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“You’re nervous.” Jannik looks over to find Vera curled up against the wall on the edge of the warmup room, her spotted tail flopping rhythmically against the floor and her yellow, unblinking eyes trained on him.
She’s uncomfortable, Jannik can sense it. There's too many people around, too many daemons shoved and squeezed into an already cramped arena. It’ll be worse once they walk out, when the noise of the audience and the humid, sticky heat of New York hits them in full. They’ll keep Vera cool, ice wet and under the shade as per Jannik’s strict instructions, but still. She doesn't like it here. She endures for him.
Unzipping and then rezipping his kit jacket, Jannik acquiesces. His nails sting faintly where he’s been biting them. “I am, a little. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She gets up with a full stretch, spine curling in a smooth wave. She then paws towards him, gently nudging his bare knee with her head. “If you win, you stay on top of him. If you lose, we’ll get revenge.” She says so with complete and total conviction, like there’s no other possible outcome but success, whether today or a little further down the line.
God, she's beautiful. And big, and scary. Jannik loves her with the deepest parts of his heart, secure in knowing his affection is reciprocated.
He buries his fingers in the thick fur behind her ears, and she allows it. When Jannik pulls his hand away, it returns with grey hair stuck to the sweat on his palm, proof of Vera’s half-hearted shedding in the American summer. All the international traveling always messes her up.
And then Darren comes to collect them, and the show is on.
He gets the superstar treatment as he walks out onto the court, the number one spiel he couldn't care less about. Announcements, flashes, yelling and deafening clapping, all welcoming the current champion and his daemon.
The lenses love Vera. It’s unusual for someone’s daemon to settle into an animal as big as her, and especially one as powerful. There's a lot of dogs on the sidelines of the court, ferrets and mice, birds hanging off the shoulders of TV reporters.
It wouldn't be the first or the last time someone feels intimidated by Vera. Jannik’s been referred to as cold, distant, elusive – all inference made from his daemon, just because she’s a snow leopard. The cameras follow her as she prowls besides Jannik before settling next to his bench. In less than a second some assistant from the tournament is already placing a shade over her.
And then something happens: the girl trips on a wire, stumbles and looks for purchase on the bench to steady herself. Her hand almost touches Vera – would’ve, if the leopard hadn't moved out of the way in time.
Vera growls, a deep, warning sound. The girl stumbles away, almost tripping again in her haste.
“I’m so sorry. Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn't mean to touch your –”
“It’s okay”, Jannik replies, burying the spike of rejection he feels inside. What else can he say, in front of all these people?
When a man with sunglasses and an ear piece drives the girl away, Jannik watches for a moment as a tiny rabbit hops behind her.
In truth, he thinks Vera chose this form because it reminds her of the white mountains they grew up on, not because she wanted to appear threatening to anyone. Or perhaps she saw something quietly fierce in him, and wanted to match to show the world. Perhaps both.
But then again, not everybody is scared of Jannik’s daemon.
“She’s beautiful. She suits you.”
Jannik recalls the words against his will, echoing in his head like they're coming from a dream instead of a memory. They were whispered on his skin, pressed warm and accented to the junction of his neck, amongst limbs tangled in hotel bedsheets.
The words were thrown casually, almost off-handedly, like a statement that hadn't been given much thought. Like it just was. For some reason, it had made Jannik’s eyes well with tears he didn't allow himself to shed.
Vera senses Jannik’s thoughts, the way they make something twist painfully in his chest. “Jan”, she calls, warning. Focus.
Jannik nods, grabbing his racket, making sure his trainers are double-laced, then triple. She’s absolutely right.
There's a lot of mental training behind tennis. Some players find it easier than others to achieve that focus, that blankness that allows the body and the mind to sync properly.
For Jannik, it’s more like tunnel vision. Like a razor kind of focus on the ball, on the crisp lines of the court, the net and his opponent. Vera’s icy steadiness in the back of his head helps. Today, too, he can feel her encouragement like a cool balm over a sunburn.
And then her attention turns towards Niam and, inevitably, like pulled by a thread, Jannik gravitates to Carlos.
His kit is awful this time around, bright neon pink, pulling to him all the eyes crammed in the Arthur Ashe. At least his hair isn’t dyed anymore, although it is awfully short, a bit choppy on the sides even. But his presence is so big, so loud, that Jannik feels overridden, eclipsed, in his shadow.
And then Carlos looks at Jannik, his own kind of tunnel vision, and smiles. Jannik’s nerves fall away.
It’s not an easy match. It never is against Carlos – too wild, too fast, too unpredictable. Sometimes Jannik is able to find a weak spot in Carlos’ game, to push and press on it until he breaks. A loose stitch he can rip open to reveal the stuffing inside, scooping it out until Carlos yells in frustration, turning to Ferrero to vent in Spanish, irritated and wired beyond control. This is not one of those times.
Jannik loses in the last set, a pitiful 6-2. The lines of exhaustion had gripped his muscles like overgrown roots by the third set, feeding off his waning motivation. In the end, the match slips from Jannik’s hands like sand between his fingers, slowly but inexorably.
