fic: exactly where we belong (chord/darren, r) (2/4)

[lifescript]

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.)



He manages to avoid seeing or talking to Darren for an entire six days, which is a pretty impressive feat, considering. Chord spent the rest of his mini-vacation hiding out in his apartment, not showering, eating very little, and playing entirely too much Halo. When shooting restarts, Darren’s back at the Dalton set, so it’s pretty easy to stay out of his way. Not to mention the five texts and two phone calls he ignores.

But his luck can’t carry him through forever. Just around sunset on a Thursday, when he’s already stripped off his shirt and picked up a takeout menu, browsing for something quick and easy he can stomach, someone knocks at his door. He doesn’t get a lot of visitors, but sometimes his siblings do drop by unannounced, so he doesn’t really think about it as he meanders over and opens the door.

It takes him a minute to register what he’s seeing. Darren Criss is standing on his doorstep, holding a cardboard box of pizza.

“Hey,” Darren says, all bright and friendly and not as if Chord had been disregarding his existence for almost the past week. “Have you eaten? I picked this up at Donny’s Pizzeria along the way, I hear they’re really good. Donny was nice, anyway. He was the one taking money, can you believe that? Although-” A thoughtful pause, and then a look of dawning comprehension hits his face, and it’s almost comical, almost funny, except Chord’s tongue feels too big for his mouth and he can’t speak, let alone laugh. “-I guess it’s possible there’s more than one guy named Donny that works there. It’s not exactly an uncommon name. It’s not like going through a drive-through and a guy named Arby takes your order.”

He stops and takes a breath. Chord still hasn’t said a word.

“I’m sorry, I’m talking a lot. I know I am. I just-I rehearsed what I was going to say on the way over, but as soon as you opened the door I sort of forgot everything, and-can I come inside?”

Chord’s half-tempted to close the door in his face, but his mother taught him better than that, and so, his feet feeling strangely heavy, he moves aside and lets Darren through.

“Thanks,” Darren says, and he sets the pizza down on the coffee table in the living room and then turns to look at Chord. “I hope you like mushrooms. Hey, so, we should talk.”

Straight to the point. Chord stares at him. He really wishes he’d put on a shirt; he sort of crosses his arms over his chest and he doesn’t want to talk about this, can’t Darren tell? He’s done all he could to not even think about it and then Darren shows up at his apartment and brings it up like it was nothing.

Chord swallows the lump in his throat. “I’m not gay,” he says, which is the most precise summation he can come up with, the thing that’s been on the tip of his tongue for six days straight.

And then he can’t even believe it. Darren laughs.

“Cool,” he says, as if Chord had just mentioned his favorite color was green, or that he had a pension for wearing shoes without socks. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? Because I kind of already knew that.”

Chord goes back to staring at him. If he knew, then why-he’d been mentally preparing excuses for days, anything that could explain why he reacted the way he did, why he hadn’t immediately shoved Darren away: the alcohol, the darkness, the fact that he’d been more than half-asleep.

But Darren, of course, was as ready to accept the simple explanation as ever. No clarification needed.

“Look,” Darren says, and he takes a step towards Chord.

Chord, in return, takes a big step away.

Darren pretends not to notice. “I’m not either. Not… not exclusively anyway, you know? You don’t have to be one thing or another. We’re just people. And we’d drank and we were stressed out from work, and I wanted to do it, and I felt like-like maybe you’d been giving me a signal that you wanted me to do it too.” Chord opens his mouth to argue, but Darren’s quick to jump back in. “Or maybe you weren’t! I misinterpret stuff sometimes, I know I do. And if you tell me to back off, I will. Or if you tell me-” He catches the way Chord’s looking at him and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. Backing off. I’ll never bring it up again if that’s what you want. The ball’s entirely in your court. But I hope we’re still cool, man, because I like hanging out with you.”

A silence hangs between them. Darren’s apparently done with his spiel, and Chord sits down heavily on the couch because he feels like his legs might give out.

“The not bringing it up thing,” Chord says, and his voice is rough, like he hadn’t properly used it in a few days. (Weird how easy it was to go without social interaction. Weird how two weeks ago he hated spending more than a single night alone.) “Let’s… yeah, let’s go with that. And the… the, you know, no repeat incidents.”

Darren holds up his left hand, like he’s taking an oath. “I solemnly swear to keep my hands to myself,” he says seriously, and then allows himself the shadow of a grin. He looks at Chord half-doubtfully, almost as if he’s afraid to get his hopes up. “Are we cool?”

Chord has about three thousand reasons to say no, but they all sound pretty stupid in his head. “Yeah,” he says finally, and Darren bumps his fist, practically melting with relief. “We’re cool.”

“Sweet.” Darren drops down beside him on the couch, his own cushion, keeps his distance, but not in a weird, noticeable way. Just two dudes sharing a sofa.

“Now,” Darren says, “what do you say we bust out this pizza and I’ll kick your ass in Halo?”

Chord laughs quietly and flips open the lid. “You wish,” he says, and it’s almost like things are back to normal, like nothing ever happened.

The last month of filming passes by entirely too quickly. Chord spends a lot of time hanging out with his castmates-all of them. There are no Others. There are no divides. They’re a family, simple as that. The last few days are totally bittersweet. On one hand, they’re proud of how much work they’ve done, of how far they’ve gotten, what they’ve accomplished. They’re ready for tour, ready to travel the country, new cities every night. But they have to say a temporary goodbye to a lot of awesome crewmembers (Chord knows them all by name, now, and he has no problems approaching them on set) and things will be different on the road than they were in their little Glee bubble in LA. There’s no doubt about that.

Mark and Cory drop by on the last night of shooting with two twelve-packs of beer, and they go through them pretty quickly, talking shit and playing Xbox and stuffing their faces with pretzels and potato chips.

“I’m so ready to hit the road,” Mark says, blowing some dude to smithereens on screen. “Especially when we get to Europe. That’ll be so badass.”

“I didn’t even know people in Europe knew what Glee was,” Cory says, hitting his controller repeatedly. He’s pretty terrible at this game, but not for lack of trying.

The other guys look at him.

“What?” he says defensively, shrugging their gazes away. “I don’t even know any Canadians who watch Glee.”

