The Golden Boy and The Diamond

by rielstell4

Summary:

We all crave something more in our lives until we forget the existence of something far more precious than the uncertain future we reach for.

Notes:

The Summary of this AU is dedicated to Mr Torger

Chapter 1

The race had ended, but George felt nothing. No relief, no satisfaction. Just exhaustion—the kind that sat deep in the bones, where even victory couldn’t reach.

He’d dragged the car to the finish line, fought every lap, gave everything as always. He should’ve been proud. Instead, he was staring at the media screens, blood pounding in his ears.

“Verstappen signs multi-year deal with Mercedes. Russell to exit at the end of season.”

The words scrolled across ticker tapes, phones, and headlines like vultures circling carrion. His name was the carcass.

Nobody had told him. Not Toto. Not the team. Not a soul. The world knew before he did.

He stood in the media zone, microphones clawing at his face, voices barking questions.
“George, how do you feel about Mercedes’ statement?”
“Were you blindsided?”
“What’s next for you?”

His lips parted, but the truth refused to come. He stared at the ground, jaw clenched, and muttered, “No comment.”
That was all. The cameras wanted blood, and he refused to give them his.

⸻

In Toto’s office later, the air reeked of betrayal. George’s fists trembled at his sides, nails digging into his palms.

“You couldn’t have told me before the media?” His voice was low, trembling with rage he was trying to cage.

Toto’s face was stone. Calculated. The kind of cold that cut deeper than fire. “George, you are the golden boy. But we are looking for a diamond that can be polished into jewelry.”

The words hollowed him out. Golden boy. Surface shine. No depth. Replaceable. Nothing more than polish that could be wiped away.

George left without a word. Because what was left to say?

⸻

London was buzzing that night, but George moved through it like a ghost. The city lights blurred in his vision as he sat on the curb, head in his hands, rain misting down. His phone vibrated relentlessly—Lewis, Alex, Lando, Charles, even Max. Calls. Messages. Condolences dressed as concern.

He shut it off. He wanted silence. Silence, and maybe oblivion.

The thought came unbidden: Maybe this is what Dad wanted all along. A son who breaks when he’s not perfect.
The bitterness burned his throat. He wasn’t Max, wasn’t the diamond forged in fire. He was just the golden boy, doomed to rust.

He let the thought sit there. Heavy. Poisonous. For once, he didn’t fight it.

⸻

A shadow stumbled across his vision. He looked up. A woman—mid-thirties, hair tangled, makeup smeared like a battlefield. She reeked of alcohol, her gait uneven as she slumped down beside him on the wet pavement.

“Long night?” she asked, voice thick, broken.

George didn’t answer.

She laughed, sharp and bitter. “Lost my job today. Boss said I wasn’t… shiny enough.”

The words hit him like a slap. Shiny. That cursed word again. He almost laughed at the cruelty of it.

The woman fumbled with her purse, pulling out a crumpled bill. She pressed it into his hand with trembling fingers. “Here. You look like you need it more than me.”

George stared at the note, stunned. “I don’t need your money.”

“Then take it,” she whispered, eyes glassy with grief and alcohol. “As proof that even when the world spits you out, you still matter. Even if it’s just to a stranger.”

She staggered back to her feet, swaying, and disappeared into the night.

George sat there, staring at the wet pavement, at the pathetic piece of paper clenched in his hand. His chest felt like it was caving in.

⸻

“Maybe I was never good enough for anyone,” he whispered into the empty street, voice low and shaking. “Not my father. Not Toto. Not the team. Not… anyone.”

The rain dripped down his face, mixing with the sting of salt in his eyes.

“But maybe…” He laughed, a sound void of joy, bitter as ash. “Maybe I don’t need to be. Maybe being myself is all I’ll ever have.”

He looked at the crumpled bill in his palm—dirty, fragile, worthless in the grand scheme. And yet it was all he had tonight.

The city roared around him, neon bleeding into puddles, indifferent to his existence. He sat there on the curb, broken and rusting, with nothing left but silence.

And in that silence, George realized—there was no triumph in being golden if the world only ever wanted diamonds.

So he let the thought consume him. Nihilism tasted bitter, but it was honest.

Maybe there was freedom in knowing he meant nothing at all.

Chapter 2

Summary:

The mostheartbreaking act from someone you cared for is to never love you as deeply as you deserve

Notes:

Summary unrelated or is it?

The week blurred together in static noise. News outlets fed on the story like sharks, headlines dissecting George’s future, speculating on desperate transfers, painting him as the discarded prince.

