16. INSPIRATION

/Max/

“Look at this fucking French asshole!
He ruined my race, you fucking idiot who spouts off sentences and doesn’t even know how to drive. I could have won, I was in the lead and thanks to him pushing me out just as I was lapping him, Lewis passed me!
That idiot!
The backline that gets lapped has to be moved aside! That’s how you do it, damn it!
What the hell was in his head to race with me as if we were racing against each other?
You idiot!
I get out of the car as the runner-up and I’m furious like I haven’t been in a long time.
When I drive I’m always in predator mode, but if someone ruins my race by preventing me from winning I become a murderer.
When I find that idiot right in front of the weight area with all the other drivers, I’m still too furious and I ask him bluntly what the fuck was in his head to drive against me like that at that moment.
Ocon looks at me calmly as if he hadn't done anything wrong and he has the face of someone who doesn't understand why I'm so upset and here my vein closes. I feel my hands itching, I feel the nerves that have been tense for months now on the verge of breaking. Shut up, you piece of shit asshole spouts off sentences that have no problem spouting bullshit about others without knowing anything. I remember that shit you brought out in Belgium about me.
- You're the one who didn't leave me any space and you hit me!
His fucking response makes all my nerves go off and my vein closes in my brain even more, before I realize it I push insulting him.
- What the fuck are you talking about, asshole? You touched me, you made me go head over heels!
- These are racing incidents!
- I lost mine because of you, asshole! I was lapping you! - I growl pushing him again, he never raises his hand and I don't do anything more than pushing, but I wish he would. Touch me, come on, push me too.
But he's a coward and apart from using his tongue like a snake, he doesn't have the balls to push me and come against me because he knows I'd destroy him. That's just what I want, someone who pushes me and gets punched.
While I'm arguing with him in front of everyone, we're separated and scolded, but I still don't really know what the fuck I'm doing. I don't understand that it's serious to come to blows with a driver and that it wasn't really about the fact that he prevented me from winning the race, but rather that in Belgium he was an asshole behind my back. He doesn't even have the balls to say it to my face. Like now. He raises his hands as if to say that he's not doing anything and that I'll do everything.
A racing accident my ass!
Another person who says this shitty phrase to me I'll kill him!
I'm not an idiot! Have the courage to show your face and tell it like it is! If you have the balls to piss me off and ruin my race, then you also have to have them to admit it and tell the truth.
- Asshole! - I conclude angrily, walking away.
I boil. I really boil, I'm out of my mind and as I walk quickly towards the cooldown room where the first and third on the back podium, Lewis and Kimi, are waiting for me, I still feel myself shaking with furious rage.
I know, I know perfectly well that it's not so much the race that made me lose but what he said that day. That damned day. Not only that day, but all the other times that he surely continued to talk about me, given that he's smart enough to think it and say it behind my back to everyone but never to my face. That I'm the one who ruined Daniel and he's leaving because of me, because it's hard to be my teammate. Fuck you, asshole. You don't know anything about me, shit. But you don't have the balls to say this bullshit to my face, you don't have the balls to take your fucking responsibilities. Fuck you!
In cooldown I explain to Lewis what happened because he heard that I argued with Esteban and since he saw the incriminating action live that he took advantage of to overtake me, we talk about it and he tries to calm me down and make me understand that it wasn't forbidden to do what he did, it's just that he did it badly. This doesn't help me at all because he ruined my race and Lewis adds that everyone does bullshit on the track and you can't lose your mind over this. He's mature and he's trying to calm me down and I think he's also right to say what he says with all this calmness, but I still want to hit Esteban with a punch, but while he's talking to me I understand that he's objectively right.
A part of me realizes it and somehow gets what he was looking for and calms me down. The desire to smash his face is always there, but in reality my nerves are calmer now. Maybe it's the effect of the champion who tries to calm you down and maybe it's also because I admire him, but in the end I stop and really let it go.

- You've never exaggerated and lost your mind suffering an obvious wrong on the track that could have been avoided and that ruined your race preventing you from winning? - I ask Lewis as we go to the post-race press. We still smell like distilleries of champagne and we’re sticky, but I definitely feel better and not because I drank, it's just that I let off some steam celebrating, but I still feel them under my skin. Tense. On the verge of exploding again.
Lewis always looks at me with an extremely controlled and calm expression, shrugs his shoulders walking next to me through the corridors towards the conference room.
