Title: Affinities

Author: Aristide

Fandom/Pairing: RPS, Glee, Chris Colfer/Cory Monteith (that's right—I wrote Monfer. What are you going to do, report me to the sex trailer police?)

Rating: NC-17 for m/m shenanigans and mild drug use

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. If it isn't, I humbly request pictures.

Summary: Three things Cory and Chris have in common, and one thing they don't.

Gratitudes: Thanks to Sinensiss for stepping in to provide last-minute beta rescue, particularly as she'd never worked with me before, and we all know what a bright little ray of fucking sunshine I am, don't we? Thanks also to Ash for cheerleading (promoted to Head Cheerleader over the course of this fic, YAY!) I cannot overemphasize the importance of having Ash pulling for you—she has mysterious powahs of motivation. And finally, thanks to Frit for trying to help me make this less confusing and lame.

Author's Notes: I never planned to write RPS, but because I suck so badat writing open-canon stories (and also because Messrs. Colfer and Monteith are such giant bundles of adorable awesomeness), well, here I am. This story would be what my dear Bone used to refer to as a 'fluffersmutter'—not much in the way of nutritional value regarding plot or character development or intricate story arcs, just silliness and smut (which is, IMHO, so much more fun to write!)

Affinities

By Aristide

Part I: Humor Is An Excellent Coping Strategy

They'd been close from the start, drawn together by what Chris termed 'a shared affinity for the absurd', and what Mark called 'schlorp'.

"Schlorp? What's 'schlorp'?" Cory had asked, although he knew from experience that asking Mark to explain himself was akin to asking a Mormon missionary to come into your house and talk to you about Jesus—you were pretty much guaranteed to get more information than you'd ever wanted.

"It's the sound made by two giant dork-magnets sucking into each other," Mark said patiently, like of course he was an idiot for not knowing this. "You two—you get around each other, you start talking, then laughing, then—schlorp." The physical gesture he used to emphasize the last word might have actually been offensive, if it hadn't been so fucking funny, and if it hadn't been, well, Mark.

So, schlorp. Okay. Whatever. All that really mattered was that as things rolled along (and sometimes the rolling along was like the best, fastest, most awesome rollercoaster ride ever; and other times it was an endurance test so grueling and bizarre that all it really seemed to be missing was a disingenuous Japanese game-show host mocking them from the sidelines), he had someone around who understood, who knew when it was time to take things seriously and when, conversely, irreverence was the only thing that was going to get them through the day, the week, the month—the only thing that was going to get them through, period.

Cory flopped down onto the mat next to Chris, using the towel around his neck to scrub the sweat off his face. "I think Zach despairs of me."

Chris eyed Zach, who had his hands braced against the wall with his head down, doing the neck stretches he did when he had a headache. "I don't think he's constitutionally capable of despair. He has that whole happy-shiny-eternal-optimism thing going."

Cory rolled over onto his stomach. "Yeah. Do you think he knows how annoying that is?"

"He probably thinks it's motivational."

"Well, that's where he would be wrong. Gravely, tragically wrong." Cory rolled back over so he could massage his hamstring, which absolutely would not quit cramping up on him. "Holy Christ, that hurts."

Chris leaned back on his hands. "Well, there you go—maybe Zach knows precisely how annoying he is, being all happy and nice all the time. Maybe that's just one facet of his deep, deep sadism."

Cory thought it over. "That's… kind of sick. Also, awesome."

"Maybe," Chris continued in a thoughtful, solemn tone, "the positive energy and joy that Zach embodies is from his utter delight at knowing that we're all suffering horribly."

Cory let go of his leg, snickering. "Oh God, please—I have to take this guy seriously, okay? I have to—"

"I mean, nowhere in the Evil Sadist Handbook does it say that you have to be all dark and serious and mwa-ha-ha about it. No reason at all you couldn't, like, sing the Barney theme song while you're whaling away on someone—"

"Stop stop stop, please, I—oh, now I have to pee."

"Cory," Zach called to him, serene and benevolent. "Let's run it again, okay?"

"Don't tell him about the needing-to-pee thing," Chris stage-whispered at him while Cory struggled to his feet. "He may not be able to contain himself."

"You suck," Cory said weakly, limping away.

"I love you, you love me…" Chris sang softly from behind him. Cory whipped his towel from around his neck and chucked it right at Chris' face.

Chris didn't miss a beat. He sang the whole damn song, because he was evil like that.

The thing was, Cory wasn't really used to the whole 'shared affinity' thing. Class clown, cut-up, comic relief—whatever you called it, it came easily to him, it was where he was most comfortable—but the thing nobody ever seemed to notice was that the comic relief gig was… really kind of lonely. For every time you said something that totally broke the tension and cracked everyone up and brought everyone together, there were other times when you just fell flat—when everyone looked at you like you'd just sprouted an extra head or, worse (and, with increased exposure, more likely), ignored you completely. Even the people you were closest to. Even the best friends you'd ever had.

But not Chris. No matter how offbeat, macabre, or flippant his comments might be, no matter how obscure his references were (and, as a patriotic Canadian and a card-carrying weird person, he had some pretty obscure ones), Chris kept up, got it, stayed with him and either returned his serve or just cracked up laughing. At which point, even if everyone else in the room had ignored Cory (such a horrible, hateful feeling, when that happened), they would all look at Chris, usually as if he'd just grown an extra head.

