fic: The Light of the Bright World
Title: The Light of the Bright World
Pairing: Adam/Kris
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~10,000
Disclaimer: Real people, no owners, no harm intended/received, this is all untrue.
Summary: Adam, in order to avoid having to find a date, orders Kris.
Notes: For aesvir from the help_haiti auction. I hope you like it. (And I totally only missed the deadline by ten minutes!)
So Adam's a rock star, right? Which means he can totally do what he wants?
Helen doesn't seem to agree.
"You were supposed to leave it to me! I promised I'd find you someone!" She plants tiny hands on her hips and scowls at him. "If you'd been cooperating for the past couple of weeks it never would've come to this."
Adam snorts. "Spoken like a true romantic. I needed someone I know will be good for the next month and this way it's guaranteed. Don't tell me it's not a good idea."
He wants to laugh at the way her nostrils actually flare, but he does have respect for her nails, which she feels no guilt about using, and for her complete ability to ruin his life, what with how she basically runs it. Either way, he doesn't laugh when she makes a face and almost yells, "A good idea? What do you think people will do if they find out you ordered a factory-grown sex slave to be your date to the international charity month events?"
From where he's sitting next to Adam Kris says, "We prefer the term artificial companion, actually."
Helen throws her hands up. "You prefer! Oh, well then. And just what do you think you're going to do for the next month? Do you even know what the GCO is?"
Kris' eyes go blank, like nobody's home or he's been dosed with the best weed Adam's ever seen, and then he says, "The Global Charity Organization is a month-long series of events that raise money for various goals, including international peace, cooperation, and further health improvements. Every major public figure attends, from political leaders and military heroes to popular performers. This is the 78th year it has been held, and it is hosted all over the world and has even been held off-planet, but this year California was chosen.
"As Adam's partner for the celebration I will be required to attend all the events he does and behave accordingly." Kris blinks again and his eyes refocus on Helen, standing wide-eyed in front of him. "I am extremely well-suited to all of it. As I am a custom model, there is no other like me, which will prevent any issues with someone recognizing my physical appearance and therefore my origins. I do have a basic family history program that I may access, as well as a suitable level of education and even some childhood memories. Social etiquette and emotional behavior was specified by Adam when he placed the order for me."
Adam leans back on the couch and stretches his arm across Kris' shoulders. "See? I was careful with what I got." He tells Helen, then looks at Kris. "Don't ever do that again, by the way. That creepy accessing the database for information crap. If you don't know just say so. It's more human, anyway."
There is absolutely no change in Kris' smile when he answers, "Of course. I'll do whatever you wish."
Helen sighs. "I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?"
Adam laughs. "Why would you want to? These things are amazing, you get the perfect person after just a couple hours' planning. And a couple million, but it's worth it."
Kris still hasn't moved next to him more than his slow breaths require, and Helen looks back and forth between them with a furrowed brow like she thinks there's something horribly wrong. Adam knows she believes he hasn't gotten over his break up a couple of months ago and she probably thinks he's acting out, but he really doesn't give a fuck.
---
They first thing they had to do was buy Kris clothes. Helen refuses to go with, probably because she's still seething. Kris had arrived at Adam's door at promptly 9:30 that morning, just as Adam's order had specified, but he'd come with little more than his registration papers. Adam really didn't think he could get by with just the clothes he'd come with.
So they went shopping.
Kris lets Adam fit him into suits and dress shirts and several pairs of shoes without fuss, but when they've got the boring parts out of the way and Adam takes him to the more trendy shops Kris balks.
It's not that obvious, actually, because all he does is stop outside the door when Adam heads in. He smiles hesitantly when Adam looks back at him. "Kris?"
"I know I'm supposed to do as you tell me. I will, really - " He cuts off as Adam yanks him inside.
"Hush." Adam doesn't think anyone heard, but fuck. "You can't say things like that in public. People can't know you're - " and maybe it's cowardly, but Adam can't bring himself to say what Kris is.
Kris nods. "I'm sorry."
Adam runs his hand through his hair. "No, it's okay. What were you going to say?"
Kris looks around. "Well, if you really want me to I won't say no, but I'd really prefer not to wear clothes like this."
Snorting, Adam waves to the door. "Be my guest. What do you want instead?"
"I like what I have on now, if it's alright?" Kris ducks his head.
So they end up at Gap, and Adam's beginning to regret this new boyfriend thing, because who the hell chooses cheap chain clothing over every other option available? Obviously Kris, but where did Adam's specifications for patient and smart become stubborn and sarcastic?
Kris takes the bag of clothes from the cashier, a girl who's been staring awestruck at Adam. Just as they turn to leave she takes a deep breath. "Adam Lambert?"
Adam smiles and tries to angle Kris behind him. "Yeah, sweetie?"
She's blushing, manages to ask, "Can I have your autograph?"
And, okay, that's normal, but Adam notices her watching Kris and hopes she doesn't get any ideas. Or a camera. But still, the first thing he does when he gets home is check online. There's nothing yet, and he breathes a sigh of relief, and then he calls Helen.
"Hey, listen, I know you're still pissed at me but we went shopping so there might be some attention soon."
He gets a text a couple minutes later. I'll tell your publicist.
He sends back, You have to talk to me eventually, and rolls his eyes when there's no response.
---
That evening Kris follows him around staring. Adam would think it was cute if it weren't for how utterly creepy he was, silent and wide-eyed. Finally Adam shuts his computer and asks, "What are you doing?"
Kris says, "Studying you."
Adam blinks. "Okay." And then, after staring back for a couple seconds, "Why?"
"Well," Kris says agreeably, "I have to be able to handle you," and Adam says, "Excuse me?
Kris ignores him. "And I have to understand you to do that."
"No, you don't," Adam tells him.
Long-suffering, Kris rolls his eyes. "Yes, I do. Also, if I'm made for you, I can learn more about my own reactions by figuring out what you'd need."
Raising his eyebrows, Adam says, "You could ask."
Kris frowns. "I didn't want to disturb you."
"It's worse to have someone staring at you."
"Sorry," Kris shrugs, but Adam doesn't think he really means it.
Adam leans forward. "So what did you learn?"
"That you're in the wrong business."
"Really?" Adam laughs. "What should I be doing instead?"
"Anything else," Kris says easily. "You can't stand one person's attention, how do you deal with all the fans?"
Before he can think about it Adam leans forward to smack his shoulder. Kris doesn't jerk away and Adam feels awkward suddenly. When he shifts away Kris tells him, "I want you to like me, but I can't make you comfortable with me."
Adam says, "You're programmed to make me happy."
"Yes. It's what you paid for."
Adam narrows his eyes thoughtfully. "Then can you promise me you'll tell me your opinions, like with the clothes? I'd prefer you be closest to a normal human as you can. And I'll treat you like one."
"Like a normal human?" Kris asks, and Adam nods. "So can I ask why you got an AC if you dislike them so much?"
Adam makes a noise. "I don't dislike them, I just don't know how to deal with one."
Kris says, "With all due respect, I don't think you need to. If this is how you think you'll do it, maybe you'd better leave it to me."
Adam stares at him; Kris meets his eyes steadily. "Fine. I'll treat you like anyone else I've just met."
Kris smiles. "And I'll be the most discreet boyfriend you've ever had."
---
Adam wakes up the next morning to Kris poking his shoulder. "Adam, Adam," and he grumbles and rolls over. "What?"
Kris points to his clock. "Your alarm's been going off for almost ten minutes. You said we needed to leave by nine."
And they do, so Adam forces himself not to strangle Kris. Instead he reaches up to shut the alarm off - the volume's too low, he must have bumped it when he was setting it last night - and tells Kris he'll be ready to go by then. Kris takes the hint and leaves. Adam notices he's wide-awake and already ready and hates him for it a little bit.
Turns out he lied, because he's not ready by nine, but they're in the car by nine-thirty, which he figures will have to be good enough.
When they get to the studio Helen's waiting. She frowns when she sees Kris and Adam says, "Please don't."
She just says, "They'll want to ask about him."
"He's not going on air." Especially not live.
"No, he's not," Helen says, "But do you want to talk about him?"
Kris says, "Probably shouldn't," and they both turn to look at him. "We all need to have the same story, right? And it probably won't be very accurate if Adam just makes up something."
Adam nods. "Tell them no specific questions about him." Helen goes to talk to one of the techs and Adam tells Kris, "You should decide what you want to tell people about family and college and your childhood. We can say we met at one of my shows."
"No, we can't," Kris reaches out and tugs, fussing, at Adam's jacket, and Adam lets him, amused. "I will not be some groupie, thanks."
Adam laughs, catching his wrists and moving his hands away. Kris is fidgeting, and with a rush of affection Adam realizes he's nervous. "I was thinking more that you could be a stage hand or sound tech or something, though you'd make a really cute groupie."
Kris widens his eyes at him. "You totally sleep with your fans, don't you?"
"Only the hot ones." Adam nods to the makeup girl who's waving for him.
Kris snorts a laugh. "That's so sleazy."
Adam scowls. "It is not. And behave when we're around other people."
Looking at him wryly, Kris says, "Yeah, I thought I would."
---
The salesgirl yesterday may not have put anything up about Kris, but by the time they leave the studio Adam's phone is chirping alerts to him from his publicist, all of them links to grainy pictures of Adam and Kris. The subject line to each message is Who's the new boy?
He waves for Helen at the exit, where she's texting and studiously ignoring Kris. "You didn't tell May about Kris?"
She looks at him tiredly. "I don't agree with what you're doing, but you still get to decide what you want to share. If you're gonna lie to her I won't try to stop you, but I'm not going to be the one to do it."
Fed up, Adam asks, "What the fuck is the big deal?"
Kris looks over his shoulder and sort of scoots away, staring up at the ceiling and being about as obvious as possible about eavesdropping. Helen, her back to him, doesn't see, and she hisses at Adam, "You know I'm your friend. I just never saw you buying a sex slave, artificial companion, whatever," she glances over her shoulder at Kris and Adam raises an eyebrow, because now he's blatantly staring, "instead of getting a real boyfriend."
Adam shakes his head. "Wait, what? Is this about the ethics of fake people thing?"
She tugs on her ponytail. "I've never been against it. You know, you get the families that can't have kids so they order a baby and it doesn't matter that they're infertile because the kid actually is theirs, down to the DNA, and they're people, they really are, so ordering one that's just programmed to be a servant, a living sex toy, that's wrong, I can't help being angry with you."
"I'm not sleeping with him, Helen." Adam waves at Kris. "Right? And I've sort of been having the same trouble you have, but he's not like a robot, not one-dimensional."
Kris says, "Neither of you has any real clue about what an artificial companion is, do you?" And then he starts to laugh.
So Helen drags them out to lunch. Adam has to kick Kris for the third time before he gets to actually explaining anything because he has this habit of jiggling his knee under the table and knocking the place settings all to hell.
"I guess the most important thing," Kris finally says, "Is that we're never so simple that we're just sex toys. Also, we're given with the expectation that our owners," he slots a look at Adam, "will read the manual."
Helen snorts into her coffee and Adam steals her glass of water. "I've been busy."
Kris rolls his eyes. "Whatever. The next thing is probably that when we're ordered, because we're ordered for someone, the company designs us specifically for that person, even if it's a standard model so looks don't change. They don't just try to create what people ask for, that psychological profile they have you fill out?" Adam nods, he remembers because the fucking thing was like forty pages long. "It's to determine what you'd want or need in the artificial companion that you don't ask for, either because you don't remember or because you don't know you want it."
