When your boyfriend serves pants
Title: When your boyfriend serves pants
Pairing: Ernests Gulbis/Novak Djokovic
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,299
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters and this is a fiction.
Summary: Ernests wakes up from his nap, only to realize that Novak has been serving pants on court.
Author’s note: It all started with Andy Murray saying “I served pants” at the World Tour Final last year, and I used his words in, let’s say, a more literal, AU way XD The story is set at the first week of Australian Open and it’s betaed by the ever so kind crystaleyesd.
‘Whoa. What a good nap. I drooled on Nole’s pillow so I guess it was really good.’
Ernests stretched his long arms and legs before he flipped his boyfriend’s pillow. The Serb didn’t have to know about it until night. The twenty one year old rolled over to the other side of the big hotel bed and took a look at the alarm clock. It seemed like Novak wasn’t back yet, probably still playing his second round match.
‘Damn. What a bad boyfriend I am, sleeping while he’s playing. I should try to catch the last bit at least.’
The tall Latvian got out of bed and as he put on his slippers, he realized that he was standing in his birthday suit.
“Eh… Where are my pants?”
Ernests was sure that he had had his light green pj pants on before he took his nap.
‘Maybe he already finished his match and came back?’
Since he hadn’t taken them off on his own, Ernests headed to the bathroom to check if the spiky head was in there. Perhaps his boyfriend was in a playful ‘pants stealing’ mood.
Alas! The bathroom was empty and strangely, all the towels were missing. As far as Ernests was concerned, there was only one possibility left.
“Oh noes! This means that he’s serving pants right now!”
Ernests ran to the closet and opened it wide.
“Eek! They’re all gone!”
Not only had Novak been serving both of their pants but also their shirts, jackets, socks, underwear, swimming trunks and even their wrist bands. The closet was practically empty and Ernests growled like an angry coach. The match couldn’t be going well.
He ran towards the television set and found the channel where they were showing the number three seed.
‘Oh? The score doesn’t look too bad.’
Ernests noticed that Novak had won the second and third set 6-1, 6-1, despite having lost the first set. They were currently playing the fourth set with two games at peace.
‘Jesus, how bad has he been serving? I wanted to go practice but I don’t have anything to wear!’
Swoosh.
Ernests turned around at the horrible sound and gasped. The bedcovers were flying out of the window right past his eyes.
“Nooo!! Nole! Serve better!”
He ran and caught the end of the covers just before they left the room. But the wind was too strong and he had no idea how long he could hold on to them.
“Nole!!!”
Despite his desperate cry, Novak must have hit a double fault since the wind got even stronger and left Ernests falling on his backside on the carpet with nothing in his hands.
“Ouch…” He rubbed his naked butt and pouted. This wasn’t how he wanted to feel sore.
‘He is so dead when he comes back.’
Ernests gritted his teeth and closed the window. He locked all of them before realizing that the bed sheets were now floating in the air.
“That’s the last piece of cloth in this room!” He yelled and got back on his feet. He had to secure the sheets before his boyfriend lost the fourth set. It was a hot and humid day and judging by the few seconds that he saw on TV, Novak was starting to have problems with the heat.
“You’re not leaving this room! Ever!”
He was aware that the sheets didn’t have ears but he still shouted as he jumped on the bed to grab them. Luckily, the sheets fell into his arms without any resistance. Ernests checked the TV screen and saw that Novak was playing a return game. He had time to put the sheets in a safe place until it was Novak’s turn to serve again.
‘Where should I put it?’
Ernests looked around the room and noticed that they had a small safe inside the closet. He remembered that the Serb had put their passports and tubes of lube in it, the day they had checked in.
‘Great! It’s called ‘safe’ for a reason, right?’
He folded the sheets and approached the safe.
‘Wait a minute. What’s the code?’
It had always been Novak who had opened it and Ernests had never felt the need to ask the code.
‘Hmm… Perhaps it’s his birthday.’
Ernests tried every combination with the Serb’s birthday but it didn’t work.
‘It could be mine then?’
Feeling happy that Novak could have considered his birthday date, he quickly tried it but it didn’t work either.
‘Meh, I’m running out of time. What is it then?’
He saw the players walk to their benches. It must be a changeover. Soon, Novak would have to serve again.
‘Oh! Maybe it’s the date of that Roland Garros quarter final match we had. What was the date?’
He scrambled through his memory to get the exact date of the day that they had started their relationship - their history had begun in the corner of the locker room - and as the umpire called out ‘Time’, his fingers got to work.
‘Damn this useless safe!’
Novak was already heading to the baseline and asking for balls. He had to come up with a good hiding spot right now.
‘Oh, whatever.’
He put the sheets inside his tennis bag and threw it in the closet. Then, he used the handle of one of his racquets like a wooden bar to make sure that the closet doors wouldn’t open.
“Fifteen, love.”
Thankfully, Novak had hit a good serve and gave Ernests time to move the armchair in front of the closet. He needed to barricade the closet doors.
‘I’m heavy enough so I’ll just sit on the sofa and pray like hell.’
“Fifteen all.”
As he sat on the sofa, he saw the pillowcases fly out of the window. He had completely forgotten about them.
‘How did the windows unlock themselves? And, one of those pillowcases has my drool on it! Eww!’
He didn’t have time to think about the answer since his tennis bag started to make some noise.
“Serve better, Nole! Serve better!!”
He held on to the arms of the chair as he felt the closet doors shake violently.
“Jesus, Nole! You’re a top ten player! Did you forget to serve or what?”
