Archive of Our Own ^beta

The only reason George ends up being the person who knows—well, the person on the grid who knows—is because Franco gets his first podium in Japan. The media is busy scooping that up with a spoon, so George and Max are in the Cooldown Room alone. The cameras aren’t on, there isn’t an FIA person there yet, just the two of them. George glances over at Max and finds himself asking, “Are you…all right?”

He isn’t sure how he hasn’t noticed, but Max looks like crap. His cheekbones are much, much too sharp and his skin is somehow managing to be both pallid and flushed. It’s not even the I’ve-been-sitting-on-a-heated-engine-while-packed-in-Nomex flush that they all get post-race. It’s Victorian-child-with-Scarlet-Fever flushed. The weirdest part, though, is the way Max is sitting. He’s perched on the edge of his sofa, back ramrod straight.

Max nods. “Little dehydrated.”

He brings his Red Bull bottle to where he can sip from the straw. His hands are shaking. George frowns. “Max—”

George has no idea what he was going to say. It doesn’t matter, because Max goes the shade of spoiled milk, frantically covers his mouth with his free hand and promptly gets sick all over himself. George’s first reaction is sympathetic gagging. Once he’s got that—and his initial ick—under control, he forces himself to think in steps, walks over to the door, and pushes one of the couches in front of it.

Max is sitting with both hands over his mouth, rocking back and forth slightly. George asks, “Rupert? Who can I get?”

“Ik weet het niet.”

Look, George isn’t dumb. He gets that Max is freaking out. George is freaking out a bit, and he’s not the one who just vomited all over himself. George still can’t magically understand Dutch. He makes an executive decision. “Right. Rupert.”

He waits until there’s noise indicating that someone is trying to get in. Moving the sofa back just enough to crack the door, he peers out at Franco. “Hi, congrats on the podium, mate. I need you to go get Max’s physio, Rupert.”

Franco, bless the child, does not ask questions. He looks over at where the Liberty camera crews are coming down the hall. “Red Bull garage?”

George turns his head. “Max, will Rupert be in your garage?”

“Ja. Yes. Yes.”

“Yes, Red Bull. Thank you. Also, please tell Liberty Max has something contagious, feel free to make something horrific up at your leisure. Thanks for that, as well.”

Franco gives a lazy, extremely confused salute and heads off. George bars them in the room again and asks, “Can you get out of your suit?”

“I—not sure.”

It’s a place to start. “Let’s try. I’ll help.”

“D-don’t touch my back.”

His back? What the actual fuck. Doesn’t matter. George unscrews the top on his water bottle then ties the top of his suit around his waist and strips out of his vest. Max blinks at him, but doesn’t make a joke about his shirtless social media. That, even more than the puking, scares the crap out of George. “Here, give me your hands.”

Max extends them, palms up. George wets the end of his vest and begins cleaning the sick from Max’s hands. Once he’s done that, he takes the collar of Max’s suit and puts his hand on Max’s shoulder to get the collar past it. Max makes a noise that can only barely be called human and bites his lip so hard blood drips down his chin. George stills instinctively. He carefully removes his hands. He’s trying to come up with a new plan when there’s a knock on the door. George goes and repeats his peering routine. Thankfully, it’s Rupert. George opens the door enough to let him in and then barricades it again. Rupert is talking about how they’re going to get fined when he sees Max and goes, “Oh. Shit.”

“Something is—he told me not to touch his back, but then I touched his shoulder and it—something is wrong.” George feels like an idiot even as he says it. Obviously something is wrong. People don’t just throw up all over themselves and then sit there, not moving, if everything is fine.

Rupert goes and crouches in front of Max. “Hey mate. Did something happen in the car?”

Max shakes his head, once. “I think—I think they’re infected.”

“What’s infected?”

Max looks over at George. It’s been a long, long time since George has seen Max terrified. He’s only ever seen it once. Evidently, once was enough. George says, “Whatever it is, I’m not—it stays in this room. Promise.”

He can tell Max doesn’t believe him. They both have good reasons not to trust each other. Max turns back to Rupert and mumbles something. Rupert cocks his head. “Um. Did you just—”

“Avia-pockets.”

George doesn’t even know what that means. Rupert does, because he says, “Max, those were outlawed in most European countries in the late eighties. Pretty sure the Netherlands—doesn’t matter. You can’t—”

“Money buys lots of things,” Max says. Slurs, really.

“How long, Max? How long—”

Max is shuddering, the whole line of him radiating agony. George might not know what the fuck an avia-pocket is, but he knows what Avia are, and he knows that if Max was born one, then there’s only one answer. “Since he was three.”

Rupert snaps his gaze to him. “How do you know?”

“Avia, they’re born with the wings, yeah?” They’re a minority. George has never met one. Or, well, he evidently has, he just hadn’t known it. “He started with karts when he was three.”

Rupert looks like he is just barely managing not to throw things. He keeps his voice low but asks, “You get that this could have killed you, right? That it could still kill you?”

“C-can you yell at me w-when I’m not s-sitting in my own p-puke?”

Rupert rubs his face, then stands. “George, I have to go get a team medic. I’m going to tell the team they’re paying the fine. If you want to leave—”

“Are you going to need help?”

A second passes. Rupert nods, “Probably.”

“Grab Max’s phone. I know he has Toto’s number. I’ll handle it.”

Rupert’s eyes flick back to Max. “Right. All right. Be back shortly.”

Rupert must have told the medic something, because she says, “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt. I’m going to cut away your clothes in the back so I can give you a local.”

Max nods, silent and tense. George, who should definitely be texting his boss, instead says, “Here,” and kneels down in front of Max, taking one of his hands. “Just squeeze, if you need to.”

Max stares at him a bit blankly. George feels like a right prat until the medic starts cutting and Max squeezes so hard George is a bit concerned about broken bones. George can tell looking up at her body language that the medic is being as careful as she can, but Max is crying and George—George hates that he’s seeing it. Sure, Max and him exist in a cloud of “on the track we’re pretty much willing to kill each other dead,” and “off the track we are civil, adult human beings, thank you very much”, but he wouldn’t want Max seeing him like this and he doubts the opposite is any less true.

“Okay,” the medic says. “Just sanitizing the—”

Max dry heaves. George probably would have instinctively moved away, except Max is now squeezing his hand with both hands.

“Almost there, almost there,” she says, the same kind of calm George associates with race engineers in her tone. George isn’t sure what “almost” is supposed to mean. It takes what must be a solid minute for the local to give enough relief that Max’s eyes slide closed, his hands falling away.

George is afraid to touch him after earlier, but he ends up catching him before he falls to his side. He’s out. George says to the medic, “Thought you said it was a local.”

“Oh, it is. I don’t even want to guess the last time he wasn’t in incredible levels of pain. This is just his body being too worn out now that the pain’s not keeping it awake.” She looks at Rupert. “He needs a hospital.”

Rupert says, “I know.”

“I don’t suppose you’re his emergency contact?”

“No, it’s GP.”

“Fuck, okay.”

“GP’s not here?” George asks. He knows GP’s wife has cancer, Merc sent GP and her a care package after one of her surgeries; the on-site team signed the card. He just doesn’t pay attention to what weekends Max is using a substitute race engineer. Not really his realm of concern.

Rupert shakes his head. The medic says, “All right. Let’s get him to the hospital. We can worry about that issue once he’s receiving medical treatment. I’m going to go grab Anna and see if she can help figure out a way for this to be done without media interference. In the meantime, if he does wake up, see if you can get him changed into something clean.”

She leaves and George says to Rupert, “You should probably call GP before I deal with my stuff.”

“What is it like…eight there?”

George nods. “About, yeah.”

“Good morning to him, I guess.”

George would like to say, as a person who values rational thought processes, that he makes a studied decision to go to the hospital. He doesn’t. He just starts spiraling a bit when the EMTs come and get Max chest-down on the stretcher. It’s the first time he sees Max’s back and it’s a nightmare. All he can hear is Rupert saying “this could still kill you.”

George has lost friends to this sport. There’s a reason he does what he does for the GPDA. And maybe if you had asked him, in all seriousness, if he wanted Max dead he would have told you no. But now he knows, with a sick, burning certainty that the thought is making him feel panicked. They’re not friends, they’ve never been friends. But Max has been part of his life for almost fifteen years now. Over half of it.

He takes a cab. He can’t speak a lick of Japanese, but thankfully the cab drivers who service the area tend to know basic stuff. “Hospital,” gets him what he’s pretty sure are a list of hospitals. He tries, “Closest? Close?” and hopes he’s right in guessing they’d choose the nearest one. He doesn’t even have his phone. He hasn’t told anyone he’s leaving. This is a bad plan.

George locks his seatbelt in and goes to the hospital.

It’s the right hospital. George finds Rupert, who’s in the waiting room and on the phone, updating GP. He nods at George and after a, “Yes, I will let you know,” hangs up. He then proceeds to stare blankly at the wall like it might have all of life’s answers. George waits for a bit, but then asks, “You…all right?”

Rupert makes a face. “I swore, up and down, to my girlfriend that I’d be home between these two races.”

George frowns. “I get why GP can’t come, but Max has a family, why don’t you just—”

“I think he knew something like this was going to happen eventually. According to GP, his dad cannot be contacted under any circumstance if he’s hospitalized for anything other than a racing accident, and his mom and sister can only be contacted if the doctors say he’s stable or that nothing more can be done.”

Of course this is happening the year that all of the upper level shitstains who made sure nothing would ever touch Max have finally been swept out of Red Bull. Right. George could call Charles or Lando. Max would never forgive him for making that choice without his say in a million years, but it’s not like he and Max have much of a relationship to salvage. He doesn’t have a responsibility to Max. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Fuck. This is the last thing George is ever doing to care for another human. “Let me have the phone. I need to get hold of Aleix. I’ll extend my stay here for a bit and go straight to Bahrain. Red Bull is paying for the extra hotel days, though, I don’t care how it gets sorted.” He has the money. It’s the principle of the thing.

Rupert is staring at him. George says, “Yes?”

“Just…the two of you aren’t, ah. Close?”

“You don’t say.”

“I just mean—”

“Give me the phone, Rupert.”

Rupert hands over the phone.

It takes Aleix about an hour to get to the hospital. Max is still in surgery. According to Rupert, the estimated length will be anywhere from six to eight hours. Aleix shows up with a bag and says, “Toto might murder you. I mean that in the most real way imaginable.”

George takes his phone out of the bag and goes into the hall. He calls Toto, putting the phone to his ear. Something he very much regrets when Toto picks up before the first ring has finished and opens with, “I should fire you. What in the—”

“Toto,” George says, and whoa, that did not come out as calmly as he had intended. He takes a breath. In for three, out for four. Tries again, “Toto,” and okay, that’s better. “Do you trust me, as a person?”

There’s a pause. George figures that’s fair. It’s not what they’re built to do in the sport, the business of the sport. Toto likes him, respects him, in certain ways values him. Trust is something altogether different. George waits. After a moment, Toto says, “Barring us being on opposite sides of a negotiating table, yes, I suppose I do.”

“Then I need you to trust me when I tell you that I didn’t just fuck off on the podium and media and disappear for my health. I can’t tell you why I did it, because it’s not mine to tell. I promise, though, it was for a good reason.”

Toto sighs. “This can’t happen again.”

“Toto, if I skip another podium, you can safely presume I’ve died in between the race and the ceremony.”

It shocks a laugh out of Toto. Then, “Are…you are okay, yes?”

George leans back against the wall. “Yes, I’m fine. I promise. But I’m going to be here until at least the end of the week, so I’ll need to call in for meetings. I can do the simwork when I get to Bahrain. It’s not ideal, but I’ll make it work.”

“I’m realizing now that we should have a code, in case you are currently being held hostage and just can’t—”

“See you in meetings!” George says, forcing an obnoxious cheeriness into his tone. He hangs up to the sound of Toto laughing.

George flirts—likely pointlessly, since he doesn’t speak her language and she only has a few phrases of English—with a nurse. It gets him what he needs, which is access to the shower in the room they will be putting Max in after his surgery, assuming—. George shakes his head and shuts the thought down. Max’s room. George showers—blessing Aleix for bringing all his toiletries—brushes his teeth, and dresses in unmarked sweats. He goes back to the waiting room and thanks Aleix profusely. Aleix asks, “Have you eaten since the race?”

