Open Up and Let the Dark Horse In

by Itsuey

Summary:

Currently being re-written

Heikki wasn't having the best of times; between a car that wouldn't work, an unexpected surprise from an afternoon he'd much rather forget, and a crush that made him feel like a schoolboy all over again, it really wasn't his year. But at least he was beating Jarno.

Notes:

This was written for the F1slash kink meme prompt "MPreg as a result of rape"; http://f1slash-kink.livejournal.com/607.html?thread=477535

I started this in 2012, didn't finish it until 2017, and because of that I think it feels disjointed, it feels like it took 5 years to write, and not in a good way. So, until I find the motivation to write anything new, I'm going to go back over this and re-write it, hopefully make it better, and at the same time rediscover whatever it was that made writing so easy 8 years ago.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Notes:

Re-written 12/03/2020

He could feel the phantom pain in his wrists, almost as if he was still there, as if his hands were still tied to the cold metal table leg in an abandoned office in a cold, damp corner of Britain, the other man hovering over him; superior strength both physically and within the strange world they inhabited.

“Mr Kovalainen, you need to answer my questions. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

The edge of the table was cutting into his hip bones, he could feel the bruises already forming as he tried to free himself but he couldn’t reach the floor, the angle of his arms was pulling on his shoulders and he thought one might pop loose any second now. Panic was welling up inside him as he realised he was stuck, he couldn’t get free, there was nothing he could do to stop this.

He looked up slowly, his eyes meeting the middle age woman’s opposite him. He nodded and she turned back to her notes with a sigh. He was well aware he was being less than helpful, but he wasn’t sure how to stop himself. He didn’t really feel like he was there at all, more like he was watching through someone else’s eyes.

Sure he’d done this before, most people had in the very male-dominated environment of Formula 1, even if they wouldn’t admit it. But never like this, never so violently, so against his will. Never with the stomach-churning fear wrapped so tight around his throat he didn’t think he could breathe. He wanted to scream but the duct tape gag over his mouth barely let out any sound at all, and even if he could there was no one coming to his rescue. He was completely alone. Almost.

“Heikki.”

He jerked slightly in his seat, somewhat startled by the use of his first name.

“You seem very distracted. Are you sure there isn’t anything else you’d like to tell me about? No other symptoms?”

He nodded, his head was starting to feel fuzzy and thinking was starting to get hard. A weak sunbeam crawled up his arm as the sun outside crept out from behind a cloud and he said the first thing that came to mind. “Just tired I guess.”

Tired and sick and terrified and unable to focus on anything other than that.

His throat hurt, it burned all the way down and radiated out into his head to meet the pain from where his temple was being forced down into the short, sharp carpet, but that was nothing compared to the pain of violation, the tearing, searing hot pain that ripped through him with every thrust. He couldn’t understand what the other man was saying any more, his brain was trying to shut down, but he knew the intention behind the words; he was never going to be clean again, no one would ever want him now.

The doctor looked up from her form to see if her patient was still with her. “My best guess is either a stomach ulcer or an infection. I could send you for some tests but they’ll be invasive, time consuming and they’ll probably see you some time 3 months from now. So I’m going to prescribe you some antibiotics, you’ll need to come back for a follow up appointment in a month.”

Her writing was a lot neater than the average doctor’s he noticed with a small smile, normally he had to wait for the pharmacist to decipher what he was being given.

“Avoid excessively fatty or acidic foods. And alcohol.” She gave him a knowing look, obviously the Finnish stereotype was still going strong. “Drink lots of water, take some vitamins and get some rest. You don’t look like you’ve slept properly in weeks.”

She handed him the prescription with a small smile and a laugh about not being able to drink meaning he might have to have fewer STD screenings, before she ushered him from the office, calling the receptionist to send in the next patient.

He couldn’t breathe again until he’d shut the surgery door, pretended he didn’t want to sprint across the road to his car, and locked himself in. Her comment felt like an icy-hot knife being twisted in his stomach; of course she should laugh at him, what sort of man can’t fight off his own rapist? He took a deep breath, forced back the tears and the single hiccuped sob and started the car.

Chapter 2: Chapter 1

Notes:

Rewritten 10/04/2020

Bahrain dawned, hot, sunny, and explosively noisy, two weeks later, not giving him much time to think or relax. The former he was thankful for, but the loss of the latter meant he was starting to feel like a zombie, especially under the burningly dry sun of the Middle East. And from the looks some of his team was giving him he was starting to look almost as bad as he felt.

But practice was going well, he’d gone through his readouts with a fine-toothed comb, obsessively trying to find an extra tenth here and a thousandth there, until his team threw him out and told him to relax and have a moment to himself. Which is where Jarno found him, perched on the pit wall, leaning back into the mesh wall, overalls tied around his waist.

The relaxing break his engineer thought he was giving him was anything but; the moment he had closed his eyes against the burning sun he could see everything in perfect detail, everything he tried to forget every night as he lay in bed staring up at the ceiling.

“Heikki, hey!”

He heard Jarno jump up onto the wall next to him and opened his eyes, immediately meeting another pair across the paddock. Dark, cruel, eyes that crinkled around the edges in amusement as their owner smiled at him, looking past the camera he was talking to. His breath hitched and stuck in his chest. He couldn’t breathe, the world was instantly cold, the wall beneath his hands as frosty as metal, he thought he’d be ok, thought they’d be able to exist in the same space if they never had to talk to each other-

Short, shallow thrusts made him grit his teeth as best he could beneath the tape that was coming unstuck from the tears flowing freely down his face. He knew the pain had to end soon, knew the younger man couldn’t have much stamina left in him, and there was the very real chance someone would come back at some point.

He didn’t feel the other man finish but he felt the stinging, burning pain as he withdrew and the liquid he really hoped wasn’t stained with his blood trickled sluggishly down his thighs. He was going to be sick, he tried to rub the tape off on the scratchy carpet but he was laughed at and received a smack to his behind for his efforts and he forced himself to breathe deeply, swallowing the saliva flooding his mouth, to ignore the smell of sex and blood hanging in the air.

“Heikki?”

“Huh?”

“Are you alright?” Jarno leaned forward to look at his teammate, a slight frown on his face.

“Oh, yeah, I’ll be fine, just feeling a bit under the weather.” he could feel himself shaking and he wanted to draw his overalls up around him and vanish into them, another layer to stop anyone touching him again.

“Stomach problems?”

“That's what the antibiotics are for, aren't they?”

He nodded.

“So what's wrong? Nothing infectious I hope?”

Heikki managed a small grin. “Ulcer or an infection. I don’t think I’m infectious. Maybe don’t kiss me for a while though, just to be safe.”

Jarno laughed and settled back against the pit lane fence with a happy sigh, and launched into a speech about the joys of racing and how nice it was to be back in the sunshine again and how he couldn’t wait for it to return to Italy and smile down on his vines.

He half tuned out his teammate, having heard all of this before, and watched Felipe practically bouncing down the pitlane towards his race engineer, helmet grasped firmly in his hands, the excitement of being allowed to race again after the incident having obviously not worn off yet.

The small man gave him a blinding smile as he bounded to a halt to greet them and Heikki tried to smile back but it came out awkward and forced; for half a second he’d caught eyes so dark he’d been back there again, face down on the carpet, a threat whispered in his ear, the way one might whisper to their lover.

“Are you alright? You look,” he paused for a second, unable to find the correct words and Heikki could breathe properly again, words in his head sounding wrong in the Brazilian's soft accent. “Unwell?”

He nodded, a small grin gracing his features and allowed Jarno to answer for him.

“He's fine, jut a bit ill.”

Felipe nodded sympathetically and bounded off towards his own garage, calling as he went “I hope you are better for race tomorrow.”

Both Lotus drivers watched the exuberant man almost leap into his engineer's arms as he made it to the overwhelmingly red gaggle of men. Several times Heikki had wondered at what sort of relationship Felipe actually had with the other man, but he didn’t like to pry, maybe Brazilians were just naturally cuddly.

“You coming for a drink?” Jarno elbowed him gently in the ribs. “A few of us found a small pub the other night where only the locals really go so we shouldn't be hounded by the press.”

Heikki shook his head. “I'm not meant to be drinking alcohol."

"None of us are going to be drinking the night before the race."

"And the antibiotics make me sleepy so I probably wouldn't make such good company.” He wished it didn’t sound like the excuse it almost certainly sounded like but he really didn’t feel up to facing more than one or two people at the moment.

“You sure?” The Italian waited for Heikki's confirmation and pushed himself off the wall. “See you in the morning then.”

**

As it turned out the antibiotics seemed to be having the opposite effect. Another car zoomed past as he stared at the ceiling, the small whoosh of the turbo fading after the car was gone, the sound reverberating around his head for a few seconds.
Jarno was probably back from the pub by now, all of them would be, none of them would want to stay out too late the night before a race. Perhaps he should have gone with them, it would be better than laying in the dark all evening waiting for sleep to come, counting the tiny cracks in the plaster above his head. But the thought of going anywhere made him feel queezy. Especially anywhere with the other drivers, what if he ran into him?

The bottle of antibiotics caught his eye, its outline just visible in the moonlight shining through the fluttering hotel curtains. Were they actually doing any good? If anything he was feeling worse with every passing day.

He rolled onto his side just as the numbers on the illuminated clock clicked over to 4:00. Qualifying was 8 hours away. Practice even fewer. Unless he could convince Mike to let the test driver have a go. He might have to. He wasn’t sure he was going to be in any fit state to drive.

He rolled the other way, facing away from the clock, closed his eyes and willed sleep to come.

Chapter 3: Chapter 2

Notes:

Re-written 10/04/2020

He awoke suddenly at half past 6 with a small wave of panic, unaware of the cause until his stomach lurched violently and he ran for the bathroom, almost tripping over the edge of the hastily discarded duvet as he went. He remained on the floor there, glad of the excess of large towels to wrap himself in, until 8 when his trainer knocked on the door.

“Are you all right?” Was the first thing he said when Heikki answered it. “You look awful.”

“’m fine,” he muttered, stepping aside to let the other man in. “Just a bit sick.”

David wrinkled his nose up a little at the lingering smell and shut the bathroom door.

Heikki lowered himself gently onto the bed and shuffled up it slowly, trying not to cause himself any more discomfort. He flinched away from the hand that was supposed to be a comforting gesture on his shoulder, and thankfully his trainer understood and perched on the end of the bed instead.

It still wasn’t far enough away.

He liked David, really he did, but right now he felt like a rabbit backed into a corner, the other man was too close, and he couldn’t quite quash the small tendrils of panic creeping slowly up his stomach.

“Did you eat anything odd yesterday? I know a few of you went to one of the local pubs last night?”

He shook his head. For a second he thought he might be sick again and readied himself for another dash to the bathroom.

“Did you drink enough? It was pretty hot yesterday, you might have heatstroke?”

He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out. The panic inside him had exploded into an overwhelming feeling of despair. His vision blurred with tears and he grabbed a pillow, clutching it to his chest to try and hide them but he didn’t appear to have any control over hid own body today and he found himself sobbing violently into the soft cotton instead.

David seemed to have a small fight with himself before he got up and gave Heikki a half hug, an arm around his shoulders but not constricting his movements, giving him space to escape if he needed it.

“Get yourself back into bed, I’ll tell them where you are. You’ve got hours before Quali and I’ll see if they can get Fairuz to take the car out for practice.”

 

It was a few minutes after 4 when he was awoken by a hand on his shoulder, shaking him slightly. He moaned and tried to roll over again.

“Come of Heikki, wake up.”

He opened his eyes slowly, catching sight of Jarno, now moving around the room tidying up the things he had left strewn across the floor yesterday, before straightening the duvet as best he could around him and retrieving the blanket from the floor, folding it at the foot of the bed.

“You want to tell me what's wrong?” He said as he went, giving the younger man a chance to talk without having to look at him.

Heikki made a small negative noise and Jarno sighed.

“You've been acting strangely for weeks. And I know we haven’t worked this closely together before but we’ve always been friends so you can’t tell me this is normal for you.”

“I don't think the antibiotics are working,” he muttered into the pillow he still had his face half buried in.

Jarno looked at him expectantly, waiting for the Finn to elaborate. When he didn't, he sighed and sat down on the only chair in the room, throwing Heikki’s discarded team shirt over the back of it.

“You can’t think I’m so blind that I’ll buy that’s all that’s wrong with you. I have two kids Heikki, I can tell when you’re not telling the truth.”

Heikki said nothing for a few minutes, not sure what he could say to that before he rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling again. The cracks weren’t quite so noticeable in the daylight.

“I’ve been feeling ill since before the season started, just a bit nauseous, tired, a bit sad sometimes, but it’s nothing major.”

“Heikki that doesn’t sound like a stomach ulcer, that sounds like depression.”

Heikki frowned at the crack. “I’m not depressed. What have I got to be depressed about?”

“That’s not how depression works and you know it. I’m here if you need to talk to me but I know you probably won’t so I won’t be insulted if you don’t. But please promise me you’ll go straight home after this race and see your doctor again.”

Heikki nodded.

Jarno came and put his hand on his teammate’s shoulder and Heikki didn’t flinch away this time.

“Get up, have something to eat, drink lots of water and do your best. You’ve got about 2 hours before Quali so I suggest you get yourself down to the garage as soon as you can. Go have a shower.”

**

As it turned out, he shouldn't even have bothered to get up; the lack of downforce in the car meant he had qualified so far down he thought there had been a mistake until he realised Jarno was next to him on the grid.

