a very sparkly update!

[orbedrowned]

Happy Adam's Birthday, y'all! <3 Grab a slice of cake and put on some glitter.

Thanks as always to adelate for waving her magic wand over this and for verifying that it makes sense if you haven't seen Velvet Goldmine, and to scarlettlynn for verifying that it makes sense if you have seen Velvet Goldmine. I hope you all think it makes sense, too.



...actually, let's have a scavenger hunt! The first person to tell me where I wanted to use the word "chiffon" here but didn't because I thought it would be jarring in high-school-Kris's POV wins...I don't know, something.

[in context here.]

____________

Kris had always wondered why December 26th was labeled on calendars as "Boxing Day." It made him think of those punching-kangaroo puppets with boxing gloves, which probably didn't have anything to do with it. His mom said she thought it was a holiday in England or something. On this side of the Atlantic, it seemed like National Phone Call day, starting right at 9 AM with a call from Kris's other set of grandparents, who were calling to ask how Christmas went and whether the box they'd sent had arrived yet.

After that---and all before lunchtime---there were calls from three more sets of relatives, two of Daniel's jackass friends, his mom's friend from church, Katy again, and Charles, who'd barely finished rattling off his list of newly-acquired video games before Kris was out the door and on his way over. When he returned hours later, full of leftover Christmas food and with his eyes practically crossing from staring at the TV for so long, the fridge was full of phone message post-its. His favourite was one that his mom had written for him that read "Joey called, he got a new bass for Christmas!!!" complete with three exclamation points and a little smiley face.

He ignored all his messages, for the time being, and brought the phone into his room to call Megan. They decided that maybe they'd meet to practice on Saturday (which Megan referred to as "New Year's Eve Eve"), and she gave him directions to her house for Thursday night, as well as telling Kris not to worry, he and Katy didn't have to wear glam rock outfits if they didn't want to.

"I don't even know what a glam rock outfit is," Kris said.

"Oh, you'll see," Megan replied, the statement hovering intriguingly in the grey area between promise and threat.

Kris (after sharing some verbal exclamation points over the phone) went to Joey's house the next day and played music all afternoon. Joey's brother, who was home from college and bored, came down into the basement occasionally to tell them they didn't suck too badly or ask if there was any mustard in the fridge or make an offhand comment about how he might be willing to sell Kris his secondary electric guitar if he got a new one after spring semester was over. The guitar in question, which was pretty beat up but a cool metallic dark blue, instantly felt a thousand times better in Kris's arms. He wanted to start talking to it, completely crazy baby talk about how maybe someday, it was going to come home with him, and it could meet his other guitars, and they could hang out in the garage. He really didn't have any grounds to mock Katy's attachment to her new armchair, which he still hadn't seen.

She was busy on Thursday, though, so Kris went to Charles's again. Charles had the most comfortable couch on the world, the sheer squishiness of it almost always lulled Kris to sleep the second it was quiet enough, so it wasn't a huge surprise when he woke up to Charles shaking his shoulder and saying, "Wake up, you're drooling on me."

"Sorry," Kris said, sitting up and wiping his mouth---and then, as an afterthought, the shoulder of Charles's sweatshirt---with his sleeve. "It's your couch, man. It's like...hypnosis or something."

"Hypnosis would be cooler, then I could make you think you were a chicken," Charles said. "And speaking of chicken, my mom wanted to know if you're staying for dinner."

"I can't," Kris said, yawning. "I have to go home, I'm going to---there's this movie night thing. For the GSA. Katy and I are going."

"You're like...hanging out with those people now? Aren't they kind of...nuts?"

"They're cool." Kris shrugged, trying not to look as annoyed as he suddenly felt. He was sleepy and grumpy, and he really didn't want to ride his bike back home, and so what if everyone in the GSA was kind of nuts? Kind of nuts was better than boring, and anyone who could spend as much time cackling over a Slinky as Charles could sort of lost their right to declare other people crazy, anyway. (Kris had a nagging suspicion that he really, really wanted to ignore that what Charles actually meant was aren't they kind of...gay? And there was just no way---no way---that he was getting into that right now, he was tired, and he had places to be tonight, but he could feel it looming on the horizon like a giant raincloud of stupidity and awkwardness, which didn't do anything to make him less grumpy.)

"If you say so," Charles said, clearly not convinced. "You're not going to watch gay porn or something, are you?"

Kris rolled his eyes and considered tossing some Cheez Doodles at Charles, but he Cheez Doodles were too lightweight to be very good for throwing, they'd just end up all over the couch and Charles's mom would get mad. "Why, did you want to be invited if we are?"

"Uh, no---"

"We're not watching gay porn," Kris snapped, then figured he'd better make a joke to counter it. "Tonight is movie night. Porn night is next week. You need to pay more attention to the schedule. Actually---what time is it?" It looked like it was already dark out, which meant his mom would be probably be annoyed at him because she hated him riding his bike at night. (Even though 4:30 totally didn't count as "night," no matter what time sunset technically was. Maybe he'd pretend Charles's dad gave him a ride so she didn't worry.) He reached under the coffee table for his shoes. "I should probably get home."

"I'll try to break it to my mom gently that you're leaving. You know she considers you the tiny daughter she never had."

"Ha ha," Kris said, grabbing a last handful of Cheez Doodles. This time---since he was standing up and gravity was on his side---he did throw one at Charles. It got stuck in the hood of his sweatshirt, which, unlike his jokes about Kris being a girl, was actually funny.

Kris's mom was busy making something at the stove with the phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder when he got home, so he escaped a repeat of the conversation they'd already had a million times where she tried to convince him to put like, seven more lights on his bike. He thought about changing his shirt after dinner, but he really didn't know what a glam rock outfit was supposed to be, and since Megan had specifically told him he didn't need one, he thought the black long sleeved t-shirt he was wearing was probably okay.

Kris and his dad were were going to the DMV for Kris's driver's permit test the next day, so his dad quizzed him on traffic laws and road signs as they drove to Katy's house to pick her up. Kris had all the driver's manual stuff memorized pretty well, except the "keep right of divider" sign because the picture didn't make any sense to him. He found himself thinking the questions were a good distraction from his slight nervousness about this movie thing. It was kind of weird to think about hanging out with everyone from the GSA outside of school---not weird the way Charles thought it was, not in a bad-weird, these people are crazy way. Just...new-weird. He wasn't sure what to expect, how it was going to go, if he was going to feel stupid and out of place.

Megan had given Kris the house number, but she'd also told him that her house had all-blue Christmas lights, which ended up being the easier way to find it. Adam's car was in the driveway, too, so they knew they were in the right place, and Becky answered the door.

"Kris and Katy are here," she yelled over her shoulder.

