the dovquez agenda will keep you warm

[dovquezdecember]

Welcome to Dovquez December, where a group of writers, artists, gif makers, race watchers, and dovquez adorers have gathered for the month to spread the dovquez agenda.

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original author will be tagged as user:[username]

🌶️ <- extremely subjective nsfw tag (I'll do my best)

FULL LIBRARY

dividers by saradika-graphics

[dovquezdecember]

dovquez december library

much applause is due to the many makers who created incredible dovquez works in December and for the even greater number of people who commented, reblogged and, especially, daydreamed about dovquez

fics

here and now, unhaunted by @le-chevalier-au-lion

in the kitchen by @lestelledreams

Lights by @strawbunni-shortcake

chained and shackled, i'll unravel by @lestelledreams

I wonder what it is like to be so beautiful by @lastlatebraker

touching foreheads by @lestelledreams

after the 1 Down Magazine interview by @lastlatebraker

cuddling while it snows by @lestelledreams

In your orbit by @twiceeshy

the maid of amsterdam by @le-chevalier-au-lion

you better work, bitch by @lastlatebraker

nearly, nearly, nearly by @le-chevalier-au-lion

less than forever by @twiceeshy

miss doris thalassia waters by @le-chevalier-au-lion

& visuals

Austria 2017: a dovquez classic by @kingofthering

Motegi 2017: inclement weather by @kingofthering

Austria 2019: in a car by @kingofthering

hands by @kingofthering

andrea dovizioso + losing years of his life to his battles with marc marquez by @kingofthering

Le Mans 2013: first by @kingofthering

Thailand 2018: overseas by @kingofthering

stuck together by @burirammin

mis // match by @lastlatebraker

1 Down Magazine by @lastlatebraker

brooklyn baby by @le-chevalier-au-lion

[burirammin]

@dovquezdecember ‘stuck together’

Totally didn’t take this as an excuse to draw them cuddling and smooching at all as you can see 👀

+ a bit of ‘wings’

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

miss doris thalassia waters: dovquez [e]

@dovquezdecember + at the edge of the abyss

Marc’s eyes are black as pitch—glossy, pearlescent, edge of the abyss. An appropriate metaphor, considering that Andrea is doing, generally, something very stupid by being there.

He breathes out, the water of Marc’s new pool icy all the way to his knees. Tomorrow, they’ll have Marc’s first open sea swim in God knows how many years—Valentino doesn’t want to talk about it and Marc hasn’t grasped the Gregorian calendar yet so he can’t tell.

Tomorrow, Marc will either stay like Andrea asked, because it’s better for him, because he isn’t strong enough to swim back to Spain yet, but soon, soon, or he won’t.

“Dovi,” he says clumsily, in his lure voice, mimicry gone from foreign language to comfortable, almost natural. “Dovi.”

Andrea catches a blur of white and orange. He freezes, flinches, blood drumming wetly in his temples, on his throat. But Marc’s tail stays there, brushing against his legs—coarse scales on fine, animal fur. It doesn’t wrap, doesn’t tug. Andrea lets out a funny noise, taut.

He can feel his pulse on the tips of his fingers.

“Are you excited?” He asks—fills the silence. His voice sounds strained.

Marc mouths along the words, stares at him unblinkingly. It can be difficult, trying to talk with him. Easier to shoot every question he can come up with, make them yes or no, than watch Marc get frustrated with himself, with language, with humans. He gets impatient fast, having to untangle what he feels.

Andrea is fishing for a new word, another question—

“Yes.” Marc nods, exaggerated, an even clumsier mimicry. Andrea shouldn’t—he absolutely shouldn’t—but he laughs, and he forgets to be afraid for half a heartbeat, this golden giddiness bubbling in his chest.

“Yeah. Me too.”

And it’s the mindfuck of Andrea’s life, same as it was a couple months ago when they met—that he gets to watch the human jolt of Marc’s expression. His twitching eyebrows, the hunch in his shoulders. He’s never gotten around discovering what it means—what he’s thinking when Andrea says home and I’ll help you and you won’t have to stay.

Sometimes—

Andrea stops dead on his tracks. For a marine biologist, he’s always been practical. Prides himself on little, but certainly that.

Marc blinks, finally. Extends his clawed hand to him. The tail petting his legs halts.

I’m going to get killed. He’s had that exact same thought every day since the carabinieri called him—sure, it was the CUFAA; he got fucking spooked anyway—and said they had a problem. Since he looked at Marc in a shitty, cramped tank and got drenched for his troubles of being civil. It rattles in his head, the stuff on Marc’s file, the stuff that he put on Marc’s file.

Mesocarnivore Hypercarnivore with a cultural preference for human flesh glares at him in stark black letters. Ambush hunter. Strict do not approach warnings through all of Spain, and twice as many since he tried to kill every single one of his handlers in Italy.

Andrea shrugs off his shirts, shimmies out of his rolled-up jeans, the cuffs damp. When he grabs Marc’s hand, the claws wrap gently around his wrist’s fragile skin. He gets a final lungful before he’s pushed down.

It’s dark, really dark, only flashes of Marc’s bright tail—the whole fucking nine-or-so feet of it—in the corners of his vision, tightening around them both, bracketing him in. The animal part of Andrea’s brain, the one that knows that it shouldn’t be underwater, is certain that he’s going to die here and now if he doesn’t break loose.

He makes himself stay in place. Even—especially—when Marc crowds against him, right there, his abyss black eyes and the wild flop of dark curls all he can see.

Then—the teeth.

Andrea hisses, precious air spilling from him. Except Marc doesn’t bite or tear him apart limb by limb. He’s smiling, Andrea realizes, with a crooning, self-satisfied relief that almost pulls a manic laugh of his dry, constricting throat. It’s smaller and more careful than what he does when he’s trying to scare people, remind them that animals show teeth for a reason.

His teeth are still very white and very sharp, of course.

Whiter and sharper the closer he gets. They’d be breathing the same air if Andrea were breathing, Marc’s nose brushing against his own, the knife-sharpness of his claws pressed against the tenderness of his nape. One slip, accident or not—

Marc is smiling.

Marc is kissing him.

Andrea stamps on the urge to make a noise, keening and thin—can’t waste the oxygen it’d take. His entire body prickles. Might be fear, might be a fishhook of sheer, red-hot want pulling on his guts. His head is spinning, feels light already.

It’s chaste—cautious, no tongue, Marc’s mouth oddly soft and docile against his own. Andrea’s chest aches, a slow-building twinge, but less than knowing he doesn’t get to keep this. Tomorrow, Marc—reckless, kept in place for too long, so fucking reckless—will probably swim off, and Andrea will understand why sailors go mad for a sea they can’t have in that many stories.

They kiss once, twice, thrice. Marc’s tail has pulled his legs together, rough-edged, unyielding like a steel band. His claws hold his jaw in place, and he’s an earnest, cruel, beautiful thing—pulling Andrea in again and again and again. He laughs, and the sound carries perfectly. Loud, honking, shameless. Mundane and ugly, rather than his usual silversweet voice.

The hurt in his chest grows teeth, bites deep. It’s a razor-edged pressure that goes nowhere, builds and builds and builds. Becomes his entire self.

Andrea tries to swim up. Marc doesn’t move an inch, lures him in for another kiss. Hungry, with the threat of teeth on his bottom lip. He can’t tell the darkness of the water from the dark spots glaring in his vision, Marc’s face smudged to a tanned blur. His eyes sting with salt.

When he insists on it, though, Marc takes them both to the surface. Faster than he could’ve done, in a single stroke.

It keeps hurting, even when he sucks in air greedily, one time, ten, more. The pain dulls like it came in—lazy waves. Marc watches him through his flailing, the artful boredom that he yielded against people shattered in the wicked gleam of his grin. Through the pound of blood in Andrea’s ears, in his half breathless delirium, he thinks pretty and doesn’t regret it.

“Dovi,” he giggles.

DoviDoviDovi, like his name is precious, a pearl.

Andrea chuckles, then can’t stop laughing. He feels scraped raw, golden, invincible, pissed off. It’s tangled, knotted in his throat. He keeps realizing those things that don’t add up. One, that Marc’s pool is deep—has to be, he’s a big, bad apex predator, needs his space, and Andrea hadn’t cared about that when he got in. Two, he isn’t swimming, not anymore, and it’s Marc keeping him above water.

Three, he’s hard, filling up against the heavy, scratchy fabric of his wet underwear.

Which—it’s funny. He laughs a lot more, until he stops. Embarrassment coils around his insides, because he shouldn’t. You don’t get hard over something that is a protected species in over 150 countries. Or—and it’s not any better, it just sounds less like Andrea is getting freaky with the aquarium sharks—you don’t get hard over someone you have total control over.

Marc is staring at him, dead-eyed, intense.

“Dovi.” He’d told Marc he didn’t need to use his name that often. He likes saying it, apparently. Andrea’s cock twitches. “I am very nice.”

He scoffs. There’s a smile twisting his lips, which is unfortunate, but he still scoffs.

“No, you aren’t.”

Marc beams at him, crashes them together. Andrea is balanced on the edge of his tail, on his silky soft fins. He flails once, manages to right himself. His raised eyebrows are pointed, serious.

“I am,” he insists, “I do not drown you.”

Andrea is halfway to really? when it crashes over him, a new, clammy wave of fear—this is Marc being uncharacteristically nice. Gentle. Hypercarnivore with a cultural preference for human flesh echoes, gunshot loud in his thoughts.

He chokes on a short cry. His legs fall open, a little, and Marc wedges himself between them. Plasters them together torso to torso. He’s hot—Andrea knows that, always knew. The sudden, actual heat makes him jolt into Marc anyway. Drags his clothed cock against the fine, soft scales of his waist, and it’s not even good, but—Christ.

“Can still eat me,” he pants. It sounds stupid, awkward.

“No, not that either.”

Andrea isn’t sure if Marc knows what being hard means—he can go without digging into the odd stretch of years he spent with Valentino, then trying his best to kill Valentino. There’s this intensity to him, though. Acute, pitiless when he fidgets against him, watching Andrea’s mouth open and close dizzily.

Also, at some point, being scared should kick in—should stop making him feel hot, and sweaty, and starved. It doesn’t.

God, alright.

This is happening. In real time. To him.

“I am nice to you.” After a beat, with Andrea shaking like he has water in his ears: “Now.”

He waits, strange, focused—the unflinching gaze of the flesh-eating monster that Andrea for some fucking reason vowed to help. Only dives under when he nods.

There are claws running along his sides, nowhere near as mean as they could be. The pain comes in flash—settles below his skin, warm, good, actually. Unfortunate for his sanity. Andrea shudders, blooms with goosebumps, freezes from the waist up. Marc flattens his palms against his stomach, his arms, everywhere he can reach to feel the raised hair, the layer of clammy sweat.

Andrea is wrong in the head, fear of death tangled with the fear of Marc stopping—his wires crossed somewhere low in his stomach, in his cock. He closes his mouth with a click of teeth, harsh, or he’ll start drooling.

He catches the glint of Marc’s eyes when he looks up—having a little too much fun with this. With him.

Marc takes his claws off his body. There’s a groan building in his throat, impatient, frustrated—it peters off to a disbelieving, dry scoff when he catches torn pieces of fabric floating in the water.

Andrea can’t tell what expression he’s making, has to reach down to feel it by hand. Marc’s eyebrows waggle over-dramatically under his touch, a face that’s no less ridiculous just because he can’t see it.

“You think you are funny,” he deadpans.

 “Yep,” Marc pops the p obnoxiously—Andrea hears it crystal-clear.

Maybe it’s in his head. Maybe it’s not. The one time Marc tried to explain the finer points of mermaid luring to him, he’d ended up pinned to the floor by a couple of interns—had been trying to drown himself, and Marc went flat against the corner of his tank, wild-eyed, snarling. Andrea knew with the certainty of a miracle he’d been a bit scared under that bristle.

By hand again he watches the serious, flat line of Marc’s lips, the frown on his forehead. He’s scheming—could be as harmless as getting his research notes wet, as gory as tearing his femoral artery open. Andrea has sweat on his hairline, his back, his chest.

