Fic: The Same River (Kris/Adam, for kradam_holidays)
This fic is also located on AO3: The Same River.
Title: The Same River
Recipient: kradam_holidays
Rating: R for sexual content
Warnings: Not really.
Summary: Sometimes, life hands you a second chance.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to nevada01 for looking over the rough draft and offering suggestions.
September 17th, 2009
“It’s never going to be like this again.”
Kris’s voice broke the soft hush of the room, and Adam looked up from where he’d been going through his suitcase. Kris was standing by the window of the hotel room, facing out, looking into the night. Detroit buzzed outside, some people still awake out there, even this late. Adam bit his lip and considered a variety of different responses, but there was no point in pretending that he didn’t know what Kris was talking about.
After all, Adam felt it, too.
Kris’s feet were bare and Adam could see the light reflecting off the tiny hairs on the tops of them - like a fricking hobbit, Kris had said with disgust once, mouth twisting - and he let himself study them for a while. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever had a friend quite like Kris before, and leaving that behind wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world.
Because Kris was right - after the two of them did the Ford event tomorrow, they would be going their separate ways and, sure, they’d see each other again, but it wouldn’t be like this. It would be normal, with emails and phone calls and texts. It would never just be the two of them in their own private world, ever again.
“I feel like Dorothy,” Kris said, half-turning and leaning his hip against the window. He wasn’t quite looking at Adam, but his face was turned in the right direction. “I watched that movie so many times as a kid. Mostly when I was home alone, without Daniel there to make fun of me for watching a girl movie.” Kris’s voice was dry, like it often was when he spoke of his brother. “Back then, the Tin Man was my favorite. But tonight... I feel like Dorothy.”
“No place like home?” Adam asked. Kris shook his head.
“No. I just...” Kris shrugged, then lifted his eyes up to meet Adam’s. Kris half-smiled, warm and fond. “I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.”
Adam let the top of the suitcase fall closed and he went around the bed to hug Kris tightly. None of the words in his head were things that he could let out, so he just shut his eyes and held on, wishing that he didn’t understand.
It was never going to be the same again.
Five and a half years later...
“Adam!”
Before Adam could brace himself, he had an armful of Kris Allen. He rocked a bit but didn’t fall over, wrapping himself around Kris the best he could with his luggage pressed between them. “Hello to you, too,” Adam said, quietly, just for Kris. The lobby was busy and bright with noise as the crowd of former Idol alumni chatted with each other.
Kris’s eyes were sparkling and happy when he pulled away and it had been a few months since they’d seen each other in person, so Adam let himself soak it in. “If you had your heart set on being next door to Kelly, you’re out of luck,” Kris said. “Because I already signed you up to be in the room next to mine.”
“There were sign-ups?” Adam asked, letting Kris take him by the arm and lead him away. When Adam had been asked to do the charity all-stars season, he’d said ‘yes’ without looking into the details too closely. Frankly, he’d needed the break badly enough that he hadn’t even thought of asking questions.
After lunch and some general announcements from Ryan - all caught on camera, of course - everyone was released to go and settle into their rooms. The hotel wasn’t as fancy as the mansion as they’d stayed in when they’d been on the show the first time, but it was a nice place and Kris had snagged them adjoining rooms on the top floor, with a shared bathroom.
The first thing that they did was unpack, since they were going to be there for a month at the very least. It was funny how natural it still felt to have all of his product on the sink next to Kris’s bare handful of items. It had been so long since they’d stayed in the same place, but Adam could almost be looking at the sinks that they’d shared back then - the only real difference was that Kris had added hair gel and facial moisturizer to his side of the counter.
Kris settled on the bed of the room he’d said was Adam’s, bouncing a little, and it was strange how he could look so young sometimes. Kris was thirty now but when he smiled, Adam felt the same thump in his heart that he’d felt all those years ago when he’d seen Kris the first time.
They hadn’t had much time to catch up on their personal lives while on camera, so Adam started with an easy question, “How’s Julia doing?”
“Ah, yeah, about that-” Kris said, with a shrug. “We’re kinda... not together anymore.”
