Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Germán pushes Carlos down on the mattress, kissing him slowly, mouth wet and heavy and deliberately unhurried.

Carlos lets him, leaning up on his elbows and into the touch, giving as much as he can, trying to match his pace. He’s good at this, good at the push and pull, and Germán’s not bad, either. A little slow, sometimes, but it’s not like they’re in any rush.

They’re in Carlos’ room, in his family’s home in Murcia, because Carlos needed to rest after the exhaustion of all the excitement that Paris had brought with it, strictly prohibited from doing anything even remotely tennis-related by Juan Carlos, at least for a week. Consequently, he was home, relaxing, trying to take it easy and enjoy his time off.

And that included this thing, with Germán.

Which is new, although sort of a long time coming: they’ve danced around it for a while, a relationship that’s been building for years. They had always been particularly close, and there had always been a kind of mutual attraction that came along with it, something that manifested into a will-they-won’t-they situation that all of their friends liked to make fun of, but nothing had actually happened between them, even though Carlos was pretty sure that Germán was just waiting for Carlos to give him the go-ahead.

But Carlos had never really wanted to. Germán was one of his closest friends, now, and he liked him, enough to bask in his attention and entertain the thought whenever they hung out when he was back home, but, well. There was Jannik. 

Carlos’ rival, barely Carlos’ friend, and yet Carlos had never wanted anything so badly before. Jannik was the greatest tennis player in the world and every time they faced each other it was like they were creating something different, pushing each other harder. From a tennis perspective, Carlos has been chasing that kind of relationship ever since he started playing.

And then, outside of tennis — although the tennis was always there, an unavoidable fixture in all of Carlos' relationships — there was everything else. Jannik was tall and strong, serious at some times and playful at others, and when he smiled and laughed it lit up his whole face. He was gentle, and humble to a fault, and he brought out something in Carlos that no one has ever and probably will ever be able to bring out again.

So, well, Carlos had been a little preoccupied. A little infatuated, a little obsessed, pulling Jannik closer and closer whenever he could, so obviously lovesick it was practically bursting out of him. 

But Jannik had made it clear, after Roland-Garros, that what Carlos wanted was not also what Jannik wanted. They were different, Jannik had said, and the relationship they had developed, the one that hadn’t even lasted a month, from Rome to Paris, secret hookups splashed across several countries, wasn’t good for either of them, or their careers. 

Which was fine. Sure, Carlos had finally gotten a taste of the one thing he’s always wanted, just for it to be ripped out of his hands, but he was an adult, okay, and so he could handle rejection. Jannik didn’t want him? Well, there were a lot of guys who did. 

Germán is saying something, and Carlos had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed that they were no longer kissing.

“What?” He asks, dazed, blinking up at Germán. 

“I don’t know,” Germán says, smiling, like he’s amused. “You’re the one that stopped.”

“Oh,” Carlos says, smiling back bashfully, heat crawling up his neck. “Sorry.”

Germán shakes his head, like, no big deal. “What are you thinking about?” 

Carlos sees Jannik’s face branded in his mind, his smile and his curls and the way his eyes would get dark when he watched Carlos take his shirt off, like he wanted to touch but he wouldn’t let himself, not until Carlos crawled over and touched him first; but saying he had been thinking about Jannik when he was just in the middle of making out with Germán sounded really bad. Not just sounded: it was bad.

“Tennis,” he says instead, which is technically true, anyway. When he thought about Jannik he thought about tennis, and when he thought about tennis he thought about Jannik. They were the same.

It makes Germán laugh. “Of course. Always tennis.” He says, and his hand, which had been resting on Carlos’ shoulder, starts to move down his chest. “You need to learn how to relax, mi amore. Tennis is not life.”

The words push a swirl of annoyance in Carlos' stomach. Germán should know that that was not true. He thinks, bitterly and a little unfairly: Jannik would never say that.

But he bites it down and leans up to kiss Germán on the mouth, just to move things along. “I know,” he lies, tilting his head to the side and deepening their kiss. 

“It’s okay,” Germán says, pulling back, hand moving to hold his jaw. “Let me help you.”

Which is the whole point, anyway. At first, Carlos had just been lonely and sad and frustrated with Jannik, and so he had run straight into the arms of someone he knew could provide him with what he needed. At first, that was all that this was: he just wanted to be wanted.

And then, one time, when Germán was kissing his neck and calling him beautiful and laying him on his back and fucking him slowly and none of it was enough to get Carlos off, he closed his eyes, and, in a state of hazy, wanton disorientation, imagined that it was Jannik instead of Germán, Jannik’s hands holding onto his thighs, Jannik’s dick inside of him, Jannik wanting him, and he came so hard it felt like his orgasm had been punched out of him.

The first time, he felt guilty. Germán finished and pulled Carlos up into a kiss and Carlos felt like he was lagging behind, so out of sorts. He hadn’t meant to imagine Jannik, and he definitely hadn’t meant to come because of it. It had just happened, on its own.

And then it kept happening, over and over, and Carlos stopped trying to fight it. He started to need it. He pounced on Germán whenever they were alone in a room together, desperate to act out the memories in his head, to have Jannik, even like this. Anything to get as close to the real thing as possible. 

Germán pushes in and Carlos groans, hiding his face in the crook of his arm. Germán is different from Jannik, of course — he’s broader, his limbs are less gangly — but Carlos has gotten good at getting what he needs, at finding parts of Jannik everywhere. 

“That’s it, cariño,” Germán says, when they’ve been at it for a little while. Carlos is close, and the pet name sends a jolt of pleasure right to his chest. 

He thinks about Jannik, who, near the end of their “relationship,” had called Carlos puppy once, when Carlos’ knees were on the carpeted floor of a hotel room, with Jannik’s cock in his mouth, voice quiet and mumbled, like it had accidentally slipped out, like he hadn’t meant for Carlos to hear it. No one had ever called Carlos puppy before, and he had reacted the same way anyone would’ve if Jannik had called them that: by pushing his palm down on his cock and coming in his shorts.

“Call me puppy,” Carlos says, startling even himself, voice broken and high. 

He’s still hiding in the crevice of his arm, so he can’t see Germán’s reaction to the request. But his movements falter, like he’s processing the fact that Carlos is asking for something like that, something he had never asked for before, something gross and pathetic and depraved.

“Please,” Carlos asks, when Germán still doesn’t say anything. His face is burning red underneath his arm, clipped images of Jannik floating around his head. “I’m so close, please, I need—”

“Okay, sì, nice puppy.” Germán says, and it sort of stumbles out of him, unnatural and wrong. But it’s enough for Carlos to moan, to remember when he had leapt up from the ground after Jannik came in his mouth, kissing him hard, tripping over himself and begging him to say it again.

Germán keeps going, gaining confidence (“You like it? You feel good?”), but the words are muffled and faraway, and the Jannik inside of Carlos’ head is smiling and petting his hair and handling him like he’s dumb and useless, a thing to be taken care of, to love and spoil. 

Carlos comes, Jannik bright in his head, and Germán comes soon after. And that’s that. 

When Germán pulls out and gets up from the bed, Carlos stays on his back, taking his head out of his arms, blinking up at the ceiling while he catches his breath. He feels— empty. And lonely.

—

“Carlos,” Jannik says, and his tone is so sharp that the swell of happiness that’s been building inside of Carlos ever since the last point of the Roland-Garros final deflates immediately. “I can’t do this anymore.”

It’s the beginning of the end. The words sit in the air, so heavy that Carlos stops in place, standing in front of Jannik, who was sitting on his hotel bed. 

Carlos has trouble understanding. “You—?”

Jannik looks down at his lap, and then up at the ceiling, and then, finally, at Carlos, eyes filled with emotions that aren’t usually there. “I mean, this is bad for us, no? We can’t— how can we do both?”

He doesn’t elaborate on what “both” means, but Carlos understands now: it’s tennis and it’s this, whatever this thing between them is.

“It does not have to be complicated.” Carlos says, because it doesn’t. Because to him it’s not. They’re rivals, yes, and at such a high level, it’s not normal to be so, well, friendly, with one another, but that was part of the fun, wasn’t it? Part of the reason they were drawn to each other in the first place?

Jannik shakes his head, looking at Carlos from his spot on the bed, eyes icy. “Yes, well, it’s easy for you to say. You haven’t lost yet.” 

The feeling of falling down onto the clay in both joy and exhaustion resurfaces. With it, he thinks about Jannik’s face as he had waited for the cheers to die down before starting his speech, the guarded sadness in his eyes. It’s easier to play than talking now, he had said.

“I’ve lost to you before.” Carlos counters, hearing the way it falls flat. “And I’ll lose to you again. We both will.”

“I can’t—” Jannik stops himself, shaking his head at the wall beside him. “You do not understand. I can’t look at you without wanting to be sick.”

