A Beautiful Boyfriendship

Chapter Eleven: Alone and Unhappy

Hello all! The title comes from Darren's "Not Alone" (kind of ironic since in this chap he IS alone) and a line from "It's Not Right But It's Okay", which was performed on Glee last week AND was the Glee quote in chapter eight maybe? So there ya go.

Glee belongs to Fox, the boys belong to themselves. If not each other.

-CC

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Darren's bedroom, Thursday afternoon, about the same time as it is in Clovis.

Sad. Darren felt like he'd never truly understood that word before. When you're a kid, you say you're sad when your balloon floats away. When you're a teenager, you're sad when you don't get Journey concert tickets for your birthday. When you're an adult, you're sad when you realize you can't afford that new guitar you really want. But when you're a 24-year-old who made a stupid decision that caused your best friend, roommate, and love of your life to leave you all alone--that's what makes you sad.

Because he knew. All of that stuff had happened to him. And he knew that he had never been this sad before, and if Chris didn't come back he'd be this sad forever, and if he did come back he'd never be this sad ever again because if you were with Chris you could never be sad.

Darren's world had lost its color. It felt like his world was split into three major periods: before Chris, all primary colors. Pretty, but not overly exciting.

With Chris: every color of the rainbow, and sparkles too.

After Chris: shades of gray.

In an interview once, Darren had been asked what color he would see the world in if he could only see it in one color. He'd said pink. He now knew the answer should have been Chris. He wanted to see the world in shades of Chris.

Darren wanted to see his chesnut hair in the rich color of spring earth, his turquoise eyes in the kaliedoscopic summer skies, his ruby lips in the brightest fall leaves, his pale skin in the bare wintry branches.

He knew he was being so very cliche, but he couldn't help it. He never knew, could never know a person could do this to him:  give him everything and take it all away in the span of a few days. Yet Darren knew it was his fault; if he had just been the normal, goofy Darren in search of the nearest booze he'd have been okay. And Chris would be here right now, most likely snuggling as they watched some Disney movie of Darren's choice. But he hadn't done that, he'd wanted to be all secretive and know-it-all and look where it got him.

And now he missed Chris, oh God did he miss Chris. He missed him with every breath. Though at the same time, he wanted to do that last thing Chris had asked of him, to keep away, to know that if Chris ever came back he couldn't find anything else to fault Darren with. He wanted Chris back with every fiber of his being, with every cell and muscle and organ--especially his heart.

Every day without Chris, Darren felt like his heart broke a little bit more. He felt himself becoming worn more and more haggard, and he was waiting for the crash, even though he couldn't imagine feeling worse than this.

When he was feeling particularly indulgent, Darren would allow himself to go through the memories Chris had dumped into the trash. The movie stub to Toy Story 3, the scrawled notes between calls at late hours on set, the woven friendship bracelets he'd bought at a flea market that Chris refused to wear for all of five minutes before Darren's very best puppy eyes pulled him in. The only thing that had survived unscathed was a picture from the beginning days of his time on Glee. They had both been in Warbler wear, grinning over Starbucks at each other. It had been a candid shot, then became meant for promos, but as soon as Chris had seen it he had whisked it away, saying it insinuated too much. Chris had been laughing at something Darren had said, and the way his eyes crinkled in that way, oh-so-Chris, made Darren's stomach twist uncomfortably and he thought he might puke. Darren himself had seen the picture on the photographer's camera, but he had never known Chris had kept it all this time.

Sadly--oh, there was that word again, sad--Darren couldn't take much of the memories on a regular basis. Although, he did rotate from the memoirs to sleeping in Chris's bed to wearing his borrowed clothes to smelling his cologne left over in pillows and sofas. Darren knew these were all stalker-worthy things, but he reconciled himself, thinking if Chris hadn't wanted his things touched, he wouldn't have left them here.

Because Darren knew Chris was never coming back. Sure, he'd written he might come back, but Darren knew that was just a nice way of saying no.

Finally, that Thursday, he just couldn't take it. He needed a distraction from the loss that was Chris Colfer. Before now, any form of media or interest was mindless noise. He hadn't even been able to play his guitar, and he knew that living without Chris for long enough would cause him to quit for good.

So he logged onto his laptop and began surfing around, hitting news sites, his Twitter, and then Chris's. Then, before he could convince himself not to, he Googled Chris Colfer. There was the trusty Wikipedia site that always popped up first, and lots of old stuff, so he sorted the hits by occurrence. Oddly enough, there was one from less than an hour ago. Darren clicked it. It was a slightly seedy paparazzi site with a picture of Chris fleeing into a Clovis hospital as the feature. The headline read, "TRAGEDY FOR THE COLFER FAMILY?"

And then the phone began to ring.

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Oooh, cliffhanger!!!!! You love me but you hate me, right? :) That is, I'm ASSUMING some of you love me..:O

Anyway, message me with comments or concerns (if you have any:))

-CC

P.S. Ha, did anyone else imagine Chris as Christian in 50 Shades of Gray when Darren says he sees the world in shades of gray without Chris?