Hey, you guys! :)

Warning - This is a RPF! So if you don't like that...

So first things first. We sadly don't own neither Darren nor Chris which really is sad but the truth ;D

For everyone who is more into LiveJournal... you can read the story here:

smellofroses(dot)livejournal(dot)com/1186(dot)html

Once again for everyone that get's a little scared half way through this. This is not what it looks like so please keep going and you'll see :)

So now just read and enjoy and if you did please review. :D

The room way lying in a complete darkness. The only thing ripping the darkness apart was the gleaming of red letters on a digital clock on a nightstand. The scene looked peaceful and silence was stretched over the room.

Darren was lying in his bed, sleeping and dreaming about what was going to come and what had passed. He was though ripped out of his peaceful sleep as the screen of his phone, lying on his nightstand started to light up and the phone itself started buzzing. Darren shifted in his bed wanting to ignore the stupid thing. Who the fuck wanted to talk to him at…he glanced over to the clock on his nightstand the red letters burning into his eyes…3.30 am.

His head fell back into the comfortable pillows as his phone continued buzzing. Oh hell, he just hoped it was important. He took the phone from the nightstand and sliding it open to answer the call.

"Hello?"

His voice was clouded with sleep and he barley could keep his eyes open. He really wanted to go back to sleep and just continue without this midnight call.

"Is it Darren Criss with whom I am speaking?"

The voice at the other end was completely unfamiliar to Darren. And he started wondering what all of this actually was about.

"Yes, you are. What is…"

But he was cut off by the voice on the other end of the line.

"Mr. Criss we would like you to come here instantly. It is important and we are not required to give away any further information."

Darren swallowed hard and started to worry a little. What the hell…?

"Okay, but what is the reason…"

Again he was cut off by the person, a man, as far as Darren could tell. And instead of answering his question the man just named him an address and insisted on Darren coming to that location instantly. Then the line went dead and Darren just stared blankly at his phone. What had that been? He didn't know and somehow he didn't want to know but his body was moving faster as his mind could tell his body to stop.

Darren was clothed and had brushed over his teeth within the next five minutes. He shortly pressed a kiss to his fiancés forehead as he left smiling shortly as he looked over his shoulder looking at her still sleeping in peace as he stood in the doorframe that gave him entrance into the living room.

His mind had decided and settled on the idea that whatever it was that awaited him at the location the man had named him, it had to be something important, so now he was sitting in his car, looking on his navigation system as he started the 30 minutes journey to another part of Los Angles.

The silence filled these 30 minutes Darren drove alone and then suddenly everything started slowing down. Darren thought his heart stopped beating for a few seconds as the blue light of the police cars hit his face, blinding him, shocking him. He drove by the house in a insanely slow pace and saw a woman lying in the arms of a man, rubbing circles on her back as she continued sobbing desperately into his shoulder. Policeman were walking in an out of the building, shut off the entrance to the house for people who wanted to get in.

Darren pulled over, onto the sidewalk. He didn't know this house, this road, this building, but he knew that the person he had been talking to had been an officer and that a person he knew would be the reason for all of this. For all this pain that Darren already felt like an iron fist around his heart. He didn't know how it was and what it was that had cause the police to come here and cause the woman standing outside the building so much pain and when Darren truly thought about it, he didn't want to know. The pain that already clinked to his hart was enough he thought.

Darren never had been good at saying good bye but this was even worse already. Only seeing the police still storming in and out of the building, people standing around. And as Darren looked at the scene in front of his eyes he saw more people cry and more people clutch to one another. And the entire scene was surrounded by darkness only lit by the spinning blue light on top of the police cars.

Finally Darren managed to get out of his car and walk over to the building on his weak legs. He didn't know what to do and he was just stumbling around looking for someone to tell him what was going on. One of the policeman came up to him and as he began to spoke Darren recognized his voice from the call.

"Ah…Mr. Criss. If you would please follow he."

Darren started moving like he wasn't in his body anymore. His movements were mechanic and felt unfamiliar. The time still seemed to be drawn out slowed down as he followed the policeman up a flight of stairs and then another one.

They walked down a hallway and Darren could see an apartment brightly light up. The door was open widely and people inside were taking and under the steady talk Darren could hear more sobs. It were only a few more steps and then Darren was faced with the inside of the apartment.

