Cold Water

The Attachment

"Ant!" Alesha's voice filtered through eventually, dragging his attention from the door where Dec had disappeared and reminding him of the room he was currently stood in the centre of. He closed his eyes and sighed, trying not to see Stephen's face behind the darkness of his eyelids.

"Yeah?" he asked wearily, turning around to face her as she stood tentatively some distance away.

"Are you okay?" she asked in return, quietly pleading for an honest answer.

Ant got halfway to mustering a smile and then gave up, shrugging his shoulders and wondering if his voice would break if he tried to reply. Probably, was the conclusion he got to when his eyes started to sting.

"You're both shouldering a lot of responsibility at the moment," Alesha continued gently, dragging his focus back to Dec and an argument he thought they could have quite easily avoided. If he hadn't messed up. If he hadn't got so wrapped up in trying to keep one of them intact. "Things are said in the heat of the moment."

"He's right, Alesha," he said quietly, knowing that any more volume would end badly. He decided to assume she had heard the majority of the conversation, annoyed again that they had managed to fall out publicly. "I messed up."

"You're allowed to," she said firmly, her eyebrows lifting disbelievingly. "Why do you have to be perfect all of a sudden? Just because other people are hurt?"

Truthfully, only a small part of Ant worried about the argument with Dec. They fell out sometimes in a burst of spontaneous anger. They separated from each other and gravitated back together when they felt bad enough about it to seek out comfort. And there was only ever one person Ant wanted comfort from when he felt like that. It almost forced them to make up.

He worried more about the guilt settling on his shoulders. He worried more about Stephen – about everything to do with Stephen. He worried about the voice in his head reminding him that he'd made a costly mistake.

"I don't want to hurt him," he said, hoping she would realise he had moved to talking about Stephen. "He doesn't need hurting any more than he already has been."

"You think he doesn't understand the burden on you at the moment?"

Ant tried not to bristle at the question but his head was still in a protective headspace that pushed him to recklessly jump on every bomb in the vicinity, just to keep Stephen safe. "He's not a burden."

"I'm not saying he is," Alesha said patiently. "I'm saying there's a burden on you because of what has happened." She sighed and Ant waited for her to continue, sensing that he was going to have to watch his response. "You're pushing everyone away, Ant. It isn't helpful – not for you or for anyone else. You and Dec don't have to deal with all of this on your own, even if you're the only people Stephen wants at the moment. It doesn't stop you from offloading on other people or delegating other tasks to us."

"He trusts us," Ant tried to reply, lifting his gaze to the ceiling when his voice almost cut out completely. It was humiliating, letting people see the full extent of how he felt. He wondered if it surprised them, even if they knew what he was like with the people he cared about. He spent most of his time making fun of Stephen normally. It was an abrupt gear change to be protecting him to a fault now.

"Of course he trusts you," Alesha said easily.

"Exactly," Ant said more forcefully. "He trusts us. I can't go around telling whoever I want whatever I want just because it gets a bit difficult. I've already fucked up today."

"You're allowed to be angry," Alesha interjected, starting to sound as if she was fighting a losing battle. "You're allowed to say something in the heat of the moment. Dec isn't going to hold a grudge against you forever over it. And Stephen definitely won't."