Pour Some Sugar on Me (in the Name of Love)

aka the stripper tea party fic

“He’s making tea…” Charles yells, body half in and half out of the kitchen. “…for the stripper!”

Kris shoots a nervous glance at Adam. The guy may be a stripper, but there’s no need to announce it to the whole neighborhood. Adam seems at peace with his chosen profession, though, and just snorts, looking amused. Kris’ shoulders relax and he continues to pour their tea.

“Dude!”

“What?” Kris asks, willing Charles to go away and be somewhere that’s not his kitchen. His friends are really pushing his limits tonight.

“It’s your bachelor party, and you’re making tea!” He gestures towards the living room, arms flailing wildly. “While there’s a stripper in there! Stripping!”

Kris shares an eye roll with Adam, then drops three cubes of sugar into his own cup. (Adam, apparently, doesn’t take any sugar in his, because he has to watch his weight—which is just bull, if you ask Kris.)

“I have one right here,” Kris tells Charles calmly. “And all to myself, too.”

Charles’ expression turns worried. “You realize that one was just a joke? Ha ha?” Then he realizes the joke is sitting right there and offers Adam an apologetic look. “No offense, man.”

Adam shrugs. He doesn’t seem offended, but Kris sure as hell is.

“Charles?”

“Yes?”

“Go back to the party.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Charles makes a sulky face. He used to make that very same face to his mother for calling him in to dinner when they were kids. (But Ma! We’re playing hide and seek!) It’s kind of funny—and a little bit tragic—that Kris gets to be on the receiving end of it now.

“Alright. Whatever. I’m gonna go get busy with Tiffany. You stay, and—” He points to the tea cups, appearing completely baffled. “—have your little tea party.”

The door shuts behind him with a bang and muffles the music coming from the other room, and Kris sighs, falling into his chair. Adam places a calming hand on his arm and smiles at him as if to say, what are you gonna do. Kris smiles back reluctantly. They had been talking about asshole friends when Charles interrupted them.

“Should I be saving Tiffany…?”

Glitter flutters down Adam’s sleeve as he waves Kris’ concern away. “We took kickboxing together. She’ll be just fine.”

“Good,” Kris says gratefully.

~

It’s Kris’ fault for not having told his friends that he and Katy actually decided to call off the wedding. In his defense, it never occurred to him that they’d spring something like this on him. They had an understanding—no bachelor parties, no strippers, no prostitutes—but maybe Kris should’ve known better than to take Charles’ word for it.

He hears Cale let out a loud whoop outside and drops his forehead on the kitchen table. Not only is this extremely annoying and uncomfortable; it’s also humiliating. The news about the wedding will seem like a much bigger deal after this, instead of the really small deal that Kris had been planning to make of it. He and Katy have broken up a dozen times before; the only difference this time is that it’s permanent.

“You know, Kris, if you want to be alone, I can wait outside. I’m sure Tiffany will be done soon—”

Kris’ head whips up. “No, no!” he says, shaking his head emphatically. “It’s okay. You can—” How completely pathetic is this? He’s almost begging the guy to stay and keep him company. Adam probably has better things to do. Maybe he would have liked to go home early for once; he does have a shitty job, after all. “I mean. If you want… of course you can leave. I’m sure Charles will pay you the full amount. He’d better pay you—”

Adam chuckles, placing a warm hand on Kris’ arm, closer to his wrist this time. “I’ve already been paid. And thank you. I’d like to stay and drink my tea if it’s okay with you.”

Kris smiles. It’s really, surprisingly okay with him.

~

“So you were telling me about that gig you got…”

Kris shrugs and looks away. He’s feeling a little self-conscious, now. To be honest, he’d been a little tipsy when they first got to talking, and now that he’s sobering up, he’s beginning to realize just how much of a small town hick he is compared to this guy. Kris had only focused on the warmth and friendliness Adam seemed to exude (which he still does, actually) and completely ignored the fact that Adam is L.A.—through and through. He is the embodiment of everything that scares Kris about this city. Big, colorful, sparkly, predatory—so far beyond Kris’ league that he should be laughing in Kris’ face and sending him packing back to his mama.

Kris feels panic overtaking him again—this is exactly why he put off the move for so long—and latches onto the first thing that catches his eye. It’s Adam’s fingers, wrapped around the cup, nails painted black with little flecks of turquoise glinting where the light hits them just so. Nice and sparkly—like Adam—kind of hypnotizing.

“Hey,” Adam says softly. “You okay?”

“I’m…” Kris swallows a gulp of his tea and nods. “I’m fine. Just… overwhelmed.”

Adam waits for him to elaborate. Kris doesn’t really want to, but Adam has this way of staring intently into his eyes, almost like he’s trying to read Kris’ mind, that makes Kris spill everything. He vaguely thinks that Adam would probably make a good cop if he weren’t a stripper, but thankfully manages to keep that observation to himself.

“It’s… the move, mostly. New apartment, new city. I always thought about coming to L.A., but it was never really… quite real.”

Adam smirks and crosses his legs, drawing Kris’ attention down to the shiny boots he’s wearing. Kris has never seen anyone wear boots quite that shiny before. He certainly never thought a guy would wear boots like that. But there Adam is, making them look normal.

“I bet this whole thing made it even more surreal.”

Kris nods. “I can’t believe they actually thought this was a good idea. I mean, even if I’d been getting married, I’m just not a stripper kind of guy.”

Adam’s smile looks indulgent, like he doesn’t really believe Kris.

“What?” Kris asks, nudging Adam’s shiny boot with his own worn-down sneaker.

“I think you just haven’t met the right stripper yet, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Kris feels his cheeks heat up, and silently curses Adam for not looking away.

