ai rpf: conversations with aliens, kris, brad, kris/adam
title: conversations with aliens
fandom: american idol rpf
character/pairings: kris allen/adam lambert, but it's mostly kris allen and brad bell being cute together.
rating: pg
summary: To clarify: Brad and Kris do not actually discuss international economic policy when they get together. They usually just eat lots of food and drink beer and gossip like tenth graders and fuck with Adam via text message, but nobody needs to know that.
notes: This was a time stamp promised to jerakeen for a charity auction of some kind, forever ago, proving that even when I swear up and down that I will do something super quick it still takes me five months, GOD I KNOW, SORRY. It's also a time stamp to my fic call me home, but that's not necessarily required reading.
disclaimer: I do not know any of these people and I don’t actually know what Kris Allen minored in in college, sorry.
Adam, like most boyfriends, comes as a package deal, complete with a colorful array of friends, family members, assistants, publicists, coworkers and the occasional interesting fan that Adam takes under his wing and hangs out with hardcore for a few days, every couple of months.
(Apparently tons of famous people do this and it’s not weird at all and shut up Kris, don’t call it the ‘Adam Lambert Magical Fun Tour,’ that’s demeaning, they’re actually all very nice people.)
Kris has accepted all of these Adam-adjacent people, just like he’d accepted all of Katy’s people way back when, with the relative ease of a man who is very, very accustomed to serious relationships with high maintenance people (no offense, Katy). But it was Brad who Kris accepted first, way back before Kris and Adam were anything more than weirdly close reality television friends, because Brad has a way of swing dancing his way into everyone’s heart, no matter how weird or tenuous their connection to him is.
It has never occurred to Kris to be jealous either, just like he assumes it hasn’t occurred to Adam to be jealous of Katy. It’s intense, between Adam and Brad, like it always will be, and Kris can always feel it when they’re all hanging out together, that undercurrent that snaps between them like a live power line. Kris is under no illusions that there aren’t still feelings there, that if the circumstances lined up right and things worked out perfectly the way they sometimes do, that Adam and Brad wouldn’t be each other’s endgame, for real this time. And that’s okay, it is what it is, and even if Kris could muster up some jealousy or bitterness about that, he wouldn’t have any room for it considering he and Katy have pretty much the same exact thing going on.
It’s funny, because if this were all happening five years ago, or even two or three years ago, maybe, it would bother him a lot. Kris supposes that’s the difference a divorce makes.
It also helps that Kris and Brad get along like a house on fire. This surprises exactly no one but Adam, and his wary skepticism of their friendship is, literally, gut-bustingly, vein-poppingly hilarious.
“Look, look, he just texted me again,” Brad says, propped up on Kris’s kitchen counter, legs folded beneath him in some grotesque, bendy shape that makes Kris wince just to look at. “He wants to know what we’re talking about.”
“Tell him something ridiculous,” Kris insists, “like…the influence of international conflict on commodity markets.”
“Look at you, putting that poli sci minor to good use,” Brad crows, tapping away. “Okay, I used the words ‘economy’ and ‘volatility,’ I guarantee you he’s going to forward it to Lane with lots of exclamation points.”
Kris snickers into the stir-fry. “You’re so mean.”
“You’re the one enabling here,” Brad replies. “Can I have another mushroom?” Kris hands over two, just because he asked nicely.
(To clarify: Brad and Kris do not actually discuss international economic policy when they get together. They usually just eat lots of food and drink beer and gossip like tenth graders and fuck with Adam via text message, but nobody needs to know that.)
“So you were telling me about the David Fury pilot episode thing,” Kris prompts.
“Oh yeah,” Brad says, mid-chomp. “Uh, I’m doing a pilot episode with David Fury. It’s about aliens.”
Kris raises an eyebrow.
“…that’s about it,” Brad says with a shrug. “I play an alien. That’s all there is, at this point.”
“Okay, aliens are cool,” Kris says agreeably, reaching to clink his drink against Brad’s.
“I know, right,” Brad says definitively, gulping down his beer like he wasn’t bitching twenty minutes earlier about how Kris always buys domestic. “It’s perfect, because there are exactly two roles that I can do effortlessly, and that’s a very gay human, and a very gay alien. So far I’ve only done the one.”
“Good for you, broadening your horizons,” Kris says.
Brad makes some kind of agreeing noise and polishes off his beer, followed by a frat boy burp.
“Whew, excuse me,” he says.
