fic: he rings my bell (1/2)
title: he rings my bell (1/2)
author: moirariordan
rating: R! vague sex within!
words: ~17,800
summary: Kris’s Foolproof Relationship Fidelity Test, by Dr. Megan Joy.
notes: for au_bingo. Also dansetheblues is an amazing person who will read anything I send her and send me back these long awesome emails with the best feedback ever. This was also read by a couple awesome people on my flist, but I am an ~idiot and uh, can't match up emails with usernames, so...I'm sorry. *shameface*
Title is from Teenage Dirtbag, originally by Wheatus, covered by Girls Aloud. Listen to both versions immediately. This song owns every other high school song, ever. Ever. This is non-negotiable.
It’s a well-documented fact, that Kris epically fails at flirting. And by well-documented, he actually means well-documented, because Megan did an experiment once, and took copious notes. And video.
And it’s not like he’s bad at it, when he does make an effort to try, and he’s not too nervous or restless or anything. It’s just that he doesn’t ever really realize when somebody is flirting versus when they aren’t. It took him two months before he realized that Adam had been trying to hit on him, and if it hadn’t been for a texting mishap and a smack in the head from Megan, Kris might have never realized it at all.
But it’s not like he has a real reason to flirt with anyone anymore, now that he has Adam. Not that Adam still doesn’t flirt with him now that they’re together, but he usually warns Kris first, which Kris really appreciates.
So Kris doesn’t think he should be blamed for this situation, since everyone knows this fact about him, so it’s totally not his fault, and besides it was Megan’s idea to go to the party anyway, even though they have early bird P.E. tomorrow morning, and it’s a two-hour drive back from UCLA, but Megan was all, don’t you want to surprise your boyfriend, you haven’t seen him in weeks! and we can always skip tomorrow, it’s not like Rinehart gives a shit and it’s like, a preview of the college experience, it’s totally constructive, like Kris doesn’t know that she totally has the hots for Adam’s roommate.
And it started out innocently enough, they’d gotten to Adam’s dorm and Kris had sat on the futon for forty minutes while Megan and Anoop flirted, trying not to seem too obviously impatient (even though he was), and also resisting the urge to text Adam again, since he’d already sent him like five messages and he didn’t want to be too desperate. Then one of Anoop’s friends had stopped by and mentioned that they’d just seen Adam at a party at the performing arts house, and so they’d decided to go to that, but Megan got distracted by the guy’s tattoos and so they’d spent another ten minutes talking about her grand body art plans for herself, and then another fifteen after that walking across campus because Megan just had to keep jumping on Anoop’s back every five feet, and then there was the tickle-fight, which, let’s not even bring that up.
So by the time that they actually got to the party, Kris was distracted and jittery and impatient and all he wanted was to find Adam and hug him for like, ever, only the place was packed and everybody was drunk, and he didn’t know anybody and Megan and Anoop disappeared right away to go do…something (Kris doesn’t wanna think about it) and if he had to take a guess as to where Adam would be, it’d be the dance floor-slash-living room with the strobe light and the big-ass speakers, and Kris just didn’t have the energy or the courage to deal with that, so he’d ended up on a couch with some dude who kept smiling a lot and asking Kris weird questions, and it’s not his fault that he didn’t recognize that that was flirting, apparently, it was probably weird, definitely drunk flirting and anyway Kris was distracted.
And then he’d finally spotted Adam, as a rush of people fled the house for the front yard all at once and the room kind of cleared, and Kris looked up and saw him standing by the kitchen counter, pouring a drink and looking awesome, only he was talking to this other guy, who was kind of skinny and pale but he was cute, and he had a weird floppy haircut and streaks of black and blue in his bangs, and he kept laughing and smiling and Kris got really occupied with what they possibly could be talking about and had stopped paying attention to the drunk flirting person. And then Adam looked over and saw Kris and his eyebrows rose and his eyes got really wide, and then there was this flash of sweaty-drunk breath and then Kris was getting kissed, like totally out of nowhere.
It was really rude, and anyway it wasn’t like Kris had been flirting back, or even paying attention to him at all, and Kris pushed him away really fast, but Adam still stomped over all mad and started yelling at both of them, and then dragged Kris out of there like a big diva, and a bunch of people stared and Kris kept trying to explain and calm Adam down but he wouldn’t listen, and now they’ve been sitting in Adam’s dorm for like, two hours and Adam is still sulking, and really, Kris thinks he’s overreacting just a little.
“I am not overreacting,” Adam tells him pissily, digging through his closet a little maniacally, clothes and shoes flying around him frantically. “You show up out of nowhere like, why didn’t you find me, you ass? How long were you there, just chilling on the fucking make out couch with random drunk creepers? You didn’t even tell me you were coming!”
“It was a last-minute decision!” Kris dodges a boot and crosses his arms. “And I didn’t know he was gonna kiss me - “
“It was the make out couch!”
“I didn’t know that, I don’t go here!” Kris frowns. “And I texted you like a million times.”
“You did not,” Adam says, shoving his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out his phone. “…oh.”
“See?” Kris collapses on the futon and glares up at Adam, frowning down at his phone and standing in a huge pile of denim and leather. “And I tried to find you at the party, like I already said like thirty times, but it was too crowded so I did the thing where you stay in one place.”
Adam looks up at him, eyebrows scrunched together. “What?”
Kris waves his hand vaguely. “You know, where when you get lost you stay in one spot and wait for your parents to find you, or whatever.”
Adam looks painfully torn between incredulity and hysterical laughter. “Did you just compare this situation to the time when you got lost at the mall when you were nine?”
Kris never should’ve told him about that. “…no.” Adam succumbs to the second option, bending over to grab onto the dresser for support, as if his giggles could actually make him tip over and fall like a cartoon, which Kris doesn’t actually doubt all that much. “Shut up.”
“You asshole,” Adam says fondly, throwing his phone onto his desk and climbing up next to Kris on the futon. “You were still kissing that guy, though. Kristopher.” He nudges at Kris’s shoulder with his chin, poking him in the side of his stomach and making him jump.
“I didn’t mean to,” Kris murmurs, distracted by the russet mess of Adam’s hair, which smells kind of like coconuts. He reaches up and runs his hands through it, and catches sight of a little glitter on Adam’s scalp between the strands, which makes him smile. It’s like a secret, that only Kris knows about. He bets the guy with the floppy hair doesn’t know that there’s glitter on Adam’s head, that’s for sure. “And it was only for a second.”
“Still counts,” Adam says petulantly. “There’s no kissing of any kind allowed, unless it’s with me. Should I have put that more clearly when we started dating?”
“No,” Kris says, feeling genuinely bad. “I’m really sorry.”
Adam sighs and pulls Kris backwards until they’re laying all tangled up on the futon, wiggling his hands until they’re on Kris’s bare back, beneath his shirt. “I guess I forgive you,” he says, “but only if you send me another thing of cookies.”
“Aww man,” Kris groans, “I sent you three packages already this month, the shipping alone is cleaning me out.”
“You cheated on me tonight, technically, and you’re bitching about stamps,” Adam says, aghast, and Kris pinches him, and then Adam pinches him back, and growls at him and goes, “you’re gonna pay for that,” which means kissing, and then they end up making out until Megan and Anoop get back and start teasing them about putting a post-it on the doorknob.
It’s really nice, just hanging out with Adam and Megan, like they used to before Adam graduated, and Anoop is cool and meshes with the three of them seamlessly, and it’s almost three in the morning before any of them are willing to admit that really, Kris and Megan should’ve left like five hours ago and let’s face it, there’s no way that anybody is making it to anything earlybird in the morning.
Adam suggests that they just crash there and drive home in the morning, but Megan says her mom will freak out and there’s no way that she can call now and wake her up. Kris’s parents think he’s staying over at Charles’s house though, and so Adam insists that he stay to make up for the party fiasco (which Kris has a feeling will be Adam’s leverage to get Kris to do anything he wants for the next like, four months) and so after Kris makes sure that Megan’s okay driving back by herself (“um, who do I look like, you?”) he climbs into Adam’s lofted bed with him and curls up by his side, falling asleep to the beat of Adam’s pulse against his cheek.
Anoop wakes them up the next morning by falling out of his bed, and Adam throws a pillow at him and tells him to try not to kill himself because Adam’s too tired to call 911, and Anoop responds by cranking rap music and driving both Adam and Kris out of the room out of sheer horror. Adam takes him out to breakfast at the cafeteria and they eat greasy eggs and toast while Kris keeps falling asleep against Adam’s shoulder, feet propped up on the chair across from them and one of Adam’s leather jackets wrapped around his shoulders. Then Adam drives him home and Kris sleeps most of the way, which he feels bad about, until he wakes up when Adam stops for gas just out of town and goes, “hey, don’t you have class?” And Adam just laughs at him and tosses him a Twix bar he bought for him inside.
Kris has missed most of the day by then, and he can’t go home cuz his mom will kill him for skipping, so they go to Adam’s house and sleep some more until Leila comes home early and catches them, and scolds them for a few minutes before rolling her eyes and ordering pizza.
Adam does have a rehearsal that he can’t miss though, so he drops Kris off at home and they have a ridiculously long goodbye that Daniel interrupts by yelling, “ew, kissing!” at the top of his lungs out of his bedroom window, which is just lame. Adam just laughs though, and hugs Kris really tight before climbing in his car and driving away, loud music pumping through his speakers and rolling out his open windows, fading away into the distance sadly as Kris sits on his front step and watches.
He does get caught for skipping school, he forgot that the secretary calls parents’ cell phone numbers now. He gets grounded for the rest of week, and he’s not allowed to go to the open mic night that he and Megan were gonna play at anymore, but it’s totally worth it.
--
The trouble is, though, that Kris can’t keep his mouth shut about floppy-haired guy. So he tells Megan, which is a huge mistake.
“Who is he?” she demands, eyes wide beneath this big blue hat-shaped object on her head that she’s wearing, despite the no-hat policy and the warning from three separate teachers. “I didn’t see any guy with floppy hair. What were they talking about? Is he in theatre too? How long has Adam known him? Has he mentioned him to you or is it like, a casual, oh sit next to each other in class and nod at each other on the sidewalk kinda friendship?”
Kris looks over at her dumbly. “When do you breathe?”
Megan ignores him. “Did you ask Adam about him?”
“No, I - “
“Why not?”
Kris huffs in frustration. “I didn’t really have time to.”
“What, you couldn’t take two minutes away from macking on him to ask him a question?” Megan smirks. “Don’t answer that.”
Kris rubs at his neck awkwardly, trying to will away the blush creeping up it. “Okay, uh, never mind okay - “
“What do you mean never mind, you just said you were really jealous when you saw them.”
“I wasn’t really jealous, it’s really not that big of a deal.”
“But you just said you were jealous,” Megan says, “and that it was kind of a big deal. Like, you said those exact words, so - “
“Okay, I take it back.”
“You can’t just take it back.”
“I just did,” Kris says. “Can we talk about something else?”
“No,” Megan replies, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Do you think he’s cheating on you?”
“What?” Kris snaps. “Of course not!”
“Well it’s not like it’s that radical of an idea,” Megan says. Kris gapes at her. “He’s in college now, meeting a bunch of new people, experiencing new things, far away from you, it’s not that illogical to expect him to slip up - “
“Oh my God,” Kris interrupts. “Please, please let’s talk about something else.”
“Hey, it’s not like I want him to, or that I think he is, sweets, just that it’s a legitimate fear,” Megan says comfortingly. “Let me do some research, and we’ll figure it out.”
Kris glares at her. “You’re a horrible friend,” he calls out as she wanders off towards the library. She blows him a kiss.
He thinks - hopes - she’ll let it go, but of course she doesn’t, and shows up at his house a few days later with a bulging backpack and her serious face on.
“Okay,” she says, and slams her bag on the table decisively. “I have the solution to your problem.”
Kris blinks, looking up from his Geometry book. “I don’t have a problem,” he replies. “Are you wearing glasses?”
“They make me look more authoritative.” Megan pulls a chair out and climbs on top of it, arranging her legs into an impossibly tangled mess and tugging her bag towards her. “What are you doing homework for? Don’t you want to save your relationship?”
“My relationship is not in trouble,” Kris says. Megan snorts. “It isn’t.”
“You seemed to think so the other day.”
Kris starts to sorely regret telling her anything. “I was overreacting.”
Megan peeks at him over the rim of her fake-glasses. “You never get upset unless it’s for a good reason.”
