Genre: Romance/Relationship

Pairing: Lea Michele/Darren Criss (Learren)

Rating: K

Summary: Lea and Darren are hiding their relationship, it works just fine when they visit his parents in SF but as their romance grows, the secrecy becomes a problem..

Status: In-Progress

oOo

Chapter One

The fog pushing through the mountains was thick but still glowing mysteriously, drenched in the same peachy tone as the night sky above them. The city lights painted it in shimmery pastels, just like back in LA but unlike LA, here maybe about ten or twelve stars shone their way through the glimmer.

The Golden Gate Bridge was lit with yellow spots, shooting up to the giant abutments that emerged from the fog as if materializing out of nowhere.

It was quite a sight. She'd never been here at night, let alone so solely undisturbed. There was not a single soul in sight on the little green viewing platform but them.

She walked slowly, almost solemnly across the grass, wrapping the blanket she'd taken from the car a little tighter around her body – fall was creeping in on them and it was the middle of the night and getting cold.

A couple of feet ahead of her was the slender silhouette she was walking towards with certain steps and she felt his ribcage expand with a sigh as she wrapped her arms around him from the back, draping the blanket around them like a cape that hung too low as she'd snook her arms under his.

He instantly closed one of his around her hand on his stomach and brought the other one a little awkwardly around her neck, making her head peak out from behind his broad frame, inbetween his side and upper arm.

"I like it here", she said, her cheek crazing his light rain jacket, the blue one that always made him look slightly like a toddler, "I like it a lot"

She glanced over to the other side of the river, the skyline, the street lights she could see, everything misty and a little blurred by the signature San Fransisco fog.

"Makes you feel so small, looking at the city like that, so many lives, so many stories..but it's nice", she mused, "it puts things into the right perspective"

He let out a short huff of agreement and then dipped his head, placing his lips on her hairline. He didn't really kiss her but she still closed her eyes at the familiar touch.

When she opened them again, she changed her position; with two quick steps she stood in front of him – arms and blanket still wrapped around his torso but now she was facing him and their gazes locked for a second. He licked his lips and she knew that he wasn't going to say much, not for a while at least. He could pull that off..he did that sometimes. That was one of the greatest differences between them.

As soon as she had a thought it already dropped from her lips, she spoke and thought at the same time and while he could do that too, he also had the ability to hold back, to think something through before saying it, which made 80 percent of the things he said that much more meaningful than hers. An uncanny ability she sometimes envied him for, but she also greatly appreciated it because he made it almost poetry when he spoke, if he wanted to. But now it was late and they'd talked the whole time in the car. Now the silence seemed appropriate, after all it always had something magical to arrive at a destination you'd sat in a car for hours to reach – or a plane or even walked by foot, she thought, remembering the countless hiking trips she'd dragged people on.

She looked up to him again and smiled and he lifted his hands to cup her cheeks gently and then leaned in to kiss her. It was a soft and gentle one but it still made that inexplicable light flicker in front of her closed eyes, it broke through the darkness like an army of fireflies and she enjoyed the sensation before he pulled her into a tight embrace.

"It's good to have you here", he mumbled next to her ear, "but I think we should get going, it's getting cold and I still have to get us home safely..and if we stand here much longer I will collapse on top of you and you'll have to carry me to my house without directions"

"Let's not do thaaaat", she agreed, her last word fittingly floating into a hearty yawn.

But before she let him out of her grasp she tilted her head upwards to nudge his to the side, gathering a little space to get on her tiptoes and kiss him again, but longer this time.

Her hands snaked into his hair that was getting damp, combing through his curls as she made him part his lips, she let the blanket drop to the ground and kissed him harder, waiting for the familiar blend of a moan and a sigh to escape him, just to make sure he was at least a little more awake than before.

Finally, he set her back on her full feet and smiled one of her favorite dopey grinsl running his palm over his face.

"I needed that", he said, reaching for the blanket and together they staggered towards the silver Chevy they'd rented for the long weekend.

Once they were settled in the car again, he turned on the air conditioning and his music; they'd listened to her Broadway collection for the better part of the way and now "Darren's Long Drive Mix"-playlist flickered across the screen of his iPhone attached to the cars sound-system with melodic yet unostentatious numbers that oddly fit their drive back into the fog.

