Change

aka the accidental kiss fic

It’s not like Kris plans it.

It’s just dinner at Adam’s, nothing special. Adam invites Kris over at least twice a week, and makes Kris cook for him—unless he’s dieting, in which case he makes Kris eat things that are clearly meant for sheep and not humans. This particular night, Kris makes steak and potatoes for the two of them—it’s his father’s specialty—Adam opens a bottle of red wine to go with it, and they watch the latest Ben Affleck movie, which is complete crap, but still makes Adam cry.

Afterwards, Kris is sleepy and comfortable, sprawled over Adam’s sinfully soft couch, his wine forgotten on the floor, until Adam says “I think I’m going to stay in Paris this time. I need a change,” and Kris’ world comes to an abrupt halt.

He figures Adam must mean ‘stay until summer,’ because surely he can’t be contemplating a permanent move; but Adam’s next words prove him wrong: “Lucy has been looking at apartments. I’m sick of this huge place all to myself.”

Adam downs his wine and pours more, on his way to finishing off the bottle, and all Kris can do is breathe and look away and try to suppress the burning sensation rising up from his stomach to take over his chest.

He’s taken off guard; that’s Kris’ excuse for being entirely too quiet for the next hour, and then being awkward and fumbling as he makes his way out. He has no excuses at all for what he does after that, except for maybe that he’s lost his mind, which it feels like he might have done sometime around 10 PM.

When they hug goodbye at the door, Kris’ toes push him up a little higher than necessary, his hands reach to tangle in Adam’s hair, and then his mouth is on Adam’s, just like that. It’s a simple kiss, not horrible, but not earth shattering either; just a lingering touch of lips on lips. That Kris will remember every little detail of it for years to come is incidental—and unfortunate, his mind notes when it finally catches up—and doesn’t change the fact that the kiss itself is merely average; ordinary.

Adam doesn’t make a sound, and Kris doesn’t look at his face to see his reaction. He’s too shocked to even be horrified at what he’s done. He stares down at his feet and lets them shuffle their way down the driveway to his car, where he rests his forehead on the steering wheel and tries to breathe through the panic attack.

He feels nauseous. It’s like his first kiss all over again, terrifying and a big mistake, and this time, he doesn’t even have the excuse of being an awkward teenager. He’s an awkward adult now, one who just awkwardly kissed his best friend out of nowhere and then ran away. Awkwardly. He tells himself to put the key in, drive home, and hide in his bed until Adam becomes a French citizen, because there is no way he’s going to be able to face—

His phone starts ringing. It’s Adam’s ringtone.

Kris can ignore the call. He can sit on his phone and pretend he didn’t hear it. He can drop it casually out the window and break it. He can dunk it in the day-old coffee in the cup holder, which he’s been meaning to throw out—it would be a tight fit, but Kris is pretty sure he can manage it. But all of that would probably be futile, because he’s not exactly hard to track down—especially not while sitting in front of Adam’s house—and Adam knows his assistant’s (and his mother’s) cell numbers anyway.

Kris tells himself it’s probably nothing. Maybe he dropped his wallet at Adam’s? Maybe Adam wants to ask him the name of the actress in the movie they just watched? Maybe Adam needs to borrow his ukulele again? The possibilities are endless and Kris is pretty gullible if he does say so himself. He manages to convince himself to answer the phone in under 30 seconds.

“Yes?”

“You’re freaking out, aren’t you?”

Kris can’t even coordinate his brain cells to manage a lie. “Yeah.”

“How long are you planning on sitting in the car?”

Kris looks up, but he can’t see inside the house from where he’s sitting. “Um. A while, I think.”

“Okay,” Adam says, patient and maddeningly calm. “Do you maybe want to come back inside when you’re done?”

Kris shakes his head, dropping his forehead back on the steering wheel.

Adam waits for a beat and then says, “Okay. I’m coming out there.”

Kris jolts upright and opens his mouth to object, but Adam has already hung up. He looks around helplessly, shaking the phone in his hand as if that’s going to make it magically turn back time, but before he realizes that he’s in a car and can just drive away, Adam calls again.

“Yeah?”

“On second thought, stay on the line. I don’t want you to run away.”

Kris makes a choking sound. If only he could run away. Half his limbs have turned into overcooked noodles; the other half are frozen solid. He’s like Adam’s cooking! Inedible and ruined; he probably smells awful, too!

