Archive of Our Own

“So did you just not see me, or what?”

A reasonable question, George thinks, as he pulls off his right racing glove, finger by finger, eyes narrowed behind a clear visor. Max’s posture betrays the performance of his casual tone, though, both hands hitched into the grooves of his hips, chest canted confrontationally forward. An unreasonable man cannot ask a reasonable question.

“Wasn’t your corner, mate, was it?” George snips back, tone overly pleasant to match the approach. The plausible deniability the Netflix cameras are catching only goes so far when paired with the tense line of George’s shoulders, the jutting of Max’s big nose into his personal space. “Watch the replay.”

“Watch the – ” Max cuts himself off with the force of his own affront, mouth gaping unattractively as he shoots a look to an imaginary audience, can you believe this guy. Perhaps not so imaginary in their case, as George eyes the broadcast cameras warily. “I don’t need to watch the replay to know I had the line, mate. I actually know how to drive out there.”

“Yes, that’s quite apparent, today,” George volleys, a flat smile. He shoulders past Max on his way to the scale, the brief stumble of Max’s footing sparking a petty, tingling thrill that he feels on the exposed skin above his collar, mixed with cold, stale sweat. Max just uses the jostling to propel his turn after him, dogging George’s footsteps. “Your faultless driving. That’s why we’re having this conversation here instead of in the cooldown room, yeah?”

Max scoffs, far too close to him as he steps onto the scale after Nico, who shoots a warily amused look back at them as he takes his ticket and leaves. George lifts his head as they register his weight, haughty, above it all. Max’s big, stupid, blown-up face stares back from the banner of the Red Bull garage in front of him. Is there truly no escape?

“Force me wide again,” Max warns, open-ended, more plausible deniability. Not at all like the mercifully immobile and silent depiction of him on the wall. George bristles at the smooth assumption of the result, even as it goes unsaid.

“You want to step back, mate? You’re going to get me disqualified with the extra weight.”

Another disbelieving huff, and George nearly jumps off the scale when Max reaches out with an unfathomable level of gall to pinch at his waist, a faint shock through the thick fabric of his racing suit. He rips himself away, tripping off the scale as he pivots on a heel, pulling at his helmet to better level Max with the full expression of his fury, the harsh downturned curl of his mouth, imprinted lines emphasizing the effect. Max just smiles, overly pleased with himself, his own helmet tucked underneath an arm as he takes George’s place on the scale.

“Not likely.”

“Dick,” George hisses.

Max uses his free arm to motion behind George, where the FIA official is limply holding out his ticket. “Take the piece of paper from the nice man.”

George squares his shoulders, the action of turning to grab the ticket made a physical pain by Max’s order. His etched frown flickers minutely into something resembling pleasant for the white-polo employee, before Max’s scoff at the display of politeness wipes it back off his face.

“It was my line,” George shoots at him with finality, walking backwards in the direction of his own garage beside Red Bull’s, where his own mildly unflattering, blown-up face awaits above. “Watch the replay. Shame about that P5, mate. Better luck next time.”

“Shame about your everything,” Max calls back, too quick to be clever, brow furrowed and ugly. George smirks, a smug little stride in his step that’ll carry him through the endless questions he’ll field about this during media.

--

In the morning, the garages will be stripped down and packed away, a testament to the indomitable human spirit in its age-old quest to pack trucks as swiftly as possible in the face of unreasonable deadlines and a too-low wage. Cars will be pushed and pulled by hungover teams of mechanics into carrier vehicles of their own, jokes and complaints lobbied over embossed liveries until shutter doors are pulled down and locked securely, a plunge into tight darkness.

A more subdued darkness, for now, in the early morning hours before the flurry of activity begins. An RB21 undressed of its tires, plank suspended above concrete on hydraulic jacks, tucked neatly underneath a blanket of tarp and the low electronic hum of wall wiring and charging batteries. A soothing electronic hum, near-lullaby for the fading surge of energy lingering within metal sinew, in the traces of dried sweat stuck to the seat, the floor, the pedals.

A trace of paint like three slashes across the clean matte, tearing away at the edge of an undesired traced-and-sprayed sponsor logo that had itched like a healing burn since its application on the left barge board. The scrapes of paint, black and ocean blue, don’t itch. They hum on the bodywork like the electrical current, a sensation that builds and builds until the powered-down battery sparks to life, a vibrating component deafening in the quiet of the garage.

On the other side of a shared wall, equally subdued, a W16 nursing stripped paint like a licked wound, pulsating aggravated obsession at the divots in the shiny gloss. Whirring to responding life at the familiar whine of a power unit seeping underneath the gap in the garage door. An irritated hum turned soothed, then chirping. Singing to each other until the light seeps in, too.

--

An ideal Thursday, with his hair cooperating against all odds in the Shanghai humidity for his paddock walk and the social media admin only having to request a retake on a video where he and Kimi show off their new sponsor watches once, a less stilted please that doesn’t overly embarrass him, in the good mood of today. An uneventful Friday, which means ideal, with minimal set-up issues left to be addressed in FP3 the next day.

“You swerved in on me.”

Almost uneventful, then.

Max is crossing over to the open entryway of the Mercedes garage, where George is fixing his unusually cooperative hair after pulling off his balaclava. The mechanics swarm around the car, blocking it from view. As if Max is snooping on the ride height, honestly.

“You’ve lost it,” George replies, clipped, taken aback at the jump scare in navy blue. “It’s free practice. What would I gain from that?”

“Yeah, I dunno, seemed pretty stupid to me, too, but you’re always surprising me, so.”

“It’s like 5G’s, the strain that conversing with you takes on me. Why would I do anything to invite more of it?”

“Pull a neck muscle then, let Bottas drive,” Max pushes, a slight sneer thinning his upper lip. “He wouldn’t pull this shit for extra airtime whenever he’s feeling insecure.”

A drop of sweat slips between the clenched fingers of George’s fist and hits the pavement, strained from the white-knuckled grip he’s balled his balaclava into. “What reason do I have to feel insecure when a four-time world champion is seemingly obsessed with me? That’s flattering, that.”

“You’d love it,” Max hits back, meaning, George guesses, that. Then, in a stunningly atrocious imitation of George’s accent, with an added exaggerated layer of fey: “watch the replay.”

George starts, eyes narrowed, vision red. A mechanic, warningly: cameras, mate.