"Hiiii," Megan sang out, clomping down the stairs. She was wearing platform shoes that made her tower over all three of them, including Becky, who was wearing heeled boots herself. "Come on in, you can put your coats in the kitchen."

"So that's a glam rock outfit," Kris said, looking wide-eyed at Megan's shirt, which was almost entirely covered by a butterfly made of sequins and beads. She was like a walking disco ball, and the shirt made noise as she moved, all its little plastic pieces sliding and bumping against each other. "It's...really shiny."

"Thank you," Megan said. "I sewed on all the beads on myself."

"...Seriously?"

Megan laughed. "Hell no. I found at in the Salvation Army, isn't it cool? Alicia says it's slowly making her go blind."

"Because it is," Alicia said as they walked into the kitchen. Alicia was wearing a David Bowie t-shirt, a bunch of glittery hairclips, and a lot of purple eyeshadow. "It's like staring directly at the sun!" She staggered into the table, bumping it hard enough that it swayed a little. "Oh, was that the table? I didn't even know it was there, all I can see is your shirt going supernova."

"I'll be your seeing eye dog," Becky said, grabbing Alicia by the wrist and dragging her out of the room.

"Is something burning?" Kris asked, draping his coat over someone else's on the back of a chair.

"No," Megan said, opening a cabinet. "And also yes. Something was burning."

"We tried to make pita chips, but we forgot they were in the oven, and they ended up as pita charcoal briquettes. Hi," Adam said, walking into the kitchen, and Kris almost did a cartoon double-take. Megan, Alicia, and Becky were all wearing sparkly makeup---Kris was completely sure by now that glam rock and sparkly went together---but Adam was wearing so much sparkly makeup that his face (and his hair, there was even glitter in his hair) caught the light however he moved, like he'd just hopped out of the shower and was standing around in Megan's kitchen shimmering with water droplets. He was also wearing bell bottom pants that were flared enough to flap around his feet as he walked, and a psychedelic patterned button-down shirt with giant lapels and several buttons undone to make room for his necklaces (plural, he had at least three of them). He looked like he was going to be in a movie instead of sitting around on a couch watching one. Kris had never seen anyone so clearly in costume when it wasn't Halloween before.

"Hi," he said, belatedly, trying not to stare. Or at least trying not to stare in a way that seemed rude. Adam had to expect some staring, didn't he? Kris didn't know what to say---he clearly had to say something, ignoring Adam's costume or outfit or whatever it was would just be ridiculous, but he didn't trust himself not to say the wrong thing. It was another case of something being bad-weird versus new-weird, and Kris didn't want to sound like he meant the former. Adam actually looked pretty awesome. The overall effect of his outfit was hypnotic, in a different way than Charles's couch. Kris didn't want to take a nap, he just wanted to keep staring, maybe grab Adam's shoulders and lean him back and forth a little bit and watch him refract the light like a kindergarten art project.

"You're so glittery!" Katy said, saving the day. "Isn't that going to be hard to get out of your hair?"

"Yes," Adam said. "But---"

"Never mind your hair, what about my bathroom?" Megan said. "It looks like a unicorn exploded in the sink. You're lucky my mom loves you. But you'd still better---"

"I will de-glitter your bathroom before your mom gets back." Adam held one hand up solemnly like he was swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and it dawned on Kris that Megan's mom wasn't here.

When his mom had asked if there were going to be parents at his movie night (which he'd presented to her, in what he considered a harmless white lie kind of way, as a GSA meeting that just happened to take place at someone's house), he'd said yes, of course by default so she'd let him go. But now that he was here, it seemed like it should have been obvious all along that the absence of parents (Megan's parents were divorced and her dad lived in another state, so only her mom had to leave the house for there to be a total absence of parents) was probably the point.

"We have accoutrements," Becky said, making a beeline for Katy and handing her a sequined vest, so maybe accoutrement meant vest in French, or something. "This is tiny, it should fit you."

"And this is for you, because she told me I couldn't make you wear a dress," Alicia said, draping a scarf around Kris's neck. It was made of a soft, almost see-through green fabric with little golden threads woven through it. It reminded Kris of the shirt at the mall that had reminded him of Adam. "Also, glitter." She dipped her index finger in a little jar of glitter and drew a line across Kris's left cheekbone, like she was applying war paint. He expected the glitter to be gritty, to scratch against his skin like sand, but all he felt was the warm brush of Alicia's fingertip against his face.

"Oh my god, don't attack him with that," Adam said, grabbing Alicia's jar of glitter and setting it down on the table. "He doesn't need to glitter, he's fine."

"It's okay," Kris said, but Alicia was talking over him.

"Everyone needs to glitter tonight. You'll see when we watch the movie," she said to Kris, and went to sit on the counter next to Becky, who was doing something to Katy's hair that involved chopsticks with rhinestones on them.

"Sorry about that," Adam said, his hand halfway to Kris's face (his nails were painted again, but this time he had both hands done), presumably to wipe the glitter off, before he stopped and fiddled with his necklaces instead.

"It's fine," Kris said, folding his fingers into his sleeves to keep from rubbing at his face himself. He figured he might seem at least 50% cooler if he didn't get all gross, get it off me about a little bit of glitter. He decided to leave the scarf, too, the fabric was so light he barely even noticed it was there. "It's not like she was throwing acid at me. And now I match the movie. Uh, I guess."

Adam laughed. "Stay tuned for next time, when we watch...I don't know, a mermaid-themed movie and she tries to make us all sit in the bathtub for authenticity."

"Like in Splash, when her tail grows back when she's in water, and she's in the bathtub..." Kris said, trailing off as he realized he'd just lost any cool points he'd gained by keeping the glitter on. But now that he'd started the train of thought, he might as well finish it, or at least explain it a little. "My brother and I watched that movie like a billion times when we were little. I don't really know why..."

"Because it's awesome," Adam said, and maybe that was what he looked like in all this glitter, a mermaid. Which was similar to "just got out of the shower," as descriptions went, but more poetic or something. "Actually, we should have a Splash movie night. I haven't seen it in forever, I bet it would look so horrible and 80s now."

"As long as we don't really have to sit in the bathtub," Kris said. "Or like, flood the couch to make it more mermaid...ish."

"...Or drag a kiddie pool into Megan's living room." Adam said this thoughtfully, like it was something to consider instead of an addition to Kris's "Things Not to Do" list. Before he could suggest that they could also turn the kitchen into one of those tanks where you could pet a manta ray, the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," Megan said, shuffle-running into the hall, her shoes making her sound like a small herd of horses. Katy and Becky followed her, with Becky telling Katy that she had to see her hair, because it was like, perfect.

"Offer Kris a drink," Alicia said, stopping the lull in the kitchen almost before it started.

