Fic Master Post: Kradam Big Bang
Title: Unicorn Blessed
Author: chibifukurou
Artist: deannawesson
Type: Friendship, Fantasy
Word Count:11,000
Rating: Pg
Characters/Pairings: Kris & Adam soulbonded
Warnings Adam is a little OC since he's a baby unicorn
Summary: Kris is a failed musician who’s planning to spend the rest of his life working as a shoe-salesmen. Maybe even owning his own shoe store one day. He doesn’t want to be hurt by dreaming bigger ever again.
That all changes when a pint-sized, blue eyes, glittery unicorn comes barging into his life. The unicorn claims him as one of the Blessed, the bonded partners of unicorn kind, much to Kris’ annoyance.
Fic master Post | Story on Ao3
Art master post
Kris was woken up by something or somebody pounding on his door. It sounded weird. Instead, of the usual rattle of the door knocker or the thump of a fist against the door. It sounded more like a rattle -clop -rattle-clop.
Annoyed, even though he shouldn’t really blame whoever was pounding down his door for the fact he'd stayed up until four in the morning writing a song, he stomped out of his room, through the living room, to the front door.
He wrenched it open. Nobody was there. If this was a 'ding dong ditch' he was going to be really annoyed. He stuck his head out of the door, making sure that his boxer clad lower half stayed out of sight. Not that it mattered because there wasn't anybody there.
He started to close the door. Already planning what he'd do to the little hooligans if they tried to ding dong ditch him again, when there was a sharp neigh from somewhere around his feet. He froze. He really didn't want to know what was neighing at his feet, but it another neigh meant he couldn't ignore it without feeling guilty.
Slowly, he lowered his eyes to survey his front stoop.
There was a pint-sized unicorn standing in front of his door! What was a unicorn doing in front of his door in the middle of Arkansas?
They were supposed to be mostly out west, or in the New York area, well there and Washing DC. They weren't supposed to find failing musicians in the mid-west. He flapped his hands at the cute little thing in an attempt to get him to leave. "Go on, you're at the wrong house okay?"
It didn't seem to be able to understand him? He'd never seen a unicorn this small before. What if it had wandered away from its parents or the blessed that was supposed to be looking after it? What if it was lost?
He couldn't just leave it out on his front porch, who knows what would happen to it? He stared at it for a second trying to ignore his inner mother-hen and firm his resolve. He was not going to let the foal into his house. He'd get attached and then where would he be? Unicorns weren't pets. He bit his lip, determined that he was going to shoo it away again. Then, he made the tactical mistake of looking down at it. It stared back at him with big blue eyes and the most potent puppy dog eyes he'd ever seen.
He was such a sucker. "Alright little guy, why don't you come in I'll see if I can find you something to eat." He backed out of the doorway and opened the door enough that the unicorn should be able to get inside without much trouble. It gave a happy whinny and clipity-clopped in. Only to lose traction and go sliding across the hallway into the laundry room when it hit his hard-wood floors.
"Dang it!" He cursed and hurried over to where it had landed in a pile of his dirty laundry. "Are you okay?"
It's head popped out from the laundry pile. A pair of plaid boxers over its horn and one ear; and if unicorns could grin that was definitely what it was doing. It was practically glowing with happiness. It was also utterly adorable.
If all unicorns were as cute as this little guy it was a wonder their Blessed managed to get anything done. Of course Kris wasn't one of the Blessed so that might be why he was so unable to process the cuteness. Maybe, being bonded with a unicorn meant that you were immune or something.
"Come on, sweetheart; let’s see if we can find you something to eat." He called. Since, the little guy seemed more interested in romping around among his dirty laundry, batting socks around, than coming to get food.
What did unicorns eat anyway? He thought he might have some left over carrots or something in the fridge. Would the unicorn eat that, or was he supposed to feed him grass or something? If he was then a trip to the park was definitely going to be in order. His townhouse had a yard, if you could call it that, but all that grew in the little patch of ground, was weeds.
He got a bowl out of the cupboard and filled it full of water. The unicorn tried to climb it to get to him and the water. It made him feel like he was having one of his momma's dogs over for a visit and he was petting the fool thing’s mane before he even though about the fact that it might be sacrilegious. He froze as soon as he realized what he had done, but the unicorn wasn't having any of it and started nudging his hand. Again, Kris was struck by the similarities between baby unicorns and dots. Accordingly, he scratched it behind its little pointed ears which lean into his legs hard.
He had to brace himself against the kitchen counter to keep from toppling over. "Whoa, there, you got to be more careful. I almost tipped the both of us over onto the floor." He said, even though he knew that it couldn’t understand him he couldn't resist talking to it.
Its little face was just so expressive. "What am I going to do with you, Huh?" He asked making sure that he didn't slow down the scratches. He wouldn’t' want to upset it or anything, besides its mane was silky smooth and it was making the cutest little purring noises in the back of its throat.
After five minutes of petting he was starting to get a cramp in his leg from leaning against the counter top. He carefully pushed back on the center of its chest to get it to back up and crouched down so that they were on the same level. The bowl of water went down on the linoleum and the unicorn seemed happy enough to switch off pets for water.
Which thankfully, let him get back to his earlier problem of what to feed it? It was tiny and cute and acted like a really intelligent dog, or maybe a toddler. Either way it probably wouldn't appreciate him trying to feed it pet food or anything, and exploration of his fridge didn't reveal any yummy looking vegetables. He had one apple, but he doubted that would keep it full for long.
So, time for his backup plan: the internet. Surely somebody would have posted something about what to feed unicorns. If the little guy had wandered away and found himself in a strange place, some other little unicorn had to have done the same thing before.
Then, there was a strange scrapping sound coming from behind him. He turned around and found the unicorn nosing his bowl of water around the linoleum trying to drink from it and ending up going in circles chasing the bowl instead. He was just too cute.
Kris shook himself and forced himself to stop thinking about how cute it was. He couldn't get attached. He wasn't going to get to keep him. Unicorns had better things to do with their time then to spend it with failed musicians turned shoe sales men.
He forced himself to march out of the kitchen and to his bedroom to get his computer. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder when he heard the thump of a bowl hitting the cabinets.
He was strong and he wasn't going to get attached. He most definitely wasn't going to name it. No matter how much he wanted to.
He grabbed his computer from where it was hidden under his blankets and took it out to the living room. Because, he was going to have better light there, he assured himself. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that he wanted to be sure the unicorn could find him if he finished his water and got lonely.
He wasn't that pathetic.
The internet was surprisingly unhelpful when it came to figuring out what to feed little unicorns. There was a large community of pictures of baby and adolescent unicorns. None as cute as his unicorn, he thought, before he caught himself. At least nobody was there to see him blush.
There were accounts of people meeting baby unicorns and their Blessed, but none about unicorns wandering into strange places and getting themselves lost.
He wasn't going to be deterred just because there weren't a lot of people willing to talk about their own past happenings with unicorns.
He typed in a few different searches that dealt more with feeding unicorns than lost unicorns and was finally able to find a site, Hit 56 on Google, was some poor guy’s thesis project dealing with unicorn husbandry. There he was able to learn about oats, hay, horses, and shit but, it didn't really help him know anything besides the fact that you never EVER wanted to give a baby unicorn refined sugar. Then, just in case you didn't understand the first time, or maybe were too stupid to take the warning seriously the Thesis project added a couple EVERS, or rather the masters degree version of it.It seemed to involve the use of the words Unadvisable and Dire Consequences every few sentences.
While the no processed sugars thing was a little worrying the fact that the unicorn could eat oats was a good thing. He had a can of Quaker oats in the back of his cabinets. It probably wasn't the healthiest thing he could feed the little guy; but it probably wouldn't hurt him for a few meals.
He was about to look up the number for the nearest unicorn habitat, since he was pretty sure you couldn’t just put up posters like for a lost dog, when something soft and wet started nudging at his shin. He had a pretty good idea of who it was, but he looked warily around his computer screen just to be sure.
As expected it was the unicorn. Nose still dripping from the water he'd been drinking. "Hi buddy, did you get lonely?"
Chucking softly to himself, Kris reached down and grabbed it around the legs, before plopping it down on his lap.
Honestly. That was not the best plan he'd ever come up with. It turned out that no matter how small the unicorn in question was, they had really hard hooves that didn't mix well with the soft flesh around a humans lap. He couldn't stifle the loud groan and FUCK that came out when one of its hooves came into contact with his groin.
After, some frantic shuffling around on both of their parts, they ended up side by side on the couch. The unicorn tucked under his arm with its head on his chest while the other hand was cupped protectively over his groin.
He was going to have to get up and get himself a bag of frozen ice or something soon. Just to be sure there wasn’t any swelling, but for now this was awesome. The unicorn was an amazing hot water bottle and he was so soft. Kris felt himself falling to sleep despite himself and his worries about what he was supposed to do with said baby unicorn.
The smart thing to do would be to look up the number for the local Unicorn Rescue Department, but he was too sleepy. Besides, he’d have plenty of time to look for the number after he woke up.
# # #
He dreamed that he was lying in a meadow with flowers all around him with the unicorn was at his side. It was awake though, and he feels it nose him upright when it realizes he's awake too.
~Hi Kris!~
He heard the words in his head. Soft as the unicorn's mane and warmer than anything he could ever remember. He stared at it in shock, but he was dreaming. He shouldn't be surprised by talking unicorns. Wasn't the first rule of dreaming is that everything is supposed to make sense in dream-word?
Of course, the only alternate explanation was that he actually was the unicorns blessed. He's always heard the stories about the epic bond between Unicorns and their blessed. People said they could talk to each other, even though unicorns couldn't really talk. "This is impossible."
~It's not impossible my Kris.~
"Yeah, it kind of is. You’re a unicorn; you can't talk to anybody that isn't your blessed, and there is no way that you're going to choose a shoe salesman as your partner. It's not like I can do anything useful for you."
It gave him another one of those glows smiles, like when it had been romping among his underwear. ~You're so much more than a shoe-seller. You're going to be amazing. I'll make sure of it.~
Even in his dreams the unicorn was too cute.
~Don’t worry, my Kris. We'll have plenty of time together to figure things out. Right now all you need to know is that I'm Adam.~
"Adam…" When he'd been thinking about naming the unicorn he'd been thinking about names like Glitter or Trouble, but now that he'd heard the name Adam it just felt right. Like, there was no other name that would fit his unicorn."
Adam curled up against his chest. ~Go to sleep. You need your rest. We'll talk about your future when we wake up~
# # #
He woke up when his phone alarm went off. He was still asleep on the couch and it had been the best hours of sleep he'd had in forever. The unicorn was still leaned up against his side and was a comforting weight. He gave himself a few seconds to run his hair through Adam's silky mane. That was just great he'd started thinking of it as Adam now. Just because of a stupid dream. He didn't want to get up, but he had to.
His shift started in an hour and it would take at least fifteen minutes to drive to the shoe store. Before, that he needed to get redressed, have breakfast, and figure out a way to feed his new unicorn room-mate.
He poked him in the nose, and he snuffled and wiggled. One of its ears flicked in Kris' direction. "Come on, you need to wake up. I need to get up and I can't do that while you're on top of me."
Adam glared at him. He was actually better at it than he had any right to be. What with eyes that big and soft. "I am such a sucker."
Since, it was obvious that the unicorn didn't want to get up, Kris picked it up instead. This time he was careful to avoid its hooves. He grumbled a bit before settling against Kris' chest.
Kris carried him into the bedroom and propped him up on the pillows. Adam burrowed under the sheets until only his ears and horn were visible. Kris bit his lip to keep from laughing but he had more important things to worry about. Most importantly like getting ready for work.
By the time he managed to shave, dress, and splash some water on his face to make up for the fact he didn't have any time to take a shower, Adam had fallen back to sleep, rolled up into a tight little ball under the blankets.
Kris left him there and went o prepare their breakfast. Hopefully the oats would be enough to fill Adam up. He didn't have anything else that was on the approved list of unicorn food.
It wasn't like he made a habit of keeping a bale of hay around, and the oatmeal with 'real fruit' in it also had sugar. He wasn't brave enough to deal with a unicorn not on a sugar rush. Not after having being woken up early, having his home invaded by a baby unicorn, and taking a nap which involved really weird dreams.
