Give Me The Greatest Peace I've Ever Known - 5
Which is how Jean-Eric’s physio finds them, Jaime sat on Jean-Eric‘s lap with the Frenchman sat up against the headboard, keeping it fairly PG by gently running his fingers over Jaime’s bump, feeling the baby move around, but the pair are only making out, so Antti slams the door shut to break them apart, and sighs, points Jean-Eric at the bathroom and throws underwear after him, waving at Jaime who leans back against the headboard and rubs at his bump. “How’s the baby?” Antti asks, digging through Jean-Eric’s case for a clean t-shirt, throws it on to the end of the bed
“Awake and kicking.” Jaime winces as the baby rolls over and takes aim at his ribs
“How long till you have him?” He gets asks, and shrugs in reply.
“About eleven weeks, I think. It depends when Jean-Eric is not racing.” He explains, clambers out of bed himself and stretches out his back, both hands pressed to the small of his back and pushing out his bump
“Any names?”
“I still like Eric.” Jean-Eric grumbles, wandering out of the shower in just his boxers, hops into his jeans and pats Jaime’s bump as he sits down on the bed to put his socks on
“I don’t. On you yes, for him no.” Jaime says, pets Jean-Eric’s hair when he pouts and then leaves him to get changed and leave for the track while he gets ready himself, stealing a plain hoodie from his boyfriend to wear over his shirt and jeans, with the bonus that he gets to be surrounded by his scent all day
His bellybutton pops out the next day, much to everybody’s amusement when they find out, and quite out of the blue, Dan collars him in the paddock to tell him to take Daniel into serious consideration as a baby name, and to inform him that his son is going to get the best musical education ever. Jaime just sighs, pats his arm, and suggests that he shouldn’t take the baby to any of his favoured musician’s performances, citing fears for the child’s safety. Dan sighs, but agrees and wanders off. Jean-Eric spends the evening with yet more baby names, poking his bellybutton and generally being entertaining. They begin their debate about their child’s surname, which very rapidly becomes rather heated - both in the sense of the argument itself and their response to it, which it’s safe to say, wears them out sufficiently that poor Antti has to wake them up, rather than just interrupt and be a bit noisy
It’s Bahrain when they decide on their son’s name. Jean-Eric’s just the right side of awake, conscious enough to offer an opinion, laid with his head on Jaime’s lap and occasionally brushing kisses against the underside of it, stretch marks and all, while Jaime sits there, in just his boxers and rubbing moisturiser into the stretched skin. “What about Alexandre?” He asks, ruffles Jean-Eric’s hair with the hand not covered in nice smelling lotion
“Spelt the French way?”
“What? 'Re' instead of the English 'Er'?” Jean-Eric frowns, Jaime rubs gently at the lines across his forehead when he does
“I quite like it.” He decides eventually, yawns and nudges another kiss to the spot where his hand just felt the baby kick. “I think that we should put your surname first.”
“Even though mine should go second.” Jaime laughs, but nods. “Yes. It sounds better. Do you mind?”
“No.” Jean-Eric muses. “You are the one who has to be uncomfortable with our son. You should have his surname.” Jaime blushes.
“It is uncomfortable. But I will not mind, I think, when I meet him.”
“I can’t wait.” Jean-Eric admits, trails fingers up the side of the bump. “I think he will look like you. And also, we need to buy things for him.”
“And he needs a middle name."
“I did like Hugo, as a middle name."
“Alexandre Hugo Alguersuari Vergne.” Jaime reels off, likes the flow of the words. “I really like that.” Jean-Eric hums an agreement, repeats the words against his bump and giggles as the baby wriggles around for a bit. “I think that he likes it too, huh?”
“Good.” Jean-Eric grins, groans but drags himself out of bed and lets Antti in when he hears the key card click, the trainer passing over a couple of nursery catalogues.
“Present from some of the boys. Seen as you haven’t done anything yet.”
