Chapter Text
“It makes no fucking sense,” Jos hissed, kicking a duffel bag across the room as he paced back and forth in front of Max. Max sat on the ground of the hotel room, pressed up against the side of his bed, hugging his knees. He muffled a sniffle as his dad carried on, breathing through his nose like an angry bull. “You never showed any signs of being — fuck!”
Max managed to stay silent, but he felt a sob forming in his chest, impossible to push away the way he usually would. His lip began to wobble dangerously. He shoved his face into his knees so Jos wouldn’t see.
“I hope you realize that your career is over,” Jos spat. “There are no littles in F1.”
Max’s head shot up. He met his father’s rage-filled eyes for the first time since he’d woken up. Dawning horror washed over him as the words sunk in. The thought had been too… big for his brain to come up with on its own. But laid out in front of him, he understood its implication just fine.
There were no littles in F1. And he was, apparently, little.
“But— no! I can’t— I have to, I,” Max stuttered, trying to make his brain and his mouth say all of what he was feeling and finding himself incapable. He whimpered out a broken sound, wiping tears from his cheeks. “No, please.”
“What do you mean, ‘please’? I can do a lot of things, Max, but I’m not fucking magic. I can’t fix this.” Jos smacked a water bottle off the table with a wide swing of his arm and it hit the wall next to Max, the cap flying off and water sloshing out and splattering everywhere. Max felt the droplets land on his face and his arms, watched dark dots speckle his pants and soak into the fabric. “Everything we worked for!”
Max put his face back into his knees, unable to hold back a sob. At least he managed to keep it silent. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears clumping his eyelashes together and weighing them down until they dripped off and joined the dots on his pants. Pathetically, he desperately craved a hug. Everything felt so big and awful. Max was afraid he’d fall apart with no one to hold him together, but he also knew better than to ask his dad for one.
“Jesus, how could this…” Jos trailed off, shaking his head as he continued to pace. He whirled around after a moment, glaring down at Max. “Were you hiding it from me? Did you know?”
Max looked up in shock and shook his head rapidly, swiping the back of his hand under his nose.
“No,” Max replied in a small, wobbly voice. Jos was staring at him with — hatred in his eyes. He’d seen disappointment, disapproval, even burning rage in his father’s eyes directed at him on many occasions, but never hate. Max shrunk in on himself further.
He tried not to think about all the times over the recent years that he vehemently ignored… things he’d started to experience. Like the urge to stick his thumb in his mouth, or the close calls when he suddenly realized he badly needed the bathroom when he’d felt fine seconds before.
He hadn’t really known. Those were just weird things that didn’t mean anything. Easy to ignore, easy to forget.
Because it hadn’t been possible. It couldn’t happen to him of all people. He never showed any signs growing up. Max had always been mature for his age. He didn’t spend his weekends wasting time playing pointless games with other kids, he was on the track or working on his kart. He didn’t cry all the time like littles did — or ever, really. (He’d cried a lot as a small child, but his dad had thankfully put a stop to that early.) He wasn’t sensitive to harsh words or criticism. He wasn’t dependent on people.
Based on everything he’d been told about littles his entire life, it made no sense. They were sensitive, emotional, childish. They clung to the people around them, seeking reassurance constantly. They couldn’t cope with high stress or scrutiny.
That wasn’t Max. He couldn’t be little.
But, well, apparently he was. Waking up in the middle of the night in a wet bed and barely able to talk in full sentences had definitively confirmed that.
There had been no warning. Besides using a pacifier for perhaps a bit longer than normal and holding onto his blanket for definitely a lot longer than normal, Max had never done anything remotely little in his life. And those were still unrelated — everyone dealt with bad habits at some point.
The blanket was probably the most incriminating thing, if he had to point at anything. He’d had it since he was a baby — a worn thing, grey but once light blue, that somehow always smelled like his mom’s house despite him hardly ever being over there — and for years he’d kept it hidden at the bottom of his suitcase when they traveled. On nights they stayed at hotels, he waited until he could hear his dad’s breathing go slow and even before he’d sneak out of bed and pull it out. He’d then set an alarm for before dawn to put it away before Jos woke up. It had worked, for a long time.