"Wait, so," and Helen looks way too gleeful, "Could you get a guy who wants the perfect mother for his kids that ends up being some bossy homemaker that he can't stand, because that's what the kids needed?"
Kris shakes his head, exasperated. "No, it'd be the opposite. A guy would order the perfect mother but end up with someone who may be a bit lacking in the maternal arena but would be the perfect wife for him, assuming he had some hidden yearning for one or something."
Helen stares at Adam. She asks Kris, "So what do you say about Adam?"
Shrugging, Kris says, "I don't know. I'm only a couple of days old; I don't even know what foods I like, never mind who I am. I can't tell you anything about him you don't know until I learn more about myself; it's more likely I'll learn about me by figuring him out."
"Which is does by staring at me like some little stalker, by the way," Adam interjects, because he is not a lab experiment.
"Did you know he gets all uncomfortable when people follow him around? I don't get how he survives in a career where everyone wants to know what he's doing."
As if to prove his point, Helen gets a text. "It's May. She wants to know if there's anything specific you want to say about Kris."
Adam shakes his head. "No. Things start in a week or so, let's just deal with it then. Hopefully enough will be going on that it won't be the only thing for people to freak out over."
Kris asks, "What about when the charity events are over?"
And Adam just sort of stares helplessly at Helen, because shit, he hadn't thought of that. She raises her eyebrows at him and he shrugs. Kris sets his knife very carefully on the table and says hesitantly, "That actually brings up the last thing you really should know about me. If you look in the back of the book they gave you or call in to ask for it, you can get my kill word." He sort of winces as he says it, and Adam's stomach swoops sickeningly. Across the table, Helen looks just as horrified. "If you say it, and it's not ever just one word, it's sort of misleading, it's like an entire phrase with a date in it and everything, something they calculate would never come up in conversation, then I turn off, which really just means I go to sleep, into a coma, basically, and you can get rid of me, send me back, keep me tucked away somewhere, whatever."
Adam almost snarls and Kris startles, looking at him sharply. "Yeah, I don't think so. You might have to be stuck with me the rest of your life, but fuck if I'm going to put you in a hospital somewhere so I don't have to deal with you anymore."
Helen nods in agreement, staring down at her phone like she's still in some sort of shock, and Kris smiles at Adam and Adam thinks never.
---
When Kris and Adam go out together for the first time it's just to a movie premiere, some indie flick that Adam has zero interest in, but it's a good place to start and they've been holed up in his house the past four nights like hermits, which is just not on. They might've gone out the night before, just to a club or something, but Adam thought it would be cool to find out what Kris liked and didn't like, so they'd been ordering in food of every type imaginable, and one of Kris' favorites had been orange penny candies, those ones that come in bags of fifty for twenty-five cents, and Kris had eaten three or four bags. Which, like any toddler with too much sugar, led to vomiting it all back up.
Now Kris can't eat oranges, drink orange juice, or stomach orange chicken from Adam's favorite Chinese restaurant, so they decided to find other ways to occupy themselves, ones that hopefully didn't end up with Kris curled in the fetal position around his stomach. (Privately, Adam thought the whole thing was hilarious, because he'd never eaten himself sick, not even as a kid, and here Kris managed it before he was a week old.)
There's not much press outside the theater, just enough to ensure a couple of good photos and short mentions of the two of them, and Kris falls asleep on Adam's shoulder. He drools, and Adam mourns his jacket but he doesn't shrug him off. After, they stand together for a couple of minutes, just talking to a couple of the reporters, until one of the guys asks how they met. Kris stutters for the first time all night, looking at Adam and then away, and Adam drops an arm over his shoulders and says seriously, "It's a secret."
After that Kris is quiet so Adam leads him to the car for the ride home. On the way he points out the places he likes, hates, and wants to take Kris. They're maybe ten minutes away when Helen calls him.
"Put Kris on."
"Hello to you, too." He says.
"Yes, hello, now put Kris on, and tomorrow I'm getting him his own damn cell phone."
And then Adam spends the rest of the evening getting ignored while they talk. To be fair, most of the conversation is coming from Helen; all Adam can hear of it is Kris' mostly one-word replies. He's not pouting when he goes and throws himself onto his bed with his computer; he's just trying to avoid Kris and his weirdly contemplative looks. He knows they're talking about him, not that he can do anything about it.
Late that night Kris knocks on his door. "Adam?"
"It's open," he calls, and Kris pushes it open slowly.
He looks around curiously, and Adam watches him catalogue everything, from the books and magazines on the dresser to his clothes draped over the chair in the corner. Kris says, "There are no pictures."
"Yeah?"
"I thought there would be, since there aren't any in the rest of the house."
There are, of his family and friends, of Helen and even his old dog. He knows that's not what Kris is talking about. "She told you about him."
Kris says, "It's not her fault, don't get mad. I left her a message earlier today, asking why you wanted me."
"Is that what you've been talking about the whole time?" Because the relationship was only eight months long, it didn't warrant three hours on the phone. He's not sure he has the right to get angry with Kris for being curious, but "Why didn't you ask me?"
"I wasn't sure how you'd take it, if it was a sensitive subject. Would you have answered?" Kris sits on his bed, peering over at the computer screen. Adam shuts it quickly, more out of habit than anything, and laughs when Kris gives him a face for it.
"I don't know. Maybe." He wouldn't have.
Kris rolls his eyes. "Whatever," and sprawls next to Adam on the bed. "She also says you have to be at the recording studio tomorrow at nine, not nine forty-five, so don't forget." He says it in a lilting voice, a really bad parody of Helen's accent, and Adam laughs.
"Fine. Do you want to come with? It'll probably be boring," he tells him, but he really means please do.
For once Kris doesn't get it, because he shakes his head. "I'm going around with Helen tomorrow, I promised I'd keep her company, and your publicist said it would make me look better if I seem to be friends with your assistant. Helen thinks it would be good for me to have friends at all, to be seen somewhere besides with you, since there isn't really going to be record of me anywhere."
Adam says, "Okay," but he wonders how bad it would really be if Kris was found out. There are so many people who claim to be completely okay with the business and science that create the artificial humans, but they're all in support of children for infertile couples. There's a stigma attached to them as adults. He's not sure he wouldn't tell what Kris is on the first night of the charity events, if he didn't feel pretty confident that Kris would hate it.
"Tell me about you." Kris smiles over at him.
"Didn't Helen tell you everything already?" Adam asks. She'd better not have.
"All she can tell me is what she thinks about you. I want to get to know you myself." Kris wiggles and then sets Adam's computer off the bed.
Adam winces. "That sounds ominous. Do I want to know?"
Kris tells him, "Nothing bad," and smiles, open and honest.
Blowing out a breath, Adam says, "What do you want to know?"
---
Helen calls him the next day around one. He's still in the studio and he lets it ring through the first time, knowing she'll leave a message. She doesn't, though, just calls again, and the third time he picks up. "What?" He's snapping a little, because he's been on the same song for three hours and can't figure out why he keeps fucking it up.
"You didn't tell Kris about Kaitlyn?"
Adam slides into a chair out of the way while the sound tech, Mark, one of the ones Adam actually likes, argues with the delivery girl who brought their lunch about messing up his order. He's a picky eater, which Adam doesn't get, but he knows better than to get involved. The girl will survive, and Adam always makes sure to tip them too much for putting up with Mark. "No, I forgot. Why?"
Helen sounds like she's trying not to laugh. "Because she shows up today, and apparently Kris is a heavy sleeper, because she's already picked up everything, and it isn't until she starts to vacuum that he wakes up, and then she scares the shit out of him because he has no idea who she is. I think she threatened to quit, too, because he wasn't the only one startled. I'm not sure who was more traumatized."
"Tell him I'm sorry, then." He says wryly, then Mark sits down with his food and Adam pays the girl. "I have to go, I'm about to eat lunch."
"Okay, well, you're on your own tonight. We're gonna be busy until late."
"What are you doing?" He thinks his suspicion is justified.
"None of your business, Lambert," she says cheerfully, then, "Oh, and before you go, what do you think of cats?"
"No! No animals," he hears her giggling and says, "I swear, Helen-"
When she hangs up on him he huffs and throws his phone on the couch. Mark asks, "You still have that horrible assistant?"
And Adam would object, but Mark's crush on Helen has long been a source of amusement for him, so he knows Mark doesn't mean it. "Yeah. You want to help me with her?"
Mark rolls his eyes and doesn't answer, but Adam thinks he's maybe got a great idea.
---
The next morning he drags Kris with him to the studio, says it's payback for abandoning him yesterday but needs him as insurance. If Helen is going to join him at lunch, Adam wants to reduce every possibility of other plans, including her budding attachment to Kris. Fortunately, Kris isn't bored, because he grabs one of the guitars and by lunch he's more skilled than Adam. Mark thinks it's amazing, not that Adam doesn't, but he seems to appreciate Kris' talent much more than he does Adam's. He appreciates it enough, in fact, that he forgets to be an asshole to him, a complete change of character. When Adam asks how he does it, Kris says, "I'm still in development, like a kid. I'll learn things very quickly for the next couple of years and then it'll slow. I like your music, by the way," and that's not what Adam meant, exactly, but he lets it go.
Adam smiles and asks, "Did you call Helen?"
"Yeah. She said she'd meet us but only if she gets to pick where we eat. Apparently she hates your taste in food."
"Apparently?" Adam repeats, but Kris just shrugs, so he turns to Mark. "You're coming, right?" and then leaves before he can decline.
It actually goes better than Adam expects. Helen looks askance at Mark when they show up and shoots Adam dirty looks the whole time, but she seems incapable of being angry with Kris. Adam thinks Kris would've been worth the money just to get Helen off his back. Mark is back to being a complete ass, just like normal, but he and Helen get into an argument about whether tarot or palm reading is more reliable, and by the end of the meal Kris and Adam are left to each other, because they've got their chairs angled together and heads bent.
Kris tilts his head away when the waitress comes with their check, so Adam leaves his card and they go for a walk. Kris says, "You know she'll be totally pissed at you for setting her up like this."
Adam shrugs easily and loops his arm around Kris' neck. "She's embarrassed whenever I catch her interested in someone."
"Yeah, actually, I wanted to ask you. Does she not date? Because she's hot, but she never mentioned boyfriends or anything yesterday."
"You think she's hot?" And yeah, not the significant part, but really, Kris is straight?
Kris smiles towards their feet, watching where they step. Adam tightens his arm in warning and then flicks Kris' ear in retaliation. "Ow, stop it," so Adam does it again. Kris pulls away and leads them back towards the café. "Yeah, I guess. She is, I mean."
Kris is straight. Huh. "Well, as far as boyfriends go, she's had a few but they never last long. She's very opinionated, and I think I'm high-maintenance."
"You think?" Kris snorts, and steals Adam's sunglasses.
"Give those back," but Kris slaps his hand away when Adam tries to grab them. "Why? Do you like her?" Because Adam will fire her, much as he loves her, because no way in hell.
"No," but when Adam looks over at Kris he's almost frowning, like confusion or wistfulness, and Adam doesn't really believe him.
They collect Mark and Helen before heading back to the studio. They walk close together, hands almost brushing, and Mark almost stumbles once he's so busy watching Helen and the way she talks with her hands. Kris is smiling at her the whole way back.
---
Adam asks Kris about it again that night, though he's a little subtler. "Do you want to wander around by yourself tomorrow? Or you could take guitar lessons or something, since you seem to be a little genius at it."
"Trying to get me out of the house?" Kris sprawls across the couch, taking three times as much space as Adam and smiling about it.