"Sorry," Chris would mutter while wiping his eyes, because he really was kind of a ridiculously polite kid. "Dork humor."

Dork humor. Fuck yeah.

Lea was really the only person who could actually get the two of them to shut up and behave when they were on a roll. Ryan had certainly tried, but he was too easy to make fun of, and once Chris started doing his Ryan impression Cory was pretty much guaranteed to be in hysterics for the duration. Amber was nicely authoritative, but also dangerously prone to the giggles herself, especially because Chris knew all too well what made her laugh. Dianna could get Chris to mellow out, but only until Cory started carrying on again—at which point Chris would lose it, and Dianna would toss her head and walk away, disgusted with both of them until they apologized to her afterwards.

Naya could do it, but wouldn't. Heather offered to try, but ended up joining in instead. Mark just rolled his eyes and suggested they get a room. Kevin was confused as to what the problem was, anyway. Jenna tried until she realized they were cracking each other up with necrophiliac undertaker jokes, at which point she made a high-pitched noise and ran out of the room.

"You two," Lea said ominously, storming towards them like a tiny, shiny-haired whirlwind of doom. Cory would have sobered immediately, but Chris' oh-shit-we're-screwed face was so awesome that he just couldn't stop laughing. "Seriously. Will the two of you please just—oh, for God's sake—"

Lea reached way up to smack his hair, and Cory bit his lips and tried really, really hard not to look at Chris. "We have work to do," Lea said in a tone that suggested that she'd missed her calling as a middle-school teacher. "And here you two are, carrying on like this." She eyed Cory, and he was amazed all over again at the way she could seem to be staring down at him even though she basically only came up to his navel. "You know what this means."

Cory hung his head. "Yeah."

Lea put her hands on her hips. "Cory. What does this mean?"

Cory scuffed the toe of his shoe over the cement. "If we don't stop, you're going to be forced to make allegations of unprofessionalism."

"And then?"

He shrugged, and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Chris will panic and feel terrible."

"And then?"

"He won't talk to me for a week."

"And then?"

"I'LL BE SAD!"

"Right. And nobody wants that. So. You know what to do." She whirled and went, marching off at top speed, her backside twitching pertly under Rachel's short skirt.

Chris shook his head. "Nobody storms off in high dudgeon quite like her."

Cory grinned. "Dudgeon. I can't believe you actually used that word in a sentence."

Chris raised an eyebrow. "It's a perfectly suitable word."

"It's also awesome. Dudgeon."

Chris smiled. "Your logophiliac tendencies are showing." He scooped up his IPad and his dog-eared script. "Do you really get sad when I stop talking to you?"

"Well, not so much sad as, you know, everything sucks and nothing's fun."

Chris nodded sagely. "A fine distinction."

"Just don't think I'm like, pining for you or anything."

"Gosh, no."

Part II: My Best Unbeaten Brother

Cory hates the rain. It brings back too many memories. Not good memories. Memories of being cold, hungry, poor, angry, terrified—and alone. Alone by circumstance, by character, by choice—alone in a sea of people, all of whom seemed to know, innately, a kind of magic secret to getting along that he just… didn't.

The rain makes him freeze up, makes him take a quick, almost panicked inventory of everything in his life that proves, absolutely and irrevocably, that he's not that boy any more. That he'll never be that boy again. And most of the time when he thinks about it (although he tries not to think about it), he can take some kind of comfort in the fact that he—the he that is and the he that was, together—brought that boy through; that he made it, that he survived.

But that particular comfort just isn't enough when the rain is pouring down outside; when he feels a cold, old ache in his bones and in his brain, and he knows that part of him is still out there, always out there; wishing he had somewhere warm to go.

It isn't rain, for Chris, but Cory knows it's something. Chris is quick to cover, to bounce back from those brief moments when his eyes cut away and his mouth tightens down and his shoulders hunch like some kind of helpless, protective reflex—but not quite quick enough; not once Cory catches on, not once he starts really paying attention.

After all, he knows what it's like to have a past you can't really ever shake off, a present you can't really wrap your brain around, and a future you can't quite believe in.

Cory cursed his insomnia as he stepped out into the hotel hallway, closing the door to his suite behind him. Like the tour and performing and the promo appearances and interviews and the hellish travel schedule weren't already enough to deal with, now he faced the utterly delightful prospect of doing all that on—he checked his watch—three hours' sleep. Joy. He shook his head as he walked towards the elevator, hoping against hope that someone down in the hotel kitchen knew how to make trucker-grade coffee.

"I can do this. I can do this. I can do this."

Cory heard the words as he waited for the elevator, a faint murmur coming from somewhere off to his left. He found Chris in the small alcove at the end of the hall, standing in front of the soda machine with his hotel room card key in his hand, trying to feed it into the machine's bill slot.

"Hey," Cory said, and put his hand on Chris' shoulder. Chris turned to face him, and only then did he realize that Chris was still asleep, his normally expressive face almost eerily vacant, terrible purple shadows under his eyes.

"I can do this," Chris told him calmly, and then went back to trying to get the soda machine to take his card key.

Cory hesitated for a moment, then pulled his wallet out of his pocket. "Of course you can. But… let me help, okay?" He found a five and fed it into the slot, then pushed the button for caffeine-free Diet Coke before Chris could push the button for the caffeinated version. The machine made a hell of a racket dispensing one can and some change, and Chris stepped away from it, pressing his hands over his ears.

