#mickvale

For Fabio Quartararo’s first ever win in the premier class, he asks for Valentino. Twenty years ago, Valentino wished he had half this young hotshot's gumption. Then again, times had changed. The Winner’s Room no longer symbolizes that it’s humiliation; it’s an honor, nowadays, and it’s what Fabio Quartararo sees it to be, to have this of Valentino. [Jerez 2020 – Japan 2000]

Jerez 2020

By the time the race is over and the winner crosses the line, Valentino is already in his motorhome, nursing an ice pack over his forehead, waiting for the paracetamol to kick in because his head is killing him. The heat, the strain, God is he no longer cut out of this?

With his free hand, he fumbles for his phone, tries to flick it open with only the facial recognition feature but his thumb slips over the camera icon instead, and it’s in selfie mode from last evening when he and the boys took a selfie over dinner.

Valentino gawks at himself, the reflection captured by his phone’s front camera: lips twisted into a grimace, unable to look away from the sheer wreck time had wrought on his features. God, the crow’s feet spreading from his eyes, like fissure cracks from a meteoric impact in a valley.

He drops the ice pack and starts pinching the skin between his brows, wondering if he should call Jorge up to ask where he did his Botox injections, when the door to his motorhome opens.

He looks up, briefly, drops his gaze down when he clocks that it’s only Uccio, whose mouth pinches, severely, but dissolves into open-mouthed confusion when he sees Valentino squishing his own cheeks.

What’re you doing?

The Valentino in his phone screen scrunches his face; a funny expression. Just … Anyone else who’d walked in, he’d have cracked a joke, use levity to puncture the gravity of the admission, but – it’s Uccio. Just realizing how old I’m getting.

Surprise ripples over Uccio’s face. They are the same age, but Valentino has never thought him as old. Even when his goatee has turned silvery and his figure had filled out over the years, like a teddy bear one can cuddle; he would be very comfortable to fall asleep against, but these days Uccio stays at a hotel rather than sharing a motorhome with Vale, because his wife and child do follow along more to European races now that the girl’s older.

Valentino brushes away the strange throb in his chest at the reminder of how arrangements had changed. It’s natural. Time passes, and life goes on. Just because Valentino always thought they were going to be in the same chapter of life doesn’t mean –

One DNF and you’re calling yourself decrepit? Uccio cracks back and Valentino can’t help the reluctant smile. Besides, you still got it.

The it being the nondescript little slip in his hand that he thrusts in Valentino’s direction.

Valentino groans, flinging his hands into the air. Tossing his phone aside and slumping onto the back of the couch. Tell Marquez to go fuck himself.

Uccio blinks. It’s not Marquez. You didn’t watch the race?

Valentino shrugs. Fell asleep. More like he passed out from exhaustion but there’s no way he’s admitting that so candidly. Who won?

Quartararo.

Oh. That spunky little blonde is talented, but Marc had been so dominant, it still comes as a surprise.

Marquez crashed. Uccio’s tone is colorless, carefully neutral when he preempts Valentino’s question Too neutral. Valentino’s shoulders bunch with tension. He’s fine.

If it had been a fine, mild crash, there is no need for Uccio to skirt so tentatively around the topic. Valentino says, don’t lie to me, upset, not only because it’s Marc but because Uccio is lying to him.

Uccio sighs, relenting, The arm – it did not look good. But he is breathing, walking on his own.

Valentino nods, absentmindedly. The last time he talked to Marc, one-on-one, of anything of substance – he – can’t remember. Just snipes and jibes. Sneers that are met with Marc’s deflective ja-ja-ja that makes Valentino wish Marc would trip and fall flat on his face.

Are you going to take it? Uccio asks, or will you take the grid penalty?

He’d used up his fines. Valentino scrub a hand over his face, feeling weariness burrow deep into his bones. He wants to say no. Quartararo, you say. Petronas Yamaha satellite team. Starry-eyed rookie who’d unabashedly admitted waiting hours outside Valentino’s garage for a signature and a picture. Valentino laughing as he looked down at his hands, under the table, too keenly aware who sat on the other side of Fabio Quartararo. He’d waited hours, too.

Valentino had known his name.

It should be flattering, it should – that this starry-eyed kid past rookie status, winning his first race, wants Valentino as a lay. It made more sense five, ten years ago. They almost always do, wanting to pick him, until Marc kept winning and didn’t stop and Valentino had forgotten what it was like to be with someone so much newer, younger.

Except it isn’t a hot rush of vindication as it was when Marc won and asked brazenly for him, flush-cheeked. Most would let the official do the summoning: cocksure rookie Marc had walked up to Valentino and asked. Had wanted him to say yes first before he spoke to the hovering official, and Valentino had looked into those wide, excited dark eyes and felt something in him give.

Years later he’d realize it was the give of the precipice, the cliff’s edge, on which he stood, crumbling under him and he’d fallen headlong into the abyss.

He is no long at the cliff’s edge; now there is something cold, trickling into the valley of his belly: dread, if he dares to give it a name.

He thinks of Quartararo opening him up, rearing back with a half-disgusted half-incredulous grimace, a mocking laugh, this is it? Sinking his hands into Valentino’s flayed-open belly, ripping his innards out. Is this all that’s left of you, the great Valentino Rossi?

Valentino would combust into a pile of ashes from the great shame.

Uccio calls his name; Valentino opens his eyes, taking a bracing breath, and reaches up to take the paper slip.

Uccio, says Valentino, seriously.

Yeah?

I’m going to need Viagra for this, says Valentino, and he’s only half-joking, but Uccio laughs anyway and already Valentino feels better.

Fabio is already at the Winner’s Room when Valentino finally drags himself there – without Viagra, because that’s not something Uccio had thought to pack.

Fabio jumps a foot off the bed and it’ll be amusing if Valentino isn’t half as nervous, though with years of experience to mask the anxiety. Fabio isn’t wearing a shirt, but has changed into a pair of loose jeans cargo, riding low enough on his hips that Valentino can see his V-line, that he is so eager he isn’t even going to wear underwear. Marc always wears red on Sundays. Valentino blinks away this fact. Marc, who is on his way to a hospital, should not factor at all into this equation.

H-hi, squeaks Fabio, wide-eyed. He has acne scars across his cheeks and his hair is bleached, frosty at the tips. His chest is narrow, but fit, a six-pack solidifying over his flat belly. His ribs rise and fall, visibly, under his skin.

They get younger and younger each year, or maybe Valentino is just getting older.

Ciao, says Valentino, smiling, and lets the door fall shut behind.

Fabio licks his lips.

for you ofc <3 <3 <3

(read left to right)

i redacted the other person's name. spoiler-y. for now. though i fear it is rather obvious

perfect! exactly the reaction i was looking for when i was writing this instalment hehehe

i'm planning another instalment and there'd be more mickvale in it. less manipulation now that mick's got what he wanted (taking baby vale's virginity) but still a delicate balancing of power dynamics between them. if it makes you feel better vale went full no-contact the more the years pass?