Kris drops his spatula, too busy cracking up.
“I can never do that around my boyfriends,” Brad says.
“Preach,” Kris says, with a shake of his head.
--
“I’m thinking about makeup,” Brad says again mid-chew, because he is incapable of not talking with his mouth full. Like a toddler, really. “Like, they said they might go full-on Star Trek, like ears and fake skin and antennae and shit. But you know, I honestly don’t think they have the budget for it, so it might end up like original Star Trek, you know, with the shower curtain space suits and drawn on alien-eyebrows.”
They’re sitting on Kris’s patio, their feet up on the table and bowls of stir-fry in their laps, watching the neighbors play some kind of rugby-soccer hybrid through the slats of the wooden farm fence. “You could ask Jackie to help,” Kris points out, attention half on Brad, half on the two little kids doing cartwheels, off on the sidelines of the action. “She’d probably do it for free, she wants to get into TV so bad.”
“Please, I’m not going to make it easier for them to cover up my face,” Brad scoffs. “Do you know nothing about acting?”
“Nope,” Kris says, popping the ‘p’ cleanly.
Brad waves his hand, as if to say, I could say something clever and snarky here but I’m too full of oriental chicken to make the attempt. “Can you imagine, three hours of makeup every day?” He tilts his head, bird-like. “Oh, wait. Yeah.”
Kris laughs. “You’re thinking of Adam. My makeup routine is usually some underpaid girl who puts foundation on me and then kicks me out to argue with her boyfriend on her phone. Ten minutes, tops.”
“I love those girls,” Brad says enthusiastically. “They make me feel so grown up.”
“I love people who argue on cell phones,” Kris says. “Always with the really public places.”
“Adam used to do that all the time,” Brad says, face lighting up. “He’d be sitting in a restaurant, yelling at his brother at the top of his lungs about some argument they had when they were ten, or something. Used to drive me nuts.”
“Oh my God, he still does it, only he texts now,” Kris exclaims. “Just texts angrily, for like an hour, and he doesn’t even notice that it’s bugging me until I say something.”
“He’s so bad at signals!” Brad throws up his hands. “You can huff and puff for twenty minutes and he just doesn’t even notice.”
“And then he gets flustered when you point it out,” Kris says, getting into it now, “he’s all like, ‘oh god, he’s angry, does not compute’ and starts getting really handsy and calling me weird pet names, like ‘sweetie’ and ‘darling.’”
Brad snorts loudly into his stir-fry.
“He’s such a dork,” Kris says passionately.
“Worse is when he knows you’re really pissed about something and he tries to look pathetic so you’ll forgive him faster,” Brad says. “This one time he missed a play I was in because he was too hung over and slept through it, and I swear to God, he would time it so that he was lying on the couch, watching Golden Girls reruns and looking sad whenever I got home. Two weeks of that.”
Kris laughs, tilting his head back against his chair helplessly. Brad grins sunnily, and they fall silent, watching somebody score a goal in the next yard, or possibly get kinged, who even knows.
“You know, this might be why he’s so weird about us hanging out,” Brad says thoughtfully after a second.
“Probably,” Kris agrees easily. “Wanna talk about sex next?”
“Oh fuck yes,” Brad replies.
--
“Wait, so you seriously use the collar?” Brad asks, eyes almost comically wide.
“Yes,” Kris says plainly, “also, thank you. By the way.”
“You’re welcome,” Brad says, a little shakily, reaching out to take a long pull of his drink.
“Does that seriously weird you out?” Kris asks disbelievingly.
“No,” Brad replies, “it just…okay, it weirds me out a little.”
Kris gives him a look.
“Hey, I love kink!” Brad defends, throwing up his hands. “I just - it’s you. You and kink. You have to admit, it’s a little made of weird.”
“It’s not made of weird,” Kris protests. “I’m a perfectly normal person, you know, with perfectly normal bizarre sexual preferences.”
“Collars are a step above bizarre!” Brad cries. “Collars are for gag gifts and porn, Kris.”
“Are you shaming me?” Kris asks incredulously. “You are, you’re shaming me.”
“I am not shaming you, shut your face,” Brad exclaims.
“It sounds a little like shaming,” Kris says skeptically.
“Oh shut the fuck up,” Brad says irritably. “What do you do with it? Exactly. Be specific.”
“Uh, I wear it,” Kris says. “That’s…yeah, that’s about it.”
Brad looks profoundly unimpressed.
