Jorge's calloused palm skates up the blistering meat of Aleix's thigh, a barely there touch. Aleix hisses at the new flush of warmth.
"It's because you wear your shorts stupid."
He flings his arm over his eyes, sighing when Jorge's hand settles on the sharp ridge of his hip where the skin's not as angry. It is because of that -- the material of his board shorts scrunched up into itself, a look Jack Miller had called, "Budgie smugglery," once upon a time.
"You should put more aloe on," Jorge says.
Aleix pulls his wrist away to blink miserably up at Jorge's smiling face. He had, only half an hour before. His skin is just drinking it down like a dying man in the desert.
"Do it for me," he prods, elbowing blindly till he finds a soft and warm part of Jorge to jab at. Jorge makes an indignant little mewling sound, one that would have Aleix surging up and over him, hungry, if he wasn't in so much pain. A cap clicks open, and a cool glob of after sun gel lands on his knee. Jorge's hand follows, the backs of his knuckles smoothing it over Aleix's sunburn and blessedly not as hot as his palm would be.
"We should be out swimming, you know," Jorge digs. Even with his eyes closed, Aleix can see the pout on his pretty face. It's not the worst start either of them have had to a summer break -- Aleix doesn't point this out -- but it's annoying.
"You still could," he says instead, loathe to ruin Jorge's vacation, but too fond of the airconditioning in their villa to leave it and risk another burn. Jorge clucks his tongue. His hand crawls to the top of Aleix's thigh and dances down the crease of it, finished with the gel and now seemingly intent on stirring some sort of reaction. Aleix grunts.
"You would be bored without me," Jorge hums. He would be. There's not even any cycling he could be watching.
"Everything is boring without you."
Jorge snorts. He presses his fingers into Aleix's ribs, forcing his eyes open and dragging a laugh from his throat.
"Come sit in the shade then," Jorge pleads, "I will get you a cocktail. You can just watch me swim."
soppping - bay faction
mini song-based prompt fill: rosquez/dovquez at the cluuuuubbb
Valentino's hand is a wide brand of heat over the hills of Marc's ribcage. Marc is sweating, nervous -- hair damp at the peak of his neck, only just 10pm and already half outside himself. Drunk enough to know they're sitting too close. Drunk enough to not care, really. It is Valentino and him and a ramshackle collection of people, not even all from Yamaha, magnetised to him as they are. Andrea is here too, somehow, a forgotten third place and a forgotten figure on the outside of the booth.
Valentino laughs, loud, and his hand climbs. Fingers dragging up across Marc's polo, nails pressing into the edge of Marc's armpit. It's damp -- embarrassment churns in his gut. Valentino pulls Marc closer, squeezing absently at the sensitive divot beneath his arm. He musn't notice, or care.
Marc takes a greedy sip of his drink. He's underdressed, too. Straight from the track in his Honda polo and his shorts, only making it past the bouncer because Valentino had caught the top of his head through the crowd and called out for him. He squirms. Valentino takes notice.
"You are alright?" he asks, shouting over the music, words like the panted breath of a volcano in Marc's blushing ears. Marc ducks his head close in turn.
"Have to piss," Marc manages, voice too high, anxiously reedy. "Be back."
Valentino releases him and Marc slips across three laps to escape the booth.
It is quieter in the bathroom, but not by much. Marc pisses and washes his hands, and then his face when he catches sight of it in the mirror. The pink bittenness of his bottom lip, fat. Flushed cheeks like a child, hair up in every direction from where Valentino's hand had found it over and over.
The door clangs shut, ripping his eyes from the mirror. Dovi bobs his head in an awkward hello. Marc thinks he must says something, but he can't hear his own voice over the throb of blood and bass in his ears.
He looks back at his blotchy face in the mirror. His tongue feels thick, slow. Maybe he will buy another drink when he goes back out there. And something for Valentino, maybe. A beer. Valentino would like beer.
"Are you sick?"
Dovi appears beside his reflection, eyebrows raised. Marc blinks.
"No, I am -- catching breath."
Dovi nods. He says, "You don't club much, do you?"
Heat rushes back to Marc's cheeks, painting him red all over again. It must be obvious. He must look out of place.
"Sometimes I do," he answers. The bluff itches at the roof of his mouth. If Dovi notices it, he does a kindness by not saying anything.
"Okay. Take care of yourself, then."
The music surges in through the open door with Dovi's exit. Makes Marc's head start to pound with a vengeance.
part of it - johanna warren (@springbrakers)
mini song-based prompt fill: rosquez
It is the work of a viciously cruel universe, Marc thinks, that puts him and Valentino on their respective balconies, close enough to lock eyes and then close enough for Valentino, after a quiet stalemate where neither wants to give up their view of the sunset and lose this battle, throws first his packet of cigarettes and then his lighter across the gap between them.
