Until the very end

Mattered to Me ~ January 2019

"It's meant to be enjoyable, the whole winning awards thing," Ant teased as they went backstage that morning. Dec rolled his eyes weakly, trying to fend off Ant's poorly veiled suggestion that he was entirely in Dec's head already.

In his mind, this was meant to be a day that he offered a shoulder for Ant. He was going to squash everything he was feeling down, just to keep the younger man on an even footing. Because today was the day of the NTAs. Today, they were going to get cold, hard evidence of the public's opinion of them.

Ant, unexpectedly, didn't seem to be feeling this burden. He'd been calm all week - genuinely calm. Not the sort of calm that he'd faked in the past. Dec believed him and, beneath his own anxiety, he was relieved to be able to do that wholeheartedly. The feeling was only tarnished by the flickers of jealousy that he tried to bat away. He didn't want to care what anyone thought either but this year, it was on him. This year, they would win or lose the award purely on the merits of the work he'd done alone.

"We haven't won yet," he pointed out, trying to play it off as a joke. "I'm pretty sure losing awards isn't meant to be fun."

"It won't mean anything if we don't win tonight," Ant said gently, dropping the lightness of his tone and briefly tugging Dec into his side. Dec rocked his head close and let out a slow breath. There was no use pretending with Ant. He wasn't trying to be a hypocrite.

"Not sure I believe that," he said quietly. "It will definitely mean something."

"And that will only reflect badly on me," Ant replied with a firm confidence that Dec missed. He used to be the more confident of the two but now Ant had come out of the hardest year of his life with a renewed sense of self. He knew who he was completely and seemed unapologetic. He cared far less of what everyone else thought even though it would have been so easy for him to start listening to the hate far more than ever before.

Maybe all those months of abstaining from social media and being shielded from the press had done him some good. Maybe Dec should have done the same.

"It's my work they're voting for," he mumbled.

"And our names," Ant reinforced with a steady smile. "We're in this together, Deccy. It's not gonna be your fault if we lose the winning streak. And it's not going to be the end of everything if we don't."

Dec knew that. He knew how news cycles worked. They would fall back out of the public eye eventually and get back to working as normal. Ant was managing to do it, as these first couple of weeks back at the auditions had proven. No one had said anything to their faces; no one had given any indication that they were unhappy to see Ant before they went on stage to audition.

It wouldn't be the end of everything but he couldn't shake the gnawing anxiety in his stomach. It did matter, in a way that he couldn't explain. It mattered to him regardless of the outside opinion. It mattered to him even if that didn't make sense to anyone else.

(*~*)

There had been an unusual sense of tension backstage, growing as the evening recording session got underway. From the ITV2 wing of the theatre, Stephen often had a good view of everything else that was happening at the same time as a certain sense of detachment from the main action.

Tonight, he didn't like what he was having to watch. Ant and Dec on the opposite side of the stage. Ant looking surprisingly unflappable. Dec, almost the opposite.

The Best Presenter award wasn't usually a source of so much stress for the older Geordie. Stephen knew they both liked to win it - there was some outside pressure at this point because they were on a bit of a streak and it was voted for by the public so, even more than any other award, it was a good indication that they were doing something right for their audience. In any normal year though, they would be at the ceremony laughing off the jokes aimed in their direction and not stressing too much about the outcome.