Hey guys! So after the amazing response you guys had to Pillow Chat, I decided to do a one shot in which Chris Colfer and Mark Salling share a sweet moment together. It's slightly romantic, but with all the undertones of a beautiful friendship. I hope you enjoy it! Please leave a comment if you have any feedback! Oh, and this takes place when Chris was still under 21, and Mark has a totally fictional girlfriend =)

This will be in two or three parts – probably two =)

Not Quite Sure

Even though he knew it was coming, Chris gasped as he splashed the ice-cold water onto his face. It was much needed, though, after doing a show in the ninety-three-degree-and-humid outdoor amphitheatre. Eyes closed and features still distorted from the cold water shock, Chris undid the first four or five buttons of his white, long-sleeved shirt. He ran his hands under the faucet once again, wetting them and proceeding to spread the cold water around to the back of his neck and then beneath the fabric of his shirt and onto his shoulders.

He turned off the faucet and sighed contentedly as the pleasant silence of the empty dressing room washed over him. Being twenty years old in a friendly gang with eleven over-twenty-ones, he was used to staying behind after concerts and going back to the hotel alone. True, it was sometimes a little sad being the only one who couldn't go out. But on the other hand, he spent so much time with them all-day-every-day that it really wasn't too big of a sacrifice. And occasionally (in this instance, for example), he enjoyed the time for relaxation.

As he leaned onto the sink counter, eyes still closed and head hanging, Chris felt cold water drip from his soaking-wet face, neck, and shoulders and run down his torso, but he didn't mind. In this heat, it was welcomed.

"You meditating or something?"

The voice made Chris's heart jump in surprise. He looked up and saw a familiar reflection in the mirror.

"Oh," he breathed, smiling as he watched his friend approach him from the dressing room door, "Hey, Mark."

"Hey, man."

Mark Salling walked up to the counter on which Chris was leaning and leaned in to the mirror, rubbing his eyes. "Is it possible to be allergic to whatever-the-hell they put on our faces before we go onstage?" he asked with a chuckle.

Chris laughed, turned around, and hoisted himself up to sit on the counter right next to where Mark was massaging his eyes in the mirror. "It's called foundation, Mark. And not as far as I know, but you never can tell. Lemme see your eyes," he offered, placing a hand beneath Mark's chin and guiding his face away from the mirror.

Mark let his hands down. He squinted and blinked a few times as Chris examined his eyes. Even in the dim light of the dressing room, Chris could see that his eyes were slightly pink and just a little puffier than normal.

"Huh…" Chris murmured, letting his hand drop back into his own lap as Mark turned back to the mirror.

"I know, right?"

"Are you allergic to anything else?"

"Strawberries," he said, "But as far as I know I haven't touched any."

"Here," Chris said, hopping off of the counter and lifting his backpack off of the floor, "I have some Benadryl in here somewhere… there you are…"

After rummaging through his backpack, Chris produced a travel-sized canister of the tiny pink pills and handed it to Mark.

"Aw man, thank you…"

"No problem." Chris hoisted himself back onto the counter. "Is this why you didn't go out tonight?" he asked. Mark wasn't usually one to stay inside when the after-show shenanigans took place.

"Yeah, pretty much," he said. Groggily, he took a plastic cup from the counter and filled it with water, then swallowed the regular dosage of two tablets in one large gulp. "Also," he continued, after tossing the empty cup into the wastebasket beneath the counter, "I just didn't really feel like being… I don't know… real social, you know? I mean, I love the gang to death," he added quickly, leaning his back against the counter by Chris's seat, "But sometimes you have those days, you know?"

Chris nodded, understanding. "I know exactly what you mean."

The two remained still through a few moments of relaxed, comfortable silence. Finally, Chris began to speak again, softly, when a thought occurred to him. "Are you… all right, Mark?" he asked, tentatively. "You didn't really seem… all there today."

Mark sighed heavily. The expression on his face told Chris that he had known Chris would ask sooner or later, but also that he had secretly hoped Chris would ask. This was something that he truly needed to talk about.

"Alice and I broke up."

It took Chris a moment to process this; it had been put out there so suddenly. When it did, though, it hit his heart hard. Being the hopeless romantic that he is, Chris hated hearing about breakups. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it after a thought entered his head: he wanted to say more than "I'm so sorry." He wanted to say something more meaningful...

