An unexpected love || Ant x Stephen

Trying To Fix It - Chapter Seventeen

It had been 2 days since Ant and Stephen had the 'chat' and neither have spoken since. Ant was worried that Stephen wanted to break up and Stephen just didn't know how to explain to Ant that's not what he wanted. That these last couple of months have only been making him anxious because it reminded him he would probably have to come out to the public, that he would have to manage the homophobia from the public, which was inevitable. He wanted to tell Ant that he didn't want to break up, that he wanted to be with him for the rest of his life but...as pointed out before Stephen wasn't exactly an expert on expressing his feelings, but the younger man couldn't sleep, he couldn't sleep without Ant next to him to cuddle with or with his hand just gently pressing against his own, he needed Ant with him.

The past two days, for both men, have been miserable. Which makes it even harder for them to be on tv and pretend to be happy and smiley and all that. Ant, on multiple occasions, has gone to pick up the phone and call Stephen but talked himself out of it, thinking that if he wanted to talk to him he would've called Ant first, but Stephen thought the exact same thing for Ant.

Stephen was sitting in his house, on his own, with the TV turned off. He was just sitting in the living room in complete silence. Thinking about what to do about Ant, but also just thinking about Ant in general. He wanted to fix things, so badly, but he just doesn't know how to do it. He was staring at the blank TV screen when he heard a knock on his front door, he turned around instantly, he jumped off the sofa and ran over to his front door, he stopped when he got in front of it. He took a deep breath in and opened the door, hoping for it to be ant.

"Oh...it's you" Stephen said as he walked back to the living room, leaving the front door open inviting him in. "Nice to see you too" Dec said to Stephen sarcastically. "Sorry I was-" Stephen started but was interrupted mid sentence by the short Geordie man. "Hoping it was ant?" He finished off the sentence "yeah...I guess" he said miserably. "I thought you would be." Dec said as he made his way into the younger man's living room and sat in the chair opposite him. "What are you doing here Dec?" Stephen asked irritated "more importantly what are you doing here?" Dec asked back to Stephen who just had a confused expression on his face. "Uhh..I live here?" He said to Dec who just rolled his eyes "I mean why aren't you with ant." He stated "don't you know?" Stephen asked slightly confused, he wasn't sure if Ant had told him or not, but he was 90% sure he had since Ant tells Dec almost everything "yeah I know what happened..." Dec pointed out, but this only made Stephen more confused.

"Why are you trying to fix it with Ant I mean" he said bluntly to the younger man hoping to get a straight answer. "He doesn't want to talk to me.." was all Stephen said, he didn't know whether that was true, he felt like it though since Ant hadn't called in two days. "What do you mean?" Dec said getting slightly annoyed at the younger man. "He would've called or something if he wanted to talk to me" Dec just rolled his eyes at Stephen again and sighed. "That's exactly what he thinks you know...he's not calling you because he thinks you don't want to talk to him" he said to Stephen.

For the first minute Stephen didn't believe Dec, he thought he was just saying that to get him to call Ant. "What?" He said breathy and quietly, so quiet it was pretty much a whisper. "Why...why would he think that" he asked the older man sitting opposite him "Stephen call him, talk to him. Please! I know you didn't mean what you said, I know how much you love him and how much he loves you. Okay Stephen he's miserable without you, he's not sleeping, he's not eating. Okay he needs you and you need him and you both know it." Dec said bluntly, getting straight to the point, hoping to knock some sense into Stephen. "Please Stephen." He said as he stood up from his chair and went to the front door, when he got in front of it he stood there for a moment turned to look at where Stephen was "please don't make a stupid mistake buddy" Dec said, just before he left.

Stephen fell back into the sofa and put his hands over his face and let out a long sigh. "Fuck!" He said to himself "fuck fuck fuck!!" He repeated.