"Right," Adam said, shaking his head. He walked over to the counter on the other side of the sink from where Alicia was sitting, where there was an assortment of bottles---mostly soda, but a couple liquor bottles, too, which gave Kris a moment's pause. It wasn't like he'd never been at a party that involved alcohol before. He'd even sampled some of said alcohol (and in the case of the seriously disgusting mixed berry wine coolers, wished he hadn't). But the initial moment of shock---there were no parents here! there was liquor! this could be trouble!---had been instilled in him by all those years of school-sponsored training about just saying no. But he didn't want to say no. He also didn't want to wind up laughing at himself out loud and have to try and explain it, so he re-focused on Adam, who was sparkling at him expectantly.

"There's a bunch of soda---obviously---and we're having rum and cokes, if you want one."

"Sure," Kris said before he realized Adam wasn't done talking.

"There also might be vodka somewhere, if you want. Or not, I mean, don't feel like you have to. This isn't one of those lame skits at an assembly where we're trying to peer pressure you into drinking or something."

"Oh my god, yes it is," Alicia said, sounding ecstatic. "It so is. Kris," she intoned, hopping down from her perch on the counter and crossing her arms. "If you don't have a rum and coke, we will shun you."

Kris feigned unsureness. He even scuffed his foot on the floor a little bit, which he thought was a nice touch. "So you're saying...if I have a rum and coke, I'll be...cool?"

"Yes." Alicia's Cheshire Cat grin made him happy he was playing along. "Also, we need you to help us rob a bank, and then we're going to sell you as a sex slave."

"Okay, great," Kris said. "One rum and coke, please."

"Ha, now we've ensnared you in our evil web of evil!" Alicia cackled.

Adam sighed as he poured some coke. "...Evil web of evil? You're not even trying. That's like using the word in its definition. Say when," he said to Kris, bottle of rum poised over the glass.

"When," Kris said, a little later than he meant to. In addition to the nail polish, Adam was wearing a couple rings on each hand. Kris kind of wanted to try them on. One of them looked like a mood ring, and those were always fun.

Megan walked back into the kitchen, accompanied by Rose and a girl Kris recognized from the choir room but hadn't ever talked to. Megan introduced her as Caitlin, who usually played guitar for her at open mics.

"Sorry to take your job," Kris said, taking a sip of his rum and coke, which mostly just tasted like coke, but with a weird, tantalizing sharpness underneath that both burned his throat a little and made him want to keep sipping it.

"Not a problem," Caitlin said, giving Kris a little wave as she took off her coat. "I'm going to do a couple songs with Adam this time. This is exciting, we like, never have boys at movie night."

"Uh, hello?" Adam said. "I'm a boy."

"A fact that your pants won't let us forget," Alicia said, which was followed by a quiet moment that involved everyone---Adam included---tried to pretend they weren't glancing at Adam's crotch. Kris wondered how pants that tight could possibly be comfortable, reminded himself not to stare, what the fuck, and concentrated on the lack of ice cubes in his drink. Maybe he should ask Megan if he could have some ice, or maybe he didn't have to ask, Megan didn't seem like someone who'd care if he went and opened her freezer...

"Anoop was supposed to come," Megan said, blissfully breaking the silence. "But he and Matt are being totally lame and going to this hotel---"

Rose raised her eyebrows. "...They're going to a hotel?"

"Oh my god, not like that! There's this piano---it's, I don't know, some impressive kind, and Matt thinks they might let him play it, because it's Thursday and no one will be there anyway."

"Spencer is coming later," Alicia said. "But he's at band practice."

"And Taryn said to tell you she had to work, but she might come by after," Rose said, pouring herself some soda.

"So this is probably all of us, for now," Megan said, as Becky and Katy walked into the kitchen. The sequined vest had fit, and Katy was now part of the walking-disco-ball phenomenon. "Let's migrate!" She headed off in the direction of what Kris assumed was the living room, flapping her arms like wings.

"You've been...glammed," Katy said, sounding unsure about whether that was a verb or not. Kris wasn't sure either. She rearranged the scarf around Kris's neck, draping one end over his shoulder. She was wearing the necklace Kris gave her for Christmas, and it sparkled along with the borrowed vest.

"I guess. Do you want something to drink?"

"Sure," Katy said, surveying the bottles on the counter. Kris watched her take the same little pause he had at the liquor bottles, but she didn't say anything. "Ooh, cherry 7-Up."

Kris poured her a glass and they followed the migration (like birds, Kris realized, that's why Megan had been flapping her arms, that seemed much less insane now) into the living room.

"We saved you guys part of the couch," Megan said, flopping from where she was perched on the armrest of said couch to sit next to Adam, who had his socked feet---Kris found the fact that he was wearing plain white socks with the rest of his crazy outfit kind of hilarious---up on the coffee table.

"Thanks," Kris said, sitting down on Adam's other side. Katy nestled in next to him. Alicia was sitting half in Rose's lap in an armchair, and Becky and Caitlin were sprawled out on the floor. It took several more, smaller scale migrations and re-migrations to the kitchen for drinks and extra bowls to divide up the giant bowl of popcorn ("Why did we make this before anyone even got here?" Becky said. "Now it's cold.") before everyone settled in a second time.

Kris and Katy stayed in their spot on the couch---Kris still wanted some ice, maybe, but he also didn't want to get up. Caitlin produced a box of Raisinets from her bag, and Katy poked Kris in the ribs.

"Hey, where are my Sour Patch Kids?" she said, and it took Kris a second before he remembered the IOU he'd written her for Christmas, the Sour-Patch-Kids-and-a-movie IOU, and Kris realized he should have bought her some, that would have been cute. He could imagine it, in this way where he felt completely disconnected from the idea, from the unreal perfect-boyfriend version of himself in his head who'd remembered the candy and made an evening-long joke out of it, teased her about how this totally counted as their movie date even though it really didn't. There was an open bag of gummi worms on the end table, so he leaned over and grabbed a red and orange one (those were her favorites, and unlike Froot Loops, the different colours actually tasted different) and handed that to her, instead.

After a search for the VCR remote (which was under Alicia and Rose's armchair) and the movie itself (which was in Megan's room), they shut off the living room lights and hit play. Kris had his arm around Katy, and the sequins on her vest were pressing into his skin through his sleeve. He felt a weird little tickle of nervousness as the FBI warning screen illuminated the room. He'd forgotten to be nervous for a while because he'd been busy being more or less comfortable, but now it was still and quiet and dark and things felt unsure and new again. He glanced over at Adam. The TV glow was outlining the sharp lines of his profile and giving the glitter on his face a bluish cast, and he turned slightly to look at Kris and smiled, nudging the bowl of popcorn into Kris's leg, his raised eyebrows clearly saying here, did you want some popcorn? Kris smiled back and grabbed a handful. He'd forgotten there was popcorn.

The movie started with a weird montage of stars and smoke and a voiceover about history, which made Rose voice Kris's concern about whether they had the right tape.

