pov you run out of fuel at the end of practice and uh oh
——
The first thing Marc’s eyes land on when he follows the marshals behind the wall is a familiar garish yellow. Swimming in the heat, the colour becomes a shape through the curve of his visor: a scooter, and the man perched on it, black shorts and a T-shirt hiding a willowy form he knows all too well.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and casts around for another scooter, any other team colours. There is nothing. No one. Just the marshals, wheeling along his quiet bike, sputtered to empty nothing beneath his legs, and Valentino, folded onto his scooter. Helmet over his cap. Dickhead.
He is going to walk, he decides, and pulls off his gloves, rolls his head. It’s hot, close to 35 degrees, but he can make his own way back to the paddock. No parc fermé, no session later in the day. The team will hold the meetings for him.
“Márquez.”
It almost makes him flinch. He doesn’t, too good at schooling himself, even and especially when Valentino is involved. He doesn’t flinch, not even when the scooter engine rumbles and gravel crunches beneath its wheels, tracking his dogged footsteps.
“It’s hot.”
The stones are bruising through his riding boots. Thin enough to feel the rear brake, to slide the bike through a corner; too thin for walking over these loose-stone trackside roads.
“Don’t be fucking stubborn.”
He almost laughs. He doesn’t.
There is no one. He had been hoping for Dani, on his KTM scooter—or literally fucking anyone else. But this is not a corner that riders tend to fall at, so no one waits. Just his luck he had run out of fuel here.
“Get on the fucking scooter, Marc,” Valentino says, and Marc does, moving as if commanded.
Getting on a bike is a well-practiced movement, the stretch of his thigh as he throws it up and over. This time, it is a delicate thing, careful not to brush against the tripwire that has been presented to him.
He feels for a handhold, jolting as Valentino revs the engine.
“It’s steep.” So quiet, too quiet beneath the engine sounds—they are still going around the circuit without him—but Marc is all too attuned to the intonation of Valentino’s words, and he knows it means hold on.
The scooter jerks as the stones become the service road, and Marc’s right hand grasps at Vale’s torso on instinct. His fingers slip on the satiny material of his team shirt, catch on softened muscles. Endurance racing is no picnic, but nothing can compare to wrestling a motorcycle around a circuit for twenty weekends a year.
“First place, hm?”
Marc hums, noncommittal, and tries to focus on anything else but the heat of Valentino’s stomach against his palm.
“A Ducati circuit. Not so impressive.”
“Tell Pecco that.”
A huff that might be a laugh. A photographer tracks them as they pass, his long lens catching the afternoon sun.
Fantastic. Not that anyone could have missed them, a blood-red stain on famous yellow. Danger: poison. That’s how Vale probably thinks of it, anyway. Marc laughs, the sound caught behind his helmet, but his chest hitches with it and Vale makes a questioning sound even as he wrestles the handlebars over a crack in the concrete like he’s riding a dirt bike. He’s right, it’s steep, and a long way back to the paddock. He could have turned and ridden away from Marc.
He didn’t. His stomach is warm beneath Marc’s fingers.
If Marc dared, he could lean his head forward, catch his chin on a bony shoulder. See if it feels the same. If they still slot together.
He doesn’t.
“Well, we will see if you are still fast tomorrow.” Of course, when Marc is trapped, pressed against him, he sinks the knife in. Intimate. Calculated. Marc wishes he’d taken his helmet off so he could dig his teeth into cartilage. Valentino is such a bastard; Marc, the same.
Another jolt. Their thighs bump together. A television camera follows their path, a black hole at the edge of Marc’s vision.
Pair of bastards. The best ever, both of them.
As Valentino leans forward, as they rumble up the hill, Marc brings his other hand around. Holds Valentino like he used to.
He told me all this very much later, but I've put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumors about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly true.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, page 101
antecedent:
a thing or event that existed before or logically precedes another. "some antecedents to the African novel might exist in Africa's oral traditions"
#8 - ummmm the one about picking titles (i forgot to copy and paste)
for antecedent!
(help i hate choosing titles for my fics!!!!)
8. What inspired the title for this fic? Is that usually how you choose titles?
hahaaaaa this is also going to be the case with paradoxical and cataclysm (maybe a few others) where i pick a word that fits the fic (in this case i think it was preceding or something) and click through synonyms on a thesaurus until i find one that i vibe with ✨
To fully understand the antecedent definition, you need to explore how it is applied in both everyday language and academic contexts. This word is often used to indicate a thing or event that existed before or logically precedes another. For a detailed and easy-to-follow breakdown, check out the comprehensive antecedent definition available on the linked page.
