AT THE END
Title: At The End
Author: funnilyenough
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and kissing, obviously.
Word Count: 2,638
Disclaimer: This couldn't be less true if it tried.
Summary: Kris and Adam at the end of the world (kind of).
Notes: Every fanfic author has to write an apocalypse story at some point - here’s mine. Prepare to suspend your disbelief.
“Remind me why we thought it was a good idea to hide in the library?” Kris asks, voice strained.
Adam rolls his eyes as he helps to push another bookshelf up against the door.
“That’s where they always hide. Did you even see Day After Tomorrow?”
*
“Remind me why we thought it was a good idea to hide in the library?” Kris asks, voice strained.
Adam rolls his eyes as he helps to push another bookshelf up against the door.
“That’s where they always hide. Did you even see Day After Tomorrow?”
Kris shakes his head and Adam can see him wincing as a couple of books fall out and whack him on the shoulder.
“There,” says Adam, panting, bracing a hand at the mantle of the fireplace. “That should do it for now.”
Kris collapses into an armchair and shuts his eyes. Adam wanders over to the opposite one, inspecting their handiwork. They have blocked the door with four bookcases, strategically placed so that if the water manages to climb up seven flights, most of it will be kept out of the small office study they have taken up position in, if not held off for some time.
They have collected all the food from vending machines they could find (eight bags of pretzels, nine bags of Lays chips, gum, and some Twizzlers) and filled the bottles Kris had in his bag with water from a tap in a bathroom. They had procured it just in time - about thirty seconds later, icy cold salt water swept across the tiles, rendering the bathroom impossible to re-enter.
That was when they last saw other people: a father and daughter, pale and terrified, clutching each other for warmth.
Because of course the apocalypse would decide to arrive in the dead of winter.
Kris is shaking, and Adam feels utterly helpless.
“This sucks,” he says somewhat lamely.
Kris has a somewhat darker view of things. “You realize,” he begins, eyes still closed like he doesn’t want to face what he’s saying, “that we are probably never going to leave this room. The tsunami will flood the entire city and we won’t be able to leave. Everyone will be dead. Millions.”
“Kris, don’t.”
“Which do you think we’ll die of first, starvation or cold?”
Adam considers him for a moment. “Starvation.”
Kris nods. “Yeah. Probably. Considering our rations.”
“Or, you know,” Adam says, leaning forward a little and rubbing his hands together. “We might get rescued.”
Kris opens his eyes only to give Adam an exasperated, tired look like a father would give a child. “You heard what it said on the news. It could be weeks before the country gets its act together. And it’s not like it’s just us. This is happening all over.”
“But, I mean, we are Kris Allen and Adam Lambert, rock gods,” he jokes weakly. “Surely someone will try to save us.”
Kris does not seem to appreciate the attempt at humor. His hand goes for the empty space around his ring finger and he tries to twist there, like he used to. Adam pretends he doesn’t notice and gropes for something to say.
The awkwardness is there, Adam knew it would be. It is palpable, he can feel it in the icy air around them.
Kris and Katy got a divorce a month ago, and since the night that he and Kris got a little too drunk and made out for three minutes, Adam can’t help but wonder if he is part of the reason.
Adam isn’t stupid. He saw the weird looks Kris kept giving him after the end-of-tour-party-make-out. He noticed the way Kris was uptight suddenly, the casual ease of their touchy-feely friendship evaporated, to the media’s dismay. And Adam knows what this means, as little as he’d like to face it. He’s converted one too many a confused straight boy in his lifetime not to know.
Whatever is between them is big, and scary. And it kind of screwed everything up. They hardly called each other in the months following the tour, despite the fact that they used to talk every night. They barely see one another, and when they do it’s different. The same tension is there that was always there, but now it gets in the way of their friendship like it didn’t before.
And yet, when they are in the city for album promotion, naturally their paths cross.
News of the tsunami hit as they were sitting in a bagel joint, trying to come up with conversation that steered around such taboo topics as Katy, divorce, relationships, and the infamous make-out. It wouldn’t normally be such a problem. Adam usually laughs off situations like this - he isn’t an awkward person. He prefers to insult someone and have the argument out in the open rather than beat around the bush. He is by no means passive-aggressive. And yet sometimes, despite what the media likes to say, he has no choice but to grow a filter if he has something to lose, and by god does he have something to lose when it comes to Kris.