“No.” Jaime confirms, flicks through them. “Thank you.” He blinks away a stray tear (though he’s definitely not as emotional as he was when he was in the earlier stages of his pregnancy), and settles back in the pillows, wraps the duvet around himself and sorts through Twitter while he waits for the shower to be free. As usual, they separate for the day with a kiss at the bathroom door - Jean-Eric needing to be at the circuit far earlier than him, and so heading down to breakfast and straight to the track afterwards, while Jaime potters around for a while after his shower before following him there, grabbing breakfast at one of the hospitality units and catches up with his colleagues, and as usual, getting a good laugh in at something that’s happening - generally, it’s Jake and his ironing, or Eddie attempting to chose shirts, the BBC are pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, the race results aren’t as entertaining - and they troop back to the UK in near silence, Jean-Eric because he’s quite frankly a bit miffed about his race, and Jaime because he falls asleep on Jean-Eric about two minutes into the flight - and doesn’t wake until they’re preparing to land
Still, they get a couple of nights together, between the debriefs Jean-Eric has to attend, and then the work he has to do on the simulator, but they find time to properly go baby shopping in Milton Keynes and London, stunned by how much it turns out they’re supposed to buy - Jean-Eric’s mum helpfully emails them a list of essentials, which they follow to the letter. They have another doctor’s appointment, and between them and the doctor, Jaime ends up sorting out his C-Section date, because while it’s last resort for pregnant women, there’s simply too few pregnant men for enough knowledge about natural birth for it to be considered safe, and there’s other, more practical and hygiene issues surrounding it. So a c-section it is to be, the Tuesday after Valencia. Jaime informs his sister, and the BBC. His parents don’t bother to ask about him, and he doesn’t dare reach out to them for fear of completely breaking down. Listening to Jean-Eric’s mum get pretty excited on the phone when Jean-Eric phones her to tell her of the due date, and puts her on speaker, that makes up for it, just. Having this little family which wants him to be a part of this, and creating something entirely them, entirely new and entirely wonderful.
After the excitement of shopping, they then have to decorate. Jaime goes out late one night when he can’t sleep and buys paint in a pretty, relaxing shade of yellow which the internet tells him is safe to use to decorate even when pregnant. He doesn’t actually decorate - he makes Jean-Eric paint while he sits in one of his kitchen chairs in the middle of the room with ice-cream and cake (he’s probably spent too much time around Jenson by way of working for the BBC) and supervises. Supervising being a code word for bossing his boyfriend around while admiring him not so secretly. They work on the flat-pack furniture in their pyjamas, Jaime snuggled into a massive t-shirt Jean-Eric had persuaded the merchandising department to hand over - to say it’s the biggest size they could find, it only just about fits around his bump. “Why are these instructions so hard?” Jean-Eric asks, holds them upside down and with his head at an angle as if this will make more understandable. Jaime sighs, heaves himself to his feet from the floor using the sofa and waddles off towards the bathroom. Alexandre is head butting his bladder, and so he can only really go about half an hour between each trip. When he returns, Jean-Eric has taken to playing Jenga with the pieces - which, while amusing for a while, is doing nothing towards their goal of getting this task finished before they go to sleep. They give it up as a bad job, and Jaime calls in reinforcements the next morning. Mark Webber, who he’d known vaguely for a while as part of the Red Bull family but got to know a little better after he was sacked, proves far better than both of them at assembling IKEA furniture, and is content to be paid in food, as well as happy to help them get it into Alexandre’s room. Jaime decides to rent out his Barcelona flat - a little extra income probably couldn’t go amiss, and Milton Keynes makes a little more sense
The race being in Barcelona means they don’t even have to pack a suitcase, after they’ve unpacked back into Jaime’s flat. They commute daily to the track, Jaime driving because Jean-Eric does not drive well while being instructed, which they know because they’ve done it before and it only leads to arguments. This drive is quieter - though Jean-Eric still thinks Jaime doesn’t know his own city. Jaime merely turns the radio up and grins to himself as Alexandre wriggles around, pretty much in time to the beat. Jean-Eric looks amazed when he informs him of this, just before they separate, crouches down to kiss the bump goodbye and goes off with a smile on his face. Jaime does too, makes it last all day and gets mocked by James for being ‘lovesick’. (Over at the Toro Rosso garage, Dan is doing exactly the same thing to Jean-Eric.) They sojourn every night to Jaime’s flat, and shuffle through the weekend in their usual fashion
Monaco means one thing for Jaime - a chance to see Jean-Eric dressed up. He takes his place on the front row with glee, one hand now as usual resting on top of his bump, dressed up in jeans and a smart shirt, grins as Jean-Eric smirks at him on his way past - the Frenchman’s not stupid, he knows that Jaime very much likes him in a suit, Jaime’s hardly ever hidden this fact. The same goes in reverse of course, but Jaime can’t really pull off a suit in the same way heavily pregnant. Hence why he isn’t wearing one. Not that Jean-Eric seems to mind when he’s peeling Jaime’s shirt off him later, in the privacy of their hotel room