Work Text:
Ayrton is still asleep when Alain wakes up; surreptitiously, feeling almost like a teenager again as he does so, Alain nudges open the door of the guest bedroom that he had given Ayrton to peer in on him. A part of him feels that it is weird, to look in at the other man whilst he is sleeping and unaware, but the rest of Alain - convinced that he has woken up and everything that had happened last night will have been a dream, Ayrton vanishing like mist - cannot bring himself to care. He needs to know - and, indeed, there is Ayrton Senna, illuminated by the crack of light from the hallway that spears into the darkened guest room, tangled and mostly on top of the covers, spread eagle like a rather attractive starfish. The tee shirt that Alain had foisted on Ayrton to sleep in is much too small, riding up to expose a sliver of skin around his hips, the dark hair trailing down from his stomach, and the way that Ayrton sleeps with the covers twisted around his bare legs leaves little to the imagination. It’s slightly mollifying, of course, to learn that Ayrton snores, mouth gaping open. For Alain, it makes him a little more human.
Fuelled by some softness that he does not dare to name, Alain leaves Ayrton to sleep, closing the door quietly behind him. He figures that Ayrton probably needs it, that it is worth a lie in to stave off the horrendous hangover that he will undoubtedly have. By the time Alain had gotten Ayrton in the taxi, the other man had somewhat sobered up, but it had still been a chore to herd him up into Alain’s flat, to help him get out of the uncomfortable formal clothes he had been wearing and into something he could sleep in, to placate him when Ayrton had reached out to grab Alain by the wrist as he turned to leave, eyes shining, and asked, “will you still be with me when I wake up?”
That had stirred something in Alain, old and slumberous and never really gone. It had confirmed to him that he is right, not to have taken Ayrton back to his own flat, to close the door between them with no assurance that they would ever have another opportunity to open it back up again. He has never dreamed of having this opportunity; to wait for another would be foolish.
But what he will wait for is Ayrton is wake up. Making his way to the kitchen, he flicks on the kettle and begins the process of rooting through his cabinets for something suitable to make for breakfast. Something easy, so it doesn’t look like he’s trying too hard, but something that looks like he cares, like he wants to put the effort in. He settles on taking the eggs out of the fridge, the bread from the metal bin on the bench, and begins to root around in the cupboards for the vanilla extract and cinnamon; French toast, he decides, will be nice. Familiar. He has not made it much since his children have grown up and flown the nest, but the routine is comforting and well worn, and he knows that the food he makes is nice.
It is only a little while later that he hears movement in the guest bedroom, a distant thud and then the padding of uneven footsteps, enough to make Alain think that they are exploratory, that Ayrton - too nosy for his own good - is taking the opportunity to scope out this tiny piece of Alain’s life that he has missed out on all these years. The fact that he is curious, that he wants to know… Alain can’t think too hard about that.
Instead, he settles for making them coffee. He makes his as he usually does, milk and no sugar, and realises, as he turns his attention to Ayrton’s mug, that he doesn’t know how he takes his coffee, or even if he drinks it. He casts his mind, but fifteen years is a long time to try and remember any off-hand comment on preferences. And it’s such a little thing, except it doesn’t feel little - it feels humongous, this reminder of what Alain has lost out on, all because of a stupid phone call neither of them had made. Fifteen years of knowing how Ayrton takes his coffee, fifteen years of maybe making it for him - gone, just like that, over what seems now like nothing at all, though it had felt like everything at the time.
“Oh,” says Ayrton behind him, his voice small, “you’re still here.”
Alain half turns to see Ayrton stood in the middle of the living room, visible over the half wall that separates it from the kitchen, looking lost. His hair is mussed, his eyes wide, and he looks like the very sight of Alain before him is undoing him piece by piece. Except, this time, Alain doesn’t think it’s a bad thing. Where he has failed to read Ayrton before, he now thinks that he can see it - the quiet hope, the aching want, the history unspoken between them. Both of them remember what they had said last night - and it’s real, it’s real .
“This is my flat,” Alain replies. “It’s a likely place for me to be. How’d you take your coffee?”
“Milk, two sugars,” Ayrton says, absentmindedly.
He peers around Alain’s living space with inquisitive eyes, lingering on the pictures that line the walls, all evidence of a life well-lived and well-loved: Nico in his first karting race, Sacha on his wedding day, Victoria seven years old with her missing front teeth, Alain with Jean and Jenson and the contract for Prost GP between them. But it is the one next to that which catches Ayrton’s attention, half hidden in the shadow of a bookshelf. That last picture, at Imola, Ayrton leaning across the table to Alain, saying something that time had eroded from Alain’s memory, but captured forever unchanging. The expression, on Ayrton’s face, is a strange one.
“I had forgotten about that picture,” he says, slowly, reaching out to brush his fingers over the frame.
