december
Title: December
Author: kissoffools / wakeyourheart
Pairing: Adam Lambert/Kris Allen
Date Posted: December 19, 2009
Rating: NC-17 with lots of fluff.
Summary: Kris Allen celebrates Christmas. Adam Lambert celebrates Hanukkah. On their first holiday season together, Kris is of the opinion that they’re not an ‘either/or’ kind of household.
Disclaimer: Fakety fake fake. Please don't read this if you know someone included in the story. That'd just be awkward for everyone.
Notes: Written anonymously for the aiholidaybash fic exchange (posted here originally). Word count: 4400. This was written for cheapxdate, who is my Cheapfools partner in crime and I couldn't have been happier to write something for her. She gave me three great prompts - "first Christmas morning together", "19E holiday party" and "New Year’s Eve kiss" - and I decided to combine all of them into one fic. Basically you’re getting domestic holiday fluff with some porn on the side. Also, recognize a little - AL and ~KA in there? ;)
Lots of thanks to my beta, the lovely geekinthepink82!!
On the tenth of December, Kris brings home a menorah.
He’s not sure what he expects Adam’s reaction to be - pleased, hopefully, with a side of surprise and maybe a bit of gratitude thrown in the mix just to spice things up. On his way home he sort of toys around with a fantasy of Adam being so grateful to Kris that he sweeps Kris up the second Kris steps through the door, peppering him with sweet kisses for ages (well, sweet until they make it into the bedroom, at the very least), but Kris knows that is probably silly. But at the very least, he hopes Adam will be pleased.
He isn’t expecting the look of confusion and shock that Adam gives him when he proudly plunks the menorah down on their kitchen table.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a menorah, you idiot. You’re, like, the worst Jew ever.”
“I know what it is,” Adam laughs, swatting at Kris as he moves to pick it up. He turns it over in his hands, examining it closely, and Kris feels a little embarrassed. It’s nothing fancy, just some heavy plastic, and Kris wishes he’d gone somewhere other than a party store to pick up a real one.
“It’s not very special,” Kris murmurs, his heart sinking a little bit. He’d hoped so hard that this would make Adam happy, and he’d somehow gone and screwed it up. Of course. “I bet your mom has a much nicer one back home.”
Adam looks at him curiously, and Kris feels himself blush involuntarily. He hates that he still does this around Adam after all this time, but he knows Adam thinks it’s cute. So at least there’s that.
“You didn’t have to go out and get a big gilded menorah,” Adam tells him. “You didn’t have to go out and get any menorah.”
Kris shrugs. “I know I didn’t. I still wish I’d gotten us a nicer one, though. That way we could keep it around for awhile.”
Kris sees Adam’s lips flicker up at the word ‘us’, and he understands that. They’ve been an ‘us’ since before the end of Idol, but they haven’t been like this - living together, serious, forever - for very long, and it still feels new. Special.
“I’m just… surprised you thought about it, is all,” Adam explains.
“Well I looked up Hanukkah on the internet, and it said that you’re supposed to light the first candle tomorrow night, and I couldn’t find a menorah anywhere in this place, so I just… wanted to make sure we had one for Hanukkah,” Kris replies.
Adam makes that face that Kris knows well, the one that used to accompany the word ‘aww’ that Adam had quit saying once Kris told him to knock it off, and Kris figures he must’ve done something right after all. “Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about Hanukkah this year.”
Kris’s eyes widen. “Why not?”
“I haven’t celebrated it properly in years, not since I was a kid. I’m not even sure I remember how.”
“What did you do last year, then?”
Adam shrugs. “Holiday parties. Bars. Clubs with my friends. The LA scene isn’t really about family time, you know.”
“Well, what about now?”
“Now,” Adam muses, sliding closer to Kris and wrapping his arms around his waist. He leans down to nuzzle Kris’s ear, placing a gentle kiss against his skin. “Now, I think it’s time to celebrate again.”
“Christmas too, right?” Kris verifies, his hand moving to run through the hair at the back of Adam’s head, and he feels Adam smile against his neck.
“Christmas too,” Adam agrees. “And Kris?”
“Mm?”
“Thanks for the menorah.”
Kris smiles, trailing his hand down Adam’s back. “Anytime.”
***
Kris is ready to leap on Adam the second Adam gets home from his meeting the next night.
“I was only gone a couple of hours,” Adam chuckles, leaning down to kiss Kris, wrapping his arms around Kris’s smaller frame. “Are you really that hard up for it?”
Kris makes a face at him. “Perv.”
“You’re the one who jumped me without even letting me take off my jacket.”
“Come into the kitchen,” Kris urges, tugging on Adam’s arm like an over-eager child.
“Oh, food sex tonight, hm?” Adam says with a smirk, but he gamely follows Kris down the hall to their kitchen.
Kris steps back the second they get inside, shoving Adam forward and letting him see the room. The menorah sits proudly in the middle of the table, a barbeque lighter (Kris couldn’t find anything else) sitting at its base. A few dreidels are scattered to its right, and on its left is a plate of store-bought sufganiot. A pan sits on the stove, grilling a few latkes. But Kris doesn’t look around the room and admire his handiwork. He looks at Adam.
Adam takes in the room, and Kris watches his eyes fall on the dreidels and the sufganiot and the latkes in the frying pan. His smile widens as he takes in every new thing, and finally he turns to Kris, disbelief shining in his eyes.
“You did all this for me?”
Kris shrugs. “I wanted it to be kind of like when you were a kid.”
“Kristopher Neil Allen, what did I do to deserve you?”
Kris slides up to him, arms looping around his waist as he breathes in against his shoulder. “You’re just that lucky,” he says, grinning into the soft fabric.
“Damn right I am,” Adam agrees. And then Kris feels Adam’s fingers under his chin, and he tilts his head compliantly to meet his lips in a kiss.
