#buy lenovo tws | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jam-packed · 1 month ago

Text

ship of theseus

This is genuinely insane and very long so im sorry in advance. it also is one of three parts. enjoy 👍 tw for death and resurrection and religion and manipulation and valentino and a bunch of stuff you can also read on ao3 here

pt 1: a saint's gaze is unfounding

11.5k

------

Valentino had heard of Marc's death secondhand and had quickly cemented an idea into his mind to cope. It started as a joke—something he liked to whisper to himself as he searched his attic and garage for any piece of Marc he still had left. He never found much, but he did have a polite conversation with a clerk in a shop he didn't frequent, nor does he plan to, and he bought a quaint little book and some other supplies to bring such a silly idea to fruition.

He would not consider obsession a fault of his; rather, he found it was his passion that was too much for some to bear. And he is rather passionate, he nods to himself, a rather passionate man indeed. Passerbys give him strange looks and whisper to each other loudly as he travels. He does not wave to others on the street as they pass him; he is fame, he is passion, he is noticeable, and that will not do.

Marc would agree with Valentino's lust for true, authentic living and his beguiled step towards a better future for all involved. He knows for certain that Marc would approve of his decision and his methods—and if he were alive, he would help if it were anyone else, much like Valentino would do such a thing for anyone else because he is quite caring and thoughtful—many would agree. Marc, most of all, would know what a kindly man Valentino is.

Valentino grumbles and sneers. All of it was unfair, all of it, Valentino thinks, walking along the under-lit sidewalk towards the funeral parlor. Marc didn't end on a good note; it was the middle of the season and the start of a monumental streak—he’s no Casey Stoner, in terms of mastering the challenges of the Ducati of the early-to-mid aughts, but God, he was something beautiful—Pecco was doing good, yes, but for only his second year with Ducati and his first at Lenovo, Marc was a wonder to watch.

It’s a lovely little funeral home, now that Valentino looks at it, small and quaint in its simplicity; he hadn’t gone to Marc’s viewing, and he probably wouldn’t have, even if he had been invited. He heard from Pecco, on-call while Valentino was driving through southern France, that it was a more traditional ordeal—with glass coffins, sobbing mothers, and prayers throughout the room. Pecco had mainly described the stained glass, saying he didn’t want to look at Marc; he said he had stared at it for hours during the wake, looking at the precise mixes of reds, blues, and yellows to make out various saints and virgins that Valentino doesn’t know if he cares for.

Maro (who had joined Pecco for reasons Valentino didn’t understand) mentioned he had seen, but not spoken to, Álex Márquez—no one had spoken to the second Márquez, or he hadn’t spoken to them since the incident—the man had been deathly pale, tear tracks distinct on his face, and a hand kept on Marc’s glass case for the entirety of the viewing. The two had heard Álex cursing Marc’s name repeatedly under his breath, almost pleading for him to come back or he would “kill him again.”

Valentino knows Marc hasn’t been buried yet, still in his glass dome, waiting patiently to join his ascendants—a rarity. Marc’s suit is rather lovely, crisp, and dark in color—brilliant for burial if Valentino’s being completely honest. It really is a shame to ruin such a pretty suit, but Vale will just buy him another one.

He lifts the lid of the case from the side carefully—quietly—with gloved hands and bated breath. He places it gingerly on the floor, giving a picturesque “clink” as each corner touches the linoleum. Valentino takes a moment to stare at Marc without the sheen coming from the moon through various pieces of glass. Marc’s face and body are well repaired—for which he thanks God and competent embalmers—he doesn’t think he could bear seeing only half of Marc, so he’s quite glad for it. His brow thoroughly furrowed, and his lips twisted into a deep frown like he’d been sequestered from fateful dreams to eternal night terrors. The sculpted skin doesn’t match Marc’s tan exactly, and it’s not as blemished as Marc really is—it doesn’t have his smile lines or the moles on his chin and the underside of his eye. It imitates his natural, true beauty, and Vale begins to hate it.

Valentino caresses the wax that replaces Marc’s cheek with the back of his glove, and the flowers surrounding Marc’s dormant figure crunch under Vale’s other hand. It’s almost like a fairytale—with how close Vale is to Marc’s face—like he’s a handsome, just, and benevolent king determined to wake a poor, cursed, sleeping prince with some heavenly kiss.

It’s a pretty picture, the stained glass against Marc’s face, against Valentino’s dark clothing, against the dome—reflecting off the floor to show part of Sant Jordi’s duel with the dragon. He places a tentative peck on Marc’s forehead—where some natural, cool skin is attached—and drags his hands under the heart of his ribs and the backs of his knees. He takes a deep breath through his nose and grunts softly as he carries all 59 kg of Marc.

He slowly—but not that slowly, he’s not that old, he can carry a man easily—makes his way to the funeral home’s double doors. He tucks Marc’s head into his neck as he shifts to open the door, feeling the phantom touch of Marc’s breath brush over the hairs of his neck.

Each step is near-silent, minuscule taps against marble turned stone turned brick as he makes his way towards his car (he doesn’t own it, it’s a rental, an ugly one that he’s sure is older than his career, it has paint chipping at the corners, one of the headlights is out, and no bulb he’s replaced will work, none of the tires are completely full, and there is no power steering to be found), which was parked a few blocks down.

After a few presses of the key fob and a screaming beep from the Integra, he opens the backseat door and gently (he’d hope it was gentle; it was difficult with such a small car) lays Marc down on the torn-up backseat, which is covered in layers of polyester seat covers, old blankets, and a tarp—just in case.

When Marc is properly situated, the moon is high in the night sky, and Vale’s headlight is still out. The engine revs too loudly, and the road is too uneven, and Vale worries that Marc will be uncomfortable with the ride as he feels each rock and despondent brick in the broken streets underneath the tread of his tires—as he knows Marc feels it, too. He is just kind enough not to complain in such a state.

The drive is long and tedious. Valentino stops for petrol every few hours and changes the plates in alternating tandem. He only gets stopped—involuntarily—once, for the godforsaken headlight that he’ll never be able to fix, as he explains to the officer.

“Your windows are tinted pretty well,” the officer says, handing back Valentino’s I.D. “Any reason for that, Mr. Rossi?”

“People can be nosy when it comes to celebrities,” Valentino laughs.

The officer laughs politely and bids him goodnight, and Vale swears he could hear Marc’s infectious, face-filling chuckle from the back. He waits for the patrol car to pull off the side of the road to check on Marc. He’s stock-still—as before—and remains without a pulse. The fresh, ample air is causing Marc to decompose faster than Vale prefers, but he can make do with what he has.

He stops less frequently after they pass through Monaco, maybe for the sparse petrol station and toll gate, trying to make it to Tavullia before midday.

Vale turns onto the gravel roads slowly. The car still jumps, but Marc doesn’t move, bringing him some sense of pride. He parks quietly, stepping out to call Uccio and ask him (or, preferably, anyone but Valentino) to take the car back to the rental spot. The vast, beating daylight doesn’t help when Vale attempts to bring Marc to their room, and Vale is tired. He lays Marc down on the left side of their bed, kisses his hairline, feels the brush of Marc’s eyelashes against his cheek, and undresses to join him.

He clambers onto the bed much slower than he likes, his bones creaking with each movement. Vale should’ve put Marc under the comforter, but it’s too late now, and he thinks Marc wouldn’t mind, given the circumstances. They will rest, and by midday tomorrow, they will both be up, perhaps joined in more intimate ways than through a duvet and sheets. He brushes straggling strands of hair from Marc’s face, his hand shiningly pale against blossoming green and purple marbling, it landing softly on Marc’s clothed shoulder, and Vale faintly curses at not having a hairdryer on in the silence as he fades to sleep.