- Sure, but we’re different. You and I will always react differently, you can't make comparisons.
- Haven't you ever exaggerated in your reactions? - I insist, amazed. I'm convinced that it can't be like that, everyone reacts badly to something. I remember big arguments with Nico Rosberg in 2016 and he seems to be thinking exactly about this, I can see it in his black eyes that have a flash of pain and regret. For a moment his legendary control becomes subtle and he almost seems easy to read.
- Yes, but more for personal reasons. And in any case we’re different, our exaggerated reactions are still different. You get angry, I close the bridges completely or at most I explode in front of the microphones.
We continue walking towards the room with Kimi who is well in front of us and minds his own business as always. I don't know why, but I feel like I need this conversation with him and at this point another thing comes to mind that perhaps I should have kept to myself.
- With Seb, however, you didn't close the bridges.
I know what Nico meant, their story is public knowledge and even if I'm not interested in others, I had Daniel who is for me and he explained everything to me. So I also know if I wasn't interested.
However, the very famous clash between him and Seb in Baku 2017 came to mind, they didn't argue in front of anyone, but on the microphones they blasted shit at each other, in their own way and with a certain diplomacy, but it was clear that they totally disagreed and were blaming each other. Then after that it seems to me at least a cold race, as if by magic they became adorably friends again. It was inevitable not to notice it, even if I hadn't had Daniel to point out every detail to me because he's a chatterbox and is friends with both of them, I would have noticed it anyway.
By now we've arrived in the press-room and before entering he gives a very strange, knowing and enigmatic smile. He doesn't make me understand a damn thing, but I know he was referring to something he'll never tell me.
This strange smile remains planted in my brain and surprises me, but finally he comes in and doesn't answer this thing about Seb.
Why didn't you end things with Seb and did with Nico? Nico was your childhood friend, if there was someone to forgive it was him, right?
But I really don't know a damn thing and even if I usually don't care, it's the first time I'd like to know, but I think I'll never get an answer to this.
Why does this detail strike me?
Maybe because I sensed something, he didn’t say it, but it’s as if he did.
Seb is Seb, he’s different.
As I think about it, sitting in the chair behind the drivers’ table, I think of Charles who still ignores me or avoids me, even if it’s an association that doesn’t make sense rationally.
Seb and Lewis had never hated each other, they had a problem that seemed serious, but then they got over it and strengthened their relationship even further. Charles and I have always hated each other, there are no relationships to ruin or restore and there’s no point in improving it. Why should we improve something that has never existed and we’ve never given a shit?
And without realizing it, I went back to thinking about Charles.

The 2018 season ends in Abu Dhabi with a strange feeling, almost as if it were the end of a chapter in my life and the beginning of something else. Something new, but also powerful. I can't explain it well, I feel that from 2019 things will start to change in some way that I can't quite place.
2018 is over, we'll go on holiday and from next year reset. Another year, another season, another teammate.
Pierre, Charles' best friend. It's in a certain sense like having him with me, I feel his presence at the idea of ​​being Pierre's colleague and it stimulates an enthusiasm that electrifies me.
Maybe it's this.
On the other hand Daniel will be in a different team, but still in F1. It's not that he's leaving and he's not leaving me.
I've spent the last few months trying to convince myself of this and repeating it like a mantra, despite this the nerves have risen, constantly venting against everything and everyone. I've argued or had tense moments with anyone and in every circumstance and I know that at the root of everything is this belief that Daniel is somehow leaving me.
But maybe it's not him who is leaving me, but me who is moving away, even if I don't want to and I still feel something for him. I like him, having sex with him, spending time with him. Yet I feel like I'm moving away and I only realized this when I felt instincts and desires towards someone else.
I liked another boy, I had fantasies about him. The fact that the boy in question is a bigoted and snobbish little shit is another matter, but if there had been, would I really not have betrayed Daniel? Or if I had had the right opportunity with the right person?
I can't really answer myself because until you find yourself in a certain situation you can't really know what you would do, so there's no point in thinking about it now in hindsight.
But it's a fact that has dug into my awareness.
Be honest, Max.
You're living these last days with Daniel in Red Bull as if it were the end of your story not because you think he's tired of you and has only looked for a way to leave without really leaving you, but it's you who is starting to need something else. Not necessarily Charles, he was just the means that opened my eyes.
