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definitely a real smile….no issues here!!!

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A shot of Marc's room from 2008, guys...

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fragile line | ~1.8k

a/b/o fic because i got summer camp fomo ✨ no sex just angst and accidental alpha voice lol

“Pecco?” 

The quiet rap on his rider’s room door makes him jump, and perhaps it’s for that reason that his answer dies in his throat, the don’t come in, I’m changing caught behind his tongue.  

“Pecco, Davide said the meeting would be fifteen minutes later, he has something—ah, sorry.” Marc stops, mouth curled in a bashful grin at the sight of Pecco’s bare chest. “The door was not fully closed—um, the meeting will be later—” And his gaze lands on Pecco’s neck, the uncovered gland. His well-healed bite. “Oh.”

Stupid, is the first thing Pecco thinks, stupid for not closing his door. He’d thought it would be quick enough to change his T-shirt. He’d been careless.

The next thing—panic. Self-directed dismay. A hot flash of protective fury, for Bez, his Bez. The growl rumbles in his throat before he can swallow it; Marc freezes. 

No one outside the pack knows. It was better that way, Vale had told them, no questions, no accusations. Just a lot of team polos and high-necked T-shirts. And Pecco—Pecco has undone all of that in a single thoughtless instant. His eyes burn, something blazing taking hold in his chest. 

“You can’t—” The words sear, acid. “Do you understand? Do not say anything to anyone.” 

As quickly as it had come, the heat fades, leaves him blinking, spacey. Just inside his door, Marc starts, eyes glazed; his mouth opens soundlessly. 

He frowns, shaking his head as if dazed, and his lips move again. Nothing. His scent, so familiar to Pecco now, even through blockers and the smell of bike and rubber, shifts, falls through confusion to something much worse. 

“Marc…” 

Marc’s eyes blow wide, the same horrible realisation that hits Pecco, fist to the throat. He’s never—not once in his life—but he did, and now Marc is staring at him, unable to speak, because Pecco slipped up again, fucking again, twice in as many minutes. 

He lost control in the one way he swore he never would. He used his alpha voice. 

“Shit,” Pecco breathes, “shit, I didn’t—Marc, I didn’t mean—you can talk—”

Marc keeps trying, keeps opening his mouth; Pecco catches the voiceless shape of his own name and nausea claws at his stomach. 

“Close—close the door,” he rasps, then adds, “Please. Please.” 

Marc does, his terror fading to something awful and accusatory. With the door shut, his bristling scent fills the room, like a cat puffing up its fur to hide how scared it truly is. 

“I didn’t mean—” Pecco says again, but it doesn’t matter, because he did it, freaked out for a single second and ordered his omega teammate into silence. Bez would—if Bez ever found out— “Fuck, we can—I’ll fix this. I will.”

A glare follows, the how? obvious even without words. And, to be honest, it’s a great question. Pecco has no fucking idea. They can’t do it here, though.

“I think,” he starts, careful to leave it open now, careful to give Marc the choice, “I think we should go back to my motorhome. More private.” And if Álex catches even a whiff of the distress Marc is trying to smother now, he’ll have no issue clawing Pecco to bloody shreds. 

Pecco has never—it’s never mattered to him, Marc being an omega: not a distraction, like some media outlets liked to sneer, not when he’s only ever had eyes for Bez; not an aggravation, because Pecco has truly never given a single shit whether he’s racing alphas, betas or omegas, just as long as he can beat them. The thought of it being Bez, of some thoughtless alpha losing control and stripping him of his volition, pulls the sickly feeling back up through his gut like knotted rope. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, aching in his earnestness. Marc only tilts his head towards the fresh shirt Pecco had been intending to pull on. Five more seconds, and none of this would have happened. 

He tugs the polo over his head. Catching his own smell, ozone-hot alpha twined through with engine oil, he grimaces.

——

It isn’t any better in his motorhome, apart from the fact that team personnel are much less likely to catch Marc’s agitated scent. It fills Pecco’s nostrils, however, permeates every inch of the living space: still scared, yes, but also pretty fucking pissed off. 

“Marc,” Pecco says, and says a quick prayer in his head, possibly his last. “I don’t know how to undo it.”

The glower he gets for that is truly frightening.

“I’ve never—” He closes his eyes. Hopes his funeral is a nice affair. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done that. I’m sorry. I panicked.” Silence. He peels open one eye, twisting his lips together. “It’s Bez, by the way.” He feels—he owes Marc that, at least.

The look Marc levels at him is as close to yeah, no shit as he’s ever seen.

“We’re that obvious?”

A sharp nod.

“Fuck. Sorry. Again.” He pauses. “I need Vale, Marc.”

Frantic, Marc shakes his head, mouthing no. 

“He’s—he’ll know what to do.” If nothing else, he’s pack alpha. Pecco wants him here. He’d come to the paddock this weekend, free of GT and WEC and everything else that demands his time these days. 

Another vehement no that rolls Pecco’s stomach.

“Please. I fucking—we need to fix this.”

Marc bares his teeth in a would-be snarl. 

Pecco isn’t stupid. More than that, he wasn’t fucking blind eleven years ago when Marc came to Tavullia, when Vale stared at him like the sun was coming out whenever he smiled. And then—

And then.

If anything, Pecco thinks, not for the first time, it’s lucky they weren’t mated when everything collapsed with the force of a dying star. Black holes, now, the history of them, inescapable gravity wells.

“Do you know anyone who can help?”

A pause. A quick headshake. 

“Then—please.”

Marc doesn’t exactly agree, but his expression slips into something resigned. Pecco pulls out his phone.

——

It’s easy to pick out Vale’s scent, familiar to Pecco even in the sensory cacophony of the paddock; for Marc too, apparently, because he stiffens. Vale moves closer, closer—and stops for a beat: Marc’s distress must be escaping the motorhome. Footsteps climb the metal steps, too fast, and the door is thrown open.

Vale’s nostrils flare the instant he steps inside, eyes narrowed, a snarl in the curl of his lips: whether it’s for him or Marc, Pecco can’t tell. “Pecco, what—?”

Plaster ripped off. “Marc can’t talk, and it’s my fault.”

Valentino growls.

