Chapter Text
Kimi gasps when he sees the crash in the cooldown room. It's instinct, half because it's Ollie and half because fifty gs into a wall is fifty gs into a wall whether you're in love with the guy taking them or not. Still, he better not even try to pretend he'd react like that if it was Bortoleto or Hadjar in the car.
Quickly he checks the other two's faces. They're not looking at him, thank god, they're staring at the screen in something vaguely akin to horror but less intense. It's more steely.
"That can't be alright," Oscar says. Charles nods vehemently.
"We cannot be having these regulations which allow things like--like this"--he gestures to the TV, replaying Ollie's crash like it's not seared into Kimi's mind already--"to happen. We cannot."
"I mean, he's alright," Oscar says, "thank god. So they'll probably do fuck-all." It used to surprise Kimi whenever he heard Oscar swear; the PR image of him had become too ingrained in his head that he forgot he was human. Now he's heard practically everyone saying everything, not just met his heroes but danced with them sweaty in sketchy European nightclubs. The magic is a little gone.
"He has an injury," Charles says. "A--dammit, I do not remember the word. It is his knee. The FIA has allowed him to be hurt."
"Charles, you're acting like he's your kid." Oscar laughs a little, and Charles takes immediate offense.
"He is obviously not my kid, but we--I--it is natural to feel a little bit protective, of those who are younger than you," Charles argues. "You don't feel it at all?"
"I think by the time someone's been ahead of me in the drivers' standings in a Haas for that long, they stop being a kid and start being a threat," Oscar responds dryly, and the conversation dies a bit when the next bit of the race shows up on screen.
"Mega drive, by the way, Kimi," Oscar says like an afterthought, just as they're getting up to enter the media circus. "George had better watch out."
"It is not fair that the child has a better chance at the championship than I do," Charles complains good-naturedly.
"Is not my fault you signed with Ferrari," Kimi ripostes, and they all laugh. "I did not somehow cause your madness."
"Sometimes I think, maybe I just retire and see what happens," Charles says, waving his hand a little, off into the great beyond. "And then I think if Ollie started doing better than me in my car I would want to kill myself."
"Well, hopefully a knee-whatever is serious, then," Oscar says, and Kimi laughs guiltily. "Make sure he can't drive."
Charles looks scandalised at the thought that he would ever try to injure Ollie. "I would rather go to Haas myself."
And then the media begins once more, and it's overwhelming, and all Kimi wants to do is cover his ears and eyes and curl into a little ball, and when his body is focused on not doing that his mind isn't focused on Ollie. Which is a tall order, these days. He's even there in the fucking car. Thank god he doesn't hate Ollie enough to associate him with reporters.
Still, the image of him limping out of the car stays in Kimi's head the whole time.
The Haas garage is way too far down from Mercedes.
"Esteban!" Kimi shouts, slightly too loudly considering how close they are. For good measure he taps him on the shoulder, coming skittering past and needing to backtrack.
"Kimi," Esteban says, slightly confused: they don't talk much. "Congratulations on the race."
"Thank you," Kimi responds automatically. "And you, you got points, no?"
"Yeah, thanks." Esteban is waiting for him to ask whatever he was going to ask, and Kimi doesn't really want to ask what he was going to ask yet, because he was expecting a little more small talk first. He and Esteban don't really talk.
"Uh--Ollie, do you know where he is? Or if he is resting, I will of course not go to see him, but I would like to see him, make sure he is okay."
Esteban looks at him slightly quizzically. "And you do not ask him because? He has a phone, you could text."
Kimi freezes briefly. Shit. He really could have done that, and spared himself this entire ordeal. "You're not allowed a phone after a concussion," he says, desperately. "I wasn't sure if he had one or not."
It's a poor excuse--Ollie does not have a concussion, which Kimi knows, because he has checked--but Esteban seems to either buy it or determine that it is not worth his time to try and figure out what on earth Kimi is playing at. "Our hotel is not too far from the track," he says. "I am not sure how to pronounce, but I can put it into google maps for you? He is room 363."
Kimi wordlessly offers his phone, and Esteban types an address into it. "There you go."
"Thank you, Esteban," Kimi says. "He is--he is alright, yes? He is not needing to rest?"
"He was very annoyed that the medical team wanted him to rest and not watch the race," Esteban responds. "I guarantee he was watching it at the hotel. Did he text you something about the result?"
