Redemption's A Bitch - 21. Sometimes You Get What You Need

“I miss our bed,” Kieran stretched, his feet and ankles hanging in empty space. “Why is everything in this country so short?”

Robin leant up on his elbows and then propped himself up on Kieran’s bare chest, fingers stroking his smooth olive-brown skin.

“You are ridiculously tall Kieran, even by western standards.” Robin kissed him, “they don’t get people like you out here all that often,” he wriggled his own toes with a grin, “I think the bed is perfectly sized.”

Kieran was going to say something about Robin being short too, even though he wasn’t really, but the young man pulled away from him and sat up. Kieran frowned, starting to join him in the land of vertical people, when Robin pushed him firmly back into the mattress with a hand on his chest and lifted Kieran’s hips to kneel between his thighs.

“Oh…” Kieran purred as they kissed, cradling Robin’s jaw and grinning happily as he felt his boyfriend’s erection pressing against him, “I suppose this bed is long enough for that.”

“Everyone’s the same height lying down.” Robin ran his tongue over his teeth and kneaded Kieran’s firm behind with one hand. Kieran had always been awful at resisting the Sparrow when he grinned like that, the edges of his body going all hard and beautifully defined. He distracted Kieran with his fingers, pushing into him with delight when Kieran moaned. Kieran found his voice long enough to growl:

“I have to spend all day in the fuckin’ saddle!” as Robin thrust into him. He gripped the young man’s thighs, leaving fingerprint bruises in Robin’s pale skin, but Sparrow just grinned triumphantly.

“You’ll ride all the lighter now.”

“Bastard.”

“That’s your job.” Robin grinned happily and thrust again. Kieran grabbed for the headboard and growled in a combination of pleasure and pain, and the anticipation that he wouldn’t be able to think of much else later in the day when he should’ve been concentrating on the ride ahead. The bed might have been too short for Kieran’s tastes, fairly standard by anyone else’s measurements, but he conceded that it was perfectly fine for what sparrow wanted to do. As the young man fucked him mercilessly, Kieran couldn’t think of anything besides making Robin happy, regardless of what it took.

They couldn’t shower together, because even though the hotel was western, the shower, like the bed, was not designed on the same scale as the enormous wet room Robin had installed within their house, and Kieran was forced to feel lonely and hurried as he scrubbed himself down, emerging into a room thick with sauna-like heat and steam, only to be greeted by Robin’s wet lips and inviting hips. Kieran felt suddenly refreshed, pinned his boyfriend against the sink and screwed him in a slow and torturous manner, making best use of his moniker of ‘entitled bastard’. Getting dressed and having to leave the hotel room after that was difficult.

“Alright superstar?” Brian was joining them for breakfast, already at a table laid with a variety of continental pastries, rice, slices of pickles and bite sized oriental morsels looking like edible art on the white tableware. Brian frowned at the way they walked towards him, hands in each other’s pockets and giggling happily. “Oh gods! What did I tell you?”

“What?” Kieran rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming.

Brian glared at them as they both sat, gingerly, and lowered his voice as a waitress passed by with a pot of green tea.

“No sex before the big race. Tension would be good for you.”

“That hasn’t stopped us before.”

“Jerk,” Robin slapped his bicep, “you are not supposed to tell people!”

“I didn’t need anyone to tell me. You two are sweet enough to make coffee with, jeez…” Brian sipped his drink, “speaking of which, the coffee here is rubbish. Yuichi said he’d get something decent for the pit at least.”

Kieran groaned.

“I hate coffee. Do I really have to have caffeine?”

“Sweetie, you’re not going to drink yours, remember?” Robin sighed and rubbed his arm, “Yuichi is fixing you and James with your own IV drips.”

“Stunning…” Kieran reached across the table and took a pastry; he wolfed it down, “I miss the dogs.”

“You know they’ll be having an awesome time with Zupan and Zander. Vuka loves Caesar,” Robin explained to Brian. “It’s like those two are weird long lost brothers or something. Zu promised to teach them some assistance-dog tricks for when we get back.”

“The design of your house must be frustrating as hell for Zupan.” Brian shook his head in despair.

It had been his only complaint on seeing the nearly completed house. Robin’s designs, while beautiful and softly organic, were not best suited for wheelchair users. Kieran and the kids loved the spiralled staircase and the accompanying high-hanging swing, but Brian couldn’t think of anything worse. There were two bedrooms with bathrooms on the ground floor though, so Zupan could pretty much ignore the upper half of the house unless Zander decided to tease him by sitting just out of reach.

