Nothing Changes

by LeahIsNotReal

Summary:

From then on, I knew that nothing changes. That all things remain as before. The spinning wheel turns round and round in a circle. One fate tied to the next. A thread, red like blood, that cleaves together all our deeds. One cannot unravel the knots.

OR

Mathieu is pulled towards Wout like a magnet, and Wout had only ever found understanding on Mathieu.

Notes:

In honor of the Dauphiné starting tomorrow, I've finally talked myself into posting this story.
It's been in my head for a long time, but as a long time lurker and first time poster, I thought it would never see the light of day.
It's a multi chapter fic. Don't go out there looking for incredible accuracy, it's fanfic. Don't sue me, please.
I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: You’ll Always Come Back to Me | Mathieu

Bieles, Luxembourg. January 2017.

 

He does not remember the first time he met Wout van Aert.

One day he was not there, and then the next he was. Now life, cycling, is unfathomable without him there. They have been doing this for a long time, Mathieu knows. Children when they started, the thrill of racing and winning had pulled Mathieu to Wout like a magnet, as if he was a lost boat at sea and Wout was the sole beacon on a lonely island, calling him home.

The child-like wonder of finding someone like him had morphed into something else as he grew. As they both grew. They had never been friends, too competitive, too selfish, too talented, to be able to coexist. But one day, while basking in the glory of their teenage days, when they both knew it was a matter of time before a big team called them up for a professional career, Mathieu had glanced at Wout, and he had seen it. He recognized it well enough, because he had seen it in the mirror, when his own reflection stared back at him.

The chase. The thrill. The understanding. The knowledge that, no matter what, he had found someone like him.

Mathieu met his equal that day.

Naturally, he had to beat him. No, not beat him. He had to crush him; he had to destroy him. There is only one step at the top of the podium, and it had to be Mathieu’s. Balance and life depend on it.

That’s the way that he was brought up. His father, a fierce competitor who took losing as failure. His brother, who had fallen short of those expectations more times than Mathieu cared to admit. He had seen it; he had held him as he broke apart. And as David stifled ugly sobs between muffled breaths in the back seat of the car while they drove home, his parents in the front seat. Corinne shooting concerned looks through the mirror, and Adri, with a set jaw, eyes furious, refusing to acknowledge the failure, the stain on the family name. Mathieu had known.

He was not cut from the same cloth as his brother. Mathieu was faster, more strategic, even though they both could have been made in a cycling genetics lab, he was better.

It twisted in him. Coiled deep. So merged with who Mathieu is as a person, that he does not know who he is without it. Without winning, without cycling, without the smug satisfaction that he is on the top of the podium, glancing down at them all, like a king to his subjects. Feeling at home, because that’s where he belongs. It’s his birthright, his sole purpose, what he had been born for and raised for and trained for.

He wins a lot, and the thrill that comes with being one step above Wout. Wout who is older, even if it is only months. The thrill is something else entirely.

It makes him hard, most of the time. Pressing uncomfortably against his bibs. He has left more podium ceremonies than he can count flustered, quickly rushing to the nearest bathroom to manage his business. And more times than not, the only way relief finds him, is when he shuts his eyes, and lets his mind drift off to Wout.

Mathieu doesn’t understand when he loses.

The whirlwind on his mind, going a million miles per hour. Replaying the entire race in his head, how he had taken the corners, where he had botched the acceleration at the exit. Where he had gotten off the bike when he could have pushed, when he pushed when he could have gotten off the bike. The mud, covering his entire body, taking two or sometimes three showers to completely wash off his body.

It is even more confusing when it is Wout he loses to.

Confusion overwhelms him, frustration as well. A deep rage at having been bested, and a terrible fear of being ordinary, of being like the rest. Of Wout looking at him and Mathieu not recognizing the look in his eyes, because they are not equal. Eyes that say, you need to train harder, if you want to beat me. You have to be a lot better than that.

He leaves those podiums half hard too. But those times, when his hand wanders to his shorts, to his terribly tight shorts, he shuts his eyes close, and big brown eyes appear before him, a single blond strand falling over them. The eyes are cold, and mean and smug. Cruel. And he comes with a gasp, a high pitch sound that struggles to come out of his throat. It burns him, and he feels whole.

He has danced on this line for years now, it suffocates him.

The only time Mathieu can come up for air is on the track, when they are racing against each other. They settle into each other, with a burning fire, a flame so bright that everyone else disappears, and then it’s just them. A true dance now, since before Mathieu was dancing alone, and now Wout joins him on the center stage, swaying together in a beautiful motion. Each move is calculated, each move is analyzed; for every lunge Wout does, Mathieu responds with his own attack. And when Mathieu leads, he feels the presence of the other man behind him. Scalding. It burns through him until there is no more Mathieu left. He is not even human; he is something else. Elevated.

Wout rises with him. He always will.

He often wonders what it must look like, from the outside. If the people who line up the track know, if they can see it. They are witnessing greatness. At times Mathieu thinks he must look insane, and he would let that feeling run him to the ground, he would let the weird glances from people get to him, shatter the armor and make him question the very foundations of who he is. But he looks at Wout and he knows.

They are madmen together. Bound forever to each other, by an invisible string, coated in steel. It pulls and pulls them, bringing them together over and over again. Written in the stars, Mathieu thinks, that’s why we were always meant to clash.

Mathieu and Wout are clashing again. On a cold, bright January day. Only this time, Mathieu loses.

Wout crosses the finish line, well ahead.

Mathieu feels the cold air, biting at his skin, burning his eyes. The sun beats down on his body, a feeling he is very familiar with. A cheer goes through the crowd, they bang their hands against the barricades in support, but to Mathieu they sound like gunshots, every single one a bullet, coming for him, waiting. To knock him off the bike, to make him lose, to take from him his birthright. He can’t let that happen, he won’t let that happen.

He pushes through, his legs burning and aching, yelling at him to stop the abuse. His back bent in an uncomfortable position, his neck in pain from the single task of having to hold his own head up. And his eyes. God, his eyes. It burns, with or without the glasses, the sun reflecting on the mud, blinding him. The hot sweat rolling off his head, through his hair, through his helmet. His hands cramped, from holding onto the handlebars for an hour. He brings it home. He comes in second.

First loser, Mathieu thinks, as the organizers usher him to the back. I am not the world champion, he thinks bitterly, and turns to see the man who is.

He glows; that’s the worst part.

Wout is ahead, surrounded by his coaches and his family. Through the chaos and aftermath of finishing a race, Mathieu sees Ivonne press a big, sloppy kiss to his cheek, while Henk tugs him into his chest, talking into Wout’s black curls of hair. He tries to picture Adri and Corinne doing that with him.

He can’t.

Mathieu moves through the motions, letting himself be guided through the protocols, and the interviews, and the podium. Even as he thinks of it, many years later, he can’t say what he was asked, or what he responded. Only when he is sitting alone on the team bus does he feel it. His face is wet, his shirt and shorts, and his eyes sting and oh shit I’m crying.

He doesn’t even know why.

But it pours out of him, ugly, broken sobs and high-pitched whimpers and a part of him worries that he had cried on camera, but the other part of him does not care. He blows his nose, forcing himself to stare ahead at the black fabric of the seats. Don’t cry, don’t cry, you don’t cry so stop crying.

There is no strength left in him to fight it, the more Mathieu thinks about it, the stronger the urge to curl up into a ball and hide from the world gets. He wants to crawl into his bed, pull the covers over his head and just stay there. Not even sleep, not even resting, just hiding.

Hours pass, or maybe minutes, perhaps seconds pass.

“Mathieu?” David’s voice breaks him from the numb, catatonic state that losing has sent him into. “How long have you been here?”

He laughs a humorless laugh. “Since I left the podium.”

Hey, he should be proud of himself, at the very least. There was no shameful orgasm today, for which he will scold and hate himself and then release all his embarrassment on Wout on some other race.

“Do you think he’s better than me?”

David sighs. “So that’s where you went.” He sits down next to Mathieu, placing a reassuring hand on his thigh. The touch makes Mathieu flinch, and he vaguely wonders if his shorts are still wet from where he had wiped his tears in anger. “You just had a bad day, boefje, the world is not ending and Wout van Aert is not better than you.”

He knows, deep down he knows. Mathieu can almost hear it, you are being dramatic, tomorrow you’ll just train harder. For some reason the voice sounds a lot like Adri. And he also does not want to train tomorrow, thank you very much. Mathieu came in second, he thinks that that warrants at least a day where he can wallow in self-pity and be dramatic.

His tears have dried on his face, and Mathieu is sure they have made an ugly trail down his face where they washed away the dirt and the mud. And now that he thinks about it, his bibs have dried uncomfortably on his body, sweaty Lycra clinging to him, and he has passed to that point where the sweat makes him cold and-

“I need to shower,” Mathieu says, standing up as finally the world comes back. He can already feel the little mocking voice at the back of his head coming back. Lecturing him for crying over such a little, silly thing. Stupid Mathieu, always crying.

David looks like he has something on his mind. He has that wide-eyed expression on him that Mathieu often sees but almost always ignores, because his brother might not be better than him on a bike around a track, but he is better at everything else. A knock on the door saves him from the deep conversation they would’ve surely had.

They can have that later, when Mathieu is not tired, and strong and can fight back. Right now, he would probably only end up admitting to things he’ll regret later.

Mathieu points at the door. “Can you get that, I can’t go around walking like this,” he walks down the hall to the bathroom, promptly locking the door.

The water feels cold against his face. To Mathieu’s disgrace, he has a face that reddens quickly, and he must’ve cried a lot because his nose is still red. He kind of gives up trying to get rid of the color. His blue eyes are also red and bloodshot, and they will probably hurt him later, judging by the puffiness around them already.

Another thing to add to the long list that will hurt his body tomorrow.

He rips the dirty Lycra off his body, longing for the shower he’ll have later when he stumbles into his hotel room, and changes into comfortable grey sweatpants and a sweatshirt. For the sake of feeling cleaner, he brushes his teeth as well.

He takes quite a while on the bathroom, and any hopes that whoever knocked on the door is gone are dashed when he closes the tap and hears whispers. Shit. At least he knows it’s not Adrie or Corinne, he would’ve been dragged out of the bathroom already. But still, he’s not in the mood to be scolded right now.

Bracing himself with a deep breath, he unlocks the door and steps out, steeling himself for battle.

“I don’t really want to hear it, I’m already having a bad day and am in a poor mood, you can scold at me tomorrow if you want, but I should let you know that tomorrow I plan on- “he gasps, and he hates himself the moment the noise leaves his mouth. “Oh.”

“Hi.”

Wout van Aert stands in front of him, by the seat that Mathieu had been occupying, almost as if he knew. David is nowhere to be found, and Mathieu wants to curse his older brother for leaving him alone with Wout. Wout who won and is standing there with unreadable brown eyes. He’s not wearing his cycling kit anymore, having changed into his normal clothes, jeans and a puffy jacket, no doubt he was already leaving, but he decided to make one final stop.

One final stop at Mathieu’s bus.

He has seen him so many times, he could probably draw him in his sleep. The curve of his throat, the defined line of his jaw, the pretty bow of his lips. And his eyes, God his eyes. They fix on Mathieu and draw him in, locked inside and trapped away. Mathieu can never look away. He hates it. He hates his unruly hair and that stupid blond streak at the front of his head that is not natural, no matter how much Wout claims it is.

He hates him.

Mathieu cocks his head to the side. “Gloating isn’t really your style, Wout. What are you doing here?” his voice sounds rude and snappy, and exactly the way Mathieu intended. His common sense seems to go out the window when the other man is around, and he really can’t have that now.

Not when he was weak and probably cried on television. Make him leave, a voice that doesn’t sound like him whispers, and you’ll be in control again.

“You’re right, gloating is more your style,” Wout’s voice is deep, a dark look settles in his eyes. “And yet I’m here anyway and all you want to do is fight.”

I don’t want to fight, the logical part of him says. Mathieu shushes that part.

“Do we ever do anything other than fight?”

Wout’s eyes narrow. We fuck, they scream at him. But then he sighs, dropping down to Mathieu’s seat, as if he had come in second instead. “You cried, you don’t really do that, Mathieu.”

The bus is suddenly way too small, and it suffocates him. And is it just him, or is the ceiling of the bus getting closer and the floor is rising and-

“I don’t know what came over me,” he admits, walking down the length of the hall. “But I think you should leave.”

He is now standing in front of Wout, who is seated. It does not help that his face is directly to his crotch.

Wout tsks. “Already ordering me away and we haven’t even done anything,” his hands wrap around Mathieu’s hips, strong and firm, and pull him in. He turns his head to the side and hums into his stomach.

They must make quite the picture, he thinks. They probably even look like a couple. But there’s no love there, Mathieu knows, not anymore. They could never work because they are both awful, hateful men when it comes to each other. He never loved Wout more than he did when the other man was one step below him on the podium.

“You know me, I like to plan ahead.”

Mathieu’s fingers tangle themselves on Wout’s hair, and it is so soft and silky, Mathieu hates it. He feels the corners of Wout’s mouth tug into a smile against his stomach, and he nearly shudders at the touch.

“You are probably right,” and he is pushing him away and every part of Mathieu wants to protest, but he doesn’t. He already lost once today, he will not lose again. “I do have a championship to celebrate.”

Wout stands, and in his eyes is something mean and deep that Mathieu knows so well. He feels the anger from the other man and lets it fuel him, hell, maybe he will train tomorrow. It elevates him, swirls around the bus and presses into Mathieu with such intensity. It’s a thrill to be hated by Wout. The horny part of Mathieu whispers that maybe the sex will be worth it to make him stay.

Mathieu steps back, tilting his head to the door, not missing the way Wout follows his every move. His eyes settle on Mathieu’s throat and something funny flashes in them. Mathieu ignores it.

“They must be missing you already,” he says sweetly and knowingly. See? I know you are only trying to hurt me. But I have teeth too. “You are being a bad host, making everyone wait for you like that.”

Making them wait because of me.

Wout is already opening the door. “Ah, always so proud,” he turns, flashing him a wicked grin that scrunches his features and wrinkles his eyes. He looks pretty like that, not like the cut-throat creature that Mathieu knows so well. “I’ll talk to you later, Matje.”

Mathieu hates that the nickname goes straight to his cock. He opens his mouth to speak, because he’ll be damned if he lets Wout van Aert have the final word, but the man is already gone, the air has returned to the room and the bus no longer feels like it is trapping him in.

David is back, talking about getting up early tomorrow and traveling back and resuming training. Mathieu barely hears it, because he hates it. He hates Wout. Mathieu made him leave, when he had very clearly walked into his bus with one purpose in mind.

He had felt powerful as he had done it, in control and in charge. But Matje. It is still so early in the day, and he already knows that he has lost twice today.

The drive to the hotel passes him by, exhaustion takes over his body, and even though the drive is short, by the time they arrive Mathieu is closer to drifting to sleep than he is to being wide awake.

They have dinner that day, the team and the families. Corinne gives him a hug, whispers that he did a good job and that she is proud. Mathieu lets her smell flood his senses, loses himself in her arms. Adri has a tight-lipped smile, and a pat on the back. He shrugs in a way that says “ehh, we win some, we lose some”, but his eyes blaze through Mathieu, making him feel like a kid that wants to hide away behind his mother.

Maybe he doesn’t want to train tomorrow, after all.

In the privacy of his hotel room, which thankfully he doesn’t have to share with David, he calls Wout, getting a sense of control back when he realizes the other man had answered on the first ring. Still, Mathieu feels the shame wash over him again as his hands travel further and further down, slipping into his underwear.

They do this dance often, the tug and pull. Magnets, stuck in their loop, orbiting around each other. They reach their release together, and Mathieu knows, with a certainty that had never been there before, you’ll always come back to me.

It almost feels like winning.

Chapter 2: A Battlefield That Has Been Going on for Years | Wout

Notes:

Wout POV this time.
Also, while I did my stalking, I just don't have the energy to stalk all of their friends, so I just made their names up, lol.
Thank God it's a fic, amirite?
Hope you enjoy!

2017

 

 

The year seems to go on forever.

Once the cyclocross season concludes over the winter, Wout’s focus goes into bettering his skills on the road. It’s not as hard as you would think, but by no means is it easy. Days upon days of his life gone as he perfects the adjustments to correct the years-long habits that racing in mud has left behind.

He races very little on the road, at least not as much as he would like to, but enough to get accustomed to the traveling circus – as his parents call it – that is the peloton of cycling. Wout is nowhere near a good shape for monuments, or, God forbid, grand tours. But he can feel it building, knows that with perseverance he’ll get there. Maybe a year or two.

It’s a bright, cool morning in late September, and Wout finds himself riding in the local mud track. He has raced in a lot of places, travelling through most of Europe, but the tracks at Herentals have his heart and his love. They are where he first fell in love with cycling, where he took his first falls, and where he learned to push to the limit, fearless and free.

Wout had agreed to ride with some of his friends – his non-cycling friends, thank you very much – in the afternoon. It was his rest day, after all. But he had woken up as the first rays of sun streamed through his window, and really, he had nothing else to do. He had cleaned his house, having decided he needed the independence of not living with his parents anymore (ignoring the fact that his parents lived 5 minutes away, and Wout spent a great amount of his time there), had gone through his pending emails (they piled up after hectic weeks of racing), and had thoroughly checked his social media.

Besides, a few years ago his friends had banned him from racing against them in a competitive manner. More like they would attempt to race each other and Wout would hang back, laughing at the careless way they rode, and jealous that they didn’t feel a burning need to be the best at everything.

He thinks it’s hard to understand, imagining the confused faces that had met him when he attempted to explain how cycling at a professional level worked. Even his parents, bless them, could not wrap their heads around the desperate way he needed to push through the pain and keep pedaling.

Wout had only ever found understanding on Mathieu Van der Poel’s blue eyes.

Looking back on it, he never stood a chance against him, not really. They had been racing with each other since they were like 8 years old, and Wout remembers every single one. Around the teenage years, when he was 12, he saw understanding flashing on Mathieu’s eyes and clung on to that like he was drowning, as if he was lost and Mathieu had found him, taken his hand and led him back home.

When he was 14, he realized that this isn’t really normal, and I’ll probably never be normal about him. But in his defense, he accepted it fairly quickly and just kept pedaling. It’s something his coaches love about Wout, he just shrugs and goes on, he rolls with the punches. Does it, more often than not, explode in a massive blowout of anger and panic and fear? Sure, but that happens after the races, and as long as he brings in the results, they don’t care how Wout does it.

But when he was 16 it crashed down on him, and he horrifyingly thought, for the very first time but not for the last, oh my God, I have a crush on Mathieu Van der Poel. It had left him distracted and flustered, blushing every time Mathieu so much as glanced at him, feeling a red flush travelling through his body and settling on his cheeks. Never was he as grateful for the cold, Belgian weather as he was during those days.

Naturally, being a hormonal, horny teenager, Mathieu soon became the main protagonist of any fantasies. He woke up hard, went to sleep hard, and only found release picturing blue eyes staring up at him, or staring down, or scrunching shut, lost in pleasure and-

Wout’s mind had always worked like that.

Finding out Mathieu had liked him had been a wonderful revelation, and Wout took whatever the dutchman offered. Even though Mathieu probably saw it as physical relief, and that he had never thought about Mathieu that way. That’s just the way Wout is, he gives, and he gives, and he gives until there is none of him left. His coaches don’t like that very much.

And this thing with Mathieu, it’s the furthest thing from smart that Wout could’ve ever done. Because Mathieu takes and he takes, and he takes, and nothing is ever enough for him.

Wout is not stupid, he has seen the expression on Mathieu’s face as Wout begs for release. In control, and powerful, and that’s all that will ever be between them. And when that expression builds too much, Wout sees it twist into disdain and disappointment, and it is wrong, wrong, wrong.

That’s usually when the dam breaks.

Wout snaps back, he bares Mathieu’s neck and sinks his teeth in, slashing and scratching to draw blood, and smirking when he tastes metal. When he pictures it, Mathieu is always a devil, a demonic figure with contorted human features, the beast comes out, and Wout sticks his own claws in until he tears him apart.

So yeah, they’ll probably never work.

But God, the sex is great.

The distant sound of laughter snaps him from his thoughts. At the entrance of the track, Wout can spot the mop of blonde hair of Niels and Dylan, friends he had met when he had attempted to have a life outside of cycling. Computer science, of all things. Boring as hell, but Wout enjoyed it, and he had gotten really good friends out of it, even if he will never tell them out loud.

Nerd, a snickering voice in his head whispers. It sounds terribly like Mathieu.

He shushes it.

“I thought we were racing in the afternoon,” he says, voice tilting at the end.

Niels shrugs. “We knew you would be here since like, the crack of dawn.”

“Besides, we can’t let you have all the track to yourself, you need competition if you want to stay sharp,” Dylan’s hand reaches out and pinches his cheek.

Wout swats him away. “Oh, you invited more people over, then?”

“Ha-ha. Asshole.”

“You love me.”

“Only because you are teaching me how to ride in the mud,” Dylan sniffles. “You are a terrible teacher, by the way.”

“You are a terrible student.”

“Okay, knock it off, you can go on for days like that and it’s very annoying,” with that, Niels clicks his pedals in and is off.

Wout and Dylan stare at each other, before bursting into laughter. Then they are off as well, chasing each other with yells and laughs, and the boyish easiness of friendship that Wout always finds with them.

It makes his heart swell.

***

By late afternoon, they are dirty and sweaty, sitting on the outside tables of a local café after the owner of the shop had scowled at them for dirtying up her local. Wout can’t blame her really, often having to throw his bibs away after he rides in cross. It’s not worth putting his washer through the effort of attempting to clean that up.

They do these catching up sessions whenever Wout has time, and a part of him feels bad, feeling like he seems like a big shot, hot stuff that doesn’t even have time for his friends. But the other part of him remembers the bone-deep exhaustion that washes over him after each race, and he can’t find it in himself to feel guilty.

“And now she has left me on read,” Dylan concludes sadly, mouth pouting like a child. “It’s like, at least say it to my face you want nothing to do with me anymore, you know?”

Wout sips his coffee. “Dyl, you started dating another girl before breaking things off with her.”

“Fair enough.”

Niels snickers, taking a bite from the chocolate pastry he had ordered. That is perhaps the biggest downside to cycling. Wout loves food, but unfortunately cycling does not. He is on a strict diet year-round, and only in small windows of time when he’s not closely monitored can he sneak around and eat whatever he wants. His personal record is two glorious weeks. He had gained like 3 kilos.

“Enough of your tragic love life,” he chews. “It’s time for Wout to talk about his.”

“My love life is even more pathetic than his,” Dylan gasps, offended. “Besides, you haven’t said anything about yours.”

“Mine is the same,” Niels shrugs. “Sarah and I will celebrate this year our 8^th anniversary, we have talked about getting married but we both feel like we are too young, it’ll probably happen after we are 25, though.”

A pang goes through Wout’s chest. His friends’ lives are easy, although Dylan’s is a bit disturbing, but there’s no burning fire to their relationships, no biting and snarking and drawing blood, seeing who will flinch first and lose the battle. That’s the thing, he assumes, their relationships are not a battlefield that has been going on for years.

Wout doesn’t know if he envies it or not.

Sure, he would love the simplicity of it all. Not being in a burning house, but instead out on a tranquil sea that just carries you through life. But the deep, dark part of him knows that the sea will never satisfy him. He wants to be burned, to be tugged and pulled and bruised. He loves the thrill of it, and imagining Mathieu ever subdued to him is wrong and fills him with anger.

“You are thinking about him, aren’t you?” Niels asks, not unkindly. Wout pulls a face. “You always get this expression when you think about him, half angry and half turned on. It’s very disturbing.”

Many years ago, Wout had made the – drunkenly – mistake of admitting his weird, psychosexual relationship with Mathieu to them. To say they were perturbed would be an understatement, it always came out like this, the worry spilling out of their words whenever the topic gets discussed. Wout thinks it must be hard, to know better than your adrenaline-junkie friend who refuses to listen to good advice and keeps fucking a guy so confusing that it ruins Wout’s entire conviction.

“I envy the simplicity with which you speak, truly I do,” he finally says, when the silence that settled over them begins to choke him. “But I don’t think that would ever be satisfying, not for me and certainly not for him.”

Dylan sighs. “Then maybe that isn’t where you are meant to be, liefste,” he puts a hand on Wout’s arm, patting him twice. “Sure, my girls ignore my messages, but have you ever felt that you can even talk to him?”

And Wout doesn’t like where this conversation has turned.

It feels too real, too fast, too soon. He feels close to doing something stupid, like fighting with his friends to defend Mathieu, of all people. It’ll probably be worth it, if he tells Mathieu, who’ll get a thrill at Wout fighting those closest to him in his honor, and then they’ll resort to sex. Or Mathieu will find a humiliating way to make him cum. It’s happened before, and Wout really wishes he hated it.

“No, I don’t talk to him because that’s not the nature of our relationship,” he argues, struggling to keep his voice calm. “You two talk about Mathieu as if he is the devil, but trust me, I get some licks in too. I’m not his victim in this situation.”

Niels and Dylan glance at each other. Wout can almost recognize the desperation in their eyes, but it makes him confused. It’s not like they’ve had this conversation a million times or something, and sure, Wout can be stubborn, but they are acting as if he is stupid.

“I’ll only say this, before we drop the topic,” Niels, says, holding out a hand after the first sentence when Wout rolls his eyes, annoyed. “The simplicity you envy will never come without talking, properly, to him.”

This time, Wout stands up and promptly throws his trash away.

***

At late afternoon, Wout heads back home, feeling annoyed but also pensive. He was supposed to have dinner with his parents, but after a whole day of taking an emotional toll on him, he doesn’t think he could bear it. He’s always been spoiled; his parents would see right through him and then he’ll probably end up confessing every embarrassing detail of his private life.

His parents most definitely don’t need to know any of that.

He has dinner at his own house, instead. Ordering take-out and stuffing himself full of food. Whatever, he’s been good the entire week, he deserves a little slip. He goes on social media again, and the moment he opens his feed he regrets it, because nothing good ever comes out of him and Mathieu.

The first picture he sees was published a couple of hours ago, in it, Mathieu smiles widely at the camera, bike between his legs, arm thrown carelessly around David, who is rolling his eyes and shoving his brother away. The caption reads racing back at home, and Wout feels his heart skip a beat.

Because oh. Mathieu is home.

Mathieu is less than an hour away.

He must have a rest week as well. And Wout really wishes he didn’t feel a thrill down his body at the thought, but then his fingers are itching, like a drug addict, and he swears he is cold sweating just at the thought of the proximity between them. The rational part of his brain tries to reel in the twitches he makes towards his phone, warning him that not only is this a bad idea, but it’s also probably a terrible one.

But the other part of him wants nothing more than to be intoxicated by Mathieu’s presence. His heroin. And wow he can’t believe he just compared Mathieu to heroin, but that’s what the blonde man feels like, most of the time. The highest of highs that Wout can’t get enough of.

It’s why he grips the blonde’s hips so tightly that they bruise, it’s why he plows into him again and again and again, until he doesn’t know where Wout ends and Mathieu begins. It’s why he has a folder full of Mathieu-related information in his head, tucked away for whenever it’s convenient. One time, a painful, deep cut sliced through Mathieu’s thigh, and Wout had gotten hard just by thinking of digging his fingers in, pulling apart the skin and seeing the muscle underneath.

Maybe then he could understand Mathieu.

“Fuck it,” he says, and then his fingers are typing away on the keyboard.

Matjeeee, they write. Come play.

Wout doesn’t even have to wait longer than a beat.

Mathieu is typing back.

 

Notes:

I just want to say I was inspired by today's stage, Mathieu did so well!
Also, if you had told me Mathieu and JONAS were going to wear the same jersey, the last one I would've guessed is the green one, what even is this.
Let me know what you think, see you next time!

Chapter 3: You Don’t Exist Without Me | Mathieu

Notes:

Hello, I'm back with a new chapter let's gooo!
What did you think of the Dauphiné? I was really hoping Mathieu could keep the green jersey but it was not meant to be.
Hope you enjoy!

Valkenburg, Netherlands. February, 2018.

 

A year later it happens again.

This time his meltdown on the podium and the interviews would’ve been justified, but Mathieu feels oddly at peace with the result. The competitive fire still burns in him, of course, a part of him feels like that will burn for as long as he lives, but there is no rage, no crazy strings of thoughts that drive him insane.

And he had come in third of all places. Wout was two steps above him on the podium.

But Mathieu cannot find it in himself to care.

He had dominated the entire cyclo-cross season. Riding through the field, pulling away, winning with ridiculous margins. Mathieu had seen it, in the eyes of his opponents, reconciled with the fact that as long as Mathieu raced, they were all fighting for second place.

By all accounts, Wout didn’t have the most impressive season, racing very little, having focused more intently on perfecting his skills on the road. Which is… a thing that Mathieu wants to worry about later, because right now he wants to enjoy that Wout won, and he doesn’t feel the steaming resentment and jealousy at the fact.

Wout is once more the world champion. He had beaten Mathieu by like 2 minutes. A personal record.

Mathieu feels the cameras trained on him as he goes to be interviewed. He knows they are waiting for the emotional outburst to film him. Last year still haunts him, he had lost control and been emotional, too emotional, and too honest as well. If Mathieu had learned anything from cycling is that you can never be too honest.

Today the public will not get the satisfaction.

He sits on the chair and the round of questions begin. Mathieu, are you disappointed? Were you on the limit? How do you feel about losing the championship one more year? But you dominated the season, how does it feel to lose the one important race?

He replays the videos in his hotel room, and wow someone should really get him an award because, not to be cocky, but he handled the entire situation really well. The Mathieu on his phone smiles, blue eyes glistening, slightly out of breath from the massive effort he had put in for an entire hour.

“I didn’t make many mistakes,” he says, eyebrows shooting upwards. “Wout was far above the others today.”

The public loves it, because of course they do. How they love a good loser.

Mathieu lounges on the bed in sweatpants, wrapped in warm blankets as he scrolls through his phone. He yawns, stretching his hands above his head and relishing in the pull of his sore muscles, the action causes him to move his position, and a pain shoots from his hips.

Cycling sort of comes with the pain. You cannot be a cyclist if you fear the pain, if you cannot push through it and keep going, because if you don’t keep going, you’ll never win. Cycling, in so many ways, instead of being a physical game, is a mental one. Survival of the strongest. Your body will crack before your mind does, but you can keep going. But once your mind cracks, you are gone, never the same as before.

But the pain in his hips is different.

It’s a pain he enjoys, a pain he has felt many times before, and one that he will feel many times in the future. Mathieu does not have to strip in front of the mirror to see the hand-shaped bruises on his hips. A striking contrast, the ugly purple blotch against his tanned skin.

Without having to measure the bruise, he also knows Wout’s hands will fit in them perfectly.

Perhaps that’s why he had been okay with losing. It was hard to be angry about losing when the winner had pressed him so intently onto the mattress the night before. When he could still feel Wout inside of him. Wout still smelled of him, and when they had parted in the morning, Mathieu had pulled him close and kissed him, and he swore he could still taste himself on the other man’s mouth.

That way, it was almost like they had won together.

A knock on the door pulls him from the thought.

Mathieu stands, stretching his arms above his head, and takes his sweet time opening the door. Mathieu could take ten minutes to open the door; his guest is not leaving.

Wout stands on the other side of the door, dressed in simple clothes, a lazy smile thrown on his face. He grins at Mathieu, but as his eyes settle on him, Mathieu shivers. Wout looks like he wants to eat him.

The stupid blonde streak falls over his forehead. Mathieu wants to rip it off the other man’s scalp.

“Are you gonna leave me standing outside all night or?” Wout teases, lip tugging into a self-satisfied smirk.

Mathieu wants to hit him.

Instead, he reaches out a hand, grasping Wout’s shirt between his fingers, and pulls him inside the room, promptly shutting the door closed.

*****

Mathieu has not spoken for about an hour.

Not anything coherent, at least. Just a string of pathetic whimpers and pleas and moans and orders. It’s not his fault really, Wout is just that amazing at giving head. If anything, he blames 17-year-old Mathieu, who was the first to drag the other man to his bedroom, dropped to his knees, and began this never-ending story.

After that, Wout had returned the favor, he was never one to back away from a challenge, after all. It did not take that long for two horny, hormonal teenage boys to up the antics and escalate the relationship.

He doesn’t know if this is how normal rivals behave, he’s always been too embarrassed to ask David, or really anyone else, for that matter. They didn’t need to imagine Mathieu lost in throes of pleasure (especially David), and the thought of anyone imagining Wout in that situation – let alone seeing him – made Mathieu burn with this inexplicable rage and something else, a feeling that he can’t quite place so he decides to ignore.

Tonight, he’s been close to coming two times, but each time Wout had stopped his ministrations. First it had been his mouth, then his fingers. Each time Mathieu had been close to hitting him, but they had done this enough time for him to know what it was about. Wout had beaten him for two minutes, this was his reward.

“Fuck, Woutje,” he gasps, eyes flying shut to stop tears from falling. His hands grip the bedsheets, and his body twitches in ways he can’t really control. “You have to stop or I’ll- fuck, I’ll come.”

Wout buries his face further into his ass and hums. The vibrations make Mathieu slam his head against the pillow. One of Wout’s hands grips his thigh, thrown over his shoulder, pushing his legs open, the other is wrapped around Mathieu’s cock, preventing him from coming.

He’s lapping at his hole, he licks around the muscle, pushes his tongue in, then stops. Then the process repeats all over again. It’s driving Mathieu insane, and if he doesn’t come soon, he might actually start crying.

The pleasure builds in Mathieu, making his toes curl, and he is sure he is crushing Wout’s head between his thighs, but if the other man minds, he doesn’t show it. His hand flies out to grip Wout’s dark, silky hair, and he tugs, harshly.

Wout comes up, laying over his body, and the contact sends tingles down his spine. Wout is shirtless, but still very dressed below the waist. His erection presses against Mathieu’s stomach and suddenly he can’t take it anymore.

Mathieu whines. “You are wearing too many clothes,” he says, gripping the back of Wout’s neck and kissing him. It’s dirty and harsh, and Wout’s teeth knock against his painfully but if he doesn’t kiss Wout right now he might die so who cares.

His cock is trapped between their bodies, and the friction is pushing him closer and closer to the edge. But he can’t come now, he has other plans for the evening.

Wout pulls his bottom lip with his teeth. “Yeah?” he asks, voice deep. “What are you gonna do about it?”

And well, as established before, Mathieu is not one to back away from a challenge.

He pushes Wout off, so that he’s standing at the edge of the bed, Mathieu leaning on his forearms. He bats his eyes, staring up at the brunette through his eyelashes, in the way he knows Wout likes, and takes his time to admire him.

The amber glow of the room contrasts against Wout’s pale skin, it almost makes him shine with golden light. It settles on the lines of his upper body, defined muscles after years of training at the highest possible level. His mane of dark, unruly curls sticks out in a million different directions, Mathieu longs to bury his hands in them again and tug and pull and never let go.

There is a very interesting bulge protruding from Wout’s pants.

Mathieu scoots on the bed, sitting at the edge and wrapping his arms around Wout’s waist. He lets his hands roam freely, pressing his palm against Wout’s abdomen, relishing in the shaky breath the other man lets out. He presses his mouth to Wout’s happy trail, leaving open mouthed kisses, tongue lapping softly.

A hand settles on his hair, not tugging, just there. A moan gets punched out of Wout’s throat.

“I won today, Matje.”

“I know, I was there,” Mathieu responds, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

“I won today.”

Mathieu tsks. “Yes, you did, and you want your reward, no?” he settles his chin on the brim of Wout’s pants, staring up at the other man. Wout nods frantically. “You have to be good then, Woutje.”

He stands then, encouraged by the lustful look that settles on Wout’s brown eyes. They are big, and round, and dark. Mathieu often feels like he drowns on them, but he loves them and hates them in equal measures.

“Can you be good for me?”

The desperate way Wout says yes would be pathetic if Mathieu wasn’t so turned on. But God, he is so close to the edge already, it takes an insane amount of will power to keep going. But he knows the reward will be worth it.

It always is.

He kisses Wout, shoving his tongue down the other man’s throat in a euphoric way, memorizing how he tastes, how he immediately responds, how hands fly out to his hips, pressing on the bruises just right, making him gasp. Mathieu’s hands travel to Wout’s pants, teasing and playful, until Wout lets out a whine.

“Please, please, I’ll be good, just- please.”

Mathieu can be cruel, but he is not evil.

“Ahh, Wout, when you beg so sweetly, how can I not?”

In one flail swoop, he tugs Wout’s pants and underwear, and now they are both naked, standing in front of each other. Pre come has gather on the tip of Wout’s cock, Mathieu’s mouth waters at the sight.

He connects their mouths again, hissing at the friction when their crotches rub against one another. He usually hates that Wout is taller than him, but right now he is thankful for it, because if Mathieu had felt Wout’s length press against him, he would’ve probably come without making Wout suffer a little.

He wraps his hands around Wout’s waist, letting them drop lower and lower, until they grip his ass. Firm and round and perfect. He decides to keep his hands there. In a fluid motion, Mathieu flips them over, sending Wout tumbling into the bed with Mathieu on top of him.

“Go up, against the headboard,” he orders.

Wout obeys.

His eyes trained on Mathieu the entire time. Locked. Trapped. Like Mathieu will disappear if Wout is not watching him. It makes Mathieu fill with arousal, pride, and giddiness, and possessiveness. God, his orgasm will be so worth it.

“You can’t cum until I do,” he says, climbing over Wout’s lap, settling his legs on either side. Wout’s thighs are monstrous, Mathieu wants to bite them. He has done it before.

Wout whines. “But I woooon today.”

His tantrum is too delicious.

“And I came in third, you owe me that,” Mathieu counters. “At least here, you need to let me come first.”

They do this battle often, Wout complaining about Mathieu ordering him around, like every command that comes out of the blonde doesn’t go straight to his cock. Mathieu thinks that’s what it must look like, when they race against each other.

A thrill runs through his body.

He sees the moment Wout loses the battle. At times he fights him, knowing they both get off from the power loss, and the power gain. It just makes it all the better.

Mathieu grips Wout’s cock, tugging in the ways only he knows how. Years and years of knowing Wout’s body like his own. The pace, the pressure, the flicking his wrist and running his finger over Wout’s tip every other stroke. The noise Wout lets out is so loud, Mathieu is sure the neighbors heard it, throwing his head back as he does it.

The motion exposes his throat, like prey. Mathieu fixes on the movement of his Adam’s apple. On the line of sweat that runs to his collarbones, the muscles flexing and letting out sounds. He wants to lick it, he wants to taste him, he wants to bite him.

So, he does.

He surges forward, mouth latching to Wout’s throat, leaving love bites and bruises as Wout falls apart beneath him. It’s perfect, Mathieu thinks, not for the first time. It’s perfect, and right and exactly how things are meant to be.

Wout, in his bed. Naked and expecting. Wout, open and how nobody else gets to see him, just Mathieu, always Mathieu. Wout and Mathieu, Mathieu and Wout. Woutje and Matje. His, his, his.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” Wout pants, breathless. “God Matje, please.”

“Please what?”

There’s spit running down from Wout’s mouth, and Mathieu’s hands are so wet with pre come, he doesn’t even know if it is his or Wout’s, but he knows he enjoys the thought when he realizes it’s both.

Wout bites his earlobe. “Please make me cum.”

Mathieu stops, devilish smile on his face when Wout pulls back, brows furrowed, eyes confused. He drops down lazily on Wout’s thighs. God, they are perfect, almost like pillows.

“I’m tired, Woutje,” he says. “Can you finish me off?”

He does.

Wout lunges forward, and thank heavens his hands are so big, because he wraps Mathieu’s cock, pressing it against his, and begins to jerk them off together. Mathieu is not going to last much longer, having been pushed to the edge twice already tonight. Sure, they go multiple times in one night sometimes but today they are both tired. Wout probably came in here today looking for a tight ass after destroying his competition and Mathieu is making him work for it.

It's only right, Mathieu thinks. He got nuked today on the track, and this, the winner, falling apart because of him. The winner, waiting for Mathieu’s permission to come himself. It’s right and in control, and everything Mathieu ever wants.

It’s the thought of it that does him in. His orgasm shuddering through him in high pitched whimpers, it rocks through his body, toes curling and eyes shutting so hard he sees stars. His hearing muffles, and the only thing he can do to ground himself is lean down, settle into Wout’s neck, and bite.

Come spurts from his cock, coating their abdomens and Wout’s cock. The brunette’s hand is unforgiving; he keeps going at a delicious pace that convinces Mathieu he’ll come dry. He feels Wout’s free hand pinching at the skin of his hips, his mouth pressing wet kisses to Mathieu’s broad shoulders.

“Mathieu, Mathieu, Matje,” Wout chants, voice even deeper, and hoarse and desperate.

The overstimulation on his cock is starting to get to Mathieu.

“You can come, Woutje,” he allows. “You were so good, always so good. So good for me, aren’t you? Come on champ, go get it.”

Wout comes, long and drawn out. His head slams painfully against the headboard, his hand tugging brokenly, tears falling from his eyes. When Wout comes, his mouth forms a wonderful ‘o’ shape, his pretty, pink lips pull open, and his usually raspy voice comes out in high pitched moans.

Mathieu pulls his hand away when the overstimulation gets too much. His head collapses on Wout’s chest, who is panting and regaining his breath. Wout’s hands fly to his waist, wrapping strongly, and God Mathieu could stay there forever.

He glances down at Wout’s belly, coated with cum. His cum, he thinks possessively, his cum mixing with Wout’s.

Without thinking, he runs his fingers through it, lifting his head, pressing a kiss to the corner of Wout’s mouth, before offering him his fingers.

“Taste.”

***

He is half asleep on Wout’s chest when a phone begins to buzz.

After their endeavors, they had cleaned themselves in the shower, where they proceeded to have sex again, and then they had cleaned themselves from the shower. Sure, the bed was still dirty, but that’s the hotel’s problem.

Sleepy and tired, Wout stayed. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. Mathieu was a heavy sleeper, and the other man usually slipped out before the sun was even out. It thrilled Mathieu a bit, making him feel like a secret, locked away and kept in the shadows.

Wout had laid back on the pillows, because he insisted that a million pillows were required for ‘proper back alignment’ in your sleep, and Mathieu had shrugged and decided to use Wout as a pillow. It was wide, soft and warm, and Mathieu could lay down and feel the drum of Wout’s heart in his ear.

He cannot be blamed if it lulled him to sleep.

The phone rings again, persistent and stubborn, and he hears Wout let out an annoyed huff. His arms wrap more tightly around Mathieu, flushing their bodies together. Mathieu’s leg, hooked around Wout’s hips, tightens.

“Oh, for God’s sake answer that phone,” Mathieu exclaims when the phone rings once more, lifting his head from Wout’s chest and putting his most annoyed look on his face.

Wout reaches out a hand to the bedside table, takes the phone, and begins tapping away. Mathieu settles on his chest once more. Hmm, soft pillow. The soft noises of Wout’s fingers on the screen, the heat his body is radiation, and the warmth of the entire thing begin to drift him back to sleep.

His peace is interrupted by the sound of a video, an interview, cutting through the silence of the hotel room, and Mathieu is about to hit Wout’s stomach with his fist when the voices in the video make him freeze.

“What are your thoughts on a, shall we say, disappointing race?” an interviewer asks, Mathieu could probably place him, if he had half a mind to do it.

There is a long silence from whomever he is interviewing, before they take a deep breath. ““If the difference is two minutes, that is not normal,” and if that voice is not enough to snap Mathieu from his sleep, he doesn’t know what is.

Because the video Wout is playing, for some reason, is an interview of Mathieu’s father, Adrie.

“He rides around, but he does not breathe,” he goes on, and Mathieu can almost picture him. Voice indifferent, expression impatient, but eyes blazing with anger and disappointment, all directed at Mathieu.

Mathieu slowly lifts his head from Wout’s chest, who had taken in a sharp breath. Mathieu cannot turn to look at him.

But Adrie is unforgiving, and unfortunately, he goes on.

“With all due respect, Wout does not stand in the shadow of Mathieu in terms of victories this season.”

The video cuts off after that, but the damage has been done. It settles over the hotel room in waves. There is no more warmth radiating from Wout, his touch feels cold and distant. Empty. And Mathieu hasn’t even seen him.

He shuts his eyes, cursing his dad and his big mouth that can’t hold any comment in, and takes a deep breath. He steels himself, because neither him nor Wout will come out unscathed from the battle that is about to take place.

The room is silent.

Too silent for Mathieu’s liking. He feels winded all of a sudden, suffocated. He never really could stand the silence, it reminded him too much of Adrie (damn him, again), and his disappointed looks every time Mathieu failed to measure up to the impossible standard that had been set on him. Of the uncomfortable look on David’s eyes, when he would slip into Mathieu’s room in the dead of night and try to comfort him. Of the sadness on Corinne’s face as she held him in her arms, and he broke apart.

He hates it.

“I didn’t ask him to say all that,” he defends, when the silence becomes too much.

Mathieu focuses on the boring wallpaper of the hotel room, on the modern, lifeless furniture. He crosses his arms on his lap, spots an unhealed scab on his forearm and tears at it nervously, an old habit he can never kick. I never could see a wound without pressing my fingers over it.

Wout places his phone on the bedside table. “But you knew about it, no?”

And that- that’s unfair, really.

Mathieu turns, meeting Wout’s eyes. They are big, round and brown. But the look that settles over them is familiar. A blaze, a fire so familiar that Mathieu can’t do anything but embrace it, because it is Wout. It is so him, in fact, that the familiarity of it all comes from the number of times Mathieu has seen that look reflected back in the mirror, as they sharpen his own blue eyes and burn everything in his path.

Rage.

“I can’t control what my father says, Wout,” Mathieu allows. It must’ve been the wrong thing to say, because the other man blinks, taken aback.

He probably thought that Mathieu would try to lie his way out of it, but he has done that before. It gets him absolutely nothing, sure the sex when they make up is worth it, but Wout can be incredibly cruel. He had once gone 2 months without touching Mathieu.

“You just tell him what to say,” he accuses, sitting up and resting against the headboard. The sheets fall around his lap, and Mathieu catches a glimpse of Wout’s soft cock. “The press will love you, for being a graceful loser, and they will hate Adrie, for being a bad one. But in the end is all you.”

Wout laughs, a piercing, sarcastic sound that cuts right through Mathieu.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Van der Poels.”

He claps, running his hands through his dark hair and tugging painfully at the strands. He looks maniac, agitated and breathing heavily. So far removed from the Wout that presses Mathieu onto the mattress. Hell, so different from the Wout that was begging Mathieu for release not even two hours ago. Mathieu surges forward, attempting to lay a hand on Wout’s calf, but the way the brunette flinches away makes him stop.

Mathieu thinks back to Adrie’s words, and while he does not condone them, and he truly had not known what his father would say, he can’t say he is exactly surprised. When they had met on the team bus, after the podium, Adrie had been cold. He clapped Mathieu on the back and pressed his hand painfully into his shoulder.

“What happened today?” he asked. “You weren’t yourself.”

Mathieu knew what that meant, the implication of it. He had dominated the entire cyclo-cross season, why couldn’t he dominate the one race that mattered. The race that would give him the rainbow jersey and name him the world champion. Perhaps it was because he had been tired after an hour of hard racing, coming off an entire winter of pushing himself to the limit every other day, between races and training. Maybe it was because even though it had been almost a day, he could still feel Wout inside whenever he sat down.

But he had been honest.

“I was myself today,” he corrected. “There was just someone out there who was better.”

It happens to Mathieu often, realizing he has said the wrong thing as soon as he hears them echoing back to him. But it is already too late, the words have been whispered, they have been listened to. They just haven’t been heard.

That happens often too.

He points an angry finger at Wout. “Do not compare me to my father.”

A mistake, his voice cracks at the last word even though he had put his entire anger behind it. He blinks away the tears building in his eyes because he won’t cry right now. A flash of recognition passes on Wout’s expression, and in the amber glow of the hotel room it curls over his face and contorts it. He doesn’t look human anymore.

The shadows that fall over his face sharpen his cheekbones. They frame his forehead and amplify the line of his defined jaw. Wout’s eyes are no longer brown, but black. Empty pits of nothingness. A blonde streak of hair crowns his head. A king scolds a disgraced knight, banishing him forever.

“He must be proud, Mathieu,” Wout snarls, “carelessly living through his more successful son because he couldn’t hack it. How it must hurt then, that even you can be beaten.”

“But I wasn’t beaten. Look at the stats, Wout, I cleaned the floor with everyone this year, win after win after win. You took your consolation prize, but I have everything else.”

“You lost, asshole.”

Wout stands, angrily grabbing his clothes from where they were scattered across the hotel room.

“You couldn’t win the one race that mattered. All your race wins, all the cleaning you did with everyone else, and yet all people will remember is who was the world champion that year.”

He marches angrily towards Mathieu until he is standing in front of him. Mathieu has to tilt his head up to meet his eyes. It makes him feel cold all over, the demon that stares back at him. Wout’s hand clutches Mathieu painfully by the face, fingers clasping on his cheeks, pulling him close, so close that they are almost kissing.

Mathieu feels a little insane.

His heart hammers against his chest, and Wout must hear it. He can see how easily he has flustered Mathieu. He feels a blush traveling through him, and Mathieu is suddenly very much aware of his own nakedness.

“And that, liefje, is me.”

He shoves Mathieu back on the bed, and he holds himself on his forearms to not fall pathetically. Mathieu feels Wout’s breath on his face as he spits his poison, ugly and mean and familiar. Without thinking, Mathieu grips Wout’s arm, using all his strength to pull him around, startling the Belgian.

“And yet my father has marred your win,” Mathieu’s fingers are digging painfully into the skin of Wout’s arm. “When they mention you, liefje, they will always mention me. You don’t exist without me.”

Wout’s face twists. Brows furrow, the pretty bow of his lip curls into an angry, maniac expression. It makes Mathieu’s cock perk a little with interest, but he shoves that aside, he can’t get hard now, not right now. Not when he is so close to winning.

“I hate you.”

It hits Mathieu like a crash. He can almost picture it, the chaotic, frenetic feeling of the peloton, riders in front of him, next to him and behind him. It’s like drowning, getting swallowed by an unforgiving force that just keeps on moving, not caring if it runs you over. He sees it, Wout running him over, smiling as he does, relishing on Mathieu’s pained screams as he lays on the floor, broken and torn. Wout running away from him, leaving him behind, a world where they are no longer equal.

That’s the exact moment that his heart breaks.

“Then leave.”

Wout is out the door before Mathieu can let out his breath. The slam of the door echoes around the hotel room, and a chill settles around Mathieu. He grabs a pillow, buries his face into it and screams, he screams for so long that his throat burns and feels scratchy.

He doesn’t fall asleep that night.

Notes:

The girls are fightinggggg (I made them fight).
Let me know what you think!
See you in the next update.

Chapter 4: Something Will Always Be Missing | Wout

Notes:

Hello all! Back with another update.
I miss my guys cycling, but at least there's the Tour de Suisse.
Who are you guys rooting for?

2018

 

 

The rest of 2018 is weird.

By the time the road season rounds to an end, Wout feels old. He is, by no means, old, he isn’t even cycling old, but the distress of performing at a high level has been taking a toll on him, not to mention the sleepless nights of insomnia where he is troubled by his team, his future, betrayals and heartbreaks and cold, blue eyes glaring at him.

So yeah, 2018 is weird.

It started out really good, which makes the twist even more souring. Cyclo-cross world champion, a highlight of his career, but then the fight which had marred all memories from that day. Then he had done excellent at Strade, for a moment there he almost thought he could win it, it had given Wout motivation and confidence on the road that he hoped would only grow.

Then there was the whole Verandas-Crelan situation.

Wout likes to think of himself as a fairly loyal guy. He certainly feels that way towards his cycling teams. The team had taken a chance on him, and it is up to Wout to live up to that expectation every single time he competes. To make them proud and put their name on the map.

But the merger.

Well, Wout does not agree with it. It doesn’t sit right with him, and the heated arguments he’s had on the team bus with Nick Nuyens, the team manager, have only made things worse.

But still, Wout is a loyal guy.

It’s why he feels so guilty to be sitting in a fancy restaurant in France with Richard Plugge and Merijn Zeeman, and some other of the Jumbo guys. Wout’s manager, Jef, is also there.

