fic: a step from what is obvious - Chris/Cory, Chris & Darren
Title: a step from what is obvious
Pairings: Chris/Cory (Monfer ♥), Chris & Darren
Rating: well, there's sex. hopefully hot sex.
Words: 9,370
Notes: this is primarily a Chris/Cory story, in that they are the couple and (spoiler alert) they have the sex. But more than that it's a story about friendships and relationships, and the complicated business of loving Chris Colfer.
Appreciation: canadiankracka and Mel for being the best VICs ever, and shia_labeouf for shipping it so hard and helping me figure out what it was all about ♥
Chris is running late. He’s way the fuck out in the Valley and he’s supposed to be at dinner on Melrose in 20 minutes. Everything in LA is not 20 minutes away, thank you very much Clueless. He brushes his teeth and throws a favorite hat over messy hair, not even trying for a Kurt-like first impression.
Cory is killing Nazi zombies with Justin and probably can’t even hear him but he calls over his shoulder anyway, “I’m leaving, going to meet my new boyfriend!”
“No, wait, get back here!” Cory yells as the dying zombie noise suddenly pauses and Justin scowls at the interruption but absolutely does not look up from his controller. Cory comes bounding into his foyer, grabs Chris by his elbows and kisses him so hard Chris drops the car keys, a jangling crash on the cool tiles.
“Whoa,” Chris says, a little stunned as Cory pulls away, tugging Chris’s top lip between his teeth as he does.
“K, you can go now. Just didn’t want you to forget me,” Cory grins, giving his ass a nice smack for good measure.
“Uhhh, yeah...or you know, get me horny and send me off to meet a cute stranger I only know from the internet. Interesting strategy.”
“Eh, he’s straight, right?”
“Yeah, probably about as straight as you. Ok bye, don’t wait up!” Chris reaches up on his tiptoes to give Cory one more quick kiss, shoving him away and turning for the door.
“Oh I will. Love you...” Cory barely gets the last syllable out before he’s back on his controller and the splatter of exploding zombie torsos again fills the room.
---
Chris has known Darren for a total of one hour and thirty-seven minutes and it seems like long enough. They’re sharing the butterscotch budino after covering most of the basics during dinner: Harry Potter, Broadway shows, ADD and sleep aids, Ryan Murphy’s particular brand of crazy, and Glee contract stuff - apparently signing Darren is inordinately complicated and he is lawyered up. Chris remembers looking at his own contract in his kitchen in Clovis with just his agent and his mom. It feels like a hundred years ago.
Chris digs thoughtfully in the little ceramic pot, twirling another bite onto his spoon and says, “I need to tell you something, because no one else will, and it’s important to me that we trust each other. Do you agree?”
Darren looks up from licking his spoon, sees that Chris is quite serious, and sets the spoon down on the plate. He takes a sip of water and folds his hands neatly in his lap.
“I absolutely agree. And I appreciate your skipping any kind of bullshit breaking in period with me and being so forthcoming. Shoot.”
“Have you met Cory yet?” Chris looks him square in the eye and the rest of the story practically tells itself.
“Ahhh...no. Not properly met. Probably this week?”
“Yes. Well. We are...” It’s been so long since, and so seldom that Chris has even had the need to articulate or explain this that he finds he doesn’t exactly possess the terminology. Chris just swallows, watches him, waits. Darren seems pretty sharp.
“Wow. I...yeah, definitely didn’t know that.”
“No one does. I mean...obviously someone does. Or like, maybe a dozen someones. Of which, you are now one.”
Darren nods slowly, and Chris can see him thinking. “How long?”
Chris takes a sip of tea. “Year and a half? I think...it kind of depends on where you start counting, you know?”
Darren pulls a kind of stunned face but keeps nodding, “yeah, totally get you,” and picks up his spoon, takes another slow bite of the budino. “That’s got to be hard...on both of you. I mean, and he’s not even...”
“Out? No, not in the way they require. You can’t come out, you definitely can’t come out as bi, you know?” Darren looks a bit taken aback and Chris quirks an eyebrow, backs off a little before he goes on. “He doesn’t lie, though. Anyway. Welcome to Hollywood, and all that. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so cynical. I love my life, god, obviously. I wouldn’t want to talk about my personal life even if this wasn’t our situation, really.” Chris sips his tea and looks at Darren, who looks so genuinely concerned that Chris immediately feels fond of him. “What about you? Girlfriend, boyfriend, it’s complicated?”
Darren smiles slowly and licks his spoon, looks a little put on the spot. “Uh...girl...it’s complicated. Sort of?” He laughs and Chris raises an eyebrow as if to say, “see?”
“And? What about her? You want everyone to know her name and what she does and where she lives? Want them to ask her on twitter how often you have sex with her? Because...that’s what they do.” Chris challenges, smirking and bemused.
“No, but...if it were serious...I don’t think it’s the same, Chris. But if it were...I don’t think I’d be able to do it. I wouldn’t hide a relationship that was that significant.”
Chris smiles, a little wistfully, takes the last tiny bite of sticky creamy butterscotch left in the dish. Yeah, definitely already fond of him. “Yes you would. You’ll see.”
---
Chris goes home to his own place after dinner, Darren’s various numbers and email addresses now carefully saved in his phone, to pick up some clothes and a couple of books and scripts from his agent sitting heavily in his mailbox. He sits down for a minute to skim the accompanying letters and is just getting to the point of too absorbed and too comfortable to get back up when his phone buzzes.
still on your date? i’m over here, guitar center run.
Chris grins and triumphs a little inside because now he gets Cory and he doesn’t have to get back in the car. He’s already kicking off his boots as he texts back, hi hi hi home now come over yay you couch.
yay! couch no working? Cory sends back and Chris laughs and shakes his head to himself. Cory knows him so well and it still makes him a little giddy sometimes, just the being known.
was reading something good but come distract me
Twenty minutes later the scripts are on the floor near Cory’s knees and Chris’s pants are around his thighs. Chris gazes down at him, dazed and basically dumbstruck as Cory smiles and licks around the head of his dick. Cory with cock in his mouth somehow looks almost angelically sweet, and much younger than he really is, which always makes Chris feel oddly lecherous. It’s ridiculous, but incredibly hot, so Chris definitely encourages it. He lifts his hips and pushes at Cory’s lips just a bit as Cory reaches around him with long arms, wraps his hands behind Chris’s ass to pull him in closer, opening his mouth to take him deeper. Chris gasps and clutches at Cory’s hair, flicks his thumbs at Cory’s jaw and just fucks, lets go and lets the rumble in Cory’s throat and the hot sheen of pink on his cheeks tell him it’s ok.
Cory holds him tight, doesn’t let him pull away even when he comes, the jolt to his body when he orgasms always so hard and shocking he feels like he must be hurting Cory. Cory can always take it though, always swallows and soothes and mumbles little encouragements, doesn’t let him go or stop stroking his thighs until Chris’s nerves unwind and his muscles stop shaking.
Chris comes to his senses in a blur of fumbly movement, not quite coordinated enough yet to get his pants the rest of the way off and get Cory down the hall to his bed without tripping a bit, but he manages. Crawls up and down Cory’s body to suck at his favorite bits, ears, neck, nipples, fingers, and finally returns the favor, only pulling off to finish with his hand so Cory can come on his neck and chest because it gets them both so, so hot and Chris wants to go again.
---
“Whoa...” is pretty much all Cory can manage by the time Chris rolls off him, giggling with a sort of smug satisfaction. He snuggles close to him, his head on Cory’s chest, listens to him breathing and thinking. Chris really was going to do some more work later, but moving seems very, very unlikely at this point.
“You know I’m old, right?” Cory asks with a laugh and a groan, rubbing his hand over his face and chest when he can formulate speech again. Chris giggles again and twists against him, burrowing further into the warmth of his bed, their bed, he thinks.
“Should I check out some newer models, you think? Trade up?” Chris asks, lips idly pressing against Cory’s ribs, half asleep. Cory sighs and turns a little, wraps Chris up in his chest.
“Well, you checked out the Harry Potter model tonight...that one’s younger. And, like, magical, right?” Chris knows Cory is just thinking out loud and being silly, and he doesn’t have to say anything to placate him, so he just stays quiet because he’s so, so comfortable and sleepy and any little movement could unsettle him from this place.
“He knows about us?” Cory asks with a sudden inhale, shifting Chris a little on his chest where Chris had almost drowsed off.
“Hmmm? Oh. He’s really short. And yeah...I told him.” Chris lays his head back down, drags his fingertips in a tiny circle on Cory’s chest, waits for the quiet to blanket back over him.
Cory settles again, kisses Chris’s head, and sighs softly into his hair. “Good.”
Chris wakes up after a few hours and goes to take a shower, kisses Cory on the shoulder as he moves silently through the bedroom, and picks up where he left off with the scripts.
---
Darren comes to Paramount to meet everyone and Chris has nerves in his stomach, for Darren, maybe for both of them. Everything is changing so much in the next 10 episodes, and Chris has that queasy, out of sorts feeling like it’s the last day of camp for him but everyone else is staying the rest of the summer.
Darren is charming, of course, and people seem to immediately take to him. They won’t be seeing him much since he’ll be in Dalton world with Chris, but he obviously makes the effort to connect to them each at least a bit.
Chris sees him laughing about something with Cory and he has to stop and just stare for a moment, feels like this is somehow important, seeing them happen. Chris doesn’t think he is imagining that Darren is dialing up the flirting with Cory. He sees Cory air-drumming, Darren nodding along to the beat and they must be talking about playing with their bands - Darren did his homework, Chris thinks. Cory likes him too, Chris can tell. He doesn’t know why he finds that so charming, but he does.
---
When they start shooting in Pasadena, everything about the routine Chris has come to rely on to keep him centered shifts. He spends almost as much time with Darren as he does with Cory - actually, probably more. Time rehearsing and the hours of waiting, nothing to do but walk around the grounds and talk, time learning embarrassing choreography with him, time singing with him - fortuitously, they find they love to sing together.
Chris knows it’s cheesy and overly sentimental to think it but it mirrors their onscreen courtship more than Chris wants to admit. Chris reminds himself often that Blaine’s flirting with Kurt is not the same as Darren’s flirting with him. He tells himself that he can always tell the difference, but after a while together, Chris isn’t sure there is a difference.
Chris thinks, all these things considered, he does a decent job separating himself and his feelings from Kurt’s responses, Kurt’s motivations, even if Darren blurs his lines. It seems easier for him, Chris thinks, and wonders if it’s because he’s straight that Darren can be so cavalier.
Cory and the rest of the cast go to London and Chris stays in LA to shoot more with Darren and the guys who play the Warblers. It sort of sucks but it’s sort of a relief, trips like that being ridiculously hectic and stressful, and he has to go to Europe with Amber later in the month as it is.
They work a lot and they talk, talk about character, about physicality. They get in each other’s space. Darren hugs him and Chris sometimes holds back, hesitates to return the fullness, the weight of Darren’s body that he gives. They have a ridiculously gay surprise hit Christmas recording and Darren hugs him some more, and Chris realizes there’s nothing to be apprehensive about, lets Darren closer, bit by bit. When Darren kisses him on the corner of his mouth as he leaves for the airport one Friday afternoon, Chris kisses back and wishes him Merry Christmas without even looking up from his text message.