He only feels slight regret when he wakes to a horrid smell, and Uccio shaking him back and forth.

“Why the hell is Márquez rotting in your bed?”

Valentino clicks his tongue against his teeth, “I dunno, maybe he appeared to me. Used to be his regular rotting grounds, eh?”

Uccio doesn’t find Valentino’s joke funny. He lectures and lectures about the “ethics” of “taking a corpse,” and Valentino is quickly losing patience with his long-time friend. He explains his situation quickly and lightly, which Uccio also does not take well.

“You’ve lost your mind,” Uccio says. “If he does come back, which he won’t, he will kill you, and this time, I won’t be there to get you out.”

Vale huffs, his face contorting and scrunching near his nose. “I am more sane than ever, and it won’t matter anyhow, as when he comes back, you won’t be here regardless.”

“What do you mean?” Uccio bristles, avoiding the still, unopening eyes of the body cozied up to Vale.

Vale laughs—a cruel, bitter chuckle—and looks up at Uccio with a wide smile. “Just that, Alessio. Get out.” Vale motions to the door. “I won’t have this ruined again, so go on.” He waves his hand slowly—flippantly. “This is no place for negativity; it’s,” he flourishes his hands up and around his head, “a new era. It’ll be good for us.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Vale shrugs, his crocodile grin sharp on display. “Whatever you think, my friend. It will be the start of something wonderful.” Uccio grimaces, and Vale adds: “Don’t forget to take the car with you.”

Uccio leaves in a huff, and Vale takes the chance to prepare Marc’s return: flowers, candles, rose petals meticulously shaped on the bed, illegally purchased serums, stupidly expensive blade, electric rods, new cooking ware—nothing was left unfinished, everything was as it should be.

Vale joked to himself that he should just stick petrol in him and call it a day—find Marc’s accelerator and hear his insides purr. But that, unfortunately, would leave all his efforts in vain.

The act itself was simple enough; there was nothing to read or peruse to wake Marc. Just a pinch from his serum, and Marc would pop back into awareness—the thought was intoxicating, and the scent was unbearable.

The tricky part was putting him back together.

Vale had previously gone through a few morgues with a fine-tooth comb and cemeteries with a somewhat classy shovel to get each part he needed. Marc’s autopsy was public record, and the pieces that worked were slim to none. But he had them nonetheless: slabs of discolored skin and bits of better working organs and tissue sitting in his freezer for the better part of a week.

He undresses Marc, tearing the suit off and dragging his eyes along the scarring, thumbing between wax and tissue to remove the inhuman segments, and his nose upturning at the indistinguishable smell of formaldehyde. It’s a rough sight, Marc’s internal muscle and teeth on full display—as if the colors and individual strokes of a famed painting were ripped off to show the canvas to unworthy viewers—and Vale tries to keep his heart from clawing out from his chest.

With a kilometer’s worth of synthetic fiber and a bucketful of staples, he got to work carefully replacing Marc’s open tissue with Vale’s more natural collection; each bite of the needle a caress of sweet breath, and each shot of the staple gun a kiss of gifted pulse.

They were crude and jagged, almost gnarly in their juvenility. They filled Marc’s face, torso, and hands, making his natural scars and remaining moles look angelic by comparison. There was a vulnerability in his nudity that Vale preferred to ignore, every line of his face marred with breaks in skin and dark, sludge-like blood. It oozed out of the wounds Vale had opened, caking him in the stiff, glossy, chestnut liquid. But his lips were bright and fresh, and his eyes—when he would open them—would surely be as deer-like and innocent as before, though shrouded in tears and love for the hunt.

It neared midnight, and excitement coursed through Vale’s body, jittery and crazed. He presses the violent green serum into the base of Marc’s neck, straight into the bloodstream—or nervous system, Vale isn’t sure.

But Marc’s lips stay rosy but unmoving. All of him was unmoving—not a twitch in sight.

Vale does not allow himself to cry, but he does kneel over Marc’s still, unbeating chest and beg. It’s pathetic—and more likely than not in vain—but it seems his only option. He pleads for whatever God or saint available to aid him—some Jordi to defeat this dragon and wake his prince from his morbid slumber with blood-stained roses and feather-light kisses.

Vale has his own—taken from his garden or maybe from a nearby supermarket—placed neatly into a vase on Marc’s bedside table. He plucks one from its brethren and places it over Marc’s asystole heart, taking fingers that are now Marc’s in his hand and brushing his lips against them gently. Vale squeezes the hand given by many and bows his head in prayer, falling back asleep over Marc’s portioned abdomen, the full moon filling the room with a sympathetic, almost maternal, bright light.

------

When Marc comes back, he does so shrieking. It’s sudden and earsplitting and guttural, and Vale feels his ears bleed from the sound. Vale attempts to hold Marc’s hands away as Marc cries and digs his nails into his newly established skin, trying to rip out the stitching that connects his head to his neck. His shrill, ragged screams run hoarse, and Marc’s mind seemingly returns to him as he tries to control his labored gasps while the tears stop falling.

His eyes are open and shaking, filled with unshed anguish and a yellow tint—his rosy lips quivering and fresh teeth chattering as he chokes on returning breath. “Vale?”

“Yes?” Vale grips Marc’s hand tightly, his free fingers feeling a faint but steady pulse. “Yes, my love?”

“¿Qué vas fer?” His voice is coarse and low. “¿El que em va passar? ¿Qué vas fer, Vale?”

“I brought you back,” Vale explains, a smile crawling onto his face and voice cracking with each new word on his tongue. “I brought you back, and everything is going to be okay.” He takes Marc’s fractured face in his hands. “I have you again; nothing matters but this—but you, me—us.”

Marc just stares at Vale, a glint of red in his eye as fat tears trail down his cheeks, mixing with the dried blood and raised stitching that covers him. He cracks his mouth open and chokes out a sob. Vale shushes him sweetly, cradling Marc’s head in his arms and burying him in his chest. Marc digs his fingers into Vale’s arm and back, shuddering in his hold.

“I love you,” Vale tells him. “I love you, I’m sorry.” He repeats it like a mantra, almost hymnal and melodic, and Marc is once again limp in his hold—but at least Vale can feel him breathing.

------

“I was dead,” Marc tells him, his glare unwavering and unblinking as he puts on a pair of Valentino’s underwear.

Vale hums, tapping his fingers against his chest, back in his previous, unwashed clothes. “I would call it resting.”

Marc huffs with a minuscule smile on his lips, “You’d be delusional to call it resting.”

“I suppose,” Vale concedes.

“What’s with the knife?” Marc is still ever observant.

Vale grabs it and shoves it in his bedside drawer. “Don’t worry about it.”

Marc smiles, and Vale kicks his legs off the bed and strides over to Marc, wrapping his arms around Marc’s torso—careful not to lay his unclothed skin on any protruding bits of metal and synthetic.

Valentino stares at the mirror in the corner of the room, just to the left of the closet, and the image is less than appealing. Marc still has some grotesque sexiness in his nudity and scarring, but Valentino looks grim—his wrinkles and age lines far too apparent next to the ashy, pore-ish, unaging face of Marc beneath him. He’s ghostly pale compared to Marc, and his hair is thinning, and the bags around his eyes are worse than yesterday.

