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Ollie hears the click of the lock and feels his whole body sink, because there's only one other person with the key to his apartment and only one other person he absolutely could not stand seeing right now, and they've formed themselves one and the same.
"Hi-i," Kimi sing-songed, half-drunk the way he always is after races now, because he's so fucking good he always gets a podium. "Proud of me, amore?"
"Fuck off," Ollie sighs, rubbing his eyes and face, too lazy to get up and too bitter to congratulate him. "If you've just come back to boast I don't want to hear it. I know you've had a good day, you always have a good day."
"Were you watching?" Kimi asks. Kimi is never satisfied with just the win, at least not now. He needs his adulation. He needs Ollie to jump up off the sofa and grab his arms with his hands and spin him around, shove him in the harbour, whatever. He needs the 'well done' from Ollie just as much as he needs everyone else combined. Normally Ollie gives it to him.
He just feels so tired.
The only word he gets out is "Yeah." He gestures to the TV, on mute, playing the eternal post-race show he couldn't be bothered to turn off.
"It's been hours, amore, are you okay?" Kimi is doing a very good job of concern. He knows how to get what he wants, doesn't he? This erstatz prince of Monaco, this beautiful little boy with his curls drenched in champagne and salt. This generational talent. This parasite.
Kimi has needs and he knows how to get them fulfilled. It's just that what he needs is Ollie's blood and sweat and tears, to get his hands inside his ribcage and feel around for something he can use. Normally Ollie gives it to him.
Normally Ollie is tired enough that it's hard to fight but not enough that he can't give in.
"I'm fine." Don't pretend you care. "Kimi, why are you even here?" Ollie's voice comes out just as tired as he means it.
Kimi stops in his tracks halfway to the sofa, standing in front of the TV nobody was watching. "Because you weren't there after the race, and I wanted to see you. Is that so bad, huh?" His accent makes it all sound so innocent, makes him seem exactly his age--younger, no. Nobody would think there's a year between them when they hear his tongue slipping over the language that isn't his. It makes him sweet.
Yes. "No, it's just fucking--confusing, alright, because I don't know what you want. And I don't know why you're here. If you want congratulations, I'm not giving them to you."
"That's weird," Kimi says, tipping his head to the side and throwing his small backpack to the floor. "You usually at least pretend to be happy for me. Even after Suzuka you were pretending, and I could tell, but you still bothered to. Now you are not pretending." He's so theatrical with it. And now he's sitting down, so Ollie has to scrunch up his legs. He's settling in for--the night?
Comfort is always a good idea after races. Maybe Ollie should take some away from Kimi for a change, fuck him and send him away at midnight cold and empty. Maybe then he'd learn his lesson about coming over here hoping for praise.
"Yeah, well, I'm not in the mood."
But Kimi has already moved on. "How is there still TV coverage going on? It is, like, ten pm. The race ended six hours ago. Do they have nothing else to show?"
"It's F1TV. They don't show anything else, and they all want to analyse little Antonelli's first grand slam. Like it's some kind of magic trick instead of the natural outcome of qualifying first in Monaco and pushing when your engineer says not to." It comes out bitterer than he'd wanted it. He probably shouldn't have said the whole second half of that.
Kimi looks a bit hurt, but recovers: bounces back like the perfect skin he's got on his face when Ollie pokes into it. He deals with it by not responding to it. "Not too bad a race, hmm?"
"Not for you." Now he's properly bitter. He's not entirely sure that Kimi isn't trying to rile him up, for whatever reason, in his sick little brain. Or he's just oblivious to the knife-cuts he causes Ollie with every word. It's possible. "How could a grand slam even be bad?"
And the sarcasm there gets through to him, through the alcohol and the victorious haze Ollie's never known. Even though it's Monaco, the third point of the triple crown, the hardest and the easiest at the same time.
"Oh," Kimi says, looking down at his feet. Practically sheepish. "I'm sorry. I have said all those things and you did not finish the race. I was a--"
"You were being a dick," Ollie says with feeling. "You were rubbing it in my face. That's not how this is meant to go. You're meant to let me feel shit and then try and help me out and then I congratulate you." They've got a routine, dammit.
"Sorry," Kimi mutters. "I got impatient. I wanted you to tell me how good I had done. I forgot that it was at your expense. I shouldn't have said all that."
"Stop coming into my room or my flat after bad races. You smell like champagne and it just makes me feel like shit. And I've already failed the whole team--"
"No," Kimi says, turning directly to Ollie, holding his gaze. Hands on Ollie's knees, getting closer to him, half-looming over him because it's so incredibly important to him that Ollie get this message the way he wanted to present it. "You didn't fail anyone. Your car failed you. I saw some of your data--"
"--how--"
"Not important, anyway," Kimi waves it off, "your car was bleeding downforce and speed, and it wasn't you. It could not have been you. And I did not need to look at the data to tell that, because you're a really good driver, Ollie."