He set the bowl of oats down onto the linoleum and settled with a couple of slices of toast and a big cup of coffee for himself. Since, Adam still hadn't woken up after he'd served breakfast, he was thinking that it might be a good idea if he left for work now.
He didn't want Adam moping or trying to follow him out of the town house. That would be really hard to explain and he didn't think there was any explanation that wouldn't get the Unicorn Sanctuary called.
Since, he'd decided on course of action, he snuck back into the bedroom to retrieve his wallet, keys, and coat. Adam still looked asleep but he didn't dare to get close enough to check.
Sneaking back out of the room, he headed for the front door. He'd only made it half-way there when there was a large clattering of hooves and Adam appeared out of nowhere, right between Kris and the door.
Well so much for that plan. "Hey Adam. I thought you were still asleep."
Adam plopped down in front of the door and stared up at Kris, again with the puppy dog eyes. "I left you breakfast in the kitchen if you want to go check it up."
Adam stayed where he was and gave Kris a look that pretty clearly managed to express just what his thoughts about eating breakfast and letting Kris escape out the door were.
“Come on, Adam. I need to get to work. Can you please go eat your breakfast so that I can leave.”
Adam got up from where he’d been sitting in front of the door, but he still didn’t let Kris go. He grabbed hold of Kris’ khaki’s with his teeth and started dragging him back into the kitchen. Kris sighed, but let himself be dragged. Hopefully, he’d be able to get away once Adam got distracted by breakfast.
Adam went after the food like he as starving half to death. It made Kris feel guilty for not feeding him before they'd' taken their nap. Even, though, Adam had shown no signs of wanting food while he was trying to jump up on the couch.
Maybe, this was just the way that baby unicorns eat. It was certainly messy enough. There were oats all over the floor and it was going to take him a while to clean up once he got back home.
For now he needed to try and get out the door again. He really did need to get going or he was going to be late for work and he needed the money if he was going to pay for the food he was going to need to get for Adam.
The thesis papers had recommended organic fruits and vegetables pretty highly since they didn't have the kind of pesticides that could made unicorns sick, and even if he was just going to take Adam to the habitat on Saturday, the next day, he still wasn't going to make him eat rolled oats for every meal. There was no way for him to know if Adam was getting sick or not so he was going to have to buy the best food and hope nothing went wrong.
Once Adam started nosing the bowl of oats around the kitchen floor the same way he'd nosed his water bowl around a few hours before, Kris made a break for it. Slowly, backing out of the kitchen and into the living room. This time he didn't have to go back for his wallet or keys so it was easy to tiptoe out without giggling the whole way while he worked to stuff the keys into his pocket.
He actually managed to get the door partially open before here was a clatter of hooves from the kitchen. He half jumped out of the door and onto the stoop, while slamming the door behind him. There was a thump the thunk-clop knock of Adam's hooves against the door, but Kris forced down the urge to open the door to check that Adam was okay.
If he was attempting to batter the door down then he had to be fine.
# # #
He managed to clock in to work with 30 seconds to spare. At least he was on afternoon shift so he didn’t have to fight with the security system on getting the doors unlocked. That would have made him late.
“Hi Kris!” Allison called as soon as he got through the door. She couldn’t see him from where she was working up front, but she’d know he was the person scheduled to work the afternoon shift with her.
“Hi Allison!” He called back.
He used the back computer to check in and grabbed his apron from the pegs beside the back door. It was bright orange and had the "Shoe Palace" logo emblazed on the front.
It was ugly as sin but at least it meant that as long as Kris was wearing khakis he could wear pretty much any shirt he wanted underneath.
Which meant that he hadn't had to spend a lot of money he didn't have paying for orange polo shirts or an anything else he'd never wear again in his life if he ever stopped working at the store.
Though, the possibility of starting his music career and leaving it all behind seemed to be becoming more and more unlikely. Except; for the occasional open mike night, he hadn't had a gig in over three months.
"Everything going okay?" He asked Allison, as he came up behind to stand beside her at the counter.
"Bore if that's what you mean." She said. Her attention was almost completely on her phone. Thumbs flying over the keyboard at a speed that made Kris’ fingers whimper in sympathy for her joints.
"We had a couple kids in earlier looking at the latest Sketchers but that’s been about it. We haven't even had any grannies come to get their reeboks."
"Well that might change now that it’s later in the afternoon. Their grandkids can give them rides once they’re out of the school. So, no need to give up hope."
Allison glanced up at him in her patented. ‘You are completely crazy, Kris Allen’ look "Only you would think that teenagers would actually agree to bring their grandparents to the shoe store.
"What? People need shoes and it only makes since for grandkids to drive their grandparents to go shopping if they don't have any other way to get around."
"Sure Allen. It makes perfect sense." She turned back to her phone.
Since, he didn't want to keep fighting about it, and there wasn't any need to have two people working the counter, he headed out onto the floor, so he could start straightening shoe boxes and switching around the display shoes. It was mindless work, but that was good because it left him plenty of time to figure out what he was going to do about his unicorn house-guest. It was too bad he couldn’t just keep Adam though.
That was a stupid thought though. He was not Blessing materiel. No matter how tempting the idea of having Adam in his life was. Unicorns were supposed to pick their bonded from people who could have a large effect on the world. He was a shoe salesman, maybe he’d own a shoe-store someday and sell shoes to some important person, but that was about the extent of the affect he could have on the world.
Once he was sure that Allison was busy ranting in the spike heel section he figured he didn’t have any other excuses for putting off finding the number for the Unicorn Rescue Squad. Ranting and rearranging boxes would keep her busy for at least fifteen minutes or more since she took vicious glee in detailing all the ways each of the shoes could kill you.
He minimized the check-out software and opening up the browser. It had very limited use, since it was mostly supposed to be used when they needed to special order a pair of shoes for a customer or check the stock in other Shoe Palace stores to see if they had the shoes, but it wasn't like Kris was planning to do any in-depth research. He just needed to find a number that wouldn’t take him to Unicorn Rescue and then he'd go from there.
For having a tiny Blessed community, Arkansas actually did have a fairly high number of habitat groups. This was great, except it made it kind of hard to figure out which one he was supposed to call. Just like with his earlier computer searches that morning, none of these sights have any directions for what to do in case you found a lost unicorn foal. There was the emergency rescue squad number, but this really wasn’t an emergency. He ignored his conscience which was prodding him to call anyway because somebody might be worried about Adam. He was perfectly capable of taking care of Adam.
There was no reason Adam couldn’t stay with him for a few more days. Kris would be able to take him to the habitat himself if he waited for the weekend. That would probably be better than calling the emergency line, anyway.
He was so busy trying to justify his decision to keep Adam around for a little longer that he completely missed Allison creeping up behind him until her arms wrapped around his waist. “What are you up too that has you actually breaking store policy and using the computer for personal reasons?”
“Nothing!” He quickly x-ed out of the site so she couldn’t see what he’d been doing, but he already knew he’d be in for a lot of teasing on the subject.
He wasn’t disappointed when Allison started laughing at him. “Oh, come on you didn’t even hear me sneak up on you, and you weren’t doing your usual creepy staring into space and pretending to play guitar without noticing it move.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just a little distracted.”
She let go of him and moved so that she was leaning back against the counter, next to the computer. “Mm-hmmm. Which is why you hid what you were doing from me; because there was nothing going on?” The sarcasm practically dripped from her voice.
Kris ignored it and made his escape to the kids shoe section. It was one of the most hated jobs in the store, because it always took so long to straighten up the boxes near the bottom of the shelf, where kids had yanked them off the rack and distracted parents had just shoved them in to whatever empty spot they could find.
It was an obvious retreat, but Allison still wasn’t likely to follow him, for fear he’d put her to work helping him.
# # #
He was in the middle of helping a little girl find a pair of unicorn themed sneakers (and believe him the irony was not lost) when he heard a suspiciously familiar clippity-clop sound from behind him. It was muffled by the stores industrial grade carpets, but it wasn’t like Kris had a lot of equine stalkers.
“Oh, pretty unicorn." The little girl stared, her eyes huge as she stared behind him.
He winced. Afraid her mother would come to see what she was talking about. A unicorn in their store would be a lot harder to explain to an adult than it was to a little girl. Particularly, since the little girl in question was already obsess with unicorns. She'd be too busy thinking about how pretty Adam was with his shiny black and blue hair and sliver hooves and mane to ask him any question.
At least he hoped she would be, but if her mother caught sight of Adam there was no way he'd be able to avoid having Unicorn rescue called on him. Unicorns weren't supposed to be in shoe-stores after all.
"Mommy! There's a pretty unicorn !" the little girl called.
Kris had to hide another wince.
"That's nice dear." The mother called from the other side of the shelf instead of coming to see. Thank goodness. "I'm glad you like your shoes."
"But Mommy it's not on my shoes."
"Of course not dear, I'm sorry."
It was obvious that the mother was used to her daughter claiming she saw unicorns, probably an imaginary friend unless she had a unicorn stalker of her very own. Adam trotted up to stand bedside Kris and started nosing at the little girl's hands. She giggled and petted his mane. "Ohh soft!" She whispered and petted him again.
Adam thankfully took it with good grace and let her keep petting him while Kris got her new shoes on. It was actually a lot easier to get them on while she was too distracted by Adam to wiggle. He pressed the Velcro into place in under a minute."Alright sweetie, do you want to try and walk in your new shoes?"
She took a minute to look at him since she was still busy petting Adam. "Can he come with me?" She asked, pointing at Adam.
"Sure he can."
"Alright!" She hopped down and started to walk carefully down the aisle, her hand buried in Adam's mane. It was a ridiculously adorable picture. Though, he really needed to figure out a way to hid Adam before her mother came back. Which; would be any second.
He got up and followed her down the aisle. He caught up with her and Adam right as they turned around to head back up the aisle toward him.
"So how do they feel? Do they pinch anywhere?"
She shook her head. "I like them, though the unicorn isn't as pretty as your unicorn. " She glared down at the pink and purple unicorn that adorned the sides of her sneakers. She'd been ooing and awwing over it only a few minutes earlier, but Kris couldn't blame her for thinking that Adam was way more awesome.
He totally was. The cartoonish unicorns on their sneakers just didn’t have the same puppy dog eyes that Adam did. "No their not, but we don't have any unicorn shoes with a unicorn that looks like Adam."
She pouted, but at least she didn't start having a fit. He hated when the kids started screaming just because the store didn't have the shoes they wanted. It wasn’t like it was intentional, and he didn't understand what they thought screaming was going to do; besides deafen their parents and Kris.
He leaned out of the aisle so that he could see the front counter. It took a couple seconds of frantic waving for Allison to notice him, but she headed right over as soon as she did. He sighed in relief. He hadn't wanted Allison to know what was going on, but it was way more preferable to anybody else realizing that there was a unicorn in the store.
She came up to him, foot measure in hand, probably assuming that the one they kept in the kids section had gone missing again. Which it had, but thankfully for Kris he'd fitted the girl for her last pair of shoes, a few months before, so he hadn't needed to hunt through the entire store for the ruler.
"Hey Allison, can you do me a favor and take him back to the break room?” He asked as casually as he could while pointing at Adam." He didn’t want the mother realizing that anything strange was going on.
“Sure Kr-“ She started to say. Then she caught site of what exactly he was pointing at. “Is that a-“
He cut her off before she could finish the sentence. “Its snack time so could you take him to the break room and make sure he gets fed?”
“You want me to feed a uni-“
“Alli!” He hissed, cutting his eyes pointedly in the direction of the aisle where the little girl’s mother was still shopping.
The little girl tugged on his shirt sleeve. “Does he really have to go bye-bye already?”
He crouched down so that he didn’t have to raise his voice. “Yeah he does. He’s just a baby. He has to go have snacks and nap time or he’ll be cranky.” He shot a look in Adam’s direction hoping he’d take his cue to play along.
Surprisingly it seemed to work. Or maybe little unicorns really did have nap-times. Because, he opened his mouth in a huge yawn, which made the little girl giggle. “He’s so silly!”
