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Sometime between the third and the fourth time a journalist tries to ask him about Marquez without making it look like they’re asking specifically about Marquez, something inside Valentino snaps, a wire going loose around his stomach, poking holes in the thin lining until there’s little more inside him than acid and leftover bile.
He scrambles through one of those answers that aren’t quite answers but sound just like it, and wonders when media duties around the paddock have started feeling as if he’s been thrown to a pack of hungry wolves that are so eager to pick him apart, to separate the meat from the bone, leaving behind a blanched mess that will create yet another narrative he won’t be able to control.
It was easier, back when he was still on top of the world, back when he was still the sensation of the day. It was easier to twist their words, to use them at his own convenience, to say something completely unhinged and be forgiven right away because everybody loved Valentino Rossi, everybody idolized a desecrating piece of shit with the face of an angel, as long as he entertained the masses. Because that’s how things are, ultimately: you’re granted immunity only as long as you win.
Winners are the media darlings. You either die a golden boy, or you live long enough to be considered a sad, bitter hag to poke and prod until you’ve reached the very last straw and something goes terribly awry.
He lets out a small chuckle. At this hour of the night, the paddock is blessedly empty, and he can allow himself a bit of self-pity if he wants to. How uncharacteristic of him. How out of character.
He should have just. Said he didn’t feel well or something. Pretend he had caught a horrible stomach bug in Japan and flown back home, with all due respect to Pertamina and all the cash they pump into the team – ha. If only.
It is what it is, when you’re sponsored by such a large corporation; you simply cannot choose to not show up. Contractual obligations, yadda yadda. And what he’s getting from it is a fucking stress ulcer, other than a permanent ache set deep in his jaw from the many plastic smiles he had to throw around just for the sake of appearances.
He has a headache. One of those pounding migraines that make his brain feel like scrambled eggs, a useless blob hitting against the walls of his skull every time he dares moving a little bit quicker, a little less carefully. He shouldn’t be here, inhaling the leftover fumes of the exhausts, the blistering, white-hot smell of old tyres. He shouldn’t even be thinking about smoking another cigarette - he’s smoked almost half a pack already, and it hasn’t happened in years - but the call of the battered pack shoved deep into the front pocket of his sweatpants is sweet, irresistible.
He fidgets with it for a while, fingers going numb against the hard angles, the cuticles of his nails torn, bitten into. He thinks: I can live with a full throb at the outer corner of my eye. But he doesn’t fish for a cigarette yet, the years of well practiced health consciousness forcing him to stay put in his personal limbo, torn between doing the right thing and just – well, it’s not like this weekend could go any worse, by the way.
Or not.
He has, most probably, underestimated the ability of one Marc Marquez to appear out of thin air at the most inconvenient moment. So, yes. Things can and will get worse, when you take Marc Marquez into account. Or if you believe in Murphy’s law, which is the same thing.
So, here’s the catch in being alone with someone in an enclosed space from which you can’t make a Houdini-style disappearing act: you can’t ignore them. You can’t pretend you haven’t seen them, nor can you find new and creative ways to not acknowledge one another. Which is why he squares his jaw in a way that should look threatening, to convey not only displeasure, but also a bit of disgust. It should work, in theory. In reality, though, he looks far too exhausted not to make a face like he’s chewing on a far too sour gum.
“You’re the last person I wanted to see tonight,” he forces out, each word wrenched off his throat, burning like a popped sore.
Marc’s face is unsettingly blank, eyes big and round, dark enough that Valentino can’t make out the iris from the pupil. Even under the bright, cold neon lights he manages to look glowing and hieratical, floating one foot above everyone else.
Valentino’s stomach churns. Nausea, or the ulcers he’s gotten himself since landing in Lombok. Sad, sad and pathetic.
“Come on. At least I’m not a journalist.”
There’s some misplaced lightheartedness in his voice, an open, blatant contrast with how tense and squared up he looks, with his legs slightly spread and his arms crossed over his chest, covering a sponsor logo on his shirt.
Valentino decides that his health consciousness can go to shit too, and produces his pack of cigarettes, the battered Bic lighter slippery in his sweaty hand.
