Chapter Text
Max wishes the flowers would stop. But they won’t, they never will.
The thought circles his head like a moth around a dying light bulb, fluttering and buzzing just out of reach. It’s not a new thought. It’s been living in him for weeks now, lodged somewhere behind his ribs like a shard of bone. He knows it by heart. He knows it the way he knows the shape of his own hands on a steering wheel, the weight of rain on a visor, the sound of his laughter in a paddock corridor.
He wishes the flowers would stop.
But they won’t.
He’ll keep this agony until it kills him. That’s the truth he’s already accepted, somewhere in the quiet hours of sleepless nights. He doesn’t deserve to live if his only path from there would be a sad, hollow life emptied of what he wants most. He’s not a machine, no matter what they say. He’s not steel, not a champion carved from titanium. He’s flesh and lungs and a heart that’s stupid enough to love someone who will never love him back.
A sick, diseased human with no right in this world.
And even now, even here, as he pulls bloodied petals off his tongue and out of his throat, he wishes he never fell in love with that stupid Monegasque.
He’s supposed to be out with everyone else- the noise, the clinking glasses, the bursts of laughter spilling from the dining room. It’s supposed to be a celebration. He should be drinking, laughing, making jokes about Seb being old.
But instead, he’s hunched over a toilet, chest heaving, mouth full of roses and copper. He gags, throat clamping around a thorned stem as his shaking fingers reach in to free it.
The petals are soft, too soft, and slick with blood. They stick to his palms like silk soaked in red.
How he hates roses.
Such a beautiful flower, really. He’s loved them his whole life. They’re his favourite. He’s given them to him so many times, on birthdays, after podiums, once tucked under his hotel room door with a stupid little note. He should love them now, the way he loves him.
But he can’t. Not anymore.
Because they’re the reason he’s dying.
They’re the reason his throat is raw, because of those delicate, unforgiving thorns.
He should hate the flowers.
They’re killing him.
But Max can’t, because he loves Charles too much to hate anything about him.
The thorned stem finally slips free with a wet, dragging sound that makes his entire body flinch. He coughs again, a hoarse, broken noise scraping against the tiles. A tear slips from the corner of his eye, more from the rawness of his throat than from anything else. The air he drags in after feels like glass shavings sliding down his windpipe, settling into his chest with an ache that never fades.
He stares at the stem in his hand. Green. Wet. Glinting under the bathroom light. Blood clings to the thorns like they belong there.
How did this happen? How did his lungs end up growing flowers?
The thought doesn’t come with panic anymore, not like the first time. It comes slow, heavy, dulled by exhaustion. He’s past the shock. What’s left is a quiet kind of grief.
He looks at the petals littering the bowl. Red, white, and soft pink smeared with red. A bouquet arranged by the cruelty of his own body.
He’s not sure how long he’s been here. The party is a distant, muffled hum through the walls. Laughter echoes faintly, distorted. The fluorescent light overhead buzzes unevenly, a tinny vibration that sets his teeth on edge. He can hear the steady drip of a tap somewhere in the corner.
How long has it been? Weeks? Months? He doesn’t even know anymore. Everything’s blurred into pain and petals, into the sound of his own breathing turning shallow.
Max presses his hand against the toilet lid, shoves the stem into the bowl, and flushes. The white porcelain swallows the petals in a whirl of red-streaked water, the sound rushing and sharp. He watches until the last scrap of rose disappears.
He pushes himself to his feet slowly, every movement deliberate. His legs tremble. His palms press against the stall door, against the wall, dragging streaks of blood across the tile. The world tilts slightly at the edges. He breathes through it, shallow, tight, until the spinning steadies.
The mirror above the sink greets him with harsh white light.
He looks… normal.
Pale, yes. But he’s always pale. That’s the gift of being Max Verstappen, pale skin and tired eyes, always. No one will notice. The world doesn’t see ghosts if they already look like them.
His lips are cracked, stained faintly crimson. His hands are dotted in blood, some drying, some still tacky. He turns on the tap and lets the cold water bite at his skin. It stings. He scrubs at his hands until the blood ribbons down the drain, swirling pink into white. He splashes his face too, the water shockingly cold, grounding.
For a moment, it’s quiet.
He could stay here, in this silence.
He dries his face with a paper towel, dabs at his mouth until the red fades into nothing but a faint pink shadow. He fixes his collar, straightens his shirt, combs damp fingers through his hair.
He takes a breath.
Not a deep one, he doesn’t have the luxury of that anymore, but enough to hold himself upright.
Then he leaves the safety of the bathroom.
The restaurant is warm and loud. The kind of warmth that should feel welcoming but only presses down on him like a weight. Laughter spills over the music. Glasses clink. Someone cheers at something Max didn’t hear. He blinks against the brightness of it all.
