fic: we're the ones who are out here
Title: we're the ones who are out here (out past the edge of what they know)
Pairing: Adam/Kris; Adam/Kris/Allison friendship
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2,200.
Author's Notes: Adam and Kris, through to the Top 3. No significant others mentioned. Title from Jonathan Coulton's I'm Your Moon.
Summary: So Kris kisses Adam in their dark room on a Friday night, presses his dry lips to Adam's, and it's little more than pressure at first.
Kris is chewing his thumbnail when Adam returns from the bathroom.
"Stop stressing," he says, without looking at Kris, and Kris continues to gnaw. "You'll be fine," Adam adds, and Kris glances over at him.
"You don't know that," he murmurs.
Adam shrugs. "You're cute, and you sing well. You'll be fine," he repeats.
Kris' brow furrows. "Did you just call me cute?" and Adam smiles slowly.
"Maybe," he replies, teasingly, and Kris can't help but smile back. "Why, does that bother you?"
Kris screws up at his nose at him, doesn't bother replying, because it's not a serious question. "That - that doesn't matter. It's a singing competition."
"Oh, honey," Adam says, and it's mostly mock sympathy, "It's so much more than that."
*
Later - much later - that night, when they're back from Jasmine and Gorge's dinner, Kris stares at the ceiling in the darkness of their room, listens to Adam sigh, rolling over onto his back.
"Can't sleep either?" Kris whispers, and Adam laughs, softly.
"I can't wind down."
"Me neither," Kris admits - then, "Adam?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you ... do you think it'll get any easier?"
There's a long pause. "I think it'll only get harder," Adam finally replies, and Kris exhales through his nose.
"Thank you," he says, quietly, and Adam laughs again.
"For what?" and he's genuinely amused, but Kris isn't smiling.
"Being honest."
*
Kris is pacing around their room, late Wednesday afternoon, and Adam doesn't look up from the magazine he's leafing through. "You're making me nervous," he says, warningly, and Kris pauses.
"Sorry."
Adam waves it off.
"I just want to make it to next week," Kris says, partly to Adam, mostly to himself. "I really want to go on tour."
Adam doesn't reply immediately. "Kris," he says slowly, glancing up, "if you don't think you can win - why are you here?"
*
They fall quickly into a rough morning routine - Kris showers first, because Adam wakes slowly; Kris has breakfast while Adam showers, because Adam takes ridiculously long showers and skips breakfast. Kris shaves while Adam straightens his hair, and one morning, after nearly three weeks of this, he finds his hand slowing as he watches Adam in the mirror.
"Can I help you?" Adam teases, gently, and Kris' hand jerks.
"No - I just-" he doesn't really know what he's doing.
Adam meets his gaze in the mirror. "I don't mind being watched," he says, like it's a fact - and to him, it probably is - and they're both watching Kris' smile grow slowly.
*
He climbs into Adam's bed that night, and Adam rolls over slowly to face him.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Adam asks, softly, breath warm on Kris' cheek.
"No," Kris whispers, touching Adam's chest. "I really don't."
"OK," Adam replies, and Kris can hear the laughter in his voice. "OK, I can help with that," and it's a joke now, and that's how they like it, so Kris kisses Adam in their dark room on a Friday night, presses his dry lips to Adam's, and it's little more than pressure at first. Adam kisses him back, his mouth warm, still curved into a smile, and his hand comes up to cup Kris' neck as his mouth moves, more insistently, against his.
*
Adam's hands are down Kris' pants - Adam's hands are down his pants - and he pushes his hips up, panting, as Adam's hand speeds up, and when Adam's other hand cups his balls, all he can say is, "Oh God."
*
When he can move again, he reaches, loose-limbed, for Adam, who grabs his hand. "Only if you're sure," he says, seriously, and Kris shoves at his chest; he touches Adam's chest again, lightly, maps a path down to his navel, knows that Adam's watching his face in the darkness. Slowly, he dips a hand under the waistband of Adam's pants, trails his fingers up the length of his cock, and Adam jerks at the touch. Kris wraps his hand around him, instinctively, starts to move - stops.
