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I know you don't like wing fic. No, really, I know. But this is an actual fic masquerading as wingfic, because that's apparently my MO in AI fandom. Witty commentary on fame and pop music as fandom cliches! I'm so badass. (I'm so badass, I don't even know how this fic happened. It just kind of appeared.) This is sort of a parallel fic to Kiss a Girl, in that I stole the how-Adam-gets-his-wings mechanism from that fic. I'm lazy. Warnings for Kris/Katy divorce, if that's totally not your thing.
About a million years ago, astolat requested wingfic and crazy adrenaline fueled kissing in comments, and I am FINALLY COMING THROUGH. So this is for her! Someday I will, um, write her the arranged marriage fic I promised. Hopefully this is an acceptable temporary substitute.
Thanks to jamesinboots for beta!
And If I Move, Adam/Kris, 9200 words, R.
And If I Move
Kris's emergency cell phone goes off after Adam's set, while the makeup artist is finishing up his mouth. Only four people have the number, and when Kris fumbles it out of his pocket, shrugging off a fourth layer of lip gloss, the text from his agent reads 911, adams dressing room. He can hear the crowd in the stadium roaring for Cook as he slams out of makeup and takes the stairs at a run, but when Kris pushes his way through a group of people clustered around the door of Adam's dressing room, the scene isn't exactly what he was expecting.
The execs running the reunion tour and Adam's agents are clustered around a kid, one of the assistants working backstage, and no one looks particularly happy.
"It came from the cooler, I swear," the kid says, looking shaken, and Kris realizes with relief that the red liquid all over the floor is spilled gatorade.
"Um, I don't think it's a total disaster," Archuleta says from another cluster across the room, sounding kind of doubtful. Adam's bassist steps aside, revealing exactly what they're all gathered around.
"David," Adam says, "I have wings," and Kris grabs at the nearest person to keep from going down hard.
Adam's holding the remains of his black t-shirt, still covered in sweat and glitter from the performance, and they're huge and black and real. Kris is used to props, the kind of thing little kids and sorority girls wear on halloween, but Adam's wings are sleek and put together. They almost look like they belong, at least until Adam takes a step toward him and they extend, almost knocking over one of the backup dancers.
"Uh," Kris manages, staring.
"We have to get you out of here," Adam's publicist says. "I'll call a car -"
"Please, honey," Adam says. "I'm not paying you a six figure salary for that kind of advice. Everyone's cell phones and cameras go to Archie. I'll call you once I'm past the press."
Adam takes another step toward the door, and Kris reaches out blindly for his wrist. "Hey," he says, "call me too -" and Adam looks at him for a minute.
"You think I can drive myself?" Adam asks.
"My set -" Kris manages, trying to ignore the fact that Adam's wing is pressed up against his side.
"I'll cover," Archie says. "I'm still warm."
"See?" Adam says. "You can't say no, you'll be disappointing preteen girls everywhere."
Tommy holds out a set of keys. "Here. Black F350, it's parked by the bus."
"Do you really think this is a good idea?" Kris says.
"Get him back in one piece," Tommy says, "I'll distract the press," while someone safety pins Adam's ripped shirt back together around his wings, and then Kris finds himself shoved in the direction of the hallway, Adam's hand warm and tight around his wrist.
It's a combination of whatever the hell Tommy does and sheer dumb luck that gets them out; the concessions staff are clustered around a feed on someone's iPhone, watching Cook perform, and the media are milling around in the stadium lobby. Kris drags Adam down a fire escape and out a side door, into the dark of the parking lot. It feels like a mile around the building and to the performer's entrance and the tour bus. By the time Kris fumbles the door of the pickup open, his hands are shaking from adrenaline. It takes four tries to unlock the passenger side door, and when he finally gets it open, Adam doesn't immediately climb in.
"Ow, fuck," Adam says, a couple of seconds later, ducking, and Kris ends up with a mouthful of feathers and a bruised shoulder before Adam's wings finally fold back in.
There's a long moment of silence before Adam starts to laugh.
"This year," Adam mutters, "this entire fucking year," and slams the door of the truck shut behind him.
Kris pulls out, eyes on the road until he finds the highway exit, and it's only when they're ten miles clear of the city that he risks looking over at Adam, face still pale from the stage makeup, his eyes dark in the passing street-lights. Kris has seen Adam in every costume he owns, even the ones that Adam can't admit to, the kind that don't involve stylists and choreographers. The smudged eyeliner and thick hairspray are familiar, but the look on Adam's face isn't, half annoyance and half exhaustion.
Kris sets cruise control at two under, easy in the right hand lane, and starts the process of putting asphalt between them and the rest of Chicago. Kris is pretty sure that an hour of driving is enough to dodge the press, but he's got three quarters of a tank of gas and it's easier to keep going than to stop. The silence isn't exactly comfortable, but Kris is used to it, lately. He's been driving for two hours when Adam finally shifts, leaning over to take a bottle of water from one of the cupholders.
"It's kind of depressing," he says, "that there's not a single person who I want to call. I'd just end up calculating the odds of ending up on Perez Hilton again."
"Please," Kris says. "The internet has already seen photos of your dick, do you really think wings compare?"
Kris hears Adam snort back a laugh, and it's almost a relief.
"You never know," Adam says. "There's probably already a fetish message board."
"Cook found a facebook group last week about women who want to fuck his guitar. Not him. Just the guitar."
Adam laughs again. "Mental note, no instrument charity auctions on Ebay."
"Mental note, no facebook," Kris says, and there's a long pause while Adam messes with the heat.
"I used to think it was funny," Adam starts. "The attention used to be -"
Adam's always been one of those musicians, the kind that loves rope lines and twitter and people, and Kris can remember a time when Adam wanted to throw himself face first into crowds and never come up for air, when watching him perform was like watching a live wire. But it's been a long year, with messy breakups and messy scandals, bad record reviews and the kind of blurry camera phone photos no one wants plastered across CNN.com and JustJared. Adam's one of the biggest stars in America, but Kris is getting tired of watching him burn out.
"I need gas," Kris says. "And a motel."
"Econolodge? Days Inn?" Adam says, dryly, reading off an exit sign, and Kris pulls off the highway before he can think too hard about it.
Adam twists in his seat. "Seriously?"
"You'd better not be under the impression I'm taking photos of our motel room for Perez," Kris says.
"Hey, a change of venue for my next leaked sex tape," Adam says. "Fan-fucking-tastic."
"You wish."
"Way to be sensitive, Allen," Adam says. His voice still sounds a little off. "Thanks for crushing my dreams."
"Any time," Kris says, and pulls in to the Best Western parking lot.
He finds a baseball cap in Tommy's backpack and washes off the worst of the makeup in the lobby bathroom, but the clerk at the front counter barely glances at him. It's been a while since Kris was a household name, so he's not exactly surprised, but he uses the dummy credit card just in case and gets a room near the back of the hotel with a king and a sofabed.
There's no one in the parking lot after midnight, so getting Adam inside is easier than Kris expected. The motel room is freezing, with a lurid pattern on the duvet and a flickering light in the bathroom, and Kris watches Adam's shoulders start to come down when he goes to switch off the AC.
"Next time I get wing-roofied," Adam says, already starting to mess with the safety pins holding his shirt together, "remind me to bring a change of clothes."
"I'm going to go find us dinner," Kris says. "No hookers while I'm at McDonalds."
"Well, fuck," Adam says, with a familiar grin. "There go my plans for the evening."
Kris makes a trip in from the car to plug in Adam's cell phone and drop off Tommy's duffle, formerly stashed in the backseat, and by the time he lets himself out again, he can already hear the shower running. It's normal, reassuring, a post-show habit that Kris almost knows better than his own cool down routine. It means Adam's okay.
There's a 24-hour Super Target a couple of miles down the road, and Kris finds a shopping cart and lets himself sink into autopilot, finding extra large sweatpants and Hanes 3-pack t-shirts without really thinking about anything. Kris has been collecting Adam's scattered clothing from around his hotel room for so long that nothing requires an actual decision; he knows what size Adam's jeans are and that he hates the brand of socks with pink toes and that every hoodie Adam owns has sleeves that are a little too long. Kris is half way through trying to find a pair of jeans for himself when his cell phone starts to ring, and he's so tired that he doesn't really think about it before he answers.
"Hey," Kris says.
"You're a trending topic on twitter," Katy says. "You might want to call next time there's a family emergency. I worry about your mom."
"So drive over." Kris regrets it almost immediately, because even if Katy's not first on speed dial these days, he's never wanted to be that kind of asshole.
There's a long moment of silence on the line, one that Kris could fill up with a whole hell of a lot of guilt, but it's been too long of a day.
"I probably shouldn't have called," Katy says.
Kris knows it's not passive aggressive bullshit, that it's the truth. There are divorce papers on file in an Arkansas county clerk's office. It's not explicit, like the house and Kris's future royalties, but somewhere in them, there's the implication that Katy's not the person Kris wants to hear from at midnight in times of crisis. He remembers being seventeen, when Katy was the call before his parents, before his friends, before 911, when she was right down the street for fender benders and his dog dying and teenage heartbreak. Some days, Kris wishes he could get back there. Most of the time, he knows better.
"It's an Adam thing," he says. "He's okay, I just… I had to go."
"That boy," Katy says, her tone closer to the one Kris remembers from all those late night phone conversations on tour. "You'd better take care of him."
Katy loves Adam, and Kris knows he should feel bad that Adam won't speak to her. Kris finds her carefully lettered holiday cards unopened in the trash at Adam's apartment and sees her number in the deleted voicemails on Adam's phone screening service. He knows he should put an end to it, tell him it doesn't matter, but somewhere, he's viciously, selfishly glad, because even if it's not fair of Adam to blame her, even if Kris knows it takes two people to make a marriage fall apart, Kris can't untangle his hometown or his family. His whole life is full of people who won't take sides, so he can't quite bring himself to give up Adam's loyalty just yet.
"I always do," Kris says.
"And let him return the favor," Katy says.
"I should go," Kris says, even though it's not exactly the truth. He wants to say a whole hell of a lot more, to have a real conversation in the middle of the men's clearance section, but he knows he can't.
"Sure," Katy says. "Tell Adam I said hi."
"I'll call you soon," Kris says, and hangs up.
He finds enough food in Target to feed them for a couple days, and there's a Domino's next to the Target. Kris gets an extra large, half vegetarian half pepperoni.
The hookers think u should hurry up w/food, Adam texts while Kris is waiting.
Working up an appetite? Kris texts back.
Aw, baby, u know we wouldn't start w/o u Adam texts, and Kris laughs in spite of himself.
Pizza soon he replies.
When Kris finally manages to fumble the motel key out of his wallet and get inside, Adam's sprawled out on his stomach in a pair of boxer briefs, watching the Food Network. His wings take up a significant portion of the bed, but they don't seem particularly out of place, at least until Adam tries to get up and nearly falls over.
Adam pulls himself up off the bed, laughing. "Guess I'm not helping bring anything inside."
He's on his third piece of pizza when Kris brings in the last of the groceries and clothes.