Catches them, out of the corner of his eye. Normally his friends, but now – vultures, circling a fight between two animals that’ll end in a good meal, whatever the outcome. Forces his fist to unclench, finger by stiff finger. A syrupy false smile.

“I’ll check it,” he promises, affably. “Weird. Sorry if so, mate.”

Max shakes his head, visibly put off. Tosses him a petulant whatever and crosses back over to his own territory, interest deflated. George shuffles backward until the backs of his legs hit the side of his car. He hardly notices how warm it is to the touch, overheated himself under the nomex.

--

He does check the replay, later, on one of the engineer’s computers. He’s sure that Max is full of shit, of course, looking for any excuse to cover for an unforced error on a push lap, the reigning champ could never make a mistake of his own, not when he’s bought so deeply into his own mythology, oh, perish the thought – but, still. He despises the feeling of being out of the loop.

And – there. He’d not even been conscious of it, and he’d hardly call it lap-ruining, Max’s over-correction to the subtle movement a total overreaction, but. A snap of oversteer when their cars had been alongside, George slowed on the outside to let people through. He switches to his onboard and it’s as if the steering wheel jumps in his steady grip, fights him like there’s a magnet on Max’s car as he passes before he realigns.

Again, nothing to apologize for, but, ah. Nevertheless, weird.

--

It’s his turn to charge the Red Bull garage on Saturday after qualifying, weaving between cars parked along the grid – his fellow cars, cars in his bullshit position of not being in the privileged three to pull up alongside numbered markers – to where Max is tossing his helmet and gloves onto a work bench, a number of mechanics intercepting him with whoa, whoa’s and outstretched palms like he’s one of the affluent, star-chasing paddock passers with no dignity and an outstretched selfie stick. Max, and this isn’t a word he’ll associate with him again, benevolently intercedes, a placating hand on the shoulder of the mechanic closest to manhandling George out of their space.

“I didn’t do it,” Max tells him, caveman brow knitted together with indulgent sincerity, like Max has all the time in the world to be so kind to the downtrodden now that his car is safely parked up at the P2 marker. George feels coiled like a spring, tapping into every ounce of media training in his reservoir to not launch himself at Max’s throat now that his mechanics have backed off. He knows the Sky Sports cameras have picked up on the angry, off-putting bulge of his eyes as it stands.

“Didn’t do it?” George repeats back, octave high with disbelief. “Pretty sure the evidence was broadcast worldwide! My final lap, Max! I don’t care if you’re still mad about practice, you can’t - ”

“No, I didn’t - ” Max presses his lips together, visibly frustrated as he gathers his words. Leaning on his Dutch as an excuse for whatever aggravating thing is about to come out of his mouth, no doubt – his English isn’t that bad. “It was the car.”

“It was the – you’re the one driving it, mate!”

“I know that.” Brow scrunched with an anger not directed at George for once, jaw working. “It – I dunno – it, like, moved. I didn’t turn the console. Watch the onboard.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” George seethes. “I’ll be sure to watch it, alright. I’ll get the stewards together; we can make some popcorn.”

“Whatever you have to do to get people to hang out with you, Russell.”

“Enjoy that P2 for as long as you get to keep it.” George reaches out to prod a finger into the centre of Max’s chest, fireproofs blunting the bony impact. Max swats it away, the frustrated downward curve of his mouth turning distinctly annoyed. “We’ll see how far you get with the car moved on its own.”

“Why do I bother with you?” Max crosses his arms against his chest, as if to ward off future irate finger prodding. He leans into George’s personal space before George can bite out a wish you wouldn’t, shoulders squared and voice lowered, conscious of their audience, all teeth: “I saw your first sector data. You were made for P4, mate, even if you’d finished the lap.”

George bites his tongue, fighting the sudden urge to headbutt, to break that handsome nose with his forehead. A deep inhale, Max smirking at his flared nostrils as he pushes away, retreating to his posse of sycophants with wrenches and headsets, point made and apology half-assed, if even half.

“I’ll see you on the same row, Verstappen. If you’re lucky.”

A dismissive hand raised, get lost, attention already elsewhere. The prick.

--

“Who brought the car up to temperature again?”

A Red Bull engineer lifts his head from where it’s nestled atop his arms on one of the fold-out tables in hospitality, giving GP a weary blink. “Are you crazy, mate? It’s end of the day. We aren’t running the car again.”

“I’m aware,” GP replies, slowly, patronizingly. “And yet the car is running, anyway.”

“Nobody went in there,” the engineer swears. “The ECU isn’t even connected.”

“So it just turned on by itself, then?”

Shoulders slumping, like a kicked dog. Or a dog that’s accepting another couple of hours added onto its shift, anyway. “I’ll go re-check everything.”

--

George can feel his cheeks flush when they run the footage for the stewards, once at full speed, once frame-by-frame. This angle, that. The steering console unturned in Max’s gloves, and the car jarring violently into the Mercedes path, anyway.

“I don’t know how he did it,” George insists, “but he did it.”

They’re tempted to lean towards a racing incident, mystified, but George pushes and pushes until they recognize that it was dangerous, regardless of the fault belonging to man or machine, and that George was showing improvements in his interrupted sector two.

One place grid drop penalty for 1 – Max Verstappen.

“You fucking rat,” Max spits at him, on their way to line up for the anthem the next day. George raises his chin, crinkling eyes hidden behind his Ray Bans, long legs picking up the stride, forcing Max to keep pace. “This won’t change anything for you. Hope you know that. I’ll try to spray a little champagne down at you, when you’re looking up at the podium.”

“Keep talking, P3,” George replies, pleasant as anything, a little wave to the stands as they take their spots in line.

“I promise not to get any in your eyes.”

George flushes, hands dropping stiffly to his sides as the choir starts up. “Shut up.”

--

Max never gets the chance to make good on his word. They’re side by side on the straight going into turns eleven and twelve when George’s car lurches to the outside, where Max’s Red Bull is lurching to the inside. Wheel to wheel contact sends them spinning into the run-off. Recoverable, but they’re forced to rejoin the midfield with only ten laps remaining. The best George can do is rip past the checkered flag one position ahead of Max in P7.

The thing is – George hadn’t lost control. There’d been no issues with understeer to report before or after, the console hadn’t jumped under his damp gloves. It was as if – and his mouth flattens into a pained line – the car had moved on its own.

