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Australia is a disaster.
Liam pulls into parc ferme with his head low. Sweat beads on his brow, trickling down his temples, stinging where it meets raw skin of his quick bitten lips. He can feel the eyes boring into his skull through the carbon shell of his helmet. The closest thing he has to a home crowd, watching in disappointment as he fucks it—again. And with it, his security on the team.
He tries to slip away, keep his head down, disappear into the quiet of his driver room before anyone can get to him. But Christian is already there, waiting.
A hand clamps onto his shoulder, fingers digging into the divot of muscle where neck meets collarbone. The pressure pushes in, a dull ache blooming into pins and needles that crawl down his arm. Christian doesn’t let go. He lingers like the scolding of a disappointed father, the look on his face quietly devastating.
“Maybe you’re not ready, kid.” The words come soft but they cut all the same.
Liam stiffens. “I—”
Christian exhales sharply. “I don’t want you going into the rest of the season without knowing. There are talks.” Liam swallows, tries to pull away again, thinking if he doesn’t listen then it doesn’t exist. But Christian’s hold isn't letting up. He holds on tighter.
“Another swap. You and Tsunoda.” He pauses. Liam knows that pause. It’s the kind people take when they’re trying to pretend a knife to the ribs is a hug. “Just until you’re ready. We thought it best to do it by Japan.”
Liam blinks. His throat tightens. “I can race—”
“I know,” Christian says, and worse, it sounds fake, placating for a child. “But this is better. Trust me.”
That’s all Liam has ever done. Trusted. Trusted Christian, trusted Helmut Marko, trusted Red Bull Racing. Trusted that if he clawed his way up from obscurity, if he bled and broke and smiled for the cameras and said yes sir and thank you , they’d reward him for it. That they’d keep him. That he mattered.
But what has that gotten him? One race. One fucking race, and now he’s being shuffled off like a failure.
He can see the look in Max’s eyes, the accusation they would hold.
Good job, Liam. You failed. Get lost.
He feels the obscure tingle in his hands. The pins and needles in his fingers, like something pressing into his skin that isn’t there anymore. The gnawing ache deep in his gut. The restless itch in his teeth, like they’re searching for something solid to sink into.
His fingers twitch.
—
Max comes to him ahead of Shanghai.
He lingers in the doorway, worry etched into the lines of his face. Liam takes his frown under his hands, runs his thumb across the crease of his downturned mouth in an effort to soothe it.
They haven’t talked about this. The them of it all. Not properly. It’s as unspoken as anything else in Liam’s existence. But mostly, it feels like the only thing that’s actually real to him.
Max, and the blur of colours when Liam lines up beside him on the grid.
“Christian’s missing,” Max says finally. He shifts, not a flinch, but enough to show he doesn’t want the touch yet.
Liam drops his hands and steps aside, wordlessly letting him in. Max moves into the room with restless energy, a taut wire strung tight. He paces the small space Red Bull had afforded Liam ahead of his imminent sacking.
They’d ridden the elevator together, side by side in stiff silence. Max had pressed the button for Level 15. He’d waited, watching wordlessly as Liam pressed 6 and stepped off 9 floors too soon.
Now, here he is, standing in Liam’s room like he’s waiting for something. Like he needs confirmation that reality hasn’t gone off the deep end entirely.
Liam exhales, rubbing his knuckles. They’re sore, a little red around the edges. When Max stares too long, he drops his hands, shoving them into his pockets.
“Did you come to break the news?” His voice is flat. “Is it affecting the race?”
Maybe he should sound more concerned. That would be the normal response.
He furrows his brows a little more, hoping it helps.
Max’s jaw twitches. “He never arrived in China. Didn’t even catch his flight from Australia.” He hesitates, dragging a hand over the stubble along his jaw. “Did you see him after the race?”
Liam snorts, shaking his head. “I know you actually like Horner, but we both know he basically fired me last weekend. So no, Max. I didn’t go for beers with the guy.”
Max doesn’t react, but the muscle in his cheek tightens. “Yeah, well. He’s missing. People don’t just disappear, Li.”
Liam raises an eyebrow at the nickname, takes it as a shot to step closer, get into Max’s space. It’s always like this, testing limits, inching forward even as Max holds still. Max is the sun , and Liam is the planet still trying to stay in orbit.
