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The flight back home is quiet.
It’s an afternoon flight, because Darren had been anticipating one or both of them behind hungover and wanting to sleep in.
It would have been nice. Waking up feeling fuzzy and maybe even still a little drunk, nursing each other through hangovers with greasy breakfast and then getting back into bed and distracting themselves in other ways. He loves mornings like that with Darren.
The reality was that neither of them slept well after their fight the night before, so they were still exhausted but for entirely less pleasant reasons.
An hour into the flight a movie starts to play in front of them. Darren pulls headphones out of his pocket and offers Chris one with a tiny, hopeful smile, like a peace offering. Chris takes it, resting his head on Darren’s shoulder so they can watch together.
*
Back in their apartment, Chris feels displaced. It doesn’t feel like a place he lives yet. All of his things are here, but stacked along one wall.
“You hungry?” Darren asks, standing in the doorway of his - their - bedroom. “I can make a pizza or something.”
“Yeah,” Chris says. “I’m just gonna...”
He gestures to the stack of boxes along the wall.
“Uh. Unpacking. Right.” Darren nods once, then again. “Yeah, just, move whatever you want to around.”
Chris doesn’t really move anything. There’s already a couple of drawers cleared out for him. The old nightstand was Joey’s so Darren had picked up a new one from a thrift store before their trip. The bed is new, too. Well, sort of new. The frame is old and bought off of a friend for twenty bucks but the mattress and box springs are recent purchases.
They both need to do laundry from the trip, so Chris separates out what needs to be washed from his suitcase. He looks over at Darren’s and thinks before he goes to the laundry room, he’ll see if he’s got any that needs to be done, too.
Or should he not? Is that too much? One step too far into domesticity? Suddenly it feels like a game that Chris doesn’t know the rules to.
*
It doesn’t actually take long to unpack. He only had a few boxes of things to begin with, and some can stay put away, like the twin-sized bedding and the closet organizers that suddenly seem a little bit silly. Darren prefers more of a constant state of disarray, and Chris doesn’t want to upset that strange system too much. He doesn’t really feel like it’s his place.
He ignores the laundry and starts on the boxes instead. Darren doesn’t come back into the bedroom to help or check on him, and Chris can hear the muffled sounds of him talking to Joey. When Chris runs out of things to do he sits on the edge of the bed and taps his foot against the floor.
He could just go out there and join them, but... he doesn’t.
He fights against the melancholy clawing at him and picks up his laptop, sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard.
He’s been trying not to think about their fight. He’s been doing everything in his power not to. He doesn’t want to play back the anger on Darren’s face and in his words or the crushing hurt that came with thinking Darren was done with him.
His breath hitches in his chest and he struggles to keep emotions in check.
He hears a faint beeping that he knows is the stove. That means the pizza is probably ready. He holds his breath until Darren knocks on the door. “Food!” He shouts, then walks away again.
*
Chris takes his laptop into the living room with him. It doesn’t seem strange, since Darren and Joey are playing each other in a video game, anyway.
He claims the chair and scrolls mindlessly through wikipedia while he eats. He almost wishes that he had a handy paper to work on or homework assignment to labor over, just so he’d feel like he had a purpose.
No one says much, beyond the insults that Darren and Joey fling at each other in the name of friendly competition.
When Chris is finished eating he gets up and puts his plate away. He stands behind the couch, halfway between the chair he was in and his bedroom. After a moment of deliberation, he goes over to pick up his laptop.
“I’m going to finish unpacking,” he says.
Darren doesn’t look over at him, just says, “Okay,” and shoves the last bit of pizza into his mouth.
*
It’s neither late nor cold but Chris changes into pajamas and gets under the covers. His bedroom, his bed, has always been a safe space for him. As a kid, he’d burrow down underneath his Toy Story comforter and listen to the sounds of his parents talking about Hannah, once in a while about him, not realizing the walls were thin enough to encourage eavesdropping. He’d sort of liked knowing everything that was going on, though. Sometimes it was scary – medical things about Hannah, listening to them discuss pulling him out of school for a while – but mostly it just made him feel like he had some secret layer of protection against the world, the inside scoop to help him prepare.
He wishes he had that right now. When he listens hard, all he can hear is the video game machine gun sound effects, and once in a while laughter or shouting from one of the guys.
He picks up his laptop tries to write but his mind is too frantic, thoughts and ideas bouncing around and then skittering off as soon as he tries to string them together.
He grabs his phone and calls home. His mother answers and asks him about his flight; it’s just small talk and he’s relieved when she doesn’t try to keep him on the line. He’s not up for the kind of conversation that any attempt at serious discussion would involve with her right now. He’s too afraid he’d crumple under the weight of her argument this time. Maybe this is all happening too fast. Maybe the fight was a sign of that.
Talking to Hannah helps. He’d probably selfishly keep her on the phone for hours if he could but it’s close to her bed time and he can hear that she’s tired. He promises to call her again the next day, though, and then clings to the warmth the conversation leaves him with once the call is over.
