It's been two months now.

Darren never called, nor had he tried to approach Chris. Everything was terrible whenever they did a scene together; they could never say their speeches right so Ryan and the others would get nervous and irritated at them. They took each one of the guys aside separately and sternly told them they needed to be more professional.

But Darren and Chris couldn't stand to be around each other. It hurt too much for both of them. Chris started skipping work. After that, Ryan lost his patience and threatened to fire Chris. That was something Chris couldn't afford to do.

Chris couldn't write, eat or sleep properly. Of course people noticed as he started losing weight and was turning to a Diet Coke addict.

He missed his dog, he missed Darren, he missed everything he had and it seemed like a lot more than two months.

Chris received a new script one afternoon and started reading it, stopping abruptly when he saw a series of scenes between he and Darren. Together.

He called Ryan right after that and it only rang two times before he answered.

"Chris, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I..." Chris cleared his throat. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Why did you put Kurt and Blaine like that? I can see it all already. Me having to spend, what? Like, three days trapped in a freaking elevator! I can't. I just-can't." His voice had switched from high to just a whisper in a matter of a few words.

"Umm...Yeah. We-we had to do this, Chris. The fans crave Klaine. They want you two together." In that moment, he wasn't sure if Ryan was talking about "Klaine" or their real life relationship otherwise called "CrissColfer".

"Yeah, but that doesn't have to mean I have to spend three days or more facing my freaking ex!" Chris said, exasperatedly running a hand through his hair. Brian meowed next to him and jumped off the couch.

"Yes, it does. I told you it would happen, but you and Darren decided against me. Now it's the price you two have to pay. You two are very good actors, so just do what you do best. See you in two days. Please, please, don't fuck up the words, come prepared, eat a little, stop drinking Coke like it's water and get some sleep, okay?"

And with that, Ryan simply hung up the call, leaving Chris numb in the middle of his living room, his script in one hand and his cellphone in the other, clutching to both of them tightly. He sighed deeply and threw both of the things onto his coffee table. Then he dragged himself to his bedroom.

The house seemed too big and too cold.

Of course Chris' insomnia wouldn't let him sleep and, in nights like that, he really thought about fooling himself and calling Darren. He never stopped wondering what Darren was doing,including if he was seeing someone... Chris had deactivated all the things that had him connected to Darren or the events he attended. He didn't even watch TV anymore, so it was like he was living in a different universe.

He opened a document on his laptop, craving to write something but nothing came, leaving him angry and crying for the tenth time that day.

Chris had tried really hard to memorize his lines, but the lack of food and sleep wouldn't let his brain function properly. There was also something stronger bothering him: he was missing his things. Not his things necessarily but his family: Cooper, Darren and the life they had and the home they had built together. He was feeling empty and he didn't even know how he was still standing.

The day they had to shoot, he drove to the set and ran to his trailer, closing the door behind him and almost moaning when he smelled coffee all over the room. He looked around and there were a few homemade pancakes covered with chocolate sauce on a plate and a cup of Starbucks coffee beside it. He looked puzzled; everything looked like it had just been put there. He sat on his couch and his stomach growled. In that moment, Chris had forgotten everything he'd learned about good manners; he acted like a starving homeless man and ate everything in less than two minutes. After that perfect breakfast, a wave of sleep fell on him despite the coffee he'd just had and he succumbed to that, the couch suddenly feeling like the best place he could sle.

Chris didn't know exactly how much time he slept, but he only awoke when he felt a wet thing sniffing him, licking him and making him giggle. It seemed a lot like Cooper, including the smell of the thing that was next to him. It all felt like a wonderful dream.

"Stop, Coop!" Chris warned, still laughing and scrunching his face. He thought he might be sleepwalking, his mind playing a terrible joke on him because he missed his dog so much.

And then the thing barked.

Chris really woke up alarmed, almost jumping off the couch. His body took time to recover while his heart beat so fast that he thought he might be dying. He put a hand on his chest in attempt to calm down and took a few deep breaths. When his vision finally cleared up, he saw what had startled him.

