fic: exactly where we belong (chord/darren, r) (1/4)
exactly where we belong.
by novelized. ~32,000 words.
fandom: Glee RPF.
pairing: Chord Overstreet/Darren Criss.
summary: Chord Overstreet doesn't want to like Darren, but the sad truth of the fact is that he can't help it. Darren Criss, that asshole, is impossible to dislike.
(alternatively: Something Went Down in the Tent at Coachella.)
The glitz and glamour of being the new kid on Glee is remarkably short-lived. One day Chord’s doing magazine interviews, phoners, having his picture taken when he’s trying to buy some food from that great taco joint down the street, and the next it’s back to radio silence and peace. (Chord learns pretty quickly that celebrities only want peace when they don’t have it. Being left alone by the paparazzi is a death sentence in Hollywood. You’re only relevant as long as you’re being mobbed.)
It takes a little getting used to, this fading into the background thing, because, as his agent had explained countless times, he seemingly had “everything going for him.” The looks, the voice, the modesty of a homeschooled Tennessee upbringing-Chord doesn’t like to brag, but he knows that he’s basically Los Angeles rolled into a neat little package. With abs and blond hair to boot.
So maybe being on Glee isn’t everything he’d expected. It’s still amazing. It’s still providing him with countless opportunities he’d otherwise never receive. But it’d be nice to be out there. To be a household name. To be the topic of conversation at the dinner table, if people still ate around their dinner tables anymore.
“Should’ve gone with the gay thing,” his sister tells him, laughing.
It stings in a way that brutal honesty sometimes does. It wasn’t an intended slap in the face, but it felt like one. Like it was his choice for Ryan Murphy to change his mind-true, Chord hadn’t begged and pleaded his case, hadn’t raised hell when he’d found out about the new direction, had maybe even felt relieved when he heard the news. If he was being honest, he’d never wanted to be the gay kid on Glee. The hot nerd or the dorky football player. Those he could do. All of the paradox with none of the social stigma.
(Chord’s not good at social stigmas. Chord’s never known anything other than fitting in.)
But that’s what it boils down to; that’s the truth. Joking or not, his sister has a point. Chord Overstreet is a kid on a fairly successful Fox show. He’s a member of a talented ensemble. He’s that guy, you know, the shirtless one-and it’s not a terrible gig, being that guy.
But, he can’t help but think, with maybe just a touch of bitterness, he’s no Darren Criss.
There are two types of people on the cast of Glee, as far as he’s concerned: those he’d hang out with outside of work, and those who stay on a strictly ‘all right, see you tomorrow’ basis. Cory, Mark, Harry; he loves those guys. He’s crashed at their various bachelor pads more times than he can count. Lea, Amber, Heather; those are his girls. They go to dinner, they go clubbing, they make sure Chord doesn’t cross the line and take one tequila shot too many.
And then there are The Others.
He’d felt a weird divide between them when he’d first joined the cast, and it was even more pronounced now. It wasn’t like a thing. There were no fights or backstabbing dramas, as far as he could see. It was just that the set of Glee was a lot like the real world: you couldn’t always get along with everyone.
There are some people Chord has no desire to get to know better. They can chat in between takes or share a pizza after a long night of filming, but he’s not going to invite them back to his place. He’s not going to ask for their phone numbers or treat them to dinner.
Not that he’s naming names, but a certain stiff-haired actor in a private school uniform falls under that umbrella. They haven’t even met, not yet, not officially; he’d seen him on set a grand total of once and he’d been too busy trying to get his Gatorade unstuck from the vending machine to make any grand gestures of welcoming-and besides, they were both the new kids on the block. It didn’t have to be his job.
But he watched him traipse around the set like he owned the place, totally at ease with the crew members it had taken Chord weeks to feel comfortable enough talking to. Laughing openly. Cracking jokes.
Chord can understand, objectively, why he’s a big deal. The gay storyline. “This is a big thing,” Ryan had told him when he’d first signed on. Leaning forward, hands clasped between his legs. Like he believed in him. No one had looked at him like that in a few weeks. “A huge thing. This is monumental. I want you to think about this. About what you’re agreeing to.”
He thinks it’d be pretty nice to be monumental.
In the end, though, things changed. Chord wasn’t right for that specific job-“but don’t worry,” Ryan had told him, distractedly this time, scribbling on a piece of paper. “We’ll find a place for you.”
And they had.
Chord can’t help, though, but think that the unspoken divide between cast members had strengthened-but that was okay. If he put his head down and ignored it, everything seemed just fine. It was, after all, easier to pretend that it didn’t even exist.
“Hi,” Darren Criss says on a Tuesday morning. “I’m Darren Criss.”
Chord blinks and shields the sun from his eyes with one hand. They had an hour break for lunch, and he’d taken his sandwich outside to eat in silence on the pavement, soak up a little heat before heading back into the heavily air conditioned building. This was his me-time. This was the only time of the day he got to be alone, and now his personal space was being encroached upon by this kid in a navy jacket.
He makes a noncommittal grunt and swallows a large bite of turkey. “I know,” he says finally, when his throat is cleared, and he returns Darren’s handshake but doesn’t let it linger. “I’m Chord.”
“Ooh, this is awkward.” Darren bounces on his heels a little, like he’s filled with excess energy and it’s spilling over. He doesn’t sit down next to Chord, just stands beside him, so their dynamic looks weird, completely out of sync. “Old boyfriend meets new boyfriend.”
Chord just looks at him.
But Darren continues on as though he hadn’t noticed Chord’s general lack of response. “Well, maybe,” he amends, sticking his hands in his pockets. Chord considers telling him that there’s a scuffmark on his left shoe, but he doesn’t. It doesn’t seem important. “If it goes that way. It might not. I could be here for another episode and then get hit by the bus on the way to Regionals, who knows.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Chord says, not entirely against that scenario, stuffing another piece of crust in his mouth.
“Well, I’ve got to hit up makeup. Just thought I’d introduce myself. Nice to meet you,” Darren says, going in for another handshake. Apparently he’s a proponent of physical contact. He flashes a smile at Chord, all teeth, and heads off, flanking the side of Ryan Murphy’s assistant what’s-her-name as he goes, totally effortless, like they’d been best friends their entire lives.
So that’s how he meets Darren Criss, officially.
Chord sighs and goes back to eating his sandwich.
Chord gets the new script on a Tuesday. He’s not a routine-oriented guy by any means, but he likes to be alone when he opens them, and he likes to be comfortable, and he likes to go at it in one straight read-through, like he’s watching the episode himself. Sometimes things happen on paper that legitimately shock the hell out of him. But he figures that’s Ryan’s game. That’s how he gets his rocks off, throwing curveball surprises at the viewers that no one sees coming.
He doesn’t really find downtime until he wakes up Wednesday morning, and he showers and pulls on a fresh pair of boxers before climbing back under the blankets and flipping to the first page. It takes a while to get through the whole thing. It seems like it’s going to be a good episode, what with the twists and turns and musical numbers, but-and he goes back and double checks, because at first he’s pretty sure that can’t be right-Chord has three lines.
Three.
In a forty-four minute episode, that feels massively underwhelming.
He doesn’t, like, normally count anyone else’s, doesn’t care enough to make comparisons. Being on Glee is not a competition. These are not his competitors. It’s just sort of overwhelmingly obvious that the new kid, Darren, he’s in a number of scenes. He’s got about sixty times as many lines as Chord, and they’re not even little inconsequential one-liners that are thrown in just for good measure.
Chord’s not mad. That would be stupid. He doesn’t get mad.
A little disappointed, maybe, but that, he figures, no one has to know.
He gets to the studio at the same time as everyone else, but instead of congregating in their little inner circle he moves straight through the building and into the parking lot behind the set. It’s private, blocked off, and generally unsupervised, so Chord doesn’t feel weird about lying down on the pavement, legs kicked out, hands pillowing his head. He closes his eyes and counts his breaths, a trick his mom taught him when he was little to avoid a temper tantrum. He’s not going to have a temper tantrum, but he feels the familiar pang of displaced anger.
A few minutes later he hears the scuff of shoes against cement, but he ignores it, thinking that person might cast him a funny look and go silently about their business. But the footsteps stop just beside his shoulder, and when he turns his head to look, Darren is lowering himself to the ground, right there beside him. He doesn’t offer up a greeting; no “hey,” no “how’s it going,” not even a “why are you laying in the middle of the parking lot?” He just joins him, like this was a totally normal thing to do.
“S’up?” Chord says, because the silence is weirding him out. He was here first, and yet he feels like he’s the one disturbing Darren’s peace. Damn it.
Darren lets out a sigh, a heavy and content exhale. Like he’s chilling on a beach in Cancun instead of a cement parking lot in the middle of the morning. “It’s weird being on this set,” he says, which doesn’t exactly answer Chord’s question, but whatever. “I’m used to spending all my time at Dalton. There’s a lot more activity here. Hard to find five minutes to yourself, huh?”
Chord wants to say uh, yeah, case in point but he just says “hmm” instead, which probably isn’t much better.
“It’s cool to see you guys in action, though,” Darren adds, eyes fluttering shut. He has ridiculously long eyelashes for a dude. Chord turns his neck back and stares straight up at the cloudless sky. “You can really appreciate the team effort when you’re watching from the outside, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Chord says. He doesn’t feel like a team player. Team players didn’t usually escape outside to avoid their more prominently-featured teammates.
If Darren’s thinking along the same lines, though, he doesn’t say it. In fact, he just stretches out and lets the sun’s rays hit his face, settling into the stillness like he hadn’t ever disrupted it in the first place. That almost makes Chord more uneasy than when they were talking. The seconds stretch by, torturously slow and tense.
But then Darren pops up suddenly, just as energetic as he’s ever been, and he leans over Chord so that he’s blocking the sun, and it’s just Darren’s face looming in front of his, five inches away. “Hey,” he says excitedly, “do you like to listen to electronica?”
“Um.” Chord’s mouth twitches a little. It feels like a trap. “I don’t know. I guess so.”
And then Darren’s climbing to his feet and reaching out for Chord, no hesitancy whatsoever, and Chord’s body is working faster than his brain so he takes his hand and lets himself be pulled up. “Come on, I have something I want you to hear,” Darren says, walking away without even looking back, like he just expects Chord to follow.
For lack of better options, Chord does.
Chord’s half-asleep in his boxers when his phone buzzes. He’s lying heavily on his couch, legs dangling over the armrest, the Playstation cord wrapped around his left wrist-and he’s comfortable enough to contemplate not answering, but you never know when destiny could be calling. Literally.
So he digs into his pocket and fishes his iPhone out, and it’s not a call from a destiny: it’s a text from someone he doesn’t recognize.
what’re you up to? it reads.
Chord squints at the number but, nope, he definitely has no idea who it is. Who is this? he texts back, takes a swig from a warm can of flat Coke, and two seconds later it’s vibrating again.
megan fox.
Obviously someone’s fucking with him. Chord rolls his eyes. Very funny. Srsly who is this??
Chord’s phone buzzes yet again; but instead of a text in response, the mystery number is calling. He struggles into a sitting position and eyes the digits one last time before picking up. Even then, he keeps his voice low and guarded, just in case. He’s heard about celebrity numbers leaking to the Internet, the sort of harassment he could face if it turned out to be a rabid fan. (He hasn’t had a rabid fan yet. He’d kind of like to.)
“Hello?”
“I’m disappointed in you.” The voice on the other line is familiar, but not immediately recognizable. “What if I really was Megan Fox and you’d just missed the opportunity of a lifetime?”
“Maybe I know it’s not Megan Fox because she’s lying in bed with me as we speak,” Chord says, taking the bait, playing along, the corners of his mouth tugging into a smirk in spite of himself.