In all his years knowing him, Pecco has never seen Vale growl at anyone in his pack—nothing more than a good-natured grumble when Bez or Cele got a little too boisterous. Pecco flinches, ducking his head in submission, as the door slams closed and the white-hot anger of his pack alpha singes the inside of his nose. “What happened?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know that, Pecco. I asked what happened.”

“Sorry,” Pecco whispers, primal instinct demanding he does so.

Protective. Vale is furious and protective. He’s standing between Pecco and Marc. Even as Pecco registers that, Vale rumbles an apology. 

“I—he saw my mating bite. I said he couldn’t say anything, and now—”

“Pecco.” You have to be careful, Vale whispers in his memory. It is not something you should ever use.

“I know. I know, but please. Can you fix it?”

“I can’t undo this, Pecco. You have to.”

“I’ve tried!” Pecco cries, like a whine, like he’s still a pup who needs Valentino’s guiding hand. “I don’t know, Vale. I’ve never—we have a meeting in an hour, we have to be on TV in the morning—his brother is going to kill me.”

But Vale shakes his head, eyes blank. “I don’t know—I never used it. Not ever.” Behind him, Marc shakes his head in agreement—and Jesus, not even when they were worse than bad. Pecco feels like shit, because even in the midst of a violent implosion, Valentino was able to control his instincts better than him. 

He whines properly this time, pitiful. 

“Okay. Okay.” Calm seeps into the air, only a hint of force behind it. “You were worried about Bez, yes? About somebody finding out?”

“Yes,” Pecco admits. 

“Do you think Marc would tell anyone? Do anything to hurt you or Bez?”

Pecco blurts, “No, of course not,” like a reflex, and it’s like unclenching his jaw after grinding his teeth through a long meeting, sudden relief from a tension he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding. “Marc, you can—fuck, of course you can talk. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Marc gasps, an ugly gulping sound, then, “Jesus.” 

Valentino closes his eyes: his scent is clamped down, held close; has been since he closed the door behind him and took a stance in front of Marc like he still had any right to do so. Like his alpha.

“Sorry,” Pecco says again, and it feels like he’s saying it to both of them. 

Marc just stares, blank, gaze flitting between him and Vale’s sudden-hunched shoulders. 

“Please don’t tell Álex,” and that’s what finally gets him a smile, weak but real. There’s a wariness to the way Marc is holding himself now—and Pecco did that. He did that. “I can tell Davide you don’t feel well, it’s just a marketing meeting—”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Silence. Valentino still hasn’t moved. Marc glances at him again.

Pecco wants them out of his motorhome. He wants to sleep for twelve hours. And he wants his mate. 

Even if that means telling Bez the truth, even if that means being on the receiving end of the same distrust that’s now sitting behind Marc’s eyes.

“This will—it won’t happen again.”

“I know,” Marc murmurs, forgiveness coming easy as a breath for him. Pecco sometimes wishes it wouldn't. “I will knock next time.” Another pressed smile. 

It’s never mattered to Pecco that he’s an omega, and he’d always thought it never mattered to Marc either, but now—underbelly exposed, weakness prised open, he hates it, is squirming beneath it. Pecco swallows.

Marc loathes being reminded of the limitations of his own body more than anything else. And Vale, despite whatever happened between them, he never dug his fingers into this particular wound. Animal instinct halted before the bite became a mortal one. 

Still a fragile, desperate hope in both of them.

Pecco inhales; their smell, their smell, is woven through the air, the last hints of distressed omega all but chased away. Valentino still hasn’t looked at Marc, not once.

Well, that’s not Pecco’s fucking problem. “I’ll see you in—an hour, I guess,” he says to Marc, who nods and takes it as the polite dismissal it was intended to be. “Sorry. Again.”

“You didn’t mean to.” When Marc moves, heads for the door, Valentino twitches, clearly holding himself in place—except Marc pauses, tilting his head. “Are you coming?”

The door closes behind both of them.

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normalize flopping. it’s ok to fail baby. sexy even

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Marco Bezzecchi with his mother after taking her on a hot lap around the Misano Circuit during the Aprilia All Stars weekend.

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hi, i hope this isn't weird but you're like a motogp scholar to me and i have a question bc i can't really find an answer; do you know of the medical specifics of marc's arm injury? like ik what happened but i haven't been able to find an article beyond oh he broke it. like is there a reason it's so bad and why he had to get multiple surgeries for it? like was it crushing nerve ends, grinding cartilidge, etc? tysm if u decide to answer

the best and most direct source for this is gonna be marc marquez all in. they’ll show you the bone scans and walk you through the rotation of how it healed and some info about the other surgeries etc but theres also a lot it leaves out about BEFORE that surgery so i'll try and help out. HUGE caveat that i’m not a doctor but the GENERAL info goes like this:

jerez, july 2020: marc fractures his right humerus after the tire of his bike hits it during a highside near the end of the race. he flies to barcelona, gets one million nails and a plate put in himself by perennial motogp bone saw doctor xavier mir, and hopes to show up the next week to race four days after surgery (also in jerez #covid)… at the time its all kinda standard if like. a lil crazy but he is honestly really flippant about the whole thing you get the sense that (like others before him) he kinda thinks what he’s doing is badass. i mean he’s postin this shit on instagram like LOOK AT MEEE

anyways so he is declared fit to ride (NO RADIAL NERVE DAMAGE YAYYY), the test for which seems to be doing decline porno pushups with his cock out. and it’s all kinda like. well this is a short, 13 round championship year, so every race counts and marc has just won four championships in a row (6 out of the last 7 years!!!) and has something fundamentally wrong in his brain. marc voice well yeah jorge lorenzo came back after collarbone surgery in 2013 and it depleted him for years but im different. im better. PLUS it’s alex’s first year in the premier class (also at factory honda which is a can of worms we shant get into) so he’s not as involved in monitoring his insane older brother as he is post-arm saga bc he has shit to do and marc hasn’t missed a GP due to injury at this point since his first bout of diplopia in 2011. hes broken his leg a few weeks before the season before and been fine. marc is marc. so he’s gonna try and race.

