I would start a riot

Shaking Hands ~ May 2015

"Have you seen my script, Stevie?" Dec rolled his eyes to himself when he heard the other man huff out a faint laugh from the kitchen. He continued to wander through the living room, trying to remember where he had left the stack of papers.

"You put it in your bag last night," Stephen called in return, sounding amused, "And, I quote, so you wouldn't forget it in the morning."

Dec smiled reluctantly, glad his own scatter-brain tendencies could at least keep Stephen's mind off of the show later that evening. The final was always a big deal and this year, more than ever, the production team was on high alert about keeping unwanted intrusions at bay.

"Found it," he said over his shoulder, rifling through his backpack and checking everything was there. He walked back into the kitchen, meeting Stephen's indulgently fond smile with a sheepish grin. "Good tactic, eh?"

"Even if I packed your bag in front of you, you'd still think you'd left something behind," Stephen replied, shaking his head. His smile grew when Dec walked straight over, resting his head against the taller man's chest and hugging him tightly. Dec felt him exhale over his hair, only calm now that they were close together. And he only melted further against him when Stephen continued, his voice a low hum against Dec's cheek. "What are we going to do with you, Declan?"

"I shouldn't be trusted to take my scripts home," he said ruefully, pulling back reluctantly and grinning again. "You'd think someone would have learnt by now."

Stephen shrugged. "Maybe they hoped you'd get better."

"I'm a lost cause," Dec said dramatically, ducking away from the hand that reached out to swat him. He gravitated easily back into the comfort of Stephen's embrace, reassured by it after a nightmare in the early hours of the morning had shaken him awake and kept him that way. He shut his eyes, feeling warm and supported enough to go back to sleep standing up.

"My hands are already shaking," Stephen muttered, just about forcing a helpless laugh. Dec rubbed his hand over the younger man's back, twisting his head so that his face returned to the reality of their kitchen. One of Stephen's hands had dropped from behind him, trembling slightly in Dec's eye line.

"Ignore it," he said softly, remembering the last-minute, over-the-phone production meeting Stephen had attended the afternoon before. For some reason there had been a discussion of some of the articles floating around at the moment, a last-ditch attempt to improve the way the channel had responded to the homophobia. One had described Stephen as 'visibly nervous,' in an effort to prove how little ITV had done in the aftermath of the earlier semi-final.

Dec dropped his own hand from its soothing position against Stephen's spine, holding it out instead for Stephen to grip in his own. Even that wavered but Dec persisted, rubbing a finger over the other man's knuckles.

"You've got through every other show," he continued eventually, "And it doesn't matter what some random journalist says about you. When you get through this one too, there will be far more people praising you for doing so well."

"I'm scared," Stephen admitted, his chin dropping onto Dec's head. Dec squeezed his hand again.

"I know, love," he replied, stopping short of saying he was too. It didn't help when both of them needed comfort that neither was in a position to give and he didn't want to double their problems. "It's just going to be a normal show. You've got me and Ant on as well. Emma. Loads of people."

Stephen hummed a weak agreement, reluctantly detaching himself from Dec and walking over to the kitchen sink. Dec followed his every movement, unable to do what he'd just told Stephen to and finding himself focused on those shaky hands. He didn't like the distance between them, almost as much as he hated Stephen's not so subtle desperation to let everyone else have a normal lastd day of work. A tension had made camp across his shoulders, one that Dec expected to linger for the rest of the day. No amount of reassurance was going to shift it.