George blinks. “Food. That is…a very important—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Aleix says. “I’ll be back.”

George mouths, “oops.” He turns to Rupert. “Have you spoken with GP?”

“Yes. He said he’ll handle the hotel, but he wants to talk with you.”

And, well, fair enough. “Can I have Max’s phone?”

Rupert hands it to him already dialing. GP picks up on the second ring. “Russell?”

“Yes, sorry—” George isn’t sure how to finish that sentence. Sorry your semi-adopted child/driver is in the hospital and you’re on the other side of the world? Sorry I’m calling while your wife is battling a terrifying disease? Sorry you’re dealing with me and not someone you know? In the end he just repeats, “Sorry.”

“No, these things happen.” A pause. “Well, I suppose maybe not this particular thing, but—”

“Did you know? That he’s—”

“No. Absolutely not. If I’d known I would have nagged at him to fix the situation until he either did it, or got me fired from my position, at which point, I would have found someone else to take over.”

George nods to himself. “All right, then.”

“Russell. Not to—I appreciate that you’re helping out. It’s just—”

“Unlikely and makes you uncomfortable?”

“Yes.”

George stares at the generic Japanese block print on the wall of the waiting room. “It’s—it’s Silverstone ’22, I suppose.”

There’s a moment of silence, then GP says, “I don’t actually have any idea what you’re talking about.”

George laughs. “I made contact with Pierre and it sent me into Zhou. I knew I wasn’t supposed to get out of the car, wasn’t supposed to—”

“Wait, yes, I remember. They red-flagged it. Zhou had to be taken to the hospital.”

“Yes,” George says, quietly. “I saw him flip. I saw him and—to this day, I’m not sure I made a conscious decision to get out the car, to run across the gravel.”

“I’m still a bit lost on what this has to do with Max and you staying at the hospital.”

“Right,” George draws the word out, trying to think of how to say this without getting too graphic. “You weren’t in the room with him when he got sick. You—you didn’t see his back. I did. I…I saw the car flip, GP.”

“Okay.” Then, after a second. “Okay.”

“I’m going to put your number in my phone and text you so you know it’s me next time. I’ll call when the doctor has news. Pretty sure they’ll only give it to you anyway.”

“Good plan.”

“Mm.” George nods. “Talk soon.”

George is curled up on a chair, his head on his knees, when a tall woman in scrubs comes into the room in the early hours of the morning. She smiles, tired, and—unless George misses his guess by a mile—relieved. George stands. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she responds, her accent and cadence the one he’d gotten used to in Yuki. “I’m Dr. Hirai. I am a student, and only assisted in the procedure, but my English is better than the lead surgeon, Dr. Oshira’s.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.”

“I am supposed to ask you to call a…”

“GP. Max’s emergency contact. One moment.” George hits the number and hands the phone to her. “Am I allowed to stay?”

“I will ask GP,” she says, and proceeds to do so after introducing herself. GP must agree, because she nods at George and says to GP, “He did well. There were, mm, complications, I think is how you say, because the pocketing has clearly been repeated several times. What remains of the original wing structure is weak right now, and will easily fracture if he is not careful. These fractures can cause issues in the spine, even normally. This is especially dangerous right now, because of the infection and because of the damage done to the back muscles. He can’t be moved for at least two weeks. Even then, he will need to rest in the proper position, medicate, eat correctly, and, when the time is right, do therapy for his back and the wings. He will also need to learn proper care of them.”

There’s murmuring on the other end of the line. Dr. Hirai says, “Four months, probably. At, mm, minimum.”

More murmuring. Then Dr. Hirai hands the phone back to George. George says, “Thank you,” but before putting the phone to his ear, he asks, “Can I see him?”

“He’s still sleeping. He will be sleeping for a little bit. But he is in his room, if you would like to sit with him. Just ask the desk nurse where to go.”

“Thank you, thanks again,” George tells her, and brings the phone up. “Here.”

“You get all of that?”

“Four months until he can get in the car?”

“Until he’s safe to be without care in the instance where he overbalances or otherwise hurts himself. I’m not asking these questions as his race engineer. I don’t give a bloody shit if he ever gets back in the car, so long as he can walk without pain again.”

“He will, though. He’ll give a shit. Many shits, unless I miss my guess.”

“Then he can ask the doctor at what point it’s going to be okay to compress wings he’s already done enormous damage to into his spine, which he’s also heavily threatened, and take eight thousand G’s in the face. He can ask that.” GP is…not calm. It’s not that George doesn’t know race engineers have a full range of emotions. He just kind of forgets sometimes.

“Seems fair,” George says, using all of the calm he’s not particularly feeling either to temper the situation.

GP says, “Sorry. I—”

“I understand. But, ah. I realize this is a bad time to bring this up, I do. I can’t stay here for two weeks. I promised Toto I’d meet the team in Sakhir on Monday, and Toto’s not thrilled with me as it is.”

There’s a weird silence. “George. Of course you can’t stay for two weeks. You have media in Sakhir in less than that.”

“I just meant—”

“It’s fine. I’m calling his mum. I’d come if I could, but I can’t, and if I’m being honest, I’m less inclined than usual to follow his directions. He’s probably not dying at this point, he’s going to have to talk to her one way or another once she realizes someone else is driving for the rest of the season. I’m calling his mum.”

“All right. Let me know if you need something from me on this end. I’m going to go sit and wait for him to wake up. Do you want me to call when that happens, or wait until a decent time by you?”

“Call.”

“Call it is.”

Max is positioned on his stomach, the bed lying flat. His wings—George stares for several long minutes, relieved Max is still under and doesn’t know. From the frantic research George has made his way through in the last five hours, he knows that Avia are more akin to a flying dinosaur than a bird in terms of wing structure, despite Avia having feathers. At the moment, though, Max doesn’t. Have feathers, that is. His wings are held extended from his back and upward by clamps attached to what seems to be a pulley system threaded through anchors in the ceiling.

They’re long and slender. There’s a significant amount of bone missing, replaced by what looks like carbon fiber rods to George’s untrained eye. There are parts of the skin on the wings that George things might be grafted or possibly a type of synthetic replacement. His back is—thankfully—covered in bandages, but the way the wings attach to his body, George can see there are steel pins along the sides of the wings. He murmurs, “Crikey,” and feels the sentiment in the pit of his stomach.

He wants nothing more in the world than to sleep for a solid ten or twelve hours. He also knows his brain isn’t quite ready to settle. Instead he seats himself on the side of Max without the machines and IV lines and decides to see if he can learn anything about the Care and Feeding of Avias. If Max’s approach to that is anything like his one to having wings in the first place, he clearly cannot be trusted. Sure, he probably won’t let George help once he’s conscious, but—

In for a penny, he supposes.

Max doesn’t wake all day, not beyond some vague grumbling and an attempt or two to open his eyes before drifting right back off again. George gets a bit panicked about it at mid-day. The daytime nurse reassures him it’s to be expected. She says, “He is very skinny for an Avia. Too skinny.”

George thinks the infection ate away at some of Max’s reserves. Because, yes, he is generally skinny, particularly for a guy who’s apparently carrying wings that are three-quarters again as large as him, but he’s more sharp, more wan than usual. It makes sense that his body working to recover from near-sepsis and major surgery would need more calories than otherwise.

There are at least three times throughout the day when he tries to get himself to tell the desk nurse he’s going back to the hotel and to call him if Max wakes. He needs to sleep. He should probably eat again. Every time he goes to do it he thinks of Max waking up alone and stays. He’s verging on delirium, having only dozed here and there for over 36 hours and running on hospital tea and cafeteria snacks, when a woman he recognizes but can’t immediately place walks in the door. She’s brunette, hair pulled back into a ponytail, her features—oh. It’s not that he’s never seen Sophie Kumpen. Of course he has. She just doesn’t come around nearly as much as Jos, and was never at the track when they were kids. He gets himself standing. “Ms. Kumpen. I…hope the flight was okay.”

She looks exhausted, which makes sense, given that she jumped on a plane from Belgium around fifteen hours earlier. Firmly, she says, “Sophie.” Holding her hand out, “And you’re George.”

Finding the coordination to shake it, he says, “I am. George.” He rubs his free hand over his face. “Sorry, I’m a bit—but that’s neither here nor there. He hasn’t woken. They’ve told me that’s to be expected. I promised GP I’d call if he woke. I don’t know what GP—”

“George.”

“Yes? Ma’am?”

“Go back to your hotel. Get some rest, some real food.”

He nods at her, too tired to even consider arguing. He does manage to ask, “Do you need anything? I can bring things when I come back.”

She smiles; not wide, but sincere. “Bring me some real tea when you return?”

“Tea. Absolutely. You have my number if you need anything else.”

“Go,” she orders.

He goes.

George falls asleep having barely taken his shoes off. Normally he hates getting into bed with his clothes on. It doesn’t even occur to him as an issue in this instance. He wakes almost eleven hours later to his phone vibrating on the nightstand. He picks it up and says, “Shit.”

He might have ignored a bunch of messages the day before, unsure of how to explain the situation and too tired to try. And that choice might be taking an entire chunk out of his arse now. Running a hand through his hair, he says, “Not just this moment, Satan,” and gets out of bed. He goes for a run in the hotel gym and then stops by the hotel gift store and buys overpriced touristy shirts and pants so as to have things to wear that aren’t designer or team kit. Once he’s back in his room he takes a shower, gets dressed, and looks to see if Sophie has texted. She has: Max woke up for a few minutes in the middle of the night and was groggy but knew his own name and who Sophie is to him. Otherwise, no updates. He texts back that he’s picking up tea and food and he’ll be there shortly. She gives it a thumbs up.

The concierge directs him to a pancake chain where he can pick up tea and breakfast. He gets them each a matcha, Sophie pancakes, and himself a Greek yogurt and fruit parfait.

Back at the hospital, he hands the food over to Sophie. “Sorry, wanted to get a bit of training in this morning so Aleix doesn’t murder me.”

She takes a sip of the matcha. “Oh. That’s nice, isn’t it?”

George takes a sip of his. “Incredibly.”

They eat in mostly comfortable silence. Sophie tells him Max woke up once more about half an hour ago, long enough to try and ask when he could get back in the car. Sophie takes this with equanimity. It probably helps that she was so competitive at karting.

When they’ve finished, George forces himself to deal with his phone. It appears Toto has told the Merc team something, since Marcus, Kimi, and Rosa had reached out originally, but none have followed up. Aleix has texted him a meal and training plan for the week with “at least try.” George responds, “Will do my best.”

Cara clearly gave his family some kind of reasoning as to why he’d dropped off planet earth and he texts her, “My hero.”

Lewis has texted, “Toto says you’re fine, but Charles is unsettled. Proof of life?”

Sure enough, about twenty of his texts are from the Twitch Quartet group chat. They start with Lando asking, “Have either of you heard from George OR Max since they decided to fuck off from the podium and media?”

From there, it descends a bit into chaos. Right. He sends Lewis a picture of Sophie’s pancakes that he’d taken for just that reason before she’d dug in. He follows it up with, “I’m okay. I can’t talk about it just yet. Promise to explain when I can.”

Being that it’s roughly three-thirty in Monaco and Maranello, he’s not expecting an immediate response. It’s five-thirty in Britain, so depending on where Alex and Lando are this week, and what their training schedule is, they could be up in three or so hours. To that chat he sends, “Max and I are both alive. Sorry for the disappearing act.”

He blinks down at his phone when both Charles and Alex immediately start showing dots. Charles gets there first with, “Oh, tres bien.”

Ah, evidently when Lewis said “unsettled” he meant “incandescently enraged.” Charles pulls out sarcastic French when the other option is intentional maiming and that’s not on the table for one reason or another.

Alex, who is generally fairly calm about shenanigans, follows up with, “What in the blazing fuck, mate.”

George has just made the mistake of thinking, at least Lando’s asleep, like a normal human when Lando’s dots pop up and he chimes in with, “Great, glad you’re not dead, that means the three of us get to kill both of you at the next race.”

Alex and Charles both immediately place the hundred emoji on that. George takes a second to look at Max, at the wings extending out his back, and types out, “You’ll have to settle for killing just me at the next race.” Then, “Don’t suppose any of you are in Monaco and could stop by mine to pick me up some clothes for Sakhir?”