“Yes he is.” He reached out to rub Adam behind the ears. “Can you say goodbye so Alli can take him to go get his nap?”
She pouted and kicked at the floor for a few seconds while she thought about it. “I guess, but I can come see him again, right?”
“If your Mommy says yes.”
“Alright, I guess he can go take a nap then.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
“Bye Unicorn.” She said, patting him on the head.
Of course Adam wasn’t as cooperative. When Allison tried to lead him away, he hid behind me instead. This was just not my day. I tried to grab him so that I could hand him over to her, but he was a slippery little guy and managed to get away to hide under the bench we had for kids to use when they needed to sit down to get their shoes on. At least he was out of sight as long as nobody was paying much attention.
Kris knelt down to look at him and used his best uncle voice. “That’s not very nice Adam. She said goodbye to you. The least you could do is say good bye back. Besides, I need you to go with Alli. I’ll come get you as soon as I can, but I have to finish working”
Adam scuffed his hooves against the carpet, his head drooping in an obvious pout, but he did follow Allison, which was more than Kris had been expecting.
“Unicorns don’t like nap-time either!” The little girl said. She sounded like she’d just figured out the biggest secret in the world.
For all Kris knew she had. Personally, he’d never known anything about unicorns being pouty or stubborn before Adams showed up on his front stoop. All the stories he’d ever heard talked about their honor and nobility, not the fact that they pointed like human toddlers and made puppy dog eyes when they didn’t get their way.
“Are you ready to get your new shoes?”
Kris practically jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t even heard the little girl’s Mom come up behind him. At least they’d managed to get Adam hidden just in time.
# # #
He got off break a few hours later and headed straight for the break room. He assumed everything would be going well, because there was no way that Allison could manage to keep Adam under control if he didn't want to be stuck. That at least had been thoroughly proven by the fact that he'd managed to not only escape Kris house but travel the three miles to his work wall without having the Unicorn rescue called on him. This really should have been impossible.
"Allison, how are things going?" He called through the cracked door.
He'd open it further once he was sure that Adam wasn’t going to be making a break for it at the first possible opportunity. Secret unicorn powers or not Adam was bound to get noticed if he started following Kris around the store.
"Everything is going awesome. Adam is so cool!" Allison squealed the last part and there were rustling noises that he suspected involved Adam getting squeezed within an inch of his life.
Assured that Adam was thoroughly corralled he opened the door the rest of the way and went inside. Allison was hugging Adam close to her chest. Somehow managing the octopus armed maneuver of hugging him, stroking his mane, and eating at the same time.
"Are you okay to watch the store while I take care of him during break?"
"Yeah, that's cool. Hopefully the manager doesn’t come by. Simon is such a hard-ass he'd probably call unicorn rescue himself. Even, if this little cutie-pie doesn't want to be separated from you." She rubbed him under the chin and he stretched up into her fingers like a big house cat. "Isn’t that right sweetheart. You don't want to go with some nasty Unicorn catchers when you could have Kris all to yourself."
"Allison, break time? Working the front of the store?" Allison’s harmless teasing was striking a little too close to Kris’ own insecurities. He really should call unicorn rescue. It would be nice to take Adam to the reserve himself, but it wasn’t like the rescue agency would hurt him. It was just…he couldn’t imagine giving Adam up any sooner than he absolutely had to.
As she passed him, he grabbed her wrist to stop her. "Thanks again for staying with him."
"Don't worry about it. He was a total sweet-heart."
Once, he was alone with Adam and he didn't have to worry about Allison having to call the asylum because he was talking to animals, he asked Adam, "So what were you and Allison up to? It looks like you were having fun."
Adam answered him by bouncing around the room until he managed to hop on top of the table and nose at the trash that covered it. Kris was about to grab the papers away from Adam, just in case he was about to mess up somebody’s time sheet. Then, he realized exactly what it was Adam was nosing at. Candy wrappers, and a lot of them. He said the only thing he could think of. "Oh shit!"
# # #
Alarm bells started ringing in Kris' head. He obviously should have been more specific hen he told Alli to get Adam a snack. There were a least four candy bar wrappers scattered on the break room table and Adam was still jumping around the room.
He was so screwed. All his plans to sneak Adam out quietly went up in smoke. There was no way he was going to be able to sneak a jumping, unicorn out of the strip mall without somebody noticing. Then Adam started glowing.
"Shit!" Kris backed up until he was leaning against the beak-room door. There was no way he wanted Adam making an escape now. He was glowing bright blue and what looked like glitter was starting to come off of his hooves. Kris was totally screwed.
Keeping one eye on Adam, just to make sure he wasn't trying anything funny, Kris cracked the door open an inch. "Alli." He hissed
She didn't seem to notice him, too busy eyeing the store.
"Alli!" He hissed louder.
She jerked and turned around to look at him. He waved for her to come closer with the two fingers that fit through the crack in the door.
After one more look at the store, she came over. "What is it? I'm working. There's actually a group of teenagers that look like they might by some shoes instead of just trying them on and messing up all of the boxes."
"I need you to look up how to get unicorns down from sugar highs."
She froze. "Wait---What?"
"Adam is on a sugar high." He opened the door an inch or two wider so that she'd be able to see Adam in all of his bouncing, glittery glory."
She stared slack-jawed at him.
"So can you please go see if there is any way to calm him back down?"
She nodded jerkily and backed away her eyes still glued to something above my head. Presumably, Adam was doing something dangerous and ridiculous, but I didn't dare take my eyes away from the door as long as it was open.
Once, she had backed away a few feet, she spun and speed walked over to the computer. He couldn't tell what she was doing from where he was sitting but he assumed it was researching unicorns.
Letting out a sigh of relief, he closed the door with a snap and finally let himself turn around to see what Adam had been doing. He was now bouncing up and down on the break room's old Salvaged couch. Letting off a shower of glitter every time he became air born. Kris groaned and closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch. The new, glittery couch was going to be really hard to explain to his boss.
# # #
Adam eventually got bored with jumping on the couch and moved on to trying to decorate the table. He left glittery hoof-prints everywhere and pouted whenever the glitter made him sneeze and a pile of glitter went flying off of the table.
Kris had moved beyond horror now and couldn’t keep from laughing at his ridiculous antics. If this was what all baby unicorns acted like, then it’s no wonder nobody ever saw them. It would totally ruin the unicorn’s reputation for being calm and acting with decorum if somebody saw them trying to decorate everything in sight with glitter. Or punk drunk on chocolate bars and gummy bears.
His laughter had the unfortunate side effect of drawing Adams attention to him. He bounced off the table and came to sit on Kris’ lap. Then he proceeded to try and make Kris’ bright orange apron glittery.
While Kris could understand the impulse to make the apron less of an eye soar, he wasn’t really sure if glitter is going to help the situation. Bright orange, or bright orange and sparkly. Either way it was going to be ugly.
Also, if Kris kept trying to spread glitter on him with his hooves, then Kris was going to have hoof shaped bruises all over his chest.
He pushed back on Adam’s chest, trying to get him to back up a little. It didn't work since Adam just got annoyed and grabbed a mouthful of his apron. So, they were basically playing tug of war with him instead of actually getting anything productive accomplished.
Then, Adam managed to get a nose full of the glitter from the apron and go into a sneezing fit. He couldn’t seem to stop. He just kept sneezing and wheezing.
Kris dropped him on the couch and ran for the water fountain to get him a cup of water so that hopefully he'd be able to stop sneezing. It wasn't until Kris was halfway through filling the cup that he realized that the sneezing had stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Turning around warily, the half filled cup clenched in his hand, he say Adam jumping up and down on the couch again only this time with Kris' apron under him so that it was getting the majority of the glitter.
Kris groaned, he should have seen that trick coming. Adam was a devious brat when he wanted to be. Since, Adam was too busy to need the water; Kris drank it instead, before sitting down on at the break room table. He almost put his elbow down on a pile of the glitter before he realized it was there. How long could a sugar rush possibly last anyway? Adam had to calm down soon, right? Otherwise, he was going to have to bite the bullet and call the Unicorn Rescue.
The door opened and he realized, too late, that in his annoyance about this apron and being tricked he'd completely forgotten about blocking the door. Adam went streaking across the floor and between Allison's legs before Kris even got close to catching him.
That was just great now he was going to have to chase a sugar high and glittery baby unicorn around the store. Could this day get any better?
“I’m so sorry!” Allison said.
He managed a perfunctory “its fine.” While, he was pushing past her and running after Adam. Thankfully, it looked like the store had emptied out of customers while he and Adam had been holed up in the break rom. “Can you quick lock the door and put up the gone to lunch sign for me?” He called over his shoulder.
“Adam!” He yelled. Adam was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean much. There were tons of places to hide in the store as many an annoyed parent had discovered when they were trying to chase down a toddler who’d decided to take their new shoes for a test drive. Hopefully, he hadn’t used whatever freaky door unlocking ability he’d used to get out of Kris’ house to get out of the store. That would be really bad.
Kris started his search in the kids section. Just in case Adam thought that he’d be able to see his little friend again. There were sparkly hoof-prints on the top of the bench he’d been hiding under, but otherwise there were no signs that he’d even been there.
He had equally bad luck in the women’s section and the men’s dress shoes. He headed to the running section without much hope. Where would he go if he was a glitter obsessed unicorn looking for a place to hide?
Unfortunately, role playing had never been his specialty, and he really didn't know where he’d go if he was a glitter obsessed unicorn. Maybe ladies dress shoes? They weren't particularly sparkly this season. Everything was sedated and usually made of various shades of matt leather. Maybe, Adam would like the patent leather shoes, since they were shiny, but he had his doubts.
"Allison, do you have any idea where he went?" He called.
“No, I already checked out the lower racks near the front and expect for a few glittery foot prints and the occasional box that looks like somebody tried to bedazzle it, I’ve got nothing."
"Adam!" He called again. Not holding out much hope it would work. It didn't. Wherever he was Adam had obviously found something to entertain himself with. Which should have been a relief but totally wasn’t. How the hell had he gotten so attached to the little terror in just one day?
Where the hell was he? Kris forced himself to calm down and take a few deep breaths. It wouldn’t do any good to panic. While he was taking a few deep breaths, he heard a thump….thump noise coming from the back of the store, where they ha bargain shoes. It didn’t sound like hooves but since he could see Allison up front, walking up and down the aisles, it had to be Adam.
He snuck down the aisle as quietly as he could planning to take Adam by surprise. He might as well not have bothered. Adam was so distracted he didn’t even notice him. He stayed concentrated on the pair of shoes he’d found on the five dollar rack. They were so sparkly and purple that Kris couldn’t tell if Adam had put glitter on them or they’d come like that.
Either way Adam was obviously in love. He’d pick one of the shoes up in his mouth and then drop it. The little flowers on the toes and the heels lit up and flashed various shades of purple and pink.
Adam watched the lights avidly, swaying back and forth, until the cycle cut off and the shoes went dark again. Then, he’d pick up the other shoe and start the process all over again.
“Oh my God, I got a unicorn high!” Kris yelled.
Adam flicked an ear in his direction, and turned to glare for a second before turning his attention back to the shoes.
He heard Allison running up to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Adam and the shoes. She froze as soon as she got even with him and saw Adam. “We actually got a unicorn high! We’re totally going to jail for defacing a national treasure.”
Kris glared at her out of the corner of his eye. “Could you be any more dramatic?”
“Oh please, like you weren’t thinking the same things.”
Sadly enough that was true. He had been thinking pretty much the same thing. “At least he looks happy?”
“Oh yeah, that’s a great excuse to tell the Unicorn Protection Service. Well officer we got a baby unicorn high, but don’t worry he enjoyed it. So everything is okay.”
Well when she put it that way. Still it wasn’t like there was anything they could do about it now. As the saying went ‘the horse was already out of the gate’. They were so screwed.
# # #
He bought the shoes, because they were only five dollars, and more importantly, he was a complete sucker when it came to Adam’s puppy dog eyes.
# # #
Kris stopped at the organic food store on the way back to his house. Adam was still busy trying to rub the glitter off of the shoes and onto his coat. When he wasn’t dropping them from where he was curled up in the passenger’s seat, onto the floor so he could watch them light up. He was nickering to himself softly the whole time.