“New team, new car, it can only get better from here.” The Italian slapped him on the shoulder and wandered off, managing to look confident despite the very obvious fact that his team had failed to build a competitive car.

It could always be worse, he thought looking down the pit lane; HRT were struggling badly, their car was in even worse shape than the Lotus, and Virgin didn't seem to be doing much better. Timo was sitting slouched on the nose of his car elbows on his knees and chin in his hands looking as if all the world was falling down around him and he was powerless to do anything about it.

As he watched, Richard Branson came bounding out of the garage and clamped a hand down on the German's shoulder, a massive grin on his face. Whatever he said to the younger man, Heikki couldn't hear, but it gained a small laugh and Timo vanished into the garage.

**

The corridors were empty and slightly chilly, nothing compared to what he was used to, but the cold combined with the sheer emptiness of the previously packed building sent a shiver up his spine.

“Aww, Heikki, I didn’t know my presence excited you that much, you should have said something.”

He turned towards the familiar voice, opening his mouth to greet the other man with a joke about Finns not being able to tolerate British winters but a hand over his face startled him.

“What-”

The sound of ripping filled the still air and he recognised it as the duct tape the engineers kept on hand to fix minor problems on the cars. Rough fingers were removed from his mouth to be replaced with the tape before he could get a word out. His protests came out muffled and indistinguishable and the movement made the tape pull painfully against his skin.

“I wouldn’t bother protesting, there’s no one here to hear you, they all went ages ago. I just knew you wouldn’t be able to resist one last wander around.”

A door slammed open and he was dragged inside, dropped to the floor, his wrists held behind him in a vice grip, and a key turned in the lock, scraping loudly against the mechanism in the silence.

“Well, just in case,” came the mocking reply to his silent question.

In a moment of desperation he kicked out at the other man’s legs, trying to knock him to the ground and grab the key, but he was stronger, faster, and had in no way been taken by surprise.

“Now Heikki, I thought you were cleverer than that.”

The kick to his ribs was a complete surprise and he found himself face down on the prickly carpet for a second before he was hauled to his feet and thrown over something painfully hard. He tried to push himself up but the other man sat on his back, forcing him down, the sharp edges of what he now recognised as the hideous metal coffee table he’d always hated stabbing into his hips. More tape and his hands were bound to the legs at the far end, his arms stretched out painfully in front of him. Panic started to well up inside him. If this was a joke it was being taken too far, this wasn’t funny.

“I was right, it’s the perfect size. You know ever since I saw you sitting on this table I wanted to fuck you over it. I knew it was the perfect size; perfect height, perfect length, and I knew you’d look perfect stretched over it.”

Something unpleasantly wet ran up the back of his neck and he shuddered at the feeling, trying to hold back the tears welling up in his vision. He tried to shout for the other man to stop but he couldn’t get out anything around the tape.

“I just wish I had a camera. The pictures would certainly sell. Do you have any idea how many people would love to be where I am right now? You’re fantasy fuel for quite a few of the drivers when their wives aren’t looking you know.”

The other man moved to sit on his lower legs and warm hands forced themselves between his hips and the table to undo his trousers. This was really happening. This wasn’t a joke. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything to stop it, no one was coming to his rescue, no one was hiding behind the furniture about to jump out and laugh at him, untie him from the table and bring out embarrassing photos at future events. He was pretty sure he was hyperventilating but wasn’t sure what to do about it, the wall he was facing was going slightly grey around the edges and as his trousers were pushed down to his knees he really hoped he was going to pass out.

Chapter 4: Chapter 3

Summary:

Re-written 18/4/2020

He hadn’t been looking forward to this. In the same office, with the same stern doctor, the same sunbeam falling across the floor, albeit a weak one, he felt judged all over again.

“You say you’ve been feeling ill. Sick ill? Lethargic ill?”

He nodded. And then realised he’d have to give an actual answer.

“Both.”

“You’ve been sick?”

He nodded again. And then decided he should probably elaborate if he wanted this appointment over with.

“Most mornings recently.”

“When did it start?”

“About 2 weeks after I saw you, just before the race in Bahrain.”

She nodded and gave him a small smile. “I saw one of your interviews after the race, you didn’t look particularly well.”

She looked back down at her notes absently tucking a stray strand of blonde hair that had fallen out of her ponytail back behind her ear. Heikki remained upright in the hard plastic chair and stared into the dancing dust particles beneath the desk lamp.

He could half hear her muttering to herself about lack of family illnesses and no allergies to medications and after a minute she put down the paperwork and looked straight at him. The hair slipped from behind her ear again and he was suddenly aware of his own longer than usual hair about to fall into his eyes.

“Mr Kovalainen, I don’t think there’s a physical problem here, I think it might be more of a mental one.”

He blinked rather stupidly.

“I think the problem might be stress, which let’s be honest, probably isn’t an uncommon problem in your line of work is it?”

He wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical but shook his head all the same.

“I’m going to prescribe you some benzodiazepines.” She pulled a prescription form from a drawer and filled it out quickly, in the stereotypical illegible handwriting. “These will sort out some of your symptoms, but it’s only a short term solution, you’re going to need to find a solution for the long term.”

She handed him the prescription.

“Take them as and when you need to, try not to take them every day. You’ll need to tell whoever’s in charge of your medical well-being at races that you’re taking them and you must not take them before you race. Or with alcohol. I’ve given you enough for a month, if they’re not helping after that we’ll have to have another appointment to try something else.”

She handed him a leaflet from one of the piles on a side table. “Give them a call, see if they can do anything for you.”

He thanked her and left, nodding to the receptionist as he went, feeling mildly happier than when he had gone in, maybe she hadn’t meant the last appointment’s comment as an insult after all.

The heat from the south hadn’t reached Finland yet and the sky was still the perfect clear blue with the weak winter sun as it was when he had walked down an hour ago. Apart from the clouds gathering behind him.

He patted his pockets down with mild annoyance and discovered he had neglected to bring an umbrella with him, but never mind, he was sure he’d make it home before the storm started.

He didn’t.

Halfway home the heavens opened and the rain descended in heavy sheets, drenching him in seconds. Cold water was running down the back of his neck, dripping off his hair and soaking his shirt underneath the waterproof jacket and he cursed himself for not bringing one with a hood. He turned up the collar as much as he could to try and stop any more damp and quickened his pace.

The sky outside was thick and black, dark clouds congregating overhead in an ominous blanket that dripped their first few drops onto the concrete steps as he watched.

Everything hurt; he was burning inside and his lungs were stinging with the effort of the sprint to the entrance hall. His muscles felt as though he’d spent too long in the gym and his knee was throbbing where he had smashed it into the floor when he tripped. Somewhere in the maze of corridors he had never really learned, a smudged handprint tinged with blood would be on a pristine white wall.

A flash of lightning filled the sky followed almost instantly with the roar of thunder and the rain started. He took a shaky step down the stairs and felt the freezing drops hit him, soothing some of the pain and confusion in his head. His car was only a few metres away, an easy several second dash if he unlocked it from the stairs, but as he walked out into the torrential downpour he found it soothing, numbing, the cold soaked through his clothes, through his skin, down to his bones until he couldn’t feel anything else, couldn’t feel the phantom hands that still groped over him, couldn’t feel the pain or the bruises, couldn’t feel the panic that was growing, couldn’t hear the screaming in his head, and couldn’t tell which were tears and which were rain drops.

He hadn’t unlocked the car.

He put his hand on the Mercedes’ roof to steady himself and his knees gave way, he sank to the ground, head against the cold, wet, metal and cried.

He wished he’d thought to turn the sauna on before he left, at least in the hot steam he could continue with the pretence that he wasn’t crying, that the tears that wouldn’t stop dripping down his face were just sweat from the humidity. Instead he closed the door softly behind him, locking both locks, threw the newly-acquired medication onto the hall table and his coat into the coat cupboard, watching as it crumpled on the floor.

He was soaking, even the paper bag was damp around the edges, some of the corners starting to dissolve away. With a tired sigh he would refuse to accept he had made, he started stripping on his way to the bathroom, the piles of wet clothes adding to the clutter that was starting to fill his previously neat house.

20 minutes later, showered, dried and finally not looking like he had been crying on and off for an hour, he shuffled into the living room in his pyjamas and turned the TV on, not bothered by what was on, and made his way over to the kitchen to make himself hot chocolate.

“I’ve made you some.”

He almost jumped out of his skin at the sight of his ex-girlfriend sitting at his kitchen table, a mug of coffee in her own hands, and a magazine open on the table in front of her.

“And a sandwich,” she didn’t even look up, just turned the page.

He sat and put his hands around the hot mug, obviously she remembered that he liked to take long showers, and stared down into it, letting the steam curl around his face and into his lungs. It was such a thoughtful gesture, especially from someone who had all the reasons in the world to leave his life and never want to speak to him again, that he felt the tears prickling in the corners of his eyes again and willed them away, it was one thing to cry to himself when no one was watching, he wasn’t going to do it in front of someone else, especially not Catherine.

“Your mother asked me to call you,” she said into the awkward silence. “She saw one of your interviews, said you looked ill and unhappy. Unfortunately,” she put down the magazine and looked at him. “You seem to be under the impression that if you ignore your calls no one will come looking for you, and while it may be true that most people would have no idea where to come to find you, I do.”

He couldn’t look up, couldn’t face the annoyed expression he knew was there. She would be so disappointed in him, couldn’t even work normally having been- Couldn’t even say it in his head. How pathetic was that?

“Heikki,” her voice softened with concern. “Have you told anyone at work? Are they giving you a hard time about it?”

“What?” His head jerked up in panic. Did she know? How could she know? He felt like he’d been dropped in the Arctic, he was freezing from the inside out, he couldn’t breathe properly and he was sure he was visibly shaking, she couldn’t know, she’d never look at him again if she did. No one could ever know!

“About your sexuality,” she looked at him curiously but let it pass. “Is someone harassing you about it?”

He couldn’t hold back the tear that rolled down his cheek and onto the table in silence, but even as he shook his head something inside him gave way, he tried to swallow the sob he knew was coming but he choked on it and it came out anyway, slightly strangled but unmistakable.

“Oh Heikki,” Catherine was around the table before he could take another breath, her arms around him and he could smell her familiar perfume; it smelled like safety and home and even though he didn’t think he had anything left to cry, he couldn’t stop now he’d started.

She held onto him until he’d cried himself into exhaustion and carried him to bed, terrified by how easily she could lift him, before she left as quietly as she could, checking the house was secure before she locked the front door behind her. She was going to have to have a chat with Jarno's wife.

Chapter 5: Chapter 4

The next few races passed without incident; Heikki told Jarno what the doctor had said and the Italian seemed to have made it his mission in life to make sure Heikki was never stressed and that everyone left him alone if he was. It may have worked better if the one thing that was stressing everyone out was so easily fixed by yelling at it.

It was obvious, right from the very beginning, that the car was not competitive, and this was only emphasised as they went on through the season and by the time Saturday the 10th of July dawned, the sun dim over the Silverstone track, everyone's nerves were on edge, and Heikki was rapidly running out of drugs.

Knowing the cause of his affliction did make it slightly easier to deal with, he mused as he jogged slowly around the track; he was eating better, the sick phase seemed to have passed by China (although he still didn't dare try any of the local food, just in case) and he could once again hold a conversation with his mechanics without them worrying about him overreacting or crying. The only thing that was bothering him was the slow but steady weight gain he'd noticed, and the occasional spells of dizziness. The former he attributed to the ice cream he was eating when no one else was watching, something he never usually indulged overly in, and the latter he had neglected to tell anyone about, after all, they only ever came when he was standing up, and he never stood in his car.

He almost laughed at the timing of his thought as he stopped and rested his hands on his knees, trying to ward off the hypnotic spots which swirled around in the corners of his vision trying to pull him under. Ordinarily, he would have gone with it, sat down and allowed the darkness to overwhelm him, but not in public.

“Heikki?”

A hand landed on his shoulder and he found himself staring up into dark eyes. He braced himself for the inevitable wave of panic, but it never came; these weren't his eyes, they were warm and deep and concerned; no hint of violence or malice hidden in them.

“Are you all right?” Timo asked, putting an arm around the swaying Finn. “Stitch?”

“Mm,” Heikki shook his head. “Dizzy." His voice sounded strangely distant. "Going to pass out.” He allowed the German to help him to the side of the track there he sat down on the grass and promptly collapsed against him.

**

“Heikki?”

The voice swam above him as though underwater, or perhaps he was underwater. If he was underwater, why was he still breathing? Was he breathing? He took deep breath just to make sure and jerked awake in horror at the rattly noise it made. The bottom half of his vision was filled with opaque white and it took him a few seconds to recognise the shape of the breathing mask they had put on him. He raised his eyes to see the man standing over him.

Blue eyes caught blue and for a long moment they stared at each other before Heikki muttered out a muffled greeting and a question.

“I'm Dr. Smith, I work near Silverstone so they brought me in for the race just in case.”

Heikki nodded, unable to draw the energy to do anything else.

“You can go back to sleep in a few moments, but I need to ask you some questions first.”

The interview was brief, almost exactly what he'd told his own doctor back in Finland and, after a blood pressure test and some blood for lab testing, he was once again left to sleep.

**

Jarno drove him to the hospital after the race, concerned that the added exhaustion of being in the car for such a length of time might make him more vulnerable to fainting. Mike had grudgingly allowed him to race after giving the qualifying session to their test driver.

“You may wish to sit down.”