“Well, Adam grabs it sometimes?” Kris offers.
“Like how?” Brad asks. “Like an ‘I’m gonna choke you with my cock’ grab, or an ‘oh baby, you look so beautiful, I want to have your gay babies’ grab?”
“Is there a happy medium between those two?” Kris asks, eyes narrowed. “Because those two options are both a little extreme.”
“Oh baby, you look so beautiful in leather, let me choke you with my cock,” Brad emotes, hand on his forehead. He seems to be doing a Scarlett O’Hara, disturbingly.
“Please stop saying ‘choke you with my cock,’” Kris says, laughing.
“Let the record show that you don’t deny saying it,” Brad says.
“What record,” Kris says, “there is no record.”
“They can be the record,” Brad says, pointing to the group in the yard over. “Hey people! Let the record show that Kris Allen does not deny saying - ”
Kris smacks him in the stomach and Brad breaks off, laughing.
“You’re going to get me sued,” he says.
“This is LA, it’s nothing they haven’t heard,” Brad says dismissively.
“Those two kids are like ten years old,” Kris protests, “you’re going to make them cry.”
Brad cackles and throws his empty bottle at Kris’s bushes. “I’m going to need more beer if I’m going to make little children cry.”
“And sued,” Kris adds.
“Crying and lawsuits, it’s like my family reunion,” Brad says cheerfully.
“I fear you,” Kris says.
--
“I miss kinky sex,” Brad moans, face down on the kitchen floor. Kris, behind Brad overall but still on his eighth or ninth beer, maybe, is feeling a little dizzy himself, so he abandons his quest for more alcohol and plops down next to Brad’s head. “Adam always gets the good kinky sex, it’s so unfair.”
Kris reaches out and pats his head comfortingly. “You can have kinky sex if you want,” he says, “it’s probably really easy to find.”
Brad makes a weird noise, kind of like a snort and a moan. It sounds like, pluffffth. Kris laughs. Pluffffth. That’s funny.
“It’s not easy,” he says. “It’s hard. Really, really hard.”
Kris laughs harder.
“Juvenile!” Brad accuses. Then he rolls over with some effort, sighing. “Okay, yes, dick jokes are funny. Let’s focus now.”
“Okay, sorry,” Kris says, nodding vehemently. “Kinky sex. You can’t find it.”
“Well maybe not kinky,” Brad says. “But good. Good sex. I haven’t had really good sex in like, God. Two months.”
Kris rolls his eyes.
“Oh don’t even!” Brad screeches. “You have no idea. Oh sure, everybody wants to fuck Adam Lambert’s ex-boyfriend, but nobody wants to fuck Brad Bell. There’s a difference, you know.”
Kris sobers a little, blinking. “I’m sorry,” he says, a little startled by the honesty.
Brad shrugs, looking sulky. “S’not your fault,” he says. “Nobody’s fault. Stupid destiny, is all.”
“I could give you Katy’s number,” Kris offers. “She bitches about that all the time - you could bitch together! It’ll be therapeutic, or something.”
Brad makes a face. “No offense to your Barbie doll ex-wife, but I doubt she can help much,” he says. “Do you have any idea how small the gay community really is? Small. Small and vicious. Katy’s probably rolling in tail compared to me.”
“Did you just call it ‘tail’?” Kris asks.
“It’s a legitimate term,” Brad argues. “And quit nitpicking, I’m trying to feel sorry for myself.”
“I feel sorry for you,” Kris says encouragingly. “I feel really sorry for you.”
“Thank you,” Brad says petulantly.
“Does it ever bug you that Adam and I are happy?” Kris asks, just drunk enough to ask the question. “Because we don’t have to talk about him so much, if it does.”
“Oh! No,” Brad says, looking startled. “No, no. No.”
“Good,” Kris says, relieved.
“It bugs me that I’m single and not happy about it,” Brad says. “Not the same thing.”
“Oh, you’ll find someone,” Kris says dismissively, waving one hand. Then he does it again, because it feels weird, like his hand is weighted down by something. Probably all the beer. “It happens when you quit looking.”
“That’s what everybody keeps saying,” Brad bitches, “I’m trying as hard as I can to not look, but it isn’t working.”
“Pretty sure the universe can tell when you’re pretending not to look,” Kris says.
“The universe can suck my cock,” Brad says. “Where’s the beer?”