anyways! that doesn’t happen lol. marc DOES go out for all the practices (the death nell.) but it’s p clear that the arm is fucking busted. he stresses the injury the fuckkkk out (probably where the bone gets rotated? unsure) and then goes out for one lap of quali and can’t do it anymore, pulls out then and there and is like okay. i’ll rest on it

august 2020: now here’s where i’m like hm. because according to MARC, he is a perfect angel doing PT until he randomly opens a glass sliding door one day and the arm rebreaks (SHOULD be kinda impossible with all the hardware in him lol). i frankly suspect that he was also doing motorcross training to put more stress on it bc he mentions that his people have had to remove the wheels from his personal bikes to stop him from training before (to be fair i think this was during the shoulder rehab he was doing during the 2019/20 winter) and like. you don’t get that kinda policing from the guys who love you without some previous behaviors lmao. also literally he was posting himself doing weight training on that arm on tiktok the day before as evidenced below. i digress but the bone is broken!!! and he gets more surgery from dr. xavier mir. and oh boy does it heal wrong

so there’s not a lot of updates in this time bc marc is like. in his cave in cervera rehabbing like wow what a setback gee i sure can’t wait to be back on my bike… like i don’t think it had really set in that this was a lifelong injury yet. and unforch in december it’s revealed that the fracture is not healing, and he needs further surgery. this time he nixed dr mir and went to a specialist clinic in madrid (that’s partly why he moved there !!)

the clinic also discovered there was a previous infection in his bone, which probably halted the healing process further. it should be noted marc does not go to dr. mir for surgery anymore, which genuinely could mean absolutely nothing. he stayed in the hospital on iv antibiotics for ten days

after this and a LOT of time in the sling (12 weeks is best practice who knows what marc practice is lmao) he comes back to motogp in april of 2021 for the portuguese grand prix, with the stated goal of building up strength in his arm and evaluating where he’s at, which tells you how hard that last surgery was on him. in 2021 i think it starts to set in that this isn’t going to go away, and during this whole year and the next he’s in clear pain every time he’s on the bike AND the bike is kinda bad so its just awful hell lol. like yes he does win a few races but he cries every time and you can tell its really getting to him. this is the period that alex talks about where the pain is the worst, and marc is being mean to everyone around him, and he’s taking a lot of painkillers and complaining about having pimples/losing weight on instagram and generally having a miserable time. he calls this period "a nightmare" all the time

okay now we fast forward until 2022. marc has moved to madrid to get a girlfriend to see his bone doctor more. and the pain is NOT stopping. and the bike honestly sucks so hes not winning AND he just had a diplopia relapse so whats the POINT. and he's suffering and can feel the time in his career ticking downward like sand slipping through an hourglass and he goes to the all or nothing nuclear option and reaches out to the mayo clinic in the USA to see a specialist and see if he can do anything for him, disregarding the rest of the 2022 motogp season. and the specialist says yeah. we took a 3D scan of that bone you just spent a year of your life healing and it looks BUSTED AS HELL. truly from the stress he put on that thing while it was still healing it rotated 34 degrees and THATS part of why it hurts so much. its why he has no strength in his elbow, why he can’t brace anything with it, why his range of motion is so limited, why he can’t open a bottle of water by himself. it’s really degrading his quality of life, and most important to marc: its fucking with his riding lol.

and this doctor says well we break the bone again, rotate it back normally, and see how it goes. it could give you less pain and more ability to brake into corners. it could ALSO end your career. and marc sees the bone scans and agrees to surgery p much immediately. and he gets mayo clinic surgery in minnesota and takes hot girl instagram pics outside because of course he does. the craziest part of this article is when the surgeon says marc has "a great capacity for sacrifice"

and he gets another badass scar and thats where we are today! as to where the arm is now. well he says its isnt a normal arm but its more "uncomfy" in day to day life. i dont believe him but thats fine. like he DOES do a lot of maintenance on the arm i think thats fair to say. he has a limited range of motion. mat oxley says he'll wait until he thinks no one is watching and look like hes in pain when hes in the paddock. his gq interview w "essential things" included a massage gun and PT rubber bands. he stretches it out before races p extensively. he has a PT gurney in his living room. idk, he contradicts himself on this fairly regularly in order to suit his rhetorical needs at a given time, but im inclined to believe that hes in a LOT more pain than he lets on, he just also has more mobility to do sports things (his base level on his hierarchy of needs) and is in a lot less pain than he was in 2022. i think theres also a point that marc brings up in the documentary here that should be noted-- he emphasizes that he didnt do this to improve his quality of life (alex is the only one who mentions this actually, and HE makes a deliberate point to) but instead that he did it so he could win. i'd invite you to do with that information what you will !!!

sources: x, x, x, x, x, x

[lagunaseca2013]

something old, something new : rosquez, time travel and a wedding / 5.7k words

“We are not so traditional.”

“No. But it’s nice. The white.”

“Virginal.”

Valentino looks up from his coffee as he says it, reading glasses half way down his nose. Marc meets his sly smile with a delicately arched eyebrow — ‘argue that point, if you’d like.’

The white flag waves; Valentino grins into his mug, clinks his teeth on the ceramic rim.

“Maybe if I had snatched you up faster,” he defers. Indeed, if they’d skipped the ten year mess and married each other out of the starting blocks. Too late for that now, though. And Marc looks good in white. It’s summer — he’ll be tan.

The lace tickles where it climbs up his neck and over the backs of his hands, silken like cobwebs. It’s lovely. Expensive. Álex had gotten a little teary when he’d ducked in earlier and had smothered the emotion in his voice with a teasing whisper into Marc's ear: “You make a beautiful bride." His mare, stood close, flattens a miniscule crease in the white fabric. She can’t help herself.

Álex’s girlfriend’s makeup artist, invited as a plus-one but who had brought her palettes and her creams and her brushes and followed Roser into Marc’s top floor bridal suite, slots in beside Roser’s elbow. She eyes Marc closely, lips pursed in thought and little pink sponge held aloft. It’s damp when she presses it into his eyebags, cold and soothing.

“You should have at least tried to sleep the whole night,” his mare says, combing his hair back with her fingers. It had been sitting nicely before, curled all shiny with pomade rather than post-race sweat. He hadn’t said that he didn’t, but exhaustion has always worn severely on him, carved his face out like a shell. Camelia, the makeup-artist-plus-one, dabs a soft puff across his forehead and beneath his eyes again.

“It is stressful,” he answers, trying to hold still. Camelia leans in towards his face. Roser swats at his shoulder.

