Cold Water

The Adversity

It started with a quiet evening. Ant had started making a habit out of seeing Stephen once a week, using new films or takeaways he wanted to try as a thinly veiled excuse to spend time with the other man. Now that BGT was over for the year, it felt like it would be easy to drift from Stephen as he was often guilty of in the latter half of the year. Between Britain's Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway, Ant and Dec saw a lot of the younger man at the start of the year but that was just work and since January, work had been a poor substitute for really spending time together.

Stephen was yet to bring it up with Ant, never turning down a plan for an evening. Sometimes Ant wondered if he agreed to it because it meant he could turn down anyone else who tried to convince him to go out instead. Those sorts of social outings were still stumbling blocks. In return for Stephen not calling Ant out for his own intentions, Ant hadn't confronted Stephen about his continued reluctance to get back into the habit of actually talking to people.

The success of the live shows seemed to have given Stephen some renewed confidence. He was quicker to start a conversation nowadays, settled into the idea that Ant would happily wait for him to get to the end of a sentence without trying to rush him. It felt like they were returning to normality more so than before.

When it started getting late and Ant went out to his car, things started to go downhill. He tried to start the car, only to hear a pathetic coughing sound and none of the usual hum of the engine. He retreated to Stephen's front door, knocking again and explaining his problem. Stephen told him to stay in the spare room and sort it in the morning. And that brought them to now.

He'd been asleep for a few hours before waking up, seemingly for no reason. He thought it was just because he was in an unfamiliar room and rolled over, closing his eyes and starting to drift off again. Something caught his attention before he could do that though; a faint voice followed by a fidgeting sound.

At first he thought he'd imagined it, his still half-asleep mind playing tricks on him, but then he heard something similar and this time it was unmistakeably Stephen. He hesitated long enough to hear the younger man again, this time certain that Stephen sounded distressed, before pushing himself out of bed and moving towards the hallway.

He was cautious pushing Stephen's bedroom door open, strangely feeling like he was taking advantage of the younger man's hospitality, forcing him to be vulnerable when he wasn't ready to be. That went promptly out the window when he heard the hurried breaths and disjointed syllables streaming out of Stephen as he tossed and turned.

"S-S-S-Sto-Stop," he mumbled when Ant was close enough to hear him. His eyes were scrunched shut, his expression so turbulent that it seemed impossible he could stay asleep like this. "P-Pl-Please..."

"Stephen," Ant said tentatively, crouching down by the bed and shaking the other man's shoulder lightly, making him roll from his side to his back. He wasn't thinking about the conversation they'd need to have when Stephen woke up. He didn't care if it was awkward – Stephen needed to be pulled out of whatever nightmare he was trapped in. "Stevie, wake up."

Stephen went rigid beneath him, a few broken words skittering out on another breath before he froze completely. His eyes were still shut and he didn't move as if he'd woken up. Ant tried to rouse him again.

"Stevie?" He raised his voice slightly. "C'mon, Stevie. Wake up."

Stephen's eyes finally flickered open, staring up at the ceiling as the air shuddered in his mouth. His arms scrabbled beneath the covers, pushing them off as he rested his trembling hands on his chest, making them rise and fall with the disjointed cadence of his breathing.

"Stevie," Ant murmured gently, lifting his hand warily from Stephen's shoulder and brushing lightly over his hair. "Hey, breathe. You're completely safe."