"Talk to me," Kris murmurs, embarrassed, and Adam groans, his fingers digging into the mattress.
*
"You look disappointed," Adam says, carefully, his voice neutral.
Kris shrugs, one shouldered, at the ceiling. "I just expected more-" he gestures at Adam, keeps a straight face for as long as he can, "... wailing."
Adam buries his head in the pillow between them, and Kris can feel him shaking with laughter.
*
"Wednesday nights are way too stressful," Adam says, reaching around Kris for a piece of Scott's cake.
"They'd be less stressful if Ryan'd stop jerking me around," Kris replies, dryly, wiping his fingers on a napkin, and Adam shrugs.
"I kind of like it when Ryan jerks me around," he says, with mock innocence, and Kris groans. "By the way," Adam adds, "this cake is so good. I think I'm getting fat just breathing it in."
*
When Adam pushes Kris onto his bed, he straddles him, bracing himself on his forearms and knees, and Kris touches his waist, confused. "I'm trying not to suffocate you," Adam explains, flatly, and Kris rolls his eyes.
"You're not fat," he says, tugging on Adam's belt. "C'mon."
"Says the man without a pinch of fat on his body," Adam replies - then, "I know, because I've checked," and his once-over makes Kris' neck flush, and Adam smiles slightly.
"Come on," he murmurs, tugging more insistently, and as Adam slowly settles his weight on him, Kris' hands slip underneath his shirt.
*
They have alcoholic and non-alcoholic champagne for Allison's birthday, pink and yellow, and she nurses what she whines is a soda, sulkily, as Adam hands Kris a half-full flute (yellow, but he doesn't really care, because none of them really like champagne, but it's celebratory).
Allison's staring at Adam's drink, longingly. "Can I have some?" she asks, cocking her head to the side in a way she's gotten far too good at. "It's pink!" she adds, like it'll change his mind (knows it probably will).
"You're too young to drink," Adam says, handing her the flute anyway; he catches her wrist before she can move, "Just a sip," and she rolls her eyes. "You're not going to like it," he warns.
"What were you doing when you were my age?" she asks, rhetorically, and Adam laughs.
"That's ... highly inappropriate." Kris raises his eyebrows in amusement, and Adam meets his gaze over Allison's head. "I'll tell you later," he pretends to promise, and Kris laughs. Adam takes his glass back from Allison, who makes a face up at him.
"Gross," she says, flatly, and Adam drops an arm over her shoulders.
"I told you you wouldn't like it," he reminds her, patiently - adds, "Your mother would kill me if she knew."
"She doesn't have to know," Allison replies, and Adam throws his head back and laughs, squeezing her tighter.
"That's my girl."
"You're a terrible influence," Kris says, dryly, and Adam's mouth drops open in mock indignation.
"Lies," he says, firmly, before grinning, and even though Kris is shaking his head, he can't help but smile back.
*
Allison's sent to stand with Danny, leaving Matt alone on the far side of the stage, and he looks resigned, sick - and Ryan turns to Kris and Adam.
Of Simon, he says to Kris, "He wants to know that you are in it to win it-"
"Yeah."
"Do you have that drive? That motivation?"
He can feel the eyes of Simon, Ryan - the nation - Adam on him. "I mean, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I could win," he says, simply, and Adam gives a tiny nod of agreement.
Right answer.
*
On the Sunday of Rock Week (Adam and Allison have taken to saying it like it's capitalised, and somehow Kris picked it up), Kris bangs on the door of what used to be his room, and if he wasn't so pissed, he'd wait for Adam's reply - but he pushes his way in, flops onto his old bed, and Adam looks up, startled.
"Hey?" Adam says, a little questioningly, and Kris groans into the pillow.
"I going to kill him," he mumbles, and Adam pauses, screwing the top back onto his nail polish.
