hi guys! so last post here for now because i'm going back to my old blog @sammyche (idk if you started following me on this one). i'm keeping this one still because who knows if i'm copyrighted again next year (i intend to keep on making gifs so). also i will answer the prompts from the kink prompt but i'll do it on my old blog :)
evergreen clematis (paper ring wedding) or yellow tulip (trapped together in a blackout), vale/marc
Itās a joke, it starts out as a joke. Vale nosing along his neck in the dark during those hazy hours between midnight and sunrise and murmuring, if you win it all in your rookie season I might have to marry you, no? Lock you down for life.
Marc had laughed, breathlessly, didnāt see anything wrong with that proposition. Even if it was a joke. Valentino was already in his bed, between his legs, kissing his neck, everywhere he turned. Everywhere. What would even change? Nothing. Plenty of people got married at twenty ā and it was just a joke anyway.
It doesnāt feel like a joke now, Vale materialising and herding him into a corner before someone else can grab Marc to congratulate him. He smells like sweat. Marc licks his lips and tastes champagne and his own sweat. A promise is a promise, Vale murmurs, tone unreadable, takes one of Marcās hands. Marc hasnāt forgotten, laughed at the time because the alternative was blurting out that heād thought about it before. Many times. His breath catches, hand trembling, Vale hand might be shaking too but Marc canāt tell, his own hand is shaking that much. Valeās looks steady to him.
Vale clicks his tongue, āIām sorry itās been so busy that I forgot,ā he says as he looks away to glance over his shoulder, āI did not think to prepare a ring.ā Marc frowns and tries not to let his disappointment show, even with everything ā Marc never forgot. But then Vale is producing a piece of crisp white paper from a pocket, folded up neatly, he flips it open and refolds it along one of the edges. Tears it into a long thin strip.
Marc is mesmerised, unconsciously leaning in to get a closer look at what heās doing.
āMay I?ā Vale asks with an arched brow, thereās a teasing twist to his lips but his hand has gravitated to Marcās hip where heās heās squeezing just this side of too tight.
Marc should berate him for trying to get away with not asking properly, even if itās just a joke, for assuming Marc was a sure thing even though itās always been clear to both of them that he is. Vale should still do it properly, go down on one knee like in the movies. But Marc undercuts his own argument by already nodding, āyes, yes, okay,ā his tongue feels fat and clumsy in his mouth, the champagne is starting to go to his head, make him feel lightheaded. āPlease,ā he adds desperately and something in Valeās expression relaxes.
He loops the strip of paper around Marcās finger. Ties it carefully so that it doesnāt rip. He presents Marcās hand with a little flourish, hums ta da under his breath.
Marc stares at it dazedly. Looks up and notices that Valeās eyes are also fixed on the makeshift ring. Heās breathing heavily, cheeks pink, but that could just be the race. Marc wets his lip, his parents are floating around somewhere, he half wants to tell them even if thereās nothing to tell ā itās only a joke after all. Without any warning, Vale pushes Marc back against the wall, gaze hot, his hands are on Marcās hips again, bruising. Marc can feel the rise and fall of their chests where theyāre pressed against each other.
When Vale kisses him, Marc rests his hand on his shoulders, balancing on his thumb and pinky. He keeps his ring finger slightly raised, so as not to damage the paper.
He keeps his hands in his lap during press. No one notices or asks about the thin strip of paper tied around his ring finger.
i get ptsd when i'm being logged out of tumblr now because that's what happened when i lost my blog. i wanted to post then i couldn't so i reloaded the page and tried to logged back in and that's when it happened :((((
finally saw conclave! damn you have to admit that the catholic aesthetic fucks severely. i believe i would have made a great cardinal if only i wasnāt a woman and i believed in god. i mean dressing in fancy dresses and plotting in some of the most beautiful buildings men have ever madeā¦.thatās goals.
For the promptsss: rosquez and chives (building a home together. Badly) OR daylily (parenthood: prepared for and not).
daylily: parenthood, prepared for and not
as luck would have it i already had smth like this written so iām gonna just post that thangā¦ this is part one of a story that i am currently like halfway-ish through atm (i made an OUTLINEā¦) and who knows if i ever finish it but i am certainly having fun writing a lil melodramaā¦ i am who i am what can i say
August 3, 2020:
āWhat is it? My arm, there isn't nerve damage, is there? I thought the scans were good.ā Marc shifts, a nervous hand cupping his elbow. Heās keeping utterly stillā breathing through pain, trying to keep his head on straight.
