Back To Monaco

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Max was so entirely drained after the events of this weekend that all his stores of willpower, of wherewithal, of pride that he didn't have the executive functions or the mental capacity to spare on such a minor, inconsequential emotion as shame.

No, Max had long since abandoned that particular concern, too tired and too sapped to give a damn about what people thought of him, of his demotion to 5th place following his collision with Bottas and the subsequent time penalty that the stewards had handed down, nor did he spare a moment to consider what everyone, from the media to his fans to his peers across the grid, had to say about the situation he'd found himself in.

Something told Max that people didn't think too highly of his current predicament, but he couldn't bring himself to fucking fret about that at all.

He cared only for getting back to Monaco and finding a way to survive through tonight without being driven insane by the sluggish passage of time, the excruciatingly slow pace of seconds turning to minutes and those minutes into hours is only exacerbated by his bone deep desperation for Sunday to hurry up and yield itself to Monday, the darkness of night fading away into the early grey washed dawn.

All Max wanted was for it to be morning already, since morning meant it was time to check out, to get a ride to the airport and to board that flight to Nice, the one that departed from the same private hanger in the same charter plane he'd flown to Italy in, that he'd shared with Daniel and Pierre Gasly of all people.

Morning meant he could go home and Max, well Max had never been this ready to be home.

Luckily for Max and his dogged determination that he would make this work, come hell or high water, under the current circumstances, making do translates quite simply to doing whatever it takes, by going to any length necessary, to get himself and his two-year-old daughter through to morning light with as little damage done as humanly possible.

Of course, he would prefer if he and his daughter got more than five hours of sleep tonight, but he is more than willing to accept just one of them getting that deeply needed, sorely missed rest, if, and only if, while Kaia is asleep, Max can somehow manage to get a few minutes to himself.

That being said, Max wouldn't be entirely opposed to a quiet moment in select company. Of course, he'd only accept that eventuality if such an opportunity arose on its own, because as far as he's concerned, he'd already more than exceeded his personal quota for shoddy decision making and shitty fucking ideas for the weekend.

So, out of the interest of maintaining the slim margin of boundaries that remained between you and him, what little there was left that had not fallen victim to the events of this weekend, Max had come to a conclusion while he'd still been sitting at a table downstairs in the hotel's restaurant, one which he'd not been particularly fond of then and only tolerated now.

As he'd pushed his food around his plate, drowning out the steady stream of Daniel and Kaia's voices, Max had caught himself wondering where you were, and if you'd declined the invitation to eat with them that his teammate had extended to you for reasons beyond the excuses you'd given, or if you were still pissed off with him and that was why you'd declined.

After that, feeling more than a little pathetic, he'd decided that tonight wasn't about to be allowed to become a repeat of the night before.

It had been an exercise in patience to get Kaia to release the iron grip she'd had on Daniel, which had then been followed up by the absolute nightmare that had at been at first him trying to explain to his daughter why 'Uncle Dad', as she'd taken to calling him, couldn't just stay in their room with them tonight, but that had eventually become him repeating over and over, again and again, for the entirety of the time it took for them to get back to Max's hotel suite that she would see Daniel again, first thing in the morning.

Because even now, feeling as if he was waging war against the toddler, who was fighting a losing battle against the dual opposing forces of her father and sleep, the latter of which she resisted with every ounce of determination she had in her little, hard-headed body. Max had learned quite quickly that her resolve to stay awake ran bone deep, tears in her big blue eyes as she asked for her mother, for you, for Dan- essentially for anyone that wasn't him- then the same three all over again.

Remaining steadfast and still refusing outright to give in to the same temptations that had, in the end, won him over last night, Max instead put his head down and focused on the task at hand. He knew, with absolute certainty, that if he started down that path, if he let himself bundle his daughter up in his duvet and plod on down to your room, he would have a hell of a time coming back up it, if he could at all.

The fact of the matter remains the same, regardless of all else- Max absolutely cannot, under any circumstance, afford for you to become his crutch, his weakness, less he wake up one of these days to find that you are gone, only to learn then that you are something he simply cannot do without.

'Just checking in. Things running a little more smoothly than they did last night?'

Max had been under the false impression that he'd considered all possible variations of how tonight would unfold but somehow, like the fucking dumbass he is, he'd failed entirely to contemplate what now seems to be the most obvious one. He should have seen this coming, honestly, he could kick himself right now for this rather major oversight because he should have seen this coming, he should have known that this was coming.

In all the years that Max had known you, he couldn't recall a single time when you'd not been entirely oblivious to the rather confounding affect you and your infuriating ability to pop up when he least expected it, seemingly always during the moments in which he needed desperately to be out of your presence less he cross lines he didn't think you had ever or would ever wanted him to cross.

'You do realize your read receipts are on, right?'

He snorted at that, his thumbs now hovering over his screen, but they remained unmoving as he watched the little bubble pop up and then vanish three times over before he finally found the words with which to respond.

----------

In all honesty, if Max were to be brutally honest with himself about it, he would have no choice but to admit that ending up here, sleeping in the same room as you and sharing a bed, had felt like an inevitability and he'd merely been delaying the irrevocable.  

Three of Us • Max VerstappenWhere stories live. Discover now