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Jannik still isn’t quite sure what possessed him to agree to go to a Coldplay concert when he knows one of their songs at best. Maybe he was still riding the high of his Wimbledon victory the week prior. Maybe it was the lingering hangover from too much celebration. Maybe he wanted to do something a little more normal before going back to the grueling routine of training - tournament - training - tournament. Or maybe he just isn’t capable of telling Jack no.
In his defense, he was a little upset that his friend was in Ibiza during his final when he would have liked nothing more than to celebrate this specific win with him. Jannik understands the need to hide away after a bad loss but it did not make him miss Jack any less.
Really, Jannik thinks he can’t be blamed for jumping at the first opportunity to see Jack again, even if it’s at a concert from a group he knows almost nothing about.
So far he hasn’t even regretted it, it’s loud and there are too many people but no one seems to have recognised them. Either their vague disguises are doing their jobs - if a cap and glasses in Jannik's case can even be called a disguise - or the crossover between tennis fans and Coldplay fans is small enough to keep them safe.
The best part of the night is that the carefully curated distance he and Jack usually maintain has shrunk to basically nothing. Jack has not stopped touching him the whole time, from keeping one hand on the small of his back when they walked to their seats, to that same hand slipping around his waist, to Jack leaning way too close to say something and Jannik using any excuses he can find to brush his own hands against Jack lighting bolt tattoo.
It’s not just the touching either, Jack seems to have decided that showering Jannik in praises until he melts into a puddle is an adequate response to make up for his absence right after the Wimbledon final. It would be a little more bearable if Jack wasn’t making every compliment sound like a bad innuendo. There’s only so many times Jannik can hear about how good he looked ‘bending every which way to reach the ball” before self combusting.
With Jack now full on back hugging him, one arm draped across his torso, the other around his waist and his chin casually resting on Jannik’s shoulder, he feels more than a little dizzy with the proximity but he’s also enjoying it too much to pull away. Truth be told Jannik is trying to work up the courage to reach for Jack’s hand and tangle their fingers together.
He’s so in his head about his and Jack’s newfound physical closeness that it takes him a second too long to realise the people around them are all turning and staring openly. It takes him a second longer to realise why and by the slight stiffening of Jack’s arms around him he knows his friend has noticed too.
The massive screens at the center of the arena are showing their reflection. Jannik suddenly feels like he’s being dowsed in cold water. The way Jack is holding him is more than a little incriminating and even if technically they haven’t even truly crossed into non platonic territory, that’s not the way it looks at all.
Potential headlines flash in his head as Jannik twists out of Jack’s embrace in a futile attempt to hide himself. There’s white noise filling his ears and seconds that feel like an eternity pass before a hand lands on his arm and he turns to find Jack looking a little shaken, smile tight on his lips. He’s mouthing something that Jannik can’t hear now that they’re standing a more respectable distance away from one another and with all the noise around them. Jack’s hand that’s not currently wrapped around his arm is waving in the direction of the stage. Jannik’s eyes follow the movement and relief washes over him when he realises that the cameras aren’t trained on them anymore.
Now that his every move is no longer scrutinised by that entire concert population he can feel his brain kicking back into action. He wonders how long they have before this lands on some social media or other. Maybe if he hadn’t panicked they could have swept this under the rug, pretended it was just a case of doppelgangers if it got out but his reaction is perhaps a bigger tell than anything else. After all, it’s not like they were caught making out, even if they had been firmly recognised, they could have still claimed plausible deniability. Now it looks like they had something to hide.
Before Jannik can spiral any further, Jack squeezes his arm again, and points towards the closest exit. Jannik nods and before he even thinks about what he’s doing he reaches for Jack’s hand and tugs him out of the venue as fast as he can. It’s only once they’re both outside in the fresh air that he lets go, ignoring the flash of something that passes over Jack’s face. They can talk about all this once they are safely hidden away from any prying eyes.
The journey back to their hotel seems to last forever, an awkward silence lingering in the taxi, only broken by their driver’s attempt at small talk. Jannik’s phone buzzes increasingly often in his pocket, so much so that he turns it off without looking at the notifications. He can’t deal with this at the moment. Jack doesn’t seem to have the same problem as Jannik watches him send multiple messages before they finally reach their destination.
They still don’t talk while they cross the lobby or when they are left alone in the elevator. It’s only once the door of their shared room closes behind them that Jannik finally feels like the weight that settled on his shoulders when he saw the concert’s screen lifts. He stumbles out of his shoes and beelines to the bed, collapsing face down on the pillows much like a child. Behind him he can hear Jack chuckling but he refuses to move.
