An excerpt from the next chapter :)
Saving Me, Saving You
Fandom: Formula 1 RPF, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Relationships: Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, District 4 (Hunger Games), Rebellion, Implied/Referenced Torture, Prostitution, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Eating Disorders, Suicide Attempt
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Max broke the silence with the faintest of sighs. “This is stupid.”
Daniel stirred, the barest of smiles tugging at his lips. “What is?”
“All of it. Us. This. Lying in bed like we’re… like we’re anything other than what we are.” Max shifted, his voice curling sharp, then soft again. “You’re too warm. It feels unreal.”
“Unreal doesn’t mean wrong,” Daniel murmured, pressing his chin into Max’s hair.
“It does here,” Max answered quickly, eyes fixed on the pale ceiling, as though it might collapse under the weight of their small illusion.
But then Daniel laughed, fragile and unshaken by Max’s barbs, and asked, “Do you like tea?”
Max blinked, startled, then snorted in disbelief. “Tea?”
“Yeah.” Daniel’s fingers drummed lightly against Max’s arm. “Black? Herbal? I mean, you have the face of someone who probably hates chamomile.”
Max turned his head slightly, lips twitching against his will. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Answer the question,” Daniel pressed, a boyish grin playing at the edge of his mouth.
Max rolled his eyes, staring at some invisible horizon. “Mint. I like mint. And jasmine, sometimes.”
“See? I knew it. You’ve got taste.” Daniel’s laughter trembled between them, a sound almost too alive for the room. “Not chamomile. Definitely not.” Definitely not something I like.
For a moment, Max wanted to hate him for it, for this softness, this refusal to see the rot that had long hollowed him out. But he couldn’t. The sound chipped at his edges, pried them loose, and let something warm seep through.
He muttered, “You’re insufferable.”
“You love it,” Daniel teased.
Max went quiet. The word snagged. Love. It sat in his chest like a shard of glass, beautiful and cruel. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but instead he asked, very softly, “Do you like coffee?”
“Addicted,” Daniel confessed immediately, without shame. “No drama. Plain.”
Max’s lips curved, brittle but real. “Of course you do. No patience for anything that asks for more.”
Daniel glanced at Max, dipping his head closer, and Max continued, quieter. “I don’t have patience for things that ask for more as well.”
Daniel exhaled. His mouth curved, not quite a smile, something sadder. He leaned in and kissed Max carefully, like he was smoothing a crease instead of fixing it.
“I already do.”
And they tumbled, shy and giddy, stumbling upon a forbidden game. They spoke of nothing. Of tea, coffee, the color of sunsets, and whether Daniel snored (he denied it vehemently, and Max rolled his eyes). For once, there was no script to follow, no Capitol cameras, and no whispered bargains in the dark.
It terrified Max more than any knife ever pressed to his skin.
Because this was how softness became dangerous. By existing. By carving a space in him, he did not think he deserved.
Daniel shifted, catching Max’s gaze at last. “You’re smiling.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Max bit the inside of his cheek, as though punishing himself for letting it slip. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m… here. Like I’m someone.” His voice cracked then, the pretense snapping. “I’m not. I’m just… I’m what they made. You don’t want me. You want what’s left of me, and that isn’t much.”
Daniel’s hands tightened around him, pulling him closer. “Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true,” Max whispered, hollow and unrelenting. “I’m nothing but scraps. You should throw me away before I rot in your hands.”
Daniel pressed his forehead against Max’s, breathing ragged, almost breaking. “Max, you don’t get to decide what you are to me. You don’t get to decide that.”
The silence after was raw, bleeding.
And yet, it softened again. Slowly. Fragile joy creeping back like sunlight through broken shutters. Daniel began telling some ridiculous story about stealing bread as a kid in District 4, how his mother caught him and made him eat the whole stale loaf as punishment, and how he would do it again if Max liked bread so much. Max laughed despite himself, a sharp, surprised sound, the first true one Daniel had heard in months.
“You’re an idiot,” Max said, wiping at his eyes.
“Maybe,” Daniel admitted, smiling through his own tears. “But I can be your idiot.”
The words hung between them, dangerous and tender.
Max did not answer. But he didn’t need to. His hand, trembling and slight, found Daniel’s beneath the sheets and held on, as though he were afraid the world would come and rip it away.
For now, they clung to it with all the desperation of dying men clinging to a breath.
For they knew the day wouldn't last forever, and so they stayed in the sheets as long as the Capitol permitted them to.
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Stay tuned for the next chapter, heh!
