Oneshots and Other Things

House of Cards

This still isn't part three of No More :p (I promise it's coming, I'm still working on it!)

However, @daphreak requested some angst and I was given permission to cause some mental pain so...

(Dec/Stephen, ambiguous ending)

(*~*)

"Stephen."

It takes a minute for the voice to even permeate his distracted thought process, dragging him back to a reality he'd prefer to ignore for a while longer. It takes a further few seconds, without him turning his head, to register that it isn't Dec's voice. It's Ant.

"Can I sit down?"

Stephen nods slightly, battling his own surprise to see Dec's best friend of all people appearing in front of him after he has messed everything up so badly. It's hard to even look at Ant; Stephen isn't sure he could manage to hold the other man's gaze at the moment. Ant doesn't seem to mind for the time being; his focus is on his phone. The artificial light is hard to look away from in the darkness and Stephen sees Dec's name at the top of the screen as Ant types out a quick message.

"He's worried about you," he says levelly when he catches Stephen looking. His tone is indecipherable but Stephen hears something critical in it anyway and ducks his head back to the ground. If he hasn't hurt Dec enough, he's managed to worry him too.

"Why're you here?" he asks in return, aiming the question down at his feet and resisting the urge to tangle his hands into a disjointed ball in his lap.

"Because he's worried about you," Ant replies as if it's obvious. Stephen reads into that with no evidence – Ant is here because Dec asked him to be, not because he wants to be.

"You don't have to waste your time, I'm fine," Stephen says quietly, wishing his tone had at least made the effort to sound upbeat.

"Waste my time?" Ant echoes a little incredulously. Then his voice softens and somehow that feels worse. "What does that mean, Stevie?"

"I messed up," Stephen says bluntly. "It doesn't matter if I'm fine or not."

Ant is silent for a while – long enough that Stephen has to look over to work out what tone the conversation is about to take. He braces himself to see a cloud over the other man's expression or something dismissive that proves he really doesn't care. He sees a gentle furrowed brow and a downward quirk of Ant's mouth.

"He's worried about you," he says again, sniffing slightly. It's not a sad sound but Stephen can't really figure it out – not indifferent nor frustrated.

"We had an argument," Stephen replies as if Ant needs telling. He'll have got Dec's version of events already, Stephen is sure, although it makes even less sense that he's here now if he has.

"What are you pushing him away for?" Ant asks bluntly. Stephen is still waiting for the bright, burning pain that will surely come when Ant finally unleashes some protective anger in his direction. They've only had the 'if you hurt Dec, I'll kill you' conversation in jest, usually in front of Dec to make him laugh. Right now, Stephen is trying to work out if any of that was ever something serious, disguised as a joke.

The truth is, Stephen has never been great at keeping friends. A pattern of drifting apart or fall outs he never quite understood have followed him from school-age right up to the present. Somewhere along the line, he realised he was the connecting link between all of those different events. It had to be something about him that made people leave.

And then there was Dec - the bright, unstoppable force of nature that he is. Stephen never really meant to get to this point with someone so perfectly suited to his own personality. He didn't really believe someone like that existed. Long story short, he didn't mean to fall in love with him. And he still hasn't managed to say that he feels like that. And that was reason one for the argument tonight.