FIC - A Brand New Domain (Chandler Kiehl/Adam Crawford)
Yeah you read that right.
A Brand New Domain: When Chandler gets cast in an off-Broadway (with about fourteen "off"s) production of Legally Blonde: the Musical, playing Carlos (or is it Chuck?), he's fully aware that it's stupid to get a crush on his on-stage love interest, Nikos the poolboy played by the mysterious Adam Crawford. But he totally does it anyway. (set about a year from the end of s4. Rated NC-17. Chandler/Adam; background Kurt/Blaine and Santana/OFC. Also featured prominently are Jesse st. James, Sugar Motta, and that dumb kid Gavroche from the NYADA mixer at the start of season 3. NO GAY BOY FROM GLEE IS TOO OBSCURE.)
Chandler's first impression of the place is that it's the shittiest little theatre he's ever been in. And having grown up flaming-gay on the northern outskirts of Lima, Ohio, that's saying something, because he has seen a lot of shitty little theatres. He's hoping that having nailed his audition and gotten cast will make everything seem just a little bit brighter, but unfortunately his second impression of the place is pretty much the same as the first.
His first impression of the director is that he's crazy, and that hasn't changed much either.
"First run-through!" he shouts at the top of his (impressive) lungs, clapping his hands together. "We'll sit on the stage floor in a circle arranged according to importance. That means Elle, Emmett, and the dog right next to me, other principles further out past them, et cetera et cetera, until the useless Delta Nus and law students with no lines all the way on the other side." He pauses and flips his (also impressive) hair but is shouting again in two seconds. "Hurry!"
Chandler isn't a hundred percent sure about where he falls in the hierarchy, but he does have a decent chunk of a song all to himself, so he slides into the lefthand side of the wobbly ring ("I said circle, not ugly peanut-shape! Did you all fail kindergarten?") between the forty-something guy playing Winthrop in admissions and the fifty-something guy playing Elle's dad. It's a great vantage point from which to watch the man-diva playing Callahan and the busty Latina playing Enid squabble over their placement. She's got claws, so she's probably going to win.
They go around clockwise introducing themselves. Jesse st. James, psycho director extraordinaire, talks for a solid twenty minutes, and literally zero of it is interesting to Chandler except that apparently they're both from Ohio. The Vocal Adrenaline thing makes total sense. No one else has a résumé nearly as extensive - considering they're off-Broadway with about fourteen "offs" - or at least they have the sense to shut up about it. Most of the Delta Nus wait tables and Jesse just waves his had at them as if he couldn't care less. He probably couldn't, actually.
"Chandler Kiehl," he says, swiftly and as normal as possible, when it's his turn. "I'm a sophomore at NYU studying film and stage performance and I'll be playing Chuck, the boyfriend."
"Carlos," Jesse corrects automatically.
Chandler frowns. "No, Chuck? You're changing to the movie version because you couldn't cast someone who looks hispanic."
"It's Carlos. You're Carlos."
"You said it yourself in your casting email."
"Don't argue with me! I am the director!" He sighs dramatically at like, all the total grief and suffering Chandler is obvs causing him. "I knew casting actual gays in the gay parts would make this unbearable."
Enid - Santana Lopez, a name Chandler almost recognizes from somewhere - looks like she's about to turn into an actual tiger and prowl across the floor and slice his face off. "Look, Jerkoff st. Jheri-curl - "
"Anthony Beal!" yelps Elle's dad from Chandler's left, and the circle continues around. Chandler can't decide if he's relieved or disappointed; that definitely would've been the best catfight he's seen all year.
The circle wraps all the way around to the bland, uncute Emmett, a few years older than Chandler with a gross ponytail, and then naturally Jesse starts to talk again. "Obviously we have a few people missing, though their excuses are terrible. Latoya, who will be playing Pilar, is at some funeral, a couple of sorority girls couldn't get off work, I'll probably cut them, and our Nikos, Adam, is helping out with some lame spring showcase night at NYADA."
Chandler's intrigued - a little at NYADA, but mostly at "Adam." His spirits had fallen a little when he realized no one had introduced himself as Nikos the poolboy, and he's super-curious to meet whoever it is whose boyfriend he's pretending to be. NYADA and a normal-sounding name are reassuring, of course. But nothing beats a good, solid first impression.
-xxx-
"Do you know an Adam Crawford?" Chandler calls half-heartedly when his roommate trudges home from class the next afternoon. This is mostly the relationship they have - conversations brief and with no preamble. He's pretty sure they each find the other just, like, mildly annoying.
"No?" says Gavroche, throwing his messenger bag in a dead heap on the floor. "Why would I?"
Chandler rolls from stomach-down on his bed to sitting up, gives him the eye. "He goes to NYADA, I think, aren't you like the expert?"
"Well it's not like I go there or anything. Duh?" He slumps into his desk chair and tugs unnecessarily at his scarf for a good thirty seconds. It ends up exactly like it was to start.
"Duh," Chandler echoes. Gavroche probably complained four times a day that he was at NYU instead of NYADA their first semester, but okay, whatever. "Okay, whatever." He goes back to looking on Facebook. There's about twenty Adam Crawfords in their area and he has yet to find one with friends in common with him, or who's listed NYADA under schools.
Then again, Chandler admits, he's not really trying very hard. It's mostly because he doesn't quite understand why he's even trying at all in the first place. After these first couple of weeks, which are Delta Nu-intensive and mostly dancing, Chandler's totally just going to meet him at their first music rehearsal for act 2. Yet Chandler is like, stupid curious about this guy, to the point that he's kind of not doing his homework even more than he's usually not doing his homework.
"I'm a slave to social media," he whines aloud, goofily melodramatic. Gavroche doesn't react - he's already got his enormous headphones on and is lip-synching to himself. Chandler rolls his eyes at him - and a little bit at himself - and flops back onto his stomach. He clicks the next one on his list.
Oh god, it's him.
"There - right - there," he breathes, scrolling slowly downward. If this Adam Crawford is the right Adam Crawford - and surely he must be, he has "Legally Blonde: the Musical" under his Likes - Chandler will have zero problem pretending to be his gay boyfriend. His profile pic is him in partial silhouette in front of a London skyline, that huge Ferris wheel glittering behind him and leaving slivers of light dusted across the profile of his nose and cheekbones, which are frankly to die for. He's smiling casually, perhaps laughing at something unseen, and wearing an absolutely fabulous hat and he's just the perfect amount of unshaven and frankly Chandler could just eat him with a freaking spoon.
He sends a friend request before he can stop himself.
(He is not ashamed.)
Pleased with himself for embracing and owning his creeper-status tendencies, Chandler clicks back from Facebook to Twitter - his true domain - and adjusts his glasses, settling in for a long solid night of procrastination. It's not like he could focus on his comparative essay with Gavroche Gavroching all over the place anyway. Not until after he's caught up on most of his favorite GLBTQ* feeds and thrown a couple of tweets around with his scene partner for his Wednesday 1:30 does his brain kind of register the pieces of what he's just seen:
Nothing visible on Adam's profile under the "interested in" category.
A photograph against the London skyline.
The irony is not lost on Chandler.
"Is he gay... or European??" he laments aloud.
"Is who?" says Gavroche, unexpectedly aware.
Chandler doesn't answer; he just does what he does best, and tweets.
@iGottaKiehling That is the elephant in the room.
-xxx-
"It's not the time to overthink -
Just try it once, and he'll buy you a drink!"
The girl playing Elle is undeniably fabulous. It's pretty clear to see that she mostly got cast because Jesse wants to bone her, but Chandler doubts Jesse even would want to bone her if she weren't at least some degree of stupidly talented. He's decided that he really likes her. (Though she is so incredibly redheaded that he's struggling to picture her as a blonde.)
The problem is, Chandler's decided that he doesn't like pretty much everyone else in the cast. Rob who plays Callahan is the biggest diva he's met since high school, and refuses to socialize with the rest of them at all. Most of the girls who are Delta Nus appear to have slept with most of the boys who are law students, but then again so has Kiki the Colorist, and that's a catty drama clusterfuck that even Chandler at his gossipiest won't set foot in. Warner is unbelievably stupid, Emmett is the least convincing straight male lead since Chandler himself played Seymour Krelborn, and Enid is straight-up terrifying. The only people he's dared approach so far are Melanie, the relative sweetheart who plays Paulette, and their Vivienne, Liz, who aside from potentially being fuckbuddies with Enid/Santana seems mostly sane.
And then there's Nikos.
The mysterious Adam Crawford is even prettier in person and Chandler kind of wants to scream. He's got cute little teeth and cute little dimples and broad, sculpted shoulders that are definitely not cute or little and sweet mother of Tyra Banks, Chandler knows it's a completely stupid idea to be crushing on his on-stage love interest, but canst thou blame him for looking?
(And listening. Because - the accent.)
Jesse snaps his fingers in irritation, which in itself is irritating, and everyone's attention reluctantly returns to him at the piano. "People, moving on! Number nineteen in your scores!"
Chandler shoots a look over in Adam's direction, and finds him grinning back. It's delightful. He's not even actually in this song singing-wise but he's so excited already, Chandler can't stand it.
The principle vocals handle their parts easily, though Brooke still sounds way too much like a chainsmoker to pass as an empress of fitness and health, and the chorus muddles through their section without too much of a struggle either since the vocals are pretty much in unison. Chandler's both pleased and displeased about how well it's going; it sounds great but he was hoping to have a bit more time to work himself up to his piece.