Dots from Charles and Lando appear. George’s phone vibrates with a call. Alex. George says to Sophie, “I’m going to take this in the hall.”

He leans against the wall in the hallway, takes a steadying breath, and accepts the call. “Albono.”

“Seriously, what is going on?”

“I can’t—I can’t, Alex. It’s not mine to tell.”

There’s a pause. “But Max is okay?”

He can hear the doubt in Alex’s voice. The way it’s bloody clear, that no, Max is not ofuckingkay. A Max who was okay would not be missing a race. George closes his eyes, then opens them again sharply when, in the dark, all he can see is Max being sick, Max’s back when the EMT had cut off his suit, Max stuttering as he asked Rupert not to yell at him.

“Georgie?”

George realizes he’s crying a bit when Alex calls him that. It’s quiet, more stress and the fatigue that hasn’t entirely left him despite getting to sleep. He thinks about what he can say that won’t be giving away a confidence. He clears his throat. “He will be. But it’s going to be awhile. Months, minimum.”

Alex is quiet for a bit. “And you’re…still in Japan? With him?”

I saw the car flip, George thinks. All he says is, “Yes.”

Quietly, Alex says, “All right. I’ll handle Lando and Charles for you.”

“Owe you.”

“Many times over,” Alex agrees lightly. “Text me what you need from your place and I’ll grab it.”

“Dinner’s on me for the rest of the season.”

Alex’s silence this time is cautious. He knows George, the way George’s generosity plays out in silence, lest anyone notice and take advantage. The way George has no problem taking care of others so long as they don’t have to talk about the fact that he’s doing it. Finally, Alex says, “Take care of you, too, yeah?”

“I’m fine.”

“Just promise me.”

“I’m doing my best.”

Alex sighs, but lets it go. “See you in Bahrain.”

George goes to clean his face before returning to the room and coaxing Sophie, who’s fallen asleep in her chair, into going back to her hotel for a nap and a shower.

Max starts waking up for more solid stints of time on Wednesday. George is at the hotel, training and on meeting calls the first two times it happens. He’s there for the third, though. Max blinks himself awake and stares at George, brain clearly buffering. It’s the first time George has seen those eyes with some kind of intelligence in them since Sunday afternoon, and he’s taken aback at the relief that hits so hard there’s a physical component. He’s known Max was okay. The medical professionals have reassured them of this, multiple times.

Next steps, George. Right, Sophie’s on a walk, taking some time to move and be out of the hospital. George texts her to let her know Max is awake. He says, “Your mum’ll be right back. You want water?”

Max makes what George thinks is an affirmative noise. George takes the water bottle from the side of the bed and threads the long flexi-straw into it, then puts the other end of the straw to Max’s lips. Max takes it and pulls several sips of water from it before allowing it to drop. George is putting everything back where it was when Max asks, “What—why’re you here?”

George is tired of being asked that question. “Because I am, Max.”

“That’s not—”

“It’s what you’re getting.” George says it calmly while making it pointed. “I’m here, I’ve been here, I’ll be here until Sunday.”

Max appears to roll that over in his mind. “What day is today?”

Right. “Wednesday.”

Max chews at his bottom lip. “Will I be able to drive again?”

George doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about whether he’s a good person or not. He’s a man in a competitive sport. He does what he has to do, and tries not to do anything purely for spite. Sometimes he manages, sometimes not. At this moment, wishing Sophie was the one having to answer this question, he thinks he might be a bad person. He takes a breath and admits, “I don’t know.”

“Russell—”

“No, I don’t know,” George says, and it twists something inside him, the way Max’s expression is open, too open. “I told GP to ask but he—well, he sort of yelled at me, Max. That you could ask.”

Max rolls his eyes. “He wasn’t yelling at you, Princess. He was yelling at me.”

“I know that. But also, fuck all the way off, Princess, I made sure you had help and the media didn’t get hold of anything and I’ve all but lied to all of our friends to cover for you, not to mention still being across the globe from my home, so maybe, for just a minute, you could be not a complete shitstain to me.”

Naturally, it’s as George is finishing up that screed that Sophie walks in. George mutters, “Bloody perfect.”

Standing, he sweeps past Sophie, asking, “Do you need anything?”

She shakes her head. George says, “Let me know when he’s asleep again.”

By the time he returns, George has had a very good sencha and sat in a park for twenty minutes, people watching. He pokes his head into the room, despite Sophie having texted him over ten minutes before. Sheepishly, he tells her, “Sorry. I appear to turn into a right prick around your son.”

She laughs. “He said to apologize to you. I told him he’d have to do it himself. He muttered something about GP.”

George smiles and comes into the room. “Was he able to ask the medical staff his questions?”

“Eight to ten months, minimum.”

“To get back in the car.”

She nods. “Assuming everything heals correctly and the wings can fold in a way that won’t cause fractures to the bones still intact.”

George looks at Max’s sleeping form. “How’d he take it?”

“He didn’t say anything.”

“He has four Championships. There’s nothing left for him to prove.”

“Mm.”

“You don’t agree?” George doesn’t want to judge, but even his dad would be perfectly happy with George having one.

“I’ve never thought he had anything to prove,” she corrects him. “It is more…I believe he needs to leave the sport on his own terms.”

So few of them do. George would have put money on Max being one of the ones who did. Then again, he’d been missing some vital information. “One step at a time. Have they given more information on when he can be released?”

“The stabilization pins aren’t rejecting. They think, since he’s flying private, maybe another ten days. They want him to be able to lie on his back.”

On the wings, George doesn’t say. They’re already showing signs of pin feathers poking out of the webbing. He wants, so badly, to know what color or colors they’ll be, to see the pattern of them as they grow. “Will you take him to Belgium?”

“Yes. Vic can help out if we’re there.”

George doesn’t ask if anyone has told Max’s dad. It’s none of his business. All of this is none of his business.

Yet, here he is.

It’s not until Saturday that George is at the hospital when Max is awake again. He’s spent large chunks of Thursday and Friday training or in meetings. Other than making sure Sophie is getting some breaks, he isn’t at the hospital much. Saturday he trains in the morning, then goes in. Sophie takes the chance to step out and make some calls.

Max evidently spent several hours of Friday awake, so George isn’t shocked when he wakes up about an hour after George has gotten to the hospital. He helps Max to drink water. Max finishes sipping and says, “I was being a cunt.”

George doesn’t say anything. Max sighs. “I’m sorry, this is what you want, yes? An apology?”

George huffs, looking to the side. “I want to win this season. I want to continue having a competitive car next season. I want you to respect me as a fellow human being and a competitor. But if I can only manage two of the three, I know which two it will be.”

The silence that follows is…weird. When George looks back at Max, Max is frowning at him. “I do respect you.”

“No, Max. Maybe that’s what you tell yourself, I don’t know. But I see how you treat people on the grid you respect. Whatever it is you feel for me, and maybe it’s simply a complete lack of regard all around, just a lack of emotion or thought where I’m concerned, it’s not respect.”

A beat, then slowly, “I take it back, I don’t respect you.”

It’s such an abrupt about-face that George has to force himself not to blink. “All right, excellent, we’re all on the same page.”

“No, dipshit, we’re not even in the same book!”

George mouths dipshit. “Erm.”

“Holy shit, you really have no idea.”

“Max—”

“I thought maybe Lando would have told you. He’s shit at keeping secrets.”

George almost defends Lando out of pure reflex before remembering that Lando is, in fact, shit at keeping secrets when it comes to people he knows. It’s a little amazing Lando’s never given away proprietary information from his team. “I have no idea what we’re talking about at this point.”

“I don’t treat you the same as I treat others I respect because I don’t want to fuck those others.”

He’s not proud of it—he prides himself on his ability to respond quickly to just about anything—but his brain bluescreens for a solid five seconds, and then gets caught rebooting. Brilliantly, he says, “No you don’t.”

Max makes a face. “Pretty sure I would know, mate.”

“Max. There’s been at least three instances that I know of where you’ve been homophobic as fuck in my direction.”

Max makes a slightly different face. “Alex says I have internalized homophobia.”

“Alex—wait. Does Alex know about this? And just to be clear, I have not conceded that this isn’t bullshit, I’m just momentarily distracted.”

“He told me. That I was weird about you. And then he figured it out. I didn’t know until he—”

George stands and looks out the window. “Alex would have told you to take your shot. Not to be a raging cunt to me.”

“He did tell me that.”

“Then—”

“You would have seen my back.”

The sentence, said with a cold, hard assessment of Max’s reality makes George grip the windowsill. He knows why Max wouldn’t have trusted him with that. That part, out of all of this, makes sense to him.

Max laughs, mirthless and sardonic. “Guess that would have been fine, yeah?”

“No,” George says, “I’m not sure it would have been.”

“You haven’t told anyone.”

“And I wouldn’t have. But I don’t think I could have slept with you and not tried to convince you stop re-doing the procedure. Even if we decided we didn’t like each other, that sex together was bloody awful, you still would have been—you’re human, Max.”

“Technically—”

George turns back. “You’re human.”

Max looks mutinous for a moment, before shrugging slightly, paling at the movement. He takes several slow breaths. “Guess I should have taken that shot when I still could.”

“What are you talking about?”

Max glares at him. “Before I had what, of course, are the world’s ugliest appendages coming out of my back.”

George frowns. “They’re not ugly. They don’t have feathers yet, so a bit like one of those cats, you know, the ones without the fur? But the structure is magnificent. Minus the weight factor, I’m rather jealous. Did you know there’s a category of MotoGP only Avia are allowed to compete in due to flight elements? I’ve been YouTubing some of it, and it’s mad, completely tits up. Absolutely incredible, though.”

“Sphynx,” Max says.

“Hm?”

“The hairless cats, the breed is a Sphynx.”

“Oh,” George grins. “You would know that, hm?”

“They’re—they’re really not ugly?”

George makes a cross sign over his heart.

Sunday morning, a variety of medical professionals come into the room and explain that they’re going to see if the wings are ready to be in a resting position. Max nods along to what they’re saying. They’ve been slowly lowering his pain meds to get him at a more sustainable level—the meds themselves are going to be necessary for a while—and George can tell from the look in Max’s eyes that he’s already uncomfortable, if not actively in pain. Without thinking too hard about it, George puts his hand in Max’s. Max’s eyes widen for a second. He doesn’t saying anything.

Sophie stands at the head of the bed, and runs her fingers through Max’s hair. The doctor leading the medical team says, “First part, we remove the holdings.”

This appears to mean the forcep-shaped clamps keeping the wings extended. They are doing one wing at a time, all four of them working to keep the wing stable and then, slowly, to begin working it into what should be an instinctive fold to rest over his back. As they start to lower the wing, Max closes his eyes, squeezing George’s hand to the point of pain. Sophie is talking to him quietly in Dutch, possibly Belgian Dutch. George has the idea—possibly from Lando—that they’re not the same, maybe dialects of each other? But he wouldn’t know the difference, and he has no idea what languages Max speaks outside of Netherlands Dutch, English, and German. He only knows that last one because it’s what Max usually speaks with Toto.

When they’ve gotten the first wing properly folded on his back, George and Sophie switch sides to let them work on the second one. This hand has the IVs in it, so George hesitates. Max reaches out and begins death-gripping immediately. He’s kept his head turned to the other side. George suspects he’s crying. With his other hand, George takes a light grip on Max’s wrist.

Eventually, they’ve gotten both wings into their resting fold. Even folded, they reach out past Max’s arms and fall to his mid-calves. The doctor reassures them that everything is healing normally, and herds his team out of the room. Max is breathing heavily. He hasn’t released his hold on George’s hand so much as a centimeter. George stays where he is and lets Max hold on until his grip goes lax with sleep.

George is buried in an email from Marcus when Max says, voice still slurred with sleep, “Y’can tell ‘lex. An’ Lando an’ Charles.”

“Wake up a little more and we’ll have a chat about that.”

“’m ‘wake.”

George and Sophie look at each other, both biting their lips so as not to laugh. Sure enough, after a minute or two, Max falls back asleep. To his credit, though, when he wakes again a few hours later, he repeats the sentiment.

While Sophie is helping Max to water, George mulls this over. He asks, “Who is GP telling?”

“Laurent.”

“What’s everyone else being told?”

“GP says Anna will craft an injury headline until I am ready for something else.”