"No," Kimi says, a spark of worry down his spine. Either Ollie was not watching because he was too ill, or he was watching and did not want to talk to Kimi. Either way he should not be going to his hotel room.
Or he forgot. That is also possible. Or he isn't allowed his phone.
Kimi chooses to believe he forgot.
Kimi knocks on the door, the voice of his mother chanting in his head the need to be polite. "Ollie? Are you okay? It is Kimi." After a few seconds, his mother shuts up, and he adds "You can tell me to fuck off if you want."
There is no response for a couple seconds, then a groan, and Kimi worries he has unintentionally woken Ollie up from a well-deserved sleep. "'S open, come in," comes the voice from inside, and Kimi obeys.
"Is not very good security, to leave it open," he jokes, closing the door behind him. "You are a Formula 1 driver, mate, you have to be careful. Some crazy George fan might come after you."
"Eh, well, I'm fine," Ollie responds. "I think I could take the crazy George fans. Their brain is clearly broken already, they picked the wrong Mercedes driver."
"You are just saying that because I am here. Secretly you have all the posters on the wall." He gestures out to the side. "Whole wall is covered in his face."
Ollie shudders. "If you ever do that to me I might actually run away to the mountains. Quit F1 for good."
There is nowhere to sit in the hotel room except the bed, despite all Kimi's searching, so he gives up. It's a double--queen? king?-- it's a big bed, so there is room for both of them. He awkwardly perches on the edge for about two seconds before Ollie sighs at him good-naturedly and pats the space next to him. "Sit down, mate, I'm not made of glass. I'm fine."
Except he's not fine. Kimi lets himself look, really look at Ollie in a way he doesn't allow himself every time he wants to, and he sees the bags under his eyes, the paleness in his cheeks, the way he winces as he shifts closer to Kimi. Ollie cannot fool him about his physical state, not when Kimi already has everything about him catalogued away.
"Ollie, you are not fine. You have a--a--" It is either the fact that it is English or the fact that Kimi is not a doctor and only heard the word over the sound of a V6 engine or the fact that it's Ollie in front of him that has Kimi stuttering, or all of them combined. Ollie takes pity on him.
"A knee contusion." Kimi watches his mouth, finds the shape of the word in it. Not that it helps. "It's like a bruise that goes all the way down. It hurts like a bitch, but I'll be fine by Miami. Probably would have been fine by Bahrain, but I don't need to heal it by Bahrain, because there is no Bahrain."
"Ask Stroll for advice," Kimi says, and laughs, because neither of them speak to Stroll for advice on anything. "The one thing he's qualified to speak about."
"Hopefully I never get that desperate."
They're sort of just staring at each other, and it's unbearable.
"You fucked George's race," Kimi says, because he can't think of anything else to say.
"Did I?" Ollie asks. "That's funny, alright. When you win it and he loses his seat it'll be at least a bit my fault." He stretches himself out a little more, winces in a quick twist of the cheek. "At least I'll have some lasting impact on this sport. Would you be the youngest if you did take it?"
Kimi knows. He googled it himself, looked down the pages of records he could break, late at night in a hotel room dreaming of glory. And he sees it in the way people look at him, the way Toto looks at him: the wunderkind, the saviour, the future of F1. Toto sees him as an investment and George sees him as a rival and both of them see him as special.
Ollie looks at him like he's a nineteen-year-old kid someone gave a rocketship.
"Yeah," he says. "I think so. I haven't--"
"You liar," Ollie laughs. "You absolute liar. I bet you know exactly who was the youngest--"
"--it was Vettel, okay, is a normal thing to know--"
"--and when they won their championship--"
"--2010, but that's F1 history--"
"--and exactly how old they were."
"Twenty-three years one-hundred-thirty-four days," Kimi blurts without even thinking. There is a pause.
"Shit," Ollie half-whispers. "You really have thought about it, haven't you?"
"A lot," Kimi confesses. He's human. He has a rocketship. He's high off two wins, two poles, two dazzling sprays of champagne that make him feel like he deserve it. And he's leading the championship, somehow, at nineteen. "Sometimes. When I don't have much else to think about."
"Team meetings?" Ollie says, and Kimi snickers.
"Only when George is talking. Never when Toto says things. I swear that man can see into my soul. He is like--" Kimi waves his hands, bringing them up to his face a little, trying to find the word. "A teacher. He is like a teacher. You know, the ones who look around and who can tell if you do not pay attention?"
