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janumun · 1 month ago

Note

Faaaaa my babyyyy, I'm here as promised. 🥺🥺 We already talked about this in dms and you seemed so interested so can you write the lads men reacting to mc's death, please pretty please

When You Are Gone [All LaDS Men - Angst Headcanons]

Rated: SFW - Angst Tags: hurt/no comfort, poorly dealing with the death of a loved one

Summary: The LaDS men dealing with the aftermath of your death, in the heartbreaking messages they leave in your voicemail almost regularly even long after you’re gone, in an effort to cope with your loss.

Author’s Notes : Hey darling, absolutely! Here you go. Hope you enjoy (?). 😭 This headcanon’s a bit differently formatted because I was inspired by the game’s speech to text function.

Sylus

TW: knowingly putting oneself in danger, mortally wounded Sylus, insomnia, mild spoilers for Razor’s Grip ASMR

Transcript:

Hey there! You’ve reached my voicemail, which is a rare occurrence. That either means I do not know recognize your caller ID. Orrrr you are a certain infuriating Boss Man, trying to calling me up at all ungodly hours of the night again. Whoever you are, leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you ASAP.

A heavy snort of sour laughter rolls past bruised lips, to hear the familiar automated sound of your voice playing on the other end of the line; one Sylus does not tire of no matter how many times he’s heard it. A thick, punishing burst of pain fractures across his torso when he chokes up on the blood gurgling within his throat.

Sylus reaches to curb the sound within a bloodied fist, clearing his throat to speak once more.

I suppose I did deserve all your reprimands, seeing as I am still calling you way past your bedtime, kitten.

His voice lowers an octave, slow, gentle.

I hope you’re having a good dream.

I’m only calling because you told me to let you know anytime I’d be away on a risky mission. A hushed chuckle sounds on the other end of the line.

You'd practically ordered it of me — do you remember?

The night when you grabbed me by the lapels and asked me to not make a deal all on my own, ever again. That you worried for me whenever I was gone and you wanted to know the next time I planned on taking a mission, of this caliber.

You’d willingly walked back to me and since then, I have always made space for you, just like you’ve wanted.

I’ve kept up my end of our bargain.

A guttural moan of pain sounds through the otherwise quiet of the night.

These wounds of mine... functioning without sleep for this long, and a poor decision made on my end, the combination was bound to have consequences.

His chuckles knell throaty, labored.

And now, all I wish to do is sleep.

A lengthy silence follows after, making one believe the user on the other end of the line might’ve cut the call. Or fallen asleep in exhaustion of his wounds, like he said.

Before that gentle burr of his sounds once more.

You know I can’t die, sweetie, unfortunate as that is in this moment.

But I do have a wish for when my body inevitably loses its awareness for the short time it takes to recuperate.

I hope, Sylus’s voice softens. that when I close my eyes this time, I get to see you in my dreams.

Zayne

TW: allusions to embalming a body long after death, mentions of a protocore heart that continues to function even after the host’s death, denial of grief

Transcript:

Hi, you’ve reached my voicemail. I am currently unavailable but drop me a message and I’ll get back to you, stat.

A quiet insouciant voice — the clearing of a throat — begins on the other end of the line.

Akso Hospital Log 171, the time right now is 4:17 AM. The host’s heart continues to function, although its less-than-optimal cardiac output remains at 1L per min. A pulse rate of 13 beats per min has been documented today. A slight decrease from its value yesterday, recorded at 17 beats per minute.

A brief pause.

Does it bother you to hear me speak of you this way? I’m sorry. A mere force of habit on my part. You are my patient, after all. Documentation must be precise, and to the point, for our research to progress, if we are to have even a sliver of a chance at resuscitating your heart.

I have hope we will succeed; I will do my utmost as a doctor so that we may save you.

Another pregnant pause.

Do you too think I am foolish for my efforts?

Greyson accosted me in the hallways tonight after my scheduled surgery and he seemed so... incensed. For being unable to give up on you, for crossing a line, to not get overtly attached to any of our patients, he said it was a clear violation of our Oath and called it my professional failing. And afterwards... he implored that I give up now.

Someone once asked me, long ago: if I would go beyond death to try and bring back the person I loved, were they to pass away. And I answered that I would not, a desecration of the dead is not something I’d wish to do. Or wish upon the deceased. I would rather divert all my efforts to ensuring they would live, that their heart would continue to beat healthy.

So, in retrospect, it is Greyson who’s strange in expecting my willing defeat, without having even tried to the best of my capabilities. Not when your heart still continues to beat.

I do, however, miss you... very much, even though hope remains in my heart.

When the day comes that you wake up, I hope you do not have to suffer like this, ever again.

Rafayel

TW: gradual loss of vision, self-blame

Transcript:

Hi, hello! I’m unable to answer your call at the moment but hey, feel free to drop me a voice message and I’ll get back to you soon. Bye-bye!

A sharp inhale; as if the person on the other end of the line is wracked by sudden, vicious pain.

Before the sound smoothens out, as if it had never been. An airy voice begins, although the nonchalant inflection to his tone sounds odd, all wrong — a fact the recipient of the voicemail would’ve been able to parse instantly, were they still around.

Hey cutie! It’s me again, your favorite person in the entire world.

Sorry about that earlier, I always get a bit startled whenever I hear you say good-bye in that crazy adorable voice.

Since y’know, the very last time we met, you never told me you were leaving.

Silence descends.

It really feels like it’s been another 800 years, I fear the fish will actually start flying and the whales will start walking this time.

Only, I don’t think you’re coming back this time, are you?

My bride can be so cruel sometimes.

A humorless laugh.

Anyyyyway, I’m dropping a voice note today because my eyesight’s been acting up a bit lately so I can’t really leave you a text like I usually do.

And before you scold me about it, I know I’m not supposed to be painting this long but I’m close to completing this new painting of you and I can’t rest until it’s done and dusted.

Don’t hate me for it, pretty?

A pleased, wistful sound.

I really wish you were here so I could show it to you right now.

A strident crash sounds in the background of the caller as paintbrushes overturn along with a color palette; garnet red and deep purple staining his floor a macabre color Rafayel cannot perceive in that moment.