Alain moves to stand at his side, staring at the younger versions of them, wondering how he had thought before everything had happened, what great concerns that now would seem so trivial had occupied him. “It’s my favourite picture of us.”
“I don’t remember it very well,” Ayrton concludes. “My brain - it is all fuzzy, the weekend of the accident. When I first woke up… I knew very little when I first woke up, and then I knew most things, but Imola was forgotten. We had plans, for afterwards, didn’t we?”
“You promised me the nicest pasta you’d ever had,” Alain replies, “and tolerable wine.”
“I suppose the company would not have been bad?”
“Eh,” says Alain, making a so-so movement with his hand.
Ayrton gasps, mock scandalised. “You’re being cruel, Alain. But I am still sorry for standing you up.”
“I might be able to let you off this time,” Alain assures him, swallowing. “And it isn’t pasta, but I can offer you breakfast?”
Grinning, Ayrton says, “that would be lovely.”
Ayrton sits at the breakfast table, drawing out a seat that looks into the kitchen. He doesn’t take his eyes off Alain as Alain putters around the kitchen, gathering plates and cups, fresh fruit juice from the fridge, and finishing off actually making the breakfast, and Alain cannot help but preen under the attention. What should be awkward and uncomfortable settles into something that Alain would almost call familiar, if this civility between them had not been so new. Ayrton props his cane up against a seat and sprawls his legs out underneath the table, making himself at home entirely in Alain’s space.
Breakfast set up between them, Alain tugs out the chair opposite Ayrton, gesturing for the Brazilian to help himself. For a little while, they eat in quiet. Ayrton hums appreciatively at the first bite of toast and praises it so excessively that Alain flushes and covers his face, waving him away. But it’s nice, though Alain keeps his voice hushed as he chats to Ayrton - about anything and everything, though they spend a pathetic amount of time on the weather - after he notices that the hangover he had predicted is definitely still a factor, Ayrton wincing and then gratefully accepting the pills Alain passes over to him. It feels, however, like they are making up for all the years of silence and Alain seizes the opportunity with open hands, greedy and grasping.
As they’re scraping the plates clean, Ayrton’s phone buzzes where he’s left it out on the table. He picks it up, squinting at the scream and holding it pointedly away from his face. “I don’t have my glasses,” he excuses, when Alain stifles his laughter behind a fist. “Besides, it’s for you.”
He slides it across the table and Alain, frowning, leans in closer.
unknown number
lewis gave me your number
i need to speak to alain please
its sebastian vettel, by the way
Hello, Sebastian. It’s Alain. How can I help you?
Sebastian Vettel
i need jenson’s home address
for work purposes
A wry smile tugs at the corner of Alain’s lips, and he shows the messages to Ayrton, reading them aloud when the Brazilian is silent for far too long, clearly bemused by the small text.
“He better not be poaching my drivers still,” Ayrton huffs, disgruntled.
Alain shakes his head. “This, I fear, is in the pursuit of love,” he replies, then tilts his head, considering. “Or maybe horniness. Modern day dating is very all in.”
“Sabotage,” hisses Ayrton. “Distraction tactics.”
“If that worked,” Alain rebuts, “I would have beaten you a lot more than I actually did.”
Ayrton flushes, spluttering.
“Besides,” Alain continues, typing out Jenson’s address and sending it off, “I have a good feeling about this. Something good should come from last night.”
“A lot of good things could come from last night,” Ayrton says, eventually. He leans back in his chair and Alain hands him his phone back, on silent; everything is geared to a serious conversation, he fears, and he thinks that if there are any more interruptions, it might be enough to have him chicken out altogether.
“If we wanted them to,” Alain agrees, picking aimlessly at a hangnail. “I want it to, if you do, by the way.”
“I want that as well. That’s never been the problem for me - I’ve always wanted this, I think.”
“It’s a lot of time to make up for. A lot of hurt, on both sides.”
“It’ll take time to work past, and it will probably be very difficult. Is it worth it, to you?”
Certainty settling in his chest, Alain releases a deep breath. “It’s worth it,” he replies. “By God, Ayrton, nothing is worth more to me.”
Ayrton nods resolutely, determination set on his face. “Then we’re in agreement,” he says. “Where do we start?”
“Imola,” Alain decides. The beginning of this, and the ending of something else; sometimes, he thinks that all roads lead back to Imola, where he finds himself often, in dreams and memories and old regrets.
“I am sorry that you had to go through all of that,” Ayrton begins, forging ahead. “I was - well, I was not conscious for four months after and they did not know, as Frank told you, if I would ever wake up again. And afterwards, I was very confused. I did not know myself. But I had hoped that someone would have told you I was fine."
“The first time I had that confirmation was Bercy. I didn’t know that you were going to be there - I thought you were still in hospital. I don’t think I would have been brave enough to pay tribute to you, if I had known.”