"I thought you'd be bored. I would be." Of course, he's never been the type to be easily amused by things like documentaries or Solitaire on the computer, not like Kris apparently is. Kris likes puzzles, like the ones you buy in cardboard boxes that form pictures of kittens and rabbits.
"No, you want me to meet people." Kris says, and drops his head into Adam's lap.
Adam tenses, looking down at him. "Why would I want that?"
Kris says, "I don't know. Maybe for the same reason you want Helen to be happy with Mark." After that he's busy watching the movie, totally enraptured with 80's flicks, which Adam complete approves of.
He sleeps through the end, making little noises every time he tries to force his eyes back open. When it's over Adam sneaks out from under him, settling his head on a couch pillow until he can get one from the bedroom. He also grabs a blanket, and hopes Kris' body isn't prone to aches and pains the same way regular humans' are, because Adam knows from experience that the couch springs are a bitch. He heads upstairs by himself.
---
Two nights later Kris is introduced to society at large. In front of the thousands of people he just smiles, stays close to Adam, and stares at everything within sight. Adam's really glad his first performance isn't until the fourth of the month, and he spends the night telling Kris everything he knows or has heard about the people they see. He's completely blank on the political figures, but he's got some pretty good stuff on some of the other ones. Everyone who talks to them wants to know who Kris is, where he found him, like some sort of prize (though he's not even that, he's just an object, made-to-order), and then they're listening to the emcee announce the schedule for the upcoming month before introducing the main speaker, since the first night is all speeches and good will but nothing interesting.
Adam has to stop Kris tugging at his clothes the whole night. It's a thousand dollar suit, his fidgeting is not improving its cut, so Adam hisses for him to stop it. Then he repeats himself about ten thousand times through the course of the evening.
And then four days after that is Adam's first performance for the GCO - he has five this year, and no idea how he got so many. Helen brings Kris along for the set-up rather than letting him sit home with Adam until the last minute and Adam has to admit it was a good decision, because when he arrives Kris is sitting with the main lights guy and is absorbing everything he says with a freakish intensity. Adam would bet anything that by the end of the night he'll know how they do everything, if not exactly how to reproduce it.
Adam leaves them to it because he has his own things to do, but that means that he doesn't see Kris until he's coming off stage, blinking lights out of his eyes - camera flashes and pyrotechnics both, and then Kris is just looking at them, all of them but especially Adam, and he follows down the hallway just out of reach, like they're dangerous. He does follow Adam into his dressing room though, and shuts the door on the inevitable catcalls.
He still doesn't say anything, just leans against the counter where Adam has all his products spread out.
Adam needs to change clothes so he tugs his shirt over his head and asks, "So what did you think?"
Kris gives a face like he has no idea what to say and Adam laughs. Eventually he seems to settle for, "Is it always like that?"
"The audience is usually smaller, they're not all tens of thousands of people."
"Yeah," Kris says absently, "That's why this is the biggest event in the world."
"Okay, smartass, I promise not to tell you anything you might know ever again," Adam glances over to soften the teasing but Kris is looking decidedly the other way while he changes pants. Adam steps closer, sees him blushing, and says, "Hey, Kris?"
Kris turns to look at him and then jerks back around so fast he almost falls over. "Adam, put some pants on!"
Adam snorts and does as he's told. Then on go the boots and he tells Kris, "Come on, Helen's probably waiting."
Looking over slowly and distrustfully, Kris nods but asks, "What about your stuff?" and waves around the room.
Adam shrugs. "Somebody will get it." Truth be told, he's never really thought about it. They're the last ones out, which is completely unfair since Adam knows he took about half the timed he normally does, but whatever. Helen's clicking away at her phone, smiling at the screen in a way Adam's not really familiar with.
Kris, though, says, "Mark?" and his voice is off.
She looks up, startled, and flushes as she fumbles the phone into her pocket. "No," she mutters, and Kris says, "Let me see," and lunges for her.
Helen smacks at him, grinning, and says, "No way, you'll delete them like last time."
Adam raises his eyebrows. "Kris, you have got to respect people's property."
Kris rolls his eyes and falls into step beside Adam as Helen leads them out the door. She says, "So, May needs you guys to make out."
Adam says, "Awesome," because it totally is.
Kris says, "Um, what? No."
"What?" Adam stops.
Helen glares at them both. "You're going to have to suck it up, Kris. Adam's never subtle with his boyfriends and you guys have been seen together for like, a month. You're living together and it's common knowledge, but apparently with no pictures people are going to start thinking you're just friends."
Kris looks Adam over dubiously. "Um."
"Hey!" Adam says to both of them.
"So when we go out past the press line you guys need to be very friendly," she says, "And I'll be going out ahead of you, if you don't mind." As her heels click down the hall the last performer of the night, the one after Adam, starts to play, just a soft piano melody to a slowly emptying stadium.
Adam says, "Well, we knew it was going to happen sometime," and slides his hand across Kris' ass for emphasis.
Kris jumps. "What? No, we didn't!"
"Why does this bother you so much?" Because it does. He's pale and Adam can practically see his pulse jumping in his neck.
"In case you've forgotten, I didn't exist this time last month. I've never held hands with someone, never mind kissing." He looks down at his feet after he snaps and adds, "Sorry."
"Is that all?" Adam asks, and pulls Kris over to kiss him.
Kris is ungainly against him, hands splayed against his chest to ward him off and just enough shorter for it to be a hindrance. Adam says, "You've got to work with me, here," words against awkward mouth.
He chews his lip and breathes in hot little puffs against Adam's face. Adam rolls his eyes and tries again. This time something goes right, because he slides his hands up to Adam's shoulders and tilts his head up and lets Adam bite his lip instead. He makes a noise at it, displeased, but Adam holds the back of his head and licks into his mouth and Kris makes a noise again but this time it's not unhappy.
Adam leans forward and Kris sort of goes with it, so he nudges him back and then they're half against the wall with a doorframe maybe bruising Adam's elbow. He pulls away a little, because he doesn't actually know how long they've been down here but he's pretty sure they have to go. Then he pulls away more, because Kris is breathing deep and slow and he's pushed himself all the way up to his toes to get closer to Adam.
Adam says, "See? Not a problem," then pushes Kris towards the exit. It's loud outside with traffic and hundreds of people. Past the rows of cameras always recording Helen is standing by their car, looking pointedly at her watch. Adam knows for a fact that she only wears it for that purpose, since she always just checks her phone's clock instead and sometimes she even forgets to set it to the right time.
They ignore the questions buzzing around them, going until they hit the press who're asking for photos and then, like expected, someone calls for a kiss. Kris is tense again when Adam steps close, so he reaches down and laces their fingers together, squeezing a reminder. Kris smiles up at him and arches up to meet him. In his enthusiasm he almost bites off Adam's tongue. Adam laughs a little and kisses him again, slower, and Kris holds tight to his hand.
---
Turns out that Kris likes kissing. They maybe end up doing it all the time, even when there's no point to it, because he came to Adam and was all, "Um, can I maybe?" and then planted one on him, and it's not like Adam's going to object, so that was that.
Helen says they're sickening, and Adam always smiled at her and made comments about Mark until one day they came to pick him up at the studio. They'd been out running errands together because last night Kris had decided he wanted art supplies, of any and every type, as part of his campaign to discover himself - and Kris says he wants to try everything, so he can find out what he likes and what he's good at; Adam had forced himself to bite back several comments.
He'd been late to get out of the studio and when he walked into the lobby they were sitting on the couch with Helen squarely in Kris' lap. Adam had stared for a moment and then turned and snuck out the back. It was maybe cowardly but he went out and wandered around, bought a whole lot of crap he knew Kris would like. He headed home when he got a call from his own home number.
Kris is in front of the stove when he walks into the kitchen, and he's by himself; Helen's car isn't in the driveway. Kris says, "I went digging through your stuff."
Adam raises his eyebrows and looks around the kitchen, very obviously. "Yeah, I noticed."
"No," Kris waves the spatula he's clutching for emphasis. "I went digging through your stuff."
When Kris told Adam yesterday that he was going to cook dinner the next night Adam had shrugged and gone with it because it meant Kris in an apron, which is adorable, even if he turns out to be the worst cook in the world, which the nearly black chicken seems to be hinting towards. It's only getting worse, too, because while Adam is staring at the frying pan, Kris is staring at him.
"What?" Adam says.
Kris winces and chews the inside of his mouth. "I just - I've been talking to Helen, and obviously you come up a lot, and she was telling me about you but she doesn't actually know a lot, and I've told you that I was built around your personality and I've been trying to figure stuff out, so I got curious. I pried."
And now he has Adam's attention. "Through my stuff like my bedroom?"
Kris looks to the side, shifty-eyed. "Yeah. Maybe."
Adam tells him, "Your chicken's burning," and leaves him to it. Of course, as soon as he's upstairs he has to poke around, see if he can figure out what Kris saw, what he thought. He's not ashamed of himself or his past, but it's something that Adam thinks is his alone. Kris is worse than Helen.
Thinking it, he pulls out his phone and calls her. "You and Kris have still been talking about me?" and suddenly he's furious but he can't say what he really wants to pin on her.
"Well, yeah, I mean he's heard rumors, since he's your boyfriend, and he asked. Do you blame him?" Adam thinks the irony's heavy enough to choke on there, but she sounds more timid than normal, because she's known him a long time.
"He should've talked to me, not you. You had no right." Adam leans out the door to check Kris is still downstairs.
She snorts. "You wouldn't have told him a thing. You always overreact." She pauses, because yeah, not the right thing to say.
"Helen," Adam says, low, "Do not fucking talk about me with him again."
---
The next day sees Adam and Kris at the tailor's There's Adam's favorite guy working, and Kris is right there but this place has always been discreet, so Adam flirts a little more than normal. Kris is quiet, watching them, and by the time they leave he won't meet their eyes.
Out on the street Kris grabs his arm. "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I won't do it again, but do you have to-" he cuts off but looks at the shop pointedly.
Adam steps closer as if they weren't arguing, wonders what yesterday Kris is apologizing for. "Flirt? Yeah, I don't know if you noticed, but that boy? He's cute," he tells Kris, and tugs him into walking with a hand on his hip.
Kris shrugs awkwardly. "I don't know."
"Well, baby, he was. Try to control your jealousy." Adam knows he's being snide but it's not like he can yell at Kris for what the problem really is.
"If I am jealous," Kris says, low and sly, "It's not through any choice of my own. It's probably one of the default settings."
Adam scowls and steps away and thinks he maybe lost this round.
They manage to stay angry until late that night. Kris pushes open Adam's door and stands in the doorway and says, "I don't want to fight," and he sounds so tired that Adam pulls him into a hug and forces himself to let it go.
But still, that night he reads through Kris' user manual and all the documentation he had studiously ignored. When he's done, knows everything Kris knows about himself and the words that will kill him, he burns the paper with the kill phrase - no euphemisms here, the manual calls it exactly what it is - but he doesn't think that makes the knowing okay.
---
The next week is uncomfortable. Adam refuses to let Helen and Kris see each other without being there, but this is harder to arrange than it should be, because they seem like they're trying to sneak off every chance they get. Helen keeps looking at him, not judgmental but speculating, and it's keeping Adam on edge. He's acting like an over-possessive freak, especially when he starts trying to demand Kris' attention whenever he's on the phone with Helen - though in his defense, they're still talking way too much. He can't resign himself to letting them be, even though his claim to Kris is up at the end of the month.