Kissing Adam is always an experience, no matter how many times he does it, and Kris hopes that doesn’t change someday. He can still remember their first kiss vividly, in their shared room before going to bed, Adam’s sleepy eyes blinking down at him in surprise once he pressed himself into Adam’s chest. He remembers the first kiss after they exchanged I-love-you’s, Adam so enthusiastic that he swept all his products off the bathroom counter and lifted Kris up there instead. He remembers all of them, the short and the hurried and the intense and the sleepy, and sometimes he wonders if it’s all that memorable for Adam, too.
Adam pulls back, and Kris automatically reaches up to kiss him again, because he is nowhere near done yet, but Adam crinkles his nose and looks around the room. “Do you smell that?”
And then Kris does.
“My latkes!”
Kris bolts to the stove and quickly flips the burner to ‘off’. He stares into the smoky pan at the charred latkes in dismay. He’s trying to figure out what on earth to say to Adam when he feels Adam’s arms snake around his waist and hears his laugh rumble in his ear.
“What?! This isn’t funny!”
“Oh come on, it kind of is!”
“No, it’s not.”
Kris is spun around in Adam’s arms, and Adam laughs a little softer when he sees Kris’s pout. “Oh, look at you. You tried so hard!”
Kris shrugs and ducks his head. “I just wanted it to be perfect.”
“Hey,” Adam says, crouching down so that Kris has to look him in the eyes. “I don’t care about perfect.”
“Yeah?” Kris asks, and he feels his heart swell just a little bit because damnit Adam always knows what to say.
“Yeah,” Adam says. “Besides, those latkes would make me fat anyway.”
“You’re not -”
“Yeah, yeah,” Adam laughs. “Look, save me the speech and let’s go light the menorah.”
Adam pulls Kris back to the table and reaches for the barbeque lighter. He flicks it once experimentally and then passes it to Kris. Kris looks up at him, a little surprised.
“Me?”
“You went to all this effort,” Adam says, “so I want you to light the first candle.”
Flattered, Kris takes the lighter from Adam. He pauses, though, and then crosses the kitchen quickly to dim the lights.
“Mood lighting, hm?”
“Shut up. I want it to be special,” Kris says with a small smile, moving back to the table. Adam stands behind him, hands resting on his shoulders, as Kris leans forward and grasps the first candle. He pauses before he lights it, and says hesitantly, “I never memorized the prayer you’re supposed to say with it.”
“I got it,” Adam murmurs behind him, and Kris waits for Adam to recite “Borukh Ato Adoynoy Eloyheynu Melekh Ho-oylom Asher Kiddeshonu Be-mitsvoysov Ve-tsivonu Lehadlik Neyr Shel khanuko,” before he leans forward and lights the Shamash and the first candle. He stays quiet as Adam recites two more blessings, a little fascinated by the words spilling from his mouth. Kris doesn’t know if the pronunciation is right, doesn’t even know what he’s saying, doesn’t even know if they went about this properly, but with the candles flicking in front of him and Adam’s breath against his ear, it all feels a little magical.
He twists around in Adam’s arms once they finish, stroking his chest gently. “Now what? Don’t we sing songs?”
“We could,” Adam muses, “or we take that plate of sufganiot and curl up on the couch. I think Rudolph is on tonight.”
“Rudolph on Hanukkah?”
“We’re a two-tradition household, Allen,” Adam proclaims, gathering up the sufganiot and walking backwards towards the living room. “Get used to it!”
***
Kris finds out about the 19E party on the eighteenth of December.
It’s always a big deal, he’s told, and anyone who has a connection to the company is expected to be there. It’s always on New Year’s Eve and always at one of the fancier hotels in Los Angeles. Children aren’t allowed but significant others certainly are, and the few “who will you be bringing, Kris?” questions he gets when he visits the 19E offices that day are enough to throw him into stress-mode. As far as the public knows, he’s separated from his wife, and 19E has been alternating playing up his newly single image and fielding rumours about he and Adam with the simple “roommates for a few months, best friends for life” explanation they’ve been using ever since he and Adam were seen out to dinner together back in June. He and Adam have enjoyed toying with speculations up until now. But what with it being the holidays… Kris doesn’t know how he wants to handle this. And therefore he goes home in a bit of a tizzy.
“What’s up, grumpy?” Adam asks the minute Kris trudges into the kitchen.
“It’s nothing - are you baking shortbread cookies?” Kris asks, distracted by the trays of iced reindeer spread out across the kitchen counter. Adam blushes, and Kris gets it. That blushing thing is really endearing.
“I had the afternoon off,” Adam shrugs. “So?”
“So,” Kris says, as he bites into a reindeer’s antlers and grimaces, “you’re a terrible cook.”
“Hey!” Adam laughs, chucking a dishtowel at him. Kris dodges, laughing too, and returns the half-eaten reindeer back to its place on the cookie sheet. “I’m making something from scratch for once. Be proud of me!”
“Someday we will teach you how to cook,” Kris promises, settling himself at the table.
“Fine, fine, I suck,” Adam agrees, flopping down in a chair across the table from Kris. “Now what happened today?”
“I just,” Kris sighs, “heard that 19E does this New Years party every year, and -”
“Oh yeah, I heard about that the other day,” Adam interrupts, and Kris wants to smack himself because of course Adam knows about it, of course Adam is expected to go as well.
“So are we… I mean,” Kris clears his throat because he’s never been good at this sort of talk, “are we going together? Or…” He lets his sentence trail off, leaving room for Adam to jump in and save this from being an awkward mess.
“Well,” Adam muses, tapping his finger against his chin thoughtfully, “we both have to go anyway. So I don’t see why we can’t go and hang out together. That wouldn’t surprise anyone.”
“Oh,” Kris says, and he actually feels his heart sink a little bit, because Adam’s answer apparently wasn’t what he wants to hear, surprise surprise.
“I mean, unless -” Adam adds, because he’s always so good at going along at Kris’s pace, but Kris is quick to jump in.
