Oneshots and Other Things

Must be a Wind-Up (M)

I'm not even watching I'm a Celeb this year because I don't want to deal with Nigel Farage but this has still happened as a result of clips I've seen :p

Ant/Dec and what I consider to be mature (so probably really not XD )

(*~*)

It isn't normally like this.

Sure, they have a reputation for playing up the dynamic between them. And maybe they've found it funny in the past, driving the British public mad by acting so in-sync with one another, so perfectly in tune. And maybe it's been a good excuse to push the boundaries somewhat, to get closer than they otherwise would even in their closer-than-close friendship.

That last reason is more of a Dec thing than a them thing. Unless Ant has thought of it that way too.

This year though, something is going on. It should probably be laughable that they've made it this far without anything happening. All this time, when everyone's thought they've been pulling them along, sharing the world's biggest inside joke with one another for all these years. In reality, Dec's starting to feel like he's the one on the outside – the one not knowing what's going on.

They have writers for I'm a Celebrity, just like all of the other shows. They work with the same people for years and over time they all become friends – friends who like to push the boundaries. In this case, their friends have rather a lot of power; namely, the ability to make them do and say pretty much whatever in front of a few million people each night.

Dec isn't going to pretend that it started here in 2023 – in Australia. It didn't start with the running joke of being in a throuple or Ant asking Dec if he wants to get him out of that jacket. It didn't start with Dec being manhandled into the car one morning because he stopped to talk to the social media team for too long. Or the hundreds of times the script rolls over to a new line that, out of context, could almost be taken as flirting.

It didn't start here. It didn't start with any of those separate incidents but the sum of them all, complete with their usual proximity and the cut-off nature of filming on the other side of the world to their normal lives, is bringing feelings that Dec has buried for more than enough time to the surface.

He's been trying to deflect, the last three weeks. Sometimes he hasn't managed, being forced to just shake his head and look away. Sometimes he's just retorted with something that he hopes might torture Ant equally. He'll call him cheeky, feel a pink tip of tongue stick out between his teeth as he grins at the other man and hopes, just a little cruelly, that it's torture for him too.

The worst stuff is when it's scripted. He reaches for Ant's arm naturally when he messes up or even just to get his attention. They're like that in real life and it doesn't make sense to exclude that side of their friendship from the on-screen one they're curating. Those touches aren't choreographed though – they don't go through rehearsals, figuring out when Dec's hand will reach out to curl around the fabric of Ant's shirt sleeve. When Dec knows a link is coming up with one of those tactile moments, he feels something like dread sink to the bottom of his stomach and pool there uneasily. He keeps calling it dread to ignore the fact that it could be anything else.

And then it's day 20 and, in all honesty, he's relieved that the finish line is in sight. Maybe Christmas apart will settle them back down into the usual back and forth of questioning and denying that he's used to. He wonders when the scriptwriters will find a new joke to pedal out whenever they're short on other ideas even though it feels like they're on a runaway train with this one by now. The destination of this particular journey remains unseen but Dec is fairly certain it wouldn't be able to be televised.