"So my publicist called," Adam says. "My drink came up positive for a couple of new club drugs. I guess some asshole figured out that mixing them makes fucked up shit happen and wanted the payoff for the photos. It's supposed to wear off in a couple of days, but they're going to figure out who it is so they can sue them for lost revenue."
"I'm sure the fetish group is worth millions," Kris says, and Adam huffs out a laugh, picking up another piece of pizza.
Kris opens a couple of Coronas and passes one across the bed, watching Adam down half of it in one long swallow. Kris thinks, a little absently and not for the first time, that Adam's more beautiful without the front. Kris likes him best without any glamour at all, as someone who's not topping the iTunes sales charts for the twentieth consecutive week and on the cover of Spin three or four times a year. Sometimes Kris wishes that Adam could meet someone else who gets it, some barista or UC Berkley chemistry major who listens to NPR and doesn't give a damn about how famous he is, because being the only person who can see Adam is starting to get a little more complicated than Kris can handle.
"I'm going to go shower," Kris says, when he realizes Adam's watching him stare and starting to look uncomfortable. "I bought you some clothes."
Kris takes longer than he means to, trying to scrub off stage makeup with a tiny, ineffectual bar of motel soap that's already half gone, and when he comes out, Adam's trying to unfold the sofa bed.
"I just watched fifteen minutes of Grey's Anatomy because the remote was out of reach," Adam says, dryly. "I'm crashing."
Kris finishes toweling off his hair and watches Adam try to climb onto the sofa.
"Nice try," he says, "but I didn't get the king because I wanted room for the hooker orgy."
Stretched out, Adam's knees are somewhere near the bottom of the bed, and one of his wings is awkwardly crushed into a corner.
There's a long pause before Adam sits up again, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Last time they fucked up the hotel reservations, I got the bed," he says. Kris can tell he's irritated. "It's my turn to take the fucking couch, and I can't, because some asshole thought this would be funny."
Everyone expected him to resent Adam for the fame, but the truth is that he's never minded, because Adam didn't change. Kris knew who deserved to win Idol, but Adam's never treated him as anything less than an equal. Adam's a little more jaded, a little worn down, but to Kris, he's still exactly the same. Adam's the only person he's ever really trusted to have his back, the kind of guy who still cares about switching off on taking the sofa, so Kris doesn't give a damn who has more record sales.
He changes the channel and turns the volume down. "Just get over here."
Adam's bad at sleeping in strange places, and Kris knows the tour - full of specially booked private hotel rooms so Adam Lambert, Star Performer can have some time alone - has been rough on him. He's gotten used to slipping Adam the second room key and waking up to find him in the other queen, but he's surprised when Adam doesn't argue, just stares at the king for a while before giving in.
Adam climbs into the other side of the bed, about as far as it's possible to be from Kris, and rolls over onto his stomach. "Thanks."
"It's not like I have leprosy," Kris says. "You could get closer."
"I'm good," Adam says, a little shortly, and rolls away.
Kris hits the lights and pulls the blankets up, absently switching channels until he finds a rerun of The Daily Show. A couple minutes later, Kris gets brushed in the face by a wing spreading out over him; Adam's eyes are closed, but Kris knows he isn't asleep.
"Very funny," he says.
Adam blinks a couple of times and they fold back in, suddenly.
"Uh," Adam says, and Kris realizes his cheeks are pink. "I can't exactly control them, Kristopher."
"Just quit attacking me," Kris teases.
Adam glares at him. "Trust me, I wish I could get them to move. You have no idea how much my back hurts."
"That's tragic," Kris says, but he sits up, wrapping a hand around Adam's shoulder to nudge him off the pillows and toward the foot of the bed.
"Uh," Adam says, again.
"You're going to have to get closer," Kris says. "I'm not missing Jon Stewart to deal with your issues."
"Oh, baby, your lines get me so hot," Adam deadpans.
Kris hits him, laughing, but Adam finally moves in against his side, still stretched out on his stomach. He shoves a pillow against Kris's side and settles in, breathing evening out slowly. Adam likes touch, doesn't have the same boundaries normal people do, so Kris doesn't warn him before he reaches up to rub between his shoulder blades.
Adam makes a soft noise against his side, shifting a little deeper into the blankets, and Kris works his way around Adam's back, pressing tension out of the back of his neck and rubbing his shoulders, working on his lower back for a while. By the time he's mostly finished, Adam's almost asleep, but his wings are still folded in, tense. Kris doesn't really think about it when he slides a hand up, stroking his fingers through the feathers and pressing along the bones, exploring.
"Oh," Adam says, suddenly more awake than Kris was expecting.
He jerks his hand back. "Does that hurt?"
"No," Adam says. "It's just kind of weird, it's like you're touching - the inside of my thigh or behind my knee or -" Kris hears him laugh, a little too high. "It feels like that stupid game you play when you're a kid, where you see how long you can stand someone tickling the inside of your arm."
"That used to knock me out," Kris admits. "Katy would do it on road trips."
Kris feels Adam snort. "That's so chaste and precious."
"I was totally getting more action than you were at seventeen," Kris points out.
"Out of line, Allen," Adam says, but he's still laughing.
"Sorry," Kris teases. "I'm sure I'll find a way to make it up to your seventeen year old self."
"Hey, roleplay," Adam says, a little too brightly, and Kris has to hit him again.
"You want me to keep going?" Kris says, when Adam's finally stopped laughing.
"Yeah," Adam concedes, finally. "It doesn't hurt as much when they're out."
Kris buries his hands again, more carefully, and presses his fingers at the base of Adam's wings, where he can feel soft down and skin coming together. He can tell when they start to come down, slowly.
"This had better not be some weird Arkansas version of foreplay," Adam warns, sounding drowsy.
Kris laughs again. "Damn, you figured it out. I guess that means you're going to say no to the video camera?"
"Asshole," Adam says, but it's soft and affectionate, and a few minutes later, Kris feels his breathing slow down.
He turns the TV down but not off - Adam likes the white noise - and stretches out, Adam's wing spread over his back like a blanket. Kris is almost asleep when he feels Adam wrap a hand around his wrist, his face up against Kris's shoulder.
"Would you hate me if I wanted to get away from all of this?" Adam whispers.
Kris rolls over onto his side, watching him. "Thinking about pulling a J.D. Salinger?"
"I'm really tired, Kris," Adam says, quietly, and Kris reaches up to run his fingers through Adam's hair, letting him press into it.
"Of course I wouldn't," Kris says. "Just tell me where you're going so I can come with."
There's a pause, but Adam finally pushes a little further into Kris's fingertips, his eyes already closing. "Thanks."
"No problem," Kris says, and watches Adam fall asleep.
He wakes up next morning to Adam eating cereal at the tiny motel table, messing with his iPhone. When Kris rolls over, he realizes it's not even seven, and he throws a pillow vaguely in Adam's direction before reburying himself in the blankets with a groan.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Kris says, "but why the fuck aren't you still in bed?"
"Aw, Kristopher," Adam says, lightly, "I forgot that you're all into morning sex."
Kris isn't exactly surprised when Adam launches himself at the bed. He refuses to wake up enough to wrestle, but by the time Adam gives up, the bed is a mess, blankets mostly on the floor, and Kris is freezing.
"I think this is the point where I end our friendship," Kris says, darkly.
He opens his eyes to the underside of Adam's wing, an inch from his face. Kris resists the urge to hit it.
"The make up sex is going to need to be spectacular when you change your mind and want me back," Adam says, straight faced. "Just so we're clear."
Kris rolls his eyes and gives in, pushing Adam's wing away. "I don't get naked with morning people."
Adam snorts. "You don't get naked with anyone."
"We can't all have friends with benefits in every city," Kris says. "Some of us have to work for it."
Adam elbows him in the side. "Actually," he says, "I haven't gotten laid since the tour started."
Kris knows that Adam can't manage as many anonymous one night stands as he used to, but Adam has a talent for finding people who are willing to put out on the first date, and Kris has always had a sneaking suspicion that dinner parties with Adam's LA friends turn into free for alls when he's not around.
"Uh, Tommy?" Kris says, because he knows exactly what was happening on a regular basis last time Adam went on tour.
Adam sprawls out next to him, folding his arms. "He's dating someone. I think it's serious. His google history is all rings."
Kris is used to going without sex. He's only slept with a handful of people since Katy, mostly short-term relationships that didn't last longer than a couple of weeks. He isn't quite good enough at lying to himself to pretend that he didn't enjoy it, but spending seven years having sex with one person - a person who'd been his best friend since fifteen - made casual sex a little weird.
Adam's different, and Kris is almost positive the last time he went two months without getting laid was before he started having sex.
"Quit giving me that look, Allen," Adam says. He's laughing, but he almost sounds defensive, like he thinks Kris minds.
"Sorry," Kris says, dryly. "I'm just a little concerned you might be dying."
Adam finally sobers up and looks away, rubbing a hand over his face. "I miss Drake sometimes."
Kris rolls over on his side again, wrapping a hand around Adam's shoulder. "He was an asshole."
"I know," Adam says. "But he didn't use me to get more press exposure. He didn't sell photos of us having sex to the highest fucking bidder."
Kris watches him for another minute. He sounds irritated and pissed off again, exhausted and bitter. It might be the tour, might be one too many scandals, but the truth is that Adam's been miserable since the fourth album went platinum, since the last round of radio interviews and magazine covers and sold out stadium shows.
"Take a year off," Kris says, abruptly. "Climb some mountains. Take a role on Days of Our Lives. Get a dog."
"I would fucking blow at climbing mountains," Adam says, laughing again, but Kris watches his face start to clear.
"I don't have anything lined up after the tour," Adam says, thoughtfully. "I'm working on a new album."
"You've done an album every year for four years," Kris says. "Write if you want to, but not because you have to."
"My agents are going to kill me," Adam says, finally.
Kris grins. "So fire them."
"I knew I kept you around for a reason," Adam says.
"I thought you said you kept me for my ass," Kris says, shoving Adam, and Adam laughs a little more and pushes him back.
Adam crashes again after another ten minutes of wrestling and sleeps through Kris's shower and a trip to IHOP. He wakes up for take out chocolate chip pancakes with extra whipped cream and then falls asleep on the other side of the bed. He moves almost immediately though, ending up pressed against Kris's side, completely covered by blankets. Kris figures it's a combination of exhaustion and relief and doesn't bother trying to wake him up. He spends most of the afternoon watching the History Channel and reading the latest Stephen King novel.
When Adam finally wakes up, it takes Kris almost twenty minutes to notice that he's watching the U-Boat special instead of sleeping.
"This is a really fucking boring show, Kristopher," Adam says, finally, drowsily. "Who cares about German submarines?"
"Lake Placid is on at eight," Kris says.
"Man eating crocodiles," Adam says, suddenly grinning. "A much better choice. Awesome."
Kris orders another pizza and pulls out the rest of the beer, and they spend the rest of the night watching terrible disaster movies.
"This sucks a lot less than I thought it would," Adam says, after Kris's final impression of a scientist being eaten by a shark, and Kris just grins back.