“Fridge,” Kris says absently, distracted by his beeping phone, which is hiding in some mysterious pocket somewhere on his person. Brad makes another pluffffth noise and starts crawling toward the refrigerator.
“Hey Mr. Popular,” Brad says, head buried in the ice box, “is that your assistant? Tell her to come over with more beer. And all her gay friends. Hollywood assistants always have the best gay friends.”
“It’s not my assistant,” Kris says, “it’s Adam. He wants to know if we’re done with our girls night.”
Brad laughs, wrestling another bottle out of the drawer. “He’s so pushy. Tell him to come over and bring some gay friends.”
“We don’t have girls nights, do we?” Kris asks skeptically. “Our nights are totally buff and manly. Right?”
Brad cracks open the bottle on the edge of the counter and shrugs. “Whatever makes you feel better, princess,” he says.
--
“This is why I don’t like to leave you two alone together,” Adam says disapprovingly, hands on his hips.
Kris realizes on some level that sleeping on the kitchen floor with your boyfriend’s ex is something that indicates that he has some trouble with boundaries, but all the rest of his levels are pretty drunk, so he doesn’t care.
“Hi, Adam,” he mumbles, not opening his eyes, “pull up some floor. It’s Spanish cedar. Pretty comfy.”
“Did you two have sex?” Adam asks skeptically. “I won’t get mad, I promise. But there better be video.”
Kris cracks open one eye. He’s still dressed, so. “I don’t think so,” he says, feeling pretty confident about his guess.
“You two,” Adam says exasperatedly, making distressed motions with his hands.
Brad starts snoring, rather loudly.
“Um,” Kris says, “can you help me up? My legs aren’t working.”
“I wonder why,” Adam says facetiously. “Maybe it’s the universe’s way of punishing you for getting drunk and talking about me with my ex.”
“The universe can suck my cock,” Kris says, on some kind of weird impulse.
Adam chokes on his own spit.
“Or you can,” Kris continues. “If you want. God, I’m drunk.”
“Wow, that was super sexy,” Adam says dryly. “I don’t know how I’m going to resist.”
Kris waves his hands at him helplessly.
“Okay look, I’ll get you upstairs if - if,” Adam says, shaking his finger in Kris’s face. Kris closes one eye to see it properly, head swimming. “I get to carry you bridal style and you tell me everything you and Brad said about me tonight.”
“Like everything everything?” Kris says warily. “Because I’m not going to remember this tomorrow. I can already tell.”
“Everything,” Adam confirms. “Don’t even think about faking a blackout, that is complete and utter bull, you big fat faker.”
Kris sighs in resignation. “Be gentle with me.”
Adam grins sunnily. “Brad’s staying on the floor,” he says gleefully.
“I figured,” Kris replies.
--
“Wanna know a secret?” Kris slurs, feeling infinitely drunker after the trip up the stairs. Adam dropped him. Twice.
“Yes,” Adam says immediately, threading his fingers through Kris’s hair. Kris leans into it blissfully.
“’Course you do,” Kris says. “I love your face.”
“Aw,” Adam says indulgently, “that’s sweet.”
“That wasn’t the secret,” Kris says.
“Okay,” Adam replies, with more patience than sober people usually have in talking to drunk people. “What’s your real secret?”
“M’really glad Brad likes me,” Kris says, concentrating on each syllable in an effort to not sound as spinny as his head feels. “It’s like, I’m good enough for you. Because he likes me.”
Adam’s hand freezes momentarily in Kris’s hair. “Oh,” he says, sounding a little strangled. “That’s…Kris, that’s really sweet.”
“He’s also an alien,” Kris says.
“Um,” replies Adam.
“Brad is,” Kris says helpfully. “Because of David Fury.”
Adam’s shaking against him, probably laughing at him, but Kris doesn’t care. The ceiling is still spinning, but he doesn’t care about that either. He likes spinning. He’s totally down with spinning right now.
“It doesn’t bug you that much, does it?” Kris asks impulsively. “Brad and me. I mean.”
“Oh,” Adam says, “no. I guess not. Well - yes. But not in a serious way, in a ‘I know they’re comparing notes and that’s so not on’ sort of way.”
“We totally compare notes,” Kris tells him emphatically. “It’s pretty inappropriate.”
“I know,” Adam says resignedly.
“It’s because we both love your face,” Kris confides in a stage whisper.
“Go to sleep, you alcoholic,” Adam says, grinning.
“You love my alcoholic face,” Kris says, kicking his shin.