Strictly speaking, there has been no betrayal still. Wout had been making waves since his performances this year got better, and many team principals had reached out, or had spoken to him in races. Is this perhaps crossing the line a little? No, because he still hasn’t done anything. He’s just getting a free dinner out of the whole situation.

Did Jef have to talk him down from wearing a hat to be as incognito as possible? Absolutely.

The restaurant is nice. Wout feels as if he’s on a date and they are trying to impress him. So far it has worked, we got a good meal and an expensive wine – his coach said it was ok – and he seems to click with them.

He sits back and observes, mostly. He and Jef had discussed the terms beforehand. But Jef had presented a difficult question, to which, hours later, Wout still had no answer. What do you want, Wout? As if that was easy to know.

“So, you would have no problem with cyclo-cross?” Jef is asking.

Merjin shrugs. “We would obviously need to shorten the calendar, we are a bigger team after all,” he says. “But any cyclo-cross victory adds to our stats.”

Any cyclo-cross victory? Wout thinks. I’m a three-time world champion, for crying out loud. Those championships didn’t win themselves.

A look must flash in his eyes, because Merjin tsks.

“Jumbo is, after all, a road cycling team. That will always be out focus.”

Wout knows what that means. A road cycling team will only want one thing. The Tour. A road cycling team that’s investing as much as Jumbo is, will only want one thing. A GC win. The last one, Wout can never give them.

“If you want me to suffer my way through the French mountains, you need to do a lot better than that,” Wout says plainly, taking a sip of his wine and setting the glass down on the table.

It sends out a ding.

For the first time at dinner, Richard Plugge laughs, eyes twinkling with amusement. Wout feels like he has lost a battle somehow, with his outburst. Jef softly elbows him on the side.

“Everyone on this table knows you have potential,” Merjin starts, “but what you don’t have is a strong team. You have been loyal to them, all cyclists are like that, many of the guys on the team are your friends, and if you could, you would retire with them and retire as a happy man.”

“But if you do that, there’ll be no palmares, no long list on wins. A “b” team can only get you so far. You’ll get swallowed up by the peloton, by statistics, by history.”

The offer is tempting, how could it not be?

But still.

To jump ship, to abandon his team and his teammates and the structure he is so familiar with. A part of him hates the thought, but a bigger, more daring part of him thrills for it. Wout loves the push of cycling, destroying himself and building himself back together. The ache of his legs when he can’t pedal anymore, and the contradicting order his brain sends out, screaming at him to keep going. Everything whites out, and there is only the bike and his legs. He doesn’t recognize anyone else; worries slip from his mind and the world only rushes back when he crosses the finish line.

Richard watches him closely, and Wout desperately tries to pull his best poker face, trying to give nothing away. But the other man had been watching too intently, the maniac look on Wout’s eye is impossible to miss.

He mirrors Wout’s actions, sipping from his glass. “The Corendon team has been heavily investing in trainers and development,” he says casually, knowing exactly the effect his words are going have.

Mathieu, Wout thinks hungrily. You bought yourself a team, but this one wants to buy me.

Jef’s words from earlier come back to him. What do you want, Wout? But it is no longer Jef’s voice asking, the words twist, the Dutch accent slipping by, curling towards the end. Blue eyes stare at him, amused. They stare up and they stare down, settling on his face and trapping him in.

“I want to win,” Wout says suddenly. “I want to win everything, I want my name to come up in every race, every classic, every monument, every grand tour. I want it all.”

He doesn’t need to finish the end of that thought. The way Richard and Merjin stare at each other tells him everything he needs to know.

Can you give me that?

And then, a promise.

Yes.

Wout knows, when he leaves dinner, that perhaps he is not as loyal as he had thought.

***

When the announcement breaks, people are shocked.

From the outside, it must look like a surprise. After all, Wout’s results had been drastically improving, and while he was not considered as a favorite to win – his team could not afford a full-blown camp, and his team was not the strongest – people were starting to take notice of him, more importantly, cyclists were beginning to take notice of him.

In interviews, they would mention him as someone to look out for, a guy they could mark and not let him get away. The world now knows that Wout will fight down to the wire. He tries not to feel too smug about it, but he can’t help the satisfied smile that often tugs at his lips when the team discusses strategy, and the pride that washes over him as he sees those interviews later on Twitter.

Still, anyone who had closely followed cycling would know.

The rising tensions between Wout and his team had become too much.

At best, there was a cold, distant courtesy with each other. Wout now held the team at length, and the team in turn did the same. With team management, the relationship was strained at best, at worst, Wout and the team principal had screamed at each other in disagreement on the team bus.

Luckily, the bus muffled out the actual words, but for days he heard the whispered rumors of a fighting match on the team bus, he felt the way eyes would curiously follow him as he walked. The pointing and the staring.

It had all gone a little bit too much.

But now, the move presented a new beginning. A new dawn on his career, by which he often felt suffocated by, and it filled him with glee. Most days, Wout imagined he looked like a giddy child, kicking his legs and twirling his feet.

A little bit pathetic, but what can you really do about it, right?

He’s on the couch at his home when it happens. Niels and Dylan had come over after work to hang out. They were lazily playing a videogame. Wout had broken the news to them personally, and had watched in awe as happiness settled in his friends’ eyes and they wrapped him in hugs and showered him with praise.

Wout lived for it.

To celebrate, Dylan had declared with a wicked smile, they would go out to a club, just the three of them. Wout isn’t exactly against clubbing, but that’s not a sure place where you’ll find him either. He is much more of a homebody, choosing to stay in local places where he can easily hide and not be bothered by people.

“That’s why it’s perfect,” Dylan argues, tongue sticking out of his mouth in focus. “At a club everyone is drunk, you’ll blend right in.”

“I’ll only blend in if I’m drunk too,” Wout counters.

“Well then you’ll need to get drunk,” he says, as if the solution is so obvious it’s painful.

Niels lifts his hands up in victory, grinning widely. “Wout can’t get drunk, Dyl, you know this.”

“Hey, I’m not a child.”

“Please,” Niels dismisses, waving a hand. “You make even more terribly wrong decisions; it’s kind of impressive.”

“Well, it would be impressive if it wasn’t a little bit pathetic.”

Wout gasps. “Now I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” he sniffles, “you are very mean to me.”

“He has a point, though. Chances are you’ll end up doing something stupid. But the story afterwards is worth it.”

“How’s this,” he proposes, tired with his friends’ constant knowledge of his drunk decisions. He’s aware of them, thank you very much. “You can take my phone to ensure I don’t do something stupid.”

Like calling Mathieu.

His tone implies it, even if his voice will never make those sounds.

A glance passes between Dylan and Niels, and Wout swears he can almost identify it as concern. But that can’t be right, what could they possibly have to be concerned about? Wout’s not a child, he’s a big boy and he can take care of himself. He is careless at times, but never has he done something so incredibly stupid that warrants this reaction.

“Fine,” they agree. “But the minute we get into the club you are handing over your phone.”

Wout grins.

***

So, he’s done something stupid.

It’s not really his fault, Dylan and Niels should’ve foreseen that getting Wout drunk was a terrible idea. The only time his diet is not restrictive is when he breaks it, for crying out loud. It’s really not Wout’s fault that he can’t hold his alcohol.

He blames his friends, for the most part.

Cycling is also to blame, he guesses.

Not only had Dylan and Niels continuously poured alcohol down his throat, then they proceeded to leave him alone.

So really, he can’t be blamed.

A blonde man with short hair presses to his chest, dancing to the beat of the music. At least, Wout thinks the man is dancing, he himself is more jumping than anything. And running his hands over the blonde man’s body.

He’s a good-looking guy, lean and small. Well, smaller than Wout usually goes for. But he had flashed Wout a wicked smile with gleaming blue eyes and well, Wout can’t be blamed. So, he had thought fuck it, drowned down his drink, and sauntered his way to the bar where the man was sitting.

Up close with him, Wout heard his name being something close to Nathan, or something like that. The music was pounding way too loud, and the guy – Nathan, he has decided – had already yelled his name at Wout twice, and he felt too embarrassed to ask him to yell again.

And now they were dancing.

Well, grinding on each other might be more appropriate.

Nathan smells of sweat, and alcohol and cologne, and the smell is starting to get to Wout, more specifically his cock. So, he wraps his arms around Nathan tighter, pulls him closer and lets the man feel him. Nathan’s arms lift, and Wout’s eyes follow the movement as he throws them back, rests his head on Wout’s chest and hums to the rhythm of the music.

God, he hopes Nathan doesn’t have roommates.

He doesn’t really want to take Nathan to his house, and he doesn’t want the trouble of getting a hotel room.

He might be horny, but he is not fucking in the public bathroom of a club, no matter how nice the club is.

Wout still has dignity, thank you very much.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he yells in the blonde’s ear.

Nathan stops dancing, turns around and pulls Wout towards his lips. They kiss, and don’t stop until Wout has to pull away to breathe. He definitely doesn’t pull away because there’s no danger to the kiss, because he likes to feel like he walks a tightrope most of the time and the high he gets from the feeling of falling is the only thing that’ll get him off.

Adrenaline junkie, a mocking Dutch voice teases.

Wout shuts it up with a scowl.

“Your place or mine?” Nathan asks, mouthing at Wout’s neck and God he hopes he won’t leave a mark.

He has exasperatedly tried to cover hickeys with his cycling kit in the past, only to realize it doesn’t really work, not when they are on the neck. If it’s on his body then he can play it off as a scratch or a bruise, being a cyclist means his body is often littered with those.

“Mine,” Wout decides, surprising even himself.

What happened to not wanting to take this guy back to his place?

They leave the club, between kisses and gropes. As they wait for the uber (Wout might be irresponsible, but he knows better than driving drunk), he types out a text for Niels and Dylan, informing them of his whereabouts. Dylan answers back with a long list of innuendos and dirty emojis. Wout ignores him.

The drive to his house is short and thank God the property is big, and his neighbors can’t see him stumbling drunk with a blonde man hanging off him as he fumbles to open the front door. He pushes Nathan into his bedroom, pushing down the disappointment that rises every time the blonde does as Wout asks without fighting, as he bends to his will, as Wout has to practically order him to pull his hair more sharply.

Once the waves of pleasure have washed over him, and he lays on his bed staring at the ceiling while Nathan breathes quietly, drifting off to sleep, the realization of why he invited the blonde back to his house hits him.

To watch the arrogant smirk wipe off the cruel lips that produce the annoying little Dutch voice in the back of his mind.

As Wout falls asleep, blonde hair and blue eyes come back to him, but this time, they’re the right shade, and they tease and frown and fight.

***

The next morning washes over him with regret.

With a pounding head, he sits up on his bed, frowning at the sunlight streaming in from his open blinds. He really should’ve closed them, Wout is not into exhibitionism, and he and Nathan definitely put on a show.

He checks his phone, verifying that both Dylan and Niels are alive and safe in their homes (Niels with his girlfriend, Dylan with a girl from the club), and then checks his socials. He sees that he had apparently shared a story on Instagram, a very blurry video of the dance floor of the club, with pounding music as the background and a very high-pitched yell.

His cheeks flush.

The next story was taken in a booth, it’s blurry as well. It’s him and Nathan, Wout’s arm around the blonde’s shoulders, while Nathan’s hand rests on Wout’s stomach. Okay, he thinks, it’s not too compromising. Should he have shared it? No. But with the dazed look in his eyes he can play it off as some drunk folly with some friends. He’ll just need to post stories with Niels and Dylan over the course of the next few days and everything will be fine.

He glances at the side, envying the peaceful look Nathan has as he sleeps. Wout almost wishes he didn’t have to wake him up. But still, his day needs to start, and the blonde man on his bed was a distraction for a night, Wout is certain he won’t be a morning distraction.

Wout reaches out an arm and gently shakes Nathan’s shoulder, who mumbles something into a pillow.

Wout sighs. “Morning, sunshine,” he says, sensing that kindness will probably be the way to go with Nathan.

The blonde slowly begins to come to. “Good morning,” he says in a raspy, morning voice. “What time is it?” Nathan asks as he sits up.

“Just past nine.”

“Shit, I have an appointment at ten,” Nathan curses, scrambling to his feet and picking up scattered clothes thrown on the floor.

“Do you need a ride?” Wout offers. “I don’t know how you got to the club, but if you need one, I’ll do it.”

Nathan smiles, he crosses the room and presses a kiss on Wout’s lips. He tastes like morning breath. “That’s nice, but I can get a friend to pick me up, I kinda disappeared last night so a sign of life will probably be welcomed.”

Wout shrugs.

The blonde man darts from left to right, typing away messages on his phone. Wout feels his gaze and lets his eyes drift towards him with a confused look.

“What? Is there something on my face?”

“No,” Nathan responds, smiling. “I just- I hope I’m not overstepping or anything, but it’s been on my mind since last night and I just- Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Who is Matje?”

Wout freezes. Blood leaves his body, and the air is knocked out of him. He hates that it feels like a punch, and that he can’t hear the name without flinching. He has no clue what the expression on his face is, but he assumes it must be hostile, because Nathan throws up his hands.

“You called me that, last night,” he explains. “I don’t really care, but I just need to know if that’s an old boyfriend or a current one. If it’s a current one, I’m gonna have to burn you on Facebook as a cheater or something.”

Wout cringes.

Oh god.

If the angels came down right now to take him, Wout would go willingly. Jesus, he has outdone himself. Matje. What were you thinking?

He wasn’t, not really.

It’s the only explanation.

He waves a hand, hoping it comes off as dismissive. “Ah, it’s not a current boyfriend, don’t worry,” Wout says. “It’s not an old boyfriend exactly, just a really complicated situation from some months ago.”

Nathan nods. “Good, you don’t seem like the cheating type,” he says, “but…”

Wout raises his eyebrows, urging him to go on.

“You don’t really call someone by the wrong name during sex unless your mind is already on them. You say it’s a complicated thing from some months ago, but it’s still in your mind today. It might be worth getting some closure on it, no?”

The way he ways it is so simple that it makes Wout frown. On paper? Yes. But in real life, when have Wout and Mathieu ever sat down to just talk about something? What, chat about the weather? He is almost positive that if the asked Mathieu what he was binging these days, the other man would strangle him, and he would probably be in the right.

But he’s not about to have a heart to heart with his one-night stand.

“Yeah, you might be right,” he concedes. “I’ll let you know how that one turns out.”

He watches as Nathan dresses, fixing his clothes on the floor-length mirror on the wall, and then he goes out of the door, not before pressing another kiss, and writing his number on Wout’s arm. The ink will wash off in the shower.

Wout throws himself back on the bed, cursing himself because now he has to do laundry, and wonders when was the last time he made bad decisions. A very loud part of him whispers Valkenburg, but that wasn’t really his fault. Some other parts yell different locations, places where him and Mathieu had torn and bitten off of each other. But the sentimental part of him knows that trying to unravel that knot is impossible, he could piece apart his entire childhood trying to build it back together without the Dutchman, but it will never be built back the same.

Something will always be missing.

The thought lingers on his mind the entire day, as he eats breakfast, washes the sheets and cooks his lunch. Today, he decides, he’ll go to dinner with his parents. Perhaps they can provide some insight into the situation. There’s a knock on his door and he frowns, looking around confused.

He’s not expecting company.

Wout grumbles on his way over to the door, cursing Dylan and his clinginess, he was probably dying to tell him of his newest conquest in the grossest, most explicit details as possible. He almost wishes he could slam the door on his stupid face.

But Dylan’s stupid face is not what he sees when he opens the door.

Standing on the other side is Mathieu, cheeks red from the morning cold. The tip of his nose has flushed adorably, and he has an abashed look on his blue eyes as he glances at Wout.

Wout can almost swear he sees Mathieu’s eyes light up.

“Hey,” he whispers, when he feels like they have been standing in the door forever.

Mathieu smiles. “Hi.”

Wout opens the door and ushers Mathieu in. It feels right, right, right.

At last.

Notes:

Oof! Wonder what he could possibly want, right?
Just for the record, my knowledge of partying in clubs comes from reading, do not judge me okay I tried my best.
But the best writing advice I ever got was 'when in doubt, make stuff up.'
Did I make that up? Probably.
Let me know what you think, what are your predictions?
See you in the next update!

Chapter 5: So Young to be This Lonely | Mathieu

Notes:

An early update?? We cheered.
Hope you enjoy!

Late 2018

 

 

His mind is in a lot of places for the rest of 2018.

The high he had felt in Valkenburg vanished, and soon it almost felt as if it had never really existed. Mathieu watches the sunrise in a cold hotel room with the tiredness of having tossed and turned on his bed all night. When he steps into the shower that day, he does his best to ignore the bruise on his hip, the love bites scattered over his body and instead decides to focus solely on the nasty purple blotch on his face.

He also tries to ignore the fact that the bruise matches Wout’s long, elegant fingers.

Mathieu fails miserably.

In the privacy of his shower, as scalding hot water burns his back and reddens his skin, he allows himself to drift back to last night. To the betrayal of Adrie babbling in the press with opinions that Mathieu did not share. He meant what he had said in his own interview, and his feelings, until he had been confronted by Wout, were true. Mathieu had been happy. But there was also the twisted thrill that settled on him whenever he fought with Wout, the sick satisfaction that came with it, and the knowledge that it both aroused and frightened Mathieu. But then, Wout hurt him.

Sure, Mathieu was used to the violent words the two had exchanged, and he also used everything in his power to twist the knife just as much as Wout did. But when he had grabbed his face, for perhaps the first time in his entire life, Mathieu had been scared of Wout.

Not that he would hurt him, Wout may be taller than him, but Mathieu is by no means small, but the wild look on his face had morphed into something else entirely. Wout had stared at him like Mathieu was not human, as if he were some beast that Wout had found and that needed to be put down.

It felt like they were not equals.

And that, Mathieu cannot bear.

The tears come freely after that, and he sobs loudly at an empty bathroom, shakes racking through his entire body and when he comes out of his shower, he feels rejuvenated. Is he also dehydrated from all the crying? Probably, but for once he chooses to focus on the positive and not the negative.

Because honestly, fuck Wout van Aert.

He knows perfectly well that Mathieu and Adrie have, at best, a complicated relationship, and that more times than not Mathieu has to pick up the pieces that Adrie presents to the press and to the peloton for the sake of keeping a united front, so journalists don’t go digging into the fucked-up family dynamic that cycling had put on them.

And fuck Wout, because he knows Mathieu had the better cyclocross season. He absolutely dominated the entire thing, dog-walking the competition, and here saunters in Wout van Aert trying to diminish everything simply because Mathieu didn’t win the world championship? How dare he. Mathieu knows, if you stack the two of them against each other, Mathieu’s record beats Wout’s. More than that, he knows Wout knows that as well.

It's why he had said what he did.

He knew exactly where the wound was on Mathieu, and he knew exactly what poison to put on the knife to make it hurt even more.

So yeah, fuck Wout van Aert with his fucking championships and his fucking blonde streak of hair – which is NOT natural – and Mathieu decides right there he won’t waste another minute thinking about the Belgian man.

He’s from Herentals, for crying out loud.

David sighs tiredly when he sees Mathieu’s face later, and Mathieu does his best to ignore the disappointed look on his brother’s eyes. He’s too tired to deal with it anyway. Adrie glares at him with confused eyes, and at times Mathieu is struck by how much he looks like his father. He wonders if that’s what Wout saw, when he glared at Mathieu as if he were inferior.

Well, there goes his resolution of not thinking about Wout.

“Did you really have to say that?” Mathieu blurts out, unable to control himself.

He regrets it as soon as he says it.

Adrie’s brows pull in together. “Yes, I did,” he says in a strained voice. “You were so content to lose, so settled. You need to be reminded that you are here to win, not to come in second or third.”

David holds his hands up. “Can we not do this right now?” he asks, and the exhaustion on his voice breaks Mathieu’s heart.

But no, for once, Mathieu will be heard by Adrie. He needs to be heard.

“Why not? Seems as good a time as any,” Mathieu shrugs in a way he hopes comes off as casually. “Yes, I am here to win, but in cycling you lose more than you win. You know this, dad. I get being angry at not winning after a dominant season, I am upset about that myself, but to go around invalidating the wins of my opponents makes me seem petty and unlikeable.”

“Please, you all but put the medal on him yourself,” Adrie scoffs.

“It’s called being a good sportsman,” Mathieu defends weakly.

His father shakes his head. “It’s not, Mathieu,” he says, looking at him with his big, blue eyes and Mathieu feels very much like a child being told how to feel and what to say. “And one day, when you are very successful and have broken every record, you will thank me for this.”

Adrie turns around, finishes packing the bags and putting them in the back of the car.

***

Several months later, he’s on a rare afternoon ride with David.

Mathieu had a rare break from cycling, having just finished the road season, and before the preparations for the cyclocross season began. With nothing else to do, he had reluctantly gone back home, because there is truly nothing like the overwhelming feeling that he’s being waterboarded every time he sits down on the dining table to eat a meal.

He has begun to feel like a war survivor or something. Mathieu flinches every time the doors slam, and he is quite sure he’s beginning to go insane because he starts to recognize who is slamming the door based on the sound. And wow maybe he really does need the cyclocross season to begin again.

But then again, he dreads it.

It’ll be harder to avoid Wout in cyclocross. The venues are a lot smaller, as are the crowds. Everything feels more local, more reduced. It also doesn’t help his chances that the two of them are the big names that the press heavily follows from cyclocross.

Things have been uncomfortable between them.

They aren’t yelling and snapping at each other, like Mathieu had expected. At this point it’s become very clear that they are both running away from each other. One time, Mathieu had quite literally sprinted back to his team bus when he realized their paths were gonna cross if neither of them moved. He had dropped the bike and everything, leaving his team incredibly confused.

Wout probably thought he had a bathroom emergency or something.

Mathieu is quite happy to let him think that.

It would be easy to be embarrassed, but on more than one occasion, Mathieu had made Wout run away from him. The sick, twisted part of him smiled in glee when he saw that Wout could not stand unaffected by him. Mathieu is dug in deep in his brain, just as deep as Wout is in his.

That’s also the new development in his life. After the initial reaction had been to just say fuck Wout van Aert, He has now decided that yeah, Wout is a massive part of his life, but that also means Mathieu is a massive part of his life. And that gives the power back to Mathieu. Because really, how could he ever think that they were anything other than equals?

Stupid.

“Why do you have that weird look on your face?” David asks, as they have stopped for a café break.

Mathieu shrugs. “Your father is driving me insane.”

David finishes ordering before resuming their conversation. “You should just move out, boefje. You make a nice living; you could get a nice house and be done with all of that”

Mathieu knows, he might act stupid but he’s not actually stupid. But at the same time, there is a simplicity that comes from living at home. Sure, Adrie is unbearable a lot of the time, breathing down Mathieu’s neck, pressuring him to train, to eat properly, to train again. But it’s all Mathieu had known since he was eight years old. And his hectic cycling schedule meant that he was home only for a few days at a time, and the maintenance he would have to do to take care of a house of his own. There was also his dog. She would have to be moved around constantly, and Mathieu doesn’t think it’s fair to her at all.

“It’ll be more of a hassle, at this point,” Mathieu says, “besides, it’s only for a few days of the year, I can stick it out.”

They sit in silence for minutes, both drinking their coffees. Mathieu settles on watching the sunset, the way the colors blend on the horizon. Yellow becomes pink, and pink blends into purple, which in turn transforms into blue. It’s peaceful, Mathieu thinks, he feels more at peace than he has felt in a long, long time. He could sit there forever and be content.

“He does want the best for you, Mathieu,” David breaks the silence, speaking the words into the sunset. The leaves carry the sound over to Mathieu, and he feels them wash over him, they settle on his bone and flow through his veins.

“I know,” he says eventually. “I know that he loves me, David, I’m his son, of course he does. I just don’t think he likes me very much.”

The words are almost too much to admit. He feels insecurity and vulnerability pour out of him, and the thought that he had always known comes out shy, afraid and trembling. Because Mathieu knows them to be true. He’s more trophy than son, more experiment than child. He could never be just Mathieu, he always had the immense weight of having to be more, of needing to be more. Mathieu closes his eyes and waits.

“I’m sorry, Matje,” David whispers. “I know that he turned you into this because of my own failures,” Mathieu opens his mouth to protest what they both know to be true, but David waves him off.

“The two of us know that’s the truth. And that truth in particular, stopped stinging me a long time ago. And I know you probably won’t believe me but trust me in this: it is absolutely possible to look at you and not see the trophy, but to see the person. You are so young, Mathieu, to be this lonely.”

I am not lonely, Mathieu thinks desperately. But when he opens his mouth a knot forms at his throat, his stomach drops and the incessant drumming of his heart pounding against his ribcage is so uncomfortable that he can’t bear it. He feels the tears forming in his eyes, but he’s not going to cry in a café for god’s sake.

His throat lets out a sob.

David’s arms wrap around him in an instant, he feels familiar and comfortable. Mathieu lets his head drop to his brother’s chest, relishing in the heat that he radiates, it warms Mathieu in a way he had not realized he needed. He feels like a child again, he feels like the little kid that would run to David after Adrie had yelled at him for coming in anything other than first. He clings to his brother pathetically, but he is too exhausted to care about it. So, what if he is pathetic? He is allowed to be, for at least once in his life.

The world passes him by in that café.

***

It’s dark outside by the time they make it back home.

They don’t even ride their bikes, racing against each other in the childish manner that they usually do. Mathieu stands next to his bike, pushing it along the trail that leads back home, but the dread of being in the house refuses to find him. He feels light, lighter than he had felt in a very long time, and at peace.

Mathieu doesn’t forget the last time he felt at peace, and it had been ruined.

He had been comfortably drifting off to sleep on Wout’s chest and the phone rang.

While he had cried and cried with David and had let out the confused feelings of his complex relationship with his father out, it felt a bit too much to air out the entire situation with Wout, all in the same day. Especially because so much of their relationship was sexual, but Mathieu couldn’t really help it that he ended up in Wout’s bed most times than not. Maybe one day he’ll be able to tell him, but not today.

Still, Mathieu felt like he had taken a step forward.

Communicating wasn’t where he was the strongest. He preferred to bottle everything inside, hating the way all his emotions blew up on his face in a cloud of frustration and resentment and anger. And because it blew up on him, Mathieu often felt the need to lash out, it made him feel like he could grab all the anger in his hands, tear it apart and shape it into knives, and throw it at whoever came across his path first. Sometimes it was David, or his mom – which led to Mathieu feeling incredibly guilty and ashamed – even at times it was directed at Adrie. Most times it was Wout who got the worst of it.

“What are you thinking about?” David asks, as their house comes to view. The lights of the common areas are on, but Mathieu knows that by now his parents have retired to sleep, keeping the lights on for them.

“Not anything in particular,” Mathieu answers.

He feels the need to explain himself when David glances at him, confused. “I feel lighter than I have felt in a very long time,” he bumps his brother with his shoulder, “we should do those heart-to-heart conversations more often.”

David smiles, the wide smile of his he saves only for Mathieu. “My door’s open whenever you want, boefje.”

Mathieu throws a hand up, keeping the other on the bike. “Oh my God, I stole your bike one time, ages ago.”

The sound of their laughs mixing lights up the driveway all the way to the door.

As he gets ready to finally go to bed, Mathieu goes through his phone after an entire afternoon where he had neglected it. Sure, he had taken some pictures to later post on Instagram because the sponsors were expecting it, but the camera app was the closest thing to social media he had touched all day. He answers a few texts, replies to some stories, and then a particular story knocks the wind out of him.

It was posted some 30 minutes ago, featuring a very drunk Belgian man hanging on to some blonde guy Mathieu doesn’t recognize, but that he decides that very moment is a very ugly man. Worse than that, he looks old. Why is Wout with some old man? On second thought, where even is he? Herentals doesn’t have any good clubs, it’s Herentals, for crying out loud.

Why do you care so much? A Belgian voice whispers at the back of his mind, and Mathieu half wishes Wout was there so he could punch him on his very stupid face, so he could yank out the very idiotic blonde streak – which is NOT natural – of hair off his scalp.

And well his night is very much ruined now.

It’s typical Wout van Aert fashion, to spoil Mathieu’s good mood without even having to be there. It’s not that Mathieu is mad Wout is plowing some blonde old man into the mattress, he is a big boy, and he can do whatever the hell he wants, Mathieu doesn’t care. It’s more that he hates the fact that it gets him so riled up with anger and jealousy. What is that about? He had already decided that fuck Wout, his opinion doesn’t matter.

His mind is betraying him, and wow he really needs to get off his phone before he throws it against a wall and wakes up the house. Or worse, that he ends up replying to the story or something. Or even worse, that he marches himself to a proper club in Antwerp and gets an old man with dark hair that can plow him into the mattress.

He spits the toothpaste on the sink, glaring at his reflection and angrily prying the door open. On the hallway he finds Corrine, staring curiously at him. Mathieu promptly shuts his phone off, but he is too slow, Corrine takes his arm and pushes him out of the bathroom and into the living room and okay they are doing this.

“Who was that?” she asks, sitting down on the couch and patting the spot next to her.

“No one,” Mathieu answers quickly, way too quickly. Fuck.

Corrine smiles. “Are you gonna make me guess who it is, then?” she teases, a glint in her eyes.

Mathieu debates his options. Sure, his family knows there is a weird relationship between him and Wout, and he is pretty sure they suspect it is sexual, but the thought of sitting with his mother and telling her exactly how sexual the relationship is is not only uncomfortable, but gross and ew, ew, ew. That’s not happening. Next thing he’ll know, Corrine will be opening up about her sex life and oh my god, Mathieu would rather eat his own vomit.

Against his better judgement, he sits down next to her. And because hey, he already made bad decisions, he might as well go to hell, right? He curls up next to Corrine, much like he did as a child, and reopens the phone.

“Who is that next to Wout?” Corrine asks.

God, does it take all of Mathieu’s strength to not curse the old, blonde man out in front of his mom.

Instead, he shrugs. “I don’t know, I think they met at the club tonight.” Man, he hopes they met tonight. The thought of the old man not being a casual hook up but being a serious relationship makes his blood boil.

“Why is he at the club without you?” she asks, and Mathieu finds her tone of voice a little funny. It’s not quite amused, but something else that he can’t quite place. He decides to ignore it.

“Why would we go to the club together?”

Corrine shrugs. “I just don’t think that your father would ever go to a club without me,” she says, as if it were obvious. It only makes Mathieu more confused.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, I didn’t think you would be so comfortable with your boyfriend posing with other guys on clubs when you are not there, but then again you always love to surprise me, Mathieu.”

And that.

Oh no.

Mathieu chokes.

He blinks. “What did you call Wout?” he asks, his mind running a million kilometers per hour. “I mean that-that-that’s not what this – what we – “

“I don’t understand why you would say that I mean that’s not what any of this is,” he continues to ramble. “Wout is certainly not my boyfriend.”

Corrine frowns at him. “Are you sure?”

“I think I would know if I had a boyfriend, mom.”

He sees emotions flash through Corrine’s eyes. Confusion, frustration, a little bit of sadness. Mathieu can feel his heartbeat on his ears. Because why would his mom think that? Even worse, is that what his entire family thinks about his relationship with Wout?

As if she can hear Mathieu’s thoughts, Corrine grabs his hand. “Well, that complicates a lot of things. We all thought the two of you were in a relationship, Mathieu,” she explains. “A very unconventional, intense relationship, but a relationship nonetheless.”

Oh god, he feels sick. “We? Who is we?”

“Oh, you know. Just us,” she begins to brush Mathieu’s blonde strands of hair back. “Wout’s parents too.”

“What.”

“Oh, honey, what do you think I talk about to with them all the time?”

Mathieu waves his hands desperately. “About the weather?” he tries weakly.

 Corrine deadpans. “Mathieu, be serious,” she says, and he doesn’t know what the expression on his face must be, because Corrine’s face shifts, suddenly uncomfortable. “You really didn’t know?”

He shakes his head.

Sure, Mathieu knew that, at the very least, David definitely understood the nature of the entire mess he had going on with Wout. And sure, Mathieu is absolutely attracted to Wout, and drawn to the Belgian, and it fills him with pride whenever he wins and Wout is there. And every time their eyes meet a rush of heat travels down south, and sometimes his hear breaks a little when they part after their amazing fucks. But that’s just how people feel around their lifelong rival.

The thought that other people had perceived the situation makes him feel sick. He feels sick and exposed and vulnerable, and thank God Wout is not here because then he would’ve lashed out at him already. But coiled deep in him, Mathieu still feels a desperate need to know what exactly do other people see, when they look at them? Do they see a relationship? Do they see the underlaying madness shared between them? The obvious bond they share but the need to be above the other? Do they see all of it or nothing at all?

“I don’t think it matters,” Mathieu says finally to the silence of the night. “You saw the picture; he’s probably with that man right now.”

Corrine’s warm hands run down his back in a comforting motion.

“Oh Mathieu, you really are stupid, sweetheart.”

And wow, that’s really mean. He should’ve seen it coming, really. The one time he is vulnerable with either of his parents and they resort to putting him down and making fun of him, but at the end of the day, they raised him, didn’t they? If anything, it’s their fault he is terrible at communicating.

Mathieu sighs and goes to stand up.

With a physical strength Mathieu didn’t know she had, Corrine tugs him back on the couch. He lands uncomfortably, not on top of Corrine, but rather next to her.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Mathieu,” she explains. She seems to struggle to finish finding the right words to go on. “I remember when you came back one day from a race, and there was this look to you, I had not seen it before. You didn’t look lost, for once, you looked found. And I wondered who could have possibly done that to my son, so I went to your next race and kept an eye out for everyone. I was startled to realize Wout van Aert had the same look on his face, when he looked at you.”

“You’ll probably deny it, but you love that man, Mathieu. I know you do. It’s why you lash out at him, and at us, and at everything. It’s probably why your father hates him.”

“And yet I think he feels the same way.”

And no.

No, no, no.

Corrine can’t do that to him, she can’t give him hope, not when she doesn’t know Wout the way Mathieu does.

“You can’t say that” Mathieu says, and suddenly he is tasting salt on his mouth. “Don’t do that to me.”

Corrine runs the pads of her thumbs on his cheeks. “I know I probably sound insane, but I can assure you that to us on the outside, that feeling of madness you feel, he feels it too.”

“I think you should go talk to him, sweetheart.”

The idea is tempting. To finally know, to reduce all the years of tension and half met glances. The years of hotel hook-ups, and the angry words spat at each other whenever their relationship resembled anything other than the world’s longest booty call. And the thought that maybe, just maybe, Wout feels as deranged about the whole situation as Mathieu is. Well. That sends a shiver down his spine, and a twisted, wicked glee, knowing that no matter how hard he tries, Wout cannot erase him from his life. They are tied, together.

The red string of fate.

But there is also danger.

Sure, Mathieu has more than once thought that Wout matched his feelings, he got the sense whenever the brunette’s eyes lingered on him, on the desperate way he kissed Mathieu after the weeks where they had not seen each other, on the gasps and moans whispered into his ear when he lost himself in pleasure. And maybe one time Mathieu had hooked up with a girl – who, no matter how much David liked to bother him with it, most certainly did NOT look like Wout – the Belgian had been prissy and snippy, and it had led to their riskiest fuck yet, but still.

The fear that Wout would not feel the same way. That he would see Mathieu, truly see him, and reject all of it. Laugh in his face. The idea that he would not be understood.

Why do you care so much? A deep voice whispers. And Mathieu knows, he knows but he can’t say it, because then it’ll be too real.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

Not that he does much these days. Sleep evades him, he tosses and turns, wrangling every single scenario in his head. They all end in disaster. From Wout saying he’s never felt that way, to Wout laughing and his eyes glinting with that cruel look Mathieu knows too well. To Mathieu reacting poorly to the rejection and straight up murdering the Belgian. He sees it clearly too; that’s the scary part. Sees his tanned hands wrap around Wout’s pale, elegant throat. It’d be hard, Wout is a big guy who would not go down without a fight, but Mathieu’d have the element of surprise. And he would have Wout’s last moments as well. The gasps, the shock. His, his, his.

Fuck it.

When the first rays of light hit his bed, Mathieu stands with methodical precision. Goes through the motions of looking presentable, grabs his bike from the garage, and pedals.

He feels as if he is racing. Heart pounding, legs aching, back burning. In a way he is. But towards what, Mathieu doesn’t know.

To victory, or to defeat?

Does he care at all?

Notes:

Thank you Corinne for knocking some sense into the man.
Or did she?
Let me know what you think.
See you in the next update!

Chapter 6: With an Icy Ocean Between | Wout

Notes:

Hello, another update!
Anyone else feels super giddy about the Tour starting? I am giggling, kicking my feet and twirling my hair fr.
Do we think MVDP will win a stage this year or nah?

Late 2018

 

 

Wout has seen a lot of crazy things in his life.

That’s sort of the name of the game, in cycling. Crashes, injuries, broken bones, gnarly cuts, deep scars, terrible bruises. You name it, Wout has seen it. He has felt it too, unfortunately. At times he feels horribly older than his actual age, like an old man who just wants his rest. But when he sprints, when he races and races and pushes his body to the absolute edge, to that part where every single cell on his body is screaming at him to stop, but his mind still has enough will to say keep going, and his legs have no choice but to obey, like mindless vessels, well. Wout cannot remember a time when he feels more alive, more deranged. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

But this.

Mathieu on his home, eyes darting nervously around the living room as Wout hands him a glass of water.

That might be the craziest thing he’s ever seen.

It’s not like Mathieu has never been in his home before. Wout is a little ashamed to admit they’d even had sex in their parents’ homes before. Not only on Wout’s, but on Mathieu’s too. Sue them. It’s the price to pay when you have two horny, pent-up teenagers with a psycho-sexual relationship between them that develops into adulthood.

But the air of nervousness around Mathieu, the uneasiness, and the panicked way he stares at Wout when the brunette is not looking, that’s a new one. There’s something else in his expression, Wout can’t quite place it.

He decides to ignore it.

“Thanks,” Mathieu says, taking the glass from Wout’s hand.

He also ignores the way their fingers graze each other’s.

Mathieu raises the glass, almost as if toasting Wout. It makes Wout blink. The blonde snaps his eyes shuts, blushing red with embarrassment, shakes his head and downs the drink in one go. Wout stares at how he tilts his head backwards, the elegant curve of his throat, and how exposed his neck is. As if Mathieu was prey. Wout wants to sink his teeth into it.

He clears his throat.

Stop it, he scolds himself, don’t let any of this turn into something sexual and you’ll be fine.

“Thirsty, huh,” Wout says instead, attempting to break the ice. And wow, does he fail at that. It comes out flirty and teasing and not at all like Wout intended it. He was just making a statement.

Mathieu chokes.

Wout clicks his tongue.

“Yeah, I guess,” Mathieu replies, hiding behind a cough.

There’s a long beat of silence that stretches out for way too long. Wout feels compelled to break it, but incapable of finding the right words. It happens to him often, with Mathieu. He’s always at the brink of finding the right thread, the proper way to react, and when his hands grasp it, the thread slips away, vanishing in an instant. He is left floundering and scrambling.

It's why they end up fighting so much.

“Why are you here?” Wout asks.

“Did you have fun last night?” Mathieu asks at the same time.

Wout startles, then curses. The stupid Instagram story. Stupid Nathan with his stupid pictures. It’s all his fault anyway.

“I had fun last night,” Wout answers, while Mathieu decides that’s the best moment to speak as well. “I wanted to see you,” the blonde admits and Wout’s mind blanks out for a moment.

He sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, rushing through the phrase when he sees Mathieu is opening his mouth to speak again. “You go first.”

Mathieu fiddles nervously with the glass. “I wanted to see you,” he repeats. “I saw your story; did you have fun last night?”

When Wout imagined this conversation with the Dutch man, he always pictured the possessive pitch that Mathieu’s voice gets whenever a situation involves Wout being with someone else. Most of the time, Wout doesn’t really know what to think of it. He would call it jealousy, if it were anything else, but with Mathieu his guess was as good as any. They were not in a relationship, neither willing to put in the work to make it work between them. Sure, there was a time Mathieu showed up to a race with a cute brunette with long hair and pretty brown eyes, and Wout maybe spent hours staring at her profile picture on her private account, wondering what Mathieu saw in her. But, at the end of that day he had roughly pressed Mathieu against the back wall of a building, scattering his neck with marks as Mathieu pretended to be angry about it.

He often wonders what Mathieu told the brunette about them. Did he tell her who had made those? Or was she done with him the minute she saw them? Did she wonder why her boyfriend couldn’t walk properly?

Wout hopes she did.

The curious tone in Mathieu’s voice throws him off. He sounds genuine. The way he would ask any other friend if they had fun on their night out. It gets the message across that, after months and months of distance between them, Mathieu sees him just as a quick, constant fuck.

“I did, thanks,” the mask of politeness slides back on. It’s the only way that Wout will bear this conversation.

Mathieu nods, setting the glass down at the center table in the living room.

“That’s nice. I’m glad you did,” he says, standing in the middle of the room awkwardly. Mathieu’s mouth opens again, ready to begin again, but Wout beats him to the punch.

“I’m surprised you didn’t run into Nathan on your way in.”

Mathieu freezes. His back, straight as an arrow, stiffens. Wout sees his blue eyes flash, first in surprise, then in anger and they finally settle in something that closely resembles sadness, Wout feels a pang go through his chest, tugging at his heart.

He had said it to be mean, truthfully. To fall back on the same familiar pattern that is Mathieu lashing out, and Wout drawing blood. He hates the pattern, but he hates even more how he sickeningly craves for it, manipulating every interaction so that it has the same outcome, so that he can keep some semblance of control over the blonde man, who sends him reeling and spiraling into madness.

“Oh, that’s nice, I guess,” Mathieu says painfully. “Is that a new thing?”

And the worst part is that Wout knows him, he recognizes the desperate curiosity curling at the edge of Mathieu’s voice as he asks the question. Wout is torn between wanting to be honest and needing to lie. The accusatory tone, his sad eyes, the nervous stance and wandering eyes, it’s slowly becoming a bit too much for Wout, and he slowly feels himself lose all resolutions of battle.

He is so tired.

“Painfully new,” Wout snorts. “I only brought him up to be mean to you.”

And oh God, the honesty could absolutely backfire on him right now, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He chances a glance at Mathieu and is overcome with the feeling that the Dutchman doesn’t care either.

Maybe this way there can be actual progress between them.

Mathieu’s smile is sad. “I only raced here in the dead of morning because of that, to be honest,” he sighs as he sits. “And because my mom knocked some sense into me last night.”

Oh.

That’s new.

Wout was not expecting new.

“What do you mean?”

“She thought we were dating,” the blonde informs him, “your parents do too, by the way. She said they talk about it constantly, and she was curious why, if you are with me, you were with some guy at a bar last night.”

Oh.

Oh no, no, no.

Wout flushes.

Because he has been so pathetically in love with Mathieu since he was a teenager, of course their parents noticed. It must be what everyone sees when they look at him. The rider with the crush on his rival, so desperately weak to his every whim and desire. Like a pet, waiting to be told he was a good boy and that he’ll have his reward. Praying like an idiot that the day will one day come where Mathieu feels the same way.

The worst part is that it’s not even Mathieu’s fault. It’s his own, for allowing it to happen repeatedly, for setting boundaries that he does not respect. For crawling back to someone who has not once promised him anything close to commitment. For loving someone who fucks with him almost as much as Wout fucks him. It’s sad, and pathetic and it fills Wout with rage that the image people have of him has been torn and twisted to the fancy of Mathieu.

We really are tied together, he thinks bitterly. The red string of fate.

Mathieu is not done rambling.

“And you know what I realized? That they are not wrong. They’re not fucking wrong. I thought about how this looks like, to everyone on the outside and the answer was so painfully obvious, I’m shocked it took someone else quite literally spelling it out for me to notice. How did I not know? And then I thought that yes, you may be smarter than me in some things, but by no means am I stupid. I’ve always known. Always. I was just blind and proud and afraid.”

He gasps, taking Wout’s hands into his own, grasping with a strength Wout didn’t know was there. Mathieu fiddles his thumb until it rests on Wout’s pulse point on his wrist. He wonders if the dutchman can feel his pounding heart. Wout can, it hammers into his ribcage uncomfortably, and the air has been sucked out his lungs and out of the room, and maybe even the planet.

They stare at each other for a beat. Mathieu’s blue eyes are red, filled with water. He blinks rapidly to keep the tears from falling.

“I was so afraid, Woutje,” he whispers. “But I’ve always known why I cling to you, why I keep coming back. It’s why I’m mean and cruel, and God, you just take it. You see that and you don’t flinch away, and I feel so seen it makes me scared, but it would be even more scary to live in a world where I’m not seen.”

Wout tastes salt, and it slowly dawns on him that he is crying. He knows what’s coming. He knows because it’s what he screams helplessly into the void, when it all gets too much. It’s his truth, his curse and his prayer.

“It’s because I love you,” Wout snaps his eyes shut. “I do, in a shitty, twisted way I love you, and it might never be enough for you, but I swear that it is the only way I know how to.”

He is tugged into Mathieu, who curls his head on Wout’s chest, and wraps his arms around his body. It’s painful, the way they fit together. Wout’s arms curl around the blonde’s waist, pressing him close, until it is warm and uncomfortable, and Wout’s shirt is getting stained, but so is Mathieu’s.

The dutchman lifts his head, staring dead into Wout’s eyes. Blue, so, so blue. Blue and sad and hopeful and afraid. “But if you let me, I’ll spend my life trying to love you in the way you deserve.”

And that.

Well, that’s everything Wout’s ever wanted to hear.

He’s just a man, after all. He’s weak, and tired. A part of him can’t believe it, the smart part of him screams and tells him to run, it says that Mathieu is just messing with him, and this is just a new way to fuck Wout over, and when he least expects it, Mathieu will pull out a knife and kill him. The part of him that’s still smart says no, because he still feels that curling jealousy when the blonde is on top of him on the podium, and it’ll never work, and their careers will never survive this, but at the same time, there is a very stupid part of him that just wants to trust everything blindly.

Wout sees the ending, clear as day. Either he consumes Mathieu, or Mathieu consumes him. They end up the same way, resentful towards one another, with an icy ocean between them, and a string that binds them together that cannot be severed. And still.

Fuck it.

“Okay,” Wout whispers, relishing in the way Mathieu lights up like a Christmas tree. Wout feels the word echo in his heart, and he knows he has found a new one.

A prayer. A curse.

A promise.

***

Mathieu does not leave, after that.

They sit and talk until the sun sets on the horizon. He stays over for dinner, eating a pizza that has way too many carbs that either of them should be eating but that neither of them cares. And he stays after that. He stays and stays and stays and stays and stays.

Slowly learning to be around each other, in a way that’s gentle and not violent. They sleep in the same bed, but they do not fuck, and when Mathieu wakes up the next morning, absolutely surprised that he slept through the entire night, he confesses that since their fight he’s had a terrible time sleeping.

Wout feels a small pang because he has not had any noticeable symptoms, but then again, he thinks of his tiredness, and his exhaustion. Maybe that’s how heartbreak manifests on him.

Things are not perfect, far from it really. But something is there that wasn’t before. A willingness, from both of them, to express their thoughts and to listen. A minute after Wout decides he’ll take everything one day at a time, he contradicts himself and decides he needs more. So, he asks Mathieu for more.

“If this is going to work,” he starts, as Mathieu takes a bite from his food. “I need it to be exclusive; I want it to be exclusive.”

The dutchman nods. “Okay,” he says, “then this is exclusive.”

He gets the same rush from Mathieu saying yes that he gets from Mathieu saying no. Wout seriously believes he needs to be studied or hospitalized or something. There is something incredibly wrong with him, and yet there is Mathieu, seeing that, recognizing it, and choosing to show him the things that are incredibly wrong with the blonde.

The days are blissful. As blissful as they can be with being torturous. Wout is very much proud of the fact that he has restrained for so long from sleeping with Mathieu, but at the same time he has restrained for so long from sleeping with Mathieu. He’s only a man, after all, and he has needs. Masturbating in the shower as his mouth forms Mathieu’s name isn’t really working for him, and neither is the domestic proximity between them.

They have always been intense, going a million miles per hour. But now, everything is amplified because of the abstinence. Mathieu brushes against him in his sleep and it sends an electric shock through Wout. Mathieu presses a hand against his waist to pass behind him, and Wout has to restrain himself from pushing back into him. One time, Mathieu laughs so loudly at a joke, that he repeatedly slaps Wout’s thigh and he actually has to excuse himself from the room. On a bike ride in the morning, after pushing themselves to the point of exhaustion, Mathieu pants and gasps, breathless, and Wout very much decides in that moment that he is done, he has to sleep with that man yesterday or he’ll combust.

He enters the house with that purpose, wondering if Mathieu can feel it in the air. He likes to think that they are so in tune, that he does. Apparently, Wout is wrong.

“The coffee on that café was disgusting,” he complains. “We are never going to that place again, I would rather eat my own vomit.”

Ah.

He paints with words, doesn’t he? Wout thinks fondly, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Mathieu continues “and the muffin was so dry, it felt like a trick to get me to drink more coffee,” he shuffles around as he removes his shoes and places them by the entrance. After, he begins to tug his skintight jacket off. “I don’t know where you found that café, but we are definitely deleting that location from the rotation, ugh, I was even scared to lean back on the chair, it was sticky and s-“

Wout can’t take his rambling anymore.

He carelessly throws his shoes to the side, grips the blonde man roughly by the hips, and presses him flush against his own body. Wout grins when Mathieu’s blue eyes go wide, his mouth opens and he lets out an “oh”, before Wout presses their lips together.

It never gets old, the taste of Mathieu’s mouth on his. His lips are soft, and they fit perfectly against Wout’s. He likes to think that Mathieu was born specifically for this, for Wout to kiss him. The kiss is by no means sweet, Wout pushes into him with desperation, slipping his tongue in when Mathieu lets out a small moan that vibrates onto Wout.

They’ll run out of breath soon, but all Mathieu does is wrap his arms around Wout’s neck, softly running his hands through the dark strands of hair. And God, Wout loves it. The way they match each other, the way they compete. It’s a dance, it’s a show, it’s almost like riding together in the morning and as high as everyone else fading into the background except for them. Them, them, them.

It's a bit uncomfortable to touch Mathieu with their kit still on, but Wout manages. The Lycra clings to their skin, so Wout allows his hand wander to the curve of Mathieu’s back, right above his ass, and press his fingers in, the other slips up to the blonde’s chest, tugging at the zipper and sliding his hand over the blonde’s smooth chest.

God, his skin suit can’t get any tighter than it already is, but he is already feeling blood rush south and it’s making his head spin. Months and months of not getting any are finally getting to him and Wout will probably burst at any second.

Mathieu bites his lip and pulls away.

“Wout, if we are not going to fuck, we really need to stop.”

He needs no further instructions.

Wout surges forward, capturing Mathieu’s lips again, but this time the desperation is so palpable, Wout can almost taste it on his tongue. Their teeth clash, and the impact is painful, but Wout is already so hard he doesn’t really care at all.

Mathieu’s hands begin to grasp Wout as well. He settles on his ass, kneading the muscle and sighing in contempt. After a particular squeeze, Wout lets out a loud moan.

“Wait, wait,” Wout says, pawing at Mathieu’s bare chest like an annoyed kitten. “The room, let’s go to the room.”

Even though the sun has been up for hours, Wout’s room is dark. Neither of them had bothered to open the curtains before they left, and Wout is certainly not about to open them now. Sure, he and Mathieu have had sex before in semi-public spaces, but he is not into exhibitionism. He has no intention of putting on a show for his neighbors.

They fall into a pattern, roaming hands and lingering tugs and kisses. Wout’s bibs are scattered on the floor, and he is sure he accidentally tore Mathieu’s. Whatever. He can get more. The back of his knees hit the edge of the bed, and the impact sends him tumbling down, with the blonde’s full weight on top of him.

It knocks the air out of him.

Mathieu spreads his legs, revealing a very interesting bulge, and straddles Wout’s abdomen. He sits, grinning down at him. Victorious. A king on his throne. It makes Wout’s cock perk with incredible interest.

He leans down, mouthing at Wout’s neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses, trailing his way slowly up to Wout’s jaw. Mathieu nibbles at his earlobe, tugging painfully.

Wout moans.

“What do you want, Woutje?” he asks, breath tickling Wout’s ear.

And God, he wants everything.

