becausehiships

As he’s watching the photos and videos flash across the screen within the import to his hard drive, it’s as though he’s watching a chronological movie of his whole life.  Every single moment that he once thought to be important enough to document reflects for a split second, glaring back at his reflection he sees against the sunlight of the window behind him.

Every person in every picture is familiar and a complete stranger, and holy shit they’ve all come so far since Darren’s start on the show.  Baby faces and grins, the billions of photos from hanging out on tour, selfies that weren’t classified as such yet on duck boats and in front of royal living quarters and decked out in pointed black hats in Salem, and later at sushi restaurants and Disneyland and whoever’s house.  Pictures of a baby-young Chris taking his first shot somewhere in the midwest, pictures of Ashley and Dianna posing in second-hand prom dresses they found in a vintage shop in Brooklyn, the Zurich sky, the Eiffel Tower.  Dublin.  A group photo dressed as Cheerios, Darren blowing out birthday candles with Chris grinning at him in the background before they were totally good again.  A video of Chris doing Single Ladies on tour.  Warbler rehearsal.

Darren leans back in his chair and covers his wet eyes with one hand.  He feels flushed and dizzy and all alone.  Cooper appears and sits beneath Chris’ desk, staring at him through the glass top.

“Okay, Coop.  I’ll take you in a minute.”

He navigates to his iTunes shamelessly and scrolls to the exact four minutes and fifty-seven seconds that he needs to hear right now.  He crosses the room and turns on the bluetooth stereo system on the top of their dresser.  He comes back to his computer and hits play.  Lea’s voice floods the apartment, and he sits underneath the desk with Cooper, hugging the only thing that will let him right now.  The dog grins and bears it, wagging his tail softly.  Man’s best friend.

Glee has given him so much opportunity, a chance at fateful and unconditional love, friends and lovers that have since turned into family.   Even if no one has really reached out to Chris or Darren since they found each other again, they all have a special bond that only those on the inside looking out will ever understand.  It’s a connection that will remain for the rest of their lives.

He loses it at more than trophies on a shelf because God, that’s so fucking true.  He wrote the damn song and he doesn’t realize the thing that he took away from the experience is the new shape of his career, his life, his heart.

Darren sobs in the midst of pushing Cooper off of his lap, the dog glaring back at him before stalking away to spitefully pee on the rug near the laundry room and Darren can’t bring himself to care.  Not now.

He lets the song fade out as he climbs in bed and hugs a pillow, crying silent flowing tears that stream down the bridge of his nose as they fall to their death.  Nearly three years to the day and it finally hits him.  He feels like such a douchebag for not getting emotional at any point before right this second.<br /> Those days were sacred and irreplaceable but most of all, over.

Shaking his head, he attempts to snap himself out of it once and for all.  It’s not fair that he’s crying about it when it’s old news; it’s not fair that he’s sad about any of it because he would trade it all in a million times if he could still wind up with Chris in the end.

He hears the door’s lock hitch; he hears footsteps in the foyer and a distinct, “Oh Coop!  What’d you do?  Dare?”

He doesn’t trust his voice so he waits until Chris can figure out the fact that he’s right around the corner.  Eventually, he’s welcomed by a tilted head and a very confused expression.

“What happened?”

Darren turns his neck to look at Chris.  “Glee’s really over.”

Chris looks startled and laughs but cuts himself off when Darren continues to stare, wet eyelashes and puffy red cheeks to boot.

“Oh, honey.  Did it just hit you?”  Chris rushes around the back of the couch and gathers Darren in his arms.

“I owe my whole life to that stupid show, Chris.  My whole life.”

“You would have found your career without Ryan Murphy.”

“Would I have found you?”

Chris lets out a larger than life sigh and curls his lips into the childish smirk Darren loves.  “I would have still been in Clovis without Glee.  I imagine I’d be the assistant manager of a Best Buy.  So no, probably not.”

Darren nods and kisses him, a brush of lips hardly enough to enunciate his gratitude for this perfect moment between the two of them.  “I love you so much, Colfer.”

He’s faced with a genuinely concerned, nervous look on Chris’ beautiful face.  “Dare…”

“Shhhh, just hold me.”

“That, I can do.”  Chris rubs a palm up and down Darren’s forearm, ignoring the fur babies to take care of his boyfriend.  “I love you.  But honestly, why did it just hit you?  How?  It’s been...”

Darren shrugs.  “I dunno.  Just looking at pictures.  Hey, what did you take from set?”

Chris giggles.  “Oh.  I don’t remember.”

“Shut up.  Of course you remember.”  Darren smiles and pats the couch under them.