Which is, Carlos would say, the worst thing that anyone’s ever said to him, in his whole life. From Jannik, no less, it feels almost like being kicked in the stomach, like being a pet left in the streets by an owner that was supposed to love them.

“That's not fair.” Carlos says, rattled. “What, I should’ve just leaned over and let you win, without a fight?”

“Of course not.” Jannik says, like the idea of Carlos thinking that was offensive.

“Then I don’t understand.” Carlos says, frustrated, because he really, truly does not. “We both knew— we both know that this is how it goes, that one of us has to win. It doesn’t mean we can’t—”

“Doesn’t it?” Jannik interrupts, before Carlos can even make his point.

“But if we try, can’t we—”

“Maybe you can.” Jannik says, voice tired. Just like his eyes, like they had been during his speech, looking at Carlos with resignation. “But we’re different, Carlos. I can’t.”

And that’s that.

The next morning, after what should’ve been one of the greatest nights of Carlos’ life, Carlos pushes himself out of bed, groggy and sleep-deprived. He looks in the mirror, seeing a tear-stained reflection of himself looking back. He feels like the opposite of someone who just won a Grand Slam. He feels pathetic. 

He looks at himself, and all he can think about are Jannik’s words, permanently etched into his mind: I can’t look at you without wanting to be sick.

— 

For once, Carlos and Germán are hanging out at Germán’s apartment instead of Carlos’ house.

It’s just as nice, maybe nicer, because Germán’s bedroom is bigger than Carlos’ childhood one, so there’s more room to move around, and a bigger bed to sprawl out in. 

Which is how they are now, laying together, Carlos’ head resting on Germán’s chest. It’s deep into the afternoon and too late for a nap, but Carlos is two seconds away from falling asleep. He had practiced all day today, finally getting back into the swing of things, and it had drained him of all his energy, making him a sluggish, drowsy pile of limbs.

Germán shifts around in the bed, like he’s reaching for something. Carlos lets out a small breath of air, nuzzling his head into Germán’s chest, pretending it’s Jannik’s. There was only one time that they got to spend the night together, but it was a memory that Carlos came back to often, hazy feelings of Jannik’s hands carding through his hair, warmth radiating from his touch.

He’s beginning to drift off when the sound of a camera clicking jolts him awake, eyes blinking open, seeing his phone held up in the air.

“Sorry,” Germán apologizes sheepishly, moving Carlos’ phone away from them, holding it back in front of him and looking at the screen. “You looked so cute, I couldn’t help myself. See?”

He turns the phone towards Carlos so that Carlos can see himself: only half of his face is visible, the other half being smushed into Germán’s chest, and he looks fast asleep, curled up in Germán’s arms, whose face is cropped in the corner, smiling.

Carlos smiles back. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

“Can I post it?” Germán asks, flipping the phone back towards him and tapping his fingers on the screen. “Your private story?”

Carlos shrugs dismissively, like, go for it, already starting to close his eyes, trying to pick up where he left off. The only people that were in his private story were close friends and family, all those that knew already about him and Germán — or, at least had their suspicions.

And Jannik.

The thought makes his eyes open, momentarily frozen. He had added Jannik to his close friends story after they had fucked the first time, happy and lovesick and feeling like their relationship would only keep growing stronger, wanting Jannik to be in as much of his life as possible.

Which meant that Jannik would see Carlos curled up in Germán's arms. That was, if he was logged into his Instagram — most of the time, he had other people posting for him, so there was a chance he wouldn’t see it at all. The thought disappoints Carlos in a way he doesn't want to dwell on.

Germán starts to move around on the bed again, and this time he starts to detangle himself from Carlos, who blinks up at him in confusion.

“I’m going to start making us dinner.” Germán says, placing his hand on top of Carlos’ hair and scratching it affectionately. “Get some rest. I will come wake you when it’s ready.”

“I can help.” Carlos offers, although he’s already replaced Germán’s chest with a pillow, burrowing his head into the softness.

It makes Germán raise his eyebrows, amused, throwing Carlos’ phone down onto the mattress. “Funny.” He says, leaving Carlos and walking towards the door.

And then he’s gone, and there’s nothing to focus on other than the sleepiness that’s making Carlos’ eyelids feel heavy. He finally gives into it, closing his eyes and letting the haze of the evening send him to sleep.

Some amount of time passes; Carlos doesn’t know how much, blinking his eyes open to a room that’s much darker than it had been when he had fallen asleep. There’s no more golden light, replaced by dark sky streaming in through the window. 

Carlos is disoriented, mind still thick with sleep. It takes a moment for him to remember where he is — in Germán’s bed, at Germán’s apartment — and also that Germán was in the kitchen, making them dinner. There’s light bleeding in from the hallway, and the sound of a radio playing.

He reaches around the bed, blindly fumbling for his phone, wanting to know the time. Surely he didn’t sleep for more than an hour. Germán would’ve woken him by now.

When he finds it, hidden in the sheets, he pulls it in front of his face and squints at the screen, not expecting how bright it is in the dark room. His eyes adjust, and before he can even check the time, he sees a notification that’s waiting for him: a text message from Jannik.

Suddenly wide awake, he sits up on the mattress, holding his phone faced down in his lap, looking at the wall. They haven’t texted since Roland-Garros. Carlos can still see the last messages they exchanged in his head. An Are you awake? from Carlos. A short Yes, from Jannik, and his hotel room number. 

Taking a breath, trying to calm his nerves, he peeks down at his phone, quickly reading the message, eyes hungry:

You and Germán are together?

It's only five words, but Carlos feels a rush of joy, overwhelmed by how powerful it is. Jannik had seen the picture. Jannik had reached out to Carlos about the picture.

Carlos immediately unlocks his phone and pulls up his message. He bites down on his lip, considering what to send, how to dance along the line without actually crossing it.

Jealous? 😵‍💫

Jannik had sent the original message over twenty minutes ago, but now, after ten seconds, or so, a typing bubble shows up on his half of the screen. Carlos feels himself grin, big and stupid.

Just confused, I guess
I thought you were only friends

Of course, Jannik doesn’t give him anything to work with. He never wants to play along — Carlos always has to drag him there himself.

But before he can even try, the typing bubble shows back up, and another handful of seconds pass before a third message reveals itself.

You told me you didn’t feel for him that way

Carlos remembers that: when they had first had sex, the night of the Rome final, and Carlos hadn’t been able to tell which made him happier: winning the whole event or being in Jannik’s hotel bed afterwards, Jannik’s hands turning Carlos onto his stomach and pushing him face down into the pillows, oblivious to the wide grin on Carlos’ face, hidden away. 

And then the morning came, and there was a whole other joy in that, in waking up in Jannik’s arms, in getting a glimpse of this rare, domestic side of him. Half-asleep, pulling Carlos closer, letting Carlos kiss him and complain about this — about how Germán had flown to Italy to see him and they were friends so it was okay but Carlos knew he always wanted to be more, it was just that Carlos didn’t know how to say no to him — and Jannik had laughed and kissed his forehead and told him he was too nice for his own good.

He's nice to me
He cares about me

It sounds pathetic and defensive, and it is, but Carlos doesn’t have any other reasoning. He can’t say, You’re right, I don’t, I’m just pretending that he’s you, because that would be more pathetic. The kind of pathetic you can’t come back from.

I’m happy for you

Carlos stares at the words, furrowing his eyebrows down at his phone. He feels frustrated, with Jannik and with himself. Had he really expected Jannik to be jealous? Jannik? Mierda. He was a bigger idiot than he thought.

He leaves the text on read and flops back down in the bed. In Germán’s bed, the bed of someone that actually liked him, someone that didn’t think tennis was life, someone that knew how to treat him like a person that deserved respect. Someone that wasn't just nice to him in front of cameras, but in real life, too. Carlos closes his eyes, thinking.

An image of Jannik hitting a particularly impressive backhand bleeds into his head, and he whimpers out loud, alone in the dark, chest aching.

—

Carlos doesn’t see Jannik until Wimbledon, until he’s at a sponsored event that all the big players are attending, outside in the lawn of some fancy hotel, decorated with a stone patio and strings of bright lights hanging up all over and champagne that’s served in tall skinny glasses on trays by waiters in sharp black suits.

It’s all a little too fancy for Carlos’ taste, feeling awkward and sweaty in his own nice suit, but he’s so preoccupied with Jannik — who was on the other side of the patio, leaning his weight on one of the nice white tables littered around the venue, talking with that boy he’s started to bring around everywhere (Nico, Carlos thinks) — that he stops noticing the stuffy feeling of the event, and also his suit, entirely, transfixed by his presence.

“You should just go over and talk to him.” Germán says, from where he’s standing, opposite of Carlos.

