Chapter 1

When Chris flipped through his newly given script for the next one and a half hour Glee special he was beyond the point of excitement. The theme of the episode was going to be RENT and the episode was properly named "No Day But Today." It was also going to be on air on January 24, 2012, the day before the 16th anniversary from when the first Off-Broadway performance of RENT happened. Chris had secretly wanted to do more RENT songs for a while after Lea and Amber got to sing "Take Me or Leave Me," but he never told anyone (well, he didn't tell Ryan or any of the writing staff or any of the producers of the show. Of course he told the rest of the cast, they always shared all their ideas for the show with each other).

Chris flipped to the song list page and honestly, he couldn't be more pleased with the line-up:

-'Tango Maureen'- Darren and Samantha

- 'I'll Cover You' – Chris and Darren

-'Light My Candle'- Mark and Ashley

-'What You Own'- Cory, Mark, Kevin, and Chord

-'Over the Moon'- Lea and Amber

-'Out Tonight'- Riley

-'Without You'- Chris and Darren

-'Seasons of Love'- Whole Cast (solos: Amber and Kevin)

What pleased Chris the most is that the episode seemed to revolve around Kurt and Blaine (good thing too, there's been nearly zero Klaine action since they've gotten together), considering the 2 duets they got to sing. He flipped through the script again. Yep, the episode revolved around Kurt and Blaine's relationship. Which to Chris meant getting to spend even more countless hours memorizing lines, singing duets, goofing off, and –he hoped since he only skimmed through the script- kissing Darren Criss. Just the thought of kissing Darren again gave him butterflies in his stomach.

'No, you're not going to be possibly kissing Darren, You have never kissed Darren. Kurt is possibly going to be kissing Blaine," Chris scolded himself. 'He is gay. Darren is not. Darren is straight. He is not.' Chris always reminded himself of that detail but that didn't destroy his feelings for the shorter, curly-haired, boy with triangular eyebrows.

"Damn him and his supermegafoxyawesomehotness…." Chris muttered as he walked back to the trailer that he and Darren shared, only to run into the black haired girl (which if you looked closely at her hair you can tell it's naturally brown) that was his height, while knocking her cell phone and water bottle and his script out of their hands during their impact.

"Oh sorry Chris didn't see ya there," Samantha smiled apologetically.

"No it's fine I wasn't really paying attention either," Chris smiled back, "Here, I'll grab that for ya." Chris bent down and grabbed her cell phone and –thankfully closed- water bottle and handed them to her before picking up his script.

"Thanks. Hey is that the script for the next Glee special?"

"Yeah it is. Have you read it yet?"

"No, I don't even know what the theme of it is. I've been busy reading over my lines for the episode where Kurt and Olivia kinda become enemies because of their different relationships with Blaine,"

"Oh yeah aren't we singing 'What is this Feeling?' today?"

"No they pushed it back a few days because I guess I gotta learn a dance for the special. What's the theme of it anyways?"

"RENT."

"Wait they actually decided to write out my idea?" Samantha's face lit up with excitement (okay, not just Chris's idea to do that type of episode…), "That's so awesome! Who's singing what?"

"Well, you and Darren get to sing 'Tango Maureen' so that's the dance you gotta learn, Darren and I get to sing 'I'll Cover You', 'Light My Candle' goes to Mark and Ashley, 'Out Tonight' goes to Riley, me and Darren get 'Without You', 'What You Own' will be sung by Mark, Cory, Kevin and Chord, Lea and Amber are singing 'Over The Moon', and last but definitely not least, everyone's going to be singing 'Seasons of Love' and the solos go to Amber and Kevin," Chris inhaled deeply after saying the song list to Samantha.

"Oh wow this episode's gonna be fun. You and Darren better get started on practicing you two duets," Samantha said with a wink.

"Well learning duets alone with possible holding hands, twirling, cuddling, and kissing is easy. HOWEVER, learning a song and how to do the tango with him is much more challenging." Chris smirked.

"It'll be worth it in the long run," Samantha smiled and looked at her cell phone again, "Hey I gotta go film the one on one scene with Lea during 'Eye of the Tiger.' See ya later Chris!" Samantha started jogging off to the parking lot where a car –most likely Lea's- was waiting to drive to the auditorium set. The cast was used to filming more than one episode at a time, at least the original cast members were. Samantha was new and still getting used to it though, but she was loved throughout the cast, crew, and Ryan and she loved being there. Samantha gave him a final wave goodbye and Chris walked back to his trailer. He couldn't wait to start shooting this episode.

Chris stepped through the door to his trailer to find Darren sitting upside down on their couch reading a copy of the script that Chris was holding.

"Why are you upside down?" Chris asked quizzically.

"Why are you right side up?" Darren replied, "Have you read the script yet?"

"I skimmed it, and you have a lot of work to do my friend,"

"Yeah I know, I sing in 3 duets, I gotta be flirtatious with you as usual, then I actually need to be dramatic, angry, serious, I possibly will have to cry, and I need to learn how to tango on top of all that," Darren sat right side up and flopped his face into one of the cushions, "so…much…work!" his muffled voice said. Chris just chuckled and pat the older boy's head.

"Aww… Poor Darren! Would me helping you practice make you feel better?" Chris smiled. Darren lifted his head from the cushion.

"You have no choice, Kurt's in almost every one of Blaine's scenes, and pretty much the only scene that Blaine is apart from Kurt is 'Tango Maureen'! And even then there's a small conversation between the two of them!" Darren gasped dramatically and his head flopped back into the cushion.

"I know, just thought I'd be polite and ask anyways." Chris smirked, "Come on; let's see why on earth Kurt and Blaine sing 'Without You'."

"Well all I know is that Blaine's supposed to get angry at Kurt, they fight while Kurt's near hysterics, Blaine storms out of the room, and you're not supposed to tell me why," Darren shrugged.

"The reason isn't in your script?"

"Nope, guess they want my reaction to be real for the beginning of Kurt and Blaine's first big fight."

"Well then, this is going to be interesting."

"Yep. So…wanna practice our duets?" Darren asked raising an eyebrow as he held up a CD that Chris knew would have their songs on it.

"I thought I didn't have a choice," Chris replied smoothly.

"You don't, just thought I'd be polite and ask anyways," Darren smirked and sent Chris's heart racing.

"Well since you gave me the choice then why not? Don't gotta be on the McKinley set again for a while."

"Alright, let's do this then." Darren said getting up. He strode over to the little iPod/CD player in the corner and popped the CD in. Then Chris stood up as the first bars to 'I'll Cover You' started playing.