“Ooh, touché. Very nicely done.”
“Who is this?” Chord asks for the third time.
“Queen Elizabeth the First.”
“In that case I hope you’re calling for phone sex. I really have a thing for British royalty.”
“Then I hope you also have a thing for necrophilia.”
“Huh?”
“You know Queen Elizabeth the First is dead, right?”
Chord bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Um, yeah,” he says, but only because it’s too late to think about who’s dead and who isn’t, and besides, history was never his strong suit.
The voice on the other line laughs, easy and unhindered. “This is Darren,” he says finally, and right, that makes sense. The voice. “I got your number from Chris,” he adds before Chord even has to ask, “who, by the way, made me promise I wouldn’t do anything immature like send you twelve pizzas or ask you if your refrigerator’s running.”
“You just impersonate Megan Fox instead,” Chord says. “Definitely not immature.”
Darren laughs again. He has a good laugh, a full laugh. “My Megan Fox impersonations have gotten me very far in life, I’ll have you know.”
“So that’s how you got all those lines in last week’s episode,” Chord jokes, and he doesn’t mean for it to come off bitter, but it kind of does anyway. Darren’s silent for a second; whether he’s insulted or just being thoughtful-Chord doesn’t know him well enough to know the difference, and he doesn’t want to.
“Nah,” Darren says finally, and the laugh’s gone from his voice, but Chord can still hear the trace of a smile, “that one was pure bribery.”
“Teach me your tricks,” Chord says, as a peace offering. To smooth things over.
“No can do, young grasshopper. My skills were God-given, not learned.”
Chord untangles himself from his Playstation controller. When he sits up more fully, there’s a Cheeto stuck to his thigh. He makes a face and peels it off and throws it lazily towards the trashcan in the kitchen, missing by a mile. He’ll get that later.
“Well,” Darren says in the wake of the silence, “I’ll let you get off here. I just wanted to say what’s up and tell you that you were really awesome yesterday.”
That catches Chord off guard. “Oh. Uh. Thanks, dude. You were too.”
“Thanks, dude,” Darren echoes, and he might be mocking Chord, but whatever. “We should hang out sometime. You have my number now. And… I’m going to hang up before I start to sound even more like I’m on the tail end of a disastrous first date. Goodnight, Chord. I’ll walk myself to the door.”
Darren hangs up before Chord can even get another word in. He stares at the phone, a little baffled, contemplating whether or not he actually wants to plug Darren’s number into his contacts list.
In the end, though, he does it. He figures it’ll come in handy if he ever feels like ordering twelve pizzas, or something immature like that.
A week later Chord’s one of the last ones to get to the set. He’d woken up late, gotten shampoo in his eye, put his shirt on backwards, spilled an entire fucking gallon of milk, bashed his knee on the coffee table, and locked his keys in the car-all before eight AM. Everyone’s pissy that they had to wait for him to arrive, and he doesn’t blame them. He’s pissy too.
When he gets there, though, Darren hands him a grande Starbucks coffee, still hot.
“Thought you could use a pick-me-up,” Darren says.
Chord’s name is scribbled on the side of the cup. Buying him a drink was a premeditated action.
He looks at Darren.
“Thanks,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
Darren just shrugs him off. Like it was no big deal at all.
Lea has a Christmas party, just for the cast members. She’s always the one planning the get-togethers, making sure everyone’s included. She’s also the one that insists everyone wear their tackiest holiday-themed ensemble, which is how Chord winds up sipping spiked eggnog in a Rudolph sweater just before midnight. He thinks, vaguely, it could be worse.
They’re all there; they all make the perfunctory “shouldn’t I be sick of you yet?” jokes, but none of them are. That wall Chord had built at the start of the season was dissolving: these were his friends. They were his family.
“I feel like I should be tired,” Cory says, sidling up next to him, “but I’m not.” He hadn’t come dressed for the theme, but Lea had jokingly reprimanded him so he’d overcompensated by borrowing a Santa suit from the guy next door. At the beginning of the night he’d stuffed throw pillows up the jacket, but they’d fallen out around drink three and now he just looks like a scrawny, underweight Santa Claus with a wispy, pathetic beard.
“Yeah, me neither,” Chord says, stirring his cup around. He smirks. “But I’m surprised you’re not, old man.”
Cory laughs and slugs him in the arm. Eggnog sloshes over the glass and onto the carpet, and Chord rubs at it with the tip of his shoe, hoping it’s not noticeable.
‘I’m 28 going on 17,” Cory says, ignoring the fact that he’d made Chord spill his drink. “And I wouldn’t talk shit, you’re looking at your future right here.” He reaches out and pinches Chord’s cheek with the hand not holding his martini. Chord halfheartedly swats him away. “With that baby face, you’ll be playing high school until you’re 40.”
“Hey. I don’t have a baby face.”
Just then Darren passes by, a fresh gallon of eggnog in his hands. Currently unspiked. Chord’s running low, so he hopes that Darren’s on his way to remedy that.
“Who has a baby face?” Darren asks, interjecting himself into the conversation. He’s got pointy elf ears and a bright green sweatshirt-oddly enough, he doesn’t look all that different from what he looks like on a daily basis. Chord resists the urge of telling him so.
“Chord,” Cory says, pointing a finger straight at his forehead. That asshole.
Chord pushes his hand away again. “I don’t have a baby face,” he repeats, feeling indignantly stubborn. Maybe it’s because ‘baby face’ isn’t exactly a compliment. Who wants to look like a toddler?
“You kind of do.” Darren gives a little apologetic shrug. “That’s a good thing, though, right? Your career’s guaranteed to last longer.” He pauses thoughtfully. “People used to tell me I had a baby face, but then I grew a beard.”
“I can’t grow a beard,” Chord admits, and both Darren and Cory burst out laughing. “Shut up. Shut up! It’s genetics, man. Don’t knock my DNA.”
“I wouldn’t knock your DNA,” Darren says, giving him an exaggerated once-over. He winks. “You have good DNA.”
Chord snorts and stares into his now-empty cup. “I need a refill,” he says, though he probably doesn’t; he already feels a little warm under his sweater.
But Darren holds up the eggnog like his life depends on this duty. “I’m on it,” he says, and he bustles over to the bowl in the opposite corner of the room, snagging a bottle of rum as he goes.
Cory takes another drink. “Nice sweater,” he comments casually, poking Rudolph’s face. “Is his nose detachable?”
They have three days straight of filming with little downtime in between, but instead of feeling exhausted at the crux of day three, Chord is weirdly energetic. He’s wired. He feels like he could run a marathon, and he can tell, just by looking at the others, that everyone else feels the same way. Maybe it’s because they’re nailing scenes in a way that they haven’t really done before. Maybe it’s because even Ryan is joking around in between takes. Or maybe it’s just because they have a break from filming after this, five whole days to do absolutely whatever they want.
“I think I’m gonna go surfing,” Harry says, dropping down next to Chord with some fruit and a water bottle. “I’m pretty sure I could do with an entire weekend of being a beach bum.”
“Yeah, that does sound good,” Chord says, stretching his legs out and rolling his shoulders. “But I kind of want to do something.”
“Yeah.” Harry takes a bite out of his apple and then calls across the room, “Yo, D. Criss, what are you doing this weekend?”
Darren’s face all but lights up. He has that way about him, always looking excited about even the most inane questions. He jogs over to the pair of them and says, all eager, “Coachella, man! My brother’s band is playing, but I wanna stay for everything. What about you guys?”
Harry’s looking at Chord. “We’re not sure,” he says, but there’s a glint in his eyes, and Chord’s pretty sure he knows what he’s thinking.
Darren doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even act like he’s going to; he doesn’t play that game that most dudes play, where blatantly showing enthusiasm is a weakness. Chord’s noticed that he does a lot of things that most dudes don’t do. “Come with me! Seriously, come with me. I can get you guys tickets. We could ride out there together. You guys can even share my tent.”
Chord considers. Out of all viable options for the weekend, hanging out with Darren Criss had never really been one of them. It’s not the worst idea in the world. It’s just that Darren is not his favorite person. Darren’s not even his favorite castmate, if he’s being honest. He’s different. Chord feels like he has to watch what he’s saying around him more than, say, Cory or Mark. He feels like he has to work at their interactions, which is weird. He hasn’t felt like he had to work for someone to like him since the girl he was in love with when he was sixteen, and he’d never wanted to repeat that.
“I’m in,” Harry says, shaking him out of his thoughts, and then he reaches over and slaps Chord’s thigh. “You?”
So that’s how Chord ends up riding shotgun towards Indio, California, the windows down, the music cranked up. It’s three o’clock in the morning and there’s hardly anyone on the road. Darren’s in the backseat drumming on the headrests and generally spazzing the fuck out, and Chord has to admit, it’s kind of infectious. Harry’s got one hand on the wheel and the other sifting wind through his fingers, belting out the lyrics to an Oasis song. Chord’s bobbing his head and trying not to grin too widely, because it seems sort of lame to be excited about something that hasn’t even happened yet.
“I love this!” Darren yells over the music. Uninhibited as always.
“Love what?” Harry yells back.
“This! Everything! Roadtrips, Oasis, the California coast at night…”
Chord smirks. Even though right now, and right now only, he actually agrees with Darren, he can’t resist the urge to make fun of him. “And the stars,” he yells, putting his hand over his heart and pretending to flick away a tear. “And the moon!”
Harry jumps in right away, without missing a single beat. “And the construction workers that built this highway!”
“And my mom for giving birth to me!” Chord calls back.
“And this water bottle!”
“And these socks!”
“And that semitruck we passed twenty miles ago!”
From the backseat, Darren cracks up. Chord has to hand it to him; he knows how to take a joke. He wraps one arm around the both of them, careful placement on Harry’s shoulder, slung unabashedly over Chord’s, and he joins in himself, craning his face towards the roof of the car and yelling, “And you guys!” and even though it’s supposed to be funny, even though they’re all kidding around, it feels real. It feels real and Chord feels it too: a complete companionship between these two other guys, a total sense of camaraderie. He feels happy, right down to the pit of his stomach, and he can’t remember the last time he was this happy about something so simple. It’s good. It’s really good.
“And you guys,” Darren repeats, softer this time, giving them each a little squeeze before letting go, and none of them say anything along the expanse of highway for the next ten miles, just listen contently as Wonderwall fills the car.
When they arrive at their destination it’s still ass-o’clock, but Darren nearly trips over himself scrambling out of the car, and Harry and Chord are quick to follow. There’s already a mass of people standing around, half-naked, nursing bottles of beers and waters, talking music and complaining about being awake at the buttcrack of dawn. Darren and Harry fit right in, meld in with the crowd almost effortlessly, but Chord feels a little like an outsider. He feels a lot like an outsider when Darren strips his shirt off and lets out a noise that’s probably only half-human, half-ape, and then digs in his backpack and rummages around for what appears to be a set of body paints.
“Do me,” he says, thrusting them towards Chord.
Chord stares at him.
“Excuse me?”
“I need somebody to do me! Don’t worry, I have enough for you guys, too.”
Chord shakes his head. He’s shaking his head without even realizing he’s shaking his head; the impulse to say no to things he’s never done before is instinctual, something he’s done since he was a child. No, he doesn’t want to try raw octopus. No, he doesn’t want to go to a drag show. And no, he definitely doesn’t want to paint his body in bright colors where everybody and their mother can see him.
Darren huffs out an exasperated breath and rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says, “you don’t have to wear them. At least do my back, will you?”
And Chord can’t really find a reason to say no to that, so he takes the paint and a sponge from Darren and Darren turns around, tilts his neck forward, exposing his back to both the rising sun and Chord’s jurisdiction.