"Why is there yelling?" Chris said plaintively, sounding very much like he was all of eight years old. "Did I break it? Is it an emergency?"

"No, it's fine," Cory said, scooping the icy-cold can out of the slot and handing it to Chris. "You're great. You did everything you were supposed to do. It's all good. No emergency."

Chris stared at the can in his hand, swaying a little. "Am I done now?" He looked up, his unfocused eyes gazing somewhere above Cory's shoulder. "I'm very tired."

Cory took Chris' room key, tugging gently until Chris let it go. "You're done. Let's get you back to your room, okay? You did great, but you need to sleep now."

Chris didn't say anything, but he let Cory guide him back down the hall to the door of his suite, both hands clutching his soda can like it was some kind of prize. Cory opened the door to Chris' room, then stood there and watched Chris deposit the can carefully onto a tray before flopping down onto the bed on his face, his t-shirt and sweatpants twisted around him. Cory stayed where he was until the rhythm of Chris' breathing deepened, then he put the card key on top of the suitcase standing in front of the closet, and closed the door as quietly as he could.

Cory doesn't need to know the cause to understand the effect. He knows the broad strokes, the outline of it—Chris' carefully constructed, deliberately lighthearted stories are enough for that. He doesn't need to know the details.

So he doesn't dig any deeper, he doesn't ask, he doesn't say anything about it. But he stays close, as close as he can. Because even more than the ridiculous delight of their shared humor, their shared history of pain—and the choice they've both made to take that pain and put it to work, alchemize it, use its weight and gravity to push themselves onward—makes Chris precious to him, unique and irreplaceable.

He doesn't say anything about that, either. And he's pretty sure he never will.

As time passes, he comes to understand that he doesn't need to.

Part III: Intermezzo (When We Were Here Together)

Trailer parties were fucking awesome. Because it was family, only family, and so they didn't have to worry about paparazzi or fans or having some intimate drunken moment of high hilarity twittered to the universe—except they actually did kind of have to worry about that last one, because God knows that tweeting each others' utter fail had become a group hobby. But despite that, Cory thought that the upsides of (relative) privacy combined with being at a party where he loved pretty much everybody seriously outweighed the downsides of being packed in like sardines and always inexplicably running out of Cheetos before the evening was half over.

When he let himself in, it was too dark to see anything. But he didn't need his eyes to figure out that Naya and Amber were somewhere in the middle of the room, doing a kick-ass duet cover of 'Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy'. When he could finally make out more than just blurs in the gloom he saw that he was right, and (not surprisingly), that they had an audience. Heather was bouncing along in her chair, looking as happy and enchanted as a five-year-old at a puppet show. Harry was watching the performance with an absorbed, almost critical look on his face (Cory wondered for a moment how you could substantively critique choreography that amounted to 'provocative booty-shaking and girl-gropage', but he didn't say anything).

Chord, the new kid, was staring at both girls with his mouth wide open, undoubtedly letting go of a bundle of preconceived notions regarding what it meant to be part of their wholesome little family. Mark was across from Chord, and appeared to be dividing his attention between opportunistic ogling of the floorshow, and chucking dry-roasted peanuts at Chord's open mouth. Chord didn't actually seem to notice, even when one bounced off his forehead and landed in his lap.

Cory squeezed around the edge of the room, waving off the hands that both Naya and Amber held out to him (really, it was no blow at all to his ego to admit that putting himself in the middle of that would just spoil things), and made his way to the back, closing the door behind him—a customary gesture of respect to accommodate all the individual differing opinions of what constituted a 'party'.

In the back section it was slightly quieter, not quite so dark, and a lot harder to breathe given the miasma of pot smoke that told him that Kevin was back here, somewhere. He didn't see Kevin, but he found Lea and Dianna curled up together on one of the bench seats, talking about some book they were both reading. It sounded like it had a lot of sad things in it, so when they asked him if he wanted to go with them to get a drink while they discussed the finer points of who died and who didn't, he declined, kissed them both on the top of their gorgeous heads, and kept on moving.

Sure enough, on the long bench at the very back of the trailer he found Kevin, sitting cross-legged with his eyes at half-mast, looking like some sort of Texan hipster Buddha. Jenna was on the other end of the seat, looking relaxed and content enough that Cory wouldn't have been shocked if she'd started purring and kneading the furniture.

None of that was particularly remarkable. But the fact that Chris was between the two of them, sprawled out and kind of boneless-looking with his head in Jenna's lap and his legs draped over Kevin's—well, that was unexpected.

"Is he okay?" Cory asked, then added, "Is he asleep?" in a whisper, when he saw that Chris' eyes were closed.

"I'm fiiiiiiiiiine," Chris singsonged, while Kevin mouthed 'he's high', and Jenna petted Chris' hair back from his face.

"Oh. Uh. I see." He leaned forward and picked up Chris' slack wrist where it was dangling off the bench seat. He let it go, watching as it flopped back down like a dead person's might have. "Christ. How much did you give him?"

"One bong hit of some pretty decent stuff," Kevin said judiciously, like he had a side career as an apothecary or something. "He had one hit. Then he coughed for about fifteen minutes. Then he went kind of limp." He wiggled one of Chris' feet to demonstrate. Pretty much all of Chris wiggled along with it. "It's adorable."

"He was telling us stories," Jenna said brightly, touching the tip of Chris' nose with one finger. "Wonderful stories; even if they didn't make a lot of sense."