“That’s because you hang out with the redneck Canadians,” Mark shoots back. “Do you even know anyone up there that owns a TV?”

“Hey, bite me,” Cory says, but he doesn’t deny it.

Chord’s kicking both of their asses at this game. He won’t admit it, but it’s probably because of how much time he’d spent hoarding himself inside his apartment and doing nothing other than getting better at it. He’s not proud. “Do you think we’ll have enough time to go out after shows?” he asks, his tongue poking out in concentration. Mark and Cory, after all, are the seasoned veterans of the Glee Tour Experience. Chord’s just a rookie. “Or is it going to be all work?”

“Depends,” Mark tells him distractedly, scratching himself through his shorts. “On how long we have to get to the next city, or when we have shows, or whatever. You gotta make sure it doesn’t look like you’re a super partier or anything, though.”

“Man, I haven’t even partied in forever.”

“Yeah,” Cory says, “because you spend all your time hanging out with Darren.”

Chord’s spine stiffens. He was pretty sure he was spending an ordinary amount of time with Darren, no more, no less than the other dudes, now that he’d decided it wasn’t worth ignoring him. Since they haven’t even brought up-the incident since that day. He swallows thickly and keeps his gaze focused on the TV screen, because surely they don’t know. They’re just talking smack. Darren wouldn’t have told them. He wasn’t like that.

“What,” Chord says, when he can be sure his voice won’t tremble. “You jealous or something?”

“Of your sweet man-love?” Cory laughs. “You wish.”

“I’m jealous,” Mark throws in, flashing him a sideways smirk. “You know I have a thing for blonds.”

“Keep dreaming.” Chord can breathe a little easier now, now that he knows they’re joking. “Besides, Angelina Jolie and I have a thing going right now, and I’m a one-woman man.”

“One-woman boy,” Mark corrects him. “You ain’t a man yet, Overstreet. Have you even hit puberty?”

“I think he’s in the middle of it right now,” Cory supplies. “His voice totally cracked in the studio the other day.”

“Keep it up and soon you’ll have chest hair.”

“And don’t worry, just because your body’s changing doesn’t mean-”

Chord interrupts when he’s had enough, laughing, and he throws a pretzel at each of them, hitting them both square in the face. “Fuck off,” he says. “You guys are just jealous because you’re pushing thirty. I’d be mad if I was getting winkles too.”

Mark presses pause on the videogame. He looks at Cory seriously. “Should we kill him?” he asks.

Cory nods. “Totally,” he agrees, and then all at once they’re tackling Chord from each side, pushing his face into the couch cushion, and Mark’s sitting on his head, and Cory’s twisting his arm behind his back, and they’re all cracking up, everything forgotten for as long as it takes them to get Chord to cry uncle.

The first night of tour, and Chord’s on the verge of peeing himself.

Not literally. He’s not going to pull a Fergie out there, because he likes to think he has better control of his bladder than that, and also, there’s plenty of time for bathroom breaks. But his palms are sweating. His stomach’s in knots. This, right here, is the kind of thing he’s been dreaming of his entire life. Playing in front of thousands of people. A sold-out arena. Screaming girls with his face on their shirts. His face. And thirteen of his best friends to back him up, to stop him from passing out on stage.

They’re all excited. Lea keeps running up and down the steps, like she’s calculating her path, making sure she doesn’t trip. Harry and Mark are doing sit-ups beneath the stage; Chord would probably join them if he didn’t think it’d make him sick.

Darren’s hair is so full of gel that it looks plastered to his head; paired with his ratty tshirt, he looks downright funny. Chord laughs when he walks in through the backstage door, his jacket thrown over one shoulder, his pressed pants dangling from a hanger.

“Shut up,” Darren says, but he’s grinning. “I haven’t gotten into costume yet. I’d like to see you try and sing and dance with this much crap in your hair.”

“I don’t have to,” Chord says, hand reaching up to prod at his frosted tips. “I’m going back to my roots.” He’d had a mishap at the hairdresser’s a few weeks ago, but his hair was now closer to its original color than it had been in months, and it was short, and well-kept. Nothing like the shaggy cut they’d made him keep for homeless Sam Evans, version 2.0.

Darren’s eyes follow his fingers, and they linger there for a second longer than necessary. “Looks good. Your hair, I mean. It suits you.”

Chord’s quiet for a moment. Just because they were back to normal-as normal as they could be-doesn’t mean he’s forgotten. Doesn’t mean the potential for weirdness is gone. Doesn’t mean it’s not pressing at the back of his mind every time he sees Darren, every time they’re in the same proximity.

He clears his throat.

“Thanks,” he says finally. “I’m counting on it to lure the ladies in.”

Darren laughs and punches him lightly in the shoulder. If Chord’s overcompensating, at least he’s willing to play along. “Lure ‘em in with the hair, keep ‘em dangling with the abs. Yeah, I don’t think you’re going to have any problems.”

“I’m thinking I should go for a girlfriend in every city. What do you think?”

“I think you better start saving money. And you better hope none of those 42 girlfriends happen to be friends with each other on Facebook.”

Chord’s stomach unknots itself. He’s grinning now too, a genuine grin. “So are you nervous?”

Darren’s eyebrows make impressive geometric shapes when they go all raised like that. Chord knows he’s not the only one that can’t help but watch them.

“Are you kidding? I almost projectile vomited all over a sound guy earlier.”

That makes Chord feel slightly better, too.

“I’m actually kind of hoping something goes wrong tonight. Just so we can get it out of the way.”

“Who-oa!” Darren actually looks scandalized. He picks up a handtowel from the vanity and throws it right at Chord’s face. Chord’s too surprised to block it in time, catlike reflexes be damned, and it smacks him in the forehead before falling to the floor. “Take your black magic and get out of here, Chord Overstreet. If I forget my words or, I don’t know, the stage bursts into flames tonight, I’m definitely blaming you.”

“You’d blame me for you forgetting your words? Besides, isn’t that kind of a guaranteed thing?”

Darren looks at him. His eyebrows haven’t made any descension yet.

“I’ve seen Youtube videos,” Chord shrugs, the back of his neck feeling strangely warm. “I’ve heard things.”