Cory picks him up and takes him home, and they don’t leave Cory’s bed until Chris has to go to the airport himself. Germany and Austria are beautiful, snowy wonderlands and France is fabulous of course, but Chris thinks mostly about Cory skiing and watching hockey at home in Vancouver, and wishes they could be in either place together.
---
Chris barely even gets home for Christmas before he and Darren find out about the Entertainment Weekly shoot. They have to be back in LA in a few days, giving Chris just enough time to properly stress out over it. Photoshoots are weird and permanently awkward, no matter how much the photographers think they are making them fun and playful and quirky. Cory’s still in Vancouver when Chris gets back and he can’t sleep, doesn't even try, just writes a lot. His anxiety is making his imagination so bizarre already he doesn’t dare take an Ambien until it’s over.
The setup turns out insipidly innocent, 1950’s American dream treacle, bow ties and ukuleles. The Brian Kinney-esque visions of ripped open shirts, leather and body oil that have tormented Chris the past four nights are completely unfounded. Chris sits on a prop couch, tucked primly between Darren’s legs and leans into him comfortably. There’s nothing threatening about it, and he and Darren are good at this, at portraying this fantasia that is affectionate, and yes, gay, but palatable.
“I feel like we’re, like...” Chris begins as a stylist pulls at the neckline of his preppy schoolboy sweater, fixes down the hem with double-sided tape. It’s keeping them sane that they can at least carry on their own private conversation under the soundtrack of Chris’s iPod, amusing themselves between ridiculously overblown smiles.
“It’s kind of like that movie Pleasantville,” Darren suggests and Chris’s eyes glint up at him but there’s something else.
“Kind of...before the colors, obviously,” Chris thinks out loud.
“Definitely before the sex. No one holding a ukulele gets laid,” Darren agrees, grinning and fiddling with the tuning pegs.
Chris laughs a little manically and stares around, wishing the photographer would move through these setups quicker but not totally miserable. “It’s more like that commercial, with the vegetables...where the vegetables are like ice cream and the kids go crazy?” Chris can hear his own voice but isn’t sure if he’s even making sense to himself, much less if Darren can follow. He feels Darren’s laugh against his back and they flash smiles and glances at each other on command.
“Does that make us the ranch dressing?” Darren finishes when the photographer stops again and Chris just loses it.
“Yes. God. We are gay ranch dressing. Thank you. That is...that’s amazing.” Chris shakes his head and wipes his eyes where he’s teared up from laughing and he probably needs his makeup retouched but he just can’t stop once Darren starts giggling too.
“Think we can get a few where you kiss, yeah?” the photographer asks just once, chirpily, and Chris knows they’re probably pretty much done now.
“No,” flat, immediate, and in unison from both their publicists is the resounding answer from the sidelines.
Chris looks up at Darren and his eyes are just so kind and fond, and that’s not Blaine, that’s Darren. He smiles at Chris like Cory does sometimes and Chris feels like he could sleep really well right now. He’s shaky and beyond delirious and Darren’s arms around his shoulders feel so good.
“Joanie and Chachi,” Chris suddenly perks, looking up again to see if Darren’s smiling and he is.
“Perfect,” Darren nods in agreement and hugs him close. Darren just holds him while they wait and Chris lets him, rests against his chest and breathes.
---
Chris knows Cory thinks it’s cute, his stupid and somewhat inconvenient crush on Darren. Cute, but sometimes also rather hot, when Cory figures out he can use it to his advantage. He chooses his moments well, at least, Chris thinks as Cory mouths at his ear about Darren’s tight little body and how much Chris is going to like kissing him. He teases him about Darren even as he’s lifting Chris up against a wall in his room or over the back of his couch, and Darren definitely couldn’t do that. Chris only wonders briefly if he should feel guilty about this.
Except when Cory brings it up just to get a rise out of him, he tries, he really tries to keep it tucked away in a jumbled corner of other messy fun things that he only visits in moments of extreme weakness or boredom. He likes Darren, and not just in a let’s make out it’s my birthday way (though, ok, some of it is that because Darren just has a lovely mouth), but in a be my best man some day way. It’s not Darren’s fault he’s so unfortunately hot.
---
One night in January, Chris wins a Golden Globe. He tries to sneak off in a car with Cory but no one is having it, Cory reluctantly letting go of his mouth and tossing him off his lap as Lea drags him into an adjacent waiting limo and shoves him in next to Ashley. In the morning he doesn’t remember a thing but he wakes up in his underwear with Cory sleeping softly beside him, a half-drunk bottle of expensive champagne and a shiny statue next to his bed. A note is scrawled on a napkin in Lea’s messy, loopy, high school love note hand, punctuated with puffy hearts and bubbly exclamation points:
YOU WON THIS ----------->
The arrow points helpfully at his award. Chris rubs his eyes at it and groans at the slivers of light stabbing through the blinds. Cory wakes up and kisses him, very, very gently, just barely whispers, “hey,” against his temple. Chris cries a little, on and off throughout the morning, but Cory brings him eggs and toast, rubs his feet while Chris covers his eyes and talks to his parents and sister, forcing a cheery enthusiasm through his hangover and listening to their voices tell him how proud they are again and again until he absolutely has to go make his press call.
---
Darren texts him randomly throughout the day, non sequiturs and song lyrics he thinks of and some smiley faces, and then he asks Chris out.
...wait, what? Chris taps back when he’s done with an interview and thinks he’s passed from hungover to hallucinating.
Oh was that misleading? ;) I mean, let’s go out and celebrate. C too, not taking you time from him. Pick a place? Food and music, yes!
maybe. will ask C. do you put out? :)
How do you think I got the part? ;)
---
Cory knows some secret little jazz grill up Mulholland that has great performers and is full of old people from Bel Air, so they go there one Thursday night. Darren and Cory order whiskey sours and Chris plain iced tea with lemon. Chris and Cory swap as soon as the waiter walks away, and Darren raises a curious eyebrow.
“I don’t drink,” Cory explains with a well-practiced hand gesture that clearly and politely says but it’s totally ok that you do, seriously. Darren sips and nods, “Oh, right. I think I read that in like, Rolling Stone?”
Chris twitches and grabs for Cory’s hand under the table. “That asshole...” he mutters into his straw.
Cory just snickers at the entire thing and stirs his tea. “No, no that was Tiger Beat. Their surprising and controversial piece on addiction in actors. I think it won a Pulitzer...” He makes a thoughtful, deadpan face and Chris and Darren crack up.
The first band takes the stage as their salads and carpaccios come, and Darren leans back comfortably in the booth, mimics the finger patterns of the bassist on his glass, taps the piano part on the edge of the table.
Chris hums along with the melody and Cory slides an arm around him because he feels like it’s safe to here. “Can you play, like, every instrument on that stage?” Chris asks Darren as they clap at the end of a trumpet solo.
Darren nods along with a bop in his head. “Pretty much...but I suck at drums. Good thing you’ve got him,” he motions to Cory with a wink, and Cory smiles, kisses Chris quickly on his temple.
---
They’re in New York separately for press, just one overlapping day to record some solos, and Chris meets Mia over dinner in Hell’s Kitchen. She seems nothing like Darren yet somehow perfect for him, and has a way of cutting through his mania and hyperactive rambling with just a look or a touch to his wrist, a trick Chris would dearly like to possess.
They wind up talking too much shop, which usually makes Chris feel like a douchebag but Mia has production experience and is genuinely excited to hear about Chris’s movie. Dinner leads to drinks in the hotel bar, then to Darren’s room where they polish off another entire bottle of red wine. Chris is bleary eyed and trying to text something sweet and probably not at all sexy to Cory, but Darren is kissing Mia goodbye at the door and it’s...distracting. They whisper and kiss their goodnights and Darren climbs onto the bed with him, wine glass still clutched in one hand as he spoons up behind Chris, and that’s pretty distracting too.
“She di’nt stay...she could stay...” Chris mumbles and forgets he was texting as his phone falls onto the covers.
“Nah...you’re staying tonight. S’ok.” Darren answers, forehead pressing against Chris’s shoulder rather comfortably.
“Mmmm...but...she’d sleep with you. I think. I like her,” Chris kind of trails off and Darren laughs softly beside him on the pillow.
“I...maybe she’ll sleep with me tomorrow. And she likes you too,” Darren adds, patting Chris’s side and lightly stroking his back through his shirt.
“Hrrmmmm...you like me.” Chris murmurs at Darren’s touch, and falls fast asleep.
He wakes up on top of the covers, still curled alongside Darren’s body for warmth, with impressions from his Blackberry keys mashed into his forearm. After woozily considering his options a moment, he pulls the blankets up over both of them and just sleeps there with him. He wakes up again with Darren’s arm draped over his shoulder. He silently swears at himself and Darren for the hangover he’s going to have and tries to turn over, but Darren holds tight, slides his hand down Chris’s side to rest at his waist, snuffling in his sleep. It feels nice. Chris falls back asleep.
He calls Cory later in the morning to tell him he has a hangover and he slept with Darren.
Cory just laughs and tells him to take some aspirin from the mini-bar with his Diet Coke, and that he’s not allowed to go to sleepovers without him anymore. Chris knows, intellectually, that he should be pleased and comforted that his boyfriend is so mature, that he trusts him so implicitly, even knowing that Chris and Darren are close enough to share a bed and inside jokes. But he feels like shit so instead he’s mildly offended that Cory doesn’t seem to think he could totally have hit that.
--
They get the script on a Friday. Chris has been in some sort of sustained denial that this day was coming, perhaps. They’re kissing, because that’s their job. Chris knows they owe it to Kurt and Blaine to make it good, and he knows they will when the time comes but he still just isn’t quite ready. He tells himself that it’s ridiculous, since Kurt is the one who has to be ready, not him. He knows Kurt will be.
Darren bounces around him all day, jolly and singing little songs, only sitting still long enough to have his curls shellacked into place, and his scarf artfully arranged for the next scene. He comes to Chris when they’re done for the day and offers to do an ice breaker before they actually shoot it.
“To get the nerves out and, I dunno,” he stammers almost shyly and Chris wishes for about the hundredth time that he weren’t so god damned charming, almost chokes on his Diet Coke. “Just, so it looks good...we’ll get used to each other...I mean not that we....”
Chris recovers, tries to look almost bored at the idea, nonchalantly rolls his eyes up at Darren but doesn’t look at him too closely. “You just can’t wait to make out with me.”
Darren grins at him in the mirror, looking vaguely disappointed but also, oh, so smug (just wait, Chris thinks so loudly he’s not sure it was just in his head) and gives his shoulder a little squeeze on his way out the door. “Well, duh.”
Not just because, well...Darren. Chris knows damn well he needs to keep that dividing line clear and well-lit, not start kissing Darren alone in the dim privacy of his trailer “for the craft.” Nothing awesome can possibly come of that.
---
Darren catches up to him in the parking lot, getting his attention with a gentle “hey” and a hand on his arm. Chris turns, a little surprised, catches his lip with his teeth and shifts his Quidditch bag across his shoulder. Darren furrows his brow and looks like he’s thinking furiously of what he intended to say when he stopped Chris, and Chris just waits him out, looking both amused and mildly alarmed.