“Fine.”  Chris combs through Darren’s curls and looks out into space as he thinks.  “I took… the hippo broach, a pair of pants from the last episode, Pavarotti’s bedazzled pencil box casket, because I actually spent time and effort on that. Oh, and I got you.”

“Me?”

“I took miniscule little things that, in the grand scheme of things, meant nothing.  Because the prize I got was so much better than your couch or Cory’s jersey, or Santana’s Cheerio skirt.”  Chris nuzzles Darren’s neck.  “What was the line?  We didn’t need to win any stupid show choir competition singing a break up song.  Because we won so much more than that.  What’s the line!”

Darren grins and straightens his posture, slipping into Blaine one last time.  “We did win.  We got each other out of this.  That’s better than any trophy, don’t you think?”

“I ask you to walk the dog once while I’m gone, maybe pick up some milk while you’re on your way home, and nothing.  But you can remember one measly line from like, your fourth episode ever.”

“Certain important things stick.  When I was memorizing that script, I saw so many… I thought about you a lot back then.”

“And now?”

“He.”  Darren blinks.  “And yes, I guess.  It was a stupid hookup but… I don’t think he… um, did it right.”

Joey blinks, like he’s trying to either clear Darren’s words from his brain or shuffle through index cards of friendly responses for the right one to say.  “Oh…. Dude, that… sucks.  You okay?”

“It just… I don’t know.  Nothing, nevermind.  Sorry.”  

“Um, cool.  When do you work?”

“Not shooting today.  Meeting with Ryan at three.  Which basically means I’m in trouble.  He probably had a fucking fly on the wall at the club last night.”

“Would they really, ya know, be all up your ass over something like that?”  Joey doesn’t seem to catch what he’s just said until the words are fully out of his mouth.  He opens one of the beers and drains half the bottle.  “Not the best choice of words.  My bad.  My very, very bad.”

Darren laughs.  “You’re an… I was going to say asshole.  But.”

“Why do all of our terms and phrases involve buttholes?  I blame you for this.”

“You should blame me for that.  Come on, let’s play Halo or something until I have to go.”

“That, we can do, buddy.”  Joey propels himself over the arm of Darren’s couch and lands in an awkward sprawl of legs and scattered throw pillows.  He watches Darren move more carefully than usual.  A line of worry appears around his eyes.

Darren shuffles over without lifting his feet off the floor and cringes with every step he takes.  “Shut up, I’m fine.”

Joey says nothing, but he subtly picks up one of the fallen pillows from the floor and places it on the next cushion. He makes an obnoxiously innocent face, fluttering eyelashes and everything, and sips at his beer.  “We playing, or what?”

“Yeah.  Set it up.”  Darren feels like an eighty-year-old man as he bends to sit on the pillow next to Joey.  “Dammit.”

Joey pulls up the menu to start up their last saved game and stretches out across the coffee table for the controllers.  He hands one to Darren and catches a look of pain Darren hadn’t wanted him to notice.  “You’re not going to have fun with all your tight pants and saddle shoes this week, are you?”

“I never have fun with that shit, dude.”  Darren clicks into the game and gets started.  

Frowning isn’t a thing Darren’s used to seeing Joey do often.  He’s worried and it makes Darren feel even more like shit than he already did.  He grabs his own bottle of beer and powers it down, drinking most of the bottle in one go.  “Come on, dude.  I gotta go in like an hour.”

“Yeah, gotcha.  That’s just enough time for me to kick your as…. For me to proclaim myself the victor of this little skirmish.”

Darren laughs loud with his head thrown back.  “Good thing you came to LA, douchebag.  I’d be fucking lonely without you.”

“Well, tell Saunders that, man!  He thinks he has the market cornered on your bestieness and the fucker has another think coming.  Me and him gotta have words.”

Darren’s phone buzzes on the coffee table.  “Boys, boys.  There’s enough of me to go around.”  He reads the text message:  Ryan’s assistant asking if he’s on his way.  

“Ah, yes.  But it’s all about the ranking and prestige.  I refuse to be beat out by a guy who once ate a burger that had been left in his car for three days.  Not happening.”  Joey smirks and watches Darren scowling at his phone.  “I’m assuming that duty calls?”

“They specifically told me three.  Why would they ask me if I’m on my way at one-thirty?”

“Don’t know, D.  Maybe one of those little butt monkeys you work with is pitching a bitch fit?  Who you filming with this week?”

“Not Chris, I’ll tell you that much.  You tiny little Glee fan.  Get out of my face.  You wanna come with?”

