Archive of Our Own

“Something bothers you, mon ami.”

Marc turns his head to watch Frenchie’s smirk creep across his face. The bar they’ve perched themselves at is growing increasingly more crowded as the night grows longer, and there’s a buzz in the back of his head that Marc isn’t sure from the long day he’s had, the alcohol sloshing around in his system or because of certain… company that won’t stop pestering him.

He thumbs at the rim of his glass where a pearl of condensation slips down it, leaving a smear of residue in its wake, he doesn’t look up again when he speaks. 

“I’m always bothered,” he replies flatly. With that he takes a short swig, licking away the moisture on his top lip before he sets his glass back down. 

Frenchie hums, a short, loud sound in the back of his throat. 

“True,” he says slowly, his accent is thick around his words. “But this is… more than usual.” 

There’s a group of college students in the corner of the bar, rowdy and red in the face, they’re happily drowning shot after shot, their laughter climbing higher and higher as they hang off one another, Marc allows himself to spectate for a moment, trying to picture himself at that age, slotted into that normal teenage life. 

The happier and more giggly they become, the less Marc is able to picture it. 

“Who is it this time?” Frenchie asks him, gaining his attention again as he folds himself across the bar, leaning on his forearms. “Jake giving you shit again?”

Marc huffs a heavy sounding sigh. One of the college students behind him cheers, resulting in an echo of more cheering from the group.

“You know I don’t like when you play favorites, Frenchie,” Marc warns him, only half serious. “You and him just gang up on me,” he says, sulking over his drink.

Frenchie laughs, a booming sound that cracks down the bar like thunder. He taps at his own glass with the tip of his finger, the ice makes a clinking sound against each other as he rattles it slightly.

“Jake is not mon favori,” he says pointedly. “Vous êtes jaloux,” he adds with a click of his tongue, shaking his head, his lips fit around a knowing smile.

Marc picks his glass back up. “English please,” he reminds him. “I have enough of him,” he stops to dance his fingertips against his temple, “babbling on in gibberish all the time. Don’t need you doing it as well.”

Frenchie pins him with an affronted look.

“ Gibberish ,” he scoffs, perfectly mimicking Marc’s own accent before flipping back to his own. “I thought you were learning, no?”

Marc shakes his head. “Nah,” he says shortly. “That was Steven. He’s the one with a two hundred day streak on that app he’s obsessed with.”

He realizes he says the name with a slight bite to his tone a little too late. Frenchie sits up a little which is a good cue for Marc to drain the rest of his beer, resulting in a rap of knuckles from his friend beside him.

“Another for the monsieur,” he says once he’s gotten the bartender's attention.

It doesn’t take long for his empty glass to be swapped out for a full one.

“So it is Steven giving you the grief, eh?” Frenchie finally says, leaning in towards him.

Marc sighs and takes a swig of his drink. He’d spent all about fifteen seconds debating on whether he might just go on strike and leave his friend to get sticky drunk alone whilst he’d sober himself up.

But if he’s going to have this conversation then he’ll be better off filling up on a little liquid luck.

He sets his glass down, running a thumb around the bottom of the glass where a ring of damp moisture has been left in its place. The wood of the bar is soggy and gives way, old and overused.

He sighs, but doesn’t look up.

“He wants to talk to dad,” he says shortly. Saying it out loud only pokes at the fire burning away at him in the basement of his belly, so he swiftly dampens it down with another mouthful of beer as he awaits Frenchie’s reaction.

When he turns his head to face him, he notes that he’s trying to look rather diplomatic about it all.

Which, Marc might just scoff at. He’s known Frenchie for a long time. They’ve been through some shit together. He knows about the DID and had a somewhat brief but informative introduction to his life as an Egyptian gods avatar. It was all the stuff that came with being as close as you can to Marc, because in truth there were only two people Marc ever felt close enough to spill those secrets to. One was Layla, whom he’d slowly started to nurture their relationship with since their whole shebang in Cairo. And the other person he trusted was sitting beside him.