“Of course you’ve heard things. Who hasn’t heard things?”

Just then, Jenna and Kevin bustle through the door.

“We’re on in ten!” Jenna says excitedly, giving a little twirl before she reaches them. They too have the luxury of not wetting themselves, given that they’ve done this before. That they know how it goes. “Darren, you should probably get dressed. Chord, if you need makeup touches go find Susan.”

Chord glances in the mirror; his stage makeup looks pretty much the same as when it was applied, but he figures better safe than sorry. “Alright,” he says, “I’ll see you guys out there.”

Darren grabs his arm and then looks down, surprised, at his hand, like even he hadn’t known he was going to do that. He quickly lets go. “Good luck tonight, Chord,” he says, and his voice is warmer than usual, maybe driven lower with nerves or-or something else.

“Thanks,” he says back, and he knocks Kevin in the leg as he passes, because he needs some sense of normalcy. Needs to not let the fear creep back up into his windpipe two minutes before they make their debut.

Susan the makeup lady tuts at him when he drops down into her chair. “You’ve nearly sweated everything off,” she says, scolding, brandishing a sponge like a weapon.

But he just sits there, thoughtful and quiet.

“Well,” he says after a second, “can you blame me?”

The first show goes so smoothly that Chord halfway thinks he’s dreaming. That he’s going to wake up and it hasn’t actually happened yet, and then he’ll step on stage and trip over the mic stand, and he’ll accidentally elbow Dianna during Lucky, and then he’ll fall on his ass during the grand finale, and it’ll be on TMZ to boot. But no. He remembers all his words, and they’re all on fire, and they all feel freaking amazing once the house lights go down, when the screams and cheers follow them all the way backstage, and they’re hugging and laughing and laughing and hugging, and they’re glowing, all of them. It feels pretty damn good.

They go out for celebratory drinks, but not that many drinks, given that they have to wake up and do it all again tomorrow. The vets buy the rookies shots-Chord, Darren, and Ashley line up and simultaneously throw back kamikazes, and Darren laughs afterwards, and slings his arm around Chord’s shoulders, and Ashley plants a kiss on his cheek, and they tap their beers against the rest of them because they’re officially part of the group now, the group that Chord has felt like he’s belonged to for months.

They stay in amazing, too-expensive hotel suites that night. Chord has a queen size bed with a balcony that overlooks the entire city, and sheets with a threadcount of-well, Amber told him the threadcount, but he’s not even entirely sure what that means. Just that it’s good.

Even though his adrenaline is still pumping he forces himself under the blankets and into those ridiculously high-threadcounted sheets. He spends a long time replaying the events of the night in his head but eventually, eventually, he falls asleep. He dreams about a pair of warm hands reaching around him from behind, warm breath against his neck, quiet moans into his ear.

He wakes up with morning wood and blames it on the sheets.

They’re all jazzed about playing the Staples Center. Who wouldn’t be? It’s a huge arena and just in time; they’ve hit their stride, they know how to carefully and successfully tread between doing their jobs and having fun. They’ve started throwing little surprises into the choreography. Each night Chris goes down on his knees in front of Darren and comes up with something more ludicrous than the last. Chord doesn’t watch that part of the show, but Ashley gives him the update every night between sets.

The night before they’re sitting around the banquet hall and eating a complimentary dinner-one of the best parts about the tour, in Chord’s opinion, is the free food, because everyone’s dying to cater for them. Chord overfills his plate with mashed potatoes and chicken and green bean casserole, and then he doubles back and adds a little more. By the time he’s satisfied almost everyone else is seated, and he squeezes in between Amber and Jenna at one of the tables, making himself comfortable.

Lea’s giving an impassioned speech about animal rights or human rights or maybe she’s just talking about Animal Planet, but either way, Chord zones out as soon as he digs into his food. She gives a lot of impassioned speeches. He feels sort of bad about ignoring her, so he resolves to listen twice as hard next time. She already has an enraptured audience anyway. Darren especially keeps nodding his head and saying, “Yeah, yeah. I totally agreee. Completely.”

It’s all very been there, done that-ish. Chord gets tired of activism. Not being active, per se, but hearing about it. He works with a lot of passionate people.

He doesn’t even tune back into the conversation until Amber’s turning towards him and saying, “So, Chord. Are you excited?” and by then it’s too late; he has no idea what they’re talking about, and there’s no way for him to roundaboutly ask without sounding like a jerk.

So he swallows the chicken in his mouth and gives the table at large a sheepish look. “About what?”

Jenna laughs. They’re probably all too used to it now to be offended. “The show! Your parents are coming, right?”

“Oh! Oh, yeah, they are.” Chord blots at his mouth with a napkin. “And my brother and a few of my sisters. And some friends from back home, too.”

“What about you, Darren?” Lea says, with a secretive sort of smile. Chord raises an eyebrow. “Are you excited?”

Darren’s got a matching secret smile. Chord feels like he’s on the outside of a very private, very lame inside joke. “I am, Lea.”

“Of course you are.”

“Why so excited?” Amber asks, because no one else was going to, and it’s clear that’s what Lea wants. In fact, she immediately leans in and takes the reigns.

“Because his giiiirlfriend is coming.”

Chord chokes on a bite of mashed potatoes. He wants to blame it on the fact that they’d left the skins in, and not the weirdly inconvenient timing, but either way, he’s coughing up a storm and Jenna’s hammering him on the back until he can breathe normally, and they’re all staring at him with concerned expressions like maybe he’s on his deathbed or something.

Eventually the mashed potatoes unlodge themselves from his throat. (It’s really hard to get mashed potatoes lodged in your throat-he’s grateful that none of them point that out.)

Amber offers him a drink from her water bottle and then resets her sights on Darren. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” she says, and Chord’s secretly thankful that he’s not the only one.

Darren smiles. “I do.”

“How long have you guys been together?”

“About six months now.”

It’s a good thing Chord hadn’t taken another bite. In fact, he’s already sort of choking on air again, but this time he keeps it under wraps. Six months? Six months? It’s May, which means April was only a month ago, and April was when-was when-

“I have to go,” Chord says abruptly, before he empties his dinner all over the table in front of them. He doesn’t offer an explanation. He can’t even think of one. Instead, he grabs his plate and tosses it into the trashcan on the way out the door, except once he’s out there he’s not really sure where to go, so he just walks.

