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When every muscle burns and the road threatens to go on forever, there are two ways to suffer. One: You can let yourself feel. You can tell yourself that it a necessary thing in order to achieve greatness. Sometimes, through this, you can get to a place on the other side of pain where a mix of adrenaline and endorphins kicks in and it feels like you can go on forever. Two: You can ignore the pain. Make yourself believe that you are not your body. Be floating, in the slipstream, in the rhythm of the pedals until something calls you back.
It's part of the game to hide the pain - or fake it, at the right moments. Tadej doesn't need to look at Jonas' face to know how he is doing anymore. They know each other's form so well that the shadow on the asphalt is enough. Tadej's learned to recognize how its shape and movements change with Jonas' exhaustion.
Some days it feels as if Jonas is Tadej's shadow, always behind him.
It's almost comical how Jonas looks over his shoulder, confused as Tadej fails to keep up. Almost. Tadej has been behind Jonas for as long as possible, but however much he wants, he's stuck in a body showing its limits. He wants Jonas to be his shadow again today, but he's heavy, tired and through.
Afraid to lean on his injured wrist, he slows down. It's the dangerous kind of pain that pulls him into himself, reminds him that he is just meat at the end of the day, with bones that can break and exhaustion too profound to recover from. There's no other side to reach, only a relentless mountain going on forever. He tells his team he's dead, but he sure doesn't feel like an incorporeal ghost when his muscles burn like this.
Meanwhile, Jonas is flying.
At nine in the evening, Jonas goes on Danish TV where the journalists for some reason ask if he's eaten dinner yet. Or maybe it makes sense, given how he looks. Tadej thinks about that in the quiet hours when he should be processing everything that just happened. Of course they both have to treat their bodies like they treat their bikes, fussing over grams of weight. Sleep and food is a matter of maintenance. But there ought to be room for more than that, Tadej thinks. Jonas' gaunt appearance makes one think of an ascetic, able to deny his body's demands.
When Tadej has not gotten the chance to attack during the stage, he finds it natural that the impulse comes later. It's hard to catch Jonas out when everything is so tightly regimented, but shadows slip wherever they want. An unused hallway, a hotel parking lot, in-between places like that. A breath of fresh air. That's how they meet.
Jonas somehow knows that he can approach Tadej - shape and movements, Tadej supposes. He must have his tells, though he doesn't know them himself. Jonas must also know, then, what Tadej is about to do - a move before any words can be exchanged, any mention of the race. Jonas allows it to happen. Tadej pulls him in close, takes hold of Jonas' jaw and reminds him that he's bones and meat at the end of the day. The kiss makes it impossible to deny. There's a dangerous ache at the edge of Tadej's mind, the melancholy feeling that he shouldn't want this but will chase it anyway. Then Jonas leans into him and he knows he's won.
Go on, feel it.
And there it is, that place on the other side of pain, the endorphins in his body and the feeling that this could go on forever. Jonas is there, too. Their shadows melt together on the asphalt.