Without You

14. It Nearly Killed Me

A/N - Here's the next installment for y'all! 😉 Bear with me on this, as I'm struggling a tiny bit with writing at the moment, but I'm mainly freaking out because it's only two weeks until college starts up again. 😭 I'm going to try my very best to get this whole thing written before then so I don't leave you hanging for months....😞

The line went dead. And suddenly he was left all alone again, huddled in an inconsolable heap on the floor. Miserable tears coursed down Dec's face as his loneliness consumed him whole, while everything else he'd been stubbornly ignoring came rushing to the fore. Moaning softly, he clutched at his throbbing head, a look of confusion briefly crossing his features as he felt a crusty area in his hair. Closing his eyes against the bright sunlight, a strangled sigh passed his lips. He felt like he'd just run a marathon, equal amounts of exhaustion and relief coursing through his body in never-ending waves. Whatever rest his body had gained from the roughly 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep he'd had last night had been completely erased by everything he'd gone through in the past half hour.

Jumping slightly at the stern clearing of a throat, Dec's eyes opened wide, cringing guiltily when they found a hard stare being directed at them. "Would you care to explain what on earth is going on?!" Ali barked, all previous concern swept away by a burning anger that had taken hold of her as she'd sat, open-mouthed, listening to Dec talking to none other than Ant McPartlin. "I hear a bang and I come down here to find you out cold, you completely ignore me when you come to, and then you sit there talking to your beloved Ant like I don't even exist! You're not even supposed to be in contact with him! What are you playing at?!"

The thing was, she wasn't even sure what she was angry about – it was more of a reaction to feeling utterly out of control of the situation, a feeling she hated with a passion. She'd gotten a pretty good idea of what might have happened from listening to Dec's one-sided conversation, but she needed to hear it from Dec. Needed an explanation as to why her peaceful sleep had been so rudely interrupted by hearing her husband collapsing in their living room.

And she hadn't forgiven Ant quite yet, either, for what he'd done to her husband, to their career. Yet Dec was being utterly selfless, going on about how he'd give everything up for Ant, that he didn't care about their career. It had really rubbed her the wrong way, and had even caused a small spark of jealousy in her heart – would Dec even consider doing that for her? He was basically married to his job, he loved it dearly and would normally never even think of giving it up.

Plus, that deeply ingrained managerial part of Ali was extremely annoyed with Dec for collapsing in the first place – what did he think he was playing at when he had a massive series finale to present in 6 days' time?! He could be so irresponsible sometimes. Deep down, she knew she was being terribly unfair, that it probably wasn't his fault he'd collapsed, that she shouldn't be snapping at him when he was in such a vulnerable state. But she'd had a stressful couple of weeks, too. And why'd Ant even contacted Dec in the first place? He was meant to be recovering, working on breaking his demons' backs, not breaking her husband's heart with whatever BS he'd come up with!

Dec was still sitting quietly, not even acknowledging her presence, tears tracking slowly down his face, shoulders shuddering with his shaky breaths. He looked utterly alone. But Ali was still mad, and getting even angrier with each passing moment of being completely ignored by her husband.

"You going to answer me, or just keep sitting there sniveling like a little kid?!" Ali snapped again, feeling a vicious sort of satisfaction when Dec visibly flinched and wrapped his arms tighter around his knees, drawing them closer to his chest and shuffling away from her slightly so that his back was resting against the wall.