FIC: More Things in Heaven and Earth (RPF, NC-17, Kris/Cale, 1/4)
Finally, proof this story actually does exist! Thank to my girls for everything. And thanks to everyone who ever said they might actually be interested in something like this. :D
More blowjobs per capita than anything I've ever written before. May cause chafing. Do not try this at home.
Disclaimer: No disrespect intended to any of the persons depicted herein, who I hope are all living happy and fulfilled lives with their partner(s) of choice. This is purely fictional, and not in any way intended as an accurate representation of reality. Cale Mills, do not read this.
More Things in Heaven and Earth
In which Kris and Cale discover there is more to them than they ever imagined, and there is a lot of sex.
Kris Allen Band RPF. 35,100 words. NC-17. Kris/Cale.
When Cale didn't make it past the first round at the American Idol auditions, he figured that was as much as American Idol was going to change his life. It was a great road trip with a great friend (and a great friend's brother), and it made for a good story to tell when they got back, but it was nothing a hundred thousand other people didn't experience every year.
This wasn't really about him anyway. Sure he gave it an honest shot but he was really there for Kris, so it was pretty awesome when Kris did make it through. And Daniel too, sure, but mostly Kris.
Cale believed in him all the way. He believed in him through the rest of the rounds, through the judges' audition, though a crazy week in Hollywood (and through a wedding, too, but that was a lot more of a sure thing). But it was still a bit of a surprise when Kris got past every one of those milestones and suddenly he was set to perform in the semifinals.
And that, Cale figured, was as far as it was going to go. For him, of course, not for Kris. Obviously. Because American Idol didn't really stop affecting his life as long as Kris was still going, but now he had a good friend-a best friend-competing on national television, and sure it wasn't his accomplishment, but Cale would always have that.
(Not that he would do anything like try to impress people with it. Much. Just once in a while, if he was running out of cute anecdotes. And Cale rarely ran out of cute anecdotes. He didn't need to rely on his friend's accomplishments to supplement his own, and besides, most of the people he'd be trying to impress were also friends of Kris's anyway.)
He always knew Kris could win, he just didn't know if he would. It was almost completely out of their hands, and all Kris could do was go up there week after week and do his thing. All Cale could do was be a source of (hopefully) good advice and moral support. That, and vote. But Kris's thing was an awesome thing, and every time someone said it was over for him, said he'd gone as far as he could go in the competition, Kris pulled off something amazing and kept going right to the finish line.
Now winning, winning had to be the pinnacle. Cale's best friend won American Idol, and that was going to be cool forever. Cale was stupidly happy for him, and couldn't think of a better person for it to happen to.
Kris's journey was just beginning, but that was the extent of how American Idol was going to change Cale's life.
That, of course, was when Kris asked Cale to audition for his band. When Cale made it into Kris's band. (Kris said it was a foregone conclusion but Cale was the one who saw the dubious looks on those faces so he played for his life in those auditions.)
It was only then Cale understood that those little things he thought had changed his life before, in their small ways? They didn't mean anything at all. Those things changed Kris's life. But this now was something Cale was doing, doing with Kris, and it was going to change everything.
:::
"All right, let's try that one again, from the top," said Kris, hand wrapped around his mike and bobbing his head and looking like the rock star he'd never quite been before. He was still Kris, but he'd grown and changed so much over the past year or so, in ways that just make him more Kris but still notable to someone who knew him like Cale did.
"I'm good to go," said Cale. "Do you want to speed it up?"
Kris just shook his head without looking up. "I just want to get it down first," he said. "I just want to get in sync with everyone."
Everyone was Cale and these three guys he'd just met, more or less. Well he'd met them individually during the audition process, but met for real when they all came together as Kris's band. His band for now, anyway, but even if the other guys saw it as a temporary gig, Cale wasn't going anywhere. They started as strangers, but with Kris as their front man Cale didn't think they could stay that way for long. That just wasn't how Kris worked.
Cale was the one of them who'd already known Kris for years, so Cale was the one could see in the set of Kris's shoulders that he was tired and stressed. He was the one who could tell that Kris was pushing hard and paying for it. So he was the one who made an impulsive call, and while Kris wasn't looking he turned back to the other guys and signaled for them all to up the tempo. A lot.
Kris try to keep up at first, but after about fifteen seconds his tongue got so tangled that he just bent over and cracked right up.
"You," he said, pointing his finger at Cale when he straightened up again. "This is your doing."
Cale raised his hands innocently, but denied nothing.
"Break time," decided Torres, and he and Andrew were setting their instruments down before Kris even agreed. So yeah, maybe they'd started as strangers, but already they were more than that.
"Jerk," laughed Kris, seeking out a bottle of water then tossing one to Cale too. Or at him, depending on your perspective.
"Hey, I was just doing what needed to be done," insisted Cale, draining about half in one long gulp. "Almost ready to call it a night?"
"Just a little longer," said Kris. "They haven't kicked us out yet, right?"
"I figured you'd want to get home," said Cale. "It's getting late."
"Is that a hint that you want to get home?" said Kris, wiping his mouth with his wrist. "Just a little bit longer. Tomorrow we can spend a bunch of time on just you and me. Or actually, we can do that tonight when we get home."
"You know, I can sleep somewhere else," said Cale. Which wasn't an attempt to get out of rehearsal, or even a signal he didn't want to be there. But it was Kris and Katy's place, and the last thing Cale wanted to do was wear out his welcome. "I don't need to crash on your couch all the time."
"Our couch is your couch," insisted Kris. "Makes it easier for us to rehearse together without making the other guys wait around."
Cale knew that was important, knew that they had a couple of acoustic shows that were going to be just him and Kris-maybe more than a couple-but Kris was working hard. Kris had been working hard for a long time, to the exclusion of other things. And even if he selfishly liked this time he was getting with him, Cale didn't want to see him burn himself out.
"Just don't forget to have some fun, too," said Cale. "Especially while we're here in LA. We won't always be."
"I know that," said Kris. "It's been that way for a long time. You don't need to worry about me."
"I don't need to," said Cale, "I just do. That's what friends do."
Kris didn't actually answer, but he gave him a crooked little smile and a half-hug before heading off to the can while he could, and Cale figured the rehearsal was going to go on at least a little longer before Kris was ready to call it a night.
:::
Cale had a musical identity outside of Kris Allen-he'd been playing for a lot longer than he'd even known Kris-but it was different working with Kris. Different from playing alone and different from playing with anyone else either. It wasn't just the kind of audiences Kris drew as the reigning American Idol. When they were playing little shows for select groups of radio contest winners, the audiences weren't even necessarily that much bigger. But there was just a different energy with Kris, no matter what the size (or fanaticism) of the audience.
Those times they weren't playing with the whole band, that energy seemed all the more noticeable. To Cale, anyway; he didn't know if Kris even felt it at all. It was a little bit like when Kris and Cale had been playing together before Idol ever happened, but somehow more. Like the connection between them was amplified by Kris's success. Or something else.
Back at the hotel after a show, too tired to do anything but too wired to sleep, Cale's body was usually spent but his brain would be going too fast to shut up.
"That was amazing, right?" he said. "I thought I could go all night."
"You can barely stand up," said Kris, leaning back on his hands on the bed and grinning at him. "All night, my behind."
"When we were up there, I could've," said Cale. "Right? You know what I'm saying, right?"
"I know what you're saying," said Kris, and Cale could tell that he did get it, but he was Kris Allen and even though he was kind of famous now and his life was kind of crazy, he still had the uncanny ability to be calm no matter what the circumstances. Maybe now more than ever.
"I would ask how you do it," said Cale, gesturing at him like that would complete his thought, "but you're Kris Allen. You can do anything."
"Shut up," demurred Kris, legs dangling off the end of the bed, kicking up the bed skirt every once in a while. "You know that's not true."
"Save a bunch of orphans from a burning building? Piece of cake. Swim the Atlantic? Just find me my swim trunks. Fly to the moon? No problem, I'm Kris Allen!"
"Quit it," said Kris, but he was cracking up this time. "I don't know. I guess you just get used to it. Compared to this summer, this is nothing. This summer was crazy. I know I tried to tell you, but do you get it now? I didn't know what it was like to have no time to myself until then."
"Yeah, I get it now," said Cale. "That's why I was asking."
"You okay with it?" said Kris. "You're not going nuts, are you?"
"No, I like it," said Cale. "It feels good. But I'm not you. It's got to be more intense for you."
"Not anymore," said Kris. "I think the show was more intense, even though we didn't travel nearly as much. I mean, it's intense now, but it's intense in a good way. Now it's just what I want to do. I wanted this."
"Yeah, you just didn't know what 'this' is, right?"
Kris chuckled and said, "I do now," and tucked his feet up on the end of the bed with him. "And we get this, you know? You and me here right now. It's not all crazy."
Kris's feet were bare, and that was a probably a weird thing to notice because Cale and Kris had gone to college together and Cale had seen him in all states of undress, but Kris was barefoot right now and for whatever reason, Cale noticed.
For whatever reason, it made this moment feel more intimate. It made everything between them feel more intimate.
Cale's toed off his socks and looked at his toes as he sat down in the chair by the window, and pulled his knees up to his chest as he put his heels up on the chair.
"You sure you're okay?"
"I'm great," said Cale. "I'm just thinking. But no, I'm great. This is all great. And I'm glad I'm doing it with you."
"I'm glad you're doing it with me too," said Kris. "It wouldn't be the same without you."
:::
Cale was the first person Kris told, even before his parents. Not that Cale thought Kris was eager to run to his parents with the news, but Cale had always been Kris's music friend, and his college friend. Now he was his everything friend.
"So how does that work, then?" he said, sitting hip to hip with Kris on the back stairs of the venue, around the corner from the door everyone was supposed to be using. He almost felt like they should be smoking for this. "Or is it too soon to ask?"
"I'm not sure, exactly," said Kris. "It's not like I've ever done this before. I guess I need a lawyer?"
Cale ached a little when he heard him say that, but Kris just seemed to be taking it all pretty calmly. And maybe he'd known for a while. "Or you guys could try to work things out. You could probably change the schedule a little."
But even before he finished suggesting it, Kris was already shaking his head. Cale thought they would at least try. They were Kris and Katy, after all. They'd always been Kris and Katy, as long as Cale had known him. He'd kind of thought they always would be.
"I mean, we already did," said Kris. "Try, I mean. We've been talking to someone for a while already, except all I think it did is convince Katy that it wasn't going to work."
"And you?" said Cale. "I mean, you get a say in it too, right?" Not that he thought Kris would stay with someone who didn't want him, Kris had too much self-respect for that, but it couldn't be that simple.