“No, no, that should work pretty well,” Kris agrees. The last thing they need to deal with over the holidays is a scandal, and there’s no way their relationship won’t be a scandal the second it hits the press. Kris isn’t that stupid. “We’ll just go and have fun. Keep them guessing.”
“Yeah,” Adam agrees, and if Kris searches hard enough, he thinks he might be able to make out a glimmer of disappointment in Adam’s eyes that probably matches his own, but he can’t tell for sure. “Keep them guessing.”
***
Kris wakes up on the morning of the twenty-fifth with Adam’s warm body pressed against his side and “Silent Night” being sung softly into his ear.
He peeks open an eye and rolls over, smiling at the sight of Adam leaning over him with full bedhead. Adam trails off when he sees that Kris is awake, and presses a kiss to his temple. “You’re up.”
“Mhm,” Kris mumbles, wrapping his arms around Adam’s neck and pulling him down for a real kiss. When they break apart, he runs a hand through Adam’s hair. He likes it like this the best, soft and floppy. “Cause you woke me up.”
“That’s because it’s Christmas,” Adam explains with a bright smile, “and it’s present time. Come on, wake up.”
Adam pushes back the covers and bounces out of bed. Kris yawns and sits up, watching Adam putter around their bedroom in search of his slippers. “By the bathroom door,” Kris tells him.
Adam locates the slippers and plants his hands on his pyjama-clad hips. “Come on, Kris! Presents!” Adam whines, and Kris can’t help but laugh.
“This from the Jewish guy,” he says, but he gamely rolls out of bed and follows Adam out of the room.
When Kris descends down the stairs into their living room, he expects to see the tree they set up a few days earlier sitting unlit in the corner with a couple presents underneath, just as he’d left it when he went to bed the night before. Instead, he finds himself gaping at a lit tree, a full stocking hanging from the mantel, fake snow painted on the windowsill, and two steaming mugs of hot cocoa.
He eventually pulls his eyes away from the room to look at Adam, whose Cheshire cat smile almost splits his face in two. “Did you do this?”
Adam shakes his head. “Elves, man.”
Kris laughs, sliding closer to Adam to tuck his hands in the back pockets of Adam’s pyjama pants. “Elves, huh.”
“Snuck into the house when we were asleep.”
“I’ll bet.” Kris leans up to kiss him. “You did all this while I was asleep?”
Adam shrugs. “I woke up early,” he explains, as if this all wasn’t planned days in advance.
Kris presses his face into Adam’s chest, breathing in his warm scent. “You’re the best.”
“Now, come on,” Adam urges, gently tugging Kris away from his body. “Let’s see if Santa visited.”
“Santa?” Kris asks, raising an eyebrow skeptically.
“Kristopher, don’t tell me you don’t believe in Santa!”
“All right, Adam, what did Santa bring me?”
Adam kneels beneath the tree, rummaging around until he withdraws a long, slender box wrapped in gold. He hands it to Kris. The tag attached reads “To Kris, Love Santa” in purposefully messy handwriting.
“Looks like Santa never quite perfected his penmanship,” Kris remarks.
“Maybe Santa tried to write with his left hand so you wouldn’t recognize his writing.”
“Maybe I just think Santa is sloppy.”
“Maybe you should just open the present, Allen,” Adam laughs, shoving Kris gently. Kris tumbles down onto the couch, and Adam settles in next to him.
Kris has never been one for unwrapping presents carefully. As a child, his mother always insisted on saving the wrapping so she could reuse it the next year, and that always drove Kris crazy. So he tears into his present, tossing a crumbled ball of paper on the floor at his feet. Lifting off the lid, he finds two plane tickets to Arkansas nestled in the tissue paper.
When he looks up at Adam, his eyes are gleaming. “For both of us?” he asks, shocked.
Adam shrugs, and his cheeks are pink, but the small grin on his face tells Kris that he’s pleased. “I know you miss home. There’s no date on them, so we can find a time that works for both of us. But next time you go home,” he leans in and presses a kiss to Kris’s cheek, “I’m going with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then,” Kris says, sliding closer on the couch and tucking himself into Adam’s side, staring at the sparkling lights on the Christmas tree, “thank you very much, Santa.”
***
The holiday party on the thirty-first starts off better than Kris expects. He and Adam dress up and arrive in separate cars, and spend the first couple hours mingling and snacking and drinking. They don’t receive any suspicious glances, and they’re able to talk and laugh and drink together in peace. It almost feels like they’re a real couple, like they’re actually here together, and he’s surprised to realize that he likes that feeling.
Kris is onto his fifth glass of champagne and his head is feeling a little fuzzy when Adam sidles up behind him, fingers creeping onto his waist.
“Did I tell you how good you look in that suit?” Adam murmurs against his ear, and Kris feels a shiver run through his entire body.
“Yes,” he says with a smile, trying to maintain his composure. “You said that before we left the house, and then we were half an hour late to the party.”
Adam chuckles low in his throat, and Kris can feel it rumble along his back. “I still think you look good in that suit.”
“Adam, what are you doing?” Kris asks softly, not turning around.
Adam’s mouth swipes at Kris’s ear. “Hitting on you.”
“In public?”
“Only so I can get you somewhere more private,” Adam tells him, and Kris isn’t sure if it’s the champagne or the fact that Adam looks really good in his suit too, but he suddenly finds himself following Adam out of the ballroom.
Adam pulls Kris down a long hallway away from the party, and Kris ends up giggling at Adam’s dramatic attempts to stay quiet. Adam suddenly slows and Kris has to work at not tripping over Adam as he attempts to stop walking. Adam cracks open a door, poking his head inside, and then he flashes Kris a smile. “In here.”
They’re barely three steps inside an unused banquet room before Adam gathers Kris up in his arms and lays a kiss on him. Kris squirms in his arms happily, sighing against his mouth because he can feel the kiss all the way down to his toes.
Before Kris quite knows what’s happening, Adam’s lifting him up and settling him gently down on a table, mouth dipping to suck at his collarbone. Kris’s head tilts back and a little sigh escapes his lips, and Adam murmurs “Feels good?” against his skin.