His dull carpet is painted with spackled blood—now crisp to the touch and difficult to clean out—and his bed looks like it's been in a wrestling match with a bear. The lights are dim and chattering, giving a distant buzzing that annoys Valentino to no end.

“Do you have any other clothes I can borrow?” Marc asks, padding his fingers on the overgrown hairs of Valentino’s arms.

“Eh, none that would fit you.”

“It doesn’t have to fit.”

“Would look better; I like form fitting on you.”

“Right,” Marc sighs, pulling away from Valentino’s grasp. “Do you have any of my old clothes? Just a few you didn’t burn or something.”

“I never burned your clothes.”

“The boys sent me videos about it; you don’t have to lie.”

“Oh.” He was going to kill those little bastards. “Well, I can buy you some new ones—make up for it.”

“I can’t really go out like,” Marc gazes up and down his disproportionate and lacerated body, conducting Vale’s view with his mangled hands, “this.”

“Online shopping. We’ll pay for quick shipping. I’ll get you a nice suit like the one you wore earlier, yes? Some normal things, too.”

“We could call Álex? He could bring me some from home?”

Valentino waves the idea away, “Bah, you don’t need to call him. I’ll call him and get the clothes ordered—compromise.”

“Compromise,” Marc repeats slowly. “Fine, whatever works. Give me one of your jackets and shorts. I’ll make it work until then.”

“Bossy, bossy,” Vale taunts. He opens the closet, hums, and shuts it again. “I think those are all at my other house—only racing suits in here.”

“This isn’t the best way to start a new life, Vale.”

“Poor coincidence! Must’ve moved them over the last time I was here. Based on your Instagram, you don’t wear clothes much anyways.”

“Vale."

“Maybe the boys have something you can borrow. I can go check.”

“Why can’t I do it?”

You would think Marc’s argumentativeness would be less forgettable, but Vale is much the poor fool.

“Marc,” he soothes. His tone is final, and he can see Marc’s brows join and furrow. “Trust me. I did this for us, so just trust me. Nothing bad is going to happen if I do this over you—have some faith!”

There’s a storm in Marc’s eyes, and Vale’s sure there’s a thunder attempting to climb up his throat. Marc opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again—like a fish trying to breathe air for the first time. But his teeth finally clamp together, and Marc’s eyes flutter to a close, and he slowly shifts back to sit on the bed, hands clasped tightly. “Fine, okay. Fine. But when you come back, I want to tell Álex.”

“Whatever you like, my love.”

He locks the door behind him and journeys down the stairs to the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water from the tap. He drums his fingers on the countertop and takes slow, simple sips. He sets the glass down with little sound to not alert Marc, pulls his near-dead phone from his pants pocket, and steps outside silently—bar the sweeps and clicks of the sliding door. He calls Maro. It takes three rings for the boy to answer.

“Valentino?”

“You need to come to the ranch. Now. It’s urgent.”

“Vale, I told you, I can’t really be anywhere right now- and Marc’s body disappeared the other day, and-”

“Yeah, about that. Marc is here,” he pauses, and he can almost hear Maro’s jaw slam into the floor. “He’s at the ranch.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Do I usually?”

“Yes! What the fuck, Vale? You can’t steal the dead body of your so-called nemesis. Are you insane?”

“Well, he’s not dead anymore. In my opinion, he wasn’t in the first place.”

“No. No! You’ve lost your mind; you’re hallucinating.” Vale rolls his eyes. He’s sure Maro relayed the news, and Pecco is pacing a hole into the ground on the other end of the line. “Marc is not at your goddamn racing ranch right now.”

“He is, and he’s annoying the shit out of me. Keeps asking about his brother.”

“Oh my god. Oh god, I should call Álex.”

“No- no. Do not call Álex; you will ruin my entire plan.”

“And what is your plan, Vale? Are you going to marry his corpse? What the hell are you even thinking of doing that is remotely in the realm of sanity?”

Vale doesn’t get to tell him as something taps him from behind. He swings his head around to see what bothered him and finds Marc covered in glass shards and caked in dirt, holding his arm by the wrist in his right hand.

“Jesus Christ, Marc! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Sorry. The door was locked, and you couldn’t hear me calling for you.” He looks down, almost bashfully, at his detached arm. “I didn’t want to ruin your work.”

“Right,” Vale slowly gets out. “Just- go back inside. Sit on the couch, relax, let me finish this call, and I’ll fix you back up.”

“Who are you on call with?” Marc asks, then smiles—it’s giddy and almost innocent if you ignore the blood and grime staining his teeth. “Is it Álex?”

“Eh, no, it’s, uh, Luca.”

“Oh.” Marc takes a step closer to the phone, and Valentino puts it on speaker for him. “Hi, Luca.”

“Marc.” Maro’s static-y voice sounds out of breath and nearly fearful. “It’s you.”

“Yes.”

“Wh- we went to your wake,” he starts. There’s a pregnant pause between the three for a while, and Vale can hear Marc’s feet rustle against the leaves. “It was nice.”

“Thank you. For going, I mean. Have you spoken to my brother?”

“I, uh, no. No one really has. But I can, if you want. I’ll bring him over. To the ranch with me and Pecco.”

“Thank you, Luca.” He stares dead at Vale as he speaks—his voice freezing over as it continues. “I’d appreciate it.”

“Love,” Vale interrupts before it can go any further, “My phone is about to die. Why don’t you go inside? We’ll talk when I come in, hm?” He says, ushering Marc towards the sliding doors. When Marc finally gives up and drops himself on the couch, Vale slides the door shut and, barely above a whisper, tells Luca: “Do not call Álex, do not tell anyone. Give me a few weeks, and we’ll get him over but do not fucking tell him now, or I swear to God, you will never step foot on this track again.”

There’s a pause from the other side of the line. “You’ve lost it. I’m going to call him, and we’ll be over in a few days at most. This isn’t something you can be selfish about, Valentino; he has a family.”

Valentino hangs up and goes inside, grabbing a pair of scissors, thread, and a needle. He settles down by Marc, who has taken to playing with the staples on his untethered arm. He gingerly takes the appendage from Marc, lining it up so the shattered bones look almost connected, and begins stitching Marc back together. It doesn’t take long and is relatively simple—in and out of flaring skin twice over for each bite connecting the converging skins. The finished product is shoddy and clearly unprofessional, but Marc looks content as he tests the dexterity of his fingers and hand.

“We need to lay some ground rules,” Valentino tells him, picking some of the shards of glass from his face. “For now.”

Marc blinks at him slowly, his lips thin and tight. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want you jumping out of my windows for help, Marc. It’s not the most helpful to our journey together.” He takes Marc’s hand in his own, but Marc pulls away. Valentino huffs, “Just a few. Nothing too bad, alright? They’re small.”

Marc hums in acknowledgment, pulling at the dents left from the fragments of his fall.

“If you need help again, just wait where you are. I will come back to you and be able to fix anything you need. I will always be there to help you.” Marc rolls his eyes. “I don’t want you leaving the ranch or going too close to the edge of it—in case someone sees you. And I don’t want you to interrupt my calls anymore. No one else can know about you, alright? But just for now. When this is all over, you can do whatever you like.”

“Can I add a rule?”

“Eh, yes. Of course.”

“Don’t lock the fucking doors on me again.” Vale can see the storm brewing in his eyes once more. “And stop lying to me.”