But trauma was still trauma. Everything that had happened in his life in the lead up to Steven (and eventually Jake) was still a big, ugly, painful scarred wound that would occasionally tear back open when he wasn’t being careful with it. He was taking all the right steps but it didn’t mean it was a linear process. 

He trusted Frenchie. He loved the guy even, but it still wasn’t easy just to unpack all the trauma behind what made him… him . And over time Frenchie had been accustomed to the basic foundations of his problems: he’d had a bad relationship with his mother which in turn had soured the one with his father, now said mother was dead and Marc had buried any kind of chance of reconciliation along with his her. That was it and there was nothing else Marc felt obliged to share with him or anyone else. 

He takes a slow, long sip of his drink when Frenchie finally voices his thoughts.

“Ah,” he says at first. “I see your conflict clearly now. Did you have a fight?”

Marc hums, bitterly. He says nothing more after that.

“In all fairness, Marc, what did you expect when you brought him here to the States, eh? He is bound to be curious, no?”

Marc sucks on his bottom lip, and he can taste the faded tang of alcohol lingering there still.

“I thought you said you didn’t have favorites?” He says, voice cool.

Frenchie offers him a sideways grin.

“You know I have known you the longest, mon ami.”

Marc scoffs. “Still. I didn’t bring him here for a vacation,” he says sourly. “Did the last four days feel like a vacation to you?” He asks, his voice climbing in volume a little.

The bartender shoots him a rather askance look and Marc simply shrinks in his seat before he focuses his attention back to Frenchie.

“Hmm, maybe,” his friend muses, because of course he would be thinking it over. “Me, I do not mind the fighting and the adventure. You, you are boring and old.”

Marc snorts a laugh. A real one this time. “ I’m boring and old?” He says with an incredulous tone to his voice. “I’m probably the most interesting person in this bar,” he sighs, reaching for his drink again, his voice going a little flat when he adds, “Mostly because I’m three people at once but sure. I’m the boring one here.”

Frenchie hums. “And yet you decide to bury all of that in self pity and woe.” He makes the extra effort to put on a little pout for him, his bottom lip jutted out and his brows curved in a sorry kind of expression.

“You’re not very nice to me,” Marc says. “If you wanna talk to Steven or Jake instead say the word.”

His joke feels even a little too real for him after he’s said it. He shoots Frenchie a tired look.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m just stressed is all.”

The buzz in the back of his head has been growing heavier, louder, thicker. He has had a stressful week: he’d gotten the call back in London, something about an artifact dealer that was smuggling money for some sort of drugs operation. The kind of stuff that he and Layla would have done together, back in the day.

Baby steps, he has to remind himself. He still gets a call every other day just for her to check up on him. The air between them steadily clears each time they talk. Nurturing relationships and all that jazz.

And once Frenchie had asked if he were up to the challenge, Marc had booked Steven off work for the week, some lie about a made up cousin that’d fallen ill back in the States had worked just fine in getting them out on such short notice (because Marc really didn’t want him to lose another job on his account again), and now here they were, just an hour outside of Chicago, a belly full of alcohol and chest full of anxious tension that he couldn’t quite shift now matter how hard he tried to drown it out.

So yeah, not exactly a holiday, but after everything had been said and done, Steven had been less than happy to have woken up in a different continent. And so, their argument had been born out of that whole situation really, because after Marc had looked at him in the mirror of their hotel bathroom mirror reflection he’d told him this:

“Look, this is just for a few more days, okay? Do me a favor and let me deal with this okay?”

And like that, Steven had latched onto that pesky five letter word with a furious and unforgiving grip that had Marc feeling a little choked out.

He’d been drifting off to sleep when he’d cropped up in the headspace, squeezing his way to the front when he’d whispered,

“Well, if that’s the case, I want a favor too.”

Frenchie swirls the last of his drink around in his glass, peering at the liquid that spins around, sloshing around against the sides.

“He is not like you, Marc,” he tells him, eyes still peering into the bottom of his glass. “He has thoughts of his own. Feelings that differ from yours, no?”

Marc makes a face. If Steven were to pop up, he’d call it childish. And stupid, most likely..

