Archive of Our Own ^beta

Max Verstappen has a routine.

Every dawn he would be out of the apartment he’s currently residing in Australia. He would walk towards a small hill where a pristine onyx gravestone sat underneath the famous Flame Tree holding a worn ukulele that had seen better days and a bouquet of sunflowers and daisies and gently laid it against the headstone.

“Hey Daniel. How’re things up there?” Silence. A gust of wind, Max smiles as if Daniel responded that everything is okay. Usually, Max would just play random notes to make a little noise while he talks to Daniel about how his day went and how he misses him so badly. And there, he’ll talk for hours, until the sun wakes from its slumber. And every time, he would pause, and watch the twilight bleed into the familiar pink, orange, and golden hues of the first sunlight like what he and Daniel used to do way back their Red Bull days.

He inhales and looks back at the headstone, the ever-grinning face of Daniel’s photo never failed to make him tear up.
“It’s unfair, eh? I miss you, Daniel. So, so much that it hurts so bad-” He looks at it, mouth unconsciously turns into a frown as he sat beside the headstone and tilts his head a bit as if he’s putting it on Daniel’s shoulder.

Looking at the scene in front of him, he felt a little comforted at the warmth it gave. It was like Daniel’s embrace.

Max looked down at the ukulele, plucking it again with the familiar chords he practiced a million times before trying it for the first time in Daniel’s grave and began to sing.

”When somebody loved me,

Everything was beautiful.

Every hour spent together,

Lives, within my heart.”

He took a deep breath, voice shuddering as he recalled the proper chords against the memories that flooded his mind, both happy and sad—about Daniel and Daniel only.

”And when he was sad,

I was there to dry his tears.

And when he was happy so was I,

When he loved me.”

Max breathed shakily as the first big fat tear from his left eyes rolled down as he remembered when Daniel was in his lowest (In McLaren), when every race, after his interviews, it would be spent with him inside his driver room crying his heart out, laying on Max’s lap and asking himself where did he go wrong and believing he couldn’t do enough—believing that why couldn’t he do it like how he did in Red Bull.

And when he finally won in Monza 2021, champagne-soaked racing suit, them thudding between walls as they kissed each other towards Max’s driver room, trophy and empty champagne bottle left on the floor haphazardly as Max congratulated him in the way only both of them knew.

”Through the summer and the fall,

We had each other, that was all.

Just him and I together,

Like it was meant to be.”

Another shuddering breath as another tear escaped from his right eye. The Red Bull era. Daniel and Max, Max and Daniel—Maxiel as what the fans called.

That he was the perfect piece, the color to his monochromatic world. The warmth of the snowstorm his father left inside if him from the years of forging him to be the World Champion.

Through the wins and the DNFs they were together.

”And when he was lonely,

I was there to comfort him.

And I knew that, he loved me.”

He continued to sing and play at a slower tempo than practiced as his hands shook and his voice almost betraying him with a sob.

”Lonely and forgotten,

Never thought he’d look my way.

And he smiled and held me just,”

Max breath hitched.

” —Just like, he used to do.

Like he loved me, when he loved me.”

A long pause, a sob, a sharp inhale and the familiar chords played again.

”When somebody loved me,

Everything was beautiful.

Every hour spent together,

Lives, within my heart.”

A rather loud sob erupted from his mouth as he couldn’t find the strength to strum the ukulele.

”When you loved me.”

Max rubbed his eyes as he let the ukulele fall down the grass with a small thud and walked over to the photo in the headstone and tenderly kissed it.

“I love you Daniel, see you tomorrow."