Work Text:
Nobody could have expected the night to end like this. With Jack hidden in Liam’s room and Esteban crying in Pierre’s arms while that weird heavy silence filled the living room.
It was okay at the start, a normal dinner between friends at Liam’s house. Jack was there, Esteban and Pierre were there, and also a couple of other friends. Nothing too serious, just a bunch of friends eating junk food and drinking beers.
Then the call came.
Jack left the room to answer the phone, already pale as a ghost. When he came back, he didn’t really say anything. He just beelined for the table and picked up the open packet of chips, starting to eat without a word.
Liam and Esteban looked at each other, worried, but chose to not say anything. They wanted to see what would happen next, but tried to keep an eye on Jack.
When he next picked up the jar of Nutella they knew for sure that something was wrong. Jack wasn’t strict with food but he also wasn’t one to start eating Nutella with a spoon, and now they knew that something serious had happened.
After a minute or two, Jack dropped everything and ran for the bathroom.
The color was slowly draining from Esteban’s face as well, remembering what the younger boy had once told him, and Pierre gently nudged his side.
«Are you okay?» he asked, his voice low so that the others wouldn’t pick up on their conversation.
«There’s something wrong with Jack, did you see?» Esteban mumbled, getting up and going to knock on the door to the bathroom.
No response.
«Jack, are you okay?»
A moment of silence. «Yeah, I’m fine.»
Esteban decided to not press the issue further, scared that he might push Jack away instead of encouraging him to open up with him.
When he went back to the living room, he was met with silence from the others before they all crowded around him.
«What’s happening?» Liam asked, more worried than all the others. Understandably so, Esteban thought, he was Jack’s boyfriend, but he found it weird that Jack had never opened up to him about some of the heavier stuff he had gone through.
Sure, him and Jack had already had the opportunity to have some very less than happy talks, especially thanks to mister flavio briatore and alpine, but Liam was Jack’s boyfriend.
«How much do you know of… stuff that has happened to Jack before?» he asked, his voice dipping even lower.
He was so scared of what might have been happening in the bathroom in that same moment, and he really didn’t even want to imagine it.
«I know… some things. Why, what’s wrong?» Liam looked scared, and the other people around them looked like they were starting to connect the dots.
«Is he throwing up?» Pierre asked, understanding.
«I think so, or at least he’s trying to. I’m… I’m so worried, to be honest. But he won’t let me in the bathroom,» Esteban mumbled, rubbing his wrists mindlessly.
His boyfriend took his hand, saying nothing.
«I’ll try to talk to him once he gets out of the bathroom, I don’t want him to get mad at me,» Liam said, biting his nails.
The night wasn’t going to end well. They tentatively started chatting again, talking about the past race and the one that was about to come, but the atmosphere was ruined. They really did not want to think about the worst case scenario, but they were all painfully aware of the fact that it was the most possible one.
Ten or more minutes went by before Jack got out of the bathroom, not stepping foot back into the living room and opting for the bedroom. Esteban, that had immediately gotten up to go talk to him, stopped in his tracks when he saw how dishevelled he looked.
Jack was pale, the oversized shirt he had on seemed even bigger on him if it was possible and it was hanging off his slumped shoulders. He looked like a ghost, and he didn’t look at him in the eyes, his gaze locked onto the floor.
Esteban looked back at Liam and motioned to him to go talk to Jack, hoping that talking to his boyfriend would help Jack more than he could.
He sat back down next to Lance, staring ahead of him and trying to take his mind off things but it was so fucking hard. He couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Jack’s face, his tear streaked cheeks and the way he was avoiding any sort of contact.
He didn’t know how much time passed before Liam came back out, and he also looked like death. He looked at Esteban and gestured for him to follow him out of the room.
«He’s not okay, but he won’t talk to me… he asked for you. I don’t know what happened, he didn’t want to tell me. I just want him to be okay…» Liam said, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
«Okay, I’ll… I’ll talk to him. I also want him to be okay, it hurts to see him like this.»
Esteban knocked on the door, mumbling something just to warn Jack that it was him and not anybody else.
The sight in the room wasn’t pleasant at all.
Jack was curled in the middle of the bed, crying. He was rubbing his wrists with his arms wrapped around his stomach, and Esteban just wanted to hug him tight and never let him go ever. Or only let him go to go and hunt down whoever made him cry.
«Hey, what’s wrong? What happened, who called you?» he asked, not wanting to overwhelm him with questions but way too eager to know what was happening.
«It was Flavio. Said he wanted to call me so I could find out before the social media got a hold of it,» Jack mumbled. «Can I just have a hug? I don’t want to talk about it…»
Esteban stared at him for a couple of seconds, before sitting on the bed and gently helping him to sit up so he could hug him. Just hearing Flavio’s name made his skin crawl, and he could imagine what had happened if the rumors were anything to go by.
«You don’t have to tell me anything about why you’re feeling like this if you don’t want to, but I’d really appreciate it if you would tell me how you’re feeling. Now, what if I bring you some cold water? Maybe in the bottle so that you can put that on your wrists and not hurt yourself. And then we can talk,» he said, gently brushing his hair.
