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You will never be clean from sin. Rotten children don't deserve heaven.
There is no god who could give you your purity back.
- Unknown
The day Vegas Theerapanyakul finally returns home is hot and sunny, the air unbearably humid. It’s fitting, the way the weather is overbearing and all-consuming. Just like his brother’s presence is.
There are very few men left at the Minor Family house and they all bow respectfully at them as they pass by. He can almost feel how uncomfortable the men – his men – are. They fear his brother even now. It brings Macau more comfort than any words of condolences ever could.
Technically Vegas should be at his final resting place at the temple, next to their mother. But their father is there too and Macau would rather set himself on fire than submit Vegas to that man’s presence ever again. They both have suffered enough under their father’s iron fist and he is adamant on keeping his brother safe from that now. He intends to leave father there, at the temple, collecting dust and never paying him a visit.
Vegas always promised his little brother to come back home, to come back to him and so he does. He comes back home. Technicalities have never stopped Vegas Theerapanyakul before so why would they stop him now?
The urn in which he rests is golden and heavily decorated with mirror glass. It sparkles beautifully in the sun. Despite the warm day, the smooth surface of the urn feels cold in Macau’s hands.
He always knew, somewhere deep down even when he didn’t want to admit it, that his brother would die young. No one in this line of business ever lives long enough to die peacefully of an old age. Vegas was no expectation to that rule.
No. Vegas was violent and reckless to the point of madness. He would always drive just a bit too fast. Always drink just a bit too much. Always go just a bit too far. Some days it felt like he was trying to throw himself in front of a bullet on purpose. He was self-destructive and careless to a fault.
Really, it is a surprise that he lived as long as he did. His brother was destined for a violent and bloody death. Sometimes Macau feared he wouldn’t even have a body to bury.
It’s better like this, he tells himself as he steps through the front door and into what is left of their home. Truly, this was for the best. Vegas slipped away peacefully. Macau knows it was the cruelest thing he has ever done. He also knows it was the kindest thing he could do for his brother.
“Welcome home, hia”, he tells the urn.
There is finality in that. Vegas is home. Never again will Macau wait, holding his breath, wondering whether the other will make it back or not. He is here now.
He is home for an eternity.
In the end, the house they grew up in, the house they despised and desperately tried to find a way to run away from became his brother’s final resting place.
Home. His grave.
Pete returns late in the night. From where? Macau doesn’t know. Some days the other leaves the house quietly like a ghost and disappears without a word.
He used to come back so high on something that it was truly a miracle that he was even standing. He would stumble into the kitchen and ransack Gun’s liquor cabinet and then he would drink until he passed out on the floor.
Macau would just sit and watch him do it. Partly out of spite, he delighted in the thought of his father rolling in his grave because a lowly bodyguard dared to touch his expensive liquors. Mostly he didn’t even try to stop Pete because he knew the other was just trying to fill the gaping hole that Vegas left behind.
And maybe he was secretly curious how much the other could drink and smoke until he no longer would get up in the morning. It felt like a science project. Macau knows the amount the other was taking should have killed him.
It didn’t kill him though. And as much as Pete seemed to be disappointed about opening his eyes each morning, Macau was just as delighted.
He thinks it should make him feel sick. After all, it’s his fault the other was in that state. But in a way, it reminds him of the story of Frankenstein. Vegas always said there were two monsters in the story. The monster – and the monster that created it.
Here they are all monsters.
Pete used to be a bodyguard for the Main Family and there is no way he could have kept his hands clean in that profession. Even if he had somehow managed that the other still fell in love with his brother. His brother, the devil. No good man would ever love Vegas Theerapanyakul.
And what about Macau then? He was doomed long before he was even born with a father like that. Just like his brother was.
Macau sits on the couch with his brother. He wishes things could have been different. Wishes they could have had a different father. Wishes they never had to learn how to wash off the blood under their fingernails.
Macau feels Pete’s presence in the house more than he hears him. At the end of day, the other was a trained bodyguard and thus he will always be a trained bodyguard. His literal job description was to not be seen, to not be heard. That’s how he moves through the empty rooms, fading quietly into its shadows.
He wonders how Pete feels about the fact that in this house he is always known. That in here he will never go unseen.
Sometimes Macau feels like he is part of the house. Or maybe the house is part of him. Nevertheless, with a father like Gun Theerapanyakul, it has always been a blessing to know the house like the palms of his own hands.
The house used to guide them through the endless rooms undetected. It used to warn them of their father’s rage. It used to muffle their cries in the middle of the night. Macau knows the house tried its best to keep him and Vegas safe.
Now the house is just a house. The walls no longer speak to him, whisper him secrets. They are just walls. The rooms are only rooms, empty and quiet. It feels like the house died with his brother.
Pete stops in the kitchen. Macau can imagine him in front of the liquor cabinet, hand outstretched as his eyes study the labels on the bottles. He has seen it so many times that he knows the way the other eventually picks something up and closes the door. The way he stares at his own reflection on the glass.