“I wasn’t upset,” Kris says. “I wasn’t.”
“Oookay.”
“I wasn’t!”
“Whatever.” Megan unzips the bag and digs out a three-ring binder overflowing with paper. “Okay, with the help of my mom’s stack of girly magazines, I think I have a foolproof cheating test. I had to do some serious tweaking, but I think I came up with something pretty good.”
“With girly magazines?” Kris asks skeptically.
“Yeah, you know those quizzes, Is He Cheating On You?” Megan rolls her eyes, waggling her fingers. “Most of them are for, you know, heteros. Or like, older people, I guess. So obviously not all of them apply to you. Stupid gender roles.” She shrugs, flipping the binder open to a sheet of notebook paper with her immaculate handwriting on it, each question meticulously written in a different color ink. “So I kind of like, combined them all, and modified it to apply to you and Adam, specifically. The magazines were really just a guide.”
Kris takes it from her, skimming the questions quickly. “Megan, this is ridiculous,” he says incredulously. “‘How many times a week does Adam call you by a pet name?’ What does that have to do with anything?”
“Because, you know,” Megan insists, “if he calls you ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart’ a lot it might be because he doesn’t want to accidentally call you by the wrong name.”
Kris gapes at her. “Adam wouldn’t - he wouldn’t do that.”
Megan peers at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” Kris pushes the binder away. “Look, I was a little upset, I admit, but it’s more my problem, not Adam’s - he wouldn’t cheat on me, okay. He’s not - like that. He wouldn’t.”
“Well I don’t think he would either,” Megan replies, “but I thought this might make you feel better.”
“I don’t - I don’t need this.” Kris swallows, glaring at the offending binder. “Thank you. But - just, no.”
“Okay.” Megan shrugs and smiles. “Keep it anyway, though. Just in case!” she says, off Kris’s look. “Plus I spent like two hours putting it together, the least you can do is keep it.”
“Two hours?” Megan nods, and Kris feels oddly touched. “Okay, maybe you’re not a horrible friend.”
“Duh,” Megan replies. “You don’t think Charles or Cale would dig through a pile of Seventeens and Cosmos for you, would you?” She cocks her chin. “Nope.”
--
Okay, it’s like - Kris needs to explain. It’s not that he was upset because he thought Adam might be cheating, that’s not why he told Megan. Or that if Kris ever did think Adam might be cheating, which he would never, it would be just because Kris saw him talking to another guy, because that just sounds insane, when you put it like that. It just kind of makes Kris seem like a crazy-jealous clingy boyfriend, which he’s not, he swears.
It’s just that - well, the guy had been really hot, and watching them together, Kris had kinda remembered all at once why it was that he’d never even once considered the possibility that Adam actually had been flirting with him all those months when he would come into the gas station where Kris worked and sit on the counter and buy amazing amounts of M&Ms, or hang out in the music room after school and let Kris try and teach him how to play the piano, or text him at three in the morning with song ideas or pictures of his outfits or whatever.
It was because Adam was Adam, and Kris was Kris, and people like Adam don’t like people like Kris, because it’s a fact of life that totally awesome people date other totally awesome people, they don’t date boring, lame people, which is why Kris is still kind of in shock, even after almost eight months of dating, and even though he’d totally expected Adam to dump him before he left for college, and then he didn’t and that was cool, but Kris still didn’t understand why really, especially when Adam had a whole lot more guys to pick from, guys like the one with the floppy hair and painted fingernails and leather pants and he was probably a lot more experienced and smooth and charming then Kris, and he’d probably even let Adam have sex with him too, and why would Adam wanna stay with Kris, who was two hours away and wore stupid clothes and was too scared to go past first base? (Mostly. Sort of. Whatever.)
And so maybe that’d been the real reason why he hadn’t noticed he was about to get accosted by a drunk guy’s mouth, because he’d been trying to burn a hole through the guy’s floppy head while thinking about the night that he and Adam drove out and parked behind this abandoned gas station and made out for like four hours, only instead of himself he was imagining Adam and the other guy, and that really sucked.
And so that’s what he’d meant when he told Megan that it was his problem, not Adam’s, because it is. It’s Kris’s problem that he doesn’t have enough confidence in himself, or whatever, which is something that Adam tells him a lot. And like, logically, Kris knows that he isn’t that bad, he’s not like, ugly or overweight or a Republican or anything. He’s pretty nice, too, and he knows he’s a pretty good kisser, and not just because Adam’s told him, but also Katy O’Connell, who he kissed during a spin the bottle game once, so he knows it’s true.
He’s not a bad boyfriend either, if he does say so himself, he always comes to Adam’s shows and plays, even now that he has to drive four hours both ways, and he always listens when Adam talks, even when it’s about complicated theatre things that Kris doesn’t really understand or care about, and when Adam starts feeling bad about himself, like thinking that he’s too fat or not talented enough or whatever, Kris always makes him feel better, which not everybody can do.
So he knows all that, and he also knows that Adam is the sweetest, kindest person in Kris’s life, so in the very, very slim chance that Adam ever did do something like that, he would probably tell Kris about it right away, and that’s only if like, pigs flew or something, it’s that unlikely.
But it’s still like, Kris doesn’t feel like he deserves Adam sometimes, especially when Adam’s on stage, singing and dancing and being the incredibly wonderful, talented, otherworldly creature that he is whenever he’s doing what he’s meant to do. And sometimes Adam will do really thoughtful, sweet things like buy him Twix bars cuz they’re his favorite, and send him mix CDs with his favorite songs to listen to in his car because Kris doesn’t have a CD burner, or rub Kris’s shoulder where his guitar strap cuts into his skin, and Kris sometimes thinks, what did I do to deserve you, this, and then he gets scared, because one day something will happen and Adam will find someone better and leave, and Kris will be all by himself again, and he’s really, really not looking forward to that.
And it’s not like he can explain all this to Adam, because Kris has some self-respect, or Megan, because she’d just get angry and start yelling at him like she did the time Kris accidentally told her that he didn’t think he was very good-looking, and forget about anyone else like Charles or Daniel or his dad, they’d never understand, and everyone else he hangs out with are more like Adam’s friends then his, really.
And even if Adam didn’t cheat on him, what’s to stop him from falling in love with someone else? Someone who fits with him better, who’s sexier and more exciting then Kris? And that’s what he’s really afraid of, which is the explanation for why Kris is suddenly acting so lame. In case anyone was wondering.
--
But regardless of his lameness, he doesn’t think Adam’s cheating on him. No way. So he doesn’t mean to take the quiz, it just sorta happens. It’s Cale’s fault, anyway. Totally not Kris’s.
“Dude, your room is worse then mine,” Cale comments, digging through the contents of Kris’s desk. “What do I have to do to find a pencil? Is there an incantation, or a secret password?”
Kris rolls his eyes and snatches a pencil from his bag and launches it at Cale’s head. “Drama queen.”
“Hey!” Cale ducks to avoid it and crashes into the desk, sending a stack of books and papers toppling over onto the floor. “Shit.”
“Just leave it,” Kris says with a sigh. “Not like it detracts from the décor in here or anything.”
“I can’t believe you just used the word ‘décor’ in a sentence,” Cale says, bending down to scoop the stuff back up onto the desktop. “I could make a gay joke, but it’s too - hey, what’s this?”
“What?”
Cale straightens up, holding a very familiar three-ring binder, and Kris’s heart sinks. “Kris’s Foolproof Relationship Fidelity Test,” Cale reads, “by Dr. Megan Joy. Doctor?”
“That’s nothing,” Kris says, and makes a grab for it. Cale scoots away.
“Dude,” he says, flipping through the pages with something akin to glee on his face. “‘When you go out together, does Adam introduce you as A) his boyfriend, B) his friend, or C) his soul mate?’ Seriously? If Adam calls you his soul mate I think I might die of laughter. Like, literally, just die.”
“It’s nothing,” Kris repeats. “Just some joke thing Megan made me.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Cale says, examining the quiz. “Dude, you think Adam’s cheating on you?”
“No,” Kris says firmly. “It’s just a joke, that Megan made up. Not a big deal.”
Cale raises an eyebrow and holds the binder up to eye-level. “‘When you ask Adam about his friends at school, is he A) excited to tell you about them, B) reluctant to talk about himself, or C) irritated at you for asking?’”
Kris stays silent, while Cale looks at him expectantly. “What, am I supposed to answer?” Kris rolls his eyes. “A.”
Cale makes a mark on the page. “Okay. ‘When his cell phone rings around you does he, A) take the call in front of you, B) take the call out of the room so you can’t hear, or C) let it go to voicemail?’”
“Cale, it’s just a joke,” Kris says. “Can we not do this?”
“Come on, Megan doesn’t pull out the gel pens for just anything,” Cale says. “Something must’ve happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Kris insists.
“Well, something happened that you talked to Megan about, and then she made you a quiz to help you figure out whether or not Adam’s fucking around on you,” Cale says, sounding a little peeved. “Which means something must be going on with you, which you obviously don’t wanna talk about, so instead we’re just gonna sit right here and do this quiz and get to the bottom of it.” Cale plops down on Kris’s desk chair. “So, A, B or C?”
Kris crosses his arms, frowning at the floor. “He’s not cheating on me.”
“Okay,” says Cale. “A, B or C?”
“He’s not.” Cale just looks at him, and Kris sighs. “C.”
“C,” Cale repeats, and makes another mark. “So does Adam introduce you as his boyfriend, his friend or his soul mate? Please say soul mate.”
“His boyfriend,” Kris says sourly.
Cale gives a little sigh of disappointment. “Alright. ‘When you go through his phone, how many people’s phone numbers does he have in it that you’ve never heard of? A) none, B) 1 - 5, or C) 6 or more?’”
“I don’t go through his phone,” Kris says, mildly offended. “Why would I go through his phone? That’s rude.”
“Well there isn’t an option D) for ‘that’s rude,’” Cale says.
“Then skip it.”
Cale makes a face at the page. “I think it’s gonna mess up the scoring if you skip it.”
Kris rolls his eyes. “Foolproof, she said. Foolproof my foot.”
“Okay, I’ll just put ‘none.’ Cuz if you’ve never looked through his phone, you’ve never found any unfamiliar numbers, right?” Cale shrugs, scribbling on the page with intense concentration. “Okay, next. ‘Has Adam started criticizing you more lately? True or false.’”
Kris frowns. “False.”
“‘When you - “ Cale cuts himself off and snorts in laughter. Kris looks at him warily. “Okay, sorry. ‘When you surprise him with a sexy new outfit - “
Kris groans. “Shut up, it doesn’t say that.”
Cale’s voice warbles with laughter. “Just reading the quiz, man.”
“I’m not answering that,” Kris says firmly.
“Hey, it’s a totally valid question to measure Adam’s…enthusiasm,” Cale says.
“I’m not answering it,” Kris repeats.
“If you don’t answer I’m just gonna pick for you,” Cale warns. Kris glares at him. “Okay,” he says, grinning widely and making a slash on the paper. “Next question. ‘Have you met his family?’ Well, we know the answer to that one. Are you sure Megan wrote this?”
“Who knows why Megan does the things she does,” Kris grumbles.
“Oh - hey, this one seems valid. ‘Has Adam recently forgotten anything important to you, such as a birthday, anniversary or emotionally meaningful event? True or false.’”
Kris opens his mouth, then shuts it again. “Um.”
Cale looks up at him, eyes wide. “Duuuude, what’d he forget?”
“Nothing, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“So, that’s a ‘true,’ then,” Cale says, and tsks.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Kris says, again, because Cale really does have tsking down to an art form. And it wasn’t. A big deal. Just because Adam usually asked about the open mic nights every month, it doesn’t mean he’s like, contractually obligated to talk about it or anything. And he’s really busy lately, with the show coming up, and whatever, it’s not like it was set in stone that Kris was going to perform this time, like he usually does, but not always, it’s just that he’d mentioned it to Adam a few times, and Kris had even managed to get his parents to ease up on the grounding so that he could go, and he was really nervous about playing his new song, and he thought it went well but he wasn’t sure, Megan and Cale said he did great but they always say shit like that, and if Adam had been there he would’ve said something like, that was awesome baby, but you were a little flat on the second bridge. Maybe you should rearrange it, it’s a little high for your voice, I think it’d work better if you brought it down. And people were always shocked when Adam did stuff like that, but not Kris, because Adam was serious about music, really serious, and it meant that he took Kris seriously too, that he would give him actual advice instead of just spouting off about how awesome and wonderful he was just cuz they were dating.