"I think I was convinced before we started," Kris admitted. "We waited until we were absolutely sure before she filed, though. We exhausted our other options. It was time." He patted his pockets, and Cale realized he wasn't the only one wishing they had a smoke for this. But there was nothing to be found, and Kris just sighed. "Anyway, I figured you should know."
It wasn't really a guy thing, to ask about his feelings, but Cale did anyway because he was the first person Kris told and he figured that meant something. "You figured I should know, or you wanted to talk about it?"
Kris just shrugged and turned his head to look at him. "I thought I wanted to talk," he said, "but it turns out there's not much to talk about it. I think maybe I just wanted to say it to someone, so now it's real. I'm twenty-four and I'm getting a divorce. Probably by the end of the year."
"It's not like..." Cale started, but he wasn't sure if it was what Kris needed to hear. Then again, maybe it was. "It's not like a failure. People change. They break up. It happens."
"Yeah, I know," said Kris, "but I can't help thinking about the people who thought maybe we were too young to get married to begin with and wondering if they were right all along. But it felt so right at the time. It felt like what we should be doing."
"Who says it wasn't right at the time?" he said. "Just because it's not right now doesn't mean it wasn't right then."
"Except it's supposed to be till death do us part," said Kris. "We definitely didn't live up to that expectation."
"Well, maybe next time," said Cale, and Kris just stared at him. "Too soon?"
Finally, finally, Kris cracked a smile. "Maybe a little," he said. "She's still my Katy anyway. She just won't be my wife Katy anymore. And I think that's okay. I just need to get used to the idea."
"I feel like I need to get used to the idea more than you do," Cale said, but that made Kris smile a little too. "I didn't even notice anything."
"Well, you know all those times you stayed over at our place in LA and me and Katy kept you up with noise from the bedroom?"
"Actually, I slept like a baby on that couch," said Cale.
"Yeah, exactly," said Kris, his point suddenly crystal-and uncomfortably-clear.
"Oh," said Cale, understanding a little better now just how much of a surprise this all wasn't, to Kris. "You want me to be around when you call your parents?"
"Nah, it's okay," said Kris. "A beer afterwards might be nice, though. Or, you know, whatever."
Cale knew exactly what whatever meant, and hoped that Torres was holding because he was tapped and from the looks of it, Kris was too.
"Sure, whatever," he said. "You ready to go back inside?"
"Yeah, someone's going to freak out soon," said Kris, grabbing hold of the railing and pressing his hand down on Cale's knee to stand himself up. "Just don't tell anyone till I do?"
"Of course," said Cale. "And anything you need, you know where to find me."
"I always have," said Kris. "I count on it."
:::
Cale's girlfriend was also named Katy, which made for some interesting conversations early on when Kris and Cale were talking to people who didn't know that. And okay, maybe they couldn't resist occasionally playing that up just to see the looks on people's faces when Cale talked about taking Katy out for a romantic dinner or lying with his arms around Katy. But the thing with their parallel relationships sometimes went a little bit too far.
After joining Kris's band, Cale didn't get to see as much of his girlfriend anymore. And for a while that was fine, they made it work, they had holidays and vacations and a lot of little moments together, but eventually it became clear that God was taking them in different directions. It wasn't an easy thing to admit, but with Katy coming close to finishing school and starting her career, and Cale traveling constantly to pursue his own, it was something they eventually had to sit down and come to terms with.
He wasn't going to stop loving her, but sometimes these things were meant to inhabit a part of your life and you learned from them and you grew from them and then you took that with you when you moved on.
And suddenly, somehow, he and Kris were both on their way to becoming single men.
"Sorry, man," said Kris, giving Cale a sincere and heartfelt pat on the shoulder, then pulling him into a hug. And Kris's hugs, they really did go a long way to making everything better. "Do you want to get out of here? Get your mind off things?"
Cale thought about it for a second, but even just going out for coffee meant hanging out with other people, possibly loud people, and Cale just wasn't into that tonight.
"Maybe another time," he said. "I think I'm just going to go up to my room tonight."
"We could smoke," said Kris. "Not up in your room, but there's a fire escape at the end of the hall."
That would mean just him and Kris, and that kind of company Cale could handle. Actually, it would probably be better than being alone.
"Sure, yeah," he said. "But if Lizzie busts us again, you tied me up and forced me."
"I could bring rope, to make it more convincing," said Kris. "Actually, I don't have rope. Maybe pantyhose."
"You have pantyhose?" said Cale. "Do I want to know?"
"They were shoved in the side pocket of my luggage," said Kris with a carefree shrug. "I guess they were Katy's? Probably. If they weren't Katy's, then I kind of don't want to know how they got into my luggage."
"Kris?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't tie me up with a stranger's pantyhose."
"You know what's really funny?" said Kris, stabbing the elevator button with his index finger. "That's not even the strangest thing you've ever said to me. It's not even the strangest thing you've ever said to me when we weren't high."
"I think it was a completely sensible request," said Cale. "Besides, would it really be better for Lizzie to bust us smoking up with pantyhose on hand?"
"Fair point," said Kris. "Ties it is."
Their rooms were on the second-to-top floor, adjacent, and okay, Cale did occasionally dream of a day when they were famous enough to have a penthouse suite, but mostly he was still just really jazzed that they got to travel around the country and play music and make a living doing it.
Except when said travelling around ended his relationship. For just a moment, he'd managed to forget.
He hung around Kris's door while Kris shoved a few things in his pockets, then they did head to the end of the hall and then out the unrigged door onto the fire escape. (Because accidentally setting off the fire alarm while attempting to get high would go over even worse than any of the other scenarios they'd gone through.)
Kris sat down and dangled his feet between the bars, and Cale just sat cross-legged next to him as they passed the joint between them. Probably just the one, maybe two, because they just wanted to relax, not get trashed.
"Remember when we used to do this at school?" he said. "It was just like this, only not quite so high up."
"Everything's different now," said Kris. And those differences were all the clearer when just one thing was the same. "I used to dream of this, though."
"I used to dream of this too," said Cale. "Well, sort of. I wasn't part of a backing band in my dreams."
"You're not, though," said Kris. "I mean, you are, because that's your job. But you're more than that too. You know that, right? That you're more?"
"I think we're all more, to you."
"But we're talking about you," said Kris. "You're not an employee." And he said it like it was a dirty word. "We don't just play together, we create things together. We write together."
Kris was writing some with Andrew, too, but Cale had a feeling that Andrew was a little different too. Not in the way that someone who'd been a friend for years was, but different. They were all special in different ways. Kris could apparently just not be the solo artist who picked up a new backing band on every tour. Being in the Kris Allen Band meant something to him.
They weren't just interchangeable.
"Here," said Cale, passing over the last of the joint, practically just embers now. "That was good stuff."
"Only the best for my guys," said Kris, finally just pinching the end off and dropping it back in his shirt pocket before exhaling. "So you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm all right," said Cale. "Just not all sociable tonight. I don't really want to have to smile."
"Not even for me?"
"Well, I'll always smile for you," said Cale, though he didn't, not right then. He was saving it for when it mattered, since he didn't know how many he had in him. "I can't really blame her. She wasn't really getting much out of this."
"Still," said Kris. "You're pretty awesome, even when you only get a little bit of you."
"I'm glad she's not putting up with it, though," said Cale. "She deserves a relationship that makes her happy."
"Well, doesn't everyone?" said Kris, and Cale guessed that these days Kris knew all about that. He didn't talk about it very much, even with Cale, but his separation from Katy hung in the air a lot of the time. "It's all just a matter of what makes you happy."
"Having an absentee boyfriend didn't make her happy," said Cale. "And being an absentee boyfriend didn't really make me happy either, so I figure it was supposed to happen this way. She's still amazing, though."
"You're going to have to date a groupie," said Kris. "Someone who'll trail around after you from city to city. Or Andrew. You could date Andrew. He's already here all the time."
"I'm not going to date Andrew," said Cale, and that one actually earned the smile.
"Why not?" said Kris. "Andrew's a great guy."
"He's a little too tall for me," said Cale, grinning up at the sky. "It would just be weird, not having to lean down."
Kris just laughed and kicked his legs out a little. "Not something I've ever had to worry about," he said. "Wouldn't it be nice not to always have to stoop, though?"
"Nope," said Cale. "I like the stooping. It makes me feel all manly."
"I'm going to pretend you didn't just insult my manhood," said Kris.
"Wouldn't dream of it," said Cale. "You're the manliest man I know, even if I can stoop to you."
"And don't you forget it," said Kris, and in the end he did dig another joint out of his magical pocket. It was just the thing the night needed.
:::
One of the best things about the band-not just Kris, but the whole band-was how well all of them got along. When Ryland couldn't do some of the dates with them Cale got a little worried, wondered if this was going to begin a cycle of rotating band members that kept them from becoming a really tight unit, but it didn't turn out that way. When they were together they weren't just a bunch of musicians thrown together for a little while, they really were a band.
Cale felt totally comfortable saying these guys were his friends, all of them, and Cale didn't actually call just anybody his friend.
"Are you finished with that?"
Cale looked down at the rag in his hand and tossed it over. "Kris has grubby fingers," he said, and grinned, even though Kris hadn't been handling his guitar at all. And almost never had grubby fingers, particularly when messing around with their instruments.
"Yeah, that's my excuse, too," said Andrew, wiping a fingerprint off his guitar. Or maybe just making a show of buffing it for something to do while they waited for the rest of the guys to get back. "When you're not around, I blame you."
"Like I'd ever mess with your stuff," said Cale. "You're a scary guy. Like one of those baby kittens who pounces on you when you least expect it."
"I think you just described Kris accidentally," said Andrew. "I don't pounce."
"Just because you haven't pounced yet doesn't mean you never will," said Cale. "That's the scary part."
"You have no idea what the scary part of me is yet," muttered Andrew and tossed the rag back, but Cale got the feeling he wasn't actually annoyed. This was just how he was with the people he liked. "But it's definitely not attack kittenish."
"What do you think Kris would do if we started calling him Attack Kitten?"
"He'll probably like it more than hug puppy," said Andrew. "He hates hug puppy."
"Only because his brother has started using it," said Cale. "If his brother uses it, it automatically becomes uncool."
"Hug puppy was never cool," admitted Andrew, and finally Cale got a smile out of him. He and Kris actually kept a tally, of how often they got a smile out of Andrew. Cale was going to have to put another tick in his column later, even though he'd have to defend it because Kris wasn't around to witness it.
"It was cool when I said it," said Cale.
"No, not even then."
"Well, okay, Kris liked it more when I said it," said Cale.