~

It’s good to be talking about him and Katy to someone who doesn’t know either of them and isn’t invested in their relationship in any way. That was part of what made their breakups so hard in the past, why they kept coming back together again every time. Both their families were expecting an engagement from them, had been since they were teenagers, and their friends are all so entangled, Kris has no idea how they’re going to share them out now.

“Clearly you need to make a whole new set of friends,” is Adam’s comment on this.

“That easy, huh?”

“Of course it’s not,” Adam says, but then smiles wide and adds, “but you’ve already made one, and that’s much better than what you had this morning, right?”

Adam is right on that one. Kris does feel better about most things right now—

“It’s the magic of tea!” Adam says, but Kris knows that that’s really not it.

—and if only the guys hadn’t made his life infinitely more difficult by throwing this completely unnecessary and unwanted party, he could have counted his first day in his new apartment a success. But now he can’t help but worry about what they will all think when he tells them that there will be no wedding, and what their parents are going to say to Kris’ parents, and how much worse Katy will have it, stuck back in Arkansas.

“Why wait until a week before to call it off?” Adam asks, voice gone soft and serious. Kris likes that tone on him. It’s soothing. It makes him appreciate that this guy who looks like he just jumped out of a music video is actually real, and a damn good listener to boot.

“We were… I guess we were just going with the flow? Because that was easier?” He sits up in his seat, warming to the subject. It feels to him, for some reason, like Adam will understand. “We were at that point where we either had to take this further or break up—and there was no real reason to break up. You know?”

Adam nods.

“We weren’t fighting. We did love each other. So we figured it was time to get married.”

“You didn’t want to?”

Kris considers it, thinking back. “I didn’t not want to. I think… I think I just didn’t care either way.”

“Maybe I’m not the best judge here, but—I don’t think that’s how marriage is supposed to work.”

“Yeah,” Kris agrees. “That’s what I figured.”

“What did she think?”

“I think Katy realized it somewhere between choosing the cake flavor and the flowers.” Kris smirks. “We didn’t really talk about why she decided it wasn’t going to work, but I know her, I’ve been with her a very long time, I think she could tell that everything felt a little bit empty.”

Adam has his elbows on the table, chin resting on his hands. “That’s so sad,” he says. “Weddings are supposed to be romantic. Perfect, like in fairytales.”

“In reality,” Kris informs him with confidence, “they’re just expensive. And very unnecessarily detailed.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “No wonder she dumped you.”

Kris snorts. “I thought you were supposed to be making me feel better?”

“I’m a stripper, honey, not a therapist,” Adam tells him. “When I make people feel better, it’s not with my verbal skills.” He takes a sip of his tea, giving Kris a considering look over the rim of his cup. “And besides, I refuse to make light of your ruining some poor girl’s dream wedding.”

The thing is, Kris doesn’t really feel bad about that part. He doesn’t think Katy does either. “It’s not supposed to be about the wedding. It’s supposed to be about the marriage.”

Adam stops, cup frozen halfway to the table. “You are a romantic.”

“Never said I wasn’t.”

A wide grin stretches Adam’s glossy lips. Kris reads approval all over it.

~

“She never really wanted to move here. It was my dream.” Kris shrugs. “Though it did feel much easier when I thought she’d be here with me.”

“Small town boy syndrome?” Adam asks seriously, like that’s an actual thing. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been out of Arkansas before?”

Kris rolls his eyes. Why does everyone assume that about him? “Of course I have. I’ve been to a lot of places.”

“Like?”

“Like Thailand. And Spain. And Burma.”

“Burma?”

Kris nods. “And Mozambique.”

Adam looks confused. “Mozambique?”

His what-the-fuck face draws a chuckle out of Kris.

“I went on some mission trips.”

“Oh,” Adam says, looking taken aback for a second, but then he seems to snap out of it and shakes his head. “I don’t think those count. Los Angeles is very different from Mozambique.”

“Well, yeah,” Kris agrees, “for one thing, there were no strippers showing up at my place in the middle of the night there.”

Adam salutes him with his tea. “See? That’s L.A. for you.”

~

“I know that place! It’s right around the corner from my apartment! It’s… well, it’s not exactly…”

Kris puts Adam out of his misery. “It’s a dive. I know.”

“Oh, good,” Adam says, relieved. “I mean, not that it’s good that you’re playing in a dive, it’s just good that you know what you’re getting into.”

“I know I look clueless, but I’m not that bad. I didn’t really expect to get anything better on my first week here. It’ll pay the bills.” He pauses. That doesn’t sound right. “It’ll pay some of the bills,” he amends. “A friend said he can help me get a day job at some café as well, so I’m hoping to just scrape by.”

“Or,” Adam drawls, an evil glint in his eye, “You can always try stripping. It’s easy. I’ll show you a trick or two.”

Kris doubles over laughing at the mental image. “Dude. No.” He shakes his head vehemently. “Just no. No one ever deserves that kind of torture. I’m just… not a dancer.”

Adam’s eyes narrow, bright blue peeking through thick black lashes. He looks devious. “I’m pretty sure that’s not true. I’m seeing untapped potential.”

The blush that threatens to cover Kris’ cheeks feels a bit like an avalanche. He does his best to fight it off, but ducks his head just in case it doesn’t work.

“I couldn’t,” he says. “I’d be mortified to even try.”

“Hmm.” Adam looks away, but the raised eyebrow seems to say we’ll see.

~

Kris feels lucky that they’re stuck in the kitchen and not somewhere more awkward, like the bathroom or something. He never got around to preparing dinner tonight, and Adam says he makes it a point not to eat before gigs, so after a while, they start rummaging through the cabinets to see what’s there. Kris doesn’t have a lot, but he’d actually gone shopping earlier today—before being accosted by his stupid friends—and has some stuff for sandwiches, at least.

“Very bachelor of you,” Adam comments, seeing the items Kris has in his fridge. He has a brand new bottle of mustard, two different kinds of cheese, strawberry jam, and pickles.