It feels wrong. Like stepping from a grave into a carnival.
His chest aches.
He pushes forward, weaving through a crowd of people he should call friends. Everyone looks bright and alive. He doesn’t belong here.
He slides into his seat. Fernando on his left. Charles on his right.
The smell hits him before anything else- Charles’ cologne. Familiar. Expensive. Sharp and clean with something warm beneath it. It sits in his lungs like smoke, catching on the thorns.
He shouldn’t have come.
It’s Charles who set it off earlier- that’s the truth he doesn’t want to look at too closely. Charles’ hand on his back when they arrived, Charles laughing at something Daniel said, Charles leaning too close as they sat down. It was soft and stupid and perfect.
And something bloomed in his chest.
Something that shouldn’t be there.
Something that’s killing him.
The ache grows sharper now, sitting next to him again, close enough to feel the warmth of his arm against Max’s sleeve. The sound of his voice vibrates against Max’s skin.
He reaches for his water. It’s lukewarm now. The first swallow burns like acid, scraping over fresh cuts in his throat. He doesn’t wince out loud. He’s good at this by now.
“Is all good?” Fernando’s voice cuts through the noise, his brow furrowed, mouth curved down just slightly.
Max nods too fast. “Not been feeling great recently. Sorry for leaving.”
Fernando doesn’t believe him. Max can see it in the way his eyes narrow just a little, the way his mouth twitches like he’s fighting the urge to push further.
“Ah,” Fernando says eventually, forcing an easy tone. “Hope you get better soon then. Got a race soon!”
Max gives him a thin smile, the kind that means nothing, and turns away. Fernando lets it drop. Good.
The table swells with conversation again, swallowing him whole. Max tunes it out.
He focuses on his breathing. The rise and fall of his chest. The shallow pull of air through his throat. He counts the beats between each breath.
His eyes flick toward Charles without meaning to.
Charles is laughing. Head tilted back slightly, eyes catching the light. His hand gestures wildly at something Lewis is saying across the table. His smile is effortless.
Max looks away before the flowers can start again.
What he doesn’t see is Sebastian.
The birthday boy sits at the head of the table, quiet in a way that Sebastian Vettel isn’t usually quiet. His drink is untouched. His gaze keeps drifting toward Max.
Max doesn’t feel it. He’s too caught in the sound of Charles’ voice, too focused on the tightness behind his ribs. But Seb is watching. Seb remembers what it looks like. He’s seen it before, in someone else’s eyes, years ago.
The night goes on. The laughter swells and swells, wrapping around Max like a net. He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t speak. Just breathes through the ache and waits for the next cough to come.
Because it always does.
—‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.—
George’s night is going anything but right.
That’s the first thought that hits him, though it feels too small, too clean, to fit the way his body is reacting. He doesn’t have the words for what’s building inside him. It’s not just discomfort. It’s not just nausea. It’s something coiled and heavy, sitting low in his stomach like a storm.
The food is perfect, it shouldn’t be a problem. The steak is cooked exactly the way he likes it, medium-rare, the edges crisped and glistening with butter. The greens are bright and sharp, dressed lightly with something lemony. The potatoes are golden, crackling under his fork, the inside fluffy and warm. He should be enjoying this. He should be laughing with Alex, snorting into his glass of wine at some dumb joke about Seb turning thirty-whatever again.
But he isn’t.
The laughter at the table feels like it’s coming from a distance, like someone’s turned down the world’s volume except for the noises inside his own body. His stomach has been aching since midway through the main course. It’s not a sharp pain - not yet - it’s a slow, churning twist that won’t settle, like something clawing at him from the inside.
He shifts in his seat, one hand pressing discreetly against his abdomen as if he can hold it still by sheer force. The ache only tightens.
He tells himself it’s just food. It has to be. Maybe the steak wasn’t cooked quite right. Maybe he swallowed something too quickly. Maybe it’s just anxiety, though that feels like a cheap excuse.
He lifts his glass, takes a sip of water. The coolness does nothing to soothe him. His throat feels tight. Not sore, not really. Just… compressed. Like he’s inhaling through fabric.
Alex leans closer, saying something under the music, George doesn’t catch it. The sound fuzzes out around the edges as his pulse hammers in his ears. There’s a burst of laughter down the table,Daniel, loud and golden, and the sound makes George’s stomach roll.
The ache deepens.
His lungs feel full. Too full. Like there’s not enough space in his ribs. Like something’s pressing outward. It’s not quite painful. Not yet. But it’s wrong. It’s wrong in a way that makes the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
He swallows.
The nausea comes like a punch. Sudden, cold, unstoppable. His stomach lurches. His throat burns.