Six months.

It’s not easy to push that out of his mind, but he does the best he can. Distractions, however temporary, tend to help, and that night he stays in and Skypes every single person he has ever known since kindergarten. He doesn’t think about the fact that Darren had unwittingly forced him into being the-the Other Woman in this fucked up equation, that he’d helped someone cheat. Drunk or not, sleep-addled or not. He’s kind of pissed at Darren all over again, and it feels almost nice, having this fresh wave of anger with actual reason behind it.

A lot of them have friends and family coming to the show, so the next morning they open up one of the little rooms for them to reunite away from the fourteen-year-olds with their flashing cameras, and Chord rockets himself into his mom’s arms when he steps inside, and his whole family’s there, talking a mile a minute, suffocating him with hugs. He’s always been close with his family. Having them here, this collision of worlds, is surreal. But in the best way possible.

There’s a lot of introducing in the room, a lot of “oh, you must be”s and “I’ve heard so much about you!”s. Chord loses track of time, but he’s pretty sure the majority of them are in there for a good two hours, and it’s hard to pull himself away. Hard to push his parents out into the audience, to make sure they’re in their seats with no problems before the show starts. Eventually, though, they get there, with another round of hugs and kisses, and then Chord’s left alone.

When he steps out through the door and turns right down one of the corridors, he realizes that Darren’s family has also departed. But Darren hasn’t. And his girlfriend hasn’t.

Because who else could she be? She’s got long brown hair and beat-up Chucks, and Darren’s hands are splayed open-fingered against her back, and even though they’re in the corner of the hallway, half-shrouded in shadow, Chord can still see them clearly, can see the way Darren leans in and whispers in her ear, the way she laughs before she kisses him.

He immediately turns away.

He didn’t want to see this. Them. He shoves his hands deep inside his pockets and silently walks away before they can spot him, because he doesn’t want to meet her, doesn’t want Darren to play host and try to find something that they can all talk about. Really, though, what he’s walking away from is himself. Because even though he doesn’t want to admit it, even though he hates himself for it, he’d felt a flash of hot emotion when he’d watched her lean in and kiss him, and it wasn’t anger. It had nothing to do with being pissed off at Darren Criss, and everything to do with the reoccuring dream he’d had last night, with wondering for himself what it’d be like to push Darren up against the wall and kiss him breathless.

Chord stays with his family at a different hotel that night, because he was pretty sure that he had the sort of luck where he’d end up in the room next to Darren’s and the last thing he wants is to go to sleep to the noise of a bed banging up against the wall-not that he knows that’s what would happen, but because he’s pretty sure that if she’d flown to LA from New York she wasn’t going to go home unsatisfied. This means he has to wake up an hour earlier the next morning, take a quick shower, and then have his mom drop him off at their original hotel, where they’ve already begun boarding the bus for the short drive to the next show. The driver flicks an annoyed glance at him as he climbs on, because he’s the last one to arrive and he’s a few minutes late.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, head down, and then he throws his backpack in front and seeks out an empty seat. Everyone else is already sprawled out, limbs poking out into the aisle, iPod headphones tucked in their ears. He’d rather sit on the opposite side of the bus from Darren-so maybe he’s a five-year-old, but he’s still pissed, and he doesn’t really care-but there’s only one free seat near the front, and it’s right smack dab between Darren and Mark. Suppressing a scowl, he drops down on the cloth seat. Darren’s eyes are closed, so maybe he’ll just sleep the whole way there. Hopefully.

“Yo,” Mark says, leaning over and propping his chin up on the backrest. “How was family time?”

“They made me sleep on the floor,” Chord says, shaking his head. “Can you believe that? I was offering to pay for a second room, but they’re all no, no, save your money, you’re young, you can handle it…”

“Rough, dude. Should’ve stayed with us. Naya snuck a guy in. Amber and I prank called their room all night long.”

Chord laughs. “Did they answer?”

“The first twelve times or so, yeah. We pretended to be confused Japanese businessmen.”

“Terrible,” Chord says. “If I were there, we would’ve had room service sent up. Like, we could’ve asked just for chocolate syrup. And bananas.”

“And cucumbers,” Mark adds, “and whip cream.”

“And handcuffs. Do you think they carry those?”

Mark lifts his eyebrows at him. “I don’t know what kind of room service you’re used to, dude…”

All of a sudden Darren’s leaning forward over the seat, popping one of his earbuds out. “What are you guys talking about?” he asks with a curious grin, and Chord’s insides go a little icy, which is how he knows he’s still mad. He’s still mad and he doesn’t care, and all he wants is for Darren to go back to pretend-sleeping or whatever he was doing.

“Nothing,” Chord says, and he’s surprised at how clipped his voice sounds, how tight his jaw feels.

Darren gives him a look that’s almost-almost hurt, and Mark’s looking at him too because they both know Darren would be an excellent addition to this conversation, but Chord doesn’t care. If it’s petty, then fine, he’s petty. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever been.

“We were talking about ways to terrorize Naya,” Mark supplies for him, and then from the back of the bus comes, “Hey! I heard that!” so Mark laughs and lowers his voice. “Got any contributions?”

Darren looks intrigued. “Well,” he starts to say, but Chord cuts him off, fakes a big old giant yawn right in the middle of his sentence.

“I’m going to take a nap,” he announces, scrunching down in his seat and kicking his legs out into the aisle. “If you guys wouldn’t mind keeping your voices down…”

Now they’re both looking at him oddly, like there’s something wrong with him or something, but he doesn’t care. He squeezes his eyes shut and pulls his jacket up over his arms, silently counting down from twenty. At least he hadn’t said something like wouldn’t you rather talk to your girlfriend, anyway? because that would sound jealous, and he wasn’t jealous. He was the farthest thing from it. He was… he didn’t know what he was. But not jealous.

“I guess I should try to nap too,” Darren says, in a polite near-whisper, “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” and Chord almost hates him, thinks, petulantly, of course you didn’t, but doesn’t say anything, just bites down on the inside of his cheek and starts his countdown over, starting from ninety-nine this time.

