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Rome has an almost unreal quality to it, something blurry and wispy at the edges of Jannik’s awareness. Not because anything has changed since the last time he was here, really, but because of the exact opposite: everything has been forced to remain exactly the same as before.
The same airport terminals flooded with white fluorescent lights and sponsor logos and built in camera-ready smiles, the same hotel corridors muffled by expensive carpeting, the same locker rooms that smell of sweat and bleach. The only thing that's gotten worse is media, even when their questions are vetted and prepackaged to avoid stirring the pot of Jannik's return any more than necessary. The result is that they circle carefully around what happened without ever touching it directly.
How does it feel to be back? Did the time away help mentally? Have you adjusted your training regimen?
Jannik answers all the questions correctly. He had three months to rehearse them, after all. So he sits there in all black sponsor gear, deadly pale and freckled beneath the lights, posture straight and composed, and speaks in the calm, measured voice people expect from him. All while something deep inside his body twists itself raw with hunger, because Carlos is somewhere in the building and Jannik has known exactly where he is ever since he stepped through security six hours earlier.
It’s not even conscious at this point, more like instinctive. What it is for sure though, is exhausting – like part of him is always working for it, always aware and unable to relax.
Every few minutes his attention catches on the sensation of Carlos, the same way a cat’s ears turn toward movement. And, each time, Jannik has to force himself back into the present, pressing his nails into his palms beneath the table hard enough to hurt. Because if he lets himself drift even slightly, then he starts imagining things he cannot survive imagining.
Like Carlos laughing somewhere down the corridor. Or Carlos sweaty and flushed from practice. Carlos’ beating pulse.
The moderator thanks everyone for attending and the press conference ends. Not one for the cameras even at his best, Jannik stands immediately. A bit too immediately: the world gets crazy for a second, dizziness catching up to him before he can slow himself down. He takes a second to breathe and then leaves without looking at anyone.
Darren meets him down the private hallway leading towards the player elevators, his expression carefully neutral in the way it has become lately, at least whenever Carlos is involved.
“You’re shaking again,” he says quietly, careful not to be overheard. Jannik shoves his hands into his pockets before the movement becomes visible to the cameras.
“I’m fine.” It’s an automatic lie now, smooth and soft from overuse like a well-loved stuffed animal you still hug for comfort, even though you know you’ve outgrown it.
“You need to eat something. Today or tomorrow, but before the first match. Or you won’t make it through warmup, Jan.”
Jannik's stomach cramps, the way it always does, now.
He can’t keep animal blood down. At least not like he used to. Now he forces himself to have it in very small doses, but it hurts, like he’s folding himself in a tight space he just doesn't fit.
It became impossible in stages, gradual enough that at first they believed it was psychological, shock-induced, temporary. Then medical, some bizarre metabolic complication caused by human exposure. Finally, they settled on something far worse.
They drew Darren’s blood. Then Simone’s, then Alex’s, anyone on his team close enough to know what happened three months prior. Still, Jannik couldn't stomach it.
He’s imprinted. His body simply no longer recognizes anything else as food. Anything but –
The last attempt had ended with him on the bathroom floor, shaking violently while his body rejected every drop of Darren’s blood. After that, no one tried forcing it again. So he takes water, and they inject him with saline, and he manages a few sips of cow blood now and then, and at least it keeps him upright.
Now, Darren insists, face blank and grave like he’s just been invited to a funeral. “You need something.” And Jannik says nothing, because they both know what he means. And because they both know who is currently upstairs.
“He asked if you wanted to come by after physio.”
Jannik closes his eyes.
For one terrible second, relief moves through him like euphoria. His body reacts before his mind does: heartbeat stuttering hard once against his ribs, hunger surging so abruptly it leaves him dizzy again, something hot and ugly and desperate clawing awake beneath his skin with enough force that he has to brace one hand briefly against the wall beside him. It’s fucking humiliating.
Darren watches in silence, looking around to check they're alone. “You don’t have to,” he says carefully, which is absurd, because they both know he does.
—
Carlos opens the hotel room door barefoot.
That detail fixes itself immediately and permanently in Jannik’s mind for reasons he hates himself for, afterwards. It’s just – bare feet against the dark carpet, callouses and blisters and all. Like he’s completely at home wherever his designer sneakers touch the ground.