“That’s new,” Adam said, sitting down next to Kris on the bed.
“She spent the last couple of months trying to talk me out of going back on the show. She said that she wanted me to put her first - and...” Kris shrugged again. “Since I’m here, obviously she was right. I never did put her before my music.”
“You’ve been together less than a year,” Adam pointed out. “If she was already asking you to put your career on hold for her, that’s only going to get worse.”
“That’s what I figured,” Kris said, and he didn’t sound too upset about it, which was good. “What about you? How are you holding up in your post-Tony world?”
“I still miss him sometimes,” Adam admitted. “But I’m glad I ended things.”
“So, you know what I realized,” Kris said, bringing his leg up underneath him and twisting to face Adam. His foot was jiggling a little, but Adam couldn’t think of what would be making Kris nervous. “I think this is the first time that we’ve been single at the same time. Isn’t that weird?”
“Huh,” Adam said. “I think you’re right.”
Kris nodded slightly. “Guess that means it’s now or never.”
Then Kris’s mouth was on his, delicate and gentle. Adam had only just begun to respond, lips parting, when Kris pulled away, his fingers warm on Adam’s cheek. Adam blinked his eyes open, adrenaline coursing through him. Kris.
Kris wasn’t quite looking at Adam, his cheeks faintly pink.
“I didn’t- you hadn’t-” Adam was vaguely aware that what he was doing qualified as babbling. “we-”
Kris laughed a little and then he leaned back in, covering Adam’s mouth with his own again. The kiss went deep, Kris’s fingers steady on Adam’s face. Adam closed his eyes and just went with it - the softness of Kris’s lips and his quick teasing tongue and his stubble rough against Adam’s skin.
“Wish I’d brought condoms,” Adam said when they broke apart again, smoothing his hand down Kris’s back. “Not that this isn’t- but I do wish I had.”
“I guess I could argue that that’s moving a little fast, but... honestly, I thought about bringing some, too,” Kris said, his mouth against Adam’s shoulder.
“Were you planning this?” Adam asked, not trying to hide the admiration in his voice as his hand slipped around to stroke at Kris’s cock through his jeans. Maybe they were moving too fast but - if anything, Adam felt like they were going too slow. All those years ago, he’d taken that crush he’d had on Kris and buried it where it wouldn’t interfere with his life, but just because he’d ignored it didn’t mean that it had died. “You sly dog.”
“More hoping than planning,” Kris said. He shifted against Adam, rocking into Adam’s touch. “I’d just broken things off with Julia and I knew that you weren’t seeing anyone new yet...” Adam could feel Kris’s hand fumbling at the buttons on Adam’s pants.
“Okay, we can talk about this later,” Adam said because, really, there were more important things to think about, like the way his cock felt pressed up against the groove between Kris’s hip and his stomach. He pulled Kris back up into a kiss and, this time, they didn’t stop at all.
When Adam woke up the next morning, Kris was tucked right up against him, and Adam rolled him over onto his back and kissed him awake. Kris was agreeable in the morning, pliant and sleepy, and morning sex became shower sex became after-shower sex. All of which made Adam want to roll right back in bed and sleep for another few hours, but they had obligations.
After they got dressed, Adam found himself not quite able to keep his hands off Kris - and Kris was just as bad about it - so he wrapped an arm around Kris’s waist and gave up trying. He could hear conversations stop and then start up again as he and Kris made their way down to the dining room for breakfast, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. This was something that Kris had apparently been thinking about for years, and if he was willing to risk the potential consequences to his career, that was his choice.
As Kris had pointed out, they were both free agents now. No reason not to be open about it. And things were better than they had been five years ago, if still nothing close to the utopia that Adam would have dreamed about.
So he let himself be just as sappy and stupid-in-love as he wanted to be, helping Kris to sit down - which earned him an amused smile - and rubbing his hand over the small of Kris’s back as they talked to the other Idol alumni seated at the breakfast table.
When Ryan Seacrest came over, he leaned against the table and said, “Well, this changes things a little. You do realize that you’ve been on camera since you came downstairs, right?”