“I plead the fifth,” Adam says.
fandom: american idol rpf
character/pairings: kris allen/adam lambert, but it's mostly kris allen and brad bell being cute together.
rating: pg
summary: To clarify: Brad and Kris do not actually discuss international economic policy when they get together. They usually just eat lots of food and drink beer and gossip like tenth graders and fuck with Adam via text message, but nobody needs to know that.
notes: This was a time stamp promised to jerakeen for a charity auction of some kind, forever ago, proving that even when I swear up and down that I will do something super quick it still takes me five months, GOD I KNOW, SORRY. It's also a time stamp to my fic call me home, but that's not necessarily required reading.
disclaimer: I do not know any of these people and I don’t actually know what Kris Allen minored in in college, sorry.
Adam, like most boyfriends, comes as a package deal, complete with a colorful array of friends, family members, assistants, publicists, coworkers and the occasional interesting fan that Adam takes under his wing and hangs out with hardcore for a few days, every couple of months.
(Apparently tons of famous people do this and it’s not weird at all and shut up Kris, don’t call it the ‘Adam Lambert Magical Fun Tour,’ that’s demeaning, they’re actually all very nice people.)
Kris has accepted all of these Adam-adjacent people, just like he’d accepted all of Katy’s people way back when, with the relative ease of a man who is very, very accustomed to serious relationships with high maintenance people (no offense, Katy). But it was Brad who Kris accepted first, way back before Kris and Adam were anything more than weirdly close reality television friends, because Brad has a way of swing dancing his way into everyone’s heart, no matter how weird or tenuous their connection to him is.
It has never occurred to Kris to be jealous either, just like he assumes it hasn’t occurred to Adam to be jealous of Katy. It’s intense, between Adam and Brad, like it always will be, and Kris can always feel it when they’re all hanging out together, that undercurrent that snaps between them like a live power line. Kris is under no illusions that there aren’t still feelings there, that if the circumstances lined up right and things worked out perfectly the way they sometimes do, that Adam and Brad wouldn’t be each other’s endgame, for real this time. And that’s okay, it is what it is, and even if Kris could muster up some jealousy or bitterness about that, he wouldn’t have any room for it considering he and Katy have pretty much the same exact thing going on.
It’s funny, because if this were all happening five years ago, or even two or three years ago, maybe, it would bother him a lot. Kris supposes that’s the difference a divorce makes.
It also helps that Kris and Brad get along like a house on fire. This surprises exactly no one but Adam, and his wary skepticism of their friendship is, literally, gut-bustingly, vein-poppingly hilarious.
“Look, look, he just texted me again,” Brad says, propped up on Kris’s kitchen counter, legs folded beneath him in some grotesque, bendy shape that makes Kris wince just to look at. “He wants to know what we’re talking about.”
“Tell him something ridiculous,” Kris insists, “like…the influence of international conflict on commodity markets.”
“Look at you, putting that poli sci minor to good use,” Brad crows, tapping away. “Okay, I used the words ‘economy’ and ‘volatility,’ I guarantee you he’s going to forward it to Lane with lots of exclamation points.”
Kris snickers into the stir-fry. “You’re so mean.”
“You’re the one enabling here,” Brad replies. “Can I have another mushroom?” Kris hands over two, just because he asked nicely.
(To clarify: Brad and Kris do not actually discuss international economic policy when they get together. They usually just eat lots of food and drink beer and gossip like tenth graders and fuck with Adam via text message, but nobody needs to know that.)
“So you were telling me about the David Fury pilot episode thing,” Kris prompts.
“Oh yeah,” Brad says, mid-chomp. “Uh, I’m doing a pilot episode with David Fury. It’s about aliens.”
Kris raises an eyebrow.
“…that’s about it,” Brad says with a shrug. “I play an alien. That’s all there is, at this point.”
“Okay, aliens are cool,” Kris says agreeably, reaching to clink his drink against Brad’s.
“I know, right,” Brad says definitively, gulping down his beer like he wasn’t bitching twenty minutes earlier about how Kris always buys domestic. “It’s perfect, because there are exactly two roles that I can do effortlessly, and that’s a very gay human, and a very gay alien. So far I’ve only done the one.”
“Good for you, broadening your horizons,” Kris says.
Brad makes some kind of agreeing noise and polishes off his beer, followed by a frat boy burp.
“Whew, excuse me,” he says.
Kris drops his spatula, too busy cracking up.