“What, like, am I supposed to paint?” he asks, feeling clumsy and bewildered. Not a good combination.
“Anything. Random designs. Rainbows. Splotches of color. Whatever.”
Chord’s definitely not painting a rainbow onto Darren’s back. He glances around at everyone else for inspiration-one guy’s painted head to toe in bright green paint, and Chord can’t help but think that’s going to be mighty uncomfortable five hours from now-and then dips the sponge into the jar of sky blue. “You can’t blame me if it sucks,” he says, just as a disclaimer, and then he timidly presses the sponge against Darren’s skin.
Darren, in turn, shivers, and then laughs at himself for doing so. “It’s cold. And you don’t have to treat me like I’m a Picasso painting, Chord. Just go for it.”
Chord’s not really a just go for it kind of guy, though, so he hesitates for a second and then draws a line. And then another line. And then he switches colors and draws another line in red. He makes a V shape along Darren’s back, but it still looks pretty plain, so he adds a splash of color below his right shoulderblade, and then some more lines just above his waist. “There,” he says, oddly proud of his work. “All done.”
Trying to see for himself, Darren cranes his neck over his shoulder and turns in a circle, and he looks so much like a dog chasing his own tail that Chord has to snort. Darren must realize he looks pretty stupid because he gives that up and laughs shortly after. “I’ll just trust you, I guess. Now give me that, I need to do my front.”
Chord passes the paints over and heads off towards the rows of tents, the people who’ve been camping out for days.
“Hey, where are you going?” Darren calls at his back.
He doesn’t even pause. “I’m gonna bum a beer off someone. Let’s hope someone here watches Glee.”
“If they don’t, just take your shirt off. I’m sure you’ll get the same results.”
Chord rolls his eyes-it’s not a bad strategy, though; there’s a group of girls around a plastic cooler that’ve been eyeing him since he stepped out of the car, and he turns the charm on full blast, because he’s pretty sure he’s going to need some alcohol in his system to make it through the day.
Darren bounds up towards him around noon, and it’s been over three hours since they separated, but he looks as perky and refreshed as ever. “This is awesome, isn’t it?” he says happily, and Chord can smell the faint trace of beer on his breath. “So many good bands. Hey, how does my body look?”
Chord looks at him and shrugs. “About the same as ever?”
“Take a picture for me! I want to send it to some people.” Darren pushes his phone into Chord’s hands-he’s always doing that, handing things over without giving Chord the chance to say no first. Chord has an iPhone himself so he knows how to handle it, knows how the camera works, but he still feels a little weird taking a picturing of a half-naked Darren Criss in the middle of the day.
He does it anyway, though.
Harry’s hovering around, loops an arm around Chord’s shoulders when he’s finished and gives him a little shake. “I didn’t know we were having a photoshoot, I would’ve worn something a little nicer.”
“No need,” Darren says, and then he takes a picture of the two of them. He flashes a big, toothy grin. “You look great. Okay, Chord, your turn. Pose.”
If Darren was told to pose, he probably would’ve done something outrageous and ridiculous. Like a somersault in midair. Chord just adjusts the ballcap on his head and throws his hands out to his sides.
Darren’s smile softens a little bit, and he snaps the picture and tucks the phone back into his pocket. “Very nice,” he says, and he pats Chord on the arm. “Hey, I’m gonna go hang out with my brother for a bit. Wanna come?”
Meet the family already? Chord wants to joke, but doesn’t. Even if he currently feels warmer towards Darren than he ever has, he still doesn’t think they’re those kind of friends.
“Nah, I’m good. I’m gonna see who’s playing.”
“Okay, cool. Meet up with you later?”
“Yeah, definitely. You’ve got my number.” Chord can’t help it; he grins. “If I remember correctly, you stole it from Chris.”
Darren just shrugs innocently. “Not my finest moment, I’ll admit. Okay. I’ll see you later.”
And then he’s off, darting through the crowd, weaving through groups of unashamed hipsters, looking just like he was born to belong.
They don’t reconvene until nighttime. By that point, Chord’s lost track of how many beers he’s had. He just drinks them as they’re handed to him; it’s been a long time since he’s been properly drunk, and he almost forgot how good a buzz feels. A buzz feels even better when there’s good music, and good food, and good people-some girls were a little grabby earlier, but otherwise no one’s even called him Sam all day.
Darren brought a tent along. Chord thinks that’s kind of stupid, when they have enough money and enough notoriety to get any hotel suite they could want, but he insists that it’s part of the experience, that they have to do it. That otherwise they’ll just be posers.
(Chord already feels like a poser. The first ten concerts he ever went to were country-the people here look as though they’ve never even heard of Garth Brooks.)
Chord’s feeling nice and amiable as he makes his way back to the tent, though. He’s got a fresh beer in hand, miraculously still cold, and he sits spread-legged just outside the flaps as he waits for Darren and Harry to return, because it feels a little too weird to sit inside the tent by himself. He chats with the neighbors; they talk like they’re old friends, all “how’s the landscaping over there?” and “you guys have enough pillows?” He decides, maybe a little drunkenly, that this is one of the best days he’s ever had. And he was asked to be there. He was wanted. He doesn’t feel like he’s sitting in the warm glow of Darren Criss’s limelight.
And that is a pretty cool feeling.
Darren finally stumbles back a short while after midnight. By this point, he’s lost not only his shirt but one of his sandals too. And his face is red and he’s laughing, and maybe he’s drunk, or maybe he’s just happy. Chord’s not sure he knows the difference.
“Hey!” he says, collapsing on the ground next to Chord. He presses the crown of his head against Chord’s leg, sort of bent over at his waist, limbs flopping to the grass. “Harry met someone. Harry met a girl. Harry will not be back to the tent tonight.”
Chord laughs. “Good for Harry.”
“Yeah,” Darren agrees, looking both thoughtful and fuzzy-brained. “Good for Harry. Coachella, my friend, is all about love.”
“If that’s true, then why are we both sitting here?” Chord asks, taking another sip of his beer. There had been a lot of cute girls today. A lot of them. A handful of which had invited him back to their various tents-but here he was. Alone. With Darren.
Darren looks at him very seriously. “Because we,” he says, “are virtuous young men.”
Chord cracks up so abruptly that he knocks over his can. He doesn’t bother picking it up; it was probably well past time for him to quit drinking, anyway.
“I’m serious!” Darren insists, but then he starts laughing too. He headbutts Chord’s leg playfully. “You are, anyway. You’re a good Southern boy. The jury’s still out on me.”
“I’m going to bed,” Chord says, shaking his head. He’s pretty sure they’ll be woken up in five-point-two hours by rowdy drunkass strangers, and he wants at least a little beauty rest before that happens. “Can I borrow your toothpaste?”
“Sure. Front pocket of my backpack. I’m gonna have another beer.”
Chord can hear Darren chat with the guys in the next tent over as he brushes his teeth and rinses his mouth out with a water bottle he steals from Harry’s bag, and he pokes his head out of the tent to spit and Darren stops talking and looks at him, just looks at him, and grins. Chord wipes the foam off his mouth and grins back, calls goodnight to the neighbors, and then crawls back inside. It’s too hot to even consider climbing into his sleeping bag, so instead he lays on top of it, laces his fingers behind his head, stares at the canvas ceiling of the tent. He’s always been an outdoors guy, loves camping, loves sleeping outside, but this is different. In a good way. He doesn’t feel like he’s out amongst nature. He feels like he’s out amongst friends.
Darren comes back in a few minutes later, zips the tent up behind him. He acts like he’s trying to keep silent, but he knocks over his backpack, and then he apparently fumbles into his sleeping bag, because he lets out a soft “shit,” followed by a laugh. After a moment of struggling he quiets down. Chord can hear him breathing.
“Hey, Chord? You awake, buddy?”
Chord turns over. It’s dark inside the tent, but he can just make out Darren’s form, only a few inches away. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“Are you drunk?”
A pause. Chord considers-considers his head, his stomach, the way his lips feel pleasantly tingly. “A little, yeah.”
“Me too.”
He doesn’t really know what to say to that other than “hmm,” so he scratches his chest through his tshirt and lays there, wishing he’d brought a more comfortable pair of shorts to sleep in.
“I’m glad you came,” Darren says, because he’s apparently not done, and he sounds so stinking earnest. “I think you’re a great guy. Can I be honest? For awhile there, I didn’t think you really liked me.”
Chord licks his lips sort of nervously. “Can I be honest?’ he says in reply, because Chord Overstreet is a lot of things, but he’s not a fake. “For awhile there, I didn’t like you.”
Anyone else probably would’ve been insulted, definitely would’ve asked why. Darren, though, he just turns over on his side, props his head up with his elbow, and says, “But you do now?”
That’s a loaded question. This weekend? Yeah, Chord likes Darren this weekend-he likes him for bringing him out here, for asking him to come, for sharing his one and only pack of pretzels because Chord had forgotten to bring a snack for himself. Chord even likes Darren right now, in this tent, a little drunk, but sleeping with his ass pressed against the side of the canvas to give Chord more room. But overall? Chord takes a moment to think.
“Yeah,” he says finally, nodding into the darkness. “Yeah, I do.”
Because it’s impossible not to.
That’s the sad truth of the statement: Darren Criss, that asshole, is impossible to dislike.
“Good.” Darren claps him lightly on the shoulder; instead of pulling away immediately, though, his hand rests there, his palm flat against the fabric of his shirt. Chord grins for no real reason whatsoever, and then he remembers that it’s probably weird to grin about nothing, so he stops grinning and subtly shakes Darren’s hand away.
“Night Chord,” Darren murmurs, burying his face into his arms. Somehow, he falls asleep almost instantaneously, taking steady breaths in through his nose, out through his mouth, and Chord rolls onto his back and counts his breaths, letting the sound of Darren sleeping lull himself to sleep.
Chord doesn’t know what time it is. It’s still dark, near pitch black inside the tent, and he’s still on top of his sleeping bag, but it’s both cooler and warmer than it was when he first went to sleep. Cooler because the temperature has dropped. Warmer because there’s a body pressed against his from behind.
He freezes. It takes him a long moment to remember where he is, how he ended up here. Darren’s still asleep, blowing tiny puffs of air against the sensitive skin of his neck. He must’ve rolled over in his sleep, and he’s got his hand splayed against Chord’s back, his toes pressed up against his ankle. This, Chord thinks, is definitely not normal.
It feels kind of-kind of good in the way that curling up against someone always does, but it’s Darren. Who is a dude. Who is a shirtless dude covered in rainbow-colored paints, who has had a few too many beers before bed. Chord swallows thickly and gives his shoulder a little shake. Darren doesn’t budge.
“Darren,” he whispers, but it comes out a little rough, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Darren. Dude.”
A second later Darren blinks awake, squinting into the darkness. He looks as confused as Chord feels. And then he apparently realizes how close they are, how his own sleeping bag is three feet to the left, and he slowly pulls his toes away, stops touching Chord’s back. “Sorry,” he whispers, rubbing his eyes. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s cool. Seriously, it’s cool.”
Darren’s still looking at him, in a weird way. Like he’s never really seen him before. Without saying another word, he scoots back again, putting a good amount of space between them. He licks his lips. “Sorry,” he repeats.
What Chord doesn’t say is that he kind of wishes they would’ve gone for the hotel room, that this never would’ve happened there. That he should’ve stopped drinking long before sundown because he still feels a little drunk.
What he does say is, “No, man, it’s cool.”
Apparently cool is the only word in his vocabulary right now.