He’s wearing a Nike shirt and sweatpants that hang dangerously low on his hips, and his hair is damp from a shower. His scent hits Jannik instantly, soft and clean at first (soap, skin, heat) and then, underneath it, the thing that matters the most, the thing his body responds to with a violent kind of recognition. His blood.
Jannik’s teeth ache so sharply he nearly flinches, but he manages to keep the fangs in. Under the threshold, Carlos studies him in silence for a second, attention sharpening in a way that feels almost physical. Then, he steps aside to let Jannik in. The door clicks shut behind them, and the room feels too small all of the sudden.
“You look awful,” Carlos says. Jannik laughs despite himself.
“So do you.”
Carlos smiles at that. It’s a lie.
Maybe he shouldn’t still be beautiful to Jannik after what happened last time, after the blood and the panic and the horrible sound Jannik made when they tried pulling him away, after the weeks of suspension and controlled statements and medical intervention and carefully buried evidence, after all the damage this has already done to both of them. But he is.
And Jannik isn't. The questions about his form are valid: he’s always been thin, but now he’s firmly crossed the threshold towards gaunt. The paleness, at least, he can justify. “Have you eaten anything lately?” Carlos asks.
When Jannik says nothing, Carlos’ smile fades slightly.
“How long?”
“I’m fine.”
“You wouldn't be here then, no?” And Jannik hates that he’s right. Quietly, Carlos adds, “You should’ve come earlier.”
Jannik’s control slips a little at the edges then, just enough for hunger to bleed visibly into his expression. He wonders if Carlos’ team knows he’s here, that their wonderboy is only steps away from something that actively wants to bleed him dry.
Because the truth is that Jannik has thought about this every hour since during the suspension, every waking moment threaded through with memories he can’t seem to purge from himself no matter how desperately he tries. The taste of Carlos’ blood flooding his mouth, the way his body softened instantly with the venom, the sound he made when Jannik bit him, low and helpless and wanting enough to destroy whatever scraps remained of Jannik’s willpower.
Even now, his pulse changes remembering it. Carlos must be following the same train of thought, because he lifts one hand to the side of his own throat and presses there like he can hear the blood too. Like he’s remembering what it felt like.
This is the worst part, actually: the unbearable sensation that Carlos understands what he’s doing to Jannik.
When he steps closer and his fingers move to brush lightly against Jannik’s wrist instead, he nearly breaks from that alone.
The reaction is instant and catastrophic, hunger roaring upward so hard it leaves black spots briefly swimming across Jannik’s vision, his body moving half a step forward involuntarily before he catches himself. Right in front of him, Carlos inhales sharply, but stays still.
“Come on. You need it,” he whispers.
Jannik closes his eyes. Carlos moves closer anyway, until there is barely space left between them at all. There doesn't seem to be any lingering fear in Carlos after last time, no visible instinct to pull away. Jannik wonders how much he recalls.
“Carlos –”
Another step, and the space between them disappears entirely. The ache has become physical these past months, no longer just abstract, like the imprinting rewired something fundamental inside Jannik and he no longer understands moderation where Carlos is concerned, only possession. And God, he’s hungry.
Carlos smells warm and alive and familiar.
“You play tomorrow,” Jannik says quietly, forcing the words out. “It has to be small.”
“Okay.”
It’s too fucking easy. Jannik opens his eyes again, suspicious even through the haze building in his head. Carlos notices and smirks.
“You don’t trust me.”
“No,” Jannik says honestly.
Something pleased flickers briefly across Carlos’ face at that. That should worry him more than it does.
Instead, Jannik finds himself staring at Carlos’ mouth, at the shape of his lips, at the pulse beating steadily in his throat, and has to physically drag his gaze away.
“You need to stop me if I lose control,” he says.
Carlos’ eyes darken slightly.
“You’ll stop.”
“I mean it.”
“Me too.”
The problem is that Jannik believes him. Carlos doesn’t understand the nature of vampire hunger, not really, but he does understand Jannik frighteningly well. He knows the effect he’s having.
The room is quiet except for their breathing. Rome glows dimly outside the windows. Somewhere far below them, traffic moves through the streets, ordinary life continuing untouched while Jannik stands here, trapped in orbit around another human being.
