could I just, you know, let my molecules separate

“Yes,” Max repeats. He thinks if the bubblegum would taste like bubblegum or if the bubblegum would taste like grape. He imagines the imprints of Daniel’s teeth in it.

“Yeah, nah, you don’t look so good.”

“Yes. No. I’m next week supposed to.”

“To…” Daniel glances over at Max because he’s driving, because they’re in a car. Maybe it’s the dash lights making his bubblegum grape instead. “Max, are you pre-rutting in my whip?” He laughs as he says it, rolling down a window and waving a hand in front of his face like there’s a stinky smell, but Max gets injections in his armpits every four weeks so he won’t smell like anything. Daniel reaches over and digs blindly through the glovebox, elbow close to Max’s knees. He says, “Catch,” and flicks a bottle in his lap. Max drops it twice.

It’s alpha-branded scent blocker. It’s stupid, because regular scent blocker works on everyone, so this kind is half effective as normal. It probably costs double. It’s stupid that Daniel buys it. Max puts it on anyway, rolling the cold metal ball over the pulse of his wrist. He drops the little cap somewhere, gone forever.

The car is red because the traffic light is red and Daniel is frowning now. “What are your rut plans, Max? Reckon it’s come early, yeah? The hotel?”

There’s only one cycle hotel in Monaco. Daniel doesn’t go there. He told Max once that he has an arrangement and that he’s exposed to heaps of bed bugs too much as it is. Max doesn’t know if his arrangement is a person. Max’s arrangement is a person.

“Jamie.”

“Jamie,” Daniel repeats raunchily. “Jamantha. Jamiella. Jamigail.”

Max says, “What.”

“Text her and I’ll help get you in, hey? I’ll be, like, your bellhop. Ding ding.”

Ding ding. Luggage in the boot because they’re driving from the airport in Nice. Max didn’t feel good on the plane.

He texts Jamie, Starting early can you come? But it makes less sense because there are more mistakes and incorrect corrections. Jamie heart reacts which means yes.

The indicator pop-click-pops.

Max asks Daniel, “Did you spit it out?”

Daniel says, “Huh?”

Max imagines the grape bubblegum in a foil wrapper somewhere, soft but saving the shape.

“Are you—” Daniel breaks off into a high laugh. “Like, do you have an omega scent aid or something?”

“What?”

“Did you open a bag of Jamie’s clothes or…?”

Max frowns. “I don’t have his clothes.”

Daniel gawks at Max instead of looking at the road, dangerous. “Jamie is a guy?”

Max frowns double. He can’t keep track if this was one of the things he should not say while also keeping track of potential foil glitters in the car. It’s probably fine. “Yes.”

Daniel rolls down both of their windows. Max thinks the bubblegum is back again—grape grape grape—but Daniel’s only holding his breath, cheeks puffed up. His fingerprints are indenting the steering wheel. Max imagines the leather bruising grape-purple over all the prints.

They get back to their apartment building and Daniel carries all their things, balancing the curve of Max’s helmet bag on the jut of his hip, the least alpha thing about him. People say he has omega hips and he’s flattered, brags about it. It’s stupid because Max knows he wouldn’t be like that if he were an omega for real.

Jamie opens the door as Max is still fumbling at the keypad, Daniel’s hand gripping the back of his sweaty shirt as he sways. Max remembers, belatedly, that Jamie smells like an alpha and looks like Daniel.

Daniel says, “Oh, hey—um. Ha. What?”

Jamie ignores Daniel. He looks Max up and down and says, sympathetically, “Fuck dude,” spreading his arms wide where they’re extra alphay ike he’s been to the gym.

Daniel’s hand fists the material of Max’s shirt. When Max tries to step forward, he gets pulled back.

“Sorry,” Daniel says. “Sorry, sorry.” But he doesn’t let go. “Sorry.” After a suspended moment, each of his fingers release the bunched cotton sequentially, number 3 pinky the last.

Jamie gives Daniel a judgmental look and shuts the door on his face.

George nods once, terse, and tries not to let his face give anything away. He hadn’t cried when Toto had come to console him in the paddock, and he hadn’t cried in the media pen. He wasn’t going to now either.  

“Good,” Toto says, and he leans forward in his seat until his elbows are resting on his knees, closing the space between them. 

The plane feels quiet. On the way to Montreal, it had been full — Kimi and Carmen and Toto’s kids and half the team, everyone still bubbling over with the high of having the best car. George had been too, sure that Canada would be good to him like it had been before, sure that he was about to put all the baseless speculation about his talent to bed. Now, it’s almost empty, save Susie and Carmen sitting together at the front of the plane. George catches a second of their conversation and realises that they’re talking about Carmen’s home reno plans for their new place in Spain, a slice of normality that feels so divorced from his current train of thought that it’s like a physical intruder in the small cabin. 

