violent delights

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/41445333.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Formula 1 RPF
Relationship: Charles Leclerc/Max Verstappen
Characters: Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen
Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega
Dynamics, Rivals With Benefits, Explicit Sexual Content, Smut, Biting,
Introspection
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of like fire and powder
Stats: Published: 2022-09-02 Words: 7,142 Chapters: 1/1
 violent delights
by grandprix

Summary

Max can’t smell any of his usual aggression beneath the unusual spatter of Omega, sweet yet
violent, and it makes his head spin.

“Max,” is all Charles says, voice breathless. He looks over his shoulder, quick, hasty, looks
back. His eyes are wider, if possible. “We have— we have fucked up, I think.”

Notes

i told myself i would write omegaverse if i had an idea for it, which i never thought i would,
but then i read this maxiel fic and it rotted my brain so bad that i wrote this entire fic in the
span of like 2 days. so uh enjoy my apparent exploration of alpha/alpha lestappen

See the end of the work for more notes

Max remembers hearing the whispers as a kid. Underneath the dull hum of the rain, trackside
at some karting circuit in Europe, helmet heavy in his hands and the wash of victory brutal
across his shoulders. The voices of all the other boys his age were high and mumbly,
accented from a thousand different places, muted by the wretched downpour of water on
asphalt, water on skin.

It was outside the normal, now-practiced echo of “I hope I present as an Alpha. All the
Formula 1 world champions are Alphas. They are strong. I want to be strong.” Max heard
similar words from his father, dimly-lit by the kitchen bulbs. He would sit at the table, rap his
fingers, and remind Max of what he needed to become—an Alpha, a champion, the best in
the world. As if Max had any control over it. As if he could do anything but curl up in his bed
at night and pray, pray, pray.

But these whispers were different. They were quieter, more of a secret. Max wasn’t doing any
of the talking. His fingers curled into the plush interior of his helmet, worthless and
unannounced, raindrops scattered across his skin. They clung high on his cheekbones,
worried down the smooth skin of his face, beneath his high, perfunctory collar. The other
boys murmured, stole glances. Older brothers liked to talk, at home. Max had no older
brothers.

“He told me that some Alphas, they submit. He said that submissive Alphas like to be fucked.
Like girls. Like Omegas. Fuck them enough, and they will become one. You can make them
your bitch.”

It made the other boys laugh. Bull-shit, Max wanted to declare, but his tongue was heavy
with the profanity: those words sounded so ugly in his mouth, ugly in the rain-stained air
around him. His young face worried into creases, laughter forced and unwanted, the taste
sour on his tongue. He thought about the magazines he wasn’t supposed to have, hidden in
his pillowcase, stolen off of friends who weren’t really friends and read scantly in the
moonlight by his bedside. There were pretty Omegas, the big, strong Alphas he was supposed
to hold candles to, all skin, all exposed, all waiting for Max’s eyes.

He would go home and he would think about it. Would sleep through stormy nights and think
about it. The edges of those magazine pages would wear into dust, forlorn without ease, and
he would think about it.

Some years later, Max presented as an Alpha. He flipped through his old, tattered magazines.
He browsed dirty corners of the internet. He looked at other Alphas just as much as he looked
at the lean, pink-cheeked Omegas of fantasy, the ones all those same boys now loved to talk
about, fawning over the potential of having something like that for themselves. All for
themselves.

But somewhere, in the depths of Max’s mind, the lines go blurry, muted by the sound of kart-
side rain.
——

Alphas never fuck other Alphas. Really, the issue lies with an Alpha getting fucked by
another Alpha, a low kind of submission the high-and-mighty never dare to stoop to.

Max considers himself rather normal. He’s stocky and built like an Alpha, readable without
his scent, firm eyes and long glances that reek solemnly with something possessive, futile,
ugly. He’s angry and rash, bares his teeth at the wrong times, shoves when he doesn’t get his
way. Max has never thought about what it might feel like to get fucked, all slick between his
thighs like an Omega, ruddy and desperate until he comes.

Nothing outside the standard curiosity. The thoughts that come with his different biology,
something he’ll never understand, something he doesn’t have. Max fucks pretty Omegas after
race wins and wonders how they come to like being sticky like that, sweaty with a sweeter,
dirtier scent, less harsh and abrasive and more washed, all-consuming, ragged. The closest
he’ll ever get to smelling like an Omega is when they leave their scent on his skin, sometimes
floral, always familiar, wet and desperate in the crook of his elbow and runny down the slope
of his neck.