She says, “I know that, don’t tell me. But you are all here now. Nearly done.” Nearly done, Marc thinks. With which part?

Camelia clicks her tongue. “Your skin is so nice,” she murmurs, “I’m finished. See.” She hands him a mirror. Roser steps away to take a long, close-eyed sip of her wine. The make-up looks natural enough. He can see where she’s packed it into the dark bags beneath his eyes, where there are little textured creases. But he looks better — not as tired.

“Lucky you are working on Marc and not Valentino,” Roser sniffs into her glass. Marc catches her eye. She’s still a little bitter. Happy for him, but not yet secure in it all. Too fast, she’d called their engagement, and then fanned herself, eyebrows raised, when Marc presented her with the first of sixty crisp paper wedding invites. I trust you, but Marc, querido, this is all — very sudden.

Marc has not seen Valentino yet today. They’re going a little old-school with it, first look down the aisle type-thing. Maybe part of the reason he’d slept so poorly; that the other side of the queen bed had been left empty and Valentino’s things had been carried out by him and Luca that afternoon, leaving the room clean but for Marc’s suitcase and his toiletries and his white suit hanging in the wardrobe. 

“Have you spoken to him today?” Roser asks, settling into an armchair and pulling the hem of her dress out from where it's caught round her legs. Marc shakes his head. He stands, re-tucks his shirt and pulls his jacket on. Camelia hefts her makeup box beneath her arm and walks herself to the door, whispering, “Bye-bye,” when Roser waves at her past Marc’s shoulder. The lock clicks.

Marc flexes his fingers. “Is she really Gabri’s friend?” Roser shrugs. She swallows another mouthful of her wine. Marc is nearly certain she knows the answer to that. “And no, we are — I will see him for the first time at the ceremony.” He clenches his fists in the lapel of his jacket and then smooths it out again. Tradition, or not having to deal with Valentino’s neuroses on the most stressful day of his life — yes, the arm and championships and twenty-fucking-fifteen be damned.

But really, the capital ‘F’, fear. 

The fear, pervasive like an infection in bone, rotting out the marrow. There is a non-zero chance that he makes his way to Valentino’s room to find that Valentino isn’t there. That he isn’t in the hotel, or the country, even. Marc knows this. Marc had known this when Valentino proposed, down on one shaky knee even though they’d talked about it already, when he’d said yes and when he’d contacted the wedding planner and when he’d invited every single important person in his life to an event that he couldn’t really guarantee would happen. He doesn’t feign naïveté. The awareness burns behind his eyes at all times, even now. Even this close to the end.

The contingency plan boiling on his backburner tells him that Valentino’s cold feet is something he could recover from. No more difficult than last time. One more mountain to climb and one more white flag to plant at the summit.

So he hasn’t seen Valentino since 4PM. Twenty two hours, about.

“Oh, Álex is messaging me. We should go, go find your father. Are you ready? Have you got everything?”

𓇢𓆸

To the credit of the designer and the planner and every member of the venue team, it does look like a two-hundred-and-something-thousand euro wedding. Marc walks down the aisle arm in arm with his pare, and cries only a little bit as Julià releases him to shake Valentino’s hand. Everyone sits and falls silent as the officiant steps forward, smiling kindly between them. Marc can’t even remember her name, brain like a summer storm, lightning dancing on the horizon. Valentino's mouth had fallen open when they'd locked eyes. It's all Marc can think about.

He blinks up at the arch of flowers stretching above them. He’d picked a sunset sort of colour scheme for the ceremony; reds and pinks and oranges, and a starburst smattering of yellow pom-pom like-things, because Valentino had asked absently for the colour, otherwise not so interested in the finer details of decor and floral arrangements. 

Chrysanthemums, they are: yellow, for slighted love. It’s a cruel little victory on such a beautiful day. Unnecessary, sure. But they’re — they’re just like that. It’s not something worth fighting.

Marc swallows. He finds Valentino’s glassy eyes and smiles tightly, without his teeth.

“Are we wedding people?” Valentino whispers, mouth hot against Marc’s temple. The pair of them perched on the edge of Marc’s pool, legs wet and bodies flushed with goosebumps from the night chill. “It’s a bad track record, isn’t it?” Valentino presses, “two sets of divorced parents.” Then he laughs and drags his lips over the curve of Marc’s cheekbone, and Marc grins like it's actually funny and not just completely nauseating.

They have the ceremony in Italian, because most of the people here belong to Valentino, and because Valentino has yet to learn Spanish the way he said he would — mispronounces his Cs on every other word and makes little attempt to correct.

It doesn’t stop Marc from delivering the final portion of his vows in Catalan, only because his tongue is starting to fail him and the lump in his throat hurts to speak around. Valentino might remember to ask about it later. Marc will translate it as best as he can, but the meaning never carries quite the same.

They kiss when they’re told and Valentino deepens it perhaps more than he should, but their friends cheer and Álex heckles and Valentino grins so big, teeth pressed to Marc’s lips until he pulls back laughing. Their videographer, the same that Pecco and Domizia had used, catches their hand-in-hand parade down the aisle beneath a shower of white rice and congratulations. The big dark camera lens only turns Marc’s stomach a little bit.

They fold into the front seats of a top-down, cherry red Aventador, perhaps the least expensive piece of the whole ordeal, somehow; donated most generously by a smattering of Ducati higher ups that Valentino had called sleazy old men once the key was tucked safely in his closed fist, no invites, I won’t allow it — you are their little winner, aren’t you. Porco Madonna.

Valentino peels off from the streetside to more applause, puts his foot down hard to make the car roar as they take off down the road. Disapproval no longer front of mind, clearly, right hand spread across Marc’s thigh.

“Is the only use of an automatic, you know,” he says, smiling. The trails of the big white bow adhered to the car’s spoiler whip around in the wind.

They arrive at the lookout where the photo team is already waiting — members of both Vogue Italia and España, who had hounded the pair of them near incessantly by email until Marc caved and agreed to a photoshoot, as long as they wouldn’t ask to come to the ceremony or the reception. It would make the front page for both publications, the Italian editor had promised them, as if that was something they desperately wanted.

“Like a royal fucking wedding,” Valentino laughs. He sounds crackly through the zoom call. Looks tired, too, hair wild and unbrushed. They’ve been apart for a week and a half already. Marc raced only the day before.

