Chapter Text
And it’s over. Too soon, and yet Jonas was wishing for it to stop from kilometer 50. The pain had been almost unbearable, his legs and lungs burning in the heat, the dust, the altitude. It had been chaos, dangerously hectic. Fans spilling onto the road, screaming, waving, holding signs and banners that kept catching the corner of his eye and spooking him. The peloton had been volatile, aggressive, and the breakaway had gone early. He had gone with it, gone with Pogacar. His only option. All he saw, really. When things became blurry and thin around the edges, Pogacar’s wheel was the crystal clear focal point of his race. His life, really. He had killed himself to follow the Slovenian up this godawful Col, who made it look so easy. He made everything look so easy. The press, the fans, the other riders - he breezed through it all, Jonas trailing stiffly behind. And Pogacar had won.
Jonas hated himself for the desire to vomit that had grown up through his throat. He pushed it down, along with everything else. He wanted to lie, very still in a cold, dark room somewhere. Alone. He wanted to be anywhere but this oppressive crush of bodies surrounding him and his bike. He is crumpled over it, eyes half closed in exhaustion, but partly in overwhelm. Already people are pressing water bottles into his hands, cameras flashing in his face, Journalists yelling questions in twelve languages he doesn’t speak. His team already descending, spilling out of the branded car, yelling. He turns his face away from it all, glad for the sunglasses covering the wetness in his eyes. A shaky breath out, in. Out, in. Like he had been told by Wout so many times, just breathe. Just breathe. He closes his eyes behind his glasses, suddenly impervious to the world. He wants to stay like this forever, closed off and impenetrable - and then, a touch. Gentle. He freezes without opening his eyes. He knows who it is. Jonas hates that the only person whose gentle brush of knuckles against his arm he would recognise is Pogacar’s. Tadej fucking Pogacar’s.
‘Good race, man’ He half-yells, above the chaos surrounding them. ‘See you later’. And Jonas says nothing. Because he never says anything. Maybe the media sees him as rude, standoffish, a bad sport. But Pogacar’s easy confidence makes Jonas feel so disjointed that he actually doesn’t think he could string a sentence together in his messy English to Pogacar that wouldn't agonise him for months afterward. He wishes, swallowing the thought that this is not the first time this has occurred to him, that Pogacar spoke Danish. Although, noting the fact that Pogcar's meaningless ‘see you later’ made him happier than anything else had that day, he thought perhaps he wouldn't be able to articulate anything to him in his mother tongue.
But Pogacar never seemed to mind. Jonas liked to think that this patience was reserved only for him. Everyone in the peloton seemed casual friends with him. But Jonas was someone he hadn’t managed to crack yet. A challenge, on and off the bike. Oh, who is he kidding? Pogacar doesn't care. He shouldn’t. There is nothing to care for. He probably doesn't notice how Jonas’ shoulders relax just a little when he is stood next to him on the podium, how when he spins on the cooldown trainer next to him, Jonas can’t help but breathe easier. It’s so stupid. It’s awful. Jonas hates himself, deplores himself, finds himself so utterly disgusting when he thinks about how much he would like to allow himself to talk to him.
A bustle of interviews in which he embarrasses himself with his weak grip of the English language, a talk from his team about the four second he’s lost on Pogacar, seconds he knows he can make up, he knows what he did wrong, he doesn't need to be told, he just needs to get on the cooldown trainer. He needs Pogacar to turn up beside him, as he always does, as inexplicable and consistent as his results. Nobody questions the fact that his rival comes and spins beside him, more often than not with a packet of obnoxiously sour French gas station sweets he tries to share. Jonas always refuses. Pogacar always rambles about nonsense, bikes, riders, Slovenia, food he’s going to eat, terrible, terrible jokes. Sometimes he gets out his phone and shows Jonas crappy Tiktoks, sometimes cycling related, sometimes the heady kind of ridiculous that is Pogacar's speciality. Jonas doesn’t quite know what he did to deserve this ritual. So much of him, so unfiltered and unabashedly himself, even when Jonas’s teammates are also cooling down and the press is never too far away to hear a bad joke and make it a headline.