George nods. “We can stick by whatever she says. The guys will call me on it, but I can just say you’ll tell them when you’re ready.”

“No. The three of them, they will, of course, keep my secret.”

George hears what he wouldn’t have heard even two days earlier: they already have. “All right.”

“Is it Sunday?” Max asks.

“Yes.”

“You are leaving, then.”

“In a few hours, yes. Red eye.”

Max wrinkles his nose. George agrees. Still, he’d promised Toto he’d be in Sakhir on Monday, and he plans to make good on that. “It was that or leave out early this morning.”

“Better that. You’ll be a pancake tomorrow.”

George laughs. “A pancake?”

“Isn’t this…” His eyes narrow. “I am trying to remember who taught me this expression. Daniel likes to lie to me about English expressions.”

“Maybe it was ‘you’ll be fried’?” George ventures.

“Maybe.” Max is thinking so hard on the issue there’s a line between his brows.

“In any case, you’re correct, it’s not ideal for a race week. I’ll make do.”

“You—you’ll call?”

George is grateful to all his media training for allowing him not to show his surprise. “If that’s—yeah, mate. I’ll call.”

“I think it will be boring, yes? Once I can stay awake?”

“Fairly sure you’ve been duly threatened with physio. I don’t envy your mum and sister having to watch over you to make sure you don’t overdo it.”

Sophie sighs, clearly having already foreseen this issue. Max says, “They can send me to dad’s.”

Sophie mutters something in Dutch. The tone is giving, “over my dead body.” Max winces, so George figures he’s roughly correct about that. He offers, “Or you could just try and behave.”

Sophie and Max both look at him like he’s an idiot. Well-deserved.

(chapter 2) Wednesday evening sees George’s hotel room playing host to Lando, Charles, and Alex. Lando takes one look at him and goes up on his tiptoes for a clingy, intense hug. George wasn’t raised to be tactile, and being someone who is touched by strangers on a regular basis hasn’t helped that. Even so, the hug is good, grounding. It’s something he hasn’t realized he needed, but now that it’s happening he can feel the rightness of it. After a bit, Alex says, “Oi,” and drapes himself over George’s back. Charles says, “I will not be left out of this,” then, and wriggles his arms around George from the side.

George laughs and pretends it isn’t wet. Everything is fine. When he’d spoken to Max this morning—early afternoon for Max—it had been to the news that the PT was optimistic. Max was tired and sore; otherwise, he’d seemed calm given the circumstances.

Alex murmurs. “Brought you clothes.”

“Good, good. Got here Monday morning and had to do a load of wash just to have more than one team kit available to me.”

Lando presses his forehead into George’s shoulder. “Room service.”

“Mm,” George agrees, not moving.

“And then you explain what is a ‘critical injury’ that Max did to himself, bad enough that Liam is driving his car for a time.” Charles sounds so suspicious it’s almost funny, as if he’s expecting a murder wall will be needed to properly bring to light what is going on.

“Probably the rest of the season,” George says. “He thinks—” Sighing, George says, “Food. Then, yes, I will explain.”

Charles and Lando take over ordering room service while George organizes what Alex brought for him. Once the food has arrived and they’re settled, George begins with, “Max is an Avia, an—”

“Bullshit,” Lando says, mouth full. “I think we’d have known if—”

“I don’t know this term,” Charles says, already typing into his phone. “Ah, Viaire.” Then, “But he does not have wings?”

Alex, notably, is quiet, his expression thoughtful. George knows that look, the way he’s reordering the facts he knows to come to a different conclusion than he had previously. George says, “He does. He was using a procedure to create something called Avia Pockets in the space between his shoulders and his spine. Rupert knew what it was when Max—” George shakes his head. “I didn’t. I looked it up later. Incredibly illegal, but less likely to immediately kill the patient than removing the wings at the base.”

“Immediately,” Alex echoes.

“They lead to infection,” George says. “Systemic.” He drinks water compulsively as he feels the need to heave, the image of Max’s back in the Cooldown Room once again filling his mind.

“Wait. Wait. You’re telling us that Max has been hiding a pair of wings inside himself the entire time we’ve known him? Georgie, that’s a fucking mad thing to say.” Lando is openly gawping.

Charles is nodding, but he says, “Too mad not to be true. George is very good at bullshitting us, yes?”

It’s a bit disconcerting that Charles is convinced only because he believes that if George were going to lie he’d come up with something less over the top. If it works, though, it works. He look at Alex who says, quietly, “Explains a lot, actually.”

“It…does?” George asks.

Alex shrugs. “I always thought he was weirdly body-shy for being one of us. I thought maybe it had to do with generally being around older guys when he was coming up. This is a much more Max-type reason, though.”

Charles tilts his head. “How bad?”

“Bad.” George takes a slow breath. “Bad. He’s going to need therapy for the whole of his back once it’s healed enough to start. The wings are going to take time for him to learn to balance with, let alone how to actually maneuver them. I left Sunday evening and he was still confined to lying on his front.”

Lando frowns. “What was the, er, mm, what did the doctor’s say? About him driving?”

George takes them through the prognosis and Max’s response to it. Alex takes a minute to go look out the window. Charles curls himself into a ball, tucks his chin on his knees and goes somewhere inside himself. Lando chews on his cheek for a moment before asking, “Are they cool, the wings?”

“So bloody cool,” George says, because he’s been dying to talk about this.

“What are they like?”

George does his best to describe them, and how he can’t wait to see the feathers. He can tell Charles and Alex are paying attention, even if they’re not engaging in the way Lando is. Lando, for his part, is now trying to get the internet to tell him if there are species of Avia and how you know what types of wings an Avia has.

Alex comes back over. “His mum is with him, yeah?”

George nods. “Yes.”

“She’s taking him home with her?”

“Yes. They think he’ll be able to handle the flight in another few days. He can’t sit up yet, his back and shoulder muscles aren’t strong enough where the Pockets were, but he should be able to lie on both his front and back without being put under by then.”

Alex looks over at Charles, who still hasn’t said anything since asking how bad it was. Alex prompts, “Charles? All right?”

“I want to yell at him very badly.”

“No shit,” Lando agrees.

“But I think this is not what he needs just now.”

Alex echoes, “No shit.”

“He is so stupid!” Charles hisses, eyes wet even if tears haven’t fallen.

Sometimes George forgets how Charles, who has lost more than the rest of them and survived, damaged but intact, can be fragile around loss and the possibility thereof. Reaching over, George squeezes Charles’ shoulder. “He’s going to be fine. He made me promise to keep him updated on his car, as if GP isn’t going to have a Sunday night debrief with Max after his actual Sunday night debrief.”

Charles sniffles. “This is also very stupid.”

“We’d all do it,” Lando says.

The four of them meet each other’s gazes. Lando breaks first, “Maybe Max a bit more than the rest of us. But only a bit.”

Sensing he can get away with it, now that they’ve discussed the actual business of this meeting, George says, “I can’t believe not one of you told me he wants me for my body. Traitors, the lot of you.”

Lando blinks. Charles’ eyes go wide. Alex winces and checks, “Was he on drugs when he told you that?”

“Technically, yes, but not enough to impair his judgement. He knew what he was telling me.”

“Things were so normal just ten days ago,” Lando says. “Now Max has wings and has apparently grown a spine with regard to his personal life. I need some processing time.”

“What did you say?” Charles asks. “When he told you this.”

“Oh. Well, he was sort of using it to diffuse an argument between us, and then…it didn’t really come up again.”

All three of them stare at him. George relents, “I did tell him his wings were pretty. There was a bit of, you know, ‘maybe when you don’t feel like all your muscles are inside out’, that sort of thing.”

Alex pats him on the back. “Both of you are shit at this. Something in common.”

“We also both drive F1 cars,” George points out.

Alex just pats him again.

George had met with Anna and Rosa on Wednesday in preparation for Thursday. By the end of Thursday, if he has to say, “I’m referring all questions about Max’s well-being and return to the sport to Red Bull,” one more time in one more way, there’s a solid chance he’s going to also say, “fuck it, who needs cars anyway,” and go live in solitude on a mountain somewhere.

They had scheduled him for one of the conferences with Liam—who looks like someone has thrown him into the deep end of the pool and is holding his head under the water—and Fernando. Fernando probably isn’t thrilled he’s in the dark; he hates not knowing things. George thanks every last star he was born under they have a good enough relationship and Fernando isn’t super-inclined toward putting up with press shenanigans because it means he only allows three variations on the question before interjecting with, “You can keep asking George that question phrased differently. Only, I promise you, his answer will not change.”

Afterward, George thanks Fernando with a tight nod. Fernando raises his eyebrow. “I think if Max were dead, they would probably have announced this, yes?”

“Christ, he’s not dead.”

Fernando says, “Good,” and heads off to wherever he’s supposed to be next.

In the afternoon, probably after George has made sure not to kill a reporter with his bare teeth, since that’s what he’s been doing for most of the day, Kimi glances over at him as they walk from the media pen back to the garage. George sighs, “He’s not dead. Why does everyone keep acting like I might be lying about that?”

Kimi appears to actually think that over. Finally he says, “It is…odd, yes? He has not even done a post.”

George is in his late twenties. He grew up with social media, and the F1 he grew up with was part of the twenty-four hour news cycle. Normally, he just regards these things as facts of the life he chose. He’s currently considering that maybe they all need to detox a bit. Quietly, he says, “I promise he’s not dead.”

Kimi knocks into him lightly. “I believed you the first time.”

Friday afternoon George wakes up a bit before it’s necessary to give himself a little time to breathe. There’s already a text from Max. It reads: “Dad knows.”

Shit. “You and your mum,” George pauses while texting and looks up at the ceiling. Safe? All right? Need extraction? In the end he chooses, “handling it?”

“He is mad. Water is wet. Sky is blue.”

That’s not really an answer, but Max doesn’t seem freaked out. Still, “He won’t bother you at your mum’s?”

“No. She might still have a restraining order.”

“Totally normal that you’re still in touch with him,” George says to the room at large. “I mean, sure, he took you to some back-alley doctor willing to do illegal surgery on a three year-old, and your mum is afraid to have him within 50 kilometers, but what is all that in the larger scheme of things?” Running a hand over his face he follows up with a quiet, “You complete psycho.”

He gives the restraining order text a thumbs up. Max responds with an eye roll emoji and, “I can hear you judging me, Russell.”

“Couldn’t judge if there wasn’t anything for me to judge about.”

Then, out of nowhere, Max texts, “Watched a couple of your interviews from yesterday.”

George looks at his phone in confusion. “Worried I was going to slip and say something true to the media?”

“Never,” Max fires back. George huffs and hauls himself out of bed. He goes through his routine, getting himself kitted out. By the time he checks his phone again, there’s another text from Max. “But thank you, anyway.”

George gives that a thumbs up, too, and heads out for FP1.

George thinks the P3 will hit him later, particularly given that Kimi is in P1, but Lewis is back on the podium and absolutely electric with joy. For the moment, it’s hard to give much of a shit about anything else. Despite still carrying the exhaustion of the last two weeks, and the fact that he has to be on a plane to Jeddah the next morning, George gives in to Lewis’ pleas and goes out with him and some of the other drivers to celebrate.

By the time he gets into Jeddah, even having slept on the flight, he feels like he’s ninety. He sends Lewis the text, “I hate you. How are you not dead?”

Lewis texts back, “Vegan living.”

George sends him a middle finger emoji. Flipping through to his missed texts, he sees Sophie has texted him a flight manifest for an Air Max flight from Japan to Belgium. An hour after she’d sent that she’d followed up with a picture of Max, machine-free and in a bed that is probably the one on the plane. He’s on his stomach, folded wings engulfing his back, hair messy, wholly passed out. Underneath she says, “Don’t tell.”

If George is doing the time conversions correctly—significant if—they’ve already left Japan, but it will be another ten or so hours before they’re on the ground. He responds, “Straight to social media it is,” with a laughing face. Then, “Text when you’ve landed. Smooth flying.”

Once he’s at the hotel, he takes a long shower and a nap. He’s going to start setting his clock to the night race earlier this week, which means staying up later than he normally would on a Monday. He lets Alex, Lando, and Charles know that Max is on his way to Belgium, and goes to the gym for a run wherein he definitely in no way, shape, or form thinks about how stupidly adorable the picture of Max is.