He tugs on Marc’s insistently until he comes up, scowling.

“You have to be careful with me.”

Marc tilts his head to the side—like he doesn’t understand. He does. Has to. Andrea can’t describe vulnerability and fragility to a creature who has neither with his cock pulsing heavily between his legs, the urgency of dangerdangerdanger making him shake.

So he taps two fingers against the corner of Marc’s worrisome, deceptive lips. He opens sweetly, on command, and Andrea needs to breathe—needs to not linger on that. Stares at the ceiling above to calm down, the white lights burning bright outlines into his retina.

He traces the sharpness of Marc’s front teeth, the canines. He keeps the pressure light—skimming, really. The skin breaks anyway, floods Marc’s mouth with a trickle of his blood. The moment it happens skews revelatory. Marc makes this noise, inhuman, melodic. Doesn’t bother with the pretense of speech.

His hand clutches at Andrea’s wrist, keeps it in place.

“Careful,” he gasps—reminding, pleading, no difference.

Marc nods once, lets his fingers slip out. His scowl softened, but his jaw is locked in place under the pad of his thumb. Tense. Calculating. He dives again with a croon that he guesses is meant to sound comforting.

Andrea wonders—idly—if he should start praying.

And chokes on the spit overflowing inside his mouth.

It’s rougher than a human tongue. Hot—he keeps expecting for Marc to be cold for some reason, and the shock of his warmth keeps socking him on the jaw, has Andrea reeling. Rounded tip. Funny way to discover that the warnings of him having a devil’s tricks are bitter, make-believe stories.

Andrea can’t swallow a high-pitched moan.

Or how it dissolves into a whine, a flinch. It’s—freaky. Too long. Way too long. And it’s wrapping around the head of his cock, all of it, then another inch or two. Andrea keeps catching those flashes, dusky-pink. Has to stop looking, or—or—

“Uhg.” The noise is punched out of him. Eloquent as always.

He wants—absurdly—to laugh. Can’t make his body quit spasming long enough for that.

Marc starts moving his head, petting Andrea’s length. It’s slow, awkward—the pump of a fist on an odd angle. Except it’s his tongue. His fucked up, too long, animal tongue.

There are noises. Shrill, strangled—suspiciously close to evisceration instead of bliss. Andrea realizes they’re coming from him but can’t wrangle his body back into his control. His ears ring. He clings to Marc’s tail, buries his nails on the knobs of stiff scales. Solid, harsh, more real than whatever the fuck is happening to him.

He shouldn’t be hard, is the thing. The water hasn’t warmed up one bit, and Marc’s tongue is—too much, coarse like sandpaper. More pain than pleasure. But Andrea is, of course he is. Can feel his pulse on his cock. Drool drips down his chin.

Marc strokes him. It’s sluggish, unhurried—Andrea trembles to not move, thighs shaking where they’re bracketing the creature between them.

He stays there, on the head, again-again-again with short jerks of his head, scraping his tongue on the vein running on the underside of his cock until Andrea could swear that every single one of his nerve endings are there, being scraped raw.

“Marc,” he hisses. His feet twitch uselessly, kick tiny waves.

Marc hums—must be that. The vibrations have him jittery like an addict, moaning. Andrea’s arms quiver to keep him still and upright. An urgent, wordless sound froths in his mouth, but Marc’s tail surges, more of it, pressed against the small of his back and around it, keeping him straight.

In place. Pinned. If they go under—

They don’t. There’s only Marc, everywhere. Andrea goes boneless against him, needs to be held. His hands scramble hopelessly against the blur of white and orange around him, settle.

Andre lets himself sink into all of that. It’s too much, a legit out of body experience, and it hurts—the kind of pain that dulls him, halfway to meditation. His punch-drunk desperation narrows the whole world to the wet, rough, hot drag of Marc’s tongue, mean on his tip until he starts rocking into it, those tortured, helpless twitches of his hips. He becomes lax against the feeling.

Time grows liquid around him. Meaningless.

It’s—fucking intense.

He shoulders his way closer, spreads Andrea’s thighs he can fit right between them, plastered against his front, the coil on hair on his groin. And his claws—

Andrea jolts, snaps back into his head with a full-body spasm. Marc’s claws are there, right fucking there, on his balls, playing with them. He freezes, strains to not move again. When he looks, a pathetic huff knocked out of him, he meets the pitiless glint of Marc’s eyes spearing him through.

Marc keeps toying with him. Rolls his balls together, curious, and runs the tip of his black claws over the paper-thin skin there. His other hand digs into Andrea’s knee—stops him from closing his legs. He chokes on a whimper, reedy, warbled, the pounding of blood in his ears closer to hammer blows.

“Wait,” he says—tries to. “Wait, wait, wait, wait.”

There’s no waiting. Marc—apex predator, cruel to his bones—smells weakness, an opening for his ambush. He tightens his tongue right around the tip, oversensitive, sore, and pain hits him like a knife to the guts. Andrea’s vision sparks white, ears ringing, chokes on a moan that tastes an awful lot please and brine.

It's the worst orgasm of his life. The best. Agony and bliss wiping his thoughts away.

Marc put him on the edge of his pool, Andrea finds out, once the adrenaline dwindles to a dull thrum. His feet are inside, swaying to the current of his swishing tail.

He swallows. Has to do it again. His limbs are stiff, uncooperative—leaden weights, more than he can handle. Like this, Andrea isn’t sure if he’s in pain anymore. His nerves might as well be in overdrive, overheating. Sensations come back to him one by one with a delay, in the quiet of the aquarium after dark.

“You’re the worst,” he says without bite. Can’t muster any.

Marc chuckles—it takes Andrea a while to hit him on the side with a trembling leg for that smugness. It’s a weak blow, though. Only makes Marc chuckle a little more—braying, brazen.

“Dovi,” he sing-songs, the syllables familiar in their oddness.

Tomorrow, but it barely aches.

[twiceeshy]

less than forever

Written for @dovquezdecember bingo

Prompt: feather

Read on ao3 to see more tags.

E, dovquez, 6360 words.

Summary:

It was not permissible for a guardian angel to develop an attachment. Dovi did. Unfortunately, this seemed to be contagious.

Dovi looked proudly at his and Marc's pipe of pearls, spanning from floor to ceiling, filled to the brim. One pearl for every good deed they did that year, all white because they had been pure of heart and clear of mind. Their partnership had exceeded all others. In fact, the ceiling had to be raised for them. This mattered more than the recognition they would receive at the gala.

They were the crowning glory of their kind, top scorers as they had been for many a season running. Dovi and Marc, what a pair. Usually, when the time came for partner reassignments, they would both shake their heads and face no argument.

"Let's do this forever," Marc said every year, as it was all he had ever known. The moment he graduated from apprenticeship (with top marks and record speed, the little prodigy), he latched on to Dovi as though Dovi owed it to him. Dovi had been pretty happy to let it happen.

Forever had its appeal. Dovi couldn't imagine anything that would make them change.

--

Marc had nice wings, Dovi thought, when they were flying home after an assignment. It was a strange realisation to have because guardian angels usually faced everything without attachment, but he supposed it was a harmless enough observation. Marc could fly faster and further than everyone, and never seemed to run out of energy to do so. Dovi could sometimes keep up with him, and could at other times come up with sneaky ways to slow him down because he knew him so well.

That was about the utility of his wings, which were never in doubt. But they were nice to look at as well - small and strong, pure and soft as driven snow. He had friendly wings. That was probably only Dovi's impression because he found Marc so familiar.

Marc groomed them well. He kept them well-oiled and shiny, and rearranged anything stray when they returned from long days out. Dovi suddenly had the unnatural compulsion to touch his feathers, and that gave him pause. It was a dangerous thought. He did not dare linger on it.

Then he did not have time to ponder further, as Marc turned around with a smile and urged him to hurry. They had a new pearl each to deposit into their pipes, and Marc wanted a cool refreshment for a mission well done. He flew backwards with casual ease as he spoke to Dovi, wing tips miraculously missing everyone else in his way by millimetres.

Ah but that was to be expected. Marc was a miracle - guardian angels were all about miracles, and he was one of the most accomplished angel of all.

When they went to bed later that night in the room they shared with hundreds of other angels, Dovi laid awake with a strange nervousness. In all his aeons of existence, he had never experienced a restless night.

Marc slept obliviously in his poster bed on Dovi's right. He laid on his side facing Dovi, and the seamless white satin of his nightgown draped loose around his limbs, with the hem hiking over a bent knee and the neckline falling below his clavicle. Dovi watched him until he too surrendered to sleep.

--

Dovi was awakened with a sudden shake. He was greeted with a face full of Marc, with concern knotting his brow. Immediately, this was a reason to be worried, because Marc was so in love with being a guardian angel that he had never been stressed about starting a day before. He was still in his nightgown, rather than the white shirt and pants they wore when doing work, and his face was pale.

"What's it? Is there an emergency?" Dovi asked, pushing himself into a sitting position.

"Dovi..." Marc started, then trailed off. He touched his hand to the tip of Dovi's wing. The contact sent a shiver down Dovi's phalanx. Marc worried his lip with his teeth, as he gently bent a feather forward for Dovi to look. "It's red," he said plaintively.

A heartbeat passed. Dovi heard, but he couldn't believe it. He craned his head, and-

Oh.

Sure enough, a single red feather was nestled in the furthest tip of his wing. Crimson, bright, and glaring amidst innocuous tawny and cream.

The thing was, he didn't have to question why it was there. He just hadn't realised that it was so easy to invite one to show up. His realisation of the day before was not much of a pivot from his regular feelings.

He didn't know if he could do a back turn. Red was the colour of earthly attachments. It was not permissible to develop attachments or biases as angels, and he wasn't allowed to perform his duties when he had any at all. The only thing worse was a black feather of the fallen.

Dovi knew exactly who he was attached to, and how, and why, and when. Marc smiling brightly, moving too fast, flying backwards to keep looking at him. Even now that he knew it was trapping him, it was difficult to feel anything but warmth at the memory.

Marc touched the red feather, then pulled his hand away as though he had been zapped. "Why?" he asked, confused. Dovi had always been so steady, so calm. He had a spotless record. Even Marc had inched close to dark grey once because of how greedy and competitive he naturally was. They had taken time off together to recalibrate his mindset until the feathers fell off.

Angels couldn't lie. "It's you," Dovi admitted.

Marc cringed. His lower lip wobbled. He had never looked so unhappy in his existence. "I don't want it. Can you change it back?" he asked.

"I will try," Dovi said unsurely. He didn't want to be compromised either. He simply wasn't sure he had any choice in the matter.

"You can," Marc said with a determined look. "I'll go finish our assignments today since you can't, then we can go together tomorrow. Just don't think about me."

He really was not helping, because Dovi was charmed by this speech. However, he did not want to fail before he tried.

He kept his hands to himself instead of stroking his fingers down the soft white feathers that were within reach of his hands. "I'll do my best," he promised.

--

Dovi spent the day helping to organise the archives. He tried not to think about anything at all.

At the end of the day, Marc returned late with three pearls, and his forehead creased with exhaustion. He gave Dovi a cold shoulder, presumably for Dovi's own benefit, and tipped into bed in silence until the lights were dimmed for the night.

He did not sleep easily, and neither did Dovi. Marc's blanket rustled as he tossed and turned for what felt like an eternity, until he finally fell asleep in his usual position, curled up on his left, legs bent at the knee. Dovi watched him again. He wondered what Marc would look like from the other side or from below, where the hem of his nightgown barely skimmed the crease of his thigh. It was a terribly human curiosity. Unfortunately, he knew that the red feather would cling on for another day.

--

The next morning, Dovi was shaken awake again. He was confronted with Marc once more, except he looked more sad than panicked this time. His lip was downturned, and his cute wings drooped behind his back. It made Dovi's heart ache inappropriately. Being sad because someone else was sad was undoubtedly a sign of attachment.

"Hello Marc. I still have it, don't I?" Dovi asked gently.

Marc nodded mutely. He chewed on his lip. Dovi wanted to touch him so he would stop.

"Not just you," Marc said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. He turned around self-consciously, as though he was worried that the other angels would be watching. But they were supposed not to care about things like this - trivialities and gossip.

