always busy being make believe: part one
Thursday Night & Friday
"’Sup," Ashley greeted Chris as she settled herself on the stool beside his at the bar.
"This plane has a bar," he mused, taking a sip of his water. "I almost feel like I should order some kind of ridiculous cocktail just because I can."
"So why haven't you?" She nodded her head back towards his seat, where one perfectly attentive steward was currently turning it into a bed, complete with sheets and everything. "Have a cocktail. Alcohol makes you sleepy, you want to sleep, it's the perfect solution." She smiled at the barman. "I would like the Missionary’s Downfall, please, and he will have-" she broke off as she scanned the cocktail menu. "He’ll have the Indian Summer."
"I-" Chris started to protest as he grabbed the menu from Ashley but it was pretty half-hearted, especially once he’d seen the ingredients of the drink. "That does sound good."
The bartender smiled at them. "Coming right up."
"So," Ashley started, as they watched him make the drinks. "You’re seriously just going to go to sleep?"
Chris stared at her. "It’s like two in the morning in London. We have work to do when we land. I can’t believe everybody isn’t just going to go to sleep." He scrunched his nose up a little. "Except Darren. I can definitely believe he’s not going to sleep."
"Darren has no plans to sleep," Ashley confirmed, nodding. "Unless they turn out the lights and force him. Jenna said she might get them to make up her bed and then just watch movies until she falls asleep, but she’s not, like, actively pursuing a suspension of her consciousness."
"Why do you always know everything?"
"I’m chatty."
"That’s one word for it," Chris muttered teasingly as he thanked the bartender and took a sip of his drink. "Wow, that is good."
"Who knows you better than you know yourself?" She grinned at the rhetorical question as she tasted her own drink and smacked her lips in satisfaction. "So tell me, Christopher. What exactly are we doing when we get to London?"
He looked at her. "The convention? The entire reason we’re flying halfway across the world for less than a week?"
"Yup. That one."
"Ashley," he whined, rolling his eyes. "How can you not know?"
She shrugged. "You said you were going. I thought that would probably be fun." She waved her hand around dismissively with a grin. "My agent looked at the contract. Said it would be fine. I'm assuming it's sorta like that thing in Australia last year."
Chris sighed, much more dramatically than was necessary. "Yes. It's like that thing in Australia. We’re going to sign autographs, take pictures with fans, that kind of thing."
"And it's for the whole three days?"
"Pretty much. It doesn’t really start until Friday night. Also they want us to judge the costume contest on Saturday night. I’m weirdly the most excited about that part." He looked at her again. "I can’t believe you didn’t read anything they sent over."
"Why would I do that? That’s what you’re for."
"What’s what he’s for?" Darren appeared on Chris’s other side and sat down. "Ooh! Cocktails, nice. That looks good." He reached over and picked up Chris’s drink and took a sip, then pulled a face. "Ew. Cilantro."
"Serves you right," Chris grumbled playfully, kicking Darren.
Darren smirked and reached across Chris, making grabby hands for Ashley's drink. "What's yours?"
"It's mine, is what it is," she retorted, pulling her glass further away from Darren. "It's free. Get your own."
"I just want to taste it!"
"Aren't you supposed to be laying low so that it's a surprise when you show up?" Chris pointed out, interrupting. Darren had signed up for the convention months ago but had already been tied down to shoot a movie and was also trying to record an album in between. As usual he'd agreed to pretty much everything he'd been asked to do instead of turning one or two things down, so he was worried that if filming overran he would have to skip the con. He desperately didn't want to disappoint anybody if he had to cancel his appearance, so when the organiser had suggested they keep Darren's attendance a secret until the opening ceremony it had seemed like the perfect solution.
It was, however, easier said than done. Darren had arrived at the airport over an hour before the rest of the cast, and then spent two hours purposefully sitting at the wrong gate wearing a ridiculous beanie hat and a pair of basic, boring (not pink or yellow or anything else that would stand out) shades.