The next morning, Kris wakes up to Adam singing embarrassing pop songs in the shower. When he goes to check his email on Adam's iPhone, there are five or six missed voicemails from his publicist and four from his agents, all deleted without having been listened to. Kris knows Adam's checking out, starting to let himself have some distance, and Kris knows exactly how stubborn he can be. If Adam leaves now, with the last of the tour and the post-stadium interviews as his last memory of what this life is like, a year is going to turn into a permanent career adjustment. Adam loves music too much for Kris to let that happen.
It takes some surfing around on the internet to figure out an idea, one that Kris isn't entirely sure he can pull off, but he's been Adam's best friend long enough to know how to get exactly what he wants.
"Pancakes again?" Kris says, when Adam finally emerges from the shower, wrapped in a towel, and Adam shakes his wings off like a fucking dog and grins.
"Don't forget the whipped cream," he says, sweetly, and Kris throws the Steven King novel at his head and takes forever at IHOP just to spite him, or at least, that's what he wants Adam to think.
In spite of everything Kris has learned over the years about the complexity of the booking process, organizing things doesn't actually prove to be that hard. Schuba's has an open mic night, the kind of event Kris knows won't draw a huge crowd, and he leaves Adam napping, with a note about going for a drive. The club isn't open, but Kris knows someone will be there - his phone calls in the IHOP parking lot weren't entirely useless - and when Kris rings the buzzer at the service entrance, one of the bartenders shows up. The manager isn't far behind.
"Can you clear the stage tonight for Adam Lambert to play a set?" Kris says, cutting to the chase.
He's a little startled when she starts laughing.
"Nice joke," she says. "Very funny."
"Uh," the bartender says, and Kris tries not to smile when he elbows the manager. "I think that's Kris Allen."
"Oh fuck," the manager says, faintly.
Kris gives in and laughs.
They agree to all his conditions - no advanced advertising, no charging for tickets, they'll do the soundcheck on the fly - and Kris heads back to the motel room, singing along to the radio the whole way back.
"Jesus," Adam says when he walks in, "long enough drive?"
Kris holds open the door behind him. "Cabin fever. Get dressed, I want to show you something."
Adam bitches a little about driving two hours just to see something, but he can't argue with the fact that they don't actually have anything better to do, and Kris distracts him with a new Musicovery app.
"I thought the goal was to avoid the press," Adam says, when Kris pulls into a mostly deserted parking garage downtown.
Kris grins and grabs his jacket and a hat from the backseat. "I thought you liked to live dangerously."
"Not when it involves the paparazzi," Adam replies, but he follows Kris out of the parking garage.
They get a few stares and one camera phone photo, but no one seems to recognize Adam with his hat and a pair of Kris's old glasses, and Kris figures that most Chicago street goers have seen weirder things than a guy with wings. They make it to the back entrance of the club without anyone hassling them.
"It's, um, an honor to meet you," the manager says, when she meets them at the door.
Adam looks a little wary, but he sticks out a hand anyway. "I'm Adam."
To her credit, she doesn't point out that she already knows, just takes Kris's sleeve and points him toward an unmarked door.
"Right through there," she says. "Watch the steps, it's kind of dark."
"Please tell me this isn't some sort of shady sex club," Adam says, right up against his ear while glancing back at her, and Kris bites back the urge to laugh and holds open the door.
"Nah," he says. "No hookers."
Kris can hear the polite clapping of the audience as one of the open mic performers finishes, and then they descend into low chatter. Adam's pressed up against him in the hall to the stage, warm in the dark. He smells like hotel soap and cheap laundry detergent, and his feathers are soft against Kris's cheek, a wing almost wrapped around him.
Adam shifts closer. "Kris?"
"Just trust me," Kris whispers.
He pushes Adam forward, out onto the stage, and leans in with a grin. "And if anyone asks, you have a fucking phenomenal costume designer."
There's another round of polite clapping when Kris crosses the stage to pick up a guitar and plug it in, sliding the mic stand down.
"Guys, this is Adam," he says. "I think he's feeling a little shy tonight."
There's some laughter, and the clapping warms up, slowly. Kris watches Adam finally figure it out, starting to laugh, and he steps up to the second microphone, pulling down the sleeves of his hoodie. He looks washed out with no stage makeup, his bangs in his face, and Kris knows Adam's going to kill him later for getting him on stage in a pair of jeans, but his wings are close to iridescent in the stage lights. Kris is pretty sure everything is going to be okay.
"That's Kris," Adam says, still laughing, "and he's kind of an asshole."
Kris plays another couple notes, checking the tuning. "You're going to get a reputation as the least family friendly performer ever."
"Too late," Adam says. "Kris is actually such an asshole that we don't actually have a set list tonight. I guess we're taking requests."
There's total silence.
Kris tries not to laugh at the look on Adam's face. "This is open mic night, who do you think you are?"
"God," Adam says, totally straight faced, "obviously," and Kris gives in and cracks up, playing the first measure.
Adam grins, wrapping his hands around the mic. "Does that even work as acoustic?"
"Why the fuck not?" Kris says.
Kris knows all of Adam's songs - fuck, he helped write half of the third album - but it's been a couple of years since Adam was doing For Your Entertainment at every show. He screws up a couple of the improvised guitar chords and Adam misses a line in the second verse, but it doesn't actually matter. Kris is having fun and Adam's still grinning through the chorus.
The stage lights are too high for Kris to really see the audience, but it's easy to tell when they collectively figure out what's going on; the noise level goes up, and Kris starts to see the familiar flash of camera phones.
They play their way through three or four songs off the latest album, the ones Adam's been doing lately, and then Kris tries Voodoo and Adam manages to forget an entire verse.
"Jesus," Kris says, laughing, after they're both so lost they can't even finish the song, "aren't you supposed to be a famous and talented musician or something?"
"So I guess Kris is volunteering to play some songs off his first album," Adam says.
Kris steps closer to the microphone. "Damn straight."
Kris somehow manages to remember all the lyrics and the chords to both of the songs Adam starts, and then they do a couple covers. The rest of the set is easy, fun, and Adam seems happier than Kris has seen him in almost a year. The room hits capacity a couple of minutes before they finish, but it's still less than a couple hundred people, the smallest show either of them has played in years.
When they finally leave the stage, the applause is deafening, and Kris can barely hear himself think in the hallway. Adam's bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, still laughing, and he pulls Kris into a hug almost before they're off the stage, crushing and warm.
"Do you want an encore?" Kris yells, right up against Adam's temple.
"Fuck yes," Adam yells back. "I'm going to take your guitar after you do a song. Can you sing back up if we share a mic?"
Kris leans in closer. "You never play guitar on stage."
"Whatever," Adam shouts, with a blinding grin. "What the hell, right?"
"Go for it," Kris says, pushing Adam back toward the stage.
Kris does Kiss a Girl, both because he's never met an audience that isn't capable of singing along to the chorus and because convincing Adam to sing a country song about making out with women is always hilarious, and then passes over the guitar, refastening the strap so it slides between Adam's wings.
"I don't tune that often," Adam says, "so bear with me."
Adam's capable of talking while he works on a guitar, so Kris finds it odd that he doesn't say anything as the audience quiets down, but Kris finds that he doesn't want to fill up the silence. He turns off his microphone and moves to stand next to Adam, just waiting.
"You've been a great audience," Adam says, finally. "So I'm going to do a song that I've never done live before."
Adam starts playing, and Kris almost doesn't recognize the opener. It's the last song on Adam's second album, the one that made Adam famous. Out of the four, it's the only album of Adam's Kris has never really fallen for, maybe because it was written and released while they were living on opposite sides of the country, Adam in LA and Kris in Arkansas. It was the only CD in Kris's car stereo for almost six months, the one he listened to when Adam was too busy to call and his marriage was falling apart.
"I get a lot of interview questions about this song," Adam says, just loud enough to be heard over the guitar. "And everyone always wants to know who it's about and what it means. I've told a lot of people that a love song doesn't have to be about anyone, and one time I think I told Rolling Stone it was about an ex."
Adam grins, quiet and bright in the stage lights. "So I just want to apologize in retrospect, because I lied. Love songs are always about someone."
Adam starts singing, and Kris feels something in his stomach turn over when he realizes Adam is watching him. It's a song about staying between the lines, about playing it safe and keeping things to yourself. Kris has always assumed Adam wrote it for Drake during the on-again off-again clusterfuck that was the year after they broke up. By the he steps forward to sing backup on the chorus, though, he knows better.
Adam's feelings for him have always been obvious. He's always worn his heart on his sleeve, admitted too much in interviews, and Kris knew, during Idol and the tour, why Adam never got that drunk around him and always stayed a little too close. They never talked about it, but Kris was married and Adam wasn't single. Kris knew at the time that it wasn't anything serious, just one of those things, so he changed when Adam wasn't in the room and kept the flirting to a minimum.
Adam's never been that good at hiding anything, so Kris knew when it wore off, except it doesn't take that much more of the song before Kris realizes he's been wrong all along. Adam's in love with him. Said like this, Kris could shrug it off, pretend he doesn't get what Adam's saying, but he can't break eye contact and somehow, he doesn't want to. Fuck, Kris thinks, because Adam's two inches away, so close Kris can feel him breathing.
When the song ends, they're left in the silence of the stage, watching each other. Kris should pull back, but he can't, and he waits for applause to break the moment, but it doesn't come.
"Can I -" Adam whispers, still right up against the microphone, loud where it should feel quiet.
"Yeah," Kris says, roughly.
Adam kisses him. It shouldn't be good but it is, maybe the best thing Kris has felt in years, and when Adam reaches up, cups his face, and goes for it, Kris closes his eyes and loses himself in the kiss. Adam's making soft, desperate noises against his mouth, and Kris only notices when the noise in the room starts because he stops being able to hear him. When they finally break apart, Kris has the sudden realization that he just made out with Adam on stage in front of over three hundred people, all of whom probably have cell phones with video capacity.
"Well," Kris manages.
"Oh fuck," Adam says, and bolts.
Kris actually manages to make it back stage before he realizes that his legs probably aren't going to hold him up for that much longer, which is how he ends up sitting on the floor of a dressing room, resisting the urge to see whether or not there's a youtube video up yet.
The manager sticks her head in about five minutes later, while Kris is contemplating whether it's too melodramatic to stick his head between his knees. "We're keeping the press out, but you look like you could use a drink."
"Scotch," Kris says. "Maybe like - an entire bottle of scotch."
She laughs. "I'll see what I can do."
She's barely out of the room when Kris's cell goes off; he figures it's even odds between Adam never wanting to see him again and his agent officially ending their contract.
"So I'm probably the last person you want to hear from," Katy says, when Kris puts the phone against his shoulder, "but I wanted to give you credit for finding the best method of coming out ever."
"Fuck you," Kris says, but he can't help laughing.
He shouldn't want to hear her voice, and talking to his ex-wife about accidentally kissing his best friend is so far beyond fucked up Kris doesn't even know how to describe it, but Katy's always been better than anyone else at laughing at his problems. It's still comforting.