Carlos reaches for the collar of his t-shirt and pulls it aside, revealing tan, warm skin. It’s clean, unmarked now, but Jannik remembers every inch of it anyway – the sweetness of Carlos’ blood flooding his mouth for the first time, the sounds he made beneath him, the overwhelming certainty that had seized him afterwards.
Mine.
The thought still horrifies him. Mostly because some part of him still means it.
Carlos watches the shift in his expression carefully. Then, he says:
“Come here.”
Jannik moves before he can allow himself to, and that makes him acutely aware of the imbalance between them. And of how Carlos seems to enjoy it.
Jannik stops close enough to feel Carlos’ breath against his mouth.
“Not much,” he repeats, “I can’t risk –”
“I know.”
His hand slides briefly against the back of Jannik’s neck, fingertips resting there lightly, and the gesture feels so unassumingly soothing that it almost makes something inside Jannik unravel completely.
God. He hates what this has become.
He lowers his head slowly instead, forcing himself to move carefully despite the hunger clawing violently at his insides now. Carlos shivers before Jannik even touches him.
“Jannik,” he breathes. Warning or invitation?
Jannik’s lips brush first against the skin beneath the collarbone, trying desperately to steady himself. Carlos’ pulse quickens beneath his mouth.
His fangs descend sharply. He grips Carlos’ waist hard enough to anchor himself before finally, carefully, sinking his teeth in.
The first taste hits him like violence. Just like last time, it’s perfect.
Relief tears through his body so abruptly it almost hurts, hunger easing and intensifying simultaneously as Carlos’ blood floods onto his tongue. Carlos gasps softly, body immediately softening against him as venom enters his bloodstream.
Jannik feels the exact moment it happens. The giving in, the want beneath it all. He forces himself to swallow slowly instead of drinking deeper.
His body metabolizes human blood way too efficiently for safety: too much and the enhancement markers will spike, his strength and recovery accelerating past the legal thresholds until the testing flags him again.
And Carlos –
Well, he has matches to play too.
He shifts faintly against Jannik, pliant now beneath the venom, breathing unevenly as one hand slides upwards into Jannik’s hair.
“Come on. You’re starving,” he murmurs. The words go straight through Jannik. He drinks deeper instinctively before he can stop himself.
Carlos makes a low sound that feels almost embarrassingly intimate in the quiet room, knees weakening slightly as pleasure flashes across his face.
Jannik tears himself back immediately, his breathing all ragged. Under him, Carlos looks dazed already, pupils blown wide, heartbeat racing violently. He’s obviously hard in his sweatpants.
And still –
“Don’t stop yet,” he tries.
Jannik closes his eyes.
“I have to.”
“You barely took anything.”
Because if he keeps going, he may not stop for real. He may take, and take, and take until he ends up locked up forever and Carlos cold in the morgue. Still, Carlos exhales shakily, head tipping briefly against Jannik’s shoulder as the venom runs and settles through him.
For a moment neither of them moves, and Jannik considers something else. That is, just shoving his hand inside Carlos’ pants and giving him at least that – the release he clearly wants. But Carlos doesn't move, and his hips are steady too, and Jannik chickens out. He can feel Carlos’ heartbeat gradually slowing again, while his own hunger begins to return.
Most likely, it will never fully leave anymore.
Eventually, Carlos lifts his head slowly. His expression is a little gone and soft in a way the public never sees, eyes heavy-lidded beneath the lingering haze of venom.
“Good job,” he says quietly. Jannik laughs once, exhausted.
“If I didn’t stop,” he murmurs, “you’d collapse halfway through the tournament.”
Carlos’ gaze lingers on him for a long moment.
Then, very softly:
“Maybe I’d let you.”
—
Rome passes in a blur of red clay and camera flashes and careful restraint, every day narrowing into the same unbearable rhythm: practice, media, recovery, distance; then nightfall, and hunger, and the quiet destruction of whatever self-control Jannik has rebuilt throughout the day.
He loses in the semifinals. Carlos wins the tournament.
The entire stadium rises for him when the match point lands, roaring loud enough to vibrate through the court beneath Jannik’s shoes as he watches from the stands. Carlos looks incandescent under the stadium lights, and the hunger hits so abruptly Jannik has to look away. Beside him, Darren notices immediately.
