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this is not about us : casey/marc [3.5k words]

Casey, a bit, makes Marc feel welted. Like how skin raises up around a cat scratch, red and blooming. It’s a feeling he hasn’t had in a good long while — and it has been good, the absence of this type of sensation: a particular itch that he usually labels as something to do with Valentino and then pushes into the deepest darkest recesses of his mind. Things saved for a rainy day, for when the storm clouds split the sun like a golden yolk and he has no choice but to put himself back in the mud of it all.

In any case, it’s not something he feels like investigating surrounded by team members and investors, changed hastily from his leathers into a dress shirt, still smelling like asphalt and fuel and the dried down heat of exertion. The rim of his champagne glass sweats at his bottom lip, and he lets his teeth catch on it just to hear the crystal ring.

Casey is at Gigi’s elbow, face drawn in an easy smile. He looks serene — peaceful and a little bit above the fanfare of the night, dressed in dove blue and without the tensity of a track session in his posture. Marc takes a sip and slants his gaze away. Pecco is here somewhere, probably just as eager for it to end as Marc is, if not more. Marc should find him, step away from the canapés and at least look like he’s trying to mingle.

He’s good at these things, usually. Has that natural sort of bright-eyed charisma that makes it easy for him. But the week has been long, and the jagged wound of his arm aches more than it should. There’s an ice bath waiting for him back at home. Sometimes even winning can’t balm the hurt.

“Do you think there’s an alarm rigged to the fire door?”

He jolts. Casey materialises at his side, peering down with that same smile on his face. Marc studies it — finds the note of exasperation buried in his crow’s feet.

The joke takes too long to register, and Marc is slow-tongued when he replies.

“Oh, ha, maybe. Worth a try, yes?”

Casey laughs.

“I thought you’d be more in the thick of it,” he says, gesturing out across the room with his glass, “you know, turning the charm on a bit.”

Marc bobs his head, shrugs. A guilty grin pulls at the corners of his mouth. Casey must remember a version of him that was so much more open. Willing to be vulnerable in front of cameras and competitors — body armour made of cotton fluff and gold leaf.

“Normally, I am. But the energy is not there today. I would like to be back in my house.”

“Tell me about it.”

The quiet settles between them and Casey turns out to watch the crowd. His expression dissolves into something a little more grim, tight-jawed.

Marc feels young around him like how he does around Valentino. Not because of the age difference, he thinks, but because that’s when everything happened. When Marc was starting out and Casey was leaving; when they passed each other in the paddock’s revolving door, armed with a handful of interactions and the awkward bloat of inheritance.

“Good season you’re having,” Casey starts up again. “You’re interesting on that bike.”

The compliment, if that’s what it is — if Marc takes it at face value — cinders like an ember in his gut. Interesting on the thing made to beat him, the Kaiju piloting the Jaeger.

“Yes,” Marc says, “thank you,” even though it feels wrong in his mouth. Casey tips his head like he was looking for something else. He takes a thoughtful sip of his drink and swallows slowly.

“I’ve gotta make another spin to not hurt any feelings, yeah? Have a good night, Marc. Catch you ‘round.”

“You too, Casey. Bye.”

Casey disappears into the throng, and Marc shakes himself into action; finishes his champagne and darts out onto the floor just for the sake of crossing it, and to not be in the same place when people look around for him again. He makes it to the other side of the room with only three stoppages for small talk, at which point Pecco sidles up to him, face pinched.

“Contractually,” he murmurs, leant close enough for their voices not to carry, “I think we are good. This is enough. We are done, surely.”

Marc laughs. The fizz of alcohol in his blood turns it into a cackle. He and Pecco get on best when they feel the same way about something, which has been less and less since the start of the season. The bike, of course, is the main point of contention. They are all older and wiser now, such that the paddock media can see what is happening: Marc is riding around the flaws of the Ducati and heralding the same development death spiral that befell Honda, and Pecco is getting caught in the frothing waves of his wake. Not even on different pages anymore, but sunk into completely opposite stories.

But the future for this type of dominance — the sacrifice must feel worth it. No one’s said anything to him yet.

“Please. I’ll go if you do. We get a one-two next weekend, they’ll forgive us.”

Pecco’s smile toes the line towards a grimace. First and second hasn’t been the common theme so far. Regardless, he takes the opportunity with a nod, and, the gentleman rule-follower that he is, forces them into a brief bout of goodbyes before they’re allowed to escape into the foyer and out onto the street.

As they wait for their Ubers, Marc asks Pecco if he spoke to Casey and watches the flush appear on his cheeks with no hidden glee. He can’t help but think, just for a second, how Valentino feels about this. If it’s a golden calf type situation; thou shalt have no other gods before Me, that the Academy boys may have no false idols lest they incur his wrath. The thought pulls a smirk to his mouth, wry.