He slides a little further down the wall. "On a scale of one to ten, how freaked is the internet?"
"About a hundred billion," Katy says. "How long have you and Adam been having a torrid affair?"
Kris knows it's not that funny, but it's easier to laugh than to think about where things stand with Adam. "Eight or nine minutes?"
There's a long silence. "Please tell me you didn't let him run off."
"I'm not that great at this," Kris says, shortly.
"Do you want to?" Katy says, and Kris knows he should ask what she means, if it's not being an idiot or finding Adam or some other undefined question about whether he wants all of this, but he's never been that good at lying to himself, and the truth is that the answer's the same for all of it.
Kris swallows. "Yeah."
"You're an idiot," Katy says.
"How long have you known who Polite Fiction was for?" Kris asks, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall.
"Like three years. Since the album came out."
"Awesome," Kris says. "Next time my best friend is in love with me and I'm too stupid to figure it out, let me know."
Katy laughs. "Get off the phone with me and go find him, asshole."
"I'll call you tomorrow," Kris says, and he's almost surprised to find he means it.
"Don't make me find out details from twitter," Katy warns, and hangs up, still laughing.
Kris gives himself another thirty seconds of not thinking about it before he finds Adam's number in his contacts list.
Where are you? Kris texts.
There's a glass of scotch outside the doorway, and Kris downs it while he waits. It's not that much of a stretch to pretend the burn helps, at least until his phone buzzes in his lap.
hiding, Adam says.
Where? Kris replies.
in the car, Adam says.
Stay put?
ok, Adam replies.
Kris borrows a hat and gets one of the bartenders to walk him out the service entrance; most of the local press are clustered around the front, and no one notices a couple. The parking garage down the street is empty of people, with only a few cars parked in long-term spots. He isn't exactly surprised - it's after midnight on a weeknight - but it makes it easier. He's not sure he wants an audience if things go badly.
He takes the elevator to the top floor and finds the car, trying to keep his breathing under control. Adam's sideways in the back seat, wedged into a corner like he really is hiding from something, and everything about it feels wrong. Adam's cocky, outgoing in a way that Kris has never even been able to mimic, and Kris has never seen him scared. It feels so unfamiliar that it takes a full minute for Kris to realize the wings are gone. Adam seems smaller with out them, but Kris thinks it might just be the look on his face, more than a little lost.
He puts a hand on the window, tapping. "Open up."
There's a long moment where Kris thinks that Adam might not, that he might have to have this conversation through the glass, but Adam finally leans forward to unlock the door.
Kris wraps his hand around the roof of the car and leans in, still far enough away that he's not pushing into Adam's space. "Hey."
"I'm sorry," Adam says, his voice breaking a little. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have -"
"Adam," Kris says.
"I know we're just friends, I'm happy to be friends, I'm sorry," Adam says, fast enough that Kris knows he's probably been going over it in his head.
Kris doesn't have a lot of experience with relationships, just one screwed up marriage and a string of awkward, uncomfortable first dates, but he knows every detail of all of Adam's history, every fucked up one night stand and every straight guy who wouldn't own up to it and all the awful things Drake said when he was done pretending to be friends. He knows exactly how high the stakes are, exactly what the risks might be, and he wants it - all of it - anyway.
Kris is also aware of just how easy it would be to fuck this up.
"You don't have anything to apologize for," Kris says.
When Adam laughs, it sounds a little hollow. "I kissed you in front of three hundred people."
Kris rubs his hands over his jeans, taking a deep breath. "I wanted you to kiss me in front of three hundred people."
"Kris," Adam starts.
Kris climbs into the backseat and pulls the door shut behind him before Adam can say anything else.
"I know I missed all your signals," he says. "I know I should have figured this out years ago. I've been -"
Adam doesn't say anything, and Kris swallows. "I didn't know, and I can't pretend I've been thinking about this for as long as you have, but I wanted you to kiss me. I want - more than that."
"I -" Adam's voice cracks. "I know I fucking set myself up for this one, I know I sleep with friends, but I can't - I can't give that to you -"
It takes Kris a minute to understand what Adam's trying to say.
"No," Kris says, firmly, then slides a hand up to push Adam's knees apart so he can climb between them.
"If I try to say this, I'm just going to fuck it up," Kris says. "But I'm not asking to be friends with benefits."
Adam's tense, trying to lean back against the door even though he's already as far away as he can get, and Kris ignores the voice in his head that knows all of Adam's limits and reaches up to slide his hands underneath Adam's jaw, tilting his face up to meet his eyes.
It's awkward and uncomfortable, and Kris hates waiting in the dark for Adam to either figure it out or punch him, but it only takes a couple seconds of heavy silence before he feels Adam suddenly relax.
"What are you asking for?" Adam says, carefully.
"We could buy a house," Kris says.
"Jesus, this isn't even the first date," Adam says, but he's starting to laugh, softly, and when he leans in until their faces are touching, it's almost better than a kiss.
"I bought you pancakes," Kris says, nudging his nose against Adam's as Adam wraps his hands around his shoulders, pulling him down.
Adam grins, close enough that Kris can feel it without looking. "I think that counts for sex, not mortgages."
"Uh," Kris says, and glances down at Adam's mouth, almost by accident.
"Kidding," Adam says, the corner of his mouth pulling up.
Kris lasts all of two seconds before he gives in and kisses him. Adam makes a startled noise against his mouth that settles somewhere in the pit of Kris's stomach, warm. Adam's bad at giving up control, at letting someone else call the shots, but Kris already has his hands cupping Adam's face, so he takes it deeper, licking along Adam's lower lip until Kris can taste him. Surprisingly enough, Adam doesn't fight him, just fists his hands in Kris's shirt and pulls him in, like he's trying to get rid of all the space between them.
Kris knows, intellectually, what sex with Adam would be like. He's heard all the details, and he crashed on Adam's couch for three weeks after the divorce and heard every second of the sex with every boy Adam brought home. Adam's loud, the kind of person who likes to laugh in bed and doesn't take sex too seriously. Kris gets that, likes that, but the way that they're kissing is too intense to be playful, and Kris's heart feels like it's going to slam out of his chest.
"I want to -" Adam starts, and Kris watches him swallow and leans in to push away the collar of Adam's t-shirt, licking up his neck.
Adam tilts his head back against the window, exposing the long line of his throat, and Kris moves until he's kneeling outside Adam's thighs, so he can fit their hips together, sliding his palms underneath Adam's shirt, against his back. Adam bites the corner of his mouth and buries his hands in Kris's hair, holding eye contact, and Kris can feel himself start to get hard.
Adam laughs suddenly, unexpectedly, and it feels a little less tense.
"On a scale of one to ten, how weird is this for you?" Adam says, head still tilted back against the window.
"Define one and ten."
"One being, oh, baby, fuck me right now," Adam says, grinning in a way that makes Kris's pulse pick up. "Five being, let's take this slow and just make out. Ten - uh. Aliens."
"Eleven, women who want to fuck Cook's guitar," Kris says, laughing, and pulls Adam into a slow, warm kiss.
"Twelve, the wing fetish club president," Adam says, but he nudges his nose against Kris's, waiting.
"Three," Kris decides.
"Fifteen, your best friend who you've been in love with for years likes you back," Adam says.
"You skipped some numbers," Kris points out, shifting a little closer.
Adam runs a thumb over Kris's cheekbone, tilting Kris's head to the side. "So let's talk about three," he murmurs, low, leaning forward to bite Kris's earlobe. "You're awfully comfortable for someone who hasn't done this with boys before, Kristopher. Something you want to tell me?"
Kris shivers. "I lost my virginity in the backseat of a pickup?"
Adam laughs, nuzzling down Kris's throat. "Comfort zone, Allen?"
"Something like that," Kris says.
The truth is, it's Adam, and Kris knows almost everything about him. The hot curve of Adam's cock against the inside of his thigh is new, unfamiliar, but Kris knows Adam's smile, all the intensity of his attention, and it's comfortable, easier than sleeping with a woman from a bar or a blind date. Kris wants him.
"We can go slow," Adam says. Kris knows he means it, so he slides a hand down to undo Adam's belt buckle, easing the zipper down.
"Is this okay?" he says, grinning into a kiss, and Adam laughs, startled and breathless.
"Yeah," he says. "You need me to talk you through it?"
Kris licks his palm, pushes a hand into Adam's jeans, easing them off his hips with his free hand, and wraps his fingers around Adam's cock. It's unfamiliar - Adam's bigger, warmer, and Kris feels backwards - but the noise Adam makes when Kris goes for something familiar and rubs his thumb underneath the head is worth any potential embarrassment.
"No," Kris says, and Adam throws back his head and closes his eyes.
Adam talks in bed, a steady litany of filthy language and porn star moans that Kris has heard more times than he wants to admit, but here, he's quiet, just little noises that Kris is almost positive are involuntary. Kris jerks him off slowly, trading hot, wet kisses that leave both of them panting, and Adam flushes all the way beneath his collar, his temples going dark with sweat.
Adam's hands suddenly go tight in Kris's shirt, and that's Kris's only hint that he's going to come; he watches the pulse jump in Adam's throat while he breathes, shuddering. Adam's eyes are dark when he finally opens them, wrapping a hand around the back of Kris's neck to pull him down, and the kiss after is fierce and a little possessive. It settles somewhere in Kris's chest.
"I want to blow you, baby, can I?" Adam whispers, voice warm and more wrecked than Kris has ever heard it, and Kris tries to ignore the flood of heat down his spine.
Kris manages a nod, and Adam settles his hands on Kris's shoulders and pushes him back, faster than he was expecting, until he hits the other side of the truck hard and their positions are reversed, with Adam sliding down between his thighs.
Adam knows just as much about Kris's sex life as Kris knows about his, and so Kris can't wipe away the joking conversations about blow jobs, the one thing Katy never really got into, and Kris would be embarrassed, but Adam jerks his jeans and boxers off, shoving his shirt up, and pins his hips down, stroking fast before he slides his whole mouth down. Kris can feel his cock hitting the inside of Adam's cheek, then the back of his throat, and he's warm all over for an entirely different reason. Adam sucks, hot and wet and fast, his fingers so tight against Kris's hip that they might bruise.
"Jesus," Kris says, faintly, and when Adam makes a noise that Kris feels, Kris has to shove at his shoulder.
"I," he manages, and Adam pulls back and jerks him the rest of the way through it, propped up on one elbow, meeting Kris's eyes.
While Kris still can't think, Adam slides up and licks his stomach clean, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and then sprawls out on top of him, just the right side of too heavy.
"I'll swallow next time, but I wanted to watch you," Adam says, almost matter of fact, and Kris laughs, still breathless.
"Do you have a side career in porn I should know about?"
"The leaked sex tapes were totally staged," Adam says, but he looks pleased.
"On the other hand, the camera phone shots of us having sex in a parking garage aren't going to be," Kris says, faintly, finally realizing, and Adam grins.
"Totally worth it," he says, and suddenly, there's an iPhone flash in his face.
"I could probably make a ridiculous amount of money with this," Adam says, thoughtfully, examining the picture.
