Five Little Words

Part 8

Walking into the meeting room, Ant felt a distinct sense of foreboding. He'd never felt so nervous going into an executive meeting before - not even all the times they'd been under fire at the BBC, or the very few times they'd come under fire at ITV.

He took his seat between Chris and Ali, starting to shift uncomfortably almost immediately. Ali put a hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze to settle him.

"How are you so calm?" he hissed at her, pulling at his fingers in his lap.

Ali sighed and scratched her nose. "Honestly, I'm not" she replied, but whatever else she might have said was cut off by the arrival of the rest of the executives.

At the sight of all of the head honchos, Ant couldn't help but feel even more nervous than he had before they'd walked in. There was something like the feeling of being in the principal's office at school - about to get told off for some misdemeanor - about this situation now.

One of the suited individuals had a disc in his hand, and Ant instantly knew that it contained the footage of the accident. He felt his breath quicken and hitch just at the mere sight of it.

He really didn't want to do this.

Thankfully, the head of ITV - Angela - spoke up and addressed them all.

As often happened during executive meetings, Ant's mind began to wander as he let himself drift out of the conversation. Normally, this wasn't such an issue, as Dec would normally be right beside him - likely just as distracted and totally unfocused on the conversation taking place around them - and they would trade notes and throw paper balls at each other under the table when they thought the other wasn't looking.

Now though, without his friend by his side, Ant found himself quickly becoming bored, and his mind drifted away.

That is, until he caught a snippet of the conversation that brought him back with an unpleasant jolt.

"I still think we should look at pressing charges-"

Ant's head spun back around, green eyes wide and shocked as they took in the room.

"Excuse me?" he exclaimed, frowning in horror as the executives all turned to face him.

The snobbish voice whom he had cut off repeated themselves - sounding mildly irritated at having to do so.

"I heard you the first time, you dick" Ant growled, fury starting to boil in his gut.

He purposefully ignored the disapproving looks being sent his way by Chris, and continued to glare at the execs in front of him.

"Press charges against who, exactly?" he queried, eyes narrowing dangerously.

Ali reached across and put her hand back on his arm - recognising that tone and wanting to cut her friend's fury off at the pass.

"As I previously stated - and you would have heard this if you'd been paying closer attention, Mr McPartlin -" Raymond, the snobby exec drawled, "This unfortunate event was caused by someone being dangerously negligent, and we need to pursue this in a legal capacity."

Ant's glare grew steadily hotter, and his eyes glittered dangerously as his temper continued to boil. 

"You idiot" he growled, voice now an almost lion-like rumble, "It was nobody's fault - it was just a horrible accident. There's no need to press charges against anyone."

Raymond rolled his eyes.

"Oh please, stop kidding yourself young man" - that made Ant's hackles spike on the back of his neck - "You've seen the footage, there is clearly someone to blame here - you just don't want to believe it."