"Come again?"
Kris lifts his head slightly. "Danny. I'm going. To kill him." Adam raises his eyebrows, and Kris rolls over onto his back. "I swear he's changing the lyrics on me, man. And I can't prove it," he glances across the room at Adam, gaze mostly mock-solemn, "but I think he's screwing up the harmonizing on purpose."
Adam tries not to laugh, and Kris reaches behind his head, tosses a pillow at him. "I'm sorry," Adam says, catching it, and when Kris flips him off, he laughs harder.
"It's not funny," Kris mutters, but one side of his mouth is curving.
"Do you want me to beat him up for you?" Adam asks - Adam, who crossed his fingers, exaggeratedly, when they found out they were doing duets; Adam, who ducked his head and laughed, patting Kris' back in sympathy, before Allison flung herself at him. "If you do," he adds, "it'll have to wait 'til my nails are dry," he blows on them, and Kris laughs at the ceiling.
"Nah. Just - promise me you'll beat him."
Adam's silent for a long moment, silent until Kris looks over at him. "Beat him yourself," Adam says, with a tiny smile, and Kris snorts.
*
On the trip back to the mansion (and, really, they just like calling it that - especially Allison, who affects a slightly British accent when she does) after the Rock Week show, Kris is silent; he stares out the car window (they all fit in one car now, and how strange is that?) and watches LA pass them by.
Adam - still buzzing, still warm, from the show - sits beside him, nudges him with his knee. "You OK?" he asks, as softly as he can, and Kris nods, without turning around.
(Somehow, one - two - stupid comments from Simon have destroyed eight weeks of Adam's gentle, persistent encouragement, and he's not sure if he's angry at Simon or himself).
Danny twists around in the front seat to talk to Allison, and Kris thinks that if he hears Danny say, "It's just not my style of music," one more time, he might just punch something.
When they get home - what passes for home these days - he packs his bags.
*
Allison pulls him into her hug with Adam; Kris rests his head against hers for a moment, wonders if she thinks he took her spot in the final three too, and when she pulls back, she wipes underneath her eyes.
"I don't know why I'm crying!" she protests, and her laugh is wobbly.
"Because you're sad," Adam replies, gently, gripping her bicep, and she waves her other hand.
"I knew I was going," she assures them - and when her face starts to crumple, Adam pulls her into another hug, and even Danny knows that she's crying for what she's losing (the title, them, this crazy life and the only people who'll ever understand what it was like) as well as what she's heading back to (singing in a furniture store), so Kris rubs her back as she cries on Adam's shoulder.
*
"Hey, man," Kris says - the last of the three to get back in, he's dragging his suitcase behind him - when Adam sticks his head out of their old room. "Did I wake you?"
Adam shrugs, laces his fingers together and stretches his arms out. "You look like shit," he says, matter of fact, and Kris laughs, quietly.
"So do you."
Adam smiles, slowly, runs a hand through his hair. "We both know that's not true." Then, cocking his head to the side and opening his door a little wider, "Do you want to come in?"
*
Kris tells him about Arkansas, about the people, so many people, who came out to see him, and Adam rubs his back and listens.
"They think - they think twenty thousand people turned up. Twenty thousand. I can't - that's crazy, man. Crazy," and he still sounds shocked, but he also sounds proud, and Adam turns his head to the side and kisses Kris' hair.
*
"They - they don't understand," Kris says, between lazy, open-mouthed kisses, and Adam, pressing him to the mattress, briefly catches his earlobe between his teeth. "No-one does," Kris adds.
"Understand what?" Adam asks, his breath tickling Kris' ear.
"This. They don't - they don't get it," Kris whispers, inexplicably frustrated, and Adam kisses his jaw.
Adam pulls back when that registers, meets his gaze. "I do," he says, with surprising intensity, "I understand," and Kris knows they're talking about more than the show.