Marc is not a smoker. Marc is not someone -- anymore -- that stands close enough to Valentino to hear him speak.
He lights his cigarette. Valentino says, "This would be funny."
It would be, maybe. If they were other, different people. If they were the same people but less -- them. Or if Valentino was not just slightly closer to God than the Pope. Marc doesn't elaborate with his thoughts, and he certainly doesn't encourage Valentino to.
Álex calls through the crack in the sliding door, asking if he'd like a cold glass of water. Marc says no, even though he would; throat dry, lips cracking. But if Álex came out here, he would see Valentino. Or Valentino would leave.
Marc doesn't investigate why he doesn't want either of those things to happen. He ashes his cigarette on the balcony, and then so does Valentino. It is muscle memory, somehow, despite how he hasn't smoked in years, which was with Valentino also. The man is a vice.
"You must be happy," Marc murmurs. It is quiet this high up, so his voice, though small carries. Valentino peers at him. Pecco, Bez, and Franky had finished in the top 5. Even Luca had scored points, bless him.
"Well, is not winning," Valentino replies. He lifts his free hand, and catches the pack and the lighter as Marc tosses them back. He'd only thought about dropping them to the ground below for half a second, but it wouldn't really do him any favours.
Marc agrees. "It isn't."
Valentino, finished with his first, lights a second cigarette. It strikes Marc -- match against his rib cage. Valentino has never been a chainsmoker. But he would -- maybe, there would be no reason to stay out here if he was finished. Out here with Marc.
"Are you flying back to Italy?" Marc asks, not knowing why. For the sake of making an effort, even just to acknowledge that Valentino has not closed the door between them as soon as he's reasonably able.
Valentino lifts a shoulder and shifts his weight against the railing, till he's facing Marc front on. Marc follows. They're no longer talking into the sunset. Marc can see Valentino's eyes.
"No flights booked yet, we will see. And you? Home?"
Marc nods. He always goes home, for the most part.
And then he rolls his shoulder, the bad one, to watch how Valentino tracks the movement all the way down his arm.
"I need to rest more now," Marc adds, throat squeezing around the vulnerable admission, "getting old, and other things."
"Getting old," Valentino repeats. "Maybe I know something about that."
A laugh rings out in the space between them, and Marc only realises late that it's his, and that it had come easy -- naturally. Valentino tips his head. There is a flash of pearl white teeth. Marc swallows the rest of the noise down, suffocates the bubbling in his chest. His cigarette has started to die, neglected. It's all he can smell. He blinks at the sun, the blinding line where it's started to melt into the sea.
“Fuck, what have you done,” Valentino hisses between his teeth. This is a big job. The figure on his garage table is a racing droid. Right arm mangled to shit, hanging on almost only by sensor wires and synthetic skin. Looks like the second he touches it, everything’s going to fall apart. Sympathy pain thrums up his wrist.
He doesn’t usually talk to them. Easier, when the lights are all turned off upstairs and it’s just a task, a machine to put back together. But whoever dropped this one off had left his eyes on. Big, liquid brown things that hit Vale when the fluoros went on and that haven’t left him since. He twists away to slip his glasses over his ears and tie his apron. The droid is still watching him when he turns back, unblinking. Would’ve been pricey when he was first commissioned, probably. Pretty thing — all golden airbrushed muscle, a big, bow-shaped mouth.
“Lets see what you’re called, mm?” he breathes, rounding the table. He pulls the first screwdriver out of his belt and wedges the tip of into the gap bordering a blood red nape panel, which levers off with little effort. There’s a hiss, a rush of static and then the droid says, “Marc, but you could’ve asked me that.”
“Fuck,” Valentino jumps back, hands up like he’s been zapped. The droid doesn’t crane its neck to peer at him, but he can hear the gentle whir of jaw joints, more words threatening to form. What a joke. Some bot manager trying to scare the life out of him. He comes back around to face Marc, heart thumping in his chest. “You are meant to be turned off, you know.” He jabs the screwdriver at Marc, punctuating.
Marc’s eyes shutter closed and then open again.
“I was.” His voice is cut through with static, like there’s a wire tangled somewhere. Nice, otherwise — deep and melodic.
“You were. Of course, so, then,” he waves a hand, like meaning what?
“The leftover charge. If I — catch it in time. I can trip the power.”
Valentino laughs.