He sounds so genuine. That must be how he got Toto to fund him that F2 seat a year early, how he finagled his way into a Mercedes seat as a rookie. Ollie thinks of Gabi, the champion that year, with one point to his name and a car which regularly catches fire. Life isn't fair, good people end up in shit cars and great people end up without seats. But results are all that matters to the rest of the world, so why should Ollie's internal accounting be any different?
"It's easier to believe that when I'm in the points," he mutters. China, P5. P5 in the driver's standings, the best place he'd ever been. He had delusions of grandeur and the ability to dream, and he'd looked at Kimi with his own joy reflected back at him. Kimi craves love, but he's always radiated it too, like a star burning up hydrogen just to expel the energy all around. To waste it.
Kimi had liked that time better, Ollie thinks. Because he didn't have to feel so guilty about it all the time.
"You'll be back once they fix the car."
Kimi is trying. Kimi is trying so hard, even fresh off his win, to relate to the struggles of a midfield car with a penchant for blowing itself up. Or he's pretending to so he can get his flowers from Ollie and leave back into the open arms of the rest of the world. Back to people who he won't have to fight for love from.
Ollie's acted as gatekeeper this whole season so far for it. It doesn't feel real unless you see me do it, Kimi had told him one night, sleep-drunk and curled into his side. He hadn't left that night either but he had been gone by the time Ollie rolled over and woke up, expecting another body and finding nothing but empty bed.
And suddenly, Ollie gives in to the tiredness. Why is he fighting Kimi? Why is he reading everything as manipulation? Why can't it just be his--friend-- coming to him after a good race glowing from it?
Kimi Antonelli, the next Senna, the next Schumacher, the sun and the moon and the stars. Fuck that. Kimi's on his sofa looking expectantly into his eyes and clinging onto the fabric of Ollie's joggers on his knees like his life depends on it. That's enough. That's better than enough.
Tear away the labels like a dirty visor cover, and he's left with something worth keeping.
Ollie sits up, puts his hands over Kimi's and then takes them in his own. Sits cross-legged on the sofa. Maintains eye contact, because this is important: Kimi was right.
Kimi is breathing either too fast or too slow, definitely too shallowly, because Ollie can only hear the whispered edges of it. He doesn't understand why: they've touched before, shared beds and food and so, so much time it makes Ollie dizzy trying to count it.
"I'm sorry," Ollie says. He breathes out. Kimi tries to open his mouth to say something but nothing actually comes out, so Ollie presses on. "I--you won, and you wanted to share that with me. I shouldn't have been so rude about telling you to shut up."
"You should have told me to shut up sooner," Kimi admits in a breathless burst, and they both start laughing.
"Sorry, anyway." There's nothing else to say but Ollie wants to say something else anyway. The silence is beginning to settle over them. Ollie is still holding Kimi's trembling hands.
He doesn't let them go. It's not a crossed line, yet. There aren't many left for them to cross, but Ollie can think of a few.
Especially when he's staring directly at Kimi's mouth. Ollie's never been good at eye contact, his eyes have a tendency to wander. He doesn't correct them. Every part of Kimi is beautiful and his lips are no exception.
"You're beautiful," Ollie says, barely a whisper, staring straight at him. Oh, he thinks, that's something different to 'Senna reborn', isn't it? That's why you look so shocked. "Nobody's given you a proper compliment in ages, have they? It's all about the driving, all about the car, isn't it?"
Kimi nods, still looking like a mouse about to make a break for it. Ollie loosens his grip and Kimi tightens his, a clear signal. Don't stop. Green flag.
Ollie matches his strength and then he begins to move. He gets his legs over the side of the sofa like Kimi's, all the better for manoevrability. They're still holding hands. Ollie moves closer, closer. Lets go, moves his left hand to Kimi's waist and his right to his cheek.
His intentions must be clear by now, and Kimi hasn't gone running, even if the tension in his frame and the trepidation in his eyes say he wouldn't mind it. It emboldens him, helps him out with the final step. The final hurdle, the final line.
"Can I--"
Kimi makes a strangled noise like 'come on' and kisses him, hands flying straight to his waist. Ollie is surprised for about half a second and then he's got it down, taking the control back--like Kimi thought he could keep it--and pressing him into the cushions. He's waited too long to waste time on pleasantries and chaste little pecks. Kimi gives a surprised little gasp and his mouth falls open readily, which Ollie takes full advantage of.
"Mate, you were killing me with the suspense," Kimi tells him excitedly when they break away. Ollie kisses him again just to wipe the word 'mate' off his lips.
"Don't call me mate. Not anymore, but especially not straight after I've had my tongue in your mouth. It's just not right."
"So what, we are not going to be mates after this?" Kimi teases, slipping his hands under Ollie's shirt.
"I should hope not," Ollie replies, kissing Kimi again more deeply.
They'll figure out what exactly they'll be at some point. There will be a conversation, and then more conversations with various people with stakes in them still being legally allowed to race in the Middle East. And then they will tell their families. One day they'll tell the world.
But right now, they're just Senna reincarnated and a boy from Chelmsford, making out like the teenagers they are, on a sofa in Monaco. And that doesn't need much talking.