And Kris had all this stuff stored up that he wanted to talk to Adam about, like how Allison Iraheta had been there and had sung a Janis Joplin song that made Megan cry, and that there was this guy who butchered an Emily Dickinson poem, and this awesome older lady that got up and did a monologue from Henry IV (a Falstaff one, and Kris knew Adam would’ve died if he’d been there), and how Megan had played this new song she’d been working on and got a standing ovation (well, what passed for a standing ovation with a crowd of seven people) and lots of other things, but Adam hadn’t answered his phone that night, and when he’d finally called back he’d talked Kris’s ear off for like twenty minutes about some asshole in his political science class who had said something homophobic during class discussion, and didn’t even mention open mic night, and Kris didn’t think he should bring it up. And how earlier today when Kris talked to him again, he’d mentioned it again and was gonna tell Adam how it went, but Adam got distracted by somebody talking to him on his side of the line, and Kris kind of sat there and half-listened to the muffled conversation Adam had with whoever it was he was talking to until his mom called him down for dinner and he had to get off the phone.
But it wasn’t a big deal. It was just an open mic night, so.
“You keep saying that it isn’t a big deal over and over again, and I’m starting to not believe you,” Cale says idly, clicking the pen rhythmically.
“This is pointless,” Kris says, starting to get angry. “Can we just work on our actual homework now, please?”
“There’s one more question,” Cale replies.
“No more.”
“It’ll only take a second. ‘Does Adam often ask you specific questions about your life? True or false.’”
Kris frowns. “What does that even mean? Of course Adam asks me stuff. We talk all the time.”
“I think she means, is he like, interested in the day to day stuff,” Cale says. “Like does he ask you how your English test went, or about fights with Daniel, or like, I dunno. Just everyday stuff.”
“Not really,” Kris says. Cale’s eyebrows shoot up and Kris immediately goes on the defensive. “But he’s busy. He’s in college. I don’t expect him to care about that stuff.”
“Okay,” says Cale neutrally, and studies the quiz intently. “Lemme just tally all this up, then.”
Kris fidgets. “This is stupid, Cale.”
“Hold on,” Cale says, scribbling intensely on the page. After a moment, he sits back, tossing the pencil onto the desk. “Okay, well, he’s probably cheating on you.”
“What?”
Cale holds up the quiz, pointing at the results page. There are three paragraphs separated by Megan’s squiggly gel pen lines, and Cale has circled the middle one, titled with the header, “Well, He’s Probably Cheating On You.”
“See?” Cale says, and swivels the quiz back around to read. “‘Enough funky suspicious behavior to make me go uh-oh means uh-oh for you and Adam, babe. Not 100%, but what is, in life? Don’t confront him or anything, since it’s all circumstantial, but keep your guard up and be on the lookout for any more obvious warning signs. Or - who am I kidding, I’ll keep my guard up for you, dork, just listen and do what I say and we’ll be fine.’” Cale shakes his head. “Bad news, man.”
“He’s not cheating on me,” Kris says, exasperated. “What suspicious funky behavior? That he doesn’t call me his soul mate or ask about what I had for breakfast every morning?”
“Well, she did say it was circumstantial,” Cale points out.
“This quiz is circumstantial,” Kris says. “And ridiculous. And lame. And so are you. And Megan.”
“Okay, maybe it’s a little over the top,” Cale concedes, and Kris snorts. “But dude, you gotta trust your instincts on this stuff. Remember when I dated that girl Maggie?”
“If by ‘dated’ you mean ‘emailed back and forth with for a month,’ then yeah,” Kris replies.
“Whatever,” Cale says. “She cheated on me, remember? With her lab partner. And it sucked. But I knew! I had this gut feeling, and I ignored it, and then what happened? I got screwed over.”
Kris narrows his eyes at him. “Cale, you met her on the internet.”
“So?”
“So you never even saw her in person!”
“Hey,” Cale says, “don’t judge.”
Kris sighs. “Okay. Fine. She cheated on you. You have instincts. I get it.”
“Don’t get mad at me, I’m just saying,” Cale says, hands up and palms open, “that you should be careful.”
“I don’t need to be careful.”
“Maybe not,” Cale says, leaning back in the chair and giving Kris a scrutinizing look. “You guys have been together for a while, and he makes you happy and that’s awesome, man. Really. You know I like him a lot.” Cale shrugs, crossing his arms. “But you’re my friend. And he’s older then you, more experienced. And he lives in LA,” Cale emphasizes. “I just don’t want to see you get trampled on, that’s all.”
Kris frowns. “Well thanks for the concern, I guess.”
Cale raises an eyebrow. “But I’m full of shit anyway?” Kris smiles at him innocently. “Okay, I get the hint. Discussion over.”
“Thank you,” Kris says in immense relief.
Cale tosses the binder with the quiz over onto Kris’s bed, swiveling back towards the desk and making a grab for his book bag. “You know you need me around. Without me you’d be totally lost, a tiny little leaf blowing in the wind.”
Kris rolls his eyes. “That’s beautiful, Cale,” he says dryly.
“I try.”
--
So Kris forgets about the quiz, again, because it’s stupid, and the idea was stupid, and whatever. Or he forgets about it, like, mostly, because in the back of his head there’s like this dark little voice whispering what if, what if, but that’s stupid, and so Kris ignores it, because there is absolutely no reason not to.
Adam’s play opens a couple weeks later, anyway, and Kris drives up with Daniel and his mom to see it, and it’s awesome, of course. Adam doesn’t have a lead part, but he gets to sing quite a bit, and he’s amazing, and Kris spends most of the night just watching him on stage with big starry pathetic lovesick eyes, or at least that’s what Daniel tells him later.
And since Leila and Eber can’t make it until the Sunday matinee, Kris’s mom takes Adam out to dinner and buys him flowers, which makes Adam smile at her all wobbily and hug her and Kris at the same time while Daniel makes gagging noises next to them. They eat at some family place and order pancakes even though it’s like, eleven o’clock at night, and Adam talks practically the entire time, eyes sparkling with warmth, telling stories about rehearsals and his cast mates and making Kris’s mom - and even Daniel - laugh uproariously.
Kris is staying the weekend there, so Kris’s mom spends a really long time puttering around Adam’s dorm room, tidying things up and asking pointed questions until Kris’s cheeks burn in embarrassment, but Adam just laughs and answers them all, reaching out for Kris’s hand and squeezing it, bringing it to his mouth for a kiss every time Daniel says something snotty.
When they finally leave, Adam pounces on Kris like a four-year-old, looping his arms around Kris’s waist and grinning like a maniac.
“So,” he says briskly, “tell me what you really think. Honestly.”
“You were fantastic,” Kris says, “honestly.”
“Really?” Adam breaks out into a wide smile that is impossible not to return. “God, I’m so relieved. Like you know I want you to be honest and if I suck I want you to tell me, but oh man, that would be awful. Like really.”
“I don’t think you are capable of sucking,” Kris comments, “for the record.”
“You are too kind, mi amor,” Adam says in one of his weird accents, dragging Kris down to the futon, smiling sweetly and unguardedly. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Kris says, sinking into Adam’s embrace, feeling the constant tension in his shoulders easing away. “I missed you. Every day.”
Adam sighs contentedly, nuzzling behind Kris’s ear. “Anoop’s gone for the night,” he murmurs.
“Oh God, I’m so glad you didn’t tell my mama that,” Kris replies, and Adam laughs.
“Kristopher Allen,” he says, “do not bring up your mother when my hand is on your ass. Please.”
“She would be very - uh - displeased with these liberties being taken,” Kris says, stumbling as Adam trails his open mouth down Kris’s neck, a wave of shivers following his path.
“Well, I could stop if you want,” Adam says innocently, pulling away slightly.
“I didn’t say that,” Kris says quickly, and pulls him back down, muffling his laughter with a kiss.
Anyway, there’s no more talking after that, and Kris thinks that’s much better.
They go farther than they ever have before, twisting around on Adam’s tiny, lofted bed and laughing every time it wobbles precariously beneath their weight. Kris feels strangely brave, more secure somehow, wrapped up in Adam’s arms, in Adam’s room at Adam’s school, with the remnants of Adam’s makeup rubbing off on his cheeks and neck and hands. Like nothing can touch them, and like it’s something completely new, that nobody has ever done before. It’s like - the moment he’s in, nobody else will ever experience, and he’ll be able to hold onto it for the rest of his life, no matter what happens, and say, nobody else was there, in that room, alone with Adam, nobody else saw him and touched him and kissed him that night, except Kris, and Kris alone. It’s all his.
He tries to explain this to Adam later, who lies next to Kris, sweaty and disheveled and staring at Kris like he sometimes stares at puppies and small children.
“You’re not taking me seriously,” Kris accuses, and Adam grins.
“I always take you seriously,” Adam protests. “Well. Most of the time.”
“Oh fine, just ignore me then, obviously I’m being sappy.”
“I like sappy on you,” Adam says, pulling Kris into his chest, “especially after sexy time.”
Kris’s cheeks burn. “Could you - not call it that?”
“Sexy time?” Adam says cheerily. “Okay, I’ll call it orgasm time instead, then.”
“That’s worse!” Kris yelps. Adam just laughs at him, which is really unhelpful.
The next morning, they get to sleep in since Adam doesn’t have to be at the theatre until four, so they spend most of the day in Adam’s dorm, talking and making out. By the time Adam has to leave for the theatre, Kris feels so lazy and happy that he feels like he could just melt into the carpet.
Adam laughs at him, nudging Kris’s shoulder with his foot as he stands over his desk, messing with his hair in the mirror. “You’re not going to skip my show, are you?”
“I already saw it once,” Kris says innocently, and Adam glares at him playfully. “I’ll probably be bored.”
“Shut your mouth,” Adam says.
“No, I mean, I’m really thinking about you here,” Kris continues, “because if I fall asleep then the people around me will be all, ‘why’s that guy asleep, this play must suck,’ and then they’ll tell their friends, and before you know it the theatre department will collapse because they won’t be able to sell any tickets.” Kris nods solemnly. “It’s better this way.”
“You are so full of shit,” Adam says casually. “I don’t even know where you come up with this stuff.”
Kris grins, rising from his sprawl on the futon to stand behind Adam, leaning in until he’s pressed up against Adam’s back, forehead between the sharp angles of his shoulder blades. “I am a creative soul,” he says gravely.
Adam twists around. “You can’t wiggle out of this one,” he says, pressing a kiss into Kris’s hair. “Boyfriend requirement.”
“You’ll regret this,” Kris says easily, tilting his chin up for a kiss.
“Pretty sure I won’t,” Adam says, appeasing him with a small peck before pulling away, tapping Kris on the nose and grabbing his shoulder bag from the floor by the closet. “The doors open at six, but I told Becca to let you in early, so you can come at like, five thirty or so. Get a good seat.” He winks, swinging the bag over his head in one smooth motion.
“All right, I’ll think about it,” Kris says, flopping down onto the futon.
“You don’t fool me,” Adam accuses. “You’re dying to see me perform again. I can see it in your eyes.”
“The only things you see in my eyes are my pupils, dork,” Kris replies.
“I can see much more than that,” Adam says, “like for instance this morning, when you said to me, ‘let’s go get some breakfast, Adam,’ but your eyes were saying, ‘let’s stay and make out some more.’”
“And which did we end up listening to?” Kris asks smugly. “Those eggs were awesome, by the way, I don’t know why you complain about the cafeteria so much.”
“I can’t waste time arguing with you,” Adam says haughtily, “the show must go on.”
“Sure, okay,” Kris says, grinning.
“Five-thirty,” Adam says, pointing at Kris threateningly, and Kris concedes, grinning.
“Five-thirty.” Adam tosses him a satisfied smile and leaves.
He’s got an hour and a half to kill, about, and Anoop’s still gone, at his mathematics competition thing, so Kris ends up puttering around Adam’s room, trying to figure out something to do. He doesn’t have his guitar, otherwise he’d have been set, all he has is a television with a broken antenna that gets, approximately, three channels, and six DVDs, three of which are Arthur Murray ballroom dance instruction videos that Adam had bought for his swing dancing class (PE credit, college must be awesome, Kris thinks) and the other three - Donnie Darko and Velvet Goldmine, both of which Kris has seen millions of times, and Anoop’s copy of Harold and Kumar, which, just - no.