"Now that," said Andrew, with a strange and unreadable little smile, "I would have to agree with. Now what the hell's taking them so long?"
"They stopped so that Kris can pee," said Cale. Andrew just looked at him. "What? It's true. You'll learn, man. You always have to factor in a few extra minutes for it."
"Well, I guess you'd know," said Andrew, and it was true. Cale would.
:::
After the shows, when they'd been going all out for hours, when they were running on too little sleep and too much caffeine, everyone got to that punchy point where they were laughing at just about every word out of everyone's mouth. It didn't matter if it was funny or not.
Torres was packing up and Ryland was on the phone and Andrew was...heck, Cale didn't even know where Andrew was now, he just knew that he just said something about peeing in a can and Kris bent over laughing and then he grabbed hold of Cale's sleeve to hold himself upright. Kris, who never hesitated to touch, grab or hold anyone if they-or he-needed it. Cale was long since used to that but still, when Kris looked up at him with that wide smile, holding on tight, Cale felt special. He felt like he was the most important person in the whole world in that moment.
He wondered if other people felt like that when Kris looked at them.
He wasn't even thinking. There was no one else paying attention anymore and Kris was looking at him like that, so close, lips parted, and Cale just started leaning in. He wasn't thinking at all.
When his brain did kick in, thankfully before he did anything stupid, it was obvious to both of them what he was about to do. He cleared his throat and leaned back again, and Kris let go of his shirt.
"I should go change," he said. "I probably stink."
"You totally do," said Kris, "unlike me, who smells like roses."
"In your dreams," said Cale, but he ventured a tiny smile and got one in return. He didn't even care whether Kris was dripping sweat, hadn't even noticed. It was Kris, and somehow in any state at all these days, and maybe ever, Kris was just magnetic.
"That's what Katy always told me, though," said Kris. "Are you telling me she was lying all this time?"
Normally Cale would have tread more carefully around the subject of Katy, but Kris had brought it up, and Cale latched onto it as a reminder that even if that hadn't been a crazy impulsive motion to begin with, it was still inappropriate timing. For both of them.
"How's she doing?" he asked. "Kate used to keep me updated, but...." He felt a little weird asking his ex-girlfriend about Kris's to-be-ex-wife.
"She's good," said Kris. "We talked yesterday. I guess we're having a face-to-face with our lawyers when we're back in LA."
"Well, that should be...." He didn't even know how to finish that sentence.
"Yeah," said Kris. "But I think we both just want to get this done now so it can stop being all we're about. I hate that it takes forever."
"It takes forever so that you have a chance to get back together before you do something irrevocable," said Cale.
"That's not going to happen now," said Kris quietly. "Anyway, you really do need to change."
"Right," said Cale. "I'll just, we'll just, meet you after?"
"Right, sure," said Kris, finally moving towards the door. "See you in a few."
It was only when he was leaving that Cale replayed the moment in his mind, the way he would later replay it many, many times. And he realized that he hadn't been the only one moving in. Kris had been moving too.
They both really needed to get some sleep.
:::
It was a group dinner, with everyone, and when Cale said everyone he meant everyone. The whole band, the whole entourage (ha, he had an entourage, even though technically the entourage was Kris's; he just liked to pretend it belonged to the whole band) and a couple of people that worked at the venue. Cale actually liked fine dining and fancy dinners, and no, he did not mean Applebee's when he said that, but this was nice too. A small neighborhood restaurant that they took over probably a quarter of just by themselves, and Italian food served family style.
"Here, have some salad," said Kris, serving it onto his plate before Cale could even venture an opinion.
"We aren't at your dinner table," he laughed. "You aren't the boss of me."
"So Kris serves your plate when you eat dinner at his place?" said Andrew. "Nice. My mother doesn't even do that for me."
"Shut up, he needs his greens," said Kris, putting a little bit more on. Spitefully, Cale thought. "Do you want to be next?"
"What I need," said Cale, "is more spaghetti and meatballs. There's more, right?"
"There's way more," said Andrew. "Or at least there was, but I left it in front of Torres so it might be gone by now."
"Dick," said Torres, shoving the nearest bowl in their direction. But he did it with a smile on his face, just like he did everything.
Kris reached for the bowl, and Cale realized he was about to serve that too. "Oh, I have to draw a line," he said. "There is a line being drawn."
"Just keep telling yourself that," said Kris, and put a heaping helping of spaghetti next to Cale's salad. And really, what was there to do but laugh? Especially when Kris knocked his knee against Cale's under the table. Cale bumped him back, and so they went back and forth until Ryland was telling a story about this bar he went to with his brother in Amsterdam and Andrew had reclaimed the spaghetti bowl and Cale and Kris kind of ended up with their knees pressed up against one another under the table.
Kris never did have any real sense of personal space, and it was nice to have someone to feel close to right now. It was nice to have someone to be comfortable with, when everything else was loud and fast and new. For probably the hundredth, maybe the thousandth, time, Cale was glad they were doing this whole music thing together.
It just wouldn't have been the same otherwise.
:::
It was a great show, but then most shows felt like they were great shows, even the ones they played when they were bone-tired and hoarse and could barely get their fingers to work. It was a great show and Cale felt great afterwards, he just needed a moment away from the chaos of it all to let the greatness sink in. He closed his eyes and pressed his back against the wall and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair.
The door slammed and it seemed painfully loud to Cale even though it was nothing compared to all of the other noises on the other side of it, the shouting and the banging around, the chairs scraping and the stage being cleared. But that was all outside the door. On this side of the door, everything was quiet.
"Hey," said Kris, and Cale opened his eyes and looked and didn't even have a chance to answer before Kris was dropping to his knees.
No, that wasn't entirely true. Cale had a lot of chance to answer, even opened his mouth a little, but once he saw what Kris was doing he never bothered to form words.
Kris had Cale's belt open in moments, was yanking his shorts down moments later, and then his mouth was sliding around the head of Cale's cock like they did this every day. Like they'd ever done it before this moment, or even talked about doing it. He closed his eyes and let it slide further inside and Cale had to choke back a moan, because if he'd been mostly hard before this, adrenaline from the show still surging through him, he got even harder in Kris's mouth.
And he could see that Kris could tell, that Kris adjusted for him and brought a hand up to wrap around the base of his cock and started sucking him in earnest. He couldn't tell if Kris had done this before. He didn't really care. It was wet and soft and Kris, and Cale did everything he could to keep from closing his eyes again.
It was so good, though. Not perfect, not without its little slips, its little missteps, but perfect didn't do it for him. What did it for him was seeing Kris's lips around him, eyes closed and looking a little like a debauched angel the way Cale had sometimes, but not as often as he'd wanted to, pictured him in his head. Kris's tongue peeked out as he licked up his cock, lips still around it, hand squeezing and stroking a little, and Cale couldn't hold back anymore. He wouldn't thrust even though his hips twitched desperately, but he did moan, and gasp, and let out a string of vowel sounds that weren't even pretending to be words.
Kris sucked a little harder and little louder, pulling his mouth off to gasp for a few moments then just diving right back in like he was aching for it as much as Cale was. Cale finally brought a hand down to Kris's hair and just ran his fingers through the soft, sweat-damp strands of it, pressing his fingertips into Kris's scalp.
He tried to tell him bodily, if not verbally, when he was about to come, but Kris either couldn't tell or didn't care. Cale came with a choked cry while he was still in Kris's mouth, and Kris jerked a little but only pulled back part of the way, and it was no accident that he swallowed it all down.
Then he let his lips rest there for a few moments, at the tip of Cale's cock as it began to soften, before he pulled back all the way to rest on his heels and look at up at him, eyes wide open and lips swollen and shiny.
"Don't be mad?"
If Cale thought he was speechless before, he was really at a loss for words after that. Of all the things that had crossed his mind in the past few minutes, and there were definitely a few, none of them even approached mad. Kris had pulled away from Cale's hand too, but Cale could still just reach the ends of Kris's hair and he did, toying with them with his fingertips.
"Only that there's no way I'm going to be that good when I do it to you," he said finally.
Kris licked his lips and tried to shake his head, which was seriously the most wrong and craziest reaction to that ever. Cale slipped his hand down to run his thumb over Kris's lower lip, which was as slick as it looked, saliva and maybe a little bit of his come, too, which made his cock twitch.
"I promise to try, though."
"You don't have to-"
"Shut up," said Cale, and almost laughed. Maybe he hadn't put all the pieces together, maybe he didn't have a lot of things figured out, but Kris was acting like this was going to be a chore for him. Like now that Cale'd had this abrupt awakening he wasn't suddenly aware he'd been wanting this forever. And completely ready to do something about that. "The only thing we should be talking about is whether I'm doing it now, or later."
Kris's hand flew to the button of his jeans, flicking it open, and things definitely didn't always have to be talked about to be answered.
"Lie back," said Cale, even though they were on thin carpet over concrete and there were beds in their near future. That future was still just a little too far away right now.
Kris braced himself on one hand and then did slide back, slowly, his eyes never leaving Cale. When he was on his back, knees up and legs spread, he just pushed his jeans and boxers down to mid-thigh and looked away, like he wasn't sure he wanted to see Cale's reaction to that, like he felt a little dirty.
It was both the least and the most dirty thing Cale had ever done.
He dropped to his knees between Kris's legs and leaned forward on his hands and kissed Kris's stomach first, not as confident as Kris when it came to swallowing him down, but Kris's cock was right there, hard and a little wet, and Cale was both turned on and curious about it. He licked the pre-come on Kris's stomach, making him gasp softly, then licked the head too, salty and slick and new, and Cale felt a tingle all the way through him, a sudden thump of his heart.
"Yeah," he murmured, maybe to himself more than Kris because there was no uncertainty in him at all right now, not in his body and not in his head and not in Kris. He slid his mouth over the head and sucked gently, and when that got a moan out of Kris he slid a little more inside, then a little more, then as much as he thought he could handle this first time out.
Kris's hips came up a little and Cale wanted to smile or laugh or say something, but he already had a mouthful so he just sucked like that could say everything he was thinking for him, how buzzed and happy and needy he felt right then. He wrapped one hand around the back of Kris's thigh, right below that perfect ass, then tentatively moved it to cup his balls, which definitely got another positive response.
With that much positive feedback it didn't seem like much of a risk to start going with his gut, pressing his tongue against Kris's cock and swallowing against the head and massaging his balls gently, just enough that it made Kris gasp again, made him breathe something that Cale couldn't quite hear and wasn't sure he was meant to. Cale slowly slid his legs out behind him until he was on his stomach on the floor and started bobbing his head, letting Kris slip almost all the way out before sliding him back in again, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes pausing to just suck the head and slide his tongue around it.