That would be mad.

Wednesday afternoon, George has just finished up with his sim time when one of his mechanics pokes his head into the sim room and says, “Hey, GP is outside the garage asking for you?”

George says, “Thanks, I’ll be right out.”

He shuts down the rig and heads toward the front of the garage. GP sees him coming and nods. Once he’s near enough, George asks quietly, “Everything all right? We were texting a few hours ago and he seemed fine.” Annoyed at life, the universe, and everything. Stressed about Vic and the kids going to pick up his pets. Bored well beyond tears. But fine.

“He’s fine,” GP agrees. “I came to say thank you in person.”

George takes a second with that. “You’re welcome. You—you understand that I did it because of who I want to be? As a person?”

“I do. You understand that it doesn’t matter, right?”

George rocks back on his heels. He borrows one of Toto’s favorite phrases: “Agree to disagree.”

GP laughs. “Sure.”

In the bye-week before Miami, George has a chance to be in Monaco for close to a week prior to heading to Brackley. Even with the car being good (finally, finally) the season already feels overwhelming, and he’s not interested in getting sick on a race week again this year. He wakes up on Tuesday so happy to be in his own bed it feels a little bit like he’s having an affair with his furniture.

He goes to train with Aleix for a couple of hours and when he returns there are several texts from Max. The first says, “I know mom has been sending pictures.” Angry face emoji. Then, “Have an approved one.”

The pictures are becoming a bit of an issue, truth be told. George really thought his attraction to Max mostly involved a competence kink and the fact that he can sometimes get off on feeling ashamed of himself. But apparently he also finds Max attractive when he’s sleeping, because he now has a folder for that on his phone. Obviously it’s titled “condo paperwork.” He’s not a fucking idiot.

The new one has Max on his back, wings spread enough to not be directly under him, slightly propped up with pillows. One of the cats, the one that doesn’t look exactly like the two others, is atop the pillows, apparently attempting to groom Max’s hair. The other two have made themselves at home on his lap. The dog is sniffing one of his wings.

George says aloud, “Are you bloody having me on?”

He texts back, “Does your canine companion approve?”

“He did not try to chew them. Good omen.”

“Therapy’s helping, I see.”

“Physio thinks I could be able to sit up in a couple of weeks.” He follows this with a party emoji. George appreciates the level of sarcasm conveyed in that one emoji.

He nonetheless ignores it. “At first they thought that might take more than a month.”

Eye-roll emoji.

George sympathizes. Doctors who aren’t used to working with elite athletes can often miscalculate those sorts of things. Before he can lose his nerve, he sends, “I thought I might drop by after Barcelona. If it’s all right with you and your mum.”

After a minute, George has to walk away from his phone before he does something like take it back. He goes and heats up food, eats it on his patio. When he makes himself check again, a little over an hour later, there’s a reaction emoji: praying hands.

Friday morning of Miami, George wakes to his phone falling off the nightstand from vibration. Reaching over the side of the bed he hits answer without checking who it is, because it’s before his alarm which means it can only be someone who’s on his list of exceptions from his do-not-disturb. He asks, “Who died?”

His alarm was set for seven, for fuck’s sake.

“Me, apparently,” the bane of George’s existence tells him.

“Are you taking the piss?” George asks, and yes, it is a whinge and he’s more than happy to admit that. “It’s fuck o’ clock in Miami.”

“You don’t seem worried about me being dead,” Max says.

George hangs up. He also, to eternal chagrin picks up again when Max calls back. “I swear to everything you hold true and dear, Max Emilian Verstappen, you had better be on the verge of death.”

“No more than I was yesterday,” Max admits. “Have you seen all these theories about you having killed me?”

“What are you—what?” George needs a hot shower. And caffeine. Protein. More fucking sleep.

“Reddit has some very interesting theories about how you did it. And why Mercedes is covering for you.”

“Max. It’s not every day I would say this to someone, but now was not the time to discover literacy.”

“Tell me again when you have any idea how boring it is to be stuck lying down all day for eternity. Even playing FIFA gets old when you’re in an awkward position.”

George opens his mouth to say something else cutting. Then he shuts it. Max’s voice on that last response was strained. “All right. Okay. Gimme—” George sits up and starts looking at his phone. “You like Indycar, yeah? And MotoGP. WEC. Probably Rally. RallyCross, yes or no?”

“Less than the others.”

“Checking now. That gives us…five races next weekend, when I won’t have any new gossip for you. In the meantime, find yourself a podcast you’ll listen to for each of the series. It can be technical, historical, I don’t care. Just—for both our sake’s, for the love cars and dogs and whatever else it is you have love for in that black pit you refer to as a heart—stop reading F1 reddit boards.”

“Us.”

George frowns. “Hm?”

“You said—” Max gets a bit quieter, “You said ‘that gives us five races next weekend.”

“I mean, I doubt I’m going to be able to—”

“Indy. Watch the Indy one.”

“Okay. I’ll watch the Indy race.”

Max sighs. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Are you sure I can’t send you my favorite theory on how you hid my body?”

“Hanging up now,” George warns.

Max laughs. “No, no, not yet.”

“What now?” George asks, not as exasperated as he should be.

“Good luck.”

George nearly drops the phone. “Oh.”

“Call back when you’re P1,” Max tells him, and hangs up on George.

George falls back onto the bed face first and allows himself a small, very small, scream into the mattress.

He DNFs on Sunday. It’s not his fault; it’s all a bit Malaysia 2016, really. Toto apologizes. George lets out a long breath and says, “Lando recovered from Zandvoort last year. I’ll make it up.”

He’s dealing with media when one of the Dutch outlets asks, “Do you have a response to the most recent post on Max’s social media?”

George has two rules for when caught off-guard by the media: 1. Appear calm. It makes no difference if one is having a complete interior meltdown, one must not allow blood to be scented in the water. 2. Hope Charlotte has some clue of what is going on.

Charlotte shakes her head minutely. She’s already looking down at her phone. After a second, she holds the phone up so he can see. George glances over the post. Look, George is a well-honed media machine. He knows not to feed the fucking gremlins after midnight. But when fighting a war, one cannot always have the moral high-ground. Max, who never touches his social media, has posted a picture of all four pets lined up atop the sofa, looking out a window. Notably, the way the picture is taken there is no way to really see either the sofa or what is outside the window. Along the bottom he’s put the white text, “When is dad coming home?”

George allows himself to laugh. Admittedly—it is pretty funny. He says, “Please tell Max, in his native language, that if that is how he wishes to play things, his mum has seen to it I have plenty of ammunition for social media.”

Charlotte looks at him like he’s grown a second head. The Dutch reporter asks, “You are saying you believe that to be posted by Max himself?”

“He’s very bored,” George says. He almost redirects to discussing the race. Then he remembers he’d rather not. “And enjoying painting me as a villain.”

That sets off three different reporters. George feeds the gremlins.

When George gets to the airport, there’s a text from Max. It reads, “You wouldn’t.”

George responds, “Wouldn’t I?”

Max says, “I thought it would be nice, having something to talk about that wasn’t your engine exploding.”

“Sure, so very kind of you. I don’t need the even more deranged sect of your fanbase terrorizing me while I’m in championship contention, asshole.”

Max sends three laughing emojis. Followed by, “Sorry about your race.”

George sends a shrug emoji. He doesn’t want to talk about it. There was nothing he could have done, which is his least favorite situation. At least when he’s fucked up, there’s something he can work on.

“Traveling tonight?”

That’s when it hits George: it’s a little past two in the morning where Max is. “Why are you up?”

“Schedule’s fucked. Can’t sleep.”

George supposes that was bound to happen. He thought maybe the PT would help. Going back to the previous question he answers, “Yes, boarding soon.”

“Text when you land?”

“Thought I was supposed to wait for P1 to reach out.”

Max sends an eyeroll emoji. Then a crown emoji.

George responds, “Fun little bit of trivia: Alex and Lando called me princess long before you did, with better reasoning, and have chosen to reclaim it. Wearing that tiara with pride.”

“You would rob a dead man of his only source of joy? A man YOU killed?”

George goes to his “condo paperwork” file and chooses a picture of Max on his front, patchy wings slightly splayed, clearly drooling into his pillow. Sends it.

“I’m just now learning my mother hates me.”

“Or she loves me,” George offers.

“Is there a difference?”

This time, it’s George who sends three laughing emojis.

They get the setup wrong in Canada. P2 isn’t a disaster, but it’s not great, particularly given that Lando is in P1. Max texts, “I thought we were united, in this together, against that fug-ass orange. What are you doing out there?”

George leaves him on read for a full day. He considers showing the twitch guys the drooling pic, but the season is going well for him and Max is fully capable of hiring someone to maim George from his bed. When he responds he says, “That orange is the exact same as your Dutch orange.”

“Take it back.”

George does not take it back. Despite this, the morning of Monaco qualifying, he wakes up to a picture of wings that have a deep black base with a silver-gray overlay and the barest hint of white around the edges. It reminds George a bit of an osprey, but also the crows that are up by Spa and Zandevoort. They’re exquisite. George stares for longer than he’s comfortable with before reacting with a heart and turning his phone firmly off to start getting ready.

He takes pole. Before getting out of the car he checks to make sure the radio is off and says quietly, with his helmet still on, “Correlation is not causation.” He was not getting tenths out of Max Bloody Verstappen’s—admittedly stupid-hot—wings. “Pull it the fuck together, Russell.”

Kimi, in P2, comes over and peers down at him. “Are you…stuck?”

Literally or metaphorically? George thinks the answer to the latter might be yes. He shakes his head. “No, no, just—Monaco pole.”

Kimi nods. “Maybe get out of the car, then?”

Yeah, George is right on that.

Lewis shows up fashionably late and fashionably attired to Jimmy’z, finding George at the bar, nursing a Jack and Coke and texting. He sits down next to him and says, “What’s so important it can’t wait until the day after your first win at Monaco?”

Darkening the screen, George says, “First, eh?”

“Modesty isn’t your best look, mate. And I’m not distracted.”

“We can’t all look good in everything,” George says, shrugging.

Lewis narrows his eyes. “Normally I would say flattery will get you everywhere. I’m still not distracted, though, so apparently not.”

“Is it flattery if it’s true?”

“George William Russell.”

Charles, who has appeared out of nowhere—and who is definitely tipsy—sways into Lewis. “Oooh, Dad is full-naming you, Georgie, what have you done?”

“I will let you fall right on your face when I move,” Lewis tells him.

Charles snorts. “LH, I am onto you.”

Lewis raises an eyebrow at George. George shakes his head slightly; he has no idea what Charles is talking about. Charles leans even more heavily onto Lewis. “You are good.”

Lewis rolls his eyes in George’s direction. Unfortunately for Lewis, Charles isn’t wrong. George says, “He has a point, dad.”

“Still not distracted, you little shit.”

“What are we being distracted from?” Charles asks, fully supported by Lewis at this point, eyes closed.

“Lewis wants to know who I was texting.”

Charles eyes fly open. “Oh! This I want to know, too.”

“You’re going to be disappointed when I tell you it was Cara.”

Charles scrunches up his face. “He is lying to us, LH.”

“I know,” Lewis says, his gaze never straying from George. “Either he’s dating someone he doesn’t want any of us to know about, or…” Lewis tilts his head. “Or he really didn’t kill Max.”

George covers for the frisson of discomfort up his spine by saying, “You needn’t sound quite as disappointed in me.”

Lewis grins, aware he’s caught him. “Needn’t I?”

George, who knows perfectly well Lewis only holds one grudge—and it’s not against Max—reaches out and pushes Lewis’s face back. “I won Monaco, be nice to me.”

Lewis, whose arms are shorter than George’s, but who is far, far wilier, ducks under George’s hand and pushes his face back in return. Charles squawks at losing his leaning post. In fairness, Lewis had warned him. George shouts, “Oi! That is not nice.”

Laughing, Lewis tells him, “Your second drink is on me.”

Max arranges for his plane to fly George from Barcelona so he can get to Belgium in the early morning hours of Monday, rather than waiting until Monday morning to fly out. George had considered arguing, but he wasn’t interested in wasting time either, and even less interested in interrogating his desire to be in Belgium as soon as possible.

