thing Max so desperately wanted to avoid. Hurting Lando, breaking them apart with feelings that Max thought were entirely one-sided.
Only, now, apparently, they aren’t. Apparently, they never were.
“I’m in love with you,” Max says, and it feels like ripping his broken and bruised heart out with his bare hands and offering it up to Lando to decide what to do with it.
For one horrible minute, Lando goes silent. Alarmingly so. Max can feel his heart squeeze.
Slowly, Lando turns back around. “What did you say?”
Max does the next logical thing and falls to his knees, still holding Lando’s hand. “I’m in love with you. Have been for a while.”
“Max, stand up,” Lando says, with tears in his eyes as he tries to pull Max up. “You are being embarrassing,” Lando laughs weakly, and Max doesn’t even mind being embarrassed if it means seeing the anger drain from Lando’s face.
“I’m an idiot,” Max says, pressing a kiss to the back of Lando’s hand. “I’m an idiot, and I love you,” Max laughs helplessly, the relief making him feel dizzy.
Lando stares at him for a few seconds before also falling to his knees in front of Max and grabbing Max by his face. “You suck at communicating your feelings.”
“Probably should work on that, right?” Max tries to joke before choking up. It comes out wet and almost pathetic. Max cannot find it in himself to care.
“Yeah,” Lando laughs breathlessly and then kisses Max like he is still a little angry about it.
(…)
The first thing Max thinks of when he wakes up is Lando’s face as Max knelt in front of him, asking Lando to spend the rest of his life choosing Max.
The second thing Max thinks of is how it felt when Lando said yes.
Lando’s hand is resting against Max’s chest, the ring standing out against Lando’s golden skin. Max doesn’t think he will ever get bored with seeing this.
Max stares at it blearily for a long moment.
Holy shit.
They got engaged yesterday.
Beside him, Lando makes a soft, annoyed noise and hooks one leg over Max’s like he is trying to prevent Max from leaving him physically.
“Stop moving,” Lando mumbles sleepily.
“I’m not moving.”
“You are,” Lando says and burrows closer.
Max laughs quietly and puts his arms around Lando.
Lando finally opens his eyes at that. His curls are a mess, and his face has pillow creases on it. And Max is the only person who ever gets to see him like this.
Lando looks at the ring on his finger, and his entire expression softens to the point that he almost looks shy.
Which is insane considering this is Lando Norris, and he spent most of yesterday evening alternating between laughing in disbelief and crying whenever he thought Max wasn’t paying attention. Also, texting pictures of the ring to the Norris family group chat.
Now, though, he just looks at Max with this soft look on his face,
“Hi,” Lando says sleepily.
Max thinks he might die from how much he loves him.
“Hi, baby.”
“You are staring.” Lando’s mouth twitches into a smile.
“Because you are beautiful,” Max says. “And you are my fiancé.”
Lando grins, and it’s the brightest thing in Max’s whole life. He reaches up to card his fingers through Max’s hair, and the morning light seeping through the window catches on his ring.
Still unbelievable because for years, Max was certain that loving Lando would always feel like bleeding internally. That it would be this quiet and hidden thing that he had to survive.
Now Lando is smiling at him while they are in their bed. Now Lando is his fiancé. Now, Max is Lando’s fiancé.
Which feels absolutely insane.
If someone told 16-year-old Max Verstappen that one day he would wake up next to Lando Norris wearing an engagement ring, 16-year-old Max Verstappen probably would’ve combusted on the spot.
Current 28-year-old Max Verstappen feels close to combusting, too.
“You okay?” Lando asks quietly after studying Max for a second.
The same gentle voice. The same one that always undoes Max completely.
“Just thinking,” he says.
Lando laughs softly, and the light catches on the ring again as he moves.
Max hadn’t planned to propose yesterday. He’d had a whole plan. A nicer and more romantic plan. But then Lando wandered into the kitchen wearing one of Max’s hoodies, and those stupid gym shorts that always make Max weak in the knees, hair a mess, smiling at Max like he is everything, and Max had just broken.
One second, he was watching the pasta boil, and the next, he was kneeling in front of Lando, asking him to marry him.
“Still can’t believe you proposed to me,” Lando says.
Honestly, Max can’t either. 5 months ago, he was on the verge of losing Lando.
And now somehow Max gets this.
Gets him.
Forever, apparently.
“You are freaking me out a little,” Lando admits, although he has a smile on his face when he says it.
Max pulls him closer and presses a kiss to his temple. “Sorry. Still can’t believe you said yes.”
“Obviously, I said yes,” Lando looks up. “As if I would ever let anyone else marry you.”
Max laughs helplessly against Lando’s skin.
Somewhere in the house, Max can hear the cats running around, meowing for breakfast. Neither of them moves.
When Max thinks about his life until this point, the races, the trophies, the pain, and the triumph, he thinks about them, and despite the pride and fulfillment he feels, he also feels like he would be okay without those. Because, despite his love for racing, he could spend the rest of his days without it.
But when he thinks about Lando, it’s everything. Lando is everywhere, in everything, all the time, and it’s the greatest thing Max has ever had in his life. It’s everything Max could ever want, and now Lando is his to keep.
Lando, who waited for him.
Lando, who loved him even when Max tried to push him away.
Lando, who heard Max say that maybe they were a bad idea, and still stayed long enough to prove to Max that they aren’t.
And maybe Max is not a good man, but somehow he is good enough to get this.
Get the slow morning in bed with Lando.
Get the crazy race weekends where they get to go home to each other.
Get the cats that his fiancé calls their children.
And after all those years where he felt like his life wasn’t his own to live, he gets to have this and live it.