"And your first name again is - "
"Nikos," says Adam. Chandler totally doesn't swoon at all, what are you talking about.
"And your boyfriend's name is - "
"Carlos."
"Chuck," Jesse interjects.
"So we are changing it to Chuck, then?" says Adam, tugging a pencing from behind his ear to make a note of it.
"We were never not changing it to Chuck," says Jesse, pulling a handsome but bizarrely contorted face. "Does he look like a Carlos?"
"I'd like to think I mostly just look like a Chandler," he says, batting his eyelashes for effect. He gets a mixed bag of snickers and unimpressed glares, but Adam is among those chuckling, and he does his best not to put too much significance on that.
"Chuck," Jesse insists. "Start with Emmett again."
"Mr. Argitakos," says Owen, "this alleged affair with Mrs. Wyndham has been going on for how long?"
"Two years."
"And your first name again is?"
"Nikos."
"And your boyfriend's name is?"
"Chuck."
Beatrice who plays Elle gives a gasp, and the others belatedly follow suit before Adam jumps back in, trying really hard with his Mediterranean accent but adorably missing the mark by just a hair. "No, no, I misunderstand - I thought you say, 'best friend'! Chuck is my best friend."
"You bastard!" Chandler yelps, and all eyes are on him again. "You lying bastard!"
He's listened to the soundtrack enough that he mostly knows what he's doing, but he still kind of fumbles on some of the weirder notes - his sight-reading is a bit rusty after a semester of nearly nothing but film-focused acting courses. Jesse's pretty unimpressed, pounding out on the piano and dragging them through the song again and again. Chandler can't help but feel a little guilty, since it's partially his fault. Well, him and Emmett/Owen. (But he definitely isn't fumbling because Adam keeps flashing these quiet little grins at him. No way.)
Eventually Jesse shoos the rest of them away so he can move on to Legally Blonde with Beatrice and Owen. The courtroom ensemble peels off, dance warmups in one corner, more gossipy shit in the other. Chandler forgoes them both in favor of shouldering up to Adam, who also doesn't seem to be joining either group.
"So-o," he says, with his cutest flirty smile, rocking a little on the balls of his feet. "Which are you really?"
"Which of what?" says Adam, but Chandler can tell he's fooling, that he knows what he's about to ask.
"Gay, or European?" Chandler trills, up the octave. "So hard to guarantee - "
"I'm from Essex," he interrupts, laughing. "And I'm bi. So a bit of both, I suppose?"
Chandler feels his eyes glittering, hopes it's not too obvious. "Excellent," he says. "I much prefer acting opposite men who at least swing a little bit my way. Some things it just isn't enough to fake it."
"No, quite understandable," says Adam, still smiling. "Honestly, it's bad enough to have to feign attraction when you simply don't like someone as a person, that whole sexual orientation business must be an absolute boar." He glances over at the piano. "Dunno how Owen's doing it."
"He's not," snorts Chandler. The sight at the piano is a little bit embarrassing - Jesse's clearly smitten with Beatrice, but Owen is clearly smitten with Jesse, and Beatrice clearly can't be bothered with either of them.
"Good thing you and I won't be having that problem," says Adam, snapping Chandler back to their conversation immediately because whoa hello, is he implying that he won't have to act like he's attracted to Chandler because he's really -
"With the whole sexual orientation business," he clarifies.
Oh. "Right!" Of course. That.
They sit for a few silent moments that are only, oh, forty to fifty percet awkward, and then Adam reaches into his satchel and pulls out some kind of granola energy bar, which he unwraps and then congenially breaks in half. "Wanna share? These things are great for energy but they taste like mulch, I can never stomach a whole one."
"What a pitch," Chandler laughs, eyeing the proffered bar suspiciously. Adam chuckles and Chandler winks. "Good thing I like what you're selling."
Adam pulls an amused, curious face, eyes crinkling up charmingly and his mouth going crooked, and he takes a bite out of the mulch bar without ever looking away from Chandler's face.
Chandler's insides do something resembling the Bend & Snap.
-xxx-
Allergy season hits full bore near the end of the second week of full-cast rehearsals, which wouldn't be so bad, except for Chandler also gets a massive fucking cold. One or the other, maybe he could handle. As it is, his nose puffs up into this oh-so-adorable cross between a strawberry and a tomato, and also kind of a faucet.
"When I die, bury me with my Baz Luhrmann DVD collection," he whines from within a blanket cocoon.
"I don't get you," says Gavroche, styling his hair at their mirror so it does that stupid flippy thing he sports so proudly. "How are you, like, dying right now? We're in the heart of the city, what even is making pollen?"
Chandler rolls over and glares at him via the mirror. "Have you ever been allergic to anything?"
"I can't have avocado, you know that," he says, missing the point by about eight flying leaps. Chandler flops back onto his back and grunts pathetically at the ceiling.
"Go to class," he says. Gavroche does, tap shoes clacking obnoxiously in his bag.
The silence and solitude is glorious - for about four minutes, until Chandler's attention-whore extraversion kicks in. He squirms in the bed for a little bit, lamenting his intense post-nasal drip and the throbbing at his temples, and then digs under his pillow for his phone and pulls up Instagram. He takes a fish-eye selfie of his bloated nose and immediately kicks it over to Facebook.
Chandler Bing Kiehl > So go on, here's my head - just hit it with a rock!
He sighs. Fidgets. Aches to find any position in the bed that's comfortable enough to sit still in for more than five minutes. Wonders if it's been long enough that he can take another benadryl without passing out. (Wonders if passing out would maybe be the best plan at this point.)
Jolts, when his phone buzzes with a new alert.
Swoons when he sees who it is.
Adam Crawford Did someone Bend&Snap right into you?
Chandler Bing Kiehl Someone called every oak tree this side of Manhattan.
He flicks away from his main feed and over to messaging with just Adam and adds it's adorable of u to think of me.
Adam: Oh, don't play this talk-entirely-in-show-quotes game with me, I'm going to fail.
Chandler: fair. guess i win then~
Adam: You strike me as the type who likes to win.
Chandler: i mostly just like to play~~
"How much harder do I have to flirt before you make a real pass at me?!" Chandler shouts to his empty room. His head pounds from the exertion and he instantly regrets it.
Adam: Fair. :)
Adam: We missed you at blocking yesterday.
Chandler: yes, well, my presence is irreplaceable
Adam: Apparently at the end of There Right There Nikos and Chuck are to have a kiss.
Chandler freezes, then sneezes about six times in a row, pitching his dorm-issue bed hard on the linoleum floor, because what?!
Chandler: oh?
Adam: Nothing outrageous, but.
Chandler: well.
(He hesitates for all of three seconds.)
Chandler: that IS somethin we'll def need to rehearse
Chandler: perhaps we could schedule a lil bit of independent practice to catch me up?
Adam: Perhaps first you should concern yourself with ensuring that your nose doesn't turn into a rutabaga?
Chandler forgets for a second that Adam can't see him and reaches up to softly squash a few fingers against his puffy nose, self-conscious in a way he so rarely feels. He giggles once he realizes his mistake, and the laugh turns into a wet little cough. Oh, it would be so easy just to well and truly like this guy. But then again, the liking is always the easy part. It's the way the cookie crumbles later on - the way Chandler can't ever seem to make it past a second or third date - that's the hard and shitty part.
Chandler: is that what u get when u cross a strawberry w a tomato?
Adam: ...?
Chandler: lol never mind
Adam doesn't really say anything after that, but it's fine by Chandler. He's feeling a little groggy and disoriented again, and he's probably just going to roll over for a nap. Smiling faintly, he reaches out to his desk for another pill and some more pomegranate juice, and then slips his phone under his pillow again with an alarm to wake him up in time to go get dinner.
It's not until he's almost completely dozed off that Chandler's hit with it: when he suggested extracurricular kissing, Adam hadn't entirely said no.
-xxx-
Chandler's cold-plus-allergies knock him out for almost a week, at least from Legally Blonde rehearsal - he's trying to save his voice and his energy for the things he actually gets grades and credit for, and his classes have been sapping him almost before he can make it back to his dorm. But Saturday is a different story, and if he misses this important half-sitzprobe half-costume fitting day he's going to be beyond screwed, so he arms himself with a half-gallon jug of orange juice and some extra-strength tylenol and braves the bepollened streets to get to the theatre as quickly as he can. (The thought of kissing Adam - even in a stage-kissing capacity - certainly isn't not a motivational factor, even if the phlegm is making the circumstances a little less than ideal.)
But when he trudges through the doorway into their theatre space to find the entire cast and most of the crew squawking at each other in absolute chaos, Chandler starts to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have just stayed home.
"The fu...."
Jesse reaches him first. "There you are, Carlos! You're four minutes late! Four!"
"The subway was seven minutes late," Chandler sasses back, instantly on the defensive. "You should be impressed with how much time I made up, I took like the sketchiest shortcut known to man."
"Yeah, st. James, I thought you were all in favor of sketchy shortcuts considering what you've done to our budget!" yells a woman whom Chandler vaguely recognizes as the production manager and project funder. He thinks she may also own the space. She's maybe a few years younger than his mom and, as far as he can tell, just about the only sane person involved with the entire project.
"I told you, Shelby, I'm saving you tons here!" he shouts at her.