Marc unfurled his right wing. And there, hidden against his back, were not one but three red covert feathers, warm and scarlet, vivid as blood. The moment stretched on, even though Marc quickly folded his wing back. Dovi could still see red seared into his eyes after they were hidden.

His heart broke. Dovi never wanted to be the reason that Marc couldn't do what he loved anymore. For the first time since his grey feathered days, Marc would be missing out on duty.

The responsibility of this weighed heavily on Dovi's shoulders.

He wanted to reassure Marc that he would return to normal, but he kept his hands and his soothing words to himself. "I think we need help," he stated.

Marc exhaled deeply. "Yeah," he agreed.

--

They changed into their day clothes and let a sombre silence befall them. They knew they wouldn't receive any assignments, but habit dictated that they checked just in case. The crestfallen look on Marc's face gave Dovi a kick to try harder to recover from all this. They wanted forever, didn't they?

Marc made the earliest possible appointment with a mediator to help them mend their relationship. He was in a rush to return to duty, and understandably so. Even though it was a necessary step, Dovi felt immense trepidation at the prospect of revealing his troubles.

In all of Dovi's time as an angel, he had never stepped into the mediation tower. He needed neither support nor discipline. Whatever difficulties they encountered, he and Marc could typically support each other through them. But this time was different.

The tower was nearly as stunning as the ballroom they celebrated their accomplishments in every year. It was constructed of the cleanest white marble, with airy fabrics draped around the turret and whimsical music tinkling in the background. Every colour of the rainbow glowed off the walls, diffused from the light that entered through diamond-shaped windows. Pearls fell from chandeliers, beneath glistening crystals. All the best aspects of their home featured in concentrated form, perhaps to remind them of why they needed to do their best to remain there.

The mediator assigned to them was a particularly pretty angel, who was quick-minded and light in voice. Her wings were nearly as shiny as Marc's.

She listened to their pains with calm patience. Her proposed solution to break their attachment was simple, and she made all the necessary arrangements on their behalf. All they had to do was return to their apprenticeship vocations temporarily and live far away from each other. To prevent their affections from spreading to other angels, she prescribed them individual suites to relax and reflect in.

Marc took the recovery plan seriously, and stayed for a longer time to work out a schedule with the mediator. Dovi left him even though he did not want to, knowing that they would not meet for several moons.

He hoped this intervention would work, because he was not confident.

--

As an apprentice, Dovi had been assigned to care for baby angels, who logically were less delicate than baby humans were. It was a reasonable path of training for those who had ambitions of giving counsel to child humans.

Dovi had been drawn to caretaker guardianship from the time he was knee-high, rather than more heroic work. He left heroism to angels who were more suited - bigger and faster angels who could swoop in and save humans from accidents and violence. He knew that his own strengths were in calm and patience.

And that was how he met Marc.

When Dovi was still a rookie apprentice himself, he had been among the few who were hurried down to harvest Marc from birth. It was still a unique birth in Dovi's memory. There had been nothing close ever since.

Marc was hatched from an egg in the middle of a sunflower, washed in rays of pink and red from the light of a rising sun. He was found in in a valley where mountains met the river, and a fresh breeze swirled. He was alarmingly tiny, but heavens did he glow. His wings were the purest of white, dyed pink by the sun.

His first sound was a laugh. The light tinkling of bells, and the loud chase of mischief. He rubbed an eye with his fist. Other apprentices regarded him nervously, because he was bound to be a handful, and if you picked up an angel you needed to be responsible for it.

Dovi scooped him up, shook his wings dry of morning dew, and had been stuck with him ever since. Perhaps that was the day that Dovi had been doomed to be red-winged.

Now, Dovi was much too old to fit in with the other apprentices. He found himself surrounded by angels who looked like children themselves, and wondered how he had been allowed to be responsible for an entire other being when he was their age. Some were not even as tall as his hip, and Dovi was small in size.

He did the best to guide them when they asked, and allowed them to do their work without interfering too much. If he couldn't help humans, at least he could be of use here, even though every sunrise harvest caused him to think of Marc, and the red in his wings spread more than he would have liked. He was not sure his advice would be the most valuable at this moment, but he still tried. He focused on work instead of his memories, as he knew that he would be banished to a human existence if there came a day where red took over completely. Yet, he couldn't control himself.

When he retired to his quiet suite at the end of every day, he had nothing to do except amuse himself with his own company. He took special care to groom his wings, like he used to alongside Marc. He arranged every feather neatly and kept them moisturised, whether they were red or brown. Uniform crimson formed the entire top row of his wings now. They were rather beautiful.

The reds never fell from neglect. Now that Dovi knew he had developed attachment, he could not lie to himself. Angels could not lie. He had seen countless numbers of humans deal with attachments, and realised more and more that he wanted the best parts of what they had. He wanted to touch Marc and kiss him and make love to him, and everything more that his affliction suggested.

He hoped that Marc was making better progress at banishing the reds. He had always been able to do anything he set his mind to.

--

Dovi returned to a letter on his bed one day. He opened the envelope anxiously. He didn't know who would care to write to him at the moment. The only people he could think of were the mediators, in which case he would he in trouble for his regression.

The actual situation was simultaneously better and worse.

The letter was short:

Hello Andrea, I hope you are well. I am not doing a good job. Can we meet?

Instead of a sign off, a little white feather was included in the envelope. Friendly, familiar, soft. Dovi cradled it preciously in his hands and held it to his lips. Mischievous laughter and tinkling bells filled his head. He felt grief and affection in equal measure. No wonder he was not fit to be an angel.

He wrote back immediately to agree. He felt around his wings for any loose feathers of his own, and found an equally small one that was normally hidden from sight. It was tawny. The red ones clung and never fell out.

When he sealed it, the letter disappeared in a puff of sweet-smelling mist. He laid down, still in his day clothes, and waited.

--

There was a quiet veranda near the valley where Marc was harvested. Waters were peaceful there, where the river flowed into a lake, which served as a catchment for a small community.

Marc attended his apprenticeship nearby when he was younger. He'd jumped headfirst into caretaker guardianship as well, and helped fellow angels who landed themselves in physical accidents. His abilities were also suited to heroic work, but Marc did whatever his heart led him to.

It was at this veranda that Dovi once taught Marc to dance. In the first year of their partnership, they'd already amassed an insurmountable number of pearls. They would be expected to lead the first dance at the celebratory gala, in the ballroom where time did not flow and angels could enjoy themselves for as long as they wanted.

Marc made a joke about how he was going to trip over his own feet. Dovi decided they couldn't have that and taught him a simple waltz. They never bothered to learn any other. Each year, they would depart after one dance and a plate full of sweet desserts.

When Dovi arrived this time, Marc was already there. He sat curled up on the railing, leaning against a pillar. His side profile was lovely as he stared out into the lake. Dovi had missed him.

"Hey," he said softly, nudging Marc to sit straight so there was room for him.

Marc turned to face him and smiled. Dovi would have thought that he would be more distraught, but he supposed that Marc had never been that way. He was made of stronger stuff. If Dovi could cope with his situation, there was no way that Marc couldn't cope better.

"Missed you," Marc said, because angels could not lie. He jumped to his feet, landing lightly on the ground, and Dovi ended up with a face full of feathers as Marc demonstrated.

He unfurled his right wing first. It was unbelievable. Scarlet red and glossy throughout, not a hint of white in sight. If it didn't spell trouble for them, Dovi would have thought the sight to be absolutely beautiful.

Marc laughed at his stunned silence. "See, I told you I was not doing a good job. The other one is all white. It is very funny." He unfolded it to show him.

"I'm not doing better," Dovi admitted. He showed Marc his wings, crimson spread across the top half of both, and starting to line the bottom most row in places. What a pair they made.

Marc reached out to stroke them. Unlike in the past, he didn't withdraw his hand as though it hurt him.

"I went back to see our mediator," he said, proving that he was trying harder than Dovi was. "She thinks it will be difficult for me because I am still attached to you. She asked me if I would like to forget you, but I said of course not. I only want to be better because I like doing my work and I don't want to- to leave, I want to be here forever. But she says I am too attached to work, so I don't know."

"Attached to work?" Dovi asked. It sounded ludicrous to him. What else were they supposed to be if not dedicated to this?

Marc snapped his wings back and sat down in a huff. "Apparently," he said, agitated. "It's unfair. I have to care less about work without slacking off. When I don't care about it anymore, I can work again. But how can I work if I don't care?"

"It’s wouldn’t be like you at all,” Dovi said, disturbed. The world would be far worse off with a Marc who was ambivalent. And mostly, Dovi would miss him terribly if he became that way.

Marc shrugged hopelessly. "I'm lost. I said maybe I was supposed to be born red, because I never changed at all. She agreed."

"There was a lot of red when you hatched," Dovi recalled. He smiled slightly. The memory had been at the forefront of his mind in recent days.

"Really?"

Dovi hummed. "Sunrise, red sky in the morning. I picked you up from a sunflower and took you with me. Heavens Marc, I keep thinking about it. I keep thinking about you."

"Me too," Marc confessed. "It's like I forgot how not to."

They were close together. Every nerve in Dovi's body was aware of this fact. Their wings could skim each other's to touch.

Experimentally, Dovi let his wings relax. Red brushed against red. Marc shuddered with his entire body, and closed his eyes. A wordless whine escaped his throat.

"I want to touch you. I want to do things I don't know how to do," Marc said. He always had been more daring.

Dovi held Marc's hand. It was too much, too warm, too sensitive, but he held it steady until the feeling became pleasant.

"You don't know how much I want that," he said.

They regarded each other for a moment. Dovi slanted his head to go, then they flew into the air in tandem.

--

"Your suite is nicer than mine," Marc remarked, looking around Dovi's room. They would not have very much time there if the worst and most likely outcome were to occur on this day, so Dovi hoped they could make the most of it.

The mediators did assign him to a nice suite. After many lifetimes of sleeping in a room with hundreds of others, he thought he would be lonely, but the only company he wanted was now with him. He liked having some peace.

It wasn't anything spectacular like the ballroom or the mediation tower, but it was nice and neat. Instead of being white like most everything else he was used to, his walls were a light yellow, and his light fixtures were decorated with citrine.

"What is yours like?" Dovi asked.

Marc shrugged. "White," he said, not very descriptively. "It's not that different, this is just better."

Dovi quietly realised that the part of Marc that he learned to keep under control was poking its head out again. Before the grey feathers sprouted, he had been vocal about always wanting better, always being the best, and had torrid bouts of jealousy whenever anyone got ahead of him. The end really was near. He was happy that Marc was now being himself in full.

He crossed the room to draw them a bath, as Marc chose between several glass bottles of bubble baths that appeared on the counter for their benefit. "Lavender or white tea?" he asked, presenting Dovi with his final two options.

"Just pour them both in, I know you want to," Dovi said, and smiled at the way Marc's face brightened.

Marc wriggled out of his day clothes and got into the bath first. He looked like a mythical creature - the shiniest of wings in red and white, and smoothest of skin half visible beneath a thick layer of scented bubbles. "Hurry," he urged Dovi, who was only too happy to comply.

It was a tight fit for the two of them. That was just as well. They squirmed around, finding comfortable positions, exploring with hands that had held back for long enough, breathing in scented steam in the stolen moments they were not kissing.

Wet feathers darkened underwater, unless they were white as Marc's. But barely any of them were white anymore. They turned into a faded pink before Dovi's eyes, transitioning into crimson in a slow gradation. He was no less majestic for it. Dovi couldn't believe he had this, however brief it would be. He wished they had forever like they wanted. He wished they had everything.

Marc's lips were soft and wet. They grew more plush the more they kissed. He tasted good. If this was the last taste Dovi would have in heaven, it was his privilege.

Their thighs slid against each other intimately. Dovi's cock was getting hard - as it had several times over the past days, and was always willed away. He didn't want to anymore.

Eventually, Marc found his way to Dovi's lap. He spread his wings behind him, glistening and beautiful. Water sparkled as droplets rolled off his well-oiled plume. His legs were around Dovi's waist, and - they were so close to being joined at the core. There was no return for angels who found love, who dared to join themselves physically.

