If I could request a directors comment: Would you consider the hotel scene after Max shows up at the race track for the first time again? 👀
You mean at the hotel in Imola, right? With the b**wjob? Lolol. I assume that's what you meant, so sorry if I'm misinterpreting! Also sorry for how long this is!! It was hard to choose a good start and end point, so this ended up being like a third of the chapter, haha.
Max should have rehearsed what he was going to say. Wordlessly, he steps aside and lets Daniel in the room, but when Daniel stands by the foot of the bed, silent and staring, Max starts to fidget, twisting the hem of his shirt between his fingers.
"I'm sorry," he says at last, when the silence gets to be too much. [One of the defining aspects of Max's personality for me is the way he generally refuses to apologize or....examine his own behavior, ever, lol. I think if it weren't for Daniel's public outburst, he may never have considered apologizing, even though it's Daniel, and Max never really wants to hurt him. But this is still the guy that thinks, like, you can bring someone a beer and everything will be okay. Doesn't work that way, dude!!]
Daniel's face remains blank. "Sorry for what?"
Max swallows hard. "For not telling you I was coming here. And for not texting you after the last time we saw each other.” He takes a deep breath, then adds, “And for ignoring your texts for basically a year."
"That's a lot, Max," Daniel says. He scrubs a hand over his face and blows out a long breath. "I'm not sure I'm ready to just accept a simple 'sorry' for all of that." [And yet that's basically what he ends up doing, because he's so weak for Max.]
"I don't know what else I can do," Max says, and for once he's being completely honest. He has no idea what to say, no idea how to even begin to fix this.
"You could start by telling me the truth."
"About what?" Max asks, but when Daniel's face darkens, he holds up his hands in surrender. "I...I want to tell you everything. I do."
Daniel sighs, then sits down on the edge of the bed and knits his hands together in his lap, staring down at them and picking at his cuticles. "Why are you here?" he asks without looking up. "In Italy."
That, at least, he can answer. "I'm trying to figure out what comes next for me. If I can't drive anymore, I have to do something."
Daniel looks up then, a furrow forming in his brow. "Why?"
"What do you mean, why?" [I do feel like there's a version of this where Max ends up being a WAG and that's it. That's essentially how it actually does work out, because realistically he's doing charity stuff a few times a year. Abolish the myth that your worth is derived from your productivity tbh.] Max paces a few steps toward the window. He has to resist the urge to start doing laps around the room. "I can't just stay holed up in my apartment forever."
"Forever? Max, it's barely been a year since your crash, and you're obviously still in pain." [I do love this scene, because as I've touched on before, Max is such an unreliable narrator, and he very much does need to be told that he doesn't have to be okay less than a year after having something traumatic happen to him. He reacts with such shock to being told he doesn't have to be doing anything, but...Daniel's right.] Max starts to protest, but Daniel stops him with a look. "Don't lie to me."
Max touches his temple self-consciously. If it's obvious to Daniel, is it obvious to everyone? [No, because no one else knows him like Daniel does!!!] "It's my head," he says. "It bothers me a little." A lot. Whatever. He's sort of telling the truth. It counts.
Daniel nods, like that's exactly what he was suspecting. "Do you take anything?"
"Yes," Max says through gritted teeth. He nods toward the bedside table, the prescription bottles sitting there in plain view. "Painkillers. Sometimes sleeping pills. If the pain is too bad, or..." He clears his throat against the fear that threatens to clog it up. "I didn't sleep much, when I was in the hospital. It's not as bad now, but sometimes I still need...help." [I think Max's relationship with sleep is something I didn't focus on enough after a certain point, because I had too many other threads to juggle, but oh well. It happens.]
"Okay." Daniel looks down at his hands, then back up. "Okay, so. So like I said, you're still recovering. You don't need to be worrying about coming back to the racetrack, or finding a job. You're pushing yourself too much." [Would Daniel be happy with Max just being a WAG and following him around the country and never lifting a finger for anything himself ever again? Absolutely yes.]