“You weren’t wrong,” Darren finally blurts, a bit too loudly. Chris raises one eyebrow and quirks his lip, but Darren goes on. “What you said earlier...it’s in the script, yeah. But you were right, I can’t wait to kiss you. It’ll be, like, an honor, Chris.” Darren smiles, all sideways smug and satisfied, and turns as if to go.
“You’re really confusing, you know!” Chris exclaims after him, his hand in his hoodie pocket and twitching on his phone.
Darren spins back around and he’s grinning at Chris so hard Chris can’t help but grin too, shaking his head at this guy because really. “I get that a lot...would have kissed you already if you didn’t have a boyfriend.” Darren steps closer and takes Chris’s other hand, squeezes it securely in his own. “And I’m actually not confusing at all, just affectionate,” Darren adds, and Chris figures by way of explaining himself, that’s probably the best Darren can do.
Chris just rolls his eyes (I mean really) and shakes his head, even more fond of his ridiculousness now than he thought possible. “Don’t try putting that on Cory. He actually would probably encourage it, the fucking commie,” Chris adds, mostly just to fuck with Darren’s head. “But you’re just going to have to wait. I’m worth it though,” Chris winks and steps backward toward his car.
“I hate waiting!” Darren calls after him as he trots away.
---
No trial run practice kiss could have prepared him for this anyway. Darren’s oh, fuck they’re really nice lips touch his the first time and his head just goes up in bubbles. Chris feels like he’s watching himself from the outside but he can’t close his eyes and he keeps thinking the word paradox and he is really not even remotely in this take or even in his body.
Darren does something with his jaw and oh, fuck he can’t help it, he lets out a soft little gasp of surprise and they both start giggling, hard, against each other’s lips. Darren pulls away first but does it with a kiss on the corner of Chris’s mouth that is just so dear even as he’s mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like oh, fuck. Chris’s head finds his shoulder and they laugh on each other until Ryan gets annoyed and asks them if they have it out of their systems yet. Chris is quite certain he doesn’t, and Darren doesn’t look so sure either.
---
The fourteenth take, it turns out, is just as insufferable as the first. Darren’s hand on his jaw feels just as warm, his lips just as soft, faintly vanilla flavored, and lush. The kiss is just as full and affectionate and fuck, just as perfectly textured with a hint of moisture. Darren does this thing with his tongue this time, not quite touching but pushing the wet inner skin of his lip against Chris’s. The fingers of one hand flex subconsciously and then curl closed again, completely beyond the control of his body or brain and of course that is the fucking take they will use. Chris feels his face flush with heat, feels the skin of Darren’s neck do the same under his fingertips.
They finally finish, both quite literally breathless and the way Darren (Blaine. It’s Blaine, idiot!) is looking at him makes him want to crawl right out of his skin but they have lines to say, Chris’s Kurt voice finding its way out of him from some reserve of rehearsed, deep discipline he’s grateful for in the moment.
Then Darren’s lips are on him again and he’s grabbing, gasping, it’s good, it’s too good and Darren’s getting under his skin and Chris is going to beat himself up for days for letting him.
Someone finally yells cut and Darren’s hands curl around his neck, forehead lowering to press against his and they just stare at each other, breathing and nodding. Oh, fuck. There’s a smattering of applause in the room. Chris wants to die.
---
Later on in interviews he’ll say he needed a cigarette when it was over, and in this comedown time, taking off his Dalton sweater, scrubbing the makeup off his face and brushing his teeth out of some kind of gay guilt OCD, he really thinks he means it. He hates the smell on Naya or Lea’s skin, though not so much of the smoke itself, but he sure as hell gets the psychology of it and would probably give it a shot right now. He zips up his hoodie and pulls out his phone instead, heading out to the parking area and hopefully his favorite driver.
He passes by Darren’s trailer and hesitates the barest of seconds, thinking he really should slap some smartness into himself and at least do the polite thing and say goodnight, good work, something, to his acting partner, his fucking friend, (acting partner acting partner you’re an actor you’re a good actor he lectures himself in his head) but somehow he just can’t.
The grounds of the estate are hushed, quiet in that old wood and heavy velvet kind of way. He’s glad for the weight of it, the trees and the darkness instead of the all-night lights and bustle of the studio lot, grateful for the thud of his steps on the cobblestones of the driveway. Paul is waiting with the Town Car and Chris slides across the leather seat, closes the door with a soft swoosh, and lays his head back for a moment, just listening to the stillness around him.
His eyes are closed, and Paul asks simply, unobtrusively, “Valley or West Hollywood, Mr. Colfer?” Chris rubs his forehead for a minute, remembers that they are, in fact, done for now and it’s the weekend, whatever that means. His fingers tap the keys on his Blackberry gently, calm finally beginning to nudge into the panicky edges, smooth the frays. He gets a reply back immediately.
yep Im home of course you can. see you soon. yay.
Chris lets out a long, slow breath he didn’t even know he was holding. “Valley. Thanks, Paul.” Paul nods in the rear view mirror and pulls the car slowly down the drive.
---
Cory takes one look at Chris, standing there wrecked and irritated on his front porch, and he snorts. An absolutely undignified snort of laughter that Chris knows he doesn’t mean and probably immediately regrets, opening his arms and pulling Chris into them, holding him against his chest as Chris snipes at him, dry as always but too emotionally exhausted to bite, “Thanks, great, please laugh at me right now. I love you too.”
Cory laughs softer this time and breathes into Chris’s hair, whispers against his head.
“Do love you. You’re here, you’re ok now.”
“Mmmmmm...” Chris murmurs, not even bothering to find a word.
“So...you did it, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Chris sighs into Cory’s shirt, turning his face in toward his chest and pursing his lips in a kiss through his clothes, right over his sternum.
Cory’s breath catches and he squeezes Chris a little tighter. “...and?”
“And...yeah, it was good.” Chris shrugs, lifting his head from the hug and looking up for Cory, finding his face comforting and weirdly handsome in the shadows cast by his porch light. Cory pulls back and takes Chris’s face in his hands, bends forward until he can reach his mouth and kisses him, hard and searching and reminding and provoking all at once. Chris tastes like toothpaste and probably lavender face toner but Cory doesn’t seem to mind if he does, stroking his chin with his thumbs, kissing him until Chris goes slack in his arms. “Too good?” he asks, mumbling against Chris’s mouth before he can even be bothered to pull away.
“Obviously,” Chris says airily when he can finally catch a breath, feeling his chest tightening and his neck flushing hot again, thank fucking god for Cory.
“Is he really straight?” Cory asks as he kisses along Chris’s jaw, his voice already throaty and thick in Chris’s ear and Chris’s fucking toes curl. It feels good, better, but he still sighs, heavy and complicated, the feel of Cory all around him intruded on by vague worries of whatever this is that’s gotten into his head, this Darren thing.
“He doesn’t kiss like he’s straight.”
“Well you might as well come in and tell me about it.”
“Mmmmm, that sounds very healthy for our relationship.”
“Hey, I only get to kiss girls. Got to let me live a little through you, at least. Besides, I’ll get to see it. Because it will be on my television. Remember?”
“Smartass. I’ll tell you whatever you want if you rub my back.”
“I’ll rub whatever you want if you’ll come inside my house and stay for like, five days. At least,” Cory says, hands curled around Chris’s neck and thumbs lifting him up, up to kiss him again.
“We don’t have five days. Three?” Chris counters, lips softly brushing at Cory’s.
“Deal.” Cory grins and pulls him inside.
---
Cory keeps his word with the back rub. He settles Chris naked in his blankets, lights a bunch of candles and puts on what Chris by now easily recognizes as Arcade Fire - sigh, Canada, he thinks as Cory digs strong fingers into his trapezius muscles, his hands easily spanning Chris’s whole back. He works his way up those muscles, letting the angles lead his path onto Chris’s shoulders, squeezing and working his way around until they roll softly in their joints. He is gentle with his neck, brushing his thumb lightly over Chris’s scar before leaning down to carefully press his lips to it, Chris letting out a long, contented moan and then, finally, the slow trickle of words Cory probably knew was coming.
“Couldn’t he have the decency to be a lousy kisser? I mean...I’m professional, right? You think I’m professional? Can’t he not be so cool and so oh, I’m Harry Potter, I’m from San Francisco let’s make out and not get hung up on labels? I mean that’s just...whatever...you know? Why is he so...Darren?”
Cory laughs and shakes his head softly, running the heels of his hands down Chris’s spine. He splays his palms out over his lats and lower back, slides down onto his glutes, keeps rubbing as Chris babbles at him, quieter and quieter the longer Cory touches him. Cory occasionally makes a sympathetic sound of agreement but mostly just lets Chris get his thoughts out, and focuses on his body. Chris feels Cory’s eyes and hands skimming the line of his back, and arches appreciatively as he glides over the dip and rise of his ass. Cory switches the pressure and touch, kneading Chris’s soft skin with the tips of his fingers until Chris is completely relaxed and lets his body sink into the bed, his legs fall open.
“Sorry...” Chris murmurs into the pillow as Cory lets his fingers drag down the backs of his thighs.
“S’ok,” Cory whispers back, stroking lightly over the fine hairs and moving lower, his lips coming down to just barely kiss the curve of skin there. “I wanted you to talk about it...you know it’s ok, right? It’s good, I mean. That you felt it, and it felt good...that scene had to be intense. I know it means a lot to you. I love that about you.” Cory stammers a little and rests his forehead against the small of Chris’s back, just waiting, maybe.
Chris feels crushed and fucking ridiculous with how much he loves Cory, needs him right now, needs him everywhere. “I’m sorry, I love you and you’re...I think I’m making it weird...I’m just not making any sense, and ahhhh...” Chris falters as Cory is suddenly there, little kisses along the cleft of his ass and he tries not to tense up again, tries to let go, let Cory take over.
Cory just breathes out against his skin, now sensitive and prickled with goosebumps, “Shhhhhh. You are not making it weird, babe. And you are always professional, don’t even...don’t even. He’s just the lucky bastard that gets to kiss you in front of the whole world,” Cory adds, still pressing his lips up and down Chris’s cool skin.
Chris sighs heavily at that, cranes his neck around to look back at Cory through one quirked eye. “Some day...some day. Are you gonna...oh...” Chris’s last attempt at thought slides away from him as Cory curves his hands around his ass and gently nudges him apart.
“Yeah, everything. Anything you want, babe...” Cory’s words fade on his breath as he settles between Chris’s legs and runs his tongue all the way up his backside to the top of his tailbone and back down, pushing and parting him. Chris shudders against his mouth, lifts his hips and presses back, wanting so much more.
Cory gives it, gives him all the wetness and touch and stretch Chris can take until he’s whimpering his name into the pillow, trying to turn over underneath him. Chris squirms but Cory holds him just a moment longer, his tongue working in a slow, languid circle until he’s satisfied that Chris is malleable, ready.
Cory grabs his hips and flips him, lifts his legs around him and touches himself to him, the head of his cock just barely breaching where Chris is wet and wanting. Chris thinks he does this just to feel the friction between them, the natural humid heat of Chris on his dick before there’s any lube. It always makes him growl, makes him shove down against the pressure and hold his wrists up, crossed together over his head, the only way he knows to ask for what he wants when he’s like this. Cory smiles down at him, slicks himself quickly and pushes into him with a thrust, rough, fast like Chris likes, one hand holding Chris’s wrists down hard and tight.