"...This isn't a documentary, is it?"

"No," Adam said, rolling his eyes. "You'll see."

That was when the spaceship appeared onscreen, and then there was something about Oscar Wilde, whose name Kris had heard before, but couldn't really remember where, and then Caitlin grabbed the remote from the coffee table and hit pause.

"Hey, what are you---"

"Just pausing for a second," she said.

"Already?"

"I just need to make sure that we're all on the same page," she said. "Is this movie implying that Oscar Wilde was dropped off on his parents' doorstep by an alien spaceship?"

Adam laughed and grabbed the remote back. "Yeah, sure," he said. "That's the entire plot of the movie. It's the subtitle. Velvet Goldmine: Oscar Wilde Is an Alien."

"Just making sure," Caitlin said, and settled back in on the floor.

Adam hit play again. The plot of the movie was kind of confusing, since it kept jumping around between decades and all the characters had radically different hair in like, every scene, but it quickly dispelled any of Kris's lingering confusion about what a glam rock outfit was. After a while, Megan's platform shoes and Adam's intense glitteriness actually seemed conservative just because neither of them was wearing a skintight holographic jumpsuit and a foot-tall feathered collar. (Adam issued a sigh of longing over the feathered collar.)

In fact, the movie seemed designed to inform anyone watching it about what exactly glam rock---outfits and otherwise---was. There was a fake news segment that outlined some key points (glitter, tall shoes, generally looking like whatever or kissing whoever you wanted and not giving a shit what anyone else thought) and had a guy being interviewed about whether he was bisexual saying I like boys, I like girls, they're all great. No difference, is there?

"Yay," Becky said quietly. Kris wondered what that meant---whether it was a general supportive yay, or a more specific one, if it was her saying yay, that's me, too, if she thought guys and girls were equally great, in a sexual way. He didn't want to jump to conclusions, but something about her tone made him think it was the latter. He had the same I should have known feeling that he'd had when Adam told him about Justin Chen, and he felt stupid about it all over again. And Becky had a boyfriend, he remembered, which made the whole thing even weirder to think about. Did he know she also liked girls? How did you tell someone something like that? Did you just say ...I like boys, and I like girls, but I like you best, and hope that was enough?

They had to pause the movie again when the doorbell rang and Megan got up to answer it. Kris picked up his empty glass from where it was balanced on his leg. He regarded it suspiciously, he didn't remember it being empty.

"Here," Adam said, standing up and extending his hand. "I'm going to the kitchen anyway. Do you want another rum and coke?"

"Sure," Kris said, and out of the corner of his eye, Katy gave him a you're drinking something with rum in it? look, which he pretended not to see.

"Can I have one, too?" she said, which he hadn't been expecting.

"Absolutely," Adam said, taking her glass, too.

Megan came back into the living room with Marie and Lauren (who was on the lacrosse team, and had been to a handful of GSA meetings), and dragged Alicia off to go in search of more chairs. Kris listened to Marie, Lauren, and Katy with one ear and Becky, Caitlin, and Rose with the other. He leaned heavily into the couch, closing his eyes and tipping his head back into the cushions, and let himself drift. Lauren had spent the afternoon trying to learn to skateboard, and Caitlin had just remembered to give Becky her Christmas present and gotten a thank you kiss---Kris assumed on the cheek, since it was one of those loud, smacky mmmwaa kisses, and then Adam returned, accompanied by the sound of his pants swooshing against the floor.

"Thanks," Kris said, holding out his hand before he even opened his eyes. The glass Adam handed him was cold, already a little wet with condensation because he'd put ice cubes in this one, like he'd been reading Kris's mind.

"How'd you know it was me?" Adam said, sitting back down on the couch. Kris (his eyes now open) grabbed the popcorn bowl before it could tip over.

"Your pants make noise," he said, forgetting to worry about whether that would sound crazy until it was already out of his mouth.

"They do," Adam said, kicking one leg a little to make a little flapping-fabric noise.

"Dibs on the spinny chair," Alicia said, pushing a computer chair into the room.

"No one wants to steal your spinny chair," Megan said, dragging in one of the kitchen chairs and putting it next to the couch before sitting back down next to Adam. Lauren took the kitchen chair, and Marie squeezed in on the couch next to Katy, so Kris obediently scooted over until he was bumping shoulders with Adam as they started the movie again.

They'd paused the movie during one of many random concert scenes, this one featuring the feathered collar guy sans feathered collar (but with a long wig), singing in a nightclub with a guitar. There was so much music in this movie, which made Kris feel better about the actual plot sometimes losing him a little. The music was probably part of why he was a little lost, it was more or less omnipresent and wonderfully distracting. There was normal movie soundtracking, with songs in the background of scenes or accompanying a montage, but there were also fake music videos and concert scenes, some of which mirrored the dramatic lights and screaming crowds and the general idea of rock stardom of the imaginary performances Kris had been giving in his head lately. A few times, he found himself guiltily wishing that he was sitting here with just Megan and his guitar, perfecting "Saw Red" and getting just that tiny bit closer to those things becoming a reality.

Not that Kris wanted all of the concert scenes in this movie to become a reality. There was no way he could play guitar in a giant feathered collar, for one thing, and then there was the scene where the guy who'd played Obi-Wan in the new Star Wars movie sang and poured glitter on himself and jumped around naked. (This garnered a "Nice ass, Obi-Wan," from Alicia, who then spun her chair around, Kris assumed to further show her appreciation.) Kris was happy that it was dark enough that no one could see him blushing. He didn't want to be a prude or anything, but looking at some Jedi/rockstar/whatever guy's dick in a room full of people was just weird.

But maybe not as weird as it was supposed to be, and as the movie went on, he decided that that was actually awesome, that being here with these people who didn't expect him to go ewww, a naked guy or, as the movie went on, ewww, two naked guys! together! in bed! made him realize that he didn't want to say those things in the first place. That every time he'd made a disgusted face or nodded along with all of that typical two guys together, that's just wrong bullshit, he'd just been going with the flow. He'd never actually thought it was true---he'd never actually thought that much about it at all, it was just one of those things everyone nodded along to with to not make waves, to avoid having people turn to stare and say what's your problem, are you gay or something?

Like when he'd said that, yeah, reading Where the Red Fern Grows had totally sucked even though he'd secretly liked it, except it wasn't like that at all, now that he actually knew people who were gay, it wasn't just some abstract concept anymore, he understood how shitty and big ugly ripple-effect hurtful it was to act like he agreed. He didn't like to consider all the times he'd gone along with that stuff in the past, and what he'd do about it in the future. He was just sort of hoping he'd never be around anyone making a gay joke ever again. He tried not to think about it.

