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fishhateme · 1 month ago

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so... LinkedIn au part four, anyone?

Listen. LISTEN. I know it's been like a month. But last week was the ao3 fic, so I'm making good on my promise and finally, finally continuing this au - rest assured, there will be no more longer breaks, we'll do biweekly updates now. Technically, this was supposed to come out on Thursday, but I was genuinely creatively blocked. Anyways, hope you like it! if you need to catch up, go read part 3!

Max wasn’t an expert on coffee, not really, but he’d wager the espresso he was drinking right now had been burned, watered down with tap water, covered up with sugary syrups he couldn’t name if he wanted to, and then topped off with the cheapest milk known to man.

Ah, the beauty of a college campus Starbucks.

Besides him, Daniel was drinking a chai latte (“I’m actually not supposed to be drinking this, I’m lactose intolerant, but YOLO, am I right? George, do people still say YOLO?”) and George, the TA, was typing furiously on his cellphone, his caramel macchiato long forgotten beside him (“Are you flirting with your boyfriend again, Georgie? Your boyf?” “Erm- Alex is just a friend, Professor Ricciardo. And nobody says boyf”).

In any case, Daniel’s eyes were now focused on Max as the Dutchman tried not to grimace anytime he took a gulp out of his drink, thinking that it was surely unfair that this man had such naturally long eyelashes and puppy-dog eyes.

“What about you, Max? Got any boyf?” Daniel asked, voice mocking as he said that just to annoy George, obviously.

Obviously.

That was the only reason he was asking about Max’s relationship status.

Even though the espresso he was drinking was hell on Earth, Max forced himself to take another gulp and swallow it, if only to buy himself some time. He thought about that Spanish car designer with the stupid mansion in Madrid he’d invited Lando to for the weekend, because if a God existed he surely wanted to show Max that good things happened to good people, just not him.

Unlike his friend, Max was meant to squirm under hot, middle aged men’s questioning gazes.

Actually not the worst fate in the world, now that he thought about it.

“Eeeeh” he said, noncommittal. “No, no, uh, boyfriend”

If he hadn’t known any better, he would’ve said that Daniel smiled at that, but his plush lips were quickly covered by the plastic lid of his drink. “Ah, a pity, such a handsome man all alone. I’m single, too, if it helps you feel better. I’m All By Myself, like my friend Celine.” he stared at Max, the corner of his mouth quivering, clearly searching for some recognition that never came, “You uh, you know Celine, actually?”

Max frowned, not sure if he should focus on the fact that he’d just been called handsome or on the Aussie’s question, suddenly feeling socially inept. He knew a lot of people in the physics world - Jos had made sure of it, had taken him to see particle accelerators instead of playing football when he was a kid - but not so many in academia, not really. “Uh… Celine?”

George gave him a weird look, almost pitying, but Daniel was nodding along, a thrilled gleam in his eyes. “Yeah yeah yeah, Celine! She, uh, awesome lady, gosh, she did a lot of work in the, uh, green sector…” he turned to George, a gleam in his eyes, “George, Tell Him”

George rolled his eyes, sighing, but he set his phone on the table as he reluctantly smiled at his professor, seeming mildly amused. “Oh yeah, I remember Celine, It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”

Daniel almost jumped from delight at that, squirming in his seat like a child on a sugar rush, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as he looked back at Max, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, uh, I don’t know if you remember, Max, she was really big in the green energy space, uh, she invented this whole new type of power plant… it was very, uh, revolutionary. She discovered, um, a new type of power” he said, his voice jumping an octave at his last words, his entire body language jumpy as if he couldn’t wait for something.

Max blinked, feeling like he’d missed half of the conversation, lost, suddenly back to being in the backseat of his dad’s car after another failed Physics Olympiad.

