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It was pretty silly how often Isack is thinking about Liam, especially considering how they were on winter break.
He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about him for more than half a day at a time, and often because there were other, more present and tangible things right in front of him. Isack actively wonders about where Liam was, what he was doing, if he was spending time with his family or meeting up with friends or everything else in between.
He doesn’t think Liam had this much grasp over his thoughts when they were still driving, in season and competing. He doesn’t really know or remember, though, because Isack saw Liam last at VCARB’s end-of-the-year party, which already feels like worlds away.
They texted, of course, exchanged pleasantries about their vacation plans and how they were going to spend the holidays. They have also sent each other random videos off the internet and even conversed in only strings of emoji, which Isack had so much fun decoding wrong on purpose just to annoy Liam.
It’s gotten to the point that he’s been wishing Liam ‘goodnight’ and ‘good morning’ every day, even though he sends those messages in the morning and then at night for him, because of time zones. The habit is probably a bit too domestic, too friendly and too sweet, but Liam returns the favor and even attaches the occasional sun or moon emoji, so Isack doesn’t really care about how friends are supposed to act, in the end.
It doesn’t even matter if they don’t text another word to each other that day, because Isack’s day always starts with that good morning message, and ends with a goodnight.
At some point, Isack even starts to add smiley faces and and less-than-threes to the end of his texts. Liam hasn’t commented on that yet. Isack doesn’t know what he’d say if he ever does.
When he wasn’t texting Liam, which was probably only when they knew the other would be asleep because he was just that pathetic, Isack was still thinking about him at the most inconvenient times.
Getting a coffee from a cafe he missed? Oh, Liam would’ve liked how they organized the menu, and how easy it was to read from far away.
Eating dinner at home with his parents? Liam should try out some of his Maman’s cooking and his Papa’s baking sometime.
It’s predicted to snow the next day? Does Liam get snow where he lives in New Zealand?
And so on.
His Maman could tell that something was bothering him, but she never outright asked him. She just slips in a few questions about what was going on inside his head, casual enough for him to brush them off when he feels cornered, and then she backs off with a sincere smile and eyes that remind him that he’s her world. That he can tell her anything.
Isack’s glad for the space, honestly, because what would he even tell her? That he’s thinking way too much about what his teammate might be doing, even though they had an ocean and twelve hours of time between them?
Then Isack has to remind himself that he’s going to Redbull for the 2026 season, and that Liam won’t be his teammate anymore.
He knew that when he signed, but the reality hadn’t hit yet. It still hasn’t, not really, not when he was still happily living with his parents in his childhood home and not in his own apartment.
They haven’t called each other, though. Liam never replies instantly to Isack’s messages, so he hasn’t had the confidence to drop a phone call on him.
Isack knows that they could probably schedule a call, because there was no chance they were both too busy to talk at every moment in their lives, but he still doesn’t raise the question. It would only make him miss Liam even more, and he knows that those feelings of possessiveness shouldn’t be fed further.
Besides, would Liam even agree? They never called each other before, even if one of them was running late to a team meeting. It was always spammed texts and obnoxious gifs and memes whenever they wanted to get each other’s attention.
Whatever. Isack will settle with texts and memes. It was more than enough, really. He totally doesn’t want to hear Liam laugh and the way his accent curls around his words, or video call and see Liam’s face and watch his lips twitch up into a smile when a joke lands just right.
Nuh uh. Not at all.
At some point, Isack gave up and stopped trying to banish Liam from his mind. There was probably something more to unpack there, considering how most people don’t think about their coworkers once they’re not at work, he had reasoned just a couple of days into break.
Isack ignored it anyways. It had been too long since he had spent this much time with his family; he wasn’t going to waste all of it having a crisis when he could do that some other time.
So he’s pretty satisfied that he got through decorating a cake with his Papa without thinking about whether or not Liam would like the flavour. It was chocolate, with cream cheese frosting and strawberries on top.
He does, however, break his Liam-less streak and think of the best idea he’s had since winter break started when the cake is done.