At first sight it looked nice and cute and personal and to Darren's shook it had a much to familiar touch to it. But when you looked closer you saw the shatter picture frames on the floor, glass spilled almost everywhere Darren could look. Random things were tossed at the floor, some broken others still intact. A huge book shelf had been upset and books were spread over the floor and Darren saw one quite to familiar book lying on the edge of the red rug on the wooden floor. The Land Of Stories, was almost lying to Darren's feet. And then the fear linked to Darren's heart made its first attempt to knock the air out of his lungs.

Darren's eyes landed on a picture that wasn't shattered on the floor but hung crooked on the wall only being held there by the nail in its right edge. The face with the pale skin, the rosy cheeks and the friendly smile was much too familiar to Darren and he really didn't want to go on and look further. He only wanted to turn around and leave and awake from this fucked up dream he was having, but this wasn't just a dream, it was reality and the fear clicked a little tighter around his heart and his lungs making it hard to breath.

Whispers and voices were all around Darren as he was drawn towards the door that also hung crooked in its hinges. The few steps till Darren was standing in the doorway felt like miles and when his eyes caught hold of the bed his knees gave out and he only could hold onto the doorframe to keep himself upright. It were a few more steps until he was next to the bed and broke down, hot wet tears running over his cheeks and he didn't care at all who saw him or what they thought or how he looked like as he rocked forwards and backward the tears coming in an endless stream down his face. His hands were clutched to his shirt right over his heart. Darren felt as if his heart might burst and shatter and fall apart as the cold, iron hand of now loss and pain almost smashed his heart in his chest.

The figure lying on the bed in front of Darren had that pale skin he had admired all the while trough two entire years. Had that chestnut brown hair that felt like silk between Darren's fingers. Had the blue eyes that were now staring blankly into nowhere. His cheeks were still tears streaked and looked still damp even though Darren knew that wasn't possible. The persons hand was lying on a picture and his legs were pulled up a little towards his body. It looked like the person was sleeping but Darren didn't need anyone to tell him that the person was dead.

That Chris was dead. Dead and gone and wiped from the earth's surface forever.

And in the moment Darren put tighter the fact and the name that he feared he had to put with the recant event, he started rocking back and forth again, letting the tears fall again without hesitation.

"Chris…no…Chris…no, please. No…"

Darren whispered into the air his hand now gripping the one that had been lying over the picture. He was still rocking back and forth his glance focused onto the ceiling. He didn't want to believe didn't want to see didn't want to feel this. None of it but he did and he couldn't just withdraw from the amount of emotions rushing over his body.

His eyes shortly strayed and fell onto the picture that Chris still held under his cold hand. It was a picture of Chris next to another guys. Smaller than Chris himself and with darker hair. The tears blurred out almost all the features of the person beside Chris that it took Darren several moments to recognize himself on the picture. His head fell against the edge of the mattress his tears now falling onto the wooden floor, the icy iron fist squeezing his heart now even harder, when Darren's mind was circling around one particular question. Was he the reason for Chris lying there, lifeless and cold and paler then natural?

Darren squeezed his eyes shut and drowned in the guilt. Yeah, probably this was his fault after all. He had somehow know that Chris always had something from him but he had just downright ignored it. The result was now laid out in front of him. But he also felt the intensity of the hurt and his already breaking heart as he looked once again at his lifeless friend in front of him. And another rush of feeling overwhelmed him as he remembered how he had felt these two years he had spent with Chris. Laughing, kissing, touching and somehow even loving him. No not even, he did love him Darren realized. He had loved Chris the entire time but he had always told himself he didn't, pressured down what he felt, focusing these in his eyes wrong feelings onto some random girl who now was his fiancée. He had produced his feelings for Chris on her and he was shocked now that he saw clearly.

More tears started to stream down his face and he knew he wouldn't stop tonight. He just wouldn't have the strength to stop the tears.

Darren felt two arms as they warped around him and pulled him up from the floor. He was clutched to someone's chest who was guiding him out of the room, whispering soothing thing into his ear. The person then pushed him down onto the couch and drew him into an embrace, stroking over his curls just like Chris had done it back at the glee set.

Tears started falling again as Darren thought about Chris' hands in his hair and how they always had played with his curls. Chris had called them cute and adorable while sometimes Darren just thought they were annoying, but he couldn't do anything about his Irish gen had had given him these hair.

"Shh Darren, it's okay. It's okay, Dar."