“A robot that can turn itself back on, yes? What times we live in.”
Marc’s face, with the limited range of motion he appears to have in this moment, scrunches into something like a scowl.
“You don’t — believe me. Try it.”
The grin on Valentino’s face melts into slack-jawed doubt.
“Here,” Marc adds, looking as far bottom-left as possible, trying to point out his killswitch with his eyes.
“I know that,” Valentino snaps, stepping up to the bench before he can second guess himself, before he can look at Marc’s arm and remind himself that this job has a very unsuitable deadline. His fingers find the button under the jut of Marc’s jaw, and he makes the mistake of looking him in the face as he presses it. Marc’s expression goes slack. Every little working piece beneath his skin shuts off, drops his mouth open, eases the lines between his brows. His eyes flicker once, twice, before blipping white. Valentino’s fingers spasm. He always looks away because doing this feels like killing someone, and Marc’s not back on yet so Valentino just wants to hit the button again and have everything come back with a whir of fans, and — Marc jolts.
His good arm flies up at the elbow, knocking Valentino in the chest without a great deal of force, and then his irises blink back on and all of his joints click and twitch like they’re recalibrating.
Marc turns to look at him, all there.
“I caught it better, this time. I’m at ninety-five percent. It was only thirty, before.” His voice is clear. Valentino stifles a relieved noise.
“Percent, like —?”
“Function.”
Valentino ‘ah’s. He steps back. Marc cranes to take in his surroundings, and then the state of his arm.
“You shouldn’t be able to do that, you know.”
He’s never seen it before. Even the top models, in governments and hospitals. They can’t catch themselves like that.
“I don’t think you are going to be able to fix this,” Marc says, ignoring him, head still tilted down at what’s left of his arm. Valentino follows his gaze.
Closer, he can see the true level of damage. It is immense. Even if he could put it together, make it look like a proper limb again, there’s no guarantee it’d function anywhere close to full capacity.
“It is my job to try.”
Marc looks at him. His stare is piercing — knowing.
“Will it work like it should?”
Valentino tongues at his canines. The rolling feeling in his stomach is guilt, he realises. This is the first time he’s ever spoken to something he’s planning on pulling apart and putting back together. It’s a little nauseating. He feels too much like a surgeon, like if he looks at Marc’s arm for another second, he’s going to see flesh and bone.
“Ah —”
“— It hurts like it won’t. I can feel that it is — bad.”
“You know if your team could pay for a rebuild, that’s probably. That’s what I would do.”
Marc’s eyes flash.
“The benefit-cost ratio,” he murmurs. Valentino blinks. “There are newer, cheaper models.”
“Did they say — what if it can’t be repaired?”
Marc blinks back down at the useless curl of his fingers.
“Scrap, probably.”
Fuck.
For some reason, the morose look on Marc’s face when he’d lifted his working shoulder and admitted they’d toss him if his arm can’t be fixed had convinced Valentino to lead him out of the workshop and up to the house, lugging his toolbox behind him. They’d settled on the living room floor by the fireplace, which Valentino figured Marc could feel the warmth of given the way his face went slack, painted in the amber of it.
It’s strange, working on an alive thing — turned on, rather. Marc shifts under each touch, huffs when Valentino’s pliers nick a wire that must still have electricity flowing through it. He pulls all the outside components off over the course of half an hour, delicately extracting the crushed bits of shell that had embedded themselves in soft tubing and joint padding. They take a break once Valentino’s separated all the pieces into things he can reuse and things that had become shrapnel when whatever happened, happened.
Marc gazes into the flames while Valentino sips his coffee in the doorway. If Marc can feel the eyes on the back of his neck, on the open panel, he does nothing to acknowledge them. Valentino can see straight through to his spinal cord. Could brush his fingers over it, if he took a couple steps closer. He knows Marc would be able to feel that, knows there are touch sensors wrought the whole way through these things. Just isn’t sure if — if it would hurt or. If it would be something else.
They fall back into it, and Marc starts talking. He watches Valentino work. Tracks his long, deft fingers as they braid cable back together and fit replacement parts. He does something that makes Marc flinch, brushes a wire nerve ending and pulls a low noise from his voice box.
“Sorry,” Marc manages, and it sounds like he’s panting, exerted and barely keeping it together. Valentino swallows.
“Happens,” he says. “Didn’t mean to hurt you. Normally my — normally I do this while you’re powered down.”
Marc shakes his head.
“Didn’t — hurt.”
Valentino goes still. Something flutters in his chest.
“How’d it happen,” he whispers, leaning his head closer and blocking Marc’s face from his view. A distraction Marc clears the static from his throat and wrenches his eyes back to the fireplace.