Chord wants to go back to sleep, but his brain’s working too fast and his mouth is way too dry. He sits up, purposely not looking at Darren, and rummages around in the dark for Harry’s water bottle. A cold chill runs along his spine that has nothing to do with the dropping temperature, and he takes a swig and then pours some water into his hand to splash against his face. When he’s done, and he can’t find any other excuses to stay up, he climbs back on top of his sleeping bag, staring at the wall of the tent, away from Darren. It’s silent between them, but Chord can hear Darren’s irregular breathing, which is how he knows that he’s not the only one awake.
A minute later, Chord hears the quiet rustle of nylon, and then faintly, so faint he’s half-convinced he’s imagining it, Darren’s pressing his hand against Chord’s shoulder again, his fingers curling around his bicep. Tentatively, like he’s waiting to be shaken off.
Chord should shake him off, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know what Darren’s doing, but when he turns his head over his neck to look, Darren’s sitting up a little, and moving forward, and he’s still looking at him in that strange, serious way, and then his hand is moving lower, gliding across the sleeve of his tshirt, and then touching the bare skin of his arm, and then stopping short just above his elbow.
Chord’s breath hitches in his throat.
He could put a stop this, he knows he could, but he doesn’t. It’s maybe the beer or the atmosphere or Darren’s fingernails trailing across the crook of his elbow, but whatever it is, it impairs Chord’s thinking. It makes everything fuzzy around the edges.
And then Darren’s leaning in.
He doesn’t kiss him. Chord’s terrified that he’s going to kiss him, but he doesn’t do it. Instead he presses up against him, chest to back, shin to calf, and then Chord can feel his warm breath against his ear, and he feels like he’s shaking a little, but he isn’t. His insides are shaking which shouldn’t even make sense, but then-none of this makes sense. Darren props his chin against Chord’s shoulder and he whispers, low, “Is this okay?”
No Chord wants to say, but that’d be lying. So he lets out a little noise that’s more yes than no, that’s more go ahead than stop, that maybe makes it look like Chord has a single fucking clue of what he’s doing.
Darren’s lips press against the back of Chord’s neck and Chord’s heart is racing, so fast he thinks he can feel it lodging up in his throat, and Darren’s hand drops down to his chest, and he rubs at it lightly through his shirt, and they just lay like that for a minute, Darren’s fingers dragging slowly across his stomach, pressing closed-mouthed kisses against the patch of skin where his shoulder meets his neck. Darren’s hand dips lower and Chord holds his breath, because he’s half-hard already, and he can’t screw his eyes shut and will it away because screwing his eyes shut just enhances his other senses, namely his sense of touch, his sense of Darren’s fingers dipping into the waistband of his shorts.
Chord’s hips rise to meet Darren’s hand without his brain’s approval. Darren’s hand is steady, confident, like he knows what he’s doing. He reaches into Chord’s boxers, wraps his hand around him, and Chord’s breath catches and everything goes strangely warm. He’s been so busy working lately that he hasn’t had a decent handjob in forever, and he really hadn’t thought the one to break his streak would be here of all places, now of all times, with Darren Criss. Of all people.
And Darren’s good at this too, a little sloppy but almost perfectly sloppy, like maybe he’s had a little practice, or maybe he hasn’t and he’s just eager. His free hand pushes Chord’s shirt up mid-chest and his knee urges Chord’s legs apart, and tents are most definitely not soundproof and the guys next door are still partying on so Chord takes careful measures not to moan out loud, bites down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, breathes out sharply when Darren flicks his wrist in a way that Chord once thought only girls knew how to do, like it was innate for them or something.
He’s not going to last long-and he starts to tell Darren so, because it’s common courtesy and all that, but Darren cuts him off before he can even get through hey, I’m- and he scrapes his teeth against Chord’s neck, bites down a little before sucking hard against his skin, quickening the pace of his hand, steady, consistent strokes, and Chord can’t help it: a quiet groan escapes from the back of his throat, and he sort of shifts forward against Darren’s fingers before he comes, all limbless and spent right after, Darren chuckling softly against his back and withdrawing his hand from his shorts.
Chord tries to focus on getting his breathing to return to normal, and not the fact that he’d just fooled around with a guy that a week ago he hadn’t even really liked.
When he glances over his shoulder, Darren’s half-sitting up, wiping his hand off on a spare napkin, and Chord wonders vaguely if he’s supposed to volunteer to return the favor. He’s not going to. He is most definitely not going to.
Darren catches him looking, though, and grins. Even in the dark Chord can see his expression, and he feels a sudden well of anger because he looks-he looks smug or something, or maybe just pleased, but either way, he should know that there’s nothing to grin about right now.
“How much more clichéd could we be?” Darren says quietly, but even still it sounds like his voice is carrying, like everyone in a fifty mile radius is going to be able to hear him, and Chord winces slightly. “I mean, a tent at night-talk about Brokeback Mountain ripoffs.”
Chord’s insides turn to ice. He hadn’t seen Brokeback Mountain. In fact, he and his friends back home had spent an inordinate amount of time making fun of Brokeback Mountain, because the simple truth of the matter was that it was-well, it was gay.
He doesn’t say anything. Even in the afterglow of an orgasm he still feels pretty shitty, and he doesn’t trust himself with words right now. He doesn’t want to think about this. He doesn’t want to process it. Instead, he adjusts himself inside his shorts, curls back up on top of his sleeping bag, and hopes to God he falls asleep before Darren tries to talk to him-or touch him-again.
He rises with the sun. The tent has a little mesh window that they’d forgotten to zip shut last night, and Chord blinks awake when a beam of light hits him straight across his face. For a moment, and just a moment, he’s happy. It’s warm and he doesn’t have to be at work and his body feels strangely good-and then he remembers. He remembers why he feels good, and when he rolls over, Darren’s still fast asleep, a smeared stripe of red paint running carelessly over his eye and into his messy, curly hairline. The nausea hits fast and unexpectedly, and Chord stumbles out of his sleeping bag and out of the tent as quietly as he can, and he bends over at a tree and retches a little, but he doesn’t actually throw up.
Only a few people are up and about this morning, because it’s not the first day of Coachella and therefore not nearly as exciting, and there are shower stalls set up at the opposite side of camp that few dudes seem to be taking advantage of. Chord reaches one-handedly back into the tent and grabs his backpack, then hightails it over. He sincerely hopes to God that there are no paparazzi lurking inside, because the last thing he needs right now is a picture of his bare ass to leak online.
Inside, he turns the water up as hot as he can stand it, and then he stands under the stream and lets it pound against his body until his skin feels raw. He only thinks about physical, tangible things. The slight ache in his chest. The splotch of green paint on his hip. (How’d that get there?-and then, oh.) The vague chattering of the guys right outside.
When he feels clean-clean enough, anyway-he turns the shower off and pulls on fresh clothes, clean boxers, and then he stops in front of one of the dingy mirrors to mess with his hair, and that’s when he sees it. The side of his neck. A fresh bruise. Mouth-shaped.
Darren had given him a fucking hickey.
He feels a little sick again and turns away, letting his hair go wild because that doesn’t even matter anymore, and he grabs his shit and leaves the shower stall. Except that once outside he doesn’t know where to go.
There’s a group of girls heading into the women’s showers, not fifty feet away, and they’ve got little bags with them, probably their hairspray or their eyeliner or whatever it is women lug around all day. Chord makes a snap decision; he takes in a big, calming breath and then approaches them, clearing his throat.
“Excuse me,” he says to one girl in particular-she’s around the same age as him, and pretty, and she’s got a really nice smile. She stops and looks at him and her jaw drops open a little, but she catches herself in time. “I’m Chord-”
“I know who you are,” she says, and giggles. “I’m Jess.”
“Hi.”
The other girls disappear into the bathroom and then it’s just the two of them. He works up the balls, because this, he thinks, is better than the alternative. “Okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but I was wondering if you could-if you might be able to-” He turns his head to the side and gestures vaguely at the hickey. She smiles her nice smile.
“Not a problem,” she says, without asking for further explanation, and Chord is immeasurably grateful. “Just let me grab some concealer. I’ll be right back.”
The concealer run takes all of five seconds; in no time flat she’s back, cupping his face in her hands and then tipping his head backwards for easier access to his neck. “This might rub off easily,” she says, poking her tongue into her cheek as she dabs the makeup on the spot. “Or you might sweat it off, since it’s so hot outside. Who are you trying to hide this from, anyway?”
Chord grimaces a little. “The world.”
“Fair enough.”
She blends it in carefully, and then hands him a compact mirror to check for himself. He tilts it up and glances at his reflection. He can’t even see the hickey, so that’s good. Better than good. “God, you’re a lifesaver,” he says, handing the mirror back. “Seriously, thank you so much.”
“No problem. We’ve all been there.” She grins at him once more then jerks a thumb towards the stalls. “I should go get ready, though. Good luck with the you-know-what on your you-know-where.”
He laughs, and it feels so fucking good to laugh. This morning it’d almost felt like he’d lost the muscle that allowed it. “Thanks again. Maybe I’ll see you around?”
“Maybe you won’t,” Jess teases, and then she shrugs. “It’s Coachella. There are a lot of people out there. Bye, Chord.”
“Bye,” he echoes back, but she’s already gone.
Chord marches back across the field in the direction of their tent, but he takes a fork about halfway there and walks aimlessly to the left. And then aimlessly to the right. And then aimlessly straight ahead. He has no idea what to do, where to go, and the only thing he’s sure of is that he’s going to be avoiding Darren for the rest of the day at all possible costs.
He finds Harry around ten. The girl he’d assumedly ditched them for overnight is nowhere to be seen, but he does seem extra jovial today, and his hair is a little crazy. “Chordo!” he shouts, draping an arm around his shoulders. Chord’s stomach knots, but Harry doesn’t say anything about the hickey or ask if on the off chance he might’ve possibly gotten a handjob from Darren Criss last night, so he’s relieved. “What’s going on, dude? Mark’s here. Cory too, I think, but I haven’t seen him yet. Have you eaten? Want to split some pizza with me? Where’s Darren?”
Chord sets his jaw firmly. “Pizza sounds good,” he says, shaking Harry’s arm off and ignoring the last question in the set. “I’ll text Mark, see if wants to join us.”
Incidentally, Mark does want to join them-he’s usually good for anything that involves food. He’s also taking off early today, has a night gig in LA for some advertising agency or another, and he invites the guys to hitch a ride back with him. Chord immediately accepts.
He doesn’t want to, but he figures he owes it to Darren to at least send him a text and let him know, so even though he puts it off as long as possible, he finally digs his phone out of his pocket once he’s riding shotgun in Mark’s old car. I’m riding back to LA w/ Mark, he writes, and his thumb hesitates over the send button for a long time before he bites the bullet and does it.
Darren texts back within two minutes. oh, okay… i'll see you around then?
Chord doesn’t answer. He doesn’t feel the need to.
(When Marks asks him halfway there if he’s feeling alright, “cause you’re freaking me out with the Rain Man stare, dude,” Chord just sort grunts and goes back to gazing out the window. He imagines himself trying to explain this to Mark, trying to find the words to make this sound anything less than absolutely ridiculous, but it’s impossible. It’s not going to happen. And that-that thing, that thing that happened, that will most definitely never happen again. Ever.)
“Who the hell attacked your neck with their fangs?” his sister demands first thing, and Chord groans and covers it with his hand, because it wasn’t like he had concealer lying around his apartment to hide it for himself. He knew she’d give him a hard time about it, but who else could he have gone to? Lea? Heather? Right, like they wouldn’t have wanted the whole story, like they wouldn’t have been annoyingly persistent about narrowing the culprit down.