Max leaves his scent on them, too. Fiery and despondent, harsh with a presence they always
arch into, submissive, baring pale necks up towards his face like they’re begging, bite me,
bite me, bite me. Of course, Max knows better than to sink his teeth into that part of an
Omega, especially when it’s as meaningless as a victory hookup. Instead, he rubs his nose
into their scent glands until he’s confident it’ll be there for days, the familiar musk of Alpha,
perhaps comforting, perhaps heinous; he’ll never know the difference.

But sometimes, Max entertains the shadowy existence of Alpha x Alpha porn. It’s nothing
like the standard stuff, abundant and gaudy, disgusting in the way they speak to each other,
whiny Omegas crying, high on the noises with a horrible mewl of “Alpha, Alpha, Alpha.”
It’s different, like this, without any Omega at all—even when it’s not genuine, dirtier and
taboo by nature, always poorly lit and carefully explored, like there is something tender
beneath the aggression, a war of blood and teeth.

They fight, sometimes; most of the time. Two nameless Alphas going at each other, growling,
all teeth, gnawing on every bit of skin they can get to. There’s no need to be careful—they
can’t mate, anyway. Bloody, banged-up bite marks stain their necks, red and ugly, slick with
wrought desire and useless mumbles. They fuck each other in some manner that takes turns,
always rolling, never quite winning, a constant push-and-pull that fights for dominance,
wordless, every sound deep and guttural and halfway in their chests, scratched-up and
forward with a puff that says I’m always in charge, I own you, I own you. (They don’t own
shit—not when they’re both hard-wired with claim—but they always act like they do).

Then, there’s the angle that reminds Max of the rain, the rumors, the things he still refuses to
believe. It lives under his skin, awkward and horrible, misplaced without the option of a
scalpel, something sharp—he can’t cut it out, throw it away, pretend he was never fed those
old lies at all. Max hates the taste of them in his mouth, the way they stick to the edges of his
lips, hot and awful. The internet says confusing things, when he looks it up. He doesn’t dare
ask his father, fears the implications, fears the rest of it.

But the sketchy, wide-angled pornography doesn’t fear anything. Alphas sink to their knees,
knots swollen and heavy, and they beg. They get spit on, toyed with, pumped full of come
until they’re crying. Max hates to admit his frequency behind Incognito windows,
memorizing the timbre of a bulky, well-endowed Alpha who looks down at another on his
knees, groveling, knot desperate like he’s in rut, abysmal and searching for something to fuck.
The words linger in his head, of the taller one, still on his feet, spitting backward, “will you
fuck yourself into an Omega on my cock?”

Sticky shots of knots swelling in an Alpha’s hole linger behind Max’s closed eyes. They
never take, come dripping out with all the excess lube standing in for slick, unscented and not
the same. Max wonders about it, about the Alphas that beg, about what they want from it.
They always seem to like the taste of come, as if they’re not nursing their own knot beneath
their fist, tight and ignorable, never inside anything tight enough, wet enough, Omega enough
to burst.

Max lays awake, watches gaudy porn until his eyes go raw, dick limp, sore, knot swollen. He
pants with it. He tells himself he wants to fuck an Omega stupid with it, watch them take in
the way these Alphas on his screen never could, so wet they’re dripping around him, but he
never goes back to the sancity of what’s normal.

On race weekends, Max gets in his car and he drives like the best Alpha around, like he has
something to compensate for.

——

Charles Leclerc has always been pretty. His hair is soft, and it flows, and his jaw is sharp
without aggression, skin meager, proportions slimmer and favoring a narrow waist. Even
when his biceps stretch at the red fabric of his polo shirts, he’s still pretty, perfect Charles,
with soft lips and softer eyes, good enough to make your breath stammer.

When Max used to speak more Dutch and taste more rain—still scared of presenting as the
wrong thing, having to face his father knowing he was the only truth he couldn’t be—he
stood in closed circles and pointed fingers, played guessing games. Pierre Gasly was like an
Alpha, tall and cocky with a lopsided grin, already heart-stopping without effort. He was
older, presented sooner, and Max was right. He was always right.

But the other boys liked to giggle and stoke, point at pretty boys with long brown hair and
say, Omega, Omega, Omega. The way Charles fumbled over his words was too innocent, too
small, and he was lithe, feathery and delicate, voice angular and heavy on his tongue without
the same confidence as the other boys around him. Charles Leclerc seemed like an Omega,
prim and prince-like and mannered against showing his teeth, and all the boys on the karting
track seemed to know. Max liked to agree with them. Max liked to think he was stronger than
Charles, always would be, especially after he had eaten gravel at the fault of his wheels.

Then Charles got taller. He got stronger. His narrow shoulders got a little broad, filled out the
cotton of his expensive t-shirts. Max wondered why his jaw looked so good sporting stubble.
Soon after Max presented himself, he found out Charles was an Alpha, too. He smelled hazy
and indiscernible. He was too pretty, but he was strong, and he liked to show his teeth now.
By the time they both get up to Formula 1, Max has gotten used to it, the look of something
feral on Charles’s skin.

