be brave

“Well, someone’s happy to see me,” Daniel says, surprised. He looks at Alexandra and smiles widely. This has never happened to him with Charles before. His own magic stirs in his stomach but doesn’t make itself known in any other way. And that’s okay, too - he made peace with it.

He beckons the pair further into the apartment, to the terrace where Max waits patiently for them. Daniel opens the champagne, apron-clad body moving quickly around the guests, pouring water with fresh mint into their glasses, then handing them the champagne flutes. He has been leaning heavily into the housewife label, and everyone accepts it and finds it cute as well, even though they all know he ordered all of the charcuterie boards laid out on the table. 

Charles leans into his side when Max whips out his phone, showing Alexandra a new photoshoot he made for Jimmy. 

“How are things?” he asks, accent heavier than usual. 

Daniel shrugs, “Nothing new.” Charles clicks his tongue but doesn’t follow up.

Daniel was scared that the new memories would make him forget the friendship they had built. He was petrified that he would always connect Charles to cold nights in Lithuania. The metal smell of Charles’ blood as he paid with it for them to be able to enter a weird wizards club of some sort; Peru and Brazil and the humidity that made Charles’ hair so frizzy he looked like he was the one who had a desperate need to get rid of the dark magic, not Daniel. Charles’ hushed voice as he called with Max, when Daniel was too sick to give out updates to his boyfriend. 

But when he looks at Charles now, he still remembers the night in Vegas clearly, the other memories muddy. He doesn’t know if it’s because of all the pain he was in at the time or if it has something to do with Charles rearranging his thoughts after every ritual that didn’t go well, and he is too afraid to ask. 

Charles' red light starts to crawl to him again as if he knew what he was thinking about and Max looks up from where he is smiling over Alex’s phone. 

“Your little friend is making you a little rowdy, isn’t she?” Max snipes, doesn’t like anyone using magic around Daniel. 

Alexandra shakes her head. “I believe it’s your little friend, Max, who is making him this way,” she smirks and Charles seems to be chastised. The lights disappear suddenly. “Sorry, guys,”

It took them five weeks to learn more about the curse someone put on Daniel. He was cursed never to use magic again. His power fought against it, making him feel the pain Daniel couldn’t describe in words. It started as a stomachache when he used a simple spell, grew to fits that left Daniel screaming in agony as his magic fought more and more. The only advice he would get in the doctor's office was not to use magic, under no circumstances. The irony was the fact that the curse itself wasn’t causing the pain - it was his own magic. Someone put cruciatus on Daniel once. This was worse. His mother cried for hours when he gathered the wherewithal to call her when he and Charles finally returned to Europe. 

Daniel claps his hands loudly to snap him out of his thoughts. “I’m going to fetch the cake!” Alexandra stands up, makes her way to the washrooms. 

And listen, Daniel doesn’t want to listen in on their conversation, it’s just that the window in the kitchen is open and Charles isn’t exactly quiet.

“- You just have to stop it, okay? It’s disturbing the vibe of the whole paddock, disturbing my vibe! It’s calling to him! He will find out and then - “ 

Daniel opens the tap to become more conspicuous. “-and using all of this dark magic, just to keep it a secret! It must have made you so weak!” he hears Charles’ voice, his accent more pronounced now. Then he sees a blue light coming from the terrace, so familiar in its shape that he immediately feels better. 

“Just because he has lost his magic, you don’t have to-” 

“He’s not magicless!” Max exclaims, loud enough for him to hear even if he wasn’t trying to listen. Daniel quickly makes his way to the terrace, meeting Alexandra in the corridor, who smiles tightly. He must not have been the only one hearing bits of the conversation. 

Vettel’s Restaurant is tucked away between a run-down hardware store and a shitty comedy club where Daniel and his co-workers have spent many a night getting drunk and daring each other to take the stage.

Co-workers, of course, being a relative term. Daniel’s not necessarily in on whatever scheme Seb runs that he needs to launder money through, but he’s not totally brain dead. He’s not getting paid this well to serve two customers a day, mostly confused tourists who wandered in by accident. When he’s the only one working, he goes to the back and dumps frozen food in the air fryer sitting atop the industrial stoves legit enough that the kitchen raises no red flags to whatever authorities may come sniffing.

