Chapter Text
Marc cries.
It has taken the realisation four hours to seep through his race suit, his skin and curl up as a mighty knot in his chest. It has taken him half a bottle of champagne mixed with three aspirins, a mixture that bubbles unpleasantly in his stomach. The combination of all that sees him collapsing in Alex’s arms around midnight, reduced to a crying pile of overflowing emotions, draining adrenaline and bodily pain. Alex caves a little from his weight as Marc full on bumps against his chest, but catches himself and his brother in a tight embrace, leaning against the wall in the back of the hotel bar, the whole team celebrates the title in. The music blares against his ears, but all that matters to Marc is his brother holding him upright, together.
Marc sobs and Alex’s heart breaks.
“It’s okay, I got you.” And he does, arms firmly locked behind Marc’s back, a hand resting in his brother’s curls. “It’s okay, let it out.”
A lot has happened today and even more has been going on over the course of this turbulent year. A difficult start into the season full of recovery appointments, impatience and pain, followed by crashes, sometimes more than one on a single weekend, wins, more crashes, doubts, pain and hunger.
Marc has never been this hungry in his whole life. He has ambition written all over him, despite or maybe even because of his lack in size and posture. Marc’s sheer will to achieve things always gave him the last few centimetres, the physical strength. But this one was different. Losing the ability to use his arm has been a punch to the gut that has woken him up regularly at night, breathless and with tear-stained cheeks the whole winter long.
He gave it everything on his way to recovery and learnt the hard way that a body is just a vessel and no matter how many times you repair it, the holes and stains and leaks will never fully heal.
The day Marc heard about the Honda crew having dismantled every bike in the garage and Alex having removed the tyres from their bikes at home, he tried to pick up a fight with his brother.
Alex just shrugged and sighed.
“It’s for your own safety, man. You’ll do more damage than there already is, as soon as you touch a bike.”
Their father looked up from his newspapers, eyes warm, yet immovable.
“No riding, Marc. You’re not getting onto a bike unless you can mantle it and put its tyres on by yourself.”
Marc stood there, cold hands firmly stuffed inside his jeans pockets. He scoffed and left the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him. When everyone treated him like a child, he could for God’s sake behave like one.
Hours later he was busy in the gym, doing push-ups and pull-ups until his vision blurred with the lack of sugar and his hands trembled, hot and overburdened.
He slipped from the bar and landed on his butt, more humiliated than hurt and still-
Marc cursed in every language he halfway mastered and buried his head in his hands. His shoulder was one single source of throbbing pain.
He saw Alex in the huge mirror and was hit by his brother’s anger in an instant.
“God, you’re so hell-bent on getting your own will, you don’t even realise how stupid you’re acting! You could get hurt, Marc, seriously hurt. Don’t you get how badly you’re worrying Mama and Papa with that shit? And me, too?”
The last sentence had Marc frowning and he sat there shirtless on the floor of the gym, panting, sweat coating his bare chest as well as the burning scar at his shoulder. He blinked up at the posters covering the walls, his bike with the 93 patently on display.
“It’s all I got. It’s all I have.”
Alex sank to his knees in front of him, hands firmly clutching his cheeks.
“Use your head.” He said and looked Marc dead in the eyes, who smirked lopsidedly at his own words being thrown at him so blatantly.
“You’re my brother. You’re smart. Find a way out of this.”
And Marc did. He concentrated on the little wins, the millimetres of rotation his shoulder would allow him to do, the flexibility, the muscle gain he registered with every passing day.
Seven weeks and two days of gruelling therapy sessions and boring training later Marc danced through the kitchen on an early Saturday morning, headphones crowning his messy curls, hands raised high. His gear was a heap of orange and white on the kitchen table. Alex leaned against the doorframe and watched his brother being back on track, mentally and physically, and wiped the tear from his cheek just in time before Marc turned around and beamed at him.