He wants Mathieu on top of him, but he wants him underneath. He wants to feel him, to fill him, and to see the way his face crunches up in delight, the noises he lets out in pleasure. He wants Mathieu, raw and honest and lost in the way only Wout can make him feel. He wants to hear it too; he needs the rambling and the knowledge that Mathieu will always come back because no one will ever fuck him as good as Wout does. And then, when Wout has done such a good job that Mathieu is overstimulated and he can’t take it anymore, he wants him to order Wout to cum. Until he is more Wout than he is Mathieu.

Wout grips Mathieu’s hip, pinching at his side. “I want you to ride me, Matje.”

Mathieu van der Poel may be lots of things, but he has never once backed away when he is faced with a challenge.

His face twists, no longer human but not demon-like, the way it turns when they argue. No, his face twists into something purer, like a God. Wout feels it then, what’s about to happen tonight is different from the other times. Sure, he has fucked Mathieu more times than he can count, and he can count on one hand the number of times that they have made love. But this. This is worshipping, almost.

It's a battle still, because they are still them and really, how could it not be? But there is no winning and no losing. Mathieu is grinding down on his crotch, wicked and teasing, and the way Wout is running his nails over his back will leave scratches in the morning that he can trace over and over with his hands. A part of him wishes they’ll scar.

They kiss, and Mathieu tastes of chocolate and coffee and Matje, a taste that is so addicting that Wout thinks they should make candles out of it, so that he can blow all his money buying them and keep them forever. His tongue is incredibly talented and the thought that he must’ve had practice with other people makes Wout grip him by the waist possessively, but then again, he is the one reaping the rewards so maybe it’s not so bad.

Wout presses a finger to Mathieu’s entrance, surprised to find him wet and loose. He pulls away from the kisses. Mathieu cranes his face in Wout’s neck, teasing his throat and biting at his pulse point.

“Did you…” he trails off, circling his finger as the blonde hums into his chest.

He grins. “You lasted way longer than I anticipated,” he says, rolling his hips to press Wout’s finger further in. Mathieu pouts when Wout doesn’t move his finger.

“Whore,” Wout says, tone light and no bite behind it.

Mathieu shrugs. “I’m not the one who’s going to be begging to cum in some minutes.”

They fall into a rhythm, Mathieu rolling his hips when finally, Wout fingers him, the blonde’s cock leaking between them. The noises he makes are close to pornographic, and Wout commits the sound to his memory, locking in on his mental folder of the other man. Wout is sure his neck and chest are more purple and red right now than they are skin toned.

The blonde paws at him. “Woutje, I need-God, fuck,” he gasps, brows furrowing as he snaps his eyes shut. “Need you in me now.”

“Yeah, Matje? You need to be stuffed by my cock,” he teases, fingers digging further and further in. He knows he’s hit Mathieu’s prostate when the blonde screams, biting his teeth into Wout’s shoulder. “You are such a slut, aren’t you? You love my cock in you. You love it and you need it.”

Mathieu nods desperately into his neck. “Wout, I swear if you don’t fuck me in the next minute I will go and find-“

“Ah-ha no. No threats, Matje,” Wout tsks. “You want my cock in you; you have to take it. I told you what I wanted, I want you to ride me. Exhaust yourself, Mathieu. Or can’t you even give me that?”

With new-found purpose, Mathieu pushes himself off Wout’s chest, leaning back until he is seating. Wout sends a big thank you to whoever invented cycling, because the lines of Mathieu’s body are delicious, and he is so handsome. Toned body, tanned skin, the elegant frame of his massive shoulders, and the slenderness of his waist. The defined muscles of his thighs, shaking and straining as finally, he takes Wout in with a hiss, making the Belgian gasp when his cock catches on Mathieu’s rim.

And he is so warm, and tight, and Wout’s cock fits him perfectly, he swears they were made for each other. Wout’s hands grip his hips, but the blonde takes them into his own with a mischievous grin before pressing them over his head.

He kisses Wout, nibbling on his lip but still not fucking moving and Wout is so close to flipping them around and fucking Mathieu into the mattress.

“Keep your hands there, Woutje,” Mathieu whispers, “if you want me to do all the work, you don’t get to cum if you move your hands.”

Wout whines.

It’s hard to pretend it bothers him to be bossed around. It sends an arousal through him, and it makes him twitch with anticipation. But it’ll be even harder to keep his hands from touching Matje, but the pleasure when he finally has his release. Wout knows it’ll be worth it.

Mathieu settles into the pace on which he likes to be fucked. Fast and relentless, quick paced and rhythmic. He uses his arms as support, pressing them into Wout’s chest and Wout swears he’ll have burn marks tomorrow or something. He throws his head back, letting out a long, drawn-out whine. He’s always been very vocal.

The motion bares his neck, and Wout wants to reach out and wrap his hands around it but not getting to cum after all of this will quite literally be hell, and if he knows one thing is that Mathieu follows through on his threats, especially when it comes to the bedroom. He entertains himself instead with watching the gleam of Mathieu’s throat, and how sweat makes him glow in the dim light of the room.

“So good,” he gasps, “you fill me up so good, Woutje.”

He keeps pressing and squirming, trying to find just the right angle that makes Wout’s cock press into his prostate over and over again. When he does, Wout begins to match Mathieu’s thrusts with his hips. It’s what sends the blonde over, his face scrunches, his mouth forms a perfect ‘o’, and his whines and moans are so high pitched, no one would ever think Mathieu was making those noises.

His cum coats his abdomen, some of it dripping on Wout’s belly. Wout knows that what comes next is the hardest part of the entire affair, but also the most pleasurable. For both.

Mathieu keeps rocking, he loves the overstimulation. When the pleasure of his release twists into something uncomfortable and painful. On his best day, he can cum again, getting off on the feeling. Wout is bucking wildly now, hips not even meeting Mathieu’s thrusts. The feeling tingles in his stomach, overriding his other senses, until all there’s on his mind is Matje, Matje, Matje, and the smell of him and the feeling of him.

“Matje,” he moans. Mathieu pinches Wout’s nipple between his fingers. “Please, please, please.”

It’s the begging that does it. It always has been. Mathieu snaps his eyes open, meeting Wout’s brown eyes. There’s softness in his expression, tenderness and a tranquility that has never been there before.

Mathieu’s hands wrap around his neck, squeezing gently. It makes it harder to breathe and impossible not to cum. He whines, and trashes and grunts, shutting his eyes closed praying that he’ll last for however long Mathieu wants.

“Say my name again.”

“Matje, Matje, Matje,” Wout rambles. “You feel so good, always so good. God, please, please please.”

“Say it again.”

“Mathieu, Mathieu, Matje.”

A laugh makes him open his eyes. Mathieu is a god, omnipotent and all-powerful. Wout begs and begs for mercy, and like a god, Mathieu grants it.

“You can cum, Woutje,” he whispers. “Fill me up, you always fill me up. Fill me up until there’s more of you in me than me. Come on, I need it, I love it.”

Wout cums, gasping and screaming. Mathieu falls into his chest again, and he licks the side of his face. Wout pants, trying to catch his breath. He taps Mathieu on the hip several times when he can’t take it anymore. The dutchman may love being overstimulated, but Wout certainly does not. He is soaked in sweat and cum, and drunk on Mathieu, and he had been so hard that he just wants to drift off to sleep.

“You are heavy,” he mumbles, Mathieu’s laugh rumbles through his chest, but he rolls off. Wout sees the way his cum drips out of him, but if that bothers Mathieu, he shows no sign of it.

“Don’t sleep yet, we have to clean ourselves up,” Mathieu says, attempting to sit up, but being pulled down by Wout. “Woutje, we’ll be all sticky.”

Wout traps Mathieu in his arms, pressing his face into his chest, feeling his heartbeat underneath. “We are already sticky,” he points out, “and I’m tired.”

“Huh, I wore you out old man?”

“Months! I am months older than you.”

Their laughter mixes, filling the room. They spend hours like that, bickering back and forth, until they both begin to drift off, Wout with his ear to Mathieu’s heart, and Mathieu with his hands pressed to the Belgian’s chest.

It’s the best sleep they’ve had in months

Notes:

Long ass chapter.
In the original outline for this story, chapter 6 was going to be their first kiss, but because I have no self control I jumped right over the slow-burn phase and directly into the destroy-and-consume-each-other phase.
Let me know what you think!
See you in the next update.

Chapter 7: Nothing Changes | Mathieu

Notes:

Hello! Welcome back to a new update.
The TdF is in one (1) week!!!! I'm so excited, that stupid race better be good I swear to God.
Hope you enjoy!

February, 2019

 

 

Although he didn’t take a massive break before starting the cyclocross season again, Mathieu feels rested in ways he hasn’t felt in years.

At times he thinks that if he looks in the mirror, his skin will glow, the blue eyes will seem livelier than ever. His expression is even softer, he realizes. It spooks some of the other riders when the first race arrives, and it sends curious and careful glances his way when he loudly greets everyone at the start line, shaking hands and patting the riders’ ass in a playful way.

David takes him aside after the race is over, and whispers hurriedly on his ear, “Stop it, boefje. It’s getting creepy.” But Mathieu just grins at him. “I know.”

Because, for the first time in his life, he does.

Mathieu knows.

It has all been brought forth by Wout. The tranquility, the peace, the ease that follows him around these days. It’s all because of him. Mathieu is seen, appreciated and understood, a far cry from the hostile environment of his home where more often than not he feels tolerated, at best. But now, in the quiet sanctuary that has become of Wout’s house, well. Life is bliss.

Unfortunately, their days could not all be spent in bed together, after 3 days when neither had answered the phone, Wout’s parents showed up unannounced to his house, and were tragically met with the image of their son pounding his life-long rival into the mattress. The screaming that had happened after was terribly amusing, Henk and Ivonne had stumbled out of the room with shocked faces, Wout looked like he wanted to combust on the spot, and Mathieu couldn’t wipe the satisfied smirk off his face.

It earned him a kick to the shoulder.

When the initial shock had worn off, Wout sat his parents down in the living room and explained the entire thing. Well, not really the entire thing, that would’ve made Henk and Ivonne hate Mathieu or something. But enough for them to get the gist of it.

Yes, we are in a relationship.

Yes, this has been going on for a while.

No, it became official only recently.

No, they have no clue what the impact on their careers would be.

After that, Alpecin had sent some poor management personnel to Mathieu’s parent’s house. Adrie had called him, very angrily, and demanded he come back and get in contact with the team. And to, for the love of God, resume training. Mathieu had been tempted to ignore him, just to get a thrill over the tantrum Adrie would throw.

But Wout had talked him out of it.

Finally, he relented and went to his parents’ house.

Although he was at Wout’s house maybe for an entire week. A long, beautiful week, coming back to the house still felt strange. Everything is the same, nothing changes, and yet everything was not the same. And the deep, and leering knowledge that it was him who had changed coiled in Mathieu as he walked through the door, once again armoring himself for a battle.

The hallway is empty and quiet, rare, for a house where Mathieu is so used to screaming and fighting. Angry words and doors slamming. Faintly, from the living room, noises are coming. He takes a deep breath and walks to where his parents are.

They sit together, Corinne and Adrie, on the couch, watching an old movie. Adrie notices him first, head snapping up, blue eyes distant. Corinne notices and glances backwards, flashing Mathieu a smile that makes his heart swell and guilt rise up. They are his parents, after all, and the last time they spoke was when Corinne got it on his head that he needed to talk to Wout.

Sure, they could be better parents.

But he could also be a better son.

“Hi,” he greets, waving an awkward hand.

Adrie nods. “Took you long enough to come back,” he says, letting out an ‘oof’ when Corinne slaps his arm.

“Hello, sweetheart,” his mom greets. “Come sit down.”

And man, Mathieu really wishes he could just run away and not have to tell them anything, especially to Corinne who is grinning widely because she just knows. Mathieu feels suddenly embarrassed that he didn’t wear a turtleneck, considering the little number Wout had done on him last night. He is pretty sure the purple and black splotches on his neck are very visible.

“Ah, I actually have something important to tell you guys.”

Corinne blinks. “Was I right, after all?”

“Yup.”

She nods, looking terribly amused and satisfied with herself. Mothers, Mathieu figures. She stands, closing the distance to him. She is small, but when she reaches her hands to his cheeks, Mathieu closes his eyes and leans into her touch with a sigh. He feels like a kid again, who would run to his mom and be cuddled and protected.

He missed it.

They stand there for a couple minutes, swaying back and forth. Comfort and warmth radiate from Corinne, filling Mathieu with peace. A strange sensation, especially in this house, but as he opens his eyes, his gaze finds Adrie, standing awkwardly behind them. He seems different, somehow. Not understanding, Mathieu knows it will never come to that, but rather tired. For the first time in his life, Mathieu looks at his father and sees someone old. Exhausted.

He recognizes the expression. He’s seen it enough times in the mirror.

“Oh, Mathieu,” Adrie sighs, voice sad. “You’ve always done what you wanted, but I hope you understand you are throwing your career away. And when you realize this…”

Mathieu knows the end of the phrase. Don’t come crying to me. I don’t wat to hear it and you don’t want to give me the satisfaction of being right.

Threaten me all you want, Mathieu thinks, I still did something out of my own free will, not just because you said so. And that, he guesses, is what Adrie cannot stand. It’s easier that way, rather than to scramble his brain looking for why his father would be so against Wout.

***

They go to Denmark together, in February, for the world championships.

The hotel they stay at is nice, a pleasant change from the maddening repetition that was becoming of Wout’s home. Don’t get him wrong, Mathieu likes the place, he really, really likes it. There is a big garden at the back, where, after Wout’s insistence, Mathieu finally brings his dog, and the three of them play there for an entire afternoon. And maybe Mathieu pretends to be really thirsty just to go into the kitchen and blink his tears away because the entire thing is terribly domestic and it’s pulling at his heart strings, because what did he ever do to deserve it?

He's been nothing but cruel and calculated, most times directed at Wout. And yet the Belgian just sees right past it. He bites back and lets it roll off his back.

It makes his heart swell.

So yes, he really loves Wout’s place, and he loves how his things are slowly filling it. His clothes in the closet, his shoes scattered around the house. Mathieu’s jacket hangs from the shelf on the hallway, and two of his bikes are already in the garage.

But it’s still Wout’s place. Not theirs.

As much as he knows the brunette wants him there, and welcomes him there, he can’t help the little cruel, whispering voice in the back of his mind that reminds him no place is ever his. The house is his parents’, or Wout’s, or David’s.

But things are hardly ever Mathieu’s.

Except for Wout.

There is no doubt on his mind that Wout’s his.

From the lustful, desperate way they fuck these days, to the simplicity with which Wout curls around him on the couch as they watch television. To Mathieu rumbling through the drawers in the kitchen, scrambling to make breakfast. And the racing.

God, the racing.

Every morning at dawn they ride together. Pushing each other to the absolute limit, pushing and pulling to find the exact place where the other man breaks, and how the other can put him back together again. It’s a thrill, and a chase, and it feels like sex sometimes but better. They are truly equals, and for the sake of not fighting they both agree to not keep track of who wins when they race.

It's so enjoyable, it’s everything he missed from racing. For the first time in some months, Mathieu is actually excited to start the road season, feeling like this new-found delight for cycling will finally translate into big achievements on the road. Sure, his cyclocross palmarés is as long as his arm, but it’s still a bit of a sore spot for him that he hasn’t been able to perform at that same level on both disciplines.

“When I win,” Wout says, coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He looks beautiful, and Mathieu thinks that he should just be allowed to lounge around naked all day. “I want to try the rope thing.”

Mathieu quirks an eyebrow. “When you win, Woutje?” he asks sarcastically. “I told you we would do the rope thing later, besides, what will I get when I win?”

“Whatever you want, I guess,” he says distractedly. “We did agree that the winner could get what he wanted, no questions asked.”

That’s also half the motivation for Mathieu, this race. The thought of having Wout completely at his disposal, unable to refuse him – not that Mathieu would ever overstep a boundary, to be clear – well, it sends tingles down his body, and makes a heat settle on his belly, threatening to spill out if startled.

It doesn’t come as a surprise later.

He wins.

Mathieu fucking wins.

His heart pounds in his ribcage, threatening to burst out at any moment, because he won. It’s thrilling and accelerating, and his legs are so tired the entire final lap, but he can’t let up because victory is so close he can almost taste it. It’s euphoric, they have injected the world’s best drug on his system, after a long withdrawal, and he is pumping with energy and excitement.

The crowd cheers, banging the barriers and yelling and shouting, but Mathieu finds that, at times, he enters this state where everything blurs. There is only the road ahead, the bike beneath him, and his legs, pedaling and pedaling without mercy, ignoring all the signals sent from a body that is so young to have been so abused. He always races his best then, when he is no longer human, but instead some cycling monster only focused on winning.

He pants and gasps as he makes it to the cooldown area. In the background, Mathieu hears them announce the official order. He finished ahead of Wout, by some 16 seconds. Belgian rider Toon Aerts completes the podium. He stops paying attention after Wout’s name is announced, only catching 3^rd place by chance.

Another podium he’ll share with Wout.

But for what feels like the first time, he is sharing it with his Wout.

The feeling curls around inside of him, petty and possessive and jealous, but he can’t help it. Lately, Mathieu has stopped trying to fight it, reasoning that if Wout can see it and still be with him, it clearly doesn’t matter.

It makes the fact that Wout still hasn’t said he loves him sting less.

Mathieu isn’t clingy, or pushy in that respect really. He tries to let it roll off him, to smile in understanding every time he says in and Wout only squeezes his hand a little tighter. But the desperate part of him aches to tear the brunette apart, to claw at his throat until his vocal cords are exposed and he can feel the vibrations with his fingers as Wout says the words and Mathieu commits the feeling to his memory.

So yes, Wout is his, even if the older man is still reluctant to admit it.

And so is the championship.

Mathieu allows himself to relish the fact. He had gone without a championship for years, and now the next time he takes the starting line, he’ll do it wearing the rainbow jersey.

By the time he sees Wout again, they are almost being called to the podium.

They had agreed to be professional in public and keep their relationship on the downlow. It’s not that they are going out of their way to hide it, but they are not exactly going out of their way to show it. The relationship belongs to them, and it’s really no one else’s business.

Wout’s hand curls around his shoulder, sending tingles down his spine. “Congratulations, champ,” he says with a smile, eyes wrinkly and happy. He pats Mathieu twice, then he lets go, his fingers grazing Mathieu’s nipple, as if by accident.

The bastard has a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Thanks, champ,” Mathieu murmurs, flushing red. He turns to Toon awkwardly, who also claps him twice and says his congratulations. The man has a confused expression on his face, and Mathieu is pretty sure he saw – and understood – the entire interaction.

But he feels like he naturally gravitates towards Wout, and God he wishes they were alone right now. The podium ceremony feels like torture. It’s impressive, the hold the Belgian man has over him. Wout only touched him once and Mathieu feels like he can cum on the spot. He needs to get a grip.

“Seems like the ropes are going to have to wait,” Wout whispers hotly into his ear as they hug on the podium. Mathieu feels the flashes of cameras on the side of his face, and he hopes they assume the pink tinge to his cheeks is from the cold and the exercise, and not from being teased and pushed.

“Meet me in the team bus later.”

“Please stop it,” Toon says quietly, looking incredibly uncomfortable. It’s amusing.

But, because Mathieu is a respectful man, he stops flirting with Wout and instead begins to come up with ideas for his prize, later on. He’s had thoughts, some cruel and twisted, like making Wout cum by fucking the air or something, or not even giving him release. But he did all the work today, he deserves to be stuffed and properly fucked, until there is not a single thought on his head other than I won.

Wout does come over to the team bus, when the staff has cleared away and the riders have gone to their hotel room. He has slipped out of his kit, dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie, kept warm by a massive puffy jacket that is probably way too warm. His cheeks are flushed pink, and the tip of his nose is cold.

Mathieu wants to devour him.

He shakes the jacket off as soon as the door closes behind him. “Shit, I thought it was colder, but I was burning up inside that jacket.”

Mathieu walks towards him, wrapping his arms around his waist. Wout’s hands grip the back of his neck.

“Your hands are cold.”

The Belgian surges forward, capturing his lips. His mouth is hot against Mathieu’s, and when he pushes deep and Mathieu gasps, the kiss intensifies as Wout slips his tongue in. Mathieu presses a hand against his abdomen, lifting his hoodie and feeling the goosebumps that rise on Wout’s pale skin as his hand slips higher and higher.

Wout pulls away, mouthing at Mathieu’s neck. “You won today, Matje,” he nibbles on the sensitive skin of his collarbone. “What do you want, champ?”

A million things go through his head. Mixed thoughts of skin on skin, moans and pants, dried cum on his abdomen, being filled, ropes. The images flash but before he can grab one and settle on it, they slip away. His brain short-circuits.

He pushes Wout to one of the chairs of the bus and sits him down. The bus is suddenly way too warm, and Mathieu feels desperate to tear all his clothes off, but his mind has decided on some other things. Wout’s legs are spread open, and he very much wants the Belgian to suffocate him with his thighs. God, they are massive. The position reveals the bulge on his crotch, pressing against his sweatpants, and he really is the most perfect, enticing chair, Mathieu wants to crawl on his lap and never stand up again. They’ll merge together then, not one individual person, but forever the two of them.

Mathieu drops to his knees.

He presses a kiss to Wout’s clothed cock, mouthing and licking. Loving the way Wout drops a hand to his hair, and maybe Mathieu shouldn’t buzz his head as often as he does. Wout loves tugging on his hair. He does it until there is now a stain on his sweatpants, and Wout has begun to roll his hips into the motion, letting out small whines every time Mathieu flashes his lashes at him.

When he finally unclothes his lower half and takes him into his mouth, Wout curses loudly, bucking his hips and grazing the back of Mathieu’s throat. It makes him choke, but Mathieu does not pull away. He runs his teeth through the underside of Wout’s cock, humming when the other man gasps, but the order is understood by the Belgian. Behave.

He bobs his head up and down, pumping his fist at the base in a way he knows always sends Wout over the edge. His other hand fondles his balls. Mathieu’s spit and Wout’s pre mix together, the perfect lube, and it only makes everything more slippery and wetter and louder. It drips out of his mouth and onto the brunette’s thighs. When he pulls away, he licks at the slit, blowing hot air out of his mouth.

Wout moans. “Fuck, why did you stop?”

“You know why I stopped.”

His hair is tugged painfully.

“Bastard.”

Mathieu shrugs. “You love me.”

He gets back to work, taking Wout’s cock again, and God is he big, Mathieu has no idea how he is able to take him. It sits heavily in Mathieu’s mouth, the weight of it terribly familiar. He feels every twitch, every moan, every painful tug to his hair, and he is so incredibly hard on his pants, he could come from just this.

“Mathieu, Mathieu, Matje,” Wout chants, rolling his hips faster. “You take me so well, Matje.”

“Fuck, you are so good.”

“Please make me cum.”

“God, you are going to make me cum.”

“Please, please, Mathieu.”

“Can I please cum, Matje?”

It’s on the last one, where Mathieu finally allows it. He nods, looking up to Wout’s eyes. Brown meets blue. Wout’s pupils are blown out, his eyes black and lustful and full of tenderness. Mathieu loves him like this, when he is a creature lost in pleasure, pleasure that only Mathieu can give him. It’s how he should always be.

And he begs so prettily too, Mathieu is so on the edge just from hearing it. He’s thrusting his own hips into the seat, trying to find his own release. Wout tenses around him, he shakes, and he screams, and hot cum is spurting down Mathieu’s throat, coating his mouth.

He swallows.

Wout is panting heavily, the grip of his hand on Mathieu’s hair has loosened, and his thighs shake with the aftermath of his orgasm. “I love you,” he murmurs lazily into the ceiling. Mathieu scrambles to sit on his thighs.

“Say it again,” he orders, tugging Wout towards him by his hair, rocking on his lap.

“I love you, Matje,” Wout says, pressing his hands on Mathieu’s face with love and understanding and affection. Mathieu almost can’t bear it. Then, “cum on my face.”

Mathieu grins, standing up and lowering his sweatpants in one go.

He doesn’t last long, exactly as he knew.

Later, in the hotel room, and epiphany hits Mathieu, almost at the same time as his second orgasm. Everything is right now. Because he has finally won. He won Wout and he won the championship and he and Wout will share every single podium from here on out, because it is finally right.

It’s why they couldn’t work out, before.

Because he hadn’t won. It imbalanced their entire relationship, and it made them lash out with cruel words at each other, attempting to bite and scratch and scar. But now, now that everything is perfect, he has won once more and all they are is falling into place, exactly as it should’ve always been. There is only them, and their sex and their bikes. And their love. The red string of fate. It’ll never be broken, they can never escape the chain.

As he thinks about Wout, sitting on the team bus, blissed out and with a doe-like expression, looking up at Mathieu as he waits for his cum. And then the image, so pornographic, so beautiful and terrifying. Wout, lazy smile on his face, thick, white cum on display on his face, in love with Mathieu. Branded, Mathieu had thought then. You are mine, and I am yours now. Forever.

They’ll have to pry that off Mathieu’s cold, dead hands.

Notes:

A bit of a boring, filler chapter, but after this things will begin to spiral downhill.
2019 is a busy year for the two of them, so now the chapters won't jump about six months in between.
And if you guys remember, what happened to Wout in 2019?
Let me know what you think.
See you in the next update!

Chapter 8: They are Going to Love You | Wout

Notes:

Hello, another day another update.
In other news, the team introductions are tomorrow and I'm so starved for cycling I can't wait. I missed them all so much.
Also, this is the last update before the TdF!

April, 2019

 

 

Wout is a routine person.

He likes waking up at the same hour every day, enjoying his morning ride, stopping halfway through in a local café for his dose of caffeine, getting home, stretching and showering, then his proper training, pushing himself to the absolute limit, just to know exactly where he cracks, and afterwards his rest.

So yes, he is very much a creature of routine.

It’s what makes training camps so difficult.

By no means are they easy, they never have been, but the first obstacle Wout has to overcome is the psychological aspect of knowing the training camp has taken him away from his routine, and that he would have to endure it for two or three weeks.

But the training camp this year is harder than all the last ones.

Wout’s new team, Jumbo-Visma, well they are really investing in being serious contenders in road cycling. Like, we are going to win the Tour de France contenders. Wout remembers the meeting at the restaurant with them well enough, and the promise that they had made him. At the time, he thought he had accepted because of all the wrong reasons. The jealous part of him that did it just to spite Mathieu – before everything changed between them, of course – had taken over and spoken in his stead. Later he realized he had accepted because, even though he tried to be as humble and as down to earth as he could – he’s always known he was meant to be more. With the right team he could even be great.

With Visma he could be the best.

He shows up to the first training camp with the team nervous, clutching his bags with wide eyes. The team loved him instantly, and he did as well.

And for the first time in his career, he feels like his cyclocross success can translate onto road racing. He can be the best. He can race in the biggest races and win and write his name in history. The monuments, the Grand Tours, the classics. They are so close he can taste them.

“Please stop grinning like a mad man” Mathieu says, setting the plates down on the dining table. “You look creepy, Woutje.”

Wout laughs, setting a timer for the food he’s just put in the oven.

“It was just so good, Matje,” he says as the blonde man rolls his eyes. “The team is amazing, and I just clicked with everyone, and I just feel like-“

“The world is at my feet,” Mathieu finishes, voice annoyed. But there’s no bite to it, not really. He’s trying his best to hide an amused smile by pressing his lips together. “I feel like I should get paid for how many times I’ve heard the speech already.”

“Thank you for your sacrifice.”

They are currently waiting for Wout’s parents to arrive. They had begged and pressed and threatened. And Wout, who had always been close to them, felt bad and relented and allowed them to meet Mathieu; by promising he’d arrange a dinner with just the four of them. Ivonne had smiled, eyes crinkling, and said they had to meet the man their son was dating.

When Wout pointed out that they had met Mathieu dozens of times before, Henk had slapped his arm. “Yes, but you were rivals back then.”

At times Wout thought it was a little bit strange. Everyone just assumed that because they were something now, they would stop being rivals. But for them, competing and beating the other man was as normal as falling into bed together, limbs a tangled mess. It was the first cornerstone of their relationship. Before there was love there was sex, before there was sex there was competitiveness. Without it, Wout had no idea how the relationship would even work.

Could it even work?

But his parents were under the impression that his relationship with Mathieu was normal, and he wasn’t about to break that illusion. It’s why he was so nervous about the entire dinner that he had compulsively cooked the entire meal, baked three desserts and ordered 5 bottles of wine they will definitely not be needing.

In his defense, it’s not like Mathieu would be of much help. If Wout wanted his house to burn down, the easiest thing would be to ask Mathieu to cook, rather than handing him a bottle of gasoline and a lighter. He loved the man, but he couldn’t cook to save his life. One time he had disappeared water. Like, it fully evaporated because Mathieu got occupied cooking everything else.

After that they decided that Mathieu had great talent for cleaning.

Wout realizes he’s been staring off into the distance when Mathieu’s arms wrap around him from behind. The blonde man presses his face to his back, kissing the space between Wout’s shoulder blades as the Belgian grabs Mathieu’s hands with his own.

“Are you still nervous?” Mathieu murmurs quietly.

Wout sighs. “A little bit.”

“Do you think they are not going to like me?” he asks, voice small and worried. He sounds so sad that it makes Wout blink.

“They are going to love you, Matje,” he explains, feeling the blonde relax. “It’s just one of those times where the rational part of me knows everything is going to be okay, but the anxious part of me needs something to worry about.”

Mathieu inhales. “Do you think that someday we could do this with my parents?”

Wout turns, expecting to find Mathieu on the verge of tears, like he had been the previous times the topic of his parents had come up. He is surprised to find Mathieu’s blue eyes dry, his expression distant and pensive. The question had slipped out before he could stop it, then. It came from the deepest parts of the mind of the dutchman. Wout brushes a strand of hair from Mathieu’s forehead, he had been growing his hair out, after Wout had confessed that he loved tugging on it.

He presses a kiss to his forehead. “Of course we will.”

It was no surprise that Mathieu’s parents had a less than positive reaction to the relationship. Well, Corinne was fine. Adrie had a less than positive reaction to the relationship. Wout had seen them since, here and there in races, and one time he had waited for Mathieu in the car while the dutchman picked somethings up from their home. He tried holding it as long as he could, but in the end, he dashed to the house and asked to use the bathroom. Mathieu had spent the entire afternoon shoving coffee down his throat, and he really needed to go.

Corinne greeted him with a smile and a warm hug, pointing him to the bathroom. As he took care of his biological needs, he heard shouting coming from somewhere in the house.

“Really, Mathieu? You practically live with the man,” Adrie’s angry voice yelled. “You neglect your training and your schedule on a whim.”

And hey, Wout was not a whim, was he? Mathieu had practically begged him to be in a relationship; you don’t go around begging for someone who is only a whim. Sure, before, when they were exclusively sex, Wout could admit that he may be a whim, but now? That was mean, and they were done being mean with each other.

“Stay out of my life!” Mathieu screamed back, tone cruel and all too familiar for Wout, although he hadn’t heard directed at him in a while.

“You’ll never win if you keep this going!”

“I’ll be sure to send you the medal from the next race I win!”

The worst part of it was that it kept going. Words and anger and venom thrown at each other without care. It made Wout understand a great deal of Mathieu’s behavior, and it also made him incredibly grateful for his sane parents. Before he knew it, he had been standing eavesdropping in the bathroom for ten minutes, and he had to come out and rescue Mathieu.

He had, and Mathieu rambled on and on all the way home, going on about how much Adrie tried to control his life and how he had turned him into a machine and how he expected him to be a robot. He had tugged painfully at his own hair until Wout made him stop.

They hadn’t returned to their home since, and Wout was dreading the day it would happen because it usually sent Mathieu into a rage, and borderline psychotic state of madness that resulted in a horrible crash, with the blonde crawling on his lap and crying, muffling his sobs on Wout’s shoulder.

It made Wout want to slap Adrie across the face.

He offered, but it only made Mathieu snort, amused. Despite it all, he truly loved his father, in a complicated, twisted way that Wout could not begin to understand at all. He feared that’s how Mathieu loved him too.

But he didn’t let himself linger on the thought too much.

The doorbell rang, because Ivonne and Henk would never again barge into a room with the two of them alone again – it still mortified Wout every time he remembered the accident – and he shook his head, cradling Mathieu’s face in his hands tenderly.

“They are going to love you.”

***

They loved him.

Of course they did, it was never in doubt. Mathieu was his charming self, smiling and joking and laughing at all the right moments. His blue eyes tingled as he threw his head back, hands flailing about when he wanted to make a particular point, answering his parents with politeness and charisma. Ever the showman.

He asked all the right questions too. He wondered about his parents’ jobs, asked about their travels and vacations and Wout’s childhood outside of cycling. But Wout had the suspicion that he had won his parents over when, after finishing their meal, he had turned to Ivonne and asked:

“When did you start letting him bleach his hair?”

Wout rolled his eyes. His blonde strand was NOT bleached, as he had explained millions of times. It made no difference, Mathieu insisted that it was. Henk laughed, clutching his chest while Ivonne’s eyes grew wide in panic.

“Never!” she exclaimed, digging her phone out of her pocket. “That strand is all natural, Mathieu. Here, look at him as a baby,” Ivonne shoved the phone in Mathieu’s face before he could protest. Wout only hoped she wasn’t showing him showering or something. “See the strand of hair, there?”

Mathieu shrugged, unconvinced. “That could just be the light.”

They bantered lightly about it for a while. Ivonne insistent on the strand being natural – which it is – and Mathieu sure that Wout bleached the strand in shameful secrecy. Years and years of rivalry melted away in a single evening, proving that when he put his mind to it, Mathieu could charm a piece of wood if he wanted to.

As Mathieu and Ivonne cleaned the dishes in the kitchen, and Wout and Henk were done cleaning the dining table, Henk waved him aside with a hand on his shoulder, guiding him to the living room until the chatter between his boyfriend and his mother was muffled and distant.

“You know, at first Mom and I were very worried about the whole thing,” he said, sitting down on the couch and patting the spot next to him. Wout sat. “There was the whole cycling thing, of course, but we always thought that you were more into the whole thing than he was.”

Wout frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Henk rubbed the back of his head. “He just seemed very confused, I guess. Unsure.”

It sends a pang through Wout, the thought that he has read this all wrong, and Mathieu is just waiting for the right time to pull the rug out from underneath him. It must be read on his face, because his father’s eyes go wide, and he quickly scrambles to fix his mistake.

“That worry if gone now, of course,” he clarifies, “he is into you just as much as you are into him. It’s nice to see, Wout. That you are with someone who will take care of you.”

And that.

Well, that is shocking.

With everything going on in their lives, he’s come to the realization that Mathieu’s life is much more unstable than his. His entire upbringing is a puzzle for Wout. With the overbearing figure of Adrie, the confusing role that Corinne plays in all of it, the competition with David. It’s strange, and often he feels like he’s the one doing the taking care, rather than being the one being taken care of.

It’s just because he is much more stable, he’s convinced himself of it.

Not wanting to worry his father, Wout smiles.

“Yeah, finally, right?”

Henk laughs.

***

In April, Wout and Mathieu race against each other.

On road cycling this time. Which they have done before, but back then Wout wasn’t with a winning team. Mathieu had been in Alpecin, he basically owns the team, but still. Wout thinks that, going into the race, they are both contenders. In good shape and in high spirits.

Amstel Gold Race.

Wout is nowhere near winning, and his performance is poor at best, forgettable at worst.

But Mathieu.

Mathieu wins.

And it’s fine, really. Wout is very happy for him. He crosses the line, exhausted and rushes to his team, congratulating his teammates on a great effort and surely next time can only be better. Marc Lamberts, his coach, whispers in his ear the results. Wout feels a lot of things, pride, shock, happiness.

But at the end of the day, he is an athlete.

An athlete that wants to win.

The ugly, twisted side of him swells in anger and resentment. It screams and claws inside of him. Mad that Mathieu was better today. Perhaps he had grown a bit overconfident in his road cycling career, until then the better results had always swung in favor of the Belgian. With shock and disgust, the image of grabbing Mathieu by the neck and snapping his leg or his arm flashes through his mind. It disappears so quickly that Wout isn’t even sure if he conjured it up or not.

But he did.

The lingering panic it leaves makes his heart hammer in his ribcage. He drinks his water aggressively, stomping over to the cooldown area in front of his team bus, and pedaling until he calms down.

His mind goes a million miles an hour. First, he reassures himself. He would never hurt Mathieu. Sure, he has placed his hands on Mathieu’s pulse point on his throat and pressed his fingers in, but that was only after the blonde had begged him to. Secondly, he reasons as he watches the replay of Mathieu’s win. The dutchman would have beaten Eddy Merckx himself on top-tier shape. His final acceleration was out of this world, the effort to close the gap monumental. Mathieu himself couldn’t believe it.

Wout recognized Mathieu’s body language incredibly well.

It’s why he threw himself off the bike and onto the road as he arrived, crying and gasping, panting for air. As he saw the image, he couldn’t find it in himself to even be mad. Why was he mad, in the first place? Mathieu worked very hard, despite Adrie’s cruel claims. Wout had seen the way he destroyed himself training, and how the next day he could be put together again.

He admired it, it usually took Wout a couple of days to be put together again, especially after such an effort.

He lingers on the team bus, after their debrief of the race. Going out to watch the podium ceremony would be too personal, and he is nowhere near ready for that. But he observes from the television, allowing himself to smile softly as Mathieu swells with pride at winning. Wout takes his phone out, snapping a selfie of himself smiling and Mathieu in the background when the camera pans to a close-up shot of his face.

It's pointless to go back to his hotel room right now. He unfortunately isn’t sharing a hotel with Mathieu, stuck instead with his team. And, as angry and frustrated as he had been, Wout’s not some cruel monster that won’t even congratulate his boyfriend on his win. Sure, he can be upset, but he also feels pride, because at the end of the day the winner is his Matje. His, his, his.

The dozens of eyes on Mathieu on the podium, the way the other riders look at him, gazes lingering just for way too long, their congratulatory pats just a bit too harsh. They all want a piece of him, but only Wout gets to take him home and press him into the wall and undress him and run his hands through his well-defined body. Only Wout gets to fuck him, and to make him cum, and to see him cum, and then he gets to cum inside of him.

Possessiveness thrums through him, and Wout wishes he could cover Mathieu up with a blanket or something, lock him up in his house and keep him chained to the bed. But the thought is mean, so he pushes it away. If he ever told Mathieu, the blonde would probably only find it hot, freak as he is.

It would lead to some spectacular sex though.

Once Wout figures it’s safe, he darts across to the Alpecin team bus, knocking thrice. A confused looking rider looks down at him, then he shrugs and yells, “Mathieu, your mortal enemy is here.”

Seconds later, Mathieu emerges from the bus, having changed into regular clothes again. His hair is still damp, and the smell of shampoo clings to him. He grins, blue eyes tingling with the golden sunset light.

He looks like an angel.

“Congratulations, Matje,” Wout whispers, wrapping his arms around him in a hug. He inhales Mathieu’s scent and feels the dutchman press his head against his shoulder, relaxing.

“Thank you,” he responds. “Can I come over later?”

Wout tsks. “I have a roommate; it’ll be hard to get rid of him.”

Mathieu frowns, the expression is adorable on his face. “Alright, wait a minute here, then.”

He reenters the bus before Wout can say anything else. He hears muffled voices and some laughter. Then the entire team is tumbling outside, seemingly heading back to their respective hotel. Wout swears he hears a ride murmur “good luck” when he passes him. Ten bonus points for subtlety he guesses.

Mathieu appears at the door, hands at his waist, looking terribly pleased with himself. “There, ready.”

Wout steps into the bus, laughing all the way in.

***

Wout sits on Mathieu’s seat as the blonde cleans up the bathroom, blissed out and loopy. The bus is pretty generic, but now that he’s not actively having sex on it, Wout can’t find it in himself to relax. It’s basically enemy territory. He does not voice the thought out loud though.

“It’s finally coming off,” Mathieu hoots from the bathroom.

Wout snorts. “If only someone had told you it was a bad idea,” he says sarcastically. “Oh, wait, I did!”

“Shut up, Woutje.”

“And don’t stop scrubbing until it’s clean, princess.”

“Did you just call me princess?”

“Shut up, Matje.”

A comfortable silence settles over the bus, the only sound being Mathieu scrubbing, and Wout’s breathing, which has finally settled into a normal pace, instead of the high-pitched pants he was making earlier. Thank God Mathieu’s teammates left, otherwise they would have heard him begging and that would be way too embarrassing.

“You rode a great race today, though,” Wout finds himself saying. “Your sprint at the end is going to go down in history.”

Mathieu pokes his head from the bathroom, walking over to Wout and settling on his lap.

While Wout loves it, Mathieu likes to act like he is petite or something, not fucking monstrous and huge. Sure, Wout is pretty strong in his own right, but Mathieu is by no means small. Wout wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him closer.

“The strangest thing happened,” Mathieu confesses quietly. “I wasn’t feeling anything, there was only me and the bike and people in front of me. All I knew was that I had to pass them.”

And you did, Wout thinks.

“It happens sometimes,” he says instead, tracing soft figures on Mathieu’s lower back. “You get this amazing high, and you spend every race chasing it again.”

“I’m sorry, Woutje.”

Wout knows why.

“It’s okay.”

“You really are an amazing cyclist.”

“You lose more than you win, I’m fine.”

But with every word his voice cracks a little bit more. And the knot on his throat tightens and chokes him. He suddenly feels too hot and suffocated. The worst part is that he doesn’t even know why he feels that way, but he is overwhelmed out of nowhere, feeling a million emotions and not knowing how to phrase them, how to even organize them.

Wout gasps. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where all of this is coming from,” he says, squeezing his hands a bit tighter. “I really am happy for you. And I am really, really proud.”

Mathieu cradles his face, forcing them to make eye contact. His eyes are blue and calculating. He’s deeply analyzing Wout, who has no idea what his face is right now. Mathieu presses his lips to Wout’s mouth, licking softly at the entrance before pulling away.

“I love you, Woutje.”

“I love you, Matje.”

A soft smile adorned the dutchman’s gorgeous face, Wout can’t help but smile back. Overwhelmed with love and adoration, and he literally just came. Everything is too much, but the look on Mathieu’s eyes grounds him, calls him home and traps him in. Even though he is on the team bus of the enemy, he feels safe, and the back of his mind wonders when he started feeling safety on the blonde man’s arms, and when his longing for home became a longing for Mathieu.

It terrifies him.

“Can you take a picture of me with the medal?” Mathieu asks. “I did promise to send it to my dad.”

Wout throws his head back and laughs.

Notes:

What do we think, the blonde streak, natural or bleached?
Also, I'm pleased to announce we are around half-way through Part 1, I honestly had a much shorter story planned, but with everything I wanted to cover, it sort of snowballed into this and now there will be around 16 to 18 parts.
Let me know what you think!
See you in the next update.

Chapter 9: Maybe I Became Like You | Mathieu

Notes:

Hello again!
The TdF 2025 is officially underway, let's mf gooooo!
What did you think of the first stage? Absolute masterclass by the Alpecin boys with the leadout train, and from Visma with the positioning, but it is a shame that Wout got caught in the back.
Hope you guys enjoy!

Tour de France. July, 2019.

 

 

 

The Tour de France is the biggest bike race in the world.

It’s the World Cup, the Olympics and the Superbowl combined. It’s fucking hard to win it too. It’s so hard to win the entire thing, that even winning a stage is prestigious. Three long, cruel weeks across the entire country of France, and if you don’t die in the French Alps from dehydration and exhaustion, you’ll get to finish on the iconic Champs-Élysées, drinking your champagne.

The race is a bitch.

Mathieu cannot wait to ride it.

But not this year.

The team doesn’t participate in it, so Mathieu finds himself with free time scattered across three weeks in July. He still trains, as intensely as he would with anything else, and continues to prepare for the rest of his road season, and for his beloved cyclocross season. Where he is world champion. The thought makes him jittery.

Wout is selected to participate.

A well-earned spot, Mathieu thinks when Wout breaks the news. His results had been improving, and after Strade Bianche last year, it seems like most of the world has taken notice of Wout Van Aert. It is deserved, and Mathieu feels incredibly proud of his boyfriend, and incredibly happy that such a great cyclist gets to prove himself in the biggest race there is.

He is not at all jealous.

Mathieu just wishes that when Wout had told him the fact, his face hadn’t pulled into a painful grimace that nearly knocked him off the stationary bike in the living room where he had been training. But it was fine, he had let Wout bend him over the sofa, and they had both left the living room satisfied.

Everything was fine.

The biggest downside to Wout riding the Tour, once he ignored the petty, angry voice whispering in his head, was that he had to do weeks upon weeks of training. Because Jumbo-Visma meant business, they wanted to prove that they were a real contender team with real contender riders that were a serious threat.

But Mathieu had convicted himself to being supportive, so he had smiled and helped Wout pack his bags, and the night before he left for training camp when the issue of ropes had come up again, Mathieu had agreed with a smile on his face.

So, what if his wrists were bruised for an entire week?

The thing that does come as a surprise is how lonely Mathieu quickly starts to feel, but at the same time it makes sense. He is on Wout’s house, surrounded by things that belong to the Belgian man. His smell still lingers around the house, his warmth slowly evaporating from his side of the bed.

It makes Mathieu yearn and long and stay awake all night.

He is incredibly clingy, if he was Wout he would be terribly annoyed by his antics. He texts Wout a million times a day, just random thoughts that occur to him as he goes through the day. He texts even though he knows Wout is training and unable to answer him. His phone probably isn’t even on him. But in the evenings, Wout comes back online, and he replies to every single text that Mathieu sent.

They videocall too but quickly learn that’s a dangerous game for the both of them.

Jumbo-Visma might be well off, but they are nowhere near a-room-per-rider-well-off, and Wout is nowhere near single room status either. So, he rooms with one of his teammates. Steven something, Wout mentions him a couple of times, he seems to like the guy.

Steven has the misfortune of entering the room one night when Wout had his hands down his pants, furiously working it up and down to Mathieu’s commands.

Oh, well.

At least he’s learnt to knock before entering a room when Wout is alone inside. But Wout is a bit of a prude, and he was so embarrassed after the fact that he had refused to repeat the occasion, no matter how much Mathieu pleaded and begged him.

It’s been hell.

Masturbating isn’t even enough, at this point. Mathieu has tried it, drifting his hands lower and lower when he can’t sleep, but Wout has successfully ruined him for anybody else’s hands. Even his own. The thought is fucked up and twisted, but it coils within Mathieu and fills him with satisfaction.

Even though he likes to pretend otherwise, Wout has his claws too.

And he has left his claw marks all over Mathieu, just like Mathieu has done on him.

Eventually it gets so bad that he goes back to his parents’ house, unable to bear breathing in Wout’s house without the other man there. Mathieu seriously thinks he’s become addicted or something, acting like a junkie going through a withdrawal. Being in his parent’s house is better than being alone in Wout’s.

A sentence he thought he’d never say.

A day before the Tour starts, he finds himself on a nice dinner with David and Corinne. Adrie is out of town, and Mathieu thanks whatever is up there because he can’t imagine sitting uncomfortably in public for 2 hours. He’s been texting Wout under the table, all innocent of course. The last thing he needs is to be rock hard eating pasta with his family.

“We have been out looking at apartments, but none has convinced us so far,” David is saying, swallowing his food. “Amalia finds something wrong in every single one of them, but honestly, she raises great points. It had never occurred to me to focus on the fu- sorry – sun position, but she thought of it.”

Corinne nods, interested in the conversation. “When you find the place, you’ll just know,” she says. “Everything just fits right in, like a puzzle.”

Mathieu tries really hard not to roll his eyes.

He likes Wout’s house, and he likes staying there. Sure, he was not involved in the decoration, and the Belgian is such a routine person that he hates even the smallest of changes, but over the course of nearly six months, Mathieu’s things had slowly begun to fill the house and take up space. A part of him worried that, because he could never fully move in without Wout protesting in some form or the other, the place would never feel like home, but that part was quickly reassured by thinking that his parents’ house was not his home either, and he had lived in there far longer than he should’ve.

Besides, Wout would never do any of that, it was just Mathieu’s anxious brain and its stupid need to go a million miles per hour.

Right now, everything is fine.

“How are you liking living with Wout, boefje?” Corinne asks kindly, turning her eyes on Mathieu.

Mathieu pouts. “I don’t like that nickname, I only stole like three things when I was six,” he answers petulantly.

“Mathieu,” David deadpans, “you stole a bike from the playground.”

“I didn’t steal it; someone left it unattended.”

“Then why did they put posters up of the bike?”

“To frame me,” Mathieu says, “people love blaming seven-year-olds for things going missing, especially from playgrounds.”

“You were twelve, boefje.”

“Wout’s house is nice,” Mathieu turns to Corinne, ignoring his sniggering brother altogether. “It’s peaceful and there’s lots of space. It just feels a little bit lonely now that he’s not there. But everything is fine, really, I just came back because I missed him.”

Corinne nods in understanding. “I know how hard it can be, I used to miss my father, and then I missed your father,” she says, laying her hands on her children’s. “And now I miss the two of you.”

Mathieu blinks, taken aback by the sudden vulnerability in his mother’s tone. He’s not really used to it, and he is terrible at consoling people, but he can begin to imagine how hard it must be for her; to have a sport completely dominate your entire life and you don’t even train it. There are times when Mathieu is sure she hates it, detests the way it has torn and clawed at her family. But then he wins, and all the anger is washed away, leaving only behind happiness.

He wonders if it’s any different for her.

Instead, Mathieu flips his hand and squeezes hers tightly, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Corinne’s wedding ring presses against his palm, and if that’s not a metaphor, Mathieu has no idea what is.

It leaves a mark on his hand for longer than he’d thought.

***

Watching the Tour scattered across the living room becomes a bit of a family tradition.

It starts on the second stage, when David arrives to find Mathieu cuddled in the living room with his dog, waiting for Wout’s turn. He had bolted to the kitchen and returned minutes later with a bowl of snacks he had placed on the center table. Then they waited together for Wout, making off-handed comments about the race and the riders and what profiles fit them better until it frustrates David.

Mathieu just keeps saying every stage suits Wout and he’ll win everything.

The bickering attracts Corinne, who ventures downstairs. They must’ve looked like teenagers, Mathieu thinks, because when she sits down her eyes are red with nostalgia. She sits and shares her own stories of watching the Tour – adding that it was much harder back in the day – and surprisingly, she even puts her input on who will win the entire thing. She guesses Egan Bernal from INEOS.

“As if,” Mathieu scoffs, “his teammate is the defending champion, no way they are giving him leadership.”

David nods in support. “Yeah, he’s had good performances, but I think the Tour is too much, maybe later.”

Corinne sips her water, eyes flashing as if she has inside information. Oh shit, does she have inside information?

“Believe what you want, I think he could win the whole thing.”

Mathieu tunes them out because Wout’s team is lining up to begin their time trial. The bright yellow color of their team kit makes it impossible to miss them, and Mathieu has every part of Wout memorized that he could recognize him even if the brunette was a tiny spot on the screen. His eyes are glued to him, mesmerized by the poetry in motion that is Wout cycling.

They win.

Of course they do, by around 20 seconds, the biggest margin between the top teams. They defend the yellow, and a big part of Mathieu swells because it was Wout who brought them over to the line, and that’s his boyfriend. His, his, his. He wonders if he can lay claim to the victory somehow but decides not to dwell too long on the thought. And then Wout takes the white jersey.

He looks good in white.

It makes Mathieu inappropriately aroused.

He watches the podium ceremony, smiling when Wout does, because his happiness is so contagious, even through the screen. His smile widens, flashing his white teeth, and the motion crinkles his eyes until they are almost closed. Mathieu takes a picture of him with his phone to send to Wout later, just to show him he was there, supporting him and celebrating him, the way Wout often does with him.

David and Corinne cheer, clapping Mathieu in the back and telling him to extend their congratulations to Wout. Mathieu just smiles, wishing everybody would look at Wout and just know. Know that they can congratulate Mathieu too, because their names are so intertwined, they might as well be the same entity.

They are cut from the same cloth.

Because he is still the way he is, he texts a million things to Wout, knowing the older man – only for a few months – will take longer to reply today. Mathieu had been cued in on the schedule. After the race, and the entire post-race protocol, the team moved to the hotel room, where a masseuse will then work out all the lumps and pains from his body. Then it is the team dinner, and because they won today the dinner will take a longer time, which means Mathieu will have even more little time with his boyfriend, before said boyfriend has to fall asleep in order to have energy for the next day.