With my head full of adrenaline from the end of the last race, my brain transmits uncomfortable truths and useless revelations to ignore, while I carry out the duties of third place. The usual things, in short. Things I like and that I'm not bothered to do.
Celebrating with the team that is waiting for me as soon as I get out of the car, weighing myself, the interview on the track, the cooldown room with Seb and Lewis and then the party on the podium.
Lewis technically won his fifth world championship in Mexico, but today that the season is ending he officially won it and having also won the race he’s very happy and excited as you would expect, as is normal.
The perfect end to a commendable season. Nothing to say.
It’s impossible not to admire him, not only for the absolutely perfect driving and the overwhelming strength that comes from a set of factors that have fit together perfectly, including a monstrous car, a formidable team that is willing to do anything for their champion and a very strong driver. You also admire him because he always has a sort of aura that distinguishes him from the crowd and from the other champions. I don't know how to explain it well, he’s different in some way.
Here in the cooldown room with the two most successful champions of the last 10 years of F1, I end up dreaming while I chat with them about the race and we joke together all happily. I daydream of being here among them, one day, with my world championships won too.
Some people infect you, I had already seen it with Daniel who had a positive impact on my life, but now here with these two who look at each other with a strong complicity, it’s impossible not to get involved.
While I drink and dry my sweat sitting in my chair, waiting to be called on podium, I watch them talking with habit and intimacy that reveals a relationship that goes decidedly beyond what they show around. I don't know how to explain it, it's a feeling that insinuates itself quickly and is precise. In front of the world they seem like two rivals who respect each other and get along, but here there’s much more. There’s a relationship that is really too complicit and intimate. It's not just the looks and the way they talk, but also this constant touching while they chat happily. The feeling is that if I weren't there they would be doing something else. That conversation with Lewis in Brazil last week comes to mind in a quick flash.
His enigmatic smile resurfaces making me understand that there was a specific reason why he didn't cut Seb out after he had made him furious on the track, a reason he couldn't tell me.
Now I realize something that I can't translate precisely, but between these two there’s a relationship very different from the one they have with anyone else and that they show around.
The intuition is an instant and doesn't go beyond that because we’re called out for the final award ceremony and everything lights up again with enthusiasm, joy and inspiration.
Inspiration is the right word because as soon as we’re given the green light for the champagne, Lewis takes and starts undressing on the top step of the podium and neither of us knows what the hell is on his mind, but Seb and I act totally in sync and turning towards him, we start washing him in tandem and when Lewis takes off his top and his shirt and turns his back pointing to a tattoo among the thousands he has on his beautiful dark well-trained back, we take care of washing him carefully and wow, dear Lewis. This scene is almost porn, I think. I get thirsty, thirsty to drink this champagne but not from the bottle. For a moment I struggle to stop myself from sticking to the lower back area of ​​​​his back and licking the alcohol from his dimples above the ass.
But I think that Seb would smash his bottle over my head, I have these thoughts that follow each other very quickly in the form of inexplicable instincts that I don't know where they come from and why I have them. Most of the time I think, say and do things that I don't know why, but I do them anyway. In any case I don't do anything except keep wetting him and let's say I enjoy it in the front row contributing to the erotic fantasies that many will have after this. 
It's the first time I've looked at Lewis like this and I think of that time with Charles in Singapore, but then everything fades into the background and something else takes over, while he turns around, shirtless, and douses us in turn with champagne.
There's inspiration.
Inspiration because I swear to myself, while I'm living this moment that feels epic and that's going to my head also because of the adrenaline as well as the alcohol I'm drinking, that one day I'll be there in Lewis' place. Not to undress and be washed by two other drivers, but to celebrate a world championship won by me. And not just one. Many, just like him.
I'll never be a perfect driver like him because I know I have an aggressive and dirty but effective driving style, but I'll be a winner like Lewis and I'll feel what he's feeling.
This is the inspiration I have right now.
This is my solemn wish for myself, the first one I've truly felt.
I know I've wished for it other times, but now it's different. Now I am the one who really wants it and it has nothing to do with my father who never left me a choice pushing me to race because I simply had to and that was it. Now I want it too, like I never wanted it. Absolutely.
I look at Seb and Lewis getting each other wet laughing as if for a moment the whole world didn't exist and I feel like the third wheel again, like before, and I think of me and Charles and I overlap with Seb and Lewis who between the two of them have 9 world championships and there’s this special chemistry between them as they celebrate together. It’s an image that my brain doesn’t keep to itself.