"How should we...?" Dovi asked breathlessly.

"You in me, please," Marc said, nervous no more. He was completely certain. His eyes were dark and focused. His lips were swollen. His face was pink, and it suited him. He was almost human, he was so debauched. But he was beyond that - he must have been the loveliest thing to ever exist.

Their bathwater was cooling. Marc helped Dovi out of the slippery tub, and they towelled each other's hair and wings dry so they wouldn't drip everywhere. In an act of whimsy, Dovi picked him up and carried him on his front. Marc wound his legs around his waist again, giggling as they made their way clumsily to bed. Bells and mischief. Dovi should have known all along that they would break the rules together.

Dovi placed him on bed gently, resting his head on a soft pillow. "Wait here," he said, darting around to his desk in search of preen oil. In absence of anything made for sex, this would have to do. He took the unscented one, leaving his strawberry-scented oil sealed. With a pang, he realised he would likely never get around to using it.

He returned to bed eagerly, where his prize was waiting, loose-limbed and relaxed. Marc blinked his dark lashes as Dovi approached. He had so much skin, and all of it was for Dovi to touch. His wings spread out against the entire mattress, red and pink and specks of white. He held his arms out, and Dovi sank into them, lying across his front. Chest to chest, face to face, eyes so close that Dovi had to lean back to focus on him.

Dovi did believe that they would find each other again when they fell into humanity, but Marc as he was now, angelic and ageless, would only be his this once. They would never have their forever. He wouldn't hold anything back in this fleeting moment.

"I love you, Marc. Always have," he said.

Marc's face softened. He pushed a damp strand of hair out of Dovi's face and cradled his jaw gently. "I love you too," he said.

They kissed again, as leisurely as they could with time running short on them. If only they could summon the timeless ballroom for their own use. Dovi hadn't turned to examine his own wings in full, but every glimpse he got was now red. Marc's too, were running short of other colours.

Dovi loved kissing him. He loved every micro-movement, every sound that Marc made in reaction. He wished he had longer to learn to tease them out, to catalogue every new expression in his memory, to review them pleasurably. They just didn't have enough time. He did what he could. He kissed down the column of Marc's throat, down the line of the sternum, across his defined abdominal muscles and along the lines of his hips. He teased - he kissed down Marc's curved cock and lapped at the head with his tongue, and drew great satisfaction from Marc's desperate whine. He pulled away before Marc could come. His own cock was swollen, but there were things he needed to do before he sought his own pleasure. He needed to have no regrets.

"Please Dovi, please," Marc panted. He was red all over - the blush spread across his cheeks, down his chest, and to his weeping cock. Droplets of sweat gathered from exertion and the humid bath they had not recovered from. His wings were scarlet, nearly from tip to bottom. It suited him so much.

"Red's your colour baby," Dovi teased, and Marc hooked a leg behind his knee frustratedly.

"In me, hurry up," Marc choked.

Who was Dovi to deny him?

He covered his fingers with an excessive amount preen oil, and slowly breached Marc's hole with his index. He pushed in slowly, down to one knuckle, which already made Marc twist uncomfortably. Dovi kept him in place with a hand on his hip. He let Marc get used to the foreign intrusion, then pushed further, to his second knuckle, then the base of his finger. His finger was so small compared to his cock, yet the hole already felt full. But Marc's body had so much more to give. They were built for something miraculous. It seemed foolish that angels couldn't enjoy it.

Dovi wriggled his finger experimentally. Marc sniffled. He looked very intent. "I think I can fit another," Dovi said, received a short nod in response. He pulled out slowly, enjoying hot muscle clinging to his finger. He touched his fingertip to the bead of precum at the head of Marc's cock. He needed to add more oil to his fingers, but curiosity got the better of him. He put the finger in his mouth to taste. Marc made a strangled sound.

"Stars Dovi, you are crazy."

"I'll kiss you with this mouth," Dovi said, which was a ridiculous threat, but Marc waited expectantly, so Dovi did. It felt like sin. It was the best feeling in heaven.

Dovi returned his attention to opening Marc up more expediently. He was growing redder and more impatient, and Dovi was impatient himself.

He had only fitted in two fingers and scissored Marc open a couple of times when Marc stopped him.

"Now, want you."

"Is it enough?" Dovi asked, concerned and feeling out of his depth. He didn't think it was, and wondered if he should be more cautious.

But Marc was always there to throw caution to the wind. "I don't know. Want to feel for longer. If I can remember..."

It was an impossibility, but Dovi understood. He wanted to remember too.

He aligned his oiled cock with Marc's hole and pushed in carefully. He took his time. He watched as his cock was swallowed, one inch at a time, into a remarkable heat. Marc was nearly bent into half, his knees held up next to his armpits. It truly was incredible. Marc's body was capable of unbelievable things.

Marc composed his face, which was how Dovi knew it had to be uncomfortable. "Tell me if you can't stand it," he said, and trusted that Marc would. Marc's threshold was somewhere different from everyone else, but he had one, and it was important for him to voice it out. Marc squeezed his arm in acknowledgement.

Dovi couldn't believe that his entire cock could really fit into Marc. It was in the territory of places his dreams did not dare to venture. Marc had always taken him to unknown wonders. Into love, into pleasure beyond imagination.

When Marc had taken him in full, he resisted the urge to move. He held himself still until Marc could get used to the breach of his length. He could easily be on the verge of release himself - if he rutted a few times, he would come. Marc crossed his ankles behind Dovi's back and held him close.

"Feels nice," Marc said eventually. He was breathing heavily. The corners of his eyes were damp.

Dovi leaned forward to kiss his eyelids. "You're beautiful," he said.

"And you," Marc said wetly.

Speared on Dovi's cock, Marc wriggled impatiently. Dovi could take a hint. He pulled out halfway and slammed back into Marc, building up faster and harder until Marc was crying. Then he slowed so they wouldn't come. He would drag this out for as long as they could stand it, this one chance they had.

"I love you, I love you," Marc babbled.

"I'll find you again," Dovi promised. He didn't know how, but angels couldn't lie, and the words had been permitted to come out of his mouth. He said a silent prayer of gratitude. This was all he could ask for. At least one more lifetime together.

Marc nodded repeatedly. He was a sight, wet faced and flushed all over. Dovi wanted to remember forever. It was cruel that he could not.

Dovi stroked his oiled hand over Marc's swollen cock, leaking and red and almost untouched. Marc shuddered with his whole body.

"Shall we come?" he asked. He couldn't torture Marc forever, as nice as the thought was.

Marc sniffed. "Wait a while, I'm not done," he said, dredging up a lucid sentence from who knows where.

He grinded against Dovi viciously. Dovi squeezed the base of his own cock to control himself for a little longer, until Marc was sated.

It was easier from their position for him to hold Marc down by the hips and fuck him as hard as Marc wanted, until his entire body moved and the bed shook. Dovi's cock was at a limit and the friction was starting to hurt. But Marc had always wanted more than imaginable, and Dovi was blessed to be the one to fulfil his wishes.

"Okay," Marc said at last. Dovi got Marc off clumsily with his hands, then came in him with one last jerk of his hips.

Heaven exploded in the back of his eyelids for a moment. His head drifted. He had never known such concentrated happiness in his existence.

--

Dovi came to with a rather messy Marc combing through his wings.

"Yours are all red now," he was informed. Well, he wasn't surprised. He had given in. Life awaited him.

"You?" he asked curiously.

Marc twisted around and brought the top of his left wing into Dovi's view. "One left. It's white, not pink. Don't know why it's here."

"Because you can't give up," Dovi said, smiling wryly. If there was someone who could complete a reversal and vanquish all of the red over time, it would be Marc. It would take a lot of willpower, but he could find a way. It was just a matter of choice for him. Dovi would support him either way.

Marc frowned. He took the feather within his fist - it was a long one - and wrenched it from his body with force. It must have hurt. Nothing showed on his face. The choice was made. Dovi's heart sang. He gathered Marc into his arms and peppered his face with kisses. Marc seemed very pleased.

"I'll be older than you again," Dovi realised, since his feathers had turned red first.

Marc beamed. "Good. Come find me quickly."

They had all the time until they inevitably fell asleep to enjoy themselves. Dovi ran them another bath, which passed by more calmly this time. They took as long as they wanted to dry off, and Dovi had an opportunity to use his strawberry preen oil after all. He groomed Marc's beautiful scarlet wings, admiring their contrast against his plain white nightgown. Marc groomed his wings in return with his signature citrus scented oil, and it was all of the gentle intimacy he had craved. He smelled like Marc whenever he moved his wings. He enjoyed that very much.

That night, they tried to fall asleep as close in time as possible. Marc settled down, curled on his left side in his nightgown, and Dovi made him laugh when he went to peek at the views he had been curious about. His fingers followed Marc's hem to trace along the seam of Marc's thigh, around dusty pink hole he was now so familiar with, and cupped his cock that was resting soft and lazy.

Angels weren't supposed to be tempted by a lack of modesty and all that, so their night clothes didn't conceal very much. Dovi commented that if that were true, everyone might as well fly around naked. Marc then suggested that they ought to go to sleep naked since they were such good angels, and they did.

In Dovi's last moment of consciousness as a guardian angel, he had Marc's ear against his heart, and he contented himself with the knowledge that all of their time had been well spent.

♡♡♡

Andrea's mother explained that their neighbour was pregnant. That meant she was going to have a baby.

For inexplicable reasons, Andrea watched by the window every day to see if the baby was home yet. He had to go for kindergarten in the morning, but he had lots of time in the afternoon to check.

His parents had to tell him when the baby was born. He didn't get to see it himself, because it was still in a hospital. The baby arrived too early, they said; a little boy who was in a hurry. But he was okay because he was strong, and Andrea would meet him soon.

Andrea's parents even took him to the toy shop so that he could pick out a gift the baby would like. He went with a winged bear, which his mother explained was meant for Valentine's Day that just passed. But he didn't know or care what that was and dug his heels in for once.

The baby finally came home a few days later. Andrea had been waiting for him outside, riding a few boring rounds up and down on his tricycle.

He ran into their yard when his neighbours' car pulled up.

"Can I see him?" he asked, forgetting his manners.

The nice man patted his head, and the nice woman bent down to let him look. She had a little baby wrapped in blue blankets. He wore a hat.

"Hello Andrea, this is Marc. He's happy to meet you too," she said. Andrea looked at him in awe, as the baby stirred. Maybe he couldn't really see yet, but he waved his arms when Andrea touched his mitten, and he let out a gurgling sound that might have been a laugh.

("He's not laughing Julia, it's too early," the nice woman said.)

Andrea wasn't really hearing it, but he felt it all the same - the tinkling of bells and a chase of mischief, and pure happiness in his heart.

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

nearly, nearly, nearly: dovquez [t]

@dovquezdecember + near

“Dovi!” Marc says clumsily, flashes him a grin—sun-bright, shameless.

Andrea is thinking. He was nearly a champion this season. Nearly, nearly, nearly. But it wasn’t so close at the end, -37 points, and the entire ocean between Marc making a miraculous save and him screaming on the gravel trap.

His fingers spasm around his empty glass, just once. Andrea is acutely aware of the camera glares, of way, way, way too many people around. Too soon to get another one, and the one after that. The frizz of alcohol is heavy in his stomach, leaden.

Marc makes a noise—impossible to make sense of. Andrea blinks, remembers he should answer him any time now. His tongue is stuck on the roof of his mouth, but it isn’t Marc’s fault that everything had to go right today and nothing did.

He drops whatever he was planning on saying. Marc brandishes his own champagne flute, takes Andrea’s empty one for himself. It’s full—lukewarm prosecco, sure, but it’s full.

Andrea—against his own will, let it be said—laughs.

Marc’s eyes go round, shiny. His hand comes down to cling to the sleeve of his suit, where it falls half an inch too long. And he sways towards him, chest brushing against the side of his arm. Andrea cups the small of his back, raises his eyebrows.

“The drinks aren’t good enough for you to be drunk already.” He prods—harmlessly, his voice pitched low.

He could be drunk on everything else, though. His podium, his sixth championship in—God—eight years, Honda delirious over their golden boy.