“That is actually almost our tagline,” Francesca Ragazzi replies, beaming.

Valentino parks and they trek up to a cliffs edge that has been decorated within an inch of its life. It’s only half as awkward as Marc expects it to be; the familiar droll of a photoshoot turned hot and squirmy in his stomach by otherwise out of place directions and a lack of bikes and leathers, place your hand on his jaw and just lean in, perfect, now if you can smile, Valentino. Regardless, they survive, and Valentino takes them the long way to the reception venue, the road beside the coast. He blasts music loud enough to make Marc laugh, red-cheeked and embarrassed even on the empty street, and keeps his fingers splayed out over Marc’s knee the whole drive there.

𓇢𓆸

Álex and Luca are the first to greet them when they slip through the door, exchanging hugs and cheeks kisses and thank you for all your help whispered in both pairs of ears, because they’d taken on a lot of the heavy lifting once the date started to really loom. 

“Mamma wants to say hi to you,” Luca says, getting Valentino by the arm but looking at Marc for permission. Marc laughs, nods, breathes, “Of course, go." The brothers disappear and Álex turns on him keenly.

“You doing okay?” he asks. Marc takes another deep breath. It comes easier and easier the further away Valentino gets, dark back disappearing into the weave of people, vanishing between pillars and flowers and romantic fairy lights. It all looks good. It looks beautiful. He says as much, and Álex follows his eye out across the room. The reception is white and blue and soft sea green, classic except where colour explodes in flower bunches and deep navy napkins. Álex, too, in a blazer the same shade as his Gresini leathers. He’s Marc’s ‘something blue’, and he’s curling a hand around the back of Marc’s neck and saying his name again, voice low. Marc shakes his head.

“I’m good. I’m fine.” He meets Álex’s stare with an unconvincing laugh. It’s just a lot. There’s twenty-something people he has to find and greet, and he’ll need to get Valentino back with him for at least some of that. “I have to go make some rounds, yes? We can catch up again before the speeches?”

Álex squeezes his nape and drops his hand. Marc writes the worry in his eyes off as tender-hearted sentiment. Weddings are emotional. That’s just — that’s all it is.

“Yes. Go schmooze.”

Marc bats at him and snorts a laugh as he turns away.

He steals Valentino from Luca and Stefania with a tight-lipped smile and a ‘what can you do’ eyebrow raise. Valentino twines their hands together as Marc scouts out a first target.

They endure thirty-five conversations with only three stops at the bar, although Marc isn’t drinking yet. Valentino makes the switch from gin to champagne once he’s regaled Marc’s parents with a charming retelling of the Vogue story and an assurance that it was very worth the trouble, though, I think, you should have seen him, against the sea in white like that, allora, what a picture.

Uccio had even been almost pleasant. Complimented the decorations and nodded politely when Valentino revealed most of it had been Marc’s doing. A success story, really.

Marc leans his weight against the mahogany countertop till his back pops.

“Nice of everybody to show up,” he murmurs. Valentino hums.

“Is a free holiday for them, no? Just have to put up with us for a few long hours first.”

Marc huffs a laugh. Valentino drifts his fingers over Marc’s waist, beneath his jacket but over his shirt. His face twists, eyelids fluttering to half mast. Marc can’t read the look until it clears, replaced with nothing but distance. Valentino straightens suddenly, places his coupe on the bar and rubs at his chest.

“I’ll be back in a minute, okay?” He presses a kiss to Marc’s forehead and slips away between guests, shoulders round. Marc watches him go until he disappears. It’s not out of character. Marc isn’t worried. He picks his way to the front of the room, to the head table. 

Seeing his decor choices in real life and not in sample boxes or through a laptop screen is decently satisfying. The tablecloths have suns and moons embroidered around their edges, and each napkin has 46 + 93 embossed at its centre. He’d ask the planner to save them several of each, for keepsake purposes.

“This is the first option, the heat emboss. Or we could have the design printed? I feel like embossing looks nicer, but then you cannot, like, pick a colour for the design. It’s just the colour of the napkin.” He taps the brightness of his display a couple levels higher and straightens the screen so that Valentino, pressed against his back on the couch underneath him, can see. “Which do you like?”

“Yes, nice,” Valentino says, mouth moving in his hair. Marc glances up at the TV. Dozens of police cars collide on the screen.

“Vale.”

“Mm?”

Marc twists, grabs Valentino’s face between his thumb and forefinger. Valentino blinks at him, and his eyes grow wide.

“Hey,” Marc urges. “You need to help me with this. I need your opinion. Our wedding, Vale. Not mine. Ours.”

He makes his way next to the table with the champagne tower, pretends not to notice when the photographer arrives in his peripheral, crouching to get the shot. It’s remarkably similar to a race weekend, he thinks. All this attention, avoiding eye contact with camera lenses, far too many of his coworkers.

Pecco sidles up to him, a glass in his hand and a soft look on his face.

“No champagne for you?” he says, turning his shoulder in and severing the photographer’s view. Marc finds himself amused and shockingly grateful. He shakes his head. Pecco’s smile flickers the way it does when he’s told himself a joke in his head. It’s fifty-fifty, usually, on whether he shares it with the rest of the world after.

“Ah. So you’re expecting already.”

There it is. Marc snorts.

“That’s good,” he admits, “that’s a good one.” A glance at his watch tells him they’re not even halfway through. He plucks a glass from the champagne tower, as if to make a point. “Thank fuck. A wedding and a baby, could you imagine.”

Pecco’s shoulders shake. He hums, covering his mouth with two long fingers, thoughtful.

“How’s Vale been?”

Not any more or less uncomfortable than Marc had been expecting. They make for a good performance in garages and grid boxes, but it’s different when the people watching know that it’s real. Feels like there’s more on the line.

“There is still a significant chance he runs away, I think,” Marc says. He says it like it could be funny — like it’s a joke. “Perhaps I should have put handcuffs in the wedding budget.”

Pecco laughs.

“It is not too late,” he shrugs, “you could find something in the gift pile. Look for Mig’s name, maybe.”

Marc’s hyena cackle scares the waitress replenishing the champagne. He flashes her an apologetic grin.

“Awful. Such bad taste.”