Kris shook his head at his antics. At least he was distracted enough that he probably wouldn’t notice if Kris left him alone for a little while. It would have been better if he could have taken Adam in with him, but there was no way he could keep Adam a secret if he took him inside. Even if Adam did stay in the cart, which Kris didn’t think was likely.
He really didn’t feel up to chasing Adam around another store. Reaching over, he ruffled Adam’s mane. “I promise I’ll be right back, so stay in the car, okay?”
Adam dropped his shoe onto the floor instead of answering.
He probably wasn’t going to be going anywhere if the way he was staring at the shoes was anything to go by. It wouldn’t take him long to pick up something for Adam’s dinner. As long as the windows were rolled down he’d be fine. It wasn’t like he’d get overheated on such a nice day.
It only took him about fifteen minutes in the store but by the time he’d come back Adam was fast asleep and snoring softly. Kris picked one of the shoes up out of the foot-well and tucked it up next to Adam. Then he stuck the bag of groceries in the foot well instead.
He turned on the radio for the rest of the drive home. Singing softly along with the old country hits. Adam seemed to like it, since he shuffled over the bench seat to nuzzle against Kris’ side. Kris took his hand off the steering wheel to scratch around the base of Adam’s horn.
Adam yawned, which was far too adorable, before collapsing against Kris’ side with a snore. It was going to be terrible when he had to take Kris to the Unicorn sanctuary the next day.
# # #
Kris ended up having to carry both the groceries and Adam into the house. Adam woke up enough to complain when Kris almost left one of his shoes behind in the car, but not enough to try and get down from Kris’ arms. Rolling his eyes, Kris slipped the shoes into his grocery bag. They hadn’t been worn so it wasn’t like they’d contaminate the food.
He set Adam down on the couch, with his sparkly shoes, and one of the carrots from his bag of groceries. Just in case Adam woke up hungry, before Kris had a chance to finish making dinner.
Adam wandered into the kitchen, his hooves clattering against the linoleum. He was dragging one of his sneakers by the shoe string. It thumped-thumped behind him. “Feel better after your nap, Adam?”
Adam nickered before hopping up onto one of the kitchen chairs, still dragging his sneaker behind it. It knocked against the table leg and started flashing, which caused Adam to start rubbing his head against it trying to get the glitter off again.
“I guess still working on getting over the sugar rush. Hopefully dinner will help.” At least that way cooking an entire pot full of carrot and cinnamon oat mash would have been worth all of the trouble. He hated cooking, but there was no way he was going to make Adam keep surviving on dried oatmeal. Not after the day he’d had.
He served up a bowl of the mush and put it on the table next to the chair Adam had commandeered, before getting a couple of pieces of cold pizza out of the fridge for himself. He had to clear some half-finished sheets of music off the table, but then he was free to sit down across from Adam. Who was nose-first in his bowl of mash.
“I take it you like the food?”
He made a happy churring noise in the back of his throat, before sticking his nose back into his bowl.
Kris chuckled, taking that as a sign he should turn his attention back to his own food.
# # #
After dinner, which consisted of half a cold pizza for Kris and three bowls of mash for Adam, the two of them curled up together on the couch. Kris used the opportunity to fiddle with his guitar. He still hadn’t figured out the ending to the song he was writing last night.
Adam was still happily trying to figure out the shoes. Though, he seemed to finally be aware enough to figure out that he couldn’t get the glitter off of shoes, he was still completely fascinated by the flashing lights.
That was fine with Kris, as long as he didn’t start shedding glitter all over his couch like he had in the break room. After a few minutes he was convinced that Adam was too busy trying to get the shoes onto his feet to start shedding glitter, he turned his attention back to his guitar.
He hummed a few bars of the tune he’d been working on, strumming along, before finally starting to sing softly to himself.
“Better days are sure to come
I don’t wanna come undone
So show me what I’m living for, yeah…”
There was a thump and clatter of a shoe hitting the floor, and then a ball of warmth careened into his shins. “Adam? Are you okay?”
Adam churned and kept rubbing against Kris’ legs. “Okay, I guess you’re not okay, huh? Leaning over, he picked Adam up, and cuddled him against his chest. “Are you still having problems with your sugar high?”
Whimpering, Adam rubbed his horn against Kris’ chest. “Alright buddy, its fine. We’ll cuddle up on the couch until you’re feeling better.”
He curled up on the couch with Adam carefully cuddled in his lap. Adam kept whimpering though. So obviously there was something Kris was missing. Maybe Unicorn’s got stomach aches when they ate too many sweets. Then again, had Adam gone to the bathroom once since he’d shown up at the house that morning.
He couldn’t really say, since Adam had just kind of appeared at the store, so he could have theoretically used the bathroom at some point. Still that was a long time for the little guy to have to wait between potty breaks. “How about we go outside? I bet you could use a break.”
Adam pulled his head away from Kris’ chest, in order to tilt his head to look at Kris out of the corner of his eyes. Kris took that to mean that Adam needed to go out. “Alrighty then. To the back yard!”
Adam didn’t seem impressed by his false cheer. Not that Kris could blame him. Potty humor wasn’t his specialty.
# # #
To distract himself from the sheer embarrassment factor of having had to take Adam to the back yard, Kris decided to distract himself by helping Adam with his shoes.
“Come on Adam, I have a surprise for you?”
He didn’t even hear the clop - clop of Adam’s hooves in reply. Which probably meant the unicorn was still sulking in the laundry room. Kris rolled his eyes. He really should just leave Adam there, until he got bored and came out on his own, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty.
It wasn’t like he’d enjoyed forcing Adam to hide behind a bush to use the bathroom, he just couldn’t think of any way for Adam to use the toilet between his tiny size and his hooves. “Come on Adam, I know you can hear me.”
There was a huff from the laundry room.
“I heard that.”
After a muffled chirp and some rustling, probably from Adam fooling around in his laundry basket, the laundry room went quiet again.
Kris sighed. “Please Adam? I promise it’s a good surprise.”
The tip of Adam’s nose poked around the edge of the doorway.
“It involves your shoes? He wheedled.
Adam moved forward enough to stick his entire head into the living room.
Kris held up Adam’s shoes as a peace offering.
It took a minute for Adam to decide what to do. He looked back and forth between the laundry room and living room a few times, before finally clip - clopping his way over to Kris. It was pretty obvious he was still pouting, from the way he was refusing to look at Kris.
Unfortunately for him, he was too cute for Kris to be bothered by the pouting. It just made him want to ruffle Adam’s mane. Since, he was pretty sure that would get him at least a nip to the fingers, Kris managed to ignore the impulse.
Instead of ruffling Adam’s mane, Kris crouched down until they were eye to eye. “Can I have one of your hooves?”
Adam shifted back and forth, thinking about it, before offering his right, front hoof. Kris opened the right shoe’s Velcro and stretched the sides of the shoe out as far they would go, with the ease of long years working in the shoe business.
The sneakers slipped over Adam’s hoof and after some careful finagling velcroed into place. Adam stared at his foot in fascination. Cautiously tapping his foot against the floor, his eyes went wide when the sneaker immediately lit up. He stuck his other front hoof out to Kris without any further prompting.
Stifling a chuckle, Kris slipped the other shoe on and secured the Velcro. Adam was off, hopping and skipping around the room, trailed by a cloud of glitter, before Kris even realized he’d moved. Despite, how much work it was going to be to clean the house up, he was really glad to see Adam so happy.
He stood up to go get the broom, so he could clean up the glitter trail before it could be spread over the whole house, when he was bowled over with exhaustion. He yawned and weaved on his feet. He looked guilty towards the kitchen. He really should get everything cleaned up tonight. He yawned again, before he could even take a step towards the kitchen.
So cleaning wasn’t going to happen. Oh, well he’d have tomorrow to do it. Besides, after Adam was back at the sanctuary Kris would need something to distract him from moping.
“Come on buddy, time for bed!” he called. He was already heading towards his bedroom.
He stopped when Adam chirped curiously. Turning so that he was partially facing the living room, he saw Adam staring at his shoes. “You can bring them with you silly, I’m sure you won’t ruin my sheets just because you’re wearing shoes.”
Adam chirped happily and hopped passed Kris, heading for the bedroom. “Don’t get glitter on the bed!”
He didn’t need the sound of somebody bouncing on his bed to tell him that he probably wasn’t going to be lucky enough to have a glitter free bed. Well, it could be worse. He could be alone in the bed.
By the time Kris turned out the lights and checked that all of the doors were locked, Adam had curled up, under the blanket until only a bit of his horn and mane were showing. At least the glitter seemed confined to Adam’s half of the bed. Since Adam didn’t seem to be feeling sociable, Kris rubbed around the base of his horn instead of saying good night.
# # #
The second time Kris woke up in a strange meadow, he didn’t expect to be surprised. It was hard to be surprised in dreams, after all. Of course, that was before Adam showed up, still decked out in sparkly sneakers. His sub-conscious obviously had issues
He ran across the meadow until he could cuddle against Kris’ side. Which, really, shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was. ~Are you alright, my Kris? ~
Kris ran his fingers through Adam’s mane, trying to calm him down. Even if this Adam was just a construct made up by his mind, he didn’t want him to be upset. “I’m fine Adam, though you exhausted me with all you’re running around today. I thought I was going to have a heart-attack when you disappeared today.”
Adam lowered his head, until he wasn’t quite looking at Kris. Waves of embarrassment emanated from his hunched form. Kris pulled him into a hug. “I’m not mad. I promise. I was just really worried. You were acting really crazy after you had all of that sugar.”
~ I’m sorry my Kris, it just tasted so good! ~
“I know it did buddy.” It wasn’t like Adam would have known he wasn’t supposed to eat candy. Not if he’d been raised by people who actually knew what they were doing when it came to raising baby unicorns. “I just didn’t like not knowing where you were.”
~ If you’d agree to be my Blessed, you would know where I was. ~
Kris snorted. Adam wasn’t doing a good job of acting sly, though he shouldn’t have been surprised. This was just a figment of his imagination. It only made sense that it would offer him the one thing he’d been trying not to dream about all day. “You don’t need a shoe sales man for a blessed, Adam”
~ But I want you to be my Blessed! ~ That came out as a definite whine.
“I want that too buddy, but it’s not going to happen.” He scratched behind Adam’s ears, in apology for being so harsh.
When Adam looked up at him, there was a gleam to his eyes that Kris didn’t recognize. ~ Do you promise that you’ll stay with me and take care of me as long as you have the strength to do so? ~
“Of course!” Did Adam think that he’d abandon him before he made sure he was safe at a sanctuary, where they could take proper care of him? Or was this his brains screwed up way of addressing his doubts about being able to give Adam to somebody else to care for?
~ Do you swear? ~ Adam insisted.
“I swear.” He answered. Before he could think better of it.
The twinkle in Adam’s eyes was downright devious. ~ I swear to make sure that you are never alone or lonely again, and to make sure you know what your living for. ~
That sounded really permanent. Kris was about to object, but he lost hold of the dream before he could. Strangely, though, he could still hear Adam’s voice in his head. ~We’ll be together forever now, my Kris, my Blessed. This I swear.~
# # #
He didn’t know how much longer he slept, but when he woke up, Adam was staring at him. He ruffled his hand through Adam’s mane, amused to see that only one of Adam’s shoes had managed to stay on during the night.
“Good morning, Adam,” he said. Not expecting a reply.
So he was pretty sure he was justified in letting out a shriek when a familiar voice echoed through his head. ~ Good Morning, my Kris~
“Adam?” He asked, hardly willing to believe it.
~ You’re going to be amazing, my Kris. One day you’re music is going to change the world. I’ll make sure of it. ~ He used his teeth to tug the blanket back up to Kris’ chest. ~ For now though, sleep. ~
Kris wanted to argue, but he was feeling overwhelmed, and the warmth of Kris curled against his side was making him sleepy. He guessed it would be okay to go back to sleep. Not that it seemed like he was going to have much of a choice. His eyes were already closing, without his permission.
It was alright though. After all, he had the rest of his life with Adam to figure out what they were going to do.