He pulls up Netflix on his laptop and starts watching something that he pays no attention to. That’s what he’s doing when Darren comes into the room.
“What’s up?” Darren frowns at him. “Why are you hiding out in here?”
Chris shrugs. “You seemed busy in there.”
“Yeah, but...” Darren shifts from foot to foot. “I thought you’d just... I mean. You can just hang. Like we used to.”
“Didn’t really feel like it.” Chris pauses the show.
He’s being petulant. He knows it.
Darren shuts the laptop for him and slides it away.
“Hey-” Chris protests.
“So this is a talking moment, isn’t it? Like. We need to talk.” Darren’s voice is strained. He sits on the bed beside where Chris is. Chris has to pull his legs in closer to give him room. “Is this about last night?”
Chris looks away, which is apparently all the answer Darren needs. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Chris.” Darren leans forward with his elbows on his knees, and rakes his fingers through his hair. “I want to make this better.”
“Just... not tonight.” Chris feels that welling up of feelings inside of him and he has to fight even harder to keep a lid on it now. “I can’t tonight.”
“Do you want me to like... sleep on the couch or something?” Darren asks, without looking over at Chris.
“No,” Chris answers. “I just... I want to forget last night even happened.”
Darren’s laugh is humorless. “Yeah, me, too. But we can’t really, can we?”
“What do you want? Really?” Chris asks.
Darren does look over at him then. “Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I be a sap?”
Chris cracks a smile, barely. “When do I ever stop you from that?”
“I just want to hold you.” Darren breaks the gaze, like he’s expecting Chris to say no. “Because last night I was afraid I wouldn’t get to again.”
“Then hold me,” Chris says.
Darren gives him an intensely grateful look. Chris puts his laptop on the table by the bed and pulls back the covers beside him. He reminds Darren to get the lights and then the room is cast in darkness and Darren gets into bed, immediately scooting toward the middle.
Chris meets him halfway.
*
Darren falls asleep quickly, but Chris doesn’t.
He’s always had a love/hate relationship with sleep, but since coming to Michigan, it’s been better.
Tonight, his insomnia is back full force. He lays awake for hours until he slips out of bed. The apartment still feels strange, that pervading sense of not belonging, but he knows if he stays in the bedroom alone with his thoughts he’ll end up thinking himself into a state of pure anxiety.
So he gets up, as careful as he can be not to disturb Darren, and collects his laptop from the side table. He tries to tiptoe as quietly as possible into the living room and then sinks down with relief into the couch.
He winces when the laptop whirs into life, then again when a ding alerts him to a missed email. He jams his finger against the mute button and then strains his ears to listen for the sounds of anyone disturbed by the noise.
Nothing happens.
He manages to distract himself by following rabbit trails along the internet, reading articles and checking forums and browsing facebook until he wants to claw his eyes out, why does he have all these former high school classmates friended, exactly?
(The two am unfriending spree that follows feels vaguely cleansing.)
Then he hears a door open and he freezes, somewhat humiliated at the knowledge that he’s about to be discovered but helpless to guard against it. He could dim his laptop and hope whoever is coming out just doesn’t notice him but that would prove even more stranger if they did find him sitting in the dark and the silence by himself.
Brian walks in, hair mussed and eyes bleary but not exactly sleepy. “Chris. Hey,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Can’t sleep?”
“Nope,” Chris says.
He’s waiting for the remarks, for the questions, for something… but nothing comes.
Brian meanders over to the couch and plops down on the other end, grabbing the remote. “Me either. You mind?” He nods toward the tv.
Chris shakes his head. “Go for it.”
Brian immediately sets the tv volume to low, and the infomercials droning on is sort of freakishly comforting. Chris divides his attention between the person plying their home cleaning wares and the article on British nobility in front of him and before thirty minutes has passed his eyes feel heavier and heavier.
He thinks maybe the company has something to do with it, too, but he doesn’t want to push his luck by asking.
He shuts his laptop. “Think I’m going to bed.”
Brian nods, as if in a daze. He looks half asleep himself. “Yeah. Me, too.”
He turns the tv off with a click. The only light in the room is from Chris’s laptop. Brian looks at him, really looks at him, and says. “So, you okay?”
“I think so,” Chris says. Then, after a pause, he adds, “You?”
Brian closes his eyes and leans his head back against the couch. “I think so.”
He’s sort of relieved that Brian isn’t the talking-about-things type. At least not with him. Selfishly, petulantly, Chris doesn’t want to have to worry about anyone’s problems but his own right now. And maybe Darren’s, but those are sort of his, too, by default.
“Right. Okay.” Chris nods. “Bed.”
“Bed,” Brian agrees. “Catch you later.”
*
He doesn’t think Darren even really realized he was gone until he gets back in bed.
“Chris?” His voice is rough, confused. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere,” Chris answers, inching back into Darren’s space.