It was easier than he imagined it would be. It felt good. It was fun. And when Kris's hips really started jerking up into his mouth, Cale let him, just sucked hard and let Kris bring himself off in his mouth. It was a bit of a shock when he came, but Kris had swallowed so Cale tried too. He didn't get all of it, a little leaking out and sliding back along Kris's cock, but Cale just licked that up afterwards while resting his fingertips gently against Kris's heaving abdomen.
Then he finally sat back himself and got his first real look at Kris's face since he started. Kris's eyes were just barely open, but he was definitely looking back.
Cale thought about saying something, but he just wasn't ready yet. Instead he tucked himself back inside his jeans and zipped them up, then helped Kris get his up over his hips again even though Kris left his fly unzipped for the moment, still flat on his back on the floor and breathing a little hard.
"So I guess we need to talk about this," Kris said finally, licking his lips again.
"Do we?" said Cale, but of course they did. This was never just about this moment.
It was so much bigger than this.
"But not right now," said Kris, and finally cracked a smile. A smile that was first aimed at the ceiling, and then aimed right at Cale. "I couldn't...I just couldn't help myself."
"There was a little bit of that going on on this end too, in case you hadn't noticed," said Cale, finally getting to his feet and offering Kris a hand to do the same. It was a moment before Kris took it. "I didn't expect...yeah."
"Well, I didn't exactly come in with a sign saying 'brace yourself, I'm going to give you a sloppy blowjob now'," said Kris. "You just looked...and I felt...."
"We'll talk," Cale promised him, because Kris obviously needed to, and they both sort of needed to figure out what happened now that they'd just done what their bodies had, in retrospect, been threatening to do for a while now, over the course of a lot of shows and a lot of hotels and a lot of late nights. "I don't know when. In the car?"
Kris shook his head. "We'll be at a hotel soon," he said, and Cale trusted his judgment on this one, as someone with probably more experience at trying and failing to have personal conversations while travelling with an entourage.
"Okay," he said, and wasn't sure what he was supposed to do here, wasn't sure what he wasn't supposed to do here, but if this was going to be anything like he wanted it to be then there were some things that would just be okay. And if it wasn't going to be anything like he wanted it to be, then he wanted to know that now.
So he leaned in and wrapped his hand around the back of Kris's neck and finally didn't halt part way when they started to kiss. He felt his lips touch Kris's and felt Kris's hand grab at his waist to clutch a handful of his shirt and they kissed, hard and wet and for a very long time.
"We need to go before someone finds us," said Kris, licking his lips again afterwards. To Cale there was no mistaking what they'd just done in the way Kris's mouth looked, the way his cheeks looked, the way his hair and his body looked. To everyone else, though, he'd look pretty much exactly as he had when he'd come off stage.
Someone would find out eventually, because this kind of thing was impossible to keep a secret long, but not right now. This moment was just for them.
And the rest, well, the rest they would talk about.
:::
"So here's the thing," said Kris as they lingered just outside the door to his hotel room. He had the key card poised over the lock but didn't quite push it in yet, just hovered. "The thing that happened? It wasn't really out of the blue."
"Yes, I guessed that."
"And if I get you in this room," Kris went on, "I'm probably going to try it again."
"Before or after we talk?" said Cale, as if that was the important thing he was meant to be getting out of this.
"Well, right now I'm thinking about how fast I can get your pants off," said Kris, "so probably before. If you don't want that, now's the time to speak up."
"Under ten seconds," said Cale, and Kris stared at him for a moment. "To get my pants off. Under ten seconds, and that includes the time it'll take to kick my shoes off, too. Probably a little longer if we're trying to do yours at the same time. Which we will be, by the way, if you let me in that room with you right now."
"Right," said Kris. "So. We're pretty much on the same page then."
"Kris?"
"Yeah?"
"Open the door before I kick it down."
Kris opened the door and Cale pushed past him and then the door was closing under its own weight as they grabbed at each other, stumbling over shoes and tugging at shirts and taking a lot more than ten seconds but only because they were trying to do everything at once. Distantly Cale heard the lock on the door click into place, but he was already tugging at Kris's shirt before the door was even closed and that was a habit they were going to want to break pretty quickly if this was going to be a thing, but not right now.
They should have been getting some sleep, that's what anyone with any sense at all was doing, but now that they'd started this thing Cale wanted to see and touch and taste all those parts of Kris that had been denied to him for so long.
"What are we going to-?" he asked as they finally tumbled onto the bed, clothes and luggage strewn on the floor and forgotten. Cale shoved a room service menu onto the floor and Kris turned the glowing face of the alarm clock towards them so they would have at least some source of light.
"I have no idea," he said. "Do you want...lamp?"
"Yes," said Cale, even though it wasn't a thing, he didn't need to have the lights on to have sex. Or off. Or whatever. "I want to see you."
"I want to look at you too," said Kris, and stretched over as far as he could without ever leaving the bed to switch the dim bedside lamp on. Cale almost wished he'd freeze in that position for a while, muscles stretched out and taut, head turned to the side, spread out in front of him like everything he didn't know he wanted.
And finally Cale didn't need to bury his impulses, he leaned down and licked a stripe up Kris's stomach, getting his attention back almost immediately. He'd been wanting to do that for...he didn't even know how long. Probably a long time.
If he'd known months ago what he knew now...well, maybe nothing would have been different. Realizing he wanted Kris the way he did still felt like a surprise every time he let his thoughts linger on it, but the feeling, the feeling was a familiar one, it had just been a nameless affection before tonight. Maybe nothing would have been different. Or maybe he would have spent those nights on Kris and Katy's couch thinking about inviting Kris out there with him, thinking about what Kris could have been doing with him that he wasn't doing in bed with Katy anymore. Maybe he wouldn't have banished those stray thoughts, those stray fantasies, before they ever had a chance to form.
"We're just going to have to wing this," he said, with his nose against Kris's skin.
"Yeah," breathed Kris. "Awesome." He tugged a little on Cale's hair and brought him up closer and then they were finally kissing again. Kissing hard and deep and Cale sneaked a thigh in between Kris's so they could at least rub off against one another as they kissed. In his head he wanted this to be a little slower, but his body wanted to get things going in a big way.
Kris's breath caught as they moved together, or against each other, or maybe both. Kris's body was hard all over, built of smooth, solid muscle that felt new and exciting under Cale's hands.
"I think this is pretty intuitive," he said a few moments later, as they didn't seem to have any trouble touching and kissing and rubbing off against one another. "Huh, who knew?"
"We're built knowing how to do this," said Kris. "Now hush."
And to enforce his order he just kissed Cale again, not letting him do anything with his mouth other than kiss back. If Kris had to be demanding about something, Cale was glad it was this because he didn't exactly mind obeying.
They could keep doing this, and Cale was a hundred percent certain that he would come from it, but he was feeling a little bit more adventurous too. Well, okay, he was feeling a little bit like he wanted to stick his dick in something, actually, but adventurous sounded a little less crass. He wasn't even that picky about what.
But he didn't know how to ask, so he kept on rocking against him, rubbing himself off against Kris's body, grabbing hold of a handful of Kris's perfect ass and hanging on as Kris gasped and thrust against him and sounded like he was even closer than Cale. Before either of them came, though, Kris reached back and took three tries to snag hold of something, and only when he had it did Cale realize that it was his t-shirt.
And when they finally did come, Kris with a sound that was almost like a growl and Cale mere moments after that, at least partly from that sound, Kris caught it with the t-shirt and had them cleaned up in moments.
"I have to sleep here," he explained a moment later, his words all running together as he collapsed back against Cale again. "Nobody likes the wet spot."
Cale tried to answer but ended up just nodding when his mouth didn't seem to want to make any sound. Kris gave him a lazy smile and pushed himself up to give Cale another kiss. They didn't say anything for a comfortably long while, draped over one another and cooling off and sharing kisses every few moments so comfortably it was like they'd been doing that forever.
"Is your brain working yet?"
"Mm, more or less," said Cale. "Are we talking now?"
"Probably should, yeah," said Kris. "Should we get out of bed to do it?"
"Nah," said Cale. "Unless you need to. I'm not really thinking about moving yet unless someone shoves me out of the bed."
"Not tonight, anyway," said Kris, which was definitely a strong implication that there would be other nights. "Right. Okay."
"So what's on your mind?" said Cale. "Do you have a speech prepared?"
"Yeah, I wish," said Kris. "I'm not really good at this stuff without a little more preparation."
"That," said Cale, "is not news to me. But if you ask me, you always seem to know the right things to say if you just let yourself say them."
"We should keep doing this," said Kris. "This thing, with us. I had a good time, and you had a good time. Right?"
"Right," said Cale. "I definitely had a good time. My dick had a great time."
Kris grinned against his shoulder, then pushed himself up onto his elbow so that they could at least attempt to have a real conversation. "So those are sort of all my cards. I think we should keep doing this. I want to. It feels good and comfortable and easy."
There was so much unsaid there, things about how Kris was still negotiating things with Katy, how Cale hadn't been with anyone since his break-up, things about how they were really each other's most and least complicated option when it came to beginning to move on. But neither of them said any of them. Kris wanted it to be simple, and Cale wanted to believe it could be, and maybe if they both believed that hard enough it would be as easy as that.
"Right, my turn," said Cale. He'd run his hand slowly up and down Kris's back at least twice before he even realized he was doing it. "As if we could ever be a one-time thing. This isn't a drunk hook-up. I don't do drunk hook-ups. You definitely don't do drunk hook-ups."
"So that means you want to keep doing this too?"
"I definitely want to keep doing this," said Cale. "My dick is cheering right now. And I always figured you'd be the kind of guy to treat a girl right."
"You're not a girl," said Kris. "And neither is your dick."
"Do we need to talk about that?" said Cale. "I'm actually kind of not sure what to say about that. I'm still feeling a little blindsided. Happy, but blindsided."
"Yeah," said Kris. "I wasn't exactly blindsided. Should I have said something about that? It never seemed like the right time."
"Oh," said Cale. "So you've...."
"No," said Kris. "I mean, I was with Katy. I was always with Katy. But I knew. It didn't matter much, but I knew."
"You could've said something," said Cale. Which didn't necessarily mean that he should have, because that was his business, but he could have. "You could have pointed out hot guys on TV or something. Or at the movies."
"I never even pointed out hot girls on TV," said Kris. "Anyway, now you know."
"And despite your vast experience ogling guys, we still get to fumble our way through it," said Cale. "Which okay, has actually worked so far."