Often, the offices at the back of the restaurant is a decent hub of activity. He supposes it serves as some kind of headquarters for Seb’s criminal enterprise, but it’s not what Daniel would expect from watching mafia movies. They’re all pretty normal guys, and they’re happy to shoot the shit with Daniel. As long as he doesn’t ask any questions, he earns enough to pay LA rent with plenty of leftover free time to film dirt bike videos. It’s a sick gig, really.

In the year and a half that Daniel’s worked there, they’ve never had a repeat customer. The food is trash, the location is inconvenient, it’s cash only, and they overcharge just to ensure no one ever wants to come back.

Thus, when Daniel stumbles in hungover and is attacked by a frantic Kimi, he figures the emergency must be that their cover is busted. The feds must be closing in. Daniel is going to get like, waterboarded by the CIA, and definitely deported if he’s lucky enough to escape a prison sentence. It’s unfair, he wants to protest, because it’s not like he knows anything for real. He has W4s for the taxes he pays on a legitimate visa. He didn’t do anything wrong.

“This guy came in yesterday,” Kimi hisses, jabbing his thumb at the guy slumped over a laptop at a corner table. It’s difficult to make out any defining features, but Daniel can tell from the angle of his cheekbones and the scruffy blond-brown hair that he’s definitely, 100% a certified hottie.

“How does he have our wifi?” he asks.

Kimi’s face flushes, and he averts his panicked eyes to the floor. “I gave it to him.”

Very, very carefully, Daniel swallows his admonishment. Never give them a reason to come back, he wants to say, and certainly don’t give them access to our internet, as if Kimi doesn’t know. He’s a high schooler trying to help support his family. It’s not like he has a guidebook to working for a money laundering front anymore than Daniel does, and he clearly knows he’s fucked up.

“Well,” Daniel says after a pause. “Not ideal.”

“I’ll tell Seb,” Kimi says, eager to rectify his error. Seb does need to know. They have no clue who this guy is and what he could do with the in on their wifi. Not that anyone here is dumb enough to do sketchy things on the restaurant wifi, but it seems pertinent to inform someone.

Still, Daniel can at least try and sus out this stranger’s intentions first.

“Let me talk to this guy,” he tells Kimi. “You just hang in the back, alright?”

He doesn’t have to tell Kimi twice. He eagerly darts away, and Daniel makes his way across the small restaurant to plop down in the open chair across from the guy.

The customer lifts his head from the laptop and Daniel bites down hard on his lip to keep from squeaking. Above dark bags are pretty blue eyes and long lashes. He’s got a freckle decorating a plush upper lip. He’s sporting a wrinkled white t-shirt, small enough that Daniel can admire broad shoulders and the way the fabric perfectly cups a slightly protruding chest.

“Hi?” the guy says. Daniel reaches a hand out over the half-eaten plate of cheap chicken tenders and offers up his most winning smile.

“I’m Daniel. I work here.”

“Max.”

Max politely takes his hand and shakes it. He's got very nice fingers, Daniel notes. Long, clean, clipped. He didn't know fingers could be so hot. When he goes to remove himself from Daniel's grip, Daniel squeezes slightly and continues talking. “How’s the food, Max?”

Max raises his eyebrows slightly and smiles playfully. “Shit.”

Daniel throws his head back and laughs at the blunt honesty. “True, Max. True. What brought you back, then?”

Max gestures around the completely empty restaurant. “I’m trying to finish an essay, and nobody in the library knows what a quiet floor means.”

Daniel re-assesses his guess on Max’s approximate age. He thought maybe 25 or so, just a few years younger than Daniel.

“Grad student?”

“Just started the last year of my bachelor’s degree.”

Probably around 22, then. Old enough. Max has a cute little accent Daniel can’t place, but he thinks Max probably doesn’t feel like entertaining all the questions Daniel has for him right now.

“Well,” Daniel says after a pause. “I’ll let you have your quiet, and maybe find you something a little nicer to eat.”

Max scans him up and down when Daniel stands, then pulls his lips into a smirk. “Do that, and I might come back.”