From where Max is resolutely not meeting his gaze in the line-up for the weigh-in, he has the feeling it might be mutual.

--

The biggest consequence of their contact, once Marcus has passed on the no further investigation ruling over the radio, is a strained neck muscle that has him stacking pillows and jamming his shoulder up against his ear at night to mitigate the pain. Max is always leaving him little gifts, like this. Headaches that keep his tiny plastic bottles of paracetamol in the bathroom cabinet busy, raised blood pressure that gets him lectures from his performance coach on ways to reduce the sodium in his diet, as if it doesn’t already exclusively consist of steamed chicken breast and plain, chewy brown rice. It’s quite thoughtful, really, for him to have taken the next step to actual physical injury. A sweet acknowledgement of their deepening relationship.

He books a massage at a place that Alex recommends, three blocks away from his condo – he’s in the market after his stable choice had been served legal papers for doing an AMA on Reddit and getting overly descriptive about a client who groaned awkwardly at an inopportune moment one time and also drives cars for a living. In his defence, he’d not had his leg bent at such an angle in an embarrassingly long time.

He avoids similarly humiliating himself with the elderly Croatian man who nearly breaks his neck in that deliciously sadistic way only a physiotherapist can manage and catches himself whistling as he makes his way back through the parking garage, the chirp of his Mercedes when he presses the fob guiding him through the showroom of nearly identical luxury vehicles.

Stops whistling, abruptly, when he spies the gaudy, oversized Jeep Wrangler parked far too closely to his baby, a no-fucking-chance-I-didn’t-ding-you distance between the doors. He storms over, squats down in front of the passenger side and cranes his neck abruptly enough to re-strain the muscle, a hand coming up to slap at the twinge and a hiss through his teeth.

“Incredible,” he seethes, as his eyes narrow in on the thin scratch exactly where he expected to find it, right where the edge of the Jeep’s door would align perfectly if thrown open abruptly and without consideration of his surroundings by the type of caveman who would drive a Jeep Wrangler. “Perfect.”

“Uh - get the fuck away from my car.”

George shoots up, elbow cranking painfully on the underside of his side mirror as he spins on a heel to face –

Oh, come on.

“This is your Jeep?”

Max balks, gym bag dropping from his shoulder and catching on his forearm with the surprise of George Russell crouching like a car thief in the narrow space between vehicles. “What the fuck? Are you stalking me?”

“No!”

“Stealing my car then? Don’t tell me Mercedes is paying you based on merit.”

“Like I’d be caught dead driving a Wrangler,” George chokes out, outraged, ears hot. “How obnoxious do you have to be? Lots of off-roading in downtown Monaco, then?”

“Pot and kettle,” Max hits back, finger pointed at George’s Mercedes, as if any degree of flash on his end is at all comparable. It’s brand cohesion, obviously, anyway.

“That’s not how you say that,” George steps aside, hips dragging against the unwashed side of the Jeep, eugh. “I don’t particularly care what you think of my car, Verstappen. I care about the cheque you’re going to write me for damaging it.”

Max squints, dropping his gym bag unceremoniously on the concrete to free himself up to move into the space, a hand on the roof of George’s Mercedes to stabilize himself as he leans down to inspect. “What damage?”

“The chunk of missing paint you’re staring directly at.”

“Chunk,” Max scoffs, fingernail tracing the scratch. “Drama queen. You could buff this out with one of your beauty things, those face massagers.”

“I do not - ” he snaps his mouth shut. He does, got one for Christmas last year. “Max, you’re paying for this.”

“Who even has cheques,” Max objects, then waves a dismissive hand in George’s face when George’s nose scrunches, gearing up. “Of course you do. Are they personalized? Little shirtless Georges on them?”

George’s nose remains scrunched. “I’ll invoice you.”

“We can call it even for the damage on my Red Bull.”

“You’re joking.” He’s wearing his usual expression, though, blank and impassive with undertones of detestation. Ah, so he’s getting the one reserved for the media room. “We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you weren’t incapable of opening a car door like a bumbling goon.”

Max barks a laugh, mouth stretching wide. George leans away from it, arms crossed, the line of his back along the window of Max’s driver seat.

“How about your parking, huh? It’s a miracle you don’t get starting penalties every race. It’s so bad it must be on purpose, so you can yap at people when they ding you. Is it your pick-up line? Bat your eyelashes, write me a cheque?”

George keeps his eyes wide, consciously unblinking. “I’m parked within the line.”

“You’re parked on the line, mate. This is, like, a sixty-degree angle.”

Max taps his back tire with his boot for emphasis. George takes a rushed step across the narrow space to block both Max’s physical access to his vehicle as well as his vantage point of his – maybe – shoddy parking job. He kicks Max’s foot away with his own sambas. “Can you not kick my car, you big gorilla?”

A shock of laughter, again. He knocks his ankle against George’s in retaliation, leaving George with no choice but to drive his knee into the side of his thigh. Max huffs, a sharp oof, and pushes at George’s right shoulder until it hits the top of his Mercedes, which George repays in kind with a shove of his own, hands splayed on Max’s collarbone as he sends him stumbling into the door of his Jeep.

“Jesus!” Max yelps, the corners of his lips upturned with delight. “That’s a ding for sure!”

“You’re ridiculous,” George denies, chest heaving, eyes mapping uneasily the mirth crinkling Max’s. He moves in, stiff neck craning to scan for imperfections. "It's fine."

Max snickers, and then there are two palms curling around either side of George’s waist, warm and heavy through the breathable cotton of his shirt, moving him back against his Mercedes and holding him in place as he sidles past before releasing him with a quick pinch to his hip. George allows himself to be moved like a doll, heaving chest stilled from the surprise. If Max notices the effect he’s achieved he doesn’t let on, just bends to grab his gym bag and pops his trunk to toss it in.

“I’ll transfer you. You can even throw in the tire,” he teases. He slides past George again, the fronts of his thighs dragging against George’s own in the narrow space. George shuffles automatically to allow Max to pull his driver side door open, performatively delicate, knuckles wrapped around the edge that brush George’s bicep when he’s got it as far as it’ll go, feather-light. “Stay away from my cars, Russell.”

“Drive into a ditch,” George replies, faintly, airily, eyes staring wide and unfocused at Max’s responding grin. He doesn’t blink when the door slams shut with the kind of force that would get Max docked a star in an Uber, the ham-handed oaf.