Darren knew that voice and finally looked up and saw the familiar face that he hadn't see for good two years. Amber Riley was sitting next to him her arms still warped around Blaine, trying to comfort him and her eyes were filled with tears as much as Darren's were.

"Am…Am I-I the reason…he…Chris did that?"

Darren swallowed audible but he also needed to know the answer to that question. But instead on answering him she waved over one of the policeman.

"Maybe he tells you."

The policeman handed Darren an envelope on which in undeniably Chris's handwriting was written only one word. Darren. He turned the envelope and opened it with shaking finger. As soon as it was opened two pieces of paper fell into Darren's lap, covered in Chris' neat handwriting.

Dear Darren,
When you read this I'm already dead and I'm really sorry that I'm putting you through this but there just didn't seem to be another way. I'm sorry with all my heart for all the pain I'm causing you by taking my life but my boyfriend just didn't give me another choice. Our fights were on a constant daily routine and the subject? Well, it was always the same one. It was you. I loved you from probably the moment you walked onto the Glee set four years ago. I tried to fight all these years what I felt for you and gladly you never noticed how much more you meant to me than a friend. But even though I also tried to hide it from Josh, he found out how much I really missed you and how much I love you and he just wouldn't accept that. And now I am sorry that I never had the strength to tell you how much I love you in person but now I just had to tell you and there wasn't anything I had to fear anymore.
But I guess you still want to know why this is the reason for me lying in my bed cold and lifeless and well dead?
Because my boyfriend wouldn't let me go. He never really got over the fact that I still love you but he never wanted to let me go either. I tried to leave, several times and I really wanted to because all of his behavior made me sick but each and every time I tried, Josh found out, stopped me even though I had planned how to leave for weeks. He punished me and I nearly broke every time. I lost count on how often he raped he for leaving and when I think about it now, I don't even want to know, because I knew it was too much already after the first time he did it.
I know that it probably would have been the best to get help or talk to someone, but you know me. I need time to open up and also you sure can believe I was so afraid what he would do to me, when I told someone, when I got help. I was so, so afraid and I was already physically broken and I didn't want to completely break down and give him the satisfaction.
I know that you should have insisted on me keeping up the fight, but what was there left for me to fight for, Darren?
You are going to fucking get married and I knew that you held my heart. That I could never love someone the same way I loved you all these long years and still do. So in my perspective there was no reason why the hell I should fight for my life that had went shattering into pieces after Glee. Dreams and hopes, that stick like razor blades in my heart and make it ache every time I think about what could have been.
Yeah, I know you would have come up with a lot of arguments why I should have kept fighting. Reasons why I should want to live. I know that Darren. You with your bright and light soul who always found a solution for every single problem one of your friends had. But I just gave up and it was all my decision, Darren. I just didn't saw another way but probably my love for you was just too big for me to handle. And maybe I picked the wrong boyfriend. And maybe everything would have gone different when I would have made different decisions earlier in my life.
I really wish everything had come different and I could hold you right in this moment in which I'm writing this letter. That I could smell you and that I could run my fingers through your adorable curls. But I understand you can't give that to me even when I would be alive right now, you couldn't feel that way I do and that's okay, Dar. All of this is not your fault though because I know you'll blame a part on this on you. But it isn't Dar and it never will be and I want you to believe that.
Thanks to you I changed and I experienced what love really means. Thanks for all the good memories and new experiences we shared. Thank you.
I will love you forever wherever I will end up now.

Chris

P.S. My last wish is for you to be happy and live your life without regrets. Marry and be happy. Have children. Whatever it might be that you want in your life. Please do that for me, Dar. Live for the both of us.

Darren looked down on the papers in his hands. The tears had started falling once again freely and Darren saw the papers in his hands were stained with tears but they weren't his. These were Chris' who had obviously cried while writing this. It finally ripped Darren's heart apart reading how much Chris had suffered over the last two years. He had known that Chris' worlds had went shattering to the floor but he had thought after Chris had found himself a loving boyfriend he could continue his life happy even though it would be out of the spotlight and fame. Darren had always cared and thought about Chris. Worried about how he was doing but after the contact hadn't be constant and then suddenly wasn't there anymore at all, he had thought Chris had built himself a new life with happiness, but Darren had been mistaken. Chris had stopped calling and texting because he had been too afraid to do so.

