Unexpected

1 Something is wrong

AN: Just a little something that could easily turn into something bigger. That is of course if you want me to. :D

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I went round to Dec's dressing room, just like I did before every show. And as it was the first live semi-final, I went there a bit earlier than on the other days. Just to make sure that everything would go right, which was really important on the first day. Well, I was always quicker in getting ready than Dec, so I always went round to his room, never the other way round.

So I knocked on the door and that's basically when it all started. Normally, Dec would just answer with a simple "come in", or "it's open". But this time the answer was "just a second" and I wouldn't have found that odd, but well, there was nothing I hadn't seen before, nothing I hadn't heard before and above all nothing he was embarrassed by in front of me, so this was really odd.

"Okay" I chuckled and it really took about 30 seconds until he opened the door.

"Ready?" he exclaimed excitedly and I could immediately tell that something was off. Just because I knew him, to any other person it wouldn't have been noticeable, but to me it was.

"Sure, you alright?" I asked and stepped into his room, closing the door behind me.

"Bit nervous" Dec admitted but I knew it wasn't that. I knew him when he was nervous and I knew there had to be something else.

But well, if you knew Dec you would know that he shut down whenever you pushed him, so I left it there and we chatted about something else, we often did that to distract ourselves before a show, when everything else was done and there was just the wait left for the show to start. We often talked about football or golf of course or about something funny we'd seen on the internet.

This time however, I did most of the talking, which was a bit unusual. Dec did talk with me and he did answer and he told me about his nephew's birthday and showed me pictures of him with his cake and everything. But still, something was bothering him, I could see it. And most people would think I overreacted, but I knew him.

"5 minutes" someone shouted from outside after knocking to get our attention.

"Okay" I shouted back and we stood up to check our outfits again.

Dec brushed some dust off my shoulder and half-smiled at me. "Trust you to keep a suit clean" he added and chuckled a bit.

I laughed along and patted him on the back. "Lucky I have you, eh?"

Dec nodded and sighed and I saw it in his eyes, there was something.

"Okay, we have 4 minutes left, do you want to talk now or after the show?" I asked carefully and tried a reassuring smile.

I knew Dec knew that I noticed and I knew he appreciated it, but I also knew Dec was a professional, so I had known his answer before. He just sighed again, shrugged his shoulders and said not to bother. So I had to try again after the show. I only hoped it wouldn't affect our links.

Well, it didn't. As I had thought, Dec was professional throughout and well, it wasn't really a surprise because Dec might even be more professional than me. We delivered our lines and we were bang on time when we left off air.

Now we had an hour until the results show and what we normally did was getting into our dressing room each, having a bit of alone time to freshen up and to calm down, maybe having a nap if we were particularly exhausted and afterwards having a little snack together.

Well, normally we did that. But this time, I followed Dec straight into his dressing room and he didn't even complain.

Now, Dec isn't one to admit he has problems, and it's not because he doesn't want to get it off his chest, it is more like because he doesn't want to burden someone with something that is bothering him. So I always had to pester him with questions whenever something was wrong with him. But well, not this time.

"I want to quit" Dec said, not turning around.