# # #
Fin
Author: chibifukurou
Artist: deannawesson
Type: Friendship, Fantasy
Word Count:11,000
Rating: Pg
Characters/Pairings: Kris & Adam soulbonded
Warnings Adam is a little OC since he's a baby unicorn
Summary: Kris is a failed musician who’s planning to spend the rest of his life working as a shoe-salesmen. Maybe even owning his own shoe store one day. He doesn’t want to be hurt by dreaming bigger ever again.
That all changes when a pint-sized, blue eyes, glittery unicorn comes barging into his life. The unicorn claims him as one of the Blessed, the bonded partners of unicorn kind, much to Kris’ annoyance.
Fic master Post | Story on Ao3
Art master post
Kris was woken up by something or somebody pounding on his door. It sounded weird. Instead, of the usual rattle of the door knocker or the thump of a fist against the door. It sounded more like a rattle -clop -rattle-clop.
Annoyed, even though he shouldn’t really blame whoever was pounding down his door for the fact he'd stayed up until four in the morning writing a song, he stomped out of his room, through the living room, to the front door.
He wrenched it open. Nobody was there. If this was a 'ding dong ditch' he was going to be really annoyed. He stuck his head out of the door, making sure that his boxer clad lower half stayed out of sight. Not that it mattered because there wasn't anybody there.
He started to close the door. Already planning what he'd do to the little hooligans if they tried to ding dong ditch him again, when there was a sharp neigh from somewhere around his feet. He froze. He really didn't want to know what was neighing at his feet, but it another neigh meant he couldn't ignore it without feeling guilty.
Slowly, he lowered his eyes to survey his front stoop.
There was a pint-sized unicorn standing in front of his door! What was a unicorn doing in front of his door in the middle of Arkansas?
They were supposed to be mostly out west, or in the New York area, well there and Washing DC. They weren't supposed to find failing musicians in the mid-west. He flapped his hands at the cute little thing in an attempt to get him to leave. "Go on, you're at the wrong house okay?"
It didn't seem to be able to understand him? He'd never seen a unicorn this small before. What if it had wandered away from its parents or the blessed that was supposed to be looking after it? What if it was lost?
He couldn't just leave it out on his front porch, who knows what would happen to it? He stared at it for a second trying to ignore his inner mother-hen and firm his resolve. He was not going to let the foal into his house. He'd get attached and then where would he be? Unicorns weren't pets. He bit his lip, determined that he was going to shoo it away again. Then, he made the tactical mistake of looking down at it. It stared back at him with big blue eyes and the most potent puppy dog eyes he'd ever seen.
He was such a sucker. "Alright little guy, why don't you come in I'll see if I can find you something to eat." He backed out of the doorway and opened the door enough that the unicorn should be able to get inside without much trouble. It gave a happy whinny and clipity-clopped in. Only to lose traction and go sliding across the hallway into the laundry room when it hit his hard-wood floors.
"Dang it!" He cursed and hurried over to where it had landed in a pile of his dirty laundry. "Are you okay?"
It's head popped out from the laundry pile. A pair of plaid boxers over its horn and one ear; and if unicorns could grin that was definitely what it was doing. It was practically glowing with happiness. It was also utterly adorable.
If all unicorns were as cute as this little guy it was a wonder their Blessed managed to get anything done. Of course Kris wasn't one of the Blessed so that might be why he was so unable to process the cuteness. Maybe, being bonded with a unicorn meant that you were immune or something.
"Come on, sweetheart; let’s see if we can find you something to eat." He called. Since, the little guy seemed more interested in romping around among his dirty laundry, batting socks around, than coming to get food.
What did unicorns eat anyway? He thought he might have some left over carrots or something in the fridge. Would the unicorn eat that, or was he supposed to feed him grass or something? If he was then a trip to the park was definitely going to be in order. His townhouse had a yard, if you could call it that, but all that grew in the little patch of ground, was weeds.
He got a bowl out of the cupboard and filled it full of water. The unicorn tried to climb it to get to him and the water. It made him feel like he was having one of his momma's dogs over for a visit and he was petting the fool thing’s mane before he even though about the fact that it might be sacrilegious. He froze as soon as he realized what he had done, but the unicorn wasn't having any of it and started nudging his hand. Again, Kris was struck by the similarities between baby unicorns and dots. Accordingly, he scratched it behind its little pointed ears which lean into his legs hard.
He had to brace himself against the kitchen counter to keep from toppling over. "Whoa, there, you got to be more careful. I almost tipped the both of us over onto the floor." He said, even though he knew that it couldn’t understand him he couldn't resist talking to it.
Its little face was just so expressive. "What am I going to do with you, Huh?" He asked making sure that he didn't slow down the scratches. He wouldn’t' want to upset it or anything, besides its mane was silky smooth and it was making the cutest little purring noises in the back of its throat.
After five minutes of petting he was starting to get a cramp in his leg from leaning against the counter top. He carefully pushed back on the center of its chest to get it to back up and crouched down so that they were on the same level. The bowl of water went down on the linoleum and the unicorn seemed happy enough to switch off pets for water.
Which thankfully, let him get back to his earlier problem of what to feed it? It was tiny and cute and acted like a really intelligent dog, or maybe a toddler. Either way it probably wouldn't appreciate him trying to feed it pet food or anything, and exploration of his fridge didn't reveal any yummy looking vegetables. He had one apple, but he doubted that would keep it full for long.
So, time for his backup plan: the internet. Surely somebody would have posted something about what to feed unicorns. If the little guy had wandered away and found himself in a strange place, some other little unicorn had to have done the same thing before.
Then, there was a strange scrapping sound coming from behind him. He turned around and found the unicorn nosing his bowl of water around the linoleum trying to drink from it and ending up going in circles chasing the bowl instead. He was just too cute.
Kris shook himself and forced himself to stop thinking about how cute it was. He couldn't get attached. He wasn't going to get to keep him. Unicorns had better things to do with their time then to spend it with failed musicians turned shoe sales men.
He forced himself to march out of the kitchen and to his bedroom to get his computer. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder when he heard the thump of a bowl hitting the cabinets.
He was strong and he wasn't going to get attached. He most definitely wasn't going to name it. No matter how much he wanted to.
He grabbed his computer from where it was hidden under his blankets and took it out to the living room. Because, he was going to have better light there, he assured himself. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that he wanted to be sure the unicorn could find him if he finished his water and got lonely.
He wasn't that pathetic.
The internet was surprisingly unhelpful when it came to figuring out what to feed little unicorns. There was a large community of pictures of baby and adolescent unicorns. None as cute as his unicorn, he thought, before he caught himself. At least nobody was there to see him blush.
There were accounts of people meeting baby unicorns and their Blessed, but none about unicorns wandering into strange places and getting themselves lost.
He wasn't going to be deterred just because there weren't a lot of people willing to talk about their own past happenings with unicorns.
He typed in a few different searches that dealt more with feeding unicorns than lost unicorns and was finally able to find a site, Hit 56 on Google, was some poor guy’s thesis project dealing with unicorn husbandry. There he was able to learn about oats, hay, horses, and shit but, it didn't really help him know anything besides the fact that you never EVER wanted to give a baby unicorn refined sugar. Then, just in case you didn't understand the first time, or maybe were too stupid to take the warning seriously the Thesis project added a couple EVERS, or rather the masters degree version of it.It seemed to involve the use of the words Unadvisable and Dire Consequences every few sentences.
While the no processed sugars thing was a little worrying the fact that the unicorn could eat oats was a good thing. He had a can of Quaker oats in the back of his cabinets. It probably wasn't the healthiest thing he could feed the little guy; but it probably wouldn't hurt him for a few meals.
He was about to look up the number for the nearest unicorn habitat, since he was pretty sure you couldn’t just put up posters like for a lost dog, when something soft and wet started nudging at his shin. He had a pretty good idea of who it was, but he looked warily around his computer screen just to be sure.
As expected it was the unicorn. Nose still dripping from the water he'd been drinking. "Hi buddy, did you get lonely?"
- It missed and landed on its butt. Feet splayed in all directions. It glared balefully at the couch. Like, it had intentionally jumped away so that the unicorn couldn't jump on to it.
Chucking softly to himself, Kris reached down and grabbed it around the legs, before plopping it down on his lap.
Honestly. That was not the best plan he'd ever come up with. It turned out that no matter how small the unicorn in question was, they had really hard hooves that didn't mix well with the soft flesh around a humans lap. He couldn't stifle the loud groan and FUCK that came out when one of its hooves came into contact with his groin.
After, some frantic shuffling around on both of their parts, they ended up side by side on the couch. The unicorn tucked under his arm with its head on his chest while the other hand was cupped protectively over his groin.
He was going to have to get up and get himself a bag of frozen ice or something soon. Just to be sure there wasn’t any swelling, but for now this was awesome. The unicorn was an amazing hot water bottle and he was so soft. Kris felt himself falling to sleep despite himself and his worries about what he was supposed to do with said baby unicorn.
The smart thing to do would be to look up the number for the local Unicorn Rescue Department, but he was too sleepy. Besides, he’d have plenty of time to look for the number after he woke up.
# # #
He dreamed that he was lying in a meadow with flowers all around him with the unicorn was at his side. It was awake though, and he feels it nose him upright when it realizes he's awake too.
~Hi Kris!~
He heard the words in his head. Soft as the unicorn's mane and warmer than anything he could ever remember. He stared at it in shock, but he was dreaming. He shouldn't be surprised by talking unicorns. Wasn't the first rule of dreaming is that everything is supposed to make sense in dream-word?
Of course, the only alternate explanation was that he actually was the unicorns blessed. He's always heard the stories about the epic bond between Unicorns and their blessed. People said they could talk to each other, even though unicorns couldn't really talk. "This is impossible."
~It's not impossible my Kris.~
"Yeah, it kind of is. You’re a unicorn; you can't talk to anybody that isn't your blessed, and there is no way that you're going to choose a shoe salesman as your partner. It's not like I can do anything useful for you."
It gave him another one of those glows smiles, like when it had been romping among his underwear. ~You're so much more than a shoe-seller. You're going to be amazing. I'll make sure of it.~
Even in his dreams the unicorn was too cute.
~Don’t worry, my Kris. We'll have plenty of time together to figure things out. Right now all you need to know is that I'm Adam.~
"Adam…" When he'd been thinking about naming the unicorn he'd been thinking about names like Glitter or Trouble, but now that he'd heard the name Adam it just felt right. Like, there was no other name that would fit his unicorn."
Adam curled up against his chest. ~Go to sleep. You need your rest. We'll talk about your future when we wake up~
# # #
He woke up when his phone alarm went off. He was still asleep on the couch and it had been the best hours of sleep he'd had in forever. The unicorn was still leaned up against his side and was a comforting weight. He gave himself a few seconds to run his hair through Adam's silky mane. That was just great he'd started thinking of it as Adam now. Just because of a stupid dream. He didn't want to get up, but he had to.
His shift started in an hour and it would take at least fifteen minutes to drive to the shoe store. Before, that he needed to get redressed, have breakfast, and figure out a way to feed his new unicorn room-mate.
He poked him in the nose, and he snuffled and wiggled. One of its ears flicked in Kris' direction. "Come on, you need to wake up. I need to get up and I can't do that while you're on top of me."
Adam glared at him. He was actually better at it than he had any right to be. What with eyes that big and soft. "I am such a sucker."
Since, it was obvious that the unicorn didn't want to get up, Kris picked it up instead. This time he was careful to avoid its hooves. He grumbled a bit before settling against Kris' chest.
Kris carried him into the bedroom and propped him up on the pillows. Adam burrowed under the sheets until only his ears and horn were visible. Kris bit his lip to keep from laughing but he had more important things to worry about. Most importantly like getting ready for work.
By the time he managed to shave, dress, and splash some water on his face to make up for the fact he didn't have any time to take a shower, Adam had fallen back to sleep, rolled up into a tight little ball under the blankets.
Kris left him there and went o prepare their breakfast. Hopefully the oats would be enough to fill Adam up. He didn't have anything else that was on the approved list of unicorn food.
It wasn't like he made a habit of keeping a bale of hay around, and the oatmeal with 'real fruit' in it also had sugar. He wasn't brave enough to deal with a unicorn not on a sugar rush. Not after having being woken up early, having his home invaded by a baby unicorn, and taking a nap which involved really weird dreams.
