kas

The seat he takes at the table allows the flash of bikes to dance just in his peripheral, but the commentary is clear despite the buzz between his ears. Marc is all they are talking about. His return announced only days before touchdown; a flurry of tests and doctor’s statements and team instagram posts, no real news and enough speculation on the whole thing to print a new bible.

Marc calls it a concussion, which Valentino supposes is the first real thing he’s said since the initial hit. He says he followed all the right protocols, that he’s no longer suffering, no longer in pain and that he feels good to race.

Valentino’s teeth close too hard around his fork, and the feeling shoots up his jaw to his eyes.

Sound comes from his phone again — Uccio unmuting himself as he heads to a deep corner of the garage, picking back up on their conversation despite the ten minutes of silence between the two halves.

“I mean, what are you going to do? You can’t tell anyone that you think he is not ready to come back, you know this. Because then they ask why.”

Shut up, Valentino wants to say, shut the fuck up.

All of his phone calls lately have been for the sake of sound. He can’t cope with the quiet, but fuck, is he sick of hearing what everyone has to say.

“And he passed all the tests, yes. Not the worst for us if he’s not at one hundred, you know?”

Of course. Good for the team if Marc is blurry-eyed and hurting and if he crashes again and really fucking does it this time, knocks his brain and forgets who he is forever. Maybe Bez wins something. Maybe Valentino can forget who he is, too.

He hangs up on Uccio and chokes down the last mouthful of egg. Everything he eats tastes like ash.

—————

It’s too pleasant a day for the slimy headache making its home between Valentino’s temples, a toxic oil slick, beckoning a lit match whenever someone looks his way. He pins himself to the back wall of the garage, hidden from zoom lenses by the shadow and not subtle about it at all.

On the laptop screen by his side, Diggia leans a little too hard on Acosta and pays for it with a sickening wobble. Valentino squeezes his eyes closed.

He doesn’t have an excuse for being here. Not that he needs one, technically, this is his team and his sport and he can do what he likes — but Pecco had gone all quiet when he’d found out and Luca had made an irritating, sharp-ended little comment and God forbid he does anything lately. He squints down at the laptop again. Marc has wormed his way up to P2 despite a despairing (by his standards) qualifying, and he’s throwing the bike around like he wants another brain injury.

Despite himself, Valentino’s stomach is a churning ocean; his hands frightened horses, tossing each way, never still. He bites his nails into his palms and their hooves chip at the wet grass.

Somewhere in his head, the trumpets start up a battle cry, and then the volume in the garage lifts in a single pained noise, and Valentino’s eyes snap up and then back down to the screen, where Marc is sliding through the last corner, stupid hands stuck on his stupid handlebars, head up as he hurtles off the track.

Valentino’s world narrows to one miniscule point. The rest is black. There is only a speck: Marc and the bike and the second it takes him to stand up — the second where Valentino’s heart stops in his fucking chest and he hates himself so thoroughly, so intensely for everything he did and didn’t do, and then Marc is up, waving once, a hand at the crowd to say I’m fine.

Instinct kicks Valentino’s lungs back to life, and the breath punches out of him as he sags against the wall.

Happiness, like anyone. Then, to win. Maybe those are basic.

Yes, I think so. But good. The third?

You. The most.

Vomit lifts in his throat, rioting against his teeth.

He’s not winning, and he doesn’t have Valentino, so then what? And who was the man who said that? Who wanted those things? The same man who sat at Valentino’s kitchen table, suitcase packed? Who’d asked, voice like venom, ‘what were you going to do, fucking marry me?’

Valentino swallows, lifts a shaking hand to wipe at his mouth. 

Yeah. Maybe he was, Christ. He doesn’t fucking know. Maybe he would have let it get that far. Maybe they could’ve died without it ever being real. Valentino thinks he’s the type of person who could have had that. Who could choose the easy thing over the right one. Who’s been doing that his whole life, even.

—————

Luca doesn’t look race-worn when he opens the door to his motorhome and lets Valentino in past him. He’s showered, clean-smelling, hair already drying over his forehead.

“Good race,” Valentino says. Luca’s answered ‘thanks’ is perfunctory. Nothing short of hollow. The time they spend alone is thick with disapproval, because Luca is intent on making Valentino live with this for as long as he won’t atone for it — which, if Valentino has it his way, is forever.

Valentino sits and Luca goes back to whatever he was doing by the counter, phone held aloft in one hand.

There’s a replay of the Moto2 on. Valentino blinks at it, reluctant to devote any real attention that way, not when he knows it isn’t long before Luca makes some disparaging comment, dagger concealed or otherwise.

But when Luca finally speaks its to say, “Álex Márquez is calling me,” which is arguably worse than whatever pro-Marc, anti-Valentino sentiment he’d been cooking up.

“If you answer, I will leave,” Valentino snarls, eyes darting to Luca’s mild expression, which contorts into something nasty as he lifts the phone to his ear.

“Álex, hello,” he murmurs, voice low, as if to be apologetic, rather than quiet. His eyes drift the length of the motorhome, skirting Valentino in a thoughtful blink. Valentino doesn’t leave. Too curious, too contrary, and incapable of embarrassment regarding these characteristics. Luca purses his lips, but doesn’t give anything away. Valentino has always found him difficult to read.

The call goes in short noises and nods, and then Luca says, “Okay. I am glad to hear that. Mm. I’ll let him know, yes. Ciao.”

He drops the phone away from his ear and stares down at it.

“Well?” Valentino prompts, head beginning to ache again. The match burns between his eyes, blinding.

“Marc is fine,” Luca says, still soft. Softer than he usually is when they’re together.

Valentino doesn’t flinch. His teeth don’t click against each other, muscles twitching involuntarily. He stays still, unmoving and uncaring. Really.

“He called just to tell you that?”

Luca’s chest sags like a sudden weight has been roped around him.

“No. Marc — Marc asked him to tell me. To tell you.”

Marc.

To tell you.

Marc asked him.

Valentino thinks he must make a sound — something ripped out, harsh and barking. Luca’s face creases.