"Tons that we're going to have to pay right back in a liability suit when someone sues for injuries they got on this totally unsafe set!" Jesse rounds on her, striding across the space to get in her face (or as close as he can, Chandler revises with a laugh; she's got several inches on him), and Chandler's gonna make a break for it, scanning quickly around in search of Adam, when he's approached again, this time by their small, flighty costume designer.
"Did he just call you Carlos?" she wails, fidgeting with her hands and looking near tears. "I've done my whole design schema with you as Chuck! If it's supposed to have Spanish influence after all I'm going to have to go back and rework the whole thi--"
"Marjory!" Callahan - Rob - is on a rampage, and she nearly jumps out of her skin, and ducks behind Chandler as if to hide from him. "I'm not done with you about this herringbone! Are you absolutely colorblind?"
Chandler has to stay between the two of them like he's breaking up a fight between a pair of actual children, as she fearfully backs them up all the way to the piano, where Rob gets sucked up into another argument, this one over who stands where and comes out when during curtain call. Their shouts get louder and louder to compete in volume with Santana and Liz screaming over one of them sleeping with somebody off-limits, and Chandler thinks they might break out into Take Me Or Leave Me at any moment now, so he's pinpointed their drama as the Fight To Watch out of the ten or twelve pinballing all over the open room when - he feels someone tug at his shoelace.
"Chandler," hisses Adam, grinning at him from where he's hidden himself under the piano. Chandler grins back and instantly drops down to join him, cheeks coloring a bit at their proximity in the tight-squeezed space.
"Geez," he says, "I leave you all alone for four days and this is what happens? You crazy bastards must need me more than I realized."
"Your absence has been starkly evident," says Adam, knocking his knee into Chandler's. Chandler frisks a hand dramatically through his own hair in a naturally, naturally flip.
"What started this pandemonium?"
Adam points out across the floor to the baby-pink studded heels of the girl playing Chutney. "Sugar diva'd out on Maurice and started crying when she realized she was actually going to have to appear onstage with atrocious hair, even just as a wig. So then Marjory confronted him about making poor Sugar cry, but she honestly can't handle a confrontation of any sort - and then of course god forbid anyone out-diva Robert, so he sets in about top billing and his placement in the bows. Then Shelby got here and it all began to just...escalate."
"Quickly." Chandler shakes his head faintly at it all. "Ah, the theataah." He raises his half-empty juice jug toward Adam in an ironic toast without even looking at him, eyes still glazing over trying to make sense of the mayhem. Sugar's left their scope of vision from under the piano, but now it appears Owen is crying.
"The theatre," Adam agrees, returning the toast with his ever-present reusable NYADA water bottle. Their drinks don't connect so much as just the backs of their hands, knuckles rubbing together, Adam's three or four hemp bracelets soft at the edge of Chandler's wrist. They pause there for longer than is normal before Chandler is able to tug away and bury his pleased little smile in a swig of OJ. Unless he's mistaken, that was definitely A Moment. He's having Moments with his charming onstage love interest and they're not even on stage.
"They totally should've cast you as Emmett," he says, as he stares back out at Jesse yelling at Owen. "You'd be so much better, and then they could move that clown down to Warner and get that absolute travesty C.J. out of the show altogether - "
Adam's laugh cuts him off. "I would not be better," he says. "I can't at all sing."
Chandler turns to face him in faux-shock. "Not at all? Dost thou jest? But you graduated from NYADA!"
"Where I studied theatre and dance."
"Then how did you audition for this show?"
"With an empassioned spoken-word performance of Fergie's 'My Humps.' They cast me in the non-singing male role, you'll notice."
Chandler's grin cracks across his face at their collective absurdity, and he shoves playfully at Adam's shoulder. "So theatre, but not music. I can't believe I didn't know this about you."
"Well, there's a lot I haven't learned about you either, Mr. Kiehl," Adam smirks back, nudging Chandler's knee - his thigh, practically - with the full broad palm of his hand.
Chandler's pretty sure his whole body gives a swooning shiver at that, and he struggles to recover as quickly as possible. "Okay, okay," he says, "on three: name your biggest passion other than the call of the stage." He sees Adam's raised eyebrow with a smartly quirked one of his own. "One, two - social media - "
"Food."
Chandler's other eyebrow joins the first. "A foodie? Ooh la la!"
"I grew up with pretty much just your basic English fare," says Adam. "When I came to the US, in a big city, there were so many different options that I was sort of overwhelmed. It all just rather got away from me after that."
"You're so English," Chandler sighs, the overdone dreaminess crammed into it only half-faked.
"Yours doesn't surprise me at all, I'm afraid," says Adam with a laugh. "I don't believe I've ever seen you without your iPhone, and your Twitter moves eerily quickly."
Chandler pales. "You follow me on Twitter?" His brain starts spinning a mile a minute as he desperately tries to recall if he's tweeted anything super embarrassing about his crush - he doesn't think so, he tries to be vague and as un-incriminating as possible, he has a couple of professional theatre contacts on there - but the very idea is mortifying -
Adam laughs again. "Don't worry, I haven't paid too much attention. Your deep, dark internet secrets are safe and sound with the four-hundred-odd other people who follow you."
"Don't patronize us!" Chandler huffs, but his smile has yet to falter. God, he thinks, be more stupidly charming, why don't you. He's tempted to tweet it too, actually, and give this flirty little powwow a kick in the pants, and he sits up a little - as much as he can inside their piano sanctuary - to worm his phone out of his pocket.
Once he resituates himself, he's pleasantly startled to find Adam's face a lot closer to his own. Like, I-can-count-your-precious-blond-eyelashes close. "So I must say, your nose is looking much better today," he says, low and a smidge more tenderly.
"M-must you?" says Chandler, and maybe the tweet isn't necessary after all. "Because I - I believe I was promised a raincheck on some of that act two rehearsal that I missed..."
"Hmm, 'promise' is a strong word," says Adam, voice even lower, body even closer... "Lucky for you, I'm in quite a helpful mood today."
"How generous of you," Chandler breathes. He lowers his eyes very deliberately to Adam's lips, knows that Adam will notice it and revels in it because yes, at last, yes.
Adam's hot little chuckle rumbles through his chest and into Chandler's own. Chandler's reaction - lips dropping the slightest bit open, eyes fluttering shut - is automatic, almost without his brain even noticing. He can feel Adam's warm breath on his jaw and the side of his neck, and his hand lets go of his orange juice to reach and stroke soft, soft through the fine hair creeping out of Adam's hat just behind his ear. This is a soft, seriously sexy first kiss.
Except for - it isn't. Their mouths are less than an inch apart when a loud, cacophonous clang on the keys jolts the entire piano above them. Chandler jumps in startlement; Adam winces, hunching in on himself, and the end result is his teeth clacking into Chandler's chin and his eyebrow squashing against Chandler's already sensitive nose.
"Ow!"
"Sorry - "
"Everyone shut up!" yells Beatrice, slamming on the piano one more time for good measure. "This show goes up in a week and a half and my hair appointment is scheduled for five-thirty, so if we could all just kindly get our various shit together and struggle through this sitzprobe, don't you think that'd probably be for the best?!"
A sheepish silence follows, during which Chandler and Adam crawl out from their hiding place (Adam reaches for Chandler's hand to help him up from the floor and they're both smiling like idiots as they grasp hold). By the time they're on their feet Santana has started slow-clapping, and that first sound sort of cracks everybody's tension, soft murmurs breaking out across the space.
"How absolutely absurd is it to have to raincheck a raincheck?" Chandler whines.
"Just think," says Adam, "it's increasing exponentially. A raincheck squared. Who knows what will end up happening now?" He waggles his eyebrows dramatically and Chandler pretends to swoon, back of his hand draped to his forehead, reclining against the piano.
Eventually everyone sort of wrangles themselves into place, with Jesse clapping his hands imperiously as if he's actually the one who's solved all of the problems. "Okay people! The orchestra should be here any minute now, so I need PMS front and center, Elle, other Delta Nus - if you're not in the opening number you can keep rotating back to see Marjory about your costumes, let's get this knocked out!"
"Suppose that's us," says Adam, cocking his head toward the dressing rooms.
"I'll save us some seats," says Chandler, "you go on ahead. And start thinking about the best place to eat within like ten, fifteen minutes of the theatre."
"What for?"
"Because, Mr. Connoisseur," he says, "that's where you're taking me for dinner tomorrow night after tech."
Adam grins. "It's a date."
-xxx-
The sitzprobe disaster effects a couple serious changes in their production, and Chandler just hopes it isn't too late to save the show, since he's been getting a little scared as it is -
At tech the next day, they wait for all of four minutes before determining that the ever-punctual Owen is simply not going to show, and that they're going to have to find a new Emmett. (Shocker of shockers, Chandler can't bring himself to feel too upset about the change.) He flicks his gaze across the space to Adam, questioning, encouraging, but Adam continues to shake his head no. Ultimately, it comes as zero surprise to anyone when Jesse "reluctantly" steps into the role of Emmett himself. It leaves the position of music director open instead, but Shelby shoulders that burden with unmistakable relief. Chandler just feels bad for the newly-blonded Beatrice.
But Owen isn't actually the first casualty of the debacle - Adam returned from his costume fitting the day before with a tale of Marjory finally succumbing to a full-on breakdown, and she left, too, leaving a good third of the costumes unfinished, including Chandler's own. But a fix to that came quickly, too.
"I know a guy," Santana assured them all, smirking at Jesse.
"Oh, yeah!" Shelby had said, catching on.
"No, no, absolutely not," said Jesse. "He hates me even more than you do, you harpy!"