"Not until we land," Darren replied cheerfully. "Until then I can - what's the opposite of laying low? Jumping around?"
"Not on the plane, please," Chris whined, crossing his arms on the bar and resting his head on them until he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Your bed is all set, sir," a voice cut in, and Chris looked up to see the smiling stewardess standing beside Darren.
"Thanks," he mumbled, finishing off his drink and standing up. "I'm going to try and get some sleep. You guys should too," he added, staring pointedly at Darren, who just grinned and shrugged.
He was woken three hours later by Jenna crawling into bed beside him. "Darren's like a freaking starfish," she grumbled, curling up behind Chris. "Fell asleep watching movies with him. He's hogging my bed now."
"Go sleep in his then," Chris croaked.
"His is still a chair," she whined, and Chris sighed, knowing he would get back to sleep faster if he just let Jenna stay there.
"If I kick you, don't assume I'm asleep and it was unintentional. I can assure you it's not." He closed his eyes again and tried to get comfortable. These beds were really not designed for two people. Suddenly a thought occurred to him and he turned over to face Jenna, elbowing her in the face as he did so.
"Ow! I didn't think you were serious!"
Chris waved his hand to shut her up. "Darren's sleeping? We need to get photographic evidence. For the internet."
"He's a secret," she mumbled, closing her eyes and trying to ignore Chris.
"We can post the picture when he stops being a secret." He sighed as she steadfastly ignored him, realising that if he stood up to take a photo of Darren he would probably end up relinquishing his whole bed to Jenna. Instead he closed his eyes and tried to banish the idea from his head.
Eventually he drifted off again and was woken for breakfast a couple of hours before they were due to arrive. Jenna was back in her seat chatting with Ashley, and Darren was curled up in his own chair for the first time since take off. Chris stretched out and stood up, going for a walk around the cabin while his bed was switched back into a seat for landing.
"Hey," he smiled, stopping beside Darren's seat and hopping from one leg to the other, shaking out the stiffness. "Ready to go back into ninja mode?"
Darren grinned. "Ninja Darren is good to go."
"I would not have agreed to all this ridiculous sneaking around after a twelve hour flight, you know. I can't believe you did."
"It's not so bad," Darren shrugged. "I'll just go super slowly. Go to the bathroom a few times. Different bathrooms obviously, so that nobody thinks there must be something wrong with, like, my guts or whatever and try to help me out."
"Rather you than me."
-
And really, Darren thought, he kind of agreed with Chris at this point. He had been the last person to get off the plane - after he had hidden behind a curtain watching all of the economy passengers disembark, the cabin crew had escorted him onto the jet bridge and then he'd dawdled on the way to customs. His hat was pulled down over his forehead and his scarf was wrapped around his neck so many times that it covered his chin as well, despite the fact that it was July. He'd tried to convince one of the stewards to lend him their uniform - nobody would be looking out for him in a Virgin Atlantic outfit after all - but it had been pointed out to him by Ashley that the cabin crew had their own fast track customs line and while it might help him from a disguise perspective, it wasn't going to help pass the time between the rest of them getting picked up and somebody coming back for him an hour or so later.
He stopped off at every bathroom he saw on his way to the customs hall. When he finally got there and joined the back of a line, most of the people from their flight had made it through already. This time he was thankful for the short wait - standing around in a line with people who might recognise him was usually fine, but not part of his ninja plan right now.
By the time he reached baggage claim his case was sitting on the floor beside the empty carousel, so he grabbed it and went into yet another bathroom to hide out for a while longer. Eventually his phone buzzed with a message from Jake, the guy organising the convention, letting him know that Chris and the others were safely checked into the hotel and somebody would be over to collect him in the next fifteen minutes. He made his way slowly out of baggage claim and hung out in the duty free store at arrivals for a while, carefully browsing items in corners and hoping no sales assistants tried 'help' him until finally his phone vibrated again with the message he was waiting for.
