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Oscar never planned to regress in front of anyone.
It had always been something small and private. He slipped quietly. A softening at the edges of his thoughts when the world felt too loud, when everything was too sharp and heavy in his chest. He would curl up alone, wrap himself in blankets, and wait for the younger version of himself to fade back into something manageable.
That was before he met Max.
Max was an omega in a world that often treated omegas like porcelain or prey— or both at once. Max was neither. He was sharp-tongued and stubborn and competent in a way that made Oscar feel dizzy sometimes.
Oscar had fallen in love with him quietly and against his better judgment. Everything Oscar did, he did with intention— except for when it came to Max. With Max, he felt like he was being dragged in all directions by his heart while his mind took a much needed nap in rose-scented silk sheets.
They were friends first. Rivals, technically, though their dynamic rarely felt that way. Max had taken to him in a way that surprised both of them. He liked Oscar’s steadiness. Oscar liked Max’s fire. It balanced.
The first time Oscar regressed in front of him, it was an accident.
It happened after a brutal weekend. Media obligations, travel, expectations stacking higher and higher until Oscar’s shoulders ached from holding them. P6 after an unlucky racing incident and an even unluckier pit stop. He made it to Max’s apartment before he cracked. He did not even remember knocking, only that Max opened the door and immediately frowned.
“Oscar?”
Oscar tried to answer. Words piled at the back of his throat, but his vocal cords felt tangled tight enough to sting. His vision blurred. Between one breath and the next, he was sitting on Max’s couch, knees tucked up, eyes glassy and wide.
Max had scented the air, his nose whistling softly. He often got a stuffy nose while flying, especially after race weekends when he was dehydrated. Distantly, Oscar wondered how and when he’d learned that about the omega.
“You’re slipping,” Max said softly.
Oscar nodded. He could feel it happening. The world tilting. The words getting harder to hold onto. Collapsing around him like sand on the playground, or the wooden alphabet blocks he used to play with.
Max knelt in front of him, voice dropping into something warm and steady. “It’s okay. You don’t have to fight it.”
No one had ever said that to him before.
That was how Max became his caregiver.
—
Little Oscar was five. Sometimes four. Occasionally younger, when things were especially bad. He never fully forgot who Max was, but his feelings simplified into something bright and uncomplicated.
Big Oscar — normal Oscar — was careful with his crush. He swallowed it. Hid it in polite smiles and lingering glances. He told himself that being cared for by an omega already complicated things enough. He did not need to add romantic longing to the mix.
Little Oscar did not care about any of that.
Little Oscar was in love.
“Max,” he would say, climbing directly into Max’s lap without hesitation, all long limbs and puppy softness. “When I’m big again, I’m gonna marry you.”
Max would snort, even as he adjusted Oscar against his chest. “You say that every time.”
“’Cause it’s true,” Oscar insisted, brows furrowed in intense sincerity. “You’re the prettiest omega in the whole world.”
Max would press his lips together to hide his smile. “Am I?”
“Yes. And you make the best grilled cheese. And you smell nice.”
Max always let him nuzzle in close. Always let him bury his face in Max’s neck and breathe in the calm, grounding scent of home.
Oscar was an alpha. Even regressed, that instinct ran deep. He got clingy. Protective. He liked to wrap himself around Max like he could shield him from everything, even though Max was more than capable of handling himself.
Max handled him, too.
He kept a box of regression supplies tucked discreetly in a dresser. Soft pajamas. Colouring books. Juice boxes. A stuffed koala that Oscar claimed he did not need but always reached for anyway.
When Oscar slipped, Max shifted seamlessly. His voice softened. His movements slowed. He offered choices instead of commands.
“Do you want shark pajamas or truck ones?”
“Shark,” Oscar mumbled, already half-gone.
“Okay. Arms up.”
Oscar obeyed without question, trusting. Always trusting.
—
The crush became unbearable when Oscar was small.