Marc bats his lashes coyly, pretends to think. “It was a good dinner, don’t be mean.”

It was, is the thing. He stopped counting after the fourth course, the tenth FIM/Dorna exec with a polished smile that congratulated him on a clean, sportsmanlike dispute—probably having the time of their times that it didn’t end in death threats and a sports court.

Andrea snorts. “Drinks are still shit.”

For all that Marc says don’t be mean, the corners of his lips are trying to quirk up again. Just as cruel.

And when he catches Andrea looking, Marc ducks his head away. Tries to hide it.

He’s so—he’s a sharp, shameless little thing. Hurts to cradle him close, cuts his palms to gory ribbons. Andrea clings, anyway. The party has dulled to a trickle of I wish it was me that barely registers. He fancies he can spot the place where Marc kissed the tower on his mouth, his teeth—like Raphael’s blessing.

His stomach rolls with champagne, too little food he wasn’t feeling up for. Sizzles.

“It was a good season, too.” Marc speaks abruptly but quietly. The cut of his jaw turned bullish, stubborn.

He can feel the tension pressed on his side. It’s not even like gearing up for a risky overtake—Marc throws himself into those with wild joy, again and again and again. This is measured, strained. Marc’s spine grows rigid where he’s touching.

Andrea hums. “Are you going to say you’re sorry?”

Marc’s expression slackens, softens with confusion. “What?”

“You look like you might.”

“For winning?” Andrea nods, stares at him expectantly—wills his face to stay flat and unamused and is only mostly sure he succeeds. Marc purses his mouth, lets him catch a hint of teeth and the downturned curve of his lips. “No way.”

And listen—

Andrea shakes his head. He feels that gold-tinted lightness filling the insides of his chest. Maybe he’s drunk, four glasses catching up like outbreaking himself into a highside, but it’s easier now than it was a couple minutes ago, when the champagne tasted stolen, tasted like trackside dust and a mocking round of applause in his garage.

“You are horrible.”

He watches it happen in real time, how Marc pulls a face, how his eyes flutter to look at him and then away.

People call him brutish, impulsive—it’s not true. Just because he was born without a sense of self-preservation doesn’t mean he doesn’t think. Marc is a shrewd thing. Calculating. He wonders what he was trying to find with that look.

But he’s probably a little drunk himself too, or Andrea wouldn’t have caught that minute flinch in his expression. Marc is too opaque for acting mistakes these days.

It is the thing about Marc. Andrea doesn’t know if he’s bracing for a slap or it never coming despite how much he wants it to.

“I don’t think you mean that,” he says—petulantly, imperiously.

Very, very deliberately.

Andrea smiles, squeezes his back. “I do, I do!”

“No, you don’t.”

He does. But Marc is horrible like a tricky corner, or a bull charging in a bullfight. Predictable only in how it scares you shitless no matter how many times you try it. Horrible in that clammy fear you’re going to be swept along. Fucking fantastic when you conquer it—if you do.

It’s there anyway, of course, red-hot, that frustration—the shame in the gravel, in the garage. But Andrea tries to get angry only about things he can control.

Marc winning isn’t personal, is it.

He takes a breath, lets that awkward silence wash over him, over them, releasing that aimless frustration knot by knot. Marc fidgets against him, rehearsing taking a small step to the side, away from him. Andrea considers for a moment, half of one—doesn’t let go of his grip on him, on the fabric of the back of Marc’s suit.

There are cameras, still. Too many people. It’s none of their business—

This is, Andrea reasons, nothing worth hiding.

“It was a good season,” he says, gently—either an agreement or a concession.

Marc relaxes a fraction, does his best to tuck himself against him no matter that he’s a couple of centimeters taller. Finally, finally, he looks at Andrea straight on, with his usual hungry shamelessness, eyes huge and liquid on his face.

“You looked like you were having fun.”

“Here and there,” Andrea shrugs, isn’t even a bit surprised when he feels Marc’s fingers slip under his shirt to hold the jut of his wrist. “I had this pest bothering me.”

He is surprised at how hot those tiny points of pressure feel. His pulse drums against the thin skin of his wrist.

Marc bristles, indignant. “You ambushed me this whole year!”

Here and there, when he could, when he managed to make it work. In Austria, Japan. Andrea made himself steady as a metronome, harmless until he wasn’t—he wasn’t going to outcrazy Marc anyway, might as well try something unorthodox.

“You weren’t very angry about that from what I remember,” Andrea replies mildly. Mock-dry.

Marc nudges him with his shoulder, tries to scowl but melts into a loud, honking chuckle. It’s evidently, incredibly disarming. “Fuck off, I was! You always knew what I was going to try next. I thought you were going to drive me crazy.”

“Not even you can win them all.”

Marc grins—shiv-quick, self-satisfied. He looks like he’s winning this one, whatever this one is. “I can try.”

Andrea is thinking—it isn’t self-pity this time. Feels about just as dangerous. Marc’s touch is insistent, makes him fidgety all the way to the bone. He isn’t even the slightest bit innocent himself either—hand splayed on Marc’s back, the tip of his little finger reaching suspiciously lower than it was a moment ago.

He swallows. Marc tracks the jerky move of his throat, stares at him through his lashes. It is as shameless as it is—unfortunately—effective.

“Aren’t you going to ask if I enjoyed myself?” There’re nails biting into his forearm lightly. A smirk—broad, pink-lipped.

Cocky little bastard, isn’t he?

“You still are.”

Marc preens, forgets—for a slip of a second—to keep his cards close to his chest. Everything about him becomes bright enough to blind, to cast spots in his vision like he’s staring into the sun. He is horribly easy to like, to forgive.

Even through the stab of the annoyance, the tangle of thorns wrapped around his throat that Andrea has to name envy. Even when he wants to shake Marc by the shoulders—don’t you know? Don’t you see what you are? It never sticks. Marc is that dangerous in close proximity.

Looks eager to prove that he is, too. He shifts his head from one side to the other, gauges the crowd. There’s this focused frown on his forehead. Andrea knows him well enough to brace himself. Realizes—too late—that there’s no bracing for an inspired Marc.

“Do you want me to suck you off?” He pauses, bludgeons on when Andrea doesn’t immediately reply. “I want to.”

Christ.

Christ on the bloody cross.

He doesn’t know why he expected Marc to be subtle or careful, but still.

Andrea sputters out a cough, laughs. He can hear the strain in his voice—the complete fucking disbelief. “What? Here?”

It is a yes by any other name. Marc shrugs, chuckles—he’s an insolent thing, fingers straying playfully over his arm, looking so very sure of himself. Of getting what he wants, always.

Smug.

“Why not?” He asks, eyebrows wagging. It is ridiculous. So is the rush of fondness in his chest. The fishhook tug of Marc’s tongue flashing over his teeth.

Andrea isn’t—usually, he amends—so reckless.

“You’re insane.”

Marc stares at him, shark-eyed, unblinking. It slices through him cleanly like a hot knife, like Marc on a left-hander circuit. “You keep saying that.”

And yet goes unsaid.

He breathes in, a little funny, constricted. His fingers spasm on Marc’s back, cling to the smooth downiness of his pressed shirt. Want jolts through him like touching a live wire—he isn’t thinking. It’s the easiest thing in the world to move his hand, eyes on the party that feels like his burial.

Marc chokes on a noise when Andrea untucks his clothes to reach the skin of his back, when his thumb digs into one of his Venus dimples.

“Alright,” he mutters, soft.

The room melts to nothing around him, a kaleidoscopic blur of color and people he doesn’t care about. Marc’s head is bent, tucked close to his own—an inch closer, and they’ll be inside each other’s skin, breathing the same air. Andrea can only think about the pinkness of his mouth—how near it is.

[lastlatebraker]

you better work, bitch

back for @dovquezdecember w 2200 words of explicit girl!dovquez anonymous hookup smut (kind of. as anonymous as is possible when one won't shut the fuck up and the other knows the contents of your soul on sight) cw: alcohol, semi-public sex, oral sex mention, fingering, maybe some second-hand embarrassment and lack of resolution? (idk what to say about the title. but. it’s dovi’s fault.)

The pin in the map haunts Marc for three days.

She wakes up on Wednesday morning, the city just starting to turn blue outside, and it's blinking at her when she dismisses her alarm. One red pin somewhere downtown. Perfectly still when she closes one eye to focus on it, then the other.

Tuesday night’s client dinner had been the same as every other. An overpriced bar, trendy yet somehow already worn thin. An array of middle-aged men in ill-fitting suits around the table giddy with the night out on business; Dani winking at her over a vodka martini that looked suspiciously like water with an olive.

After that, a second bar with just Dani and Jorge and a few people from the office whose faces all blur in Marc’s memory. There’d been cheaper drinks, a stickier floor. A train at some point. It had rained maybe? Then…

Then the night gets fuzzy. Just a pin in a map the next morning with one cryptic note: hot bartender.

The sound of hot bartender hot bartender hot bartender hums in her mind through meetings, it whistles when she orders takeout for dinner at her desk, it buzzes when Santi sticks his head in to offer a working coffee break.

It’s been a steady purr for three days when she stands at the stop for the bus that'll take her home, not looking at the map pulled up on the phone in her hand.

She could be home in 32 minutes if traffic cooperates. She could order noodles and scrub herself pink in a hot bath and be asleep by midnight.

She crosses the street to stand next to the college kids in flannels and a mom with a crying baby in a stroller.

The bar is vaguely familiar, in the way that all shitty bars in the city are. A wave of hot piss-and-beer scented air washes over her when she steps through the door. There’s some sort of fuzzy electronic dance music playing, although there doesn’t seem to be anything like a dance floor. Just a few sticky booths in the back, an assortment of mismatched tables scattered across the space, too many stools jammed in at the bar.

There’s a young guy behind the counter in a bright blue polo and a baseball cap pulled low over the puff of his hair.

He looks… fine.

Certainly not worth two transfers and a train, and barely worth a second look now that she’s here.

There aren't that many people even though it's Friday night. A group crowded into a booth in the back, occasional shouts of laughter peaking over the music, and a couple of old guys on stools sitting very still.

The bartender gives her a blank look, blinking as she stands in the doorway. She dithers for a moment, feeling her ears go hot, then propels herself toward the bar.

"Gin and tonic, please, with lime."

He continues to stare as she slides onto a stool in front of him.

"With lime?" she asks again, a little louder this time, but it's as though the thought of a person ordering a drink at a bar, that this request might be for him, has never crossed his mind before.

He is perhaps very stoned.

"Darryn—" Darryn, apparently, jumps at the sound of the voice behind Marc, nodding over her shoulder, then at her, then at the old men down the bar. "A gin and tonic. With lime, I think?"

The voice is laughing a little, at her, maybe, and maybe at the kid behind the counter. And Marc doesn't love that but—

The stranger has leaned onto the sticky bit of bar next to Marc's elbow and—

And this is the hot bartender.

Her tight black tee stretches over her biceps, a tattooed arm rests on the wood, curls loose and easy, a teasing smile already on her lips.

Marc opens her mouth, finds no air in her lungs. Closes her mouth and licks her lips.

The woman laughs — her eyes crinkling while she looks at Marc, the tip of her tongue pink, her teeth straight and white. Marc wants to lick them. She laughs instead. Tight and high like she still can't quite breathe right.

"You don't seem so drunk this time."

"I'm not— I wasn't—"

She just hums at Marc as she takes the glass the kid is pushing across the bar and brings it to her own lips.

She puts it down on the little napkin in front of Marc and makes a face, like, it's not perfect but it's the best she could expect, and Marc wonders if she'd make that face at Marc. If she'd roll her eyes and laugh that wide easy laugh and Marc would get on her knees and say, I can do better, watch me.

"He pours light but at least I won't have to scrape you off the floor this time."

"I don't drink." The woman makes a pointed look at the drink in Marc's hand and Marc corrects. "I mean I do, but not much. Usually. It was a work thing."

"Oh, I get it," she nods, faux serious, then signals for a beer. "I only drink at work too."

Marc feels adrift. Hot and cold at the same time and like the room won't quite settle around her. People never treat her this lightly. Not anymore. Not since— not since the job, not since Valentina. They worry for her or they hate her or they want something from her. But they're always calculating, always figuring the closeness they can bring her to their own body before she might bite.

