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A brocedes fic loosely inspired by Lewis giving Nico's daughters presents and Nico not telling Lewis that he was retiring
I couldn't get the idea out of my head last night so here it is! word count: 1230
Would you give it all up for me?
The question haunts him. The what-ifs fill his thoughts and dreams. Every word echoes in his ears like clockwork every year as he wraps presents.
Would you give it all up for me?
Nico had asked him that when they were teammates, friends, neighbors, rivals, lovers, everything to one another. He had asked him with the resignation of already knowing the answer.
Once upon a time, Lewis knew that the answer would have been a resounding yes. No hesitation or doubt about it. He would have said yes and pulled Nico into his arms while jokingly chastising him for even thinking that anything could hold higher regard than him, than the love they shared and the life they wanted to create together.
That, however, was before. It was before they’d become teammates. It was before they’d become the only equal comparisons for one another. It was before they’d become championship rivals. It was before the mind games and media spins. It was before the weight trimming and crashes.
They hadn’t been in the before when Nico asked. They’d gone through too much, done too much.
So he had said, “I- I… can’t.”
He sometimes wonders if Nico knows that his answer has hurt him just as much as it had hurt Nico. He sometimes wonders if Nico knows his choice continues to haunt him as much as Nico’s words do.
Lewis hadn’t been able to give it up for Nico. Not then. Not after the 2016 championship battle. Not after losing a title and with it the person who was for so many years his everything.
Nico hadn’t said anything after Lewis said he couldn’t give it all up for him. He had just stood there with tears running down his face and every little bit of hope he’d had shattered.
“I can’t go out like this,” Lewis had done his best to explain why. He had given every reason under the sun, excuse after excuse for why after winning three championships he couldn’t give it all up for the dreams they’d had as children when only one championship each was more than enough.
For days, Lewis had thought that Nico understood. Despite everything since 2014, Nico had always known him best. Nico had always known what drove Lewis and why he needed to be the best. Nico had known him in a way that no one else ever had or would — it was why all their clashes and petty remarks hurt more than anything else in the world.
He had learned about Nico retiring through Toto. There was a group chat — rarely used in 2016 — in which Nico had been removed after Toto sent a farewell message and Valtteri had been added soon after with a welcome message.
Would you give it all up for me?
Lewis hadn’t known it at the time but he knew it now. The question had been Nico’s own complicated way of speaking about potentially retiring. And when Lewis said he couldn’t give it all up, Nico had finalized his choice.
“I can’t keep fighting you, it’s killing me,” Nico had whispered after the prize-giving gala, “and you can’t give up F1.”
Those days after Abu Dhabi 2016 constantly replay in his head. They constantly make him wonder if one single thing done differently could have changed everything. If saying yes would have kept them as teammates for years to come. If saying yes would have kept Nico by his side and him by Nico’s side regardless of what they decided to do.
He wonders about it constantly, especially when he wraps presents for Nico’s daughters. No matter how much his team of assistants and friends try to take the task off of his hands, he remains unable to say yes — a common theme it seems when it concerns something related to Nico.
Tying the last piece of ribbon into a bow, Lewis lets out a sigh. The easiest part is done, but the hardest is yet to come. Soon he’ll have to move all the presents into the usual cart he uses to transport gifts from his apartment to the one that Nico shares with his family — Vivian, his two daughters, and the bunny Lewis had gifted for Christmas the year prior (based on Vivian’s suggestion since the girls and Nico wanted a family pet in the form of a bunny). When all the gifts are on the cart, he’ll have to decide whether he knocks on the door and wait for someone to answer, or leave the presents in front of the door after knocking and send Viv a text that there are presents for the girls.
Last year Nico hadn’t been home, but this year, Nico opens the door as screams of ‘Uncle Lewis’ fill the apartment.
Would you give it all up for me?
Had Lewis said yes, then maybe there wouldn’t be screams for Uncle Lewis and the presents he brings every year like clockwork on Christmas and the ones he has delivered (but still wrapped by him) for their birthdays. Had Lewis said yes, then maybe he would be more than an honorary uncle they briefly see when he drops off presents, but a third parental figure.
“Do you want to come in?” Nico asks softly despite knowing the answer.
“I shouldn’t,” Lewis replies like clockwork, always saying no to Nico these days.
“Probably not,” Nico agrees.
“Do you ever think what it would have been like if I said ye-“ he doesn’t get the chance to finish the question.
“You wouldn’t be Lewis if you said yes,” Nico cuts him off, “you wouldn’t be the man or driver that Anthony raised. It would’ve killed you to leave it all just as it would’ve killed me to stay.”