“That’s just the problem,” Marc sighs with a shake of his head. “He just…” he scratches a nail against the bar. “He doesn’t get it like I do.” He looks to Frenchie, hoping to see a clear answer to his troubles painted across his forehead.

Instead, he gets a small, friendly smile. And that  in itself isn’t half bad, he supposes.

“You may not want to speak to your father,” Frenchie goes on. “But Steven may have his reasons to want to. Could you not do that for him, hm?”

It doesn’t take a lot for Marc to get angry, not really. But he doesn’t take it out on his friend. He digs his nail into the bar, not caring it splinters into his skin beneath it. He sucks in a breath between his teeth.

“It ain’t as easy as that my friend,” he says, managing to keep his voice level. “It’s a lot to unpack there.” He presses his lips together, raises his brows. “A lot.”

Frenchie blows out a breath and rests his palms flat against the bar, he drums his fingers against it just the once.

“I see my opinion is not warranted here,” he says. And when Marc looks up at him, he doesn’t look too disheartened at his dismissal. Marc doesn’t have the energy to care, however, so he’s grateful for that at least. “Something you sort out between you both. Will you be okay, dear ami?”

Marc gives him a sharp nod, and Frenchie slides his hand away to land it on his shoulder, giving it a hard, short squeeze. “You know you are mon favori, eh?”

Marc is able to smile, just a little for his sake.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, shaking him off with ease. “I know.” And with that, he drains the last of his drink, standing before Frenchie can hail him another one.

“Now, I gotta get my old, boring cul to bed. Tomorrow might be a long day depending.”

Frenchie’s eyes sparkle. “Ah, so you have been learning,” he grins wickedly.

Marc pats him on the back as he passes him by.

“That’s the one word I do remember,” he tells him. “Only because I share a head with two of them.”

And when Frenchie laughs, it’s easy to pretend that that’s all it is: a joke.

***

It’s not until the next morning when Marc is brushing his teeth that Steven comes to the surface.

“Should’ve brushed your teeth before bed,” he’s chastising him, he realizes. Marc rolls his eyes and spits into the sink.

“Too tired,” is his blunt reply as he runs his toothbrush under the water. He watches frothy spit swirls down the drain before he flickers his gaze upward to see the stern look Steven is pinning him with.

“Maybe all that fighting and drinking had something to do with it, hm?”

Marc twists the faucet off, a little too tightly as he feels the metal rungs dig painfully into his palm.

“Steven, I don’t have time to fight with you, okay?” He sighs heavily as he turns away from the mirror. He doesn’t necessarily need the visual cue to hear him, still so close to the surface.

“Look, I can put up with this, yeah? I know we had a deal and I know you’re helping people but—”

Marc is checking the time on his phone during Steven’s ramble. He has about ten minutes until Frenchie will waltz in, as happy as a pig as they trot off to find more danger and adventure together. They had some more intel they wanted to get a hold of before they returned home. It’d been a good lead for Marc, but also a chance for Steven to stay and persist his case.

“I already told you what I thought,” Marc cuts in as he slides his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “Please don’t fight me on this, buddy. I’m asking real nice here, okay?”

It’s half a plea, half a warning. He really truly doesn’t like arguing with Steven if they can both help it. He loves him dearly, and fighting only creates a tension that feels painful to exist within, like tearing himself in half. Since their big showdown in Cairo, they’d had more of an ease at working together. Existing in tandem, it’d felt like second nature. Like a breath of extra air in his lungs now that he could live their lives in parallel to one another rather than it being a big tangled mess where two lives were unwillingly entertaining with one another. A knot that’d been yanked too tight.

But that didn’t mean it came with its difficulties. They were two people with different hobbies and experiences and preferences.

Steven would get airy whenever Marc would come home with a McDonalds bag, all meat no green. Marc found it hard to live in such a cluttered space like their loft in London since he was more of a minimalist himself, he didn’t care for all the little knick-knacks that filled their home.

Small sacrifices were fine, but when it was an everyday occurrence, it had a tendency to chip away at your reserve. 

