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When Alain closes his eyes for a final time, he awakes in the field. A welcome and familiar sight.
Wind rustles across the grain, golden and rolling like waves. Alain takes a deep breath, looking down at the dirt that feels solid under the soles of his shoes. He doesn’t wear his race suit as he is accustomed too but is rather greeted by the soft blue cotton of a t-shirt, linen pants hanging from his hips.
It pings his suspicion that this is no dream, it feels all to solid beneath him, lacking the gossamer haze he is familiar with. He hums, letting his shoulders drop as he tilts his head back, eyes closed, and takes a long, deep breath.
How long had he been returning here, tethered by the part of him he had lost. A lifetime? A lifetime and some extra years stollen. The sun is warm across his face as birds whistle on the breeze, pushing gently at his curls.
He breathes out again, scanning the horizon, looking for him. Always for him.
He finds nothing, just the large oak stretching overhead and a smudge of a building on the horizon. His senses lock to it-- study it from a far.
He knows its near impossible, but he swears he can hear laughter and the faint notes of a piano on the wind. It reaches to him, phasing though his sides and pulling him forward by the heart thudding in his ribs.
Without want or regret, Alain takes a step forward, then another step, then another and starts his pilgrimage to salvation.
-=-=-=-=-=-
The house is warm as always as Ayrton strides down the steps. That morning feels odd, something hanging in the air as he awakes. Something has shifted, something is coming.
Ayrton enters the kitchen, listening to the light notes of a piano filtering in from the study. Ayrton smiles-- Elio.
He had been such a gift when Ayrton had awoken in the field, soft piano calling to him as he wandered adrift and confused.
He had been racing. Pushing the limits. He wanted to bring it home, to win. For Roland, the Austrian flag settled in the cockpit. Then there was also the matter of Alain, watching him from commentary.
Forgive him, but he had gotten a glimpse of a small smile over the rim of a coffee cup earlier that day. He wanted to see it again, see him again, as he rose to the top step.
It was his last clear thought, Alain’s smile, before he awoke in the field.
The sound of the piano stops abruptly as Ayrton opens the door of the house, sudden sound of a piano bench scraping across the hard wood as footsteps approach.
And then it was Elio, face young and full of surprise and anguish one in the same, standing in the doorway at the end of the hall.
Ayrton knows what it means, he can feel it settling somewhere in his gut. His mouth opens a few times before he can speak, the two of them just staring as joint realization settles into them.
“Elio what—I was racing and—” Ayrton can hardly speak the rest before Elio is rushing up to him, catching him in his arms as his legs give way beneath him.
“Oh Ayrton—” Elio’s voice is something he has not heard in ages. Its softer than he remembers.
Ayrton pulls back, cradling Elio’s face gently in his hands, starring at him as he thinks.
Thinks of the race, thinks of the feeling of dread that haunted him all weekend, thinks of Alain.
Oh God, Alain
Ayrton leans forward and cries. Full sobs wracking his body as he collapses into Elio’s arms. Elio just holds him, holds him and doesn’t let go until the sobs come out as nothing more than gasps.
Slowly, Elio guides him to his feet, pulling him up from the ground in what must be a herculean effort. His mouth is pressed into a firm line as he pulls Ayrton up, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him to the study.
Ayrton follows, rubbing his eyes and dragging his feet like a small child.
Once in the study, Elio wordlessly deposits him into a soft chair before he stands taller, rolling his shoulder out as he comes to settle again at the piano bench, hands hovering over the keys.
“Please rest. I will play, we can talk after.” And he starts playing again, a soft and melodic tune.
Ayrton doesn’t know if it’s the shock or the wake of a memory that pulls at him, but he eventually settles into a lite, restless sleep.
Elio plays on.