“I can never do that around my boyfriends,” Brad says.
“Preach,” Kris says, with a shake of his head.
--
“I’m thinking about makeup,” Brad says again mid-chew, because he is incapable of not talking with his mouth full. Like a toddler, really. “Like, they said they might go full-on Star Trek, like ears and fake skin and antennae and shit. But you know, I honestly don’t think they have the budget for it, so it might end up like original Star Trek, you know, with the shower curtain space suits and drawn on alien-eyebrows.”
They’re sitting on Kris’s patio, their feet up on the table and bowls of stir-fry in their laps, watching the neighbors play some kind of rugby-soccer hybrid through the slats of the wooden farm fence. “You could ask Jackie to help,” Kris points out, attention half on Brad, half on the two little kids doing cartwheels, off on the sidelines of the action. “She’d probably do it for free, she wants to get into TV so bad.”
“Please, I’m not going to make it easier for them to cover up my face,” Brad scoffs. “Do you know nothing about acting?”
“Nope,” Kris says, popping the ‘p’ cleanly.
Brad waves his hand, as if to say, I could say something clever and snarky here but I’m too full of oriental chicken to make the attempt. “Can you imagine, three hours of makeup every day?” He tilts his head, bird-like. “Oh, wait. Yeah.”
Kris laughs. “You’re thinking of Adam. My makeup routine is usually some underpaid girl who puts foundation on me and then kicks me out to argue with her boyfriend on her phone. Ten minutes, tops.”
“I love those girls,” Brad says enthusiastically. “They make me feel so grown up.”
“I love people who argue on cell phones,” Kris says. “Always with the really public places.”
“Adam used to do that all the time,” Brad says, face lighting up. “He’d be sitting in a restaurant, yelling at his brother at the top of his lungs about some argument they had when they were ten, or something. Used to drive me nuts.”
“Oh my God, he still does it, only he texts now,” Kris exclaims. “Just texts angrily, for like an hour, and he doesn’t even notice that it’s bugging me until I say something.”
“He’s so bad at signals!” Brad throws up his hands. “You can huff and puff for twenty minutes and he just doesn’t even notice.”
“And then he gets flustered when you point it out,” Kris says, getting into it now, “he’s all like, ‘oh god, he’s angry, does not compute’ and starts getting really handsy and calling me weird pet names, like ‘sweetie’ and ‘darling.’”
Brad snorts loudly into his stir-fry.
“He’s such a dork,” Kris says passionately.
“Worse is when he knows you’re really pissed about something and he tries to look pathetic so you’ll forgive him faster,” Brad says. “This one time he missed a play I was in because he was too hung over and slept through it, and I swear to God, he would time it so that he was lying on the couch, watching Golden Girls reruns and looking sad whenever I got home. Two weeks of that.”
Kris laughs, tilting his head back against his chair helplessly. Brad grins sunnily, and they fall silent, watching somebody score a goal in the next yard, or possibly get kinged, who even knows.
“You know, this might be why he’s so weird about us hanging out,” Brad says thoughtfully after a second.
“Probably,” Kris agrees easily. “Wanna talk about sex next?”
“Oh fuck yes,” Brad replies.
--
“Wait, so you seriously use the collar?” Brad asks, eyes almost comically wide.
“Yes,” Kris says plainly, “also, thank you. By the way.”
“You’re welcome,” Brad says, a little shakily, reaching out to take a long pull of his drink.
“Does that seriously weird you out?” Kris asks disbelievingly.
“No,” Brad replies, “it just…okay, it weirds me out a little.”
Kris gives him a look.
“Hey, I love kink!” Brad defends, throwing up his hands. “I just - it’s you. You and kink. You have to admit, it’s a little made of weird.”
“It’s not made of weird,” Kris protests. “I’m a perfectly normal person, you know, with perfectly normal bizarre sexual preferences.”
“Collars are a step above bizarre!” Brad cries. “Collars are for gag gifts and porn, Kris.”
“Are you shaming me?” Kris asks incredulously. “You are, you’re shaming me.”
“I am not shaming you, shut your face,” Brad exclaims.
“It sounds a little like shaming,” Kris says skeptically.
“Oh shut the fuck up,” Brad says irritably. “What do you do with it? Exactly. Be specific.”
“Uh, I wear it,” Kris says. “That’s…yeah, that’s about it.”
Brad looks profoundly unimpressed.
“Well, Adam grabs it sometimes?” Kris offers.