A door slams at the other end of the line, and pulls Kris out of thoughts of throwing himself in the trash. “What are you doing?”

Adam huffs into the phone. “Getting a jacket. It’s cold.”

Kris thinks of the sleeveless black t-shirt Adam was wearing and shivers in sympathy. He is all for Adam’s sleevelessness, normally—it’s the arms—but Adam catches cold really easily and he’s impossible when he gets sick, so arms or no arms, Kris always votes for the jacket. And anyway, exposure to Adam in all states of undress has taught Kris that while he gets a kick out of Adam’s skin, the man is no less attractive when dressed.

There’s a sort of unlocking sound in his ear, which Kris only realizes is the sound of the car door opening when cold air hits his face, and Adam slips inside, wrapped up in a huge brown cardigan. The door closes with a bang and Adam shudders, shoulders pulled up. “Brr.”

“Um,” Kris says.

Adam turns to face him and smiles. Kris gulps.

“You don’t need that anymore,” Adam says, reaching over to pull down Kris’ hand, still holding the phone to his ear. Adam’s fingers are icy on Kris’ skin, but Kris doesn’t protest when Adam keeps them wrapped around Kris’ as he turns off Kris’ phone with his other hand and slips it into his pocket.

“Um,” Kris says again, looking down at their tangled fingers stupidly. This is not how he would have thought things would go—if he had thought about something like this happening. Which he hadn’t. Not at all.

“So,” Adam says cheerfully. “You kissed me.”

“I did.” It’s not like Kris can lie. They were both there—and almost completely sober.

“And?”

“It was a mistake!” Kris says instinctively, but that’s obviously the wrong thing to say, because Adam’s eyes grow guarded and dull at his words. Kris backtracks. “Okay, not, like, a mistake, but—an accident?”

Adam narrows his eyes. “So you tripped?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Adam chuckles, low and intimate, and squeezes Kris’ fingers.

“You said you were leaving and I just—” Kris shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

Adam pauses for a moment and stares out the window. “Like I said,” he mumbles, eyes fixed on the spruce swaying in the wind outside, “I need a change.” Then he turns back around to face Kris, and Kris finds himself holding his breath at the intense look in Adam’s eyes. He hasn’t seen that look in years. Not directed at him, anyway. “But you know, if you wanted to keep kissing me, that would also be a change.”

Kris’ heart tries to do a somersault, but miscalculates and ends up squished against his ribcage. “You’d want that?”

Adam smiles a shy little smile. “Yeah, Kris,” he says, rolling his eyes playfully. “I’d want that.”

Kris grins. Adam pulls him in—first by the hand, then by grabbing his lapel—and kisses him, passionate and possessive and thorough. He takes stock of Kris’ lips and mouth, claiming them as his own, and it doesn’t even occur to Kris to complain, because. Of course. Was there ever any question as to where this was headed? (Yes, okay, there were doubts, but Kris thinks he’s allowed a little revisionist history now.)

“This was… surprisingly easy,” Kris mumbles against Adam’s lips. He didn’t even have to run after Adam to catch him just as he was boarding a plane. Accidental kissing and a brief freak-out is nothing; Ben Affleck wouldn’t even deign to make a crappy movie out of this story.

“Easy?” Adam growls, nipping at his bottom lip. “You think it’s been easy?”

Okay, so, technically, they’ve probably been building up to this for… five years or so. And then there’s the divorce. And the boyfriends. And the girlfriends. And that one stalker fan. Maybe easy wasn’t the right word here. Kris apologizes as well as he can, with his fingers on the soft skin of Adam’s neck, and Adam’s caress on the inside of Kris’ wrist says he’s forgiven.

Kris wasn’t worried, anyway. After all these years, Adam knows how thick he can be.

“We can find you an apartment around here,” Kris offers, his face hidden in Adam’s shoulder, his body twisted like a pretzel in the driver’s seat. “If you think the house is too large…”

“Or,” Adam drawls, “you can just move in and help me fill all that space.”

Oh, that is such a bad, bad idea. Kris tries to pull back to tell Adam that, but Adam just pets his hair and keeps him where he is.

“Embrace the change, Kristopher.”

Kris sighs and cuddles closer. They can negotiate later.

The End

December 30th, 2009