There’s a car waiting for George at the airport when they land. It’s nearly two thirty in the morning when he knocks softly on the door. Sophie answers almost immediately, pulling him into the house and hugging him. “He’s been looking forward to this so much, do not let him bullshit about this.”

George laughs. “No bullshit. A-firm.”

“Well, he will do some bullshit no matter what you try. You have met him.”

“I have,” George agrees. “Is he sleeping?”

She shakes her head. “He has been sleeping all day to make sure he would not be.”

Oh. George is glad Sophie has turned and is leading him into the house, because he can feel the shock on his face. Tucking it away, shifting back into a neutral, he follows until she opens a door and says, “Go ahead. I’m back to bed.”

“Sorry I—”

She shoos him inside. And then it’s just him and Max. Max who’s almost sitting up. Max, whose wings are splayed around him, feathers on display. Max, who’s got that tiny smile he sometimes gets, understated in the frame of his face. Inanely, the first thing that comes to George is, “P1.”

Max makes an unimpressed face. “Barely. Another lap and Oscar is P1.”

“If if if,” George says. “And don’t sound so disdainful about Oscar.”

“Oscar is struggling with the low downforce of the new chassis,” Max states, looking at George like he’s an idiot. Credit where it’s due, everyone knows Oscar is struggling with that. At least he has been. Maybe this is a turning point.

George reiterates, “P1.”

Max laughs. “P1. Come in, sit.”

George does. He’s exhausted, but knows if he tries to sleep now his brain will run harder than the W17’s PU. “Thanks for the plane.”

“I am, of course, not using it.”

“Mm.”

“Tell me things.”

George stretches out his neck. “What things?”

“Any things. GP will only gossip with me about Red Bull, and while this is interesting and important, I am missing out on the rest of the paddock news.”

“What happened to not caring about these sorts of things?”

“I got stuck in bed. I have considered chewing my own body parts off to see if it is entertaining.”

“We really need to find you a hobby that isn’t driving or gaming.” George has been watching non-F1 series races where he can to be able to talk with Max about them, and it’s clear Max is watching everything, but even that will only go so far.

“Yes, yes, later. Paddock stupidity now.”

George laughs. “All right, well. Has anyone told you about the row Lando and Will had over, apparently, Lando’s height?”

“This is a measurable fact,” Max says.

“Yes. Oscar and Andrea had to intervene and remind them of that.”

“Maybe from the beginning,” Max says.

George smiles. “Yeah, all right.”

Since they’re up until a little after four, George doesn’t get out of bed on his first day there until noon. Once he’s managed to get himself fully human again, he takes the kit he’s carefully assembled in the time since deciding to visit, and goes to Max’s room. Max is on his back, one of the cats on his chest, listening to something. Possibly one of the podcasts he’s taken up. As soon as he sees George, he turns it off. “Hey. You slept?”

“I did, yes. Your mum is a really good cook.”

“She is good at stoofvlees, that’s why she makes it for guests.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m seducing her for her beef stew.”

“That’s my mother, Russell.”

“I know.” George shrugs, “You being part of the package is unfortunate, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”

“I will get you kicked out,” Max warns.

Rolling his eyes, George says, “Later. Now, I want you on your front. Do you need help to turn?”

Max makes a face. “Why should I be on my front? It’s harder to talk. And Sassy will be mad.”

“True, but your wings are in desperate need of a good preen, and it will be much easier to start with you lying on your front.”

“Maybe later,” Max says.

“No, not later. If it’s that you don’t want me to see you looking awkward while you turn over, I’ll leave the room for that.”

“I said later.”

“I heard you. I responded with ‘now’. What is—” George breaks off. Max isn’t angry. Oh, he’s doing a bang up job of trying to seem angry, and it’s possible there’s some of that mixed in, but if there’s one thing George knows about Max, it’s how he looks when enraged. Quietly, George asks, “Why are you scared?”

“I’m not—”

“Max. I’ve seen what you look like when you’re scared.” Sure, maybe only two or three times. All the same, he’s seen it.

“Fuck off, Russell. They’re fine the way they are, they don’t need,” Max swallows, almost like the idea makes him sick, “preening.”

George takes a seat on the bed. “You’ve got feathers going in every direction. If nothing else, the preen is needed for that.”

“I don’t need them to be pretty.”

They are pretty, even a total mess, they are. George gets that’s not the point. “No, you need something that’s now a part of your body to be cleaned and kept in good condition.”

Max is actually breathing heavily at this point. Sassy decides she doesn’t like that and slinks off, which causes Max’s breathing to become more strained. George frowns. “I’m not going to hurt you, you realize? If anything does hurt, you can just tell me, and I’ll stop that.”

Max’s breathing doesn’t slow. George is beginning to worry he’s going to pass out from hyperventilation. Without letting himself think too hard about it, George takes one of Max’s hands and puts it to George’s chest. “Match my breathing.”

“I’m not—”

“Match my fucking breathing, Max.” George keeps the volume of his voice low and his hand over Max’s, not allowing him to pull away.

It takes a bit before Max’s breathing slows. He looks away from George. “You promise.

At first, George isn’t sure what he means, having been concentrating on getting him calm. Then he remembers. “Yes, Max. I promise. No pain.”

“It’s not that I cannot handle it, of course, it is—”

“I don’t care that you can handle it.” It is so, so much work not to straight-up growl these words. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Max nods. He nods again and says, “I do need help. To turn.”

George helps.

George has watched so many videos on Avia hygiene and care at this point that he has Avia brands approaching him despite the fact that he’s clearly not Avia. He’s pretty sure they think he’s a fetishist. It’s fine. He’s agreed to work with a wing care company that gives fifteen percent of their proceeds to homeless Avia children. Which is to say: he has the theory down pat. The reality is much more complicated and also, much more fulfilling.

Once they’ve got Max turned and comfortable, George carefully expands the right wing. Even messy and dull, it’s exquisite. He lays the tools, cleaning solutions, and conditioning serums he’s brought out in a logical order, and begins with wings furthest from Max’s skin. It’s not where it makes the most sense to start, but George still sees the infected ruin of Max’s back in his nightmares. As it is, while the pins are now small glints of surgical steel peeking out from where the feathers lie over the connecting joints, there’s clear evidence of previous trauma where feather meets skin. Max is instinctively flinching before forcefully cycling through his breath just at having George’s hands near his back, so they’ll work up to that.

As he works a thin layer of the cleaning solution into the feathers and uses the preening hook to clear dust and debris from the wings, he chats easily about Alex and Lily’s wedding-planning drama. He knows Max is unwinding a bit when he begins responding. He’s still holding himself more stiffly than is probably comfortable, but his wing has stopped actively twitching. Definite progress.

The feathers feel different than he’d expected. He’s felt a bird feather before. These are silkier, larger, and somehow lighter, more delicate. Once he’s certain he’s doing it right, the rhythm of cleaning is the easiest thing in the world to get lost in. By the time George is working on the upper middle section of the right wing, Max’s answers are getting slower, more slurred. Max is fully asleep when George reaches the lowest feathers. He hesitates. He doesn’t want to wake Max. He also doesn’t want to end up startling Max out of sleep by moving in toward his back.

After much thought, he runs his hand lightly over the feathers he still needs to work on. When Max doesn’t stir, he sets to working on them while Max sleeps on. It’s only when he needs to fold the right wing back in and extend the left that he calls, “Max. C’mon, you can go right back to sleep as soon as we reposition.”

Max blinks himself awake, unfocused eyes staring vaguely at George. George bites back a smile. “Help me out, yeah? Right wing in.” George guides the wing in. He goes around to the other side of the bed. “Now left wing out. Good, just like that.”

This time, Max is out again within minutes, maybe less. George falls into something that’s close to meditation as he meticulously works his way through the left wing.

The inside of each wing is a bit more complicated. Normally, this area of the preen is done with the Avia standing, or sitting and leaning into one side. Since Max hasn’t yet developed the necessary back and lower shoulder strength to do either of those, George does his best with Max slightly propped up in the bed, wing supported by the bed and a couple of chairs. George can tell Max is trying to stay awake as George begins on the inner right wing. It’s a losing battle.

It takes hours. George doesn’t even realize how long it’s been until he finishes, stretches out, and his entire body screams at him like some type of internalized banshee. “Blimey,” he mutters to himself, working his muscles in a series of stretches to get them to loosen up. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Max rejoins the living and when George turns back to him, he’s unashamedly watching.

George laughs, running a hand over his face. “Enjoying the view?”

“Yes,” Max says without hesitation. George can’t say why he expected anything else.

“Want to see? I did quality work.”

“So humble,” Max says.

“F1 drivers, famous for our humility. I’ll be right back, let me see if I can find something bigger than a phone to show you with.”

“No, I don’t—I don’t want to see.”

George frowns. “Max, I promise, I didn’t mess them up.”

If anything, George has wildly exceeded his expectations of himself in this arena. Where before the wings had an innate beauty, they’re now utterly luxurious and striking with it. Max rolls his eyes. “I’m not concerned about your skills, mate.”

“Then what—”

“I hate them,” Max says, and it would sound casual, but George knows what Max sounds like when he’s practiced something, trained it into himself.

George sits back down. “You hate them.”

“Is that so hard to believe? I love driving, George. I love winning. These—I can’t—” Max takes a breath. “There’s never been an Avia F1 driver.”

George shakes his head. “There’s been one since 2015. He was just mutilating himself.”

For a second it looks like Max is working up to saying something nasty back. George sees the point where he catches himself, makes himself bury the anger and wave his hand. “You know what it is I am saying.”

“There’d never been a Black driver until Lewis. There was never an Arab driver before Isack.”

“Race and nationality doesn’t make you heavier.”

George can’t help the absolutely excoriating look he gives Max. He doesn’t even try to. “I can’t speak for Isack, but I can absolutely promise you that neither of us have the first bloody clue as to how Lewis’s Blackness weighs on him.”

“I wasn’t speaking in metaphors. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but kilos on a race car are a significant measurement.”

“I’m 186 centimeters, Max, I have some idea. I just wasn’t aware you were fucking lazy.”

Max’s eyes narrow, focused and mean, the color on his cheeks high. “Lazy, hm? Of the two of us, who has fought for and won four world championships?”

“Well. One of us has won four, that’s objective fact.”

Max’s fists are clenched. “I—”

“You fought for two. Twenty-two and twenty-three were the car. I’m not saying that makes you different or less than any other multiple world champion, we’re drivers, the car has to be there. But Checo wasn’t challenging you, and nobody else had a prayer. You fought for twenty-one, and your team cheated twice in order to get you over that line, so excuse me if I’m unimpressed. Twenty-four was a fight.

George takes a breath, aware on some level he’s past the point of no return. He forges ahead anyway. “And even twenty-four you did being the number one driver and with a team principal willing to perjure himself before the pearly gates if it would get you out of a penalty. Now, when you might have to deal with something that makes racing a challenge again, now you’re all ‘it’s not possible’ and ‘it’s never been done before’. If you’re really as good as you think you are, be the first. Maybe you succeed. Or maybe you fail and you go to one of the other series where there are Avia categories and you compete against others who have the same extra weight. Maybe you retire and learn to do stupid flying stunts. I don’t know, Max. I don’t—they’re not my damn wings.

George looks at them, still beautiful in the late-day sun streaming through the window. “But—but if I was a bloody miracle of genetics and I’d managed to survive despite my best attempts to keep that from happening, I’d like to think I wouldn’t be fucking whinging about how I maybe don’t get to return to the job where I’ve already fucking won the top prize four times. Christ.”

“You done?” Max asks, inflection flat.

“Sure.” George purses his lips. “Sure, I’m done.”

“Get the fuck out.”

George stands up and walks out of the room. Then, incapable of keeping still, he changes into running gear and walks out of the house. As soon as he’s clear of the door, he breaks into a run.

It’s dark when George gets back. He got a little lost. And then made the semi-conscious decision to get slightly more lost before admitting defeat and having his phone guide him back. When he knocks on the door, his muscles are all wobbly, and he’s feeling a bit sheepish about how long he’s been gone. There are texts from Sophie and Max. A lot of them. Sophie answers the door and mutters something under her breath before ushering him in and herding him to the kitchen where she sets a glass of water in front of him. George makes himself sip, not chug. He politely doesn’t mention the screaming fight that Max is having with someone in his room. After about half the glass, he says, “Thank you. Sorry I didn’t respond to the texts.”