"You have no appreciation for non-linear exposition," Chris said gravely, furrowing his brows with his eyes still closed. "It would have all made sense in the end. Eventually. It was an… an epic tale of tragedy and, uh, triumph. Or something."

"I really liked the part where you were commanding a flying squadron of kamikaze badgers," Jenna told him, then turned to Cory. "Can you take him? I've got to go pee."

"Uh—"

"Me, too," Kevin said, lifting Chris' legs.

Which was how Cory found himself on the bench with Chris half in his arms and half draped across his lap, warm and boneless and blinking at him with sleepy, reddened eyes.

"Hey," Cory said, shifting his grip because it really felt like Chris might slither right down onto the floor if he didn't hang on. "I got you. You sure you're okay?"

"God, why do people keep asking me that?" Chris muttered, sounding vaguely annoyed. "It's not like I've never been stoned before."

"Uh, yeah. There was that one other time. You know, that time you swore it had no effect on you, but you couldn't stop talking for, like, five hours? Remember that?"

"Not really," Chris said unconcernedly, and stretched. "This is… I feel amazing."

Cory had to smile a little. "Well, that's good. But I should probably take you home."

Chris eyed him. "Why?"

"Because when you're high you have this tendency to tell really personal stories, and you're actually a very private person. Even with your friends here." He smiled again. "Even with me."

"Even with you…" Chris breathed, like that was some kind of revelation, and then took Cory's face in his warm hands and pulled him down, lower and lower—Cory was half-grinning, waiting for a whisper, a gesture; waiting for the punchline to the joke—only apparently there wasn't one because then they were kissing, soft and slow and sweet and pot-spicy. Cory gasped like he'd just been hit with an electric shock, and really it kind of felt like that everywhere, almost everywhere, everywhere that it didn't feel… like other things. Chris rubbed their open mouths against each other, lewd and wet and erotic and so, so gentle—and a sudden, heavy, tender ache thudded home in Cory's stomach, in his balls, in his abruptly-hard nipples, in his—fuck.

He pulled back. "Oh fuck."

Chris opened his eyes. All the way. Until they were huge. "Oh my God—I didn't really just do that, did I? I really didn't mean to do that. I really shouldn't have done that—"

"Don't freak out," Cory said automatically, and wondered vaguely which one of them he was talking to.

Chris blinked at him. "Whoops," he muttered quietly, "too late." Cory let him go when he sat up, watched him settle on the bench a few feet away, his head down and his face in his hands. "Dammit."

"Uh, I. Um. I'm fine," Cory said, kind of surprised when that turned out to be true. "Really. It's okay. I'm okay. It's… are you… Okay?"

"Oh, sure," Chris replied into the muffled cup of his hands. "Just peachy. Except for the whole, you know, wondering if I should just dig myself a large pit and dive into it and never come out again."

"You shouldn't." Cory shook his head. "You should probably let me take you home, though."

Chris slid his hands down slowly, his gaze leveled right at Cory, and the combination of self-recrimination and pure exhaustion on his face made Cory's throat close up, made him move, made him scoot over on the bench so they were side by side when he wrapped Chris up in his arms, holding tight until Chris stopped pulling away. "No," he said calmly, sure of at least this one thing, even though everything else in the known world felt like it was shifting, uncertain—sand under his feet when the water drew back for a big, big wave. "Don't do that."

He held on for what seemed like a long time, until Chris relaxed against him, until his own heartbeat had gone back to normal. Something approaching normal.

When he finally let go and drew back, Chris looked like himself again—at least, he looked like himself when he was really, really high. Cory didn't even try to fight the urge to grin. "Dude. You are so baked."

Chris ducked his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. "I am. I really, really am." He sighed. "I suppose I should be grateful I didn't tell you any embarrassing stories."

Cory ruffled his hair. "We've got plenty of time."

"Oh, fantastic."

By the time he got Chris into the car he the volubility effect had kicked into high gear, and Chris talked nonstop during the entire ride to his place. His voice was so low and quiet at the beginning that Cory missed most of what he actually said, but once he got properly tuned in to Radio Colfer, he had to admit that it was vastly entertaining.

"It's like, you're not this big he-man macho manly man-guy," Chris said at one point, and Cory thought that was too bad because that had to be the most awesome nickname in the history of ever. "You don't have the whole, you know, chiseled jaw and gleam of fearless intrepidity—intrepididity—intrepid thing in your eye, right? You just… you have this face. I really like looking at it. All the time."

"I can see where my lack of manliness and unchiseled jawline would be pretty much irresistible—everyone digs that," Cory said, nodding and grinning, and a fist waved vaguely in front of his chest, which he figured meant that Chris had just tried to punch him in the arm and failed.

"I didn't say you were unmanly," Chris said, sounding almost schoolmarmishly irritated. "I said… I was trying to tell you that I think you're beautiful."

"Oh." Cory went back to grinning again.

"Because you're beautiful."

"Oh."

"Am I completely freaking you out?"

"You know, over this past half-hour or so I've come to realize that pretty much nothing you do or say freaks me out. Serendipity, huh?"

There was a pause. "You realize this raises certain questions about your instincts for self-preservation, right?"

"If you say so."

"It also could be construed as a challenge."

"Construe your ass off. See if I care."

There was a short pause. "Cory."

"Yeah?"

"I've had fantasies about you making out with Adam Lambert."

"Oh, me too."

Another pause. "I've nicknamed my right hand 'Cory', just for the sake of expediency."