He followed Max everywhere. If Max stood up, Oscar grabbed his hand. If Max sat down, Oscar climbed into his lap. He asked for hugs like they were oxygen.
“Max?”
“Yes, pup.”
“Can I have a kiss?”
“Where?”
Oscar would tap his own cheek eagerly. “Here.”
Max always gave it to him. It was a gentle press of lips to soft skin, warm and comforting. At first, Max used to make dramatic mwah! sounds to make Oscar laugh, but then it began to make Oscar pout and whine at him to be serious, Maxy.
The quiet pecks made Oscar beam like he had been handed the entire world.
“You love me,” he would whisper, pleased.
“I care about you,” Max corrected gently.
It was true. He did.
—
Jealousy was new.
It showed up one afternoon when they were at the paddock, Oscar firmly big and composed, watching Max laugh too hard at something Lando had said. Lando leaned in close, brushing shoulders. Max shoved him lightly, but he was smiling.
Later, Oscar saw Max and Charles huddled over a phone, heads bent together, Charles’ hand resting briefly at Max’s lower back.
It should not have bothered him.
They were friends. Max was allowed to have friends.
Oscar’s chest tightened anyway.
He did not say anything— he never did. He was good at registering his emotions and then putting them aside. Everyone else seemed to do something with their feelings. Lando cried or got bitchy. Oscar’s ex-girlfriend had always wanted a hug and a shoulder to cry on. His sisters listened to music or vented to their mom, his dad got quiet and went to the basement to mess around with his model cars. Oscar only knew how to process things when he was small. When he was big, feelings just felt like an awkward overly large package that he was stuck carrying around, trying not to draw attention to himself while he looked for a place to set it down.
That evening, when he knocked on Max’s door and felt himself slipping faster than usual, the jealousy followed him down into little space.
Max noticed immediately. Oscar was quieter. Clingier. His hands fisted into the fabric of Max’s shirt like he was afraid of being pried away.
“Hey,” Max murmured, guiding him onto the couch. “What’s going on in that head?”
Oscar’s lip wobbled. Sitting like this, lower on the seat than Max so he had to look up at him, Oscar felt small and cared for and vulnerable and protected. Everything around him — Max, the couch, the apartment — was good, but everything inside felt knotted and wrong.
“You like Lando,” he blurted.
Max blinked. “What?”
“You were laughing at him,” Oscar said, voice small and trembling. “And Charles touched you.”
Ah. Max exhaled slowly. “They’re my friends,” he said softly, stroking the alpha’s messy blonde head.
“I don’t like it,” Oscar whispered, eyes shining. “They get too close.” He yanked Max’s shirt closer, feeling the fabric strain under his fists.
The alpha jealousy was still there, simplified into something painfully pure. A little boy who did not understand social nuance. Who only knew that the person he adored seemed to belong to other people, too.
Max cupped his face gently. “Listen to me.” Oscar sniffed. “I am not dating Lando.” Oscar scowled faintly at the name. “I am not dating Charles.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Oscar studied him with serious, watery eyes. “You’re mine.”
Max huffed a soft laugh. “I am not property.”
Oscar looked horrified, or at least as much as a five-year-old could be. “Nooo, Maxy. Not like that,” he huffed, pressing his hands against his omega’s tummy. “Just… alphas take care of their ‘megas,” he mumbled, kicking his foot against the couch and staring shyly away from Max’s face.
The irony nearly made Max smile.
“I’m the one taking care of you,” he pointed out.
Oscar shook his head stubbornly. “When I’m big, I will.”
Max’s chest tightened unexpectedly. “You don’t have to compete with my friends,” he said more softly. “They don’t replace you.”
Oscar hesitated. “They don’t?”
“No.”
Oscar crawled into his lap again, wrapping himself around Max’s middle. “Okay.”
There was a pause.
“Can I still marry you?”
Max laughed properly this time. “You are persistent.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll revisit that when you’re thirty.”