“You need to leave.”
He thought maybe he’d be able to make it through the trophy ceremony, that the media would like that (the respect, the professionalism, the sportsmanship between rivals) – but he can’t.
His phone buzzes before he reaches the car.
Come upstairs later?
Jannik stares at the message a little too long. He can’t. They're flying out tonight, and Carlos will celebrate with his team and –
His stomach cramps.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, pocketing his phone again.
—
Carlos opens the hotel room door with the trophy displayed on his bedside table. Asshole. His hair is damp from the shower again, and there is still adrenaline radiating from him in waves strong enough that Jannik can hear his heart before he even steps fully inside.
Victory changes Carlos’ scent, turning it into something headier, sweeter. Jannik knows that now.
Carlos turns toward him slowly, leaning back briefly against the closed door.
“You watched the final?”
Jannik considers lying, but Italian tournaments are home tournaments, and a sick part of him wanted to stay anyway.
“Yeah. Great match. Like always, you’re so strong on the net.”
Carlos smiles faintly. There is venom still lingering in him from the previous feed. Jannik can just barely smell it beneath soap and sweat and victory, woven permanently into Carlos’ bloodstream now in small residual traces no doctor would ever recognize for what they are.
Sometimes Jannik wonders if that should frighten him more than it does.
“Did it bother you?” Carlos asks. “That I won.”
“No,” Jannik says.
The problem is he means it. Because once, before all of this, losing to Carlos had burned clean and sharp and competitive inside him, even if the sting was always muted by respect and something akin to a work friendship. But now, watching Carlos win fills him with something like possession, like some irrational part of him sees Carlos’ strength and immediately interprets it as something precious and alive and his.
The thought makes nausea twist briefly in his stomach. Carlos notices the change in his expression.
“You should eat before it gets worse,” he says, misinterpreting disgust for the discomfort of hunger.
“We said after matches only.”
“And my match is over.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Then why are you here again?
Carlos walks toward him before he finishes speaking. He stops directly in front of Jannik, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body.
“You played until semis. You’re hungry.” Jannik can hear Carlos’ heartbeat in his teeth. “I know you can manage, but do you want to?”
And that – That is new. And it sounds too much like Carlos knows that some terrible part of Jannik no longer seeks to feed from him for survival, but that it craves him specifically and irrationally. That there is want underneath instinct.
Jannik flinches, and Carlos’ pupils look dark and huge. “There it is,” he murmurs, reaching out to grab Jannik’s arm. It shouldn’t feel as intimate as it does. “You’re worse tonight,” he says softly.
Jannik laughs once, tired beyond belief of this dance they keep doing.
“You won Rome.”
“And?”
“You smell different after wins,” Jannik says. Carlos stares at him, and Jannik regrets ever speaking.
“Oh,” he says softly. And there it is again: that dangerous fascination in his eyes. Like every new monstrous thing Jannik admits only pulls Carlos deeper, instead of driving him away. “You can smell that?” Jannik nods once. Carlos’ pupils widen even more. “Does it make you hungry?”
The question lands low and dangerous between them. Jannik feels his fangs ache inside his gums.
“Yes.”
Carlos inhales slowly.
“Good.”
The word tears something open inside Jannik. He’s moving before he can even think about it, pressing Carlos against the wall, one hand braced beside his head, while he breathes hard through the need crashing through him.
Carlos gasps, but Jannik doesn't smell fear in him.
“You can’t say things like that,” Jannik whispers. His voice almost breaks.
Carlos looks – excited.
“Why?”
Jannik lowers his head slowly, stopping himself barely an inch from Carlos’ throat.
“Tell me to stop.”
But Carlos’ fingers slide slowly into his hair, combing through the curls and making Jannik tremble against him.
“No.”
Jannik bites.
—
Paris feels dangerous from the moment Jannik arrives. Not because of the city itself, though Roland Garros always carries a kind of feverish intensity like a cloak: crowds louder and crueler and more emotional, long matches stretching deep into the night beneath white stadium lights while the clay stains both skin and clothes.
By the second week of the tournament, the secrecy surrounding them has become grounded enough to be more like infrastructure. No one speaks about it directly if they can avoid it, but both teams settle into it against their will.