“We should get going for the race track superstar. You’ve still gotta get a qualifying position and warm up the bike.

*

James Ellison had returned for the last three legs of the MCE insurance superbike championship and Kieran had never found someone with whom he got on with so well so quickly. He refused to admit to anyone except for Robin that he had been intimidated by the other rider. Ellison had an amazing record, was well-liked, and his injury had been a serious blow for the team, if a wonderful opportunity for Kieran. The first time they had gone round the track together, Ellison had stopped at the pit, taken off his helmet and then thrown one of his gauntlets at Kieran.

“Hey!”

“That was for holding back.”

“But I-”

“Don’t lie to me Tristan. You held back, I could taste it.” Kieran had stared at him, confused and slightly worried by what he was hearing. “I watched every race from the hospital, I’ve seen you ride, and I know how quick you are; how aggressive.” He put his helmet back on, “now give me back that glove and we’ll go again. This time we’ll go properly.”

Kieran had liked him from that moment on.

Ellison hadn’t scored enough points in his return to put him in the medal rankings, and Kieran scraped in overall at fourth, leaving the guys from Milwaukee Yahama teams and Tyco Suzuki to take the top two places, with Chris Walker in third. Mark Smith was pleased with them all, and he shook Kieran’s hand when they departed and told him he’d be in touch. Brian had grinned and thanked him, but all the way home from Brands Hatch, Kieran hadn’t been able to do more than listen to his heart hammering away under his ribs.

As soon as the season was over, Kieran had thrown himself back into the rest of his life, making up for the time he had missed. Callé and Rob had been delighted to see him, but Katy had squealed and Bailey had made him sit down to tell them all the stories of racing. It came as a bit of a shock to find they had watched him on television while he was hurtling around the track at well over a hundred miles an hour and thinking between heart beats.

Robin balanced his work on the house with his university work well, though he reported that his friends were curious and jealous about the house he was building and the man he was building it for. More than once Kieran played host at the site to curious students who came to look at Robin’s great work in progress. By Christmas, the house was taking on a definite shape, there were even rooms with walls and roofs, though the lines between these were not exactly clear, and the main hallway was structurally complete. As soon as the building had been water tight, Kieran had declared that they should move in.

“I dunno about you babe, but I am not roughing it on a building site.” Robin frowned at him across the muddy expanse which would one day be the path from the back door but was currently a mess from the boots of the workforce. “The dogs would hate it.”

“No they wouldn’t,” Kieran grinned at him.

“Fine, fine! I would hate it!” He exhaled softly, hands in his pockets, looking soft and adorable suddenly, even with the stub of a pencil behind his ear. “I don’t want us to sleep here until it’s done, all fresh and new like the best present in the world.”

Kieran grinned salaciously.

“I dunno, I think you’d look good with a little mud on you.” He stepped across the path and swiped his thumb over Robin’s cheek, leaving a chalky smear. “Sometimes it’s good to be a little dirty.”

“You’re insatiable.”

“I’m in love.” Kieran pushed his hands into Robin’s clothes, closing around his burgeoning erection.

“Oh,” Robin kissed him hard to hide his groan as Kieran began to shed him of his clothes, pushing them up against the rear wall of the house, “I suppose that’s OK then.”

They’d still been naked when the rain came down.

Damp and sated, they had arrived back at the house which was quickly becoming, in Kieran’s head at least, Shastan and Becca’s, planning on having a long lazy shower and probably having sex again, although much more quietly this time. Brian had been waiting for him.

“Hey.”

“You two went for a swim?”

“It’s raining,” Robin kissed him quickly and headed for the stairs, “don’t be long.”

“Brian? What’s up?” Kieran sat on a kitchen bar stool, where his clothes dripping with rain wouldn’t do too much damage. Brian didn’t answer him, and Kieran frowned. “Brian?”

“I had a conference call today with Douglas Ellison, James’s brother.”

“That’s his manager right?”

“Right,” Brian smiled tightly, “and we were talking to Yuichi Nakagawa. He is the manager of a Kawasaki factory racing set. He’s in the country for some party or other and he wants to meet with the two of you.”

“About?”

“About the Suzuka.”

Kieran laughed breathlessly, jumped off the stool and hugged Brian hard enough to upset the balance of his wheelchair. He grinned like a lunatic.

“Oh get off me you useless thing!” Brian fought to remove himself from the wet mess of Kieran’s hair, “I knew you’d be like this.”