“Ferrari sent some of the new hats, I thought the girls would like them…”
“They will,” Nico says, pulling the cart into his apartment.
Weeks later, when Lewis returns from his vacation and makes a stop in Monaco before he has to go to Maranello for his first official visit to the Ferrari facility, he sees the cart in the entryway.
Like clockwork, it’s returned to him around his birthday — courtesy of Vivian, he’s sure despite Nico being the one who actually has his key — with drawings the girls had made as a thank you/birthday present, as well as pictures of the whole family enjoying and opening the gifts he’d delivered,
The pictures are neatly placed in his Nico trunk with all the other mementos and pieces of his relationship with Nico — from when they first met as boys to the present. It had been a box at first, but sometime around 2018, Lewis had upgraded to a trunk.
The drawings replace the ones already hanging on his fridge. The old ones will go in the Nico trunk where years of drawings already reside.
Would you give it all up for me?
More often than not, Lewis wishes that he could have given it all up for Nico, for them, and for the life they could’ve had. More often than not, Lewis wishes that he could have said yes without hesitation and kissed Nico like he deserved after finally winning a championship.
But they can’t turn back time. They’d made their choices long ago and now had to live with them.
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Daniel Ricciardo takes a selfie with a fan flying back to the US | 11.07.25
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many things to like about max verstappen
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Viscountess Wolff: Snippets of a Life
A few snippets from the Viscountess Wolff AU (married Toto/Lewis, affair Elkilton) that I wrote while watching testing
cw: infidelity, death
Viscountess Wolff Part 1
“Do you love him?” John inquires one night. It’s one of the rare occasions that allow them to lay in bed together – allow them to pretend that they are just any other couple sharing a bed after a night of lovemaking.
Lewis isn’t surprised by the question. He’d been expecting it, but still, it took him time to form an answer.
Does he love Toto?
“It is complicated,” Lewis finally says after minutes of silence and contemplation. “We did love one another once,” Lewis begins, carefully picking each word to correctly explain his sentiments about his husband and the father of his four children. “He was handsome and charming and cared about my thoughts.”
“But?” John asks.
“But I got older and my opinions tended to clash with his… He started staying in London longer and longer, while I found my own happiness in raising my children…” Lewis replies, shifting so he can look at John instead of just resting his head on John’s bare chest.
“Would you… Could you…” John struggles to ask the next question, but Lewis knows what he’s asking.
Could he love Toto again? Could he go back to being the happy little wife of the Viscount hopelessly in love with him?
“There is an opera singer in London… Georgie. I am not supposed to know about his mistress, but I saw a letter in the study many, many months before you arrived. Georgie had written… demanding, not even begging or asking, that he return to London immediately. He went just days before the birthday of our eldest and didn’t return until after our anniversary… I could not be happy with him again. I spent so many months lying to myself that I could be fine being somewhere between happy and unhappy,” Lewis answers.
“I am in love with you and you alone,” Lewis says, “but I cannot leave this home. Not whilst my children need me.”
“I could never ask you to leave them, no matter how much I love you and want to spend the rest of my life like this,” John replies, leaning in for a kiss. Lewis happily kisses John, taking in all that he can before John inevitably has to leave his bed before sunrise. “Maybe one day, when we are both old and grey, I will whisk you off your feet and be able to call you just mine.”
“One day,” Lewis agrees, imagining the far-off future they could have once Lewis would no longer be the Viscountess Wolff, but the dowager Viscountess.
_______
“We mustn’t be caught,” Lewis says as they dress. A rendezvous in the east sitting room was pushing it, perhaps not the smartest idea. But Toto was to be returning within the hour, and as much as Lewis liked pushing boundaries, he did not wish to find out how his husband would react to this. Toto wouldn’t do anything to Lewis, not with his own reputation on the stake, but John?
Lewis did not want to find out what could happen to John.
“I shall keep my distance, my lady,” John replies, pressing a kiss onto Lewis’ shoulder.
“Toto never stays long,” Lewis states. He leaves John with a kiss and a promise to take a trip to the hunting lodge when Toto leaves. There would be privacy at the hunting lodge just a short hour’s journey from the main estate. Lewis wasn’t one to hunt, but he did spend time there occasionally, so it wouldn’t be out of the norm for him to go.
Lewis had long forgone waiting at the front of the house for Toto to arrive. Instead, he waits in the playroom with the children. “Will Papa stay for long?” their eldest, Anthony, asks.
“I don’t know, sweetling, you must ask your Papa,” Lewis answers, trying his best to suppress the frown that the question elicits.
In less than half an hour, Toto is entering the playroom with gifts from London in hand. Screams of ‘Papa’ fill the room as all four of their children rush toward him. Lewis remains sitting on the floor where he’d been playing with Matilda. “Welcome home, husband,” Lewis greets when Toto kneels to kiss him.