"You must've had a lot of work last time."

"I always have a lot of work," Marc responds automatically and the flicker of something soft on the other woman's face makes her wish she could grab the words and tuck them back into her mouth. "Was I—" She has to swallow a mouthful of watery tonic before her throat will cooperate. "Was it really bad? When I was here?"

The ice in the drink crackles as she waits.

The woman's face slides back into something light before she speaks.

"You asked if you could eat my pussy."

"And?" Marc asks before she can stop herself.

"And?" she laughs back at Marc. "And I said no. Obviously."

"No, obviously. Right."

Ha ha, Marc laughs. Because it's cool. It's fine. She knows she's too much — wants too much — and she's learned to round the edges of her desire with a laugh to keep from looking like she'll cut you when you grasp her. She knows how to joke. It's fine.

"Of course I wouldn't have fucked you then you wouldn't even have remembered it."

"I'd remember it now." The words are too fast, too eager, no hint of insinuation to soften them. Just want, always want.

Marc's face feels hot and tight, a buzzing in her ear that could be the neon light sputtering out from behind the dusty bottles or it could be her own blood in her veins. Teetering on a precipice as the woman looks at Marc, her lip taut.

She looks, for a long time; the way Marc wants to look at people but knows she shouldn't or she'll make them uncomfortable.

Then, she raps her knuckles twice on the bar and stands up.

"A miracle has happened: here we have someone who loves to work and she wants a job at this shithole," she announces to no one in particular and Marc flushes in confusion. She opens her mouth to object, to clarify, to say I'm sorry I asked to eat you out but I can leave.

Then the hot bartender smiles at her, as though they're both in on the joke, as if it were of course Marc and this beautiful woman against everyone else and it's ok that Marc never remembers their secret plans because she’ll remember for the both of them.

"Darryn," she says, low, her eyes still on Marc's lips, her eyes, her tits. "I'll be in the office interviewing our applicant."

The office is dingy. A little dirty. Papers scattered across a small desk with a threadbare chair lilting to one side and grimy boxes stacked against the wall.

The lock clicks.

The desk is a cold metal line against Marc's thighs, but the woman makes no move toward her. Despite the bravado of a moment ago, she's just watching. Arms crossed.

Marc licks her lips. Watches back. Eyes too wide, she knows. Not sexy.

"I didn't bring my CV," Marc says, and is delighted by a guffaw of laughter, the air in the room flowing and bright again.

Finally, the woman rocks back on her heels. Crosses the space in three steps and uses her hips to nudge Marc further onto the desk.

When she takes Marc's jaw into her hand, her palm is warm and dry. Slightly calloused. She leans in so there's only a breath between them, solid body anchoring Marc; hand on jaw, fingers at her nape, forearm to clavicle, hipbones against her thighs.

Her mouth is wet when it touches Marc's lips. A warm press then the slick slide of tongue. Marc remembers how straight and white her teeth had been, how anyone could see them when she smiled, and licks deeper into her mouth, tastes the backs of her front teeth.

The huff of air into Marc's mouth is half laugh half moan and a desperate heat spreads through her torso, the backs of her knees, a tingling in her wrists and pinkies. She loops her fingers into the woman's belt loops and pulls. Hard.

The woman uses her free hand to pop the clasp at the front of Marc's slacks then slips it down the front of her underwear.

It's been so long since anyone else had touched Marc. The last time had been— she tries not to think the name. Repeats hot bartender in her head like an invocation. This hot bartender whose name she doesn't even know, who she'd only seen once before tonight. Who might have a life beyond these four walls. Probably does, even. A studio somewhere, with a kitchen and a bed. A little crusty white dog named Malt, maybe, waiting for her now.

She knows exactly two of Marc's work shirts. Doesn't know they call her Ant at work or that she's due back at her office at 6:00am for a photoshoot to be put in some bullshit "30 women under 30" list that her boss had made clear is an honor.

Marc gasps and grinds down when two fingers sink into her cunt. She knows she's being watched, can feel the other woman's even breath and gaze on her face. She looks down to see the movement of the hand under her slacks, a line of pink tropical flowers across the woman's forearm, just the suggestion of fingers under blue cotton, and everything is slick and hot and loud and she's going to go home tonight with a wet spot from her own cunt on her work pants.

She wants to look at the woman's face. Thinks about the way the skin around her eyes might crinkle. The way she might bite her lip while she fingers Marc. She looks over her shoulder and focuses on the corner of a poster coming untaped on the opposite wall.

It's almost too much: the way the pleasure is rising, the scent of beer and smoke and unfamiliar detergent on the woman's shirt, the sound of her own pants in the otherwise quiet room.

When she comes it's an accident. A startled gasp and the sound of that's it against her throat.

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Marc breathes back.

She wants more— wants to ruin the knees of her slacks, wants to bury her face in the smell of stale beer and cigarettes and cheap detergent, wants to go on feeling like she doesn't have a body. Or like she does have a body, but it's not hers.

It's better. It's a body that doesn't have a name or an address. It's never been touched before tonight. It's a body that doesn't belong to her, just lives in this dirty storage room and will get tidied away again before morning.

Marc can't feel her hands.

"Feel better?" the woman asks and Marc nods because she doesn't know what she's supposed to say. Her slacks have been done up and the woman has wiped her wet hand dry on her t-shirt. There's a faint shiny spot over her left breast.

She feels dumb. There was something she wanted and now she doesn't remember what it is. She looks at the woman's face: the little scars and lines and the hairs of her eyebrows. She wishes she'd looked before, when she'd been full.

Marc nods again and pulls her phone out.

She unlocks it, opens uber, then drops it twice. The woman takes the phone, orders the car, and tucks it back into Marc's pocket.

"Thanks," Marc says, then adds, "for the—" but she doesn't know what for.

She lets the woman steer her out the door, put her into a car, thumb her cheek before she closes the door.

When Marc wakes the next morning, it's to a new contact in her phone: hot bartender.

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

the maid of amsterdam: dovquez [g]

@dovquezdecember + charcoal

The mermaid in the fish tank has a perfectly pleasant expression despite it being a remarkably shitty fish tank—except for his eyes, charcoal black and charcoal dull, huge, unblinking.

A shark’s eyes. And a shark isn't trying to be malicious when it bites, it just wants to figure out if you’re food.

Andrea swallows. “Ah, good afternoon. You’re Marc, right?”

Marc, estimated to be 11 ft long, still unweighted as all approach attempts have culminated in conflict, found off the coast of Castelldefels by Rossi and his crew God knows when and God knows why.

The mermaids nods once. He appraises Andrea cooly, with the artful boredom of executives and government officials when presented with his research pitches. It should go into his notes—enough understanding of human interaction to regulate emotional response.

Christ, alright. Very comforting.

“I’m Andrea Dovizioso,” he says. The next words stick to his throat like algae—does a mermaid know the ISPRA? Should he explain it? Tell him he’s a protected species these days?

Andrea sighs, rubbing his face. The mermaid—Marc—raises his eyebrows, snorts, bubbles spilling from his pink, almost harmless mouth. He has to reckon with the fact that he’s being made fun of by a creature he isn’t sure knows anything about comedic timing.

Typical Valentino—making trouble and shoving them on his hands.

“I’m here to help you,” is what he settles on.

Marc’s tail swishes, an odd jolt of movement. It’s too cramped in his tank for it to wave and ripple, so it ends up trapped tight against the glass, its tip dangling out. Like this, Andrea can see his scales, pearly white and orange, over five feet of them. They’ve grown dull, loose in some spots.

He smooths out a frown before it can carve itself on his face, chews on the insides of his cheeks instead. Is Marc sick?

But he manages to surge up anyway, until his torso is out and his tail is in. His gills flutter, and he finally, finally blinks.

“You are.”

Marc speaks in clumps, the syllables strained—like he’s reading out words in a language he doesn’t recognize. It isn’t a question, not quite, but he tilts his head to the side, exaggerated, too low, expectant. His overgrown curls flopping over his forehead are disarming.

Andrea taps his fingers against his thigh, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. Marc keeps staring at him with those eyes, bottomless, flinty. The stark letters of his files flash black in his mind—ambush hunter, mesocarnivore. Opportunistic, clever, cruel, whatever else Valentino wrote on him.

“Yes, we’re trying to get you back home,” he speaks carefully, slowly. Marc mouths along the words, frowns. “Not now, but soon. I hope.”

“Soon,” Marc echoes.

His mouth wobbles, and his whole expression spasms. It isn’t a flinch, goes over quicker than one. Andrea spots the misery in the sudden weight on his shoulders, how he hunches over himself. Still, he can’t get a hand around it. Marc’s expression becomes smooth like sea glass again—remarkably, immaculately empty. It might as well not have happened.

The humanity of that face—the sudden wide-eyed hope—settles on his stomach like lead. Makes Andrea feel like he should be back on ethics classes, bent over a Philosophy book.

It makes him way too aware of how many generations of species ago humans abandoned the sea.

Andrea huffs. Makes himself focus on the problem at hand—the small security tank, and the wildlife trafficking charges Valentino will face, and the reputation of his new charge.

“Are you going to try and bite my arm off?” He raises a single, pointed eyebrow. Marc shrugs, opaque. “Break my legs? Drown me?”

Only Valentino could get close to him—his pool, or his tank. Only Valentino, until one day Marc wrapped his tail around his waist and dragged him under. It took four minutes and thirty-two seconds for people to wrench him from that hold. Wet, incoherent, trying to cough out his lungs.

Andrea saw the video. They were talking before, Valentino very close to the pool’s edge, Marc swishing and almost writhing, kicking up waves. The pixelated security cams couldn’t get more than that, and the blur of white and orange that followed.

Marc makes a face at him. Then said tail snaps up.

Andrea watches its lazy arc in fucking disbelief and doesn’t even flinch when something hits his shoes. The water is lukewarm, thick with brine. His socks are drenched.

He’ll have to do laundry again tonight. Great.

“Right,” he deadpans, “it’ll be nice working with you.”

Marc smiles—tries to, at least. Andrea isn’t sure if he can or wants to or knows how to. It’s more a show of teeth than sincere, each of them white and wicked. If he pushed, he could cut his fingers on their fine points.

“I wanted to get your face.”

[lastlatebraker]

Andrea Dovizioso, Leguna Seca 2010 // Marc Márquez, Hakone Turnpike 2018 by Kunihisa Kobayashi // Andrea Dovizioso, Valencia 2020 by Gold and Goose Photography // Marc Márquez, Barcelona Test 2024 by Michelin

[dovquezdecember]

week one roundup

A total of 18 works have been posted, by six different makers. An incredible first week!!

gifs

Austria 2017: a dovquez classic by @kingofthering

Motegi 2017: inclement weather by @kingofthering

Austria 2019: in a car by @kingofthering

hands by @kingofthering

andrea dovizioso + losing years of his life to his battles with marc marquez by @kingofthering

Le Mans 2013: first by @kingofthering

Thailand 2018: overseas by @kingofthering

fics

here and now, unhaunted by @le-chevalier-au-lion

in the kitchen by @lestelledreams

Lights by @strawbunni-shortcake

chained and shackled, i'll unravel by @lestelledreams

I wonder what it is like to be so beautiful by @lastlatebraker

touching foreheads by @lestelledreams

after the 1 Down Magazine interview by @lastlatebraker

cuddling while it snows by @lestelledreams

In your orbit by @twiceeshy

multimedia

1 Down Magazine by @lastlatebraker

fancam

brooklyn baby by @le-chevalier-au-lion

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

DOVQUEZ x brooklyn baby

@dovquezdecember + fire and ice water

[kingofthering]

THAILAND 2018 | After last lap battles won by Andrea Dovizioso in Austria 2017, Motegi 2017 and Qatar 2018, Marc Marquez finally gets the upper hand with a last corner overtake for the win in the inaugural race in Buriram.

@dovquezdecember bingo + "overseas"

[twiceeshy]

in your orbit [1/3]

Written for @dovquezdecember bingo

Prompt: "I won't fall in love"

Chapter 1: gravity

Read on ao3 to see more tags.