“That’s two,” Vale jokes. Marc’s eye twitches and Vale sighs. “I’m sorry; I just didn’t want anyone to be disturbed. In case anyone was here.”

“Sure.”

“And I’ll be honest with you from now on—I’ll be as open as a grave.”

Marc snickers through his nose and smiles, some of his stitches popping out as it grows.

Vale caresses Marc’s newly attached arm, crawls his hand across Marc’s back, and pulls him closer by his waist. “Why don’t we relax for a few days, hm? I’ll give you a bath, and we’ll take a rest.” He pulls a small twig from Marc’s hair and brushes a few stray curls from his face. “You’ve had an exciting week; you need recovery.”

“Okay,” Marc faux relents, leaning into Vale’s side and relaxing his muscles. “And you’ll let me go dirt biking?”

He bares his teeth and kisses the suture along Marc’s hairline. “If you’re nice.”

Marc chuckles—then laughs and giggles all in one—and the room brightens as the sunset filters in through the windows.

------

Marc doesn’t smell like rot anymore, and he is glad for it because it’s all he smells now—bar the sparse chance he gets close enough to Vale to take in his lemon body wash and underlying sweat. Vale dabs him with it using a sponge and an old rag; the scent is overwhelming, and the rag is rough, but Marc prefers it to the previous. He’s calmer, he supposes, now that he no longer has to bear such things—it’s pleasant, it’s nice, it’s any one word that fits in the sentence as skin that is not his own fills in the missing pieces of his disfigured body.

He faintly remembers what he looked like right before reformation and reincarnation—or rather, he recalls the feeling. Chunks and bits and pieces skewed across the gravel, his leathers melding with his skin, an eye too wet on his face, his hair pulled back and scalping, limbs twisted unnaturally—too much to think about.

Being with Vale is nice, and he doesn’t smell like mildew and maggots—he’s not musty, or wet, or earthy—it’s angelic in comparison, and he prefers it so much more. Vale is sweet to him, trying to make up for all the lying and sneaking that he thought Marc didn’t notice. It’s almost pleasant how familiar Vale is. The juxtaposition of such intense kindness is odd, though, and he’s not a fan of that in the slightest. God, how he hates it.

But the water is so warm, and Vale’s hands on his stolen skin and in his unkempt hair is so utterly salubrious, and he thinks, for a moment, he can pretend not to care—to lock away one more thing he doesn’t need.

------

“Is it weird,” Vale asks when he shuts the engine of his dirt bike off and removes his helmet, “being back on a track after what happened?”

“No.” Marc removes his borrowed helmet but does not swing himself off the bike. “It’s like an injury.” He takes a moment to tug at the stitches on his neck. The bike’s engine has a low and consistent purr in its idling. “Racing is like a lover, and I love her too much to truly leave her when she hurts me—whether she meant it or not.”

“You’ve said something like that in an interview before.”

“You watch my interviews?”

“I watch everything with you in it.”

Marc’s grin is wide and beaming, and pointedly not at Valentino. One of his staples falls to the dirt, burying itself in small rocks and soil.

Vale turns the engine back on—not knowing why he turned it off in the first place—and motions for Marc to race him around the ranch once again. Marc’s foot falls off and he keeps going, but he doesn't win.

------

Marc cries a lot now—painful, salted rivers parting his face further from their gerrymandered sections of tissue. They sting and strain his eyes, and Vale looks at him with too much pity, which makes him cry more.

Yesterday, he had witnessed a lynx and a wolf in an unromantic embrace that left only sharp teeth, claws, and blood staining the forest floor. He collapsed into the pink-tinted dew of the morning grass and sobbed, making the trees wallow towards him in tandem, and the sky open its dark eyes in sympathetic cruelty. Then, he made Vale get him a shovel so the creatures could be buried properly.

He lay near them for a while, flexing his fingers and toes, stretching his legs out, tracing the new stitching and scars that flood him. The grass tickles him, and he lets out a content sigh. Leaves fall around him, entombing the uneasy soil and ensuring their decomposition.

There’s a story in the bible he was read as a child, of a man raised from the dead four days after interment. Marc was not allowed that luxury, and the parts that envelop him are well aware of this fact. Marc’s cheek gnaws at him, requesting him to go back from whence he came and complete his cycle posthaste, his leg begs for eternal rest, and his stomach prays for formaldehyde and mahogany.

It’s a somewhat bearable pain that he has come to deal with, but each whisper and hypnotic gaze from his dreams leaves him empty and sore.

Vale helps in some ways. He has Marc laughing easily, making him forget their past and present faults. Vale likes to invoke the use of dance through his tongue; he talks frequently and enjoys trailing his mouth along Marc’s skin, which distracts him just as much. Though he distantly fears infesting Vale with the maggots and fungi that may inhabit him—he’s had Vale check many times, but his gut lives alone.

Marc hears rustling in the distance and faintly thinks he should rip an eye out and see if it would tell him what was coming. But he stays put, itching at raised scars and nestling into the grass.

Vale stands over him, the sun forming a halo around his curls. Vale laughs, “You’re an odd one, my love.”

“I need to be with my brethren, Vale. I’ve read that in books.”

“I didn’t know you could read.”

Marc swats at him and huffs. Vale hums a little tune that Marc isn’t familiar with and smiles wide, toothy and white, though hard to see. He slowly sits down in the unsettled soil, then lifts Marc’s head to place on his lap, sifting his fingers through Marc’s curls. Marc raises his hand to dance his fingertips on the hairs lining Vale’s neck, pulling Vale down to allow their lips and tongue to mingle.

It’s enjoyable, and one of the first that Marc has initiated. He stays silent, listening to the birds, leaves, and Vale poorly harmonizing in their pleasure.

Vale pulls off with a nip to Marc’s top lip and stretches; Marc can hear Vale’s back creak and crack with each movement. “I don’t do that regularly, too young for me.”

Marc laughs. “Unfortunate for me, no?”

“Bah, I suppose so.”

“I think it’s a fair sacrifice.”

“You wouldn't know ‘fair’ if it bit you in the ass.”

Marc shuts his eyes again, focusing on the whistling of the leaves and the crawl of ants beneath their legs. “I’m well aware.”

Vale clicks his tongue. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know, Vale.”

“Rarity.”

“Fuck off.”

Vale hums. “I love you.”

“Sentimental bastard.”

“Say it back, prick.”

“I love you, Valentino—idiot fuck.”

Vale kisses him again, pulling him up so Marc is forced to depend on Vale and the ground for support. Vale whispers something about fucking in the woods, and Marc grimaces and gags out the idea, then shrugs and tries to shimmy his shirt off—Vale stops him and laughs before attacking Marc’s neck, holding him in a tight grip.

“You’re so beautiful.” Vale kisses the words into his skin.

Marc smiles and massages Vale’s hair lightly. “You’re delusional.”

“Pretty—lovely, really.”

“A lot of compliments today.”

“Just wanted you to know.”

Marc feels Vale nuzzle into the juncture between his neck and shoulder, sighing deep into his clavicle. Marc swallows, bile heavy in his throat, and tilts his head to lean on Vale’s, leaving them in a strange amalgamation of limbs, teeth, and claws.

------

The days Vale has alone with Marc sail by, akin to rushing waves of whitewater on an unsteady current—which Marc had blatantly refused as a pre-(or post) marital trip. Álex, Maro, and Pecco arrive too quickly, and Vale argues with Maro about Franky and Bez (and the rest of the lot) coming too.

“Later,” Vale told him with complete certainty, “When everything is done, they can come. But not now. Only you three—and I barely tolerate that.”