It just happens. It's natural. Sort of.
So when he slips onto the bike next to him he feels the air become a little lighter, himself become a little freer than he has all day. But when Pogacar opens his mouth, instead of the soothing stream of consciousness that has become Jonas’ warm down routine over so many races, nothing. This worries Jonas more than he would care to admit, but he doesn't know what to do about the ragged breathing and closed eyes of the man next to him without making a fool of himself. The first thing he says to Pogacar is not going to be ‘Hey, man, you look like you might die at any moment and I don’t want that on my conscience and all these cameras’. But for once he does something without thinking it through for days beforehand, without calculating the repercussions of it, acting on impulse for the first time all season. Reaching behind him he grabs a water bottle and, wordlessly, except with a smile he doesn’t know how to get rid of, offers it to Pogacar. He waves it away, looking up at Jonas with eyes tainted with more panic than Jonas expected, and mumbles, ‘I think I'm going to be sick’. Immediately, Jonas is swinging his burning legs off the bike and onto the ground, and taking Pogacar by the shoulders with more confidence than he’s ever had before. ‘Come with me’ He swallows, trembling, unsteady, but does, leaning into Jonas enough to make him slightly dizzy with panic. He half drags him round the back of the team bus in front of which the cool down bikes sat, to the strangely silent scrubby grass of the layby. Pogacar groans, releasing himself from Jonas’ grip that he wasn’t even aware he was holding and stumbles forward, vomiting violently onto the arid French grass. Jonas turns away, knowing that this was private, he shouldn’t be here, not with anyone, but especially not with his main enemy in the Tour. His team would go crazy. His team would - but his spiral is brought to a halt by the sound of barely covered sobs in front of him.
Jonas closes his eyes, counts to five in his head, tries to steady the panic that’s been burning in his throat since before the stage even started and opens them to see Pogacar on his knees, shaking like a child and muttering in Slovenian between choking on sobs he’s trying very hard not to let escape. Jonas wonders if he's forgotten he's standing there, behind him. He thinks, suddenly, perhaps he should go and get someone. But who? Anyone from his team and Jonas would never live it down, but the UAE team bus was miles away across the sprawling event village, covered in dust and colour and fans and Jonas just couldn't. He couldn't leave him here. Then, Pogacar turns around and his eyes widen when he realises Jonas is still standing there, probably staring like a complete idiot, witness to this moment of utter vulnerability. His eyes harden a little, daring him to laugh or insult him whist he’s on his knees. But Jonas does neither, just bites his lip a little and says, in a pained voice ‘do you want me to, er, go?’
Pogacar flops back onto the dusty grass, chest rising and falling more gently now and mumbles, so quietly Jonas could have missed it if the only thing he was aware of in the whole world wasn't pogacar, ‘I didn't think you’d stay’. Jonas doesn't know what to say to that without giving it all away, without saying that of course he stayed, he’d stay forever if Pogacar would only let him. So he doesn’t speak, which surely by now Pogacar is used to, and instead moves, very gingerly, and lies down beside him, carefully leaving enough space to keep whatever wall Jonas had built around himself standing. He stares straight ahead at the sky, not allowing himself to look at the surely surprised face of Pogacar next to him. The sky is creamy blue, clouds drifting half-heartedly over this godforsaken nowhere town in the South of France. Jonas didn't even know where they were, it occurred to him. Seasons of racing across Europe distilled places just to memories of the road, the petrol stations, the dusty streets filled with people screaming, Pogacar’s wheel. Pogacar probably had the entire wikipedia page of the town memorised, ready to spill useless facts at anyone who would listen. He felt, without removing his eyes from a cloud shaped a little like a chicken, the eyes of his rival considered him, lying stiffly on the ground, breathing probably a little too hard to be normal, the sweat from the stage cooling on his jersey and making him shiver a little.