At right around thirty-six his jaw starts to unclench. He’s starting to think about it logically: there are twelve other people here, besides the two of them, which means it’d be pretty easy to divide his time up evenly. You didn’t have to make room for everyone. He’d just… spend his time with other people. Staying busy. Staying distracted.

Tour wouldn’t last forever. Come end of summer, Darren would be back at Dalton. He just had to make it until then.

Hanging out with the girls isn’t nearly as much fun as hanging out with the guys. Chord learns that on day one. He’s sprawled out over Ashley’s hotel bed, face buried in the blankets, listening to them talk about clothes. About clothes.

“Isn’t this a little stereotypical?” he asks, when he pretty much can’t take it anymore. “I mean, what happened to gender equality and not proving those stupid woman magazines right? Don’t you want to prove that you’re more than that?”

“Shut up, Chordy,” Dianna says, turning a stiletto over in her hands. “Trust me, I can still hold my own and kick your ass. And I can look good while I do it.”

“Speaking of your ass,” Jenna adds, “those pants aren’t doing it any favors.”

Chord frowns. “What’s wrong with my pants?”

“Nothing. At least, nothing compared with your shirt.”

Grumbling, Chord presses his face back into the mattress. “You guys suck,” he says. “I’m glad I’m not a girl.”

Dianna slaps him upside the ass so hard he nearly jumps out of his skin. This, he thinks. This is why he needs to go back to being a dude. Kevin had never left him with a welted handprint on his asscheek.

But Darren was hanging out with the dudes. Somehow, he thinks, this is still the better alternative.

“You want to-what?” Chris says flatly.

Chord rocks on the balls of his feet. Why did everyone keep using that tone of surprise with him lately? “Hang out with you,” he repeats. “You know, shopping or-or whatever.”

Chris eyes him wearily, like he’s going to whip a mask off and reveal an alien underneath. Chord’s not an alien. He’s just trying to… diversify his interests. That was his new official motto. He thought it sounded pretty good. “You do realize that I don’t only shop on our days off, right,” Chris says, same tone.

“Yeah, no, I know. Whatever. Whatever you do. Can I come with you?”

“I’m going to the bookstore first,” Chris says, still watching him carefully. “I need new reading material.”

Chord’s smile wanes. Just a little bit. “Cool,” he says. “Yeah, that sounds fun.”

“You realize the other guys are going to an arcade, right? So they can shoot things and beat ten-year-olds at racing games?”

“Yeah.” Chord shoves his hands inside his pockets, awkwardly. He tries for a joke. “Sounds kind of lame, right?”

“It sounds completely lame,” Chris agrees. “The kind of lame that you would be completely and wholeheartedly interested in.”

Chord downright frowns now. “I like to read,” he says stubbornly.

“Of course you like to read. I’m not doubting that. Do you like to read more than you like beating Mark at videogames? That, that I doubt.”

“Can I come or not?”

Chris makes a big production of sighing. “Yes, you can come,” he relents, like he’s doing some serious charity work or something. Like he should be awarded for his efforts. “Just try not to destroy anything, okay?”

Chord follows after him, through the hotel lobby and into the sunlit street, scrunching up his nose. “Why does everyone keep telling me that?” he asks, but Chris doesn’t bother with an answer.

That night Chord has the dream again. This time they’re trapped in an elevator together, although there’s a loveseat in the corner and Smokey Robinson’s playing through the loud speakers. One second they’re sitting there and the next Chord’s not wearing pants, and-and the dream is a lot more explicit than Chord even wants to think about, and he wakes up sort of horrified the next morning and makes a mental note to start taking the stairs.

“Are you going to come drinking with us tonight?” Cory asks, perched in the doorway of his room.

“Us who?”

“I don’t know, does it matter?”

“Kind of.”

“Dude, why?”

Chord stares fixedly down at his laptop. He tries to think of a reason that doesn’t sound ridiculous-or, well, gay. None immediately come to mind. “Naya turns into a mean drunk,” he lies finally, still avoiding eye contact. “Last time she told me I needed a lip reduction or a face enlargement, whichever one was easiest.”

Cory laughs, which isn’t exactly sympathetic. “Wow,” he says. “Well, you don’t have to worry. It’s just me and Mark. I think everyone else is going to some play or something.”

“Okay, yeah. Sounds good. Let me change real quick.”

“Yeah, wear something pretty.” Cory laughs and heads back into the hallway. “Mark’s gonna need a serious wingman tonight.”

Chord’s drunk. Drunk. He can’t feel his lips, which is like, really drunk, the only kind of drunk that tequila shots can bring on. Cory and Mark are drunk too. They keep laughing about really stupid things. Like the fact that they’d went back to the wrong hotel at first. And then when they’d made it to the right hotel, the receptionist in the lobby had shushed them. She’d actually shushed them.

“What’re they gonna do, kick us out?” Mark asks once they’re safely in the elevator, still laughing. “Pretty sure us just being here is gonna do wonders for their business.”

“Maybe they’ll sell our used tissues once we leave.” Cory’s sitting on the floor, for some inexplicable reason, craning his neck up to look at them. It’s probably the first and last time he’d ever be forced to do that. “Remember how what’s-his-face told us to start throwing water on everything we use with-” He pauses to laugh. “-with bodily fluids, or else they’ll end up on ebay.”

“I wonder how much my boogers would go for,” Mark says. “At least a hundred dollars. Maybe two.”

“Hey guys, remember that girl with-” Chord starts, but he can’t even finish because they all burst into laughter again, and man, Chord feels good.

Because they have shitty timing, or because the universe hates Chord, the elevator doors slide open on their floor just as Darren and Lea are waiting to get on. Of course. They’re wearing pajama pants and Lea’s got her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and Darren’s wearing glasses, and since when does he wear glasses? They don’t look weird on his face, though. They look the opposite of weird. They look-

“Hey guys,” Darren says, eyebrows lifted in amusement. “Good night?”