There is some shuffling somewhere further in the room and a light blinks on from the bathroom before the door closes and Jannik is left alone with his thoughts. He wonders what’s going through Jack’s head at the moment. Whether he regrets touching and flirting with Jannik. If he regrets inviting him out at all. Who he was texting in the car. If he wishes they had kissed to make the potential fall out a little more worth it. If all of this is only in Jannik’s head and Jack does these things with all of his friends.
Jannik is halfway convinced that he made all the tension up in his head and then made things weird by freaking out by the time Jack comes out of the bathroom. He doesn’t move, thinking that maybe Jack will let him pretend to be asleep and postpone any awkward conversation to the next morning. Of course that doesn’t happen.
The bed dips as Jack climbs into it and settles next to Jannik, one hand softly slipping into his curls. Some of the tension immediately slips out of him and Jannik nearly sighs in contentment as Jack smothers a laugh at his obvious reaction.
“You’re very like a cat, you know that?”
Jannik huffs a little but doesn’t protest further. Silence settles once again and he’s trying to think of a way to break it when Jack speaks again.
“What are you thinking about?”
Jannik twists his head around so he can look at his friend. Jack is sitting with his back to the headboard, staring down at him, face curious. He’s changed into his night clothes, shorts and a simple tee that reveals too much of his arms. Jannik kind of wants to bite them. That thought jostles him fully out of his little daze and he forces himself to not stare and act like a creep. He scrambles to find an acceptable answer to Jack’s question.
“Who do you text in the car?” And okay, it’s maybe not that acceptable but it’s the best Jannik can do at the moment. At least it seems to amuse Jack if the way he’s now smiling at him with his eyes a little scrunched up is anything to go by.
“My manager. Told him not to freak out and that we’d say something in the morning.”
Jannik’s traitorous heart skips a beat at the use of the plural. ‘We’ Jack said. Reality comes crashing back when Jannik realises that this means videos must have come out already. Unless Jack told his manager himself, but he doesn’t think that’s likely.
“It is out then?” His voice sounds weird even to his own ears. The smile on Jack’s face slips into more of a grimace. He nods slowly, the hand that was softly petting Jannik’s hair faltering for a second.
“Yeah. Sorry. I just… I don’t know. I felt really bad when you invited me to watch your final and I wasn’t there, and then I was very happy when you agreed to come tonight and I just… it was nice to just… be normal for one night. You weren’t pushing me away when I touched you and I really didn’t want to stop. But I know tennis is…weird about this stuff. And you don’t really need that kind of attention, so I’m really sorry. I can take the blame for this, or we can just say we’re friends and you’re Italian so you guys are very touchy with friends, right? Or -”
Laughter bubbles out of Jannik as Jack’s rambling finally comes to a stop. It is nice to know that he isn’t the only one panicking a little about what’s happened tonight. He twists until he’s lying on his back, carefully gathering his thoughts.
“I don’t think we can say it is because I am Italian. I don’t do this with my friends.”
The admission hangs in the air between them, more real than anything else that’s already happened tonight. Jannik can’t quite bring himself to glance at Jack to see what might be on his face.
“You do this with Matteo. You do worse with Matteo after the Davis Cup.”
And well. Jack isn’t wrong per say but Jannik isn’t about to admit this. Not when he’s trying to tell Jack that he enjoyed tonight up until it went to pieces. What’s between Matteo and Jannik is - mostly - irrelevant. It’s not like anything actually happened. Whether Jannik wanted something to happen or not…well there’s not much point to it at the moment.
“Matteo is Matteo. It is complicated. It is not complicated with you. I like that you touch me tonight. I like that you touch me always.”
If Jack changes topics again, Jannik will take it for what it is, but he can’t give up when he’s so close to getting what he wants, consequences be damned. He’s so tired of listening to the voice of reason in his head.
“...Jesus, Jan.” Jack sounds breathless, and when Jannik glances up at his friend, he’s staring at him wide eyed. The hand that was on his curls slips down to squeeze his shoulder softly. “You can’t say stuff like that.”
Jannik frowns, unsure whether to be upset at this or not. He pushes himself into a sitting position so he can face Jack more easily.
“Why not? It is true.”
Jack stares at him for a second longer before he closes his eyes and curses under his breath as one hand messes up his hair. Distantly, Jannik thinks that this is it, he’s pushed too far and Jack will pull away now, tell him that it’s not like this or something, and everything will be ruined.