Luca bristles and leaves the room before he can say anything worse in response, led out by Pecco as he squeezes and flexes his fists slowly. Álex has just stared at Marc, a distinct sorrow in his eyes—he almost looked like Marc in old photos that Vale sees circle Twitter or Instagram every so often.

They sit in awkward silence, and Álex seems desperate to talk to Marc—to pull him from Valentino’s “gangly grasp,” as he told Pecco while coming through the doorway.

“Estàs viu,” Álex calls to Marc, and it nearly echoes.

There’s a vast chasm between the brothers as Álex has banished himself to the farthest end of the couch, barring him from coming near Valentino—where Marc has planted himself firmly. Tension is palpable, oak-thick, and apparent since the trio arrived. Marc hasn’t spoken or looked at anyone but Vale, and Vale prefers this from Marc’s incessant nagging from days earlier—it eats at his inner lining, in some way, and chole climbs and sits at the top of his throat.

“So people keep saying. Are you surprised?”

“Bé, l'última vegada que et vaig veure, estaves mort. Així que sí, una mica.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Deixa de parlar-me així.”

“You first.”

Álex looks exasperated, with deep bags under his eyes and a pallor Vale can barely imagine, let alone see. His deep brown eyes stay locked on Marc, surveying the odd and overlapping lacerations that Vale had to make to keep him from completely falling apart.

Marc twists his ring finger back and forth, tracing the converging line and picking at the thread lightly. There’s a tightness in his brow, and Vale thinks this will be the end of it. He and Marc will go upstairs to relax—to relieve some sense of stress lest it tears Marc further—while Álex is forced to one of the boys’ empty rooms or the creaky, plush couch for rest.

But that doesn’t happen. Marc stands up and asks Álex to follow. They go outside and argue, and Vale can’t understand anything through the glass door. Álex cries, which makes Marc cry, they embrace, and they’re back inside like nothing happened. Valentino grimaces but remains silent, watching as Marc offers to tour Álex around the building and race track, then looks at Valentino for approval, a large smile on his face.

Valentino gives a slight nod, but Marc seems all too preoccupied with dragging his brother outside again to explore the ranch.

Maro, in some weird coincidence, returns as they leave. He leans back against the dining table and holds an intense gaze on Valentino, studying him carefully. Valentino does not respond in kind, preferring to admire Marc’s lower back muscles through one of the windows not shrouded by shutters and curtains—he looks taller but stilted, with one calf a little higher than the other as it tries to assimilate to the rest of his disjointed body. Vale’s favorite part of this new Marc might be his upper right arm and the sparse bits of his face that kept stable—some miraculous parts of the original ship kept steady by course.

“How could you do this to him, Vale?” Luca interrupts. There are no lights on, as Vale is a little stingy on the bill, so all they receive is the sun, though it does well in its job despite the climate. “Are you even listening to me?”

“I want him back,” is all Luca gets in response. It’s short, curt—it does its job well, like the sun, like Vale, like Marc in most moments, and like Luca should be doing now.

Maro makes a noise in the back of his throat; it’s almost a growl—and Vale is almost intimidated. “We all wanted him back, Vale; this isn’t your choice to make.”

“I think it is.”

“No!” Maro bursts out, then calms himself with his hands—like the director of an orchestra. “Valentino,” he tries, “As sad as it is, his life was lived, and what he is now is something cruel. It’s inhuman; it’s–” Maro groans, pulling his fists to his head to pretend to grasp at strands as if it would somehow help him articulate—Vale distantly wonders if Enea has tried that, then laughs at the idea. “–you can’t– it’s not right. It’s cruel to him, it’s cruel to Álex—you can’t do this, Valentino.”

Vale shrugs. “It’s already done.”

Maro’s eye gives a slight twitch. “Then undo it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I did this for a reason. I want him back.”

“Not everything is about you.”

“It seems to be.”

“You are-! This is-!” He can barely get a thought out, simply exclaiming different fragments in hopes that he can string some Frankenstein’s sentence together to argue rightly. It’s almost ironic, Vale chuckles to himself.

Valentino doesn’t interrupt or yell back. He waits until Luca is calm enough to look him in the eye for a consistent minute, lingering with a concrete, steely gaze. They meet, finally, and Valentino can faintly see Marc in Maro’s frosty eyes. Vale speaks slowly—intently: “What I have brought together, I will let no man separate.”

Luca’s breath and heart stutter, and his eyes shake a bit. He gulps and gasps and waffles, like a duckling first learning to swim, like Luca on his first minimoto, Vale thinks. “I was joking,” Luca whispers, “Over the phone—when I asked that.”

“Well, now you know.”

Maro falls into the matching chair to the dining table set, head in his hands. Vale thinks of replacing it with something he thinks Marc would like more—they don’t use it regularly anyway. Vale saunters over to put a comforting hand on Luca’s back, rubbing deep circles into the base of his neck.

“Think of it as getting a brother-in-law,” Vale suggests.

“That’s not any different.”

“Maybe.” He sniffs absentmindedly and regrets Luca’s sorry-looking figure. “It’s not as bad as you think.”

“He’s dead, Vale. He’s a living corpse. God, this is so weird.”

“He’s not dead, Maro; don’t be dramatic.”

“I knew you were a freak, but I didn’t think it went this far.”

Vale laughs at that, but Luca stays silent, shuddering.

“What about the other people in him, Vale? What will their families think?”

“Eh-ha, I’d hope no one else is in him,” Vale laughs. Maro rips his eyes from his reddened palms to look up at Vale through his lashes with judgment tight on his brow. Vale coughs, “I, eh, left compensation.”

Maro looks away and shuts his eyes tight. “What do you need to do to…complete this…excursion?”

“Only a few things. I have them already. I just need your help to set them up, which is why I called you in the first place.” He gets on one knee, brings his hand to hold Luca’s cheek, and tries to tear his gaze from the shapes and odd colors sure to steal his mind. “You’re the only one I can trust to do this.” Luca’s eyes water when they open, and it reminds Vale of when they were younger, like a grand mallard and its duckling. He kind of misses that time—wishes it lasted longer. “Will you? Will you help me?”

Maro’s lip wobbles, and his voice wavers as he speaks, “Yeah. Yeah, Vale, I’ll help you.”

Vale smiles and opens his mouth to speak.

“But only this,” Luca clarifies. “After this, I’m done. I don’t want to be a part of it anymore, and I’ll tell the other guys about it, too. They won’t like this, Vale. Nobody will. You realize that—right?”

Vale sighs. “They don’t have to, Luca. It’s not for them to like.”

Valentino stands, using the table and Maro’s knee as support, and slides the glass door open to join Marc and Álex—kissing the side of Marc’s temple as he meets them—on the rest of their walk as Luca watches on. When Vale looks back, Maro has left his seat, and the front door is wide open.

------

Marc surveys the room slowly. He hasn’t been able to sleep well lately. His head and arms ache more incessantly than before, and everything he touches feels unfamiliar. Vale and Álex keep talking to him, telling him of great potentials and historic pasts, and Marc feels the sands of his memory are slowly fading to strong winds and white noise. He supposes that the small piles left in his figurative palms are better than nothing, that God allowed him the control of something.

Álex didn’t bring Marc’s clothes when he came to the ranch, and Vale keeps moaning about postal and transits and delays and things Marc usually starts to stop caring about, so he’s been wearing Vale’s old clothes and odd garments he’s stolen from the boys’ rooms when Vale is out of the house. It seems everything now is no longer Marc’s.