Just as he predicted, Wout calls him late in the afternoon.

A video call.

Mathieu answers.

“Congratulations Woutje,” he greets. “How was the celebration?”

Wout grins in the adorable way that wrinkles his eyes. “Long. I kept falling asleep on the table, Steven finally sent me to bed.”

“I don’t want to keep you up if you need to rest.”

“Shut up, Matje. I have a little time.”

Wout recaps the entire day, going on and on about the cycling, and the heat. The roar of the crowd and the elation you feel when you cross the line, and you have won. He describes the smug, proud feeling he had gotten when he stood on the podium, medal around his neck. When they put the white jersey on him.

Mathieu listens patiently. Feeling half proud half mad.

It’s so hard to pinpoint where the anger comes from, exactly. He had convinced himself he was happy for Wout, that his achievements could be their achievements, but at the end of the day he didn’t race at the Tour de France. Mathieu didn’t push and pedal through his breaking points to defend his teammate’s yellow jersey, he’s not the young rider with the best time. He’s none of those things.

Wout is.

Mathieu is at home, listening to his boyfriend drone on and on and a part of Mathieu hates him. He wishes he could reach over and slap him hard across the face, so that Wout gets the message that he needs to learn to read the room. Rage swirls around him, and he doesn’t know if it’s directed at Wout or at himself.

Because he was not good enough.

And that just comes with the horrible realization that Wout is just better. The competitor in him can’t stand it. He’s been working towards being the absolute best his entire life, it’s family events that he has missed, friendships he has neglected, pieces of himself that have been scraped off of him and scattered across European landscapes. It couldn’t have all been for nothing.

That makes their relationship off, off, off.

It would mean they are not equal. Mathieu is somehow beneath Wout. It’s not love; it’s worshipping. And that will consume and consume Mathieu until he’ll feel nothing for Wout but resentment. He can’t have that. Suddenly he needs Wout in the room with him, Wout who presses him into the mattress and fucks him so good. Wout who has no release until Mathieu tells him he can. He’s out of control, and Wout better not win another stage, but if he doesn’t win another stage does that mean that Mathieu cannot ever win a stage as well?

He takes a deep breath to steady himself.

“I’ve always wondered what it was like to have sex with a Grand Tour stage winner,” he says, interrupting whatever Wout was going on about this time.

Wout raises a brow. “Do you want to find out?”

Mathieu nods.

***

The tenth stage of the Tour de France is a flat stage.

It’s won on a sprint by Wout.

It takes Mathieu an abnormally long time to get back to him. But he justifies himself, his family tradition of sitting around and watching the Tour has a new member, when one day Adrie had arrived and plopped himself down to watch along.

The tension between them had not disappeared but rather melted away. The bulk of the snow was gone, but you could still see the stain. To his credit, Adrie abstained from commenting on anything negative about Wout, focusing instead on the cycling and the racing. It makes talking to him easier.

His father has surprisingly deep, insightful takes on the race. Mathieu had no idea he understood cycling that much. Or maybe not that much, he also supported Corinne on the thought that Egan Bernal would win the Tour.

After Wout’s win, Mathieu distracts himself around the house with random chores, all aimed at keeping his phone away from him. He walks the dog around the neighborhood; he volunteers to clean the kitchen and wash the dishes. Mathieu even has time to do a little cleaning around his bedroom, and he chooses today to do it instead of any other day, pushing aside the fact that the dirt around the bookcases doesn’t really bother him.

It becomes increasingly obvious that he’s avoiding the Belgian man, but Mathieu really hates that, as he had watched Wout cross the finish line and end his sprint first, his initial thoughts had been of anger and jealousy, instead of happiness and joy. He can’t help it, the selfish thought that all of it – the glory, the victory and the celebrations – it should be happening to him, not to Wout.

Wout didn’t even win the cyclocross championship. He didn’t win in Amstel.

Why is he winning here, then?

Is he holding something back? Maybe he knows he can defeat Mathieu whenever he wants, and just lets Mathieu have some good results out of pity or something. It’s a twisted, irrational thought that takes hold of Mathieu’s brain and he can’t brush it off. It’s wrong, and very far away from the truth and the worst part of it is that Mathieu knows.

Wout would never do that.

So why does the thought stick in his brain and refuses to leave?

He is flooded with shame and guilt over his behavior, and he darts across his parents’ house, slamming the door shut behind him. Mathieu stomps over the room, grabs his phone and dials Wout’s number out of memory.

It rings one time before Wout answers.

“Is everything okay, Matje?” he asks worriedly, concern laced over his tone. Mathieu’s heart aches. “I hadn’t heard anything from you, and I started getting really worried.”

“I’m okay, just got caught doing some chores,” Mathieu replies tightly, closing his eyes to keep the tears from falling. “I saw your win today, congratulations Woutje, it was amazing.”

The Belgian lets out a laugh. “That’s good to hear,” there’s some fidgeting from the other side of the line. “Winning is amazing, Mathieu. I genuinely can’t even begin to describe it.”

Then don’t.

The words are on his mouth, and they nearly stumble out before Mathieu can catch himself, but he pulls them back at the last minute. Thankfully. What he doesn’t pull back is the silence that follows Wout’s statement, which stretches painfully while Mathieu thinks of something to say.

“Are you sure you are okay?” Wout presses, voice aggressive. “You didn’t have to congratulate me if you didn’t mean it.”

“No! I mean, yes. I did want to congratulate you, of course I did,” Mathieu rambles, “you won an amazing victory today, and it’s your first in the Tour but it probably won’t be the last. I am very proud of you.”

Wout sighs. “You are not on this Tour, Matje, but you’ll get your chance,” he says tiredly. “If I can win here, so can you.”

“I know.”

“Do you, really?”

Even though Wout can’t see him, Mathieu shakes his head. “Today is not about me, tell me what it was like to win a stage.”

He bears it. That’s the best way to describe it. His heart feels heavy by the end of the phone call, and he is confused and angry and jealous. It’s always been his biggest flaw, when he thinks about it. Mathieu is too selfish about cycling, you have to be, if you want to win anything in the fucking sport, but Mathieu has been doing it for so long, it is so merged with his identity, that it has leaked into his life. It colors every human interaction he has; it’s the driving force behind everything.

The compass that points him north.

His thought swirl around him like a movie, spinning an endless circle that has no ending and no beginning. Wout would never do that. Mathieu knows that because he knows Wout, he knows him as well as he knows himself. But if the thought arises in Mathieu, isn’t it possible that it rises in Wout as well? Isn’t it possible that Wout knows the truth that has been revealing itself to Mathieu? We aren’t equal. He is better. But Wout is kind and generous and he always puts Mathieu first. Hell, he doesn’t even cum unless Mathieu allows it. Wout would never do that.

So why does the thought stick in his brain and refuses to leave?

It’s because you would, whispers a mad, little voice. He ignores it.

***

Mathieu does not watch stage 13 live.

In his defense, he’s on a video call with his team. It’s not like he’s not watching his boyfriend because of his own pettiness, he’s working, for crying out loud. He hears some yells coming from the living room, but he simply apologizes for the background noise and continues listening to the team. They are talking about media events he’ll be obligated to attend.

Mathieu hates the media events, but that’s the sport.

He’ll plaster a smile on his face and charm all of the sponsors to keep the funds coming into the team. Even though they all look at him like they want to touch him or eat him or fuck him. He’ll hate every single moment of it, but he’ll forget about it when he gets on a bike and there is nothing but him, the bike, the road and winning.

David enters the room with wide eyes, but Mathieu frowns at him and ushers him away with a scolding glare.

Jesus, he gets wanting to talk to Mathieu, but bursting into the room when he is at work is quite unprofessional. As the meeting wraps to an end, he sends a very angry text to David, when a soft knock on the door, startling him from where he sits on his chair.

“What?” Mathieu calls out loudly, the door opening slowly.

Adrie comes in, looking confused and uncomfortable. He leaves the door open behind him and Mathieu considers yelling at him because of it but chooses against it. He doesn’t really feel like fighting his dad right now, then they won’t have anything to do during dinner.

“Is your meeting over?” he asks, sitting down on Mathieu’s bed.

Mathieu doesn’t think his father knows what has happened on that bed before, but Mathieu is not about to tell him either.

“No, that’s why I’m on my phone texting,” he deadpans.

Adrie glares at him. “Why do you have to turn everything into an argument with me?”

“I do NOT turn everything into an argument,” Mathieu feels himself close to exploding. “I was making a joke, remember those?”

“Yes, I remember those,” Adrie says, crossing his arms over his chest. “You used to be a lot better at those.”

“Maybe I became like you.”

His father sighs exhausted somehow. “Why did they made me come here,” he whispers quietly, talking more to himself than to Mathieu. “Wout crashed in the time trial, there’s no updates about him online at the moment, but it looked bad.”

A cold settles over Mathieu. His heart begins to pound on his ribcage, he snaps his face towards Adrie, waiting for the punchline but it never comes. If it’s a joke, it’s not funny. If it’s the truth, it’s even more horrible and cruel. Wout is hurt, Wout got injured, and Mathieu was such a brat the last time they had a videocall that it stings. He opens his phone, quickly looking for the video of the crash.

Wout, pedaling his beautiful Bianche. Wout in time trial position, riding through the French roads. Wout takes the curve, he clips the barrier and takes it along with him to the ground. It pulls his leg at an awkward angle, dragging across the pavement in a way that is not humanly possible. Wout on the street, bleeding and screaming as the team and the doctors usher to help him.

Mathieu takes whatever comfort he can get from the fact that at least he was conscious. But his fears are not quelched. That’s his Tour de France over, possibly his entire road season over. Maybe it even compromises his cyclocross season. And in his first year with a big team too, Mathieu has seen careers destroyed by much less. God, he hopes he’s wrong.

The tears begin to gather in his eyes, and they spill out before he can stop them. He grabs his phone, frantically looking for Ivonne’s phone number. He can’t find it. Instead, he buys the next plane ticket to France, that leaves in like two hours.

The two hours are a blur, he distractedly throws clothes into a backpack, snatches his passport and runs through the house while his parents yell behind him. Mathieu, where are you going? Mathieu, just wait until his parents call you. Wait until you hear from him, in a couple of hours the team will make a statement about his health.

But they don’t understand.

It’s Mathieu’s fault. He caused this. He did it because when he is angry and he is jealous he can be so selfish that it blurs his morals and human decency. Mathieu wished for it. He wanted Wout to no longer be better than him. And now it’s happened. Wout is injured on some hospital bed all because Mathieu has a deep, sick need to win everything.

He’s won this time, hasn’t he?

Notes:

I totally did not plan it, but it's poetic that the chapter about the TdF 2019 fell on today.
What predictions do you guys have for the next chapters?
Let me know what you think!
See you in the next update.

Chapter 10: Our Never-Ending Loop | Wout

Notes:

10 chapters in whaaaaaaat. Actually insane to me.
But in other news, MATHIEU WORE YELLOW.
FOR SEVERAL DAYS.
HE WON A STAGE.
Over the moon, I loved every minute of it. I really do hope Wout can go for a stage at some point, and I am on my knees praying Jonas and Visma can challenge Tadej, I just want a really good TdF and today was not the best day for the bees.
Hope you enjoy!

July, 2019.

 

 

Wout has never really thought about how he would die.

Logic always dictated he would die old, laying in a hospital bed, surrounded by his children and his grandchildren, having lived a full and happy life. At worst, what always worried him was living his old years in a too-abused body, a body that cycling has put through the ringer. Crashes come naturally with the sport, he’s learnt not to cry about it anymore. You simply dust yourself off and get back on the bike to pedal. If you can’t pedal you abandon the race, recover and train harder, and then you come back to do it all over again.

His crash at the Tour feels different.

Far from life ending, in fact. It’s a blur, and Wout has seen it on the replay so many times he has no idea if his recollection of the crash is what actually happened, or if it’s some convoluted event that his mind has conjured up, mixing together the actual memory of crashing and the replay of the event.

But for the first time in his life, he felt that there would be a premature end to his cycling career.

The thought is terrifying.

It had spiraled over him, repeating itself over and over again until he no longer could recognize if he had just come up with it on his own or if the doctors had actually said that. He slipped in and out of focus the entire time, dazed between being conscious and there, to letting his mind slip and going through the motions they wanted him to go through.

The wound wasn’t even the worst part. Even though the barrier had slashed through his skin and into his muscle all across his upper thigh and hip. He bled and bled and bled, and the torn and damaged muscle worried him more than he could articulate, but the scariest part of the crash wasn’t the wound.

It was the heat.

The day on stage 13 was hot and sunny, and when the barrier clipped him and slashed him open, Wout landed on the asphalt. On the afternoon-hot asphalt. He imagines that’s what burning alive feels like. And the doctors, God they took forever. Wout was grateful for them and everything, but couldn’t they assist him on some nice ambulance in the shade? It took forever to load him into an ambulance.

The hot asphalt left some burn marks on his back and legs. The doctors said it would fade away.

What would not fade away was the crescent-shaped scar on the side of his thigh.

Upon arriving at the hospital, he underwent an hour-long surgery to repair the damage that a little barrier had caused on his body. The wound would heal but the scar would remain. When he asked, the doctor looked at him incredulously.

“It’ll be at least two months before we can start talking about rehab,” he said, patting Wout’s uninjured leg gently. “Even longer before we can talk about cycling again.”

It broke Wout’s heart.

It was not fair. It was not right.

He finally makes it to a top team, a team that is out there contesting the fucking Tour de France. A team that makes him win stages and promises to turn him into a superstar, with his name plastered across every single achievement the sport has to offer. And now they want to pry it away from him? Absolutely not.

They’ll have to rip it from his cold, dead hands.

At the end of the day, Wout van Aert is an athlete. Born and raised to do this. To ride a bike as fast as he can, tearing himself in the process as he claws his way to the top. This is not how his story ends, Wout refuses, it’ll never end on terms that are not his own. He’ll make a deal with the devil if he has to, they can have his firstborn or something. Anything fate wants and in return all Wout asks is that he comes back from it.

You can have Mathieu too, Wout thinks painfully.

But it’ll never come to that, he reasons. Wout’s just hysterical right now, and very high on some very potent drugs that they had administered. He’s loopy and sleepy and so, so tired, his brain struggles to keep up with the rapid French the doctors are talking, and with the words his team exchanges with him. They mention a hospital near Herentals, and they talk about his parents.

Where is Matje? He thinks in despair. Wondering if the universe had taken him seriously and had he already lost Mathieu just for the chance of winning?

He doesn’t know whether to be proud of himself or not.

His parents come to the hospital hours later. Maybe it’s days later. Maybe it’s minutes. Wout has lost the ability to keep track of time, slipping in and out of sleep as the moon shaped cut on his leg throbs and pierces through him so deep, Wout is tempted to ask them if they are sure it didn’t get to his bone.

At some point, Wout tries the motion his leg does when he pedals. It makes the nurses dash towards him after he screams out in pain, telling Wout he shouldn’t stress himself, harsh movements like that are only going to hurt him further. He needs to lay still and rest and just wait. It’ll all be over soon.

Wout screams at them that something is wrong. There is something wrong with his leg when he pedals, it’s not just the recent injury and the healing scar and the torn muscles. He knows it won’t make any sense, but he knows his own body, he knows his limits, and he knows how movements are supposed to fucking feel. There is something wrong.

But then relief washes over him, and everything is sharp and blurry again. The white lights are so bright as they flash against the pale walls, it sends him right down to the pillow, sleeping so deep but so restless. He can’t rest, not really, something is missing, a warmth, familiarity, an entity that he has come not just to like but to need, to need so much that it burns him, just as the asphalt has done.

As he drifts off to his restless sleep, his mouth murmurs the name, curling over the vowels again and again.

Mathieu.

***

Wout feels more himself when he is finally in a hospital near Herentals.

He blames the atmosphere, which has already pierced through his hazy dizziness and delirium, and grounds him in reality once more. It was the smells, Wout thinks, they brought reality back to him. As soon as he smelled the trees, and the weather and some other thing he can’t quite place, he thought of home. The clean lines of his house, the scattered shoes in the hallway and the clothes cramped into the closet. Wide, brilliant blue eyes staring up at him, mesmerized. A Dutch voice calling out his name from the kitchen, tanned arms wrapped around his waist, long legs tangled around his, blonde hair pressed against the side of his face.

Mathieu has been something else in this entire process.

Wout was shocked when he saw the blonde man storming into his hospital room in France, eyes worried and frantic as he fussed over Wout. He had a crazy expression on his face, the same one he gets when they argue, when they fuck and he gets lost on the pleasure. He looks deranged, Wout had thought.

He grinned.

Mathieu threw his arms around him as carefully as he could. “You scared the shit out of me, Woutje,” he whispered, and Wout could feel hot tears on his neck. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

“Never,” Wout promised, pressing his lips to Mathieu’s.

Mathieu stayed after that.

Wout’s parents were comforted by it, the three of them talking in hush voices when they thought Wout was resting. They discussed his recovery and where it would be better for him to stay. At his house, Henk decided. And how were they going to manage doctor’s appointments and therapy. I can take him, Ivonne volunteered. And who was going to be in charge of taking care of him, at home while he recovered from the injuries. I’ll do it, Mathieu concluded.

It made Wout feel like a child.

But then he had seen the video he had filmed for Jumbo-Visma and holy hell he looked high as fuck, who the hell had approved that video to become public? Wout couldn’t even remember filming it, let alone what he had said in it. He sees it and can recognize the scripted tone of his voice as he tries to reassure the fans. He’s fine, he’s had surgery and can now being the road to recovery.

It's easier being a fan, Wout thinks scornfully. All they get to see is the videos, I have to put in all the hard work to make the videos happen.

Things have been adapted back home.

His guest bedroom downstairs has been adapted, and now it is somehow Wout’s bedroom. The doctors had recommended that he not try to climb any steps for now, he can ‘graduate’ to that when his rehab makes more progress. Wout thought it was ridiculous.

Until he had to get a glass of water and could not make the trip to the kitchen without gasping and screaming in pain, after putting weight on his still-torn muscle.

Mathieu dashed to the hallway, cursing and scolding Wout as he practically carried him back to the bed.

“Matjeeee,” Wout complained. “You are treating me like a patient.”

“You are a patient right now,” Mathieu pinched the edge of his nose. “Just as stubborn as one, and nearly as insufferable.”

Wout sniffed. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

“I did no such thing. I promised to take care of you, and that’s what I am doing,” as he spoke, Mathieu fixed the pillows behind Wout, leaning over his body and pressing so close, all Wout needed to do was reach out and lick his neck. Maybe he could bite him.

That was the other problem of the whole situation.

Wout’s leg being severely injured meant that he couldn’t really manhandle Mathieu onto the bed and thrust into him with no mercy as payback to the treatment he had endured. But his torn muscles also meant that Wout, physically, couldn’t handle the weight of Mathieu on top of him, riding him. He was annoyed half of the day, horny for the other half.

When Mathieu would train on the stationary bike, at Wout’s request, he could sit on the couch and just admire the work of art that was Mathieu’s body in motion. His shoulders were so wide and so strong, Wout had terribly dirty thoughts about them. And his thighs, muscular and tanned, veins elegantly tracing their way through them, like a river. The curve of his spine and the shape of his throat. For all of his flaws, the best thing Adrie had ever done was Mathieu.

He outdid himself with that one.

As he watched the little training show that Mathieu put on, Wout grew harder and harder in his pants, and just when he had spread his legs to pleasure himself, a sharp pain went through him and Mathieu was on him in a second, but not in a cool, sexy way. In a patient way.

“Wout, you can’t do that yet, you’ll only hurt yourself.”

“Worth the shot.”

And so, as the days pass, Wout swears he wakes up half hard every morning and the worst part is he has no release. The nights are just as restless. He lays at night, setting his leg in a comfortable position – which already takes hours – and throwing himself on the pillows, staring at the ceiling until his body and all the pills he has to take carry him over to sleep. But he can feel Mathieu’s body next to him, the warmth he radiates, his soft snores a melody. He’s often tempted to just wake Mathieu up with a handjob or something, anything.

The thing that has surprised Wout is the patience with which Mathieu deals with him, loving and caring and sweet. It’s exactly the sort of thing Wout has always wanted from the blonde man, and exactly the sort of thing he never saw Mathieu actually doing.

There’s a care in his blue eyes, and Wout is often reminded of the way the younger man had clung to him on the hospital, desperate and begging. A nice change for once. His hands are gentle, fussing about Wout as if he’s afraid he’ll break him if he grips too hard.

It’s everything Wout’s ever wanted.

And it feels wrong.

Because deep down, the cruel knowledge that Mathieu has given in sets inside of Wout. Worse, the knowledge that Mathieu has given in because he no longer sees Wout as a rival. They are no longer competitors. How can they be? With Wout on a bed, broken and mangled, and Mathieu improving every day and well on his way to defending his cyclocross championship.

They are no longer equal.

Because Mathieu is better.

Wout hates it.

He hates it so much it makes him angry and bitter. But when he lashes out, the beastly side of him that thrills when Mathieu’s eyes flash with that well-known rage is quenched when all fight flees from the dutchman. He usually sighs tiredly and gives Wout space. They fall back on each other hours later. Every time without fail.

Our never-ending loop.

It boils over one afternoon. As usual, Mathieu returns from his training ride, grumbling about the taste of coffee and the heat and his shoes felt too tight, but he didn’t have time to fix them. Wout nods, absentminded, spreading his leg on the couch without moving the over, so he is now slumped over it. At any other time, Mathieu could just throw a leg over his body and sit on his lap.

“Matje,” he calls out, “I want you to fuck me.”

Mathieu sputters, coughing loudly. “I-what?” he blushes.

Wout shrugs. “I can’t fuck you, and you don’t want to ride me,” he explains, “so I want you to fuck me, that way you can support your own weight, and we can end this forced celibacy that you have pushed us into.”

“I haven’t forced us into celibacy,” the blonde argues. “You think it’s not hard for me to resist you? When you constantly try to initiate things? I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not gonna get hurt. I just want you to climb over me and fuck me just as good as I fuck you because I can’t do it right now. And it seems like until I can do it properly, we are not going to do it at all.”

Wout sees it. The confusion of the challenge he has just presented. Mathieu perks with interest, debating in his head if giving into Wout’s request is winning, or if winning would be to hold off even longer. Just to be a tease, Wout decides to push the limits a little.

“Ah, I see you are not in the mood,” he waves a hand around. “I’ll just take care of it myself, don’t worry.”

It gets the reaction that he wanted. Mathieu blinks, taken aback, before determination sets on his face.

“Don’t,” he says, reaching a hand to grip Wout’s arm. “I have a better idea.”

He settles next to Wout, carefully avoiding his injured leg, before pressing his lips to Wout’s, hungry and desperate. It makes Wout feel like he is being consumed, but he chases the feeling, pressing back against Mathieu twice as hard, and when the blonde lets out a moan, Wout takes the opportunity to push his tongue into the dutchman’s mouth.

Mathieu runs his hands through his chest, tugging at the hem of his shirt and pressing the palm of his hand across Wout’s bare skin, feeling the lines and ridges of his abdomen. Wout tangles his fingers on Mathieu’s hair, caressing the baby hairs that grow at the back of his neck, relishing in the goosebumps that his touch sends through Mathieu.

“Can you make me feel good, Matje?” he whispers, pulling away and lingering over the blonde’s lips. When he speaks their lips brush, and Mathieu pouts in the most delicious way ever that Wout just wants to give in. But he has Mathieu so close already, just a little bit more pushing is needed.

Mathieu nods. “I’ll make you feel good, Woutje.”

The younger man begins a trail, he starts at Wout’s neck, licking and biting and marking him. It makes Wout’s cock perk with interest in his sweatpants, tip already leaking. In his defense, he’s been on edge since his accident. By the time Mathieu takes one of Wout’s nipples into his mouth and fucking pulls, Wout lets out a long, drawn-out whine that makes Mathieu snigger into his chest.

Wout covers his mouth with his hand, muffling the noise half-way. The motion seems to offend Mathieu, who stops his ministrations to frown at him.

“No, no,” he bats Wout’s hand away. “I want to hear you.”

Wout raises his hands, smiling at him in a way that says ‘see? I can be good’, and crosses them over the back of his head, supporting his weight. Mathieu flashes him with a satisfied smile, before he brings two of his fingers to Wout’s mouth.

“Get these wet for me, pretty.”

Other times, Wout would’ve battled him. He would’ve fought Mathieu and drawn out the entire situation. But today isn’t about that. Today isn’t about how pathetically quick Wout gives in to Mathieu’s every whim and desire. Today is about the fact that Mathieu only orders him around because it makes him feel in control. In control of their relationship and what they do in bed. It makes him feel in control of Wout.

Because on their bikes, he can’t control Wout.

On their bikes, when it comes down to just pure competing, to pushing themselves to the absolute limit and seeing which one of the two has more at the end, there’s an edge to Wout that doesn’t translate to his private life the way it does with Mathieu. Mathieu was born and bred and raised in a cycling lab, the gods conspiring to create the greatest fucking cycling DNA that they could, while Wout just did it for the love of the game. For the thrilling chase of winning and sweating and aching. Fuck, the aching.

On their bikes, Wout is simply better.

And if Wout can’t have that right now, he might seriously hit Mathieu. Not that the blonde man would retaliate, Mathieu wouldn’t think it a fair fight, with Wout injured. He would wait until Wout had recuperated and then strike. Pull the rug down from underneath him when he least expects it.

Wout takes Mathieu’s long, elegant fingers in his mouth and does as he was told.

He makes a point of making it as erotic as possible. Running his tongue down his fingers, swirling at his nails just as he would do to Mathieu’s cock. He bobs his head and lets his spit aid in sliding the blonde’s fingers. Spit begins to dribble from the corners of his mouth, but he shakes his head and ignores it.

Mathieu licks at the hair that leads to Wout’s cock. He bites the hair of his happy trail, the action makes Wout whimper.

“Fuck, yes, yes.”

“Can you lift your hips?” Mathieu asks, and the question should make Wout angry because he is once again being treated like a patient. But when he opens his eyes to glare at him, he sees expectation and excitement in his blue eyes.

A challenge.

Can you lift your hips?

Wout lifts his hips, and Mathieu slides his sweatpants and underwear down in one go. Any other time Wout would worry about being stark naked on a couch where his visits usually sit, but any friction feels so good against his bare ass that he ignores it. Besides, they have already baptized just about every surface in the house. All three bedrooms, the office, the living room, the living room center table, the front door, the tub in the bathroom, the floor on the closet. The kitchen island and the dining table, the garage and the back porch.

Really the only place they haven’t done it yet is on the bike – simply because neither of them has thought of the proper position – and on the staircase, because it would be too uncomfortable.

Mathieu’s warm mouth wraps around Wout’s cock, and it is heaven. He is so talented at that, Wout sometimes thinks that Mathieu’s mouth was made so he could fuck it. He tries to thrust into Mathieu’s mouth, but the action hurts his leg and sends a pang of pain through him. He settles instead on just watching his cock disappear and reappear, wet and hard, so, so hard it’s painful.

Mathieu moves around a bit, readjusting the angle at which Wout is sitting, and accidentally presses his hand on Wout’s crescent-shaped scar. As he whines, Wout releases the blonde’s fingers from his mouth.

“Ahh, fuck.”

“Does it hurt?” Mathieu asks, releasing his cock, setting his chin on Wout’s crotch instead and blinking lazily up at him.

It doesn’t hurt, not really. There’s just this dull feeling that never borders over to painful. Wout doesn’t know how to describe it really. It doesn’t hurt but he can very obviously feel the clear absence of muscle tissue in there, limiting his mobility and strength.

He shakes his head, reaching a hand to trace over Mathieu’s eyebrows. “No.”

The face Mathieu makes is half disappointed, half relieved. Wout’s cock presses against his throat, feeling the vibrations when the blonde man hums. He licks Wout’s hipbone, kissing his way over to the scar, meeting Wout’s eyes as he does. He mouths at the scar, his breath hot on Wout’s skin.

“A pity,” he murmurs, before pressing his teeth in.

Wout moans.

When Mathieu lifts his head again, there’s blood on his mouth. You hurt me, Wout thinks, thrilled. You hurt me because we are still equals. Deep down you know it too. Any given day on the bike, I’m better. There’s blood on Mathieu’s mouth which probably means his scar now has a bite mark attached to it. Wout is so hard he might cum right now, but just because Mathieu hasn’t told him he can’t cum doesn’t mean he can cum.

He wants to hear it, whatever it is.

“Matje,” he says, just as Mathieu takes him into his mouth and presses a finger inside Wout’s entrance. Jesus, fuck.

The blonde man makes a sound that vibrates through him, in his cock and inside of him as Mathieu’s fingers dig, dig and dig. Pushing their way inside looking for a particular spot, running his knuckles through the ridges in a way that is unbearable, but he still doesn’t say it.

“Matje,” Wout tries again, “can I cum on your face?”

Mathieu releases him from his mouth, instead wrapping his hand around Wout’s erection, and tugging at a rhythm and pace you only know from years of experience. It makes a string of curses slip from Wout’s lips. He’s so close, his stomach muscles tightening and toes curling. But Mathieu needs to say it.

“You can cum on my face.”

No.

No, no, no.

He’s supposed to deny him. Say no, Wout thinks desperately, but Mathieu chooses that moment to press against his prostate, and technically he has been given permission. His body clenches, twisting as his orgasm runs through him. Thick, white cum spurts from his cock, painting Mathieu’s beautiful face, and any other time Wout would relish on the branding he has just done, wondering if Mathieu can taste the victory in his cum.

A terrible, pounding feeling washes over him. He wanted a fight, needed a battle. He wanted Mathieu to lash out at him and leave him scorched and mad and rageful. But it had never come, the dutchman had given into him, the way he does when Wout loses. And it’s horrible and Wout hates it. He hates it so much it makes him hate Mathieu a little bit.

The feeling settles on his stomach.

Mathieu pushes his uninjured leg open as much as it can go. He stands up, face still dripping in cum, and strips down. His cock is hard and red, leaking at the tip. He sits on Wout’s thigh, riding him and getting off on the feeling of his cock trapped between their stomachs.

Wout kisses him, tasting himself just as much as he is tasting Mathieu. He kisses him so he doesn’t punch him, but when the younger man begins to pant and whine in a high-pitched tone, Wout knows he is close. Before he can stop himself, his hand wraps around Mathieu’s elegant throat, thumb resting just above his pulse point.

His heart throbs against it, rapidly.

Mathieu looks at him, confused, before Wout begins to apply pressure. Mathieu chokes, rolling his eyes back and dropping his hand to his cock. The closer and closer Mathieu gets to his orgasm, the more Wout pressures.

“You are such a whore, aren’t you?” Wout asks, just to tip him over to the edge.

“Riding my thigh to get off, like a bitch in heat.”

“You love it though, don’t you?”

“Look at me, Matje.”

“Only I can make you feel like this.”

“You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Say it.”

Mathieu groans. “Yours,” he says, choked and breathless, wrapping his hand around Wout’s arm on his throat. And then he cums, spilling over their stomachs, and attempting to drop his head on Wout’s shoulder to catch his breath.

No.

It fills Wout with rage, without noticing he starts squeezing Mathieu’s neck harder, only stopping when the other man bats his hands away, desperate and scared. But surely, he’s not scared of Wout. Wout would never hurt him, Wout didn’t bite at his scar and Wout still thinks of Mathieu as a competitor. An equal. Wout doesn’t believe himself above his boyfriend the way Mathieu does. He lets go, allowing Mathieu to catch his breath.

“Mathieu,” Wout says, as the blonde pants, grabbing Mathieu’s wrist and feeling his pulse point. He gets a hum in response. “Do you think I’ll ever race again?”

The heartbeat remains steady. “Of course I do,” Mathieu answers, meeting his eyes. Sweaty and sweet.

“Do you think I’ll ever win again?” he asks.

The real question is implied. Do you think I’ll ever beat you again? Do you think I’ll ever be at the top of the podium again? Or will I just always be a spectator? One step beneath you, only tasting glory when you cum in my mouth.

Mathieu’s heart skips a beat. “You will,” he says decidedly.

But Wout knows.

It fills him with determination. He knows now what Mathieu just did, the unprovoked kindness he has provided Wout.

A lie.

Notes:

Okay so first of all, I am soooorry for posting super late, I've been having an incredibly crazy week because in a cruel twist of fate, I now have a job! (I literally begged for this job).
I don't think a lot of the posting schedule will change much, to be honest, my job leaves me drained but this fic is my creative output and at the end of the day I really need one of those.
Let me know what you think (it really makes my day when I read your comments, lol).
See you in the next update!

Chapter 11: Uneasiness in the Atmosphere | Mathieu

Notes:

Hello, welcome to yet another (late, sorry) update!
But MATHIEU GOT TO WEAR YELLOW. AGAIN.
Even though his lead was like for one second and he blew up at the end, it was nice to get one more day.
And WOUT SPRINTED. HE LIVES.
Hopefully he'll feel good and sprint again, and I'll be screaming at my tv hoping he wins.

Late 2019

 

 

Mathieu’s phone rings incessantly all the time.

He’s gotten tired of the noise it makes, that even muting and silencing the thing is not enough, Mathieu needs to set it on fire and watch the flames consume it. But he’s a grown adult and he can’t run away from responsibilities – like his job and his family – even if the hours-long phone calls leave him wanting to rip his hair out of his scalp.

It’s why he’s patiently putting up with his father right now.

“And if I may ask,” Adrie is saying, “when are you planning to return to cyclocross?”

Mathieu rolls his eyes impatiently, loading the coffee maker and taking out two mugs from the cupboard.

“Soon,” he answers vaguely.

Adrie sighs. “Are you at least training?”

“Yes.”

“Properly training, Mathieu?”

“What does that even mean?”

“Mathieu, he’s injured,” Adrie says, not unkindly. It’s a new aspect in their relationship that makes his head spin in circles, dazed and confused. At times he pokes his father until they fall back into the same pattern, just so Mathieu can feel familiarity.

He busies himself pouring the coffee evenly between the mugs.

“Your point, exactly?”

There’s some rustling from the other side of the phone, and a soft voice that Mathieu recognizes as Corinne. “You won’t know how good you are if you are only comparing yourself to him, you need someone who is not injured.”

Mathieu senses the need to be mean rise inside of him, spinning and spinning towards the surface.

“And who do you want me to train with, you?” he asks sarcastically. “With David? I think that half a Wout is still better, no?”

Adrie takes a deep breath. “Train as you will, Mathieu. You’ve always done whatever you wanted, no matter how bad it was,” he spits, angrily but not venomous. It’s a new side to his father, Mathieu doesn’t know if he likes it or if he hates it. “Just let your team know so they can stop hounding me about it.”

The line clicks dead.

Mathieu sighs, suddenly exhausted.

He understands, he really does. The argument his father presents is not illogical, and the team has a great point in wanting him to get on with it and race as much as he can of his already reduced cyclocross calendar. He’s the world champion, but nothing is granted. But at the same time, it wouldn’t be the first time the guy who raced the least showed up to the championship and stole the entire thing.

Mathieu would know.

But neither the team nor his family is understanding.

There’s an uneasiness in the atmosphere most days. Although he and Wout no longer slash and cut each other open, there’s a terrible iciness that is almost worse, there are times when Mathieu longs for the spark that lit up on Wout’s eyes, just before he is as unpleasant as he can be. They don’t talk about it, but he knows they both feel it, it’s impossible to miss, and unraveling the complicated knot is impossible too. The knot just exists, no ending and no beginning and Mathieu thinks they were both stupid to believe they could ever make it work.

But the highs are just as good as the lows are bad.

There are days when they fall back to each other. Supportive and happy, whispering jokes and sweet banter into each other’s ear as they lie in bed together, not fucking but just laying there, basking in the way the afternoon sun hits Wout’s skin and makes him glow in gold, a holy creature. Not a man or a human, but something else.

Those times, Mathieu gets a real glimpse into what they could be, if things were different.

If cycling didn’t exist and they had just met randomly at some place. If neither of them got a thrill from beating the other, if Mathieu didn’t feel a sick satisfaction at the fact that now that Wout’s broken, he can’t be better than him and that’s why he doesn’t train. He used to train for Wout, lived to defeat the Belgian man and then to have him beneath him or above him or behind him, but to have him begging and pleading. Worshipping.

He doesn’t have that anymore.

Mathieu has defeated Wout, his career has outlived the older man’s career. It makes Mathieu oddly calm, but it makes Wout terribly desperate.

Wout tears himself apart trying to get better. Shortly after his surgery, he succeeds. He gets on the bike sooner than everyone expected, only to cry out in pain the moment he pedals, cursing and screaming. Mathieu had been on his side at once.

“Are you okay?” he had asked, worry laced on his voice.

Mathieu vividly remembers the way Wout had clung to him, as if Mathieu were a lifeline and Wout a drowning man, lost at sea. Come home, Mathieu tried to convey with his eyes, come back to me, Woutje.

“There’s something wrong,” Wout said, angrily banging his leg with his fist.

“The surgery went well, Woutje,” Mathieu explained. “You just need a little more rest, I’m sure.”

Wout’s eyes had flashed with anger. “You are not listening to me,” he spat, “there’s something wrong with my leg.”

He was right, at the end.

The surgery went well, and they stitched Wout’s muscles back together properly so he could train. But his cut had been deep. The doctors had initially missed the severed tendon on his thigh, and that was causing pain whenever Wout tried to pedal.

He had a second surgery to fix that mistake.

It pushed his recovery back for some weeks, but the good thing had been that Wout was a desperate bastard, eager to get back on the bike and he had noticed the issue early on, before it did more damage to his leg when he could properly move and train.

But Wout was nothing, if not persistent. Sure, he was still not on his usual level, but he had decided early on that he would race the cyclocross season, and he was determined to do it. The doctors and his team agreed that he would meet his goal, but Mathieu had no idea how he would perform, and he would not have Wout humiliate himself with a bad performance.

It dawned on Mathieu one day. One of their good days. It was so good in fact, that the thought felt to out of left field, it shocked him to his core. Wout had him bent over the bathroom countertop, hands gripping the faucet and face pressed into the mirror. But surprisingly, it was one of the few times Mathieu could claim they had been making love, instead of fucking.

He suddenly understood where his calmness came from, his sense of tranquility and peace. Mathieu felt relaxed about the entire situation because he was already victorious, in the cabinet of his trophies and medals, Wout was the one that shone the brightest.

Wout is his prettiest trophy.

“Was that your father?” Wout asks from the longue chair where he sits in the backyard. He holds a massage gun in his hands, which he passes over and over on his upper thigh.

Mathieu nods, passing him his coffee mug. “Yup.”

The Belgian takes it on his hand, smiling softly at him. The setting sun frames his features, the curl of his smile and the crinkles of his eyes. His stupid blonde streak of hair glistens in the sunlight, a crown on his head.

“Did he tell you to leave me?” he wonders, grinning.

Mathieu presses a kiss to his temple, settling on the chair next to him. His dog jumps to his lap.

“Every single day.”

Wout laughs.

***

They ride together every morning, when Wout can finally pedal without clinging to his leg in pain.

It becomes a ritual, they wake up just as the sun is coming up, and for a few minutes they just bask in silence, laying next to each other. Mathieu longs for those minutes, where the only steady sound is the beat of Wout’s heart beneath his hand, and the sunlight beating down on his elegant frame.

But then the moment breaks, and they get out of bed to feed Mathieu’s dog and take her on her morning walk. Then they change into their kit, pedaling on their bikes in the morning air. The ride is never hard, not really. It’s more of a warmup before they both focus on the individual instructions their teams and coaches have presented them with, a slight moment where only the two of them exist.

Today Wout trails in the front, Mathieu half-asleep behind him.

He’s having a good day. Now a days he has more good days than bad ones, but there was a point in the beginning where this seemed impossible. The worry existed that he wouldn’t even be able to walk properly, let alone cycle. But Wout had proved them all wrong.

Including Mathieu.

His final test still remained, he still had to perform at a high level in competition, but at least his entire life had not been derailed by the accident. The matter of his career was still to be seen.

“Where exactly are we going, Woutje?” he asks, as they press further and further in on the tree line.

Wout glances back with a grin. “Are you scared?”

“If you wanted to kill me, luring me into the forest is most difficult option.”

“But here I can bury your body.”

Mathieu throws his bidon at him.

“Dylan and Niels were pestering me about not having been to this new mud course they discovered,” Wout explains, pulling to a stop. “I promised them I’d come when I was feeling better.”

Mathieu groans. “And why did you have to drag me into this, again?”

It’s not that he hates Wout’s friends, it’s just that he dislikes them. He’s also pretty sure they dislike him too, if their previous interactions are anything to go by. Niels has a hard time meeting his eye and Dylan resorts to talking about every low point in Wout’s life and seeing for how many of those he can blame Mathieu. For the sake of peace, Wout tries to keep them as far away from each other as possible. Since he and Mathieu are joined at the hip, it means he hasn’t seen a lot of the two men in the last couple of months.

“Be nice,” Wout pouts, laying a hand on Mathieu’s hand as he stops next to the Belgian. He draws soft figures with the pad of his thumb. “I invited David as well.”

Mathieu blinks, surprised.

“What, I only get one friend, and you get two?”

“David’s not your friend, he’s your brother.”

“Asshole.”

A couple of cheers from behind snap them out of the moment. Mathieu turns his head, and sure enough, through the trees emerge Niels, wearing an old kit and Jumbo-Visma merch, and Dylan, in head-to-toe neon green. It’s distracting.

“Break apart, lovebirds,” Dylan yells, pulling Wout into a tight hug. He high-fives Mathieu. “Thanks for letting the old man come out to play with us, Mathieu.”

Mathieu grins. “Well, since he asked very nicely last night, I couldn’t say no,” he teases, enjoying the way Dylan grimaces, and Niels rolls his eyes. That’s how he entertains himself with them, they try to blame every mistake of Wout’s life on him, and Mathieu reminds them every single time why he’s even in the picture.

“Alright,” Wout interrupts. “Where’s the course you guys have been riding?”

The next thirty minutes are spent by Niels explaining the new course they had been riding, and how differentiated from the old one they usually trained at. Apparently, one day Dylan had gotten lost after taking a wrong turn – which is, in Mathieu’s opinion, not surprising – and he had discovered a new trail, far more technical. They wanted a professional’s opinion on it.

Half-way through the explanation, as Mathieu tries really, really hard not to yawn for the fifth time, a hand slams down on his shoulder, making him jump.

“Holy fuck!” he yells, hand clutching his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

David laughs. “Don’t worry, boefje. It’s just your favorite brother.”

“You are my only brother.”

“Exactly.”

Mathieu will never admit it out loud, but the course is very fun to ride. He is surprised to discover himself laughing and joking with everybody, not just with Wout and David. When they race their third one-lap race, screaming and hooting, Mathieu realizes why Wout had invited David along. It humanizes him, having his brother around, Niels and Dylan begin to see him less trophy – and professional Wout van Aert torturer, according to them – and begin to see him just as Mathieu, who their friend is dating. It’s nice to have his guard down for once, to not catch himself attempting to be perfect from every single angle, to protect the armor so nothing can hurt him.

Wout and Mathieu destroy them, of course they do, but they don’t race against each other. Not yet. As Mathieu watches the Belgian man complete another lap, he realizes they won’t know Wout’s actual level until he rides against him. But Mathieu is reluctant to do it. Competing brings a nasty side out of both of them, and he can’t risk tipping over the uneasy peace they have just for that.

Besides, they are having a good day.

“You two are up next,” Niels informs him, raising his hands up when Mathieu turns to glare at him. “You guys haven’t competed yet, we all know that’s the exciting race.”

David scoffs. “You are saying that all of my first places are worthless?”

“You only got your first places because both Wout and Mathieu decided to screw Dylan over in the race.”

“Fair point,” his brother concedes, laughing lightly. “But you have to race against each other, boefje, you are the only two missing.”

Mathieu shrugs. “I think it’s getting late, though,” he excuses, praying and hoping neither notices the strained tone on his voice. David flashes him a look. Fuck. “We should probably just head home.”

Niels boos him, before pedaling away to where Wout and Dylan have started on another argument. Wout tackles him to the ground, and it makes Mathieu’s heart skip a beat with concern, and he almost yells out like a concerned mother, but Wout’s laugh assures him that the older man is fine. Dylan attempts to bite Wout’s calf.

Mathieu is totally cool with that.

Not jealous at all.

“Why don’t you want to race him?” David asks suspiciously.

He sighs, debating the possibilities of admitting the truth to his brother, of mentioning his twisted thoughts about Wout and his injuries and his recovery and comeback. David probably won’t understand. Mathieu decides instead to provide a half-truth.

“I don’t want him to get hurt,” he concedes, tone dipping slightly. David is smart, he can figure out the rest. He’ll get hurt because he’ll actually want to race against me, because he’ll try and he’ll fail. Because I am better.

He shakes the thought away.

“It was really bad, the injury. He couldn’t even walk to the bathroom down the hall without assistance. And he was so sad and angry. I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself again and all the progress he’s made so far will be undone.”

It’s not completely a lie.

A big part of Mathieu is terrified that Wout will come back to cycling, be bad, hurt himself trying to be better, and that will be that. His entire career, gone. It’ll be a massive shift in their relationship, who are they, without the rivalry? Without competing and biting and clawing at each other. Is it even worth it without the fighting? Not to mention, it’ll completely ruin Wout’s perception of himself. He’s always been a cyclist, so without it, what is he?

Mathieu has wondered the same thing about himself.

“But he needs to know how much progress he’s made so far,” David says gently, “It’ll give him confidence for when he races again, and a reference for where he needs to improve.”

“I don’t want to ride against him,” the words slip out before Mathieu can control them. He cringes, shutting his eyes.

His brother’s hand settles on his shoulder, but Mathieu refuses to look at him. He feels uncomfortable all of a sudden, the shorts cling hotly against his body, pressing his organs and making him sweat.

“Is everything okay, boefje?” David asks, but he sounds far, far away. Everything is muffled and distant, and Mathieu suddenly feels cold.

Mathieu turns to him, blinking away the tears that are building in his eyes.

“Boefjeeeeee!” Wout screams in his ear, throwing a heavy arm around Mathieu’s shoulders. It startles him. “When are we riding, boefje?”

Oh.

Mathieu suddenly understands.

He’s not here to bond with Dylan and Niels. He’s not here so they can have fun together. He’s not here to be Mathieu, Wout’s boyfriend. He’s here to be Mathieu Van Der Poel, reigning world champion. To push Wout to the limit and see what comes through on the line. It was stupid of him to think otherwise. His vision of Wout has always been convoluted by cycling, why should Wout’s vision of Mathieu be any different?

Mathieu had been stupid, he had thought their relationship would mean Wout wanted him to get along with the private aspects of his life. But maybe he didn’t see it the same way, it was only Mathieu getting his hopes up and believing in something that was just simply not there.

At the same time, a voice inside of him yelled that if that was the case, why did the Belgian man have him living in his house, spending their days together? Why did Wout fuck him constantly and kiss him goodnight? The thought that he was wrong rises inside of Mathieu in a panic, like a distant drum, growing louder and louder as Mathieu grasps the idea, a booming noise thundering closer.

Wout sees Mathieu as one of his trophies.

Conquered. Defeated. It’s why he wanted Mathieu here, to compare himself to someone he already knows he has beaten before. I told you so, his father’s voice echoes in his head.

It’s all he’ll ever be, so he decides to bear it with as much grace as he can muster.

Mathieu smiles, pressing a soft kiss on Wout’s lips. “Whenever you want.”

***

They ride the track three different times. The first is a warm-up and recon lap. They don’t really need to do it, the track is short, and at most it’ll take about 2 minutes to ride it at full gas, but Dylan and David insist they need to treat it like a proper race.

Bastards.

Mathieu already knows the course, he’s well aware of what lines he’ll need to take, where the rain has beaten down a bigger patch of mud that he’ll need to ride with care, and where on the straight he should be aggressive. It’s the riding style he has, sharp and technical, decided and relentless, in cyclocross it translates to unforgiving attacks across the entire race.

Wout doesn’t ride like that.

He rides as if on the edge of a knife, slicing and cutting through the field. He explodes with tremendous energy and power, dropping behind all of his opponents. But, in Wout’s own words, he lacks the ability to keep that intensity and explosivity throughout the entire race.

It means that Wout knows where exactly to attack, and Mathieu knows he can’t relax until he crosses the finish line.

Besides, he keeps repeating to himself, this is just a stupid race, a show to put on for their friends. It doesn’t have to mean anything, Mathieu can allow himself to relax and just enjoy the fact that he is riding and that Wout will be right beside him.

It goes out the window when Niels signals them to go, go, go.

And off they ride.

As predicted, Mathieu takes the lead by several bike lengths. His heart pounds in his ribcage, and his veins flow with the thrill of pedaling, of the aching on his legs that have definitely missed racing. He might be blowing off training, but that doesn’t mean that he has stopped it altogether, it just means he trains eight hours instead of twelve.

The first section of the course has been beaten down to mud, as Mathieu cuts through the field it splashes, dirtying his shoes and his socks and his legs. He’s terribly used to it, he’s finished most of his cyclocross races dripping in mud, rain and sweat. It gets on his feet and his hands and his eyes and his mouth.

He can feel Wout behind him, pushing and getting closer.

The presence of the Belgian is a bit intimidating, Mathieu feels him so close that it burns his back, and he makes the mistake of glancing backwards to see exactly where he is. The action makes him overshoot the corner and lose several meters of advantage that he had. Mathieu faintly hears David yelling from the sidelines.

Wout is fully pushing and racing against him. All in. Putting in the effort and the work, he takes advantage of Mathieu’s mistake and pedals harder, closing some distance before they take the next corner. They both take it at full speed, neither braking, and the thought if we crash, we crash flashes in his mind. Wout’s injury forgotten, the relationship between them nonexistent. There’s no place for that here, on the race.

Mathieu’s brain turns it off and shoves it aside, and when he again glances back to see where Wout is, it doesn’t even register as Woutje, it registers as an opponent wearing an ugly, bright yellow kit that is trying to beat him. Mathieu can’t let that happen.

They are nearing the end of the course now, it’s a long straight followed by a tight turn to the left that bends into the finish line. Mathieu is sure Wout will attack on the straight. He’d be willing to put money on it. He is so sure of it that he powers through and assumes a defensive position, if Wout attacks now, it’ll leave him out of shape for the turn and Mathieu can pass him.

The attack never comes.

It leaves Mathieu reeling, and confused. Because what type of mind game is Wout playing? Does he want to win, or not? Did he plan the entire thing? Had Mathieu made all that up, and Wout doesn’t really think of him as a trophy? Is Wout pure and kind and it’s just Mathieu who is twisted? Either answer makes him angry and desperate.

Do you even see me as competition?

He shakes his head just as a breeze of air swoops past him in the corner. Mathieu registers a flash of bright yellow before he sniffs a smell of sweat and forest and something familiar and comforting that he’s never been able to place, and he knows right there that Wout knew. He knew Mathieu assumed the attack would happen in the straight, so he caught him off guard and attacked instead on the corner.

He even drops Mathieu.

That’s how strong his attack is, his leg must be killing him from the effort, but Wout has decided that it’s all worth it to beat Mathieu. He crosses the finish line first, and Mathieu trails several seconds behind, screeching to a halt in front of their friends. Dylan has Wout on a hug, screaming and jumping as if Wout won something that actually meant anything, while Niels just claps him in the ass before clasping Mathieu’s shoulder in fucking sympathy. David glances cautiously at Mathieu.

“Good race, Mathieu,” David says, “you two really went for it.”

Dylan laughs. “That’s why they are the world champions,” he yells, “they are both two intense motherfuckers.”

Wout still hasn’t turned to look at Mathieu.

He realizes he’s still breathing hard and agitated. His grip on the handles is usually gentle, it’s why even though he’s been riding for years his hands are soft, but when Mathieu looks down at his frozen knuckles, he finds them white, gripping tightly so that he feels the shape of the handle uncomfortably pressing into his palm.

“Wout,” he calls out, and the coldness in his voice surprises even himself.

The brunette turns, at last. There are specks of mud on his face, and he has removed his sunglasses, perching them on top of his helmet. But it’s not Wout who is staring back at him. It’s the beast again, the sharp monster that twists his factions into something demonic, the light frames his face and hollows out his cheeks. His hand, that looks more like a claw, comes up and removes his helmet. His hair tumbles out messily, with that stupid blonde streak of hair at the front. And his eyes, his eyes are dead. Cold, distant.