"Gotta be honest, I don't really remember much of school," Ollie says. "I just wanted to get out. As quickly as possible. And there was racing, so."
"You left at sixteen, no?" Kimi remembers this, remembers wishing he could follow Ollie into the world. Ollie is older by a year, even though it doesn't seem it most of the time.
"Yeah. It was probably a bad idea, but I guess I believed in myself. I don't know what I would have done without F1, honestly, it's a bit scary." Ollie laughs. "I would have had absolutely no qualifications except my shit GCSEs and nothing to show for any of the racing. My god."
"I would hire you," Kimi says. "I would still be famous racecar driver, and I would say 'here is this tall British boy who needs a job, let's give him one', and you would be... I don't know, my trainer or something. You have good muscles." He reaches out, pinches Ollie's arm: he's right, there's lean cords of muscle there. Sometimes he watches Ollie build this stuff in the videos he posts on YouTube, late at night. After he's done fantasising about a WDC, his other guilty pleasure.
Ollie makes a small startled noise, but recovers. "So long as it wasn't your chef. I would probably poison you."
"Oh yes, I remember the carbonara." Two years ago Ollie had invited Kimi to his house and offered him something he had tried to call 'pasta carbonara'. The eggs were scrambled because he had not known to put them in after the pasta was out of the pan and the pasta was a few notches above al dente. It was not lovesickness that had Kimi throwing up in the sink that day, let's say.
"Oh god," Ollie groans. "Not only did I try to serve an Italian pasta, I tried to serve you that. Of course you still remember. Fuck. I promise I've learned more."
I could teach you, is what Kimi wants to say. They're about to have an impromptu spring break. And sure, a lot of that will be in the sim and in media, but they'll have some time to themselves. And some of that time could be spent in Kimi's house, in his kitchen, laughing at each other with fingers brushing in ways that would have both of them jumping away like they'd been burned if they happened now but because it's Kimi's head they don't. They linger. They stay. Ollie stays.
An image flashes through his head: white sheets, the sun coming up through the curtain, Ollie shirtless and perfectly lit in his bed, eyes just fluttering open.
Stupid thoughts. Instead he says "Have you learned anything or have you just been watching that Italian chef guy you like so much on YouTube? Because that guy brought us into this mess in the first place, don't forget--"
Ollie lobs a pillow at his head, which hits him straight in the face.
"What was that for?" Kimi responds indignantly, preparing his own shot.
"Uh uh uh, Kimi," Ollie says, shit-eating-grin firmly affixed to his face, gesturing to his knee. "I'm an invalid, remember?"
"Shut up. You only have a knee confusion."
"Contusion."
Kimi settles for hitting him on the arm with the pillow.
They don't talk for a bit after that. The conversation sort of died, and they're both wiped from the race. Ollie didn't do the whole thing, so he should be less tired, but Kimi generously doesn't mention that. They let the room darken. Kimi is struck by an urge to bury his face in Ollie's neck and stay there for as long as he'll let him.
"Do you really think about it?" Ollie whispers out into the dim room. "The driver's championship?"
Kimi swallows. "Yeah. More than I should. I mean, probably George will still take it and I will not get anything. I did so badly in Europe last year, I could well do that again. And if they stop doing things with his car's setup he will probably start beating me again regardless. But..." he lets the sentence trail into the ceiling for a bit, "I like to think about it."
"Yeah, well," Ollie says, rolling over to face him, "it's the dream, isn't it? I mean, it isn't my dream, that would be insane. My dream is, like, a podium. Wildest dreams, a race win."
"In the Haas? Mate."
"It's happened before. Weirder things have happened before. Hulkenburg got a podium in the Sauber last year, okay? It's possible." He shifts up onto his left arm. "I'm holding out for Silverstone. Wet races are always crazy."
"Didn't you literally go off at Silverstone last year? And in the pit lane, you--"
"Shhh," Ollie says, putting a finger to Kimi's lips. "We don't talk about that." Kimi doesn't, mostly because his brain is not functioning.
"Well, uh, you would need the McLarens and the Ferraris to just not show up."
"British traffic can be really bad sometimes," Ollie says, laughing. "And anyway, these regs owe me one after this." He gestures to his knee, bandaged. "Maybe they'll just do me a solid once."
"Maybe," Kimi says, feeling like he's saying more than he means. Ollie turns away again, sits up and flicks on a bedside light. The shadows shift over his face. Kimi follows him up like a moth.