——

“But I am an Alpha.”

It’s all Max can think to say after Charles propositions him. His heart rabbits in his chest, ribs
aching with it, cracking under the pressure. All of his skin burns hot, blistering, burdened by
Sakhir’s heat. The thick collar of his fireproofs has never felt so stifling, wrapped hotly
around his throat with a hate, easy to fiddle with when fingers tremor under the wound of
Charles’s eyes, his words, the way he says it like he means it—you piss me off, you piss me
off, please touch me, please touch me.

Charles twitches. He stands with his feet apart, race suit loose at his hips, sleeves nearly
dragging on the floor. He looks more aggressive all done up in red, framed by the closed door
of Max’s driver’s room. His face is burning, too. Sweaty, wet without champagne. Max’s has
it, the sweet taste of victory, bubbling and crystalline against the heat of his skin. He wonders
how much of his scent is drowned out beneath it, if it’s anything like Charles’s smell now, hot
and aggressive and battered by the stink of losing.

He refuses to rest his weight. Charles stands like he might pounce, fists clenching and
unclenching, shoulders tight. His lips are off-kilter. He has too much stubble. He looks fit to
burst, steam seeping from his ears, halfway to explosive.

“I know,” is what he finally answers with, and his voice is batty. It rumbles with something
low, growling, straight from the chest. Max leans forward instinctively, challenging, not one
to surrender without a fight. His racing boots scuff against the floor.

“And yet,” Max states plainly. It’s not complete. His head hurts with blue-light memories,
calm flashes of all that is denial rampant in his head. He wants to know which way they
would go. Based solely on the look of it—Charles tense, shoulders high to his ears, breath
ruthless—he thinks he already knows. He hates to admit he expected the other: it requires
him to admit he’s thought about this.

Logic destroys fantasy. Charles kisses him all teeth, bites like an Alpha, like he wants to draw
blood. Max clashes with him and it hurts. The dig of Charles’s race suit into his hip hurts. So
does his hand, hard and fast around his knot, squeezing, like he knows the ways to make it
ache.

Charles leaves Max in his driver’s room, fireproofs rucked up to expose his stomach, sweaty
and spent. The scent of champagne has long since left his skin, but all that stands in its place
is something muted, perspiration and Alpha, though it’s impossible to discern whose musk is
whose.

Perhaps that is an advantage. Though when Max inspects it, fresh off the Monegasque’s skin,
it’s uniquely his, the blend of it along his neck where he was bitten, drooled on, fought with
—now that he wears it, his spit and bite marks, it’s all the same. Something dominant,
aggressive. Max expects the curves of Charles’s neck to smell similar, beneath all the red-
purple marks he left in his wake. He fought with him, of course. He will never not fight with
Charles.

——

It was stupid of Max to think that was the end of things. A foolish one-off, fueled by the heat
of a lost race, of the Bahrain desert, of a truth he would never taste. There was no awful scent
to wash off in the shower that night, nothing foul and telling, sweet at the edges with slick.
Charles’s hostility smelled just like Max’s, arousal unidentifiable, and Max just walked out of
his driver’s room after he caught his breath like there was never another way to look.

After the first time, Charles makes it into a thing. Though his scent never sticks around, he
certainly does, always aggressive and wanting. Max gets used to the sound of Charles’s growl
in his ear, the feeling of his teeth in his lips, on his skin, primal and easy. He gets used to the
taste of Charles on his tongue, heavy and brutal and Alpha, nothing like all the sugar-sweet
skin he’s used to, always sour with the aggression of someone who just wants to take.

But Charles lets Max take.

He doesn’t just fall to his knees. It’s not like in the videos, paid and garish, where the Alphas
just collapse, hands flighty, tip their jaws up and wait for instruction. It’s not like the filthy
wet dreams Max wakes up sticky to, cock hard and angry against his stomach, lowly growls
nestled into the column of his throat with a weight he can’t quite shake. Charles isn’t easy,
doesn’t beg, doesn’t bat his eyelashes and drool—but he lets Max take.

Max likes fighting Charles for it. He likes teasing, letting him think he’ll be the one to fall
back into the sheets this time, unfounded. But even though they’re both Alphas, Max is
bigger, stronger, a little bit taller with a little more too him—the few centimeters he has on
Charles are all dispersed in places that matter, and he can pin him, bite his neck, slather his
skin sticky with spit and brutal beneath teeth, always fighting, like Charles has a chance.

