professional time waster

vale is away on another campaign and has taken pecco with him and they get letters from vale and can tell it's pecco by the script even if most of them cant read. celestino hopes when pecco comes back he can write a letter to his family for him, letting them know he is safe and that he is happy. which is not exactly true but he would tell them about his friend marco whose family farms too and who was a soldier before coming to live at the palace. who has scars and little scrapes all over him all the time from climbing the harem walls and trying to spar with the guards and falling out of trees. cele can still feel the way his nail shredded from his finger trying to climb a courtyard tree after bezz, how it had left smears of brown blood all over the stone wall climbing down out of the palace so they could sneak to the river. and bezz sticking the whole disgusting finger in his mouth and the wide wet blur of tears that came into cele's eyes at the shock and strange pain of it. and he literally obsesses over that feeling for weeeeks.

bezz also sneaks to the brothels, cele knows. he goes with the guards and has some arrangement with them. terrified for bezz's life if vale finds out he goes to him and tells him he has to stop or someone will find out and tell the emperor, marco... of course the emperor knows, celin, bezz laughs and ruffles celestino's hair, he knows he cannot keep me in here forever. a man has needs etc. and cele is shocked when he realizes its women bezz is talking about. dumbstruck and shamed and literally devastated for no reason he can understand.

anyways vale comes back and spends more time with the harem as he decompresses from the months of travel and politicking. sometimes he is with just one of them, sometimes with multiple and sometimes they are just laughing and playing stupid games or archery or throwing grapes at each others mouths. and sometimes cele lies near the courtyard pond for hours plunging his hand into the water, trying to ignoring all the moans and cries from the inner chambers. the only thing that kisses him is the sun until he's red and hot and sensitive. sometimes bezz will pinch his burnt back or arms telling him he needs to stop falling asleep in the afternoon sun, he is as lazy as a cat, and cele will hiss with pain and yank his limbs away. even the callouses on bezz's hands are too much and make him annoyed and heartsore for whatever reason, as bezz mockingly kisses his face and soothes him like he's a baby.

then one day when cele is trying to maintain the illusion he is still painting, as if it is a requirement of his continued boring existence there, the emperor finds him mixing and crushing pigments. never actually alone with vale, cele doesn't even want to look at him and finally understands why uccio and others insist on calling him god's chosen or some such title. even without his raiments or jewels and leopard skin, valentino is resplendent in just sweat post-fuck and a thin tunica dressed like he is any other man off the street. he watches cele work after a brief period where cele bows and vale continues to stare until cele feels like cat backed into a corner. asks cele about his work, like they are at dinner and listens intently to the barest of explanations dredged from cele's mouth as if by fish hook. complimentary, vale says i wonder if your former master knew what he was giving away when he foisted you upon uccio. how lucky i am, and tries to touch cele's hair and even moving so slowly so not to spook him, cele flinches. and cele is like he's going to hate me he's going to turn me out he's going to have me dragged behind horses or whipped for not accepting him. but vale just smiles and asks more about the painting

but unbeknownst to cele vale asks bezz to touch cele the same way in his viewing to see what he does. like a game. and at first cele just blushes and swats bezz away like it's more of his teasing like when he pulls on a curl or blows air on cele's neck when he's trying to work. but when bezz starts kissing his neck and bezz doesn't break or laugh when cele tosses his head with a scoff but just places his hand on cele's cheek and kisses him again on the mouth even in the middle of cele telling him yes thats very funny marco in a bored tone, cele cant help but gasp when it doesnt end in bezz's laughing at him but keeps going as if there is intention and desire, which he knows is impossible...bezz lays with valentino but cele knows he prefers the company of women....they are friends....but cele, much like grabbing fistfuls of grass as a child, grabs bezz's curls to steady himself or drag himself further into whatever this moment is and it goes on for a very ridiculous amount of time like there are other people there. hello? with vale holding his face in his palm, wine warming in his hand, but watching in bald fascination as he'd watch a hunt progress and climax until something finally died. pecco and mig or whoever are like.......what is happening rn.......when did celestino and.........?

His whole body is a tight line and his hand is around his cock, slick with conditioner. He breathes shakily. Just another minute. His strokes have gotten so slow, his hand shaking. His sternum aches, but like this a collarbone is nothing. His other hand is clenched in his hair at the crown of his head. He blinks his eyes open, water running into his mouth. It’s—fuck, he shouldn’t have looked. It’s his own cock that does it to him, looking at his own cock, the needy way the head has gone red, the rub of his own foreskin, fuck—

Marco lets go and slaps his balls, quick, which sometimes works. It doesn’t this time; all it does is ruin the orgasm, a half-felt ripple of a thing, leaving him torn up and with jizz on the shower curtain. Fuck, he thinks, he fucked it.

So that part sucks.

*

He mentioned it once to Cele, because Marco thought it was pretty widely understood. Cele did not.

Cele had started it, actually, had said, “Okay, I’m gonna go jerk off,” and started wandering around Marco’s hotel room looking for his stuff.

“Before a race?” Marco had said, before he realized Cele must be just— saying stuff.