‘Vingegaard.’ There, his name, spoken so gently in that effortless accent of Pogacar’s. He waited for what was going to come next. He knew he’d crossed a line he wan’t truly aware had been drawn between them when he didn’t leave him here. He braced himself to be sworn at, called things he didn’t want to think about, or simply told to ‘fuck off’. The silence hung heavy as Jonas’ eyes stared at the washed out, muted blue above him, beating down heat though it was surely past 6 in the evening now.
‘You lie like you are a robot in a coffin, Vingegaard’ He states simply, poking him in the ribs too softly to be painful. Even in this bizarre situation, for Pogacar it was just another joke, easy banter, meaningless. He says nothing, lips pursed. Another poke, harder this time, his confidence growing. He can feel Pogacar’s playful grin without looking. He doesn’t need this, it's too much just lying here with him, let alone talking. ‘Relax, Vingegaard.’ His name again, on Pogacar’s smiling lips. ‘I’m not going to fuck you’.
The words reach Jonas in a daze, already scrambling to his feet, cringing. How could he have been so stupid, to lie next to Pogacar and let himself believe he was not like the rest of the peloton. He had let himself fantasize, just for a moment and look where that’s got him, literally running away, groaning with stupidity. ‘Hey! Vingegaard’ Pogacar calls after him. Was it just his imagination or did Pogacar say his name too often? He cant’ think like this, pressing a hand to his face and running it down forcefully, still half running, cursing himself - and stumbles right into Wout Van Aert. He feels the Belgian’s steady hands take his forearms and hold him at arms length, surveying the trembly, sweating, still in race kit Jonas in front of him. ‘Jonas? I’ve been looking for you, somebody said Pogacar -’ Jonas cuts him off, wriggling out of his grip. ‘It’s fine, Wout, I just had to take care of something - ‘
‘Someone’ The Belgian mutters, shaking his head, a half smile on his lips.
‘Wout, you don’t understand, It's nothing. ‘ Jonas’ voice is hasher than he intends it to be, and he feels the hot, inexplicable anger boil inside him as he pushes past his friend, walking purposefully towards the team bus. Wout trails, half jogging towards him, catching his wrist and pulling him back. ‘It’s okay Jonas, you can spill the juicy details later’ His head cocked to one side, trying to joke through it. ‘Go get changed, the podium’s in twenty minutes.’
Jonas freezes, he’d forgotten, somehow, that he would need to stand to the left of Pogacar in front of a heaving, screaming crowd. He groans.
It’s too much and too little. Here, in the neutral room, it’s quiet, heavily so, the roar and clamour of the crowd just metres away twisting through the hastily put up walls plastered in sponsor stickers. Pogacar leans casually against a makeshift table, talking to the rider in third. Jonas stands like an idiot in the doorway, staring at Pogacar like he’s trying to tell him he hates him with just a look. His eyes snap up, and it satisfies Jonas to see just a hint of panic in his eyes when he sees him. He excuses himself from his conversation and wanders over to him, still so easy, so casual. Jonas sees a hesitancy in his steps though, a crack in the veneer of effortlessness that he holds onto to anchor himself whilst the room seems to be spinning. ‘Vingegaard’. He doesn’t let himself turn away, stares straight, unblinking into Pogacar’s wide brown eyes, daring him, challenging him. His fists ball at his sides.
‘I, just, er - fuck’ he’s never seen Pogacar lost for words before, and it burns. ‘I’m just’ He exhales slowly ‘I’m sorry if I -’
‘It’s fine. Forget it’ He says coldly, turning away to nothing in particular, shutting himself off. He senses Pogacar sigh, pause, and turn on his heel back to a normal conversation. He hears laughter and knows that it’s about him, his awkwardness, and feels the heat rise up his neck. He wants to die.