love is not a victory march

Mathieu needs something to do with his hands. The room is quiet, empty, and after the chaos of the rest of his day, his hectic and insane ride through the streets of Glasgow, the shift into silence leaves his ears ringing. He wishes he had some way of putting on some music, something better than the tinny speakers of his phone, but they don’t think of that when they set up the winner’s room. Maybe he should have his manager make a suggestion to the UCI.

For cycling, the winner’s room is more of a winner’s trailer, sparse and sterile. It has one mediocre bed, fitted with bleached white sheets, a mini-fridge stocked with water and electrolyte drinks, a small bedside table with drawers packed full of condoms and lube. The floor is covered in that same thin, terrible carpeting that Mathieu’s seen in office buildings before. Mathieu has gotten the chance to meet some footballers before, and they’ve told him that their winner’s rooms are set up by the teams in their own stadiums, and the quality of the rooms can vary depending on whether the team is better at winning or losing. This trailer, unlike those rooms, has to be carted around from race to race, though the Tour provides its own, fancier trailer with nicer bedding, and the one used for cross races feels cheaper. That one doesn’t even bother to have a mini-fridge.

The rules for the winner’s room are simple. The winner of the race gets to choose one of the runners up as a forfeit. What happens in the room stays in the room. Winner gets to do whatever they want to the loser, barring permanent injury or death.

It’s an old sports tradition, steeped in history, going back at least a hundred years. There’s been some pushback against it over the decades though, and many newer sports have done away with the practice entirely. Mathieu’s never participated in a winner’s room for mountain biking, for instance. But cycling — road cycling and cyclocross as an offshoot of it — loves its history and its traditions. Mathieu’s father once gave him an hour-long lecture on why the winner’s room was important for maintaining sportsmanship in the peloton and how it helped establish the proper hierarchy among competitors.

Mathieu doesn’t really care about any of that. What he cares about is that he won today and his chosen forfeit isn’t here yet. He’s been thinking about this since he crossed the line alone, kit ripped up, one shoe broken, since he stepped up onto the podium and pulled on the rainbow jersey. Winning is always heady and beautiful in and of itself, but this, the winner’s room afterwards, can make a victory so much sweeter.

The handle of the trailer door rattles, twisting open as Wout steps inside. His politely neutral smile, the one he wore for the cameras and the podium, has been replaced by a scowl.

Anticipation builds in Mathieu’s belly when he sees it, because it’s always a little better when Wout comes into it a little pissed off. “Took you long enough,” Mathieu says. He’s been sitting on the bed this whole time since he left the podium, restless and fidgeting.

Wout’s scowl deepens. “Let’s just get this over with,” he says. As if he hadn’t picked Mathieu as the forfeit after E3, hadn’t left Mathieu’s lips bitten raw and red, hadn’t left dark bruises on Mathieu’s lips and ass and thighs. It’s become an inevitability that if one of them wins and the other one places on the podium, they’ll pick each other. There hasn’t been any discussion about it, even as they end up here time and time again. Mathieu chooses Wout. Wout chooses Mathieu. That’s just how it is.

Mathieu hasn’t spoken about this to anyone — what happens in the room, stays in the room after all — but if he had (to someone like his father or his brother, for instance), they would probably say that this is the winner’s room working as intended. Rewards for winning. Consequences for losing. With Wout, it sometimes feels like that, especially after a win, when he can use Wout’s mouth as he sees fit, just watching those pretty fucking lips wrapped around his cock. But sometimes, it also feels like he gets a reward for losing, too, like when Wout opens him up with rough, impatient fingers and Mathieu has to bite down on the inside of his cheek in an attempt not to moan.

He watches as Wout sits down on the furthest corner of the bed and peels off his shoes and socks. Mathieu did that when he first came in, but he hasn’t shed the rest of his kit yet. Partly because he likes wearing the rainbow stripes, yes, but also because he likes it when Wout has to tear his clothes off his body, likes the downward twist of Wout’s lips as he does so, likes being reminded of the strength of Wout’s hands.

Wout, on the other hand, always strips with the same bland efficiency every time. After he’s done with his shoes, he unzips his pale blue jersey and tosses it to the side, pulls the straps of his bib off his shoulders and then yanks the shorts down over his legs. He kicks it over towards where his jersey went. When he looks up again, he glares at Mathieu, impatient.

“If it matters so much to you,” Mathieu says, “you can come over here and do it yourself.”