“He’s not exactly people, is he? He’s Christian Horner .” There’s the imperceptible tremble to his fingers as they brush along Max’s shoulder. “Look, if he’s gone, it’s probably because he wants to be. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to get lost by accident.”
Max exhales sharply through his nose, shoulders tight under Liam’s touch. “Ahead of a race, really?”
Liam hesitates. He could joke, brush it off, tell Max that if Christian Horner really is missing, then maybe it’s just karma working its way out.
But there’s something in Max’s face; something uneasy and grief stricken. Something that makes twisting thorns of guilt coil in Liam’s chest.
“He’ll probably turn up,” Liam says, too casual, too quick. He shrugs. His hold on Max tightens, he lets it. “Maybe he lost his phone… missed his flight… and in a day’s time there’s going to be TikToks of Christian Horner asking F1 fans to shuttle him around.”
Max doesn’t laugh. But he doesn’t leave, either.
That night, when Max pushes Liam face down into the mattress and moves like he's trying to forget something, Liam lets him. He digs his nails into the sheets and bites down his moans. Max doesn’t mention Christian again.
Liam counts that as a win.
—
Christian doesn’t show up by first practice. Or qualifying.
And by the time the race rolls around, Red Bull is forced to appoint an interim team principal, promoting Jonathan Wheatley from sporting director.
The paddock buzzes with speculation, questions Red Bull refuses to answer. The journalists get hungry and impatient. They turn to Max, pushing into his space, probing for any hint of the truth. They’re gnawing for a reaction, waiting for Mad Max to come back.
But all they get is silence. Max is a wall, his grief already etched into the lines of Liam’s hotel room sheets, buried deep in the soft cotton of his sleep shirt.
The team carries on, as if nothing is wrong. As if the absence of their team principal isn’t a gaping hole in the structure. No one dares speak it aloud.
China goes just as spectacularly as Australia for Liam—meaning it’s a disaster. But he finishes ahead of Yuki, which he counts as a small win. Barely.
The only saving grace comes when Jonathan pulls him aside ahead of their two-week break before Japan.
“Look,” Jonathan says, arms crossed, voice even. “Given the circumstances, Red Bull feels that changing drivers mid-season would be too… destabilising.”
Liam’s heart ricochets in his chest.
Jonathan’s expression softens just slightly. “Don’t let it go to waste.”
“Right,” Liam mutters, his voice tight. “I won’t.”
He watches Jonathan walk away. He stays frozen in place long after the footsteps fade.
Because he’s still in the car.
Still revolving around Max.
And he’ll do anything to stay that way.
—
It only takes a week for Helmut Marko to start running his mouth.
Liam’s in Milton Keynes, buried in sim reports and telemetry, grinding through laps that don’t exist just to prove he’s worth the air he’s taking up in Red Bull’s simulator bay. Max is back in Monaco. The absence of him feels like a persistent itch under Liam’s skin.
He’s running sector comparisons when his phone buzzes. The notification pinging with one of a dozen alerts he’s set for any mention of his name in the F1 press. He picks it up without thinking, thumb swiping in muscle memory, expecting another recycled article or podcast snippet.
Instead, his eyes catch on a headline, and then the image: Helmut Marko and Liam side by side, a photo from the week before. He taps into the article, brows knitting.
“Lawson entered a downward spiral. It is like a stricken boxer—once you're on the canvas, it is hard to get back up. In that sense, it was a mistake.”
Liam’s stomach turns. He keeps reading.
“We need to find a stronger second driver. We shouldn’t allow Christian’s absence to stagnate the team’s development. At this stage, a driver swap is still a possibility.”
The words land like body shots. Each sentence hammering into his ribs until his breath grows shallow.
He knows Helmut’s approval was conditional, everyone in the Red Bull junior program knows that. You’re only as good as your last lap or your last race. But this? This is a public execution. This is final.
He stares at the screen, the blue light casting sharp angles across his face. His fingers are still trembling when he closes the tab. He doesn’t realise he’s holding the phone too tight until it slips from his grip, hits the floor and skitters across the linoleum.
He picks it up. The back is scratched. His reflection is warped in the black mirror of the screen.
Liam doesn’t know who he’s looking at.
The phone hits the far wall with a hard, cracking thud. Plastic and glass splintering. It hits the floor with a muted clatter.
Silence.