It’s one of the things, Marc lets go in that moment, leaning against Alex, his nose buried against his brother’s neck. The fear he felt on Friday, the Oh, God, please, let the shoulder be okay. I can’t do this again after his accident. The pain on Saturday, when his fingers just opened up on the brakes and his legs slipped from the tank. He told everyone it was the dirt and it probably was, but Marc felt the tremor in his aching muscles, their longing for a break – a break they get now, leaned against Alex, Alex’s firm grip steadying him.
His brain is filled with white noise.
“Let’s get you to bed, mh?”
Alex smirks and Marc can’t even tell whether he agrees or not, his brother just drags him out of the room.
It’s not the first time Alex helps Marc getting into bed, but it’s different to the times he pulled shirt sleeves from bruised skin, navigating fabric around caskets and slings while Marc’s curls stuck somewhere in the pile. They always giggled it off, too comfortable around each other and used to seeing each other half-naked after the countless times their mother stripped them of their mud-crusted gear before they were allowed to enter the house.
This time Marc is a lump of slack muscles and pained hisses, when Alex manoeuvres him to the lifts and shortly later down the corridor to his hotel room. This time Alex has his difficulties keeping his brother upright while he fumbles for his key card and unlocks the door.
He pushes Marc into the darkness of his room and hears him grunt as he simply slumps to the ground and hugs his own knees. He isn’t crying anymore and Alex counts it as a win, but he still looks ramshackle and spent.
“You know, there are chairs around, right? Or a bed?” he switches on the lamp on the night stand and points at the inviting pillows.
Marc just sniffles and wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his wide hoodie.
“Okay.” Alex’s heart breaks at the tiredness in his older brother’s voice – a tiredness, which sleep can’t fix. He feels tears dwelling up in him as he realises, how old Marc looks in the soft light of the standard lamp. Dark circles around his eyes are carved into the skin, his cheeks are sunken and ashen, his lips are chapped and firmly pressed shut. But it’s the expression in Marc’s eyes that takes Alex aback the most. His brother always had the kindest eyes imaginable, melted chocolate and sun-warmed soil, joyous sparks in deep ebony. Mischief and care could alternate each other as fast as lightning and Alex can tell every time Marc is about to make a joke from the glint in his eyes, before he even opens his mouth.
Alex still remembers starting a fight with a classmate and punching him square in the face during lunch time, because he called Marc’s eyes boring and girly.
He was given five hours detention for it, but he’d do it again at any given time.
Now the brown eyes look pale, drained of their warmth and clouded by physical pain as well as sheer blinding exhaustion.
Alex sits down opposite of him, leaning his head against the wooden closet and folding his legs artfully around Marc’s. He lifts a hand and puts it on Marc’s arm resting on his knee without a word. He doesn’t know what to say, so he stays silent.
“I never thought, I’d become one of those guys.” Marc mumbles eventually and has to clear his throat to keep his voice from breaking. “I never wanted to feel elation over everything else, when I win. I never thought, it would become a routine to stand on the top step and everything less would feel like a loss.”
It’s a confession that breaks through his highly built walls of humour and flirtations, focus and will. It looms there in the little space between them and his hands are cold, when he squeezes Alex’s.
“You’re just tired.” The way Alex says it makes clear he’s not just talking about physical exhaustion and at the same time it proves Marc’s point in trusting his brother with his life. His vision is blurred with the painkillers and champagne working their way through his system and it’s his excuse for leaning forward and dropping his head on Alex’s shoulder.
It’s the same hug they shared earlier that night, but without tears and loud music disturbing them, although Marc’s shoulders tremble slightly and they both hear a faint ringing in their ears from the day’s noisy buzzing.
Alex crouches a bit forward and rests his cheek against Marc’s hair. It’s slightly moist from the shower and new layers of champagne from a totally intoxicated José.
“It’s alright.” He mumbles into the curls smelling of his own shampoo and their mother’s detergent.