Fucking Charles is different than fucking an Omega. He’s tighter, slick with lube, body
pushing with a kind of resistance that says, I am not built to be taken like this. Max knows
he’s not. He stretches around his knot gracelessly, rejects it, falls apart with a groan that has
him twitching, scent still heavy with the aggression he hasn’t let out. He rips up Max’s back
with his nails as a stand-in. Max’s trainer looks at him like he’s crazy, back tattered to pieces,
ugly, pink lines all the way down to his waist—Brad gives him eyes that say you’re insane,
you let an Omega do that to you? and Max knows the other Alpha thinks he looks owned.

But he gets to fuck Charles Leclerc. Alpha, Ferrari driver, title rival Charles Leclerc. And he
doesn’t take like an Omega, doesn’t take like he was made for it, always finding room to fit
more of Max, neck bared, whines high. He’s low and pushing, mouth always open, teeth spit-
slick and displayed like the angles to them will make Max crumble. They don’t: they never
will. Max can flash his own right back, because they’re the same in that way, hostile to things
that aren’t breathable.

Charles turns up at Max’s hotel room door after Max beats him, again, room numbers texted
without context down a thread that looks ugly and suspicious, just a string of 279, 481, 1016,
running all the way back to Imola. He pushes Max the second the door closes, and Max
pushes him back, a fight to get him narrowed against the wall by his hips, always bruising,
the skin of his back sticky with the sting of something awful and pink.

“I am going to ride you,” Charles declares, voice hot and low, hands pushy. He shoves at
Max’s shoulders, tugs on his shirt like he’s going to tear it, and Max goes tense with the
boldness of it. Charles is worriless, aggressive, teeth already biting at the slip of Max’s collar,
drool heavy across his collarbone. “You will lie there, take it, like my bitch.”

Max growls—a sound he’s gotten used to tasting, with Charles on the wrong side of him—
and he pushes back, knocks Charles into the door with a rattle. He cages him in in a way he
would hate, revels in the way Charles pushes against it, futile, frown ugly and worked into
his muscles.

“I am not your bitch,” Max counters, cock swelling. He rubs it against Charles’s thigh, makes
him feel it, heavy and thick. Charles reeks of aggression, a scent that won’t transfer, only
stain every inch of this hotel room in a way Max will have to excuse. It could be his, anyway.
“I am not anyone’s bitch.” Max mouths at Charles’s jaw. It’s rough, stubbly, jerking away
from him at the graze of ardent teeth. “I will fill you with my come,” he gropes at Charles’s
ass, makes him buck, hips jittery, “make you into my bitch.”

And Charles hates that. He makes it clear in the way he drags Max to his bed, rides him hard
and fast, nails all over his chest. The sounds he makes are rough and primal, hands firm on
Max’s wrists, cock bobbing with his motion, burdened under the weight of his knot. When
he’s done, he cleans himself up, uses Max’s shower, and disappears back to wherever Ferrari
has him.

Max stands in front of the bathroom mirror, still wet with steam, and runs his fingers down
the marks Charles left all over him. He wonders, somewhere wicked and thin, if he really is
Charles’s bitch. He fucks him. He drives faster than him. He’s seen him down on his knees,
skin going red, lips stretched awkwardly around the swell of his knot. He’s tasted his come,
but only when Charles smeared it on his fingers, shoved them down Max’s throat until he
gagged.
By the time Max wakes up the next morning, the scratches on his chest are paler, and he’s not
really thinking about it anymore. He doesn’t see Charles until they get back to Monaco.

It’s on the street, of all places. Charles has a big, ugly mark on his neck. It’s in the shape of
Max’s mouth, larger than his chin, filling a space it wasn’t built for. Charles is sweating
through his shirt, breath ragged with something different, for once, and he looks more pliant
than he ever has beneath Max’s hands. He smells strange, but it’s heady with exhaustion,
muddled at the center. Max tries to make small talk where they can be seen, a jogger
streaming a breeze across his hot skin, but it doesn’t last long enough to feel anything close
to normal.

They end up biting each other in a dim alleyway. Max gets home with the collar of his shirt
torn, lips swollen, cock aching with a fever he can’t sweat out.

——

It’s not long after Max wins his second championship that Charles stops talking to him.

At the following race, Max texts him his room number. Charles never shows. He does it
again, the next time. Charles never shows.

Max tries not to get antsy with it. Maybe he’s remembered his place, he figures. Max always
remembered his at the worst times, balls deep in another Alpha, tongue out after choking,
skin burning with the wounds Charles gave him. Perhaps he should be relieved that Charles is
avoiding him. It means he doesn’t have to deal with it himself, walking away from this whole
thing. It can just end. Max can find a nice Omega, like he always supposed to do; it should be
easy, now, as a two-time world champion. It should be as easy as another race win.