_______
“I have grown used to sleeping alone,” Lewis says with red-rimmed eyes as he glares at the back of Toto’s head. He had not raged when he learned of the new footman or the fate that Toto had resigned John to. But in the comfort of his room, Lewis had let the tears fall.
“We will share a bed until you are with child. I will not have any other sneak into your bed,” Toto replies before leaving Lewis alone in the room they’d once consummated their marriage in and spent countless hours together.
_______
Lewis has reread the letter of John’s death perhaps a hundred times since he’d found it in Toto’s study.
Her husband hadn’t gloated about it as Lewis expected other husbands would have.
“I did not order his death,” Toto says over dinner. The children had been sent to bed after an early dinner, leaving just the two of them.
“Did you not? Sending him to the continent to fight in a war would say you did,” Lewis retorts.
“You are the only one who would hold me at fault for that, wife. That man begot a child on you. I have been magnanimous in giving him a fighting chance instead of just killing him myself,” Toto spews. Johanna would be called Toto’s daughter and carry the name Wolff, but anyone who had seen John Elkann with Lewis would know that Johanna Wolff looked nothing like Toto Wolff.
_______
They celebrate Johanna’s tenth birthday in London.
His sweet Johanna had grown fond of the arts, and as such, they’d decided that they would go to the opera.
It’s there that he sees the opera singer Toto had fooled around with. Georgie. He only realizes that the opera singer is Georgie by the intake of breath Toto takes when the show first begins and his reluctance to meet the cast despite the children’s insistence to do so.
“Would you have ever taken him to bed if it weren’t for…?” Toto trails off that night. With Lewis’ family staying in their London home for the birthday celebrations, they’d been forced to share a bedroom to not raise suspicions about the nature of their marriage as it stands.
“I fell in love with him…” Lewis says, “I don’t think anything could have prevented that.”
“Did you fall in love with…?” Lewis asks after a moment. He had wondered about it in the past. Toto had always left them as soon as Georgie asked, but he’d also abandoned Georgie as soon as he’d learned about Lewis’ affair.
“I don’t know. I cared for him, and it was fun, exhilarating,” Toto says.
As brief as it is, it’s the most honest conversation they’ve had in years.
_______
Lewis had never once told his children about John or Johanna’s true parentage. Not even after Toto had passed in his sleep a few years earlier.
But now, old and grey and on the verge of death himself, he reconsiders his stance on taking it to the grave with him.
Lewis can feel the time running out, the sands of time coming to an end for him as John’s voice echoes all around him. Beaconing him to find him once more so they can finally be together now that Lewis is old and grey and without a husband or children to care for.
And his sweet Johanna with her father’s coloring is too far to make it in time. He knows it by the looks his oldest children share when they think he is not paying attention. He could tell by the hushed whispers of his eldest, Anthony, Johanna had married the best of her children – a Duke who had made her a duchess, but most importantly loved her with every fiber of his being. Johanna and her Duke were on a ship to France when Lewis fell sick and only just started the journey back to England. She would never have made it back in time.
“Ant-” Lewis calls out from his bed, his voice weaker than it ever has been. It’s nothing more than a rough whisper, but his darling children have become so attuned to every noise he makes, perhaps fearing that they won’t get one final moment before he passes.
“Mama,” Anthony rushes to his side as he had so often, “Jo’s almost home, we’ll all be here together soon,” he says. “Just a few more days.”
Lewis doesn’t have a few more days.
“Tell Jo…” Lewis says, “tell her… John…” Lewis says
Lewis.
Lewis.
Lewis.
Echoes of John saying his name lull Lewis to sleep one last time.
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Well that was a race to forget, but there's a new chassis coming in China
Part 1
If Daniel had known how much hurt knowing Lewis would have brought him, then he would've declined Seb's invite to lunch all those years ago. He would’ve not gone and saved himself the heartache. Or at least that's what he would like to believe. But the truth is, Daniel would go through it a million times over. He’d accept that invite and he’d go to that lunch and he’d fall in love.
He would take every hurt and welcome the pain that Lewis had brought him with a smile and open arms. Because in the end, Daniel had gotten to love Lewis and be loved by Lewis. And that was worth all the pain and sadness. Though Valtteri called him an idiot for thinking like that. But Valtteri almost always called him an idiot for most things Daniel did — an outcome of their childhood spent competing against one another and generally being dicks.