"Okay, but do you draw a little Señor Wences face on it, and do funny voices?"

"Cory."

"Yeah?"

"I want to wildly smear you with pudding while you sing 'I'm Called Little Buttercup'."

Cory shrugged. "Of course you do—who wouldn't? I mean, look at me. I'm built for it." He took one hand off the wheel, waving it around to indicate the full majesty of his being.

There was a longer pause, then, "Cory?"

"Yeah?"

"I own Killer Bash."

Cory opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it. Closed it. Then he cracked the hell up.

Chris was staring at him, smiling. "Honesty compels me to admit that I owned it before I knew you, though."

"Uh-huh. I don't know if that helps any."

"I also own the Director's Cut of Voodoo Academy."

Cory started snickering again, banging the palm of his hand softly on the steering wheel. He just couldn't help it.

Chris didn't seem to notice. "Do you know what the difference is between the Director's Cut and the regular theatrical release of Voodoo Academy?"

"Does it involve baby oil?"

"In the Director's Cut," Chris continued implacably, "the scene where the main character watches all the boys in his dorm writhe around and touch themselves in their sleep is, like, forty-five minutes long."

Cory's face ached. "I can see where that would make a clear statement about the director's artistic vision."

"Have I freaked you out yet?"

They were there. He pulled over and parked, and turned to look at Chris, whose face was lost in a chiaroscuro of shadows. Neither one of them was laughing any more. "Are you trying to?"

"I think… yes. I think so."

Cory frowned. "Why?"

"Because it's better that it happen now than… than later. When it would really hurt. More."

Cory squeezed the steering wheel. "Do you want me to go away?"

"I really don't." Chris reached out, took one of his hands off the wheel and held it. "I don't I don't I don't."

"Okay then," Cory squeezed Chris' hand. "Stop trying to horrify me with your freaky pudding fetish and your mania for terrible homoerotic movies, and invite me up."

He was pretty sure Chris smiled. "Would you like to come up?"

"Only if you never bring up Killer Bash again."

"Well," Chris appeared to be thinking it over. "Okay. At least, not to you. But Lea and Dianna are supposed to come over for movie night next week, and I thought—"

"Oh my God."

There was a part of him—not that he would have admitted it in a million years—that had gotten into this by running on a high-octane mixture of bravado mixed with affection mixed with respect. A part of him that carefully weighed his options and then made a choice—and then committed to that choice, fully and clearly and deliberately. Because he thought it would be… nice, and a nice thing to do, and he really did have a huge amount of affection for Chris—enough to see him through, he thought, no matter what.

That part of himself, as it turned out, was a total fucking idiot.

It wasn't 'affection' causing his balls to ache terribly only five minutes into a fully-clothed make out session—that was all Chris: the compact, smooth-skinned, shimmy-hipped, devastating length of him. Chris was hot and sensual and deeply physical; his kisses were pure, raw, boyish sex—not something Cory thought he would have found innately appealing, but that was only because he'd apparently won some kind of oh-man-am-I-the-most-clueless-jerk-ever-in-the-history-of-clueless-jerks sweepstakes.

It wasn't like he hadn't realized Chris was a good-looking guy; he had. But somehow he'd never noticed that 'good-looking' didn't quite cover it, because here and now Cory had to admit that Chris was much closer to 'stunning'—that he was beautiful, and sexy, and hot; the kind of beautiful-sexy-hot that made Cory want… everything, that made him feel weak down to his bones from how much he wanted. And that—that intensity—was something that made him cautious, always—only he couldn't be cautious; he tried and he failed to be cautious because he couldn't stop shaking and he couldn't stop rolling over and over with Chris on top of him and under him and all around him with fists in his hair, teeth on his neck, and kisses that were probably, for the first time since he was fifteen, going to make him come in his pants.

"Are you okay?" Chris asked him, resting on his elbows above him with his hair wrecked and his cheeks rosy and his lips so wet and swollen that Cory really couldn't look at them without embarrassing himself. "I… I need to know if you're okay."

"I'm so turned on my teeth hurt," Cory managed, and he didn't mean it to sound so damn pitiful but, well, today was obviously a day to expect the unexpected. "How are you this fucking sexy?"

Chris seemed to take that as a sufficient answer followed by a rhetorical question, because he sank down slowly, teasing Cory's lips with the tip of his tongue while Cory gasped and shuddered and wondered if he was old enough to have a heart attack.

Then Chris' hand was on him, squeezing him gently through his jeans, right there—right where he needed it so badly. Cory arched up hard and almost sobbed into the next kiss, barely aware of Chris' happy deep hum of satisfaction—but Chris' leg wrapped around him and Chris' erection snugged up against his hip and then both of them were moving and rocking and coming together, all raw nerves and need, coming and kissing and everything was just… so good.

Easing down afterwards was a slow, strange process—Cory found it hard to believe he could have all his clothes on and still feel so insanely naked, for one thing—but any thoughts he might have entertained of having some kind of existential crisis after the fact were pretty much wiped out by the fact that they were still kissing, and the subsequent fact that when he trailed one limp, grateful hand down between Chris' shoulderblades and into the deep curve of his spine and then sweetly up again towards his ass they both shivered, and he was pretty sure that wasn't a crisis-related reaction for either of them.

Nevertheless, when Chris pulled back from him, he looked… remarkably shy, for someone who'd just been pretty enthusiastic about fondling his erection. "Hey," he said, his voice rougher, sexier than Cory was used to hearing it. "You can… um. If you want. You can stay." He blinked. "Will you stay?"

