visited sins
just after the emilia romagna press conference, pecco & marc | ~500 words
overt vs covert psychological warfare: a rosquez thesis
——
“Pecco!”
Pecco freezes, one foot in a snare, waits for Marc to catch up. He almost doesn’t want to turn around; he does.
Marc, arms folded, appraises him, face exactly as guarded as it had been in the press room. “Sorry.”
Which is absolutely fucking not what Pecco expected him to say.
“You should not be—you’re right, it’s nothing to do with you.” Marc shrugs. No expression. “Sorry.”
“Ah…” Pecco tries his best to gather himself. “It—it will keep happening, I think. They are just giving us some practice for next year.”
The granite cracks, just a little. “It’s our problem,” Marc says, plaintive. “Not yours.”
Pecco wonders if Marc hears the sound of his own voice when he says our, if he notices what it does, if it makes him want to bang his head against a wall. Maybe he rides through it. Maybe he doesn’t even realise.
That’s worse, somehow.
“It will be my problem. To them, anyway.”
“Not to me.”
“Well.” Christ. “Thank you.”
Marc nods, looks away as if he’s uncomfortable. “You really do not care?”
“I was not racing.” It’s true. True enough.
“You know what happened, though.” And that’s a challenge.
“I know what Valentino said happened.”
Conversations with Marc are always a tightrope-tread; he lets someone talk themselves into knots, nods along, lets them talk some more, and leaves knowing far more than they ever intended to let him see. He’s watching now, head tilted just the slightest amount, all sharp eyes and tight lips. He looks like he’s seeing something in Pecco that—maybe it’s the first time, maybe not, but he’s seeing it, cracking open his ribcage to stare. “So what do you think?”
It’s an easy trap, but a trap nonetheless. “I think that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Like with most things.”
“Mm.” A blink, and Pecco’s sidestepped the pitfall. “I really—I want to say thank you for the podium. I appreciate it.”
“It is not nice to hear, especially—” Pecco’s feet catch on something; the rope he’s about to hang himself with, maybe. “It was a good win. People should appreciate that.”
“I am used to it. Besides.” The word is rolled around his mouth before it’s released like a bullet. “You know why they do it.” A pause, just. “They do not like me.”
If someone found them like this—Enea, maybe, or Bez is in the next press conference—if someone would just appear and release Pecco from this death spiral he’s locked in—but that would be worse, if this was discovered. Whatever this is.
“I am me,” Marc says. “There is not a lot I can do about that.”
Fucking—Pecco doesn’t want to begin unpacking that.
“You’re not him,” Marc continues, voice soft. It’s a hammer blow. This is how he does it, how he gets back at Valentino: quietly, wide smiles, delicately uncaring words. Whispers in the ears of his disciples.
Pecco, caught in the snare, doesn’t say anything. Can’t—can’t say anything.
“But I think maybe—” and Marc looks him up and down, strips him bare, vivisects him right there in the corridor outside the press room. “You already know that, no?”
By the time Pecco has his breath back, by the time he’s gathered his insides up from their pile at his feet, Marc is gone.
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