"You don't have to come along," Daniel says when he spots the coronation invitation pinned on Valtteri's fridge with a bunch of other invitations and pictures from over the years. There’s a few pictures missing from the fridge. Pictures of Lewis and Daniel are no longer scattered with the rest. The picture from the first day at Lewis and Daniel’s shared apartment isn’t there anymore. Daniel had always liked that picture best — three of his favorite people all together as they’d celebrated a milestone in his relationship with Lewis. His own copy (and Lewis’) had been destroyed in a fit of anger and tears when Lewis ended it.
He won't admit to anyone else that it had hurt him more than he'd thought when just about everyone they'd been in uni with had gotten invites to the coronation and Lewis' confirmation. Seb was going. "He should have-"
"I want to come with you," Valtteri cuts him off.
The day before they're supposed to leave for the United States, Daniel texts Seb to go check on Lewis. They may not be together anymore, but Daniel knows Lewis well enough to know that he's stressing himself out with all the prep.
Daniel hadn't set a plan in stone or anything and Valtteri hadn't minded that either. They start in Chicago and go from there. "Do you want to talk about it?" Valtteri asks when they're stuck in the car.
"What's there to talk about?" Daniel questions. "Lewis will be king one day. His loyalty is to the crown," he sighs.
“Dan,” Valtteri sighs but he doesn’t continue on. Daniel’s grateful for that. He’d rather not get into how Lewis had left him alone in their apartment. Or how despite everything he knew, Daniel had thought maybe somehow they’d figure out a way to be together. That Lewis would be different and they could be happy.
He doesn't watch the coronation. Nor does he go on any social media, not that it was hard to do that. Daniel had never been good with updating his social media and keeping up to date with what people were doing.
Instead, they're on a hiking excursion. “You know we eventually have to talk about him,” Valtteri says.
If he had known that Valtteri wasn’t going to let the Lewis conversation die, he would’ve come on this road trip alone. (No he wouldn’t have. Daniel would’ve hated to be alone with his thoughts and he loved spending time with Val.)
“I know,” Daniel frowns as he looks up at the sun. It’s beating down on them, almost unbearable. But he would take the unbearable sun over sitting in an air conditioned hotel room and watching as his ex moves forward with his life. Sun burn was nothing in comparison to knowing that sooner than later Daniel would be nothing more than a forgotten thought as Lewis did all the great things he was destined for.
“If it’s any consolation, he does love you,” Valtteri tells him.
That’s the worst part of it all. Lewis loves him, but Daniel hadn’t been enough. Lewis loves him, but Daniel wasn’t his choice when it mattered. Lewis loves him and yet he left.
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Hi!! what about 11 and P for your Drabble asks?
11 - Royalty AU; P - "Do you have some kind of spider sense for when I need something?" "No, you idiot, [Name] texted me."
Hi! I went with Dewis for this one because I’ve been reading a lot of Dewis fics lately
Part 2
Lewis sometimes wished that he could go back to his university days. Though he could never say that to another soul, not when his father's coronation was just days away and his own confirmation as the Crown Prince was to take place a few days after that.
No matter how much he wanted it, Lewis couldn't return to his university days. He couldn't return to the days of running around without a worry in the world or the press hounding his every move. He couldn't return to the simplicity of Seb and Valtteri's friendship, the ease of being amongst people who didn't treat him like a Prince, but as just Lewis or sometimes Lew. He couldn't return to the nights spent with Daniel in his arms and dreaming of a future that they could never have.
Despite the delusions they had lived in for those few years, he and Daniel could never exist outside of the walls of their dorm rooms and apartments. Lewis was a prince and while the monarchy had evolved from its more... traditional beliefs, his job wasn't just to be a future monarch. It was also to continue the family line, to ensure that the monarchy continues to thrive, to have a child. That was something that couldn't happen with Daniel and unfortunately for them, Lewis' sense of duty had been greater than his love for Daniel. Lewis had left a tear stained Daniel in an apartment they shared.
Now Lewis spends his days at the palace, preparing for the upcoming ceremonies and taking on more patronages than the other members of his family. All in the name of duty (and escape from his thoughts). So he's surprised when Seb shows up at his private apartments with a pack of beer and black bean burgers - a preferred meal from when they were all at uni. When Lewis had decided to explore veganism, Daniel had found all the vegan options for burgers and they’d spent the night tasting them to see which one was the best.
"Do you have some kind of spider sense for when I need something?" Lewis questions. A friend and comfort food is just what he needs with the coronation stress.
"No, you idiot," Seb retorts, "Daniel texted me. Said you'd be overworking yourself and would need a break from it all." That sounds like Daniel, more aware of Lewis' needs than Lewis had ever been.
"How- how is he?" Lewis questions. He hadn't allowed himself to look at any of Daniel's socials since he'd broken it off with him once they graduated. No contact had seemed like the best way to continue forward. He would never be able to move on and do his duty if still saw Daniel.