“I remember how the show works,” Kris said, and Adam could feel Kris settle against his side more firmly. “What do you think, Ryan - is America ready?”
“I hope so,” Ryan said, cutting his eyes toward one of the camera crews and dropping a hand on Adam’s shoulder, giving him a supportive squeeze. “I’ll see you kids later. Let’s see if we can’t get you joint interviews.” Then he was gone, off to greet other people.
Adam could feel Kris relax as Ryan left, and he leaned over to press a kiss against the side of Kris’s head. If the Idol people hated it that much, they could just not put it in the show - and neither of their careers still depended on Idol for survival the way that they had in the beginning.
“This is new, right?” Jordin Sparks asked, gesturing with her fork between Kris and Adam. “Because I don’t always know the latest gossip, but I’m pretty sure I would have heard about this one if it’d been out there.”
Adam didn’t look, but he could just barely see a camera and microphone lurking in his peripheral vision. “Very new,” he said. It had the additional benefit of being the complete truth. “We reconnected yesterday, realized that both of us were single and, well...”
“And you’ve always been friends,” Jordin said, sounding a little wistful. “I think that’s a good way of doing it, being friends first.”
“We already know each other’s bad habits,” Kris said, solemnly. “Like the terrible way Adam snores.”
“That- that is not true!” Adam said, sliding his hand around to Kris’s side and pulling him closer. “You are not allowed to make up bad habits for me. I have enough real ones.”
Kris chuckled, and he pet at Adam’s knee. “Don’t worry; it’s kinda endearing. All snuffly. I think that you might need one of those nose-guard things.”
“Slander and lies,” Adam said, and it was hard to keep the smile off his face. “Keep that up and I might have to tell people your bad habits.”
“They can’t be too bad,” Kris said, tracing lines on Adam’s leg. “Or you wouldn’t have said ‘yes’ last night.”
“Well, maybe it was a one-night stand,” Adam said, raising his eyebrow. “Did you ever think of that?”
Kris laughed, turning toward Adam. “Yeah, because this is totally you throwing me out and having me do the walk of shame.” Adam felt the warmth of Kris’s breath before he felt Kris’s lips, soft against the side of Adam’s neck.
“Get a room!” someone yelled, but they didn’t sound mean, just amused. Not any different, Adam thought, than if it were a girl and boy engaged in heavy PDA. Kris tensed against him anyway, though, and Adam rubbed his back gently until he relaxed again.
“If we didn’t need to be at the theater soon, I would definitely be following that advice,” Adam said, sotto voce, to Kris.
It was, Adam reflected that night, going to be pretty hard for the camera crews to get any solo shot of him or Kris, at least while they weren’t performing. He wasn’t sure he’d been more than two steps away from Kris all day. Even the first time around, when they’d just been friends, he and Kris had touched a lot. Now, it was impossible for him to stay away.
Luckily, the vast majority of the cast and crew weren’t homophobic. And even the very few who were wouldn’t say anything about it, whatever they might be thinking. He and Kris had had a bigger problem with their managers than they’d had with the Idol people.
“I can’t believe you’re coming out without discussing it with me first,” Caroline, Kris’s manager, had said, her face buried in her hands so that it came out as more of a mumble. “Really, Kris? Some sort of warning would have been nice.”
“We’re not filming live yet,” Kris had said. “You’ve got time to figure out a strategy.”
“I have less than a month!”
It turned out that she didn’t need a month. Five days after that talk - five nights of being with Kris and days of being flirty and handsy with Kris - Caroline emailed Kris a plan of attack, which included the two of them going out to lunch publicly. No PDA, she had written. Try to get the press and public used to the idea slowly.
So they went to The Farm for lunch, as instructed, and Adam did his best to keep his hands off Kris, mostly succeeding. They both wore sunglasses, which Caroline had suggested because Adam looks at you like he wants to throw you up against a wall and you look at him like you’d let him.
