Without You

9. It was Time

A/N - An early update doesn't come without its price! 😉 Enjoy! 😘

Dec leant heavily against the latched door to the rotating room, conserving his energy until it was time to start the routine. He'd reached the point of tiredness now where each beat of his heart was making his entire body jolt, and he knew a few of the crew members were staring weirdly at him as his body moved rhythmically against the door, but he couldn't care less. He was done in. Finally hearing the countdown to returning from the break in his earpiece, Dec straightened up and slowly pushed his throbbing body away from the door. After the past few days of rehearsals trying to get this routine right, Dec was completely covered in painful bruises, his entire body stiff and sore from the bizarre workout it had had to endure recently. But he'd not complained once – every time a particularly searing pain shot through him, he just reminded himself that Ant had suffered a hell of a lot worse, nonstop, for years. He would be a hypocrite to moan about being a bit black and blue here and there.

Okay, there was his countdown as Paloma's music started. Taking in a deep breath and carefully shaking out all of his limbs to try to loosen them up a bit, Dec took a step back from the door in readiness. There was his cue. Shutting off the part of his brain that was registering his body's aches and pains, Dec put on a bright smile and popped his head 'round the door before hurrying into the rotating room and beginning the routine. Ever light on his feet even in his current state, Dec forgot everything but the choreography as his body went into autopilot, lithely bouncing around the room.

It was all going brilliantly for the first 30 seconds. And then Dec almost lost his balance. Quickly recovering, he slid down onto the floor for the first time in the routine, managing to avoid hitting the worst of his bruises before doing a barrel roll at the end of his slide. Exhaustion was already settling in, his adrenaline kick of energy quickly wearing off. Somewhere at the back of his mind, Dec felt tremendously thankful that, due to the nature of the camera shot, there were no real close-ups of him. His smiley mask was already slipping every time he wasn't directly facing the camera, instead being replaced by a look of pure fatigue, tongue poking out occasionally in concentration or to moisten his dry lips. But ever the professional, Dec pushed himself on, performing his heart out even as his body began giving out on him.

After a very, very long minute, it was time for Scarlett and Stephen to join him. When they were finally in the room with him, Dec was momentarily struck by how wrong this was. That should be Ant standing in front of him – they should have been doing this routine together. Yeah, sure, Scarlett and Stephen got involved in the End of the Show Show sometimes, but they never played such an integral role in it as they were this week. And it felt like cheating on Ant to even touch Stephen as he acted out the scene of excitedly explaining to him and Scarlett what he'd been doing. Stephen felt so foreign. Dec craved Ant's touch, he missed the familiar feel of Ant's strong wrist under his fingers, the way Ant's arm would follow his retreating hand as he pulled away.

Dec flung himself ruthlessly at the wall of the room, hoping the bashing of his battered body would make the lump in his throat disappear. It did actually help – the physical pain distracting him from his mental torture. Forcing his trademark cheery smile back onto his face, Dec started the original routine all over again, except this time with the addition of Stephen and Scarlett alongside him. Dec threw himself around with wild abandon, not caring that every new movement resulted in an all-encompassing explosion of dull pain. It helped distract him from the fact that his mind was becoming hazy, black dots encroaching on the edges of his vision. Picking his way carefully over Stephen's prone form, Dec was supposed to hold himself up away from the floor with his arms for a moment before turning around...But things didn't quite go to plan. His upper body collapsed to the floor with a thud, chest heaving as his lungs worked overtime to drag much-needed oxygen into his body. Dec stayed there for a couple seconds, slightly dazed, before stubbornly flipping himself over and continuing on. He was rapidly losing strength, unable to even pull Stephen up off the floor, big lump that he was, needing to use both hands as Stephen had no core strength and was unable to help much at all. And then he had to crash into an embarrassed Stephen, chest to chest, nose to nose, and his heart ached again. He missed Ant terribly. This sort of thing was never awkward with him – they were too close for that.