But it’s not easy. Max catches flashes of Ferrari red on race weekends, tries to close the
distance, but Charles always runs away before he gets to him. He finds a way around the
corner, back into a sea of people, always managing to find a new flood of red to blend back
into. All Max wants to do is ask why, even though a part of him knows it’ll turn into a fight,
insides stirring with the adrenaline of it. His skin is hot beneath his collar, blistered, so much
so that his trainer keeps asking him if he’s okay, saying he smells stressed, offering him water
and cold Red Bull like it must be the heat.

Max tries to shrug it off. He catches Charles’s eyes during the driver’s parade, and Charles
turns quickly, mumbles something into Carlos’s ear. Max finds Carlos post-race, after a
podium they shared, Charles left behind somewhere in the midfield. Carlos smells like an
adrenaline rush, champagne sticky in his hair, Pirelli cap damp and shaken out at his side.

“Charles is fine,” he insists, voice harsh, mouth twisted into an ill-fitting line edging close to
a growl.
Feeling challenged, Max closes some of the space between them, though he’s not sure why.
He feels primordial, feral with something cruel in him. But Carlos is closed-off, eyes big and
not searching for a fight. He has a sweet scent on him, somewhere, not belonging to him.
Max doesn’t really recognize it, though it stirs something in him, something instinctive and
biological.

“Are you lying to me?” Max counters, like he knows. Carlos shakes his head. His brows
furrow, creased and defiant. Max steps closer. Carlos doesn’t move. “You are lying to me.
What is wrong with him?”

Carlos scoffs. He puffs his chest, steps closer before he walks away, leaves Max with a
thousand more questions than he approached with. He still has that scent on him, small
beneath champagne, sucrose and quiet.

——

In Abu Dhabi, Max sends Charles his hotel room number again. He stares at the text in his
message box for a little too long before he sends it, another meaningless attempt to join all
the others, something inglorious and awkward about the way it sits there, taunting him.

Max and Charles share a podium for the first time since Charles practically disappeared. And
after the last few races have reduced him down to a competitor somewhere behind him, a
half-hearted mention over team radio, it’s almost nice. Max hates that he has those thoughts
—he should be happy that Charles is gone, no longer a rival, no longer a foil, no longer
standing in his driver’s room door. He’s just another red car on the grid, left to taste Max’s
dust the same way he used to taste his skin, his blood, his sweat.

But on the podium, he’s suddenly alive again. More than a gold-edged memory when Max is
alone in bed, remembering all that was, the feral, unchecked nature of what existed between
them. He still tastes Charles, sometimes, a phantom weight on his tongue, imaginary teeth on
his neck. All the bruises have faded, but he still sees them there, sometimes. He wonders
what his dad would think. Maybe he really is Charles’s bitch, he figures, reminiscent of his
own eyes in the steam of a hotel’s bathroom mirror.

Now, though, on the podium, he sprays champagne down Charles’s back like he has
something to be sorry for. He’s done it before, taunted him, done it on the same day he let
Charles bite him, reach for his cock, choke on a growl that would paint flimsy, temporary
walls. And always, Charles turned around, sprayed all he had left at Max, eyes hardened and
angry.

This time, though, Charles runs away. His feet are quick, and he’s stumbling, and he doesn’t
spray Max back. After the podium, after everything, after Max parades the Dutch flag around
and gets to bask in the sweet sense of world champion again, Charles is nowhere to be found.
——

Max is in his hotel room. He’s responding to congratulations texts, pouring in like he just
won the title, not had it re-solidified, when there’s a knock on his door. It’s urgent, hasty. Max
takes his time getting to the door, anyway, and when he stands close, close enough to peer
into the peephole, he smells it. Sweet, thick, panicked. Unkempt in every sense of the word.
Baking into something sweaty, cruel and unusual, not as cut and primal as his head expects it
to be.

It smells like an Omega.

Max opens the door without checking. On the other side, fist raised, is Charles Leclerc.

His face is red. He’s wearing something unassuming, a white t-shirt and plain shorts, all loose
around his frame. He reeks. It’s everywhere on him, sweet and brutal, dripping down his skin
like it’s tangible. Max’s face screws up at the intensity of it, all-consuming, mostly nervous,
mostly futile, half-aroused. It’s the undertones that make something in him stir, throat tight
with sick, limbs heavy and throttled by pins and needles.

If anyone were to go off scent alone, Charles is the Alpha who smells of a post-victory
celebration. He’s dripping it, the air of submission, the stick of arousal, hot and naughty
under his collar. But his eyes are big, lashes sticky, plain cap pulled low on his head like he
has something to hide. Maybe he does. Maybe Max does, too.