As he headed out into arrivals, he kept his head down, glancing up every few steps until he spotted a man who looked like he was in his early thirties holding a board marked 'JAKE VINCENT'. They had agreed in advance that having Darren's name on the board might have been a bit of a giveaway, and while Jake knew who he was looking for, Darren didn't, and this was their compromise. He shook Jake's hand and smiled, and then he was bundled outside and into the waiting car before he could even introduce himself properly.
Once he was safely in the car, the driver pulled away from the waiting area and Jake turned to Darren. "I've been running these events for almost twenty years and I don't think I've ever had to run a covert operation quite like that one!"
Darren laughed. "Yeah - I don't think it's exactly something Jason Bourne would have been proud of, but I think we did an okay job! I just hope it turns out it's been worth it."
-
He was just climbing out of the shower when Chris came bursting into the bathroom. Darren froze for a second and then fumbled for a towel to wrap around himself. "Um."
Chris's eyes were wide. "Darren. Are you completely insane?"
Darren blinked. As far as he was aware, Chris was the one who had just barged into the bathroom of a hotel room he was not staying in. "Um?"
"You left your hotel room unlocked! Anybody could have walked in!"
Darren cleared his throat. "Uh - I think 'anybody' just did."
Chris flushed. "I was proving a point. I... will wait for you out in the bedroom."
He flounced out of the bathroom as quickly as he had entered it and closed the door behind him, then flopped onto the end of Darren's bed. He wished he had stopped to think about the potential Darren nudity before he'd opened the door.
Chris had always been pretty good at ignoring his feelings about things. He'd found it useful in the past, being able to take a crush or anger or fear or whatever and stick it in a neat little box somewhere deep inside where he didn't have to think about it too much, or at all. It wasn't until Darren came into his life that he realised that it wasn't always going to work that way. A few weeks after they first met, Chris realised that he was developing a crush on Darren which was both inappropriate for the workplace, and also meant risking their growing friendship if Darren ever found out. But every time Chris tried to stuff his stupid Darren-shaped feelings deep down inside him, they found a way back out. He blamed Darren, generally, for being so full of life and easy to crush on. It was easier to do that than try to handle things rationally. Instead he developed a different way of dealing with his crush - he settled into a risky routine of daily flirty banter, occasionally allowed himself to believe that there was the slightest chance Darren felt the same way, and then went home and watched trashy horror movies while baring his soul to Ashley about the unfairness of life.
After a few minutes Darren emerged, smiling as he perched on the edge of the desk facing Chris. His hair was still damp but most importantly he was now fully clothed. "So, that was unexpected."
"Sorry. I knocked, and you didn't answer, and I don't even know why but I just thought I'd try the door. And when it opened and you weren't anywhere to be seen, I had all these awful thoughts of overzealous fans sneaking in and, you know, roofying you."
"It's a little concerning your mind goes to 'drugged' before 'showering', but I appreciate the thought," Darren laughed.
"You know me, ever the optimist!" He was mostly joking, but he had learned to be careful these past couple of years.
"Seriously though - you know the fans aren't staying in this hotel."
"Like that would stop some of them. I know the majority of them are great - I wouldn't have agreed to come to this otherwise - but you better than most know how much they can like to... touch."
Darren nodded and reached out for Chris's hand, squeezing it gently with a smile. "I know. I'll be more careful."
Chris smiled and stood up. "That's all I wanted to hear. If I come up here and you've got somebody playing poseable Darren with your unconscious body, I will stand here until you come around just so that I can say I told you so." As he laughed and dodged a smack on the arm from Darren, he moved towards the door. "I just came to tell you they're taking us over to the venue now, so I'll see you when they finally let you out of solitary confinement and I can actually tweet this picture I took of you sleeping on the plane." Chris ducked out of the door as Darren dived for the hand holding his phone, and he laughed and yelled "kidding!" back into the room just before the door slammed shut.