“I have chips, too,” Kris says, trying to remember where he put them. Why does he have so many cupboards? And what the hell is he going to do with so many plastic forks anyway? “Somewhere around here…”

By the time he gets his head out of the last cupboard, Adam has found the bread and is busy carefully slicing cheese.

“I can do that,” Kris says, trying to take over. Adam hip-checks him to the side.

“I don’t trust you not to make a disgusting combination,” he says seriously.

Kris pouts. Adam doesn’t have to be quite so blunt. They just met. People are usually more courteous to strangers.

“Don’t pout. You were the one who bought that stuff in the first place. I don’t think I can eat a strawberry jam and pickle sandwich, even for you.”

“Even for me?” Kris asks stupidly.

Adam makes a face. “I’ve done much stupider things for boys not nearly as cute.”

“Oh,” Kris says, and flat-out refuses to blush. There has to be a daily limit to that kind of thing. He looks around for something to make the moment less awkward—for him, because Adam doesn’t even seem to notice the awkwardness—and comes up empty. “You sure you don’t want help?”

“Nope. Just don’t touch anything.”

“Okay.” Kris nods and sidles over to sit on the counter.

Adam is no chef, but he seems to know about sandwiches. Kris wouldn’t have guessed that by the look of him. Adam can slice the cheese really thinly, like they do in sandwich shops, and takes the time to toast the bread just a little. It should look funny—actually, it does look funny when Kris tries to take in the scene from an outsider’s point of view: this guy in stage make-up and extremely tight clothing, making sandwiches in Kris’ tiny kitchen and looking very serious while doing so—but Adam doesn’t seem to realize that, or care about it, anyway. Kris suddenly finds himself wondering if this is how Adam does every chore–putting up a load of laundry wearing a sparkly pair of tights, taking out the trash in high heels.

“What are you grinning at?”

“Nothing,” Kris shrugs, still grinning.

Adam’s eyes narrow again; they look so interesting when they do that. Smoky rims, dark lashes, and glimpses of a brilliant blue in between. “I have ways of making you talk,” he says, managing to look menacing holding a butter knife.

Kris doesn’t doubt it for a second, but he isn’t really scared.

~

The sandwiches are tasty, though Adam makes a face and says they’re a bit bland. Kris makes more tea to go with them, convincing Adam to live dangerously and take at least one cup with sugar.

“Sandwiches and sugar after 11 PM,” Adam says, “I am living dangerously tonight.”

Kris waves a hand, eating the last of the chips. “You’ll dance it off tomorrow.”

Adam smiles softly at him like he said something cute. “Who says I’ll wait that long?”

~

Getting Adam to talk about his personal life is not an easy task, but the way he sees and describes things is so fascinatingly colorful and unpretentious that Kris finds it a worthy cause to work towards.

“I thought for the longest time that he was the love of my life,” Adam says, telling Kris his own Katy-story. Only his is a Brad-story, and has more glitter and make-up and outrageous anecdotes than any story involving Katy and Kris would ever have.

“And you broke up with him when you realized he wasn’t?”

“No,” Adam says. “I thought he was and I still broke up with him.”

That doesn’t make a lot of sense. “Did he cheat on you or something?”

Adam shakes his head, a faraway look in his eyes. Kris hadn’t meant to make him talk about something so painful, but Adam doesn’t seem hurt; just focused, like he’s trying to find the best way to describe it—like it’s important to him that Kris understands.

“We were bad for each other. It was like—we fed off each other’s energy, and that wasn’t always a good thing. It made for great sex, don’t get me wrong, but it was tiring, day after day, that we had to either be happy and in love, or completely full of rage and fighting and hurting each other.” His hands fly around as he talks, that one ring with the blue stone catching Kris’ eye each time the light flickers off it. “I still love him, and he’s a great friend, but I honestly think we would have killed each other if we’d stayed together.”

“You were too alike,” Kris comments.

“Yes!” Adam nods, looking excited that Kris has grasped his point. “There was always this instant spark when we were in the same room, and that was wonderful, amazing, but after a while it started to hurt.”

Kris nods. He can see how that would happen—at least he thinks he can. He’s never had anything like that, but he can just imagine two Adams in one room. That would be too much for anyone to handle.

“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” Adam says. “Letting him go, all the while thinking he was my only chance at that kind of love. But I guess self-preservation won in the end. I chose not to go down in a blaze of glory.” His brow furrows, and he looks genuinely confused for a second. “That doesn’t sound at all like me.”

Kris smiles. Adam is way more intelligent than he gives himself credit for. “Sounds like it was the right thing to do.”

“I guess.”

Kris clears his throat. They’ve been talking a long time. “That is kind of like me and Katy, you know. We were too much alike, too. We liked the same things, we had the same friends, we understood each other perfectly. And we were both okay with being content and didn’t even think to look for something better.”

“You were in your comfort zone.”

“Yeah,” Kris nods. “We already had a life together. If we got married, nothing would have had to change. It was safe.”

“But you didn’t do it in the end.”

“In the end. Yeah. But it was pretty damn close.”

Adam hmms into his tea. “Close doesn’t count.”

Kris pulls one leg to his chest, sneaker resting on the seat of the chair, knee against the table. “I still think I should’ve known better.”

“Happens to the best of us,” Adam says, flippant. “You look for that one person who’ll complete you, but then you want them to be just like you. That’s not how it works. I don’t think it needs to be, like, exact opposites, but by definition, for someone to complete you, they’re supposed to have qualities you don’t.”

“I suppose,” Kris says, trying to think what those qualities might be for him. It must show in his face, because Adam helps him along.

“Like, what if someone had pushed you to break the mold? Get out of that town, take chances, be yourself.”

“I was myself—” Kris starts to defend… Katy, or himself? He’s not entirely sure.