“Excuse me…” The words scrape out of him, hoarse. He’s already half-standing before anyone can respond, his chair screeching softly against the floor. His hand clamps over his mouth. The other holds his abdomen tight, as if he can hold himself together through force alone.
A few faces turn toward him. Concerned. Curious. But no one stops him. No one asks.
He walks fast. Then stumbles. The hallway to the bathroom stretches like it’s too long, too bright. His vision tilts at the edges. He pushes the door open with his shoulder, doesn’t even bother locking the stall before falling to his knees in front of the toilet.
And then he’s vomiting.
Hard.
His entire body convulses with it, stomach pulling tight, ribs creaking. His fingers dig into the cool porcelain of the toilet seat, knuckles white, jaw aching as he chokes out whatever is trying to climb its way up his throat. The sound is wet and sharp, echoing around the bathroom tiles like something too personal, too vulnerable to belong in public.
It hurts. God, it hurts.
The acid burns. His chest heaves, over and over. His head spins. The smell of bleach from the bathroom mixes with bile in the air, a bitter, chemical sting that makes his eyes water. His forehead is slick with sweat, hair sticking to his skin.
He wants it to stop.
He wants it to just be bad steak. Or a stomach bug. Anything normal. Anything explainable.
But when the heaving slows, when he finally forces his eyes open, what he sees staring up at him from the toilet bowl is not food.
It’s not bile.
It’s flowers.
Tiny, white blooms, delicate and round like soft stars scattered through a pool of red. The petals are tangled together, some of them bent and broken, streaked with his blood. They look almost innocent like that- fragile, pretty. They don’t belong here.
George freezes. The world narrows down to the sight of those flowers. His stomach twists again, not from nausea this time but from the hot, electric pulse of fear.
This isn’t real.
He blinks once. Twice. They’re still there.
A sound escapes him- quiet, raw, halfway between a laugh and a sob. He clamps his hand over his mouth, trembling.
How?
Before he can gather a single thought into something coherent, the bathroom door swings open with a hollow clatter.
“George?”
The voice is familiar, calm, grounding even when he doesn’t want it to be. Lewis.
The sound of his footsteps echoes on the tiles, quick and sure. George wants to answer, to say he’s fine, to make it go away. But nothing comes out. His throat locks around the air.
“Mate? You good?”
Lewis rounds the corner and stops dead. His eyes widen at the sight: George, pale and shaking, hunched away from the toilet, the tiny white flowers floating in the bowl like a nightmare dressed in something too soft to make sense.
Lewis’s breath catches. It’s not the first time he’s seen this.
“George…” The way he says it is quiet. Careful. “Shit.”
George lifts his head. His vision is blurry around the edges, a combination of tears and dizziness. “I- what- Lewis, what the fuck is happening?!” His voice cracks, breaking on the panic lodged in his chest. “I threw up flowers! This- this isn’t normal! Am I dying? Lewis?!”
Lewis crouches down in front of him, slow and deliberate, like he’s approaching something fragile that might shatter. His face softens in that way that makes everything worse, because it means he knows.
“Okay. Okay. Breathe with me, okay?” His voice is steady, low, meant to ground him.
George lets out a harsh, shaking breath that isn’t a laugh but isn’t a sob either. “Don’t fucking do that with me right now!” His voice is too loud in the tiled room, bouncing off the walls.
“Okay. Okay- sorry.” Lewis raises his hands in a placating gesture, his own voice cracking a little at the edges. “You’re okay. You’re not dying. At least not now…”
George stares at him, heartbeat thundering. “What the fuck do you mean not right now?” he snaps, voice cracking again.
Lewis’s eyes flick to the flowers in the toilet. His mouth presses into a thin, grim line.
He’s back there for a moment, years ago. Nico, coughing carnations in the middle of the night. Petals on cold floors. Words too late. The memory drags at his ribs.
He forces himself back.
“You have a disease,” he says finally. Carefully. Quietly. “It’s called Hanahaki. It’s caused by-” He swallows, his throat tight. “-by loving someone who doesn’t love you back.”
George blinks, like the words are in a language he doesn’t understand. “What-”
“It’s real,” Lewis says softly. “It’s… rare. But it happens. And when someone around you has it too… it can get worse. It’s like the air holds it. Like it echoes between people in the same kind of pain.” His voice lowers to a near-whisper. “I don’t know who started it this time. But it’s not just you. It can’t be.”
The words bounce around George’s head, slipping against his panic, refusing to settle.
This can’t be real.
No. No.
“Lewis, no. This isn’t-”
The cough cuts him off. It rips through his chest without warning, a jagged, tearing thing that doubles him over. His hand flies to his mouth. Lewis moves on instinct, one hand on George’s shoulder, steadying him as his body shakes.