So he snoops through Adam’s bookshelf, thumbing through his textbooks, trying to find something interesting in the books about stage lighting and costume design and failing miserably. Sometimes he wishes he was just more interested in theatre, like Adam is, but he just isn’t. Then again, if he was as into theatre as Adam is, he’d probably be a totally different person, so there’s that.
Adam’s taking an English class too, and Kris runs his fingers down The Metamorphosis, Tartuffe, Diary of a Condemned Man, Madame Bovary. He also has a whole line of plays of course, everything from Neil LaBute to Shakespeare to Tom Stoppard. At the end, the copy of Kavalier and Clay that Kris had given him for Christmas sits, spine worn and creased from use, and Kris smiles fondly.
Catching sight of a copy of Still Life with Woodpecker, Kris pulls it out, grinning. He flips through the pages, smiling to himself, before letting it fall open to the front cover, smile faltering slightly as he catches sight of an inscription on the title page.
Red hair is caused by sugar and lust, it says, and Kris recognizes the quote. The thirteenth most famous redhead? Adam Lambert. You’ll see!
It’s signed simply, Tommy, and Kris snaps the book shut on a sharp inhale. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. Just because Adam hasn’t mentioned anyone named Tommy to Kris is just - nothing, really, it means nothing. And obviously like, they’re close enough for this Tommy person to be giving Adam books with messages inside, and also Tommy is obviously smart enough to have read the stupid book and to pick out a sexy quote from it, but whatever. It doesn’t mean anything. The guy probably didn’t understand the book, anyway. Probably thought it was just a weird love story, and did he just totally miss the point of the famous redhead list completely? Whatever.
Kris is distracted enough by this monologue in his head to not notice the time passing, and ends up being almost, sort of late getting to the theatre (five forty, not five thirty, hoping Adam isn’t around to notice). Adam’s friend Becca snags him a seat in the front row, and Kris makes a studied effort while he sits and waits to banish the book from his mind. It doesn’t really work.
The show passes slower than it had before, Kris being less caught up in the intoxication of seeing Adam all dressed up and in the flesh this time, a small candle of anger burning in his chest despite his best efforts to smother it. While the night before, Adam had seemed beautiful and otherworldly in his talent, tonight Kris sees flashes of the floppy-haired guy from the party in every movement from the stage. It’s almost as if the play itself disappears and in its place, a narrative of Kris’s own slightly pathetic life - the small-town kid, with the small-town looks and ideas and morals, trying in vain to hold onto his big-city boyfriend. It’s ridiculous, considering that it’s a production of Fiorello, and Adam’s playing an evil politician, so obviously Kris is just going insane.
Time drags, and Kris stays curled up in his seat through intermission, then all the way through to the end, allowing the theatre to empty out slowly before he finally rises. He finds Adam in the lobby, shaking hands and talking to audience members, still in costume and the makeup designed to make him look years older. The effect is intimidating.
When he sees Kris, though, he breaks out into a familiar smile, enough to ease Kris’s nerves. “Kris! There you are, I was about to send out a search party.”
He takes Kris’s hand and kisses him, there in front of everybody, and Kris flushes, leaning into Adam’s body instinctively, regardless of his embarrassment. “You were great,” he mumbles when Adam pulls away, eyes fixed on the lapel of Adam’s suit, the small smudge of concealer rubbed off there from his jaw.
“Thanks, baby,” Adam says softly, sliding an arm around Kris’s shoulders and squeezing. “I think it went smoother tonight,” he comments, a bit distracted as he waves at someone across the room. “What do you think?”
“Uh - I didn’t notice,” Kris stammers. “I thought it went pretty well both times.”
Adam smiles. “Well, that’s a good thing,” he says, sounding relieved. “So listen - Scarlett invited us to this thing she’s having tonight, at the PA house,” he says, leaning in and lowering his voice slightly. “Scarlett’s the other redhead, she played Thea? I think you’ve met her.”
Kris nods, a little jerkily. “I - what kind of thing?”
Adam shrugs. “Just a party - not like, a big huge party though, like the one you came to the last time you were up here.” Adam’s voice takes on a lightly disapproving tone, one eyebrow raised pointedly. “Just a few friends. Scarlett of course, and her boyfriend, Danielle and Alisan, maybe a couple other people.”
“I was - kind of hoping it would just be us, tonight,” Kris says hesitantly.
Adam smiles bemusedly. “What, you didn’t get enough of me all day today?” Kris shrugs, avoiding his gaze. “Hey,” Adam says, softer, “it’s not - you don’t have to drink, if that’s what you’re worried about. There will be booze, probably, but - ”
“That’s not why,” Kris interrupts, the tiny candle flame of anger suddenly flaring into something more like a campfire. “And I really wish you wouldn’t treat me like I’m five all the time.”
Adam blinks. “Okay,” he says carefully. “I’m sorry?”
“Just because I’m still in high school doesn’t mean you have to treat me with like, kid gloves, okay,” Kris says firmly. “Like I’ll be scandalized and faint in horror at the sight of underage drinking - do you not remember Cale’s birthday party?” Kris does and still shudders at the memory of the epic hangover whenever he sees a bottle of Captain.
“Okay,” Adam says again, eyeing Kris oddly. “I didn’t mean to - imply anything, okay? I was just trying to be…considerate. I guess.”
Kris blows out a tense breath. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I’m - I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Are you okay?” Adam asks concernedly. “Did something happen? You seem - “
“I’m fine,” Kris says, cutting him off. “I’m just - not in the mood for a party. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” Adam says, tone still careful, and Kris fights back another wave of frustration. “We can just go back to the room and hang out, anything you want.”
“I don’t want to force you to - “ Kris rubs at his eyes, shaking his head. “You skipped the cast party last night to have dinner with us, you should go.”
“There’ll be other parties,” Adam says neutrally. “Look, I have to stick around a bit longer and help wrap things up - why don’t you head back to the room? You remember the combination, right?”
“Four two-two one five,” Kris recites obediently, and Adam taps his nose triumphantly.
“It took me a month to get that down, and you memorize it in a day, of course,” he says, leaning down and pressing a fond kiss to the edge of Kris’s cheekbone. “I shouldn’t be too long,” he murmurs, and Kris nods in response, resisting the urge to lean in and follow as Adam pulls away.
Kris takes the welcome opportunity to try and balance his thoughts, barely noticing the various drunken students he encounters on the walk back to Adam’s dorm, stumbling around on the campus sidewalks, celebrating a Saturday night. When he gets back to the room, he starts cleaning impulsively, gathering up the scattered dirty clothes on the floor and putting them in the hamper, straightening the odds and ends on Adam’s desk, wiping the collected dust off the windowsill with a paper towel.
When Adam gets back, he surveys Kris’s handiwork with a raised eyebrow. “Honey, I’m home,” he says, hanging the drycleaner’s bag with his costume in it on the hook over the door. “Did you make dinner, too?”
Kris grabs a granola bar off the top of the mini-fridge, tossing it to Adam unceremoniously. “Bon appétit.”
Adam tosses it back at him, grinning. “Such a bad wife,” he says teasingly. “So okay,” he says briskly, moving to his closet and pulling his shirt over his head swiftly, digging through his hangers, oblivious to Kris’s hard gulp at the sight of his bare chest. “Speaking of dinner. You must be starving, and I didn’t have time to eat before the show. I know this awesome Chinese place that’s cheap, how does that sound?”
“Fine,” Kris mumbles, fidgeting with Adam’s pencil jar, steadfastly ignoring both Adam’s bare back and the bookshelf, in turn. “I’m sorry about your party.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Adam says, pulling a fresh shirt over his head.
“No, I mean, you can go, if you want, really,” Kris pushes. “I’m just - in kind of a bad mood, for some reason, and taking it out on you.”
“Kris,” Adam says solemnly, “I barely get to see you. I’m not going to leave you to sit in my dorm while I go to a party with people I see every single day.” Kris purses his lips. “I just wanted you to meet them, is all.”
“Well, that just makes me feel guiltier,” Kris says on a groan.
“Don’t,” Adam says. “You’re allowed to be in a bad mood. Though I wish you’d tell me why.” Kris shrugs, avoiding his gaze. “Were you really bored by the play? I thought you were just teasing, earlier, but - “
“No! No, of course not,” Kris rushes to reassure him, and Adam nods, looking a little relieved. “Adam, it was fantastic - you were fantastic. Really. I’m being a jackass.”
“Well,” Adam drawls, “you said it, not me.”
“Look,” Kris says, moving in to wrap his arms around Adam’s waist, “let’s go to dinner. I’ll buy.”
Adam grins down at him. “Really?” Kris nods. “And I can get anything I want?”
“As long as you keep in mind that you cannot, realistically, eat three dinner entrees, sure,” Kris says.
“Well, not in one sitting,” Adam replies easily.
“I said I’d buy dinner for you tonight,” Kris says, “not dinner for you for the next week. That’s what your dad is for.”
Adam smiles and waves Kris’s comment away casually, leaning in and framing Kris’s face with his hands. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, studying him closely.
“Yes,” Kris says, unconvincingly.
Adam smiles slowly, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Kris’s lips. “I don’t believe you,” he whispers, before pulling away and grabbing his keys. “Okay, ready?”
--
They eat Chinese, smashed together in a booth and Adam insists on feeding Kris egg rolls by hand, even though Kris is totally not okay with the cutesy PDA thing, but Adam’s convincing, or maybe Kris just still feels guilty about the party.
Then they go to this Mexican restaurant where they don’t card, and order margaritas and listen to this band playing on the patio, which sounds like some kind of weird, Latin-pop fusion thing - and it’s bad, seriously. But the margaritas are better, and make Kris feel less stressed and more relaxed, generally, and he lets Adam hang all over him in the middle of the restaurant, arms wrapped around him like an octopus, kissing up the side of Kris’s neck, and even when people look over and stare, Kris doesn’t care as much as he usually would.
When they get back to the room, Kris is so turned on he thinks he might explode, the mix of alcohol and Adam’s hands and arms and mouth and just - everything, swirling around in his head until all he can do is want. So Adam lays him down in the bed and goes down on him, for the first time ever, working him up to the edge and pulling him over so quickly that Kris’s head spins, gasping in a sweaty useless mess.
When he regains his equilibrium, he pushes Adam onto his back and scoots down to reciprocate, only to be halted in his progress.
“You don’t have to - “
“Shut up,” Kris says, and unzips his jeans. Adam clamps his mouth shut, back arching slightly, and holy crap, Kris has finally found a way to get him to follow instructions.
He’d expected it to be intimidating, terrifying, weird, awkward, whatever. It’s not, really - like, not that he’s good at it, by any means, because he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing and he hasn’t even seen this in porn before, because Kris is so not the type of person to download gay porn on his dad’s computer, okay - but Adam helps him, tells him what to do in his cute Adam way, holding the sides of Kris’s head gently, gasping out instructions that sound more like questions and requests. And his jaw hurts and he almost gags a couple times, but Adam shudders and moans when he comes, throwing his head back and exposing the smooth line of his throat, and Kris feels - sexy, he realizes.
Not that he hasn’t seen Adam come before, but it was always like - disconnected, like Kris was just there, letting Adam rub off on his leg or whatever, not really an actual participant, more like a bystander. But this time - Kris made him do that. Kris sucked him off, made him make those noises and grab at the sheets and twist around like he was trying to escape his own body, that was all because of Kris, none of it would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there. It’s a heady, powerful feeling that completely overrides the uncertainty and hesitancy, because he made Adam come, and that’s awesome.
“I love you so much,” Adam slurs at the ceiling, reaching out with one wavering hand to grab Kris’s wrist, pulling him up to lay next to him in the wobbly bed.
“You’re only saying that because I just blew you,” Kris says, feeling heady with confidence and accomplishment.
“Not true,” Adam says, and looks up at him with a trembly smile. “I do. I love you, Kris.”
Kris swallows. “Are you serious?” Adam nods, laughing for no apparent reason at all. “I love you, too.”
“Oh my God, really?” Adam takes a big gulp of air. “That’s so awesome,” he says dreamily.
Kris snorts, collapsing forward, burying his face in the space between Adam’s neck and shoulder. “I love you,” he says again, just to say it, feeling this great big push of happiness in his chest, welling up his throat and spilling over until his entire body thrums.