“Huh?” Carlos asks, whipping his head away from Jannik and towards Germán, who was looking at Carlos with his eyebrows raised.

He gestures behind Carlos with his head. “Jannik. You’re staring. Why not say hi?”

Carlos feels his face darken, peering over his shoulder one last time, letting himself look at Jannik, who was hiding his smile into a glass of champagne, tipping his head back to drink it.

“I don’t think he wants me to.” Carlos says, as he turns back to face Germán, crossing his arms and leaning them on their table. He looks down, shrugging, feeling embarrassed. “We had— after Paris, he— he said he didn’t want to be friends with me. Too complicated.”

He shrugs, forcing a smile while he looks up at Germán, trying to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. Like he's not still hung up on Jannik, like they never even fucked in the first place, like Jannik was just another tennis player that Carlos wished to be close to, like everyone else on tour.

Germán shakes his head at Carlos’ words, eyeing Jannik over his shoulder, face twisted up in distaste. “Jesus, what a dick.”

Which was probably supposed to make Carlos feel better, but it doesn’t; anger simmers up inside his stomach, replacing the sticky awkward feelings of embarrassment. 

“Well, it’s not easy.” He defends, trying to keep the loyalty he feels for Jannik out of his voice. “He cares deeply about tennis, and we’re rivals, you know, so it’s— he’s being smart, by this. We shouldn’t be close. It’s not good for us.” 

“But you want to.” Germán says, like it’s that simple, grabbing his champagne glass and bringing it to his mouth, raising his eyebrows as he takes a sip.

Carlos takes it as an opportunity to turn back over his shoulder, looking at Jannik for probably the fiftieth time this afternoon. He was faced away from Carlos, peering down at his phone, and Nico was no longer standing with him.

Turning back around, Carlos nods sheepishly.

“Then you should go talk to him.” Germán says, exasperated. “Who cares what he thinks?”

Carlos does. Carlos cares. So much, too much, all the time, even when he shouldn’t, even when he’s the only one that does. It’s why he still hasn’t said anything to him yet. Because Jannik had insisted that they shouldn't be close, that he couldn't even look at Carlos, after Paris. The words still burn underneath Carlos' skin, uncomfortably sharp. If Jannik didn't want to look at him, than Carlos wasn't going to force him to.

“Don’t look now,” Germán says, abruptly catching Carlos’ attention, “but he’s staring at us.”

Carlos immediately turns over his shoulder, barely registering the urgent, “Carlos!” that comes out of Germán’s mouth, too busy looking at Jannik, who was, as Germán had said, peering over his own shoulder, right at Carlos, across the venue. 

Their eyes meet, but only for a second, because Jannik instantly turns forward, back to his phone, looking down at it like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Carlos feels a similar rush of joy that he did when he had woken up to Jannik’s text about his picture with Germán. A flash of hope, a swirl of hunger. 

“I’m going to,” he trails off, still looking at Jannik, before turning back around, “to go talk to him.”

Germán nods, nudging his shoulder affectionately. “Good.” 

He downs the rest of his champagne, wiping at his mouth before nodding confidently and turning around, starting to walk in Jannik’s direction. 

It takes less than ten seconds, and Carlos hasn’t even figured out what he’s actually going to say before he’s there already, stopping at Jannik’s back. 

“Jannik.” He says, and Jannik flinches at the sound, obviously not expecting Carlos’ presence. It makes Carlos cringe. “Sorry.”

Jannik turns to face him, shaking his head. “No, no, it’s okay.” He says, but he looks shaken and uncomfortable, eyes already guarded. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Carlos echoes, feeling awkward, losing all of the momentum he had started with. “How— um, how are you doing?”

He watches Jannik nod down at the ground between them, crossing his arms and leaning against the table to his right. “Good, you know. You?”

Jannik's never been this bad before. Like they really were just begrudging acquaintances, like they didn’t know each other as well as they did. “I’m good.” Carlos says, and then he pauses, remembering what he had first thought when he came out onto the patio and saw Jannik, smiling and talking with a group of people. “It’s nice to see you.”

He can hear his own sincerity. Jannik finally meets his eyes, and Carlos feels pierced by their intensity, no trace of their usual warmth.

“You invited Germán.” He says, pursing his lips, like he has no intention of elaborating.

Carlos blinks, not expecting such a drastic leap in conversation, especially not from Jannik.

“Um,” Carlos says, caught off guard. "You invited Nico."

Jannik scoffs, actually scoffs, although it is more gentle and quiet than a scoff from someone else. He shakes his head, too. “That’s not the same.”

Which only makes Carlos more confused, looking off to the side, both frustrated and exasperated. “It's not?”

Jannik doesn’t answer, and when Carlos turns back to look at him in the following silence, he sees that Jannik is looking off at something behind Carlos.

“Does he know about us?” 

Carlos doesn’t have to turn behind him to know Jannik was looking at Germán. It makes something warm and hot flicker in his chest, temporarily satiated. “What would I tell him?” He asks, trying to bite back, trying not to give in so easily. “That we had sex four times?”

The words make Jannik look back down at him, eyebrows raised, a smile at the edge of his lips. “You counted?”

Carlos flushes, but he refuses to back down. “I mean, four times is not a lot.”

“Yes,” Jannik agrees, and Carlos watches him sip on his drink. “Not a lot.”

Silence settles over them. Carlos burns, not sure what to say, thoughts muddled in his head. What he really wants is for Jannik to talk, for Jannik to say how he feels, for him to be honest, just once. Carlos doesn’t want to have to guess all the time.

But Jannik won’t. Carlos has to go first, considering the best words to choose.

“Do you ever think about it?” 

He watches Jannik’s face, waiting for it to change, to indicate any kind of emotion whatsoever. He wants to know that Jannik hasn't just forgotten about him, that at least sometimes, he remembered what it was like, sharing the memories that Carlos was burdened with. But his face stays the same, still closed off; he raises his head, clearing his throat at the sky, and then his gaze falls back down to Carlos, and, finally, he nods.

“Yes.” Jannik says. Again, he doesn’t offer any further explanation, but it makes Carlos’ heart swell anyway. “You do, also?”

Carlos nods, heart on his sleeve and also splashed across his face, all for Jannik to see. “Always.” 

It’s too revealing, too honest, especially the way that Carlos says it, voice soft at the edges, like it’s a love confession. He wonders if Jannik can tell, if Jannik understood how much he meant it when he said always: when he wakes and when he goes to sleep, when he thinks about tennis and doesn’t think about tennis. With Germán, without him.

Jannik’s eyes are dark, and Carlos watches them fall down to his mouth, barely, only holding for a second, before they’re climbing back to his eyes.

Carlos feels his face heat up at the implication, at the memories that must've just flashed through his head. They continue to stare at each other, and then Jannik is lifting his eyebrows, like he's asking a question, like looking at Carlos' mouth is Jannik's way of saying how he feels. The realization hits, and Carlos is nodding before he even knows what it is exactly that he’s agreeing to.

And then, a flash, and Jannik is pushing him down onto the mattress of a hotel room bed, inside the same hotel they had just been standing outside of, kissing him hard and fast, bruising and forceful.

“Janni,” Carlos whines, kissing him back, mouth open and wet and hungry, wanting to taste as much of him as possible. “Janni—”

“It’s okay?” Jannik asks, like he wants to check in, like he doesn’t want to cross a line, already in the process of shrugging off his jacket. “Germán—?”

Carlos interrupts whatever Jannik was going to ask by leaning up on his palms and kissing him hard on the mouth. Why would Carlos want to talk about Germán when Jannik was here?

He feels Jannik smile into his mouth. “I thought you liked him. I thought he was nice to you.”

His own words burn back into Carlos’ skin, leaving him pink and embarrassed, just like Jannik intends for them to do. That’s why Jannik is bringing it up, to make fun of Carlos, to laugh at how easy it was to make him fold in on himself, but, Jesus, Carlos likes it — the blossom of warmth that unfolds in his stomach, the dizzy heat of shame spreading out over his skin. 

“He is.” Carlos huffs, trying to pout, despite the way his whole face is glowing. “He called you a dick.”

Jannik just hums, unaffected. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Carlos agrees, watching Jannik with sparkling eyes. “He fucked me good, too.”

Jannik’s expression doesn’t really change, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head to the side. Carlos can’t tell what he’s thinking, and usually it would bother him, but now it mostly just makes him breathless, and definitely hard, watching Jannik come face-to-face with the idea of someone else fucking him, someone else taking his spot, someone else doing it well.

“That’s why you followed me here?” Jannik asks, sounding unimpressed, face held above Carlos’. “Because he takes care of you?” 