Once he’s torn out of his spot and out of eyeline, George wanders around to the back of his car, head canted at the same angle of his parking job. Alright, well.

Hisses and slaps a hand against his neck, applying pressure to the painful twinge.

--

George requests a thorough inspection of the W16 once he’s plead his case about the bizarre handling issues, and then a dismantling and re-assembling of his steering console once the car inspection turns up nothing strange.

“Everything looks normal,” one of the mechanics informs him, shoulders shrugging helplessly, the fabric of his fireproofs drawing tight at the movement. “You sure you aren’t moving the wheel, maybe subconsciously? No judgment here - I’d want to hit that guy, too, if I were you.”

George offers him a withering stare from where he’s leaned against a column, arms folded against his chest, the top half of his own fireproofs hanging loose around his waist. “I’m fairly certain."

Another shrug, this time accompanied by a disbelieving raise of a single eyebrow. “Maybe it’s possessed, then.”

--

It pisses him off, in the moment. None of the mechanics taking him seriously, as usual, what’s new there. Tease George about ghosts, sure, since he must be losing it.

In Suzuka, though. He finds he’s getting desperate enough to entertain the idea of a Ouija board. Five second drive-through for the move on Verstappen in the hairpin, Marcus tells him, tone overly relaxed to mitigate the oncoming barrage.

“It’s unbelievable, mate,” George is complaining, a gloved finger holding down the radio button as he weaves through the S curves. “The car is bloody broken, I told you. What would I gain from forcing him off there?”

Max drives it home to P1, but the victorious fist-pump is moot, once his own five second penalty is applied for pushing George off his racing line ten laps after his own drive-through, a brief kiss of their front tires. An employee sheepishly drags the first-place marker over to Lando’s car for a swap.

“Hope your little revenge was worth it,” George ribs in passing in parc fermé, but it’s more miserable than goading, muffled by the helmet. The rage he expects in response isn’t there either, Max’s shoulder’s slumped as he watches the P2 marker get positioned against the nose of his car.

“I don’t know what the fuck is happening,” he intones, lifelessly. “The car is fucking - ”

“Possessed?”

Max cants his head to the side, eyes exhausted through the visor, where they catch on George’s own. “Boo.”

--

“I think, Laura, the storyline we’re all interested to see play out this weekend is the one unfolding between Max Verstappen and George Russell this season. I mean, the vitriol between these two has been unbelievable, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up despite the loss of a race win for Verstappen in Suzuka. I know we’re only arrived at the sixth race of the season, but these two seem bizarrely content to tank their chances for the championship over this – whatever this is, we’re not even sure!”

“If you’d have told me, James, that both drivers would be unable to participate in Q3 of Qualifying in Bahrain because of a perfectly avoidable collision during the pit lane exit, I’d have said you were out of your mind.”

“And they’re adamant to the press that there’s no feud, no bad blood. Has anyone told them that?”

“Well, their mechanics are sure hoping they’ve gotten the message. The FIA has reported that both the Red Bull and the Mercedes have been re-built from the plank-up for Miami weekend at the insistence of both drivers. The team accountants can only pray that they’ve also rewired the driver’s tempers, while they’re at it.”

“We’re going to hand it over to Ruth, now, who’s standing by at the Red Bull garage to take us through the engineer’s reporting of no issues in the car, despite some colourful driver complaints over the radio. Ruth?”

--

George doesn’t know how else to put it: in Miami, the car is mad at him.

He loses a second every other straight, despite the new power unit. It oversteers like crazy in qualifying, and then the handling goes back to normal during the race, after they’d made a set-up change tailored to the issue that now puts him at a disadvantage. It’s not enough to drop him to the middle of the pack, mercifully, but it’s enough to keep him in a middling, frustratingly consistent P6 until the final lap, where a sudden and unexplainable drop in pace allows Kimi to sail past in the last turn before the checkered flag.

Goes to slam the steering console in frustration and catches himself mid-air, gloved fingers tucked into a fist, because what if hitting it upsets it further, and oh, Christ, he’s completely losing it.

His only solace had been, on lap thirty-four, catching a glimpse of Max beached in the gravel, delivering a smooth kick to the left-rear tire of his own car.

“Alright,” he tries, stilted, humiliated, radio firmly disengaged. What Herbie-style break with sanity has he allowed himself to be brought low to? But, if nobody has to know: “I’m sorry for taking you apart. I’m sure it wasn’t a nice experience. Only needed changes, from now on.”

He feels like a moron in the responding silence of the cooldown lap.

--

George takes advantage of the two-week break before Italy and lingers in Miami for a few days, a mental health respite heavily advised (ordered) by Toto, with full use of his principal’s beachside condo. There’s an uneasy undercurrent to his enjoyment of Toto’s thousand-dollar espresso maker, his guest pass to his exclusive members-only pool club with the swim-up bar, all of it subtitled with a: perk usage dependent on dropping this car-based hysteria. Enjoy the creamy macchiato while you can, because it’ll be your last year if you crash into Max Verstappen one more time.

It almost works. The sauna cycles, marine collagen-sea moss smoothies and Miami sun are soothing enough to have him convinced his mysterious car troubles are behind him, were a figment of an overactive subconscious desire to see the nose of Max’s car lodged in a wall of rubber tires, even. He settles down on a stool at the fancier of Miami International’s airport bars, light with optimism, baseball cap pulled low even though Americans are typically the least likely to recognize him in public.

“You know your disguise has the Mercedes logo on it, right?”

George feels the load-bearing espresso machine fall away, mental health toppling at the loss of its metaphysical support. Max unceremoniously drops his duffel on the floor between them as he slings a too-tight denim clad leg over the next stool, his own disguise a plain white shirt and a soft-looking black hoodie, black cap logo-less. It must kill him, George thinks, resignedly, to not be able to wear the Red Bull golf shirt.

“Why?” George asks, simple, all-encompassing. The bartender slides his martini over on a little napkin. “Why didn’t you leave with everyone else?”

There’s a tightness in Max’s shoulders, eyes gone evasive as he flips through a menu standee for drink specials, even though he’s going to order a gin and tonic. “Christian told me to relax.”

George huffs a dejected laugh, more a series of sharp exhales through his nose. “Ah, yeah, so we’re both on notice.”