His second performance goes by, and then Saturday night is the formal ball, which Adam always skips. Kris asks to go, though, so they do. Adam has to go gown shopping with Helen, because she'd probably show up in an ill-fitting suit if left to her own devices.
While she's in the fitting room in one of the stores he says, going for subtle, "So, are you bringing Mark?"
She replies, voice muffled, "No! I don't get why you think I'm so interested in him. I think you're hoping one of your matchmaking schemes is going to play out, but you should have learned by now that they don't."
"So who are you going with?"
The door opens and she smiles brightly. "I'm going with you and Kris."
Adam holds in a sigh, because he knows what that means.
He's totally right, too, because they show up and, though Adam's bored before they even get in the door, Kris and Helen go out and dance for almost a half hour straight, enthusiastic and ridiculous in their clumsiness. Adam grabs a couple of the wallflowers, daughters of diplomats or something, for the first couple of numbers and then wanders through the room, listening for any interesting conversations to eavesdrop on. There aren't any, and by nine o'clock he's ready to drag Helen and Kris out bodily.
Adam catches Kris on his way to the bar and asks disarmingly, "Having a good time?"
Kris nods and tilts his head at him. "What about you?"
And that's about all Adam can handle. He takes Kris' arm and leads him to the door, takes him out into the hall. "What the hell are you doing?"
"What are you talking about?"
Adam hisses, "With Helen. For the past couple of weeks, almost since you met her. What the hell?"
Pulling his arm away Kris says, "I don't know what you're talking about. We're friends, and you've been incredibly grumpy the past week, so we're avoiding you. Do you blame us? All because you don't like that I asked her about you."
"No, Kris, I don't give a fuck about you two talking. It's everything else I have a problem with." Adam runs his hand through his hair and pulls them further down the hall as an elderly couple exits the ballroom, glancing at them curiously.
Kris says, "I still have no clue what you mean."
And Adam gives up and says, "You two that afternoon."
Interestingly enough, Kris goes pink but smiles. "Yeah, well, I wanted to know what kissing someone besides you was like. It's not specifically anything to do with her."
"I have a hard time believing that, strangely," Adam says.
Kris steps away and glares and says, "Is this jealousy? Why do you care? It's not like you have any use for me anyway."
"Shh!" Adam flaps his hand. "You're your own person, aren't you supposed to find a use for yourself?"
"Do you really think I'm human? Because all my paperwork spread all over your bed seems to suggest not. Seems like you want to know all the details about your toy." Whatever Adam's expression looks like, it gets Kris' attention, because he says, "I pushed open your door one morning to make sure you'd already left for your recording session. It was lying there."
Adam tells him, "As soon as I read it I wished I hadn't. It doesn't help anything, being reminded you were made in a lab a couple of months ago to be just what I wanted."
"Adam," Kris sighs. "I was made to be what you need, not just what you want."
"You weren't made to want to sleep with me. You told me that. And I'm fine with it, I get it, but excuse me if I'm a little against having to see you get involved with someone else." He gestures to the door. "But you're right. Please, feel free."
Kris is angry, now. "I was made for you. I don't want to sleep with anyone else. I'm fine if you don't want anything from me but this - this month, but I'm not going anywhere. I'll do whatever you want, I told you that."
Adam leans against the wall, and across the hall the band picks up again. "You'll do whatever I want because you're programmed to." But it's more a question than anything.
Kris shakes his head, grabs his hand and twines their fingers together, watching as he does it and then looking up at Adam pointedly. "I'll do whatever you want because I choose to."
And then Kris hugs him, which is good because Adam's kind of busy staring at the opposite wall in shock. "Was that programmed in?"
"Jesus, you're slow." But he's smiling, happy and indulgent, his voice low and soft in Adam's ear. "It's impossible to program emotions. We're given personality traits, like children, and everything else comes like a normal human. I wasn't born like you, but that doesn't mean I'm not a real person. You've still never understood that, not really."
Adam would protest, he really would, but they're still standing close in the hallway, the air conditioning a soft hush in the background, and he thinks maybe he does now.
They have to go back in, because Helen comes out and sees them, her eyes soft at Adam in a way he knows means she's never going to let them live this down, but she's also an evil, bossy girl who makes them go inside for another two hours despite how much Adam wants to go home and cuddle. Kris is on her side, irritatingly, and he tugs at Adam while she pushes and between them both they manage to get him into the room. In retaliation, he refuses to dance, and Kris waves happily and lets Helen steal him again instead.
Adam knows his complete frustration is showing and when Kris goes to dance with a younger girl, hiding in a corner, Helen comes over and tries, badly, to cover a laughing fit at his expression. He tells her, "He's been doing it on purpose. You've been doing it on purpose."
"I know," she says, "You've been seriously underestimating him."
Adam smiles a little stupidly, and says, "Yeah."
But still, he drags Helen out with him next, so he can watch Kris from a closer vantage point, and when the next dance starts he scowls at Kris, who shakes his head but follows him over to their table again. The floor is almost empty now, because the song is a waltz and it's not like anyone actually knows how to do one anymore, except all the ambassadors and other stuffy officials that look at home for the first time all evening.
He holds out, barely, by making Kris talk to him about anything that comes to mind. It's a good idea, actually, because Kris' mind is a fucking bizarre place. Then Adam makes him help count how many dresses of each color there are in the room and they argue over whether chartreuse is yellow or green, especially when Kris isn't sure that is chartreuse, Adam, how do you know that color even exists? It's at that point that Helen corners them and tells them to get their asses home if they're that bored, they’re standing out too much as it is.
She continues to be uncooperative, though, because she makes them drop her off at her apartment first, though her goodbye is short and she climbs over Adam instead of making him get out.
---
But finally they make it home and Adam pulls Kris into his bedroom and presses him against the wall, saying seriously, "So, this being in love, it doesn't exclude sex still, right?" and Kris kind of laughs, if it weren't for how he's just staring and almost panting, wow, Adam didn't think -- and says, "Absolutely not."
And Adam kisses him. Kris opens for him, not that that's a surprise, practice after all, but Adam didn't expect it like this, like someone who knows what they're doing and loves it. But he does, making a happy little noise and sucking on Adam's tongue, tangling fingers in his hair to yank him closer and kind of - arching up, like a cat with how he rubs against him. "Wow," Adam says, sloppy-slurred against Kris' mouth, "Perfect," and Kris sort of laughs but more moans and Adam bites his lip, just because he can, because it's there, Kris is there.
Then he pulls away and says, "Good," as he shoves Kris' suit off his shoulders, pleased when Kris just sort of squawks at him and grabs his shoulders for balance. Then his hands are on Adam's clothes, actually trying to mess with buttons, and Adam takes over, because Kris is fumbling and clumsy-slow, no better when Adam finds his ear and licks, follows it down to his neck to bite because Kris shivers and quakes and just says, "Adam." Then he makes a face and an unhappy noise and then he laughs, helpless, and says, "I have no idea what I'm doing."
Adam sort of groans and tells him, "Yes, yes, fine, great," and pushes him backwards onto the bed. Adam gets his own pants off, watches Kris fumble for his and then slides onto the bed over him, sliding his knees between Kris' legs and shoving him further up towards the pillows, where Kris stretches out a hand and finds the edge of the comforter and draws it into his fist, because he's shaking now, looking up at Adam, mouth wet and pupils blown.
"Drawer," Adam tells him helpfully, then drops down. Kris manages, "What?" before Adam's got him in his mouth, and then he's just squirming and moaning and even kicking, a little, like he's trying really hard to hold still but can't quite help it. There might be a couple half-formed words, but he really only gets out, "Oh, oh -- Adam, what -- " and then his hand clenches tight in the covers and he stares down, wide-eyed, like fuzzy shock and desperate need all caught too close together, while he comes in Adam's mouth.
Adam doesn't swallow, instead pushes Kris' legs apart in a sprawl with his hips and settles over him, kissing him and licking in, and he takes it again, his own come wet between their mouths, and Adam pulls back and watches him swallow with a dark flush of satisfaction at the base of his spine.
Kris blinks at him hazily and Adam runs a hand down his side. "Hi," he says, incongruously, and Kris smiles and presses his knee against Adam's side.
He looks over at the dresser. "Drawer?"
Adam laughs and reaches over, grabs lube and holds it up. Kris flushes and glances to the side but he breathes out slow and easy so Adam leans down to kiss him and uncaps the lube. "This might be cold," he warns, and Kris laughs a little until Adam slides a finger inside.
His toes curl slightly where they're pressed against Adam's leg. "Right," Kris says, but his eyes are unfocused, staring at the ceiling. "Could," but he bites his lip.
Adam gives him a second one, and he whines for it and twists a little and says, "That's, yeah, I," so Adam works him over, making encouraging noises into his ear as he gets a little louder and a lot impatient, shaking against him when Adam pulls out for more lube and shaking even more when he pushes three back in. He jerks when Adam bites the top of his arm but he doesn't complain, just moans a little, so Adam does it again until he just pushes into it. He worries his teeth into the skin until it's dark and angry, until Kris moves his hands to tangle in his hair and against his shoulder, pushing desperately.
"Adam, stop. Come on," he says, low and rough, and tells him, "Put your hands back over your head."
Kris gives him a look like seriously? and Adam twists his fingers for emphasis, so Kris' irritated sigh turns into a needy thrust back onto Adam's fingers and he reaches back up to grab at the pillows.
He's smiling smugly when he pushes Kris' legs up, Adam knows, but Kris doesn't manage to roll his eyes before Adam's pushing in and he's just arching up against him. Adam moves slow until Kris shifts impatiently and says, "Adam, Adam," and then he gives up on any careful first time.
Kris is demanding, pushes up against him when he moves his leg and groans encouragingly when Adam grabs his cock, talking fast and nonsensical until he comes, scratching nails against the sheets. Adam tells him, "Yeah, good, just like that," and kisses him through it.
He's sort of limp and boneless, after, and Adam pulls away and rolls him over and works himself back in, grabbing Kris' wrists and pushing them into the mattress, tight enough he thinks, hopes, they'll bruise. Kris kind of buries his face in his arms and murmurs with it, body shuddering and pliable. Adam comes, a slow roll in his stomach and throat.
---
"I don't get what the big deal," Kris stops and yawns. "Is."
Adam counts to three and forces himself ask. "About what?"
"About sex." Kris frowns at him and then rolls to the side, one leg falling off the edge of the bed as he dodges where Adam's trying to hit him. "Not like that!" He's laughing still but Adam lets him come squirming back over. "I mean, everything I've seen is all about how sex is either this life-changing event, which, yeah, I don't get -" He cocks his head at Adam. "No offense."
"Uh-huh," Adam says drily.
"But," Kris continues, "it really isn't. And if not, people talk about it like it's hard or something. Helen," and he gets a faintly traumatized look and Adam's a little nervous now, too, "tried to give me pointers or something, I don't really know, and then sort of mumbled all these explanations that were bad enough that the free online porn was more enlightening."
Adam kind of chokes on his breath and asks, "You looked up porn?"
Kris looks affronted. "Well, yeah, what else was I supposed to do?"
Raising his eyebrows in response, Adam says, "You could have asked."
"That’s your fix for everything. Have a question? Ask me!" Kris shakes his head. "Completely unhelpful."
And that's really not fair, since he can't be helpful if nobody comes to him for help, but Adam knows he's losing this one and has no idea why, so he gives up.
"Yeah, well, for most people sex either is life-affirming or something to worry about. You're just better than most people."
"Liar," Kris says, smiling dopey and bright at him. Adam shakes his head and throws an arm around him and drags him over and close and under.
