Chapter Text
”I sometimes feel things for Marc, I shouldn’t.”
“I always wondered how you manage to do that, being in your big brother’s shadow all the time. I understand why you would hate him.”
Alex stares into the blackness of his hotel room and Santi’s words are a shrill ringing in his ears. It’s not what he had meant, drunk after another of Marc’s sensational wins in Misano, but in retrospect he’s elated, he hasn’t got his point. Santi just saw what everyone saw: He’s the little (taller) brother of a seven time world champion, the Atomic Ant’s Little Helper.
But Alex is so much more than that and he wants even more and that’s the thing…
His phone vibrating on the nightstand illuminates the blank walls with a blueish light. He knows, it’s his mother asking about Marc. Whether Marc was alright. Whether she should book a flight. Alex looks at his brother next to him, who’s peacefully slumbering, one hand underneath his chin.
Alex himself has counted the painkillers and exchanged the beer bottle in Marc’s hands with a water bottle, which Marc endured just as reluctantly as the tests in the hospital earlier on. Marc was rather angry than hurt, but Alex can still see how severe the bruises on his back and his legs are and flinches in pain himself as he remembers Marc getting onto the bike in the afternoon with gritted teeth and watering eyes. Of course, his brother drove an amazing qualifying lap around the Chan circuit just to almost fall from the bike moments later in the pits. He leaned against Alex, unable to move, out of breath and his voice reduced to a hoarse whisper.
“I need a break.”
Marc admitting weakness is a first and even now Alex listens carefully to the labored intakes of breath and occasionally moans of pain from his side of the bed.
It was a nasty one, he thinks and scans Marc’s calm face, all edges and sharp lines in the fading light of his phone screen, before darkness fills the room once again. Just like so many he already had.
He’s seen most of them live, having raced at the same circuit mere hours earlier. But seeing your loved one kneeling in the gravel, shaken and stirred, is as hurtful as watching them conquer the race tracks and win titles is beautiful.
Alex follows Marc. Not just around the world with the MotoGP2 circus, to events and parties, but through hell and high water. Through boring Math classes and fist fights on the school ground. Through the massive crashes, the gutting pain of losing. Through fights with their parents and their coaches. Just as Marc is there for him. One of Alex’s first memories is Marc and himself sitting in the bathtub and playing with Lego U-boats. It is always Marc he turns to, his closest friend, the most important person in his life. No girl is ever going to replace that solidity for Alex. They are inseparable and no teacher worrying about Marc legging behind his own classmates if he stuck around Alex all the time could ever change that.
They stand up to the rest of the world.
It’s always been that way and always will be. Alex still remembers Marc doing up his helmet for the first time. He’s been three years old and Marc five. He’s been terrified of getting onto that bike, of the speed, the noise and the risk of hurting himself. Marc just grinned at him, crusted mud covering his heated cheeks. “If I can do it, you can, too.”
And Alex did. The rest is history.
Alex looks out for Marc. He’s lent him clothes on various occasions and saved him from freezing to death or running around with ominous stains from spilled drinks all the time. He has to bite back a dirty laugh whenever Marc rolls up the legs of the sweatpants way too long for him. “Should have had more of Mama’s spinach, Bambino!” he’d joke and as a response Marc would kick his ass at FIFA with an unnecessary level of cruelty.
He’s sat on multiple chairs next to Marc’s hospital beds – from Barcelona to Buri Ram. Holding his hand and waiting for him to wake up after those horrible crashes. Chest bruised, limbs in caskets, machines beeping. He’s spent days just sitting there and watching over his big brother’s sleeping form. More Bambi with his fuzzy curls and relaxed features, than the aggressive predator on track.
He’s prayed for his brother’s safety more than once. After that fight with Valentino, after all the hate Marc received. He’s retreated to an empty part of the garage, closed his eyes and pressed a fist firmly to his lips.
Please, Lord, let him stay safe. Let him stay safe. Put trust in him and make him fly.
Sometimes he feels like his personal guardian angel – talking Marc out of some stupid shit and some sense into him. Every time it doesn’t work, he spends the nights like this one, watching and watching over his big brother, after he got hurt – again. Marc lets him, although it took him a while to accept it. Marc, though being constantly pelted with attention and admiration, has always been incredibly bad at receiving something as simple as affection.
Alex knows Marc. In ways no one else knows him, not even their parents – especially not their parents. The nights they spent gaming instead of sleeping and recharging their batteries. The illegal tuning of their first bikes in the backyard. The hidden bruises from one of their countless accidents on dusty roads outside of Cervera. Alex sees the things Marc so desperately tries to hide, the pain, the pressure. He sees it in the shadows underneath those ebony eyes that look just like his own. The tensed up muscles in his neck, when the pain in his shoulder stings like a rusty blade slicing through the mended joints. They don’t need words and never needed them.
The thing is –
Alex loves Marc. For Alex it has always been that way. He’s been his hero ever since Alex formed his first logical thought, for as long as he can remember. His big (smaller) brother. His champion. His idol. The boy, who helped him pass Biology tests and whom he helped pass Chemistry. The teenager, he had his first beer with, his first Tequila and his first and last cigarette. His shoulder to cry on, when his first relationship succumbed to his dream of being a rider. His shoulder to cry on, when he made it. His mentor, teacher, guide. His everything.
