Work Text:
What’s at stake – okay together
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
”How did the meeting go?”
”They want you in the team next season.”
”They? Or you?”
”Does it matter?”
”To me it does.”
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Barcelona, the week before the Thailand GP
„Accountant or conductor?”
„If you’re asking me whether you should wear a tie or a bow tie, I’d say… Tie’s enough to fit the whole thing.”
A trademark Marquez laugh echoes through the changing room area and Alex leans against the wall, the small shake of his head reflecting in seven mirrors lining up the corridor. His face grins back at him multiple times from various angles, until the curtain in front of him gets pulled aside and Marc steps out of the booth. Multiple mirror-Alex’ get accompanied by multiple mirror-Marcs. Multiple pitch-black eyes, mobs of ruffled curls and bright smiles.
Alex wolf-whistles as Marc gives his best catwalk performance and even blows him a kiss after a duckface-pose, before almost toppling over in the slippery dress shoes.
“Careful! We still have a race left!” Alex grabs his brother’s shoulder and steadies him. Marc thanks him with his most flirty smile and a cheeky wink.
“Yeah, do you think, we’re jinxing it by picking out suits already?”
“Never. We will be on that stage in Valencia, I promise.”
For a second a certain tranquillity settles between them, Marc’s broad grin melting into a soft smile at those words. We might be champions. Again. Together. Jesus Christ.
The grin widens again at the realisation and he nods at the jacket, Alex holds between his folded arms.
“Now it’s your turn, baby-champ. Get in there.”
It takes Alex a while to detangle himself from the silky and delicate fabric and he finally gives up wrestling with the cufflinks.
He pulls back the curtain and the moment Marc catches the movement from the corner of his eyes and looks up from his phone engraves itself into Alex’s brain without him having any say in it. Marc loses control about his facial expression for a second, surprise, pride, delight and then for a split second an inexplicable mixture of darkness and want (Really?) flicker across his features. Then experience and long-time professionalism take over again and he coughs.
“You… look amazing.”
Alex cocks his head and manages a slow three-sixty in the tailored suit for the FIM Gala.
Marc scoots closer and closes the cufflinks around Alex’s wrists with fast and skilled movements.
Alex can’t suppress the cheeky grin himself now, pushing the picture of Marc’s tense features mere seconds earlier as far away from him as possible.
“Why didn’t you become a model again?”
“Because I’m a 5”6 adrenaline junkie covered in scars and addicted to bikes.” Marc retorts in an instant, deadpan and with a click of his tongue, grin evident and wide as usual. “But thanks, man, I appreciate the compliment.”
All that matters to Alex is the smile he managed to raise from Marc in that moment.
Cervera, after the Thailand GP
I want the light-heartedness back, Marc thinks grumpily and stares at Alex across the room, his brother wrapped in as many layers of clothing as he could find in their shared childhood room and pacing in front of the bed in wide lounging steps. He musters three before he meets the desk and has to turn around again, Marc staring at him intently from the bottom bunk of the bed.
“Are you nervous because of the party?”
He eventually asks and isn’t able to ban all disbelief from his voice.
“No.” Alex says and stops pacing. “Okay, maybe?” More a question than an answer and resumed moving.
Actually, it’s not a lie, Alex thinks to himself. I’m not nervous, I’m freaking terrified. I’m terrified of drinking too much and staring at you for too long and being alone with you at some point and you looking at me just the way you do now!
Thailand changed things between them and by now Alex wonders, whether he truly is the only one noticing or whether Marc realises as well and plays his typical mind game of deflecting and observing – not with a rival this time, but his own brother.
They changed in a way that’s probably too subtle for outsiders to notice, but Alex sure as hell does. He realises his skin flaring up every time Marc touches him and how little control he has over himself, whenever Marc pulls him into a tight hug – which has grown unbelievably more often than it already had been before – and breathes down his neck, while clinging to his shoulders. The thing unsettling Alex even more is how frequently Marc seeks his closeness now. He just grabs him into a side hug, pets his back or rests his head on his shoulder. And what unnerves Alex the most and is closer to driving him insane than he’d ever admit is how much his older brother seems to downright enjoy seeing the goose bumps spread over Alex’s neck or creep down his arms, whenever he touches him.