Almost without thinking, Chris said softly, "Mark… if there's anything I can do for you… anything I can do to help… to make the… the hurt go away… please tell me. You're one of my best friends."

Slowly, Mark turned his head to look Chris in the eyes. Chris was relieved and filled with hope to see that Mark, though his eyes were watery, was giving Chris a weak, yet sincere smile.

"Thank you, Chris," he said, nodding in gratitude, "That… that means a lot to me."

Chris returned the smile, and Mark pushed himself away from the counter, and then turned around to face the mirror once again. "The silver lining," he began, looking at himself in the mirror, but still talking to Chris, "is that it couldn't have been more… right."

He paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and continued. "We talked through it. We both knew it was coming; it was just a compatibility thing, you know? We're two very different people. But…" he laughed to himself, "I know we'll still be buds. We were great friends before the relationship, and…" he looked at Chris, smiling as a single tear ran down his cheek, "I know we'll be friends after."

Chris, pleasantly surprised and proud of Mark's maturity, but not knowing what to say, reached out and grasped the twenty-eight-year-old's shoulder comfortingly.

Mark began to say something that Chris could not make out, then he stammered a bit, until finally he laughed, cursed, then said, "Can I just have a Chris hug?"

Chris shared the laugh. Once again he hopped off of the counter, and then wrapped his arms affectionately around Mark.

With his hands against Mark's back, Chris felt the slight curve of a familiar thin wire snaking beneath the fabric of his friend's t-shirt. Glancing upward, Chris noted the small black device still attached to Mark's ear. Chuckling as he pulled out of the embrace, Chris smirked, "Your uh… mic is still on, in case you didn't notice."

Instantly Mark's hand flew to his ear. "Oh good Lord, I'm a wreck…" he sighed, smirking in amusement.

"Want me to get it?" Chris offered, slowly moving to face Mark's back. Like any performer, he was all too familiar with the fun activity of un-taping mics at the end of the night; a skill nearly impossible to do on one's own.

"Thanks, man." In one swift movement, Mark pulled his t-shirt over head, then quickly folded it and placed it on the counter in front of him.

A few more moments of silence passed between the two as Chris's noticeably light, caring fingers gently removed the many strips of flesh-colored tape that held the wire to Mark's back. This silence, however, was slightly less comfortable than the first. As much as Chris hated to admit it to himself, when he processed the situation he was currently in, he felt as though ten butterflies had been set loose in the pit of his stomach.

Chris couldn't have been more comfortable in his own skin; that wasn't what made him nervous. What made him nervous was that Mark was one of his best friends, and he was well aware of what even thoughts, fleeting thoughts of romance, could do to a friendship. Little did he know that his worries were shared.

"Hey, Chris?" asked Mark, as Chris's hands approached the middle of Mark's bare back.

"Mmhm?"

"Can I ask you something… personal? Like… it's pretty personal…"

Chris hands paused for a moment, and for a fleeting second Mark was afraid that he had made Chris nervous or offended him in some way. Almost instantly, though, he was reassured when Chris's hands continued to slowly and carefully remove the strips of tape. "Yeah," Chris said, kindly, "Sure, go for it."

Mark took a deep breath, causing his shoulder blades to shift, the muscles in his back to tense, Chris's breath to catch in his chest and his heartbeat to quicken. Don't do this, Chris told himself, closing his eyes momentarily, Not with Mark… not with one of your best friends…

"How did you… how did you know… for sure…" Mark stammered, then finally said, simply and in a smooth, coherent sentence, "At what point in your life did you know for sure that you were gay?"

Chris, caught completely off guard, jumping to conclusions in his head, mentally scolding himself for doing so, and trying as hard as he could not to fumble with the tape and wire on Mark's back and give himself away, stared straight at the back of Mark's head, anxiously trying to calm himself down.

"I…" he stammered.

"I'm sorry," Mark interjected, "I shouldn't have…"

"No! No," Chris said reassuringly as he undid the last strip of tape and pulled the mic and wire out of Mark's back pocket, "It's fine, I… I don't mind at… at all."

Chris looked over Mark's bare shoulder and into the mirror in front of them, meeting Mark's dark eyes in its reflection.

To be continued soon! Thank you very much for reading!