“Just someone,” Chord murmurs, sliding in through her front door. “Are you going to help me or not?”
part two.
one | two | three | four
by novelized. ~32,000 words.
fandom: Glee RPF.
pairing: Chord Overstreet/Darren Criss.
summary: Chord Overstreet doesn't want to like Darren, but the sad truth of the fact is that he can't help it. Darren Criss, that asshole, is impossible to dislike.
(alternatively: Something Went Down in the Tent at Coachella.)
The glitz and glamour of being the new kid on Glee is remarkably short-lived. One day Chord’s doing magazine interviews, phoners, having his picture taken when he’s trying to buy some food from that great taco joint down the street, and the next it’s back to radio silence and peace. (Chord learns pretty quickly that celebrities only want peace when they don’t have it. Being left alone by the paparazzi is a death sentence in Hollywood. You’re only relevant as long as you’re being mobbed.)
It takes a little getting used to, this fading into the background thing, because, as his agent had explained countless times, he seemingly had “everything going for him.” The looks, the voice, the modesty of a homeschooled Tennessee upbringing-Chord doesn’t like to brag, but he knows that he’s basically Los Angeles rolled into a neat little package. With abs and blond hair to boot.
So maybe being on Glee isn’t everything he’d expected. It’s still amazing. It’s still providing him with countless opportunities he’d otherwise never receive. But it’d be nice to be out there. To be a household name. To be the topic of conversation at the dinner table, if people still ate around their dinner tables anymore.
“Should’ve gone with the gay thing,” his sister tells him, laughing.
It stings in a way that brutal honesty sometimes does. It wasn’t an intended slap in the face, but it felt like one. Like it was his choice for Ryan Murphy to change his mind-true, Chord hadn’t begged and pleaded his case, hadn’t raised hell when he’d found out about the new direction, had maybe even felt relieved when he heard the news. If he was being honest, he’d never wanted to be the gay kid on Glee. The hot nerd or the dorky football player. Those he could do. All of the paradox with none of the social stigma.
(Chord’s not good at social stigmas. Chord’s never known anything other than fitting in.)
But that’s what it boils down to; that’s the truth. Joking or not, his sister has a point. Chord Overstreet is a kid on a fairly successful Fox show. He’s a member of a talented ensemble. He’s that guy, you know, the shirtless one-and it’s not a terrible gig, being that guy.
But, he can’t help but think, with maybe just a touch of bitterness, he’s no Darren Criss.
There are two types of people on the cast of Glee, as far as he’s concerned: those he’d hang out with outside of work, and those who stay on a strictly ‘all right, see you tomorrow’ basis. Cory, Mark, Harry; he loves those guys. He’s crashed at their various bachelor pads more times than he can count. Lea, Amber, Heather; those are his girls. They go to dinner, they go clubbing, they make sure Chord doesn’t cross the line and take one tequila shot too many.
And then there are The Others.
He’d felt a weird divide between them when he’d first joined the cast, and it was even more pronounced now. It wasn’t like a thing. There were no fights or backstabbing dramas, as far as he could see. It was just that the set of Glee was a lot like the real world: you couldn’t always get along with everyone.
There are some people Chord has no desire to get to know better. They can chat in between takes or share a pizza after a long night of filming, but he’s not going to invite them back to his place. He’s not going to ask for their phone numbers or treat them to dinner.
Not that he’s naming names, but a certain stiff-haired actor in a private school uniform falls under that umbrella. They haven’t even met, not yet, not officially; he’d seen him on set a grand total of once and he’d been too busy trying to get his Gatorade unstuck from the vending machine to make any grand gestures of welcoming-and besides, they were both the new kids on the block. It didn’t have to be his job.
But he watched him traipse around the set like he owned the place, totally at ease with the crew members it had taken Chord weeks to feel comfortable enough talking to. Laughing openly. Cracking jokes.
Chord can understand, objectively, why he’s a big deal. The gay storyline. “This is a big thing,” Ryan had told him when he’d first signed on. Leaning forward, hands clasped between his legs. Like he believed in him. No one had looked at him like that in a few weeks. “A huge thing. This is monumental. I want you to think about this. About what you’re agreeing to.”
He thinks it’d be pretty nice to be monumental.
In the end, though, things changed. Chord wasn’t right for that specific job-“but don’t worry,” Ryan had told him, distractedly this time, scribbling on a piece of paper. “We’ll find a place for you.”
And they had.
Chord can’t help, though, but think that the unspoken divide between cast members had strengthened-but that was okay. If he put his head down and ignored it, everything seemed just fine. It was, after all, easier to pretend that it didn’t even exist.
“Hi,” Darren Criss says on a Tuesday morning. “I’m Darren Criss.”
Chord blinks and shields the sun from his eyes with one hand. They had an hour break for lunch, and he’d taken his sandwich outside to eat in silence on the pavement, soak up a little heat before heading back into the heavily air conditioned building. This was his me-time. This was the only time of the day he got to be alone, and now his personal space was being encroached upon by this kid in a navy jacket.
He makes a noncommittal grunt and swallows a large bite of turkey. “I know,” he says finally, when his throat is cleared, and he returns Darren’s handshake but doesn’t let it linger. “I’m Chord.”
“Ooh, this is awkward.” Darren bounces on his heels a little, like he’s filled with excess energy and it’s spilling over. He doesn’t sit down next to Chord, just stands beside him, so their dynamic looks weird, completely out of sync. “Old boyfriend meets new boyfriend.”
Chord just looks at him.
But Darren continues on as though he hadn’t noticed Chord’s general lack of response. “Well, maybe,” he amends, sticking his hands in his pockets. Chord considers telling him that there’s a scuffmark on his left shoe, but he doesn’t. It doesn’t seem important. “If it goes that way. It might not. I could be here for another episode and then get hit by the bus on the way to Regionals, who knows.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Chord says, not entirely against that scenario, stuffing another piece of crust in his mouth.
“Well, I’ve got to hit up makeup. Just thought I’d introduce myself. Nice to meet you,” Darren says, going in for another handshake. Apparently he’s a proponent of physical contact. He flashes a smile at Chord, all teeth, and heads off, flanking the side of Ryan Murphy’s assistant what’s-her-name as he goes, totally effortless, like they’d been best friends their entire lives.
So that’s how he meets Darren Criss, officially.
Chord sighs and goes back to eating his sandwich.
Chord gets the new script on a Tuesday. He’s not a routine-oriented guy by any means, but he likes to be alone when he opens them, and he likes to be comfortable, and he likes to go at it in one straight read-through, like he’s watching the episode himself. Sometimes things happen on paper that legitimately shock the hell out of him. But he figures that’s Ryan’s game. That’s how he gets his rocks off, throwing curveball surprises at the viewers that no one sees coming.
He doesn’t really find downtime until he wakes up Wednesday morning, and he showers and pulls on a fresh pair of boxers before climbing back under the blankets and flipping to the first page. It takes a while to get through the whole thing. It seems like it’s going to be a good episode, what with the twists and turns and musical numbers, but-and he goes back and double checks, because at first he’s pretty sure that can’t be right-Chord has three lines.
Three.
In a forty-four minute episode, that feels massively underwhelming.
He doesn’t, like, normally count anyone else’s, doesn’t care enough to make comparisons. Being on Glee is not a competition. These are not his competitors. It’s just sort of overwhelmingly obvious that the new kid, Darren, he’s in a number of scenes. He’s got about sixty times as many lines as Chord, and they’re not even little inconsequential one-liners that are thrown in just for good measure.
Chord’s not mad. That would be stupid. He doesn’t get mad.
A little disappointed, maybe, but that, he figures, no one has to know.
He gets to the studio at the same time as everyone else, but instead of congregating in their little inner circle he moves straight through the building and into the parking lot behind the set. It’s private, blocked off, and generally unsupervised, so Chord doesn’t feel weird about lying down on the pavement, legs kicked out, hands pillowing his head. He closes his eyes and counts his breaths, a trick his mom taught him when he was little to avoid a temper tantrum. He’s not going to have a temper tantrum, but he feels the familiar pang of displaced anger.
A few minutes later he hears the scuff of shoes against cement, but he ignores it, thinking that person might cast him a funny look and go silently about their business. But the footsteps stop just beside his shoulder, and when he turns his head to look, Darren is lowering himself to the ground, right there beside him. He doesn’t offer up a greeting; no “hey,” no “how’s it going,” not even a “why are you laying in the middle of the parking lot?” He just joins him, like this was a totally normal thing to do.
“S’up?” Chord says, because the silence is weirding him out. He was here first, and yet he feels like he’s the one disturbing Darren’s peace. Damn it.
Darren lets out a sigh, a heavy and content exhale. Like he’s chilling on a beach in Cancun instead of a cement parking lot in the middle of the morning. “It’s weird being on this set,” he says, which doesn’t exactly answer Chord’s question, but whatever. “I’m used to spending all my time at Dalton. There’s a lot more activity here. Hard to find five minutes to yourself, huh?”
Chord wants to say uh, yeah, case in point but he just says “hmm” instead, which probably isn’t much better.
“It’s cool to see you guys in action, though,” Darren adds, eyes fluttering shut. He has ridiculously long eyelashes for a dude. Chord turns his neck back and stares straight up at the cloudless sky. “You can really appreciate the team effort when you’re watching from the outside, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Chord says. He doesn’t feel like a team player. Team players didn’t usually escape outside to avoid their more prominently-featured teammates.
If Darren’s thinking along the same lines, though, he doesn’t say it. In fact, he just stretches out and lets the sun’s rays hit his face, settling into the stillness like he hadn’t ever disrupted it in the first place. That almost makes Chord more uneasy than when they were talking. The seconds stretch by, torturously slow and tense.
But then Darren pops up suddenly, just as energetic as he’s ever been, and he leans over Chord so that he’s blocking the sun, and it’s just Darren’s face looming in front of his, five inches away. “Hey,” he says excitedly, “do you like to listen to electronica?”
“Um.” Chord’s mouth twitches a little. It feels like a trap. “I don’t know. I guess so.”
And then Darren’s climbing to his feet and reaching out for Chord, no hesitancy whatsoever, and Chord’s body is working faster than his brain so he takes his hand and lets himself be pulled up. “Come on, I have something I want you to hear,” Darren says, walking away without even looking back, like he just expects Chord to follow.
For lack of better options, Chord does.
Chord’s half-asleep in his boxers when his phone buzzes. He’s lying heavily on his couch, legs dangling over the armrest, the Playstation cord wrapped around his left wrist-and he’s comfortable enough to contemplate not answering, but you never know when destiny could be calling. Literally.
So he digs into his pocket and fishes his iPhone out, and it’s not a call from a destiny: it’s a text from someone he doesn’t recognize.
what’re you up to? it reads.
Chord squints at the number but, nope, he definitely has no idea who it is. Who is this? he texts back, takes a swig from a warm can of flat Coke, and two seconds later it’s vibrating again.
megan fox.
Obviously someone’s fucking with him. Chord rolls his eyes. Very funny. Srsly who is this??
Chord’s phone buzzes yet again; but instead of a text in response, the mystery number is calling. He struggles into a sitting position and eyes the digits one last time before picking up. Even then, he keeps his voice low and guarded, just in case. He’s heard about celebrity numbers leaking to the Internet, the sort of harassment he could face if it turned out to be a rabid fan. (He hasn’t had a rabid fan yet. He’d kind of like to.)
“Hello?”
“I’m disappointed in you.” The voice on the other line is familiar, but not immediately recognizable. “What if I really was Megan Fox and you’d just missed the opportunity of a lifetime?”
“Maybe I know it’s not Megan Fox because she’s lying in bed with me as we speak,” Chord says, taking the bait, playing along, the corners of his mouth tugging into a smirk in spite of himself.