Pairing: Adam/Kris
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~10,000
Disclaimer: Real people, no owners, no harm intended/received, this is all untrue.
Summary: Adam, in order to avoid having to find a date, orders Kris.
Notes: For aesvir from the help_haiti auction. I hope you like it. (And I totally only missed the deadline by ten minutes!)
So Adam's a rock star, right? Which means he can totally do what he wants?
Helen doesn't seem to agree.
"You were supposed to leave it to me! I promised I'd find you someone!" She plants tiny hands on her hips and scowls at him. "If you'd been cooperating for the past couple of weeks it never would've come to this."
Adam snorts. "Spoken like a true romantic. I needed someone I know will be good for the next month and this way it's guaranteed. Don't tell me it's not a good idea."
He wants to laugh at the way her nostrils actually flare, but he does have respect for her nails, which she feels no guilt about using, and for her complete ability to ruin his life, what with how she basically runs it. Either way, he doesn't laugh when she makes a face and almost yells, "A good idea? What do you think people will do if they find out you ordered a factory-grown sex slave to be your date to the international charity month events?"
From where he's sitting next to Adam Kris says, "We prefer the term artificial companion, actually."
Helen throws her hands up. "You prefer! Oh, well then. And just what do you think you're going to do for the next month? Do you even know what the GCO is?"
Kris' eyes go blank, like nobody's home or he's been dosed with the best weed Adam's ever seen, and then he says, "The Global Charity Organization is a month-long series of events that raise money for various goals, including international peace, cooperation, and further health improvements. Every major public figure attends, from political leaders and military heroes to popular performers. This is the 78th year it has been held, and it is hosted all over the world and has even been held off-planet, but this year California was chosen.
"As Adam's partner for the celebration I will be required to attend all the events he does and behave accordingly." Kris blinks again and his eyes refocus on Helen, standing wide-eyed in front of him. "I am extremely well-suited to all of it. As I am a custom model, there is no other like me, which will prevent any issues with someone recognizing my physical appearance and therefore my origins. I do have a basic family history program that I may access, as well as a suitable level of education and even some childhood memories. Social etiquette and emotional behavior was specified by Adam when he placed the order for me."
Adam leans back on the couch and stretches his arm across Kris' shoulders. "See? I was careful with what I got." He tells Helen, then looks at Kris. "Don't ever do that again, by the way. That creepy accessing the database for information crap. If you don't know just say so. It's more human, anyway."
There is absolutely no change in Kris' smile when he answers, "Of course. I'll do whatever you wish."
Helen sighs. "I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?"
Adam laughs. "Why would you want to? These things are amazing, you get the perfect person after just a couple hours' planning. And a couple million, but it's worth it."
Kris still hasn't moved next to him more than his slow breaths require, and Helen looks back and forth between them with a furrowed brow like she thinks there's something horribly wrong. Adam knows she believes he hasn't gotten over his break up a couple of months ago and she probably thinks he's acting out, but he really doesn't give a fuck.
---
They first thing they had to do was buy Kris clothes. Helen refuses to go with, probably because she's still seething. Kris had arrived at Adam's door at promptly 9:30 that morning, just as Adam's order had specified, but he'd come with little more than his registration papers. Adam really didn't think he could get by with just the clothes he'd come with.
So they went shopping.
Kris lets Adam fit him into suits and dress shirts and several pairs of shoes without fuss, but when they've got the boring parts out of the way and Adam takes him to the more trendy shops Kris balks.
It's not that obvious, actually, because all he does is stop outside the door when Adam heads in. He smiles hesitantly when Adam looks back at him. "Kris?"
"I know I'm supposed to do as you tell me. I will, really - " He cuts off as Adam yanks him inside.
"Hush." Adam doesn't think anyone heard, but fuck. "You can't say things like that in public. People can't know you're - " and maybe it's cowardly, but Adam can't bring himself to say what Kris is.
Kris nods. "I'm sorry."
Adam runs his hand through his hair. "No, it's okay. What were you going to say?"
Kris looks around. "Well, if you really want me to I won't say no, but I'd really prefer not to wear clothes like this."
Snorting, Adam waves to the door. "Be my guest. What do you want instead?"
"I like what I have on now, if it's alright?" Kris ducks his head.
So they end up at Gap, and Adam's beginning to regret this new boyfriend thing, because who the hell chooses cheap chain clothing over every other option available? Obviously Kris, but where did Adam's specifications for patient and smart become stubborn and sarcastic?
Kris takes the bag of clothes from the cashier, a girl who's been staring awestruck at Adam. Just as they turn to leave she takes a deep breath. "Adam Lambert?"
Adam smiles and tries to angle Kris behind him. "Yeah, sweetie?"
She's blushing, manages to ask, "Can I have your autograph?"
And, okay, that's normal, but Adam notices her watching Kris and hopes she doesn't get any ideas. Or a camera. But still, the first thing he does when he gets home is check online. There's nothing yet, and he breathes a sigh of relief, and then he calls Helen.
"Hey, listen, I know you're still pissed at me but we went shopping so there might be some attention soon."
He gets a text a couple minutes later. I'll tell your publicist.
He sends back, You have to talk to me eventually, and rolls his eyes when there's no response.
---
That evening Kris follows him around staring. Adam would think it was cute if it weren't for how utterly creepy he was, silent and wide-eyed. Finally Adam shuts his computer and asks, "What are you doing?"
Kris says, "Studying you."
Adam blinks. "Okay." And then, after staring back for a couple seconds, "Why?"
"Well," Kris says agreeably, "I have to be able to handle you," and Adam says, "Excuse me?
Kris ignores him. "And I have to understand you to do that."
"No, you don't," Adam tells him.
Long-suffering, Kris rolls his eyes. "Yes, I do. Also, if I'm made for you, I can learn more about my own reactions by figuring out what you'd need."
Raising his eyebrows, Adam says, "You could ask."
Kris frowns. "I didn't want to disturb you."
"It's worse to have someone staring at you."
"Sorry," Kris shrugs, but Adam doesn't think he really means it.
Adam leans forward. "So what did you learn?"
"That you're in the wrong business."
"Really?" Adam laughs. "What should I be doing instead?"
"Anything else," Kris says easily. "You can't stand one person's attention, how do you deal with all the fans?"
Before he can think about it Adam leans forward to smack his shoulder. Kris doesn't jerk away and Adam feels awkward suddenly. When he shifts away Kris tells him, "I want you to like me, but I can't make you comfortable with me."
Adam says, "You're programmed to make me happy."
"Yes. It's what you paid for."
Adam narrows his eyes thoughtfully. "Then can you promise me you'll tell me your opinions, like with the clothes? I'd prefer you be closest to a normal human as you can. And I'll treat you like one."
"Like a normal human?" Kris asks, and Adam nods. "So can I ask why you got an AC if you dislike them so much?"
Adam makes a noise. "I don't dislike them, I just don't know how to deal with one."
Kris says, "With all due respect, I don't think you need to. If this is how you think you'll do it, maybe you'd better leave it to me."
Adam stares at him; Kris meets his eyes steadily. "Fine. I'll treat you like anyone else I've just met."
Kris smiles. "And I'll be the most discreet boyfriend you've ever had."
---
Adam wakes up the next morning to Kris poking his shoulder. "Adam, Adam," and he grumbles and rolls over. "What?"
Kris points to his clock. "Your alarm's been going off for almost ten minutes. You said we needed to leave by nine."
And they do, so Adam forces himself not to strangle Kris. Instead he reaches up to shut the alarm off - the volume's too low, he must have bumped it when he was setting it last night - and tells Kris he'll be ready to go by then. Kris takes the hint and leaves. Adam notices he's wide-awake and already ready and hates him for it a little bit.
Turns out he lied, because he's not ready by nine, but they're in the car by nine-thirty, which he figures will have to be good enough.
When they get to the studio Helen's waiting. She frowns when she sees Kris and Adam says, "Please don't."
She just says, "They'll want to ask about him."
"He's not going on air." Especially not live.
"No, he's not," Helen says, "But do you want to talk about him?"
Kris says, "Probably shouldn't," and they both turn to look at him. "We all need to have the same story, right? And it probably won't be very accurate if Adam just makes up something."
Adam nods. "Tell them no specific questions about him." Helen goes to talk to one of the techs and Adam tells Kris, "You should decide what you want to tell people about family and college and your childhood. We can say we met at one of my shows."
"No, we can't," Kris reaches out and tugs, fussing, at Adam's jacket, and Adam lets him, amused. "I will not be some groupie, thanks."
Adam laughs, catching his wrists and moving his hands away. Kris is fidgeting, and with a rush of affection Adam realizes he's nervous. "I was thinking more that you could be a stage hand or sound tech or something, though you'd make a really cute groupie."
Kris widens his eyes at him. "You totally sleep with your fans, don't you?"
"Only the hot ones." Adam nods to the makeup girl who's waving for him.
Kris snorts a laugh. "That's so sleazy."
Adam scowls. "It is not. And behave when we're around other people."
Looking at him wryly, Kris says, "Yeah, I thought I would."
---
The salesgirl yesterday may not have put anything up about Kris, but by the time they leave the studio Adam's phone is chirping alerts to him from his publicist, all of them links to grainy pictures of Adam and Kris. The subject line to each message is Who's the new boy?
He waves for Helen at the exit, where she's texting and studiously ignoring Kris. "You didn't tell May about Kris?"
She looks at him tiredly. "I don't agree with what you're doing, but you still get to decide what you want to share. If you're gonna lie to her I won't try to stop you, but I'm not going to be the one to do it."
Fed up, Adam asks, "What the fuck is the big deal?"
Kris looks over his shoulder and sort of scoots away, staring up at the ceiling and being about as obvious as possible about eavesdropping. Helen, her back to him, doesn't see, and she hisses at Adam, "You know I'm your friend. I just never saw you buying a sex slave, artificial companion, whatever," she glances over her shoulder at Kris and Adam raises an eyebrow, because now he's blatantly staring, "instead of getting a real boyfriend."
Adam shakes his head. "Wait, what? Is this about the ethics of fake people thing?"
She tugs on her ponytail. "I've never been against it. You know, you get the families that can't have kids so they order a baby and it doesn't matter that they're infertile because the kid actually is theirs, down to the DNA, and they're people, they really are, so ordering one that's just programmed to be a servant, a living sex toy, that's wrong, I can't help being angry with you."
"I'm not sleeping with him, Helen." Adam waves at Kris. "Right? And I've sort of been having the same trouble you have, but he's not like a robot, not one-dimensional."
Kris says, "Neither of you has any real clue about what an artificial companion is, do you?" And then he starts to laugh.
So Helen drags them out to lunch. Adam has to kick Kris for the third time before he gets to actually explaining anything because he has this habit of jiggling his knee under the table and knocking the place settings all to hell.
"I guess the most important thing," Kris finally says, "Is that we're never so simple that we're just sex toys. Also, we're given with the expectation that our owners," he slots a look at Adam, "will read the manual."
Helen snorts into her coffee and Adam steals her glass of water. "I've been busy."
Kris rolls his eyes. "Whatever. The next thing is probably that when we're ordered, because we're ordered for someone, the company designs us specifically for that person, even if it's a standard model so looks don't change. They don't just try to create what people ask for, that psychological profile they have you fill out?" Adam nods, he remembers because the fucking thing was like forty pages long. "It's to determine what you'd want or need in the artificial companion that you don't ask for, either because you don't remember or because you don't know you want it."