"Did you come here straight after the podium?" Ollie asks, and Kimi, against his better judgement, nods.
"As soon as they'd let me."
"You must have been worried, huh." It's not a question. Ollie's gaze is almost hungry across his face. "You didn't go back to your room? That's kind of gross, mate."
"I guess."
"You're still sticky," Ollie says, brushing the back of his hand against Kimi's face. The feeling of every inch of Ollie's calloused fingers on his skin lights little fireworks beneath where they touch. Kimi fights the urge to lean into it, quite successfully, but doing so requires diverting his brain's attention from almost everything else. So his gaze drifts and his eyes fall straight into Ollie's. The touch slows, drags over his skin. It's written all over his face, exactly what he's feeling.
"I almost forgot you're not allowed to drink here," Ollie whispers. "So you wouldn't taste like it."
Kimi's brain feels like it's walking through treacle trying to work out the English and the subtext, even though there's nothing else that could mean even if their faces weren't about three inches apart. He says nothing. He holds his breath. Ollie is so close Kimi could probably either live like this forever or ruin everything in a second with his typical, stupid, childish stunts.
"Kimi?"
"Yeah?" He feels his name breathed onto his lips almost before he hears it. It snaps him out of it, right back to reality, where Ollie Bearman has a knee contusion and one hand on his face, the other moving somewhere around his hips. The hormone rush is too big to ignore. It doesn't even feel like this in his dreams.
"Can I?" Ollie holds his gaze right up until he nods, and then he closes both his eyes and the gap between them in about half a second, one hand on Kimi's waist and the other tangled through his hair.
Ollie is so careful with him. God, Kimi has never felt as inexperienced, as stupid as he does now. Not even after putting George's car in the wall. At least then what to do with his hands was obvious: take them off the steering wheel, so they wouldn't break.
Now he's doing the same, except it's Ollie who's there instead. Touching him feels like it'll break them both somehow.
Ollie breaks the kiss, still cradling his face. "Are you alright? Kimi?" He's still touching him, fingers all through his hair, grounding him. Kimi doesn't want him to stop but he doesn't know how to speak, so he nods instead and tentatively puts his hands on Ollie's waist.
"You can touch me, you know," Ollie says, and kisses him again. Still chaste enough, but with a bit of heat to it, a little more desire. Ollie's fingers tangle through his hair, pulling a little, and Kimi makes a noise he'd be ashamed of if he could care. Ollie laughs into his mouth and wipes away the insult with his tongue across Kimi's lips. Kimi opens his mouth gladly and practically moans at the feeling of Ollie's tongue moving across his.
Ollie shifts closer, trying to manoeuvre them fully together. It--it's hot, how he wants every inch of their skin to touch. Emboldened, Kimi tests moving his hands up and down and is rewarded by a gasp when they make it to his chest.
"You're good at this," Kimi says dumbly.
"I've had practice," Ollie says, and Kimi's mind is filled with the images of what exactly 'practice' would have entailed. "Not anyone who meant anything. But--"
"Oh, I understand," Kimi says, smile darting across his face, hands darting under Ollie's shirt. "Everyone wants to fuck the pretty tall F1 driver, no?"
Ollie splutters. Kimi kisses it out of him. And then kisses him again, and again, and again.
Kimi's flight is at eleven am. This is unfortunately one of the pieces of information that was deleted to make space for the noise Ollie makes when he kisses that spot on his neck, along with his alarm--Ollie needs rest, after all, he's injured.
Alarms are not a great way to wake up, especially someone else's alarm. However, they sure beat 'surprise phone call from Toto Wolff', which is how Kimi ended up waking up instead.
His ringtone plays for approximately two seconds before he snatches his phone from the nightstand--on 5%, because he didn't expect to spend the night here--and presses it to his ear with the pure panic-fuelled focus a ton of adrenaline dumped down your back will produce. Even at seven am.
"Kimi?" Toto asks. "Are you alright?"
Kimi is not alright. Kimi is probably going to spontaneously combust from either embarrassment or fear right here and now. Kimi sneaks a glance over at Ollie, still seemingly asleep, and half-whispers "Yes, I--I am alright, thank you, Toto."
"Why are you not at the hotel?" His tone seems genuinely curious but the words and accent combined make him sound like a particularly annoyed teacher. "The flight is in four hours."
"It--I am alright, it is not an emergency or a problem. I will arrange my own transportation to the airport, do not worry."