-
Chris was standing behind the stage with a glass of Diet Coke in his hand, hidden from view by a thick black curtain. He was just considering peeking out to see how many people were in the crowd, when he spotted Romy entering the room and dumped his glass on the nearest table as he flung his arms around her neck. "My step-mom's here! Yay!"
She laughed and hugged him back. "I don't know how you kids are even still awake, let alone acting this energetic. Us old folk landed a couple of days ago for some sightseeing and I'm still totally wiped."
The audience noise on the other side of the curtain was settling down, and before he could engage Romy in more conversation about things she'd seen and done in London, Jake led Ashley and Jenna through from the makeshift green room and picked up a microphone from the tech desk.
He smiled at the assembled group of guests. "Okay, we're ready to start. Our surprise guests will be coming up from the car park once I've started, to minimise the chances of them running into any of the attendees before we bring them out on stage. Everybody ready?" Everybody nodded. "Okay, great! I'll go and kick things off!"
There was a cheer from the audience as Jake emerged onto the stage, the assembled crowd quickly quietening down as he started to speak. "Hi, everybody! Wow, the room is full tonight - I take it everybody's excited?" The audience whooped and Jake laughed. "Okay, then I won't keep you waiting any longer. Shall we start bringing our guests out?" Another cheer followed and Chris heard a rustle of paper as Jake started arranging his notes.
"Okay - our first guest is no stranger to conventions. He's been in over two hundred films and a number of TV shows, including appearing in a recurring role during the second season of Heroes. But on Glee, you know him best as former glee club director and local drug dealer, Sandy Ryerson - please welcome Stephen Tobolowsky to the stage!"
The applause broke out again as Stephen headed out, and Chris smiled. Stephen had been a relatively late replacement guest, stepping in to take the place of Harry Shum who had been forced to cancel just a few weeks ago. Chris had received a handful of messages on Twitter complaining that Stephen wasn't a good replacement and couldn't he maybe bring somebody else instead? He'd ignored them, of course, and he knew that Stephen would be a massive hit - the man's hilarious.
He was pulled from this thoughts as he felt a nudge beside him. He looked up to see Darren standing there with a smile on his face that Chris thought could probably realistically be referred to as 'mile wide'. "Did you make it sighting free?"
Darren nodded. "Jessalyn and I sat in a blacked out car in the parking lot for about forty minutes before they brought us up in the goods elevator. It comes out right behind the door here - pretty sure nobody saw either of us."
Chris grinned. "Sounds like something out of a spy movie."
"That's what I said."
Stephen reappeared, handing a microphone to Romy with a smile and high-fiving Ashley as he moved up against the wall and out of the way.
"Good crowd," he commented, as Chris tuned back in to the introductions happening on stage.
"-Finn's mother and Kurt's step-mother, give it up for Romy Rosemont!"
Romy waved as she stepped out onto the stage, and waited for the crowd to quieten before bringing the microphone up to her mouth. "Hi, everybody! I'm really excited to be here - I'm a convention virgin, so be gentle with me!" She cackled as the crowd whooped at her terminology, and then waved again as she stepped back through the curtains.
"Our next guest," Jake began, and Chris shifted a little so that he could see through a gap in the curtains. He wanted to see their faces as they tried to work out who was coming next, since Jessalyn hadn't been announced ahead of time. "Our next guest was also a part of the Heroes family, as well as appearing in multiple episodes of Nip/Tuck and Friday Night Lights." Chris laughed to himself as realisation dawned on some people's faces and they whispered frantically to their neighbours. "On Glee she was just a little bit crazy, faking a pregnancy and trying to buy a baby. Can we have a warm welcome for the woman behind Terri Schuester, it's Jessalyn Gilsig!"
Jessalyn moved onto the stage and Chris laughed, stepping back away from the curtains. "If they're this excited now, imagine what they'll do when they figure out you're here," he muttered to Darren, while Jessalyn told the audience how excited she was to be back in London and how she was looking forward to meet each and every one of them this weekend.