Kris hand snakes up to run through Adam’s hair. “Really good.”
“I bet I can make you feel better.”
And that’s when Adam unzips Kris’s fly.
Kris knows he should be panicking, that he shouldn’t be letting Adam get him off in the middle of a hotel room that isn’t even locked. But Adam’s tugging at his pants, and when he whispers “Up,” Kris finds himself raising his hips so that Adam can get his pants off.
Adam’s fingers are smooth against Kris’s thighs, and they creep higher until they’re brushing against Kris’s briefs. He moves his hand inwards to cup Kris’s erection, and there’s a smirk on his lips.
“Someone’s a little turned on,” he says, and Kris can’t stop his hips from bucking upwards into his hand. “Eager too.”
“Shut up,” Kris says, but Adam kisses him again and Kris can’t help but smile.
Adam tugs down Kris’s underwear, and Kris kicks his legs to knock it onto the ground because the last thing he wants is it wrapped around his ankles and restraining him. Adam’s big hands rest on his inner thighs, pushing his legs apart and Kris can’t help but shiver in anticipation. He’s too far gone now to think about stopping.
He touches Kris gently, little teasing motions, fingers running up and down his length that do nothing but build the anticipation. Kris feels himself getting harder, and he tries to push himself into Adam’s hand.
“Come on,” he whispers to Adam. “More. Please.”
“Patience, Kristopher,” he whispers, but then he’s lowering himself to his knees and placing a trail of kisses up Kris’s inner thigh, and Kris thinks oh, yes, this is good.
Kris feels the first dart of Adam’s tongue against him, just a quick swipe across the head, and it’s short and quick and Kris lets out a gasp. But then Adam lowers his head to suck him all in, bobbing his head lazily, and Kris moans happily, eyes fluttering shut.
The room’s quiet, the silence interrupted by the wet sounds of Adam’s mouth and the small noises that fall from Kris’s lips. It isn’t long before the slow sucks and lazy pumps frustrate Kris, and he’s at the point where he just wants more, damnit. He props himself up with one elbow and reaches down, fingers wrapping in Adam’s thick hair, and tries to push Adam closer, tries to make Adam take more of him into his mouth. Adam fights Kris’s hand and pulls off entirely, and Kris wants to cry in frustration. But Adam’s mouth is red and wet, and his lips are swollen, and that’s a sight that Kris doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of.
“You okay up there?” Adam asks, lips curved up in a small smirk.
“More, please,” Kris demands, and this pulls a soft chuckle from Adam.
“God, we need to do this more often,” Adam marvels. “You’re fucking hot when you’re impatient.” Then he lowers his mouth again.
Adam’s sucking him harder now, tongue swirling, and Kris feels himself slide deeper, feels the head bump against the back of Adam’s throat. And then Adam’s got a finger there, and he’s trailing it down, over Kris’s sensitive skin and rubbing circles against his entrance, and Kris cries out in surprise, louder than he should, but he can’t be bothered to care because all he can focus on is Adam’s mouth and finger. Adam pulls back again to suck greedily on the head, and Kris is suddenly glad that Adam’s other hand is pressing his hip into the table to stop him from bucking forwards.
The build-up has been intense, and Kris is whimpering now, a sound that would embarrass him in any other situation. But he’s close, and Adam has to know because he’s heard Kris like this a thousand times, which is why he opens his throat again and sucks him all the way down. Kris can’t help the shout that falls from his lips when he comes.
Adam swallows and slides back up Kris’s body carefully, and Kris runs a sweaty hand through his hair, fingers shaking.
“You’re a mess,” Adam whispers, and Kris presses his forehead against Adam’s.
“I cannot believe you just did that.”
“But it was fun, right?” Adam quirks an eyebrow and Kris laughs.
“Yeah, it was fun.” Then Kris is sliding off the table and untucking Adam’s dress shirt from his pants. “And now it’s your turn.”
***
Kris and Adam return to the party at two minutes to midnight.
Adam snags them both glasses of champagne, and Kris takes one from him as he looks around the room. Couples move across the room as if attached by magnets, preparing for that midnight kiss. Kris shuffles his feet because no matter how much he’d love one, there’s no manual for how to act in situations like these.
“You look cute tonight,” Adam murmurs, capturing his attention.
“Yeah?”
“Cuter now that I’m through with you,” he says with a wink, and Kris can’t help but chuckle.
“You too,” he agrees.
It’s only then that Kris notices the chanting in the room. Couples are clinging to each other and watching the large clock on the wall as it counts down the seconds to midnight. Kris’s eyes dart around, take in the second hand - it’s less than ten seconds now - and the champagne and the glittery decorations. And then he sees Adam’s face.
Adam sips his drink, eyes downcast. He’s trying not to draw attention to himself, Kris knows, but he can tell that Adam’s upset. Kris knows how hard this has to be for him - to be hiding for the first time since he was a teenager. And Kris knows that’s unfair. And he’s thinking all these things, and wishing that he could make life easier for Adam, and before he quite knows it, the whole room is shouting “Happy New Year!” and he’s pressing his lips against Adam’s, fingers tangled in his dress shirt.
Adam doesn’t kiss him for long, and when he pulls back, Kris sees the concern in his eyes. “There are probably a thousand eyes on us right now,” Adam whispers, and Kris can’t help but steal a glance around.
Adam’s right.
Kris can see his PR rep, and Adam’s manager, and several hundred people he’s never seen in his life - and they’re all staring at them. Kris suddenly feels like he’s back in first grade, being judged because his pet turtle died on the way to show and tell and he didn’t realize until he lifted it out of the box. He kind of wants to crawl away and hide and pretend it was all a bad dream. But then he feels Adam’s fingers gripping his hip, and he tilts his head upwards to look him in the eyes. Kris smiles.
“So let them watch.”
And then he kisses Adam again.
end.