“Like how?” Brad asks. “Like an ‘I’m gonna choke you with my cock’ grab, or an ‘oh baby, you look so beautiful, I want to have your gay babies’ grab?”
“Is there a happy medium between those two?” Kris asks, eyes narrowed. “Because those two options are both a little extreme.”
“Oh baby, you look so beautiful in leather, let me choke you with my cock,” Brad emotes, hand on his forehead. He seems to be doing a Scarlett O’Hara, disturbingly.
“Please stop saying ‘choke you with my cock,’” Kris says, laughing.
“Let the record show that you don’t deny saying it,” Brad says.
“What record,” Kris says, “there is no record.”
“They can be the record,” Brad says, pointing to the group in the yard over. “Hey people! Let the record show that Kris Allen does not deny saying - ”
Kris smacks him in the stomach and Brad breaks off, laughing.
“You’re going to get me sued,” he says.
“This is LA, it’s nothing they haven’t heard,” Brad says dismissively.
“Those two kids are like ten years old,” Kris protests, “you’re going to make them cry.”
Brad cackles and throws his empty bottle at Kris’s bushes. “I’m going to need more beer if I’m going to make little children cry.”
“And sued,” Kris adds.
“Crying and lawsuits, it’s like my family reunion,” Brad says cheerfully.
“I fear you,” Kris says.
--
“I miss kinky sex,” Brad moans, face down on the kitchen floor. Kris, behind Brad overall but still on his eighth or ninth beer, maybe, is feeling a little dizzy himself, so he abandons his quest for more alcohol and plops down next to Brad’s head. “Adam always gets the good kinky sex, it’s so unfair.”
Kris reaches out and pats his head comfortingly. “You can have kinky sex if you want,” he says, “it’s probably really easy to find.”
Brad makes a weird noise, kind of like a snort and a moan. It sounds like, pluffffth. Kris laughs. Pluffffth. That’s funny.
“It’s not easy,” he says. “It’s hard. Really, really hard.”
Kris laughs harder.
“Juvenile!” Brad accuses. Then he rolls over with some effort, sighing. “Okay, yes, dick jokes are funny. Let’s focus now.”
“Okay, sorry,” Kris says, nodding vehemently. “Kinky sex. You can’t find it.”
“Well maybe not kinky,” Brad says. “But good. Good sex. I haven’t had really good sex in like, God. Two months.”
Kris rolls his eyes.
“Oh don’t even!” Brad screeches. “You have no idea. Oh sure, everybody wants to fuck Adam Lambert’s ex-boyfriend, but nobody wants to fuck Brad Bell. There’s a difference, you know.”
Kris sobers a little, blinking. “I’m sorry,” he says, a little startled by the honesty.
Brad shrugs, looking sulky. “S’not your fault,” he says. “Nobody’s fault. Stupid destiny, is all.”
“I could give you Katy’s number,” Kris offers. “She bitches about that all the time - you could bitch together! It’ll be therapeutic, or something.”
Brad makes a face. “No offense to your Barbie doll ex-wife, but I doubt she can help much,” he says. “Do you have any idea how small the gay community really is? Small. Small and vicious. Katy’s probably rolling in tail compared to me.”
“Did you just call it ‘tail’?” Kris asks.
“It’s a legitimate term,” Brad argues. “And quit nitpicking, I’m trying to feel sorry for myself.”
“I feel sorry for you,” Kris says encouragingly. “I feel really sorry for you.”
“Thank you,” Brad says petulantly.
“Does it ever bug you that Adam and I are happy?” Kris asks, just drunk enough to ask the question. “Because we don’t have to talk about him so much, if it does.”
“Oh! No,” Brad says, looking startled. “No, no. No.”
“Good,” Kris says, relieved.
“It bugs me that I’m single and not happy about it,” Brad says. “Not the same thing.”
“Oh, you’ll find someone,” Kris says dismissively, waving one hand. Then he does it again, because it feels weird, like his hand is weighted down by something. Probably all the beer. “It happens when you quit looking.”
“That’s what everybody keeps saying,” Brad bitches, “I’m trying as hard as I can to not look, but it isn’t working.”
“Pretty sure the universe can tell when you’re pretending not to look,” Kris says.
“The universe can suck my cock,” Brad says. “Where’s the beer?”
“Fridge,” Kris says absently, distracted by his beeping phone, which is hiding in some mysterious pocket somewhere on his person. Brad makes another pluffffth noise and starts crawling toward the refrigerator.