Ashley was next up, dancing onto the stage after her introduction. "Awesome reception, guys! If I could high five every single one of you right now, I would. But there's plenty of time for that! Is everybody ready to party?" She held her microphone out to the audience and grinned as they all cheered. "That's what I'm talking about! All right, there's a couple of people back here that I think you're all more excited about than you are about seeing me, but I will catch you all on the dance floor later!"
Chris rolled his eyes at Ashley as she reappeared in front of him. "You're going to have a sore hand by the end of the weekend. You know they're all going to take you up on that high five offer."
She shrugged at him as she handed her microphone to Jenna. "Sounds awesome!"
"Next up is a girl who made a name for herself on Broadway with roles in The King and I and Spring Awakening before she joined the cast of Glee in 2009. You all know her as Tina Cohen-Chang - please give a massive welcome to Jenna Ushkowitz!"
Jenna giggled and practically skipped out on stage. "Hi guys!" She waved at them and then dug her hand into her pocket, pulling out her phone. "So I'm really excited, but we have all weekend to talk about me. Right now I have a little message for you from somebody who's really disappointed he couldn't be here this weekend." She tapped her phone a couple of times and then held the microphone up to it, and Harry's voice floated out. "Hi everybody! I'm totally bummed I have to work this weekend and can't be there with you all. Jenna and the guys are going to have to party extra hard with everyone to make up for all the booty shaking I was planning on doing. I hope I'll get to see you all sometime soon!"
Jenna smiled at the crowd who were all cheering again - god, they love to cheer, Chris thought to himself - and then she disappeared back behind the curtain, passing the microphone to Chris. "Your turn."
Chris's skin prickled with excitement as he listened to his own introduction.
"Our last guest doesn't really need an introduction - but I'll give him one anyway. He's a singer, dancer, actor, author and writer. He wrote a movie and then starred in it too, his first book is coming out next week, he's written a pilot for the Disney channel and amongst all of this, he managed to find time to win a Golden Globe for his work on Glee. I want you all to give a massive, massive welcome to the one and only Mister Chris Colfer!"
Chris felt Darren's hand on his back pressing him out towards the stage. He let himself be pushed out there and could hear Darren and Ashley hollering their own cheers from behind him. He blushed - the room was nowhere near the size that the crowd in San Diego last weekend had been, but these people were only here for them. He was pretty sure the majority of the people at their Comic Con panel had only been in the room because they were waiting for Doctor Who, not that he could blame them for that. "Hi!" He practically yelled it, and then just laughed as they all carried on cheering. Eventually they quietened down enough that he could make himself heard. "Hi," he tried again, still laughing. "I'm really excited about this weekend, it's going to be so much fun, I can just feel it. I can't wait to meet you all, and take pictures with you all, and sign my name so many times I can't feel my hand any more." He laughed again, and waved. "I'll see you later tonight!"
He skipped down the steps and stood beside Darren. "Ready for the room to explode?"
Darren nodded with a grin. "You bet I am."
Chris kept hold of the microphone, tossing it from hand to hand as he listened to Jake starting to wrap things up. "So we have six amazing guests, and we're going to have a brilliant weekend with them all. Would you like to see them one more time?"
Chris tapped the mic to check it was still switched on, and cleared his throat into it as he started to walk back out onto the stage. "Wait, wait, wait." The room, which had started to get restless now that all the guests had been announced, went silent. "Wait."
Jake turned to look at Chris, faking curiosity. "Chris? Is something wrong?"
Chris nodded at him and then looked out at the audience. "Yeah. I mean, this is a great lineup, and everything, but … I just think all of these guys deserve something a bit... more." He grinned. "Would you guys like another guest?" When they all yelled out to indicate that they would, he laughed. "Okay. It's a tough ask, but I'll see what I can find back here. Hold on." He walked backstage, talking into his microphone as he went. "No... nothing there.. no, that's just the janitor ... ah!" He grinned at Darren and grabbed his hand. "How about this?"