"Oh," said Adam. "Yeah."
Chandler'd given him a face, because, like, who did Adam know that also knew Santana?
"Oh, he's just a guy I went to NYADA with for a semester or so," he said. "He's how I met Santana, actually. I..." He paused. "I wouldn't call him my ex, per se, we were never really together, so please, even if we look that way a little, let's not have it be weird? We're still friends, you'll love him. You have a lot in common, actually."
And they do have a lot in common, but it does get weird, because the new costumer who shows up the next day, Santana and Adam's weirdly mutual friend, Adam's not-really-my-ex, is none other than -
"Kurt Hummel?"
He makes a semi-unreadable face. "Chandler!" he says, voice full of shock. "What a small world!"
"Big Apple isn't quite so big, is it," Chandler teases. "So you made it to NYADA after all, mazel tov!"
"I - thank you," says Kurt, softening slowly. "It didn't exactly go seamlessly, I'm still kind of amazed."
"I'd love to hear all the details!" says Chandler. "Since, you know, you deleted me from your Facebook. And your Twitter. And your phone - "
"I'm - Chandler, I'm sorry," Kurt says, and the solid eye contact they make makes Chandler believe him - he knows a classy-sassy deflect when he sees one, but Kurt looks totally genuine. "We really could have been good friends, but I was going through a rough patch with Bl - with my boyfriend, at the time, and when he found out about our texting - "
"Honey re-lax," Chandler assures him, winking for good measure. "I knew you had a boyfriend, he was all over your Facebook wall, it was just supposed to be some fun."
"Chandler - "
"And," he presses on, holding up a finger to keep Kurt quiet, "fun stops being fun when only some people are having fun and some people are not. Am I not right?"
Kurt smiles. "You made it to NYU after all. Mazel tov."
Chandler smiles back. "Come on, let's go make me a sexy latin lover."
Kurt lets out an almost unattractive frustrated groan, continuing to talk as they walk toward the costume shop-slash-dressing room. "Do not even talk to me about this Chuck vs. Carlos thing. Jesse st. James is quite possibly the biggest ignoramus I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. And that's counting my stepbrother!"
"Does he not make you just want to howl?" Chandler agrees. "I thought my college roommate was bad, but four weeks of rehearsal with him and Gavroche is nothing."
"Wait - Gavroche, the psycho NYADA hopeful from Bowling Green?"
Their conversation sparks more and more, and Chandler's heart is warming unexpectedly because it's been ages since he just made a new friend. Usually, girls drive him a little bit crazy, and boys - at least the boys he meets - are more about getting into his pants. The only reason Kurt's trying to get him naked is to fit him into this so-awful-they're-kind-of-amazing pair of gunmetal silver leather jeans.
"They're a little long, but that's not an issue, lord knows I take pants up often enough for Blaine. I figure we have these with denim on top if he decides on Chuck, and then I'm looking into a couple of Spanish-flair options for the Carlos variant but we'll keep the pants the same so it stays as simple as possible - "
But Chandler's stopped listening, his brain catching on one word. "Blaine?" he says, mouth curling in amusement. "You're still with Mr. High School Sweetheart?"
Kurt colors a little, gaze averting to the floor. "We're...we're engaged, actually. He proposed about four months ago."
Chandler's hand flies to his heart. "Aw, honey! That's just about the most precious thing I've ever heard." He sighs wistfully. "I am so sorry I ever caused a disturbance. You're so lucky to have found The One. I'm lucky if I can find someone."
"Hey, Chandler?" calls a voice outside the door, and with that accent it can only be one person. He's pretty much all the way back into his plaid skinnies so he calls back, "Come in - ?"
"I was just gonna head down to the vending machine and grab something to munch - act one tech is going nowhere fast. They're still working the lighting effects for 'Serious.'"
"Seriously?" Chandler quips. It's in perfect unison with Kurt making the same joke, and they glance to each other and burst to giggling.
Adam laughs at them. "See, I knew you'd get along. Anyway, d'you want anything?"
"Chex Mix?" Chandler reaches for his wallet, but sometime when his pants were off it must have fallen from the pocket. "Oh - uh, hang on - "
"No worries," says Adam, shaking his head. "I think I can spare one dollar for some overpriced snack food." He ducks back out of the room and Chandler stops scrambling only to find Kurt staring, back and forth between him and the place where Adam used to be. He doesn't say anything, though, just gives one perfect cock of one perfect eyebrow, and Chandler rolls his eyes and gives in, grinning.
"Well he's already taking me to dinner tonight, I thought I'd at least try to save him a little."
Kurt positively squeals, clapping his hands together and hopping in place a little. And Chandler can't help it - he bounces, too, taking Kurt's hands in his and letting his grin stretch wider in a small, victorious moment of how is this my life?
"This is perfect," Kurt gushes. "I was already coming up with about six ways to matchmake the two of you but you've already - oh, and he'll like everything about you that he liked about me but you have much more compatible senses of humor, and you both have those same cute little beanie hats - "
"Kurt McFabulous Hummel I am going to stop you right there," says Chandler.
"It's Elizabeth."
"What?"
"Kurt Elizabeth."
"No matter." Chandler takes him by one shoulder and looks him in the eye Very Seriously. "I need two things from you."
"Wow, um, okay."
"First..." He drops the bit. "Instagram! To commemorate our glamorous NYC reunion." Kurt laughs, and together they do model pouts into the lens of Chandler's phone at arm's length. Chandler bounces it across all of his social media platforms, captioned with Your photo needs #nofilter when you're rubbing elbows with the sexiest boy of NYADA!, and @-tags Kurt in it once he makes sure he's got his handle correct.
(As an afterthought, he follow-up tweets Well, sexiest CURRENTLY at NYADA.)
"What's number two?" asks Kurt, once that's done with.
Chandler takes a deep breath. "Number two is tell me everything."
-xxx-
"I swear he never, ever, ever swings the other way - "
"More upstage!"
Chander falters and adjusts. "You are so gay - " (He's not.) " - you big parfait - " (He's actually not really much of a dessert guy.) " - you flaming one-man cabaret!" (Cabaret is one of his favorite shows.)
"I'm straight!"
Chandler flashes him a smirk that's only partially acting. "You were not yesterday." And back downstage - "So if I may, I'm proud to say - he's gay!"
"And European!"
"He's gay!"
"And European!"
"He's gaaaaaay!" Chandler finishes with a flourish, strikes his fabulous pose as directed, and as the chorus follows through Adam/Nikos emerges from the witness stand and crosses down to him -
"Fine, okay, I'm gay!"
"Hooray!"
Aaaand...the kiss.
Chandler panics.
As Adam reaches forward and tugs him up to stage-kiss, it's not that Chandler's not enjoying it, broad palms flat across his back, the spicy-clean smell of Adam's aftershave. But a jolt crackles through him, carrying with it three words - not like this - and rather than tip up to receive and return the kiss, Chandler opens his mouth up a tiny bit and does his best creepy-child voice right in Adam's ear -
"Kurt told me all of your scary secrets."
Adam bursts out laughing, falling against Chandler's shoulder.
"Gentlemen!"
"Sorry, sorry!" says Chandler, but he isn't really sorry at all. Adam's laugh is infectious, and Chandler's cackling, too, swatting back at Adam where he's playfully smacking at Chandler's chest and shoulders.
Santana grunts, irritated. "Can you two just stop flirting like middle-school gaybies and kiss already? I want to get to curtain call before the fucking sun goes down."
Their antics slow, and Adam fixes Chandler with a look - a really serious, contemplative look that Chandler slowly realizes is reflected in his own expression. Adam's eyes appear suddenly fathomless, shining and drawing him in, and well, when she puts it that way...
"Why not?" whispers Adam, with a glowing little smile.
And so his hands come to hold Chandler's back again, and Chandler cups both hands around Adam's jaw back near his ears, and he angles his head and breathes in hard through his nose and presses in soft and then firm and then -
Kissing.
Kissing is pretty great and kissing Adam - warm, musky, toothy-smiling Adam - is prettier and greater.
What so is not pretty is the crackle and screech of feedback produced when over Adam's left ear and Chandler's right, the mouthpieces of their face mics clack together. The jury people furthest downstage wince and Santana swears again, and the kiss is cut, like, heart-breakingly short as Chandler and Adam jump apart to kill the noise.
"Andy!" yells Jesse, up toward the booth. "Check those channels please!" He's got fingers pressed to his temples like he's oh so all-suffering, and he uses his other hand to do some sort of circular flipping thing. "Okay, okay, Nikos and Chuck exit stage right, and then set change to Callahan's office."
Chandler happily exits, far too conscious of the heat of Adam's body following close behind. A wide hand cups Chandler's shoulder in the dark of the wings and he turns, and Adam's tracklight-lit face is inviting, almost pleading - but this time Chandler has to say no.
He shakes his head. "Not like this," he murmurs, an echo of his earlier panic. "Not when we're still Nikos and like, Chuck-los. I want to do it on our own time."
Adam can't seem to argue with that, and so he nods, but he reaches down in the dark to tangle his fingers into Chandler's own, and they stay that way as they wander back into the back-of-house.
(They stay that way for the rest of the tech, really; as they run through their curtain call, with Chutney and the DA and the judge, Chandler's mapping out the knobby veins on the back of Adam's hand. As Jesse's yelling notes at pretty much everybody but them, Adam's thumb is exploring the webbing between Chandler's thumb and forefinger.
