A/N: From here on in text messages will be identified by *message*
I was lying in bed lost in my thoughts again when my phone buzzed and the screen lit up. I sighed and looked at the notification expecting it to be from the group chat, however to my surprise it was a personal message from Ant. My heart rate sped up as I read the text while my mind was already starting to panic.
*Stephen I know you were pretending to be asleep, your acting skills aren't quite that good. I don't know why you pretended to be asleep in order to avoid us or why you have been avoiding everyone at work these last few days. However what I do know is that when Dec and I get back we need to talk to you. -A*
My heart was racing now as I began to panic even more realizing that I hadn't fooled him, and even worse I realized that he was probably mad at me now as well. While I was worrying about all this another message came through; this one was from Dec and I had no doubt in my mind that Ant had told him I had been pretending to be asleep. I began to feel even more worried because I know how Dec's temper is, and the fact that I had lied to him by pretending to be asleep was going to more be than enough to make him mad at me and earn myself an angry lecture as well. Ant and Dec are usually very nice people, however you do not want to be on the receiving end of one their angry lectures when you have done something you knew was wrong and shouldn't have done in the first place. After a few more minutes of worrying I somehow finally managed to calm down enough to read the message.
*Stephen don't think your getting out of telling us what's been going on with you lately, you've been acting odd and avoiding everyone these last few days. When Ant and I get back we are all going to talk, so don't pretend to be asleep again because I won't fall for it a second time. -D*
Oh no I thought, what am I going to do now? What can I tell them that will justify my behavior? Not the truth that's for sure, I can't tell them how I feel or about the thoughts I've been having; they would see it as me being dramatic or worse just looking for attention. They were already upset with me for pretending to be asleep in order to avoid them, and I knew that lying to them again would only make matters worse. I felt panic setting in once again as my mind desperately tried to come up with a good story or an excuse to justify my behavior over the last few days before they got back. I didn't think that anyone had noticed my absence over the last few days or how distant I had been, only now did I see how wrong I had been to actually think that no one would notice. I didn't know why it seemed to matter so much to them in the first place, they had more important things to deal with and worry about besides me, it was just me after all. It's not like my problems and feelings were anything special enough for anyone to be concerned with, so why were they so keen to find out what was going on with me?
I began to feel tears in my eyes as I started to get more worried and even a little frustrated by the fact that I couldn't think of anything to tell them, I started to think that maybe they don't really care what is going on with me and they are just looking for something to gossip about with the judges. I felt even worse as my mind came to this conclusion, however I didn't get to worry about all of this much longer as I felt my eyes getting heavier and my tired brain slowing down. I started feeling very sleepy and the panic started to ease as I felt exhaustion overtaking my body and my mind.
I yawned and started to feel even more tired as I tried to remember when the last time I had a proper sleep was. I slept most nights but I usually only slept a few hours at a time if I was lucky, because recently I was often awakened by awful dreams in the night. These dreams always shook me up so badly that I was unable to go back to sleep afterwards. This led to me only getting about two to three hours of sleep every night and some nights the dreams were so bad that I was too afraid to sleep at all. So the past few weeks I had been walking around in a sleep deprived haze made even worse by the awful thoughts that kept buzzing in my head.
I yawned again and felt myself began to drift off to sleep for real this time. I found myself sinking into the darkness and I desperately prayed that I wouldn't have any dreams tonight because I knew that I really needed a good sleep and that I was already on edge as it was, having one of those dreams would surely be too much for me to deal with at the moment. I slept in peace for a little less than an hour and then I found myself getting wrapped up in yet another one of those awful dreams that would no doubt leave me a wreck when I managed to wake up from it, as well as frighten me too much and make me unable to sleep anymore for the rest of the night.
A/N: The next half of this chapter will be Stephen's Dream and I would like to go ahead and tell you that I love Ant and Dec and Simon and David and know they would never say something like what I have written in this chapter about Stephen. However there is a reason I have written the chapter this way, I did it to show you some of what Stephen's thoughts and insecurities are about and how they are making him feel. I can reassure you that everything in this chapter is completely made up, it never happened. And no offense is intended towards anyone, that being said read on and please keep in mind that everything is a work of fiction and not real.
***STEPHEN'S DREAM***
We were on a break from Auditions and everyone was settled in the room eating or talking or just relaxing before the second set of auditions would resume. I entered the room and looked around to see Ant and Dec as well as David and Simon, sitting together at a table talking about something. I figured that it was most likely about one of the acts and I decided to take a seat on the sofa near the group and pretend to be interested in a game on my phone; however I was actually listening to the conversation in hopes that they would say something I could use on BGMT. They didn't seem to notice me and carried on with whatever it was they were discussing, I looked down at my phone only to freeze as I heard my name. My head snapped up in response but I put it back down almost immediately, not wanting to give myself away. I was relieved as the conversation continued, because that meant that they still hadn't noticed me or the fact that I was listening in. I focused on the conversation again listening even more intently than before as Simon started speaking again.