---
Cory rubs Chris’s back absentmindedly, both in a bit of a haze and not willing to shake out of it just yet. Chris is worn out and maybe just on the edge of consciousness when Cory clears his throat suddenly, loud in the dark stillness and Chris is a little startled. He lifts his head as Cory starts, stammers a little for the words he wants. “You know...what I’ve said before. If you ever, like, you need to experience things, and...like I have. Just..you know I’m not jealous and I have weird Canadian ideas about...life, I guess.”
Chris turns in his arms to face him, searching his eyes in the tiny bit of light. “I know you’ve said it before but it doesn’t mean I want that. I don’t want...just so I’m clear we’re still talking about Darren, right?” Cory looks down and away and Chris rolls his eyes, not at him exactly, just...yeah, life. “Sweetie, I do not want to sleep with Darren, ok? Like, I really really don’t. He is cute and new and yeah he’s kind of fluffy and I will inevitably wind up making out with him, it seems...but I am with you. I am with you. Regardless of your crazy communist relationship ideas. I don’t want to be a swinger or whatever it’s called in Canada, ok? You’re my boyfriend. I know that is probably completely American and capitalist and boring, but...I like us.”
“You’re allowed to like him too, though.” Cory kisses him, softly, strokes his cheek and the back of his neck. Chris rubs his own wrists where they ache as he falls asleep, doesn’t say anything more.
---
On the second day when he doesn’t come home, Amber texts him ???evthing ok xoxo??? He doesn’t write back right away, and in the meantime Ashley texts too, whar u at ho? He lies across Cory’s bed and holds his phone over his head, replies to both of them fine. in the Valley. for a while. Amber writes back got it tell him hi <3 and Ashley chikka chikka bow bow MONFER lolz.
He thinks for just a minute about sending Darren a quick text, just saying hi or checking in or sorry I’m such a freak, something that will make it less awkward when he sees him again on Tuesday. He feels better, saner, more removed from it now, but worse about the simple fact that he kissed his friend, shared a pretty significant moment, and bailed. Before he can decide, Cory flops back down on the bed from his shower, scrubbed soft and damp, his skin hot all over.
Chris takes one look at him, turns off his phone, shoves it into the bottom of his messenger bag, and rolls over on top of Cory, straddling his hips in a pair of Cory’s sweatpants that are just a little too long and slouchy on his thighs. Cory runs his hands underneath the worn fabric, feeling the ridges of muscle Chris knows he didn’t have a year ago. His body is so different now, he’s taller and more angular than the first time Cory tentatively tugged his jeans off him, when he used to touch him like he was afraid he’d break him. In the early days Chris had to beg him to fuck him as hard as he knew Cory could. It took a while for them to work it out, shocking both of them when they started to learn what they really liked.
Chris wonders if Cory thinks about that when he touches him now, what he’s thinking at all with Chris sliding slowly, tortuously back and forth on his lap like this. “You wanna ride me?” Cory rasps out through a creaky smile, hands braced on Chris’s ass doing their best to help make sure he keeps doing whatever he’s doing. Chris leans all the way over him, bare chest pressing down and lined up with his own, his fingers gripping Cory’s tattoo as he kisses him slowly, deeply, all tongue and push and whine.
"Nuh uh...wanna fuck you," Chris smiles into Cory's neck, sweet and wicked and maybe blushing a tiny bit. Cory groans and arches up into Chris, holding him tight with one arm while reaching over to his bedside table. Chris takes the little bottle of lube from his hand and strokes up and down his sides and long thighs as he turns over on his stomach. It’s more comfortable for Cory to have Chris inside him from behind, and Chris loves it like this, Cory all stretched out and impossibly long, his for the touching and having.
Chris never in his wildest fantasies conjured a man like Cory for himself, when he used to let himself fantasize about a boyfriend, a sex life, a something. He hoped...he assumed, getting cast and getting the hell out of Clovis, that he could probably at least meet some guys, go on some awkward dates, maybe get laid every now and then. He never imagined he’d have something like this.
Chris takes his time when he’s fucking Cory. He knew the first time he did this to him he would have to learn control, learn to slow down. Cory likes it like that, likes the long, deliberate drag of Chris pushing his fingers or his cock into him, pulling even slower back out, likes lazy kisses down his shoulders and back. It’s a whole different world and he doesn’t want to miss anything.
He watches Cory’s face, blissful, turned on his cheek and murmuring happily as Chris pushes Cory’s leg up and off to his side. He pulls in close, his hips flush against him, whispering what he’s going to do to him into his ear, makes Cory want. Cory tilts his hips and shifts his legs a little to bring Chris closer, take him deeper. Chris just holds there, all the way inside him, his hands still and bracing on the small of Cory’s back for a long while before his eyes tear up and he has to move. When he finally comes inside Cory with a gasp and a drawn-out, breathy shudder, he can’t imagine ever needing anything else.
---
They show up on Tuesday morning in the same car and looking pretty rumpled, not a huge deal but they’re not usually so obvious. Chris has to go straight to hair and makeup and Cory drops him off. Darren is already there and smiles when he sees them together on the steps. Chris walks in and wraps his arms around Darren, hugging him how he wants even when Darren kind of pats his shoulder uncertainly.
Darren looks up at Cory, who just shrugs at him and turns up his hands to show he’s got nothing. Darren pauses just a moment before he asks, lips just barely brushing Chris’s hair and it tickles him, “Everything...ok?”
Chris pulls away, a sleepy smile on his face, and presses his lips to Darren’s temple. “Yeah. Just...glad we’re all here.” Darren raises a confused eyebrow as Chris lets him go and steps away to take Cory’s hands. “See you in a bit?” Cory nods and pulls him in, kisses him up against the door.
Darren lets out a very audible and amused, “Oh!” Chris giggles against Cory’s lips but he can’t seem to stop, and Cory is either on the verge of an early mid-life crisis or deciding to just say fuck it. Chris knows which one he is rooting for.
Epilogue
It’s late, really late, and Chris is curled up in a huge hotel bed with his phone in one hand, still receiving occasional texts about the episode, and the remote in the other. He’s found the right game, after calling the front desk and asking if there are any more ESPN’s than the three he has already tried - there is always another ESPN, Chris has learned.
The game is in overtime, tied at 1, and he knows Cory must be freaking the fuck out. He’s watching a few blocks away at whatever bar he and Mark had found, only to have Mark ditch him in the 2nd, and Chris knows he will be in a state when he gets back to the room. Which state is the only question. He pulls his knees up to his chest and sits forward a little, following as best he can because it’s pretty fast and loose at this point, and double-checking in his head over and over that he has the uniform colors right (blue/green = oceans and mountains = Vancouver = Cory. Check!)
He’s barely even gotten comfortable and he could blink and miss it when #14 slaps a hard high shot over the goalie’s shoulder and everyone in blue/green goes wild. Chris gives a little fist pump and a cheer of his own, because for him this means ten minutes or less until amazing post-hockey victory sex. He clicks off the game after watching the celebrating for a few minutes and checks his phone to see the inevitable !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from Cory, hops up to brush his teeth so he can be back in bed when Cory comes in.
Seven minutes later there’s a keycard in the door, a jiggling handle, some muffled swearing and then the keycard again and then Chris has an armload of happy, happy Cory in his bed and seriously, after-hockey sex is one of the finest perks of having a Canadian man love you that Chris has yet to enjoy. It should be, like, a national treasure, Chris thinks as Cory slides warm, smiley lips and scritchy late night scruff all over his body.
Chris waits until Cory is wound up nice and tight from working him over to take advantage of his new found leverage and broad shoulders, roll Cory over on his back and go down on him hard and quick, Cory so riled up from everything he comes in about two minutes, Chris grunting in pleasure as he swallows and goes for his dick with his own hand. Cory pushes through his orgasm haze to work his way between their bodies and wrap his hand over Chris’s, twines their fingers together and kisses him, deep and sated, just holds him while Chris finishes, coming moments later over their hands, part of the sheet.
Chris hangs on to Cory’s lips as long as he can, back still arched and arm bent at an awful angle, until he has to untangle and get that top sheet off. Cory goes to wash his face and hands and comes back with his glasses on, reading his phone and scowling.
“Well. I now have a 6:45 am interview. So there’s that. Fantastic.”
Chris is rapidly fading, dissolving into the soft cool bed, and pats the spot next to him, making a lazily sympathetic sound but not really able to offer much else. Cory flops down and stretches out beside Chris, obviously exhausted too but still vibrating with a high, keen energy that Chris can actually feel without even touching him. Chris turns toward him, kisses his shoulder, his arm, his stupid tattoo.
“Oh, how was the episode? Did you guys watch?” Cory suddenly remembers, propping his head up on one hand as Chris trails a hand down his bare chest.
“Oh...yes, the episode. Indeed. Um...I got a lot of texts about it.” Chris reaches behind himself and finds his own phone in the near dark, flips through a couple of screens and hands it to Cory, burying his face in his pillow before he can start giggling. He’s already so tired he’s almost delirious and if he gets the giggles it’s not going to be good for either of them.
Cory reads the first four or so out loud, one from Darren, That edit looked like Blaine is going off to the Trijan War and leaving Kurt in the loving arms of his brother...Greek tragedy Glee! Oh :( am I getting killed off?; then one from Mike, well that scene gave new meaning to “keep an eye on your brother” ha! good work kiddo. m.o., that makes Cory’s jaw drop; one from Ashley that she probably has a quick key for at this point, MONFER lolz. Dianna’s is the most elegant and succinct, just like her, oh, Cory. <3
“Wait, what did I do? Oh god was it awful? I thought that was a good scene!” Cory thrashes around dramatically and burrows under the covers, and now Chris has the giggles and he’s so screwed.
“You were amazing, no no no! We were amazing! It was just...your face. I mean. You kind of love me,” he manages, laughing and lolling his head over on Cory’s side, trying to burrow under the blanket where he’s hiding.
“I can’t help my face! It’s my face! Of course I love you...god, was it that obvious? I’m scared to watch it now,” Cory laughs too, finding Chris under the covers and holding him close.
Chris giggles as their lips nearly miss each other in the dark, then pokes at him, “you were pretty obvious.”
“So you’ve got yourself an old, junky, Canadian, super obvious bad actor.”
“Mmmm hmmmm...and I love him,” Chris settles against the solid weight of Cory’s body, everything suddenly much stiller and he’s not giggling anymore. He lets out a long breath and relaxes, lets the sleepiness start to seep back in with Cory holding him, helping pull him under.
“And you love me, so I’d say that reflects pretty poorly on you, eh?”
“It probably does, eh? But I’m young so I have an excuse for my poor decision making.”
“That’s true. Hey you want to elope to Canada? I’ll make an honest man out of you,” Cory whispers as he slips into more asleep than awake. Chris smiles and turns on his side under Cory’s protective arm, plucks his phone from the bedside table one last time.
“Mmmm, sure why not. I’ve got a good lawyer, I’m sure she can get me out of it if need be...” he trails off, fingers soft and quiet on the keys. Cory is already asleep. The text is to Darren and it may seem like a bad idea in the morning but right now, it makes him feel impossibly happy. He hits send and falls back in Cory’s arms, asleep in seconds.
hey - be my best man some day?