What happens is – that Marc loses a battle he fought for hours, the will to celebrate his title in the only way that really matters to him overpowering his fear with the friendly assistance of alcohol and drugs.
He lifts his head, pulls Alex closer by the hem of his hoodie and kisses him.
Alex huffs in surprise, his hand raised slightly in an attempt to do something, while his upper body goes completely rigid.
This time it’s different from the one in Valencia, simply because Marc isn’t a jumping ball of euphoria and happiness, but drunk and shaky and torn-apart in a way that makes this all the more wrong. This time it’s different, because they are alone. This time it’s different, because Marc doesn’t let go of him, but clings to his hoodie as if his life would depend on it and then –
The second Marc opens his lips for nothing more but a millimetre, Alex jolts backwards.
“No.”
It’s a breathless exhale combined with a violent shake of his head. He licks his lips and Marc sees it and feels like dying.
He collapses against Alex’s chest, whose hands tremble like leaves.
“I’m sorry.”
Alex blinks at the opposite wall and it wouldn’t surprise him, would the whole room collapse around him in an instant. He feels like collapsing. He just lets a hand run through Marc’s hair, soft strands spilling through his fingers like black water.
Marc is drained of tears, but the pain stays as a tight knot in his throat. He gulps frantically and recites all the things he can possibly come up with that would sound like a logical and reasonable explanation.
“I just miss home so much. I want to be close to people, that don’t just see me as a rider.” You. “I want a relationship with someone, who gets me. As the guy I am and not a champion.” You. “I love winning, but it entails so much I didn’t think about at all. I love riding, but it’s not everything to me, it’s not-“ You.
Marc swallows and wipes his forehead against Alex’s chest, before lifting his head and looking at his little brother, whose face is a mask of contemplation and rapidly racing thoughts.
Marc knows, it’s the one thing, he can’t talk to Alex about, because Alex is too big a part in it and now that it happened anyway Marc is scared beyond imagination.
But Alex surprises him, as he’s done so many times already, and bestows him with a confident smile.
“You’re not alone, Marc. You’ll never be alone. I’ll always be there for you and if this” he points at their room, Marc more or less leaning against his chest, their legs a messy pile cramped between the closet and the bed. “If this is what you need, I’m okay with it.”
Alex leans back and takes a deep breath, before pulling Marc closer.
“Two conditions. First, bed. You’re heavy, man, and staying like this will make getting up tomorrow even harder than it will already be. And second.” The humour drains from his eyes just a little bit. “I don’t want you to burry your emotions, Marc. You don’t have to hide from me.”
Not even this? Marc asks and swallows the sob clinging to his throat, when he thinks about how beautiful Alex is, how soft his lips look, how kissable, how…
Marc casts down his eyes and the memory of Alex’s words at the after-party in Valencia are a shrapnel of ice thrust into his heart.
“Don’t kiss me again. I don’t want some stupid article about brotherly incest to overshadow your success.”
“Okay.” Is all he can come up with and lets his brother drag him to his feet.
Alex does help Marc getting undressed and it feels like his own personal purgatory all of a sudden. None of their childish innocence is left, despite Alex chuckling softly as he pulls the hoodie over Marc’s head and messes up his hair completely.
Marc manages to undo his jeans himself, but Alex has to pull them down, because Marc can’t bend enough to do it himself.
Marc feels like crying again and tells himself to man up multiple times. He feels more drunk now than hurt and his fingers tremble, when he holds onto Alex’s shoulder. Just dressed in shorts Marc stares up at him.
“Thanks.” He mutters and the thought of how close Alex is and that he could just reach up and kiss him again sits uppermost in his brain, capsizing his sanity and –
“Don’t.” Alex says and his voice is just a strained whisper. “Please, Marc, I’m begging you, don’t...”
Don’t kiss me?
Don’t tempt me?
Don’t make me hate you?
Alex tucks him in. Marc lets him.
He’s too tired to be petty about it.