Wout’s lips curl into an arrogant smile. “Mathieu,” he answers, mean and self-satisfied.

“How’s your leg?” Mathieu asks sweetly, deciding that if Wout is going to be that way, he can do it too.

“I would say okay, wouldn’t you” Wout replies, not a question but a statement.

Let’s see if you can maintain that pace for an entire hour, asshole.

Mathieu tsks. “There can always be some improvement,” he turns, pedaling back through the forest. David calls out after him with a curse, but Mathieu decidedly doesn’t look back.

He’s sitting on the front steps by the time Wout arrives back home, about five minutes after Mathieu.

“Why did you do that?” Mathieu asks, hating the way his voice cracks at the end.

Wout shrugs. “I didn’t do anything, Mathieu,” he says, dropping his bike on the driveway and walking slowly. “I raced the other guys just as hard as I did you.”

Mathieu finds the statement so laughable that he snorts.

“Please,” he spits, “you love beating me, even when we are supposed to be having fun.”

“Hah” the sound Wout makes is closer to a snarl than a laugh. “Don’t put that on me as if you haven’t been getting off the last few months on the fact that I’m injured now.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Mathieu!” Wout explodes, trailing closer and closer. He towers over Mathieu, who is sitting down. A god, a deity. “You love that now I am inferior to you! I am this broken, mangled thing that needs your help, and I can’t possibly be better than you now. Another trophy to add to your collection.”

It’s close to the truth, it hits too close to home that Mathieu scrambles a little, before answering.

“ME? It’s not me who can’t accept the fact that sometimes other people are just better! Injury or not, I have beaten you fair and square. I am the world champion, not you! You win a couple of road races, and you forget where you belong!”

Wout’s eyebrows pull together painfully, angrily. “I am not inferior to you, Mathieu! You don’t get to take out your own insecurities of your career out on me, especially when I’m injured,” he rambles, like a maniac. Mathieu wants to shake his shoulders and scream at him that he’s not making any sense. “And you don’t get to fucking lie to my fucking face like a coward!”

“When have I ever lied to you?”

“’Do you think I’ll ever win again?’” Wout asks, agitated. For a moment Mathieu is confused, searching the corners of his mind for the times they’ve had this conversation before. He comes up blank. “’You will’, you told me that, Mathieu, you told me you thought I’ll win again but you forgot to say that you didn’t want me to win again.”

He storms into the house, pushing past Mathieu on the steps and yanking the door open. Mathieu stands to his feet like lightning, turning sharply and wrestling his way inside when Wout turns to slam the door shut. His legs make it into the door before it can close.

“Are you actually stupid?” he yells, feeling guilty when his dog wanders into the hallway, confused and startled. But he’s too far gone. “You are fucking stupid if you think that’s what I meant.”

“Then tell me,” Wout screams, throwing his shoe to the side. “I have to guess what you mean all the fucking time because you don’t tell me anything.”

Inside the house, the atmosphere shifts, somehow. Before, outside, Mathieu felt helpless, like anything he said would be misinterpreted and carried away by the afternoon air, lost in the trees. But here, inside of their bubble, it’s familiar. He feels control sweep over him. Victorious.

“I thought your career was over,” he snarls, “And after your second surgery I was afraid you would tear yourself apart trying to prove a fucking point to nobody. But that was the only thing that got you out of bed! I didn’t know how else to motivate you!”

Wout’s breathing is uneven now, and Mathieu can hear it even though there’s distance between them. His nostrils flare.

“But after the little stunt you pulled today,” Mathieu continues, “I think we can all agree you’ll get your fucking wish, Wout. You’ll fucking win again, so congratulations.”

The older man presses closer, walking forwards slowly. Yes, a sick part of Mathieu’s mind whispers. Just a little bit more, almost there.

“I had to do that, Matje,” Wout chokes, and Mathieu suddenly realizes there’s tears in his eyes. He surges at once and in no time Wout’s in his arms. “If I didn’t do that, you would’ve never understood.”

He buries his face in Mathieu’s chest, and Mathieu’s hands cradle his head softly. Their bodies flush together, and he tilts the older man’s head back by the hair on the back of his neck, not rough but definitely not gentle. Wout’s mouth drops open.

“Understood what?”

Wout blinks rapidly. “I’m not your trophy, Mathieu,” he whispers, his eyes falling to Mathieu’s lips before trailing back up. “You can’t treat me like I’m your fucking property.”

But you are, Mathieu thinks, remembering the lovely way Wout stares up at him, patient and waiting. Eyes sweet and unblinking as Mathieu reaches his release on his face. A mark, a branding, a scar. You are mine.

Instead, he presses their lips together, sweet and slowly. It tastes of salt and anger and love. He pulls back to stare at Wout’s big, round, brown eyes already looking at him.

“I understand, Woutje,” he murmurs, kissing the bone of Wout’s jaw, making his way to his neck with licks and open-mouthed kisses. “Of course I don’t think you are a trophy. You are my rival, my lover. No one can ever compare to you, no one fucks me as you do, in every sense of the word.”

A flash passes through Wout’s eyes. It terrifies Mathieu because he doesn’t know what it is.

Then Wout sighs, he pushes Mathieu slightly off, and already he longs for the warmth Wout’s body provided. But then Wout’s hand paws at his zipper, undoing it until Mathieu’s chest is exposed, pressing his palm against it. Wout comes forward, and for a moment Mathieu thinks they are going to kiss, before the Belgian kisses his neck, opens his mouth and digs his teeth in.

The pain goes straight to Mathieu’s cock, sharp and tingling, and when Wout pulls away the feeling doesn’t leave him.

“I’ll ride at the world championships,” Wout says, tracing his fingers over the bite mark, right over his pulse point.

Mathieu nods, opening his mouth when Wout presses his blood-filled fingers to his lips. He tastes like metal. Wout’s eyes glint with desire.

“Okay.”

Yes, the voice whispers again as they kiss. Yes, yes, yes. It grows louder and louder, until Mathieu fears it will consume him. The sick, twisted and desperate part of himself that is never satisfied, the one that had been dormant in this horrible sweetness they had settled into. He feels it kick into gear, plotting and planning just how their next meeting will go. And the next and the next. Trapped, forever.

Wout will not leave him. Mathieu will not let him.

Notes:

Can you hear that distant sound? Is it even more conflict between the two of them??
Are we noticing patterns and behaviors? Those two are crazy, fr.
We are now entering the last part of the timeline part 1 will cover (part 1 ends around the end of the road season of 2020), so the remaining chapters take place between that time, which means things truly begin to spiral from this point forward.
Any predictions?
Let me know what you think!
See you in the next update - where hopefully Wout has already won a stage.

Chapter 12: Despite It All | Wout

Notes:

An early update??? The sky must be falling down.
But back at the Tour, Mathieu and Wout were in the break together! Then Mathieu attacked, lol.
But it's so nice to see him try things out in the Tour, now that he doesn't have to do the leadout he has more freedom I think. I just really want Wout to be able to pull something out of his ass. And I am now actively praying on the Tadej downfall, I really like him, I just want some exciting racing.
Are you looking forward to the stage tomorrow? Every mountain stage at this point has me PRESSED.
Hope you enjoy the new chapter!

February, 2020.

 

 

 

The cyclocross world championship falls on a bright, cold day in February.

Wout feels oddly calm about it. He has raced before, coming in just behind Mathieu. Disappointing, in the grand scheme of things, but then the press and the team and the fans and his friends remind him of exactly where he is coming from. His muscles were hanging off his thigh in France just months ago.

Although he hates to think about it, for a long, dark moment he had thought he would never be able to pedal again. Then he had thought he would never be competitive again.

Jumbo-Visma had foreseen that, so they came up with a strategy. Wout loves them for it.

In the weeks that he had trained on his recovery, Wout worked with a massive team of leading experts. Coaches and chefs and masseuses, a sports psychologist and just about everything under the sun that could get him focused on coming back to a high, competitive level. All of them, including Wout, agreed he would race in cyclocross to lose his fear of being in the peloton again, because even though he had crashed in a time trial, every noise and touch put him on edge now, it made him jump and that made him a danger to the other riders and to himself. So cyclocross would help with that, and with reminding him why he cycles to begin with.

More than that, it would serve as a warm-up for the upcoming road season.

The team made it perfectly clear he was expected to ride on the road, and not only be competitive, but also achieve podiums and maybe even win.

It made Wout excited for the future.

The long preparation for his comeback also meant that he would be separated from Mathieu, the first time in months that they would be separated for an extended period of time.

Neither had been too thrilled when they heard.

But Mathieu also needed to focus on his own training, and you can’t really do that when you spend your time glued to your rival.

That’s what they are, rivals. No matter how much Mathieu likes to pretend otherwise, at the end of the day Wout is still competition, and as proved that day where they rode with their friends, Wout is not afraid to go for the kill.

At the end they decide that the separation will probably be a good thing.

Wout loves Mathieu, he really, really does.

But he can’t shake the feeling that the blonde man only ever treats him like a trophy, and that he felt a sick, satisfied feeling at seeing Wout down and injured, as if it thrilled him that Wout could not be independent without him, it got him off knowing just how badly Wout needed him.

There had been no apology for the harsh words, no real assurance that Mathieu does not think of him as a personal possession, other than the words exchanged that day. It made Wout reel with rage, sadness and desperation, that once again he had been weak and it had been him who caved in, he who had to swallow his pride and lower himself and admit defeat.

He would often lay awake at night, staring at the blank ceiling above their bed as Mathieu slept peacefully. It slowly became his favorite part of the day. Mathieu, silent and soft, expression at ease, snoring quietly, not arguing and fighting with Wout, his eyes not curled into something cruel and mean. Sometimes he traced his fingers over the bones of Mathieu’s spine, smiling as goosebumps raised on his skin. He let his hands wander softly, trying his best not to awaken the man, but at the same time wishing for nothing more than to cut Mathieu open with a knife and feel the bones on his bare palm. Vulnerable and exposed.

The thought made him sad. Mathieu had clawed at Wout so deeply that Wout was now a hybrid creature, as vicious as his lover.

He wasn’t always like that.

But now he’s scared all over, when they fight and when they fuck his thigh burns, and at first it was so confusing that Wout thought he had injured himself all over again. When it kept happening, he very quickly came to the realization that it wasn’t his thigh that burned, it was not the crescent shaped scar on the side of his leg. It was the bite mark that Mathieu had given him.

The bite mark with which he had injected in his poison and now it had corrupted Wout from the inside, burned away at him until they were one and the same.

Whenever he thinks that, he fucks Mathieu particularly hard, scratching and bruising and hurting. The dutchman is so wild that he loves it, urging him to go faster, harder, more, more, more.

So yes, the distance did them good, Wout thinks.

For the first time in a very long time, he feels himself again. Away from the suffocating presence of the younger man, from his intense aura, which drowns Wout away until he can’t tell anything apart. The first days he thrills in that freedom, relishing the possibilities as he trains with the team, he gets to sleep in late and to eat good food, and Mathieu only becomes a late-night thought, a responsibility that he has to call before clocking out and drifting off to dream of nicer things.

“You seem calm,” Primoz comments one evening at dinner. He is there, training in the mountains, a very different camp than Wout, but Visma likes to have them together. Team building, they call it.

Wout sips his water. “I feel light,” he answers, and he fully expects that his voice now has a permanent dreamy tone to it that would normally annoy him. But he can’t find it in himself to care.

“That’s good, Wout,” Primoz says, going back to his food. “Everything is going to get better, for all of us. I can feel it.”

And that’s that, dinner is over that day and Wout feels grateful for his teammates, and when he calls Mathieu that night it’s easier to talk to him. The blonde rambles on and on – as he loves to do – and when he makes and off-handed comment Wout laughs, startling both of them. It’s been a while since he had done that, at least with Mathieu.

The phone calls become less of a responsibility after that.

And then a strange thing happens.

Wout begins to long for Mathieu’s arms, for his presence next to him on the bed, for the sound of his footsteps echoing across the house. He misses the morning rides and playing in the garden with his dog. The distance that he loved at first becomes a curse, and he suddenly hates it, and he hates the fresh air that overwhelms his lungs, he wants to smell Mathieu, to taste him and to overdrive his senses with Matje, Matje, Matje.

In a moment of weakness, he admits to it on a call one night.

Mathieu only smiles before saying he longs for Wout in the same way a child longs for home. It’s lucky they were on a video call, otherwise Wout might’ve not believed it. But he sees it, the deranged way his blue eyes get, the maniac edge to them. The understanding and the agony at being separated.

It tugs at his heart, and he can’t find it in himself to begrudge Mathieu for being proud and unapologetic. He’s always known that about him, and Wout had chosen to love him anyway. Despite it all.

When he walks into their shared hotel room in Switzerland, long, tanned arms wrap themselves around him, and the suffocating smell of rain and nature and Matje fill his nostrils. Wout allows himself to hug him back, to envelope his arms around the wide frame of the dutchman’s shoulders and press him into his chest. Mathieu’s hair is longer, exactly the way Wout likes it. Home, home, home.

They don’t fall into bed naked that night, they don’t need to. Instead, they lay side by side on the bed, watching a bad movie on the television, Mathieu’s head on his shoulder, his hot breath pressed against Wout’s neck. Wout has the blonde’s hands gripped in his, immobilized as he traces soft patterns up and down his arms, feeling every vein, every muscle twitch and marveling at the fact that the younger man is real. He is a living, breathing thing that Wout loves. Their legs are tangled together.

“I love you,” Mathieu whispers into the night, voice lazy and tired.

I know, Wout thinks, how could you not?

He says, “I missed you, Matje. Did you miss me?”

Mathieu nods. “I missed you, Woutje.”

When they wake up the next morning, Wout wastes no time in rolling over on top of Mathieu and having him. For good measure, he has him again in the shower, before they both leave with their respective teams. There’s a good chance that Mathieu will win today, and Wout wants everyone who dares to lay their eyes on him to know. To know that the champion is spoken for, to know who he goes home to, who warms up his bed and exactly who satisfies him in ways no one else could. No one else could ever come close to.

He follows his usual routine. He stretches and warms up on the bike, grinning when he sees the messages of his teammates and friends on his phone, all wishing him good luck. Dylan calls him “a fucking legend”, while Niels tells him to “knock them dead”, Primoz opts for a “have a good race” and Steven, who had walked in on him masturbating while Mathieu was on the phone at the Tour, simply sends a simple “use protection ;)”. Wout rolls his eyes.

The recon goes nicely, he analyzes what lines he should be taking, and what sections are impossible to ride through, he’ll need to shoulder the bike and run for his life. And then the actual race is happening before he can think much about it. A flash of rainbow rides in front of him, and Wout is surprised when his mind suddenly reminds him that it’s Mathieu, not just some random, unknown man.

All things considered, he does well. He doesn’t finish on the podium, missing out and coming in fourth, but as he crosses the finish line and heads back to the rest area in front of the bus, his coaches yell at him that he can be proud of the effort he made today, he’s made incredible progress, unreal even for an athlete.

Mathieu wins, just as he had predicted.

And Wout waits, he waits for the anger to coil inside of him, for the rage to come out in splurges of hate, but it doesn’t come. It bubbles in his stomach, but it never threatens to rise to the surface. He feels angry in the same way he feels angry whenever he doesn’t win, a disappointed angry, not a jealous, petty angry.

In unnerves Mathieu far more than it does him.

His uneasiness is amusing to Wout. He arrives at the hotel room tense and battle ready, steely and cold. But Wout’s demeanor disarms him, Wout sees in real time how Mathieu deflates, confused, before asking if he is okay.

“Better than ever,” Wout responds, reaching out a hand from where he sits on the edge of the bed.

Mathieu doesn’t hesitate; he takes the hand and walks over. He towers over Wout, but strangely Wout doesn’t feel inferior. It’s foreign. He had fully expected a fight, especially considering that he had swallowed his pride often enough that the taste is starting to feel familiar. But there’s a twitch in Mathieu’s blue eyes, not an apology, Wout has learned not to expect one, but something closer to guilt and regret. It should make Wout’s heart swell with affection, but it doesn’t.

It makes him feel powerful.

“Are you mad at me?” Mathieu asks, searching for anything on Wout’s expression.

Wout keeps his guard up, cold and distant. Maybe he is just as proud as Mathieu, after all.

He squeezes the blonde’s hand. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I w- “

“Because you won?” Wout finishes, smiling condescendingly. Mathieu frowns before nodding. Wout shrugs. “I told you; the team talked to me about it. Today wasn’t about winning, not for me anyway. Today we had different goals, Mathieu.”

It confuses him, Wout can see. He imagines the mechanisms of Mathieu’s brain working overtime, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his lifelong rival wasn’t in the race to win. With it comes the satisfaction of knowing he has surprised Mathieu.

“So, everything is okay?” he asks, and he sounds so much like a child that Wout wants to wrap a blanket around him and keep him safe and protected in his arms.

“Of course it is.”

The dutchman shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs sadly, and Wout has no idea what he is apologizing for, but he knows that he doesn’t mean it, not really. If he did, he would’ve done it before and not now, not now when even though he won, Wout has all the power somehow. It makes Mathieu look small and tiny. A dainty thing that needs reassurance.

“Why?” Wout asks, because he needs to know and he has realized that is the only way he can ever get clarity out of Mathieu. Otherwise, the younger man shields himself in half-said words and accusations of being misunderstood, misused words and not finished sentences.

“I’m sorry,” Mathieu repeats, dropping to his knees. A worshipper at an altar. He presses a kiss to Wout’s knee, blue eyes batting upwards, framed by his long lashes. My sweet, little monster, Wout thinks fondly, brushing his hair with the palm of his hand.

“Eat me out,” he says instead, not an order or a suggestion, but simply a statement. Mathieu’s eyes glint with interest, and Wout knows exactly what to say to get him where he wants to. He can manage him now, he realizes. Mathieu orders him around in bed and throws his tantrums and his words and his anger, but Wout knows how to control him. “Please, Matje,” he adds, words dripping with sweetness and arousal.

It’s the begging that does it, that has always done it.

For both of them.

***

As a part of Wout’s comeback, they – that is to say, the team and himself – decided that he would ride a heavy spring campaign, before resting as the days begin to turn to summer, and crowning it all with riding the Tour de France again, his revenge for last year. To wrap the season up, he’ll ride the autumn classics, then finally have around a month of rest before starting his well-awaited cyclocross season.

For most of the spring, he finds himself away from Mathieu.

They both focus on their own respective training, and the same thing as before happens. The distance makes them long for the other, but the closeness makes them tense and snap. Wout has begun to think of Mathieu as both the poison and the antidote, a drug that sends him so high he never wants to come down, but when he does it all comes crashing down violently.

After the world championships, Wout thought that they had settled. Mathieu still commanded him in bed, and Wout enjoys begging, being told to wait, not having his release until Mathieu decides to be merciful and grant it. But outside of the bedroom, Wout is in control. For some reason, Mathieu felt guilty about winning, and so he bent to his will, gave in to his every demand.

It felt happy.

Blissful, even. Although Wout would admit to missing the fighting, the fire that was there before. The spark in Mathieu’s eyes, that used to glimmer so bright. Now the man seems turned off at times, when he thinks Wout is not looking and he drifts off, eyes focused on the horizon.

When there was the fire, Wout learned to enjoy the way the flames licked at his body, scorching his skin. It was real, and raw, and it left him with blisters. A far cry from the quiet they have now, but it feels wrong to complain.

He tried, one day, with Niels and Dylan, but neither had understood what he meant, and the words just escaped out of Wout’s reach, unable to express himself properly.

“You are mad that your boyfriend is too nice?” Niels had asked, with an edge to his voice. Wout dropped the subject after that.

Still, when he reaches for Mathieu, the blonde man complies and comes to him with a quickness that nearly gives him whiplash. He is wild, and he kisses Wout the same way he makes love, frenetic and petty and possessive. He loves the bite mark on Wout’s thigh, and Wout has scratched his initial with his nail over Mathieu’s hipbone so many times that he believes a permanent scar will soon form.

Today Mathieu sits on the back porch of the house, watching his dog play in the backyard with one of her toys. He stares silently at the cloudy sky, as a storm rolls in. Wout watches him from inside the house. Mathieu’s back is straight as an arrow, tense, his shoulders drawn up and his hands fidgeting in his lap.

Wout opens the sliding door and steps outside, sitting down next to him. Mathieu hardly seems to notice him.

They sit in silence for minutes, or hours or days, Wout cannot tell. After some time, Mathieu turns to him, face emotionless, he’s back to that place, where he doesn’t seem human anymore, but some twisted demonic entity, the monster the world has turned him into – his father and his coaches, his team and the fans. All of them to blame. In a way, Wout is to blame as well.

He feels the guilt pang through him but pushes it down and instead reminds himself of what control over the younger man feels like.

“What are we doing to each other?” Mathieu asks, sadness laced in his tone.

Wout sighs. “What we have always done,” he answers, because this is what their relationship has been since it began, since the first time they kissed, and they fucked. “You don’t get to turn your back to it simply because it doesn’t suit you anymore, Matje.”

“Stop being mean,” Mathieu scoffs, “I can’t help how it feels to me, Woutje. It’s not fair that you change and then you resent me for it.”

It’s tiring, having to explain time and time again to Mathieu that he doesn’t resent him for winning the championship. Wout knew it would happen, his leg had been dangling off his body just six months before, Wout was not racing for the win, the team had talked him out of that mentality. He had won stages in the fucking Tour de France; he had crashed out of a stage where he had been the favorite. Wout is meant to be more than just a cyclocross champion. Mathieu cannot wrap his head around it.

“I didn’t change, I got injured. My life was turned upside down, and you just relished in my pain, don’t even bother denying it,” he raises a hand when Mathieu opens his mouth to protest the accusation. “If anything, I think that you resent me.”

“Why would I resent you? I won.”

Wout actually laughs, pitched and drawn-out. “I didn’t come into the race with the intention of winning, but I can see why that would be difficult for you to understand.”

“There’s no point in riding if you don’t want to win.”

To you, Wout thinks. To you, my short-sighted little monster. Wout wasn’t thinking about the nice photo in the picture frame, hanging on the walls. He thinks about the entire landscape now, it’s about looking back at the end of his career and being satisfied with what he sees.

Then the truth hits him, real and true and so twisted, only Mathieu could’ve come up with it. Mathieu, Mathieu, Matje.

“Oh,” Wout says, cruel and arrogant without meaning to, but doing no real effort to reign that in. “That’s what this is about, then? You are angry because you think you have surpassed me. And it kills you to know that you have surpassed me because I put no real effort into winning.”

“It’s beneath you, Wout,” Mathieu exclaims, voice growing louder and louder until it booms in the quiet afternoon. “It’s unfair, you don’t get to suddenly stop trying, to suddenly let me win without a fight, it’s not who you fucking are. You don’t get to act as if I am now beneath you! It’s you who fell and got injured, so you don’t get to make me feel as if I lost!”

It shouldn’t, it really, really shouldn’t. But it sends a fire down his spine, a tingling in his stomach that travels further and further south. It’s not his fault, he is only a man and men are weak. It’s Mathieu’s fault, for being so irresistible, for looking at him with his pretty, pretty blue eyes, his face red and framed with anger. His love is just as good as his hate, and Wout loves both in equal measure. It’s all his fucking fault.

He stands with a laugh, staring at Mathieu like a maniac, before he crawls over to him, settling in the blonde’s lap. Is a position they are not in often, Wout’s monstruous thighs consume Mathieu’s legs, and he rocks his ass right over Mathieu’s crotch, which is growing harder and harder. He brings his arms up, to lock behind the blonde’s neck, softly tugging at the hair at the base of his neck. Mathieu’s hands wrap around his waist, his fingers digging into his skin painfully.

Wout lets out a hiss.

“I haven’t left you, Matje,” he whispers, pressing his mouth to Mathieu’s face, licking and kissing. “We are going to do this forever, you and me. You can’t escape me. I beat you, don’t you remember? You threw a delicious tantrum at me, but you love it here, don’t you? How could I ever leave you, Matje? You push me to be better and in turn I do the same. We are tied together, can’t you see?”

Can’t you see? Can’t you see?

They kiss, fiercely and aggressively, when Mathieu pulls at his bottom lip, Wout chases the feeling, Mathieu fully hard beneath him, Wout’s own erection pressing between their stomachs.

“Promise me,” Mathieu says madly, rambling and insane. His hair disheveled and wild. Raw, this is the real Mathieu. Wout loves him. “Promise me, Woutje.”

He kisses his way down, further and further down until he has to slide from Mathieu’s lap, kneeling in front of him and tugging Mathieu from where he sits on the chair, pushing his legs open. Wout lowers his pants to his ankles, kissing and biting at the soft skin of his inner thighs until the blonde is thrashing and moaning loudly into the cloudy sky.

There’s a fresh bruise on his hipbone, new. Wout presses a hand to it and Mathieu whines in pain. “When did you get this?” he asks, curious.

A conflict seems to pass through Mathieu’s eyes. “I got it today,” he says finally, quietly. “I fell while I was training with Jasper.”

Jasper. Wout fucking hates Jasper, he’s Mathieu’s new teammate. He has wandering, greedy eyes, and a way to entice a laugh out of Mathieu that makes Wout’s stomach curl with jealousy and possessiveness. His compatriot has a way of not knowing his place, Wout decides, but he’ll remind him.

He hums into the bruised skin. “Shall we remind Jasper to keep his grimy little hands to himself and off from what belongs to me?”

Mathieu breathes heavily, “It’s not necessary,” he says desperately, rocking his hips forward for any friction. “They all know, just by looking at me they already know. Just like they do with you.”

It fills Wout with pride. Their relationship is probably cycling’s worst kept secret. It satisfies him and arouses him in an equal manner. He thinks about commenting on something about Jasper again, but he has no place here, no place anywhere near Mathieu’s pleasure. Insignificant.

“Open your mouth,” he says instead, the blonde does so at once. Wout spits in his mouth, eyes glinting, hot and aroused. “Keep it.”

When he takes Mathieu’s cock into his mouth, he trails his nail over his hipbone, writing the same familiar pattern over and over again, until the tanned skin below is irritated and branded.

W.

Mathieu comes undone under his ministrations, shooting down Wout’s throat. Salty and delicious and Mathieu. As Wout asked, he had not opened his mouth, moaning and whining silently, but determinately keeping his spit inside. Wout doesn’t swallow, instead climbing back into the dutchman’s lap, ignoring the sweat and the overstimulation his body must be putting in Mathieu’s cock.

He presses his lips to Mathieu’s, tracing his lip with his tongue and pushing his way in, letting the younger man taste himself. He responds exactly how Wout expected, spit and cum mixing together in their mouths as they lick and bite and kiss, teeth clashing painfully.

“You’ll never leave me,” Mathieu orders later, when they are both panting on the bed as Wout thrusts above him, cruel and fast and relentless, in the way they like.

“Never,” Wout agrees.

Never sounds like an awfully long time.

Notes:

A little note, I know that Jasper was still in UAE in 2020, but for the sake of the story let's pretend that he was already in Alpecin. I need him for ~plot~ reasons, and we'll leave it at that.
According to my calculations, we have around six chapters left before we are done with part one, but I don't want to put the number in the story to not shoot myself in the foot. There is still a bit of story to go, but we are almost done with the first part (which is incredibly shocking to me, I never thought that I could write this much, lol).
What are your thoughts, predictions, expectations or comments?
Let me know!
See you in the next chapter!

Chapter 13: What He Misses | Mathieu

Notes:

Hello all, welcome to the new update.
I am killing myself over the fact that the GC battle in the Tour is effectively over at the moment, Tadej would need to have a Loze 23 bad day in order for Jonas to do any damage, but Jonas will go down trying and fighting and that's why I love him. Heartbroken for Remco though.
Reminder: Although Jasper moved to Alpecin in 2021, in this fic I moved him to Alpecin in 2020, so that's why there's mentions of him already as a teammate. Hope you guys don't mind.
Enjoy!

Spring, 2020.

 

 

 

Training for the upcoming road season is hell.

Physical hell, as well as psychological hell.

But still, the hardest part to upfront is the physical aspect of it. The long training rides, the team meetings, the strategizing, having to consistently keep his form but careful not to peak before the actual races. It tears and tugs Mathieu in a thousand million directions, contradicting instructions meeting in his brain and one thought fighting the other for control, for his attention.

The easiest part of the training is his afternoon rides with Jasper. Jasper who came into the team like a storm, earning a place with the riders with his quick, funny wit. Mathieu expected to dislike him, and he is pleasantly surprised when he very quickly finds himself considering Jasper as one of his friends. They click, somehow. Jasper is easy to get along with, and he is easy to talk to, to trust and to open up with.

It drives Wout absolutely insane.

It becomes half of the reason Mathieu pursues the friendship, to be honest. It feels a little bit like a rebellion. Going against Wout’s wishes – even though he never explicitly said so – and befriending a man he despises, just to see the flash of anger he gets whenever Mathieu mentions who he was training with, when his phone blinks with a text from the man saying he’s outside. Every time he comes back to Wout, his nights are longer and hotter, and it leaves Mathieu breathless and satisfied.

And bruised, well fucked and bruised.

Things are weird between them, to say the least.

Whoever wins is left with guilt and remorse over the fact. Apology follows apology, but they always echo, empty and with no purpose. Apologizing for the sake of doing it. He’d never felt that before, so when the guilt settles on his stomach in the world championship it catches him off guard. It had led to a fight, it always does, but the tone was different.

The cruelty had not been matched, in Mathieu’s opinion.

He feels like a caged animal, pressing against the steel bars that restrict his freedom, imagining the bright blue skies just outside the cage. He longs for freedom, for the moments where they are apart and his lungs can properly fill with air, away from the suffocating presence of the Belgian, who these days seems more like a puppeteer than anything else. He holds the leash to Mathieu’s neck, giving a little bit of rope when he wishes, and pulling it tight when he doesn’t.

But being away from Wout is quite literally torture.

Mathieu hates it. He hates being away from him. His body misses the warmth of the brunette, pressed against him as they sleep, his hot breath beating on the crook of his neck in the mornings, his feet resting on Mathieu’s lap in the afternoons. The pitch of his laugh and the deep tone of his voice. The way his hands feel gripping Mathieu’s hips, the press of his cock inside of him. The painful scratch of his nails as they trace the ‘W’ over and over again.

He never loves Wout more than he does when he is away from him.

But he never hates Wout more than when they are together.

He resents him, and he loves him, and he hates him. A big part of him wishes they could go back to just fucking after races and then running away from the other, but the bigger part of him would follow Wout to hell if it meant he got five more minutes with him. He would never trade an instant he has spent with Wout, an instant he has spent fighting for Wout. Another part of him wonders how the situations are different. Exactly where does what they were differ from what they are now?

They still run away from each other; the difference is that all of Mathieu’s things are neatly folded in the same wardrobe where Wout’s are.

They’ve always been joined, tied together by fate, bound by rivalry. But now more than ever it feels like they are entwined, twisted. Mathieu melts into Wout, until they become some new hybrid from the worst aspects of the two of them. It festers and infects them, but every time Mathieu looks into those impossibly big, round brown eyes he sees the same maniac, desperate expression he’s become familiar with, it’s the same look his blue eyes have when he looks in the mirror.

It's been affecting Mathieu’s performance.

Wout is a distracting presence, and sometimes a voice that sounds a lot like Adrie laughs on and on and on. It fucks Mathieu up. A big part of him flinches back whenever the thought that his father was right crosses his mind, and the wild, raw part of him knows his father was right. And the worse thing is Mathieu cannot even begin to pinpoint why it’s affecting his performance.

They’ve always been rivals, and in the deepest corners of his mind, whenever he processed their relationship – as it turned from simple competitors to fuck-buddies, to an actual romantic relationship – he’s always known that’s who they are at the core. They compete, and one of them will always win over the other, there’s no reasonable way they could co-exist within the same team, their egos and their pride will not allow it.

But winning and losing, it always stayed in competition, only really manifesting outwards in bed. And when it did, Mathieu was usually in control, they marched to the beat of his drum, dancing to a melody he had created in his head, Wout happy to comply.

Mathieu still holds that power, by all means. It has never shifted in bed, when it’s just the two of them filthy and dirty and raw. It’s the way it has manifested outwards that’s fucking with him. He has no control; he’s lost his balance. Mathieu bends and breaks at Wout’s every command, and he doesn’t know exactly when that happened.

Was it when he won the cyclocross championship, and they became equals, both having won three times? Was it before that, when Wout humiliated and defied him in public, in front of his friends and David? Or further back, when Wout fell and tore himself apart from the inside, when he had seen the selfless way Mathieu had thrown himself into his recovery because he thought the Belgian would never ride again? Did he ever truly have control at all? Maybe he imagined it all.

“You are being uncharacteristically quiet,” Jasper comments, as they sit down for coffee at a café far away from home, where all Mathieu can think is I’ve never been here with Woutje before.

“That’s what happens when people think, Jasper,” he teases lightly, laughing when Jasper rolls his eyes.

“Ha-ha,” Jasper mocks. “I meant it more as in you are staring dramatically off into the distance again.”

“Again?”

He shrugs. “You do it a lot. But I think you mostly do it when you are thinking about him, you get a really crazy look in your eyes.”

If there’s one thing Mathieu is grateful for is the fact that he’s not dating Jasper. The man has a way of reading his every expression that unnerves him. He doesn’t understand him, not really, Mathieu’s come to terms with the fact that the only person who will ever truly understand him is Wout; but he has a way of knowing his moods, his expressions, of reading into his words and catching their true meaning without Mathieu having to explain or justify himself.

It’s nice.

“The really crazy look in my eyes is probably just me being turned on.”

“First of all, ew. Second of all, I don’t think that’s what it is,” Jasper starts, signaling wildly with his hands. It’s another thing about him that Mathieu likes, how characteristically he articulates himself, animated and lighthearted. “I had the misfortune of listening to the two of you on the phone when we shared hotel rooms, I’m still trying to erase that from my mind.”

“You just get really melancholic, like you are homesick or something.”

It rings in Mathieu’s mind. Homesick. He would not describe it as being homesick, it’s not the cozy living room he misses, or the ample kitchen where he drinks his morning coffee, it’s not even the bed, or the backyard where his dog plays, or his bikes hanging from pegs in the garage. That’s not what he misses.

He misses pressing into Wout’s chest as they watch bad shows on television, he misses bumping into the older man as he attempts to cook, and breathing in the oxygen that leaves his lungs as they lay together on the bed, he misses running behind the brunette when they play fetch, and the way Wout stretches when Mathieu hangs his bike way too high, grumbling all the way but still doing it with a smile.

How can he be homesick when home is another human being?

“I think you are going crazy, Jasper,” he says instead. “I just have one of those resting faces.”

Jasper snorts, but decidedly drops the subject, rambling away about the training and some new show he started watching and how he locked himself out of his apartment the other day. Mathieu laughs particularly hard at the last one.

It’s nice, and simple.

But Mathieu’s heart aches for complicated and turbulent.

***

Lockdown is hell.

It’s so bad it makes Mathieu long for the endless training camps with his team, up in the mountains and in the dead of summer, sweating his ass off. For a sense or normalcy, a deep breath in the ocean, words whispered into a thunderstorm. Instead, it isolates him, it restrains him, and he truly feels like a caged animal now, prancing and prowling his enclosure, desperate to come out and do anything.

It gets so bad, he even starts enjoying going to his parents’ house. When Adrie is there. yeah, that’s how insane he is right now.

All things considered, he believes himself to be lucky. He’s close enough to his family that he can visit them, David comes over regularly – with the outmost precaution, of course – but he can ride in silence without being bothered. Sure, his indoor training has increased dramatically, and he’s fully invested in a better set up after one month in complete isolation, but being locked inside the house just makes him appreciate nature even more.

One day, he went out to walk his dog and when the air had brushed against his hair, he had audibly sighed.

But on the other hand, being in a forced lockdown just meant that he got Wout all to himself, for even longer and longer.

The thought makes him giddy and smug.

Wout mumbles sleepily into the pillow, breathing softly from his side of the bed. It’s earlier than they usually get up to ride together, but Mathieu had woken up in the middle of the night and sleep had not found him again. He blames his busy brain, but mostly he blames Wout’s snores that fill up the room. Note to self, buy ear plugs.

Mathieu feels tempted to kick the man softly in the shin to wake him up, but every time he looks over, the older man is sleeping so peacefully, so quietly – aside from the snoring – that he could never bring himself to interrupt this moment. His expression has softened, mouth slightly open, the pretty bow of his lips pouting. Wout’s warm breath beats down Mathieu’s neck, where they are facing together, but he does not care.

Things between them are weird most of the time, that Mathieu takes gladly any moment of tranquility he can get. He mostly blames himself for being stupid and believing that something good had happened to him. He doesn’t deserve it. Mathieu had truly thought that after he had raced to Wout’s house so long ago, after he had cried and begged and explained, and that Wout had chosen him, that they would be fine.

Competitive and intense, but fine. Loving and committed and not jealous or rageful.

He knows better now.

All those emotions are essential to their relationship, and when they are not present it feels like something is missing. Mathieu is so fucked up that he gets a thrill from it, he needs it, and he pushes Wout towards it, and it arouses him when he meets Wout halfway through all the aggression, returning it tenfold and multiplied.

But while a part of him loves Wout, loves him in that strange, twisted way he knows how to, another part absolutely hates him.

Because Wout just keeps winning.

His leg was dangling off his hip just months ago, and now he’s back and better than ever. And winning, and worse, beating Mathieu with ease.

It’s absolute hell, marching over to Wout’s team bus after a race to congratulate his boyfriend. But it would be weird not to. The public would never find out, after all, they would just find it strange that he’s marching into the team bus of his rival. But the rest of the peloton would know. And Mathieu knows them; they are as much of an athlete as he is. If they see a weak spot, they will not hesitate to press against it, hoping to make it bleed.

So, he plays the part of the dutiful boyfriend and marches himself to Wout’s bus and he smiles even though on the inside he’s blazing with anger and jealousy. And later, when they are fucking and Wout begs for release, he maybe makes him wait for it a little longer just to be mean. But he’s fine.

Fine, fine, fine.

If you looked up fine in the dictionary, you’d probably find a picture of Mathieu. Probably next to a poster that reads ‘liar’.

“How long have you been staring at me?” Wout asks, slowly blinking his eyes open. It brings a smile to Mathieu’s face.

“All night,” he responds, laughing when Wout opens his eyes wide, alarmed. “Calm down, probably like 15 minutes.”

“Creep.”

Wout rolls over, taking Mathieu’s hands and wrapping them around his waist, so that his front is pressed against Wout’s back. It’s nice, and quiet, and half the reason Mathieu refuses to run for the hills is because of those moments where they are just in bed together, breathing each other in. Existing together. No pressure to win, to outdo one another, no parents and no Alpecin or Visma. Just them.

The brunette sighs. “When do you leave for training?”

“In about 2 hours.”

“Can we stay here until then?”

“Yes, please.”

***

The 2020 season comes back in full swing – with a million precautions – some weeks later than usually anticipated. To prepare for that, the team basically rents out an entire hotel and locks the riders in, no outsiders, no friends, no family, no distractions at all. In a way it’s the purest form of cycling Mathieu had been a part of for a really long time.

But on the other hand, it’s actually so psychotic that by the end of the first day he feels on the verge of a mental breakdown. It’s lucky there’s no mountains around, otherwise he would climb one and throw himself off it. Christoph Roodhooft tells the guys to keep an eye out on him, after he says that.

It’s a little hilarious.

The hotel is nice, it has a floor-length window that overlooks some small mountains, thank you very much, and at night Mathieu can see the lights of the little houses on them. He snaps several pictures, sending them to Wout. If he could somehow scan his hotel room and send it to the Belgian man so that he knows every corner of the room he’s staying, he would do it.

He just hasn’t found how yet.

“And look at this little cute desk,” he gushes, flipping the camera around on facetime so that Wout can see. “This chair is so comfortable, I am tempted to steal it.”

Wout’s laugh from the other end makes his heart swell. “Truly living up to your name, aren’t you, boefje?” he teases, amused and glistening.

“Oh God, not you too,” Mathieu pouts. “Didn’t any of you think I felt compelled to steal because I was missing something?”

“You were missing bikes?”

“Nooo,” he drawls out, annoyed and rolling his eyes. “I’m saying you should buy me a nice desk and a comfortable chair.”

Wout moves around on the screen, probably fluttering about in his own hotel room, away from Mathieu. “I’ll buy you anything,” Wout says, “as long as it gets you to stop stealing, boefje.”

Mathieu tsks at the screen, switching the screen back to show his own unamused face, staring dead at the brunette.

“That’s not my name,” he complains, much like a child would. But right now, he couldn’t give two flying fucks about that. They are talking together, soft and comfortable, and they are having such a good day Mathieu wants to cling to it with both hands and never let go, bite it if it’s necessary, all to keep it from slipping away from his fingers.

God, he misses Wout.

“Such a petulant little princess, you are,” Wout says, grinning in that way he does that crinkle his eyes and tugs his cheeks wide. He almost looks boyish. “A demanding, pretty princess, my Matje.”

Mathieu sighs dreamily, and any other time he would’ve slapped himself for being so sappy and annoying but whatever. He hasn’t seen Wout in a while and these little stolen moments are precious, tucked away in corners of the room, leaving dinner early, talking from the empty hotel gym.

“Do you miss me?” Mathieu asks, just to be needy.

“Yes,” Wout says, without missing a beat. “But tomorrow you are going to get to see a lot of me. Well, you’ll mostly see my ass, but still.”

He laughs, loud and full. “How do you know you won’t be seeing my ass instead?”

“Oh, I’ll get to see your ass, alright,” Wout says, wicked and gleaming. “Just later than you’re expecting.”

“Oh?” Mathieu raises an eyebrow. “And what are you planning to do with my ass?”

The Belgian pretends to think about it. “Let’s just say I’m doing you a favor,” he starts, ruffling his hair, making the stupid blonde streak fall over his forehead. It’s ridiculous how attracted to it Mathieu is. “If I got your ass earlier, you wouldn’t be able to sit on the saddle for four hours.”

Mathieu really wishes it wouldn’t turn him on. He really, really wishes he were immune to it. But he is unfortunately not. And it’s been so long since he’s seen Wout, he’s sure that neither of them will last long tomorrow, or whenever they actually see each other. It had happened before, they’d gotten their hopes up with dirty talk over the phone, waiting for the next day, just to be cruelly pulled by their respective teams. Health protocol or some bullshit.

If they cared about Mathieu’s health, they would give him five minutes alone with his boyfriend, thank you very much.

“What makes you think I’d listen to you?”

The bathroom door opens, and out comes Jasper, hair still wet from his shower. Mathieu deflates with disappointment. Jasper has an ability to not read the room, especially when it comes to Mathieu being desperately close to sliding his hands down and touching himself while Wout watches from his hotel room. It’s frustrating.

“I like it when you don’t listen-“Wout starts, before Mathieu is loudly yelling and shushing him.

“Hold on, Woutje. I’m not listening.”

“That just proves my point.”

“Oh my god, are you two having sex again?”

“Jasper, what are you doing?”

“Jesus Christ, is that oaf back?”

Everything slips out quickly, way too quickly, and Mathieu barely registers it before his mind decides it’s too much noise and he yells, frustrated, waving one free hand to stop Jasper, while the one holds his phone so Wout can see. He is very much not in the mood to play peacekeeper between the two of them.

He scrambles to his feet, only half hiding his growing erection. Jasper’s eyes go wide when he stands, eyes freely roaming over his body and thank fuck that he has the camera facing his own face, otherwise this would escalate into something else.

“I’m going into the bathroom right now, okay thanks,” he says quickly to Jasper, cringing at the recognition that flashes in his eyes before slamming the door shut. It’s humid from the shower the other man was just taking, and immediately Mathieu feels his clothes cling to his skin in a manner that is uncomfortable and not arousing.

“Did that dimwit call me an oaf?” Jasper yells from outside, but Mathieu decides to ignore him.

“Tell him I called him an asshole too,” Wout grumbles.

Mathieu sighs loudly, yeah, I’m definitely not coming tonight.

He doesn’t.

And the next day he’s tense and on high alert already. On edge, exactly the way he hates to ride. When he’s like this, an uneasy, nervous feeling settles deep on his stomach, coiled deep, it steals his breath. Every brush against skin in the peloton makes him jump and react, twisting and thank God Mathieu has a talent for bike handling, otherwise he would’ve hit the deck already, wiping out not only himself but everyone else. His kit is too tight, clinging to his skin with sweat, and even the weight of his own head is impossible to carry.

Strade-Bianche needs his full attention, he can’t have any of this happening right now.

It’s a race that suits him, where he might have a real chance of winning. Of making himself known, writing his name in history. Mathieu is sure the win will give him the confidence he needs for the rest of the spring season. The impulse he’s been missing. He feels it, can taste its metal scent on his tongue, lingering long after he swallows, pushing him to a high for the days to come after.

And yet in the actual race, he can sense himself slipping further and further away. Closer to the red line than to the finish line. For the first half of the race, his mind commands his stubborn legs to keep pedaling at an unrelenting pace, to ignore the sun beating down his back and the sweat dripping down his face, and to just keep going. Usually, it’s enough. Mathieu has enough will power to do that to himself, it’s what he trains for.

Today is not enough.

Mathieu spends the rest of the race convincing his own mind that he has the ability to keep going. Somewhere over the Italian hills, he’s pretty sure he loses his sanity, and rambling, incoherent thoughts consume every minute that he spends pedaling. He thinks about his parents, and about harsh hands pressed against his hips, and of the sinking, drowning feeling he gets when he’s not the absolute best, the desperate need to rebel against everything that’s good in his life. Where does that even come from?

Adrie really did a number in him, didn’t he?

And Wout, he thinks about Wout so, so much.

Sometimes he’s afraid of how much the older man consumes his very being. It sets him ablaze, from within, until Mathieu is nothing but scorched earth, only ashes remaining of his being. Wout wears the ashes like warpaint. A responsibility he burdens, but he does so gladly and willingly, with a smile on his face, and Mathieu gets the horrible feeling that he would truly follow Mathieu into hell, and even more terrifyingly, he worries that in order to win, Mathieu is truly willing to walk into hell.

Wout wins Strade-Bianche.

Fitting, he first caught the public’s eye after a particularly impressive performance on that race, triumphant over the street of Sienna. A victor. Conqueror. Pitifully, Mathieu crosses the line 10 minutes behind, half relieved he finished a race where his mind had slipped away from him in a way it never had before, to the point where he’s actually worried for himself, and half rageful at the fact that he lost.

Again.

It’s fine.

Not really, but it will be.

He hopes.

***

It happens again, in Milano-San Remo. This one hurts a little bit more, because Mathieu finishes just 2 seconds behind, while Wout imposes himself just by enough. But Mathieu won’t be on the podium. But this one hurt more.

His grandfather had won that race.

And Mathieu always thought that it would be nice to win it as well.

Still, he’s a graceful loser and takes the loss in his stride, congratulating the podium winners, dutifully apologizing to his team for his performance. The Roodhooft brothers flash him a look afterwards, when they are all in the hotel having dinner. A look that says please figure your shit out and get it together.

If only Mathieu knew where to start.

He’s on his phone for the entire dinner, could not even tell you if he ate. And in one flicker, a little moment when he realizes that he and Wout will both have an entire week off in the middle of June, right before Wout leaves for Tour duties. His heart thrums quickly when he realizes, half a plan begins to formulate in his mind.

Mathieu needs to leave his hotel, fast.

He does, grateful for the face masks, for once. After pleading with Jasper to please cover up for him, he sneaks out past curfew, feeling very much like a teenager and begins a fresh, frisky moonlit stroll to Wout’s hotel. He knows very well where the other man is staying, they have the habit of informing the other absolutely everything that regards their locations, almost as if on a dare. Come and see me. He also knows that Jumbo-Visma riders have a tradition of letting the winner of the race sleep by himself, a worthy reward, they have deemed it.

His walk is nice, his mind whites out for the entirety of it, and for a small moment there’s only him, the soft breeze blowing through the trees, the leaves and a fresh smell. Mathieu distantly hears faint music. By the time Mathieu’s feet have carried him back to Wout, he finds himself knocking at the door, waiting for the Belgian man to open the door.

It happens at the same time.

Wout, in sports shorts and a team shirt opens the door, disheveled and confused, stifling a yawn, he’d probably been deep asleep. Positively cute. His eyes still glimmer when he takes Mathieu in.

And his thoughts all rushing back in, a pile of thoughts and emotions that Mathieu cannot begin to unravel them, so he lets them run freely instead, flickering in his mind in full effect.

“Matje,” he says, opening the door even further. A silent invitation.

Mathieu takes it. “You won today, Woutje,” he says, pressing himself against Wout as soon as the door snaps shut behind him. He mouths at Wout’s neck, intoxicated all of a sudden, and one of his hands pinches Wout’s hip.

“I di-ahh,” Wout flinches, throwing his head back and exposing his throat more, pretty and so willing. And powerful.

“How do you want it, tonight?” he asks, fumbling with the cord of the older man’s shorts, pressing his face further and further in, until he is biting and licking Wout’s ear.

With a whine, Wout grinds against his thigh, hot and wet already. He runs his hands down Mathieu’s back, nails scratching and gripping.

“I want you to make me beg for it.”

“Your wish is my command, winner.”

They kiss, roughly. Mouths clashing together and Mathieu shoves his tongue inside of Wout, no other way to describe it, he licks and bites and there’s spit drooling down his chin soon, but he doesn’t care about any of that. All he can focus on is the press of Wout’s body against his, hot and eager, the lingering taste of toothpaste on his mouth, and Wout’s powerful hands slipping into his sweatpants and gripping his ass, massaging and fondling.

Mathieu moans, a bit annoyed.

Wout is supposed to be the one falling apart, not him.

Determined, Mathieu begins to march them further into the room, until Wout’s knees buckle on the edge of the bed. They fall together, Mathieu straddling the older man’s waist, knees digging into the mattress. He takes the opportunity to detach from Wout’s mouth, smirking when the Belgian whines, and begins to kiss his way down. To the bone of his jaw, relishing in the way his growing beard burns Mathieu’s smooth face. He’s always had difficulty to grow a beard, and when it does it grows blonde, and Mathieu looks absolutely ridiculous. But Wout can. He can do anything.

He grips the hem of Wout’s shirt, pressing his palms flat against the muscles on his abdomen, tracing the lines and ridges. “So pretty, Woutje,” he whispers against the Belgian’s neck. “Always so pretty.”

Wout shivers.

Mathieu bids him to sit, so he can tear the shirt off his body, exposing his upper body, his toned abdomen – especially now, in the middle of the season – his long, muscular arms, his pretty, pink nipples. Mathieu takes one in his mouth, lapping and licking, laughing when Wout moans again. Wout’s hands on his ass are relentless, and soon enough he’s pulling Mathieu’s cheeks open with one hand and circling his hole with his finger. Not entering or pushing in, just teasing, tapping almost.

It makes a rush of heat settle on Mathieu’s lower belly.

“Can I please, Matje,” Wout asks when they lock eyes. Mathieu knows what he’s asking. Can I please finger you? Can I please enter you? Can I please? Can I?

Mathieu tsks. “We are way too dressed, don’t you think?”

In a swift motion, Wout has flipped them over, Mathieu now on the bottom. He pulls away, lowering his shorts and underwear, discarding them to some remote corner of the room. It’s hot, Wout fully nude, while Mathieu is fully clothed. His erection presses painfully against his sweatpants, and he swears he can already feel a little wetness coming through.

Wout sits on his knees, patiently waiting. His cock is flushed against his stomach, fully hard and red and leaking. Mathieu has the weight of it committed to memory, on his hands and his mouth and his ass. Wout’s determination makes Mathieu smile.

“You can undress me, Woutje,” he says, and the older man gets to work immediately. His hands fly to the cord of Mathieu’s sweatpants, before he decides to be a little mean. He lost after all; he deserves something in return. “Use your teeth, only.”

The Belgian stills, eyes wide and pupils blown. “Mathie-“he starts, but Mathieu interrupts by kicking him lightly in the abdomen.

“Undress me using your teeth,” he orders, fully in control now. Yes, yes, yes. “You want to be good for me, don’t you?”

Wout nods quickly, he locks his hands behind his back, and the motion pulls his chest forward in a manner that is so erotic, Mathieu wants to take a picture and keep it forever in a little locket. His shoulders strain, jutting his collarbones forward, and he slowly begins to lower himself. He decides to do the shirt first, biting the hem right over Mathieu’s happy trail and pulling it upwards, Wout’s chin rubbing against his abdomen. He pulls it as far as it goes, and because Mathieu is not cruel, he sits, pulling the shirt over his own head.