Ernests yelled at the top of his lungs and narrowed his eyes at the TV. They were playing the seventh game of the fourth set, still on serve.
The doors rattled stronger and the sound of the frame of his racquet tapping the door was getting louder and louder.
“Novak Djokovic! I hate you!!”
The armchair was slowly moving forwards and Ernests looked back, only to see that the racquet had fallen to the ground and the tennis bag was about to bulge out in no time.
“Help!! Somebody help!”
He thought about asking help but then, he didn’t have any clothes on and didn’t want to embarrass himself. Besides, he wasn’t sure how Novak would take it if he invited any other player in the room while he was naked.
‘What am I supposed to do then?’
Ernests stood up on the armchair and turned around. He pushed the tennis bag back inside and used all his strength to get the doors closed.
“Aaaah!”
He was a very strong boy but the closet was nearly as strong as him.
‘Perhaps I should’ve tried the bathroom. Ah, it’s too late anyway. Once the bag flies out, I won’t be able to catch it.’
Cursing the awful situation that he was in, he lifted his leg and kicked the bag back in. He had had such a good nap only to wake up to a harsh reality. Honestly, he had expected a nice afternoon with Novak returning shortly and the two celebrating his victory in a lovely way. After all, he was sure that they still had a whole tube of lube left to use.
“Hurry up, Nole!! I will kill you if you hit one more double fault! You hear me? I will KILL you!!”
The threat must have worked as the shaking got gentler and Ernests wiped his forehead with the back of his palm.
‘Phew, that was close. Let’s check the score now. Okay, 4-3. Hopefully, he’ll break here and serve it out. Otherwise, who knows how many more service games I’ll have to live through?’
“Come on, you idiot! Time to break!”
Ernests sat back on the armchair and fixed his eyes on the TV. He was going to cheer madly for the next few minutes or so.
A while later, Ernests stepped into the showers, exhausted as if he had been the one who had played a four set match.
‘Ah, my arms.’
Novak had managed to break in the eighth game but Ernests had had to hold onto the armchair to keep the bed sheets from flying out while his boyfriend served out the match.
‘I need another nap after this. I hope he’ll get some of my clothes back. We don’t even have bedcovers now. Great. How am I going to explain to the front desk that we need new ones because we lost the old ones? Will they believe me if I tell them they flew out of the window all by themselves? Meh…’
He finished his quick shower and since he didn’t have any towels, he used the hairdryer to dry himself.
‘What a new way of life.’ He thought sarcastically, wondering what had caused the Serb to serve so poorly.
‘Hmm, perhaps I have to offer my butt as a target like how Andy practices with James.’
Not sure if he wanted to know about the relationship between the two Americans, Ernests turned off the dryer. He had just heard the door open.
“Nole? Is that you?”
Ernests ran out of the bathroom and had to yelp. Novak wasn’t alone. The Scottish Andy and Rafael had tagged along with huge bags on their shoulders.
“Hi, Ernie.”
“Hola.”
“Eek! Hi!”
As the Latvian ran back inside, the three players laughed and dropped the bags on the floor; they were heavy.
Knock-knock.
“Ernie, I got your clothes back. What do you want to put on?” Novak asked his boyfriend. He felt so guilty for having made a mess out there.
“Send in a big towel and my pjs and nobody gets hurt.” Ernests said from behind the door and the three boys rummaged through the bags to identify the needed items.
“Thank you so much, guys. I owe you big time.” Novak smiled at his friends. He was lucky to have them around.
“No problem. We’ll leave now so Ernie can spank your arse.” Andy chuckled while Rafael shook his head.
“Don’t give them ideas, Andy. I have the room right below them and you don’t want to know what I hear.”
“Hey, I thought the hotel had a decent sound proof system.” Novak protested.
Rafael seemed to pick his words wisely but an angry looking Ernests marched out of the bathroom before he could respond.
“How many double faults have you served? Huh? Ten? Eleven?”
“Eh…”
“Answer me!”
“Nine, actually.” Novak answered in a tiny voice and looked at his friends for help.
Andy opened his mouth to save his friend, “Uh, well, even if you’re a top player, you can serve really bad at times. It just happens. But I think you should still punish him just to make sure it won’t happen again.”
“Andy!” Novak moaned while the Scot waved his hand and left the room.
“I should go too. Have a quiet punishing time, please.” Rafael smiled and left as well, leaving Novak alone with the scary curly head.
“I’m sorry, Ernie. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
“Did you get everything back at least? The pillowcases and stuff?”
“Yeah. But we couldn’t find where the bedcovers had gone. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I already asked the front desk for new ones. By the way, what’s the code to the safe? I couldn’t open it.”
“The safe? You mean, the one in the closet?”
“Yeah.”
Novak laughed as he answered, “It’s the date when I first won a match against you in Germany.”
“Germany? In Pilic’s Academy?”
“Yeah.”
Ernests was confused at the unexpected answer. “Why? You wanted to win against me that bad?”
“Of course, Ernie! You destroyed me in practice every time. I was blinded with rage and jealousy that I couldn’t even see how cute you were. It was only when I scored my first win that I thought you looked really cute. I had circled the date on the calendar with a red marker and it got stuck in my memory, I guess.”
Okay, it wasn’t the most romantic answer but Ernests always liked to hear the word ‘cute’, so he decided to let it go.
“Fine. But I won’t stay cute if you don’t reward me already. I was so heroic while I defended the closet. You have no idea how hard I had to work.”
“Thanks, baby. I knew I had an angel on my shoulders.”
Novak kissed his angel on the cheek and took his hand. Until the new bedcovers arrived, they would have to settle for the couch.