Alex is the first one to see Marc after a victory or another title. Not his team boss, not Santi, not a girlfriend. He’s the one to hand him the Spanish flag, the shirt and the golden helmet. A crown for a champion. He deliberately shares the spotlight with his brother and basks in his success and attention. When Marc hugs all air out of him, still sitting on the bike and trembling with the engine as much as rushes of euphoria. When Marc jumps into his arms and screams with all the upheld tension and adrenaline suddenly slipping off his shoulders, getting replaced by sheer blinding happiness. When Marc rests his forehead against his, black curls blending with his own, eyes locked, noses almost touching and they have a silent conversation in the midst of a deafening team celebration.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And he does it, because Marc wants him to and he never had to ask him ever again after that first title.
Marc is his clumsy idiot big brother, who is a dangerous and ruthless killer on track and Bambi ice-skating in his daily life. Marc has always been an idiot, but he’s his idiot.
Now Alex lies in the dark, swallows and covers his eyes although there is no evading the blackness he sees looming in his innards.
He’s not yours, he’s your brother, Goddamnit!
The same images flash across his inner eye again, as always, when it’s dark. That certain memory. Valencia 2017. Marc’s sixth overall championship at the age of 24. First the typical clumsiness of his brother dislocating his left shoulder while receiving congratulations from Scott. A tearing sound, a pained huff and milliseconds later Marc collapsed into his arms, the triumphant grin replaced by a grimace of agony.
“Shoulder!” He groaned and Alex reacted reflexively. He shoved Marc to the ground, fixated his flank with his knee and pulled at his arm. He relocated is brother’s shoulder right on the side of the track, victory shirt in the back pocket of his jeans. It put the smile back on Marc’s lips and he mumbled something underneath his helmet Alex didn’t understand.
Later on, he more or less pranced towards him in front of the grand stand, arms raised to meet him in a bone-crushing hug and a smile as bright as the sun plastered to his face. But Marc wouldn’t be Marc if he hadn’t made it special and so instead of catching Alex’s outstretched hands and hugging him, he gripped his head with both hands, pulled him in and – kissed him.
Marc full on kissed him on the lips and Alex was so close to punching his brother square in the face. But he couldn’t, he just stood there, Marc’s trembling hand in his hair and Marc’s warm lips on his own.
Just fragments of a second later Marc let go of him and pulled him into a tight hug, hot breath and hoarse laughter hitting his neck, while Alex’s world stopped turning. He held onto his brother, the newly crowned champion, sharing the spotlight with him as red confetti exploded in the air above them, and at the same time felt like dying inside. He clenched a fist into Marc’s racing suit and buried his face in his neck, biting back tears of everything and nothing at all. He had everything and nothing at all.
They talked about it later on. Well, talked isn’t the right expression, because Alex just walked up to Marc late at night, after the handshakes, the hugging, the singing and after a fair amount of beer.
“Don’t do that again.” Alex said and didn’t dare to touch Marc, who dropped the hand he lifted for their mandatory greeting. Coal black eyes pierced through him and Alex realized, he should have drunk more.
“Do what?”
Alex licked his lips, noticed Marc was still watching him and sighed.
“Don’t kiss me again. It’s weird. I don’t want some stupid article about brotherly incest to overshadow your success.”
“Our success.” Marc said automatically, just because he’s too good a soul to let Alex’s contribution to his career go unnoticed. Then he frowned and took a sip from his beer.
He has the same birthmark on his cheek as I do, Alex thought and felt like vomiting.
“Okay, yeah.” Marc said, but something flashed across his tired features, pain from other bruises, deeper and invisible ones. “I didn’t think about it, I guess.”
It wasn’t a surprise to Alex, so he just smirked and kept fidgeting with the label of his own beer bottle.
“You’re probably right, that was weird. I just wanted to be with you and a hug didn’t seem enough. I would be nothing without you, man.” Alex gulped and leaned in to put a firm grip on Marc’s shoulder. Marc smiled and the dimples made him look like a twelve-year-old again. “You’re my hero, Alex. I admire you so much. You’re my anchor and my wings and everything in between.”
Please stop talking, Alex thought and looked up at the palm trees lining up the pool in order to keep the tears from falling. Their long shadows drew grey patterns onto the sandy tiles.
Marc sighed and crossed his legs, heavy with exhaustion and admittedly tipsy.
“But you’re right. I shouldn’t have done it. Sorry. Felt strange anyway.”
It resembled a punch to his gut and at the same time it made an elated snort detangle itself from Alex’s throat. For the first time in his life he wanted to get away from Marc as fast as possible.
Marc grinned at him and looked down at his phone, while his younger brother disappeared into the shadow of the hotel lounge again.
They haven’t talked about it ever since. It’s the one secret Alex keeps hidden from his brother, who knows him better than anyone else in the entire world. Alex doesn’t even know, how he should address the elephant in the room, what to say, if they were to stumble upon that subject ever again.
What is he supposed to say anyway?
“Marc, you’re my brother, so why did I still enjoy kissing you?”
“I’m jealous of everyone close to you and I don’t know what to do about it?”
“Believe me, I’m not gay, but I may have fallen in love with you?”
“Could you kiss me again?”
Alex is many things and certainly an idiot at times, but he's not suicidal.
But it did plant a seed Alex tries to rip out so hard his hands are bloody from a boulder workout, he deliberately takes too far. He goes out on dates and at the same time he tries to not neglect Marc. I never realized how much time we actually spend together.
Now he does. And he tries especially hard to shove it down into that ugly, depraved darkness it came from, when Marc pulls him into a hug, kisses his cheek, ruffles his hair, puts an arm around his shoulder... fiery touches that make an icy cold shiver run down Alex’s spine.
And the next day he’s there of course, as usual. He’s there to hand Marc the flag of their home country, gold and red, and the symbol of his triumph, the helmet, gold and black. Marc is a flash of lightning rushing passed him, covered in sweat and crowned a king once again. And Alex returns to the shadows.