Chapter Text
Carlos Alcaraz is having a very eventful day thus far.
Such events include getting so blackout drunk he doesn’t remember publicly outing himself over the internet. This catastrophe quickly followed by the revelation that the man he’s loved since he was a teen wants him as well, so much so that he stalked Carlos to another country. After which point they had the type of mind altering sex most people only fantasize about.
Now, to cap off all of these events, another man appears to be repeatedly calling the phone of Carlos’ new lover. Anyone might be excused for becoming overwhelmed by these dramatic occurrences.
Fortunately, no such excuse is required, as Carlos does not consider himself to be just anyone.
This is especially true when it comes to Jannik Sinner. A fact the past hour has made refreshingly clear. Carlos has historically felt himself to be at a distinct, emotional disadvantage in this years-long dance of infatuation with the other man. But Jannik’s words and actions earlier in the morning eradicated those feelings of insecurity.
Now Carlos knows for certain that this wonderful something that’s been growing between them is not consuming him alone.
So by the time he notices Matteo’s name lighting up the screen of Jannik’s phone, Carlos isn’t feeling prone to jealousy or panic. If anything, he is a merely unimpressed at the method being employed to demand Jannik’s attention.
Truly, Carlos has very little desire to think about Matteo Berrettini at all. Not when the long surfaces of Jannik’s body are still spread out before him. A much better object of desire literally at his fingertips.
His efforts to ignore the phone go unrewarded every time the screen goes blank, only to be lit up again by another incoming call. Carlos eyes are repeatedly drawn back to the device each time it does this.
When it happens a third time, his love seems distressed by his inattention, and strawberry blond brows are crinkling in concern. “What is it?” he asks Carlos sweetly.
Leaning over to the bedside table, the Spanish man picks up Jannik’s cell phone. It is again lighting up blue, with another phone call from Matteo B. Carlos turns the screen of the phone to face his bed companion, who has risen to his elbows to see what the problem is.
“Why is Matteo still calling you?” Carlos ponders.
Once posed, the redhead seems immediately bored by this question, falling back onto the mattress from his position of propped up curiosity. Now that he knows Matteo is the point of conversation, his interest appears to be lost entirely.
Jannik’s outstretched hands begin to weave delicate patterns through the air above him, as if imitating tendrils of smoke. “I have no idea,” he answers Carlos, “Because I hang up on Matteo like five hours ago.” He then drops both hands back down to Earth, pressing the fingers of one to his chin, while performing a quick calculation on the other.
Carlos resists the urge to melt into a puddle at this sight.
“Yeah, like five or six hours ago.” The Italian only seems half certain. Suddenly, something seems to reignite his curiosity in the topic. “Why? How many times do he call?”
Peering at the locked screen of the other’s phone, Carlos shrugs. “I don’t know. He just hung up and called right back two times. Seemed weird.”
With this, Jannik immediately concurs. “Matteo’s very weird lately,” he says by way of confirmation. Then, with a studied air of innocence, he tacks on, “4-9-2-1 by the way.”
“What?” Carlos tears his eyes from the phone’s blank screen to look down at the other man for clarification. When he does, there is gleam of some sort in the redhead’s eyes.
“4921.” Jannik repeats the number before adding, “that’s the code to my phone.”
The Spanish man freezes incrementally. This feels, of course, like a trap. He looks back to the phone, then peers over it to see that the pale man’s soft, pink lips are pressed tightly to his teeth in an effort to suppress a laugh. Carlos’ temptation at this offer must be fairly evident on his face.
Rather than utilizing the passcode to the phone, he shakes the item at Jannik in mock menace. “Ah, I see what you are doing,” he accuses him.
Jannik is losing his battle against laughter. “I am sure I do not know what you mean.”
That’s doubtful, and Carlos says as much as he moves to lay above Jannik, holding himself up on his forearms. He presses a quick kiss to the Italian’s quivering smile. Then he sits back up on the mattress, to Jannik’s clear disappointment.
Now it’s Carlos who is laughing. “You want me to open this phone, see all these lovers you have in here and get very jealous. Is that it?”