E, dovquez.

Summary:

Dovi experienced jealousy so acrid he wanted to empty his stomach of it, so thick he could almost chew on it with his teeth. It coloured his vision dark, and gave him anger that he knew was unwarranted.

He wondered unhappily, did Valentino know Marc as he deserved to be known? Love him as he deserved to be love?

"We're not in love," Denisa said, sitting on his lap and facing him, pregnant with their daughter.

Dovi had to laugh. Bitterly, because he knew this, he knew this, but never thought about giving up. Yet here he was, before they even started. Too pre-occupied with himself to settle down, and too absent to be a decent parent.

Denisa would know better than him. She had been in love once, then Dovi had been the rebound that stuck around for years.

"It's not your fault, okay? I don't want us to hurt ourselves over this." Denisa kissed him on the cheek. They had been friends before they decided to try being a couple, and he still liked her. If only that was enough.

"I wanted it to work, that's all," he said in a small voice. He had a hand on her stomach. Their daughter started kicking the day before.

He considered proposing and still had not done it. Deep down, perhaps he knew she would never accept.

She smiled. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, which she wiped away impatiently. Denisa had always been the more pragmatic between the two of them, and a little more ruthless.

She wrapped her hands around his wrist, dark red nails a familiar stain against his skin. She was so pretty and so young. They both were young.

"One day when you find someone right, you'll thank me," she said. She always came across as wiser than her years. Her low voice, her measured composure. It was something that initially brought them together. She made sense in every way, except her fondness for star signs. Dovi had fallen into astronomy for a short phase to prove that it was a superior science. Neither of them would budge.

Strange to think that all these memories would soon be in the unreachable past.

"I'm not sure it'll happen," Dovi said cynically in response. He might not be built for this. His mother never found love, and his father went out of his way to ruin it with infidelity. Dovi was loyal, and it still fell apart.

"Don't be stupid, Andrea, you're an Aries," Denisa laughed. She threw in the astrology nonsense just to wind him up. She never had patience when he was melancholy. She tilted his chin up with her thumb so their eyes met. "You're made of passion, though you hide it well. I'm not, but that kind of mad feeling would be just like you."

He didn't agree. It didn't matter what she thought anyway, because this was the end of the road for them.

She pulled him out of his head the way she always did, one last fuck for old time's sake.

When she was dressing herself and preparing to leave for her parents' place, she turned around one more time to drag a promise out of him.

"You're still on parental duty every time you come home," she said.

"Wouldn't dream of escaping," Dovi said solemnly.

--

It turned out that Denisa was right, and Dovi could have spat out blood over how it made him feel. Surely stomach-churning dread was not the right reaction.

He was in love. He was capable of it, practically at first sight, and all of that tragic hilarity. This mad feeling.

There was a teenaged phenomenon that everybody was talking about. Marc was a nightmare and a menace, shamelessly so. People loved him, and people hated him. He rode like a deity was on his side, punishing everyone who dared get in his way. He achieved impossibilities, he was undaunted. Even the great Valentino Rossi had taken an interest.

Dovi had fed him with a fork while they were on camera, and his sweet dark eyes stared back, unblinking in an unnerving way. He seemed to smile all the time, seemed to find happiness and humour where nobody else saw it. He was remarkably clever and polite, and Dovi had a problem because he already knew that he liked them smart. They carried a conversation so easily, and Marc didn't really get distracted by the more interesting people around them when Dovi spoke to him.

But it was wrong for all kinds of reasons. The power differential, their ages, the fact that Dovi had a daughter and Marc was barely an adult himself. And Marc wouldn't want Dovi like that, when Dovi had spent his career cast in shadow, while Marc was the rising Sun in person.

He woke up in the middle of the night a few days later, a whispered name on his lips, sickening images seared into his brain. Marc in his room, on his bed, in the nude. Golden skin shining, god-like and transcendental. The corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile as Dovi kissed him. Dream-Dovi had his cock in this incredible being, had his golden legs around his waist, had free reign to play with his nipple and coax gasps from him with his thumb. He was nearly too hot to touch.

His daughter slept soundly in the next room. Dovi had sticky pants as though he were a teenager himself. He couldn't deal with this.

--

Fun fact: the gravitational pull of the Sun was nearly thirty times as strong as that of the Earth. (Dovi would not even consider himself to be the Earth, which was the most interesting of the planets. Maybe Mercury, small and plain and closest to the Sun, with just a smidgeon of the its pull.)

Another fun fact: two stars behaved strangely around each other. A notable outcome was a binary star system, in which two stars were bounded by gravity to orbit each other in a tenuous balance. These double stars shone as one, unless you had a telescope to help you tell them apart more clearly.

In that system, Marc was obviously a star, and Valentino the other one. Anyone could see that they were fused at the hip from the moment Marc graduated into MotoGP. Even the media, who were typically mere gossip mongers, talked all the time about how the two liked each other. Cameras flashed whenever Marc and Vale laughed at each other's jokes, leaned into each other's spaces. Dovi nearly had to be gratified that he was so far in the shadows that he never sat at the same table as them.

On the surface, it seemed that Valentino had far fewer scruples about age than Dovi did, since he didn't hesitate to take Marc into bed with him. Dovi didn't know when exactly it started, but by Laguna Seca, he knew it was happening. They were giggly, triumphant, and playful. Attraction so powerful they couldn't keep it private.

Like attracts...like? No that was wrong, it was gravity not magnetism that was at play. They had talent and charisma so expansive that they pulled in everything in their paths. Unfortunately, Marc did not have horrible taste. Valentino was no Jorge Lorenzo, Dovi thought spitefully. The problem with Valentino was that his appeal was understandable.

They pulled each other in. Hands caressing waists, as though they couldn't stop touching. Twin smiles, and offensive little quips said in affection. Prosecco spray twinkling in the sunlight for their victory.

Dovi sat in the shelter of his box, ninth place, a distant spectator. So envious of perfection that he could not bring himself to watch. He was not Mercury, he decided. He was a meteoroid, and if he left his safe distance, he would be pulled in too fast by gravity and burn to nothing in the atmosphere. A shooting star, not a real one, and people would point and say "look, there was Dovi," then forget about him. Wouldn't that be funny.

His Ducati would surely not find his way to the podium this year unless thunderous showers fell upon them, but fortune had never been in his favour. (If he managed, just once, he'd have Marc for a few minutes. Rain or shine, Marc was always, always there.)

If Dovi knew anything about Vale, it was that his thoughts simmered beneath the surface. The clever ones, the disciplined ones, the insecure ones. This thing with Marc had to be more important to him than it appeared on the surface, but Dovi had no inkling of what his thoughts may be. They'd been co-workers for a long time, held at a distance that Dovi no longer wanted to bridge.

Dovi experienced jealousy so acrid he wanted to empty his stomach of it, so thick he could almost chew on it with his teeth. It coloured his vision dark, and gave him anger that he knew was unwarranted.

He wondered unhappily, did Valentino know Marc as he deserved to be known? Love him as he deserved to be love?

He couldn't have, and it was such a tremendous waste. Dovi wouldn't hide in the corners if he had Marc, wouldn't hold parts of his own heart back in reservation. He'd take Marc home, he'd love him with everything he had, share everything and everyone he could. He'd want to know how Marc slept, how he preferred his breakfast, what shampoo he was supposed to buy for him.

It would have been so easy, if he had been Valentino, to invite himself over to Marc's. Find any excuse to meet his family. Get to know the beloved brother and the favourite training grounds. Meet his friends, who would all be falling over themselves to see him anyway. Who didn't want to know Valentino?

Marc loved Valentino so unabashedly. He must have been giddy with what he had now. He'd been wanting for years, before he was old enough to know what desire really was. The pictures and the stories floated around, they were supposed to be heartwarming. Marc, aged fifteen, tiny, preparing a gift and begging a journalist to pull some strings so he could take a photo with his idol. Marc at seventeen, a champion himself, loyally continuing to grow his collection of Rossi model bikes while the man himself fell on tougher times. Marc and his posters, his naked idolatry, his mimicry of Valentino's greatest achievements. Flattered to have anyone think his wins were a tribute to his idol.

If Dovi had that, he would make the most of it. If he had half of that - a tenth of that, or even less. If Marc regarded him with even a pinch of romantic desire and gave him a chance, he would grasp it with both hands and do everything right.

He was too bitter to face them together. He started to give Marc and Valentino a wide berth, especially when they were near each other. It should probably have stung more that they didn't seem to notice, but he was simply relieved.

--

Dovi loved Marc, but the thing was that he also found him likeable. Marc had always been attentive and mature, as far as Dovi was concerned.

Marc was brimming with contagious happiness in Valencia, and being carted around from one press room to another, still damp and smelling strongly of Prosecco, and surrounded by family and crew and hoards of people who wanted a piece of him.

It was a perfect storm, really. Championship down to the wire, split by four points, and the shiny new rookie champion on the podium to snatch his crown. A season could not be scripted better.

Dovi intercepted him after his own media scrum, where he gave an interview of nothing. Due diligence on the part of the media, who had to get a quote from everyone. Yes, Dovi finished ahead of his teammate, yes the Ducati was expectedly less competitive than the championship leaders, no he didn't know how competitive they would be next year until the tests were done. Yes, he thought their new champion was a phenomenon.

Then he chanced upon Marc with his entourage, and reached out to congratulate him.

"Incredible season, Marc. You deserved it."

Marc stopped in his steps, pivoted his whole body to face Dovi, and shook his hand heartily. He was smiling like he couldn't stop, and it was quite bedazzling up close. Their contact was electric, even if only Dovi could feel it.

"Thanks Dovi, it means a lot from you," he said, he said sincerely.

"It was beautiful to watch you every week," Dovi said. It wasn't flattery if it was true, and Marc's resulting beam was worth the vulnerability.

It didn't seem as though there were any mics in an earshot, but he couldn't tell, so he gestured for Marc to come closer. Marc did so curiously.

"My favourite is still the overtake at Lorenzo corner," he said in a low voice.

Which took a second to register with Marc, must have been due to all of the airy thoughts and stimulation he'd had all day. But when he did, he laughed, full-throated and loud, slapping his own thigh in amusement. It was nice that Dovi could make him laugh like this.

"You're mean!" Marc said delightedly. Dovi offered him a hand in mockery of Marc's bold-faced attempt at an making nice with Lorenzo, Marc turned him away with a finger wag, in peals of giggles. He had stalled here too long, but he didn't care. He just laughed and laughed and shoved at Dovi in jest, giddy with adrenaline and victory and good humour.

Marc only left when he got his face back under control. "See you at testing!" he called back as he was hurried away by his manager. Dovi watched after him with an amused smile as he went. All things considered, it was a good ending to the season.

--

Several days into the year-end break, Denisa came by his place with their daughter.

"Andrea," she said as a harried greeting, dressed in sneakers and jeans and coming across as effortlessly sleek. Her short hair was in a practical new bob, and she had stars hanging from her ears. She was engaged now and he was invited to the wedding, which was pretty fantastic going as far as complex families went.

"Hello," he said, stepping aside to let them in.

"Come in, Sara darling!" she called to their four-year-old, who had gotten very good at walking. And running. And climbing. "She likes these colour markers now," Denisa muttered despairingly, and Dovi sensed an untold story there. "Don't let her get them to your curtains or you will have a problem."

Sara ran into his arms, and he spun her around before putting her down on the sofa. "Missed you, princess," he said.

"Love you, daddy," she said quietly.

He ruffled her hair and went to the kitchen to pour them all water as Denisa set all of Sara's pink bags down. He had his and Denisa's in wine glasses as a running joke, and Sara's in a pink cup with glittery floaters.

Denisa cornered him as the threshold. "Is something going on with you?" she asked.

"No, I'm happy to be home," he said. He was surprised to be asked, because in his mind, he had made peace with the Marc situation more than before. They could be good co-workers, and Dovi could make Marc laugh. He could live with that.

She rolled her eyes. "Come on Andrea, I know you."

"Nothing I can share," he corrected. "Sara will be fine."

She studied him carefully. "Invite me to your wedding," she concluded, somehow astute yet completely off course.

