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sincerelylancelot · 27 days ago

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41. Panic attacks + lawstappen ty

arrives two months late to the party with starbucks and angst. enjoy!!! canon compliant with taking the redeye

The stiff collar of his shirt presses into the back of his neck, making it itch.

His fingers twitch with the need to scratch, but the weight of too many curious eyes pin him in place. Max had said it would be a small affair, just some too smart corporate types all patting each other on the back for a year well done. What he hasn’t mentioned was the crystal chandeliers, or the waiters floating around with caviar and canapes on silver trays

Or the full-sized, 100% real, multi-million-dollar Formula One car parked squarely in the middle of the ballroom.

Liam stares at it, blinking slowly, unsure if it’s the champagne making it shimmer or if he’s just finally cracked under the pressure. His throat clicks as he swallows another mouthful of bubbles, too sweet and far too dry, and tries not to look like someone who’s thinking about whether touching the car would get him arrested.

“Beautiful, yes?”

Liam startles. The accent cutting through the din of polite murmured British vowels. It's soft, with a smooth French lilt that curls at the edges.

Charles Leclerc, Red Bull’s championship driver, stands next to him, gazing down at the car like he’d marry it if the law allowed.

Liam swallows hard. He’s just grateful those sharp, unnervingly clear eyes aren’t fixed on him. His frayed nerves wouldn’t survive the full weight of Charles’ attention. He’s watched enough races, pressed against Max on the couch, to know Charles was known for more than his speed.

Max had once casually said he looked like a saint carved in marble, and Liam hadn’t been able to unsee it since.

Across the room, Liam catches the familiar timbre of Max’s voice rising above the chatter; light, clipped, and unmistakably apologetic as he weaves his way toward them.

Relief washes over Liam so hard it’s almost embarrassing.

“Uh… yeah,” his voice cracks, and he wants the floor to swallow him whole.

Charles' eyes do that thing — crinkling at the corners in a way that might be amusement or pity, Liam can’t tell. He’s halfway through convincing himself he imagined it when Max’s pace visibly quickens until he’s suddenly right there, practically on top of him.

Liam ends up tucked into the lapel of Max’s finely pressed Tom Ford blazer. The grounding scent of bergamot and lavender filters into his awareness, and he takes a deeper breath, letting it steady him for just a moment.

“Charles,” Max says, tone painfully pointed in its politeness. It’s the voice he uses with foreign investors and CEOs he doesn’t like but has to appease.

“I thought you were out of the country. Something about a charity karting race? I’m sure Christian wouldn’t want you stepping out on your duties.”

Something about it in this context urks Liam, a scratch he can’t quite get too. Like all the little things Max had told him about Charles, those personal little touches, like they were friends, don’t link into the way he eyes Charles like a threat.

“Ah, yes, a cancellation in my schedule, good timing I think, so that I can meet your new beau.”

The accusation of being one of many lands with a soft thud to Liam’s chest. It curls acrid in the air between them, and whatever ease that had laid into the set of Liam’s spine curls hot. Snaking into his lungs and making him flinch against the hand Max runs on his side trying to calm him.

“Still have a taste for drama, then,” Max says, the corners of his mouth lifting sardonically.

Charles sips his champagne without breaking eye contact, gaze drifting lazily to Liam and skating over him like he’s nothing more than a decorative accessory on Max’s arm.

“You used to find that charming.”

Liam watches the bubbles in Charles’ glass burst and vanish, staring at the point where they rise and fall as his mind reels over each new exchange. There’s no comfort to be had here, not when that itch in his neck is still pressing in. They’re drawing attention now, the eyes Liam has thought on him now definitely pressing in on all sides.

He’s aware of Max’s hand, warm and steady at the small of his back. It should help. It doesn’t.

“I find a lot of things less charming these days,” Max’s voice is smooth and foreign, a stranger wearing his skin by Liam’s side.

Charles hums, low and noncommittal. “Funny. You haven’t changed your cologne.”

Liam’s grip tightens imperceptibly on his glass. He knows he should step in. Be someone who has the confidence to toe up to… whatever was unfurling in front of him. But it’s easier this way. Easier to pretend it wasn’t exactly what it looked like. Not some secret Max never told him.

“Neither have you,” Max says quietly.

Charles takes a step, raises a hand and then pauses. Something rattles loose, a second of uncertainty when he sweeps his gaze and catches on Liam again. Max, for what it’s worth, only tightens his hold. It’s a subtle brace, like he’s preparing to back away entirely.

“You look tired,” Charles says, softer now. “Worn thin around the edges. I hope this one’s not costing you too much.”

Liam’s breath catches and he blinks hard, dragging his eyes up from the glass to glance between them. But neither man is looking at him.

Max’s jaw ticks. “He’s not yours to measure.”

“No,” Charles replies, almost thoughtfully. “I suppose not.”

Yet for all his words, now his eyes, those beautiful piercing green eyes, pin Liam into his shoes. Stripping him apart layer by layer. Flaying him down to the dirt under his fingernails, the cologne he had to borrow from Max, the callouses from years of restaurant work, the backwater house he grew up in, and every hungry, clawing attempt he’d ever made just to survive.

Just to be seen by someone like this.

“Goodbye, Charles,” Max says, with a finality so sharp it could draw blood.

Then he takes Liam’s wrist and drags him through the crowd. Liam stumbles after him on wobbly legs, dazed. A few guests try to intercept them, hands half-raised in greeting or inquiry, but Max shuts them down with a look so ice-cold and purposeful they scatter before a word leaves his mouth.