For a moment, Jannik looks quite offended, mouth dropping open into a shocked gasp. “Carlos, how could you say that?” he posits to the dark haired man, who is not the least bit fooled by this display. An intuition that is proven correct after Jannik leans up to drop a kiss to the Spaniard’s sweaty chest.
“I don’t keep my lovers hidden on my phone…” Jannik murmurs into his skin. Then stormy green eyes peer up at the younger man, as the Italian’s pointy chin comes to rest on his sternum. Once Jannik see Carlos is looking at him, he whispers, “I keep them stashed under my bed in Monte Carlo.”
This response elicits the laughter Jannik is seeking from the younger man, and Carlos leans down to firmly press their mouths together. A hand on the nape of Jannik’s thin neck holds him in place so that Carlos can deepen their kiss, his tongue running along the ridges of the Italian’s teeth.
Jannik lets out a moan, prompting Carlos to pull away. “Not anymore you don’t,” he informs the flushed face looking up at him. “And you’re extremely naughty for saying so.”
This statement is rewarded with a wicked grin, and Carlos shakes his head ruefully. “You know,” he places a kiss atop a freckled shoulder, “I would spank you…but I think you enjoy it much more than me, so this would not be much punishment.”
He feels Jannik’s curls brush against his ear as the older man shakes his head in disagreement. “Mmm, I think it might still work,” he argues, which prompts Carlos to have a nibble at his collarbone. The redhead squirms with a laugh, still arguing his point, “I mean we don’t know.”
“Naughty,” Carlos repeats.
Jannik agrees again. “Yes, but for real? Let’s not talk about Matteo.” He’s blinking up at Carlos pleadingly. “I don’t care about him. Please delete him from my phone if that is what you want.”
This certainly seems like a strong reaction to have over someone who isn’t a lover of some sort, so Carlos makes a counteroffer. “How about we shower, you let me wash your hair, then we talk about Matteo?”
Jannik falls back onto the bed dramatically, “This is fair.”
Carlos is glad he thinks so, since he wants to communicate his own expectations before they move forward in this relationship. Which they will be doing, so this talk might as well happen now.
Suddenly, fingers are dancing up Carlos’ leg like a spider. “So,” Jannik begins, “you want to wash my hair, hmm?”
This makes the Spaniard emit a throaty chuckle, “You have no idea.”
Jannik manages to acquire a very fetching blush for someone who has shown himself to be an insatiable flirt behind closed doors. Carlos watches the rosy hue seep across the surface of what he now knows to be very soft skin.
He feels as though he could sit and look for hours on end.
This brief fantasy, however, is dashed by the man in question. “We should probably blow out these candles first,” Jannik notes, turning his head from side to side to take in all the little glass containers littering the hotel room.
Carlos had forgotten the reason for the artificially pleasant smell. But, the Spaniard thought maybe it was just one of those things. The same way he didn’t notice most of Jannik’s off the wall comments during their initial acquaintance, on account of the little church bells that would chime in his ears every time the Italian spoke to him.
Maybe, even with the kind of raw sex they just had, Carlos is always going to smell jasmine afterward? Such a thing would not surprise him in the least. In light of these oddities, Carlos really finds it miraculous they ever arrived to their present circumstances.
Surveying the well-lit room, he gets reoriented to the task at hand. There seem to be quite a few of the green and white candles spread throughout the enclosed space. “How come you bought so many?” he asks.
“Hey,” Jannik pokes him in the shoulder, “I try to make it sexy and relaxing in here for you, Mr. I Fuck With Light On.”
This makes Carlos chuckle, and he leans down to press his own kisses to the redhead’s chest. “It was a nice thought.” Straightening back up he asks, “So, how many candles are there? I want to make sure we blow them all out before we get in the shower.”
Jannik appears to think it over, then shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says nonchalantly. “They came in pack and I bought two different packs and a lighter. Then, I just light whole bunch of them.”
Oh, Lord. Carlos sighs before placing a quick peck to Jannik’s lips and rising up from the bed.