Disclaimer: References to real persons, places and events are made in the context of fiction, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory or factual.
Pairing: Adam/Kris; Adam/Kris/Allison friendship
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2,200.
Author's Notes: Adam and Kris, through to the Top 3. No significant others mentioned. Title from Jonathan Coulton's I'm Your Moon.
Summary: So Kris kisses Adam in their dark room on a Friday night, presses his dry lips to Adam's, and it's little more than pressure at first.
Kris is chewing his thumbnail when Adam returns from the bathroom.
"Stop stressing," he says, without looking at Kris, and Kris continues to gnaw. "You'll be fine," Adam adds, and Kris glances over at him.
"You don't know that," he murmurs.
Adam shrugs. "You're cute, and you sing well. You'll be fine," he repeats.
Kris' brow furrows. "Did you just call me cute?" and Adam smiles slowly.
"Maybe," he replies, teasingly, and Kris can't help but smile back. "Why, does that bother you?"
Kris screws up at his nose at him, doesn't bother replying, because it's not a serious question. "That - that doesn't matter. It's a singing competition."
"Oh, honey," Adam says, and it's mostly mock sympathy, "It's so much more than that."
*
Later - much later - that night, when they're back from Jasmine and Gorge's dinner, Kris stares at the ceiling in the darkness of their room, listens to Adam sigh, rolling over onto his back.
"Can't sleep either?" Kris whispers, and Adam laughs, softly.
"I can't wind down."
"Me neither," Kris admits - then, "Adam?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you ... do you think it'll get any easier?"
There's a long pause. "I think it'll only get harder," Adam finally replies, and Kris exhales through his nose.
"Thank you," he says, quietly, and Adam laughs again.
"For what?" and he's genuinely amused, but Kris isn't smiling.
"Being honest."
*
Kris is pacing around their room, late Wednesday afternoon, and Adam doesn't look up from the magazine he's leafing through. "You're making me nervous," he says, warningly, and Kris pauses.
"Sorry."
Adam waves it off.
"I just want to make it to next week," Kris says, partly to Adam, mostly to himself. "I really want to go on tour."
Adam doesn't reply immediately. "Kris," he says slowly, glancing up, "if you don't think you can win - why are you here?"
*
They fall quickly into a rough morning routine - Kris showers first, because Adam wakes slowly; Kris has breakfast while Adam showers, because Adam takes ridiculously long showers and skips breakfast. Kris shaves while Adam straightens his hair, and one morning, after nearly three weeks of this, he finds his hand slowing as he watches Adam in the mirror.
"Can I help you?" Adam teases, gently, and Kris' hand jerks.
"No - I just-" he doesn't really know what he's doing.
Adam meets his gaze in the mirror. "I don't mind being watched," he says, like it's a fact - and to him, it probably is - and they're both watching Kris' smile grow slowly.
*
He climbs into Adam's bed that night, and Adam rolls over slowly to face him.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Adam asks, softly, breath warm on Kris' cheek.
"No," Kris whispers, touching Adam's chest. "I really don't."
"OK," Adam replies, and Kris can hear the laughter in his voice. "OK, I can help with that," and it's a joke now, and that's how they like it, so Kris kisses Adam in their dark room on a Friday night, presses his dry lips to Adam's, and it's little more than pressure at first. Adam kisses him back, his mouth warm, still curved into a smile, and his hand comes up to cup Kris' neck as his mouth moves, more insistently, against his.
*
Adam's hands are down Kris' pants - Adam's hands are down his pants - and he pushes his hips up, panting, as Adam's hand speeds up, and when Adam's other hand cups his balls, all he can say is, "Oh God."
*
When he can move again, he reaches, loose-limbed, for Adam, who grabs his hand. "Only if you're sure," he says, seriously, and Kris shoves at his chest; he touches Adam's chest again, lightly, maps a path down to his navel, knows that Adam's watching his face in the darkness. Slowly, he dips a hand under the waistband of Adam's pants, trails his fingers up the length of his cock, and Adam jerks at the touch. Kris wraps his hand around him, instinctively, starts to move - stops.