"Yeah, I think it's definitely worked," said Kris with a breathless laugh. "And as long as we agree we both want to do this, I guess we'll keep on learning it all as we go."
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
More blowjobs per capita than anything I've ever written before. May cause chafing. Do not try this at home.
Disclaimer: No disrespect intended to any of the persons depicted herein, who I hope are all living happy and fulfilled lives with their partner(s) of choice. This is purely fictional, and not in any way intended as an accurate representation of reality. Cale Mills, do not read this.
More Things in Heaven and Earth
In which Kris and Cale discover there is more to them than they ever imagined, and there is a lot of sex.
Kris Allen Band RPF. 35,100 words. NC-17. Kris/Cale.
When Cale didn't make it past the first round at the American Idol auditions, he figured that was as much as American Idol was going to change his life. It was a great road trip with a great friend (and a great friend's brother), and it made for a good story to tell when they got back, but it was nothing a hundred thousand other people didn't experience every year.
This wasn't really about him anyway. Sure he gave it an honest shot but he was really there for Kris, so it was pretty awesome when Kris did make it through. And Daniel too, sure, but mostly Kris.
Cale believed in him all the way. He believed in him through the rest of the rounds, through the judges' audition, though a crazy week in Hollywood (and through a wedding, too, but that was a lot more of a sure thing). But it was still a bit of a surprise when Kris got past every one of those milestones and suddenly he was set to perform in the semifinals.
And that, Cale figured, was as far as it was going to go. For him, of course, not for Kris. Obviously. Because American Idol didn't really stop affecting his life as long as Kris was still going, but now he had a good friend-a best friend-competing on national television, and sure it wasn't his accomplishment, but Cale would always have that.
(Not that he would do anything like try to impress people with it. Much. Just once in a while, if he was running out of cute anecdotes. And Cale rarely ran out of cute anecdotes. He didn't need to rely on his friend's accomplishments to supplement his own, and besides, most of the people he'd be trying to impress were also friends of Kris's anyway.)
He always knew Kris could win, he just didn't know if he would. It was almost completely out of their hands, and all Kris could do was go up there week after week and do his thing. All Cale could do was be a source of (hopefully) good advice and moral support. That, and vote. But Kris's thing was an awesome thing, and every time someone said it was over for him, said he'd gone as far as he could go in the competition, Kris pulled off something amazing and kept going right to the finish line.
Now winning, winning had to be the pinnacle. Cale's best friend won American Idol, and that was going to be cool forever. Cale was stupidly happy for him, and couldn't think of a better person for it to happen to.
Kris's journey was just beginning, but that was the extent of how American Idol was going to change Cale's life.
That, of course, was when Kris asked Cale to audition for his band. When Cale made it into Kris's band. (Kris said it was a foregone conclusion but Cale was the one who saw the dubious looks on those faces so he played for his life in those auditions.)
It was only then Cale understood that those little things he thought had changed his life before, in their small ways? They didn't mean anything at all. Those things changed Kris's life. But this now was something Cale was doing, doing with Kris, and it was going to change everything.
:::
"All right, let's try that one again, from the top," said Kris, hand wrapped around his mike and bobbing his head and looking like the rock star he'd never quite been before. He was still Kris, but he'd grown and changed so much over the past year or so, in ways that just make him more Kris but still notable to someone who knew him like Cale did.
"I'm good to go," said Cale. "Do you want to speed it up?"
Kris just shook his head without looking up. "I just want to get it down first," he said. "I just want to get in sync with everyone."
Everyone was Cale and these three guys he'd just met, more or less. Well he'd met them individually during the audition process, but met for real when they all came together as Kris's band. His band for now, anyway, but even if the other guys saw it as a temporary gig, Cale wasn't going anywhere. They started as strangers, but with Kris as their front man Cale didn't think they could stay that way for long. That just wasn't how Kris worked.
Cale was the one of them who'd already known Kris for years, so Cale was the one could see in the set of Kris's shoulders that he was tired and stressed. He was the one who could tell that Kris was pushing hard and paying for it. So he was the one who made an impulsive call, and while Kris wasn't looking he turned back to the other guys and signaled for them all to up the tempo. A lot.
Kris try to keep up at first, but after about fifteen seconds his tongue got so tangled that he just bent over and cracked right up.
"You," he said, pointing his finger at Cale when he straightened up again. "This is your doing."
Cale raised his hands innocently, but denied nothing.
"Break time," decided Torres, and he and Andrew were setting their instruments down before Kris even agreed. So yeah, maybe they'd started as strangers, but already they were more than that.
"Jerk," laughed Kris, seeking out a bottle of water then tossing one to Cale too. Or at him, depending on your perspective.
"Hey, I was just doing what needed to be done," insisted Cale, draining about half in one long gulp. "Almost ready to call it a night?"
"Just a little longer," said Kris. "They haven't kicked us out yet, right?"
"I figured you'd want to get home," said Cale. "It's getting late."
"Is that a hint that you want to get home?" said Kris, wiping his mouth with his wrist. "Just a little bit longer. Tomorrow we can spend a bunch of time on just you and me. Or actually, we can do that tonight when we get home."
"You know, I can sleep somewhere else," said Cale. Which wasn't an attempt to get out of rehearsal, or even a signal he didn't want to be there. But it was Kris and Katy's place, and the last thing Cale wanted to do was wear out his welcome. "I don't need to crash on your couch all the time."
"Our couch is your couch," insisted Kris. "Makes it easier for us to rehearse together without making the other guys wait around."
Cale knew that was important, knew that they had a couple of acoustic shows that were going to be just him and Kris-maybe more than a couple-but Kris was working hard. Kris had been working hard for a long time, to the exclusion of other things. And even if he selfishly liked this time he was getting with him, Cale didn't want to see him burn himself out.
"Just don't forget to have some fun, too," said Cale. "Especially while we're here in LA. We won't always be."
"I know that," said Kris. "It's been that way for a long time. You don't need to worry about me."
"I don't need to," said Cale, "I just do. That's what friends do."
Kris didn't actually answer, but he gave him a crooked little smile and a half-hug before heading off to the can while he could, and Cale figured the rehearsal was going to go on at least a little longer before Kris was ready to call it a night.
:::
Cale had a musical identity outside of Kris Allen-he'd been playing for a lot longer than he'd even known Kris-but it was different working with Kris. Different from playing alone and different from playing with anyone else either. It wasn't just the kind of audiences Kris drew as the reigning American Idol. When they were playing little shows for select groups of radio contest winners, the audiences weren't even necessarily that much bigger. But there was just a different energy with Kris, no matter what the size (or fanaticism) of the audience.
Those times they weren't playing with the whole band, that energy seemed all the more noticeable. To Cale, anyway; he didn't know if Kris even felt it at all. It was a little bit like when Kris and Cale had been playing together before Idol ever happened, but somehow more. Like the connection between them was amplified by Kris's success. Or something else.
Back at the hotel after a show, too tired to do anything but too wired to sleep, Cale's body was usually spent but his brain would be going too fast to shut up.
"That was amazing, right?" he said. "I thought I could go all night."
"You can barely stand up," said Kris, leaning back on his hands on the bed and grinning at him. "All night, my behind."
"When we were up there, I could've," said Cale. "Right? You know what I'm saying, right?"
"I know what you're saying," said Kris, and Cale could tell that he did get it, but he was Kris Allen and even though he was kind of famous now and his life was kind of crazy, he still had the uncanny ability to be calm no matter what the circumstances. Maybe now more than ever.
"I would ask how you do it," said Cale, gesturing at him like that would complete his thought, "but you're Kris Allen. You can do anything."
"Shut up," demurred Kris, legs dangling off the end of the bed, kicking up the bed skirt every once in a while. "You know that's not true."
"Save a bunch of orphans from a burning building? Piece of cake. Swim the Atlantic? Just find me my swim trunks. Fly to the moon? No problem, I'm Kris Allen!"
"Quit it," said Kris, but he was cracking up this time. "I don't know. I guess you just get used to it. Compared to this summer, this is nothing. This summer was crazy. I know I tried to tell you, but do you get it now? I didn't know what it was like to have no time to myself until then."
"Yeah, I get it now," said Cale. "That's why I was asking."
"You okay with it?" said Kris. "You're not going nuts, are you?"
"No, I like it," said Cale. "It feels good. But I'm not you. It's got to be more intense for you."
"Not anymore," said Kris. "I think the show was more intense, even though we didn't travel nearly as much. I mean, it's intense now, but it's intense in a good way. Now it's just what I want to do. I wanted this."
"Yeah, you just didn't know what 'this' is, right?"
Kris chuckled and said, "I do now," and tucked his feet up on the end of the bed with him. "And we get this, you know? You and me here right now. It's not all crazy."
Kris's feet were bare, and that was a probably a weird thing to notice because Cale and Kris had gone to college together and Cale had seen him in all states of undress, but Kris was barefoot right now and for whatever reason, Cale noticed.
For whatever reason, it made this moment feel more intimate. It made everything between them feel more intimate.
Cale's toed off his socks and looked at his toes as he sat down in the chair by the window, and pulled his knees up to his chest as he put his heels up on the chair.
"You sure you're okay?"
"I'm great," said Cale. "I'm just thinking. But no, I'm great. This is all great. And I'm glad I'm doing it with you."
"I'm glad you're doing it with me too," said Kris. "It wouldn't be the same without you."
:::
Cale was the first person Kris told, even before his parents. Not that Cale thought Kris was eager to run to his parents with the news, but Cale had always been Kris's music friend, and his college friend. Now he was his everything friend.
"So how does that work, then?" he said, sitting hip to hip with Kris on the back stairs of the venue, around the corner from the door everyone was supposed to be using. He almost felt like they should be smoking for this. "Or is it too soon to ask?"
"I'm not sure, exactly," said Kris. "It's not like I've ever done this before. I guess I need a lawyer?"
Cale ached a little when he heard him say that, but Kris just seemed to be taking it all pretty calmly. And maybe he'd known for a while. "Or you guys could try to work things out. You could probably change the schedule a little."
But even before he finished suggesting it, Kris was already shaking his head. Cale thought they would at least try. They were Kris and Katy, after all. They'd always been Kris and Katy, as long as Cale had known him. He'd kind of thought they always would be.
"I mean, we already did," said Kris. "Try, I mean. We've been talking to someone for a while already, except all I think it did is convince Katy that it wasn't going to work."
"And you?" said Cale. "I mean, you get a say in it too, right?" Not that he thought Kris would stay with someone who didn't want him, Kris had too much self-respect for that, but it couldn't be that simple.