Jannik laughs at the resigned look the other is wearing, then says apologetically, “I can deal with the candles while you get the shower ready.”
Carlos isn’t entirely certain that’s true, but he will follow up afterward to ensure they’ve all been located. Instead of admitting to this plan, however, he raises an eyebrow at Jannik’s proposition. “What you mean, get the shower ready?” he repeats. “You just turn it on and get in.”
His love looks aghast at this comment. “What!?” the curly haired man seems to be demanding more information from Carlos, but launches into his next sentence before getting it. “You have to let the water get hot before you get in there!”
This seems like a waste of water, though he doesn’t say so. “Wait, how hot do you need it to be?” Carlos wonders, not sure he will like the answer.
Jannik rolls out of bed as well. “As hot as it gets,” he responds, clasping both hands together and stretching his lengthy arms out behind him whilst rolling his neck. By the time he looks over his shoulder to blink dark green eyes at Carlos, the Spanish man is willing to perform maintenance on the hotel’s water heater personally should it become necessary.
As Carlos goes to start the shower, he makes sure to blow out every candle he encounters along the way. Once the water is warming, he returns to observe Jannik and finds the redhead counting candles off on his hands as he blows them out. Perhaps he thinks this might help him recall how many he actually lit earlier in the day?
Delighted by this odd behavior, it occurs to Carlos that Jannik must use his vast stores of intensity and focus for his tennis game, the results of which speak for themselves. However, it appears to leave nothing on tap for Jannik off the court.
The result is a man who seemingly glides his way airily through the world around him.
Carlos feels a smile overtake his face as he watches Jannik peer into a cupboard quickly. Apparently, the Italian man thinks it possible he may have left a burning candle in there as well.
Steam begins to pour out from the bathroom behind him, so Carlos calls out to Jannik. “Mi Cielo, come check your shower.”
Jannik nods to show he heard, but before turning around he moves to create a cluster of all the candles he managed to diffuse. Then his long legs carry him gracefully over to Carlos, who wonders if Jannik is at all aware he was just witnessed poking his head about in cabinets.
When the Italian man reaches him, Carlos takes both of his hands and gives them a squeeze, “I’m going to order room service, is that okay? Do you want anything special?”
“Yes, please! Nothing special.” Jannik answers cheerfully. “Also – quite sure I did get all the candles.” Then he wraps Carlos up in full body hug, pressing kisses into his neck. “Don’t be long!”
Watching his flighty creature float into the bathroom, Carlos gently shuts the door behind him. He spends the next few minutes poking around to locate the room service menu. Along the way he manages to extinguish three more candles, which now looks to be all of them.
He locates the menu, and places a large breakfast order, which he asks to be left outside of Room 827. Before he goes to the shower, he moves to take his smart watch off in order to place it on the bedside table with their phones.
When the screen of Jannik’s phone lights up again, he is half-expecting to see Matteo’s name flashing in bold letters. Instead, the phone seems to glow only when Carlos places his watch beside it. A notification appears at the top of the screen.
‘Future Husband is nearby’ it reads.
Carlos cannot fight the grin on his face as he makes his way over to the no doubt scalding shower.
No, he’s not worried about Matteo.
~~~
Even with the heat cranked up, the water is beginning to go lukewarm by the time the two men manage to drag themselves out of the shower.
Having been denied the opportunity earlier, Jannik was insistent on cleaning Carlos up, just so he could drop to his knees in the showers and suck the Spanish man off. While, of course, getting his hair washed.
Upon that detail, Jannik was also insistent.
Accordingly, they spent much longer in the shower than intended.
The good news is their food has arrived by the time they exit, so Carlos wraps a towel around his waist to pull the room service cart in from the hallway. Meanwhile, Jannik wanders off to go looking for something further in the large hotel room. The Spaniard is sure to catch an eyeful as he goes.
Once Carlos has the door shut, Jannik returns from his search. His naked body is now wrapped up in one of the fluffy robes provided by the hotel. The Italian looks quite cozy as he sits down at the breakfast table, located in a nook by the room’s terrace. A wise choice for someone like Jannik, who might appreciate seeing the view from beyond the reach of sunrays.