Whoa, now that’s gonna leave a mess from the sounds of it.

Whatever, I’ll clean it up later once I get my sight back.

The point is, cutie, I’ll share a snap of the completed painting with you once it’s done.

Be prepared to be absolutely blown. So dazzled you fall head over heels in love with me.

And then perhaps... return, if you like it and me enough.

His sigh is steeped in mild vexation.

Waiting hurts.

Having you not remember our time together, in every lifetime we meet, hurts. It really is all your fault, you know.

A soft, disgruntled moue you can hear within his words.

But I hope, in our next life, we don’t cross paths.

That way, you won’t be forced to sacrifice yourself for my sake, ever again, you silly girl.

A throttled sound; it almost sounds like a wretched moan of pain.

I don’t want our bond to shackle you down anymore so I think... I’ll let you go now.

A human like you far suits the sun, not being saddled down below within turbulent seas.

So, this will be our final farewell now.

The words nearly scraped free of his throat on a rasped sound.

Goodbye, my beloved bride.

I loved—

Beep. Your message has been recorded and sent.

Caleb

Transcript:

TW: very brief traumatic remembrance of your demise

Hi hi! You’ve reached the ever-diligent Miss Hunter’s voicemail. I’m probably out on a mission right now so I’m unable to respond but I’ll get back to you ASAP if you drop me a message instead!

A soft chuckle warms the air in fond recollection to hear your voice. The knot of Caleb’s brow furrowing deeper as he tries to imprint that cheery voice into his skull to overwrite the sounds of your pained screams still knelling within his ears.

Before he clears his throat to begin.

Hello to you too, pipsqueak.

It’s your 25th birthday today and I thought I’d record this little memento for us.

Happy Birthday, my tiny hurricane of disaster. I really miss you, you know, even if you don’t seem to.

He chuckles in resignation.

I should’ve let you bother me more often if I knew you were going to be this terrible at keeping in touch with your best friend later.

We really didn’t have much time together once I returned from my posting abroad. Work kept you so busy.

I should’ve scolded you more often about taking appropriate breaks in between missions. God.

A gentle laugh resounds on the other end of the line.

Reprimanding you like a dad used to be Zayne’s job among us three, not mine.

The tiniest of fractures slip into his voice.

Anyway, I’ve kept to my side of the bargain we made while I was away from Linkon; to leave you regular voice messages about my day and I guess the habit’s just... stuck.

I visited the grocery store earlier to shop for ingredients to whip up your favourite parmesan risotto tonight.

It was almost like you were with me, you know.

With each item I passed by; from the strawberries you love to inhale to your favourite cola displayed, front and center, within their fridge. I almost picked one up for you before I—

He visibly halts himself, his breathing somewhat erratic. Before he resumes once more.

That nice kid you’re friendly with was manning the counter today and he recognized me almost instantly. All thanks to being towed around the Supermart with you, no doubt.

He even gave me a nice discount on the items when I told him I was whipping up a birthday dinner for you.

A short pause.

The risotto was pretty good, if I do say so myself. I wish you could’ve tasted it too.

Sorry I didn’t bake a birthday cake for you this year because it’s just me in the house now.

I don’t have a certain cute girl, with a crazy sweet tooth, to eat it with me and you know I’m not really fond of sweets.

His voice drops into a hushed sound, wrought with emotion.

Time flew by so fast. It seems like only yesterday when we were both kids, huddled around a coffee table with you trying your best to blow out the candles on the cake Grandma baked for us on your birthday.

He laughs softly.

You had a difficult time growing up because of your heart but you were always so brave.

I wish I could’ve spoiled you more often. If only I knew then that our time together would be so short.

His voice breaks into a slight tremor.

Your Caleb really misses you... every day of my excruciating life.

But... I hope that now... wherever you are, you aren’t in pain anymore.

If there is a life after this one, I hope you let me find you in it, too.

I love you, little spitfire.

End of voice message.

Xavier

TW: space travel, personal logging of a journey, self-imposed isolation and neglect

Transcript:

Hi there, you’ve reached my voicemail as I’m unable to attend your call at the moment. Leave a message after the beep and I’ll be sure to get back to you soon!

Hi to you too, angel.

It’s been a while since I’ve left you a message, hasn’t it?

I’m sorry, I’ve been facing some turbulence anomalies ever since my ship hit the Bode’s galaxy so I’ve been a bit occupied.

Where were we last time?

Ah, I told you how Jeremiah’s shop has been thriving on Earth lately, because I remembered you saying you wanted to know how he was doing the last time we spoke.

You never got the chance to see for yourself after.

He pauses.

I didn’t want to tell you at the time because you and Jeremiah really seemed to be growing close as friends and that bothered me.

Forgive me?

A shift of gears sounds within the quiet interior of the spaceship as Xavier adjusts a few controls.

I know these logs will never reach you but I still want to talk to you about our journey.

I never...

His voice drops; the sliver of a whisper.

got to show you this small planet I found while out on my travels, a long time ago. I named it Uluru. It’s a red rock planet, you see.

I told you about it once and you said you’d really like to go see it someday. “Xavier’s own planet,” you said.

I think you were teasing me then. But I wanted to tell you, it’s not just Xavier’s planet but “Xavier and MC’s little planet”.

I didn’t have the chance to show it to you while you were still—

A violent catch of breath followed by a soft curse, cleaves through the quiet.

A low exhale before that quiet voice picks up once more.

Uluru is reaching the end of its life soon after all these lightyears and I wanted to go together with you to see our planet one last time before it died.

As for what I’ll do after...

A pause and a thoughtful hum, follows.

I think I’ll stay there once I’ve witnessed its demise.

Earth no longer has any springs for me to return to now that you’re gone and Philos — well I can’t return to that place anymore.

So, I think I’ll stay, among the ruins of the place that was supposed to be our home.

With you.

End Notes: Thank you for reading! I know many of us wept about how we wished for God to take all of Zayne’s pain and give it to us instead so here I am, happy to do exactly that. 😇 Happy Zayne story branch release, y’all.

Likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated if you are so inclined, lovelies!