The physios coordinate schedules, and the nutritionists quietly adjust Carlos’ recovery protocols around sudden iron deficiencies and unexplained fatigue dips. Jannik’s medical team monitors his testing windows with suffocating precision, tracking markers after every feeding with the cold focus of people trying to hold together something fundamentally unstable.
This is no longer just an incident, but rather… Maintenance.
Because the truth is that Jannik functions better after feeding. He’s calmer, sharper. But the problem is that Carlos does too.
The venom stabilizes him after matches now, floods warmth through his exhausted muscles and slows the crash after adrenaline highs. And now his doctors quietly note the improved metrics with blank expressions, as though refusing to acknowledge the implication that this thing damaging them might also be helping.
But at the end of the day it's still an addiction, even if no one says it out loud.
—
The semifinal against Rune ends after midnight, four hours and twelve minutes. Carlos wins, of course.
Jannik watches most of the game alone in the player recovery room beneath the stadium, sitting motionless in partial darkness with an opaque, untouched bottle of calf blood sweating condensation beside him. Every point unfolds somewhere above, heard through vibrations in concrete and the impossible, relentless awareness of Carlos himself.
Stress sharpens his scent first, nerves frayed before he gets into the rhythm of the game. Then determination, and finally exhilaration as momentum shifts in his favor. By the fifth set, Jannik can practically feel his bloodstream from across the grounds.
Darren finds him halfway through the final set, stopping dead in his tracks when he sees him.
“Jesus Christ,” he says quietly, and Jannik realizes a second too late that his fangs are already down. He forces them back in with effort.
Above them, the crowd erupts. Match point.
Darren watches him carefully. It’s still vulnerable and embarrassing and uncomfortable, even after everything he’s seen of Jannik.
“He’ll be heading back to the hotel.” It’s neutral, but inherently complicit.
Jannik says nothing.
“You need to wait at least an hour,” Darren continues. “Your cortisol’s already high, and if your metrics spike again tomorrow –”
“I know.”
The answer comes sharper than Jannik intended. Darren doesn't chastise him, he just sighs and says:
“God, you’re getting worse around him.”
Jannik suppresses a bitter laugh. He is.
—
Carlos keeps up the habit of opening his hotel room door in inadequate clothing, this time wearing only loose gray sweatpants and a natural kind of cockiness, completely comfortable in his own skin. He doesn't seem surprised to see Jannik, so probably Darren warned his team already.
Just like last time, victory radiates from him like something almost tangible, mixing with heat and adrenaline. And, underneath it all… Want. It’s a sweet scent, something intoxicating and almost cloying. It spikes when Jannik walks in.
“You took forever,” Carlos says, almost pouting.
“You needed to recover from the match.”
Carlos smiles like he’s endeared, like this thing they're doing is sweet.
The room smells like antiseptic cream and sweat and expensive hotel soap, but also like Carlos beneath all of it, warm enough now that hunger starts coiling low and vicious through Jannik’s body almost immediately.
“You watched the game?”
Jannik nods once. Carlos likes him watching, likes having Jannik’s undivided attention. Thrives on it, even.
Carlos takes the opportunity to look at Jannik, scanning him from top to bottom and then back up. Then he hums, a short, low sound, almost a grunt.
“How bad was it?”
They both know he isn't asking about the match. Jannik looks away.
“Bad.”
Carlos’ heartbeat quickens. The realization that he enjoys hearing it still unsettles Jannik every single time.
When Carlos walks closer, Jannik can smell arousal on him, beneath everything else.
The feedings have changed. On the one hand, it’s become strangely transactional. Their teams sanction it silently: Jannik calms his hunger enough to function, Carlos bounces off of fatigue like it never existed in the first place. Win win. And is it really cheating, when no one else on tour can come close to them, even before they started doing… This?
But the lines have begun to blur. When the venom floods Carlos and leaves him warm and pliant while Jannik spirals into that terrible, euphoric calm only his blood provides… Both of them end up breathing harder than they should by the end of it, touching too much, too close.
It’s still hunger, but of a different kind altogether. And Jannik can smell it on Carlos like gunpowder on his hands.