“Daniel’s Daniel. He’s always been good at picking up the pieces,” Seb says after a few moments. Before Lewis and Daniel had gotten together, Seb used to joke about how Daniel loved too easily, gave his heart to people that didn’t deserve him. Those jokes had stopped and turned into cautious glances almost as if Seb had known that one day Lewis would be someone that didn’t deserve Daniel’s heart. “Val’s finally agreed to go on that US road trip with him, so you know…” he trails off. Sometimes Lewis forgets that Seb had known Daniel before Lewis had or that Valtteri and Daniel had been childhood rivals turned friends.
“That’s- I’m glad he can do that. He always talked about it,” Lewis says and they don’t talk about Daniel for the rest of the night.
Lewis had made his bed and now he has to lie in it.
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I just finished rewatching Game of Thrones season 6 and this idea of an angsty maxiel fic came to be. So this is based on season 6 episode 10, more specifically Loras' trial with dialogue straight from the show without the explosive end
Max is amongst the first to arrive to the Great Sept of Baelor with his betrothed by his side – her hand resting gently on his arm, no more and no less than propriety dictates – and two kingsguard follow behind them with a hand on their respective swords. The very few nobles already at the Sept part to allow Max and his betrothed to reach the slightly elevated platform his father is on.
“Good morrow,” he greets as is expected of him. The response and the conversation that follows between his father and betrothed is lost to him as his gaze is fixed on where followers of the High Sparrow make their final preparations.
There are seven simple chairs with one placed at each point of the seven-pointed star. No chair is grander than the other, but all are made of a rough wood that most furniture for the poorest of smallfolk is made. On each chair sits an elderly man in a rough-spun sack, for there is no better word for the long tunic-like clothing the followers of the High Sparrow wear. The High Sparrow indistinguishable from the men he chose to stand as judicators for this trial.
It would be easy to fight those seven men. One wouldn’t even need to be Kingsguard or a renowned knight to fight those men and win. If it weren’t for the Faith Militant – the most fanatical of the High Sparrow’s followers and men. In long, gray, rough-spun robes with chains crisscrossing around their torsos and the seven-pointed star carved into their foreheads, the Faith Militant are merciless. Just a few weeks ago, their brutality had turned the streets of King’s Landing red with spilled wine and blood.
The fanaticism could have been snuffed out quietly and quickly, as his uncle had suggested – recalling how awful things had turned out centuries ago when they first rose up against the crown. But his father had not listened. Instead, he had armed them and given them legitimacy as only the King could.
The Sept of Baelor is quick to fill with nobles and smallfolk alike – all of them curious to see the trial and its outcome. It is not every day that a noble, a scion of one of the great houses, is so publicly tried for something everyone had known but turned a blind eye to because that’s just how things were.
Nobles with secrets to keep and protect are present only so they could find ways to safeguard themselves against this new religious fanaticism. In the before times, carefully planned donations had allowed them to do as they pleased with Septons and Septas turning a blind eye. The smallfolk clamor to witness the trial so they may see a rich man brought to their level, to see that finery and wealth will not protect the nobles.
It’s madness and asking for trouble.
Had his father not learned anything from the histories he so harshly burned into Max’s mind? Every time it was brought to attention that nobles and royalty bled just the same as the smallfolk, it ended badly for the nobles and royalty. The smallfolk outnumbered them by thousands if not millions – not even dragons had been safe from the smallfolk once they realized that dragons were not gods but flesh and blood just like any other animal.
The pounding of a wooden staff by the High Sparrow brings Max’s attention back to the matter at hand.
There is to be a trial. And at the center of it is Ser Daniel Ricciardo.
Across the Sept stands House Ricciardo – all of them united as they await the future of their house. Once their strongest allies, Max doubts they will be staying in King’s Landing long once the trial is over nor will they lend their support to House Verstappen in the ongoing war now that the heir to their great house is on trial by fanatics legitimized by the King. It is a troublesome prospect to think about as the Ricciardos fielded most of the men in the crown’s army and were the ones to provide food for the kingdom.
The brotherhood of the Faith Militant drag Daniel to the center and Max barely recognizes the man.
Fine silks are replaced by rough-spun robes and chains. The never-ending bright smile has ceased to exist. The curls Max loved to weave his hands through are shorn to the root. Cuts and bruises litter Daniel’s face as he curls into himself. The once proud knight is reduced to a shade of himself as he keeps his eyes on the floor, averting any interaction he may have with the people present to witness the trial.