Tagging as requested: @samanthagnicole , @catboi-anon , @bitches4lifebro , @beebumbo , @hellinistical

If you have not been tagged, it’s because I can’t tag you due to tagging permissions turned off on your end.

If you’d like to be tagged in my future stories, you can fill this short form here. If you’d like to be removed, shoot me a DM!

You can also find me on Ao3 and twitter, if you’d like to chat or just squeal with me about hot characters, in general.

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yomogi-mogi-mochi · 6 months ago

Text

Orchid Child, Dandelion Child

Pairings: Riddle & Sibling MC (NOT a romantic pairing)

Summary: This is going to take after Riddle’s overblot, and short and sweet. The term orchid child/dandelion child refer to children who may have very specific/different needs for their development, and those who need less accommodations or specific requirements for their development, respectively. They may grow up in the same environment but everyone’s needs are different, one child may have different coping mechanisms than the other. MC is heavily implied to have dyslexia, ADHD/Autism, and OCD (the latter two of which are often comorbid)

Notes: My brain is so dead. Enjoy this very short piece, sorry it's been a while.

TW: Graphic descriptions of embalming (weird tag I know but listen listen listen hear me out‒), also mentions of blood and human biology; past domestic/child abuse, and mental illness

GN Terms for MC

AO3 Link Here

Masterlist

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Adjacent to your mother’s footsteps, you had always had a curiosity for the medical. Though it was never living bodies that enamored you. In death, biology levels all. Cremation, natural burial, or alkaline hydrolysis‒ no amount of money, or intelligence, magic, or talent would help anyone escape the inevitable. Whether able bodied, rich, poor, moral or not‒ all people returned to dust, bones, and decay.

Rituals like the embalming process always brought you a strange comfort‒ the draining and ejecting, bathing, refrigeration‒ the body incised, emptied of its filth, and sewn back up. Imagining the dissection of a body into each fleshy component relaxed your own‒ as if your cold body lay on a sleek, steel mortuary table, your jaws and eyes sewn shut and the biology of your body ready to be drained. Even if your insides were scraped out for people to see‒ you would not feel shame. No blood to rush to your cheeks, or your aching heart. Your mother had always dismissed this career choice, urging you to find something ‘more within your reach ’.

Your body would be clean from its excrement, scrubbed of all the insides that capsized you from this world, and its people.

Compartmentalization‒ your psychiatrist mentioned. It took you a few tries to correctly register the word in your head when you had gotten the report, you’re not sure if it’s correct. If you did not imagine this scene at least three times a day, you felt like your blood was going to burst forth from your membrane, hot and spastic, like a monstrous clot of nerves. Again. Again. Again. You cleansed this shaking contamination within you with whatever you could do. That’s wrong. You dig your nails into your palm, resisting the urge to lay the papers that were shuffled around by the headmaster on the floor, sorting and checking one by one if they were there. Again, again, again. You imagine an arterial tube weaving through the wounds of your hands, draining the warmth that itched against your skin, the function of your wandering eyes, and the defect of your mind.

“I’ve signed off on everything. Is there anything else I can do for you, Mx.Rosehearts?”

“No, nothing else. Thank you, Headmaster Crowley.”

You gather the stack of papers in your file, you check through‒ quickly‒ your medical records, doctor’s notes, psych evaluations, annotated versions of section 504, interpreter documents‒ a variety of other loose papers that wedge inside the old file as best you can, just in case . Even for such a minute accommodation, lacking a legally recognized diagnosis prepared you for the worst. Rejection‒ a tumble and drag into a system not designed for you in mind. These accommodations were an afterthought after that system was built, something to make you “whole”. There were many experiences in your interactions with school boards that warranted preparations like this, which you scrubbed into your mind and routine. No one will help you‒ not the board, the teachers, your peers, your family‒ you must be prepared to advocate for yourself. There was never room for failure, and you made sure that these accommodations made up for your innate nature to do so in this system.

You bow a perfect ninety degrees before you head out of the office, quietly shutting the door behind you with a soundless exhale. Adjusting the stack of papers in your file, you scurry off to the library to find a quiet corner to reorient yourself. You weave through the various open tables, the large seating area, and the comfortable nooks with beanbags‒ and instead, opt for your usual spot in the corner of the library, where you softly place the file on the desk.

That’s wrong. Again. Again. Again. Again.

You open and close the file four times, feeling a wriggling, hot feeling in your blood that completely halts your mind from moving forward with your process, despite the short amount of time you have until your next class.

No. Again.

With the sixth time, it feels right. You sigh in relief, thanking whatever higher being out there that the process didn’t take as long as before. Medical records, doctor’s notes, psych evaluations, annotated sections, interpreter documents. All in order, all there, only for you to see. A weight lifts off your chest as you shift your eyes around the library, and close the file.

You browse through the section of the library, running your finger along the spines of the books to spot a new read. A mauve leather-bound book catches your eye, the gold letter glinting in the dusty light of the library. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Other Lessons From the Crematorium you skim the summary on the back. Satisfied, you work your way to the counter, where the librarian checks out the book with a smile. She pulls out the book slip at the front of the book and a pen.

Riddle Rosehearts.

You almost make a sound at the name, but instead, you quietly chew in your inner lip to provide some sort of grounding for the whirling feeling in your stomach. You feel sick when you write your name in the same cursive as the name above yours‒ just like your mother taught you.

“ Again .” Your mother would say.

You write. She slaps your hand with a ruler, reaching over your shoulder to erase the word.

“ Again .”

You write. She slaps, she erases.

“ Again .”

You write. She slaps, the paper begins to fray from the friction of your eraser, and the tears that run hot down your cheeks. Inertia. Inertia. Inertia. You repeat the word in your mind, trying to mold it with your hands. But the black text above the frayed paper seems to weave together, jumble, congeal. You push the hot coal in the back of your throat, forcing your bruised hand to write.

That’s not right. Again. Again. Again.

Why can't you just do it the way you're told?

Medical records, medical recommendations, psych evaluations, doctor’s notes, annotated sections, interpreter documents. So much extra weight that folder holds that you have to carry everywhere with you‒ just in case .

Again. Again. Again.