"What else am I supposed to do? I can't sit around and do nothing."
Daniel shrugs, searching Max's face. "I’m not saying you have to sit around doing nothing. But you should figure out what you want to do, not what you think you should do. Even if you do still want to be around F1, you don’t have to make it a job. People do watch the races for fun, you know."
It seems silly now, but Max never even considered that he might find a way to enjoy F1 again purely as a spectator. [I'm not really sure if I think Max would enjoy watching F1 just to watch it. I think he enjoys watching (mostly rooting for) Daniel, but other than that, I don't know.] He never considered filling his days with things he enjoys either. He's spent so long wallowing in his own misery that he can't imagine doing anything else. It's felt like everything in him should be pushing toward some ultimate finish line where he could consider himself "better" or "recovered", but maybe it's not about pushing, and maybe it's not even about waiting. Maybe it's just about being. [If this fic has a theme, these last two sentences sum it up.]
"I don't like to feel useless," Max says. He can't look Daniel in the eye.
"No one does." Daniel stands up again and takes a few steps toward him. "You aren't useless, though. People care about you whether you can drive a car or not. People care about you whether you're perfectly healthy or not."
Max's eyes hurt, like months of unshed tears are pressing against them. He thinks about all the people coming up to him on the track today, all the genuine smiles on their faces. Why can’t he— Why can’t he just believe it. "You care about me," he says. It's not a question.
That wary expression returns to Daniel's face. "I do," he says slowly. "I don’t know how I can make that any more clear to you." [If Max hadn't reached out to Daniel after the encounter in the paddock, I really think Daniel might have tried to just avoid him from then on. He's just feeling too rejected.]
"It’s not—"
"Max," Daniel says, cutting him off, "I'm tired, and I have a race tomorrow. If you're just going to throw my feelings back in my face again, can we do it another time?"
"I wasn't going to," Max says. The thought of Daniel caring about him still scares him, but he knows that’s his own fault, not Daniel’s. "I never meant to do that. I just—"
Daniel tenses up. "I kissed you and you literally pushed me away."
"Yes, but." He tries to collect his thoughts, to come up with a decent excuse, but it’s so hard when Daniel is standing right in front of him, asking him for honesty. "I was angry."
"You were angry?" Daniel shakes his head in disbelief. "You were the one picking a fight. You were pissed off before we even left your place." [All of their fights boil down to Max just not acknowledging that Daniel's feelings are real, and Daniel not understanding that Max can't acknowledge that Daniel's feelings are real. Tragic!!]
"Then maybe you shouldn't have tried to drag me to a stupid club." This is a bad time to get defensive, but Max can’t help it. He feels cornered. "You said you could tell I was struggling. You sure didn't act like it." [Max would 100% have been even more pissed if Daniel babied him though. It's a lose-lose situation! Another trap! Daniel can't win!]
"I was trying to cheer you up." Daniel screws the heels of his hands into his eyes, then drops them again with a slap. "Fuck, Max. If this is your idea of an apology, it really fucking sucks, you know that?"
This is going all wrong. Max really did tend to apologize, but somehow he's fucked that up yet again. He reaches up and swipes at his face and realizes belatedly that some tears have slipped out after all. Daniel seems to notice at the same time, and he takes a step forward, lifting a hand like he's going to touch Max's cheek, brush the moisture away. [Even when he's angry, he's never too angry to make sure Max is okay.] But Max is tired of this—tired of fighting, tired of feeling like an asshole, tired of blaming Daniel, and tired of Daniel blaming himself and being kind to him when he doesn't deserve it.
He bats Daniel's hand away, wraps his own hand around the back of Daniel's neck, and drags him in, crushing their mouths together hard enough to bruise. It has no finesse, more like Max is trying to push himself into Daniel than kiss him. [I have this headcanon that Max is a terrible kisser and may someday write a fic where he asks Daniel to ~teach him, BUT that is neither here nor there.] Even this he's doing all wrong, but at least he's doing it. At least he's not pushing Daniel away again. That has to count for something.