Darren accepts him into his arms happily, taking on the prestigious role of big spoon with no real aplomb… just his arms snugging in tight around Chris and a sloppy kiss to the back of his neck.
“Y’ok?” Darren asks.
Chris smiles. “Yeah. I think so. You?”
“Mhmm,” Darren mumbles. “Peachy. Love you.”
The smile lingers. He puts a hand on Darren’s arm where it crossed over his body, feeling the warmth radiating from his skin, the rough catch of hair under Chris’s fingertips. “Love you, too.”
*
Chris comes back from his first rehearsal the next day with his script in hand.
He’s excited. He has more lines than he’d expected he would, and he’s sure Darren has something to do with this because he doubts non-theater majors with no previous college acting experience usually get roles this big.
He doesn’t think Darren will be home, but he gets a text halfway back to the apartment that says Don’t eat if you haven’t already - picked up dinner.
He wills the bus to go a little faster and it doesn’t really work but it still isn’t too much longer before he’s back on the main campus and walking toward the apartment, reading as he goes. The first rehearsal isn’t for a week so he should have time to learn his lines, but he’s eager to get started.
He expects dinner to be of the fast food variety. He isn’t expecting the table set (sort of - mismatched plastic plates and cups) and take out from Palio’s sitting on the oven to keep them warm. Darren looks both hopeful and pleased with himself.
“What’s this for?” Chris asks.
Darren shrugs. “Us. I kicked Bri and Joey out for a while. I think some people are gonna come over later, but I wanted to just... hang with you for a while. So. Lunch. Hope you’re hungry?”
“Starving,” Chris admits. He sits down and starts to talk about the read through, his excitement obvious. Darren listens and only interjects a few times.
When they’re finished eating, Chris tries to insist on doing the dishes but Darren won’t let him. He just throws them in the dishwasher and considers the job done, storing the leftovers away for later.
Chris sort of figures that it’s going to take a bedroom direction after that, figures that’s why Darren kicked everyone out, but to his surprise Darren just grabs the script and settles in on the couch to flip through it. “This is a killer part for you,” he says, looking up and grinning. “Chris, seriously, you are gonna rock this.”
Chris ducks his head a little. Praise from Darren still hasn’t lost its ability to make him feel just the tiniest bit giddy. “You think?”
“Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll help you - whatever you need. We can get Dylan over, too,” Darren says, since Dylan is also in the play as one of the actual leads. He reaches out and grabs Chris’s hand and squeezes it. Chris grips it back like a lifeline.
“At least I don’t have to sing,” Chris says.
Darren makes a dismissing noise. “Chris, seriously, your voice is amazing. I want to go kick whoever told you not to sing in the shins, okay?”
“No one told me not to sing... just that I needed to be ‘careful’.” He uses his free hand to make air quotes. “Because my voice was only appropriate for certain songs. I couldn’t even get a voice coach because no one wanted to work with me.”
“That’s bullshit, too. You could find one here. I bet you could expand your range without too much trouble. Though, for the record, I think your higher range is insane and fucking gorgeous.” As he talks, Darren tugs him closer until Chris is leaning into him. Then he stretches out on the couch and somehow Chris is laying with him without seeming to move much at all.
“How did you do that?” Chris murmurs.
“Ninja cuddles,” Darren explains. “I learned from a wise sensei once.”
“I should send him a thank you card.” Chris settles in more, resting his cheek against Darren’s shoulder. “This is nice.”
“Mhm.” Darren rubs his hand up and down Chris’s arm. “You’re nice.”
“You’re nicer,” Chris says back automatically.
He feels Darren place a kiss on the top of his head. “Well, since we’re both such nice guys, we better keep dating.”
“If we must.” Chris breathes in deep and Darren’s scent fills him up. He brings one hand up to rest on Darren’s chest, feels the thump of his heart.
“I think we must.” Darren’s voice goes soft and a little blurry, that way Chris knows from so many stolen naps together, from falling asleep beside each other, or cuddling sleepily after sex. His fingers clench a little on Darren’s t-shirt. Darren’s other hand comes up to cover Chris’s and links their fingers together, Darren’s palm to the back of Chris’s hand.
*
They nap together for a lazy hour. Chris falls into it easily, since he’d slept so poorly the night before. He’s not sure if Darren even really knows that or not, if he remembers Chris being up. Maybe he just has a sixth sense about what Chris needs.
Somehow it’s easier in the light of day to banish the things keeping him up before.
The buzzing of Darren’s phone rouses him but he kisses Chris on the forehead and tells him to keep sleeping if he needs to. Chris doesn’t mean to go back to sleep, but he does anyway.
When he wakes back up it’s to the sound of the door opening. He blinks and sits up, resting his cheek against the back of the couch. “Where did you go?”
“Grab the laundry from the dryers,” Darren says. “I did yours, too.”
Darren did his laundry for him. Something bound tight in his chest releases just a little bit.
*
Chris meets Lauren for lunch the next day.