Pecco, not noticing this, says, “Yes, just for a little, he had lots of people to greet — very popular. Was nice seeing him again, after the Ranch. He came out, I don’t know if you saw. Last year.”

Marc had obviously seen it. Had waltzed into Álex’s room to talk shit about Valentino’s bridge-mending pageantry until Álex ruined the fun with a pointed remark that made Marc feel transparent as glass.

“Oh, yeah. Was he good? On the flat track?” He was. Marc knows he was.

Pecco nods. His eyes gleam, unfocused.

“Great. It was cool to see, cool to hear what he thought about it all. He had dinner with us. We do a barbecue.”

Marc’s car arrives before I know, I did that once too can crawl out of his mouth. Casey had just done it better. Had done it as the start of a friendship, rather than the end of one. Nothing to prove. No childish ambition.

The driver rolls the window down and calls his name.

Marc thinks interesting as he says, “Goodnight,” to Pecco, interesting as he climbs into the back seat, interesting as he watches the city lights blur past him. Thinks it all the way up to his hotel room.

The word swirls round his head in the shower, but doesn’t disappear down the drain like he wants it to. Eventually the sticky cling of it gets too much to bear, and he stalks down to the hotel bar, hot beneath his collar. It’s late enough on a weekday for the place to be quiet. The bartender stands alone like a scene from a movie, polishing the same crystal glass with a vacant look on his face. He serves Marc his disaronno with robotic politeness, eyes on the clock.

The MotoGP circus moves onto Japan next. The emptiness of his schedule there continues to churn uneasily in his stomach, such that he still flies out several days earlier than he needs to, just for the sake of not sitting at home feeling like he should be somewhere else.

He takes a sip, and the taste of almond slides smooth down his throat. The factory visits probably aren’t quite as jubilant as they used to be.

The bartender stirs in the corner of his eye, places his towel and glass down and tips his chin up. He smiles, practiced, and Marc follows his line of sight.

Casey takes the two steps up to the counter, sleeves cuffed to his elbows. Marc figures Casey is yet to notice him until he asks the bartender for one of whatever Marc is having, on the rocks. He carries it down the length of the bar and takes the empty seat beside Marc.

“Think this is also unlike you,” he says.

Marc’s a little too tired to treat the situation with the care it might deserve. He rests his chin in his palm, blinking up at Casey through his lashes.

“You think a lot about me even though we don’t know each other very well,” he answers, lips curved like that might take the heat out of the words. It feels like a clumsy mouthful, like he’s saying too much. Casey smiles, eyes narrowing.

“Am I right, though?”

Marc can’t help but laugh. He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair.

“I am subverting expectations tonight, I guess. Davide will call me tomorrow to ask why I left so early — he’ll think I was sick.”

“Ah, all the winning takes a toll,” Casey tuts. He’s moved closer without Marc noticing, their elbows now only centimetres apart on the shiny bar top. Marc looks away, takes another sip and swallows it thickly.

“You are staying here?” he asks, after a breath. Casey has yet to stop watching him. He’s different as well now, like Marc is. Bolder. More at ease. Maybe leaving does that to you sometimes. Maybe it’s not always the messy gutting of a beautiful fish.

“Nah, followed you back for fun.”

Marc laughs again. It makes Casey’s eyes crease, like he’s revelling in the sound.

“What room are you, then?” The question earns Marc a single lifted brow. He isn’t sure why he asks it, or why he wants to know. But he does.

Casey says, “612.” Marc nods.

“901.”

“Above me. How’s the view?”

They could sit here and talk about rooms. The conversation could move onto bikes. Marc could ask what ‘interesting’ means. Marc could ask what it was like, mending things with Valentino. If the Ranch has changed much in the eleven years since Marc has been there. If Casey felt like a rabbit in a wolf pack, or if, like Marc, he felt like the wolf.

But Casey is leaning into him. Subtle, but enough of an angle to mean something. It’s only getting later. Marc is tired of thinking about bikes and tired of thinking about Valentino.

“Would you like to come see it?”

Casey appears shocked for all of two seconds, and then he grins. His glass sweats on the bar, forgotten.

“I didn’t think I was your type.”

Ah.

Marc doesn’t let the rib catch him off guard. He sharpens his teeth and bites, “Well, older blondes.”

Casey’s, “Older?” bursts out in an affronted laugh. His eyebrows sit high, pleasantly surprised. The bartender is watching them now, something like discreet interest lurking in the shadows of his face.