"Max," Daniel says, muffled against Max's mouth. When Max doesn't immediately back off, he puts his hands flat on Max's chest and pushes a little. Max pulls away then, his face flushing, feeling stupid.
"I'm sorry," he says again.
Daniel puts his hands on Max's shoulders and holds him at arm's length. It seems like he’s searching for something in Max’s face, and for once, Max hopes he sees exactly what Max is thinking, the truth of how much Max wants him. All the other emotions, Max is still struggling with, but this—want—seems like a safe place to hide. [Ultimately, this scene is really about Max not knowing what to do about the conflict between the enormity of what he feels for Daniel and his absolute refusal to believe that Daniel could care about him the same way. He can acknowledge that maybe Daniel wants him, and maybe if they both "get it out of their system" they can move on, but of course, things never, ever work that way. Ever.]
"Do you still have that rule?" Max asks, wrapping his fingers around Daniel's wrists and gripping them tight. "About fucking before races?"
Daniel stares at him like he’s accidentally spoken Dutch. "How do you know about that rule?"
"I read things," Max says. He takes advantage of the fact that Daniel's grip has loosened to weasel out of it and get closer to him again. "I listen to things." [In real life, would Max pay attention to Daniel's interviews? I don't know. In my imagination does he regularly Google Daniel and read everything he can find? Yes.]
"Michael wakes me up early." [What a totally insane thing to say. Daniel is so frazzled right now.] Daniel's hands have settled on his waist, but a struggle is playing out on his face. When he speaks again, his voice has dropped an octave. "Max."
"Let me suck your dick," Max says, suddenly shameless. He knows Daniel wants him. He can see it. This could be so simple. [Narrator: No it couldn't.]
"Jesus." Daniel closes his eyes, tightens his grip on Max's hips to the point of bruising. "I thought— I thought you didn't want—"
"I want." Max falls to his knees. "I do."
Daniel grips Max's chin, holding him back, but looking up at him, Max can already tell that he's won. [Look. My thoughts about how Daniel can never and would never resist Max are multiple and unhinged, and I cannot even begin to explicate them here. They may be explored in more detail in future fics.] Daniel's eyes are wide and black, his mouth open. It feels fucking incredible to get to him like this. This is what Max wanted. A feeling like he has something to offer, something Daniel wants. His mouth. That's simple. He can give Daniel his mouth. [This is one of the first scenes I envisioned when I started writing this fic, for the simple reason that it made sense to me that Max would regain some of his sense of control and agency in his life through sex. Is it totally healthy for him to see this as something he can do to make Daniel happy again? Probably not. But it's still an important step for him, I think. It puts him on the path toward realizing he can still give and receive pleasure from the world generally and Daniel specifically.]
"I don't understand," Daniel says, so softly it might be that he didn't mean to say it out loud.
"It’s okay," Max says. Daniel releases his chin, and he presses forward, rubs his face against the front of Daniel's track pants. He can feel Daniel respond to him, twitching against his cheek, but when he looks up again, Daniel's expression is conflicted. Still.
"Max…"
"Please," Max says, and opens his mouth, taking the head of Daniel's nylon-clad dick into his mouth. [I realize Daniel doesn't exactly give enthusiastic consent in this scene and I'm sorry but I'm also not that sorry.] He can hear Daniel suck in a sharp breath, and it makes him groan low and close his eyes, willing them both to disappear into this moment. It doesn't matter if his head aches like it always does, a quiet pain he's happy to ignore for now. It doesn't matter if Daniel's has a race tomorrow, and he's worrying about how much sleep they'll get. They can forget all that, just for now. They can forget everything.