-xxx-
( part 2)
A Brand New Domain: When Chandler gets cast in an off-Broadway (with about fourteen "off"s) production of Legally Blonde: the Musical, playing Carlos (or is it Chuck?), he's fully aware that it's stupid to get a crush on his on-stage love interest, Nikos the poolboy played by the mysterious Adam Crawford. But he totally does it anyway. (set about a year from the end of s4. Rated NC-17. Chandler/Adam; background Kurt/Blaine and Santana/OFC. Also featured prominently are Jesse st. James, Sugar Motta, and that dumb kid Gavroche from the NYADA mixer at the start of season 3. NO GAY BOY FROM GLEE IS TOO OBSCURE.)
Chandler's first impression of the place is that it's the shittiest little theatre he's ever been in. And having grown up flaming-gay on the northern outskirts of Lima, Ohio, that's saying something, because he has seen a lot of shitty little theatres. He's hoping that having nailed his audition and gotten cast will make everything seem just a little bit brighter, but unfortunately his second impression of the place is pretty much the same as the first.
His first impression of the director is that he's crazy, and that hasn't changed much either.
"First run-through!" he shouts at the top of his (impressive) lungs, clapping his hands together. "We'll sit on the stage floor in a circle arranged according to importance. That means Elle, Emmett, and the dog right next to me, other principles further out past them, et cetera et cetera, until the useless Delta Nus and law students with no lines all the way on the other side." He pauses and flips his (also impressive) hair but is shouting again in two seconds. "Hurry!"
Chandler isn't a hundred percent sure about where he falls in the hierarchy, but he does have a decent chunk of a song all to himself, so he slides into the lefthand side of the wobbly ring ("I said circle, not ugly peanut-shape! Did you all fail kindergarten?") between the forty-something guy playing Winthrop in admissions and the fifty-something guy playing Elle's dad. It's a great vantage point from which to watch the man-diva playing Callahan and the busty Latina playing Enid squabble over their placement. She's got claws, so she's probably going to win.
They go around clockwise introducing themselves. Jesse st. James, psycho director extraordinaire, talks for a solid twenty minutes, and literally zero of it is interesting to Chandler except that apparently they're both from Ohio. The Vocal Adrenaline thing makes total sense. No one else has a résumé nearly as extensive - considering they're off-Broadway with about fourteen "offs" - or at least they have the sense to shut up about it. Most of the Delta Nus wait tables and Jesse just waves his had at them as if he couldn't care less. He probably couldn't, actually.
"Chandler Kiehl," he says, swiftly and as normal as possible, when it's his turn. "I'm a sophomore at NYU studying film and stage performance and I'll be playing Chuck, the boyfriend."
"Carlos," Jesse corrects automatically.
Chandler frowns. "No, Chuck? You're changing to the movie version because you couldn't cast someone who looks hispanic."
"It's Carlos. You're Carlos."
"You said it yourself in your casting email."
"Don't argue with me! I am the director!" He sighs dramatically at like, all the total grief and suffering Chandler is obvs causing him. "I knew casting actual gays in the gay parts would make this unbearable."
Enid - Santana Lopez, a name Chandler almost recognizes from somewhere - looks like she's about to turn into an actual tiger and prowl across the floor and slice his face off. "Look, Jerkoff st. Jheri-curl - "
"Anthony Beal!" yelps Elle's dad from Chandler's left, and the circle continues around. Chandler can't decide if he's relieved or disappointed; that definitely would've been the best catfight he's seen all year.
The circle wraps all the way around to the bland, uncute Emmett, a few years older than Chandler with a gross ponytail, and then naturally Jesse starts to talk again. "Obviously we have a few people missing, though their excuses are terrible. Latoya, who will be playing Pilar, is at some funeral, a couple of sorority girls couldn't get off work, I'll probably cut them, and our Nikos, Adam, is helping out with some lame spring showcase night at NYADA."
Chandler's intrigued - a little at NYADA, but mostly at "Adam." His spirits had fallen a little when he realized no one had introduced himself as Nikos the poolboy, and he's super-curious to meet whoever it is whose boyfriend he's pretending to be. NYADA and a normal-sounding name are reassuring, of course. But nothing beats a good, solid first impression.
-xxx-
"Do you know an Adam Crawford?" Chandler calls half-heartedly when his roommate trudges home from class the next afternoon. This is mostly the relationship they have - conversations brief and with no preamble. He's pretty sure they each find the other just, like, mildly annoying.
"No?" says Gavroche, throwing his messenger bag in a dead heap on the floor. "Why would I?"
Chandler rolls from stomach-down on his bed to sitting up, gives him the eye. "He goes to NYADA, I think, aren't you like the expert?"
"Well it's not like I go there or anything. Duh?" He slumps into his desk chair and tugs unnecessarily at his scarf for a good thirty seconds. It ends up exactly like it was to start.
"Duh," Chandler echoes. Gavroche probably complained four times a day that he was at NYU instead of NYADA their first semester, but okay, whatever. "Okay, whatever." He goes back to looking on Facebook. There's about twenty Adam Crawfords in their area and he has yet to find one with friends in common with him, or who's listed NYADA under schools.
Then again, Chandler admits, he's not really trying very hard. It's mostly because he doesn't quite understand why he's even trying at all in the first place. After these first couple of weeks, which are Delta Nu-intensive and mostly dancing, Chandler's totally just going to meet him at their first music rehearsal for act 2. Yet Chandler is like, stupid curious about this guy, to the point that he's kind of not doing his homework even more than he's usually not doing his homework.
"I'm a slave to social media," he whines aloud, goofily melodramatic. Gavroche doesn't react - he's already got his enormous headphones on and is lip-synching to himself. Chandler rolls his eyes at him - and a little bit at himself - and flops back onto his stomach. He clicks the next one on his list.
Oh god, it's him.
"There - right - there," he breathes, scrolling slowly downward. If this Adam Crawford is the right Adam Crawford - and surely he must be, he has "Legally Blonde: the Musical" under his Likes - Chandler will have zero problem pretending to be his gay boyfriend. His profile pic is him in partial silhouette in front of a London skyline, that huge Ferris wheel glittering behind him and leaving slivers of light dusted across the profile of his nose and cheekbones, which are frankly to die for. He's smiling casually, perhaps laughing at something unseen, and wearing an absolutely fabulous hat and he's just the perfect amount of unshaven and frankly Chandler could just eat him with a freaking spoon.
He sends a friend request before he can stop himself.
(He is not ashamed.)
Pleased with himself for embracing and owning his creeper-status tendencies, Chandler clicks back from Facebook to Twitter - his true domain - and adjusts his glasses, settling in for a long solid night of procrastination. It's not like he could focus on his comparative essay with Gavroche Gavroching all over the place anyway. Not until after he's caught up on most of his favorite GLBTQ* feeds and thrown a couple of tweets around with his scene partner for his Wednesday 1:30 does his brain kind of register the pieces of what he's just seen:
Nothing visible on Adam's profile under the "interested in" category.
A photograph against the London skyline.
The irony is not lost on Chandler.
"Is he gay... or European??" he laments aloud.
"Is who?" says Gavroche, unexpectedly aware.
Chandler doesn't answer; he just does what he does best, and tweets.
@iGottaKiehling That is the elephant in the room.
-xxx-
"It's not the time to overthink -
Just try it once, and he'll buy you a drink!"
The girl playing Elle is undeniably fabulous. It's pretty clear to see that she mostly got cast because Jesse wants to bone her, but Chandler doubts Jesse even would want to bone her if she weren't at least some degree of stupidly talented. He's decided that he really likes her. (Though she is so incredibly redheaded that he's struggling to picture her as a blonde.)
The problem is, Chandler's decided that he doesn't like pretty much everyone else in the cast. Rob who plays Callahan is the biggest diva he's met since high school, and refuses to socialize with the rest of them at all. Most of the girls who are Delta Nus appear to have slept with most of the boys who are law students, but then again so has Kiki the Colorist, and that's a catty drama clusterfuck that even Chandler at his gossipiest won't set foot in. Warner is unbelievably stupid, Emmett is the least convincing straight male lead since Chandler himself played Seymour Krelborn, and Enid is straight-up terrifying. The only people he's dared approach so far are Melanie, the relative sweetheart who plays Paulette, and their Vivienne, Liz, who aside from potentially being fuckbuddies with Enid/Santana seems mostly sane.
And then there's Nikos.
The mysterious Adam Crawford is even prettier in person and Chandler kind of wants to scream. He's got cute little teeth and cute little dimples and broad, sculpted shoulders that are definitely not cute or little and sweet mother of Tyra Banks, Chandler knows it's a completely stupid idea to be crushing on his on-stage love interest, but canst thou blame him for looking?
(And listening. Because - the accent.)
Jesse snaps his fingers in irritation, which in itself is irritating, and everyone's attention reluctantly returns to him at the piano. "People, moving on! Number nineteen in your scores!"
Chandler shoots a look over in Adam's direction, and finds him grinning back. It's delightful. He's not even actually in this song singing-wise but he's so excited already, Chandler can't stand it.
The principle vocals handle their parts easily, though Brooke still sounds way too much like a chainsmoker to pass as an empress of fitness and health, and the chorus muddles through their section without too much of a struggle either since the vocals are pretty much in unison. Chandler's both pleased and displeased about how well it's going; it sounds great but he was hoping to have a bit more time to work himself up to his piece.