He goes on track frequently—with Álex when Vale is too busy with whatever it is he’s planning—and it brings him some peace of mind. He’s begun to fall on purpose, sliding out and destroying bikes and ripping threads of his body wildly—he’s also learned how to repair himself.

One of his teeth fell out the other day, rotted out of his gum somehow, and landed on his plate while he was eating. Vale just opened the freezer, pulled out a bag, and asked, “Molar or canine?”

Marc doesn’t feel like himself anymore. He’s a large amalgamation of different stories and lives that he only lived by the technicality of having them as a part of himself. They invade him sometimes—in his rare dreams, he sees weary, older men in small cafes drinking petite coffees with pretty, young women and boys doing tricks on mopeds and dirt bikes in the desolate streets, all missing parts of themselves that he just happens to carry. They don’t look at him kindly, and it all feels too intimate to look at.

Yesterday, he bit off his tongue and felt nothing—he wonders now if the tongue was really his in the first place and if its body felt him sink his teeth into the poor muscle just to hear it sliced through and repaired by Vale.

His thoughts are disjointed now; he’s confused regularly, and sometimes he forgets who’s who in the house. He doesn’t own anything, and it’s fucking with him; all he has is his mind and an arm he’s sure came from him—and even then, both seem to be leaving him for better things. He finds himself reaching for Vale a lot now. It's some odd strategy for which his arm and mind seem to think he’s better off. He’s no longer left alone, which he is used to—but they don’t give him an inch of space, lest one more bone comes undone that they are forced to fix.

He shakes Vale awake and only feels regret when he grumbles an intelligible greeting and asks what happened.

“I smell like rot, Vale.”

Vale groans quietly and turns to face him. “No, love, you don’t.”

“Please, Vale.”

“Okay,” he sighs, exasperated, and slowly walks to the en-suite bathroom. Marc follows closely behind, sitting on the edge of the bath as he waits for Vale to prepare.

When it’s finished, the dimly lit room is filled with strongly scented candles, and the bath water is covered in rose petals from a vase Vale had placed before Marc came to the ranch. Marc does not enter the bath, nor does he undress, as he stares at Valentino returning to bed. Marc calls out to him, and Vale blearily hums and returns to kiss his hand and sit on the edge with him.

“Do you want me to join you, Marc?”

It’s a kindness that brings him shame as he nods. His sight blurs, and his head aches, and Vale is so sweet to him, and all Marc can do is tear up and not release the gall that builds in his throat. Marc knows he looks pitiful when Vale swipes a thumb under an eye and pulls him close. Marc turns away when Vale kisses him.

“I’ll put on some music,” Vale tells him as he enters the bedroom to get his phone and a speaker. “Gives a nicer mood. Undress, the water will get cold.”

Marc complies, leaving Vale’s clothes in a pile by the door, and goes to play with the exposed earrings on the sink’s countertop. Vale comes back in similar nudeness.

“We should pierce your ear, hm? We could match.”

“I am not joining your cult.”

Vale laughs and uses his free hand to lead Marc to the bath. It’s a soft hold as if Marc would break if Vale pulled any harder—which they know he would, but Marc doesn’t appreciate the frailty regardless. He smiles when Vale drags him in anyway.

They’ve done this a lot in the past week. Marc will stay awake for hours, having the rushing winds of a hair dryer fill his ears, staring at white ceilings or glass mirrors, watching his eyes turn red, before forcing Vale to relax and distract him with various activities, and this is the most popular with Marc—suddenly too afraid to disturb the others with running motors and anguished screams.

It’s not a small space, but they still squish themselves together into a corner, with Marc’s head on Vale’s sharp collarbone and Vale’s hand in his hair.

“I like your hair longer,” Vale says into his ear.

The speaker is quiet, but the beat is nice and consistent.

“I do think we should pierce your ears, though. You’d look nice.” He drags the back of his other hand down Marc’s side, tapping at his hip and forcing the water to slosh back and forth in small waves. Marc shivers as the water begins to freeze over. “Tattoo would be cultish, eh?”

“Would it be your number or that stupid turtle?”

“Don’t call him stupid! And my number, naturally. That’d be hot.”

“Would you get mine?”

“Of course. Right over my heart, darling.” He gives Marc’s neck a wet kiss, then licks the spot.

“Bah.”

Marc can feel Vale’s smile on his shoulder, his lips mouthing at his neck with each unsaid word. “Hey.”

“What?”

“You think if I jerked you off, your dick would come off?”

“Maybe.” Marc smiles. If Vale could see it, he would call it coy, and Marc would say it’s just his face. “What would you do with it?”

“Well, preferably put it back on, but, uh, there’s a lot of options.”

“Dangerous territory, Rossi.”

“You don’t say, Márquez.”

Unfortunate silence fills again as the music ripples and the water swells. Marc can feel his face bloat; he wonders if Vale notices. The stitches on his right hand are coming undone, and he’s sure he’ll be hanging by a thread by the time he gets out.

“Did you ever think of me?” Marc feels the words on his tongue but doesn’t remember asking his lips to move. “When we were apart?”

“Big change in topic.” Marc shrugs, and Vale lets out a sharp breath through his nose. “Yeah. All the time.”

“Me too. I saw you in everything.”

“You haunted me. For a bit.”

“Recently?”

“I dreamt of you, too.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“Damn sexy ones, mostly. But others…” Vale’s voice peters out as he shakes his head. “It’s better not to say.”

“Give me one of them. So I know what to expect of the,” Marc he waves around his drier, less dilapidated hand, watching each finger dance with the love of risk he knows too well, “‘future.’”

“We go riding a lot. You do a lot of riding,” Vale laughs, staccato and andante. “We run each other off track but always get up to finish—an infinite race.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

Vale kisses Marc’s cheek—the right one, above the bone, something that came from his original body—and then trails down to nip at his collarbone. “The journey there is certainly worth it.”

Marc shivers again, and Vale offers to replenish the welcoming heat of warm water, to which Marc thanks him. Though, with Vale, at times, choice is less a valid option and more an implied suggestion that is bypassed for Vale’s preference of exit. Marc supposes all roads lead to Rome, but if Tavullia has so much demand, who would go elsewhere?

Vale drains the crisp water, and Marc watches it funnel down in what he finds a near-painful manner. “You like boats, Marc?”

“Close to beaches, but yes.”

“We should do a cruise for our ‘honeymoon.’” He closes the drain and twists the hot water knob.

“Maybe.”

“I think you’d like it. You’d enjoy the sun.”

The water is still cold despite Vale’s relaxation and the steam fogging the mirror. Marc swallows, his heart quickly palpitating out of his chest—neither of which are likely his own.

“Maybe,” he gasps, vision paling out slowly.

Marc bites his lip to stop himself from screaming out the obvious—because the water is still cold, and the parts of his body that are still his are slowly losing themselves, too. It distracts him, on the plus side, from the blood trailing down his segregated chin and chest to interrupt its clear, clean brethren and paint it red—until Vale screams and scrambles out of the tub to grab a first-aid kit and Marc, with a finger, finds out there’s a new hole in his bottom lip.

------

Luca made Pecco work with him on the wedding. Vale is sure Pecco would’ve agreed regardless, but he doesn’t want to upset Luca any further by telling him that. They’ve been avoiding him—they’re not slick about it; they make it rather obvious.