She told him about the last time she'd been in San Fransisco, only pausing when they were crossing the bridge, trying to make out her surroundings, hoping to see the Ocean but it was an hapless endeavor, all she saw was peachy glowing mist.

So she resumed her story as they drove past the outskirts and into the city and told him about the one time she and her mother had gotten lost in China Town and after hours of pointless walking in circles had found a little side-street restaurant with the best Chinese food ever since the invention of China and how the place was enchanted because when they returned the next day to show the place – and the food – to her father it was nowhere to be found. She wondered aloud if it had been a collective Fata Morgana dreamed of by two starving and tired women or if they were plainly such hopeless navigators that they'd simply lost it in the midst of all the similar looking streets.

He laughed a quite brittle laugh in response which didn't necessarily reassure her that he'd actually listened but she wasn't mad, after all she was really just talking to keep him awake.

After a while they left the city center and the thickest fog behind them as they drove into more suburban pastures, the houses became fewer, smaller and the streets slimmer and at some point he started talking again, passing a couple of houses where he'd used to go to play-dates as a kid, the infamous house he'd bombarded with pine-cones to serenade his middle-school-crush and a little playground with a swing-set and a slide.

She glanced out the window, smiling, almost seeing a much younger Darren climbing on everything and anything, playing on some structures he'd constructed solely in his mind, having the best time in his imaginary word. And suddenly she was sure that they would have been the best of friends back then, a slightly sad thought at the same time because, well..she would have liked nothing more than a friend like him then. She'd always been a little too quirky for the kids her age, little Lea had always been all over the place and with that funnily enough also a little displaced. But as her eyes wandered over the swing-set, driving by, she could see them there, shadows and schemes, two little kids, Lea and Darren, happily building castles and magic worlds with their minds and she winced a little with a longing for a past she'd never have.

Her thoughts were quickly dispensed though when Darren made a right turn into a one way street flanked with the broadest houses they'd come across yet, stopping a little down the road at the second to last house on the left side, pulling into the spacious driveway past a waist-high hedge.

She glanced over at him as he pulled the key out of the ignition and slightly slumped into his seat, somewhat accomplished.

"Home sweet home", he muttered and took her hand, squeezed it lightly and then pecked her quickly on the cheek before getting out of the car. A wave of cold air hit her harsh in the face and she gasped, bracing herself to get out and join him on the concrete. She did so just in time to help him hoisting her suitcase from the trunk. She had of course packed for weeks rather than days, packing three outfits for each day just in case and it did bear a certain humor that her luggage was matter of factly twice the size of his. He'd joked earlier that it was all shoes but it was only twenty percent shoes..not that that was any less telling.

He dug his hand into his jacket pocket after having set his small suitcase on the ground between them and handed her his key-chain, gesturing towards the little stony way to the porch and took both their cases, ushering her forward.

She walked slowly, curious to see his house in the dim light from the street lantern. It was nice and big but not too massive and even though the bushes of wild roses lining the front wall were impeccably trimmed, the grass on the lawn grew freely and looked like it hadn't been mowed in at least two months. She strangely enjoyed how this didn't seem to go together and still did.

She imagined it must've been nice to come home to that..their house in Tenafly hadn't been half as big. When she's gotten her first solid money and was able to put enough to the side, she'd bought her parents a bigger house, which made her wonder if that was something Darren considered but then again if they already had a house beautiful like this one, there really wasn't much sense in getting another generic one..this one just looked..genuine, like it had really been lived in. She could see how one could get attached to it.

Thinking this way, she probably already was a little attached to it. How could she not, though? This was where he grew up, where he spent his summers as a kid, where he came home to every day and played hide-and-seek with his brother, he'd probably even learned to ride a bike on the very street they'd just drove up. These facts alone made it impossible to even think about giving up that house – in her theoretical musings and she decided not to ask Darren about it, as to not give him any ideas.

When they reached the door, Lea tentatively turned the key in the lock and waited for the silent click, letting them in, making as little noise as she could.