Kris has always been adorable in a ‘let’s say how much we love each other before I fuck your brains out’ kind of way. But that tiny notion that’s been in the back of Adam’s mind since, well, day one really, was never worth acting on. They were best friends, closer than Adam had ever been with anyone in a completely nonromantic sense. And then, obviously, they had managed to go and fuck it up anyway.
It’s impossible to say who initiated it. Matt swears to this day that Kris threw his drink and leaned in, while Megan advocates that Adam bumped Kris’ face by accident and then it all kind of went off from there.
Adam doesn’t think it was him. He trusts his own willpower enough to believe that he wouldn’t go kissing his best friend on the dance floor in front of all the idols, Drake, and Kris’ wife. Not on purpose, anyway. But however it had happened, they had ended up with their arms around each other, drinks on the floor and forgotten, and lips locked like there was no tomorrow.
Everyone pretty much took it as a big joke. Danny tried to make out with Kris a couple of times after that, to which Kris responded by recoiling horribly. Adam’s publicist worried that someone had nabbed a photo, or worse, a video.
Adam didn’t care at all about that. He only cared about how this would affect his relationship with Kris, and it has, in the worst possible way.
“I just wish I could call my mom,” Kris says eventually. “She must be freaking out.”
Adam scowls at his dead cell phone, which is lying on the coffee table.
“She’s probably safe. She’s probably already being evacuated,” Adam says by way of comfort, but almost regrets it as Kris stills and says nothing; Adam knows Kris can’t repeat the sentiment, for Adam’s parents are on the coast, in a position of danger.
Adam rises and starts pacing, to keep his mind off the hunger that is already gnawing away at him. “I can’t worry, you know? There’s no reason to worry. What’s happening to us is happening to everybody. Yes, many of our friends and family are going to die, but so are we. The best we can do is try to stay alive for as long as possible, and I don’t want to spend that time worrying.”
Kris looks up. “How do you want to spend the time?”
Adam stares back, and for a moment, he doesn’t feel cold anymore.
“Scrabble?” he offers.
He meant it as a joke, but they extract the dusty board-game from one of the shelves anyway.
Kris clearly tries throughout the whole game not to show his surprise at how good Adam is; In just an hour and a half, the board is awash with words like ‘candid,’ ‘jostle,’ and ‘idiom.’ Kris’ best move so far has been ‘quail.’
“Damn, Adam,” he says, laughing a little. “You’re killing me.”
Adam shrugs, but feels an evil grin escape onto his face anyway. “I can have quite an adept vocabulary.”
Though they take it seriously at first, after Adam argues that ‘jizz’ should count as a real word and then lets Kris’ ‘gangsta’ slide through, they fall apart and end up joking around for the rest of the game.
It seems like the awkwardness is gone for the time being, but as soon as the game is over, Kris seems to sink into depression again. Apparently, he no longer has anything to say to Adam.
Moodily, Adam pokes around the few pathetic logs among the ash in the fireplace and sets them on fire with his lighter (thank god he took up smoking again), and then they decide to go to sleep.
As Adam shifts for the hundredth time, trying to get comfortable on the line of armchair cushions they’ve arranged side by side next to the fire, he can’t help but think they should be doing something great with their final days. All they’ve done is play scrabble. Shouldn’t they be documenting this, writing an account of the great tsunami so the future world will know what they went through?
But Adam’s grand thoughts grow weary, and he figures, as he drifts off, that he and Kris are just a couple of singers, important to a few people, who should die alongside everyone else. He needs to try to stop making himself important.
He awakens sharply in the middle of a dream involving Drake chasing after him with a pick axe. He has no idea why he woke up, until he feels something warm move against him.
He freezes, breathing quickening instantly. He tries not to move, but it’s difficult to go undetected as Kris is snuggled entirely up against him: Kris’ chest is pressed flush to Adam’s back, Adam’s coat thrown over both of them. Their thighs are touching back to front and Kris’ face is mushed into the place where Adam’s upper-back becomes his neck. Worst of all (or best of all, depending on how you looked at it), Kris’ arm is wrapped completely around him, tucking them in together the way they used to jokingly snuggle up on the tour bus couch.
Adam struggles not to seem stiff and yet not move at all at the same time. Kris probably scooted over for the body heat, of which Adam provides plenty, but the question is whether he was half asleep at the time or whether he moved deliberately.
They’ve never fallen asleep together like this before, and it’s the most intimate, close way that their bodies have ever touched, besides the kiss.