Which is saying something, because Isack has had quite a few great ideas when it came to making sure his holiday back at home were going wonderfully for both him and his parents.
The cake is still chilly from its time in the fridge last night, even though it had been outside for a good hour and a half already for decorating. Isack swipes a strawberry from the top of the cake, grinning innocently as his Papa rolls his eyes and fixes the gap with another.
“If you want the strawberries, take a whole piece of cake as well,” his Papa chides.
“But I just want the strawberry,” Isack says, just to be difficult. They both know that he’s getting a slice after this conversation either way, but his Papa entertains him anyways.
His Papa jabs a thumb towards the carton of unwashed strawberries open on the counter. “Then take some of those. Not off the cake, we worked hard on that.”
“But what if I want some frosting with my strawberry?”
“Lick the bowl clean then. Or eat cake like a civilized person.”
His Maman slides up next to them with a shake of her head even though she smiles widely and her eyes glitter with mirth. “Boys, it’s too early for this.”
Isack points the cake knife at his Papa triumphantly, who rolls his eyes yet again and moves to clean up the mess they made while decorating.
When he cuts out a portion of the cake and plate it as neatly as he can, his Maman looks at him with amusement, raising an eyebrow. Probably because he tried so hard to make sure that the slice wouldn’t fall over splat on its side. Isack fails, of course, because he never was the best at plating cakes or other foods.
Thankfully, his Maman doesn’t call him out or tease him for it. Isack doesn’t know if he could have explained to her why exactly he was so focused on plating this specific slice so neatly when they both know that he doesn’t care at all for presentation.
Exhibit A, for example, when he just slapped some cheese onto a slice of bread and turned it in the microwave for a few minutes, then dumped some garlic powder and seasoning on and called it garlic bread.
His Papa really stared at him like he was crazy for the rest of the day, that time.
“Isack, bébé, just don’t eat too much before lunch, okay?” his Maman says instead. There’s this smile on her face that tells him that she would be totally okay with him just eating cake for lunch, but Isack would never. He loves her cooking way too much to skip a whole meal.
“Of course. I just want to try a little bit. Let me help clean up first, though.”
She shoos him away with a flick of her wrist. “You go enjoy the cake. You already worked so hard baking for us.”
Isack dips his head in appreciation, and plucks a fork out of the cutlery drawer. “I’ll be in my room if you need me!”
He rushes out of the kitchen without another word and scrambles around the corner into the hall. When he finally sets his plate on his desk and closes the door to his room, Isack checks the clock. 11:50. Perfect.
Deep breath, in, and out. Isack slumps into his chair unceremoniously, still looking at the clock. The second hand ticks by, bit by bit.
He’s got this, he reminds himself. It was just a tap of a couple of buttons, and the chance of interrupting Liam while he was doing something important.
Not like there were many important things to be doing right before midnight, but maybe that would change considering it was New Year’s eve, after all. Maybe he was out partying, or with his family counting down the time, or sleeping, or something.
Isack scrolls through his chats until he settles on Liam’s contact. He doesn’t have to look for it for long, because he has Liam’s contact name surrounded by obnoxious sparkle emojis, but he scrolls up and down past it anyways, just to stall out time.
Gosh, he really was pathetic. What kind of person stalls out a literal phone call even though he’s been anticipating calling Liam since he first started decorating the cake? There was a reason why he spent so much effort trying to make the frosting look neat, as embarrassing as it was to admit.
He glances up at the top of his screen. 11:53. Did he really waste that much time?
Isack sighs and plucks the strawberry off of the top of the cake with his other hand. Then places it back on its swirl of frosting, because as much as he wants to eat it, he made the cake look all nice and pretty so he can show Liam. He keeps on fiddling with it until he drags his gaze back towards his phone.
11:55. If he was going to call, it had to be now. Who knows if Liam would even pick up on the first ring? Isack had to leave some wiggle room if they were going to catch the New Year slipping into the present.
The New Year for Liam, at least. Isack still has a good twelve hours left of 2025.
He taps the video call icon after another moment of deliberation. All in, because why should he settle for only audio? He had to showcase his cake somehow.
Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
It was pretty hard, actually.
Isack really hopes that springing a video call on Liam wasn’t a step too quick, or that the kiwi would answer with his camera off. Because he does really want to hear Liam’s voice and see his face even though they haven’t even been separated for that long.
His phone shakes and rings for a couple seconds more, before sending Isack straight to voicemail.
Fuck. This was kind of mortifying, now.
He was really banking on Liam being the type of person who picked up calls in a timely manner, even though he takes ages to text back. Which is a pretty stupid assumption on Isack’s part, in hindsight, because Liam tends to overthink even his choice in emojis. Of course he was going to overthink picking up a call from a coworker during their vacation time.
Huh, he really should’ve given Liam a heads up in advance. Not that it would’ve changed much, considering that he came up with the idea of a phone call not even thirty minutes ago.
He isn't a quitter, though, and is already committed to sharing his slice of cake with Liam, so Isack tries again, not even bothering to leave a message.
In the meantime, while his phone rings and rings, he spams at least twenty texts of Liam’s name in varying levels of capitalization and length, knowing that Liam never ever silences his notifications.
Which is a questionable life decision, but the habit always works in Isack’s favor so he gleefully abuses the power every time he needs Liam’s attention.
When Isack presses send on his thirty-sixth iteration of Liam’s name, the ringing sputters out and the default voicemail recording, grating and unpleasant, echoes in his room.
Please leave a message for—
This time, he does leave a voice message.
“Liam, pick up, you can’t leave me hanging the first time I call you! It’ll be worth your time, promise!”
Then Isack goes back to spamming him and attempts to call him again.
In addition to the numerous variations on Liam’s name, Isack starts including demented gifs, not limited to his stash of italian brainrot that he and Gabi had been exchanging on the daily with snickers and conspiratorial low voices as if they were kids pretending to deal weed on a playground.
He’s very quickly interrupted by the video call expanding itself across his entire screen, but he does manage to send one last ‘tralalero tralala’ doing double backflips before then.
Because he’s still very much focused on the bright offensiveness that is his meme folder in his photo gallery, Isack gasps in delight when he realizes that Liam has picked up his call, and that he can see the squinty tiredness of Liam’s face in all its glory on his screen.
The man is lying on his side, covers still pulled over his shoulders and eyes half closed. His mouth is very firmly ticked down into a frown, though, and Isack winces. He didn’t think Liam would be asleep on new year’s eve, to be honest.
“Liam! Sorry for waking you, but happy new year!”
Liam blinks slowly. The blue light from his phone barely illuminates his face, half-smushed into a pillow, and his hair is sticking up in all directions. There’s some other light source off-camera, warm and faint, and its glow softens out the all hard shadows and contours of Liam’s expression.
He looks so disoriented that he doesn’t seem to have noticed that Isack has video called him, specifically, because there’s no move to shut off the camera or fix anything about his appearance.
Or maybe he just doesn’t care, and is thinking way more about how to end the call so he can get back to sleep. Unfortunately for him, Isack’s already thinking of ways to keep him from hanging up, at least until they have a full conversation.
Merde, Liam looks so sweet like this. All tired and annoyed but with pouty lips and a light dusting of red along his cheeks which might just be the camera working weirdly in the bad lighting.
Isack wants to reach through the screen and pat his head, smoothing down the stray hair. He wonders distantly if Liam would stop looking so irritated if he did that.
Then he catches himself. There was no way Liam would just melt, that was a weird assumption.
“The fuck did you wake me for, ‘sack?” Liam slurs, voice gravelly from sleep.
“I’m wishing you a happy new year,” Isack reminds him. “Why aren’t you staying up for it, anyways? Or at a party, celebrating?”
Liam groans, throws an arm over his eyes and turns slightly onto his back, but still solidly facing the camera. “It’s just the time, it’s not that important.”
Isack gasps and lays his hand over his heart in mock offense. “What? That’s so lame of you, bro, you have to say goodbye to 2025!” He even swoons a bit for the effect, which makes Liam roll his eyes hard enough Isack can puzzle out the motion without even seeing his eyes.