"I think," Cory said soberly, "at this point it would probably take several large and burly men to scoop me up and chuck me out the door."

Chris smiled, and kind of collapsed on top of him. "Oh. Well, they only come by for the weekly orgy, so I guess it's your lucky day."

His heart. His heart was still going so fast, light and fast and skipping along, skipping like… "Chris."

"Yes?"

"It was my lucky day."

That was the last thing he remembered saying before his eyes closed all by themselves.

Part IV: We Two Boys Together Clinging

"Holy crap!"

Cory sat up, blinking in the light that was flooding through the windows. Chris was staring at him from the edge of the bed, as far away as he could get. "Um, hi," Cory said lamely, then cleared his throat because he sounded more like a frog than a human. "Good morning?"

Chris' eyes were wide. "I don't believe it."

"You don't believe—"

"I actually slept." Chris sounded hushed, awed. "I actually… I mean, I don't know if it was the massive dose of THC, the fact that you slept over or the fact that we, that we, uh…" He trailed off, blinking. "Oh. We, uh. We did, didn't we?"

Cory raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh."

"I didn't… dream that?"

"Nope."

"Oh." Chris ran a hand through his terrifyingly messy hair. "I guess I kind of… buried the lead there, didn't I?"

Cory nodded. "Little bit."

"Holy crap." Chris said again, flopping back down on the bed. Cory flopped along with him, and put both arms behind his head until he caught a whiff of himself, at which point he put his arms down. Fast. "Hey," Chris continued slowly, "Are you… I mean, I'm sorry, I don't exactly have an established protocol for… are you okay?"

"I, uh, yeah." He sounded surprised, even to himself. "I mean, I need a shower, desperately. But other than that, I'm okay."

Chris curled up on his side facing him, one remarkable eye visible from the nest of pillows and unruly hair. "Really?"

"Really."

Chris smiled: a contented, dreamy, half-shy smile. Cory had seen him smile like that before, but not very often. And it had certainly never made his stomach do nervous backflippy gymnastics before. "Okay. Good. You can, uh, you could always… you can use my shower. If you want."

Cory thought about it, gave himself time to think about it, because it was a perfect opportunity for him to leave if he wanted to, with no harm done, no feelings hurt. And it made sense that he would need to take some time to work through everything, because when he'd woken up twenty-four hours ago he hadn't exactly planned on… well, any of this. Not in the slightest. So there was everything he had and hadn't planned on, and there was everything he needed time to work through, and there were all sorts of questions waiting to be addressed with gravity and careful consideration and also judgment—buckets of judgment. There was all that waiting for him, crowding up his future.

But there was also right now. And right now, there was only one simple question: where did he want to be?

"I'd love to use your shower, thanks."

Chris eyed him. "Great. Let me break out the oversized towels."

"Shut up!"

Some hours later, Cory decided that it was entirely possible that he'd been way too cavalier about the whole shower thing. Apparently, using someone else's shower was an unexpectedly dangerous business, because using Chris' shower had led to Chris throwing Cory's clothes into his washing machine, which led to Cory lounging around in nothing but a gigantic towel while Chris took his own shower. That led to post-shower Chris wrongly concluding that he had mastered some level of subtlety, and providing proof of that by utterly failing to be surreptitious about the way he was checking Cory out, which led to some remarks being made—and then retorted upon with interest.

And that, with some highly stimulating detours, led Cory precisely to where he was now, which was face-down in Chris' bed with his agonizing erection throbbing uselessly into the sheets, and Chris' peach-smooth ass gripped hard in his hands while Chris' pink-tight-hot-pretty hole throbbed around his tongue.

It was the sounds, really, that got to him, more than anything else—at the beginning a steady stream of 'oh-God-oh-God-oh-my-God' which had been basically awesome, but as Cory lost himself in what he was doing Chris went from wordy to wordless, spilling out sounds that were so heavy with need that Cory could feel them twisting in his spine and pulsing in his own cock. So he squeezed harder and spread Chris wider, gave him nowhere to go to get away from his tongue. Chris shuddered hard and moaned like he was dying, worked against him and then with him for a few glorious seconds that melted Cory from the inside out until Chris got a grip on his hair with both hands, pulling hard.

"Cory," Chris sounded breathless, desperate, like he couldn't possibly take another second. "Cory, stop—I'm—I'll come if you don't—God—"

Cory slid up and started working his mouth down on Chris' cock, which was beautiful and rosy and bigger than he'd expected and really would have been his first stop if he hadn't been enticed away by… other pink and pretty things. He was too needy, too hungry to have any patience at all with his own learning curve, but just pushed and pushed and swallowed and started to shiver, closing his eyes against the sudden, shocking knowledge that if Chris were to grab his face and just start fucking his mouth, he would probably come without even being touched.

Chris didn't do that. In fact, he pulled Cory off after only thirty seconds or so, using a surprising amount of strength to haul him up and pull him into a scorching, desperate kiss, covering the hand Cory still had fisted around his erection and stroking only twice before he came, groaning into Cory's mouth and shaking and streaking both of them with wetness. Cory felt the ache in his balls go from a background distraction to a deep, keen pulse that felt like it would never end, an ache that was urgent and immediate only he couldn't stop what he was doing, couldn't stop kissing Chris and feeling him feel good, couldn't stop soaking up every second, every gasp, every shiver.