“You weren’t everything you could be. You can be so much more. Right? That’s why you’re here. You don’t want to be that guy that pushes papers all day, but oh, also plays guitar and sings at family get-togethers.”

That’s actually pretty close to the thought process Kris had gone through before deciding to convince Katy to move to LA after the wedding. She hadn’t exactly been happy about it, but Kris thinks she hadn’t had a good enough reason to say no.

It must have been such a relief to her when they’d decided not to go through with the wedding. It certainly was for Kris.

“You’re frowning—why are you frowning?” Adam sounds alarmed. “I didn’t mean to make you frown. You’re supposed to be celebrating tonight.”

“I’m not getting married—”

“Damn right you’re not! And you should celebrate that!” Adam stands up, looming over Kris. The guy is tall. “Come on,” Adam says, pulling him up. “We need music.”

“What? Why?”

“Your friends paid for a stripper. You’re getting a striptease.”

~

Adam passes by the living room door without even sparing it a glance, but Kris catches sight of a woman in a bright green thong standing on top of his table and thinks maybe he should warn her that the table isn’t very sturdy. Unfortunately, Adam doesn’t look like he’s going to slow down for chitchat, so Kris just hopes Cale will catch her if she does fall.

They enter the bedroom, which is… pretty much bare. The bed is brand new, since that was one of Katy’s requests, but that’s about the only piece of furniture there is. There’s a CD player next to the door, which Kris brought from back home; his guitar is propped up against the wall, and his suitcase is lying open on the floor, and then there’s empty space and… more empty space.

He doesn’t even have curtains yet, though thankfully there’s no other building looking directly into his. Kris doesn’t think anyone would want to watch him jerk off or anything even if there were, but if Adam is going to strip…

Oh, God. Adam is going to strip.

“Great,” Adam says, dropping Kris’ hand and heading for the CD player. After carefully perusing the small tower of jewel cases, he puts in a CD and hits play, listening closely and then nodding to himself.

“Okay,” he says, turning to Kris. “You. Sit.”

“Um.” Kris looks at the bed, where Adam is pointing, and then back at the door, not sure if he should make a run for it. He gets a mental picture of Adam tackling him before he can make it out, but that’s pretty unlikely… right?

“No, no, no, no…” Adam says, grabbing him by shoulders and steering him backwards towards the bed until the backs of his knees hit it and he stumbles and drops into a sitting position. “You’re gonna sit and enjoy yourself.”

Kris gulps. He’s really not good at this stuff. Like, the sitting back and enjoying other people taking their clothes off kind of stuff. He’s just not comfortable with it. “Look, you really don’t need to—”

“Shhh.” Adam saunters over to the door and closes it, dimming the lights with a flick of his wrist.

Kris hadn’t even known his bedroom lights could do that.

Adam stands with his back to Kris in the middle of the room, hips starting to sway in time with music, head thrown back. Watching him perform is definitely different from having tea with him in the kitchen. Kris is suddenly kind of afraid. He’s seen people strip before—okay, on TV, but still—and he’s had to look away more often than not. And those were all people he didn’t know. He knows Adam now; how’s he supposed to watch him take his clothes off—while dancing?

Adam really is a professional though; even Kris can tell that. There’s certainly no more Mr. Nice Guy here. Now he is more like Mr. Having-Sex-With-Himself-Right-There-In-Front-of-Kris. The beat is vaguely familiar, and loud enough to drown out the music coming from the living room, and Adam seems to love it—body moving to the rhythm as if he’s creating the music and not just going along with it. It paints an interesting picture, a loop where Kris tries to follow the music following Adam following the music.

Kris doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone feel music quite like that before. He’s not a stranger to the concept of having music flow through you—to finding life and heart and soul in your fingers; that’s what happens every time he picks up his guitar. It had just never occurred to him that it could work like this, dancing instead of playing, hips instead of hands.

(Okay, it’s probably not just Adam’s hips doing the dancing here, but Kris is finding it difficult to focus on any of his other parts right now.)

Adam dances his way closer to Kris, staring at him with an unblinking, hungry gaze, mumbling lyrics softly, almost inaudibly, and then licking his lips as he crouches down and gets back up, arching his back in one smooth wave. They’re finally almost nose to nose, and Kris thinks that okay, Adam will have to start backing up now, surely, but Adam puts one knee on the bed next to Kris’ thigh and starts unbuttoning his jacket, right in Kris’ face.

Kris squeaks.

“Come on,” Adam purrs, “there’s no one here but us. Just enjoy the ride.”

“I… I… I really… can’t,” Kris stutters, scooting back as Adam slinks closer.

“Why not?” The words are whispered so close to his face that Kris feels Adam’s breath brush his cheek. All the blood rushes to his face, and his hands fly up to cover the rising blush, hiding his eyes as well while they’re at it.

Kris moans—mostly in shame. “I really, really can’t.”

“Hmm,” Adam says, getting off his lap.

Kris peeks through his fingers to make sure he’s not angry, but Adam just looks preoccupied. Kris sighs in relief and lets his hands fall.

“I’m sorry.”

Adam waves the apology away. “You’re really shy, aren’t you?”

“That’s—no. I mean yeah, I’m kinda shy, but this isn’t— I mean. I think it’s the dancing?”

Adam looks blank.

“Okay, I don’t even know,” Kris admits. “I can tell you’re really good at what you do and all, but I’m just…”

“Is it because I’m a guy? Would it be better with a girl?”

Adam makes a move towards the door, probably to go get Tiffany, so Kris interrupts him in a hurry. “No! No, that’s not. That’s… okay. I’m okay with… I mean. You’re hot.”

Adam grins at his babbling. “I am hot,” he agrees. “But I can’t seem to get you in the mood.”