It should scare Daniel off. He’ll probably lose his job if he lets Max step foot in here for a third day.

“Counting on it,” he says instead, and disappears to the back to talk Kimi down from a ledge.

Max Verstappen is a very real university student with zero ties to the US government, Daniel is assured later that night.

It’s not his business, not unless they tell him to keep Max away, and the way Seb looks at him with knowing eyes tells him he won’t make Daniel turn him away. He has no idea what Kimi said to Seb, but he thinks of Max’s light stubble and the shape of his waist. Whatever story Kimi landed on, he’s more than fine with it.

__________

Max isn’t stupid.

His boyfriend is definitely involved in something highly shady. He doesn’t actually think they have Daniel doing any dirty work, but his rent isn’t covered through legitimate money. The restaurant doesn’t even attempt to pass itself off as real. The first time he went, he asked for a menu and the boy he now knows to be Kimi said, “Think of what you can find in a freezer aisle and pick something.”

Since the day Daniel had walked over, the meals had drastically improved. Slowly, as he came back and the longer he went out with Daniel, he was served entrees based off real recipes.

Max had graciously averted his eyes the first time he came over and saw a stack of library books on Daniel’s crowded nightstand next to three empty Red Bulls. It contained titles like Cooking for Dummies and books that definitely produced the recipes full of burnt food and Daniel’s genuine best efforts. Max had been taken to the back more than once for a quickie. He saw the industrial oven that was clearly only used for Daniel’s wannabe chef experiments on Max.

Daniel was not going to earn a Michelin star, Max realized very quickly, but he was clearly determined to try, and about seven months in, Daniel had improved quite considerably.

“Today’s menu,” Daniel proclaimed, sliding the little whiteboard in front of Max with “The Max Menu” written across the top in blue dry erase maker.

Max pretends to think about it, admiring Daniel’s scrawl of his only choice in deep contemplation.

“I think I’ll have the,” he stops, squints his forehead together and taps his chin, “wow, so many options. Maybe the chicken pesto panini with a side of tomato soup.”

“A gin and tonic to drink?”

“It’s 11 am and you don’t have a liquor license,” Max informs him. Daniel sticks his tongue out at Max, and Max gives him the finger back until Daniel breaks and kisses his temple with a grin.

“I’m doing homemade pesto,” he tells Max excitedly before he darts off. Normally Max likes to watch him work, but today he has an assignment to do, so he locks in and tries to ignore the concerning bangs and yelps happening in the kitchen.

He looks up when a cold coconut water slides across the table. Kimi is staring at him, a very somber expression on his young face.

“Thank you,” Max says, smiling. Kimi’s expression doesn’t change. It’s odd to see, a sharp contrast from his usual happy manner. Max isn’t being conceited when he says Kimi loves him. He follows Max around like a puppy, peppering him with questions about his engineering degree and university. He wants to work with cars, he tells Max dreamily. He helps out in a mechanic shop from time to time, but the real goal is motorsport.

“Max.”

“Kimi,” Max replies, trying to match his serious demeanour.

Kimi’s eyes dart from side to side, even though the restaurant is as empty as ever. He hesitates, then slides over a piece of folded-up paper.

“Don’t read it here,” he hisses when Max moves to unfold its creases. “Just — later, at home with Daniel, okay?”

He’s so quiet that it’s barely even a whisper. He relaxes when Max nods and slides it into the back of his notebook. Max wants to ask why he didn’t give it to Daniel in the back, but he’s pretty sure Seb is in today. He glances at his closed notebook, the kitchen doors, and Kimi's shifty attitude, and nerves begin to knot at the pit of his stomach.

“Lunch is served,” Daniel loudly announces as he bounces out the swing doors, a tray on each arm. He ceremonially places the trays with three sandwiches and three soups on the table and makes Max scoot over in his booth.

“What are we chatting about?” he asks, slinging an arm over Max’s shoulder and taking a dramatic bite of his panini. He lets out an exaggerated moan and throws his head back. “God, I’m good. You guys are so lucky to have me around all the time.”