And right now, Steven was straight up hacking away with an ax.

Marc couldn’t stomach seeing his father. He hadn’t even allowed much thought about it when Frenchie had sent him the location. There had only been a weird moment of uncertainty when he’d been booking the flight and the airport location had stood out in his brain, like an alarm bell reminding him as to how close to home he’d be headed. 

But since they’d landed Steven had persisted. He’d been nice about it at first, carefully working his way towards asking, even before they were set to travel, it was clear that this was something Steven had been thinking about ever since their time in the Duat. Late nights as Marc would doze off, Steven would often ask questions about certain things he couldn’t remember.

Marc was never too sure if Steven often asked those questions as he fell asleep either because he was feeling particularly nostalgic at those hours in the late day, or if it was because he knew Marc would be too tired to resist, and it was easier for him to mumble out little pieces of the childhood he’d worked so hard to bury. 

But where they are so different in so many ways, they’re both equally as stubborn and as thick headed as the other.

Marc didn’t want to go, Steven desperately did. 

It was only a matter of time before one was folding.

“I know how you feel about him,” Steven says, voice soft around the edges. “You wouldn’t even have to be present.” Marc catches his reflection in the window, foggy and distorted, he still manages to make out the pleading look he’s got arranged across his face. “I promise.”

Marc sighs, running a hand down his face, he scratches at the edge of his jaw. 

“It’s… it’s not that,” he says quietly. A few more minutes and this conversation will be put on hold again when there’s a knock at the door. “You… you know what I said about dad, right? About your relationship with him specifically?”

It was such a tender subject. Marc knows his father. Has done his entire life. There was a sharp, rough edge between them that felt almost unfixable. A blade caught between them, either party was bound to be hurt no matter who pushed who. That was why it was easier to let it lie where it was. No more wounds to peel back open. 

Marc’s father’s relationship with Steven on the other hand? It was barely there. A vast canyon between them, as soon as he’d found out about this alter living in Marc’s brain, he’d been sent to be observed by doctor after doctor, all of which tried to remove Steven, like he were a parasite, picking him out from the root up.

His chest feels heavy, and for once he isn’t sure if that’s him feeling that way, or Steven. 

Or maybe both.

“Whatever he has to say to me, I can handle it,” Steven tells him, feigning a stoic tone to his words, Marc can see right through him however.

The laughter that escapes Marc is tired sounding. A touch hysterical, even.

“What are you even trying to gain here, Steven?” He asks him. “What closure do you want from this, huh?”

He watches in the reflection as Steven wrings his hands together, fingers laced together, Marc knows all too well how much of a clutch it was sometimes for him, when things got too heavy, he felt as if he only had himself to soothe him. Now he isn’t sure if it was because of that reason alone, or if deep down, he was soothing Marc too.

But despite that, Steven is able to hold out on himself. He stands tall. He looks Marc in the eye when he tells him:

“I want this for myself, Marc. I think I deserve that, don’t you? Some kind of agency?”

Marc wants to laugh, to just scrub his hands down his face and watch him disappear from the window all together. But he remains there, because Steven will always be there. And there isn’t a single part of Marc that has ever wished for anything different no matter how frustrated he makes him.

But right now, he’s pushing and Marc can only bend backwards so far before he feels himself starting to crack apart, ready to snap entirely from the weight of it all.

“I know you do,” Marc tells him. The muscle in his jaw flickers. “I just, I don’t know if you’ve thought it through entirely.”

Steven blinks at him. “You’re a stubborn git.” He squares off his shoulders. “You’re really telling me I haven’t thought this through? This– this huge part of my life and you don’t think I’ve maybe mulled it over enough yet?”

Marc opens his mouth to talk back. He isn’t really sure what he’s going to say because he knows in theory, Steven has a point. There has always been so much he can protect him from, and from his own experience, a soft landing isn’t always the easier way to fall.

But he never gets to argue back, because there’s a knock at the door and he turns to see Frenchie in the doorway, waiting on him.

