Work Text:
Suffice to say, Jannik’s not in the best mood. Mark’s last minute errand relegated him to taking a flight with like, other passengers. But suddenly he realizes the perks of commercial when he drags his painfully overloaded suitcase up to his seat and sees tall, dark, and handsome as his apparent seat mate.
As he sits down, Adonis turns to him and quizzically asks, “You’re just going to leave that in the aisle?”
“Um, yes?” Truthfully, Jannik has never considered what average people do with their luggage. Every time he’s flown on the family jet, there’s always a faceless person who takes care of all that.
Just in time, a kindly smiling older gentleman in uniform stops by his seat and asks, “Would you like me to help you with your carry-on?”
“That would be-“ Jannik starts before Adonis cuts in, “No that’s ok, he can do it himself.”
“Very well, sir.” The kind man says before squeezing past his luggage down the aisle.
Jannik’s about to turn his head to give Adonis some hell for butting in where he doesn’t belong before he feels him lean in close to his ear. He hears a soft whisper that makes the hairs on his neck stand up.
“Princess, you’re going to have to put that in the overhead bin.”
Deciding he may as well act like a princess if he’s going to be perceived as so, Jannik turns so his nose is almost touching the other man’s and murmurs, “I don’t know how. Can you show me?”
“I can, but you’ll have to give me something in return.”
At this Jannik sits back to put some distance between them. Seems like this man is not much different than all the other leeches he’s met before.
“And what do you want?” Jannik asks.
Adonis gets up and moves past him, brushing his knees. He easily lifts up his suitcase and situates it in the overhead bin. As he sits back down on the window seat, without glancing at Jannik, he says casually “I don’t know yet. But I’m sure I’ll think of something later.”
A bit ominous, that. Jannik ignores him and orders the most expensive champagne they have.
—-
Jannik slowly opens his eyes and immediately notices that his head is currently leaned against a broad shoulder. Strange, as he is sure that he fell asleep on his designer neck pillow deliberately facing the aisle. As he rights himself, he contemplates two options - apologize for falling asleep on a stranger, or act nonchalantly as if nothing happened. At the same time he vows to himself never to fly commercial ever again. Too many situations to deal with.
But before he can figure it all out, Adonis turns to him and asks “And what brings you to our lovely destination of Middle of Nowhere, Croatia?”
“Work” Jannik answers, relieved to move past the whole sleeping on you thing.
The man chuckles under his breath. “What, you need to capture content on how normal people live or something?”
Offended, Jannik exclaims, perhaps a little loudly for the sleepy cabin, “No!”
“There’s something wrong with the foundation, and I need to see it with my own eyes.”
At this, Adonis visibly softens and reaches out a thumb to smooth out a wrinkle between Jannik’s eyebrows. “Want to tell me about it?”
Fuck it, if it helps unloading this onto someone else, just for a bit, then he’ll gladly take the risk.
“My mother started a foundation ten years ago, to build shelter and provide counselling for homeless youth. But as she’s getting older, I have had to take on all her responsibilities, overseeing all the fundraising, ongoing projects, finances, everything.”
“One week ago, I received an anonymous email, saying that our Croatia project, one that we’ve been working on for two years, is a total sham. The house that we built, the staff that we hired, everything’s fake. We’ve been getting status updates and posting success stories for a building that does not exist.”
At this, and perhaps sensing his distress, the other man offers, “Do you have your computer with you? I can look through the balance sheets with you. I’m in finance myself, and I have some experience in fraud, so maybe we can find the anomalies together.”
Though it may not have been the wisest choice, having someone who is willing to help, who won’t immediately report this to his mom, is so freeing that Jannik’s immediately taking out his laptop and showing him every financial statement he has. He hopes Adonis knows what he’s gotten himself into, and that he’s brought his brain with him on this flight.
—-
Over the next two hours, Jannik learns a lot about how to read accounting balance sheets, and also learns a little about his helper, Matteo. Matteo’s a big finance guy who is not only handsome, but affable and funny in an unreal sort of way. He travels frequently due to his consulting business, but always makes time to go home to his parents for every birthday and holiday.
Matteo also teases him for guarding his own identity so closely, while sharing all the confidential reports of his HSMJ Foundation.
In the middle of teaching Jannik about the difference between current and non-current assets, he says, “Your name is Ming and your ambiguous accent is from being adopted into a wealthy Chinese family who travels the world but forgets you in foreign countries when they leave.”
“Sorry but that’s impossible,” Jannik taps his lips, “There’s no way that anybody would give this face up for adoption.”
“Hmm, debatable.” Matteo smiles and goes back to work.
When Jannik is sketching out the reporting structure and key stakeholders of the foundation, Matteo whispers, “The reason you aren’t lifting your suitcase up yourself is you’re carrying huge amounts of drugs in there. You wanted to get another set of fingerprints on the handles so you can blame a bag mishap if you’re caught.”
Jannik considers if this will actually work.
“Wait, will that actually work?”
Matteo just chuckles and asks him about signing authorities.
—-
Soon enough, the seat belt sign goes on and the kind flight attendant asks him to stow away his laptop and prepare for landing. Jannik realizes that this flight seemed way faster than every other time he made the same trip on the private jet, and there’s only one person to thank for that.
He looks over to Matteo and finds that he’s staring right back.
“Thank you, Matteo, for all your help.” Jannik continues, “And I don’t say that a lot, so I hope you appreciate it.”
Matteo’s answering smile is dazzling. “You’re welcome. Stop worrying, everything will be sorted out. I believe in you.”
Embarrassingly, Jannik almost starts tearing up at this. He doesn’t remember if he’s heard that from anybody but his parents, ever. “Thank you,” he responds meekly.
Thankfully, he is saved by the opening of the plane doors. He vows to figure out the luggage compartment and manage his own suitcase this time. Luckily, he discovers that first class gets priority off boarding, so he takes his sweet time with it and succeeds, though it does appear there's now a long line-up of people waiting behind him.
He’s about to walk off when Matteo grabs his hand.
“Hey, I’m calling in my favour. Just tell me your name and we’re even.”
Jannik is so close to telling him before the newspaper headline “Shocking Fraud at Sinner Family Foundation” pops up in his head. He decides discretion is the better part of valor.
“Jack Draper. Look me up on instagram. I’m the one with the blue check.”