As we fall apart

Got Scared ~ May 2014

Dec watched Stephen toy with his phone, the screen ready for him to call his mum but still waiting for him to make the final move. He debated leaving the younger man again to give him some privacy, his mind made up when Stephen locked his phone and placed it to one side.

"Better if it comes from you, don't you think?" he said gently, breaking the silence between them for the first time but already resting a hand on Stephen's arm before he thought better of it. Stephen glanced at him, then shrugged.

"Mum's been a bit funny recently," he said eventually, "After – everything. She went through a patch of suggesting that maybe it had just been a phase" – he shook his head frustratedly – "That maybe you'd been some sort of exception, as if I was attracted to all women and you – or maybe not to you at all. It's been a while since she last acted like she wished I was straight."

"It's not just that she wishes it was easier for you?" Dec asked carefully, not wanting to make things worse but desperate for Stephen to look at things more positively. He liked to think he knew Maureen a little by now, that he could see her intentions even when she made a misstep. "Maybe she just wishes you could be happy as you are and – and she's upset you can't be right now."

"Maybe," Stephen murmured. He sighed, firing a wonky sort of smile at the ground. "She likes you a lot, you know?" Dec laughed under his breath, nudging Stephen conspiratorially.

"My mam thought for ages that we were still together but just keeping things quiet," he said, finally getting a genuine, if not melancholy, smile to cross Stephen's face. It had been so long since those expressions had been anything more than tight-lipped formalities unless they were on camera. "I kept telling her that we'd been keeping things quiet the entire time and that obviously she would always be exempt from not knowing what was going on because she's my mam."

"I'm sorry I messed things up," Stephen murmured, looking close to saying something else before he stopped. Dec wondered what he'd censored himself from saying.

"I still feel like I don't know what you're apologising for," he replied instead of pushing the younger man to finish his thought. All of his own anger had dissipated rather rapidly following Ali's bombshell, his need to go through something so terrifying alongside someone else outweighing that irrational anger he'd forced himself to carry since March. "I've been trying to hate you for all the hypothetical things you could have done but knowing you, it was probably nowhere near as bad as all that."

"You're allowed to be mad... probably should be, to be honest. I'm angry enough at myself," Stephen confessed. "I should have just – we could have talked about it."

"How about you tell me now then?" Dec still had no clue what had made Stephen make a complete 180 turn on their relationship. He was still scared that it was something bad and even if it had been a mistake, that it could be an unforgivable one. But that evening had been stressful enough; Stephen was clearly already suffering at the thought of talking to his parents; it felt like the best thing for both of them just to get everything out in the open. Like Ant had said, it was what he wanted to do, if he was honest with himself.

But still, Stephen stalled, toying with his phone again. Dec wanted to reach out, close the awkward gap between them and coax whatever it was out of him.

"Talk to me," he said hesitantly, waiting for Stephen to glance up from his hands. "No shouting, no pointless arguments. Just talk to me."

The younger man was still for a moment but eventually nodded uncertainly, taking far too long to collect his thoughts. Dec forced himself to be patient, suddenly feeling like he'd opened a Pandora's box of other problems that they'd have to deal with on top of everything else. Still, they were used to facing far too many issues at once.