“I’m not on anything you’re on,” Max objects nonsensically, flagging down the bartender with a rude wave. “I’ve thought about it a lot, also.”

“Oh, good, you’ve thought about it. Alert our top engineering minds.”

Max scowls, doesn’t spare George a flicker of his annoyed glance as he barks double gin at the bartender, predictably, and then matter-of-factly, once he’s gone: “you need to leave the grid.”

George’s finger stills on the toothpicked olive he’d been swirling around his glass. “Beg your pardon?”

“Do you see my car swerving into Gasly?” Max plows ahead, that same patronizingly even tone. “Alonso? Kimi, even? You’re causing this, to fuck with my race.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s not exactly helping my place in the standings, either. A little self-sacrificial, just for your sake, don’t you think?”

Max shrugs, like I don’t understand your motivations, either. “You’re very weird about me.”

“How do you fit your ginormous ego inside your helmet?” George hisses, pulling the toothpick out of his olive to better point it threateningly in Max’s direction, for emphasis. “How are you not disqualified at the weigh-ins with the size of your delusion?”

“You know, Russell, these adjectives you use for me – ”

“Who taught you the word adjective?”

“ – always big, ginormous, size. I’m thinking you’re concerned with something else disqualifying me during the weigh-ins.”

George’s forehead is burning, is humiliatingly sure the highs of his cheekbones have flushed red, can feel the heat of it just underneath his eyes. He knocks back his martini to cool off, catching the olive with his teeth and spitting it back into the glass. “You’re disgusting.”

Max grins, all taunt, all cruelty, leaning into the elbow he’s propped on the bar-top to push himself further into George’s space, voice lowered: “don’t worry about that, gorgeous. They factor it in.”

The flush on his cheekbones spreads lower, his collarbone hot, the waistband of his trousers suddenly tight on his hips. He stabs the olive with the toothpick again, just to fling it at Max. That ugly, thin-lipped grin lights up his face when it splats against the chest of his white shirt, leaving a brine stain before falling to the floor and rolling underneath his seat. George scrapes his own barstool back; leather weekender bag snatched from the seat beside him as he gathers himself.

“You can pay for my drink,” he decides, smoothing out the wrinkles on his own shirt, an excuse to tug the fabric away from his heated skin. “Only fair to be reimbursed for time spent in your company.”

“I think you like my company,” Max retorts, being a dick for the sake of it. His hand reaches across them, taking the hem of George’s shirt between two fingers and fanning it back and forth, a sliver of George’s stomach exposed to the pumped-in air conditioning before he rips himself away. "Hot in the collar?"

"That’s not how you say that.”

“You didn’t even let me eat your olive.”

“You are the world’s biggest – ”

Max points a finger again, eyes crescent with joy, nose bunched. “Aha!”

George presses his lips together, a high, frustrated sound dissipating against the roof of his mouth. He slings his bag onto his shoulder and resolutely pivots, long strides away from the gigantic dick that – God damn it.

“I’ll invoice you!” Max calls, when George hits the moving walkway. He lowers the brim of his Mercedes hat at the handful of looks shot his way.

--

Yes, of course, Max plops into the seat next to him on the flight. George raises the divider when Max throws him a cheeky smile and slips his cushiony eye mask down to the bridge of his nose. No Max Verstappen, only blissful, all-encompassing darkness.

When the plane lands, he’ll make him carry his bag down the aisle.

--

His debasing car whispering in Miami does not go unappreciated in Imola, if he’s to entertain the ludicrous idea of a ghost haunting his front wing and tires.

“I bet you were a driver,” he’s chattering to himself on lap fourty-two, hitting the apex perfectly as he navigates the Tosa, not a hint of over or understeering. “From way back in the day, when it was all old soldiers with a death drive. I bet you were tenths of a second away from cinching the title, and some hotshot piece of work that only you could see through snatched it away from you at the last moment. Had to take an evasive move from his lunge that sent you flying over the hay bales. No seatbelt, back then, of course. Dead on impact.”

Navigating Piratella, now, perfect again. Gap to Verstappen .831, Marcus chimes in over the radio. DRS coming up.

“So now you’re in my engine,” George continues. “Not the battery, you wouldn’t care for that, I’m sure. Bet you don’t care for the engine, either – bit of a sad, puttering thing compared to the old sound. Took you a minute to warm up to me, but now we’ve understood each other.”

He snaps out of Max’s slipstream, rocketing up alongside him, DRS opened. Max pushes, using everything to make it to turns fourteen and fifteen on a racing line that’ll force George back. Except –

“Back off!” he’s shouting, as if Max’ll hear him over the roar of the wind against his helmet. He’s got it, he’s got the line, Max has to fall back, only he feels it, then. Like a gravitational pull between his bargeboard and Max’s front-right tire. There’s nothing doing – the steering column offers no resistance, no need for correction, the car is simply defying mechanics to drag him into a collision.

He tries the unthinkable, the painful last resort of giving up the line to Max, but the car is unresponsive. He could take his hands off the wheel, and it would still go its merry way. He risks a glance beside him, and Max is slamming both hands against the wheel, then raising one to George, a sharp wave he interprets to mean go ahead of me. Hell’s frozen over for him too, then.

They make contact. George spins one-eighty and stops, helpless to wait until three cars have zipped past him to safely turn and rejoin. Max follows close behind – too close, the nose of his car punting George’s rear wing in one last peck. That’s not the problem, though – front-left puncture, Marcus shouts over radio static. Box this lap, box this lap.

There’s his fucking race, gone. He drags the car to the pit lane and loses ten more places with not enough laps remaining to properly carve his way back up.

“Changed my mind,” George says, clipped, tight. “You were never going to cinch the title. I hope it wasn’t death on impact. I hope you felt it. Get out of my engine.”

Sorry, repeat? Marcus cuts in. George rips his hand away from where it had drifted onto the radio button.

“Shit,” he hisses, then presses down again. Please don’t broadcast that. “I – uh, I said the engine felt weird.”

--

“P1 to P10, Max,” Lawrence Barretto starts, that genuine empathetic lilt to his words and brow soothing the statement. “That has to hurt, I know. Did you feel the risk with Russell in turn fifteen was necessary to keep the position, at the time?”

“No, it was terrible, obviously, a very stupid move. I would have gotten the place back in the next turn, there was no need to push him there.”

Lawrence blinks, taken aback. “So why - ”

“Why, I wish I could tell you why. I’m sick of it. The car is possessed, or something, I dunno. George thinks the same.”

