I would start a riot

Spoke Too Soon ~ May 2015

Quick disclaimer that there is homophobic language used in this chapter (it is censored but I wanted to warn people just in case).

(*~*)

Despite everything, Stephen had expected some backlash eventually. It wasn't every day two TV presenters came out and then said they were in a relationship with each other. In all honesty, he'd been surprised that they made it through the auditions that year without something more than the stream of positive messages from contestants and audiences alike.

By the time the live shows came around, he was starting to feel more comfortable. Dec seemed settled, content really. He still managed to sympathise with Stephen's nerves though and he never teased the other man for feeling a little paranoid. After all, in his own words, they had been quite lucky.

The first night was the most stressful. Stephen felt shaky, returning to the studio where they had found out about the news article just a year earlier. Presenting live each evening reminded him of the days they had to continue working as their private lives were splashed over front pages just to create headlines. But when he got past that, when he forced himself to remember that twelve months had gone by without any disasters, it was easier to enjoy his job again.

By the time they reached the midweek show, the creases had been ironed out. Stephen was in the middle of a sentence, concentrated on the autocue and steering his conversation with the judges towards the game they'd come up with for that evening.

"F*****!"

It took a second; during which his eyes flickered away from the camera and over to the speakers, his expression feeling as if it had shattered beyond recognition; before he remembered where he was. There were enough people in the theatre, never mind the audience watching at home. It suddenly felt like a lot of eyes, especially as the unexplained shouting didn't stop and his blood ran cold as ice through his veins.

"You're both f******! If you're so proud of yourselves, why did you lie..."

There was someone on the stage, clutching a microphone although Stephen was too preoccupied to even consider where they had got it from. He could hear buzzing in his ear, forcing it to become intelligible sentences above the torrent of hateful abuse - the reassuring, if not panicking, voice of the producer telling him to cut to a break.

"We're experiencing some – technical issues," he found himself saying, talking on autopilot. "We're going to take a quick break now but we will see you very soon." He was frozen in place until the voice in his ear said they were off-air. It could only have been twenty seconds in all, he wouldn't even have been silent for that long, but it had felt like a never-ending nightmare.

The same shouting continued for another few seconds and Stephen allowed himself a moment of weakness, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he waited for it to stop. Finally the homophobia was replaced with protests as security made it onto the stage and marched the intruder into one of the wings.

The microphone cut out, leaving behind a shock wave that rippled around the room.

"Stephen." One of the judges.

Stephen didn't feel quite present in the room, sure that he would wake up in a cold sweat in a few minutes, one arm draped over Dec. It would be before the live shows had even started and his heart would be pounding but the fear would be overwhelmed by gratitude that it had all been a figment of his pessimistic and unfortunately overactive imagination. Even thinking about that, about Dec, made his eyes prickle all of a sudden.

"Two minutes, Stephen," the producer said, sounding reluctant. Stephen dropped his hand from his face but continued to look down at his cue cards, shuffling through them to try and stop the judges from saying anything else. He was aware of the stillness of the theatre, of the pockets of murmured conversation in the audience being swamped by large swathes of silences that were only interrupted by Ian, the floor manager giving his own explanations and apologies that, even amplified by a microphone, sounded distant in Stephen's head. He ignored all of it; four sets of eyes had not looked away from him.