Sophie shakes her head. “What did you say to him?”

George sighs. “I made some…less-than-kind comments about his championship wins. Said he was, ah, being mopey. Also in a less-than-kind manner. It wasn’t my best moment.”

“Do you believe what you said?” Sophie’s expression is impossible to parse.

George takes another sip of water. “I—maybe, yes. But it’s not what I think that matters so much, is it? It’s what he thinks.”

“Mm. Something about what you said made sense with him.”

“That what they’re arguing about?”

“No, Vic is yelling at him for being a shit host. He’s trying to defend himself. He’s shit at it when he knows she’s right.”

“He was fine. I could have gone anywhere else in the house; I knew that. He just wanted me out of his space. We’ve both felt that way about each other on more than one occasion.”

Sophie laughs at that. He wasn’t trying to be funny, but once she does, he laughs a bit, too. He says, “In any case, she can stop bullying her big brother, the invalid.”

Sophie laughs again. “You are free to tell her that when they stop yelling at each other.”

George takes a shower, helps Sophie and Vic with dinner, then makes trays for himself and Max and brings them to Max’s room. He doesn’t have a free hand to knock, so he doesn’t. Max eyes him warily. “I didn’t mean leave the house.”

“I know. I told your mum and your sister that.”

Max looks down at his lap, fidgeting. “Vic says my wings look…good.”

George will have to ask what Vic actually said. It’s enough for him that Max is bringing it up. He doesn’t need an apology, not for this. He sits and says, “Sorry I called you lazy.”

Max takes a bite. He chews slowly. “Not about the rest?”

“No, not really. I meant the rest. You’re a great driver, but you’re not G-d’s fucking gift to F1. And there are other things out there.”

Another bite. “What would you do? If they were yours?”

For one thing, George might have a complicated relationship with his father, but he’s certain, deep in his soul, that his dad wouldn’t have surgically risked his life for the possibility of an F1 career. Still, he understands the query. What’s more, he’s prepared for it. “I have a Pinterest board.”

Max blinks. Then, “And a corresponding PowerPoint?”

“Do you want to see my board or not?”

Max sighs, clearly relenting. George grins and pulls it up.

The night before he’s set to go to Brackley, George wakes up from a recurring nightmare. It’s the Cooldown Room in Japan all over again, except there’s press in the room, and the bones in Max’s wings have managed to break the skin. There’s blood and puss all over George’s hands and he’s screaming for help, but the press just keeps taking pictures, keeps asking him and Max questions. He wakes with his heart beating hard enough it hurts, nausea a straight line from his stomach to his throat, and somehow, along his spine.

He goes to look at the last text from Max, his go-to for calming himself down. Then he remembers where he is. Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, he makes his way quietly to Max’s room. He intends to just peer in, check that Max is sleeping and everything is fine, and go back to bed. Only, when he peeks inside, Max is awake and…George actually isn’t sure what he’s doing. Max’s eyes widen slightly. Then he says, “What.”

George has a feeling he does not look any less surprised. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?”

“PT, in my bed, where it makes sense for me to be. Now you.”

“I—” George makes a face but admits, “Nightmare.”

“Oh.”

“I was just…making sure.”

Max’s expression softens. He gestures to the room. “You could, ah, sit. If you want to.”

George comes in, shutting the door behind him. He goes to sit on the chair when Max says, “You. Um. You can fit on the bed if I just—”

George does his best not to react as Max concentrates—tongue slightly out and all—and uses his hands to carefully curl his left wing over himself. When he’s managed, he looks up at George expectantly. George squashes down his terror that he’ll hurt Max and goes around to climb carefully onto the bed. Max, after George has gotten himself settled, slowly uncurls the wing a bit, until some of it is draped over George. For his part, George is afraid to breathe. Nino, who was watching Max from the chair by the window, decides it’s safe to jump onto the bed and settle on Max’s lap.

Max says, almost too soft to hear, “I liked it. When you—it felt good.”

George brings his left hand up and, moving slowly to allow for Max to say no, runs it carefully down the inside of the wing. Max breathes shakily, but not in a way that indicates pain. George asks, “What does it feel like?”

Max shakes his head. “I can’t—it is not like anything else.”

George makes another pass. “Try?”

“You know this thing, with a dog, where they have a spot and you pet it and their bones become jelly?”

George nods. Alex has a sixth sense for finding that spot on his pets. “You think this is what that’s like?”

“I think I have jelly bones.”

George laughs quietly. He would feel bad, except Max does, too. He keeps petting him until the jelly-bones do their trick and put him to sleep. George doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but the wing is warm and just the right weight atop him and he’s only human.

In Austria, GP catches George after post-FP2 media. He asks, “What did you say to Max while you were there?”

George, who does not want to get into a fistfight with a Red Bull racing engineer—at least not where everyone can see—says, “We made up!”

GP pulls out his phone and shows him a picture. “I wouldn’t have minded if you hadn’t, if the result was the same.”

George looks at the picture, a little jealous GP has seen it first. Max probably sent it to him, he just hasn’t had his phone on him for most of the day. In the picture, Max is sitting up. Not propped up, not leaning, fully sitting up. His wings are curled over him, so some of the weight rests on his legs. But there’s no question that he’s supporting most of it with his back and lower shoulder muscles. George grins, giddy with someone else’s achievement. He says, “Next thing he’ll be standing,” and realizes a second later it probably sounds sarcastic. “I meant that seriously.”

“I know,” GP tells him. “How did you—”

George forces his shoulders, which want to ride up, into a neutral position. “I yelled at him that he was being lazy. Possibly I said some very shitty things about his championships. And, ah, told him he was a bit stupid because his wings are very fucking cool.”

GP barks out a laugh. “That would do it.”

“We really did make up.”

“I really do believe you. Think he’ll have managed the full weight by Silverstone?”

“Dunno. But I bet he’s standing by Spa.”

“Oh?”

George shrugs. “Just a feeling.”

Jos is never going to look at those wings, at the man carrying them, without anger. GP will, though. GP will be proud of Max for being who he is, what he is. And if George knows that, Max definitely does.

“Just a feeling.”

George says, “He’ll want you to see him on his feet.”

“Willing to bet on it?”

George frowns a bit. “You want to bet against him?”

“Yes. Wind him up a bit. Very motivating.”

“Or a way to get him to crash into someone.”

“Yeah, it’s not always a sure thing. But—trust me on this one.”

George thinks it over. In the end, he decides to trust GP’s instincts. “Fine. What are we betting?”

George doesn’t say anything about the bet. That’s GP’s job. George has his home grand prix to win. (He doesn’t, but Lewis drives like he has the fury of the angels themselves in him to take his tenth win around the circuit, his first at Ferrari, and first since Silverstone ’24. He’s impossibly vibrant atop the podium. George is still disappointed, but not nearly as much as he would be at any other result that didn’t have him on the top step.)

When he gets back to his driver’s room after the debriefing, Max has sent him a picture. It’s probably been taken by Sophie, maybe Vic. It’s Max on a stool, sitting up, his wings folded around himself. He’s leaning forward a bit, engrossed in the television. George imagines he was watching the race.

Staring at the picture for long enough that he loses time, George finally gives it a heart response emoji. Underneath he writes: “Your wings are a mess.”

They’re not that bad, but they’re definitely not looking as good as they did when George left.

Max texts, “Send mom and Vic your videos about it? They’re trying.”

George finds himself staring again. He’d expected that Max was just neglecting preening. He hadn’t meant to suggest Sophie and Vic are terrible at it. Although, apparently they are. “Course.”

He goes to the file he’d made for this topic, zips it and sends it to both of them. “Max said this might be helpful.”

Vic responds via eyeroll emoji. Fair.

(ch3) George has made plans to visit Max again over summer break, and is busy focusing on getting through Spa and Hungary with a championship lead going into the break. He and Kimi have just finished on the fan stage, paired with Pierre and Franco, and the four of them are heading back to the garages when Franco asks, “What the—”

George sees where Franco’s gaze has caught. There’s media absolutely mobbing the space right before the Red Bull garage. Frowning, he asks, “Were they supposed to have a major celebrity visit today?”

It’s a rhetorical question. He doesn’t expect any of them to know. For reasons he can’t explain, the situation is making him on edge. “Kimi, I’ll meet you at the garage.”

“George,” Kimi starts, but George is already striding away. He knows it’s not his job. He knows Red Bull can handle it. He knows. If it’s Isack or Liam, though, both of them are just one centimeter off of being rookies and… George sighs and rolls his eyes at himself when he realizes that the end of that thought is it’s what Max would do, putting himself between the press and the younger guys. By this time he’s almost at the garage. He forces himself to sound casual as he asks, loudly, “What’s all this fuss about?”

He’s a bit taken aback by how quickly they’re on him, almost as if they were waiting for him. Pictures are being taken and several of the reporters are asking, “Did you know?” George is still trying to figure out what is going on, when he hears a voice he knows very well say, “George.”

George’s gaze flies to where his name came from and it’s then that he sees Max, standing, supported by a cane, his wings tucked so tightly to his back George is surprised they haven’t retracted inside of Max. Again. George cuts a path through the throng of the press and says, “Come on, everyone, back up a bit.”

Once he’s at Max’s side, he murmurs, “Lean into me. Where’s GP?”

No sooner has he asked the question than GP appears, carrying a stool. He’s a lot less friendly than George was when he snaps, “Back. Up.” He says, “Hey, George,” more quietly.

George nods. “GP.”

Max seats himself. He gives George a bit of a smile. “I know they are still messy.”

They’re not bad. Vic and Sophie have improved. He’s right, though, they don’t look like they did after George preened them. George runs a careful hand down the wing closest, intending to help Max calm down a bit. Max turns and mutters, directly into his ear, “I cannot concentrate when you do that, shithead.”

It takes George so off-guard that he laughs. Max straightens out, notably pleased with himself. GP is looking at both of them as if they’re aliens who have recently landed in the paddock. Turning his focus back to the press, George returns to what they were asking him. “I did know, yes. And before you ask the follow up, it was Max’s choice whom he shared it with. Now, stop acting like a pack of wild dogs and ask your questions one at a time. You’ve ten minutes, then he’s going inside to rest.”

Max swings out a foot to kick at George’s shin. He doesn’t argue though, so George figures he’s right about how long Max has before face planting becomes imminent.

When George is leaving to go back to the motorhome that evening, he texts Max, “Still in the garage?”

“GP took me back to my hotel.”

“Which one?”

Max gives him the name of a place he’s never heard of. When he searches the hotel, it becomes apparent it caters specifically to Avia clientele, which explains that. George asks if he brought the grooming tools with him. He’d left them at Sophie’s; it’s not as if George needs them. Max says, “Yes, but you have a race tomorrow.”

“Aware of my own schedule, thanks.”

George gets a rideshare to the hotel and tries not to feel like he’s trespassing when he comes in the door to see Avia sitting in the lounge, standing behind the check-in desk, and further back, in the lobby café. It suddenly makes sense that Max is on the first floor—something George knows most of them usually avoid so there is less access to their rooms from the outside—when he sees that the way to get to the second and third floors is to fly. Right.

He makes his way to the room number and knocks. Sophie answers the door. She kisses George’s cheeks and says, “I’m a door down to the left if you need me,” then scoots past him, out into the hallway.

George comes in, closing the door behind him. “I think you’re doing a job of driving your mum mad.”

“I think my mom is overly invested in me having friends.”

It strikes George as not all that unreasonable on Sophie’s part, if a little sad. He takes in Max, who’s draped over the bed, wings slightly splayed. It would be easier to do this with Max sitting up, particularly in the provided chairs, which are fashioned to allow wings space. He looks absolutely knackered, though, so George doesn’t ask. Instead, he takes the grooming kit from where it’s sitting next to Max’s suitcase, and goes to settle on the bed. Once he’s in a good position, he begins the preen, this time starting from the base of the wing.

Max says, “If you lose tomorrow, I’m not taking responsibility.”

George has barely begun and Max’s consonants are already softening. George says, “Can’t have you looking a mess for race day.”

“I don’ care,” Max says.

“I do,” George tells him. And then, before Max can process that, he adds, “And I’m not losing.”

“Bett’r not,” Max says. “I bet GP you’d win.”

George blinks. “I think GP might have a gambling problem.”

Max snorts. “Maybe. Bu’…it’s workin’, mm?”