It’s a devious joy, a dark spark eliciting in his ebony eyes and no matter how much he tries to hide it, Alex sees the cheeky grin splitting the lips that kissed him so blatantly in a nightly hotel room in Bangkok a week ago.
Alex clenches his jaw and keeps on pacing through their room, thoughts running miles in his head burning his mind alive instead of calories.
Marc clicks his tongue and sits upright in bed, the constant movement giving him whiplash and adding up the pain from still fairly visible bruises down his back and thighs. He watches Alex for another moment and contemplates on what to say to make his brother finally realise that this isn’t as big of a deal as he thinks it is.
“Is this about Thailand?”
God, get out of my head!
Before Alex can open his mouth and come up with whatever excuse his steadily growing repertoire of prevarications might come up with, there’s a soft knock at the door.
“Boys, are you ready?”
“Yeah, coming.”
As if…, Marc thinks but Alex pre-empts him this time around, faster for once, and scurries out the door and down the stairs faster than Marc can spell “Repsol Honda”. He’s left frowning and biting his lip in the threshold, his father’s curious eyes taking in the view and worry spreading in the high forehead he gave down to his eldest son.
“You two okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Alex is just nervous about the party. You know he’s like a deer in the headlights when it comes to cameras being pointed at him.”
Julia nods and smirks, taking the bait and Marc is utterly grateful it’s not his mom he has to deal with. Roser is a mother and her instincts when it comes to tension, her sons or tension between her sons has always been unmatched.
With a last frown and a shrug towards his father Marc follows his brother downstairs, nerves rising constantly and making his stomach churn before he even smells any alcohol.
This is going to be horrible.
-*-*-*-*-*
“This is going to be beautiful!” Roser exclaims an hour later and takes another photo down the street, covered in blue and red, an ocean of flags lining the shops and apartments and wavering in the chilly night air.
“Could have finished the title fight earlier, though.” She mutters. “It’s freezing.” She buries her nose in her grey scarf. No team-colours for the parents, they’ve decided. They’re not biased and love both their sons the same. Alex, when he wants it, Marc, when he needs it.
Julia next to her drapes an arm around her shoulder and points at the stage, where Alex and Marc go through a quick briefing with the local organiser.
“They did it again, amor. Can you believe it?” Julia mutters and squints his eyes at his sons. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I mean…” he pauses, as a catchy tune reverberates through the monstrous speakers and Marc instantly shuffles to the beat. Julia smirks and looks at Roser, pulling her into his arms and pressing a kiss to her beanie. “We made those two.”
“Yes, and I have no clue, what happened then.”
Roser chuckles drily and wipes her eyes. It’s her way of coping with all that, rough humour and roasting them at any given chance. Otherwise the pride and joy of seeing her boys being successful and national treasures and so breathtakingly beautiful might choke her to death.
“They are gorgeous.”
Julia looks down at his wife and she sees the mischief, that’s just the same as Marc’s.
“Just like you.”
They both grin widely, her whack against his upper arm ineffective.
“Next season is going to be interesting with them in the same garage.”
“Has Alex signed, yet?”
“No. Not as far as I know and Marc won’t spill any information.”
Her smile grows into a wide grin, similar to Alex’s.
“They’re sticking together on that one as usual, mh?”
Her husband’s facial expression changes and it makes her turn around in his arms, fingers playing with the buttons of his winter coat.
“Something happened in Sepang. I don’t know, whether it’s the title or Marc’s injury, but something changed between them.”
“Happened?” The possibility of her boys fighting is so absurd, that Roser pushes the thought away as quickly as it has seeped into her mind.
“I seems like Alex avoids Marc and we both know, how Marc reacts to being rejected.”
“Like an immature child?” They both smirk at that, proof evident on both of their faces. “We’ll keep an eye on him.” Julia frowns at that.
“Not on both of them?”
“Alex is probably right and something happened. He just doesn’t know, how to address it with Marc himself – especially when Marc is so…”
“Marc, yeah.” A soft chuckle followed by a deep sigh.
“Right. I’ll make sure they don’t do anything stupid tonight and talk it out tomorrow, sober and rested.”
Roser grins up at him and her dark-green eyes, which lighter shade she handed down to Alex and that’s only visible in the right light, glint humorously.
“But tonight it’s time to party and we both know how good they are at that.”