Carlos lets Jannik kiss him, forcing him back down on the bed, head hitting the pillow. It satiates all of Carlos’ desire to be disobedient, answering Jannik’s question by lifting his legs and wrapping them up and around Jannik’s waist, wanting friction.

Jannik removes his mouth from Carlos’ and grins down at him, incredibly smug, like, I thought so. 

Heat coils in Carlos’ stomach. He was so fucked, for thinking this was hot, for leaving Germán out by himself the moment he thought Jannik might actually want him again. He should've felt guilty, but he didn’t at all; he felt so fucking hard in his briefs that it was hard to think, hard to breathe, hard to feel like any of this was actually bad.

Jannik kisses him again, softer than before, and Carlos melts. He wants this forever, all the time. He should have it all the time. He deserves it.

One of Jannik’s hands falls in the space between them, palming at Carlos’ bulge. Carlos bucks up into the touch, moaning loud and high. 

“Good boy,” Jannik mumbles, and his voice is finally strained, mask cracking. “Feels good?”

He says it at the same time that his hand fumbles underneath Carlos’ briefs, fingers wrapping around Carlos’ cock, moving up and down, and it feels so good that Carlos can’t force out any kind of reply, can’t even continue to kiss Jannik, head fuzzy.

“Do you want it like this?” Jannik asks, looking down at Carlos like he was too stupid to come up with the words to ask it himself, still pumping his hand, “or do you want me inside, instead?”

This was going to be over so, so fast.

“Inside, inside,” Carlos manages out, guided by Jannik to find the words, “Jannik, please—”

When Jannik first pushes in, Carlos almost starts crying. It feels so good, so much better than any warped make-believe version Carlos retreated to when he was with Germán. Jannik is real and big and he fucks Carlos like he needs to, like there was something inside of him, some itch that Carlos made worse just by his existence, that he could only scratch by taking it out on Carlos. All of the self-restraint he naturally had, especially when it came to Carlos, was gone.

Carlos has the urge to close his eyes, to sit inside the hazy feeling of being so full, of Jannik pushing in and out — but he can’t, because he needs to see with his own two eyes that this was all real, that it was actually Jannik, tilting his head up to watch.

The curls at the back of Jannik’s neck stick to his skin, leftover sweat from when they were standing out in the sun, and he’s looking down at where his hips were flush with Carlos, face still somehow stoic despite literally being inside of Carlos.

It’s frustrating and hot and Carlos gets the most random, dizzying compulsion to play tennis, of all things, to grab Jannik and force him in front of a big crowd for five sets, to push his limit and break his serve and put them back on even ground, just so he could have some sort of advantage again.

Jannik’s eyes lift to Carlos’, and Carlos realizes he had been caught staring too late, because Jannik gets one of those smirks on his face — it’s like the winks all over again, who taught him that? 

“Jesus,” Carlos mutters, still watching Jannik, unable to take his eyes away. “Fuck.”

Jannik’s movements turn slow and deliberate, each thrust pushing another whimper out of Carlos. “You missed this?” He asks, still smiling, although his breathing is shallow. “You thought about it?”

Carlos nods enthusiastically. “Every time, the only way I come, Janni, I had to, I had to pretend—”

He’s cut off because Jannik pushes in particularly deep and every sound dies in his throat. His head is full of haze and he’s so full — dios mío, he’s so full — that he has to shut his eyes just to hold on to his composure, just to not come already, which means he’s startled when he feels Jannik’s mouth on his, holding onto the back of his neck to bring him closer and kiss him easier.

“Good,” Jannik says, nipping at Carlos’ mouth, swallowing his sounds. “Good puppy, Carlos. My puppy, right?” 

Loyalty bleeds inside of him, big and bright and important. He needs a collar, or a leash, anything that had Jannik’s name on it, to show that Carlos belonged to him, that they were intertwined with one another and no one, not even Germán, could stake their claim on Carlos, because Jannik had gotten there first, name wrapped tight around Carlos’ neck.

“Janni,” he whines, because he’s about to come, warmth licking up the sides of his stomach. Jannik understands, continuing to fuck and kiss him all at the same time, dropping his hand and wrapping it around Carlos’ cock, pumping like he had before.

Carlos comes immediately, with a broken moan tunneled right into Jannik’s mouth. He arches up off of the bed and into Jannik’s hand, chasing as much of the heat as he can, letting the pleasure swim inside his head and leave him sticky and blissful, pliant and warm and fucked out.

“Carlos,” Jannik groans, voice coarse and rough, and he pushes into Carlos a few more times before he’s coming, with a muffled moan that Carlos only hears because they’re still connected together, the kind of sound Carlos has been hearing in his dreams.

When Jannik pulls out, instead of getting up and cleaning them up, he collapses onto the mattress next to Carlos, face down, breathing heavily. 

Given the opportunity, Carlos lets himself look at him. He’s so close, face flushed and mouth parted open and eyes closed; it’s so intimate that Carlos feels opened up all over again. He’s still catching his breath, still recovering, but he’s also glowing from the inside out, so euphorically happy that it was almost overwhelming. There was a smile on his face that he couldn’t control.

“That was not smart.” 

It’s the first thing that Jannik says, after thirty seconds of quiet. A month ago, maybe, the words would have made Carlos deflate. Now, they just roll over him, more funny than anything else.

“Sex is not smart?” Carlos jokes, watching Jannik open his eyes and stare at him in amusement.

“Not for us.” Jannik mumbles, turning on his side, so that he was facing Carlos, and now Carlos can see that he’s sort of smiling, small and hidden.

“Do you think he’s looking for you?” Jannik asks, and Carlos isn’t sure if he’s purposefully choosing not to say his name, but he shrugs anyway, biting down on his lip — he had no clue — and then, like Germán could hear them, somehow, Carlos’ phone starts vibrating on the bed to their right. 

Carlos’ eyes widen at Jannik, reaching over to pick it up and turning it over to see Germán’s name at the top of the screen. 

“Should I answer it?” Carlos asks, looking at Jannik, who just shrugs back unhelpfully.

“It’d be suspicious if you didn’t, no?” He adds.

Carlos stares down at his phone, guilt in his chest, and then, before he can think too much, he slides his finger across the phone screen and clicks on the speakerphone button, so Jannik could hear, too, holding it in front of them. “Hello?” 

“Carlos!” Germán exclaims, so loud that Carlos flinches. “Where did you go? I looked over and both you and Jannik had disappeared.” 

For some reason, Carlos looks over at Jannik, like he was going to be any help — if anything, Jannik looks pleased, still smiling, eyes on Carlos.

“Sorry, I should have—” Carlos doesn’t even know what to say. He’s never been a good liar, because everything was always very clearly written on his face. “We wanted to, to talk, you know, but there were too many people around, so we left.”

Jannik brings his hand to the top of Carlos’ head, pushing his fingers through the tufts of hair at his forehead, almost absentmindedly. A casual display of domesticity, another parade of ownership. Carlos feels his heart jump around in his chest, watching Jannik, who was looking up at Carlos’ hair.

“You left?” Germán asks. “Where?”

“Uh,” Carlos says, eloquently. “Just, around.”

It makes Jannik smile, big and toothy, turning his head and burying it in Carlos’ shoulder.

“Are you— are you almost finished? Should I wait here or just meet you at the hotel, and we leave for dinner from there?”

“Uh,” Carlos says again, but this time it’s because Jannik has started to press kisses on his shoulder, slowly trailing upwards, into his neck. “We, I think we meet at the hotel, sì?”

Jannik mouths at Carlos’ skin, leaving patches of wetness along the expanse of his neck. It sends little shocks of electricity right to the bottom of Carlos’ stomach, cock stirring.

Stop, Carlos tells himself, squeezing his eyes shut, swallowing thickly. Think of something else. Think of tennis— nope, no, definitely not, think of Germán, your close friend, standing by himself while Jannik corners you in a hotel room and slips his knee in between your thighs and gets you off and— yeah, okay, this wasn’t working.

“Sì, sì,” Germán says, at the same time that Jannik grazes his teeth over Carlos’ skin — fuck — “So I’ll see you then—?”

“Sì, yes, bye,” Carlos interrupts, ending the call and throwing his phone back to the side so that he could pull on Jannik’s hair and bring his mouth up to his own, kissing him as hard as he can.

“You’re so mean,” he mutters, when Jannik laughs into his mouth. And he means it, more than just right now — Jannik gives just to take away, he hides the way he feels and doesn't act on the jealousy that's so clearly there, making Carlos look like an idiot for wanting anything, for putting up with his shit, for being too desperate to stay away. It's all so mean.

Jannik doesn’t say anything, he just keeps licking into Carlos’ mouth, holding onto his jaw. Another surge of heat settles into Carlos’ stomach, instantly tamed. 

He likes it, anyway. Jannik is mean, but at least he’s mean to Carlos, and not someone else.