Sometimes, Vale will find Luca with long, sad looks on his face, staring at him, with the piercing, arctic eyes they happen to share, with pity. Vale likes cutting them short with just a pinch of eye contact.

Vale hasn’t turned on or charged his phone since he called Maro, and Pecco happened to be there. He’s likely missed a dozen or so calls from his team, and Bez, and meetings, and shows he was supposed to be at. He absently wonders—while watching Marc clean with a dirtied rag, obvious enough even through the window—if Casey found out. He wonders what Casey would say; he wonders what Colin would say—for some reason.

He sneers and casts the thought out before it goes any deeper.

It’s a pretty day out; there’s a slight chill in the air that’s easily defended by a light jacket—as Pecco and Luca sport while they bicker over the placement of an arch—and the track was just cleared of leaves. Only Álex is out, wearing borrowed leathers that don’t fit quite right and a helmet that jumps at every turn.

Marc is inside, for once—not that Vale is complaining—and he finds it odd. Marc has busied himself recently, with stains no one else catches and dust that seems to vanish as soon as it appears. The house isn’t immaculate, so Vale doesn’t know why Marc is doing it. When he asked, Marc said: “Do you want dust to eat you in your sleep?” And Vale was too confused to continue the conversation. So now Vale is outside, watching Luca and Pecco place chairs on unsteady ground near the dirt track and yell at Álex whenever he skids dust onto the white-painted wood.

The trees whistle at them as they work, and the sun blinds Vale from a full view of the horizon. He looks through the kitchen window to find Marc desperately trying to remove the rust off one of Vale’s knives with soap and a rag rather than vinegar and steel. It doesn’t budge, from what Vale sees, and Marc stops, sighs, and goes past the sliding doors, where Vale can see the knife stuck through one of Marc’s hands and a severed finger in the other.

Vale stands suddenly, “Woah! Marc!” He pushes the door open and takes his bloodied hands. “Let’s get you washed up, and I can get you righted. Hm?”

“I can do it,” Marc takes his hands back carefully and rushes up the stairs.

Valentino is a little taken aback but stays put. He lets himself appreciate the view, even with Marc in such a confusing state. He’s been like that since the other night, bipolar in some ways, if Valentino really found a word for it. Marc hasn’t woken him up since then, either. Vale sits on the couch, the seats ample and plush; he pats it sympathetically and scratches his neck awkwardly as it groans under the weight—not that there is much—and waits for Marc to return.

When he does, a few minutes later, Marc has knife in hand rather than through it, finger reattached, and goes to toss the blade in the sink. He looks out the kitchen window, presumably at Maro, Pecco, and Álex, stretching his neck and tapping incessantly against the countertop.

“You’re going to pull your stitches if you keep doing that,” Vale laughs, moving to stand behind him, hands set on Marc’s shoulders, rubbing circles into his muscles.

“What are they doing, Vale?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Looks like a wedding.”

“Aren’t you observant?” Vale kisses the back of Marc’s head, the taste of new metal sharp on his lip. He brushes the hair away, and Marc tries to smack Vale’s fingers like they’re gnats. “What happened to your head?”

“Cracked it.”

“When?” Vale twists Marc around so that they may have a real, face-to-face conversation.

Marc does not meet his eye. “Other day.”

“I told you to ask me for help, Marc.”

“I didn’t need it.”

“It’s the back of your damned head, you need it a little.”

“You have mirrors, and I have working hands.”

“They don’t work that well! They fall off every ten seconds!”

“Why are you getting so worked up about this?” Marc spats as he walks around the island and out the back door.

“What do you mean-” Valentino follows, arms moving calmly around him—akin to an orchestra conductor during an emphatic coda. “Marc, it’s like you don’t trust me to take care of you.”

Marc keeps walking toward Pecco and Luca, and Valentino grabs Marc by the arm and pulls him to go in any another direction. Neither compromise, only moving backward; it’s all pull until the arm comes off, and Marc is thrown to the ground and lands like a stone with a resounding thud. Luca yells at something, and the run of Álex’s borrowed engine stops.

Marc sits up and motions with the one hand he has while the other swims and shakes in Vale’s grip. “Give me the arm, Vale.”

“Let’s talk this out like adults,” Vale says, cradling Marc’s arm close to his chest.

“Give me my fucking arm, Valentino.”

“We can’t fix this if you won’t talk to me.”

“You damned bastard, hand it over.”

Valentino laughs, but it’s short, a simple breath out while Marc fumes and Vale can almost see the steam leave his ears. It makes him laugh again.

Marc stands with the help of his one arm and rocky soil. His pants are dirtied, his hand is sure to have bits of rock and gravel trapped in the skin, and his posture leaves much to be desired. Pecco has come to stand behind him and help steady him, and Vale rolls his eyes.

Luca comes over to try and pull the arm away, which makes Vale kick him in the shin, and Luca pulls his hair in response. The arm spasms and grabs Luca’s shirt as Luca tries for better grip. Álex tackles Valentino from behind, and Luca falls along with them.

It’s a grotesque tug-of-war, full of pushing, pulling, a bite or two, rolling in the dirt—all the best parts of battle—and when it ends, their clothes are soaked in Marc’s blood, Valentino sports a bruised eye, the arm is in tatters strewn across the ground—no piece moving—and the grass is stained with sweat and grime.

Marc’s eyes are dark, and his jaw is set. He rips himself from Pecco’s grasp and quickly walks into the tree line. Álex tries to follow, but Luca catches the neck of the leathers and weans him off the idea.

“He should’ve listened to me,” Vale shrugs, wiping some of the dirt off his shorts.

Pecco sighs, “You’re an idiot.”

“What do you want me to do, Pecco? It’s Marc.”

“Yeah, Vale, it’s Marc.”

“Why can’t you talk to him like a person?” Luca pipes up, and Vale thinks a valve should be shut off, then chuckles at his silent joke.

“Don’t laugh, Vale.”

“Don’t lecture, Luca; you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Valentino tells him, and by proxy, Pecco and Álex.

Valentino goes inside and sits in his room, thoughts swirling, until the sun falls and the moon greets him slowly.

His stomach gnaws at him rudely, tearing his inner lining until bile plays with his uvula, and he takes a quick trip to the bathroom to empty his throat. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and groans before flushing the contents of his regurgitated nutrients and washing his hands of the whole ordeal. Vale crawls into bed and buries himself underneath the layers of bedding, hiding from the judgmental light from the bathroom and the pitiful shine of the moon.

Vale opens his eyes when he feels a dip in the bed and turns over. “Marc,” he chokes out.

“Hi, Vale.” Marc caresses Vale’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Vale cries, and Marc wipes Vale’s tears from under his right eye with a sorrowful look. “God…I–”

“I know, Vale.”

“I’ll make you a new one,” Vale tells him. “One that won’t break.”

Marc lets out a deep sigh. “Alright, Vale.”

“Tell me.” Vale brings Marc closer, rubbing against his dirt-ridden chest with stumbling facial hair and looking deep into his grain-yellow eyes. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”

Marc just shushes him, tangling Vale’s hair through ventriloquist fingers. Even in their uncomfortable position, and Marc’s lack of an appendage, Marc rocks him back and forth as Vale cries into his bosom. Vale falls asleep thinking Marc’s soothing almost sounds like his mom’s hair dryer and laughs at how similar he is to his childhood self.

He hasn’t turned his phone on in a while.

He hasn’t talked to his mom in a while.

He wonders if she would be proud of him now.