"Talk to me," Kris murmurs, embarrassed, and Adam groans, his fingers digging into the mattress.
*
"You look disappointed," Adam says, carefully, his voice neutral.
Kris shrugs, one shouldered, at the ceiling. "I just expected more-" he gestures at Adam, keeps a straight face for as long as he can, "... wailing."
Adam buries his head in the pillow between them, and Kris can feel him shaking with laughter.
*
"Wednesday nights are way too stressful," Adam says, reaching around Kris for a piece of Scott's cake.
"They'd be less stressful if Ryan'd stop jerking me around," Kris replies, dryly, wiping his fingers on a napkin, and Adam shrugs.
"I kind of like it when Ryan jerks me around," he says, with mock innocence, and Kris groans. "By the way," Adam adds, "this cake is so good. I think I'm getting fat just breathing it in."
*
When Adam pushes Kris onto his bed, he straddles him, bracing himself on his forearms and knees, and Kris touches his waist, confused. "I'm trying not to suffocate you," Adam explains, flatly, and Kris rolls his eyes.
"You're not fat," he says, tugging on Adam's belt. "C'mon."
"Says the man without a pinch of fat on his body," Adam replies - then, "I know, because I've checked," and his once-over makes Kris' neck flush, and Adam smiles slightly.
"Come on," he murmurs, tugging more insistently, and as Adam slowly settles his weight on him, Kris' hands slip underneath his shirt.
*
They have alcoholic and non-alcoholic champagne for Allison's birthday, pink and yellow, and she nurses what she whines is a soda, sulkily, as Adam hands Kris a half-full flute (yellow, but he doesn't really care, because none of them really like champagne, but it's celebratory).
Allison's staring at Adam's drink, longingly. "Can I have some?" she asks, cocking her head to the side in a way she's gotten far too good at. "It's pink!" she adds, like it'll change his mind (knows it probably will).
"You're too young to drink," Adam says, handing her the flute anyway; he catches her wrist before she can move, "Just a sip," and she rolls her eyes. "You're not going to like it," he warns.
"What were you doing when you were my age?" she asks, rhetorically, and Adam laughs.
"That's ... highly inappropriate." Kris raises his eyebrows in amusement, and Adam meets his gaze over Allison's head. "I'll tell you later," he pretends to promise, and Kris laughs. Adam takes his glass back from Allison, who makes a face up at him.
"Gross," she says, flatly, and Adam drops an arm over her shoulders.
"I told you you wouldn't like it," he reminds her, patiently - adds, "Your mother would kill me if she knew."
"She doesn't have to know," Allison replies, and Adam throws his head back and laughs, squeezing her tighter.
"That's my girl."
"You're a terrible influence," Kris says, dryly, and Adam's mouth drops open in mock indignation.
"Lies," he says, firmly, before grinning, and even though Kris is shaking his head, he can't help but smile back.
*
Allison's sent to stand with Danny, leaving Matt alone on the far side of the stage, and he looks resigned, sick - and Ryan turns to Kris and Adam.
Of Simon, he says to Kris, "He wants to know that you are in it to win it-"
"Yeah."
"Do you have that drive? That motivation?"
He can feel the eyes of Simon, Ryan - the nation - Adam on him. "I mean, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I could win," he says, simply, and Adam gives a tiny nod of agreement.
Right answer.
*
On the Sunday of Rock Week (Adam and Allison have taken to saying it like it's capitalised, and somehow Kris picked it up), Kris bangs on the door of what used to be his room, and if he wasn't so pissed, he'd wait for Adam's reply - but he pushes his way in, flops onto his old bed, and Adam looks up, startled.
"Hey?" Adam says, a little questioningly, and Kris groans into the pillow.
"I going to kill him," he mumbles, and Adam pauses, screwing the top back onto his nail polish.