“Ser Daniel Ricciardo,” the High Sparrow says as the brothers force Daniel onto his knees in the center of the seven-pointed star. “Are you prepared to stand trial and profess your guilt or innocence before the Seven?” he inquires.
“There'll be no need for a trial,” Daniel replies. His voice is rough and weak, breaking with every word he says. The crowd around Max murmured amongst themselves as they’d all come to witness a trial. “I confess before the Seven and freely admit to my crimes,” Daniel continues as the whispers and murmurs grow louder.
“I would spend the rest of my life here with just you,” Max whispered pressing kisses along Daniel’s bare chest.
“To which crimes will you be confessing?” the High Sparrow questions, gazing down at Daniel’s broken figure.
“All of them. I lay with other men,” Daniel says, his body betraying him as his eyes fall to where Max stands for only a few seconds before turning back to the High Sparrow, “including the traitor Nico Rosberg.” Max’s breath hitches, he does not know if he wants Daniel to name him as one of the men he’d slept with so they may suffer together or if he fears what may happen should Daniel name him. Nico Rosberg is long dead, slain by a ghost or woman – the tales vary and are most likely fictionalized with each passing moment – he will not suffer for any of this like Daniel will, nor is it unknown that Nico Rosberg had once lain with the Ricciardo heir.
“We could always run away. They are not so strict against who you love in the Free Cities,” Daniel said when Max’s betrothal was announced. Sooner than later, Max would marry the Lannister girl and sire perfect, golden-haired babes to rule after him.
“I perjured myself before the gods. I am guilty of depravity... dishonesty, profligacy, and arrogance,” Daniel continues to say, the hurt evident as he stops after saying depravity. Nothing about what they had done was deprave, it was beautiful and something to be cherished, but the Faith of the Seven did not see it as such. The beauty of their love was considered to be wrong and immoral. A crime that could be tried in front of all and give the Faith Militant leave to cut cocks if they so chose to do so.
“I see that now. I humble myself before the Seven and accept whatever punishment the gods deem just,” Daniel finally says as tears stain his cheeks.
Max clenches his fists, digging his nails into his palms until it stings to keep himself from moving from his place between his father and betrothed.
As the Crown Prince, Max was forced to sit for the inquisition. Everything had gone well enough, there were not many questions and things could be explained away. Michelle had defended her brother and Max’s name was never once brought up. It had gone well until it hadn’t.
A no-name knight from years ago was brought to the inquisition. A no-name knight who Daniel hadn’t seen in years since he’d committed himself to Max had given credence to the accusations by mentioning a birthmark on Daniel’s upper thigh – a birthmark Max himself had marked with kisses.
“The gods' judgment is fierce, but also fair,” the High Sparrow says loudly so his voice echoes in the Sept. “The Warrior punishes those who believe themselves beyond the reach of justice. But the Mother shows her mercy to those who kneel before her,” he states.
Still kneeling, Daniel says, “I take full responsibility for my many sins and unburden myself of my desires. My only remaining wish is to devote my life to the Seven. May I be a living example of their grace for others to witness.” Daniel replies as the crowd gasps.
“You understand fully what this means?”
“I do,” Daniel agrees. “I will abandon the Ricciardo name and all that goes with it. I will renounce my lordship and my claims on Highgarden. I will never marry and I will never father any children,” he says. It is unheard of for heirs to renounce their claims and vow to never marry or father children. Even the heirs who preferred the company of men kept their positions and married as was expected.
“Brother Daniel... I ask you to dedicate your life to the seven gods. Will you fight to defend your faith against heretics and apostates?”
“I will,” Daniel says.
“The gods are just and Brother Daniel has seen the error in his ways. Now he will repent and serve the Faith,” the High Septon says as the brothers of the Faith Militant mutilate Daniel.
Daniel’s screams echo in the Sept of Baelor as they carve the seven-pointed star on his forehead.
He should have run away with Daniel when they had the chance. Forsaken his station as heir to the Iron Throne and took Daniel far, far away from the people who saw their love as immoral. He should have protected Daniel like Daniel protects him now. Max’s father may not love him, but he knows that if Max was at the other end of the sodomy accusations, his father would have quelled the Faith Militant and gotten rid of the High Sparrow. Daniel knew it just as well as Max did, but yet, Daniel hadn’t spoken his name once, protecting him even to his own detriment.
Once Daniel is taken away, not even given a moment with his family, the crowds disperse with his father at the head of it all.
“Michelle-” he begins when it is just him and Daniel’s sister standing in the Great Sept of Baelor. The floor between them was stained with drops of Daniel’s blood and tears.
“Do not,” she cuts him off, hatred in her tear-filled eyes. Her father, the Lord of Highgarden, had ushered away his crying wife, but Michelle had remained in her place. “We all warned Daniel to not get in bed with a Verstappen, but he didn’t listen because he was in love.”