Author: kissoffools / wakeyourheart
Pairing: Adam Lambert/Kris Allen
Date Posted: December 19, 2009
Rating: NC-17 with lots of fluff.
Summary: Kris Allen celebrates Christmas. Adam Lambert celebrates Hanukkah. On their first holiday season together, Kris is of the opinion that they’re not an ‘either/or’ kind of household.
Disclaimer: Fakety fake fake. Please don't read this if you know someone included in the story. That'd just be awkward for everyone.
Notes: Written anonymously for the aiholidaybash fic exchange (posted here originally). Word count: 4400. This was written for cheapxdate, who is my Cheapfools partner in crime and I couldn't have been happier to write something for her. She gave me three great prompts - "first Christmas morning together", "19E holiday party" and "New Year’s Eve kiss" - and I decided to combine all of them into one fic. Basically you’re getting domestic holiday fluff with some porn on the side. Also, recognize a little - AL and ~KA in there? ;)
Lots of thanks to my beta, the lovely geekinthepink82!!
On the tenth of December, Kris brings home a menorah.
He’s not sure what he expects Adam’s reaction to be - pleased, hopefully, with a side of surprise and maybe a bit of gratitude thrown in the mix just to spice things up. On his way home he sort of toys around with a fantasy of Adam being so grateful to Kris that he sweeps Kris up the second Kris steps through the door, peppering him with sweet kisses for ages (well, sweet until they make it into the bedroom, at the very least), but Kris knows that is probably silly. But at the very least, he hopes Adam will be pleased.
He isn’t expecting the look of confusion and shock that Adam gives him when he proudly plunks the menorah down on their kitchen table.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a menorah, you idiot. You’re, like, the worst Jew ever.”
“I know what it is,” Adam laughs, swatting at Kris as he moves to pick it up. He turns it over in his hands, examining it closely, and Kris feels a little embarrassed. It’s nothing fancy, just some heavy plastic, and Kris wishes he’d gone somewhere other than a party store to pick up a real one.
“It’s not very special,” Kris murmurs, his heart sinking a little bit. He’d hoped so hard that this would make Adam happy, and he’d somehow gone and screwed it up. Of course. “I bet your mom has a much nicer one back home.”
Adam looks at him curiously, and Kris feels himself blush involuntarily. He hates that he still does this around Adam after all this time, but he knows Adam thinks it’s cute. So at least there’s that.
“You didn’t have to go out and get a big gilded menorah,” Adam tells him. “You didn’t have to go out and get any menorah.”
Kris shrugs. “I know I didn’t. I still wish I’d gotten us a nicer one, though. That way we could keep it around for awhile.”
Kris sees Adam’s lips flicker up at the word ‘us’, and he understands that. They’ve been an ‘us’ since before the end of Idol, but they haven’t been like this - living together, serious, forever - for very long, and it still feels new. Special.
“I’m just… surprised you thought about it, is all,” Adam explains.
“Well I looked up Hanukkah on the internet, and it said that you’re supposed to light the first candle tomorrow night, and I couldn’t find a menorah anywhere in this place, so I just… wanted to make sure we had one for Hanukkah,” Kris replies.
Adam makes that face that Kris knows well, the one that used to accompany the word ‘aww’ that Adam had quit saying once Kris told him to knock it off, and Kris figures he must’ve done something right after all. “Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about Hanukkah this year.”
Kris’s eyes widen. “Why not?”
“I haven’t celebrated it properly in years, not since I was a kid. I’m not even sure I remember how.”
“What did you do last year, then?”
Adam shrugs. “Holiday parties. Bars. Clubs with my friends. The LA scene isn’t really about family time, you know.”
“Well, what about now?”
“Now,” Adam muses, sliding closer to Kris and wrapping his arms around his waist. He leans down to nuzzle Kris’s ear, placing a gentle kiss against his skin. “Now, I think it’s time to celebrate again.”
“Christmas too, right?” Kris verifies, his hand moving to run through the hair at the back of Adam’s head, and he feels Adam smile against his neck.
“Christmas too,” Adam agrees. “And Kris?”
“Mm?”
“Thanks for the menorah.”
Kris smiles, trailing his hand down Adam’s back. “Anytime.”
***
Kris is ready to leap on Adam the second Adam gets home from his meeting the next night.
“I was only gone a couple of hours,” Adam chuckles, leaning down to kiss Kris, wrapping his arms around Kris’s smaller frame. “Are you really that hard up for it?”
Kris makes a face at him. “Perv.”
“You’re the one who jumped me without even letting me take off my jacket.”
“Come into the kitchen,” Kris urges, tugging on Adam’s arm like an over-eager child.
“Oh, food sex tonight, hm?” Adam says with a smirk, but he gamely follows Kris down the hall to their kitchen.
Kris steps back the second they get inside, shoving Adam forward and letting him see the room. The menorah sits proudly in the middle of the table, a barbeque lighter (Kris couldn’t find anything else) sitting at its base. A few dreidels are scattered to its right, and on its left is a plate of store-bought sufganiot. A pan sits on the stove, grilling a few latkes. But Kris doesn’t look around the room and admire his handiwork. He looks at Adam.
Adam takes in the room, and Kris watches his eyes fall on the dreidels and the sufganiot and the latkes in the frying pan. His smile widens as he takes in every new thing, and finally he turns to Kris, disbelief shining in his eyes.
“You did all this for me?”
Kris shrugs. “I wanted it to be kind of like when you were a kid.”
“Kristopher Neil Allen, what did I do to deserve you?”
Kris slides up to him, arms looping around his waist as he breathes in against his shoulder. “You’re just that lucky,” he says, grinning into the soft fabric.
“Damn right I am,” Adam agrees. And then Kris feels Adam’s fingers under his chin, and he tilts his head compliantly to meet his lips in a kiss.