~fin
Pairings: Chris/Cory (Monfer ♥), Chris & Darren
Rating: well, there's sex. hopefully hot sex.
Words: 9,370
Notes: this is primarily a Chris/Cory story, in that they are the couple and (spoiler alert) they have the sex. But more than that it's a story about friendships and relationships, and the complicated business of loving Chris Colfer.
Appreciation: canadiankracka and Mel for being the best VICs ever, and shia_labeouf for shipping it so hard and helping me figure out what it was all about ♥
Chris is running late. He’s way the fuck out in the Valley and he’s supposed to be at dinner on Melrose in 20 minutes. Everything in LA is not 20 minutes away, thank you very much Clueless. He brushes his teeth and throws a favorite hat over messy hair, not even trying for a Kurt-like first impression.
Cory is killing Nazi zombies with Justin and probably can’t even hear him but he calls over his shoulder anyway, “I’m leaving, going to meet my new boyfriend!”
“No, wait, get back here!” Cory yells as the dying zombie noise suddenly pauses and Justin scowls at the interruption but absolutely does not look up from his controller. Cory comes bounding into his foyer, grabs Chris by his elbows and kisses him so hard Chris drops the car keys, a jangling crash on the cool tiles.
“Whoa,” Chris says, a little stunned as Cory pulls away, tugging Chris’s top lip between his teeth as he does.
“K, you can go now. Just didn’t want you to forget me,” Cory grins, giving his ass a nice smack for good measure.
“Uhhh, yeah...or you know, get me horny and send me off to meet a cute stranger I only know from the internet. Interesting strategy.”
“Eh, he’s straight, right?”
“Yeah, probably about as straight as you. Ok bye, don’t wait up!” Chris reaches up on his tiptoes to give Cory one more quick kiss, shoving him away and turning for the door.
“Oh I will. Love you...” Cory barely gets the last syllable out before he’s back on his controller and the splatter of exploding zombie torsos again fills the room.
---
Chris has known Darren for a total of one hour and thirty-seven minutes and it seems like long enough. They’re sharing the butterscotch budino after covering most of the basics during dinner: Harry Potter, Broadway shows, ADD and sleep aids, Ryan Murphy’s particular brand of crazy, and Glee contract stuff - apparently signing Darren is inordinately complicated and he is lawyered up. Chris remembers looking at his own contract in his kitchen in Clovis with just his agent and his mom. It feels like a hundred years ago.
Chris digs thoughtfully in the little ceramic pot, twirling another bite onto his spoon and says, “I need to tell you something, because no one else will, and it’s important to me that we trust each other. Do you agree?”
Darren looks up from licking his spoon, sees that Chris is quite serious, and sets the spoon down on the plate. He takes a sip of water and folds his hands neatly in his lap.
“I absolutely agree. And I appreciate your skipping any kind of bullshit breaking in period with me and being so forthcoming. Shoot.”
“Have you met Cory yet?” Chris looks him square in the eye and the rest of the story practically tells itself.
“Ahhh...no. Not properly met. Probably this week?”
“Yes. Well. We are...” It’s been so long since, and so seldom that Chris has even had the need to articulate or explain this that he finds he doesn’t exactly possess the terminology. Chris just swallows, watches him, waits. Darren seems pretty sharp.
“Wow. I...yeah, definitely didn’t know that.”
“No one does. I mean...obviously someone does. Or like, maybe a dozen someones. Of which, you are now one.”
Darren nods slowly, and Chris can see him thinking. “How long?”
Chris takes a sip of tea. “Year and a half? I think...it kind of depends on where you start counting, you know?”
Darren pulls a kind of stunned face but keeps nodding, “yeah, totally get you,” and picks up his spoon, takes another slow bite of the budino. “That’s got to be hard...on both of you. I mean, and he’s not even...”
“Out? No, not in the way they require. You can’t come out, you definitely can’t come out as bi, you know?” Darren looks a bit taken aback and Chris quirks an eyebrow, backs off a little before he goes on. “He doesn’t lie, though. Anyway. Welcome to Hollywood, and all that. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so cynical. I love my life, god, obviously. I wouldn’t want to talk about my personal life even if this wasn’t our situation, really.” Chris sips his tea and looks at Darren, who looks so genuinely concerned that Chris immediately feels fond of him. “What about you? Girlfriend, boyfriend, it’s complicated?”
Darren smiles slowly and licks his spoon, looks a little put on the spot. “Uh...girl...it’s complicated. Sort of?” He laughs and Chris raises an eyebrow as if to say, “see?”
“And? What about her? You want everyone to know her name and what she does and where she lives? Want them to ask her on twitter how often you have sex with her? Because...that’s what they do.” Chris challenges, smirking and bemused.
“No, but...if it were serious...I don’t think it’s the same, Chris. But if it were...I don’t think I’d be able to do it. I wouldn’t hide a relationship that was that significant.”
Chris smiles, a little wistfully, takes the last tiny bite of sticky creamy butterscotch left in the dish. Yeah, definitely already fond of him. “Yes you would. You’ll see.”
---
Chris goes home to his own place after dinner, Darren’s various numbers and email addresses now carefully saved in his phone, to pick up some clothes and a couple of books and scripts from his agent sitting heavily in his mailbox. He sits down for a minute to skim the accompanying letters and is just getting to the point of too absorbed and too comfortable to get back up when his phone buzzes.
still on your date? i’m over here, guitar center run.
Chris grins and triumphs a little inside because now he gets Cory and he doesn’t have to get back in the car. He’s already kicking off his boots as he texts back, hi hi hi home now come over yay you couch.
yay! couch no working? Cory sends back and Chris laughs and shakes his head to himself. Cory knows him so well and it still makes him a little giddy sometimes, just the being known.
was reading something good but come distract me
Twenty minutes later the scripts are on the floor near Cory’s knees and Chris’s pants are around his thighs. Chris gazes down at him, dazed and basically dumbstruck as Cory smiles and licks around the head of his dick. Cory with cock in his mouth somehow looks almost angelically sweet, and much younger than he really is, which always makes Chris feel oddly lecherous. It’s ridiculous, but incredibly hot, so Chris definitely encourages it. He lifts his hips and pushes at Cory’s lips just a bit as Cory reaches around him with long arms, wraps his hands behind Chris’s ass to pull him in closer, opening his mouth to take him deeper. Chris gasps and clutches at Cory’s hair, flicks his thumbs at Cory’s jaw and just fucks, lets go and lets the rumble in Cory’s throat and the hot sheen of pink on his cheeks tell him it’s ok.
Cory holds him tight, doesn’t let him pull away even when he comes, the jolt to his body when he orgasms always so hard and shocking he feels like he must be hurting Cory. Cory can always take it though, always swallows and soothes and mumbles little encouragements, doesn’t let him go or stop stroking his thighs until Chris’s nerves unwind and his muscles stop shaking.
Chris comes to his senses in a blur of fumbly movement, not quite coordinated enough yet to get his pants the rest of the way off and get Cory down the hall to his bed without tripping a bit, but he manages. Crawls up and down Cory’s body to suck at his favorite bits, ears, neck, nipples, fingers, and finally returns the favor, only pulling off to finish with his hand so Cory can come on his neck and chest because it gets them both so, so hot and Chris wants to go again.
---
“Whoa...” is pretty much all Cory can manage by the time Chris rolls off him, giggling with a sort of smug satisfaction. He snuggles close to him, his head on Cory’s chest, listens to him breathing and thinking. Chris really was going to do some more work later, but moving seems very, very unlikely at this point.
“You know I’m old, right?” Cory asks with a laugh and a groan, rubbing his hand over his face and chest when he can formulate speech again. Chris giggles again and twists against him, burrowing further into the warmth of his bed, their bed, he thinks.
“Should I check out some newer models, you think? Trade up?” Chris asks, lips idly pressing against Cory’s ribs, half asleep. Cory sighs and turns a little, wraps Chris up in his chest.
“Well, you checked out the Harry Potter model tonight...that one’s younger. And, like, magical, right?” Chris knows Cory is just thinking out loud and being silly, and he doesn’t have to say anything to placate him, so he just stays quiet because he’s so, so comfortable and sleepy and any little movement could unsettle him from this place.
“He knows about us?” Cory asks with a sudden inhale, shifting Chris a little on his chest where Chris had almost drowsed off.
“Hmmm? Oh. He’s really short. And yeah...I told him.” Chris lays his head back down, drags his fingertips in a tiny circle on Cory’s chest, waits for the quiet to blanket back over him.
Cory settles again, kisses Chris’s head, and sighs softly into his hair. “Good.”
Chris wakes up after a few hours and goes to take a shower, kisses Cory on the shoulder as he moves silently through the bedroom, and picks up where he left off with the scripts.
---
Darren comes to Paramount to meet everyone and Chris has nerves in his stomach, for Darren, maybe for both of them. Everything is changing so much in the next 10 episodes, and Chris has that queasy, out of sorts feeling like it’s the last day of camp for him but everyone else is staying the rest of the summer.
Darren is charming, of course, and people seem to immediately take to him. They won’t be seeing him much since he’ll be in Dalton world with Chris, but he obviously makes the effort to connect to them each at least a bit.
Chris sees him laughing about something with Cory and he has to stop and just stare for a moment, feels like this is somehow important, seeing them happen. Chris doesn’t think he is imagining that Darren is dialing up the flirting with Cory. He sees Cory air-drumming, Darren nodding along to the beat and they must be talking about playing with their bands - Darren did his homework, Chris thinks. Cory likes him too, Chris can tell. He doesn’t know why he finds that so charming, but he does.
---
When they start shooting in Pasadena, everything about the routine Chris has come to rely on to keep him centered shifts. He spends almost as much time with Darren as he does with Cory - actually, probably more. Time rehearsing and the hours of waiting, nothing to do but walk around the grounds and talk, time learning embarrassing choreography with him, time singing with him - fortuitously, they find they love to sing together.
Chris knows it’s cheesy and overly sentimental to think it but it mirrors their onscreen courtship more than Chris wants to admit. Chris reminds himself often that Blaine’s flirting with Kurt is not the same as Darren’s flirting with him. He tells himself that he can always tell the difference, but after a while together, Chris isn’t sure there is a difference.
Chris thinks, all these things considered, he does a decent job separating himself and his feelings from Kurt’s responses, Kurt’s motivations, even if Darren blurs his lines. It seems easier for him, Chris thinks, and wonders if it’s because he’s straight that Darren can be so cavalier.
Cory and the rest of the cast go to London and Chris stays in LA to shoot more with Darren and the guys who play the Warblers. It sort of sucks but it’s sort of a relief, trips like that being ridiculously hectic and stressful, and he has to go to Europe with Amber later in the month as it is.
They work a lot and they talk, talk about character, about physicality. They get in each other’s space. Darren hugs him and Chris sometimes holds back, hesitates to return the fullness, the weight of Darren’s body that he gives. They have a ridiculously gay surprise hit Christmas recording and Darren hugs him some more, and Chris realizes there’s nothing to be apprehensive about, lets Darren closer, bit by bit. When Darren kisses him on the corner of his mouth as he leaves for the airport one Friday afternoon, Chris kisses back and wishes him Merry Christmas without even looking up from his text message.