------

Vale is dead asleep in Marc’s singular grasp, and Marc is seemingly forbidden from moving till morning with Vale’s grip on his body—he shimmies out anyway, slowly, with lengthy pauses with each minute groan that comes from Vale. He looks through Vale’s room, as he usually does at this time of night; his dreams still find him disgusting, and he hasn’t returned to that plane in days.

There’s a well-loved bible in the top drawer of Vale’s bedside table with small annotation tabs sticking out of a few pages, and the spine cracked beyond what Marc thought Vale possible. Marc sits it on his thighs as he thumbs through it, finding a few passages underlined and notes made beside others, and smiles at the image of Vale burying himself in the commentary of other books—it’s almost comforting, looking through a part of Vale’s life, even if he technically hid it from him.

A red tab catches Marc’s eye, marking a patch of Genesis, with particular sections highlighted carefully. In Vale’s thin handwriting, scrawling across the margins, is a short prayer that Marc can barely make out, seeming to ask for forgiveness and a call from Heaven, much like God did Abraham.

Marc decides he’s done after that, seeing a rather handsome-looking blade with fanciful engravings and a polished edge left beside it in the corner of his eye.

He gasps as he feels his spine tapped softly but calms when Vale moans about how Marc should return to bed. Marc obliges and pats him, comforting him after placing the book in its rightful place. He quietly shuts the drawer, cringing at the creaking and crackling of the old wood. Vale mutters more nonsense and tries pulling Marc closer when he finally makes his way into Vale’s bed—mentioning love, grateful sons, and a need for white noise. Marc almost thinks Vale is awake with the reality of his topics, but Vale’s slack face argues otherwise—and Marc laughs silently at the sight.

Vale keeps talking, and though Marc cannot sleep, he rests, content in watching Vale calm them both.

------

“Hello, Pecco.”

Pecco jolts. “Oh, shit- hey, Vale.”

“I want to apologize for yesterday.”

“It’s alright.” Pecco scratches the back of his neck. “I’m not really the one you need to apologize to.”

“Sure, Pecco.” Valentino waves the sentence away, then looks Pecco deep in the eye. It’s almost terrifying how blue they are. “But you still deserve one. I was very rude to you.”

“Oh, well, thank you.”

“You know, Pecco, I’ve always thought of you like a little brother—maybe even a son.”

“Wow, I- I don’t really know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say, Pecco.” Vale smiles and pats Pecco’s shoulder. “Just wanted to let you know.”

The dread Pecco feels doesn’t leave when Vale does; it just worsens as the day progresses.

------

Vale thinks about death a lot. Occasionally, he imagines what Heaven may be and whether it differs any from what he was told in church as a youth. Although boring, he kind of likes the more ancient interpretations from old gods and older stories—a vast, beautiful horizon of golden wheat or reed and eternal peace for lives ten times over. As he stands opposite Marc, under the white, wooden arch made by his mentees, Vale sees such an Elysium in his ethereal, undead eyes—though dazed and glazed over.

He has Luca officiate, and Álex and Pecco double as best men and witnesses—but it’s just three boys in suits; Marc makes it special.

He hears Álex grumble something about ‘really needing chairs if we’re all going to stand the whole time,’ which makes Pecco laugh, and Vale begins to feel his slacks' pocket fill with regret.

Marc still doesn’t have a second arm, but he’s been managing fine—said he had good practice with the other being out of commission for months on end. After he said it, Vale didn’t laugh until Marc did, and Vale cried when he realized how much he missed the sound recently, which made Marc cry—though Marc couldn’t explain why.

“I’ve never done this before,” Luca whispers to Pecco. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Didn’t you get married?”

“Fuck off, man, you’re married, too.”

“Whatever, Vale has his whole plan–” “I do,” Vale interjects. “Now, relax, get into place.”

Luca huffs. “Everyone’s here. What places do you need?”

The Márquezes whisper amongst themselves; Álex looks skeptical and Marc forlorn, and Vale has been waiting too long just for Marc’s little brother to force another wedge into the chasm that seems to be building between himself and Marc—but, with this ceremony, all should be well here thereafter. So, he decides to start before the moon’s maternal light hits Vale’s eyes and urges him to relent.

“Pecco,” he beckons with his fingers. “Come stand here, where Luca is. I need you to do something for me.”

“Oh.” Pecco looks lamb-like, almost a deer in headlights, as Vale’s hands move him. “Are…are you sure?”

“Of course, of course. Take a knee, and we’ll join you in thanks, hm?”

Pecco’s eyes are wide and begging. “Right.” Pecco squeezes his eyes shut, swallows down his knowing fear, and begins, “Lord, hear me.”

After the introduction, Vale’s ears fill with static, but he knows the following sentiments must be beautiful as Maro bears a soft smile. Valentino steps behind Pecco—who is still bent over in prayer and now stumbling over his words, teeth clicking shut and near-on sobbing—and whispers his sincerest apologies into Pecco’s ear as he pleads and the ornate blade no longer weighing his pocket is fed into the back of Pecco’s now gurgling throat. Pecco’s body shudders and slumps forward into the grass as Luca cries out and drops beside him.

Valentino turns his gaze to Marc, whose eyes are trapped by the poor sight, and Luca drags Pecco into his lap.

Valentino takes his hand and massages his ring finger carefully. “Marc?”

Marc doesn’t speak, and Álex grabs him by the shoulder to pull him away from the scene, but he doesn’t budge—heaven still peering down at the demise beneath their feet.

“We need to leave.” Álex’s eyes shift towards Valentino as he tries to pull Marc back. “Now. Please.”

“Marc,” Vale beckons. His voice is soft compared to the jagged demands from the other Márquez. As he gets closer to Marc, Álex steps further and further back, keeping his gaze set on Valentino while going to lift Pecco’s limp body from a hardly-breathing Luca and drag him away, leaving a supple trail of blood that he will need to clean and drowning Álex’s hands in the thick liquid. Vale adjusts Marc’s gaze away from the sight, swiping his thumb along Marc’s cheekbone softly. “I told you, Marc.”

Marc’s eyes shake in response.

“I would do anything for you.”

Marc blinks, eyes wide, and posture stiff.

“I did this for you.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Luca yells at him��Vale forgot he was still out here. “What is wrong with you? He’s not alive, Valentino! He’s a goddamn corpse, and you killed Pecco!” Luca starts sobbing again, his voice wet, and each word is visibly challenging to get out. “You killed him for nothing.”

“You just don’t understand, Luca.”

“Why did I help you?”

“Maro, it’s for the best.”

“I hate you. God, I hate you, you stupid bastard.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I hate you,” Luca repeats, over and over, as he stumbles inside, choking on his tears.

“Marc,” Vale starts. “You have to know this was for you; I’m not at fault.”

Marc still refuses to answer—to speak, in general.

Vale takes a breath and avoids Marc’s eye. “The moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?” Vale raises his head to look over his house. “I didn’t want her to see it, but…eh, things happen.” He shakes Marc’s shoulder and pulls him closer. “I have a ring if you still want it.”

Marc shakes his head and lets out a faint laugh, then rips himself from Valentino’s grasp to follow the shining trail of blood back into the house and slam the door behind him.

#im so sorry. simultaneously very proud and very ashamed of this. sigh #ship of theseus au #marc marquez #valentino rossi #rosquez #motogp rpf #please let me know if there are any triggers you would like added or tagged and i will edit according :)#my fic :(#also the catalan is likely wrong because i dont know catalan so please correct any mistakes :))

10 notes · View notes