Kris grabs for it, but Adam holds the phone out of reach, grinning.
"Just for that trauma, you're driving back," Kris says.
"Hey," Adam says, "just for threatening me, I'm definitely putting this on the fridge in our new house," and Kris pulls him down for another kiss, laughing.
About a million years ago, astolat requested wingfic and crazy adrenaline fueled kissing in comments, and I am FINALLY COMING THROUGH. So this is for her! Someday I will, um, write her the arranged marriage fic I promised. Hopefully this is an acceptable temporary substitute.
Thanks to jamesinboots for beta!
And If I Move, Adam/Kris, 9200 words, R.
And If I Move
Kris's emergency cell phone goes off after Adam's set, while the makeup artist is finishing up his mouth. Only four people have the number, and when Kris fumbles it out of his pocket, shrugging off a fourth layer of lip gloss, the text from his agent reads 911, adams dressing room. He can hear the crowd in the stadium roaring for Cook as he slams out of makeup and takes the stairs at a run, but when Kris pushes his way through a group of people clustered around the door of Adam's dressing room, the scene isn't exactly what he was expecting.
The execs running the reunion tour and Adam's agents are clustered around a kid, one of the assistants working backstage, and no one looks particularly happy.
"It came from the cooler, I swear," the kid says, looking shaken, and Kris realizes with relief that the red liquid all over the floor is spilled gatorade.
"Um, I don't think it's a total disaster," Archuleta says from another cluster across the room, sounding kind of doubtful. Adam's bassist steps aside, revealing exactly what they're all gathered around.
"David," Adam says, "I have wings," and Kris grabs at the nearest person to keep from going down hard.
Adam's holding the remains of his black t-shirt, still covered in sweat and glitter from the performance, and they're huge and black and real. Kris is used to props, the kind of thing little kids and sorority girls wear on halloween, but Adam's wings are sleek and put together. They almost look like they belong, at least until Adam takes a step toward him and they extend, almost knocking over one of the backup dancers.
"Uh," Kris manages, staring.
"We have to get you out of here," Adam's publicist says. "I'll call a car -"
"Please, honey," Adam says. "I'm not paying you a six figure salary for that kind of advice. Everyone's cell phones and cameras go to Archie. I'll call you once I'm past the press."
Adam takes another step toward the door, and Kris reaches out blindly for his wrist. "Hey," he says, "call me too -" and Adam looks at him for a minute.
"You think I can drive myself?" Adam asks.
"My set -" Kris manages, trying to ignore the fact that Adam's wing is pressed up against his side.
"I'll cover," Archie says. "I'm still warm."
"See?" Adam says. "You can't say no, you'll be disappointing preteen girls everywhere."
Tommy holds out a set of keys. "Here. Black F350, it's parked by the bus."
"Do you really think this is a good idea?" Kris says.
"Get him back in one piece," Tommy says, "I'll distract the press," while someone safety pins Adam's ripped shirt back together around his wings, and then Kris finds himself shoved in the direction of the hallway, Adam's hand warm and tight around his wrist.
It's a combination of whatever the hell Tommy does and sheer dumb luck that gets them out; the concessions staff are clustered around a feed on someone's iPhone, watching Cook perform, and the media are milling around in the stadium lobby. Kris drags Adam down a fire escape and out a side door, into the dark of the parking lot. It feels like a mile around the building and to the performer's entrance and the tour bus. By the time Kris fumbles the door of the pickup open, his hands are shaking from adrenaline. It takes four tries to unlock the passenger side door, and when he finally gets it open, Adam doesn't immediately climb in.
"Ow, fuck," Adam says, a couple of seconds later, ducking, and Kris ends up with a mouthful of feathers and a bruised shoulder before Adam's wings finally fold back in.
There's a long moment of silence before Adam starts to laugh.
"This year," Adam mutters, "this entire fucking year," and slams the door of the truck shut behind him.
Kris pulls out, eyes on the road until he finds the highway exit, and it's only when they're ten miles clear of the city that he risks looking over at Adam, face still pale from the stage makeup, his eyes dark in the passing street-lights. Kris has seen Adam in every costume he owns, even the ones that Adam can't admit to, the kind that don't involve stylists and choreographers. The smudged eyeliner and thick hairspray are familiar, but the look on Adam's face isn't, half annoyance and half exhaustion.
Kris sets cruise control at two under, easy in the right hand lane, and starts the process of putting asphalt between them and the rest of Chicago. Kris is pretty sure that an hour of driving is enough to dodge the press, but he's got three quarters of a tank of gas and it's easier to keep going than to stop. The silence isn't exactly comfortable, but Kris is used to it, lately. He's been driving for two hours when Adam finally shifts, leaning over to take a bottle of water from one of the cupholders.
"It's kind of depressing," he says, "that there's not a single person who I want to call. I'd just end up calculating the odds of ending up on Perez Hilton again."
"Please," Kris says. "The internet has already seen photos of your dick, do you really think wings compare?"
Kris hears Adam snort back a laugh, and it's almost a relief.
"You never know," Adam says. "There's probably already a fetish message board."
"Cook found a facebook group last week about women who want to fuck his guitar. Not him. Just the guitar."
Adam laughs again. "Mental note, no instrument charity auctions on Ebay."
"Mental note, no facebook," Kris says, and there's a long pause while Adam messes with the heat.
"I used to think it was funny," Adam starts. "The attention used to be -"
Adam's always been one of those musicians, the kind that loves rope lines and twitter and people, and Kris can remember a time when Adam wanted to throw himself face first into crowds and never come up for air, when watching him perform was like watching a live wire. But it's been a long year, with messy breakups and messy scandals, bad record reviews and the kind of blurry camera phone photos no one wants plastered across CNN.com and JustJared. Adam's one of the biggest stars in America, but Kris is getting tired of watching him burn out.
"I need gas," Kris says. "And a motel."
"Econolodge? Days Inn?" Adam says, dryly, reading off an exit sign, and Kris pulls off the highway before he can think too hard about it.
Adam twists in his seat. "Seriously?"
"You'd better not be under the impression I'm taking photos of our motel room for Perez," Kris says.
"Hey, a change of venue for my next leaked sex tape," Adam says. "Fan-fucking-tastic."
"You wish."
"Way to be sensitive, Allen," Adam says. His voice still sounds a little off. "Thanks for crushing my dreams."
"Any time," Kris says, and pulls in to the Best Western parking lot.
He finds a baseball cap in Tommy's backpack and washes off the worst of the makeup in the lobby bathroom, but the clerk at the front counter barely glances at him. It's been a while since Kris was a household name, so he's not exactly surprised, but he uses the dummy credit card just in case and gets a room near the back of the hotel with a king and a sofabed.
There's no one in the parking lot after midnight, so getting Adam inside is easier than Kris expected. The motel room is freezing, with a lurid pattern on the duvet and a flickering light in the bathroom, and Kris watches Adam's shoulders start to come down when he goes to switch off the AC.
"Next time I get wing-roofied," Adam says, already starting to mess with the safety pins holding his shirt together, "remind me to bring a change of clothes."
"I'm going to go find us dinner," Kris says. "No hookers while I'm at McDonalds."
"Well, fuck," Adam says, with a familiar grin. "There go my plans for the evening."
Kris makes a trip in from the car to plug in Adam's cell phone and drop off Tommy's duffle, formerly stashed in the backseat, and by the time he lets himself out again, he can already hear the shower running. It's normal, reassuring, a post-show habit that Kris almost knows better than his own cool down routine. It means Adam's okay.
There's a 24-hour Super Target a couple of miles down the road, and Kris finds a shopping cart and lets himself sink into autopilot, finding extra large sweatpants and Hanes 3-pack t-shirts without really thinking about anything. Kris has been collecting Adam's scattered clothing from around his hotel room for so long that nothing requires an actual decision; he knows what size Adam's jeans are and that he hates the brand of socks with pink toes and that every hoodie Adam owns has sleeves that are a little too long. Kris is half way through trying to find a pair of jeans for himself when his cell phone starts to ring, and he's so tired that he doesn't really think about it before he answers.
"Hey," Kris says.
"You're a trending topic on twitter," Katy says. "You might want to call next time there's a family emergency. I worry about your mom."
"So drive over." Kris regrets it almost immediately, because even if Katy's not first on speed dial these days, he's never wanted to be that kind of asshole.
There's a long moment of silence on the line, one that Kris could fill up with a whole hell of a lot of guilt, but it's been too long of a day.
"I probably shouldn't have called," Katy says.
Kris knows it's not passive aggressive bullshit, that it's the truth. There are divorce papers on file in an Arkansas county clerk's office. It's not explicit, like the house and Kris's future royalties, but somewhere in them, there's the implication that Katy's not the person Kris wants to hear from at midnight in times of crisis. He remembers being seventeen, when Katy was the call before his parents, before his friends, before 911, when she was right down the street for fender benders and his dog dying and teenage heartbreak. Some days, Kris wishes he could get back there. Most of the time, he knows better.
"It's an Adam thing," he says. "He's okay, I just… I had to go."
"That boy," Katy says, her tone closer to the one Kris remembers from all those late night phone conversations on tour. "You'd better take care of him."
Katy loves Adam, and Kris knows he should feel bad that Adam won't speak to her. Kris finds her carefully lettered holiday cards unopened in the trash at Adam's apartment and sees her number in the deleted voicemails on Adam's phone screening service. He knows he should put an end to it, tell him it doesn't matter, but somewhere, he's viciously, selfishly glad, because even if it's not fair of Adam to blame her, even if Kris knows it takes two people to make a marriage fall apart, Kris can't untangle his hometown or his family. His whole life is full of people who won't take sides, so he can't quite bring himself to give up Adam's loyalty just yet.
"I always do," Kris says.
"And let him return the favor," Katy says.
"I should go," Kris says, even though it's not exactly the truth. He wants to say a whole hell of a lot more, to have a real conversation in the middle of the men's clearance section, but he knows he can't.
"Sure," Katy says. "Tell Adam I said hi."
"I'll call you soon," Kris says, and hangs up.
He finds enough food in Target to feed them for a couple days, and there's a Domino's next to the Target. Kris gets an extra large, half vegetarian half pepperoni.
The hookers think u should hurry up w/food, Adam texts while Kris is waiting.
Working up an appetite? Kris texts back.
Aw, baby, u know we wouldn't start w/o u Adam texts, and Kris laughs in spite of himself.
Pizza soon he replies.
When Kris finally manages to fumble the motel key out of his wallet and get inside, Adam's sprawled out on his stomach in a pair of boxer briefs, watching the Food Network. His wings take up a significant portion of the bed, but they don't seem particularly out of place, at least until Adam tries to get up and nearly falls over.
Adam pulls himself up off the bed, laughing. "Guess I'm not helping bring anything inside."
He's on his third piece of pizza when Kris brings in the last of the groceries and clothes.
"So my publicist called," Adam says. "My drink came up positive for a couple of new club drugs. I guess some asshole figured out that mixing them makes fucked up shit happen and wanted the payoff for the photos. It's supposed to wear off in a couple of days, but they're going to figure out who it is so they can sue them for lost revenue."