Alex gets undressed, too, and Marc counts it as a win, blatantly staring at his brother’s naked back.
He’s your brother, Goddamnit!
Marc feels like throwing up and screws his eyes shut as soon as Alex turns around again.
They lay in darkness. Soon Alex’s breaths even out, but Marc drifts in and out of a sleep-like state for what feels like hours.
Marc dreams of Barcelona. Neither football nor the town itself, but the press conference before the Barcelona GP and his emotions getting the better of him. It’s less a dream than a memory flooding back into his mind, sharp-edged focus surrounded by smudged corners, as he feels the tears burning in his eyes again. It’s the same room, the same woman offering a translation, all the same – the whole mess about him moving to Andorra and how ridiculously subsidiary it appears in the light of nearly losing his eyesight. He feels tired to the bones, wary of all the attention and furious. Marc has never been more furious in his life and the wrath paralyses his hands and makes breathing a luxury, he can only afford occasionally as air gets stuck in his windpipe.
He’s sitting at that table again, fidgeting with the microphone in order to do something and feels his words slipping from his mouth unhindered.
Andorra. Taxes. I’m a proud Spaniard, for God’s sake!
Recovery. Doctor Sanchez!
For five months I believed I would never get on a bike again!
There are tears blurring his vision and his voice abandons him just like his bike did half a year ago, when it collapsed underneath him at 338 kph. He remembers waking up drenched in sweat every night, dreaming of that solid wall that reduced his bike to chunks of metal and nearly crushed him to dust, as well. He leans his head against the microphone, lost for words and thoughts, when all he wants to do is scream.
I love this sport so goddamn much, I gamble with my life every fucking weekend. What does it matter where I live and pay my taxes? I nearly lost my eye sight after that crash in Germany. I was in the hospital for weeks. You’re all making a big show of it, the fastest crash ever. I nearly lost my life, for fuck’s sake! And if I held onto the bike, I wouldn’t be sitting here now and you ask questions about money.
He rubs his head against the microphone, gulping frantically as the underlying voice whispers the truth that drowns out his internal rant.
I’m so scared.
And suddenly there is a warm hand touching his own and despite the spotlight being pointed at them and Alex being so camera-shy and cautious, he intertwines their fingers on the table surface and warmth seeps through Marc’s skin in an instant.
"I know.”, Alex says, nothing but blinding love radiating from his ebony eyes. “I know, you’re giving your best. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Marc. I’m with you. I’ll go with you. All the way and always.”
His last words are a faint echo in the clicking of camera shutters and mumbling of reporters.
"I love you more than anything. Stand by me and I’ll never let you go, brother.”
Marc opens his eyes and sees nothing. It’s so dark at first he can only see the outlines of his hotel room. He blinks and gulps, while his vision slowly sharpens. They didn’t pull the curtains closed, so moonlight and the faint reflection of the bright Bangkok skyline illuminates the back wall. It draws silver patterns onto the soft duvet covering his naked torso and Marc pulls it back. Sweat coats his chest and prickles on his scalp.
Pain radiates through his lower back and he groans voicelessly at the stinging sensation, that feels like a thousand needles piercing through his skin. He turns to his left as cautiously as possible and takes a deep breath to bite back tears.
He looks at his brother next to him, sleeping peacefully, one hand tucked underneath his cheek.
Marc remembers the previous night and swallows drily. He suppresses the annoyed groan and wipes his eyes instead, before staring at the ceiling. He remembers his own little breakdown, a champion’s whining over nothing but his own self-indulgence and pressures.
Alex handled it amazingly. As always. Inevitably Marc’s eyes wander to his brother again, his face partly illuminated by the faint lights of bright advertising signs.
Studying Alex’s calm features, Marc stares into the abyss opening up in his innards, that deeply hidden spot, he doesn’t dare to visit during daylight.