It really was Cooper, his dog that he's missed so much. Cooper who was so clean, breathing fast, his tongue falling out of his mouth, and his eyes shining even in the dim light of the trailer. He barked again and jumped on Chris who got to him just in time, screaming and hugging the dog with such force the pet almost whined.

"Oh, my god! Coop! You look so beautiful, so happy! Is papa taking good care of you? Is he? Daddy missed you so much!" Chris didn't realize he was crying tears of happiness until then so he buried his face in his dog and smiled so widely that his mouth hurt.

Chris knew he missed Cooper, of course, when Darren took the dog with him. Chris felt like a divorced mother who shared custody of her son and had to watch him walk away with his father, it was like a real part of him had been gone since that day, but as every person who loses something, he focused on the thought that maybe he could live without it.

He held Cooper as long as the dog allowed him to. As soon as the pet got tired of being still, he spun around until he was out of Chris' embrace and licked his face again. Then Cooper tilted his head to the side and watched Chris intently.

"You must be thinking why your daddy is so cray-cray, right? Yeah, I ask myself this all the time," Chris said, shaking his head to himself.

He looked at the clock on the coffee table in front of him and found it very weird that nobody had come to look for him ye but he decided he didn't want to cause any more trouble for himself and the crew. He didn't want to waste any more shooting time so he thought where the hell he would store Cooper while shooting without the dog eating everything he saw. Chris looked around and everything seemed pretty edible for Cooper, even the arm of the leather couch he was chewing on right now. Chris shook his head and took the pet's leash thinking that if he took the dog for a walk, maybe Cooper would feel tired enough to sleep until Chris came back. when he opened his trailer door, he didn't expect to see a guy standing there.

"Uh...hello? Are you lost?" Chris asked sympathetically, holding Cooper by his side.

"Ah, hi Mr. Colfer. I'm Avan and I'm here to take care of your dog while you're filming." The guy extended a hand in Chris' direction who took it and shook it immediately.

"Oh...okay." Chris was finding this day really unusual. Though he didn't know if he wanted to cry in happiness or go around asking who decided to be his personal Santa Claus today. "Uh...Can you tell me who sent you here?" He asked while giving Cooper's collar to the guy.

"Sorry, sir, even I don't know. I was just told to come here, wait for you to co-come out of your trailer and take good care of Cooper, the guy said, giving Chris a sad smile. "But I promise I-I-I will do my best for your dog, Mr. Colfer." The guy, Avan, looked pretty nervous, stuttering within the words and his hands were trembling like he was having an attack. In other situations, Chris would kid around with the guy, saying something to make him even more nervous, but now he wasn't up for jokes, so he tried to settle the guy down.

"Don't worry, Avan, I'm sure you'll be great to Cooper, but just be aware he's not an usual dog, he's really excited and likes to play a lot, so... Yeah, only that and feed him, give him water from time to time and everything will be alright, okay?" Chris put his hand on the guy's shoulder and gave him a warm smile. "Well, I've gotta go now. Did the person who talked to you say what time you should bring him back?"

"No, they just told me it would take the whole day and to go through the night if they needed it, but I said that that was okay." Avan smiled back at Chris reassuringly.

"Alright, so thank you very much. See you in a few," Chris said and went down to talk to his dog once more. "Hey, buddy, so Daddy has to work but I think you'll do great with your new friend Avan, right?" Chris patted Cooper's head and body a few times and the dog wagged his tail rapidly. "Good boy! Daddy loves you. And wish me luck 'cause now I have to spend the rest of the day with the asshole that is your Papa." Chris sighed at that and shook his head, scratching behind Cooper's ears and kissing his head. When Chris got up, the guy in front of him handed a paper card to him.

"I-it's my phone number and the PetHouse's phone number. If anything happens and I'm not here by the time filming ends, you can call." The guy took a deep breath and Chris still found it funny when people got nervous next to him and because of him only because he was an actor.

"Okay, thank you." Chris took the card and put it in his pocket, smiling at the guy again, patting Cooper's head once more and walking away to the makeup/dressing room.

Chris had all his lines memorized in his head, so why when his eyes fell on Darren walking out of the makeup room dressed as Blaine Anderson, did he suddenly forget even his name?