His chest heaves. His jaw aches. He hadn't realised he was clenching it so tight. Blood roars in his ears.
Liam replays it all. Every moment he’s been under Helmut’s thumb. About every time he let him think he had a shot. Every moment of praise twisted into a noose. Every time he gave him just enough to keep him compliant and hungry, dangling the Red Bull seat in front of him like a prize for obedience.
He exhales slowly, collecting the shattered pieces of his phone, one by one.
He’ll get another. He’ll keep the alerts on.
He tells himself he has to know, because in the end, it’s the push he needs.
—
In Japan he qualifies P12 and drags himself by his teeth up to P8. The points feel like a vindication.
Helmut claps him on the back afterward, offers up morsels of praise like he’s feeding a dog, and invites him to dinner with the engineers. Liam goes. He smiles when prompted, nods at the right moments. It’s easier than resisting.
By Bahrain, time has picked up again. The storm around seat swaps has quieted; the unease that dogged every debrief and corridor glance has settled.
Something inside Red Bull has shifted.
The points come a little easier. Liam breathes a little deeper.
Over the weekend, Liam watches Max closely. Sees the way fire stirs behind his eyes again, how he starts smiling more easily the further they get from Australia.
Eventually, Max knocks on Liam’s door with a half-empty bottle of Scottish gin; Liam’s almost certain he smuggled it in on his own plane. His smile is crooked, loose in a way that tells Liam he’s already had a few sips since they left each other after dinner.
That night’s celebrations—Max’s P2, Liam’s P5—had been quieter than expected. Helmut’s seat at the dinner table had sat conspicuously empty.
Something about a health scare. Sudden. Vague on the details.
Max’s hand had settled on Liam’s knee beneath the table, warm and familiar in a way that made Liam feel seen and owned all at once.
He’d leaned in, voice low, to ask GP, “Have you heard anything else?”
Liam had stared at his water glass, at the way condensation slid down the side like a slow countdown. He hadn’t asked. He didn’t need to.
He already knew.
Now, Max holds the bottle aloft with a sharp smile. “Double points,” he says. “Come on, you’ve earned at least half a drink.”
Liam leans in the doorway, eyes half-lidded. The mini-bar vodkas have numbed the static that’s been spinning in his skull since Japan. Quieted only by Max’s presence and the slow, dawning realisation that his seat is safe.
“Think I’m already ahead of you,” he murmurs.
“Not a race,” Max says, stepping past him into the room, his breath warm across Liam’s lips as he leans in, “for once.”
Later, Max presses him into the wall and sinks to his knees. He takes Liam’s cock into his mouth like he’s trying to blind out his own thoughts.
When Liam doesn’t ramble like he usually does, just keeps his hands in Max’s hair, not pulling, not guiding. Max pauses, only slightly, just enough to glance up at him.
“You okay?” Max asks quietly.
Liam’s breath hitches. His fingers twitch against Max’s scalp. “No.”
There’s a flicker in Max’s eyes and he laughs, low and bitter, pressing a kiss to the inside of Liam’s thigh. “Good.”
The musk of himself on Max’s lips tastes like something Liam won’t name. But it’s close enough to victory.
—
McLaren’s 1–2 and a DNF for Liam is punctuated by the news of Helmut Marko’s death.
Miami is hot, the air thick enough to chew. Sweat pools under the seams of Liam’s team jersey, but he barely feels it. He’s too busy staring across the debrief table at Max.
Max, whose face might as well be carved from granite. His jaw ticks, a telltale jump under the meat of his cheek with every not-so-subtle grind of his teeth.
When the engineers wrap up and start filing out, GP tries to catch Max’s arm with a quiet, “Hey, you good?” But Max shakes him off and slips out through the side door, vanishing down the corridor before anyone can follow.
That night, Liam knocks on his hotel door. Once. Twice. No answer.
The next morning, he finds out Max left before sunrise. Took a private flight back to the Netherlands without telling anyone.
Liam moves through the time between Miami and Imola like a ghost in his own skin. They don’t text, never really did, not unless it was about meeting up in hotel rooms or about team orders. But he still checks. Watches the green dot blink in and out on Max’s profile.
He spots a blurry fan video from Nuremberg. Max, racing under a fake name, helmet off in the pit lane, face half-shadowed and unreadable. Storm clouds behind the eyes.