Oscar gasped. “That’s forever.”
“Exactly.”
Oscar considered this deeply, then pressed a dramatic kiss to Max’s cheek instead. “Okay. But I call dibs.”
Max rolled his eyes but did not push him away.
—
When Oscar came back to himself later that night, stretched out on Max’s couch with a blanket tucked carefully around him, he remembered enough to turn red.
“I said all that stuff again, didn’t I.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for having feelings,” Max said simply.
Oscar stared at the ceiling. “It’s inappropriate.”
“You’re five when you say it.”
“That’s not the point.”
Max watched him quietly.
Oscar swallowed. “I don’t want to make things weird.”
“You don’t,” Max said.
It was not entirely true. The air between them had shifted over time. The affection had weight now. Depth. Something unspoken and heavy with possibility.
Oscar turned his head. “Do you ever get tired of me?”
Max’s expression softened instantly. “No.”
“Even when I’m clingy?”
“Especially then.”
Oscar’s breath caught.
Max adjusted the blanket again, unnecessarily. “You don’t have to hide everything from me when you’re big.”
Oscar gave a small, crooked smile. “That’s the problem. I’m better at hiding it when I’m big.”
Max met his eyes steadily. “Maybe you don’t always have to.”
The implication hung there, huge and unimaginable— but Oscar was too scared to push.
Instead, he tried to be normal about it. Max laughed at something Lando said during the drivers’ parade, tipping his head back in that unguarded way that made Oscar’s stomach flip. Oscar was standing right there. Close enough to smell the faint sweetness of Max’s omega scent under the sunshiney breeze and the truck full of other scents.
He told himself it was fine.
He folded his arms. Leaned casually against the railing. Pretended not to track every inch of space between them.
Lando bumped Max’s shoulder again.
Oscar’s jaw tightened.
Later, Charles slung an arm around Max’s shoulders while they walked back from interviews. It was brief. Friendly. Harmless.
Oscar walked a half step ahead of them, trying not to growl.
“Good session?” Charles asked him lightly.
“Fine,” Oscar replied. His voice was usually flat, but this one was especially bland as he tried to contain his building frustration.
Max’s eyes flicked to him, assessing.
Oscar smiled. It did not reach his eyes.
He was calm. He was nonchalant. He was absolutely not jealous.
—
He slipped that evening.
He had not meant to. He had promised himself he would not let it bleed into little space again. He would be mature. Composed.
Instead, he found himself on Max’s couch with his hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands and a deep, thunderous pout settling onto his face.
Max set down the two mugs he had been carrying. “Oh no.”
Oscar scowled.
“That bad, huh?”
Oscar crossed his arms. “You like them more.”
Max blinked slowly. “We are not starting this again.”
“Yes we are,” Oscar snapped, voice high and wobbling at the edges.
He was small. Too small to regulate the heat in his chest. Too small to untangle feeling from fact.
Max sat beside him. “What happened?”
“You laugh at them,” Oscar muttered. “You don’t laugh like that with me.”
Max stared at him incredulously. “I absolutely do.”
“No.” Oscar’s foot kicked the couch cushion in frustration. His eyes were glossy. His scent had sharpened with distressed alpha pheromones that did not match his curled posture. “I don’t like it,” he said, louder now. “They stand too close. And Charles touches you. And Lando always looks at you like—like—”
“Like what?”
Oscar threw his hands up. “Like that!”
Even as an actual child, Oscar hadn’t had many tantrums— but this one was brewing like deep grey clouds and a turbulent wind. He shoved the stuffed koala off his lap and turned his face away, crossing his arms tightly.
He made a small, wounded noise when Max did not immediately respond.
Max pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Oscar.” Silence. “Oscar, look at me.”
“No.”
Max waited him out. Patience may not be his strong suit, but he could use it when needed.
Eventually, Oscar peeked.
Max’s voice was firm but not unkind. “You are not allowed to throw things.” Oscar’s lower lip trembled. “And you are not allowed to decide what our friends are thinking.”
