The world, coming down

Halfway Home ~ November 2012

"Morning, sunshine!"

Ant's voice interrupted Dec mid-yawn as he groaned and forced himself out of the chair in the hotel reception. He blinked blearily at Ant, half-heartedly glowering at his cheerful grin. He envied Ant's insomnia at times; it gave him some good practice at being functional at 2 o'clock in the morning when it was still dark and no one sensible was awake.

"What day are we on?" Dec asked, screwing up his nose as they both headed out towards the waiting car. Really, it was a miracle he'd been down there before Ant in the first place and he probably wouldn't have been if Ant weren't in the habit of repeatedly phoning him until he picked up each morning, just in case he'd ignored his alarm.

"Ten," Ant said, grinning a little. "Are you losing track already?"

"All blurs into one at this time of the morning," Dec retorted, following him into the car. Ant, knowing what he was like, struck up a conversation with their driver, happy to leave Dec to wake himself up on the twenty minute drive to the set.

One of the new additions to this routine was checking in on Stephen. He was always envious of the other man, knowing that it was a reasonable time of day back at home.

'What you up to, Stevie?'

He made sure his phone was set to vibrate and then rested his head against the car window, content to multitask and satisfy his need to talk to Stephen at the same time as catching every last second of rest he could manage. Sometimes the other man was busy – it was the middle of the day in the UK after all – but he usually managed to send something, even if it was full of mistakes because he'd been trying to type it out with his phone under a table. Dec tended to show those messages to Ant, both of them amused by the image of Stephen hiding his phone like a school kid.

'Not much. Had a planning session for BGT this morning but nothing else to do. Well done for getting up on time.'

Dec smiled to himself faintly, more than happy to take the weak glow he always got from his daily congratulations, no matter how much he could hear the sarcasm in Stephen's voice. Both him and Ant teased Dec constantly for his 'morning moods', always taking advantage of his inability to come up with any sort of retort when his brain wasn't quite functioning yet.

'Thanks, I did forget how many days we'd been doing this for though... halfway through today.'

He left the rest unsaid – how he could put up with the likely miserable weather back at home after all this sun if it meant they were back stealing as much time together as their schedules allowed.

To some extent, Stephen had been right. It had been easier once they'd got working, to stop thinking about him every other second, to stop worrying that something irrational could happen whilst he was gone. At the same time, Dec was experiencing a new feeling that year of wanting to get home. Most years he enjoyed their escape to the other side of the world a little too much, basking in the good weather and glad to miss a month of grey skies and depressing rain. As long as his mum was only a phone call away and Ant was dependably by his side, there hadn't been much reason to reach December and start wishing he could get home.

Ant used to be like that too. Back when they first started, they would find a quiet spot during their afternoons and talk about what it would be like to stay a little longer. Sometimes they had done, extending their trip an extra week after the end of the show. Then had begun the process of growing up – Ant missing Lisa turning into Lisa joining them for a couple of weeks. And now that had turned into the two of them staying in Australia for a bit of a holiday at the end of the series.

In many ways, Dec was very happy about that fact. For Ant, it would do him some good to have a break, particularly before they had to tour around the country with Britain's Got Talent in January. But selfishly as well, Dec knew he'd get a few days with Stephen, when neither of them had to worry about being spotted at Dec's house and the questions that could follow from that.