Joey grins and gives Darren a military salute.  “Sure, always up for seeing how the other half lives.  And by other half I mean the currently employed. Sure they don’t need to give your character a taller, straighter sidekick or something?”

“Yeah, that guy’s name is Chord Overstreet.  Can we just go?”  Darren jumps up and moans.  “I swear if that hooker ruined sex for me, I’ll sue.”  He grabs his wallet, phone, and keys, leading the way out of the door and into his car.  

Joey climbs into the passenger seat and automatically starts fucking with Darren’s radio.  Some things never change.  

“He wasn’t actually a hooker.”

“Cool, dude.”  Emotion has always been Joey’s strong suit, so when Sam Smith’s latest is on the radio, he takes a moment to belt it out.  Darren just shakes his head and drives.  

Paramount’s still standing, so he’s not entirely sure why he had to rush here at Ryan’s insistence.  His stomach flips in the worst way when he sees Chris standing in the parking lot outside of Ryan’s office, seemingly waiting for him.  

“Uh, Dare?”  Joey’s glancing back and forth between Darren’s face and the tall figure standing several yards away. “Why do you look like Colfer’s going to pull a gun on you? He wasn’t the guy was he?”

“No, God no!  I mean, not this time anyway.”  Darren’s grin is evil and he rolls his eyes.  “Chris and I had a bit of a misunderstanding yesterday.”  Darren looks at Joey.  “Thing 1 and Thing 2 surprised me on set when I was supposed to have lunch with him and he essentially told me that we’re nothing more than co-workers.”

“Okay.  Ow?”  Joey holds a hand over his heart like he’s just been shot himself.  “That sucks, but it was just lunch, right?  Why not just tell the guy to take a raincheck?  You flake out on us all the frickin’ time.”

“He’s different, Joe.  Come on, be nice.”

“He looks like he’s gonna kill you.”

“Yeah, hence the sex club last night.”

Joey’s entire face goes blank, his jaw dropping.  He hurries and extracts himself from the car, waiting for Darren to join him, walking like the old man he is.

“Sorry.  I’m provocative when my heart is broken.”  Darren grins and nudges Joey in the rib because he knows Chris is watching them walk over.  He wants the words to look as if they’re okay.  As if he’s okay.

“Are you saying that…”  Joey cut his eyes over at where Chris is still standing. He lowers his voice like Chris will be able to hear them from that far away.  “Colfer’s the reason that you… did the dirty do with some dude?”

“Yeah.  Tried to get my mind off of what he said yesterday and wound up fucking myself up even more.”

“Shit, dude.”

“Hey.”

Chris has his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.  His face gives away nothing, as usual.  

Darren’s not sure he even wants to know what’s going on inside his head right now.  “Chris, you remember Joey.  Have any idea what this is about?”

Chris’ lips pull into a forced smile as he sticks out his hand for Joey to shake.  His friend does so, but only after casting Darren a look first.  “Hey.  Yeah, it’s uh, it’s the Christmas episode.  Major rewrites.  Looks like they’ve received enough death threats that they’ve decided to cut Kurt and Blaine’s break up short.”

“Fucking finally!”  Joey fist pumps.  Darren and Chris glare at him in perfect synchronization.  “Uh, sorry.”

Chris doesn’t seem to be able to keep the smirk off of his lips.  “I’m not sure exactly what they’ve cooked up, but I know there’s been a total rewrite.  No more exchanging Christmas gifts over Skype for us.”

“Probably something ridiculous and musical.”  Joey nods.  

Darren looks at Chris then Joey.  “Joe.  Disappear for a while, yeah?”

“Dude bro is the third wheel, got it.  I’m gonna go find myself a job.  Wish me luck, my fine gentlemen!”  Joey gives them both a goofy smile and starts to walk backwards down the sidewalk.  He flashes Darren a double thumbs up before he vanishes around the corner.

“Sorry about him.  He insisted on tagging along.”  Lies.

“Hm?  Oh, Joey?  He’s funny.”  Chris shuffles his feet against the sidewalk.  

“In that case, he learned everything he knows from me.”

“In that case, maybe I take it back.”  Chris gives Darren a nervous little smile and then goes back to staring at the door like he is capable of willing it open with his thoughts.

The minutes stretch on.  For Ryan to have wanted him here so fucking early they sure don’t seem to be in any hurry to start this little meeting.  

“So, yesterday was… bad.”

Darren snorts.  “Bad?  Mister big words and bestsellers can only come up with bad?”

“Really bad.  I might have been a little harsher than I had to be.”

“I deserved it.  I’m a shitty person.  I’m sorry.”