Afterwards, he and Kris checked out what the internet had to say - there had been a lot of hopeful speculation when they’d been announced as both doing the special all-stars season, as well as some people sure they couldn’t ‘recapture the magic’ since they ‘obviously weren’t friends anymore’. Mostly, the press seemed pretty happy that Kris and Adam were ‘restarting their bromance’, though a few people in the comments sections said that they thought it looked fake, like someone was forcing them to hang out together.
“Well, richgirl1091 is half right,” Kris said, tangling his fingers with Adam’s. “She just got the reason wrong.”
“Yeah, it’s just so hard for me to even look at you,” Adam said, tugging on Kris’s hand to lead him over to the bed. “Man, I thought I would never be forced spend time with you again and here I am, being your roommate all over. It’s like a nightmare.” Kris was giggling, though that was maybe half because of Adam’s over-the-top performance and half because Adam was doing his level best to locate Kris’s ticklish spots. After playing around for a few minutes, Adam wrapped his fingers around Kris’s wrists and held Kris down against the bed, knees braced on either side of Kris’s hips. Kris stared up at him, panting slightly, looking as happy as Adam had ever seen him. Adam bit back on his grin. “And I just say to myself every night - why didn’t Gokey come back to do the fifteenth season? If only I could have been spending time with Gokey.”
“Your life is so tough,” Kris said, squirming underneath Adam. “But don’t underestimate how hard this is for me, stuck under your shadow all over again.”
Adam leaned forward and whispered into Kris’s ear, “Oh, believe me, I can feel exactly how hard it is,” adding in a pointed roll of his hips. Kris let out a noise that was some strange hybrid between a whimper and a laugh. Adam let his weight drop down on Kris, pressing him into the bed, and he took Kris’s mouth in a kiss, swallowing Kris’s startled gasp.
The next day, Ryan did an interview with the two of them - playing catch-up on their lives since they’d left Idol. Pretty much everyone else had done solo interviews and Adam knew that some of their fans - from both camps - would probably be disappointed that Kris and Adam were doing theirs together. He also didn’t happen to give a fuck.
“I’m thrilled to be back,” Adam said, his arm resting casually along the back of the couch and not quite touching Kris. “Last time I was on the show, it gave me the chance to showcase my music and gave me a platform to reach so many people who never would have heard of me otherwise. Idol is the reason that RCA gave me a chance and I will always be grateful for that. I’m living my dream.”
Kris nodded, mouth curving in a smile. “I feel the same way, really. I... Arkansas isn’t the place that you go to do music. Even with... I’ve been trying to encourage music education there as much as I can, but even now... anyway, I wasn’t going to go anywhere with my music while I was only playing there. I had to get out so that I could be heard. Idol let me do that.”
“I also hear through the grapevine that being back on the show has brought in a new personal element,” Ryan said, and he was smiling his real smile, not the polished professional version. “Why don’t you tell us a little something about that?”
“Adam was nice enough to agree to date me,” Kris said, scooting closer to Adam as Adam lowered his arm to drape it over Kris’s shoulder. “We went out for lunch a little while ago.”
“We’re going to try to take it as slowly as possible for two people who are currently living in the same house,” Adam said, which was pretty much a flagrant lie, but one that Caroline had talked him into for the sake of Kris’s image. Frankly, Adam didn’t think an injection of sex would do Kris’s image any harm, but he’d been afraid that Caroline would have a heart attack or something if he didn’t agree to imply that they hadn’t started sleeping together yet. The wheels of Hollywood were pretty well-greased in compromise. “But we’ve been friends for years and that helps.”
“It sure does,” Ryan said, before switching the topic to their respective careers.
After the interview, Adam took Kris upstairs and then took it so slowly that Kris was begging him by the end.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about something you said a few years ago - back when the Idol tour was ending,” Adam said later. Kris shifted in Adam’s arms, his face pressing against Adam’s chest. “It was- it was about how things were never going to be the same. That we were never going to get to spend time together like that again.”
“I remember that,” Kris said, his words starting to slur together - a sign that he was close to sleep. “Never been so glad to be wrong.”
Adam slid his hand along Kris’s side, curving his fingers around Kris’s hip. He opened his mouth to say something and then realized that Kris had relaxed all the way into sleep, so he just reached over to turn off the light and then settled in next to Kris.