“Here he comes,” Pecco lifts his glass, waves Valentino down. They watch him weave between tables, fending off conversation attempts with convincing apologies. He steals Marc’s drink when he arrives, eyebrows raised high. There’s something sharp to the edges of him — squirmy and electric. Marc doesn’t want to ask about it, doesn’t want to know.

“What were you laughing at?”

Pecco says, “Bondage,” face blank. Valentino chokes on Marc’s champagne. 

“Yeah, thanks, Francesco, my mother is right there,” he hisses. Pecco tips his glass again, like you’re welcome. Marc hooks his fingers through Valentino’s arm.

“Come on, we need to get the speeches on so that we can eat, yes?”

𓇢𓆸

Álex talks for six minutes. Marc cries for every single one of them. Ugly cries, face hidden in one of his beautifully embossed napkins, choking wetly on his laughter when Álex stops breaking his heart for a moment to tell a joke about their childhood or Marc’s terrible competitive streak. He gets in one strikingly poignant, “You should do this professionally,” that launches the room into hysterics and has Marc giggling through his tears.

Luca says his piece after, and Valentino doesn’t cry the way Marc had, but his eyes get wet and he grips Marc’s hand like a vice beneath the table — blinks hard when it’s over, has to swallow thickly before he can speak again. They eat and cut the cake, and it finally starts to feel less like a precipice and more like a wedding. He’s content and full, listening to the conversation either side of him, smoothing his thumb over Valentino’s knuckles until the chatter lulls and he can lean in and excuse himself for a moment. 

There’s nobody in the bathroom when he slips through the door, so he locks it behind him. The lighting is harsher than it had been in his suite. Turns the concealer beneath his eyes bright, makes him look stark and not all there. He turns the tap on and pats the cool water into his skin.

He’s here. Valentino’s here. Things are going well. People are having a good time, they’re telling him it’s beautiful. It’s good. He counts up to sixty and back down, breathes a line through every set of four seconds. The structure starts to fall away at this point; more drinking and dancing and big share plates of dessert brought out for those who’d like them. Another hour and a half, probably.

He shakes out his hands and wipes his face dry. The noise, music and voices, rises up as soon as he cracks the door. Every face he can see is smiling. He picks his way back to the head table. Luca’s there with Bez, who offers a small smile when Marc leans in to get their attention.

“Did Vale say where he was going?”

Luca gives Bez a look. His face is serious when he turns back to Marc.

“Said he was coming to find you. Did you miss each other?”

Marc blinks.

“When was that?”

“Like a minute after you left, maybe.”

Marc pushes away from the table and swivels back towards the centre of the room. He can’t see Valentino, but it’s — it’s a big venue, and there’s a garden and a second level and everything.

“I’ll call him,” he says. Luca nods. He mutters something to Bez as Marc’s leaving, too quiet beneath the music, not meant to be heard.

“He said he wouldn’t do this.”

This.

Marc swallows back a rush of nausea. What the fuck is ‘this’.

𓇢𓆸

Valentino doesn’t pick up. Marc makes his way around the edge of the room towards the stairs as his call rings out for the second time. They would’ve run into each other if Valentino had come to the bathroom, and Marc can’t see him from the second story, peering over the railing with his knuckles turning white around it.

Pecco catches him again at the bottom of the stairs. Says, “Luca said you’re looking for Vale, did you call him?”

“Yeah, he — it went to voice message. Luca said — ah, Álex!”

He claps Pecco on the shoulder and slips past him to where his brother and Roser are picking over a plate of panellets. The pair of them jolt at Marc’s shout, and it must be written all over his face, the fear, because Roser’s eyes turn hard and Álex gets him gently by the arm.

“Have you seen Valentino? He won’t — he’s not answering my calls, and he —” lied to Luca. Marc cuts himself off, bites his tongue. Álex pats at him.

“We can help look, okay? Maybe the staff know.”

“He’ll be here somewhere, querido,” his mare says. Marc can hear it in her voice; that she doesn’t believe it. He shirks the urge to snap at her, that Valentino wouldn’t do this to him, that they’re better. The words curdle on his tongue. In this moment, with panic crawling up his throat, he doesn’t even know if he believes it.

“Yes, okay. I’m — I’m going to go search the garden. Call me if you find him.”

The air is warm and sticking outside, and it fills his mouth and nose up with summery heat. He cuts across the grounds, calling Valentino’s name. The pond doesn’t give him an answer — the trees stay quiet. He pivots for the hedge maze.

It’s not difficult to reach the centre of; more decorative than something meant to provide a real challenge. But Valentino isn’t there, sat in the stone gazebo in his suit like Marc had hoped he’d be.

He pushes a fist against his mouth till his teeth start to cut into his knuckles. Valentino had gripped his hand so hard beneath the table. Marc had just thought it was — emotions. Good emotions. But he —

“You look upset.”

Vale. The breath falls out of him in a tremendous rush. He spins on his heel. Valentino is —

Not. Not Valentino. It’s — Marc recognises him, of course, the whole world could, but it’s not — not his Valentino. And he’d heard it in his voice. Younger, higher, a stronger accent not yet diluted by decades of travel. He stumbles back, hits the stone bench and collapses onto to it. He lifts a shaking hand to his brow. No fever.

“Is this in my head, am I —?”

It’s all he can get out. Valentino, nineteen, twenty, maybe, blinks owlishly down at him. He lowers himself gingerly to the other side of the bench and kicks his feet out, eyes wide.

“I do not know. I do not think so. This happens, sometimes.”

Marc pinches himself. The scene doesn’t shift. Valentino remains unchanged, lanky and smooth-skinned, hair shorter than Marc’s seen him cut it in years.

“Does it,” he mutters, trying to keep the rattle from his voice.

“What are you sad for? This is a party, right?”

“A wedding,” Marc corrects absently, too far out of his mind now to ask any more questions, blood pounding in his ears. “I don’t know if I can — if I can say. To you. Do you know what — what is happening?”

“Allora, a bit. I’m not meant to be here, now, yes? And you — Me and you, something. I feel that.”

“You feel it,” Marc repeats. Like that would be the most strange thing about the situation; Valentino from the past having a sixth sense about their relationship. He’d said it so simply, inconsequentially. Me and you. Something. Like it isn’t hard to believe, to imagine. Marc can’t believe it himself, sometimes.

