Chapter Text
(Jonas)
The water scalded his skin in exactly the right way - just shy of burning, hot enough to remind him he was alive. Jonas stood motionless under the stream, forehead pressed to the cool tile, arms braced on either side of his head.
His muscles screamed. He let them.
Every inch of his body felt like it had been spun in a washing machine, then run over by a team car. He couldn’t remember which town they were in - maybe somewhere near Nîmes? Avignon? It didn’t matter. The stages were starting to blend together in his mind, one endless blur of heat, climbs, and press conferences that made him want to set microphones on fire.
And now - this.
“I’m good, yeah I’m feelin’ alright- baby I’ma have the best freakin’ night of my liiiife…”
Jonas opened his eyes, very slowly, and stared down at the water swirling around the drain.
It was back.
That song.
It had started the night before last. Out of nowhere. A single line - loud, obnoxious, so sugary it gave him a mental toothache. Some aggressively upbeat club track that sounded like something you’d hear blasting from a teenager’s phone speaker on a Ryanair flight.
He didn’t even listen to this kind of music. His playlists were mostly instrumental - quiet things, background noise for stretching, something to drown out the stress of being a national hope and a Tour de France winner. He didn’t do party music. He didn’t do feelin’ alright.
Jonas exhaled through his nose. The song looped.
“As long as I’m with you, I’m gonna be all riiiiight-”
It felt…wrong. Not just because it was annoying (though it was), not just because the lyrics were offensively optimistic for a man whose legs had been cramping since the neutral zone - but because it didn’t feel like his thought. It wasn’t like a normal song stuck in his head, something he’d half-heard and forgot. There was no traceable origin. No memory. Just - suddenly - this overproduced, club-trash chorus lodged in his brain like shrapnel.
He slammed a palm against the shower wall.
“Get out of my head.”
No luck.
“Feelin’ alriiiight-”
“Shut up.”
He nearly slipped.
He swore, loudly, as the rest of his body tried to follow but got wedged in place by sheer stubbornness.
Fantastic. He was going to die in a team hotel bathroom, naked and humming David fucking Guetta.
Back in the room, Jonas dried off in silence. Victor was already asleep - flat on his back, mouth open, blanket pulled halfway off. One sock on. One off. It was like sharing a room with a corpse and a toddler simultaneously.
Jonas pulled on a hoodie and sat at the little plastic desk by the window, dripping water onto the carpet.
He opened his team-issue notebook - meant for route notes, elevation profiles, equipment feedback - and flipped to the back. Blank pages.
He hesitated for a second. Then, in neat handwriting:
6th July – Stage 5
Unfamiliar song. David Guetta? Horrible. Didn’t choose it. Didn't hear it anywhere that I can remember. It started two days ago. Keeps repeating. Not like a normal song stuck in my head. Feels like it’s not… mine.
He underlined not mine four times.
Then he sat back in the chair and stared at the page for a long time, listening to the silence in his skull. The silence that felt like it was waiting.
— · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · — · · — · —
Jonas slumped into his usual seat near the front of the bus and closed his eyes. His legs ached in the way they always did now - constantly. As if his muscles were quietly begging for a mercy he had no intention of giving them.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Wout said, sliding into the seat opposite with the energy of someone who'd been awake for hours and resented it deeply.
Jonas didn’t open his eyes. “Don’t.”
“I mean it. You look like a crypt keeper who skipped skincare.”
“I said don’t.”
Wout unwrapped a protein bar with surgical precision. “Did you sleep? Or did you just stare into the abyss again until it started to hum?”
Jonas opened one eye, slow and with great effort. “I slept.”
Wout took a bite. “Define ‘slept.’”
Jonas sighed. “My eyes were closed.”
“For how long?”
Jonas considered. “Unclear.”
Wout made a sound like a disappointed father. “So, no.”
Silence. The bus hummed around them. Outside the window, fans had already started to gather - flags, cowbells, signs with slogans they’d been shouting for years. Jonas pressed his forehead to the glass for a moment, then sat back, arms crossed.
“I keep getting this song stuck in my head,” he muttered.
Wout chewed, unimpressed. “Wow. So rare. Almost unheard of in the human experience.”
“No,” Jonas said, sharper. “Like - one I don’t know. I’ve never heard it before. It just... showed up.”
Wout gave him a long, unreadable look. “Right. So the Guetta Ghost strikes again.”
Jonas blinked. “What?”
“Nothing,” Wout said, with a completely straight face. “Continue telling me how your mysterious invisible pop DJ is haunting you.”
Jonas exhaled, annoyed. “It’s been looping for two days. It’s not mine. I didn’t hear it anywhere. It just keeps coming back.”
“Do you want me to write to ASO and report a supernatural interference in your Tour de France performance?”
“I’m serious.”
“That’s what makes this so good.”
Jonas glared at him. “It’s like - it doesn’t feel like it’s from me. I didn’t put it there. It’s just… there.”
Wout nodded solemnly. “Right. That tracks. Because if I were a sentient disco chorus, I too would choose your brain to inhabit. Warm, welcoming, famously fun place.”
Jonas stared.
“Maybe it’s a cosmic sign,” Wout added. “From the universe. Telling you to lighten up before your entire personality calcifies.”
Jonas slumped lower in his seat.
Wout took another bite and said, completely deadpan, “Tell your imaginary friend I said hi. And if they start playing ABBA, I’m calling the priest.”