“Pushing too hard. Tyre hit my arm as I crashed.”
Valentino can imagine it. The force and the speed needed to wreak this sort of havoc. He’s lucky it was his arm and not his chest, his middle. Things that can’t be replaced.
“They turned your pain kit off, yes?”
Marc shakes his head, attention still locked on the flames. Valentino bolts upright.
“You can feel this? More than just — the touch sensors?”
“Yes. I said it hurt before, didn’t I?”
Valentino thought he meant that it had hurt, when it happened. Christ. He drops his tools and reaches for Marc’s bare chest, for the raised patch of skin right of his heart that hides his core switches.
Marc catches his wrist.
“You won’t find it there. It’s deeper — inside.”
Valentino feels vomit rise in his throat.
“Why?” he urges, “who would — why did they —?”
Marc levels him with a tight smile.
“Maybe it is inspiring,” he says, “to have that level of feeling. To be unable to stop it. The human disadvantage.”
It can’t even — he can’t even fathom the ethics of this. To bury the chip within Marc's ribcage, where it can’t be reached without cracking him all the way open. Valentino wipes at his mouth. Marc has felt every single second of this — the pain, the distended hang of fake bone and synthetic muscle swaying at his side. Metal plucking at him, digging shards of plastic from his insides.
“Jesus,” Valentino wheezes, “Jesus.”
Marc is watching him again. Valentino can hear the troubled whir of his processor, can picture the steady red flash of it eyeing him from between Marc’s temples.
“If you wanted to — help, you could,” he starts, and Valentino’s nodding before he knows what he’s agreeing to, sweating palms pressed to his jean-clad thighs, “just. The monarch wire.”
The cord curling up Marc’s spine — the one Valentino had been staring at from the doorway. Thick and silicon smooth, the colour of an overripe peach. Marc lowers his eyes to the carpet, lashes fluttering in some approximation of shame. It looks real. Valentino believes it.
“I haven’t felt — good... in — so long. It has just been pain.”
The words crackle, uneasy. The realisation dawns on him. That Marc is asking him to press his fingers to the sensitive wrap of plastic and pretend like he’s not got actual fucking thoughts, firing synapses sparkling beneath his touch.
“Jesus,” he says again. Marc’s throat grinds around a halting swallow. His voice has wilted when he speaks again. He sounds afraid.
“Sorry. I know that’s not — I know. Pretend that I did not —”
The pain is enough of a reason, Valentino figures. It only takes him seconds to justify. That this beautiful thing has sat beside him, polite and neutral and not screaming with the bite of it, and that he’s felt it for so long with no option not to. He reaches up and back and drifts his index finger across the slick coil. Marc makes a wretched, desperate noise and collapses forward into him. Valentino catches him with his free arm and Marc’s head lolls to rest in the junction of his neck and shoulder. Valentino can feel the heat of his open mouth over his collarbone.
Magma pools in his gut. Marc makes another soft noise. Pleading, this time. No words but he can hear more in the single trembling syllable of it.
With two fingers, he follows the wire from the base of the panel up to the start of Marc’s hairline, and Marc spasms like he’s been electrocuted, heaves a desperate sob into Valentino’s skin. Valentino lets his nails catch in Marc's short hair as Marc struggles to catch his breath.
“Is it too much?”
“No, no. Please.”
He can’t help but oblige. Traces the same path back down and then up again and Marc shakes. His working hand fists in the hem of Valentino’s shirt, fingers groaning with the force of his grip. He does it again, and again, and Marc’s sobs transform into long, staticked moans that end high and whining. Valentino can feel himself getting hard, swelling against the knee that had wedged between his thighs when Marc fell forwards.
“Marc,” he says, scraping his nail over the coil and drawing a guttural noise out of Marc’s throat, “I’m — fu-uck.” Marc’s hand drops his shirt and flattens over his clothed cock, hot like a brand. His fingers flex, and it takes Valentino a handful of seconds to realise Marc is working his fly open, still panting into his neck. “Marc,” he bites out again, tongue no good for anything else.
Marc gets his jeans down, and then his boxers and then there’s a big hot palm curling around his dick, a thumb dragging over the weeping head. Valentino squeezes on instinct, fingers pressing down on the wire and Marc howls. He pulls back enough to catch the on-off flicker of Marc’s eyes. They lock onto Valentino’s shirt, onto the name tag stitched over his breast pocket.