She’s kind of quiet, a little bit down, and so he is. Maybe, he thinks, it’s just something about the summer. The place is normal but the things are not.
They trade conversation starts that don’t really go anywhere. She levels a stare at him, rests her chin against the knuckles of a clenched first, and says, “Okay, you first. Spill.”
So he does. It’s sort of a relief to just say it.
“Darren and I had a bad fight when we were in San Francisco.” He’s not sure if he should go into detail, not sure about the friend code involved, but she just waits. “We went out to a gay club for my birthday and, uh...”
“And you got hit on, because you are one first class piece of gay manmeat, and Darren turned into a raging dickface because he has some jealousy issues?” Lauren guesses.
“First of all, objectifying. Bad. Second of all, no, I’m not. And third, how did you know?” As much as Chris would like to know it isn’t just him, that he really hadn’t done anything wrong, the idea that Darren has been that possessive of other people doesn’t sit well with him, either.
“Well, I’ve never see him just go off on anyone, but I know how he was the whole time you and he were doing the dance of unresolved sexual tension. I have never seen him like he was the night you left with that guy.” She gives him a sympathetic look. “But don’t let him get away with that! You’re young, you’re attractive, it’s gonna happen. And he has freshmen groupies that wet themselves when he looks their way. He’s being a hypocrite.”
“Yeah, but...” Chris shrugs a little.
Lauren looks hesitant for a beat and then says. “Have you... talked to Julia?”
“What?” Chris looks at her. There’s something in her expression that confirms a suspicion he’s never even voiced. But he’s not going to ask - not today. “I haven’t. I... I don’t think I would. She’s his friend, not mine. But we don’t need to talk about that right now. I, I’d... I’d rather not.”
Lauren squeezes his hand, fingers dainty on his but surprisingly strong. “Okay, your call. Go on, what else were you going to say?”
“Just... just that... I was having fun,” Chris admits. “When he got mad - I knew he was jealous, and I knew those guys were hitting on me, and I was enjoying it.”
There it is - that’s what’s bothering him. That’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it. Because Darren had thrown that accusation out, and Darren was right.
Lauren laughs. “Sweetie, that’s okay. I mean, I’m sure it didn’t make things better with Darren, but it’s kind of a natural reaction. You think he doesn’t love it when he’s playing a bar and girls are practically throwing their panties at him? His ego needs its own zip code sometimes.”
Chris laughs, and doesn’t argue that. “But I hate it when that happens. I hate sitting there watching it. And I wasn’t even thinking about him having to do the same thing.”
“So then you’re both kind of hypocrites. Welcome to the world of human nature. Sometimes, people hurt other people.” She smiles. “Now, that’s enough about you. On to my problems!”
*
The month long writing seminar meets once week. It’s not a full course because the guest speaker only had time for a limited engagement, but he’d been lucky to snag a spot - especially being a freshman when he’d signed up - and he knows even if it isn’t for a grade, it will look good on a resume when he’s applying for internships.
Chris shows up early but sits near the middle. He doesn’t have that same terror of being called on or spoken to in class that he’d had before. He looks around and recognizes a few faces enough to smile with familiarity but still keeps to himself. He doesn’t feel like he doesn’t belong anymore, but he also wants to be able to concentrate and he’s never needed a group of people around him to feel settled somewhere.
The two hours fly by. He leaves and immediately goes to the library and barricades himself there writing furiously with only Starbucks as fortification, though he doesn’t linger in the coffee shop. It is a little lonelier with Ashley back in Texas for part of the summer. They text, but it isn’t quite the same.
His phone goes off a few times but he ignores most of the messages, only sending one to let Darren know that he’d meet him on campus for dinner.
It’s the first of their dining hall meals with the theater kids since they’ve been back. The group is sparse since half of their friends have dispersed for the summer, working or interning or traveling or just home with family.
He’s exhausted by the time he leaves but he has five thousand words of a story he hadn’t even known was in him, not a fairy tale or a cynical pseudo-autobiography but something different. It’s a little intimidating because most of what he’s written have been projects he’s worked up to and poured over in his mind before he ever puts down words.
Maybe he’ll show it to Darren later.
*
Half a dozen of them take a too-big table and eat. Brian and Joey are both there, and somehow the conversation turns to the apartment.
Without the contributions from Nick and Matt, the place is pretty bare. Brian is the one that brings up a shopping trip. “Come on, it could be fun. I’m sure Chris needs some stuff.”
“You’re just saying that because you forgot the light is busted in your room and you didn’t buy a lamp,” Joey points out. “Don’t try and make this into a selfless act, Brolden. It won’t work.”
“It would have if you hadn’t pointed it out,” Brian grumps. “But seriously-”
“I do need some stuff,” Chris says. “And the only dishes you have left are plastic with cartoon characters on them.
“Hey, those are a set!” Darren defends his dish set. “I got them from Burger King. They had a deal.”
Chris rolls his eyes.
“We need a coffee table,” Joey adds. “Can’t believe Matt took that one.”