When he curls his hands around the waistband of Daniel's pants, Daniel doesn't stop him. And when he drags them down to mid-thigh, and Daniel's cock springs free, and Daniel still doesn't stop him, he almost whimpers with relief. He leans in again, pressing his face into the crease of Daniel's thigh and inhaling. [Max the freak wanting everything base and gross about Daniel is a universal constant!!]
"Max," Daniel says again. Max hasn't had any strong feelings about his name before, but he could listen to Daniel say it forever and ever. All he wants to do is make Daniel say it again.
He wraps his hand around Daniel, glides it over his slick-soft skin, and guides him into his mouth. He's not all the way hard yet, so Max can get enough of him into his mouth to almost sate the gnawing need inside him, the hole that needs filling. [I do again need to pat myself on the back for that sentence.] The sound Daniel lets out, soft and strained, makes Max want to stay there forever, not moving, savoring the way Daniel feels and tastes.
"Hold on," Daniel says, and he withdraws from Max's mouth long enough to take two steps backward and sit down on the edge of the bed again. He isn't even done pushing his pants down over his knees before Max descends on him again, licking up his length before taking him into his mouth.
Daniel is the best thing Max has ever tasted. He's never had a dick in his mouth before, but he doesn't fucking care. [I know we all think Daniel is good at sex, but honestly I think Max is good at sex too, by virtue of enthusiasm alone. He may not have all the finesse or whatever, but he has the lack of inhibition, and that goes a long way!] He forgets to worry whether he's doing it right and loses himself in fitting as much of Daniel in his mouth as he can, feeling the weight of him on his tongue, licking the salt from his skin. This is the first time he hasn't worried about anything in months. It's the first time he hasn't cared whether he's doing things right or living up to his potential. All he cares about is the sound of Daniel’s breathing, the way he settles his hands on Max's shoulders and then slides them up into his hair. It's the best fucking feeling, instinctual in the same way driving a new track is instinctual, the same way knowing when to brake is instinctual. [If I ever manage to write a Max POV sex scene without comparing sex to driving, assume I've been possessed.]
He screws his tongue into Daniel's slit, wanting to taste him, and Daniel jerks and groans, tightening his fingers in Max's hair but not pushing him away. He says Max's name again, barely a whisper, and Max feels that thrill again, like he's stepping onto a podium in front of a roaring crowd. [Damn, okay, maybe I was little heavy handed with the metaphors.] He takes Daniel deeper, doing his best to ignore the urge to gag. If he could, he'd swallow Daniel whole.
"Fuck," Daniel says, his hands drifting back down to the back of Max's neck, where they knead the muscle there. Max wants to tell Daniel to stop being so nice, to take what he needs, but he'd have to pull off to do that, and he'd rather die than let Daniel slip out of his mouth for one second. Instead, he tries to convey it without words, reaching up and curling his hand over Daniel's, taking him deep enough that he gags audibly. [Rereading this, I'm just getting ideas for PWPs I want to write in the future tbh.]
"I can't—" Daniel says, easing Max off a little, and Max has no idea whether he means can't or won't, but either way, he whimpers, disappointed. Daniel strokes the side of his face like he's trying to soothe him, but it's not good enough. He wants Daniel to fuck his throat until he can't think at all, can't feel anything else, won't think about anything for days.
All too soon, Daniel is gripping his hair and trying to drag him backward, but Max grunts his disapproval and refuses to go, tears spilling from the corners of his eyes. Soon after, he's rewarded with a spill of bitterness over his tongue, a flood of wetness he struggles to swallow before it spills from the corners of his mouth and down over his chin. [An insight into the craft side of things: there's a fine line between repetition for artistic value and just...repeating a word so much that it's annoying, and I'm not sure I struck the balance here, haha.] He doesn't want to waste a drop of it, and even after Daniel starts going soft, he sucks at the taste of him, making sure he gets every last drop.
"Max," Daniel hisses. "Mercy."
