#bee.ask

When it happened for the first time, he was neither drunk nor dying. It was not the end of anything, and it had been coming at him for too long to call it the beginning. When it happened for the first time, what he remembers probably more than anything is that he was sore all over his whole body, and the cool waters of the lake that Daniel had brought him to did very little for it.

It was the race that made him so tired. At least, that was how he excused it away as he sat on the edge of the dock with his legs in the water up to his knees. It was perhaps true that Fernando had knocked him out in turn one, but there was always more to a race than the running of it. There was media. There was lots of mental preparation as well as physical. There were practice sessions. There was qualifying. There were a thousand reasons for his back and his legs and his knees to be killing him that were very easy to think about.

And the truth was he shouldn’t even be thinking about it at all. Daniel had made him a special invitation to come with him to this hidden corner of Salzburg that he had apparently found when he was only a little older than Max was at that moment. He had been still brimming with all of his energy from yesterday’s P3 when he had pulled him from his hotel room, but he had been very gentle anyway. Very understanding and sympathetic even when Max had insisted he didn’t feel like going. “Yeah, mate. It’s a rough hand, going out like that,” he had said, reaching out to tug on Max’s earlobe just a little. “Why don’t you come with me, anyway? It’ll do you good. Get your mind off of it.”

It had then suddenly been the most appealing offer Max had gotten all weekend long. Only in breathing fresh air did he realize how much his room smelled like Christian everywhere.

But Daniel had kept the car windows down on the drive, and he had tried his best to yodel. (Because, he said, it’s what the Von Trapps had been doing all up and down these streets eighty years ago.) And he kept with his smiling. And he knew secret places where no one would follow and find them. And he looked so strong.

Even in that moment, with Max only sitting on the dock while Daniel explored the deeper waters, he seemed suddenly to be a remedy of some kind. Like a balm he could spread over himself, and all the aches would disappear. Then, he never would have to think about the reasons for them. His wonderings crept back in the way that cool, blue shadows stretch at the sunset. What would it be like to kiss Daniel? He was, of course, still sure that it would be different than everything. It had to be.

“You were supposed to get in the water!” Daniel called out to him. He was very funny-looking where he was—just a head and shoulders in the distance.

“I already did, a little bit!” Max answered, straightening his spine and leaning forward to project his voice. “It’s quite cold for July!”

“That’s the beauty!” he answered, swimming closer. Quite a strange answer for Daniel, who never liked cold no matter the shape it took. When he was close enough to not have to shout, he continued, “It’s mountain water. Natural ice bath.”

The only sign of living that he still recognizes himself is the feeling of filth over his skin and the ache thrumming through each of his limbs. Christ, but his back hurts. But it’s the car that made it that way. It’s the car that he hasn’t driven since the break started. No matter. It still hurts like hell. Maybe this is hell, actually. The thought strikes laughter out of him. The peals rip through the empty car and echo in his ears long after he has made it back to his apartment.

Really, he does not want to go home. He is afraid that he will go there and find the smell of Christian all over his furniture, all over his clothes, all throughout the air. Or worse, he will not even notice that it is there, but Daniel will.

Daniel, of course, will want to come over straight away. It is only a matter of time before he gets the message that is usually so welcome. In his mind’s eye, Max can see him crossing the threshold with eyes immediately going round and wounded. And he will turn those warm, brown eyes on Max and know what Christian asked of him. He’ll know what Max did for him. Finally, he will see the twisted, bent shape that Max has always been, even since the very first day.

What will he do, then? Of course, it will be easier to do what he’s been told when all of the curtains are burned away. It should, in theory, come as another relief to him. Even so, there is a part of him that does not want Daniel to see him in that way, no matter how much easier it would be. If not for his own sake, then for Daniel’s. The very last thing he wants is for Daniel to have to look down at his own hands that he has kept so perfect and beautiful and decorated with ink and golden rings and know what he has touched with them.

It is only between me and Christian, he tells the image of Daniel in his head. It is not a disease, Daniel. It is not contagious. It is only some dirtiness that comes with the job, but it would never pass to you. I would not let it.

But even as he thinks it, crossing into his apartment and feeling nothing to be out of place… Even then, he knows it isn’t true. It has already happened. It was always happening, and he was never so much the master of it as he sometimes let himself believe. Like sand, like water, it has slipped out of his hands.

Are you home? The text from Daniel lights up his phone. He has not even moved himself or his luggage from the doorway. God knows how long he has been standing there, waiting for something to happen to him.

Yes, Max answers because he cannot stomach another lie. He knew this would come, didn’t he?

Daniel sends him a string of heart emojis, all different shapes and colors. Then, I’m coming over.

And to this, Max sucks in a breath with no intention of letting it go. The rope around his neck tightens.

Back when the ink was barely dry on his Formula One contract and Christian had freshly made clear to him the responsibilities he would be seeing to in his new position, Max had his first vision of what it might be like to kiss Daniel. He had not ever really thought of kissing people at all before, much less kissing a man. His first and really only until Christian had been at nine years old with the young daughter of Mama’s neighbour who had probably just been excited to have a boy her age visiting the area and had pushed the idea to him for all of a half an hour before he had gotten very annoyed and would have done anything to get her to leave him alone. Afterwards, they did not see very much of each other, and, though it was maybe strange to describe that as a relief, it was exactly what it was. 

It would be very different if it were to happen with Daniel, he decided. And he decided this very simply because when Max passed him the drink that he had gotten for him, Daniel held his hand to his heart, fluttered his lashes, and said, “Ah… Enchanté. My kingdom is yours.”

Max recovered very quickly from the new thought that had hit him upside the head like a cricket bat. “You are always talking crazy, Daniel,” he said, as he took the pool chair next to him. Proudly, there was not a hint of stuttering anywhere.

“I’m not the one refusing to get into the pool at a pool party, here,” Daniel pointed out and sipped at his drink. Max was actually not sure what it was—a rosé of some kind which was of a color that he had seen Daniel enjoy drinking before. He had gambled that he would like this one when he grabbed it off of the tray, and it was been a worthwhile bet. Daniel got very greedy with it very fast, with some spilling at the corners of his mouth.

Maybe he would have to be drunk, Max mused, gaze fixated on that spot. Maybe he could one day be drunk enough that it would be him who leaned forward first. Or he would ask for it in slurs and hiccups, and Daniel would be also drunk enough to agree. The thought of it made his own drink feel heavy in his hand. It would, of course, take more than a couple of sparkly, airy drinks in flutes.

Daniel wiped away the drops from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well?” he pressed.

Now, Max did stutter. “Well, what?” he asked, tripping over it.

Daniel reached across the space between their chairs to tap at his knee. “What the hell does a guy gotta do around here to tempt Max Emilian Verstappen into a pool?”

Oh. Of course. That had been the subject of the day. Something that Daniel had been pressing since about thirty minutes after he had arrived and stayed bone dry with his shirt stubbornly still on. Max snorted, turned to look at the crowded water, and buried his wrinkling nose into his own glass. “Get everyone else out of it,” he muttered.

Daniel pursed his lips (his lips) and tilted his head. “I bet we could manage it,” he said. “I’ll just stand up and declare it a Max-only zone. Fuck a product launch party, we’ve got a teenager to baptize.”

“Right, of course,” he said with a nod of his head. “Very official.”