"And your first name again is - "
"Nikos," says Adam. Chandler totally doesn't swoon at all, what are you talking about.
"And your boyfriend's name is - "
"Carlos."
"Chuck," Jesse interjects.
"So we are changing it to Chuck, then?" says Adam, tugging a pencing from behind his ear to make a note of it.
"We were never not changing it to Chuck," says Jesse, pulling a handsome but bizarrely contorted face. "Does he look like a Carlos?"
"I'd like to think I mostly just look like a Chandler," he says, batting his eyelashes for effect. He gets a mixed bag of snickers and unimpressed glares, but Adam is among those chuckling, and he does his best not to put too much significance on that.
"Chuck," Jesse insists. "Start with Emmett again."
"Mr. Argitakos," says Owen, "this alleged affair with Mrs. Wyndham has been going on for how long?"
"Two years."
"And your first name again is?"
"Nikos."
"And your boyfriend's name is?"
"Chuck."
Beatrice who plays Elle gives a gasp, and the others belatedly follow suit before Adam jumps back in, trying really hard with his Mediterranean accent but adorably missing the mark by just a hair. "No, no, I misunderstand - I thought you say, 'best friend'! Chuck is my best friend."
"You bastard!" Chandler yelps, and all eyes are on him again. "You lying bastard!"
He's listened to the soundtrack enough that he mostly knows what he's doing, but he still kind of fumbles on some of the weirder notes - his sight-reading is a bit rusty after a semester of nearly nothing but film-focused acting courses. Jesse's pretty unimpressed, pounding out on the piano and dragging them through the song again and again. Chandler can't help but feel a little guilty, since it's partially his fault. Well, him and Emmett/Owen. (But he definitely isn't fumbling because Adam keeps flashing these quiet little grins at him. No way.)
Eventually Jesse shoos the rest of them away so he can move on to Legally Blonde with Beatrice and Owen. The courtroom ensemble peels off, dance warmups in one corner, more gossipy shit in the other. Chandler forgoes them both in favor of shouldering up to Adam, who also doesn't seem to be joining either group.
"So-o," he says, with his cutest flirty smile, rocking a little on the balls of his feet. "Which are you really?"
"Which of what?" says Adam, but Chandler can tell he's fooling, that he knows what he's about to ask.
"Gay, or European?" Chandler trills, up the octave. "So hard to guarantee - "
"I'm from Essex," he interrupts, laughing. "And I'm bi. So a bit of both, I suppose?"
Chandler feels his eyes glittering, hopes it's not too obvious. "Excellent," he says. "I much prefer acting opposite men who at least swing a little bit my way. Some things it just isn't enough to fake it."
"No, quite understandable," says Adam, still smiling. "Honestly, it's bad enough to have to feign attraction when you simply don't like someone as a person, that whole sexual orientation business must be an absolute boar." He glances over at the piano. "Dunno how Owen's doing it."
"He's not," snorts Chandler. The sight at the piano is a little bit embarrassing - Jesse's clearly smitten with Beatrice, but Owen is clearly smitten with Jesse, and Beatrice clearly can't be bothered with either of them.
"Good thing you and I won't be having that problem," says Adam, snapping Chandler back to their conversation immediately because whoa hello, is he implying that he won't have to act like he's attracted to Chandler because he's really -
"With the whole sexual orientation business," he clarifies.
Oh. "Right!" Of course. That.
They sit for a few silent moments that are only, oh, forty to fifty percet awkward, and then Adam reaches into his satchel and pulls out some kind of granola energy bar, which he unwraps and then congenially breaks in half. "Wanna share? These things are great for energy but they taste like mulch, I can never stomach a whole one."
"What a pitch," Chandler laughs, eyeing the proffered bar suspiciously. Adam chuckles and Chandler winks. "Good thing I like what you're selling."
Adam pulls an amused, curious face, eyes crinkling up charmingly and his mouth going crooked, and he takes a bite out of the mulch bar without ever looking away from Chandler's face.
Chandler's insides do something resembling the Bend & Snap.
-xxx-
Allergy season hits full bore near the end of the second week of full-cast rehearsals, which wouldn't be so bad, except for Chandler also gets a massive fucking cold. One or the other, maybe he could handle. As it is, his nose puffs up into this oh-so-adorable cross between a strawberry and a tomato, and also kind of a faucet.
"When I die, bury me with my Baz Luhrmann DVD collection," he whines from within a blanket cocoon.
"I don't get you," says Gavroche, styling his hair at their mirror so it does that stupid flippy thing he sports so proudly. "How are you, like, dying right now? We're in the heart of the city, what even is making pollen?"
Chandler rolls over and glares at him via the mirror. "Have you ever been allergic to anything?"
"I can't have avocado, you know that," he says, missing the point by about eight flying leaps. Chandler flops back onto his back and grunts pathetically at the ceiling.
"Go to class," he says. Gavroche does, tap shoes clacking obnoxiously in his bag.
The silence and solitude is glorious - for about four minutes, until Chandler's attention-whore extraversion kicks in. He squirms in the bed for a little bit, lamenting his intense post-nasal drip and the throbbing at his temples, and then digs under his pillow for his phone and pulls up Instagram. He takes a fish-eye selfie of his bloated nose and immediately kicks it over to Facebook.
Chandler Bing Kiehl > So go on, here's my head - just hit it with a rock!
He sighs. Fidgets. Aches to find any position in the bed that's comfortable enough to sit still in for more than five minutes. Wonders if it's been long enough that he can take another benadryl without passing out. (Wonders if passing out would maybe be the best plan at this point.)
Jolts, when his phone buzzes with a new alert.
Swoons when he sees who it is.
Adam Crawford Did someone Bend&Snap right into you?
Chandler Bing Kiehl Someone called every oak tree this side of Manhattan.
He flicks away from his main feed and over to messaging with just Adam and adds it's adorable of u to think of me.
Adam: Oh, don't play this talk-entirely-in-show-quotes game with me, I'm going to fail.
Chandler: fair. guess i win then~
Adam: You strike me as the type who likes to win.
Chandler: i mostly just like to play~~
"How much harder do I have to flirt before you make a real pass at me?!" Chandler shouts to his empty room. His head pounds from the exertion and he instantly regrets it.
Adam: Fair. :)
Adam: We missed you at blocking yesterday.
Chandler: yes, well, my presence is irreplaceable
Adam: Apparently at the end of There Right There Nikos and Chuck are to have a kiss.
Chandler freezes, then sneezes about six times in a row, pitching his dorm-issue bed hard on the linoleum floor, because what?!
Chandler: oh?
Adam: Nothing outrageous, but.
Chandler: well.
(He hesitates for all of three seconds.)
Chandler: that IS somethin we'll def need to rehearse
Chandler: perhaps we could schedule a lil bit of independent practice to catch me up?
Adam: Perhaps first you should concern yourself with ensuring that your nose doesn't turn into a rutabaga?
Chandler forgets for a second that Adam can't see him and reaches up to softly squash a few fingers against his puffy nose, self-conscious in a way he so rarely feels. He giggles once he realizes his mistake, and the laugh turns into a wet little cough. Oh, it would be so easy just to well and truly like this guy. But then again, the liking is always the easy part. It's the way the cookie crumbles later on - the way Chandler can't ever seem to make it past a second or third date - that's the hard and shitty part.
Chandler: is that what u get when u cross a strawberry w a tomato?
Adam: ...?
Chandler: lol never mind
Adam doesn't really say anything after that, but it's fine by Chandler. He's feeling a little groggy and disoriented again, and he's probably just going to roll over for a nap. Smiling faintly, he reaches out to his desk for another pill and some more pomegranate juice, and then slips his phone under his pillow again with an alarm to wake him up in time to go get dinner.
It's not until he's almost completely dozed off that Chandler's hit with it: when he suggested extracurricular kissing, Adam hadn't entirely said no.
-xxx-
Chandler's cold-plus-allergies knock him out for almost a week, at least from Legally Blonde rehearsal - he's trying to save his voice and his energy for the things he actually gets grades and credit for, and his classes have been sapping him almost before he can make it back to his dorm. But Saturday is a different story, and if he misses this important half-sitzprobe half-costume fitting day he's going to be beyond screwed, so he arms himself with a half-gallon jug of orange juice and some extra-strength tylenol and braves the bepollened streets to get to the theatre as quickly as he can. (The thought of kissing Adam - even in a stage-kissing capacity - certainly isn't not a motivational factor, even if the phlegm is making the circumstances a little less than ideal.)
But when he trudges through the doorway into their theatre space to find the entire cast and most of the crew squawking at each other in absolute chaos, Chandler starts to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have just stayed home.
"The fu...."
Jesse reaches him first. "There you are, Carlos! You're four minutes late! Four!"
"The subway was seven minutes late," Chandler sasses back, instantly on the defensive. "You should be impressed with how much time I made up, I took like the sketchiest shortcut known to man."
"Yeah, st. James, I thought you were all in favor of sketchy shortcuts considering what you've done to our budget!" yells a woman whom Chandler vaguely recognizes as the production manager and project funder. He thinks she may also own the space. She's maybe a few years younger than his mom and, as far as he can tell, just about the only sane person involved with the entire project.
"I told you, Shelby, I'm saving you tons here!" he shouts at her.
"Tons that we're going to have to pay right back in a liability suit when someone sues for injuries they got on this totally unsafe set!" Jesse rounds on her, striding across the space to get in her face (or as close as he can, Chandler revises with a laugh; she's got several inches on him), and Chandler's gonna make a break for it, scanning quickly around in search of Adam, when he's approached again, this time by their small, flighty costume designer.