“Come on,” Marc says, finishing his drink and standing. Casey follows.

In Marc’s room, Casey peers down through the window, hands in his pockets.

“Looks better than mine,” he acquiesces.

Marc toes his shoes off by the door.

“I hear that a lot.”

Casey snorts. He goes for Marc’s mini fridge, says, “I’m stealing one of your waters.”

Marc turns his eyes back to the view, watching Rome’s traffic sparkle like fireflies.

He spent a very long time thinking he and Valentino were the same kind of person.

Casey, on the other side of the room, takes a long swig from his water bottle and places it on Marc’s nightstand. He sits, then, and takes his shoes and socks off one foot at a time.

Marc knows Casey isn’t the type of person to make that same mistake. Marc thinks he probably had Valentino figured out almost immediately. Saw through the fog of apple-sweet charm to a bitter cyanide centre.

Casey looks back to Marc, hands clasped in his lap.

“I know you want to ask,” Marc says.

“What do you think I want to ask?”

“If I do this. Much. With my coworkers.” He lets the word brush past his teeth in a quiet breath, turning it dirty and secretive. Casey’s expression falters, but only for a moment. He hides the slip with a turn of downward focus, confirmation of want found, hands moving deftly for his shirt buttons. Pressure builds at the base of Marc’s skull, anticipation.

“Ah,” Casey finally says, once he’s worked his shirt open and the silence has stretched on long enough for Marc to feel like he’s crossed some sort of line — mentioning the ex on the first date. “Or I don’t need to ask, you know.”

He looks up, grins. There’s a glimmer of cruelty in the sharpness of it that Marc doesn’t expect.

“It’s hard to do shit like that and get away with it,” Casey elaborates, sliding out of his sleeves. “At least here. And Valentino, hah, God, I would’ve lost hundreds to Dani about that. I was so sure you knew better.”

The heat that had been pooling in Marc’s gut curdles like milk.

“Okay,” he says, cut, “okay. So. What is —” an angry, disbelieving laugh forces itself from his chest, snapping the tail off the question.

Casey stands, dressed now in only his suit pants. Retirement doesn’t seem to have touched him much, still lean like a greyhound. He takes a step towards Marc and Marc crosses his arms. The wall goes up. The armour.

Maybe they should have had a few more drinks first. Maybe Marc would have been able to absorb the blows better.

“I’m not trying to hang shit on you, Marc,” Casey murmurs, lifting his hands. Marc doesn’t even know what the fuck that means. Some Australianism, maybe.

“Yes. Sure.” The words bite out of him. Casey’s mouth twists, like he’s realising he’s put his fingers down hard on a bruise. “I don’t need you to — you know, I got it — it went how it did. I know this. The lesson is there.”

He lets Casey touch him when he closes the gap between them, lets Casey pull his arms out of their iron hold until his hands can slide to the rise of Marc’s wrist bones and close around them like bracelets.

“I feel like a wanker, now, standing here with my shirt off.”

Ah, bastard.

Marc laughs.

“Yes. You look like one.”

The smile returns to Casey’s face. He drags Marc closer, till heat starts to simmer between them again. Marc can feel it through his shirt.

“Sorry. You know I think Valentino’s a prick. A magnetic prick, but like. I’m not trying to put my foot in it on purpose. You’re just…” He falters.

“What?” Marc leans in, pushing. “Interesting?”

Casey has the decency to look embarrassed, cheeks flushed, smile guilty.

“Ha. Yes, interesting. It’s a good thing.”

“I know.”

“Now can you,” Casey tugs at him, ducking his chin, “get fucking undressed, please, because I’m old and I don’t like to be up late.”

+++

Marc would probably save himself a lot of grief if he could stop pinning every single fucking person in his life up against Valentino, the man an unnshakeable reference for both the good and the bad.

But he can’t, so: sleeping with Casey is nothing like sleeping with Valentino.

Fucking Valentino had been a little bit like fucking a minor God — in the start, at least. Self-important and vain, but with reason — just, hysterically good. Ruiningly so. Later, 2019, four fraught hook-ups, as if said God had found himself cast out and down, fire and brimstone concentrated into such intense feeling that Marc could taste it. Like his disaronno, scorched black. Almond and ashen, foaming on his molars.

Not that Casey isn’t good. He is. Takes all of two minutes to figure out where Marc likes to be kissed, where he likes teeth and where he likes tongue. The best angle for two long fingers slipped in deep, the right amount of pressure for a thumb pressed against his carotid.

And Casey’s actually bigger than Valentino, which Marc thinks is just fantastic, because it’s funny. He hides his smile in Casey’s neck, turns his giggle into a breathless moan.