“May the gods be with us next season…”
They chuckle into a loving kiss, until Alex whistles at them from the stage and Marc fake-retches next to him, leaning against his brother with a hand firmly around his waist.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*
It’s like redefining gravity and holding onto the bike in a 70 degree angle. Natural and at the same time completely alien, because he’s not on the bike now. Still, it’s one of these moments, where Marc pushes and tries to find his own boundaries and crosses someone else’s. Alex’s.
They both drink too much and by the time the party slows down and their parents say their good-nights, Alex is admittedly drunk and Marc is to equal extent with a mixture of beer, champagne and aspirins mixed in his stomach.
Alex’s just left the stage and it is Marc’s turn now to have a quick appearance in front of the crowd to thank the team of organisers and helping hands before heading home. Alex winks at him, definitely on the drunker side of tipsy and points at the stage with an expansive wave of his arm and a low bow.
“Stage is yours, senor.”
Without saying a word, Marc approaches him, ruffles his hair affectionately and presses a kiss to his cheek.
It’s a mandatory touch, done thousands of times and accompanied by one of Marc’s trademark smirks and winks, it should take the edge off – not this time around, though, and Alex feels the anger rising up in him. His heart is in his mouth together with the tangy taste of beer and he’s trapped in the gaze of Marc’s pitch-black eyes.
It’s the final straw to see the built up frustration and anger boil to the surface and breaking free.
“God, Marc, just piss off, will you?!”
“Alex…”
“No.”
Alex wipes his mouth and hurries off through the by now deserted backstage area, legs wobbly and steps reduced to an insecure stagger, as he hears the crowd cheer with his brother appearing on the stage. He’s so outraged he doesn’t even bother to put on his jacket.
Minutes later that stretch like hours for Marc, as he was standing the middle of the stage and saying his dutiful thanks to everyone involved, he storms down the steps and towards Alex, who instantly turns around and hurries down the nightly street.
Marc curses under his breath, freezing air burning in his lungs as he takes up the chase.
“Alex, wait.” He yells and sees the kindergarten him and Alex attended as children fly past his blurring vision.
Alex doesn’t intent to slow down and by now Marc has to sprint to keep up with his brother’s longer legs. And they call me the immature one.
He stumbles over a kerb stone and hisses as he steadies his steps and feels the thud resonating with his bruised back, pain tingling underneath the skin.
“Alex, stop running from me!”
“Leave me alone!” Loud, furious, anxious.
“For fuck’s sake…”
Marc has to sprint down the dark subway to finally catch up with Alex and hasn’t really done so mentally, before his brother spins around and pushes him backwards with both hands, movements slack and uncoordinated with alcohol and eyes shimmering with tears – from the cold, Alex thinks and can’t focus on that before the words slip his mouth already.
“Please, just finally stop touching me!”
“What?”
“You just keep on touching me and it… You drive me insane!”
“What?”
“And the constant kissing… don’t you realise what you do to me with that?!”
Marc swallows the laugh that threatens to bubble up his throat at the infuriated facial expression on his brother’s features, eyes wide, pupils even wider and pitch-black in the dimly lit underpass.
There is a small pause, which feels like a lapse in reality, a glitch and complete standstill. Alex is trapped in Marc’s eyes, eyes he’s looked into a million times before and still mesmerize and captivate him as if they were complete strangers.
Marc licks his lips, Alex watches and his drunken mind doesn’t even scold him for thinking about, how attractive and kissable they look.
Marc takes a deep breath and his eyes darken even further. He takes a step towards his brother, corners him against the cold white tiles of the underpass, colourful tags (penises, hearts, names, quotes and caricatures) making Alex look unhealthily ashen.
Marc clenches his jaw and leans in closer, not touching – yet –, but seeing in chance in this late night collision, Alex drunk enough to be honest and sober enough to remember everything in the morning.
It’s just about taking the edge off. It’s Alex, damn it, deep breath, let’s go.
“What are you actually scared of?” Fuck, since when is his voice so raspy and hot?! “Me kissing you or you liking it?”
Alex blinks as the neon light above their heads flickers.
“Both.”
It’s more an exhale than an actual word, voice reduced to a husk shadow of itself. There’s no anger left, just Marc in front of him, coal-black eyes, sharp facial features and those stupid tender lips.