The other leaves the kitchen behind. He doesn’t look for a glass or a corkscrew. There is no need for them as Pete does not drink anymore. He stopped after Macau was placed under his guardianship.
He does smoke even more than before to even that out, Macau thinks. Cigarette after cigarette. It’s fine. They both know the court can’t take Macau away from him for smoking too much. They could do it though if they found the man passed out drunk on the floor.
Besides, it’s not like Macau minds the smoking. The smell is familiar and he can blame the smoke for his watery eyes. Vegas used to smoke the same brand of cigarettes. The faint smell of smoke mixed with his cologne will always smell like home to him.
Pete still goes and disappears into the night every now and then just like he did before. The difference is that when he comes back smelling strongly of alcohol, his steps are steady and his eyes bright and alert.
Now he just picks up a bottle from the kitchen and carries it with himself. Not a single drop of liquor passed by his lips. It must be some form of torture, to have the bottle in his hands but never not being able to open it anymore. It must be just like being in this house.
At least, it’s that way for Macau. Vegas is everywhere in this house. On that doorframe, Vegas used to make a small cut on the wood with his knife every time Macau grew taller. Their father hated it and had it painted over multiple times but the paint stubbornly wouldn’t stick to the indents on the wood.
They stood right over there when Macau accidentally knocked over one of father’s expensive statues. Without hesitation, Vegas had said it was him who did it even though they both knew father would beat him up for it. Vegas broke his nose and bled everywhere. No one ever managed to scrub that bloodstain fully from the floorboards.
So many times, they had sat side by side on this very couch watching movies until the early hours of the morning. One time Vegas had been laughing so much that he accidentally spilled his soda. It stained one of the seat cushions. They flipped the cushion over and father never found out about it. Macau knows if he moved just a little and flipped the cushion around the stain would still be there.
Vegas has touched every surface, hid with him in every corner. His brother is everywhere here.
Everywhere except here.
Pete comes into the living room, a bottle of red wine in one hand. The cork remains unopened in its place. Macau recognizes the label on the bottle. His brother used to drink that.
The other glances in his direction but does not meet his eyes. He rarely does. Macau doesn’t look him in the eyes either. He always looks at his forehead, his nose. He doesn’t want to see the mirror image of his own grief in the other man’s eyes.
Sometimes he wants to ask if that’s the reason Pete doesn’t look him in the eyes either. He never asks though. He is afraid that the answer is no. That he just simply cannot look him in the eyes, knowing what he did.
“Pete?”
Macau bites his tongue while trying to look for the words. Vegas was the one who always knew what to say no matter what the situation. He knew how to sweet talk himself out of danger and just the right words to make their father forget why he was mad at Macau at all.
He never learned that. No, he learned to hold his tongue, to stay quiet. He learned how to make himself smaller. How to look so unassuming that people forgot he was even there.
“Hmm?” The other answers him absentmindedly.
“Hia, he is home,” is all Macau manages.
Pete finally turns to actually look at him. Their eyes meet just for a moment before the other drops his gaze and blinks almost as if he is surprised. As if he has never seen an urn before.
His hands shake as he sets the bottle of red wine on the low table separating them. He closes his eyes, bowing his head, and lets out a sob so broken that Macau nearly expects his brother to come back from the dead just to hold him.
Vegas does not come.
The man in front of him looks like he is just a moment from falling apart. Like he too had secretly hoped it was all just a bad dream. Hoped that Vegas had just gone somewhere far away but was on his way back to them.
By bringing Vegas home Macau had made it real. He would never come home – not in the way they want him to.
“There is enough space for two,” Macau whispers.
After that, they are both silent for a long time.
Eventually, Pete raises his head and meets Macau’s gaze again. His eyes are filled with tears and the thank you he whispers is so quiet that Macau barely hears it. Then the other starts weeping once more.
May you lie together in death as you did in life, Macau thinks. May your ashes mingle together in a way that future scientists won’t be able to tell where one person starts and where another ends. May you devour each other and become one single being in death when you never had the chance to do so in life.
Macau might not care for Pete much. He might even despise the man a little for all the night’s Vegas wandered through this house like he had already died. For all the day’s Vegas sat down with two dishes until the food went cold. He might even partly blame him for his brother’s death. Vegas would have never been so careless if it wasn’t for Pete. Vegas would have always come to his little brother if it wasn’t for Pete.
But Macau loves Vegas.
And he knows his brother. He knows his brother will never truly be happy, will never truly rest in peace, until he has Pete by his side.
Macau hugs the urn to his chest. He loves his brother enough to let him go for the second time.
His own hands shake too as he sets the urn on the table in front of Pete. The other raises his hands and presses them carefully against the golden surface. His fingers trace the decorations as if caressing the face of a loved one.
Macau gets up from the couch and leaves the room behind with his dead brother and the man who loved him. Pete’s cries echo throughout the empty house and drown out his own.
He fears this is the last thing he will ever be able to do for his brother.