Ayrton rises most mornings to the sound of Elio playing. They had built a routine around it of sorts. Ayrton would rise in the late morning, an Elio would be playing, awoken in the early hours of the morning. Ayrton would fix them each a coffee and pad into the study on soft feet. Elio would graciously accept the coffee while he scribbled notes on whatever piece he was working on. Then they would chat.
In the early days, fresh after Ayrton had arrived, he had walked downstairs to find Elio swamped in a pile of balled up papers. Sheet music ripped to shreds as he held his face in his hands, elbows resting on the keys.
Ayrton doesn’t say a word, just stands in the doorway and stares as Elio heaves a huge sigh, hands running over his face as he settles back off the keys. His eyes are red rimmed.
“The piece I’m working on—its just. I can’t get it right.” Elio huffs. His eyes betray that this is more than frustration though as he madly strikes through another set of pencil marks.
Ayrton walks to settle next to him, slow and calm as if to not spook him. He says nothing, just hold’s Elio’s gaze.
“The piece is- well it is Nigel.” Elio mutters, and it clicks into place.
Ayrton sets a sad smile on his face as he stretches an arm over Elio’s shoulder, pulling the older man into his side.
“I know—”
Ayrton can see tears welling up in Elio’s eyes, a familiar frustration from their time as teammates welling up too.
“How could you possibly understand? How could you possibly know what it’s like to be—to lose—to love him?” Elio stutters through, hands forming tight fists from where they rest in his sweater. Ayrton feels tears of his own welling up as the memory swells, he looks up and furiously tries to blink back the traitors.
“I think he knew it.” Ayrton says, and Elio takes a deep, shuttering breath.
“But how can you know?” Elio whispers. Ayrton rubs a soothing circle on his back, connecting them both.
“I know because I have to know. The same way I know Alain knows, even if I never got to say it.” Ayrton says, voice shaken and soft. Elio says nothing, just shuffles slightly to let Ayrton sag into him as much as Elio was.
The coffee goes cold on top of the piano. It looks strangely like a confessional.
Guests come and go, friends of Elio’s from before his time. Gillies has a bright smile and always leaves them with food. he often visits with Didier, the two of them always enraptured by their stories of racing, laughing at the stories Ayrton tells them. Ayrton talks until it no longer hurts to talk about.
A friend does not come to them until many years later when Ayrton stumbles out of the kitchen into the sound of grumbles and cussing at his front door.
The man in the foyer looks familiar from old photographs Ayrton had seen, scars gone and hair strewn wild on his scalp. The man stumbles through the door, wild like an alley cat as they both stop, and their eyes meet from across the hall.
Ayrton only truly knows its Niki from the way his face splits into a wide, manic smile before he tackles Ayrton into a tight hug.
“You Bastard! I knew I’d see you here!”
He takes the room across the hall from Elio’s and tells them stories of the world they have missed. Tells them about Mika and Michael. Tells them about Keke’s boy Nico, following in his fathers’ steps, tells them about the brilliant young Hamilton who called Ayrton his hero. Tells them about how the sport is safer now than ever before, how it still lives on with their legacies.
When Ayrton pulls him aside and asks him about Alain, his eyes grow soft, and an age unbefitting his current form arrives on his face.
“Ah Ayrton, I always knew you never truly hated each other.” Niki says, patting Ayrton gently on the arm before retiring for the night. Niki doesn’t answer his question; Ayrton doesn’t ask it again.
Slowly but surely, years after Niki arrives, they get more familiar faces.
Gerhard arrives with a smile, eyes glinting with mischief, taking the room that shares a wall with Ayrton’s.
Piquet comes next, and Gerhard and Ayrton great him by throwing eggs at him from the window that overlooks the front stoop, eliciting a string of cusses and grumbled spluttering. Nelson storms off and disappears for a few days before he settles into a room as far from theirs as possible once he finally returns.
Elio finally finishes the piece he had been working on all those years ago. He performs it for them in the study, and Gerhard pulls him up to dance as Elio plays. Niki drags up Nelson and makes sure to step on his foot at every given opportunity. By the time the requiem ends, they are all seated, and they pretend to not see the tears hanging in Elio’s eyes. Pretend to not wipe away their own as they settle in the somber haze.