You open and close the locker shut, twisting the locker combination each time. At this rate, you know you’ll be late to class, way past your accommodations agreements. You hope Professor Trein won’t make such a big scene.

When you arrive at class, you are miraculously left alone by the professor and your peers. Breathing a sigh of relief, you take your usual seat, finding a practice exam on your desk.

You didn’t properly shut your locker. People are probably stealing your stuff now, breaking your things, tearing your extra records into pieces. You didn’t properly shut your locker. The documents are ruined, and you have to start all over again. You didn’t shut your locker. You grip your pencil, bouncing your leg, digging your nails into your palm. Yes, yes you did lock it. Three times in fact. Still, a voice persists‒ you didn’t do it right. Again. Again. Again. You scratch, and pick at the broken skin of your palm.

Eventually, as you continue staring at the packet‒ you feel a stab at the back of your shoulder. A student jabs forth the packet of papers that were collected from the back with an exasperated face. The papers are basically thrown your way as you add your half blank packet to the pile, swallowing down your anxiety. Trein continues class as usual, going over the review sheet.

“Mx. (Name). A word?”

You freeze in your seat, in the middle of gathering your things for next class. Students’ gaze furl towards you, and you pick at the wound of your palm to calm the rising panic in your abdomen. Begrudgingly, you pack up your things, and head towards Trein’s desk.

“I will excuse your tardiness for today since you have accommodations, but that does not explain the almost completely unfinished practice exam that we took in class. Do you care to explain?”

You refuse eye contact. “I…” There was no way to explain it with any sane sensibility, or without alerting your mother. “I apologize sir. I was distracted. It won’t happen again.”

He sighs, you know he doesn’t believe you. It’s your condition‒ you look to the stack of accommodation letters and agreements tucked under his elbow, and you feel that weight in your chest.

“Please, sir. I’ll do anything to make up for it I‒”

A hand is raised at your response, with a pinch at the bridge of his nose. “It’s…It’s quite alright. I know you are trying your best, considering your… situation . Please finish the packet before you come to class next time.” Trein hands the packet back to you, which you accept with a silent nod.

The situation, the condition, the baggage. There have been many terms used to describe your disablement from the world‒ each more alienating than the other. You draw blood on your palm once more, looking inside the crescent-shaped holes in your flesh. You feel nothing but the trembling deep in your chest.

You sit in the shared space of the Heartslabyul dorm, hoping that body doubling will allow you to finish your workload. Though it takes you some time, you manage to finish your work before the sun sets, and you scurry back into your dorm room to begin your book. As you try to relax, the thought of a missing assignment, a failed exam, a systematic blunter pricks at your skin, spreading and choking your flesh. You read the same sentence over and over, but understand nothing.

Why can't you just do it the way you're told?

You hear a knock at your door, seizing you from your thoughts. You sigh, shove whatever scrap paper that had been lying around into your book, and reluctantly open the door.

Riddle Rosehearts.

You remember him from his perfect handwriting, his words that mirrored your own mothers. You could never get the “R” quite right, something both your brother and mother scolded you for.

“Rule of threes, you understand what will happen when you fail the third time.” Again. Again. Again.

Riddle had always resembled his mother much more than you had‒ in voice, in appearance, in tone. “ Rule of threes, (Name). You know what mother will do to you when you fail the third time .” He extended your mother's violence with all his likeness to her, in his face that would look down upon you with aberration, and his tightened fists that dragged your head to look closer at the paper, and realize your error. Every way he came into contact with you had been wrapped, tightly as flesh, your mother's violence.

You imagine that cold table again, but Riddle’s silvery eyes tethered you to the moment. It was as if you could feel every shifting tendon of your body, every pull of sinew and blood that pumped blood rapidly to your heart, and the back of your ears. But the guilty look on his face reminded you of one of the rare times he had broken mother’s rules. You realized he was as much of a child too, that day. Stretched thin and tall to fill your mothers expectations.

His stare is unbearable, you push through the tension in your throat.

“Can I help you, Dorm Leader Rosehearts?”

You think you see his worried expression, but your eyes dart from his gaze when he looks towards you again.

“You left this on the table in the common room.” He extends you the file that you thought had been safely tucked with your belongings. Your vision begins to distort‒ graying and distancing as you attempt to keep yourself calm from experiencing your literal nightmare . “I thought you wouldn’t want anyone to see it.”

“I…do not, no. I would not wish to shame you, or this dorm.”

Riddle takes a sharp inhale. You unconsciously tightening your body‒ imagining the postmortem stages. Pallor mortis, your blood pools to the souls of your feet. Algor Mortis, your skin feels on fire, and cools dead, limp. Rigor mortis, you stiffen and contract. The nutrients of your body drained, breaking down to gray sludge. You prepare for the breakdown of your body, your psyche, and your soul‒ the wounds on your body are only evidence to your movement through temporality in this system. Livor Mortis, your blood bruises your skin.

“I did not…mean that. I only meant‒ I felt…” He sighs, looking towards the floor. “I’m bad at this. But I didn’t mean that this is something shameful. I only wished to protect your privacy.”

You avert your eyes, unsure of what to do with him wanting to protect you in some sort of way. Perhaps his overblot changed him, but all you see if your mother’s shadow, when you look towards him.

“It’s not important, I apologize for the trouble, Dorm Leader Rosehearts.”

Maintaining his grasp on the file, he attempts to keep this connection going. “There’s so much I need to apologize for.”

You only manage a strangled sound, afraid to pull the file towards you. Afraid of movement, of air, of space, of time, of him. Everything seems to strangle you, you know that it was precisely designed that way.

He cups a hand over your own. You try to repress the tremble in your body from the searing feeling of his palm, too afraid to look, speak, or move. You remain still, like a corpse, hastily trying to turn off your nerves and the bursting blood in your body, slaughtering it, and draining all feeling from your body. It’s been so long‒ your body rushes to catch up. You’re always catching up. Always.

“I don’t want to upset you. I just came to apologize, but I understand if you don’t want to see me.”

Your mouth is sewn with silence, your jaw caught in a tremor in your mouth. Quickly‒ your mind makes the decision to speak‒ mother never liked when you didn’t answer to her questions.