"Wait, so," and Helen looks way too gleeful, "Could you get a guy who wants the perfect mother for his kids that ends up being some bossy homemaker that he can't stand, because that's what the kids needed?"
Kris shakes his head, exasperated. "No, it'd be the opposite. A guy would order the perfect mother but end up with someone who may be a bit lacking in the maternal arena but would be the perfect wife for him, assuming he had some hidden yearning for one or something."
Helen stares at Adam. She asks Kris, "So what do you say about Adam?"
Shrugging, Kris says, "I don't know. I'm only a couple of days old; I don't even know what foods I like, never mind who I am. I can't tell you anything about him you don't know until I learn more about myself; it's more likely I'll learn about me by figuring him out."
"Which is does by staring at me like some little stalker, by the way," Adam interjects, because he is not a lab experiment.
"Did you know he gets all uncomfortable when people follow him around? I don't get how he survives in a career where everyone wants to know what he's doing."
As if to prove his point, Helen gets a text. "It's May. She wants to know if there's anything specific you want to say about Kris."
Adam shakes his head. "No. Things start in a week or so, let's just deal with it then. Hopefully enough will be going on that it won't be the only thing for people to freak out over."
Kris asks, "What about when the charity events are over?"
And Adam just sort of stares helplessly at Helen, because shit, he hadn't thought of that. She raises her eyebrows at him and he shrugs. Kris sets his knife very carefully on the table and says hesitantly, "That actually brings up the last thing you really should know about me. If you look in the back of the book they gave you or call in to ask for it, you can get my kill word." He sort of winces as he says it, and Adam's stomach swoops sickeningly. Across the table, Helen looks just as horrified. "If you say it, and it's not ever just one word, it's sort of misleading, it's like an entire phrase with a date in it and everything, something they calculate would never come up in conversation, then I turn off, which really just means I go to sleep, into a coma, basically, and you can get rid of me, send me back, keep me tucked away somewhere, whatever."
Adam almost snarls and Kris startles, looking at him sharply. "Yeah, I don't think so. You might have to be stuck with me the rest of your life, but fuck if I'm going to put you in a hospital somewhere so I don't have to deal with you anymore."
Helen nods in agreement, staring down at her phone like she's still in some sort of shock, and Kris smiles at Adam and Adam thinks never.
---
When Kris and Adam go out together for the first time it's just to a movie premiere, some indie flick that Adam has zero interest in, but it's a good place to start and they've been holed up in his house the past four nights like hermits, which is just not on. They might've gone out the night before, just to a club or something, but Adam thought it would be cool to find out what Kris liked and didn't like, so they'd been ordering in food of every type imaginable, and one of Kris' favorites had been orange penny candies, those ones that come in bags of fifty for twenty-five cents, and Kris had eaten three or four bags. Which, like any toddler with too much sugar, led to vomiting it all back up.
Now Kris can't eat oranges, drink orange juice, or stomach orange chicken from Adam's favorite Chinese restaurant, so they decided to find other ways to occupy themselves, ones that hopefully didn't end up with Kris curled in the fetal position around his stomach. (Privately, Adam thought the whole thing was hilarious, because he'd never eaten himself sick, not even as a kid, and here Kris managed it before he was a week old.)
There's not much press outside the theater, just enough to ensure a couple of good photos and short mentions of the two of them, and Kris falls asleep on Adam's shoulder. He drools, and Adam mourns his jacket but he doesn't shrug him off. After, they stand together for a couple of minutes, just talking to a couple of the reporters, until one of the guys asks how they met. Kris stutters for the first time all night, looking at Adam and then away, and Adam drops an arm over his shoulders and says seriously, "It's a secret."
After that Kris is quiet so Adam leads him to the car for the ride home. On the way he points out the places he likes, hates, and wants to take Kris. They're maybe ten minutes away when Helen calls him.
"Put Kris on."
"Hello to you, too." He says.
"Yes, hello, now put Kris on, and tomorrow I'm getting him his own damn cell phone."
And then Adam spends the rest of the evening getting ignored while they talk. To be fair, most of the conversation is coming from Helen; all Adam can hear of it is Kris' mostly one-word replies. He's not pouting when he goes and throws himself onto his bed with his computer; he's just trying to avoid Kris and his weirdly contemplative looks. He knows they're talking about him, not that he can do anything about it.
Late that night Kris knocks on his door. "Adam?"
"It's open," he calls, and Kris pushes it open slowly.
He looks around curiously, and Adam watches him catalogue everything, from the books and magazines on the dresser to his clothes draped over the chair in the corner. Kris says, "There are no pictures."
"Yeah?"
"I thought there would be, since there aren't any in the rest of the house."
There are, of his family and friends, of Helen and even his old dog. He knows that's not what Kris is talking about. "She told you about him."
Kris says, "It's not her fault, don't get mad. I left her a message earlier today, asking why you wanted me."
"Is that what you've been talking about the whole time?" Because the relationship was only eight months long, it didn't warrant three hours on the phone. He's not sure he has the right to get angry with Kris for being curious, but "Why didn't you ask me?"
"I wasn't sure how you'd take it, if it was a sensitive subject. Would you have answered?" Kris sits on his bed, peering over at the computer screen. Adam shuts it quickly, more out of habit than anything, and laughs when Kris gives him a face for it.
"I don't know. Maybe." He wouldn't have.
Kris rolls his eyes. "Whatever," and sprawls next to Adam on the bed. "She also says you have to be at the recording studio tomorrow at nine, not nine forty-five, so don't forget." He says it in a lilting voice, a really bad parody of Helen's accent, and Adam laughs.
"Fine. Do you want to come with? It'll probably be boring," he tells him, but he really means please do.
For once Kris doesn't get it, because he shakes his head. "I'm going around with Helen tomorrow, I promised I'd keep her company, and your publicist said it would make me look better if I seem to be friends with your assistant. Helen thinks it would be good for me to have friends at all, to be seen somewhere besides with you, since there isn't really going to be record of me anywhere."
Adam says, "Okay," but he wonders how bad it would really be if Kris was found out. There are so many people who claim to be completely okay with the business and science that create the artificial humans, but they're all in support of children for infertile couples. There's a stigma attached to them as adults. He's not sure he wouldn't tell what Kris is on the first night of the charity events, if he didn't feel pretty confident that Kris would hate it.
"Tell me about you." Kris smiles over at him.
"Didn't Helen tell you everything already?" Adam asks. She'd better not have.
"All she can tell me is what she thinks about you. I want to get to know you myself." Kris wiggles and then sets Adam's computer off the bed.
Adam winces. "That sounds ominous. Do I want to know?"
Kris tells him, "Nothing bad," and smiles, open and honest.
Blowing out a breath, Adam says, "What do you want to know?"
---
Helen calls him the next day around one. He's still in the studio and he lets it ring through the first time, knowing she'll leave a message. She doesn't, though, just calls again, and the third time he picks up. "What?" He's snapping a little, because he's been on the same song for three hours and can't figure out why he keeps fucking it up.
"You didn't tell Kris about Kaitlyn?"
Adam slides into a chair out of the way while the sound tech, Mark, one of the ones Adam actually likes, argues with the delivery girl who brought their lunch about messing up his order. He's a picky eater, which Adam doesn't get, but he knows better than to get involved. The girl will survive, and Adam always makes sure to tip them too much for putting up with Mark. "No, I forgot. Why?"
Helen sounds like she's trying not to laugh. "Because she shows up today, and apparently Kris is a heavy sleeper, because she's already picked up everything, and it isn't until she starts to vacuum that he wakes up, and then she scares the shit out of him because he has no idea who she is. I think she threatened to quit, too, because he wasn't the only one startled. I'm not sure who was more traumatized."
"Tell him I'm sorry, then." He says wryly, then Mark sits down with his food and Adam pays the girl. "I have to go, I'm about to eat lunch."
"Okay, well, you're on your own tonight. We're gonna be busy until late."
"What are you doing?" He thinks his suspicion is justified.
"None of your business, Lambert," she says cheerfully, then, "Oh, and before you go, what do you think of cats?"
"No! No animals," he hears her giggling and says, "I swear, Helen-"
When she hangs up on him he huffs and throws his phone on the couch. Mark asks, "You still have that horrible assistant?"
And Adam would object, but Mark's crush on Helen has long been a source of amusement for him, so he knows Mark doesn't mean it. "Yeah. You want to help me with her?"
Mark rolls his eyes and doesn't answer, but Adam thinks he's maybe got a great idea.
---
The next morning he drags Kris with him to the studio, says it's payback for abandoning him yesterday but needs him as insurance. If Helen is going to join him at lunch, Adam wants to reduce every possibility of other plans, including her budding attachment to Kris. Fortunately, Kris isn't bored, because he grabs one of the guitars and by lunch he's more skilled than Adam. Mark thinks it's amazing, not that Adam doesn't, but he seems to appreciate Kris' talent much more than he does Adam's. He appreciates it enough, in fact, that he forgets to be an asshole to him, a complete change of character. When Adam asks how he does it, Kris says, "I'm still in development, like a kid. I'll learn things very quickly for the next couple of years and then it'll slow. I like your music, by the way," and that's not what Adam meant, exactly, but he lets it go.
Adam smiles and asks, "Did you call Helen?"
"Yeah. She said she'd meet us but only if she gets to pick where we eat. Apparently she hates your taste in food."
"Apparently?" Adam repeats, but Kris just shrugs, so he turns to Mark. "You're coming, right?" and then leaves before he can decline.
It actually goes better than Adam expects. Helen looks askance at Mark when they show up and shoots Adam dirty looks the whole time, but she seems incapable of being angry with Kris. Adam thinks Kris would've been worth the money just to get Helen off his back. Mark is back to being a complete ass, just like normal, but he and Helen get into an argument about whether tarot or palm reading is more reliable, and by the end of the meal Kris and Adam are left to each other, because they've got their chairs angled together and heads bent.
Kris tilts his head away when the waitress comes with their check, so Adam leaves his card and they go for a walk. Kris says, "You know she'll be totally pissed at you for setting her up like this."
Adam shrugs easily and loops his arm around Kris' neck. "She's embarrassed whenever I catch her interested in someone."
"Yeah, actually, I wanted to ask you. Does she not date? Because she's hot, but she never mentioned boyfriends or anything yesterday."
"You think she's hot?" And yeah, not the significant part, but really, Kris is straight?
Kris smiles towards their feet, watching where they step. Adam tightens his arm in warning and then flicks Kris' ear in retaliation. "Ow, stop it," so Adam does it again. Kris pulls away and leads them back towards the café. "Yeah, I guess. She is, I mean."
Kris is straight. Huh. "Well, as far as boyfriends go, she's had a few but they never last long. She's very opinionated, and I think I'm high-maintenance."
"You think?" Kris snorts, and steals Adam's sunglasses.
"Give those back," but Kris slaps his hand away when Adam tries to grab them. "Why? Do you like her?" Because Adam will fire her, much as he loves her, because no way in hell.
"No," but when Adam looks over at Kris he's almost frowning, like confusion or wistfulness, and Adam doesn't really believe him.
They collect Mark and Helen before heading back to the studio. They walk close together, hands almost brushing, and Mark almost stumbles once he's so busy watching Helen and the way she talks with her hands. Kris is smiling at her the whole way back.
---
Adam asks Kris about it again that night, though he's a little subtler. "Do you want to wander around by yourself tomorrow? Or you could take guitar lessons or something, since you seem to be a little genius at it."
"Trying to get me out of the house?" Kris sprawls across the couch, taking three times as much space as Adam and smiling about it.