“Brian, please tell me you’re not pulling some awful joke on me. The Suzuka eight-hour? I’ve wanted to race that since I was a kid…”

“No joke. You and Ellison would make a good team,” Brian shook his head, “look Kier, I know you want to, but I don’t think you should do this.”

“Why not?”

“Endurance racing? Four hours of an eight hour race? You’ve never spent that long in the saddle Kieran.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“I think you’re going to kill yourself unless you train really hard.” Brian grabbed Kieran’s shirt as he made to stand and looked at him head on, “you have to be disciplined. You have to stick to the plan and not pull stupid tricks whenever you want. Superstar, you ride like a maniac – quit smiling like that’s a good thing! I don’t know if you have the stamina to ride like that for so long.”

“Brian, please…”

“Six months to train,” Brian held his gaze as Kieran began to nod frantically, “and we’ll meet with Yuichi and James on Monday. Buckle up superstar.”

*

Suzuka was the sort of race track Kieran had spent his teenage years dreaming about. It was the most wonderful of circuits, lots of fun curves and good straights. A figure-eight detail made for as much left hand work as right hand, and that was always fun. A theme park had been built up around it which only added to Kieran’s enjoyment as they drove in. Robin had hired the mini-van, insisting on something practical that could take the three of them easily, and Kieran stared out of the window as they drove. His view of the blue sky was eclipsed by the stands. Soon, there would be eighty-five thousand race fans up there, all of them screaming for someone. Kieran hoped that some of them would scream for him.

James was just walking to the pit as they pulled up, and he stopped, waiting for Kieran to dash across the tarmac, glared at by the red-dressed marshal, for a quick fist bump and a grin.

“All set?”

“Fuck yes.”

“So I’m guessing you wanna finish?” Ellison grinned at him. In their first meeting with the Yuichi, Kieran had known he and Ellison could form a good team, and he had not been wrong. They had trained together, raced each other on their own bikes, and had fun with soft and comparatively slow parade loops of tracks they both liked. Since they had arrived at Suzuka, nearly four weeks ago, there hadn’t been a moment on track when one or other of them hadn’t been grinning like a small child.

“Kieran loves his big dramatic moments,” Robin slipped his arm around his boyfriend’s waist and pulled him back for a kiss, “you are not allowed to go sprinting off without saying goodbye.”

“I’m not gonna see you between sets?”

“Not a chance; I’m gonna go watch the race in comfort with all the other screaming lunatics. It’s Brian and Yuichi’s rule, sorry babe.”

For one heartbeat, Kieran thought about kicking off. Once upon a time, he would’ve; enraged not to get his own way he would have snarled and growled and made everyone else’s life miserable. Or he would have walked off, disregarded the rules and done whatever he wanted. But now he stood on the tarmac outside the pit and looked at Sparrow as the young man smiled. He was beautiful, radiant, his hair like spun gold in the early morning sunlight, and his eyes glowing softly as he smiled. Kieran took his jaw and Robin bounced up onto the balls of his feet for the kiss; he tasted like sugar.

“I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll see you after.” Robin’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial level. “Take it Kier. Don’t stop pushing. I know you can do it.”

Kieran watched him go with his heart banging about like mad in his chest, and then he followed Ellison and Brian to the pit.

The bike was so similar to his own Kawasaki, that sometimes Kieran almost couldn’t tell the difference. Yuichi Nakagawa on the other hand, was as different from any racing team manager as Kieran had ever met.

“Triiiistan! Jaaaames!” he waved to them overenthusiastically from behind the bike, “where have you been?” Yuichi was incredibly camp, for a man who was one hundred percent straight, and when he had learnt to speak English had decided swear words could be used as often as any other verb, adjective or noun. “We have not been fucking around awake since shitting-in-the-morning for you two. Come, come, get changed into your bloody leathers and fuck the bike.”

Kieran braided his hair and sat studying the on-board camera as Ellison took the bike out for a warm up and went out for his qualifying lap. He was the one who would start the race, but their combined time would dictate his position on the grid. It wasn’t however, seen as a race in which the start mattered very much, because it was the middle where riders lost their concentration and spun out. The fifth and sixth hours were the hardest. Kieran found himself leaning into the corners as he watched the screen, but in his head he was moving that little bit quicker, shaving hundredths of a second off Ellison’s time on each corner; by the time his teammate was nearing the pits again, Kieran was moving into the corner before the camera had even tilted. It wasn’t surprising: in the entire time they had been on the Suzuka track, Ellison had only posted one time better than Kieran.