“Fuck you drive me crazy.”
It’s Jannik’s turn to blink at Jack as his friend gives him a look so intense, Jannik can’t bare to face it any longer. He can feel his self control slipping and no matter how much he may want to, he’s not going to jump Jack without his permission.
“Tell me I can kiss you.” Jack’s tone is pleading and Jannik glances up to see the storms of his emotions reflected back at him. “Please tell me I can. I’ve been wanting to for so long, it’s all I’ve been thinking about all night. You don’t know what you were doing to me tonight, letting me touch you, and hug you, and fuck, you were touching me back and I wanted to kiss you so bad. I feel like I’m insane. Please let me kiss you.”
Jannik can barely bring himself to answer before he’s scrambling forward and into Jack, falling ungracefully into his arms, but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters anymore because they’re kissing now, and finally everything is right. Jannik is half into Jack’s lap, arms awkwardly holding onto his shoulders as his friend has one one arm supporting his weight, his free hand carefully cradling his jaw as he kisses him breathless. It’s so much better than he ever imagined and if he wasn’t so busy kissing Jack he would be scolding himself for taking so long to have this happen.
At some point he settles a little more, fully straddling Jack now as he cards one hand through his hair, the other wrapped around Jack’s biceps. Jack has one hand under his shirt, leaving goosebumps in his trail as he carefully tests boundaries, leaving featherlight kisses down his throat and it takes all of Jannik’s fracturing self control to stop himself from making embarrassing noises. He tugs at Jack’s hair to bring him up and then they’re kissing again and Jack is licking into his mouth and his hand is wrapped so tight around his waist Jannik is sure it will leave bruises and he feels like he’s died and gone to heaven, surely it’s not possible to feel this good just making out with someone.
They stop eventually, neither of them ready for more than heavy petting at the moment, and they settle on the bed tangled with one another as they keep on giggling like teenagers drunk on their first love. Jannik hasn’t felt this light and happy in forever and he kinda hopes it never fades.
He does force himself to get up to change and shower after the fifth time Jack yawns mid kiss. His friend - boyfriend ? - grumbles a little when Jannik extricates himself from his arms, but he lets him go after Jannik promises to come back. It is stupid, it’s not like Jannik has anywhere else to go, but neither of them are particularly coherent at the moment, drunk on happiness and adrenaline.
It’s only once Jannik is done with his shower that he remembers his phone and some of the events of the night come crashing back into him. Their situation is still pretty bad. There isn’t a single top 100 male tennis player openly out. Simone warned him about this. Ironically, he wasn’t even talking about Jack at the time, but instead about Carlos and what his trip to Alicante could look like from the outside.
Jannik hesitates a second longer before he decides to bite the bullet and turns his phone back on. As it slowly comes back to life, Jannik exits the bathroom and clambers back into bed and into Jack’s arms. His friend is breathing peacefully, clearly half asleep and Jannik tries his best to avoid disturbing him as he turns the light from his phone to its lowest setting and turns the silent mode on as notifications pop up one after the other on the screen.
There’s a message from his mother that he resolutely ignores, another one from Alex, his poor social media manager and Jannik thinks that he’ll probably need to give him a raise after this. There’s a message from Darren and another one from Simone, actually multiple ones from Simone and Jannik winces, already imagining the lecture he’ll get once they see each other again.
And then there’s plenty of messages from his friends or fellow players. He ignores almost everything, but he can’t quite stop himself from checking some of them.
😈
u have shitty taste in boyfriends
he kiss u better than me?
u look cute with glasses btw
Carlos
🤔📵😘😭✖️🚮🙋♂️🧑🤝🧑🙏❔️🥰
🔨💙
Coldplay??? I’ll take you to a Maneskin concert, this is insulting
Jannik can’t quite smother the giggle that escapes him and Jack grumbles next to him, blinking one eye open.
“Who’s texting you?”
Jannik debates for only a second before showing him his phone. It’s not like he’s ever hidden anything from Jack. His friend fumbles for a second, squinting at the screen, before he huffs out a laugh.
“Ah yeah. They’ve been spamming the group chat. Can't believe this is how you saved Holger's number.”
Jannik stares as Jack drops the phone carelessly and goes back to sleep. Surely he didn’t hear right.
“What group chat?”
Silence is his only answer as Jack’s hold on him tightens for a second before relaxing again.
“ Jack, what group chat? ”