Valentino looks him up and down, catlike and keen.

“A wedding.”

Marc bites his lip. Swallows past the lump in his throat. Valentino’s eyes grow suddennly round.

“Is it our wedding?”

A miserable laugh forces its way past his teeth. He nods. Valentino shifts an inch closer. He’s wearing a football jersey and shorts that nearly reach his knees. Not much has changed.

“Did you — run? Did I leave you at the altar, do people still do that?” 

Marc laughs again. It comes surprisingly easy, despite his racing pulse and the thick sludge of fear in him, but it always has, around Valentino. The joy. He runs a hand over his face, tries to settle into the moment, lean into the strange. It’s fucking weird, but easier to manage than a panic attack, somehow. He takes a steeling breath.

“No. You are — you were here. I just think you’ve — gone off, for a bit. maybe. I hope.” 

When Valentino doesn’t reply, Marc turns to meet his gaze. His face is pale. Stricken.

“You hope,” he echoes. “Would I —? Do you think I would? Leave?”

Yes. No. I don’t know.

“No. I don’t. It’s just — weddings.” Marc bites his tongue. Valentino is deathly still. “They can be stressful. Lots of people. Probably, you needed — he needed a break.”

“Marc?”

A woman’s voice lifts above Marc’s drumming pulse. Stefania appears through the gap in the hedges, shawl pulled around her shoulders. A breeze has picked up, but it’s still warm.

“Marc,” she says again, “Valentino is back.” He can hear her relief, and it — it steadies him. That he wasn’t the only one. And then she sways, recognition colouring her face as her eyes find her son.

“Oh. You're back.”

𓇢𓆸

Fast Italian jammers at Stefania through the doorway, turned up louder than the sound of the tap running and her dinner cooking. She turns the gas off, wraps a dish towel around the pot handle and ladles enough risotto into a bowl for just her. The rest gets spooned into a container, and the empty pot fills up quickly with hot water, left to soak in the sink.

“There is Valentino, he’s been waiting to make this move but he’s surely close enough now, only a tenth between them.”

Usually, they eat at the table. But Massimo and Luca are with Vale, and the race is on, so she’ll balance the bowl on her knees and eat slowly, just in case. She fishes a spoon from the cutlery drawer and turns for the door.

Except there is Valentino. Her son, all of nineteen years old, posed rigidly by the table like he’d dropped down from the ceiling. His eyes are wide, panicked, and Stefania can see the blunt ends of his teeth past his lips, jaw slack.

“Vale,” she breathes, out of instinct more than anything else. His mouth clicks shut.

She tells herself it is experience and the familiarity of adrenaline that allow her to take this so well. She sits Valentino at the head of the table, gives him her bowl and her spoon, fetches another serving for herself and then sits down with him. His hands shake.

“I — I do not — you’re older, why do you look —?”

Valentino lets the risotto go cold, perhaps too scared to eat, unsettled even once they’ve pieced things mostly together; all but the ‘why’.

Stefania feels there is an innate sense of fragility to the situation, as if any word could be the wrong one, so she keeps herself careful. Disappears for just a moment to turn the TV off so that Valentino can’t hear his own name from the commentator’s mouths, and then talks about everything but racing.

“You haven’t eaten,” she notices, half an hour into their conversation. Valentino has the decency to look guilty, ears reddening. “Let me fix you dessert.”

She still makes his favourite for herself, even though it’s been years since they’ve eaten it together.

“I hope you still like this, whenever or wherever you’re from,” she says. Valentino doesn’t answer.

She turns around. 

Valentino isn’t there anymore. His chair is still pulled out from the table.

Nausea rises in her throat like a flood, bringing somethinig like grief up across her tongue. She tucks the dessert into the fridge and returns to the couch. Luca will eat it when he comes back.

On the TV, Valentino lifts the first place trophy over his head, mouth split in a victorious grin. Stefania reaches for her phone. She dials his number as he shakes the champagne, as he sprays it across a rapturous crowd.

The message tone beeps.

“I watched your race, Vale. I’m very proud. I love you.”

𓇢𓆸

Marc stands, takes two big steps. His Valentino.

“Where did you — did he come back on his own? Are we — is everything still okay?”

Stefania meets him. She gets her arm around him, and he turns back to blink at the boy on the bench. Valentino is watching them, brows pinched, mouth open.

Stefania says, “Come up when you are ready, alright?” She squeezes him once, smiling sadly, and then she leaves back through the maze. The silence falls fast, thick and suffocating. Marc is shaking again. 

Valentino asks, quietly, “Is it a nice wedding?”

Marc looks at him. His fingers are twisted together in his lap, and he’s trembling like Marc is. He would have heard the panic in Marc’s voice — Stefania had seen it and moved towards him, against it.

“Okay,” Marc rushes, “God, okay. Come see, quickly. Just for a second.”

Valentino leaps for his feet like he thinks Marc is going to rescind the offer as soon as he’s made it. And he thinks about it, he does, because it feels like breaking the laws of the universe. But Valentino is looking at him like that, like he’s witnessed the weight of his future in the blink of an eye.

He has, almost, Marc realises. This is a lot — an end point, and a beginning. He takes a deep breath.

They creep up the garden towards an open window around the back of the venue. Valentino follows a step behind him, but leans in close when Marc reaches to push the white curtains out of the way. The celebration has continued inside like nothing is wrong. Like nobody is out of place. There is dancing and drinking and singing, and Marc’s eyes find his mare, and beside her, Valentino — his Valentino.

“It’s nice,” Valentino, at his side, whispers.

Through the window, it looks like a framed photograph. Picturesque.

“It is,” Marc agrees. The decor he'd chosen. Thousands of flowers. He sniffs and pulls away to wipe at his eyes. When he looks back, the crowd has shifted, and his Valentino is no longer by the head table. Marc shakes himself. He has to get back. “Okay,” he says, “we should —”

The words die on his tongue. Valentino isn’t there anymore. He blinks back at the gap in the curtain. A thin line of joy, of people he and Valentino love.

“Marc, fuck.”

A pair of hands catch his waist, startling him. It’s his Vale, and he’s here. He looks sick, pale, rushing, “Sorry, sorry,” in a choked whisper. The tension drains from Marc’s posture like cut strings, and then Valentino is keeping him up against the window frame. They’re here. He’s here. But the fear is still —

“You didn’t want — you don’t want to undo it?” He hates himself for saying it, how it causes Valentino’s expression to crumple. Valentino places his hands on either side of Marc’s face. He pulls him in, holds him by the back of his head and presses Marc against his shoulder.