He dragged Darren behind him and passed him the microphone just as they stepped onto the stage. Chris moved to one side and as soon as they got a glimpse of Darren the audience started screaming. It sounded painful but Chris was pretty sure they were just excited - he was just starting to wish he'd thought to bring earplugs.
Darren cracked up, almost bent double as he laughed into the microphone. "Hi guys!" Darren looked over at Chris, his eyes sparkling as he waited for them to calm down a little. "So I'm really happy to be here," he started, and they cheered again. "And I'm super glad you all came!" The audience was punctuating each of his sentence fragments with a cheer. If he didn't want to be standing on the stage all night, Darren figured he was just going to have to push on and finish up his little speech without stopping for breath.
"So I talked to Jake here, and since he was kind enough to let me crash your party, I thought it might be nice if I played you a few songs at some point. So we thought that tomorrow night after the costume contest-"
"They call it fancy dress here!" Chris exclaimed, leaning into Jake's microphone.
Darren laughed at him, putting on an accent and making air quotes as he repeated Chris's words. "-yeah, sorry - after the 'fancy dress competition' - I'd put on a little concert for you guys. Do you like the sound of that?"
Chris plugged his ears with his fingers as the crowd went wild and Darren cracked up again. Jake called for the rest of the guests to come back out on stage and Jenna leapt onto Darren's back with a grin while they all stood waving and posing for photos. As they streamed off stage, Jake gave out some announcements about the rest of the night's activities, starting with a private meet and greet for the VIP ticket holders.
"Ready to go meet your adoring public?" Chris grinned at Darren as they headed back into the little private room that was being used as a green room.
"Our adoring public," Darren corrected with a smile. "Let's do this."
-
Chris smiled around the table as he stood up. "It was lovely to meet you all! See you later!"
There was a chorus of goodbyes from the eight girls sat around the meet and greet table, and Chris turned to Sally, a friendly brunette girl who had been appointed to be his assistant for the weekend. "Where next?"
The room the meet and greet was held in was pretty; it even had a little waterfall at the back. There were fifteen or so large round tables spread around the room, with eight people sitting at each one. The guests were moving around the tables, spending five minutes chatting to each group before moving on to the next. He knew that Sally was in charge of making sure he didn’t skip any tables and he’d seen her scoping out where each of the other guests were currently sitting.
She guided him to a table with a mixture of boys and girls, and he sat down. "Hi!" He looked around at them - he was sure there were more than eight people here. "Okay, can we do names? I’m Chris," he grinned as everybody laughed and obliged, introducing themselves. "So are you guys all friends? A lot of the other tables have just been people who couldn’t find anywhere else to sit."
One of the girls - who'd just introduced herself as Amy - laughed. "No, we’re all friends. That’s why there’s so many of us at the one table - we’re squished together because we didn’t want to be split up!" She gestured to the girl beside her and Chris could see that they were actually sharing a chair.
"That’s really cool. So do you come to these things a lot?"
Before anybody could answer, he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. He looked up and Darren leaned over him, reaching out towards a plate of cookies in the middle of the table. "Have you tried one of these yet?"
Chris shook his head, and Darren picked up a second, handing it over. "You’ve got to, man. They have one gram of fat!"
Chris eyed it suspiciously, squeezing it between his thumb and forefinger. "It seems to be chocolate and cake. How can that be true?"
Darren shrugs and grins. "I swear it is! She showed me the box." He bit into the one in his hand and then showed it to Chris. "Look! Orangey." He nudged Chris’s shoulder with the back of his hand. "Go on. They’re so good. Why have I not always been eating these when I've been in the UK? What are they called again?"
"Jaffa Cakes."
"Jaffa Cakes!" Darren repeated, taking another one and shoving it whole into his mouth as his assistant tapped him on the shoulder with a sigh. "Oops, I’m supposed to be somewhere else. You didn’t see me. I wasn’t here." He grinned and bounced away, following his assistant. Chris turned back to the group of people who were watching this exchange with amusement.