Chris pulls the sunglasses off of his face.  His eyes still reserve the distinct power to reduce Darren’s mind to senseless jumble, even when they’re ringed with dark shadows that prove Chris never went to sleep since Darren saw him last.  “You’re not a shitty person.  You’ve made shitty choices and surrounded yourself with doubly shitty people, but that happens a lot out here.  It’s… hard to know who to trust and who you can’t.”  Chris’ voice is softer as he says the last sentence, looking off across the parking lot at what Darren can only guess is a random white van with Grateful Dead stickers in the back windows.

“Joey and Dylan refer to them as Thing 1 and Thing 2.”

“You should put matching sweaters on your Christmas list.”  Chris folds his arms over his chest.  This is his protective stance.  Darren knows it all too well.

“Hey, maybe I won’t know them by Christmas.”

Ryan’s assistant opens the door and smiles at them, motioning them inside.  Darren steps forward and nearly screams in excruciating pain.  “Mmmmm.”  He keeps walking as normally as he can muster.

Chris’ alert eyes trace Darren’s steps as he walks down the hall and into the office.  A little frown line creases between his eyebrows, but he stays quiet and follows the others into Ryan’s inner sanctuary.

“Afternoon, boys!  Thank you for coming in.  You both look great.”  Well that’s a dickfaced lie if Darren’s ever heard one, neither one of them are looking their best today.

“We’re here now, Ryan.  You can turn the GPS in our shoulder blades off.”

Ryan chooses to ignore that.  “Want to talk to you both about New York City.”  He slides three pages of a script to the both of them.

“Exterior, Bryant Park Ice Skating rink.”  Darren reads it out loud and looks at Chris.  “Cheesefest at it’s best, Colfer.”

Chris’ eyes are skimming across the pages of his own copy of the updated script.  He makes a pained sound.  Darren finds it really fucking ironic.  “You are all trying to kill me, right?  I’ve never even seen ice skates in real life.”

Darren can’t help but giggle.  “Ah, I’ll teach you.  It’s pretty easy, actually.”

“You’ll get it, Chris.  Plus, free trip to New York!”  Ryan smiles and sits back in his chair.

Chris rolls his eyes and sits back in his.  He looks more like someone just offered him a free trip to the dentist to hear the big drill go off.

“When are we expected to be there?  I have a previously-scheduled engagement in Chicago next week.”

“We’ll work around that.  We’ve been talking to your teams already.”

“I’ll have to get someone to feed my cat.”  Chris sighs, his face set in concentration like that’s the single most important issue facing the world.  To him, it probably is.

“That’s all I’ve got for you, boys.  Anything else while I have you?”

Chris is flipping through the pages, presumedly reading for any mention of his character.  “Burt has cancer now?  Christ, this poor kid doesn’t catch a break.”

“Oh, he will.  And it will all be worth it in the end.”  Ryan smirks.  “Have a good day off, boys.”

Darren rolls his eyes and raises, shuffling out of the room as unaffected as he can.  The pain is a burning throb and hurts the most when he hasn’t aggravated it in a while.  “You know we’re getting married before the end of this shit, Colfer.”

Darren anticipates a snappy comeback, but once Ryan’s office door closes behind them leaving them alone in the dimly lit hall, Chris is silent.  Darren has to turn around and look to see if Chris is even still there.  His eyes are locked on Darren, considering and narrowed.

“Uh, what?”

“That… is precisely my question.  What happened to you?  Oh my God, are you and Joey…?”

“Are me and Joey what, Chris?”  Darren’s confused.  Until he’s not.  “Oh!  Oh my God.  Ew, no!”

Chris gives him a disbelieving stare.  “You’re shuffling your feet, you sat on only one cheek of your ass, and you are wearing the baggiest jeans in your closet.  You think I don’t know what that means?”

Darren blushes fiercely.  He can’t deny any of it but he can deny that it wasn’t Joey.  “Joey is not… into me.  I swear.  Stop.”

“Uh huh.  Well someone was obviously into you last night.  And I doubt it was the person I saw you with yesterday.”

“You must really want me to vomit all over your stupid Prada shoes.”

Chris’ hands give a violent twitch where they hang at his sides like he wants to reach for something.  “Are you…  Um….”  He isn’t looking at Darren at all, rather at one of the Glee plaques on the wall.

“Can I ask you an important question without it being weird?  I’m assuming you know a little more about this stuff than I do.”

Chris blows all of the air out of his chest in a gust.  “Pretty sure it’s going to be weird either way, but yeah, sure.  Go ahead.”  He seems restless, unnerved by the topic.