For now though, he was here with the GSA-and-friends, and with no one expecting him to laugh or be disgusted, he could admit to himself---happily---that he wasn't. That even if he didn't want to coo awww along with the girls, he thought it was kind of sweet, the way this movie had the Obi-Wan guy and the feathered collar guy (who was supposed to be David Bowie, but also not, as Adam had tried to explain) falling in love with a crazy montage thing. (Which was set to "Satellite of Love," even, and Kris had blurted out "I know this song, I can play it on guitar. Kind of," way too loud, and Adam had said "Oh my god, really?" like he was so impressed that fireworks were going off behind his head. "Megan, get him a guitar, your brother has a guitar," but Megan's brother's guitar was currently missing two strings, which almost broke Kris's heart, because for a second he'd thought...something, he wasn't even sure what, just that if he had the guitar it would be magic.) And it didn't matter that Obi-Wan and Sort-of-Bowie were both guys, they could still have a love story with montages and kisses and fights and champagne. And a bizarre kind of blowjob-through-a-guitar, backed by a song so coiled-up tense it made Kris's heart clench up, followed closely by a scene where Obi-Wan and Sort-of-Bowie were spooned together in a big, mussed bed, naked and peaceful and cute.

It made him think of sleeping over at Brett's house, maybe just because that was the last time he'd shared a bed with anyone (occasionally having to share with Daniel on vacations didn't count). He had Brett had always fallen asleep back to back, curled in different directions but unable to keep from having their shoulder blades pressed together in the narrowness of a twin bed, and falling asleep like that and waking up still touching had always felt like an extra ray of sunlight, just the warmth of being so close and quiet with someone he really liked. And that had never felt wrong to Kris, so why was it any more wrong if there was nakedness and sex involved? He felt like not understanding the difference made him sort of stupid, but maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was everyone else being stupid, and he was---whatever that thing was, where you were generally wise and zen and lived on a mountaintop and could possibly levitate---enlightened.

Or maybe that was the rum and cokes talking, he'd a couple of his own and most of Katy's and he felt kind of...fluffy, like his head was half-full of cotton balls, but they were nice cotton balls, and he didn't feel like dancing on a table or anything, so he figured he wasn't drunk drunk, and that he was okay. He was better than okay. He was enlightened. Maybe.

The doorbell rang again while they were watching another concert scene, this one with a guy wearing the mandatory glitter and a top hat (Rose and Becky were excited that said guy was Brian Molko of Placebo, whatever that meant). Alicia ran to get the door this time, and came back with Spencer.

"It's raining," Alicia informed them.

"It's because I wore these pants," Spencer said. "Every time I wear these fucking pants, it rains."

Spencer's pants were huge, each leg was probably big enough for Katy to wear as a dress, and they were several shades darker and obviously soaking wet from where they dragged on the ground (obscuring Spencer's shoes entirely) up to about his knee level, like he'd been out wading in them.

"I can put them in the drier for you," Megan said, handing Adam her empty glass as she got up from the couch. "You can borrow some pajama pants from my brother."

"Why did she hand me this?" Adam said, regarding Megan's glass like it was one of the supreme mysteries of the universe. "She could have just put it down on the table."

"You could just put it down on the table," Kris pointed out.

"Yes," Adam said, nodding seriously, and did so. He looked blurrier around the edges, somehow, his eyes less laser-focused than usual, and Kris thought that was probably the rum and cokes talking, too. It was kind of a sweet look on him. It made Kris want to give him a hug, like he was a big smeary-eyelinered teddy bear. "Ooh, last green and yellow gummi worm."

"Sharing is caring," Rose purred, tipping her head back to regard Adam upside-down. Adam didn't look swayed, and then all of a sudden Rose was up off the floor and straddling his lap, bracing one hand on his shoulder and trying to grab the gummi worm from him as he extended his arm out behind him to keep it out of her reach.

"Say please," he said, and Kris actually opened his mouth to say please even though he wasn't the one asking for anything. (Not that he'd have said no to half a gummi worm.)

"Please," Rose said, pouting a little.

Adam laughed, twisted the gummi worm in half, and popped half of it in Rose's mouth.

"Hm. This takes me back," Rose said, still chewing. She draped her arms over Adam's shoulders.

"To the dark ages," Adam said, fondly, and turned his head to face Kris. "Once upon a time---"

"In the dark ages."

"Yeah. Like two years ago, you know, during the the last ice age, Rose was my girlfriend."

"Your last-ever girlfriend," Rose said, like she was saying and then I won first prize in a talent show!

"And my favourite."

"Awww, you were my favourite, too," Rose said, and moved so that she was actually sitting on Adam's lap instead of kneeling over him, and it was like she was sitting on Kris's lap, too, he could almost feel the weight of her settling down on his thighs, heavy but good, and he wished Katy were on his lap instead of in the kitchen. Adam's hands were rested comfortably on Rose's waist and Kris got this weird almost-physical twitch of jealousy, like a housefly was sitting on his heart and cleaning its wings.

Adam raised his eyebrows. "I was your favourite girlfriend?"

"Absolutely," Rose said, and then she was leaning in and kissing him, like kissing him, on the mouth, and Kris was trying not to look but it was possible there were tongues involved and he sort of wanted to shove Rose off Adam's lap and tell her hey, not cool, because it was like they were suddenly in a time warp to some other, sadder time. To the dark ages, to the last ice age when wooly mammoths roamed the earth and Adam had still been trying to be normal and have a girlfriend, and Kris had always thought he'd wanted to know Adam back then, but maybe he didn't, because it felt wrong, even just this tiny peek at back-then Adam. He wanted to shake Adam's shoulders and tell him no, don't, stop it, it's like you're lying, and you don't have to lie anymore.

"Okay," Adam said, his voice muffled against Rose's mouth, and his tone clearly meant whoa, that's enough, but softly, gently.

"He's such a good kisser," Rose said, like she was talking to Kris, like this was something he needed to know, and then she sort of rolled herself off of Adam's lap and went off to the kitchen, which must be where everyone else was, because Kris and Adam and Becky, who was possibly asleep in the armchair, were the only ones in the room.

"Look at this," Kris said, shifting around on the couch so he could show Adam his left arm. While he'd been trying not to stare at Rose and Adam, he'd noticed---he'd rolled up his sleeve at some point, he didn't remember doing that---that the sequins on Katy's vest had actually left little circular imprints in his skin. "I'm like, scarred by sequins."

Adam laughed, a real laugh with his head thrown back and his face glittering as he moved, and Kris knew they weren't really in the dark ages anymore. "That sounds like a Lifetime movie title. But I don't know if it should be about glam rock or like, those creepy little-girl beauty pageants."

"Creepy little-girl beauty pageants," Becky said, without opening her eyes. "All the way."