“The best,” Mark answers, trying to help Cory to his feet. It’s not as easy as it’d look. There’s a whole lot of Cory and not a whole lot of floor. Darren steps in to assist, making sure he’s upright and steady before backing off, but with one hand still raised, like he’s going to catch him if he falls over. Chord scoffs out loud without realizing he’s scoffing.

Darren looks at him, though. “Everything okay, Chordo?”

“No,” Chord says, “shut up. Don’t call me that.”

There’s an awkward silence. Lea looks between them nervously. “Darren and I were going downstairs to get some vitamin water,” she offers into the quiet.

“Of course you are,” Chord says. Vitamin water. They’re probably buying organic kale from a local farmer down there too.

Darren sticks his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, glances around at them all. “Chord, can we talk for a second?” he asks, and Chord might be drunk but he’s not stupid, he knows what that means.

“No,” he says stubbornly. “I have to pee.”

Cory and Mark are sharing a room at the end of the hall but Chord’s is only two doors away, and he hopes Kevin’s not in there because he really does have to take a leak, and then he wants to climb into bed and maybe drunk dial some of the girls who’d rejected him in high school. Or maybe not. As long as it starts with peeing.

“Okay then.” To Darren’s credit, at least he’s not pushing it. “Can you guys all make it into your rooms okay?”

“We’re fine,” Mark says. “See if they have any pretzel-covered chocolate down there, okay?” and he starts laughing yet again.

Chord fumbles into his pocket for his room key, and it takes four attempts to insert it correctly, but at last he gets there and the door pushes open. The lights are off and the beds are empty. Chord sighs happily and nearly trips over his own feet trying to get into the bathroom.

Ten minutes later he’s stripped down to his boxers, laying on top of the blankets and playing Angry Birds on his iPhone. He sucks at it, mostly because the birds keep turning into penguins and he also keeps dropping the phone. He hears the click of the door unlocking, doesn’t glance up, turns his phone upside down like maybe that will help, but then someone clears his throat at the foot of his bed and it’s not Kevin, doesn’t even look like Kevin if he squints. It’s Darren.

“Intruder,” Chord says accusingly. He knew Darren was capable of doing some pretty low things, but breaking and entering? That was just pathetic.

“I borrowed Kevin’s room key,” Darren explains. “To make sure you were okay.”

Chord ignores him. “Hide ya kids, hide ya wives,” he half-sings, still jamming his thumb repeatedly against the screen.

“I brought you some water and Tylenol. Just in case.”

“I’m not wearing pants,” Chord informs him. “Now is not a very good time.”

And Darren-Darren’s eyes actually dip down to his legs and Chord realizes belatedly that drawing attention to-to-anything was a bad idea, and he quickly grabs a pillow and shoves it over his crotch, and Darren lifts an eyebrow at him, again, that stupid eyebrow of his.

“I don’t know why you’re acting weird all of a sudden,” Darren says quietly, and he sets the pills and water bottle down on the nightstand. “I thought we were okay.”

“We are not okay,” Chord says, feeling his stomach unrolling all over itself suddenly. He’s going to be sick. “We are not anything. Jesus.”

“Look,” Darren says, and he doesn’t even have the excuse of drunkenness to hide behind, “I don’t know if you’re suddenly feeling-”

“Stop. Stop. Stop. I’m gonna throw up.”

Darren doesn’t move.

“No, seriously.” Chord pushes himself up off the bed, shoves past Darren. “I’m actually going to throw up.”

He hits his knees in front of the toilet just in time.

It takes about fifteen minutes to make sure that everything that’s going to come up has come up, and then he rinses his mouth out with tap water and spits about twelve times before he trusts himself to leave. The fun part of being drunk was over. Now came hell.

He expects to be alone when he exits the bathroom, but he’s not. Darren’s sitting on the corner of his bed. His blankets are pulled back, the pillows are fluffed, there’s a trashcan placed strategically beside the mattress, and the cap on the bottle of water is twisted off. He literally could not have tried any harder.

“I’ll let you sleep,” Darren says. “But you should drink that first. I’ve got my phone on. Call me if you need anything.”

And then he leaves.

Chord stares at the door, sort of swaying on his feet before sliding into the pulled-back covers, taking a drink of the already-opened water. Fucking Darren Criss, he thinks. Why did he have to be so fucking nice?

Chord feels like shit the next morning. Of course he feels like shit. He makes it down to the continental breakfast for all of two seconds before the smell of greasy bacon hits his nose, and then he’s marching right back upstairs and into the bathroom, cursing the very existence of alcohol and trying to remember just exactly what he’d said and done last night, and why exactly he half-remembered Darren being in his room.

They hadn’t-he hadn’t-

Of course they hadn’t. Chord vaguely remembers telling Darren to shut up. But how had he ended up in his boxers? When exactly had Darren entered the picture?

It’s that thought, and not just the hangover, that gives him the migraine of a lifetime all day long.

Darren doesn’t like to be avoided. He remembers that from last time, of course, what with the ice-breaker pizza and the showing up on his doorstep, but it’s actually easier to ignore someone that’s with you all the time, so long as there are plenty of other people with you too. But Darren. Darren is persistent. Determination could be his middle name.

It’s seven o’clock in the morning on their free day when he gets him. Chord had figured no one else would be up and about this early, so he thought he’d help himself to a bagel and some fruit before hitting the city for the day, the one guarantee that he wouldn’t be shoved into a small space with anyone he didn’t want to be shoved into a small space with. He’s sitting two tables over from a couple that look to be pushing eighty, at least, and he’s helping himself to a spoonful of cream cheese icing when someone drops down into the seat next to his.

Darren. Of course.

“Morning,” Darren says. He bites into an apple.

Chord doesn’t say anything. He chews and chews and chews, and then he takes a sip of orange juice. Then he goes back to chewing.

But Darren’s not to be deterred. “Big plans today?” he asks, and when Chord doesn’t answer: “You must have some, if you’re waking up this early.”

Again, Chord says nothing. He keeps his mouth busy so he doesn’t have to. Can’t talk with your mouth full and all that.

“Or,” Darren adds, “you’re waking up this early to avoid me, which seems nonsensical but is actually probably the correct answer. Right?”

Chord looks at Darren with as much feigned interest as he can muster. “I wanted a bagel,” he says. “The blueberry ones are usually gone by eight.”