“Good job, baby,” Mathieu whispers, laying a hand on Wout’s cheek, smearing his spit over it. “Keep going.”

It takes a shit ton of self-control to not thrust his hips upwards, when Wout takes his sweatpants firmly between his teeth and begins to tug down. Mathieu can see where his cock pushes against Wout’s throat. He does lift his hips, so Wout can slip the sweatpants over the curve of his ass, before he begins to tug one leg at a time. He breathes against Mathieu’s inner thighs, so hot and exactly where Mathieu wants him but not where he needs him. He needs Wout’s mouth on his dick, but he needs his cock in his ass, and he wants to be kissed.

Wout kisses his ankle when he’s done, looking very proud of himself.

Mathieu raises a brow. “I’m not undressed yet, am I, Woutje?”

Something gleams in Wout’s eyes, before he shakes his head. “Still with my teeth?”

“No, you can use your hands now,” Mathieu allows, laughing when Wout’s hand immediately lower his underwear, freeing his cock. He looks hungry, starving even.

But today it is not about Mathieu, it’s about making Wout work for it. His mind scrambles, coming up with some idea about how to achieve it before he decides on something. He surges upwards, kissing Wout one more time, deeply and feverishly.

“Lay on your stomach,” he orders, running his hands over his dark hair. Confused, Wout obeys. Mathieu grabs a couple of pillows, before lifting Wout up by the hips and settling the pillows beneath him. The angle presents Mathieu with Wout’s perfect ass, and he has the perfect view of the muscles of his back straining and struggling.

“Matje,” Wout says slowly, “what are you doing?”

Mathieu silences him with a slap to his ass, it makes Wout snap his head back angrily, glaring at him. “Shhh,” he says, holding a finger to his lips, “You are going to work for it, remember?”

Wout settles again, laying his head to the side, over his hands. Mathieu stands, going over the bedside table and retrieving the bottle of lube, with which he coats his fingers. He sits back, pushing Wout’s knees open with his legs, before pressing a finger on Wout’s hole slowly. The older man sucks in a breath.

“You are so tight,” he says, scissoring his finger in and out, mesmerized at how it disappears up to the knuckle, twisting and swirling, before adding one more finger. The stretch makes Wout groan, and Mathieu pushes further and further in, trying to find one particular spot. He’s met with resistance when he pushes a third finger in, and this time the pads of his fingers find the spot he’s been looking for.

Wout arches, pushing his ass back into Mathieu’s fingers. “Christ, fuck,” he moans, fingers gripping the bedsheets. “Keep going, please keep going.”

Mathieu slaps his ass again. “Ride the pillow,” he commands, setting a faster pace with his fingers. Wout whimpers, but his hips do not move. He stills his fingers. “Woutje, ride the pillow.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Wout murmurs, before snapping his hips, fucking the pillow exactly as Mathieu had ordered. He begins to move his fingers again, pressing relentlessly until Wout is no longer making out any words, he’s just babbling away incomprehensively, rutting his hips forwards, the friction of his cock caught between the pillow and his own weight satisfying, but not enough. Mathieu knows, he’s been in that position before, it’s not enough to make you cum, but enough to push you to the edge and leave you hanging off the precipice.

“God, Matje-oh,” he cries, voice high-pitched and breathy. “Please, I’m not going to last. Fuck.”

“Not yet, Woutje.”

Mathieu keeps going, and a really big part of him wants to remove his fingers and press forwards with his cock. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s fucked Wout, he only does it on rare occasions, but one thing about Mathieu is that he really, really loves to be filled, and so his mind is torn between the options. The possibilities.

And his cock is really hard, red and leaking already.

He hasn’t even touched himself yet.

“Please, please, please,” Wout begins to chant, hips snapping quickly, movements sloppy. He’s getting close. But not yet.

Mathieu stops, pulling his fingers out. Wout lets out a scream, frustrated. “You only get to cum inside me, Woutje,” Mathieu says, pressing kisses to the base of his spine. “You are mine, remember? You are mine so you cum in me or you don’t at all.”

With that, he lines his cock to Wout’s entrance and pushes in without hesitation. Wout yells, or maybe it is Mathieu who yells, at the sudden pressure that consumes his cock, and Wout at the feeling of being ripped open. Before he begins to move, he runs a hand to where they are united, before using all the strength he can muster and pulling Wout to his knees, so that his back is flushed against Mathieu’s chest.

He cages the man in, one hand firmly against his waist, rubbing against Wout’s cock, while the other grips Wout’s upper thigh, right over his crescent-shaped scar and the bite mark. Mathieu begins to thrust, panting and moaning.

Wout throws his head back with a gasp, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. “God, Matje, please,” he begs, arching his back. “I’m not going to last. I’m going to cum, please, please. Fuck.”

Mathieu removes his hand from his waist and wraps it around the Belgian’s neck, squeezing lightly. “I already told you, no.”

Wout cries, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching around Mathieu. It nearly pushes him to the edge. Bastard. He keeps begging, a mixture of please and Matje and some nonsense of him not being able to last that long. Rubbish. Mathieu told him he can’t cum yet, so he won’t. Simple as that.

“Shh, Wout you feel so good.”

“You can cum after I do.”

“You won today so I deserve this.”

“Fuck, you have no idea.”

Wout snaps forwards, throwing his hands back and squeezing Mathieu’s ass. “Fuck, fuck fuck. I can’t, Matje, I’m so close. So close,” he rambles, “you feel so good, please let me cum.”

“No.”

It’s with Wout’s whines and whimpers, as well as the maddening way he keeps clenching around Mathieu’s cock, that pushes him to the edge. He fills Wout with a gasp, slowing the movement of his hips as his cock begins to soften, he feels his own warm cum, mixed with lube and Wout and God. He wants the overstimulation of it, but if he keeps fucking Wout the older man will cum and that’s not how Mathieu wants it.

He pulls out, and Wout falls forward with a moan, crying and gasping. Mathieu slaps his ass again.

“Remember what I said?” he asks, laying down next to Wout and opening his legs suggestively. “You can only cum inside me.”

Wout seems to understand the order. But he struggles to pick himself up. “Please, Matje, I’m exhausted.”

Mathieu shrugs, tugging his own cock lazily and trying his best to pretend it’s not driving him insane. “We can stop if you want,” he says, “but you won’t get to cum.”

The older man sighs, exhausted and turned on. Taut and tense, Mathieu can see from the way his back muscles strained, his entire body shaking. He raises himself up on his elbows and manages to crawl halfway over Mathieu’s body. His leg rubs against his cock, and Mathieu hisses.

“Can you please ride me?” Wout asks, resting his head in Mathieu’s chest, staring with wide brown eyes. Tears stream down his face, mixing with his own spit, sweaty and puffy. He looks positively wrecked. And Mathieu did that.

He fucking did that.

“No.”

Wout really looks like he wants to hit him, but the order has been given and he’s nothing if not determined. Determined to give Mathieu what he wants, denying himself his own pleasure just because Mathieu told him to. It makes Mathieu feel drunk with power, wondering just how far he can push the older man before he breaks, and then putting all the pieces back together. He climbs over Mathieu, dropping to his forearms, until they are pressed chest to chest.

Slowly, he pushes in, the head of his cock pressing and opening, meeting resistance and Mathieu’s vision whites out a little bit.

He moans.

“Keep going, Woutje,” he orders, running his hands through his hair and tugging sharply. “I want you to fuck me.”

Wout obeys, setting up a pace that is satisfying and familiar. Exactly the way Mathieu likes to be fucked. Wout nips at his neck, biting his pulse point desperately, trying his hardest to stay grounded.

“You are being so good, Woutje.”

“Such a good, good boy.”

“Fuck, you feel so good.”

Mathieu decides to be merciful. Both for Wout’s sake, who has stopped talking entirely and is instead just whimpering into his neck, and for his own sanity. He feels incredibly aroused, impossibly hard, and everything is hot, hot, hot. Sticky and clinging to his skin in a way he loves, but it is so overwhelming that he’ll cum again at any moment now. He wraps his hand around his own cock, pumping and squeezing in the way he learnt he liked when he was fourteen, chasing his release.

His other hand digs his fingers into Wout’s thigh, right over the surgery scar and the bite mark. Wout gasps, his palm coming over and resting right over Mathieu’s hipbone, which is now permanently branded with his initial. Yes, yes, yes.

“You can cum after I do,” he grants, before he is fully gone, shooting between their stomachs, squeezing his eyes shut so hard that he begins to see stars. Everything sound muffled, but he can make out Wout moaning over and over, waiting for Mathieu’s orgasm to be over so he can finally cum.

“I love you,” he is rambling, Mathieu can make it out. “I love you, please Matje, please. Can I cum now? I’ve been good, I just want to be good for you. Fuck, please let me.”

Mathieu nods. “You can cum, baby,” he whispers, tired. “You are always so good, you’ve earned it today. Cum, Wout. Fill me up.”

It washes over the Belgian in waves, he whimpers, thrusting in on aborted movements, dropping his face to Mathieu’s chest and just screaming. Loud and high pitched, and there’s no way his teammates haven’t heard that, but Mathieu doesn’t care. Mathieu feels warmth inside of him, it makes him smile. He’s inside Wout and Wout is inside Mathieu, they can never be pulled apart.

He needed it, after feeling so far away for so long. After feeling like they were tearing at the seams, a confused mixture of anger and rage and jealousy, but bound together by love, by the stubborn determination of being together. It felt one sided at times, like only Mathieu is consumed and scorched, but this. This just proves it’ll never be one sided. He can tear and claw at Wout all he wants, and Wout will just return it with the same ferocity, the same intensity.

“I love you,” he murmurs, pressing his face into Wout’s hair and inhaling his scent. Familiar. Home. Wout. “I love you, I love you.”

After, when Wout has managed to roll off of him, Mathieu goes to the bathroom to get a towel, cleaning the two of them up. Wout smiles softly, eyes closing when his head settles on a pillow. He reaches out his hand, linking their fingers together and pulling Mathieu to bed. Wout settles on his side, throwing a leg over Mathieu, while the blonde pets his hair, pulling lightly at the blonde streak of hair that drives him insane.

Wout’s finger traces figures on his belly. “Bastard,” he says, still sounding out of breath, but calm. “You really made me work for it.”

“You asked for it.”

“I know,” Wout kisses his chest, not sexual now but just. Like someone who knows he can just do that. “But with you it’s always worth it.”

And that.

It makes tears gather behind his eyes. Because that’s what he wants. To erase cycling and competing and everything else. To bare their relationship, cards on the table, and for Wout to realize that for Mathieu it’s always been about him. About the way Wout’s faces crinkles when he laughs, and how he lights up any room he enters. About Wout’s eyes settling over Mathieu, desperate and loving and understanding. Mathieu loves it, craves it and needs it. He clutches it in his hands and pulls it close to his chest. He’ll never let go. It may leave him bruised and bloodied, but he’ll always tug at the string that connects the two of them.

“Hey,” he says softly into the quiet room, Wout hums sleepily from where he is pressed, right against his heart. “Do you want to go to Spain?”

Notes:

Ufff, did I write all of that???
I was honestly shocked when I saw how long this chapter ended up being, it's extra long and extra horny, I was just yapping with unlimited power.
What did you think of the chapter?
Let me know your opinions.
See you in the next update!

Chapter 14: Deserve Each Other | Wout

Notes:

Hello all, back with another update!
I am so incredibly heartbroken for Mathieu, I think he really wanted to go for the green, but health comes first and I hope he gets better real soon.
What have you thought of this year's Tour so far? I think it's been more interesting that last year's for sure. Queen stage tomorrow, so excited about that.
Hope you enjoy!

Summer, 2020.

 

 

 

Spain is idyllic.

They rent out a nice two-bedroom house that overlooks the ocean, high from a mountaintop. The mediterranean breeze enters through the open windows, fluttering the white, floor-length curtains in a scenic way. The air smells like heat, salt and flowers, entering Wout’s lungs and flooding out all his other worries. The mornings are spent lounging in bed, lazily talking and whispering about nothing important. The afternoons are for swimming and short rides to the city for different supplies, with the sun beating down their backs in a way that should be frustrating but is instead fulfilling. At night, they step out into the terrace to have dinner, watching the lights that glint all across the coastline, and the way the moonlight reflects off the water.

After the second day, Wout begins to feel guilty over having the best vacation of his life, while the lives of so many people are filled with uncertainty and illness, but he quickly decides that he can’t really fix the entire world all by himself, and pushes the guilt out of his mind and for once, allows himself to be selfish and enjoy something.

He likes it.

When Mathieu had proposed it, Wout was confused as to where the need to go away came from. After all, they traveled all the time for their jobs. Sure, they traveled and it’s not like they can precisely sightsee a lot, but Wout is sure he quite literally knows most of Europe. Big cities and little towns, Wout has started races in them, has pedaled past them, and has won races in them.

But after a little reflection, he understood Mathieu’s gesture for what it was. A desperate attempt to escape, for them to return to what they were without the suffocating presence of their home, the trophies and medals scattered around the shelves, cycling kits mixed together. An olive branch.

Wout is not too proud to not accept it.

Undoubtedly, things between them have changed. They have always been charged with intensity, possessiveness and jealousy, each one driven by the accomplishment of beating the other, of one always having to be superior to the other. It’s like one of them needs to bend, in order for the other to stand up taller. For the longest of times, it’s the reason they were stuck between those shameful fucks behind tight, closed doors. Rivals with benefits.

Then their relationship had developed, after Mathieu had all but ran to his home and rambled about his feelings. And that had been that. No grand love confession under the rain, no public gesture of love, just the whispered words shared between the two of them, and the massive leap Wout had taken with his heart to allow Mathieu in. He often wonders exactly what Mathieu had to give up for him.

At times he thinks everything. Sometimes it feels like nothing.

And they had been fine. Surprisingly fine. But every time Wout looks back on it he sees it through a clean glass and it’s so obvious. The elephant in the room. The power of retrospective, he guesses. Everyone around them held their breath as they waited for Wout and Mathieu to stop feeding the flames, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fire only grew, higher and higher, the flames suffocating, the fumes toxic. A forest fire. And they all wonder what exactly they are going to pull out from the ashes, what – if anything – will remain.

Somewhere along the road it all went to shit.

Wout can’t pinpoint it, that’s the worst of it. He can’t identify the issue, and it sends him right back to those cold, distant years where there was an ocean between himself and Mathieu. Where the other man was away, trapped behind the glass, drowning in the weight of his own greatness and family legacy. When Wout was desperate to grasp him by the ankle and drag him back down to the land of mortals.

Things changed after his injury. At times Mathieu had looked at him like a wingless bird, pitying and demeaning in a way. With a twisted glee at the fact that Wout not only needed him to survive, but that Wout would probably never fly again. With the knowledge that with Wout out of the way, Mathieu could now be undefeated, uncontested. In those days, Mathieu walked around smug and satisfied, and it slowly began to drive Wout insane.

He's never mentioned it to the blonde, but he had made a promise back then. He would get better, and he would beat Mathieu again, at least once. Just to remind the dutchman that Wout Van Aert is not someone you can count out.

Wout did, more than once. It had backfired badly.

Mathieu did not react well to being challenged, much less by someone he had already considered out for the count. Still, out of love he wore it like a duty, and flashed an uncomfortable smile whenever Wout wanted to talk about winning, he marched himself over to congratulate Wout, clapping him in the back and looking graceful as he sank to his knees on a hotel carpet.

Then the pendulum would swing the other way.

Whenever he wins, the same spiteful smugness overcomes Mathieu again. It falls over him, twisting and tearing until Matje becomes Mathieu becomes Mathieu van der Poel, cycling royalty. The powerful, demeaning God that rules over all his subjects with an iron hand, an unclenching fist. They all cry out for mercy, and he only allows it when the sound has satisfied him.

Wout can never fault him for it, not really. He hates it, sure, but he knows that it is the very essence of every athlete to feel that way. Kill or be killed. Wout feels that smugness wash over him whenever he wins, flashing through as he thrusts into Mathieu later. Those days they don’t make love, they fuck, through and through. Harsh and hot and painful, it leaves the two of them bruised for days.

In one of those moments of smugness, Wout had branded his initial on Mathieu’s hipbone, scratching and cutting with his nails. Mathieu had bitten around his crescent-shaped scar, digging his teeth in until it bled, and when it faded, he did it again and again.

Wout thinks they are cursed, at times. Bound together by the red string of fate, but bound so tightly that it hurts them both, and in order to be free of the bond they resort to hurting each other. It’s such a cornerstone in their relationship that Wout cannot imagine it without it.

He’s also well aware of why the thrill of winning is such a high. Winning is only especial when there is a loser.

On the day they arrive to Spain, when Mathieu unlocks the door and sets his dog free inside. She runs to the couch immediately. He turns to Wout with a smile, and impossibly big, round, blue eyes, he had looked so hopeful, so different from the jealous man that lives in his home that it made Wout want to cry and tear his hair out.

“How about,” Mathieu started, “while we are here, we don’t lie to each other.”

It made Wout laugh.

“So, in Spain and only in Spain we have to be truthful?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll take it.”

And so, it had been.

Every night at dinner they both sat together on the table, with a meal with which Wout had tried his hardest while Mathieu did nothing more than be a distraction between them, and they just talked. For hours and hours, about nothing in particular, about their childhoods and their friends, about the time they had been the fastest kid in the schoolyard, and their first sexual experience. They even talk about the first – and so far only – time they have collided during a race, some years ago in the cyclocross championship, when neither of them were pro yet. Mathieu had slipped from his bike, and his foot got caught in Wout’s front wheel. Wout remembered it well, he had wrapped his hand around his ankle, laughing as he did it, and helped Mathieu free his foot.

He doesn’t know if he had laughed about the incident, or if the laughing was a reaction to being so close to the blonde man and his brain going into a crash about the interaction.,

Afterwards, they lie in bed together watching a shitty reality show. They both claim to be bored by it, but Wout is secretly really enjoying the show, and more than once he has seen Mathieu look it up on twitter. Science, the dutchman had called it.

On their second to last day, Wout decides to break that peace.

“Why did you lie to me?” he asks, regretting the words as soon as they come out, but he can’t take them back. He has made them real, spoken them into existence.

Mathieu stills. “When did I lie to you?”

“After my surgery, you said you thought I’ll win races again,” Wout starts, fidgeting with his water-filled wine glass. “But I can always tell when you lie.” At least I used to.

“Haven’t we had this argument before?”

“But you lied to me still, even then. I just want to know why.”

Why.

Why did you want my career to end? Why did you help me recover only to resent me when I do better than you? Why did you race to my house to beg me for a relationship? Why did you drop to your knees in that hotel room, all those years ago? Why, why, why?

It’s a fundamental problem with them, Wout has come to realize. The need to tear apart every single action from Mathieu so he can understand it from its most basic idea fills his head all day, swirling around until it’s all he can focus on. Quite the pair we make, the man that needs to know why and the man that doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions.

They truly deserve each other.

Mathieu sighs, seeming very much like a man that has the crushing weight of the world on his shoulders. His long, elegant fingers tap the table at a rhythm Wout cannot identify. He seems tired, all of a sudden, and he looks pained, as if the answer will not relieve him, but it will instead throw dirt and stone into his grave.

“All my life, I’ve been taught to win,” Mathieu starts sadly. “And after your crash, and the fucking terrible recovery, I thought you would never make it back. So many setbacks and curve balls that life threw your way, I thought you would drown under all the pressure and just quit altogether.”

Wout opens his mouth to protest, to say he would never quit because something got too hard. It’s not the person he is; it’s not the man he is. He’s still here, after all isn’t he? Against all better judgement he is still in a house in Spain, simply because his boyfriend had sounded really heart broken when he had asked.

He’s only a man, and men are weak. And Mathieu has always been his biggest weakness.

“It’s not that I didn’t want you to win again, Woutje,” Mathieu continues, taking a shaky, deep breath. “I wholeheartedly believed that you would never be the same again on a bike. I thought ‘he’ll push himself to ride the bike, but he’ll never be good again’. I was terrified that you would come back, be bad and humiliate yourself. And I was scared as well.

“I was scared because I thought that it would say more about me than it would about you. You left because of an injury, but what would it mean for me that I could never beat you? That you always bested me? If you were the better rider, and still you had to deal with an injury, what was in store for me? Oblivion? Cycling’s forgotten cemetery?”

The room is silent for a while, afterwards. Wout allows the words to swirl around them, and the distant, glimmering lights of the harbor bring them to life, dancing right before his eyes. He hates that he can understand them, that he can comprehend how Mathieu came to that conclusion. He is repulsed by the thought that his mind is scrambling to justify the blonde man, even at his own expense. His own mind has betrayed him, and worse of all, it’s all by his own doing.

Mathieu might be the poison and the antidote, mixed in the same phial, but Wout is the idiot that keeps drinking it, diluting it with water and drinking until the very last drop.

What’s going to happen first? Will Mathieu poison him or will Wout consume him? Are the options mutually exclusive?

“I understand, where that need to win comes from. It couldn’t have been easy, growing up with him,” Wout says slowly and deliberately. Mathieu does not react well to attacks on his family, especially when he’s trying to paint them in a positive light. “But I need you to understand why I was hurt by everything. My entire life got turned upside down, and you probably thought you were being supportive, but all I saw every time you looked at me was contentment.”

Mathieu shakes his head, eyes going slightly wide. “I do understand. I understand everything, and I am telling you this wasn’t about you. It’s a me problem, okay Woutje?”

“I think it’s a me problem when I’m the one being resented for winning.”

“Not the world championship.”

“But just about everything else.”

“My results were good.”

“Yet you didn’t win, did you Matje?”

“You are being mean.”

Wout sighs, battling between continuing this and escalating the problem until it becomes a full-blown fight, or he can just drop it, ignore the harsh words and the misunderstood feelings, and bury everything deep in his head, locked away safe in a little box he keeps with every single piece of information that is remotely related to Mathieu. He wants to do both somehow, but it is late, and he is exhausted from it all, but he doesn’t want to hold his tongue anymore, just to protect Mathieu’s frail state of mind when he loses, and the delicious, pouty way he gets whenever something annoys him.

Wout is just so tired.

“This will get us nowhere,” he says after a time. Standing up to clear his plate from the table. It’s another ritual in Spain. Wout cooks and picks up the table, while Mathieu cleans and washes the dishes. “I think we should go to the beach tomorrow, the trip is almost over and if we don’t go again who knows when we’ll get the chance to.”

Mathieu snorts, disbelief flashing through his blue eyes. The expression washes over his face quickly, imperceptible to anyone else. Anyone but Wout. He knows Mathieu as well as he knows his own palm. Disappointed. It falls quickly, and it settles into something satisfied and dignified. Untrue. Fake.

“I think you are right.”

And Wout can identify them so easily now, so easy that he in fact will never tell Mathieu about it.

A lie.

***

The next morning is bleak and dark. An unusual storm beats against the horizon, and Wout is genuinely in shock at the fact that the storm had not even been in the forecast, at least he doesn’t think it was, there had been no warning from his weather app.

Fitting, he thinks amused, sipping his morning coffee while he stands in front of the floor-length window, as rain spatters down on the dining table he and Mathieu had dinner on last night.

“Well, shit,” Mathieu says, coming out of the room, holding his dog on her pink leash. Wout laughs, sighing when he feels a furry tail brushing against his leg and little paw scratches against the glass door.

Wout shakes his head. “You can’t go out, princess, you’ll get all wet, look at all the rain,” he explains, kneeling and messing with her fur. She whines, sadly, and then very proudly sniffs away, plopping down on the couch with anger. She is very much Mathieu’s dog.

“Are you talking to me or to the dog?” Mathieu asks, following the dog to the couch.

“Both.”

He extends his hand, holding out his coffee mug for Mathieu to take. He does, their fingers brushing and it still sends the same spark of electricity down Wout’s spine as it did when he was a teenager, and at times he really believes it’s the biggest reason why he stays. Even after everything, Mathieu still thrills him just as much as he did the first time, when their relationship was nervous hands and unsure kisses shared in closed hotel rooms and hidden away behind team buses, pressed against some secluded wall.

As Mathieu sips the coffee, he speaks again. “Is there thunder?”

“I didn’t see any.”

“We could still go,” Mathieu says, tilting his head to the side. He looks boyish that way, teasing and light. Maybe that’s why Wout agrees, or maybe it’s easier to believe that he agrees because in Spain Mathieu is not twisted into some inhuman monster, his factions soft, his blue eyes welcoming. The spark to them doesn’t threaten to spill over in an unconsumed fire, it only threatens to warm Wout in the night. Believing all of that is better than the cold truth.

He agrees simply because he is weak to whatever Mathieu wants.

Minutes later, they find themselves laughing in the damp sand. Wout’s always loved the feeling of sand grains digging into his feet, between his toes and in so deep it feels like it’s altered his DNA. He doesn’t really love the rain falling down on his skin, but it is refreshing as the cold air brushes past him. They run, spinning around like crazy people, dipping their bare feet into the ocean.

At some point, he pushes Mathieu into the water, the action catching him off guard. Even falling he is graceful, he falls back into the water, landing on his ass. Dripping with water, he flashes Wout a very annoyed look, brows furrowing together but with a gleaming smile on his face.

“Bastard!” he yells, slashing the water with his forearm, splashing Wout. He laughs, a deep, full sound tearing from his throat and Wout wonders when was the last time that he had laughed with that intensity. A while, surely.

Wout shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Matje. You very clearly slipped.”

Mathieu holds out a hand, and Wout knows exactly what’s coming, but he’s high in the feeling of lightness, of ease, that he takes the blonde’s hand, screeching when Mathieu tugs hard, bringing Wout down next to him. They must look insane, rolling on the water and laughing like maniacs. It’s the most fun he remembers having with Mathieu in a long time.

“Woutje, you are so clumsy,” Mathieu says as he begins to stand up, attempting, in vain, to dust the sand off his clothes. “You saw me slip and then, in solidarity I assume, you slipped as well.”

“I’m an empath.”

After a while, the dampness of their wet clothes against their skin gets too uncomfortable. It reminds Wout all too much of cycling, with the Lycra clinging to his body, dripping in sweat. He’s having such a good time, he doesn’t want to drag cycling into any of this. They decide to head back to the house, smelling of salt and water, and of wet dog (in the case of Mathieu’s dog).

They clean as best they can, but Wout is sure they have stunk up the house, and if he was the owner he would absolutely hate them tomorrow when he receives the house again. Mathieu insists the solution is to block the man on his phone and ignore it.

“No, we have to ventilate the house,” Wout says, trying to find a window where the rain won’t come in.

Mathieu pats his dog down with a towel. “How are you going to do that, genius?” he asks, grimacing when the dog shakes herself, water falling everywhere. “The best thing we can do is perfume the shit out of the place and then ghost him.”

“You can’t just ghost people!”

“Yes, you can.”

“It’s rude.”

“In this case, I think it’s necessary.”

At the end, the storm had not let up. Wout relented, and when they do the checkout procedure the owner had indicated, he leaves a heartfelt thank you note and an apology on the hallway table. Mathieu rolls his eyes when he sees it but doesn’t remove it. He sends the owner a message, then promptly blocks him. Wout sighs. Rude, but necessary.

***

Back home, things slow down a bit after Spain.

There’s a bit of a break between the end of summer and the proper start of the autumn races, before they dip full swing into the cyclocross season. Very quickly, Wout’s bones ache for a race, for the thrill and the rush he gets, he’s only ever been able to find it in cycling, this sense of fulfilment at the fact that he’s a performance athlete at the highest level, and not only that but that he is achieving results, both for his team and for himself.

But the few times Mathieu and he have gone out and raced, it ends badly.

So, in favor of keeping things light between them, they have decided not to race each other. They still take their morning rides, but neither takes time and more than once Wout has been scolded by Visma for taking the Garmin off the bike. Still, those morning rides are the only moment where things between them are fine, absolutely fine. He’ll take the scolding every single time.

Wout begins to think of Spain as a turning point, really. He never had that moment, of slowing down and really processing their entire relationship in order to understand how they ended up here. So broken and resentful. They had started out as teenagers and the entire thing escalated outside of their control, and now here they were. Wout thinks he’s missed a couple of steps but every time he re-traces his steps, he ends back at the same ending. But through it all, the only thing that never changes is the fact that they had never once slowed down.

It makes sense, he guesses. Both of them are intense, passionate people that bring out the worst on each other. It was bound to happen, visible from miles away. Yet it still took Wout by surprise. A kiss between them could never be a kiss, they could never only make love, they needed to consume each other, tear each other apart only to build everything back up from the ashes.

But still.

Why couldn’t life just give him something simple and uncomplicated? Why did life want for Wout to crawl and scratch his way to happiness? What had he ever done?

The logic side of him knows. He’ll never be satisfied by simple and uncomplicated, he’ll take it, because that’s the kind of person Wout is, but it’ll bore him senseless until he bombards it to death, because the sick, masochistic side of him loves the way the pavement scratches his skin as he crawls, he loves to run his fingers over the scars, over and over, making them bleed and tasting the blood.

Mathieu gives him all that.

And normally that would be absolutely fine, except for the fact that Mathieu is insane as well, and he’s never satisfied by simple and uncomplicated either. He feels the need to possess Wout because nothing is ever enough for people like them.

You are no angel either, a little Dutch voice whispers in his head, you would’ve broken him in half if that’s what it took to win again.

The emotional side of him is exhausted. Running on empty. He wants nothing more than to curl into Mathieu’s arms in the middle of the night, cuddled to a sound, dreamless sleep where he can finally rest and exist, and when he wakes up in the morning he’s met with warmth instead of the reflective coldness that exists between them now.

“I think we should keep that rule from Spain,” Wout says one afternoon as they are walking back home from a local ice cream shop that had come highly recommended.

Mathieu squeezes his hand. “Sex three times a day minimum?”

“Ha-ha,” Wout slaps the blonde’s arm with the side of his hand. Mathieu screeches. “Neither of us have the stamina for that, princess. I meant the being honest rule.”

“I don’t think we are very good at being honest.”

“We’re not good at it because we never give it a shot,” Wout counters as they turn down their street. “Were you good at cycling five minutes after you got on the bike? No, you had to tra-“

“I was a natural talent,” Mathieu interrupts, puffing his chest out proudly. When Wout glares at him, he begins to walk faster. “But I get your point. What do you want to be honest about with me?”

He’s perceptive, Wout will always give him that. At times Wout hates that Mathieu can read him like a first grade book, that he knows all the moods and the tones of voice, the pitch and the meaning behind them as well. Wout will never tell Mathieu, but that, more than anything else, is why he fell in love with him, he looked at Mathieu one day years ago and he just knew there was no return for him. He was ruined and corrupted for anyone else. Matje is his first thought of the day, and Matje is his last.

“Do you love me?” he asks instead, not finding the words to properly phrase what he wants to say.

Mathieu tilts his head. “You already know that I do.”

Wout shakes his head. “No,” he says, “do you love me? Or do you love the me that wins, or do you love the me that concedes and let’s you do whatever you want? I want to know, Matje, what me do you love?”

The blonde blinks, licking away the last of his ice cream. They have made it to the house, and he steps back to let Wout open the door. He feels sick, with his heart hammering inside of him, hands sweaty and nervous.

“I suppose,” Mathieu begins, removing his shoes in the hallway, “that I love the you that exists in my head. I didn’t make him up, before you go there. I don’t really know how to explain it either, but in my head you just are. The you that wins and the you that begs and the Wout that couldn’t get a glass of water from the kitchen by himself. I can never separate you, they all blend into the other and they are all Wout. And that’s who I love.”

If only it were that simple, Wout thinks sadly. Mathieu’s words make sense, but they don’t feel real. The way Mathieu’s eyes twist whenever he is beaten, whenever Wout is better. It’s not just anger, he’s come to realize. It’s this pure, unfounded rage that will come out one day and scorch them both. At some times, he thinks Mathieu wants to hurt him, just to keep him from winning, because deep down he knows the dutchman will stop at nothing. Then he reasons with himself, half believing that Mathieu would never hurt him, because to Mathieu to love and to own are the same thing, and if he owns Wout that means that in some way he is Wout. And Mathieu would never hurt himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure about my feelings for you?”

Mathieu steps forward, grabbing Wout’s face between his hands. He runs the pads of his fingers softly against his cheeks, his calloused hands dragging against Wout’s skin.

“Where is all of this coming from, Woutje?”

Wout closes his eyes, pressing his face to Mathieu’s shoulder. “I just-“ he trails off, hoping the silence will understand what he means so he doesn’t have to say it out loud, but the silence is unforgiving, and it drags out, long and uncomfortable until he has to speak again. “To me you are separated. The Mathieu that’s holding me right now is not the same one that won the cyclocross championship, it’s not the same one from before. They are all different, all of them are Mathieu, but they are different little pieces that make up the whole picture, and sure I love the whole picture, but I also love all the little pieces.”

A bony hand runs down his spine, pressing against his bones. “Is that not the same thing that I said?”

No, Wout thinks angrily. You said you can’t separate the pieces, and I said that I loved them anyway. Very different things indeed.

“Do you hate me when I beat you?” he asks instead, listening to the rhythmic beat of Mathieu’s heart.

“Don’t you hate when I beat you?”

“Matje.”

“Fine,” the blonde relents. “I hate it when anyone beats me. It’s no different if it’s you or anyone else, I hate it either way.”

“But you would never hurt me, right?”

“No.”

And because he can tell now, Wout knows. Mathieu is not lying. He is not lying but just because he doesn’t think he will do it doesn’t mean he won’t do it.

“Do you think I would ever hurt you?”

Mathieu sighs. “No,” he says patiently, taking a deep breath. “But I also think there’s not a lot more that we could do to each other that we haven’t already.”

Wout should really learn to keep his stupid mouth shut. He doesn’t know if it’s better if he had never known the way Mathieu loved him, or if it’s better that he does now. He knows he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to please those sides that Mathieu had spoken positively about, because even if they go their separate ways, he can always say that just for one shining moment, Mathieu loved him. Purely, simply and uncomplicated. Mathieu loved him and Wout loved him just as much.

Wout presses a kiss on Mathieu’s shoulder. “We should’ve stayed in Spain forever.”

Mathieu’s laugh resonates through his chest, vibrating. Wout’s favorite sound. “We’d be pretty old.”

The house feels oddly cold, so he presses into Mathieu tighter and tighter, until they mold together and become the same entity, dreading the thought that at some point he’ll have to let go.

Notes:

Dun-Dun-Dun.
We are in the endgame now.
What were your thoughts during the chapter? Any predictions?
Let me know what you think!
See you in the next update.

Chapter 15: You Turned Him into Yourself | Mathieu

Notes:

Hello again.
Your eyes are not deceiving you, it's early update day!
What are your plans after the Tour ends? I'll be tuned in watching the women's Tour, which will hopefully be very interesting.
Hope you enjoy!

EDITING THIS JUST TO ADD THAT WOUT VAN AERT WON A FUCKING STAGE THAT IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. I AM SO HAPPY!!!!!

Autumn, 2020.

 

 

 

The last leg of the road cycling calendar concludes in October. Well, at least it concludes for Mathieu, since he needs to rest and recover, before throwing himself into training for the cyclocross season, where he hopes to successfully defend his championship one more time.

He races a few times before the rest of the season begins to pick up again. A few races scattered here and there. He trains daily to maintain form, constantly messaging with Alpecin and their coaches to see what they think, and travelling back and forth for team ordered training sessions.

That’s what he tells Wout, at least.

One afternoon, Mathieu arrives home with some muffins that they definitely should not be eating, props them up nicely on the dining table and waits for the Belgian to arrive, as he had been out running some errands. Wout arrives just as Mathieu is pouring a hot cup of coffee, lovingly adorning it with cream.

Mathieu finds it relaxing, even though it makes him feel like a barista. He makes tiny, pretty shapes, the first time he does it Wout gasps, before taking a picture for prosperity. Mathieu will never admit it, but it made him giddy and tingly inside, he had fallen asleep with a stupid smile on his face that day. And ever since then, Mathieu’s Google search consisted of patterns and what was the best cream to use and should he buy special equipment for it.

“Oh, you got us dinner,” Wout says when he enters, passing behind Mathieu and pressing against his back, kissing the side of his hair. “I’m starving, Mom made me clean half of the garage, said I had to since my bikes take up half the space.”

Mathieu laughs, sitting down on the chair and waiting for Wout.

“Maybe you should bring them here instead.”

“I will,” he says, sitting down across from Mathieu. Wout tangles their feet together beneath the table, a habit they have never bothered to get rid of. “But bringing them here means cleaning one of the rooms.”

“I think you should keep them there.”

Wout’s eyes glint with amusement, he sips the cup, giving Mathieu a thumbs up afterwards, as if Mathieu wanted his praise. You do, a little voice whispers, you do and that’s what has led you to this situation. Oblivious, the brunette begins to dig into his muffin, Mathieu decides to follow his lead and do the same.

After a while he asks, “Are you racing a lot until the end of the season?”

“A little bit,” Wout shrugs. “There are some minor races the team is making me participate on, the big one really is the Tour de Flanders, and then after that is just the cyclocross season.”

Mathieu nods. “Yeah, that about sounds like my calendar,” he says, picking the paper off the muffin in a methodical, delicate manner. Wout always gives him shit for that, calling him a dainty little princess while Mathieu pretends to hate the nickname. But in Mathieu’s defense is not his fault that, if it came down to it, the Belgian could probably eat a ceramic plate.

“Shit,” Wout sighs. “That probably means this is one of our last days together before November, isn’t it?”

For a brief moment, Mathieu wonders if Wout can read minds. Then he wonders if Wout is leading the conversation exactly where Mathieu would’ve done it, just because he is thinking the exact same thing. Are you running away from me too, Woutje?

He doesn’t know whether to be angry or relieved. Both, he supposes.

But then again, what does Wout have to run away from? He has all but stomped Mathieu over in the road season, with wins and outstanding performances while all Mathieu has to his name is a dusty Amstel-Gold Race, and three cyclocross championships. Wout has trophies and medals and podiums and fucking stages in the Tour de France. Mathieu hasn’t even started that race.

Sure, at times Mathieu can be jealous and possessive, but enough to run away from? Never. Not for Wout, at least. He’s seen it on the Belgian’s eyes, whenever the brown catches Mathieu’s face, he can be as unhinged and unhealthy as he wants to be, and Wout will still be there the next morning. He understands Mathieu, in a way few little people are understood, and Mathieu is grateful for it, he is.

Just.

He hates it too.

Because it’s suffocating. At times he just wants to be allowed to rage and hate and be resentful, but Wout is kind and Wout is good, and he forces Mathieu to talk about things he doesn’t really want to talk about. And he feels this massive darkness consume him, overcome his being until he lashes out and makes everything worse than before, and the thought of ‘why do you ruin everything?’ flashes in his mind, but Mathieu doesn’t even want to begin going there, afraid of the box that’s going to open.

And yet there are moments where he wonders.

He wonders if Wout thinks of him as this constant, drowning presence. Mathieu believes so, although Wout is too nice to probably admit it. But at times, his actions and words betray him, spiraling out before he can hide them behind the mask of politeness he seems to have on all the time now. At times, when they are fucking, Wout wraps his hand around Mathieu’s throat and presses in, ever so slightly but constantly harder and harder, until Mathieu gasps for breath and beats against his arm to make him stop.

And well.

He doesn’t exactly hate that, he just wishes it didn’t turn him on as much as it does.

Mathieu can take the twisted expression that appears on Wout’s face then. What he absolutely cannot take is the cruel, mocking look he gets whenever Mathieu gets dropped on the road. As if he’s better than Mathieu. It makes his blood boil with anger, and more than once he’s gotten the impulse thought of pushing Wout off the bike, hoping the crescent-shaped scar on his leg had never healed.

“Seems like it,” he says instead, because everything else on his head is too much of a whirlwind for Mathieu to even try beginning making sense of it. “Actually, the team has been pestering me to leave a little bit earlier, something about team building or some shit like that.”

It slips out naturally from his tongue, if Mathieu heard it, he would probably believe it. He had practiced it over and over in his head, saying it out loud in front of the mirror like an idiot.

Wout raises a brow. “That seems exaggerated,” and Mathieu’s heart skips a beat, afraid that he’s been caught on the lie, but then the brunette keeps talking. “You guys are going to be so exhausted, I don’t even know what that strategy is. When do they want you to leave?”

If it were up to Mathieu, he would leave tomorrow.

He would leave tomorrow because the sooner he leaves the sooner he’ll be away from Wout, and the easier it will be to breathe, to ride, to pedal. And then when he gets his fill of freedom, he can run right back to Wout’s arms, making it all more sweet and satisfying. The endless cycle Mathieu has gotten used to; he needs it like he needs air at this point.

But, saying tomorrow would seem rushed. It would make Mathieu look like a coward, who waited until the last minute to say anything, just to run away from the consequences of his actions.

“In two days.”

“Let’s make the most out of them, no?”

They do, spending every moment that it’s possible glued together. Mathieu wakes up every morning to the feeling of Wout tracing his spine with his fingertips, a funny look in his eyes. Without fail it makes him shiver. He turns around and brushes Wout’s messy hair away from his face, before standing up to walk his dog. Even though he hates how inferior he feels to Wout most of these days, the mere thought of being apart is daunting still. Foreign, and somehow it seems wrong.

Like the universe will punish him for wanting to be apart, that it will take Mathieu’s half-meant words to be the truth and tear Wout away from him, hide him away in some remote corner of the world where Mathieu will never find him. He’ll spend his life wandering around, looking for something he lost that he claimed he could live without in a moment of pride.

It makes him clingy, desperate to feel any part of Wout on his body at all times. The Belgian seems happy to indulge him, they fall asleep curled together, hands casually brushing in the day. If it were possible, Mathieu would eat sitting on Wout’s lap. He can’t though. Wout is bigger than he is, but by no means is Mathieu small, his limbs are long and muscular, and his shoulders are the opposite of narrow. So, he drags his chair right next to Wout’s, sets one hand on the brunette’s thigh and spends his meals right there, curled underneath him, as his thoughts get overridden by Woutje, Woutje, Woutje.

On the afternoon before he leaves, the knowledge that he has lied to Wout has settled in Mathieu’s belly and coiled deep within him, making him jittery and anxious. Like, his hands are sweaty kind of nervous. It’s a new reaction that his body is manifesting, and Mathieu hates it immediately, and he hates that he knows how exactly to get rid of that feeling. Wout lays, half asleep already, with Mathieu safely tucked under his arm, softly brushing blonde curls back, murmuring soft words to the top of Mathieu’s head.

“Your hair is getting longer,” the Belgian comments, tugging lightly on a strand of hair. “You should wear it longer; it looks good on you.”

Mathieu sighs. “It’s not very aerodynamic, is it?” and the laugh it entices out of Wout is delicious and he hasn’t heard his favorite sound in such a long time, that it makes him a little homesick.

“I lied to you,” he murmurs, pressing his head in further into Wout’s chest as if that could make him disappear. “The team didn’t pester me to leave earlier, I volunteered.”

Wout never stops petting his head, even if the petting gets a bit more aggressive.

“I know,” the older man says steadily. “Thank you for telling me, Matje.”

Then he pushes Mathieu down on the mattress and has him, slowly and sweetly, and Mathieu hates it just as much as he loves it.

***

They race against each other three times before October.

Well, in truth they race more times, but they truly race each other only three times. The other races they merely start together, because Wout finishes so far ahead that it’s ridiculous and it’s messing with Mathieu’s head so much that it gives him a headache. So many whirling thoughts fly through his mind, his voice mixed with Adrie’s, but then Wout’s, and then it becomes the twisted voice of the journalists asking him how does it feel that his life-long rival is beating him, and then it’s Mathieu’s own voice, choking and broken so many years ago, crying on a cyclocross podium as his face reddens and puffs. He’s always been an ugly crier.

He's been remembering that night very vividly, the last few weeks. The desperation he had felt after the race, when he thought that Wout was not his equal, that Wout had ridden away in the night, far ahead of him; but also, the relief that washed over him when Wout had knocked on his door, eyes soft and comforting even though their words had been sharp and cutting. And finally, the serenity that had filled him when he realized Wout could never really escape him, that they were bound to do this over and over again.

But whenever he thinks about it very hard, that night breaks his heart. Because Mathieu knows that somewhere along the road the Wout that ran to his side to comfort him is gone, he is gone because Mathieu has twisted him into something ugly and vicious. You turned him into yourself, a little voice says, because you’ve only ever loved yourself.

Mathieu doesn’t think that’s true, for one because it makes him look like a psychopath. For second, because he has felt the burning that is love, it has scorched him alive and tore at his heart, and he has claw marks all over him, because that’s what love is. Love is holding to something as hard as you can, not because you need to, but because you want to. Because love is a choice. And every single day Mathieu wakes up and chooses to love Wout.

But he would be lying if the thought that he had turned Wout into himself had not crossed his mind more than once. He can’t even tell when he began to twist it, because in Mathieu’s mind Wout has always been good and kind, yet there are the times where his eyes set into something dark, black and not brown, and they settle on Mathieu with such hate, such rage, that Mathieu only knows the expression because he has seen it on his own face as well.

It makes him terrified, the thought that he is so fucked up that he managed to ruin someone nice and kind. But it also makes him feel powerful, as if somehow, even though he is playing the losing hand in cycling, his will has outlasted Wout’s. Mathieu has preserved; he has defeated him. To beat Mathieu, you have to become Mathieu, and for someone like Wout, isn’t that losing already?

Mathieu touches himself to the thought at night sometimes, his release rocking through him in a sharp, intense wave. It’s not enough, it never is, not without Wout, but it’s better than nothing.

Spain had been a way to escape all of that.

A last effort attempt, to get away from the fact that now Wout is just as obsessed with control and fucking domination, that Mathieu has begun to wonder how the Belgian man ever loved him to begin with. But that leads to the sad thought that maybe he never did, and going down that road will only make Mathieu spiral uncontrollably, so he avoids it. He shuts it in a little box in his head, hides the box and throws away the key.

He'll only really visit it in moments of weakness.

It worked, for the little while they were in Spain. The air fresher, the smell of water and salt overriding everything else, and they just existed, away from their bubble in Belgium, in a familiar house that Mathieu had never really called home even though his things have invaded half of the space. His clothes are on the closet, his bikes in the garage, his trophies and medals hang from the walls, displayed on the shelves. But not home, never home, because it’s never been something that they built together, he was more adopted into the space.

Mathieu has no home, he’s realized. How can he? When home is Wout’s arms wrapped around his waist, pressing him against his chest and the way he smells after a race, strong and sweaty, but Woutje, always Woutje. He has trouble sleeping when they are away, twisting and turning late at night, until he drifts off not from exhaustion but simply from habit.

But they couldn’t live in Spain forever, they had left, and everything had gone wrong and bad again.

The first race goes well, relatively. It doesn’t produce the result Mathieu would’ve hoped for, but after the shit performances he’s had, he’s happy to take whatever he can. He found himself in the breakaway, as does Wout, and what follows is a hard afternoon of hard pacing to try to win ahead of the peloton. It comes down to a reduced sprint, that Wout wins because his thighs are fucking huge and powerful, but Mathieu cannot even sprint at the end, too exhausted and worn down from the day to do anything, just happy to make it to the finish line.

He apologizes to his team afterwards, but they all assure him the result was good.

It does nothing to quelch the pounding on his heart.

The next day, he goes out riding with Jasper, hoping the ride will clear his head and the breeze will make everything feel better. It doesn’t work but being on a bike and not competing against Wout is nice, he gets a chance to win here at least, not to just contest for second.

“Are you looking forward to the next races?” Jasper asks when they stop for their coffee break.

“Not really,” Mathieu answers tightly, flashing a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

Jasper nods, staring thoughtfully into the distance. “Is it because of him?”

“You could say that,” he says with a sigh, hating how see-through he’s become. Not just to Jasper, but to his friends and family and the rest of his teammates. To Wout himself too. “I just don’t understand why I’m so much better at cyclocross and then I’m so shitty at road cycling.”

“If you are bad at road then what does that make me?” Jasper scoffs playfully, a gleaming look in his eye. “You can’t be good at everything, Mathieu. Trust me, I’ve tried it and it’s actually impossible.”

Mathieu shakes his head. “I can’t think like that, it’s not how I was raised. I don’t even know how you begin to think like that. It’s always been about winning, not about participating.”

“Even when he’s racing?”

“Especially when he’s racing.”

“Isn’t that hard, then? Maintaining a relationship when you can’t even be happy for the other.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

He begins to anxiously fold his napkin in several different pieces, frowning when the pieces don’t perfectly fit together.

“Then why are you together?”

“What?”

Jasper shrugs carelessly. “If it’s so hard to maintain the relationship, why are the two of you still together?”

Ah, Mathieu thinks, as if it were easy to explain.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to put exactly into words why they are together. They just are the same way that the sky is just blue. Logic and order, he guesses, but that answer doesn’t seem right either. They are together because that’s the way it has always been, the universe conspired to put them on earth together at the same time, and they’ll find each other always. Because that’s how it’s always meant to be.

Anything else is incomplete, it leaves Mathieu wanting and empty, longing to run back home. Every fight and every angry word they have ever exchanged is burnt into Mathieu’s being, into the very essence of who he is, not as a cyclist but as a person, they fall apart but build each other up again at the end of the day, simply because it’s who they are. Wout understands him, he understands the primal need that rises in Mathieu, the nasty one that screams at him that he needs to defeat the other man. Wout understands it because the little voice rings in his head too, whispering the exact same thing.

“How could I ever leave him?” he asks instead, smiling sadly. “I love him.”

Jasper frowns, turning the words over and over in his head. Mathieu can almost see the gears in his brain kicking into action, attempting to understand, but never quite getting there. And that, Mathieu thinks, is why they are together.

“So, if the two of you are stubbornly staying with each other, don’t you think that something in the dynamic has to change?”

“Why are you so interested in my relationship, all of a sudden?” Mathieu snaps, sharply turning his head to look at Jasper, who raises his hands in defense.

“Don’t chew my head off, I’m not the one you’re angry with,” he says, defiant and proud. Mathieu likes that about him sometimes. “It’s hard to see someone you care about spin endlessly in the same circle, is all. I guess I was just trying to understand it.”

“It’s not yours to understand though, is it?”

Jasper says nothing more, dropping the subject after the tone in Mathieu’s voice becomes venomous, spilling all over the air and ruining the very nice afternoon they were having. Even the coffee tastes bitter at the end. The Belgian attempts to bring another topic of conversation, but it’s hard when all Mathieu wants to do is pout with his arms crossed over his chest and stare off into the distance. With a lot of desperation, Mathieu thinks about going back home, just until the smell of the trees and the wind fills his lungs and he can’t take it anymore.

“An old coach gave me some advice, years ago,” Jasper says as he cleans the bistro table with a napkin, long after they are done drinking coffee. Mathieu is strapping his helmet back onto his head. “He told me that I would never know how good I am until I ride against the big guys. When I said that I couldn’t even get close to them, he answered that I should choose one guy before the race and mark him, follow his every move until he beat me or my legs gave out. I tried it more times than I can count, and every time I fell short, but slowly it started to dawn on me that it was a mental thing, not a physical one. If I could keep up with the big guys the entire race, there was no sensible reason why I couldn’t beat them. After that, I won a lot.”

Mathieu raises a brow, throwing one long leg over the bike. “So, you think I should choose one of the favorites and stay on their wheel the entire race?”

“No,” Jasper replies, frowning as he starts pedaling away. “I think you should mark Wout.”

***

Mathieu follows Jasper’s advice, the second time they race.

The day is bright and hot, with no wind expected. In one stolen moment, he snatches Wout from the Jumbo-Visma team bus, presses him against the side and kisses him. It’s like breathing the finest, purest oxygen in the world, and it’s somehow not enough. He needs more, more, more. But when he darts his hands to grip Wout’s ass, the older man pushes them back up.

“Matje,” he says, “We are not fucking at the side of the road where anyone can see.”

Mathieu throws his head back, groaning loudly. “You are no fun. People would pay good money to see us fuck.”

“What people, Mathieu?”

“Just people.”

The interaction is like a little rush of heroin to his system, and it fuels Mathieu through the entire race, which is long and drags on forever. Still, he feels energized and capable, the sun beating mercilessly against his back and neck, straining every single muscle on his body, but not necessarily tired, exhausted in a good way. He follows through with the plan. Alpecin had agreed that he could go in the breakaway if he wished, the team was not strong enough to pull for the entire race, so a breakaway was his best shot.