“Ooh, touché. Very nicely done.”
“Who is this?” Chord asks for the third time.
“Queen Elizabeth the First.”
“In that case I hope you’re calling for phone sex. I really have a thing for British royalty.”
“Then I hope you also have a thing for necrophilia.”
“Huh?”
“You know Queen Elizabeth the First is dead, right?”
Chord bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Um, yeah,” he says, but only because it’s too late to think about who’s dead and who isn’t, and besides, history was never his strong suit.
The voice on the other line laughs, easy and unhindered. “This is Darren,” he says finally, and right, that makes sense. The voice. “I got your number from Chris,” he adds before Chord even has to ask, “who, by the way, made me promise I wouldn’t do anything immature like send you twelve pizzas or ask you if your refrigerator’s running.”
“You just impersonate Megan Fox instead,” Chord says. “Definitely not immature.”
Darren laughs again. He has a good laugh, a full laugh. “My Megan Fox impersonations have gotten me very far in life, I’ll have you know.”
“So that’s how you got all those lines in last week’s episode,” Chord jokes, and he doesn’t mean for it to come off bitter, but it kind of does anyway. Darren’s silent for a second; whether he’s insulted or just being thoughtful-Chord doesn’t know him well enough to know the difference, and he doesn’t want to.
“Nah,” Darren says finally, and the laugh’s gone from his voice, but Chord can still hear the trace of a smile, “that one was pure bribery.”
“Teach me your tricks,” Chord says, as a peace offering. To smooth things over.
“No can do, young grasshopper. My skills were God-given, not learned.”
Chord untangles himself from his Playstation controller. When he sits up more fully, there’s a Cheeto stuck to his thigh. He makes a face and peels it off and throws it lazily towards the trashcan in the kitchen, missing by a mile. He’ll get that later.
“Well,” Darren says in the wake of the silence, “I’ll let you get off here. I just wanted to say what’s up and tell you that you were really awesome yesterday.”
That catches Chord off guard. “Oh. Uh. Thanks, dude. You were too.”
“Thanks, dude,” Darren echoes, and he might be mocking Chord, but whatever. “We should hang out sometime. You have my number now. And… I’m going to hang up before I start to sound even more like I’m on the tail end of a disastrous first date. Goodnight, Chord. I’ll walk myself to the door.”
Darren hangs up before Chord can even get another word in. He stares at the phone, a little baffled, contemplating whether or not he actually wants to plug Darren’s number into his contacts list.
In the end, though, he does it. He figures it’ll come in handy if he ever feels like ordering twelve pizzas, or something immature like that.
A week later Chord’s one of the last ones to get to the set. He’d woken up late, gotten shampoo in his eye, put his shirt on backwards, spilled an entire fucking gallon of milk, bashed his knee on the coffee table, and locked his keys in the car-all before eight AM. Everyone’s pissy that they had to wait for him to arrive, and he doesn’t blame them. He’s pissy too.
When he gets there, though, Darren hands him a grande Starbucks coffee, still hot.
“Thought you could use a pick-me-up,” Darren says.
Chord’s name is scribbled on the side of the cup. Buying him a drink was a premeditated action.
He looks at Darren.
“Thanks,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
Darren just shrugs him off. Like it was no big deal at all.
Lea has a Christmas party, just for the cast members. She’s always the one planning the get-togethers, making sure everyone’s included. She’s also the one that insists everyone wear their tackiest holiday-themed ensemble, which is how Chord winds up sipping spiked eggnog in a Rudolph sweater just before midnight. He thinks, vaguely, it could be worse.
They’re all there; they all make the perfunctory “shouldn’t I be sick of you yet?” jokes, but none of them are. That wall Chord had built at the start of the season was dissolving: these were his friends. They were his family.
“I feel like I should be tired,” Cory says, sidling up next to him, “but I’m not.” He hadn’t come dressed for the theme, but Lea had jokingly reprimanded him so he’d overcompensated by borrowing a Santa suit from the guy next door. At the beginning of the night he’d stuffed throw pillows up the jacket, but they’d fallen out around drink three and now he just looks like a scrawny, underweight Santa Claus with a wispy, pathetic beard.
“Yeah, me neither,” Chord says, stirring his cup around. He smirks. “But I’m surprised you’re not, old man.”
Cory laughs and slugs him in the arm. Eggnog sloshes over the glass and onto the carpet, and Chord rubs at it with the tip of his shoe, hoping it’s not noticeable.
‘I’m 28 going on 17,” Cory says, ignoring the fact that he’d made Chord spill his drink. “And I wouldn’t talk shit, you’re looking at your future right here.” He reaches out and pinches Chord’s cheek with the hand not holding his martini. Chord halfheartedly swats him away. “With that baby face, you’ll be playing high school until you’re 40.”
“Hey. I don’t have a baby face.”
Just then Darren passes by, a fresh gallon of eggnog in his hands. Currently unspiked. Chord’s running low, so he hopes that Darren’s on his way to remedy that.
“Who has a baby face?” Darren asks, interjecting himself into the conversation. He’s got pointy elf ears and a bright green sweatshirt-oddly enough, he doesn’t look all that different from what he looks like on a daily basis. Chord resists the urge of telling him so.
“Chord,” Cory says, pointing a finger straight at his forehead. That asshole.
Chord pushes his hand away again. “I don’t have a baby face,” he repeats, feeling indignantly stubborn. Maybe it’s because ‘baby face’ isn’t exactly a compliment. Who wants to look like a toddler?
“You kind of do.” Darren gives a little apologetic shrug. “That’s a good thing, though, right? Your career’s guaranteed to last longer.” He pauses thoughtfully. “People used to tell me I had a baby face, but then I grew a beard.”
“I can’t grow a beard,” Chord admits, and both Darren and Cory burst out laughing. “Shut up. Shut up! It’s genetics, man. Don’t knock my DNA.”
“I wouldn’t knock your DNA,” Darren says, giving him an exaggerated once-over. He winks. “You have good DNA.”
Chord snorts and stares into his now-empty cup. “I need a refill,” he says, though he probably doesn’t; he already feels a little warm under his sweater.
But Darren holds up the eggnog like his life depends on this duty. “I’m on it,” he says, and he bustles over to the bowl in the opposite corner of the room, snagging a bottle of rum as he goes.
Cory takes another drink. “Nice sweater,” he comments casually, poking Rudolph’s face. “Is his nose detachable?”
They have three days straight of filming with little downtime in between, but instead of feeling exhausted at the crux of day three, Chord is weirdly energetic. He’s wired. He feels like he could run a marathon, and he can tell, just by looking at the others, that everyone else feels the same way. Maybe it’s because they’re nailing scenes in a way that they haven’t really done before. Maybe it’s because even Ryan is joking around in between takes. Or maybe it’s just because they have a break from filming after this, five whole days to do absolutely whatever they want.
“I think I’m gonna go surfing,” Harry says, dropping down next to Chord with some fruit and a water bottle. “I’m pretty sure I could do with an entire weekend of being a beach bum.”
“Yeah, that does sound good,” Chord says, stretching his legs out and rolling his shoulders. “But I kind of want to do something.”
“Yeah.” Harry takes a bite out of his apple and then calls across the room, “Yo, D. Criss, what are you doing this weekend?”
Darren’s face all but lights up. He has that way about him, always looking excited about even the most inane questions. He jogs over to the pair of them and says, all eager, “Coachella, man! My brother’s band is playing, but I wanna stay for everything. What about you guys?”
Harry’s looking at Chord. “We’re not sure,” he says, but there’s a glint in his eyes, and Chord’s pretty sure he knows what he’s thinking.
Darren doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even act like he’s going to; he doesn’t play that game that most dudes play, where blatantly showing enthusiasm is a weakness. Chord’s noticed that he does a lot of things that most dudes don’t do. “Come with me! Seriously, come with me. I can get you guys tickets. We could ride out there together. You guys can even share my tent.”
Chord considers. Out of all viable options for the weekend, hanging out with Darren Criss had never really been one of them. It’s not the worst idea in the world. It’s just that Darren is not his favorite person. Darren’s not even his favorite castmate, if he’s being honest. He’s different. Chord feels like he has to watch what he’s saying around him more than, say, Cory or Mark. He feels like he has to work at their interactions, which is weird. He hasn’t felt like he had to work for someone to like him since the girl he was in love with when he was sixteen, and he’d never wanted to repeat that.
“I’m in,” Harry says, shaking him out of his thoughts, and then he reaches over and slaps Chord’s thigh. “You?”
So that’s how Chord ends up riding shotgun towards Indio, California, the windows down, the music cranked up. It’s three o’clock in the morning and there’s hardly anyone on the road. Darren’s in the backseat drumming on the headrests and generally spazzing the fuck out, and Chord has to admit, it’s kind of infectious. Harry’s got one hand on the wheel and the other sifting wind through his fingers, belting out the lyrics to an Oasis song. Chord’s bobbing his head and trying not to grin too widely, because it seems sort of lame to be excited about something that hasn’t even happened yet.
“I love this!” Darren yells over the music. Uninhibited as always.
“Love what?” Harry yells back.
“This! Everything! Roadtrips, Oasis, the California coast at night…”
Chord smirks. Even though right now, and right now only, he actually agrees with Darren, he can’t resist the urge to make fun of him. “And the stars,” he yells, putting his hand over his heart and pretending to flick away a tear. “And the moon!”
Harry jumps in right away, without missing a single beat. “And the construction workers that built this highway!”
“And my mom for giving birth to me!” Chord calls back.
“And this water bottle!”
“And these socks!”
“And that semitruck we passed twenty miles ago!”
From the backseat, Darren cracks up. Chord has to hand it to him; he knows how to take a joke. He wraps one arm around the both of them, careful placement on Harry’s shoulder, slung unabashedly over Chord’s, and he joins in himself, craning his face towards the roof of the car and yelling, “And you guys!” and even though it’s supposed to be funny, even though they’re all kidding around, it feels real. It feels real and Chord feels it too: a complete companionship between these two other guys, a total sense of camaraderie. He feels happy, right down to the pit of his stomach, and he can’t remember the last time he was this happy about something so simple. It’s good. It’s really good.
“And you guys,” Darren repeats, softer this time, giving them each a little squeeze before letting go, and none of them say anything along the expanse of highway for the next ten miles, just listen contently as Wonderwall fills the car.
When they arrive at their destination it’s still ass-o’clock, but Darren nearly trips over himself scrambling out of the car, and Harry and Chord are quick to follow. There’s already a mass of people standing around, half-naked, nursing bottles of beers and waters, talking music and complaining about being awake at the buttcrack of dawn. Darren and Harry fit right in, meld in with the crowd almost effortlessly, but Chord feels a little like an outsider. He feels a lot like an outsider when Darren strips his shirt off and lets out a noise that’s probably only half-human, half-ape, and then digs in his backpack and rummages around for what appears to be a set of body paints.
“Do me,” he says, thrusting them towards Chord.
Chord stares at him.
“Excuse me?”
“I need somebody to do me! Don’t worry, I have enough for you guys, too.”
Chord shakes his head. He’s shaking his head without even realizing he’s shaking his head; the impulse to say no to things he’s never done before is instinctual, something he’s done since he was a child. No, he doesn’t want to try raw octopus. No, he doesn’t want to go to a drag show. And no, he definitely doesn’t want to paint his body in bright colors where everybody and their mother can see him.
Darren huffs out an exasperated breath and rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says, “you don’t have to wear them. At least do my back, will you?”
And Chord can’t really find a reason to say no to that, so he takes the paint and a sponge from Darren and Darren turns around, tilts his neck forward, exposing his back to both the rising sun and Chord’s jurisdiction.