When Marc looks back around, he only sees himself in the reflection. Steven doesn’t nudge in the back of his mind and so Marc leaves feeling a little empty in himself. 

***

The rest of the mission is a bust. 

Whoever was supposed to be the supplier for the artefacts had caught wind of Frenchie and Marc’s presence, and had decidedly skipped town. This meant that without a lead back towards who was doing all the smuggling, their gateway into their circle was a dud. Still, it wasn’t a total loss; Frenchie had picked up some information from a couple of henchmen that they’d overhead whilst staking out the place. And Frenchie’s know-how and erudite would be enough to find the right people to ask regarding their leads.  And if they didn’t talk? 

Well. That was what Marc was for.

Still, it leaves Marc with a sour taste in his mouth but at least this means he can go home now. The further away from Chicago he is, the less his stomach will feel like lead every time he thinks about Steven or his dad or what used to be called home.

Frenchie calls it a night after they sit miserably at the bar for an hour. The college students aren’t here tonight, just themselves and a few more sad looking people tucked away in the corners of the room keeping to themselves. Marc takes a moment to ponder what poisonous things could be plaguing them too.

He chuckles to himself when he finds himself wondering:

Do they have an annoying little British man living in their head too?

So after he gets to his room for the night, Marc is feeling the weight of his earlier conversation he’s ready to just go the fuck to sleep.

Of course, he’s never that lucky, and as he’s passing the bathroom mirror, there’s a voice.

“You are so sulky, cabrón.”

Marc looks up in time to see Jake flash a smile at him through the mirror. He scrubs a hand down his face.

“Great,” he sneers. “What do you want?”

Jake’s eyes follow him as he moves around the bathroom, packing away his little bag of possessions; it serves as a good distraction from such a watchful eye in the mirror opposite him.

“I overheard the conversation you had with our friend,” Jake says, a touch more seriousness to his tone now. “With Frenchie and with Steven I mean.”

Marc zips up the bag, clenching it in his hand before he sets it down on the edge of the sink once he’s moved towards it again, he’s faced to look Jake in the eyes when he lets out a sigh,

“You know it’s a stupid idea, don’t you?” Marc bristles, hoping that Jake will at least level with him on this one. He watches the corner of Jake’s mouth twitch, and Marc feels any hope he has of keeping him on his side starts to slip away.

“I do, sí,” Jake says, a sigh of his own escaping him. “But maybe this is not our choice to make, hm?”

Marc takes the wash bag and turns around out of the bathroom.

It doesn’t do anything to quell Jake’s voice growing louder in the back of his head.

“I do not want to see him as much as you do, Marc,” Jake starts as Marc starts to make work of his suitcase. He has a flight out of here tomorrow morning and he doesn’t want to waste daylight tomorrow hunting around for a sock that’d gone walkies. He clenches his jaw when Jake continues. “But for Steven, this is different, eh? Maybe this is his closure.”

Marc whips around them, and he’s not really sure why. There’s nobody standing behind him but it feels good to just move his body like he’s jacked up on static electricity ready to burst out of him when he balls his hands into fists and keeps them shaking by his sides.

“Closure?” He spits, and in the dark Marc can see Jake standing in the window. “Are you outta your mind?”

There’s a beat before Jake scoffs softly.

“Of course, why else would I be talking to you?”

Marc fails to find the humor in his response.

He sulks back around and tugs his suitcase closed. “I’m not going to see dad,” Marc tells him bluntly. “I won’t.”

He hears Jake hum, but there’s no real conviction behind it. Marc sighs again, like he’s deflating, and he turns again to face Jake in the reflection of the window.

“I just… I can’t,” he says, voice impossibly small. “I know Steven wants to and… and maybe you’re right about it being closure, or whatever,” he says with a wave of his hand. “But being back in that house, being there with him…” his throat closes in on itself and he swallows in hopes it’ll help his words come a little easier to him. It doesn’t.

“I can’t, Jake. Please understand that I just can’t. ”

He squeezes his eyes shut and brings his hands up to his face where he digs the heel of his palms into his eyes. He can feel the hot burn of tears prickle behind them, his heart sits heavy like a water balloon in his chest, he takes a shuddery intake of air, and when he opens his eyes, it takes a while for his vision to refocus.