Adam lets out a happy sigh. He’s probably never going to have sex again, so the least he can do is enjoy this while it lasts.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long at all. Within minutes, Kris is stirring (Adam can feel his fingers tighten against his chest), and then, abruptly, his body jerks.
Kris sits up fast, and Adam sits up with him. Kris’ eyes are darting everywhere, he’s panting, and he looks shocked.
After a few seconds during which Kris seems to calm down, his eyes finally land on Adam.
“Sorry. I... I was cold, I guess.”
Adam puts up his hands. “Hey, don’t apologize. I was enjoying it. The heat, I mean.”
Kris’ eyes go wide - Adam grins so that Kris has to know what he really means. What the hell, Adam thinks. Where’s the fun in their last few days if they don’t get to flirt a little?
Kris licks his lips and Adam can’t help but stare at their full wetness. He remembers what they felt like against his far too clearly for his own good, remembers worrying that bottom lip with his teeth.
“Sorry,” says Kris again. Maybe he knows what Adam is thinking.
“I told you not to apol - ”
“No, I mean, I’m sorry I freaked out on you after... after we kissed.”
Adam never thought he would hear those words leave Kris’ mouth so brazenly. He can feel every fiber of his body light on fire.
“So we really are going to have this conversation?” he asks casually.
Kris grimaces at him. “It’s all my fault. I ruined us. We used to be so great.”
“It’s not anymore your fault than mine.”
Kris shakes his head. “No. I got weird, you didn’t. And I’m pretty sure I’m the one who leaned in.”
Adam pauses for a moment, debating how to go about this. “I thought you didn’t remember.”
Kris looks away. “Turns out I do.”
Adam has no idea what to say to that. He has a thousand questions but no means to communicate them. He wants to know specifically what Kris remembers of that night but can’t find the balls to ask.
Kris shivers violently.
“You’re freezing. We should relight the fire,” Adam says.
“Okay,” Kris agrees.
They lie back down on their respective cushions and face each other, the newly crackling fire casting reds and oranges and yellows on Kris’ face. Neither says anything for a moment.
“I missed this,” Adam says, voice coming out far too soft and vulnerable.
Kris grins unexpectedly. “Remember when we used to stay up all night bitching about Simon?”
“And Danny back in the early days?”
Kris laughs, shining smile only a few feet away. “I would never have gotten through the tour without our late-nights discussions.”
“I know, right? You were practically my night-light. I couldn’t sleep if we didn’t talk, even if we had nothing to say.”
Kris’ smile fades. “I feel awful for abandoning you.”
“You didn’t ‘abandon’ me, Kris.”
“It’s just, I’ve had such a hard time these past few months. Not many people understood me,” he took a few deep breaths. “You would have understood me.”
Adam can’t keep his hand from reaching out to touch Kris’ shoulder. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“But it does,” Kris says violently. “It matters more than ever. I fucked it all up and now we have no time together at all. I worked too hard. The albums aren’t gonna be important when we’re dead. But you. You’re still here with me. You’re going to be important until the very end.”
Adam smiles sadly at him. “I kind of love you a lot, alright? You don’t have to be anything but you. Don’t worry about the past. Like I said. It doesn’t matter.”
Kris turns over onto his back and closes his eyes, yawning. “I love you too, Adam. We’re good together.”
That statement should stress Adam out. It should send him spiraling into confusion, complications, and endless analysis. But in the moment, it feels appropriate. Expected. And the only thing it makes Adam feel is happy. What else is important when they’ve only got a week or so left? And it’s this thought that compels Adam to say what he says next.
“Come here.”
“Huh?” replies Kris sleepily.
Adam taps him on the shoulder, and Kris looks at him.
“Come here,” he repeats.
Kris obeys, snuggling up close and tight. They are front to front this time, Adam tucking Kris’ head under his chin and feeling the prickle of Kris’ hair against his neck. Kris’ arms wrap around Adam again and stroke slowly up and down. Adam fits their legs together, buries a hand in Kris’ hair, and closes his eyes.
It is the fastest he has fallen asleep in years.
*
When Adam wakes up, they are in the exact same position. He looks around and everything else is the same, too. The bookshelves are still poised against the door. Their stock of snacks is still arranged on the mantle. No one has come to rescue them, and all is silent. It looks like they are really going to go through this after all.
The end of the world. Together.