There was that one time when Kris was fourteen that he accidentally kissed Samantha Johnson on the lips, but aside from that, he honestly doesn’t remember ever being this embarrassed. He’s an adult. He should be able to deal with this situation like one. But that’s really hard to do when all the blood in his body is rushing to places they shouldn’t.

He runs a hand over his face. “Okay. I think. I think it’s that for me something this… sexy should be private.”

“This is private,” Adam says, gesturing around the mostly dark room.

“No, yes, but. You’re a stripper.”

Adam’s eyes narrow, and he leans closer, like he’s trying to hear what Kris isn’t saying.

“I don’t mean that like… I don’t mind that you’re a stripper, it’s just—this is your job, and it’s… awkward. For me.”

“Hmm.” Adam clicks the CD player off and comes back to stand in front of Kris. “Let’s try this,” he says, straddling Kris’ lap.

“Um,” Kris says.

It must be a trick of the trade, he thinks, to be able to sit so close and not touch a person, because Adam is literally hovering over his lap, not touching, but still crowding Kris in with his presence. Kris tries to calm down and take deep, even breaths. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work.

“Just relax,” Adam says, like that’s something Kris should be able to do with someone threatening to get naked in his lap. “Shhhh.”

Kris breathes through his nose, because opening his mouth seems dangerous. Adam ducks his head until his face is almost touching Kris’ and breathes with him, as if he’s trying to synchronize their breathing. Whether it works or not for Adam, Kris has to admit that it does calm him down a bit. He closes his eyes and lets the sound of their breaths bring him down from his panicky high. It’s almost hypnotizing, so much so that Kris doesn’t notice that Adam has started humming until he finds his own voice attempting to join in.

“I keep on falling,” Adam sings into Kris’ ear, his voice deep and low and so very intimate—but the words are leaving his lips so torturously slow that Kris isn’t sure if that should be called singing. “…in love with you.” His forehead drags against Kris’, and then he rises up, back straightening, eyes still caught on Kris’, and slowly shrugs out of his jacket, letting it fall bit by bit, defying gravity.

“Sometimes I love you,

Sometimes you make me blue,”

The soft thud the jacket makes when it lands on the floor makes Kris flinch. Adam takes hold of his chin and makes him look up again.

“Sometimes I feel good,

At times I feel used,”

Adam is wearing a buttondown shirt, black and tight, pretty ordinary really, but it’s sleeveless, and Kris can’t take his eyes off Adam’s arms as he leisurely unbuttons the tiny buttons, his necklaces jingling three inches above Kris’ eyes with each one that comes undone.

“Lovin’ you darlin’,

Makes me so confused.”

He has chest hair, which for some reason Kris had thought would be waxed off, and as he works his way down the shirt’s buttons, he keeps rising up on his knees, and with that the volume of his voice climbs, too. By the time he’s undoing the last button, he’s at the chorus of the song, and he is wailing. He lets the note fade, lingeringly, dropping his chin and looking up at Kris again through his eyelashes, and then he yanks the sides of his shirt apart, one shoulder falling off, the other barely hanging on, and leans down closer to Kris with a glint in his eyes.

“Wow,” Kris says, and Adam grins, satisfied.

“Your voice,” Kris says, and Adam’s grin freezes.

That, Kris can tell, was unexpected.

“What about it?” Adam asks, shrugging the fallen shoulder of his shirt back on, suddenly dropping the persona and looking slightly uncomfortable.

“It’s beautiful.”

Is it bad form to tell a stripper that he has a good voice? Kris is really clueless at stuff like that. He never means to offend people, but seems to do it unconsciously all the time.

“Please,” Kris says, before Adam can react. “Keep going.”

Adam takes a deep breath and gets off Kris’ lap. He turns his back on Kris, rolls his shoulders once, and then picks up humming where he’d left off. The shirt slides down, slow, so slow, and reveals smooth, pale skin, dotted with millions of tiny freckles. Adam lets it drop to the floor and turns around, lips shaping the lyrics in a way that makes them infinitely more sultry than they should be, and undoes his belt. Kris tries very hard to hold in the noise that’s trying to escape his throat—because seriously, he can’t even begin to guess what it will sound like if it ever gets out—and has to bite his lip when Adam pulls his belt free and drapes it around Kris’ neck.

The scratchy leather against his skin makes Kris squirm.

“How do you give me so much pleasure,” Adam sings softly, lifting his foot between Kris’ parted thighs on the bed and gesturing for him to help him with the boot.

Kris’ fingers shake a little from nerves, but he manages to pull down the zipper on the side and place the boot on the floor once it’s off.

“And cause me so much pain,” Adam says, resting his other foot a little further up, a little closer, making Kris catch his breath. Kris looks up to catch his gaze, and oh yeah, Adam knows exactly what he’s doing. He leans forward on his leg a little, puts a little more pressure on the seam of Kris’ jeans, smirking at the way it makes Kris wriggle.

The boot topples out of Kris’ hands and Kris falls back on his elbows, which Adam doesn’t seem to mind. He just keeps on singing the words, climbing up on the bed, settling around Kris’ thighs; he splays his fingers on Kris’ chest. It’s not until he starts grinding down that Kris catches onto what he’s doing, and then it’s already too late, because even though there isn’t any force in any of Adam’s moves, Kris can’t push him away.

He’s breathing hard like he’s just run to Arkansas and back, but Adam keeps on singing like he’s on a stage somewhere, giving a completely different kind of performance. “I keep on fallin’,” he sings, effortlessly hitting notes Kris didn’t know real people could reach, and just when Kris thinks it’s getting to be too much, that he’s going to make a fool of himself by coming in his pants from a lap dance, his elbows slip on the bedspread, and he falls flat on his back. Adam manages to catch himself so that he doesn’t fall on top of him, though his hips stop moving. He grins down at Kris, a wicked curve to his lips, and sings, “I’m fallin’ in and out…”

That, Kris thinks later, is the moment he loses his mind.

