A future AU, magical realism fic in which George Russell retires, splitting his soul-bond with the car. In the process (as with all driver retirements) George loses his racing-related memories. Somehow, his memories of Max Verstappen are included in that loss. Max realizes that they had more to lose than he or George ever dared to say.
Max stayed quiet. George kept looking at the ceiling.
“And with you, it’s like—it’s like if someone took the furniture out of a room, and you know that there’s supposed to be something there, where the scuff marks are on the floor, only all of the furniture is gone, so I can’t even use context clues to figure out if you’re supposed to be a sofa or an armoire or what. But once in a while you say something and it just feels right, like for a moment the furniture was back. But then it’s gone again before I can make out the shape or the color or—or anything, really.”
Max didn’ t know exactly what to do with this, so he said the first thing that came to mind. “An armoire? Like a closet?”
“Yeah, like the big freestanding ones,” George said. He turned his head to look at Max.
“Okay.” Max returned George’s searching gaze, let himself be inspected by those familiar entrancing eyes. For his part, Max just let himself fall into them, no thoughts but a sort of vague appreciation for the complexity of his irises. He liked the way they were dark around the outside, and blue-grey in the middle, and brown around the pupil, almost like a secret. And his eyelashes were ridiculous—it had taken a lot of sleepovers before Max was fully convinced that George didn’t use mascara.
Max blinked, and George followed suit, the moment breaking. The thinking crease appeared between George’s eyebrows.
“I just can’t figure it out. Nothing fits right in that space with you. I mean, I know the fact that we were competitors makes things more complicated, but—how would you describe it, Max?”
“What?” Max’s stomach squirmed.
“Our relationship. Before I retired,” George clarified. He sat up on the edge of the bed.
Messy. Real. Too many things shown but not said, a thousand touches that could have meant nothing or everything. Max swallowed. “Not an armoire,” he joked weakly.
“No, really,” George insisted, earnest. “Alex just told me I should ask you about it, and it’s not like I’m asking you to tell me about a specific memory, just give me a category or something.”
“I don’t—” Max stood up and walked to the window, where he fiddled with the succulent on the sill. “I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Well, obviously we were at least friends, since you’ve been visiting me so consistently,” George prodded.
“Yeah, kind of. Um, we also—we also argued a lot. But not, like. I don’t know, sometimes it got out of hand but it was mostly sort of just foreplay?” Max could feel his cheeks growing warmer, and he worried that he had probably said too much, because now the whole dynamic would be fucked, and George would think he was a creep, and it just wasn’t fair, that Max had to define their relationship as a “what it was” and not a “what are we.”
He snuck a glance at George. He was still thinking. After a moment, he spoke, and Max’s face heated up all over again.
“Right, so a sort of friends with benefits thing? Colleagues with benefits? Why are you here, Max?” It wasn’t said meanly, but it still made Max’s stomach drop, and his anger flare beneath his skin.
“Because I care about you, you dickhead. It is not that complicated. I do not want to lose you just because you had to go and forget about me.” Max scowled and crossed his arms.