Amber drew him closer as Darren shook by another wave of hysterical sobs, tears streaming down his cheeks in rivers dripping onto his as well as Amber's clothes. Darren's hands held onto Amber's shirt as the sobs continued to shake him. He wanted to stop, he wanted to leave and curl up into a ball and never coming back. He wanted to see Chris smiling at him, his face light up and his eyes sparkling. He wanted the hands rubbing over his back to Chris'.

"H-He told me..e to li-ive with…out regrets, b-b-but tell me…h-how I am going…t-to do that?"

The sobs were still shaking Darren but he managed to get his question out between the them, but it was hard to understand him. Amber looked down at him as he continued cry and she continued to rub Darren's back. She knew very well that it wouldn't make Darren fell any better but she didn't know what else to do. The shock also sat deep in her bones and she wanted to come undone as much as Darren was right now, but at least one of them needed to be strong for the other one.

`Live without regrets´. Sure, Darren would definitely do that when he didn't just realize that the biggest mistake in his life had been to produce the feelings he had have and still had onto someone else instead of telling the person for which they really had been meant for. Darren would do that after he had regretted for his entire life, because he would. He had made that huge mistake and Chris had just so easily slipped through his fingers like ice that had melted but you still wanted to catch with bare hands.

His eyes had run dry but the wet trailers were still on his cheeks, marking him. Darren's eyes were red as well as his tear streaked cheeks. His shirt was wet and the looked like hell but he didn't care and snuggled closer to Amber, still holding him in an embrace.

"I-I-I…I love him."

As soon as the words were out there, hanging in the air for the very first time, Darren knew they were true. He had know that he had loved Chris with his heart, but confessing it in words out loud was something different. He was taken aback even more by the pure truth of these words. Yes, he had really loved Chris and he still did but now he would be broken because Chris was gone and he knew the truth about his feelings.

"I know Darren. I know you loved him like a brother."

Darren shook his head against Amber's chest. No, he didn't love him like a brother or a friend anymore he loved him, like loved him. The real thing.

"No, no, Amber. I-I love him. Like really love him."

He felt Amber lean down trying to look him in the eyes with disbelieve.

"D-Do you really mean that Darren, because he…"

"I know he loved he, y-yes I do and somehow I-I did too but I buried what I felt. Produced it on someone else…"

Amber shook his head over him and when she spoke again, Darren heard she was now crying too.

"He always came…came over to my trailer t-telling me h-how sexy and…and charming you were and what…what a-a great friend. I s-should really hate you r-right n-now… because you could have prevented a-all this from happening. H-he…he loved y-you Darren with a-all his heart…If C-Chris h-had know…had know y-you love him…this wouldn't have h-happened Darren. D-do you understand t-that."

Hearing this form Amber made him realize that she was right. If he hadn't been so all caught up in his life, in putting his feeling aside or just producing them onto someone else because it was easier that way all this weren't happening right now. It had only taken one decision from his side and all the other stuff never had happened. Chris would have probably been his boyfriend and never had gone looking for someone else to love him. All because Darren fucking Criss had shit his pants because he had been falling for a guy. It tore Darren apart, realizing that it all somehow was kind of his fault. It all could have been so much easier and it had caused much less pain. The only thing he would have needed to do was to gather himself from the floor, stand up and announce to the world that he loved the most amazing man on earth. He the one who had always said he didn't care about labels and sexuality. Love. That was the real thing and he of all people had denied what had been right there in front of him. He just had needed to extend his hand and take what was given to him but instead he had ignored it and locked it way, so he would never ever find it again.

Darren's eyes were watering again and he felt the first tears rolling over his cheeks as he got up from the sofa. He stumbled over to the doorway that led back to Chris' bedroom and clutched to it because he didn't know if his legs would keep him upright when he saw Chris once again. As he stood there he closed his eyes and just listened to everything surrounding him. He didn't want to see. But he also didn't want to hear either.

"Yeah, it was suicide. An overdose of sleeping pills…It's really sad I know but there is no way that we can bring him back. When we found him he was already dead for ten minutes. At first we tried but we couldn't bring him back to live."

Darren stumbled forwards his eyes still closed and as he felt that he was falling his eyes flew open. He caught himself barley at a nearby chair as he continued to his previous spot next to Chris' bed on the side where he was lying.