Adam thinks he can face it.
Author: funnilyenough
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and kissing, obviously.
Word Count: 2,638
Disclaimer: This couldn't be less true if it tried.
Summary: Kris and Adam at the end of the world (kind of).
Notes: Every fanfic author has to write an apocalypse story at some point - here’s mine. Prepare to suspend your disbelief.
“Remind me why we thought it was a good idea to hide in the library?” Kris asks, voice strained.
Adam rolls his eyes as he helps to push another bookshelf up against the door.
“That’s where they always hide. Did you even see Day After Tomorrow?”
*
“Remind me why we thought it was a good idea to hide in the library?” Kris asks, voice strained.
Adam rolls his eyes as he helps to push another bookshelf up against the door.
“That’s where they always hide. Did you even see Day After Tomorrow?”
Kris shakes his head and Adam can see him wincing as a couple of books fall out and whack him on the shoulder.
“There,” says Adam, panting, bracing a hand at the mantle of the fireplace. “That should do it for now.”
Kris collapses into an armchair and shuts his eyes. Adam wanders over to the opposite one, inspecting their handiwork. They have blocked the door with four bookcases, strategically placed so that if the water manages to climb up seven flights, most of it will be kept out of the small office study they have taken up position in, if not held off for some time.
They have collected all the food from vending machines they could find (eight bags of pretzels, nine bags of Lays chips, gum, and some Twizzlers) and filled the bottles Kris had in his bag with water from a tap in a bathroom. They had procured it just in time - about thirty seconds later, icy cold salt water swept across the tiles, rendering the bathroom impossible to re-enter.
That was when they last saw other people: a father and daughter, pale and terrified, clutching each other for warmth.
Because of course the apocalypse would decide to arrive in the dead of winter.
Kris is shaking, and Adam feels utterly helpless.
“This sucks,” he says somewhat lamely.
Kris has a somewhat darker view of things. “You realize,” he begins, eyes still closed like he doesn’t want to face what he’s saying, “that we are probably never going to leave this room. The tsunami will flood the entire city and we won’t be able to leave. Everyone will be dead. Millions.”
“Kris, don’t.”
“Which do you think we’ll die of first, starvation or cold?”
Adam considers him for a moment. “Starvation.”
Kris nods. “Yeah. Probably. Considering our rations.”
“Or, you know,” Adam says, leaning forward a little and rubbing his hands together. “We might get rescued.”
Kris opens his eyes only to give Adam an exasperated, tired look like a father would give a child. “You heard what it said on the news. It could be weeks before the country gets its act together. And it’s not like it’s just us. This is happening all over.”
“But, I mean, we are Kris Allen and Adam Lambert, rock gods,” he jokes weakly. “Surely someone will try to save us.”
Kris does not seem to appreciate the attempt at humor. His hand goes for the empty space around his ring finger and he tries to twist there, like he used to. Adam pretends he doesn’t notice and gropes for something to say.
The awkwardness is there, Adam knew it would be. It is palpable, he can feel it in the icy air around them.
Kris and Katy got a divorce a month ago, and since the night that he and Kris got a little too drunk and made out for three minutes, Adam can’t help but wonder if he is part of the reason.
Adam isn’t stupid. He saw the weird looks Kris kept giving him after the end-of-tour-party-make-out. He noticed the way Kris was uptight suddenly, the casual ease of their touchy-feely friendship evaporated, to the media’s dismay. And Adam knows what this means, as little as he’d like to face it. He’s converted one too many a confused straight boy in his lifetime not to know.
Whatever is between them is big, and scary. And it kind of screwed everything up. They hardly called each other in the months following the tour, despite the fact that they used to talk every night. They barely see one another, and when they do it’s different. The same tension is there that was always there, but now it gets in the way of their friendship like it didn’t before.
And yet, when they are in the city for album promotion, naturally their paths cross.
News of the tsunami hit as they were sitting in a bagel joint, trying to come up with conversation that steered around such taboo topics as Katy, divorce, relationships, and the infamous make-out. It wouldn’t normally be such a problem. Adam usually laughs off situations like this - he isn’t an awkward person. He prefers to insult someone and have the argument out in the open rather than beat around the bush. He is by no means passive-aggressive. And yet sometimes, despite what the media likes to say, he has no choice but to grow a filter if he has something to lose, and by god does he have something to lose when it comes to Kris.