Another break, a smaller one, just Marc sucking in air quickly and uttering the next words, that come to his mind not just because they are true, but he feels the need to let Alex know.
“What if I enjoy kissing you?” Pause.
“Marc!” Rewind.
“What? Do you think, I’d do it multiple times on various occasions, if I didn’t want it?” Fast forward.
Suddenly there is the version of Marc, Alex hasn’t seen in days and certainly never has seen this near. It’s like a close-up shot from the starting grid, Marc’s eyes focusing on the first corner, all distractions disregarded, howling of engines muted, just him and his goal. The ruthless predator, the master of mind games, cold and so bloody hot at the same time.
Alex feels like his prey all of a sudden and gulps frantically, mouth weirdly dry.
“This is…”
“Wrong? Why? Because we’re brothers? It’s not like I want to fuck you, you know?”
“You don’t?”
Marc sighs and sucks in his cheek to keep himself from punching Alex.
“No, I don’t. Not like- Jesus, this is more complicated than sexual attraction, you do realise that, right?”
Alex’s huge brown eyes look to his left and then straight at Marc again, a typical sign his brother hasn’t even thought about this yet.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Marc decisively shaking his head sees Alex shutting his mouth and listening. “You don’t. I love you. I’m not a fan girl worshipping your poster above my bed. I’m not one of the interviewers you regularly bewitch with those pretty dark eyes of yours. I’m your brother and I know you inside out!” He takes another quick drag of oxygen, words accompanied by a soft cloud of freezing air as he speaks. “I’ve seen you naked and in terrible Bambi-themed Christmas sweaters. I’ve seen you shower, asleep, drunk and unconscious. I’ve sat next to your hospital beds and pit walls. I’ve seen you having a cold and being sick. I’ve seen you shit your pants after you crashed dad’s car into the garden fence. I’ve seen you cry over the lion king and over a broken heart. I’ve seen you laugh and in pain.” Marc wipes his cheeks with icy hands as he feels tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. “I know every scar on your body and on your mind and on your heart and I wish I could have prevented you from getting every last one of them.”
Alex closes his eyes and listens to the monologue he stopped Marc from giving back in Bangkok. This time he’s unable to look away, to drag a drunk Marc to bed and let him sleep it all off. This time he’s too drunk himself to keep his brother away from him, Marc leaning in and daring to touch now, placing a hand on his chest, broken little finger digging into the fabric of his sweater.
Marc looks up at him and shares the warmth of one his coyest smiles.
“I know you better than myself sometimes and no woman is ever going to give you the same feeling. I just know, okay? And that’s what I think about, when I tell you I love you. About the way you get clingy when you’re having a cold and waver between being a cute little nugget and an insufferable poison dwarf… About you sleeping with your head in my lap after too much FIFA and getting beaten by me twenty times in a row.”
Both statements see Alex laughing and he lifts his hands to pull Marc closer, hands resting on his hips almost delicately.
“I love you, Alex, and sometimes a hug just doesn’t seem enough to express how much, okay?”
“Okay.”
Another lick of his lips, anger now definitely gone and Marc’s eyes huge with painkillers and the beers he had.
“So stop running from me, please.”
“Okay.” But- “But promise me you won’t start hating me for-“ wanting this “everything.”
Alex’s voice breaks and Marc snorts a laugh, annoyance mixed with adoration.
“Have you listened to one word I just said to you?! I could never hate you. Sometimes we kiss, that’s all. It’s not illegal, you know?” Alex stares at him in curiosity now, full on openness and sincerity.
“What if it becomes more, Marc? I love you, you know that, but I’m not in love with you. Not like that, but you’re standing here and you look at me like that and I don’t know, how this is supposed to work.”
“And you really think, I do?” Marc’s eyes fill with self-irony and Alex laughs at the sight.
“Right, I forgot, who I’m talking to.”
“I have no idea, Alex, but I think, we don’t have to, to be honest. It’s a strange situation, but running from it won’t help, either.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Marc stands up to his tiptoes and pulls Alex down a little bit to meet him half-way.