“I will-”
“Do you know what they did to him?” she questions with a sob. “My baby brother, the strongest man I know? Do you know how they beat him, tortured him, broke him until he was begging for it to end?” Holding back sobs, Michelle’s glare is cutting. Where Daniel was renowned for his smiles and chivalry, Michelle was renowned for cutting looks and sharp words. “I begged him to say your name, to accuse you of using your position as Prince to bed him, to do anything but accept this. But my brother has a kind heart and still loves you despite what your father caused through his patronage and legitimization of these zealots.”
“I will confess and make them change this,” Max states. His confession of committing the same acts as Daniel will surely change this and force them to let Daniel return to his family.
“You are the Prince and my brother the man who dared to love you. You are not so naive to think your father would not hide your confession and make Daniel suffer for it,” Michelle says with a harsh laugh. “Go, your grace, marry your pretty Lannister bride and hope that her family provides the Crown with men and food because the Reach will not,” she says, “I have a brother I need to say goodbye to.”
Michelle leaves him alone in the Sept. By the end of the day, every single member of House Ricciardo and the Reach is gone from the city. Soldiers march home under the pretense of preparing for the upcoming winter and cutting the rebels off from the south.
“Your grace, a note for you,” a page says handing him a tiny piece of parchment.
I am yours until my dying breath and even after.
As his family’s banners disappear from the horizon, Daniel ends his pain, the empty vial slipping from his hand and breaking into tiny shards of glass.
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Recently started a new job so there hasn't been much time to write, but here is a short snippet of potentially a future fic
He’s supposed to be on a plane to LAX. There’s a wedding invite with hotel details and car service information tucked into the inner pocket of his backpack. And in his wallet, is a note with the words ‘I hope you’ll be there.”
He’d gotten as far as Dubai.
He had left Australia, he had left the safety of his home and family. He’d made it to Dubai with nothing more than a backpack with his essentials only since he did have a home in LA with stuff stocked and a tuxedo in hand. He had made it to Dubai, halfway to his journey and so far from home in every sense of the word.
But he hadn’t gotten further than that.
He’d almost been to his gate, to the plane that would take him from Dubai to California. He could see it from where he stood. The gate agent, a brunette with a bright smile, stood at the desk talking to a passenger. Rows of seats were filled with people eager to make it to sunny, wonderful California – some of them returning home after a trip, others getting ready to start their trips, and so many just in the middle of their journeys. He could see the seat he would take, by the windows in a corner where he could avoid curious gazes and the bustle of an airport.
But at the last moment, he had switched directions. He couldn’t get himself to walk toward the gate, toward the seat that is his, toward the wedding he’s supposed to be attending.
He can’t get on the plane. He can’t go to California and stand there as the world moves on without him. He can’t keep being the second choice, the one that would never be chosen because there was always someone more important, someone more loved, someone better than him.
And it’s unfair, he knows it. He’d known from the start that it wouldn’t ever progress further than what it was, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt knowing that this was the second time around he’d be standing there as someone he loves got married to someone who wasn’t him.
So he runs.
He walks right past his gate.
He doesn’t know where he’s going or what he’ll do when he gets there, but anything has to be better than standing there and faking a smile for the hundredth time in the past few years.
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may i present... mewis hamilton, serving up a stong cup of english sassfast
request an f1 mofusand cat!
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personally i think the F1 commentators should be Nico Rosberg with a muppet Lewis Hamilton
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If you’re gonna write Maxiel, tattoo is the obvious one but I’m intrigued by what you could do with neon sign - 🧚🏻
hiii fairy anon!! hope you like this! from this post (you can still send prompts!!)
6. tattoo + 27. neon sign
Daniel found the profile on accident — it was recommended to him by his Instagram algorithm after he liked a reel of some guy inking an ugly upside down face on his own forearm. And then it was like the floodgates of random body art reels broke, dozens upon dozens tattoo accounts flooding Daniel's feed.
Sure, Daniel liked tattoos, he liked coming up with ideas for them, finding new artists, and listening to the tattoo gun buzz as new ink appeared on his skin. But he was never interested in the profession, or at least, not to this extent — during these couple of days, Daniel learned more about ink and body art than in all thirty years of his life.
After days of watching only tattooists reels on Insta, a post from a random tattoo shop account popped up on Daniel's feed. The post contained three pictures: a view into a window of a shop with a lit up orange neon sign that said The Lion, an arraignment of different tattoo equipment, and a photo of man — the tattoo artist — in the middle of inking someone's arm.