The words scrape through your throat. “I…” A gulp to lubricate the convulsing motions of your esophagus. “Nothing is wrong. I apologize, dorm leader Rosehearts. It will never happen again‒ I apologize‒ I will make up for it. Please.”

His gaze softens. “I’m not asking because I’m asking you to apologize, or make up for anything. I’ve learned some things…I wanted to make up, but, I want to make sure you’re okay first.”

“Are you okay?”

You spare a glance at his face, almost caught in the worried expression adorned on his features. “I don’t understand what the purpose that question serves. I can’t understand…” Still, you worry what will happen if it seems like you blame him for your lack‒ so you shift the weight on yourself once more. “I am incapable…of understanding. I apologize.”

“Hey.” He mellows his voice as much as possible, releasing you from his grasp. “It’s okay.”

“You asked me a question. I was incapable of giving an answer that satisfies you. That is a violation of the rules, is it not?” You retract your hands to your chest, pressing your nails into the wounds on your palm.

Riddle folds his hands, almost nervously fidgeting with them. You almost react visibly with awe at the sight. “Our mother may have been wrong about a lot of things. I only recognized that after I attended here, and made many friends who helped me understand that. I am extremely regretful of the things I’ve done to you, and the things I’ve said. There’s no excuse for the things I’ve done, but I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me someday‒ I want to reconnect, if you’ll allow me.”

You push the file against your chest. “...I don’t think it will be easy. For me, or for you. Especially for me.”

“Most things that are worth something aren’t. I realized something while I was overblotting.” His cheeks gradually bloom pink, a habit he’s had since he was a child. You remember the color most when he cried, but he looks sheepish. Igniting the same warmth in your cheeks, you look at his feet. Heels, you never noticed. He must be shorter than you. “I missed you. I really did. And I missed what we could have had. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been a better brother to you.”

“I think…I missed you too.” You admit. “I think neither of us can ask for help, we’ve been raised that way. We have drastically different ways of coping with that isolation.”

“I think so too. I have a lot of work to do.”

“ We do.”

Rubbing your arm up and down, you soothe yourself‒ thinking of bodies and corpses, your skin buzzing from the thought of decomposition‒ what grows from them. The fruits of death lay thick and sweet on your tongue, as you stumble through a small smile. Riddle reciprocates.

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End Notes:

Obviously this is only a small glimpse into what healing from abuse and trauma is like. But it’s a start. The first steps count.

I’m also in no way shape or form attempting to justify Riddle’s behavior. He’s a complete and total asshole for sure, but he was a kid‒ I definitely see him as capable of change.

The terms Orchid/Dandelion child are relatively new, and I find the pop-psychology approach to it very distasteful (as pop psych usually is. do your fucking research people. PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES!) But I wanted to use the terms to kind of critique the notion of this divide between "resilient" and "nonresilient". It's just a matter of needs, which are different for everyone. Making this hierarchical distinction is arbitrary and often times ableist, as it normalizes a singular, hegemonic way of reacting/experience/compartmentalization/coping. Anyways read more disability studies if you want to know more.

Because I’m not officially diagnosed (my disabilities are not officially recognized by law because for me the disadvantages gross outweigh the benefits, like literally having your human rights stripped away) I don’t know the specific details of acquiring accommodations in a school setting apart from my position as a teacher, but please let me know if there are any errors in the information so I can fix them expeditiously

I also wanted to write about the systematic issues disabled people (particularly those with “invisible” disabilities or those who are “undiagnosed”), I feel like I’ve been experiencing a lot of issues and push back from a system which is not built for disabled people in mind (and often is used against the community in an attempt to eradicate the category). Furthermore, I wanted to explore the aspects in which traditional psychiatry/curative methods are not built for neurodivergent individuals specifically. We often get diagnosed (especially those who have been socialized or perceived as female) with other disorders because of the perpetual stigma against ADHD, and autism in particular. Mainly why I didn’t go the psychology/psychiatry route, despite (one of) my undergrad major(s). It would have been immoral for me to be one, if held up to the current regulations set by the American Psychology Association, or the regulations in my home country. Anyways, lots of problems I wanted to address‒ not sure if I was able to explore them more at length, but I’d like to do more of this in the future.

The book Smoke in your Eyes is a reference to Caitlin Doughty’s book. I highly highly highly recommend her youtube channel and any of her books tbh. She writes/talks a lot about death culture and our perceptions of death throughout history, and creating a more death-positive culture.

I wanted to avoid some of the common stereotypes and misconceptions of OCD, which is predominantly characterized by excessive handwashing, needing things very neat and in place. I wanted to explore the more internal obsessions, rather than focus solely on the external compulsions‒ as I feel like the external behaviors that are often portrayed in media don’t explore the inner workings that make the disorder so hard to live with (and treat).

#twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland angst #twisted wonderland fanfic #twisted wonderland fan fiction #twisted wonderland riddle rosehearts #riddle rosehearts #twst riddle #twst riddle rosehearts #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland scenerios #twisted wonderland sibling

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selkiechild4998 · 11 days ago

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Ciao, Fratellino

I was in a discord call with a friend of mine and this came to me like a prophet. I know Tobias said he wasn't gonna bring any of the past Papas back but I loved dipping into the horror side of this!

Tw- Small mention of death

Gene- Light Horror

Wordcount- 797 words

It has been so hectic since Sister passed. Copia had no idea where to begin; he lost his mother and his title as Papa, but now he is the Imperator. He's in charge. Yes, he still has the spirits of both Sister and Nihil to look to for guidance, but he was lost. The only comfort he found was his tasks involving the ghouls. While they weren't under his immediate care, he still found excuses to spend time with them. Hell, he had pulled just the right strings to have Dew be his guard ghoul, like Sister had Phil.

October had been chaotic for Copia. It started with the Hunter's Moon. He knew of the rituals that needed to be completed during the three-night window, but he couldn't guess just how complex the rituals would be. He had to admit that he respected Sister a bit more, thanks to her making it look so easy. He knew that he had messed up at least one ritual. He could sense a presence within the halls. He could only guess which ritual he messed up was, it could have been the new ghoul summoning, or the practice resurrection rite he had to perform. He just didn't know.