Until it hadn’t. It was a weekend in Italy, after a race that had gone badly and then worse. Max had been made to load his kart up by himself, and by the time that he got to the hotel, he was hardly able to keep his eyes open. But he’d still lain there in the dark and waited, watching the silhouette of his dad’s chest rise and fall slower and slower, exhausted but unable to fall asleep without holding the worn fabric against his cheek and inhaling its comforting scent.
It took too long, but finally his dad fell asleep. Max slunk over to his bag and unzipped it as quietly as he could manage. He grabbed his blanket and shoved his face into it, and his eyes had burned with unshed tears for the first time that day. He’d gone back to bed and crawled under the covers, bringing his blanket to his cheek and rubbing it against the skin in a soothing rhythm. He was asleep within minutes.
He woke up to it being yanked out of his arms. Max had forgotten to set his alarm.
Jos hadn’t said anything. He’d simply stood over Max’s bed holding it, looking at him with an expression Max couldn’t name then and didn’t like to think about now. The standoff lasted a full, agonizing minute before he abruptly turned and walked out of the room with it.
Max never saw it again. He hadn’t slept properly for months after. He’d told himself that it was nothing, that he’d needed to get rid of it anyway, he was too old to be carrying around a baby blanket. His dad had done him a favor.
His throat still burned if he thought about it for too long.
Anyway, he tried not to think about it.
“I can’t look at you like this,” Jos muttered, staring at Max, his lips curled in disgust. Max looked up, stomach twisting painfully at the way his dad was looking at him. Self-hatred filled his gut and rose in his throat like a sob. It made the awful spaced-out feeling crescendo, paired with the blinding fear that his dad was about to leave.
He knew Jos was mad, but he’d rather get yelled at all night — even hit — than be left alone.
“Papa?” he pleaded before he could catch himself. His hand shot to his mouth as if he could pull the word back in. He rubbed his fingernails over his lips in a self-soothing action, knowing better than to suck on them in front of his dad but needing something to help him cope with his distress. He braced himself for the scolding he knew he was about to get.
“Don’t call me that!” Jos yelled. Max tried and failed not to flinch. Jos watched the scene and blew air out through his teeth, shaking his head. “You are sixteen fucking years old. Fuck. I’m going out. Go back to bed.”
Max’s heart jumped in his chest. He didn’t want to be alone, even if his dad was angry. “But—“
“Don’t talk back. Go to bed. Hopefully you’ll wake up out of… this, and we can have an adult conversation.”
Max gave him a timid nod even though he really wanted to cry and beg his dad to stay. Jos didn’t say another word as he spun around and stormed out, the door rattling against the frame as he swung it shut with force.
Max flinched again. The silence poured over him like an ice bath. His breath hitched, a piercing sound in the empty air.
He knew it was pathetic to cry over being left alone, knew that he’d never cry over something like this if his mind was in its usual headspace, but in his current state he couldn’t bring himself to care. He just wanted Papa to come back. He didn’t expect his dad to comfort him — he didn’t even need him to be nice — he just hated when he left him alone like this.
It was usually because Max did something wrong, but Max didn’t ask for this to happen to him. It was the last thing in the world he wanted and he was scared. It wasn’t fair.
“Not fair,” he whispered to the empty room.
His face crumpled and the sobs hit him with force. He cried long enough that his chest began to ache, and he worried in the back of his mind that he might just keep crying forever. It didn’t feel like it would ever stop.
But it wasn’t forever, just long enough for him to fall asleep, curled on his side on the ground because the bed was ruined and he couldn’t begin to figure out how to fix it. Changing his pants had been difficult enough, his balance far from what it normally was.
One arm wrapped around his legs and the other curled up against his chest, his index and middle finger curled around his nose and his thumb in his mouth without any conscious thought of putting it there.