“Jesus, Charles,” Max huffs, face taut, hand on the door. He wants to yell something, though
he’s not sure what, not sure why, afraid of the instinct. He gives a white-knuckled grip to the
door in place of it. “How many Omegas did you fuck?”

The words are mean, thick with jealousy. Max hates the taste of it. He knows it’s in the
wrong vein, loathes to admit it, wants to throw up all the thoughts of Charles left in him.

But Charles is shaking his head. Quick, jerky movements, eyes flighty and miniscule. Max
wonders how they’ve made it this far, this close to each other, without pushing. He wonders
why Charles didn’t shove him the second he answered the door. Shouldn’t he be pissed? Isn’t
he angry? Max can’t smell any of his usual aggression beneath the unusual spatter of Omega,
sweet yet violent, and it makes his head spin.

“Max,” is all Charles says, voice breathless. He looks over his shoulder, quick, hasty, looks
back. His eyes are wider, if possible. “We have— we have fucked up, I think.”

Max can’t keep the scoff in his throat. Hostile, it rolls out, scratches up his mouth like nails.
“We?” he spits, the Alpha of his instinct all the same metal in his mouth. “You are the one
who disappeared, did not warn me, did not speak—”

He stops when he realizes Charles is shrinking back. His shoulders pinch in, head down—he
gets smaller. All the aggression piling up in Max’s ribcage sinks, heavy and heinous, afraid of
— of something. Because Charles put space between them. In the silence, he looks up with
big, big eyes, glassy at the edges, lips parted without teeth on show. He doesn’t say anything.
He looks patient, expectant, chest heaving.

Years-old rain descends on Max’s shoulders. He smells the petrichor of a karting track, cut by
burning rubber, high laughter on his ears. The gravel he used to kick at is rough beneath his
soles. He is young again, caught up in a circle of his mates, speaking in a language that isn’t
English. Max doesn’t believe the things he’s hearing. He’s heard them before, shrugged them
off before, grown used to the lie of it. Max goes home and forgets about it; he doesn’t, really.
Their words were always somewhere in his head, if muted, if indiscernible, if drowned out by
the rain. Maybe all he was doing was avoiding it.

“Fuck them enough, and they will become one.”

Max’s mouth is dry. He tries to swallow, it takes him three tries. His spit tastes sour. With a
shaking hand, Max reaches out, the backs of his knuckles against Charles’s jaw, still rough
with stubble. Charles doesn’t jut into it, doesn’t reach for his wrist, doesn’t fight, or push, or
do anything Max is used to him doing—he leans into it, lashes fluttering, shoulders loose. His
scent is messy. It’s hot. It’s sweet. He smells like a fucking Omega.

Max pushes his hand into his jaw, shifts, cups his chin. He revels in the way Charles leans
into it, so unlike before, so easy. His lips are still awkward, though his scent is shifting, heavy
and sated. His feet are still on the wrong side of the door. Neither of them make any moves to
change that.

“Carlos says you did it on purpose,” Charles mutters, voice soft, unrivaled.

Even with the gentility he speaks with, Max goes tense, hand rigid against Charles’s jaw. He
watches the Omega—fuck, the Omega—go tense with it, perhaps smelling his anger, perhaps
afraid. Max can’t keep those instincts out of him when he says, spits, “Carlos knows?”

He thinks of Carlos in Brazil, heady with a hint of Omega, face lost and answers short. He
was— he smelled like Charles, then, and that thought alone is enough to stir something
entirely new, entirely possessive inside of Max. It’s not a feeling he’s too familiar with, but he
goes thick and protective, fingers tensing with the impossible thought of my Omega, my
Omega, my Omega. It’s a dirty, unaccounted for thought. Charles is still tense beneath his
touch.

“I was scared,” he rushes, voice smaller than it’s been since he presented, “and Carlos was
there. He— we just talked. Things were changing very quickly.” Max’s fingers dig into the
space below Charles’s jaw, too close to his scent glands, too close to where he would need to
bite. Charles melts into it, fucking mewls, a high sound on his tongue that ricochets off the
hotel walls. “Max.”

He smells ruddy, swelling with arousal. It’s so sweet and thick, something that really will reel
off onto Max’s skin, become one with him, need to be scrubbed off with scentless soap from
too-small bottles. Head spinning, Max grabs Charles by the arm, tugs him inside, lets the
door slam a little too loudly. He presses Charles back into it, stolen breath high in his throat,
eyes wide and face red with all the submission he never thought he could have.
“Did he touch you?”