It started small, with food going missing and items misplaced. He had asked the ghouls about it, and they knew nothing. He tried to tell himself that it was just one of the spirits in the Ministry. Nihil does break ghost rules all the time to eat food, much to Copia's ongoing stress and confusion. He couldn't focus on it; he had to get everything in place for the new Papa. Everything had to be perfect.

Then essential paperwork started going missing. Papers on the new Papa were taken from Copia's desk. He had asked everyone he could think of, Sister, Nihil, the ghouls, even Mr. Psaltarian. No one knew anything. Then came the day he was supposed to meet this new Papa for the first time, and the door jammed.

"Mr. Psaltarian will have the door fixed soon," Sister reminded as Copia stood nervously amongst the ghosts.

"I know that," Copia frowned, "I'll go around. It's not a good impression to just stand here while he's stuck with the door, no?" He then turned, making his way down the twisting hallways of the Ministry.

The first thing Copia noticed was just how dark the halls appeared. Nothing he's not used to, but the flickering lights got slightly on his nerves. "Have to fix those," He mumbled as he walked, his shoes clicking against the tile floor. As he walked the halls, he passed the morgue. He hated that room ever since he caught the glimpses of his brothers' embalmed and preserved bodies in the glass coffins. When he glanced at the morgue, he saw the door was ajar, making him stop.

He stared at the door, a chill running down his spine. The moment his mind started to race, he shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He reached out to the door, closing it as he huffed softly. "Just… just someone forgot to close the door," he rationalized. He soon froze hearing a shuffle down the hallway, his head snapping over to see a shadow move within the darkness.

"Hello?" He called out.

Silence was his only answer.

"Hello? Uhh… Mr. Psaltarian? Is that you?"

Silence again. Frowning, Copia slowly walked down the darkened hallway, stopping at the crossroads of four hallways. He looked down each hallway, expecting to see the twin ghosts who scared him when he was a Cardinal.

The light flickered above him, the fluorescence buzzing as Copia stood and listened. Movement was caught out of the corner of his eye, looking down the hallway to see a single soft green glowing iris staring at him from the darkness of a hallway. Copia felt his heart skip, flinching back for a second before sighing, "Mountain? Is that you? I thought you…were…" His voice trailed off.

He could hear his heart pounding in his chest, seeing a brighter, white glowing iris piercing the darkness when the figure turned to face him head-on. A pit formed in Copia's stomach, a fear he had felt for years. A feeling he felt with that photo shoot Sister made him do with Terzo's head, when he heard the echoed yells of confusion of an interrupted uno game, when he saw the glass coffins paraded at the rituals.

He felt his senses starting to swarm, his breath catching in his throat, especially when he heard just two words come from a voice he thought he'd never hear again, but something about that voice sounded… wrong. It didn't help that he could smell the scent of brimstone and chemicals in the air.

"Ciao, fratellino."

#the band ghost #ghost band #ghost bc #my post #my fic #papa copia #papa emeritus iv #papa emeritus copia #frater imperator #sister imperator

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ithaquasbbg · 11 months ago

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Hello there! I really liked your Ganji, Norton and Naib reacting to their s/o getting in a fight with another survivor hcs and was wondering if you could do something similar with Aesop and Eli?

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Hi! Yes I love Aesop and Eli (I think I have a pretty odd interpretation of Aesop though- so apologies in advance lol)

Aesop and Eli when their S/O gets into a fight

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Pairings : Aesop x Reader, Eli x Reader

Tw : Blood (bloody nose- injury)

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1) Aesop | Embalmer

|⚰️| Aesop is probably one of the least likely people to step in and fight for you, first of all. He’s never been the type to lay his hands on another person. That being said, he probably has other ways of getting back at them for hitting you (will mention later)

|⚰️| Assuming you’re still conscious after being punched, he’d walk to to Emily’s room in order to have you looked at- eyes staring at the forming bruise and blood dripping from your nose

|⚰️| If you’re unconscious, he’d probably look over you himself first. He’s a little creepy at times- and definitely loves how peaceful you look while asleep. (Also- it’s unlikely you feel any pain while knocked out- extra bonus!)

|⚰️| He can’t help but think that In some messed up way, you’re almost pretty/handsome like this.

|⚰️| If your clothing is covered with blood from your nosebleed- you’re unlikely to be receiving any of Aesops clothing off of his own back, he’s a huge germaphobe.

|⚰️| The embalmer will, however, go to your room and bring you a change of your own clothing (or maybe some of his if he’s feeling generous..). That way you won’t have to sit in that shirt of yours.

|⚰️| As I mentioned earlier- Aesop doesn’t like to get blood on his hands directly, but has other means of getting back at people who hurt anyone he cares about or himself.

|⚰️| In this case, he’d likely mess around with them for a while, not enough to hurt them- but enough to scare the person who hurt you into backing off.

|⚰️| This usually stays at just odd stare downs and glares, along with a few blunt words from Aesop. But if the fight was bad enough, best believe Aesop will do his best to screw them over in the next matches he has with them.

|⚰️| You’re one of the only living (perhaps?) people he loves, if anyone hurt you- he’d probably not take it very well.

2) Eli | Seer

|🤍| Eli’s inability to directly see what’s occurring would make it very unlikely that he’d step into the fight. Instead, he’d probably do his best to convince you two to stop. Or, if needs be, call for help from another manor resident.

|🤍| He can’t see how bad the damage is unless Brooke is with him.. and assuming he may not under this circumstance- he’d probably take you to Emily just to make sure you’re fine.

|🤍| He’s super gentle when touching your face after finding out you had been punched there, worried he could potentially cause more pain. (Not in a himbo way but in like a caring way idk)

|🤍| Quite awkward approaching the subject with you, but Eli does scold you quite a bit for getting into a fight in the first place

|🤍| “what were you thinking, (name)? You could have gotten much more hurt than you did!”

|🤍| Like Aesop- he wouldn’t do anything physical to your attacker (but for Eli, it’s simply because he isn’t in a good condition for fighting. If he could see, he’d probably deliver the other person a quick smack)

|🤍| Instead, the other person can safely bet they will not be receiving any owls or protection from Eli for a while.

|🤍| He does hold grudges to an extent when it comes to people harming his loved ones, and would probably be upset and anxious about you getting into a fight for weeks afterwards.

