#mean?

Let by wheretheheckismyjello

Part One: US Open (2025)

Carlos

It is a muggy night in September when Carlos Alcaraz decides to get over his feelings for Jannik Sinner once and for all. He feels many things toward Jannik, so it must be a targeted excision. 

They are friends, but not really. Rivals -- definitely.

They fuck, when there is time, place, and occasion. They kiss, when Jannik feels generous. 

He beats Jannik and Jannik beats him. He beats Jannik again. 

They demand each other’s respect on the court.

But Jannik disrespects him, too. Banishes him from too many dirtied beds before Carlos has even had a chance to catch his breath from coming his brains out on Jannik's cock. 

Carlos disrespects him in equal measure. Spits out Jannik's cum on his belly after swallowing his cock down without blinking. 

Jannik disrespects him tonight, on this muggy September night before another Final between them. He shuts the door in Carlos' face with a terse, "What the fuck are you doing here? Are you crazy?"

Carlos considers the question and nods. Yes. Getting over the net and within the proper bounds. It's the only way to win, when it comes to him and Jannik.

-----

Jannik

Last time, Jannik told Carlos in no uncertain terms that they could sleep together after the Final, but not before. Not ever before. 

He learned his lesson in Paris, when he let Carlos, begged Carlos, to ride his cock the night before their final at Roland-Garros. The subsequent crash of defeat from the excruciating high of pleasure shattered him. Left him as dust on Philippe-Chatrier.

On the other side of the door, Carlos breathes. Then, he leaves. And it’s that simple. 

Jannik checks the peephole, just to be sure. Carlos really is gone. What a relief, he thinks.

He goes to the bathroom and washes his hands and does not look in the mirror. He was about to brush his teeth when Carlos knocked. 

He resumes. Fluoride and mint replace the taste of Carlos’ words in Cincinnati. 

“I am so sorry, Jannik,” Carlos had said when Jannik was forced to retire due to illness. “I did not want it like this.” 

He spits. Rinses.

He makes some attempt to tamp down his unruly hair, but it is stubborn.

Carlos didn’t come to his room to sleep with him.

Jannik knows.

He said, “What the fuck are you doing here? Are you crazy?” 

But he knows what Carlos looks like when he’s being crazy. Wild-eyed and moaning, “I feel like I’m going to die, Jannik,” under him.

Carlos had a different kind of wildness in his eyes tonight. He had come for something else, and finding out what it is makes Jannik feel like the crazy one. They have a Final to play in sixteen hours and Jannik needs to be sane in order to win.

So he shut the door.

-----

The start is delayed half an hour. Extra security at Arthur Ashe. Jannik waits.

When it’s time for the walk-on, they do not look at each other. 

But Carlos always looks at Jannik. At practice courts, at tournament events, across the net. Carlos looks at Jannik in a way that makes him feel both dissected and created whole. 

This time, Jannik is the world number one, so Carlos enters first. Jannik is forced to look at his back as he goes. 

-----

The first game lasts eight minutes and ends with Carlos breaking him.

Eight minutes. Jannik hits a forehand long, then another, then watches Carlos take control of the baseline in the way Jannik usually does. Irritating.

Carlos breaks again for 5-2 and holds, and the first set is gone 6-2 and Jannik has won sixteen percent of return points on Carlos’ serve.

He sits at the changeover and tries to locate the problem. His serve is off. His forehand is landing two feet long. The crowd is already tilting.

But maybe it isn't what he's doing wrong. Maybe it's what Carlos is doing right.

Jannik grinds out the second set through stubbornness. Breaks to love in the fifth game. The crowd swings. He holds, and holds, and takes it 6-3.

The third set is twenty-six minutes of slaughter.

5-0 before Jannik registers what’s happening. Carlos sends him corner to corner. Forehand, backhand, drop shot, forehand again. Jannik runs, but he’s always there just a second too late. Eleven winners to his one. He manages a single game to avoid the bagel. 6-1.

At the changeover, Carlos takes off his shirt and towels down. Jannik eats a protein bar and adjusts his strings. 

Carlos puts the shirt back on and adjusts his chain and murmurs, “Vamos, Carlitos.“

Carlos can be quite emotional until he decides not to be.

The fourth set is even -- until it isn’t. At 2-2, Jannik’s serve falters. Double fault. Another long forehand. The small specific betrayals of a body that has acquiesced to defeat. Carlos breaks in the fifth game. 3-2. Jannik never gets it back.

On championship point -- the third, because Jannik saved two with winners, because he is stubborn even in defeat -- Carlos tosses the ball and sends an ace into the corner.

The tenth ace of the match. The last sound Jannik hears before the crowd swallows everything.

6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4. Two hours and forty-two minutes.

He goes to the net.

Carlos takes Jannik’s hand, then embraces him. He says something sentimental and then lays his head against Jannik’s shoulder. Suddenly, Jannik feels a yawning hunger. He breaks off from Carlos and tastes the salt on his lips.

The crowd is in awe as Carlos mimes a golf swing in celebration. 

Despite the squinch of loss in his chest, Jannik can’t help but smile. 

-----

During his victor’s speech Carlos says, “I’m seeing you more than my family.” 

Everyone laughs, including Jannik. There’s nothing familial about the two of them, but Jannik knows the exact  way Carlos breathes. 

As he speaks, Carlos keeps rubbing his palm over his buzzcut. Jannik has no idea what it feels like -- he hasn’t touched Carlos since London -- but he’s curious now. Would it feel like the grass at Wimbledon? The fuzz of a tennis ball?

Like the short hairs on Carlos’ nape, when Jannik puts a hand there and presses him down against the mattress.

-----

They don’t run into each other for the rest of the night.

Jannik, as the loser, must be the one to wait patiently after the victor is done with celebrations.

He showers. The water is too hot, but his aching muscles sigh, so he doesn’t turn the knob. His skin turns garish red. 

There isn’t a joy to losing, but he holds on to the pieces that he can use to beat Carlos next time. 

Anyway, Jannik waits. Either Carlos will come or he won’t.

They might play another kind of game. 

Either Jannik will come or he won’t. 

Jannik had shut the door in Carlos’ face last time. His cruelty usually doesn’t deter Carlos, but he always wonders when the break point will happen. 

-----

Carlos

After drinking copious amounts of champagne, Carlos returns to his own suite and jerks off furiously at the thought of Jannik. The though of him losing. His tender, easily affected skin. The bloom of freckles on his cheeks and the gap between his teeth. The way he pushes into Carlos, slowly, quickly, any way Jannik likes. But how Jannik likes is how Carlos likes.

Carlos comes.

He thinks about the choice he makes every day to be the best at tennis. 

Some days are easier than others. When he’s losing, he wants to go home. When he’s winning, there is nothing else he wants other than to be on the court forever.

Once he arrives in El Palmar he makes arrangements for a new phone. A new number. Then, he asks Victor to do something different to his hair.