It could wait until morning. They had time.
the end
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Title: The Same River
Recipient: kradam_holidays
Rating: R for sexual content
Warnings: Not really.
Summary: Sometimes, life hands you a second chance.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to nevada01 for looking over the rough draft and offering suggestions.
September 17th, 2009
“It’s never going to be like this again.”
Kris’s voice broke the soft hush of the room, and Adam looked up from where he’d been going through his suitcase. Kris was standing by the window of the hotel room, facing out, looking into the night. Detroit buzzed outside, some people still awake out there, even this late. Adam bit his lip and considered a variety of different responses, but there was no point in pretending that he didn’t know what Kris was talking about.
After all, Adam felt it, too.
Kris’s feet were bare and Adam could see the light reflecting off the tiny hairs on the tops of them - like a fricking hobbit, Kris had said with disgust once, mouth twisting - and he let himself study them for a while. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever had a friend quite like Kris before, and leaving that behind wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world.
Because Kris was right - after the two of them did the Ford event tomorrow, they would be going their separate ways and, sure, they’d see each other again, but it wouldn’t be like this. It would be normal, with emails and phone calls and texts. It would never just be the two of them in their own private world, ever again.
“I feel like Dorothy,” Kris said, half-turning and leaning his hip against the window. He wasn’t quite looking at Adam, but his face was turned in the right direction. “I watched that movie so many times as a kid. Mostly when I was home alone, without Daniel there to make fun of me for watching a girl movie.” Kris’s voice was dry, like it often was when he spoke of his brother. “Back then, the Tin Man was my favorite. But tonight... I feel like Dorothy.”
“No place like home?” Adam asked. Kris shook his head.
“No. I just...” Kris shrugged, then lifted his eyes up to meet Adam’s. Kris half-smiled, warm and fond. “I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.”
Adam let the top of the suitcase fall closed and he went around the bed to hug Kris tightly. None of the words in his head were things that he could let out, so he just shut his eyes and held on, wishing that he didn’t understand.
It was never going to be the same again.
Five and a half years later...
“Adam!”
Before Adam could brace himself, he had an armful of Kris Allen. He rocked a bit but didn’t fall over, wrapping himself around Kris the best he could with his luggage pressed between them. “Hello to you, too,” Adam said, quietly, just for Kris. The lobby was busy and bright with noise as the crowd of former Idol alumni chatted with each other.
Kris’s eyes were sparkling and happy when he pulled away and it had been a few months since they’d seen each other in person, so Adam let himself soak it in. “If you had your heart set on being next door to Kelly, you’re out of luck,” Kris said. “Because I already signed you up to be in the room next to mine.”
“There were sign-ups?” Adam asked, letting Kris take him by the arm and lead him away. When Adam had been asked to do the charity all-stars season, he’d said ‘yes’ without looking into the details too closely. Frankly, he’d needed the break badly enough that he hadn’t even thought of asking questions.
After lunch and some general announcements from Ryan - all caught on camera, of course - everyone was released to go and settle into their rooms. The hotel wasn’t as fancy as the mansion as they’d stayed in when they’d been on the show the first time, but it was a nice place and Kris had snagged them adjoining rooms on the top floor, with a shared bathroom.
The first thing that they did was unpack, since they were going to be there for a month at the very least. It was funny how natural it still felt to have all of his product on the sink next to Kris’s bare handful of items. It had been so long since they’d stayed in the same place, but Adam could almost be looking at the sinks that they’d shared back then - the only real difference was that Kris had added hair gel and facial moisturizer to his side of the counter.
Kris settled on the bed of the room he’d said was Adam’s, bouncing a little, and it was strange how he could look so young sometimes. Kris was thirty now but when he smiled, Adam felt the same thump in his heart that he’d felt all those years ago when he’d seen Kris the first time.
They hadn’t had much time to catch up on their personal lives while on camera, so Adam started with an easy question, “How’s Julia doing?”
“Ah, yeah, about that-” Kris said, with a shrug. “We’re kinda... not together anymore.”
“That’s new,” Adam said, sitting down next to Kris on the bed.