"I think I was convinced before we started," Kris admitted. "We waited until we were absolutely sure before she filed, though. We exhausted our other options. It was time." He patted his pockets, and Cale realized he wasn't the only one wishing they had a smoke for this. But there was nothing to be found, and Kris just sighed. "Anyway, I figured you should know."
It wasn't really a guy thing, to ask about his feelings, but Cale did anyway because he was the first person Kris told and he figured that meant something. "You figured I should know, or you wanted to talk about it?"
Kris just shrugged and turned his head to look at him. "I thought I wanted to talk," he said, "but it turns out there's not much to talk about it. I think maybe I just wanted to say it to someone, so now it's real. I'm twenty-four and I'm getting a divorce. Probably by the end of the year."
"It's not like..." Cale started, but he wasn't sure if it was what Kris needed to hear. Then again, maybe it was. "It's not like a failure. People change. They break up. It happens."
"Yeah, I know," said Kris, "but I can't help thinking about the people who thought maybe we were too young to get married to begin with and wondering if they were right all along. But it felt so right at the time. It felt like what we should be doing."
"Who says it wasn't right at the time?" he said. "Just because it's not right now doesn't mean it wasn't right then."
"Except it's supposed to be till death do us part," said Kris. "We definitely didn't live up to that expectation."
"Well, maybe next time," said Cale, and Kris just stared at him. "Too soon?"
Finally, finally, Kris cracked a smile. "Maybe a little," he said. "She's still my Katy anyway. She just won't be my wife Katy anymore. And I think that's okay. I just need to get used to the idea."
"I feel like I need to get used to the idea more than you do," Cale said, but that made Kris smile a little too. "I didn't even notice anything."
"Well, you know all those times you stayed over at our place in LA and me and Katy kept you up with noise from the bedroom?"
"Actually, I slept like a baby on that couch," said Cale.
"Yeah, exactly," said Kris, his point suddenly crystal-and uncomfortably-clear.
"Oh," said Cale, understanding a little better now just how much of a surprise this all wasn't, to Kris. "You want me to be around when you call your parents?"
"Nah, it's okay," said Kris. "A beer afterwards might be nice, though. Or, you know, whatever."
Cale knew exactly what whatever meant, and hoped that Torres was holding because he was tapped and from the looks of it, Kris was too.
"Sure, whatever," he said. "You ready to go back inside?"
"Yeah, someone's going to freak out soon," said Kris, grabbing hold of the railing and pressing his hand down on Cale's knee to stand himself up. "Just don't tell anyone till I do?"
"Of course," said Cale. "And anything you need, you know where to find me."
"I always have," said Kris. "I count on it."
:::
Cale's girlfriend was also named Katy, which made for some interesting conversations early on when Kris and Cale were talking to people who didn't know that. And okay, maybe they couldn't resist occasionally playing that up just to see the looks on people's faces when Cale talked about taking Katy out for a romantic dinner or lying with his arms around Katy. But the thing with their parallel relationships sometimes went a little bit too far.
After joining Kris's band, Cale didn't get to see as much of his girlfriend anymore. And for a while that was fine, they made it work, they had holidays and vacations and a lot of little moments together, but eventually it became clear that God was taking them in different directions. It wasn't an easy thing to admit, but with Katy coming close to finishing school and starting her career, and Cale traveling constantly to pursue his own, it was something they eventually had to sit down and come to terms with.
He wasn't going to stop loving her, but sometimes these things were meant to inhabit a part of your life and you learned from them and you grew from them and then you took that with you when you moved on.
And suddenly, somehow, he and Kris were both on their way to becoming single men.
"Sorry, man," said Kris, giving Cale a sincere and heartfelt pat on the shoulder, then pulling him into a hug. And Kris's hugs, they really did go a long way to making everything better. "Do you want to get out of here? Get your mind off things?"
Cale thought about it for a second, but even just going out for coffee meant hanging out with other people, possibly loud people, and Cale just wasn't into that tonight.
"Maybe another time," he said. "I think I'm just going to go up to my room tonight."
"We could smoke," said Kris. "Not up in your room, but there's a fire escape at the end of the hall."
That would mean just him and Kris, and that kind of company Cale could handle. Actually, it would probably be better than being alone.
"Sure, yeah," he said. "But if Lizzie busts us again, you tied me up and forced me."
"I could bring rope, to make it more convincing," said Kris. "Actually, I don't have rope. Maybe pantyhose."
"You have pantyhose?" said Cale. "Do I want to know?"
"They were shoved in the side pocket of my luggage," said Kris with a carefree shrug. "I guess they were Katy's? Probably. If they weren't Katy's, then I kind of don't want to know how they got into my luggage."
"Kris?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't tie me up with a stranger's pantyhose."
"You know what's really funny?" said Kris, stabbing the elevator button with his index finger. "That's not even the strangest thing you've ever said to me. It's not even the strangest thing you've ever said to me when we weren't high."
"I think it was a completely sensible request," said Cale. "Besides, would it really be better for Lizzie to bust us smoking up with pantyhose on hand?"
"Fair point," said Kris. "Ties it is."
Their rooms were on the second-to-top floor, adjacent, and okay, Cale did occasionally dream of a day when they were famous enough to have a penthouse suite, but mostly he was still just really jazzed that they got to travel around the country and play music and make a living doing it.
Except when said travelling around ended his relationship. For just a moment, he'd managed to forget.
He hung around Kris's door while Kris shoved a few things in his pockets, then they did head to the end of the hall and then out the unrigged door onto the fire escape. (Because accidentally setting off the fire alarm while attempting to get high would go over even worse than any of the other scenarios they'd gone through.)
Kris sat down and dangled his feet between the bars, and Cale just sat cross-legged next to him as they passed the joint between them. Probably just the one, maybe two, because they just wanted to relax, not get trashed.
"Remember when we used to do this at school?" he said. "It was just like this, only not quite so high up."
"Everything's different now," said Kris. And those differences were all the clearer when just one thing was the same. "I used to dream of this, though."
"I used to dream of this too," said Cale. "Well, sort of. I wasn't part of a backing band in my dreams."
"You're not, though," said Kris. "I mean, you are, because that's your job. But you're more than that too. You know that, right? That you're more?"
"I think we're all more, to you."
"But we're talking about you," said Kris. "You're not an employee." And he said it like it was a dirty word. "We don't just play together, we create things together. We write together."
Kris was writing some with Andrew, too, but Cale had a feeling that Andrew was a little different too. Not in the way that someone who'd been a friend for years was, but different. They were all special in different ways. Kris could apparently just not be the solo artist who picked up a new backing band on every tour. Being in the Kris Allen Band meant something to him.
They weren't just interchangeable.
"Here," said Cale, passing over the last of the joint, practically just embers now. "That was good stuff."
"Only the best for my guys," said Kris, finally just pinching the end off and dropping it back in his shirt pocket before exhaling. "So you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm all right," said Cale. "Just not all sociable tonight. I don't really want to have to smile."
"Not even for me?"
"Well, I'll always smile for you," said Cale, though he didn't, not right then. He was saving it for when it mattered, since he didn't know how many he had in him. "I can't really blame her. She wasn't really getting much out of this."
"Still," said Kris. "You're pretty awesome, even when you only get a little bit of you."
"I'm glad she's not putting up with it, though," said Cale. "She deserves a relationship that makes her happy."
"Well, doesn't everyone?" said Kris, and Cale guessed that these days Kris knew all about that. He didn't talk about it very much, even with Cale, but his separation from Katy hung in the air a lot of the time. "It's all just a matter of what makes you happy."
"Having an absentee boyfriend didn't make her happy," said Cale. "And being an absentee boyfriend didn't really make me happy either, so I figure it was supposed to happen this way. She's still amazing, though."
"You're going to have to date a groupie," said Kris. "Someone who'll trail around after you from city to city. Or Andrew. You could date Andrew. He's already here all the time."
"I'm not going to date Andrew," said Cale, and that one actually earned the smile.
"Why not?" said Kris. "Andrew's a great guy."
"He's a little too tall for me," said Cale, grinning up at the sky. "It would just be weird, not having to lean down."
Kris just laughed and kicked his legs out a little. "Not something I've ever had to worry about," he said. "Wouldn't it be nice not to always have to stoop, though?"
"Nope," said Cale. "I like the stooping. It makes me feel all manly."
"I'm going to pretend you didn't just insult my manhood," said Kris.
"Wouldn't dream of it," said Cale. "You're the manliest man I know, even if I can stoop to you."
"And don't you forget it," said Kris, and in the end he did dig another joint out of his magical pocket. It was just the thing the night needed.
:::
One of the best things about the band-not just Kris, but the whole band-was how well all of them got along. When Ryland couldn't do some of the dates with them Cale got a little worried, wondered if this was going to begin a cycle of rotating band members that kept them from becoming a really tight unit, but it didn't turn out that way. When they were together they weren't just a bunch of musicians thrown together for a little while, they really were a band.
Cale felt totally comfortable saying these guys were his friends, all of them, and Cale didn't actually call just anybody his friend.
"Are you finished with that?"
Cale looked down at the rag in his hand and tossed it over. "Kris has grubby fingers," he said, and grinned, even though Kris hadn't been handling his guitar at all. And almost never had grubby fingers, particularly when messing around with their instruments.
"Yeah, that's my excuse, too," said Andrew, wiping a fingerprint off his guitar. Or maybe just making a show of buffing it for something to do while they waited for the rest of the guys to get back. "When you're not around, I blame you."
"Like I'd ever mess with your stuff," said Cale. "You're a scary guy. Like one of those baby kittens who pounces on you when you least expect it."
"I think you just described Kris accidentally," said Andrew. "I don't pounce."
"Just because you haven't pounced yet doesn't mean you never will," said Cale. "That's the scary part."
"You have no idea what the scary part of me is yet," muttered Andrew and tossed the rag back, but Cale got the feeling he wasn't actually annoyed. This was just how he was with the people he liked. "But it's definitely not attack kittenish."
"What do you think Kris would do if we started calling him Attack Kitten?"
"He'll probably like it more than hug puppy," said Andrew. "He hates hug puppy."
"Only because his brother has started using it," said Cale. "If his brother uses it, it automatically becomes uncool."
"Hug puppy was never cool," admitted Andrew, and finally Cale got a smile out of him. He and Kris actually kept a tally, of how often they got a smile out of Andrew. Cale was going to have to put another tick in his column later, even though he'd have to defend it because Kris wasn't around to witness it.
"It was cool when I said it," said Cale.
"No, not even then."
"Well, okay, Kris liked it more when I said it," said Cale.
"Now that," said Andrew, with a strange and unreadable little smile, "I would have to agree with. Now what the hell's taking them so long?"