“How can I help put this behind you?” Toto says, still calm. Over Toto’s shoulder, Carmen is showing Susie the architectural drawings on her iPad, pulling up colour swatches, and George has a sudden, intrusive memory of standing at the side of the track watching the rest of the grid fly down the straight. He had counted them as they had passed, calculating the positions lost, the points he had fought for desperately vanishing in mere seconds.   

“You could find me a battery that doesn’t die,” George says, before he can think better of it. “Kimi’s seems to work just fine so far — maybe we could try that one.”

“George,” Toto says, admonishing like he had been over the radio.   

“Sorry,” George says, a reflex, but he doesn’t know why he’s still apologising for himself. It shouldn’t be up to him to apologise all the time. He can feel the frustration rising in his chest, unstoppable. His eyes flick to Susie and Carmen again, irritation inching further up his neck. He had been so good for so long, locking away the part of him that wanted to snarl. 

They’re still taxing, but Toto gets up anyway. There’s a second where George thinks Toto is just so sick of him that he’s going to go sit with Susie and Carmen, but instead of moving towards the front of the plane, he moves towards the back, reaching for the door to the bedroom. George doesn’t move until Toto says come, and then he goes, like a trained dog, unbuckling his seat belt and stumbling when the plane makes an unexpected turn on the tarmac. 

“Sorry,” George says again when the door is closed behind them, but now that they’re in private, George is forced to consider why Toto asked him to come. If it was to admonish him in private for taking things too far, for acting childishly, or if it was. Or if it was because — He feels the back of his knees hit the edge of the mattress and sits without meaning to.  

Toto is looming over him now, arms crossed over his chest, but when he speaks again, his voice is gentle. “I asked, how can I help put this behind you? A real answer, please.”  

George swallows and his eyes flick down before he can stop himself, resting on the buckle of Toto’s belt. He thought he had outgrown this. He had thought he had learned better. He makes himself breathe in, counts to ten again, and then looks back at Toto’s face.

“I know,” Toto says, and when the corner of his mouth twitches up into a small smile, George feels something inside of him unknot. When he had looked out from the podium in China, seeking reassurance, and Toto hadn’t been there, he had thought — he had thought— 

Suddenly, Toto’s fingers are threading through his hair, his hand cupping the back of George’s head, slipping down until it’s resting at his nape. He swallows, feeling Toto’s fingers at the sides of his throat. God, he — he wants it. He wants something, and he can get it. It’s there in front of him now, he can have it. His mouth is watering, and when Toto brings his other hand up to cup George’s cheek, it falls open, and Toto’s thumb slips inside, pressing down on George’s incisor. 

He’s panting now, all the unspent adrenaline in his body suddenly fixed at one target. His hands curl uselessly on the bedspread for a minute, but why, when he can have it? Why wait, when Toto has all but said? He reaches up and finds Toto’s thigh, the fabric of his trousers soft over solid muscle. 

For how long they’ve gone in between, the routines are easy to fall back into, his fingers inching towards Toto’s zipper by memory. It’s a jolt, then, when he doesn’t get far, a jolt when he finds himself suddenly thrown back against the bed, his head hitting the mattress.

“What are you —“ George starts to ask, looking down to see Toto getting on his knees. He’s so tall that it looks almost ridiculous, all of his too-long limbs trying to fold up smaller than they ought to go. 

Toto doesn’t answer. He just gathers George’s wrists easily in one hand and keeps them locked against George’s chest, effectively pinning him to the bed. He must be able to feel the trapped-bird flutter of George’s heart, and George feels himself flush. He’s still hard, the line of his dick against his trousers unmistakable with the way Toto has him splayed, but a cold wash of reality has come back to him. Carmen and Susie are just outside. The plane is going to take off any minute. If someone were to come looking for them — 

He squirms, tries to fight a sob as it leaves his throat, but Toto doesn’t seem to notice. He’s efficient with George’s flies, and a second later, he’s taking the head of George’s cock into his mouth, and then there’s nothing George can do but lie there and take it.  

Reluctantly, George has to admit that Toto is better at giving head than he would’ve expected. He takes George easily, his tongue working steadily as he works up and down the length of him, and George thinks of all the times it had been the other way around, all the time he had spent at the foot of Toto’s bed, silk sheets pooled around his feet. Thinks about how Toto had never offered.

George is still making noises he doesn’t want to be making, and it’s mortifying when he feels tears start to leak down the sides of his face, running down his skin until they get lost between his hair and the bedding. He twists his wrists, but Toto’s grip is still strong. He’s too tired all of a sudden to stop his thighs from twitching, the weight of the weekend suddenly settling around him. 

He cries out again when he comes, a noise that comes from somewhere dark inside him, somewhere suddenly unleashed, and he’s still panting when Toto pulls back, letting George’s softening cock fall back against his thigh. 

George closes his eyes and listens as Toto moves around the small room, hears him spit, hears the water run. It seems impossible that he’s going to wake up in Monaco, the cycle of the race weekend starting again.