“Dude, it was his,” Darren says. “We can get another one. And we need posters.”
“Shed a tear for the High School Musical collage?” Joey sighs.
Darren agrees, though neither Chris nor Brian share the sentiment. “We’ll have a memorial drink later, Joe.”
*
The four of them take Brian’s car to IKEA. They stand in the entrance of the sprawling store and and Joey immediately grabs Chris. “I claim him!”
“You can’t claim him. I have a standing claim.” Darren words it as a joke, but Chris thinks he hears something more behind it. He steps in a little closer to Darren, bumping their shoulders together. If they were alone, he’d probably try to take his hand, but they’re in public and not the confines of school surrounded by their theater friends, so he doesn’t.
“How about we just all go as a group?” Chris suggests.
It takes a few hours of meandering around the store to actually settle on buying a few things. At different points, they wander off on their own or in pairs. Joey does indeed steal Chris, and Chris considers it fortunate for all of them that he can talk Joey out of the rainbow themed bathroom set.
“I just wanted to let you know that I am officially a-okay with the shifting percentages of gay in our living arrangements. I mean, I’m not sure if I’d call it 50/50 now, since Darren is only half a gay, but-”
Chris covers Joey’s mouth with his hand. “You should probably not finish that sentence.”
Joey nods, and Chris deems it safe to allow him to speak again.
He realizes his mistake in thinking Joey might be the only one that needed protection from improper decor purchases when he sees what Darren and Brian have picked out. The coffee table is fine, and they’ve found a decent desk for Chris to use so he and Darren won’t have to share... but in addition to the nice practical items there’s also five coat hooks that look like dog butts, a footstool shaped like an actual foot, a lamp that looks like a cloud, and a plush llama.
Chris picks up the llama. “I didn’t even know they sold toys like this here.”
He looks up and Darren is watching him, smiling. “Yeah, I got that one for you.”
“I love it.” He hugs the llama to him for a second, feeling how soft it is.
*
Joey and Brian disappear beyond a turn ahead and Darren snags Chris’s arm, slowing him down. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s have some fun.”
“Is this fun that ends with us having special escort services?” Knowing Darren, Chris is fully aware that this could be something that will potentially get them kicked out of the store. On the other hand, Chris has learned through college experience to enjoy a little bit of a thrill once in a while.
He laughs and stands back while Darren bounces onto one of the beds and flings his arms over his head. “Oh yeah, that’s what I like.”
Chris laughs. “That? That’s your big act of rebellion in IKEA? Testing the mattresses? Are you five?”
“Well, you know, we could really test them if this isn’t daring enough for you. Come on, sexy.” Darren mimes bucking his hips into the air and then wriggles around until he’s comfortable. He beckons Chris with one raised hand. Chris glances around like he think they’ll get caught and then climbs onto the bed beside Darren.
Darren tries to roll over on top of him, messily kissing his neck while he pins Chris down.
“Stop that,” Chris laughs, shoving him off. He is a little breathless and not just from the laughter.
Darren laughs and rolls back over. “Hey, look. They’ve even got a sign for us.”
Chris grins at the sign directly overhead telling them that they deserve a good night’s sleep.
Darren rolls onto his side and faces Chris. He reaches down and tangles his fingers with Chris’s. “Maybe we’ll get a new mattress soon. I mean, a good one, not that shitty one I got from the outlet store. We can save up for one.”
There is quiet purpose in Darren’s eyes and in his words. Chris smiles and leans in to rest his head on Darren’s bicep, firm muscle warm and not entirely comfortable under his cheek but still comforting. “Yeah.”
Darren brushes Chris’s hair back from his face with a fingertip and leans in like he’s going to kiss Chris. Then there’s the sound of a throat clearing an an amused looking employee strolls past, not looking their way but making it obvious they’ve still been seen. Darren sighs and rolls away, hopping to his feet then helping Chris up.
Joey appears back at the entrance to this show area, carrying a poster as big as he is. “I’m totally getting this! It’s from the kids department – come on, Darren, we can find some furniture that’s your size there.”
“Asshole!” Darren shouts, earned a look from the employee this time. He shrugs apologetically and then Chris drags him away quickly, flushing with embarrassment.
*
The bunk beds are cause to stop and reminisce for Joey and Darren, though in the end they don’t linger as long as Chris fears they will. Darren is wholeheartedly against the idea of he and Chris adopting the same rooming concept, to no one’s surprise.
The children’s area holds endless appeal, even through the tunnel that leads into the area. Chris narrowly manages to convince Darren and Joey out of furniture in miniature. Darren might be small, but no one in the apartment is that small.
They complete the maze of a store and Darren insists on frozen yogurt before they leave. Chris sits beside him and let's Darren whiningly try to convince him that even though they both have vanilla Chris's tastes better.
After IKEA comes another store, then another, until all of their apartment needs are satisfied and half of their bank accounts are depleted. There are new posters to put on the walls, a mic stand to replace the one Nick took with him, new blankets for Brian, and a multitude of things Chris has no idea if they actually need or not.