“Why?” Heikki asked, turning to look at Jarno who was insisting on accompanying him everywhere in case he needed help. “It can't be that serious, is it?”

Dr. Smith glanced at Jarno who was hovering behind the blond, looking more worried than Heikki himself. “I presume your friend is staying?”

They shared a glance and Heikki nodded.

“When we send off blood for testing, we don't put patients' names on them, primarily in case we have two patients with the same name, but also for confidentiality and privacy. Therefore, a lot of samples arrive with no hint of even what gender the patient is. In this case, with the list of symptoms along with your sample, the first thing they looked for were signs of pregnancy hormones.”

Heikki laughed softly under his breath. “What did they find instead?”

“Well that's just it. They found them.”

“Found what?”

“Pregnancy hormones.” He waved his hand vaguely at a printed sheet of paper on the desk. “You have elevated levels of insulin, oestoriol, progesterone, etrogen- Almost all the things associated with pregnancy.”

“He can't be pregnant! He's a man!”

They both ignored Jarno and Dr. Smith turned to look at Heikki straight on. “Have you had intercourse with a man within the past eight months?”

He couldn't move, couldn't even scream, his mouth was full and the hand in his hair gripped hard to remind him of what would happen if he misbehaved. The salty liquid that flooded his mouth made him gag, coughing around the cock still stretching his lips wide, cracking the dry skin which stung horribly when the other man withdrew, wiping his damp member over Heikki's face.

“Enjoy that did you?”

He coughed, gagged as he tried not to breathe in the liquid that stuck to his mouth-

“Heikki? Heikki!”

“Are you all right?”

He nodded mutely and zoned out again, allowing the doctor to explain to Jarno, when he realised Heikki wasn't listening, what was about to happen.

**

“You didn't tell me you have a boyfriend,” Jarno said teasingly as he watched the doctor smear a cold gel over Heikki's stomach, dangerously close to the top of his low cut jeans.

“I don't,” he replied forlornly, suddenly feeling the loss of Catherine as a gaping hole deep within him and he had to quickly force down the urge to cry.

“Now don't worry Heikki, this won't hurt. It's just an ultrasound scanner.”

“A what?” He asked, unfamiliar with the English word.

“It's for looking inside people.”

“Isn't that an x-ray scanner?” Jarno asked from the side of the bed.

“X-ray scanners are for looking at bones, ultrasound scanners can see tissues.”

Heikki closed his eyes as the instrument was placed on his stomach, the feeling of it sliding over his flesh smoothly almost as if-

Jarno gasped beside him and his eyes flew open in horror.

“What?”

“Fascinating. How absolutely fascinating.”

“What?” he asked, slightly louder, beginning to panic. He turned to the doctor who was still looking in amazement at the screen before him.

“It would seem congratulations are in order.”

It was a writhing mass of black and white before him, but with a little imagination he could just about make out features; arms and legs and a twitch that he almost imagined he'd felt. It was a baby. An incomplete baby, but a human child none the less. His child. His and-

“So, who's the lucky man then?”

Chapter 6: Chapter 5

Jarno dropped it on the way back from the hospital that first time, telling himself that if Heikki didn't want to tell him who the other father was, then he didn't have to, although from the way the Finn had clammed up he was positive there was something wrong. Heikki, however, remained oblivious to Jarno's ponderings and the ever more convincing evidence of the child growing inside him was distraction enough that he wasn't even dreaming of him any more.

“This,” the doctor pointed to the thick whitish line around the child on the monitor. “I think this is the amniotic sack. It's essentially a bubble the child grows in, it's filled with liquid.” He explained at their puzzled expressions. “This line it thicker than usual though, it's much thinner in a woman, but then the child is usually protected by the hip bones. I think this is your body's attempt to protect something it's not made for.” He trailed off looking puzzled.

“Is there any record of people having sex changed in your family? Or perhaps anyone who was born between the two sexes?”

“Not that I know of,” Heikki replied, still slightly dazed that the image on the monitor was inside him.

He noticed the hand on Heikki's stomach, one that he was sure was unconscious. “You'll start showing soon, I'm sure. When did you first start feeling nauseous?”

“February.”

“Mm, judging by the growth of the child I'd say you're about seven months along, that would make it conceive in, um, December?”

Heikki nodded stiffly, unwilling to give anything away, avoiding Jarno's eye.

“Were you taking any sort of alternative medicines around then?”

He shook his head.

“Drugs?”

Again.

“Surgery?” it was a long shot and he was guessing now.

And again.

He sighed in exhaustion. “I've been researching this ever since I got your test results from the blood sample. There's no record of any man ever being pregnant. The only reference to anything even remotely related was in Black American folklore. No, I'd never heard of it either. But it was only concerning the male showing symptoms of their pregnant wives. Nothing to do with an actual pregnancy. No, you're unique, a fascinating case.”

He paused for a second, looking cautiously at Heikki. “Would you allow me to accompany you to your races? I'd like very much to continue studying you. And to be immediately available if there are any complications.”

Heikki's head was spinning slightly from the overload of information and requests and he could only nod.

“Excellent! Then I believe we were never introduced properly. Dr John Smith.” He held out his hand which Heikki took.

“Heikki Kovalainen.”

“And your partner?”

“Jarno Trulli. I'm his team mate, not his partner.”

“Oh,” John looked rather lost for words for a couple of seconds. “I always presumed- You always came with him... Does your partner know?”

“He's not my partner, and no he doesn't.” He repressed a shudder at the thought of him getting near his child, and vowed never to let him know.

**

“Heikki?”

“Hm?”

Jarno couldn't help but smile slightly at the younger man in the passenger seat beside him. The blond was staring intently at the ultrasound scan in one hand, the other rested protectively on his stomach. Over the past few weeks he had come to terms with the fact a child was growing inside him, and the Italian had watched him transform like a butterfly, from a sick young man to a glowing parent-to-be. He only wished he knew who the other father was.

“You know you're going to have to tell Mike don't you.”

“Mm.”

He shook his head slightly as he turned the key in the ignition, the rented BMW falling silent around them.

“Sooner rather than later Heikki.” He clambered out of the car and walked around to the passenger side, opening the door for the Finn. “Come on, you need sleep.”

Sleep didn't come easily to the Finn, and the warm mid-August nights found him sitting on the work-surface in the small kitchenette at 4am, a tub of ice cream between his legs and a spoon in one hand. The other was rested on his, by now slightly noticeable, bump, fingers skating across his bare stomach, imagining he could feel his child kick within him.

The door opened and he glanced up with a grin. “Hey Jarno.”

“What're you doing?” The voice was familiar, but he was indulging in another mouthful of the frozen chocolate to be too concerned about it.

“Mm, Ice cream. Want some?”

Only it wasn't Jarno; his skin was too dark, hair too short, eyes too cold and devoid of the ever present Italian passion.

“Wh-what do you want?” He dropped the ice cream to the floor and shuffled back on the counter to.

“A little birdie told me that you've got something of mine. Something incriminating. Something I can't let you keep.”

“What?”

“I didn't expect you to get pregnant, but then I suppose you always were a bit... special.” He leered out of the darkness, teeth looking horrifically sharp, as though he were staring into the mouth of a piranha rather than a man.

Hands around his waist made him jump and he felt himself lifted from the counter and deposited on the floor. His knees gave way unexpectedly and he fell to his knees.

“You want to beg me? Beg for the life of a bastard child?” Fingers tangled in his hair and he felt helpless as the swollen cock was once again pushed past his lips, but the other man wasn't finished there.

“You know you can never love it right? Every time you see it you'll think of me, and you'll be reminded of what a freak you are. It's not normal Heikki, it's not natural, not the way God made you.”

He choked, coughing around his mouthful and the younger man moaned above him, thrusting into his constricting throat and then withdrew, hauling him up with the hand still grasped in his hair. He was thrown to the floor, a foot on his back and his pyjama pants were tugged down and the searing pain ripped through him once more as he was penetrated.

“No,” he moaned, unable to struggle. “No!”

“Come on Heikki, moan for me.” His voice was silky smooth in his ear, deep and dangerous, encouraging, but he wouldn't, he wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

“No!”

“Do it. You know you want to. This is the sort of thing you sick faggots love.” He grunted and pushed in hard, Heikki clenching around him as the unprepared channel gripped him harder, almost to the point of pain.

“Get off!” He still couldn't move, but if he yelled loud enough-

“NO! LEWIS GET OFF!”

But Lewis paid him no mind, a hand on his head pressing his face into the cold wooden floor he was sure wasn't there before, and once more he was tied to the table, hands bound behind his back as he thrashed against the metal, screaming behind his gag and Lewis came inside him, his release burning away at his insides like acid-

“See, I've done you a favour.” He said maliciously, pointing to the ground around Heikki.

He looked down and saw the blood flowing from him. More and more; more than could possible be his own-

“You never would have loved the brat. This kills two birds with one stone you know; you're no longer pregnant, and you've nothing to prove I ever touched you. Not that anyone would ever believe a queer like you.”

“No. No no no NO!” The floor was soaked from wall to wall in his blood and it was still flowing; flooding the room quicker and quicker. Lewis stepped over him and walked out of the door, away from the liquid which was beginning to pool in his lungs. He coughed and blood splattered on to his chest as the levels grew higher and he was drowning in it, flailing against the tide with his suddenly freed hands-

“Heikki!”

Warm arms around him protected him from the flood and suddenly Jarno was there, forcing the liquid away and there were footsteps running towards him, too close, too close and he shrank away..

“No no, not again, please Lewis!” He pleaded, arms around his stomach as he protected his child.

“Heikki, it's John. You're all right now, it was just a dream.”

“Are you all right? You were screaming, asking Lewis to leave you alone.”

Dark skinned hands in his hair forcing him down, filling his mouth again and again, forcing past his gag reflex and holding him there as he came-

“'m going to be sick.”

Chapter 7: Chapter 6

Mike was not pleased to be awoken by his driver's screams in the early hours of the morning, especially as this was the third time this week, nor was he much impressed by the doctor the young Finn had acquired without consulting him. His bad mood was further worsened by the terrible race he had just been witness to. The cars were still awful despite everything they were doing to improve them; neither driver had even got into Q2 the day before and as such had started so far down the grid they hadn't stood a chance.

Jarno had lasted all of 16 laps before colliding with an HRT which smashed his nose-cone and broke his steering. Heikki had started well considering his position and overtaken the same car which ran into Jarno before having an argument with Lewis Hamilton towards the end of the race. The McLaren tried to take him on a corner where it wasn't particularly safe to do so and Heikki had skidded on the kerbs and run into the side of his ex-team mate.

Understandably, Mike was grumpy, pissed off and concerned, but the moment he stormed into the small office and saw the blond concern won out over everything else.

“Heikki?”

He sat on one side of the small table, John standing behind him and Tony opposite, curled in on himself and looking so vulnerable that Mike felt immensely guilty he was about to yell at the young man. He slid into the seat next to his boss and together they waited for whatever was ailing him.

“I- It wasn't intentional. I never meant for it to happen.” He paused again, steeling his nerves and muttering “I didn't even mean to sleep with him,” under his breath in his native tongue.

“Heikki? What's going on?” Mike leant across the table and almost took the other man's hand in his own but froze at the last second and said instead, “whatever it is, we can deal with it.”

“I- I- I- John?”

“You sure?”

He nodded, blinking away the tears which had gathered in the corners of his eyes, and turned his attention to the table, picking out individual flakes of the cheap chipboard as he heard the photographs dropped on the table. A dark hand reached out to pick them up and he almost flinched away, forcefully restraining himself.

“Congratulations!” Mike grabbed his hand off the table and shook it, forgetting his own strength as he almost wrenched Heikki's arm from its socket. Heikki blinked in confusion and almost smiled, it wasn't the reaction he was expecting, but he was glad-

“Why so sad? This is fantastic! Where is Catherine anyway, I haven't seen her around for a while.”

The small smile evaporated and he drew his hand back. “Me and Catherine broke up months ago.”

“Oh. Is she not letting you see it then?”

“No, Mike, it's mine.”

“Who's the lucky lady then?”

“There-” “No-one's going to believe you, never again, not when they know how unnatural you are.” They would believe him, they had to! He had evidence. What if- No, They wouldn't, but what if they did? He couldn't do it, couldn't kill something so innocent, he'd never get the blood off, never be clean again, never-

“There is no lady,” John cut in, noticing Heikki's discomfort and lay a hand on the young man's head before he descended into a full blown panic attack.

“No-” Mike started to ask, but he was cut off my Tony's hand on his arm and a finger pointed to the bottom of the ultrasound scan where, clearly printed, was Heikki's name. He was stunned for a second, but bounced back quickly.

“Haha, very funny. It's August Heikki, not April.”

“What?”

“April fool's day, not August fool's day.”

“It's not a joke,” John said quietly. “I did those scans myself, they're completely legitimate.”

Jarno meanwhile was enjoying the Spa sunshine, and using it as an opportunity to rediscover his childhood past-time of spying on whoever happened to be near him, although this time there was much more to discover than the whereabouts of his Christmas presents he suspected. However, following Lewis around the paddock on the off-chance he might mention something he'd done to upset his ex-team-mate proved to be too much of a long shot, and instead he resorted to following the younger man to the pub that night.

“Hey,” he slid into the seat next to the Brit. “Bad luck,” he said, gesturing to the bandage he had around his wrist where he had sprained it crashing during the race.

Lewis looked up in surprise and was even more shocked when the Italian offered to buy him a drink. He accepted, of course, and they made their way away from the bar and to a table in the corner of the small pub, far away from anyone who may overhear them.