Chris still looked like he was asleep and someone had shut his eyelids. He looked peaceful lying there all curled up on his side his hand resting of the picture of them both together.

His entire body contracted as realization hit him again. All together with the sight in front of him and again there was a chant in his head that just made Darren sick. The repentance of the words `Chris is dead´ over and over again just made Darren realize what they really meant coming a bit closer to believing all this was true all this was real and not just some sick and fucked up dream that his mind just had made up. No this was all real.

Darren reached out and placed his hand over Chris'. He felt the cold skin beneath his palm. Yes this was real. It was so real but all Darren wanted to do was wake up. Wake up from this nightmare and this horrible sight laid out in front of him. He wanted to quite felling like this. All hollow and just downright empty. His heart somewhere suffering shattered into tiny pieces. He never in his life had felt like this before and he sure as hell never wanted to fell like this ever again.

His thumb was rubbing circles onto the back of Chris' hand as Darren's tears continued falling. Darren had lost any feeling of time. He didn't know how long he already was here. How long he had been crying until now. But he didn't want to know instead he inched a little closer to the bed and leaned forward.

"I love you Chris. I hope that you wherever you are right now can one day forgive me for being such a dumbass and realizing what I felt…no not realizing better…opening up to what I felt when it was already too late. And thanks for your smart advice to life my life without regrets when I just today realized that I made a huge mistake when it came to you that I will regret all my life. I am really sorry Chris."

It wasn't more than a whisper and Darren was sure no one had heard it, but he just needed to tell Chris how he felt right now, even though he knew that Chris couldn't hear him, Darren like to believe in that very moment that even though Chris wasn't alive anymore he would live on somewhere else and that Chris would know what he had just said.

Sobs were starting to shake Darren once again but he didn't have the strength to move anymore. Didn't have the strength to keep them at bay so he just let go and was greeted by a pitch black hole that swallowed him up completely.

"I-I love you, Chris."

And then the Blackness had swallowed him up and Darren left how he was falling. He waited for his head to finally hit the ground awaited the pain but it didn't came. Instead Darren woke up swat wet and his eyes wide. He was sitting in his bed in the very same room in which he had awoken before. He just started to lean back into the pillows and staring at the ceiling as his phone screen light up the darkness in the room.

His hand was shaking as he extended it towards the phone but by the time his hands finally reached his phone the buzzing had stopped and his phone screen was back again. Darren picked the thing up hoping it wouldn't send him straight back to where he just came from.

Darren slid his phone unlocked and saw that it was a text from his brother Chuck. He opened the message and read: Happy Birthday bro. Finally you turned 27. Congrats. Sorry if I woke you but we just landed in Europe and I thought I should wish my bro a happy birthday.

He smiled as he read over the message but then someone next to him started moving. Darren was still confused from his dream and started to think hard. Was the person next to him Mia? What was reality anyways? His dream had felt fucking real. He had felt everything. Every tiny little detail. It scared the crap out of him.

The light on the other side of the bed turned on and then someone was right next to him, hands cupping each of his cheeks, turning his face but he didn't want to see the person in front of him. He was scared what he would see.

"What's up, babe."

"Nightmare."

"Tell me about it."

So Darren started at the very beginning and told the entire story of his dream. He felt tears pool in his eyes again, but he kept them at bay and went through with the entire thing.

"That sounds awful. I really wouldn't want to have that dream, but you know why I know it was a dream? The only one you are ever going to marry is me."

The blue grey eyes that were looking at Darren didn't let any space for argumentation and the smile spread over the face didn't either.

"Was that a proposal?"

Darren smiled, actually smiled.

"No not yet but one day. And by the way happy birthday. I'm really sorry you had to wake up like this on your birthday, but I guess…"

Hands wandered over Darren's chest and came to rest over a part of his body that instantly responded to the touch. The slight pressure making Darren moan.

"Nngh…Chris."

But his boyfriend just smiled and kept up massaging and trying to make Darren go insane. Chris' lips sunk down onto Darren's and Darren instantly plucked his tongue into Chris' mouth. After a dream in which he had lost his beloved boyfriend forever he now really much needed everything he would get from him.

"Oh…Chris. I love you. I really really do and I would really regret if I couldn't do this to you."

Darren started sucking hard on Chris neck and Chris cried out shortly when Darren slight bit down on the smooth pale skin.

This was reality. This was real and Darren wouldn't trade it for anything in his life.