He ignored them all. He ignored everyone. No training, no sim work, no media. Just silence and the ache in his chest.

His phone lay facedown on the kitchen counter, battery drained days ago. Even if he turned it on, he knew what he’d find—Lewis begging him to talk, Lando joking to lighten the blow, Alex telling him to fight. Charles, too gentle with his pity. Max… George didn’t want to think about Max.

But it was Max who came.

⸻

It was raining again when George left the apartment, hoodie pulled low, shoulders hunched against the world. He didn’t know where he was walking—just away. Away from the weight of the golden boy tag, away from the hollow echo of Toto’s words.

He ended up on a quiet street, far from the city center, when he saw the shadow leaning against a lamppost. Tall, broad-shouldered, unmistakable.

“George,” Max said softly, stepping forward.

George’s body tensed instantly. “If you’re here to gloat, don’t waste your time.”

Max shook his head, rain slicking down his hair. “I’m not here to gloat.”

“Then what? To tell me how you’re the diamond? Congratulations. You win again.” The bitterness in George’s voice was a knife, sharp and shaking.

Max’s jaw tightened. He hesitated, as if swallowing pride tasted worse than blood. Finally, he spoke.

“I’m here to say sorry.”

The words froze George in place. He stared, incredulous, waiting for the mockery. But Max’s eyes held none. Only a strange, raw sincerity.

“Sorry you had to find out that way. Sorry you… were treated like that.” Max’s voice cracked, almost imperceptibly. “I know what it’s like, George. To have a father, a boss, a team, always demanding more. Like whatever you give will never be enough.”

George laughed bitterly. “Spare me the lecture. You thrived under it. I broke under it.”

Max shook his head. “No. I burned under it. Still do. The only difference is, I turned the fire outward. You turned it inward.”

George’s hands clenched into fists, nails biting his palms. “And that’s why you’re replacing me.”

The silence stretched, broken only by rain.

Finally, George whispered, “I’m done, Max. Done fighting for a place where I’ll never be more than… polish. Done letting them use me until I rust.” He lifted his eyes, hollow and certain. “I’m walking away. From Mercedes. From F1. From all of it.”

For the first time, Max looked shaken. “George—”

But George stepped back, his face a mask of ruin. “Don’t. You got what you wanted. Be the diamond, Max. Shine. I’ll disappear.”

And with that, George turned into the night, leaving Max standing in the rain—victorious, but somehow feeling like he’d lost something greater.

Chapter 3

Summary:

We all wish for a hand to hold onto when we’re at our lowest but are you willing to be the hand to another person?

George hadn’t turned his phone back on in a week. The world spun without him, headlines screaming his downfall, but he didn’t care anymore. Sleep came in fits, if at all. Nights were long stretches of ceiling stares and hollow thoughts. Sometimes, he wondered what it would feel like to vanish completely.

The sport had taken everything—his youth, his hunger, his hope—and spat him out. A golden boy, melted down for parts.

He stopped showing up at Brackley. He stopped answering anyone.

Except Max never stopped trying.

⸻

It was nearly midnight when the knock came at George’s door. He almost ignored it—probably Lewis again, or Alex. But the knock was firm, steady, insistent.

With a groan, George dragged himself up and opened the door.

Max stood there, dripping from the rain.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” George muttered. “What do you want?”

Max’s eyes scanned him quickly, and George hated how exposed he felt under that gaze—hair a mess, hoodie wrinkled, eyes bloodshot.

“You’re disappearing,” Max said simply. “And I can’t let that happen.”

George barked out a laugh, humorless and sharp. “Why? You’ve got the seat. You’ve got everything. Let me disappear. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

Max shook his head. “No. I wanted to beat you on track. Not… like this.”

George’s chest burned with rage and grief. “You don’t get it, Max. I’m not like you. I can’t carry the fire. I can’t—” His voice cracked, and he turned away, pressing his palms into the doorframe. “I was never enough. For my father. For Toto. For Mercedes. For anyone.”

For a long moment, there was only the sound of rain. Then Max stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

“You were enough for you,” Max said quietly. “And that matters more than you think.”

George’s laugh was hollow. “Does it? Because all I see is failure.”

Max hesitated, then sat down heavily on the arm of George’s couch, his expression uncharacteristically soft. “You think I don’t know what it feels like to be told you’re never enough? My whole life was that. I just… learned to aim it outward. To fight until the world broke before I did.”