George thinks of Max in the paddock earlier, shaky and ruffled, but standing. “It just might be.”

Lewis comes to stand by George for the national anthem. He asks, “Who knew you were so good at wing-grooming?”

Without moving his head, George glances to the side. “Max told you I—”

“No. I told him it was good to see him, he said ‘same’. But he showed up with wings that looked, ah, bargain bin, and today he’s sporting wings he could take to Fashion Week.”

“Could have been GP.”

“First, hilarious. Second, I’ve known you since you were a bundle of hormones, and I see the way you look at him.”

George gives himself the anthem to think that over. He turns to Lewis when it ends. “He was—maybe dying. In that Cooldown Room.”

Lewis nods, accepting this. “Does he thank you? When you work on his wings?”

George tilts his head. “He falls asleep under my hands.”

Sighing, Lewis pulls George into a quick hug. “Let’s go race, kid.”

After media and debrief, George showers the champagne off and slips into a blue button down and linen pants before heading to an address Max sent him to meet for dinner. He’s definitely last—Lando, Alex, Charles, Gabi, Fernando, GP, and Sophie all there. The chair to Max’s right is empty. George seats himself. “Sorry.”

Max just asks, “How do you feel about GP’s gambling problem now?”

GP blinks. “I don’t…have a gambling problem?”

“You bet against your own driver,” George argues.

“That’s just sensible. You win, I get Max’s money and the pleasure of his defeat. Liam wins, and I’ve had my best race all year.”

“Wait,” Alex holds a hand up. “You bet against George?” He’s looking at Max now, all I’m-not-angry-I’m-just-disappointed, and bless Alex, George really doesn’t deserve him.

“You know he likes proving me wrong,” Max says.

Alex’s gaze flickers between the two of them. “I’ll allow it.”

Max’s wing, draped over the side of the chair, flares out ever so slightly to brush against George’s arm. Across the table, Fernando takes a sip of his drink and eyes George. George pretends not to notice any of it. He does, however, drop his left hand down to his lap and skim a finger over the edge of Max’s wing. He also pretends not to notice the way it causes Max to stutter.

George tries leaving before dessert. It’s not as if he’s going to eat it anyway. Max asks, “Seriously?”

“Unless I want to fly commercial, yes, seriously. Double header, remember?”

“Williams’s plane leaves tomorrow nine,” Alex says. “Nobody’s going to care if you join.”

“All right,” George agrees, and sits back down.

Fernando follows up, “If you miss your Williams plane, text me.”

“I’m not going to miss the flight, Fernando.” George throws this out while texting Toto that he’s made other plans and will be in Hungary tomorrow.

Toto responds, “Are these ‘other plans’ spelled with the letters M-A-X V-E-R-S-T-A-P-P-E-N?”

George sends back, “See you in Hungary. Don’t lose Kimi.”

Max murmurs, “Is Toto jealous?”

“Don’t start,” George says, but he’s holding back a laugh as he says it.

Max cuts into his waffle, all grins.

George has already checked out of his hotel. He could stay with Alex, but he knows he won’t. He knows he’ll wait until the others have gone off, then get in a car with Max and Sophie. In the car, Sophie sitting up front, Max sneaks his hand underneath his wing and snatches George’s hand. Literally almost half a lifetime of media and George still nearly gives them away, he’s so surprised. Perhaps he shouldn’t be, perhaps this is a logical progression. He is though.

Max says, “I talked with Laurent.”

“Hm, you don’t say. You didn’t just aggressively ignore him while sitting in his garage all weekend? Is this some kind of character growth?”

“Fine, I won’t tell you what we spoke about.”

“Sometimes I’m certain you actually think I’m an idiot. You spoke about next year. What did he say?”

“If you were nicer to me, maybe I would—”

“I will tickle you,” George warns.

Max is a beat too slow to say, “I’m not ticklish.”

“Oh? Should I test the theory?” George begins reaching over with his right hand.

Max, very quickly, says, “He wants to try! Putting me in the car next year.”

George smirks, but lowers his hand. “Give me a moment, I have to find where I’ve hidden my shock that he wants to see if his four time world champion can still drive a car.”

Max glares at him. George pays him no mind. “Hm, can’t seem to locate it.”

“Why are you so annoying?”

“Natural talent,” George tells him. “With a bit of practice thrown in.”

“Maybe practice less,” Max says. Notably, though, his hand stays where it is, clutching George’s.

Once they’ve said goodnight to Sophie and are in Max’s room, Max sits on the edge of the bed and says, “I should have waited.”

“Hm?”

“I wanted to show off. How I can stand and walk. But I cannot do either without the cane and not for long enough to push you against the wall and hold you there.” Max says this like it’s a logistical problem. Like the words aren’t their own kind of seduction.

George puts a hand on the wall, none-too-steady himself, and toes off his shoes. “Pin me to the bed. Hold me there. Wings and all.”

Max looks over at him, considering. “You like them. The wings.”

“Yes, Max, because they are hot. You’ve caught me: I like hot things.”

“I like hot things, too, and I think they are weird looking.”

George walks toward the bed, pushing Max’s legs apart so he can stand between them. “Good thing I’m not Avia, hm?”

Max settles his hands on George’s hips and looks up at him with a quiet awe. George cups Max’s cheek with his hand. Max turns his face into George’s palm, kisses it. George bites his lip, closes his eyes, takes a slow breath. He opens his eyes again. “Max. Um. You—when we talked about…this. In the hospital. You said you didn’t listen to Alex because I would have seen your back.”

Max leans forward, resting his head against George’s stomach. “I did. Say that.”

“Just…was it just me? Or. That is—”

“I haven’t done this, George.” There’s a moment of awkward silence. Max follows up, “That’s…this is what you are asking, yes?”

“Have you…made out with someone?” George tries to keep his tone neutral. He doesn’t want Max feeling like a freak. He’s unwilling to go into this blind, though.

Max shakes his head, still resting it against George. “It is, of course, fine, if you don’t want—”

George gently pushes Max’s shoulders back a few inches so as to slide to his knees. Tipping his chin up, he nips at Max’s lower lip, smiling while he holds the lip gently between his teeth. Max is watching him, wide-eyed. George pulls off Max’s lip. “Trust me, gorgeous. I want. And,” George draws this word out before kissing at the corner of Max’s mouth, “I believe someone offered to pin me down.”

Max makes a helpless noise. George smiles against his mouth. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Max says. “Yes.”

George wakes up the next morning with Max halfway atop him, clinging to him with one arm and one wing. He reaches over and turns off his alarm, which is set to go off in about ten minutes. They hadn’t done all that much the night before, making out like kids and frotting against each other until they’d come in their pants. Annoyingly, it was maybe the best sex of George’s life. And George has had some very good sex. He’d be worried that his fetish is vanilla and somewhat awkward, highly modest sex, except he fears the real truth is worse.

He suspects he might just really like Max.

Hungary awaits, Hungary and the best car he’s ever driven, and a year that could be his. But he wants this, right here, Max’s chest against his, the feathers of his wings just heavy enough to not tickle. Before he can get caught up in how badly he wants to stay, wants to sleep the day away with Max, he brings a hand up to the back of Max’s head, skritching lightly at his scalp. “Hey, I need you to let me up, plane to catch.”

Max grumbles something that might be in Dutch, but might also be complete nonsense. George says, “I know, but the F1 calendar stops for no man.”

“You could retire. We can both afford to be wastrels.”

“Wastrels? Seriously?”

“You say ‘crikey,’” Max responds.

“I’m British.”

“So are Lewis and Lando and neither of them sounds like a World War II radio drama.”

George mouths, “radio drama,” but then shakes his head slightly. “We’ve gotten off-topic. I need you to let me up.”

“Make me.”

“Babe, at some point when I’m not worried about breaking parts of you, I will be very happy to wrestle you into sex, but right now I need you to work with me.”

Max props his chin on George’s chest, blinking. “Babe?”

Sometimes, the only way out is through. Which is to say, nothing for it but to brazen it the fuck out. “What, you prefer sugar tits?”

“You’re making fun of me for wastrel?”

“That’s a no to sugar tits, then. Cupcake? Snuggy bear?”

“Please stop.”

“All you have to do is let me up. This will be all over.”

The debate Max is having with himself is crystal clear on his face. After a minute he asks, “You promise about the wrestling?”

George smiles. “Yeah, babe. I promise.”

Max nips sharply at George’s collarbone, but then lets him go.

“Padel, this week?” Lando asks George while they’re sitting in the Cooldown Room, the cameras having left. Lando took the win, but George will still be leading going into the break. George always wants more, but for the moment, he forces himself to be happy with where he’s at.

Isack asks, “Why are you never inviting me, eh?”

Lando glances over at him, expression uncertain. “Are you going to be in Monaco next week?”

“No, and I don’t play padel, but I cannot see why this makes any difference.”

George laughs. “Red Bull has a type.” Then, to Lando, “I’m not in Monaco next week either, sorry.”

“You going on holiday somewhere?”

For a split second, George contemplates lying. As long as he doesn’t pick one of the popular spots to say he’s headed to, chances are Lando would never know. But then he has to tell Alex not to say anything, which seems a bit unfair. Also, Lando would probably do something thoughtful like ask to see pictures when they all return. Swallowing a sigh, George says, “I’m going to Belgium.”

George has always liked Isack for the way the kid appreciates Lewis. He can honestly say he’s never liked him better than this moment, when he pretends at sudden and acute deafness. Lando, who can be oblivious in the way they all can—the self-involvement of elite competition being what it is—but who’s always more aware of his friends than George expects, says, “You went to Belgium after Barcelona. And he came to the race last week. The two of you didn’t even like each other much at the beginning of the year.”

Yeah. George has a vague memory of that being the case. He even knows, academically, why that was. Try as he might, he can’t feel it anymore. Helplessly he says, “Life and death situations are weird?”

Lando looks down at his lap. “Our job is a life and death situation.”

“Not—Lan. I sat in a hospital waiting room for the better part of a night not knowing if the surgeon would come out and tell us he was dead. I expected that, almost. His back was—” George stops, makes himself breathe. Does not, does not, does not close his eyes. His hearing-impaired friend, Isack, sets a careful hand on George’s shoulder, warm and grounding, while still pretending as if he’s not a part of the conversation.

Lando bites at his lip. “Just…be careful. With each other.” He laughs a bit, the sound too high to be actual amusement. “I’m not sure which one of you I worry about more.”

The funny part is, George is almost certain Lando isn’t reading anything more into the visit than friendship. Lando, with his impossibly tight knit circle of friends, some of whom have been with him since childhood despite the travel and the strain of this lifestyle. Smiling a bit, George says, “We’re both assholes. We balance each other out. No need to worry.”

The look in Lando’s eyes tells George he’s going to anyway.

Two days later, George wakes up from a post-run nap to a cat on his face and the sound of muffled laughter. Reaching up to readjust whichever furry miscreant is impeding his airways, George gets the cat on his stomach—Jimmy, Jimmy is the only cat who would let him do that—and without opening his eyes, says, “I know you took a picture, biscuit. Just beware that last week your mom sent me a photo from when you got yourself stuck in the cat tree.”

In fairness to Max, it’s a very large cat tree, and he’s still figuring out the spatial realities of having extra limbs. Very large extra limbs. George knows he wouldn’t be doing any better. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to laugh when Max gets himself into ridiculous situations.

“Fucking—I am not a biscuit. And I was rescuing Nino!” Max says. George does open his eyes, then. Max when he’s trying and failing to retain some level of dignity is a treat not to be missed.

“I know,” George says with all due solemnity. “It was very heroic of you, poppet.”

“You get to call me poppet, but get all,” Max makes a gesture with his hands that is probably supposed to mean “riled up” but mostly just looks like jazz hands, “when I call you princess?”

“You’re not exactly calm,” George points out. “And I’m guessing that’s a no to ‘poppet’, hrm?”

“George.”

“Use it nicely.”

Max blinks. “What?”

“Use princess nicely, doll.”

Max sighs. “Not doll, princess.” He says this last with a touch of softness, a hint of…George thinks it might be desire, but not in a heated way. Something quieter than that.

“Dear?” George tries.

Max laughs, “My eighty year-old princess.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

Leaning in to kiss George, Max says, “You’re right. It wasn’t a no.”