When it does, he notes that it’s Steven standing in the reflection now, not Jake.

“You alright?” He asks, voice gentle, his accent is soft around the edges.

Marc can’t help but laugh a little bit, and in doing so, a stray tear manages to escape him as it rolls down the side of his face. He doesn’t bother to wipe it away since at this point, Steven had bared witness to Marc in a few states worse than this one.

“I guess not,” he croaks, feeling the fight leave him, not that there was much there to begin with. He keeps his hands moving by threading his fingers back through his hair. He gives it a short, hard tug and it’s more energy being given an out rather than fizzing around uselessly in his system. “Fuck,” he whispers, dropping his hand from his head.

He looks up and when he blinks at Steven, more tears are falling now, framing the sides of his face, Steven looks at him through the mirror reflection, looking like he wants to reach out and grab him.

More times than once has Marc wished that to be able to be something they could do outside of the Duat.

“Marc, I’m sorry,” Steven says, voice thick. “I didn’t mean to… I shouldn’t have…”

Marc tries to cut him off with a shake of his head. He could do without feeling worse about himself with whatever speech he’s got prepared, so he tries to wave it off in an easy dismissal.

But Steven is a stubborn ass sometimes. A stubborn cul as Frenchie would call it.

“No, Marc please just– just listen to me, yeah?” Steven is firm with him. And Marc looks up, scrubs a hand down his face and sniffs.

He doesn’t say anything so Steven continues.

“I know I shouldn’t have pushed yeah? I don’t wanna fight with you.” His voice is small. “Really, Marc. We don’t have to go back there. I’d rather be on good terms with you and not talk to dad, than it be the other way round, y’know?”

Marc swallows, the lump in his throat makes his words grow tight. He somehow manages nonetheless.

“You… you have a right though,” he says, his eyes dart across his face, searching. For what, he isn’t sure. He just knows that whenever he’s felt like this before he’s always been reaching out for Steven to make it feel a little less horrible. “You should be able to see dad if you want to.”

Steven blinks at him, all slow-like, resembling a cat. Then, he shakes his head, his curls falling softly over his forehead, he makes no effort to push them away like Marc or Jake might do.

“I won’t make you do something you don’t want to do, Marc,” Steven tells him. “Maybe… maybe it is too soon.”

And it’s a hard pill to swallow. Marc has felt like his entire life he’s been cowed into doing things because he thought it was the right thing to do. He hacked away at his own resolve to build others up, even when he shouldn’t have done. Steven was never the weaker of the two; he knew how to say no when it was necessary.

Marc on the other hand finds it as nearly as impossible as learning French or Spanish.

Steven steps forward in the reflection, and Marc knows he’s getting ready to front if need be. His heart feels swollen in his chest; heavy and achy it’s the telltale signs of old pain ripping back through him, and that either Steven or Jake would willingly take into their own hands, pliant and ready to help shoulder some of that emotional weight.

So as Steven moves towards him, Marc shuffles back until the backs of his knees hit the bed and he’s slumping downwards, folding in on himself like wet paper, he tries to find the air in his lungs as he runs his hands down his face. He looks up and Steven is crouched now, trying to mimic his own posture.

“Why don’t we take it slow, yeah?” Steven counters. “We won’t go see dad, okay? I’m– I’m not doing that to you. Or Jake.” His throat bobs when he takes a breath. “One day I think I’ll need to. But right now. I… I can wait.”

Marc manages a jerky nod of his head.

“We can go home,” Steven tells him. “Just the three of us, yeah?”

Marc sniffs. He feels small, like he needs someone to wrap their arms around his shoulders and give him a good squeeze, and once again he’s painfully missing that time in Duat with Steven’s weight feeling so real pressed up beside him when he’d found him in that sarcophagus.

He rubs a knuckle at his eye. Takes a breath.