Kissing Adam is always an experience, no matter how many times he does it, and Kris hopes that doesn’t change someday. He can still remember their first kiss vividly, in their shared room before going to bed, Adam’s sleepy eyes blinking down at him in surprise once he pressed himself into Adam’s chest. He remembers the first kiss after they exchanged I-love-you’s, Adam so enthusiastic that he swept all his products off the bathroom counter and lifted Kris up there instead. He remembers all of them, the short and the hurried and the intense and the sleepy, and sometimes he wonders if it’s all that memorable for Adam, too.
Adam pulls back, and Kris automatically reaches up to kiss him again, because he is nowhere near done yet, but Adam crinkles his nose and looks around the room. “Do you smell that?”
And then Kris does.
“My latkes!”
Kris bolts to the stove and quickly flips the burner to ‘off’. He stares into the smoky pan at the charred latkes in dismay. He’s trying to figure out what on earth to say to Adam when he feels Adam’s arms snake around his waist and hears his laugh rumble in his ear.
“What?! This isn’t funny!”
“Oh come on, it kind of is!”
“No, it’s not.”
Kris is spun around in Adam’s arms, and Adam laughs a little softer when he sees Kris’s pout. “Oh, look at you. You tried so hard!”
Kris shrugs and ducks his head. “I just wanted it to be perfect.”
“Hey,” Adam says, crouching down so that Kris has to look him in the eyes. “I don’t care about perfect.”
“Yeah?” Kris asks, and he feels his heart swell just a little bit because damnit Adam always knows what to say.
“Yeah,” Adam says. “Besides, those latkes would make me fat anyway.”
“You’re not -”
“Yeah, yeah,” Adam laughs. “Look, save me the speech and let’s go light the menorah.”
Adam pulls Kris back to the table and reaches for the barbeque lighter. He flicks it once experimentally and then passes it to Kris. Kris looks up at him, a little surprised.
“Me?”
“You went to all this effort,” Adam says, “so I want you to light the first candle.”
Flattered, Kris takes the lighter from Adam. He pauses, though, and then crosses the kitchen quickly to dim the lights.
“Mood lighting, hm?”
“Shut up. I want it to be special,” Kris says with a small smile, moving back to the table. Adam stands behind him, hands resting on his shoulders, as Kris leans forward and grasps the first candle. He pauses before he lights it, and says hesitantly, “I never memorized the prayer you’re supposed to say with it.”
“I got it,” Adam murmurs behind him, and Kris waits for Adam to recite “Borukh Ato Adoynoy Eloyheynu Melekh Ho-oylom Asher Kiddeshonu Be-mitsvoysov Ve-tsivonu Lehadlik Neyr Shel khanuko,” before he leans forward and lights the Shamash and the first candle. He stays quiet as Adam recites two more blessings, a little fascinated by the words spilling from his mouth. Kris doesn’t know if the pronunciation is right, doesn’t even know what he’s saying, doesn’t even know if they went about this properly, but with the candles flicking in front of him and Adam’s breath against his ear, it all feels a little magical.
He twists around in Adam’s arms once they finish, stroking his chest gently. “Now what? Don’t we sing songs?”
“We could,” Adam muses, “or we take that plate of sufganiot and curl up on the couch. I think Rudolph is on tonight.”
“Rudolph on Hanukkah?”
“We’re a two-tradition household, Allen,” Adam proclaims, gathering up the sufganiot and walking backwards towards the living room. “Get used to it!”
***
Kris finds out about the 19E party on the eighteenth of December.
It’s always a big deal, he’s told, and anyone who has a connection to the company is expected to be there. It’s always on New Year’s Eve and always at one of the fancier hotels in Los Angeles. Children aren’t allowed but significant others certainly are, and the few “who will you be bringing, Kris?” questions he gets when he visits the 19E offices that day are enough to throw him into stress-mode. As far as the public knows, he’s separated from his wife, and 19E has been alternating playing up his newly single image and fielding rumours about he and Adam with the simple “roommates for a few months, best friends for life” explanation they’ve been using ever since he and Adam were seen out to dinner together back in June. He and Adam have enjoyed toying with speculations up until now. But what with it being the holidays… Kris doesn’t know how he wants to handle this. And therefore he goes home in a bit of a tizzy.
“What’s up, grumpy?” Adam asks the minute Kris trudges into the kitchen.
“It’s nothing - are you baking shortbread cookies?” Kris asks, distracted by the trays of iced reindeer spread out across the kitchen counter. Adam blushes, and Kris gets it. That blushing thing is really endearing.
“I had the afternoon off,” Adam shrugs. “So?”
“So,” Kris says, as he bites into a reindeer’s antlers and grimaces, “you’re a terrible cook.”
“Hey!” Adam laughs, chucking a dishtowel at him. Kris dodges, laughing too, and returns the half-eaten reindeer back to its place on the cookie sheet. “I’m making something from scratch for once. Be proud of me!”
“Someday we will teach you how to cook,” Kris promises, settling himself at the table.
“Fine, fine, I suck,” Adam agrees, flopping down in a chair across the table from Kris. “Now what happened today?”
“I just,” Kris sighs, “heard that 19E does this New Years party every year, and -”
“Oh yeah, I heard about that the other day,” Adam interrupts, and Kris wants to smack himself because of course Adam knows about it, of course Adam is expected to go as well.
“So are we… I mean,” Kris clears his throat because he’s never been good at this sort of talk, “are we going together? Or…” He lets his sentence trail off, leaving room for Adam to jump in and save this from being an awkward mess.
“Well,” Adam muses, tapping his finger against his chin thoughtfully, “we both have to go anyway. So I don’t see why we can’t go and hang out together. That wouldn’t surprise anyone.”
“Oh,” Kris says, and he actually feels his heart sink a little bit, because Adam’s answer apparently wasn’t what he wants to hear, surprise surprise.
“I mean, unless -” Adam adds, because he’s always so good at going along at Kris’s pace, but Kris is quick to jump in.