Charles and I will one day be just like Seb and Lewis.
Here is the other inspiration they give me.
It’s an absurd awareness that perhaps I have because I’m excited between the race and the champagne, indeed, it’s certainly like that, but it’s also normal after all. Charles has always been my only real rival. The one and only since we were little, so I know it will be like this. I know and when it’ll happens, when I'll on this same stage getting wet with champagne with Charles and looking at him with the same eyes that Seb looks at Lewis, I'll remember this moment and I'll think that I was right, that I knew we'd get there.
And I'll be happy.
I can't wait to be.

The hug with Daniel is beautiful and heartfelt and he holds me tight among the others on the team for this last party together after the ritual group photo. It's impossible not to adore this boy, he's sunny and fundamentally good. He leaves his mark on everyone's lives and I don't think there's a person on the face of the Earth who doesn't like him.
He holds me with enthusiasm and joy as if for him it was finally a huge liberation to leave here, while for me it's the beginning of the end, but not his fault. Only mine.
I know it's my fault, but he holds me so tight as if he felt it and wanted to tell me that instead it's not as I think. That it's not ending. That everything is fine and will continue to be fine.
I'm drunk with the joy of the podium and what I experienced with Seb and Lewis and a strange daydream with Charles, but his hug brings me back to reality, here in the middle of a lot of people from our reunited teams.
Something is ending in any case.
Which may not be our story, or maybe it is. But regardless, today something is ending and it’s not just the season and our collaboration.
When we separate after an infinite time of holding each other with such strength that it shakes me to the core, I understand that Daniel is afraid. It’s a very quick flash, so much so that as soon as I separate thinking about it because he has never held me so tightly and there is something different in this hug, I see that instead he smiles sunny and radiant and I think it’s a discordant note.
This cheerful expression of his clashes with the deep hug he gave me, but in an instant we’re torn away because others hug us and we’ll celebrate a beautiful podium and a season finale that has nevertheless brought good satisfaction.
The thing is just put aside for the moment, I'll bring it up later, when at the end of this whole end-of-year party it's just me and him again. I'll bring it up and ask him what's wrong, what he's afraid of, because I'll be an insensitive asshole, but even I can feel certain things and if I can feel them it means they're really obvious.
I'll ask him, even if he'll answer with one of his splendid smiles that will divert me wherever he wants. Probably between his legs, on the bed, horizontally.

I get to that position after many hours, various eating, drinking and fun that went on for most of the night here in Abu Dhabi to close out the season and celebrate my last podium of the year.
Between his legs sucking his wonderful perfect cock that's also mine and then devouring his back after I've forcefully turned him over without thinking about it for a second.
As always when I'm with him I let myself be carried away, at certain moments more than others. It depends on my mental condition, if I'm altered or particularly exited. 
Today I don't know what it's about, but when I put him on his stomach I climb on top of him and start licking his back and nibbling on the most prominent parts like his shoulder blades and then I focus on his lower back, on his dimples. It's while I'm here licking them that I feel the need to prevail and enter for the first time.
But it happens for a specific reason. I have a déjà-vu that I don't capture well, but I certainly don't stop. I grab him by the hips and pull him so that he's on all fours in front of me, once I've also taken good care of his untouched hole, Daniel gasps and says something that I don't register. Maybe it's a 'Wow!' or something like that.
As long as I go with my tongue and fingers it's nice, I know it's nice. I've always been extraordinarily passive, but this time I want to do more.
I really want to eat, so I do it until it seems wet enough, open and in enjoyment. Because I know that this hole is actually a switch and when they press it, it goes to your head, so I feel him moaning and writhing because he wants to touch himself and come, but at the same time he wants to come fucking, but when you’re here at these levels, when you have someone's tongue and fingers inside you, I know well what happens in your brain and in your deepest bowels. You want the one who put his fingers and tongue inside you to also put his cock, so after rubbing it with my hand wet with saliva, I take it and enter with a decisive thrust and without hesitation.
It's my first time as top and while I adjust myself better giving him time to get used to me, because I know it's necessary, my gaze fixes on his trained and well-formed back thanks to the gym and his well-endowed physical structure.
Again the deja-vu, fast and incandescent. And then I realize that it’s not a deja-vu, but a precise memory.