“Come on, Chord.”

For the first time, Chord can see the hint of frustration in Darren’s eyes. Well good, he thinks. He deserves it.

“At least tell me what you’re upset about,” Darren prompts. Like-like he’s some girl that can be won back with emotions and talking. Fuck that. He says nothing.

Darren sighs. “Was it something I said? Did?”

“Are you kidding me, Darren?” Chord says, because-because enough is enough and he can’t control himself, can’t help it. “You want to know why I’m pissed off? Fine. Fine, it’s because you have a girlfriend and you-you-” He can’t bring himself to say it. Even now. He hardly allows himself to think about it. Besides, Grandma and Grandpa over there are probably listening in. Maybe they have Twitter accounts. Maybe they’re paparazzi in disguise. Chord reels himself back in, controls his tempter, counts to three before letting out a slow breath. “You cheated, dude,” he finishes, voice low. “That’s not cool.”

It’s Darren’s turn to be quiet. His hands are folded, his lips pressed tight. Maybe he’d taken a cue from Chord. Maybe he’s counting backwards in his head.

“So that’s what this is about,” he says calmly, eyes flickering to Chord’s. He hesitates, scratches at the skin just below his left ear. “Look, Chord, this probably won’t make sense-”

“Stop,” Chord says, turning back to his breakfast. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“No, please. Hear me out.” Darren licks his lips. Chord doesn’t acknowledge him, but he’s not walking away. That should be some sort of signal.

“She and I have… what you would I guess call an open relationship.”

Chord looks at him. It’s his turn to have his eyebrows raised. Fine, Darren had gotten his attention. He won.

“We’re both artists, you know, we both know how demanding our jobs are… and I guess really we’re each other’s safety nets. We’ve been friends for so long that calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend seemed logical. But we agreed a long time ago that we weren’t exclusive.”

Chord bites down on his bottom lip. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m not saying we go around and sleep with anyone and everyone,” Darren adds quickly. “Just that if there’s someone we like, then… we don’t feel guilty about going for it.”

“So does she know?” Chord asks, and his voice sounds rough. “About-”

“About Coachella? Yeah. Not, you know, specifics. Not who it was.”

“That it was-a guy?”

Chord’s near-whispering now. He can’t help it.

“Yeah. Yeah, she knows about that.”

“So I’m not the Other Woman.”

Darren laughs out loud at that, and Chord kind of can’t help it: he feels it too. The tension melting away from his shoulders. The inability to be pissed at Darren Criss. Yet again.

“No,” he says, slapping Chord on the back. “No, you’re not the Other Woman. You’re not a Woman at all.”

“Right, well.” Chord clears his throat, sets the bagel back down on his plate. He’s suddenly not very hungry.

But Darren seems to understand that it’s time for him to leave. “I,” he announces, “am going back to bed. I set my alarm just to beg for your forgiveness, you know.”

Chord snorts, crumples up a napkin.

Darren’s heading out of the room when he pauses and doubles back. “So, uh,” he says, and he actually seems unsure for once. “Do I have it?”

“Have what?”

“Your forgiveness.”

Chord rubs his chin. He needs to shave, he thinks. He could probably do with a few more hours of shut-eye too. “You don’t need it,” is what he says, standing up and tossing his plate into the garbage. “We’re cool.”

They head back up to the elevators together. It takes a lot of energy to be pissed at someone. Chord’s glad for the break.

“So I think Darren might sort of be into dudes,” Mark says, shoving a handful of potato chips into his mouth.

Chord freezes. “What,” he says. “Uh, why do you say that?”

They’re sprawled out on one of the couches backstage, messing around with guitars while they wait for their cue. The Warblers are on stage right now. Chord can hear the teenage girls screaming their lungs out all the way back here. It’s the same thing, night after night. It’s kind of cool to experience, even secondhand.

Mark doesn’t look at him, just wipes his fingers on his pants. Like he hadn’t just dropped a huge bomb. Like maybe he’d just announced the weather. “I dunno,” he says casually. “Mostly intuition.”

Chord can’t believe how dry his throat is. He swallows, twice, and feels like there’s a rock lodged in his esophagus. It’s ridiculous. “Intuition?” he repeats, and he hates that his voice sounds sort of funny. “I didn’t realize you had gay intuition, dude.”

“Don’t doubt The Saw.”

“Riiiight.” Chord fidgets; he tightens his grip around the neck of the guitar to hide how fucking weird he feels. “So what tipped off your intuition?”

“There was a guy,” Mark says. He shovels more chips in, chews thoughtfully, takes his time. Chord half-wants to strangle him. “Last night. They weren’t, like, making sweet man-love in the bathroom, but there was definitely some chemistry there. A vibe.”

“A vibe,” Chord repeats, eyeing him wearily.

“Definite vibe. Darren wanted it. I could tell.”

Chord makes a little hmm noise. He’s not going to agree or disagree. He doesn’t want to take a stance either way.

“If I’m right,” Mark says, scrunching up the bag of chips and dusting crumbs off his tour clothes, “then let’s hope things aren’t weird for the rest of the cast.”

“What?” Chord bites down on the inside of his cheek. “What do you mean?”

“You know-” Mark makes a dirty gesture, one of his trademarked ones. “Chris and Darren, dude,” he adds, when Chord’s face says he clearly doesn’t get it. “You think they’ve hooked up?”

Chord doesn’t mean to, but he can’t help it. He laughs. “Um, no,” he says. “No, I really doubt it.”

“Why? What do you know?”

“Everything.” Chord clears his throat again. He doesn’t want to prolong this conversation. Instead, before Mark can open his mouth, he decides to change subjects, wrinkles up his nose and says, “Hey, have I showed you the Anderson Cooper impression I’ve been working on?”

They have two shows on Sunday, which is just about as tiring as it could possibly get. Chord’s finally starting to feel it: a deep ache climbing down his spine, the exhaustion settling right into his bones. The few hours between shows are meant for resting up, getting food, but today everyone wants Mexican and the idea alone makes Chord feel like throwing up. He chooses, a little regretfully, to stay behind.

But he’s not the only one.