“I’m not in the mood, Marc. Just go.” Please, he’d add, if he wasn’t so adamant about not coming off too miserable.
Needless to say, Marc doesn’t go. He's – like a fucking bull. Stubbornly holding his position until it’s Valentino who caves first. I can’t stay. I need air.
He bolts for the door. It’s not a grand disappearing act with clouds of smoke and murmured oooohs from the crowd, but it’s kind of fine, just what’s expected by someone like him. Dodge, deflect, and perhaps you’ll be safe. Or whatever the saying goes.
He wasn’t prepared for Marc’s hand reaching out for his bicep, holding it tightly in an iron grip, to be honest. He wasn’t prepared for the aftershock of it, the electricity passing between them, tingling unpleasantly in the tip of his fingers. He wasn’t prepared to stop dead on his tracks, as if on autopilot, maneuvered by a force greater than his own willpower.
He wasn’t prepared for the chilling sensation of Marc’s palm curled around his arm – assuming he still could feel Marc’s touch somehow was a thing, experiencing it firsthand is definitely another.
His shoulders sag imperceptibly. Marc’s vice-like grip relents just so.
“Contrary to what you believe, I’m not here to gloat.”
There’s a snicker coming from Valentino’s throat. One he really cannot suppress.
“Ah, sorry, my bad. Why are you here then?” He says, his tone dry and humorless, but definitely sarcastic. Marc shrugs and, for a single, terrifying moment Valentino hates him, hates him so much he feels both of his hands curl into tight fists, iron-hot pain shooting all the way up his shoulders with the sheer force of it.
“I don't know. I just. I think I wanted to see you.”
He’s relieved when all the fight bleeds out of him at once, leaving only the faint hum of disdain behind. Punching Marc Marquez in the face would only be the final blow to his severely compromised reputation, and that’s not something he needs at the moment. He rolls his eyes. Pretending he isn’t doing it is out of question – he wants - needs? - Marc to be every ounce aware of how much Valentino would like to be anywhere else, in someone else’s company preferably.
“You saw me. You can go.”
Again, the Marc Marquez brand of bullheaded determination. Now there is a crack in his mask of off-putting unfathomability: his face does that stupid thing – not a puppy face, but a full blown pleading emoji that only lasts enough for Valentino to notice it, and feel incredibly stupid in return.
“Valentino…”
This is, for sure, a low blow. Valentino fiddles with the lighter, pressing down on the button until he feels a subtle resistance, his nail caught in the flame guard as he wonders if setting himself on fire could prove itself to be a useful solution to deter unwanted interactions.
His great disappearing act.
There’s a sigh trapped within the harsh confinements of his smoke-seared throat. Marc keeps staring at him – inquisitive.
“What kind of game are you playing this time, Marc?” He hears himself asking, almost as if from a distance. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? I was fine with it. You were fine with it. Why do you keep...doing this?”
Using words like stalking me or following me around would have sounded a bit too dramatic even for him. He’s got little to no energy to spare for theatrics tonight – being Valentino Rossi is already exhausting as it is.
Marc doesn’t answer, though. He keeps staring at him with eyes like buttons - shiny, almost devoid of any depth - and says “Can I have a cigarette?”
Now the situation is so absurd Valentino erupts into a fit of hysterical laughter. It’s like a little deflagration, a bomb going off right at the centre of his stomach. One moment is thinking about punching Marc’s all too white veneers out of his idiot mouth, the next he’s crouching down against the wall, laughing so hard his whole body shakes with it, the muscles in his abdomen contracting viciously, to the point of hurting.
“Fuck off, you can’t smoke. You’re racing tomorrow,” he ends up pointing out when the laughing has subsided, turning into the faint ghost of a chuckle that stings on his tongue.
His bad leg hurts when he sits. He keeps it stretched out in front of him, his knee slightly rotated to minimize the discomfort. Long before he has a chance to stop himself, though, he’s offering Marc a smoke – he’s lit it already. It’s been in his mouth. Marc accepts it without so much as an objection.
“I won the championship. I can slack a little if I want.”