Wout huffs out an annoyed breath. Mathieu watches the rise and fall of his chest. He likes observing the tanlines there, at the collar, and the ones that circle Wout’s arms and legs. They weren’t there over the winter cross season or during the spring classics, but now, after a summer of tours both short and long, Wout’s arms and legs are now several shades darker than the rest of him. Mathieu wonders if the sunkissed skin tastes different, richer and more flavorful somehow. He has the chance to find out.

Mathieu expects Wout to make his move, to pour all of his anger and frustration towards the day into stripping the clothes from Mathieu’s body, but Wout just stands there, breathing, a riot of emotions crossing his face. Mathieu says, goading, “I don’t know why you’re fighting me on this. You’re not going to win.” Wout is so controlled outside the winner’s room, capable of smiling even through a loss, holding himself poised and perfect in front of the cameras. But inside the winner’s room, Mathieu can drive the knife in, peel back that veneer of civility and expose the savage, animal version of Wout that otherwise only exists on a bike.

Wout turns away for a moment, his mouth pulled into a grimace, his jaw set into a stubborn line. Mathieu waits it out, because he knows the payoff is worth it. He wants to see it, that moment when Wout finally, finally gives in. Wout seems to make a decision, because he approaches Mathieu on the bed. It’s not the first time Wout has taken a rainbow jersey off Mathieu’s body. It’s not even the first time this year. But Mathieu knows how much Wout wanted this one, knows how close Wout has come to getting it in the past. He knows that the edge to their time here will be sharper because of it, something darker and hotter than even their last championship fuck.

But Wout doesn’t try to take the jersey off Mathieu’s body. He just stands there, not quite looming, not quite hovering, just one step away from the bed. His expression has gone dull, blank, devoid of all emotion. It’s as if all the fight has gone out of him, and it’s awful to witness. Wout has always been defined by his scrappiness, by his willingness to drag himself to the finish line with everything he has even if it means sprinting for a meaningless fifth place. Every time they’ve met in the room after all of Mathieu’s previous victories, Wout has always kept that streak of stubborn defiance with him, as if he’s just there to collect ammunition for the next time he comes out on top.

He folds himself onto his knees, onto the thin, cheap, scratchy carpet. He bows his head. Compliant. Submissive. His cock is soft, uninterested between his legs. The sight feels like a splinter lodged in Mathieu’s chest. This is wrong. Everything about this is wrong. He wonders, with a sick twist in his stomach, if Wout is like this in other winner’s rooms. He’s been on enough podiums, and Mathieu refuses to believe that anyone who has ever beaten Wout in a bike race would pass up the chance to have all that raw power underneath their hands and mouth and cock. Was Wout like this for Alaphilippe in 2020? They still seem friendly in the peloton, so maybe it was more like normal sex, something lighthearted and fun. Nothing like what he shares with Mathieu.

Mathieu has no idea why Wout is being like this, but he wants it to stop. He wants it to stop right now. He pushes himself upright, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and grabs a fistful of Wout’s hair, using that leverage to yank Wout’s head back until Wout has to meet his eyes. He’s hoping that the edge of pain will bring some of the fire out of Wout again, but Wout’s expression is still blandly neutral, and his dark brown eyes lack their usual spark. Mathieu hates it.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snarls.

Wout shrugs. “I’m here, aren’t I? Just do what you want.” He doesn’t even have the decency to sound annoyed or impatient anymore.

Mathieu lets go of his hair and slaps him, hard, across the face. It’s not the first time direct violence has happened in the winner’s room between them. Once, after one of their early elite cross races, Wout had said something underhanded about Mathieu’s brother, and when Mathieu had given Wout a shove in retaliation, Wout had shoved him back. That particular incident had ended with rings of handprint bruises around Mathieu’s biceps and scratches deep enough to bleed on Wout’s calves. This time, Wout just takes the blow. A red mark blooms on his cheek. When he straightens his head again, something flashes over his features for just a moment before it gets smoothed away again into an impassive mask. Mathieu wants to claw it back, wants to pull out whatever glimpse he had gotten of the real Wout underneath the polished surfaces.

He slaps Wout again. Backhanded this time. Other cheek. But Wout was ready for it, or at least readier. His head snaps to the side with the force of the blow, but his expression doesn’t change.