The next morning, a haggard looking Nigel makes his way through their door, smiling under his mustache as Elio crashes into his arms.
They pretend to not see it when Ayrton pulls his gaze away from the reunion, tears in his eyes.
Nigel takes the room opposite of Ayrton’s, next to Elio’s, and they only yell at him about sneaking out when the hinges of his door start to squeak loud enough to rouse them from slumber. Nigel sleeps in Elio’s room now.
Ayrton hates to hope it, but he falls asleep dreaming of the day Alain will finally walk through the doors.
In the morning when he awakes, he fixes two coffees, and he prays.
It’s a tradition now, Elio will hardly accept a coffee from anyone else. Ayrton had overheard Nigel asking him about it once on an early morning where Ayrton was on his way to the study. He lingered outside the door a bit, peaking in when he heard the sound of voices rather than the normal piano.
“I Just can’t see it Elio. You two being friends? I remember when you two hated each other, and now he brings you coffee every morning? Unbelievable.”
Elio hums, Ayrton can hear how his weight shifts and he settles on the piano bench, now doubt staring at his hands, hovering over the keys. A memory of that morning years ago now settling in him.
“You would be amazed. Forty years of shared grief has a way of tying people together.” Elio says softly. There is a beat, and then Elio is playing again. Ayrton takes some quiet steps backwards and approaches the door loudly.
Elio smiles to him and drinks his coffee slowly over the next hours.
The coffee goes cold on the piano bench, it looks like communion.
The house is warm as always as Ayrton strides down the steps. That morning feels odd, something hanging in the air as he awakes. Something has shifted, something is coming.
Elio is playing piano softly in the study where Nigel is sure to be lounging and watching him.
Ayrton grabs two cups from the kitchen and begins to fix him and Elio their morning coffees.
It’s a meditation for him, setting up the drinks. A regular routine seldom interrupted. He starts the kettle, bringing the water to a boil and letting the steam fill the room as he divides up the coffee grounds.
He will inevitably pour the hot water over the grounds and let the coffee drip through to a pot where he will then pour the coffee from, into two glasses. One with sugar both with milk.
He will then take his cup, walk over to the window above the sink, and clear the steam from it to look out on the field as he takes his first sip.
He would never admit to it if caught, he would lie and say he was just taking in the view. But what Ayrton senna really does in those early morning hours is say prayer, always the same, and search the horizon.
Nada pode me separar do amor de Deus
Nada pode me separar do amor de você
E para isso eu te prometo minha fé
That morning, shuffling in the early dawn hours, Ayrton finds him.
From the study, Elio would hear the crash of a coffee mug against the tile and immediately stop playing to rush to the kitchen, Nigel hot on his heels as they look concerned for the source of the crash. They would find Ayron’s mug, shattered into a million pieces on the tile beside the window, coffee seeping into the lines of the grout.
Elio would turn to the foyer at the sound of the door banging open, sunlight drifting in as he barely catches a blur of Ayrton’s jeans as he sprints out the entryway. Elio would move to run after him only to be stopped by Nigel’s hand resting on his shoulder.
Elio is close to argue with him as he turns back, only to follow Nigel’s gaze out of the window and he understands.
There, just a speck on the horizon, a head of dark brown curls stands in contrast with the golden grain of the field around him.
Elio recognizes him immediately, gaze going soft as he sees Ayrton making his way toward him. He can hear Ayrton calling out to him as he runs, sees Alain turn in bright recognition, shocked smile on his lips as he stagers forward, steps moving from walk to run to full sprint. He heads to Ayrton, a collision course, as always.
They crash into each other about 50 feet out from the window, Ayrton tackling Alain in a full body hug that sends them both to the ground, disappearing in the golden grain.