Adam mumbles incoherently, wrapping his arms around Kris and squeezing tightly, sweaty and a little uncomfortable, but just so, so perfect, and Kris squeezes back, holding on just as tight.
part two
author: moirariordan
rating: R! vague sex within!
words: ~17,800
summary: Kris’s Foolproof Relationship Fidelity Test, by Dr. Megan Joy.
notes: for au_bingo. Also dansetheblues is an amazing person who will read anything I send her and send me back these long awesome emails with the best feedback ever. This was also read by a couple awesome people on my flist, but I am an ~idiot and uh, can't match up emails with usernames, so...I'm sorry. *shameface*
Title is from Teenage Dirtbag, originally by Wheatus, covered by Girls Aloud. Listen to both versions immediately. This song owns every other high school song, ever. Ever. This is non-negotiable.
It’s a well-documented fact, that Kris epically fails at flirting. And by well-documented, he actually means well-documented, because Megan did an experiment once, and took copious notes. And video.
And it’s not like he’s bad at it, when he does make an effort to try, and he’s not too nervous or restless or anything. It’s just that he doesn’t ever really realize when somebody is flirting versus when they aren’t. It took him two months before he realized that Adam had been trying to hit on him, and if it hadn’t been for a texting mishap and a smack in the head from Megan, Kris might have never realized it at all.
But it’s not like he has a real reason to flirt with anyone anymore, now that he has Adam. Not that Adam still doesn’t flirt with him now that they’re together, but he usually warns Kris first, which Kris really appreciates.
So Kris doesn’t think he should be blamed for this situation, since everyone knows this fact about him, so it’s totally not his fault, and besides it was Megan’s idea to go to the party anyway, even though they have early bird P.E. tomorrow morning, and it’s a two-hour drive back from UCLA, but Megan was all, don’t you want to surprise your boyfriend, you haven’t seen him in weeks! and we can always skip tomorrow, it’s not like Rinehart gives a shit and it’s like, a preview of the college experience, it’s totally constructive, like Kris doesn’t know that she totally has the hots for Adam’s roommate.
And it started out innocently enough, they’d gotten to Adam’s dorm and Kris had sat on the futon for forty minutes while Megan and Anoop flirted, trying not to seem too obviously impatient (even though he was), and also resisting the urge to text Adam again, since he’d already sent him like five messages and he didn’t want to be too desperate. Then one of Anoop’s friends had stopped by and mentioned that they’d just seen Adam at a party at the performing arts house, and so they’d decided to go to that, but Megan got distracted by the guy’s tattoos and so they’d spent another ten minutes talking about her grand body art plans for herself, and then another fifteen after that walking across campus because Megan just had to keep jumping on Anoop’s back every five feet, and then there was the tickle-fight, which, let’s not even bring that up.
So by the time that they actually got to the party, Kris was distracted and jittery and impatient and all he wanted was to find Adam and hug him for like, ever, only the place was packed and everybody was drunk, and he didn’t know anybody and Megan and Anoop disappeared right away to go do…something (Kris doesn’t wanna think about it) and if he had to take a guess as to where Adam would be, it’d be the dance floor-slash-living room with the strobe light and the big-ass speakers, and Kris just didn’t have the energy or the courage to deal with that, so he’d ended up on a couch with some dude who kept smiling a lot and asking Kris weird questions, and it’s not his fault that he didn’t recognize that that was flirting, apparently, it was probably weird, definitely drunk flirting and anyway Kris was distracted.
And then he’d finally spotted Adam, as a rush of people fled the house for the front yard all at once and the room kind of cleared, and Kris looked up and saw him standing by the kitchen counter, pouring a drink and looking awesome, only he was talking to this other guy, who was kind of skinny and pale but he was cute, and he had a weird floppy haircut and streaks of black and blue in his bangs, and he kept laughing and smiling and Kris got really occupied with what they possibly could be talking about and had stopped paying attention to the drunk flirting person. And then Adam looked over and saw Kris and his eyebrows rose and his eyes got really wide, and then there was this flash of sweaty-drunk breath and then Kris was getting kissed, like totally out of nowhere.
It was really rude, and anyway it wasn’t like Kris had been flirting back, or even paying attention to him at all, and Kris pushed him away really fast, but Adam still stomped over all mad and started yelling at both of them, and then dragged Kris out of there like a big diva, and a bunch of people stared and Kris kept trying to explain and calm Adam down but he wouldn’t listen, and now they’ve been sitting in Adam’s dorm for like, two hours and Adam is still sulking, and really, Kris thinks he’s overreacting just a little.
“I am not overreacting,” Adam tells him pissily, digging through his closet a little maniacally, clothes and shoes flying around him frantically. “You show up out of nowhere like, why didn’t you find me, you ass? How long were you there, just chilling on the fucking make out couch with random drunk creepers? You didn’t even tell me you were coming!”
“It was a last-minute decision!” Kris dodges a boot and crosses his arms. “And I didn’t know he was gonna kiss me - “
“It was the make out couch!”
“I didn’t know that, I don’t go here!” Kris frowns. “And I texted you like a million times.”
“You did not,” Adam says, shoving his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out his phone. “…oh.”
“See?” Kris collapses on the futon and glares up at Adam, frowning down at his phone and standing in a huge pile of denim and leather. “And I tried to find you at the party, like I already said like thirty times, but it was too crowded so I did the thing where you stay in one place.”
Adam looks up at him, eyebrows scrunched together. “What?”
Kris waves his hand vaguely. “You know, where when you get lost you stay in one spot and wait for your parents to find you, or whatever.”
Adam looks painfully torn between incredulity and hysterical laughter. “Did you just compare this situation to the time when you got lost at the mall when you were nine?”
Kris never should’ve told him about that. “…no.” Adam succumbs to the second option, bending over to grab onto the dresser for support, as if his giggles could actually make him tip over and fall like a cartoon, which Kris doesn’t actually doubt all that much. “Shut up.”
“You asshole,” Adam says fondly, throwing his phone onto his desk and climbing up next to Kris on the futon. “You were still kissing that guy, though. Kristopher.” He nudges at Kris’s shoulder with his chin, poking him in the side of his stomach and making him jump.
“I didn’t mean to,” Kris murmurs, distracted by the russet mess of Adam’s hair, which smells kind of like coconuts. He reaches up and runs his hands through it, and catches sight of a little glitter on Adam’s scalp between the strands, which makes him smile. It’s like a secret, that only Kris knows about. He bets the guy with the floppy hair doesn’t know that there’s glitter on Adam’s head, that’s for sure. “And it was only for a second.”
“Still counts,” Adam says petulantly. “There’s no kissing of any kind allowed, unless it’s with me. Should I have put that more clearly when we started dating?”
“No,” Kris says, feeling genuinely bad. “I’m really sorry.”
Adam sighs and pulls Kris backwards until they’re laying all tangled up on the futon, wiggling his hands until they’re on Kris’s bare back, beneath his shirt. “I guess I forgive you,” he says, “but only if you send me another thing of cookies.”
“Aww man,” Kris groans, “I sent you three packages already this month, the shipping alone is cleaning me out.”
“You cheated on me tonight, technically, and you’re bitching about stamps,” Adam says, aghast, and Kris pinches him, and then Adam pinches him back, and growls at him and goes, “you’re gonna pay for that,” which means kissing, and then they end up making out until Megan and Anoop get back and start teasing them about putting a post-it on the doorknob.
It’s really nice, just hanging out with Adam and Megan, like they used to before Adam graduated, and Anoop is cool and meshes with the three of them seamlessly, and it’s almost three in the morning before any of them are willing to admit that really, Kris and Megan should’ve left like five hours ago and let’s face it, there’s no way that anybody is making it to anything earlybird in the morning.
Adam suggests that they just crash there and drive home in the morning, but Megan says her mom will freak out and there’s no way that she can call now and wake her up. Kris’s parents think he’s staying over at Charles’s house though, and so Adam insists that he stay to make up for the party fiasco (which Kris has a feeling will be Adam’s leverage to get Kris to do anything he wants for the next like, four months) and so after Kris makes sure that Megan’s okay driving back by herself (“um, who do I look like, you?”) he climbs into Adam’s lofted bed with him and curls up by his side, falling asleep to the beat of Adam’s pulse against his cheek.
Anoop wakes them up the next morning by falling out of his bed, and Adam throws a pillow at him and tells him to try not to kill himself because Adam’s too tired to call 911, and Anoop responds by cranking rap music and driving both Adam and Kris out of the room out of sheer horror. Adam takes him out to breakfast at the cafeteria and they eat greasy eggs and toast while Kris keeps falling asleep against Adam’s shoulder, feet propped up on the chair across from them and one of Adam’s leather jackets wrapped around his shoulders. Then Adam drives him home and Kris sleeps most of the way, which he feels bad about, until he wakes up when Adam stops for gas just out of town and goes, “hey, don’t you have class?” And Adam just laughs at him and tosses him a Twix bar he bought for him inside.
Kris has missed most of the day by then, and he can’t go home cuz his mom will kill him for skipping, so they go to Adam’s house and sleep some more until Leila comes home early and catches them, and scolds them for a few minutes before rolling her eyes and ordering pizza.
Adam does have a rehearsal that he can’t miss though, so he drops Kris off at home and they have a ridiculously long goodbye that Daniel interrupts by yelling, “ew, kissing!” at the top of his lungs out of his bedroom window, which is just lame. Adam just laughs though, and hugs Kris really tight before climbing in his car and driving away, loud music pumping through his speakers and rolling out his open windows, fading away into the distance sadly as Kris sits on his front step and watches.
He does get caught for skipping school, he forgot that the secretary calls parents’ cell phone numbers now. He gets grounded for the rest of week, and he’s not allowed to go to the open mic night that he and Megan were gonna play at anymore, but it’s totally worth it.
--
The trouble is, though, that Kris can’t keep his mouth shut about floppy-haired guy. So he tells Megan, which is a huge mistake.
“Who is he?” she demands, eyes wide beneath this big blue hat-shaped object on her head that she’s wearing, despite the no-hat policy and the warning from three separate teachers. “I didn’t see any guy with floppy hair. What were they talking about? Is he in theatre too? How long has Adam known him? Has he mentioned him to you or is it like, a casual, oh sit next to each other in class and nod at each other on the sidewalk kinda friendship?”
Kris looks over at her dumbly. “When do you breathe?”
Megan ignores him. “Did you ask Adam about him?”
“No, I - “
“Why not?”
Kris huffs in frustration. “I didn’t really have time to.”
“What, you couldn’t take two minutes away from macking on him to ask him a question?” Megan smirks. “Don’t answer that.”
Kris rubs at his neck awkwardly, trying to will away the blush creeping up it. “Okay, uh, never mind okay - “
“What do you mean never mind, you just said you were really jealous when you saw them.”
“I wasn’t really jealous, it’s really not that big of a deal.”
“But you just said you were jealous,” Megan says, “and that it was kind of a big deal. Like, you said those exact words, so - “
“Okay, I take it back.”
“You can’t just take it back.”
“I just did,” Kris says. “Can we talk about something else?”
“No,” Megan replies, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Do you think he’s cheating on you?”
“What?” Kris snaps. “Of course not!”
“Well it’s not like it’s that radical of an idea,” Megan says. Kris gapes at her. “He’s in college now, meeting a bunch of new people, experiencing new things, far away from you, it’s not that illogical to expect him to slip up - “
“Oh my God,” Kris interrupts. “Please, please let’s talk about something else.”
“Hey, it’s not like I want him to, or that I think he is, sweets, just that it’s a legitimate fear,” Megan says comfortingly. “Let me do some research, and we’ll figure it out.”
Kris glares at her. “You’re a horrible friend,” he calls out as she wanders off towards the library. She blows him a kiss.
He thinks - hopes - she’ll let it go, but of course she doesn’t, and shows up at his house a few days later with a bulging backpack and her serious face on.
“Okay,” she says, and slams her bag on the table decisively. “I have the solution to your problem.”
Kris blinks, looking up from his Geometry book. “I don’t have a problem,” he replies. “Are you wearing glasses?”
“They make me look more authoritative.” Megan pulls a chair out and climbs on top of it, arranging her legs into an impossibly tangled mess and tugging her bag towards her. “What are you doing homework for? Don’t you want to save your relationship?”
“My relationship is not in trouble,” Kris says. Megan snorts. “It isn’t.”
“You seemed to think so the other day.”
Kris starts to sorely regret telling her anything. “I was overreacting.”
Megan peeks at him over the rim of her fake-glasses. “You never get upset unless it’s for a good reason.”