"Honestly, I have no idea how we managed to keep it a secret that he was here. That poor girl is going to be so sick of him by..." he bit into the cake, thinking. "Probably the end of tonight, actually. Man, this thing is good. Mind if I have another one?"
-
As Chris finished up with his last table, he told Sally he'd be right out and detoured past Darren, who he was not surprised to discover was the only guest who still had people to see. The last three tables had been pushed together to save time and they were all gathered around, mesmerised by Darren. Nothing new there.
Chris poked Darren on the shoulder and smiled at him when he looked up. "Ashley went to 'bust a move' - her words - on the dancefloor. I'm going to go either rescue her or watch. I'll decide when I get there."
Darren laughed. "See you back at the hotel."
Chris nodded and started to move away, when Darren reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Chris, wait."
He turned back, tilting his head. "Yeah?"
"Have you seen this cake? It's amazing."
Chris laughed as his eyes settled on the birthday cake on the table. He remembered hanging out with that group an hour or so previously, though he'd had so many conversations tonight that if pressed he wouldn't be able to remember what they'd talked about, other than that the girl in question's birthday wasn't actually until tomorrow. "I did, yeah. It's pretty impressive. Ace of Cakes-worthy." It was. It was incredibly detailed - there was a stage, and lockers, and slushies. There were even a group of Cheerios dancing around the cake board.
"Did you eat some?"
Chris shook his head. "No - I couldn't let them cut into that masterpiece!" He glanced down at the plate of cake in front of Darren. "Obviously you did not have that problem."
Darren grinned sheepishly, his mouth full of cake. "It's good cake." He tugged at Chris's hand and moved over on his seat, patting the space beside him. "Share my chair. Have cake! Hey, who has a camera? Oh wait, I have my phone."
Chris sat down and leaned towards the people nearest to him. "He's not even drunk. He's always like this."
Darren elbowed him in the side as he passed him a lump of cake. "Hey!" He took a photo of what was left of the cake's design - including a headless Cheerio which had apparently been Ashley's doing - and then put one hand under the board to tilt it slightly and passed his phone to a boy on Chris's left. "Take a picture of us with the cake for me? I'd do it myself but I don't have enough hands."
Chris leaned in to Darren's shoulder and posed for the photo, and then stood up. "You can have the rest of your seat back now while you finish up here - I'm going to find Ashley." He smiled at the assembled crowd, especially the birthday girl. "Thank you for sharing your cake with us - it was delicious." As he left, he patted Darren on the shoulder. "Don't keep these nice people up too late, will you?"
Darren rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out. "I'll try, mom."
Chris smirked as he left.
-
He wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep when he was woken by a gentle but incessant knocking on the door of his room. He blinked a few times and glanced over at the TV, which was no longer playing When Harry Met Sally but instead seemed to be showing live roulette.
"Coming," he called out, and the knocking stopped.
He fiddled with the chain on the door, not wanting to open it fully until he knew who was on the other side, when a voice floated through it. "You can take the chain off, it's me."
Chris smiled as he dropped the chain from between his fingers and opened the door to find Darren standing there, resting against the frame. "Hi."
Darren grinned. "Hi. This is how you're supposed to enter somebody's hotel room - knocking!" Chris reddened as his mind flashed to his encounter with Darren in the bathroom earlier, but if Darren noticed the flush across Chris's cheeks he didn't say anything. "Jaffa Cake?" He tilted the box in his hand towards Chris.
"You know, they might only have one gram of fat but that's in every one. If you eat all of the boxes you're still going to get fat."
"Eventually maybe," Darren joked, squinting at Chris and then looking at his watch, as if he'd only just realised that it was well after midnight. "Shit, were you sleeping?"
Chris nodded as a yawn escaped. "Yeah, but not on purpose." He stepped back to let Darren into the room. "I was just watching a movie and checking out some of the gifts people gave me and then all of a sudden the movie's done and you're here."
"Ooh, gifts!" Darren flopped onto the bed beside the pile of scrapbooks and candy, and Chris laughed, sitting down next to him. "I got mostly letters, I guess because I wasn't meant to be here. Most of them started with 'I hope Chris remembers to give this to you'."