“Vale,” he rushes, and Valentino’s too close too early, hips bucking up into Marc’s grip, jaw slack, fingers rolling across the monarch wire like he’s trying to coax Marc’s fucking brain out the other end of it. They crush back together and lightning zips up his arm right as Marc cries his name for the second time; a loose, uncontrolled charge that sets Valentino’s hair on end. His orgasm rips through him, blinds him to everything but the sound of Marc’s voice, the shivering squeeze of his hand — a pulsing chant of ValeValeVale that he doesn’t know if he’s hearing or feeling.
Stars burst in his vision. Marc goes boneless against him, hot as a forge. His hand falls away. Valentino gasps a desperate breath and pulls his fingers out of the panel, smoothes them up into Marc’s hair. Pressed together, he can hear all the workings of Marc’s head and chest. The relentless pump of blood through him, a breathing system trying to stabilise itself. Jesus Christ, he thinks. Jesus Christ.
for the fem rosquez of it all, i’m thinking about marc’s comparatively classic, comfy but a little higher maintenance aesthetic and vale’s grungier “shave my head when my hair gets long” vibe where he throws some sneakers on with his tux and calls it a day. and then i’m thinking about them dressing up… marc primping for an event where vale has been ready for an hour just watching her like i cannot waitttt to take that dress off her later lol
this took me aWHILE to answer but.... what an inspired concept i have so much fun primming them up
Marc does her hair and makeup in one of Valentino’s big sleep shirts and a bright red pair of underwear. It’s the worst way to do it, Stefania had said once. Smears foundation up the inside of your shirt when you take it off and fucks up any chance of a frizz-free hairstyle. Not that Valentino has to worry about any of that, but Marc should.
Her lips are the same colour as the panties. That specific shade — the waxy, melted quality of it, smudges easy. Valentino knows from experience, from getting Marc by her ponytail into the mattress and ruining a good set of sheets. She eyes the dress hanging off the door handle. It’s just light enough that Marc will need to take care pulling it on, unless she steps into it. It's a tie back — Valentino will need to help her with that.
She slouches a little deeper into the couch, splits her legs as wide as her skirt will allow. Marc catches her eye in the vanity mirror and smiles
“You are putting a lot of effort in,” Valentino notes, tipping her chin.
Marc’s mouth drops open as her hand comes up, mascara wand clutched between painted nails.
”No more than,” she begins, and then stops, focus narrowing to the wet flick of the brush over her eyelashes. Valentino waits. “Usual.” Marc’s attention falls to her makeup bag, fingers rifling for something.
Valentino hums and cranes her neck to peer out the floor-to-ceiling windows. A glass of champagne would be nice right now. They’d wasted the complimentary bottle in the bath last night, left it open when Valentino had drained the tub and pulled Marc, naked, to their bed.
“I do not dress up for them,” Marc says. She’s watching Valentino in the mirror again, eyebrows serious, but her mouth is curved. Their gazes break when she stands, pushing away from the vanity. “Come help me get this off.”
They meet in the centre of the room. Marc lifts her arms straight up above her head and sticks out her bottom lip. She’d look terribly innocent, if Valentino didn’t know any better.
Her fingers catch the hem, and she gathers it up to Marc’s shaved armpits.
“Tuck your chin in or I’m gonna fuck up your face,” Valentino murmurs, starting to tug. Marc obeys, squeezes her eyes shut. The shirt comes off with little effort, Valentino keeping her hands around the collar to stop it from dragging over Marc’s hair.
“Still okay?” Marc asks, going to turn before Valentino can check, seeking out the mirror. Valentino catches her by the waist — stops her from going very far. Her other hand slides up till she can press the pad of her thumb into a soft brown nipple.
Marc pinches her wrist.
“Don’t, Vale, I don’t have pasties.”
“Slut.”
The word earns a nasty grin.
“Help me,” she demands, sliding her dress from its coat hanger. Valentino watches as she steps into it and pulls it up over her bust, and then she turns, presenting the undone back. Valentino sweeps Marc’s hair out of the way and grips the loose ribbons. Marc blinks demurely at her in the mirror.
“Who for, then?” Valentino asks.
“Hm?”
“Who do you dress up for?”
The tease glows in Marc’s eyes before she even opens her mouth.
“Andrea might be there, I heard.”
Valentino gives the ribbon a sharp tug, rips the next breath from Marc’s chest and turns her following giggle airless.
“Not even funny, Márquez.”
Marc hums. She dances out of reach once Valentino’s hands drop from the well-tied bow.
“A little.”
Valentino reels her back, fingers digging into her sides. Marc squeals.
“Smile at her, Marc — all pretty. I’ll let you. Doesn’t matter.”