He places a hand in Alex’s neck, smirks and then there is a kiss. It’s chaste and coy and everything Marc isn’t in most aspects of his life, but it’s still him and it makes Alex’s heart stumble through his chest. A part of his brain tells him that what they’re doing is mental and if someone saw them hell would break loose, but Marc eradicates the thought by pulling him even closer. The mood sways, caution gets abandoned, when Marc opens his lips for nothing more but a millimetre, Alex fights the urge to jolt backwards just like he’s done in Bangkok (and succeeds this time) and feels himself relax into the touch as Marc’s thumb runs over his neck. Alex ends up leant against the wall, knees slightly bent and suddenly buckling underneath him, when Marc in his typical stubborn and ruthless way lets his tongue trace over his slightly parted lips. A small noise escapes Alex’s lips and he tears open his eyes at the unexpectedly severe reaction to the touch, his racing heartbeat and the trace of goose bumps spreading over his upper body. Marc pulls back a little bit and there’s no cheeky grin, he’d probably meet everyone else with in this situation, proud of the power he has over his prey.
It’s nothing like this with Alex, though, just an open and honest smile, as his big (smaller) brother leans their foreheads together and locks their eyes. Vibe check.
“See? The world’s still turning. Nothing happened.”
It did, but it is truly and completely and honestly okay with Alex.
He nods and bumps Marc’s nose for good measure.
“Okay.”
“Let’s go home, come on.”
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
”Are you going to sign the contract?”
”Do you want me to?”
”You know, I do. But it’s your decision and I can’t take that from you. I never would. Decide for yourself on what you want.”
”I want this. I want us.” together.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Valencia, the morning after the FIM Gala
“Alright, sleeping beauty, time to wake up… Marc?”
“Lmmsllpp.”
“I know, you want to sleep and by God, I swear, after last night I would love to let you sleep the whole winter long just for the sake of not having to see anyone you came across yesterday…” Alex looks at the bulged duvet and bites his lips. “But we got testing and it’s my first testing with the team and I want you to be there. I need you.”
Marc poked out his nose from underneath the duvet. Their first night after Bangkok is a strange Deja-vu of that night with Marc wearing just boxers and looking terribly hungover. But things are different this time, because Alex kneels in front of the bed in jeans but shirtless, wide grin tearing at his lips no matter how hard he tries to bite it back.
He reaches over and places a hand into Marc’s hair, reminding himself that he’s allowed to do this, that Marc wants him to do this. Fluffy curls and a scrunched up nose.
Marc growls and opens first one then the second eye and concentrates on staring at the ceiling to keep the bed from swaying. Then he looks at Alex and meets his amused expression.
“On a scale from one to Jack Miller, how drunk was I?”
Alex chuckles deviously and clicks his tongue.
“At some point you sang cheesy Spanish love songs on karaoke with Jorge Lorenzo and danced a lot, which isn’t unusual but it was weird because it was Jorge Lorenzo you danced with. The guy you drooled over for a decade. You tried to kiss him, too, by the way. He thought it was funny, Mama did, as well, Papa on the other hand… Anyway, somehow you ended up snuggling with Jorge on a bench. You fell asleep in his lap and he looked like he was going to murder every last person, who tried to wake you up. Except me, because someone had to drag your drunken ass back to the hotel.”
Marc groans into the pillow and his brother’s cruel laughter makes a real migraine explode behind his closed eyelids.
“Iwanadie!”
“Nope, you want to sober up as quickly as possible or Santi is going to decapitate us both and you’re already tiny enough. Get your ass out of the bed, Marc!”
When they arrive at the paddock an hour later, Marc is still pale and looks tired to the bone, but Alex somehow manages to look even more jittery and ashen.
“Testing for HRC Honda. Pinch me.”
Marc does and gets an annoyed groan in return.
“This is it, man. We made it.”
And they did. They shifted and tumbled and turned, but in the end they make it work by not changing at all.
Alex gets onto Marc’s bike under the thundering applause by the team and when he sees Marc shadowing him through the chicane, a broad grin splits his lips underneath the helmet.
They circle each other for a while, trying different set-ups and tyres, until it’s late in the afternoon and the team slowly but steadily packs up everything for the winter break.
Surgery for Marc, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Regeneration.
Marc catches up with him and they cross the line simultaneously.
Alex doesn’t turn to his right and still knows, that Marc is grinning widely underneath his helmet, as well. He doesn't have to. He just knows.