Chapter Text

Jannik wins Wimbledon.

It’s not his first Grand Slam, but it’s already his favorite, as soon as it happens. He knows why: it’s retribution for Roland-Garros, a loss he still felt underneath everything else, a bruise that never healed. And it’s against Carlos. He finally beats him, taking away his defending title.

He celebrates more than he usually does, drinking every glass of champagne passed his way, already tipsy before he climbs into the car that brings him to the Champions Dinner. The bruise gets replaced with a pleasant buzz of warmth, sitting at the center of his chest and spreading everywhere else as the night continues on, as everyone around him celebrates, too. All of the pressure he feels from tennis is temporarily gone.

Around one in the morning, he texts Carlos — which is how he knows he’s drunk. Sober Jannik is disciplined in control and practiced in self-restraint. Well, mostly.

Hey, awake?

Jannik keeps his phone out for five minutes, frowning when it continues to go unread. Surely Carlos was not asleep already, not this early, not after a Grand Slam loss. It always took Jannik several hours. 

But if he was awake, he would text back, no?

He does something kind of stupid — he checks. After the sponsorship event encounter, when they had been laying in that random hotel room bed together, flushed and too casually cuddled together, they had both sent each other their hotel addresses and room numbers. Just in case.

Jannik is standing in front of Carlos’ hotel room door before he knows it, before he can sober up and gain back the ability to be rational. He knocks, gently.

It takes a minute, but the door swings open, revealing Carlos on the other side. He’s wearing a big, oversized T-shirt and a pair of Nike shorts, and his dark hair is all ruffled and messy, just like how Jannik’s gets when he sleeps on his. Cute, Jannik thinks, eyes wandering. 

“Janni?” Carlos asks, voice thick with both tiredness and confusion. He turns over his shoulder, like he’s checking on something, before looking back at Jannik. “What are you doing here?”

Jannik only then takes in everything behind him. There’s a lamp on in the corner, dimly lighting up the room, and Jannik can hear quiet sounds coming from the TV in the background, screen lighting up the foot of the bed.

“I wanted to see you.” Jannik says, and usually he would undercut the confession with nonchalance, looking down at the ground while he shrugs — but the alcohol weaves through his blood, allowing him to stare at Carlos, and for some reason, the surprised expression on his face makes Jannik want to laugh. So he grins.

Which only seems to throw Carlos further off balance. “Uh,” he says, swallowing, looking like something in his brain had short-circuited. He seems to contemplate a decision. “Wait, one second.”

And then he turns over his shoulder again, raising his voice to say something in Spanish. He gets a sound of affirmation in response, and before Jannik can start to translate what any of it means, Carlos is stepping out into the hallway and letting the door shut behind him. 

“Who—?” 

“Germán, is, uh, staying the night.” Carlos interrupts, a bashful look on his face, hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “Just to— to distract me, you know, from losing.” A beat. “We’re watching Rocky.”

Jannik feels something sharp and unpleasant mix in his stomach, sneaking around the bones of his ribcage. He looks at the now closed door, imagining Germán behind it, imagining how he had been trying to make Carlos forget about the loss. The sweet, doting boyfriend.

He frowns. “Oh.”

Carlos’ gaze turns heavy and unfocused, looking at Jannik, down at his mouth. “You wanted to see me?”

Which is enough to make Jannik forget about it, turning his focus back on Carlos. There’s awe inside of his voice, cushioned with softness, reading in between the lines.

“I didn’t expect Germán to be here.” Jannik says. 

The reminder makes Carlos lose some of the haze in his eyes. He shrugs flippantly, forcing nonchalance. Jannik is so well-versed in it himself that he can easily pick up on it from Carlos. “I thought you would be celebrating.”  

Jannik smiles at that, just a little. He is, no? 

Carlos seems to already catch on. Jannik takes a step forward, crowding into Carlos’ space, and it sends Carlos backwards, barely startling when his back hits the door, eyes climbing up Jannik’s face, lidded and expectant.

Jannik leans down to kiss him, hands holding onto his jaw. Carlos instantly kisses him back, pushing up from the door and into Jannik, enthusiasm palpable. 

The jealousy inside of Jannik satiates. He tilts his head and kisses Carlos harder, forcing him back against the door with a soft thud that rattles in the hallway. 

Carlos makes his own sound, tiny and restrained, which sends another spark of heat to Jannik’s stomach. Carlos was always easy, always desperate. Even now, after he had lost, after Jannik had been the one to beat him.

He drops his hand to the front of Carlos’ shorts, palming over his bulge. Carlos was already half-hard, twitching at the solid weight of Jannik’s hand, and it’s like Jannik had won Wimbledon all over again, holding the trophy over his head, finally owning it. His trophy, his puppy.

“Jannik,” Carlos mumbles, “we can’t.”

Jannik pulls back just enough to look at Carlos. He’s already breathing heavily, chest rising and falling, and his eyes are big and expressive, almost shining.

“No?” He asks, “you want me to stop?”

He starts to pull his hand away, but Carlos grabs hold of it before it moves too far, pulling it back. It’s the reliable and familiar obedience that makes heat twist in Jannik’s chest, big and all-consuming. He grins, thinking about Germán being so close, just inside the room.

Carlos looks pained, eyebrows furrowed and his mouth twisted up in a pout. But he doesn’t stop Jannik when he moves his hand up to the top of Carlos’ shorts, pushing his fingers underneath the waistband.

Instead, he whimpers. “Hurry,” he adds, bringing his hand up to hold onto Jannik’s shoulder. “Please.”

Jannik nods, shoving his hand down clumsy and fast, wrapping it around Carlos’ dick. The contact produces another broken, muffled sound to escape from Carlos’ mouth, head dipping down onto Jannik’s shoulder.

He chooses to be benevolent, moving his hand up and down quickly. Not only was Germán just one door away, but they were technically in public, even though the top floor of the hotel was most likely to stay abandoned at such a late hour. Besides, Jannik was hungry, chasing every small noise from Carlos, savoring the feeling of him buried in his neck, warm and soft and his.

It doesn’t take long; Carlos comes right after Jannik places a kiss near the bottom of his neck, right next to his collarbone, moan muffled by Jannik’s clothes. 

Jannik removes his hand, now sticky and wet, and looks up at Carlos, who’s back to leaning his body against the door, big eyes staring up at Jannik. 

Carlos is at his most beautiful like this, Jannik thinks. After he comes, when he’s catching his breath and his eyes are both dark and soft, looking at Jannik with so much affection it was pouring out of him. Jannik feels possessive over it, and it hits him all of a sudden that Germán got to see it, too. Some version of it.

He pushes his hand up to Carlos’ mouth without saying anything. He’s still sort of drunk, but the alcohol makes the jealousy easier to bear, a thought outshined by the way Carlos glances down at the two fingers now sitting against his bottom lip. Jannik watches Carlos look back up at him, a smile in his eyes, before he takes Jannik’s fingers in his mouth, licking his own cum off of them.

Satisfaction churns underneath his skin. He forces his fingers deeper, moving them forward and back. Carlos’ eyes are still on him, and he looks just as pleased as Jannik feels. He probably is. Probably even more.

Which is underscored by the way he starts to move his hands to grab at Jannik’s pants, fumbling with the belt, still with Jannik’s fingers in his mouth. 

Jannik decides to help him out, removing his fingers and bringing both of his hands down to his belt, unbuckling it before unbuttoning his pants. As soon as he does, Carlos shoves his hand underneath his boxers, punching a quiet moan out of Jannik when he grabs onto his dick.

Jannik doesn’t last any longer than Carlos. For him, at least, he can blame it on the champagne bubbling inside his system, mixed in with his win, and also the image of Carlos going back to Germán with his shorts damp and stained, tangible evidence of what they did, proof of Jannik’s ownership and Carlos’ enthusiasm. 

He slumps over Carlos when he finishes, groaning into his shoulder. Carlos takes his hand off and Jannik uses his own to prop himself up on the wall, leveraging it to push off of Carlos’ body, standing on his own legs.

“Well,” Carlos says, after a long silence, in which Carlos had been staring at Jannik and Jannik’s head had been too dazed to figure out what to say. “Good night.”

And then he grabs the key to his hotel room, out of his pocket, turning around and unlocking the door. He peers over his shoulder, nodding stiltedly in Jannik’s direction, and then he slips inside, door closing behind him.

Jannik is left abruptly alone, stranded by himself in the hallway. He stares at the closed door that had just had Carlos leaning against it and clenches his jaw. He’s not sure why he feels so bad. Carlos was allowed to spend the night with his, well, Germán. It didn’t change the fact that Carlos had come out here in the first place, pressed up on the door, letting Jannik have him.

He was still Jannik’s.