“No. No, I’m sorry. I want it, Marc, of course.”

Marc muffles a gasping sound in Valentino’s shirt.

“I have wanted it. Waited for it, it feels like. Like I knew I would have this. I do want it, Marc. With you.”

The words spill against his hair, Valentino’s breath hot and rapid. Fast as Marc’s heart. Panicking, still. Marc pulls back to laugh, watery. The meaning isn’t lost on him. 

“You fucking scared me,” he says, and Valentino squeezes him.

“I am bad at this, I know. I will get better — no disappearing.”

No disappearing, Marc thinks, please, no more disappearing.

𓇢𓆸

Valentino is warm beside him. Asleep solidly, and too hot, even, where they’re pressed together. Marc listens to his breathing and to the gentle lap of waves in the distance. They’re close enough to the water for the moonlight through the window to paint it in silver ripples across their ceiling.

He closes his eyes into slits, till the patterns turn into blurry little comets.

Valentino had fucked him as the sun set, painted red and pink above him in the bed, skin gold. Slow, reverent. Quieter than usual, weighted like two anchored ships, drifting. There had been one joke about consummation and a small fit of laughter, and then a few more at Valentino’s twinging back or his protesting knees. Easy, though. Always, now.

Marc lets his eyes fall shut. The silver patterns dance in the dark. 

They hate time, often and together. What it stole from them — even if Marc secretly thinks well, that was our fault, wasn’t it. He pictures the face of the boy in the maze, and thinks that was all our fault.

The live band had packed up by the time they made their way back inside, and the music had been transferred into Álex’s capable hands. One more dance, Valentino said — an apology in and of itself.

There was nothing romantic about El Alfa, but Álex cheered above the beat and all Marc could do was grin.

One last dance, one last glass of champagne. Valentino’s hands on his waist. Valentino smiling down at him, laughing. Not traditional. Not perfect. 

Good, though. Nice. 

They were nice.

[lagunaseca2013]

Gay sex as a metaphor for friendship

[lagunaseca2013]

probably the greatest opening to a sports memoir ever...

[lagunaseca2013]

one time this japanese fujoshi i follow on twitter posted "the bottom should have a bigger dick so that you can watch it bounce while they get fucked and the top should have a smaller dick so that it can go in easier. uke dicks should be big and decorative and seme dicks should be average size and functional" and honestly her mind

[lagunaseca2013]

polycule where one guy has an “i can fix him” mindset and another guy has an “i can make him worse” mindset about the same third guy. net zero moral change

[lagunaseca2013]

SILVERSTONE 2025 | Fabio Quartararo + people outside of his team supporting him after the race.

[lagunaseca2013]

SEX WITH VALE WHERE MARC CANT GET HARDDDDDDDDDDD prostate orgasm.........

Marc can take another pill, or he can make the call. Lately he's been doing the latter, which is for Alex's sake. Alex says he doesn't keep track of how much Marc is taking, but it's such a transparent lie Marc doesn't even bother to fight him about it.

Valentino picks up on the second ring.

"It's the middle of the night."

"So? You're not sleeping," Marc says. The snap of annoyance in his voice is instant, familiar. The same way he sounded when Alex asked if he wanted to do his PT outside, this morning.

"You should be," Vale says. "What, your arm hurts again?"

His voice isn't kind. Marc shifts against the mattress, spreading his legs restlessly.

"At least I'm not retired," Marc says. It's weak, but he's tired. His arm does hurt: relentlessly, terrifyingly. Vale had what, one broken leg in a quarter of a century of racing? "At least I can still win again. I'll come back and I'll get ten."

His voice is too fast. Vale doesn't seem to notice, though. When he tells Marc to shut up, it's with the same sharpness as ever.

"Come back?" Vale says. There's a pause. "You can't even come at all, half the time."

"Fuck you," Marc says. His hand is in his briefs now, squeezing. It's the pills, or the pain.

"Thought so," Vale says. "Why'd you even bother calling?"

Marc can hear him moving, the faint noise of footsteps. He pictures the hallway at Vale's house in Tavullia, the stretch from kitchen to bedroom.

"To remind you that I hate you," Marc says. It hurts, to hold the phone when his good hand is on his soft dick. On speakerphone it's easier.

Vale's voice fills the space next to him.

"Noted." There's a door opening, and closing. "Get the lube, if your dick is still broken."

"Fuck you," Marc says. He has to push himself up to grab it, wincing.

"You didn't want that even when you could have done it," Vale says. "Begging me instead, when I offered. No, no, Vale, inside me. Big dick you didn't use. Big talent you wasted too."

Marc's feet skid against the blankets. He's angling his wrist, other hand limp against his chest now. Looking up at the ceiling instead of all the bad parts of him.

"Didn't waste it," he bites out. "Your face in 2015--"

For a second he thinks Vale will hang up. Shoves his fingers in deeper, harder.

"Listen to you," Vale says. "Fucking yourself on it. Does it get you off, what you did to me?"

"Yes," Marc says, heat building tight inside of him. His wrist bumps his dick where it's lying soft against his hip.

There's silence for a stretch. Just the gross noises of Marc's fingers moving inside him, the unevenness of his breath.

"It gets me off," he says. "I'd do it again, if I could--"

The words come out strained, forced. His fingers are rocking now against the place inside him that he didn't even know existed until Valentino showed him: something close to pain but entirely different.

"Why?" Valentino asks, from far away, and Marc says, "Ah -- fuck -- because I -- oh, god --"

It's almost miserable, like this, the tension and the ache, winding up like a spring. His body, doing something impossible. No use trying to speak until it's over: clenching on his still fingers, muscles trembling.

"Because I liked it," he says, when there's air in his lungs. He pulls his fingers out, slowly. Even now there's no real relief.

"Ah," Vale says. "Well. Feel better soon."

There's a click, and then just the ceiling, and the harsh noise of Marc's breath, and the ache.

[lagunaseca2013]

oh c'mon now

[lagunaseca2013]

chillin' on the grid

[lagunaseca2013]

2007