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For seven months in 2017, Darren's in love.
He's in love like he thinks he's never been in love before. He's head over heels, crazy off his ass, in goddamn love.
He's in love with a boy and this time it feels so real and strong and true that he wants to share it with the world.
So he does.
*
Chris feels like he's going to throw up when he reads the headline about Darren's coming out.
There's a picture there of Darren and his boyfriend. He's twenty two and gorgeous. They look happy. They look... good. Chris hates him with an instant, bitter, burning passion like little he's felt for any other person on the face of the earth in his entire life.
For a little while, Chris hates Darren, too.
He hates Darren for choosing now. He hates Darren for thinking it's worth it now.
The voices in the back of his mind remind Chris that he never pushed - he never pushed for anything. But wouldn't it have been nice if Darren had at least asked? If he'd at least considered it? If he'd let Chris know he wanted it?
*
Darren's career continues on more or less the same, once he tells the world what most of it already knew.
He buys a house with his boyfriend. He spoils him completely. He's never met another person he wanted to make happy so badly in his life. Something in him that's felt restless for most of his adult life suddenly feels settled.
Then he walks in on his boyfriend fucking his personal trainer and everything shatters.
*
The break up is messy and dramatic and everything Darren somehow managed to avoid until this point in his life. Too many friends with loose lips share too many details. His ex wants the house they barely finished moving into, though Darren's lawyers handle it well.
He quits the project he just signed and spends the rest of the year holed up in a house in Chicago with old friends that miraculously have stuck by him over the years.
It's a turning point in his life. He's thirty and he could still make that big break, but does he even really want to anymore?
*
Chris has a book tour that starts in November and winds its way up, both geographically and chronologically, to the Thanksgiving break he'll be taking in Fresno.
At the one Illinois stop he has, a fan asks him if he'll be catching up with Darren while he's in town. The surprise on his face must be evident but she politely waits for him to gather himself back together.
He gives the fan a smile and shrugs. "Maybe," he says. "We'll just have to see how it works out."
The wounds feel fresher now than they did two years ago. He saw the other headlines, saw the mess and the spectacle, but he's not yet at a point where he doesn't just feel angry over everything.
Later that night in a moment of weakness, with a bottle of wine half gone and a vague thought that he's wasting an opportunity plaguing him, he finds Darren's name on his contacts list and taps.
It only rings once before he gets an out of service message.
*
Chris is at a holiday party in West Hollywood when he runs into a familiar face.
He's had too much to drink but there aren't really that many people here that he knows, so he sticks close and so does Kevin and somehow by the time one am rolls around they're cozy in a corner with their heads bent low, talking. Kevin's arm is around Chris's waist and it's a dance they've done before but many, many years ago. Neither of them are even close to the people that they were in 2009, when they danced around the potential for something before letting it dissipate with ease.
He goes home with Kevin that night. He doesn't expect it to turn into anything, really, but the next day Kevin stays to hang out and it's just - it's good. It's good, it's fun, and they do it again the next weekend, and the one after that.
*
The first time someone spots them out together, Chris is shocked by how few fucks Kevin has to give. They pose for a picture and when everyone assumes they're dating, there's barely even a conversation about it.
Chris catches one tabloid inset while they're out buying groceries to make brunch on a Sunday morning. Glee Cast Surprises! with Darren's picture right alongside one of him and Kevin. His chest goes tight momentarily, swimming in a sense of how this wasn't how it was meant to go, but Kevin touches his arm and pulls his attention away and Chris lets himself be guided out of it.
On New Year's Eve they attend a party together for the first time, and when someone catches them kissing at midnight he only briefly lets himself think about whether Darren will see it or not.