"I'm sure the fetish group is worth millions," Kris says, and Adam huffs out a laugh, picking up another piece of pizza.
Kris opens a couple of Coronas and passes one across the bed, watching Adam down half of it in one long swallow. Kris thinks, a little absently and not for the first time, that Adam's more beautiful without the front. Kris likes him best without any glamour at all, as someone who's not topping the iTunes sales charts for the twentieth consecutive week and on the cover of Spin three or four times a year. Sometimes Kris wishes that Adam could meet someone else who gets it, some barista or UC Berkley chemistry major who listens to NPR and doesn't give a damn about how famous he is, because being the only person who can see Adam is starting to get a little more complicated than Kris can handle.
"I'm going to go shower," Kris says, when he realizes Adam's watching him stare and starting to look uncomfortable. "I bought you some clothes."
Kris takes longer than he means to, trying to scrub off stage makeup with a tiny, ineffectual bar of motel soap that's already half gone, and when he comes out, Adam's trying to unfold the sofa bed.
"I just watched fifteen minutes of Grey's Anatomy because the remote was out of reach," Adam says, dryly. "I'm crashing."
Kris finishes toweling off his hair and watches Adam try to climb onto the sofa.
"Nice try," he says, "but I didn't get the king because I wanted room for the hooker orgy."
Stretched out, Adam's knees are somewhere near the bottom of the bed, and one of his wings is awkwardly crushed into a corner.
There's a long pause before Adam sits up again, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Last time they fucked up the hotel reservations, I got the bed," he says. Kris can tell he's irritated. "It's my turn to take the fucking couch, and I can't, because some asshole thought this would be funny."
Everyone expected him to resent Adam for the fame, but the truth is that he's never minded, because Adam didn't change. Kris knew who deserved to win Idol, but Adam's never treated him as anything less than an equal. Adam's a little more jaded, a little worn down, but to Kris, he's still exactly the same. Adam's the only person he's ever really trusted to have his back, the kind of guy who still cares about switching off on taking the sofa, so Kris doesn't give a damn who has more record sales.
He changes the channel and turns the volume down. "Just get over here."
Adam's bad at sleeping in strange places, and Kris knows the tour - full of specially booked private hotel rooms so Adam Lambert, Star Performer can have some time alone - has been rough on him. He's gotten used to slipping Adam the second room key and waking up to find him in the other queen, but he's surprised when Adam doesn't argue, just stares at the king for a while before giving in.
Adam climbs into the other side of the bed, about as far as it's possible to be from Kris, and rolls over onto his stomach. "Thanks."
"It's not like I have leprosy," Kris says. "You could get closer."
"I'm good," Adam says, a little shortly, and rolls away.
Kris hits the lights and pulls the blankets up, absently switching channels until he finds a rerun of The Daily Show. A couple minutes later, Kris gets brushed in the face by a wing spreading out over him; Adam's eyes are closed, but Kris knows he isn't asleep.
"Very funny," he says.
Adam blinks a couple of times and they fold back in, suddenly.
"Uh," Adam says, and Kris realizes his cheeks are pink. "I can't exactly control them, Kristopher."
"Just quit attacking me," Kris teases.
Adam glares at him. "Trust me, I wish I could get them to move. You have no idea how much my back hurts."
"That's tragic," Kris says, but he sits up, wrapping a hand around Adam's shoulder to nudge him off the pillows and toward the foot of the bed.
"Uh," Adam says, again.
"You're going to have to get closer," Kris says. "I'm not missing Jon Stewart to deal with your issues."
"Oh, baby, your lines get me so hot," Adam deadpans.
Kris hits him, laughing, but Adam finally moves in against his side, still stretched out on his stomach. He shoves a pillow against Kris's side and settles in, breathing evening out slowly. Adam likes touch, doesn't have the same boundaries normal people do, so Kris doesn't warn him before he reaches up to rub between his shoulder blades.
Adam makes a soft noise against his side, shifting a little deeper into the blankets, and Kris works his way around Adam's back, pressing tension out of the back of his neck and rubbing his shoulders, working on his lower back for a while. By the time he's mostly finished, Adam's almost asleep, but his wings are still folded in, tense. Kris doesn't really think about it when he slides a hand up, stroking his fingers through the feathers and pressing along the bones, exploring.
"Oh," Adam says, suddenly more awake than Kris was expecting.
He jerks his hand back. "Does that hurt?"
"No," Adam says. "It's just kind of weird, it's like you're touching - the inside of my thigh or behind my knee or -" Kris hears him laugh, a little too high. "It feels like that stupid game you play when you're a kid, where you see how long you can stand someone tickling the inside of your arm."
"That used to knock me out," Kris admits. "Katy would do it on road trips."
Kris feels Adam snort. "That's so chaste and precious."
"I was totally getting more action than you were at seventeen," Kris points out.
"Out of line, Allen," Adam says, but he's still laughing.
"Sorry," Kris teases. "I'm sure I'll find a way to make it up to your seventeen year old self."
"Hey, roleplay," Adam says, a little too brightly, and Kris has to hit him again.
"You want me to keep going?" Kris says, when Adam's finally stopped laughing.
"Yeah," Adam concedes, finally. "It doesn't hurt as much when they're out."
Kris buries his hands again, more carefully, and presses his fingers at the base of Adam's wings, where he can feel soft down and skin coming together. He can tell when they start to come down, slowly.
"This had better not be some weird Arkansas version of foreplay," Adam warns, sounding drowsy.
Kris laughs again. "Damn, you figured it out. I guess that means you're going to say no to the video camera?"
"Asshole," Adam says, but it's soft and affectionate, and a few minutes later, Kris feels his breathing slow down.
He turns the TV down but not off - Adam likes the white noise - and stretches out, Adam's wing spread over his back like a blanket. Kris is almost asleep when he feels Adam wrap a hand around his wrist, his face up against Kris's shoulder.
"Would you hate me if I wanted to get away from all of this?" Adam whispers.
Kris rolls over onto his side, watching him. "Thinking about pulling a J.D. Salinger?"
"I'm really tired, Kris," Adam says, quietly, and Kris reaches up to run his fingers through Adam's hair, letting him press into it.
"Of course I wouldn't," Kris says. "Just tell me where you're going so I can come with."
There's a pause, but Adam finally pushes a little further into Kris's fingertips, his eyes already closing. "Thanks."
"No problem," Kris says, and watches Adam fall asleep.
He wakes up next morning to Adam eating cereal at the tiny motel table, messing with his iPhone. When Kris rolls over, he realizes it's not even seven, and he throws a pillow vaguely in Adam's direction before reburying himself in the blankets with a groan.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Kris says, "but why the fuck aren't you still in bed?"
"Aw, Kristopher," Adam says, lightly, "I forgot that you're all into morning sex."
Kris isn't exactly surprised when Adam launches himself at the bed. He refuses to wake up enough to wrestle, but by the time Adam gives up, the bed is a mess, blankets mostly on the floor, and Kris is freezing.
"I think this is the point where I end our friendship," Kris says, darkly.
He opens his eyes to the underside of Adam's wing, an inch from his face. Kris resists the urge to hit it.
"The make up sex is going to need to be spectacular when you change your mind and want me back," Adam says, straight faced. "Just so we're clear."
Kris rolls his eyes and gives in, pushing Adam's wing away. "I don't get naked with morning people."
Adam snorts. "You don't get naked with anyone."
"We can't all have friends with benefits in every city," Kris says. "Some of us have to work for it."
Adam elbows him in the side. "Actually," he says, "I haven't gotten laid since the tour started."
Kris knows that Adam can't manage as many anonymous one night stands as he used to, but Adam has a talent for finding people who are willing to put out on the first date, and Kris has always had a sneaking suspicion that dinner parties with Adam's LA friends turn into free for alls when he's not around.
"Uh, Tommy?" Kris says, because he knows exactly what was happening on a regular basis last time Adam went on tour.
Adam sprawls out next to him, folding his arms. "He's dating someone. I think it's serious. His google history is all rings."
Kris is used to going without sex. He's only slept with a handful of people since Katy, mostly short-term relationships that didn't last longer than a couple of weeks. He isn't quite good enough at lying to himself to pretend that he didn't enjoy it, but spending seven years having sex with one person - a person who'd been his best friend since fifteen - made casual sex a little weird.
Adam's different, and Kris is almost positive the last time he went two months without getting laid was before he started having sex.
"Quit giving me that look, Allen," Adam says. He's laughing, but he almost sounds defensive, like he thinks Kris minds.
"Sorry," Kris says, dryly. "I'm just a little concerned you might be dying."
Adam finally sobers up and looks away, rubbing a hand over his face. "I miss Drake sometimes."
Kris rolls over on his side again, wrapping a hand around Adam's shoulder. "He was an asshole."
"I know," Adam says. "But he didn't use me to get more press exposure. He didn't sell photos of us having sex to the highest fucking bidder."
Kris watches him for another minute. He sounds irritated and pissed off again, exhausted and bitter. It might be the tour, might be one too many scandals, but the truth is that Adam's been miserable since the fourth album went platinum, since the last round of radio interviews and magazine covers and sold out stadium shows.
"Take a year off," Kris says, abruptly. "Climb some mountains. Take a role on Days of Our Lives. Get a dog."
"I would fucking blow at climbing mountains," Adam says, laughing again, but Kris watches his face start to clear.
"I don't have anything lined up after the tour," Adam says, thoughtfully. "I'm working on a new album."
"You've done an album every year for four years," Kris says. "Write if you want to, but not because you have to."
"My agents are going to kill me," Adam says, finally.
Kris grins. "So fire them."
"I knew I kept you around for a reason," Adam says.
"I thought you said you kept me for my ass," Kris says, shoving Adam, and Adam laughs a little more and pushes him back.
Adam crashes again after another ten minutes of wrestling and sleeps through Kris's shower and a trip to IHOP. He wakes up for take out chocolate chip pancakes with extra whipped cream and then falls asleep on the other side of the bed. He moves almost immediately though, ending up pressed against Kris's side, completely covered by blankets. Kris figures it's a combination of exhaustion and relief and doesn't bother trying to wake him up. He spends most of the afternoon watching the History Channel and reading the latest Stephen King novel.
When Adam finally wakes up, it takes Kris almost twenty minutes to notice that he's watching the U-Boat special instead of sleeping.
"This is a really fucking boring show, Kristopher," Adam says, finally, drowsily. "Who cares about German submarines?"
"Lake Placid is on at eight," Kris says.
"Man eating crocodiles," Adam says, suddenly grinning. "A much better choice. Awesome."
Kris orders another pizza and pulls out the rest of the beer, and they spend the rest of the night watching terrible disaster movies.
"This sucks a lot less than I thought it would," Adam says, after Kris's final impression of a scientist being eaten by a shark, and Kris just grins back.