The champagne seems to have fizzled out of his system, leaving when Carlos did. He can hear the muffled sound of their voices, talking inside the room, but they’re not loud enough to distinguish. 

—

He goes back to Monte Carlo after Wimbledon and allows himself some days for recovery. During that time, and in the week that follows, he doesn’t hear from Carlos once.

Not that Jannik is paying attention, or anything; it was just sort of strange, only because, ever since Jannik had come back from his suspension (except for the small blip after Roland-Garros, where things were sort of, definitely tense between them), Carlos has reliably texted him at least a few times a month. Checking in, congratulating him on wins, or sending posts about the two of them online, captioned with strings of laughing emojis.

Jannik tries not to dwell on how bothered he is by the silence. He reminds himself, it’s better like this, to have space, and usually that would be enough for him to put his feelings to rest and move on, but it no longer is.  

Which is frustrating, because Jannik preferred the dull ache of repression over the uncomfortable rot that was beginning to grow roots in his chest. It wasn’t like him, to not be able to control it, to not be able to choose. 

The difference now is, Jannik had never considered the implications of what it would mean to share Carlos with someone else, because he had never had to. Carlos was always his, only his, in tennis, and clearly out of tennis, too. He thought it would stay this way for some years.

But Jannik was the one who had disrupted it. He was the one who had pushed Carlos away, right towards Germán. 

And it had felt right, at the time, fresh off of the loss. It had felt like the only thing to do. Even when Carlos’ face had dropped, when Jannik had been cruel and mean and harsh, even then, breaking it off had felt like a necessity, for the preservation of his career and himself. When he looked at Carlos he saw his loss. It was debilitating.

Carlos had left, and Jannik had thought, he won’t come back. And it was comforting, in a way. The situation had been taken care of. The bomb had been defused. 

But then Carlos had chosen someone else, and it felt a lot worse, somehow, than it did before. The bomb hadn’t been defused — false alarm — and it was actually going to blow up a lot sooner than you expected it to. Sorry!

Jannik deals with it, with Germán, with Carlos’ silence, the same way he always does: by ignoring it until he can’t anymore, until it’s clawing its way out of him.

He’s in bed one night, opening Instagram with the intent of scrolling aimlessly until he’s too tired to keep his eyes open, and is immediately greeted by a photo dump from Carlos, which (frustratingly) causes his heart to drop.

It starts with a picture of Carlos sitting by a pool, which Jannik lets himself examine for thirty seconds, taking in his wet, ruffled hair and his open-mouthed smile and his swim shorts — Jannik had the same pair — riding up his thighs, revealing pale skin, and then he swipes away as fast as he can. The other pictures are much more tame — besides the second pool picture, where his shorts are really high up — and it takes him looking through the pictures for a second time to notice Germán at all.

Annoyance rears its head, all too familiar by now. He should exit out of the app and put his phone down and go to bed, but instead he sees that Carlos had tagged Germán, and animosity gets the best of him, and he pushes on Germán’s handle, going to his account.

Germán had posted a day earlier, pretty much an exact replica of what Carlos had posted. Same pictures, same places, sharing everything. A comment from Carlos: a fire emoji and a heart emoji, simple but there. 

Something about the domesticity of it all burrows into Jannik’s chest. Carlos had said, “He’s nice to me,” and Jannik had laughed. But it wasn’t funny anymore. 

His hands move on their own, pulling up his chat with Carlos. He types out a message, something quick and easy, pretending it wasn’t as pathetic as it feels.

Hey Carlos, hope all is well with your break
Looking forward to Cincinnati 💪

Reading it over and finding it acceptable, he hits send, immediately turning his phone off and placing it on his nightstand, committed to forgetting about all of it.

Carlos doesn’t respond for two days. 

And when he does, it’s nothing. Just a small: It’s good, excited to play again! Only one exclamation point, and no nonsensical emojis. Aloof and impersonal in a way that Carlos never was, not with Jannik.

So he feels worse than he did before. He’s distracted and absent when they practice, making Simone visibly angry with every successive unforced error. Which is the exact kind of behavior he was trying to avoid originally.

He apologizes to Simone and takes a water break on the bench, leaning back and catching his breath and staring up at the sky. If he kept this up, all these errors, then it would have all been for nothing. Carlos was the one who had tangled them together in the first place, and now he was the one moving on, finding someone nicer, someone better, someone capable of giving him what he deserved. 

And then, not only would he be leaving Jannik behind in tennis, climbing in skill while Jannik stayed at this level forever, but in this— relationship, too. Jannik would be stranded and alone with these uncomfortable feelings that he didn’t even want to have in the first place. 

—

Unexpectedly, when Jannik gets to Cincinnati, he sees Germán before he sees Carlos.

He’s walking down the hallway inside one of the player areas, having just finished a practice session, when he rounds a corner and sees Germán leaning against the wall, looking down at his phone, all on his own.

Jannik is very— surprised. It was strange, first of all, for Germán to be here, at an ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Ohio, even under the guise of supporting a friend. And then, he realizes, he’s never had a conversation with him that wasn’t in front of a camera. He hasn’t had to look at him since, well, Carlos, and it would probably be best for Jannik to try and walk past him without saying anything, to keep Jannik’s Carlos separate from Germán’s Carlos.

“Hey, Germán, right?” Jannik says, when he’s a couple steps away — he can’t help it — causing Germàn to look up from his phone, recognition dawning on his face.

“Jannik!” Germán says, and he sounds genuinely happy to see him. So, either he did not know, or he was good at pretending. “Sì, I’m surprised, you recognize me?”

“You’re friends with Carlos, no?” Jannik asks, gripping onto the strap of his tennis bag, forcing an easy smile.

“Sì, close friends.” Germán says, nodding, pride glowing in his voice, and Jannik can feel his smile falter because of it, stomach twisting uncomfortably.

And then there’s a beat, where neither of them seem to know what to say. But Germán quickly breaks it; asking questions during uncomfortable situations was probably a skill of all journalists. “Ah, you are excited for the tournament? Maybe you play Carlos in the final?”

Jannik shrugs, automatically falling into the camera persona. “Maybe, yes. I mean, there are many good players, so we will see what happens. Could be.”

Germán grins, like he can tell, pointing at Jannik with his phone still in his hand. “Carlos says it will be you two.”

Yeah, of course he does — Carlos has been saying that same thing for years. But Jannik likes the idea of Carlos and Germán talking about him. He imagines them in bed together, Germán combing his hand through Carlos’ hair, listening as Carlos tells him about Jannik’s tennis, how it was painful but wonderful to experience, how much fun he had when they played, how he wanted to play him again and again, forever, even if he kept losing. 

“He talks about me?” Jannik asks, before he can help himself, and then he corrects: “About— about tennis? Probably too much, no? All the time?”

Germán shrugs, like he’s trying to be polite. “I mean, I love tennis, and I love Charly, but, yes, sometimes, too much. I try to say, you know, that tennis is not life.” He shakes his head and sends a smile to Jannik. “But your rivalry does not help, of course. Sì, Carlos takes it very seriously. More seriously than he takes many things.”

The same thing that has consistently ruined Jannik’s life makes him smile now, mouth curved up. His rivalry with Carlos was a lot less suffocating when it was framed like this, when it tethered them together and put Jannik first — something to take more seriously than anything else.

“Well, it’s— it’s good for both of us, no?” Jannik says, a reliable answer, one he always uses. “It pushes us to be better, to try to beat each other.” 

“You sound just like him.” Germán says, like he finds it funny. “He says that, too, exactly. He says he plays his best tennis when it’s against you.”

Jannik smiles down at the floor, a little meanly, before looking back up. “Yes, too good, I think. I wish that he played against me like he plays against the others.”

He expects Germán to pull a face — he remembers what Carlos had said, grinning: he called you a dick — but he just laughs, loud and friendly, and for some reason that annoys Jannik more than anything else has yet. 

“Well, I think he deserves it, you know?” Germán says, and then he gets this sweet grin on his face. “Not just a good player, but a good attitude, too. Very happy, very kind. It’s amazing for tennis to have him. For all of us.”

Jannik nods, because, what else is he supposed to do? Say, yes, you’re right, he’s perfect, and wonderful, and he thinks about me when you fuck him because it’s the only way he can come. He likes being called puppy and good boy and tesoro, and after they fucked for the first time Carlos had pushed his face into Jannik’s throat and mumbled about how badly and how long he had wanted this. Only a few hours after he had almost effortlessly breadsticked Jannik in the second set of a final. 

So, Jannik knows — he’s well aware, thank you — how special Carlos is, the kind of person and player that had somehow spiraled right into the center of Jannik’s chest. He knows, and he doesn’t need Germán, of all people, to say it. Just because Germán could write think-pieces on Twitter and kiss Carlos when he was sad doesn’t mean he actually knows anything, or that he deserves to. 