"They stopped so that Kris can pee," said Cale. Andrew just looked at him. "What? It's true. You'll learn, man. You always have to factor in a few extra minutes for it."
"Well, I guess you'd know," said Andrew, and it was true. Cale would.
:::
After the shows, when they'd been going all out for hours, when they were running on too little sleep and too much caffeine, everyone got to that punchy point where they were laughing at just about every word out of everyone's mouth. It didn't matter if it was funny or not.
Torres was packing up and Ryland was on the phone and Andrew was...heck, Cale didn't even know where Andrew was now, he just knew that he just said something about peeing in a can and Kris bent over laughing and then he grabbed hold of Cale's sleeve to hold himself upright. Kris, who never hesitated to touch, grab or hold anyone if they-or he-needed it. Cale was long since used to that but still, when Kris looked up at him with that wide smile, holding on tight, Cale felt special. He felt like he was the most important person in the whole world in that moment.
He wondered if other people felt like that when Kris looked at them.
He wasn't even thinking. There was no one else paying attention anymore and Kris was looking at him like that, so close, lips parted, and Cale just started leaning in. He wasn't thinking at all.
When his brain did kick in, thankfully before he did anything stupid, it was obvious to both of them what he was about to do. He cleared his throat and leaned back again, and Kris let go of his shirt.
"I should go change," he said. "I probably stink."
"You totally do," said Kris, "unlike me, who smells like roses."
"In your dreams," said Cale, but he ventured a tiny smile and got one in return. He didn't even care whether Kris was dripping sweat, hadn't even noticed. It was Kris, and somehow in any state at all these days, and maybe ever, Kris was just magnetic.
"That's what Katy always told me, though," said Kris. "Are you telling me she was lying all this time?"
Normally Cale would have tread more carefully around the subject of Katy, but Kris had brought it up, and Cale latched onto it as a reminder that even if that hadn't been a crazy impulsive motion to begin with, it was still inappropriate timing. For both of them.
"How's she doing?" he asked. "Kate used to keep me updated, but...." He felt a little weird asking his ex-girlfriend about Kris's to-be-ex-wife.
"She's good," said Kris. "We talked yesterday. I guess we're having a face-to-face with our lawyers when we're back in LA."
"Well, that should be...." He didn't even know how to finish that sentence.
"Yeah," said Kris. "But I think we both just want to get this done now so it can stop being all we're about. I hate that it takes forever."
"It takes forever so that you have a chance to get back together before you do something irrevocable," said Cale.
"That's not going to happen now," said Kris quietly. "Anyway, you really do need to change."
"Right," said Cale. "I'll just, we'll just, meet you after?"
"Right, sure," said Kris, finally moving towards the door. "See you in a few."
It was only when he was leaving that Cale replayed the moment in his mind, the way he would later replay it many, many times. And he realized that he hadn't been the only one moving in. Kris had been moving too.
They both really needed to get some sleep.
:::
It was a group dinner, with everyone, and when Cale said everyone he meant everyone. The whole band, the whole entourage (ha, he had an entourage, even though technically the entourage was Kris's; he just liked to pretend it belonged to the whole band) and a couple of people that worked at the venue. Cale actually liked fine dining and fancy dinners, and no, he did not mean Applebee's when he said that, but this was nice too. A small neighborhood restaurant that they took over probably a quarter of just by themselves, and Italian food served family style.
"Here, have some salad," said Kris, serving it onto his plate before Cale could even venture an opinion.
"We aren't at your dinner table," he laughed. "You aren't the boss of me."
"So Kris serves your plate when you eat dinner at his place?" said Andrew. "Nice. My mother doesn't even do that for me."
"Shut up, he needs his greens," said Kris, putting a little bit more on. Spitefully, Cale thought. "Do you want to be next?"
"What I need," said Cale, "is more spaghetti and meatballs. There's more, right?"
"There's way more," said Andrew. "Or at least there was, but I left it in front of Torres so it might be gone by now."
"Dick," said Torres, shoving the nearest bowl in their direction. But he did it with a smile on his face, just like he did everything.
Kris reached for the bowl, and Cale realized he was about to serve that too. "Oh, I have to draw a line," he said. "There is a line being drawn."
"Just keep telling yourself that," said Kris, and put a heaping helping of spaghetti next to Cale's salad. And really, what was there to do but laugh? Especially when Kris knocked his knee against Cale's under the table. Cale bumped him back, and so they went back and forth until Ryland was telling a story about this bar he went to with his brother in Amsterdam and Andrew had reclaimed the spaghetti bowl and Cale and Kris kind of ended up with their knees pressed up against one another under the table.
Kris never did have any real sense of personal space, and it was nice to have someone to feel close to right now. It was nice to have someone to be comfortable with, when everything else was loud and fast and new. For probably the hundredth, maybe the thousandth, time, Cale was glad they were doing this whole music thing together.
It just wouldn't have been the same otherwise.
:::
It was a great show, but then most shows felt like they were great shows, even the ones they played when they were bone-tired and hoarse and could barely get their fingers to work. It was a great show and Cale felt great afterwards, he just needed a moment away from the chaos of it all to let the greatness sink in. He closed his eyes and pressed his back against the wall and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair.
The door slammed and it seemed painfully loud to Cale even though it was nothing compared to all of the other noises on the other side of it, the shouting and the banging around, the chairs scraping and the stage being cleared. But that was all outside the door. On this side of the door, everything was quiet.
"Hey," said Kris, and Cale opened his eyes and looked and didn't even have a chance to answer before Kris was dropping to his knees.
No, that wasn't entirely true. Cale had a lot of chance to answer, even opened his mouth a little, but once he saw what Kris was doing he never bothered to form words.
Kris had Cale's belt open in moments, was yanking his shorts down moments later, and then his mouth was sliding around the head of Cale's cock like they did this every day. Like they'd ever done it before this moment, or even talked about doing it. He closed his eyes and let it slide further inside and Cale had to choke back a moan, because if he'd been mostly hard before this, adrenaline from the show still surging through him, he got even harder in Kris's mouth.
And he could see that Kris could tell, that Kris adjusted for him and brought a hand up to wrap around the base of his cock and started sucking him in earnest. He couldn't tell if Kris had done this before. He didn't really care. It was wet and soft and Kris, and Cale did everything he could to keep from closing his eyes again.
It was so good, though. Not perfect, not without its little slips, its little missteps, but perfect didn't do it for him. What did it for him was seeing Kris's lips around him, eyes closed and looking a little like a debauched angel the way Cale had sometimes, but not as often as he'd wanted to, pictured him in his head. Kris's tongue peeked out as he licked up his cock, lips still around it, hand squeezing and stroking a little, and Cale couldn't hold back anymore. He wouldn't thrust even though his hips twitched desperately, but he did moan, and gasp, and let out a string of vowel sounds that weren't even pretending to be words.
Kris sucked a little harder and little louder, pulling his mouth off to gasp for a few moments then just diving right back in like he was aching for it as much as Cale was. Cale finally brought a hand down to Kris's hair and just ran his fingers through the soft, sweat-damp strands of it, pressing his fingertips into Kris's scalp.
He tried to tell him bodily, if not verbally, when he was about to come, but Kris either couldn't tell or didn't care. Cale came with a choked cry while he was still in Kris's mouth, and Kris jerked a little but only pulled back part of the way, and it was no accident that he swallowed it all down.
Then he let his lips rest there for a few moments, at the tip of Cale's cock as it began to soften, before he pulled back all the way to rest on his heels and look at up at him, eyes wide open and lips swollen and shiny.
"Don't be mad?"
If Cale thought he was speechless before, he was really at a loss for words after that. Of all the things that had crossed his mind in the past few minutes, and there were definitely a few, none of them even approached mad. Kris had pulled away from Cale's hand too, but Cale could still just reach the ends of Kris's hair and he did, toying with them with his fingertips.
"Only that there's no way I'm going to be that good when I do it to you," he said finally.
Kris licked his lips and tried to shake his head, which was seriously the most wrong and craziest reaction to that ever. Cale slipped his hand down to run his thumb over Kris's lower lip, which was as slick as it looked, saliva and maybe a little bit of his come, too, which made his cock twitch.
"I promise to try, though."
"You don't have to-"
"Shut up," said Cale, and almost laughed. Maybe he hadn't put all the pieces together, maybe he didn't have a lot of things figured out, but Kris was acting like this was going to be a chore for him. Like now that Cale'd had this abrupt awakening he wasn't suddenly aware he'd been wanting this forever. And completely ready to do something about that. "The only thing we should be talking about is whether I'm doing it now, or later."
Kris's hand flew to the button of his jeans, flicking it open, and things definitely didn't always have to be talked about to be answered.
"Lie back," said Cale, even though they were on thin carpet over concrete and there were beds in their near future. That future was still just a little too far away right now.
Kris braced himself on one hand and then did slide back, slowly, his eyes never leaving Cale. When he was on his back, knees up and legs spread, he just pushed his jeans and boxers down to mid-thigh and looked away, like he wasn't sure he wanted to see Cale's reaction to that, like he felt a little dirty.
It was both the least and the most dirty thing Cale had ever done.
He dropped to his knees between Kris's legs and leaned forward on his hands and kissed Kris's stomach first, not as confident as Kris when it came to swallowing him down, but Kris's cock was right there, hard and a little wet, and Cale was both turned on and curious about it. He licked the pre-come on Kris's stomach, making him gasp softly, then licked the head too, salty and slick and new, and Cale felt a tingle all the way through him, a sudden thump of his heart.
"Yeah," he murmured, maybe to himself more than Kris because there was no uncertainty in him at all right now, not in his body and not in his head and not in Kris. He slid his mouth over the head and sucked gently, and when that got a moan out of Kris he slid a little more inside, then a little more, then as much as he thought he could handle this first time out.
Kris's hips came up a little and Cale wanted to smile or laugh or say something, but he already had a mouthful so he just sucked like that could say everything he was thinking for him, how buzzed and happy and needy he felt right then. He wrapped one hand around the back of Kris's thigh, right below that perfect ass, then tentatively moved it to cup his balls, which definitely got another positive response.
With that much positive feedback it didn't seem like much of a risk to start going with his gut, pressing his tongue against Kris's cock and swallowing against the head and massaging his balls gently, just enough that it made Kris gasp again, made him breathe something that Cale couldn't quite hear and wasn't sure he was meant to. Cale slowly slid his legs out behind him until he was on his stomach on the floor and started bobbing his head, letting Kris slip almost all the way out before sliding him back in again, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes pausing to just suck the head and slide his tongue around it.