The next morning, Kris wakes up to Adam singing embarrassing pop songs in the shower. When he goes to check his email on Adam's iPhone, there are five or six missed voicemails from his publicist and four from his agents, all deleted without having been listened to. Kris knows Adam's checking out, starting to let himself have some distance, and Kris knows exactly how stubborn he can be. If Adam leaves now, with the last of the tour and the post-stadium interviews as his last memory of what this life is like, a year is going to turn into a permanent career adjustment. Adam loves music too much for Kris to let that happen.
It takes some surfing around on the internet to figure out an idea, one that Kris isn't entirely sure he can pull off, but he's been Adam's best friend long enough to know how to get exactly what he wants.
"Pancakes again?" Kris says, when Adam finally emerges from the shower, wrapped in a towel, and Adam shakes his wings off like a fucking dog and grins.
"Don't forget the whipped cream," he says, sweetly, and Kris throws the Steven King novel at his head and takes forever at IHOP just to spite him, or at least, that's what he wants Adam to think.
In spite of everything Kris has learned over the years about the complexity of the booking process, organizing things doesn't actually prove to be that hard. Schuba's has an open mic night, the kind of event Kris knows won't draw a huge crowd, and he leaves Adam napping, with a note about going for a drive. The club isn't open, but Kris knows someone will be there - his phone calls in the IHOP parking lot weren't entirely useless - and when Kris rings the buzzer at the service entrance, one of the bartenders shows up. The manager isn't far behind.
"Can you clear the stage tonight for Adam Lambert to play a set?" Kris says, cutting to the chase.
He's a little startled when she starts laughing.
"Nice joke," she says. "Very funny."
"Uh," the bartender says, and Kris tries not to smile when he elbows the manager. "I think that's Kris Allen."
"Oh fuck," the manager says, faintly.
Kris gives in and laughs.
They agree to all his conditions - no advanced advertising, no charging for tickets, they'll do the soundcheck on the fly - and Kris heads back to the motel room, singing along to the radio the whole way back.
"Jesus," Adam says when he walks in, "long enough drive?"
Kris holds open the door behind him. "Cabin fever. Get dressed, I want to show you something."
Adam bitches a little about driving two hours just to see something, but he can't argue with the fact that they don't actually have anything better to do, and Kris distracts him with a new Musicovery app.
"I thought the goal was to avoid the press," Adam says, when Kris pulls into a mostly deserted parking garage downtown.
Kris grins and grabs his jacket and a hat from the backseat. "I thought you liked to live dangerously."
"Not when it involves the paparazzi," Adam replies, but he follows Kris out of the parking garage.
They get a few stares and one camera phone photo, but no one seems to recognize Adam with his hat and a pair of Kris's old glasses, and Kris figures that most Chicago street goers have seen weirder things than a guy with wings. They make it to the back entrance of the club without anyone hassling them.
"It's, um, an honor to meet you," the manager says, when she meets them at the door.
Adam looks a little wary, but he sticks out a hand anyway. "I'm Adam."
To her credit, she doesn't point out that she already knows, just takes Kris's sleeve and points him toward an unmarked door.
"Right through there," she says. "Watch the steps, it's kind of dark."
"Please tell me this isn't some sort of shady sex club," Adam says, right up against his ear while glancing back at her, and Kris bites back the urge to laugh and holds open the door.
"Nah," he says. "No hookers."
Kris can hear the polite clapping of the audience as one of the open mic performers finishes, and then they descend into low chatter. Adam's pressed up against him in the hall to the stage, warm in the dark. He smells like hotel soap and cheap laundry detergent, and his feathers are soft against Kris's cheek, a wing almost wrapped around him.
Adam shifts closer. "Kris?"
"Just trust me," Kris whispers.
He pushes Adam forward, out onto the stage, and leans in with a grin. "And if anyone asks, you have a fucking phenomenal costume designer."
There's another round of polite clapping when Kris crosses the stage to pick up a guitar and plug it in, sliding the mic stand down.
"Guys, this is Adam," he says. "I think he's feeling a little shy tonight."
There's some laughter, and the clapping warms up, slowly. Kris watches Adam finally figure it out, starting to laugh, and he steps up to the second microphone, pulling down the sleeves of his hoodie. He looks washed out with no stage makeup, his bangs in his face, and Kris knows Adam's going to kill him later for getting him on stage in a pair of jeans, but his wings are close to iridescent in the stage lights. Kris is pretty sure everything is going to be okay.
"That's Kris," Adam says, still laughing, "and he's kind of an asshole."
Kris plays another couple notes, checking the tuning. "You're going to get a reputation as the least family friendly performer ever."
"Too late," Adam says. "Kris is actually such an asshole that we don't actually have a set list tonight. I guess we're taking requests."
There's total silence.
Kris tries not to laugh at the look on Adam's face. "This is open mic night, who do you think you are?"
"God," Adam says, totally straight faced, "obviously," and Kris gives in and cracks up, playing the first measure.
Adam grins, wrapping his hands around the mic. "Does that even work as acoustic?"
"Why the fuck not?" Kris says.
Kris knows all of Adam's songs - fuck, he helped write half of the third album - but it's been a couple of years since Adam was doing For Your Entertainment at every show. He screws up a couple of the improvised guitar chords and Adam misses a line in the second verse, but it doesn't actually matter. Kris is having fun and Adam's still grinning through the chorus.
The stage lights are too high for Kris to really see the audience, but it's easy to tell when they collectively figure out what's going on; the noise level goes up, and Kris starts to see the familiar flash of camera phones.
They play their way through three or four songs off the latest album, the ones Adam's been doing lately, and then Kris tries Voodoo and Adam manages to forget an entire verse.
"Jesus," Kris says, laughing, after they're both so lost they can't even finish the song, "aren't you supposed to be a famous and talented musician or something?"
"So I guess Kris is volunteering to play some songs off his first album," Adam says.
Kris steps closer to the microphone. "Damn straight."
Kris somehow manages to remember all the lyrics and the chords to both of the songs Adam starts, and then they do a couple covers. The rest of the set is easy, fun, and Adam seems happier than Kris has seen him in almost a year. The room hits capacity a couple of minutes before they finish, but it's still less than a couple hundred people, the smallest show either of them has played in years.
When they finally leave the stage, the applause is deafening, and Kris can barely hear himself think in the hallway. Adam's bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, still laughing, and he pulls Kris into a hug almost before they're off the stage, crushing and warm.
"Do you want an encore?" Kris yells, right up against Adam's temple.
"Fuck yes," Adam yells back. "I'm going to take your guitar after you do a song. Can you sing back up if we share a mic?"
Kris leans in closer. "You never play guitar on stage."
"Whatever," Adam shouts, with a blinding grin. "What the hell, right?"
"Go for it," Kris says, pushing Adam back toward the stage.
Kris does Kiss a Girl, both because he's never met an audience that isn't capable of singing along to the chorus and because convincing Adam to sing a country song about making out with women is always hilarious, and then passes over the guitar, refastening the strap so it slides between Adam's wings.
"I don't tune that often," Adam says, "so bear with me."
Adam's capable of talking while he works on a guitar, so Kris finds it odd that he doesn't say anything as the audience quiets down, but Kris finds that he doesn't want to fill up the silence. He turns off his microphone and moves to stand next to Adam, just waiting.
"You've been a great audience," Adam says, finally. "So I'm going to do a song that I've never done live before."
Adam starts playing, and Kris almost doesn't recognize the opener. It's the last song on Adam's second album, the one that made Adam famous. Out of the four, it's the only album of Adam's Kris has never really fallen for, maybe because it was written and released while they were living on opposite sides of the country, Adam in LA and Kris in Arkansas. It was the only CD in Kris's car stereo for almost six months, the one he listened to when Adam was too busy to call and his marriage was falling apart.
"I get a lot of interview questions about this song," Adam says, just loud enough to be heard over the guitar. "And everyone always wants to know who it's about and what it means. I've told a lot of people that a love song doesn't have to be about anyone, and one time I think I told Rolling Stone it was about an ex."
Adam grins, quiet and bright in the stage lights. "So I just want to apologize in retrospect, because I lied. Love songs are always about someone."
Adam starts singing, and Kris feels something in his stomach turn over when he realizes Adam is watching him. It's a song about staying between the lines, about playing it safe and keeping things to yourself. Kris has always assumed Adam wrote it for Drake during the on-again off-again clusterfuck that was the year after they broke up. By the he steps forward to sing backup on the chorus, though, he knows better.
Adam's feelings for him have always been obvious. He's always worn his heart on his sleeve, admitted too much in interviews, and Kris knew, during Idol and the tour, why Adam never got that drunk around him and always stayed a little too close. They never talked about it, but Kris was married and Adam wasn't single. Kris knew at the time that it wasn't anything serious, just one of those things, so he changed when Adam wasn't in the room and kept the flirting to a minimum.
Adam's never been that good at hiding anything, so Kris knew when it wore off, except it doesn't take that much more of the song before Kris realizes he's been wrong all along. Adam's in love with him. Said like this, Kris could shrug it off, pretend he doesn't get what Adam's saying, but he can't break eye contact and somehow, he doesn't want to. Fuck, Kris thinks, because Adam's two inches away, so close Kris can feel him breathing.
When the song ends, they're left in the silence of the stage, watching each other. Kris should pull back, but he can't, and he waits for applause to break the moment, but it doesn't come.
"Can I -" Adam whispers, still right up against the microphone, loud where it should feel quiet.
"Yeah," Kris says, roughly.
Adam kisses him. It shouldn't be good but it is, maybe the best thing Kris has felt in years, and when Adam reaches up, cups his face, and goes for it, Kris closes his eyes and loses himself in the kiss. Adam's making soft, desperate noises against his mouth, and Kris only notices when the noise in the room starts because he stops being able to hear him. When they finally break apart, Kris has the sudden realization that he just made out with Adam on stage in front of over three hundred people, all of whom probably have cell phones with video capacity.
"Well," Kris manages.
"Oh fuck," Adam says, and bolts.
Kris actually manages to make it back stage before he realizes that his legs probably aren't going to hold him up for that much longer, which is how he ends up sitting on the floor of a dressing room, resisting the urge to see whether or not there's a youtube video up yet.
The manager sticks her head in about five minutes later, while Kris is contemplating whether it's too melodramatic to stick his head between his knees. "We're keeping the press out, but you look like you could use a drink."
"Scotch," Kris says. "Maybe like - an entire bottle of scotch."
She laughs. "I'll see what I can do."
She's barely out of the room when Kris's cell goes off; he figures it's even odds between Adam never wanting to see him again and his agent officially ending their contract.
"So I'm probably the last person you want to hear from," Katy says, when Kris puts the phone against his shoulder, "but I wanted to give you credit for finding the best method of coming out ever."
"Fuck you," Kris says, but he can't help laughing.
He shouldn't want to hear her voice, and talking to his ex-wife about accidentally kissing his best friend is so far beyond fucked up Kris doesn't even know how to describe it, but Katy's always been better than anyone else at laughing at his problems. It's still comforting.
He slides a little further down the wall. "On a scale of one to ten, how freaked is the internet?"
"About a hundred billion," Katy says. "How long have you and Adam been having a torrid affair?"
Kris knows it's not that funny, but it's easier to laugh than to think about where things stand with Adam. "Eight or nine minutes?"