Adam’s hair is thick and a little rough between his fingers, and the sides of his face are sweaty and warm. He doesn’t seem to have a problem supporting them both when Kris surges up to meet his lips, and doesn’t even budge until Kris manages to remember where he is, who he’s with, and why this is so not a good idea.

“Oh, shit,” Kris says, realizing what he’s doing, and pulls his hands away as if burned, which ends in him thumping back down on the bed once again, bouncing up and down as he tries to scramble away from Adam. “Shit. Shit. Sorry.” He’s clumsy and graceless, and he thinks he might have jabbed an elbow in Adam’s stomach.

It’s definitely not his finest moment.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats when he’s far enough away and sitting on his (treacherous) hands.

“You’re sorry?” Adam asks, blinking.

“I know I wasn’t supposed to touch.”

Adam sighs. He runs a hand over his face, smudging his eye make-up, which is just as well since now it matches the hair Kris took care of already, and says, “Kris.”

“Yes?”

“When people pay me to strip at a party, I get on a table and strip. I don’t force a private striptease on them, or give them a lap dance in a dark bedroom. Or sing for them.”

Kris licks his lips. “So, you mean…”

“I mean if you want to kiss me, I’d kind of like that.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. And no, before you ask, that’s not something I let people pay me for.”

“I didn’t…”

“Do you want me to come over there, or are you coming back here?”

Kris stares at him, sitting there in the middle of the bed, half-naked, skin gleaming with sweat and probably glitter, and—it’s surreal. He’d known L.A. would be different, but this is just—surreal.

But good. Surreal and heart-attack inducing and breath-stealing, but good.

Kris makes his way to the middle of the bed and sits in front of Adam, cross-legged, knees touching Adam’s. Adam offers him a friendly little smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Kris says, biting down on his lower lip hard enough to hurt and trying to regulate his breathing.

“Here,” Adam says, scooting closer until his legs are around Kris’ waist—he does seem to like Kris’ lap—and pulling at Kris’ calves until his legs are around Adam. Then Adam crosses his ankles at Kris’ back and pulls them flush against each other.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Adam says with satisfaction. “That’s more like it.”

Kris doesn’t know where to let his hands land, since everywhere they want to is naked skin, and that’s a little bit too much for just kissing, which is as far as Kris is willing to take this in his mind. He’s not thinking about pants and how Adam already has his belt off. Being pantsless with hot male strippers is something that only happens to other people, as far as Kris is concerned.

Adam’s hands are large, not much larger than Kris’, but definitely larger than Katy’s, and his touch on Kris’ chin has more force behind it than Kris is used to. He angles Kris’ face up—yet another difference, being so much shorter—and licks Kris’ bottom lip slowly, from side to side.

Kris makes himself stop taking note of the differences from that point on, because it seems an extremely stupid thing to do when there doesn’t seem to be much that’s similar to begin with.

Kris’ lips drop open and Adam makes an eager sound, like an excited kid getting ready to open a present. Kris has always been the type of person to rip the wrapping paper off the box; from the way Adam is scoping out his lips before getting into the kiss, he’d say Adam is the exact opposite.

Kris isn’t complaining though. He doesn’t complain when Adam sucks Kris’ upper lip into his mouth, or when his tongue comes in to play with Kris’. He just lets himself be kissed in a way he doesn’t ever remember being kissed before and tries not to be completely boring, or, you know, freak out.

Adam doesn’t seem to find him boring at all. He makes porn noises—that’s the only way Kris can think to describe them—and it’s almost hotter than his singing. Kris finds himself leaning embarrassingly close, feeling Adam’s heat through his clothes—which, it appears, Adam is going to be divesting him of real soon. His hands work under Kris’ t-shirt, covering his back and pushing the garment up impatiently. Kris doesn’t stop him; it’s only fair, after all. But he isn’t ready for the way it feels to watch Adam stare at him—study his chest and run his fingers up and down Kris’ arms; he closes his eyes and captures Adam’s lips for another kiss. That feels much safer.

“Okay,” Adam says, breathless, pushing Kris back, after… alright, so Kris has no idea how long it has been, but judging by how raw his lips feel, it must have been a while.

Adam pushes him back until he’s lying down and then climbs on top of him, situating himself between Kris’ legs, drawing a groan from him with the pressure of hips against hips. An open-mouthed kiss is pressed against his collar bone, another on his chest, and then Adam moves down to his nipple and takes it into his mouth, which is when Kris’ brain short-circuits completely. He tries not to think about the sounds escaping his lips—so embarrassing—or the fact that it’s a stripper that’s on top of him, a stranger… and then, yeah, he finds that it just doesn’t work.

“Adam, wait.”

“What?” Adam asks, looking up. His mouth is red, and he’s unrealistically hot, and—Kris is supposed to say no why again?

“Should we… be doing this?”

Adam caresses down Kris’ side absentmindedly. “Doing what?”

Kris tries to keep in the moan—like that’s going to happen. “This. Sex. Now.”

“Why not?”

“Why… I…” It’s really hard to think with Adam touching him—light, torturous, teasing. “We just met, and me and Katy, and…”

Adam looks thoughtful. He is, apparently, still capable of thinking. That is so unfair. “You can call this your rebound sex.”

“I can,” Kris states.

“Yeah,” Adam nods, already going back for another taste of Kris’ skin. “For now.”

Kris feels Adam’s hands on the button of his jeans and raises his hips up instinctively to help him. “Okay,” he says. He doesn’t even care what he’s agreeing to anymore.