"Come again?"
Kris lifts his head slightly. "Danny. I'm going. To kill him." Adam raises his eyebrows, and Kris rolls over onto his back. "I swear he's changing the lyrics on me, man. And I can't prove it," he glances across the room at Adam, gaze mostly mock-solemn, "but I think he's screwing up the harmonizing on purpose."
Adam tries not to laugh, and Kris reaches behind his head, tosses a pillow at him. "I'm sorry," Adam says, catching it, and when Kris flips him off, he laughs harder.
"It's not funny," Kris mutters, but one side of his mouth is curving.
"Do you want me to beat him up for you?" Adam asks - Adam, who crossed his fingers, exaggeratedly, when they found out they were doing duets; Adam, who ducked his head and laughed, patting Kris' back in sympathy, before Allison flung herself at him. "If you do," he adds, "it'll have to wait 'til my nails are dry," he blows on them, and Kris laughs at the ceiling.
"Nah. Just - promise me you'll beat him."
Adam's silent for a long moment, silent until Kris looks over at him. "Beat him yourself," Adam says, with a tiny smile, and Kris snorts.
*
On the trip back to the mansion (and, really, they just like calling it that - especially Allison, who affects a slightly British accent when she does) after the Rock Week show, Kris is silent; he stares out the car window (they all fit in one car now, and how strange is that?) and watches LA pass them by.
Adam - still buzzing, still warm, from the show - sits beside him, nudges him with his knee. "You OK?" he asks, as softly as he can, and Kris nods, without turning around.
(Somehow, one - two - stupid comments from Simon have destroyed eight weeks of Adam's gentle, persistent encouragement, and he's not sure if he's angry at Simon or himself).
Danny twists around in the front seat to talk to Allison, and Kris thinks that if he hears Danny say, "It's just not my style of music," one more time, he might just punch something.
When they get home - what passes for home these days - he packs his bags.
*
Allison pulls him into her hug with Adam; Kris rests his head against hers for a moment, wonders if she thinks he took her spot in the final three too, and when she pulls back, she wipes underneath her eyes.
"I don't know why I'm crying!" she protests, and her laugh is wobbly.
"Because you're sad," Adam replies, gently, gripping her bicep, and she waves her other hand.
"I knew I was going," she assures them - and when her face starts to crumple, Adam pulls her into another hug, and even Danny knows that she's crying for what she's losing (the title, them, this crazy life and the only people who'll ever understand what it was like) as well as what she's heading back to (singing in a furniture store), so Kris rubs her back as she cries on Adam's shoulder.
*
"Hey, man," Kris says - the last of the three to get back in, he's dragging his suitcase behind him - when Adam sticks his head out of their old room. "Did I wake you?"
Adam shrugs, laces his fingers together and stretches his arms out. "You look like shit," he says, matter of fact, and Kris laughs, quietly.
"So do you."
Adam smiles, slowly, runs a hand through his hair. "We both know that's not true." Then, cocking his head to the side and opening his door a little wider, "Do you want to come in?"
*
Kris tells him about Arkansas, about the people, so many people, who came out to see him, and Adam rubs his back and listens.
"They think - they think twenty thousand people turned up. Twenty thousand. I can't - that's crazy, man. Crazy," and he still sounds shocked, but he also sounds proud, and Adam turns his head to the side and kisses Kris' hair.
*
"They - they don't understand," Kris says, between lazy, open-mouthed kisses, and Adam, pressing him to the mattress, briefly catches his earlobe between his teeth. "No-one does," Kris adds.
"Understand what?" Adam asks, his breath tickling Kris' ear.
"This. They don't - they don't get it," Kris whispers, inexplicably frustrated, and Adam kisses his jaw.
Adam pulls back when that registers, meets his gaze. "I do," he says, with surprising intensity, "I understand," and Kris knows they're talking about more than the show.
Disclaimer: References to real persons, places and events are made in the context of fiction, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory or factual.