Oneshots and Other Things

Self-Deprecation ~ Part 2

Despite the late night, Ant woke up at 6:30 the next morning. The first sight he was greeted by was Stephen's back. It seemed the younger man had managed to keep even further to his own side of bed than he had the previous night, his body language rejecting Ant's presence even in his sleep. Ant let out a weary side and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, struggling to pick out any detail in the decoration as he squinted in the gloom of the early winter morning.

By the time Stephen made a conscious movement, fidgeting around and then letting out a long breath, another hour had passed. Ant was surprised to find that so much time had gone by with him lost in his thoughts, having to look twice at his phone to make sure he had read the screen correctly. When he shifted his attention back to the rest of the room, Stephen had rolled over and was now mid-yawn, his face turning sleepily into the pillow.

"Morning," Ant said, having decided to adopt the approach of pretending yesterday evening hadn't happened. He trusted Stephen to play along, guessing that the other man didn't want to talk about it as much as Ant didn't want to. Well, he did want to talk about it but not if Stephen was going to continue to brush him off and he suspected that was exactly what would happen.

Stephen blinked blearily over at him, almost as if he'd forgotten their room sharing predicament. He hummed a discontented response that Ant put down to the time of day rather than a hangover from their tense conversation prior to going to bed. Eventually, the younger man shuffled around to rest on his elbows, looking slightly more awake. "Morning. What time is it?"

"Half 7," Ant replied, turning his phone screen to face Stephen and grinning faintly when he winced at the blue light.

"Point taken," Stephen complained, screwing his face up and burying it back into the pillow. Ant caught himself smiling far too fondly and schooled his expression. He thought he should probably have recoiled from the domesticity of their living arrangements or recoiled from the constant proximity to a friend he spent a significant portion of career pretending to hate. Instead, he was starting to wish they stayed in one place for the entirety of the auditions – that this hotel was the only one that they would be staying in for the next few weeks.

"It's actually 7:27," Stephen continued after a moment, his voice muffled by the fabric. "So I'm just going to go back to sleep."

"For three minutes?" Ant asked wryly, letting out a laugh when Stephen shushed him firmly. He gave Stephen the peace he wanted for the short time he had before both of their phones went off, the usual cacophony made far worse by the two different alarm sounds they had chosen.

"Right," Stephen mumbled to himself, slowly dragging himself upright.

"Was it worth it?" Ant smirked when he was met with a weak glare.

"If I have to get up this early, I will wait until the latest possible moment to get out of bed," Stephen retorted, raising an eyebrow. He was let down by another jaw-cracking yawn, groaning petulantly as he got to his feet and arched his back.

Ant waited for him to mention the night before, to ruefully say he could have got another hour of sleep if he hadn't been so slow with filming. He was pleasantly surprised when that moment didn't come.

(*~*)

Two days passed without either of them mentioning their brief spat. It was as if it hadn't happened, in Stephen's mind at least – Ant continued to play it around in his head. It was Stephen's comment that made him think far too dangerously.

I'm not as good as you say I am!

The insight into Stephen's perception of himself was an unwelcome one but beyond that, the younger man had made a point about Ant too. He'd pointed out, unknowingly or otherwise, the pedestal that Ant had placed Stephen on. Because Ant liked Stephen – far more than he wanted to admit.