He set the bowl of oats down onto the linoleum and settled with a couple of slices of toast and a big cup of coffee for himself. Since, Adam still hadn't woken up after he'd served breakfast, he was thinking that it might be a good idea if he left for work now.
He didn't want Adam moping or trying to follow him out of the town house. That would be really hard to explain and he didn't think there was any explanation that wouldn't get the Unicorn Sanctuary called.
Since, he'd decided on course of action, he snuck back into the bedroom to retrieve his wallet, keys, and coat. Adam still looked asleep but he didn't dare to get close enough to check.
Sneaking back out of the room, he headed for the front door. He'd only made it half-way there when there was a large clattering of hooves and Adam appeared out of nowhere, right between Kris and the door.
Well so much for that plan. "Hey Adam. I thought you were still asleep."
Adam plopped down in front of the door and stared up at Kris, again with the puppy dog eyes. "I left you breakfast in the kitchen if you want to go check it up."
Adam stayed where he was and gave Kris a look that pretty clearly managed to express just what his thoughts about eating breakfast and letting Kris escape out the door were.
“Come on, Adam. I need to get to work. Can you please go eat your breakfast so that I can leave.”
Adam got up from where he’d been sitting in front of the door, but he still didn’t let Kris go. He grabbed hold of Kris’ khaki’s with his teeth and started dragging him back into the kitchen. Kris sighed, but let himself be dragged. Hopefully, he’d be able to get away once Adam got distracted by breakfast.
Adam went after the food like he as starving half to death. It made Kris feel guilty for not feeding him before they'd' taken their nap. Even, though, Adam had shown no signs of wanting food while he was trying to jump up on the couch.
Maybe, this was just the way that baby unicorns eat. It was certainly messy enough. There were oats all over the floor and it was going to take him a while to clean up once he got back home.
For now he needed to try and get out the door again. He really did need to get going or he was going to be late for work and he needed the money if he was going to pay for the food he was going to need to get for Adam.
The thesis papers had recommended organic fruits and vegetables pretty highly since they didn't have the kind of pesticides that could made unicorns sick, and even if he was just going to take Adam to the habitat on Saturday, the next day, he still wasn't going to make him eat rolled oats for every meal. There was no way for him to know if Adam was getting sick or not so he was going to have to buy the best food and hope nothing went wrong.
Once Adam started nosing the bowl of oats around the kitchen floor the same way he'd nosed his water bowl around a few hours before, Kris made a break for it. Slowly, backing out of the kitchen and into the living room. This time he didn't have to go back for his wallet or keys so it was easy to tiptoe out without giggling the whole way while he worked to stuff the keys into his pocket.
He actually managed to get the door partially open before here was a clatter of hooves from the kitchen. He half jumped out of the door and onto the stoop, while slamming the door behind him. There was a thump the thunk-clop knock of Adam's hooves against the door, but Kris forced down the urge to open the door to check that Adam was okay.
If he was attempting to batter the door down then he had to be fine.
# # #
He managed to clock in to work with 30 seconds to spare. At least he was on afternoon shift so he didn’t have to fight with the security system on getting the doors unlocked. That would have made him late.
“Hi Kris!” Allison called as soon as he got through the door. She couldn’t see him from where she was working up front, but she’d know he was the person scheduled to work the afternoon shift with her.
“Hi Allison!” He called back.
He used the back computer to check in and grabbed his apron from the pegs beside the back door. It was bright orange and had the "Shoe Palace" logo emblazed on the front.
It was ugly as sin but at least it meant that as long as Kris was wearing khakis he could wear pretty much any shirt he wanted underneath.
Which meant that he hadn't had to spend a lot of money he didn't have paying for orange polo shirts or an anything else he'd never wear again in his life if he ever stopped working at the store.
Though, the possibility of starting his music career and leaving it all behind seemed to be becoming more and more unlikely. Except; for the occasional open mike night, he hadn't had a gig in over three months.
"Everything going okay?" He asked Allison, as he came up behind to stand beside her at the counter.
"Bore if that's what you mean." She said. Her attention was almost completely on her phone. Thumbs flying over the keyboard at a speed that made Kris’ fingers whimper in sympathy for her joints.
"We had a couple kids in earlier looking at the latest Sketchers but that’s been about it. We haven't even had any grannies come to get their reeboks."
"Well that might change now that it’s later in the afternoon. Their grandkids can give them rides once they’re out of the school. So, no need to give up hope."
Allison glanced up at him in her patented. ‘You are completely crazy, Kris Allen’ look "Only you would think that teenagers would actually agree to bring their grandparents to the shoe store.
"What? People need shoes and it only makes since for grandkids to drive their grandparents to go shopping if they don't have any other way to get around."
"Sure Allen. It makes perfect sense." She turned back to her phone.
Since, he didn't want to keep fighting about it, and there wasn't any need to have two people working the counter, he headed out onto the floor, so he could start straightening shoe boxes and switching around the display shoes. It was mindless work, but that was good because it left him plenty of time to figure out what he was going to do about his unicorn house-guest. It was too bad he couldn’t just keep Adam though.
That was a stupid thought though. He was not Blessing materiel. No matter how tempting the idea of having Adam in his life was. Unicorns were supposed to pick their bonded from people who could have a large effect on the world. He was a shoe salesman, maybe he’d own a shoe-store someday and sell shoes to some important person, but that was about the extent of the affect he could have on the world.
Once he was sure that Allison was busy ranting in the spike heel section he figured he didn’t have any other excuses for putting off finding the number for the Unicorn Rescue Squad. Ranting and rearranging boxes would keep her busy for at least fifteen minutes or more since she took vicious glee in detailing all the ways each of the shoes could kill you.
He minimized the check-out software and opening up the browser. It had very limited use, since it was mostly supposed to be used when they needed to special order a pair of shoes for a customer or check the stock in other Shoe Palace stores to see if they had the shoes, but it wasn't like Kris was planning to do any in-depth research. He just needed to find a number that wouldn’t take him to Unicorn Rescue and then he'd go from there.
For having a tiny Blessed community, Arkansas actually did have a fairly high number of habitat groups. This was great, except it made it kind of hard to figure out which one he was supposed to call. Just like with his earlier computer searches that morning, none of these sights have any directions for what to do in case you found a lost unicorn foal. There was the emergency rescue squad number, but this really wasn’t an emergency. He ignored his conscience which was prodding him to call anyway because somebody might be worried about Adam. He was perfectly capable of taking care of Adam.
There was no reason Adam couldn’t stay with him for a few more days. Kris would be able to take him to the habitat himself if he waited for the weekend. That would probably be better than calling the emergency line, anyway.
He was so busy trying to justify his decision to keep Adam around for a little longer that he completely missed Allison creeping up behind him until her arms wrapped around his waist. “What are you up too that has you actually breaking store policy and using the computer for personal reasons?”
“Nothing!” He quickly x-ed out of the site so she couldn’t see what he’d been doing, but he already knew he’d be in for a lot of teasing on the subject.
He wasn’t disappointed when Allison started laughing at him. “Oh, come on you didn’t even hear me sneak up on you, and you weren’t doing your usual creepy staring into space and pretending to play guitar without noticing it move.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just a little distracted.”
She let go of him and moved so that she was leaning back against the counter, next to the computer. “Mm-hmmm. Which is why you hid what you were doing from me; because there was nothing going on?” The sarcasm practically dripped from her voice.
Kris ignored it and made his escape to the kids shoe section. It was one of the most hated jobs in the store, because it always took so long to straighten up the boxes near the bottom of the shelf, where kids had yanked them off the rack and distracted parents had just shoved them in to whatever empty spot they could find.
It was an obvious retreat, but Allison still wasn’t likely to follow him, for fear he’d put her to work helping him.
# # #
He was in the middle of helping a little girl find a pair of unicorn themed sneakers (and believe him the irony was not lost) when he heard a suspiciously familiar clippity-clop sound from behind him. It was muffled by the stores industrial grade carpets, but it wasn’t like Kris had a lot of equine stalkers.
“Oh, pretty unicorn." The little girl stared, her eyes huge as she stared behind him.
He winced. Afraid her mother would come to see what she was talking about. A unicorn in their store would be a lot harder to explain to an adult than it was to a little girl. Particularly, since the little girl in question was already obsess with unicorns. She'd be too busy thinking about how pretty Adam was with his shiny black and blue hair and sliver hooves and mane to ask him any question.
At least he hoped she would be, but if her mother caught sight of Adam there was no way he'd be able to avoid having Unicorn rescue called on him. Unicorns weren't supposed to be in shoe-stores after all.
"Mommy! There's a pretty unicorn !" the little girl called.
Kris had to hide another wince.
"That's nice dear." The mother called from the other side of the shelf instead of coming to see. Thank goodness. "I'm glad you like your shoes."
"But Mommy it's not on my shoes."
"Of course not dear, I'm sorry."
It was obvious that the mother was used to her daughter claiming she saw unicorns, probably an imaginary friend unless she had a unicorn stalker of her very own. Adam trotted up to stand bedside Kris and started nosing at the little girl's hands. She giggled and petted his mane. "Ohh soft!" She whispered and petted him again.
Adam thankfully took it with good grace and let her keep petting him while Kris got her new shoes on. It was actually a lot easier to get them on while she was too distracted by Adam to wiggle. He pressed the Velcro into place in under a minute."Alright sweetie, do you want to try and walk in your new shoes?"
She took a minute to look at him since she was still busy petting Adam. "Can he come with me?" She asked, pointing at Adam.
"Sure he can."
"Alright!" She hopped down and started to walk carefully down the aisle, her hand buried in Adam's mane. It was a ridiculously adorable picture. Though, he really needed to figure out a way to hid Adam before her mother came back. Which; would be any second.
He got up and followed her down the aisle. He caught up with her and Adam right as they turned around to head back up the aisle toward him.
"So how do they feel? Do they pinch anywhere?"
She shook her head. "I like them, though the unicorn isn't as pretty as your unicorn. " She glared down at the pink and purple unicorn that adorned the sides of her sneakers. She'd been ooing and awwing over it only a few minutes earlier, but Kris couldn't blame her for thinking that Adam was way more awesome.
He totally was. The cartoonish unicorns on their sneakers just didn’t have the same puppy dog eyes that Adam did. "No their not, but we don't have any unicorn shoes with a unicorn that looks like Adam."
She pouted, but at least she didn't start having a fit. He hated when the kids started screaming just because the store didn't have the shoes they wanted. It wasn’t like it was intentional, and he didn't understand what they thought screaming was going to do; besides deafen their parents and Kris.
He leaned out of the aisle so that he could see the front counter. It took a couple seconds of frantic waving for Allison to notice him, but she headed right over as soon as she did. He sighed in relief. He hadn't wanted Allison to know what was going on, but it was way more preferable to anybody else realizing that there was a unicorn in the store.
She came up to him, foot measure in hand, probably assuming that the one they kept in the kids section had gone missing again. Which it had, but thankfully for Kris he'd fitted the girl for her last pair of shoes, a few months before, so he hadn't needed to hunt through the entire store for the ruler.
"Hey Allison, can you do me a favor and take him back to the break room?” He asked as casually as he could while pointing at Adam." He didn’t want the mother realizing that anything strange was going on.
“Sure Kr-“ She started to say. Then she caught site of what exactly he was pointing at. “Is that a-“
He cut her off before she could finish the sentence. “Its snack time so could you take him to the break room and make sure he gets fed?”
“You want me to feed a uni-“
“Alli!” He hissed, cutting his eyes pointedly in the direction of the aisle where the little girl’s mother was still shopping.
The little girl tugged on his shirt sleeve. “Does he really have to go bye-bye already?”
He crouched down so that he didn’t have to raise his voice. “Yeah he does. He’s just a baby. He has to go have snacks and nap time or he’ll be cranky.” He shot a look in Adam’s direction hoping he’d take his cue to play along.
Surprisingly it seemed to work. Or maybe little unicorns really did have nap-times. Because, he opened his mouth in a huge yawn, which made the little girl giggle. “He’s so silly!”