“No, no, that should work pretty well,” Kris agrees. The last thing they need to deal with over the holidays is a scandal, and there’s no way their relationship won’t be a scandal the second it hits the press. Kris isn’t that stupid. “We’ll just go and have fun. Keep them guessing.”
“Yeah,” Adam agrees, and if Kris searches hard enough, he thinks he might be able to make out a glimmer of disappointment in Adam’s eyes that probably matches his own, but he can’t tell for sure. “Keep them guessing.”
***
Kris wakes up on the morning of the twenty-fifth with Adam’s warm body pressed against his side and “Silent Night” being sung softly into his ear.
He peeks open an eye and rolls over, smiling at the sight of Adam leaning over him with full bedhead. Adam trails off when he sees that Kris is awake, and presses a kiss to his temple. “You’re up.”
“Mhm,” Kris mumbles, wrapping his arms around Adam’s neck and pulling him down for a real kiss. When they break apart, he runs a hand through Adam’s hair. He likes it like this the best, soft and floppy. “Cause you woke me up.”
“That’s because it’s Christmas,” Adam explains with a bright smile, “and it’s present time. Come on, wake up.”
Adam pushes back the covers and bounces out of bed. Kris yawns and sits up, watching Adam putter around their bedroom in search of his slippers. “By the bathroom door,” Kris tells him.
Adam locates the slippers and plants his hands on his pyjama-clad hips. “Come on, Kris! Presents!” Adam whines, and Kris can’t help but laugh.
“This from the Jewish guy,” he says, but he gamely rolls out of bed and follows Adam out of the room.
When Kris descends down the stairs into their living room, he expects to see the tree they set up a few days earlier sitting unlit in the corner with a couple presents underneath, just as he’d left it when he went to bed the night before. Instead, he finds himself gaping at a lit tree, a full stocking hanging from the mantel, fake snow painted on the windowsill, and two steaming mugs of hot cocoa.
He eventually pulls his eyes away from the room to look at Adam, whose Cheshire cat smile almost splits his face in two. “Did you do this?”
Adam shakes his head. “Elves, man.”
Kris laughs, sliding closer to Adam to tuck his hands in the back pockets of Adam’s pyjama pants. “Elves, huh.”
“Snuck into the house when we were asleep.”
“I’ll bet.” Kris leans up to kiss him. “You did all this while I was asleep?”
Adam shrugs. “I woke up early,” he explains, as if this all wasn’t planned days in advance.
Kris presses his face into Adam’s chest, breathing in his warm scent. “You’re the best.”
“Now, come on,” Adam urges, gently tugging Kris away from his body. “Let’s see if Santa visited.”
“Santa?” Kris asks, raising an eyebrow skeptically.
“Kristopher, don’t tell me you don’t believe in Santa!”
“All right, Adam, what did Santa bring me?”
Adam kneels beneath the tree, rummaging around until he withdraws a long, slender box wrapped in gold. He hands it to Kris. The tag attached reads “To Kris, Love Santa” in purposefully messy handwriting.
“Looks like Santa never quite perfected his penmanship,” Kris remarks.
“Maybe Santa tried to write with his left hand so you wouldn’t recognize his writing.”
“Maybe I just think Santa is sloppy.”
“Maybe you should just open the present, Allen,” Adam laughs, shoving Kris gently. Kris tumbles down onto the couch, and Adam settles in next to him.
Kris has never been one for unwrapping presents carefully. As a child, his mother always insisted on saving the wrapping so she could reuse it the next year, and that always drove Kris crazy. So he tears into his present, tossing a crumbled ball of paper on the floor at his feet. Lifting off the lid, he finds two plane tickets to Arkansas nestled in the tissue paper.
When he looks up at Adam, his eyes are gleaming. “For both of us?” he asks, shocked.
Adam shrugs, and his cheeks are pink, but the small grin on his face tells Kris that he’s pleased. “I know you miss home. There’s no date on them, so we can find a time that works for both of us. But next time you go home,” he leans in and presses a kiss to Kris’s cheek, “I’m going with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then,” Kris says, sliding closer on the couch and tucking himself into Adam’s side, staring at the sparkling lights on the Christmas tree, “thank you very much, Santa.”
***
The holiday party on the thirty-first starts off better than Kris expects. He and Adam dress up and arrive in separate cars, and spend the first couple hours mingling and snacking and drinking. They don’t receive any suspicious glances, and they’re able to talk and laugh and drink together in peace. It almost feels like they’re a real couple, like they’re actually here together, and he’s surprised to realize that he likes that feeling.
Kris is onto his fifth glass of champagne and his head is feeling a little fuzzy when Adam sidles up behind him, fingers creeping onto his waist.
“Did I tell you how good you look in that suit?” Adam murmurs against his ear, and Kris feels a shiver run through his entire body.
“Yes,” he says with a smile, trying to maintain his composure. “You said that before we left the house, and then we were half an hour late to the party.”
Adam chuckles low in his throat, and Kris can feel it rumble along his back. “I still think you look good in that suit.”
“Adam, what are you doing?” Kris asks softly, not turning around.
Adam’s mouth swipes at Kris’s ear. “Hitting on you.”
“In public?”
“Only so I can get you somewhere more private,” Adam tells him, and Kris isn’t sure if it’s the champagne or the fact that Adam looks really good in his suit too, but he suddenly finds himself following Adam out of the ballroom.
Adam pulls Kris down a long hallway away from the party, and Kris ends up giggling at Adam’s dramatic attempts to stay quiet. Adam suddenly slows and Kris has to work at not tripping over Adam as he attempts to stop walking. Adam cracks open a door, poking his head inside, and then he flashes Kris a smile. “In here.”
They’re barely three steps inside an unused banquet room before Adam gathers Kris up in his arms and lays a kiss on him. Kris squirms in his arms happily, sighing against his mouth because he can feel the kiss all the way down to his toes.
Before Kris quite knows what’s happening, Adam’s lifting him up and settling him gently down on a table, mouth dipping to suck at his collarbone. Kris’s head tilts back and a little sigh escapes his lips, and Adam murmurs “Feels good?” against his skin.