George finally turned, eyes blazing with unshed tears. “And look where it got you. The diamond. The man who took everything I ever wanted.”

Max didn’t flinch. “Then hate me. Fine. But don’t hate yourself. Don’t throw yourself away.”

George stared at him, shaking his head. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t want to keep clawing for scraps of approval that never come. I just… want to stop.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know who I am without racing. Maybe no one.”

Max’s chest tightened, a flicker of fear breaking through his usual control. “Then figure it out. But alive. Breathing. Even if it’s not in a car, even if it’s not in F1—you’re still George Russell. That has to mean something.”

George looked at him, hollow and broken, but some part of him caught on the words, fragile as thread.

For the first time, Max didn’t look like a rival. He looked like a mirror—one cracked, but not shattered.

And maybe, just maybe, George wasn’t ready to break completely.

Chapter 4

Summary:

The most beautiful thing someone could do in the name of love is to be brave

The season turned, races blurred, and still George stayed away.
No sim runs, no garage briefings, no paddock lights. He was a ghost in the sport he’d once bled for.

And yet, he was alive.

Not whole—not yet—but breathing in ways he hadn’t in years.
He read books he never had time for. He wandered the streets without being recognized. He sat in cafés with a notebook, writing thoughts he’d never dared to say aloud. He learned to live in moments instead of lap times.

Max was there, sometimes.
Not always—he had his own empire to uphold, circuits to conquer—but enough. Enough to matter. Enough to make George notice.

And in the quiet, George began to heal.

⸻

One evening, they sat by the Thames. The city hummed around them, lights glimmering on the water, soft rain misting the air.

George leaned back, hands in his pockets, his voice low.
“You ever wonder if we’re just… chasing shadows? Diamonds, gold, trophies… none of it lasts. Not really.”

Max didn’t answer at first. He was watching George, the way the streetlamps painted him in fractured light.
Finally, he said, “Maybe the point isn’t that it lasts. Maybe it’s that, for a moment, it burns.”

George huffed a laugh, soft and bitter. “And when the fire goes out?”

Max’s gaze lingered on him. “Then you carry the warmth it gave you. And if you’re lucky… maybe you find someone who keeps it alive.”

The words hung between them, heavier than the rain, trembling on the edge of confession.

George turned his face away, watching the river. His profile was sharp, but his eyes were soft, thoughtful. For the first time, he didn’t look broken. He looked… free.

“Maybe,” George murmured. “Maybe that’s enough.”

⸻

Max wanted to say it then—that the warmth he carried now was George, that somewhere between hatred and rivalry he had fallen irrevocably in love.

But he didn’t.
Not yet.

Instead, they sat in silence, listening to the water. Two men—one a diamond, one a golden boy turned to rust—finding, in their ruin, something neither could name.

And most importantly his hands were aching, begging him to wrap them around the petite man's waist and bring them some comfort but it was a wishful thought. For he was a coward who trembled under his father's fists and just once in his life he wished he wasn't a coward to hug the person he loved the most.
But a broken boy who has never been hugged by someone he loved the most could never know truly how it is to embrace the warmth of love and bask in it.

The night stretched on, open, endless.
And so did their story.

Notes:

And the ending is yours 🫶

Chapter 5

To George William Russell,

This will never reach you, and perhaps it is best so. For what man wishes to carry the burden of another’s ruin? And ruin I am, though I wear the mask of triumph. The world calls me strong, unbreakable, merciless — yet all their crowns and their songs turn to dust when set beside the silence I keep for you.

You do not know how often I have rehearsed your name in solitude, as though uttering it could save me from drowning. And yet when you are near, the words wither, and I am left only with the ache of them, unsaid and unspent. To speak would be to strip myself bare before you, and I am a coward in the only battle that matters.

But here, on this page that you will never see, I will confess the truth that gnaws me hollow:
I love you.

There, I have written it. A wound inked into eternity. No victory has ever burned so bright, no defeat has ever cut so deep as this small, terrible admission. I love you, and it is both my only light and the shadow that strangles me.

If the stars themselves fell, they would not burn as I burn. If the seas themselves raged, they would not roar as my silence roars. Yet I remain mute, chained, exiled within my own heart. And you — you walk unknowing, radiant, untouchable, while I linger at the edges, a ghost bound by longing.

When the day comes, and the engines fall silent, and the world forgets my name, this will remain: a truth I carried like a curse, never spoken aloud, never placed into your hands.

Always yours in silence,
always broken,
Max Emilian Verstappen

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Russtappen Universe