“Maybe…” he croaks. He has to clear his throat before continuing where it’d gone thick with emotion. “Maybe we don’t have to go home right away,” he says, words moving slowly in his mouth as he lifts his head up to face Steven.

He doesn’t question him with words, but rather pins him with a quizzical look.

“There is one place that I’d like to go,” he tells him.

Steven’s smile is a comforting one.

“Then we’ll go together, yeah?”

***

Frenchie must have some sort of best friend sixth sense when it comes to handling someone like Marc Spector, because the next morning when they’re supposed to be heading towards the airport, he instead lounges about in the empty bar downstairs, pouring over yesterday’s newspaper when he tells Marc,

“Take your time, mon ami. You know where to find me afterwards, eh?”

Marc is at least grateful for that as they head outside and hail down a taxi.

It’s not a long drive by any means, but Marc sinks into the backseat of the cab and tries not to count how many more left turns and junctions it is until they’re at their destination, letting his eyes glaze over as he peers out of the window, it’s easy to let his mind wander as he tries to put up a mental block of the buildings and the landmarks he’s starting to remember.

They’re pulling over at the side of the road where Marc had instructed the driver to drop them off, digging around his back pocket for his wallet when he hears Jake’s voice small in the back of his head.

“You sure you’re up for this, jefe?” He asks.

And that’s how he knows that maybe he himself is a little unnerved as well. Jefe was a term he often used when they were on good terms with each other. Which, to be honest, wasn’t always all the case, but as much of an ass Jake was, he knew when to tone it down for Marc’s sake. It was comforting, at least.

He makes a gruff sound, something akin to a hum of agreement and he forks over the cash and peels himself out of the cab. 

He’s left standing outside of the cemetery alone as a breeze passes by, a chill dragging over his skin, he shivers a little, and he feels Steven shrink a little, knowing he isn’t too fond of the cold air himself, he’s suddenly reminded that although he stands here alone, he isn’t really. He has Steven and Jake to walk alongside him.

Finding Randall’s headstone feels like sleepwalking. Maybe it is Jake doing all the work, moving his legs on his own accord, but Marc knows exactly where to find it. Like he has done his entire life. Like it were a beacon calling out to him, he isn’t sure he’d ever forget where his baby brother was laid to rest.

The words etched into the stone are a little faded, what with time and weather not being so kind to it. There’s a few trinkets that have been left behind, old pieces of their childhood that Marc is honestly astounded have lasted this long without being taken or ruined. But then he remembers his father probably frequents here, making sure it is how it was when he was buried here all those years ago, and the thought makes his gut twist up inside of him.

“Don’t worry,” Steven’s voice is clear in his mind. “If he comes, we’ll just leave. I promise.”

Marc doesn’t think it’d be as easy as that, but he appreciates his concern either way. 

He crouches down in front of the headstone, the breath leaves him all at once as he glosses his eyes over his name.

“Hey Roro,” he whispers, voice shaky, despite all the talking out loud he does to his headmates, he almost feels a little silly talking to a grave. He swallows the feeling down and balances on the balls of his feet.

“I’m sorry I don’t come around too often. I’m living in London now. But I… I think about you.” His throat grows tight. “All the time, buddy.”

He sucks in a breath, his legs are burning a little where he’s crouched. He exhales.

“I, um. There’s some people I’d like for you to meet. I, I know that it might be weird but—” he stops as he scrubs a hand down his face. “This is crazy,” he mumbles into his palm. 

Jake speaks up first. 

“You got this, chief. We’re here, sí?”

Marc’s laughter is a little watery when he tells him,

“Yeah. Sí .”

He blinks at the headstone, wishing so desperately that Randall could just… talk back. What would he think? He wonders. What would he make of everything that happened after he died?

“That was Jake,” he says, voice small. “He’s kind of a pain in my ass but… but he’s good at keeping my shit together.” A short, abrupt laugh escapes him. “Hey. I can say shit now. Remember when we weren’t allowed to cuss?“

He pictures them in Marc’s old bedroom, giggling to themselves as they dared each other to whisper out the worst words they could think of. Randall had been nervous to do so at first, bashfully looking to his older brother for assurance that they wouldn’t get in trouble.