Several drinks later, alcoholic on Lewis' part, and pretending to be alcoholic for Jarno, and a lot of chat about the race and the potential of new drivers, Jarno finally directed the conversation in the direction he was after.

“You were Heikki's team mate longer than I have been, do you think there's something... Off about him?”

“Off?” Lewis slurred the word out into his drink while Jarno took a sip of orange juice.

“Yes, he's very jumpy, withdrawn. He has nightmares too, screams in his sleep. It's almost as though he's being abused.”

“Yeah, well, he deserv'd it.”

“Why?”

“He knew it w's unnatur'l, He ha' it commin'.”

“Lewis,” he asked in a soft voice, like the one he used on his children when they were upset. “What did you do to him?”

“I gave 'im what 'e was askin' for. They all know he had it commin'. Unnatur'l faggot.”

“You raped him?”

“I fuck'd 'im. Taught 'im a less'n. 'e enjoyed it.”

Anger bubbled up inside Jarno, boiling over at the sight of Lewis' self satisfied smirk. There was a knife on the table from the bread they had been eating earlier and the Italian so longed to pick it up and stab the younger man with it; wipe that look off his face. Instead he settled for clenching his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms and stood up.

“Come on Lewis, you've had entirely too much to drink. Let's get you back to your motor home.”

Unknown to Jarno, however, Heikki wasn't feeling particularly as though he had been taught a lesson, far from it. As the Italian was getting Lewis drunk in a pub, the Finn had been coerced away by a concerned Russian with a bottle of vodka and a disarmingly charming grin.

Notes:

This is the last of the pre-written chapters, also I'd like to say that I do actually quite like Lewis, even if it really doesn't come across in this.

Chapter 8: Chapter 7

Notes:

This is the first bit I'm writing from scratch, I've got all my original notes so I hope it flows ok after I left it for so long.

All the Finnish, the little of it there is, comes from Google translate if you feel the need to know what it means.

As of yet this is un-beta'd, hopefully I can get my original beta to do it for me if she's not too busy.

The Italian sunlight dawned bright over the hills as he sat on the courtyard wall watching the red and orange sky give way to blue as the light rose, throwing ever shortening shadows over the vineyards below, tendrils of brightness licking playfully at his toes as he swung them over the edge of the wall. A hand rested on his pronounced stomach, trancing gently over the swelling and calming the small kicks the child within was giving him.

He glanced down at his watch. Almost 6am. The rest of the team would be awake soon if they weren't already, someone would come searching for him the moment they discovered he wasn't in his room, as had been the norm for several weeks now. Ever since they found out about his, even in his head he still hesitated to call it pregnancy, child, they had treated him as though he were made of glass, as though if they let him out of their sight something would happen to him and he'd shatter.

“Morning.”

Heikki pulled his knees up to his chest, hiding his stomach as Vitaly settled on the wall next to him.

“Your team are looking for you, they worry.”

“They worry too much,” he muttered, staring resoloutely at the ball of light creeping upwards into the sky.

“Perhaps. But they do worry, shows they care.”

He sounded slightly bitter and Heikki turned his head to ask what the matter was but was stopped by a strong hand on his shoulder as the Russian stood.

“I not tell them where you are, but Jarno is asking for you.”

He instantly missed the other man as he turned to leave, the heat from his hand still burning his shoulder.

**

September 12th came around quickly for which everyone was thankful; ever since the Ferrari hearing on Wednesday, everyone had been avoiding Fernando and Felipe as best they could, whilst trying to keep the pair as far apart from each other as possible, fearing that there might be a possible blood bath, and so the race and preparation therefore was a relief for everyone.

Jarno had out-qualified him, but he wasn't really that bothered, he was 19th on the grid, ahead of the rest of the new teams and Liuzzi's unfortunate Force India, he'd been slower than his team mate all weekend, not willing to push himself to the limit when he wasn't feeling completely one hundred percent. Not that he'd told anyone he wasn't feeling great, after all, it was just small stomach cramps, no, he'd just soldier on through the weekend and see John afterwards, take the race-free week to relax and be faster at the Singapore GP in two weeks.

He almost stalled on the start line, uncharacteristically miles away when the red lights went out, and it was only Jarno moving away beside him that jolted him into action. Lewis crashed on the first lap, his car a twisted wreck which Heikki avoided, but the viscious smile remained for several laps afterwards until he narrowly avoided a crash himself as Tonio fought his way up through the smaller teams.

His time flashed up on the steering wheel as he crossed the line at the end of his 21st lap;

“Not too bad Heikki, you need to push a bit harder, Glock's gaining on us.”

Later into turn 1, a better exit and full on the throttle through curva grande, the turns ingrained into his memory as he flew through turn 6 which wasn't really a turn at all, only a couple of degrees difference and braked slightly too sharply into turn 7, locking the front left slightly, not enough to cause a problem, flat down to turn 8 and across the line. 1.3 seconds faster than his previous lap.

“That should do it, a couple more like that and we'll be safe.”

Full throttle down to turn 1, this lap would be faster, but as he braked a searing pain ripped through him, centred in his stomach but spreading its tendrils down his arms and legs as he slammed his foot down on the brake, missing the braking point by several metres and only just making it around the bend. The pain was gone as fast as it came and he pressed his foot gently to the accelarator, almost crawling around the 2nd corner until he was sure it had really gone.

“Heikki? You alright?”

“Fine, I'm fine, just, yeah.”

“Sure? We can always pull you out if you're not feeling up to it.”

“No, I'm fine.”

Lap 22 passed without further incident, he made it to 29 without further pain, this one was less intense but equally troubling, he slid the car wide through turn 5, just keeping it on the road as Timo easily overtook him.

“How's the grip out there? Do you need new tyres?”

No, he thought, but he was going to have to pit at some point for them, now's as good a time as any.

“Yes. I'll come in next lap.”

He crawled into the pit lane, the stop smooth and new tyes in place.

Not that they were much help. The pain came sharper and more frequently, he tried to ignore it but by lap 45 it was becoming impossible. His arms felt weak, legs heavy and it was hard to keep his head up. He wanted to cry, wanted to scream and get out of the car, but he kept pushing, his lap times falling and he really didn't care when the call came in on lap 46 that Jarno was out with gearbox problems. Frustrated tears soaked into his balaclava as he fought to keep the car where he wanted it to be, forced himself to keep going, to keep pushing as the pain increased, pure instinct preventing him from slamming into the side of Alonso as he was lapped and suddenly he was surrounded by cars, he couldn't keep out of the way. Three times he almost crashed in the space of one lap and he let out a small sob as he crossed the finishing line; lap 47/53.

6 more to go. That was possible, he'd got this far, couldn't give up now. He wanted to so badly though, wanted to plant the car in a wall and walk away, go and find John because he was pretty sure these were contractions and he wanted the child out of him now. Not in 6 more laps, now! Everything hurt. Acelerating hurt, braking hurt, the G forces in the corners were agony as his already delicate feeling body was buffeted around the cockpit. He didn't dare radio the team, the stewards could hear that and, while Charlie Whiting already knew and had been assured by John that he was fit to race, he didn't want the rest of the world knowing.

49. Sakon Yamamoto was in his mirrors.

50. Lucas Di Grassi retired.

51. Alonso crossed the line.

He was 2 laps down, he didn't have to go right to the end.

He ducked into the parc ferme as soon as he could, not bothering with a victory lap. Tears streamed from his eyes as he fought with the straps holding him in place and he thought he might be sick, stomach rolling from the sudden stillness and he clambered out of the car, almost running towards the weigh in where he stood on the scales for a fraction of a second, just long enough for them to record his weight and he wondered hysterically if they knew why he had put on so much weight.

The press were engrossed with Fernando, no one was going to bother him as he staggered to the motorhome, not even making it to his own room before he grabbed his phone off the table and sank onto the floor. He dialled John's number and then realised he hadn't taken his helmet off, he couldn't hear a thing. He grabbed for the straps under his chin, his fingers uncoordinated and the nylon slipping through them, gloves not make for such intricate things. Somewhere along the way he thought he may have dropped the phone, but it mattered not when the pain shot through him again and he curled in on himself, knees to his chest as he moaned in agony, gritting his teeth incase anyone heard him.

The door slammed open and he flinched away from it, crying out as the footsteps ran towards him. He didn't want anyone near him, not like this.

“Heikki! What's wrong?”

He couldn't answer, couldn't form any thoughts beyond a pained cry and he heard the familiar tone cursing in a language he'd heard so much this past week.

“Heikki, hold on, I'm phoning John, he'll be here soon ok. Do you need anything?”

Then Jarno's hands were on his, prying them away from his throat and peeling his gloves off, pulling off his helmet and fireproof balaclava. He was soaked in sweat, hair slick to his head and had he retained his ability to think he would have wondered how unattractive hs looked right now. Another contraction ripped through him and he screamed, the pain didn't seem to be leaving this time, it was just wave upon wave of agony and suddenly there were cold hands on his forehead and a calming voice that he couldn't understand.

“Saada se ulos minusta,” he cried out, incapable of remebering how to speak English and he could feel Jarno and John looking at each other over him.

“Heikki, I'm going to give you something to help with the pain ok?”

“Hieno! Vain saada se ulos minusta!”

There was a small pain in his arm, like a needle going in and the world was swimming around the edges, he couldn't see properly, couldn't breathe, he was drowning-

**

“Heikki?”

“Kyllä?”

“How're you feeling?”

English. How did he speak English?

“Heikki?”

He moaned softly, the pain a dull throbbing sensation around his stomach, nothing like the sharp agony it had been before. He opened his eyes, the gently evening sunlight casting an orange glow over the white ceiling.

“Fine,” he managed to gasp out. “Where am I?”

John came into his line of vision. He looked exhausted but there was a smile on his face which reached into his eyes.

“You're in hospital. San Gerardo hospital to be exact. You've been unconscious for hours, we had to knock you out to do the operation.”

“Operation?”

“Congratulations,” he said, smile growing. “You've got a beautiful baby boy.”

He held out his arms, desperate to hold his child for the first time and John got the message. He helped Heikki shuffle up the bed until he was rested against the headboard and placed a small bundle of blankets in his arms. All fear of the child looking like Lewis was gone as he looked down at the tiny delicate creature he had created. He was beautiful, skin only a shade darker than his own natural colour and bright blue eyes. He gurgled softly and his eyes slid shut, breathing soft and even.

“You have a text message, I don't know if it's important or not.”

Heikki rearranged his son carefuly so as not to wake him and took his phone, opening his inbox.

Vitaly Petrov-

Are you ok? You didn't seem well and your team won't say anything.

He pressed reply and glanced back at the small bundle, checking he wasn't disturbing him.

I'm fine, just food poisoning, obviously something didn't agree with me. I'm on my way home, I'll see you in Singapore.

“It's fine, just a friend of mine,” he said, placing the phone on his bedside table.

“Do you have a name for him?” John asked, rifling through a bag next to him.

“Aleksi.”

He placed a piece of paper on the table and Heikki could see clearly it was a birth certificate. “How do you spell that?”

With a small laugh he spelled it out, but then looked somber again as the pen hovered over the slot for the name of the father.

“We can put unknown if that would be best,” John said softly.

Heikki nodded. “That would be best.”

Chapter 9: Chapter 8

Summary:

This feels somewhat disconnected to me so I apologise for that, this is the first thing I've written for several years and I found it quite difficult to write but I'm determined to get back into it again. Writing was something I used to find very therapeutic and I hope after a few weeks I will do again but you may need to bear with me for a bit until I get there.

Heikki didn't, in fact, see Vitaly in Singapore as he had promised, nor did they cross paths for more than a few seconds here or there for the next few races, team and sponsor commitments keeping them apart from each other during the race weekends and John's insistence that he rest and Aleksi's inability to sleep through the night taking up the rest of his time.

Catherine had been a God-send; their break up had been very quiet and amicable in the face of his revealing of his sexuality, so it didn't really surprise anyone when she was seen by his side at the races, everyone taking the small child in her arms as an explanation as to her recent absence. He hadn't corrected anyone yet and he wasn't sure he wanted to, but he knew the time was going to come when he would have to. When the season ended and she went back to her own life, to the Swedish doctor she'd met online, he would have to face the Winter and the team negotiations on his own.

At least for now, Brazil was warm and sunny and his almost two-month-old son was asleep for once, lulled into a rare snooze by the tropical birds singing to each other in the trees next outside their balcony. Aleksi squirmed in his temporary cot and Heikki stretched out a foot from the large wicker chair he was curled up on to rock him from side to side, cooing softly.

“I thought you were asleep,” he whispered. “Did you want me to read to you instead? It's not very interesting I'm afraid, all I've got is paperwork from the race and I'm sure you don't want to know about that do you?”

Aleksi let out a small gurgle and he shrugged. “Maybe we'll make a racer out of you one day? We've changed the car set-up so I can brake later into turn 11 but it's sacrificed the speed through turn 8 to 9.”

He watched for a second as his son squirmed and put down the papers to pick him up, settling back into the seat with the bottle of milk that had been sitting just out of reach of the sun. “You didn't really want to know about the track did you, you just wanted something to eat.” Aleksi took the teat happily and for a few seconds Heikki considered taking a photo to post to Twitter, maybe Lewis would see it and realise that he hadn't won. But then he might go to the press and he would probably never race again, he'd be a medical curiosity, he might have his child taken away. Maybe he wouldn't be a fit parent, maybe Aleksi should be taken away from him, it's not like he had a stable life, what would happen when he started school? He wouldn't be able to take him everywhere with him forever.