“What, like, am I supposed to paint?” he asks, feeling clumsy and bewildered. Not a good combination.
“Anything. Random designs. Rainbows. Splotches of color. Whatever.”
Chord’s definitely not painting a rainbow onto Darren’s back. He glances around at everyone else for inspiration-one guy’s painted head to toe in bright green paint, and Chord can’t help but think that’s going to be mighty uncomfortable five hours from now-and then dips the sponge into the jar of sky blue. “You can’t blame me if it sucks,” he says, just as a disclaimer, and then he timidly presses the sponge against Darren’s skin.
Darren, in turn, shivers, and then laughs at himself for doing so. “It’s cold. And you don’t have to treat me like I’m a Picasso painting, Chord. Just go for it.”
Chord’s not really a just go for it kind of guy, though, so he hesitates for a second and then draws a line. And then another line. And then he switches colors and draws another line in red. He makes a V shape along Darren’s back, but it still looks pretty plain, so he adds a splash of color below his right shoulderblade, and then some more lines just above his waist. “There,” he says, oddly proud of his work. “All done.”
Trying to see for himself, Darren cranes his neck over his shoulder and turns in a circle, and he looks so much like a dog chasing his own tail that Chord has to snort. Darren must realize he looks pretty stupid because he gives that up and laughs shortly after. “I’ll just trust you, I guess. Now give me that, I need to do my front.”
Chord passes the paints over and heads off towards the rows of tents, the people who’ve been camping out for days.
“Hey, where are you going?” Darren calls at his back.
He doesn’t even pause. “I’m gonna bum a beer off someone. Let’s hope someone here watches Glee.”
“If they don’t, just take your shirt off. I’m sure you’ll get the same results.”
Chord rolls his eyes-it’s not a bad strategy, though; there’s a group of girls around a plastic cooler that’ve been eyeing him since he stepped out of the car, and he turns the charm on full blast, because he’s pretty sure he’s going to need some alcohol in his system to make it through the day.
Darren bounds up towards him around noon, and it’s been over three hours since they separated, but he looks as perky and refreshed as ever. “This is awesome, isn’t it?” he says happily, and Chord can smell the faint trace of beer on his breath. “So many good bands. Hey, how does my body look?”
Chord looks at him and shrugs. “About the same as ever?”
“Take a picture for me! I want to send it to some people.” Darren pushes his phone into Chord’s hands-he’s always doing that, handing things over without giving Chord the chance to say no first. Chord has an iPhone himself so he knows how to handle it, knows how the camera works, but he still feels a little weird taking a picturing of a half-naked Darren Criss in the middle of the day.
He does it anyway, though.
Harry’s hovering around, loops an arm around Chord’s shoulders when he’s finished and gives him a little shake. “I didn’t know we were having a photoshoot, I would’ve worn something a little nicer.”
“No need,” Darren says, and then he takes a picture of the two of them. He flashes a big, toothy grin. “You look great. Okay, Chord, your turn. Pose.”
If Darren was told to pose, he probably would’ve done something outrageous and ridiculous. Like a somersault in midair. Chord just adjusts the ballcap on his head and throws his hands out to his sides.
Darren’s smile softens a little bit, and he snaps the picture and tucks the phone back into his pocket. “Very nice,” he says, and he pats Chord on the arm. “Hey, I’m gonna go hang out with my brother for a bit. Wanna come?”
Meet the family already? Chord wants to joke, but doesn’t. Even if he currently feels warmer towards Darren than he ever has, he still doesn’t think they’re those kind of friends.
“Nah, I’m good. I’m gonna see who’s playing.”
“Okay, cool. Meet up with you later?”
“Yeah, definitely. You’ve got my number.” Chord can’t help it; he grins. “If I remember correctly, you stole it from Chris.”
Darren just shrugs innocently. “Not my finest moment, I’ll admit. Okay. I’ll see you later.”
And then he’s off, darting through the crowd, weaving through groups of unashamed hipsters, looking just like he was born to belong.
They don’t reconvene until nighttime. By that point, Chord’s lost track of how many beers he’s had. He just drinks them as they’re handed to him; it’s been a long time since he’s been properly drunk, and he almost forgot how good a buzz feels. A buzz feels even better when there’s good music, and good food, and good people-some girls were a little grabby earlier, but otherwise no one’s even called him Sam all day.
Darren brought a tent along. Chord thinks that’s kind of stupid, when they have enough money and enough notoriety to get any hotel suite they could want, but he insists that it’s part of the experience, that they have to do it. That otherwise they’ll just be posers.
(Chord already feels like a poser. The first ten concerts he ever went to were country-the people here look as though they’ve never even heard of Garth Brooks.)
Chord’s feeling nice and amiable as he makes his way back to the tent, though. He’s got a fresh beer in hand, miraculously still cold, and he sits spread-legged just outside the flaps as he waits for Darren and Harry to return, because it feels a little too weird to sit inside the tent by himself. He chats with the neighbors; they talk like they’re old friends, all “how’s the landscaping over there?” and “you guys have enough pillows?” He decides, maybe a little drunkenly, that this is one of the best days he’s ever had. And he was asked to be there. He was wanted. He doesn’t feel like he’s sitting in the warm glow of Darren Criss’s limelight.
And that is a pretty cool feeling.
Darren finally stumbles back a short while after midnight. By this point, he’s lost not only his shirt but one of his sandals too. And his face is red and he’s laughing, and maybe he’s drunk, or maybe he’s just happy. Chord’s not sure he knows the difference.
“Hey!” he says, collapsing on the ground next to Chord. He presses the crown of his head against Chord’s leg, sort of bent over at his waist, limbs flopping to the grass. “Harry met someone. Harry met a girl. Harry will not be back to the tent tonight.”
Chord laughs. “Good for Harry.”
“Yeah,” Darren agrees, looking both thoughtful and fuzzy-brained. “Good for Harry. Coachella, my friend, is all about love.”
“If that’s true, then why are we both sitting here?” Chord asks, taking another sip of his beer. There had been a lot of cute girls today. A lot of them. A handful of which had invited him back to their various tents-but here he was. Alone. With Darren.
Darren looks at him very seriously. “Because we,” he says, “are virtuous young men.”
Chord cracks up so abruptly that he knocks over his can. He doesn’t bother picking it up; it was probably well past time for him to quit drinking, anyway.
“I’m serious!” Darren insists, but then he starts laughing too. He headbutts Chord’s leg playfully. “You are, anyway. You’re a good Southern boy. The jury’s still out on me.”
“I’m going to bed,” Chord says, shaking his head. He’s pretty sure they’ll be woken up in five-point-two hours by rowdy drunkass strangers, and he wants at least a little beauty rest before that happens. “Can I borrow your toothpaste?”
“Sure. Front pocket of my backpack. I’m gonna have another beer.”
Chord can hear Darren chat with the guys in the next tent over as he brushes his teeth and rinses his mouth out with a water bottle he steals from Harry’s bag, and he pokes his head out of the tent to spit and Darren stops talking and looks at him, just looks at him, and grins. Chord wipes the foam off his mouth and grins back, calls goodnight to the neighbors, and then crawls back inside. It’s too hot to even consider climbing into his sleeping bag, so instead he lays on top of it, laces his fingers behind his head, stares at the canvas ceiling of the tent. He’s always been an outdoors guy, loves camping, loves sleeping outside, but this is different. In a good way. He doesn’t feel like he’s out amongst nature. He feels like he’s out amongst friends.
Darren comes back in a few minutes later, zips the tent up behind him. He acts like he’s trying to keep silent, but he knocks over his backpack, and then he apparently fumbles into his sleeping bag, because he lets out a soft “shit,” followed by a laugh. After a moment of struggling he quiets down. Chord can hear him breathing.
“Hey, Chord? You awake, buddy?”
Chord turns over. It’s dark inside the tent, but he can just make out Darren’s form, only a few inches away. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“Are you drunk?”
A pause. Chord considers-considers his head, his stomach, the way his lips feel pleasantly tingly. “A little, yeah.”
“Me too.”
He doesn’t really know what to say to that other than “hmm,” so he scratches his chest through his tshirt and lays there, wishing he’d brought a more comfortable pair of shorts to sleep in.
“I’m glad you came,” Darren says, because he’s apparently not done, and he sounds so stinking earnest. “I think you’re a great guy. Can I be honest? For awhile there, I didn’t think you really liked me.”
Chord licks his lips sort of nervously. “Can I be honest?’ he says in reply, because Chord Overstreet is a lot of things, but he’s not a fake. “For awhile there, I didn’t like you.”
Anyone else probably would’ve been insulted, definitely would’ve asked why. Darren, though, he just turns over on his side, props his head up with his elbow, and says, “But you do now?”
That’s a loaded question. This weekend? Yeah, Chord likes Darren this weekend-he likes him for bringing him out here, for asking him to come, for sharing his one and only pack of pretzels because Chord had forgotten to bring a snack for himself. Chord even likes Darren right now, in this tent, a little drunk, but sleeping with his ass pressed against the side of the canvas to give Chord more room. But overall? Chord takes a moment to think.
“Yeah,” he says finally, nodding into the darkness. “Yeah, I do.”
Because it’s impossible not to.
That’s the sad truth of the statement: Darren Criss, that asshole, is impossible to dislike.
“Good.” Darren claps him lightly on the shoulder; instead of pulling away immediately, though, his hand rests there, his palm flat against the fabric of his shirt. Chord grins for no real reason whatsoever, and then he remembers that it’s probably weird to grin about nothing, so he stops grinning and subtly shakes Darren’s hand away.
“Night Chord,” Darren murmurs, burying his face into his arms. Somehow, he falls asleep almost instantaneously, taking steady breaths in through his nose, out through his mouth, and Chord rolls onto his back and counts his breaths, letting the sound of Darren sleeping lull himself to sleep.
Chord doesn’t know what time it is. It’s still dark, near pitch black inside the tent, and he’s still on top of his sleeping bag, but it’s both cooler and warmer than it was when he first went to sleep. Cooler because the temperature has dropped. Warmer because there’s a body pressed against his from behind.
He freezes. It takes him a long moment to remember where he is, how he ended up here. Darren’s still asleep, blowing tiny puffs of air against the sensitive skin of his neck. He must’ve rolled over in his sleep, and he’s got his hand splayed against Chord’s back, his toes pressed up against his ankle. This, Chord thinks, is definitely not normal.
It feels kind of-kind of good in the way that curling up against someone always does, but it’s Darren. Who is a dude. Who is a shirtless dude covered in rainbow-colored paints, who has had a few too many beers before bed. Chord swallows thickly and gives his shoulder a little shake. Darren doesn’t budge.
“Darren,” he whispers, but it comes out a little rough, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Darren. Dude.”
A second later Darren blinks awake, squinting into the darkness. He looks as confused as Chord feels. And then he apparently realizes how close they are, how his own sleeping bag is three feet to the left, and he slowly pulls his toes away, stops touching Chord’s back. “Sorry,” he whispers, rubbing his eyes. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s cool. Seriously, it’s cool.”
Darren’s still looking at him, in a weird way. Like he’s never really seen him before. Without saying another word, he scoots back again, putting a good amount of space between them. He licks his lips. “Sorry,” he repeats.
What Chord doesn’t say is that he kind of wishes they would’ve gone for the hotel room, that this never would’ve happened there. That he should’ve stopped drinking long before sundown because he still feels a little drunk.
What he does say is, “No, man, it’s cool.”
Apparently cool is the only word in his vocabulary right now.