The second they passed over the threshold, she felt lulled in by the warmth and the scent of the house. Even in the sporadic light it looked so cozy and it smelled..well, it smelled just like a home should smell, like the wooden floors, a little like detergent, probably coming from the drapes and then there was another note of something exotic in the air, like from incense sticks or a potpourri of flowers and spices. It was just as an exciting mix as the trimmed roses and the free growing lawn and it just fit. It fit the idea she had of the house Darren grew up in and the idea she had of his parents..it made sense.

With a muffled 'clunk' Darren set down the suitcases onto the wooden floor next to the stairs leading up and put one hand between her shoulder blades..they were cold on her bare skin and she shivered, but not unpleasantly.

"I like it", she whispered and felt a little like a broken record.

He grinned at her approval and then leaned in to speak quietly.

"Let's just leave these here for the night, I think we'd make too much noise getting them upstairs", he said, "And I can give you some shorts from my old closet"

She nodded her okay and let him take her by the hand, following him up the stairs, past a bunch of framed pictures lining the wall like a small family gallery and there he was, little Darren as she'd imagined him on the playground, a head of full hair and a smirk just like he had now, in the driveway with his brother, Darren's Mom, Darren's brother at a piano, middle-school-Darren and High-School-Chuck, Darren in midst of some familiar faces, Joe and Joe and Lauren with a blue grad cap barely taming thick curls underneath. She smiled lovingly at the picture when she felt Darren pull impatiently at her hand..apparently she had stopped walking altogether, lost in the memorabilia of his life before she'd known him.

"Mehh", he whined in a hushed tone, semi-seriously, "Bed now, Memory Lane tomorrow"

She nodded sheepishly and caught up with him quickly, on tiptoe until the end of the corridor – he stopped her before he opened the door.

"Just keep in mind that this room basically hasn't been touched since I left for college, okay?", he explained under his breath and then he added with a pleading voice, "Please don't laugh"

Lea nodded vigorously and hoped she could keep that promise but when he opened the door she couldn't see how she wouldn't. The room was nice, just as homey as the rest of the house she'd seen.

The floor was the same as the corridor, hard wood in a dark brown, with a foresty-dark-green carpet under the two-people-bed.

Darren let go of her hand and lit one bedside-lamp that drenched the room in warm yellow light, revealing a shutter-doored closet to the left and another door, probably leading to an own bathroom and a little study and bookshelf to the right.

Lea walked over to that while Darren rummaged around in the closet. She let her fingers trail over a chest-high dresser that was topped with more photos of Darren, mostly with girls..they'd always radiated towards him as it seemed..she was surprised to not find any trace of dust on her fingertip as she removed it..his Mom had probably cleaned the room, anticipating her sons arrival.

There was a huge "Lord Of The Rings"-poster on the wall and over the study hung a pin board with newspaper-clippings, more photos and some sheets that appeared to have lyrics scrambled all over them, on the side there was a ripped out sketchers-ad of Britney, circa early 2000s with a comic-y mustache painted on her face with a blue marker and a speech bubble saying "Hit Me Baby One More Time", in all caps, below it, in Darren's familiar handwriting, just a little wider, "What does that even mean?"

She chuckled when she saw it and he let out a "Huh?" from the other side of the room.

She turned around to find him looking at her, a set of large boxershorts and a gray T-shirt in his hands.

"Oh", he smiled when he saw what she was cheekily pointing at, "Just sentimental decor"

He shrugged and threw her the clothes, adding; "I'm gonna go brush my teeth"

She caught the fabric and began undressing, musing how there were so many things so like Darren in this room but that also some things seemed to be missing, giving away that no one constantly lived her anymore, the little things Darren kept in his house in LA, the chess board, most of his books, the silly toy-cars he took such pride and joy in..it was missing here but it was still charming. She felt like she'd stepped into a time capsule and it was exciting to get to have a window into his life growing up like that, just like wearing his old boxers and shirt did, she thought putting them on.

They oddly smelled like him..he probably still used the same detergent his family used.

That thought made her smile.

Seeing this side of him made her feel like she throuroughly knew him finally and it was a weird sensation to stand in his childhood-and-youth bedroom, feeling like she somehow belonged there. She wondered if she'd known him back then, if they'd eventually ended up together as well..she was dead sure that back in High School she would have just about worshipped the ground he stepped on.