Chris held him and petted him (ridiculous, but there was really no other word for it), throwing off heat like a furnace, his mouth gone slack and silky-wet while he traced gentle, soft touches over Cory's face and neck and shoulders, running fingers through his hair, still breathing out stunned-sounding moans in between kisses, making him crazy. Cory stood it as long as he could—politely, he was usually so polite in bed, only there certainly hadn't been a single trace of his usual courtesy in the way he'd shoved Chris down onto the sheets and gone right for his ass, so apparently he was playing by some new and unfamiliar rules—but really, his dick was so hard it was killing him, it was—

"Chris?"

"Mmmmm…" Well, at least one of them was happy. Really, really fucking happy, by the sound of it.

"Chris."

"Mmm… ohh…" More kissing, more breathy, quiet, satisfied moaning, and oh dear God he was going to die.

"Chris!"

Chris opened his eyes. His pupils were enormous. "Shh—I'm not done appreciating you." He tilted his head and started nibbling on Cory's neck, right at the pulse point.

Cory arched his neck and had a kind of lust induced mini-seizure. "Fucking hell. Chris. Fuck. Please—"

"Cory," Chris said quietly, reverently. "What you just did to me—you don't even know, I mean… don't you think you deserve to be appreciated?"

"Yes," Cory said clearly. "Yes, I do. I am a sexual paragon and I deserve to be fucking worshipped for it. But… couldn't you appreciate me while you were, you know, touching my penis or something?"

"Oh, that."

"THAT!"

Then Chris had him, had him tight in a hot, firm grip, and Cory almost sobbed with relief. "Anything," Chris whispered right in his ear, low and sweet and dirty while he stroked and squeezed and… "Anything you want. I can suck you, or you can, you know, fuck me, if you want to, or we can—"

Cory grabbed Chris' wrist, holding him still. "Don't move don't move I'm gonna come all over you if you move another fucking inch just… yeah, please, I want—oh. All that. I—"

"I've got you," Chris told him, and Cory closed his eyes while Chris eased him over onto his back, because looking at Chris when he was flushed and messy and post-orgasmic was one thing, but looking at him when he was all that plus obviously turned on again plus being so lecherously sweet was just… he wasn't going to make it.

"I'm not gonna make it." Cory said raggedly, breathlessly.

"Bet you will," Chris said archly, and then aggravatingly set out to make himself right about that by pushing Cory's balls down and then squirting some lube onto the tip of his cock that was so cold it felt like it might have come out of the refrigerator.

Cory yelped, and really would have had some choice words to say about that except Chris kissed him again, kissed him quiet and slipped a condom on him so fast he was kind of amazed. He opened his eyes to see Chris applying more lube to the outside of the condom, staring dreamily at his erection with his cheeks all pink and a look on his face that was somehow simultaneously erotic, absurdly gratifying, and deeply, deeply hysterical.

"Glad you like it," Cory kind of panted. Chris blushed even redder, looking ridiculously guilty, but then they were both laughing and hanging onto each other and—Jesus, he couldn't remember ever ever wanting someone more than he wanted Chris right now, couldn't remember ever trying to kiss someone who was still erupting into snickers and giggles in between low, needy moans, but obviously he'd been seriously missing out because the combination was fucking fantastic.

He stopped Chris when he tried to turn over, pushed him onto his back with his wrists pinned high above his head. "Like this, okay?" Chris nodded, abruptly solemn and wide-eyed, spreading open for him as Cory slid over, wrapping his smooth, hot thighs around Cory's waist. "Hey," Cory said hesitantly, because he wasn't an expert or anything, but still. "Don't I need to, um—" he wiggled his fingers, entwined with Chris' above them.

Chris' head tossed on the pillow. "Nope. You did—your tongue, you were… just go slow, and it'll be fine. It's fine."

"Okay," Cory said uncertainly, and he was going to leave it at that but really, he needed to say these things while he still had the will and the brainpower to say them. "I just… I don't want to hurt you."

"Go slow, and you won't. Besides…" There was more to that, but since Chris said it into his shoulder, Cory had no idea what it was.

"Huh?"

Chris closed his eyes tight and went tense under him, just for a second. "I like it. When it hurts. A little. Except I don't ever say that out loud."

Cory felt something break open deep in his chest, an almost-fluttering almost-melting feeling there, and he couldn't stop himself from planting one soft, gentle kiss right on Chris' open, glossy mouth. "Oh. Okay—it's okay. Just—you'll tell me if it's too much, right?"

Chris opened his eyes and smiled, a little. "Of course I will—what do you think I am, some kind of sick pervert?"

Cory squeezed down on Chris' wrists. "God, I hope so—that would make two of us. Isn't there, like, a secret handshake, or anything?"

"We're doing it," Chris gasped. "Almost."

"Okay," Cory said, and eased forward slowly, feeling his way along—but he didn't need to worry about getting a hand free to help out because he arched and Chris stretched and legs shifted and then everything fit together perfectly, just so, pressure and heat right at the tip of his cock, right where he needed to be.

He took Chris' mouth and pushed at the same time, slow and gentle, slipping his tongue into silky-hot-wet while he rocked a little, twisted a little, easing himself forward and oh, oh fuck he could feel everything, every flutter and stretch of muscle, hot and so fucking tight and all around him, and just like that he was sweating and gasping and squeezing down on Chris' wrists like that was somehow going to help him not lose it.

