Monday, November 12th, 2018- São Paulo, Brazil
The Morning After The Brazilian Grand Prix
"Not to be insensitive but... this is like infinitely worse than it usually is, if you don't mind my saying," Daniel feigns delicacy as he breaks the oppressive silence that's descended over the table, turning the last-minute meal before the car arrived to take the four of you to the airport into a suffocating, unwieldy affair.
"If you don't mind my saying," Max grumbles under his breath, loud enough to be heard but quietly enough for the mocking echo to be easily dismissed if Daniel feels up to being gracious this morning, which all things considered, doesn't seem to be a feat he's particularly up to in your opinion.
"Hey, don't catch an attitude with me just because things on the home front aren't doing well," he responds, shrugging dismissively, "are Mommy and Daddy fighting again-"
"Daniel, I've told you once about calling-" the pause is infinitesimal, the scantest flicker of hesitation in Max's words is so fleeting, so minute, that anyone else would fail to notice it- but you hadn't and he knows that fact instantaneously, "us that. I will not tell you a second time."
Max shoots daggers at his teammate, the agitation in his stare going from just shy of being tangible to outright hostility as he jabs repeatedly at his mostly empty bowl of fruit, his fervor making it abundantly obvious that if he had it his way, it would be Daniel, not a mangled slice of mango that he was now voraciously stabbing with his fork, each blow landing with a ruthless, vicious precision.
"Oh, how lovely," you say wryly, rolling your eyes at the display, "fatherless behavior- and at breakfast no less. Charming, really."
You might as well not even be currently ensconced in this booth in the hotel's restaurant, framed in on both sides by the two Red Bull drivers as you are at present, for all the acknowledgement you get from the man at your right hand. Fucking prick.
Because despite his close proximity, sitting in a cushioned chair directly across the square, tablecloth draped table from Daniel, Max seems to be of the belief that it would be a waste of time to spare you so much as a sideways glance or a scoff of derision, let alone to squander precious, fleeting seconds on throwing a scathing, barbed retort your way.
"And you know what? What if I do mind you saying?" Max demands, immediately electing to ignore your remarks on the whole in favor of pursuing the line of inquest that had directly prefaced your all together minor contribution to the conversation, "what then?"
"Look, mate, to be perfectly honest with you," comes Daniel's perfunctory answer of a reply, "that doesn't matter in the slightest to me."
"Right, of course it bloody doesn't," the Dutchman retorts with a contemptuous sneer, tossing his fork down with a clatter.
"Call him off?" Daniel, the fucking dolt, directs the tentative request towards you, eliciting a heavy, frustrated heave of a sigh from you, as you shake your head doggedly, exasperation already well on the way to establishing its dominance over the morning.
"Because why would it?" he grumbles, throwing his hands up in disgust, the gesture rich with ire, "why the fuck would it?"
"Da!" Kaia suddenly interjects from where she sits in your lap, the singular word more than capable of commanding the attention of both men, who had, if their guilty expressions and rubbernecking was anything to go by, had forgotten entirely that she was even there at all.
"No," she abandons what had once been a bread roll of some variety, that she'd eaten exactly half of before losing interest and setting her sights elsewhere, which incidentally had been upon reducing it to a crumbled mess, and points one chubby little finger at her father, punctuating the gesture with an admonishing, "bad word!" brokering absolutely no room for any mistake to be made about who exactly it is she's addressing, "not at table."