Dr. Xavier Mir, uncharacteristically hesitant and containing an odd energy in his posture, peers at Marc. He has a clipboard in his hand, and he keeps glancing at it.
āMarc, you areā you are a carrier, yes? Honda had you tested, I can see it marked in your medical file.ā
āYes,ā Marc says slowly, and Mir nods, flipping over the pages in his hand. He shifts on his feet, and a bolt of fear shoots through Marcās stomach like a rabbit. They told him there was no nerve damage. Opening a glass sliding door cannot be the thing that gives him nerve damage.
Mir keeps going.
āWell, Marc,ā He makes an odd, placating sound. āI checked the blood sample that we collected from you for your pre-operative labs, and then I had them run it again to be sure, and it seems that the sample we took from you indicates that you are, well, about four months along.ā
Marc blinks.
That isn't what he expected.
āWhat do you mean?ā He asks, slow and loud.
Dr. Mir clicks his pen, Marc guesses he doesnāt deliver this kind of news too often, which explains the tone. āI mean that you are almost certainly pregnant, by the look of things.ā
āIāā Marc gapes. He tries to make his mind work, arm burning. Heās notā heās here for emergency surgery. Dr. Mir is already dressed in the awful, washed-out toothpaste color of his scrubs. Heās about to usher Marc into pre-op. This is about his arm, all of this should be about his arm.
āFour months? Thatās not possible, they would have tested me before my last surgery, it was negative. The doctors at Honda told me, they told me that it wasnāt something I would have to worry about, that I don't have enough body fat.ā
Mir nods. The ringing sound fades a bit from Marcās ears.
āFalse negatives are rare, but Iām afraid to say that theyāre not impossible. And if you can get pregnant, there is always a possibility for conception when having penetrative sex. Have you been experiencing any symptoms? Nausea, weight gain, fatigueāā Mir peers at him sideways, talking briskly. The shadow of anxious feet move outside the door, Ćlex and Jose must be pacing. āStrong emotional responses?ā
Marc stares at him. Strong emotional responses. The arm that he uses to ride motorcycles is broken. This is his second surgery on it in the space of three weeks. The plate snapped this morning, three hours ago. Brno is in six days, and he will miss it, 25 points down the drain.
āNo, yeahā eh. I mean, yes.ā He makes himself say.
He puts his good hand to his stomach.
Four months ago. Pre-season testing in Qatar. They hadnāt used a condom, and then the world had shut down and heād been stuck without his motorcycle until July, the longest heās ever gone without riding competitively since he was 12 and still in school. Lately, heās had other stuff on his mind. Heās been rehabbing his shoulder, heās been training for the season, heās been doingā heās been doing motocross.
The truth is, he hasnāt noticed anything. The last few weeks, when he supposes it should have been becoming more and more obvious (four months along obvious, Jesus Christ) heād been focused on noticing his arm, mainly, and the bike, as wellā both more delicate things than heād anticipated, and there had certainly been some strong emotional responses.
But this is.
With Vale in March, he honestly didnāt even think it was possible with the sort of life he led, and when he was 20 and his doctors all told him he didnāt have to worry about it, heād just assumed that was the end of it. That will probably be a funny story in about ten years.
Itās not, in the moment. In the moment it just feels mystifying, terrifyingā like waking up and finding out the sky had turned purple overnight, only with an additionally fucked-up impact on his life and more importantly, on his career. He bites hard at his bottom lip. A baby.
He remembersā Valeās hands on the small of his back, hot as a brand. Valeās hands lower. The question, knifed out between strained breaths as he thumbed slickly at where Marc was hot and wanting: Do you have one? and then Marc gripping him tighter, swallowing around the words. No, heād wanted to say, so he had. You should just, itās okay, and then Vale was there.
āFuck.ā He says now, with feeling. This is crazy.
His eyes dart around the sterile white of the room. When heād come in, heād caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sterile little sink, and hated the way he looked. Washed out and pale, small in the bundle of his jacket, his useless arm hanging out of its sleeve, but cradled close. His eyes were drawn with pain above the material of his mask, and his shoulders were postured unevenly, warped protectively over his shoddily healed fracture. Heād thought that he looked old. He turns over the feeling. Old enough?
A baby. An actual baby.