“She spent the last couple of months trying to talk me out of going back on the show. She said that she wanted me to put her first - and...” Kris shrugged again. “Since I’m here, obviously she was right. I never did put her before my music.”
“You’ve been together less than a year,” Adam pointed out. “If she was already asking you to put your career on hold for her, that’s only going to get worse.”
“That’s what I figured,” Kris said, and he didn’t sound too upset about it, which was good. “What about you? How are you holding up in your post-Tony world?”
“I still miss him sometimes,” Adam admitted. “But I’m glad I ended things.”
“So, you know what I realized,” Kris said, bringing his leg up underneath him and twisting to face Adam. His foot was jiggling a little, but Adam couldn’t think of what would be making Kris nervous. “I think this is the first time that we’ve been single at the same time. Isn’t that weird?”
“Huh,” Adam said. “I think you’re right.”
Kris nodded slightly. “Guess that means it’s now or never.”
Then Kris’s mouth was on his, delicate and gentle. Adam had only just begun to respond, lips parting, when Kris pulled away, his fingers warm on Adam’s cheek. Adam blinked his eyes open, adrenaline coursing through him. Kris.
Kris wasn’t quite looking at Adam, his cheeks faintly pink.
“I didn’t- you hadn’t-” Adam was vaguely aware that what he was doing qualified as babbling. “we-”
Kris laughed a little and then he leaned back in, covering Adam’s mouth with his own again. The kiss went deep, Kris’s fingers steady on Adam’s face. Adam closed his eyes and just went with it - the softness of Kris’s lips and his quick teasing tongue and his stubble rough against Adam’s skin.
“Wish I’d brought condoms,” Adam said when they broke apart again, smoothing his hand down Kris’s back. “Not that this isn’t- but I do wish I had.”
“I guess I could argue that that’s moving a little fast, but... honestly, I thought about bringing some, too,” Kris said, his mouth against Adam’s shoulder.
“Were you planning this?” Adam asked, not trying to hide the admiration in his voice as his hand slipped around to stroke at Kris’s cock through his jeans. Maybe they were moving too fast but - if anything, Adam felt like they were going too slow. All those years ago, he’d taken that crush he’d had on Kris and buried it where it wouldn’t interfere with his life, but just because he’d ignored it didn’t mean that it had died. “You sly dog.”
“More hoping than planning,” Kris said. He shifted against Adam, rocking into Adam’s touch. “I’d just broken things off with Julia and I knew that you weren’t seeing anyone new yet...” Adam could feel Kris’s hand fumbling at the buttons on Adam’s pants.
“Okay, we can talk about this later,” Adam said because, really, there were more important things to think about, like the way his cock felt pressed up against the groove between Kris’s hip and his stomach. He pulled Kris back up into a kiss and, this time, they didn’t stop at all.
When Adam woke up the next morning, Kris was tucked right up against him, and Adam rolled him over onto his back and kissed him awake. Kris was agreeable in the morning, pliant and sleepy, and morning sex became shower sex became after-shower sex. All of which made Adam want to roll right back in bed and sleep for another few hours, but they had obligations.
After they got dressed, Adam found himself not quite able to keep his hands off Kris - and Kris was just as bad about it - so he wrapped an arm around Kris’s waist and gave up trying. He could hear conversations stop and then start up again as he and Kris made their way down to the dining room for breakfast, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. This was something that Kris had apparently been thinking about for years, and if he was willing to risk the potential consequences to his career, that was his choice.
As Kris had pointed out, they were both free agents now. No reason not to be open about it. And things were better than they had been five years ago, if still nothing close to the utopia that Adam would have dreamed about.
So he let himself be just as sappy and stupid-in-love as he wanted to be, helping Kris to sit down - which earned him an amused smile - and rubbing his hand over the small of Kris’s back as they talked to the other Idol alumni seated at the breakfast table.
When Ryan Seacrest came over, he leaned against the table and said, “Well, this changes things a little. You do realize that you’ve been on camera since you came downstairs, right?”
“I remember how the show works,” Kris said, and Adam could feel Kris settle against his side more firmly. “What do you think, Ryan - is America ready?”
