#user etapereine: 1 user etapereine’s perfectionist demons: 0

[etapereine]

lining’s silver, grass is greener (i’m on my way)

@cycleprompttuesday: “illness”

also on ao3.

“it’s fucked, is what it is.”

christophe is joking, mostly. wout can tell, by the laugh that follows and the way christophe lounges so easily on the chair next to him, face thrown up to catch the sun and one foot resting on his knee.

still, there’s an undercurrent of frustration there, of a sort wout understands all too well. it’s no one’s fault - never is, really, but especially not for christophe, who’d been the first to admit that crashing into the manhole cover was on him and him alone. he’d joked about it on the phone with wout that night and had sent the group chat a stupid meme he’d found. still, it’s frustrating.

“at least you got out before you caught the plague.” wout takes a sip of his coffee, knocking his foot against christophe’s. it’s nice, to sit here in the sun together. there’s been too little of that, this year.

“a fucking miracle that i didn’t, with our luck. the internet thinks we’re all making out with each other on the rest days, did you know that?” christophe breaks off a piece of his pastry and offers it to wout. he can feel the powdered sugar stick to his lip, can see the way christophe’s eyes fix on it and the way his fingers twitch as wout runs his tongue over his lips.

if they weren’t in a very public café on a very public stretch of a very sleepy spanish country road - well.

“i certainly hope you weren’t making out with any of the other guys while you were in italy,” wout tries to keep his voice carefully neutral, but all it takes is one unimpressed look from christophe to have him laughing so hard he can feel tears at the corner of his eye. it feels good to laugh like that, feels even better without the corresponding twinge of pain he’d had for weeks.

christophe smiles at him, and beneath the table he links his foot with wout’s.

“not me,” christophe says, innocent as anything. “although if the opportunity presents itself in france…” he trails off, and when wout doesn’t comment, christophe lets it go. “but for the other guys? well. they may not be half wrong.”

wout thinks of a facetime call with an exasperated, long-suffering robert, stuck on a volcano with what should have been wout’s team and dealing with cian’s increasingly obvious crush on visma lease-a-bike’s star sprinter. oh, to be that young again.

“you think he’ll be there? in france?” christophe doesn’t mention a name, but he doesn’t really have to. when wout looks up from his coffee, christophe is staring out over the valley as though he can see all the way to denmark from here.

they haven’t talked about the tour, really, haven’t talked much about racing at all since christophe turned up at wout’s rental in girona. he uses his own foot to tug on christophe’s under the table, just enough to draw his attention back.

“i don’t know,” he says, honestly. jonas is private and reserved at the best of times, and when he’s hurting he has a tendency to retreat even more. they’ve spoken, over text and phone and even once on video call, the same way wout knows jonas has spoken with christophe, but not about anything more substantial than their shared aches and pains. it’s both too much and not enough, but that’s how it always is during the season.

“if anyone can do it,” christophe says, before trailing off. on the table, his pinky finger brushes the side of wout’s hand absentmindedly. too much, and not enough.

wout thinks of a hotel room in cahors, the startled look in jonas’s eyes when he’d walked in on the two of them and the desire and determination that replaced it. jonas has never been one to back down from a fight, not as long as wout’s known him. it's a different sort of battle, this one, the kind jonas has to fight on his own. there is no wind for wout to take this time, no climb to pace him up - just jonas and his body, and wout knows only too well how lonely of a fight that is.

on the table, two cell phones buzz in unison. wout lets christophe check the message, sees the way his face relaxes into a smile.

"speak of the devil," christophe says, before downing the last of his coffee and standing up to stretch. "ready to head back? i promised marion i'd call this afternoon, while the boys are napping." he reaches out a hand to help wout up.

they clean up their plates and coffee cups and strap on helmets again and then they're off, back down the descent with the sun in their faces and the wind at their backs. later, when christophe has disappeared to call marion and wout has settled into the couch, he finally checks his messages: a photo of his own boys, georges running across the backyard and jerome watching him from a picnic blanket; a series of heart emojis and a we miss you from sarah; some photos from the tour team at altitude camp in the sierra.

and then, the most recent notification:

jonas vingegaard

feeling good today

weather here is shit

want some company in spain?