The redhead waves a hand in the direction of the closet, “Robes.”
Carlos shakes his head, “Yeah, if you want a rash.”
This causes the Italian to wrinkle his nose. “I think you forget how expensive this place is.”
That might be true. Regardless, Carlos opts to not use a robe and goes to pull on some underwear and shorts. He has to suppress his laughter at the sounds of Jannik grumbling behind his back.
When he returns from getting partially dressed, Jannik is beginning to set the table. “So what do you want to do today?” he asks the younger man as he transfers plates from the cart. “Maybe we go find those journalists who out you and hit them with a car, huh? Ferris Bueller get away with it.”
Carlos blinks, not sure if he heard Jannik correctly. “What?” he asks.
“I’m not saying it was right.” The Italian points out, as though this is what requires clarification. “Just that he technically kill someone. Actually, two people. So very similar.”
Honestly, Carlos wouldn’t mind throwing an egg at them or something. But he hasn’t quite graduated to vehicular manslaughter. Of course, when he looks up he sees that Jannik has a somewhat manic smile on his face.
“Oh man,” the redhead laughs lightly. “You should see your face.”
Rolling his eyes, Carlos picks up a strawberry from the breakfast spread and tosses it at Jannik’s chest. The lanky man catches it with ease, still laughing. “You thought I was crazy enough to run someone over with my car. Admit it!”
The dark haired man shakes his head in disbelief as he pours himself a glass of orange juice. Jannik then promptly borrows it so that he can tip a tiny drop of the juice into his own glass of champagne. After he returns it to a smiling Carlos, he clinks their glasses together.
“Salute!” the Italian toasts.
Carlos nods, “¡Salud!”
They both take a quick sip of their respective drinks and before Jannik can make another distracting comment or try to get them both naked, Carlos speaks up.
“Matteo?” he prompts the redhead, who deflates visibly.
“Fine,” Jannik groans. “But it is not that interesting.”
Without giving it too much thought, Carlos gets up to retrieve Jannik’s phone. As he walks back, he punches in the passcode and goes to the missed calls. “This motherfucker called you twenty-six times today.”
Jannik gasps. “Carlos,” he admonishes, “such a salty tongue has no place at a breakfast table. It goes much better inside of me. We should fix that.”
For a moment, the Spanish man is almost tricked. “Inside of - ah ah! I see what you’re doing!” In the extremely short amount of time the two men have been swapping fluids, its become pretty clear that Jannik uses his body and sexuality to get out of even the smallest disagreement.
Carlos hopes it doesn’t remain this effective for too much longer. “Matteo?”
This time, Jannik rolls his head backwards, his body doing all of the emoting for him. “Look,” he addresses the ceiling, “Matteo and I start to have sex maybe six years ago? I like him a lot but he was not always the nicest to me. It go off and on for long time, but many years since I really care.”
Already, Carlos feels a frown beginning to form, and not from jealousy. He’s doing some quick math, that he doesn’t like the outcome of. “So what, you were like seventeen? How old was he?”
Jannik shrugs, “I think twenty-three or so. I don’t remember. So you see, it was never serious.”
To demonstrate his curiosity on another point, Carlos holds up the phone in his hand. Hopefully, the other man understands his implicit question as to why there are so many calls if their relationship was never serious.
Now, Jannik does seem agitated.
The Italian picks up another strawberry to set upon an empty plate before him. Almost absentmindedly, he begins to slice the small piece of fruit with a pair of butter knives. To Carlos, this action seems to have been undertaken solely because it is difficult, time consuming, and requires Jannik to look down at his place.
Once the top of the strawberry is sliced off, Jannik says, “Matteo thinks because he’s the first man I let put his dick in me, now he can have opinion about all the others forever and ever.”
Carlos feels sick.
Every one’s circumstances are certainly different…but he knows Matteo and Jannik first met with the latter was only 14. Which is incidentally the age of Carlos’ youngest brother Jamie now. His second youngest brother Sergio being only 16. At Carlos’ current age of 22, the idea of even looking at one of Sergio’s little friends like that turns his stomach.