He’s flopped on his back on one of the green room couches, feet dangling over the arm, playing a lazy game of NFL Madden when the door swings open. Chord doesn’t even pretend to be surprised anymore.

“Hey,” Darren says. He holds up a bag. “I bought sandwiches. You hungry?”

“Yes,” Chord answers automatically, dropping the controller and scrunching his feet inward, making room on the couch. Sandwiches wouldn’t destroy his body the way burritos would. Also, he really likes to eat.

Darren drops down into the open space. “I’m getting ready to jump out of my skin, man,” he says, passing a BLT over. “Don’t get me wrong-I love this. But it’s hard, you know? It takes a toll on you.”

“Yeah, no, I know what you mean.” Chord takes a big bite, nods gratefully at Darren. It might just be the best thing he’s ever tasted. “I need a break.”

“I need a beer,” Darren says, agreeing.

“I could go for a back massage.”

“Turn around.”

Chord stares at him. “What?”

Darren sets his sandwich down on the coffee table. “Turn around,” he repeats. “I’ll rub your shoulders.”

That’s not-that’s not something guys do, and Chord laughs the empty shell of a laugh and doesn’t move. “I’m good, dude,” he says. He shoves a tomato slice into his mouth.

Darren gives him a look. “It’s not a cheap excuse to feel you up,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been told I’m incredibly good with my hands.”

“I bet you have,” Chord says dryly, but he can’t help but feel the urge to actually do it. He’d probably accept a full-body rubdown from Peewee Herman at this point. He glances over his shoulder at the door. They’ve got at least an hour before the other guys get back, and the only people hanging around are stagehands he doesn’t give a shit about. His brain is screaming no, but. But.

“Turn around,” Darren says for the third time, and he can’t help it: he obeys.

He picks up the controller again, just to have something to do with his hands, just to stop this from getting too weird, but once he’s comfortable and settled the couch behind him dips with Darren’s weight. Darren has one knee pulled up underneath him, and his other leg is pressed right against Chord’s hip. He’s way too aware of the subtle touch. He hates that he’s even thinking about it.

Darren’s hands tense, for just a second, reaching out towards him and pausing tentatively in midair. But his face changes after a second-like he’s determined, like he’s convincing himself of something, and Chord quickly turns back towards the TV screen. He doesn’t want to guess what that expression means.

“One of the band guys got mobbed yesterday walking back to the bus,” Darren says, and then his hands come to rest on Chord’s shoulders-and it takes everything he has not to shiver, because seriously, he is not a girl. “I mean, these girls completely freaked out and started grabbing at him. They even somehow managed to rip his shirt.”

Chord presses start on the game. He vaguely feels like he’s at the hairdresser’s, or the dentist’s, people who feel obligated to make awkward small talk. “Oh yeah?” he says, just to be polite.

“Yeah,” Darren says. His hands run along Chord’s shoulderblades before squeezing, just once, right below the base of his neck. “Want to know why?”

Five seconds in and Chord feels like he’s in heaven. Pathetic, probably, but Darren really does know how to work his hands. “Why?”

“Because they thought he was you.”

Chord laughs, and Darren’s thumbs press slow circles into his shoulders. “Shut up.”

“No, I’m serious. Once they realized they backed off completely. Didn’t even apologize.”

“Yeah, well, can you blame them for being disappointed?”

“No,” Darren says quietly, and twists a knuckle into a knot in Chord’s back. He hisses out a breath, can’t stop himself even if he wanted to. He can practically feel Darren smirk. “Man, you’re tense.”

Chord actually has to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from sucking in another sharp breath. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, dude, but I’m part of this little thing called a national concert tour, and it’s kiiind of stressful.”

“You’re losing.”

Chord looks over his shoulder. Darren’s face is right there, only a few inches away, and his eyes flicker up to Chord’s. He hates that he knows what color Darren’s eyes are without even having to look. He hates a lot of things his brain has been doing lately.

“What?”

Darren’s smirk fades into a softer smile. His hands pause on Chord’s shoulders, although his fingernails are still dragging lightly over his tshirt, sending sparks all the way through his veins. Darren’s eyes dip down to Chord’s mouth.

“Your videogame,” he says quietly. “You’re losing.”

Chord had forgotten about the videogame. It seems entirely unimportant now. He’s thinking about-about Coachella, about the dreams he’s been having, about watching Darren kiss somebody and wondering what it’d feel like to be them. About jerking off in the shower and thinking the sort of thoughts he was powerless to stop thinking. About having almost an hour to themselves and the empty room and the stress of tour and of not being on the receiving end of an awesome orgasm in weeks, now, or it might’ve been months.

“I have to go,” he says.

Darren’s mouth tightens. “What?”

“I, uh.” He twists away from Darren’s hands; Darren doesn’t try to stop him. “I just remembered something I have to do. This isn’t me being weird, okay? I just really have to go.”

“Okay,” Darren says. Tiredly. Like he’s past the point of putting up a fight. He slumps back against the couch. “Good luck. Doing, you know, whatever it is you have to do.”

“Thanks,” Chord says. He scratches his neck nervously. Leaves the rest of the BLT on the table. Practically bolts out of the room and into the bathroom, where he sits on top of a closed toilet lid and presses his face into his hands and tries not to think about anything at all.

During the second show that night Chord does something he’s never done before: he sneaks out from backstage and into the aisle to watch the Warblers set. Except he’s pretty sure that it’s not really even the Warblers, it’s Darren Criss and a bunch of guys in prep school jackets backing him up. Darren knows how to own the stage. He knows how to sing the songs and move his hips and make little girls go crazy just by winking in their general direction, and Chord can’t help it. He’s mesmerized. He’s mesmerized by the way Darren’s hand curls around the microphone and the way he manages to capture everyone’s attention and-and-and he’s starting to come to terms with the fact that Darren Criss is hot.

He is. It’s not a dude thing or a gay thing, it’s just a Darren thing. He’s hot. He’s really, really hot.

Chord goes back into hiding.

He is so fucked.

He makes up his mind during the final bows. Darren’s arm slides easily around his waist and he thinks, fine. Okay. He can’t put up with this anymore. It’s driving him fucking crazy. He has to do something about it. He has to do something. He has to.

part three.

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