It’s low, growling. Max hasn’t heard that tone in his own voice ever, only assigned to
strangers, those gaudy Alphas on his laptop screen who kick and bite for blood. Everything
about it is primeval, possessive, perhaps unbelonging for how much Charles shakes. He’s
shaking his head no, hands stagnant by his waist, breath sharp and ragged on his tongue. Max
slots their hips together, presses forward, makes Charles feel the hardening line of his cock.
The moan he gets in return is maddening.

“Non, no, he just—” Charles tips his head back, breath unstable, “—I was scared,” he
reiterates, “Carlos was nice to me. Is nice to me.” Eyes straightening, he looks back at Max.
He still hasn’t seen his teeth. Juxtaposing, Max has gritted his so harshly together they’ve
started to ache. “I do not think you did it on purpose.”

The words are soft, ornate. It melts something inside of Max, pulls rigidity free from his
muscles, jealousy atoned. He can’t quiet all of it—still dwelling on Charles’s scent beneath
the champagne, the avoidance, the blame—but Charles is reaching for his jaw before it gets
out of sorts again, palm dragging elegantly down his rough stubble with a soothe, quiet and
small.

Most of the tension in Max’s shoulders dissipates. He doesn’t back away, though, high off
their proximity, holding fast to Charles’s waist and tipping in, dangerously, too-fast. He
buries his nose into the space beneath Charles’s jaw, into the warmth of his scent glands, hot
and wild and Omega. It’s not something Charles used to let him have so easily, but now he
arches into it, tips his head back against the door with a sheltered breath that lets Max in, lets
him breathe, find familiarity in all the sugar-soft tones of submission.

He lifts his hands to tangle into Max’s hair, pulls him forward, urges his lips to part without
really touching him. When Max tastes his skin, it’s just as sweet as it smells, sticky with
sweat but lacking aggression, lacking the blood and bruises they used to give, thoughtless,
creatures of unbridled instinct.

“Alpha.”

Max feels like he’s about to pass out.

He groans into Charles’s neck, lets the sound reverberate, licks over a sweet, slick spot of
skin like he owns it. Charles is squirming between him and the door, hips stuttering, the rush
of his spent breath high and cruel on Max’s ears. Reeling back so quickly it makes him dizzy,
Max kisses Charles square on the mouth, and it’s different, and it’s nothing like before. He’s
had Charles in this exact position at more races this season than he hasn’t, but never like this;
never so pliant, so easy, so sweet. Charles isn’t squirming, isn’t pushing at Max’s shoulders,
isn’t trying to make his back find the other wall. He doesn’t lead with his teeth, only parts his
mouth and lets Max in, a different kind of permission than anything he’s given before.
Charles’s cap clatters to the ground, Max feels it on his foot, kicks it away like there’s not
enough time for anything.

Charles reeks of festering arousal. He must be slick between his legs, and that thought alone
is enough to make Max groan, hands already wandering, lifting his shirt up and dancing
along his waistband.

“I promise you,” Max starts, panting, cock heavy and skin hot everywhere it can be, “I did
not do this on purpose.” Charles makes a noise, high and trusting, bucks his hips up into
Max’s waist. “But holy fuck, Charles,” he laughs a bit, more shocked than anything, hand
trailing slowly down the warmth of his hidden skin, “can I touch you?”

With a whimper, Charles arches into Max’s front. “Please.” And that would be enough, but
Charles is filthy, too turned-on to be held accountable, and he whines, “Please, Alpha.”

Max makes another borderline primeval sound, hand plunging beneath Charles’s waistband,
where he’s already abysmally, intoxicatingly wet. The growl Max lets is muffled into
Charles’s skin, smelling just as good as he feels, fingers sticky with it where he sinks in so
easily, not a lick of resistance, like he was made to be undone like this.

In a way, he was. Made to be this way entirely at Max’s hand—Max made him like this. Max
made him like this. And it really, truly wasn’t intentional, because through all of it, Max still
thought this outcome was a tall tale, fear-mongering, something they didn’t really have to be
concerned about. But now that he had Charles whining on his fingers, not fighting it, not
bleeding, he revels in it, presses into him with crooked, searching fingers, mouth open against
his scent gland with a deep, ragged breath.

“So wet,” he pants, halfway to reverent. “So wet.”

Charles mewls, hand encircling Max’s wrist, pulling his hand upward, locking him in place.
The way their bodies mash together is sweaty and graceless, lacking a standard in aggression,
completely unrecognizable. Charles lets Max cage him in, too close at every corner, body
flattened against his front. Their position—though tired—borders on unrecognizable.

“I let you fuck me too often,” Charles whines, though it scarcely sounds like a complaint.
He’s high with it, grip tight, lips brutal. Max presses his lips into the side of his neck to taste
him again, has to remind himself not to bite, no matter how dizzying Charles’s scent may be.
“Fuck me again,” he pleads, in a way he never has before, “want your knot, Alpha, knot me.”