This opinion must be apparent on his face, because Jannik briefly glances up from his mutilated strawberry only to look back down quickly. “Like I said,” the redhead reiterates, “I don’t care about him. And neither should you.”
Now Carlos is beginning to feel the guilt of forcing this topic. It’s also clear that his reaction to the information provoked more of an emotional response from the Italian man than he perhaps wanted to give.
Jannik attempts to brush off Carlos’ stare, picking up his glass of champagne as he looks out the window by the terrace. “He’s the one who fuck a sixteen year old and feels so bad he can’t move on. Maybe he thinks if we end up together, he feel better?”
That’s when Carlos fist hits the table, and he dies a bit inside from the flinch it produces in Jannik. Rather than embarrass the other man by calling attention to it, Carlos instead says, “I thought you were seventeen?”
Jannik makes another hand wavey gesture. “Sixteen or seventeen, I don’t remember.”
After watching the other man for a moment, Carlos says, “Yes, you do.”
There is a deliberateness to how far Jannik has craned his neck in the opposite direction of Carlos, presumably to look at something out the window. After a moment, he stops pretending to do this and looks back in the direction of the Spanish man. Even so, his eyes seem more interested in the champagne flute he is fiddling with than looking at Carlos directly.
“Yes,” Jannik says after a moment, “I do.”
It’s always been a challenge for Carlos to mask or contain his emotions. In many ways, for all that Jannik is willing to babble and joke behind closed doors, he is still tightly in control of the things he says and does. Clearly, there is an intentionality to all of the other's words and movements. It is almost as though Jannik’s focus off the tennis court is limited to preventing himself from saying all the things he is actually thinking.
Even now, as he is using that control to hold something back from Carlos, it is impressive in its application.
As for Carlos and his runaway emotions? Well, for the most part, he has been lucky enough to be overcome with positive emotions. Joy, love, and humor…but this is different.
This is frustration and hurt. Because even if Jannik is unwilling to speak about it with Carlos, it is clear that whatever sort of relationship he had with Matteo began in an unhealthy way. One that clearly still affects Jannik, despite his insistence to the contrary. That Matteo is still trying to be such a controlling figure in Jannik’s life, despite the redhead’s clear desire for distance, sparks another overwhelming emotion in Carlos…
…anger.
Unfortunately for Matteo, this is the moment he chooses to call Jannik’s phone once more.
Carlos stands up hastily, phone in his hand. Before he can think better of it, he is taking the cell phone out onto the terrace. As he closes the sliding glass door behind him, he sees Jannik’s eyes widening in surprise.
‘What are you doing?’ Jannik mouths to him as he answers the phone. The taller man is beginning to rise from his seat, but Carlos forestalls him by pointing back to the table.
Another thing that Carlos is learning is the fact that Jannik is happy to take direction. Likely another symptom of his off court lack of focus. As expected, Jannik plops back down in his chair, blinking curiously at Carlos through the glass door.
The Spanish man brings the phone to his ear in greeting, “Hola Matteo.”
For a split second, there is silence. “Carlos,” Matteo greets hesitantly, as if unsure whether he’s identified the voice correctly. “I see you have Jannik’s phone.”
Carlos nods to himself. “Yep,” he replies, popping the P just to sound annoying. “Is there something you wanna say that isn’t in your six voice messages?”
He is officially escalating this into a confrontation, and only wishes Matteo were physically in front of him. It wouldn’t be Carlos’ first time giving a beating to someone that much bigger than him.
This feeling crystallizes into an actionable plan rather than a vague desire soon after Matteo’s next sentence.
“Yes, actually.” Matteo responds. “Tell him I’m on the next flight over there. You tell him that.”
Rather than erupting, Carlos feels his emotions settle within him, spreading throughout his body like a source of strength. Not unsimilar to the feeling he gets when his nerves quiet themselves in the final seconds before an important match.
Suddenly, he feels very in control of them.
“Amigo,” Carlos lays extra sarcasm onto the scarcely used word, “you’re taking your life into your own hands.”