She wondered what it would have been like to only have each other to care for, to not worry about anything but being together, with nobody hugely interested in their puppy love. No photographers, no weary bosses, no gossip blogs that somehow felt like they had the right to share their relationship with the curious world..like an invisible third party in their union. Had they been together back then, it would've just been them..no one else to worry about.

The faint longing returned, wishing she could go there with him, not for long, she wouldn't really want to trade their lives, despite the complications, but just for a week or a month or so, she'd love to see how their relationship would be if it was freed of the outside pressure and the constant need to beat around the bushes and keep it relatively low-key. So much that she couldn't even really kiss him whenever she wanted to..

When she joined Darren in the bathroom, he had already stripped to his boxer briefs and was brushing away.

"I like your room", she said, forgetting about her almost grim thoughts immediately and let herself slump flush against his back, putting her hands lightly on his hip bones, tracing the 'V' line she was so obsessed with, loving the feel of his warm skin under hers. She put a soft smooch between his shoulder blades and felt him quiver.

"Cold hands", he shuddered, white foam around his lips and she laughed quietly as he buckled forward to rinse his mouth.

"Sorry", she smirked and letting him go, grabbing a still packed toothbrush from the sink, "Is that for me?"

"Yep", he said, retracing back into the room and spoke from the doorway, "Mom thought of everything, she even remembered that I told her your favorite color was purple"

"I already love your Mom", Lea said and waved the purple toothbrush in the air like a trophy.

A few minutes later, Darren was already spread out under the comforter, smiling groggily when she made a silly sexy pose leaning against the door-frame.

"How do I look in your old, frumpy clothes?", she asked seductively.

"Hey", he protested meekly, "They aren't that bad..but yeah, very sexy, better get over here so I can cuddle you to sleep, you sexy beast"

He held the comforter up as an invitation and she couldn't resist long, almost running to him, jumping under the blanket and snuggling close to him.

"Ah, cold feet", he whined again.

"Then make them warm, you baby", she said, mocking him and before he turned out the light she made sure he saw her roll her eyes.

He chuckled faintly and ran a finger through her hair, fixing a strand that had escaped into her face.

"I really, really like it here", Lea said, sleepily, very aware that she was repeating herself but he took it gladly and kissed her with acknowledgement.

"I'm really, really glad you do", he muttered, suppressing a yawn, "I can't wait to show you everything, there's the little coffee shop down the street and.."

He mumbled on but by the third thing he mentioned his voice drifted off as he fell asleep mid-sentence. He did that often. And she smiled because..well, it was adorable.

She took a while to sleep, until his feet had fully warmed hers but then she eventually dozed off as well.

Lea woke up from muffled rumblings coming from the bathroom. She suspected Darren at first but then she noticed that he was still sound asleep next to her, one arm draped over her belly and she tried to sit up without disturbing him, turning her head to the noise. It was already light out, warm sunbeams breaking through the heavy curtains.

Suddenly a face appeared, peaking out the bathroom, a middle-aged woman with a kind face and precisely Darren's eyes.

"Oh sorry", she whispered hurriedly, leaving the restroom and walking with quick tiny steps towards the door, "I didn't mean to wake you up, I'd just forgotten to put new towels in the drawer"

"It's fine", Lea hurried to say, "Really, thank you so much..um..I'm Lea by the way"

She tried not to think of how awkward it was that she met his mother properly for the first time while literally in bed with her son…

"I know, he told me he would bring you, we're all very excited to meet you", she smiled kindly and it was just as infectious as Darren's smiles, making her feel just as warm and welcome inside and she felt an even stringer bond to the woman when she affectionately glanced over to the mess of black curls beside Lea and sighed happily as only a mother can about her son returning home, "He sleeps like a stone, doesn't he?"

Lea nodded, looking down at him, her impression instantly matching that of his mother, praising, like he was the most precious thing..they were united in that thought instantaneously.

"Well, I'll let you go back to sleep now, just come down whenever you feel like it, I'll get breakfast ready", his Mom said and Lea felt her sympathy grow by the second.

"Thank you so much Mrs. Criss", she said eagerly.

"Always", she said, "And you can call me Biyenan*"

oOo

*google says this is the tagalog word for mother or father in law..if it's not, please correct me.

Also this is not to say Darren and Lea are married (because it would be weird if she only then properly met his mother) but I liked it for the ending so..humor me :)