Shopping with college boys is apparently a lot like shopping with his little sister, just with more bodily function humor and sex jokes.
It’s worth it when they get back and start to put everything together. Brian and Darren spend two hours working on the coffee table, defiantly tossing away the directions in favor of a more creative approach. (Only to uncrumple them eventually and have Chris decipher where exactly they went wrong.)
Chris takes a shower later in the evening while they’re waiting on Joey (the loser in the four-way coin toss) to get back from a fast food run, and when he comes out of the bathroom he walks shirtless through the hallway to the bedroom to retrieve the shirt he’d forgotten.
He can tell Darren has been in because their new blanket is on the bed and the stuffed llama rests between their pillows. For a minute Chris just stands there in the doorway and stares at it. Set up on his new desk are also a few pictures in frames Darren had gotten - pictures of the two of them Chris hasn’t seen, ones Darren must have taken on their trip. There’s even one of Chris and Hannah.
He realizes, looking around, that it doesn’t look like Darren and Joey’s room anymore. It doesn’t look like just Darren’s room either...
It looks like their room.
*
The next morning, dawn brings thunder and rain with it. It is easily the worst storm that Chris has seen since he’s been in Michigan. By mid-morning they're faced with a decision. Summer classes aren’t canceled but neither Chris nor Darren are too enthusiastic about going out into the downpour. Joey braves it for the sake of his education and Brian for the sake of his paycheck, since he works mornings most of the week. Chris and Darren are left to themselves, though they both have other places they should be.
“Let’s just stay in,” Darren says.
Chris is standing by the window looking out. Everything is a hazy through the rain, like someone photoshopped a blur filter onto the entire world.
He looks over at Darren and smiles. “Do you have ulterior motives?”
He wouldn’t really mind if Darren did. That might help things feel normal again. It’s all still slightly off kilter, and Chris isn’t sure if it’s because of the fight, or adjusting to living together, or if it’s really just all in his head and Darren maybe doesn’t think anything is wrong at all.
He doubts the last one, though. They haven’t really fooled around since San Francisco, and that alone says a lot. Three nights of sleeping beside each other, kisses that don’t quite linger like normal, and stares that neither of them think the other sees.
“Maybe,” Darren says, smiling at him. “Unless you had other plans.”
Darren is giving him an out. Behind his smile, Darren already looks sort of disappointed.
“I don’t,” Chris decides. “There’s nowhere else I want to be.”
*
“Missed you,” Darren says, kissing his way down Chris’s body and then back up. They’ve made their way into the bedroom, undressed while sharing smiles and little looks, then laid down together. Chris is just beginning to reach that point of sex where he’s just thinking about sex and getting off and not analyzing everything to death when he makes the mistake of looking Darren in the eye. Darren obviously isn’t quite into that head space yet. He’s too serious looking, frowning a little even with kissed-red lips distractingly close. “Missed this. Chris, I’m so sor-”
“Don’t,” Chris says, cutting the words off. He just doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want this to turn into a conversation. There are other ways he can let Darren know that it’s okay, they’re okay.
He watches from up close the movement under his skin as Darren swallows and nods.
“I want you,” Chris says, mouth catching on Darren’s as he cups Darren’s face. The stubble on Darren’s cheeks prickles against the fleshy part of Chris’s palm. Suddenly, Chris knows what he wants.
“Yeah, okay.” Darren nods and then the pressure of another kiss, hard and brief, leaves Chris’s mouth tingling. “I’ll get the stuff.”
He grabs Darren’s wrist. There’s really no reason not to wait to clarify this, but Chris just wants the words out, now, before he loses his nerve. “I want you in me.”
Thunder cracks outside. A tree limb taps hard against the window in their room. Darren’s eyes are wide and his mouth falls open. All he says is, “Okay.”
He doesn’t ask if Chris is sure, and Chris is glad for that. He doesn’t need this questioned or he might start second guessing himself. It’s sex, but it’s also just sex - he’s sure of them and there’s no reason to keep holding this back. There’s no reason for this to become some big deal when it can just be another way they enjoy each other. This shouldn’t be the hard part.
“Fingers first,” Darren mutters, opening the lube. “Shit, it’s cold.”
Chris smiles a little. “I think I’ll live. Just - just do it.”
Chris isn’t even hard anymore by the time Darren has two fingers inside of him. The stretch is almost as uncomfortable as the visual is pleasing, so he keeps his eyes on Darren’s face more than anywhere else. Like most people, he sort of gets off on knowing that someone (Darren) is getting off on him. And... this is definitely working for Darren.
Chris moves his foot to nudge against Darren’s hard on, making Darren gasp and then laugh.
“Oh. Feet. Okay. Fuck. Every part of you really does do it for me. And you’ve got pre-come on your toe,” Darren informs him. Chris makes a show of wiping it off on Darren’s thigh.