"Did he just call you Carlos?" she wails, fidgeting with her hands and looking near tears. "I've done my whole design schema with you as Chuck! If it's supposed to have Spanish influence after all I'm going to have to go back and rework the whole thi--"
"Marjory!" Callahan - Rob - is on a rampage, and she nearly jumps out of her skin, and ducks behind Chandler as if to hide from him. "I'm not done with you about this herringbone! Are you absolutely colorblind?"
Chandler has to stay between the two of them like he's breaking up a fight between a pair of actual children, as she fearfully backs them up all the way to the piano, where Rob gets sucked up into another argument, this one over who stands where and comes out when during curtain call. Their shouts get louder and louder to compete in volume with Santana and Liz screaming over one of them sleeping with somebody off-limits, and Chandler thinks they might break out into Take Me Or Leave Me at any moment now, so he's pinpointed their drama as the Fight To Watch out of the ten or twelve pinballing all over the open room when - he feels someone tug at his shoelace.
"Chandler," hisses Adam, grinning at him from where he's hidden himself under the piano. Chandler grins back and instantly drops down to join him, cheeks coloring a bit at their proximity in the tight-squeezed space.
"Geez," he says, "I leave you all alone for four days and this is what happens? You crazy bastards must need me more than I realized."
"Your absence has been starkly evident," says Adam, knocking his knee into Chandler's. Chandler frisks a hand dramatically through his own hair in a naturally, naturally flip.
"What started this pandemonium?"
Adam points out across the floor to the baby-pink studded heels of the girl playing Chutney. "Sugar diva'd out on Maurice and started crying when she realized she was actually going to have to appear onstage with atrocious hair, even just as a wig. So then Marjory confronted him about making poor Sugar cry, but she honestly can't handle a confrontation of any sort - and then of course god forbid anyone out-diva Robert, so he sets in about top billing and his placement in the bows. Then Shelby got here and it all began to just...escalate."
"Quickly." Chandler shakes his head faintly at it all. "Ah, the theataah." He raises his half-empty juice jug toward Adam in an ironic toast without even looking at him, eyes still glazing over trying to make sense of the mayhem. Sugar's left their scope of vision from under the piano, but now it appears Owen is crying.
"The theatre," Adam agrees, returning the toast with his ever-present reusable NYADA water bottle. Their drinks don't connect so much as just the backs of their hands, knuckles rubbing together, Adam's three or four hemp bracelets soft at the edge of Chandler's wrist. They pause there for longer than is normal before Chandler is able to tug away and bury his pleased little smile in a swig of OJ. Unless he's mistaken, that was definitely A Moment. He's having Moments with his charming onstage love interest and they're not even on stage.
"They totally should've cast you as Emmett," he says, as he stares back out at Jesse yelling at Owen. "You'd be so much better, and then they could move that clown down to Warner and get that absolute travesty C.J. out of the show altogether - "
Adam's laugh cuts him off. "I would not be better," he says. "I can't at all sing."
Chandler turns to face him in faux-shock. "Not at all? Dost thou jest? But you graduated from NYADA!"
"Where I studied theatre and dance."
"Then how did you audition for this show?"
"With an empassioned spoken-word performance of Fergie's 'My Humps.' They cast me in the non-singing male role, you'll notice."
Chandler's grin cracks across his face at their collective absurdity, and he shoves playfully at Adam's shoulder. "So theatre, but not music. I can't believe I didn't know this about you."
"Well, there's a lot I haven't learned about you either, Mr. Kiehl," Adam smirks back, nudging Chandler's knee - his thigh, practically - with the full broad palm of his hand.
Chandler's pretty sure his whole body gives a swooning shiver at that, and he struggles to recover as quickly as possible. "Okay, okay," he says, "on three: name your biggest passion other than the call of the stage." He sees Adam's raised eyebrow with a smartly quirked one of his own. "One, two - social media - "
"Food."
Chandler's other eyebrow joins the first. "A foodie? Ooh la la!"
"I grew up with pretty much just your basic English fare," says Adam. "When I came to the US, in a big city, there were so many different options that I was sort of overwhelmed. It all just rather got away from me after that."
"You're so English," Chandler sighs, the overdone dreaminess crammed into it only half-faked.
"Yours doesn't surprise me at all, I'm afraid," says Adam with a laugh. "I don't believe I've ever seen you without your iPhone, and your Twitter moves eerily quickly."
Chandler pales. "You follow me on Twitter?" His brain starts spinning a mile a minute as he desperately tries to recall if he's tweeted anything super embarrassing about his crush - he doesn't think so, he tries to be vague and as un-incriminating as possible, he has a couple of professional theatre contacts on there - but the very idea is mortifying -
Adam laughs again. "Don't worry, I haven't paid too much attention. Your deep, dark internet secrets are safe and sound with the four-hundred-odd other people who follow you."
"Don't patronize us!" Chandler huffs, but his smile has yet to falter. God, he thinks, be more stupidly charming, why don't you. He's tempted to tweet it too, actually, and give this flirty little powwow a kick in the pants, and he sits up a little - as much as he can inside their piano sanctuary - to worm his phone out of his pocket.
Once he resituates himself, he's pleasantly startled to find Adam's face a lot closer to his own. Like, I-can-count-your-precious-blond-eyelashes close. "So I must say, your nose is looking much better today," he says, low and a smidge more tenderly.
"M-must you?" says Chandler, and maybe the tweet isn't necessary after all. "Because I - I believe I was promised a raincheck on some of that act two rehearsal that I missed..."
"Hmm, 'promise' is a strong word," says Adam, voice even lower, body even closer... "Lucky for you, I'm in quite a helpful mood today."
"How generous of you," Chandler breathes. He lowers his eyes very deliberately to Adam's lips, knows that Adam will notice it and revels in it because yes, at last, yes.
Adam's hot little chuckle rumbles through his chest and into Chandler's own. Chandler's reaction - lips dropping the slightest bit open, eyes fluttering shut - is automatic, almost without his brain even noticing. He can feel Adam's warm breath on his jaw and the side of his neck, and his hand lets go of his orange juice to reach and stroke soft, soft through the fine hair creeping out of Adam's hat just behind his ear. This is a soft, seriously sexy first kiss.
Except for - it isn't. Their mouths are less than an inch apart when a loud, cacophonous clang on the keys jolts the entire piano above them. Chandler jumps in startlement; Adam winces, hunching in on himself, and the end result is his teeth clacking into Chandler's chin and his eyebrow squashing against Chandler's already sensitive nose.
"Ow!"
"Sorry - "
"Everyone shut up!" yells Beatrice, slamming on the piano one more time for good measure. "This show goes up in a week and a half and my hair appointment is scheduled for five-thirty, so if we could all just kindly get our various shit together and struggle through this sitzprobe, don't you think that'd probably be for the best?!"
A sheepish silence follows, during which Chandler and Adam crawl out from their hiding place (Adam reaches for Chandler's hand to help him up from the floor and they're both smiling like idiots as they grasp hold). By the time they're on their feet Santana has started slow-clapping, and that first sound sort of cracks everybody's tension, soft murmurs breaking out across the space.
"How absolutely absurd is it to have to raincheck a raincheck?" Chandler whines.
"Just think," says Adam, "it's increasing exponentially. A raincheck squared. Who knows what will end up happening now?" He waggles his eyebrows dramatically and Chandler pretends to swoon, back of his hand draped to his forehead, reclining against the piano.
Eventually everyone sort of wrangles themselves into place, with Jesse clapping his hands imperiously as if he's actually the one who's solved all of the problems. "Okay people! The orchestra should be here any minute now, so I need PMS front and center, Elle, other Delta Nus - if you're not in the opening number you can keep rotating back to see Marjory about your costumes, let's get this knocked out!"
"Suppose that's us," says Adam, cocking his head toward the dressing rooms.
"I'll save us some seats," says Chandler, "you go on ahead. And start thinking about the best place to eat within like ten, fifteen minutes of the theatre."
"What for?"
"Because, Mr. Connoisseur," he says, "that's where you're taking me for dinner tomorrow night after tech."
Adam grins. "It's a date."
-xxx-
The sitzprobe disaster effects a couple serious changes in their production, and Chandler just hopes it isn't too late to save the show, since he's been getting a little scared as it is -
At tech the next day, they wait for all of four minutes before determining that the ever-punctual Owen is simply not going to show, and that they're going to have to find a new Emmett. (Shocker of shockers, Chandler can't bring himself to feel too upset about the change.) He flicks his gaze across the space to Adam, questioning, encouraging, but Adam continues to shake his head no. Ultimately, it comes as zero surprise to anyone when Jesse "reluctantly" steps into the role of Emmett himself. It leaves the position of music director open instead, but Shelby shoulders that burden with unmistakable relief. Chandler just feels bad for the newly-blonded Beatrice.
But Owen isn't actually the first casualty of the debacle - Adam returned from his costume fitting the day before with a tale of Marjory finally succumbing to a full-on breakdown, and she left, too, leaving a good third of the costumes unfinished, including Chandler's own. But a fix to that came quickly, too.
"I know a guy," Santana assured them all, smirking at Jesse.
"Oh, yeah!" Shelby had said, catching on.
"No, no, absolutely not," said Jesse. "He hates me even more than you do, you harpy!"