When George finally looks down at his palm, there are more flowers. Tiny, white, and soaked in blood.
A soft sound escapes him, small, horrified. He wipes at his hand frantically, dragging the petals against toilet paper like he can erase them. The panic claws its way up his throat, sharp and unrelenting.
Lewis reaches out, steady but firm, catching his wrist.
“Hey.”
George looks up at him. His eyes are wide, bright with unshed tears.
“Look at me,” Lewis says again, softer now. “Breathe. It’s real. And it’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
George’s breath comes in shallow gasps. The room tilts, his vision going fuzzy at the edges. The flowers in the toilet bowl blur into a white smear. He focuses on Lewis’s face, the lines around his eyes, the way his jaw is set but not hard. He’s seen this before. He’s sure of it.
His lip trembles. His voice is small when it comes out. “I don’t want to die.”
Lewis doesn’t hesitate. He reaches forward and pulls George in, wrapping an arm around his shaking shoulders. George stiffens for half a second, then collapses into him, burying his face against Lewis’s shoulder. His breath hitches, then breaks entirely, coming out as raw, quiet sobs.
“You won’t,” Lewis says. It’s steady. Gentle. It sounds like a promise.
But it’s not. Not really. Because Lewis knows better.
Baby’s Breath is poisonous. It spreads fast. Faster than Nico’s carnations ever did. George is too young, too bright, too full of life to be sitting here in a bathroom crying over flowers he’s never asked for. Lewis feels the weight of it in his chest, heavy and choking.
George clings to him, fists curling in the fabric of Lewis’s shirt. His shoulders shake. His lungs flutter like trapped wings.
“I don’t-” George’s voice breaks again. “I don’t even- who-”
Lewis doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to. It’s too early. He knows how cruel this disease can be. How it turns something soft into something that cuts.
George’s breathing is uneven, hitching in stuttering bursts against Lewis’s shoulder. The air in the bathroom smells faintly of iron now. His cheeks are damp. He feels like a child and a man at the same time, terrified of something no one should ever have to understand.
Lewis keeps his hand steady on the back of George’s head, fingers gentle, grounding.
“It’s okay,” Lewis whispers again, though they both know it isn’t.
---
George doesn’t know how long they stay like that.
The bathroom is silent except for his breathing and the distant thrum of music from the restaurant outside. The petals float quietly in the toilet bowl. They look so peaceful, like this is nothing. Like this isn’t the beginning of something that will carve its way through him.
Eventually, his sobs ease into shallow, shaky breaths. His throat burns. His eyes ache. He pulls back slightly, wiping at his face with the back of his hand, but there’s blood smeared there too. It streaks across his cheek like war paint.
Lewis reaches up with a paper towel he must’ve grabbed from the counter without George noticing. He doesn’t say anything, just hands it over. George takes it with trembling fingers.
He doesn’t meet Lewis’s eyes.
The world has tilted in a way he doesn’t know how to fix.
His hands are stained. His mouth is stained. His lungs feel wrong.
He looks down into the toilet again. At the tiny white flowers floating like they belong here.
Baby’s Breath.
Of course it would be Baby’s Breath.
It’s delicate. Pretty. Almost weightless. Easy to ignore at first. Then it spreads. Vines into lungs. Sweet and soft and deadly.
The edges of panic return, clawing up his chest.
Lewis senses it. “Hey,” he says quietly. “George. Look at me.”
George does, slowly.
“We’re going to handle this. Okay?” Lewis says. It’s not a question. It’s a statement, even if it’s cracked at the edges.
George doesn’t believe him. Not fully. But he nods anyway, because it’s easier than saying: I’m terrified. Easier than admitting: I know what this means.
Lewis helps him to his feet. George is shaky, lightheaded. The blood rushes in his ears like a current. The mirror above the sink catches his reflection- pale, lips red, eyes too bright. He barely recognizes himself.
He grips the edge of the counter and forces his breathing into something resembling rhythm.
He can hear the laughter outside again. The party hasn’t stopped. Of course it hasn’t. The world doesn’t pause because he’s falling apart in a bathroom.
Lewis lingers by the stall door, watching him. There’s something in his expression that George can’t name. It’s quiet. Tired. Familiar.
“Lewis,” George says finally, voice quiet, raw. “Is this going to kill me?”
Lewis’s eyes flicker. He doesn’t lie, but he doesn’t answer either.
That’s enough.
George looks down at his hands. They’re still shaking. Still stained faintly pink even after he’s rinsed them.
His chest flutters. His lungs ache.
He whispers, to no one in particular, “I don’t want to die.”
The bathroom light hums above him. The music outside swells. The flowers float in silence.
And somewhere deep inside his lungs, something blooms again.