Then he’s as stretched as he needs to be, trusting Darren’s judgement even though it feels impossible and he can’t keep thinking that Darren’s cock is so much bigger.
“Hey, no.” Darren wipes his lube-slick fingers on the t-shirt he’d discarded and then puts a hand on Chris’s hip. “Not like that, okay?”
Chris frowns. Does Darren wants him to turn over? “I want to be able to-”
The words catch in his throat. He doesn’t want it to feel impersonal. He wants to know who is doing this to him.
“I want you to relax.” Darren leans in and kisses him softly, as tender as anything between them has ever been. Chris feels a pang in his chest with how careful Darren is with the kiss and how he doesn’t back away from it, how Chris has to be the first to break it. “Let me make you come first.”
Chris can’t squirm away from the feeling that he’s doing this wrong somehow, but he does what Darren asks him to. He lays back and lets Darren work him over with his mouth, getting him completely hard. It feels so good, and god, how could Darren ever think he’d want anyone else?
He hears Darren reaching for the lube and then the first finger is pressing between his legs again. It doesn’t hurt this time, not really at all. He’s had this much before, by himself. Once he moved in, he’d thought - no, he’d known, he’d known he was ready for this. He hadn’t wanted to seem so unprepared.
He still feels that way, though. It’s intimate and intrusive and one just feels weird but two starts to be a stretch again and he thought they’d been through this already, why is Darren doing this again? By the time there are three, he’s torn between the ache of the fingers in his ass and the pleasure of the mouth on him. Darren sucks harder around the tip and normally that would be enough to make Chris come but nerves keep it just out of reach.
“Do it,” Chris says, not wanting to draw this out any more. He wants Darren in him.
“But I wanted you to-”
“Darren.” Chris’s voice catches halfway through. “Please?”
Darren’s face falls, but he recovers quickly. He sighs a little and kisses Chris and then says, “Turn on your side. No, away from me. I promise, just, trust me?”
Chris does what Darren says, trusting him. He presses his cheek to the pillow and reaches down with one hand to stroke himself so he doesn’t go soft. Darren drops kisses on Chris’s neck and shoulders.
He feels Darren’s knee nudging between his and gets the idea then, spreading his legs open and draping one back over Darren’s thighs. “Perfect,” Darren murmurs, putting three fingers back. “God, you’re perfect. Is this okay?”
It really is perfect, actually. He can still see Darren if he turns his head just a little, and he can feel more of him than he would be able to any other way, their entire bodies pressed together. He can’t see any of the other stuff, though. Strangely he’s glad.
There’s the sound of the foil wrapper and Darren putting the condom on, the snick of the lube being opened and then blunt pressure against his hole.
“Oh-" It’s more than the fingers were and Chris can’t stop the gasp that tears from his throat but Darren’s arms are firm around him and Darren’s mouth keeps saying those wonderful things that make Chris feel like he really is offering up something precious here, and not just an overblown sentiment attached to meaningless physical boundaries.
He reaches down behind him and puts his hand on Darren’s leg, keeping him still and steady there until the sharp hurt of being stretched dulls. Then he rubs against the solid muscle of thigh under his hand and says, “Okay.”
Darren starts to move and Chris knows already he’s going to be sore later but in the moment it doesn’t feel that bad anymore. “Tell me when I hit the spot,” Darren says, kissing wetly over Chris’s neck.
Then he does and it’s a shock of pleasure different from what he’s used to, maybe not enough to get him off by itself but enough to make him rock back into the thrusts and want more.
“Chris, I, I’m-” Darren’s voice is already ragged, and he buries his face in the curve of Chris’s neck and groans. “Fuck, shit, I’m sorry.”
Chris covers Darren’s hands with his own and clenches around him, trying to do his best to make it amazing for Darren because this is what Chris loves so much. Just the knowledge that Darren is coming inside of him makes Chris dizzy with it, his cock twitching with renewed interest where he’d gone softer. He reaches down to start to jerk himself off again but he doesn’t manage to come before Darren pulls off.
Chris turns onto his side immediately because he wants to see. He looks down Darren’s body - his flushed face and chest, the stubble and the chest hair and the cock still wrapped in latex with come filling the tip, still mostly hard and jerking errantly. Chris follows the urge he gets and reaches down and peels the condom off, carefully tying it and then bending to lick at the come still smeared around the head.
“Ohfuck-” Darren gasps, fingers curling in Chris’s hair as he almost bends in half. Darren sort of gets off on the overstimulation, and Chris knows that, so he sucks hard once and then a second time before pulling off. “Oh... oh, shit. C’mere.”
Chris straddles Darren’s waist and crawls up his body, cock leaving trails of precome up his chest. He’s looking at Darren’s mouth and Darren gets it, grinning wide and dropping his jaw with his tongue sticking out.
Thunder cracks loudly outside. The power flickers and then goes out. It’s not even ten in the morning yet but the storm clouds keep it looking like it’s right on the edge of darkness outside. The whole room feels still and isolated, just the rain and wind howling as a soundtrack to the moment.