Of course, their dad had caught them laughing over the word piss and so there’d been a slight lecture about the importance of keeping their language clean in the house. Marc had always joked that as soon as he was older enough to leave he’d teach Randall all the bad ones. Ones that were far worse than piss. 

He sniffs, tears prick the backs of his eyes, wishing that those lectures were the only times he’d been reprimanded in childhood. 

He clears his throat.

“So yeah,” he says, trying to level his voice out. “Jake is cool. He’s good at a lot of things. You’d like him.” He feels a tug at the corners of his mouth. 

He pauses before he says, “You’d like Steven too.”

He can feel Steven push to the front, not quite there but dancing along the edge.

He was clearly just as excited to want to be a part of this.

“He’s smart, Randall. Like you. He’s brave, too.”

His voice breaks off. “You’d be good friends, I know it. I’m just sad you never got to meet them both.”

He thinks of Layla in that moment too. Tries to picture Randall as the man he never got to be, standing beside him on his wedding day, laughing and joking into a drink or two, instead, forever frozen in time as a child that never got to grow up. What would he think of his sister-in-law? Would Randall be married too? Maybe made an uncle out of Marc if he was ever so lucky.

“Jake and Steven,” he whispers. “They’re the ones who helped me get there today.” His vision blurs for a moment before he’s blinking back more hot tears. “I know they couldn’t have existed without…” his voice trails off. He clears his throat. “Without what happened to you…” his breath stutters in his chest. “But I hope you’re not up there, blaming yourself.”

He manages a thin, worn smile. 

“Cus I already do plenty of that, and it’s taken me a long-ass time to realize, it ain’t worth it, kid.”

The breeze picks up, sending an echo of leaves rustling throughout the cemetery, he stares at the headstone, like for a moment, just for a moment, he might hear his brother’s voice in the wind.

When the air settles and the cemetery remains still, Marc decides to stand. 

“I’m sorry, Randall, that I can’t stay.” His knuckles brush against his jacket pocket, the weight there reminds him of why he came. “But I, uh. We have something. From all of us.”

He’s careful when he plucks each stone from his pocket, steadily lining them across the top of the grave, three little round stones are placed in a line. Each one a little different in shape, Marc had picked them out with Jake and Marc last night outside the bar. 

The rest there, beside each other, an indication of them being here, he wonders if perhaps his father will grow privy to their presence. Three stones for one son, it doesn’t matter what his father thinks of it.

They sit on the headstone and it makes Marc want to cry all over again.

“We’ll come back,” he sends him a whispered promise. “Soon, okay?”

The graveyard remains silent. The stones remain in their place and Marc feels Steven and Jake close to the edge as he takes a step back.

“I love you,” he chokes out. “Okay? I love you, and I miss you like hell.”

He gives it a final look before he turns and heads out of the cemetery, the weight in his chest feeling a little more balanced out.

It’s Steven that catches sight of the second Spector grave as they turn, causing him to stop dead in his tracks.

And it’s another load of heartbreak they share together. An icy chill rolls down his spine as the realization sinks in: this is the first time any one of them are seeing it. The proof that Wendy Spector really was dead and gone, out of their lives for good.

Each one of them, a different projection of the woman they knew as their mother. Each sucker punch is just as hard hitting, however, no matter their differences. Marc’s perspective was balanced out in halves; before and after his brother died. The woman she once was and the monster she became. Steven just had the warped idea that she was always kind, unaware of who she really was, and Jake bore witness to the ugliest parts, and those only.

Marc hesitates. He isn’t sure whether Steven wants to pause to take a look. Whether Jake has some choice words he wants to curse into the wind. Marc isn’t even sure if he wants to say something. Maybe have a good cry just to let it all out, knock the single flat stone that balances there just to send his father a message purely out of spite.

But he feels a nudge and he’s moving forward again, not bothering to look back, Steven’s voice in his head is hoarse and a touch devastated, but leveled out, gentle around the edges when he tells him,

“Let’s go home, yeah?”

And so, he does exactly that.