The Land of Stories: Gleefully Ever After

Scandals

Chapter 11 – Scandals

Chapter Notes: In which our heroes are captured by some rather unsavory characters…

Chris and Darren were lost.  Darren didn’t realize this yet, since Chris was too embarrassed to admit it, but they were definitely lost.

There were two reasons why Chris was ashamed to confess that he’d led them astray.  The first was that he was the one who was supposed to know every rock, every tree, every pathway in this land.  After all, he’d created them, hadn’t he?  That’s why he’d been the one setting their course this whole time, and Darren had been trustingly following along.

The second reason was even more humiliating.  Chris had wandered off the path because, instead of paying attention to where they were going, he’d been daydreaming about Darren in a none-too-platonic way.  This was definitely not something he was ready to acknowledge.

Of course, Chris had gotten a crush on Darren way back when they first started working together.  But then again, who hadn’t?  Darren was undeniably attractive, and the way he was so flirtatious and openly affectionate with everyone he met was hard not to fall for.

However, Chris had soon realized that, for the sake of his own sanity, he would have to channel all of his romantic feelings for Darren into Kurt’s feelings for Blaine.  He accepted the fact that, as Chris and Darren, they could never be more than friends.  And the truth was, they were great together as friends.  And it was enough.  At least, it had been enough…    

Now, though, something seemed to be shifting inside of Chris, bringing those old feelings of attraction back to the forefront of his consciousness, and he was finding it very disconcerting.  So, instead of trying to figure out where they were going, he mulled his emotions over in his head, hoping that if he could understand them, then he could more easily control them.

Maybe this was just a weird form of character-bleed, brought on by witnessing Kurt and Blaine kissing.  Or perhaps there was something about this fairy tale world they were in that made everything seem romantic.  Or (and Chris could feel his face heating up at the memory) maybe it was simply his body’s reaction to having accidentally rolled on top of Darren last night when they’d both been naked…

Chris’s musings were cut abruptly short as he and Darren were suddenly whisked into the air, suspended in a giant rope net.  They’d walked right into a trap.

It didn’t take long for their startled cries to be heard by the creatures who had set the snare.  A troll and a goblin popped out from behind a nearby tree.

“Well, look what we have here,” growled the troll.

“Oh, the kings will reward us handsomely for these two,” gloated the goblin.

Although their faces and bodies were somewhat distorted – with horns on the troll and pointy ears on the goblin – Chris and Darren could still recognize Azimio and Jacob Ben Israel.

“We need to get the stone crown for the Wishing Spell,” Chris whispered to Darren.  “So let’s just allow these guys to take us to the troll and goblin kings without a struggle.”