can we be casual now? pecco/luca this goes out to all my girlies with stress acne in these trying times </3 anyways i wrote this instead of studying for finals <3 pls enjoy!

Luca pulls his helmet off, scrubbing at the film of sweat on his face with the palm of his gloved hand, and tries not to let the fatigue settle back in too deeply to his bones. It had all blown off of him on track; the speed tearing it all away from him until nothing was there but for the weight of the bike underneath him, how it moved, he couldn't even feel the weight of the helmet on his head, how that and his gloves and boots boxed him in. Luca never had a problem with it before. He was used to working within limits, that had been his whole life--that the limits were the issue half of the time, and as for the rest it could be solved in terms of those declinations. Now though, everything was wrong. nothing could truly describe the sheer, staggering scope of malfeasance inherent to the Honda bike; Luca had seen Marquez and Joan wrangle the machine around track like it was a wild animal, yes, and lose, horrifyingly, but to ride it was an altogether different thing. Being slow in the straights was the least of its problems. What was really fucking Luca over was the fact that it never reacted in the same way as he shifted his weight to lean into a corner, the metronome of his person falling into an irregular tempo; arrhythmia. now when he went racing whatever overwhelmed him felt too big for his leathers and helmet to contain, it was as if he would explode outwards from the sheer feeling of it all. Everything about him hurt now. His whole body ached as it never had before on the Ducati, from trying to squeeze himself onto a bike that was too small for him. There was also the sharper pain from being thrown off the bike, and the blunter one that came from the refusal. Why can't you be nice to yourself, Luca wants to tell the bike once he's back in the garage, eyes still stinging with the suddenness of being thrown, the wheeling strobe of the sun. Watching as the mangled body of his machine is pushed back and propped up yet again, a macabre taxidermy, Frankenstein's monster from being patched up and revived so many times. It's--everything's a little bit too much right now. He does want to understand, which is why he went to Honda in the first place, but now here he is on the dirt track of the ranch, trying to figure out how to stop the situation from sliding out under him so quickly.

Luca sighs. He's breaking out into pimples again, something he thought should've stopped when he stepped into adulthood. Growing pains. There's nothing to be done about anymore so he strikes the kickstand back, is about to maneuver the bike in the direction of the garages when someone wheels up next to him. Luca turns and is surprised to see Pecco, the banner-red of his bike a figurehead. "I heard you were on track all day", he says, flipping up his goggles, and Luca does the same in greeting. "Yeah", Luca replies, "I was just about to go back". He shrugs a shoulder in the direction of the main complex. Nobody else is there. It's just him and Pecco, marauded in this river of dirt with the sun spilling the last of its brilliance across the valley. Everything is stained champagne bright, the light catching in Pecco's eyelashes the same way as it had, what seemed like eons ago. The memory hits like a migraine. Suddenly, appallingly, Pecco had become another one of Luca's bruises, one that was always tender because he poked at it constantly. It wasn't possible, to have what he wanted. They were both on their separate ways as factory riders: Pecco with defending his title, and Luca maybe hoping to be good enough for one point in the championship. There was no going back to what it was before, those days where Pecco and he could be casual; they had both been Ducati riders, they were all of friends. But it was different now. He had missed his chance, right here at the ranch where they had self seriously swapped critiques on each other's riding form; a slap of the shoulder, when one of them fell too deep into their own thought, laughter as a form of catch and receive. Pecco could no longer understand him like that anymore because Luca didn't understand himself now, and it was so strange and confusing, to have no one else as your guide. "How about a few more rounds?" Pecco asks. He's still there, one foot planted on the ground, the red of his bike still raw, gleaming. "Of course," he backtracks, "if you're up for it". Even after two world championships he's still, absurdly, bad at asking for things, and Luca feels this crazy exuberance well up inside his body. It's almost silly, really, how he would do anything for him. "Well", he says, turning the bike back towards the track: "if you say so champ". At that Pecco laughs, embarrassed. "You of all people should know not to call me that, cheap bastard", he replies. "Now you'll have to beat me, to keep my ego in check". "Try me", Luca returns, wiggling a bit closer to Pecco to shoulder check him. "I've been here all day, I have all the tricks". "You'll have to catch me first", Pecco says, then, he takes off in a cloud of dust, a blaze of red into the sunset. Luca curses; he hadn't even noticed Pecco flipping his goggles down. Pushing off he feels the bike wobble underneath him as he enters the track in pursuit, the wheels righting once he's exited the corner. This then, is familiar. So fine. If Pecco couldn't tell him how to ride anymore Luca could still be that for him, even as he lost more and more of himself to his goddamned dream. He'll stay, even when he had left all else behind. He'll stay.