Darren staggered into his bathroom, doing his best to calm his ragged breaths into gasps that didn't feel like they were tearing his lungs apart. He didn't even realize his hands were shaking until his attempt to turn on the faucet was thwarted by fingers which refused to grasp the knob. Finally starting the tap, he splashed icy water over his burning face.
He had just admitted that he had feelings for Chris Colfer.
TO Chris Colfer.
Fucking fucktastic fuck didn't even begin to scratch the surface of this. God, what was he going to do? Snippets of tabloid articles and frantic phone calls from managers and judging stares from costars flitted and chased each other about his head. He dropped his head into his hands, groaning. Maybe Chris's drunkenness would void out this whole conversation tomorrow. Maybe the other boy would wake up with a hangover and Darren would wake up with enough mortification to last a lifetime, but nobody else would ever have to know.
He could live with that, right?
Darren had almost managed to calm himself with the thought when a loud bang startled him out of his head. Somebody was at the door, and that somebody seemed like they meant business.
From the other side of the door, Chris kept banging, trying to get Darren to answer the door to avoid waking anyone up. When that failed, he resorted to yelling. "DARREN, OPEN THE DOOR! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE, YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM ME!" He kept banging and yelling. "GODDAMMIT DARREN, YOU DIDN'T SEEM TO HAVE SUCH A PROBLEM KISSING ME WHEN YOU WERE GETTING PAID TO DO IT!"
Inside the hotel room, Darren cringed and felt his heart clench. Did Chris really think of him that way? Gay for pay? It may have been an old porn star cliché, but it still worked in his situation. He fell back onto his still made bed and stuffed a pillow over his face, trying to drown out the younger man's cries from the hallway.
After a few minutes of acting like a drunken fool, Chris stopped banging on Darren's door and slumped against the wall. Even in his drunken state, he knew what he was doing and he knew what he wanted to say to Darren. Too bad Darren didn't want to hear what he had to say, however. Chris slid down the wall to the floor and curled up in front of the door. If Darren wasn't going to talk to him tonight, that was his choice. Chris' choice, however, was going to be sleeping in front of Darren's door and forcing the older man to talk in the morning, one way or another.
Time passed and soon it was morning. Darren woke up lazily, stretching slightly and looking around. Thinking back over the last night, he cringed at what he had admitted to Chris. But it didn't matter; Chris probably didn't remember anything anyway, or care about him in that way at all. Taking a quick piss and changing for the day, Darren went to open his door to go get some breakfast. As he opened the door, Chris fell backwards onto him. He must have slept against the door all night. As Chris fell, it seemed to wake him up. "What happened?" Chris asked groggily. "Oh god… my head. Why is it so bright?"
Darren glanced at him weakly and said with a pain in his chest, "You had a little too much to drink last night. But don't worry, besides sleeping outside my door, I don't think anything of consequence happened."bChris rubbed at his eyes gently, letting his weight fall against the doorframe. He smiled, thinking about the wonderful birthday he had. The whole gang had celebrated with him, he remembered getting incredibly drunk and walking home. The whole night was replaying in his mind, but then everything was brought to a fast stop when one sentence entered his mind.
"'You are just fucking with my feelings right now."
Chris flinched, hearing the same tone that Darren had used the night before. After opening his eyes and taking in the light, he saw the man in front of him with red, puffy eyes. Darren held a solemn expression, avoiding looking at him at all, "I-I'm going to go get some coffee. I'll bring you back some..." With that, Chris watched his back as he walked away. Darren knew that Chris was watching him walk away, but he knew he couldn't stand there any longer. He didn't know whether or not it hurt more or less that he didn't remember anything. Instead of thinking about it, he would go get them coffee and they would be back to normal, despite how much he wanted to cry, hit something, anything to let everything out.
Chris leaned against the wall, waiting in the hallway for Darren to get back with their coffee. He knew he should probably move to find a more appropriate place to sit, but he was still too tired to think and too hung over to really care. He pressed at his temples, trying to relieve the headache that kept building in size and intensity, and trying desperately to remember what all went on last night. Everything was still quite hazy in his mind and all he could think about was how much he had fucked up last night. He was surprised that Darren hadn't kicked him when he found him at his doorstep. He was almost scared to wonder why Darren had been nice enough to offer to bring him coffee back. All he knew was it would make filming next season a little awkward if this drunken mistake ruined their friendship. "Fuck…" he mumbled, falling down the wall to the floor with a thud, using his arm to cover his eyes, "What was wrong with me?"
He closed his eyes, willing Darren to get back as soon as possible, seeing as he didn't have his phone or his key card on him. He sat back in silence for a minute before he heard whispering. Chris opened his eyes to see two teenage girls talking quietly to each other, staring at him. "Thanks for letting me in the room Darren." Chris angrily thought to himself. The shorter of the two girls approached his slumped figure and asked for an autograph. Chris thanked the heavens they didn't have cameras because he had absolutely no idea what kind of state he was in, however, the throbbing headache was evidence enough that it wasn't pretty. He didn't even think too much about it though; all that was going through his mind was what had happened with Darren the previous night.
So, Darren liked him. Does that mean he likes Darren back? He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind as the said man turned down the hallway, two coffees in hand.
Deciding he should probably get up already, Chris stood shakily, clutching at his head and groaning in frustration. Darren walked to him and offered him one of the cups, giving half of a smile, "Take it easy there, after your night you will most likely need something to lean on for a few days." Chris laughed politely and watched as Darren used his room key and walked in, holding it open for him. Chris thanked him and followed after him, settling himself on the edge of the messed up bed. Darren felt the tension in the room slowly build.
Despite how much he wanted to avoid all interaction with Chris until he was sure nothing would be remembered, he knew that he had to pretend, "I can't believe how crazy you got after the whole two bars that you went to. It only makes sense that you fell asleep when you got here." Darren gulped and looked down at his cup, playing with the edge of it.
Chris watched him and bit his lip before he brought the warm liquid of relief to his lips and sipped. He housed the cup in his hands, looking down at it before he spoke, "So...Darren... Why exactly was I sleeping in front of your door this morning?" Darren coughed on the drink he had just taken of his own coffee and cleared his throat. He stuttered to find the right words.
"Erm, oh, ya know, I put you back in your room for the night and I guess you followed me back to my room. Since I didn't answer, you passed out. That's probably what went down…" Darren trailed off, cringing at the horrible lie that stuck in his throat. He glanced at Chris' face and knew that the taller boy wasn't having any of it.
"Darren…" He began, not quite knowing how to broach the delicate subject. "I remember what happened last night." Darren's heart started pounding and he looked defiantly at the floor, willing Chris to just shut up and go alone with the game of make believe Darren had created.
"Eh, um, what are you talking about Chris? What do you remember?" Darren tried to get out a laugh to lighten the situation, but it got caught in his throat and he coughed. Chris shook his head slightly, sighing.
"Darren, don't play dumb with me. I know that you may, um, that you may not want to remember it, but I do and I would really appreciate it if we could talk about it." Darren stood up from the bed and started pacing the room.
"Chris, can we please just… Not? Not talk about anything that happened last night and pretend it never happened so that we can go back to the way things are supposed to be?"
Chris shook his head, giving Darren a sad smile. "No, Darren, we can't go back. We can never go back to how we used to be because how we used to be doesn't exist anymore."