Aleksi let out a small whine and he stopped squeezing him quite so tightly, taking the now empty bottle away.

“I wondered where you'd gone.”

He turned to find Catherine standing in the open doorway.

“Even Jarno wasn't sure where you were.” She moved to lean back against the balcony wall, pausing to see how much it wobbled before she put her weight on it. “Can never be sure how trustworthy these things are.”

“Am I a good parent Catherine?”

“Well you're not a bad parent. Where's this come from?”

He looked down at the small sleeping child in this lap. “I don't know what to do with children. I've never spent a lot of time around them, racing doesn't exactly lend itself to having them around. Most of my friends are in sports, they don't have children, I don't have maternal instincts, every moment I'm around him I'm terrified I'm going to do something wrong. What if I drop him, what if he eats something he can't have, what if-”

“Heikki! Calm down, you're doing fine. Social services aren't going to swoop in and take him away if that's what you're worried about.” She crouched down next to him to stroke Aleksi's head. “You're so careful with him you're not going to hurt him, and kids are more resilient than a lot of people think.”

The sun was starting to move towards the horizon, the beams slipping below the balcony above his and creeping towards his previously shady seat. He had promised Timo they'd meet up for a drink later, in about half an hour he estimated, but he didn't want to put Aleksi down, didn't want to let go of him, he didn't even want to give him to Catherine right now.

“Hey,” she snapped her fingers in front of his face.

“Timo was looking for you by the way, he said you were meeting him for a drink later but he hadn't seen you since qualifying.”

He nodded noncommittally.

She sighed. “Take him with you. Everyone thinks he's your child anyway, you are allowed to be seen with him.”

**

Timo glanced up at the clock on the wall above Jarno's head, it was getting late, they all had to be up early to get ready for the race tomorrow and they'd all reached their imposed limit of two drinks for the night. He swallowed the last bite of his bread and shuffled to sit more upright.

“We should probably get a move on guys, it's almost 11.” Not that the festival outside seemed to mind; a throng of women in short skirts, incredibly high heels and feather-adorned headwear walked into the bar, singing to what was obviously a very popular Brazillian song that was playing. Several of the locals in this particular venue had flags for the different teams draped around their necks, one small boy was running around with a Ferrari flag tied as a cape behind him, pretending to be a super hero.

As if he knew they were all about to move, Aleksi took the moment to open his mouth and start to scream.

“I wondered when you'd wake up,” Heikki scooped his child out of the spare seat he'd been lying in, surrounded by rolled blankets to prevent him falling out. “But it's no wonder you never sleep at night if you nap all day is it?”

He picked up his glass and downed the rest of the water, adjusting Aleksi in his grip to support his head. “I'd better get him somewhere he won't wake up the entire neighbourhood. I'll see you all tomorrow.”

Timo and Jerome bid him goodnight but Jarno got up to accompany him. “I need my beauty sleep too, I may as well come back with you.”

They walked in silence through the manic streets of Sau Paulo, music spilling from open doors, locals yelling from windows to their neighbours across the road. A few intoxicated women approached them, cooing over Aleksi who responded with screams piercing enough to wake the dead which continued all the way back to the peaceful road down to the pits and their hotel.

“I've been meaning to ask you,” Jarno voiced as they looked both ways before walking across a quiet road. “Are you in a secret relationship with Petrov?”

“Excuse me?” Heikki stopped dead, two inches from the pavement.

“Get off the road,” Jarno pulled him off the carriageway by his arm. “I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just asking, you do spend a lot of time texting him and you always have this little grin when you're doing it.”

“He's just a friend, that's it.” He started walking again, bouncing Aleksi slightly to stop the grizzling noises he was starting to make in response to Heikki's shout.

“And you absolutely watch all of your friends without actually talking to them in person,” Jarno jogged a couple of steps to catch up with his annoyed stride. For someone so small Heikki could certainly move when he wanted to.

“All I'm saying is it's nice to see you actually interested in someone after the incident.”

Heikki slowed back to a more natural pace.

“You were so down for so long it was quite painful to watch and none of us had any idea what to do to make it better, so if you are interested in him and he's interested in you and he can make you happy then I'm happy for you and I'm sure the rest of the guys will be too,” he gestured back towards the bar they had come from and they walked on in silence for a few more minutes, the stands rising sharply out of the darkness ahead of them.

“I don't know if I'm interested in him,” Heikki said suddenly, frowning at his feet as they appeared beneath Aleksi in his arms. “I'm not sure I should be feeling anything for anyone after what he did to me.”

Jarno stopped and Heikki continued a few steps without him before he turned around to see where his teammate had gone.

“Heikki,” he gripped the other man's arms just below his shoulders. “You should be feeling whatever you are. He raped you, you did nothing wrong and you would be right if you were moving on and forgetting about him and you would be just as right if you were running to the media to destroy his career for what he did to you. You deserve to be happy, you deserve to find someone you love and who loves you.”

Heikki felt himself tearing up and cursed himself for the ridiculous hormones that had been floating around his brain ever since he had fallen pregnant. Had Aleksi not been in his arms he would have hugged Jarno but all he managed instead was a slightly damp smile as a single tear escaped. But Jarno understood, he always did.

“Speak of the devil,” the Italian muttered in his ear as they rounded the corner.

“Heikki!”

He couldn't help the smile that spread across his face as the grinning Russian walked towards them.

“I missed you in Singapore, I worried you were not ok?”

“I'm fine, just very tired, I was told to rest as much as possible.”

“You must have eaten something very bad,” he frowned slightly, looking concerned and Heikki felt slightly guilty for lying to him.

“Well I wish I knew what it was so I could avoid it,” he grinned, aware it probably looked as forced as it was. Aleksi took this as a cue to let out a piercing scream. “Not that he's been an angel and let me have a full night's sleep.”

“A bath and warm milk. I look after my cousins when they were younger, always sent them to sleep.” He added at Heikki's somewhat incredulous look.

“I'm gonna go to bed, need my beauty sleep after all. Want me to take Lexi?” Jarno winked.

“No it's okay, I'm hoping the longer he's awake the more he'll sleep at night.” He watched Jarno nod and set off towards their hotel. “Honestly, not even two months old yet and he has a nickname. What do you think Lexi?”

Aleksi cried.

“I don't think he likes,” Vitaly laughed, reaching out a finger to stroke the baby's cheek. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

“Sure. How have you been?” He asked as they set off towards the track.

“Well, we have been doing too many interviews, Robert seems to not mind but they annoy me sometimes.”

Heikki laughed. “You'll get used to it, you'll even get used to the fangirls asking you for sex.”

“I don't think they'll be asking me for sex, is probably because they think you cute and friendly. I do not think this will be a problem for me, they think me unapproachable and fierce.”

“You're hardly unapproachable, they've obviously never seen you drunk.”

“Nor have you.”

“No?” Heikki grinned. “I remember an occasion with a bottle of vodka where you got quite giggly and decided to tell me how the constellations differed from the ones in Russia. I'd say that's fairly drunk.”

“Is nothing, I was still standing yes? Then I was not drunk.”

They wandered off the track and onto the surrounding grass, settling on the slope inside turn twelve to admire the bright lights of Sao Paulo around them.

“May I?” Vitaly gestured to Aleksi as he started to grumble again.

Heikki hesitated for a second, somewhat reluctant to let go of his son, but he trusted the other driver enough to hand him over.

“I thought you say you and Catherine had split?” Vitaly took the child, rocking him from side to side carefully to calm him.

“We have.”

Vitaly nodded, unwilling to push the issue, and started to sing something incomprehensible that Heikki supposed must be a Russian lullaby to the whining child. Whatever it was, Aleksi found it soothing enough that he was soon fast asleep.

“Good luck getting him to stay asleep,” Heikki muttered to him, laying back on the warm grass to stare at the sky. “Poor kid is probably too warm, missing the snow and the cold sea.”

“It is too hot here, is too hot most races, should have an Arctic race, see how your Italian team mate copes. I see him teasing you about the heat.”

Heikki watched as Vitaly lay down to mimic him, Aleksi still asleep now on his chest, one hand cradled around him. “I think he just wishes I was Italian, then he'd have someone as obsessed with food as he is. He keeps telling me my ice cream is inferior to proper Italian ice cream.”

Vitaly laughed. “Italian ice cream is good but not as good as Ben & Jerry's. Italian ice cream does not have cookies in it.”

“Chocolate fudge brownie.” Heikki said to the sky. “Although I'm also partial to the cinnamon bun one they have in Sweden.”

“I have never seen cinnamon bun? Is this just Swedish?”

“I'm not sure, but I've never seen it anywhere else.”

There were a few minutes of comfortable silence before Vitaly spoke. “I too miss the snow, it is peaceful and silent, all of these places we go are loud and too fast, sometimes is nice to go home where it is- mirnyy.”

“Tranquil?”

“What is tranquil?”

“Calm, soothing.”

“Tranquil is a good word.” He was silent for another moment. “There is a forest behind my house, all pines, in winter if you stand still all you can hear is the birds in the trees and the small animals in the snow. Is very peaceful, usually no other people, I spend hours sitting there as a child. Too many sometimes, mother would come and find me and yell I would die from cold.”

Heikki laughed. “Mine would watch me rolling around in the snow outside our house and make me hot chocolate for when I eventually came in. It's never cold enough at most of the races for hot chocolate.” He turned his head to face Vitaly. “Where are you from? And don't say Russia, I know Russia but there's a lot of it.”

“Vyborg, near St Petersburg,” he grinned.

“That's so far south, you can't have real snow!”

“And you are from the North Pole?”

“Suomussalmi.” He grinned at Vitaly's raised eyebrow. “It's about 600km north of St Petersburg. You can't hit me you're holding Aleksi!”

“He is fine, children bounce,” but he didn't move, staring down at the child asleep on him. “He has your eyes, I wonder if he will keep them?”

“They change?”

“Mmh, about 9 months, I think they stay blue though, an Arctic baby.”

“He will be an Arctic baby, I bought a house in Lapland a few years ago, he'll grow up lying on the roof watching the northern lights over the lake.”

“I do miss the northern lights,” Vitaly whispered. “I spent a few winters with my uncle near Vorkuta in the north. The town was awful but the nights camping in the wild were beautiful.”

The lights around them were illuminating Vitaly's eyes in the most curious manner, as though he were staring so far into the distance that he could see the Arctic winters, see the bright stars in the clear sky and feel the ice-cold wind on his face. Heikki could see him traipsing through a forest several foot deep in snow, those ridiculously enormous dogs of his leaping around him chasing the trails of small animals, only to come bounding back when he called for them.

He wanted to kiss him.

The thought hit Heikki like a freight train. He wanted to kiss Vitaly. He wanted to invite him back to his secluded snowy world and lie on the roof watching the northern lights. He wanted to make breakfast with him in the mornings, trying to move around him in the tiny kitchen as they both fought over the coffee maker. He wanted to come home to a family that included both him and Aleksi. The sudden intensity of his feelings almost made him cry and he had to turn away to stop the other man seeing the tears that were building up in the bottom of his eyes.

“Heikki?”

He blinked rapidly a few times, thankful that the water vanished.

“You seem troubled?”

“I'm fine, just a bit tired.”

Vitaly reached around Aleksi to grab his phone to see the time, the harsh blue light destroying the magical atmosphere that had built up around them. “It is late,” he said softly. “You should rest, is not good to be tired when you have been ill.”

Heikki nodded silently and watched as the Russian uncurled himself from the position he had been lounging in, trying not to appreciate how graceful the other man could be when he wanted to, how his tight fitting jeans strained across his thighs as he moved, how his shirt rode up to expose the smallest sliver of pale skin as he stretched, holding the baby securely against his chest.

He suddenly felt very small and somewhat inadequate in the presence of this man who had become dramatically perfect over the space of the past 5 minutes. Unless he had always been so and he had simply failed to realise it.

“Heikki?”

He blinked, trying not to look like he had been staring and took the hand Vitaly offered him, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.

Chapter 10: Chapter 9

Notes:

I wrote half of this the day after the previous chapter, I then re-wrote it a few days later. It took me another 3 days to write the end of it, I've just re-written that bit for the fifth time and it's driving me mad. I'm still not sure if I'm happy with it but I have to post it otherwise I never will.

The final race of the season always had a certain buzz about it; every team had gone all out, pouring everything they had into the cars, into their drivers, into getting the last few points they could in the constructor's championship. Red Bull and Ferrari were certainly the loudest, the mechanics milling around almost as if they weren't sure what to do and were simply running to give the impression of being busy and some sort of synthesised pop music was blaring from the blue garage, Vettel dancing in the pit lane with one of the BBC journalists as she tried to ask him about the upcoming race.

“He is very confident for someone who has not even been through qualifying yet.”

Heikki turned to find Vitaly walking next to him. “Well he is in the running for world champion, isn't he? There's not many that can outdo him other than Mark and Fernando.”

The Ferrari driver in question was sitting in his garage staring intently at the screen in front of him and didn't even look up when they walked past. “Although I think I'd rather have Sebastian's attitude if that's the alternative.”

Vitaly stifled a laugh as a journalist looked their way. “How is your car? You seem to be all the time complaining about it lately.”

“Well it can't be any worse than it has been for the rest of the season, but I don't think it's going to be any better. We're hoping next year's is going to be better. I'm still going to beat Jarno though. And if all else fails there's still that bet between Richard and Tony.”