~

Katy has always been far more adventurous in bed than most people would probably expect from her, and she and Kris had a very healthy and colorful sex life together. Kris has also slept with two other people, one guy and one girl, both one-night stands while he and Katy were on one of their breaks. He wouldn’t say he’s experienced, but he’s not a complete novice either. If anything, a long relationship gives you time to explore sex with a person you trust and who knows you, and Kris has learned a lot from and with Katy. The others, the one-night stands, were both nice and exciting, but never as memorable as what he had with Katy, so Kris had reached the logical conclusion that he had already had the best sex he was probably ever going to have.

He doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that his logical conclusion has now been shattered by some very dirty kissing and half a blowjob.

His skin is on fire. His chest feels crushed; he can’t draw in enough air. He’s holding onto the bedspread with one hand, while the other is buried in Adam’s hair, trying very hard not to pull him in—but every time his fingers convulse, Adam moans like he’s getting off on it, and that’s really not helping Kris’ restraint.

His jeans are around his knees, and he still has his shoes on, because Adam got distracted halfway through undressing him and started giving him the blowjob. Which Kris obviously isn’t complaining about. He’s okay with being only half-naked as long as that mouth keeps on doing what it’s doing.

Kris is so hard, he’s literally hurting from it, and Adam is a tease. He pulls back just when Kris thinks he’s getting there and licks teasingly up and down Kris’ length; then, abandoning Kris’ dick, he moves on to the inside of Kris’ thigh and starts, well, making out with it. Which is—amazing, really, but what he’d been doing before was pretty amazing, too.

Adam’s eyebrows draw together when he looks up and spots Kris’ expression; he climbs up to kiss it away.

“Don’t pout. I’m going to take care of you.”

“You’re…” It’s not easy to speak with his blood still boiling in his veins. “I just…”

“I know, baby, shhh.” Adam kisses him, wet and with a lot of tongue, and then presses his lips to Kris’ forehead real quick before moving down to continue getting rid of his sneakers and jeans. Kris palms his own cheek—too hot, he doesn’t know what to do with himself—then rests his hand on where Adam just kissed, still feeling the ghost of his lips there.

Kris stares up at the ceiling and listens to the sounds of Adam taking off his own pants and thinks, you give me fever. The familiar rhythm of the song starts up in his head, and he smiles.

Fever in the morning. Fever all through the night.

He should make Adam sing that song. Or dance to it. Or both.

“What're you smiling at?”

Something lands on the bed next to Kris’ arm, something cool and smooth, but Kris is too busy following Adam with his eyes to even guess at what it might be. Naked skin drags against his, Adam’s breathing quickening—finally!—to match Kris’; he pushes Kris’ legs up and apart and kneels between them. Sound of a cap popping open makes Kris realize what it is that Adam had retrieved—from God knows where—and he thinks maybe he should be worried, scared, or protesting, but finds himself oddly at ease instead.

Adam’s fingers, coated with cool, slick grease, don’t feel like a threat, especially when they come in combination with Adam’s mouth sucking a line from Kris’ knee to his thigh. The intrusion, when it comes, feels like a promise, and Adam’s words—filthy, dirty, senseless—sound like a prayer.

“Open up for me, Kris,” Adam whispers, voice raspy with lust.

Kris takes a deep breath and gives him what he wants.

~

There’s no room for self-consciousness, or embarrassment, or doubt. All he can do is try to keep breathing and move with Adam, follow his cues, ride the waves he creates. It’s too much. He can feel something burning—twisting, slithering—low in his abdomen, but that’s not all; there’s something else that’s threatening to blow, in his chest, expanding with every push back against Adam, with every forceful tug of Adam’s that he obeys.

Adam doesn’t wait for Kris to call any shots; it’s all him, from the position of Kris’ arms to the rhythm they fuck to—he manhandles Kris into position, he decides when Kris is ready for his cock, he kisses Kris quiet when Kris asks for faster, for more. Kris would be pissed at this I know what’s best for you attitude if he hadn’t already been shattered into a million pieces, all with the touch of Adam’s hands.

“You’re so unbelievably hot. You have no idea how you look right now.”

Kris doesn’t even want to know what he looks like. But he can see what Adam looks like, sweat dripping from every pore, muscles trembling. He looks frantic and strong and beautiful.

“Kris.”

Adam is utterly, unashamedly desperate. Kris finds that that’s a turn on like nothing else, especially after the way Adam has been acting all night, confident and in control. Kris can’t help but linger on the thought that he is the cause of it. He’s made Adam lose control like this. Why that should matter so much, he doesn’t know, but it does. It makes him feel powerful—even with Adam gripping his wrists, holding him down, pressing him into the mattress.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Adam says, words tearing out of him in stops and bursts. “All. Night. Long.” He twists his hips; Kris bites his bottom lip to keep a scream in. “Again. And again. And again.”

Kris wants to say that doesn’t seem possible, because the first time is probably going to kill them both, but then Adam’s mouth is on his, and his hand is on Kris’ dick—and Kris is suddenly groaning his release into the kiss.

And then there’s darkness. Thankfully.

~

Kris has never felt like he might be living in a porno before, not even that week in Vermont when he and Katy had fucked like bunnies the entire time and hadn’t gone skiing once. Opening his eyes from a much needed blackout to see that Adam has kept right on fucking him through it, and then watching him come, holding onto Kris’ arms hard enough to bruise—now that makes him feel like a porn star.

Unlikely and too perfect and dirty and hot.

Afterwards, Adam is chuckling next to him, face half buried in a pillow, and Kris feels like covering his face with his hands, because—oh, God, what the hell was that?

“Kristopher,” Adam says, breathless, lips pulled wide in a smile. “You are my favorite.”

Kris stares at him, completely incapable of speech, blinking rapidly like maybe that will restore his brain function.

Adam takes pity on him. “You’re amazing,” he says, running a soothing hand down the side of Kris’ face. “You’re absolutely amazing.”

Then he scoots closer to pull the sheets—uneven and messy as they are—up Kris’ shoulders, and brushes a kiss on the soft skin under Kris’ eye.