"Oh," said Adam. "Yeah."
Chandler'd given him a face, because, like, who did Adam know that also knew Santana?
"Oh, he's just a guy I went to NYADA with for a semester or so," he said. "He's how I met Santana, actually. I..." He paused. "I wouldn't call him my ex, per se, we were never really together, so please, even if we look that way a little, let's not have it be weird? We're still friends, you'll love him. You have a lot in common, actually."
And they do have a lot in common, but it does get weird, because the new costumer who shows up the next day, Santana and Adam's weirdly mutual friend, Adam's not-really-my-ex, is none other than -
"Kurt Hummel?"
He makes a semi-unreadable face. "Chandler!" he says, voice full of shock. "What a small world!"
"Big Apple isn't quite so big, is it," Chandler teases. "So you made it to NYADA after all, mazel tov!"
"I - thank you," says Kurt, softening slowly. "It didn't exactly go seamlessly, I'm still kind of amazed."
"I'd love to hear all the details!" says Chandler. "Since, you know, you deleted me from your Facebook. And your Twitter. And your phone - "
"I'm - Chandler, I'm sorry," Kurt says, and the solid eye contact they make makes Chandler believe him - he knows a classy-sassy deflect when he sees one, but Kurt looks totally genuine. "We really could have been good friends, but I was going through a rough patch with Bl - with my boyfriend, at the time, and when he found out about our texting - "
"Honey re-lax," Chandler assures him, winking for good measure. "I knew you had a boyfriend, he was all over your Facebook wall, it was just supposed to be some fun."
"Chandler - "
"And," he presses on, holding up a finger to keep Kurt quiet, "fun stops being fun when only some people are having fun and some people are not. Am I not right?"
Kurt smiles. "You made it to NYU after all. Mazel tov."
Chandler smiles back. "Come on, let's go make me a sexy latin lover."
Kurt lets out an almost unattractive frustrated groan, continuing to talk as they walk toward the costume shop-slash-dressing room. "Do not even talk to me about this Chuck vs. Carlos thing. Jesse st. James is quite possibly the biggest ignoramus I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. And that's counting my stepbrother!"
"Does he not make you just want to howl?" Chandler agrees. "I thought my college roommate was bad, but four weeks of rehearsal with him and Gavroche is nothing."
"Wait - Gavroche, the psycho NYADA hopeful from Bowling Green?"
Their conversation sparks more and more, and Chandler's heart is warming unexpectedly because it's been ages since he just made a new friend. Usually, girls drive him a little bit crazy, and boys - at least the boys he meets - are more about getting into his pants. The only reason Kurt's trying to get him naked is to fit him into this so-awful-they're-kind-of-amazing pair of gunmetal silver leather jeans.
"They're a little long, but that's not an issue, lord knows I take pants up often enough for Blaine. I figure we have these with denim on top if he decides on Chuck, and then I'm looking into a couple of Spanish-flair options for the Carlos variant but we'll keep the pants the same so it stays as simple as possible - "
But Chandler's stopped listening, his brain catching on one word. "Blaine?" he says, mouth curling in amusement. "You're still with Mr. High School Sweetheart?"
Kurt colors a little, gaze averting to the floor. "We're...we're engaged, actually. He proposed about four months ago."
Chandler's hand flies to his heart. "Aw, honey! That's just about the most precious thing I've ever heard." He sighs wistfully. "I am so sorry I ever caused a disturbance. You're so lucky to have found The One. I'm lucky if I can find someone."
"Hey, Chandler?" calls a voice outside the door, and with that accent it can only be one person. He's pretty much all the way back into his plaid skinnies so he calls back, "Come in - ?"
"I was just gonna head down to the vending machine and grab something to munch - act one tech is going nowhere fast. They're still working the lighting effects for 'Serious.'"
"Seriously?" Chandler quips. It's in perfect unison with Kurt making the same joke, and they glance to each other and burst to giggling.
Adam laughs at them. "See, I knew you'd get along. Anyway, d'you want anything?"
"Chex Mix?" Chandler reaches for his wallet, but sometime when his pants were off it must have fallen from the pocket. "Oh - uh, hang on - "
"No worries," says Adam, shaking his head. "I think I can spare one dollar for some overpriced snack food." He ducks back out of the room and Chandler stops scrambling only to find Kurt staring, back and forth between him and the place where Adam used to be. He doesn't say anything, though, just gives one perfect cock of one perfect eyebrow, and Chandler rolls his eyes and gives in, grinning.
"Well he's already taking me to dinner tonight, I thought I'd at least try to save him a little."
Kurt positively squeals, clapping his hands together and hopping in place a little. And Chandler can't help it - he bounces, too, taking Kurt's hands in his and letting his grin stretch wider in a small, victorious moment of how is this my life?
"This is perfect," Kurt gushes. "I was already coming up with about six ways to matchmake the two of you but you've already - oh, and he'll like everything about you that he liked about me but you have much more compatible senses of humor, and you both have those same cute little beanie hats - "
"Kurt McFabulous Hummel I am going to stop you right there," says Chandler.
"It's Elizabeth."
"What?"
"Kurt Elizabeth."
"No matter." Chandler takes him by one shoulder and looks him in the eye Very Seriously. "I need two things from you."
"Wow, um, okay."
"First..." He drops the bit. "Instagram! To commemorate our glamorous NYC reunion." Kurt laughs, and together they do model pouts into the lens of Chandler's phone at arm's length. Chandler bounces it across all of his social media platforms, captioned with Your photo needs #nofilter when you're rubbing elbows with the sexiest boy of NYADA!, and @-tags Kurt in it once he makes sure he's got his handle correct.
(As an afterthought, he follow-up tweets Well, sexiest CURRENTLY at NYADA.)
"What's number two?" asks Kurt, once that's done with.
Chandler takes a deep breath. "Number two is tell me everything."
-xxx-
"I swear he never, ever, ever swings the other way - "
"More upstage!"
Chander falters and adjusts. "You are so gay - " (He's not.) " - you big parfait - " (He's actually not really much of a dessert guy.) " - you flaming one-man cabaret!" (Cabaret is one of his favorite shows.)
"I'm straight!"
Chandler flashes him a smirk that's only partially acting. "You were not yesterday." And back downstage - "So if I may, I'm proud to say - he's gay!"
"And European!"
"He's gay!"
"And European!"
"He's gaaaaaay!" Chandler finishes with a flourish, strikes his fabulous pose as directed, and as the chorus follows through Adam/Nikos emerges from the witness stand and crosses down to him -
"Fine, okay, I'm gay!"
"Hooray!"
Aaaand...the kiss.
Chandler panics.
As Adam reaches forward and tugs him up to stage-kiss, it's not that Chandler's not enjoying it, broad palms flat across his back, the spicy-clean smell of Adam's aftershave. But a jolt crackles through him, carrying with it three words - not like this - and rather than tip up to receive and return the kiss, Chandler opens his mouth up a tiny bit and does his best creepy-child voice right in Adam's ear -
"Kurt told me all of your scary secrets."
Adam bursts out laughing, falling against Chandler's shoulder.
"Gentlemen!"
"Sorry, sorry!" says Chandler, but he isn't really sorry at all. Adam's laugh is infectious, and Chandler's cackling, too, swatting back at Adam where he's playfully smacking at Chandler's chest and shoulders.
Santana grunts, irritated. "Can you two just stop flirting like middle-school gaybies and kiss already? I want to get to curtain call before the fucking sun goes down."
Their antics slow, and Adam fixes Chandler with a look - a really serious, contemplative look that Chandler slowly realizes is reflected in his own expression. Adam's eyes appear suddenly fathomless, shining and drawing him in, and well, when she puts it that way...
"Why not?" whispers Adam, with a glowing little smile.
And so his hands come to hold Chandler's back again, and Chandler cups both hands around Adam's jaw back near his ears, and he angles his head and breathes in hard through his nose and presses in soft and then firm and then -
Kissing.
Kissing is pretty great and kissing Adam - warm, musky, toothy-smiling Adam - is prettier and greater.
What so is not pretty is the crackle and screech of feedback produced when over Adam's left ear and Chandler's right, the mouthpieces of their face mics clack together. The jury people furthest downstage wince and Santana swears again, and the kiss is cut, like, heart-breakingly short as Chandler and Adam jump apart to kill the noise.
"Andy!" yells Jesse, up toward the booth. "Check those channels please!" He's got fingers pressed to his temples like he's oh so all-suffering, and he uses his other hand to do some sort of circular flipping thing. "Okay, okay, Nikos and Chuck exit stage right, and then set change to Callahan's office."
Chandler happily exits, far too conscious of the heat of Adam's body following close behind. A wide hand cups Chandler's shoulder in the dark of the wings and he turns, and Adam's tracklight-lit face is inviting, almost pleading - but this time Chandler has to say no.
He shakes his head. "Not like this," he murmurs, an echo of his earlier panic. "Not when we're still Nikos and like, Chuck-los. I want to do it on our own time."
Adam can't seem to argue with that, and so he nods, but he reaches down in the dark to tangle his fingers into Chandler's own, and they stay that way as they wander back into the back-of-house.
(They stay that way for the rest of the tech, really; as they run through their curtain call, with Chutney and the DA and the judge, Chandler's mapping out the knobby veins on the back of Adam's hand. As Jesse's yelling notes at pretty much everybody but them, Adam's thumb is exploring the webbing between Chandler's thumb and forefinger.
-xxx-
( part 2)