“Of course,” he adds, readjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, hearing the coolness in his voice. “He is a very special player, I know. The best.”

Germán is still smiling, nodding, and Jannik claps him on the shoulder, barely returning his smile before starting to walk forward, waving. “Wish him good luck from me.” 

—

Jannik is tense and uncomfortable for the rest of the day. The conversation follows him around, all the way back to his hotel room, when he’s laying in bed in the dark and staring up at the ceiling, trying to sleep. 

He turns over and looks at the clock, reading 12:02 am. Which isn’t bad, but not good, either, because he has an early practice tomorrow— well, today, officially.

But he keeps thinking about Germán. How clearly and easily he loved Carlos, how apparent it was just from a short conversation. Jannik had been trying to take back his control, to insert himself after being pushed out, but instead he had just reinforced the fact that Germán had a place in Carlos’ life that Jannik couldn’t afford to.

Germán got to be nice, Jannik had to be mean.

He sits up on the bed; his chest is so abruptly tight that it was almost hard to breathe. He wouldn’t be able to fall asleep like this — worse than that, he wouldn’t be able to play tennis like this. Not without doing something.

His phone is sitting on the bedside table, tempting. He looks at it for a few seconds and then grabs it, a familiar feeling of desperation taking hold as he pulls up Carlos’ contact. He sees the last message — It’s good, excited to play again! — skin prickling in embarrassment, and then he types out something, anyway:

Can we talk?

Which is how he finds himself standing outside the door of Carlos’ hotel room, knocking on it, waiting for Carlos to appear on the other side. It’s almost the exact same as after Wimbledon, but this time, Carlos knows Jannik is coming. He had sent him the hotel room number.

The door makes a sound, and then it’s opening, and Carlos is there, standing in the space behind it, in his pajamas: a pair of boxers underneath a big, oversized T-shirt, with wide, cautious eyes, watching Jannik.

“Germán’s not here?” Jannik asks, and immediately regrets it, watching Carlos’ face scrunch up, eyebrows furrowed while he steps to the side, letting Jannik in.

“No,” he says, while Jannik walks inside.

Jannik nods, stopping in front of Carlos’ bed — messy and unmade, sheets thrown to the side from when he had gotten up to open the door — and hugs his side, scratching his arm, unsure of himself.

He turns around when the door closes to face Carlos, who was still watching him, pressed against the door.

“Why are you here?” 

His voice is as guarded and wary as his eyes, and Jannik feels a twinge of guilt, constricting around his throat. He was bad at this, at all of this, at everything that involved Carlos, tennis or not. Jannik was losing the head-to-head five to eight, but he had better chances at beating Carlos on the court then he did here, in his hotel room.

He sits down on the edge of Carlos’ bed and places his head in his hands, pushing his curls off of his forehead.

“I—” The words come to the surface, warming his skin. He hasn’t allowed himself to verbalize it. “I miss you.”

They hang in the air, and Jannik keeps his head in his hands so that he doesn’t have to face them, or Carlos. He hates this. His face is red and he feels nauseous.

“What?” Carlos asks, and Jannik can hear the surprise in his voice, so genuinely shocked that it was almost funny. If any of this was even remotely funny at all.

“Don’t make me say it again.” Jannik says, miserable. 

There’s a pause, and then he hears Carlos push off from the door, footsteps padding across the room, before the bed dips next to Jannik, and then Carlos is right there, sitting next to him, presence heavy and warm. 

It doesn’t help. Jannik pushes his head out of his hands and drops them to his lap, looking down at them clasped together. “After Wimbledon, I thought— and then, I didn’t hear from you, you didn’t text, and it was—”

He takes a breath, shaking his head. “I saw posts of you with— him, you know, on Instagram, together, and then, today, I saw him, and we talked, and he— sucks.”

It’s a lame way to finish, and Carlos huffs out a laugh. Jannik finally turns to look at him, relieved to see him smiling, looking down at his lap. 

“He’s nice.” Carlos adds, voice small. It’s always the only line of defense for Carlos’ relationship with Germán, and the only thing Germán seemed to have going for him. 

“Is that what you want?” Jannik asks, hearing his own bitterness, sharp and ugly, laced in his voice. “Nice?”

He watches Carlors turn his gaze up, fixing his big, dark eyes on Jannik, almost pouting. “You know what I want.” 

Jannik swallows, eyes shifting down to Carlos’ mouth, involuntarily. He does know — it looked a lot like Rome, like waking up with matching hangovers and their limbs tangled together, like Jannik’s hand trailing up and down Carlos’ neck, pressing on one of the bruises he had left, making Carlos grin, canines showing. Like spending the morning talking and laughing and knowing each other. 

Carlos wanted that. He wanted everything.

But Jannik— can’t. He can’t. He can’t want it and he can’t give it, because it would kill him. Carlos would kill him — he’d sink his teeth into Jannik’s skin, tearing the flesh, and there wouldn’t be any pieces leftover, of him or his career, when he was finished. 

“I don’t want to share you.” He mumbles, and he can hear the pathetic lilt in his voice. It feels like baring his neck for Carlos to bite into, and it’s not even enough.

Carlos gets a sheepish, complicated look on his face. “You— you don’t, not really.” He says, face darkening, dropping his gaze back down to the space in between them, bashful. “You know you don’t, you know I—”

He doesn’t finish, but Jannik hears it in his head, and it sends a warm wave of satisfaction crashing in his chest, just like it had that first time, possession big and bright. 

But now, in the context of their conversation, Jannik is abruptly struck by what it means: Carlos wasn’t getting what he wanted from Jannik, but he’d still rather live off of his scraps than give him up and choose someone else. He’d put up with punch after punch and hit after hit just because Jannik was the one throwing them. It was—

A lot of things. Unfair. Mean. Pathetic. Hot. 

Jannik swallows, thinking.

“If I asked you to break up with him,” he starts, testing, throat dry, watching Carlos look at him. “Would you?”

Carlos looks taken aback, at first, but then he bites on his lip, eyes falling down to Jannik’s mouth, thinking it over. And then he nods shyly, eyes flitting back up to Jannik’s, waiting for approval that he got it right.

But Jannik is hungry for more, to find their limit. “If I told you to let him fuck you tonight, would you?”

Again, Carlos nods, more immediate this time, pupils dark and hazy. Like just having Jannik ask was the only reason Carlos needed to agree to do something. Jesus.

“You’d do anything I asked?” Jannik asks, just to check, and Carlos nods, so serious that Jannik feels something dislodge in his throat, breaking the spell. “Carlos.” 

His voice is torn halfway between exasperation and awe, and it makes Carlos pout, dropping his face into Jannik’s chest, burrowing inside it. Jannik takes it and wraps his arms around his back, holding him close. 

“You know, I— I would, if it was— if everything was different.” Jannik says, into Carlos’ hair. “I would.”

He thinks about Rome a lot, how easy it had felt, when it was just the two of them, their entire relationship hidden and isolated inside his hotel room. Jannik hadn’t thought about the consequences when he had placed his hand on Carlos’ thigh, or when Carlos had ended up crawling into his lap, kissing him like he was starving for it. There had been a moment, in the middle of it all, when Jannik had thought that this was something they could really do. 

Carlos makes a sound into his shirt, a small whine, and Jannik’s stomach churns. He doesn’t deserve him, but he’s never going to be able to let him go. 

“Sorry.” He mutters, for that, on top of everything else. It’s still not enough, and then Carlos emerges from his chest, looking up at him with a pout on his face.

“You’re so annoying.” He says, shoving Jannik’s chest with his hand. But it’s soft and playful and he doesn’t sound that upset about it. Like it was something that could not be changed, just lived with. Carlos’ cross to bear. Jannik was annoying and mean and unfair and Carlos wanted him still, despite of it. Because of it.

“Sorry,” Jannik repeats, unable to stop himself from smiling, watching Carlos’ own mouth curve upwards. He’s not sure why. Maybe it was the rush of relief.

Carlos shrugs, like, it’s okay. Or, it’s not okay, but it's how it is. Basically forgiveness, which Jannik definitely doesn’t deserve. He still struggled to forgive Carlos for taking Roland-Garros, while Carlos was here, forgiving Jannik for a lot more, for keeping him at arm’s length, on a leash, attached to one of those chain dog collars that hurt the dogs when you pull on them too hard. 

Jannik drops his eyes down to Carlos’ lap, staring at his boxers, riding high up his thighs. He thinks about Rome again, and Paris, and then London, one after the other.

And then Carlos is leaning up into his space and kissing him on the mouth, pushing Jannik back with the force of it. Jannik momentarily freezes, thrown off guard, before kissing him back, placing his hand onto Carlos’ shoulder and sliding it up his neck, holding and pulling him in.