Max woke up a few hours after Jos stormed out. He yanked his thumb out of his mouth and rubbed the spit off on his shirt, his cheeks flaming. He wasn’t little anymore — or less little, at least. He still felt off-kilter, his body sluggish, his senses numbed. But he was himself enough to feel shame, to realize the extent of how fucked he was, to know better than to think a hug would make it all better. This was career-ending. Life-ending.
“Fuck,” he muttered, running his hands through his hair.
“You’re awake.” Max jumped, looking up in surprise to see that Jos was back, sitting at the kitchenette. “Are you normal now?”
Max nodded wordlessly and stood up, covertly checking his pants to make sure they weren’t — that he hadn’t — that he was dry. Thankfully, he was. He couldn’t handle that again.
“Come sit down,” Jos ordered.
Max did as instructed, remaining silent.
“I won’t waste any more of my time,” Jos started. “Some things aren’t compatible with racing. This is one of those things. I—“
Jos broke himself off with a clenched jaw, huffing air sharply from his nose. Max watched him silently, trying to process his dad’s words. Slowly, he realized what was happening. His dad was saying he was done, that Max was a lost cause. “Fuck, this wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to—“
No. Max refused to accept it.
“Dad,” Max cut him off firmly. Jos, shockingly, stopped talking immediately, looking surprised by Max’s hard tone.
“I am not going to let this stop me. I won’t let this ruin my life. I don’t want to be —“ he couldn’t even bring himself to say the word, “that. I won’t be. I won’t accept that my life is over because of this. I’m not giving up when I’m this close.”
They stared at each other for a moment, Max’s face hard with conviction and Jos scrutinizing Max, cold eyes skating over his face. “You realize that you can’t allow yourself to be like that if you want to be in F1. If anyone ever finds out, you’re done.”
Max nodded, throat tight. He knew his dad was right, but he didn’t know how it would be possible to fight off the headspace. He’d felt utterly powerless to fight it off last night.
He suddenly felt less sure. If it were a choice, he’d choose not to drop ever again. He’d choose racing a hundred times over, no question. But that wasn’t how it worked, was it?
How was he supposed to push it away if he hadn’t chosen to be little to begin with?
“I— I’ll do anything,” Max said, mouth dry. Fear, ice-cold and shocking in its intensity, eroded away at his resolve like something caustic. He had said he didn’t care what his dad did, but it wasn’t true. He needed his dad. He couldn’t do this without him. “I’ll find a way. Just— don’t give up on me. Please.”
Jos eventually looked down at the table with a harsh sigh, snatching up his drink and sipping at it for a few contemplative seconds.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“If you’re serious about fighting this, then I will see what I can do.”
Max nodded, relief pouring over him. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Jos said. “And it won’t be easy. For either of us.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Jos sighed heavily, rubbing his temple. It was quiet for a moment as he thought. “We can find a way to have you classified as a neutral. That shouldn’t be too difficult. But the drop. That cannot happen again.”
Max swallowed, shame burning a hole in his gut. “I— Is there anything— I don’t know how to…“
Max trailed off, unable to say it. Jos squinted at him, face pinched with distaste. He leaned back and finally replied, “There are suppressants.”
“Suppressants?” Max repeated. “I thought they banned those.”
“They still use them for medical procedures and short-term things like that. It won’t be easy, but I can get them.”
“Is that… safe?”
“Is it safe for you to turn into a pants-pissing baby in an F1 car going 300 kilometers per hour?” Jos snapped back.
Max felt a hot flush of shame and he bit the inside of his cheek. Irritation rose in him at the way his dad was acting like he’d somehow done this on purpose, but he tamped it down. He knew there was no point in snapping back — it would only make things worse. He took a second before responding. “I’ll still take them. It was just a question.”
“It’ll be fine. They only stopped prescribing them because of those littles’ rights activists pushing their ‘acceptance’ bullshit,” Jos said, rolling his eyes. Max swallowed, looking down at the table. “Getting rid of the one thing that can treat it just because some people want to be fucking babies their whole lives. It’s ridiculous.”
Max nodded. It made sense. He couldn’t imagine accepting it — just letting it happen, letting himself be that.
It was unfathomable.