Oscar huffed. His eyes filled anyway.
“I just want you,” he whispered.
The words were so small they almost disappeared. Max’s expression softened instantly. “I know,” he said.
Oscar crawled into his lap despite himself. He buried his face in Max’s neck and clung.
—
The jealousy did not fade this time. It simmered.
Over the next few weeks, the pattern repeated. Oscar would tell himself to be reasonable, only to catch himself glaring at Lando in the paddock if Max so much as smiled too warmly in his direction.
Once, he slipped slightly during a small dinner with some of the drivers and physically wedged himself between Max and Charles, earning a baffled expression from the Monegasque.
Charles raised both hands in surrender. “I did not realize that seat was taken,” he said.
Max sighed, quietly murmuring to Oscar. “You are being silly right now.”
Oscar stuck his tongue out.
It might have been amusing if the underlying frustration had not been building. When Oscar came back to himself each time, the embarrassment hit harder.
He knew better.
He did.
—
The breaking point came quietly. Just Oscar standing in Max’s kitchen, big and rigid and trying so hard not to feel.
Max had come back from a late dinner with Lando, something that had become more common whenever the two were both in Monaco. Spontaneous outings, grabbing a game of padel or a meal together to remind themselves that they did quite enjoy each other’s company when they weren’t fighting it out on the track.
Oscar had said it was fine. He had even smiled when he said it.
Now, though, he stood with his hands braced against the kitchen counter, shoulders tense. He was in Max’s flat, wearing an AlphaTauri sweater, and yet Max felt a million miles away.
The omega watched him for a long moment.
“Sit down,” he said finally.
Oscar blinked. “I’m fine.”
“Sit.” There was steel in his tone, but his scent was calm.
Oscar obeyed. He sat at the small kitchen table like he was waiting for a debrief. Max took the chair in front of him. “I told you,” Max began evenly, “they are just my friends. You have nothing to be jealous of.”
Oscar nodded immediately. Too quickly. “I know.”
Max waited.
Oscar swallowed. His cheeks were already pink. “It’s stupid,” he said, voice tight. “Because I know that. I just see you with them and get all…” He gestured vaguely at his own chest like he could claw the feeling out.
“Like what?” Max asked softly.
Oscar’s jaw clenched. “Possessive. And then I feel bad for feeling possessive. And then I feel worse because I’m supposed to be better than that.” His eyes were bright with frustrated moisture he refused to let fall. “I’m not trying to control you,” he rushed. “I don’t want to be that alpha. I just—”
His voice cracked.
“I just really like you.”
There it was. It was such a fundamental truth, such a natural part of Oscar, yet it felt achingly vulnerable to say it aloud— like flaying himself open to show his beating heart. His whole face flushed deep red, brows drawn tight, hands curling into fists on the table.
Max stood slowly, and Oscar braced for reprimand.
Instead, Max stepped closer. He reached out, hesitated for only a fraction of a second, and then gently touched Oscar’s cheek. He had never done that while Oscar was big. The contact stunned him into silence.
Max’s thumb brushed just under his eye, catching the faint sheen of unshed tears. “You are allowed to feel things,” Max said quietly.
Oscar’s breath hitched at the same time as Max leaned in.
The kiss was soft. It was nothing like the playful, indulgent cheek kisses he gave little Oscar. This was warm lips against his, a thumb stroking his jaw, Max’s eyes shut and lashes fluttering.
Oscar’s mind went blank. By the time Max pulled back, the world felt tilted in a completely new way. Oscar stared at him, feeling a bubbling tangle of shock and bliss in his stomach like soda fizz.
A soft smile curved faintly across Max’s pretty pink mouth. “There. Don’t be jealous.”
Oscar let out a shaky, disbelieving laugh. “That’s not how that works,” he whispered— but he leaned forward anyway, forehead resting lightly against Max’s.