Kris hand snakes up to run through Adam’s hair. “Really good.”
“I bet I can make you feel better.”
And that’s when Adam unzips Kris’s fly.
Kris knows he should be panicking, that he shouldn’t be letting Adam get him off in the middle of a hotel room that isn’t even locked. But Adam’s tugging at his pants, and when he whispers “Up,” Kris finds himself raising his hips so that Adam can get his pants off.
Adam’s fingers are smooth against Kris’s thighs, and they creep higher until they’re brushing against Kris’s briefs. He moves his hand inwards to cup Kris’s erection, and there’s a smirk on his lips.
“Someone’s a little turned on,” he says, and Kris can’t stop his hips from bucking upwards into his hand. “Eager too.”
“Shut up,” Kris says, but Adam kisses him again and Kris can’t help but smile.
Adam tugs down Kris’s underwear, and Kris kicks his legs to knock it onto the ground because the last thing he wants is it wrapped around his ankles and restraining him. Adam’s big hands rest on his inner thighs, pushing his legs apart and Kris can’t help but shiver in anticipation. He’s too far gone now to think about stopping.
He touches Kris gently, little teasing motions, fingers running up and down his length that do nothing but build the anticipation. Kris feels himself getting harder, and he tries to push himself into Adam’s hand.
“Come on,” he whispers to Adam. “More. Please.”
“Patience, Kristopher,” he whispers, but then he’s lowering himself to his knees and placing a trail of kisses up Kris’s inner thigh, and Kris thinks oh, yes, this is good.
Kris feels the first dart of Adam’s tongue against him, just a quick swipe across the head, and it’s short and quick and Kris lets out a gasp. But then Adam lowers his head to suck him all in, bobbing his head lazily, and Kris moans happily, eyes fluttering shut.
The room’s quiet, the silence interrupted by the wet sounds of Adam’s mouth and the small noises that fall from Kris’s lips. It isn’t long before the slow sucks and lazy pumps frustrate Kris, and he’s at the point where he just wants more, damnit. He props himself up with one elbow and reaches down, fingers wrapping in Adam’s thick hair, and tries to push Adam closer, tries to make Adam take more of him into his mouth. Adam fights Kris’s hand and pulls off entirely, and Kris wants to cry in frustration. But Adam’s mouth is red and wet, and his lips are swollen, and that’s a sight that Kris doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of.
“You okay up there?” Adam asks, lips curved up in a small smirk.
“More, please,” Kris demands, and this pulls a soft chuckle from Adam.
“God, we need to do this more often,” Adam marvels. “You’re fucking hot when you’re impatient.” Then he lowers his mouth again.
Adam’s sucking him harder now, tongue swirling, and Kris feels himself slide deeper, feels the head bump against the back of Adam’s throat. And then Adam’s got a finger there, and he’s trailing it down, over Kris’s sensitive skin and rubbing circles against his entrance, and Kris cries out in surprise, louder than he should, but he can’t be bothered to care because all he can focus on is Adam’s mouth and finger. Adam pulls back again to suck greedily on the head, and Kris is suddenly glad that Adam’s other hand is pressing his hip into the table to stop him from bucking forwards.
The build-up has been intense, and Kris is whimpering now, a sound that would embarrass him in any other situation. But he’s close, and Adam has to know because he’s heard Kris like this a thousand times, which is why he opens his throat again and sucks him all the way down. Kris can’t help the shout that falls from his lips when he comes.
Adam swallows and slides back up Kris’s body carefully, and Kris runs a sweaty hand through his hair, fingers shaking.
“You’re a mess,” Adam whispers, and Kris presses his forehead against Adam’s.
“I cannot believe you just did that.”
“But it was fun, right?” Adam quirks an eyebrow and Kris laughs.
“Yeah, it was fun.” Then Kris is sliding off the table and untucking Adam’s dress shirt from his pants. “And now it’s your turn.”
***
Kris and Adam return to the party at two minutes to midnight.
Adam snags them both glasses of champagne, and Kris takes one from him as he looks around the room. Couples move across the room as if attached by magnets, preparing for that midnight kiss. Kris shuffles his feet because no matter how much he’d love one, there’s no manual for how to act in situations like these.
“You look cute tonight,” Adam murmurs, capturing his attention.
“Yeah?”
“Cuter now that I’m through with you,” he says with a wink, and Kris can’t help but chuckle.
“You too,” he agrees.
It’s only then that Kris notices the chanting in the room. Couples are clinging to each other and watching the large clock on the wall as it counts down the seconds to midnight. Kris’s eyes dart around, take in the second hand - it’s less than ten seconds now - and the champagne and the glittery decorations. And then he sees Adam’s face.
Adam sips his drink, eyes downcast. He’s trying not to draw attention to himself, Kris knows, but he can tell that Adam’s upset. Kris knows how hard this has to be for him - to be hiding for the first time since he was a teenager. And Kris knows that’s unfair. And he’s thinking all these things, and wishing that he could make life easier for Adam, and before he quite knows it, the whole room is shouting “Happy New Year!” and he’s pressing his lips against Adam’s, fingers tangled in his dress shirt.
Adam doesn’t kiss him for long, and when he pulls back, Kris sees the concern in his eyes. “There are probably a thousand eyes on us right now,” Adam whispers, and Kris can’t help but steal a glance around.
Adam’s right.
Kris can see his PR rep, and Adam’s manager, and several hundred people he’s never seen in his life - and they’re all staring at them. Kris suddenly feels like he’s back in first grade, being judged because his pet turtle died on the way to show and tell and he didn’t realize until he lifted it out of the box. He kind of wants to crawl away and hide and pretend it was all a bad dream. But then he feels Adam’s fingers gripping his hip, and he tilts his head upwards to look him in the eyes. Kris smiles.
“So let them watch.”
And then he kisses Adam again.
end.