Was this Celine woman important? Was he forgetting, like, another one of Marie Curie’s daughters and they were laughing at his lack of physics knowledge? Had Daniel read his old fluid dynamics papers and expected a scholarly genius, only to be disappointed? Was he going to tell everyone he knew that the old prodigy of aerodynamic engineering was actually a fraud who hadn’t even designed a successful new aircraft in almost a year now? Was this all a big joke, and he was the punchline?

“She discovered The Power Of Love!” Daniel cut in, laughing so hard he almost fell out of his chair, tears in his eyes as he cackled.

Unbeknownst to him, he'd said something so odd and utterly unfunny he'd completely snapped Max out of his spiral.

Huh, that's certainly a new way of getting back to the present.

Other patrons at the Starbucks stared, but at least one or two recognized Daniel by his honking laugh, waving hi at their professor, evidently somewhat fond of his antics.

Max felt half confused and half embarrassed, and he let out a little chuckle out of politeness, although he was mostly starting to get irritated by… whatever this was. He looked at George, feeling lost, and the TA laughed as well, clearly a little in love with Daniel too because he seemed far too charmed by the older man’s shenanigans. At Max’s lost look, though, he clearly took pity on him, because he stirred the caramel macchiato pensively before finally giving in.

“Celine Dion, Max” George explained, whilst Daniel was too busy laughing his ass off.

Max blinked once, then twice, feeling stupid. This wasn’t a… physics thing, was it? It wasn’t the type of get together where three academics tried to surpass each other’s encyclopedic knowledge of increasingly obscure subjects, it was just… three guys in a Starbucks.

Okay. Cool. Chill. Max could do that. Totally.

“Oh” he said, lamely.

Daniel was so delighted he was kicking his feet by now, wiping off his tears with a cheap napkin. “Ah, mate, you should’ve seen your face…” he sniffled, looking like a kid on Christmas as he beamed at Max, not even remotely ashamed. “Sorry, uh, I promise I don’t do that often. Must be the caffeine in my system”

“Yes, you do. And you’re drinking tea” George piped in, his British accent barely disguising his rudeness, but Max and Daniel were too busy making lovey dovey eyes at each other to really pay attention to his words.

What a weird fucking dude, Max thought, breathing slowly as he allowed himself a real smile.

If possible, Daniel smiled even wider, as if in reflex.

Okay, yeah, I wanna fuck him.

They ended up spending over an hour at the Starbucks, mainly because Daniel had gotten it into his head that his first-year students should computationally model the hypersonic aerodynamics of a cow for 20% of their grade, and now he was in a bit of a pickle since he was expecting at least one of his eighty or so students to adequately assume the cow would fucking die, and none of them had gotten it right.

George, exasperated, was already emailing one of Daniel’s faculty members, the Seb guy, asking how they could delete a graded assignment from the applied physics department’s digital database before the faculty head noticed.

Meanwhile, Daniel was bent over the table, sipping his third venti chai latte, clearly on a little bit of a sugar rush as he covered his face with his hands, “I just don’t get why they didn’t tell me to fuck off! They should’ve told me to fuck off, right? I mean- how many days did they even spend on this?! They put the- they put the fucking cow in Mach 5 velocity, did nobody think about the poor animal?!”

Max was just thankful he’d never had to study under Daniel, really. Not only would it have been a massive obstacle to his accelerated course of studies, which his father had personally designed, it would’ve also made him want to stay and have class with his peers, which would’ve been hugely detrimental to his carefully timed life plan.

They wrapped up the coffee date (was it a date when you brought along your TA and only talked about work? Max should really just swallow his pride, reinstall Grindr and be done with it) after Daniel texted a friend of his about animal cruelty and sticking bulldogs in wind tunnels or something. Max just hoped it wasn’t the bulldog guy from the convention.

It probably was, wasn’t it?

George had long since headed to the dorms, arguing weakly about homework, which his Aussie boss clearly didn’t buy for a second, but had still allowed.

As he took him to his car, Daniel smiled at Max, sweet like honey. His tan skin was glowy in the golden light of the sunset, and he almost looked regal, like a statue of a long forgotten Greek god.