"I was not worried. I was just wanting to make sure that you are alright and you will get on the flight. It is none of my business what you do in your spare time."
The rustling of sheets comes through Kimi's other ear, and all he can think is please don't talk, please don't talk, please don't talk--
"Who's that?" Ollie asks, groggy with sleep, and Kimi curses all gods who let him end up in this situation. "Whoever they are, they woke me up--"
"Okay, Toto, I am alright, I will get there, goodbye," Kimi gabbles, and immediately hangs up just as Toto begins to ask "Was that Ollie I just--"
Ollie looks vaguely mortified. "That was--"
"Yes. Toto. My boss. He was calling to make sure I got on my flight, which I had forgotten about, and now I need to get back to the hotel and get all my stuff and deal with that," Kimi says, attempting to disentangle himself from the sheets and failing miserably in his panic. They're like a fucking Chinese finger trap. "I need to go. I am sorry."
"Who the fuck schedules a flight for seven am?" Ollie yawns, stretches.
"The flight is at eleven, but there is time for security checks and transport and to make sure I have my passport and ticket etcetera," Kimi attempts to explain while tugging on his jeans.
"You're going to have to explain why you're wearing the same clothes," Ollie grins lazily. "And why my voice was on your call with Toto."
He looks entirely too pleased about this.
"Do not remind me, I'm still mad," Kimi grumbles, but he knows he isn't really, yanking his polo over his head and grinning like a madman.
"So I don't get a kiss goodbye? Shame." Ollie pouts and Kimi nearly trips over the corner of the bed in his haste to get to him.
"You are--you do not stop, ever." Kimi pecks his lips and darts back before Ollie can try to drag him back into bed.
"You were gonna run out on me," Ollie says, just as he reaches the door, seemingly just realising. "You were gonna get your call from Toto and I was gonna stay asleep and you were going to run off and catch your flight."
"You would rather I wake you up?" Kimi is confused, because that would be very impolite, and he's also twitching slightly with anxiety from the call, bouncing from foot to foot. The overall effect is not exactly pretty.
"I don't know. That didn't even happen. You would have texted me, though?"
"I mean, my phone is on five percent, so probably not--"
Ollie throws another pillow at his head, and Kimi parries it with the door, ducking out of the room.
Esteban Ocon is waiting for the elevator. Kimi does a double-take at the sight of him, wearing jogging bottoms, a sports top, and trainers, and schools his face into something that doesn't actively scream I had sex with your teammate last night. It is normal for him to be on this floor. He just wanted to check Ollie was okay.
Last night, but that's none of Esteban's business.
Esteban smiles at him. "Kimi! Hello!"
"Hello, Esteban," Kimi says.
The little light above the elevator doors reads 8. They are on floor 22. Both of them have their eyes fixed on the display.
"You were here to see Ollie, yes?" Esteban asks. "He is alright?" 13.
"He is fine," Kimi replies, trying not to blush at the thought of just how fine Ollie really is. It would not do to out Ollie to his teammate through being an idiot. "Yeah--he's good, he's great, he's brilliant." 18.
"I'm sure he is," Esteban says, smiling knowingly. Kimi feels a chill run down his spine. "You know, I didn't see you coming this morning, Kimi."
"Um--"
The elevator dings and the doors open. Both of them step inside.
"I have a flight to catch," Kimi says, like it explains everything. It sort of does, or at least it helps explain the nervousness. "And my phone, it is on 4%."
"Okay," Esteban says, pushing the button for floor 6.
"Why floor 6?" Kimi asks, pushing the ground floor button.
"Ah, Pierre is there," Esteban says. "We like to run together. He gets competitive and I... enjoy watching him. Makes me a better runner," he adds hastily.
"Alright," Kimi says. There is altogether too much subtext to this conversation for his liking. He elects to ignore it.
Kimi makes his flight. Which is becoming a decision he likes less and less every second he spends on it, because Ollie is not on the plane.
Ollie assumed right. Kimi has wifi, but he should be asleep, and instead he's trying to figure out what the hell to write back.
And at that exact moment someone comes up to him on the plane asking for a photo for social media with him holding the trophy, and his phone doesn't really figure into that, and then it takes a couple of minutes to pose it and then a couple of minutes to take the photo and then pick one and then 'a couple of minutes' has turned into half an hour by the time they're done. And he is so, so tired. So--sue him--he falls asleep for real.
Not holding the trophy.