“Is this their argument about who gets to wear a dress? I think it will suit neither of them.”

Heikki laughed. “I'm alarmed you've actually thought about whether or not it'll suit them. But no, there's no way it's going to suit either of them. Although Richard might have the legs for it.”

Vitaly choked on the sip of water he'd just taken and they came to a halt outside the Williams garage while he composed himself. “If there were no press I would hit you.”

“You hit me a lot, this is a very abusive relationship.”

Vitaly grinned. “You do not seem to mind too much.”

Heikki tried his best not to blush but, given Vitaly's laugh as he made his way back to his own garage, he wasn't sure he had managed. He was sure he was still blushing when he came across Jarno outside the Lotus garage

“Do I want to know?” The Italian asked as they wandered into the sea of green mechanics.

“Probably not.”

“Delightful as it is to see the pair of you actually in the garage rather than hovering halfway down the pit lane,” Mike interrupted, staring pointedly at Heikki and thrust water into both their hands. “It would be nice if you would focus on the upcoming race. It is what we pay you for after all.” He added as an afterthought; “and it would be nice if I didn't have to see Tony in a skirt.” He gave a very exaggerated shudder and shooed them towards their mechanics.

**

Aleksi did not like the heat. Heikki did not like the heat. Jarno was sunbathing on the pit wall and the combination of all three lead to a very grumpy Finn and his equally grumpy child leaving the pit lane completely to wander out into the empty desert in the hopes of finding some solace from his grimacing team who flinched every time the baby opened his mouth.

Or at least that was his plan anyway. Halfway there he met Vitaly and Oksana, the latter looking almost as uncomfortable in the Abu Dhabi sun as he was.

“Give him vodka, then he sleep,” Vitaly grinned, laughing at the horrified look his manager gave him. “I joke, I joke.” He held his hands out and Heikki passed him Aleksi without a second thought, scowling as he immediately calmed down and stopped crying.

“Traitor.”

Oksana was still scowling when Vitaly turned to say goodbye to her, or that was what Heikki thought it was, he absolutely had not been trying to learn Russian.

“Maybe I am scary, he does not dare scream.”

Heikki smiled. “I think he just likes you better than me. I should feel offended but my ears are very thankful.”

“How old is he? He is very small.”

“About 2 months.”

“Is normal then, small children like to scream. Is about all they like to do.”

“And eat,” Heikki muttered, suddenly remembering the bottle of milk in his pocket. He handed it to Vitaly after a second of hesitation, wondering whether it was acceptable to let another man feed his child.

“Well this is all very cute and domestic, makes me wish I had a camera.”

They turned to find Lee McKenzie much more appropriately dressed for the weather in a tank top and shorts, devoid of the usual hundred wires draped around her.

“I'm thinking of employing him as a babysitter.”

Vitaly shook his head. “Formula 1 pays better, plus you can not get child seat to fit the car.”

She laughed. “I've not had a chance to meet baby Kovalainen yet, Aleksi was it?” She reached out to tickle his foot that had kicked its way out of the light weight blanket and he screamed.

“Oh dear, I don't think he likes me.”

“He doesn't like anyone, it's nothing personal. He doesn't even like me.”

“I am to be stuck with him,” Vitaly sighed. “He likes no one else.” He tucked Aleksi's foot back into the blanket. “I will have to teach you Russian.”

“Will you be fighting for visitation rights?” Lee grinned.

“I don't know, I might just let him keep him, better he doesn't get confused. You'll just have to give him to Oksana during races.”

Vitaly looked very concerned and shook his head. “She put him down somewhere and forget about him, go off drinking or looking at shoes. Why do women have such obsession with shoes?”

“Heels. It's the only chance we're ever going to have to stand next to some of you and come higher than your belly buttons.”

“Does this mean you be wearing heels soon?” He asked Heikki and then moved Aleksi out of the way just in case the tiny Finn hit him.

**

He was safe from having to see Tony in a skirt. Mike was so happy he pulled Heikki into a very tight hug the moment he was free of the officials who told him he was back to his normal weight and to lay off the ice cream maybe. He had beaten every other driver he was realistically competing with, although half of them had retired, Jarno had a problem with his rear wing, Timo's gearbox had decided it couldn't be bothered to live up to its name anymore and Michael and Tonio had collided, although he rather imagined this “collision” was Tonio running into Michael rather than any fault on the older man's part, which had boosted him an extra couple of spaces into 17th. Still a lap down on Hulkenberg's Wiliams which was the next car up, but they were getting better.

He could hear Red Bull's screams of elation all the way down the pit lane as they posed for impromptu photos with their newly crowned world champion as they tidied up the stray pieces of car still strewn around and Adrian Newey was clutching the constructor's trophy to his chest, refusing to let it go even for a second.

The BBC journalists were walking slowly away from the blue garage, each a varying degree of soaked with champagne and somewhat deafened by the loud music once again reverberating around the stadium, pulling out their ear pieces as they went. Eddie slapped the camera man on the shoulder as they passed him, yelling his thanks.

With no more cameras on, most of the film crews and TV presenters started to drift away, packing their equipment away before they vanished into the city to their hotels, restaurants and the airport for a few.

This was the bit of the season Heikki hated the most, the moment that made him the saddest and the most nervous; it was the time at which nothing was certain; the season was over, the prizes were given out, a lot of contracts were expiring and a lot of them were facing a month or more of radio silence before they found out where they would be going next year.

But at least the weather was cooling slightly. He stretched on the pit wall and jumped off, weaving through the few people still wandering the quickly emptying area back to his motor home which would be collapsed in the morning and taken back to Norfolk for storage. Someone collided with his shoulder as he stopped to look back down the pit lane for the last time and he turned to see Oksana glare at him before marching off in the opposite direction. He shrugged, although no one was watching him.

Jarno winked at him as he entered their temporary home, throwing his jacket over one shoulder as walked out of the door Heikki was still holding open. The reason quickly became apparent as he entered his own room and found Vitaly sitting on his bed, cooing to Aleksi in his arms. He stopped the moment he saw Heikki.

“Oh don't let me stop you, he'll grow up with a full set of parents at this rate.” He opened the cabinet by the door and pulled out the bottle he had been saving for this occasion and a couple of shot glasses. “Vodka?”

Vitaly accepted the glass with a grin. “What are we celebrating?”

“Well, the fact I've managed to have a child for two months and not kill him yet I'd say is worthy of celebration. And I have a contract for next year.”

“As do I.”

“Well there we go, we have plenty to celebrate.” He raised his glass, “kippis!”

“Za zdarovye!”

A few hours later he was beginning to wonder just how much the Russian could drink as he watched him down another shot of the expensive Finnish vodka Heikki had brought with him from home. He had stopped a good while back, not wanting to be hung over on the plane tomorrow morning but the happy buzz was still handing around his head, making him tingle pleasantly.

Catherine had taken Aleksi away, arguing that while Vitaly probably could look after him, she wasn't going to leave a small child in the hands of a pair of men, both from countries where getting so drunk they couldn't move was a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening. He was sure Vitaly had been pouting, but that could just be the vodka talking.

He drained the last of his coke and stood up to refill it, only to discover that the floor wasn't quite in the same place as when he had left it, it was considerably more tilted to the left than he remembered and the wall seemed to be falling on him.

“Oops, I think you drink too much.”

The Russian's accent was becoming more and more pronounced with every shot but his reactions seemed to still be there; he caught Heikki and lifted him up onto the bed next to him with a giggle.

“Ty takoy malenkiy. Takoy miliy.”

“I don't speak Russian, try again.”

“Ya khochu potselovat tebya.”

“Nope, that's still-”

It took him a good second to realise that Vitaly was kissing him, by the time he thought he should possibly protest he was kissing back, the taste of vodka strong between them, his fingers were tangled in the other man's shirt, unsure if he was trying to pull him closer or push him away. There was a hand playing with the hem of his shirt, fingers teasing along the slight gap between his clothes, the other one playing with his hair and the world was moving, he was falling, Vitaly was trying to hold him up but they both went over. Heikki reached under his hip and pulled out a shot glass with a giggle, handing it back to the Russian who chucked it off the side of the bed.

He had half a second to be thankful for his indestructible glasses before Vitaly was on top of him, kissing him again, hand under his shirt holding on to the top of his hip bone and despite the near litre of alcohol they had drunk between them he could feel the blood pooling between his legs, thankful that he was too drunk to be embarrassed about it.

Vitaly's hand was moving, following the line of his hip down to the top of his trousers, teasing at the denim and Heikki thought his heart had stopped, the sudden jolt of panic was like being struck by lightning and he reached out to grab Vitaly's arm, pulling it away. Vitaly grinned against his mouth, whispering something to him before he took hold of Heikki's hand, holding it above his head against the top of the bed as he kissed down the Finn's neck, sucking at his collar bone.

Heikki was sure his heart was going to fail, it was beating too hard and too fast to be safe and he was pretty sure he couldn't breathe anymore, the combination of too much vodka and too little oxygen in his brain making his thoughts sluggish and confused and he wasn't sure where he was, the room was too bright and white and the floor under him too cold, he tried to pull his hands away, he could feel the restraints around them and he tried to scream but nothing happened, he was suffocating, there was no air, it was too thick and his vision was blurring around the edges-

“Heikki? Heikki!”

There was a somewhat blurry figure standing over him, hand on his shoulder and he instinctively jerked away from it, scrambling over to the other side of the bed.

“Woah, hey, I'm not going to touch you all right?”

The figure became somewhat more pieced together as his brain tried to work out what was going on and after a few seconds he realised it was his teammate standing by the side of his bed.

“Jarno? What are you doing here?”

“Well I was enjoying a beer before I went to bed, but according to your boyfriend you had a bit of a freak out and scared him.”

He turned to see Vitaly perched awkwardly on the end of his bed and tried to smile in what he hoped was a comforting manner but he wasn't sure he had managed.

“Have you spoken to anyone about what happened?” Jarno sat down next to Vitaly so Heikki could see the pair of them together. “You were doing so much better that I presumed you had found a therapist but I didn't want to pry.”

He shook his head. “I didn't think I needed one. I thought I could just get on with life and forget about it, focus on Aleksi instead.”

“So you've never actually confronted what happened, you've just been ignoring it and hoping the feelings will go away. Brilliant strategy. I take it you haven't told him?” He gestured toward Vitaly.

Heikki shook his head, unable to look at either of them. He heard one of them sigh and presumed it was Jarno.

“You're going home tomorrow aren't you?” He took his team mate's silence as a positive. “Go and find a therapist. You've got the whole of the winter to do it, no races, barely any testing time. Go chase some reindeer, eat whatever it is you eat in the arctic circle, hide in your winter cabin, enjoy Leksi being small and cute and portable, but find a therapist.”

Heikki nodded, he probably should have found one sooner but there were enough distractions around that he could focus on anything else and just ignore the rising panic he felt any time Lewis came near him. Jarno stood and reached out, as if to pat his teammate on the shoulder but thought better of it halfway there and instead turned to Vitaly, whispering something in his ear as he passed and left for his own room, glancing back over his shoulder as he opened the door.

A few seconds passed in silence, but to Heikki it felt like hours as he stared at his feet, knees pulled up to his chest.

“Jarno says he stay with you sometimes, says I should if you want me to?”

“Okay.”

He scooted off the bed, the opposite side to where Vitaly was still hovering, and wandered, slightly wonkily, towards the bathroom, grabbing a clean shirt as he went. When he returned in a t-shirt and pyjamas he found the other man standing awkwardly beside the bed, belt in one hand, shoes in the other. He stifled a giggle but couldn't stop the somewhat shaky grin.

“I'm not going to make you sleep in your jeans. Bathroom's through there.”

He slid into bed, making sure to keep to one side of it, although such a feat was made quite difficult by the size of the motorhome beds, the designers obviously hadn't expected the drivers to try and share them with anyone, and closed his eyes, he was going to have a bastard of a headache when he woke up, he just knew it.

**

There was a sunbeam shining through a crack in his curtains and landing, most unfortunately, right on his face. He was sure it was doing it on purpose, but he was far too comfortable to move and even if he wanted to, the arm thrown across his waist would prohibit him from doing so.

He smiled; despite his insistent promise that he was going to stick to his own side of the bed, Vitaly was obviously a cuddler and he was relieved to find he wasn't even close to “freaking out” as Jarno had put it, at the constrictive hold. The somewhat tipsy confession last night had helped more than he thought it would and given the fact the Russian was still here and quite tightly wrapped around him it hadn't scared him off.

His flight was in a few hours, the sounds of movement were starting to appear around the motorhome, Catherine still had his son and would presumably like to go home at some point soon. He estimated he had a couple of hours at most to pack, but the temperature hadn't yet climbed so high that he was uncomfortable and Vitaly was warm and smelled like a forest after the first rain of Spring and the warm spices of a Nordic Christmas and right that moment there nowhere else he'd rather be.

He missed his flight.

Chapter 11: Chapter 10

Notes:

I'm finding this incredibly hard to write, it's like I can see the scenes in my head but it's almost impossible to get the words written down before they escape and it's really frustrating. If it hadn't already been over a month since the last chapter and I weren't determined to get this damn thing finish I wouldn't be posting it now because I'm still not 100% happy with it. Which seems to be a running theme with the last few chapters made even more irritating by the fact the first ones were so easy.

Heikki's draft box was full of half written texts that he never managed to send to Vitaly. His cupboards were half full of food he really didn't feel like eating. His car was half buried in a snowdrift threatening to engulf the whole house and he was still only half dressed. In fact, the only full thing in the house was the sink where the pile of dishes that hadn't yet made it to the dishwasher was starting to get a little bit ridiculous. So ridiculous so that he was eating cake out of a bowl.