The college parking lot was silent and deserted, at this time of day. Above them, the clouds shone a mesmerizing mix of pink and orange hues.

“I had a lot of fun today,” Daniel said, his voice quiet like he was afraid to ruin the moment. “Thanks for coming by. I know it’s not the most, uh… exciting, compared to your big-boy labs and, like- fancy computing systems and everything, but… y’know”

Max nodded along, eyes wide. He didn’t want to miss a single second of this, whatever this was. He wondered if Daniel’s lips tasted sweet with a hint of chai tea, tried to imagine how the spiciness of the black pepper would feel on his tongue.

“I had a lot of fun, too. It was nice to get shown around. I never got the, er, proper college experience. So it was of course lovely to join you, Daniel” Max responded, surprising himself when he realized he had actually had fun, even though it had been, objectively, a waste of his time.

He could waste time, and be cool and laid back, and have people know his name and order in a coffee shop, and memorize Celine Dion songs to make shitty jokes.

He could, truly.

Let me show you I could, he wanted to say, but the words died on his lips.

Daniel stared, still, uncharacteristically quiet.

He was awfully close, Max realized.

The Aussie cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but he didn’t take a step back. Max could feel his breath ghosting his lips. He must’ve looked pathetic, now, pupils blown wide and cheeks burning crimson for a man he hadn’t even touched.

Daniel seemed to finally get the memo, letting his eyes drift shut as he leaned in for a kiss, a soft peck of the lips with barely any tongue, tentative and unsure. Chaste, almost - silly for men their age.

Max sighed deeply through his nose, taking a step forward, wanting to be impossibly closer to Daniel, to press their bodies closer together, closer, closer, closer.

But Daniel pulled back, his warm hands caressing his shoulders, keeping him in place as he smiled softly. “Drive safe, Max”

And Max, maddened with the burning need for more, couldn’t do much more than nod, watching as he walked away.

#daniel ricciardo #max verstappen #maxiel #my fic #my writing #linkedin influencer!au #featuring tired ta george #oh wait i forgor 💀#george russell #this au is BACK #but also next week is gonna be a looooong yummy chapter on my daniel killing himself ao3 fic i'd go check that out #damn i really have to find a better name for that au don't i #i have an actual name for that other au but i cant say it without spoiling literally the last chapter aaaaah #anyways enjoy this piece of 'just get something on the page' quality writing #yours truly #fish #Also how many of you can tell im not a stem girlie just by the semi believable physics talk 😭

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fishhateme · 2 months ago

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So... LinkedIn au part three, anyone?

i should be writing a philosophy essay that i've already gotten an extension on but i am instead back on my linkedin mutuals bullshit, genuinely this is detrimental to my education but shhh

btw here's part two and part one if you wanna catch up (and part four if you wanna keep reading!)

The first thing Max notices about the third floor of the applied physics department is that the hallways aren’t necessarily too narrow, they just feel claustrophobic because someone haphazardly left piles of photocopies in random corners.

Watching his step as to not knock anything over, he tried to make his way around the old, outdated building. He wondered if Daniel was the culprit of all these piles of photocopies.

Maybe this was all a big mistake. He still had time to turn around and leave, really.

He knew he wouldn’t. Go big, or go home.

The day after the convention, after exactly 18 hours of stressing over whether sending a DM or not over LinkedIn (again, pathetic, who’d send a DM over LinkedIn), he sent a quick message to Daniel’s profile. Just a quick, ‘Hey, are you still sleeping off that hangover? Haha :D’ He bit his lip, then, nervously. Was the smiley face too much? Did it seem mocking without it? Was it too forward for a first contact, should he just start with a simple, friendly ‘hi’ and hope Daniel still remembered their short chat before Lando cut them off saying they had to go before the roads got jammed? Maybe a more formal, serious ‘hello’, or was Max being too cold again? Max ended up sending the original DM instead of paying attention to his team meeting, immediately closing the app (since when had he downloaded LinkedIn for mobile?) and focusing on whatever Marko was saying, trying to take notes for the new prototype that the shareholders would surely hate.