Kimi’s face drops at that, eyes darting to the table. He pretends to take a sudden interest in very carefully moving his lunch to his spot, refusing to look up at either of them. Despite the anxiety gnawing at him, Max can’t resist driving a teasing elbow into Daniel’s ribs and trying to distract from the weird tension in the air. “You turned our pasta in actual piles of mush yesterday, so don’t get cocky.”

Daniel looks affronted. “Dough is hard, okay? But this is a masterpiece.”

The panini is just okay, but his tomato soup is improving every time, and discussing Daniel’s culinary adventures distracts him from asking what was up when he came over, so Max lavishes praise and pretends he isn’t scared as fuck.

__________

Max thinks about the paper all day. He’s extremely tempted to look at it when he leaves for class, but Kimi instructed him to read it with Daniel, and Max doesn’t think he wants to handle the news on his own anyway. He lets himself into Daniel’s little studio apartment after class and finds a distraction in flipping through the library cookbooks. Max is pretty sure these are well overdue given that Daniel has been dabbling with this particular set for at least a month now. He doesn't want to think of how many fines Daniel is probably incurring.

There’s little post-it notes stuck on random recipes with notes:

- Good for date night! Won't burn badly if you get distracted and forget it in the oven

- Max likes the meatballs a little bigger

- Smoothness of this tomato soup with herbs from other recipe!

- Don’t add the egg in the hot milk. Cake had bits of scrambled egg :(

- Max prefers this without the mushrooms

- Mum would like this

- Gross. Never again.

It’s very cute, and Max takes pictures of some of his little notes. He’ll have to get Daniel cookbooks of his own for his birthday. Max teases Daniel sometimes about his failed recipes, but he clearly gets so excited about it.

Daniel breaks into a warm smile when he comes home to Max sitting on his bed, brown eyes all crinkled at the corners and teeth flashing through his mildly unruly beard. “This is a nice surprise,” he says, setting his little reusable tote on his kitchen counter and pulling out a container. “Sorry, I got sushi, but I can make you some dinner.”

Max shakes his head and screws up his nose at the sight of the raw fish. “I ate. Just brush your teeth before you kiss me.”

Daniel tuts at him. “One day, I’ll find seafood you like.”

Instead of sitting at the table, he takes his dinner and sits next to Max on the bed. He carefully opens the container, sets the sushi side on his lap, and pours soy sauce into the divot in the lid while Max opens his little takeout chopsticks for him and cracks them in two.

“Thanks,” Daniel says, leaning his head on Max’s shoulder and peering down at the cookbooks. He pops his first piece of sushi in his mouth and chews while he turns a few pages in the cookbook Max is reading, pausing to point at a gnocchi recipe.

“I want to try this for date night next week. It makes a ton, but I was thinking I would invite Kimi over to help us since we seem to have adopted a teenager. Then he could take the rest home for his family.”

Max tenses involuntarily. Daniel, glued to his side, obviously notices. “Is everything okay?”

Max adjusts, pulls the paper out of the pocket of his tight jeans, and holds it up for Daniel to see. “Kimi gave this to me earlier. He said to read it with you at home.”

Daniel places his chopsticks in his sushi container and carefully transfers his dinner from his lap to the bedside table. His big brown eyes are rounded with concern, lips pinched together.

“Do you think he’s warning us that —“ he starts, and doesn’t need to finish. Max is already nodding.

“I mean, it makes sense. We both know it’s a front." They’ve never verbally acknowledged it, and both of them wince at hearing Max say it aloud. "Obviously they’d think Kimi is the weakest link for whatever is going on there. They’ll try to make him tell everything he knows.”

Daniel clenches his fists, then unclenches so he can bite at the corner of his ragged thumbnail. “This is bullshit,” he says, muffled by the sound of his finger. “Kimi doesn’t know anything. Neither of us do.”

Max pulls at Daniel’s hand, taking it between his own and rubbing at the angry nail bed where Daniel has bitten and picked it into oblivion. “I know,” Max says softly. “But hopefully they’ll believe him, and maybe you can quit before they come after you. You can’t get deported or end up in prison, okay? If there’s an out, you need to take it.”

Daniel stares at the paper like it might detonate at any second where it lays entangled in their hands, but starts to grab at it anyway. Max snatches back both his hands and the paper before Daniel can open it. “Daniel, promise me,” he says. He aims for stern, but it probably comes across desperate, scared. He is scared, for all of them.