Imola comes and goes without consequence.
Liam finishes outside the points. Max wins.
The gap to the McLarens narrows, inch by inch. Max closing in.
In Monaco, Liam finds out why Max is so distant. Jos Verstappen is back in the paddock. With Christian and Helmut gone, the garage has developed a power vacuum. Jos fills it like a ghost no one invited, always a few feet behind Max, breathing down his neck.
It’s media day when Liam stops short, just outside the entrance to the garage, catching his own name in a voice that makes his stomach drop.
“—he’s a kid. He’s not a serious number two.”
“He’s gotten points—
“Points?” Jos scoffs. “That’s not success. You’re a world champion. And with Marko gone, this team’s done winning titles. You know that. I’ve got Toto on the phone. Mercedes wants you. You need to think about yourself now. About those eight wins. You hear me?”
There’s some scuffling. Liam leans around the corner just in time to see Jos grab Max by the back of the neck, his fingers curled tight, thumb digging in like he’s reminding Max where the leash is.
Max winces. Maybe it hurts. Maybe he’s just bracing for an impact he expects.
“You’ll do it,” Jos says, voice low. “If you know what’s good for you.”
Liam’s hand twitches. Every part of him is screaming to intervene, to say something, to snap the cord between them but he doesn’t. Because he knows what comes next if Max walks.
Knows what the headlines will say. Knows Red Bull won’t make him their number one. He can’t afford to lose Max—not just to Mercedes, but at all. Max is the reason for all of it. Without that. Liam swallows down the bitter grit of the thought.
So Liam does what he’s always done. He swallows the truth, smooths the edges, and lets the storm pass.
He turns around and walks back the way he came.
—
Jos continues to shadow Max as the year drags on.
And Max begins to drive like he's trying to outrun something. The penalties stack up—track limits, impeding, weaving—but so do the wins. Monza. Qatar. Mexico. São Paulo. It doesn’t matter what they throw at him. He keeps winning.
Liam, meanwhile, can barely hold pace. He scrapes points. Sometimes finishes just behind Max, other times not even close. The gap widens. The pressure mounts.
Red Bull is in too much chaos for the old whispers to return, but the instability births new ones. The kind where Max wears black or green or red, steps out of a different car, and still wins.
By Austin, Max starts turning up at Liam’s door again. He’s thinner now, worn to the wire, shadows etched so deeply under his eyes they look bruised.
Liam lets him in.
Lets him press him down into hotel mattresses and bathroom counters and the hard floor by the windows and take whatever he needs.
Holds him through it, fingers brushing over the salt-tracks of dried tears along Max’s cheeks. Soothes the sharp edges, even when it leaves him hollow.
Weeks pass like this. The end of the season looms. Everyone's tired, frayed at the seams.
Then, in Abu Dhabi, the news breaks.
Jos Verstappen’s Aston Martin veers off the road near Yas Marina and sinks into the harbour. No brake lights. No skid marks. Just silence and water.
He finds out before Max does. Watches the news alert pop up on his phone while Max is still being ushered through media rounds, champagne still wet on his race suit.
When the ball drops, Liam is the first person Max seeks.
He doesn’t knock.
The door opens, and Max stands there, eyes bloodshot, still wearing his fireproofs from the podium, half-unzipped, like he’d crawled straight off the track and just kept going. He’s a five-time world champion now, but there’s nothing celebratory in him.
Liam had DNF’d after a collision with Oscar late in the race, giving Max the clear line to finish first and clinch the title. His engineer had asked if he did it on purpose.
He’d denied it.
Now, Liam says nothing. He just steps back to let Max in.
“He’s dead.” His voice cracks halfway through. “They pulled the car out. Empty bottle in the passenger seat.”
Liam nods slowly, the air thick between them.
“I’m sorry,” he says, soft and low.
Max doesn’t look at him. He walks past, jaw tight, arms caught between clenching his fists or crossing over his chest like a barricade.
Before Liam can get his bearings, Max is on him, backing him into the wall, stealing the breath from his lips. The kisses are harsh broken things, too many teeth that rip along the already rough broken lines of Liam’s mouth. Max tastes like champagne and metal and something sickly sweet that might be guilt.
He’s barely prepped, his body aching sore from the night before. But that doesn’t matter, not when Max is breathing into his space. Claiming him with his teeth and tongue and cock.