Valentino’s chest seizes a little, and it’s got nothing to do with the cigarette that he’s lighting for himself, shielding the small flame of his lighter from the nonexistent wind in a gesture that’s oddly, comfortingly familiar. A habit he’s gotten at a young age, when he could smoke only if the adults weren’t around – usually in the most secluded areas of the paddock, or on the deserted hills around Tavullia, where the wind whipped at his face and he needed to keep the flame safe from it if he wanted to light up his death stick in peace.
“Congrats, I guess.”
It comes out far worse than he intended, anyway. Clipped, stilted. Angry. But not as angry as he could have been three, four years ago. There’s this sort of…atavic resignation creeping in around the edges of his life to which Valentino refuses to surrender. It’s hard to come to terms with it – his age, what he’s losing to Marc, what he’ll never be able to take back. He’s not a MotoGP rider anymore, and Marc only keeps reminding him of it. Of how time is a bitch and keeps robbing him of his achievements. All things fade, eventually. Even Valentino Rossi.
It’s an absolutely awful thought to have when he’s sitting next to the person he’s losing everything to, their knees knocking, bare skin against bare skin.
It’s an absolutely awful thought to have, when he’s got nowhere to hide and Marc is staring at him, closed off and attentive, like those monoliths shaped into human faces Valentino distinctly remembers from his schoolbooks.
Then Marc coughs. Hard. The bubble implodes, and Valentino’s lips twitch upward, in the pale imitation of a smile that should come off as cruel in a schadenfreude kind of way, but doesn’t quite get there.
“You’re smoking shit,” Marc says, his breath coming off in ragged, heavy gasps.
“That’s what Indonesia has to offer. I couldn’t stop at the duty free,” Valentino shrugs, surprisingly honest.
Marc takes his time to observe the cigarette, keeping it at a careful distance from his face, and grimaces. Some smoke ends up in Valentino’s eyes, making them watery. Or maybe it’s just that he’s been jetlagged for an entire week, and he doesn’t remember if he’s ever felt this tired in his life. Or this ancient, for what it’s worth.
“Stop at the duty free, next time. This thing…it tastes like piss.”
Again, Valentino snorts.
“You never listen to me. I told you. You shouldn’t smoke.”
You never listen to me. For a moment, Valentino is taken back to that fateful season, ten years ago. You never listen to me said through gritted teeth, a fistful of dark hair in his tightly curled fingers, Marc’s throat exposed, head tipped back from the tugging. He doesn’t remember if it was before Philip Island or after. Assen, maybe. It doesn’t matter; Marc had been reckless on track and Valentino had fucked him so, so rough, as to teach him a lesson.
He takes a big drag from his cigarette. In the silence that has fallen between them, Valentino can hear the rattle of Marc’s breath, still labored, creaky. He tries to put the memory back where he has found it, but he gives up, in the end – Marc’s heavy breathing is a sufficient reminder of that. They used to fuck. They even used to love each other, to some extent. Marc used to look at him with stars in his eyes, not…like this. It’s a hard blow to take at once – but it could be just his exhaustion leading him to places where he shouldn’t go with a fucking gun.
“I’ve got a whole list of things I’m not supposed to do,” Marc says, matter-of-factly.
The air around them feels like a cage of some sorts. Electrically charged and inescapable. It’s Valentino who rips off the band-aid, unexpectedly. Usually, Marc is the one who delves head-on into the matters that should be addressed, but it’s alright, it’s Valentino’s turn to voice out how wronged he feels – by the Universe. By him.
“Are you done robbing me?”
Of my records, Valentino thinks. Of my fans. Of my glory.
There’s a smile cutting across his mouth, the clean slashing of a perfectly honed blade. His voice does a stupid up-and-down, like when he’s trying to come off as playful, and yet there’s none of the mirth in it, just the inevitable realization that, no matter how hard he tries, he won’t be able to change the course of things, to twist the narrative once more to his favor. He was good at it, when he was younger. When he was a winner. He was good at landing on his feet.
Marc looks at him as if he’s grown a second head at first, heavy brows knitted right over his nose, but then Valentino’s words must click in his head and his face – it does that thing again.
