An unexpected love || Ant x Stephen

Epilogue - Chapter Thirty

For the first 2 weeks or so, Stephen has been acting pretty normal, or as normal as he could, he kept saying 'everything's fine' whenever someone asked him if he was okay, and how he was feeling since the breakup. Stephen wouldn't talk about it, or his feelings, to anyone, at all. It was sort of like he refused to believe it, like he was in denial. He didn't want to accept that he had just lost the love of his life. So, he tried to forget it, he tried so hard, but he couldn't, he saw Ant's face everywhere, it was hard to miss. They worked in the same studio building for catchphrase that they did for SNT so there were pictures from certain episodes all over the walls, it was like no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't not think of the Geordie man, He was literally everywhere. So, when he finished filming catchphrase, he knew he had a few months where he wasn't filming for anything, until he had to film for 'big star little star.'

The next few weeks, since finishing catchphrase, Stephen has done nothing but lay around all day, feeling sorry for himself. Missing Ant all day every day. He's practically gone off the grid, no texting, no phone calls, no social media, nothing. He's been getting multiple messages from everyone, Emma, Dec, David, but not the from the person he wanted a message from. When he finished catchphrase and went home, he walked into his house and fell down on the sofa, and then all of a sudden, the emotions he was trying so hard to avoid, all the sadness and loneliness he was trying so hard to burry deep, deep down, to avoid feeling so...crappy, finally hit him, it was like all of a sudden, this wave of reality hit him. It finally hit him that he and Ant were no longer together, that he had to have all the emotions, all these crappy feelings, if he ever wanted a chance to move on. 

Deep down though, he didn't want to move on, he just wanted Ant back.

And the pain and hurt he was feeling right now, He never knew he could feel this bad; he didn't think it was possible. Yet here he was, feeling so shitty, feeling so lost and lonely...he didn't know what to do, he'd lived the last year being with Ant, spending every moment with him. Falling harder and harder for the Geordie man. That now, without him, he doesn't know what to do or how to live.  All Stephen ever wanted was someone to love and someone who loved him, he wanted fall in love. And he got that, he fell in love, and he was the happiest he'd ever been and then, in what felt like the click of a finger, he'd lost it. He'd lost one of the most important people in his life. 

This was what he was always scared of, he was always scared of losing Ant, that's why he promised to himself he wasn't going to say anything to Ant, he was scared, he was so determined to keep Ant as his friend, to not let him know how he was feeling and he was doing so well, he'd gone almost 2 and a half years without letting it slip how he really felt about the older man, but...when Ant said he liked him back, when Ant kissed him, he couldn't help himself, it just felt so...Right! He forgot all about the promise he made himself, forgot about the risk of losing Ant, he forgot everything. But he also didn't care; he knew there was a risk to their relationship, whether that was being outed or losing each other after a stupid break up over, probably some stupid argument, but he didn't care about any of it, because it felt so right being with Ant, it felt so good, so...perfect, that he didn't care about the rest of it, he just wanted to be with Ant and now he's not...he's lost one of the most important people in his life, over a guy who Stephen hasn't cared or thought about since college. 

He's been doing the same thing for the last few weeks, waking up, going downstairs, lying on the sofa, watching some random show, then a, rather depressing, movie maybe eating something small, but some days, not eating at all. Then he goes to bed and repeats the same thing the next day! Over and over and over, for weeks on end! It was turning into this horrible cycle that he didn't know how to break, and deep down, maybe he doesn't want to break it. He was in a sort of depressive episode, where nothing made sense to him, nothing! He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that he had lost the one person who meant the world and more to him, and he just didn't have the energy or the motivation to do anything productive whatsoever. He just laid there, drowning in a pit of sorrow.