“I hope so,” Ryan said, cutting his eyes toward one of the camera crews and dropping a hand on Adam’s shoulder, giving him a supportive squeeze. “I’ll see you kids later. Let’s see if we can’t get you joint interviews.” Then he was gone, off to greet other people.
Adam could feel Kris relax as Ryan left, and he leaned over to press a kiss against the side of Kris’s head. If the Idol people hated it that much, they could just not put it in the show - and neither of their careers still depended on Idol for survival the way that they had in the beginning.
“This is new, right?” Jordin Sparks asked, gesturing with her fork between Kris and Adam. “Because I don’t always know the latest gossip, but I’m pretty sure I would have heard about this one if it’d been out there.”
Adam didn’t look, but he could just barely see a camera and microphone lurking in his peripheral vision. “Very new,” he said. It had the additional benefit of being the complete truth. “We reconnected yesterday, realized that both of us were single and, well...”
“And you’ve always been friends,” Jordin said, sounding a little wistful. “I think that’s a good way of doing it, being friends first.”
“We already know each other’s bad habits,” Kris said, solemnly. “Like the terrible way Adam snores.”
“That- that is not true!” Adam said, sliding his hand around to Kris’s side and pulling him closer. “You are not allowed to make up bad habits for me. I have enough real ones.”
Kris chuckled, and he pet at Adam’s knee. “Don’t worry; it’s kinda endearing. All snuffly. I think that you might need one of those nose-guard things.”
“Slander and lies,” Adam said, and it was hard to keep the smile off his face. “Keep that up and I might have to tell people your bad habits.”
“They can’t be too bad,” Kris said, tracing lines on Adam’s leg. “Or you wouldn’t have said ‘yes’ last night.”
“Well, maybe it was a one-night stand,” Adam said, raising his eyebrow. “Did you ever think of that?”
Kris laughed, turning toward Adam. “Yeah, because this is totally you throwing me out and having me do the walk of shame.” Adam felt the warmth of Kris’s breath before he felt Kris’s lips, soft against the side of Adam’s neck.
“Get a room!” someone yelled, but they didn’t sound mean, just amused. Not any different, Adam thought, than if it were a girl and boy engaged in heavy PDA. Kris tensed against him anyway, though, and Adam rubbed his back gently until he relaxed again.
“If we didn’t need to be at the theater soon, I would definitely be following that advice,” Adam said, sotto voce, to Kris.
It was, Adam reflected that night, going to be pretty hard for the camera crews to get any solo shot of him or Kris, at least while they weren’t performing. He wasn’t sure he’d been more than two steps away from Kris all day. Even the first time around, when they’d just been friends, he and Kris had touched a lot. Now, it was impossible for him to stay away.
Luckily, the vast majority of the cast and crew weren’t homophobic. And even the very few who were wouldn’t say anything about it, whatever they might be thinking. He and Kris had had a bigger problem with their managers than they’d had with the Idol people.
“I can’t believe you’re coming out without discussing it with me first,” Caroline, Kris’s manager, had said, her face buried in her hands so that it came out as more of a mumble. “Really, Kris? Some sort of warning would have been nice.”
“We’re not filming live yet,” Kris had said. “You’ve got time to figure out a strategy.”
“I have less than a month!”
It turned out that she didn’t need a month. Five days after that talk - five nights of being with Kris and days of being flirty and handsy with Kris - Caroline emailed Kris a plan of attack, which included the two of them going out to lunch publicly. No PDA, she had written. Try to get the press and public used to the idea slowly.
So they went to The Farm for lunch, as instructed, and Adam did his best to keep his hands off Kris, mostly succeeding. They both wore sunglasses, which Caroline had suggested because Adam looks at you like he wants to throw you up against a wall and you look at him like you’d let him.
Afterwards, he and Kris checked out what the internet had to say - there had been a lot of hopeful speculation when they’d been announced as both doing the special all-stars season, as well as some people sure they couldn’t ‘recapture the magic’ since they ‘obviously weren’t friends anymore’. Mostly, the press seemed pretty happy that Kris and Adam were ‘restarting their bromance’, though a few people in the comments sections said that they thought it looked fake, like someone was forcing them to hang out together.