He’d had a psychologist once, one that he’d found at a real low point after Valentino retired. Spent three zoom sessions with him and then let Álex write the email informing the man there wouldn’t be another. “It’s not your fault that this person has become so ingrained within you,” he’d said, “the experiences you have at that age shape you — I believe they’re fundamental to who we are as people.”

Just because it was true, didn’t mean Marc had to like it. He’d stopped talking about Valentino with his psychologists after that. It was a disturbing thing to think about; the idea that Valentino had permeated his very fucking being. Had taught him, trial by fire, about armour and manipulation and just how much vitriol a person can withstand. Shaped him into a different sort of creature to that jubilant, naïve boy from a decade ago.

He could have got there on his own. It just might have taken a little longer.

Sweat drips into his eyes and burns like a punishment — like stop thinking about him screamed straight into his skull. He does. He tries. He closes his eyes and opens his mouth.

Casey fucks him harder when he asks for it. Doesn’t dangle it over him, doesn’t make him work for it. Gives him what he wants, easy, like he’s been deserving of it from the start. Doesn’t take his hand away when Marc starts to come, either. Because he’s not a huge fucking asshole.

He’s trying, okay?

+++

Marc calls Casey after the news breaks. It’s the first time they’ve spoken since the morning after the night in Marc’s hotel — an entire year and a half later — but Casey answers like he’s picking up the thread of a conversation that never ended.

“That’s funny,” he says, smile loud down the line. Marc can’t help his grin.

“Fifteen minutes, at least. For the YouTube video.”

Casey guffaws.

“That’s more than double the length of mine!”

“Because I am more interesting than you, of course.”

He lets Casey’s cackle sink into his chest like sunlight. He’ll fly to Rimini in three weeks time. There’ll be a hire car in his name at the airport, Valentino had said, and that the ranch is not a far drive. That, as well, Marc should bring what he needs to stay overnight, because they ride well into the dark more often than not.

Marc had done that without asking, last time. Packed a bag. Slept in Valentino’s bed like he belonged there, even with the sudden indiscernible strangeness prickling between them. He knows, now, that feeling had been the beginning of the end. A primal animal part of his brain had known something terrible had changed. It howls at the thought of him going back, hackles raised.

“Does he think you’re no longer a threat to his guys, maybe? Going back to Honda?”

Marc shakes his head. Shira, on his lap, opens one eye at the motion. Her dark body is warm from the sun. Initially, Marc had thought something would happen when he won his ninth. But Valentino, even to the disbelief and disapproval of the media, had said very little about it. The tenth was no different. The mountain climbed, Sisyphus at the top with the boulder and no Hades in sight. Anticlimactic.

But this, his Honda return, the key to the lock — Marc couldn’t understand it. His contract announcement had aired halfway through the break. Valentino’s message came just two days later.

“He knows better than that. He knows I wouldn’t go back if I did not think there was something there.”

“Ask him for me, yeah? I’d like to know.”

“Yes, Casey. I will ask him for you. I’ll tell him you are curious.”

“Cheers. Much appreciated.” They break into laughter, and when Casey speaks again, he sounds almost hopeful.

“So, what, you think Honda have actually figured it out?”

Marc’s face splits into a grin without his permission. Casey will be able to hear it in his voice.

“I do. I’m excited for it.”

“Jesus. Scary, Marc,” Casey snorts, “these poor suckers. They’re gonna throw a party when you retire, you know that?”

“And you have to come, yes? So we can escape out the fire door together when I get sick of it.”

“I’m there.”

#i had a whole paragraph written out but my phone died in the middle of it sigh #anyways #poking marc with a fork at every opportunity... i see #'was he good' anyone else asking that would immediately get launched into the sun bc. thats not??? ur business hellooo #alex on the other hand IS the only guy who gets to ask that #alex rly said stop waltzing around it SAY WHA TYOU MEAANNN #and the fucking. caesys got a bigger dick thing iuwjisfdhjf hell yeah guess wholl at some point be hearing ab it #and vale not saying anything for the ninth and tenth.....#he pretend he do not see #OH AND MARC BACK WITH HONDA WHO CHEERED #oh vale was feeling left behiiind and marc going back to honda maybe reminded him that marc doesnt rly leave stuff behind.....#theres still a chance old man just tryyyyyy #hfiusdhfiudsh im jsut. feeling crazy ab that one bc its sooo relatable #like ill sometimes think im the only one whos still hanging onto something and then seeing im actually not the only one??? it immidetly #makes whoever else is not letting it go either feel so familiar even after like yeears of not talking #like oh. i still know you #like a part of you i know is still there #OKAY THATS IT SORRAY #fics

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