It’s happened before, obviously – not just losing to Carlos, but letting go of the number one spot. They’ve been trading it for years now, back and forth, over and over again. But it still hurts a little, every time, every public humiliation they have to smile through.
“We have to stop.”
Those words had been whispered too, but against a pillow, thrown out into the quiet, stale AC air. Different hotel room, same shit. Jannik, panting on his belly, still twitching, his throat rough from trying to keep the pleasure in. Sore and used, lying on top of his own come.
There’d been a hand still on the back of Jannik’s neck, gentle, carding through sweaty curls. Only minutes before it had been pressing him down and into the mattress, trying to keep him still. Suddenly, the rhythmic caress of the fingers stop.
“What?”
Jannik had willed the words out before he lost his courage, his mouth dry.
“This. We have to stop. Darren already suspects, any day now somebody will –”
Jannik limps towards the net, admitting defeat, feeling as his right leg starts cramping now that it knows the game is over. Carlos is there to take him in, as readily as always: arms around Jannik, his head on the crook of Jannik’s neck. He’s always liked it there.
“You played so well”, he says, staring up at Jannik with big eyes. These words are always just for Jannik, not for the cameras, drowned out by the noise. So Jannik knows they're real. “You’re so strong. So good.”
“I lost.”
“I’ll lose next time. To make things even.” Carlos smiles, lying through his teeth and aware they both know it, a weak attempt to make Jannik feel better. It doesn't work, but he appreciates the effort anyway.
His hand squeezes the back of Jannik’s neck, a familiar weight. A death sentence, most of the time.
Jannik disentangles himself, thanking their audience as an excuse to get away. It works: he makes it back to his bench, collapsing on it. He takes a moment to drink from his water bottle, before flicking his cap off and hiding his face under a towel, blocking everything from his field of vision except for the sun that filters through the fabric. He just needs a second. A minute to compose himself.
Something brushes against his leg, soft fur pressing against him. Jannik puts his hand out, expecting Vera to headbut it.
She doesn't. When Jannik moves the towel away, it’s Niam sitting next to him. He freezes.
If people talk about Jannik’s being an atypical daemon, then Carlos’ isn’t far behind. She’s a beautiful Iberian wolf, even bigger than Vera, slender but with a distinct kind of raw strength. Her coat ranges from grey to brown, with soft, dark stripes on her legs.
She stares at Jannik with golden eyes, almost inquisitively. Mindful of the cameras that are probably now trained on them instead of on the court, where they’re preparing the trophies, he jokes:
“Wrong bench.” Niam makes a soft noise, her ears flicking. Jannik has the feeling that she’s laughing at him. And then, against all common sense, she stretches her neck out towards Jannik.
The tunnel vision comes back just as his heart kickstarts with a rush of adrenaline. This time it focuses on Niam’s head, where she’s offering herself to be petted.
There are gasps in the stands, shock at the public display of trust Niam is forcing Jannik to star in right now. Panicking, he searches for Carlos, finding him already staring back from the opposite bench. There's a stiffness to his frame that wasn't there just a minute ago, and that shouldn't be there at all – Carlos should still be loose, riding the high of another win, the number one, the millions he just pocketed. Instead, he looks distinctly tense.
For a brief instant, Jannik considers the possibility that Carlos isn’t okay with this at all, that his daemon is forcing them to, to –
But she wouldn't do that. She’s trying to give, not to take.
Slowly, hesitantly, Jannik pets along her forehead. Her fur is coarser than Vera’s, more like a dog than like a cat. She stays still, letting Jannik feel along the ridges of her head.
He’s never touched somebody else’s daemon before, at least not someone who wasn't his own parents. This feels – very personal. Intimate.
A shiver wrecks through Jannik, his exhausted body and his soul bond. The rush of the game is flowing back into him all of the sudden, but it’s different now: a swirl of something sparkly bright, something proud and astonished and loving, then turning dark, morphing into a hot curl of desire. Carlos might as well have stamped the word MINE on the back of his own sleeveless t-shirt, written and signed with Jannik’s handwriting. And Jannik just dried the ink.
He can feel hundreds of eyes on him, but only a pair that matters.
The moment feels like a lifetime, but lasts only a few seconds at most, just a couple brushes of Jannik’s fingers. Then Niam pulls away and Jannik’s hand drops uselessly to his lap, where it tingles like he’s losing circulation. She looks at him again before she bows, just a little, like she’s saying “Thank you”, and then leaves, trotting back to where her human is anxiously waiting for her. Jannik can’t make himself look, can’t gauge the public reaction.
If Vera was already uncomfortable before, now she also has to deal with the swirl of emotions warring inside Jannik. She circles him a few times. On the court, completely forgotten, the sponsors and mics are ready for the finalists.
They're already calling for them when Vera moves close and asks, “Should I give it to Niam?” Jannik doesn't need to ask what she’s referring to.
“No, you should not.” He said they would stop. They should stop. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Do it.”
So, while Jannik is stumbling through his neutral, rehearsed runner-up speech, Vera struts past Carlos’ wolf and whispers the four digit number. It feels like giving in.