“Yes he is.” He reached out to rub Adam behind the ears. “Can you say goodbye so Alli can take him to go get his nap?”
She pouted and kicked at the floor for a few seconds while she thought about it. “I guess, but I can come see him again, right?”
“If your Mommy says yes.”
“Alright, I guess he can go take a nap then.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
“Bye Unicorn.” She said, patting him on the head.
Of course Adam wasn’t as cooperative. When Allison tried to lead him away, he hid behind me instead. This was just not my day. I tried to grab him so that I could hand him over to her, but he was a slippery little guy and managed to get away to hide under the bench we had for kids to use when they needed to sit down to get their shoes on. At least he was out of sight as long as nobody was paying much attention.
Kris knelt down to look at him and used his best uncle voice. “That’s not very nice Adam. She said goodbye to you. The least you could do is say good bye back. Besides, I need you to go with Alli. I’ll come get you as soon as I can, but I have to finish working”
Adam scuffed his hooves against the carpet, his head drooping in an obvious pout, but he did follow Allison, which was more than Kris had been expecting.
“Unicorns don’t like nap-time either!” The little girl said. She sounded like she’d just figured out the biggest secret in the world.
For all Kris knew she had. Personally, he’d never known anything about unicorns being pouty or stubborn before Adams showed up on his front stoop. All the stories he’d ever heard talked about their honor and nobility, not the fact that they pointed like human toddlers and made puppy dog eyes when they didn’t get their way.
“Are you ready to get your new shoes?”
Kris practically jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t even heard the little girl’s Mom come up behind him. At least they’d managed to get Adam hidden just in time.
# # #
He got off break a few hours later and headed straight for the break room. He assumed everything would be going well, because there was no way that Allison could manage to keep Adam under control if he didn't want to be stuck. That at least had been thoroughly proven by the fact that he'd managed to not only escape Kris house but travel the three miles to his work wall without having the Unicorn rescue called on him. This really should have been impossible.
"Allison, how are things going?" He called through the cracked door.
He'd open it further once he was sure that Adam wasn’t going to be making a break for it at the first possible opportunity. Secret unicorn powers or not Adam was bound to get noticed if he started following Kris around the store.
"Everything is going awesome. Adam is so cool!" Allison squealed the last part and there were rustling noises that he suspected involved Adam getting squeezed within an inch of his life.
Assured that Adam was thoroughly corralled he opened the door the rest of the way and went inside. Allison was hugging Adam close to her chest. Somehow managing the octopus armed maneuver of hugging him, stroking his mane, and eating at the same time.
"Are you okay to watch the store while I take care of him during break?"
"Yeah, that's cool. Hopefully the manager doesn’t come by. Simon is such a hard-ass he'd probably call unicorn rescue himself. Even, if this little cutie-pie doesn't want to be separated from you." She rubbed him under the chin and he stretched up into her fingers like a big house cat. "Isn’t that right sweetheart. You don't want to go with some nasty Unicorn catchers when you could have Kris all to yourself."
"Allison, break time? Working the front of the store?" Allison’s harmless teasing was striking a little too close to Kris’ own insecurities. He really should call unicorn rescue. It would be nice to take Adam to the reserve himself, but it wasn’t like the rescue agency would hurt him. It was just…he couldn’t imagine giving Adam up any sooner than he absolutely had to.
As she passed him, he grabbed her wrist to stop her. "Thanks again for staying with him."
"Don't worry about it. He was a total sweet-heart."
Once, he was alone with Adam and he didn't have to worry about Allison having to call the asylum because he was talking to animals, he asked Adam, "So what were you and Allison up to? It looks like you were having fun."
Adam answered him by bouncing around the room until he managed to hop on top of the table and nose at the trash that covered it. Kris was about to grab the papers away from Adam, just in case he was about to mess up somebody’s time sheet. Then, he realized exactly what it was Adam was nosing at. Candy wrappers, and a lot of them. He said the only thing he could think of. "Oh shit!"
# # #
Alarm bells started ringing in Kris' head. He obviously should have been more specific hen he told Alli to get Adam a snack. There were a least four candy bar wrappers scattered on the break room table and Adam was still jumping around the room.
He was so screwed. All his plans to sneak Adam out quietly went up in smoke. There was no way he was going to be able to sneak a jumping, unicorn out of the strip mall without somebody noticing. Then Adam started glowing.
"Shit!" Kris backed up until he was leaning against the beak-room door. There was no way he wanted Adam making an escape now. He was glowing bright blue and what looked like glitter was starting to come off of his hooves. Kris was totally screwed.
Keeping one eye on Adam, just to make sure he wasn't trying anything funny, Kris cracked the door open an inch. "Alli." He hissed
She didn't seem to notice him, too busy eyeing the store.
"Alli!" He hissed louder.
She jerked and turned around to look at him. He waved for her to come closer with the two fingers that fit through the crack in the door.
After one more look at the store, she came over. "What is it? I'm working. There's actually a group of teenagers that look like they might by some shoes instead of just trying them on and messing up all of the boxes."
"I need you to look up how to get unicorns down from sugar highs."
She froze. "Wait---What?"
"Adam is on a sugar high." He opened the door an inch or two wider so that she'd be able to see Adam in all of his bouncing, glittery glory."
She stared slack-jawed at him.
"So can you please go see if there is any way to calm him back down?"
She nodded jerkily and backed away her eyes still glued to something above my head. Presumably, Adam was doing something dangerous and ridiculous, but I didn't dare take my eyes away from the door as long as it was open.
Once, she had backed away a few feet, she spun and speed walked over to the computer. He couldn't tell what she was doing from where he was sitting but he assumed it was researching unicorns.
Letting out a sigh of relief, he closed the door with a snap and finally let himself turn around to see what Adam had been doing. He was now bouncing up and down on the break room's old Salvaged couch. Letting off a shower of glitter every time he became air born. Kris groaned and closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch. The new, glittery couch was going to be really hard to explain to his boss.
# # #
Adam eventually got bored with jumping on the couch and moved on to trying to decorate the table. He left glittery hoof-prints everywhere and pouted whenever the glitter made him sneeze and a pile of glitter went flying off of the table.
Kris had moved beyond horror now and couldn’t keep from laughing at his ridiculous antics. If this was what all baby unicorns acted like, then it’s no wonder nobody ever saw them. It would totally ruin the unicorn’s reputation for being calm and acting with decorum if somebody saw them trying to decorate everything in sight with glitter. Or punk drunk on chocolate bars and gummy bears.
His laughter had the unfortunate side effect of drawing Adams attention to him. He bounced off the table and came to sit on Kris’ lap. Then he proceeded to try and make Kris’ bright orange apron glittery.
While Kris could understand the impulse to make the apron less of an eye soar, he wasn’t really sure if glitter is going to help the situation. Bright orange, or bright orange and sparkly. Either way it was going to be ugly.
Also, if Kris kept trying to spread glitter on him with his hooves, then Kris was going to have hoof shaped bruises all over his chest.
He pushed back on Adam’s chest, trying to get him to back up a little. It didn't work since Adam just got annoyed and grabbed a mouthful of his apron. So, they were basically playing tug of war with him instead of actually getting anything productive accomplished.
Then, Adam managed to get a nose full of the glitter from the apron and go into a sneezing fit. He couldn’t seem to stop. He just kept sneezing and wheezing.
Kris dropped him on the couch and ran for the water fountain to get him a cup of water so that hopefully he'd be able to stop sneezing. It wasn't until Kris was halfway through filling the cup that he realized that the sneezing had stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Turning around warily, the half filled cup clenched in his hand, he say Adam jumping up and down on the couch again only this time with Kris' apron under him so that it was getting the majority of the glitter.
Kris groaned, he should have seen that trick coming. Adam was a devious brat when he wanted to be. Since, Adam was too busy to need the water; Kris drank it instead, before sitting down on at the break room table. He almost put his elbow down on a pile of the glitter before he realized it was there. How long could a sugar rush possibly last anyway? Adam had to calm down soon, right? Otherwise, he was going to have to bite the bullet and call the Unicorn Rescue.
The door opened and he realized, too late, that in his annoyance about this apron and being tricked he'd completely forgotten about blocking the door. Adam went streaking across the floor and between Allison's legs before Kris even got close to catching him.
That was just great now he was going to have to chase a sugar high and glittery baby unicorn around the store. Could this day get any better?
“I’m so sorry!” Allison said.
He managed a perfunctory “its fine.” While, he was pushing past her and running after Adam. Thankfully, it looked like the store had emptied out of customers while he and Adam had been holed up in the break rom. “Can you quick lock the door and put up the gone to lunch sign for me?” He called over his shoulder.
“Adam!” He yelled. Adam was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean much. There were tons of places to hide in the store as many an annoyed parent had discovered when they were trying to chase down a toddler who’d decided to take their new shoes for a test drive. Hopefully, he hadn’t used whatever freaky door unlocking ability he’d used to get out of Kris’ house to get out of the store. That would be really bad.
Kris started his search in the kids section. Just in case Adam thought that he’d be able to see his little friend again. There were sparkly hoof-prints on the top of the bench he’d been hiding under, but otherwise there were no signs that he’d even been there.
He had equally bad luck in the women’s section and the men’s dress shoes. He headed to the running section without much hope. Where would he go if he was a glitter obsessed unicorn looking for a place to hide?
Unfortunately, role playing had never been his specialty, and he really didn't know where he’d go if he was a glitter obsessed unicorn. Maybe ladies dress shoes? They weren't particularly sparkly this season. Everything was sedated and usually made of various shades of matt leather. Maybe, Adam would like the patent leather shoes, since they were shiny, but he had his doubts.
"Allison, do you have any idea where he went?" He called.
“No, I already checked out the lower racks near the front and expect for a few glittery foot prints and the occasional box that looks like somebody tried to bedazzle it, I’ve got nothing."
"Adam!" He called again. Not holding out much hope it would work. It didn't. Wherever he was Adam had obviously found something to entertain himself with. Which should have been a relief but totally wasn’t. How the hell had he gotten so attached to the little terror in just one day?
Where the hell was he? Kris forced himself to calm down and take a few deep breaths. It wouldn’t do any good to panic. While he was taking a few deep breaths, he heard a thump….thump noise coming from the back of the store, where they ha bargain shoes. It didn’t sound like hooves but since he could see Allison up front, walking up and down the aisles, it had to be Adam.
He snuck down the aisle as quietly as he could planning to take Adam by surprise. He might as well not have bothered. Adam was so distracted he didn’t even notice him. He stayed concentrated on the pair of shoes he’d found on the five dollar rack. They were so sparkly and purple that Kris couldn’t tell if Adam had put glitter on them or they’d come like that.
Either way Adam was obviously in love. He’d pick one of the shoes up in his mouth and then drop it. The little flowers on the toes and the heels lit up and flashed various shades of purple and pink.
Adam watched the lights avidly, swaying back and forth, until the cycle cut off and the shoes went dark again. Then, he’d pick up the other shoe and start the process all over again.
“Oh my God, I got a unicorn high!” Kris yelled.
Adam flicked an ear in his direction, and turned to glare for a second before turning his attention back to the shoes.
He heard Allison running up to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Adam and the shoes. She froze as soon as she got even with him and saw Adam. “We actually got a unicorn high! We’re totally going to jail for defacing a national treasure.”
Kris glared at her out of the corner of his eye. “Could you be any more dramatic?”
“Oh please, like you weren’t thinking the same things.”
Sadly enough that was true. He had been thinking pretty much the same thing. “At least he looks happy?”
“Oh yeah, that’s a great excuse to tell the Unicorn Protection Service. Well officer we got a baby unicorn high, but don’t worry he enjoyed it. So everything is okay.”
Well when she put it that way. Still it wasn’t like there was anything they could do about it now. As the saying went ‘the horse was already out of the gate’. They were so screwed.
# # #
He bought the shoes, because they were only five dollars, and more importantly, he was a complete sucker when it came to Adam’s puppy dog eyes.
# # #
Kris stopped at the organic food store on the way back to his house. Adam was still busy trying to rub the glitter off of the shoes and onto his coat. When he wasn’t dropping them from where he was curled up in the passenger’s seat, onto the floor so he could watch them light up. He was nickering to himself softly the whole time.