"There's no wedding except yours," he protested.

He could see her fight the urge to grill him further, which she would have done if they were just friends. But they had boundaries now.

"I always find out," she said at last. She plucked her glass of water off Dovi's tray and went off to say goodbye to Sara. Dovi followed in silence, wishing that he had more good news to share.

There might never be a wedding in store for him, he mused. His heart had grown into a strange, devoted creature. He tried not to act on the melancholy that ensnared him time and time again.

--

With Sara, Dovi wondered if he already had all the companionship he needed in his life. He loved her so much that he should be content.  She was a lovely child, polite and clever and always up to quiet mischief.

Denisa was right to warn him about Sara's magic markers, but he was glad that he didn't put a stop to it.

At some point, Sara drew on his walls instead of his curtains (or her colouring books) when he was busy taking a shower. Her pictures would greet visitors right from the moment they stepped into his house, and he didn't mind one bit.

"This is you," she explained, pointing to a red stick man in a lopsided cap. "And me," - a little pink girl with fairy wings. The other figures in blue, green, and brown on her other side were quite clearly her mother, step-father, and dog. What she lacked in artistic skill, she made up for in artistic vision.

He bent down next to the artwork to get a better look at it. The rest of it were incomprehensible scribbles, and maybe he would eventually paint over them, but he had to find some way to preserve the family drawing.

"I really like it," he said.

"Mmm!" she chirped, as though this ought to be the case. She reached inky fingers towards him, and he piggy-backed her around the yard. His loneliness lurked in the corner of his mind, but for a few moments it was powerless in the face of the world's sweetest, pinkest girl.

--

Marc only seemed to become more and more unattainable. If Marc in 2013 was a guided by a deity, Marc in the first half of 2014 was taken over by one.

In a way, it was funny. Greatest talents in the world, and every race was a procession for Marc to find his way to the front somehow. Would he win all eighteen races? Some wondered.

Dovi could only shake his head and shrug when asked. He had far bigger problems than some people feeling threatened because they finished in second place every week. If someone had to make fools of them all, it wasn't so bad that it was Marc. Being atop the podium suited him. He was born for it. Flirting with the edges of danger, and emerging with conquest after conquest. He did impossible things. He had never been so beautiful.

The side effect was that dream-Marc came back to visit with a vengence, and this time he wasn't in the nude. He was clutching a trophy that vanished mid-dream, and was dressed in Repsol Honda leathers that moulded along the beautiful lines of his slim body like fetish wear. (Which they always did, but it was necessary for safety and they were co-workers, so Dovi had no right to notice.)

He smelled of sweat and gasoline. The whites of his leathers were impossibly luminescent. The sponsor logos were a blur, Dovi didn't fucking remember those. Marc glowed, celestial-bright, white on blue on orange, and a tantalizing zipper at his front.

Dream-Dovi took off Marc's helmet slowly, revealing his beautiful face, soft cheeks on sharp cheekbones, pillowy soft lips, and smiling eyes. He undid the zipper along his front slowly.

Instead of the full-body suit Marc always wore underneath, there was an expanse of bare skin, shining and warm, and solid muscle that was carved to perfection. Dovi ran his hands reverently, over his strong chest and narrow waist. He was still golden, kissed by the sun.

Inching the zipper down even more revealed hard abs, and his belly button, sensitive to the touch. Then diamond-sharp hip bone, yet more beautiful skin, and his beautiful cock.

"Let me," Dovi said, preparing to kneel down and take it in his mouth, to give him anything he wanted.

Dream-Marc pulled him up close for a kiss.

Dovi woke up with a start, his heart racing in a fearsome pace. Memories of the dream faded in whisps, but he could still remember the important parts. The sinful pull of a zipper, the contentment on Marc's face.

He felt guilt. Despair chased soon after. Because dream-Marc was nothing like real Marc, merely a spectre with his face. But Dovi would never have a chance to know him well enough to conjure him realistically.

And he knew that if Marc was privy to the fact that Dovi thought about him like this, he would be disturbed. It made Dovi sick. That his feelings, so well-intended, would be worse than meaningless.

Meanwhile, he knew that Valentino was finally putting in the effort to arrange for Marc to visit his home and ranch, and Marc had accepted. Cautiously, the pieces of their relationship were coming together. Mutual desire, built on shared foundations.

Dovi had never been further away.

[lestelledreams]

@dovquezdecember bingo + cuddling while it snows

They spill into the hall in a tangle of limbs and winter jackets, their laughter filling the room as the door closes with a gentle thud behind them. Dovi stumbles, Shira and Stich dragging him further into the room, one of his feet stuck in their leashes. He lets out a soft curse, almost toppling over when Shira tries to jump over his leg, getting them all even more entwined. Marc muffles a giggle with his hand, gloves still on, but it’s easy to see the glee shining in his eyes.

“Okay, okay, shh, no need for that,” Marc says, when the dogs start barking. He kneels down, starting to take off their collars and getting two very cold and excited snouts pressed up against his face as thanks. “No making Dovi fall, hmm?” There’s a twinkle in his gaze when he looks up at the man in question. “Not when he’s been such a gentleman, taking you out for a walk despite the freezing weather.”

Neither Shira nor Stich has any time to answer that, disappearing in a flurry of tiny paws as soon as they’re set free, sprinting into the house and leaving wet tracks after them.

Marc stands and starts stripping off his outer layer, until he’s left in a knitted long sleeve and a pair of sweatpants, a smudged stain from their lunch on them. Tomato of some sort. It’ll disappear with a wash, he hopes.

He nudges Dovi lightly with his elbow.

“Alright?”

“Yeah,” Dovi smiles. A warm, kind expression that makes his whole face light up, deepening the crinkles at his eyes and the lines around his mouth. He’s beautiful.

Still smiling, he throws a pointed look in the direction the dogs ran in, raises an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t we have dried their paws off before letting them loose in here?”

Marc looks pensive for a moment, then makes a noise that’s difficult to interpret. “It’s probably fine.” He takes Dovi’s hand and steers their steps towards the living room. “And I’ll clean up after them, anyways. Later.” The last word added after Dovi gives him a pointed look. Later can mean a lot of things.

It’s completely white outside the windows, large, gorgeous snowflakes glittering in the air, falling in what seems like slow-motion and gently landing on the ground, covering up their footprints from when they’d played with the dogs earlier in the day. Marc pushes Dovi down onto the sofa and throws the tv controller to him, already on his way out of the room again. “Pick a movie while I go fix some snacks for us.”

He steps in small puddles of melted snow, one, two, three times, on the way to the kitchen, Shira and Stich having very diligently left traces of their snowy paws and fur from rolling around outside all over the floor. His favourite little menaces. Marc shakes his head but huffs out a laugh. Guess I’ll just have to get a pair of socks as well, he thinks, amused.

Rummaging around in the cupboards Marc finds an opened box of chocolate and some other candy, bringing it all back to Dovi along with a thick pair of socks for himself and a gigantic blanket for the both of them.

“Did you settle on anything yet?” Handing the retrieved snacks to Dovi, Marc curls up next to him and tucks the blanket around them, making sure to dig his cold toes under Dovi’s thigh and stubbornly keeping them there when he attempts to push them away.

“You’re cold, you know that right?”

“Oh yes,” Marc says, a delighted grin painted across his lips. “You’re my portable heater. Very convenient.” He nods along with his words, then has to duck to avoid the pillow Dovi throws at him. “Hey, that’s rude! I brought you sweets!”

“You brought us sweets, you mean.”

“That’s what I said!”

Dovi sighs. “Just put the dry socks on, please,” he says, picking them up from where they landed on the floor in the scuffle and handing them to Marc. “I picked a Christmas movie. That time of the year and all. You don’t have anything against romcoms, I hope?”

“Nope,” Marc answers, putting emphasis on the p, really making it pop, to be annoying. The grin seems almost stuck to his mouth. Dovi can’t resist pressing a kiss against it. It tastes like chocolate.

Cuddling closer, Marc’s legs resting on Dovi’s lap and his head on Dovi’s shoulder, their hands intertwined under the blanket, they put the movie on, as the snow continues to slowly descend outside the windows.

[kingofthering]

LE MANS 2013 | Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso share a moment in parc fermé after quali and their first front row together (Marc in pole, Dovi in P3).

@dovquezdecember bingo + "first"

[lastlatebraker]

A follow up for @dovquezdecember: Marc stops by Dovi’s flat after the 1 Down interview. (rated M for one not terribly explicit blowjob)

all of my love and gratitude to @yoro who is now co-parent to this universe: thank you jay i wouldn't love them half so well without you <3

Dovi's stomach does a funny half-flip at the sound of Marc's key in the lock, his sneakers toed-off in the entryway, a curse as he trips over the rug, again.

It hasn't been a terribly long stretch since they'd been in the same city, really only a few days this time. Long enough though that Dovi can't help his breath catching when Marc appears in front of him. Soft in his travel clothes, curls shaking with the way he's already laughing, grin wide and winking. Beautiful, real.

"So, Dovizioso..." Marc is pleased with himself, Dovi can already tell, and he feels warmed with the force of Marc's own pleasure. "Rumor has it our relationship is good."

Marc drawls the word, all sex and insinuation, and if Dovi's making a face at him for daring to bring up what he'd said in his press duties, Marc doesn't seem to care. Just lowers his lashes the way he does for the camera and saunters to Dovi reclined on the sofa.

He looks dangerous likes this, raw and unpredictable with his delicate eyelashes and cutting cheekbones. He sways his hips when he walks, as though Dovi's living room were a catwalk, his stockinged feet padding across the wood floor.

"I hear—" Marc has pitched his voice lower, until it's all gravel and smoke, and Dovi shivers with excitement, can feel the way his body instinctively knows he's half prey, half ringmaster in Marc's little game. Then Marc drops to his knees, the soft material of his sweats just a hair’s breadth away from Dovi's feet. "Mr. Dovizioso, I hear we have a very professional relationship."

He’d known, as soon as he’d heard himself say it, that Marc was going to be a bit of a brat about that line, but there’d been nothing to do about it then. Not until the upcoming show is finished, at least. He wants them talking about Marc, couldn’t stomach the thought that his first season back would be entangled in Dovi when so many triumphs had been tarnished by the scandal of Rossi already.

Not now that he’s back. And he is really truly this time, floating with his own brilliance and the adrenaline of the lights rather than the pain meds and physio and “if you’re careful, you can.” It makes Dovi lightheaded to see him like this.

Glowing. Not twenty-two anymore, but not the shell of a man Dovi had taken into his bed. Something better than just young and beautiful now.

The feeling of Marc’s hand around his ankle brings him back to his flat, where Marc is real and solid, fingers hot and dry gripping the bone.

Marc looks beatific on his knees; serene, as though all the light a person could ever need is already bottled up within this one man. He should sit like this for a shoot, Dovi thinks, tucking the thought away then letting it go entirely. For this moment, Marc can just be Marc. Self-satisfied, infuriating, alive.

He cups Marc's jaw in his hand, then kisses him. His eyelids; his cheekbones; his lips last, a soft press.

"Not very professional," Marc tuts at him, tugging at Dovi's waistband, pulling it down to see him already half hard.

Dovi can feel the shallow breaths as Marc swallows him in one fluid motion, an echo of his fall to his knees. It's too much, too fast, but he just rests his hand against Marc's cheek to steady him. Allows himself one hiss when Marc presses his nose into Dovi's coarse hair.

It's always like this with Marc, intense, fast: too much and everything Dovi's ever wanted. There are moments now though, when it feels like the too-muchness is just Marc. Like Marc is offering himself, rather than clutching at Dovi, running from what might've been.

The sofa creaks when Dovi ruts up into Marc's mouth, once, and he strokes Marc's hair in apology. Then, delicately, as though every hair were priceless, Dovi pulls Marc off.

His eyes are watering, his lips swollen, a line of drool running down his chin as he looks up at Dovi. He still looks delicate, but strong now. Like Dovi can handle him as though he's precious and he won't break apart.

"Slowly, amore mio. We have time."

[kingofthering]

endless list of random motogp things - andrea dovizioso + losing years of his life due to his battles with marc marquez

@dovquezdecember bingo + free space