"I thought you'd be bored. I would be." Of course, he's never been the type to be easily amused by things like documentaries or Solitaire on the computer, not like Kris apparently is. Kris likes puzzles, like the ones you buy in cardboard boxes that form pictures of kittens and rabbits.
"No, you want me to meet people." Kris says, and drops his head into Adam's lap.
Adam tenses, looking down at him. "Why would I want that?"
Kris says, "I don't know. Maybe for the same reason you want Helen to be happy with Mark." After that he's busy watching the movie, totally enraptured with 80's flicks, which Adam complete approves of.
He sleeps through the end, making little noises every time he tries to force his eyes back open. When it's over Adam sneaks out from under him, settling his head on a couch pillow until he can get one from the bedroom. He also grabs a blanket, and hopes Kris' body isn't prone to aches and pains the same way regular humans' are, because Adam knows from experience that the couch springs are a bitch. He heads upstairs by himself.
---
Two nights later Kris is introduced to society at large. In front of the thousands of people he just smiles, stays close to Adam, and stares at everything within sight. Adam's really glad his first performance isn't until the fourth of the month, and he spends the night telling Kris everything he knows or has heard about the people they see. He's completely blank on the political figures, but he's got some pretty good stuff on some of the other ones. Everyone who talks to them wants to know who Kris is, where he found him, like some sort of prize (though he's not even that, he's just an object, made-to-order), and then they're listening to the emcee announce the schedule for the upcoming month before introducing the main speaker, since the first night is all speeches and good will but nothing interesting.
Adam has to stop Kris tugging at his clothes the whole night. It's a thousand dollar suit, his fidgeting is not improving its cut, so Adam hisses for him to stop it. Then he repeats himself about ten thousand times through the course of the evening.
And then four days after that is Adam's first performance for the GCO - he has five this year, and no idea how he got so many. Helen brings Kris along for the set-up rather than letting him sit home with Adam until the last minute and Adam has to admit it was a good decision, because when he arrives Kris is sitting with the main lights guy and is absorbing everything he says with a freakish intensity. Adam would bet anything that by the end of the night he'll know how they do everything, if not exactly how to reproduce it.
Adam leaves them to it because he has his own things to do, but that means that he doesn't see Kris until he's coming off stage, blinking lights out of his eyes - camera flashes and pyrotechnics both, and then Kris is just looking at them, all of them but especially Adam, and he follows down the hallway just out of reach, like they're dangerous. He does follow Adam into his dressing room though, and shuts the door on the inevitable catcalls.
He still doesn't say anything, just leans against the counter where Adam has all his products spread out.
Adam needs to change clothes so he tugs his shirt over his head and asks, "So what did you think?"
Kris gives a face like he has no idea what to say and Adam laughs. Eventually he seems to settle for, "Is it always like that?"
"The audience is usually smaller, they're not all tens of thousands of people."
"Yeah," Kris says absently, "That's why this is the biggest event in the world."
"Okay, smartass, I promise not to tell you anything you might know ever again," Adam glances over to soften the teasing but Kris is looking decidedly the other way while he changes pants. Adam steps closer, sees him blushing, and says, "Hey, Kris?"
Kris turns to look at him and then jerks back around so fast he almost falls over. "Adam, put some pants on!"
Adam snorts and does as he's told. Then on go the boots and he tells Kris, "Come on, Helen's probably waiting."
Looking over slowly and distrustfully, Kris nods but asks, "What about your stuff?" and waves around the room.
Adam shrugs. "Somebody will get it." Truth be told, he's never really thought about it. They're the last ones out, which is completely unfair since Adam knows he took about half the timed he normally does, but whatever. Helen's clicking away at her phone, smiling at the screen in a way Adam's not really familiar with.
Kris, though, says, "Mark?" and his voice is off.
She looks up, startled, and flushes as she fumbles the phone into her pocket. "No," she mutters, and Kris says, "Let me see," and lunges for her.
Helen smacks at him, grinning, and says, "No way, you'll delete them like last time."
Adam raises his eyebrows. "Kris, you have got to respect people's property."
Kris rolls his eyes and falls into step beside Adam as Helen leads them out the door. She says, "So, May needs you guys to make out."
Adam says, "Awesome," because it totally is.
Kris says, "Um, what? No."
"What?" Adam stops.
Helen glares at them both. "You're going to have to suck it up, Kris. Adam's never subtle with his boyfriends and you guys have been seen together for like, a month. You're living together and it's common knowledge, but apparently with no pictures people are going to start thinking you're just friends."
Kris looks Adam over dubiously. "Um."
"Hey!" Adam says to both of them.
"So when we go out past the press line you guys need to be very friendly," she says, "And I'll be going out ahead of you, if you don't mind." As her heels click down the hall the last performer of the night, the one after Adam, starts to play, just a soft piano melody to a slowly emptying stadium.
Adam says, "Well, we knew it was going to happen sometime," and slides his hand across Kris' ass for emphasis.
Kris jumps. "What? No, we didn't!"
"Why does this bother you so much?" Because it does. He's pale and Adam can practically see his pulse jumping in his neck.
"In case you've forgotten, I didn't exist this time last month. I've never held hands with someone, never mind kissing." He looks down at his feet after he snaps and adds, "Sorry."
"Is that all?" Adam asks, and pulls Kris over to kiss him.
Kris is ungainly against him, hands splayed against his chest to ward him off and just enough shorter for it to be a hindrance. Adam says, "You've got to work with me, here," words against awkward mouth.
He chews his lip and breathes in hot little puffs against Adam's face. Adam rolls his eyes and tries again. This time something goes right, because he slides his hands up to Adam's shoulders and tilts his head up and lets Adam bite his lip instead. He makes a noise at it, displeased, but Adam holds the back of his head and licks into his mouth and Kris makes a noise again but this time it's not unhappy.
Adam leans forward and Kris sort of goes with it, so he nudges him back and then they're half against the wall with a doorframe maybe bruising Adam's elbow. He pulls away a little, because he doesn't actually know how long they've been down here but he's pretty sure they have to go. Then he pulls away more, because Kris is breathing deep and slow and he's pushed himself all the way up to his toes to get closer to Adam.
Adam says, "See? Not a problem," then pushes Kris towards the exit. It's loud outside with traffic and hundreds of people. Past the rows of cameras always recording Helen is standing by their car, looking pointedly at her watch. Adam knows for a fact that she only wears it for that purpose, since she always just checks her phone's clock instead and sometimes she even forgets to set it to the right time.
They ignore the questions buzzing around them, going until they hit the press who're asking for photos and then, like expected, someone calls for a kiss. Kris is tense again when Adam steps close, so he reaches down and laces their fingers together, squeezing a reminder. Kris smiles up at him and arches up to meet him. In his enthusiasm he almost bites off Adam's tongue. Adam laughs a little and kisses him again, slower, and Kris holds tight to his hand.
---
Turns out that Kris likes kissing. They maybe end up doing it all the time, even when there's no point to it, because he came to Adam and was all, "Um, can I maybe?" and then planted one on him, and it's not like Adam's going to object, so that was that.
Helen says they're sickening, and Adam always smiled at her and made comments about Mark until one day they came to pick him up at the studio. They'd been out running errands together because last night Kris had decided he wanted art supplies, of any and every type, as part of his campaign to discover himself - and Kris says he wants to try everything, so he can find out what he likes and what he's good at; Adam had forced himself to bite back several comments.
He'd been late to get out of the studio and when he walked into the lobby they were sitting on the couch with Helen squarely in Kris' lap. Adam had stared for a moment and then turned and snuck out the back. It was maybe cowardly but he went out and wandered around, bought a whole lot of crap he knew Kris would like. He headed home when he got a call from his own home number.
Kris is in front of the stove when he walks into the kitchen, and he's by himself; Helen's car isn't in the driveway. Kris says, "I went digging through your stuff."
Adam raises his eyebrows and looks around the kitchen, very obviously. "Yeah, I noticed."
"No," Kris waves the spatula he's clutching for emphasis. "I went digging through your stuff."
When Kris told Adam yesterday that he was going to cook dinner the next night Adam had shrugged and gone with it because it meant Kris in an apron, which is adorable, even if he turns out to be the worst cook in the world, which the nearly black chicken seems to be hinting towards. It's only getting worse, too, because while Adam is staring at the frying pan, Kris is staring at him.
"What?" Adam says.
Kris winces and chews the inside of his mouth. "I just - I've been talking to Helen, and obviously you come up a lot, and she was telling me about you but she doesn't actually know a lot, and I've told you that I was built around your personality and I've been trying to figure stuff out, so I got curious. I pried."
And now he has Adam's attention. "Through my stuff like my bedroom?"
Kris looks to the side, shifty-eyed. "Yeah. Maybe."
Adam tells him, "Your chicken's burning," and leaves him to it. Of course, as soon as he's upstairs he has to poke around, see if he can figure out what Kris saw, what he thought. He's not ashamed of himself or his past, but it's something that Adam thinks is his alone. Kris is worse than Helen.
Thinking it, he pulls out his phone and calls her. "You and Kris have still been talking about me?" and suddenly he's furious but he can't say what he really wants to pin on her.
"Well, yeah, I mean he's heard rumors, since he's your boyfriend, and he asked. Do you blame him?" Adam thinks the irony's heavy enough to choke on there, but she sounds more timid than normal, because she's known him a long time.
"He should've talked to me, not you. You had no right." Adam leans out the door to check Kris is still downstairs.
She snorts. "You wouldn't have told him a thing. You always overreact." She pauses, because yeah, not the right thing to say.
"Helen," Adam says, low, "Do not fucking talk about me with him again."
---
The next day sees Adam and Kris at the tailor's There's Adam's favorite guy working, and Kris is right there but this place has always been discreet, so Adam flirts a little more than normal. Kris is quiet, watching them, and by the time they leave he won't meet their eyes.
Out on the street Kris grabs his arm. "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I won't do it again, but do you have to-" he cuts off but looks at the shop pointedly.
Adam steps closer as if they weren't arguing, wonders what yesterday Kris is apologizing for. "Flirt? Yeah, I don't know if you noticed, but that boy? He's cute," he tells Kris, and tugs him into walking with a hand on his hip.
Kris shrugs awkwardly. "I don't know."
"Well, baby, he was. Try to control your jealousy." Adam knows he's being snide but it's not like he can yell at Kris for what the problem really is.
"If I am jealous," Kris says, low and sly, "It's not through any choice of my own. It's probably one of the default settings."
Adam scowls and steps away and thinks he maybe lost this round.
They manage to stay angry until late that night. Kris pushes open Adam's door and stands in the doorway and says, "I don't want to fight," and he sounds so tired that Adam pulls him into a hug and forces himself to let it go.
But still, that night he reads through Kris' user manual and all the documentation he had studiously ignored. When he's done, knows everything Kris knows about himself and the words that will kill him, he burns the paper with the kill phrase - no euphemisms here, the manual calls it exactly what it is - but he doesn't think that makes the knowing okay.
---
The next week is uncomfortable. Adam refuses to let Helen and Kris see each other without being there, but this is harder to arrange than it should be, because they seem like they're trying to sneak off every chance they get. Helen keeps looking at him, not judgmental but speculating, and it's keeping Adam on edge. He's acting like an over-possessive freak, especially when he starts trying to demand Kris' attention whenever he's on the phone with Helen - though in his defense, they're still talking way too much. He can't resign himself to letting them be, even though his claim to Kris is up at the end of the month.