"Noted," Adam said, and grabbed Kris's arm, stroking his thumb over the sequin-prints, just once, his nail polish dark and dramatic against Kris's skin, and the guy who'd played Obi-Wan was wearing black nail polish in the movie, so probably it was all part of Adam's movie-watching outfit, but it made Kris think of the snuggled-in-bed scene and something twitched in his heart again, but not the harsh, skittery buzz of a housefly this time. Something softer. He remembered hatching monarch butterflies in fourth grade, watching them slowly unfold their wings, and his brain played him images in music-video quick cuts---acoustic guitars and morning light and champagne glasses and hedges cut into animal shapes and butterflies and hotel beds and Adam's hands resting pretty and sleepy and peaceful on his skin like heavy sunbeams, and this was definitely the rum and cokes talking, because at least half of that made no sense but now he wanted his guitar again.

"Sorry," Adam was saying, dropping his hand from Kris's arm, and Kris tried to tune back in. Scarred by sequins, he was pretty sure that was where they were. "Next time we'll give her something less pointy to wear."

"Next time we'll be mermaids," Kris said, and had to keep himself from laughing before he could even finish his thought. "She'll be wearing seashells over her boobs." He held his hands cupped over his own lack of boobs, and Adam laughed.

"Seriously? I get to make a seashell bra?" Becky opened one eye. "I've always wanted to---"

"Welcome to our world," Adam said, talking right over Becky mumbling about how she'd never find two symmetrical seashells that were the right size and maybe she could use paper-mâché. He sounded both proud and apologetic, and Kris almost rolled his eyes.

"I've actually been here for a while," he said. Didn't Adam get that he was enlightened? There was nothing to apologize about, Kris could completely deal with both seashell bras and boys kissing. (His enlightenment didn't seem to extend to Rose kissing Adam, but that was already water under the bridge, like they were in Venice in one of those boats that were pushed along by guys in striped shirts.) "What are those boats called?"

"What boats?"

"Oh." Kris hadn't realized he'd said that out loud. He hoped that was the only part he'd said out loud, Adam's reaction suggested it was. "Uh, those boats in Venice, with the---"

"Gondolas," Adam said. "Why do you---"

"Yeah, those. With the striped-shirt guys."

"I think they have hats, too. Don't they have hats?" Adam drew a hat-shape in the air above his head, then yawned and settled into the couch more, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back. His necklaces had sort of slid sideways under his shirt, exposing a triangle of his skin (pale, freckles, chest hair) which Kris wanted to rest his palm squarely on, like that was a reasonable way to say hi, here we are, this is nice.

"I think Katy is lost," he heard himself say, and he stood up, slowly. His legs felt heavy. "I should go find her."

"And take her on a gondola ride?"

"Yes," Kris said, and held an imaginary gondola-pushing-along pole in his hands and pretended to gondola himself off toward the kitchen.

"You should hurry," Adam called after him, laughter in his voice. "I think Venice is in the process of sinking into the ocean."

"Oh good," Marie said, passing Kris on her way out of the kitchen with Lauren as he walked in. "You can help Katy make a fruit salad."

"You're making a---"

"It's not a fruit salad," Katy yelled to Marie over her shoulder, and then lowered the volume to talk to Kris. "I'm just cutting up some apples, and there's grapes. Two things is not a fruit salad."

"It totally isn't," Kris agreed. Katy was arranging the cut-up apple on a plate, and she made a little voila hand motion, and then hopped up on the counter. Her hair was starting to come out of its rhinestone-chopsticks updo, little tendrils falling around her face and neck, and he couldn't not touch her for another second. He rested his hands on her legs and leaned up (the counter-sitting made her taller than he was, which was new) to kiss her. She kissed him back, but not for very long.

"We're in Megan's kitchen," she said, just above a whisper, and just like that, Kris felt itchy and wound-up and snappish. He opened his mouth to say so? Adam and Rose were just like, making out on the couch, but he caught himself in time.

"We could go to the laundry room." He could hear the drier humming, so the laundry room must have been attached to the kitchen. "The sexy, sexy laundry room," he said, in his best fake-seductive voice, because he could see the smile trying to tug at the corners of Katy's mouth and even if he was annoyed, he still wanted to make her laugh. "With Spencer's pants," he continued, and laid his face against the curve of her breast, giving her a little cat-nuzzle and getting a faceful of sequins. "Ow," he mumbled, and it was worth it because suddenly he was getting bumped in the face with the sequins because she was laughing. She curled her hand into the back of his hair and pulled him closer to her, just for a second, before nudging him away.

"Have a grape," she said, holding one out to him, and Kris grabbed it from her with his teeth, then swung her down from the counter, just because.

They brought the not-a-fruit-salad into the living room, and before flopping onto the couch to reclaim his spot, Kris held the plate of apple slices out to Adam, all cordial waiter-style, and Adam took one with exaggerated politeness, like this was a routine they'd been doing for a while.

"Wait, where are Alicia and Spencer?" Megan said, looking around the room like they might pop out from behind a chair.

"...Where'd you leave them?" Caitlin said.

"In my room, Spencer was---oh ew, I left them in my room. No, no," Megan yelled, running up the stairs. (She'd taken off the platform shoes and was now a lot faster on her feet. And a lot quieter.) "Do not have sex on my bed!"

Kris pointedly avoided looking at Katy. He could feel her giving him a see, aren't you glad we didn't make out on the counter? look, and he was not glad they hadn't made out on the counter, thank you very much. (He was a little glad.)

"We're not having sex on your bed," Alicia said, walking down the stairs ahead of Spencer, who was wearing bright pink Hello Kitty pajama pants that were about four inches too short on him. Megan was laughing so hard she was clutching at the banister for support.

"What?" Spencer said. "I love Hello Kitty."

"Pink is definitely your colour," Megan said, patting Spencer on the shoulder. "You should wear those all the time."

"Oh, I'm going to. You're not getting them back."

There was a game of musical chairs in which Kris was happily not involved---he ate grapes and watched Marie try to fix Katy's hair---and then the movie again, all guitars and something about a dystopian vision of the 80s (Caitlin's wording, which prompted Megan to throw a pillow at her) and Obi-Wan wearing tight silver pants and having sex with this reporter guy on a rooftop and several more intermissions during which Kris made himself another rum and coke, helped Adam fish one of his rings out of the couch cushions, and went to go pee and found himself staring into the mirror above Megan's sink and turning his face slowly from side to side to watch the stripe of glitter on his cheek sparkle.

Even though they'd paused and un-paused a billion times, everyone was in a sleepy, blinking-mole trance when the credits rolled and Becky flipped on the living room lights. Kris closed his eyes again and let everyone's voices wash over him as they woke up, readjusted to the light, and started talking. His head still felt full of something fluffy, but now he was thinking clouds rather than cotton balls, or maybe the couch was a cloud and he was floating on it. He wasn't sure what the best way was to describe it, not that anyone was asking him to describe it. But it was something with clouds, in any case.