#idv fandom #idv fanfic #idv headcanons #idv imagines #idv x reader #idv scenarios #idv matchup #idv aesop #aesop idv #idv embalmer #embalmer idv #identity v embalmer #idv seer #seer idv #Eli idv #idv eli #eli clark

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profanepurity · 2 years ago

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I am here to knock on your door and peer inside for any Sister Diana and Bellamy info, because this is my fave AU now. I am very greedy and wish to know more (also Secondo being a girl dad, MY HEART)

Not only is Papa Emeritus Secondo a girl dad, but Bellamy also has two very evil satanic cardinals for uncles that watch very R-rated horror movies with her when they babysit. Don't worry, Copia always fast-forwards through the really bad parts, despite Terzo saying "she already knows about that stuff". Bellamy loves horror movies (and spending time with them), but C still got her that rat plushy for when she spends the night- which she named Lumaconi.

Lol so this response got super plot-driven, which is why it took ages to finish, I’m so sorry about that! This is going to focus mostly on how Secondo met Sister Diana when he was a Cardinal under Primo’s papacy, the ‘ghuleh’ that haunts the mortuary, and baby Bellamy. I really wish I could have rendered these, but I just didn't have the time unfortunately 😞

TW: This gets spicy. There are mentions of sex and suggestive imagery, but nothing explicit. Also TONS of angst. Mentions of death and blood.

Thank you so much for your ask. Your support means the world to me! Enjoy 🖤

Diana was taken in as an orphan by the church as a young teen. Despite her unknown family history, she quickly grew accustomed to her new home at the ministry. She met Eliza when she began training to take her official vows. Their relationship started out as mentor and mentee but grew into a friendship once Diana had taken her final vows. Despite there being a bit of an age gap, they quickly became very close. Diana would often pull some of Eliza’s darkness out of her, encouraging her to “have some fun”, while Eliza was more the voice of reason. After Primo and Eliza married, you better believe Diana’s teasing was relentless, and even more so when Eliza was made Prime Mover. Though this came to bite Diana in the ass when she started eyeing Primo’s first younger brother, much to Eliza’s delight.

Primo seemed to ascend from a Cardinal to Papa in the blink of an eye, taking Eliza as his Prime Mover and promoting Secondo to a Cardinal. Secondo was of course no less lively decades ago than he is now. His reputation among the siblings of sin and even to a few outside followers/ connections with the church was nothing short of promicuous. While he continued to appreciate the pleasures of the flesh and substance, Secondo was perhaps lesser known to be quite active within the dark arts. His nose was either in a grimoire or a porn mag, no in between.

Diana had taken her place overseeing the mortuary of the church, having a fascination with the dead and the dark powers that collect the soul as they are taken to Hell. When Secondo happened to find himself drifting towards the art of necromancy, the mortuary was the first place he looked for “research materials”. The first night Secondo met her, Sister Diana had been sewing a newly dead sibling back together after she had embalmed them and performed the ceremonial ritual to send off their soul. This hauntingly gorgeous sister, clad in a white, bat-like Cornette, with a cold gaze that would often unsettle other siblings of sin, lifted her eyes to him, and allowed the corners of her full lips to curl in a small, but controlled smile. There was no shyness or intimidation on her face by the sight of Cardinal Emeritus II, like so many siblings often had. She moved like a ghost around her table, silent, floating like a flower petal. You could say it was Asmodeus himself who brought them together, consuming them with the delightful sin of lust.

Diana was charmed by his demanding presence and intense stare, and her odd serenity and striking beauty enamored Secondo. It was suppose to just be a one time thing. One night turned into two, and then a month later Secondo was having her sit on his lap while sipped on scotch, her hands resting on his chest as music served as pleasant background noise for them to enjoy eachother’s bodies tol. Then they were driving with the top down through the night lit streets of LA, and he got to see her hair whip around her face, free from her habit, as they went club to club; drinking, laughing, fucking. Next thing he knew Secondo awoke one morning to a spare toothbrush in his bathroom and spare clothing having found a permanent residence in his quarters. What shocked him more so was that he didn’t seem to mind.

At first, Secondo assumed these many shared nights were what caused him to find himself coming back to her time and time again. It was only natural, to bond with someone, it had been a year at this point after all. But what he would never admit to himself, was that the long, deep conversations he would find himself sharing with her within the private walls of his quarters, late at night, made him feel connected to someone else in a way he’d never been before. No, seeing the same lust within her for both carnal explorations and for knowlege of the dark arts that he shared himself was not at all attractive to him. Waking up to her presence in his bed, wearing his shirt, sharing his warmth vulnerably, showing her trust in him despite being reserved and isolate to nearly everyone else, did not melt his heart in the slightest.

Sister Diana challenged him as an equal intellectually. Secondo knew of Diana’s unwavering nature, her own ambitions and independence, yet she allowed him to hold her. To lead her in a dance. To keep his hand on the small of her back as they walked. She willingly submitted her body to him, as he did to her too, behdind closed doors.

He loved the way she would look at his younger brother Cardinal Emeritus III, not with carnal desire like some of the other siblings, but she would rather toy with him and match his own advances in a playful manner. Not once did Sister Diana look at anyone else like she looked at him, and only he would ever know that.

All that being said, Secondo has never, and may never be exclusive to anyone, as monogamy was never something he was drawn to in his life. Thankfully Diana felt the same way about her own sexuality. They silently understood this between eachother, despite never actually having a real conversation about it. Still, they would sit in the library for hours as they studied together. She would come up to the quarters of the high clergymen and massage his shoulders as he finished paper work. He would come down to the morgue to bring her coffee and food when she would be working nights. There was no denying their love for eachother.