Kris has always been adorable in a ‘let’s say how much we love each other before I fuck your brains out’ kind of way. But that tiny notion that’s been in the back of Adam’s mind since, well, day one really, was never worth acting on. They were best friends, closer than Adam had ever been with anyone in a completely nonromantic sense. And then, obviously, they had managed to go and fuck it up anyway.
It’s impossible to say who initiated it. Matt swears to this day that Kris threw his drink and leaned in, while Megan advocates that Adam bumped Kris’ face by accident and then it all kind of went off from there.
Adam doesn’t think it was him. He trusts his own willpower enough to believe that he wouldn’t go kissing his best friend on the dance floor in front of all the idols, Drake, and Kris’ wife. Not on purpose, anyway. But however it had happened, they had ended up with their arms around each other, drinks on the floor and forgotten, and lips locked like there was no tomorrow.
Everyone pretty much took it as a big joke. Danny tried to make out with Kris a couple of times after that, to which Kris responded by recoiling horribly. Adam’s publicist worried that someone had nabbed a photo, or worse, a video.
Adam didn’t care at all about that. He only cared about how this would affect his relationship with Kris, and it has, in the worst possible way.
“I just wish I could call my mom,” Kris says eventually. “She must be freaking out.”
Adam scowls at his dead cell phone, which is lying on the coffee table.
“She’s probably safe. She’s probably already being evacuated,” Adam says by way of comfort, but almost regrets it as Kris stills and says nothing; Adam knows Kris can’t repeat the sentiment, for Adam’s parents are on the coast, in a position of danger.
Adam rises and starts pacing, to keep his mind off the hunger that is already gnawing away at him. “I can’t worry, you know? There’s no reason to worry. What’s happening to us is happening to everybody. Yes, many of our friends and family are going to die, but so are we. The best we can do is try to stay alive for as long as possible, and I don’t want to spend that time worrying.”
Kris looks up. “How do you want to spend the time?”
Adam stares back, and for a moment, he doesn’t feel cold anymore.
“Scrabble?” he offers.
He meant it as a joke, but they extract the dusty board-game from one of the shelves anyway.
Kris clearly tries throughout the whole game not to show his surprise at how good Adam is; In just an hour and a half, the board is awash with words like ‘candid,’ ‘jostle,’ and ‘idiom.’ Kris’ best move so far has been ‘quail.’
“Damn, Adam,” he says, laughing a little. “You’re killing me.”
Adam shrugs, but feels an evil grin escape onto his face anyway. “I can have quite an adept vocabulary.”
Though they take it seriously at first, after Adam argues that ‘jizz’ should count as a real word and then lets Kris’ ‘gangsta’ slide through, they fall apart and end up joking around for the rest of the game.
It seems like the awkwardness is gone for the time being, but as soon as the game is over, Kris seems to sink into depression again. Apparently, he no longer has anything to say to Adam.
Moodily, Adam pokes around the few pathetic logs among the ash in the fireplace and sets them on fire with his lighter (thank god he took up smoking again), and then they decide to go to sleep.
As Adam shifts for the hundredth time, trying to get comfortable on the line of armchair cushions they’ve arranged side by side next to the fire, he can’t help but think they should be doing something great with their final days. All they’ve done is play scrabble. Shouldn’t they be documenting this, writing an account of the great tsunami so the future world will know what they went through?
But Adam’s grand thoughts grow weary, and he figures, as he drifts off, that he and Kris are just a couple of singers, important to a few people, who should die alongside everyone else. He needs to try to stop making himself important.
He awakens sharply in the middle of a dream involving Drake chasing after him with a pick axe. He has no idea why he woke up, until he feels something warm move against him.
He freezes, breathing quickening instantly. He tries not to move, but it’s difficult to go undetected as Kris is snuggled entirely up against him: Kris’ chest is pressed flush to Adam’s back, Adam’s coat thrown over both of them. Their thighs are touching back to front and Kris’ face is mushed into the place where Adam’s upper-back becomes his neck. Worst of all (or best of all, depending on how you looked at it), Kris’ arm is wrapped completely around him, tucking them in together the way they used to jokingly snuggle up on the tour bus couch.
Adam struggles not to seem stiff and yet not move at all at the same time. Kris probably scooted over for the body heat, of which Adam provides plenty, but the question is whether he was half asleep at the time or whether he moved deliberately.
They’ve never fallen asleep together like this before, and it’s the most intimate, close way that their bodies have ever touched, besides the kiss.