Cory picks him up and takes him home, and they don’t leave Cory’s bed until Chris has to go to the airport himself. Germany and Austria are beautiful, snowy wonderlands and France is fabulous of course, but Chris thinks mostly about Cory skiing and watching hockey at home in Vancouver, and wishes they could be in either place together.
---
Chris barely even gets home for Christmas before he and Darren find out about the Entertainment Weekly shoot. They have to be back in LA in a few days, giving Chris just enough time to properly stress out over it. Photoshoots are weird and permanently awkward, no matter how much the photographers think they are making them fun and playful and quirky. Cory’s still in Vancouver when Chris gets back and he can’t sleep, doesn't even try, just writes a lot. His anxiety is making his imagination so bizarre already he doesn’t dare take an Ambien until it’s over.
The setup turns out insipidly innocent, 1950’s American dream treacle, bow ties and ukuleles. The Brian Kinney-esque visions of ripped open shirts, leather and body oil that have tormented Chris the past four nights are completely unfounded. Chris sits on a prop couch, tucked primly between Darren’s legs and leans into him comfortably. There’s nothing threatening about it, and he and Darren are good at this, at portraying this fantasia that is affectionate, and yes, gay, but palatable.
“I feel like we’re, like...” Chris begins as a stylist pulls at the neckline of his preppy schoolboy sweater, fixes down the hem with double-sided tape. It’s keeping them sane that they can at least carry on their own private conversation under the soundtrack of Chris’s iPod, amusing themselves between ridiculously overblown smiles.
“It’s kind of like that movie Pleasantville,” Darren suggests and Chris’s eyes glint up at him but there’s something else.
“Kind of...before the colors, obviously,” Chris thinks out loud.
“Definitely before the sex. No one holding a ukulele gets laid,” Darren agrees, grinning and fiddling with the tuning pegs.
Chris laughs a little manically and stares around, wishing the photographer would move through these setups quicker but not totally miserable. “It’s more like that commercial, with the vegetables...where the vegetables are like ice cream and the kids go crazy?” Chris can hear his own voice but isn’t sure if he’s even making sense to himself, much less if Darren can follow. He feels Darren’s laugh against his back and they flash smiles and glances at each other on command.
“Does that make us the ranch dressing?” Darren finishes when the photographer stops again and Chris just loses it.
“Yes. God. We are gay ranch dressing. Thank you. That is...that’s amazing.” Chris shakes his head and wipes his eyes where he’s teared up from laughing and he probably needs his makeup retouched but he just can’t stop once Darren starts giggling too.
“Think we can get a few where you kiss, yeah?” the photographer asks just once, chirpily, and Chris knows they’re probably pretty much done now.
“No,” flat, immediate, and in unison from both their publicists is the resounding answer from the sidelines.
Chris looks up at Darren and his eyes are just so kind and fond, and that’s not Blaine, that’s Darren. He smiles at Chris like Cory does sometimes and Chris feels like he could sleep really well right now. He’s shaky and beyond delirious and Darren’s arms around his shoulders feel so good.
“Joanie and Chachi,” Chris suddenly perks, looking up again to see if Darren’s smiling and he is.
“Perfect,” Darren nods in agreement and hugs him close. Darren just holds him while they wait and Chris lets him, rests against his chest and breathes.
---
Chris knows Cory thinks it’s cute, his stupid and somewhat inconvenient crush on Darren. Cute, but sometimes also rather hot, when Cory figures out he can use it to his advantage. He chooses his moments well, at least, Chris thinks as Cory mouths at his ear about Darren’s tight little body and how much Chris is going to like kissing him. He teases him about Darren even as he’s lifting Chris up against a wall in his room or over the back of his couch, and Darren definitely couldn’t do that. Chris only wonders briefly if he should feel guilty about this.
Except when Cory brings it up just to get a rise out of him, he tries, he really tries to keep it tucked away in a jumbled corner of other messy fun things that he only visits in moments of extreme weakness or boredom. He likes Darren, and not just in a let’s make out it’s my birthday way (though, ok, some of it is that because Darren just has a lovely mouth), but in a be my best man some day way. It’s not Darren’s fault he’s so unfortunately hot.
---
One night in January, Chris wins a Golden Globe. He tries to sneak off in a car with Cory but no one is having it, Cory reluctantly letting go of his mouth and tossing him off his lap as Lea drags him into an adjacent waiting limo and shoves him in next to Ashley. In the morning he doesn’t remember a thing but he wakes up in his underwear with Cory sleeping softly beside him, a half-drunk bottle of expensive champagne and a shiny statue next to his bed. A note is scrawled on a napkin in Lea’s messy, loopy, high school love note hand, punctuated with puffy hearts and bubbly exclamation points:
YOU WON THIS ----------->
The arrow points helpfully at his award. Chris rubs his eyes at it and groans at the slivers of light stabbing through the blinds. Cory wakes up and kisses him, very, very gently, just barely whispers, “hey,” against his temple. Chris cries a little, on and off throughout the morning, but Cory brings him eggs and toast, rubs his feet while Chris covers his eyes and talks to his parents and sister, forcing a cheery enthusiasm through his hangover and listening to their voices tell him how proud they are again and again until he absolutely has to go make his press call.
---
Darren texts him randomly throughout the day, non sequiturs and song lyrics he thinks of and some smiley faces, and then he asks Chris out.
...wait, what? Chris taps back when he’s done with an interview and thinks he’s passed from hungover to hallucinating.
Oh was that misleading? ;) I mean, let’s go out and celebrate. C too, not taking you time from him. Pick a place? Food and music, yes!
maybe. will ask C. do you put out? :)
How do you think I got the part? ;)
---
Cory knows some secret little jazz grill up Mulholland that has great performers and is full of old people from Bel Air, so they go there one Thursday night. Darren and Cory order whiskey sours and Chris plain iced tea with lemon. Chris and Cory swap as soon as the waiter walks away, and Darren raises a curious eyebrow.
“I don’t drink,” Cory explains with a well-practiced hand gesture that clearly and politely says but it’s totally ok that you do, seriously. Darren sips and nods, “Oh, right. I think I read that in like, Rolling Stone?”
Chris twitches and grabs for Cory’s hand under the table. “That asshole...” he mutters into his straw.
Cory just snickers at the entire thing and stirs his tea. “No, no that was Tiger Beat. Their surprising and controversial piece on addiction in actors. I think it won a Pulitzer...” He makes a thoughtful, deadpan face and Chris and Darren crack up.
The first band takes the stage as their salads and carpaccios come, and Darren leans back comfortably in the booth, mimics the finger patterns of the bassist on his glass, taps the piano part on the edge of the table.
Chris hums along with the melody and Cory slides an arm around him because he feels like it’s safe to here. “Can you play, like, every instrument on that stage?” Chris asks Darren as they clap at the end of a trumpet solo.
Darren nods along with a bop in his head. “Pretty much...but I suck at drums. Good thing you’ve got him,” he motions to Cory with a wink, and Cory smiles, kisses Chris quickly on his temple.
---
They’re in New York separately for press, just one overlapping day to record some solos, and Chris meets Mia over dinner in Hell’s Kitchen. She seems nothing like Darren yet somehow perfect for him, and has a way of cutting through his mania and hyperactive rambling with just a look or a touch to his wrist, a trick Chris would dearly like to possess.
They wind up talking too much shop, which usually makes Chris feel like a douchebag but Mia has production experience and is genuinely excited to hear about Chris’s movie. Dinner leads to drinks in the hotel bar, then to Darren’s room where they polish off another entire bottle of red wine. Chris is bleary eyed and trying to text something sweet and probably not at all sexy to Cory, but Darren is kissing Mia goodbye at the door and it’s...distracting. They whisper and kiss their goodnights and Darren climbs onto the bed with him, wine glass still clutched in one hand as he spoons up behind Chris, and that’s pretty distracting too.
“She di’nt stay...she could stay...” Chris mumbles and forgets he was texting as his phone falls onto the covers.
“Nah...you’re staying tonight. S’ok.” Darren answers, forehead pressing against Chris’s shoulder rather comfortably.
“Mmmm...but...she’d sleep with you. I think. I like her,” Chris kind of trails off and Darren laughs softly beside him on the pillow.
“I...maybe she’ll sleep with me tomorrow. And she likes you too,” Darren adds, patting Chris’s side and lightly stroking his back through his shirt.
“Hrrmmmm...you like me.” Chris murmurs at Darren’s touch, and falls fast asleep.
He wakes up on top of the covers, still curled alongside Darren’s body for warmth, with impressions from his Blackberry keys mashed into his forearm. After woozily considering his options a moment, he pulls the blankets up over both of them and just sleeps there with him. He wakes up again with Darren’s arm draped over his shoulder. He silently swears at himself and Darren for the hangover he’s going to have and tries to turn over, but Darren holds tight, slides his hand down Chris’s side to rest at his waist, snuffling in his sleep. It feels nice. Chris falls back asleep.
He calls Cory later in the morning to tell him he has a hangover and he slept with Darren.
Cory just laughs and tells him to take some aspirin from the mini-bar with his Diet Coke, and that he’s not allowed to go to sleepovers without him anymore. Chris knows, intellectually, that he should be pleased and comforted that his boyfriend is so mature, that he trusts him so implicitly, even knowing that Chris and Darren are close enough to share a bed and inside jokes. But he feels like shit so instead he’s mildly offended that Cory doesn’t seem to think he could totally have hit that.
--
They get the script on a Friday. Chris has been in some sort of sustained denial that this day was coming, perhaps. They’re kissing, because that’s their job. Chris knows they owe it to Kurt and Blaine to make it good, and he knows they will when the time comes but he still just isn’t quite ready. He tells himself that it’s ridiculous, since Kurt is the one who has to be ready, not him. He knows Kurt will be.
Darren bounces around him all day, jolly and singing little songs, only sitting still long enough to have his curls shellacked into place, and his scarf artfully arranged for the next scene. He comes to Chris when they’re done for the day and offers to do an ice breaker before they actually shoot it.
“To get the nerves out and, I dunno,” he stammers almost shyly and Chris wishes for about the hundredth time that he weren’t so god damned charming, almost chokes on his Diet Coke. “Just, so it looks good...we’ll get used to each other...I mean not that we....”
Chris recovers, tries to look almost bored at the idea, nonchalantly rolls his eyes up at Darren but doesn’t look at him too closely. “You just can’t wait to make out with me.”
Darren grins at him in the mirror, looking vaguely disappointed but also, oh, so smug (just wait, Chris thinks so loudly he’s not sure it was just in his head) and gives his shoulder a little squeeze on his way out the door. “Well, duh.”
Not just because, well...Darren. Chris knows damn well he needs to keep that dividing line clear and well-lit, not start kissing Darren alone in the dim privacy of his trailer “for the craft.” Nothing awesome can possibly come of that.
---
Darren catches up to him in the parking lot, getting his attention with a gentle “hey” and a hand on his arm. Chris turns, a little surprised, catches his lip with his teeth and shifts his Quidditch bag across his shoulder. Darren furrows his brow and looks like he’s thinking furiously of what he intended to say when he stopped Chris, and Chris just waits him out, looking both amused and mildly alarmed.