It becomes barren, unreadable.
At least he doesn’t lie and say he’s sorry. And he doesn’t pretend it’s not exactly what’s happening: Marc, desecrating him in ways Valentino could have never imagined possible.
“I don’t think I am. Robbing you, I mean. It’s just that I had more time, that’s it. I can still…” a breath. Fractured, more or less, and not because he found his courage and took a drag from his cigarette once more. His palms, flat over his thighs, rubbing nervously for a moment before he can catch himself.
“You can still race,” Valentino supplies, calmly. “I can’t.”
Marc licks his lips. For the most part of a minute, neither of them say a word, each withdrawn to their own heads. The smoke is low in the stagnant air, but the acrid smell is almost imperceptible over that of rubber and fuel.
“You were good at Fuji.”
Valentino lets out a small, nasal noise. As if it matters anything. He was good…not that good. Passable at most. He kicks Marc’s sneaker, and Marc kicks his in return. For some reason, they’ve scooted closer. It’s hot in Mandalika this time of the year, but there is something about Marc’s warmth that keeps him there, so close he could actually count the follicles of Marc’s close-shaven stubble if he squinted a little.
“How do you know? You were celebrating your title.”
“I watched it on Monday. Only your stints, though.”
Marc’s breath is quiet and controlled now – his shoulders move imperceptibly with each inhale. Valentino shouldn’t notice it, but he’s past his need to compartmentalize everything when it comes to him. Things simply happen between them. They’re often unpleasant, though.
“Really.”
“Really. It’s hard to pick up the right stints on a six hours long race. It was…quite the treasure hunt.”
He chuckles, low in his throat. Valentino’s cigarette is almost consumed, and he hastily puts it out under the sole of his shoe, watching Marc mirror him cautiously, checking if he burned the rubber right after.
“I know at least three websites that allow you to watch only some stints on an endurance race,” Valentino says. Marc chuckles again.
“I don’t like things when they’re too easy.”
“Is that why you keep following me around at night?”
Valentino wonders if he should have been so direct. If he shouldn’t have just – let the sleeping dogs lay or whatever. But the dogs have woken up at some point, he reckons, so there’s no reason he should walk on eggshells, or circle around things. Maybe it’s even better, like this. Face to face, unfiltered, raw. It hurts, but not as much as it could.
“I don’t know. I just…I don’t know.”
The point is: Valentino doesn’t know either. He doesn’t know why he allows Marc to come this close, he doesn’t know why the weight of Marc’s head when he leans against his shoulder is so foreign but not as unwelcome as he thought. It might have been horrifically awkward – should have felt like it. Like sandpaper to his already flayed skin.
He wonders if this might all be about Sepang. It always comes down to Sepang, isn’t it? One way or another, they’re still stuck there, forever encapsulated in a three minutes long video on YouTube. Marc, Valentino, and the Damocles’ sword looming over them. A decade worth of swords, actually.
Valentino doesn’t want to go there and, judging from the way Marc seems to slump against him, neither does he. There's some sort of a flimsy mutual understanding on this. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.
It’s like a wound that keeps on festering – who would ever acknowledge that?
Valentino’s brain is rimmed with cotton. Slow. He should have slept more when he had the chance, but his insomnia has decided to strike back with a vengeance and, well, Marc has won his ninth title, so sleep has of course eluded him.
It’s not fine.
It won’t be fine for a while.
Suddenly, all of the weight of the previous week - Fuji, Marc’s title, his stupid insomnia - is turning on his shoulders, grinding. His internal struggle is long and energy-draining, but in the end his head is feeling far heavier than it should, his headache sinking deep in the bones of his skull, and he’s just – leaning against Marc in return, his stubbled cheek slightly pressed into his curls, soft to the touch and smelling of shampoo.
Marc stiffens a little at first, then he relaxes again. Melting, he would say. It’s an odd sensation, one he’s not going to acknowledge for the time being, anyway.
He closes his eyes, still acutely aware of the sword hanging from a frayed thread over his neck, ready to behead him. Pressed into him, Marc sighs.