No One's Gonna Need You More

Jack groaned as he shifted in his bunk. His head felt like it was going to explode. He tried to turn over in his bunk in an attempt to get a bit more comfortable but was stopped when he felt arms around his waist. He looked down and was surprised to see the mess of brown hair laid on his chest.

It felt really good to wake up with Alex asleep on him. He had no idea how it happened though because the last thing he remembers is sitting at a booth in the bar. He really wants to wake Alex up and ask him what happened and maybe figure out what is going on between them. He just wants Alex back.

He groans louder when the curtain of his bunk is pushed aside and light floods in, only worsening Jack’s already pounding head.

“Ugh. Oww.”

Jack sinks lower in his bunk, wrapping his arm tighter around Alex and burying his face in his hair. Alex barely moves, only rubs his face against Jack’s t-shirt and sighs.

“Jack.”

Jack doesn’t respond, which earns him a pinch to his exposed arm.

“Jack. Get up. Now.”

“Oww, fuck you, Matt!”

Alex whines at Jack’s raised voice, whimpering and clinging to Jack as Jack tries to extract himself from him in order to get out of the bunk.

“Alex, let go.”

“Nooo. Stay.” Alex moans. Jack kisses Alex’s forehead, gently moving him off.

“I’ll be right back.”

Jack pushes himself out of the bunk and traipses toward the front lounge. His head is pounding along with the beating of his heart. He stops as he reaches the door to the front, it’s weirdly quiet, but then everyone got pretty wasted last night so maybe it isn’t that weird.

“Jack?”

Jack looks up to see Matt sitting at the kitchen table, he has a lot of papers laid out in front of him, as well as his open laptop.

“What’s going on?”

He warily sits down, laying his head on his arms. Matt pushes a glass of water and a bottle of advil toward him.

“I need to talk to you about last night.”

Jack eyes him suspiciously. He’s not sure if he’s in trouble or not. He doesn’t remember doing anything particularly horrible last night but then he really doesn’t remember much.

“…Okay…”
Matt leans back and sighs. He looks really tired and Jack is kind of wondering if he should feel bad about that. Did he keep Matt up last night? He feels like he would remember that though. He remembers most things about Matt because Matt is his best friend, well besides Alex.

Matt is always the one that Jack goes to when he’s upset with Alex but he wasn’t upset with Alex last night. He even ended up in the same bunk as Alex so he must not have been up with Matt.

“Did I do something…?”

Matt sighs again.

“I don’t know.”

Jack stares at him blankly. If he wasn’t confused before he was now, and let’s just say he was confused before.

“I don’t get it…”

“I don’t know, Jack. I mean I know it must have something to do with you but Ian says it doesn’t. He just says he wants to leave and seriously, just tell me what you said to him last night. He was fine yesterday and now he says he’ll be gone by the end of the week.”

Jack’s mouth forms a small O shape. He really doesn’t remember last night. He was at the bar with everyone, he knows he was sitting at the booth at some point, but he thought he’d been alone? He remembers being brought back to the bus, kind of, and someone helping him into his bunk and then waking up to Alex.

“I don’t remember.”

“Jack, I won’t be mad.”

“I know, but I really don’t remember. I was at the bar and then I vaguely remember someone taking me here and helping me into my bunk and then I woke up with Alex. So I just kind of figured that person was Alex. I still don’t know how that happened though.”

Matt looks like he’s contemplating something for a minute. He sits back and takes a sip of water before looking back at Jack.

“Alex could have been the one that put you to bed but he didn’t bring you here.”

“How do you know?”

“Alex left, Jack. He went back to the bus like 20 minutes after we got to the bar.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know, Rian told me Alex wanted to be alone, but that’s not the point. He didn’t bring you here.”

“Okay, so who did?”

“Jack, I don’t fucking know. I’m gonna take a guess and say it was Ian.”

“…But Ian hates me.”

“Only cause you’re a complete ass to him.”

Jack just shrugged and nodded at that. It was true, but he wouldn’t be such a dick if Alex wasn’t hot for Ian or if Ian would just leave Alex alone, but no, they were all close and best friends and probably more.

Jack started to tear up at the thought. Alex had probably cheated on him. It was something he’d been thinking about for a while now. Alex was always with Ian when they were apart. It was pretty obvious that something had probably happened.

Jack laid his head down at that point. He wished he would stop crying because crying was not going to help his headache. He only cried harder when Matt came and put a comforting hand on his back, rubbing it gently.

“Jack.”

“He… he…he che…cheated on me.”

“Jack, you don’t know that.”

“Yes I do.”

Matt bit his lip as he looked down at Jack. It was stupid how much he cared for this kid, how seeing him cry felt like his own heart was being stomped on. He would do anything to make Jack happy.

“What do you want me to do, Jack?... I don’t know what I can do.”

Jack sniffed and rubbed his eyes before looking back at Matt.

“Kiss me.”