On the podium, a few hours ago, I fantasized pornographically about Lewis's back, about licking the champagne from there. I bend down while I wait for him to relax and be able to move, I lick and nibble on his again and when I do it I finally feel him sigh and release the buttocks that he was squeezing like crazy almost to the point of hurting me.
When he does I let some saliva fall to lubricate again and I start to move always continuing to stare at his back on which I superimpose Lewis's dark, tattooed and to say the least perfect, where the white of the champagne foam contrasted magnificently.
How I want to drink from there. How I want it. While I think about it I increase the thrusts and end up closing my eyes and imagining I'm fucking Lewis. I can't stop myself and like every time I just do it and everything increases, my thrusts, the rhythm, the passion and the intensity. It all increases to the point that Daniel comes under me, in my hands, and shortly after I come too, always with my mind fixed on Lewis.
It's the first time I fantasize about him, even though I have to say that he's probably at the top of his physical shape right now. He's had a clear and ever-improving evolution. One day maybe he'll be better than he’s now even if it seems difficult to me, but now it's simply impossible not to notice that he's a great guy, just like Charles.
Thinking back to him, I remember the other time I fantasized about someone else fucking Daniel and the guilt hits me like a beam that breaks in my head and traumatizes me.
I remain still, exhausted, on Daniel and on his back, I hug him from behind and I breathe sweatily and panting on him. Daniel is still here in no better condition, both more there than here.
We take some time to breathe, to come back to ourselves, to understand.
Understand that it’s becoming more and more frequent for me to think about others while I fuck him, for me to desire others, for me to notice them.
I had never looked at anyone else, nor considered beautiful or attractive. Imagine imagining myself fucking another and then even coming while I do it with Daniel.
Something is changing, I told myself before crossing the finish line and with adrenaline at a thousand.
But I wasn't precise. It's true that something is changing, but it's not something. It's me.
I'm changing and I think that what I perceived before from Daniel, that uncertainty in a hug that was too strong, is this. He also feels that I'm changing. Because after all, he knows me better than anyone else and if I managed to please him when no one else in the world has ever liked me, it means that he’s an ace at going beyond appearances, of any kind and of anyone. He has always seen in me what was underneath, things that are a mystery even to me. So he’s simply ahead. He already knows things that I’m only now starting to intuit.
Suddenly I realize that it’s better if we do’t talk about it. Before I wanted to do it, I wanted to end up in bed with him and then force him to tell me what he was afraid of, because he was before.
But now that I have figured it out on my own, I realize that I don’t want to know, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to talk about it.
Because I wouldn't know what to say to him and I don't like changes or maybe I'm not ready. It's that he gave me back my life in such a fantastic way that thinking about what's about to happen, what's about to end not by anyone's specific will, but just because that's how it's going and that's it... well, it saddens me and sliding down from his back, I let myself fall on mine, spreading my arms and breathing deeply. The pleasure hormones in circulation keep me at peace and in ecstasy; Daniel turns and stands next to me, with difficulty he moves his arm so as to hook my head, he places it under my neck and pulls me towards him, kissing my temple. I let myself docilely, understanding that we're not yet completely ready to talk about it and face it, but that it’ll happen. Sooner or later it’ll happen.
It's ending between us.
And maybe that banal phrase in the end is so because it's true.
Sooner or later, good things end.”

NOTES: The fight between Max and Ocon is real, I added all the annoyance that Max has for him both to further characterize Max, and because I needed someone that he hated more than the others at that moment and who could use as a scapegoat to vent his growing nervousness (which is part of Max's characterization). Furthermore, this is how Max sees Esteban in the fic, but it's not certain that his vision is reliable and objective. This is to say that I don't consider poor Esteban an asshole, it was just a thing for the purposes of the fic. 
The parallelism with Seb and Lewis was useful to me for obvious future reasons, while this sexual trip that Max has for Lewis is something that I wanted to insert because when I watched the famous champagne scene I thought I wanted to be there drinking it from his back and I envied Max and Seb who were wetting him, so I liked the idea that Max had the same fantasy and I used it to make him understand that he was starting to distance himself from Daniel.
The whole first part/sector serves two purposes: initial characterization of the characters (which I really care about doing well in my long fics) and triggering something between them.
Sorry for the wait, sometimes it takes me longer to post because it depends on my commitments. Thanks for your attention. See you next time. Kisses Akane