Chapter 2:

Chris stands there mouth hanging open for what seems like eternity, and actually must be a decent amount of time because when he finally comes to enough to shut his mouth and look around he realizes almost everyone is gone. It only takes him a few seconds to spot Ashley close by smiling like an idiot "What's she up to?" he thinks walking towards her. He's not even all the way to her when she blurts out "This is fabulous!"

"Wait what's fabulous? …I'm missing something aren't I" Chris sighs dramatically guessing that she's talking about the new addition to their humble little school, and now that he's over the shock he actually thinks this kind of sucks for some reason.

"Uh, HELLO! The fact that Darren fucking Criss is now apparently attending our shitty school!" she all but yells to get her point across. "You have to talk to him."

Chris is frantically looking around making sure no one heard his obnoxious best friend yelling in the halls, especially Darren god how embarrassing would that be, when his head snaps in her direction " Excuse me, WHAT did you say?!" he hisses at her.

"woah down boy, I said that obviously you need to talk to him, I mean don't try to tell me you don't have the biggest gay crush on him like ever, I know you do and he's here… In your school, it's like a sign or some shit, you have got to go woo him" she finishes looking very proud of herself.

"woo him? Oh god this had got to be a bad dream, you want me to woo him" Chris asks astonished "can we take a step back and remember YOU are the one to continuously remind me that he is straight?"

"and aren't YOU the one to always argue he doesn't believe in labels?" as Chris begins to look trapped Ashley's smile only grows "Like I said perfect time to test that theory don't you think?"

"just, ugh, just give me a minute" Chris goes to sit on one of the benches, lunch is almost done and then he has to get to class and his head hurts and Ashley is most definitely not going to take Darren's apparent sexuality as an excuse. He sits there for a few minutes until finally he looks up at his friend, "Look even if Darren isn't strictly gay, I'm still not going to talk to him"

Ashley's face falls immediately, "what? Why not? Don't make me force you Christopher"

Chris chooses to ignore that last part "Because Ash you're right I do have a crush on him, I mean look at him, but more than that his personality like rocks well from what I know it rocks… but he's famous. Don't look at me like that, listen. He's famous and obviously he came here for some reason, probably to get away from all that, but people are going to be following him around like he's God. Girls are going to flock to him and guys are going to try to use him and some people will actually try to be his friend but how do you tell who's who? No I'm not going to talk to him because then I'll probably just fall for his asshole charm and then what? Nothing good can come from it, I'll either make a fool of myself, have to pretend I don't like him just to stay his friend, or he'll just think I'm trying to get close because he's famous. It's safer just to keep my distance. He's a person Ash, and he came here to be a regular person not some shiny new toy to go drool over." He finally finishes exasperated and pretty sure none of that made sense anyway but he had to get it all out.

"you're making up excuses you know. If he was just a person you'd talk to him, but you're scared" Ashley states sounding like she now feels sorry for him "I just don't know what you're scared of, that he'll like you? Or that he won't? I'm not saying fall in love with the guy, you know there is such a thing as friends I know I'm fabulous but I'm not against adding to our little group"

Chris can feel himself getting more frustrated as the minutes pass, first Ashley thinks Darren's straight, then Chris should woo him for Christ sake, and now he's just supposed to make friends? He's getting whip lash from all the mixed signals. Lucky for him the bell sounds before Ashley can attack him some more "I have to get to class" he mutters before he grabs his books and strides towards the bio lab.

Chris really doesn't mind biology, sure there was an odd amount of people in his class and his teacher had some weird policy about no more than 2 people to a lab group so he worked by himself, But he'd rather expect to do all the work than get a partner he thought he could rely on then find out they were a complete idiot. Plus he liked the time to think, and today he really needed it so as he walked into his classroom he was not happy to see the back of someone's head at his lab table. And then his annoyance completely changed into some unknown feeling when his brain started screaming "you idiot that's the back of Darren Criss' head at YOUR table" Chris let out an audible groan that mysteriously also sounded a little like a moan "who knew the back of someone's head could be sexy" Chris caught himself thinking until okay that sounded so stalkerish, just no.

"ah Mister Colfer nice of you to join us, as you may know we have a new student with us and lucky enough he will be your lab partner from here on out, I suggest you get acquainted" Mr Jeffries proclaims from his desk at the front at the exact moment Darren turned around and locked eyes with Chris, giving him the biggest smile he'd ever seen outside of a cartoon character "Shoot me now" he whispers under his breath and he walks towards his seat.

Chris isn't even in his seat yet when Darren's hand is thrust in his face "Hi!" Darren squeaks looking at Chris with these adorable eyes that are probably hypnotic "I'm Darren, Darren Criss, Mr. Jeffries told me your name was Chris?" Chris nods his head "It's nice to meet you" Darren finished with another brilliant smile pushing his hand further into Chris' personal space.

"It's nice to meet you too Darren" Chris says politely shaking Darren's hand then turning to his work hoping Darren can leave it be at that. It takes all of five seconds before Chris realizes nope, that's not going to happen, as he realizes Darren really is a talker, an enthusiastic one at that.

"So Chris tell me about you!"

"what do you want to know?" Chris replies wondering if Darren is actually just trying to be nice because they're partners for a year, or however long Darren is staying, or if he actually wants to know.

"Uhhhh I don't know man" Darren says after thinking for a minute "I'll go first. Well my names Darren duh. I'm 19 I never finished senior year because I got my first acting job and had to move and just didn't have the time but now I have a long break so I decided to finish high school while still focusing on my music, oh I guess I should explain that, I write music and sing and play instruments, like a lot." Darren actually kind of blushes at that and Chris can't help but feel himself relax "I really just want to relax, of course I still have to work but I also want to do all the fun stuff I've been missing out on you know?" Darren finished kind of panting because he basically rushed that whole speech like he had it prepared and was just waiting to blurt it out at someone.

Chris begins to giggle at Darren when he stops and slaps his hand over his mouth "Wow sorry that's rude I'm not laughing at you… well kind of but.. you're hyper, like REALLY hyper"

Darren shrugs "Yeah I am, now tell me about you" and before Chris can even think about the fact that he said he wouldn't do this, get close to Darren, and how Darren is probably just asking him because it's polite, Chris begins to talk. He tells Darren all the basics age, friends (though he makes Ashley sound less crazy than she is), family etc. except he doesn't stop there he tells Darren how he loves to read and wants to write a book someday and he used to be picked on (because with his voice it's no secret he's gay) and Darren gets really sad eyes at that so Chris moves on saying he wears glasses but hates them, has a really fat cat who is definitely part human, and everything else relevant to a 17 year Old's life; and Darren laughs at all the right points and smiles and touches Chris' shoulder like that's completely normal but the funny thing is Chris actually does feel like it's normal. The whole conversation Chris doesn't think about Darren the actor he just thinks about Darren whose funny and nice and who even does half of the work their assigned without being asked.

Yeah, maybe Ashley was right, well at least somewhat. Maybe they could be friends.