“I wasn’t upset,” Kris says. “I wasn’t.”
“Oookay.”
“I wasn’t!”
“Whatever.” Megan unzips the bag and digs out a three-ring binder overflowing with paper. “Okay, with the help of my mom’s stack of girly magazines, I think I have a foolproof cheating test. I had to do some serious tweaking, but I think I came up with something pretty good.”
“With girly magazines?” Kris asks skeptically.
“Yeah, you know those quizzes, Is He Cheating On You?” Megan rolls her eyes, waggling her fingers. “Most of them are for, you know, heteros. Or like, older people, I guess. So obviously not all of them apply to you. Stupid gender roles.” She shrugs, flipping the binder open to a sheet of notebook paper with her immaculate handwriting on it, each question meticulously written in a different color ink. “So I kind of like, combined them all, and modified it to apply to you and Adam, specifically. The magazines were really just a guide.”
Kris takes it from her, skimming the questions quickly. “Megan, this is ridiculous,” he says incredulously. “‘How many times a week does Adam call you by a pet name?’ What does that have to do with anything?”
“Because, you know,” Megan insists, “if he calls you ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart’ a lot it might be because he doesn’t want to accidentally call you by the wrong name.”
Kris gapes at her. “Adam wouldn’t - he wouldn’t do that.”
Megan peers at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” Kris pushes the binder away. “Look, I was a little upset, I admit, but it’s more my problem, not Adam’s - he wouldn’t cheat on me, okay. He’s not - like that. He wouldn’t.”
“Well I don’t think he would either,” Megan replies, “but I thought this might make you feel better.”
“I don’t - I don’t need this.” Kris swallows, glaring at the offending binder. “Thank you. But - just, no.”
“Okay.” Megan shrugs and smiles. “Keep it anyway, though. Just in case!” she says, off Kris’s look. “Plus I spent like two hours putting it together, the least you can do is keep it.”
“Two hours?” Megan nods, and Kris feels oddly touched. “Okay, maybe you’re not a horrible friend.”
“Duh,” Megan replies. “You don’t think Charles or Cale would dig through a pile of Seventeens and Cosmos for you, would you?” She cocks her chin. “Nope.”
--
Okay, it’s like - Kris needs to explain. It’s not that he was upset because he thought Adam might be cheating, that’s not why he told Megan. Or that if Kris ever did think Adam might be cheating, which he would never, it would be just because Kris saw him talking to another guy, because that just sounds insane, when you put it like that. It just kind of makes Kris seem like a crazy-jealous clingy boyfriend, which he’s not, he swears.
It’s just that - well, the guy had been really hot, and watching them together, Kris had kinda remembered all at once why it was that he’d never even once considered the possibility that Adam actually had been flirting with him all those months when he would come into the gas station where Kris worked and sit on the counter and buy amazing amounts of M&Ms, or hang out in the music room after school and let Kris try and teach him how to play the piano, or text him at three in the morning with song ideas or pictures of his outfits or whatever.
It was because Adam was Adam, and Kris was Kris, and people like Adam don’t like people like Kris, because it’s a fact of life that totally awesome people date other totally awesome people, they don’t date boring, lame people, which is why Kris is still kind of in shock, even after almost eight months of dating, and even though he’d totally expected Adam to dump him before he left for college, and then he didn’t and that was cool, but Kris still didn’t understand why really, especially when Adam had a whole lot more guys to pick from, guys like the one with the floppy hair and painted fingernails and leather pants and he was probably a lot more experienced and smooth and charming then Kris, and he’d probably even let Adam have sex with him too, and why would Adam wanna stay with Kris, who was two hours away and wore stupid clothes and was too scared to go past first base? (Mostly. Sort of. Whatever.)
And so maybe that’d been the real reason why he hadn’t noticed he was about to get accosted by a drunk guy’s mouth, because he’d been trying to burn a hole through the guy’s floppy head while thinking about the night that he and Adam drove out and parked behind this abandoned gas station and made out for like four hours, only instead of himself he was imagining Adam and the other guy, and that really sucked.
And so that’s what he’d meant when he told Megan that it was his problem, not Adam’s, because it is. It’s Kris’s problem that he doesn’t have enough confidence in himself, or whatever, which is something that Adam tells him a lot. And like, logically, Kris knows that he isn’t that bad, he’s not like, ugly or overweight or a Republican or anything. He’s pretty nice, too, and he knows he’s a pretty good kisser, and not just because Adam’s told him, but also Katy O’Connell, who he kissed during a spin the bottle game once, so he knows it’s true.
He’s not a bad boyfriend either, if he does say so himself, he always comes to Adam’s shows and plays, even now that he has to drive four hours both ways, and he always listens when Adam talks, even when it’s about complicated theatre things that Kris doesn’t really understand or care about, and when Adam starts feeling bad about himself, like thinking that he’s too fat or not talented enough or whatever, Kris always makes him feel better, which not everybody can do.
So he knows all that, and he also knows that Adam is the sweetest, kindest person in Kris’s life, so in the very, very slim chance that Adam ever did do something like that, he would probably tell Kris about it right away, and that’s only if like, pigs flew or something, it’s that unlikely.
But it’s still like, Kris doesn’t feel like he deserves Adam sometimes, especially when Adam’s on stage, singing and dancing and being the incredibly wonderful, talented, otherworldly creature that he is whenever he’s doing what he’s meant to do. And sometimes Adam will do really thoughtful, sweet things like buy him Twix bars cuz they’re his favorite, and send him mix CDs with his favorite songs to listen to in his car because Kris doesn’t have a CD burner, or rub Kris’s shoulder where his guitar strap cuts into his skin, and Kris sometimes thinks, what did I do to deserve you, this, and then he gets scared, because one day something will happen and Adam will find someone better and leave, and Kris will be all by himself again, and he’s really, really not looking forward to that.
And it’s not like he can explain all this to Adam, because Kris has some self-respect, or Megan, because she’d just get angry and start yelling at him like she did the time Kris accidentally told her that he didn’t think he was very good-looking, and forget about anyone else like Charles or Daniel or his dad, they’d never understand, and everyone else he hangs out with are more like Adam’s friends then his, really.
And even if Adam didn’t cheat on him, what’s to stop him from falling in love with someone else? Someone who fits with him better, who’s sexier and more exciting then Kris? And that’s what he’s really afraid of, which is the explanation for why Kris is suddenly acting so lame. In case anyone was wondering.
--
But regardless of his lameness, he doesn’t think Adam’s cheating on him. No way. So he doesn’t mean to take the quiz, it just sorta happens. It’s Cale’s fault, anyway. Totally not Kris’s.
“Dude, your room is worse then mine,” Cale comments, digging through the contents of Kris’s desk. “What do I have to do to find a pencil? Is there an incantation, or a secret password?”
Kris rolls his eyes and snatches a pencil from his bag and launches it at Cale’s head. “Drama queen.”
“Hey!” Cale ducks to avoid it and crashes into the desk, sending a stack of books and papers toppling over onto the floor. “Shit.”
“Just leave it,” Kris says with a sigh. “Not like it detracts from the décor in here or anything.”
“I can’t believe you just used the word ‘décor’ in a sentence,” Cale says, bending down to scoop the stuff back up onto the desktop. “I could make a gay joke, but it’s too - hey, what’s this?”
“What?”
Cale straightens up, holding a very familiar three-ring binder, and Kris’s heart sinks. “Kris’s Foolproof Relationship Fidelity Test,” Cale reads, “by Dr. Megan Joy. Doctor?”
“That’s nothing,” Kris says, and makes a grab for it. Cale scoots away.
“Dude,” he says, flipping through the pages with something akin to glee on his face. “‘When you go out together, does Adam introduce you as A) his boyfriend, B) his friend, or C) his soul mate?’ Seriously? If Adam calls you his soul mate I think I might die of laughter. Like, literally, just die.”
“It’s nothing,” Kris repeats. “Just some joke thing Megan made me.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Cale says, examining the quiz. “Dude, you think Adam’s cheating on you?”
“No,” Kris says firmly. “It’s just a joke, that Megan made up. Not a big deal.”
Cale raises an eyebrow and holds the binder up to eye-level. “‘When you ask Adam about his friends at school, is he A) excited to tell you about them, B) reluctant to talk about himself, or C) irritated at you for asking?’”
Kris stays silent, while Cale looks at him expectantly. “What, am I supposed to answer?” Kris rolls his eyes. “A.”
Cale makes a mark on the page. “Okay. ‘When his cell phone rings around you does he, A) take the call in front of you, B) take the call out of the room so you can’t hear, or C) let it go to voicemail?’”
“Cale, it’s just a joke,” Kris says. “Can we not do this?”
“Come on, Megan doesn’t pull out the gel pens for just anything,” Cale says. “Something must’ve happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Kris insists.
“Well, something happened that you talked to Megan about, and then she made you a quiz to help you figure out whether or not Adam’s fucking around on you,” Cale says, sounding a little peeved. “Which means something must be going on with you, which you obviously don’t wanna talk about, so instead we’re just gonna sit right here and do this quiz and get to the bottom of it.” Cale plops down on Kris’s desk chair. “So, A, B or C?”
Kris crosses his arms, frowning at the floor. “He’s not cheating on me.”
“Okay,” says Cale. “A, B or C?”
“He’s not.” Cale just looks at him, and Kris sighs. “C.”
“C,” Cale repeats, and makes another mark. “So does Adam introduce you as his boyfriend, his friend or his soul mate? Please say soul mate.”
“His boyfriend,” Kris says sourly.
Cale gives a little sigh of disappointment. “Alright. ‘When you go through his phone, how many people’s phone numbers does he have in it that you’ve never heard of? A) none, B) 1 - 5, or C) 6 or more?’”
“I don’t go through his phone,” Kris says, mildly offended. “Why would I go through his phone? That’s rude.”
“Well there isn’t an option D) for ‘that’s rude,’” Cale says.
“Then skip it.”
Cale makes a face at the page. “I think it’s gonna mess up the scoring if you skip it.”
Kris rolls his eyes. “Foolproof, she said. Foolproof my foot.”
“Okay, I’ll just put ‘none.’ Cuz if you’ve never looked through his phone, you’ve never found any unfamiliar numbers, right?” Cale shrugs, scribbling on the page with intense concentration. “Okay, next. ‘Has Adam started criticizing you more lately? True or false.’”
Kris frowns. “False.”
“‘When you - “ Cale cuts himself off and snorts in laughter. Kris looks at him warily. “Okay, sorry. ‘When you surprise him with a sexy new outfit - “
Kris groans. “Shut up, it doesn’t say that.”
Cale’s voice warbles with laughter. “Just reading the quiz, man.”
“I’m not answering that,” Kris says firmly.
“Hey, it’s a totally valid question to measure Adam’s…enthusiasm,” Cale says.
“I’m not answering it,” Kris repeats.
“If you don’t answer I’m just gonna pick for you,” Cale warns. Kris glares at him. “Okay,” he says, grinning widely and making a slash on the paper. “Next question. ‘Have you met his family?’ Well, we know the answer to that one. Are you sure Megan wrote this?”
“Who knows why Megan does the things she does,” Kris grumbles.
“Oh - hey, this one seems valid. ‘Has Adam recently forgotten anything important to you, such as a birthday, anniversary or emotionally meaningful event? True or false.’”
Kris opens his mouth, then shuts it again. “Um.”
Cale looks up at him, eyes wide. “Duuuude, what’d he forget?”
“Nothing, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“So, that’s a ‘true,’ then,” Cale says, and tsks.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Kris says, again, because Cale really does have tsking down to an art form. And it wasn’t. A big deal. Just because Adam usually asked about the open mic nights every month, it doesn’t mean he’s like, contractually obligated to talk about it or anything. And he’s really busy lately, with the show coming up, and whatever, it’s not like it was set in stone that Kris was going to perform this time, like he usually does, but not always, it’s just that he’d mentioned it to Adam a few times, and Kris had even managed to get his parents to ease up on the grounding so that he could go, and he was really nervous about playing his new song, and he thought it went well but he wasn’t sure, Megan and Cale said he did great but they always say shit like that, and if Adam had been there he would’ve said something like, that was awesome baby, but you were a little flat on the second bridge. Maybe you should rearrange it, it’s a little high for your voice, I think it’d work better if you brought it down. And people were always shocked when Adam did stuff like that, but not Kris, because Adam was serious about music, really serious, and it meant that he took Kris seriously too, that he would give him actual advice instead of just spouting off about how awesome and wonderful he was just cuz they were dating.