"Hi, Chris" Darren muttered as he exited the trailer. He gave a weak smile and tried to keep some distance between them, unsure whether or not he was allowed to touch Chris.

"Was it you?" Chris asked, turning to Darren's side so hard and so fast that he took two steps back.

"What?" Darren's eyes were wide, shining so deeply green under the bright white lights.

"Was it you who did all this today? Breakfast, Cooper...What do you want? I'm not coming back to you." Chris mumbled the last sentence because it hurt too much to say out loud; it was also carried with the fear of Darren saying he didn't want him either.

"I'm not trying to buy you, it's just." He ran a hand through his gelled hair. "Since we are shooting together all day stuck in a closed space with nowhere to go and no chance of not talking to each other, I thought we could at least try to be less bitter around each other. I-I heard you weren't getting enough sleep or enough food so I thought I could help you a little. Not like you need me, of course, I just don't want to see you like that because of me or because of something stupid I did. You're precious, Chris and I wish I could say you're mine, but...I can't. Not anymore. And I'm trying to carry my own shit, but I'm not handling it very well."

"Okay," Darren continues, "I won't be here taking your time babbling about how my life sucks without you. I just want you to know that Cooper whines nonstop every day when it's close to the time you used to come home after work and when I told him we were going to see you, it was like he knew. That dog is so weird," Darren said thoughtfully. "He always has this look like I stole something from him, so I'm leaving him with you if you still want him. It's gonna fucking hurt , but it's not my place to do this with you or him because he's always been used to having you around more than having me around so no. I love you two too much to hurt both of you even more." He said the last part quietly and looked down, his ears getting red.

Chris was taken aback with Darren's words. He didn't know his ex felt shitty about their situation, apparently suffering as much as Chris himself had been. Chris felt his eyes glistening with tears that were about to fall, but he held them; he couldn't cry now.

"Thank you," he said, taking a deep breath and fighting the urge to hug Darren. Beneath all the makeup, Chris could almost see the bags under Darren's eyes and he would have felt pity if he weren't worse.

They nodded and shrugged as Chris entered and Darren left, always seeming to mirror each other.

Chris sat on the comfortable armchair in front of the mirror and closed his eyes before getting the chance to take a look at himself and start whining about how bad he looked and all his imperfections. He threw his head back and waited until three girls came in and started working on him.

When Chris looked at the the mirror again, he wasn't himself anymore. His freckles no longer showed and his face had life again. His hair wasn't disheveled anymore; it was high and perfectly in place. He took a deep long breath and tilted his head to the side, leaving the rest of him behind for now.

"Hello, Kurt Hummel." He said to himself.

On the set, people around him were extremely nice and careful. Not that he was ever mistreated in this place, far from it. But the way people were treating him today, everyone from the makeup people to the camera crew and the directors looked at him lovingly, placing a hand on his shoulder or squeezing him every time someone passed through him. It wasn't that he didn't like it; it just felt odd.

Chris decided that people were probably worried about him and not about what this scene could bring.

He talked to some people around to figure out where he should stand and he was told to let the scene flow.

The schedule was that they would follow the sequence in which scenes would be aired. Chris sighed and moved to the place where he would find Darren. No, not Darren. Blaine. Blaine Anderson. Yes, Kurt Hummel was accidentally running into Blaine Anderson and they innocently would get in a fake elevator. Together.

Chris sighed again as everybody took their places and the director shouted, "Action!"

It was show time.

Chris was in such a good mood, probably from the gifts that Darren gave him, that the scene flowed perfectly on the first try.. Still, the director wasn't satisfied to they had to walk to the fake elevator and have a short conversation for a few more takes. Then they sighed and stopped when the director decided the first one was actually the best.

Kurt and Blaine's chemistry just as Chris and Darren's chemistry was something that no one could really see, but everybody could feel it; Chris and Darren themselves could feel it, too. That's why everything felt so easy between them. And Darren's words kept echoing in Chris' mind: his life sucked without him. Fuck.

The director shouted they could take a break, but they had to be back in two hours to start filming inside the elevator. It was then that Chris ran away from the set because that was something he wasn't looking forward to.