His second performance goes by, and then Saturday night is the formal ball, which Adam always skips. Kris asks to go, though, so they do. Adam has to go gown shopping with Helen, because she'd probably show up in an ill-fitting suit if left to her own devices.
While she's in the fitting room in one of the stores he says, going for subtle, "So, are you bringing Mark?"
She replies, voice muffled, "No! I don't get why you think I'm so interested in him. I think you're hoping one of your matchmaking schemes is going to play out, but you should have learned by now that they don't."
"So who are you going with?"
The door opens and she smiles brightly. "I'm going with you and Kris."
Adam holds in a sigh, because he knows what that means.
He's totally right, too, because they show up and, though Adam's bored before they even get in the door, Kris and Helen go out and dance for almost a half hour straight, enthusiastic and ridiculous in their clumsiness. Adam grabs a couple of the wallflowers, daughters of diplomats or something, for the first couple of numbers and then wanders through the room, listening for any interesting conversations to eavesdrop on. There aren't any, and by nine o'clock he's ready to drag Helen and Kris out bodily.
Adam catches Kris on his way to the bar and asks disarmingly, "Having a good time?"
Kris nods and tilts his head at him. "What about you?"
And that's about all Adam can handle. He takes Kris' arm and leads him to the door, takes him out into the hall. "What the hell are you doing?"
"What are you talking about?"
Adam hisses, "With Helen. For the past couple of weeks, almost since you met her. What the hell?"
Pulling his arm away Kris says, "I don't know what you're talking about. We're friends, and you've been incredibly grumpy the past week, so we're avoiding you. Do you blame us? All because you don't like that I asked her about you."
"No, Kris, I don't give a fuck about you two talking. It's everything else I have a problem with." Adam runs his hand through his hair and pulls them further down the hall as an elderly couple exits the ballroom, glancing at them curiously.
Kris says, "I still have no clue what you mean."
And Adam gives up and says, "You two that afternoon."
Interestingly enough, Kris goes pink but smiles. "Yeah, well, I wanted to know what kissing someone besides you was like. It's not specifically anything to do with her."
"I have a hard time believing that, strangely," Adam says.
Kris steps away and glares and says, "Is this jealousy? Why do you care? It's not like you have any use for me anyway."
"Shh!" Adam flaps his hand. "You're your own person, aren't you supposed to find a use for yourself?"
"Do you really think I'm human? Because all my paperwork spread all over your bed seems to suggest not. Seems like you want to know all the details about your toy." Whatever Adam's expression looks like, it gets Kris' attention, because he says, "I pushed open your door one morning to make sure you'd already left for your recording session. It was lying there."
Adam tells him, "As soon as I read it I wished I hadn't. It doesn't help anything, being reminded you were made in a lab a couple of months ago to be just what I wanted."
"Adam," Kris sighs. "I was made to be what you need, not just what you want."
"You weren't made to want to sleep with me. You told me that. And I'm fine with it, I get it, but excuse me if I'm a little against having to see you get involved with someone else." He gestures to the door. "But you're right. Please, feel free."
Kris is angry, now. "I was made for you. I don't want to sleep with anyone else. I'm fine if you don't want anything from me but this - this month, but I'm not going anywhere. I'll do whatever you want, I told you that."
Adam leans against the wall, and across the hall the band picks up again. "You'll do whatever I want because you're programmed to." But it's more a question than anything.
Kris shakes his head, grabs his hand and twines their fingers together, watching as he does it and then looking up at Adam pointedly. "I'll do whatever you want because I choose to."
And then Kris hugs him, which is good because Adam's kind of busy staring at the opposite wall in shock. "Was that programmed in?"
"Jesus, you're slow." But he's smiling, happy and indulgent, his voice low and soft in Adam's ear. "It's impossible to program emotions. We're given personality traits, like children, and everything else comes like a normal human. I wasn't born like you, but that doesn't mean I'm not a real person. You've still never understood that, not really."
Adam would protest, he really would, but they're still standing close in the hallway, the air conditioning a soft hush in the background, and he thinks maybe he does now.
They have to go back in, because Helen comes out and sees them, her eyes soft at Adam in a way he knows means she's never going to let them live this down, but she's also an evil, bossy girl who makes them go inside for another two hours despite how much Adam wants to go home and cuddle. Kris is on her side, irritatingly, and he tugs at Adam while she pushes and between them both they manage to get him into the room. In retaliation, he refuses to dance, and Kris waves happily and lets Helen steal him again instead.
Adam knows his complete frustration is showing and when Kris goes to dance with a younger girl, hiding in a corner, Helen comes over and tries, badly, to cover a laughing fit at his expression. He tells her, "He's been doing it on purpose. You've been doing it on purpose."
"I know," she says, "You've been seriously underestimating him."
Adam smiles a little stupidly, and says, "Yeah."
But still, he drags Helen out with him next, so he can watch Kris from a closer vantage point, and when the next dance starts he scowls at Kris, who shakes his head but follows him over to their table again. The floor is almost empty now, because the song is a waltz and it's not like anyone actually knows how to do one anymore, except all the ambassadors and other stuffy officials that look at home for the first time all evening.
He holds out, barely, by making Kris talk to him about anything that comes to mind. It's a good idea, actually, because Kris' mind is a fucking bizarre place. Then Adam makes him help count how many dresses of each color there are in the room and they argue over whether chartreuse is yellow or green, especially when Kris isn't sure that is chartreuse, Adam, how do you know that color even exists? It's at that point that Helen corners them and tells them to get their asses home if they're that bored, they’re standing out too much as it is.
She continues to be uncooperative, though, because she makes them drop her off at her apartment first, though her goodbye is short and she climbs over Adam instead of making him get out.
---
But finally they make it home and Adam pulls Kris into his bedroom and presses him against the wall, saying seriously, "So, this being in love, it doesn't exclude sex still, right?" and Kris kind of laughs, if it weren't for how he's just staring and almost panting, wow, Adam didn't think -- and says, "Absolutely not."
And Adam kisses him. Kris opens for him, not that that's a surprise, practice after all, but Adam didn't expect it like this, like someone who knows what they're doing and loves it. But he does, making a happy little noise and sucking on Adam's tongue, tangling fingers in his hair to yank him closer and kind of - arching up, like a cat with how he rubs against him. "Wow," Adam says, sloppy-slurred against Kris' mouth, "Perfect," and Kris sort of laughs but more moans and Adam bites his lip, just because he can, because it's there, Kris is there.
Then he pulls away and says, "Good," as he shoves Kris' suit off his shoulders, pleased when Kris just sort of squawks at him and grabs his shoulders for balance. Then his hands are on Adam's clothes, actually trying to mess with buttons, and Adam takes over, because Kris is fumbling and clumsy-slow, no better when Adam finds his ear and licks, follows it down to his neck to bite because Kris shivers and quakes and just says, "Adam." Then he makes a face and an unhappy noise and then he laughs, helpless, and says, "I have no idea what I'm doing."
Adam sort of groans and tells him, "Yes, yes, fine, great," and pushes him backwards onto the bed. Adam gets his own pants off, watches Kris fumble for his and then slides onto the bed over him, sliding his knees between Kris' legs and shoving him further up towards the pillows, where Kris stretches out a hand and finds the edge of the comforter and draws it into his fist, because he's shaking now, looking up at Adam, mouth wet and pupils blown.
"Drawer," Adam tells him helpfully, then drops down. Kris manages, "What?" before Adam's got him in his mouth, and then he's just squirming and moaning and even kicking, a little, like he's trying really hard to hold still but can't quite help it. There might be a couple half-formed words, but he really only gets out, "Oh, oh -- Adam, what -- " and then his hand clenches tight in the covers and he stares down, wide-eyed, like fuzzy shock and desperate need all caught too close together, while he comes in Adam's mouth.
Adam doesn't swallow, instead pushes Kris' legs apart in a sprawl with his hips and settles over him, kissing him and licking in, and he takes it again, his own come wet between their mouths, and Adam pulls back and watches him swallow with a dark flush of satisfaction at the base of his spine.
Kris blinks at him hazily and Adam runs a hand down his side. "Hi," he says, incongruously, and Kris smiles and presses his knee against Adam's side.
He looks over at the dresser. "Drawer?"
Adam laughs and reaches over, grabs lube and holds it up. Kris flushes and glances to the side but he breathes out slow and easy so Adam leans down to kiss him and uncaps the lube. "This might be cold," he warns, and Kris laughs a little until Adam slides a finger inside.
His toes curl slightly where they're pressed against Adam's leg. "Right," Kris says, but his eyes are unfocused, staring at the ceiling. "Could," but he bites his lip.
Adam gives him a second one, and he whines for it and twists a little and says, "That's, yeah, I," so Adam works him over, making encouraging noises into his ear as he gets a little louder and a lot impatient, shaking against him when Adam pulls out for more lube and shaking even more when he pushes three back in. He jerks when Adam bites the top of his arm but he doesn't complain, just moans a little, so Adam does it again until he just pushes into it. He worries his teeth into the skin until it's dark and angry, until Kris moves his hands to tangle in his hair and against his shoulder, pushing desperately.
"Adam, stop. Come on," he says, low and rough, and tells him, "Put your hands back over your head."
Kris gives him a look like seriously? and Adam twists his fingers for emphasis, so Kris' irritated sigh turns into a needy thrust back onto Adam's fingers and he reaches back up to grab at the pillows.
He's smiling smugly when he pushes Kris' legs up, Adam knows, but Kris doesn't manage to roll his eyes before Adam's pushing in and he's just arching up against him. Adam moves slow until Kris shifts impatiently and says, "Adam, Adam," and then he gives up on any careful first time.
Kris is demanding, pushes up against him when he moves his leg and groans encouragingly when Adam grabs his cock, talking fast and nonsensical until he comes, scratching nails against the sheets. Adam tells him, "Yeah, good, just like that," and kisses him through it.
He's sort of limp and boneless, after, and Adam pulls away and rolls him over and works himself back in, grabbing Kris' wrists and pushing them into the mattress, tight enough he thinks, hopes, they'll bruise. Kris kind of buries his face in his arms and murmurs with it, body shuddering and pliable. Adam comes, a slow roll in his stomach and throat.
---
"I don't get what the big deal," Kris stops and yawns. "Is."
Adam counts to three and forces himself ask. "About what?"
"About sex." Kris frowns at him and then rolls to the side, one leg falling off the edge of the bed as he dodges where Adam's trying to hit him. "Not like that!" He's laughing still but Adam lets him come squirming back over. "I mean, everything I've seen is all about how sex is either this life-changing event, which, yeah, I don't get -" He cocks his head at Adam. "No offense."
"Uh-huh," Adam says drily.
"But," Kris continues, "it really isn't. And if not, people talk about it like it's hard or something. Helen," and he gets a faintly traumatized look and Adam's a little nervous now, too, "tried to give me pointers or something, I don't really know, and then sort of mumbled all these explanations that were bad enough that the free online porn was more enlightening."
Adam kind of chokes on his breath and asks, "You looked up porn?"
Kris looks affronted. "Well, yeah, what else was I supposed to do?"
Raising his eyebrows in response, Adam says, "You could have asked."
"That’s your fix for everything. Have a question? Ask me!" Kris shakes his head. "Completely unhelpful."
And that's really not fair, since he can't be helpful if nobody comes to him for help, but Adam knows he's losing this one and has no idea why, so he gives up.
"Yeah, well, for most people sex either is life-affirming or something to worry about. You're just better than most people."
"Liar," Kris says, smiling dopey and bright at him. Adam shakes his head and throws an arm around him and drags him over and close and under.