Only then does Max pull away, but he can't look up, instead burying his face in the meat of Daniel's thigh. The hair there scratches at his cheek, but it feels good, and he rubs against it, back and forth, until Daniel's hand lands in his hair again, stilling him.
"What," Daniel says. "What was that."
Max doesn't know, doesn't care, doesn't want to talk about it. He looks up at Daniel, head still tipped against his thigh, and wills him not to make him explain. [Max would be a horrible FWB, because if he's not fully obsessed with someone before he sleeps with them, he certainly would be after the first time. IMO!]
Daniel puts a hand to Max's face and swipes his thumb across his cheek, then tugs at him. "Come here. Let me touch you."
That's not what Max wants. He's still hard, tenting his sweats, but it’ll ruin everything if he lets Daniel touch him now. [Sorry to ruin everything by reminding you this is Max's twisted way of apologizing and it's actually pretty depressing!] "It's okay," Max says, sitting back and rubbing his hands on his thighs. "I know you need to sleep."
"I've been here this long," Daniel says, trying to pull him closer again. "I can stay a few minutes more."
"Next time," Max says, because he has to say something to get Daniel to leave it alone for now.
"Okay." Daniel says it on the end of a sigh, like he’s trying to convince himself it really is okay. "Alright." [Max might beg, but Daniel is not gonna beg. Especially since Max hasn't exactly been gentle with his feelings generally.] He gets to his feet and starts to pull his pants back into place, and Max has to look away, the blood rushing to his face. "Come here," Daniel says, holding out a hand and then pulling Max to his feet too. He puts his hand back against the side of Max's face, forcing him to look at him, and the gesture is so unbearably tender in makes Max's chest ache. "There will be a next time, then?"
Max swallows against a wave of guilt. He should have known Daniel would latch on to those two words. [Max is way too confident in his own abilities to resist Daniel here. He has no idea that he's already too far gone himself.] "Are you going back to Monaco tomorrow night?" he asks, deflecting.
Daniel's mouth twists with something like regret. "I'm flying straight to the US," he says. "I wanted to spend some time in LA before I head to Miami for the next race."
"It's fine," Max says, because he can see Daniel getting ready to extend another impulsive invite, and that's the last thing he wants. [Max is 100% right here. Daniel would totally have asked Max to come with him here and have no shame about it, except that he's still worried about more rejection.] "Maybe I will see you in Barcelona."
"Max," Daniel says, and Max can hear the weight in it, all the things Daniel wishes he had time to say but doesn't because it's too late and there's a race tomorrow and they never should have done this in the first place. Next time, Max might not be able to hide behind the late hour. Next time, he has to have his answers ready, because he doubts Daniel will give in so easily.
"I’ll text you," Max says. He draws Daniel's hand away from his face and presses it between both of his own. "Or you can call me sometimes, if you want. When you're not busy." [Max is telling himself he's conceding to this to make Daniel happy, because that's easier than admitting he doesn't want to go without talking to Daniel that long himself.]
Daniel's eyes light up, and— Fuck, it feels so good to make him happy. [Just OTP things. D:] To say the right thing instead of the wrong thing for once. This makes for a nice change. Max could get used to it. He shouldn't, but he could.
"I'll call you then," Daniel says. Then, slowly—slow enough for Max to have time to pull away—he leans in and presses his mouth to Max's, a kiss so sweet and soft Max almost shatters all over again. [Look, I don't know if it's bad practice to wail over one's own fic, but I do write it to make myself happy, so. I'm just so crazy about them! Ahh!!] "Good night," he says, then pecks Max again.
"Good night." Max can't look at him. He'll cry again if he does. He knows he will. "Drive fast tomorrow."
"Only because you asked me to."
Max can't see the wink, but he can hear it in Daniel's voice. His gaze is fixed somewhere around Daniel's ear, and he keeps it there as Daniel turns away, opens the door, and finally it swings shut behind him. [I feel like every chapter of this fic ends either with a door closing or someone falling asleep. Transitions are hard, guys!]