The joke cinders out between them. Valentino ghosts her lips over the rabbit-beat of Marc’s pulse, presses her tongue into cocoa-scented skin.
Marc asks, “Why not?”
She’s breathless. Beneath her hands, Valentino can feel each ragged inhale, the twitch of fluttering abdominals. Satisfaction curls low in her gut.
“Because Dovisiozo will not be here when I take your dress off, after. When I fuck you.”
Marc makes a choked noise, and then that awful little grin reappears on her heated face.
Valentino kind of fucking loves it. That Marc will show up at his motorhome with his arm in a sling and his chin pushed out, defiant, until Valentino says nothing — threatening to close the door with flexing fingers — and then he’ll slant his eyes to the side and bow his head and say, “Can you just —” or if it’s bad, “Please.” That even after everything he still has this, where Marc hurtling across the asphalt after his bike turns him on first and only scares him second.
He steps out of the way so Marc can come up, and locks the door behind him. His motorhome feels infinitely smaller with the two of them inside of it, even when Marc is tired and shrunk in on himself, shoulders rounded with the effort of just standing upright.
Valentino says, “Move,” and Marc does; crosses towards the bed and heaves himself up onto the edge of it. He levels Valentino with a hard look. Waiting, expectant. Even when he’s the one asking, when Valentino isn’t the one with skin in the game, Marc still manages to demand. Valentino balls his hands into fists.
“On your knees.”
Marc’s lips part and Valentino sees the moment he slips down into something pliable and easy — and then he blinks out of it, closes his mouth with a click.
“My arm,” he says, raising the sling. Valentino kisses his teeth, tries not to let his mistake and the bored tone of Marc’s voice knock his control. He doesn’t hiss your back, then, bastard, but steps up to Marc and pushes into the slot of his legs; forcing him down onto his back with a hand on his unwrapped shoulder.
Marc makes a going sound as he falls. He’s giving in again — less fight than usual. It must hurt. Valentino sucks in a breath to stop the want from clawing up his throat.
A voice he tries to ignore whispers if only Marc wasn’t so good on that fucking Honda, if only he pushed too far past the limit more often.
Getting Marc’s sweats down distracts from the sick feeling pooling in his stomach. Marc twists his head to the side and keens once his cock is free and Valentino rushes to follow, fingers stumbling over his zipper.
Marc is already wet and open, nothing if not efficient, nothing if not aware of the agonising way Valentino likes to ease him apart and how it’s always different now — fast and not tender. Valentino doesn’t begrudge him that. It’s easier, all of it, if they don’t get too close to how it used to be.
“Condom?” he breathes. Marc always says no. Valentino’s usually good at not reading into that.
The quiet stretches — Marc hesitates. Valentino meets his eyes. Beneath his hands, which have settled on either side of Marc’s waist, sweat starts to bead. He doesn’t urgently say Marc. Doesn’t curl his fingers into Marc’s skin, cruel and possessive.
And then Marc shakes his head.
It’s probably in the top ten most embarrassing moments of his recent personal history, the desperate breath that rushes out of him. Marc opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else.
Valentino stops him with a palm around his neck and two fingers. Up to the knuckle, curled almost immediately so that Marc lifts off the bed, uninjured hand scrabbling for purchase on the quilt.
Marc says, “Fuck, fuck, Vale—ntino,” remembering himself part way through, in time to curb the want. There’s a fine line that they’re awful at treading. Marc is usually the first to walk all over it. Valentino tightens his grip and Marc’s pulse rabbits up beneath his hold. Marc spasms, mouth open, eyes fluttering. When Valentino eases off, Marc swallows desperately. “Just — already, you can,” he rushes, tongue thick and stumbling, switching near-affection for urgency.
The first press of Valentino’s cock against Marc’s hole always makes him think, a little bit, about apologising. At least saying the words, even if he doesn’t really mean them. Saying whatever, doing whatever, if it has Marc coming to him without resistance — every day, for the rest of his life until he’s too old to even get fucking hard.
Marc cries out.
He’s always described it as some sort of flooding warmth. A pin-drop off the edge of a pool into the deep end, toes first, up to his crown until he’s sinking. Valentino can see it in Marc’s eyes, taking over. A powderfine stardust version of pleasure, comfort and not overindulgence — just something being set right again.
Valentino pulls out slowly and then rolls back in. The head of his cock must brush Marc’s prostrate because his laboured breath tightens into a whine. Marc’s free hand leaves the sheet to grasp at his sling, nails slipping over the plasticky fabric.