So he pulls Carlos in, one hand sliding around his waist hard enough to drag a startled breath from him, pressing him back against the edge of the desk. The impact rattles softly through the room, and it makes heat spike sharply through his scent.
Jannik lowers his head against his throat, low enough that Carlos’ t-shirt will cover the marks when he makes them.
“You do this on purpose now,” he says quietly against warm skin. Carlos’ fingers slide onto the back of his neck almost on autopilot.
“Yes.”
Jannik kisses him before he can think better of it. Carlos gasps sharply into his mouth, hands gripping at his shoulders as Jannik crowds closer, kissing him like he’s trying to consume him from the inside out.
It somehow shocks Jannik every time still – that Carlos wants this with the same terrifying intensity, that he meets his hunger halfway. How very dangerous.
Their mouths part briefly only for Jannik’s teeth to graze Carlos’ lower lip. Carlos shudders hard, and then the scent of arousal floods warmer through the room.
“Drink,” Carlos whispers shakily, but he makes it sound like an order.
Jannik nearly loses control. But, instead, he forces himself slower, more careful, dragging kisses along Carlos’ throat first. Because he knows that, if he bites him like this, hungry and worked up, he may not be able to stop.
Carlos notices the effort too, making a frustrated noise in the back of his throat.
“Come on. Jannik.”
Jannik lifts his head slowly, then looks at Carlos. He’s a little flushed and breathing hard against the desk, eyes dark and completely aware of what he’s doing. Manipulating Jannik, offering himself. It takes a particular, twisted kind of trust to do that.
Jannik kisses him once more before pushing Carlos’ head up and finally sinking his teeth into the delicate skin just under his jawline. The effect is immediate: Carlos breaks instantly, moaning around a gasp and heaving against Jannik’s frame.
Jannik forces himself slow, stopping between swallows. He really can’t be careful enough, for both their sakes, no matter how much his body wants to give in.
Carlos arches faintly into him when he drinks again, and the movement drags a rough sound from Jannik’s throat before he can stop it.
It’s so bad. Because the wanting between them has become reciprocal enough now that feeding no longer feels separate from desire at all – Carlos intoxicated from the venom and Jannik’s visible unraveling, and Jannik drunk on blood and the body-wide satisfaction of holding Carlos like this.
When the room starts spinning around them, Jannik tears himself away.
Carlos looks wrecked already, lips red and pupils blown wide, pulse racing violently beneath his skin, marked only by two tiny punctures hidden safely beneath his jawline, covered by the incipient beard growing there.
And still –
Jannik reaches for him again.
Getting Carlos off is surprisingly easy, considering Jannik’s never done it before. But he’s still high on blood, and Carlos is hard and wanting, and all it takes is spit and a few strokes to get him there. He shakes when he comes, clinging to Jannik’s warmed up body and groaning in his ear.
He wipes the come on his own pants before he can do something even more incriminating, like licking it off and swallowing. He wonders if he’d be able to keep it down, simply because it’s Carlos.
When Carlos finally resurfaces, he’s smiling, a pleased, satisfied expression on his face. And Jannik knows there and then that there is no way this ends up well for either of them.
—
The rain delays at Wimbledon make everything just a little bit worse – too much waiting, everyone huddled together while they wait for the skies to clear.
The players’ lounge fills with restless energy as storms roll endlessly over London, athletes scattered across couches and tables beneath muted television screens replaying old matches that nobody is actually watching.
Jannik sits alone near the windows, pretending to scroll through his latest match analysis on his phone, all while he automatically tracks Carlos somewhere behind him.
He laughs differently around other players than he does around Jannik now, something lighter and looser. Jannik’s jaw tightens at the sound.
“You’re staring again,” Darren says quietly from beside him. Jannik looks away.
Across the lounge, Carlos is sitting sprawled comfortably across one of the couches beside Rublev and Ruud, half-listening to something being said while peeling athletic tape from one wrist. Even from here Jannik can hear his pulse, smell the exhaustion underneath it. Then, suddenly, a faint spike in adrenaline the moment Carlos notices him looking.
Their eyes meet briefly across the room. Carlos smiles a little mean, like he caught Jannik red-handed.
Jannik exhales slowly through his nose, returning his attention to his phone. I’m in control. I am. And technically, it’s true: he hasn't lost control again, since the first time.