“Liam….” That’s his name, but it doesn’t sound right. “Liam, I need you to breathe, love.”

He tries to breathe, tries to draw in air, but it’s still lodged somewhere between his ribs, right where Charles had shoved his hand in to dissect him.

Max doesn’t let go until they’ve cleared the ballroom, until the marble floors give way to thick carpet and the rattling noise of the party is muted by double doors. He leads Liam down a corridor lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, where nothing but the endless expanse of the London skyline awaits.

In a quiet alcove, hidden from the world, Max finally stops. He turns to him, hands gentle as he guides Liam down onto the windowsill.

“Liam. Look at me.”

Liam tries. The edges of the world feel off, indistinct like his hand through water. He stares at Max’s blazer instead, its perfect stitching, it's impossible neatness. It cost more than Liam’s last apartment.

A man who wears a mortgage as a suit shouldn’t belong to someone like him.

“I need you to breathe.”

“I am breathing,” Liam mutters.

His hand trembles slightly where it grips the champagne flute, somehow still in his hands. His fingertips are sticky where the wine had sloshed over his skin.

“No,” Max says softly, “you’re surviving. That’s not the same.”

Liam’s chest stutters again, and he sets the glass down too fast. It tips sideways on the carpet but doesn’t shatter. He draws in a breath, pressing his fist into his sternum, rubbing small circles with a pressure that aches.

Max crouches in front of him. He doesn’t reach out. Doesn’t push. Just leaves a hand’s breadth of space between them, like he’s afraid Liam will bolt again. Just like at the hotel.

And the airport.

And when Max showed up at the café a month later with no invitation, just expectation.

That was the thing about men like Max. The rich always assumed access. Assumed the right to chase. To arrive.

And yet… here Liam was. Still letting him.

Still loving him.

“He got to you,” Max says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Liam says, and though the words aren’t accusatory, they feel like a fracture opening up. “You never said he—you two—”

“There was nothing to tell,” Max says, too quickly.

That stings more than Liam understands. Maybe it’s not even the secrecy. Maybe it’s the deliberate omission, the idea that Max didn’t trust him enough to share. That he thought Liam couldn’t handle it.

They’d talked about Charles. Every race weekend. Curled up on the couch, picking sides, arguing about tyre strategy. Not once had Max said a word. Not even a hint.

“He looked at me like I was already failing,” Liam murmurs. “Like he’d already decided I wouldn’t last.”

“He doesn’t get to decide that.”

“But he’s not wrong,” Liam blurts. “I don’t belong there. I don’t belong here.” His voice is shaking now, betraying him. “I’m just some guy who got lucky. It’s always just luck. Dumb fucking luck, don’t you get it? You—this whole world—” he gestures vaguely toward the hallway, back into that room with the weight of wealth and power and knowing everyone’s name “—it’s not mine. I keep waiting for the moment someone walks over and asks what I’m doing here. Where they ask me to pick up a bloody tray and do my job like a good boy.”

“No one’s going to do that.” Max takes Liam’s hand in his. Their hands fit together so naturally now, but Liam still looks down at them like they’re something he borrowed.

“You say that like it’s a fact.”

“Because it is. Because I say it is.”

The laugh catches fish hooked to Liam’s mouth. “You can’t just will everything to be the way you want it to be. I—I can’t be everything you want me to be.”

Max flinches. The first real crack in his composure all night. And in that moment, Liam sees the man beneath the polish. The real Max.

“Liam—”

“I heard someone say they don’t even allow plus-ones to these things,” Liam continues, his voice thin. “Why did you bring me here, Max? To show me off? Parade me around like something you rescued?”

Max’s expression shifts. “No. That’s not—Liam, that’s not what this is.”

“Then what was it about?” Liam’s voice rises before he can stop it, emotion breaking loose in ragged edges. “Because I don’t know. You never say anything. You think because you flew me here and put me in a suit and gave me a seat next to you that I’d just feel wanted? That I’d stop feeling like an imposter?”

“I didn’t bring you here to fix anything—”

“But you brought me anyway. You always decide. And the rest of us just orbit around it.”

Max’s mouth opens, then closes again. He’s silent, visibly holding something back.

Liam shakes his head, pushing further back into the alcove. “You could’ve told me. About Charles. About any of it. But you didn’t. Because deep down, you don’t trust me. You don’t think I can handle the truth—”

“That’s not true,” Max says, quiet but firm. “That’s not true.”

“Then what is? Because right now, it feels like I’m just some temporary distraction in your life until it becomes too inconvenient to keep me.”

Max exhales, like he’s been punched. He runs a hand through his hair, a rare crack in his carefully put-together façade. “God, Liam. You really think I’m using you?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Liam says. “I just know how it feels. That’s all I’ve ever had. And every time I’m in your world, I feel like I'm drowning and you just keep pulling me deeper.”

Silence falls between them.

Max shifts back on his heels, gaze dropping to his shoes. It reminds Liam of a defeated dog.

The shame of causing him pain crawls under his skin, even as Max’s voice drops so low it barely carries.

“— because I love you.”

Liam shatters.

“I didn’t bring you here to make you feel small,” Max says. “I brought you because I wanted you beside me. Because you’re not a project, Liam. You’re not something I’m trying to fix. You’re someone I’m—” He falters, breath catching.

“You’re someone I fell in love with… before I even realised that’s what was happening.”

#redeye verse #lawstappen #f1 rpf #prompt fic #alex tag

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