God, he needed a new job.

And probably needed to stop trying to use LinkedIn as a substitute for Grindr, too, but hey, one step at a time.

When he came out of the meeting two hours later, he was so irritable and cranky that he snapped when Lando suggested afterwork drinks, and a cruel little voice in the back of his head told him he was starting to turn into Jos. Instead of taking a bath with a toaster oven, Max decided to placate that particular thought with a beer and some sports highlights on his couch, in the peace and comfort of his own home instead of one of Lando’s overpriced pubs.

It was only then that he checked his phone, his breath staggering like an anxious teenager’s when he realized Daniel had replied almost instantly, which meant he’d inadvertently ignored a perfectly good opportunity for a conversation with the hot Aussie for… what, almost four hours, now?

‘Haha, I had to take an Ibuprofen and come straight to work, I ain’t letting my students skip class just because’

‘It’s my duty as their professor to torture them as much as I possibly can’

‘Although I have to admit my TA read like half the lecture today’

‘Poor Georgie wasn’t happy’

‘He doesn’t have that teaching dog in him’

Max remembers frowning at the flurry of messages, as if he could almost feel the nervous energy coming through the screen. So Daniel was a… quintuple texter. Straight away. Good to know.

(A part of Max wondered what it’d be like to wake up to five or so morning texts, just some goofy, cringey sentences detailing what so-and-so from the university did today. Nothing that mattered to Max, really, except it would matter, because it came from him) (Jesus, get it together, mate) One thing led to another, and it only took Daniel three full days to invite Max to his office after hours, to have a chat and maybe go for a drink afterwards, just as two academics wanting to hyperfixate over airflow dynamics - which seemed to be more of Daniel’s kind of hangout, but then again the older man clearly missed the industry, so Max would humour him.

An opportunity to spend time together, however dull, would always be welcome, because fuck, he was lonely, and he didn’t feel like thirdwheeling Lando and his new Spanish fling.

However, now that he was here, on the third floor of the applied physics department, he didn’t really… see any office that had Daniel’s name?

Max felt like he must’ve looked kind of stupid as he walked around lost, or maybe he looked like a graduate student looking for where to break in to his thesis supervisor’s office to smear the walls with neon paint or something equally as outrageous, but thankfully there weren’t many people around, and they all seemed old, and tired, and didn’t really look his way.

Fun work environment!

He was seriously debating whether or not to turn back, head home, and block Daniel, by the time he saw a dishevelled blonde man come out of what seemed to be a broom closet, smiling and nodding along to what someone inside was saying. He looked middle aged but clearly worn down (was there a carbon monoxide leak inside the department or was that just what academia… did to people?), his corduroy suit jacket with its neat little elbow pads making him look like a caricature of a college professor.

The guy said something Max couldn’t quite make out, and promptly left, closing the broom closet’s door. After he’d walked away, Max hesitantly approached the closed door, and upon further inspection, he realized there was a little sticker of a honey badger on the wooden door. He’d ignored the door previously, but maybe that was it? Max knocked, sceptical, and a familiar voice immediately called from the inside of what was surely, please not an office.

“Yeah, Seb? I got it, I promise, refillable water bottles instead of disposable ones, I’ll tell the kiddos next time I see them, mate”

When Max opened the door to what was evidently, in some sense of the word, an office, Daniel didn’t even look up.

The Aussie was too focused on grading a pile of papers he had on his crammed desk, messily writing full paragraphs on the end of the papers that Max thought looked unintelligible, but hey, that was a problem for the students, not him.

