Jen Jen! Crisscolfer and number 20 pleeeeease! <3
20. things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear
Everything about them was so carefully planned, to the very last detail of things they said, places they went to, events they signed on for. From the very first day, they were more aware of the possible shitstorms that being seen together could cause than anyone gave them credit for.
Chris had -- even in the early days -- steeled himself against Darren’s charm, or at least he tried to. Rumors were bad enough, but at least those he could deal with: fend them off with sarcasm, turn them into a joke, wait out until they disappeared again like every other. What he wasn’t going to let himself do was to allow Darren to get under his skin.
It worked, for a while.
Then suddenly they were both in too deep, too close, too fast, too everything. They said things that they maybe didn’t mean, made promises they both knew they wouldn’t be able to keep, planned for things that neither of them expected to happen. The one thing that did happen was time, accompanied by distance.
It meant less time to be around each other, less time to talk, less time to give each other more promises and hope. Chris was glad, in a way, because that distance allowed him to let go of what he told himself were foolish delusions of things that could’ve been.
Only, they still talked sometimes, when both their schedules freed up for an evening -- or whatever time it was wherever in the world they were -- they spent hours on Skype like before, when they knew they’d be seeing each other in person again. But even though they never said it out loud, neither of them brought up the past. Of course, Darren slipped sometimes, and blurted out compliments that Chris still didn’t quite believe, mentioned memories that no one else but them was part of or even knew about.
And then, because it became normal that one of them -- usually Darren -- fell asleep towards the end of their Skype session, Chris got into a bad habit. When Darren crashed because of his usual lack of sleep and disregard for his body’s needs, Chris would stay at the laptop and just ... watch. Listen. He never told Darren about the way he’d leave the Skype window running in the background, the quiet snoring a soundtrack to Chris’ writing.
He never said, because sometimes, there’d be a lull in the breathing sounds, a shuffling noise, and then...
“I love you, Chris,” muted by whatever Darren’s face was buried into en lieu of a pillow, before Darren’s breathing went back to the sleeping rhythm.
And though Chris knew he wasn’t supposed to hear it, he couldn’t let go.
