Chapter Text
"So, will you help us?"
George was currently sat in RedBull hospitality — no he was not planning to join that hellish team — in a meeting with team principal Laurent Mekies, as the man had decided that the best way to keep Max in RedBull was to convince him through the use of a beautiful power point presentation.
Something George was very well known for.
However, if someone asked George an hour ago if he had expected to be in a meeting with every single higher up at RedBull — every single person that even had a smidge of power in the team — he probably would have laughed in their face. Yet, here he was sat before people that wanted him to help decide Max's future.
His boyfriend's future.
Now, George had been around Max long enough to know that the man was constantly threatening retirement — so much so that it was practically a second sport for the man — so, he wasn't sure if Max actually wanted to stay with the team. And George didn't exactly want to force his, potential, life partner into something he didn't want.
Though, the idea of being able to create a PowerPoint again, being able to have control over something so big — something he would never be given the opportunity to do in Mercedes — he took it.
"Yeah, I'll do it." George would probably regret this later, especially seeing as he had to somehow find a way to conceal his actions from his boyfriend, the same boyfriend he was about to spend an entire summer with.. great, he was basically screwed.
"Excellent! We will email you all the details that need to be included in it later, and don't worry we will also pay you for your troubles." Great, he was going to get RedBull blood money too — another thing he'd have to figure out how to explain to his boyfriend, it's not like everyday you get a sudden influx of money into your shared bank account.
"Right.. thanks!" Leaping up from his chair, George left the office as soon as he could — leaving the RedBull building even faster. He didn't not want to be caught by the media leaving the office.. that was way too hard to explain.
As he made his way through the — now empty — paddock, his phone vibrated in his pocket, the details the RedBull team had wanted him to put into the PowerPoint obviously having just been send through email.
He felt like his phone was burning through his pockets, all the potential team secrets he had just been sent — he had no idea why a team would bring along a rival driver and give them every single plan for the next year, but it is not like George was going to use it against them.
Slipping out of the back of the paddock, he made his way to his car. He wasn’t even meant to be here today — he’d cooked up some quick excuse to Max that he had needed to pop out and buy some stuff for the summer so his boyfriend wouldn’t question him. Plus, when asked why he returned with nothing George could just say he couldn’t find what he had wanted.
Cautiously, he drove back to the hotel they were staying in — they would be off to their apartment in Monaco in the morning, and then hopefully they’d be spending most of their holiday together in Italy, although George had plans to spend some of it with his family. Which, still didn’t know about his extremely serious relationship with Max Verstappen.
Maybe, this holiday would be the time that he finally told them.
Parking the car, he got out, heading into the hotel room. The staff were polite and eagerly greeted him, but he wasn’t sure if it was actually just due to the fact that he’s a famous F1 driver. He made his way up to their hotel room, his nerves becoming worse as time carried on — he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to keep this from Max, where was he even meant to do this PowerPoint? They were almost always together.
Deep in his thoughts, he unlocked the hotel door, heading straight inside. He was quiet, quieter than usual — which is why he wasn’t surprised when max approached him with a soft, worried, look in his eyes.
“Schat, everything okay? Usually you would be talking my ear off as soon as you got through the door.” Max’s arms found their place around George’s waist, his mouth pressing light kisses to the taller man’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I just.. I couldn’t find anything I needed, and now I’m going to have to scrap the original plans I had over the summer. I was going to buy a surfboard and finally teach myself how to use it, but there were none!” George made up a lie on the spot, even adding a groan on the end for extra security.
Max rolled his eyes, smiling softly as he moved to place a light kisses against George’s lips, his thumbs rubbing up and down along George’s waist.
“I’m sure I have a surfboard somewhere you could borrow, or you could buy one from a beach shop baby. Your summer isn’t ruined Schatje.” Max chuckled before pecking him on the lips again, moving slowly — pulling George along with him — into the kitchen.
“Now, have you eaten anything yet?” George’s stomach clenched slightly at the mention of food — it was something that he still didn’t have the best of relationships with, like on really bad race days he would often punish himself by going without food.
Lately, that had been happening more often. Even if he had a good race, sometimes just the way his team treated him let him to ‘punish’ himself, as it had to be his own fault that things were happening this way.
“Mhm. I ate while I was out.” The lies came so easy to him; he almost didn’t feel guilt towards it either. If it meant that Max wouldn’t worry about him, he didn’t mind lying.
"Yeah? Good. I know what you've been like lately." George froze slightly, had Max noticed his behaviour? He thought that he had been much more subtle about it, but it was probably easy to see when someone who you lived with was skipping meals.
"Wha—.. what do you mean?"