"Most of mine end with 'P.S. - say hi to Darren for me!', so I guess we're even."
Darren laughed and picked up a book while Chris was busy investigating the contents of a box of chocolates. "This is really cool!"
"Hmm?" Chris glanced up to see what Darren was looking at. He smiled, recognising it as a bunch of postcards sent from all over the world and collected into a book. "Yeah, I think that's my favourite one. They got people to send in pictures of their hometown and write a message on the back so I could - and I'm quoting - 'see how widespread my fanbase is'. They're arranged by continent, it's insane."
"This one says 'Dear Chris Colfer, one day I marry you.' That's very assertive."
Chris snorted. "Yeah."
"Ashley and Jenna were still partying when I came back. There were an insane amount of Dalton blazers in that room!"
"Yeah, apparently the theme was 'school disco'. It was half Warbler wannabes and half Britney Spearses." Chris paused and looked up. "How come you came back? After an spending an entire afternoon by yourself I thought you would be exploding with the need to interact."
"I was. Then I spent three hours interacting and it quenched my thirst for human contact."
"So you came to me, that's lovely," Chris teased.
Darren shrugged sheepishly. "I was bored within about thirty seconds of leaving the con."
Chris guffawed. "Of course you were."
"These beds are really comfortable," Darren observed, closing his eyes.
"Don't you dare fall asleep, Darren. I had to share my tiny plane-bed with Jenna last night thanks to you, I'm not giving up one inch of this mattress tonight."
"I won't," he mumbled, and Chris laughed quietly.
He spent a while reading a beautiful scrapbook put together by a girl from Baltimore who'd attended every single show on the US leg of last year's Glee tour and had flown over to the UK specially for the convention. It was ridiculously detailed and included her tickets for each concert, notes she'd been given by friends she'd made at the different shows, hand drawn maps and diary entries from each venue. He had been lost for words when he first saw it and had asked her four times if she was sure she wanted to part with all of her memories of her summer. She was insistent, so he had promised to take it back to set with him and make sure everybody saw it. He put the book aside and glanced down at Darren. It had been over an hour since either of them had spoken and Darren had been snoring gently for most of that time. Chris had been trying to ignore the fact that he was there, but eventually he gave in and stared at him a little.
Darren was attractive all of the time; there was no point in even trying to deny that. But there was something about the way he looked when he slept that made Chris all fuzzy inside. When Darren was awake he was a constant source of energy - even in the rare moments when he was being quiet you could see his mind working on at least three things at once. But when he was sleeping, with his mouth hanging open and his body actually still, he was gorgeous. But that was a road that only led to bad things, like dark forests or dead ends or other road-based metaphors that meant he shouldn't be having thoughts like that about his friend. So no more staring at Darren. Or thinking about their little bathroom encounter earlier.
"Hey," he murmured, kicking Darren's leg gently with his bare foot. "Wake up, sleepyhead."
Darren rubbed his eyes and looked up at Chris, blinking. "I did exactly what you told me not to, didn't I?"
Chris laughed quietly. "Yeah, but I forgive you." He smiled sweetly. "Now get out."
"What time are you going to get breakfast?" Darren pulled his schedule from his pocket as he stood up, looking for his shoes. He didn't even remember taking them off.
"Around eight, I think. I have a photo shoot at nine with Romy and Jenna."
"Okay. Apparently I don't have to be there until ten, so I'll just see you there." He shoved the paper back in his pocket and smiled. "See you tomorrow."
"Yeah. 'Night." Chris followed him to the door and watched as Darren disappeared down the hall before closing the door and putting the chain back in place. He switched off the television and got himself ready for bed, and then finally climbed under the covers and reached for his phone, scrolling through until he found Ashley's name.
I can't stop thinking about Darren naked.
She replied almost instantly. Who can! Breakfast @ 8?
Part Two: Saturday