“Hey Mr. Popular,” Brad says, head buried in the ice box, “is that your assistant? Tell her to come over with more beer. And all her gay friends. Hollywood assistants always have the best gay friends.”
“It’s not my assistant,” Kris says, “it’s Adam. He wants to know if we’re done with our girls night.”
Brad laughs, wrestling another bottle out of the drawer. “He’s so pushy. Tell him to come over and bring some gay friends.”
“We don’t have girls nights, do we?” Kris asks skeptically. “Our nights are totally buff and manly. Right?”
Brad cracks open the bottle on the edge of the counter and shrugs. “Whatever makes you feel better, princess,” he says.
--
“This is why I don’t like to leave you two alone together,” Adam says disapprovingly, hands on his hips.
Kris realizes on some level that sleeping on the kitchen floor with your boyfriend’s ex is something that indicates that he has some trouble with boundaries, but all the rest of his levels are pretty drunk, so he doesn’t care.
“Hi, Adam,” he mumbles, not opening his eyes, “pull up some floor. It’s Spanish cedar. Pretty comfy.”
“Did you two have sex?” Adam asks skeptically. “I won’t get mad, I promise. But there better be video.”
Kris cracks open one eye. He’s still dressed, so. “I don’t think so,” he says, feeling pretty confident about his guess.
“You two,” Adam says exasperatedly, making distressed motions with his hands.
Brad starts snoring, rather loudly.
“Um,” Kris says, “can you help me up? My legs aren’t working.”
“I wonder why,” Adam says facetiously. “Maybe it’s the universe’s way of punishing you for getting drunk and talking about me with my ex.”
“The universe can suck my cock,” Kris says, on some kind of weird impulse.
Adam chokes on his own spit.
“Or you can,” Kris continues. “If you want. God, I’m drunk.”
“Wow, that was super sexy,” Adam says dryly. “I don’t know how I’m going to resist.”
Kris waves his hands at him helplessly.
“Okay look, I’ll get you upstairs if - if,” Adam says, shaking his finger in Kris’s face. Kris closes one eye to see it properly, head swimming. “I get to carry you bridal style and you tell me everything you and Brad said about me tonight.”
“Like everything everything?” Kris says warily. “Because I’m not going to remember this tomorrow. I can already tell.”
“Everything,” Adam confirms. “Don’t even think about faking a blackout, that is complete and utter bull, you big fat faker.”
Kris sighs in resignation. “Be gentle with me.”
Adam grins sunnily. “Brad’s staying on the floor,” he says gleefully.
“I figured,” Kris replies.
--
“Wanna know a secret?” Kris slurs, feeling infinitely drunker after the trip up the stairs. Adam dropped him. Twice.
“Yes,” Adam says immediately, threading his fingers through Kris’s hair. Kris leans into it blissfully.
“’Course you do,” Kris says. “I love your face.”
“Aw,” Adam says indulgently, “that’s sweet.”
“That wasn’t the secret,” Kris says.
“Okay,” Adam replies, with more patience than sober people usually have in talking to drunk people. “What’s your real secret?”
“M’really glad Brad likes me,” Kris says, concentrating on each syllable in an effort to not sound as spinny as his head feels. “It’s like, I’m good enough for you. Because he likes me.”
Adam’s hand freezes momentarily in Kris’s hair. “Oh,” he says, sounding a little strangled. “That’s…Kris, that’s really sweet.”
“He’s also an alien,” Kris says.
“Um,” replies Adam.
“Brad is,” Kris says helpfully. “Because of David Fury.”
Adam’s shaking against him, probably laughing at him, but Kris doesn’t care. The ceiling is still spinning, but he doesn’t care about that either. He likes spinning. He’s totally down with spinning right now.
“It doesn’t bug you that much, does it?” Kris asks impulsively. “Brad and me. I mean.”
“Oh,” Adam says, “no. I guess not. Well - yes. But not in a serious way, in a ‘I know they’re comparing notes and that’s so not on’ sort of way.”
“We totally compare notes,” Kris tells him emphatically. “It’s pretty inappropriate.”
“I know,” Adam says resignedly.
“It’s because we both love your face,” Kris confides in a stage whisper.
“Go to sleep, you alcoholic,” Adam says, grinning.
“You love my alcoholic face,” Kris says, kicking his shin.
“I plead the fifth,” Adam says.