Rat Race

Part 3

Dec did end up going home that day, but only for a couple of hours to check his mail, to leave money out for the cleaner, and to give various members of his family a call as he'd been out of contact since getting sick.

All that was enough to tire him out - he still felt a bit weak and drained from how ill he'd been, even though Ant seemed completely back to normal. That always seemed to be how it went, though: Ant bounced back fast from illnesses. He claimed it was because when he was younger and the caretaker of his little sisters, he didn't have the luxury of malingering. Dec had always gone down hard with bugs - if the rest of his brothers or sisters had taken two days off school, it was a fair bet that Dec would end up taking the whole week, his mam had always said. It was genuine, too - even doing everything you were supposed to when sick, lying down and taking it easy and taking medicine and eating sensibly, did nothing to help him recover quickly.

Despite this clear difference between him and Ant, though, Ant had never gotten frustrated with him. Not even when others did: having worked together since they were teenagers, and been exposed to the same germs most of the time, they often got ill at the same time. Producers and directors and managers had been known, in the past, to give Dec a bit of grief when he was still coughing and spluttering and staggering about with a cold well after Ant had kicked it, despite their going down with it at the same time. They soon, learned, however, not to get on at Dec for it - Ant would always step in, protectively, to tell them to back off. Their relationship had always been this way, Ant taking the role of protector and caregiver going back to their Byker Grove days. Dec thinks it's linked to the fact that just as they were becoming good friends on and off set, he'd come down with a really bad flu that had left him a bit shaky and vulnerable for a few months. Ant, used to being the responsible one at home and having protective instincts, had attached himself to him and taken care of him, making sure he was okay. He enjoyed taking on that role, and Dec liked being cared for by him, and so they saw no reason to continue in any other way.

Dec knows he supports Ant in other ways, though, so the relationship isn't unequal. Ant is not not a people person, but he likes to take his time getting to know people, and he's less comfortable in crowds of people that he doesn't know. He also doesn't tolerate fools easily. Dec's very happy to take the lead when it comes to meeting new people and being charming, and he'll often insert himself between Ant and people he knows will wind Ant up to take the brunt of the interaction, knowing it'll slide easily off him. He's also better with details than Ant - he remembers names and dates and times (not that he's necessarily good at meeting those times, but still), and he's a perfectionist when it comes to timing and delivery at work. He often takes point on those matters, making sure everything is completely sorted, which is a way of taking care, he supposes. 

He does sometimes worry that there's an imbalance in their relationship, though. Not because of anything Ant has ever said, or Lisa, but occasional others. When he and Georgie had broken up, a week or so later one of her friends had come round to pick up some of Georgie's stuff from Dec's house. She and Dec had never really clicked, and she had been in full on righteous fury mode - Dec couldn't really blame her; he saw some of Ant's protectiveness in her flinty gaze and sharp words as she collected various items. One thing she had said, though, had cut him to the core a bit: "Well, at least now you can run back to your friend, can't you? Get him to take care of you and patch up your wounds, and tell you everything's going to be okay. I don't know how he puts up with it, having you tagging at his heels like a sad, pathetic puppy. He's got his own life to lead, his own wife, but he can't get rid of you." She'd said more, quite a lot of it cruel, but that bit was the one that had stuck.

And that was why he'd been so careful, over the past few months since the break up, to make sure he wasn't getting in the way of Ant and Lisa; that he wasn't relying on them too much. That was why he'd retreated to his own home the first night he'd felt unwell. He didn't want to go over there and take up all of their time and energy when they might want to spend it alone, by themselves.