“What happens if…”  Darren closes his eyes.  “It really hurts still and I think he… not Joey… the other.  I think he did it wrong.”

Chris’ eyes flash to his face, bright and steely blue.  “Wrong how?  Did he hurt you?  Please tell me you were safe, Darren.  I swear to God…”

“Safe, yes.  Um, lubricated not so much.”

“Fuck.”  Chris looks devastated, like he’s the one with the sore and potentially torn body instead of Darren.

“So, how do I fix it?”

Chris has wrapped his arms around his body, hugging himself, but Darren can still see the shaking in his hands.  “You can’t… fix it, really.  Whoever this asshole was needs to be dragged out into the street, have his dick cut off, and then, and only then, he can be shot.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Sorry.” Chris runs a ran through his hair, causing it to stick up in every direction.  He breathes deeply for a few seconds like he needs to calm himself down.  His reaction makes no sense.  “You’re probably torn.  Was there… did you bleed?”

Darren shakes his head, blushing profusely.

“Okay, that’s… that’s good.  That means nothing’s badly hurt.  If you’re just irritated and sore then there’s not much you can do except let yourself heal.”

“I’ve been with three guys now, Chris.  This is the only time it hurt.  I think I’m a little scared.”

A startled look flashes across Chris’ face, turning his cheeks red and causes his voice to break in his throat.  “O-only three?  You… I thought that….”

“First two were… boyfriends, kind of.  Last night was a huge mistake.”

Chris shakes his head, stuck in a confused fog that won’t lift.  “But you and me, we… I thought that you’d been with a lot of… I mean, you certainly acted like it.”  He frowns and his eyes and voice are both distant.  He’s lost in another time and place.  One Darren often finds himself revisiting as well.

Darren coughs.  “I think that was just the connection.  It was meant to happen.”

“And you haven’t… been with a guy since, um… since?”

“Besides last night?  Nope.  But girls tend to…”  Darren widens his eyes.  “Sorry!”

Chris stumbles back a step, sagging against the wall and sliding down a few inches so that Darren looks taller for once. It takes a while, but when he eyes finally lift back to Darren’s there’s no disgust or anger in them, even the wilful foggy memories are gone.  There’s nothing left but tender concern and sea glass blues and greens that Darren wants to drown in.  “Darren, that guy could have really hurt you.  If it’d been that long and you weren’t taken care of properly… You can do real damage.”

“I try not to have sex with people I don’t trust.  I told you last night was a mistake.”

Chris hands are still trembling, Darren can see them shaking right through the pockets of Chris’ jeans.  “It was because of yesterday, wasn’t it?”

Darren feels the tears pooling in his eyes, he feels them spilling over without any dignity or control.  He can’t feel his lungs contract because they’ve already combusted.  “No.”

Chris’ own breathing sound labored, uneven.  He won’t look at Darren… or can’t.  But Darren’s guessing it’s more won’t.  He’s never been more thankful to not know what someone else was thinking as he is right now.  “You can’t…”  Chris doesn’t seem to be able to decide whatever it is Darren can’t do, or at least he’s unwilling to say.

“I can’t what, Chris?”

“That was really fucking stupid.”  Chris’ voice is lower, thicker than Darren’s used to.  He’s still staring at anything in the hallway that isn’t Darren.  He can almost feel Chris’ walls building themselves up higher and thicker than ever, coils of razor sharp barbed wire strung across the top.

“I’m aware.”

“Anything could have happened to you.  Anything.”

“I needed a reckless night after I got out of work.  It started with a drink and just kinda… escalated.  The worst part was… that I felt like…”

“Like instead of getting what you wanted you lost something?”  Chris says the words with a sadness that told Darren way too much about things he tries very fucking hard not to think about.

“Like I was cheating on someone I care about very much.  Like that part of me was reserved for someone who meant so much more than just some cheap fuck and I even fucked that up.”

Chris is still.  The only sound in the hall is the unmatched, sounds of their breathing and the quiet murmur of muffled voices behind closed doors.  Until that moment, Darren hadn’t really remembered where they are.  This was not the best location for this kind of conversation.  Not by a long shot when you carry around secrets like his.  Chris always had made him lose all sense of time and place.

“Chris, I’m-”

“Please don’t do that again.”

Darren can only whisper.  “Okay.”

“Find somebody who won’t… hurt you.  You don’t deserve that.”

Darren rolls his eyes.  He absolutely deserves that.  “Okay.”

Chris opens his mouth and Darren waits for another of his soft admonishments, but it doesn’t come.  Instead Chris is pushing himself off of the wall and barreling past him, out of the swinging doors at the end of the hall without even as much as another look.