“Well, richgirl1091 is half right,” Kris said, tangling his fingers with Adam’s. “She just got the reason wrong.”
“Yeah, it’s just so hard for me to even look at you,” Adam said, tugging on Kris’s hand to lead him over to the bed. “Man, I thought I would never be forced spend time with you again and here I am, being your roommate all over. It’s like a nightmare.” Kris was giggling, though that was maybe half because of Adam’s over-the-top performance and half because Adam was doing his level best to locate Kris’s ticklish spots. After playing around for a few minutes, Adam wrapped his fingers around Kris’s wrists and held Kris down against the bed, knees braced on either side of Kris’s hips. Kris stared up at him, panting slightly, looking as happy as Adam had ever seen him. Adam bit back on his grin. “And I just say to myself every night - why didn’t Gokey come back to do the fifteenth season? If only I could have been spending time with Gokey.”
“Your life is so tough,” Kris said, squirming underneath Adam. “But don’t underestimate how hard this is for me, stuck under your shadow all over again.”
Adam leaned forward and whispered into Kris’s ear, “Oh, believe me, I can feel exactly how hard it is,” adding in a pointed roll of his hips. Kris let out a noise that was some strange hybrid between a whimper and a laugh. Adam let his weight drop down on Kris, pressing him into the bed, and he took Kris’s mouth in a kiss, swallowing Kris’s startled gasp.
The next day, Ryan did an interview with the two of them - playing catch-up on their lives since they’d left Idol. Pretty much everyone else had done solo interviews and Adam knew that some of their fans - from both camps - would probably be disappointed that Kris and Adam were doing theirs together. He also didn’t happen to give a fuck.
“I’m thrilled to be back,” Adam said, his arm resting casually along the back of the couch and not quite touching Kris. “Last time I was on the show, it gave me the chance to showcase my music and gave me a platform to reach so many people who never would have heard of me otherwise. Idol is the reason that RCA gave me a chance and I will always be grateful for that. I’m living my dream.”
Kris nodded, mouth curving in a smile. “I feel the same way, really. I... Arkansas isn’t the place that you go to do music. Even with... I’ve been trying to encourage music education there as much as I can, but even now... anyway, I wasn’t going to go anywhere with my music while I was only playing there. I had to get out so that I could be heard. Idol let me do that.”
“I also hear through the grapevine that being back on the show has brought in a new personal element,” Ryan said, and he was smiling his real smile, not the polished professional version. “Why don’t you tell us a little something about that?”
“Adam was nice enough to agree to date me,” Kris said, scooting closer to Adam as Adam lowered his arm to drape it over Kris’s shoulder. “We went out for lunch a little while ago.”
“We’re going to try to take it as slowly as possible for two people who are currently living in the same house,” Adam said, which was pretty much a flagrant lie, but one that Caroline had talked him into for the sake of Kris’s image. Frankly, Adam didn’t think an injection of sex would do Kris’s image any harm, but he’d been afraid that Caroline would have a heart attack or something if he didn’t agree to imply that they hadn’t started sleeping together yet. The wheels of Hollywood were pretty well-greased in compromise. “But we’ve been friends for years and that helps.”
“It sure does,” Ryan said, before switching the topic to their respective careers.
After the interview, Adam took Kris upstairs and then took it so slowly that Kris was begging him by the end.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about something you said a few years ago - back when the Idol tour was ending,” Adam said later. Kris shifted in Adam’s arms, his face pressing against Adam’s chest. “It was- it was about how things were never going to be the same. That we were never going to get to spend time together like that again.”
“I remember that,” Kris said, his words starting to slur together - a sign that he was close to sleep. “Never been so glad to be wrong.”
Adam slid his hand along Kris’s side, curving his fingers around Kris’s hip. He opened his mouth to say something and then realized that Kris had relaxed all the way into sleep, so he just reached over to turn off the light and then settled in next to Kris.
It could wait until morning. They had time.
the end
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