Daniel looks at Max with his worried doe eyes and Max can feel his heart physically squeeze. He didn’t realize how much love would ache before Daniel, how much of love also came with constant anxiety about your person.

He pulls Daniel’s head into the junction of his neck and shoulder so he doesn’t have to look at his fear, and exhales only when Daniel says, “I promise,” warm breath puffing into the fabric of Max’s cotton shirt.

“Okay,” Max says, trying to exude calm. “We’ll look, and whatever it says, we’ll figure out a plan. Hopefully the FBI is just suspicious, and they aren’t making Kimi an undercover agent or something.”

“Oh god,” Daniel says faintly. “Can they do that? He’s in high school.”

“Let’s not panic,” Max says, while absolutely panicking. “We look and then we figure it out.”

He swallows once, twice, three times before he places the paper within both their eyesight. Daniel is still tucked into Max’s body, but turns his neck for a better view as Max unfolds the paper on his lap.

They both scan the first few lines, breathless, until Daniel punches the mattress. “That motherfucker. I’m going to kill him for this.”

Dear Mr. Antonelli, On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission to the Department of Engineering for the MIT class of 2029. You were identified as one of the most promising and outstanding students in the talented and competitive applicant pool.

“He got a scholarship,” Max says, choked up, pointing to the bottom of the letter. “Oh my god.” He jabs a finger at the date. “He’s been sitting on this acceptance for a month. He must have been scared to tell us he's leaving.”

Daniel rubs at his suspiciously moist eyes. “I don’t know much about American universities, but this is a good school, right?”

“Very hard to get into. He’s so smart, Daniel. He’s going to build F1 cars one day.”

“We need to call him,” Daniel sniffs, “and also tell him that he is so, so bad at working around organized crime. He’s so dumb. I would’ve fled the city without opening this if you weren’t here.”

Max wraps his arms around Daniel, hugging him tightly. “Luckily, I don’t think we have to worry about him working around crime anymore.”

“Unless he gets a job with Flavio Briatore,” Daniel mumbles, then perks up. “Hey, maybe Seb knows him through all his underground criminal stuff. We could get Kimi a job with Alpine.”

“We’re getting him out of crime,” Max reminds him, then reconsiders. “Or, I guess we’ll see how his job hunt goes in four years.”

“God,” Daniel says, reaching back over for his sushi container. “I need to get back to the library so I can get some baking books. I cannot repeat the scrambled cake disaster when we make him a celebration cake.”

Max pauses. “Daniel, can you still check out books? Don’t you have fines?”

Daniel looks at him, bewildered. “Check them out? They’re free. You just go in and take them, and then you give them back whenever you decide you’re done.”

“Oh my god,” Max says, staring at him. “You’ve been stealing from the library.”

Daniel jerks back in offence, soy sauce splashing a little onto his leg. “The whole point is they’re free!”

Max shakes his head. “I can’t believe we panicked about organized crime and you’re actively stealing library books. Daniel, this is a disaster. We have to sneak them back tomorrow.”

“My recipes,” Daniel says mournfully, pointing at all the post-it notes. Max looks at the gnocchi recipe he was so excited about, thinks of all his carefully written notes, and sighs.

“Fine, but we’re going to a different library and getting you an actual card.”

Daniel happily downs another piece of sushi. “Don’t pretend my criminal ways don’t turn you on.”

“I’m moving to Boston with Kimi,” Max teases, and Daniel drops his chopsticks.

Daniel stared at his palm, igniting the flame of his power for the first time in five years. It had taken a while to get used to it. The lack. The powerlessness. 

He could still do small magic in the human realm, inconsequential party tricks at the end of the day. It was just easier to pretend it didn’t exist than to keep wanting more when there would be none.

He clenched his fist and extinguished the flow, it didn’t make sense to revel in the feeling. It would be gone again soon enough.

“So I see you’re back.” Max’s voice was deeper than he remembered, but still pleasantly raspy.

“Not so much a return but more as a summoning.” Daniel stood, turning to look at him standing confidently in the doorway. 