Marc admires Alex. He always has. His perseverance and commitment. But moreover his sheer blinding love for life, his easy-going nature that just so covers the fiery temper underneath. His laughter, how easily he’s amused about the little things happening in their daily lives. His willpower to not stand in his big brother’s shadow, but create one on his own with his own career, riding style, philosophy. Nothing, not even all his own titles combined, has made Marc prouder than seeing Alex win the championship in Valencia.
Marc stretches out a hand and stops still just millimetres away from a curl protruding from the rest of his nightly black hair. Don’t, he tells himself and does it anyway. It’s a light touch, just his digits combing through Alex’s messy hair. The familiar sensation calms him a little bit, although his heart gallops through his ribcage.
Marc trusts Alex. Like no one else in the entire world. He’s always known his deepest secrets, his biggest insecurities, his flaws. Marc has excessiveness written all over him. He’s too small, too light. He laughs too loud and he’s home too rarely. He fights too fiercely and talks too little. The only one, who never complains about it, the only person he seems to be genuinely good enough for is Alex. And Marc repays him in the only currency he knows his brother cares about. Trust and love. A bond that runs deeper even than their shared genes.
He still thinks about a rainy afternoon in their shared room, years ago. They were studying for a chemistry test and while Marc, laying on the top bunk of their bed, threw his tennis ball repeatedly against the wall, Alex sat in his chair and wiped his eyes.
“Come on, Marc, use your head. Metastable compounds do what?”
The tennis ball hit the wall again and bounced back into Marc’s outstretched hand.
“Come on, Marc, this is easy, use your head. What will they always do, even when temperature and pressure stay the same?”
Another thud of the tennis ball hitting the ball. Alex massaged his temples and tried again with fading patience.
“…in comparison to stable compounds, who don’t do anything?”
Again there was just the sound of the ball, until Alex took the kneepads from the desk and threw them at his brother.
“God, you’re hopeless! Why would you even pick Chemistry, if you’re so bad at it?!”
Marc buried his face in the pillow and winced.
Alex smirked and closed the school book with an surrendering sigh.
“Oh, right, I know, because of that cute new teacher. What’s his name again?”
Marc just lifted his head and threw the tennis ball at Alex, his brother so slouched over from laughing it hit his back and bounced into the far corner of their room.
They never talked about it openly and they don’t have to, even after all these years and a variety of girlfriends coming and going in both their lives. It’s a silent agreement they hold sacred and they both are too busy anyway.
Marc blinks and lets his fingertips run through Alex’s hair in a feathery motion to not wake him up.
God, you’re beautiful, he thinks and knows, he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t think that, he shouldn’t do that, for crying out loud, but still he leans forward and places a kiss to Alex’s slightly parted lips. It’s just a peck, badly aimed and with dry lips, but it takes all of Marc’s crumbling self-control to pull back again.
“I’m sorry.” He mutters softly and feels tears pooling in the corners of his eyes.
Alex, I’m sorry, I feel this way for you.
I’m sorry for keeping secrets from you.
I’m sorry, I’m so fucked up.
His lips burn and it feels like a portent of the hellfire awaiting him, once one of his crashes goes wrong.
Marc cries himself to sleep that night, laying in the shadows, staring at his brother and into that depraved darkness.
Nothing is world-class about the two Marquez boys waking up in the morning. Hungover and with a pained grimace Marc opens his eyes and frowns at Alex’s messy black mob of hair sticking out from the voluminous duvet.
Marc tells Alex, he’s sorry about what happened yesterday.
Alex tells Marc it’s alright and he says it in the same manner they usually talk about the weather. Marc sits in bed with a deep frown carved into his forehead.
Alex is quick to slip into his shirt and face the topic – Marc – with an extra layer of clothes between them.
Marc sits in bed shirtless, when the door falls shut behind Alex, and looks down at his bruised thighs, visible sources of pain that still don’t reach deep enough to compete with the one tearing at his soul. He sits on the white sheets, morning sun warming his face and still feels like trapped in the shadows of his own mind.