And Kris had all this stuff stored up that he wanted to talk to Adam about, like how Allison Iraheta had been there and had sung a Janis Joplin song that made Megan cry, and that there was this guy who butchered an Emily Dickinson poem, and this awesome older lady that got up and did a monologue from Henry IV (a Falstaff one, and Kris knew Adam would’ve died if he’d been there), and how Megan had played this new song she’d been working on and got a standing ovation (well, what passed for a standing ovation with a crowd of seven people) and lots of other things, but Adam hadn’t answered his phone that night, and when he’d finally called back he’d talked Kris’s ear off for like twenty minutes about some asshole in his political science class who had said something homophobic during class discussion, and didn’t even mention open mic night, and Kris didn’t think he should bring it up. And how earlier today when Kris talked to him again, he’d mentioned it again and was gonna tell Adam how it went, but Adam got distracted by somebody talking to him on his side of the line, and Kris kind of sat there and half-listened to the muffled conversation Adam had with whoever it was he was talking to until his mom called him down for dinner and he had to get off the phone.
But it wasn’t a big deal. It was just an open mic night, so.
“You keep saying that it isn’t a big deal over and over again, and I’m starting to not believe you,” Cale says idly, clicking the pen rhythmically.
“This is pointless,” Kris says, starting to get angry. “Can we just work on our actual homework now, please?”
“There’s one more question,” Cale replies.
“No more.”
“It’ll only take a second. ‘Does Adam often ask you specific questions about your life? True or false.’”
Kris frowns. “What does that even mean? Of course Adam asks me stuff. We talk all the time.”
“I think she means, is he like, interested in the day to day stuff,” Cale says. “Like does he ask you how your English test went, or about fights with Daniel, or like, I dunno. Just everyday stuff.”
“Not really,” Kris says. Cale’s eyebrows shoot up and Kris immediately goes on the defensive. “But he’s busy. He’s in college. I don’t expect him to care about that stuff.”
“Okay,” says Cale neutrally, and studies the quiz intently. “Lemme just tally all this up, then.”
Kris fidgets. “This is stupid, Cale.”
“Hold on,” Cale says, scribbling intensely on the page. After a moment, he sits back, tossing the pencil onto the desk. “Okay, well, he’s probably cheating on you.”
“What?”
Cale holds up the quiz, pointing at the results page. There are three paragraphs separated by Megan’s squiggly gel pen lines, and Cale has circled the middle one, titled with the header, “Well, He’s Probably Cheating On You.”
“See?” Cale says, and swivels the quiz back around to read. “‘Enough funky suspicious behavior to make me go uh-oh means uh-oh for you and Adam, babe. Not 100%, but what is, in life? Don’t confront him or anything, since it’s all circumstantial, but keep your guard up and be on the lookout for any more obvious warning signs. Or - who am I kidding, I’ll keep my guard up for you, dork, just listen and do what I say and we’ll be fine.’” Cale shakes his head. “Bad news, man.”
“He’s not cheating on me,” Kris says, exasperated. “What suspicious funky behavior? That he doesn’t call me his soul mate or ask about what I had for breakfast every morning?”
“Well, she did say it was circumstantial,” Cale points out.
“This quiz is circumstantial,” Kris says. “And ridiculous. And lame. And so are you. And Megan.”
“Okay, maybe it’s a little over the top,” Cale concedes, and Kris snorts. “But dude, you gotta trust your instincts on this stuff. Remember when I dated that girl Maggie?”
“If by ‘dated’ you mean ‘emailed back and forth with for a month,’ then yeah,” Kris replies.
“Whatever,” Cale says. “She cheated on me, remember? With her lab partner. And it sucked. But I knew! I had this gut feeling, and I ignored it, and then what happened? I got screwed over.”
Kris narrows his eyes at him. “Cale, you met her on the internet.”
“So?”
“So you never even saw her in person!”
“Hey,” Cale says, “don’t judge.”
Kris sighs. “Okay. Fine. She cheated on you. You have instincts. I get it.”
“Don’t get mad at me, I’m just saying,” Cale says, hands up and palms open, “that you should be careful.”
“I don’t need to be careful.”
“Maybe not,” Cale says, leaning back in the chair and giving Kris a scrutinizing look. “You guys have been together for a while, and he makes you happy and that’s awesome, man. Really. You know I like him a lot.” Cale shrugs, crossing his arms. “But you’re my friend. And he’s older then you, more experienced. And he lives in LA,” Cale emphasizes. “I just don’t want to see you get trampled on, that’s all.”
Kris frowns. “Well thanks for the concern, I guess.”
Cale raises an eyebrow. “But I’m full of shit anyway?” Kris smiles at him innocently. “Okay, I get the hint. Discussion over.”
“Thank you,” Kris says in immense relief.
Cale tosses the binder with the quiz over onto Kris’s bed, swiveling back towards the desk and making a grab for his book bag. “You know you need me around. Without me you’d be totally lost, a tiny little leaf blowing in the wind.”
Kris rolls his eyes. “That’s beautiful, Cale,” he says dryly.
“I try.”
--
So Kris forgets about the quiz, again, because it’s stupid, and the idea was stupid, and whatever. Or he forgets about it, like, mostly, because in the back of his head there’s like this dark little voice whispering what if, what if, but that’s stupid, and so Kris ignores it, because there is absolutely no reason not to.
Adam’s play opens a couple weeks later, anyway, and Kris drives up with Daniel and his mom to see it, and it’s awesome, of course. Adam doesn’t have a lead part, but he gets to sing quite a bit, and he’s amazing, and Kris spends most of the night just watching him on stage with big starry pathetic lovesick eyes, or at least that’s what Daniel tells him later.
And since Leila and Eber can’t make it until the Sunday matinee, Kris’s mom takes Adam out to dinner and buys him flowers, which makes Adam smile at her all wobbily and hug her and Kris at the same time while Daniel makes gagging noises next to them. They eat at some family place and order pancakes even though it’s like, eleven o’clock at night, and Adam talks practically the entire time, eyes sparkling with warmth, telling stories about rehearsals and his cast mates and making Kris’s mom - and even Daniel - laugh uproariously.
Kris is staying the weekend there, so Kris’s mom spends a really long time puttering around Adam’s dorm room, tidying things up and asking pointed questions until Kris’s cheeks burn in embarrassment, but Adam just laughs and answers them all, reaching out for Kris’s hand and squeezing it, bringing it to his mouth for a kiss every time Daniel says something snotty.
When they finally leave, Adam pounces on Kris like a four-year-old, looping his arms around Kris’s waist and grinning like a maniac.
“So,” he says briskly, “tell me what you really think. Honestly.”
“You were fantastic,” Kris says, “honestly.”
“Really?” Adam breaks out into a wide smile that is impossible not to return. “God, I’m so relieved. Like you know I want you to be honest and if I suck I want you to tell me, but oh man, that would be awful. Like really.”
“I don’t think you are capable of sucking,” Kris comments, “for the record.”
“You are too kind, mi amor,” Adam says in one of his weird accents, dragging Kris down to the futon, smiling sweetly and unguardedly. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Kris says, sinking into Adam’s embrace, feeling the constant tension in his shoulders easing away. “I missed you. Every day.”
Adam sighs contentedly, nuzzling behind Kris’s ear. “Anoop’s gone for the night,” he murmurs.
“Oh God, I’m so glad you didn’t tell my mama that,” Kris replies, and Adam laughs.
“Kristopher Allen,” he says, “do not bring up your mother when my hand is on your ass. Please.”
“She would be very - uh - displeased with these liberties being taken,” Kris says, stumbling as Adam trails his open mouth down Kris’s neck, a wave of shivers following his path.
“Well, I could stop if you want,” Adam says innocently, pulling away slightly.
“I didn’t say that,” Kris says quickly, and pulls him back down, muffling his laughter with a kiss.
Anyway, there’s no more talking after that, and Kris thinks that’s much better.
They go farther than they ever have before, twisting around on Adam’s tiny, lofted bed and laughing every time it wobbles precariously beneath their weight. Kris feels strangely brave, more secure somehow, wrapped up in Adam’s arms, in Adam’s room at Adam’s school, with the remnants of Adam’s makeup rubbing off on his cheeks and neck and hands. Like nothing can touch them, and like it’s something completely new, that nobody has ever done before. It’s like - the moment he’s in, nobody else will ever experience, and he’ll be able to hold onto it for the rest of his life, no matter what happens, and say, nobody else was there, in that room, alone with Adam, nobody else saw him and touched him and kissed him that night, except Kris, and Kris alone. It’s all his.
He tries to explain this to Adam later, who lies next to Kris, sweaty and disheveled and staring at Kris like he sometimes stares at puppies and small children.
“You’re not taking me seriously,” Kris accuses, and Adam grins.
“I always take you seriously,” Adam protests. “Well. Most of the time.”
“Oh fine, just ignore me then, obviously I’m being sappy.”
“I like sappy on you,” Adam says, pulling Kris into his chest, “especially after sexy time.”
Kris’s cheeks burn. “Could you - not call it that?”
“Sexy time?” Adam says cheerily. “Okay, I’ll call it orgasm time instead, then.”
“That’s worse!” Kris yelps. Adam just laughs at him, which is really unhelpful.
The next morning, they get to sleep in since Adam doesn’t have to be at the theatre until four, so they spend most of the day in Adam’s dorm, talking and making out. By the time Adam has to leave for the theatre, Kris feels so lazy and happy that he feels like he could just melt into the carpet.
Adam laughs at him, nudging Kris’s shoulder with his foot as he stands over his desk, messing with his hair in the mirror. “You’re not going to skip my show, are you?”
“I already saw it once,” Kris says innocently, and Adam glares at him playfully. “I’ll probably be bored.”
“Shut your mouth,” Adam says.
“No, I mean, I’m really thinking about you here,” Kris continues, “because if I fall asleep then the people around me will be all, ‘why’s that guy asleep, this play must suck,’ and then they’ll tell their friends, and before you know it the theatre department will collapse because they won’t be able to sell any tickets.” Kris nods solemnly. “It’s better this way.”
“You are so full of shit,” Adam says casually. “I don’t even know where you come up with this stuff.”
Kris grins, rising from his sprawl on the futon to stand behind Adam, leaning in until he’s pressed up against Adam’s back, forehead between the sharp angles of his shoulder blades. “I am a creative soul,” he says gravely.
Adam twists around. “You can’t wiggle out of this one,” he says, pressing a kiss into Kris’s hair. “Boyfriend requirement.”
“You’ll regret this,” Kris says easily, tilting his chin up for a kiss.
“Pretty sure I won’t,” Adam says, appeasing him with a small peck before pulling away, tapping Kris on the nose and grabbing his shoulder bag from the floor by the closet. “The doors open at six, but I told Becca to let you in early, so you can come at like, five thirty or so. Get a good seat.” He winks, swinging the bag over his head in one smooth motion.
“All right, I’ll think about it,” Kris says, flopping down onto the futon.
“You don’t fool me,” Adam accuses. “You’re dying to see me perform again. I can see it in your eyes.”
“The only things you see in my eyes are my pupils, dork,” Kris replies.
“I can see much more than that,” Adam says, “like for instance this morning, when you said to me, ‘let’s go get some breakfast, Adam,’ but your eyes were saying, ‘let’s stay and make out some more.’”
“And which did we end up listening to?” Kris asks smugly. “Those eggs were awesome, by the way, I don’t know why you complain about the cafeteria so much.”
“I can’t waste time arguing with you,” Adam says haughtily, “the show must go on.”
“Sure, okay,” Kris says, grinning.
“Five-thirty,” Adam says, pointing at Kris threateningly, and Kris concedes, grinning.
“Five-thirty.” Adam tosses him a satisfied smile and leaves.
He’s got an hour and a half to kill, about, and Anoop’s still gone, at his mathematics competition thing, so Kris ends up puttering around Adam’s room, trying to figure out something to do. He doesn’t have his guitar, otherwise he’d have been set, all he has is a television with a broken antenna that gets, approximately, three channels, and six DVDs, three of which are Arthur Murray ballroom dance instruction videos that Adam had bought for his swing dancing class (PE credit, college must be awesome, Kris thinks) and the other three - Donnie Darko and Velvet Goldmine, both of which Kris has seen millions of times, and Anoop’s copy of Harold and Kumar, which, just - no.