“Keep going,” Darren says, hands eager on Chris’s ass.
He cups the back of Darren’s head carefully and guides himself inside. He doesn’t try to fuck into it, because he’s not a porn star and he can barely even see Darren’s face right now. He refuses to have any bedroom activities end in puking because someone’s gag reflex gets his too hard. Darren does a perfectly mindblowing job of just sucking him off like this, though, especially when he lets his hand wander between Chris’s legs and gets one finger back inside of him to press rhythmically against his prostate. It works this time in combination with the blowjob, it really works and Chris is pulling back and coming on Darren’s chest in a matter of minutes.
Chris feels wobbly and he lays down beside Darren because that’s the only option besides falling onto Darren that he has. Darren wipes at his chest with tissues from the box by the bed and then drops with the condom in a pile that they’ll undoubtedly argue over who has to clean up later.
Definitely later - because right now Chris is shaking and his ass hurts but his chest feels too full of everything he’s feeling. When Darren rolls over and wraps his arms around Chris, Chris clings right back.
*
They lay in the dark together for almost an hour. Chris drifts in and out of sleep but is mostly awake. The storm calms for a few minutes but the power doesn’t come back on.
He thinks Darren is asleep until Darren says, “The only time I ever got suspended in high school was for starting a fight with a guy that my girlfriend cheated on me with.”
“Oh,” Chris says. He has no idea how he’s supposed to respond to that.
“I just saw red. I didn’t even really love her, but I was a dumb kid and I just flew off the handle.” He keeps going. “I saw that guy dancing with you - that was it, really. He was looking at you like... like I look at you. And you liked it.”
“Darren, he wasn’t.” Chris sighs. He knows which guy Darren is talking about, though he can’t actually recall the name. Or what the guy looked like... or really anything about him besides his role as a catalyst. “He wasn’t looking at me like that. Or if he was, I wasn’t looking back.”
“I just... I’m sorry, okay? I know I’m an asshole about it. I was trying to just like... let it go. But Chris, you’re so - fuck.” His voice gets thicker, almost choked up but not actually crying.
“Darren...”
“I know you don’t want to talk about it. And I should be happy with that, but you’re just like - you’re letting me off the hook.”
“No, I’m not,” Chris says. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“Me, either,” Darren says. “I love you.”
Chris thinks maybe he should say I love you, too but instead he just says, “I know.”
“So we’re gonna be okay now?” Darren asks quietly.
“We were never not going to be okay,” Chris answers. He isn’t positive that he’s even believed it himself until the words are out of his mouth.
“You took off. I know we were fighting, but you just - you took off. I’ve never been so scared in my life,” Darren admits. “Like it didn’t even hit me until you just got in the car and left. You can’t do that. You can’t.”
There’s a little bit of desperation in Darren’s voice.
Maybe, Chris thinks, running hadn’t been the best option. But even now he’s not sure that if he could go back he’d wouldn’t just do the same thing again.
*
It’s Friday night and the apartment is bursting with people.
Chris stays on campus late at a rehearsal so it’s in full swing by the time he gets there. He escapes into the bedroom, an off-limits zone for partygoers, to drop off his stuff and change clothes. He’s actually looking forward to a few strong drinks and not having to go anywhere the following day.
He’s in the middle of changing his shirt when his phone buzzes.
It’s from Darren and says: Someone said you just got here? I’m outside by the steps. Come join me.
He shoves his phone into his pocket and makes his way through the people, stopping to chat only briefly, until he’s outside and going around the side of the building to the staircase.
Darren is entertaining a crowd, playing his guitar and sipping from a beer every few minutes. When he spots Chris he gives him that sweet, full on smile and pats the place on the stair beside him. It’s a little awkward to have to step over people but he gets sort of a charge out of having that spot reserved for him.
He doesn’t sit there, though. At the last second he changes his mind and sits on the step just above, feet on the same one that Darren is. Darren turns and presses a kiss to Chris’s knee through his jeans.
Darren finishes the song he’s in the middle of and then scoots forward. The steps are wide enough that Chris can drop into the space behind him, wrapping his arms around Darren’s middle. Darren takes another long drink and then raises his bottle to signify it’s empty. Someone digs through the cooler and hands him a fresh one, and then one for Chris, too.
“Kiss,” Darren says, turning and puckering his lips. Chris can tell from the slightly glazed over look he has that he’s already well on his way to drunk, but he doesn’t mind obliging. When Darren is satisfied that he’s been properly greeted, he grabs his guitar and says, “Requests?”
Half a dozen people shout out songs, and he picks the first one that appeals to him. As he starts to strum something slow and mellow, Chris leans forward and rests his chin on Darren’s shoulder. He has the strangest vantage point like this, looking down and watching the graceful movements of Darren’s hands up and down the guitar from an angle he’s never seen it from before.
He knows the song so joins in quietly, just for Darren to hear.