A very plain, run-of-the mill post from yet another tattoo parlor account that shouldn't have even caught Daniel's attention. Except for the fact that in the picture, the tattoo artist's skin was completely bare — no visible inks or piercings, nothing.
And sure, maybe the guy's tattoos were hidden under his clothes, or he simply didn't like getting inked himself, but after a week of watching videos of artists covered head to toe in black lines and bright colors, looking at the man's pale skin, covered in small freckles and remarkably untattooed, felt like seeing the sun in the sky above Milton Keynes — surpising and a little unsettling.
Before venturing to The Lion's account, Daniel expected that the guy would be an amateur, a beginner, why else would heave no tattoos. But no, his work was good, really good even — abstract and dynamic line work, bold and thin, monochrome and colorful, making his pieces look almost alive.
It's clear the guy has been in the craft for years, hundreds of comments under each of his posts praise his work, friends and other colleagues complimenting the man — Max — on yet another masterpiece. And Daniel has to agree, scrolling past photos of Max's designs, he too wants one of them inked on his skin.
But that still doesn't answer why Max himself doesn't have any tattoos — Daniel is a little ashamed to admit that he got fixated on it. Most of his time that is not occupied with training or racing, Daniel spends on Instagram, checking The Lion's page and trying to find at evidence of at least one tattoo.
Daniel tries to convince himself he isn't stalking Max. He isn't. He only checks The Lion's account, doesn't open any of Max's friends or family member's profiles, even after he notices Martin Garrix's comments under some posts.
Thankfully, Max is pretty active on his account, almost everyday a new post appears on The Lion's page: a new design, process of inking a new client, photos of the shop, all interspersed with pictures of Max: his angular but handsome face, light shot hair, strong arms and thighs, broad chest.
After weeks of following Max, Daniel begrudgingly has to admit to himself that he finds him attractive; that his quest to finding evidence of tattoos on Max's skin is partly an excuse to simply look at him.
A week into summer break, Daniel's phone buzzes with a new notification from Max's account. Daniel puts the sugary cocktail he's been drinking on the yacht deck and reaches for his phone.
Tapping on the notification, Daniel waits for Instagram to load. In the caption of the post, Max informs his followers that his shop will be closed for a month since Max is going on vacation. Daniel tries to suppress his disappointment as taps on the attached pictures.
The first photo is of Max's cats — Jimmy and Sassy, that sometimes make an appearance on the account — sleeping on a pile of clothes in an open suitcase.
The second picture shows a golden beach and deep blue water, glistening with rays of sunshine.
The third photo is clearly taken by someone else. It shows Max walking along the aquamarine water, smiling at the person behind the camera. Max is shirtless in the picture, his broad pale chest tapering into a slim waist.
Licking his lips, Daniel zooms in on the picture. His eyes catch on the band of Max's boxers peeking from under his baby blue shorts, or rather — on the skin above it. There, nestled right under Max's navel, is a tattoo, the same dynamic and delicate lines from his Max's other designs.
All of Daniel's blood rushes south as he's trying to process what he's seeing. It's not- a tramp stamp, because it's on Max's front, but it looks similar. The tattoo follows the lines of Max's hips and disappears under the band of his shorts. The design is abstract, or at least Daniel can't parse it, bold lines intertwined with thin ones.
Daniel picks up his cocktail glass from the deck, slippery from condensation, and takes a sip. His cheeks feel hot under the high summer sun, and the image of Max's tattoo is burned into his retinas as Daniel closes his eyes.
With a deep breath, Daniel thumbs open Max's profile and clicks on the DMs. He's been wanting to message Max for a while, debating getting his own tattoo on Max's style — and he finally finds the courage to start typing a message,
While searching for evidence of Max's tattoo, Daniel had noticed a few rainbow flags tucked into the corners of his shop and home. And Max had never mentioned a- partner before, so.
Worth a try.
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that quote went triple platinum in my bedroom during those last laps
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reblog and tell me how you pronounce maxiel!!
(im MacSeal)
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The two wolves in daniel (dilf fucker and younger athlete fucker) can now be satisfied by one man — max
(Tbh it could’ve been satisfied by Scotty but there’s a third wolf within daniel that is just a Max fucker and that’s the wolf that prevents other men from taking the top spot on Daniel’s roster)
Bestie this is such scholarship and poetry. We need to have it submitted to the library of congress to be protected for all time
Daniel loves his dilfs, can't get enough of their attention. and he loovveesss his younger uber successful athletes.
Max and Scotty are both of these and they scratch the itch in his brain differently. but Max is it for Daniel. No one else comes close
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Happy Redemption day to all those who celebrate btw
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george russell reaction memes following him losing his mind in monaco
(reblog if u wanna use them :3)
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