He knew all too well how it felt to be left like that, with a phone call - if you’re lucky - to tell you that the team doesn’t need you anymore and you have been replaced, and he really did not want Jack to have to go through it like he had, even if he had kind of chosen to not ask anyone for help.
Pierre had offered, had said that he would stay by his side through it, but in the end Esteban had decided to tell everyone that he was fine. Really, it did hurt to be substituted for the last damn race of the season.
«Okay, okay. I just… don’t tell anyone, okay?»
Esteban nodded, doing his best to go to the living room and ask Liam for a bottle of cold water as quick as possible to get back to Jack.
«I have the water, do you want to drink it now or do you prefer just putting the bottle on your wrists to ground yourself a bit for the moment?» he asked, going back to gently brushing his hair while hugging him.
He wanted to help him as much as possible and at the same time offer comfort or even just a shoulder to cry on.
«They dropped me. My last fucking lap in F1 was in a damn Lego car and now they dropped me,» Jack mumbled after some minutes of putting the cold bottle on his swollen wrists.
Esteban felt his heart clench painfully. He wanted to go out there and find Flavio and punch him for making him feel Jack like this.
«And… do you want to tell me what happened now? Did you throw up?»
«I tried, but I couldn’t, it’s been… a while since the last time. I just started hearing that voice again and I listened because it made me feel so fucking bad,» the Aussie said, sobbing a little harder on Esteban’s shoulder.
The older man hugged him tighter.
«It’s okay, it’s okay. You didn’t throw up and that’s what matters here, I know it feels bad on the moment and it feels bad to have this thoughts again but you’ll get through this okay? Does this sound right?» he said, comforting him sweetly.
Jack nodded. «I made Liam worry…» he mumbled, trying to dry his tears even as they were still falling.
It was heartbreaking, to see him try to act strong for his boyfriend when he was feeling so broken when he actually looked like a little kid trying to keep it all together, trying to not break down completely.
Esteban just wanted to hold him tight until everything got better.
«Yes, Liam is worried for you. But that’s because he loves you and he cared about you, and if you want me to I can call him and you can talk to him. I just don’t want you making the same error as me, okay? I didn’t ask for help and it made things worse, I just want you to ask for help. Wether it’s from me or Liam or anyone you want. I just want you to ask for help,» he said, never once stopping brushing his hair since it seemed to be something that calmed Jack down.
«I’m scared…» Jack mumbled.
Up to a certain point, Esteban really didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have much “experience” with helping someone through things like this. But he also wasn’t going to let Jack deal with it on his own or throw Liam in the mix jsut because. And he did have his own personal experience with being dropped so… he figured he could whip something up.
«I know, I know it’s scary. And I know that hearing that voice again doesn’t feel good at all. We need to find a way to make the voice go away and make it all feel better okay? Do you want to stay with me or with Liam? Me and Pierre were planning to stay here either way so it won’t be an issue if you want to stay with me,» he said, trying his best to be objective. He wanted to help Jack as much as possible, and giving him choice seemed like the best thing.
Jack sniffled. «Liam. But… I don’t want to explain anything to him, I just… I just want to sleep now. I don’t want to have to say everything all over again. Can you tell him what happened?»
«Yeah, of course I can. Do you need me to do anything else? Bring you something, call someone other than Liam?»
«No, just this. Thank you,» he mumbled, hugging him a last time before sitting up a little bit straighter and drying his tears.
«Okay. I’ll sleep on the couch with Pierre so for anything you can come look for me or you can send Liam or just shout for me or something,» Esteban reassured him, ruffling his hair and getting up. «I’ll call Liam now.»
As soon as he stepped out of the door, Liam was glued to him.
«How is he? How is he feeling? Did he tell you anything?»
«He asked me to tell you what happened and that he just wants to sleep. He’s tired and doesn’t want to talk about it,» Esteban started. «He got dropped by Alpine and he’s not feeling good at all, but he just wants to sleep now. I hope that tomorrow he’ll feel up to talking about it a little bit more. But he didn’t throw up, so there’s that at least.»
Liam sighed. «Yeah, I guess so. Thank you, really. If you want to stay and crash on the couch, feel free to do so. I don’t have the heart to ask you to go away after you’ve done so much.»
«Yeah, I was already planning to stay to be honest,» Esteban said with a half chuckle. «If you need anything, at any point, just wake me up. Even if I doubt I’ll be sleeping.»
«Okay, sure. Thanks.»
«Now go to your boyfriend, he needs you.»
As soon as the door to the bedroom was closed, Esteban broke down. He started crying and crashed into Pierre’s arms, clinging to his shoulders.
«It’s okay, it’s okay. He’s not alone, he has you and Liam and me and a lot of other people that care for him. He’s gonna be fine,» his boyfriend reassured him.
«It just… it was so hard to see him like that…» Esteban said, starting to rub his wrists once again.
Pierre took his hands, softly kissing him. «It’s gonna be okay. Now what about we try to sleep as well? You definitely need it,» he whispered, guiding him to lay down on the couch without ever letting him break the hug.
Definitely not the night they were expecting when they first walked through the door.