So he snoops through Adam’s bookshelf, thumbing through his textbooks, trying to find something interesting in the books about stage lighting and costume design and failing miserably. Sometimes he wishes he was just more interested in theatre, like Adam is, but he just isn’t. Then again, if he was as into theatre as Adam is, he’d probably be a totally different person, so there’s that.
Adam’s taking an English class too, and Kris runs his fingers down The Metamorphosis, Tartuffe, Diary of a Condemned Man, Madame Bovary. He also has a whole line of plays of course, everything from Neil LaBute to Shakespeare to Tom Stoppard. At the end, the copy of Kavalier and Clay that Kris had given him for Christmas sits, spine worn and creased from use, and Kris smiles fondly.
Catching sight of a copy of Still Life with Woodpecker, Kris pulls it out, grinning. He flips through the pages, smiling to himself, before letting it fall open to the front cover, smile faltering slightly as he catches sight of an inscription on the title page.
Red hair is caused by sugar and lust, it says, and Kris recognizes the quote. The thirteenth most famous redhead? Adam Lambert. You’ll see!
It’s signed simply, Tommy, and Kris snaps the book shut on a sharp inhale. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. Just because Adam hasn’t mentioned anyone named Tommy to Kris is just - nothing, really, it means nothing. And obviously like, they’re close enough for this Tommy person to be giving Adam books with messages inside, and also Tommy is obviously smart enough to have read the stupid book and to pick out a sexy quote from it, but whatever. It doesn’t mean anything. The guy probably didn’t understand the book, anyway. Probably thought it was just a weird love story, and did he just totally miss the point of the famous redhead list completely? Whatever.
Kris is distracted enough by this monologue in his head to not notice the time passing, and ends up being almost, sort of late getting to the theatre (five forty, not five thirty, hoping Adam isn’t around to notice). Adam’s friend Becca snags him a seat in the front row, and Kris makes a studied effort while he sits and waits to banish the book from his mind. It doesn’t really work.
The show passes slower than it had before, Kris being less caught up in the intoxication of seeing Adam all dressed up and in the flesh this time, a small candle of anger burning in his chest despite his best efforts to smother it. While the night before, Adam had seemed beautiful and otherworldly in his talent, tonight Kris sees flashes of the floppy-haired guy from the party in every movement from the stage. It’s almost as if the play itself disappears and in its place, a narrative of Kris’s own slightly pathetic life - the small-town kid, with the small-town looks and ideas and morals, trying in vain to hold onto his big-city boyfriend. It’s ridiculous, considering that it’s a production of Fiorello, and Adam’s playing an evil politician, so obviously Kris is just going insane.
Time drags, and Kris stays curled up in his seat through intermission, then all the way through to the end, allowing the theatre to empty out slowly before he finally rises. He finds Adam in the lobby, shaking hands and talking to audience members, still in costume and the makeup designed to make him look years older. The effect is intimidating.
When he sees Kris, though, he breaks out into a familiar smile, enough to ease Kris’s nerves. “Kris! There you are, I was about to send out a search party.”
He takes Kris’s hand and kisses him, there in front of everybody, and Kris flushes, leaning into Adam’s body instinctively, regardless of his embarrassment. “You were great,” he mumbles when Adam pulls away, eyes fixed on the lapel of Adam’s suit, the small smudge of concealer rubbed off there from his jaw.
“Thanks, baby,” Adam says softly, sliding an arm around Kris’s shoulders and squeezing. “I think it went smoother tonight,” he comments, a bit distracted as he waves at someone across the room. “What do you think?”
“Uh - I didn’t notice,” Kris stammers. “I thought it went pretty well both times.”
Adam smiles. “Well, that’s a good thing,” he says, sounding relieved. “So listen - Scarlett invited us to this thing she’s having tonight, at the PA house,” he says, leaning in and lowering his voice slightly. “Scarlett’s the other redhead, she played Thea? I think you’ve met her.”
Kris nods, a little jerkily. “I - what kind of thing?”
Adam shrugs. “Just a party - not like, a big huge party though, like the one you came to the last time you were up here.” Adam’s voice takes on a lightly disapproving tone, one eyebrow raised pointedly. “Just a few friends. Scarlett of course, and her boyfriend, Danielle and Alisan, maybe a couple other people.”
“I was - kind of hoping it would just be us, tonight,” Kris says hesitantly.
Adam smiles bemusedly. “What, you didn’t get enough of me all day today?” Kris shrugs, avoiding his gaze. “Hey,” Adam says, softer, “it’s not - you don’t have to drink, if that’s what you’re worried about. There will be booze, probably, but - ”
“That’s not why,” Kris interrupts, the tiny candle flame of anger suddenly flaring into something more like a campfire. “And I really wish you wouldn’t treat me like I’m five all the time.”
Adam blinks. “Okay,” he says carefully. “I’m sorry?”
“Just because I’m still in high school doesn’t mean you have to treat me with like, kid gloves, okay,” Kris says firmly. “Like I’ll be scandalized and faint in horror at the sight of underage drinking - do you not remember Cale’s birthday party?” Kris does and still shudders at the memory of the epic hangover whenever he sees a bottle of Captain.
“Okay,” Adam says again, eyeing Kris oddly. “I didn’t mean to - imply anything, okay? I was just trying to be…considerate. I guess.”
Kris blows out a tense breath. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I’m - I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Are you okay?” Adam asks concernedly. “Did something happen? You seem - “
“I’m fine,” Kris says, cutting him off. “I’m just - not in the mood for a party. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” Adam says, tone still careful, and Kris fights back another wave of frustration. “We can just go back to the room and hang out, anything you want.”
“I don’t want to force you to - “ Kris rubs at his eyes, shaking his head. “You skipped the cast party last night to have dinner with us, you should go.”
“There’ll be other parties,” Adam says neutrally. “Look, I have to stick around a bit longer and help wrap things up - why don’t you head back to the room? You remember the combination, right?”
“Four two-two one five,” Kris recites obediently, and Adam taps his nose triumphantly.
“It took me a month to get that down, and you memorize it in a day, of course,” he says, leaning down and pressing a fond kiss to the edge of Kris’s cheekbone. “I shouldn’t be too long,” he murmurs, and Kris nods in response, resisting the urge to lean in and follow as Adam pulls away.
Kris takes the welcome opportunity to try and balance his thoughts, barely noticing the various drunken students he encounters on the walk back to Adam’s dorm, stumbling around on the campus sidewalks, celebrating a Saturday night. When he gets back to the room, he starts cleaning impulsively, gathering up the scattered dirty clothes on the floor and putting them in the hamper, straightening the odds and ends on Adam’s desk, wiping the collected dust off the windowsill with a paper towel.
When Adam gets back, he surveys Kris’s handiwork with a raised eyebrow. “Honey, I’m home,” he says, hanging the drycleaner’s bag with his costume in it on the hook over the door. “Did you make dinner, too?”
Kris grabs a granola bar off the top of the mini-fridge, tossing it to Adam unceremoniously. “Bon appétit.”
Adam tosses it back at him, grinning. “Such a bad wife,” he says teasingly. “So okay,” he says briskly, moving to his closet and pulling his shirt over his head swiftly, digging through his hangers, oblivious to Kris’s hard gulp at the sight of his bare chest. “Speaking of dinner. You must be starving, and I didn’t have time to eat before the show. I know this awesome Chinese place that’s cheap, how does that sound?”
“Fine,” Kris mumbles, fidgeting with Adam’s pencil jar, steadfastly ignoring both Adam’s bare back and the bookshelf, in turn. “I’m sorry about your party.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Adam says, pulling a fresh shirt over his head.
“No, I mean, you can go, if you want, really,” Kris pushes. “I’m just - in kind of a bad mood, for some reason, and taking it out on you.”
“Kris,” Adam says solemnly, “I barely get to see you. I’m not going to leave you to sit in my dorm while I go to a party with people I see every single day.” Kris purses his lips. “I just wanted you to meet them, is all.”
“Well, that just makes me feel guiltier,” Kris says on a groan.
“Don’t,” Adam says. “You’re allowed to be in a bad mood. Though I wish you’d tell me why.” Kris shrugs, avoiding his gaze. “Were you really bored by the play? I thought you were just teasing, earlier, but - “
“No! No, of course not,” Kris rushes to reassure him, and Adam nods, looking a little relieved. “Adam, it was fantastic - you were fantastic. Really. I’m being a jackass.”
“Well,” Adam drawls, “you said it, not me.”
“Look,” Kris says, moving in to wrap his arms around Adam’s waist, “let’s go to dinner. I’ll buy.”
Adam grins down at him. “Really?” Kris nods. “And I can get anything I want?”
“As long as you keep in mind that you cannot, realistically, eat three dinner entrees, sure,” Kris says.
“Well, not in one sitting,” Adam replies easily.
“I said I’d buy dinner for you tonight,” Kris says, “not dinner for you for the next week. That’s what your dad is for.”
Adam smiles and waves Kris’s comment away casually, leaning in and framing Kris’s face with his hands. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, studying him closely.
“Yes,” Kris says, unconvincingly.
Adam smiles slowly, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Kris’s lips. “I don’t believe you,” he whispers, before pulling away and grabbing his keys. “Okay, ready?”
--
They eat Chinese, smashed together in a booth and Adam insists on feeding Kris egg rolls by hand, even though Kris is totally not okay with the cutesy PDA thing, but Adam’s convincing, or maybe Kris just still feels guilty about the party.
Then they go to this Mexican restaurant where they don’t card, and order margaritas and listen to this band playing on the patio, which sounds like some kind of weird, Latin-pop fusion thing - and it’s bad, seriously. But the margaritas are better, and make Kris feel less stressed and more relaxed, generally, and he lets Adam hang all over him in the middle of the restaurant, arms wrapped around him like an octopus, kissing up the side of Kris’s neck, and even when people look over and stare, Kris doesn’t care as much as he usually would.
When they get back to the room, Kris is so turned on he thinks he might explode, the mix of alcohol and Adam’s hands and arms and mouth and just - everything, swirling around in his head until all he can do is want. So Adam lays him down in the bed and goes down on him, for the first time ever, working him up to the edge and pulling him over so quickly that Kris’s head spins, gasping in a sweaty useless mess.
When he regains his equilibrium, he pushes Adam onto his back and scoots down to reciprocate, only to be halted in his progress.
“You don’t have to - “
“Shut up,” Kris says, and unzips his jeans. Adam clamps his mouth shut, back arching slightly, and holy crap, Kris has finally found a way to get him to follow instructions.
He’d expected it to be intimidating, terrifying, weird, awkward, whatever. It’s not, really - like, not that he’s good at it, by any means, because he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing and he hasn’t even seen this in porn before, because Kris is so not the type of person to download gay porn on his dad’s computer, okay - but Adam helps him, tells him what to do in his cute Adam way, holding the sides of Kris’s head gently, gasping out instructions that sound more like questions and requests. And his jaw hurts and he almost gags a couple times, but Adam shudders and moans when he comes, throwing his head back and exposing the smooth line of his throat, and Kris feels - sexy, he realizes.
Not that he hasn’t seen Adam come before, but it was always like - disconnected, like Kris was just there, letting Adam rub off on his leg or whatever, not really an actual participant, more like a bystander. But this time - Kris made him do that. Kris sucked him off, made him make those noises and grab at the sheets and twist around like he was trying to escape his own body, that was all because of Kris, none of it would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there. It’s a heady, powerful feeling that completely overrides the uncertainty and hesitancy, because he made Adam come, and that’s awesome.
“I love you so much,” Adam slurs at the ceiling, reaching out with one wavering hand to grab Kris’s wrist, pulling him up to lay next to him in the wobbly bed.
“You’re only saying that because I just blew you,” Kris says, feeling heady with confidence and accomplishment.
“Not true,” Adam says, and looks up at him with a trembly smile. “I do. I love you, Kris.”
Kris swallows. “Are you serious?” Adam nods, laughing for no apparent reason at all. “I love you, too.”
“Oh my God, really?” Adam takes a big gulp of air. “That’s so awesome,” he says dreamily.
Kris snorts, collapsing forward, burying his face in the space between Adam’s neck and shoulder. “I love you,” he says again, just to say it, feeling this great big push of happiness in his chest, welling up his throat and spilling over until his entire body thrums.
Adam mumbles incoherently, wrapping his arms around Kris and squeezing tightly, sweaty and a little uncomfortable, but just so, so perfect, and Kris squeezes back, holding on just as tight.
part two