“George Russell believes his car is haunted?”

Max scowls. “I didn’t say haunted, did I? I said possessed.”

“Right,” Lawrence agrees, slowly. “Thanks for your time, Max.”

--

“Thanks for telling everyone I think my car is possessed,” George drawls, dry and annoyed. It’s less of a drawl and more of a shout, really, as he makes himself heard over the pounding bass. “I’m loving all of the edits of me on ghost hunting shows. My Instagram comments are unsalvageable. A proper legacy you’ve left me, that. Ta.”

They’re at some club in Monaco for Alex’s belated birthday, postponed to a date where Lando could secure the DJ position and, less party-critical, Lando had joked, to when Lily had finished with a golf tour. If George were in a physical and mental state that permitted relaxing, he might even describe it as nice: half the grid in attendance and on the dance floor, currently surrounding Alex in a circle, egging him on as he pretends like he’s going to drop to the ground and do the worm.

A nice time – so naturally Max is on his own in a corner booth, sulking, pouted lips half-concealed by the rim of his glass. George can smell the gin before he’s even sat down on the opposite side, as much space between them as the seating allows.

“I don’t, by the way,” George continues. “Think it’s haunted.”

“I didn’t say haunted,” Max grinds out, and knocks back the rest of his drink. George can hear the ice clink against his teeth.

“Why are you even here?”

“I was invited. Why are you still on the grid? I’m telling you; I think your true calling is commercials.”

George tsks, head turning to the opposite direction of where the roaming spotlights are glancing off of Max’s artfully dishevelled hair. He’s been growing it out, a bit, George has noticed. “This again. Used to having everyone roll over for you, are you?”

Snaps his gaze back so Max can see the haughty raise of his eyebrow, but Max only smirks, his left canine peeking out between stretched lips. “Usually, yes. But could go for one more, if you’re offering.”

The faint blush crawling up George’s neck is masked by the lights flashing purple, then blue. “You’ll have to think of a more inventive way to goad me.”

“Who’s goading? I’ve thought about it - maybe my car is trying to tell me something.”

“What, that you should hit me?” George narrows his eyes; I’d like to see you try. “You should really stop doing that, you know. Thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking of hitting you, no,” Max sets his glass of melting ice down onto the cocktail table, stretches the newly free arm across the back of the seat, fingertips brushing against the skewed collar of George’s white button-up. “But you seem like you want it, huh? Wanna get that pretty face all mussed up, even though it’ll ruin your auditions.”

“Will you piss off with that?” George leans forward, upper lip curled in annoyance. Max’s fingers wander with the closer proximity, ghosting along the collar before tugging it away to drag against the side of his neck, faintly damp with the humidity of the club. His pulse jumps underneath the callouses. “I’m not going to leave the grid because of a haunted car.”

“So you think the car is haunted?”

A harsh, frustrated rush of air at the back of his throat, nearly a growl, inching forward. “I think my car hates you. I think it wants you dead.”

“Scary,” Max murmurs, mock-serious with that canine half-smile, blunt fingernails tracing down the line of skin exposed by the top two undone buttons of his shirt, glancing his collarbone, then further down his chest, which heaves with anger. A trail of goosebumps left in their wake. “What else does your car want?”

Max pops the third button, and George snaps back to his senses, shoving his hand away. Opportune timing, as Alex approaches, a large, round glass of something blue sloshing in his hand.

“Can you not fight at my birthday?” he requests, polite and sloshed, dropping down beside George and throwing his free arm around his shoulders. “You’re boring us all to death with it, you know. Take the night off.”

“Your birthday was over a month ago,” George points out, a wan, tight frown.

“I’m just trying to get George to dance,” Max chimes in, octave high and innocent, accent heavy with gin. Alex turns into him, brow drawn with faint concern, limbs wobbly. George rescues the glass from his hold and deposits it safely onto the table.

“You won’t dance, Georgie? You love to dance.”

“He’s lying,” George explains, patiently.

“Right,” Alex agrees, shoulders relaxing. “That makes sense.”

“Hey – alright, come on then,” Max pushes himself to his feet, one hand braced on the table for stability, the other outstretched in front of George’s face, fingers curled in a beckon. “Let’s go, Georgie.”

George smacks his hand away, again. “Not a chance, Verstappen.”

“Enough,” Alex declares, with a sudden burst of lucidity. He moves to stand, the arm around George’s shoulder tightening and pulling him up along with him. George follows dutifully, a counterweight palm on Alex’s midsection to keep him from stumbling. “Peace on Earth. Peace in the club.”

He drags them both trippingly to the throng of people either shuffling stiltedly from side to side or throwing themselves around with drunken gracelessness, arms draped around necks to pull the shufflers in close. Max trails closely behind like a slasher movie, fingers occasionally grazing at the side of George’s hip like a machete or a chainsaw whenever Alex’s attention gets caught on a passing well-wisher. It’s already five degrees hotter on the outskirts of moving bodies, and George has always been weak in the sticky heat, skin buzzing and mind hazy without the reprieve of a cooling vest.

Alex twists out of his grasp to shake his hips, too heavy in one direction to be smooth, head lolling blissfully to the breakbeat Lando’s spinning. George is stiff with the awareness of Max at his back – a stilted shuffler, absolutely, no doubt – and Alex misinterprets this as being a bummer, saying as much before reaching out to spin him, inelegant and stumbling and giddy. George goes along, Alex’s wheezing laugh infectious enough to draw a matching smile from him, right up until Alex releases him unceremoniously and his missed footing is caught by an unwelcome, brutish palm on his elbow.

“My drink!” Alex proclaims, a disproportionate expression of panic as he takes off through the crowd in the direction of their abandoned table. George stands uselessly, watching as he disappears.

Standing uselessly, that is, until he feels the palm at his elbow drift down along his side, settling heavy on the waistband of his slacks. He shucks it off with a harsh jut of his hip, tearing around to scowl at the shine in Max’s eyes.

“What are you playing at?” he demands. “Half the grid is here.”

“I’m just dancing,” Max replies blithely, always so reasonable. The hand is back on him, just above the curve of his ass, pulling him in closer, Max shifting his weight back and forth in what could, by legal definition, be considered dancing. “You love dancing.”