Their meetings fell into a comfortable routine. So you can image how it confused Secondo when Sister Diana wasn’t in the mortuary at the time she usually was every other day. How it started to make his brow crease when he couldn’t find her anywhere else in the church. The Cardinal found her in the very last place he chose to look for her in. Perhaps if he had gone to her room first, things would have been different. Perhaps he wouldn’d have found her lifeless body, mutilated and pale, blood already beginning to dry upon her skin and the carpet as she layed on her bedroom floor.

I briefly mention this scene in one of my one shots, “Child of Her Grave”, but of course I’m slightly changing how it goes already lol. But anyway, the family was in shambles to say the least.

Secondo had come to Primo in a daze. He didn’t know how long he stayed by her body, completely shell-shocked at the sight until he decided to knock on his brother’s door at 2 in the morning. The unlit halls of the church disguised her blood that now stained his cheek and clothing. He simply told Primo that Sister Diana had been killed, unable to utter anything more.

Her death occured on the same day that an incredibly important ritual needed to be performed. It had only been hours after Secondo told Papa Primo that he was now faced with having to tell his Prime Mover that her best friend had been murdured over night.

The combination of seeing his brother struggling to process finding his lover’s body, and holding Eliza against him as sobs racked her body, was the most torturous thing Primo had ever experienced. But they were left with no time to process their grief.

The higher clergy, along with Sister Imperator, were adamant with Papa Primo that the ritual not be delayed simply because of one sibling’s funeral. But when Papa didn’t come when he was summoned for the ritual, several Bishops stormed his quarters in anger and frustration at the delay of the incredibly time-sensitive ceremony that still needed hours of prep work before dawn. Primo was considered one of the more patient Papas that was very difficult to truly anger, yet he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse as he killed one of the Bishops for daring to raise his voice while Eliza was shaking violently against his chest.

Her burial ceremony was quiet. Secondo sat by her grave afterward and refused to move. It broke Primo’s heart that he wasn’t able to attend with Eliza and his brother. He got there as soon as he could, heading straight to his cardinal. He had been aware of his relationship with Sister Diana, it had been obvious to Papa that the year they spent together has made his brother close to her, even if Secondo himself refused to admit it. He could only imagine his pain. Someone was standing over his brother- who he barely registered, thinking it was their father Nihil deciding to be present. Primo was not prepared to see the wrath of Satan in his brother’s eyes. He should have known then that Second Emeritus was planning something in his silent anguish, but Primo found a brief sense of relief knowing the Old One was with him when he couldn’t be.

The ritual had required Carinal Emeritus III and Cardinal Copia to be in attendance of course. The roles of the two satanic princes of the church had been flipped. Terzo was the one now wringing his hands and stuttering over his words. Both of them wanted to be with Secondo, but Copia sent him off before they left the offices of the higher clergymen. It was important that at least one of them was there.

Terzo felt his heart hammer in his chest as his legs carried him across the cemetery.Even when they were boys, Terzo had never seen Secondo cry. His brother was always so stoic. Secondo took everything in stride and grace, and demanded nothing but authority in every situation. But when he reached his destination, Terzo stared at a man that was just as lifeless as the bodies six feet under them.

He was almost afraid to touch him. He didn’t want to upset his brother further, but Terzo couldn’t bring himself to leave either. The younger brother’s throat tightened and he stood rigid- but soon eased himself beside his superior dark Eminence, sitting on the painfully cold metal bench that faced her grave.

He held his breath for Secondo to snap and tell him to fuck off, he almost wanted him to, just to have a sign of normalcy from his brother. When that never came, he slipped his arms around him, and just press himself as close as he could, remaining silent. When there was still no reaction from Secondo, he laced his hand in his and squeezed.

“Ti voglio bene...”

Terzo hated how his voice shook and cracked when he whispered it against Secondo’s shoulder. He needed to get a fucking grip-

Weakly, Secondo finally squeezed Terzo’s hand back. Oh- Lucifer, he can’t cry. That’s all it took for Terzo to press his face against his brother’s shoulder and hug him tightly.

Thunder raged in the distance when Terzo’s blinding white eye spotted one of Nihil’s ghouls walking over to Imperator at the top of the stairs to the church's entrance. The sight of dried blood on black fabric made violet lightning split the sky- before an explosive peal broke the silence.

To this day they still don’t know exactly which ghoul murdered her.

As soon as the moon had cast a blinding glow upon the cemetery did Seconod’s mourning cease. He has been mentally preparing to recite the words of the many grimoires he’d read with Sister Diana, realizing that the dark arts had brought them together for a specific purpose, in this moment, he would raise her from the earth. It needed to be done before the decay of her internal organs began. It was the most demanding casting Secondo had done at that point in his practice. But by the time the moon was at its peak in the sky, Diana rose from her grave, her skin sickly, bones snapping back into place and mending her body where it had been broken. Standing in a horrific sight from the hole she clawed herself out of. Her hand’s blacked and clawed, raw from scratching out of her own casket. Yet she smiled at him like the day he met her.

Now you can really imagine the family’s reaction, seeing the dead sister walking through the halls the following day of her funeral. Sister Imperator seemed especially stunned, for whatever reason. I’ll have to draw some of these reactions later lol.

Thankfully not much changed after that, as Diana kept to herself mostly, her returned presence was not immediately noticed by the rest of the church. The siblings would of course rumor that a ghost haunted the mortuary, with exposed bone and rotting flesh. None of this was true of course. Secondo only noticed she was colder to the touch now, and smelled more like the earth, but her beauty and mind were in tact. He knew why Lucifer brought them together that day with necromancy, and he was now more driven than ever to master the evil forces.

Nonetheless, Cardinal Secondo and Sister Diana were very happy to be reunited. Bellamy was born just a little over a year after her mother’s resurrection, as physical proof of that rejoined love.

Currently, in the timeline of this au, Bellamy is now seven years old and Second is now Papa Emeritus II. There will be more content to come with her, I know this response is getting stupidly long lol. For now, I’ll end it with this goof ass doodle of Bellamy’s dedication ceremony to Lucifer and Lilith, actually led by Papa Nihil, who shockingly volunteered to dedicate his granddaughter to the Lords of Hell at the altar.

Primo better get a comfortable ass seat in hell for the shit he puts up with.

That’s all for now 💐🖤

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jam-packed · 16 days 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

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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 :))

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