He drops his hand from Marc’s throat and settles it over his hip, and then he fucks him. Not to come. To wait for the wrenched line of Marc’s brow to smoothe and for his fingers to relax. Within seconds, he stops writhing against the bed. Valentino smooths his palm further up into Marc’s shirt, across his twitching stomach.
Marc’s hand crawls up his arm, reaching for the fastening of the sling. Nausea rolls in Valentino’s gut. He doesn’t know if it’s broken or just sprained — had avoided finding out.
“No, Marc, it is not, just because it feels —”
The protest falls on deaf ears. Marc’s gaze pulls back into focus, eyes going flinty. He’s got what he came for and now they can’t even pretend this is something else, because Marc is releasing his arm from the sling and curling his fingers around Valentino’s wrists and begging with the glistening close of his lips for more.
Marc locks his ankles behind Valentino’s back and draws him further in till his thrusts get reduced to short, splitting hitches, thighs pressed to Marc’s ass, all red and wet and skin between the two of them. Valentino’s going to come inside of him and Marc is going to say Vale when it happens, and they’re not going to kiss, even though Valentino dreams about it during off-weeks, and the next time Marc lines up on the grid in front of him, Valentino is going to will him to fall and hate himself for it.
i know those prompts were probably meant for an angsty route but please i cannot help but think of the shenanigans of 19. de-aged & 26. group project/team effort with the academy but specifically with de-aged vale
also potential for shenanigans: 32. body swap & 37. secret relationship for the marquez bros <3
kissing your forehead! (metaphorically speaking)
hii thank you!!! i went with the first one but i butchered it sawry... technically not de-aged but rather 2003 vale in the present and its kinda vale/cele... i mean it would be if i wrote more of it lol which maybe i will (mwah <3)
Valentino — young-Valentino, this lanky thing with a buzzcut and the slim, hairless face of a girl, delights with every new space opened up before him. The Academy facility, the track, the bike shed; which is more an industrial warehouse turned museum, rows of bikes on the polished concrete and more bikes on the walls and a particularly well-loved model hung from the ceiling, and leathers and boots and trophies from a two decade career, too many to count.
Cele can’t stop looking at him. He’s glad Franky’s giving the tour so that he can hang back behind Pecco and Bez and try to keep his eyes from falling out of his head.
They’ve only seen this Valentino in photos and videos. A shock of close-cropped red hair, right off the ‘03 Brno podium, half a miracle he’s not still in his leathers and prison cap. At that point in time, he’s only got a year on Celestino. The rest of them are older than him, which Luca is struggling with, ambling beside Mig with his chin ducked and his eyes wide on a brother he hasn’t seen in twenty something years.
“It is fucking weird,” Cele hears Luca mutter, shaking his head back and forth like he can dizzy himself into waking up from this, or like things will go back to normal if his vision blurs badly enough. It is. Franky, suddenly the oldest of them, had figured it would do no real harm to show Valentino around, and that they could have dinner and think on it all after that. There wouldn’t be any training tonight.
They make it back up to Valentino’s house, where Luca hunts around for the spare key and pointedly ignores Valentino’s questions of so where’s my girlfriend? and fuck, am I loaded?
Pecco cooks with jar sauce and two different types of pasta, because it’s all they can find in the cupboard.
“It’s like he doesn’t even live here sometimes,” he says, eyeing Celestino, equal parts aghast and annoyed. “Jar sauce.”
Cele says, “It’s not that bad.” All tastes the same to him, for the most part. Luca rounds the corner into the kitchen, fingers knitted together in front of his stomach. He’s pushed his hair nervously out of his face so many times that it’s stuck flat against his scalp.
“He keeps asking to watch the TV,” Luca murmurs, thoroughly put-out, “or a race.”
“You can’t let him. It’s like in that movie — he shouldn’t know about, uh, stuff like that.”
Pecco places his wooden spoon down heavily, splatters tomato sauce across the stove top.
“Back to the future? Too late for that.”
Luca’s face goes all pinched.
“If you all had called me before telling him anything, I would have said that. But now he has like, seen stuff.”
“I can show him the dogs,” Cele says suddenly, pushing away from the counter and drawing both pairs of eyes, “at least until the food is ready. Keep him occupied.”
There’s no protest.
He pauses in the doorway to the living room. Valentino is sprawled across the three-seater couch, eyes on the TV. Franky seems to have cleverly put it to one of those channels that just plays old music videos. Valentino doesn’t look entertained.