There's a long silence. "Please tell me you didn't let him run off."
"I'm not that great at this," Kris says, shortly.
"Do you want to?" Katy says, and Kris knows he should ask what she means, if it's not being an idiot or finding Adam or some other undefined question about whether he wants all of this, but he's never been that good at lying to himself, and the truth is that the answer's the same for all of it.
Kris swallows. "Yeah."
"You're an idiot," Katy says.
"How long have you known who Polite Fiction was for?" Kris asks, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall.
"Like three years. Since the album came out."
"Awesome," Kris says. "Next time my best friend is in love with me and I'm too stupid to figure it out, let me know."
Katy laughs. "Get off the phone with me and go find him, asshole."
"I'll call you tomorrow," Kris says, and he's almost surprised to find he means it.
"Don't make me find out details from twitter," Katy warns, and hangs up, still laughing.
Kris gives himself another thirty seconds of not thinking about it before he finds Adam's number in his contacts list.
Where are you? Kris texts.
There's a glass of scotch outside the doorway, and Kris downs it while he waits. It's not that much of a stretch to pretend the burn helps, at least until his phone buzzes in his lap.
hiding, Adam says.
Where? Kris replies.
in the car, Adam says.
Stay put?
ok, Adam replies.
Kris borrows a hat and gets one of the bartenders to walk him out the service entrance; most of the local press are clustered around the front, and no one notices a couple. The parking garage down the street is empty of people, with only a few cars parked in long-term spots. He isn't exactly surprised - it's after midnight on a weeknight - but it makes it easier. He's not sure he wants an audience if things go badly.
He takes the elevator to the top floor and finds the car, trying to keep his breathing under control. Adam's sideways in the back seat, wedged into a corner like he really is hiding from something, and everything about it feels wrong. Adam's cocky, outgoing in a way that Kris has never even been able to mimic, and Kris has never seen him scared. It feels so unfamiliar that it takes a full minute for Kris to realize the wings are gone. Adam seems smaller with out them, but Kris thinks it might just be the look on his face, more than a little lost.
He puts a hand on the window, tapping. "Open up."
There's a long moment where Kris thinks that Adam might not, that he might have to have this conversation through the glass, but Adam finally leans forward to unlock the door.
Kris wraps his hand around the roof of the car and leans in, still far enough away that he's not pushing into Adam's space. "Hey."
"I'm sorry," Adam says, his voice breaking a little. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have -"
"Adam," Kris says.
"I know we're just friends, I'm happy to be friends, I'm sorry," Adam says, fast enough that Kris knows he's probably been going over it in his head.
Kris doesn't have a lot of experience with relationships, just one screwed up marriage and a string of awkward, uncomfortable first dates, but he knows every detail of all of Adam's history, every fucked up one night stand and every straight guy who wouldn't own up to it and all the awful things Drake said when he was done pretending to be friends. He knows exactly how high the stakes are, exactly what the risks might be, and he wants it - all of it - anyway.
Kris is also aware of just how easy it would be to fuck this up.
"You don't have anything to apologize for," Kris says.
When Adam laughs, it sounds a little hollow. "I kissed you in front of three hundred people."
Kris rubs his hands over his jeans, taking a deep breath. "I wanted you to kiss me in front of three hundred people."
"Kris," Adam starts.
Kris climbs into the backseat and pulls the door shut behind him before Adam can say anything else.
"I know I missed all your signals," he says. "I know I should have figured this out years ago. I've been -"
Adam doesn't say anything, and Kris swallows. "I didn't know, and I can't pretend I've been thinking about this for as long as you have, but I wanted you to kiss me. I want - more than that."
"I -" Adam's voice cracks. "I know I fucking set myself up for this one, I know I sleep with friends, but I can't - I can't give that to you -"
It takes Kris a minute to understand what Adam's trying to say.
"No," Kris says, firmly, then slides a hand up to push Adam's knees apart so he can climb between them.
"If I try to say this, I'm just going to fuck it up," Kris says. "But I'm not asking to be friends with benefits."
Adam's tense, trying to lean back against the door even though he's already as far away as he can get, and Kris ignores the voice in his head that knows all of Adam's limits and reaches up to slide his hands underneath Adam's jaw, tilting his face up to meet his eyes.
It's awkward and uncomfortable, and Kris hates waiting in the dark for Adam to either figure it out or punch him, but it only takes a couple seconds of heavy silence before he feels Adam suddenly relax.
"What are you asking for?" Adam says, carefully.
"We could buy a house," Kris says.
"Jesus, this isn't even the first date," Adam says, but he's starting to laugh, softly, and when he leans in until their faces are touching, it's almost better than a kiss.
"I bought you pancakes," Kris says, nudging his nose against Adam's as Adam wraps his hands around his shoulders, pulling him down.
Adam grins, close enough that Kris can feel it without looking. "I think that counts for sex, not mortgages."
"Uh," Kris says, and glances down at Adam's mouth, almost by accident.
"Kidding," Adam says, the corner of his mouth pulling up.
Kris lasts all of two seconds before he gives in and kisses him. Adam makes a startled noise against his mouth that settles somewhere in the pit of Kris's stomach, warm. Adam's bad at giving up control, at letting someone else call the shots, but Kris already has his hands cupping Adam's face, so he takes it deeper, licking along Adam's lower lip until Kris can taste him. Surprisingly enough, Adam doesn't fight him, just fists his hands in Kris's shirt and pulls him in, like he's trying to get rid of all the space between them.
Kris knows, intellectually, what sex with Adam would be like. He's heard all the details, and he crashed on Adam's couch for three weeks after the divorce and heard every second of the sex with every boy Adam brought home. Adam's loud, the kind of person who likes to laugh in bed and doesn't take sex too seriously. Kris gets that, likes that, but the way that they're kissing is too intense to be playful, and Kris's heart feels like it's going to slam out of his chest.
"I want to -" Adam starts, and Kris watches him swallow and leans in to push away the collar of Adam's t-shirt, licking up his neck.
Adam tilts his head back against the window, exposing the long line of his throat, and Kris moves until he's kneeling outside Adam's thighs, so he can fit their hips together, sliding his palms underneath Adam's shirt, against his back. Adam bites the corner of his mouth and buries his hands in Kris's hair, holding eye contact, and Kris can feel himself start to get hard.
Adam laughs suddenly, unexpectedly, and it feels a little less tense.
"On a scale of one to ten, how weird is this for you?" Adam says, head still tilted back against the window.
"Define one and ten."
"One being, oh, baby, fuck me right now," Adam says, grinning in a way that makes Kris's pulse pick up. "Five being, let's take this slow and just make out. Ten - uh. Aliens."
"Eleven, women who want to fuck Cook's guitar," Kris says, laughing, and pulls Adam into a slow, warm kiss.
"Twelve, the wing fetish club president," Adam says, but he nudges his nose against Kris's, waiting.
"Three," Kris decides.
"Fifteen, your best friend who you've been in love with for years likes you back," Adam says.
"You skipped some numbers," Kris points out, shifting a little closer.
Adam runs a thumb over Kris's cheekbone, tilting Kris's head to the side. "So let's talk about three," he murmurs, low, leaning forward to bite Kris's earlobe. "You're awfully comfortable for someone who hasn't done this with boys before, Kristopher. Something you want to tell me?"
Kris shivers. "I lost my virginity in the backseat of a pickup?"
Adam laughs, nuzzling down Kris's throat. "Comfort zone, Allen?"
"Something like that," Kris says.
The truth is, it's Adam, and Kris knows almost everything about him. The hot curve of Adam's cock against the inside of his thigh is new, unfamiliar, but Kris knows Adam's smile, all the intensity of his attention, and it's comfortable, easier than sleeping with a woman from a bar or a blind date. Kris wants him.
"We can go slow," Adam says. Kris knows he means it, so he slides a hand down to undo Adam's belt buckle, easing the zipper down.
"Is this okay?" he says, grinning into a kiss, and Adam laughs, startled and breathless.
"Yeah," he says. "You need me to talk you through it?"
Kris licks his palm, pushes a hand into Adam's jeans, easing them off his hips with his free hand, and wraps his fingers around Adam's cock. It's unfamiliar - Adam's bigger, warmer, and Kris feels backwards - but the noise Adam makes when Kris goes for something familiar and rubs his thumb underneath the head is worth any potential embarrassment.
"No," Kris says, and Adam throws back his head and closes his eyes.
Adam talks in bed, a steady litany of filthy language and porn star moans that Kris has heard more times than he wants to admit, but here, he's quiet, just little noises that Kris is almost positive are involuntary. Kris jerks him off slowly, trading hot, wet kisses that leave both of them panting, and Adam flushes all the way beneath his collar, his temples going dark with sweat.
Adam's hands suddenly go tight in Kris's shirt, and that's Kris's only hint that he's going to come; he watches the pulse jump in Adam's throat while he breathes, shuddering. Adam's eyes are dark when he finally opens them, wrapping a hand around the back of Kris's neck to pull him down, and the kiss after is fierce and a little possessive. It settles somewhere in Kris's chest.
"I want to blow you, baby, can I?" Adam whispers, voice warm and more wrecked than Kris has ever heard it, and Kris tries to ignore the flood of heat down his spine.
Kris manages a nod, and Adam settles his hands on Kris's shoulders and pushes him back, faster than he was expecting, until he hits the other side of the truck hard and their positions are reversed, with Adam sliding down between his thighs.
Adam knows just as much about Kris's sex life as Kris knows about his, and so Kris can't wipe away the joking conversations about blow jobs, the one thing Katy never really got into, and Kris would be embarrassed, but Adam jerks his jeans and boxers off, shoving his shirt up, and pins his hips down, stroking fast before he slides his whole mouth down. Kris can feel his cock hitting the inside of Adam's cheek, then the back of his throat, and he's warm all over for an entirely different reason. Adam sucks, hot and wet and fast, his fingers so tight against Kris's hip that they might bruise.
"Jesus," Kris says, faintly, and when Adam makes a noise that Kris feels, Kris has to shove at his shoulder.
"I," he manages, and Adam pulls back and jerks him the rest of the way through it, propped up on one elbow, meeting Kris's eyes.
While Kris still can't think, Adam slides up and licks his stomach clean, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and then sprawls out on top of him, just the right side of too heavy.
"I'll swallow next time, but I wanted to watch you," Adam says, almost matter of fact, and Kris laughs, still breathless.
"Do you have a side career in porn I should know about?"
"The leaked sex tapes were totally staged," Adam says, but he looks pleased.
"On the other hand, the camera phone shots of us having sex in a parking garage aren't going to be," Kris says, faintly, finally realizing, and Adam grins.
"Totally worth it," he says, and suddenly, there's an iPhone flash in his face.
"I could probably make a ridiculous amount of money with this," Adam says, thoughtfully, examining the picture.
Kris grabs for it, but Adam holds the phone out of reach, grinning.
"Just for that trauma, you're driving back," Kris says.
"Hey," Adam says, "just for threatening me, I'm definitely putting this on the fridge in our new house," and Kris pulls him down for another kiss, laughing.