It was also Wout’s best shot.

So, when Wout dashed forward, sitting on the bike and pedaling with effort, Mathieu was quick to follow, as were some other riders. It ended up being a group of around fifteen riders, all collaborating and taking turns to pull, attempting to beat the peloton to the line.

Mathieu takes it a bit further, deciding to just mirror everything Wout does. It sends him dangerously close to the red zone several times, to that dreaded breaking point where his body breaks and his mind cannot make it obey. Without knowing how, Mathieu manages to snap himself out of it, scolding himself mentally and telling himself that the next pedal will be the last, and then the next one and the next one.

He wants to tear his hair out when he chances a glance at Wout, and the brunette looks as fresh as ever. Well, as fresh as you can look while cycling over 100 km.

On the line, for the life of him, Mathieu cannot sprint. He tries, God, he really tries. He begs his legs to please have some power left in them, but they don’t, or they refuse to listen to him, and he pathetically drags his body over the line, just happy that the race is over. In those moments he wonders why he even cycles, when he hates it so much. But by the time he’s made it back to the bus he loves it again, knows that if he were given the chance, he would do the exact same thing.

Wout wins, of course he does. It’s not like the man can even lose, at this point. He wins, sprinting down with incredible speed and lifting his arms up high in celebration.

With Wout caught up on the post-race podium, Mathieu decides to head straight back to his hotel room and rest for a bit. They hadn’t planned to meet up later, the time too tight to do anything other than the quick kiss they had shared, hidden away behind the team bus. But when Mathieu is already laying on his bed, watching a really bad reality show, his phone pings.

‘Where are you?’

It brings a small smile on his face. Whether it’s because of the sweetness of the message, Wout wondering where he is, or if it’s because he can almost taste the desperation of the Belgian demanding to know of his whereabouts.

‘Hotel room’

‘But where?’

He sends his location over, to which Wout responds a simple ‘See you in an hour’.

Mathieu sees him in an hour, when the knock on his door spins him away from the television, startling him a little. He opens the door only to be immediately pushed back, lips crashing against his quickly, his mouth opened and a soft, wet tongue lapping at his own. It makes him moan, clinging to Wout’s shoulders desperately.

“I have like fifteen minutes only,” the older man says, breaking apart and brushing the blonde strands of hair of Mathieu’s hair back. “But I really wanted to see you.”

Mathieu tugs at the hem of his shirt. “You horny fuck.”

“You love me,” Wout says with a shrug, before lifting his arms and letting Mathieu take the shirt off. He presses another kiss to his mouth. “You followed me today, Matje.”

Mathieu’s heart skips a beat, slightly panicked somehow, as if he had done something wrong. But he hasn’t, it’s just a dumb cycling strategy that didn’t work today. The look on Wout’s eyes is unreadable, and it tears at Mathieu that he doesn’t know if the man is angry or curious. His eyes give nothing away, and for a moment the monster is back, taking over his Wout and shielding him from view.

“I figured if you can’t beat them, join them,” he says, cringing when his voice wavers a little, towards the end of the sentence.

Wout grips his wrists, immobilizing them behind his back. “It’s unlike you, Matje,” and it’s so much like an accusation, but Wout begins to nuzzle his neck, licking and biting, then blowing warm air over the marks. It makes Mathieu shiver and go weak at the knees.

And because he is stupid, he opens his big mouth and confesses.

“Jasper told me to mark you,” he says breathlessly, a hurried, rushed sentence that slips out before he can control it, as if he has to justify himself for some reason.

Wout doesn’t stop his ministrations. Instead, a large hand comes to grip Mathieu’s jaw, while the other tugs his head even further back by his hair, and Mathieu very much feels like exposed prey right now, being devoured by an apex predator, trapped in claws that he doesn’t want to escape from.

“I know,” Wout’s voice is breathless, and he pulls away to press their foreheads together. He opens his eyes. “Thank you for telling me, Matje. You are such a good boy.”

Later, after he’s gone and his cum is dried inside of Mathieu, he rethinks about the entire conversation. He wonders if he would’ve heard the condescending, mocking tone in Wout’s voice if Mathieu had not been pressed against a wall, with Wout’s erection pressing against his belly.

In a panic, he calls his brother. David picks up at the fourth ring, sounding tired but cheerful.

“Boefje! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

And the knot that’s been forming in his throat since Wout left is only growing, and Mathieu can’t keep swallowing it down. Hot tears begin to trail down his face, straining his cheeks with water and salt. Before he can stop it, a whimper escapes his throat.

“Mathieu, are you okay?” David asks, worry laced in his voice. There’s some ruffling on the other side of the line, and Mathieu hopes his brother has moved to a private place because it’s a bit embarrassing that at his grown age he still runs to David for comfort.

“I can’t beat him,” he sobs, choking on his own words. Pathetic. “And I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Oh,” is all David says for a while, and Mathieu really hopes he could find it in himself to scream, to yell at his brother that he sucks at being comforting, anything. Anything that could defeat the deafening numbness he feels right now.

“Why are you two still together?”

I don’t know, Mathieu wants to scream. People keep asking which just means that to everyone else they don’t make sense, and the thought drives him crazy, absolutely crazy. Because who else would Wout ever be satisfied with? The little, blonde twink from his team? No, it’s always been Mathieu. It’s always been Mathieu because it’s always been Wout.

“I love him,” he says quietly, but it rings loud and true. Always true. David makes a noise of apprehension from the other side, and they stay like that a while, just breathing with each other as Mathieu’s breathing finally slowed down.

“I think you are going around it the wrong way, boefje,” David says. “You have always competed with each other, and you’ve always thought that in order to win you have to consume each other, to be each other, but that’s not right. Love cannot survive that. You have to do the opposite of what he does, when he goes right, you go left, when he goes down you go up. Push where he doesn’t, rest where he doesn’t. And that way you’ll never collide with each other.”

Mathieu doesn’t tell him that the crash is a part of their relationship just as much as the space is, he doubts that David would understand what he means anyway. And he also figures that he doesn’t really have all that much to lose, after all. So, what’s another strategy to try out against Wout?

It’s nothing, not really.

***

The third time they race is the most devastating one so far.

Mathieu does exactly what David told him, but pitching the idea to his team is just as hard as actually riding will be. They pull him aside, afterwards, and privately ask him if he’s okay, tell him that if he needs to, he can take a little break, focus on cyclocross and defending his championship instead, and entering the next year refreshed and renewed.

It’s alarmingly easy to slap a fake smile on his face and assure everyone that he is fine. He is absolutely fine. There’s been no success with any of the other strategies, Mathieu argues, what do we have to lose if this one doesn’t work out?

No one in the team says it, of course they don’t. But Mathieu can see it on their faces, the strategies have not been working because Mathieu has not lived up to the expectations. He’s been falling short, time and time again, and the team strategy cannot make up for his failures.

This is his, and his alone.

His mountain to climb, literally.

So, he gets on his bike, and he pedals, doing the opposite of what Wout does. Wout stays in the peloton, so Mathieu fights and struggles and drags himself into a breakaway at the head of the race for hours, long hours that strain his body, but he keeps going, convinced that this time he’ll be successful. The breakaway is caught with 5 kilometers left.

It makes his blood boil inside.

He finishes far behind, exhausted and too tired to care anymore, because once again he’s been beaten. Defeated. Conquered. Wout has ridden away in front of him and Mathieu cannot catch him because they are not equal, Wout has burnt through him, and nothing remains from who he is. All his championships cannot defend him, the trophies meaningless and the medals weightless. The gap he has to close to catch the older man is so big, Mathieu knows it will take him years to close it. Precious years of his career as he grows older and older, and before he knows it his retirement will be upon him and his body will be too tired to do anything anymore.

When he crosses the finish line, Mathieu is breathing so heavily that it scares some of the other riders. Dazed and dizzy, he finds his way back to the Alpecin bus, giving his bike to someone outside, it might’ve been a fan for all he knows, and storming inside the soft comfort of familiarity, where the sun is not on his skin and the air is not suffocating. He locks himself in the bathroom, sitting down with his back against the door, clutching his own hair and tugging so painfully that his hands come out with strands of blonde hair, sweaty and curly.

He screams, a low, guttural groan that tears at his throat, he doesn’t even recognize the sound as one he has made before. There must be more people on the bus, because a knock on the door follows right after.

“Mathieu are you okay?” a voice asks, and Mathieu faintly recognizes it, but he cannot place a face to it. Someone in the team, for sure. Not a fan at least.

“Yes,” he punches out, painful. Footsteps fade away, so Mathieu assumes that they are gone, and he allows himself to wallow in self-pity.

He cries, in a way he had not done in ages. It reminds him of one time, when he was around six years old and fell off the bike on the concrete, scraping his entire arm. He had run to Adrie, with the helpless hope of a child wishing that they will be comforted. His father only looked at his arm once, before fastening his helmet tighter on his small head.

“Injuries happen, Mathieu,” he had said. “If you want to win, you have to get used to it.”

And so, he had. He fell off the bike countless times after that, scratches and scrapes and fractures even. On his arms, his legs, his back, his head, just about everywhere on his body. And every time, without fail, he had dusted himself off, got back on the bike and brought it back to the finish line. Never once did he dart back to Adrie again, running instead to his mom, to David, to Wout. And now to no one.

If you want to win you have to get used to it.

But why did it feel so shitty? Both the winning and the losing? Why did it tear at his heartstrings every time he beat Wout, and why did it thrill him as well? Why, why, why? So many questions and Mathieu has none of the answers. Why are you with him? Why are we together? Why am I not better? The questions whirl around in front of him, burning so bright that Mathieu can actually see them, spinning endlessly until it makes his head hurt, a painful thrumming stuck on the sides of his temples, the back of his head pressing painfully against the front.

“Mathieu,” Jasper says, knocking softly on the door. “I brought Wout.”

No, Mathieu thinks. No, take him away, make him leave. He can’t see me like this, not when I’m down and broken and small. No, no, no.

But he can’t find his voice and he only cries harder. Always crying, a mocking voice whispers, he had always thought the mocking voice sounded like Wout’s, but now it only sounds like his. Pathetically, he whimpers again, struggling to catch his breath and hoping that he could wrap his hands around his own throat and squeeze.

“Matje,” comes Wout’s voice, and Mathieu hates how it grounds him. “Come out, please.”

Even though they can’t see him, he shakes his head, slurping his own snot back into his nose, but still not speaking. Wout seems to understand, because he tries a different approach.

“You don’t have to come out, Matje,” he reassures, soft and comforting and everything Mathieu’s ever wanted. “But can you please let me come in?”

Years later, Mathieu is still incapable of explaining why he opened the door, how Wout managed to disarm him with a couple of words. How years and years of pride and power were brought down in this moment, the guard was lowered, the armor hanging off the wall. Maybe it was Wout’s tone of voice, deep but beautiful, sounding so much like the fourteen-year-old that said ‘oh’ when Mathieu first kissed him. Maybe it was the way his voice cracked around the word ‘please’. Maybe it was none of that, and it was the way his brown eyes had always looked back and seen all of him.

He unlocks the door, opening it only a sliver, but that’s enough for Wout to slip inside and shield him from the world. He’s still wearing his sweaty cycling kit, wet lycra clinging to his body, much like Mathieu. And the smell of him fills Mathieu’s nostrils and it overrides all of his senses until everything is Woutje.

Mathieu surges forward, thankful for the height difference because it lets him throw his arms around Wout’s shoulders and melt into his chest, turning his head to the side and nuzzling between his heart and his arm. Wout steps to catch him at once, wrapping his arms around Mathieu’s waist, slowly rubbing up and down. Home, he thinks, and it makes more hot tears escape his eyes.

“You are safe, Matje,” Wout murmurs. “You are safe, and you are here with me, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

His voice still cannot find him, and Mathieu lightly panics that he has bitten his tongue off or something. But his body feels normal, just puffy, dehydrated and exhausted. After a few minutes of standing in the brunette’s arms, Mathieu begins to sway sleepily, remembering that he sleeps terribly whenever he’s alone, he needs the warm presence of Wout to sleep properly now.

“I did the opposite of what you did,” he chokes out, finally. His voice comes out hoarse and high pitched. Breathless even. “And I still can’t win. I can’t do it anymore. I’m so tired of trying to beat you and failing. I’m tired of being a failure. I can’t, Woutje. You’ve won.”

A small part of him expects comfort, expects Wout to pull a face and tell him he’s out of his mind. Call him crazy and be done with it. That part dies quickly when Wout presses a kiss to the top of his head, inhaling his hair. He feels the older man trembling, a shiver passing through his body that he cannot control. Wout’s heart hammers steadily against Mathieu’s ear.

“I know, Matje,” he answers again. A paper is pressed to his face, and then Wout springs into action, telling him to blow his nose and wash his face and brush his hair. It’s close to worshipping, the way Wout cleans him up in the bathroom, patting him with a towel he finds, and peppering small kisses all over his face, over his swollen eyes and his open mouth and to the curve of his cheekbones.

“Do you want to go home?” Wout asks, kissing his temple. Mathieu nods immediately, forgetting that when he woke up that morning, he hated that house and how caged he felt in there. Now he wants to crawl back to the cage, lock the door behind him and throw the key away. He wants to be kept there, the prettiest trophy on Wout’s shelf, gathering dust until Wout takes him off display and cleans him again, purifying and addicting.

They drive back home together, random music playing on the radio, lulling Mathieu to sleep as he presses his head against the window. His hand is entwined with Wout’s next to the gear shift. He has finally calmed down a bit, and a slow disgust begins to rise over him as he remembers thinking he’ll ever be happy just being a trophy. It’s sick and wrong and it’s not Mathieu at all. But he’s so tired, so tired and he just wants to sleep.

Before he drifts off to a dreamless sleep, the mocking Dutch voice comes back to him.

You have been so focused on beating him, Mathieu, that you forgot the goal. Why do you want to defeat him, when you can simply make sure he doesn’t win?

Notes:

Mathieu really said I ain't winning but you aren't either and that's a win for me.
I honestly don't even know at what point the chapters got longer, I'm just yapping at some points, hahaha, but I very much hope you are enjoying them.
Any predictions for the final chapters?
Let me know what you think!
See you in the next update.

Chapter 16: Traitors and Sinners | Wout

Notes:

Hello all, back with another update!
Tour is oficially over, but I was SO incredibly happy Wout won the final stage, I was yelling so loud that I woke up my dog.
Hope you enjoy!

October, 2020.

 

 

 

Wout is on a high.

Winning is something he has gotten used to, is something he has come to crave the very same way he craves oxygen. A burning need that comes from his bones. The best part of it all is that it is possible, feasible, he can grasp winning with his hands, feel the silky fabric of victory running down his arms. As always, in cycling you lose more than you win, but even by those standards, Wout is winning.

It’s even a little bit ridiculous.

The team is thrilled, of course they are. Wout hears the screams on the radio as he crosses the finish line in first place, it rings loudly in his ears long after the race is over, he feels the pats of his teammates on his back, hugging and congratulatory. The crowd cheers for him on the podium, the press desperate to talk to him. Everyone wants a piece of Wout Van Aert.

His parents smile every time he calls them, wide faces filled with pride as Wout shows off his new trophies and medals, they remark on how good he is, how great life has been, how he deserves it all, after his leg was nearly torn off by a barrier. What a comeback, they say proudly.

Mathieu is another story entirely.

Wout cannot describe it exactly, the shift that has happened, he just knows that it is there, and that Mathieu is now different. He had returned to his former self in Spain, but then he had retreated back to the place where he has hidden himself, that Wout cannot enter anymore. The blonde is distant, behind a thick veil, coming and going in flashes only. He bends too sweetly to whatever Wout wants now, even when all Wout wants is for Mathieu to fight back, to slap him, to spit on his face, to do anything.

He feels a thrill when Mathieu lies to him, sees how it takes all the strength the dutchman has to speak it, how torn he looks but how he goes through with it anyway. He lies, and Wout swears he almost gets hard from it. Mathieu says something about needing to go away for a training camp, claiming the team is insisting. Wout knows that’s not the truth, but he allows it to happen anyway, because it might just lead to getting his Matje back. And at the end of the day that’s what he wants.

So, he allows it, Wout happily helps the blonde pack and sees him off to his team. Mathieu probably thinks he is running away from Wout, dashing to freedom. But Wout knows he’s not, he’s running to some illusion that’s not real, and when Mathieu comes back, he’ll be himself again.

He waits, because that’s who Wout is.

But Mathieu doesn’t come back.

Without fail, he confesses every single time when he has done something that Wout could think of as a betrayal, he presses his head against Wout’s chest and makes himself small, so small. Wout wants to wrap Mathieu in his arms and hide him away from the world, but he knows that is not Mathieu, it has never been Mathieu. So, he accepts it for what it is and allows Mathieu his moments of rebellion, thrilled in the knowledge he now has.

You’ll always come back to me.

One particular day, after he has just won a sprint, Jasper Philipsen knocks on the team bus, asking to see him. He looks odd, jumpy and nervous, uncomfortable in blue around all that yellow. With a struggle, he locks eyes with Wout.

“I don’t know what you did to him,” he starts, pointing an accusing finger at his face, “But you need to come fix it.”

Wout takes a step back, surprised. “What I did to him?” he barks out a laugh. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Stop being an asshole,” Jasper warns. “He’s locked on the bathroom crying and you need to fix it, please.”

It’s not the plea that does it. Wout gets off from doing the begging, not from being begged to. It’s the thought of Mathieu, trapped in some little room alone. Sad and broken, looking so much like the wide-eyed teenager he was whenever Wout beat him in cyclocross, eyes darting towards anyone for comfort, for understanding. And Wout will be damned if the face Mathieu sees right now is Jasper’s.

He darts quickly to the bus. Jasper lets out a string of curses behind him, before dashing after Wout and showing him to the bus. It’s surprising the number of times Wout has been in the Alpecin bus, the team barely blinks at his presence, and he swears they instead open a path for him, all pointing to where Mathieu is. Wout hears a little sob coming from behind the door and his heart breaks into a million pieces that will only be put back together if Mathieu opens the door.

He does, and Wout marches in to save him.

Wout doesn’t like to think about that moment much. The sad creature he found on the bathroom floor is so far removed from the cocky, powerful Mathieu, the one that sits on his lap like a throne, arrogant and demanding. Wout hates to see him reduced to that. So, he lifts him up, helps him get clean and drives him home. That night, when they fall asleep, Mathieu presses so close to him Wout worries they are going to melt together into one person, breathing ever so softly, murmuring things in his sleep.

Wout watches him for hours, dreading the moment the sun will come up again and awaken Mathieu.

“Come back, Matje,” he whispers into the night, brushing blonde hair back. But back where? His mind asks, what is there to come back to?

He pushes the thought back and does his best to drift off to sleep.

***

“Wout, a quick word please,” Grischa says, holding his arm as everyone else leaves the room.

Wout raises a brow, confused. “Everything okay?”

As far as he is concerned his contract will not be over in a couple of years, so it can’t be about that. It certainly cannot be anything to do with his performance, if the team had a problem, they would have no problem calling him out in front of his teammates – for ‘transparency’ they always say – but he’s winning. He’s been winning for a while and cycling teams love winning more than anything.

Merjin stays back as well, and Wout begins to feel a little bit cornered and panicked.

“Yeah, we just wanted to talk to you about something.”

Wout nods, sitting back down on the couch with care.

“Is this something to do with the race? Because I got the attack plan very clearly.”

Grischa clicks away at the laptop, pulling a new presentation up and plugs the device into the big television where they blast strategies for the team. Wout takes a moment to analyze the presentation, it’s one he hasn’t seen before, at least he doesn’t think he has. It doesn’t have a cover, like the usual presentations do. Instead, it jumps right into showing data and information, the course of some races he recognizes, and certain points highlighted in bright yellow, letters red.

“This is some of your data from the last races,” Merjin explains, pointing animatedly to the screen, signaling several different entries sharply with his finger. It just makes Wout more confused.

“I don’t understand,” he says dumbly, blinking once after taking in the slide. What is he supposed to be seeing, exactly? “Is it a watts problem? Because I don’t remember feeling bad on those days, but maybe my legs just kept going on adrenaline.”

Merjin shakes his head. “No, you raced perfectly, these are just particular spots in the race that we identified.”

He says that word, particular, as if it means the same thing to Wout that it does to them.

“You are going to have to dumb it down for me, because I feel like I’m missing something.”

Grischa sighs. “The speed, Wout, look at the speed,” he says, staring at him as if he were a child. Wout hates it, but still he looks, glancing between the screen and the men in front of him. “The speed drops, doesn’t it?”

Wout nods dumbly.

“Do you know when the speed drops?”

“When the incline gets harder?”

“It drops when Mathieu pulls.”

Wout snaps his head to the screen sharply at that, analyzing and trying to remember the races, and the moments when Mathieu had pulled at the front. It doesn’t surprise Wout that the speed dropped, his Matje had been on the absolute limit on those races, he’d been having a bit of a hard time, pedaling just to finish the race, instead of winning. Unlike him, but all his body could offer right now. Wout knows Mathieu hates it, he, who was raised like a machine, with no room for errors and no opportunity for trying. It’s either winning or losing, and someone like Mathieu is determined to be a winner.

He laughs lightly. “I imagine it did,” he answers peacefully. “He was dead towards the end, and from those sprints he always finished towards the back.”

The men stare at each other with frustration. Wout feels like there is a joke that he is very clearly not getting, a situation that he’s not reading. But he tries and tries and tries and comes up empty. It’s unlike his team to point out Mathieu’s failures, especially when Wout’s successes are bigger on the day. If Mathieu had won anyway, he could begin to understand it, but Wout won.

“Wout,” Merjin says, a serious expression pulling his brows together. It makes him look older than he is. “He only pulls on parts of the course that favor you, and then he slows down at the front to stop your attacks.”

Oh.

That’s a funny accusation.

Wout laughs again, eyes wide. “Are you saying he’s purposefully trying to stop me from attacking?”

He’s met with silence. Long, cold and uncomfortable silence. The room suddenly feels eerie.

“You are joking, right?”

“We are only looking at the data, Wout.”

“But the data is ridiculous!”

“It’s a possibility we have to consider.”

“There’s nothing possible about what you are saying,” Wout counters, standing up and pointing at the screen as well. “That’s the team’s strategy, not Mathieu’s. He pulls and it happens to be on those places.”

Grischa tries to lay a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, but Wout shrugs it away, angry. “You understand cycling better than that.”

“Yes! I understand cycling and I understand Mathieu! That’s why I know there’s no conspiracy, it’s just racing.”

Pure, honest and clean racing.

“We aren’t saying there’s a conspiracy, we are saying that it is a stone cold fact that he slows down whenever it suits you, and you have to attack on different parts that make you do a greater effort than it would take otherwise.”

“No,” Wout says definitely. “I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you will,” Merjin snaps, annoyed. “But ask yourself, if we hadn’t told you this was about him, what would you have thought about what we said? You would think someone was trying to slow you down. Take Mathieu out of the equation and look at it objectively, that’s where you’ll find the facts.”

Wout storms out, angry and annoyed and furious and torn. Their words spinning over and over on his head, thoughts of Mathieu wouldn’t do that, to the cold fact that were the data points that his team had highlighted, to his own convoluted memories of the race, to Mathieu looking back and pushing forward, tired and exhausted. Everything swirls around and doesn’t settle, and soon Wout’s mind begins to scream, cursing out Grischa and Merjin and whoever else had helped them make that presentation. It curses out Mathieu as well, Mathieu and David and Adrie and all his damned family that is dedicated to driving Wout fully insane.

A migraine begins to press against his head, painfully and loudly. He blanches as he walks, stumbling over to the wall next to him and feeling his way around the hall as his vision whitens at the edges. His stomach feels funny, nauseated, and if Wout had eaten any solid food by now he would’ve thrown up already.

It’s simply not possible, his mind concludes. It’s not possible because Mathieu would not do it.

The cornerstone of their relationship has always been competing. They were meant to push each other to the absolute limits of their capabilities, and the man that was capable of pushing past that limit and tumbling over the edge always came out victorious, without fail. There were no bad days for the legs, because their rivalry was not physical, it was mental, and the sharper mind gets the advantage. The man that does not crack. And that’s Wout. He’s the man that doesn’t crack, he keeps pedaling even when it hurts, even when his body begs him to stop and his neck hurts so much, he can’t even hold his head up.

They compete with each other, but the high of it all comes from the fact that they are equal. Day in and day out, they are the same. If Wout had his team and his bike, the same results would be achieved, because none of that made the difference. Wout made the difference. He is the deciding factor, the swing of the pendulum. They compete and they tear at each other, clawing away at whatever exposed part they can find, but always with the understanding that they are the same. That has never changed between them.

At times, Wout has felt less than, of course he has. Whenever Mathieu rides off to victory, he worries if the day has finally come when one of them surpasses the other. When he was laying battered on a hospital bed, wondering if his career was over before it even really began. He felt it when he couldn’t pedal without screaming in pain, when he couldn’t walk the length of the hall and not cry. When Mathieu had lied to him, so easily and painlessly.

He swore to himself right then and there. He would come back, and he would beat Mathieu just to pay him back for lying. That was the price of lies, traitors and sinners were dealt with defeat, crushed under the weight of losing. But Wout had already made Mathieu pay for his lie, the debt was paid.

Why would Mathieu even feel compelled to make him lose?

Why, why, why.

The word spins around, flashing neon and bright. Wout reaches out a hand and touches it, but he can never grasp it. Why why why. Why Mathieu? Did you do it Mathieu? Will you do it again Mathieu?

Wout stumbles into his shared room, collapsing on the edge of the bed, staring blankly into nothing. The wall is white, with wood panels that make the place seem modern, empty and cold. The furniture is square, devoid of emotion. The window has been opened, a cool breeze entering the room, filling it with the smell of nature. Jonas stares curiously at him from his own bed.

“Wout,” he calls out, voice steady. So far away from how Wout feels. “Is everything okay?”

No. Nothing is okay. But where did it go wrong? Where did it stop being okay? He retraces his steps and comes up empty, with nothing. Nothing again, swirling endlessly in a loop that has no end and no beginning.

“Do you think Mathieu would make me purposefully lose?”

He doesn’t even recognize the sound as his own voice. It’s instead a deep, guttural grunt that rips away at his vocal cords, and his name breaks on its way out. Wout isn’t even aware of what he’s asking, he just needs someone else to process it for him, someone else to give their input, someone else to speak it into existence because he can’t. He tries but he can’t, because a part of his heart screams that Mathieu would never do it.

Jonas sits up, tossing his phone to the side. “Ah, that’s what this is,” he mutters, more to himself than anything. “I don’t know, Wout. You know Mathieu better than all of us, if you can’t tell, then how could the rest of us?”

Wout shuts his eyes tightly.

It’s exactly the kind of thing he doesn’t want to hear right now. He wants to shut off his brain and not overthink anything. It’s probably just a strategy, a coincidence. Of course he was trying to slow down Wout, they are rivals, why would he actively help Wout, other than the very intense relationship they share?

“I don’t think he did it,” he confesses, “But I know he has it in him.”

And that.

That’s what he had been scared to admit, wasn’t it? But Wout knows it, he’s thought about it endless times. He’s even said it to Mathieu. A short-sighted little monster. He calls him that often enough in his mind. Mathieu would do it, in a brief, short moment of impulsiveness. Hell, he would do it on a whim, a childish tantrum stemmed from something as simple as Wout not obeying him in bed, to something as complex as Wout continuously defeating him in cycling.

But his heart clings desperately to the thought that Mathieu wouldn’t do that. He would never do something to consciously hurt Wout. The thrill he gets from beating Wout comes from beating him in equal conditions, not from beating him by any means necessary. If anything, the blonde has proved time and time again that he’s incapable of conspiring against Wout, he runs to confess like a sinner at the altar every single time.

“Then you know what you have to do, don’t you?” Jonas says kindly, not reaching out to comfort Wout, but his tone is far from cruel. Wout admires it, the silent, dignified way he carries himself. He’s always available but he’s somehow always out of reach, an arm’s length away from everyone. Removed from reality.

Wout’s heart skips a beat. “Break up with him?”

“No,” Jonas answers with a scoff. “Now you need to test that theory. It’s the only way you’ll know.”

But I don’t want to. But Mathieu would never do that. But you can’t be right about any of this. And if I do that I’ll know and I don’t want to know, I want to live happy and ignorant and in bliss. I want to go home and fuck Mathieu until my name is the only thing that comes out of his pretty, treacherous mouth.

“And what if he does it?” Wout asks, like a child would. He looks at Jonas, who is looking at him with his blue, blue eyes. But they are the wrong shade. “And what if he doesn’t? What do I do?”

Jonas shrugs. “Either way you get your answer, no?”

He hates that the blonde man is right. He’s right and Wout knew he was right the second he asked the question, but he wanted a way out, he wanted someone to see whatever non-existing thing it was that he’s not seeing. It’s not there, it’s never been there.

Against his better judgement, he texts Mathieu, tearing apart at how quickly the other man answers. It takes a lot of begging and promising, but eventually Jonas agrees to let them have the room, bunking instead with some of the other guys. Mathieu agrees to come, it’s mid-week and they will both be training intently until they race again on the weekend. By pure luck or fate, their teams happen to be training around the same area, so it will not take Mathieu a long time to arrive.

Wout paces up and down the entire time. The carpet practically has burns on it, shaped like his feet. He traces his steps back and forth, until he could draw the hotel room on a piece of paper if he wanted to. It takes 10 long steps to walk the hall, and it takes him a solid minute to walk around the entire place, bathroom and all. He bumps his toes on the edge of the bed more than once, cursing loudly.

The world has stopped spinning, at least.

But images are playing now, burning bright before his very eyes. Every single glance, every touch, every whispered word. A fast little boy on a bike breezes past Wout, blue eyes twinkling when he passes him. A moody teenager shoves Wout against a wall, pressing their lips together roughly. Mathieu stares up at him through his eyelashes, mouth agape, hands tugging at his hair.

He analyzes everything, absolutely everything he can remember. And every time he comes up empty. He can’t look at any secret motive, a hidden agenda that Mathieu might’ve had against him. But the feeling that the rug would be pulled down from underneath him has always been there, from the absolute start. Wout had felt it, when Mathieu rushed to his side, begging and pleading, when he had very audibly thought ‘fuck it’ and chose to ignore all of that barbarity inside the blonde man.

I’ve always known, haven’t I?

There’s a soft knock on the door.

On the other side, Mathieu is just as he has always been. Tall, lean and long limbed. His tanned skin makes his blonde hair look golden, a halo on his head, blue eyes just like the ocean. With a tug to his heart, Wout realizes the dutchman is wearing one of his shirts, pulled snugly over his body, broad shoulders stretching the fabric.

Mathieu smiles. “Hi.”

Wout fists his shirt, and tugs Mathieu in, pressing their lips together desperately. Kissing Mathieu has always been a thrill, a fire that burns through him, just as good as catching his breath after a hard effort. He tastes of mint and freshness and Matje, a taste and smell that Wout has always associated with him, but he can’t quite place it, so he decides to just name it after the man.

Mathieu grips him tightly, opening his mouth eagerly, pushing his tongue in. His hands fall to Wout’s waist, fingers scratching against his hipbones, the small dip of his back and the curve of his ass. Wout paws at his chest, running the palm of his hand over Mathieu’s abdomen, feeling the lines of his muscles through the shirt while heat travels down his body.

“You are eager tonight,” Mathieu comments, tilting Wout’s head back and diving into his neck, mouthing and kissing, leaving marks on his way. “I was-“

Wout silences him again with a kiss, surging forward, grinding his groin against Mathieu’s thigh. Mathieu moans loudly, and Wout half feels bad for his teammates in the next room. After one particular occasion on the phone with Mathieu, Jonas could not even meet his eye, blushing red whenever Wout walked into the room. Steven had talked to him in the end.

“No talking,” Wout says. No lying, no plotting, no fighting.

Mathieu makes a delightful little noise. “You are not the boss of me.”

His heart sinks, hammering loudly against his chest. No, no, no. Don’t fight me tonight, just let me do whatever you want. You fight when you are in control, when you have done something. I know you, Matje. Don’t.

He tugs at the blonde hair at the base of the younger man’s head. Mathieu gasps, his hands flying to clutch Wout’s arms, nails digging painfully into his forearm. Wout attaches his mouth to his neck, licking and sucking, making sure that Mathieu’s neck will be black and purple tomorrow. He bites his earlobe.

“Not tonight,” Wout sighs, blowing hot air on Mathieu’s skin, making him shiver. “Let’s just go slow, please.”

Mathieu shoves him off, tilting his head to the side in curiosity. He looks properly debauched, hair sticking up in different directions, lips bright red and skin bruised. “Is there something wrong?”

“I want to make love to you tonight.”

The blonde man smirks, in the cocky and arrogant way that Wout has come to love, before stepping forward to meet the challenge. His hands tug at the hem of Wout’s hoodie, slowly pulling it upwards. Wout lifts his arms and sees the fabric go over his head. Mathieu folds it neatly, carefully stacking it on the side armchair. He kisses Wout’s cheek, trailing his way down to his collarbone, mouthing at the dips between his bones and muscles, where sweat has begun to gather. He lifts Wout’s shirt with the same devotion, placing it on top of his hoodie.

The loss of warmth makes him shiver, goosebumps rising through his skin. Mathieu falls to his knees, trailing his hands through Wout’s thighs before lowering his sweatpants and underwear, all in one go. His cock is hard and red, leaking already. Mathieu presses a kiss to the crescent-shaped scar on his hip, licking the old bite scar he had once marked Wout with. Wout steps out of his clothes, eyes trapped in the way the younger man picks them up and folds them, standing up and taking them to the armchair, where the rest of his clothes now lie.

When he returns, his eyes roam over Wout’s naked body, taking all of him in. Nothing Mathieu hasn’t seen thousands of times before, but something about tonight feels different. Maybe it’s the impending doom that drums through Wout, coursing through his veins and burning everything else away.

“So beautiful, Woutje,” Mathieu murmurs. “Always beautiful.”

It usually makes him blush, but not tonight. Tonight, Wout is on a mission, and he has no time for blushing.

“Your turn now, Matje.”

He undresses Mathieu with the same devotion, the same focus and dedication. This room tonight is something holy, a place of worship in truth. He places Mathieu’s folded clothes next to his, before taking his hand in his. Mathieu’s hands are soft, they always have been, a direct contrast with Wout’s own calloused ones, an intense difference between them. Mathieu grips the bike as if it were an extension of his body, Wout grips the bike as if it’s trying to run away from him.

They fall on the bed together, Wout on top of him. He braces his own weight on his forearms, to not crush Mathieu underneath him, but the blonde man hangs on to him like a drowning man, and the force is too much that soon Wout falls down on him anyway. Bodies bare and flush together, far too hot with their sweat mixing together, but neither of them caring. Wout grinds down his center, moaning loudly into Mathieu’s mouth. He pulls back, reaching to the side for lube, but when he goes to coat his fingers, Mathieu’s foot comes up to kick him lightly.

“No, no,” he says, pupils blown wide. “I was touching myself in the bathroom when you called.”

Wout laughs softly, pressing a kiss to the edge of Mathieu’s open mouth. “Of course you were.”

When he sits back to lube his cock, his eyes catch on Mathieu’s hipbone. The scar he made stands in contrast against his pale skin, the lines of Wout’s initial straight and bright. Proud even. But still too fresh, Wout is sure it would’ve faded by now. He runs the pad of his thumb over it, softly.

“I hurt you.”

Mathieu hooks a leg over his waist, knocking Wout down on top of him again. He lets out a breathless sound, winded. But Mathieu shakes his head.

“No. I hurt myself,” he corrects. “I scratch it over again and again whenever it begins to fade away.”

Wout thrusts forward, the head of his cock catching on the rim of Mathieu’s entrance. With a hiss, he buries himself to the hilt, trying his best not to cum when warmth and tightness press against him. A place he knows so well, where he’s been countless times and it’s never been enough. Wout has no beginning and no end, and neither does Mathieu. One entity, blended, molten into each other. They are one and the same.

Mathieu whines, rolling his hips at the same time Wout brings himself out and pushes forward. The pace is not as frantic as it usually is, not desperate and violent. It’s fast, but not with the intent to hurt and scar, there’s no need to feel it the day after. There is only the here and now, nothing else is important, nothing else matters but Matje and this moment in the present.

“I love you,” Wout rambles, snapping his hips. “I love you, Matje. I’ll never love anyone else but you.”

It pleases Mathieu immensely. “Yes,” he groans, high-pitched and coarse. “I love you, I love you. Mine, mine, mine.”

The heat gathering in Wout’s stomach is getting dangerously close to exploding, his breathing comes out in pants over Mathieu’s neck, his mouth tasting the salty taste of the dutchman’s sweat. He keeps the pace steady, focusing on how his cock presses against Mathieu’s prostate, over and over. How he fits so perfectly, how a place has been carved out in the world, just for him. Someplace he can call home.

How can Mathieu throw it away?

“I’m close,” Wout hears, screamed into his ear. “Fuck, I’m so close.”

He lifts his head from Mathieu’s neck, gripping his jaw with one hand. “Together, yes?”

Mathieu nods, kissing his fingers and his palm, before he takes it in his and brings it downward, to where their hips are pressed together. His cock sits heavy between their stomachs, trapped and leaking. Wout wraps his hand around it and begins to pump. Mathieu’s heels dig into his back, urging him forward and deeper. He arches off the bed, throat bared and exposed, red marks littered over the skin.

They cum at the same time. Mathieu twitching and groaning violently, hips stuttering. When Wout begins to feel him clench around his cock, it sends him over the edge too, jerking forward in aborted movements, before he is spilling inside Mathieu, warm and thick and sticky. He prolongs it for as long as he can, knowing that the blonde man likes to be overstimulated, until the room is filled with their heavy pants and deep breaths. He stays inside for a while, until the feeling of his softening cock is too uncomfortable.

When he pulls out, Mathieu groans, taking his hand and placing it over his heart. The steady thrum of his heart pounds against his ribcage.

“I love you, Woutje.”

The blonde begins to fall asleep; he often does. Mathieu struggles to sleep, his insomnia getting worse whenever they are apart, at first Wout had found it odd, that Mathieu drifted off so quickly afterwards, making it impossible to hold a conversation. Wout thought it was an evasion tactic or something, but soon he realized Mathieu did that to make the most out of sleep, to rest for as long as he could exactly where he felt safe. It never fails to bring tears to Wout’s eyes.

“Mathieu,” he calls out, lying next to him.

Mathieu hums.

“Would you be willing to do anything to win?”

Mathieu opens one sleepy eye, scooting over and laying his head on the crook of Wout’s neck, his breath beating down his chest hotly and uncomfortable. Wout wraps his arms around his frame and pulls him closer, so close that Mathieu throws a leg over Wout’s hip. Wout briefly thinks that Mathieu’s scar and his own line up perfectly in this position.

“Yes,” Mathieu says in a voice that allows no contention. “Why would anyone race, if not to win?”

By the time Wout begins to think of an answer, Mathieu is already asleep, snoring softly into the night. Wout sighs, and throws the covers over their bodies, drifting off to sleep but praying tomorrow never comes, praying he doesn’t have to come up with the sun, preparing for a race and ride. Praying for an apocalyptic event to take place and kill him in the first wave, so that he dies happy. Satisfied and wrapped in Mathieu’s arms. But his answer rings around, echoes loudly in his mind.

For legacy.

***

Life is cruel.

Life is cruel and morning arrives. The worst part is that it’s sunny and bright, the sky so impossibly blue with no clouds in sight. Wout awakens before dawn, and he sees the sunrise from his window, completely naked as the room begins to bask in a golden glow. It beats down on Mathieu’s form, from where he’s still asleep, face crumpled against a pillow, sheets thrown carelessly over his body. A fallen angel. A fallen angel that has tumbled down on Wout’s bed to tempt him to walk to damnation.

And like an idiot Wout had fallen for it.

He had taken Mathieu’s hands in his and had followed him down. I would follow him to hell, Wout thinks, scared. He had followed him down and he had let Mathieu find roots inside of him, until it had begun to grow, slowly coming to the surface, searching for light. But today he’ll know.

He’ll know exactly what Mathieu is capable of.

Jonas texts him, asking him to please leave his bag outside the door. Jonas is not racing today, focusing instead on stage races, but the team insisted on team building and although the schedule was a bit weird, it was the only time they could find, they said. He was heading back home to Denmark and wisely refused to enter the room. Wout can’t say he blamed him, if he came in right now he would be greeted with Mathieu’s bare ass, and Wout is not in favor of sharing, so a problem would surely ensue.

Wout dresses slowly, hoping that time would just stop. Mathieu mumbles something, deep asleep. He slips from the room quietly, his last glimpse being of the blonde looking peaceful, content and happy. The hotel is empty, the hallway deserted, but he knows that everyone on this level is from the team, so it is safe to leave Jonas’ things outside one door. The cooking staff is probably already up, preparing their specific breakfast for the day, so Wout decides to head down to the eating area. Just as he predicted, there is already some movement, people who flash him smiles wearing Jumbo-Visma shirts.

On one table, Merjin and Grischa sit, lost in an iPad that sits between them. Wout walks towards them with a determined stride.

“Hey,” he says, sliding down to sit in front of them. Merjin nods, Grischa smiles tightly. “I thought about what you said.”

Grischa opens his mouth, but Merjin holds out a hand and stops him. Wout knows this is a silent sign for him to continue, to apologize for his attitude. The men will only be half satisfied.

“There might be some truth to it,” Wout concedes, cringing when Grischa’s eyes twinkle. “But if you let me, I want to prove that theory.”

Merjin raises a brow. “What do you have in mind?”

And so, the plot is set. The trap is sprung, the strategy defined. Wout lays all his cards on the table and prays his opponent doesn’t have a better hand than him. He prays a lot that day, hoping even a miniscule event will cancel the entire race, but soon he is swept up with the peloton anyway. And the peloton is unforgiving. As is the course.

It drags on forever, especially because Wout begins to see everything as if he were a fan watching on the television. They are part of the favorites group, him and Mathieu. And the theory he had proven to be true, after all.

Mathieu is marking him.

Responds to only his attacks, refuses to cooperate on the pulls, sticks to his wheel and actively neutralizes any attack Wout would be capable of. Mathieu is having a good day too, pushing himself in ways he had not been able to do in the past races. But he marks him, he very clearly marks him and towards the end it becomes clear to Wout that Mathieu had thrown away his own chance of winning, just to mark Wout.

All to keep him from winning.

Exhausted, heartbroken, and covered in mud, Wout watches from beside Mathieu as Mads Pedersen wins the final sprint, taking the race. He briefly glances at the man beside him, only to find him already looking back, eyes trained on his every action. Wout sprints, just to be petty, just to finish ahead, even if it’s just for one second, even if it’s just for 8^th place.

He crosses the line feeling like a fire has burned through him. Unlike the time he crashed in the time trial, where it was burning his skin, this fire burns in his veins, it’s not the type of fire that leaves him smoking, but the one that leaves him scorched. He’s seeing red, and when he chances another glance at Mathieu, he’s shocked to see that Mathieu is not there anymore.

The twisted monster is back, the demonic entity. It even morphs Mathieu’s factions. And Wout knows, when he glances back, that the creature before him is not his Matje, it’ll never be his Matje again.

He feels the love, the care, the affection rise to the surface, urging him to press it against Mathieu, to show him the way back home. But Wout has a wildness too, an ugly side that loves winning more than anything, and he lets that part take over, rise inside of him until all he feels is rage. A race he could’ve won, gone in the wind just like that. Lost just because of Mathieu’s hurt ego, his massive pride.

Would you be willing to do anything to win?

Yes.

I’ve always known, haven’t I?

He storms to his team bus, and he swears they all stare at him with knowing eyes. Eyes that say, well you’ve tried your theory, what are you going to do now? And Wout doesn’t know. An irrational part of him wants to hurt Mathieu, wants to wound him and see the blood drip out of him, break and break just to hear the delightful noise the blonde man makes when he breaks, just to run his fingers over the cracks of Mathieu’s armor when Wout puts him back together.

I want him to bleed. Make him bleed. But how? How do you make a monster bleed? What would the monster do? Mathieu would make him beg, would make him crawl on his knees. Mathieu would make him apologize.

Wout wants none of that. He doesn’t need the vindication of it all, he needs the vindication of Mathieu knowing that Wout is not just some smiling fool, nodding along to whatever beat the younger man wants to play. Wout can make him bleed too.

They are equal, aren’t they?

The answer comes to him suddenly. A suppressed memory, from years ago. Mathieu drifting off to sleep while Wout’s phone rings incessantly on the bedside table. He remembers opening his phone, confused by all the messages he was receiving. One of them has a video attached. He sees Adrie’s face, speaking loudly to the press.

He rides around, but he does not breathe.

With all due respect, Wout does not stand in the shadow of Mathieu in terms of victories this season.

Adrie’s voice, but Mathieu’s words. It’s what had sent him over the edge that time. How have times changed, haven’t they?

Several reporters come and interview him. All desperate to know his opinion on a disappointing race he could’ve easily won, all wanting to know what he thinks about Mathieu, about what he so shamelessly did today. Wout will give them the satisfaction, today they get that out of him.

He keeps his face neutral, cold, distant. Dead. Forces himself to show no affection at the mention of the younger man. When love surges up, he pushes it back down in anger and frustration. Mathieu will not get the upper hand, not today. Today Wout puts him back where he belongs, behind Wout, always one step beneath on the podium.

A trophy on Wout’s ever growing collection, gathering dust on the shelf.

“Actually, there was only one rider who was really targeting me,” he says, putting as much poison into it as he can. He is surprised with how much of it comes out, at how angry and deep his voice sounds. Closer to a grunt than to a melody. “Apparently he preferred to see me lose rather than making a chance to win the race himself.”

He names no names; there’s no need to go the extra mile. The damage is done; the blow has been dealt. The debt is paid. On the Alpecin bus, across from him, he sees Mathieu, talking loudly with his team, he signals exaggeratedly with his hands, animated. Wout can almost hear him. He must feel the intensity of Wout’s eyes, because he snaps his neck sharply to look at him, and through the distance Wout can feel the iciness coming out of the dutchman.

There’s no coming back from this.

Wout remembers when they started, when he saw the ending before they were anything. He knew how it would end, but who would do what was always the gamble worth playing, in his opinion.

Mathieu has consumed him. But today, Wout has burned it all away.

Notes:

...Yeah, so that happened.
Let me know what you think.
See you in the next update!

Chapter 17: As If It Were the Last Time | Mathieu

Notes:

I'm sorry (for the late update and for what you are about to read).
Hope you enjoy (you probably won't, lol)!

October, 2020.

 

 

 

Mathieu wakes up with a gasp, shocked at the fact that he has slept so late into the morning.

He wouldn’t call himself a morning person, not really. He just has the misfortune of being a ridiculously light sleeper with a tendency to insomnia, often twisting and turning in the bed, tangling the bed covers around his legs until he becomes trapped and the tightness suffocates him.

It’s gotten better over the years, especially after Wout’s warm presence on the bed became Mathieu’s constant companion. He’s like a very handsome, nice rock that helps Mathieu sleep at night. The reason training camps are so hard is because they are apart and Mathieu is sleep deprived and he gets cranky.

Wout would also say that Mathieu is a spoiled little brat as well, but Mathieu thinks that’s a little bit mean to say about himself.

The curtains are closed, but it is very clearly early morning still that he takes a minute to blink back sleep from his eyes. He’s used to waking up before dawn, it’s nice, for once, to wake up when life has already begun.

He had fallen asleep completely naked, and folded neatly on an armchair, Mathieu can see all his clothes. He pushes the sheets off his body and sits up slowly, frowning as he turns and finds himself alone in the room. Wout is nowhere to be seen. He probably woke up early to head into breakfast.

Breakfast.

Team breakfast.

Where Mathieu should be right now, away in his own hotel. Shit.

He stands up quickly, wincing at the ache that goes through his body and begins to put on his clothes. Just to be a nuisance, he takes the shirt Wout was wearing last night and steals it, thanking God he wasn’t wearing Visma merch and now Mathieu can march up to his team smelling like the Belgian man.

Comforting.

Las night was… different, in Mathieu’s opinion. It is rare, but not unheard of, that they decide to just have sex, without fighting and control and power struggles. Usually, Mathieu lives for those battles, but it’s a nice change of pace, a change of routine where he can allow himself to get lost in Wout’s arms and the drag of his body inside of Mathieu’s. It’s soft, sweet and tender, but Mathieu’s mind is doing the best to push away the thought that Wout had made love to him as if it were the last time from his mind.

Because that’s just nonsense. And crazy.

Wout would never do that.

By the time Mathieu walks into his hotel, Christoph Roodhooft is angrily standing in the hallway, arms crossed over his arms, with a difficult expression on his face that he only makes when he is fucking pissed and when Mathieu has disappointed him. Mathieu hates it. He also hates how much it reminds him of Adrie.

“You better have a fucking good reason,” he says, pointing a finger at him. “And it better not fucking be that you ran off to be with your boyfriend.”

Mathieu sighs, knowing he’s being a bad cyclist and a bad employee, but he’s only just a man. Who is desperately in love with a man he constantly competes with, and he makes terrible decisions, so he ends up running to him every single time. It’s not his fault, not really.

It’s Wout’s.

“Christoph!” Mathieu answers cheerfully. “Aren’t we passed that part where you ask a question you already know the answer to, I lie, and we fight? It’s been a long week.”

“We are not.”

“Then I wasn’t with my boyfriend.”

He attempts to walk past him, to enter his hotel room and shower, because right now he must reek of sweat and sex. But Christoph’s hand reaches out, like a claw, and grips his arm tightly, his fingernails digging into his skin.

“You aren’t here to race, Mathieu,” he says sharply. “You are here to win; we have always been in this to win. Don’t forget that.”

Mathieu slaps his hand away. “How could I, when you always remind me?”

The hot water beats against his skin nicely, and it finally allows him to relax. From having to walk on eggshells around his team and Wout, to having to perform at a ridiculously high level, to really just wanting to take his shoes off and lie on the couch until he dies from dehydration or starvation, whichever comes first.

It is incredibly frustrating that, all of his life, everyone has always been telling Mathieu what to do. Team principals and his father, they all feel compelled to remind him every single day that he has to win. As if Mathieu were stupid and he could forget. As if he hadn’t been raised knowing there were consequences when you didn’t win. He is very much aware he has to win, he wouldn’t be out there racing, tearing himself apart in the process if he didn’t. And he wouldn’t be starting races if he didn’t believe that his level could win races, it has won him races before, Mathieu is just having trouble stringing them together throughout a whole season, but he knows he can get there, he has done it before.

It was the same with cyclocross.

Win, win, win. Always winning, no room for error.

So, it’s not his fault, not really, that his brain drifts off to that mindset during Gent-Wevelgem, an autumn race that starts in Antwerp, which is nice. The team insists on making them stay in a hotel room all together, but Mathieu relaxes a bit simply by knowing that when the race is done, he’ll get to drift off to sleep in his own bed in his own home. Being close to home also means he got to take his dog to his parents’ house, so she could enjoy the backyard without being lonely, and at first time tomorrow Mathieu will be seeing her again.

Most of the race passes by in a blur, his mind focused on everything and nothing. The colors are too bright, the noises too loud and the aching too much. He blacks out for a portion of the race, and when his brain sharpens once more, he is already splattered with mud and the race is nearly over. Vaguely, he can see Wout in the group behind the front with him, suddenly watching from a distance how everyone else is sprinting for the victory.

It confuses Mathieu.

He turns towards Wout, desperate to ask, ‘why didn’t you sprint?’, but when he turns the Belgian man has such an angry, annoyed expression that it sends a shiver down Mathieu’s spine, settling in his bones. Wout pushes ahead in front of him, and Mathieu is still confused.

He’d been pedaling on autopilot, just going about the course from how he remembered it on the recon, half-remembering the strategy the team had come up with and executing it. Mathieu was among the favorites today, and the race allowed for breakaways to win, so he gets told to get on the break if he gets the chance, and like the good little soldier he is, Mathieu obliges, picking his chance and picking it well.

At the end he’d had no legs to sprint, but his group was the leading group. So, there was that, at least. Mathieu is getting better at reading the races.

When he makes it to the team bus, there’s already people waiting for him outside. Mathieu arrives, panting and breathless.