Then why does it feel like things are getting worse?
Across the lounge, Carlos stretches his arms above his head lazily, making his shirt lift slightly. A strip of bare skin flashes above the waistband of his shorts.
Jannik looks away again, shame flooding his system like poison. He needs distance.
—
Distance lasts approximately thirty-six hours before Carlos corners Jannik beneath Centre Court after a late practice session, while rain hammers against the stadium roof overhead.
The underground corridors are mostly empty at this hour, staff voices echoing distantly somewhere farther down the concrete hallways. The sane players have already retreated back to their hotels. Only the strays remain.
Jannik is halfway through taping his forearm when Carlos steps into the physio room.
“You skipped dinner.” Not even a hello, a how are you?
Jannik keeps his eyes lowered towards the tape around his hand.
“I wasn’t hungry.”
“You haven’t touched me in four days.”
The bluntness of his words lands low and dangerous in Jannik’s stomach. He finishes wrapping up carefully before answering.
“You need rest.”
“I need you to stop avoiding me.” But no, Carlos is tired. Jannik can smell it on him. “The press has noticed, you know. How you stay away.”
Carlos is, unfortunately, right. Before this, physical contact wasn't out of the ordinary between them – a hand briefly against Carlos’ back in hallways, knees touching beneath tables during player dinners, casual contact blurred somewhere between friendship and rivalry. But not anymore.
“I’m trying to make this easier on you,” Jannik says.
Carlos stares at him. They both know that isn't the whole truth.
But instead of arguing, he just lets out a long breath and says, “You get this… look,” he starts, gesturing to his own face, “when you’re starving. Like you’re trying not to climb inside my skin.”
Again, manipulation. Again, Jannik’s stomach swoops inside his belly, cramping uncomfortably.
But he resists. “You need rest,” he repeats, then collects his bags, and heads towards the door. He doesn't look back to check if Carlos stays.
—
The headlines after Wimbledon are easy enough to survive, at least initially. Carlos Alcaraz fades physically in four set thriller. Questions over Alcaraz‘s conditioning after marathon fortnight.
Nobody suspects the truth because nobody would. Who in their right mind would let their vampire rival close enough for that?
Carlos still smiles through press conferences with his particular brand of effortless charm, sitting beneath sponsor logos while sweat dries at his temples and journalists ask whether the loss was tactical, physical, mental.
“I was just tired,” he lies easily.
Jannik watches from the corridor television outside and feels nauseous.
—
The real spiraling out of control begins as summer slips away.
“You look like shit,” Medvedev tells Carlos casually, in the Cincinnati locker room. Carlos laughs.
“Thanks, man.”
“No, seriously.” Medvedev tosses his towel into his locker, somehow non-chalant and very chalant at the same time. “You sick?”
Carlos shrugs lightly. “It’s been a long season.”
But, across the room, Jannik hears the conversation and recognizes the subtle acceleration in Carlos’ pulse.
It’s anxiety. But not from the comment itself, but rather from Jannik overhearing.
—
The media starts circling by the US Open because they love a good narrative, and narratives are how sports journalism feeds itself. And, by that point, Carlos and Jannik have become impossible to discuss separately.
Every press conference turns into questions about the other.
Did you watch Carlos’ match? What do you think about Jannik’s form? Do you feel the rivalry becoming psychological? You’ve been spending quite some time together off court lately, right?
The last question strikes Jannik as awfully dangerous.
“We get along.” And it’s the truth, even if it isn't complete.
But a certain kind of awareness is spreading across the public, one that realizes that there's something strange going on between them. People start posting tweets and videos and edits, talking about the way Jannik watches Carlos during matches, the way Carlos visibly settles whenever Jannik enters a room, the strange, almost territorial, tension that appears whenever other players linger too close to either of them.
They call it a rivalry gone toxic, even psychological warfare. Obsession.
—
“You can’t keep feeding before matches.”
It’s Samu that finally says it outright in New York.
Carlos sits sprawled across the couch still wet from practice, sunglasses discarded beside electrolyte packets and recovery wraps while his team stands around him, wearing the exhausted expressions of people trying to negotiate with something fundamentally irrational.
Across the room, Jannik stands motionless near the windows, trying not to look predatory.