They swapped over, and Kieran let his braid whip around behind him like a banner as he rode out for his qualifying lap. Because he was that much faster, the bike had been set up for him. Ellison wasn’t riding at his most comfortable position, not that he was short, but Kieran pulled himself low over the fuel tank and spun the bike around the turns like he was made for it.

Training had been a wonderful combination of hellish and blissful. The gym work which had become part of his routine during the MCE but had slacked off during the off-season was increased, because going for a run with the dogs just wasn’t enough anymore. Kieran started to do gym rotations with Zupan, matching the big guy as best he could in weight rotations before picking a cardio machine and sweating buckets. About a week into training, Zupan had introduced him to his friend Bay, and been astonished they all knew each other, if only by sight. Soon after that, Kieran and the dogs began to join Bay on his enormously long stamina building cross country runs.

He trained on his own Kawasaki, because Yuichi couldn’t ship the bike they would be using back and forth across the planet, and Ellison borrowed the bike he had used with Lloyds GB Moto. They rode for two hours, three hours, and four hours straight, stopping only for fuel and tyres, never getting off the bike. They tried for a six hour stretch, and standing astride their machines in the pit, both half-fainted within forty seconds of each other, caught and saved from injury by the mechanics on the ground. They had practiced for the Suzuka together, riding laps of Donington, Brands Hatch and the Assen TT in hour long shifts for a whole day, shaving seconds of their time with each run. By the time June had rolled around, they were ready, and Ellison, his brother, Kieran, Robin, and Brian had flown off to Japan.

Between the pair of them, they qualified eighth on the huge starting grid, and stood in their matching green and white leathers, shoulder to shoulder leaning across the bike with their names stitched down their thighs for press and sponsorship photos. Ellison muttered between shots about it being way more work to stand and grin than it was to ride, and Kieran laughed happily.

A certain number of fans with VIP passes were allowed to mingle with the drivers, bikes, and their pit crews on the starting grid, and so Kieran stood with the bike and signed autograph books galore, posed for photos with everyone from school girls to middle aged men in business suits and tried to be understanding with the fans who wanted to touch his hair and were overly curious about his height. Before they’d left, Robin had thrown a Japanese phrasebook at him, but Kieran hadn’t been able to make neither head nor tail of the language, and simply nodded his thanks and hoped that everyone spoke English. He was good with bikes and dogs, the language of machines and canines: everything else was a mystery to him.

Once the grid was clear, he and Ellison had ten seconds to themselves to exchange a final few words.

“You can do sixty percent of the allotted time and laps,” Ellison pulled on his helmet, “I’m gonna cut my last leg short.”

“James… you don’t have to.”

“And I’m a big enough man to admit you are faster than me,” Kieran’s teammate grabbed his shoulder, “Honda Endurance have won this thing for the last five years, and Kawasaki haven’t won it since nineteen-ninety-three.”

Kieran grinned, taking Ellison’s hand tight in his own. The texture of the stitched leather against his bare skin snagged in his brain: this was what it felt like to have teammates, people on the track who cared about him, relied on him, trusted in him, and wanted the best for him. Apart from their love of flying around fast corners, he and Ellison had nothing in common, but that didn’t mean Kieran cared any less about him. He took a deep breath. In an hour, they would meet again like this; James would throw himself off the bike’s left side as the mechanics held it. They would fuel the bike as quickly as blinking while Kieran got on. He would set his feet on the pedals, the mechanic holding the back would let go, and Kieran would fly from the pit lane and onto the track.

He knew the Suzuka circuit now as well as he knew the pathways of his home. He would lean in for the first and second corners, open out through the S’s and enter the bank curve without slowing down. By then he would be moving between heartbeats, dropping knee and shoulder to make the tight curves of Degner and the hairpin bend, keeping the bike in low gear before pounding along the West Straight. The stands would fly by in a blink. He would hear nothing of the crowd, just his own heart over the drone of the bike, pounding slow and steady. And between each beat, there would be Robin, his hazel eyes all glow with love, telling him to ride.

Kieran gripped Ellison’s hand hard.

“Let’s take it back.”

“That’s the spirit. Ride hard Tristan, there’s no point being here otherwise.”

Ellison flipped down his visor and moved to put his foot on the rest. Kieran turned back to him.

“Kieran.”

“Huh?”

Kieran smiled, a laugh rising in his throat.

“My family calls me Kieran.”