George grinds the heel of his palm into the front of Max’s right shoulder, painful, pushing, but Max holds tight, fingers splaying and anchoring into the dip of his back, like a good massage. George arches imperceptibly into the pressure points.

“I’m not surprised this is what you consider dancing.”

Max sways him against the beat and vibe of the song playing, the negligible gap between their chests brushing closed at every other angle. George realizes, faintly, that he’d forgotten to do up the button Max had popped out.

“Not like you’re helping,” Max volleys back, the buckle of his belt digging into the joint of George’s hip, a spark of friction. “It’s like holding an angry cat.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” George smiles, false and mean, before bringing his heel down on Max’s right foot. He hisses in pain, and then grins, huffing laughter when George tries again, and again, feet tripping out of the way. It’s closer to real dancing, now, a comical imitation of a two step, Max’s hand moving from the back of his waistband to tighten around his shoulder, keeping them stable. George’s hands fisted in the fabric of Max’s shirt sleeves – strategically, to position his stomping.

“Okay, okay – ow,” Max snaps, a quick rush of air through his teeth. His grip on George’s shoulder releases to turn him roughly around, the surprise of it making George pliant when his back thumps against Max’s chest, Max’s forearm snaked around his stomach, fingers hooked around his waist to keep him there. “Settle down.”

He starts to sway again, annoyingly off beat. George grinds back to force him to move in time, directing the pace, hips dragging against the rough denim of Max’s jeans.

“Alex’ll be back any second,” he murmurs, after a song of this, eyes-half lidded against the flashing lights. Weirdly loose-limbed and overheated, vaguely aroused at the scrape of a zipper against his ass, the back of his shirt damp with body heat, his or Max’s, he’s not sure.

A bead of sweat tracing a line from behind his ear to the crook of his neck, where Max presses his nose and lips, a disinterested mhmm into his collar at George’s warning. The grip on his waist loosens, Max’s hand roaming, fingers skimming underneath the hem of his shirt and then sliding up to the bare skin of his stomach.

George gasps at the sensation, Max’s palm weirdly cool against his feverish skin. He arches back, core tightening, the corner of his mouth brushing against the side of Max’s neck at the angle.

“Yeah?” Max rasps, nonsensical, rhetorical. His fingernails drag a slow circle around his abdomen, two fingers slipping under the tip of his waistband, dragging through wiry hair, teasing. A needy whine that George is humiliated to realize is coming from his own throat, awareness of his surroundings dangerously slipping at the obliterating feeling of Max’s hand wandering upward, now, shirt rucking, fingers brushing against a nipple, stiff with interest. “Maybe if I wreck you in front of all these people, you’ll stop wrecking my car.”

George’s brow furrows, hips stilling against Max’s grinding. “You mean you’ll stop wrecking my car.”

“Sure, if it makes you easier,” Max tosses out, that big nose pressed into George’s cheek. George can taste the gin on his breath, this close. “Whatever gets you on your knees in the bathroom, gorgeous.”

He’s jerking his head with all the force a neck trained for high speeds can carry before he can think it through, Max actually yelping when George's temple connects with the side of his jaw, smart mouth clacking shut when his teeth bite together from impact. He shoves George stumbling forward, the hand that’d been fingering at his clavicle seconds ago coming up to nurse his own chin.

“You fucking freak,” he groans, stretching his jaw in little circles. He sneers, presses a finger against the gums above his right canine, and it comes away red. Barks a laugh at the stain and rubs it clean against the white of his shirt, absentmindedly. “Fucking feral.”

It’s the delighted glint in his eyes when he says it that sparks a thrill up George’s spine, though.

“Okay!” Alex greets, pushing through a pair of girls plastered against one another, arms locked around necks, matching annoyed frowns at the disruption, matching dilated pupils. Alex holds his drink aloft as if in victory, this one a bright artificial pink. “Ready to dance.”

--

They hit their limit in Spain.

Both cars nestled sweetly against a punctured barrier of rubber tires, Max’s front wing lodged somewhere underneath the plank of George’s, a cloud of gravel dust settling over their helmets. Engines slowly whirring to silence, like a heaving chest after a good shag. What it’d all been leading up to, really: a double DNF.

“That’s - ” George starts, radio engaged, the shock of an unexpected high g-force spin tripping up his words. “I’m out.”

Neutral mode, Marcus reminds him quickly, as if he’d be likely to forget. Then, placatingly: unbelievable, mate, sorry. Just reckless.

George wipes the dust off his visor and glances over to Max, who rests his helmeted head in his hands before he’s lashing out to punch the side of the car, a short barrage that has him shaking out his glove, after. A brief flare of matching anger lights up George’s chest, and for a flash of a second he wants to scream at him for ruining their race with lurching and pushing that had bordered on violence before crossing over it entirely.

It dies in his throat, though. Fury deflating as the adrenaline from the crash seeps from his adrenal glands, leaving him aching and tired, instead.

“Enjoy the crane, then,” he says to nobody. Certainly not whatever entity is haunting his bloody car. “Always did look a bit of fun.”

--

The Marshall bracing himself on the nose of the Mercedes for weight balance nearly tumbles off with the shock of the engine roaring to life as if in protest, then grabs on to one of the clipped-in suspension ropes in a panic when the engine of the Red Bull underneath it calls for a duet.

Thanks his lucky stars he hung on – the last thing he needs is to become the butt of the joke to the other Marshalls, who already won’t stop ribbing him for his dumpy run to grab some track debris during FP2. Or worse: have it be captured by the broadcast cameras and get turned into a bunch of gifs. The flood of embarrassment-turned-relief eventually funnels into anger, and he jumps gracelessly onto the ground to confer with the other workers running frantically up to the cars.

“They didn’t put the damn things in neutral?” he’s shouting over the cacophony. “Fucking amateurs!”

--

u still at the track

Punctuation is helpful for differentiating between a question and a statement.

u still at the track, asshole?

Charming!

oh my god its like taking teeth out

That’s not how you say that. Yes, I’m still here.

where

Why is that any of your business.

u ever tell alex abt the half chub u got just from dancing w me

sorry

?

I’m in the garage. Use the emergency exit door, I’ll let you in.

--

George is in the quiet empty of the garage, crouched miserably in front of his busted car – to be repaired in England, before it’s shipped off to Canada – when he hears the knocks at the door: three fast, two slow.