“It’s not even midnight yet, ‘sack.”
Isack’s eyes flick up his phone screen to the time. 11:59. Whoops.
It was, in fact, not 2026 yet for Liam.
“Ah, well, now we should count it down together.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Wait, don’t do that, I have something to show you!” Isack flounders.
He spins around in his chair and raises his phone up as if he was going to take a selfie, making sure the slice of cake is in view. “We made a cake, and I thought I’d save a slice for you. Especially now I know you’re not celebrating at all.”
Liam rolls back onto his side and squints at the screen. In the process of scrutinizing Isack’s cake, he brings the phone closer to his face and his nose scrunches up in concentration. Cute.
“I’ve already brushed,” Liam automatically answers. Then he sharply inhales and looks away, as if only realizing something now.
Isack tilts his head in amusement. “And that’s your only reason? Just have it later.”
“You… do know you’re half the world away from me, right?” Liam says slowly, as if Isack were stupid. “I can’t really eat it, and all.”
Isack waves him off. “Yeah, but you can appreciate that there’s a cake in your name anyways. I was going to eat it for you too. Because I’m sweet like that.”
He sets his phone down and balances it up against his desk lamp. Then he shifts the plate closer to him and arranges it so that his upper body is still clearly visible even with the cake in front of him. Isack stabs the fork into the cake and scoops a chunk off, bringing it a bit closer to the screen.
“Say ah.”
“Oh my gosh, I am not a kid,” Liam bemoans. The red on his cheeks had darkened, somewhat, but at least the corners of his mouth were starting to turn upwards.
Isack simply just starts swerving the fork around in the air. “Here comes the airplane!” He even makes a couple of whooshing sounds to add to the scene, much to his own amusement and Liam’s resignation.
When the fork is close enough to the screen that the cake on it was basically all Liam could see, Isack lowers his voice and whispers, “Open your mouth.”
Liam sighs audibly, making Isack giggle, and opens his mouth the slightest bit.
“Come on, Li, you gotta go wider than that,” Isack nags. “Otherwise the plane might miss and crash.”
He even starts making his hand shake, jostling the fork as he pitches his voice up. “Don’t kill us, Liam, don’t kill us!”
Liam stares back at him, baffled, but there is the hint of an incredulous smile gracing his lips. His jaw drops open just a bit further, and Isack wants to laugh at how ridiculous this whole situation is.
What was he doing? It’s midnight in New Zealand, and so he wakes Liam up with a phone call just so he can pretend to eat the cake his family baked at the start of the new year?
This was so fun, Isack wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“Hear that? It’s all the pleas of the passengers who don’t wanna die because of your stubbornness," Isack bullshits cheerfully. “So open up wider, will you?”
“Anything for the passengers,” Liam deadpans. “Even though I’m basically gonna kill them anyways.”
He drops his jaw open wide, and waits expectantly. His eyes are glittering with mirth and crinkled at the edges, and it no longer looks like he was going to fall asleep at any moment, so Isack lets out a cheer of victory.
Isack finally stops the fork right before it touches his screen with a loud whoosh, and motions Liam to take a bite and chew. The other man drags a hand through his hair with so much exasperation, but complies.
“Good boy,” Isack teases. Liam’s so startled that he drops the act and physically moves further away from the camera. He’s definitely getting redder, too, and his grin immediately turns back into an embarrassed scowl.
“Nope, what the hell, ‘Sack?”
Satisfied, Isack pulls the fork back and eats the cake himself. The chocolate cake is spongy and rich, the frosting was creamy and not-too-sweet, and the tiny bit of strawberry puree filling that he also snagged brightens up the whole bite with a bit of tang.
He really wishes that Liam actually were right in front of him so he could taste the cake for himself.
“It’s good, yeah?” he asks instead. He’ll just try to get some of his parents’ food to Liam when pre-season testing starts.