“Sleep now,” he says, letting his hand fall between them on the bed. “I’m gonna need you to be well rested.”

~

The bedroom door creaks open, and even half asleep, Kris recognizes the sound of Charles’ footsteps.

He stops two steps in and just stands there. Kris refuses to open his eyes. The last thing he needs is to talk to Charles about this right now.

“Kris,” Charles whispers. Why the hell he’s whispering if he wants to wake Kris up, Kris has no idea. “I talked to Nicole.”

Nicole is Katy’s best friend. Who would know all about the wedding. And how it isn’t actually happening. Kris is definitely not opening his eyes for this.

“Kris?”

“Do you need something?” Adam’s rumbling voice comes from behind Kris. “We’re kind of sleeping here.”

“Oh,” Charles says, surprised. “I… You’re…”

Adam makes an impatient sound.

Charles lets out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing—”

“I’m snuggling,” Adam says, sounding completely serious. “And you are being creepy.”

“If you took advantage of him—”

“Yeah,” Adam drawls, “I fed him tea and then took advantage of him.”

Kris smirks under the sheet. It can’t possibly be healthy that he finds Adam’s bitchiness endearing.

Charles starts grumbling something vaguely threatening, but Adam cuts him off.

“Relax. No one took advantage of anyone. Call him tomorrow, I’m sure he’ll tell you.”

And his placating tone is cute, too. Kris is so screwed.

“Look, you don’t—”

“Charles,” Kris says finally. His eyes are still closed, and he has every intention of keeping them that way, but he doesn’t want Charles to quibble with Adam about nothing all night.

“Huh?”

“Go away. Please.”

Charles stands around shuffling his feet. Kris can almost feel his indecision.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Kris promises, pulling the sheet up higher to signal the end of the conversation.

“Alright,” Charles says this time. He still sounds sulky, but Kris really couldn’t care less right now. He waits for the bedroom door and then the apartment door to close behind Charles and then lets out the breath he’d been holding.

“He’s a good friend,” Adam comments, tightening his arms around Kris.

Kris hums his agreement, leaning back into Adam. Then he realizes what they’re doing.

“I’m the little spoon,” he says, flabbergasted—and a little whiny.

Adam nuzzles the back of his neck. “Nothing wrong with that.”

He wouldn’t say wrong but—Kris wiggles—it feels odd.

(He may or may not pout a little about that, but since no one can see his face, it doesn’t really count.)

“Kris,” Adam says, pressing his erection into Kris’ back. “Are you too sore?”

And then, hello, Adam’s fingers—they are a bit too familiar with Kris’ body, aren’t they?

Kris moans, moving with Adam’s hand, and Adam takes that as an invitation—which, okay, it kind of is. Kris feels him lean back and hears the unmistakable sound of a condom wrapper tearing. Then Adam is back, lining up behind him, one hand steadying Kris’ hips, and mouth biting at his neck.

“Shouldn’t we be talking about this?” Kris asks, though he has no idea how he would accomplish that with any effectiveness, seeing as he had to tear even those words out from what felt like his intestines.

“Nope, not yet,” Adam states confidently, licking up Kris’ neck and sucking Kris’ earlobe into his mouth.

“Oh good,” Kris chokes out, relieved, and presses back as Adam pushes in.

There’s not much talking after that.

~

The next morning, Kris wakes up to birds singing outside his window, his phone ringing with Charles’ ringtone, and his muscles screaming bloody murder at him.

He should probably get up and do damage control, but he lingers in bed instead, staying carefully away from Adam. He wouldn’t want to accidentally start having sex with the guy again. He doesn’t think his body can take it.

Kris studies Adam’s face. It’s not creepy of him; in fact, Kris feels completely justified. Adam did take all sorts of liberties with Kris’ body last night. Watching the guy sleep is much more innocent—and certainly the least Kris is owed.

Adam’s make-up is smeared off almost completely, leaving his freckles in stark relief in the morning light. Kris wants to run his fingers over them, but he has a feeling that it’ll be hard enough to get Adam to keep his hands to himself once he’s awake, even with Kris out of touching distance—and as predicted, the first thing Adam does upon opening his eyes is smirk seductively at Kris and reach for his hips.

“Nah-uh-uh,” Kris says, scooting further back. “Keep your dick away from me.”

Adam’s lower lip sticks out in a completely charming way.

But Kris resists. “I’m sore, and I’m tired, and I’m not having sex with you anymore.”

“Ever?” Adam asks, worried.

Kris doesn’t know how to answer that question. Shouldn’t they talk that over, like, together? “Um. We’ll see.”

Adam sidles closer. “You want me to seduce you with another striptease?”

“You’re not wearing anything,” Kris points out.

“I can dance,” Adam says, looking sleepy-excited. “Naked.”

Pillows, Kris finds, are good for moaning your frustration into. “Okay,” he says when he’s done, resigned to his fate. “Come here.”

He pulls Adam close and sinks deeper into the bed. He is not moving until noon. Not for anything. “No stripping, no dancing, no sex,” he tells Adam. “At least until noon.”

Adam is quiet and still for a moment, but Kris can almost feel him vibrating, dying to move. He’s announcing it with brain waves or something.

“Okay, what?”

Adam turns eagerly in his arms and nuzzles into his ear. “Can I sing?” he whispers.

Kris shivers, and nods reflexively. It would be a crime to tell Adam not to sing.

Adam starts humming softly into his ear, the same song as last night, and Kris closes his eyes, thinking this could work, Adam’s voice lulling him back to sleep—but then there’s a hand snaking down his body under the covers, grabbing his cock in a sure grip and giving it a leisurely stroke.

Of course that’s what Adam meant by singing.

“You give me so much pleasure,” Adam whispers into his ear, “cause me so much pain.”

Kris whimpers and holds onto the sheets.

The End

April 28th, 2010