It’s always easy. Carlos immediately goes to shove his tongue into Jannik’s mouth (Jannik always thinks about when Carlos had been asked “Do you use tongue on the first date?”, when he had nodded sheepishly and Jannik, watching it on his phone, had to shut it off and place it underneath his pillow and stare up at the ceiling in the dark. And then Rome happened, and he had first-hand experience that it was true, which was almost worse.) and Jannik tilts his head to the side, taking it all.  

He uses his other hand to grab the sheets, leveraging it to move back across the mattress, with Carlos following on top of him. And then the weight gets too much and he’s forced on his back, bracketed underneath Carlos’ knees, who was halfway straddling Jannik’s lap. 

They spend a couple minutes like that: Carlos hovering above him, on his knees, hands spread on both sides of Jannik’s head, holding him up while they kissed. Jannik brings his hands to Carlos’ waist, pushing them under his shirt, warming them with Carlos’ bare skin.

They shouldn’t have sex (really, ever), especially not in the beginning of a tournament. But, Jannik thinks, well, his first match is still two days away, and Carlos’ is the day after that, so, maybe it would be best for them to get it out of their systems now. Before the matches.

Jannik grabs at the flesh of Carlos’ hip and drags him down, so that he was actually touching Jannik. It makes a sound escape from his mouth, swallowed up by Jannik, before he breaks off their kiss and places his head back into Jannik’s neck, warm breath fanning across his skin.

“Can we—?” He starts to ask, and Jannik nods eagerly, happy to not have to be the one to verbalize it. It was always easier, when Carlos was the one asking for the both of them.

He pulls at Carlos’ shirt from the back of his neck and Carlos moves his head up to push out of it, bringing up his own hands to help take it off. And then Jannik has a lap full of shirtless Carlos, chest flushed and ridiculously toned, smiling down at him, before he drops his head and kisses him again, nipping at Jannik’s mouth.

He was like a puppy, happily licking their owner’s face when they got home. Which is a dangerous path to go down — in another life, Jannik returning to their shared apartment, Carlos jumping into his arms, legs wrapping around his waist, peppering kisses all over his face, making Jannik laugh, nuzzling into his neck—

Carlos starts to drag his hips over Jannik’s lap, grinding down. Jannik groans into Carlos’ mouth and palms over his bulge, feeling it already hard under his boxers.

It makes Carlos whine, bucking his hips up into Jannik’s hand. Jannik grins so hard they stop kissing, leaning up to attach his mouth onto Carlos’ neck, biting softly.

“Don’t— mierda,” Carlos chokes out. “No marks.”

Jannik makes a sound of disagreement against Carlos’ throat, sinking his teeth in anyway, but Carlos shoves him away and back down onto the sheets, before any real damage is done, eyes wide. “Jannik.”

“What?” Jannik asks, feeling his face heat up, unable to stop himself from smiling, shrugging his left shoulder. “I thought you liked it, in Rome.”

Carlos gets another bashful look on his face, toying with his lip, starting to smile shyly. “Germán would kill you.”

Jannik laughs, in genuine disbelief. “Yeah, right.” 

Carlos beams, like he was pleased by Jannik’s reaction, leaning back down and nosing his face into the crook of Jannik’s neck. Jannik takes it as an opportunity to snake his hand into Carlos’ hair and pull him even closer. And then, in response, Carlos starts to move his hips again, pressing them into Jannik’s lap, slow and deliberate.

Jannik hums, content, sneaking his other hand down Carlos’ side, settling it on his waist. He uses it to help guide his movements, pushing him down and moving him up, eliciting a small groan out of Carlos.

“Yeah?” Jannik asks. “Feels good?”

He can feel Carlos nod, red face burning into Jannik’s shoulder. It’s so endearing, and Jannik wants to keep him there forever, shielding him away from everyone else. It was only fair — if Jannik had to be the one to suffer Carlos, bitten and scratched and flung around, then he was the only one that deserved this part.

Carlos’ pace starts to quicken, growing fast and messy, and Jannik squeezes the back of his neck affectionately. 

“Tesoro,” Jannik mumbles, right into Carlos’ ear, “you want me to fuck you, or you want to come like this?” 

A broken sound leaves his mouth, and Jannik thinks, he’s not going to be able to decide, he’s gone, when—

“Can I ride you?” Carlos asks, voice keening and high and muffled by the fabric of Jannik’s shirt. “Please?”

Heat pools in Jannik’s stomach, dark and possessive, just like when Carlos had assured Jannik that he didn’t share him, that Germán was just a body, something he used to hold himself over. Carlos had to imagine Jannik when Germán fucked him, just to get off, and here he was, needy and desperate in Jannik’s lap, begging to ride him. The contrast makes Jannik grin, nodding.

They fumble out of the rest of their clothes and then Carlos is back in his lap, rocking himself up and down, still guided by Jannik’s hands on his waist, still resting his head on Jannik, now at the center of his chest. His left cheek is pressed flush against Jannik’s skin, biting down on his bottom lip, with his eyes squeezed shut.  

He’s so pretty. It used to hurt, just seeing pictures of him. Bright eyes and big smiles, taking over his whole face. Jannik had only let himself look at them when he was feeling miserable, heart aching, twisting the knife.

The Carlos in his lap moans, and Jannik can tell he’s already close, slack and compliant and letting Jannik’s hands do all of the heavy lifting, maneuvering him as fast as he wants, letting Jannik dictate everything.

“Good boy,” Jannik says, breathless. “Così bene.”

Carlos whimpers, hand grabbing onto Jannik’s arm, fingernails digging into his skin. Jannik swallows and fucks into Carlos faster, barreling towards the end.

“Janni,” Carlos says, pained, “Janni—”

“I know,”  Jannik mumbles, starting to lose himself in Carlos’ heat, chasing his own. “Fuck, good puppy—”

Carlos’ hips twitch as he comes, another drawn-out, high-pitched moan falling out of his mouth. Jannik can feel it on his stomach, closing his eyes and pushing his head back on the sheets and shoving into Carlos a few more times before he finishes, heat swelling inside his chest and exploding out with a loud, breathy groan.

He catches his breath, which is kind of hard to do with Carlos’ body, heavy and lifeless, on top of him. Jannik’s head is loose and sluggish and he releases his grip from Carlos’ waist, taking himself out of Carlos and dragging his hands up his back, wrapping around his shoulders.

Carlos makes a sound, a low hum, almost like he was just about to fall asleep, or trying to, by using Jannik’s chest as his pillow. Jannik grins to himself, surprisingly happy. He leans up and kisses the top of Carlos’ hair.

It rouses Carlos, peering up from his place on Jannik’s chest. His eyes are big and happy and Jannik places a hand on his cheek, cupping his jaw.

“So cute, puppy,” he mumbles, absentmindedly using his hand to scratch underneath Carlos’ chin, face burning at the same time. He never really says it out loud, outside of sex, but for some reason, he wants to. “Cucciolo.” 

He watches Carlos blush, pushing his forehead back into Jannik’s chest, shutting his eyes. “You’re right,” he says, uncharacteristically defeated, “this is a bad idea.”

Jannik raises his eyebrows, surprised. “What?”

Carlos doesn’t say anything right away. Jannik looks at him, trying to read his mind, but for the first time ever, he can’t. Partly because half of his face was hidden. 

“Juanki said, I can use you as motivation or distraction.” Carlos says finally, voice sullen. “That I had to choose.”

Oh, Jannik thinks, blinking.

It’s what he’s been saying the entire time, and he feels something like kinship, a feeling he hasn’t felt often with Carlos, despite the fact that their rivalry sets them apart from everyone else, isolating the two of them together.

It was just, Carlos had always seemed to carry it better than Jannik did. He liked Jannik even after losing to him, he publicly praised and admired Jannik after beating him over and over. Jannik felt like he was losing, all the time. Carlos was a better tennis player than him and he was better at whatever this thing was, too. 

Or maybe he wasn’t. Just the idea that Carlos could be struggling with their relationship, underneath all of his endless optimism, was, maybe selfishly, reassuring.

“Well, we both distract each other, no?” Jannik asks, shrugging. Suddenly it was that easy. “Same page.”

Because, this thing between them was bad for both of them, distracting and heavy and unsustainable. But it was also unavoidable. Jannik had tried to stop and he couldn’t. Maybe Carlos had tried to stop, too, putting more distance between them, using Germán to help.

But they just keep spiraling into each other, and Jannik doesn’t think they’re ever going to be able to stop. Even at the detriment to their careers, and themselves. Until it got too big and out of control to be able to handle.

So. At least they were both suffering. 

Carlos huffs out a laugh, and Jannik smiles, petting the side of his face again. “Yeah,” Carlos says, leaning into his touch, matter-of-factly. “Same page.”