It was easier than he imagined it would be. It felt good. It was fun. And when Kris's hips really started jerking up into his mouth, Cale let him, just sucked hard and let Kris bring himself off in his mouth. It was a bit of a shock when he came, but Kris had swallowed so Cale tried too. He didn't get all of it, a little leaking out and sliding back along Kris's cock, but Cale just licked that up afterwards while resting his fingertips gently against Kris's heaving abdomen.
Then he finally sat back himself and got his first real look at Kris's face since he started. Kris's eyes were just barely open, but he was definitely looking back.
Cale thought about saying something, but he just wasn't ready yet. Instead he tucked himself back inside his jeans and zipped them up, then helped Kris get his up over his hips again even though Kris left his fly unzipped for the moment, still flat on his back on the floor and breathing a little hard.
"So I guess we need to talk about this," Kris said finally, licking his lips again.
"Do we?" said Cale, but of course they did. This was never just about this moment.
It was so much bigger than this.
"But not right now," said Kris, and finally cracked a smile. A smile that was first aimed at the ceiling, and then aimed right at Cale. "I couldn't...I just couldn't help myself."
"There was a little bit of that going on on this end too, in case you hadn't noticed," said Cale, finally getting to his feet and offering Kris a hand to do the same. It was a moment before Kris took it. "I didn't expect...yeah."
"Well, I didn't exactly come in with a sign saying 'brace yourself, I'm going to give you a sloppy blowjob now'," said Kris. "You just looked...and I felt...."
"We'll talk," Cale promised him, because Kris obviously needed to, and they both sort of needed to figure out what happened now that they'd just done what their bodies had, in retrospect, been threatening to do for a while now, over the course of a lot of shows and a lot of hotels and a lot of late nights. "I don't know when. In the car?"
Kris shook his head. "We'll be at a hotel soon," he said, and Cale trusted his judgment on this one, as someone with probably more experience at trying and failing to have personal conversations while travelling with an entourage.
"Okay," he said, and wasn't sure what he was supposed to do here, wasn't sure what he wasn't supposed to do here, but if this was going to be anything like he wanted it to be then there were some things that would just be okay. And if it wasn't going to be anything like he wanted it to be, then he wanted to know that now.
So he leaned in and wrapped his hand around the back of Kris's neck and finally didn't halt part way when they started to kiss. He felt his lips touch Kris's and felt Kris's hand grab at his waist to clutch a handful of his shirt and they kissed, hard and wet and for a very long time.
"We need to go before someone finds us," said Kris, licking his lips again afterwards. To Cale there was no mistaking what they'd just done in the way Kris's mouth looked, the way his cheeks looked, the way his hair and his body looked. To everyone else, though, he'd look pretty much exactly as he had when he'd come off stage.
Someone would find out eventually, because this kind of thing was impossible to keep a secret long, but not right now. This moment was just for them.
And the rest, well, the rest they would talk about.
:::
"So here's the thing," said Kris as they lingered just outside the door to his hotel room. He had the key card poised over the lock but didn't quite push it in yet, just hovered. "The thing that happened? It wasn't really out of the blue."
"Yes, I guessed that."
"And if I get you in this room," Kris went on, "I'm probably going to try it again."
"Before or after we talk?" said Cale, as if that was the important thing he was meant to be getting out of this.
"Well, right now I'm thinking about how fast I can get your pants off," said Kris, "so probably before. If you don't want that, now's the time to speak up."
"Under ten seconds," said Cale, and Kris stared at him for a moment. "To get my pants off. Under ten seconds, and that includes the time it'll take to kick my shoes off, too. Probably a little longer if we're trying to do yours at the same time. Which we will be, by the way, if you let me in that room with you right now."
"Right," said Kris. "So. We're pretty much on the same page then."
"Kris?"
"Yeah?"
"Open the door before I kick it down."
Kris opened the door and Cale pushed past him and then the door was closing under its own weight as they grabbed at each other, stumbling over shoes and tugging at shirts and taking a lot more than ten seconds but only because they were trying to do everything at once. Distantly Cale heard the lock on the door click into place, but he was already tugging at Kris's shirt before the door was even closed and that was a habit they were going to want to break pretty quickly if this was going to be a thing, but not right now.
They should have been getting some sleep, that's what anyone with any sense at all was doing, but now that they'd started this thing Cale wanted to see and touch and taste all those parts of Kris that had been denied to him for so long.
"What are we going to-?" he asked as they finally tumbled onto the bed, clothes and luggage strewn on the floor and forgotten. Cale shoved a room service menu onto the floor and Kris turned the glowing face of the alarm clock towards them so they would have at least some source of light.
"I have no idea," he said. "Do you want...lamp?"
"Yes," said Cale, even though it wasn't a thing, he didn't need to have the lights on to have sex. Or off. Or whatever. "I want to see you."
"I want to look at you too," said Kris, and stretched over as far as he could without ever leaving the bed to switch the dim bedside lamp on. Cale almost wished he'd freeze in that position for a while, muscles stretched out and taut, head turned to the side, spread out in front of him like everything he didn't know he wanted.
And finally Cale didn't need to bury his impulses, he leaned down and licked a stripe up Kris's stomach, getting his attention back almost immediately. He'd been wanting to do that for...he didn't even know how long. Probably a long time.
If he'd known months ago what he knew now...well, maybe nothing would have been different. Realizing he wanted Kris the way he did still felt like a surprise every time he let his thoughts linger on it, but the feeling, the feeling was a familiar one, it had just been a nameless affection before tonight. Maybe nothing would have been different. Or maybe he would have spent those nights on Kris and Katy's couch thinking about inviting Kris out there with him, thinking about what Kris could have been doing with him that he wasn't doing in bed with Katy anymore. Maybe he wouldn't have banished those stray thoughts, those stray fantasies, before they ever had a chance to form.
"We're just going to have to wing this," he said, with his nose against Kris's skin.
"Yeah," breathed Kris. "Awesome." He tugged a little on Cale's hair and brought him up closer and then they were finally kissing again. Kissing hard and deep and Cale sneaked a thigh in between Kris's so they could at least rub off against one another as they kissed. In his head he wanted this to be a little slower, but his body wanted to get things going in a big way.
Kris's breath caught as they moved together, or against each other, or maybe both. Kris's body was hard all over, built of smooth, solid muscle that felt new and exciting under Cale's hands.
"I think this is pretty intuitive," he said a few moments later, as they didn't seem to have any trouble touching and kissing and rubbing off against one another. "Huh, who knew?"
"We're built knowing how to do this," said Kris. "Now hush."
And to enforce his order he just kissed Cale again, not letting him do anything with his mouth other than kiss back. If Kris had to be demanding about something, Cale was glad it was this because he didn't exactly mind obeying.
They could keep doing this, and Cale was a hundred percent certain that he would come from it, but he was feeling a little bit more adventurous too. Well, okay, he was feeling a little bit like he wanted to stick his dick in something, actually, but adventurous sounded a little less crass. He wasn't even that picky about what.
But he didn't know how to ask, so he kept on rocking against him, rubbing himself off against Kris's body, grabbing hold of a handful of Kris's perfect ass and hanging on as Kris gasped and thrust against him and sounded like he was even closer than Cale. Before either of them came, though, Kris reached back and took three tries to snag hold of something, and only when he had it did Cale realize that it was his t-shirt.
And when they finally did come, Kris with a sound that was almost like a growl and Cale mere moments after that, at least partly from that sound, Kris caught it with the t-shirt and had them cleaned up in moments.
"I have to sleep here," he explained a moment later, his words all running together as he collapsed back against Cale again. "Nobody likes the wet spot."
Cale tried to answer but ended up just nodding when his mouth didn't seem to want to make any sound. Kris gave him a lazy smile and pushed himself up to give Cale another kiss. They didn't say anything for a comfortably long while, draped over one another and cooling off and sharing kisses every few moments so comfortably it was like they'd been doing that forever.
"Is your brain working yet?"
"Mm, more or less," said Cale. "Are we talking now?"
"Probably should, yeah," said Kris. "Should we get out of bed to do it?"
"Nah," said Cale. "Unless you need to. I'm not really thinking about moving yet unless someone shoves me out of the bed."
"Not tonight, anyway," said Kris, which was definitely a strong implication that there would be other nights. "Right. Okay."
"So what's on your mind?" said Cale. "Do you have a speech prepared?"
"Yeah, I wish," said Kris. "I'm not really good at this stuff without a little more preparation."
"That," said Cale, "is not news to me. But if you ask me, you always seem to know the right things to say if you just let yourself say them."
"We should keep doing this," said Kris. "This thing, with us. I had a good time, and you had a good time. Right?"
"Right," said Cale. "I definitely had a good time. My dick had a great time."
Kris grinned against his shoulder, then pushed himself up onto his elbow so that they could at least attempt to have a real conversation. "So those are sort of all my cards. I think we should keep doing this. I want to. It feels good and comfortable and easy."
There was so much unsaid there, things about how Kris was still negotiating things with Katy, how Cale hadn't been with anyone since his break-up, things about how they were really each other's most and least complicated option when it came to beginning to move on. But neither of them said any of them. Kris wanted it to be simple, and Cale wanted to believe it could be, and maybe if they both believed that hard enough it would be as easy as that.
"Right, my turn," said Cale. He'd run his hand slowly up and down Kris's back at least twice before he even realized he was doing it. "As if we could ever be a one-time thing. This isn't a drunk hook-up. I don't do drunk hook-ups. You definitely don't do drunk hook-ups."
"So that means you want to keep doing this too?"
"I definitely want to keep doing this," said Cale. "My dick is cheering right now. And I always figured you'd be the kind of guy to treat a girl right."
"You're not a girl," said Kris. "And neither is your dick."
"Do we need to talk about that?" said Cale. "I'm actually kind of not sure what to say about that. I'm still feeling a little blindsided. Happy, but blindsided."
"Yeah," said Kris. "I wasn't exactly blindsided. Should I have said something about that? It never seemed like the right time."
"Oh," said Cale. "So you've...."
"No," said Kris. "I mean, I was with Katy. I was always with Katy. But I knew. It didn't matter much, but I knew."
"You could've said something," said Cale. Which didn't necessarily mean that he should have, because that was his business, but he could have. "You could have pointed out hot guys on TV or something. Or at the movies."
"I never even pointed out hot girls on TV," said Kris. "Anyway, now you know."
"And despite your vast experience ogling guys, we still get to fumble our way through it," said Cale. "Which okay, has actually worked so far."
"Yeah, I think it's definitely worked," said Kris with a breathless laugh. "And as long as we agree we both want to do this, I guess we'll keep on learning it all as we go."
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4