The silence goes on a little longer this time. Then Matteo actually asks, “What did you just say?”
Carlos doesn’t mince words. “I said if you show up here I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”
Now there is a much longer stretch of silence than the two that preceded it.
Since it seems to the Spaniard that his message has been received, he decides to wrap up the conversation. “Good talking to you Matteo.” Then he ends the call and walks back inside from the terrace.
Jannik is now chewing at the end of his mangled strawberry, looking concerned. “All good,” Carlos tells him as he returns to his seat. “Hopefully he stops bothering you for a little bit.” He slides Jannik’s phone back over to him.
For his part, Jannik doesn’t seem to care what they discussed. “I’m so sorry,” he says to Carlos with a wince as he takes his phone. “I don’t know why I try to stay friends with him.”
The Spanish man shakes his head. “Hey, no.” Carlos reaches out to grab Jannik’s hand over the table. “Cielo, you don’t need to be sorry. He’s got some stuff to work through.” As he gives the other man’s hand a squeeze he adds, “We not going to let him ruin the rest of the week.”
This brightens Jannik’s mood considerably. “You will stay?” he asks.
Carlos only recalled the offer when they got around to actually cleaning themselves in the shower. It only extends his vacation by a day and really - what would he rather do? Schedule press interviews and meetings with sponsors over his sexuality? Or spend three days making love to Jannik Sinner?
Even positing this question in his head sounds ridiculous to Carlos. Smiling over to Jannik, he confirms his acceptance, “Of course I will stay. Though we need to get me some more clothes. I only brought one pair of underwear from my room.”
Jannik shrugs as though this is not an actual problem. “Just don’t wear any,” he suggests.
“Pass,” Carlos immediately dismisses this uncomfortable suggestion. Though it does remind him. “You need to wear underwear. I almost came in my pants when I saw you had nothing on earlier.”
A lecherous grin overtakes the sweet features across from him. “Bad news for you because I do that a lot.”
Carlos groans. “Seriously,” he stresses, “I can’t pop a chub each time I remember you don’t have any on.”
Laughing, Jannik sips his champagne. Then he says, “That sounds like a Carlos problem.” The glare he receives must make it clear to the other man that Carlos is somewhat serious, because the Italian is soon rolling his eyes. “Fine,” he concedes before pausing a moment.
“What?” Carlos prompts him upon seeing the frozen expression.
Jannik gives him a somewhat sheepish look. “Ah,” he says nervously, “I just remember I did not actually pack any underwear.”
Oh, Lord.
Just as Carlos is contemplating the best way to obtain these items without being mobbed by paparazzi, there is a knock at the door.
Jannik straightens up in excitement. “Oh good!” he declares. “That must be our boat captain!”
This catches the Spanish man off guard. “Our what now?”
“One moment!” the Italian man calls towards the door. He is soon popping out of his seat and tightening the belt of his robe. Then he addresses Carlos. “Well, this person do a lot I gather. I hire driver who is also security. Turns out – they also drive boat!”
Carlos just stares, so Jannik continues. “When I hear this, I think to myself ‘Ahhh a boat!’. So I think that is a good way to get around. Not in the streets where people will for certain mob you after last night. So! I rent us nice boat.”
When Carlos begins to laugh, Jannik looks at him with a frown. “You don’t like?”
The Spaniard stands up, coming around the table to kiss away this pout. “No I like it very much,” he tells him, “I only laugh because you ask me what I want to do, but you already have boat.”
Jannik laughs. “Sorry,” he apologies, before admitting, “I just want to make that joke about the car.”
Now Carlos pulls him into a hug, putting lips to his shoulder. “Yes, I think I begin to understand that. Do you need to dress? I can answer the door.”
Now that his plans are approved, the Italian is smiling again. “No need,” he tells Carlos about the clothes. “They will need to get used to it, eh?”
Carlos watches him glide to the door, confident in his movements despite his fluffy robe. The thought then briefly occurs to him that Jannik on a boat might be even more distracting that Jannik going commando.
What a lovely trip this is turning into.