“Yeah, yeah mate, save the turtles and the, uh, the bees and the tigers and the crocodiles, I got it, I swear I got it, but could you please-” Max could pinpoint the exact moment Daniel realized it wasn’t ‘Seb’, whoever that was, because Daniel barely looked up, then did a double take as his eyes widened, then stopped talking altogether, sheepishly smiling “Oh, there’s the future Nobel Prize, sorry, mate. There’s this… colleague? Guy I used to work with that got me this job? Friend? Probably friend, I’ve met his kids, uh, anyway. I’m rambling, sorry. He’s just… Anyway. Glad to see you came! I was beginning to think you stood me up”

Max would’ve argued that he had of course come early and it was the stupid faculty’s fault for not labelling their offices correctly, and that Daniel had of course not been clear enough when he gave Max directions because this little room didn’t seem to be properly sized for an office and that Daniel should of course tell this to whoever was responsible because surely there had been a mistake, but the Nobel comment shut him right up. “Eh, well, it is very lovely for you to say that, but I do not think… I mean, of course I want to further science, but…” Daniel laughed at that, and even though he was sober now, it was that same honking laugh that Max remembered. “Oh, come on, mate, no need to be humble! I did my homework. That paper that you published, on the environmental temperatures needed to reach inviscidity in subsonic flow was fantastic! And to publish at 17, on a postgraduate level, jeez!” Max felt truly embarrassed now, not that fussy, excited kind of flustered where everything was wonderful and exciting and awfully, painfully human and imperfect because you had fallen in love with a stranger, but a more sinking dread at the realization that Daniel knew him for his work.

“Uh… well, I didn’t do it on my own, of course I co-authored it with my father…” he stammered out, much too self-aware of the way he dragged the syllables, the raspiness of his voice as he looked at the wall full of flyers and posters instead of at Daniel.

Daniel must’ve realized, clearly, because he hummed, slightly. “Sorry, I’m fangirling. I just hadn’t done any work on incompressible aerodynamics until I was, like, 21. I was a little intimidated when I realized I’d be meeting a genius in my humble office”

“I’m not a genius, Daniel, of course”

Daniel smiled then, something tight in his expression, before he, too, looked away at the walls, something pensive in his eyes.

“So? You like it?” “Uh… I think it has, er… a lot of personality for such a small place” At that, Daniel smiled again, more earnest, more toothy, if that was possible.

“Yeah, well. You know how it is. Hierarchy and all that, even professors have cliques, I guess. Only it’s a bit weirder when your version of Regina George is pushing sixty and instead of wearing pink on Wednesdays he talks about his horses in Banbury, uh, every single day of the week"

Max chuckled at that, smiling so hard his eyes went crinkly at the edges. He knew he was probably staring at Daniel as if he’d hung up the sun, and they were strangers, really, but Daniel was staring right back, his gaze fond.

A moment passed. The stillness of the quiet, tiny office enveloped them, the last rays of sunshine filtering through the broken blinds, tiny particles of dust floating lazily as they stared, only them, only them.

Until Max felt something digging into his back, hard as it pushed him from behind and forced him to hold onto the desk, grunting.

A voice came from behind him, “Uh, Professor Ricciardo, should I swing by later? I brought the photocopies you asked for next week’s lecture”

Daniel smiled then, shaking his head as he chuckled to himself, biting his lower lip. Clearly, he couldn’t believe their luck, either, and a shimmer of frustration shone through, but it was only for a fleeting moment before the ever-present grin came back on.

“Come on in, Georgie, let me introduce you to Mr. Max Emilian! He’ll be the one kicking your ass when you graduate and start looking for a job, come on”

Max chuckled, and turned to squeeze himself against the wall so that this George guy could come in, and that was the end of that.

#daniel ricciardo #maxiel #max verstappen #my fic #my writing #this chapter took like all day and i sorta hate it but shhh #linkedin influencer!au #also yes lando and carlos are having their own romance in the background but max only has eyes for danyul #wrote this while listening to hozier >:)#oblivious college professor!danny and madly in love ta!george yall have my heart

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