Kris shook his head at his antics. At least he was distracted enough that he probably wouldn’t notice if Kris left him alone for a little while. It would have been better if he could have taken Adam in with him, but there was no way he could keep Adam a secret if he took him inside. Even if Adam did stay in the cart, which Kris didn’t think was likely.
He really didn’t feel up to chasing Adam around another store. Reaching over, he ruffled Adam’s mane. “I promise I’ll be right back, so stay in the car, okay?”
Adam dropped his shoe onto the floor instead of answering.
He probably wasn’t going to be going anywhere if the way he was staring at the shoes was anything to go by. It wouldn’t take him long to pick up something for Adam’s dinner. As long as the windows were rolled down he’d be fine. It wasn’t like he’d get overheated on such a nice day.
It only took him about fifteen minutes in the store but by the time he’d come back Adam was fast asleep and snoring softly. Kris picked one of the shoes up out of the foot-well and tucked it up next to Adam. Then he stuck the bag of groceries in the foot well instead.
He turned on the radio for the rest of the drive home. Singing softly along with the old country hits. Adam seemed to like it, since he shuffled over the bench seat to nuzzle against Kris’ side. Kris took his hand off the steering wheel to scratch around the base of Adam’s horn.
Adam yawned, which was far too adorable, before collapsing against Kris’ side with a snore. It was going to be terrible when he had to take Kris to the Unicorn sanctuary the next day.
# # #
Kris ended up having to carry both the groceries and Adam into the house. Adam woke up enough to complain when Kris almost left one of his shoes behind in the car, but not enough to try and get down from Kris’ arms. Rolling his eyes, Kris slipped the shoes into his grocery bag. They hadn’t been worn so it wasn’t like they’d contaminate the food.
He set Adam down on the couch, with his sparkly shoes, and one of the carrots from his bag of groceries. Just in case Adam woke up hungry, before Kris had a chance to finish making dinner.
Adam wandered into the kitchen, his hooves clattering against the linoleum. He was dragging one of his sneakers by the shoe string. It thumped-thumped behind him. “Feel better after your nap, Adam?”
Adam nickered before hopping up onto one of the kitchen chairs, still dragging his sneaker behind it. It knocked against the table leg and started flashing, which caused Adam to start rubbing his head against it trying to get the glitter off again.
“I guess still working on getting over the sugar rush. Hopefully dinner will help.” At least that way cooking an entire pot full of carrot and cinnamon oat mash would have been worth all of the trouble. He hated cooking, but there was no way he was going to make Adam keep surviving on dried oatmeal. Not after the day he’d had.
He served up a bowl of the mush and put it on the table next to the chair Adam had commandeered, before getting a couple of pieces of cold pizza out of the fridge for himself. He had to clear some half-finished sheets of music off the table, but then he was free to sit down across from Adam. Who was nose-first in his bowl of mash.
“I take it you like the food?”
He made a happy churring noise in the back of his throat, before sticking his nose back into his bowl.
Kris chuckled, taking that as a sign he should turn his attention back to his own food.
# # #
After dinner, which consisted of half a cold pizza for Kris and three bowls of mash for Adam, the two of them curled up together on the couch. Kris used the opportunity to fiddle with his guitar. He still hadn’t figured out the ending to the song he was writing last night.
Adam was still happily trying to figure out the shoes. Though, he seemed to finally be aware enough to figure out that he couldn’t get the glitter off of shoes, he was still completely fascinated by the flashing lights.
That was fine with Kris, as long as he didn’t start shedding glitter all over his couch like he had in the break room. After a few minutes he was convinced that Adam was too busy trying to get the shoes onto his feet to start shedding glitter, he turned his attention back to his guitar.
He hummed a few bars of the tune he’d been working on, strumming along, before finally starting to sing softly to himself.
“Better days are sure to come
I don’t wanna come undone
So show me what I’m living for, yeah…”
There was a thump and clatter of a shoe hitting the floor, and then a ball of warmth careened into his shins. “Adam? Are you okay?”
Adam churned and kept rubbing against Kris’ legs. “Okay, I guess you’re not okay, huh? Leaning over, he picked Adam up, and cuddled him against his chest. “Are you still having problems with your sugar high?”
Whimpering, Adam rubbed his horn against Kris’ chest. “Alright buddy, its fine. We’ll cuddle up on the couch until you’re feeling better.”
He curled up on the couch with Adam carefully cuddled in his lap. Adam kept whimpering though. So obviously there was something Kris was missing. Maybe Unicorn’s got stomach aches when they ate too many sweets. Then again, had Adam gone to the bathroom once since he’d shown up at the house that morning.
He couldn’t really say, since Adam had just kind of appeared at the store, so he could have theoretically used the bathroom at some point. Still that was a long time for the little guy to have to wait between potty breaks. “How about we go outside? I bet you could use a break.”
Adam pulled his head away from Kris’ chest, in order to tilt his head to look at Kris out of the corner of his eyes. Kris took that to mean that Adam needed to go out. “Alrighty then. To the back yard!”
Adam didn’t seem impressed by his false cheer. Not that Kris could blame him. Potty humor wasn’t his specialty.
# # #
To distract himself from the sheer embarrassment factor of having had to take Adam to the back yard, Kris decided to distract himself by helping Adam with his shoes.
“Come on Adam, I have a surprise for you?”
He didn’t even hear the clop - clop of Adam’s hooves in reply. Which probably meant the unicorn was still sulking in the laundry room. Kris rolled his eyes. He really should just leave Adam there, until he got bored and came out on his own, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty.
It wasn’t like he’d enjoyed forcing Adam to hide behind a bush to use the bathroom, he just couldn’t think of any way for Adam to use the toilet between his tiny size and his hooves. “Come on Adam, I know you can hear me.”
There was a huff from the laundry room.
“I heard that.”
After a muffled chirp and some rustling, probably from Adam fooling around in his laundry basket, the laundry room went quiet again.
Kris sighed. “Please Adam? I promise it’s a good surprise.”
The tip of Adam’s nose poked around the edge of the doorway.
“It involves your shoes? He wheedled.
Adam moved forward enough to stick his entire head into the living room.
Kris held up Adam’s shoes as a peace offering.
It took a minute for Adam to decide what to do. He looked back and forth between the laundry room and living room a few times, before finally clip - clopping his way over to Kris. It was pretty obvious he was still pouting, from the way he was refusing to look at Kris.
Unfortunately for him, he was too cute for Kris to be bothered by the pouting. It just made him want to ruffle Adam’s mane. Since, he was pretty sure that would get him at least a nip to the fingers, Kris managed to ignore the impulse.
Instead of ruffling Adam’s mane, Kris crouched down until they were eye to eye. “Can I have one of your hooves?”
Adam shifted back and forth, thinking about it, before offering his right, front hoof. Kris opened the right shoe’s Velcro and stretched the sides of the shoe out as far they would go, with the ease of long years working in the shoe business.
The sneakers slipped over Adam’s hoof and after some careful finagling velcroed into place. Adam stared at his foot in fascination. Cautiously tapping his foot against the floor, his eyes went wide when the sneaker immediately lit up. He stuck his other front hoof out to Kris without any further prompting.
Stifling a chuckle, Kris slipped the other shoe on and secured the Velcro. Adam was off, hopping and skipping around the room, trailed by a cloud of glitter, before Kris even realized he’d moved. Despite, how much work it was going to be to clean the house up, he was really glad to see Adam so happy.
He stood up to go get the broom, so he could clean up the glitter trail before it could be spread over the whole house, when he was bowled over with exhaustion. He yawned and weaved on his feet. He looked guilty towards the kitchen. He really should get everything cleaned up tonight. He yawned again, before he could even take a step towards the kitchen.
So cleaning wasn’t going to happen. Oh, well he’d have tomorrow to do it. Besides, after Adam was back at the sanctuary Kris would need something to distract him from moping.
“Come on buddy, time for bed!” he called. He was already heading towards his bedroom.
He stopped when Adam chirped curiously. Turning so that he was partially facing the living room, he saw Adam staring at his shoes. “You can bring them with you silly, I’m sure you won’t ruin my sheets just because you’re wearing shoes.”
Adam chirped happily and hopped passed Kris, heading for the bedroom. “Don’t get glitter on the bed!”
He didn’t need the sound of somebody bouncing on his bed to tell him that he probably wasn’t going to be lucky enough to have a glitter free bed. Well, it could be worse. He could be alone in the bed.
By the time Kris turned out the lights and checked that all of the doors were locked, Adam had curled up, under the blanket until only a bit of his horn and mane were showing. At least the glitter seemed confined to Adam’s half of the bed. Since Adam didn’t seem to be feeling sociable, Kris rubbed around the base of his horn instead of saying good night.
# # #
The second time Kris woke up in a strange meadow, he didn’t expect to be surprised. It was hard to be surprised in dreams, after all. Of course, that was before Adam showed up, still decked out in sparkly sneakers. His sub-conscious obviously had issues
He ran across the meadow until he could cuddle against Kris’ side. Which, really, shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was. ~Are you alright, my Kris? ~
Kris ran his fingers through Adam’s mane, trying to calm him down. Even if this Adam was just a construct made up by his mind, he didn’t want him to be upset. “I’m fine Adam, though you exhausted me with all you’re running around today. I thought I was going to have a heart-attack when you disappeared today.”
Adam lowered his head, until he wasn’t quite looking at Kris. Waves of embarrassment emanated from his hunched form. Kris pulled him into a hug. “I’m not mad. I promise. I was just really worried. You were acting really crazy after you had all of that sugar.”
~ I’m sorry my Kris, it just tasted so good! ~
“I know it did buddy.” It wasn’t like Adam would have known he wasn’t supposed to eat candy. Not if he’d been raised by people who actually knew what they were doing when it came to raising baby unicorns. “I just didn’t like not knowing where you were.”
~ If you’d agree to be my Blessed, you would know where I was. ~
Kris snorted. Adam wasn’t doing a good job of acting sly, though he shouldn’t have been surprised. This was just a figment of his imagination. It only made sense that it would offer him the one thing he’d been trying not to dream about all day. “You don’t need a shoe sales man for a blessed, Adam”
~ But I want you to be my Blessed! ~ That came out as a definite whine.
“I want that too buddy, but it’s not going to happen.” He scratched behind Adam’s ears, in apology for being so harsh.
When Adam looked up at him, there was a gleam to his eyes that Kris didn’t recognize. ~ Do you promise that you’ll stay with me and take care of me as long as you have the strength to do so? ~
“Of course!” Did Adam think that he’d abandon him before he made sure he was safe at a sanctuary, where they could take proper care of him? Or was this his brains screwed up way of addressing his doubts about being able to give Adam to somebody else to care for?
~ Do you swear? ~ Adam insisted.
“I swear.” He answered. Before he could think better of it.
The twinkle in Adam’s eyes was downright devious. ~ I swear to make sure that you are never alone or lonely again, and to make sure you know what your living for. ~
That sounded really permanent. Kris was about to object, but he lost hold of the dream before he could. Strangely, though, he could still hear Adam’s voice in his head. ~We’ll be together forever now, my Kris, my Blessed. This I swear.~
# # #
He didn’t know how much longer he slept, but when he woke up, Adam was staring at him. He ruffled his hand through Adam’s mane, amused to see that only one of Adam’s shoes had managed to stay on during the night.
“Good morning, Adam,” he said. Not expecting a reply.
So he was pretty sure he was justified in letting out a shriek when a familiar voice echoed through his head. ~ Good Morning, my Kris~
“Adam?” He asked, hardly willing to believe it.
~ You’re going to be amazing, my Kris. One day you’re music is going to change the world. I’ll make sure of it. ~ He used his teeth to tug the blanket back up to Kris’ chest. ~ For now though, sleep. ~
Kris wanted to argue, but he was feeling overwhelmed, and the warmth of Kris curled against his side was making him sleepy. He guessed it would be okay to go back to sleep. Not that it seemed like he was going to have much of a choice. His eyes were already closing, without his permission.
It was alright though. After all, he had the rest of his life with Adam to figure out what they were going to do.
# # #
Fin