"Wait, wait," Lauren said. "So that guy was actually the other guy?"

"I think Tommy likes this movie," Spencer said.

"Then why did he make us watch a Western?" Kris could hear Alicia's eyeroll in her tone.

"Just to piss you off."

"But what was with the spaceship? When they were having sex on the roof, I mean. Or were they just on drugs, and that was a hallucination?" Lauren was saying in Kris's other ear.

"You missed the beginning, where Oscar Wilde was an alien," Caitlin said. "So clearly that was him, blessing their love with his space-glitter."

"Next time, we're going to watch The Craft," Alicia said.

"Again?" Adam said, his voice much closer to Kris's ear than everyone else's.

"Oh my god, like you haven't watched this movie a thousand times," she said, her voice moving off toward the kitchen. That sparked another migration, because after that everyone was shuffling around and Katy moved her legs off of Kris's lap and nudged him in the shoulder and asked him if he wanted another soda. He shook his head and stretched out his legs (which were semi-asleep), and that tipped him further backward into the possibly-a-cloud couch. He could feel Adam still sitting next to him---the warmth of his body and the dip of the couch cushions as he moved. Kris hoped Adam wouldn't mind getting drooled on, if he happened to fall asleep. He thought maybe he should say something, open his eyes and stop being boring, but the silence felt good between them and he had no idea what to say anyway.

"That's mine," Alicia shrieked from the kitchen. Kris opened his eyes and looked over at Adam, who raised an eyebrow. "I was saving that! That's the last black olive! If you eat that, I'm going to tell everyone that your middle name is Morgan!"

"I'm going to let you think about that one for a second," Spencer said, "While I eat this olive."

"Nooooo," Alicia wailed. "I hate you!"

"...We're not letting her near the alcohol anymore," Adam said.

Kris didn't think that Alicia having been let near the alcohol was much crazier than Alicia on a normal day, but he had other questions about the conversation they'd just heard. "Spencer's middle name is Morgan?"

"I guess so." Adam shifted around on the couch so that he was sitting sideways and facing Kris. "Mine's Mitchel. But with only one L on the end." He twisted up his face a little, half-wincing at saying something that he thought was weird. "You know, in case you ever need to spell it."

Kris could see all the jokes he was supposed to make right now, occasions he could invent that would require the correct spelling of Adam's middle name. I'll need to know that, he could say, for when I buy you an engraved watch. For when I send you an invitation to my very formal luau. For when I'm filling out the paperwork to have your mail forwarded to Abu Dhabi. But he didn't want to say any of that, didn't want to make a joke.

"Mine's Neil," he said instead.

"Really? That's my brother's name."

"Yeah, it's my dad's name, too. That's why..." Kris waved his hand to say it's my middle name, because it seemed too obvious to bother saying out loud.

"Kristopher Neil Allen," Adam said quietly, and it was like he was holding a string attached to Kris's heart and pulling on it. Kris heard himself breathe in, sharply, and hoped Adam hadn't heard him. "It works."

And he thought maybe he was supposed to say Adam Mitchel Lambert back, in the same tone, like he was holding the sound of it in his hands and weighing it, testing it out, and deciding whether it worked, but he couldn't. It was too...something. Too much. He knew---in much the way he just knew things in dreams, things that didn't necessarily make any sense---that if he said Adam's name back, it would complete some kind of inevitable process like a magical spell in a fantasy movie and they'd be alone in this bubble of time and space and then they'd kiss. Which seemed perfectly reasonable to half of Kris's brain (the enlightened half, or the rum-and-cokes half, which he'd suspected were the same half all along), like it was just another thing that could happen, and then we kiss, awww, like seeing it portrayed in the movie tonight like it was a normal thing made it a normal thing.

Normal for Adam, maybe, and for other people who were actually gay, which Kris wasn't, and this had to be where the difference was between sharing a bed and sex, between being chill and accepting and saying guys making out with each other is a-okay! and actually being a guy who made out with guys. But to the enlightened and/or rum-and-cokes half of his brain, that still seemed like a a fake difference, like something he was pretending was important out of habit, and what really mattered was if he wanted to and Adam wanted to and they liked each other and they were here, alone on a cloud-couch in movie-perfect dim light, inclining toward each other and trading middle names like secrets, except that they weren't alone, everyone was right in the kitchen, and there was Katy's voice in his head all of a sudden, we're in Megan's kitchen, and Katy, he couldn't kiss Adam at all, because of Katy. So he didn't say Adam's name, he just said the first thing that drifted from the other half of his brain, which was apparently: "I want to see Spencer's band. We should go to one of their shows."

For just a second this sadness flickered over Adam's face, like the magical-spell-bubble had been a real thing and Kris had just stabbed it with a safety pin, and Kris's sense of having fucked something up was so strong that he had to bite his lip to keep from apologizing.

"Yeah, definitely," Adam said, his eyes bright again like Kris had imagined the burst-bubble-ness, and something about his tone made Kris feel like they were holding hands, so much so that he actually glanced down to make sure they weren't. (They weren't, of course they weren't.) "I'll ask him when they're playing next."

He got up and went to the kitchen, and Kris just sat there for a minute and stared at the coffee table, which was littered with empty plates and glasses. We should have used coasters, he thought, and then wondered what the hell was wrong with him. Like the coasters were his problem. He pried himself off the couch, suddenly needing the brighter lights and loudness of the kitchen, where he wouldn't be alone with the single remaining gummi worm, thinking about the fact that he'd almost kissed Adam. Or that he thought he'd almost kissed Adam. Or that he thought he'd wanted to almost kiss Adam. Whichever it was, he wasn't even sure he wanted to know, because it was all basically the same thing and fundamentally a bad, bad idea but not having done it still felt like a mistake.

The kitchen was exactly as bright and insane and distracting as Kris had been hoping, and he found himself---after brief conversations about pretzels, boy bands, and Becky's shoelaces---sitting on the counter next to Katy, opening and shutting one of the cabinets as she told him about her sister's friend trying to dye her cat blue with food colouring. Megan was ferrying empty glasses from the living room to the dishwasher, and Kris told her they should have used coasters.

"My mom would love you," she said, and Kris laughed, and the magical-kissing-bubble space inside his head dissolved a little more from his mind with each passing second, the part of his brain that had felt calm and curious and very interested in the idea of Adam's lip freckles gradually fading away until he started to get scared that maybe he'd been kind of spastic about the whole thing and now Adam was avoiding him. (Adam was across the kitchen talking to Spencer, who was a little bit taller than he was. Kris wasn't used to seeing Adam with anyone taller. He felt so far away.)

So when Adam walked over to Kris and Katy's stretch of countertop, all smiles and flapping pants and everything-is-fine, Kris felt a wash of giddy relief before he even started talking.