Elio smiles, leaning into Nigel’s side as he watches them out the window, a contented hum on his lips.
The coffee goes cold on the table. It looks strangely like salvation.
-=-=-=-=-=-
The house is a quaint thing, two simple stories lined by a small garden, a gravel walkway to the entrance. Alain is sure that he has never seen it before, but something about it feels familiar. It feels like home. Feels like belonging.
The house is calm in what must be the early hours of the morning as he approaches. The sounds he is used too of rushing footfalls and laughing children and ringing telephones absent in the heavy peace of a morning.
There is a rustle from the door, the violent swing of it opening, and Alain looks to it as the peace of the morning is shattered by the call of his name.
“ALAIN”
Ayrton looks nothing like how his memory serves. His face is tan, his voice loud, his curls unkempt, and his face smile as bright as the sun.
Alain has been living with the ghost of his memory, but here in the grain of their eternal reward, Alain sees Ayrton alive again.
“Ayrton” it’s a whisper, a prayer on his lips as he runs to him.
“AYRTON!” He calls, feet pounding hard against the soil.
They collide together there, and for the first time Alain does not curse their crashing, because Ayrton is there, arms around him, weight pressing against his form, solid and real.
Alain can’t help but laugh as the tears start to pour down his cheeks.
And Ayrton looks to him, smiling softy as tears glint in his eyes as he shifts to hold his weight on one hand while the other rises to Alain’s cheek, whipping the tears away as the palm rests gently there. Alain leans into it, eyes soft as he studies Ayrton.
“Oh Alain—” Ayrton starts, voice crackling under the emotion of it “It’s been so long.”
Ayrton starts to cry then, shell cracking and letting the soft ugly parts of his soul laid bare in front of him. And Alain, kind sweet Alain, says nothing. Holds him as he cries, and slots all the pieces back into place.
“It has been many long years, so many years” Alain says, jaw resting in the cress of his shoulder. “Nothing could separate me from the love of you.”
Ayrton pulls back, eyes red and smile gleaming holding Alain to where he can look at him proper. It is silent for a moment, their breath coming in heavy as they survey each other, teetering on the edge of something. And Ayrton, always the more impulsive of the two, is surprisingly not the one to break it.
No, it’s Alain, smiling a sly smile, and pulling Ayrton forward by his shirt into his lips.
It’s a love story decades in the making, a tragedy by all that were to view it.
But here, sat with their asses in the dirt, tears on their faces, Ayrton feels himself being christened whole again.
Ayrton wouldn’t have it any other way.
Eventually they separate, Ayrton pulling back but not releasing his hold on Alain’s hands as he pulls him up to standing.
“Alain, I have so much to show you. Follow me?” Alain smiles, looking from Ayrton down to their join hands, giving them a tight squeeze.
“Always.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
Gerhard stands on the stoop of the doorway, watching as the scene unfold before him, a smile light on his face. Beside him, he can tell that Nelson is about to say something stupid by the way his jaw twitches.
A simple action, a hand clasping hard into the meat of his shoulder, spooking the man slightly.
“One stupid word, and I will kill you.” Gerhard warns, voice conversational. Nelson’s mouth opens and closes for a bit before he pulls out of Gerhard’s hold, a glare on his brow.
“Gerhard, I’m already dead, where will that get you?” Nelson says, having the gall to look smug.
“Oh Nelson,” Niki says, appearing like an apparition in the expanse of the door. “I can assure you there are worse things we can think of.”
Nelson goes a starch pale, eyes bouncing between Niki and Gerhard and the reunion still unfolding in the yard. Gerhard smiles, turning to Niki.
“This is sure to be fun.”
Niki smiles, hands on his hips, eyes not leaving Alain and Ayrton as they rise from the ground, still in each other's arms. “I’m just happy I don’t have to share a wall with them.”
Gerhard’s smile falls, and Niki bursts into jovial laughter. From inside the study, Elio plays on.