He’s on his feet in an instant, aching legs offering a weak, overruled protest. Max’s hands are stuffed in his pockets when he throws it open, a disengaged casualness that drives George up the wall on sight.

“I didn’t say do a stupid knock,” he snips out as Max shoulders past him. “You’re the only person dumb enough to risk sneaking in here.”

“Let them say I’m spying,” Max shrugs. “Don’t need to copy your car when I’m faster than you.”

“I’m pretty sure we were going the same speed on our long, track side walk back to the paddock today.”

Max winces, one corner of his mouth curling down in annoyance. George lets his nervous energy carry him back to the car, pointedly rubbing a thumb against the shorn paint as if it’ll buff out. Max follows, sneakers dragging irritatingly on the concrete as he leans against the column behind him. “That’s why I’m here.”

“To apologize, I hope. How big of you.”

“Fuck off,” Max rejoins, a roll of his eyes. “It wasn’t me, it was the - ”

“The car, yes,” George interrupts, turning around fully, backside leaned blasphemously against the sidepod. “I’m familiar. Except why do I get the feeling that last move was all you?”

“Because you’re a narcissist who thinks I’m obsessed with you.”

George gestures to the garage, Max’s presence in it, the space between them. “Kinda feels like you might be, though, mate. Bit of a vibe, innit?”

“I’m not obsessed with you,” Max denies again. Then, shoulders back, with confidence: “the car is.”

George blinks. “Beg your pardon.”

Max is nodding enthusiastically, expression solemn, pushing away from the pole towards him. “I figured it out, right? Whatever’s possessing my car, it’s in love with you. Or wants to kill you, but I can only solve the other thing, sadly.”

George can feel the lines etching into his forehead from how raised his brow is. No amount of moisturizer will rescue it. “Did they take you to medical after contact?”

“Shut up, it makes sense.”

“It makes sense in the context of accepting the senseless premise that our cars are haunted.”

“Look, okay - my car is pulled to you. I can’t control it. I drive aggressive with you, I try ignoring you, it hits you. I try driving nice with you, letting you have the line even if it means you overtaking, and it still wants you. If I have to keep driving like this, George, I will break my contract and retire tomorrow, I swear to God. I enjoy seeing you in the barriers, I appreciate what the car is doing for me, with that, but I can’t be in them with you again. I’ve tried everything I can on track. The only thing left is to satisfy it.”

“Oh, my god,” George exhales, the tips of his ears burning. “And what about my car, yeah? It’s not just your ugly Red Bull knocking us about, if you haven’t noticed. How does that fit into your nonsense?”

“That’s easy,” Max answers, glib, matter-of-fact, close enough now that the fronts of his sneakers are banging into George’s, forcing him to prop both palms onto the car to better lean away. “Your car wants me, too, which is very understandable – the only thing in all of this that makes sense. It’s learned from you.”

“You’re insane. You’ll say anything to avoid apologizing. Damn it, Max.” He makes a half-hearted attempt to wriggle out of the grasp Max has on his hips, now, caging him against the car. “We need to talk actual solutions. Sit down with our mechanics, bring our teams together to share metrics and data. There has to be something we’re missing, some malfunctioning part or crossed wire or virus in the ECU - ”

Max shuts him up with a kiss, half-teeth and all top lip with George still mid-point, thick nose smushed achingly against his own. George fixes the angle with guiding, urgent fingers threading through the hair at the nape of Max’s neck, opens up for a swipe of Max’s fat tongue against his own. Max grunts his thanks, and kisses him properly stupid.

--

Minutes, no longer than a half hour, tops, later; Max’s weight bearing him as flat down as he can be across the body of the car, one hand gripping at George’s thigh where he’s hitched it up and around Max’s hip, the other holding himself up beside George’s head. George’s lips bitten and sore and slick, neck arching up to follow when Max pulls away, anyway.

“The car won’t be satisfied with just making out,” he intones, serious as anything.

“Oh, my god,” George groans, head dropping back painfully against carbon fibre. He cups his hand underneath Max’s swollen bottom lip. “Spit, please.”

--

The car drives like a dream in Canada.

Pole position that translates to a perfect, clean getaway start that translates to the top step of the podium, Max just below him, like the good Lord intended. The most pressing note: their respective cars, unscathed, just as they had been in free practice and qualifying.

The dawning horror of what this might mean: that Max Verstappen’s crazy horny supernatural nonsense theory had been correct. George dismisses this immediately, a hundred different technical, mechanical reasons for the cars to be functioning properly again, and a myriad of psychological reasons to explain the bizarre exclusivity of their collisions.

Try telling any of this to Max, though.

“Come over before we fly out to Austria,” he’s rattling away as soon as they’re far enough from the cameras, champagne dripping down his nose. George takes a thorough glance around before he swipes two fingers down it and sucks them into his mouth, licking away the sweet taste. Max pinches his waist in response. “Want to make sure the cars stay happy.”

All the way to Baku, even, George brushing his teeth in Max’s hotel bathroom, spitting out the expensive enamel toothpaste that Max packs for him, now, even though he thinks it tastes like chalk.

“The car’s felt great the last two races,” Max is calling from the other room. George wipes his mouth on a monogrammed hotel face cloth and switches the bathroom light off, bare feet cold against polished hardwood before kneeling onto the bed, dropping face-first and limp onto the pillow beside Max, similarly splayed out and leaden with post-race exhaustion. “We should fuck right before we get on the plane this time, see if that gets us an extra tenth or better tire management or something.”

“This is nuts,” George mumbles into the pillow, then drags his face across the memory foam to be able to level Max with a dubious raise of an eyebrow. “You can’t still be on this. It was mechanical. It worked itself out.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Max assures, accent gumming up his words as his eyelids droop with sleep. He rolls onto his side, cheek planted beside George’s boneless, outstretched hand. He presses dry lips against the knuckles, then nips at the side of a finger, lazily. “But we have to do it. For the cars.”

A doubtful uh-huh, George’s eyes slipping closed.

“Besides, I bought those stupid sheets you wanted.”

“Well, if you bought the sheets.”

--

Concurrently, a few blocks over: the street circuit being hastily dismantled by crews of overnight workers. The Mercedes and Red Bull garages, side by side, similarly packed away, tires stacked and covered, tarps thrown over cars to be towed into trailers in the morning. A contented hum of a power unit, audible through the thin layer of aluminum siding and returned just as lovingly, a melody in V6.