But Cele had blinked at him, placid. “Yes, Marco,” he said.

Marco squinted. “That’ll fuck with you a little,” he reminded Cele.

“Um, no it won’t,” Cele said, confused and not really fighting. But if he had decided something, he had decided something. Even Vale couldn't talk Cele out of half his shit.

Marco had sighed, big, trying to crack open the tight feeling in his chest. He fiddled with the hotel pillows. “Okay, okay. Whatever you say, Celin.”

Cele podiumed. Marco was happy for him, shook his shoulders, kissed his cheek. Lay in bed that night still dry-mouthed from the plane home, aching and hard, even though he’d sort of implied it was a race thing and the race was over.

Two months later, Cele was sitting hunched like a big bird under one of the bottom bunks at the ranch, leaning against Marco’s shoulder, hand down Marco’s shorts. They were supposed to be heading out at the end of the day. Instead Cele was jerking Marco off for the third time ever, an honor apparently randomly bestowed twice in one year now, quick and tight and kind of very awkward in Marco’s underwear, while Marco panted against Cele’s neck and stared at Cele’s ignored boner in his track pants.

“Oh god,” Marco whispered, “Oh god, oh god.” He bit Cele’s neck just a little, trying to make this reciprocal, before he remembered that was something he liked that Cele might not. But Cele just grunted and took his hand back to lick it — he should stop bothering, he never remembered to lick it often enough to really get Marco wet, it was probably better to just rub Marco’s precome all over him, slide his foreskin. “Celin, please,” he said, “Please—“

Cele groaned and said, “Okay,” and changed nothing. “Wow, you’re so hot, Marco.”

The door swung open before Marco could give away how well that worked on him. It didn’t even swing open slow like a horror movie, but quick and normal and Pecco stepped in, backpack slung over one shoulder. They all froze. Cele specifically froze with his hand down Marco’s shorts.

Pecco glanced at them sitting there on the official for-riders-and-guests VR46 bunk bed. He grabbed his watch and wallet off a spare table where neither of them had noticed it. He looked again. Cele was bright red but unapologetic. Marco was holding his breath.

Pecco stiffened his shoulders and swallowed. His chin came up. “Play with his balls more,” Pecco said to Cele, who just stared at him. 

Cele, actually, was glaring at Pecco. Pecco was a little drunk, Marco realized, after the ranch dinner with a few of Vale’s special guests. Marco hadn’t been paying attention to Pecco’s wine glass. He was flushed, and holding himself too steady, overcompensating. Cele’s stubborn jaw worked. He stared straight at Pecco, and thrust his hand down to grasp Marco’s balls.

Marco forgot the wine glass. He tried not to move, or breathe. His eyes rolled back in his head.

Pecco nodded jerkily, something straining towards jocular, and closed the door a little hard on his way out.

“What does he even know,” Cele mumbled, sullen.

“He—um—“

Cele blinked at Marco, mood shifting. “Oh, I know” he said, drawing a knee up on the bed and hugging it with his free arm. “I didn’t notice until your second year, but—“

“That was when it started,” Marco said quickly.

“Oh. Well. I see.” There was a very strained pause, for Marco, with Cele’s hand still on his dick. “I was always mad. I wanted it so bad too. And then we became friends but you’d stopped. Doing it with friends I mean.”

“Celin—“ Marco started, thinking he should explain, thinking he should say ‘I’m mostly straight.’ But Cele’s loose grip on his balls transformed into a little roll of the fingers. He thought about Cele— Cele wanting it bad. Cele rolled his balls again. Heat spiked through Marco. Sweat sprung up in his pits, on his face.

“Tell me—“ again that you wanted it.

“What?” Cele said, rolling his balls in his big hand. “What, Marco?” he asked, intent, face close. He could bite Marco’s neck, if he wanted.

Marco had bigger problems. “Cele, Cele, ‘m gonna come,” he admitted, suddenly lit up with it, unstoppable. He humped up into his underwear.

“Oh,” said Cele in his low voice. “Wait, uh. Here.” His thumb and forefinger circled Marco’s dick and held tight. The orgasm built with nowhere to go. Marco shuddered, stomach flexing like he was coming, hot and sweet and full with it, balls a sharp ache. But Cele was good at it, actually, and just held on as Marco bucked. 

“Fuck!” Marco said, “please, please. Oh god. Oh, oh god.” He was shaking, full, full. There were voices somewhere distant; dinner had broken up. Cele wouldn’t let it out. Marco heaved for air like something was on his chest, like he’d fallen and had it knocked out of him.

“Oh, you’re good at this,” Cele rasped, surprised, focused. Marco couldn’t focus at all. “Marco, you’re really good at this.”

It ratcheted up higher, a last push, his body singing and desperate, feet planted on the floor, legs spread, cock straining, held at bay by Cele’s sweaty fingers. He bit Cele’s shoulder to muffle it when he wheezed something like a scream.

“Oh my god,” Cele said. “Oh my god, Marco.”

“Don’t let go yet,” Marco said, grabbing Cele’s wrist.