He pulled back enough to watch Chris' face, flaming red and sheened with sweat, both of them working so hard—him to go slowly, Chris to take him in—and then they were sharing breath and slipping in each other's sweat and moving together, their eyes locked, slowly coming together one incremental bit at a time. Cory felt stripped bare, more naked than naked and like he was steeped in an intensity of pleasure that his nerves had no defense against, no way to minimize or distract from how insanely good it felt, and all he could do was bite his lip because if he didn't he was pretty sure he was going to start babbling all that out loud.

"You feel so good," Chris breathed, his eyes heavy-lidded, dazed. "I can feel you everywhere."

"God—yes," Cory managed, and then buried his face in the curve of Chris' neck before his mouth could run away on him. But then Chris turned his head like an offering and Cory bit down on the long tendon stretched out there under warm skin, and Chris made a soft, helpless noise and heaved up under him—and then with a dizzying, delirious slide Cory was all the way in, stunned mute except for how he was gasping, locked in the grip of a faint, fine tremor that started in his spine and spread out everywhere, through every part of him.

He couldn't tell which one of them moved first, but that didn't seem to matter because after that it was very much both of them, rolling into each other and pushing, pulling, working together and Cory had to close his eyes tight, tight, because this was fucking ecstasy and he was so hot and he wasn't sure who was making those low, desperate-sounding groaning noises but he thought it was probably him.

He must have lost his hold on Chris' wrists at some point, because the next thing he knew Chris had him by the hair, both hands clenched there fiercely, pulling his head up, riding an exquisite edge of almost-pain. "Please—please—make me come," Chris said right into his mouth, kind of gasping it at him, and oh dear God he had no idea what to do with that but it made it really, really hard to keep anything resembling control. He thought about maybe reaching down to help out, but he ended up with both hands hooked under Chris' thighs instead, squeezing hard and pushing him wider and wider and more and more open while his hips just took over and went from rolling to bucking to slamming, and he probably would have felt really bad about that except that Chris threw his head back and yelled something unintelligible and then came all over him, a tight pulse-flutter-clench of muscle inside and Cory went with it, helpless not to, shaking hard and pouring himself out and coming and coming until there was nothing left.

When he rolled off of Chris (he had to, he was so hot he thought his skin might melt, so hot that he wouldn't have been surprised to see steam coming up off both of them), he flopped down onto the sheets like a boneless rag, but even before he caught his breath, before his heart stopped galloping and his nerves stopped firing off urgent messages of utter, crazy joy about what had just happened, he felt his hand reaching out all on its own. He found Chris' hand already there, reaching for him, lacing fingers with his and holding on tight. Which was… really nice.

They held hands for a while, until everything was much more quiet. When Chris finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"That was different." Chris Colfer, the master of understatement.

"Uh-huh."

"That was… really, really different."

Cory swallowed. "Yes."

"I don't usually… that's not how it usually is. For me."

"No. Me either." Cory felt his eyes burn, so he let them slide shut.

"I think… I'm kind of pissed off about that."

"I think I've loved you for a really long time."

Chris squeezed his hand, hard. Cory squeezed back.

Part V: A Little Sleep Song On Our Roof

When Chris finally pulled his hand away, Cory let him go. He watched Chris get up, naked and so fucking beautiful and—Cory smiled—walking a little funny.

He kept smiling until Chris went to the windows and pulled the curtains back. "Oh, hey, it's raining," Chris said, somehow managing to make it sound like that was something to be happy about.

Cory said nothing. Chris turned, stopped, and then came back to him slowly, watching his face. He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Are you okay?"

Cory nodded faintly. "Tell me," his voice was so low he had to clear his throat and start over. "Tell me why you like the rain."

Chris didn't say anything at first, just stared at him, but then he stretched out, scooping up the mess of sheets and covers from the foot of the bed as he went, pulling them up over both of them before slipping into his arms, warm and naked and so close Cory could feel his heart beating against his chest. Chris kissed him once, softly, then turned his head to stare out the window. "I like it because I grew up without it," he said, finding Cory's hand and lacing their fingers together again. "I've had so little of it, I just can't take it for granted—it's not commonplace, to me." He paused, rubbing his thumb in slow circles over Cory's palm. "Well, I mean, it is, yes, but it's also… to me, it's also always kind of miraculous."

Cory took a deep breath. "Oh." He let it go. "I guess… I get that." He knew he should say more—except he couldn't say any more. Not right now. But then, as Cory listened to the hushed patter on the roof overhead, and watched Chris stare into the grey sky outside the window, clouds and light and darkness reflected in his long-lashed eyes, it occurred to him that just because he hadn't said something out loud, didn't mean he hadn't been heard.

Cory listened and watched, and kept Chris close to him, relaxing bit by bit into the warmth they made together, which was commonplace, but also miraculous.

***The End***

Author's Endnotes:

The title of part II is from Johnny Cash's song 'I See A Darkness'. The title of part III is from Kenneth Patchen's poem, 'When We Were Here Together'. The title of part IV is from Walt Whitman's poem, 'We Two Boys Together Clinging'. The title of part V is from Langston Hughes' poem 'April Rain Song'. I don't usually pilfer poetry. I blame the rain. It makes me happy, and I'm just not constitutionally suited for that, dammit.

I want to add one final note to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment on my stuff. Without your encouragement and support, I'd be having a whole lot less fun. You are awesome.