“You weren’t wrong,” Darren finally blurts, a bit too loudly. Chris raises one eyebrow and quirks his lip, but Darren goes on. “What you said earlier...it’s in the script, yeah. But you were right, I can’t wait to kiss you. It’ll be, like, an honor, Chris.” Darren smiles, all sideways smug and satisfied, and turns as if to go.
“You’re really confusing, you know!” Chris exclaims after him, his hand in his hoodie pocket and twitching on his phone.
Darren spins back around and he’s grinning at Chris so hard Chris can’t help but grin too, shaking his head at this guy because really. “I get that a lot...would have kissed you already if you didn’t have a boyfriend.” Darren steps closer and takes Chris’s other hand, squeezes it securely in his own. “And I’m actually not confusing at all, just affectionate,” Darren adds, and Chris figures by way of explaining himself, that’s probably the best Darren can do.
Chris just rolls his eyes (I mean really) and shakes his head, even more fond of his ridiculousness now than he thought possible. “Don’t try putting that on Cory. He actually would probably encourage it, the fucking commie,” Chris adds, mostly just to fuck with Darren’s head. “But you’re just going to have to wait. I’m worth it though,” Chris winks and steps backward toward his car.
“I hate waiting!” Darren calls after him as he trots away.
---
No trial run practice kiss could have prepared him for this anyway. Darren’s oh, fuck they’re really nice lips touch his the first time and his head just goes up in bubbles. Chris feels like he’s watching himself from the outside but he can’t close his eyes and he keeps thinking the word paradox and he is really not even remotely in this take or even in his body.
Darren does something with his jaw and oh, fuck he can’t help it, he lets out a soft little gasp of surprise and they both start giggling, hard, against each other’s lips. Darren pulls away first but does it with a kiss on the corner of Chris’s mouth that is just so dear even as he’s mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like oh, fuck. Chris’s head finds his shoulder and they laugh on each other until Ryan gets annoyed and asks them if they have it out of their systems yet. Chris is quite certain he doesn’t, and Darren doesn’t look so sure either.
---
The fourteenth take, it turns out, is just as insufferable as the first. Darren’s hand on his jaw feels just as warm, his lips just as soft, faintly vanilla flavored, and lush. The kiss is just as full and affectionate and fuck, just as perfectly textured with a hint of moisture. Darren does this thing with his tongue this time, not quite touching but pushing the wet inner skin of his lip against Chris’s. The fingers of one hand flex subconsciously and then curl closed again, completely beyond the control of his body or brain and of course that is the fucking take they will use. Chris feels his face flush with heat, feels the skin of Darren’s neck do the same under his fingertips.
They finally finish, both quite literally breathless and the way Darren (Blaine. It’s Blaine, idiot!) is looking at him makes him want to crawl right out of his skin but they have lines to say, Chris’s Kurt voice finding its way out of him from some reserve of rehearsed, deep discipline he’s grateful for in the moment.
Then Darren’s lips are on him again and he’s grabbing, gasping, it’s good, it’s too good and Darren’s getting under his skin and Chris is going to beat himself up for days for letting him.
Someone finally yells cut and Darren’s hands curl around his neck, forehead lowering to press against his and they just stare at each other, breathing and nodding. Oh, fuck. There’s a smattering of applause in the room. Chris wants to die.
---
Later on in interviews he’ll say he needed a cigarette when it was over, and in this comedown time, taking off his Dalton sweater, scrubbing the makeup off his face and brushing his teeth out of some kind of gay guilt OCD, he really thinks he means it. He hates the smell on Naya or Lea’s skin, though not so much of the smoke itself, but he sure as hell gets the psychology of it and would probably give it a shot right now. He zips up his hoodie and pulls out his phone instead, heading out to the parking area and hopefully his favorite driver.
He passes by Darren’s trailer and hesitates the barest of seconds, thinking he really should slap some smartness into himself and at least do the polite thing and say goodnight, good work, something, to his acting partner, his fucking friend, (acting partner acting partner you’re an actor you’re a good actor he lectures himself in his head) but somehow he just can’t.
The grounds of the estate are hushed, quiet in that old wood and heavy velvet kind of way. He’s glad for the weight of it, the trees and the darkness instead of the all-night lights and bustle of the studio lot, grateful for the thud of his steps on the cobblestones of the driveway. Paul is waiting with the Town Car and Chris slides across the leather seat, closes the door with a soft swoosh, and lays his head back for a moment, just listening to the stillness around him.
His eyes are closed, and Paul asks simply, unobtrusively, “Valley or West Hollywood, Mr. Colfer?” Chris rubs his forehead for a minute, remembers that they are, in fact, done for now and it’s the weekend, whatever that means. His fingers tap the keys on his Blackberry gently, calm finally beginning to nudge into the panicky edges, smooth the frays. He gets a reply back immediately.
yep Im home of course you can. see you soon. yay.
Chris lets out a long, slow breath he didn’t even know he was holding. “Valley. Thanks, Paul.” Paul nods in the rear view mirror and pulls the car slowly down the drive.
---
Cory takes one look at Chris, standing there wrecked and irritated on his front porch, and he snorts. An absolutely undignified snort of laughter that Chris knows he doesn’t mean and probably immediately regrets, opening his arms and pulling Chris into them, holding him against his chest as Chris snipes at him, dry as always but too emotionally exhausted to bite, “Thanks, great, please laugh at me right now. I love you too.”
Cory laughs softer this time and breathes into Chris’s hair, whispers against his head.
“Do love you. You’re here, you’re ok now.”
“Mmmmmm...” Chris murmurs, not even bothering to find a word.
“So...you did it, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Chris sighs into Cory’s shirt, turning his face in toward his chest and pursing his lips in a kiss through his clothes, right over his sternum.
Cory’s breath catches and he squeezes Chris a little tighter. “...and?”
“And...yeah, it was good.” Chris shrugs, lifting his head from the hug and looking up for Cory, finding his face comforting and weirdly handsome in the shadows cast by his porch light. Cory pulls back and takes Chris’s face in his hands, bends forward until he can reach his mouth and kisses him, hard and searching and reminding and provoking all at once. Chris tastes like toothpaste and probably lavender face toner but Cory doesn’t seem to mind if he does, stroking his chin with his thumbs, kissing him until Chris goes slack in his arms. “Too good?” he asks, mumbling against Chris’s mouth before he can even be bothered to pull away.
“Obviously,” Chris says airily when he can finally catch a breath, feeling his chest tightening and his neck flushing hot again, thank fucking god for Cory.
“Is he really straight?” Cory asks as he kisses along Chris’s jaw, his voice already throaty and thick in Chris’s ear and Chris’s fucking toes curl. It feels good, better, but he still sighs, heavy and complicated, the feel of Cory all around him intruded on by vague worries of whatever this is that’s gotten into his head, this Darren thing.
“He doesn’t kiss like he’s straight.”
“Well you might as well come in and tell me about it.”
“Mmmmm, that sounds very healthy for our relationship.”
“Hey, I only get to kiss girls. Got to let me live a little through you, at least. Besides, I’ll get to see it. Because it will be on my television. Remember?”
“Smartass. I’ll tell you whatever you want if you rub my back.”
“I’ll rub whatever you want if you’ll come inside my house and stay for like, five days. At least,” Cory says, hands curled around Chris’s neck and thumbs lifting him up, up to kiss him again.
“We don’t have five days. Three?” Chris counters, lips softly brushing at Cory’s.
“Deal.” Cory grins and pulls him inside.
---
Cory keeps his word with the back rub. He settles Chris naked in his blankets, lights a bunch of candles and puts on what Chris by now easily recognizes as Arcade Fire - sigh, Canada, he thinks as Cory digs strong fingers into his trapezius muscles, his hands easily spanning Chris’s whole back. He works his way up those muscles, letting the angles lead his path onto Chris’s shoulders, squeezing and working his way around until they roll softly in their joints. He is gentle with his neck, brushing his thumb lightly over Chris’s scar before leaning down to carefully press his lips to it, Chris letting out a long, contented moan and then, finally, the slow trickle of words Cory probably knew was coming.
“Couldn’t he have the decency to be a lousy kisser? I mean...I’m professional, right? You think I’m professional? Can’t he not be so cool and so oh, I’m Harry Potter, I’m from San Francisco let’s make out and not get hung up on labels? I mean that’s just...whatever...you know? Why is he so...Darren?”
Cory laughs and shakes his head softly, running the heels of his hands down Chris’s spine. He splays his palms out over his lats and lower back, slides down onto his glutes, keeps rubbing as Chris babbles at him, quieter and quieter the longer Cory touches him. Cory occasionally makes a sympathetic sound of agreement but mostly just lets Chris get his thoughts out, and focuses on his body. Chris feels Cory’s eyes and hands skimming the line of his back, and arches appreciatively as he glides over the dip and rise of his ass. Cory switches the pressure and touch, kneading Chris’s soft skin with the tips of his fingers until Chris is completely relaxed and lets his body sink into the bed, his legs fall open.
“Sorry...” Chris murmurs into the pillow as Cory lets his fingers drag down the backs of his thighs.
“S’ok,” Cory whispers back, stroking lightly over the fine hairs and moving lower, his lips coming down to just barely kiss the curve of skin there. “I wanted you to talk about it...you know it’s ok, right? It’s good, I mean. That you felt it, and it felt good...that scene had to be intense. I know it means a lot to you. I love that about you.” Cory stammers a little and rests his forehead against the small of Chris’s back, just waiting, maybe.
Chris feels crushed and fucking ridiculous with how much he loves Cory, needs him right now, needs him everywhere. “I’m sorry, I love you and you’re...I think I’m making it weird...I’m just not making any sense, and ahhhh...” Chris falters as Cory is suddenly there, little kisses along the cleft of his ass and he tries not to tense up again, tries to let go, let Cory take over.
Cory just breathes out against his skin, now sensitive and prickled with goosebumps, “Shhhhhh. You are not making it weird, babe. And you are always professional, don’t even...don’t even. He’s just the lucky bastard that gets to kiss you in front of the whole world,” Cory adds, still pressing his lips up and down Chris’s cool skin.
Chris sighs heavily at that, cranes his neck around to look back at Cory through one quirked eye. “Some day...some day. Are you gonna...oh...” Chris’s last attempt at thought slides away from him as Cory curves his hands around his ass and gently nudges him apart.
“Yeah, everything. Anything you want, babe...” Cory’s words fade on his breath as he settles between Chris’s legs and runs his tongue all the way up his backside to the top of his tailbone and back down, pushing and parting him. Chris shudders against his mouth, lifts his hips and presses back, wanting so much more.
Cory gives it, gives him all the wetness and touch and stretch Chris can take until he’s whimpering his name into the pillow, trying to turn over underneath him. Chris squirms but Cory holds him just a moment longer, his tongue working in a slow, languid circle until he’s satisfied that Chris is malleable, ready.
Cory grabs his hips and flips him, lifts his legs around him and touches himself to him, the head of his cock just barely breaching where Chris is wet and wanting. Chris thinks he does this just to feel the friction between them, the natural humid heat of Chris on his dick before there’s any lube. It always makes him growl, makes him shove down against the pressure and hold his wrists up, crossed together over his head, the only way he knows to ask for what he wants when he’s like this. Cory smiles down at him, slicks himself quickly and pushes into him with a thrust, rough, fast like Chris likes, one hand holding Chris’s wrists down hard and tight.