“Vale,” he says. Valentino looks up. “Come out the back for a second.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. Partly because he’s certain Valentino’s curiosity will get the better of him and partly because he doesn’t want to open himself to offence if Valentino looks like he’s seriously considering not coming. But Valentino does follow him into the backyard, sliding the door closed again behind him. Cele crouches to put his face within licking-distance and gets bowled over by the pair of golden retrievers almost immediately. He can feel Valentino just watching, eyes on the back of his head. Cele shushes the dogs, pushes them away enough to sit back on his knees.
“Are they mine?” Valentino asks.
Cele cranes back to look at him. Valentino takes a tentative step forward and then slowly lowers himself to sit. The dogs go ballistic when they notice, snuffling at his legs and hands and face and literally anything else they can reach. Valentino laughs.
“Yeah. Penelope and Ulisse.”
He watches Valentino's face twist, eyes screwing up against wandering tongues, eyebrows drawn together, a bubbling laugh stifled behind his teeth.
“Hmm.”
The dogs settle after three minutes of full-body tail wagging, piling into the space between Cele and Valentino with great dramatic sighs. Cele doesn’t really know what to say; how to make conversation with Valentino. There’s too much he shouldn’t talk about — it’s difficult.
“Are you in MotoGP, then?” Valentino asks, breaking the silence. The stare he turns on Cele is sharp and interested. Cele chews his tongue.
“Not yet,” he shrugs. “Moto2 — 250cc, I mean.”
“Oh, yeah. The others?”
Cele watches him for as long as he’s able. Slants his gaze away when his skin starts to crawl. Valentino is intense, even at this age. He still manages to loom.
“Yeah. Not Mig.”
Valentino nods sagely.
“I’m probably not anymore, yes? 2025, right?”
It’s a safe assumption, but Cele thinks that Valentino would be surprised — mildly horrified, even, at how long he had stayed in it. He twines his fingers in the grass, thinking.
“Would you like to be still racing?”
Valentino guffaws.
“Allora, what am I now, 45, 46? Fuck, man. No. Hopefully I do nothing at all now. Just be rich. Live in this house with my dogs,” he breaks off, mouth curling. There’s something dangerous to the tilt of his brow when he meets Cele’s eyes again. “With my girlfriend, eh, my boyfriend. Whatever.”
Cele swallows hard. Pecco should be finished with the pasta soon.
“Too bad I can’t tell you any of that,” he says weakly. Valentino throws his head back, eyes shuttering closed.
“How lame,” he sighs, “what’s the point of coming to the future, then?”
Penelope yawns. Her tail thumps against Cele’s leg, and Valentino reaches to plant a long-fingered hand in the fur of her rump, right by Cele’s calf. The edge of his thumb brushes skin.
“Uh,” Cele manages, “yeah. You could find the Serie A results for the next twenty years? Make some bets.”
Valentino laughs again. It sounds much the same as it usually does, compared to — older-Valentino, Cele guesses. He sneaks a look from the corner of his eye. Valentino’s lips are pulled wide in a lazy, no-teeth smile. His eyelashes are long. Dark.
The door slides open behind them, and Pecco snaps, “Come have some shitty pasta.” The dogs race for the gap inside, claws clicking noisily on the hardwood.
carsick - k.flay (@twiceeshy)
mini song-based prompt fill: rosquez f1 au
There's blood in Marc's mouth. A tongue chewed through, alkaline around the dark chestnut bite of Inno di Mameli. He squints past the falling sun, across the track to the on-screen replay of the last lap; to Valentino spearing past him and taking a long streak of white paint from the side of Marc's car as he went.
Jorge eyed him carefully in the cooldown room while it was still just the two of them.
"Can you be so mad about that," he began, "you know he says, taste of your own medicine, something."
The water bottle protested its crushing. Squeaked and emptied its last on the carpet and Marc's racing boots.
"I am not mad," he answered simply. Jorge fit his third place cap over his sweating head. His gaze steered to the TV, to the replay.
"Indignant, then."
On the step above, Valentino is bouncing on his heels and not looking at him. Marc can hear the wild run of his grin in the anthem. Can feel the heat of it on the side of his face when Valentino turns to see if he is watching. Marc ducks his chin. He can see Santi below, the furious scrunch of his brows even from this far above. Nausea rocks like a brig in Marc's storming gut.
It is points. It is also pole to P2 at a track Marc lives and breathes.
Les Toreadors begins with a showering burst of confetti, and Marc takes his bottle straight to the fence where his team waits with raised hands and opened mouths. He turns the fizzing dregs of his champagne on Valentino, finally, for the sake of making his press circuit easier, and also to catch Valentino in his narrowed eyes. It will burn like Marc is burning.
Valentino gasps, pulls a hand from the neck of his bottle to wipe the bubbles away. His smile twitches beneath the shade of his arm.