He stopped, fork halfway to his mouth. He was eating cake out of a bowl.

Aleksi made a small noise of protest as Heikki hauled himself up off the sofa and dumped the half eaten cake on the kitchen counter. His house was a mess. There were clothes everywhere, he almost tripped over his shoes as he went to open the dishwasher only to discover it was already full and he had never run it.

“Why do I have so many plates?” He asked the coffee stains in the bottom of his dishwasher and slammed the door shut. It started. “Really?”

“This is disgusting,” he muttered looking around at the weeks of dirt and rubbish that had built up around him. He picked up a chocolate wrapper and threw it somewhere in the general direction of the bin. Underneath was a pile of post he hadn't sorted for the past month or so, a haphazard heap of junk and probably a bill or two that he should really pay soon.

“Junk,” he muttered, picking up the first letter. He put it down to one side. “Junk. Junk. Junk.”

Half an hour later it wasn't tidy but it was a significant improvement. No one would yell at him if they made a surprise visit. Not that anyone would visit him up here, there were several foot of snow on the ground and a threat of at least one more over the next 24 hours. Right now all he had for company were Aleksi and the reindeer nosing around his car trying to find the bale of grasses he had left out for them.

His phone going off spoiled the moment of serenity. Aleksi apparently didn't like his new message tone either and let out a piercing wail that evidently even the reindeer outside could hear as it raised its head sharply and made a quick escape into the trees.

He scowled down at the phone when he finally found it, underneath his coat on the hallway floor, until he realised who the text was from.

How is your holiday? It read.

Good, he replied with a grin. Aleksi is still screaming, he's even scaring off the wildlife. How's yours?

Good, the reply came back within a few seconds, followed by; I'm going camping after Christmas, would you like to come?

“Christmas was last week,” he said to the phone in his hand; he'd been down to his parents' house with Catherine and her new man as his mother had practically adopted his ex-girlfriend as her own child over the last few years. He frowned down at his phone, a niggling memory somewhere in the back of his brain and eventually he managed to grasp hold of it;

“Oh, they celebrate Christmas in January in Russia don't they.”

Aleksi gurgled in response.

“You won't want to go camping will you?”

Sorry, I don't think Aleksi's old enough for camping yet. He stared out of the window for a second before typing out another message; I can set up a tent in the garden if you wanted to come see him though. He hit send before he could lose his resolve and put the phone down.

He got two steps across the room before it went off again. They fired off a few more texts organising a date before Heikki picked up Aleksi and spun him around in a small circle with a somewhat unmanly squeal that he was glad no one else saw. Aleksi showed his appreciation of this by unceremoniously vomiting on the floor and screaming.

“I thought you approved of him,” he frowned as he carried the child back to his makeshift bed of sofa cushions and went to clean up the mess.

**

A few days later it was Heikki nauseously pacing the house, checking his phone every 30 seconds as he waited for Vitaly to arrive. The previous day he had panic-tidied the entire house from top to bottom, getting rid of no less than four bin bags full of rubbish that he had somehow accumulated since the end of the season before making an emergency trip to the nearest supermarket when he realised he had no fresh food at all and had been eating chicken nuggets and cake for the past week.

He heard the roar of Vitaly's Mercedes before he saw it and grinned, the road running adjacent to his property was a wonderful one, especially in the winter; it had the perfect camber for the bends and the sides were clear enough that you could see the stray reindeer about to wander into your path. It also meant that he was almost here. He was sure his heart had skipped a beat or two and he cursed himself for feeling like a teenager all over again, wondering if he should put the kettle on, he wasn't even sure if the Russian drank coffee, he'd never seen him with any, but then they never usually saw each other in the mornings.

He put the kettle on and went to open the door.

Vitaly greeted him with a shy grin. “Is fun road you have.”

“It's wonderful isn't it, come in. Coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee is good.”

He took the fur-lined coat Vitaly had shrugged off and was holding awkwardly and hung it by the door, shutting out the small blizzard that was starting outside.

“That's going to be fun later,” he muttered, looking out of the window at the sky. “Well, I hope you don't want to go anywhere anytime soon.”

The kettle whistled and he led the way through the archway into the kitchen, wondering if it was too early in the day to add vodka to his coffee, and possibly to Vitaly's, the other man looked almost as nervous as he did and he was starting to think that they were doomed to spend the trip dancing around each other and never actually getting where they wanted to go.

He put vodka in both their coffees.

“It's going to get a whole lot colder out there,” he said with a smile when Vitaly looked at him curiously. “Especially if you want to watch the northern lights later.”

Aleksi chose that moment to decide he wanted a drink as well and the strange tension was broken as Heikki went to warm up some milk and Vitaly picked up his son, twirling him around. Heikki was somewhat insulted that Vitaly got a scream of delight at the action, whereas he had been vomited upon.

**

“Is as beautiful as I remember,” Vitaly whispered to him as he clambered up onto the snowy roof and shut the trap door behind him, the baby monitor balanced on top of the arm full of blankets he dragged with him.

“We're lucky the sky cleared up, it's been snowing the last week.” He cleared some snow from the table and put the monitor down on it before settling on the sofa next to the other man, shaking out the blankets over the pair of them.

“I can still set you up a tent in the living room if you were desperate to sleep under canvas? No snow in there.”

Vitaly reached out an arm to put it around Heikki's shoulders, pulling him closer to his side and tucking the blankets in around them. “No, no, a bed is good,” he said with a grin. They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the ethereal greeny-grey stripes dance across the sky, listening to Aleksi's soft breathing over the monitor before Heikki relaxed into Vitaly's embrace, scooting across the inch or two between them.

Alexsi made a small noise of discontent on the radio and he tensed, ready to spring into action if he started screaming again. The Russian squeezed his shoulders; “Is fine, he sleep, do not worry.”

“I do worry. I worry about him all the time.”

“Why? You are doing fine.”

“But what if I'm not? What if I'm a really bad parent and everyone's just too polite to say something?” He nuzzled his face into the thick fur of Vitaly's coat to hide the couple of tears that had escaped.

“You are good parent, he is healthy child, nothing wrong with him. There is nothing wrong with needing some help.”

“I could do with some help,” he muttered. “Even if it is just a cleaner.”

“Your home is not dirty?”

“Not now it's not. I spent two days tidying before you came round. I was living off chicken nuggets and cake because I hadn't done a proper food shop for three weeks. The only reason I had those was because I had to buy nappies for Aleksi.”

“Do we need to shop tomorrow? I like chicken nuggets but not to live off.”

“No,” he settled his head against Vitaly's chest. “I went yesterday. We should be okay.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time, both watching the flickering lights wend their way across the sky above them, listening to the soft sounds of Aleksi's breathing. There was a certain sense of serenity and calm that came with the Northern Lights, it was something he never experienced anywhere else in the world and he was sure he would never grow tired of it. It was somehow even better with company.

He glanced up at Vitaly and wondered where exactly they were going. He wanted a relationship, he was pretty sure of that, but what did the other man want? Would he be able to have a relationship without freaking out like he had done in Abu Dhabi? Even if whatever this was did go somewhere, it wasn't like their industry was particularly supportive of openly gay drivers. He knew there were a couple of gay mechanics on his team but that was more because he'd caught them making out in the garage after a particularly heavy drinking session at the beginning of the season.

Unless it wasn't really a problem of the sport being anti-gay, but more that no one had actually bothered to come out and challenge the attitudes. But what if they did and it went badly? What if it ruined their careers? Mike hadn't seemed bothered but he was only one out of tens of thousands of people involved in the series. What if Renault weren't so supportive of Vitaly? What if Tony wasn't as unbothered as Mike? What if-

Vitaly glanced down at him and he realised he had been staring. “You are thinking very hard there, are you ok?”

He was halfway to forming an answer when his mind went blank. He was suddenly acutely aware of just how close they were, how green Vitaly's eyes were in the strange light around them. The squirming, twisty feeling in his stomach was back and he had a brief thought about feeling like the heroine in a cheap romantic novel before the gap between the Russian closed the gap and kissed him gently. He giggled.

“What?” Vitaly raised an eyebrow.

“I feel like I'm in a romance novel. Or maybe I'm a damsel in distress. You've come to rescue me from the tiny horror that is Aleksi.”

“I have no horse, also should I not come with armour?”

“You brought a Mercedes, that's got a few horses.”

Vitaly looked at him strangely for a second before he worked out what Heikki had said and grinned. “You are a strange man.”

Heikki smiled back and tilted his head up, hoping for another kiss. Vitaly obliged and squirmy feeling in his stomach turned into a hyperactive butterfly, he was pretty sure he was going to stop breathing when Vitaly licked across his bottom lip, and there was a piercing wail going off somewhere nearby that went straight through his head and shattered the moment.

He pulled back, looking around to see what was making the noise and found the culprit running away across the field having set off his car alarm.

“That bloody reindeer,” he laughed.

Chapter 12

Notes:

I'm slightly happier with this chapter. I found the 2011 season in the depths of the internet where some lovely person had uploaded every race which made it slightly easier to write. This is the penultimate chapter, only one more to go, but I have started uploading some of the little snippets of life I write when I'm having problems writing the main thing as an add-on, it's called Life is like an Orange if anyone is interested.

Australia always started with an explosion of activity and heat and excitement; so unlike the quiet stillness of the Arctic winter, Melbourne was loud and colourful, the inhabitants screaming their joy at the return of the race, their faces painted with the flags of their favourite drivers, flags tied to the posts of the stands fluttering in the gentle breeze that caressed sunburned cheeks and shoulders.

Jarno was soaking in the atmosphere with a giant grin on his face, basking in the sunshine he had missed over the past few months in Italy, signing the occasional autograph as the more hardcore fans wandered through the pit lane, clutching their VIP passes as though they were the most precious things on the planet.

Heikki was beginning to regret bringing Alexsi out with him; he didn't like the noise and he didn't like the heat and he definitely didn't like the girls cooing over him and making stupid noises and he was making his displeasure known in the only way he could. He was trying to balance the squirmy baby on one hip as he talked to Lee McKenzie about the start of the season but the screaming was starting to make both of their eardrums hurt.

“Someone is not happy.”

He had never been so happy to see the Russian and promptly handed Aleksi over without prompting.

“Aww,” Lee cooed as she watched. “And when are you two getting married?”

“Pardon?” Heikki looked at her in shock.

“Well, you've already got his seal of approval.”

Sure enough, the moment he had caught sight of Vitaly, Aleksi had ceased screaming and was currently gurgling happily, waving his tiny fists around as Vitaly talked to him in slightly high-pitched Russian.

“Poor boy's going to be so confused if he keeps doing that, he won't know if he's supposed to speak Finnish or Russian. Or English. Or Italian actually, Jarno keeps insisting on talking to him in Italian.”

“Well, he'll have a very good start in life if he can speak four languages before he's in school. Good for job prospects too.”

“He's six months old! I don't think he needs to start thinking about job prospects yet,” he laughed.

“Probably not,” she said with a grin and picked the microphone back up. “Moving on, how are you feeling about the car this season now you can hear yourself think?”

“I think we're okay, obviously we're not quite competitive with the mid-field yet but we're confident that we're a bit faster than the newer teams. Especially Hispania, at least we made it out of the pits!”

“And will Jarno's car be alright for the second practice session?”

He nodded, “Karun didn't mess it up too badly, I think they had fixed it within half an hour of getting it back.”

“Excellent,” she let the microphone drop back to her side. “I'll let you go, Oksana's on her way looking like she's on the warpath.”

“She always looks like she's on the warpath, I think she just hates me.”

**

Hispania's luck didn't pick up for the rest of the weekend, they were outside the 107% during qualifying and so Heikki was treated to Tonio and Narain's pouty faces every time he walked past their garage, bouncing Aleksi on his hip. Vitaly had qualified sixth and been swallowed up by the throng of mechanics who surrounded him with paper printouts and strategy ideas. Heikki announced this to his son, the good news getting him an open-mouthed grin and a happy noise, although he suspected the only word he had understood was “Vitaly”.

He wondered vaguely as he half-heartedly looked over his own data, how many other people in the paddock were wondering if they were in a relationship. Sure Lee had meant it as a joke, but somewhere out there, there was bound to be someone who didn't think they were joking. He snorted to himself and earned a scowl from his mechanic, it would probably be a fan lurking in the bushes taking photos of them spending just a little bit too much time together. He wasn't completely oblivious to how mad some of them were, Catherine had once shown him fanfiction of himself and Jarno which still made him shudder whenever he thought about it. Although the thought of what she might have been googling to find such a result made him squirm uncomfortably too.

His mechanic slapped him around the head with a rolled up bundle of paperwork. “Stop daydreaming and focus, you can go drool over Petrov in your own time.”

He blinked rapidly in alarm and pretended he was reading the paperwork thrust under his nose with renewed enthusiasm, horribly conscious of the fact he was probably blushing as bright as a Christmas ornament. Given Jarno's laugh, he reckoned he probably was.

**

It was hot enough when he had been wandering around in a t-shirt, but now standing out in the direct sweltering heat of the late afternoon sun he was starting to suffer. It was probably quite inappropriate, he thought, to start fanning himself during the minute's silence so he refrained, trying not to think about how his fireproof overalls were sticking uncomfortably to his thigh.