Marc is a practical man, when he wants to be. He runs down the list.
The season is still young, and he wants to be back to winābut itās shortened because of Covid, and with him already missing two races, he realizes, with a sinking feeling in his chest, that a ninth championship at the age of 27 is looking less and less likely.
Which means that he has an actual choice here, not just the illusion of one. The doctor, having given him a thin breath of a moment, picks up on his line of thought.
āYou do haveā options, Marc. We have you at around four months along.ā He sighs. āThe injury, if all is normal after surgery, should heal in six to eight weeks, but this is not a normal injury, it has been retraumatized, and youāve put a lot of stress on the bone,ā
You let me do that, Marc thinks but doesnāt say. It's unfair to say it out loud, heās the one who decided to ride.
āNow, if you want, there are precautions we can take for the baby, or we can see about going another route with that. We need to decide soon, though, because I want to get you into surgery as soon as possible, and Iām sure youāre in a lot of pain.ā
Marc ignores his comment about painā pain usually goes away, eventually, and heās good at ignoring it. In a few minutes, once he doesnāt need to think clearly, heāll ask for painkillers that are safe. Six to eight weeks. He would be back byā god, Misano. There goes his season.
āAnother route?ā He croaks out.
āYou are past the 14 week cutoff for an abortion in Spain, but there are a few other countries where it is less of a problemā Sweden, the Netherlands. Iām sure that I can get you in contact with some people that are, ah, discreet, once we get you through todayās procedure.ā
Fabio Quartararo already has 50 points more than Marc. He considers the neat zero next to his name in the standings. Whatās worseā P10 in the championship or nothing at all. Whatās worseā sitting out, or, or a child.
āMy arm, six to eight weeks, you said,ā He confirms, and the doctor nods.
āIf everything goes well.ā
Including the initial break, he will have been out around eleven weeks in total by the end of the healing, but the doctors will usually give him what he wants if he looks like he can stand the pain. If he tries to come back in four weeks, instead of sixā no, even then the next grand prix would be in September. Itās still half the season, no way around that, and no one can DNF for half the season and still win a title, not even him.
The baby would be six months along by September, and here by November. That would give him the full offseason to heal. A nauseous, unsteady little thrill runs up his spine.
He could be the first rider to win after giving birth.
He takes a shuddering breath. He finds, even still, that he suddenly wants to cry very badly. He doesnāt.
āBut, um, this surgeryā the baby will be fine?ā
Mir tilts his head, like thatās not what he expected Marc to say. āThere are always risks this early into pregnancy with surgery, especially after the amount of stress your body has undergone these last few weeks, but itās not unusual. There are ways to mitigate that risk as you heal, as well.ā
His brain keeps catchingā back on the bike in six weeks.
His brain keeps catchingā 50 points already.
If he does this, he wonāt be able to ride until next season, which is undoubtedly the worst and scariest part of the whole thing. He doesnāt do well with boredom, or with waiting, and he can already feel the need bunching under his skin, that gut-wrenching want to get from wherever he is to his bike as fast as possible. Whatever can get him to the top step, heāll do it, heāll do it fast, and if it means pain, then well, he can bear it.
But the thing that makes him pause is, if he doesnāt do this, he might never get another chance.
And the idea of that, of losing that, is also scaryā scarier than he thought it would be. Thereās a part of him that thought he wouldnāt get to do this at all, and itās reaching towards the realization of the idea with a greedy sort of hunger he hardly seems aware of. If he followed his initial plan, he wouldnāt have a family for probably another ten years, once he retired. And that is only if he finds someone to do it with. He never thought heād get to do it now, so soon, and withā he finds that he likes the idea.
Especially not with someone that heā he makes himself stop, and a pang shoots through his stomach.
Thatās a stupid, childish thought. Valeās made himself clear, best to nip that part of the fantasy in the bud.
He reviews. 6 months off of his bike.
He reviews. 50 points already. A baby. Blue eyes and curly hair.
āMarc, I know this is sudden, and it is hard to think clearly.ā No itās not, Marc thinks, a little distantly.
āāBut I also know youāre in pain, and we do need to get you into surgery, so I need to know what you want us to do.ā
He looks up at Dr. Mir. He swallows. Heās never been one to avoid what scares him.
He goes with his gut.
āIām keeping it.ā He says with conviction.
And twenty minutes later they put him under to fix the plate in his arm.