Chord wants to go back to sleep, but his brain’s working too fast and his mouth is way too dry. He sits up, purposely not looking at Darren, and rummages around in the dark for Harry’s water bottle. A cold chill runs along his spine that has nothing to do with the dropping temperature, and he takes a swig and then pours some water into his hand to splash against his face. When he’s done, and he can’t find any other excuses to stay up, he climbs back on top of his sleeping bag, staring at the wall of the tent, away from Darren. It’s silent between them, but Chord can hear Darren’s irregular breathing, which is how he knows that he’s not the only one awake.
A minute later, Chord hears the quiet rustle of nylon, and then faintly, so faint he’s half-convinced he’s imagining it, Darren’s pressing his hand against Chord’s shoulder again, his fingers curling around his bicep. Tentatively, like he’s waiting to be shaken off.
Chord should shake him off, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know what Darren’s doing, but when he turns his head over his neck to look, Darren’s sitting up a little, and moving forward, and he’s still looking at him in that strange, serious way, and then his hand is moving lower, gliding across the sleeve of his tshirt, and then touching the bare skin of his arm, and then stopping short just above his elbow.
Chord’s breath hitches in his throat.
He could put a stop this, he knows he could, but he doesn’t. It’s maybe the beer or the atmosphere or Darren’s fingernails trailing across the crook of his elbow, but whatever it is, it impairs Chord’s thinking. It makes everything fuzzy around the edges.
And then Darren’s leaning in.
He doesn’t kiss him. Chord’s terrified that he’s going to kiss him, but he doesn’t do it. Instead he presses up against him, chest to back, shin to calf, and then Chord can feel his warm breath against his ear, and he feels like he’s shaking a little, but he isn’t. His insides are shaking which shouldn’t even make sense, but then-none of this makes sense. Darren props his chin against Chord’s shoulder and he whispers, low, “Is this okay?”
No Chord wants to say, but that’d be lying. So he lets out a little noise that’s more yes than no, that’s more go ahead than stop, that maybe makes it look like Chord has a single fucking clue of what he’s doing.
Darren’s lips press against the back of Chord’s neck and Chord’s heart is racing, so fast he thinks he can feel it lodging up in his throat, and Darren’s hand drops down to his chest, and he rubs at it lightly through his shirt, and they just lay like that for a minute, Darren’s fingers dragging slowly across his stomach, pressing closed-mouthed kisses against the patch of skin where his shoulder meets his neck. Darren’s hand dips lower and Chord holds his breath, because he’s half-hard already, and he can’t screw his eyes shut and will it away because screwing his eyes shut just enhances his other senses, namely his sense of touch, his sense of Darren’s fingers dipping into the waistband of his shorts.
Chord’s hips rise to meet Darren’s hand without his brain’s approval. Darren’s hand is steady, confident, like he knows what he’s doing. He reaches into Chord’s boxers, wraps his hand around him, and Chord’s breath catches and everything goes strangely warm. He’s been so busy working lately that he hasn’t had a decent handjob in forever, and he really hadn’t thought the one to break his streak would be here of all places, now of all times, with Darren Criss. Of all people.
And Darren’s good at this too, a little sloppy but almost perfectly sloppy, like maybe he’s had a little practice, or maybe he hasn’t and he’s just eager. His free hand pushes Chord’s shirt up mid-chest and his knee urges Chord’s legs apart, and tents are most definitely not soundproof and the guys next door are still partying on so Chord takes careful measures not to moan out loud, bites down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, breathes out sharply when Darren flicks his wrist in a way that Chord once thought only girls knew how to do, like it was innate for them or something.
He’s not going to last long-and he starts to tell Darren so, because it’s common courtesy and all that, but Darren cuts him off before he can even get through hey, I’m- and he scrapes his teeth against Chord’s neck, bites down a little before sucking hard against his skin, quickening the pace of his hand, steady, consistent strokes, and Chord can’t help it: a quiet groan escapes from the back of his throat, and he sort of shifts forward against Darren’s fingers before he comes, all limbless and spent right after, Darren chuckling softly against his back and withdrawing his hand from his shorts.
Chord tries to focus on getting his breathing to return to normal, and not the fact that he’d just fooled around with a guy that a week ago he hadn’t even really liked.
When he glances over his shoulder, Darren’s half-sitting up, wiping his hand off on a spare napkin, and Chord wonders vaguely if he’s supposed to volunteer to return the favor. He’s not going to. He is most definitely not going to.
Darren catches him looking, though, and grins. Even in the dark Chord can see his expression, and he feels a sudden well of anger because he looks-he looks smug or something, or maybe just pleased, but either way, he should know that there’s nothing to grin about right now.
“How much more clichéd could we be?” Darren says quietly, but even still it sounds like his voice is carrying, like everyone in a fifty mile radius is going to be able to hear him, and Chord winces slightly. “I mean, a tent at night-talk about Brokeback Mountain ripoffs.”
Chord’s insides turn to ice. He hadn’t seen Brokeback Mountain. In fact, he and his friends back home had spent an inordinate amount of time making fun of Brokeback Mountain, because the simple truth of the matter was that it was-well, it was gay.
He doesn’t say anything. Even in the afterglow of an orgasm he still feels pretty shitty, and he doesn’t trust himself with words right now. He doesn’t want to think about this. He doesn’t want to process it. Instead, he adjusts himself inside his shorts, curls back up on top of his sleeping bag, and hopes to God he falls asleep before Darren tries to talk to him-or touch him-again.
He rises with the sun. The tent has a little mesh window that they’d forgotten to zip shut last night, and Chord blinks awake when a beam of light hits him straight across his face. For a moment, and just a moment, he’s happy. It’s warm and he doesn’t have to be at work and his body feels strangely good-and then he remembers. He remembers why he feels good, and when he rolls over, Darren’s still fast asleep, a smeared stripe of red paint running carelessly over his eye and into his messy, curly hairline. The nausea hits fast and unexpectedly, and Chord stumbles out of his sleeping bag and out of the tent as quietly as he can, and he bends over at a tree and retches a little, but he doesn’t actually throw up.
Only a few people are up and about this morning, because it’s not the first day of Coachella and therefore not nearly as exciting, and there are shower stalls set up at the opposite side of camp that few dudes seem to be taking advantage of. Chord reaches one-handedly back into the tent and grabs his backpack, then hightails it over. He sincerely hopes to God that there are no paparazzi lurking inside, because the last thing he needs right now is a picture of his bare ass to leak online.
Inside, he turns the water up as hot as he can stand it, and then he stands under the stream and lets it pound against his body until his skin feels raw. He only thinks about physical, tangible things. The slight ache in his chest. The splotch of green paint on his hip. (How’d that get there?-and then, oh.) The vague chattering of the guys right outside.
When he feels clean-clean enough, anyway-he turns the shower off and pulls on fresh clothes, clean boxers, and then he stops in front of one of the dingy mirrors to mess with his hair, and that’s when he sees it. The side of his neck. A fresh bruise. Mouth-shaped.
Darren had given him a fucking hickey.
He feels a little sick again and turns away, letting his hair go wild because that doesn’t even matter anymore, and he grabs his shit and leaves the shower stall. Except that once outside he doesn’t know where to go.
There’s a group of girls heading into the women’s showers, not fifty feet away, and they’ve got little bags with them, probably their hairspray or their eyeliner or whatever it is women lug around all day. Chord makes a snap decision; he takes in a big, calming breath and then approaches them, clearing his throat.
“Excuse me,” he says to one girl in particular-she’s around the same age as him, and pretty, and she’s got a really nice smile. She stops and looks at him and her jaw drops open a little, but she catches herself in time. “I’m Chord-”
“I know who you are,” she says, and giggles. “I’m Jess.”
“Hi.”
The other girls disappear into the bathroom and then it’s just the two of them. He works up the balls, because this, he thinks, is better than the alternative. “Okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but I was wondering if you could-if you might be able to-” He turns his head to the side and gestures vaguely at the hickey. She smiles her nice smile.
“Not a problem,” she says, without asking for further explanation, and Chord is immeasurably grateful. “Just let me grab some concealer. I’ll be right back.”
The concealer run takes all of five seconds; in no time flat she’s back, cupping his face in her hands and then tipping his head backwards for easier access to his neck. “This might rub off easily,” she says, poking her tongue into her cheek as she dabs the makeup on the spot. “Or you might sweat it off, since it’s so hot outside. Who are you trying to hide this from, anyway?”
Chord grimaces a little. “The world.”
“Fair enough.”
She blends it in carefully, and then hands him a compact mirror to check for himself. He tilts it up and glances at his reflection. He can’t even see the hickey, so that’s good. Better than good. “God, you’re a lifesaver,” he says, handing the mirror back. “Seriously, thank you so much.”
“No problem. We’ve all been there.” She grins at him once more then jerks a thumb towards the stalls. “I should go get ready, though. Good luck with the you-know-what on your you-know-where.”
He laughs, and it feels so fucking good to laugh. This morning it’d almost felt like he’d lost the muscle that allowed it. “Thanks again. Maybe I’ll see you around?”
“Maybe you won’t,” Jess teases, and then she shrugs. “It’s Coachella. There are a lot of people out there. Bye, Chord.”
“Bye,” he echoes back, but she’s already gone.
Chord marches back across the field in the direction of their tent, but he takes a fork about halfway there and walks aimlessly to the left. And then aimlessly to the right. And then aimlessly straight ahead. He has no idea what to do, where to go, and the only thing he’s sure of is that he’s going to be avoiding Darren for the rest of the day at all possible costs.
He finds Harry around ten. The girl he’d assumedly ditched them for overnight is nowhere to be seen, but he does seem extra jovial today, and his hair is a little crazy. “Chordo!” he shouts, draping an arm around his shoulders. Chord’s stomach knots, but Harry doesn’t say anything about the hickey or ask if on the off chance he might’ve possibly gotten a handjob from Darren Criss last night, so he’s relieved. “What’s going on, dude? Mark’s here. Cory too, I think, but I haven’t seen him yet. Have you eaten? Want to split some pizza with me? Where’s Darren?”
Chord sets his jaw firmly. “Pizza sounds good,” he says, shaking Harry’s arm off and ignoring the last question in the set. “I’ll text Mark, see if wants to join us.”
Incidentally, Mark does want to join them-he’s usually good for anything that involves food. He’s also taking off early today, has a night gig in LA for some advertising agency or another, and he invites the guys to hitch a ride back with him. Chord immediately accepts.
He doesn’t want to, but he figures he owes it to Darren to at least send him a text and let him know, so even though he puts it off as long as possible, he finally digs his phone out of his pocket once he’s riding shotgun in Mark’s old car. I’m riding back to LA w/ Mark, he writes, and his thumb hesitates over the send button for a long time before he bites the bullet and does it.
Darren texts back within two minutes. oh, okay… i'll see you around then?
Chord doesn’t answer. He doesn’t feel the need to.
(When Marks asks him halfway there if he’s feeling alright, “cause you’re freaking me out with the Rain Man stare, dude,” Chord just sort grunts and goes back to gazing out the window. He imagines himself trying to explain this to Mark, trying to find the words to make this sound anything less than absolutely ridiculous, but it’s impossible. It’s not going to happen. And that-that thing, that thing that happened, that will most definitely never happen again. Ever.)
“Who the hell attacked your neck with their fangs?” his sister demands first thing, and Chord groans and covers it with his hand, because it wasn’t like he had concealer lying around his apartment to hide it for himself. He knew she’d give him a hard time about it, but who else could he have gone to? Lea? Heather? Right, like they wouldn’t have wanted the whole story, like they wouldn’t have been annoyingly persistent about narrowing the culprit down.
“Just someone,” Chord murmurs, sliding in through her front door. “Are you going to help me or not?”
part two.
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