Then Isack remembers that they’re not on the same team anymore, and that he would probably have to wait until the actual season starts. His smile drops for a brief moment at the thought, but Liam doesn’t seem to have noticed and interrupts him.
“Mmhm. It looked amazing, honestly. I wish I could’ve actually tried it. What is it, anyways?”
He asks so sweetly that Isack already knows he’s forgiven for bringing up the ‘good boy’ bit again. Liam honestly is such a puppy. Isack should get him a collar for his birthday, or something.
As a gag gift, of course. Because that’s what friends do. He’s not possessive. Or into that in general.
Would Liam like being collared?
Isack coughs and tries to answer as normally as he can, banishing all his uncomfortably interesting thoughts. “Chocolate cake with strawberry filling and cream cheese frosting. My Papa made most of it, but I helped with decorating it.”
Liam hums thoughtfully. “That sounds really nice. You didn’t do half bad with the decorating, either, from what I can tell.”
Isack lights up from the complement and tilts the plate slightly so Liam could get a better view of the frosting. “Thanks! It was pretty hard to get down, after so long not baking with my family, but I’m glad it looks nice for you.”
Liam looks like he was about to say something else about the cake, but Isack catches a glance of the time and gasps. “Is something wrong?” Liam questions with concern.
“We missed the countdown for the new year! It’s already been three minutes!”
“Oh my gosh, we are not doing this again, I will actually hang up on you.”
“No you won’t,” Isack immediately counters. “You like me too much and I just fed you cake, so you can’t.”
Liam groans and looks away as if he really couldn’t stand him. “You haven’t actually fed me anything, thanks. I owe you nothing.”
“But you do like me too much?”
Liam flushes and he opens then closes his mouth a couple of times. Then he huffs, lets go of his phone so that the screen is now facing down, and now all Isack can see is a black rectangle of nothing. He even hears the bed creaking as Liam presumably turns over onto his other side, away from his phone.
“Aww, don’t do that Li, you’re breaking my heart!” Isack whines. “I wish you happy new year, give you some cake, and finally actually see you and this is how I’m treated? I should leave you for someone better.”
“You’re so stupid,” Liam grumbles. His audio is muffled and quieter than before, but Isack simply beams.
“Come on, lemme see you again and then you can go back to sleep,” he offers. “And no more random calls from me. Probably.”
Liam mopes loudly for a couple more minutes, shifting about in his bed and doing god knows what, but Isack waits patiently all the same. In the meantime, he continues munching on the cake happily and reveling in its deliciousness.
When Liam finally points his phone’s camera back towards his face, which was now pouty and displeased, Isack squishes his own cheeks together and coos. “Look how silly you look.”
“I’m being tormented by the French,” Liam mutters. “Can’t believe I didn’t hang up the first chance I got.”
“But I fed you cake—”
Liam looks up as if he was trying to pray for a miracle. Or salvation from this conversation. “For the last time, you didn’t actually feed me anything—”
“I’m gonna be so nice right now and let you go back to sleep,” Isack reminds him.
Liam rolls his eyes and huffs. “How kind of you.”
“And happy new year! How does being in 2026 feel?”
“Oh my gosh, I’m hanging up for real now, goodnight—”
And there he goes. Gone. Back to sleep and all snuggled up in bed.
Isack laughs loudly and clicks his phone off, now way too giddy and energetic in the aftermath of their conversation. He knows he’s probably grinning like a lunatic, especially with how he’s picking at his cake and mushing it together, but he doesn’t care.
He was just on call with Liam! And it wasn’t hard or awkward like he was worried it might have been! Oh, Isack is so going to drop more calls on Liam in the future, but he’ll try to stick to times when he knows the other man would be awake.
Then he remembers that he never said goodnight. So he turns his phone back on, clicks on Liam’s contact, and starts typing out a short message.
Isack pauses, and debates on whether or not he should add a small addition to the text. Would it piss Liam off more? Maybe, but Isack knows how endeared he can be when Isack’s just the right bit of annoying.
In the end, he adds it anyway, and finishes it off with a heart.
Isack: (12:09)
goodnight and happy new year <3