“Your metrics are collapsing, Carlos,” Samu tells him. He’s speaking in Spanish, but Jannik gets the gist of it. “You’re compensating short-term with adrenaline and… The venom, but your baseline is getting worse every week.”
Carlos rubs tiredly at one eye.
“I’m fine.”
“No,” Ferrero chimes in. “You’re functioning. But you’re not fine.” There's a distinction, and they all know it.
Jannik watches Carlos while the conversation continues around them, tracking the faint bitterness that tells him he’s getting overwhelmed. Underneath all of it though, hidden low and deep enough now that only Jannik recognizes it, there's withdrawal.
Carlos hasn’t been fed from in almost six days. Long enough that the venom dependency has started to show in restlessness and poor sleep, fluctuations in his mood and an inexplicable sort of discomfort. Jannik feels sick with guilt every time he notices.
“You need to stop.” Jannik says nothing, but he silently agrees.
Carlos sits up.
“No.”
The room stills. Eventually, Ferrero sighs.
“Charli –”
“No.” Carlos looks at Jannik now instead of the others, switches to English. “You said the same thing after Wimbledon.”
Because Jannik had tried, for almost two weeks, in the empty space between tournaments. Minimal contact and no feeding, just his painful sips of animal blood and supplements. Carlos had deteriorated shockingly fast.
He never admitted to it, and his team was careful to hide it online. But Ferrero saw, and so Darren knew, and then Jannik. They know how Carlos was restless and agitated, unable to focus through practice. Like an addict trying not to look for the next hit.
“Carlos. You’re getting worse,” Jannik says quietly.
“So are you.”
True – Jannik has started vomiting animal blood entirely now. Even diluted synthetics barely stay down.
His body rejects everything except Carlos with increasing violence, hunger evolving into something that's starting to look terrifyingly irreversible.
There has to be a way out of this. A cure. Because if there isn't –
—
The collapse doesn't keep them waiting, after all. It was inevitable.
By the time Carlos withdraws from the US Open semifinal, the entire grounds at Flushing Meadows already feels charged with the strange, uneasy awareness that has followed them for months now – every hallway conversation hushing when one of them passes, every camera lingering a little too long when they occupy the same space.
Carlos’ official statement cites exhaustion, physical issues and a too-packed schedule. No one fully buys into the story any more.
The footage leaks three days later. They don’t ever find out exactly who recorded it, if it was a staff member or just someone passing through the underground corridors beneath Arthur Ashe.
It’s quite blurry, clearly taken from afar, and exactly thirty-seven seconds long. Long enough to see Carlos following Jannik through the service tunnels while Jannik tries to walk away, only to be stopped when Carlos catches his wrist and pulls him back.
A second later Jannik is bending towards Carlos' throat. Carlos grips him close instead of resisting, arching his back while Jannik visibly struggles to stop.
By morning every sports channel on earth is replaying the footage. And then, they're done.
—
There are laws for vampires that lose control. But Jannik is famous, and young and rich, and so there's no criminal investigation, because no one presses charges. Carlos doesn't, and neither does his team. The damage is all already done, anyway.
Jannik withdraws indefinitely first, and Carlos follows less than a week later. By all standards, they were too young, too promising, for them to throw away their careers like that. The sports world will mourn them like a natural disaster.
There will be documentaries and conspiracy theories. Fans will spend years dissecting old footage frame by frame. But no one will ever learn the full story.
—
Years later, photographs surface online from a small coastal town in southern Italy – grainy paparazzi shots taken through the windows of a café near the harbor.
Carlos sits laughing at something outside the frame, older now, hair longer than during his playing career, sunglasses pushed carelessly into his forehead while afternoon sunlight spills gold across the table. He looks healthy, not exhausted anymore. Rested.
And beside him sits Jannik, thin in the elegant way retired athletes sometimes become after competition leaves them. In the picture, Carlos is leaning into his space while speaking. Jannik watches him with the same hyper-focus he always fell into without realizing.
They look at peace, relieved of a terrible pressure now that they're outside the machinery of professional sport, outside testing and cameras. Like they finally learned how to live with each other.
The internet argues over the pictures for weeks, though neither ex-player ever comments publicly again.
But, in every photograph that surfaces afterwards, they’re always touching somewhere.