---
Cory rubs Chris’s back absentmindedly, both in a bit of a haze and not willing to shake out of it just yet. Chris is worn out and maybe just on the edge of consciousness when Cory clears his throat suddenly, loud in the dark stillness and Chris is a little startled. He lifts his head as Cory starts, stammers a little for the words he wants. “You know...what I’ve said before. If you ever, like, you need to experience things, and...like I have. Just..you know I’m not jealous and I have weird Canadian ideas about...life, I guess.”
Chris turns in his arms to face him, searching his eyes in the tiny bit of light. “I know you’ve said it before but it doesn’t mean I want that. I don’t want...just so I’m clear we’re still talking about Darren, right?” Cory looks down and away and Chris rolls his eyes, not at him exactly, just...yeah, life. “Sweetie, I do not want to sleep with Darren, ok? Like, I really really don’t. He is cute and new and yeah he’s kind of fluffy and I will inevitably wind up making out with him, it seems...but I am with you. I am with you. Regardless of your crazy communist relationship ideas. I don’t want to be a swinger or whatever it’s called in Canada, ok? You’re my boyfriend. I know that is probably completely American and capitalist and boring, but...I like us.”
“You’re allowed to like him too, though.” Cory kisses him, softly, strokes his cheek and the back of his neck. Chris rubs his own wrists where they ache as he falls asleep, doesn’t say anything more.
---
On the second day when he doesn’t come home, Amber texts him ???evthing ok xoxo??? He doesn’t write back right away, and in the meantime Ashley texts too, whar u at ho? He lies across Cory’s bed and holds his phone over his head, replies to both of them fine. in the Valley. for a while. Amber writes back got it tell him hi <3 and Ashley chikka chikka bow bow MONFER lolz.
He thinks for just a minute about sending Darren a quick text, just saying hi or checking in or sorry I’m such a freak, something that will make it less awkward when he sees him again on Tuesday. He feels better, saner, more removed from it now, but worse about the simple fact that he kissed his friend, shared a pretty significant moment, and bailed. Before he can decide, Cory flops back down on the bed from his shower, scrubbed soft and damp, his skin hot all over.
Chris takes one look at him, turns off his phone, shoves it into the bottom of his messenger bag, and rolls over on top of Cory, straddling his hips in a pair of Cory’s sweatpants that are just a little too long and slouchy on his thighs. Cory runs his hands underneath the worn fabric, feeling the ridges of muscle Chris knows he didn’t have a year ago. His body is so different now, he’s taller and more angular than the first time Cory tentatively tugged his jeans off him, when he used to touch him like he was afraid he’d break him. In the early days Chris had to beg him to fuck him as hard as he knew Cory could. It took a while for them to work it out, shocking both of them when they started to learn what they really liked.
Chris wonders if Cory thinks about that when he touches him now, what he’s thinking at all with Chris sliding slowly, tortuously back and forth on his lap like this. “You wanna ride me?” Cory rasps out through a creaky smile, hands braced on Chris’s ass doing their best to help make sure he keeps doing whatever he’s doing. Chris leans all the way over him, bare chest pressing down and lined up with his own, his fingers gripping Cory’s tattoo as he kisses him slowly, deeply, all tongue and push and whine.
"Nuh uh...wanna fuck you," Chris smiles into Cory's neck, sweet and wicked and maybe blushing a tiny bit. Cory groans and arches up into Chris, holding him tight with one arm while reaching over to his bedside table. Chris takes the little bottle of lube from his hand and strokes up and down his sides and long thighs as he turns over on his stomach. It’s more comfortable for Cory to have Chris inside him from behind, and Chris loves it like this, Cory all stretched out and impossibly long, his for the touching and having.
Chris never in his wildest fantasies conjured a man like Cory for himself, when he used to let himself fantasize about a boyfriend, a sex life, a something. He hoped...he assumed, getting cast and getting the hell out of Clovis, that he could probably at least meet some guys, go on some awkward dates, maybe get laid every now and then. He never imagined he’d have something like this.
Chris takes his time when he’s fucking Cory. He knew the first time he did this to him he would have to learn control, learn to slow down. Cory likes it like that, likes the long, deliberate drag of Chris pushing his fingers or his cock into him, pulling even slower back out, likes lazy kisses down his shoulders and back. It’s a whole different world and he doesn’t want to miss anything.
He watches Cory’s face, blissful, turned on his cheek and murmuring happily as Chris pushes Cory’s leg up and off to his side. He pulls in close, his hips flush against him, whispering what he’s going to do to him into his ear, makes Cory want. Cory tilts his hips and shifts his legs a little to bring Chris closer, take him deeper. Chris just holds there, all the way inside him, his hands still and bracing on the small of Cory’s back for a long while before his eyes tear up and he has to move. When he finally comes inside Cory with a gasp and a drawn-out, breathy shudder, he can’t imagine ever needing anything else.
---
They show up on Tuesday morning in the same car and looking pretty rumpled, not a huge deal but they’re not usually so obvious. Chris has to go straight to hair and makeup and Cory drops him off. Darren is already there and smiles when he sees them together on the steps. Chris walks in and wraps his arms around Darren, hugging him how he wants even when Darren kind of pats his shoulder uncertainly.
Darren looks up at Cory, who just shrugs at him and turns up his hands to show he’s got nothing. Darren pauses just a moment before he asks, lips just barely brushing Chris’s hair and it tickles him, “Everything...ok?”
Chris pulls away, a sleepy smile on his face, and presses his lips to Darren’s temple. “Yeah. Just...glad we’re all here.” Darren raises a confused eyebrow as Chris lets him go and steps away to take Cory’s hands. “See you in a bit?” Cory nods and pulls him in, kisses him up against the door.
Darren lets out a very audible and amused, “Oh!” Chris giggles against Cory’s lips but he can’t seem to stop, and Cory is either on the verge of an early mid-life crisis or deciding to just say fuck it. Chris knows which one he is rooting for.
Epilogue
It’s late, really late, and Chris is curled up in a huge hotel bed with his phone in one hand, still receiving occasional texts about the episode, and the remote in the other. He’s found the right game, after calling the front desk and asking if there are any more ESPN’s than the three he has already tried - there is always another ESPN, Chris has learned.
The game is in overtime, tied at 1, and he knows Cory must be freaking the fuck out. He’s watching a few blocks away at whatever bar he and Mark had found, only to have Mark ditch him in the 2nd, and Chris knows he will be in a state when he gets back to the room. Which state is the only question. He pulls his knees up to his chest and sits forward a little, following as best he can because it’s pretty fast and loose at this point, and double-checking in his head over and over that he has the uniform colors right (blue/green = oceans and mountains = Vancouver = Cory. Check!)
He’s barely even gotten comfortable and he could blink and miss it when #14 slaps a hard high shot over the goalie’s shoulder and everyone in blue/green goes wild. Chris gives a little fist pump and a cheer of his own, because for him this means ten minutes or less until amazing post-hockey victory sex. He clicks off the game after watching the celebrating for a few minutes and checks his phone to see the inevitable !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from Cory, hops up to brush his teeth so he can be back in bed when Cory comes in.
Seven minutes later there’s a keycard in the door, a jiggling handle, some muffled swearing and then the keycard again and then Chris has an armload of happy, happy Cory in his bed and seriously, after-hockey sex is one of the finest perks of having a Canadian man love you that Chris has yet to enjoy. It should be, like, a national treasure, Chris thinks as Cory slides warm, smiley lips and scritchy late night scruff all over his body.
Chris waits until Cory is wound up nice and tight from working him over to take advantage of his new found leverage and broad shoulders, roll Cory over on his back and go down on him hard and quick, Cory so riled up from everything he comes in about two minutes, Chris grunting in pleasure as he swallows and goes for his dick with his own hand. Cory pushes through his orgasm haze to work his way between their bodies and wrap his hand over Chris’s, twines their fingers together and kisses him, deep and sated, just holds him while Chris finishes, coming moments later over their hands, part of the sheet.
Chris hangs on to Cory’s lips as long as he can, back still arched and arm bent at an awful angle, until he has to untangle and get that top sheet off. Cory goes to wash his face and hands and comes back with his glasses on, reading his phone and scowling.
“Well. I now have a 6:45 am interview. So there’s that. Fantastic.”
Chris is rapidly fading, dissolving into the soft cool bed, and pats the spot next to him, making a lazily sympathetic sound but not really able to offer much else. Cory flops down and stretches out beside Chris, obviously exhausted too but still vibrating with a high, keen energy that Chris can actually feel without even touching him. Chris turns toward him, kisses his shoulder, his arm, his stupid tattoo.
“Oh, how was the episode? Did you guys watch?” Cory suddenly remembers, propping his head up on one hand as Chris trails a hand down his bare chest.
“Oh...yes, the episode. Indeed. Um...I got a lot of texts about it.” Chris reaches behind himself and finds his own phone in the near dark, flips through a couple of screens and hands it to Cory, burying his face in his pillow before he can start giggling. He’s already so tired he’s almost delirious and if he gets the giggles it’s not going to be good for either of them.
Cory reads the first four or so out loud, one from Darren, That edit looked like Blaine is going off to the Trijan War and leaving Kurt in the loving arms of his brother...Greek tragedy Glee! Oh :( am I getting killed off?; then one from Mike, well that scene gave new meaning to “keep an eye on your brother” ha! good work kiddo. m.o., that makes Cory’s jaw drop; one from Ashley that she probably has a quick key for at this point, MONFER lolz. Dianna’s is the most elegant and succinct, just like her, oh, Cory. <3
“Wait, what did I do? Oh god was it awful? I thought that was a good scene!” Cory thrashes around dramatically and burrows under the covers, and now Chris has the giggles and he’s so screwed.
“You were amazing, no no no! We were amazing! It was just...your face. I mean. You kind of love me,” he manages, laughing and lolling his head over on Cory’s side, trying to burrow under the blanket where he’s hiding.
“I can’t help my face! It’s my face! Of course I love you...god, was it that obvious? I’m scared to watch it now,” Cory laughs too, finding Chris under the covers and holding him close.
Chris giggles as their lips nearly miss each other in the dark, then pokes at him, “you were pretty obvious.”
“So you’ve got yourself an old, junky, Canadian, super obvious bad actor.”
“Mmmm hmmmm...and I love him,” Chris settles against the solid weight of Cory’s body, everything suddenly much stiller and he’s not giggling anymore. He lets out a long breath and relaxes, lets the sleepiness start to seep back in with Cory holding him, helping pull him under.
“And you love me, so I’d say that reflects pretty poorly on you, eh?”
“It probably does, eh? But I’m young so I have an excuse for my poor decision making.”
“That’s true. Hey you want to elope to Canada? I’ll make an honest man out of you,” Cory whispers as he slips into more asleep than awake. Chris smiles and turns on his side under Cory’s protective arm, plucks his phone from the bedside table one last time.
“Mmmm, sure why not. I’ve got a good lawyer, I’m sure she can get me out of it if need be...” he trails off, fingers soft and quiet on the keys. Cory is already asleep. The text is to Darren and it may seem like a bad idea in the morning but right now, it makes him feel impossibly happy. He hits send and falls back in Cory’s arms, asleep in seconds.
hey - be my best man some day?
~fin