"Baby. I know you've been skipping meals when your races don't go the way you want them to." Oh. So he had noticed then. That was, honestly, kind of embarrassing — George had really thought he had been doing a good job at hiding it, even his personal trainer Aleix hadn't mentioned his strange drop in weight.
"I'm not—"
"George. You've been doing this for years."
Suddenly, George felt sick. Yes, he had been doing it for years — but, it had been his little secret. Nobody had even known that he punished himself by removing a necessity from him body. Nobody knew that sometimes he'd go days without a single smidge of food in his body.
"I.."
"I thought you were getting better again Love. You were eating properly again, what happened, hm?" Max brought a hand up to George's jaw, cupping it softly as he looked into his partner's eyes, trying to search for an answer to all of his questions. George remained silent for a few moments longer, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to explain anything to Max.
“Baby. Please, talk to me.” George leant further into Max’s touch — at least maybe he could blame any nervousness and apprehension during the holidays towards this now, which would mean that Max would hopefully be less suspicious towards his PowerPoint activities.
“I dunno, I’ve just.. every time I do badly in a race it feels like I don’t deserve to eat.” George gnawed on his bottom lip, not wanting to elaborate further — not when this was something he had kept to himself for so, so long.
“Oh schat. We will work together to figure this out, okay? You don’t have to go through this alone. I promise.” Max kissed the top of George’s head, hoping to soothe his partner slightly — he hated to see just how defeated George looked. What the stupid Mercedes team was doing to him.
“Okay.. I just— I didn’t want to be a bother, you’re my boyfriend not my caretaker.”
Max sighed softly, pulling him into a soft kiss — a frown gracing his lips, George hated when he upset max.
“I am not being your caretaker, I can look after you as your boyfriend baby.” George wasn’t sure what to say anymore, honestly he just wanted to curl up on the sofa and watch a movie — he really didn’t want to think about any dinner plans either.
“I’ll make you toast.. yes?” George hesitated, not even sure if he wanted that. He felt sick to his stomach at the idea of even putting food near his mouth — let alone into his stomach. Max could see his apprehension, and just pulled him into a tight hug, hoping to create a form of comfort for his boyfriend.
“Sorry.. today is just hard, I don’t even want to think about eating.” George buried his face against Max’s chest, sniffling slightly at the onslaught of tears that over came him — he felt like such a baby for crying out of nowhere, but they were having a tough conversation, so it made sense.
“That’s okay, we can try some soup instead? Just so there is something in your stomach, I don’t want you to be starving yourself Schatje.” George debated it for a moment, unable to even look his boyfriend in the eye — then, he nodded.
He was probably going to regret it later — the weight in his stomach causing sleep to be hard on him. But, he knew he had to do it, if only to get rid of the pitiful look in Max’s eyes.
“Okay, soup..” George could feel his throat closing up slightly at the idea, he was already beginning to feel sick to his stomach — god this was going to come back to bite him in the ass. He hoped max wouldn’t tell his trainer about this, this was the only thing left that George had control over; he didn’t need this taken away from him too.
“Good, as I said, I just want you to have something — anything — in your stomach.” Max placed a soft kiss to the tip of his nose, before moving towards the kitchen — George hadn’t realised that max had meant now. He wasn’t really sure if he was ready to eat yet.
Hesitantly, he followed his boyfriend into the kitchen, standing awkwardly in the doorway — unsure of what to do with his suddenly extra long limbs, he felt as if he had gained two inches in a few seconds, his arms feeling as if they had no place to go.
“You don’t even have to finish the entire bowl, okay? Just as long as you eat some of it, even if that’s just two spoonfuls.” George felt a soft feeling in his chest, he loved how carful Max often was with him — how he made sure not to push him too hard when he was evidently struggling.
“Okay.. I’ll try.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Max placed a pan on the stove, cracking open a can of chicken soup and slowly bringing it to a boil — stirring the liquid slowly, watching as the steam rose from the pot, filling the room with a chicken aroma. George’s stomach growled slightly, aching with a deep hunger he had been ignoring for the past few weeks, a hunger he could no longer avoid.
Soon enough, Max was plating up the light meal, pouring most of the soup into his own bowl — so as to ensure that George would feel less overwhelmed by the quantity of food in his own bowl.
“Just take it one step at a time, slow and steady. We are in no rush.” George nodded, shakily picking up the spoon at stirring the soup.
He waited for a moment, before taking a mouthful of it — his stomach growling violently at the sudden influx of food after going so long without; soon enough George had emptied to whole bowl.
“Good boy. Now, what movie would you like to watch?”
“Hm.. cars?”