—
Jannik goes to bed. He knows how this is, when you win: the phone calls home, the celebration with your team, the food, the drinks, the music. He doesn't deserve them today, so instead, once his media obligations are done and Darren lets him go with a hug and a silent, unasked question burning under his tongue, Jannik takes another shower and sticks himself into his underwear, shorts and an old t-shirt. He goes to sleep with Vera curled by his feet, a heavy, comforting weight next to him, taking over half the bed.
When the knock comes, it’s well into the early morning hours. He doesn't even hear it, stuck in the kind of dreamless, bone-heavy sleep that comes after a defeat. It’s Vera that alerts him of the knock, lounging by the door and waiting for someone with opposable thumbs to open.
Jannik flicks on the bedside lamp and eventually cracks the door open, still drenched in sleep, watching as Niam scurries into the room like a thief in the night. Carlos follows, with just a touch of awkwardness. “Hi”, he says, looking at Jannik as he closes the door. His face does something then, something sobering and almost painful, and whispers, “Fuck. Look at you.”
Jannik wonders what Carlos sees. Him, hair smushed on the side, pillow lines on his cheek from sleeping, eyes puffy from exhaustion.
But when Carlos’ hand comes up to cradle Jannik’s cheek, fingertips roughened by a life of holding onto leather handles, Jannik doesn't stop it. He doesn't encourage it either, though.
“You're beautiful.”
“And you’re drunk.” He can smell the alcohol in Carlos’ breath, especially so when he laughs. On the floor, Niam bumps softly into a wall.
“Oh Lord”, Vera mumbles, searching for Jannik’s gaze. Wordless, she starts directing Niam towards a door on the side of the suite, the room meant for daemons when their humans want… Privacy.
It’s a good hotel.
The door clicks when Vera pushes it closed with a nudge of her head. Carlos seems none the wiser, calm, letting everything happen around him. His hand drops from Jannik’s face.
“All those things you said about me, you know. In the interviews. Talking about friendship, and trust, and admiration. They were very nice.”
“You made me touch your daemon. In public.”
Carlos scoffs.
“I didn't make you. I let you”, he replies. “It was nothing. You could have said no.”
The problem is: Carlos knows Jannik didn't want to say no. He never does, despite what his mouth forces itself to say. Despite what he knows he should do, for the sake of both their careers.
And yet, right now, Jannik’s angry. He cannot think of anything more overtly possessive Carlos could’ve done right in front of everybody, short of kissing him for the cameras. It’s like he’s inviting the question: are they, or are they not? Social media is going to have a field day.
So Jannik stays quiet and still, watching as Carlos gets increasingly frustrated with the silence, the inaction. Jannik knows exactly what he’s feeling: he’s still revved up from the victory, from soaking in the praise of everybody around him. He’s still drunk too, enough to make him feel invincible.
Carlos wants to fuck Jannik. He’s not picky about how, either, where or when. Never is. Sometimes Jannik thinks that, if they could, Carlos would love nothing more than to have him out on court. He entertains the thought for a second: clay staining their clothes and skin, mingling with their sweat; the squared shadow of the net distorted over them.
Carlos choking on a moan as he drives himself into Jannik. Or better yet, Jannik pushing him to the ground, pinning him down, and riding his cock.
He could make it sweet. He could also make it torture.
They’d draw lines on the floor together, the clay remembering their bodies as they moved. Jannik would rub orange dust onto Carlos’ hair, proof of ownership, as he fucked himself slowly, too slow for either of them, keeping himself tight.
Carlos wouldn't take long to beg, to brokenly say, Please, and Jannik, Please let me –
But Jannik wouldn't. He’d keep the pace unsatisfactory, grabbing Carlos’ hands when they tried to reach for his cock, using his whole weight to keep his hips pressed down so he stopped trying to fuck up into Jannik. He’d make him take only as much as Jannik was willing to give.
Maybe Carlos would like an audience, so everybody could watch him take it. Watch him take Jannik, watch him be nothing more than a passenger as Jannik made himself feel good.
And then, when Carlos abandoned all attempts at English and was reduced to a begging mess, only then would Jannik take pity. He’d kiss Carlos, swallowing his desperation whole, and finally give him what he wanted. Every moan and whimper and cry would feel like victory, like lifting the trophy.
And before Carlos came inside, just when his hips started going crazy and tight, Jannik would swoop down and grab his face and ask, “What do we say?”
And Carlos would reply, voice raspy and broken, an staccato following the rhythm set by Jannik, “Thank you. Thank you, thank y –”
In the hotel room, Carlos starts bargaining. “You can touch Niam right now. You can anytime, always. It feels good, when you –”
It feels good when you do.
Carlos has never touched Vera. Jannik wonders if he’s fantasized about it.
They’re both hard – Jannik obscenely so in his shorts, Carlos in his jeans.
“Jan. Come on, just. Touch me.”
Biting back a groan, Jannik kisses Carlos, who immediately opens up to him. He tastes like gin and like himself, like success. Like addiction.
What did Vera say earlier that day? If you lose, we’ll get revenge.
Jannik intends to do so.