#pecconea

When Pecco climbs into the driver’s seat, Enea looks—not more calm, exactly, but more present. He keeps his eyes down, staring at his hands in his lap. He’s not fidgeting, not moving at all.

“Should we go to the hospital?” Pecco asks, nervous. Part of it is because Enea does look a bit like he’s about to puke in the rental car, which wouldn’t be all that big of a deal but Pecco is a sympathetic puker. The other part of it is that Enea looks really, really sick.

But Enea shakes his head. He’s hunching further and further into himself, making himself smaller and smaller. 

“Can you take me to my hotel,” Enea says, voice tiny. “Please.”

Pecco starts the car. He can absolutely do that.

The drive isn’t very long but it feels it. That cherry-stink is back, gone sickly sweet and cloying, and Enea isn’t moving except to haul in breaths that sound like they really, really hurt. Pecco wants to reach across the centre console. He wants to pull Enea’s hand out of his lap and wind their fingers together, like that could offer any sort of comfort. 

What little Pecco knows about what Enea is could explain away the smell. The stillness. He knows that Enea isn’t—he’s not human, not exactly. But he’s never known Enea to be anything else. He’s never known Enea to drop off like this, sweaty and still. 

When they pull up to the hotel, Enea still hasn’t moved. He doesn’t even seem to register that they’ve stopped until Pecco says his name, and even then he just blinks. Pecco can’t be sure he’s blinked the entire ride over. 

Pecco reaches for him. Enea’s wrist is fever-hot under Pecco’s fingers, and Enea jerks, full-body, but doesn’t pull away.

“We’re here,” Pecco offers lamely. 

“Right,” Enea says to the floor. His pulse is pounding wildly against Pecco’s fingertips, offbeat, arrhythmic in a way that would probably be dangerous if he were anything else. “Okay. Thanks. Thank you.”

And he just… goes to leave. Fumbles with his seatbelt and only barely gets it undone, paws at a spot on the door like he can’t see the handle a foot away. 

“Let me walk you up,” Pecco says. “I’ll—just hold on.” 

Enea says, “But—”

Pecco climbs out of the car. The fresh air feels crazy after being packed into such a small space with that smell, going sweeter with every second, a timelapse of fruit ripening under the hot sun. He breathes deep. Clears his head enough to think for half a second about how many times he’s wanted to do this—let me walk you up, the version of himself in his head says, smiling, Enea smiling back, shy and wanting—and then cracks open Enea’s door without digging himself too deep.

“Francesco,” Enea says. “You don’t have—”

“I do,” Pecco laughs, offering up his hand, helping Enea stand on shaky legs. “You can barely walk, Enea, let me do this.”

He’s doing better than he normally would. Smoother, less awkward because he really is concerned. The most logical course of action, he knows, would be to get Enea to a clinic of some sort. Even if it’s not a specialist, surely someone would be more trained than Pecco to deal with this. But…

---

"They're changing the rules next year," Bez tells him, because for some reason Bez knows these things before Pecco does. "Every race winner will get a go, I guess."

Pecco picks at his sleeve. He has been trying very pointedly not to think about the Honeymoon clause included in a potential championship win; he's been busy trying to actually win the championship. "They didn't have it at all last year," he says. He doesn't sound or feel all that bad about it. Winning his first championship had been reward enough. Picking someone to spend a week with afterward would have been too much, he thinks. 

Bez nods sagely. Sat comfortably in third place in the championship, he doesn't have to think about these things. Pecco almost envies him.

"Weird to bring it back at all," Bez agrees. "Who're you going to pick?"

"What?"

"When you win, who are you going to choose?"

Pecco stares off over Bez's shoulder. He hates it when people say it like when instead of if. Feels like bad luck. He's not all that superstitious, but sometimes he thinks he should be. "I don't know," he says. "I haven't thought about it." It's the mostly-honest answer. Bez still snorts, shoves him with his shoulder. 

"Sure," he says. "Well, if you can't figure it out, you can always pick me. We can get drunk for a week on the beach." As if Bez wouldn't want to fuck about it.

/

“They’re calling it the Winner’s Room,” Pecco mutters, scrolling through the email. It’s a little bit horrifying, laid out like this. At least with what he has now there’s some semblance of choice; next year, the winner will be able to choose any rider they want. Next year, they’ll be penalized for saying no. 

Pecco jerks his head up. 

“Did they make you say yes?”

Enea stops messing with the TV. When he looks at Pecco he’s wide-eyed, quizzical. 

“Make me?”

“Like—was there a fine, if you said no,” Pecco asks, heart pounding. He’s working himself up. “Or—or a grid drop—” Because that’s what next year’s rules include. “Or—”

It’s legitimately shocking when Enea climbs up on the bed, directly into Pecco’s lap. He takes Pecco’s phone and tosses it aside. 

“No,” he says. “They said they would ask you to choose someone else, if I said no.”

Pecco’s head spins. Enea tilts his head; his hair is still a little damp, curling pretty over his ears. 

“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to,” he says. And it’s not soft or sentimental, nothing like that. It’s honest, the way Pecco is used to from Enea. 

Pecco reaches for him, sliding a hand into the back of his wet hair. Pulling him down to kiss him, open-mouthed, more confident and sure of himself than he’s been this whole time. Enea’s body is warm, tight all over. Pecco wants—he wants this. He wants him. 

“Your morning breath is awful,” Enea says against his lips. If this was a film or something, if Pecco was charming, if Pecco was someone like Bez, he might roll Enea into his back. He might breathe in his face to make him laugh, or something. But—Pecco isn’t really any of that. 

She tilts her head, eyes all crinkled up, lashes thick and dark. The way she looks at him—it lights something up inside, something sweet and bold. He skips over the zipper to slip his hands under the dress, wraps both hands around her waist and pulls her close to kiss the back of her neck. He doesn’t mean to get so into it. It’s just difficult, when she looks the way she does. 

“Pecco,” she says again, lips parted and soft. If he could get his hands any lower, he thinks, she’d be wet between her thighs, or getting there. He knows now what she sounds like when she likes something. 

“Sorry,” he says again, but he nuzzles in behind her ear to kiss her again before he can make himself pull back. He’s most of the way to hard in his suit pants. Goddamn it. 

“After,” Enea murmurs. It could mean anything. It could mean she’ll let him go down on her; tucked under the dress, eating her out until she’s dripping down his chin. It could mean she’ll fuck him, hike up her skirt enough to fasten the strap around her hips, bend him over the bed and pound into him until he cries. 

He likes his odds, either way. 

He doesn’t fumble when he goes for the zipper this time, tugs it up steadily until the dress closes around Enea’s lovely tight waist. The back of the dress is so low that it doesn’t cover all that much, even once it’s zipped, but he still mourns the loss of the tan skin at the lowest part of Enea’s spine. 

“There,” he says, soft, kisses her shoulder and pulls the straps into place. 

She turns, then takes a step back. She’s grinning at him, lips dark and perfectly painted. 

“How do I look?” she asks. She—she does a little twirl for him, swishing out the skirt of the dress, the hard line of her tattooed thigh popping out of the slit for a second.