“And you didn’t talk to me. Why did you ever think that I didn’t want to know you anymore, Alain? Months of phone calls, making plans - surely you could see it.”
He taps his fingers against the wooden table, trying to source an answer. “Everyone else seemed to know you would be there,” he says, at last, frowning. Walking into Bercy, hearing the excited hush of whispers and gossip, ignorant to whatever had inflamed the crowd only for Ayrton to wheel himself proudly in minutes later, his presence not diminished despite the fact he was sat at twice the height of most of the attendees - Alain still remembers how his heart had seized in his chest, how he had fumbled the bottle of water in his hands, how Damon - catching his expression from the corner of his eye - had steered Alain to a seat. It had been like seeing a ghost given flesh again, like a dream. “I did not, and I thought, of course, that meant you did not want to see me anymore.
“After all, what we had between us was racing. Maybe more, just before Imola, but surely you were as aware as I was that every conversation we had boiled down to the fact that you needed me racing and I was holding out on you. If you could not race, what need did you have for me? Every day was a struggle for you - not on track, where I could have helped, but off it, where I would everyday be a reminder of what you had lost.”
Ayrton’s gaze is searching. His hand stretches out across the table to land atop of Alain’s, stilling his fingers where they pick at the raw skin of his nailbed. “God did not intend me to race any longer,” he says, slowly. “He gave me that purpose to serve only as long as He intended, and, yes, it took me a while to accept that His plans had changed but - but I don’t think that He gave me you for racing alone. It was easier to pretend that was all, at first, because I knew racing and racing was simple, but you were never just a racing driver to me, Alain. He gave me you for life. So, I cannot promise that I would have been always kind - you know that I would not have been - but I can promise I would have tried.”
Alain nods. “I am sorry that you thought I could not care for you outside of racing. That is not true - if anything, it’s the opposite.”
Ayrton laughs, ducking his head. “Why did we not say all of this before?” he wonders, his gaze light as he peers across at Alain. “Even racing, why did we let this exist between us? We were the best - we could have screwed the others and spent the rest of our lives together, in any form that we wanted.”
“Maybe we weren’t supposed to work then” Alain offers. “And, Ayrton, I cannot lie to you and say I would go back and change it all - less bitterness, maybe, but I have lived a life that I love in the time since I last saw you. I have a daughter I love more than life, and friends I never would have met. If I went back in time and this was waiting for me at the end, I would make the same choices that I did, though I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I did hurt, a little, but this one is not your fault, I think. I heard you were having a baby, and it felt like confirmation that I couldn't give you the life you deserved - I mean, I was not able to live independently at the time, relearning how to walk and how to live, and we were two men, in the nineties. You wanted a family life. I would not begrudge you that.”
“I will not call Victoria an accident, but it wasn’t planned. I cannot imagine life without her, but at the time I hadn’t imagined life with her either. Bernadette and I were not - Victoria was the saving grace of that whole affair.”
Ayrton’s eyes crinkle. “I would like to meet her,” he offers. “Anyway, we are too old to be parents now. Too old to mess around more than we already have. Perhaps it is best that we start again.”
“Not right from the start,” Alain protests, leaning forward. “We have put in a lot of work to get to this point. It would be awful to abandon it now.”
“A second round then,” proposes Ayrton. “The two of us, back in the ring.”
“Not against each other. You make it sound as if we are about to be involved in a brutal punch up.”
“You can hold my towel then.”
“Or I can hold yours. I actually used to box. I will be better suited.”
“Sure,” Ayrton scoffs, rolling his eyes. “But we try? I still want to take you to that restaurant, in Imola, with the nice pasta and tolerable wine.”
“Back to Imola?” asks Alain, surprised.
Ayrton lifts up his hand, brushes his lips against the back of Alain’s knuckles. “Is there any better place?”
Alain hums, nods slowly. “I don’t think there is,” he says, “but if we hold out a little longer, I think Jense will be the one footing the bill. I’m not sure what happened last night entirely but he looked guilty enough to scam a first date out of.”
“That’s your driver,” Ayrton scolds, though amusement twists in his eyes.
“Ex-driver,” Alain corrects. “Besides, he told me that you laughed at me when I bust my nose open, so maybe I owe him.”
Ayrton raises his hands in defence. “I am sorry for laughing!” he exclaims. “But it was almost like some engineered romcom, where you trip and I catch you and we make out passionately - except that is never something I would recommend, with my cane. Instead of breakfast, this would be settled with fists on the floor of Jean Todt’s ballroom. And who would choose that, when you could have this?”
Alain smiles, letting himself revel in the quiet softness of it all, of old feuds put at last to bed. “Who indeed?” he asks, and lets Ayrton draw him closer.