Adam lets out a happy sigh. He’s probably never going to have sex again, so the least he can do is enjoy this while it lasts.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long at all. Within minutes, Kris is stirring (Adam can feel his fingers tighten against his chest), and then, abruptly, his body jerks.
Kris sits up fast, and Adam sits up with him. Kris’ eyes are darting everywhere, he’s panting, and he looks shocked.
After a few seconds during which Kris seems to calm down, his eyes finally land on Adam.
“Sorry. I... I was cold, I guess.”
Adam puts up his hands. “Hey, don’t apologize. I was enjoying it. The heat, I mean.”
Kris’ eyes go wide - Adam grins so that Kris has to know what he really means. What the hell, Adam thinks. Where’s the fun in their last few days if they don’t get to flirt a little?
Kris licks his lips and Adam can’t help but stare at their full wetness. He remembers what they felt like against his far too clearly for his own good, remembers worrying that bottom lip with his teeth.
“Sorry,” says Kris again. Maybe he knows what Adam is thinking.
“I told you not to apol - ”
“No, I mean, I’m sorry I freaked out on you after... after we kissed.”
Adam never thought he would hear those words leave Kris’ mouth so brazenly. He can feel every fiber of his body light on fire.
“So we really are going to have this conversation?” he asks casually.
Kris grimaces at him. “It’s all my fault. I ruined us. We used to be so great.”
“It’s not anymore your fault than mine.”
Kris shakes his head. “No. I got weird, you didn’t. And I’m pretty sure I’m the one who leaned in.”
Adam pauses for a moment, debating how to go about this. “I thought you didn’t remember.”
Kris looks away. “Turns out I do.”
Adam has no idea what to say to that. He has a thousand questions but no means to communicate them. He wants to know specifically what Kris remembers of that night but can’t find the balls to ask.
Kris shivers violently.
“You’re freezing. We should relight the fire,” Adam says.
“Okay,” Kris agrees.
They lie back down on their respective cushions and face each other, the newly crackling fire casting reds and oranges and yellows on Kris’ face. Neither says anything for a moment.
“I missed this,” Adam says, voice coming out far too soft and vulnerable.
Kris grins unexpectedly. “Remember when we used to stay up all night bitching about Simon?”
“And Danny back in the early days?”
Kris laughs, shining smile only a few feet away. “I would never have gotten through the tour without our late-nights discussions.”
“I know, right? You were practically my night-light. I couldn’t sleep if we didn’t talk, even if we had nothing to say.”
Kris’ smile fades. “I feel awful for abandoning you.”
“You didn’t ‘abandon’ me, Kris.”
“It’s just, I’ve had such a hard time these past few months. Not many people understood me,” he took a few deep breaths. “You would have understood me.”
Adam can’t keep his hand from reaching out to touch Kris’ shoulder. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“But it does,” Kris says violently. “It matters more than ever. I fucked it all up and now we have no time together at all. I worked too hard. The albums aren’t gonna be important when we’re dead. But you. You’re still here with me. You’re going to be important until the very end.”
Adam smiles sadly at him. “I kind of love you a lot, alright? You don’t have to be anything but you. Don’t worry about the past. Like I said. It doesn’t matter.”
Kris turns over onto his back and closes his eyes, yawning. “I love you too, Adam. We’re good together.”
That statement should stress Adam out. It should send him spiraling into confusion, complications, and endless analysis. But in the moment, it feels appropriate. Expected. And the only thing it makes Adam feel is happy. What else is important when they’ve only got a week or so left? And it’s this thought that compels Adam to say what he says next.
“Come here.”
“Huh?” replies Kris sleepily.
Adam taps him on the shoulder, and Kris looks at him.
“Come here,” he repeats.
Kris obeys, snuggling up close and tight. They are front to front this time, Adam tucking Kris’ head under his chin and feeling the prickle of Kris’ hair against his neck. Kris’ arms wrap around Adam again and stroke slowly up and down. Adam fits their legs together, buries a hand in Kris’ hair, and closes his eyes.
It is the fastest he has fallen asleep in years.
*
When Adam wakes up, they are in the exact same position. He looks around and everything else is the same, too. The bookshelves are still poised against the door. Their stock of snacks is still arranged on the mantle. No one has come to rescue them, and all is silent. It looks like they are really going to go through this after all.
The end of the world. Together.
Adam thinks he can face it.