Mathieu’s breath has gone short, and his chest has gone tight, and his vision has narrowed, darkening at the edges. This is all Wout’s fucking fault. All he had to do was be normal about this, the way he had been after CX Worlds when he had bitten out curses under his breath as Mathieu bent him over and fucked him into the cheap mattress. Mathieu squeezes his eyes shut, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He focuses on breathing in and out through his nose, trying to bring his heart rate down.

Mathieu could do anything to Wout right now. He could step on Wout’s balls, jam his fingers up Wout’s ass, suck Wout’s cock until he comes down Mathieu’s throat. He could do all the things he’s fantasized about since the spring classics ended. Those are the rules of the winner’s room. But also, Mathieu can’t do anything at all. What’s the point of pushing Wout if Wout won’t push him back?

A large hand cups his face, a new, surprising touch. Mathieu can smell Wout’s familiar post-race scent, some sort of overpowering woodsy cologne to cover up the sweat and grime and other assorted body odors that accumulate after hours and hours of racing on a bike.

Mathieu blinks his eyes open, and he hates that he can feel the telltale prickle of tears behind his eyelids as he does so. Wout is standing up now, standing so very close, and his eyes are still dark and unreadable.

“Don’t you ever get tired of this?” Wout asks.

Mathieu doesn’t know if he means the racing or the winning or the losing or the winner’s room afterwards. Maybe all of the above. Maybe none of that. Mathieu became the World Champion on the road today. He gets to wear the rainbow jersey for a year. He should not feel like there’s a hole being carved out of his chest right now. He shakes his head, because he doesn’t trust his own voice.

They aren’t anything outside of this room. They can’t be, not when every move they make around each other gets scrutinized and picked apart, used as leverage against one or the other. Outside of this room, they can only get away with the most fleeting of touches — a handshake, a pat on the shoulder. But inside this room, Mathieu can sink his fingers into Wout’s hair, and he can feel the press of Wout’s cock into his body, and even with the edge they bring to it, the edge that accompanies everything they do together, it’s a connection, an intimacy that they don’t have to share with anyone else.

Wout leans over, and he presses a kiss to Mathieu’s lips. It’s soft, delicate, the barest of touches. It’s the gentlest kiss they’ve ever shared. Mathieu’s eyes fall closed again as he leans into it, hungry for more. Wout lingers for a long, precious moment, but then he draws back again. Even though the trailer isn’t air-conditioned, Mathieu still feels a chill.

When he opens his eyes, he sees that Wout has stepped back. Wout is pulling on his clothes, but turned away as he is, Mathieu can see the familiar planes of his back and shoulder blades. In another previous winner’s room, Mathieu had bitten his way down Wout’s spine, tasting each vertebra separately. He could tell Wout to come back, to let him do it again, but he knows he won’t.

Wout doesn’t look at him again until he’s put his shoes back on and zipped up his jersey. He looks like he was never here at all. Mathieu almost wishes he could leave dark, vivid hickeys along the column of Wout’s neck, the kind that will last until they both leave Glasgow, but the thought of Wout just sitting there, docile, as Mathieu digs his teeth into his skin makes bile rise up in Mathieu’s throat.

“Next time–” Wout says, because there will be a next time when they will share a podium with Mathieu standing on the top step, “–next time, choose the other guy, okay?” (Pogi had tapped Mathieu for the winner’s room after Flanders, and all they’d done was sit on the bed and eat a smuggled in paper bag full of freshly fried chips while they chatted about how excited they were for the new Zelda game. That was a good memory, much better than this one will be.) Wout’s mouth tips up at the corners, an echo of the sad smile he wore through the podium ceremony. This is the public, plastic, untouchable version of Wout, polite and self-effacing and distant.

Mathieu has no idea what his own face is doing, but he’s just glad the cameras aren’t around to capture it. He can’t bring himself to say anything, to move even a single muscle. He doesn’t like making promises he can’t keep.

Wout pushes his way out of the trailer without so much as another glance in Mathieu’s direction. The door swings shut with a bang, but then it’s quiet again, the silence once again ringing in Mathieu’s ears. Mathieu’s hands flex at his sides, open-closed-open, as empty as they were at the beginning.

Next time — because there will be a next time, because Mathieu knows he won’t be able to stop himself — everything will be different and wrong again. After this, there’s no going back to how they were. But even then, the winner’s room can be a place where Mathieu can watch Wout, share space with him, breathe in his familiar scent, and there won’t be any prying eyes or cameras to interfere. That will be enough. It will have to be. It won’t be anything else.

FIN.