"Spencer's band's next show is at some girl's birthday party," he said, making a face. "So I guess we can't go to that one, unless we want to crash it---"

"We do," Kris said, "Let's crash it."

"But they're playing at the VFW---"

"Nope, don't care, we're crashing the party. We can wear ski masks or something."

"Are we crashing a party or holding up a convenience store?"

"Both. Or maybe not, maybe we need a better disguise. Like...one of those two-person horse costumes," he said, and he had to take a few seconds to laugh at his own joke like an idiot before he could collect himself and finish explaining his idea, which suddenly seemed like the funniest thing in the world. "And then, when people ask us if we're crashing the party, we can say 'no, we're a pony that you ordered, for pony rides. Happy Birthday.'"

"And maybe people will give us carrots and sugar cubes," Adam said, and he was laughing too, and everything was really okay, Kris hadn't fucked it up, and he thought about Adam with his hair flopping into his eyes like a horse's mane, eating a sugar cube out of someone's hand, and wanted to start cracking up all over again. "I'll practice neighing."

"Hey, who said you get to be the front part?"

"I'm taller," Adam said, like that made sense.

"No way, we at least have to flip for it," Kris said.

"Rock-paper-scissors," Adam said, and a car honked in the driveway.

"That's probably my mom," Marie said, and came over to the counter to give Katy a goodbye hug before she and Lauren left.

Kris managed to say goodbye to them without snickering like a mental patient, but he kept thinking of even funnier things about the imaginary horse costume. Spencer's band seemed to inspire moshing, so what if they got stuck in a mosh pit? The idea of a bunch of punk kids in plaid pants and multicoloured mohawks...and a lumpy fake horse, all jumping around to Optional Mango made him start laughing all over again. He felt lightheaded and sleepy-wired and his face was starting to hurt from smiling.

"How many drinks did you have?" Katy asked him with a mixture of curiosity and mild annoyance.

"At least one of them was just a coke," Kris said. Katy rolled her eyes.

"We'd better get going, too," Spencer (who had gotten his original pants back at some point) said. "Your mom is still pissed about last time."

"She's always pissed," Alicia said, but she started looking around on the kitchen chairs for her coat.

"What time is your dad picking us up?" Katy said.

"My dad? I told him your parents were bringing us home because he drove us here."

"You didn't tell me that," she said, and hopped off the counter. "Megan, can I use your phone?"

Adam giving Alicia a hug in the middle of the kitchen. He kissed the top of her head, very parental and sweet. "Goodnight, crazy warrior princess,” he said. “And goodnight, Spencer."

"Give Spencer a kiss, too," Alicia said, stepping back and zipping her jacket, and fuck, what was this, kissing night? Was this the secondary theme of the evening, after glam rock, and no one had told Kris in advance? He'd just started not feeling stupid about the kissing thing, and now it was floating back into his head.

"I don't think Spencer wants---"

"Spencer is cool with that," Spencer said. "But he'd rather stop talking about himself in the third person." And just like that, he stepped over to Adam and kissed him on the cheek, not even a quick-and-awkward yeah, nice to see you, elderly relative peck, but a casual, friendly kiss, like this was something he did all the time.

"Aww, okay," Adam said, sounding slightly unsure about how cute he actually thought this was, which made Kris feel satisfied for some reason.

"You still have to un-glitter my sink," Megan said, bumping Adam with her shoulder as she walked through the kitchen.

"Yes, mom," Adam said, walking with Spencer and Alicia (who seemed to be summarizing an episode of Xena, which explained why Adam had just called her "warrior princess.") into the hallway.

Katy came back into the kitchen and started putting her coat on, so Kris jumped off the counter and followed suit.

"Wait, you've still got this scarf," she said, tugging it off his neck and draping it over the back of one of the chairs. He'd forgotten all about the scarf, but now his neck felt cold.

"So I'll call you about Saturday," Megan said to Kris, walking them to the door. "And I'll call you about...whenever we're going shopping."

"Okay," Katy said, and gave Megan a hug.

"I'm glad you guys came," Megan said, hugging Kris, too. (And he'd thought Katy’s vest was pointy---he could feel all of Megan's beads and sequins right through his jacket.)

"It was fun," Kris said, feeling like he was talking to Adam, who had just stepped into his field of vision. "And now I know what a glam rock outfit is."

"And you totally want one now, right?" Megan said.

"Obviously," Kris said, watching Adam and Katy hugging each other for a moment before looking at her. "I'm going to sneak back in here later and steal that shirt from you."

"Just don't get it dirty," Megan said. "I think it has to be dry cleaned or something, all these beads." She shook her shoulders a little so the beads rattled, and then shivered dramatically as Adam opened the door for Katy and the winter air rushed in. It wasn't raining anymore, but Megan's driveway and the road were shining all just-wet in the glow of the streetlights. "See you soon."

"See you," Kris said, and walked over to Adam.

"I should have asked Spencer and Alicia to give you guys a ride, sorry about that," Adam said.

"Don't worry about it," Kris said, and stood up on his toes to give Adam a hug. Adam hugged him back with one arm, because he was still holding the door open, and Kris wished he were Spencer so that he could kiss Adam on the cheek and have it be some no-big-deal thing. He wondered how that worked, exactly. If he got bigger pants and spiked his hair and started a punk band, could he kiss whoever he wanted, too? "But I'm still not just letting you be the front half of the horse."

Adam's laugh buzzed against Kris's face. "We'll see about that," he said, sounding about as threatening as a baby squirrel. A big, glittery, eminently huggable baby squirrel.

"Yes, we will," Kris said, stepping back and giving Adam a fake glare. Adam smiled at him, all warm and sparkly, and Kris hated to give him a final goodbye wave and step out the door. He wanted to stay, he wanted to eat the last gummi worm and help Adam de-glitter the sink and play Megan’s brother’s four-stringed guitar, because maybe its having four strings just made it a ukulele instead, and Megan would do her fake hula dance again with her shirt making noise like a plastic bamboo windchime.

"Don't talk to my dad, okay?" Katy said as they stood in the driveway. "He's already kind of mad, and if he figures out you were drinking he'll kill us."

"I'm not drunk," Kris said, just to be a pain in the ass, but as he said it, he realized it was probably true. The second he'd stepped outside, the chilly air and stillness of the night had sort of slapped him in the face. He still felt a little bit lightheaded, but the blurry constant-laughing giddiness was gone. He almost missed it. Everything seemed so sharp and cold.

He talked to Katy's dad about football the entire ride home, just because he could.

____________
Music!
Satellite of Love, as used in Velvet Goldmine.
Brian Eno's Baby's On Fire, as covered in the movie, the perfect soundtrack for a nice blowjob-through-a-guitar.
And Jonathan Rhys Meyers would love to sing you the song from which the title of this fic comes, Tumbling Down.