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After much stress (and tap dancing) I'm back in business! Happy (belated) Birthday Munnin! This one's dedicated to you! I would have posted earlier but my internet decided to hate me...
Title: The Unmasked Truth
Summary: Pops had always been able to see right through Rex, even when no one else could.
Characters/pairings: Pops, Rex/Speed, X/Speed
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst (I have a limited field)
A/N: Beta'd by the ever suffering Alichay! And dedicate to Munnin for being fabulous!
I’d known my son was trouble since he was five years old, but only truly realized the extent when he was seven. Now believe me when I say that that is not the kind of knowledge you want to have about your child.
My wife - bless her - remained oblivious, passing it off as childish escapades and natural boundary testing (boundary testing? The boy didn’t even realize they existed!) but I knew better. So it was with some trepidation that I approached the idea of a second child.
Speed, it turned out, was everything his brother wasn’t; he was naturally sweet, docile and naïve, the complete opposite of his cunning older brother. I was glad at first, I certainly didn’t need another Rex and I thought their conflicting personalities would keep them apart. How wrong was I?
What I hadn’t realized was that Rex didn’t want another Rex. He was delighted with Speed and the way he would trail after him with big, wondrous eyes. It was slightly scary actually, like all the love and affection he should have given his friends and family but didn’t (he was good at pretending, but I could see through it) was stored up and showered wholly on little Speed.
To begin with I thought it could be good, teach my older boy how to love. Took me a while to realize that it wasn’t so much a strong bond as obsession. But by that point it was too late and trying to break them apart would have been futile - Speed adored his doting older brother and God alone knows what Rex would have done - so I tried another method.
Next I tried to win Speed’s love for myself, selfish maybe, but necessary. That had worked to some extent, but he still loved Rex more. The problem was that Rex was always one step ahead, hell he even started teaching the kid to drive when he was four just to make sure he got there first! Built him this dinky little car and everything!
Then he goes and fakes his own death. Sure, I pretend I’m convinced but I knew my son better than that and it would take more than a crash I couldn’t even see to convince me the sneaky bastard was dead.
So then I have to start thinking what his next move would be - he may have shrugged off his family but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he’d let Speed go - I assumed he thought his old ties with Speed would hold until he could return, so I tried to get rid of them.
I stopped going to the track, closed up the shop, got rid of anything to do with racing (it wasn’t until years later I would find out Speed had saved Rex’s old stuff from my great purge) I thought it was worth it to save my (in my mind Rex had just given up his claim) little Speed. Anything to save that innocent child, whose worst crime was to be a bit of a dreamer, from the corruption of Rex.
It wasn’t until Speed started going berserk at the old race footage that I realised my mistake. Racing was in his blood now and there wasn’t a darn thing I could do about it. But Rex had already known that.
Years passed and I gave Speed another sibling, but their bond was never even a fraction of his with Rex. Speed became a racer (like Rex knew he would) and met the mysterious Racer X.
Racer X indeed, he wasn’t even trying to properly hide his identity! But Speed, bless him, was never the brightest button on the jacket. I knew though, and he knew I knew. But there was nothing I could do; to call him out would be to give him his claim to Speed back (he never wanted the rest of us).
So I watched him grow a new relationship with Speed, based on the subconscious attraction to his elder brother he didn’t even recognise. And I saw Rex’s corrupting influence in the growing heated looks and lingering glances. And I couldn’t do anything.
But you know what takes the cake? The fact that he could predict my every move and counter accordingly without me even knowing. He had it all figured out long before it was set in motion. And in the end he won; Speed was his in every way.