And Max growls, body in tatters, fingers sticky where they’re still inside of Charles. He’s
never felt so much in so many places getting Charles to bed, stripping him down, kneeling
between his legs and fucking marveling at the body he occupies. He’s so slick he’s dripping,
all sticky between his thighs, rendering the half-empty bottle of lube Max kept bringing to the
races—always just in case, even after, when Charles was flighty—completely obsolete, the
easy slide of Max’s cock into him coming without resistance.

Charles has never been so loud. And he takes Max’s knot, in that way he never could before,
locking them together for heavy, sweaty moments, Max’s lips in his skin, breathing deep,
sweet sweat into his lungs, hotel room reeking of everything it used to lack. Charles smells
content, sated. Max’s former aggression is reduced down to a startle, the quiet hint of
something in his sternum, between his lungs, not quite loud enough to make him tremble.

Was this really all it took? Are rivalries built on biology, on aggression, on fear?
“Does anyone else know?” Max asks, perhaps dumbly, still too close and too impossible with
Charles. He’s half-convinced he’s going to wake up way back in Bahrain, last year, not yet a
world champion and not yet this close to Charles. The rain-ugly weight across his back is too
real, too scratchless, too long and winding to fabricate. Charles breathes with feigned
nonchalance.

“I have only told Carlos,” he answers, the “and you” too obvious to be anything more than
implied. “But it is difficult to pretend. I smell different. I cower. I think I am thinner, now, but
my training is the same.”

Max traces his hands down Charles’s waist, like he’s testing it. Perhaps he is a little narrower,
a little easier to take, built to be under Max the way he is now rather than fighting him. It’s
strange to lay on each other like this, post-coital, but they don’t really have a choice. Charles
can’t run away like he usually does, to the bathroom or out the door or otherwise, can only
lay amongst the sheets that now smell of his sweat and slick, thighs spread to make room for
Max between them.

“Your trainer does not know?” The words muffle, soft in Charles’s skin. His chest heaves
with something distraught, halfway to a laugh.

“I never told him,” he admits, “but I think he has figured me out. He knows too much about
me, to not.”

Max hums. He still stings with it, the way his own trainer used to look at him. Knows too
much about me. He wonders what he would say, now, if he turned up smelling like an Omega
without the scratches on his back. He would probably just stay quiet, tell him only the things
he needs to tell him, like usual.

He doesn’t say anything else. Keeps trailing his hands up and down Charles’s sides, touch
ardent, pale in his wake. The room hums around them, soft and cradling, a strange sense of
home so far away from where they’re supposed to be, after so many things have changed.
Max wonders absently how many gossip columns have caught on, if there are reporters out
there on the other side of the media pen who think Charles smells different, want to write
about, if he looked, how much he would find. Perhaps they all assume the same things he did
—Charles has just found an Omega, lives in their scent, takes it to the paddock with him.

The truth is nothing but outlandish. It only feels tangible to Max because he did it, he knew,
has been inside of Charles so many times all the instances start to melt. Finding an Omega’s
heady scent on an Alpha’s neck is not a cause for speculation on its own—not that kind of
speculation, at least—but the way Charles behaves is.

Max thinks about the podium. About how Charles ran away, quick and flighty, like he was
intimidated by the brutal scent of victory bleeding from Max’s skin. Instinctively, he holds
Charles a little tighter, like there’s something to protect him from, right now where they’re
alone.

“Will you stay with me?” he asks, sudden and out of place, the words heavy in his mouth like
they don’t belong to him. Max cringes at it immediately, settles his weight against Charles,
fails to look at his face.
Charles hums. His head tips against the pillow, neck bared, the narrow arch of it barely
visible to Max from where he’s buried himself. The question still hangs heavy in the air, not
specific enough, not thought-through enough, not anything. It feels too big for their narrow
bones, for the uneasy space between them. All of Max’s muscles go tense, and he can almost
smell himself beneath all the sex, something brutal and unsure.

“Max,” Charles starts, breathless and easier than he should be. He puts his hand between
them, settles a palm across Max’s mouth, holding fast and steady to his cheeks where they
pinch. “I would let you bite my neck right now, if that would not be completely stupid.”

Max makes some heinous, ungodly noise. He bites Charles’s palm on instinct, primitive and
crude, head lurching forward for skin he can’t reach while Charles laughs at him, because he
knew this would happen, fingernails tight on the scratch of Max’s stubble.
End Notes

maybe i'll write more omegaverse someday. sub to me for more f1 fics. i keep saying
"heartstroke 4 soon" then writing other shit but heartstroke 4 soon!

also i'm grandprix-ao3 on tumblr and too lazy to get the link

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