Max sinks into him without gentle reverence. No grace. Just a guttural, gasping need. Bottoming out with the speed of a man starved, clawing for meaning in someone else’s skin. His hands come up, fingers curling around Liam’s throat and holding.
“They told me the break lines were cut.”
Max hisses it against Liam’s skin. The words jar through him, makes him frown up at Max, the daze of pleasure making his brain tick over sluggishly. There’s not enough oxygen getting to his brain, Max’s hand tightens.
It’s an accusation.
“I would never hurt you,” Liam says. It’s not a plea for absolution. It’s a rare truth.
Max’s fingers tighten. “That’s not what I asked.”
There’s engine oil caked under Liam’s fingernails and it stains Max’s back as he claws, desperate for leverage. Liam is exposed, held down, split open and at mercy, but he holds Max’s gaze, eyes wide and clear in their denial.
Max presses in more, pushes down harder on Liam’s windpipe and makes him choke. More torturously, he doesn’t stop moving. Hips still snapping, driving into him. Liam’s vision speckles. Black halos bloom and collapse. Panic surges, blurring with the violent sparks of pleasure shooting down his spine.
When his limbs start twitching, when his body begins to sag, Max lets up. Just enough. Liam gasps, dragging in air like he’s drowning. His lungs burn, but his brain clears, sharpens with the oxygen.
Then Max thrusts again. Vicious with it. Like he’s trying to punish the truth out of him.
“I didn’t do it, Max.” He gasps, licking his lips. He hikes one leg over Max’s hip, dragging him closer until they’re nose to nose. The intimacy stings. “But you needed him gone.”
Max freezes mid-thrust. His hips stutter.
“I didn’t ask for that,” Max snaps. Almost too fast.
His eyes flick away. Not in shame. Guilt marries the anger roiling in him.
“No,” Liam breathes. The word is a condemnation. He curls a hand around the back of Max’s neck, dragging him down until they’re chest to chest, until Max has no choice but to feel every tremor of him. “But maybe you didn’t stop it either.”
Their eyes lock, both of them daring the other to let up. Max continues to fuck into him until both their breath turns ragged at the edges, heat pooling low in his stomach. His cock had flagged while his blood was fighting to get to his brain, but now it’s hard again, insistently pinned between them.
There’s a glint in Max’s eyes and for a moment, Liam feels seen. Not as comfort, not as an escape. As something real. Something complicit. Not just a warm hole to use, but a mirror to the same hunger, the same rot.
Liam surges up, seizes Max’s mouth in a kiss as he comes with a small, broken cry.
—
The Yas Marina skyline barely lights the hotel room, but it’s enough for Liam to avoid stubbing his toe on Max’s discarded race boots. He mutters as he stumbles, struggling with the inside-out sleeves of a robe before creeping back toward the bed.
Max mutters in his sleep but stays dead to the world, cast in the low light with more peace than the waking world allows him. Liam watches him for a long moment, a strange ache twisting in his chest.
He shuffles to the edge of the bed and spots the suitcase nestled beside it. Digging through the mess, he finds a small, nondescript bag buried under a pile of dirty socks.
The corridor is quiet in the dead hours, lights dimmed. He moves carefully, mindful of engineers and crew in the neighbouring rooms. Down two halls, past an out-of-service ice machine, to the service corridor at the end. When he reaches the garbage chute, his grip tightens around the bag.
It feels wasteful. The thought lingers in the corner of his mind, the part that still clings to guilt like it’s earned. Like it’s a reminder that he needs.
But now Max is enough.
Clinging to Liam like a lifeline, to the Red Bull team like the only family he’s ever really known. A desperate, raw need for familiarity, for something to anchor him amidst the unraveling.
Max won’t leave him now. Not after this. And for Liam, that’s all the reminder he needs. The only consolation he dares ask for.
The bag rattles softly. Liam pulls out a small bottle and turns it over in his hand. Propranolol . His fingers tremble before he tucks it back in. Nearby, the shattered remains of an old iPhone lie forgotten, battery long dead.
He lingers on the coiled brake lines, their cords frayed to soft copper threads.
When he breathes in, the stale hotel air burns in his lungs like regret.
Liam presses the chute lever. The metallic clatter echoes down the corridor as the bag drops into the furnace below.
Taking his guilt with it.