“What did I do?” he asks dumbly, because the number of people makes him take a careful step back. “I couldn’t sprint at the end.”

The team reassures him it’s fine, he had given it his all and had finished with the leading group, coming inside the top 10. Not great, but the team accepts it.

Mathieu thinks that’s one of the biggest differences between the way the team pushes him, and the way Adrie does. Christoph Roodhoolft has yelled at him, has scolded him and lectured him, but at the end of the day he knows when to accept the results Mathieu brings in, knowing that there are times where Mathieu just doesn’t have the capabilities to do it today. Adrie refuses to accept that, so he tears and claws at Mathieu, until the evil little voice in his brain began to sound like his father.

He sits down on his seat, welcoming the feeling of the cushions beneath him and patting himself dry with a towel, knowing in a couple of minutes someone from PR will come to get him and they’ll have to go down to answer questions. It happens sooner, rather than later, and with a sigh, Mathieu stands up and begins his walk towards the media pen, where journalists are waiting to eat him alive.

No, he didn’t have any legs today.

Yes, congratulations to Mads, he was brilliant today.

Yes, he came in determined to win the race.

No, he doesn’t think his form right now will affect his cyclocross season.

Half tired and half amused at the questions, he moves on. Going from interviewer to interviewer, people with different accents from everywhere in the world, all reaching out to hear his thoughts and his words. It makes Mathieu feel a little powerful.

“Mathieu,” one journalist yells out. He is tall and dark-haired, and his hand shoves a phone in Mathieu’s face that has his newspaper page pulled up, a short video playing on a loop. “What do you have to say regarding Wout Van Aert’s statements about today’s race?”

Mathieu frowns, confused. He glances at the poor PR guy that came with him, who looks exactly like Mathieu feels, before asking the journalist to repeat the question. He does, and Mathieu’s heart beats loudly against his chest as he asks what were Wout Van Aert’s statements about today’s race.

The journalist emphasizes his phone, and Mathieu glances down at it, faintly hearing the audio coming from the speaker. In the video, Wout looks distant and cold, angry even. His brown eyes are wild and his hair disheveled, very clearly he’s just removed his helmet, and his blonde strand of hair contrasts starkly with his black hair.

“Actually, there was only one rider who was really targeting me,” Wout says venomously, voice deep and dark and dangerous. Mathieu holds his breath. “Apparently he preferred to see me lose rather than making a chance to win the race himself.”

Surely not.

He can’t be talking about Mathieu, is he?

Certainly not.

Not when Mathieu cried and cried on his arms and called it quits. When he has allowed himself to be vulnerable and admitted defeat. It’s burned into his brain, feeling broken and pathetic and being lifted by the strength of Wout’s body, his knees giving out underneath him as soon as he puts weight on them. Sure, Mathieu had thought of it.

A cruel little part of him wanted to dedicate his career to making Wout lose. But then he would’ve spent his entire career making Wout lose, always once step below. And not winning was not vindicated by the fact that Wout had not won either. When his mindset had cleared, and when he could think about cycling without crying again, the thought had flown from his mind just as quickly as it had appeared, gone with the evening wind.

But Wout.

Wout was under the impression Mathieu had done it anyway, as if he didn’t know Mathieu at all, as if he were a stranger. He doesn’t understand, Mathieu thinks desperately, feeling an urge to start ripping off his own hair. But that can’t be right.

But Wout.

Instead of talking to Mathieu about any concern he might have, he decided instead to blab about it to the press, he decided to publicly attack Mathieu, the same way Adrie has done several times in the past. Hypocrite, Mathieu thinks, remembering the times Adrie’s words were held against him in anger, for the times Wout made him pay for things that were out of his control. But that can’t be right.

But Wout.

He had scarred and clawed at Mathieu anyway, smirking and relishing whenever Mathieu would break and confess his little rebellions, treating him like a pet, branding him like an animal anyway. Coward, Mathieu thinks, the ‘W’ on his hipbone burns, scalding hot and pressing against his Lycra. Had it all meant nothing to him? Or had it meant something that he simply put a price on, and decided winning was more important to him? But that can’t be right.

But Wout.

Wout, Wout, Wout. Always fucking Wout Van Aert, haunting his entire life with his presence, with what Mathieu thought was tenderness and care, but he had misread it. He misread it and Wout was just waiting, biding his time and waiting to strike. Batting his stupidly long lashes at Mathieu, pressing him against a mattress and letting Mathieu believe he was ever in control, believe that he was a lonely beacon on an island, calling Mathieu home, but instead wanting to leave him stranded.

Since Spain, Mathieu has walked around numbly, emotions muted and distant, visible through a veil. His thoughts are still going at a million miles per hour, but he has felt so far from himself that being in his own body was uncomfortable, it’s why he craved Wout so desperately, for anything that might’ve made him feel anything other than emptiness and never-ending shame. Mathieu has been shamed for winning, shamed for losing, shamed for existing. Every little action Wout holds against him, twisting it to his wishes and Mathieu has just allowed it.

Like a drum, everything rushes back in for Mathieu. Sadness, over the fact that Wout didn’t know him at all. Hurt, that he believes Mathieu would ever do that. And rage. So much fucking rage. Rising angrily to the surface that he cannot control it, he doesn’t want to control it. He wants it to burn through his veins, to fuel his body. Rage, rage, rage.

At himself, at Wout, at his father, at his team. At the fucking world. Rage. Bright red.

The silence that stretched as Mathieu processed the video has gone on for way too long. The journalist blinks at him, expectation in his eyes. The PR guy grips his arm, ready to pull him away, but everything is sharper, brighter and louder.

Mathieu clears his throat.

“It’s a weird reaction from Wout,” he says, deciding that he will not keep quiet. Not this time, not to spare Wout’s wounded pride. “It’s a bit shallow to say I raced to make him lose because I always ride to win the race.”

He doesn’t say it, because the world has no business knowing their personal relationship. If Wout wants them to be rivals, then Mathieu will oblige, it’s only right after all. But Mathieu wants it to be perfectly clear to Wout. My world doesn’t revolve around you.

Not anymore.

***

Everything seems wrong, back at the house.

Icy coldness is pungent in the air, the walls seem frozen, the trophies on the walls steely, the medals hang, as if they weigh more than they do, like they could tear down the entire house. Mathieu enters and immediately feels cold, cursing himself for not wearing a jacket.

There were never any pictures on the walls, Wout isn’t really the type to decorate with personal objects, other than his achievements. The most he allowed is an old picture, from years ago. Mathieu and Wout as children, hugging and smiling as they pose for the camera. Mathieu placed it on the bedside table on their bedroom, on Wout’s side, after he caught the older man silently staring at it for minutes.

And although Mathieu always resented that the house was not theirs, but Wout’s, he always felt adopted to the place, welcomed even. It became a place he called home, a sanctuary that has seen him laugh, cry, bleed. He’s been fucked on just about every surface in the house, after all.

But as he sits on the bottom step of the staircase, waiting, it feels hostile.

The wood of the stairs splinters his hand, and he has to painfully pull the wood out before it breaks off or becomes infected. The floor is so cold that his feet stay stuck, as if by glue, several times, he practically drags himself across the hallway. The rage from before is still there, but it’s overcome by emotion, tearing at the ragged edges of his heart, dying to understand, dying to ask why.

Why, why, why.

He wants Wout to walk through the door and laugh it off, tell him he can’t take a joke before he presses their bodies together. He wants him to deny, deny, deny. Tell him he can’t possibly be that naïve, tell him he knows how the game is played.

He wants Wout to walk through the door so he can strangle him with his bare hands, to rip his stupid blonde strands of hair, to break his muscular legs and to press his teeth to the bite mark on his thigh.

He wants a storm, a storm that matches how he feels inside.

The door opens, slowly. Or maybe it is just time that stops, Mathieu has willed it to freeze, to stay forever in this moment, hanging in unbalance but not tumbling over to the abyss. If Wout jumps, Mathieu knows he is jumping right after him.

Don’t come in. Don’t come in, stay away.

But Wout has never been merciful, so he walks in, and he looks just as he’s always looked. Impossibly handsome, tall and proudful. The light from the hallway frames his body, bringing out the sharp lines of his face, hollowing out his cheeks, his jaw razor sharp and defined. Eyes a black pool of darkness. Mathieu recognizes him, even as he looks monstrous and beastly.

I’ve always known this is who you were.

The thought comes with a glee, and his heart breaks a little, a pang of guilt going through him. He pushes it down and prepares for what is to come.

Mathieu wants Wout to talk first, to explain himself, to justify, to lie. But he stands there silently, arms dropped to the side, stance wide. Patience has never been one of Mathieu’s strengths, so he breaks the silence.

“Do you hate me?” he asks, strained. For his own sake, he pretends not to notice how his voice breaks, and how he already sounds high-pitched, close to crying.

“I wish I could hate you,” Wout answers, and he sound so far away that Mathieu wants to scream. “I wish I could see all the rotten ugliness inside of you and feel anything other than love for you.”

Mathieu snorts. “All the rotten ugliness in me?” he exclaims in disbelief, hating that it’s so early on and he’s already riled up. “I didn’t publicly attack my boyfriend with no evidence, just to tame my own wounded pride.”

“I wonder who I take after,” Wout says, eyes gleaming with malice. “Isn’t that the van der Poel classic? You must’ve rubbed off on me.”

“Is all of this still because I won the championship?” Mathieu asks, gasping lightly at the fact that Wout could be that petty. “Because you are blowing it out of proportion.”

The noise Wout lets out is not one Mathieu has heard before. It’s mocking and angry and cruel. “It’s so like you to think this is about some stupid championship no one but you care about.”

“Then tell me what it is!”

“I have!” Wout roars, and Mathieu tries really hard to not smile at the fact that Wout exploded first. “Time and time again I have told you and you refuse to listen to me! This is about the one-sided relationship you dragged me into!”

“I dragged you into?”

“You cried and begged, knowing I would say yes to anything you wanted,” Wout accuses. “And then having me was never enough for you, you needed to be me!”

“Why would I want to be you?” Mathieu snarls, before he can stop himself. “Why would I want to be you, when I saw you broken and torn and felt nothing but pity at how pathetic you looked?”

A flash goes through Wout’s eyes. A blaze. A forest fire.

“Because broken, torn and pathetic I am still better than you!”

 “How could you be better than me when you didn’t win?”

Wout barks out a laugh. “Oh, but I did, liefje,” he says, tone dripping with sarcasm. “Don’t you remember crying in the bathroom like a bitch, in front of all your team, begging me to pick you up from the floor.”

He begins to march towards Mathieu; the first time he has made an attempt to get close to him today. Wout points a finger at him, Mathieu feels it like an arrow.

“Mathieu, always crying. Mathieu, so frail. We have to let him win because otherwise he breaks,” Wout snarls. “Mathieu, desperate to win because then maybe daddy will love him. Mathieu, who is wasting his entire life trying to control whatever he can grab.”

The words cut deep, deeper than he would like to admit. A small part of him thought it would make him cry, but they didn’t. He feels that old rage rise inside of him. Mathieu stands, walking slowly to meet Wout in the hallway.

The empty, cold hallway, where everything they are falls apart.

“Is that better than who you are, liefje?” he returns, just as venomous. “Wout, getting trampled over because he can’t stand up for himself. Wout, being dragged through life because he is too afraid to make his own decisions. Wout, always waiting. Wout, so selfish.”

Wout rears back, as if Mathieu had slapped him.

“Selfish? You are calling me selfish?” he laughs, not like he usually does but more like a maniac might do. “I can’t celebrate any of my fucking wins because you decide to punish me for it! It delights you, even. Never do you feel as satisfied as when you have me begging you, eating crumbs off your hands.”

“Maybe I never let you enjoy your wins because you always diminish mine.”

Mathieu takes a step forward, and that’s the closest they have been since las night, when Wout had clung to him desperately, filling him. Mathieu is shocked at how quickly they have changed.

“Whenever you win, it’s always because I was bad. Always because of one of my failures. But when I win, it’s always because you have some higher, holier purpose. Always because you love to tell yourself you have transcended cycling. Let me tell you a little secret, Wout. If you don’t compete to win, you shouldn’t be competing at all!”

“I would rather compete for nothing than to compete for everyone else but myself,” Wout screams, tugging at his own hair painfully. “I would rather be a pretentious fuck than someone like you, who would throw everything away just to get a taste of victory.”

They are so close now that Mathieu can smell him, like nature and freshness and Wout. So familiar but so strange. Mathieu presses his forehead to Wout’s, painfully. It makes the two of them stumble.

“And what did you think you were doing when you rambled to reporters today, Wout? Don’t get it wrong, today you are the one who threw everything away just to win a race. You did it, out of your own free will. And you did it because you are just like me. You like to pretend, you believe yourself so above me, so superior. You think I pushed and pulled and dragged you down to my level, but big news, Woutje, that’s the real you, it’s who you’ve always been. Jealous, petty, possessive and vindictive, you paranoid bastard!”

Wout places a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Isn’t that what you wanted, baby? Equals, aren’t you so obsessed with that, Matje? You are describing yourself, and don’t for a moment believe that you love me for anything other than that. It’s not about me; it’s never been about me. You love the mangled, broken pieces you see reflected of yourself.”

“I do not love you,” Mathieu lies, tilting his head up to meet Wout’s eyes as best as he can.

Wout’s eyes narrow. “Then leave.”

The words echo, heavy and breathless throughout the house, so sharp that it makes Mathieu flinch back, shutting his eyes shut. His mind begins to spiral, scanning at the corners of his mind for another moment, the exact same words traded between them. It had been Mathieu who had carelessly flung them around that time. He wonders if they burnt Wout as much as they burn him. When he opens his eyes, he sees teary brown eyes staring back at him, searching for anything in his eyes. But he feels empty. Dead.

He's killed me, he thinks crazily. He drove me insane, and he killed me.

“If I walk out that door,” Mathieu says, pointing over Wout’s shoulder. “I’m never coming back.”

Mathieu hates that no small part of him prays. Prays and hopes. Don’t let me leave. Make me stay. I lie all the time, and you can always tell. I love you. I love you so much it tears me apart and only you can put me back together.

Don’t let me leave, Woutje.

Please.

Wout’s expression changes, almost soft, but the cruelty underneath is undeniable. “You heard me the first time,” he spits. “Leave.”

Mathieu steps back, heartbroken. Willing himself not to cry. He steps to the side, straightening his back as much as he can, forcing his head to look ahead. Not knowing how to order his feet to move forward, the door begins to get closer and closer, until his palm feels a cold doorknob, so cold that it burns him. He hears the slam of the heavy door behind him, and finally he lets out a sob, it is impossible that Wout hasn’t heard it but the prideful part of him is at least grateful that he didn’t give him the satisfaction to break in front of him again.

It tears through him, from somewhere coiled deep inside. Painful and drawn-out, his voice visceral and raw, throat aching. Hot tears begin to fall down his cheeks, scalding his face, but the evening air brushes them away as they fall. Mathieu’s legs begin to carry him, nowhere in particular, just far. Just away. Away from Wout.

They’ve been ripped apart. The red string has been cut. Severed, by Wout.

There’s nothing left, except broken, tiny pieces that keep digging into Mathieu’s heart over and over again. Even in his state of mind, Mathieu knows that it will take him a long time to pick the pieces off his skin. He feels nothing and everything at all, funny in one way but sad in another.

Small and mutilated.

He walks and walks and walks. Past familiar places and foreign ones, in every reflection he catches a flash of dark hair with a blonde streak, and it sends a panic through his body, a shiver that comes from his bones. Mathieu walks faster every time after that until he is practically sprinting, his legs begging him to stop. Tired from the race, tired from fighting, and tired from the chill that sets inside of him, blowing wildly and empty. He wills his eyes to stay focused in front of him, to not look anywhere else so he can avoid seeing ghosts.

But when he pauses at a stop light, waiting for his turn to cross the street, Mathieu swears he sees a man in a white bike being followed by another man in a yellow bike, the color flashing bright and ugly in a blur, and when he wants to focus his eyes on the view, it disappears behind a passing car.

Gone.

Only real in his imagination.

It makes him cry harder.

He half understands what happened, but he fully meant what he said. When he walked out the door, Mathieu had zero intention of ever coming back. And Wout didn’t stop him. Wout decided cycling and his career were more important. Wout told him to leave, he spat out the words with poison and smiled when they made Mathieu flinch back.

Mathieu, always crying. Mathieu, so frail.

As if Mathieu doesn’t know that. He knows he is selfish, and spoiled, and jealous and possessive. Well aware of the fact, actually. Mathieu also knows that everyone who ever meets him wants to be him or fuck him or beat him. But Wout had messed with his head, made him believe he was safe and understood and loved, and then he grabbed a knife and plunged it deep inside of Mathieu.

Sometimes, when Mathieu would lie on his side, pretending to be asleep just so he could savor the tranquility a bit longer, he would feel Wout’s fingers tracing the bones of his spine, and could almost picture his thoughts, his prayers. Hoping his fingers would cut Mathieu open, deep and into the bone, so he could break him from the inside.

We are the same, we’ve always been the same.

If there’s one thing Mathieu has learnt about the Belgian, it’s that he hates to have his flaws pointed out. He loves to point them out in Mathieu, though. Maybe in a twisted way it’s to criticize himself, while also serving its purpose of lowering Mathieu just as he likes.

A feeling of shame rises inside of Mathieu, feeling so, so stupid. He fell for it all, didn’t he? Wout didn’t even have to try that hard to trick him, Mathieu did that all himself. He got on the plane, cut all the wires and chose to jump without a parachute anyway. And now he’s the one plummeting to the ground head first. All the lies and the truths and the angry words swirl around until he can’t tell one from the other.

What was the first lie Wout told him? What was the last?

Does it make a difference?

He walks for so long, his body begins to go numb. The weather is getting colder, and he definitely shouldn’t be outside without a jacket, he can’t afford it. There are still some races left, and he needs to be in good health for those, in order to perform.

A deep part of Mathieu snorts. Yeah, right. Perform.

But he doesn’t really know what to do at this point. He’s not going back to the house, not even if Wout gets down on his knees and begs. Mathieu is too wounded, too soon, too angry and hurt to the bone. He can’t ever go back there; he can’t go back to his cage. He doesn’t want to be seen by anyone else though, not in the state he’s in. Where they can take advantage of him and leverage his vulnerability for profit, the same way Wout did.

God, he can’t even think about Wout without crying a bit more.

His face feels puffy, and for the last four minutes he’s been grimacing whenever a particular thought or memory crosses his mind, but his eyes have no more tears to cry and they begin to burn, a headache pressing against his head, a constant, uncomfortable presence. But dehydrated, cold and starving, he keeps walking to nowhere in particular, with no small part of him wondering how far he could walk if he just kept going all night.

The trees begin to look familiar, the smell of the breeze and the comforting smells. With a panic, Mathieu thinks that somehow, he’s walked around the entire world and ended right in front of the same place again. Pathetic, he wouldn’t even know what to say when he knocks on the door again. How do I come back? Do I get down on my knees and beg?

The driveway pathway is familiar, the gravel where he has cycled endless times before. Suddenly, a furry cloud slams against his legs, and Mathieu almost goes down, confused. His dog is there, her tail wagging happily at seeing Mathieu returning. She tilts her head, expectantly, while Mathieu scratches the back of her ears.

His legs carried him to his parents’ house.

Mathieu doesn’t bother to compose himself a bit, still breathless and messy. His face is probably red and blotchy, his long hair wild after he had pulled at it several times as he walked. He’s covered in dirt and tears, and he realizes too late that there’s an old scab on his knee that is bleeding again. When did that happen?

On the porch, cleaning an old bike that Mathieu recognizes as one of his grandfather’s bikes, is Adrie.

He stops in his tracks.

It’s strange to see his father unguarded and carefree. He’s absentmindedly whistling a tune, a song that Mathieu wants to recognize but he can’t quite place, cleaning his hands on an old rag, dressed in black sweatpants and an Alpecin shirt. I look like him, Mathieu thinks, his heart skipping a beat. Why had I never noticed I looked like him?

Adrie glances around as if looking for something, before letting out a curse. “That damned dog!” he exclaims, turning and seeing Mathieu for the first time.

They stand there in silence, the wind slowly blowing at their clothes. Adrie whistles softly, and Mathieu’s dog runs to him happily, prancing about his legs before entering the house. Mathieu begins to walk slowly, dreading and preparing. He remembers Adrie’s words all too well, and it breaks his heart that today he’ll give him the satisfaction of telling him he was right, that Mathieu is a fucking idiot and he should’ve listened to Adrie.

He means to say it, he really does.

When he opens his mouth to speak, he can’t get a noise out. Instead, it just hangs there, open pathetically. And when he lets out a whine, he wants to shoot himself in the face. Where the hell did that come from? What happened to being dehydrated and having no more tears?

Mathieu slurps his nose, cleaning his face with the back of his hand. Deciding that admitting defeat and degrading himself is the only way he’ll get somewhere to sleep tonight, since Corinne is nowhere to be seen. He keeps walking, even though his legs feel heavy and every step hurts more than the last. His wounded heart and his wounded pride, all of it drags him down and he knows what he has to do.

When he’s nearly at the steps, his father seems to snap out of it.

“Mathieu, what are you doing here?” he asks, not unkindly. Adrie sets some tools down carefully, before descending the steps.

Mathieu closes his eyes. For some reason, he expects a slap, a blow to his stomach. Something, anything. Although the most Adrie has done is throwing a small wrench at his head once, when Mathieu was being pouty and insufferable. He missed, Mathieu had dodged out of the way, and the argument his parents had that day made him curl into a ball in David’s bed.

What happens is even worse.

Adrie wraps his arms around his shoulders, slowly pulling Mathieu to himself. Mathieu allows it, lowering his head and pushing his face into his father’s shoulder. The smell is familiar, but strange. Mathieu can’t remember the last time he was this close to his father, he’s used to smelling it from afar, when the wind blows in his direction and carries it over to his nostrils. His hand pets the back of Mathieu’s neck softly, touching strands of blonde hair.

“It’s okay, boefje,” Adrie whispers. “You are going to be okay.”

Mathieu’s arms come up, and they cling to Adrie’s shoulders as if he were still a child. He realizes he’s trembling when Adrie stumbles lightly, before steadying himself and gripping Mathieu tighter. He’s crying and sobbing and choking, and at one point he’s pretty sure he even screams. Adrie just holds him, for what feels like hours, and by the time Mathieu finds the strength to lift his head, the night has fully settled, they are only illuminated by the faint light of the moon, and the distant streetlamp down the driveway. The house is dark; his mom must not be home yet.

He looks at Adrie, and Mathieu wants to, but he still can’t find it in himself to admit that he was right. He can’t. Not yet. Not ever. Adrie cradles his face with his hands.

“Come inside, Mathieu,” he says, somehow dragging Mathieu inside. “You must be tired.”

And he is. God, he is so tired.

He falls asleep the minute his head presses against the pillow, not caring that he’s still wearing his normal, dirty clothes, or that he is over the covers, or the fact that Adrie stands in the doorway for longer than normal. He doesn’t rest, turning all night and waking up with a gasp, covered in sweat.

“Then leave,” a deep voice whispers in the night.

Mathieu shivers.

His dog is curled next to him, fast asleep and resting. Her steady breathing relaxes Mathieu a bit, before a thought settles over him and floods him with sadness.

We’re homeless, you and I, he thinks, stroking her soft fur slowly. Mathieu digs his hand into his pocket, pulling out his phone that has a million notifications. None of them from Wout, and with a grunt Mathieu wishes that he’s somewhere in the house pacing and walking, just as restless as Mathieu. He deserves it.

He has to scroll back a lot on his phone until he finds the conversation. Mathieu had blocked the number, although at the time he thought it was hilarious more than anything. He unblocks it, longing for peace and quiet and tranquility. He just needs to get away from everything, to put space between himself and everything here that suffocates him, that poisons his lungs and doesn’t let him think straight. I need to get away from him.

Mathieu writes a single text, hoping that the man in Spain will answer him first thing in the morning.

He drifts off to sleep again, accepting that rest will not come but that he can’t go around going sleep deprived or he will literally stop functioning. Mathieu hadn’t even bothered to lock his phone again, the screen bright in the darkness, flashing the lonely words that are half asking, half praying.

How much do you want for your house in Spain?

It takes forever for the sun to rise again.

Notes:

Divorce is rough, amirite?
What were your thoughts? Any predictions?
We just have one more chapter left to Part 1, which is still shocking to me tbh.
A note on that final scene between Mathieu and Adrie, I thought a lot about how I wanted it to go down. Originally, it was going to be the big, emotional blow-out between them that is long overdue (this one is still coming!), but I thought it wouldn't be a fair fight, considering Mathieu's vulnerable state of mind at the time.
I also thought it would carry more emotional weight if, for the first time, Mathieu and Adrie were something they have never been with each other: kind.
I'll see you guys in the next chapter!

Chapter 18: You Did This to Me | Wout

Notes:

For the last (!!!!) time, I'm back with another update!
Warning: Extra long, sappy note at the end of the chapter, I would really appreciate if you guys read it, especially since there'll be some information regarding Part 2.
As always, I hope you enjoy!

Tour de Flanders, 2020.

 

 

 

It’s hard to be back home now.

Wout remembers when he bought the house, sees it as clear as day. He’d been giddy and jittery with excitement as Henk begged him to please calm down before the seller took advantage of it, telling him that they might be able to reduce the price a little. But Wout didn’t care, it was the biggest purchase of his life, bigger than his car and his bikes and that really irresponsible vacation he took to Japan one time. This house was it, the place where he would grow old someday, his sanctuary from cycling, his temple.

The terrain was a bit irregular, dripping down towards the end of the property, but that just meant that from the street, the house looked as if it were settled high above, and from the back everything was at the same level. A massive pure concrete wall supported the staircase, intricate and modern. The walls were from a white brick that looked industrial, but when the light reflected off of it, it gave the house a warm, cozy feeling, basking in a golden glow. Most of the furniture was complemented with wood touches, brightening the place. A sort of modern-minimalist-cabin.

Wout loved it with all his heart.

The yard was lovely too, with two large trees that shaded the house in the summer, and so ample. He could see nieces and nephews running around the backyard, he could see parties thrown, family gatherings, happy and bright people circling around the firepit in the back porch, making the lonely nights after his retirement a bit easier to get through.

The garage had enough space for two cars, although Wout liked to keep his in the driveway, really only bringing it inside to protect it from rain, snow or hail. But being away most of the year meant his car spent months in his parents’ garage, gathering dust more than anything. Instead Wout’s garage was filled with his bikes. Old mountain bikes he could never fix, road bikes that no longer sponsored him. Special liveries the teams had let him keep, some gifts from his sponsors. Hanging off the walls and parked in the car spot, displayed with pride, even though people rarely ever came into the garage.

The minute he saw the house he fell in love with it; he decided right there and then that it would be his house even if he had to blow up all his money and ruin his credit. Thankfully he did none of that.

His refuge.

And then Mathieu had arrived, and it had become his too. Not his in the way it was Wout’s, but still his.

The picture of the house started to shift slowly. The furniture was no longer what made it cozy and warm, it was spinning Mathieu around in the middle of the living room, it was the blonde’s smile as he slammed into Wout, the way his laugh would echo off the walls. The yard was no longer for his friends, but for chasing around behind Mathieu and his dog, toys scattered all over the place. The way the breeze would brush Mathieu’s hair as he sat beneath the tree, panting and exhausted after a free afternoon. His car in the driveway was joined by Mathieu’s, the driveway definitely too small for both. His garage is now filled with Canyon bikes too, of every color. Mountain bikes, road bikes, special rigs and gears.

Bikes that won’t be ridden anymore, that won’t follow Wout into a quiet morning ride. They’ll stay there in the garage, rusting and rotting away, until they are nothing but a distant memory.

Because Mathieu is gone.

Wout has oscillated between all of it. A part of him wants to find Mathieu, beg him for forgiveness, and crawl underneath him, to keep whatever can be salvaged after Wout carelessly threw it in the fire. Another part of him thinks it’s easier to pretend that Mathieu is just dead or something. That way, Wout cannot reach him because he is no longer a mortal being, that way it’s normal that he takes Mathieu’s pictures off the counters and runs his fingers over his frame over and over and over again. Like a fucking stalker.

He is seriously worrying that he’s slowly losing his sanity.

It’s so Mathieu as well that it makes him laugh. His final revenge is driving Wout to madness.

But the biggest problem is that it’s been close to four days now, and Wout is still unable to sleep. And he has a race on the weekend, a race he has been training for and that he’ll be traveling to tomorrow. And sleep won’t fucking come.

The walls have begun talking to him.

“Then leave,” they whisper mockingly, glinting with malice.

Wout has tried punching them and kicking them and nothing has worked. He screamed at them until his throat was raw and scratchy, but the walls merely laughed, and they didn’t shut up. It’s how he ends up looking ragged, edged and deranged, walking around an empty house with headphones blaring heavy metal.

Wout doesn’t even like heavy metal. But the noise. He needs the noise to drown out the walls.

It doesn’t work as well as he wants it to, but it’s better than nothing.

Everything keeps replaying in his head. The race, his interview, the fight. He runs it over several times, but he can never imagine a different ending by the end. Wout didn’t want Mathieu to leave, not really, but a future where they continued as they were, is a future that pushes Wout closer and closer to losing himself even more. At least this way, there are still some original pieces left, he tells himself, not everything has been replaced.

Mathieu’s words had sent him over the edge. The way he snarled out “I don’t love you” and Wout couldn’t tell if it was a lie or not. Over the last months, Wout prided himself on the fact that he could always know whether the dutchman was lying or not, at how easy to read he was, how transparent. It made Wout feel safe, the fact that Mathieu could not keep anything from him, and it was also as if he knew, because every single time he ran to Wout to tell him the truth.

“I don’t love you,” the walls tell him late at night.

And Wout wonders whether he ever did, if he ever truly did or if Mathieu just thought that he did. Wout knows he loves Mathieu. He knows it just as easily as he knows that the sky is blue and the water is clear. It’s second nature to him, something that grows deep inside of him and explodes, searching for light as it comes into the surface. Hell, even right now Wout cannot imagine ever not loving Mathieu, who has probably ruined every single person for him.

The night before he leaves everything takes a turn for the worst.

The furniture begins to taunt him.

When he sits down on the couch to watch television, he lifts a cushion to look for the remote, when a loud moan snaps him from that. Wout freezes, ice tumbling down his back, and there on the couch are him and Mathieu, who winces every time Wout thrusts into him. He tries to turn around and look elsewhere, but there they are again, pressed against the wall and laying on the soft rug underneath the coffee table, right in front of the fireplace.

Wout leaves the living room, shaking.

But in the hallway, they are against the front door, and they are bent over the kitchen counter, laying on the table, standing in the shower. Everywhere he looks, a ghostly trace of Mathieu that haunts him, it haunts him and taunts him and asks him to come back to him, like a siren. It’s more than Wout can take.

He snaps.

“Leave me alone!” he yells, hands tearing at his dark hair. “Leave me alone, you blonde demon!”

Mathieu’s little smirk flashes everywhere, the light catching the white of his teeth, reflecting off the walls. Wout hates him so much that he could kill him, so much that it flows through his veins and spills out of every scar, every cut. Before he can stop himself, Wout dashes through the house with an angry stride that echoes off the walls, pushes the door to the garage open and begins to rummage through the drawers of the cabinet. It’s not often that he has time to do any home improvement projects, but he still likes to keep tools in the house, they come in handy every now and then.

“I get rid of you today,” Wout mutters, smiling when his hand wraps around the wooden handle of the hammer he was looking for.

His feet carry him through it. He is suddenly in the hallway again, entering the kitchen. And then his arms swing, and the counters begin denting under the weight of metal. Wout rears, holding the hammer high above his head, and lowering it with force, as much as he can muster. He does it again and again, until his arms begin to ache and burn, and it’s not his muscles that feel tired but his nerves that are exhausted from the shockwave that travels through them with every blow.

Wout blacks out, that’s the only way he can describe it. By the time he comes back to his senses, he is standing in the hallway, panting heavily. One hand holds a hammer and the other a knife, which he doesn’t even remember taking. The entire living room is trashed, and some chairs of the dining table are beyond repair. In the process he broke several plates, and the kitchen. Well, he’s going to have to buy a new kitchen, let’s just say that.

It's a shame. He always liked the kitchen.

At the end of the hallway is a glass trophy case, with several shelves. It’s stacked, filled with mementos, trophies and medals. Special watches and little trinkets you get cycling for podiums. It’s gleaming and glowing. Untouched and unaffected by the madness. Salvaged, somehow. As if his mind, in its convoluted state, still considered it holy, worthy of worshipping.

It’s not just his trophies in there. It’s Mathieu’s too.

And Mathieu. Fuck. Wout cannot think of Mathieu without feeling a heaviness in his chest that constricts his breathing, without a knot forming at the base of his throat, pushing down heavily. His body burns and the bite mark on his thigh scalds him, but every single fiber of his being calls out for the younger man.

For his laugh, and his bright blue eyes, and his beautiful blonde hair, especially when he allows it to grow exactly the way Wout loves. He misses the weight of Mathieu above him, the feel of Mathieu beneath him. The press of his cock in his mouth and how Wout could lean his head on the dutchman’s broad shoulders. Wout loves him, Wout hates him, Wout misses him, Wout wants him dead.

When his eyes manage to focus on something, it’s on that stupid trophy case that he cannot stand anymore. But his vision to the trophy case is constricted. An entity stands there, blurring at the edges, not moving, not breathing. Just there, imminent and ever-present. Mathieu.

“Why did you do it, Woutje?” he asks sadly, shaking his head in disappointment.

Wout throws the knife at him, walking angrily towards him. Just when he is five steps away, he disappears. Gone, vanished. Why, why, why, why, the trophy case echoes. Wout screams, raising his arms one last time with the hammer firmly gripped in his hands, now that the knife lays abandoned at the floor.

“LEAVE. ME. ALONE.”

Glass shatters, metal clangs. The trophies tumble to the ground like dominoes, one on top of the other. His trophies and Mathieu’s trophies, mixing as one. They fall apart just as easily as they were put on display. Years and years of effort, of training, of dedication and care and love to their craft, gone in an instant. In one angry instant that Wout cannot control anymore.

The hammer is too heavy for his hands. It drops to the floor, the sound ringing so loud that it makes Wout shut his eyes and flinch violently. It feels like a gunshot. His knees give out underneath him, and he drops involuntarily, like a child, not caring that some shards are digging into his skin, and that around him is only a mess of broken and battered achievements.

“No,” Wout whimpers, when the reality of it all hits him. “No, no, no.”

He crawls around the floor, hands desperately cradling whatever he can, as if it were a child. He gathers as many trophies as his arms can hold, and when he looks down at them, he realizes they are wet with hot tears that stream down his face. A sob escapes his throat, burning his throat as it struggles to come out.

Wout turns, and Mathieu is gone.

“Come back,” he murmurs, pressing the metal to his chest. To his heart. “Come back. You did this to me, you can’t leave. Come back.”

Mathieu doesn’t come back.

***

When the weekend rolls around, Wout is still unable to sleep.

Well, he’s unable to rest, more accurately. Exhaustion had taken its toll on him, and he had finally drifted off to sleep the night before he left, turning around in his bed, waking up just before dawn, as he usually does, tangled in the sheet, wrapped tightly around his neck that it was constricting his breath.

The entire team treads slowly around him now. They are careful not to startle him, but they also knock loudly and periodically on his door, and Wout is pretty sure they are making sure he’s still alive. Several times Grischa and Merjin replay the strategy with him, continuously asking if he’s okay with it, if he feels well.

Wout knows what they are truly asking, what they are wondering. Truth be told Wout has no idea. When they go head-to-head in the race, his body might react one way and his mind another, could either be a disaster or a success. He is angry, but heartbroken, and his pride will not allow him to admit either, so instead he puts on a numb façade that is exhausting to keep up, but that he must carry. From every single angle he is analyzed, reviewed, they all look for a chink in the armor, and if they find it, no one will doubt to go for the kill. He won’t hesitate to go for the kill.

When he wakes up, he feels oddly calm, and at peace in a way he hasn’t in a very long time. There is still a part of him that is missing, a part that will always be missing, but he’s come to the conclusion that it will not kill him, and he needs to keep pushing forwards. That’s in the moments where he’s strong, which are rare. The moments when he’s weak are more frequent where he thinks he might die with the gaping hole inside of him, where his heart once was.

You ripped it away, the voice whispers, and then you threw it into the flames.

Wout ignores the voice and keeps going about his day.

Breakfast is nice, he supposes. A normal affair. The team chef has cooked his favorite breakfast, and when he lets out a delighted noise of surprise, Wout sees more than two stiff shoulders relax and he comes to the conclusion that the entire team is treating him like a child that is at risk of running away if they say something mean, so they all try to please him.

He likes it, partly because he’s felt incredibly out of control lately. Everything has been spiraling out of his hands, impacting all aspects of his life to the point where Wout cannot fully longer function like a grown adult with responsibilities. He also hates it, because it feels a little bit too much like being cradled and cared for, and after everything he’s done, Wout is not entirely sure he deserves it.

But, because that’s just who he is, Wout takes his breakfast with a smile and when he eats a little bit more than usual a few eyebrows raise but no one stops him.

The power of free will.

The drive to the race is short, but he entertains himself by glancing out the window and seeing a beautiful landscape pass him by. There are people starting to arrive, some children in cycling kits wave at the bus as it passes by, and even though they can’t see him, Wout waves back as well. Not so long ago it was him waving at the bus, he always liked to believe that whoever was inside of it was greeting him back as well.

When Wout is at the check-in procedure, his phone rings in his pocket and that’s the first time in the entire day that he’s been shaken by an event. The caller ID flashes, and Wout’s heart skips a beat, mouth opening dumbly. David van der Poel.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” he mutters, garnering strange looks from people nearby, but really what is he supposed to do when he receives a phone call from the man that under other circumstances would’ve been his brother-in-law.

Against better judgement, Wout picks up the phone.

“Ah, you picked up,” David says, calm and collected, complete opposites from Wout with his scrambling brain. “Hello Wout, how are you?”

Oh.

Wout was not expecting this.

Sure, he knows that’s the polite thing to ask, and to his credit David sounds genuinely interested in what Wout has to say. But on the other hand, he’s not about to rant about everything going on in his mind to David. David, who sounds a lot like his brother, especially when Wout hasn’t heard his voice in a week other than in his hallucinations.

Wout clears his throat. “Hey, David. I’m good,” he answers, frowning because he doesn’t remember why he called David for, then remembering he didn’t do that. Not at all. “No, you called me.”

There’s some noise on David’s end. “Yes, I called you,” his tone is obvious. “Is this a bad time?”

“No!”

“Okay,” David makes an unconvinced sound. “I’m calling to ask if it would be okay if I went over to pick some of his things up next week. Whatever day or time best suits you.”

Ah.

Of course.

Wout should’ve expected this. It’s obvious Mathieu would’ve wanted his things back. Things like his clothes and his bikes and his stupid products in the shower probably, knowing how petty he can be. He doesn’t know if he appreciates David not saying his name or not, because Wout has not dared to speak it out loud yet, but a part of him wonders if that just gives the dutchman more power to hold over his head. Probably the latter.

It still hurts that Mathieu wants his things back.

If they were back at Wout’s house, he could delude himself into thinking that he was coming back. That after the race Wout would find him, they would yell and fuck and get back together. The worst part is Wout doesn’t even know if they broke up. He assumes they did, wanting your things back is pretty much the epitome of breaking up, but the words as such had never been broken, and the desperate and pathetic part of him really needs to hear them.

For closure.

“Why are you picking them up?” he blurts out, cringing at the accusatory tone. Recover, recover, recover. “I mean I could just mail them to you or something no?”

At least that last part was good.

David sighs. “Well, I suppose that’s true,” he concedes. “But he made a very detailed list and mailing them is very useless when I live close enough to just go pick them up.”

Wout hates that that’s a good argument.

If Mathieu wants his things back that bad, he can have them, Wout knows how to read between the lines.

“Right,” Wout mutters. “Actually, are you doing anything right now?”

“I’m at home waiting to watch you guys.”

Wout grins, even though David can’t see him. “You can drive to the house right now, if it’s so urgent,” he says, putting as much sweet, sweet sarcasm into it as he can. “That way you won’t miss anything on the list. I’m sure you have the keys, no?”

The silence on David’s side tells Wout that at least he has succeeded in sounding careless about it. Like he doesn’t even care enough to supervise what gets taken out of his house because that’s how little he cares. The first victory of the day.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay,” David agrees, and Wout is just about to hang up when he hears him speak again. And sure, he might be furious with Mathieu, but he won’t be rude to David, who always treated him nicely. “And Wout, I am very sorry. About everything.”

Wout blinks, feeling like he just got shot point blank in the chest.

“Don’t say that,” he says, clicking the line dead. Fuck David, honestly.

The conversation replays in his head for the rest of the day.

It rings around him when he changes into his kit, when he listens to things like “strategy” and “teamwork”, and when someone hands him a number on a piece of paper and some scissors, Wout stares at them dumbly in his lap for so long that Grischa walks over and takes both from him, cutting the number himself. As if Wout would do something stupid like stabbing himself. The chance is more likely of Wout storming the Alpecin team bus and stabbing a certain someone there.

An arrogant, little bastard at that.

But the talk with David doesn’t leave his head.

He keeps replaying it in his head, still wincing whenever he realizes how awkward he probably sounded, and wondering if David had been able to see – well, listen – straight through all the bullshit he said and concluded that Wout is very much not okay. But what would David even do with that information? Convince Mathieu to come back to him or something? Sure, that sounds like a convoluted strategy that comes straight from the depths of the fucked-up mind of Mathieu, but to what end? For a simple power trip?

Wout doesn’t think so.

The race starts, and the race is cold but it’s hot at the same time, and Wout thinks that it’s weird, and he quickly realizes that he’s getting distracted when he hears some chatter on the radio but cannot, for his life, string together what the words are saying. It’s probably something about strategy. A tap to his shoulder knocks him so violently that it nearly sends him tumbling down into the street. He glances back angrily, only to find a teammate staring.

“Wout!” he shouts, “get your head in the race!”

And yes.

That’s what he was doing.

He is in the race, where else would he be? In his home, not far from here, seeing every little thing that David removes from there? Like an invader desecrating a foreign temple? Invading something pure and holy, a place where he doesn’t belong so he couldn’t possibly understand. Wout feels absolutely no need to be there at all, David can take whatever the hell he wants, Wout doesn’t care.

He takes a little gel pack from his back and tears it open one-handed and with his mouth, slurping the contents in. He feels great, actually. His legs will definitely take him to the finish line and when he wins that’ll be one less Monument to win, another thing he has achieved, that he can place on his pretty trophy case and put on display for all the world to see.

Then he remembers.

The trophy case is not there anymore. Wout battered it with a hammer. The kitchen too, and the living room. Oh, fuck. And he just told David he could march in there and take whatever he wanted, not remembering that at this particular time, his home is in no condition to be receiving any guests, especially when said guests are his ex-boyfriend’s brother who is there to pick up his things and Wout worked so hard to maintain a cool, calm and collected façade. It’s not his fault.

It's Mathieu’s fault, all of it.

Ahh, Wout thinks, pushing the pedals quicker in just the way that makes his legs burn. That is why Mathieu did it. It was all to get in his head and try to get the upper hand from early on. He feels stupid for falling for it. Hasn’t Mathieu proved enough that he’s willing to do anything, just as long as he gets to win in the end? Actually, he’s willing to do anything just as long as he gets to finish ahead of Wout.

A flash of Alpecin blue and red catches the corner of his eye, and because Wout has rotten luck, it turns out to be Mathieu. Stupid, stupid Mathieu who pedals so gracefully and fully focused on the race, aware that his actions have taken a massive mental toll on Wout and that now his brain is everywhere else but where it needs to be. Wout pedals towards Mathieu, and when he gets close, he almost slams into the other man, forgetting that the two of them are like magnets because life likes to make little, twisted jokes.

Mathieu glances at him, confused. The blonde shakes his head, eyes wide, and keeps his head tightly forward in a way that makes Wout want to snap his neck just so he can turn the dutchman’s face and force him to look at him.

He hears more yelling on the radio, and when he glances around to look at a teammate that will tell him what the team is saying, he finds that there’s only three of them left. Where did everybody go? But when he goes to scream at his radio, he hears a thunderous sound behind him and he shudders, glancing back and seeing white tumbling down. For a horrible moment he thinks it’s Mathieu, but the blonde is on his wheel, grimacing.

“Alaphilippe,” Mathieu yells, and it’s been so long since Wout’s heard his voice that he wants to cry. He’s always liked the sound of Mathieu’s voice, his slightly high-pitched tone and the way he pronounces the words.

The final kilometers are hell. Wout is dazed and confused, he can’t tell up apart from down or left from right. The team informs him that it’s just him and Mathieu at the front, or maybe he asks them, he can’t remember. But of course, it is. Wout and Mathieu. Mathieu and Wout. How they have always been meant to be, far ahead the rest, competing with only each other.

When Wout sees the mark for the final kilometer, he feels incredibly exhausted for some reason. Tight and on edge. He decides to sit on Mathieu’s wheel, knowing deep in his bones that he can outsprint him with ease. Mathieu is no sprinter. They go, go, go. The noise grows louder and louder, and when he glances back briefly, he’s shocked to see the peloton away in the distance. Wout thought they had a bigger gap. Mathieu glances back, and Wout meets his gaze straight on, locked for just an instant and in his mind, he sees the understatement they both reach at the same time.

Let the best man win.

And Wout will.

He goes for it, accelerating as much as his legs allow him. Fast, fast, fast. He feels like the wind when he sprints, but then something is wrong because Mathieu is accelerating too, and that was not supposed to happen. Mathieu is not a sprinter, what the hell is he doing? Wout goes faster, the finish line looming closer and closer and then he throws the bike, crossing but not knowing who won. He looks at Mathieu, just before they part to their respective teams, but Mathieu shakes his head, defeated.

Wout smiles.

He won.

People in yellow quickly swarm him, tearing him away from Mathieu. He receives some pats on the back, but no congratulations, and just as he begins to think that’s not very nice, a voice whispers quietly in his ear.

“Great race,” they say, their breath tickling his ear. “But it looks like Mathieu won the sprint by nothing.”

“What?” Wout asks dumbly.

“Mathieu won.”

No.

No, he couldn’t have won. Not after everything Wout did. He couldn’t have beaten him in the one thing Wout is more comfortable in. Mathieu doesn’t get to win. Not after everything he did. It’s not fair, it’s not right. But cycling is unforgiving, and he hears Mathieu’s name being announced as the winner and he swears he sees red flashing in his eyes, ringing loudly.

When Wout turns around, he’s met with the cold celebration of the Alpecin team, hooting and hollering as much as they are allowed with all of the safety precautions. Mathieu raises his hand high, smiling. Wout can almost hear his laugh across the paddock, it sends shards of glass through Wout’s heart.

It takes a turn for the worst; they make him stand on the fucking podium next to Mathieu. It’s the biggest humiliation of his career. Listening from afar as Mathieu rambles about how he thought he lost and how tired he was, and how special it is to win with number 51, the same number that Adrie won with.

You don’t even like Adrie, Wout wants to yell. He wants to march right up to Mathieu’s interview and slap him hard across the cheek, so hard he leaves a bruise. But that’s exactly what the blonde demon wants, and Wout is done giving into his tantrums and compromising his own integrity just to spare Mathieu and his fragile feelings. Fuck Mathieu van der Poel and his stupid hair that he has cut off, so now he just looks big headed and bald. Wout hates him, he truly does.

He hates him with the burning intensity and rage that only someone who once loved him could have.

The podium is torture, having to stand there and pretend to be happy. Never has Wout been more grateful for the face masks than at that moment. He would probably spit on Mathieu if he could. Thankfully, they have to pose for pictures at a distance, for safety, so he won’t get to feel Mathieu’s venomous claws clinging to his skin, and he gets to bury deep, deep down the part of him that is disappointed because of that.

When they leave, Wout storms off to the back, tired of everything and feeling very much on the brink of exploding with anger. He just needs someone to explode into, to blow up in their face. It’ll be all the most satisfying if it could be Mathieu, but he’s not a brat, he’ll take whatever he can get. Anyone can be the punching bag.

Wout feels him too, that’s the worst of it. A constant presence at his back, evil and arrogant. It’s like he radiates heat, toxic heat that centers on Wout and decides to attack him.

“Nice race,” Mathieu says in the back, signing a couple of shirts. Wout hears the guy from third place laugh and say the same thing, before complementing Mathieu on his victory. If Mathieu thinks Wout will congratulate him he has another thing coming. “I was really dead by the end.”

“That’s a pretty shit thing to say to the guys you beat,” Wout snaps, turning around and glaring at the blonde with what he hopes is coldness. Judging by the way Mathieu shivers and won’t meet his eyes, he’s succeeded. It angers Wout that now he wants to play the innocent little victim, the wronged party. “Not only a bad winner, but a coward too.”

Alexander Kristoff, who came in third, Wout is surprised to see, stiffens beside Wout.

A nerve near Mathieu’s eye twitches.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Mathieu justifies, raising his hands and looking from Wout to Alexander desperately.

Wout shrugs. “Was it worth it?”

It seems to get under Mathieu’s skin. “I’m not the one who threw it away, that was you.”

“This is sounding like a private conversation,” Alexander says, scrambling to take all his things. “So, I’m just going to leave. You both had a great race.”

But only one of us won. And it was him.

It’s like a knife to Wout’s heart.

Then they are alone, and it’s such a familiar scene that Wout has to laugh. He throws his head back and laughs, loud and drawn-out, like a maniac. Mathieu just stares at nothing, blue eyes dead.

“Daddy must be very proud,” Wout taunts. “His little Mathieu winning with his number.”

To his credit, Mathieu doesn’t flinch. He glances briefly at Wout, before looking straight ahead, not saying anything. It unnerves Wout more than he’s willing to admit.

He presses again. “It’s that why you called David and told him to pick up your things? So, you can go around pretending like I don’t exist because you are a fucking coward?”

“I didn’t tell David anything,” Mathieu says, snapping his eyes shut in regret at the fact that he just took the bait. Wout ignores him.

“My fucking initial is engraved on your skin,” he says with malice, walking closer and closer, smiling a little at the way Mathieu rears back, inching closer to the wall. “And now you cannot even look at me?”

Mathieu’s head thuds against the wall. He’s trapped; there is nowhere to go. Wout keeps pressing forward until they are so close that Wout can feel his breath over the face mask. Mathieu forces his eyes to meet Wout’s, and Wout can see that they are glassy and teary, but he won’t fall for that, not anymore. He’s done giving in, he’s done not fighting. If Mathieu wants to beat him, he better know that Wout will go down screaming, kicking and fighting, and that he will drag Mathieu down with him to hell if he has to.

“I hate you.”

Wout backs away, satisfied at the fact that he has said his piece and hoping that when he drifts off tonight, sleep will come easier. When he’s at the door, Mathieu’s voice stops him in his tracks.

“I’ll always win, Wout,” he spits. “Because now you are just like me.”

Wout leaves, slamming the door shut behind him with Mathieu still in the room. He leaves, taking with him all the love he’s ever felt for the other man and burying it deep on some road in Flanders. He buries it and convinces himself he has no idea where he hid it, dreading the moment he has to go back to his empty, torn home.

 

End of Part One.

Notes:

Let me know what you guys thought of this chapter, the story in general, any predictions for Part 2, I want to hear everything.

I also want to say a massive thank you to each and everyone of you that clicked on this story and read it, to everyone that left kudos and comments, and to everyone that might just be a silent reader, I cannot thank you enough for the support this story got, it was honestly a shock to me that something I wrote touched so many people, and it kept me so incredibly motivated to keep going and finish this story. Thank you to all, and I hope to see you on Part 2. <3

As for Part 2, it'll be posted on August 9th, you'll be able to find it in my profile or as the continuation of the series 'Never Break the Chain'. I plan to keep the same updating schedule that I kept for this story, but as I've been busier I don't have the same chapter buffer that I did in here. Still, I'm so motivated to keep writing, words just keep pouring out. The outline that I have for Part 2 is shorter, but then again Part 1 was supposed to have 10 chapters so you never know, haha.

I hope to see you in the next part!
Thanks to all <3

Notes:

Oof! Well, there goes that.
Let me know what you think.
Be nice or I will kill myself.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Never Break the Chain