Simon: "Come on boys be honest, do you really like Stephen? Do you really like playing his weird games and challenges all the time? "
Simon had directed the question towards Ant and Dec and I began to feel my anxiety rise as well as a sick feeling developing in my stomach while I waited to hear their answers. My heart was racing and even though I was afraid to hear the answer I also just had to know what they were going to say, so I waited in an awful mix of fear and anticipation until Ant began to speak.
Ant: "Honestly no, but don't tell him I said that he will take it so hard the poor thing."
Dec: "Yeah same here honestly but don't tell him, you know how easily he gets upset and he will take it the wrong way."
I felt tears rush into my eyes at their words, those words were like knives to my heart and I started willing myself not to cry, I didn't want to breakdown here in front of everyone. I knew that I should leave now and shouldn't listen anymore, I knew where the conversation was going and I knew that I wasn't going to like what was coming next. However I was frozen in place like a deer in the headlights of a car and so I just sat there continuing to listen.
Simon: "So if you don't like doing it then why do you play along? If you just refused then he would stop and you wouldn't have to deal with him and his silly games anymore."
David: "Oh come on Simon you know why, it's for the same reason they have him on their show now. They feel sorry for him, they do it out of pity, because they know he can't make it otherwise. Right boys?"
Ant: "No, that's not true David...."
My heart filled with a tiny ray of hope at Ant's words maybe he was going to stand up for me and tell David and Simon they were wrong and that he and Dec enjoyed having me on the show.
Ant: "We don't feel sorry for him, we do it because he makes us look good and those games he does are good for drawing in fans and bringing ratings up. "
The tiny ray of hope flickered out and the hurt and betrayal took it's place. I had always suspected that he felt this way, but to hear him say it out loud hurt me so much; it was like a knife being stabbed into and then twisted into my aching heart. All those horrible thoughts in my head had been right, no one really wanted me around I was nothing to them. They were just using me to drive up ratings and fan counts, I was just there to make them look good. No one cared about me or anything that I did , how could I have been so stupid. Those thoughts in my head were right I should have listened to them before instead of pushing them away and denying the truth.
I was fighting really hard not to cry and keep my emotions under control, but a small sob slipped out before I could stop it. The noise made the fourth person at the table look up in shock and surprise, Dec's eyes met mine just as the tears suddenly started spilling over and I quickly broke eye contact, stood up and started to run out of the room. I tripped over something in my haste and quickly got back up crying even harder now as I continued running for the door; I heard Dec's voice as I ran from the room talking to the others but I was far too distraught to care what was said now.
I kept running even though I couldn't see anything as my vision was blurred from the tears, alI I wanted to do was get away; so I ran to the nearest Restroom and locked the door just in time because the sobs were overtaking me now and I sank down onto the floor crying loudly. I pulled my knees to my chest and put my face against them as I sat on the floor sobbing my heart out. All I wanted in that moment was for someone to come and comfort me, I wished someone would tell me that it was ok and that they didn't mean any of the things they had said back there. I wanted someone to tell me that it was just a cruel joke they had been playing on me and that they didn't actually mean all those things.
I knew that wasn't going to happen however, and i knew that they had not been joking they had truly meant every word they said. That thought made me feel even worse and I hugged my knees tighter and buried my face even further as I continued to breakdown. Even though i knew that no one was coming to comfort me, I could feel someone put their hand on my shoulder and start shaking it gently, this took me by surprise and after a few minutes when the sensation didn't stop, I lifted my head and opened my eyes.
***DREAM ENDS HERE***
I received quite a shock as my eyes opened and I took in my surroundings, I realized that i was not curled up on the Restroom floor anymore; instead I was in my room at the hotel lying on my bed and to my shock someone was sitting on top of me. The weight of the person was holding me down firmly and yet somehow gently at the same time, I looked down and to my shock I found myself looking straight into a pair of eyes that I easily recognized, a pair of eyes that were looking at me with a very worried expression, the person sitting on top of me was none other than Dec!
Even as I looked at him and realized that I must have been dreaming again, my chest still heaved with sobs and I was still crying. To make matters worse I started to feel the panic rise up as I came to a conclusion about what must have happened. I had fallen asleep and had a nightmare and the boys had came into my room to talk to me, found me having a nightmare and attempted to wake me up. My anxiety only increased as I suddenly remembered why they were here in the first place, and then I also realized that they would certainly want an explanation for the nightmare now as well. Those two thoughts combined along with the dream I had woken up from proved to be too much for me to handle and I felt myself starting to have a full blown anxiety attack as the thoughts in my head took over.