By the time they were in the cars he'd drunk as much as he dared lest he have an accident in the seat, the umbrella held over him was a wonderful respite and he was buzzing with adrenaline and excitement for the first race after the long, long winter break by the time the teams cleared the track and he was left on his own, just him and the car and the countdown that took forever and no time at all. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard he would probably take several laps to relax but the lights were out and he was going before he'd had a chance to think about what he was doing.

The sheer joy of those first few hundred meters was compounded by a quick glance up at the boards as he went around the first corner, avoiding Barrichello who dumped himself into the gravel, and, eternally grateful that the radio wasn't on, screamed to himself because Vitaly had fought his way into third place through the madness that was the front of the pack. He didn't remain there for long, the next time he caught a glance of the standings he was back into 4th but Heikki was still suitably impressed.

He overtook Maldonado when he saw the opportunity, sailing past him easily.

8 laps later, Vitaly was still in 4th and Maldonado had taken his place back and he was left scowling at the back of the Williams before it inevitably escaped from him.

Mark was in for new tyres on lap 12, Fernando followed on lap 13 and somewhere along the way Maldonado had ended up in a run off area and retired. He grinned somewhat maliciously under his helmet. Felipe and Sebastian were in on lap 14, and he knew he shouldn't look, he had his own race to pay attention to but he had to and it was absolutely worth it as Vitaly was up in 2nd. Out of place because of the pit stops but still. He grinned widely under his helmet but it disappeared quickly when his front right locked and he slithered off the track and over the fake grass, thanking any deity which might be listening that it wasn't gravel, otherwise he probably wouldn't have made it back.

“Heikki, we're bringing you in for new tyres, you've been down on previous times for the past few laps.”

He sent back a confirmation through gritted teeth, annoyed at himself, but the stop went smoothly and let out a sign of relief as he came out ahead of Jarno, resisting the childish urge to wave as he overtook him on the pit exit.

His amusement was short-lived however as half a lap later the mechanics were back on the radio.

“Heikki, we're overheating, suspect water leak, we need you to park the car to avoid any further damage, repeat, please retire the car. Sorry.”

“Jumalauta,” he muttered under his breath as he pulled the car off the track and onto the grass verge out of the way. He stopped to watch one of the giant screens as he wandered back to the garage, wincing as Reubens made a desperate late dive into a corner and smashed his front wing into Nico's side. “That was never going to work,” he muttered under his breath.

Timo gave a quick wave as he wandered past, looking resigned to a car that just wasn't up to scratch, but also looking considerably more relaxed having peeled off his helmet. There was a camera man following him to his own garage that he was trying to ignore but it was quite hard to do so as it was thrust in his face the moment he pulled off his own helmet and fireproof balaclava. He managed a smile he hoped didn't look too much like a grimace which seemed to appease the man as he went away again.

“Sorry mate, you were doing so well.”

His mechanic got an actual smile.

“Well at least we now know there is a fault and we can fix it.”

“Go shower,” he grinned back. “You stink.”

He took the fastest shower of his life, constantly popping his head out to see what was happening on the TV. Michael looked fairly unimpressed at his early retirement and Vitaly's lock up made him mutter “pit” under his breath several times before the shampoo started running into his eyes.

Five minutes later he was out of the shower, almost dried and dressed, dragging a comb through his hair to try and look somewhat less discheveled. He dashed through the hospitality suite on his way back to the garage to collect Aleksi from Catherine who commented on Vitaly's performance with a grin.

Aleksi gurgled happily as they jogged through the temporary building back to the noise of the pits where he gladly accepted a pair of tiny ear defenders for him.

He waved a tiny fist to one of the Red Bulls as it came in, and Heikki joined in as Vitaly's Renault followed.

“Ca!” Aleksi exclaimed excitedly.

“Yes, that's a car. That one's a Renault.”

“I don't think he's going to manage Renault for a while.” One of the mechanics handed him a drink with a laugh.

What about Ferrari?” He pointed to Fernando as he drove past. “Nope, obviously not. Never mind. I don't know whether growing up around racing he's going be obsessed with cars or fed up with them.”

He glanced up at the TV. “Did they get Timo out again? I think I missed that.”

“Yeah, they patched him up and got him back into the car before he was outside of the 90%.”

At lap 56 it became apparent that Vitaly might just keep his third position; Fernando just couldn't catch up, everything he put in, the Russian matched it and continued to keep the distance between them. Heikki had his fingers crossed, bouncing Aleksi nervously on his hip as he silently pleaded with Vitaly to not come off the track or have an accident and it felt like the longest two last laps of his life, he didn't seem to be able to breathe properly-

He crossed the line, third place. Heikki had to restrain himself from screaming his delight to the world but he couldn't stop the huge grin that had spread itself across his face. The commentators were talking about all the people who had said Renault had signed Vitaly for two years because of the money he had brought to the team but now he was showing them all that he did deserve it, that he was worthy of his seat. He choked out a laugh as Vitaly appeared to trip over the edge of his car as he clambered out of it.

The Russian still had his helmet on as they weighed him so Heikki couldn't see whether he was grinning or crying but he wouldn't be surprised if there were a tear or two escaping, wiped away by the fireproof balaclava as he pulled it off.

The mechanic next to him laughed as the commentator announced Vitaly's racing started in Ladas on an ice rink and Heikki made a mental note to ask him about it later, when the madness had died down a bit, perhaps when the champagne he was about to drink had left his system

**

“Heikki!”

Heikki turned to see which drunken member of his team had come to confess their love for him this time before he recognised the Russian accent underneath his slurred name.

“Vitaly, congratulations! I thought you'd be with your team tonight?”

“My team drunk, all drunk, I want to see you. Want to be with you.”

“Well you've seen me,” he grinned, trying not to giggle at the inebriated man. “Want something to eat to go with all that champagne?”

“Champagne is shit, I bring proper drink. Proper vodka.” He grinned and produced a half drunk bottle of something Russian from behind his back, handing it to Heikki who looked at it suspiciously.

“How much of this have you had?”

“Enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“For this.”

Heikki opened his mouth to ask what exactly the Russian was about to do when he found his lips covered by Vitaly's in a kiss that he could almost get second-hand drunk from, an intoxicating mixture of champagne and vodka and Vitaly whose hands were slightly sticky from the champagne still being sprayed liberally around the garage in his hair and sneaking up his shirt and he was suddenly very aware that they were in public, pressed up against the side of a motorhome that he wasn't even sure was his.

“Vitaly,” he gasped, pulling his head away. “We're in public!”

“I no care, let them watch.” He reached out and held Heikki's face in his hands. “I love you. Whole world can know.”

He opened his mouth to reply but wasn't entirely sure what he was going to say, he hadn't been expecting a declaration of love but Vitaly solved the dilemma for him by pushing him back against the motorhome again and kissing him until he ran out of air.

“I love you. Did not know how to say.”

“Needed Dutch courage eh?”

Vitaly frowned at him. “Is Russian. Not Dutch.”

Heikki laughed and reached up to kiss him gently. “I love you too.” A camera flashed somewhere nearby. “And I think the whole world will probably know by morning.”

“He is jealous that I can do this and he can not.”

In the morning Heikki would be concerned about the press and whether the stray photographer had been watching them or some of the other drunken revelling going on around them, but for now he was very happy to stay crushed up against a motorhome, that he would later discover belonged to Virgin, on his toes with Vitaly's hands up his shirt again until one of them regained enough senses to invite the other to their own room.

Chapter 13: Epilogue

Notes:

The end is nigh. It's taken me five years but we're finally here; the epilogue.

I may well go back and edit this at some point in the future; there are bits of it I'm not exactly happy with but I'm pretty proud of myself to have actually finished it.

There was an unusual moment of silence in Heikki's life as he took his mug of hot chocolate to stare out of the living room window, watching the last few flakes of snow of the winter drifting lazily through the clear air. Aleksi had been at school for just over 6 months now and he still hadn't got used to him not being underfoot all the time.

He paused to pick up one of the strangely shaped trophies he had collected over the years and placed it back in the cabinet where it belonged, wondering how it came to be on the coffee table. There was a gap near the top and he frowned at it for a second before remembering Aleksi had taken his skating trophy to school to show his friends. It was increasingly likely that his son wasn't going to follow either of his parents' footsteps and go into racing, but it did look as though he was going to have to free up a shelf for his ice skating in the near future.

Vitaly was due home soon, he'd spoken to him as he was leaving Silverstone that morning, happy after his first race but somewhat disappointed his team hadn't managed higher than 21st. Heikki had tried to be the pragmatic one, telling him it was only his first race, he had another eight to go, that endurance racing wasn't anything like any other form he'd done before. But he couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for him; with two other people driving your car, how do you know whether your position is your fault or the fault of your teammates?

The roar of Vitaly's Mercedes was just audible through the window and he wandered back through to the kitchen to put the kettle on, moving a small pair of shoes left in the middle of the floor as he went.

He picked up a small pewter moose and removed the coffee jar from under it; there was nothing for it, they were going to have to buy a bigger house. He smiled to himself as the kettle started to boil; he had been brought up with the Finnish minimalism that his mother had learned from her mother, but Vitaly seemed to be a hoarder. Just like his mother. Over the years his small, relatively tidy, house had become home to all manner of stray nic-nacks from curious little bottles of local alcohol from places they'd been on holiday together, to the model cars that appeared from nowhere and populated previously empty corners of shelves, to the collection of actual cars the pair of them had accumulated in various barns and garages around the world.

He heard the crunch of tyres on the driveway as he poured the boiling water into the coffee grounds. “Perfect timing,” he said to himself, placing the cup on the table to go and greet his husband.

Not that he got very far.

Seconds after the door had opened, he found himself pushed up against the wall, Vitaly's hands under his shirt and in his hair, pushing his head back to kiss him frantically, every second of frustration at being apart for so long evident as they stumbled towards the large sofa on the other side of the room.

“I missed you,” Vitaly growled out between kisses.

“I made you coffee?”

“Don't need coffee, need you.”

Heikki made a small noise of arousal and reached up to kiss him again, standing on his toes to reach.

“Why are you so fucking tall?” He gasped out as the backs of his thighs hit the sofa and he pulled the other man down on top of him.

“You don't usually complain,” Vitaly grinned down at him, hand disappearing back up his shirt, shifting until he was kneeling between Heikki's thighs to kiss his way down his neck.

“Papa?”

“Well, that was fun while it lasted,” Vitaly kissed him on the nose and clambered off the sofa to pick up the three-year-old standing in the doorway.

“Hello Yuri, did you miss me?”

Yuri nodded. “Isi said I could have ice cream when you got home.”

“Did he now?” He turned to look at Heikki, an eyebrow raised. He picked up his coffee. “I'm sure Lexsi would be very upset if we had ice cream without him, so how about we have dinner first and then we can all have ice cream together?”

Yuri seemed to think about this very hard before deciding it was acceptable and she left as quickly as she had appeared, chatting away to herself in a mixture of Russian and Finnish as she made her way back to her room.

“She's going to be a nightmare when she gets to school,” Heikki accepted Vitaly's hand to pull him up off the sofa.

“Hopefully by then she will have learned to stick to one language at a time.”

“Let's hope she doesn't choose Russian then.”

Vitaly laughed, leading the way through to the kitchen. “Do I have to wait for dinner or can I have my ice cream now?”

“I told her that just after you'd left! I wasn't expecting her to remember it for weeks.”

“She's a child, what do you expect? They remember everything when it comes to food.”

“Yes, including that sprouts are evil. I really wish you hadn't told her that.”

“At least she isn't being forced to eat shchi. Mama still tries to make me eat it every time I go back.”

Heikki giggled into the cupboard as he pulled out a saucepan. He'd thought Vitaly's mother's shchi was rather nice, but then he wasn't morally opposed to cabbage.

There were a few minutes of domestic bliss as Heikki moved around the small kitchen reheating some of the reindeer stew he'd made over the weekend and boiling new potatoes to go with it, and Vitaly stood around, getting in the way and leaning on the drawers Heikki was trying to open, telling him about the race and his new team, until Aleksi was home. He walked through the door and kicked off his shoes into the small pile accumulating under the coat hooks.

“Papa! You're home!” He ran the length of the kitchen and demanded to be picked up.

“No running in the kitchen please!” Heikki held the pan above his son's head as he bounced towards the fridge. “Nu-uh, go tell your sister it's dinner time, then you can have some coke.”

He pouted but went. They could hear him yelling down the hallway rather than actually going to tell her.

“I missed this,” Vitaly whispered to him as he went to retrieve bowls from the cupboard above Heikki.

**

The air still had the frosty bite of winter about it, so he took a blanket up to the roof with him and spread it across the pair of them as they curled up on the sofa, having stuffed the waterproof cover that threatened to escape in the slight breeze underneith it.

“When are you off again?”

“Beginning of May.”

“Oh good. I've got used to having you around you know, it's a bit odd when you're not here.”

“I'm surprised you get the chance to miss me with those two running around you.”

Heikki snuggled down into the blankets, tucking his feet up underneath him, his head on Vitaly's shoulder. “It's domestic bliss I assure you.”

“Look!”

Heikki followed his husband's arm up to the sky to see the tail end of a shooting star go hurtling into inexistence.

“There's another one, is there a meteor shower tonight?”

“Not that I know of,” Heikki watched another couple blaze their way across the sky. “Better make a wish.”

Vitaly turned to look at him, “I don't need wishes, I already have everything I want.”

Heikki stared at him for a second before he giggled. “That was so cheesy,” and half-heartedly punch him in the thigh. “But true. Although you could wish for a bigger house, we really need one.”