Max scoffed and entered the room. He settled on leaning against the old desk Daniel hated using. Daniel couldn’t help but take in the differences since the last time they’d been in close proximity like this. 

Max looked good, he always had– even when he was a lanky teenager who hadn’t quite grown into his face yet. Daniel wasn’t one to talk about growing into features, he used to be teased about how big his nose was. It still was big, but he thought the rest of him matched up now. 

Max was all angles and muscles in his uniform. His broad shoulders accentuated how strong he seemed. Daniel knew he was, he’d been strong then– in both magic and physical prowess– there was no doubt he was stronger now.

“Look, I won’t keep you long.” Daniel figured he’d just get this out of the way, he didn’t belong here. Not anymore. “I’m not staying.” He didn’t need whatever drama that was coming, he was fine in his life outside.

“So eager to go back to your ‘normal’ life? What is it that you do anyways?”  

Daniel clenched his fist against Max’s belittling tone. “I’m a tattoo artist.”

Max scoffed again, a sneer staining his lips. “You left me— everything to go paint tattoos on people.” Daniel could tell what he thought of that. He shrugged.

“I enjoy it. What? You thought I joined the army or something? Sorry to break it to you mate. I only have one process of indoctrination in me per lifetime.” Daniel smiled and widened his arms as if to remind Max about what this place truly was. This mansion, at its core, was the training ground for the Prince’s Army. Max’s army. 

One didn’t just leave, especially after they’ve sworn The Oath.

Even now, Daniel could feel the tendrils of his magic attempting to reach out to Max. He was out of practice in keeping it at bay. He felt exposed.

At least Max seemed to be ignoring it all. 

“If you love your life out there so much, then why are you back?” Daniel did the respectable thing in pretending he couldn’t hear the petulance in Max’s tone. He didn’t like feeling rejected, and Daniel left him– rejected this life with him. 

It was Daniel’s turn to scoff, he folded his arms to his chest. “I’ve been gone a long time but I still remember how it goes Max. You felt it, when Toto brought me here. You know I didn’t cross over of my own free will.”

Max looked away as if caught. Daniel knew that Max knew the moment he came here. Could feel the fight in the forest, the heat of Daniel’s battle magic the moment it came back to him. 

“So that's it?” Max’s tone was accusing. But Daniel didn’t quite know what he was accusing him of.

“Boys.” Toto’s voice cut through any response Daniel had. They both looked to see him standing in the doorway. “Hate to break up this reunion, but I need to speak with Daniel.”

Max looked like he wanted to argue for a second before he scowled and left the room quickly. 

“You are out of practice.” Toto said and Daniel rolled his eyes.

“No shit.”

“You should see Franz about your training–”

“I’m not staying, Toto.” Daniel interrupted. He had a life to get back to. He was done with everyone’s high handedness.

Toto watched him for a second and Daniel fought the urge to squirm under his heavy gaze.

“You think this has nothing to do with you.” Toto seemed to come to a realization and Daniel didn’t like the implications. It didn’t involve him. And he was tired of the insinuation that it did.

Toto watched him for a moment longer before smiling bemusedly at him. “You’ll meet with Franz in an hour.” He turned to leave before stopping in the doorway. “Everything is as you left it.” He waved to the room at large before leaving. 

No doubt the room was magicked away when he left, the mansion knew its occupants. Daniel had lived here so long that his magic was seeped into the space.

“Fuck.” Daniel whispered then dragged his hand down his face. He kicked at the desk in frustration and the middle drawer slid forward as if broken from the track. It used to annoy the hell out of him.

Inside were a few dusty items, bits and bobs of Daniel’s old life. Old notes, worn gloves from a training uniform, and a box. Daniel grabbed the box, narrowed brown eyes taking in the simple wood. He didn’t remember it, couldn’t recall ever seeing it before.

He tried to open it, but it didn’t budge. Tried multiple times to figure out the mechanism, to no avail. He then attempted to wedge his fingernail into the tight seam but it shocked him instead. He dropped it in his shock, popping the injured finger into his mouth to soothe. Right, he should have assumed it was magical in nature.

The box fell to the floor just as someone knocked on the door, Daniel looked up to see a familiar face. A smile broke out on his lips as he walked over to them, box forgotten.